Optimization

Over the past few years I have become obsessed with human optimization.  I’m not talking about click-bait life hacks, silver bullets, secret formulas or lottery tickets. I’m talking hard work, productivity and efficiency. In a general sense, pretty much all of ski training is working toward optimization. We go to the gym to optimize our muscles, we go out on 6 hour over-distances to optimize our heart and we do regular intervals to optimize our lungs. But all of these are physical optimizations. In the sport of biathlon, that’s only half the challenge.

In my early years of biathlon I was without a doubt a better skier than shooter. But I soon realized to be a complete biathlete I was going to need to figure the shooting out. After an entire summer of regular range work I became more comfortable with the rifle, but was still having some major trouble. After talking to some friends and teammates I recognized my inability to shift my focus from ‘race mode’ to ‘shooting mode.’

Biathlon shooting requires so much focus on relaxation, and I being somewhat of a ‘Head-down-all-out’ type, understood what this was doing to my shooting. All too often I found myself on the shooting mat, thinking about the trail. I began wondering what I could do to optimize my mind.

My older teammates turned me on to a book that has literally changed my life. With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham is an instructional book about how Lanny (an Olympic position shooter) developed tools and techniques to optimize his mental preparation for competition. Obviously his tools can relate to biathlon because position shooting and biathlon shooting are so similar. But when you seriously stop and think about the book in a much more general sense, his tools can be used to optimize any area of life: work, school, training, relationships, arts and crafts, it doesn’t matter. When you truly understand his techniques and how they work, you can change your life. Ever since first reading ‘the book,’ as my teammates and I would refer to it as, I have been obsessed with mental optimization.

In total I have read ‘the book’ 6 times cover to cover and have referred back to individual chapters countless times. But my fascination doesn’t stop there. Over the summer I began listening to optimization podcasts like Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) and recently Jocko Podcast. JRE has some interesting guests and they love to shoot-the-shit so unfortunately from a two hour episode you may only get 15 minutes of optimization talk, but it’s usually captivating and enlightening. Jocko is an ex-navy seal and fits the stereotypical military tough guy mold too well, and most of his podcasts are him reading books about war, but when he gets started on optimization, it’s pure gold.

Now that I have shifted my focus from athletics to business I began thinking of ways I could apply these optimization strategies as an entrepreneur. I was doing an ok job but didn’t know much about the business world so I began to stall. Thankfully I received a book for Christmas called The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson. This book is literally about mental optimization in terms of business.This book inspired me to get to work and “Get after it” as Jocko would say, But I was still having trouble because I wasn’t sure what steps I should be taking.

In all the optimization outlets, discipline is one of the common themes across the board. Being able to hold yourself accountable and execute the actions needed to reach your goal are essential to optimizing your life. Discipline had come up so much that it was even a subject of one of my Word onthe Trail podcast episodes which can be found here.

In basic terms, small daily actions, when repeated over time add up to create something wonderful, or destructive (depending on what the action is). For biathlon its things like training, dry firing, eating healthy, Etc. But I’m having trouble finding daily disciplines to promote Kick Zone.

At the moment I’m trying to find at least one thing I can do each day to build the website. The two most important aspects for the site are content and views. I don’t expect people to come to view the website of there is no content so I’ve decided to start searching the web for Nordic blogs to feature. If you know of a skier who has a blog about life as an athlete I would love to check it out. Once I get a few blogs featured I’ll start promoting them on the Kick Zone social media accounts. I get content, the athlete gets recognition. It’s a win-win.

I’ve already begun featuring a few athletes so head over to Kick Zone to see what blogs I’ve already featured. They’re entertaining coming-of-age experiences and thrilling accounts of races from this season.

That’s all I have for tonight. If anyone is interested in talking about human optimization I’d LOVE get a conversation going. It’s fascinating to me that the way you think can lead you down the road to success. 

A New Trail, Yet to be Explored

Hello everybody. I’m back!

I know a lot of people have missed my blog updates and wondered what I’ve been up to. It seems like I’ve just fallen off a cliff and left you here in suspense for over a year. Well a lot has changed since harvest camp last fall. And I mean A LOT! For those of you who follow me on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram (@brhalligan4) you know I’ve put the rifle down and stopped the watch on my race career… for now. If this is complete news to you then I suggest you stop where you are and go check out the ‘About Me’ tab to get a quick recap.

