Why I Want to Be a Cowboy – #180in120™

Do You Want To Be A Cowboy? I Want To Be A Cowboy. If You’re In Business, You Could Be Cowboy, You Just Don’t Know It. A Cowboy Is A Man With Guts And A Horse. I’m A Woman But I Have Guts And I Could Probably Get To A Horse If I Needed To.

I’m reading a book about cowboys now. I bought it this week at Half Price Books.* It’s called, “How Successful People Win”. The author is Ben Stein. It was $9.95.

I don’t want to be a loser and I had 10 bucks so I thought I should probably buy the book. Plus, the author uses cowboys as a role model and who doesn’t like a good cowboy story?

It turns out Ben’s life was going nowhere until he decided to think like a cowboy. He worked in a depressing neighborhood in a big city where people hung out in dark corners and drank too much. His office was in a converted supply closet. All his friends weren’t going anywhere either and they would get together and talk about how miserable life was.

He was approaching 30 and he realized he was dying.

But he couldn’t quit his job because he didn’t have enough money to quit his job. Then one day he realized he was in so much pain that he couldn’t take it any longer. He was a prisoner on death row who had nothing to lose by trying to break out.

So he broke out.

Ben started studying successful people and doing what they do. It worked. Ben’s life started to change. He’s a lawyer, economist, writer, actor, teacher, and former-game show host.

When I first started my business, I was in a basement in an old office building. Eventually, I moved into a converted warehouse. I paid $160 a month. I shared a receptionist with a dozen other small businesses and she was no ordinary receptionist – she wore high heels and played odd pranks on people. I was kind of afraid of her. Still, the price was right. I think I paid an extra $20 for her to answer my phones, which was risky so mostly I answered the phones. A pest control company was across the hall from me and Nathan from Critter Control was next door.  This was my glamorous life in advertising. And I sold ad campaigns for a song to a resale store, a diner and a carpet store – all of which are out of business now. Sometimes I would have lunch at this bar nearby with a friend. I ate the chili and cornbread as if it was sustenance to my soul because it was. This was not how I had always imagined it would be. This cowboy was dying too.

Somewhere in the middle of the 90’s, I moved into nicer space on D’Onofrio Drive and landed a telecommunications client. This was 1996 so the Telecommunications Act was creating massive changes. This was good for me because they started to become marketers instead of just another commodity. On top of it, they were great people and the checks were decent plus they had “street cred”… which gave me “street cred”, which meant I had a shot.

I moved my business five times in my first 10 years of business. You have to keep moving when you’re a cowboy. If you’re driving through the range and there’s no water in site, you had better keep moving or your herd will die. I always kept moving. Clients came and clients went. I didn’t sit around and lick my wounds for too long because I couldn’t afford to.

I sat next to the COO of the largest commercial lender in Wisconsin yesterday at Downtown Rotary. He asked, “What’s the secret to staying in business for 25 years?” And I said, “I always had enough money to go one more day.” Of course, it’s more complex than that but there’s some truth to it too. I just kept going – even when, even if, even though. I didn’t quit.

Every day, there were risks though – thieves, wolves, weather, and internal threats. It’s still that way.

The West may be yours but there’s a million ways to die in the West too.

My kids actually took me to that movie. They told me it wasn’t “that bad”. It was a Saturday night. I let them pick. They are teenagers so I can trust them, right? It really was that bad. You shouldn’t take your kids to it. I was just hoping no one saw me in there. There was one part where I had to put my hands over Tristan’s eyes.

Here’s the trailer. It will make you laugh. Watch it even if you’re really busy. Laughing actually increases creativity.

And here’s the thing – there are a million ways to die in the West.  Same in business. A million ways to die. So, why do it?

Because every cowboy knows that to get what you want in life, you have to leave your bunkhouse.  There’s really no better feeling in the world then being out in wide open spaces knowing it’s yours to win or lose.

Here’s what happened when I left my bunkhouse over the last few weeks:

• I landed a new client  – that was good.
• A potential client went to a conference and came back and decided not to do the $25,000 campaign we talked about because he realized he was pushing his team too much. That was bad – for me – not them – well, maybe them. Time will tell.
• Someone said, “the check was in the mail” but it never came.
• A competitor wanted to have lunch.
• A competitor gave me a lead.
• A competitor offered a job to one of my employees and they took it.
• A national company asked me to blog for them.
• A client thanked us for all our hard work and gave us more.
• A client renewed our contract.
• A long time client stopped responding and their credit card was declined.

This is business.

Good things. Bad things. When you’re a cowboy, it’s all in a days work.  You know how to rope, wrangle, herd, cut and so on. The trick is, you must be able to endure the constantly changing environment of a cowboy and see challenges not as an enemy, but something to triumph over.

Excuses are the enemy and we are the ones making excuses.

Is it a failure or a success when things happen? I don’t know but I do know if I spend too much time thinking about it and have a sense of failure around it, that will affect my self-esteem. Low self-esteem leads to unhappiness and as Ben Stein says, “Low self-esteem and unhappiness are the two ineluctable handmaidens of a wasted life.” And because I’m the leader and everyone follows the leader, I had better lick those wounds and get back on that horse again so we can make it to our destination.

A cowboy doesn’t get up in the morning and feel sorry for himself, complain about everything, say no all day to every request, and hope somehow that his cattle get to their destination. No, a cowboy leaves the bunkhouse ready for action. He gets everything he wants by moving, minimizing threats and pressing towards getting to his destination. He has a great attitude and a high sense of self. He achieves the goals he sets before himself.

Which is why I want to be a cowboy. I read this on the Oklahoma State website and thought it was worth sharing. They have a quiz you can take too. It’s fun and it turns out that I’m 90% cowboy. Anyway, here’s their definition of a cowboy: