#11 Corey Vaughn; Putting a life jacket on self-doubt to live his dream as a pro water skier
From the minute we started the conversation, it was evident that Corey Vaughn is a philosopher. He also calls himself the “hippie husband” of his wife Amelia. It was almost surreal to reconcile the deep thinking man I was speaking to with the fact that he’s one of the best in the extremely intense sport of water skiing. And he is a really, really good water skier. He’s one of only a handful of skiers to have run all 6 buoys in the most difficult (41 off) pass, and he’s been on the podium in countless tournaments from Nationals to Pro Tour events. He knows a thing or two about performance under pressure and after learning that you can get burned out even when working on a passion, he’s pretty darn good at balancing his life. In this episode, he shares his practices on dealing with pressure, working through self-doubt and what it takes to keep showing up.
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. This is Lynn Carnes, your host. Today's conversation is with Corey Vaughn, one of the top water skiers in the world. You wouldn't know that right off the bat talking to Corey because frankly, this conversation starts more what I would say in the philosophy realm, we start talking about the pandemic and its impact on not just us in the economic realm, but also sort of in the more existential realm. Now, as you keep listening, you're going to discover that Corey majored in philosophy so it's no surprise that we went there to start with but we also do go into, how did he come to make some of the choices he has made, which have been unconventional. He made a deliberate choice to get off of what you might call the money train, and the career train to become a pro water skier and a water ski coach. That's actually not that easy to do. But not only has he done it, but he's done it at the top of the world. He is one of a handful of people to have run the 41 off pass. Water skiers totally know what that is. Those of you who are not water skiers, it's one of the hardest things there is to do. And less I think the number now is like less than 10 men have been able to achieve that. So this is, think about that. You're taught you're going to be listening to somebody who's only one of 10 people to have ever achieved something incredibly difficult. That just in and of itself makes it worth listening to how does he handle things like pressure? What does he do when he's on the starting dock and might fail. Waterskiing is a one and done sport, failure is basically we all end in failure on our water ski runs. So Corey talks at in depth and very generously about how he has managed that with his life and what his perspective on it is. One thing I will say is you'll learn that the road to the top is full of twists and turns. And we talked a little bit about some of those in this conversation. So I really hope you enjoy it. If you love it, please, of course, share it with your friends. And I do have one more thing I want to say. We started this conversation and it's gonna feel like you're starting in the middle. That's because we got on the zoom call to record this. We started just catching up and all of a sudden I realized I wanted to capture this stuff. So I hit record. Corey starts talking and then he says, are we going? And I said, Yes, we are. So that's how this conversation starts. You'll be in the middle. Look forward to hearing what you think
Corey:machines and we're going to somehow continue this conquering of the globe. And, and Mother Nature kind of showed back up to show us that we're not the biggest, baddest thing around. And we don't get to control all of it.
Lynn:And we never will be. I write the big, like, there's something that's been striking me as the idea that we know better, that somehow we know more than nature, or we know better than the way things work according to that world. And it dawned on me the other day, it's almost like, we're going to get kicked out of the garden of Eden again, in that story from the Bible, right? That man knew better and God was like, fine, you're out of here. And right. It's sort of like we said, we know better, like you said, conquest, nature beating. Somehow we can tame everything and we just don't have that much control. We are such spec in the scheme of things.
Corey:Yeah. So I've been having a lot of thoughts along the lines are we going now?
Lynn:so and we are going I am I sometimes like stop and say, Hey, Cory, welcome to the program, but we're just going so I hit the record button. And yeah, we're just gonna let everybody catch up with us.
Corey:Yeah, so I mean, I think kind of to your garden of Eden analogy there. I mean, I think kind of one of the most dangerous Bible passages right there from Genesis is where it talks about man having dominion over all of the creatures. And yeah, we felt that way, obviously, 4000 or 5000 years ago, and those words are written down. And we certainly feel that way now with our technological developments. And we've actually been able to create lifestyles and habitats that kind of remove us more and more from a state of nature kind of alienated from our sources of food and our sources of building materials. And all sorts of things, all of the little minerals that make up our gadgets and phones that are mined somewhere, the coal that is mined somewhere, power, all of this stuff. And so, you know, finding out through this pandemic, that we aren't in control of everything, and there still are some forces of nature that simply, you know, baffle us and can really knock us on to our heels, has kind of put me into this, Funny, not funny, This, this ethical questioning of, Okay, how do we capture this time period? And, you know, try to learn from that try to move forward and become out better than where we came in where I'd say we came in feeling like we had ownership of the land and ownership of the animals and they were ours to do what we wished with. But I feel like we've gotten ourselves into a pretty good bucket of trouble already from that attitude. I mean, we're depleted a lot of our resources. You know, we are warming up our planet, we've caused extinction for a whole bunch of species already. And we're starting to realize that ourselves may be included in that category we could extinct ourselves. And so, you know, as much as, of course, I don't wish death on a lot of the people, we got to remember all these statistics, that of death and of cases and people being sick. Each one is a real story. each one's a real person. They have families that are suffering their losses, I mean, of course, I don't wish that for anyone, but I, I do kind of, I do have this wish for a wake up call that, you know, that does kind of bring us to our knees a little bit in front of something that is not ourselves. And that kind of brings us out of ourselves to say Okay, maybe some course corrections are needed here. And if we're going to move into a new normal, let's take some time to really think through what that means for the next hundred years, not just in terms of disease, but maybe what brought us here and why we don't find ourselves very adaptable and very flexible in this moment.
Lynn:Wow. Yeah, I've had the same feelings. As I said, when I sort of thought about that idea. That word you said is so critical dominion, right? The the idea that we are over and I don't know if I've talked to you about this, but I've gotten back to riding horses after I think I saw you after I fell and was running around with the sling and all that. Yes, Yes, we did. So there was a big choice. Am I going to go back or am I going to run away from horses forever, and one of my Instructors uses the natural horsemanship method, which is a very different way of training horses than the old style sort of get on them, let them buck until they wear themselves out, dominate them, and forevermore, you will lead the horse through fear and intimidation. Which, to me is a direct parallel to kind of how we like have tried to conquer the planet. Like we noticed, we are in charge. We will figure this out and in her way of doing things in natural horsemanship, it's much more affiliative Yes, you are the leader. As she said, You always have 51% vote. You don't want the horse to like have a better idea than you do because that means you're running back to the barn. I've already experienced that. So I don't need to do that anymore. But it's interesting because the more I've worked with horses that way and understood what it is to be in harmony and actually, like, work with them and work with their nature. It's made me think about working with the nature of this planet. And I think we work against the nature of the planet, which I'm saying,
Corey:right, right there, what you're describing is a synergy. You want a synergy between you and the horse. And I think what we've, what we've decided over the last hundred years, is, we can put synergy aside and we can just have it all our way we can take all of the contours of nature and just flatten them out, iron them, bulldoze them to our way of being to our will, and that that's just going to continue to work. You know, and I think that's where we've been short sighted in a lot of ways. Because if if you continue to take resources because you feel like you have the right to you have dominion over them, whether it's trees or animals or whatever, and you don't, you're not replenishing in any way and shoot in some cases, what we're putting back is actually toxic rather than, you know, rejuvenating. Then we get these runaway cycles that we So I think that, you know, in, in the present, we're very captured by, you know, this virus scenario. But I feel like it's very parallel with this greater issue of climate change that we're experiencing and, and that our kids, grandkids, whoever people down the road are likely to experience. So it's like, some of the suffering that's happening on a global scale now, not that I wish that on anyone and I mean, it's, I have loved ones, we all are going to get caught in this funny economic, you know, earthquake, that's, that's happening, that we're just starting to feel, and political also, of course, it's gonna be there's gonna be ground going to be moving under our feet here for a little while. But I would almost rather take some of that suffering now and try to learn the hard lessons, you know, in the hopes that 100 years from now we're all doing a little bit better. That's the optimistic side of me. The pessimistic side says, Well, you know, it's going to be Get into our politics and it's going to get a mess and they're not going to. They're not going to take any hard won lessons, we're going to continue to be short sighted and, and try to go, you know, I hear a lot of people saying this, I'm just ready for things to go back to the way they were. And just two points immediately come to my mind like one. There's never such a thing as going back in history in life. You don't go backwards. We're only just moving from the present into the next moment. And, and then also, you know, there's this wish to go back. But I mean, if you rewind the clock, three or four months, let's remember people were still hating each other, then people were still angry. Society was still in quite a bit of turmoil. It wasn't this life or death existential feeling that we have right now. But there was almost a time like two months ago, where when the virus first kind of started making landfall here, I mean, literally everybody was just concerned for everybody else. Like there's people concerned and caring for other people. And it was very humanizing. It was refreshing, like, all of a sudden the politics just dropped out of the picture like the Democratic primaries just went right out the window. And people were just making sure that other people weren't sick or dying, calling their loved ones checking in. And seems like we've kind of graduated through that phase. And now we're finally back at each other's throats again, talking about going back to something that, you know, we've got to remember wasn't all that perfect in the first place.
Lynn:Isn't it funny, that longing to get back to have things go back to, quote unquote, normal. I think it's a very normal human thing. And I saw this little thing on the internet the other day that I really loved, It was describing how our worldviews keep us from seeing the truth that right in front of us. Like a couple of words. One To the other about how we develop our worldviews and I want to go back and find it because I really liked it was a really nice illustration for why we deny the truth that's right in front of us.
Corey:And yeah, I mean, I was gonna say, you know, our, our social conditioning is pretty inescapable, even when you reach an age where you feel like you can start to break down those boxes and, and see through some of the bigger frames that you're presented with, I mean, a bigger problem still, that's to your point is, we all think in words, and we all communicate in words, and even those, even language itself has internal biases that it's really hard to be aware of. The reality of the world. You know, like I'm looking out the window right now and I see trees and I see grass in a nice field, I see a little bit of the lake. But when I say Lake, that's a word. It's just a representation l a k e has no resemblance To what that real wet thing is down there. Yeah. And so when those things when we're talking about concepts which are even more slippery, but even more important for how we're going to organize ourselves, I feel like it's so easy to lose touch with what's actually an a real experience. And we're kind of all living up here in our heads these days. Well, we're in our phones,
Lynn:with our phones in our heads like exactly and it's, it's interesting because there's a linkage in that, that idea of words to try to translate and help other people with words, right? Like, you know, you coach waterskiing, I coach executives, a lot of what we're talking about here is actually the reason it makes it so hard for people to change their worldview. The words mean something, but the words mean something. That word lake means something different to you than it does to somebody else. A lot of people The first time I saw i assume you're talking about your ski lake and the first time I saw ski like I was like, that's not a lake. I'm not even sure that's a pond, that's so little to do anything on this where everything's really good, but I was at a ski like in Texas when I saw that I was like, Oh, that's not lake, so meaning it makes a difference and it changes our experience of things.
Corey:Yeah, and I'm sure that I'm sure there's an exact parallel for your world, in the business side and leadership. But a lot of times there there is a matter of just things being lost in translation as simple as in skiing, not not nearly as life threatening and existential is what we've been talking about. But, you know, people will come and they'll have been told something by a coach, and they're, you know, I always hate to say that another coach is wrong, because usually that's not the case. And usually you just don't i don't want to create a barrier like that and say, Well, I'm right and this person doesn't know they're talking about. So but a lot of times, there's kind of a synthesis This is where the person heard the right words, but took away the a completely different meaning than what the coach actually said. So then you kinda have to dive back in there and use some other words, present the same information, the same concept, whatever, with a different vocabulary and a different explanation. And, you know, usually then I try to get it to land. But that's one thing I've realized, in the last, well, whatever my it's been 10 or 12 years that I've been on this coaching journey, the more I can be precise with what I say in the first place. You know, and I try to make sure I have created an understanding, you know, in real time, whether it's asking question, asking feedback so that the student can relay the fact that they have comprehended what I'm saying, you know, that goes a long way because I feel like you can you can run something out somebody, you know, hit him with some information real quick and it If it doesn't land or they don't take it the way that you meant it, then the outcome is not going to be what anybody wants.
