Be Your Best or Change It | Alison Tetrick | The Sean Trace Show

In this episode, I sit down with professional cyclist Alison Tetrick for a conversation about resilience, confidence, ranch life, and what it really means to keep showing up when life gets hard. 

Alison shares how growing up on a ranch shaped her mindset, teaching her independence, problem-solving, imagination, and the kind of toughness that does not always come from traditional sports. We talk about failure, fear, crashing, chasing big dreams, and why being nervous can actually mean you care deeply about what you are doing. Alison also opens up about learning to lose, rebuilding after hard moments, and the powerful advice from her grandfather: be your best or change it. 

I loved this conversation because it was not just about cycling. It was about raising strong kids, staying creative, surrounding yourself with people who believe in your potential, and refusing to let society put you in a box.

What is one lesson from your childhood that still shapes the way you handle challenges today?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

It's okay. I think dreaming is great. And then surrounding yourself with doers, you know, like there's also like you can be a doer and a dreamer at the same time. And it's meaning you can be both. Yeah. But negativity and having somebody tell you you can't, or trying to put yourself in a like having people trying to put you in a box, I think is just not right. And for some people it can work. You know, some people like to be put in boxes and it helps them stay structured and maybe helps them stay motivated. But for me, and it sounds like for you and your daughter, it does not work. And I applaud that. I applaud that because that's like for your daughter, like just meeting her briefly earlier. I mean, you know, she can be tough and savage and also be uh nervous and feminine, and she can be smart and scared. And she, I mean, you can be all of these things at the same time. You don't have to be one or the other. And I think so many things in society tell us we have to be one or the other. And you don't. Like, I can be feminine and savage, I can be scared and tough. Like, I can be, it's not this or that. I'm both. And I'm still success, like, still successful at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Welcome everybody back to the Sean Trade Show. I have a return guest who I'm super excited about having back on. And we're gonna talk about something a little different today. Can you tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Well, hello. Um, we had such a lovely time last time that I was like, I wasn't done talking. Um I am I'm Allie Tetrick. I'm a professional cyclist. I am based here in Petaluma, California. Um, not only do I raise bikes, I also do a lot of work and advocacy to get more girls on bikes, more women in sports, um, and also marketing communications and a lot of things. Host a podcast with Lance Armstrong on the Tour de France Femme avec Zwift, etc. So that's awesome. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

You got a lot going on, which is all cool and all fun. Uh, I wanted to ask you about this because like you mentioned as well that you grew up on a ranch. And like to me, that's fascinating because I I got to spend a lot of time with my uncle had a bunch of horses. He had an Arabian horse farm, took these horses everywhere, showed them. But growing up in and outside of a barn was wild for me. I I love I'd sneak up in the hayloft and just look down as they would work on the horses from the hayloft and just hang out up there all day. But what was daily life like growing up on a ranch and what responsibilities did you have as a kid?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Oh, yeah, we I grew up in two ranches. Initially, uh, yeah, so my parents still lived in the second place. So in high school, they moved up uh to a ranch up in Northern California. Um, and our responsibilities were kind of whatever they assigned us, I think it was by what age what you were like capable of. And I'm pretty sure my parents were winging it as as they went along too. I mean, I think most like as you get older, you realize parents were are winking it, probably most of it, you know. Um right. They were they were young um to have a ranch and two daughters, and um I'm the youngest. And having a couple thousand acres and a bunch of cows and horses and livestock, I think they just told us to help. And you know, I'm feeding, I'm feeding horses, feeding cows, chickens, closing things, you know, at night, uh, cleaning stalls. I think I'm just doing anything I could. And as you age, you know, your responsibilities get larger. But I mean, we're definitely driving vehicles before it's legal. You're um you're doing things that are not normal, like on normal standards, but they're normal when you're in this bubble of ranch life because it's a very secluded environment. Um, you're 30 miles from town, there's no trash service, there's no mails not getting delivered to your house. You're in this bubble out there. It's kind of this commune of four people. And at one point my grandparents moved in and another house on the property. So we just like it was just kind of this crazy place to grow up where it's just you and your family surviving. So it's a lot of hard work, but it's fun, and it doesn't really feel like work, it's chores, but it wasn't. I always watch TV shows, and you have like chores like mowing lawns or something like that. I'm like, nah, we didn't do that. Like we're checking water, you know. I'm taking a four-wheeler or motorcycle, or I'm riding a horse at six in the morning to go check on some cows, or I have no babysitter or anyone watching me. I'm just doing what I need to do, what I'm told to do, or what I know I have to. A lot of responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

I love that. I grew up, you know, I'm I'm uh ex-Inial, and so I know Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, I know Xena, Warrior Princess, I know those shows, and that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

But it was interesting because for at least noting my references.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I do, I do know those references. And for anyone who didn't see the Eilani's little world portion, uh, there were some references to some great shows, and Eilani is like, what? And I was like, I know those, I know those. But one of the things that was wild is I grew up out in the countryside down in San Diego County, and it was we we were just we were feral. I mean, we grew up, we were out in the woods, we were out in playing in the mud. My mom bought us bows and arrows, and we were out shooting trees and just out there up to no good whatsoever. And it was beautiful because we just, you know, sun finished school and we were out and dark sunsets, and was like, where are you guys at? Come on in. It's like sun setting. But I learned a lot of things, you know, and I think that so many of my core experiences growing up were out there just building things. We would build forts, build forts like out of plywood, logs, and just be digging into the hillside of this one area near our school. And no one bothered us. They let us build and dig and do whatever we wanted. And the most, the only the only rule they had was watch out for rattlesnakes. That was it. And like beyond that, and and don't shoot each other with your bows and arrows. But beyond that, everything was okay, you know? And it was interesting because we learned a lot about teamwork. We learned a lot about me. It was me and my brother and my best friend Micah, and we just were out there every day. But I want to ask you, like looking back now, what lessons from ranch life shaped your mindset the most growing up?

SPEAKER_02 7:29

I really think when I look back at it, I I see this horizon. I I and probably like you see your forts in a way, which is maybe you see your forts as creativity and teamwork and a little feral rogue, you know, which is how you've built your business. Um, I see this horizon where I can just dream. Like there's no, there's fences, of course, because we have cows and we rotate cattle, you know, but it's still like I can just saddle up my horse and just go. And to me, the world felt so vast and expansive that I could just dream as big as I could see, and what I could see was forever. Like we all have to work. And my my poor dad had two daughters, you know, and so he's very outnumbered on the ranch, you know. He's he's a man with now three women, and so you know, his wife and my mom and two girls. And so he's two daughters, and so he's a he's outnumbered. And so we all just like, but we don't have gendered like stereotypes either. So there's not like this is a man's work, this is girls' work, this is like or boys' work, girls' work. It's just we all do this, like you're branding this cow, you're gonna do dishes. Like it doesn't matter who you are, what you are, we just all are gonna get this done. So I think how it shaped me is imagination. Because when you have that space to imagine, there's no limits. And with that, there's no limits. There was no, you have to do this because you're a girl or because this is what society tells you, because there was no society on the ranch. There's nothing. And I did get to watch those TV shows, but we had one channel, and that didn't happen till later in my life to have channel, like a TV. But so I think there was that, and it was just like hard work where we didn't have sports or other kids to play with. So family became very important to me, or it was the only thing I knew was my sister and my parents. So it was that was my blood, but it was also my best friends, and it was who I spent all my time with because there was no one else that was around. And and that was everything that was like my foundation. Um, but really, I think it's just about no limits in so many ways, which of course there are limits, and it was a kind of a harsh reality once I I left the ranch in some ways, where you're kind of like, wow, there are rules out here. Like there are like society has expectations for me that I didn't know existed. Granted, my parents have much harsher expectations in some ways in society, but you know, not harsher, but you know, you live in a bubble on a ranch. But I think it's a tremendous place to live. But the imagination, I think that has lent me to be um extremely creative. It's made me extremely independent, it's made me very strong. Um, it's made me be a dreamer. And it's also made things in the real world where I still to this day look at my husband and go, does not compute. You know, like something like he goes, that's just not the way the world works. And I'm like, does not compute. And he's like, Well, Allison, the world works this way. And I was like, well, not in my world. And so he has to learn how to live in my world on the ranch, still in my brain.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

