Neil Dudley: The Cowboy Perspective, well, it might be hard to define, but I can guarantee if you’ll think about it, you’ve got one in mind. Whether you’re building a legacy, an empire, or a fan base, I bet when your friends look at you, they see some cowboy in your face. Y’all come along, let’s talk about this or that. Maybe when we’re done, you’ll go away with a different perspective to put under your hat.
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Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. This is The Cowboy Perspective. I’ve got, well, I guess there’s no way around it, he’s the most famous person I know or have any kind of friendship with. His name is Ty Murray. He’s known as the King of the Cowboys. Hey, Ty, welcome to the show.
Ty Murray: Thanks, Neil. It’s good to be on here with you.
Neil Dudley: I tap your shoulder about every time I want to see if I can leverage your success for myself. And I want to say, I really appreciate you for that. You’ve done a- you’ve judged for us at Bacon Bash. You really give me perspective on a lot of things, and you don’t charge me anything for it, and there’s no replacing that. So, thank you.
Ty Murray: Alright, you bet.
Neil Dudley: So, the first question, and I remember a long time ago, we’d be riding in the afternoons or something, you were just teaching me some horsemanship, and one day, I said something that has always stuck with me. And that was, “Well, it just must’ve been easy for you. You’re just so talented.” Give me your thoughts on that statement. What kind of bells does that set off if somebody says something like that to you?
Ty Murray: Well, I think, you’re talking about, for me, people saying that to me? Or somebody making a statement about me?
Neil Dudley: Right, in general.
Ty Murray: I would say that I was very lucky for the sport that I chose of riding bulls and bucking horses to have had a lot of the stars align for what you need to do that. I was born with the right body size. I was born with the right body type. I was born into a family that has a long, many generations of cowboys in my blood. The lifestyle that I was born into was in the rodeo world. So, I would say that that’s true in part. I was born with a lot of the stars aligned for me to have some success as a professional rough-stock riding cowboy. But I would also say that it takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and work, hard work and dedication and a whole lot of crashes to get there anyway. People always say to me, when I’m in a group of people and we’re riding horses or something, people always say, “Well, yeah, sure, but you’re not worried about getting bucked off.” I have to remind them, and it doesn’t matter how big a group I’m in, I can usually guarantee that I’ve been bucked off more than everybody there combined. And that just goes with the numbers going up, the average goes up. I’ve been on probably about 6,000 heads in my life. So, I would really say it’s both things. I was lucky. I was, I think, born with a body and a mind that was conducive to riding bucking horses and bulls.
Neil Dudley: I’m just thinking, me personally, after getting to know you and being around you, you seem to have a knack of just being good at stuff – anything, everything, basically. I think in, in the world today, people get to look at successful people and think I can never do that; it was just easy for them. And I’m trying to get that thought out of people’s brains. You had a certain body type to do what you were going to do, but the work, the amount of work you put in, that’s why you’re a seven-time world champion.
Ty Murray: Well, that definitely is an ingredient that you can’t get to that level of success without a lot of hard work, that’s for sure. And I feel like things that interest me, I just have a certain kind of way about me and a brain that loves to break it down and understand what you got to do to be good at it. See, I feel the same way about you. You and I have rode a lot together, and you and I have worked cattle a bunch together, and we branded thousands and thousands together. And I always watch you, and you’re such a natural athlete, and you’re such a natural talent, and you’re big, and you’re tall and strong, and you handle stuff. But you also observe, and you learn how to do things right. And then when, it’s funny, when you love something and then you observe it and work at it, then it becomes a lot easier. And I see that in you all the time as well. And it sure is funny, it seems like when you love something, it’s always a lot easier to get good at it.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. It’s just inevitable. Or that’s the trick – one of the tricks to life is figure out how to do what you love and make a living at it.
Ty Murray: Yeah, I think that’s- My biggest wish that I have for my son is, I don’t even care what my son is or what he does or how much money he makes, if he can find something in his life that he’s passionate about, that he gets to wake up every day and be excited about it and be thinking about it the way my life and being a cowboy has been for me, I feel, I’m right there with you. That’s the key to a happy life is having that excitement about what you do every day. And that’s not easy. It’s not easy to find something you’re passionate about and figure out how to make a living doing it. But I think that’s a good thing to strive for.