Lynn:Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, that's a precision. I do want to go back to something, though, because we were talking, you were talking about that social conditioning and breaking down those boxes. I think of it as sort of creating new beliefs. You know, compared to my old beliefs, and most the time, I don't even know what my old beliefs were. But can you think of things that you have changed that you've been able to, like, rewrite the script for in your own life that you can say, Hmm, that's what I used to believe, or that's what I was taught to believe. But I don't think that anymore
Corey:Well, I mean, yeah, I definitely can. I mean, some large scale examples would be, you know, I was raised in a household with my mom and my grandparents, which that environment alone, you know, I really am so deeply thankful for because they were My grandparents and, and my mom just generationally, culturally, on many levels, they were different. They held different values or different beliefs. You know, my mom was the youngest child of four, and she was kind of a rebel child. So it's kind of funny. And she had me out of wedlock. So it's kind of a little ironic that here we are, you know, we became this very happy nuclear family. And we kind of had to, you know, merge these differing lifestyle choices or value systems or whenever my grandparents were very traditional people, you know, maybe similar to what you said they kind of came out of the depression. You know, they were young during the Depression in World War Two, but certainly saw it have memories of the poverty in a family members moving in and all that type of thing. So they brought a lot of that frugality and thrift, certainly, in a very material world, which that was, you know, really great in hindsight to learn from, but I would say, also, you know, like politically, quite conservative and and religiously. They were both practicing Catholics. I went to Catholic school for 14 years, and went to church with them on Sundays and was an altar boy and those sorts of things. And I think at all levels, all types of schools, there's, there's quite a bit of indoctrination that happens, whether it's through the pages of history books, or through this mentality that life is all about achievement, and that you're supposed to be, you know, graded by this authority figure so that you can learn how to take orders at the next level, you know, excel in college that you can get out and get in to a career field where you'll have a boss that'll give you orders and measure your productivity and you're indoctrinated into this mindset of what you are doing here as a being is to prove yourself to these other people that are authority figures to you. And then of course, in a religious school, you know, you're educated in the teachings of that particular belief system. So and I was and I learned it like a beautiful student, you know, I knew the answers. So, while that was happening, and I was trying to get A's on my religion test, my mom who is, you know, was not a when I said she's agnostic, by the use of slippery word and slippery territory. You know, I really don't like to label myself by any word these days when it comes to spiritual, religious type of things. I'm just really not comfortable with a label in that way. But anyway, we'll say my mom is agnostic. You know, when I became old enough that she thought it was appropriate, you know, she would start just asking me some of the life's big questions, and some of them I had really ready made answers for because they came straight out of the textbook. I would just fire them right back at her and she would say, Well, okay, like, that's, that's what somebody told you, but what do you think like, what do you really think like what? Okay? You want to live a good life? So you go to heaven? Well, what's what's heaven even, like, you know, what does that even mean? And what's more important, you know, started kind of pulling on some of the strings that are inherent in there some inherent conflict, like what's more important just having faith or doing you know, good work living a good life and what, you know, how should How should we think about people who never have even heard of this type of belief system? Are they bad people, should they be punished when they die? You know, what, what does an afterlife even like? And we think about what it would mean to go on with an existence after that. So she, you know, she's hitting me with these questions from a pretty young age. I mean, these ones and I'm so thankful for my mom in all kinds of ways. She was never afraid of the awkward conversation. You know, we had the sex talk very early and often. You know, we talked about things in culture in society, like song lyrics that I would just be like, sitting in the car, and she's like, you don't even know what you're saying, you know, here's what, here's what home means, you know, here's what this here's what this type of thing means. And here's a context that you probably need to understand before you go around. Just saying these things. So, you know, I had this, this really good dichotomy where I was seeing the world and are being exposed to different thought patterns and having to work them out for myself. And then, you know, I continued in Catholic school through high school, but I would say right around the time I was a senior of high school in high school, you know, is when I started to identify myself, maybe not as a Christian, you know, which that's one. That's one step of many in a way that you can branch out from a set of beliefs, you know, I would say my my beliefs since then have certainly changed and continue to change, you know, hopefully, monthly. You know, just just trying to assimilate new information and, and deepen my understanding of what what the heck is all going on here. And so, but I would credit my mom with instilling me instilling that sense of curiosity, rather than accepting a more hand me down ideological approach, which says, there are a lot of great questions. And here we have all the answers just, you know, packaged in this in this nice book for you. So take it and, and, and that's about the end of it taken and just dive in deep but only to here and yeah, and so, you know, and I think what, you know, to back to your question about once I kind of learned to make that leap and to kind of say, Okay, I don't believe all of these things anymore, I can remember going to probably a Christmas or Easter mass with my grandparents. And, you know, the time when everyone in the church said the Nicene Creed. And, and I kind of, you know, usually I would just kind of repeat along pretty much mindlessly I knew all the words. So I just kind of go along, I step back for a second, I tried to evaluate line by line and realize there really wasn't a single part of it that that I could hang my hat on in a true deep belief sense. And it looked around and kind of wondered if any other people are just droning along or if they really are thinking about what they're saying or what that means. So kind of making that one step out of the pond, you know, across the stream, I think created a little bit of incentive or awareness that you can do that in other things. So I would say that, you know, I tried to be a questioner and was somewhat of a skeptic and other parts So my worldview, social, you know, political and so, so forth. Because I, you know, I really want to understand, I don't want to be afraid to be wrong, I'm sure I hold some wrong ideas now, but I hope I get more information that corrects those ideas and refines them into something more, you know, specific and, and because ultimately, whatever our ideas are, are going to govern the way we live our life. You know, we, you can't really separate those two, you can't say, Well, I believe this thing, but I'm gonna live this way. I mean, the to naturally, somewhere I love or other, you know, dovetail or you have to live in a state of cognitive dissonance or denial. And yeah, that doesn't seem healthy either.
Lynn:Well, I think it's uncomfortable as hell I think. I think some of us I've done it and I see people do it, or they're kind of like saying one thing and doing another You know, believing one thing and acting on another. And I think that's a huge source of misery and stress. Because you're on level, you know, you're in conflict. So it's interesting because what you're describing, I would call like a process of discovery rather than a process of indoctrination. And it's is like, it seems to me like that sense of curiosity, that sense of not necessarily accepting what you were told to believe, or buying into the need to go make a bunch of money and prove yourself and make your your worth tied to your I'm going to put air quotes around this success. That has a lot to do with how you've ended up where you are, is that I mean, how Yeah.
Corey:Yeah, I think you're you're 100% right. And that's, that's where the journey that I want to remain on is a journey of curiosity. I feel like kind of de facto, we're all put into a bit of indoctrination like at our school age, and I To some degree for children, you have to give them some boundaries because they don't know anything, you know, and they'll run wild and you do have to put something around that. But I think we maybe go too far, you know, by jamming them into the classrooms the way that we do and, and teaching them the kind of value system that that we do. But I would say, Yeah, I feel very fortunate that not only did my mom kind of pry, you know, and stimulate this part of my brain to start working from a younger age, but then even going off to college and getting that first taste of independence. You know, she had kind of very much always told me like college is going to be the best time of your life, you're just gonna have a blast. I didn't really know what she meant. I was just trying to take her word for it because usually, she didn't fail me on on anything like that. And I think she was having quite a great time in college yourself until until maybe she got pregnant with me. And I think that changed her college experience a little bit. So I took it upon my shoulders to make sure I had all the fun for both of us in my four years. But as part of that, I went to Clemson University coming from my high schools in Washington DC. So there was a pretty good bit of culture shock, going, you know, from from DC, I would say I was probably in a school that was about half white, half black and had a pretty good Asian and Latino population. And I was in DC, you really have that mix of people because you have ambassadors and, you know, people migrating from all over the place and working in DC. So I went down to Clemson and it was, it was very different. I mean, the just the landscape of people when you look across the campus, I was like, looking pretty wide around here. Geez, whoa. But you know, that's okay, whatever. And, but then there's also quite a bit of difference in the attitudes. So I found myself there. Kind of immediately, in a, in a bit of counterculture, I felt like I was part of the the counter culture, which is probably something I was a little bit prime to embrace, I was now you know, just kind of stepping out on my own with, you know, divorcing myself from some ideologies that I was, you know, brought up with. And then I'm in this new context where I feel like I'm kind of against the grain. And, and I started to that started become part of my identity. I would say through those four years of college I started growing my hair long. You know, just as kind of another expression of my individuality. I became very, you know, I very much thinking that individualism is important and we should all be trying to dive into ourselves figure out who we are, I saw a lot of conformity on the college campus, which, you know, kind of surprised me and disappointed me. I thought college, the idea that I had was Probably something more like what happened at UC Berkeley where everybody's like a flower child and branches off and tries like, you know, to expand their, their minds and all sorts of ways. And what I found was a lot of, you know, Fraternity and Sorority Life, which is fine. I'm not saying anything wrong with that, but it seemed to more narrow of individualism rather than broaden. And I was like, well, that's not going to be me. And, you know, that was probably that and some really good coursework. I was, I feel really lucky. You know, I took political science and philosophy there. And so I was kind of, you know, continue to try to pry open new new parts of my mind and think about things in new ways. But, you know, ultimately, I graduated in 2008, which probably like right now was a really bad time to come out of school, the job market completely crashed and all All my friends had to move back home. But I did take, I was lucky, I had a job offer lined up to some friends of mine who own their own company. I went to work for them. And you know, I was working basically eight to five, at a desk, for the most part in the field work was septic inspection. So that wasn't like something that I had been dreaming about doing my whole life or anything like that. Yeah, I mean, look, I was very thankful to have a job and be paying the bill. Don't get me wrong about that. And I love the people that I worked with. But I was also still in this kind of young age where I felt I felt right on the precipice of like, I'm at a point in life now where I feel like I could branch out in a lot of directions and I have a lot of potential in different ways and, and probably in none of those ways Am I going to be able to actualize that potential. All through this work, you know, like it doesn't satisfy. I don't feel like I'm making the world a better place in any way. I don't feel like I'm advancing myself, you know, any of my, my mind my body. You know, I don't feel I feel kind of stagnant there. I'm happy I'm paying the bills, but that's about the best I can say for it. And so it was in that context that you know, back to your original question there. And that's where I kind of made some hard decisions. I had security where I was, and it was a tough time to have a job and I had one. Yeah. But I had this crazy, crazy fantasy in the back of my mind that I maybe had the potential to be a professional water skier. If I really just threw everything I had at it. And I was bouncing around in my mind probably for the whole time I was at this job. Did it for about six months and ultimately realized summer was around the corner. And if I was working in this office, I was not going to be skiing. Well, a lot of other people were. And I had been doing a bit of coaching by that point and making a little bit of money fairly comparable to the money, I was making a job and I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I'm going to be chained to this desk. Why? And I could be making about the same money by being in the boat. What I'm going to lose my mind, I'm literally going to be so upset that I'm going to be hard to be around. So that that kind of made the final straw and I I just decided my granddad actually was very influential to me on this decision. He was in a new stage of life sort of my grandma. I don't you know, she had Alzheimer's and was pretty advanced into it. And he was just realizing that life happens really fast. And the next thing you know If you don't take some moon shots, when you have the chance, then you know you, you can find yourself regretting it. I mean, he was fortunate that he felt like he and my grandma really lived the life they wanted to. But it really put it into context for him that had they not make the decisions that they did. How do you not retired when he did? They're not done some traveling when they did. You know, he would, he would, you know, be bitter and resentful about that. Right two times for the rest of his days. And so, you know, he said, Hey, you know, if you think that this is what you want to do, you've got to try now if you if you do fail, you're young, you can start over, you don't have any, you know, children or you know, any anything other than yourself to be responsible to and it sounds like you need to make this move. So that was really the only endorsement that I needed. were basically somebody else to kind of put a life jacket on my myself doubt and raise it up to the point You know, just get my head above water and say, Hey, you know, if you think we'll drag out and dry off and help you get back on your feet and shoot since then it's it's just been the ride of a lifetime I don't even know. I would never have imagined that it came together the way that I just I feel super, super lucky.
Lynn:That's, that's stunning. I love that language life jacket on myself doubt. And the fact that you chose not to live a life of resentment and regret but of chasing your dreams.
