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Welcome to Lifehunter, more than the hunt podcast, where we take lessons from
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the wild and apply them to everyday life.
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I'm your host, Anthony Van Grinsman, and today I want to talk about something
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I think every hunter does.
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Well, more specifically, every pheasant hunter has experienced.
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You walk into a field. The corn is standing thick, the grass is heavy,
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the brush is tangled, and the wind is moving through everything around you.
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Somewhere in that mess is a pheasant. You know he's there. You might have seen
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him go in, and you might have heard him. The dog knows where he is.
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Everything about the situation tells you there's a bird in that cupboard.
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But that bird isn't moving. He's hunkered down.
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He's buried himself so deep into that cover that you could damn near step on
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him before he gives you anything.
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And here's the thing about a pheasant.
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He's not doing that because he's weak and he's not doing it because he's stupid.
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He's doing it because something in him says stay alive, stay hidden, don't be seen.
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Honestly, I think humans do the exact same thing. It's just a different kind of cover.
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A pheasant has corn and we have houses. A pheasant has brush and we have our dumbass cubicles.
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A pheasant has cattails and tall grass and we have our vehicles,
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our phones, our garages, our jobs, and our routines.
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Places where we can disappear. Places where nobody asks too many questions.
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Places where we can convince ourselves that we're fine and sometimes we get
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really damn good at hiding.
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Think about that pheasant sitting 20 yards ahead of you. You walk past him and nothing.
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The dog works the edge nothing you push deeper and get closer and still nothing,
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maybe you're within two feet of him and that bird is still sitting there with
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every feather pressed tight against the cover hoping you don't see him why,
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because being seen changes everything once he's seen he has to make a decision run flush fight.
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I mean, he has to do something. As long as he's hidden, he doesn't have to deal with what's coming.
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People do that too. We hide because hiding feels safer.
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You don't tell your boss you're burned out because you don't want to be seen as weak.
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You don't tell your spouse you're struggling because you're afraid of what that
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conversation might uncover.
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You don't tell your buddy you're hurting because you spent 20 years being the
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guy that everybody counts on.
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And you don't admit that you're scared because you built a life around being
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the guy who isn't And sometimes you don't tell yourself,
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That's probably the worst kind of hiding there is I mean, you can fool a boss
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You can fool your spouse You can fool your friends Hell, you can fool everybody
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around you But eventually,
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you're sitting alone with yourself And there's nowhere left to hide.
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Sometimes you need cover. But here's where I want to be careful because hiding isn't always bad.
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Sometimes you need cover.
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Sometimes you need to get your head down. Sometimes life hits you hard enough
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that the smartest thing you can do is get quiet for a while.
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The pheasant understands that.
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He doesn't stay exposed just because somebody might think he's brave.
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He uses what the land gives him. He protects himself. He waits.
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He conserves energy and he survives.
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There's wisdom in that There are reasons Or I'm sorry.
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There are seasons in our lives When we need the same thing Sometimes you need
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to close the garage door Turn the phone off And get away from everybody,
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Sit on a bucket beside a frozen lake Walk into the woods Sit in a deer stand Go fishing by yourself,
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You don't always need to be productive And you don't always need to explain
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yourself Sometimes you just need some damn cover and that's okay.
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But here's where the lesson changes. Cover is supposed to protect you.
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It isn't supposed to become your permanent address. That's the difference.
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A pheasant can spend a long time hunkered down, but eventually something changes.
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The pressure gets too close.
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The cover isn't enough anymore and that bird has to make a decision.
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Stay hidden or step into the open.
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Maybe that's where some of us are today. We've been hunkered down for a long time.
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We've told ourselves we're just waiting for the right time We're just getting
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through the week We're just trying to make it through this job Get the kids
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raised Get through this relationship Get through this season,
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And there's nothing wrong with surviving a season But you can't spend your whole
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life surviving At some point, you have to live.
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Here's something else about that pheasant. When he finally comes out of cover,
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you get to see what was there the whole time. The colors.
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The feathers. That ridiculous, beautiful combination of gold,
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brown, green, copper, and red.
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That bird was glorious the entire time. You just couldn't see him.
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The cover didn't make him beautiful. It only hid the beauty that was already there.
