Neil Dudley: The Cowboy Perspective, well, it might be hard to define, but I guarantee if you think about it, you’ve got one in mind. Whether you’re building a legacy, an empire, or a family, 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 another perspective to put under your hat.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, especially, well, I don’t even know. I was almost, I was just about to say, especially ladies, but tell you what, it’s not especially ladies, it’s anybody and everybody that wants to learn something is going to get a chance today to learn from a lady, get a cowgirl perspective here on the Cowboy Perspective. I‘m excited about this episode. I’m looking forward to you guys and gals getting a chance to hear from this lady. There’s just a wealth of knowledge there. She’s done big things. She’s doing big things. And she’s going to do big things. And we just had a great conversation. Let’s get to it because there’s so much there. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. Thanks for listening. Yee-haw!
Hey, everybody out there in TCP nation. We’ve got a really special guest today, and it’s going to be a cowgirl perspective this time instead of the cowboy perspective. And I think these cowgirl perspectives are super, super important. I know the women in my life have been a big influence and a big part of what has helped me be successful and understand, hey, we’re working with women in our lives, so you need to be able to hear both of those perspectives, understand them, and be able to work together. So, I think Stacie’s about to really help us see some of that cowgirl perspective. And everybody, let’s welcome her. Stacie, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on the Cowboy Perspective and talking to me.
Stacie McDavid: Thank you for having me, Neil.
Neil Dudley: Now, first things first, let everybody know a little bit about who you are, where you came from, and that story that is yours, uniquely yours. What was your childhood like? Just give us that little bit of background before we start diving into some of the other things you’ve done.
Stacie McDavid: Well, I was raised in Denton, Texas, and my father was an educator, chemistry teacher at the high school and the North Texas State University my whole life. And I grew up, I’m half Lebanese, and on my mother’s side Native American, French, and Scottish. I had, I literally grew up in two worlds, the Lebanese side, and I’m third generation Lebanese American. My family came over from Lebanon, my father’s family, over a hundred years ago in the 1800s. And were putting in pharmacies and dry goods stores from Fort Worth to a lot of rural areas. And on my mother’s side, they were farmers and sharecroppers. And on my mother’s side, there were, in her family, there were a lot of really accomplished cowgirls. So, I kind of grew up in two worlds.
Neil Dudley: Well, and both, I think are so interesting. It’s interesting to me that you know so much about your heritage. What got you interested in that? Or was that something that your parents instilled in you because they had that real pride for their heritage and where they came from?
Stacie McDavid: Well, my father, I come from a family, on the Lebanese side especially, they were really good athletes. And my father grew up in Alvord, Texas, which is between Decatur and Bowie or Wichita Falls and Decatur. And then my grandfather graduated the class of 1917 from Bridgeport, Texas, and they had dry good stores in Sunset, Alvord, Bridgeport. And I think because they assimilated okay, although their skin was a little bit darker than everybody else’s and their foods were different and they were Christian, but Catholic, it set them somewhat apart, and all they wanted to do was blend in. When you’re third generation, it allows you to embrace your heritage. They stopped, stepped away from the language and a few other things, but not the traditions. So, I held on tight to those traditions.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, thanks for that insight. And I think about my heritage, well, I just don’t know it that well, as you’re articulating it, I have some people in our family that could tell our heritage from, we started in Arkansas and moved over in and ended up walking from Comanche out into the country and buying the first piece of property. Which maybe with a little more time, I guess I might start getting more, at least better at saying, recalling that and giving that story of our family heritage. But I sure enjoy hearing yours and anybody’s because that paints such a picture of how America got to be America.
Stacie McDavid: Without question. Some of us know them better than others. I’ll never forget, I had a cousin here in Fort Worth, he’s one of the most famous Wall Street investors and very well-known globally. His name was Richard Rainwater, and he was Lebanese. His mother, her last name was Dieb. My last- my maiden name is Dieb, and he told me one time, he goes, “Stacie, you’re a lot more Lebanese than I am.” And I said, “Why?” And we both had the same amount – he’s half, I’m half. But he was second generation. And I think it was because of my age – and I’m 64, he was older than me, he has since passed away – I have been able, because of the time I lived and was born and everything, it was much more permissible, if you will, to embrace your heritage.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, along that same vein, so being a woman and maybe lets touch on this a little bit, and we’ll get into some more of your career path and that kind of thing along the way, but from the perspective of a woman and a Lebanese woman, that feeling people have about I kind of want to hide my heritage, or I want to just be a part, I don’t want the, for lack of a better word, discrimination that comes along with being different, how has that played out in your life? And what advice might you give somebody that’s experiencing that or having that fear today?
