Neil Dudley: SFTHM, holy moly, that’s a hard acronym to say. What I mean by that is Straight From the Horse’s Mouth. Here we come at you. And this episode is all about horsemanship’s parallel to management. What is the truth about management? What things can you extract from good horsemanship that can play so many places all throughout your life? And so that’s what I want to explore on this quick conversation today. I listened back to the episode with Ty and Butch. That’ll be the excerpt we kind of put in here at the end of this episode for you to listen to and hear in their words. They’re just talking about how horsemanship really parallels parenting, and you can play horsemanship in every piece of your life. And it made me think, well, management is really kind of BS. Do I, in horsemanship, do I manage a horse? No. Butch put it like this. He said something like the relationship- it’s a partnership. It might be 51% you and 49% the horse, but it’s a partnership. It’s not 95% you, 5% horse. And when I start thinking about management in a business or within a team or finances, I mean, there’s management, the word management is used in our culture a lot, and it always kind of sends a little bell off in my mind that I’ll use the word management and I always kind of regret it because the truth is I don’t manage anybody. Management is not a real thing. I’m a partner with everybody I work with, with every customer we have, with every podcast guest, with every podcast producer, with every friend of my kids, with every kid, with every family member. I’m not managing any of them. Yeah, I mean, I do think I fall into the trap a lot of thinking I know everything there is to know, kids, do what I’m telling. The truth is it’s their life. We need to be partners in growing that life together. And I want to be partners with them because the truth is if I manage them into safety or success or learning how to work hard, if I manage them into those things, at the end of the day, it’s not their thing, it’s not a thing they have in their toolbox to use when I’m not around.
So, I think it is so important, same as you would with a horse, you want to be a partner. You don’t want to manage the horse. The truth is you really can’t manage a horse. People have tried for years to manage horses, put a bigger bit on him, put a tie down on him, run him until tell their nose is dragging, they’re so tired that they’ll just do whatever you want, all of these management tactics. And there’s, hey, if you’re somebody that really believes management is the thing, I would love to have you on the podcast and debate this topic. I’d love to hear your perspective. I just think management’s kind of a word that could be interpreted differently. And for me, I’d rather say partnership or team because I was talking about managing a horse, well at the end of the day, they have their own brain. They have their own wants, their own desires. A horse is going to do a lot of things based on its own perception of the world. You can’t manage any animal, person, business so tightly that you can remove, nor would you want to in my opinion, to remove their perception, their thoughts. I mean, when you’re riding a horse and he sees a snake up ahead that you’ve got no clue is there, do you want to manage him to make sure he walks right over that snake because you didn’t see it? Actually, no, that was a great benefit. He has a brain and eyes and thoughts, too, that can help me. I think everybody in your organization totally falls into that same category. And I tend to- everything within these Straight From the Horse’s Mouth – I say everything, not everything – but a lot of things seem to lean towards a business. I love business. It’s a thing I really enjoy. I do a lot of it. I spend a lot of my time thinking about business, but it goes as well with family, faith, friendship, marriage, all these other aspects of our lives. I want you to consider the idea that horsemanship and the way you would partner with a horse can be and would be so valuable to you in the way and in thinking about how you partner with people in your business, customers, your family, friends, all of those things, because the truth is you just want a better deal for everybody. Same thing in horsemanship. If you understand how the horse is thinking, you spend time listening and thinking about how your friend or customer or business partner is thinking and what this situation might feel like to them.
Man, this could get deep, and I could ramble on about it forever. This would be a crazy thought. Maybe you’ve never, ever rode a horse, touched a horse, thought about horsemanship, wouldn’t it be kind of cool, hey, Jeff Bezos, I don’t know, I’m just thinking of like the biggest people that have a lot of attention, Joe Rogan, just throwing out names here, and I’m guessing, heck I don’t know, maybe they’ve never rode horse. They don’t know anything about horsemanship. Startups, founders of companies, SaaS companies, sometime or another go watch a clinician talk about horsemanship. Pay attention to Ty Murray’s Instagram, Facebook, whatever pages got him posting up there, which I appreciate them both for doing it, there’s a lot of insight in there. Hey, what’s a horse’s natural reaction? Well, they push into pressure. So how do you teach them that the way you’re going to help them and guide them and be a good leader for them is they need to move away from pressure. The second you guys have that consistent clear line of communication, things are so great. And that’s horsemanship. That’s good horsemanship. Thanks for listening. This episode of Straight From the Horse’s Mouth was dedicated or focused on horsemanship’s parallel to the word management. Now here’s the excerpt from the previous episode on the Cowboy Perspective with Ty and Butch Murray. I hope you enjoy that.
If you want to be a better human, be a better horseman. Have y’all found in your life that the horsemen, the things you’ve learned to be a better horseman actually help in a million other ways?
Butch Murray: Yeah. You can raise your kids by it. You know, ask, suggest, and promise.
Ty Murray: We’re making the behavior that they might think they need to do a little more difficult and the behavior that’s going to be better for them easy. And so, I really think it relates to horsemanship. Because I think a lot of times parents are making the right thing hard for the kid and the wrong thing easy for the kid. And that’s really what everybody, most people do with horses. And I know that kids- I know that horsemanship will open your eyes to kids, and kids will open your eyes to horsemanship. I think they absolutely go hand in hand. Having good feel, providing them information, taking out the guesswork for them, being a good example, being a good leader.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, that’s leadership. Like that’s what a horse wants, a leader that they can believe in and trust.
Butch Murray: It might be 51% the human and 49% the horse, but you got to be in partners with your horse.
Neil Dudley: Okay. If you enjoyed the excerpt, go listen to that whole episode. Go check out some of my other guests. There’s a lot of stuff throughout my guests and these cowboy mentors I’ve had over the years and other people that I’ve just ran into and now have on the podcast because I think they have the cowboy perspective. So, you might find valuable things there. And if you do, tell a friend about it. If you didn’t find anything valuable, tell me, I could get better. Thank you for listening. I’m glad you made it to the end. Yeehaw, Johnny put the yeehaw right here because I really do think this was a great thought and thing for people to roll around in their ol’ noodle brain, see if it plays well for them. Hasta luego.
I hope you guys found some value in this quick conversation. I’m going to be doing these Straight From the Horse’s Mouth, trying to nail down some specific things on topics for everyone so you get a little quicker listen. And if you want to get deeper, you can listen to these full episodes. Thanks everybody for listening.
Hey, if you like what we’re doing here, go to the website, thecowboyperspective.com and check out all the people that sponsor the podcast. They help me make this thing happen. If you have some need that they might be able to fulfill, I’d appreciate you doing some business with them. Thank you.
Now for your listening pleasure, a little Traversing the Trail from Mr. Byron Hill.