In Art Of Coaching Podcast

It can be an incredibly insightful exercise to look for common threads between the different roles we occupy in our lives. What draws us to those vocations and occupations? Does expertise in one lead to skill in another? Listen as our guest Joel Raether uncovers many interesting parallels between his passion for the outdoors, dog training and coaching. 

We also cover:

  • What “flat-landers” get wrong about training at altitude 
  • High performance in a sedentary population?
  • Credibility and capability – do I still need to be deadlifting at 40?
  • “Stop making heroes out of haters!”

Joel is a managing partner of FAST performance in Denver, CO. He’s also the Head of Performance for Colorado Mammoth Lacrosse, the Owner of Hunt Hike Harvest Outdoors, and an Author, Consultant and International Presenter. 

On today’s show, you’ll hear Joel talk about the importance of researching and tinkering in both outdoor adventuring and coaching. If you want to learn more about how these skills can help you in your domain, check out my book Conscious Coaching. Not only will you be able to better understand what motivates your audience, it’ll help you authentically build better relationships. After all, better interactions lead to better interventions. 

Connect with Joel:

Via his websites: www.hunthikeharvest.com and www.fastcolorado.com

Via Twitter: @Compete4Life

Via Instagram: @joelraether

TRANSCRIPT

Joel Raether  0:00  

There’s such idealistic things that surround what health and fitness looks like. And then it’s then injected, like 10, and 20, and 100 fold with all of the things that are probably the least effective in terms of quick fixes. And these, you know, true systems have, no, never failed deals that are all marketed towards people. And guess what they’re set to make people fail. You know, it’s like, there never has been, and there never will be a magic pill. And that’s just the reality of it. I mean, if you want to be healthier, if you want to be more fit, if you want to function better, you know, like you said, if you want to go hiking with your kid and 20 years, well guess what? That process starts today, not 20 years from now, but it has to at least have some bit of ownership on your part that you’re going to be more cognizant, you’re going to be more cognizant about what you ingest, you’re going to be more cognizant about how well you take care of yourself day to day because 20 years down the road that ships gonna sail if you don’t start thinking about it today.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:07  

Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast, a show aimed at getting to the core of what it takes to change attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in the weight room, boardroom classroom, and everywhere in between. I’m your host, Brett Bartholomew, I’m a performance coach, keynote speaker, and the author of the book conscious coaching. But most importantly, I’m a lifelong student interested in all aspects of human behavior, and communication. I want to thank you for joining me. And now let’s dive into today’s episode.

 

Hey it’s so nice of you guys to join us on the art of coaching Podcast. I’m Brett Bartholomew, and today we’re talking about credibility and capability with my friend Joel Raether, and what those things mean in context to professional development, meaning what pitfalls people fall into when they’re trying to chase sometimes the wrong things or even the right things for the wrong reasons. Now, Joel is a 2020 NSCA, professional strength coach of the year. He’s a managing partner at fast performance in Colorado, head of performance at Colorado, mammoth lacrosse, and the owner of hunt, hike, harvest outdoors, which is fascinating and actually where our conversation starts. So if you’re interested in outdoorsy things and stuff, and I know my wife, and I always talk about just getting lost for a couple of weeks in Wyoming or an excursion in Montana, or what have you, you’re gonna love this. And then we start to dive into some of these other aspects of communication, leadership, professional evolution, so make sure that you have your free podcast reflection downloaded at artofcoaching.com/podcastreflections, also, our apprenticeship communication workshops are back running. We talked about this all the time, there are so many podcasts that give great tips in terms of health, finance, wellness, all these kinds of things, but very few talks about communication. We are running our apprenticeship communication workshops, where that is the sole focus. And there’s never been a better time to double down on how you communicate. So we’d love to invite you make sure that you go to artofcoaching.com/apprenticeship, we cannot voice how critical these are once again, and they utilize our proprietary seven point evaluation on how to become a better communicator. And guys, it’s so much more in depth and look somebody in the eye let them know you care. We really try to get to the nitty gritty because the fact is that nearly any situation is guaranteed to be made worse by poor communication. So we believe in being proactive to that effect. Alright, without further ado, I bring you Joel Raether. 

 

Guys, I’m glad you could join in on the conversation today with me and my friend Joel Raether. Joel. Thanks for taking a moment.

 

Joel Raether  3:47  

Yeah, man, I appreciate you having me. I know it’s always hectic on your end. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  3:50  

Yeah, well, just trying to grow and trying to get systematized and organized like you our brother in speaking of hectic got a new little puppy. I know the audience can’t see it. But tell us about became a new puppy dad here.

 

Joel Raether  4:01  

Yeah, I figured I wasn’t busy enough. So we threw that into the mix. So last week, we picked up an eight week old black lab and those that know me know, I’m like a big outdoorsman and stuff. So my next venture in the coaching world is going to be to see how well I can communicate that into training a dog.

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:21  

Yeah, that’s coaching at what you said eight week old black lab. What’s his name? Her name?

 

Joel Raether  4:26  

It’s a boy. Bodhi.

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:29  

Like Bodhi Miller kind of Bodhi as well,

 

Joel Raether  4:31  

yeah, Bodhi Miller and like, when I was a kid, I was always a big point break guy. So you know, the ever awesome Patrick Swayze. Right? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:40  

Yeah, absolutely. 

 

Joel Raether  4:41  

That Bodhi’s  off.

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:42  

Yeah, I was thinking Bodhi Miller was on my mind today because we have in laws visiting at the time of this recording. And you know, Bodhi Miller lost a child and not to go dark with that. Like he was talking about infant swim. And since we have a six month old, on his way will probably be seven months by the time this releases. You know, we were Thinking about those courses or what have you. But man, Bodhi Miller has had such an interesting career interesting life.

 

Joel Raether  5:05  

Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I work with JC now who, you know, he’s known Bodhi for a lot of his career. So he has kind of a personal relationship with him. And I don’t but yeah, I mean, what an interesting kind of path that that guy’s had to, you know, from coming on to becoming like, you know, superstar and all that. And then obviously, you know, everyone has their trials and tribulations and obviously, in his case, some tragedy, but, you know, I’m sure he’s, he’s managing all right. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  5:33  

Yeah. Yeah. well, without a doubt, and I didn’t know, admittedly, you know, I knew about your entrepreneurial ventures, you as a coach, I didn’t know you were an outdoorsman. Talk to us a little bit about that, because the audience got your bio in terms of your professional bio, but obviously getting a little know know more about you as a person talk to me when you say outdoorsman, what kind of stuff are you into?

 

Joel Raether  5:52  

Um, yeah, I grew up like my mom and dad kind of grew up in the Dakotas. So we grew up in a really small community in Nebraska, which obviously shout out to that. I know, being a fellow Nebraska is always few and far between, right. And so I mean, I grew up hunting, fishing and things like that. And then when I moved to Colorado, I mean, that became, you know, hiking and camping and things like that. And so, about a year and a half ago, actually, with my baseball partner, Jason Hirsch, we actually started an outdoor company called hike, harvest outdoors. And so it was kind of, for me an interesting, merging what I do for a living and what I really like to do, and kind of in that entrepreneurial spirit, I looked at and said, Well, for me, I take so much time preparing like archery hunt a lot and things like that in September. And I put on sometimes up to upwards of a couple 100 miles of hiking and you know, in the high country leading up to some of these hunts, and a lot of times it’s a progression, like I’m using my knowledge of, you know, progressive overload and stuff like that, where I’m adding weight as the, the summer goes on, because when we get to the point where we’re actually up there, if we’re successful, I may have to put 100 pounds on my back for at 10,000 feet and hike it for miles out. And that’s no unfit man’s type endeavor. So I kind of at some point, started realizing that there’s a market for that, and I can do what I do for a living and start to merge that into offering what my background is into something that I think is valuable to people that are doing the same thing and provide them hopefully, a platform where I can guide them, we’re actually trying to put together some stuff now that I think will be some of the first like evidence based thing, some of it based off of tactical stuff, which is understanding high altitude with rucking and things like that, and kind of catering that more towards this venture. And, so we’re getting ready to do some cool things there. We actually started a podcast with that as well. And it’s been fun, it’s something different, you know, kind of like rejuvenated, you know, my mental state a little bit to do something outside of just coaching, which so far has been a lot of fun. There’s definitely no money in it.