Stacie McDavid: I certainly think this is a beautiful time, number one, to be female and, number two, to embrace our heritage, even more than what I have done in the seventies, eighties, nineties, and up to now. As a child, we all want to blend in. We don’t want to be different. But I think it’s important, particularly from a parental standpoint, for parents to tell their children from a very small age, that they are in fact different and embrace those differences because that’s what makes us unique. And I think that’s a beautiful thing and we are a melting pot, as you know, and this is what America’s about. And I never experienced the discrimination probably because I’m fair. My father, however, did. He didn’t talk about it. My sister did, and my brother did. They’re very dark. So, but my heart, I had tremendous compassion for them because I actually was able to witness what it was like to look through their eyes because I was with so often. And I’m the eldest child. So, I was very protected.
Neil Dudley: Well, so paint- So, what happened? So, you were a kid, you saw a lot of this going on within your family. You start getting into adolescence and getting a little older, what was that piece of your life like?
Stacie McDavid: Growing up, my father was a coach. He coached high school football and baseball. So, I grew up on an athletic field most of my life. As normal and middle-class as I felt like my life was, when I look back on it, I’m not sure it was. It was very American. The experience was very American growing up in Denton. But the real curve ball for me and the pivotal moment for me probably is when I lost my mother, and I was 10 and she was 28. She passed from leukemia and left my brother who was two years younger than me, 8, Steve, and then my brother John was a year old, but my father was 33, working daylight to dusk to try to make ends meet. And that was life changing. And life changing in that I had always been independent, but that certainly pushed me to become more independent and also took a little piece of my childhood away from me. So, I grew up quickly at that point. Athletics was always a venue for me growing up and in the sixties and seventies, there weren’t a lot of athletics for women. I played a lot of Sandlot ball. I did club leagues in the summer, whether it’s the swimming, track, whatever. So that instilled in me a real level of discipline. And that served me well, even now, and throughout out my show career because I’ve been showing competitively cutting horses for 30 years. So, it’s served me well. It really has.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, and just your backdrop there proves you’ve had some success in the arena. For those that can’t see because you’re listening on the podcast, behind Stacie is a bunch of award buckles and a saddle, which we’ll get to that in a little bit. I want to talk to you about some of that stuff too. I thought I would just give a shout out to all of those coaches, sons and daughters of coaches. And matter of fact, the story is kind of cool because right now I have a brother-in-law that’s a coach up in Denton Guyer. So, shout out Willie Williams. It was kind of cool.
Stacie McDavid: You’re killing it right now.
Neil Dudley: They are. My sister-in-law posts pretty often these overtimes are killing me. But those coaches, I think you touched on a little bit, just spend a lot of time at that job. They’re kind of 24/7 people. They’re constantly thinking about coaching, or gone driving a bus, just doing that work. So, shout out to all you guys and gals out there doing that work for our kiddos. We certainly appreciate you so much.
Stacie McDavid: And the influence they have on those kids is forever.
Neil Dudley: Sure. I have coaches that I just adore. They just play a role in your life when you’re growing up, you’re figuring things out, your body’s changing, and they can do so much to help that confidence. Because I think any kid battles that.
Stacie McDavid: The good ones, I truly believe it’s a calling.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, God puts those right kind of people in the right places. Well, so now we’ve got through most of that. Now you’re going to probably start off into some kind of business career and start doing things out in the workplace. How did that go? Where did you start? How did you just get off the button, I like to say?
Stacie McDavid: I had always been self-assertive and independent. So, I was always doing things from a very young age to try to help my dad or to feel like I was contributing in some form. It’s very difficult to do when you’re a little child.
Neil Dudley: Oh, and you want to so bad. I mean, I can’t really say, I know how to empathize with you because my parents are both still alive. I got to know both sets of my grandparents. I’ve been so blessed in that regard. With your mom passing away, with you at that age, and your dad had to be kind of lost a little bit, and you just want to save him or protect him, yeah, you had to grow up quick, and I think it set you up a little bit for who you ended up being today.
Stacie McDavid: There’s no doubt that as horrible as it was, it certainly has shaped my life. I probably wouldn’t be half the person I am now had I not had that great loss.
Neil Dudley: I got to believe you’ve been in a boardroom or two where that strength played well for you.
Stacie McDavid: At the time I didn’t, you feel like you’re in this fraternal order, if you will. You’re going to be a motherless daughter forever because it just doesn’t seem right to go through life and not have that experience with your mother. So, I’ll tell you for me later, when I did have one child, and David and I have one daughter, Sterling. When I had her, she’s 31 now, it was cathartic for me because I was able to, the things I missed out with my mom, I’m able to experience that now with our daughter. And it’s just been, it’s been great. But to get back to your question on how did I kind of segue to the point doing something I really loved, which I was a gym rat because I’d been on that baseball and football field my whole life and locker rooms. At the age of 15, I started I had a little membership at a fitness center in Denton, and I started working out all the time. But I’d been working out for years. And when I say working out, I’m talking cross-training and we didn’t call it cross training then, from running to lifting weights to swimming to biking. But so, I ended up in the fitness industry while I was in college and I had had a full ride in college in track and field at Texas Woman’s University, and I graduated from there. So, I was in the fitness business for many, many years, and I had 32 fitness centers across Texas and Florida. And that’s what I did. And I loved it up until the time I married David.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Now, whatever made you put in a second one? You had one- I always am curious. I can kind of understand, okay, I want to open one. Did you have the vision of having a lot of fitness centers from day one or was that something that the opportunity just popped up and you grabbed it? I’m trying to paint a picture for how somebody that thinks, ooh, I want to be the next Stacie McDavid could think about the world.