Neil Dudley: Well, I’ve been lucky, and I’ve just kind of fell into doing some of the things that I really enjoy. I never knew I’d like selling bacon as much as I do, but I really do. I’ve always loved horses and cowboyin’ and being around cowboys and just the stories that you get to hear and experiences, that’s really something you can’t trade for. And part of the podcast idea is to lay some of that down on tape, too, so it’s there for my daughters. Someday they can listen to this and maybe say, “Oh, well, wow, Dad wasn’t just an idiot.” I mean, there was some real thought behind some of the things.
Ty Murray: Yeah, that phase in being a parent I think comes up on you a lot sooner than you expected it to, that where you’re the dumbest person in the world phase.
Neil Dudley: Well, and I feel that way occasionally, just because there’s no book for it. I mean, there’s no book for perfect parenting. It’s only a thing that you can work out with your kids and family and no perfect way for any particular personality type.
Ty Murray: Yeah, it’s funny, it reminds me a lot of colts, and I find myself as a parent, and every day is a new day, and you’re learning something different every day when you’re a parent. I find myself referring back to what I know from being a cowboy, and being a horseman is really the only thing that I have to lean on sometimes when I’m trying to be a parent is what I’ve learned from horses and cattle and being a cowboy and trying to make the wrong thing a little more difficult for a kid and make the right thing a little easier. I know it sure works good on a horse, and hopefully, it works as well on my son and my soon-to-be daughter.
Neil Dudley: Well, yeah, by the way, congratulations on that. When – October?
Ty Murray: September 21st is the due date.
Neil Dudley: Well, alright. You touched on horsemanship a little bit, and I think it’s a great- Oh, and by the way, if we run out of time or you need to get off, do something else, just tell me. I already appreciate the time we’ve had to talk.
Ty Murray: I’m doing good. I’m just driving down the road.
Neil Dudley: Alright then. So, what makes you – I don’t know, it might kind of go along with some of your answer to the first thought, which is what makes you want to teach others about horsemanship or share that? I know you did it for me. Maybe you don’t do it for others. Maybe I was just that lucky guy, but I know I’ve seen you do it with multiple other people. Tell me a little bit, or the listeners a little bit about what makes you want to share that knowledge.
Ty Murray: Well, I really believe that 98% of the time, the horse gets a bad deal. There’s bad horsemanship handed down from generation to generation. And I’m not saying that as a slight to anybody, because it was handed down to me, and it was handed down to my father, and it was handed down to his father, and that’s just kind of how it goes. And it’s one of those things of trying to make the horse think the way a person thinks, and they don’t. And whenever you start learning how to relate to a horse, the way the horse thinks, everything’s a lot easier and you get a lot better results. And in the end, you get more of the relationship that you were looking for to have with your horse, instead of constantly- When something isn’t working over and over with your horse, they’re not understanding, because they don’t want to defy you. They’re an herbivore – they’re a herd animal herbivore, and they’re not a lion. So many times, we try to treat them like a lion. And they’re so sensitive, and we’re not very sensitive in trying to communicate with them. And so, as I got better educated in horsemanship, the more I saw how much the horse doesn’t understand, and we just keep doing it. And, like people I help, I say, “What do you do when you want your horse to stop?” “Oh, I pull back on the reins.” I say, “Okay, what do you do when you want him to slow down?” “Well, I pull back on the reins.” “Okay, well, what do you do when you want him to back up?” “I pull back on the reins.” “Okay, well, what do you do when you want him to wait?” “I pull back on the reins.” You go down the line and everything they do – “What do you do when he’s anxious?” “I pull back on the reins.” “What do you do when he walks straight up?” “I pull back on the reins.” People don’t realize they’re doing that all the time. And they’re doing it and meaning and 50 different things, but they’re doing the same thing. And you look at the horse trying to cipher through that and trying to make sense of it from where he comes from, and it’s amazing that a horse can finally get to where they cipher through as much as they do.
Neil Dudley: I know, it is crazy. I’m just sitting here thinking, what if somebody slapped me in the face every time they wanted me to do anything. I mean, next thing I know, I’m just standing still, taking slaps in the face.
