Episode 21: Board Meetings | Top 3 Ways to Balance Climbing with Life

Another week, another episode.  You guys have two more left before we go back to our one or two per month regularly scheduled programming, and I get to relax a little!  Or maybe we'll make it an even 24 episodes for 2016.  I might... MIGHT... have a special bonus bonus episode for Christmas.  If you're good kids.  We'll see.

In this episode, Nate and I sit down to talk about the Top 3 Ways to Balance your Climbing with your real Life.  Job, family, friends, hobbies, etc..  Trying to balance that with climbing, training for climbing, talking about climbing, thinking about climbing, and listening to podcasts about climbing is TOUGH WORK. We've got some answers.  

Like what you hear?  Subscribe to The Power Company Podcast on ITunes, Google Play, or Stitcher Radio, and leave a rating and review!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Kris Hampton  00:31

What's up everybody? I'm your host, Kris Hampton. 

Nate Drolet  00:34

And this is Nate Drolet.

Kris Hampton  00:36

 And together we form night rider.

Nate Drolet  00:40

Night rider.

Kris Hampton  00:40

Yeah, you can be David Hasselhoff I'll be Kitt.

Nate Drolet  00:44

Someday you're gonna use references that aren't so dated.

Kris Hampton  00:48

It's doubtful. It's highly, highly doubtful.

Nate Drolet  00:51

 Very All right. 

Kris Hampton  00:54

Um, yeah. So today we're gonna talk about something that's near and dear to my heart. And difficult, incredibly fucking difficult. And we all have to do it. And I'm, I'm in this transition where it's becoming a whole new thing to me. I got really good at it one way, and now I'm learning in a new way. And that's the top three ways to balance climbing with real life. And that includes training for climbing, going outside climbing, with real life, family, friends, whatever. Depends on what your real life is. Some of you may have no friends. That's okay.

Nate Drolet  01:35

Makes you try it makes you climb a lot.

Kris Hampton  01:37

Yeah, makes it easier. You should just get in fact, that's what we should just talk about getting rid of your friends. 

Nate Drolet  01:41

Yes. 

Kris Hampton  01:43

Alienating your family?

Nate Drolet  01:44

Mm hmm.

Kris Hampton  01:45

And then you can climb much harder. Yeah. Yeah, not true. Okay. I think it's me.

Nate Drolet  01:53

Yeah, I'll let you start on this one. Because this is I feel like, you've got plenty for this one.

Kris Hampton  01:58

Yeah, I think the number one you have to become... and this is this is strictly for not not strictly, I shouldn't say that. But this comes from my weekend warrior background, which I'm no longer in the midst of right now. But you have to become a schedule Nazi. And, and that schedule has to be priority man. Like, you really have to do it on multiple levels, you have to schedule out your whole year. And then you have to schedule out your climbing months. And then you have to schedule out your climbing days, and you have to schedule out your training. And, and you need it all to be scheduled with your partners and with your family and with your friends. And everybody's got to know, you have to kind of be a jerk about it sometimes. But that's the best way to make it work if it's all scheduled, and there's no no guesswork involved. And more often than not, you're gonna get to enjoy the life things, knowing that climbing is already on the schedule. And you don't have to be in super hectic, frantic mode with life so that you can go climbing. So that's my number one.

Nate Drolet  03:09

That makes sense kind of...

Kris Hampton  03:10

 Schedule. Nazi

Nate Drolet  03:10

...stress out a little bit over the scheduling so that everything else can be relaxed and kind of in place.

Kris Hampton  03:16

Yeah, exactly. I see so many people like not schedule things. And then come Thursday, their weekend warriors come Thursday, they're freaking out because they've got all these things to do before they go climbing. And then, you know, Friday night, they finally make it to bed at 3am so that they can go climbing Saturday morning. And then their Saturday sucks because they didn't get any sleep on Friday. And then they have half a day Sunday because they have to drive home. So and they're in that perpetual cycle every weekend, and they never know where they're going to climb and they don't know who they're climbing with. And it's this big, constant ordeal. It doesn't have to be like that. 