Stacie McDavid: My daughter’s age, I gauge a lot of things of what she does and that generation, how they think and everything, and there are a lot more, maybe not the 43-year-olds, but the 30-year-olds are a lot more methodical about how they do things – when they have kids, when they get married, when they do this, when they do that. I’m going to say that for David and I both, and we laugh and talk about this, but we flew by the seat of our pants a lot more than the younger generations do. We allowed things to happen without forcing them to happen. And we did them whether it was out of necessity, whether it was, we just, I think you and I briefly spoke at one point, just for me, my life has been about putting on some blinders and just going, not thinking about what I did yesterday or tomorrow and just not overthinking things.
Neil Dudley: Right. Well, I think that’s great advice. I hope people are listening to that. I don’t know, I’ve not done a study. You probably have a better subject to keep you in tune to the 30-year-olds or, I mean, as part of our business, we’re of course looking at that demographic to make sure we’re offering something that’s a solution in their life and that can keep our business relevant. But I lived very, a lot of that same story in what I’ve done. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going exactly. I just knew I was going. It’s worked out. Now, there’s probably, there’s potentially a few more bumps along the way in that scenario, but I think you get somewhere a lot quicker than if you really want to be real confident and know exactly how to go before you ever start your first step, you might not ever get that first step made.
Stacie McDavid: I think it can be crippling of sorts to overthink stuff and to be so fearful not to make a mistake. And I will say this, I’ve made a gillion along the way, and you just pick yourself up, and you just hopefully learn from that and not do it again. Although many times I’ve done it again. And now, as I’ve gotten older, I do a lot more calculated risks. At the time when I was thinking about putting in additional gyms, if you will recall in the seventies, so you weren’t even born-
Neil Dudley: No, I came in there in the late seventies, ’78.
Stacie McDavid: Okay. Well, you were just too young to even think about it, but the fitness business was just really starting to take off in a big way. So, it’s not that the world was our oyster at the time, but there were a lot more opportunities and you could see the need because the demographics, there weren’t a lot of fitness centers in our major towns or the smaller towns. So, it wasn’t without thought, but we put them in, and you had to have, first off, the centers had to be super clean, you had to have a competent staff, well-trained, and you had to have a good sales staff. And one of my gifts is the ability to sell. I think that’s why I was attracted to my husband. He has the ability to sell.
Neil Dudley: Well, it’s a nice skill set to have. It really helps in lot because at the end of the day, I believe we’re always selling something. Even if it’s just ourself or it doesn’t always have to be a product that you’re selling, you could just be selling an idea. I want to circle back now to some of these- That is all tied to your cowgirl perspective, which I think is part of how cowboys and cowgirls think. It’s kind of like the cows running off, everybody takes off. It’s not, oh, how are we going to-? What’s the plan? No, it’s let’s go do it. And so that lends itself in my mind to what I experienced as a kid growing up and being around cowboys and cowgirls. So, you mentioned briefly or just shortly that your mom’s family had cowgirls, strong cowgirls in it. So, let’s talk a little bit about that and what role, how you kind of got into horseback riding and then competitive cutting and those kinds of things.
Stacie McDavid: Well, when I was young, my mother’s sister was married to a cowboy. And as a matter of fact, he trained, he had a job, a full-time job, but he also trained cutting horses on the side. This is in the seventies and maybe the late sixties. And they had a little ranch, a ranchette. People wouldn’t consider it a ranch now, but it was a ranchette, it was small, in Denton at the time. And I used to go, they had one child who was close to my age, and we used to go and ride all day every day. And there was something not only beautiful about kids being able to ride open and just the freedom, it was very liberating to bond with the horse. And my father could never understand it because he didn’t grow up that way. But I knew my mother and her side of the family, my grandmother – my grandmother rode exceptionally well. And when I saw my grandmother ride, she was in her late sixties at a family reunion. And she happened to race her sister, who was older than her. And they were on these dinks of horses out in the pasture with holes and everything. And to the dismay of all of us that were the little kids watching, I will never, ever forget that moment in my life because I knew she could ride, I did not know she could ride like that.
Neil Dudley: Right. And that paints just what, just the picture you’re painting for me spells athleticism, skill, bravery, confidence – so much stuff wraps up in this one thing that you’ll never forget for the rest of your life. And I think it’s so cowgirl of them.
Stacie McDavid: It was so cowgirl, it was so crunchy, so ranchy. And what a beautiful image that is, too, and what a legacy. I mean, these women worked daylight to dusk and never talked about their accomplishments. I only heard about them from other family members. It showed me that they never bragged, and they just gave us a little glimpse of it, and I’m very grateful for that.
Neil Dudley: Humility, I mean, it’s another thing I think is very much in the realm of cowboys and cowgirls. And I’ve been around some really great ones, and you can’t beg them, you can’t make them tell you what they did that was any good – oh, yeah, I had a pretty good horse. He’s at that time a world champion, something like that.
Stacie McDavid: Oh yeah. That’s the beautiful thing with cowboys and cowgirls is the level of humility, in most of them. It’s just, it’s so refreshing.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, this is my story. And listeners are probably going to be like, Neil, be quiet, we want to hear what Stacie has to say. But I can’t help it. I’m not sure I’ve ever told this story on the show. But I played football in high school, and watching football, watching the NFL, I see these guys doing end zone dances and celebrations and spiking the ball. And I was like, man, if I ever get to the end zone, that’s what I want to do. I never forget my dad just looking at me and saying, why would you want to act like you’ve never been there before? Just act like that’s what you do. Just hand the ball back to the ref, go back. You just do it again. It’s not a celebration. That’s what you’re on the field to do.
Stacie McDavid: Your dad was right. My dad probably would have, he would have jerked me if I had done something like that because it would have been showboating. And about the time I thought I was going to showboat, he was jerking on and would say Stacie, faster, stronger, prettier, and smarter than me. And I love that.
Neil Dudley: Was that easy to hear at the time though?
Stacie McDavid: When your hormones are raging and you are doing well or your everybody picks you first to be on their team, no, but my father still to this day, he’s 87, and I have a tendency to gloss over things and be very optimistic, and he can pull me down a little bit and get my feet to touch the earth again, that advice has certainly served me well. And I told my daughter that. I tell her that often, and we need to hear that. And because that’s the truth.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. And I think about it a lot. It was valuable to me. It was hard for me to hear at the time. It actually, I believe affected my confidence in some way that I didn’t understand, just that I would see the guys on TV doing that, not fully understanding, and there’s certain piece of entertainment there that people are looking for and paying for. But I just want the listeners to be thinking about, your parents were really always just only want the best for you. And my dad was totally giving me great advice. I just wasn’t mature enough to accept it and deploy it in my life well. It kind of held me back in a way because I felt like, because I was good, I was really good, I felt almost like I couldn’t be really, really good because that would be showboating or something. So, it just kind of went into my brain and didn’t land just exactly like it could’ve or should’ve. Nobody’s nothing but total great intentions. So, I’m not even sure where I was going with that. That was just kind of an experience that I’m waking up to.
Stacie McDavid: It’s an interesting concept because kids emulate, you’re watching something, and you see it and you’re young and these people you admire or they’re your heroes, and that was very smart of your father to say that.
Neil Dudley: I just start thinking about whoa, what’s going to happen when he’s not around to give me that advice. I’ve got a couple episodes in the podcast talking to him, so that’s going to be a great tool for me because I can listen back to some of that stuff. Knowing good enough now, he polices me without being around. Cause I can just, yeah, what would Dad think about that? And Mom, too. Mom affected me in many of the same ways that have turned out to be really great assets in my life. I just didn’t understand it as a kid. If you’re listening to this and you’re a kid, I just, you have to know, you don’t know everything. Your parents are telling you that, you got to trust them, believe them, it is hard to do. I didn’t trust them and believe them quite as much as I should have. The other thing I wanted to touch on was social media these days, because that’s what all the youngsters are paying attention to. That’s scary to me because there’s so much of that that could be falsified and-
Stacie McDavid: A lot of it is. I heard something great the other day, a lot of people are mitigating the social media and the phone and the constant obsession we have with our phones, with their kids in that they have apps that turn the phones off, turn them totally off. And/or you check your phones in a basket for family night or what have you. I will say that with some of your influencers on social media, they do impact our children a lot. And you’ve got to monitor it. You’ve got to talk to your kids about it. And a lot of times, it’s a lot of fluff and very little of it is real.
Neil Dudley: You’re seeing five or ten or a minute or two minutes of this person and there’s 24 hours in a day. You have no clue what’s going on with all that other time. And you’re comparing yourself to others. What do you think about that?
Stacie McDavid: I’m not big on it at all.
Neil Dudley: Are you capable of it? Have you done it ever? Or is it you just were never like that?
Stacie McDavid: No, I did do it for sure. And I don’t like that.
Neil Dudley: I think the pressure happens on women even more. I don’t know. It might happen on both genders, but I feel like women get the pressure to look pretty and fit this mold of beauty, whatever that is.