I love that because I think that so many of us need that on the ranch mindset. I remember as a kid when I learned to ride a bike, the bike was a was like a ticket that I had to explore. It was a ticket I had to go further to get outside of that box. Because, you know, it used to be before I learned to ride a bicycle, I was limited by as far as my feet could carry carry me. But the second that you learned to ride a bicycle, you gotta, and I mean, if anybody wants to know what that meant for, you know, X and Eels, go watch Stranger Things. Those kids are going everywhere on their bikes, like those bikes are the ticket they have, or the Goonies or something. Like those bikes are the the ticket you have to go places, you know? And it's this ticket that you have to see a bigger world. For me, one of the things that I I ride motorcycles still, and you know, living in Southeast Asia, we have a lot of motorbike usage. But my favorite motorcycle I own was when I was living in Northern California, and I was up in the Napa Calistoga area, and there were days my car was for going to work, it was for doing things, but when I got on my motorcycle, it was my ticket to just go. Well, where are you going? I don't know, and I don't have to know. I'm just gonna drive. And I would drive and see things, and one of the things that I love about riding motorbikes, motorcycles, motorbikes in Asia, a little smaller, uh in motorcycles in the US, is that you could smell things, you're experiencing things. When I drive down the street in Vietnam, I smell all of the foods that were passing, and you smell the fresh air. When I am riding my motorcycle and I go through this part of the town that has more greenery, I can smell the grass. And it just was this this ticket to like experience things. And I think that sometimes, like when you're talking about horizons and possibility, like I think about that. Like I would love to challenge people right now to think about this, a thought experiment. If someone gave you a ticket to anywhere in the world and you have this ticket and all expenses paid, where are you flying? Where are you going right now? Where would you go if money was not an option? And think about that for work, life, career, if if you know money was an option, what would you be doing? And that's when you talk about those horizons, the the ability to dream, I think we forget that. And when you are in society and playing by society's rules, they want you to be in that box. Like, don't think too much, don't dream too big. I've got a crazy dream. I want to be the biggest podcaster on the planet with a huge following. And not just because I want to be, you know, I want to be famous, and I want to make an impact. I want to be having every single last conversation to be something that impacts people deeply. And they turn around and go, I am so glad that I came to that today. And it's like this this church of happiness, of of of resilience, you know, and that we just come in and show up and we come out better. But you know what? When I tell some people about that, man, they ran on my parade. Well, you know the chances of you getting there are and I say that's great. That's great for you to say that. And I appreciate you having that fear, and I'm not judging you for it, but you don't need to project that onto me. Like, I've got my dream, and I'm and I know that I've got the know-how to go for it. Like, that's what I learned growing up. You know, I was out there and I wanted to build a fort. The only way that fort's gonna get built is if I built it.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

You know, I um I to say that though, I like that's reverse psychology. Like when somebody or you know, some people reverse psychology works for them, where like somebody tells you you can't do this, and that like ignites a fire in your belly, and you're like, I'm gonna prove you wrong. That actually doesn't work for me. That makes me cry, or like it makes me like go, I don't know, it hurts my feelings, and I just then I don't want to talk to you anymore. Like, I just I'm like, I don't like you, or I don't want you around. So I had a tennis coach. I I I played tennis in high school, but I didn't I got a full ride to play tennis in college, but I started playing tennis in high school, which it's unheard of to get a full ride and play, you know, when you start in high school. And that my coach told me when I was in high school, he said I would never get a scholarship to play NCAA tennis. So I came home and I told my parents that, and I was pretty upset. Um, and my parents looked at me, so back to this ranch like dreaming thing, and they go, Well, sounds like you need a new coach, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