Ty Murray: Well, yeah, if they’re slapping you in the face and expecting 50 different things from the same slap, and you got to fill in the blanks and guess what it is. And when you hear people that’ll say, like they’ll have a horse, say a calf horse, that horse will try to stop too soon, and you’ll see him spank that horse and say, “Well, he cheated me.” And I heard that my whole life. A horse ain’t looking to cheat nobody. He just guessed wrong. And the reason he guessed wrong is because you’re expecting him to fill in the blanks, and with a little bit of horsemanship, he wouldn’t have to guess. He would know when you wanted him to run and when you wanted him to stop, and he wouldn’t have to guess. And that’s just one small example of a million different scenarios with a horse, that it doesn’t make sense to the horse. And when a horse becomes anxious or you might call it barn sour or whatever you want to call it, that’s a normal, natural thing that all horses experience. When you have your choice of being out in the world where you think you’re going to get eaten and working, or being back in your pasture or pen with your buddies, grazing or eating hay, which one are you going to pick? And so, if you have a horse that’s in that situation and you’re pulling on his head and trying to make him stand up, but you just made a bad situation worse. And I can present things a little differently to that horse where what he thinks he should do is a little more difficult, and what I want him to do is a little more easy. Every one of them, it doesn’t matter their age or their breed, they’re all going to take the easier choice. And that’s something that’s never presented to a horse. Most of the time, they just get nothing but bad choices, and they get a bigger bit and a tiedown. How many times have you seen a tiedown keep a horse’s head down? It never has in the history of the world. And every horse I see with a tiedown on, his head’s straight up in the air.
Neil Dudley: All it does is limit the amount of up it can go. That’s all a tiedown does, is limit the amount of up.
Ty Murray: That’s all it does. You just took it balance away from him. And now you’re asking him to do really athletic things with no balance. And when you start to feel for a horse’s mouth, when you start to see how they carry their head, when you teach yourself that feeling, that cures every problem you could have ever had. But it’s almost human nature to look for that quick fix, to look for that gimmick, to look for that Martingale, that tie down, that rein chain, whatever, and none of them work. I’ve never seen one of them work. You watch any guy riding a colt with a Martingale, and I guarantee that colt’s head will be on upside down. And it’s hard, it takes a lot to refine your feel.
Neil Dudley: It’s impatience. At the end of the day, it is human impatience.
Ty Murray: That’s exactly what it is. And it’s human impatience and human ignorance. It’s exactly those two things.
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Well now then, so let’s parlay that to the conversation of entrepreneurship and what your perspective on that is. Are there parallels in your mind between horsemanship and being an entrepreneur or building a business?
Ty Murray: Well, for me, I’m basically a high school and a couple years of junior college educated cowboy. And I feel like I’ve been very lucky in my entrepreneurship and the luck that I’ve had in business and the things that I’ve done in business I’ve based all on what I love and common sense. And really, if you look at the success that the PBR has had, that was never thought of as an investment. It was never thought of as a way to make money, not in my mind, anyway. It was thought of as a way to be able to be a part of something that made sense for the sport. And that’s probably why it worked as a business is because-
Neil Dudley: Well, just real quick, would you give yourself the moniker of an entrepreneur?
Ty Murray: No, I don’t think that I would. I think that I feel like I’ve been very lucky in that, I think everybody has their ideas, and we had an idea and we bet on that idea and it worked. So, I guess you could say that I’m very much part of an entrepreneurship, but a lot of it was just being a cowboy and doing what I thought was right for the sport and for cowboys and for the fans of the sport. And luckily the things that we thought would work, we were right, and they did work. And it did make the sport better for the fans, and it didn’t make it grow. And it brought it to millions and millions of more people than what was out there prior to the PBR. But every day, you are faced with decisions that you’ve got to make whenever you’re trying to grow something. And I see this in the bacon business with you and Cody, absolutely. You guys do what’s right every day. And I’ve watched your guys’ business grow and grow because of that. And I feel like that’s really in part what we did. We didn’t ever look at it and go, okay, what would make us the most money? What would be the best thing for us to make more money? What would- Every day, when we had to make decisions, we thought, what is the best decision for this sport of bull riding? What’s going to make this sport of bull riding better for the fan? Because we knew it had to start with the fan because that’s your consumer when you’re talking about sports.
Neil Dudley: That’s the big trick is figuring out who the consumer is. Is it the fan? Is it the family sitting down eating bacon the next morning? Because at the end of the day, if you’re not proceeding in their direction, there’s a cliff coming.
Ty Murray: That’s sure what I- I see so many people, it’s kind of like, if you go back to the horsemanship, looking for the quick fix or the gimmick, so many people, maybe in the rodeo business, they’re like, well, what would make it better for us? Well, you have to make it better for your consumer before it’s going to get better for you. That’s like saying, I remember young guys coming to me and saying, “What do I got to do to get a sponsor?” And I’d say, “You have to go win.” You’re trying to put the cart in front of the horse. You don’t get a sponsor and then go try to win. You got to go win, and then, you’re going to have some interest from a sponsor. And so, I think it’s not looking for that quick fix and it’s doing- It’s funny, I was talking to my son this morning about integrity, and integrity has been so important in my life, and it’s helped me at every turn, and I just think when you do things with integrity, you can’t go wrong. And that’s all we’ve tried to do. And we knew as cowboys to try hard, and it was something that we believed in, so you can’t give up and you just gotta stay bared down, and you just gotta keep working at it. And that’s all, really, any of us knew because we were all, all of us weren’t businessmen. We were all guys that had spent our lifetime trying to become better cowboys. So, the principles of being a cowboy is really all that we knew.
Neil Dudley: And they reign true for businessmen across the country. It’s like, they’re almost, I would venture to say, most successful businessmen got some kind of cowboy spirit in there somewhere because it just means integrity – I said that, I’m going to do that. Whether that means I’ll lose money or face or embarrassment, any of those things. It’s just like, that’s what was fun about working with cowboys for me. You’re going to get a consistent performance and stand by results.
Ty Murray: And that’s what I say. It feels like it’s helped so much in my life from the people that I want to deal with. I want to deal with people that have integrity, and I want them to know that I have integrity. And if I tell them that I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. Regardless, win, lose, or draw, if it is good for me, if it is bad for me, whatever. And I just feel like the people that I like to do business with, it’s the same thing. I’m going to go back to that guy that I can trust, that’s honest, that looks me in the eye and does what he says he’s going to do and stands by it and takes pride in it. That’s very important to me. And I try to make sure anything that I do, from the smallest thing to the biggest, to the guy that I use to spray bugs at my house, I want the guy that’s honest and has integrity. And it doesn’t matter how big or how small what I’m doing, that’s how I want it, those are the people that I want to deal with every day.
Neil Dudley: I agree and appreciate that. I’m just sitting here thinking I can’t go without telling this story. You don’t really grab on to entrepreneurs, but I perceive you as one of the most entrepreneurial people out there. And I guess the word entrepreneur has lots of different definitions or maybe is a little bit gray in what is that. So, maybe my definition could be a little different than yours. But I’ll never forget, we’re at where me and Kurt lived in the old trailer house. We’re sitting around there, and I get this bright idea, I’m fixing to run down to the road and back in 13 minutes. It is a bad idea to start with, but I thought I could do it, and I’d been kind of working out and in shape. And the entrepreneur in you couldn’t help it. You were trying to negotiate me a better deal. I mean, just immediately, you jumped in and said, “No, Neil, let’s make it 20 minutes.” And at that time, my maturity level, and maybe blood alcohol content level, was that at a place where I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t understand and just say, Ty’s doing me a solid here. Yeah, whatever Ty negotiates for me, that’s the deal I want. So, that was a real learning experience for me.
Ty Murray: We got pictures of that somewhere – you dying on the way back.
Neil Dudley: I think I remember leaving the house, and you said, “You know, you need to be down to the road in seven minutes or six minutes if you want to get back.” And I said, “Oh, I can do it. No problem.” That was where you just, you got to learn stuff from that or you’re in trouble. You don’t want to do that every day.
Ty Murray: That’s right. We’ve had a lot of fun with stuff like that over the years.
Neil Dudley: Alright. So, since I do want to touch on food a little bit, just randomly, or maybe not so randomly, what role do you think your diet, let’s say when you were at the height of your competitive bull riding career, what kind of role did you put diet in, or has it ever been, still not? What’s your thoughts on diet?
Ty Murray: Diet has always been very important to me, and I always trained hard for my sport. And when I started training at my hardest was a six world titles in, and I became injured, and I started trying to train harder to come back from those injuries, and I was working out two hours a day, six days a week, and I was eating five meals a day. And luckily, I feel better when I eat well. I’m not talking about trying to eat non-sugar this and low-fat that – that’s not what I’m talking about. I try to eat real food, not all the processed stuff. And luckily, my wife is a great cook, and she loves good, healthy nutrition as well. I’m just not a guy that craves the fatty stuff and the stuff that’s bad and the stuff that’s processed. I can noticeably tell that I feel better when I eat right. And I’ve really tried to do that my whole life, and I can still tell that it benefits me. And I’m 48 years old, I still have the same belt size I had when I was 21, and I can do whatever I want. And that’s even with every limb on my body being operated on. I’ve had both shoulders reconstructed. I’ve had both knees reconstructed. And I’ve had a plate put in my neck, from my riding career. But physically speaking, I can still do everything I want. I can still rope and ride and go on bucks. I feel like I’m still adequate there. I can ride motorcycles on long trips. I can ride dirt bikes. I can water ski. And I feel like part of that is I was born lucky with a certain body type and a certain type of metabolism, but I know for a fact that eating good, real food has helped me my whole life. And I can still notice it to this day.
Neil Dudley: Well, to me, that says the thing that I believe in the most. Now, I’m eating ketogenetic diet right now. So, I eat a lot of fat, good fat, bacon, that kind of stuff. But in general, why don’t people just say, “Wow, when I eat this, I feel good”? Most people’s diets, when they get done eating two pizzas and a half a gallon of ice cream, they don’t feel good.
Ty Murray: The thing that I always say, you see all these, I call them like hippy fads that come and go – they decide one day that milk’s gonna kill you, and they decide the next day that eggs are going to kill you. And then they decide they’re not. And it changes all the time. Over the last- In my lifetime, I’ve watched those trends change four million times. The thing that I always look at is I think it’s good to do everything in moderation. I believe what the old earth provides us is kind of what we’re supposed to eat. To me, that doesn’t mean eat pork belly by the pound every day of your life. But I love bacon every morning. And I saw my cowboy grandpa, he’d eat bacon and eggs every day of his life, and he lived a long, healthy, happy life and was a cowboy till the end. I always try to follow what I’ve seen proven to work and not fall into all the different fad things. Like gluten – 10 years ago, you never even heard of gluten. And that’s become a thing that so many people have decided to say, “Oh, is it gluten free?” Well, there probably are some people that need to stay away from gluten, and I’m glad they’ve discovered what it is and that it helps them to stay away from it. But I think it’s become one of those fad buzz words, that now, so many people have got on this gluten kick. And I find that it doesn’t, I’ll say it doesn’t work for me.
Neil Dudley: Well, I think it’s a fair assessment. Or basically, if you go into a grocery store, you can see gluten-free on about everything. So, it muddled it down. And then even, as a guy that makes bacon, we put gluten-free on there because there’s people there that are going to say, “Ooh, that’s gluten free, I can have it.” When intuitively and by logic, bacon is gluten-free. It’s like just some of that simple stuff that the evolution of really our food just has to catch up with. And even, I think it’s also interesting and a piece of the puzzle that you and I kind of know where food comes from. We’ve dug it up with our hands or hunted it down.
Ty Murray: Raised it every day. We roped it.
Neil Dudley: I don’t know what the percentage would be, but it’s large in my mind that I have no real idea about that.
Ty Murray: Yeah, that’s probably true. Yeah. Other than what?
Neil Dudley: What they see on TV or hear on a podcast or their best friend told them on Facebook or Instagram, something like that. Oh, how about Kase’s diet? For me, that’s the challenging one, because here’s my first go-to with kids that aren’t wanting to do what I want them to – it’s back to this patience and horsemanship and all those things that I like to talk about, but don’t display necessarily all the time – but, “Hey, let’s go get an ice cream” or “Shut up, sit down, I’ll give you a popsicle.” Do you find yourself falling into that trap?
Ty Murray: Kase is always, I feel very lucky that Kase has always had a- and he eats right with us, whatever we eat, sans spicy or hot food, but he has a great palette, and I’ve always told him to listen to his body. He’s the only kid I’ve ever seen in my life that if we are having an ice cream cone, he’ll eat half of it sometimes and then go, “Okay, I’m done,” and hand it to me. He’s like, “I feel full.” And that’s something that I’ve always encouraged. And again, I just try to remember moderation. I think it’s okay for a kid to have an ice cream cone. I think it’s okay for a kid to have a sucker and a frozen pop or whatever. I just think it’s good in moderation. And it’s just like everything else. Some people become so, they let that pendulum swing too far, and they become too all no sugar, and they cut all sugar out of their diet. If that makes you feel better, great. But for me, and I see it in my son, that when we do things in moderation, that seems to work on things that go way past even food. I feel like that’s a good rule of thumb in about all we do, is try to use the old moderation rule of thumb.
Neil Dudley: I think the big challenge that I find, and probably a lot of others find, is that willpower of moderation. It is like, my problem is, and it’s not all the time, it just seems to be in stressful times of life or whatever, I get to where I don’t have the willpower to go moderation. So, a lot of times, I’m a lot better at saying I’m off of that. Just forget about it. I’m done with that thing, whatever it is. And I can succeed a lot better than if I say, “Well, yeah, I’m going to have an ice cream cone, but only eat half of it.” I can’t do that. Can’t is the wrong word. I am unwilling to put in the work to get myself where I can, right? I mean, because can’t – really anybody can and can’t do anything about it.
Ty Murray: It’s funny, and I don’t know if it’s from my career and what I did as a cowboy, but I love to test my willpower, and I almost test it on a daily basis. I chewed Copenhagen for all of my life, from the time I was young until I had my son. And first thing, my son reached for it. I said, you know what, I’m going to quit. And I quit cold turkey right then. And that’s not easy to do after 40 years of chewing that tobacco. But it’s almost like I enjoy the challenge of saying, well, that can’t rule me, that ice cream cone can’t rule me, that Copenhagen can’t rule me. I even quit coffee and I don’t think coffee is bad for you. I just wanted to see if I could do it. I had a friend that said, “Man, I tried to quit coffee, and I had a migraine headache for two weeks.” Well, I skipped coffee the next morning just to see what would happen, and I had a bad headache. I thought, holy cow, my body is addicted to that, and I want to see if I can quit. And like I say, I don’t believe that coffee’s bad for you. Again, I think the moderation rule applies. I don’t think you want to drink four pots of it a day, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a cup of coffee, but I just wanted to see if I could quit. And mainly the fact that my body was so reliant upon it that I had a splitting headache when I didn’t have a cup. So, I gave that up about six years ago as well and mainly just to see if I could do it. And now I just like not having the burden of having to sit around for an hour and drink coffee in the morning for it to make my day feel like it was going to go right.
Neil Dudley: Right, yeah. I think that’s a piece of advice that could be really good for anybody that ever listens to this thing, is think about getting yourself in a position where you enjoy testing your willpower. If you can get into a place in your life where you can say, you know what, I’m solid enough, I’m going to enjoy and live with the idea that, man, I can put myself to the test and I’ll win. Because it’ll play good in business, it’ll play good in about anything you want to think about.
Ty Murray: My mom was a great example for me of willpower from the time I was little, and it’s something that I’ve enjoyed, and I’ve tried to plan it in a lot of different ways in my life. And I still do to this day. I remember when I was a little boy, I was amazed that my mom, she’d always tickled me, and if I’d go to tickle her, she could say, well, my willpower, I can just not laugh. I remember when I was five years old, that amazed me. I was just like, wow, are you kidding me? That’s incredible. Because I felt like I couldn’t keep from laughing to save my life. So that was something that I got tuned in on it at an early age. And like I said, it’s something that I still like to see to this day. And I do it all the time. If I’ve been having a bunch of ice cream cones, I’ll just say, you know what, I’m going to quit that, and I’ll quit it for however long I want to, however long I think I need to the challenge myself. I don’t know, it just feels good to me to make sure I’m still in charge of everything. And I don’t have ice cream or alcohol or chewing tobacco or coffee running my life.
Neil Dudley: It’s a great perspective. I can appreciate it. And I, although probably not to your level, but I enjoy that, too – some of this doing the ketogenic diet, doing the Whole30, taking sugar out. Sometimes it’s just like, well, I want to live a little bit like what the consumers that I’m selling this stuff to, bacon, sausage, whatever it might be, so I have a perspective that I can get in the same boat with them. But also, then it is the challenge because you walk by those Skittles, and I mean, they’re hollering your name. They’re not just whispering. They are like, “Neil, get over here! Skittles!”