Corey:I mean, in hindsight now, it seems like it could have only gone one way because like my whole life for the last 10 years has been, you know, 110% in this one vein, well, I shouldn't say that. I have a lot of other interests but I've been pouring myself pretty fully into my coaching and into my skiing and trying to do both at the highest level that I can By the time you know, there was a good month or two of deliberation there, where it certainly felt in the moment like I didn't know which direction I was going and the fear of failure of just kind of stepping off the taking the leap and saying, I'm going to be a pro water skier, which I was not that close to being by, by the standards of what it takes to really succeed. And to try to make money as a coach like, those were big question marks are big unknowns about how any of that could possibly work. And so yeah, my self doubt was definitely eating a pretty good hole in my stomach. I did not want to. I didn't want to fail. I was pretty, pretty darn afraid of it. And and I needed that trusted person. I'd like to that one. I'm not saying that there wasn't other people that weren't supportive, but he was very validating. That was very valid. To hear from him kind of my, my father figure, my greatest male role model to say, yeah, you know, this is the time you should do it.
Lynn:You know, it's it strikes me that thing about fear of failure. I faced this with myself, I face it, I work with my clients with it. Fear of failure is like somebody to walk you across that fear or, you know, as you said, put a life jacket on self doubt. It's like, how have you? And I know, I well with your grandma or granddad, or to get over it or whatever. What is your language for dealing with fear of failure?
Corey:Well, I would say as a life practice, I would say probably my waterskiing is about the best training as far as taking away and into whatever I do off the water because I'd say the one place where I still have the greatest fear of failure, at least that's the one that I'm conscious of is, you know, leaving the starting dock at, like, pro tour stops in high stakes events, those are the times. I mean, you know, our sport, it's very cutthroat very do or die. It's so easy to make a mistake. And it's so hard to put your best performance together in one shot. And that's basically what you're trying to do in those higher stakes events. And so, you know, and I know, you know, Amelia is pulling for me and my mom and my and other people, friends, you know, they'd like to see me do well. And I would like to do well for myself. And I would say that, you know, that's where I feel the cortisol rush through my system the most and I go, oh my gosh, like I really want to do well today. In other parts of my life now. I experienced that much less than I would say I used to. I used to be quite shy and so talking with new people or public speaking or those types of things would create that Same sort of like anxiety and my palms would get sweaty, and I would want to clam up, where now? I mean, I think that there's more to it than just skiing. I can't say it's all that I've tried to try to work on those things just in and of themselves, but nothing seems to rattle my cage, like leaving that dock. And it's so silly because at the end of the day, other parts of life are far more important. I mean, that's, it's a game, you know, and waterskiing as a sport. You know, most of the time, the prize money that we're vying for is not that consequential. Most of the time I would make more money if I just stayed home and not put myself in this stressful situation, but a part of me like I love the competition as well, like now this year that it seems like a lot of the competition is off the table. Yeah, remove that stress of like, I've got to be ready to perform at my best by this date. And I find myself really disappointed about that. You know, Finally, oh man, I, I feel like I'm, you know, still improving and I want to have those opportunities to test myself. So, you know, it's one of those weird parts of life where on the on the one hand, we, we don't like it, we don't like the uncomfortable feelings that are created sometimes but also we're attracted to it because you can't improve yourself you can't, you know, it's a challenge you can't get better without putting those higher hurdles out in front of you to try and clear and there's no doubt you're going to trip over them. At least I feel like in my case more often than not, but they've gotten higher, you know, like, I got to look at that over the last 10 years. What used to trip me up regularly in skiing or whatever like that one I clear easily now, or even five years ago, things that you know, would get my my head shirt tied into a knot. I feel like I can kind of gracefully like leap over that now. There's Do some things where I would like to I need to get better and that exact realm of fear of failure and self doubt. And, and clear some higher hurdles. That's definitely a an aspiration of mine.
Lynn:Yeah, it's interesting because as I think about my own experiences on the starting dock, and in dealing with pressure, whether it's the pressure of being on the starting dock or making a big, you know, having a big important board meeting, or whatever it is, in my world, like when I did my TED Talk, that was a big moment of pressure, kind of a one and done, like skiing is like, this is your moment. This is the audience The microphone is on. Whatever you do is what we're recording and putting out there on the internet. Yeah, unlike skiing, where in skiing, you can have you can get the hook in the first three, three seconds in the TED Talk. They're gonna let you finish and go ahead and make a mess of it if you want to. But what I, what I think about in those moments is there's there's a, it's to me from a feeling and maybe a hormonal state or whatever. There's like a two part. There's the adrenaline, which is what gets your body amped up. And sometimes, mine for sure, really gets over amped. And then there's the endorphin kick when you succeed, like wait, because the adrenaline almost like I'm gonna die. And then the endorphin kick, didn't die. And, and so I'm curious as you move through, and I think that's one of the reasons we keep going back, by the way, because when we get through that, and we reach that point, it's like, okay, I succeeded in that one. What's the next level? I mean, maybe in waterskiing, that's why we keep shortening the rope because it's like, okay, the same endorphin kick I got at, you know, for me, it's not 22 off. But that endorphin kick I get at 22 off is gonna eventually go away and I'll be going to 28 off and then you know, and so forth, and course you've been up the rope all the way. But my question is
Corey:all the way there's no beat in the game?
Lynn:Well, there is no one, right? I say all the way. I mean, let's let it's funny cuz let's acknowledge that you're one of the very handful of people that's ever run the 41 off pass in waterskiing. And I want to hear about that here in a second as it relates to these things and, you know, endorphin kicks and fear of failure. But what do you think happens? And how do you produce it more so that you can handle more and more pressure? Like, do you have you? Have you found a process to that because it's a quest I've kind of been on is helping people get over the fear of failure, helping them handle ever more pressure and just for the sake of having a more satisfying life? What What have you found works?
Corey:Well, in the in the water ski pursuit, I think a big part of it has been just continuing to show up, you know, like, take a lickin and get Back up, get on your feet again. And even if you feel like you're walking into that, again, you're not going to get better at it without some practice, I continue to put yourself in that difficult circumstance, even with the awareness that you're likely to walk away from it disappointed and a little heartbroken or whatever that just doing have been willing to take it on the chin and and try again, has, I guess that's kind of been my de facto strategy and, you know, slowly over time, you know, I'd say I've seen improvement and the end not only improvement in the results in the outcomes, but also in the feeling of not being as anxious and not being you know, as totally stressed out. And then I would say, you know this for all parts of life you know, finding something in your routine that is is, you know, personal and makes you feel good on a daily basis and it can be a number of things. You know, I try to keep a good yoga practice. And it could be meditation, I kind of fall in and out of that went a little bit more I certainly when I'm in a really good habit of showing up and sitting, and I find myself throughout the day being a lot more focused and much more aware when I'm drifted off somewhere in my head and I'm no longer actually where I am. But it could be could be cooking for some people like I know for my wife, Amelia, she's an amazing cook. And it's a meditative act for her like she really gets into the food and the flavors and the combinations and like she's very engaged in that and then there's an amazing outcome which is enjoyable and you know, nutritious I'd say trying to have that, that healthy eating and The important part of, you know, balancing life, you know, exercise and same thing you get those endorphins, you know, just from now it's hard to to make yourself show up and do it and say maybe same thing as sitting still I have a, you know, you have some resistance to either one, like hard time really sitting still, and hard time trying to go all out and push yourself to the max. But at the end, you know, you're always glad that you did it and you always feel better. And if you can create that into a habit, you know, I think that pushes you away from self doubt because it It shows that you you prove to yourself that you have the capacity to put yourself into an uncomfortable position and persevere. Well, here's a good one. I know you practice or have always sometimes practice like the Wim Hof Method with the breathing.
Lynn:Yeah, I love the wim hof method.
Corey:Yeah, I don't know if you've done like the cold as much. I definitely am better at the breathing than the cold.
Lynn:Yeah, I do a cold shower every single morning for the last three years.
Corey:Wow, good for you. I go in and out of that one because sometimes, you know, sometimes I really feel it and and it I get that whole sensation that I'm putting myself into this, this state of discomfort, but I know that I can I know that it's okay. And after I've done it man you feel great because you feel so alive. Like just all parts of your body are feeling fresh and rejuvenated and it's such a powerful experience like it brings you into the moment like you know, you're lying because you know you're cold. And, but there's a mind over matter there. Same thing with holding your breath when you're a little bit starved for air. You know, your little internal self is saying, take a breath, you dummy, what are you doing? But then another part, another part of you in there that may be a little bit deeper can say yes, I know I'm going to have to breathe but right now for This particular moment, I'm fine. And having those little alarm bells go off, you know, like, hey, realize that we're not conscious of those, we don't make those things happen. That's our body sending us a signal. But then to be aware of those signals and interpret them and say, Yes, I'm aware of you signal I'm also aware that I'm in control of this situation and this is not life or death right now, all of a sudden, you kind of get your hand on the volume knob of, of the cortisol or the stress and instead of letting those alarm bells continue to get louder, you kind of turn him down into this comfort. But, but you know, it's okay until until it really is time to take a breath or until it really is time to get out of the cold water. And then you have the takeaway fact that hey, okay, I did that. I know I can put myself into a challenging circumstance and stay in control.
Lynn:That is what I feel like has been the most powerful lesson for me, I love that language, you put your hand on the volume knob, because that's the difference between that sensation running US and US being aware of the sensation. But staying on top of it in a way I think of it with fear, as is the fear in front of me or behind me. And when it's in front of me, it's running me, but if I can put it behind me, I know it's there. But it doesn't mean it's in control.
Corey:Right. I like that. Yeah. And I think you know, that, that practice, shoot, there's so many things in our, especially our modern world where, you know, it's so easy to seek comfort, it's so easy to seek distraction. It's so easy not to take a challenge, you know, moment to moment, minute by minute, and I'm very guilty of this like it's much easier to you know without the phone and start scrolling through Instagram then to move on to the next thing that I need to do like a little stall tactic or something. I think there's nothing wrong with some social media like done mindfully like, Hey, you know, I want to see what my friends are up to. I'm going to give a good 15 minutes here and then and then transition but it's so reflective now that's like, it's like a tick. That's a different alarm bell it's not an alarm. It's just become a little tick to pull the phone out of the pocket present a face and and start swiping. And, man, I really get bummed out when I catch myself doing that.
Lynn:I do it i would say i can get I get myself bummed out every day because it is and I know where I've really caught it. I've been for the last year I've been writing a book it's turned into two. And in the mornings I get up and my my I meditate I do my Wim Hof breathing and as a part of that meditation and then I write and my basic idea is I write until 7am. And then I go, you know, back in to the rest of my morning routine as well. But that when I get stuck writing, I can't tell you how many times I've caught myself going over to Facebook. And because it's such a, like, this is my sacred writing time. I catch myself and if I find myself in Facebook, or sometimes email, but I'm like, you just don't want to face the blank page at the moment. You just want to, like, get away from a hard concept you're having to write through or you don't know what to say. And this is your way of dealing with your frustration. So get back over and stare at the blank page if you have to, and just start typing words. And most of it Yeah, when I start doing that, but at least
Corey:Yeah, when they've made it so difficult, you know, they've they're so good at creating an interface where we get these little dopamine hits. is made to be so addictive designed to Be to grab our attention all the time and it's really hard to steer away from I do the same thing I try to you know, get on the computer get into my emails and next thing I'm offering this Bermuda triangle of email to Facebook and then a pull up Instagram and then oh, and now some emails have come back in so triangulate back to the beginning. Oh my goodness, you know yeah. I really dislike when I found myself I look at my watch and and, you know, more time has gone by and when it should and I wish I was on to the next thing and then I feel stressed out that the day is getting by me. And I don't I don't like those feelings at all. But they happen far too often.
Lynn:Yeah, it's a hell of a cycle we get into, but I think it's, I think they understand. I think that the people who design those like you said it's designed to be addictive. It's designed to give us those little dopamine and it's very similar to the indoctrination I think we got as as children and breakaway in societywhich is if If we're not aware of the ways that the human nature works and those buttons that we have that other people can use to control us, then we're kind of at, we're kind of subject to the world as opposed to the, you know, letting the world exist and us working in harmony with it. In other words, it's another way of being out of harmony, because somebody else is running us.