Nate Drolet  03:55

Yeah, I mean, you know if you're cool with that, and stick with it.

Kris Hampton  03:58

Yeah. If you love that, and that's your that's your gig and being frantic and anxiety and all that is part of what you enjoy then by all means.

Nate Drolet  04:08

I've met those people.

Kris Hampton  04:09

Yeah, they're out there for sure.

Nate Drolet  04:10

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think that also goes hand in hand with when you find a good climbing partner, man, especially someone who's on your schedule. 

Kris Hampton  04:19

Yeah.

Nate Drolet  04:20

Worth their weight in gold.

Kris Hampton  04:21

Yeah, no question. 

Nate Drolet  04:23

Which, I guess isn't saying much because most sport climbers are pretty tiny. But it's true. Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  04:29

Yeah. And I and you know, something I used to do as a schedule Nazi was, I would talk to my main partners for that season, and say, here are the things I want to work on. What are the things you want to work on? And then any of those things that line up, those become priority? 

Nate Drolet  04:49

Nice.

Kris Hampton  04:50

You know, and then we have second tier priority and third tier priorities. And, you know, we just tick them off as they come and we're okay with each other. doing two crag days or we've done three crag days. No, it's that's not uncommon. 

Nate Drolet  05:05

Yeah. I mean, I think you have to be a little bit flexible with that kind of stuff. Especially if you're being a weekend warrior. 

Kris Hampton  05:11

Yep. 

Nate Drolet  05:13

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good one. So my first one actually, do you want to give like a two second background as to why your weekend warrior and what you had going on? Just so people kind of know whats up.

Kris Hampton  05:25

Yeah, and a lot of you know this already, but you know, I was a weekend warrior for my whole climbing career, you know, 22 years at this point, I think. And, and then, because of the Power Company, things have gotten to the point where I can work on the road, and I moved to Lander, which means I'm not going to be just a weekend warrior anymore, because I can drive 45 minutes down the road or, you know, 15 minutes to Sinks, and go climbing any day of the week. And right now, I'm on the road until March, right now is shit when is it's November 4th.

Nate Drolet  06:06

 Sixth.

Kris Hampton  06:07

Seventh?

Nate Drolet  06:07

Sixth. 

Kris Hampton  06:08

It's some day in November. 

Nate Drolet  06:10

But if I was gonna say, for anyone who's wondering the super moon's the 14th. But...

Kris Hampton  06:15

Yeah, they won't hear this...

Nate Drolet  06:16

It'll be old news. 

Kris Hampton  06:17

The Super, the Super Moon was the 14th. 

Nate Drolet  06:19

So for anyone that saw the Superman on the 14th, it was pretty awesome, wasn't it?Yeah, guys. 

Kris Hampton  06:24

And, and I'll be on the road until March. So. So I'm not a weekend warrior. And I'm finding a whole new meaning to balancing climbing in life. It's a whole different thing for me right now. I'm working through it.

Nate Drolet  06:38

That's surprisingly hard on both sides of spectrum. 

Kris Hampton  06:40

It's hard. Yeah, I had it fucking dialed before. And now I'm this newbie. So. Yeah.

Nate Drolet  06:48

All right. Word. My first one is nailed down the basics. So this is make sure you're getting good sleep, get be hydrated. Eat food consistently. Just whatever you're like, yeah, nail down the basics. Like there are so many easy wins. 

Kris Hampton  07:06

Yep. 

Nate Drolet  07:07

And just like kind of being a human and rock climbing. That if you're working a ton, vwhen you don't like your climbing time is very valuable. So if you feel like shit, when you're rock climbing, then you just pissed away, you know what could have been like...

Kris Hampton  07:22

The best day of the week?