Stacie McDavid: Yeah, I’m reading a book called Untamed right now. And she talks about you want to be popular, what her experience was like, which was not unlike my experience, on being popular and fitting in and all of these things. And when I look back on it now, it absolutely makes me sick and it’s silly, but it is this trap we fall into. And girls, girls seem to be so much more mature than boys early on. So, I think the pressures to be thin, to be this, to be that, to be pretty or whatever, they happen very early. And we got to be, we’ve got to start teaching that you’re perfect the way you are.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Somewhere somebody asked me if you could just plug any, just have one thing you could plug to your children and just give them without fail, and I just thought about that a lot, what would it be? I kind of think, well, just a relationship with God. Yeah, I mean, that’s one really big one, which might be more important than the one I ended up choosing even, but I chose self-esteem. If could just guarantee they would always have self-esteem, good self-esteem, that’s what I wish I could give them, because I know that’s such a hard thing to come by in the world.
Stacie McDavid: I love that. And I agree with you on that. But you can’t give them self-esteem, and there’s only one way to get self-esteem and they have to do it themselves. They’ve got to earn it, and that’s hard.
Neil Dudley: That’s getting in the fire and coming out and believing, oh, I did that. You’re right.
Hey, everybody, quick break in the action to tell you a little bit about one of the sponsors for the podcast, thesimplegrocer.com. Get on your internet, go check them out. They carry all kinds of great products. You may have heard us talking about them here on the Cowboy Perspective, some of the brands they support. So, follow up, go check it out. If you choose to place an order, use TCP in the discount code, and we’ll hook you up with a deal. Go check them out, thesimplegrocer.com.
I got to tell you all about one of the sponsors of the podcast. It’s Little Buster Toys. Check them out at www.littlebustertoys.com. They got some of the coolest stuff you can’t find anywhere else. They’ve put out a new line of show animals – show sheep, pigs, steers, trim shoots, show pens, shavings, little squares for shavings for the animal stink. If you are a show animal family, I’m telling you you’re going to love these toys. My kids love playing with them, and I think they’re something really unique you can’t find anywhere else. So go check them out. Use TCP5 for a 5% discount thanks to the Cowboy Perspective. We appreciate you listening. Enjoy!
Did you have any things that you would kind of, I don’t know, I mean, I’m just thinking about your daughter and y’all’s relationship and how you imparted your perspective on her. I imagine you didn’t protect her from everything. I imagine you sat around thinking I want her to get hurt, but not injured, and that kind of thought process.
Stacie McDavid: I was the disciplinarian, like I said, David was not. One beautiful thing, two lives come together, then you decide you want children, or it just happens, which in our case, we wanted one and we had her. David had two from a previous marriage that were grown, and I knew this – I was a lot more affluent than what I grew up with. And that scared me. I did not understand exactly how much to give, how much not to give, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I quickly realized I had a little brand at two, just bratty, out of control, wanted everything. And thank God I read this book and it was how to rise your child with a silver spoon, but it applies to anybody, even if you are just very middle class. And I read that book and I started with Sterling at two and a half instilling that she had to save money and tithe and pay taxes and all this. And she was like what? And David, I’ll never forget it, he would get upset if he knew I was sharing this story, he came home from the dealership one day and he said, “Have you figured out what the allowance is that we’re going to be giving Sterling?” I said, “Yeah, I have. And it’s for every year they are in age, you give them a dollar and then you start 10% for tithing.” And David, before I told him that, he said, “I know how much we’re going to give her.” And he was serious. I said, “Okay, what is it?” And he said, “We’re giving her a hundred dollars a week. I said, “Are you kidding me? We are not giving a two-and-a-half-year-old-” and he may have been kidding. But it was hard at first. And she cried, and I’d say, no, you have to pay for that. And she’d look at the money. And then, she realized- And David said, “Oh my God, she’s only going to net $1.50. With $1.50, you can’t buy anything.
Neil Dudley: She’s going to save. She has to save. That’s a good lesson.
Stacie McDavid: She is very frugal. And for that, I’m very grateful. And the thing that you asked me about parenting with Sterling, and I heard this beautiful saying years ago, don’t prepare the path for your child, prepare the child for the path. And it’s hard to do because I want to clear that path, I want to pick the weeds, I want to move the stones out of the way, but the fact is they got to do it themselves. They got to fall when they fall, they have to feel, they have to experience things in life because we’re not always going to be there.