Corey:Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah, it's getting trickier and trickier because it's more and more subtle. And it seems it seems really like nothing to you know, pull out our handy dandy device and have a few moments of entertainment. But I think that when you start peeling back the layers of the onion like you're talking about, yeah, I think you're you're right to the point and it's, it feeds into this increase in instant gratification, which has probably been ongoing for a couple of generations, things just happen faster, we expect rewards more quickly. And we're less willing to, you know, commit, like writing a book is a lengthy project. And it's going to have a pretty long beginning, middle and end stage to get that whole project complete. There's not a whole lot of instant gratification. I think there's a lot of gratification pay off at the very end, you know, if you have a product that you're happy with, after all of the effort, but, you know, yeah, it's way more tempting to sneak off, you know, let your mind wander every half hour over to something else that provides the gratification like right now. And it's, I think it's, I'm really glad that I grew up when I did, and that I feel like right now half of my life has been spent by kind of pre internet and every home and pre cell phone and every pocket and half has been with that whereas kids growing up now oh man like, you know, it's, it's with you all the time. I mean, we're pretty much cyborgs, we just have to use our thumbs to get our brain link to our little, you know, a little rectangle that's in our pocket.
Lynn:Gosh, that's a sad thought. But it's, it's getting to be more and more accurate and there's people trying to get it, you know, interface, like physically with us even more.
Corey:Oh, I was just listening to Elon Musk was on the Joe Rogan podcast at the end of last week. And he is developing an implantable brain device about, you know, one by one inch the size of like a an Apple Watch. And you actually literally take off a piece of skull and put this in and he says, Look, what, what's the point of making it so clunky that we have to go from brain to thumb to screen, you know, to transmit that information? That's the real slow lag time if we could just go straight from brain to computing Then, you know, we save all that time and his his broader point, which is a real interesting topic is that if we don't, if we humans that we are now, don't merge with artificial intelligence, we're just going to be left behind. And we're no longer going to be the main narrative of what's happening on planet Earth. We're just, we're going to be to AI as slow and docile and useless, not useless. But as as seemingly, we'll say, quote, stupid as a tree or a bush is to us like we can't talk to a tree. It doesn't. I mean, some people can, but most people can't talk to trees. Because they don't have they don't slow down enough, you know, to really spend enough time to hear what the tree might have to say. And that's going to be the same situation with us and AI. And back to us thinking that we are really the big big thing on the block here on the Planet. His point is, that's fast getting ready to change in shorter time, then we like to recognize as machine learning increases and artificial intelligence advances. It's either we're not going to beat them so either join them or or kind of be be left behind by the intelligence, you know, because that's an Intel it'll be an intelligent life form but intelligence form now being I don't know if that's really the right way to say either, but, but I have a hard time picturing what that landscape looks like in the world. But we're on the verge of kind of letting something out of the genie out of the bottle here that there's no way to put back in and you know, I'm, I'm not I'm certainly not an expert. I've read a little bit but it's, it's we're going to be in for more interesting times. Maybe more proof that we aren't in control of everything.
Lynn:Well, it is more proof of that and It's taking me into all the science fiction movies about the robots versus the people and the cyborgs and Star Trek and all of that kind of thing. And, you know, and is that is that where it goes? Or does the somehow you know, this because that's artificial intelligence is a man made creation where we're trying to control. Is there a way that and this is getting really deep and philosophical, but is there a way nature reaches out and slaps all of it down?
Corey:Well, I mean, I guess the way that that could happen is that you know, these machines are going to need power, they're going to need energy electricity, in order to run and we're already facing a pretty big we're going to be facing anyway in the coming generations a pretty big energy crisis. Now, some some scientists in this field are kind of saying that really artificial intelligence is could be what saves us because as the machines become sentient and and learn and are able To build themselves and to build their own systems, they're going to have much better ways of harnessing energy than we are and figure out, you know, a lot smarter, whatever type of solar or every other type of resource, and we're going to be the beneficiaries because they're actually going to be able to harness this energy that we haven't figured out how to do it. but at the same time, your question about like, what, what will our relationship be like? I don't know that there's a reason to think that it'll be hostile I think that there is more likely the fact that they won't really even care too much about us. And I think the problem with that is that that level of apathy can start to look like cruelty. Like I would say, if you ask the average person, do you like trees? They'll say, Yeah, I like trees, you can get some shade. You can put a swing in them, you can climb them, you can make a tree house, as they make, you know, houses and that's where all of a sudden Trees are also a resource to us. And we are also wiping them out all the time to make paper and to make houses and to make wood pellets to solve our energy crisis. And so as much as we think that we like trees, they're kind of disposable to us at the same time, and we don't we don't love them in the way that we love our, our dog or that we love our best friend. And so, if that's the case with AR they may, they may not just, you know, ai may not have a strong persuasion about liking or disliking or loving humans or not, they may even have find us a net positive but if we're really in the way, then you know, maybe they'll just be such a different level. They just won't care. They won't acknowledge this is very important, potentially, again, I'm no expert, but this seems like where we could be heading.
Lynn:That's it's interesting because I that what what that brought up for me was back to our relationship with nature. And I I actually wrote a little article about this little interaction but I watched Laird Hamilton and and I won't be able to remember his name but another guy from Hawaii talk about surfing. You know, Laird Hamilton is a great, one of the greater You know, he is. And he was talking about our relationship with nature and waves. And he said, the thing about nature is it doesn't care whether you know how to surf or not. If you get out there on the ocean, and you're trying to tackle something that's more than you can tackle, the waves don't slow down and go, Oh, wow, that's Lynn, you know, we don't want to be her into the coral or into the ground or whatever, because she's new at this. It's like up to me to build myself, confidence, my abilities and so forth, to handle the waves that I can handle and know that nature doesn't care.
Corey:That's why I think that that analogy of surfing because I'm a very bad surfer. I really like it. It's a super cool sport And it's a big challenge because I'm very novice. But that is always one of the analogies that comes to my mind when when thinking about how we're not in control. If you ever go out and learn to surf, you find out really quickly that, that Mother Nature is a lot more powerful than you are. Those waves can be relentless. I mean, they, they will toss you around, hold you down. You and your board really are not very big. I mean, same things true if you're, that you're sailing a boat and you get caught out in a lightning storm, you realize that all of a sudden, you know, you're you're terrified because you're just not the most powerful force in the area. And that's always I think that's always always the case. It's just we fail to realize it because we put ourselves in climate controlled houses and, and we do we have developed a lot of technology and machines to regulate our environment inside and outside. and regulate ourselves within that environment that that makes us gives us the illusion of control gives us the illusion of security. But I think that right now, a lot of those veils are being peeled back. And we're seeing that we weren't in that as much control as we thought we were.
Lynn:So I mean, and this is this is truly like the place where when I when I first met you, and we've had many of these kind of deep conversations, but it's like, I've always felt like you were a bit of a philosopher. And so I'm wondering, is there a particular philosophy that you follow? Like, for example, some of what we're talking about, to me strikes me as the stoic philosophy, but what is your take on philosophy? And if you have one, what's your philosophy of life?
Corey:Oh, I mean, I, I'd say I've tried to piecemeal borrow from a bunch of different ones. I think there's a lot to be found in stoicism andI would Say even if you follow stoicism on a different vein you could you could make some parallels with with Taoism Taoism and and that's much more in line with kind of some of the things that you said in terms of going going along with nature working in conjunction with the way that things are rather than trying to control everything like trying to grip a slippery bars of soap. And so I realized that I feel like as far as the practical school of thought, I find a lot through Taoism and I think it even carries into to our waterskiing a lot. We might, we might save that for a time on the dock or in the boat because it might bore some of your listeners but anyway. Well, okay, let's see where we go. So I mean, I draw a lot from from those schools. I would say that I will was very enamored with, with existential ism when I was in college and I think that, that those ideas about living an authentic life and being you know a true individual and and not living in bad faith are kind of, you know holding these contrary ideas with, with how you live and how you think basically kind of showing up and being a genuine, true person. I really also admire nature in college and still do both exercises man, me too, just, again, kind of that that courage that you can find within to empower yourself. That doesn't mean at the expense of others and I think in fact interpreted Well, it means that the more you can take on within yourself, the more you can offer to your other people. And, and to be and to stand out from the crowd. That's a big theme in nature is A lot of people are like sheep and that only few will kind of wake up and say, Hey, I don't want to just, you know, follow the herd out here in the grass man like, I got a short time now I'm going to be alive I want to I want to live it all. And so I'm, I say I still am one that's very much interested in taking on as many different life experiences I can because I, I know my time here is short and when it's up, it's up and I'm probably gonna die with a lot of things on my bucket list and, and that's okay, I got I always want to be looking forward to those things. And, boy, so to keep going like I, I'm an aspiring Buddhist. I'm not disciplined enough to really be a Buddhist, but I think there's a lot there. You know, I think that kind of in keeping with some of the going with it mentality, just learning that our attachments and our desires are really the cause of a lot of our suffering and a lot of our anxiety and I think that what we just talked about, like with social media and Facebook, like, we're addicted to these dopamine hits, and we're addicted to Amazon Prime and things being able to show up on our doorstep in two days, and we kind of, we form all of these expectations that I should have, I need I want and, and that we're able to run that at so many RPMs that no matter how fast we go, no matter how high we rev the engine of what we think we need, we're only going to be we feel like we're only gonna be satisfied. We just get a little bit more, you know, just I'm, you know, like I'm doing pretty good but off I just had a little bit more you know that from from people with skiing like, oh, I'll just be happy if I could ever run 28 off like that's it if I can just run 22 I'd be happy for the rest of my life. And then, of course, the first time that you run 28 off immediately think, Oh, I could do that again. I should. I wonder what 3012 is like, I should start being able to chip into that. But I would say, you know, for people who think that I've had my attention the most, in recent times have been I don't know if you're familiar with Alan Watts at all he that. I think that you would enjoy our law. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he has been my main fascination, I'd say for about the last year. He's written 25 books I've read five so far. But he also has a really large treasure trove of his lectures that are now available on YouTube for free. And there's Alan Watts podcasts and stuff but once again, He died in the 1970s, early 70s. He was probably at his height of prominence in the 50s and 60s. He's British born, became deeply curious. He was raised Christian Protestant. He became deeply curious about Eastern thought and spent a lot of time in Asia and India and really tried to learn from some of the really big learn from many of the great teachers in those places. Came back God is education actually got a doctorate in theology, and b are not yet in. I might, I might have that a little bit wrong, related to theology. Anyway, he became a minister in the Presbyterian Church for a short time, but he was maybe a little too constrained there. So he ended up becoming a he called himself a philosophical entertainer. And he he delivered talks That really tried to weave together. I mean, really every subject under the sun and to me has done the best job of anyone I've found, but really weave together Eastern and Western thought both cultural and religious. So he's pretty well versed in Hinduism and Buddhism, then Taoism, very deeply versed in Christianity. And pretty and, and, and also Judaism, you know, kind of all the main books. He doesn't spend a lot of time in Islam, but seems to know his way around a bit. But also, he seemed to always be pretty cutting edge with linguistics. You know, he knew a lot of he uses a lot of the Latin and Greek origins and Sanskrit origins of words to illustrate his points. He, you know, when you hear his talks, you kind of realize how far ahead of his time he was because he was starting to integrate rate, the more quantum view that's physics was coming out with in the 1950s and 60s out of Einstein's relativity and so forth into a very Newtonian world. So and what I like about him in particular is he is not asking you to believe what he believes he's not he doesn't have a bag of goods to sell you in terms of an ideology he he's really trying to take some of the biggest questions that we all have and and just shine shine a lantern light on them and a spotlight on it from different angles. So that we see something that maybe we hadn't seen before. And his his speeches are just his voice is very satisfying to listen to that little bit of British accent. And, and just a very good speaking voice. And, and I think he really does a great job weaving so many big picture ideas together and From a you know, very interesting perspective so I've spent a lot of time with him lately and that's kind of been my, my bedrock that I'll go back to when I'm, you know, trying to assimilate some some new ideas now I got, you know, YouTube's such a big resource now like I like to listen to Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein and Sam Harris and a lot of these other you've on you've all know Harare, like the road Sapiens and homo Deus like currents. You've all you've all know Harare. Have you read Sapiens?
