Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The hardest part of achieving a goal is starting. Being sendy means making courageous decisions to try something before you have all of the answers. This podcast will remind you of the remarkable life you are living and will give you new ideas to make your life more meaningful and exciting and give you courage to accomplish your goals by stopping the negative voices in your head and just sending it!
Becky (00:53.872)
Alright, so thank you for being here and talking to me today about what it means to be a sendy mom. And Marty is like one of the most sendy moms that I know. You have done so many things in your life. So my first question is, what do you think a sendy mom is?
Marty: I think a sendy mom is somebody who's willing to try. And if it's uncomfortable, it's okay that you fail.
Becky: Yeah, perfect. That's pretty much what I believe a sendy mom is too. And
Becky (01:21.992)
Plenty of things that you can do that are Sendy that don't involve climbing mountains or rock climbing or mountain biking or anything like that. Sendy Mom is someone who is trying. Yeah, exactly. Very good. So why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself taking maybe the home that you grew up in and maybe the type of family that you grew up in plus and then your family.
Marty (01:47.548)
My dad grew hay, grain, cattle and raised kids with my mom. I'm the youngest of six kids. And I grew up in a very loving and safe home. And I have really good relationships with my brothers and sisters and I love them all. And now I've married my best friend who is my adventure buddy and we have three kids who we drive with us through all our adventuring too and we're hoping we are brainwashing them enough that they like it too.
Becky: Yes. They do like it. Good, good, good. Well, and they do. I mean, and you just bought like a huge van.
Marty: Yeah, we haven't used it to the extent we want to yet, but we'll get there.
Becky: Okay. Yeah. And what do you plan on doing with your van?
Marty: (02:34.744)
Really we don't have any like specific plans for our van. It's more for our family. So plans for our family is just to keep adventuring.
Becky: As you go along, things come up and then you'll just go do it. I know you've done a lot of national parks though, right?
Marty: We do a lot of backpacking and hiking and national parks and climbing and mountain biking.
Becky: Yeah, like how many places have you been this week? Like adventuring?
Marty: Well, what have I done this week? We went up Mill Creek, stayed at a cabin, and played streams and mountain biked and then we just got back from Kings Peak. We backpacked Kings Peak with the kids.
Becky: Highest point in Utah. 13 ,000 something.
Marty: I think it's 12 ,900.
Becky: Okay, yeah almost 13 ,000 feet. So yeah did you guys have any problems with elevation?
Marty No, kids all did great. Good. It ended up being like 26 miles.
Becky: And you didn't have any bad weather or anything? was all great. Yep. You know my adventure?
Marty: Uh -huh. thought about your story. Yeah, the first week we moved into the area, we heard that story. We talked about that. that was... Wyatt and Erin have had some life moments with that one.
HIKING KING’S PEAK
Becky (03:33.786)
For sure, for sure. So just really, I'll just tell everybody So we went and hiked Kings Peak and Wyatt was eight. We spent the night and then I think we just didn't start early enough to get up to the top. And so by the time we got up there, it was starting to drizzle just a little bit. Well, first of all, I fell on my way up, like tumble down the mountain, like backwards and sprained my ankle in the process. Like as we were getting up to the top. We get up to the top, it was fine. Starting to get just a little bit weathery. And then we started to head down. And that's when Wyatt started showing some of those, yes, some of those elevation sickness stuff, or altitude sickness. He was kind of, you know, getting nausea. He wanted to keep stopping and sit down. Yes. Yeah. And he just wanted to sit down and he's yeah, 8 years old. So it's not like I can carry him down the mountain. So we just had to keep kind of encouraging him to get up and let's just walk this far. We're going to walk this far, now. And so it was really slow going on top of it, starting to get a little bit of weather. So the older boys decided that they were going to kind of go down this really steep incline with lots of gravel and everything that didn't look like it was really a trail. And I was like, no, we need to just go back the way we came. That's a little bit more safe and stable and whatever. And so we started heading back there and just Wyatt was not moving at all. It was getting pretty bad and it started raining a little bit more. So we found some shelter up at the top, like some rocks and stuff that we sat behind and it started to hail and it was hailing really bad. And we were, we were soaked.The rock provided no protection and then there's lightning bolts bolts going all around us and so we look at this hillside that my other boys had gone down that was really steep and we're like we just need to get down off this mountain and we've got to go right now. we like we just hightailed it down there and we just we were like sliding back and forth. I was with Wyatt, Robert was with Aaron. There's lightning bolts like going on either side of us. We finally get down to the bottom and we just hunker down until the weather passed. in the meantime, Ethan, my oldest, he started looking, going back for us because he was worried about us. And so he went, he went back and so he had, and he didn't take any water with them. So he was gone an extra like two or three hours because he thought we were coming back the way we came. So we missed each other. So it was a mess. And then on the way out, we spent the night that night. And then on our way out, we got into more weather and it was just hailing and it was like trudgingthrough rivers basically of hailstones. So yeah, that was our experience. So I'm glad you guys did not.
Marty: no, no, issue with that experience. Nothing like that.
Becky: But at the same time, you get done with those kinds of experiences and you're, you know, like it makes a good story. Yeah. Number one. And it, and it builds you. It like helps you to become stronger because you've been through it.