And so that's like to the your people that are telling you about the podcast, like that was like their reaction was just like, well, he's wrong, but it wasn't like prove him wrong. It was just like, well, out. We'll just get you a new coach, which was actually very hard to do in Reading, California, which meant I was driving to Chico. So then I'm driving an hour and a half to go get a new coach because there's only one tennis coach in our tiny town. But still, I ended up getting that scholarship, and I didn't feel any rage against the guy that told me I couldn't do it. I just didn't want to work with somebody that didn't believe in me.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

100% agree. For my daughter, we had um, she had a tutor, uh, because she's bilingual, but we got her into Vietnamese school because we wanted her to, she grew up speaking more English, and we wanted her to to to learn both languages well. So we put her into Vietnamese school, and she was having to play a little bit of catch-up, you know. She speaks Vietnamese fluently, but she's still a tiny bit behind on some of the writing, and but now she's pretty close. Uh we had a tutor for her that was very by the book, very much in a box. And I don't know, and she's a lovely human being, and she thanked my wife and I prefer like just so much when we parted ways. And I don't want to rain on her parade, she was who she is, but she couldn't see the potential in my daughter, and that was a problem, and she didn't like who my daughter is at her core. Like, and I'm not a judgment, just like she doesn't sit there. My daughter is not the kid who sits nicely in class. She is the kid jumping out of her seat to ask questions, she is the kid jumping out of her seat to like defend a friend. Like one of the homeroom teacher got upset of my nephew and threw his toy in the trash can. And I was like, Who does that, first of all? And so she goes to class with her nephews, and she went over and she acted like she needed to throw something away, slowly bent down, pocketed his toy, slipped it into her backpack, and I'm like, that's my girl. That's my girl, you know? And so she got home and she's like, I got your toy out of the trash can. No one's throwing away my cousin's toys, you know. And, you know, but we had this tutor, and one day I brought like my wife was at work, and so I ordered some food. And I walked into the room that her bedroom that she's studying in, and I said, Okay, hey, I'm just gonna step in here real quick, and I'm gonna set this over here. Uh, when you're done eating, when you're done studying, go ahead and and eat this. I have a podcast, but then come up and come in. Like she's sitting right there, she puts on her headphones and just hangs out while I do my podcast. And I set the food down and she was like, sushi. Just excited. And the teacher looked at her and just gave this dirty look. And I was just like, at that moment, I was like, she can't see my daughter for who she is. Like, she's just excited about a food. And this lady's just like angry because she's having this response. And so I looked at my wife and I said, She can't see our kid, and the scores weren't great. So I said, We're going a different direction. So we went over and we by chance found this other tutor. Uh, that was we went to my wife's uncle's house, and there was a tutor sitting downstairs tutoring his son. And I would look turn to my wife and I was like, How about her? Ask your uncle about this person. And she was able to see my daughter. And she's like, she asks the wildest questions. She has this desire to learn. She's a bit nuts, you know, but I would expect nothing less from yours and your wife, kid. Like, you guys are a bit nuts. You ask a lot of questions and you're challenging and you demand things. And she just dances with my daughter, like dances, mentally dances with her. As my daughter's like, what about this? What about this? What about this? And she just goes with it and helps her still learn. And one of the reasons I bring that up is because when you talk about finding a coach who can like your parents' approach there to like, well, let's find a coach who can help you.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

That I think is one of the things that we all should be doing for ourselves. If you're not around people who can validate your dream, find people who can. I want to be, I want to go to the Olympics. Man, you're not. You're not. Find someone who goes, dude, let's find out how to get you there.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah, I think for sure. And I mean, you don't need somebody to like be blowing smoke up your areas, but like but also true. Also, like it's okay. I think dreaming is great. And then surrounding yourself with doers, you know, like there's also like you can be a doer and a dreamer at the same time, and it's meaning you can be both. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