Nate Drolet  07:23

 Yeah, the best day of the week, or like the month if you only if you can only climb on Thursdays, let's say. And you feel like garbage on the only good Thursday of that month. Like that is the like of the whole month. That was your best day. Like And so yeah, just nail down the basics, at least while you're in season like, yeah.

Kris Hampton  07:43

Yeah, I think I think if you can nail down the basics in season, then you're probably going to continue that habit through the offseason, you know, through your training season.

Nate Drolet  07:52

Absolutely. Yeah. And so for anyone who's wondering, as far as like work life stuff goes for me. I've never really been as much of a weekend warrior. I've always lived close to climbing living in Chattanooga, or Kentucky or West Virginia. But I've always worked to death. I've worked a lot of different jobs, everything from restaurant to route setting, which anyone who's not a route setter. Most people think, Oh, that must be nice. Because like, you get to just kind of like...

Kris Hampton  08:21

Tough ass job if you're trying to be a rock climber.

Nate Drolet  08:22

Fucking sucks, man. Like, you're just always tired. Like, you know, if you're a good route setter, and you're actually fore running like some people don't, that's cool. You know, get money get paid. But yeah, like...

Kris Hampton  08:35

You're so convincing with that. That's cool. 

Nate Drolet  08:37

Yeah. It's whatever, like, but if you actually give a shit about what you do, and you know, you fore run and you try and put out a quality product, man, it's exhausting. Like jugging a line and setting and all that like, yeah, it is tiring and trying to balance that. Even just not just physically but motivationally. To be like, oh, cool. I was just in the gym for like, eight straight hours for last five days. And now I'm gonna go back to the gym.

Kris Hampton  09:03

To go climb some

Nate Drolet  09:04

To train. Yeah, it's like, man, it's very difficult. Like I have a lot of respect for route setters out there who can climb really well. Like there's a handful of guys who've done a great job of it. And it's really cool to see. But yeah, so I've done that. So restaurant, resetting, window washing. Working in Amazon is probably like one of the biggest learning experiences for me, I spent the better part of a year working between 50 and 60 hours a week and walking, depending on how long the shifts were anywhere from like 12 to like 18 to 20 miles a day. And so that like made me really prioritize my training.

Kris Hampton  09:46

Yeah, I'm seeing you kind of gear up for that now. And I think that's pretty cool that you, you know, you recognize that there's this life event happening that needs to happen and and you shift your climbing goals to fall in line with that. And then you shift back to climbing goals are priority life events will have to work around. 

Nate Drolet  10:09

Yeah, I mean, pretty cool. That's just it. It's like, you know, life happens, you know, when something comes up, you just got to get it done. So you got to work and do the best you can. And so for anyone who's wondering, I'm about to go do some seasonal work for Amazon go work in their warehouse for the Christmas season, which I'm actually kind of excited for in that for the next two months, I'm going to go through a bunch of hang boarding and campus boarding and things like that. So get myself like, super psyched to, I don't know, walk a ton and 

Kris Hampton  10:38

Go through a training cycle.

Nate Drolet  10:39

Get wicked swole.

Kris Hampton  10:41

Cool. Wicked swole.

Nate Drolet  10:42

Yeah, exactly. 

Kris Hampton  10:44

Next time you see Nathan Drolet he'll be wicked swole.

Nate Drolet  10:47

That's the plan.

Kris Hampton  10:49

Alright, number two.

Nate Drolet  10:51

All right.

Kris Hampton  10:53

 Make it a Priority. And be honest with your family and friends about it. And the sorta comes right after become a schedule Nazi. Part of it comes before part of it comes after. I think you, Steve Bechtel once said to me that priority is a singular word. It's it's not plural. There aren't priorities. 

Nate Drolet  11:16

Okay, I see what you're saying.

Kris Hampton  11:17

There can only be one priority. 

Nate Drolet  11:18

I was thinking monosyllabic for a second. I was like, I don't know where he's going with this. Okay, yes, carry on.

Kris Hampton  11:26

So you can't have five different priorities in your life, you know. And if you've handled family, you know, then it starts to get on autopilot a little bit. If you're handling it well. If you suck at family, then that needs to be your priority, and not climbing, you know. But if you've gotten to the point where family and your work and things like that are on autopilot, the things that keep you alive, then make climb climbing your priority, and make training for climbing your priority. And don't let things that just pop up last minute derail that, unless it's an emergency. You know, it's all too easy to say, I'm going to go to the gym thursday night. And then thursday afternoon, somebody say hey, do you want to go out to this bar, you know, and that sounds more fun. So you're going to go out to the bar. And then you don't have another climbing session till the following tuesday. And then you skip that one too, for whatever reason, because it's bowling night or whatever. And you want to go bowling with your friends, whatever it is, it's really easy to start skipping sessions. And when you're a weekend warrior, those sessions add up really fast.

Nate Drolet  12:41

 Yeah. I mean, the thing is, there's always something happening.

Kris Hampton  12:45

Yeah. 

Nate Drolet  12:46

Yeah. I mean, if you're looking for an excuse, you're gonna find it anywhere.

Kris Hampton  12:50

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So it's got to be a priority.

Nate Drolet  12:54

Cool. This actually blends in really well with my number three. So I'm skipping down to that, we'll come back to number two. And that's is that always be moving forward. So just because things aren't lining up perfectly doesn't mean that you can't keep getting better. 

Kris Hampton  13:09

Yep. yep.

Nate Drolet  13:10

Shits gonna happen, things are gonna get in the way. And let's say, Yeah, you've got a buddy in town who you never get to see. And he's like, hey, let's go bowling. I personally love bowling and anyone who doesn't know I used to bowl competitively. So I would actually be down for it.

Kris Hampton  13:23

But I totally wasn't throwing shade at bowling just a minute ago. Sort of was actually.

Nate Drolet  13:30

Yeah, like, Okay, all right. So yeah, if you know, if you're going to go do these things, like, do something. Like, even if it's a 20 minute hang board workout, like a five minute core workout, something just any day that you can do something, it's better than nothing. And, you know, we're all gonna have like, times of our lives, we're really stressed or weird things come up, whether it's like family or relationship or whatever. And you're just gonna be like, like, it'll be easier just to give up. It is like, it's easy to say, you know, and I'm gonna throw in the towel. I'm just gonna eat a lot of doughnuts. And I'm just gonna stop giving a fuck. Like, that's really...

Kris Hampton  14:09

Sounds kind of cool, actually.

Nate Drolet  14:11

Yeah, that's amazing. It's so easy to do. And, man, it. It's so easy to like, just landslide, all of that, like, the second one thing goes, like, you know, I'm just gonna stop caring about all of it. Like, man, everything just starts going downhill.

Kris Hampton  14:26

Yeah. And you end up on the couch playing Legend of Zelda for 27 straight hours. Not that I've ever done that, but it happens I hear.

Nate Drolet  14:33

It does happen. But yeah, so just like, do something like keep consistent. I mean, the thing is, when you like, you know, climbing is amazing. We're gonna come back to it. Like, at some point, you're gonna be like, Ah, you know what, I finally have time again. I want to get back to rock climbing. And if you suck like, it's not fun to come back.

Kris Hampton  14:52

 It's tough man. 

Nate Drolet  14:53

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  14:54

It's tough. 

Nate Drolet  14:54

But if you're just doing you know, the bare minimum, just like okay, like I can only get into The gym once a week for an hour, do it. Like just get in, do something like, yeah, and it'll pay off in the end. Because when you actually are like you do have the time, like, Oh, I'm actually not in like horrible shape. You know, maybe after a month or so you're like, cool. I'm back where I was. Yeah, so just, you know, plan for the hard times, like planned for chaos.

Kris Hampton  15:22

Yep. I think that's I think that's really good advice, because we're all going to have chaos. Life's crazy. Life's hard. You know, even even the people who you see who look like they have this perfect life shift falls apart.

Nate Drolet  15:34

 Oh, yeah. 

Kris Hampton  15:35

And when they come out, come out of the other side unscathed. It's because they planned ahead because they're putting work in because they're getting the bare minimum done, even when it's not convenient.

Nate Drolet  15:48

Mm hmm. Yeah, consistency is king. Like, the more consistent you can be, even if it's just the tiniest little things. It goes such a long ways.

Kris Hampton  15:58

Yeah, no doubt. You know what else goes a long way? Taking a break. 

Nate Drolet  16:02

Yep. 

Kris Hampton  16:04

What's up everybody, Kris here. Sorry to interrupt. I'll keep this brief. Since this podcast thing became officially official, I've gotten a bunch of messages from you guys asking how you can help out and make sure that it keeps going. Well, now we've got away our new Patreon page, which you can find at patreon.com/powercompanypodcast is set up so that you can become patrons of the podcast, we want to keep this thing sponsor free. You know, we want to keep it mostly commercial free, except for our own commercials like this one, of course. So the way it's set up is that you can donate monthly $1 a month, $5 a month all the way up to $25 a month, and you get rewards in return for that, for instance, for the $5 a month, you get our Google Voice number, which means you can call leave us a voicemail message. And we'll play it on the podcast and try to answer any questions that you have. So we're trying to give back to you guys, and again, trying to keep this thing sponsor free. So help us out patreon.com/powercompanypodcast, or you can go to powercompanyclimbing.com and click on the podcast tab. Thanks a lot back to the show.

Kris Hampton  17:18

 And we have returned more on number three. And my number three is get another hobby.

Nate Drolet  17:29

That's a good one.

Kris Hampton  17:29

Find something else you enjoy doing? You know, I think it's a good idea to just have some other things to take your mind off of the project and off of climbing and moving your body in a different way or using your mind in a different way or whatever it might be. The one key thing you have to do though, is early on in the process of coming up with this other hobby is decide what the priority is? Like, is this a hobby? Or is this a passion? And if it's something you really want to pursue, then maybe your rock climbing needs to take a backseat. Otherwise, you need to keep climbing in the driver's seat while you've got this other hobby going on. So I know you've got a bunch of other hobbies as well have always got hobbies going do you have any favorites? I love skateboarding. I love my silly photoshop sends diagrams that I make. And I'm about to start recreating.

Nate Drolet  18:32

 I know that it's sending weather.

Kris Hampton  18:34

It's sending whether Yeah, people are sending so and they're sending routes with good name. So I need to make some. Yeah, you know, I've got all sorts of little hobbies, and I make music and I read and you know, so yeah, I do a bunch of things. But since I've really focused on climbing and training for climbing things that have been my passions in the past, like music, have taken a backseat. So I know that I can't put the amount of energy that both deserve into both if I want them both to be treated like passions. So So I put one in in the in the on the back burner for a little while.

Nate Drolet  19:15

Yeah, I think that would be good too, because it can help refuel passion for other things. 

Kris Hampton  19:20

Yeah, totally. 

Nate Drolet  19:21

Yeah, put it off for a little bit. Just kind of keep it around. But yeah, like focus on other things. So when you come back to it, it feels fresh, and it's not like us it's just something I've been kind of grinding away out for a long time.

Kris Hampton  19:32

 Mm hmm. Yeah. And if I'm ever you know, if I get into a funk with climbing and don't want to put a season of training in or, you know, I just want to go climb easy trad for a while or whatever and I'm not pushing super hard then I can focus in on music because I always have to be going in on something so. Or all you guys can just send it and I can make Instagrams all day long. 

Kris Hampton  19:56

All this sendstagrams,

Kris Hampton  19:58

yeah #sendstagrams. On the Instagrams.

Nate Drolet  20:03

And I'll change topics right now. So my number three is build good habits. Yeah, don't make hard. Don't make yourself make hard choices every day. Don't be like, oh, what am I going to eat for breakfast, like this morning instead, just, man, I take one simple thing. And Kris can attest to this because we lived on the road for six weeks together.

Kris Hampton  20:29

I'm totally down with this program.

Nate Drolet  20:30

We ate for that trip. We ate burritos, breakfast burritos every single morning. And it was funny cuz I was cooking breakfast. I was like, Kris, how do you feel about breakfast burritos? He's like, Oh, I love breakfast burritos. I was like, the next morning. I'm like, how do you feel about breakfast burritos? I love breakfast burritos. I think it was a weekend. I was like, I'm gonna keep making breakfast burritos with the same ingredients until you say stop. And I'm gonna test and see how far this goes.

Kris Hampton  20:34

 And probably not gonna say stop. 

Nate Drolet  20:56

Yeah, we basically made it six weeks was which is awesome. The only change was different hot sauces, which is

Kris Hampton  21:01

Yeah, Sophie saw me make it breakfast burrito the other morning and just rolled her eyes.

Nate Drolet  21:06

But yeah, like, just pick certain things and like, make them a habit. So one thing that helped me a ton, when I was working at Amazon is and I was walking a bunch and in a second I get off work. Like I didn't feel like doing anything. But I always packed my climbing gear, I had to change the clothes, I drove straight to the gym. So I knew 

Kris Hampton  21:26

Yep. 

Nate Drolet  21:27

If I went home, I was gonna sit on the couch. I was, I wasn't gonna move, like I would be done for the day. So drove straight to the gym. And it wasn't even a question anymore. It was just drive to the gym, get my training in. I'm done. Like, 

Kris Hampton  21:39

Totally. 

Nate Drolet  21:40

And that was it. It was no longer. Like, ah, what should I do? So yeah, build good habits. Like it's, yeah, it's not terribly hard to do. Just be consistent. Pick something small start with that. As a couple things I like a lot. James lCear, who's a great writer, and talks on habits a lot. He likes the idea of Keystone habit. And climbing is actually a great use for that. So his basic basic example is exercise. So the idea is that the more he exercises, suddenly he feels like oh, like, I want to eat better, because it makes me feel better. Like, I want to be...

Kris Hampton  22:19

 So that one habit leads to all the others.

Nate Drolet  22:21

 Exactly. Like it all ties together. And the thing is, if you're climbing consistently and you're trying to get better, you start realizing Wow, when I get like eight good hours of sleep, or you know if that's not possible, whatever it is, let's say you can only get six hours of sleep at night. But when suddenly, like oh, when I get six quality hours of sleep, not just I go to bed and I wake up six hours later, like I feel a lot better, and I climb harder. Suddenly, there's this reward that comes along with it. 

Kris Hampton  22:47

Yep, totally.

Nate Drolet  22:48

 Same thing with eating. Same thing with hydration, all these different things like you know, self care and stuff like that, from to improve your recovery. Like, yeah, build these little habits. And once you start seeing how they relate, like, they should become natural.

Kris Hampton  23:04

Yeah, climbing is definitely been my Keystone habit. You know, when I was really focused on music, it was never..

Nate Drolet  23:13

It didn't make you eat healthier?

Kris Hampton  23:14

 It did not make me healthier. It did not make me sleep better. In fact, I slept very little and I ate like, absolute shit. You know, it definitely. It created other small habits. But as far as healthy habits go something like climbing is a really, really great one. Great Keystone habit that and I like that term.

Nate Drolet  23:38

Yeah. Like one I liked a lot when I was trying to do core exercises consistently. You know, I want to do them more or less, like five days a week. And so I was like, cool every single weekday, do a core a core workout. Like before I go to bed. And it's you know, it's easier said than done. And what ended up working really well for me and I think I would have told a bunch of people I don't know if I've talked mentioned on the podcast before, but I turned on Pandora. And I would just move for three songs. Like 

Kris Hampton  24:12

Okay.