Marty: Did Robert do it with you guys? Yeah. So yeah, he's a bit of a Sendy dad too.
Becky (07:10.25)
So okay, so you've got this beautiful family. You've got three three beautiful children that love to adventure with you and tell me about some of the adventures some of your favorite adventures that you've had
BACKPACKING WITH KIDS
Marty: Lots of backpacking. We do a couple of backpacking trips a year.
Becky: How do you plan for those things?
Marty (07:30.984)
We pick a destination. Then we break it down and then we decide how much weight each kid can carry. So there's like a percentage that each kid can carry safely. Then we just kind of divvy out weight. With getting Micah older, he can carry more, so it's helpful for him to carry part of the tent now. Same with Kai. Sage can carry all of her stuff except for all of the food. Okay. So like her pack for this last trip was maybe 12 pounds. So it's not very much weight. Yeah.
Becky: And nobody complains?
Marty (08:00.99)
No. like you know the first couple of miles it's like adjusting filling how the pack feels again and then we just settle in.
Becky: How about when the kids were little?
Marty: We had them carry like their water bladder and snacks but we would carry most of their clothes
Becky: And it was just kind of an expectation like this is what our family does.
Marty: So we talked about it. We would build them up and just say hey this so like Sage was three and half turning four the first backpacking trip we did and that was 30 miles that we did with her. Okay. And that was a Teton press trail. Okay. And we just got all the gear out. We kind of planned out the food, the clothes, the equipment and divided it out in canonized packs and then had the boys carry most of their stuff, but they were young. They were like nine and seven.
Becky: Okay. So how do you decide where to go? Um,
Marty (08:54.65)
places that we want to Okay. And if we've done the trail before, so the Teton Crest Trail, I've run it a couple of times in a day. Well, you grew up around there. Yeah, I grew up in the Tetons. And the Teton Crest Trail, it starts in Jackson Pass or at the Jackson Mountain Resort, the ski resort. Okay. You take the trail up to the top and then it traverses across the Tetons and then you end down at Jenny's Lake or String Lake. Okay. So it's a relatively flat trail with a couple of passes that you go through that are steep. But for 30 miles, it's beautiful views and the kids could do that just fine. Yeah, you have to get permits for it. So sometimes the things that we do you have to get permits for so we have to get permits for a couple of camp spots on that one We've done the Grand Canyon We did rim to rim on that one and you have to get permits for campgrounds with that. So a lot of it does take just preparation preparation planning and getting permits and you just look it up online The government website and recreation.
So places that we want to do, we try to pick places that we like. King's Peak is probably a one and done for the kids. I ran it last couple of years ago and when I ran it, I picked out like, okay, this would be a good spot for us to camp when I bring my kids to do this. So most of the stuff I have done before, even with the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim. Ken and I ran Rim to Rim to Rim about five years ago.
Becky: In a day?
Marty: In a day.
Becky: That’s crazy.
Marty: Start in the dark and end in the dark.
Becky: How long does that take you?
Marty: It took us rim to rim to rim. It's like 42 miles and it took maybe 13 hours, maybe 12 hours.
Becky: So when you're running, running rim to rim, it's not like you're running the entire time.
Marty: We’re hiking the uphill. We'll take walking breaks. And that's generally what you do when you're, when you're trail running too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not hardcore. I'm not sponsored by anybody. I'm doing it for fun. So I'm not really out to set a fastest time on anything. I just got to enjoy the day. Yep. I can get my heart rate up and enjoy the beautiful world around me. But so some of the stuff we've already done just at a faster pace and I'm like the kids would love this so then we do it with backpacking.
Becky: So what was the first trip that you took with Micah?
Marty: Micah did Mount Olympus when he was seven years old. Okay. And then he did Pfeifferhorn. No Micah was six when he did Olympus. He did Pfeifferhorn when he was eight. Okay. And then they've done a couple others.
Becky (11:24.412)
Yeah, and they still love it.
Marty: Yeah, they're still doing it.
Becky: That’s pretty awesome. How do you feel like you've built that culture into your family? Like, okay, maybe let me ask this. Did you grow up in families that did those kinds of things?
Marty: No, my dad was so busy with farming. Yeah, both my parents were so busy with farming and I was farming right next to them. I was like the one that would go pick up corners of hay and make the rows that the wind blew all over. We didn't have many family vacations growing up. If we did it was like one a year, and it was camping for a family reunion. Okay. So when my siblings got older, they each kind of introduced something to me. Okay. One of the siblings, she was invited to go hiking Table Rock. It's next to the Tetons and I was in fifth grade and she's like, ready to go out and I said sure. So I went with a bunch of senior kids for their senior fun outing in the summer after they had all graduated before they were all going out, you know, to college and whatever. She invited me to go with them, and that was my first mountain hike.
Marty: And I loved it. It was so fun to just hike and play in the mountains and to get on top of the mountain and look at the beautiful scenery from up there. And it kind of ignited a love that I didn't know was out there because my parents didn't expose me to that stuff. Right. So it was my older sister who was invited by friends who invited me. Okay. And then after that, she had boyfriend that she dated and she took me rock climbing with him. So that was my first exposure to rock climbing as well was in fifth grade and then after that I just would go with them to do fun stuff. Yeah. And people would invite me to go.
Becky: It’s so much about the people that you meet and the ideas that people present to you.
Marty: I think it's like exposure and experiences.
Becky: Yeah. Really like you don't know if you'll like something until you try it. Which is what think is what Sendy Mums are. Yes. Learning how to just try something. Yeah.
Becky (13:23.914)
Sometimes you don't even know that it's an option until somebody brings it up to you you're like, I never even thought about putting on a bird suit and like flying through the mountains.
Marty: Like some of these things I didn't even know were options were to sit in a kayak with a skirt on and go down rapids. If you flip over, you have to flip back up and keep going.
Becky: But, tell me about that.
Marty: Ken exposed me to kayaking in high school. He was getting ready to go work at the Salmon River at a high adventure scout camp for the summer. And he wanted to take kayaks out to go try them. And he heard that I had a pond in my backyard and asked if he could come play in my backyard for a while. So we went in the backyard and played in the pond and kayaks and he taught me how to roll. And then he went and worked for the summer and then left. And I didn't see him again really until after his mission. And then we started hanging out more. We were snowboarding and playing and doing like big jumps and stuff like that and then the summer rolls around and he's like, hey can I teach you how to kayak. So we'd sneak into some college dorm hot tubs and he taught me how to roll in a hot tub. So then we started kayaking down rivers. I didn't know that was even an option.
Becky: Well, yeah, because you watch it like on Red Bull TV or whatever, and you're like, yeah, that's for the experts. That's how I got into rock climbing too.
TAKING CALCULATED RISKS AND LEARNING FROM OTHERS
Marty: Yeah. Well, something I was thinking about today, because I was thinking about like, what, why do we take risks? And what are these things that we do? Why do we do them? Really? For me, it's not that I just jump into something. I build the skills up to do it.
Becky: Yeah. Yeah. So it's calculated risk because you're, you're practicing for it. It's cautionary.
Marty: Yes. Okay. So growing up in my home, my parents didn't know these experiences were out there or have the time or means to like, expose us to it. So I had friends who would invite me to go backpacking and I would go with them to that or a sister that would invite me on a hike. So I do that or a sister that would invite me to go climbing. So I would do that. So, right. But as I do it, I have safe instructors that are teaching me how to do it. So then I start challenging myself with more. And so it's more of a calculated risk. I do these things that are risky, but I'm doing them in a safe way because I built up the skill set to do them.
Becky: And you've learned how to do it properly. And that's how you learn anything, right? You slow it down. take it. Well, it's like when you taught mountain biking. Yes. When you taught mountain biking and you were telling us like, okay, you you go very slowly and only choose one thing that you're going to work on. And once I did that, then I got a lot better at doing those berms. So I still can't do that. So the other night for practice, we went up three falls and we went down the Alpine slide. Have you heard of that one?
Marty: The luge? Yes.
Becky: And it just goes vroom, vroom. And it's like all these berms. And the whole time I'm thinking, okay, Marty says I have to keep, I can't remember the Smear the Smear the berm, yes. And what were the other ones
Marty: open the gate,
Becky: open the gate, yes, and arms out and chicken wings, yes, okay, I can't remember, but I was thinking about them, I was thinking about them.
Marty: That’s what I think, like when we take risks, so when I'm at the top of a jump and I'm ready to go, like the very first time I ever tried a backflip on my snowboard, I was sitting at the top and I watched people who were more experienced do it, then they coached me and said this is how you do it, then I did it and I landed it I rode it out. But then when I get in my head and I overthink it, I don't do it as well. Yeah, it's like, I love surrounding myself by people who are more experienced with things that are encouraging me to do stuff. And that's what I hope to do with other people that I do stuff with. I don't want them to be intimidated that they don't even come. Right. I want them to come and I'm willing to go slow enough that they get comfortable to do it.
Becky: Yeah. And sometimes it helps me to understand that, you know what, millions of people have done this and not died and they've not even hurt themselves doing it. So there is a way to do it properly so that you don't hurt yourself. And so if you can learn that it's all about technique like if you can learn the technique properly then you can do pretty much.
Marty: Yeah, like I think of packing for a backpacking trip. Like going with people that have done it have more exposure to it do it often They have more tips than I do that go a couple of times a year.
Becky: Yeah, I mean it really is about the relationships that we have and surrounding us with people who are smarter than us. So that's that's why I'm doing Sendy mom because I like I have all these people that I just love and think are amazing!
Marty: That have done some awesome things that have learned through trying these things that we can learn from.
Becky: And then we can build each other up and help each other and inspire one another through all of the things that we do.
Becky: Well, let me ask you a couple more questions about your growing up. Okay, so we talked a little bit about how you kind of got into a little bit of your, you know, extreme adventures and things like that. Are there any fails that you had that you can remember?