Lynn:I have you heard of the book? And he's probably Joe Rogan, right?
Corey:He has. He was actually very recently last week. He was on Sam Harris's podcast and I thought it did a really nice job. They were mainly talking about the Coronavirus and, but he's a he's a historian at the University of Jerusalem and Yeah, I think I would highly recommend that you read Sapiens or anyone read sapiens, it's one of the best five books I've ever read without a question
Lynn:about it, he's,
Corey:he's just able to take, you know, such a deep historical look, you know, like trying to bring into the envelope, not the last, you know, 400 years of American history or even 10, only 10,000 years of, you know, since the agricultural revolution, but even kind of back to man leading up to that stage. And when you're, when you take a 50,000 year look at humanity, it does have a way of putting our current problems and issues, you know, into a different line and they don't seem as alarming because you can put them in the context of, well, how would we have handled this covert epidemic in the Middle Ages when they had when they had the bionic plague. They had no idea where it came from, and no idea what to do. about it. So, there actually is some reason for optimism that we understand viruses not perfectly. But generally, you know, even even the pope tells is telling the faithful to not go to church, because it's not advisable, like, you know, scientifically medically, you, you probably will get sick and some people will die. And what's better to do is, you know, try to stay home and write it out when the plague it was this is probably a curse from our Creator for all of our misdeeds. And you know that that was one of the best explanations that society had to offer. Now, maybe there's a little irony that the way that we opened our conversation, we're talking about our our thought that we have control and this being a lesson from wherever you want to say nature, yeah, that we don't, you know, I think a lot of the religious language is always figurative and and metaphor Oracle. But I think we do know now medically scientifically, you want to stay healthy. You got to stay away from people right now.
Lynn:Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, that's, you know, when we were talking about fear of failure and fear in general, one of the things that I really try to focus on is when I'm in fear, what is the danger and versus what is my reaction to the danger? And how do I calibrate my reaction According to the danger that there is so, you know, when I wasn't long ago, I saw a little quiz before the virus and it said something like what has killed what animal kills more people than anything?
Corey:hippopotamus,
Lynn:I'm sorry, Hippo, Hippo potamus. We think it's the hippopotamus or sharks, right? Or crocodiles. It's the mosquito.
Corey:Oh, yeah.
Lynn:Get this A million people a year die from some mosquito borne illness. Now, that danger that we live with. And so it's in a way, it's sort of an unseen danger. I mean, most the time we do see the mosquito biting us, but sometimes we don't. We're fortunate in the United States that we don't have malaria. But if you go to certain countries, you better damn well get your malaria shot, or you're, you're risking death. And we know that. And, you know, back to the idea of hundreds of years of the plague that they had when they didn't know what it was. And probably, there's still a lot that we don't know, but we think we do. Oh, yeah. You just can't know. You know, but I think about this whole circumstance of the virus as it relates to what is his true danger and like you said, we have to keep people out of churches because it's not just The churches, the gatherings, it's, it's clear that the outbreaks tend to happen from indoor clusters of people, at least at the moment that's starting to show maybe a trend. So be aware of where you put yourself in danger.
Corey:I think it's really interesting what you said there about, you know, when you're feeling fear, you're kind of asking yourself those questions, what is the danger? And what is my response that just shows so much consciousness of the fear? I mean, that's kind of what we were saying about that Wim Hof training. It's, it's noticing that you're in a state of fear, and then being aware of that, to make, you know, to take action, whereas I feel like what we tend to do all of us is we feel afraid. And whatever the alarm bell signals us to do in that moment, we we do I mean, we're never making our best decisions from a place of fear. However, fear does seem to be a big driver. have knee jerk decision making because at one point in time if you know or even nowadays, if you're in imminent danger, you have to react. But there are so many things in today's world that can make us fear feel, feel fearful, that aren't imminent danger, yet we take a knee jerk type of approach. And so, to your point about awareness, that I think that there's a level of practice that you have to do, to come into an awareness when you're feeling a strong feeling of fear like that, or of stress, or of anything, you know, I think even you can even end up feeling a little bit unhappy, if you're feeling happy and you try to cling for it, cling to it for too long. Like, you end up feeling dissatisfied because you wanted to keep staying happy. And it just the feeling going last as long as they do. Particularly,
Lynn:Yeah, go ahead.
Corey:I'm just gonna say particular With with fear and stress when we're unlikely to make our best decisions and are an informed, rational decision, it's great to be able to come into that awareness. And that's something I'd like to get better with. And that's probably something that on the whole, you know, we can all get better with. And also it probably goes into what you're saying about what we know and what we don't know. I think that as individuals, we collectively, we individually think we know a lot more than we do. I think you if you've been on Facebook, you've probably seen that there are millions of Coronavirus, experts with no qualification that are telling everybody what we should and shouldn't do. And even the ones who who are epidemiologists and viral specialists, they're making their best assessment. I think they're actually have more humility to say that there are limits to what they know and can predict and they want to err on the side of caution but then As a collective, I feel like we've, we think we know a lot more than we know. And we've kind of been living as if we beat the game already. And and here we are back again saying, well, we, we really haven't there's there are plenty of things that that are left to learn and that we don't have control over.
Lynn:You know, it's funny, I used to do an exercise. When I was not used to I guess I still would do it if I had occasion but I remember one particular instance in front of about 100 or 150. leaders, we were doing a session and it was on decision making it was on how to make good decisions. And I started it with a quiz that is asked different questions like How long is a 747? And at what age did Martin Luther King die and things like that? Thanks. We think that just you feel like you should know. There were 10 questions. And I said You do not have to know the precise answer. What you need to do is answer within a range, and you get a good grade, quote unquote, if you're within that range. Now, what's interesting is, you could just say, Okay, well, so the length of the 747, I'll say it's between, you know, I know it's at least 30 feet long, I'll say between 30 and 1000 feet long. I when, right? Age of Martin Luther King's death, I can I can say, I'm pretty sure it was north of 25. And I think it was before he was 60. Right, I could give a big range. I when most everybody actually did a narrow range thinking that they knew. And as a result, result results towards, you know, failing grade on the 10 questions. And people were interesting. It was very interesting to see how people thought they knew. And at the conclusion of that particular exercise, they, you know, around making decisions, they were all kind of like, well, what's the point because a lot of them said, well, it's just that we didn't use our Google or maybe we have bad memory. There. Are you know, they had all these different reasons for why they didn't do well. And I said, the only thing you need to remember is you don't know as much as you think you do.
Corey:Yeah. And I felt like an exercise in humility.
Lynn:It was, well, it was certainly for me the first time I went through the exercise, but the the point, you know, that I feel like we all need to remember is that sense, as you described it earlier, have sense of curiosity, the sense of discovery, the sense of Hmm, what else is there? What am I missing? As opposed to I think I know and I feel like reconnecting that to that conversation, or that word you used about that feeling that we're trying to get is uncertainty has a physical sensation to it. And, oh, yeah, and it's an uncomfortable physical sensation. And I think our brains force us to go into resolution as soon as possible, kind of like when we're listening to jazz and they have the dis harmonics. You're waiting for that note that just makes everything kind of come together. And so, and this is actually something I've been really struggling to write about, but I feel like it's been very profound for me is beginning to understand how to interpret this the physical sensations of uncertainty of not knowing of fear of, you know, whatever, you know, broad discomfort it is, and then how do I bring it into my awareness and then how to rather than changing it or try to make it go away? How do I let it inform me? Man, huh, very hard to let that information in because it's kind of like having, you know, somebody making the stink eye at you or something. It's like, well, I just really don't want to let that in. Because it's, it's yucky. So go away.
Corey:So yeah, I mean, I think that goes back to you know, you can, you can train yourself to, to at least intellectual Know that you like putting yourself into uncomfortable scenarios. I think that, you know, once you discover that it takes some practice because at first glance, you know, or maybe say the first dozen times that you put yourself into an uncomfortable scenario and, and you feel like you just kind of get slapped on the hand from it. It's there's an incentive to stop doing that because it's uncomfortable. But I think there's, there's some sort of ceiling there which once you can break through, and you've tasted the reward from putting yourself into that scenario and knowing that you overcame a challenge, then it provides a lot of fuel if you want to show up and do that again, you know, in different areas of your life. You know, like that's kinda what I was talking about with waterskiing and practice and just like keep showing up. Eventually, it became better and I realized that You know, I wasn't as I wasn't feeling as bad as I had been prior, or that you are familiar with our very dear friend, Tyler Yeager, oh, yeah, he he has that in a different way. He You know, he shuns comfort in a lot of the traditional ways that people would think of comfort. Like he doesn't want to be coddled by, you know, a snuggly quilt and a $2,000 mattress that would make them uncomfortable. Whereas for most people, you say, Hey, I'll give you I'll give you for free, you know, a nice new car, it's got, you know, these nice leather seats with heat, and, you know, it's got airbags and all these wonderful bells and whistles features. That type of thing makes them uncomfortable because he's cultivated a feeling within himself that he is. He likes going through the world, and it's more prepared in everyday life to be the person that he wants to be anyway, by, by not allowing himself to succumb to necessity for those comforts or desire for those comforts. And by keeping them constantly at bay, that is where he is comfortable. He's really uncomfortable, like, you know, you know, the guy, put him in a suit, and bring him to a fancy cocktail party where there's, you know, three bottles of $200 champagne and there's caviar, and all of the greatest, most elaborate comforts that humankind has. He's going to be so uncomfortable, you know, not because he's not secure in himself. He's a very secure in himself person, because that's a scenario that just, there's nothing comfortable about that to him. So I think I think it's very relative. I think it's where we train ourselves. And I think through awareness if you kind of have a vision for where you want yourself to go. You can somewhat self direct, you know what sorts of comforts are worth wading into and which ones you know, some things are uncomfortable just for the sake of it, okay? Don't don't do those. There's no reason to torture yourself. If it's not going to present a challenge that moves you in the direction that you want to go, there's no value. Don't chase that rainbow to the end,
Lynn:right? No, and I think to some degree, we are chasing what we are chasing it once you've had it especially is that feeling of the reward? That feeling on the other side, like the time when I ran? The first time I ran a pass at 32 miles an hour in a tournament. I will never forget the feeling I had it was it was you know, for some people that you know, that's nothing for me. It had been a mountain as you know, you helped me climb it, a mountain I've been trying to climb and I will never forget the feeling. I had the fist pump. I know who was in the boat. I know who was Driving I know where I was on the like, when I screamed out, you know, something like I ran a son of a bitch finally. And so, you know, that particular feeling lasted really, I mean, I'm still obviously still chasing it, but it's with new things. So I would be completely remiss if I don't ask you to describe the feeling that you had. I if I'm not mistaken, it was we had done it was when you ran the 41 off pass. It was soon after we did the mystic water ski and skeet in 2015.