Neil Dudley: That’s right. I like, I kind of illustrate it to a saddle and all the tools that you carry along with you on the saddle when you go do something. You have to earn those tools. You have to figure out what it’s good for, how you can use it. There’s 20 different ways to use something that’s supposed to be made for mending fence. But oh, guess what? You can dig a hole with it too, you can do a lot of other things. And you don’t learn that until you’re stuck out there in the middle of nowhere with nothing but you and the saddle. And then you’re like, oh, these things are worth something to me. And the kids- I know I was treated that way. Just being with cowboys out gathering cattle, working cattle, building fence, there would be a hornets’ nest over there in that tree. They’re not going to tell me about it. They know it’s there and they’re not going to go get in it, but I’m going to, I may need to get stung. So, I’m like, oh, I’m going to start paying attention a little bit. It was valuable to me. I appreciate those experiences. Although maybe at the time, I didn’t fully understand what it was really worth. Okay so, let’s talk about the buckles and the saddle and these things that are behind you there. I kind of tried to commit to memory all the accolades you’ve managed to accomplish, but maybe the best thing is to describe if you can, what it’s like to ride a cutting horse.
Stacie McDavid: There’s nothing like it. A good trained, well-bred cutting horse, it is just, it’s almost indescribable. The only thing I can equate it to are rides at Six Flags. The best ride you’ve ever taken in your life, the most fun you’ve ever had on a ride, the best experience you’ve ever had, just multiply it by a hundred, and that is what a cutting horse is like.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, it’s that connection to alive animal. I have never rode or been on top of a finished cutting horse in an arena, cutting an animal. I’ve done a little bit of it, kind of just a good ranch horse that watches cattle and moves good, but that’s not anywhere close to what you’ve done in the arena. But riding, like you said, just riding a horse is almost spiritual, just across the pasture, not even in competition. So, I can’t imagine being a part of that, I don’t know, experience.
Stacie McDavid: The good ones – and I love them all, even the lesser ones, I’m just such an animal lover – but I’ll never forget when I first really watched them work and was dissecting- because I’m technique-oriented sports wise. I threw the javelin in college, that’s very technique, a technique sport. I would say cutting is a technique sport. The only thing I could equate it to was seeing a dog, a hunting dog work and love to get that command to go get that bird. A cutting horse, the well-bred ones that have the natural ability, they mirror image that cow and it’s not unlike a hunting dog going after a bird. They’ve really, really, the good ones and the champions, the ones with the heart, they really like their job.
Neil Dudley: Oh, you touched on another thing I’d love to explore is there’s a lot of them within ability, but if they don’t have the heart, they don’t win. So, heart is such a key component in business, in life, in family, all of those things.
Stacie McDavid: In people, as you said, it’s, to me, heart is if you don’t have heart, you can forget it.
Neil Dudley: And that’s a lot of like that word heart’s very dynamic. It’s stick to it. It’s love. It’s blood pumping. It’s so much dynamic to just that word. So, I’m so glad to use it. Cause I think it paints a good picture for the audience to understand you’ve got to check yourself a little bit. Are you deploying that grit, that heart, that moxie, I don’t know, there’s a million words for it, but that can get you a step above the competition.
Stacie McDavid: With those lesser horses that don’t make it in the show pen, and that I didn’t feel like they had heart, they’ll go to another discipline and that’s their niche. Then they open up, and I’ve seen some of our cutting horse rejects go to be some champions in other disciplines.
Neil Dudley: I was a calf roper and we had cutting horse rejects, great calf horses all the time. They seem to just come cranking them out. That was what everybody was after. I need a cutting horse reject because I know I can make him a calf horse, and maybe not know, but there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll have the skills for that. And if it happens to be their lane, hey, you’ve got a good horse. Well, shucks, I could just talk to you forever. So, I want to- but I know you have other things to do. You’re running an investment business. Whenever you and David got together, did you start to work in the business or how did that-? I just feel like you’re probably not un-involved.
Stacie McDavid: He did tell me, he said Stacie – we were a match made by a Jewish matchmaker, and of course, we’re not Jewish. And the guy lived in Dallas, and we knew him and tried for two and a half years. Finally, we relented, and David said, “You want to go out, you want to go on a date?” And I said, “How about a drink? And we’re only together for 10 minutes or 15.” And that turned into hours. And we dated from that moment on for three years, and then we got married, which that was 40 years ago. So, he did tell me, because in the fitness business and gym business, it’s 12 hour, 16 hour days. And David said, “The way I’m traveling and my businesses and all the dealerships, we need to, you can’t work. And you’re going to have to help me with my business.” That was hard because a lot of my identity in my life, a lot of my self-esteem that I had built was directly from my sports background and what I did in the fitness industry, people knew me from that knew me from that, knew our family in Denton. So, when you’re matching as a couple, and you’re trying to figure out what your place is and what your role is, it was a little bit hard initially to figure out what my place was, because God had opened up a new door for me, a new area for me. And it was a little bit scary because you’re going out on a limb when you get married anyway. We’re going out on faith that this is your partner for life. And so, David knew I was strong in sales, but I’ve worked with the manufacturers a lot with David. I traveled with him all over the world because he had Japanese imports and we were at the Pacific rim every year, China, Japan, Korea. So, finding my place, I never pushed it. I’ve just allowed things to happen. And I heard Barbara Walters say this one time – you can’t have it all in life. You can’t have a good marriage, you can’t work, you can’t have good kids, all this stuff. And I thought about that, and I agreed with her for a long period of time. And then, it dawned on me. You can, but maybe not at the same time. And I’ve really come to that conclusion.