Marty: I would come around all the time with like scrapes and skin missing off the body parts coming inside because I crashed on my motorbike on the road or I crashed doing a jump on my motorbike. Well, learning, having older siblings, brothers especially, that I had one brother in particular that he was a little reckless on some of the sports that he did, and I watched and I was like, I can do that. And I would go crash on my motorbike and I would walk away from it just fine. And my parents would be like, well, are you okay? Okay, let's wash it off. And they were never like, “Don't you do dumb stuff!” You know, it was more like, okay, well, now you know. Okay so I was thinking about with my brother Rhett. So he is a risk taker, at least he was a little bit growing up. And if I tried to do what he did, he was often an encourager. Okay. Like reckless behavior. He would try to keep parameters safe, but he'd be willing to let me try it.
Becky: And do you think that's because of the way that your parents just kind of let you just roam and were not...
LEARNING COMES INCREMENTALLY (18:33)
Marty: They were like, tell us where you're going to be. Like, when are going to be home? So they had us be accountable, but they also weren't like, you can't do that. You're too little or it's too dangerous. Like I remember we had motorbikes and that's what we used to go change water or go pick up stuff in the fields. So when you swath a field, the hay gets put down in rows. Right. And then as the wind blows, sometimes it'll blow the piles around. So then I would have to ride my motorbike with a pitchfork and try to the hay back into a row so that we could go and bale the rows up and put the bales on a hay wagon. So my job was more of like, pick up and make things tidy. Okay. And get things back in order so that the big machines could do their jobs. Okay. Without losing much of our crops. Got it. And so my motorbike, would use a reaper. I was a picker -upper. Yep. So I would use a motorbike to get around on the farm all the time to go do stuff. And it ended up being like a pastime to go play on too. Okay. And so I found like the best ditches to like go down and jump out of. And I found like the best dikes to jump off of. Found like we would build jumps and build a few jumps here and there to like try. My sisters didn't really jump. Just my one brother did. So but I was gonna say you try a little one and then yeah But our gear was never really that great. It was all just farm equipment that we could afford If something broke down it would take a while to get it fixed because we had other machinery that we need to fix before motorbikes would I had this one little motorbike it was an 80 and it was small enough that Like a third grader could get on and the rule was you can't ride the motorbike until you fit the motorbike and I was the littlest so I was the last one to fit the motorbike. So I remember sneaking out into the shed and seeing if I could fit on the motorbike. And most of the time they wouldn't let us ride that motorbike until fourth grade. Okay. But I went and put on like the tallest shoes I had and I made sure I could fit that motorbike in second grade.
Becky: That’s why you're so tall. You just kept trying to grow.
Marty: I really wanted to fit on that motorbike.
Becky: You got such good posture.
Marty: So then I started the motorbike and I pulled up onto the driveway and I run inside and I tell my mom and dad to come out and look that I finally fit the motorbike. And I made sure that I turned the motorbike just so that they could see one foot touching the ground and the other foot was up in the air. It looked like I could fit it and my parents were like, sure, you fit the motorbike now. So I started riding the motorbike earlier than my siblings did because I wouldn't let it stop. Like I just wanted to ride it so really wanted it.
Becky: Okay. So do you feel like some of that has, I mean, do you still feel like that little girl still?
(21:18) Marty: yeah. I'm always like, well, why do I have to wait? Why can't I just start now? I thought of this because we cripple ourselves and we think like we can't do something. We're not ready for it yet. Right. I have to do more preparation for it. But really the preparation comes with experience. Yes. Of that thing. Right.
Becky: You have to do it and you're going to be bad at it when you first start. You have to do it.
Marty: People stop trying things because or they don't even want to try it because they're afraid of being bad. Right. But have you ever met anybody that's really good at something the very, very first time? Even if they are actually good at it, they're not going to be the best at it because they're just starting.
Becky: Yeah, exactly. And you only get better by trying a little bit more every time and try to add something else on and try to work on something a little bit at a time. The way I teach a piano piece, you know, we do that. like, okay, we're going to do these two measures and you're going to just work on your fingering and make sure you get the exact right fingering. And then, okay, now we're going to work on the expression. And now we're going to work on the rhythm and the notes and now let's put it all together and we do just the right hand and we do just the left hand. We do it very slowly. You know, all those different things.
Marty: Add variables to it to keep the whole composure together.
Becky: Exactly. Yeah. And you can do that with pretty much anything that you're, you know, you're trying to accomplish.
Marty: My dad gave me this little round disc and it has the word T U I T on it. And I remember my dad asking me, Hey, have you got the cows fed yet? And I'm like, I haven't gotten around to it yet. Or he would be like, have you like weeded that garden yet? And I'd be like, I haven't gotten around to it yet. And or he'd be like, hey, I need you to sweep out the shed. Have you done that yet? Like, I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll do it soon. And finally, my dad pulled me aside one evening as our evening was finishing. He gave me this piece of wood with the word T -U -I -T on it. And I was like, what is this? And he goes, it's around to it. Now you better get around to it. To it. To it. And so I still have it. And it's it's kind of like my little symbol of like I'm not going to wait to get around to it. I'm going to make it happen.
Becky: Just make it happen. How do you make sure that those things happen? What's your process? Like do you have lists of things that you do or do you just go and do.