Corey:Yes, yes, it was about just over two months later, it was a they were pretty close in time. And I'm going to put a little I'm going to put a little twist on what you just said about you know, you achieving a big milestone and that feeling and what we're chasing. But certainly that time period in my life from from your Mystic Waters event on to running 41 there are a couple of pretty big milestones there. So it's fairly easy for me to remember I mean, obviously at at the mystic waters is where my grandfather passed away. Never forget Oh, yeah, so I certainly never forget that and those feelings much those ones are stronger and more vivid for sure than the my waterskiing you know, feelings of running 41 off. And in large part because of the community of people that was there that day helping to lift me up. It was it was a very surreal day, you know, not to linger on on that because that's more of a down note. But the upside of it is that we were on this crazy journey together, which in fact, I've written a book about I need to get my act together and get that out and like really put the final stamp on it but You know, we had been on this well lifelong journey. Like I said, I grew up in the household with him, my grandma and my mom. And then when he moved in with me for the last three years of his life, that was a separate, you know, journey. He had Parkinson's and so he needed a lot of assistance and, and help do some daily activities. But we were still traveling to pro tournaments together, just like we traveled to tournaments when I was a kid. And, you know, August 22, of 2015 there was a cash prize tournament there at mystic waters and I'll be darned if we were going to miss that just down the road. When we came down, we actually did that same summer had we had got a an RV to make it more possible to do these little trips. And anyway, yeah, I woke up in the morning and and on him, you know, gone and and You know, for me, it was like time was supposed to stop in that moment. You know, like the fact the rest of the world continued to function was the part that made it very surreal. I was just like, everything that I've been doing 24 hours a day for three years, just kind of, you know, came to a sudden stop, and I was trying to get my head around the whole thing and a whole lifetime of one of my most dearly beloved family members. So that was a very my, the point of that is to say that that was a very monumental day and I will certainly never aside from the flood of complex feelings that come with losing somebody that you're in a caretaker role for. Also, never forget the this the strength of the community there that day. And you know, for many years by then I kind of had considered the water ski community. Like a family I got in we use that word to talk about it I'd say a lot like my greater waterskiing family but to, to have you and a lot of the people around that that were there, Tyler who we just mentioned, so lucky that my mom and stepdad happened to come to that event to and have family family. But, you know, we don't need to go into names but really everyone that was there you know, kind of put put their arms around me and kind of held held me together. And so from that day forward,
Lynn:Can I interrupt real quick because I have to tell I just had a flash of a story from that event that I have to share. You might have heard this before. But you remember, John, you know you you were there competing with john travers, who you know had one masters, Joel Halle Won worlds last year. And I'm standing next to john, when you were coming back in we were doing a head to head final. JOHN, I think it posted like a 4 at 41 or something like that it was a good scores. He got around two ball. I think he got to, three, maybe four. he crawls out of the water and he's waiting to see what you're going to post because if he, if you don't score ski as well as he does, then he he's higher on the podium than you. And I'm standing next to him. He's your competitor. This is a cash prize tournament. And we're watching you ski. He's dripping wet, waiting to see if he has to get back in the water if you all happen to tie for a runoff. And as you come around one ball, he says, Come on, Corey, come on Corey, and he was totally rooting for you. And I'm going to get teary thinking about it. Because it was it was it was both that part of the community and it was part of the acknowledgement of the day that you came back after that event was your granddad and you skied. And you didn't just ski. But you showed up. And there was just something not only surreal about that, but elevating about that.
Corey:Yeah, I mean that that kind of speaks to the strength of the community right there. And just the ability to, you know, to realize sometimes that it's, the skiing part is a game and there are bigger things and you can love the people in your community more than you love your performance. And I think we should also give john a shout out. I'm pretty sure he and his wife Natalia just had a baby.
Lynn:Yeah. They did I'm still trying to figure out
Corey:yesterday or the day before.
Lynn:I want to say Saturday. Yeah, it was just a few days ago, the day before Mother's Day. I think we all discovered they were having a baby when they announced they had a baby. And I interviewed her for this podcast, you know, she was on just a couple months ago, but I did the math and figure it out She was four months pregnant when we did that interview and I obviously didn't know it. I knew there was something keeping her off the water she alluded to, but I didn't know what. And big shout out to them for their new William Alexander. Yes.
Corey:Yeah, no, that's that's awesome. Yeah. Big Congrats, guys. I hope to follow in your footsteps sometime soon.
Lynn:We'll have to let us know. The baby, please.
Corey:Yeah, I think we've probably well nothing to announce at this point for sure. I'm about
Lynn:to ask. All right.
Corey:So, but anyway, yeah, I was after that after that day that we just described the kind of a center of gravity that my whole life had been orbiting around all of a sudden poof you know, at least physically, wasn't there materially wasn't there. And so in one way I felt really untethered. Because all of my routines just didn't mean anything and there was they've been, we're necessary anymore. And then, but on the other hand with that, I guess the more positive side of that is I felt very free. Like untethered is also free. You know, I didn't know what my anchor point was. But off I was floating around and just kind of like at your leg that day. I started skiing, actually, very well. I think it was one of the only experiences that you know, could kind of cross the divide that that made me feel normal. Like when I would ski I could just be you know, it was something I did. Hold me more into the present when I was skiing, I wasn't thinking about what am I going to do with my life now I wasn't thinking about I miss my granddad. I wasn't thinking about. Jeez, I wish that I had been a little more tender with him on a few occasions and things like that. was just scheme. And, and so I think therefore it was it was going really well i mean that probably there's always a bunch of variables but anyway kind of on this this footloose and free spree that I was and skiing Well, I started I was running 41 a lot more in practice then than usual. And so it had been a really long held like fully stated goal of mine to do it in a tournament. And so it seemed like a good opportunity. So I got back in the motorhome which was kind of a little, maybe a little bit like you getting back on the horse like that's where granddad passed away. It was kind of some, some difficult memories to overcome in there. And but I took it and went down to Florida for like three weekends in a row of record tournaments. I thought I'd try to to see if I could get get the job done. And actually, I also started writing at that time started writing this, this book that I've written. And so, you know, the first few tournaments went pretty well. I got like a 4 at 41, which is good. You know that I think that equaled My PB to that point. Yeah, it was it was I was pretty happy about it. And it came down to the very last tournament of the year at Lapointe ski Park. And it was a type of thing where I had a goal, but I was at the same time not pressuring myself, maybe because the rest of the situation was big enough that it made skiing, and then the little goals and skiing seemed kind of trivial, and not even worth spending too much mental energy on like, Oh, I really wanted to run 41 this year. Well, I just wasn't even thinking about it. Like if it was to happen, it was to happen if it wasn't. It was and there's no real pressure around it. But as it goes, it ended up, it ended up happening in the very last round of the last tournament of that whole year. I think it was November 4, and in it's just one of those, those moments that you can't No matter how much work you do, trying to practice presence and do things that may increase your, your ability to go into a flow state. That's one of those things that we can't really control either we may be able to move the needle and some margin, you know, maybe something certain things are going to make it 10% more likely to happen or 10% less. But, you know, when it happens, it happens and if it happened that day, which you know, seems so very poetic given within this crazy, new time of life, and then this had been such a long held ambition and So, I will definitely, you know, never forget the feeling of same thing that you said about past coming out the exit gates, you know, throwing a big fist in the air and I think just letting out a very full throated noise, you know, something has just just came out, you know, some some roaring and, and anyway, but to put a little twist on on what you said, I will always remember that feeling by kind of after clearing that hurdle. I think the more lasting feeling that has stayed with me is that, that validated in some ways, the whole journey, and connected me to all of the hardships along the way, all of this, the small victories and maybe some larger victories, but certainly all of them small and large failures and disappointments, that that ate up a lot of my, you know, mental space and caused me to feel more, you know, heaps himself out on top of self doubt and created some negative cycles. All of a sudden kind of hitting a new milestone like that there was the big, big rush in the moment, of course, but I'd say the more lasting and stronger feeling that I have about it now is that when it connects me back to that decision that I made when I was working in an office in 2009, and was super green and naive about what any future for me held, and I was kind of in this Limbo between which direction to take my life and, and the direction I chose wasn't necessarily the easy one, the secure one. It's been the one that I'm very thankful for the most. I mean, I wouldn't trade it for anything at all. But meeting with a big long term goal like that, and kind of having the reward of that moment, you know, allowed me to take a deep breath and, and put that whole process of, you know, of seven years of building towards that, you know, and kind of encapsulated that and now I get to, I get to have that and say like, oh, all of those, all those disappointing moments where I hung my head, and got angry with myself and beat myself up some more and then, you know, tried to pull it back together and, and stumbled again somewhere. Those were all critical building blocks. You know, I didn't recognize him at the time, but some of those were probably the taller building blocks and springboards that allowed me to keep leveraging, keep leveraging, keep leveraging, you know, and, and certainly that's no end claim. Like I still feel like I want to be very active. doing that for myself. Now I want to be building levers in a smarter way. We're talking about leverage. And as a matter of where do you construct it, you know, you can, you can make a weak lever and it can still propel you upward. But I'm trying to now draw from a longer range of experience and just build smarter levers.
Lynn:Sure. you know, it's interesting because what I really pulled out of what you were describing in the, in the twist, if you will, was that the picture that the failures, the disappointments, the mistakes along the way, we're actually the foundation building blocks.
Corey:Yep. Yep.
Lynn:And avoiding, like we're trying to avoid building our foundation. Rather than just building a good foundation, which means we have to go through and and like work, work from the learning and the mistakes rather than From the success, although it does help to also have success, you have to have enough success that will keep you going.
Corey:Right? Well, so I use this analogy with the my key students a lot, which is, you know, your, your success can can kind of be shaped like a pyramid, like so, it depends on where you want your Pinnacle to be. That's going to determine how broad of a base how broad of a foundation Do we have to build out because, you know, this to use some, some make up numbers. If we build out, you know, 10 meters, and then we start going up in a pyramid shape, there's a natural end point of where that structure can be sound, you know, and that pyramid has a height already. If you go out 20 meters, it's that much higher if you go out 30 meters is that much higher. I mean, it's so a lot of skiers are our desire for instant gratification which waterskiing is not a sport friends gratification. But for that, for that hunger for that next buoy right now, it's tempting to try to lunge ahead and just get that rather than invest in maybe taking a step back or step sideways and building outwards, to then move upward and, and I'm as guilty of that as anyone I'm, I'm not immune to that at all. And in a unique position where I've never really had a coach or mentor that has been down the road ahead of me, that I've, you know, worked with over my life to kind of say, hey, dummy, you know, you're, it's great that you're full of piss and vinegar, and you're trying real hard here, but you're gonna run into the same wall until you learn how to, you know, build out so that you can scale over that that wall.
Lynn:You know, it's interesting because I'm, I just, I just pulled out a book that I've read before, and I'm gonna read it again, man. Straight with George Leonard.
Corey:I read that last summer?
Lynn:Oh, yeah. That one changed my life around art because it was the same kind of pyramid when I was learning watercolor, which is a very unforgiving form of painting. And when I, in a way his book was a permission slip for me to build a bigger Foundation, which meant that I would maybe paint the same painting several times until I got what I wanted, instead of painting it, hating it, sticking it in the drawer and basically moving on and saying, Well, okay, I'm just going to do something I can do instead of trying to focus on what I can't do. And what that was keeping me small. And when I began to experiment, which meant that a lot of what I was going to do I you know, I had to say to myself, this is just paint and paper, and if I don't like it, I can put it in the trash. Ain't nobody gonna die because I did a bad painting But his mastery book about the plateaus and about what it takes to work through that. And to realize that you're you're filling in the holes while you're on a plateau was huge for me,
Corey:right? Yes. I think for water skiers, I would totally recommend that book. He's kind of coming from this akido like martial arts background, but it's that's a very technical, it's very Mind Body discipline, and very technical like waterskiing. But, you know, there's this phrase that stands out in my mind in my book was embracing the plateau. And if you're a water skier, and you want to stay in it for the long haul, and you want to improve over the long haul, you had better learn how to embrace the plateau because there are going to be a number of them. There's even going to be little setbacks where you feel like you've gone down a little bit. those tend to be opportunities, you know, to to reassess and actually, you know, really, maybe springboard up leapfrog ahead if you if you take the right lessons from them. But there's going to be a lot of time spent on the plateau. So you have to love it for the act of doing it. Not because you're going to move at the most rapid pace towards the end goal. So I that's it.
Lynn:There's so much I want to unpack there. But I want to ask this question, because on the plateau, I find and I think he alludes to this or maybe directly addresses it in the book, I find that's where a lot of people quit. And especially I think a lot of times they quit right before they have the next breakthrough because they've been on the plateau for so long. And they're tired of beating themselves up and so forth. And so, my question, and you were, you've been, you know, on this journey for a long time, you made a choice, you know, what, 12 or 13 years ago Go for it as a water ski coach and a ski Pro. And, and I know you've been on plateaus how, how have you resolve that question? And have you had that question about quitting? And if you have how have you resolved it for yourself?