 

Brett Bartholomew  8:09  

Yeah, well, that doesn’t have to be the thing and everything that you do, right and getting outside and recreating is huge, you know, and that’s interesting, for our audience, any members of the audience that, you know, their lay folk when it comes to altitude training. And we’ve done an episode in the past, when we talked about MMA fighters, we were talking to Duncan French, about the research there. And now we got really nerdy, but just for the lay audience that are listening, you know, give an example of some of the rumors, you often hear about training at altitude, because there’s inevitably somebody listening, that they’re going to take their family to a Colorado or a high altitude environment. And they hear all these things, right. Like, oh, there’s less oxygen, and there’s less this. And you and I know that there’s a very complex process with increased red blood cell production and all that, but what would you kind of tell just the average Joe or Jane about how to adequately prepare if they’re ever thinking about hiking in altitude?

 

Joel Raether  9:02  

Well, I think the first probably like, the most simplistic thing is, regardless of, you know, we talked about like, Flatlanders Right? Like,

 

Brett Bartholomew  9:10  

is that what we are that native Nebraskans Are we the Flatlanders?

 

Joel Raether  9:13  

Exactly, yeah. And the first thing is like you can’t cheat, being in good metabolic condition, regardless of what altitude you’re at. So if you’re out of shape, and flatland, guess what you’re going to be outshaped in altitude. So, you know, that’s the first thing that I would say the second thing is that, yeah, if we want to nerd out about it, we know that there’s typically you know, around a 20 day period where hematocrit will change. And that starts to influence what happens that will better serve you at altitude and things like that. But in a lot of cases, if you’re someone who’s just going to come out here for a week or something like that at a time, guess what, you don’t have that luxury. So, I go back to the first which is your you’re going to have to do everything you can to prepare, but in like in most cases There’s nothing that you’re going to do to simulate it. Exactly right. So it’s are you going to be able to develop the right capacities that you know what you may have to change the amount or you know, the length or the duration or the intensity that you go. But if you’re going to spend that amount of time, let’s just say a week long, you know, up at altitude, you may not cover as much ground as you plan to, but you have to think from a mental standpoint of being in it for the long haul, and not for you know, oh, I want to get there as fast as possible, because you’re going to pay the price. There’s, an accumulation or what you know, consider like a compounding interest of that, you know, if you blow it out on day one, you’re gonna suffer on day three, four, and five,

 

Brett Bartholomew  10:42  

you can’t cheat the physiology. And that mean? Well, we know from certain biking events, you can and for anybody listening, when we use the term hematic that, you know, essentially what you’re looking at is the proportion by volume of the blood that consists of red blood cells, right? So feel free to jump in and correct me if I’m wrong based on memory here, but it’s always expressed as a percentage. So for example, if we hear a Hematic 30%, that generally means that there’s 30 milliliters of red blood cells, per 100 milliliters of blood, and why that’s important guys is red blood cells carry the oxygen. So again, I know many of you that are in the performance community, you know, you’re probably saying duh. But we have a wide ranging audience here. And so, we know that you got to be in good metabolic condition. You also have to be in good just mental state because you get out in the wilderness. And I think we’re so conditioned by having distractions, right, like this silence, for some people is therapeutic. And then others I’ve learned they can kind of freak out if they’re used to all this stuff. when you first started going out and getting around pure silence and a little bit more isolated relative to what we’re talking about? What was your kind of what were the state changes you went through? What were some things you were surprised by? Where you went to mentally?

 

Joel Raether  11:56  

Yeah, I think when you start to think about some of those things, there, is something to be said, with silence. And I’ll give you a real example like this, think of something as cliche as like, a tree falls in the wilderness and no one’s there, does it make a sound, you know, that type of stupid stuff, right? Last year, I saw a 50 foot tree fall across the ridge from me. And I promise you, it makes a hell of a

 

Brett Bartholomew  12:24  

lot makes a hell of a lot of sound.

 

Joel Raether  12:26  

And even to take this step further, I had a tree fall behind my friend and I, probably 10 seconds after we walked past it last year. And so there’s a lot of things mentally when you start to think about like, I had a conversation with guy there days, like, oh, well, you go you camp out, you set your tent up, and you get into an area, like I’ve been out where the winds blowing 30 miles an hour, and you go, all of a sudden, my mental state goes, What if a tree were to fall over on the tent right now. And so you start to think about things like that. And then of course, you know, in Colorado, like in most rocky mountain areas, I mean, you have predators, there’s mountain lions, there’s bears, there’s things that are much bigger and more capable than you are of, you know, taking your life. And so I think the hard part with that stuff is just knowing that, if something were to happen, or whatever you have to fully embrace the fact that there are things out there, and when you get into big country like that, that are completely out of your control, and you have to try and be in the moment to enjoy it. The physical part, there’s a massive mental capacity to that where you have to be prepared, like you can’t cheat the mountain, it’s gonna suck. And it’s going to be hard. And, so I don’t know, maybe it’s a little bit evil in one way where you have to have a little bit of that mentality to want to endure that. But it is at the same time, like I look at September, you know, here and it is absolutely gorgeous 

 

Brett Bartholomew  13:54  

Here in the audience have an idea of exactly where you are right now.

 

Joel Raether  13:56  

Yeah, so we’re, I live in Colorado, and you get into the fall and the Aspen’s are changing, and like the landscape is just breathtaking. And so when I put my mental status into that, and how much I look forward to being up there during that time, and usually in the fall, for us, like elk are bugling. And so there’s all these sounds and sights and like, that far outweighs any of the other part of you that you know, the other guy that’s sitting on your shoulder going like a bear to kill you today. Things like that. So it’s a balance. And of course, some people probably going like your Yeah, no, thanks. I’m out. And that’s fine. But for some reason, it doesn’t for me, so

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:37  

no, I love that. And I it’s funny that you brought up the tree kind of analogy. We were talking about this because we were teaching a course on listening the other day, as a part of art of coaching and we were making the distinction between hearing and listening. Right and so hearing is a physiological act, right like sound waves. They go into the eardrum what have you listening is a cognitive act. It’s where you’re discerning what was said and so we actually to use that analogy is does the tree falling? Make a sound? If nobody’s there to hear it? Well, yes, it does cause a disturbance in the air waves or air pressure field or what have you. But nobody’s there to listen or discern, like what that sound was, right? Because so it’s funny that the answer is yes, it makes it sound. But you have to understand the difference between hearing and listening. And we’re obviously getting into the weeds with that. Here’s, something with hiking, right, and we appreciate it too. We’ll try to go to the north Georgia mountains when we could when I lived in Phoenix, I loved getting lost in the desert. But then there’s this other side of hiking where I feel like, and I’m enamored by it, you know, admittedly, I haven’t done it. But there’s a lot of folks by us that will do that Appalachian Trail. And the process of, I gotta think about how to phrase this, the right pack, or the right kit can get really intimidating for a perfectionist, right? It’s not as simple as like, hey, Joel, let’s say right, you’re a casual hiker. Hey, Joel, want to go do this? Like, you’re gonna get lost on blogs and Reddit forums of what exactly do you need in your pack? What’s the best brand? How do you wade through that? Like, do you have your best pack? Now? Have you figured out your system and what you need? Because that’s all seem super intimidating?

 

Joel Raether  16:10  

Yeah, I think it also just, it depends on the mission to and I say mission like what? Like, what style of trip are you going on? So in the past for us and give you some context, like, we have always, I think over the course of my lifetime, you just started to accumulate things, right, like physical things, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  16:32  

Cast iron, skillets, and such. 

 

Joel Raether  16:34  

Exactly. grills and all these other wells, we have, over the course of however many years that we’ve done this, we have built up our capacity to live almost in a glamping style, which 

 

Brett Bartholomew  16:47  

What the hell does glamping mean? 

 

Joel Raether  16:50  

You know, glamorous, camping,

 

Brett Bartholomew  16:51  

oh, I didn’t know that was a thing. So are you called a glamper

 

Joel Raether  16:57  

No. But it was just a reference to it. So what we ended up actually having is, we scout out places we use an app that’s called Onyx maps, and utilize on our phones and allows us to see typography allows us to use navigation and all these things that we can dial into areas that we want to go. And what we usually do is we utilize that as a way to get to a specific place. And then we have a 16 by 20 foot like Canvas wall tent, we bring all of our stuff and coolers and whatever. And then typically, that’s kind of like home base. And so we’ll hike out from there 3 4 5 6 10 miles a day. And, always come back to that location. And this year, for example, like that’s going to change. And so when you talk about packs, like we have some packs that are called XO packs are a company out of Idaho. And they are designed so that you can put everything on your pack for anywhere, depending upon the size of pack that you take up 2 3 4 5 6 days at a time and everything that you possibly need, food, shelter, water, whatever, you know, we use filtration systems, so we don’t have to carry water, and all these things so that you could just say, Well, my camp is where I stopped that night. And so that’s a whole other animal because now you’re talking about efficiency, you need to be accounting for every ounce, like last year I pack. I think about nutrition. And I pack everything nutritionally into days in a ziplock bag. And so, you know, it’s heavily in nutrient base foods and things like that, because 

 

Brett Bartholomew  18:40  

Give me an example. 

 

Joel Raether  18:42  

So you know, I look at grains and nuts and bars and things like that, that are going to give me the most bang for my buck. Because in order for me to get the most caloric density based on the fact that I probably will burn 6 7000 calories a day. Like I have to refuel that back and I can’t have excess in terms of volume, or weight or things like that. So I have to really think about how much can I put into my pack without sacrificing having to lug it around at the same time? Like how much space will it take up? So it is an interesting thing. And yeah, I mean, like you said, you really can get lost in some of this stuff. Like right now I’m studying, you know, tents and things like that, that are single tents where, for me, I’m now looking at a single person tent that probably is going to weigh about one pound 15 ounces. And every ounce matters. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  19:38  

And you got me going down a rabbit hole now. I mean, just so you’re aware you now have me on glamping.com Looking at Eco camps in Scotland, and sembra. Portugal, like I’m all in on the glamping here’s the thing right now you talk about being able to discern what you need, what’s the mission, all these things? Now here’s the key right Because I know it does, and you know it does. But I think that this is so impactful for our audience. How does all this relate to how you approach coaching? No matter who it is kids, youth pros, Gen pop, I don’t care. You know, how do you do? Because, you know, like, that’s the beautiful thing about coaching, right? Is everything’s coaching a dog ownerships, coaching, campings coaching and glamping coaching. Talk to me about the tie ins that you see are the similarities or what you think are the communal draws between them. 

 

Joel Raether  20:25  

I think that as I go year to year, there’s always an evolution, there’s never a point for me, where I look at it and go, Yep, I’ve got it all. I’ve got it all figured out every year, like inevitably, I look at the plans and preparations for some of the trips that we do. And no matter what, there’s always something new, there’s always something I’m like, I need to upgrade this, I didn’t like how this worked, I’m going to change that, you know, this was great, but I think it could be better. And so you’re always tinkering with some of the micro variables, because you know that in order for you to have a successful trip, for example, or to get to that specific goal, it requires you to have a lot of forethought, and you can’t just like, I don’t know, I got all my stuff in the shed, I’ll just throw it in the truck and sort it out later. Like it’s a disaster, you’re going to wasted an inordinate amount of time by being an organized by, you know, either being in excess in areas, forgetting things and other areas and neglecting stuff. And so when you create that parallel, is it requires you to be very aware of everything that is going to take to accomplish a specific task. And you know, that it’s so similar to coaching because, yeah, it’s the same same context of, I can just walk in and be like, I don’t know, we’ll just do a little this and a little that, whatever, and it should work. Right. And you know, it doesn’t work that way, either. So

 

Brett Bartholomew  21:52  

yeah, and it’s easy to have like one thing I talked about unconscious coaching is it’s just like communication styles, as you’re talking about gear and packs. And what have you is you have to have the right gear for the right Hill, like riding a bike, you know, and I know you deal with a lot of different personalities, and I look at those as mountains to climb. I think it’s always very odd when coaches are like, I’m dealing with this person that’s a little difficult, and they don’t buy in, and I’m like, that’s great, man. That’s why you get into this field, you get in this field to transform people, you know, like I always say that’s, there’s so many that get into it because they love training, right? They love they were an athlete themselves, or they love working out wrong reason to get into the field, right? Like as if you want to stay into it, You gotta love coaching, just like, there might be people that go outdoors and try to camp just because they they think of it as good exercise. And it’s like, well, if you’re going camping, or you’re going on a true excursion, you better be looking for more than just exercise because there’s problem solving inherent to that, right? Like you said, there’s navigating terrain and topography maps. And, like you look at that. And I don’t understand how people don’t understand that that is coaching, you have to navigate the map. And there’s got to be a legend. And if you want people that are just going to submit and listen to you all the time, that’s basically like a skier going down the bunny slopes in perpetuity, right? Are you doing the same path again, and again, and again, at some point, you’re not connecting with the challenge, and you’re not exceeding or pushing your skill set. Does that make sense at all?

 

Joel Raether  23:12  

Oh, 100%. I mean, like, you know, mentioning kind of what we’re talking about with the maps and using the Onyx maps thing, this last season, we really committed to that as one of those evolutions of things. And we went to an area that we’ve been to many times, and we always track like how much mileage we put in every year. And literally in the same place that we were for the last few years. We hiked the same areas and where we’ve always kind of had success and things like that. And we came out this year and the year prior, we had hiked approximately 60 miles in seven days. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  23:48  

60 miles in seven days. 

 

Joel Raether  23:50  

Yeah. And this last year, based on utilizing that technology and looking at how some contours and things were we came out this last year in the same area. And we only hiked about 44.

 

Brett Bartholomew  23:57  

And just to give sorry to jump in just to give our international audience frame of reference. 60 Miles is around Oh, it’s over 96k It’s over 96k. And so that’s that’s significant.

 

Joel Raether  24:12  

Yeah, that’s a long way. It’s definitely there’s no,  shortage of caloric output.

 

Brett Bartholomew  24:21  

Here’s what’s always drawn me to you, right? If you’ll allow me to say this is you know, when I go through your stuff, when I’ve looked at you, you’re whether it’s stuff that you put on Instagram or what have you. One thing that I’ve always appreciated about you is in a field and that can get so competitive for the wrong things. And so ego driven, whether I’ve seen you give a lecture do a practical or what have you, you’re always very calm, you’re never in it to prove something you’re never in it. You always do get it you have this kind of I don’t want to use the term Zen. I don’t really like that term, but you do have this fluidity to you that you get kind of from being in the mountains and that’s why it makes sense that you’re a hunter and a hiker and all these things because I feel like you’re somebody that just kind of gets on something and goes and you don’t worry about some outside noise. I mean, of course somes gonna leak in, you’re only human. But what strategies have you used for the young coaches or even, you know, more defensive coaches or leaders listening, that tend to get a little bit irascible, a little bit touchy? What strategies have you used to always remain calm and not get caught up in the BS competition of things?

 

Joel Raether  25:21  

Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for saying that. But the reality of it is, I would say that how you see me now is still an evolution of how, you know, I was definitely different as a younger coach, I mean, I will be the first to tell you that I’ve got plenty of temper, and I’ve got plenty of things that, you know, kind of that, piqued my interest, or, you know, kind of set me off and things like that. And I think that the thing that I look at now is, over the course of just 20 years or so, being in this field, and just growing as an adult in general, right, like, you have things that are inevitably going to, you know, be downturns and mishaps and poor decisions and things that are out of your control and things that an aren’t within your control that you screw up, right. And I think that the thing that I’ve learned over time is I go back to experiences where I handled things poorly. And I’ll be the first to tell you that in many cases, you know, I can think of being a college coach and, I’m not afraid to admit it, because now in the after, kind of, you know, post side of a conversation like this, I can remember having, really, I mean, just a knock down drag out argument with some of our ski coaches. And we had a lot of European coaches that were very high level, we had kids that were coming off a World Cup teams, and you know, we were winning national championships and all these things. But because of the level of where some of these kids were coming from, they were very strong minded about what they had done, you know, on the Norwegian national team, and the Italian team and all these other things, and they wanted to tell me how to do my job for a lack of other words, you know, another way to say, and I can remember me, as a younger coach, my first thought was, like, Screw this man, like, no freakin chance, you’re gonna come here and tell me how to do my job, and I would get really defensive. And I think that taking some of those experiences, for example, I fast forward that same conversation, you know, to two years later, and one of our Italian coaches comes up to me, and he was going to go back home. And he lives in the Dolomites area of Italy, which is absolutely beautiful. And he hands me a book and says, Hey, man, my doors always open anytime you want to come visit. And he hands me a book that is, you know, a basically,  a traveler’s guide, and whatever to where he grew up, and whatever. And so, you take that full circle and have these realizations that in order to handle things better, and to improve your outcomes, sometimes your first reaction or how you, and especially in my case where like I was really, you know, you’re a young coach are motivated, you want to, prove your worth, and you’re doing your value and all this, and you get very defensive and I think that I’ve been able to take some of those negative experiences and step back and say, All right, am I still going to feel this way an hour from now? And more So how can I take this type of interaction or this type of experience, and think more intuitively about how the outcome is going to be better influenced? Should I think more about not just how I think, but maybe the perspective that they’re coming from? And guess what, just as you know, there’s a lot of ways to skin a cat in this game.

 

Brett Bartholomew  28:40  

Do you think that young you would have even listened to that though, because I mean, here’s the thing, there’s people that know that now, and it’s not even a young thing, there’s somebody that’s 46 52, whatever, 58 that’s listening to this. And they know that they need to take the other person’s perspective. But what do you think keeps them from doing so? It’s okay to pontificate you don’t have to know. But just like, right, you know what I mean? Yeah. 

 

Joel Raether  29:04  

Ego sometimes. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  29:06  

Yeah. You know, sometimes it’s that simple. It’s sometimes. Sometimes, it’s like, it’s that simple.

 

Joel Raether  29:11  

Or Guess what I’m the boss, and you’re below me, or, whatever, you know, that there’s all these kind of justifications of, of where people see themselves or think that they’re, you know, they should be right, or they know more than someone or whatever. And so, they take stances that probably are, keep them from progressing even more. And so, you know, I think over time being in those scenarios, to me, it’s like I look at things now, and I probably, I always say that there’s a good reason that you have two ears and one mouth.

 

Brett Bartholomew  29:47  

But what if you have a louder mouth? Right? There’s some people that is there a good reason that some people are inherently quieter than others than to. What does that say about people that have two ears, one mouth and not very strong vocal cords? I always want to take that one deeper, you know? What does that? Yeah.

 

Joel Raether  30:06  

Now we’re really now we’re really now

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:08  

we’re really getting into week two. Here’s another thing I appreciate about you. And there’s plenty of things by the way, I don’t appreciate about you. So I don’t want this to bury your head. You know, frankly, I just I want to fight you. I’m kidding 

 

Joel Raether  30:19  

I’m a terrible fighter 

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:20  

communication wise, right. You’re a you’re a strong communicator, I believe in strong communicators defined by, you know, elements of verbal fluency, your cadence, you don’t have a lot of uh’s um’s stammers, you’re conscious about the rate of speech, when to pick it up, when to slow it down. You ask questions and thoughtful questions that that there’s many ways in which one can be a strong communicator, we have seven kind of key things that we evaluate people on at art of coaching. But it’s such a common question to say, how do you approach training? How do you approach your business? How do you approach this? How do you approach communication in general, regardless of who you’re speaking to? What are some principles that you’re just very much aware of in your life, whether that was passed down to you, or that stuff that you’ve learned through difficult conversations or self reflection? Any thoughts on that?

 

I think the first thing that comes to mind is and I’ll stay away from cliches, because I know that you hate them. And you have to show them that you care, right? 

 

Yeah, we talked about them to stay away from now. I go, please don’t say nobody cares what you know, until they know how much you

 

Joel Raether  31:23  

Yeah, I saw I had to. Yeah, no, but but I think I think the first and foremost is that I tried to get gather as much information as I can research and try to learn about what makes people tick. So I mean, the start of the process, as far as relationship and communication a lot of times is sure your training and whatever. And I’m trying to figure out like, Are there physical qualities, things that we need to flush out and what have you, but more importantly, what makes a person tick? What motivates them? What creates something that is going to increase the odds of their receptiveness to the things that I say, or ask them to do or whatever? Are the things that lead me down to answers that maybe, to questions that I don’t even necessarily think about to ask based on information that I can obtain by again, listening a little bit more asking about, you know, simple things that maybe, I think in a lot of cases, throw people off where it’s like, Hey, what are you doing this afternoon? You’re asking whatever NHL guy right now. And he’s a great golfer, and which is shocking. Like most NHL, guys, that’s all they do, but And so rather than just being like, Oh, yeah. Are you going golfing today? I’ll be like, would you shoot today? What do you think you’re missing in your game? And you start asking those questions. And all of a sudden, you start gaining more insight on things that now inherently maybe indirectly you start to gather that are potentially valuable to you. And at the same time, the relationship gets strengthened, because you’re doing more than just saying like, Oh, do one more like push harder or run faster?

 

Brett Bartholomew  33:03  

The indirect is often the most direct way. I think it always makes me kind of cringe when somebody says, Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to listen. But then they asked for this kind of golden ratio of self disclosure, right? Like,  But what questions do I ask? And I just want to say, what questions do you think you should ask? You know, like, it concerns me a lot that people want to have a playbook for everything. And we talked about and admonish it a lot on this show, because we want people to learn why to think not what to think, right? We don’t want to sit there and say, well, now Joel, give me your 10 most impactful questions, because then people will try to use those out of context, right? Yeah, you can’t use those out of and it makes me It frustrates me in a field, having come from a performance background where people will plan so many little intricate details about their training, but not their communication. When in essence, if you take away the communication, the training matters very little. Can you remember a time in your past where you were all in on your training plan all this? And you were so caught up in your own head in the process? That you know, you just communicated like dog crap, and that you lost the individual or vice versa? Did that never has that never happened in your career?

 

Joel Raether  34:13  

Yeah, no, never happens to me. I’ve been pretty flawless from here. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  34:16  

Yeah. Well, some people would say that, you know, some people would be like, Well, yeah, I mean, we have dedicated athletes, we don’t need to hug it out, you know, and stuff like that. 

 

Hey, guys, jumping in real quick to interrupt the conversation with Joel. And hopefully you’re taking away a lot of tidbits. Just a reminder for those of you that are new to our community. All of this started with my book conscious coaching which is available worldwide. on Amazon. It’s available on Audible, it’s available on Kindle, it’s available on a regular copy all over the world. And even though I have always been a strength and conditioning coach by trade, that was my kind of roots. This book is not just for strength coaches, if you deal with people that have different personality types, communication styles, and you find yours Self in conflict with not always knowing how to relate, or connect or build mind with these people. That’s exactly what this book is about. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. I’m imperfect. But it is a great starting point, regardless of the field you’re in on how to authentically and strategically build better connections with people, we strongly believe that any kind of intervention is improved by a more successful interaction. So check it out today. Again, conscious coaching, it’s available worldwide on Amazon. Alright,

 

Joel Raether  35:33  

That I can think of a perfect example. So this is back when I was a college strength and conditioning coach. And you you get into such ideals where you look at your program, you spend all this time I can remember being up all night in writing programs, just you know, at nauseam for athletes, and in this case, it happened to be basketball. And so I write all these things out. And just as an aside, I’ve never been a person who puts in their program where as you make up exercise, I’m like, Oh, do blasters. And these are the Thor hammers and like all this stuff, because kids they’ll look at and go, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  36:09  

Well, I mean, do you ever come up with esoteric names for things? Is that what you mean?

 

Joel Raether  36:12  

Right? Yeah, exactly. And so I’ve always just kind of put things down how in my I always joke, I said, always make sense in my head. So I don’t know why you guys can’t figure this out. Right? Yeah. But so I write things down as kind of execution and maybe anatomically based as I can. And I’ll never forget one time I write something down. And it was something that we probably had done before. And it wasn’t anything that’s super complex, but I write it down. And I look over across the room, and I see a kid doing the exercise. And I can’t recall exactly what it was. But I go, Oh, no, like, you should be doing it this way. And he’s kind of executed wrong. And I turned around. And there’s another kid doing the same exercise in a different fashion. And I turned around, and there’s another kid doing the same exercise in a different fashion. And all three of them read it back to me. And literally at the same time I go, Well, he was right. And he was right. And he was right to and I’m the idiot.

 

Brett Bartholomew  37:08  

And that’s when you know, you’re a good coach. That’s when you know, you’re a good coach. So within that, that’s a great example. Within that, do you guys have either you personally or your staff or anything? Right? coworkers or collaborators? In any situation? Do you have a way that you evaluate? Not just your leadership, but the way you communicate? Or how do you guys think about that? Like, where do you check yourself? You know, and I’ll leave it with that before, I don’t want to ask too, leading of a question. But do you guys think about that annually or anything?

 

Joel Raether  37:37  

Yeah, I think some of it comes with number one, I think being around a group of our coaches and staff that, for lack of better ways to put it are pretty brutally honest. And, so, you know, there’s definitely an aura around the way that we operate, where guys are going to be pretty, you know, pretty candid. If you don’t do things, well say things well, you know, whatever it might be. And, and so there’s a little bit of a checks and balances system that that I think goes into that. And at the same time, I think to your point earlier, where you talked about, you know, just kind of me and my mental space is like, regardless of anything, and the fact that yeah, I’ve been doing this for a long time, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m an expert, and I’ve never felt like that. And I think that my own personal kind of, you know, perception is that when I’m in the room with some of the coaches and people that I’m around, and so many other people that I’ve been fortunate enough to, you know, either ping ideas off or learn from I always think like, and I’m probably I got way more to learn than, and I’m never felt like I’m the smartest guy in the room. And so I think always kind of, yeah, I’ve always carried that kind of mentality, which is, I feel like I know less now than I ever did. And so I think that there’s a motivation behind that that kind of continues to make me feel as if no matter what I’m doing, like this morning, one of the coaches was watching me work with a guy and and in my head, I’m kind of going like, I wonder what he’s thinking. Yeah. And so I think that keeps me honest and keeps me humble and at the same time, like kind of motivates me that there’s people always gonna be watching and I always tell our staff all the time, like, at any point like yesterday, we had a couple guys from from one of the Big League clubs come in and and you know, hang out and come check the facility out whatever. And I always preach to any of our coaches like expect that at any time. Someone like that may walk in here and what’s the impression that you want to give off to them like, what are they going to think of the org organization, the cleanliness how we operate like, what our coaches do and say and how they’re, you know, handling training, communicating with folks like, to me I think that that’s always something that is on my radar. of how I’ve approached things from, you know, for years. So those were probably the easiest ways for me to kind of assess that, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  40:07  

Ya no, it makes sense. Now, when you talked about use the term motivation. And that means a lot of different things to a lot of different folks. And we won’t get into the empirical side of that today. But one of the things when I remember chatting with you, and I said, Hey, you know, let’s talk about some things that would make for interesting topics on the show to give people some great value. And we have so many episodes on a variety of things. But one thing we haven’t really talked about yet is what the term high performance means in a sedentary society. Right? A lot of our episodes, even though this is not a strength and conditioning based podcast, but a leadership podcast, we of course, wanted to pay homage to the industry that we’re a part of by talking about things like working with youth, we’ve had Jim kielbasa do that we’ve had a lot of folks talk about pros in college and even high school. But you know, there is this greater society, it’s the majority of the people, you know, in the United States, especially that are sedentary. And this is not often talked about, because some people view it as it’s not as sexy of a population to train. But there’s so much there, it’s so much there. And in many ways, it’s just as rewarding, if not even more. So. I mean, Carl coward, a previous podcast guests that had one of our most popular episodes was quote, unquote, you know, just a Gen pop client, who ended up being a former world class, you know, kickboxer, and just as high high high level, financial wealth, I can’t, Carl never really allows me to go into the depth of what he really does, but very unique individual, we’ll leave it at that. Talk to me about how you look at working with that sedentary society, motivating them, especially in lieu of what we see, with the dramatic TV stuff, right, like talked to me about your work in that space.

 

Joel Raether  41:42  

You know, it’s interesting when I, think about that, and I don’t have a ton of those types of people like right now, I have a lady who probably, she probably she’s playing kind of both sides of that, which is she is an engineer by day. And she works at Colorado School of Mines. And then by night, and in this case today, like she’s flying to Salt Lake and she officiates professional Women’s World Cup level, national team level soccer. And so I look at a person like that, and I go, man, here’s someone who is highly, highly intelligent, number one, and she thinks like an engineer, so her cognitive slash cerebral kind of way that she goes about things. There are some massive challenges there, because she questions everything, she challenges everything. And yet, she has some pretty high standards that she has to maintain to keep that other kind of thing in play, or she loses that job. And it’s kind of an ancillary income. And so, you know, outside of that, she’s just an average Joe type person. And so I’ve had people like that over the course of my career, and I love being able to work with those folks. I’ve had two guys that I’ve probably known for at least 15 years. And there are two guys that are now in their late 50s. And they still meet each other at 5am, five days a week, and they get in and crush it. And these are the types of guys we’re like, I always tell people doesn’t matter to me, like, if your mission is to I helped a lady climb Kilimanjaro one time, and help her train for that. And it’s like, if you have the right motivation, or you have a goal, whatever that might be, as long as you bring that kind of attitude and that kind of work ethic and desire to do something else. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:40  

Just be a professional, be professional, it really shouldn’t matter what yeah, just be a professional.

 

Joel Raether  43:44  

Yeah, so yeah, I think that it’s interesting though, when you look at in you can, the thing that I think is really interesting is like the ever popular, never controversial, it’s like well, it’s, you know, take CrossFit, right, it’s CrossFit, good or bad? Well, how many 1000s of people that hated commercial box gyms flocked to that as a culture changing place of belonging that got them off the couch that changed so many people into healthier, more fit, you know, working out and doing things that they never did before. And if you can take all everything else aside, and I go, that’s a pretty positive thing. Right? I don’t want to get into the, you know, the dogma or things that surround it because I’m not even. Yeah. So to me, that’s a huge positive thing for what is considered to be such a sedentary population.

 

Brett Bartholomew  44:39  

Yeah, well, and I think just as gross, you know, you talked to we started this episode talking about hiking and different kinds of activity and I still think there’s just too much of a stigma on what people need to do. We obviously know that people need to strength train because, you know, the research on senescence and and sarcopenia and all these things that as we get older is very clear. You know, there’s so much research General variety of things. But I still think it all just gets lost in the fact that we’ve just got to move. You know, at the end of the day like, even though I like strength training, and I have a bias towards that, and things like boxing and hiking and what have you, you know, the average person could get away with strength training twice a week, if they’re doing the right thing. And they could walk the bejesus out of their dog or their cat, if that’s their choice, they can do a lot of things. And I still think we just get way too caught up. You know, I do think that we look at environment as something that drives behavior. We also can’t look at the cure for sedentary behavior as something that’s going to be solved through like just training trainers, coaches, what have you. It’s an environment thing, right? Like, we’ve got to create societies. And I remember even going through university, you know, talking about they had mentioned how cities and future societies, everything’s going to be so much more walkable. Well, that seems like so long ago. Now, I don’t know that things have really gotten there. And sometimes you’re a victim of your own circumstance, in terms of just America is so spread out. And they’ve got these grids, you know, where we can go to Portugal and my wife and I go into Portugal, we saw a 90 year old grandma walk up an incline that, you know, was steeper than what most pro athletes will run up on, a treadmill or anything, or a hill sprint. And so we’ve got to change the environments, but also just like the, I think the attitudes, there’s way too much extremism of what it takes to be strong or hell. I mean, would you agree? Do you ever even feel that pressure as somebody that’s a strength coach, because we do get people that ask I get this question a lot is, do you feel like you still have to, like, live up to this standard of being able to live this amount look this way? What have you and there was a time when I said, Yeah, because in the college side, you would train with other staffs, and it would kind of get competitive and, or you’d see somebody in a conference and you try to but now I don’t really get into that as much do you

 

Joel Raether  46:43  

know, I mean, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  46:44  

not really my bag? 

 

Joel Raether  46:46  

No, I think inevitably, you start out and yeah, there is so much of that, that fuels I think, younger coaches, and I’m not saying that, you know, older coaches aren’t as well, there’s tons of them, you know, you look at guys like Aaron Osmond, you know, those guys are still moving mountains, my dude, yeah, guy, you know, and stuff like that. And it’s like, and I think that for me, I look at that and go Well, as a guy who played for sports, in high school, you know, go to college, try to play sports in college, and you go through iterations of just getting beat up and whatever. And then I get out and I start coaching. And I kind of that the ego, if you will drive that, and you want to still show that you got it and all these things that, you know, you’re hanging on hanging on. And then I get to a point where, you know, I run my course of injuries and stuff like that. And at one point, I’ve got some lumbar issues and stuff. And I see a couple of back specialists, and I’m like, Yeah, I probably shouldn’t squat anymore. Like, that’s just really, you’re never gonna win that battle. And, I fought it for a while, and then it go through a few phases of training again, I get hurt a couple more times. And at one point, I go, What the heck am I trying to prove at this point, you know, my mission is to stay healthy. My mission is 

 

Brett Bartholomew  47:55  

Not channeling it in the right places. 

 

Joel Raether  47:57  

Yeah, And so now it’s like, I’ve had to, and at the same time matured to a point where I can still do a lot of things, I still take pride in the fact that when I do speed and agility related stuff that guess what, my credibility is a lot better if I can demonstrate and show stuff. But I’m probably not going to do it the way that I did 10 years ago. And so I think that you, have to always have some capability and someone’s that shows that, you know, you’ve been there and done that, and that you’re capable of that. But yeah, I’m not much up for, you know, getting under the bar and putting them numbers anymore. And my body’s not really fired up about that. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  48:37  

I think the people that don’t listen carefully, and I think that’ll be end up being the title of this episode is credibility and capability in a way, you know, think that all well, that’s just because you’re not competitive. No, it’s about steering it right. Like, I’m absolutely still competitive, there’s certain amount of like, I still want to make sure I can go X amount of rounds, if I’m boxing, what have you. Or if I’m doing a certain lift, I’ll get competitive, you know, and I’m very competitive about the way I communicate. Now. I mean, we created the first standardized, like evaluation for communication in our community, of course, I’m going to hold myself to try and do have a certain standard within that. But like, you know, I know that I am not built to full clean really well, right now, do I still appreciate the movement? For sure. So I’m going to do it. But whether I’m doing it with 75 to 100 kilos, or, you know, 200 kilos, I could really care less. Because I think what makes you realize that is having a kid and I’m like, Yeah, I don’t really want to go down the path of having a blown out, hit back or whatever. And all of a sudden, when my kids 25 and wants to go hiking with dad with Joel Wraith, or you know, in the Appalachian Mountains or glamping dad can’t keep up because his hips blown out. But man, when that 200 kilo, you know, PR awesome, when that awesome thing I put on Instagram, you know, and it’s kind of like, yeah, you just Yeah, you got to have a different definition of adaptability and if you can do it and you have minimal stressors in your life If you have a lot of extra time, and you can focus on those things are those things, again, are just a fit for you. Awesome, like, by all means, you’ve got to stay competitive in something. But I think the core of this episode is, you know, what we talked about with you hiking and finding other mediums is that should also evolve. You can’t define yourself by one thing as a professional. We can’t expect it from society, either, because it’s not the foundation of health, right?