QUALIFYING FOR THE BOSTON MARATHON (23:45)
Marty: No, I have lists of things I like to do. Okay, I have a mixture. I have a bucket list of places that would be really fun to go and hike or camp and have an experience. And then if we have an open weekend, I look at this list and I'm like, can we plug one of these into this weekend? Okay, let's go do it. They can be short day hikes. They can be an overnighter. They can be a backpacking trip. They can be a big mountain that we want to do. And so then we kind of look at the whole year and say, what are our top things that we want to accomplish this year of this adventuring thing them in, but not just with adventuring, but stuff like, how do we want to build skills in a certain area of our life? Okay. So like with mountain biking or build skills with like music or build skills with education and we look at kind of like what what's our goal with that so say it's like with running like say I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I'll sign up for a marathon and then I'll plug it in
Becky: So is that one of them and have you qualified?
Marty: It’s tricky with the Boston marathon because they have like a lottery system. So you qualify with a certain time, but if people qualified with a faster time than you, but are in your same age bracket, they get to register before you. Yeah. So the faster runners register before the slower runners. Yeah. And I qualified with five minutes and I thought that was plenty of time, but they said that there were so many people that in your age group that I needed five minutes and two seconds or something like that.
Becky: And do you have to qualify within that year that is the marathon?
Marty: Yeah, so you qualify so like to 2024 you get a qualifying time cutoff date for qualifying times is like November I think. Okay. People know more than I do but November I think is the cutoff maybe September and then if you qualify within January to September then that qualifying time is good for the next year.
Becky: Got it. But if you don't qualify, then you just keep trying. When is Boston Marathon? In April?
Becky: Okay. And so like basically, by November, then you can go in April 2025. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. All right. Have you ever thought about doing the ultra marathons?
Marty: I’ve done them.
Becky: Oh, you have? I didn't even know that. Okay, how far did like it's at 100 mile?
Marty: There’s different like they say anything over 26 miles is an ultra marathon. Okay, so I've done some 50s. Yeah. But I don't always do like the formal races. I'll do the distances, but I won't always do a formal race. So I've done a couple of 50s that haven't been formal races.
Becky: Yeah. I mean, some people like to do that and that gives them an excuse to go and exercise and then and then also the motivation, right? To do well in a race or whatever. But some people just need just want to go out and and run or go out and do those things.
Marty: Some people need like a formal event to plan and prepare for because it gives them more of a formal training.
Becky: Yep. And either way is fine. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever gets you outside and or gets you moving. It's not even well, I'm not even I mean, we're talking a lot about like athletic kinds of things, but it doesn't even have to be athletic. It's you know, like you said music too or academics or speaking in front of people.
Marty: Or even spiritual preparation for an event that you might feel like you need to be prepared for.
CONQUERING FEAR AND FEELING SUCCESSFUL (27:11)
Becky: Okay, so are you afraid of anything? I don't think you're afraid of anything.
Marty: My sister in law asked me this question. Okay, she's like, are you afraid of anything? And I was like, I don't want certain things to happen, but it's not because I'm afraid of it. It's because I just don't want it to. Of course, I don't want any family members to pass away. But I don't fear it because I have faith, and faith and fear can't coexist. True. Very true. I think with enough preparation to prepare for something that fear turns into faith too.
Becky: Is there something though that you haven't done kind of maybe I mean you're kind of in that extreme area or but it doesn't even have to be that. Is there something that you would really like to do that kind of makes you a little bit you feel like you would have to put a lot of preparation into it?
Marty: I have received a prompting I need to do something but I don't really want to do it because it seems like a lot of work. Something like that.
Becky: What, like fostering children or something?
Marty: Yeah, something like that. You know it sounds a little bit terrifying, right? Yes, exactly. But it doesn't mean I can't do it.
Becky: No, exactly. It doesn't mean you have to either. Because that's the thing is I think sometimes we forget that we're our own agents. We're the ones who make the decisions for our life and we're not compelled to do anything that we don't want to do. And so we get to make that decision if we're going to foster a child or if we're going to run a marathon or ultra marathon, or if we're going to take voice lessons and learn how to sing and then sing in front of people. We're the ones who make those choices. And you determine your success for doing any of those things.
Marty: I know. I consider success, like I define success as trying. Like I feel like those words are almost synonymous to me. Success doesn't mean it has a finish point. To me, success just means how do you feel and are you trying? I haven't ran the Boston Marathon. I haven't done certain things, but it doesn't mean I'm not successful in effort.
Becky: Right. Well, I tried to run a marathon and then COVID happened, so I wasn't able to run it and I never did. And I was okay with that. I'd run the distance. I just had never run it as a race.
Marty: But I wouldn't consider you not successful in that. I would just say that those were skills that you were learning from another experience. That's right.
Becky: Yeah. And we just keep building on those skills all the time. Okay, so is there something in your future that you're that you want to accomplish?
Marty: Always. There's always something. Yeah. I'm kind of a private person with some of those things only because I don't do them to prove it to anybody else. And that's totally fine. so I'm like, if I advertise it, then I feel like I'm doing it for them now and I'm not doing it for myself. Yeah, but it's nothing like secret. It's just that's my philosophy. You know? Sometimes I'll talk about it if I want to, but maybe not in the podcast because there's so many people I feel like I have to do it.
Becky: Well, and that's the truth too. You know, like as soon as you start talking about it, then you kind of feel compelled.
Marty: Mm -hmm a little bit. Well, I kind of feel like there's like freedom in Okay, so let's just use one goal in specific was To like qualify for the Boston Marathon. Okay, but what if really while I'm preparing for the Boston Marathon I'm using that skill set of being in shape and running and trying to like Be prepared for the marathon. I'm actually being prepared to do a bigger goal Yeah, and I don't want to be short -sighted that this goal is what I'm preparing for when it's actually for this other goal
Becky: And sometimes when you get to end of a goal then you feel like now what?
Marty: I like to piggyback goals on top of each other so I keep momentum going, but I'm like what if the preparation for this one goal really wasn't just for this goal and what if I don't even do that goal but I prepared for it but this other goal is what I really need to really need to do
Becky: okay so just going on the Boston Marathon so what are some of the strengths that you feel like that you have that would help you to accomplish that goal?
Marty: My family are my strengths. Yeah. They're so supportive. Very supportive. Yeah.
Becky: It’s important to surround yourself with really good people that are going to continue to support you even when you fail too.
Becky: What about, what are some weaknesses that you feel like you have?
Marty: Just overall, not just with my training would be inconsistency.
Becky: Yeah, me too. I think there's a lot of us that can feel that way. for sure.
Marty: a saying on my mirror that says “if you're consistent, you will get it. If you are persistent, you will keep it.” I like that. Yeah. So, I apply that to, I don't know how spiritual or religious you want to get with this, but I apply it to like a testimony. If you're consistently working on understanding the gospel and gaining knowledge, and then you're persistent about keeping that knowledge, then you will have it, like it just stays with you. It'll be there, I love that. And when you're talking about some of the quick decisions about making, about adventuring or accomplishments or success. One of the tools I try to use with... if it's a good thing is if it's good, I do it. Yeah. If it's a prompting and it's something good, I'll do it.
Becky: Yeah. If it's, if it's leading to something good and it comes to what you're like, you can feel within yourself if, it's a little bit off, like you're not really sure.
Marty: Some things do take planning, even if they're a great prompting and you need it like, okay, well I need to put some thought into this. Yeah. Let's table it for a minute and think about it. But I don't want to stall. That’s where my stalling comes from. That's probably one of my weaknesses is if I get a prompting or I want to do something and I stall because I'm like, got to plan this. got to make sure it's successful.
Becky: It’s a real balance, isn't it? Because you also talked about being, you know, taking risks that are calculated, right? And so you do have to think about it like, how am I going to do this? And so you do have to step back. But how long do you step back? Like, don't step back too long, or else you're not going to do it at all.
Marty: Yeah, one thing that Sage said to us, we were at top of this double black diamond and we were going to ski. And the kids all do great keeping up. We pick whatever lines we want to and they'll come down with us on all of them. And we just did this big double black diamond and we looked back up and it was this tiny shoot and I asked Sage, okay, how did you do that? That was like awesome and you're so little. She was little when we did it and she goes, it's just one turn at a time, mom.
Becky: Profound. Out of the mouth of babes.
Marty: Just one turn at a time. That's right. Yeah. So sometimes you do have to get started. Yeah. And you can't just sit in the stalling moment.
Becky: Then there comes a time when you've got to stop doing one turn at a time and you've got to add to it. And sometimes that's where I struggle because I know we've talked about, my going through powder. I just really struggle with going through powder. And I think it's because I was trying to do one turn at a time.
VISUALIZING SUCCESS
Marty: So like picturing the flow.
Becky: The flow. Exactly. And so I think you do have to see that and where it's going to end up. So even when you're on a mountain bike and you're going around a curve, you look to the end of that curve and that's going to move your body and that's one thing that you taught too in those classes, to move your body as you are going around. And so you have to look to the end of it to see where you're going to end up.
Marty: Think about that with the hard things that we go through in life too. Say we're in the middle of a hard experience life trial that's like a health trial or something like that, right? Sometimes we do just focus on one turn at a time, like one doctor's visit at a time. Sure. Then we can give ourselves a gift too of sometimes envisioning ourselves two visits down the road and what that might look like.
Becky: And visualization is a huge part of it too, isn't it? Like when you're talking about going off these jumps, you know, and things like that, did it help you to be able to visualize yourself actually going over it?
Marty: Well, like you picture somebody else, you see somebody else actually do it. That's what helps me. That's one of my tools is like, see somebody else successfully do it with really good body positioning or really good posture, whatever. And then I picture myself doing it. What does it feel like? What does it, what, like, what are the senses that I'm experiencing through that? And it's usually feels like, do I feel that float? Yeah. Do I feel that flow? what's my body doing? How do I feel?
TAKE CALCULATED RISKS (35:53)
Becky: Would say that you were, where would you say you were on the line of cautious and reckless as a child?
Marty: This sounds really ridiculous, but maybe more cautious because of, okay. I calculate my risks a little more before I just jump in and do them. Yeah. That surprises me. But I don't know if that's accurate actually. Yeah. Because I'm like, maybe that's when I was little. Cause now I'm just like, whatever, let's just try it.
Becky: Okay. So do you feel like you're more reckless now?
Marty: I think I'm a little more reckless now.