Ty Murray: I never knew this about you. I didn’t realize Skittles was the monkey on your back, Neil.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, now you do, so don’t start mailing them to me. Okay, last thing. So, in your mind, what’s a dollar worth or a Bitcoin?
Ty Murray: Well, I don’t know too much about bitcoin.
Neil Dudley: My granddad would be the person that I would probably relate to the most on the value of a dollar. And to him, that was, and I guess there’s just a million perspectives on it, but a dollar to him was hard work and opportunity. And how I knew that was just his attitude.
Ty Murray: I would say that’s a great assessment to get from your grandpa.
Neil Dudley: Though a lot of people don’t have a care about a dollar. It’s nothing but, it’s just a thing that we use to track and get goods, or this and that, or leverage for a position in the market or get stuff I want. I was just curious about, or maybe even your- go ahead. I was just going to say maybe even you’re, it being one of those questions that takes a bit to answer could be the answer. It’s not a particularly important thing on your list of things.
Ty Murray: You know what, it is important to me, but it’s not important to me for, I would say that I always felt like I was going to make a good living no matter what. And I think I got a work ethic from my dad and I get a real sense of satisfaction from going and earning a good living. I get a real sense of satisfaction from that. But I think where that sense of satisfaction comes from is from my will to have security. The harder I worked and the more I made, the more secure I felt and the more I enjoyed it. And then in turn, it made me want to work harder and earn more. And that’s always been a thing of comfort for me. And so, that’s still very important to me. Having that sense of security brings me a real sense of peace. And the only way I knew to get that was from working hard. So, I think that really goes with what your grandpa was saying. And I think we’re basically saying the same thing, but that the latest, coolest material thing never has meant more to me than security. Even land, which I love, is still something that is a security to me. It’s not a fancy new car or a new stereo or a new trinket or a new something that’s going to lose a lot of value. And so, I’ve always worked towards long, safe investments and hard work and putting my money in places that was going to provide me a sense of security, which provided me a sense of peace. I don’t know if that answers your question or not, but that’s what the value of a dollar is to me.
Neil Dudley: All that, I just wanted to touch on the topic with you. Wherever that happened to go was not particularly looking for some specific answer or another thing, just some perspective.
Ty Murray: I never looked up to guys that were- It never was my fancy to be a wheeler-dealer guy or be a guy that has a lot of money that’s flashy. I never felt good- That never made me feel good. I never got any sense of satisfaction. I never got any sense of feel-good from, “Hey, look at this boat I bought,” or, “Hey, look at this fancy trinket or this fancy toy,” or “Look what I’m able to spend money on,” “Look at this dinner that I am able to-” I never got a good feeling from any of that. And that’s just me. I think you nailed it when you said there’s a lot of different people that feel a million different ways about it. But for me, where I felt good was feeling like I had a sense of security, which gave me peace. That always made me feel way better than something flashy for show.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, maybe just real quick, and I’ll let you go – I appreciate it, we’ve been talking about a lot of fun stuff – and would you say once maybe you, like, you started winning, you got some sponsorships, you had some money in the bank. Did you find it easier to make money then, or was it still pretty much really a non-consideration, it was still do the right thing the right way and let the money come if it does?
Ty Murray: For me, when I look back on my career, every time I let money creep into the equation, and it didn’t matter, especially riding, I always kept the money out of it as far as what it felt like to me when I was crawling over that shoot. Because no amount of money-
Neil Dudley: I know you kept the money out of it, because I’ve heard stories of you having checks from two years ago in your wallet. Paychecks from the rodeo, you just still had them, were carrying them around in your wallet.