 

Joel Raether  50:23  

Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s, that’s the hard part is the commercialization within what most people see they see it in print, they see it in, you know, on TV, and all these other things is like, there’s such idealistic things that surround what health and fitness looks like. And then it’s then injected, like 10, and 20, and 100 fold, with all of the things that are probably the least effective in terms of quick fixes. And these, you know, true systems of like, no, never failed deals that are all marketed towards people. And guess what they’re set to make people fail. And in, you know, it’s like, there, never has been, and there never will be a magic pill. And that’s just the reality of it. I mean, there has to be an 80 20 or 90 10, or whatever, you know, analogy you want to make to the fact that if you want to be healthier, if you want to be more fit, if you want to function better, you know, like you said, if you want to go hiking with your kid and 20 years, well guess what? That process starts today, not 20 years from now and it has to at least have some bit of ownership on your part that you’re going to be more cognizant, you’re going to be more cognizant about what you ingest, you’re gonna be more cognizant about what your how well you take care of yourself day to day because 20 years down the road, that ship is going to sail if you don’t start thinking about it today. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  51:39  

Yeah. And I liked the term you use their fit you know, my neighbor Matt Morrison awesome guy became a really good friend of our family worked for Lockheed Martin. You know, if you watch Matt train, Matt’s, it’s a bigger guy. And very useful. Right? He has a body that is very useful he can lift a lot of weight he can do but he’s not super mobile just is his body types not going to allow for that. And so Matt, you know if Matt can goblet squat, good on him right now it’s goblet squatting. He’s getting into that range of motion, what have you. But that’s never where we’re gonna press Matt. Now Matt’s very capable of lifting large amounts of weight off the ground, pushing heavy sled carrying things. And that’s where I think like people misunderstand that great programming isn’t just checking off boxes of movement patterns, and no different than great leadership is you know, about some magical blend of personality types, and no different than financial management is picking magical stocks, right? It’s about hey, what’s the fit for this person, I tell my wife all the time. I’m like, if Matt continues to push, pull, carry, and do some of these things that he’s good at and then supplement it with, you know, just little doses, whether it’s a bodyweight squat to a bench, whether it’s a goblet squat, again, he can’t get into those positions really well, but Matt’s gonna be okay. Where we have this idea that nope, if somebody’s not squatting twice body weight, you know, or something ridiculous into old age, that all of a sudden they’re going to lose their capability for independents like no like. There is not just a How strong is strong enough relative to context there is something of knowing that not every pattern needs to be hit with the same frequency with everybody.

 

Joel Raether  53:11  

Yeah, and I think just even kind of pigeon holing that like people I think when you again talk about that general population person they said you always hear these blanket of things we were like, oh, their so fit. They’re in shape and I always go in shape for what 

 

Brett Bartholomew  53:26  

Yeah, cuz you’re ripped? 

 

Joel Raether  53:27  

I go fat people finished marathons all the time are they fit?

 

Brett Bartholomew  53:31  

Most gladiators? How would you know people it’s funny people think gladiators were the shredded individual study history. They weren’t, you know, a lot of them a massive amounts of barley and beans, they wanted a layer of fat so that if they got cut, it didn’t go directly into the tissue and what have you, you know, we have this idea of what these things need to look like. And that’s why I think again, the theme being here, credibility and capability, what are some other things that you think people and you can use coaches, you can use professionals of any kind, you can use society? I don’t really care Joel, what are some other things credibility wise that they chase that you think is diminishing returns in the long run? 

 

Joel Raether  54:08  

I think that based on the right now mentality that all of us live in, it is constantly chasing things that either are potentially insignificant or irrelevant to your own personal set of circumstances based on social media and what, how much more accessible we are. And I think that again, you look at how often people utilize that as a way to try and either validate or, you know, you see, these people are like, Oh, I’m always just gonna put out this like, positive vibe thing, and then you find out like, their life’s in shambles and reality and it’s like, I think those are such huge pitfalls. When you look at things and I tell people all the time, like, you can go look at my social media, guess what, I’m not posting a picture of last night’s dinner. And, you know, there’s just so Few people that I think are able to not chase that carrot all the time in order to try and put on what I consider, you know, a lot of times really a misrepresentation of either who they are or where they are in life or whatever. And it’s like, some of the introspective piece of what a lot of people I think, including myself need to do is like, evaluate what your values are, what your core, you know, being is, and what’s important to you, if it’s family, if it’s work, if it’s your kids, if it’s your dog, you know, whatever that might be, and understand that that’s yours. And, you know, I had my 97 year old grandma, you know, passed recently, and you have this thing where you see so many people post these things, and I’m not downplaying that or saying, like, oh, like, you know, that’s really bad. And you see people do those things all the time. But for me, I don’t need 100 people to reply that say, oh, man, I’m so sorry about this, and that, whatever, that’s for me, and like, I’m just dealing with that my way. And I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. But, you know, I think that there’s this always kind of, you know, piece of us that wants to determine, like, what do I share? What do I give off? What kind of thing do I want people to either interpret about me or how I operate, or, you know, who I am, and utilize that as a way to formulate what you think you are as a person. And then, and I think that’s a dangerous game to play. And if you play it for too long, you can turn around, you know, five years, 10 years from now go like, wait a minute, like I missed out on a huge opportunity to be present to be involved to, you know, interact, or whatever it might be on such a level that maybe had more value than what I care about a whole bunch of people that maybe don’t know me personally think,

 

Brett Bartholomew  56:46  

yeah, I think the art of self disclosure is a tricky one, it’s interesting, you know, you do have to be relatable you do, I think there is value in letting people know you’re a real person, I think that it should tie into what you do when your values are clear to you. It makes decisions easier, like the day we’re recording this. So you know, two days ago, we lost one of our young dogs and a really dramatic, unexpected way. I mean, any loss of a loved one or thing is traumatic in its own right. But this was particularly harrowing, we’ll just leave it at that. And, you know, I’d put something so long, I’ve been trying to get the message out on on my Instagram and my work that even though you know, a lot of people know me for training athletes and doing these things that, you know, I’m evolving. And my big focus now is on the the essence of communication and understanding the science of it, and the application of a lot of different things. And that training, to me is something that’s critical. But it’s also not the main vehicle that I don’t think people understand what training is really about. So, for example, we had posted a video and I was I was training in my garage, and I had made a post that said, hey, this could easily be a post about this exercise and what it does for your body or your performance. Really, it’s not about that. I chose this movement today in this workout today, because we’re going through some stuff as a family, we lost a loved one. Now, there are people that reach out and are saying, Hey, I’m sorry, and I’m this. And that’s appreciated. That’s certainly not why we did it. I did it to kind of talk about how training is something that’s always got me through trauma. And that’s how I got into this field is training is a tool for me and others, to teach them what they’re really capable of. Right. And we tried tying that message in of like, no matter what you’re going through, find something that helps you work through that, not run from it. But you’re right, there are some people that, you know, they can use some things that they go through in life, to feign sympathy to do these things. And that’s, everything, right? Like, it’s almost like what people do on resumes. Everybody makes their resume kind of look, impression management is a natural thing. it’s about how you align it with your mission and vision over the long term. Right?