Becky: Okay. And do you train that into your, I mean not train it, but do you feel your children are a little bit more reckless or more cautious?
Marty: I think each personality is different. Most of them are more calculated risk takers with certain things, some are a little more cautious, but they're still willing.
Becky: Isn’t that wonderful? That's why I think families are so beautiful because we put all these different personalities together and you make it work and you learn to love each other and and to support each other and I love that you guys do all of your adventuring together. That's amazing.
Yeah, I was thinking about that when we were all in a tent together backpacking. We bought a five -man backpacking tent. I love having everybody together. I didn't want two smaller tents, you know, and we were in the tent playing games and I was like this is and each of the kids said I really like backpacking because we just get away and we're just connecting yeah and I'm like okay
Becky: And there's no devices
Marty: yes people find that with boating like people love having their little family on their boat and sharing on that one person doing like the kneeboarding or the surfing or whatever and like there's like I think each family's just trying to find ways to connect
Becky: yes yeah well and aren't we all yeah we do lots of different things to try to connect
THE FIVE SECOND RULE
Becky: You told Aaron something about saying one two three five second rule.
Marty: Yeah five second rule Yeah, so if you have I read this book by Mel Robbins. I like the tools that she gives in it and she teaches a lot about like the brain the workings of the brain with it. And psychologically, we have endorphins that we get hits with when we accomplish a goal. And that's why we want to accomplish a goal is because we love those endorphin highs. We love that hit. So our brain wants us to get that hit. So when we have set goals for ourself, it's always going to tell us what to do next to get closer to that goal so that we can get that endorphin hit. So say my goal is, I'm just going to say, waking up to go for a run or exercising in the morning. And I set my alarm for 5:30 in the morning. And when my alarm goes off, she, Mel Robbins says that with the five second rule, it's. It's science that if you count down from five, four, three, two, one, and just get up and go that you've started the hardest part of accomplishing a goal is the inertia to start. So if you just start.
Becky: Did you read Atomic Habits? Yeah, he talks a little bit about that too. Just get on your running shoes.
Marty: Yeah, so with this, it's like, but it's not just a tool to start something. Like I told Aaron about it or his alarm clock. Yes. When your alarm goes off, count down from five and get out. Just start moving. But I also use the tool to like change what I'm thinking. So if I'm on a negative spiral about something, I'm going to give myself five seconds to count down to one. Then I move my body to a direction that's more positive, like physically move my body to it.
Becky: Okay, tell me about that.
Marty: So I'm in the kitchen, or say I'm sitting, I'm disappointed doing something. And say I should have done this better or say I should have been a better parent or I should have handled the situation better with my kids and yeah I'm like kind of spiraling down like no I'm not a great mom. You know how sometimes you can spiral for that.
Becky: Yes I've been through that for sure.
Marty: So then you give yourself five seconds. Say, this isn't good, five four three two one. I'm gonna get up and I'm actually gonna go get a drink of water. I'm gonna go for a walk okay or I'm gonna write a thank you note to one of my kids yeah I'm gonna change what my negative spiral was in five seconds to move forward to do something
Becky: Yeah because you have that choice. There’s you know these things happen and then you have a choice of how you're going to respond to it.
Marty: Yeah that five second rule people also use for anxiety for flights or for anxiety with like when they start feeling that that heaviness in their chest and they start filling the palpitations of their heart. People can use that too to help them trigger that anxiety to be a different emotion.
Becky: I love that. Yeah. Well, and that's a great suggestion for when people are wanting to be Sandy and having something that is scary for them, like getting on an airplane. That could be the thing that you're trying to overcome and to become
Marty: Some emotions in your brain. So they did a scan. This book taught me this. And I learned it in my psychology classes too in college. But when you're having emotions. Say you're really nervous just before you get up to give a talk in church you're really really nervous they do a scan of your brain and then say now you're really really excited because you're gonna go do something really fun yeah they did a scan of a brain and then they compared the scans and excitement and nervous are the same part of your brain okay but so then you rename what you're feeling okay you're getting ready to give that talk instead of saying I'm so nervous I'm so nervous I'm gonna throw up and say I'm so excited. I’m so excited, I'm going to be okay. Yeah. So they say to rename that and then your body just starts reacting differently because the emotion is now positive, the emotion is living it.
Becky: Yeah, there's, think there's some practice that goes along with that. You need to practice it because I've tried to do that before. It doesn't always work.
Marty: I know some things I'm like when I have to teach like something for like mountain biking or something I'm like gosh like I hope I don't mess up people with this like I just want people to have a good experience with this I'm like no I got this okay this is exciting we're teaching something fun it's gonna be okay yes you just have to go through that stuff like positive thoughts.
Becky: It’s true no and you do have to like and I talked to Miriam about this this morning about pickleball and how this was kind of you know this was the first kind of competitive sport that I'd ever done and so it was really it was hard for me to get there, you know, to overcome some of these competitive feelings without feeling horrible about myself. And so what I've done, what I do now is that when I start feeling those negative emotions of I'm letting my teammate down, I am so horrible, I should just stop playing altogether, then I go to my head and I say, this is a game. I am playing a game. Right, exactly. And so you can reverse those things, but it takes practice. So I have to do that every time I play pickleball and now it's becoming more automatic and I am getting better at pickleball just because I'm practicing and I'm playing it. I'm not I'm not very good still but I still I'm having more fun I guess because I'm retraining my brain to think of it as a game and fun and playing rather than life or death. If I don't win this I'm letting everyone down.