Corey:I guess I've never had the thought of quitting waterskiing as a as a whole and just putting it away. I mean, it's, I guess it's, it's so, I mean, I started doing it when I was three years old, and I just have, you know, if nothing else, forget pro skiing and medals and podiums and things like that. I've so many memories of doing it with my family as a kid and just fun days out on the lake that connect me to it and connect me to other people. You know, I think that's a big part of it actually is also the community is a big reason why we stay so I've never I really thought about quitting. I mean, there definitely have been, there were plenty of moments especially earlier in my pro career where I was, you know, really more towards the bottom half of the, the ski years where I asked myself, why are you doing this to yourself? Why do you continue to show up, you know, travel far away spend a lot of money to get to a place only to walk away defeated? You know, and we kind of covered that the answer is that you you have to do that to learn how to get better at doing that there's really no other way. But in the in the moment in the time, it felt pretty heavy and it felt pretty disappointing and you know, there by that point, I at least had a good coaching business going so I could have removed the distress and the potential disappointments of pro skiing by me just focusing on the coaching and that's, that's where the money really got. That's where I was supporting myself financially. But You know, I, I never reached a critical threshold there either, you know, because I, I still felt a sense of progress was possible and I still feel that way I don't what what I have found now and what has become the biggest motivator to me and my practice of waterskiing is not so much. I mean, gosh, I do want to, I do want to win a World Championship, I do want to have hold those titles, I would like to, you know, stand on top of the podium at pro events. And that's, those are great goals. But really, the, the true motivator is a lot more internal now where I just really want to see where my absolute limit is. I don't think if running 41 off a couple of times in tournament's like that's upper end. It's not far away from there, maybe a little bit past that. It may not be you know, I may not Be able to beat the world record, you know, which is, you know, two and a half 43, I've done one. And the difference between one and two and three is really massive. And, you know, that would be an extraordinary goal. But I'm not going to be disappointed. If I walk away from my career and haven't put my name on the book there. I would be disappointed if I walked away from my career without having known that I achieved the very best that I can achieve. And there are still things that I feel like I can do now as a 34 year old athlete that are going to allow me to do better than I've ever done before. And I don't know that that's, you know, just this year. I think it's a hopefully, I can keep refining and learning. That's for some years to come. I'm aware it has an endpoint. Absolutely. But, but so that's a big driver. For me and as far as I have been around the wheel with being so involved in waterskiing, and kind of having it be such a big part of my life now, which is a reminder to be careful what you wish for when I was thinking about diving into waterskiing, I was hoping that I could ski enough to get better, and to generate enough business to support myself and to maybe even grow the sport and grow the community. And my golly, Has that happened. And to the point where I'm more often now, trying to try not to let myself get overwhelmed, you know, and run around like a crazy person trying to keep up with a small business and my own pursuit and actually care. And that was, you know, the biggest priority and time commitment I had and kind of made me questions. What how much time I should be given to other parts of my, my life to. But I think at the end of the day for me, I do have a deep passion for this sport. And that is just something that I've come to know about myself a guy I've known for a long time. And then there's times where I've had to question that where I have experienced some burnout. Probably because I didn't even realize that burnout was a possibility. So I was so headlong into my mission, you know, burning the candle on both ends, and, you know, trying to operate on 110% that that wasn't sustainable, and there was going to be a crash somewhere. And then when I hit that, I had to recognize first that that's, indeed what it was, it was some burnout and then oh my gosh, I can actually get burned out on this water ski fantasy that I dreamed up for myself and had to integrate that reality into my life and so And since then, that's come back a number of times with trying to, you know, grow a business and excel in a professional career. athletically. The two of them compete for time and energy and in my daily life in my in my yearly schedule and so forth. And I'm sad that I thought about quitting but I have at times lost the joy and what I would what I would recommend to anybody who is in in a sport or a discipline or any past, you know, a role at work or in anything that is experiencing some of that stagnation, some of that plat towing. I think the real question that you have to ask yourself is like what brought you there in the first place? What Why did you get into this originally and if you Connect passion with that person who are excited about what you're doing and you're experiencing stagnation and plateau. I feel like that's where I was in this office like maybe then it's time for some deeper reflection. And maybe, you know, if you do realize something, there's a ton that you can take a leap towards, you know, it's about weighing the pros and cons and maybe making that leap. But if you realize that this is something that you know, you you love doing, you love being around with, with how it's going at the moment, you know, just a reflection there, and maybe even stepping away just pushing a pause so that you can come back with new eyes and the new focus. You know, I've had to learn how to do that in my own way for my own sort of thing. I think it's different for everyone. But let's say example, if you're a skier for example, and you have a goal, I think gold They're fine. You know, you want to have something to shoot for, we all want to get better. And there's nothing wrong with kind of throwing even a lofty ambition out there in front of yourself a big big carrot. And, and if you have, especially a coach or a mentor that can help you come up with some smaller carrots along the way, kind of some benchmarks, make sure you're going the right direction. That's great. I think the trick is and this applies to, you know, other parts of life not just waterskiing have to have that intention out there to have some strategy that that overall moves you in that direction. But when it comes down to the individual practice session, or the individual experience, you know, if it's not a sport, that that can move in that direction, the attitude of approaching that needs not be a very neurotic attitude of Okay, this today has to move me one inch or one millimeter closer to Mind mark, because it may or may not like that's something that we don't have control over. And better if we approach that they activity with a lot of awareness, you may not feel your very best physically or mentally, there may be some life circumstance, you may be tired, you may have worked a full day already. You know, you may have trained really hard the day before. So you can't expect to train even harder the next day because your body's recovering. That doesn't mean it can't be productive. But so having some awareness coming in, mainly so that number one, you go out there and you have fun. Like you, you engage yourself fully. You're present with what you're doing. And you're bringing an attitude of lightness and enjoyment to the practice. I mean, that to me sounds like a much more likely way of doing what you're going to do that day. Well, doing it to the extent that it shouldn't be done that day. tearing into the day before or comparing it to the next day where you hope to do something better. That's not going to be helpful because none of those things are the reality that you're in, you're, you're getting ready to do what you're getting ready to do. And you've got to bring your resources, whatever it was, whatever limitations they have to that, and maybe even and set your expectations accordingly. Don't always expect your best thing, oh, you know, maybe don't have any expectations in that moment. And your expectations in that moment don't necessarily move you towards your goal. You know, bringing the all of your, your awareness and presence to your practice in that moment does bring you closer to your goal. And I'm saying this this is something I'm trying to implement myself. I'm certainly no, I can't say that I have this tag and I'm, I'm doing this really well. But this is basically what I'm trying to learn to do this summer. Because I want to be busier than ever and I Want to ski better than ever? And if I let myself get all run around crazy, and I'm bent out of shape, because I gave all of my practice time away to ski students because I needed to because I had to make money and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And I go out there kind of huffy about it, you know, I'm already tired now that I get to see, well, how's that second ago? Not gonna be a great practice session. No, you know, and that's obvious in hindsight, or from a, you know, a third person perspective, but in the moment, it's, it's so easy to get yourself there. Or to do the comparative thing like, Oh, well, I bet this person you know, I bet I bet. You know, Freddy winters having a great training session today down in Florida. I bet it's 85 degrees in the water, and he's probably already running 41 and it's may and we're up here in the water. 65 Yeah, and I'm struggling in a wetsuit that's not constructive because what whatever he's doing has nothing to do with me doing what I should Do at that time. Yeah, it's just a completely useless thought.
Lynn:You know what? It's interesting that you mentioned like that that comparative thing. And again, that's something we can impact for hours and we won't, because we've we're already way into this. This is a Joe Rogan length podcast right here that that illusion that things are easier for other people. Or that the thing the outside in is is so I think it can be so. Oh, I don't know what the word is. I don't want to use the word destructive. But I think it's a false understanding. And, you know, we talked a little bit about me getting back on the horse and you know, I say what I needed to know about riding what I'm learning about. riding horses could literally like I now I keep building it bigger and bigger. It's like beyond a stadium of knowledge that's available there and here. I thought it was you get on you pulled up Stop, you click to go you go right, you go left, how hard can it be? Oh my gosh, there's so much more to it. I'm learning how to do sculling. You see somebody out there rowing, you think, oh, how easy. It's so flowy and everything. Well, yeah, it's real flowing when you've got your balance, but I've been in the water more than once and discovered just quite, you know how many things I'm managing at one time. And when we watch other people trying and waterskiing, what looks easy, like a lot of people hold up certain people like Andy mapple, or Nate Smith, and they say, well, they just have a straight path or it's just super easy for them. People might be doing that for you saying, Look how easy it is for Cory. You're, you're shining a light on the fact that isn't that easy, and it's not easy for anybody and to compare yourself as useless.
Corey:Well, I think that part of the reason that we do it is because it's not easy. I mean, I take your point, you know, at exactly what it is that we have this bias towards it's a kind of the grass is greener by us and it's so easy to do. In any Arena in life, but yeah, to look at somebody who's extremely talented, and just assume that it came without effort without work or that, you know, it's happening on a daily basis without a whole lot of intention. Yeah, it's not, that's certainly not fair. And I don't, I think if you interviewed 100 Olympians, who you know, at the top of their game gold medalist, even, you know, how many of those gold medalist in the Olympics got there? Because it was just natural, and they didn't have to train that hard. And, I mean, come on, that's not a realistic expectation. While we do it, we do it all the time. And it we do it in in social ways, too. You know, he's figure all they have everything so well, they're so pretty. They're so you know, they're wealthy, they must have it all. And those are false assumptions. I mean, they're not even fair to put on those people, even if they're a positive thing because you just don't know. You know, I was listening to a Sam Harris talk. Recently and he was just kind of making the point, like with with our form of consciousness, there's just there's no way of ever truly experiencing the world and what we call reality through the lens of any other being through another person or even, you know, I look at my dog sometimes and I think, gosh, what, what is what is their experience right now? Like when they're running through the woods? Like, I would just love to kind of have my I'd like to just tap and funnel their consciousness for a moment. And know what what is their order their body feel like when they're running full out like that, like, does that feel like when I'm running, you know, 39 on, you know, in the course, or when they're sniffing the ground so furiously like, what are they smelling, it smells that we can't even imagine. You know, so we're, as part of the human condition though we're, we know that we have this amazing capability which is consciousness, but we are our with our own and We have communication to try to work out with everybody else. What how ours compares and, and, you know, we have a lot of points of agreement where our consciousnesses overlap and so we can all look at something and say, yeah, that's, that is what that is, and this is what this is. But you can never, you know, you can never experience the world through somebody else's lens. And I feel like, that's really interesting. And I feel like it's also a really profound reason for compassion and empathy, because we're far too quick to assume that everyone else should be a certain way. And, you know, without without knowing their story, or what brings them to that point. That doesn't mean you allow everything and you can't be mad at people for doing terrible things. But I feel like a lot of times, we get we have a very short fuse with people for not a whole lot of reason.
Lynn:Yeah, well, I think we don't I think you just hit on it. We we actually can't ever really know and most of What really matters is invisible.
Corey:Yep, and an intangible,
Lynn:it's invisible. It's intangible, and, and we and yet here we are in a science society that wants to make everything measurable and concrete and tangible. And, and it's that awareness that the stuff that really matters, like the wonder of nature, like the, the beauty of sitting under a tree or smelling the flowers in the spring, those things just can't be, you know, can't be packaged as much as we try. And, look, there's something to be said for that, you know, because we're all on our own journey.
Corey:That's right. Well, and asking the asking the big questions and being okay with not getting a certain answer. And I feel like that's, I think a lot of times we're afraid to ask the questions or we're afraid to not have the answer. And since those important things are in place, tangible we end up looking to kind of fill that void and distract ourselves with material things that take us away from those thoughts and from the realization that at some point, this is really rare gift of life and consciousness is going to come to an end. And that's a that's a that's an uncomfortable truth but it is the reality not one of us has made it through without dying
Lynn:none of us get out of here alive
Corey:Non of us get out alive.
Lynn:You know that that's actually the part of the stoic philosophy that I am very tuned into because especially at my stage of life because you know if I get to argue that okay 80 is like the number most people live to, I'm over 60 I'm I'm three fourths of the way through every single day I need to make it count and you know, I don't know how long I have I'm it could be any day like anything can happen in this day. is really showing us that and if it shows if, if what you if what humanity in the whole planet is going through this, if we learn nothing else from this, I would hope that we learn to appreciate the days that we do have, because you never know what's going to come along to take us out. And like you said, That's not a pleasant reality. But boy, is it a sharpening and focusing reality for not fooling around with your life anymore.