But negativity and having somebody tell you you can't, or trying to put yourself in a like having people trying to put you in a box, I think is just not right. And for some people it can work, you know. Some people like to be put in boxes and it helps them stay structured and maybe helps them stay motivated. But for me, and it sounds like for you and your daughter, it does not work. And I applaud that. I applaud that because that's like for your daughter. Like just meeting her briefly earlier. I mean, she can be tough and savage and also be uh nervous and feminine, and she can be smart and scared. And she, I mean, you can be all of these things at the same time. You don't have to be one or the other. And I think so many things in society tell us we have to be one or the other. And you don't. Like, I can be feminine and savage. I can be scared and top. Like, I can be, it's not this or that. I'm both. And I'm still success, like, still successful at that.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

I saw, and I think for everyone, we have to just learn to embrace all of this beautifulness of us. I was uh watching this one uh um this one video uh about this this really, really, really awesome volleyball player, this guy, and he just probably one of the best volleyball players I've ever seen. It's this kid he's trending right now, but he is so slay that you know he just boom, you know, and I was just like, wow, way to go, way to be you. Like yeah, he is so slay, and then he's just absolutely crushing on the volleyball court, like outside the box, be be you. And I think that one of the things that I I love is that be be unapologetically you, and I mean, and if you're in the box, that's cool for you too, you know, just be unapologetically still you, you know. But I want to ask you another question too, because you know, ranch life can be unpredictable. Did that environment teach you resilience in a way traditional sports maybe couldn't? Or did was there anything fun that you learned there from things being changing so much and so often?

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Oh man, we just have so many crazy stories. I mean, things that like I'm not saying children shouldn't like go through, but they're they really make you tough, right? Like, yeah. We we did some things like I mean, there's there's traumatic things. Um, I mean you you go through death and trauma. I mean, it's animals and it's hardship and weather and bankruptcy. I mean, there's like ranch life is hard. Like, and that's it's it's and it since it's such a small community of four, you know, there's my mom, my dad, my sister, and then eventually my grandparents on the property. So it's very small. Um, everyone feels it. Um, and we're all carrying our own weight of it. Um, you know, seeing my dad's face get kicked in like in by a bowl and his entire face is missing, and my mom's like, well, girls, I have to go to the hospital. You know, like there's a lot of times, like you're left alone because the adults need to take care of something that's incredibly life-threatening. And we don't have a babysitter or something like that. Um, but we learn, you know, we can take care of ourselves and we are very taken, like my parents are take good care of us, of course. Um, so there's some like a lot of hard things that happen when you're young. Um, but they become normal in a way. So I think that teaches you a lot of resilience. Where then it makes when something, when you go to school, when you finally end up going to the real world and to school, and somebody's nervous about I don't know, like what seems to be a broken nail level of concern to me. I'm like, what? You're worried about that? Like, that's that's not a problem. Like, I so I think though, it just makes and also made like I became a professional athlete without ever playing sports. And I think that is something that I like to bring to parents' attention when they want to say, like, what should my kid be doing? Because, you know, maybe they're an avid cyclist and they want their child to be a cyclist with them, which is a great passion. You know, you want your child to ride a bike with them, which is awesome. But I'm like, just get them into like sports, which you and I talked about in the last podcast. Like, just get them into sports, get them just active. Because I didn't play sports. I just was out throwing footballs with my dad. I'm like on the four-wheeler, I am like running around the ranch, I'm riding horses. I'm just constantly moving and getting really strong. And like where I'm doing sports that aren't organized sports, but I'm constantly moving and getting strong where movement is my medicine with my parents and my family, where the hard physical work gave me this like advantage mentally as an endurance athlete and gave me this resilience without also maybe not burning me out thinking that I was becoming an athlete. So I was building up this resilience and this mental toughness without like I'm being an athlete. And I was telling my husband the other day, I don't call myself an athlete. And he looked at me like I was an absolute idiot. And I'm like, but I still don't see myself as an athlete. I still see myself as just like this kid that's just out like playing. So there's like some sort of a weird tick in my brain that is still out there, like building up for it with you. That's just like, well, I'm just, you know, I'm tough. And I still don't even think I'm that tough because I get like real scared, like we talked about. But you just like know that like on the ranch that there's always like work has to be done. And it taught me also that there's always problems that you have to like solve, you have to adapt, you keep going. And there's nothing like that's convenient nor comfortable, and there's also, once again, those no constructs. So you are like resilient, you're adaptable, and it's not like a traditional sports thing. So it's just kind of a fun, weird way to look at the world. So it's like life's kind of a it's a not a it's not a game, it's just kind of life, it's just like just doing life.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

One of the things that I learned in growing up around more outdoorsy and with you know, around animals and around farms. I worked on a chicken farm when I was younger. And they handed us, they handed us a 22 and they're out go kill rats. And oh my gosh, I'm third, I'm 13, and someone just handed me a rifle. Like, are you serious right now? And like, yep. You know, you go out and you're starting to get the rats, and because that was really bad for the chickens, and it was like it wasn't a this is it was what had to be done. And I'm like going back, I don't even remember who it was, but I'm sitting there going, 100% not legal. And yet it was just like it was something that had to get done, and there was something else that popped up in my mind, like it shaped me this way, right? I remember we were at my grandpa had a big barn and they had goats, and we were walking through the barn and there was this trapdoor that you couldn't see, it was under the hay, and it was to pull the uh the hay down into the goats because it was in Vermont in the middle of the winter time. You didn't want to take the hay outside. You wanted to be.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

You went from Southern California to Verbon?

SPEAKER_00 29:38

I have we have family, I have family all over so I grew up in Southern California, but my grandpa and family lived in Vermont. And there, like my great-grandma was a cattle farmer down in in Arizona and they had a huge cattle farm.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

But then so many cow stories here.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Jeez, right? Right? So, but my my uh grandpa didn't have when he moved up to Vermont, he was done with cattle, and so he had goats, had goats in his barn. Goats are well, wild little animal, too. And these goats were aggressive. They were like, you know, but my my cousin fell through up to here through the trapdoor and he stuck. He's like, help me, help me. His feet are dangling down like at that moment, like there were no adults around. We had to figure out how to get him out of this bad situation, and you know, it was like it was just like this, you gotta get it done. And it was like this, and we did, and we figured out a way to get through it, and it involved calling my older cousin out, but you know, we had to sit there going, are we gonna take him up? Are we gonna let him drop down into the goat pen? Like we had to figure this out. And it was like a bunch of kids at this point of like problem solving, like truly trying to figure out there was no other way through besides figuring out the problem. And I think that that type of mindset, you know, as a professional athlete, I think one of the things that I think people don't realize professional athletes are doing, because the ones I've met, I got to work with some high-level UFC fighters, and I got to work with some other people that were doing high-level collegiate volleyball and a couple guys that were Olympians, they were problem solvers. Like their championship, their training, there was always a tweak or an injury or something that my friend was like, he, you know, messed up his knee a week before his championship fight in the UFC. And he's sitting there going, How do I adapt my game with a knee that is not working correctly? And he did, and he became, you know, UFC champion. But it required him sitting there going, it's not just about endurance, it's about sitting there going thinking, how can I fix this problem? And problem solving is something that you learn by being out there and being feral as a kid, you know?

SPEAKER_02 31:58

I like this feral. I call myself a free range, free range entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

You know, you call yourself feral, I'm free range.

unknown 32:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

But yeah, like I think problem solving is a thing. And like what I learned as a professional athlete too is um you get stressed, right? There, and we get stressed in life where there are these situations where then you go, oh my goodness, I need to make this decision. And this happens to your clients, right? Where the world's crashing down or the clock's ticking on a business deal or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

And then you start comparing yourself. And as the the clock is ticking, you start your insecurities start rising, you start overanalyzing, and your brain starts going a million miles an hour in all the wrong directions. And this happens, of course, on the ranch, which you don't have time for that, especially like with my dad, you have a bull charging your nose or something, right? Right. And and and then as an athlete, you don't. And so what I learned is in this moment, you have to think everybody loses focus. Every, like everybody, you are not special. You are not special. Everybody loses focus. Every, everybody is feeling this stress, this lack of control. Everybody feels this. It's just like, how quickly do you regain that focus? And that is the gift of the athletes and your best clients, you know, your best CEOs and entrepreneurs that you work with. It's like how quickly you regain focus and regain that confidence to then keep going that path. And I think that's the biggest difference, is right there because no one's perfect, and we know that very well. But it's how quickly you can then go, oh my goodness, everything's going haywire.

unknown 33:49

Whew.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Okay, back in it. Like back to my plan, back to, or I have to adapt. Maybe it's not my plan, maybe it's right two feet to the left because this bull is charging to my nose. My dad's nose is definitely new. Um, but and as an athlete, that's what I had to learn because I I would think this, and then I think, okay, now I'm gonna lose because this girl is way better than me, because obviously she's not gonna do this, she's not losing. No, it's fine. Quiet the noise, refocus, and be like, I'm not special. She's doing the same thing back to it, you know, and I think that that's really important because you're gonna talk to founders, you're gonna have your clients that are gonna be comparing. We're always about comparisons. And that's I think the best thing about ranch life. There's no comparisons, you're out there alone. And I love that isolated. I think that really helped with my confidence, you know. Yeah, I'm weirdly confident for somebody that like sometimes like, why am I so confident? Probably because I grew up with nobody. So why not be confident?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