Marty: That’s probably one thing I think one of your questions was what's one of my
What's one of my like superpowers right now? superpowers. Yeah. And I think it's like, it's okay. Like just, yeah, it's like, I am competitive, but I also know when it's okay to be competitive and when it's not most of the time. Right. But I think that one of my superpowers might be is to just to chill and like enjoy the moment.
Becky: Yeah. Yeah. And that's one thing that Miriam talked about too, was just like live in the moment, just be in the moment, you know, all the time, because the, the future is anxiety and the past is depression or rumination, you know, and we don't, and that's, that's not happiness. That's not where joy is.
Marty: Yeah. My Instagram handle is finding joy in the moment.
RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS (43:39)
Becky: I didn't even know that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So rapid fire questions. What has brought you joy in the last 24 hours?
Marty: The mountain streams.
Becky: Yes. Okay, and the last TV show? Blue Miracle.
Marty: That’s an orphanage that's going under and what the owner does to try to help it.
Becky: That’s awesome. Cool. I'm gonna have to look that one up. Okay, last really good book that you read?
Marty: Why We Sleep. I know it's not really, it's a self -help book, but I'm actually really liking it.
Becky: What have you learned from that for a better sleep?
Marty: Well it's kind of disappointing. You can never make up the sleep that you have. on. Yep. So it's better just to be consistent with good sleep.
Becky: Yeah. How much sleep do you feel like you need?
Marty: Oh yeah, so your sleep cycle goes in like 90 minutes for REM sleep. And so when you say you turn off your alarm in the morning, it's usually at the end of your 90 minute REM sleep, but if you hit snooze and you think you can sneak in another 10 minutes, your sleep cycle starts over again. Yeah. And you just robbed yourself of a good 90 minute cycle.
Becky: Do you have to make sure that your alarm goes off like seven and a half hours? Generally you hit like these smaller cycles of sleep at the your morning.
Marty: So it's usually okay to wake up during any of those sleep cycles. But if you hit snooze, your sleep cycle starts over and it's usually a 90 minute sleep cycle. And didn't you say that you recognize when you hit snooze, you wake up after your 10 minutes, you're groggy for another 80. Yeah. And finally your brain's like starting to fire a little better. That's kind of what I've learned with this book is like if you set your alarm, just get up with your alarm. Just get up.
Becky: Do you have one favorite vacation spot?
Marty: When you sent me those rapid fire questions, was like, do I have a favorite vacation spot? Yeah. I don't know. Like I loved Kauai because of trail running on the Nepali coast. Yep. And I loved it for the snorkeling and like the water adventuring and the surfing and the running and all like this like the farmers market with getting pineapple juice. Right. my gosh. I loved all of that. But then I'm like, but I really love Zermatt and I love Switzerland. I love Appenzell. I don't think I have a favorite.
Becky: Yeah, I know. Well, and I was thinking about that because I was looking at my own questions and thinking I should see how I would answer that. Well, I finally said I don't have one. I am an explorer. That's how you are too. It's like I don't want to go to the same place. I love sampling.
Marty: Yeah, I do. I like going around and at some point
Becky: and that's an algorithm for life. I read this book, well didn't read, I didn't finish the whole thing. It was one that was recommended to me by my son Ethan, who is like a math whiz, right? And does algorithms for work. That's what he loves to do. And so he recommended this book, Algorithms for Life, and one of them in there is talking about exploring and exploiting. And so, neither of are bad, right? So you basically, if you, you know, love eating, you go to all these different restaurants, and you try all these different restaurants until you find one that you really love and then you exploit it by going back to that same restaurant over and over over. So we're just explorers and we want to go and try different things. And so I guess part of this podcast is about trying to get people to become more exploring
Okay, what is one thing that you try to do every day?
Marty: Pray and say I love you to my family.
Becky: Love it. Very good. And what do you think I should try next?
Marty: Do you want to try kayaking? It kind of scares me a little bit.
Becky: I know that kind of terrifies me.
Marty: Let’s go try it. I've done it before but I need to get back into it.
Becky: We could probably do it in my pool.
Marty: Yeah let's do it. Let's do it. I'll bring the kayaks over and I'll teach you how to roll in your pool. And then let's go do it down Moab. Okay? For the daily. Let the family sit and relax and we’ll, kayak.
Becky: That kind of scares me, Marty. I knew you were going to be the best one to ask this because you would have the greatest ideas
Marty: I have some ideas for you, Becky. I have more than just that one. Let’s start with that one.
Becky: Okay, we'll start with that. One step at a time,
Marty: I know, we did our airplane jumping already.
Becky: Yes, yes, we skydived together.
Marty: We’ve talked about all of these things though.
Becky: We have! But I love it. Thank you for sharing it with everybody else. Now they all know how amazing you are.
Marty: Well, now they know how crazy I am.
Becky: Cautiously crazy.
Marty: That’s a good title. I like that.
Becky: Okay, thank you!