Neil Dudley: You’re displaying right there a great cowgirl characteristic, the propensity and willingness to say, you know, I had that wrong. I think I’m going to change my perspective. I totally believe Barbara – oh no, now I think it’s a little different. So that’s so valuable is it’s okay to change your mind. I think that’s missing in our political system these days and leadership is so- Well anyways, that’s a whole other podcast. Let’s stay on this track. So, you mentioned that God had set this up, and you’ve mentioned it a few times. So, I’m a born-again Christian. I think God is a huge part of my existence. I believe there’s a heaven, and I believe I’ll go there, all these things. And so, that affects everything I do. How does faith play in your life?
Stacie McDavid: I was raised, my mother was extremely, extremely religious, and she was a Methodist, initially, and then she converted to Catholicism. And she was really fanatical, what I consider fanatical. We were at the church four times a week at least and priest and nuns at our house often, I mean, several times a week, my whole life until the day she died. I am very spiritual, very spiritual. And we went to Israel a number of years ago, and I wanted to be baptized in the Jordan, which David and Sterling and I, the three of us were baptized in the Jordan. But before that I’ve had a heart for God, because those times when I had stepped away from him lost, those were not good times. They weren’t. So, there’s something to be said when you are walking with him, the hope he instills and just the simple faith I have it. I look at even members of my family that don’t know him, and it makes my heart hurt because they’re really not in a good place. And to me, what’s life all about if you don’t have some sort of glimmer of hope, and we have that. He’s promised that, and I take comfort in that.
Neil Dudley: I’m just needling here. I don’t have any clue. Now, you just mentioned times away from God being really bad. Does that happen to be something you’d be willing to talk about? Was it depression, addiction, any of those kinds of things?
Stacie McDavid: No. Well, I’ll will say from back in the day when Mother passed in the sixties, we didn’t have a therapist for grieving. I would courage anybody that loses somebody to seek a grieving counselor of some sort, either through their church or through the community, find a good one and talk it through. The last thing you want to do is sweep it under the rug. And that’s what my dad did, that’s in hindsight, he says that was a huge mistake. And it was, I think I rebelled a lot during my teenage years. Because I didn’t grieve the way I should have. And so, I definitely did not walk with him at the time – I was lost. That’s the best thing I can say. I was lost. There have been times where I probably, I’m closer to him at times, usually in times of suffering, usually in times of discord. I’m right there by his side or in his lap, which is where I am right now through this pandemic. I’m right where he wants me to be. I know it. And there’s no question about it. And I’ve had some of the greatest growth this past year that I’ve ever had, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for every minute I’m here. And I think for me, I recognize that I’m a sinner, period paragraph. I know it. And I’m just grateful that he has chosen me, and he sent his son for me. And I’m very grateful for that.
Neil Dudley: Well, it is just a blessing. And for those of you that know what we’re talking about, let God work in you and through you. And then for those that don’t, pick up a Bible, read it, go to church. I can’t tell you anything more than what I’ve experienced and what I believe, and that would need to be your own path. And I would just think, I think Stacie and I both would encourage you to take a hard look at it. Okay, last thing, what’s the value of a dollar in your mind? Have you ever spent any time just thinking what’s a dollar really worth?
Stacie McDavid: Well, right now it’s scary because we are just printing it as we speak so that-
Neil Dudley: Yeah, what’s going to happen when- I mean, what going to happen when the printing press breaks?
Stacie McDavid: It’s not going to be good, and I hope we’re long gone by then. But our kids, they might have to deal with it. My grandkids might have to, my daughter might have to deal with it. But it’s a daunting thing right now because we got those printing presses going and cranking them out. And we really have not been in this position. And we’re so globally interconnected now, all the financial institutions, everything. It’s not just America. We’re just, we’re connected with everyone. And it’s frightening. That, I can’t overthink that because that terrifies me.
Neil Dudley: Sure. Much the similar way I kind of stay away from media these days. I feel like all of it’s skewed. It’s hard to get just a straight, transparent answer on almost anything. I mean, that’s kind of one of those questions I always just throw in towards the end of the podcast, and it spurs just a glimpse into your perspective on a dollar and whether that’s today or the way it used to be. I just like that question. Now, before we jump off- I think I ask it because my granddad instilled in me a real- I mean, he just had a very deep thought process about what a dollar was and meant and how it should be respected and treated and multiplied, a lot of things there.