Ty Murray: Right, right. Two years is a bit of an exaggeration, but I did have a good seven months’ worth in my wallet. Cody Lambert, I owed him about – I forget – I think I owed him about $12,000 because I was a rookie and he’d been paying my fees and paying rental cars and paying my airline tickets. And he said, you owe me $12,564.86. And I was able to go through my wallet and pull out that exact amount in checks that I could just sign over to him. And so, yeah, and I never thought nothing of it at the time, but people sure have enjoyed retelling that story. But for me, even when I was, I remember the first rodeos I ever went to, I was in college and I went with Cody and Tuff and Jim and Lane. And we went up to Portland, Oregon, and I had $700 to my name. Well, our flight up there was 500 bucks back then – a round trip was 500 bucks – and I think our fees at the two rodeos came in at over 200 bucks. So, here I am, I’m in the hole before I even leave to go to my first rodeo. And I remember that that was very stressful, very, very, very stressful. And when I got there, I won. And man, that just took so much pressure off of me. And I remember that, bull riding is such a dangerous game, and frankly, riding bucking horses can be pretty dangerous, too. And so, that always kind of trumped what other worries were in the world. So, that’s the great equalizer – when you crawl over that shoot is you realize that being broke is not as bad as how dangerous this sport can be. So being there and being focused and having your head in the game is very important. And every time I tried to remember to keep it at that level and to try to remember that I was there because I enjoyed that challenge and how much I loved that challenge of riding bucking horses and bulls. That’s always when I was at my best. I think when you’re trying to do something for the money, I don’t feel like that ever really, in that sport, I feel like that doesn’t really work. You’ve got to have an attraction to it that goes so much deeper than making a living. I feel like my effort was the same whether I was at the NFR or riding at a small rodeo that’s going to pay 500 bucks. I feel like it felt the same to me when I climbed over the shoot.
Neil Dudley: Well, I was just going to say that parallels really with so much in life, forgive me, yours has to do with your career and what you did, but the same thing works good for me and selling bacon or any other thing. I want to treat every customer like they’re my customer and I love them and care for them. So, this one customer that might buy 500 bucks of product or the next customer that might buy a million dollars of product, you got to give everybody that same, just like you said, you climb over the shoot, it’s the same game every time.
Ty Murray: I think that goes back to integrity that we were talking about in the end. And you can tell when you’re dealing with somebody like that, and when I’m around people that treat me the same, I never forget people that have always treated me the same. That’s something that’s very important to me. And I try to do that same thing to people. You can tell right away when somebody is treating you differently because they think there’s something in it for them to gain. And I like to act on those principles, and I like to be around people that act on those principles.
Neil Dudley: And you’ve had a chance to test it a little bit. With your success, you get to experience that more than somebody like me, really. On occasion, I’ll probably get to experience it in some form, but not as a guy that is – nobody wants, has ever asked for my autograph without me begging them to ask for it first. Where you, you’ve lived a life where you could just be going down a street, especially in the rodeo world, I don’t know, maybe everywhere, and just be recognized, and people want to have some time with you because, well, hey they’re fans. Or then, if it gets a little bit deeper, then they’re thinking, well, Ty might do this or that for me or introduce me to somebody.
Ty Murray: Well, don’t get me wrong, it’s flattering when you’re talking about somebody looking up to you for what you’ve done or wanting your autograph because they’ve admired your career or what I’ve been as a cowboy. That’s very flattering and I feel very honored for that. And sometimes even, people might give you special treatment because they know who you are, and they want to sit you down when there’s a line waiting or whatever. But what I’m saying is when you see a guy that treats you bad and then finds out who you are and pulls a 180, that doesn’t ever feel right. And I don’t want to be treated like that, and I don’t want to treat people like that. I want to try to-.
Neil Dudley: If a scenario can work that way, it can also work the reverse, right? So that’s the play that you’re like, man, this guy is the guy that, okay, cool, yeah, I got some special treatment there. Now he knows this or that. You got to know immediately somebody that’ll do that is doing the opposite to somebody else. And that just kind of makes you think, hmm, it’s just that bad feeling.
Ty Murray: Absolutely.
Neil Dudley: Hey, Ty, thanks for your time, buddy. I mean, I love you. I’m excited about that little girl coming. Appreciate your time, man. It’s always fun talking to you. We don’t really get to talk nearly as much as we used to, but I always enjoy it. We get to do a little cowboy work together. Thanks for coming on the podcast and kind of propping me up. You’ve done it in the past and I appreciate it.
Ty Murray: You bet, Neil. I enjoyed it. I’ll see you sometime soon. We’ll make a circle.
Neil Dudley: Okay, man, talk to you later. Appreciate it.
Ty Murray: Alright. Thanks.
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Well, there we have it, folks. That’s a ride around with Ty Murray, the King of the Cowboys. I hope you enjoyed it and you’re able to take away some cowboy perspective. Thanks for listening to the show. And until next time, happy trails.