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I think people forget that about themselves.
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Some guy sitting in a cubicle all day might be an incredible father,
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but nobody at work sees it.
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A woman grinding through a 12-hour shift might be carrying an entire family
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on her back and nobody at the office knows.
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The guy sitting in his truck in the parking lot for 10 minutes before going
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into work might be fighting a battle that nobody knows exists.
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The hunter sitting alone in his blind might look perfectly calm from the outside,
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while inside he's trying to figure out what the hell happened to the person that he used to be.
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Maybe that's you. Maybe you've been buried in the cover for so long that you've
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forgotten what you look like in the open.
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You've gotten comfortable being unseen because when nobody sees you, nobody can judge you.
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Nobody can criticize you. They can't reject you. And nobody can tell you that you're not enough.
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But there's another side of that. When nobody sees you, nobody gets to know you either.
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Nobody gets to experience what you actually bring to the table Nobody gets to
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see the father that you are The husband you could be The friend you could become
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Or the leader you might actually have inside of you,
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Nobody gets to see the person you buried underneath all that cover.
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So maybe the lesson from the pheasant isn't simply don't hide.
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That's too damn simple.
The lesson is this.
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Know when you're using cover for protection and when you're using it to disappear.
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There is a difference. Protection is temporary. Disappearing can become a lifestyle.
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And sometimes the bravest thing you can do isn't walking into some giant challenge.
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Sometimes it's much smaller.
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It's telling somebody, I'm not
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doing as good as I look It's sitting across from your spouse and finally,
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having the conversation that you've been avoiding It's telling your kids you're
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proud of them It's admitting to your boss that something isn't working It's
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asking for help It's walking into a room without pretending you're somebody you're not,
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It's taking off the armor and it's stepping out of the corn.
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Here's the part I really want you to remember. You don't have to step out of
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the cover because you're ashamed of being there.
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You don't have to apologize for protecting yourself. You don't have to feel
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weak because you need somewhere to hide.
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Hell, every hunter understands the value of cover. We use it every season.
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We know what it means to get low, to stay still, to wait, to watch,
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and to survive. Those are all good skills.
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But eventually, the hunt moves and so does life.
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There comes a point when staying hidden costs you more than stepping out that's
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when you have to rise up take a breath look around and let yourself be seen,
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not the version of you that you think everybody wants and not the version you've
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built to survive you the real one the scarred up one the tired one the guy who
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screwed some shit up the guy who's still trying,
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the person who's been knocked to the fucking ground and got back up more times than anybody knows.
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Because there's something powerful about being seen exactly as you are.
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And maybe somebody else needs to see that.
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Maybe your kids need to see that dad doesn't have all the answers.
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Maybe your friend needs to see that strong men can struggle.
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Maybe your spouse needs to see what's exactly happening behind the wall you've built.
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Maybe somebody sitting across from you is hiding too and your willingness to
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step out might give them permission to do the same thing.
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So the next time that you're walking a pheasant field and that dog locks up
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and everybody gets quiet and you know there is a bird buried somewhere in that
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cover, think about where you're looking at.
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Don't just think about that bird. Think about yourself and ask yourself,
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what am I hiding from? What am I protecting?
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And maybe most importantly, has the cover protected me or has it started to imprison me?
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Because sometimes you need to stay hunkered down. Sometimes you need to cover.
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Sometimes you need to heal where nobody can see you.
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But don't forget, the pheasant wasn't meant to spend his life buried in the
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corn and neither were you.
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At some point, step out. Let the light hit you. Let somebody see you.
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Let yourself be seen, because you might be surprised to find out the person
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you've been hiding isn't broken.
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He's still there. He's still beautiful. He's still capable. He's still worth knowing.
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He was just buried under the cover for a while. And maybe it's time to step
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out of the corn, step out of your cover.
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Thank you for listening to Lifehunter, more than the hunt podcast.
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I'm your host, anthony van grinsman,
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i hope you enjoyed this episode for more episodes please follow life hunter
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on all major podcast platforms you can visit the lifehunter.com or follow us
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at lifehunter tv on social.
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And as always i'm your host anthony van grinsman welcome to lifehunter.