 

Joel Raether  58:45  

Yeah, I think, I mean, there’s so many nuances within that when you look at people in general, as you go through the course of your life, which is like, acceptance, and you know, want and all these things that you inherently over the course of you know, being a teenager, you go through all these horrible kind of periods in life where you want people to like you and you want, you know, acceptance, and then you start to get to where you finish education, and now you want to be valid, and all these things and, and there’s always something that it seems like you’re trying to accomplish. And the hard part is to, like you said, be present and at some point, understand, and I think you do a great job with this. And you and I have talked about this, which is like, you know, where you want to be and, you know, where you want to go and you have a mission of things that you’ve accomplished, you know, in a really short period of time, which is very commendable. And you know, I enjoy our conversations because of that. And that there has to you have to reach a point where you can be unapologetic, you know, whether you like it or not like I watch, I’ve always kind of been enamored by take a person like Phil Robertson, from Duck Dynasty, who has taken tons of scrutiny and at his core, you know, he has a new thing out where he’s like, I’m unashamed, you know, I am going to live with everything that I’ve done, I’m going to live with my beliefs and how they are, I’m okay if you don’t believe that way or what have you. But knowing that he’s centered in the things that his life has taught him in, he’s got plenty of things that he would love to change, like all of us do. But he’s at a place where he’s like, This is who I am. And I think that’s a really tough thing for anybody, you know, whether that’s personally or professionally or whatever that might be. It’s such a process in life. To get to that point,

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:00:34  

that’s a sure that I would advise to, I can tell you that me and a player were talking the other day, during the time of this interview, Joel and I are talking, I’m in the midst of kind of getting guys ready for, I don’t know, maybe an NFL season, maybe not. But we were talking the other day, you know, a player was talking about how, you know, he had played on a team where some footage of a coach he used to play for and his wife had came out, right, because there’s skis bags that, will try to hack people stuff, and what have you. And you know, the media was just grilling this coach, because this video, you know, again, was kind of getting into their sex life and what have you and relax, if you have kids in the car, we’re not going to go into it. But you know, the coach came out and said, Listen, I’ve been married X amount of years, you think I’m embarrassed about this? I am not in the least, you know, like my wife and I love each other. And we try to keep things interesting. And this is our business and you know, shame on you guys for you know, thinking that you can comment on what was a private video and what have you. And I looked at my wife and I go, I can’t disagree. I mean, I can’t agree with him more I go if something ever came out about you and me, and like that, screw the media, you know what I mean? I’ll sit there and say, Hey, like, we have a relationship and we’re dedicated to continuing to grow and keep things interesting. And, you know, no, that’s none of your and so I completely agree with that on a shame. Here’s, here’s the thing, right? I’m gonna put this in a time capsule, and you’re welcome to join me you don’t have to Joe but I could care less if somebody goes back and listens to this audio 5 10 25 years from now, if they find something out about me, that’s embarrassing or imperfect, or now with this world that deep fakes, right? People could take, your words and mine and make it sound like we sang some horrific, you know, like people can do whatever. You know, at the end of the day, like I’m here to say I am completely imperfect. So if somebody wants to scandalize me or anything in the future, it’s like, guess what? You’re Brett Bartholomew right now saying, I am not perfect. I’m not trying to be perfect. I’ll never say things perfectly. I’m okay with that. What I think our society needs to do is point the finger back at some of these people that want to take things out of context, and quit making heroes out of haters. You know what I mean?

 

Joel Raether  1:02:36  

Yeah, oh, yeah. Right. I mean, you look at where we are in today’s, you know, state of affairs. And, again, it’s like, and I don’t want to dig into that whatsoever. I have no desire, because then we don’t have time to, you know, unpack that 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:02:51  

Well we have a podcast on that. So don’t worry, you won’t have to dive into that.

 

Joel Raether  1:02:54  

Yeah. And, but you definitely hit that on the head where it’s like, I think I can distinctly remember reading like, you know, Jocko willing, you know, Extreme Ownership and going through that, and you start to have this evolution where you realize, and I can think of a perfect example, and I was in a previous facility, and just for brevity, and we had a poker night, a couple guys smoke a few cigars, whatever. And we come back on Monday, and the place is like, every weeks. Yeah, and, you know, and it was, it was innocent, fun. We’re, it’s all of our staff, we’re just having a good time, you know, we kind of wanted to, you know, kind of Chris in the place. And you know, there was nothing, you know, at all that was out of line about it, other than the fact that we made a poor decision, we get back and you know, a whole bunch of our administrators are like, What the heck’s going on here? Like, this is unbelievable. I can’t believe you guys do this. And like, I stepped out and said it was my fault. What do you want to do? Like, I organized it as my fault. And the conversation was over. Yeah. And it’s like, oh, rather than trying to find some blame, or be like, Oh, well, you know, he brought him but like, I had one of you. And I was like, the whole thing is my fault. So if I was talking about, let’s sit down and we can figure it out, like, I’ll make it right, I’ll do whatever I can. But guess what, by taking ownership and by just stepping up and realizing that the easiest way through some of these things is to reflect on it, and rather than cower or shy away or pass the buck or whatever, life becomes a lot easier when you’re able to say, I did this, or I didn’t do that, or whatever. And if I just own it and move on, then guess what, you spend a heck of a lot less time dancing around things or hiding things or covering things up or whatever that might be and, you know, it’s a lot easier said than done. But something that you know, I think as I’ve gotten older again, it’s like I tried to do a lot more of which is understanding that. Like you said, I’m gonna screw up a lot. Guaranteed. I’ve probably got my screw up for the days over more than once. And you know, the best I can do is know that none of it came from a point of me doing it. Ill minded or ill willed or anything like that. And if it you know, affects someone in a negative fashion or whatever else, it’s never intended that way or I didn’t you know mean for it to be that way that’s not really in my nature

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:05:10  

and you can’t control it, Joel you’ll you can control it. I could say good morning and that’s gonna offend somebody. You know what I mean? It just is what it is. Listen, man. It’s one of the reasons I appreciate our friendship is you are always one of the most fascinating conversationalist whether we’re meeting for a burger and in Atlanta, whether we’re on your podcast, anything like that, I always appreciate the breadth of perspective you bring the warmth you bring to it, you love diving in, I would love for you to be my guest and complimentary of course, at any of our apprenticeships, I think you have so much to teach people about communication and openness. So that’s my way of saying Get your butt to an art of coaching apprenticeship soon on our dime. If people want to continue to keep up with you, if they want to take a listen to your podcast, if they want to support your work in any way whatsoever, where’s the best way to reach out to you and learn more about what you’re doing?

 

Joel Raether  1:06:00  

The easiest way, obviously continue to like our website, which is fastcolorado.com. Yeah, we have our fast performance podcast as well, which we just had you on their recent coming up soon, which can be a lot of fun. And then me personally, I mean, I’m not too hard to find on social media, Instagram, first name, last name. And I really, as a professional and realizing how many people have influenced my career and how many people have extended their hand or communicated or given me guidance or whatever. I’ve always taken it as, you know, being where I am now, a really high amount of importance for me is that if someone does reach out to me, I have a 24 to 48 hour rule where I will do my absolute best to get back to people and I say that in all sincerity. So, you know if anybody does have questions or gripe or anything like that, I will always do my best to communicate back or providing help that I can point to plenty of people have extended that to me overnight.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:07:02  

Yeah, well, I appreciate that man. And guys, as always, remember to check out podcast reflections, you can go to artofcoaching.com/podcastreflections for the notes and the questions and some key points from today’s episode. That way you can make sure you’re not passively just taking this in, apply the lessons, there’s always things that you go back. And if you read listen to or you listen more closely, you’re gonna learn. And please support the show. There’s people like Joel and so many others that have taken their time and they want to help make your path your journey a little bit easier or a little bit more insightful. So if you wouldn’t mind sharing this episode with five people that you love, we’d really appreciate that. I know Joel to enjoy. Thank you again for your time, brother.

 

Joel Raether  1:07:41  

Yeah, no, I appreciate it man. Thanks, boys. Always enjoy it. Never enough time.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:07:44  

Alright guys, it’s the art of coaching podcast signing off. Until next time,

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