Nate Drolet  24:12

Whether it was planks, side, planks, bridges, whatever pal off presses. Just move like, if I was psyched, like there's sometimes I'd go even longer or I do like much harder exercises. But bare minimum. All I had to do like I was just like, oh, like just need to do this and I will turn on Pandora and I just more or less move for three songs.

Kris Hampton  24:35

Yeah, that's a cool way to do it.

Nate Drolet  24:37

Yeah. And it became really easy to point to where it It didn't even feel like a task anymore. I was like, oh cool. Just gonna turn it on like, and then I could kind of take it on however I felt like man, if I felt just really rough, then I would be take it really easy, man. There were some nights like I would get started. I'm like, oh man, I'm really psyched. I'm stoked at that point. 5 6 7 songs and be just crushing it. And yeah, there was no there was no specific rep set scheme. Or like, perfect exercises, like I have a lot of exercises that I think are good, and I'm cycling through them. But what was most important was I was just being consistent. And that made such a huge difference.

Kris Hampton  25:11

Yeah. And I think it's huge to, to have a way, like a gateway into that habit, because it's so easy to decide you're going to do core, five days a week, and then...

Nate Drolet  25:25

 30 minutes a day. 

Kris Hampton  25:26

Yeah. And then feel like you have to have this super exciting, you know, regimented program of core for five days a week.

Nate Drolet  25:35

If I can sneeze without paying the next day, I didn't do it well.

Kris Hampton  25:39

And in reality, you, you know, so many people, do all this research upfront, figure out what their big plan is, what they're gonna do, and then they just never actually do it. You know, that's what happens with new year's resolutions, all the gym memberships that get bought on New Year's resolutions, you know, and it's a really great way. Super simple way that you're outlining there. Just to jump into that.

Nate Drolet  26:05

Yeah, just pick something small and just do it consistently. That's, I mean, that's so huge with habits. And it's, I don't know, it's hard to convince anyone of this, but pick something so small that you cannot fail. Like, yeah, yeah, like, it sounds ridiculous. The whole idea of like, Oh, just get 1% better every day. But the thing is after, like 100 days, that's a really huge amount that you're getting better. 

Kris Hampton  26:29

That's 100% better.

Nate Drolet  26:30

Yeah. Like, yeah. I don't know. It's a really hard sell to convince people that just do something tiny because we, you know, it's like, oh, no, I'm just gonna overhaul everything.

Kris Hampton  26:46

 Yeah.

Nate Drolet  26:46

We've got a new meal plan. I've got new, just everything. 

Kris Hampton  26:51

Yeah, we want it all at once.

Nate Drolet  26:52

Seven training plans. And I'm going to be a new me here in a couple months. 

Kris Hampton  26:56

Yeah we want to plan it all at once. And then we want all the effects all at once.

Nate Drolet  27:01

Yeah. But just make a tiny change. And just see to it, like, a really fun strategy I like it's what's called the Seinfeld strategy. And Jerry Seinfeld used this. The comedian, he, his goal was to just write one joke a day. That was his entire goal. If you could write one usable joke, or even just a joke in general, then that was a success. So he pulled out a calendar, and every single day that he could write a joke, he scratched out that day with a giant red X. And so the whole idea was to try and make this chain of days as long as possible, like, never break it. And it was, I mean, it's one joke. Like, this is just one tiny little thing. It would be easy to be like, no, I needed, you know, I'd have to write for like two hours or something like that. 

Kris Hampton  27:45

Right.

Nate Drolet  27:46

 It's so easy to have these huge goals. But I mean, there's a you know, everyone who's listening to this probably has heard of the name Jerry Seinfeld. 

Kris Hampton  27:53

Yep. 

Nate Drolet  27:53

Like, just a little bit done consistently goes so far.

Kris Hampton  27:58

Yeah, no doubt. Do you. I'm gonna throw a wrench in the works here. 

Nate Drolet  28:01

Oh, goodness. 