I love that. I just thought of that. It's an awesome thing to have, though. I mean, that if there's a gift and have, you know. One of the thoughts that pops up. I think all of this uh free range childhood taught me a couple things, you know. But there was a point last night I had one of my clients. They submitted two videos to us. My editors missed one. It was a quick turnaround. And 6 p.m., he messaged me, Where's my Friday video? I need this video done. It needs to be posted in two hours. And I'm looking at the list and boom, it was right there. And I was just like, two hours. And I was like, I don't think, and he's like, I really need this. And I called a couple of my editors, can you come back in for two hours? And they're like, you know what? I'm home. It's after shift. And I just I had other stuff that I had planned, and I just sat there and I said, turned to my wife and I was like, I got some work to do. I'm, you know, and I downloaded all the source material in an hour and a half. I knocked out this video for him. And it was an edit that I've never done. I copied the style. Luckily, we had some templates in place, and there was no choice but to get it done. It was the right thing. And like in that moment, I felt the panic, I felt the anxiety, I felt the worry, I felt the fear. But I just said, you know, those little moments where I was a kid charging down a hill on a little tiny red BMX bike with you know backpedal brakes. How many people remember backpedal brakes, man? Like we was thinking, I was riding my motorcycle the other day, and I was like, dude, I would love to have backpedal brakes so I could just drift my motorcycle everywhere because, dude, I drifted so much through the corner. And um one of the things that I I I think is, you know, when you have that one of the things I grew up learning from the the childhood I had was that grit, that bite. Sometimes this is something that I'm gonna get done. And I don't know if I always had it, but I I definitely learned it to say, you know, you know, you're holding on to that rope, and I don't want to let go of that rope, you know, and because on the other side of that is something that's really awesome. And you dig deeper, and you don't learn to dig deep unless you're given the opportunities to dig deep. I could see my daughter and her her cousins uh were doing Muay Thai, and this one kid came in, and his mom's like, he's never studied a day in his life. But then he comes in, he's just like and I was like, Never studied a day in his life. Kid is sitting there doing the Y crew, you know, like dance. And I'm just like, and she I was like, didn't study a day in his life? Yeah, you sure he's never been to a professional class. And I was just like, but then later on, I found out the mom's been training him since he's like 18 months. He's just you know, like, yeah, she's like, oh my gosh. And he put a whooping on my nephew, she beat him back and forth across the ring, and my nephew was crying, and I turned to him and I said, You okay? We got him up, we brushed him off, and I said, Are you okay? And he's like, Yeah. And I said, All right, do you want to stop? He's like, No, I want to go again. And I was like, Okay. And like he had that little like that, you know, and at that moment, it was just like, why? Why do you want to go again? Because he's like, Because for it was like he couldn't articulate it, but what he told me later on was like it was the first time he really kind of woke up to like, oh, so that's what this is all about. That's what this is, and that desire to not just to win, but to try, to truly try. Because like we talked about earlier, you don't always win, but quite often you fail. Yeah, but to really give it an effort to try, there's a thrill in that that I can't even explain to a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Yeah, I think my grandfather got me into cycling, which we talked about briefly, but uh last podcast, I think. Um, but I when I called him and I would be upset that I whatever guy, like third at worlds or something. And you know, he would say, Okay, tell you know, talk me through your race. And my my grandfather's tough. He um, you know, he didn't tell me he loved me until I was over 20 years old. You know, he was just a Korean war vet, you know, love was not his way he he did things, but um by you know, sports became our love language, and um he he did end up telling me he loved me a lot. Um but he would say, Well, Al, like, did you do your best? You know, what what would you do different? And I would say, Why, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, what would you do different? Well, I did everything I could, and I'm crying, and you know, crying makes him extremely uncomfortable, right? Um, as we just discovered who he is. And he'd be like, Well, you know, if you, you know, if you did everything you could and you did the best, then good job. If you didn't, change it next time. Like, like you tried. That's all you can do is do your best. If not, do better next time. And like it sounds really harsh, but I learned a lot from that because then when I'm out there and I was writing, I would be like, Am I doing my best? Am I going to regret this later? And as long as I know I'm doing my best, and maybe my best is that I feel awful and I I can't do any better, so be it.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Just own that. But as long as I don't regret it later. And I think that's like I used to like say this quote in my head, all you can do is be your best or change it, which doesn't make sense to a lot of people, but it totally makes sense in my head. Just be your best or change. Because like you have to ask yourself, like, are you doing your best? Yes. And you know what, doing your best might be you want to vomit. Doing your best is that you're not gonna fix that video in that two hours. You're gonna have to text your client and say it's gonna take three, because you're doing your best, right? But if you're not, because you're also watching Milo and me or something like that at the same time, and it's gonna, you know, I I don't know, I just made that up. You know, then okay, change it, right? You're gonna have to focus and Marley and me or something. I don't know. I don't know what Milo and me is. I'm trying to think of a kid's movie and I can't think of anything. Um, but you know, if you're doing that, then you just change it and then you do your best. And I think that that's really important um because I don't want to wake up the next morning and and regret it because you can never go back and change your effort. And then also there's a counterbalance to that is you don't want to do your effort. And if you and if you shouldn't be doing that effort, like if that's not healthy for you, or if it's your daughter's birthday, and then you have to just like tell your client, I'm sorry, this is we screwed up and this is not gonna work. There you go. Like, yeah, accept responsibility, or you're sick or something, right? Like, I mean, it's not like you have to be perfect all the time either. But I don't know. Yeah, do your best or change it. I it's a bad thing, it's just be your best or change it, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Yeah, no, be your best or change it. I love it. That's gonna be the title of this podcast, hands down. I just type that into my notes. Like, that is the title of this podcast. Be your best or change it. You know. And I think that, you know, I think that that's a great thing to achieve uh to aim for because you know, if you're not happy with your best, then figure out a way to be more happy or to like change something up. But that's powerful. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_02 43:07

You can find me online, um, on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Twitter, uh at A M T-E-T-R-I-C-K. So that's A M Tetrick. And I also um, yeah, that's an easy place to find me. My name's Allison Tetrick. Uh, we sell bandanas and t-shirts to get more girls on bikes. Um, I'm at most bike races and gravel races around the world. Um, also do keynote speeches and podcasts like this. Um and we are still just touching the tip of the iceberg here, but this has been lovely conversation. Um, so yeah.