Stacie McDavid: And he paid cash for everything.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, pretty much. Well, he came through the Depression. He lived in a time where like, nobody today – that might be the wrong way to say it – I don’t know what it’s like to not have money. I mean, to just not have it, not even have a way to go get it. So, he had that perspective of, I lived, I’ve been here when there was no money. There was no way to go get it. There was no money in your pocket. So, when he had it, it was really valuable to him. It garnered a lot of his respect and thought. And I think I want to do that, too, because money’s great, sure. Yeah, I want to have a lot of it, but it’s not going to buy me happiness. It’s not going to buy me health. I mean, maybe it could a little bit in health. It’s not going to buy me Heaven. It is really something I have to respect and leverage and treat with gratitude. If I manage to make some money, share it, help others, keep some for yourself, enjoy it. You’ve worked hard for it. That’s kind of the way I think about it.
Stacie McDavid: Well, it does allow you a lot of room in everything that you mentioned, but at the same time, you’ve got to be disciplined and be a good steward. Yeah. So, I think all that’s-
Neil Dudley: Yeah. So, everybody listening, that’s just some perspective on it. That’s a couple of people here just talking about what we think about a dollar. And if you have it or don’t have it, it is what it is. Stacie, is there anything you want to plug? And we didn’t even get to talk about the Cowgirl Hall of Fame or your business, what McDavid Investments is all about? So, let’s take a little minute or two, just tell us, and if somebody wants to learn more about you, where they might could go.
Stacie McDavid: What we do, we have a family office in Fort Worth and I’m the CEO of our company for, I don’t know, maybe 10 years now, maybe longer. And we do investments. We do a lot of real estate. Real estate right now is extremely desirable. There’s a supply and demand-
Neil Dudley: Are you getting in or just holding at this point?
Stacie McDavid: We’ve been in, but I’m getting in a little more, probably not the best time to do it. You always, it’s better if you can buy things. But with the influx of people moving from California, from New York, and from the other places that have extremely high state taxes, the [Corporate] County, Comanche, Hamilton area, all over Texas, we are getting ready to have a boom like none other.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are in the real estate business. Matter of fact, I just interviewed a guy named Kasey Mock who’s in ranch real estate, Austin area. Well, really all over Texas. But yeah, they’re just so busy. I mean, they’re showing properties right and left, they are selling properties sight unseen. It’s wild.
Stacie McDavid: It is. It’s a booming, booming, market right now.
Neil Dudley: The cowgirl hall of fame there in Fort Worth, I just encourage people go to the website, check it out. Stacie’s a member. I mean, we didn’t even get to almost maybe a 10th of the things this lady is accomplished in her life and business. But the conversation I think was really valuable. And I appreciate you so much for your time. I don’t know what else to ask you. If you don’t have anything else, I think we’ve had a really good conversation. And I want to plug Bacon Bash Texas in case you have any- I don’t know. Do you support any charities? Do you as a family? Do you have anything that’s specific, special to you?
Stacie McDavid: We support a lot of charities in Fort Worth, at our back door here. And we’ve always supported the food bank, the Tarrant County food bank. They’re in dire need right now. That’s always a wonderful charity to support, particularly with you have so many people that are in underserved communities that are hungry.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, COVID is a killer in multiple ways. And we’re just kind of only watching the numbers that have to do with the virus itself affecting somebody, but just the effect on economy and livelihoods and those things are so- hey, anybody out there listening, let’s if you get a chance, if you have the means, support the Fort Worth food bank, something that Stacie’s passionate about.
Stacie McDavid: It’s wonderful. We’d love for, we need all the help we can get with the Tarrant County food bank. And any of your- Also, I’m on the board of Saving Hope, which is a pet rescue for animals. That too is, a lot of people are surrendering their animals because they don’t have enough money for their food. So, that’s another area people, if it’s near and dear to their hearts, that’s a good place to give as well.
Neil Dudley: Awesome. Well, thanks for that insight. Thank you so much for your time. It’s just really great meeting you and getting to know you, and TCP nation, check out Stacie McDavid, Google her, you can find out all the stuff she’s done. There’s a lot more learning to be done. We just don’t have that time today on the podcast. Stacie, thank you so much.
Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for your attention, your time, your effort in spending it with us here at the Cowboy Perspective, especially for this episode with Stacie McDavid. Stacie, thank you for being on the show. There is so much cool insight there. I hope you guys and gals that listened found those things and you take them and use them in your life. I can’t say it enough, we really appreciate you listening here at the Cowboy Perspective. If there’s any way you have some feedback for me, go to thecowboyperspective.com. Let me know what you think. What could we do better? Who’s another guest you’d like to hear from? I need a little help; I’m not afraid to ask for it. So, thank you so much. Until next time, everybody, keep your head down, do what you do.
The Cowboy Perspective is produced by Neil Dudley and Straight Up Podcasts. Graphics are done by Root & Roam Creative Studio, and the music is about Byron Hill Music.