Kris Hampton  28:03

Since this has been a really quick one, do you have a favorite tool? Physical or digital tool that you bought that helps your climbing life balance?

Nate Drolet  28:20

That's a good one. Um, I don't know, I like the Arm-aid a lot. I don't know if that's what were talking about.

Kris Hampton  28:29

Do you have any elbow issues right now?

Nate Drolet  28:32

Yeah, no, because of the Arm-aid.

Kris Hampton  28:34

Because of the Arm-aid. So mine is mine is one that I didn't buy. I just happened to cross it. And, you know, in looking for a way to make a to do list that kind of was across my whole platform of life, you know, that could fit with work and life and everything else. And I came across, I think it's called Google tasks. And I use that for, you know, I just make little notes in there all day long, about what I need to get done, and, uh, when it needs to get done. And then, uh, I can just go on my computer whenever I'm starting to get work done. And I open up Google task and hit sort by date. And it can tell me everything that needs to get done that day. You know, and for me, that's great, especially on the computer when I get sidetracked and, you know, on Facebook for an hour before I even realize I've been on Facebook at all. So that's super helpful for me, and I'm sure they're better programs than Google task, but it's a free one that works really well for me.

Nate Drolet  29:51

So I've got one.

Kris Hampton  29:52

Okay. 

Nate Drolet  29:52

Um, using sticky notes.

Kris Hampton  29:58

Okay.

Nate Drolet  29:58

 Yeah. So 

Kris Hampton  30:00

What do you do with these sticky notes?

Nate Drolet  30:01

I stick them to things. Anytime before I would go into the gym, I would write down on a sticky little post it note what my entire workout for the day was. And my theory on that is, if it can't fit on a post it note, you're doing too much stuff.

Kris Hampton  30:19

Hmmm. That's a good idea. 

Nate Drolet  30:20

And the other thing is, like, if you just walk in the gym, you're like, I'm gonna, like, try hard today. You could be in there for seven hours and like, get nothing done. But you know, be like, okay, like, 15 minute warm up of like this drill, like 20 minutes of this or whatever. And like, whatever I was doing, I would have it mapped out so that when I when I went in, I knew exactly what I was doing. And man like, yeah when you don't, when you have, you're spending a lot of your time doing other things. You need to be as effective as possible with your time when you're training. Like and it doesn't take much time to train like you can, man you can get wrapped in 90 minutes, no question, like your focus. And that's like, with good rests. Like that's not just climbing 90 straight minutes. It's like no, like, you're still resting like two minutes between efforts. And yeah, like if you're really trying hard and you're being intelligent about what you're doing, you can get a lot done in 90 minutes to two hours. But yeah, if you're just half assing and you have no plan, then...

Kris Hampton  31:15

Then you're in there for five hours and takes a whole pack of sticky notes to write yet write down your session. 

Kris Hampton  31:21

Yeah, it's actually like a little flip book. Yeah, of me falling.

Kris Hampton  31:25

By the way. Don't Don't do that. Don't try to make a flip book with a sticky notes doesn't work. I tried it. I went through a lot of sticky notes trying to make flipbooks anyway.

Kris Hampton  31:34

So yeah, the sticky note. That's a one of my favorite things and stack of sticky notes istiny fits anywhere. It's like $1 Yeah, so.

Kris Hampton  31:44

Boom. I like that.

Nate Drolet  31:45

Yeah, that's one of my favorite things just more or less. Plan ahead so that you have something going on.

Kris Hampton  31:49

Yep. Awesome. I think you guys know where to find us. Definitely on the interwebs on the Facebook's and the Instagrams hashtag sendstagram,

Nate Drolet  32:01

And thanks to everyone who's been giving us five star reviews on iTunes.

Kris Hampton  32:06

Yeah, we love you guys for that and everybody listening really but if you're listening and you haven't rated as reviewed as you should go do that. Jump on your computer door and go do it. And you will not find us However, on the Twitter's because we don't tweet, we scream like eagles.