Corey:I think it can be hugely empowering. I mean, you asked me earlier about kind of my personal life philosophy and I started talking about little ones that piecemealed from but I'd say a very big part of mine is a very rarely acceptance of my mortality. And the fact that that is often you know, quite possibly beyond my control. There are many, many things that could happen. That could take me out tomorrow and not at the ripe old age, the way that I would like it to And I think that trying to remember that regularly is actually all of the incentive in the world to live fully. You know, and to not let opportunities pass by to not, you know, take the time to let my mom know I love her or my wife or anyone you know, not not saying I'm perfect at it or great at it. But that is a big, motivating force. I even have an app on my phone. I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called we croak. And it reminds you five times a day, remind you five times a day that you're going to die. That's a wisdom tradition in Bhutan. It pops up with a little you know, just a little inspiring quote, and reminder that you are going to die and if you're in the middle of a little stress fest with yourself, it sometimes helps put it in perspective like okay, you know, let it go you're not you're not, there's not life and death and you got to enjoy this time because you don't know When it's when it's going to be over,
Lynn:you know, that's in at the end of the day with the work I'm doing with a lot of the clients I work with. And in the corporate world, that's the, that's the big aha for people. For me, it came in my late 30s, early 40s, which is I checked all the boxes of being successful and getting promotions and having money and was still miserable. And in fact, in some ways, more burned out and more miserable after I had achieved all the goals I'd set for myself. And it's kind of like, well, what the hell is going on with that? And sort of my mission in life is to remind people as soon as possible that you actually can be really really really successful. But you don't have to give up your soul and your life to do it.
Corey:Well, I'm whose metric of success are you using? I mean, that kind of goes back to our social conditioning and, and how we interpret that as individuals like, there are a lot of metrics I guess of success, wealth and status and Power and, you know, to kind of take the easy ones. But I think that the, the real measure of it is like to come up with your own measure of success, and and try to fulfill that and they can, they might even be somewhat of a moving target, because you may achieve a certain thing and and feel like you've reached a satisfactory level there. And then you have to, you know, reset and take aim at something new and maybe challenge yourself or go yourself in a different way. And then like life comes in stages, and then chapters and I think a lot of, you know, kind of going back to social conditioning, we're more programmed to think that we are supposed to, like get to a point and just kind of like, set like we have an identity and it's jelled. And then that's just it and we just kind of carry that on at least through you know, adulthood, like once we, whatever graduate college or buy a house or have our first career job like, okay, like now, it's Pretty neat and tidy, and you're just gonna be this person, or when you have kids and now your path, but I Gosh, man how how uninspiring? Is that like?
Lynn:Well, I know it's funny. We just spent a few minutes ago talking about how people want to get off the plateau, which is sameness, which is this flat space. And yet you are so dead, right? So many of us are seeking that flatness in that same space. So in one on one side, we're saying, I want to keep growing, I want to not be stuck in a plateau or stuck in a rut. And on the other hand, were like, how can I get things to be the same? How can I get things to come down? How can I quit having to make so many changes? And although we we really what we really need to learn how to do is we just need to learn how to stay and adapt and grow. Stick with the change, stick with the uncertainty and learn how to sort of be be at peace in the chaos rather than thinking that we can make the chaos go away because it's not going
Corey:well. My my Favorite philosopher nowadays, Alan Watts talks about life being like, like a dance or like a song, the, the idea of a dance is not to arrive at a particular part of the floor, you know, the idea of a dance is to be in the in the dance, you know, to be caught up in it, and to be dancing. And I think that we are somewhat conditioned and taught to think that, you know, we're handed this model that, oh, when you grow up, you're going to be a lawyer, or you're going to be a fireman, or you're going to be a nurse, or whatever it is. And then like, that's just, and you're going to be a husband or a wife, or something like that. And like, these are just a big chunk of your identity. And they're just a few major blocks, and you put those together and then you have a life. And, and I just think that there's so much more subtlety to it than that, like I want to. We need to be taught to be curious, ongoing learning. And, and constantly embracing that. I think here's maybe kind of brings some of what we're saying to a full point. Maybe if you are envisioning this life for yourself and creating your own discomfort and your own challenges, then and measuring your own success by that metric. You at least feel validated and what your efforts are doing versus just kind of taking the prototypical metrics for success because you're, you know, then you feel like you're being judged by someone else. I think if you can really take ownership of the fact that your life's efforts and what you're putting your energy into is, is your own and it's for it's in line with your values and to these purposes, that that you hold sacred, for whatever your reason, then you care less about other people's judgments about what it is you're doing because because you already have a deep held sense of purpose. But if you if you're because the life is going to challenge you whether you create the challenge for yourself or whether you allow it to come from somewhere else. I don't think there's any one of us that gets through this easy that's what we're saying about somebody else. Oh, they waterskiing looks so easy, or they're an amazing artist, it just looks easy. Even if even if somebody has a very natural gift for art, that doesn't mean their life is easy. I feel like mostly you hear about artists who have a very difficult life. And that's why they're able to channel it so well through their music or through their painting is they have all of this inside of them. That has to come out and they're able to capture something that's in all of us in a beautiful way. But that doesn't mean surely doesn't mean their life is easy. I don't think we should ever be thinking that about about someone. So I guess I would say I would rather put the hurt out there for myself. And if I trip and fall and skinned my knee, I know I did it to myself, instead of saying, okay, I accept these socially imposed hurdles. And then when I do the same thing and hit my knee, I feel like Ouch, this hurts. And it sucks, because I didn't even want to try to jump over this hurdle in the first place. Exactly.
Lynn:Well, you know, that's that that general idea of having an internal locus of control versus an external and I think of it as sort of living out of your vertical, which means that you're sort of, if you think about a vertical, you're much more grounded. You're much more connected to what matters to you versus horizontal, which means you can kind of be leveraged around by everybody else. I can kind of grab you by the shoulders and move you if you're not connected into your own, sort of deeper vertical alignment with, sort of, and heavens rather than the horizontal of relationships and endeavors, not To say that we don't have those, but that those are fueled by our more of our deeper connection. So I think that makes a ton of sense. And you know, I'm sure. And I'm going to, I am going to draw this to a close because we've been at this for a long time, but I'm sure as people listen to this, they're thinking, Okay, now wait a minute, what a couple of water skiers are talking philosophy. We talked like water skiing, like very, very small part of this podcast, but it all applies. Whatever endeavor we do you know, what we're talking about is bigger than this is what I think knits everything together.
Corey:Yes. Well, I feel like waterskiing has this mirror to life in so many ways. I mean, that to me, that's a whole other book idea. I've got some notes jotted down for a Sunday project. The waterskiing subtitle the sport most like life. You know, maybe look for it in five years or something like that. But, you know, I know you have a diverse audience, they're not all skiers. So I think we could have nerded out on a whole bunch of Ski Talk and probably lost a lot of people. Yeah. And hopefully, hopefully, we didn't lose a lot of people in what we did talk about, but I feel like we're in such a interesting time in the world. That it's hard to, it's hard to put that on the back burner. And, and just kind of drill down into something that really again, at the end of the day of the game, you know, there's a hobby and it's a sport. I mean, for me, it's big it is how I make make a living and something that I aspire to be great at. But I feel like again, kinda like we've talked about in this conversation. I try to use that as a practice to then carry back into Life and figure out how to figure out where a lot of my weak spots are, and how to strengthen them and what challenges me and how to make strategies for overcoming that. And, you know, and to remember, like we mentioned a few minutes ago, that like, going out and taking a ski ride and being present and going into it with the attitude that that is to do for fun is to you're supposed to enjoy this, I go to sport. And that really is the point if you've gotten so far away from it. That's all something that you can copy it in your head somehow. And I think life is that way too. I think that, you know, not that we're here. I don't like hedonism. We're not here for pleasure seeking. But we're also not here just to survive and grind through or try to make money or just to be successful and in some way we're not we're not here to be successful. We're here to be You know, we're here to dance and to sing, and to find out what speaks to each one of us at a deep level, and then find a way to, to bring that out. You know, it doesn't always mean through, like, I'm lucky, it's kind of come a line through also a career path. But, you know, it may not be that way. It may be more of a hobby, but, you know, I think that, that we, we get too wrapped up in trying to keep up and try to move forward and attain and achieve, like we talked about, like those those values that were taught to us at a young age that we have to achieve and succeed. Whereas we don't, we don't have to, we shouldn't be compelled that we're bad people. If we're not financially successful or somebody else's metric of of successful I think that, you know, we're here to live and to dance, and as long as you're not hurting somebody else, I think That you're pretty free to interpret that in whatever way you wish or whichever way makes your your life turn into a dance.
Lynn:That's it. I love you, you're using the word dance a lot. And the book I'm writing now is the primary title is called dancing the tightrope. And boom, at that basic premise is, like you said, We're not here for hedonism just to have fun. But we're also not here just to go achieve achieve achieve. And somewhere between those two is that tightrope that I think we balance those factors, and there's lots of factors to balance. There's many many dichotomies out there that we have to balance. But as we find a way to do that the tightrope is no longer so narrow. And so that's the premise of the book is finding, finding that way through the extremes to the point of to the balance point.
Corey:I like that. How about this, let's make a deal. You send me an advanced copy of your book and I'll send you an advanced copy of mine.
Lynn:We'll do it. In fact, I might even send you I've got one that I've just set to the editor. So I might even send you that one before I get this one written because it's a lot of what we talked about as well here too. That one's on the topic. That was my TED talk. I haven't got a title for it yet, actually. But it's, it may be called the assume positive intent book. But yeah, it's been a life changing practice for me, but we definitely need to send each other our manuscripts so we can get quotes and all that stuff. That'd be great.
Corey:Yeah, maybe you can be that. That little bit of nudge that kind of gets me over the hump to go ahead and like, motivate and put the finishing touches on it and bring to publication. I think I need that little kick in the old rear.
Lynn:Well, you do and yeah, the other thing you're going to need as an editor and I can help you find one. Okay, well, there we go. Look at this. That's, yeah, it's it was a process for me the first time and there's different types of editing. You know, you and I both know Marja Rankin, who is a phenomenal copy editor. And she should probably be the last person to see anything before it gets public publicize, because she's amazing at catching the stuff that your eye just misses. But there's also people that can actually draw alongside you more like a developmental editor, which I have for this book I'm writing right now, which helped me with more like direction and let me run some ideas by you. And, you know, understand, she's read every one of my blog, so she understands how I how I think so she can say, Hey, remember, this is what you this is what you've been writing about. Oh, yeah. Cuz I forget.
Corey:Right. So well, I feel like like now we're starting to talk talk shop and, you know, like, personal business. So we promised your audience that we should shut up and
Lynn:they're exactly I do want to let know people know how to find you. yeah. What we should do is I, your website Can you name that out so people can find it and I bet that all the rest of your contact information is on that website.
Corey:It is yep it's it's all spelled out just peace, love and waterskiing.com, just like it sounds and yeah, I think like my Facebook and Instagram or Instagram is also peace loving waterskiing. Facebook is Corey Vaughn. And yeah, I would love to hear from anybody that listened and certainly anybody that loves waterskiing or wants to learn or curious about it. Kind of pretty cool little place out here in bumpass, Virginia where we can get you on the water
Lynn:that I can't I even though I haven't been able to get there. We had the one trip that I had planned and had to had to cancel. But yeah, I've heard great things. Of course, I have skied with you skied with you a ski paradise ski with you, you know here at mystic waters. can't recommend you As a coach, so if you want to move along, you know, this is your guy. So by all means, check it out.
Corey:So well, thanks, Lynn
Lynn:This has been this has been great.
Corey:It's been fantastic. Yeah, I kind of knew that it wasn't going to take much to get us rolling. And here we jumped in before we even started recording. So I hope everyone just kind of jumped on the bandwagon with us. But it's been a whole lot of fun. So thank you.
Lynn:Thank you for listening to the creative spirits unleashed 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.
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