After deciding to put away the rifle I first realized it was time to make some money, because as you could probably guess, there is no money in biathlon. In past blogs I talked about my time at the Glens Falls Country Club and figured for a 21 year old with no formal education, this was probably my best option. So all summer I cut grass and raked bunkers. Being alone out on the course to work all day was accompanied with intense boredom. After weeks, music turned into white noise and I began to lose myself in thought.

Under the hypnosis of the mower’s hum I reflected on days traveling through Europe and found comfort in the memories of the packed stadiums, the fans asking for autographs and even the TV cameras pointed in your direction. Europe is a different place.

I began wondering why such an action packed sport such as Nordic skiing, or such an unpredictable sport like biathlon, or such a graceful sport like ski jumping was not more popular in the U.S. I felt this overwhelming sense to do something. This sport, and this lifestyle that had given me so much. I felt as if I was being called by the Nordic gods to take my love for Nordic skiing and promote the means by which I developed this love. But I am just a kid with no education and no money. What can I do?

In an attempt to break the monotony I decided to start listening to podcasts. I had never listened to them before and honestly had no idea what they were. I opened up the app on my phone and saw a podcast entitled ‘Millennial.’ Being a millennial I decided this looked like a good place to start.

 As it turns out this podcast was about a girl named Megan Tan who had this crazy idea to start a podcast. A bit of pod-ception, but the podcast was literally this girls story of how she was running the podcast I was listening to like a business. She talked about her struggles as she lost motivation and her triumphs as she nailed meetings with top NPR executives.

For weeks I listened to Megan’s entrepreneurial story, the dots started to connect. In a lot of ways being a ski racer is like being an entrepreneur. You need to be focused and push yourself to achieve the results you want. It’s not for everybody, but I knew it was for me.

So I started listening to other start-up podcasts like, well… ‘Start-Up’ and knew my calling to promote the sport I love was going to take the shape of a business. But I didn’t really know what kind, or what I’d be doing or selling or how I’d even make money.

All while this country club job was going on I began coaching a group of high school athletes. My original ski club, the HudsonUnited Race Team (HURT) actually had enough money to start offering summer coaching. I would meet with kids twice a week and share my knowledge and love of skiing. But the big headlining event of the summer was HURT Camp! 30 of the best skiers from around the area gather for a week long camp in Queensbury, New York.

One afternoon at HURT Camp I began telling a story of one of my trips to Europe to a group of 2 or 3 kids. A few kids gathered around to hear what I was saying and before I knew it, I looked up and almost 20 campers and coaches had gathered around to hear what I thought was just a boring story of how I ate lunch next to some Russians in Estonia. The circle was broken up by the dinner bell and we headed in for some grub. On the way in, one of the other coaches approached me:

“You need to start a podcast.” five weeks ago I didn’t know what a podcast was and now I’m being asked to start one.

“yeah, Right.” I replied.

“No, seriously. Did you see how captivated these kids were? Your story was a chance for them to realize their dreams of racing internationally can become a reality. Just 4 years ago you were eating lunch at that picnic table and now you’re telling stories of eating lunch with Russians in Estonia. With your knowledge of the sport, love of the sport, connections and experience… you’d provide skiers all over the country with some Nordic specific entertainment.”

And that’s when the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place. My business will promote the Nordic lifestyle through podcasts. No, all types of media! I will create a website where nordies from around the country can come to get some Nordic specific entertainment.

So in the subsequent weeks I bought some podcasting equipment, reached out to a few businesses for some advertising, and launched Wordon the Trail. “The podcast that brings the Nordic lifestyle to you.” The first episode is much like this blog post as it tells the story of why I started the podcast and can be found here.

But realizing this has to be bigger than me. Bigger than just my podcast, I registered as a DBA (Doing Business As) and launched Kick Zone Media

After over a year of neglect I’ve decided to start up my blog again because I’m headed down a ski trail I’ve yet to explore. The trail of entrepreneurship. Living the Nordic lifestyle has given me so much. A chance to travel the world, loyal friends, respect for my body and the planet, Values of discipline, dedication, determination, positive philosophy, work ethic, goal setting, plan execution, communication, and the realization that when I set your mind to something, nothing can hold me back.

Now, using these values I want to give back. I want to promote this lifestyle to people far and wide so they too can learn such valuable lessons all while having fun ripping around on the snow.

I figured starting up the blog again would be fun because like biathlon I honestly don’t know where this is going to take me. But I’m sure where ever this path leads it’ll be full of adventure, hardship, triumph and life lessons. So although this is no longer a ‘biathlon blog’ it will still be chock-full of the entertaining rollercoaster-like stories that coincide life. I hope you enjoy.

“Live the Nordic Life”

-Brian