Don’t Cast Blindly
There’s a Difference Between Casting and Fishing
If you’ve ever stepped into a river at sunrise, you know the temptation. You tie on a favorite fly and start firing casts before your boots even settle on the gravel. It feels productive — movement, motion, momentum.
But you know better.
Mentorship: The Current That Carries Us Forward
Before starting Monture Partners, I had the opportunity to build a bamboo fly fishing rod. Not like something from a store that you put pieces together; it was built in the same way that it was invented—hand split bamboo cane, meticulously measured, hand planned, glued. Start to finish, it was probably close to 70 hours of focused work. Not something that I ever really thought I would do, but it was something that I was privileged to have the opportunity to learn from a great master in this art. This same master was also the one that was with me the first time I went to Monture Creek and he help me first attempt to fly fish (and yes, I caught one under his watchful eye!). I have learned so much from him, and in turn, have passed along snippets of what I learned to others along the way.
Go where the fish are or forge trails to find new water?
Full parking lots.
People all walking down one side of the river bank.
Hearing the “Telephone Game” down the line of “Wow…what fly? Where in the current? “
As a former direct marketing leader, it was nearly tattooed on my forearm, “the best predictor of future performance is past performance.”
And all of that is certainly true…in fishing, direct marketing, and even consulting.
Why Do this?
I will be the first to admit that I am not the type of person to make a big bold move in haste. In fact, being a parent to 4 kids, making a sudden career pivot is the absolute last thing that I could have seen myself doing. But, in fact, it was through that leap that I have found my way.
Hindsight being perfect, I can put all of the pieces together, but in the moment, I was completely blindsided. It was June 26, 2023. I was flying from Seattle to Austin to make my first hand-split, hand-planed, bamboo flyrod, and I had just shut down my work computer and set an out of office for the week.