Massively Relevant Lessons from a Cowboy’s Life

As my readers have noticed already, I’ve taken so many learnings from the “Yellowstone” tv series. There is this scene where an old cowboy is trying to educate a new guy into “the life”.

“It’s the most glorious work that you can do that no one ever sees. It takes every inch of you. You are going to risk your life, your horse’s life. And no one knows if you won or you lost. It’s art without an audience till the day you die. Then after you’re dead, you don’t have an audience either. You’re just gone. You’ve got to want this life. You’ve gotta want it, all the way to your bones.  And if you don’t, it will be absolute hell on earth.”

Sounds alot like entrepreneurial/ startup life doesn’t it? In fact, it sounds like almost any career outside of media and Hollywood. Hard, thankless most of the time and only personally meaningful. 

You have to really want it. You have to go all in and commit if you want to be good at it. This is the universal law of success. Do things well even when no one is looking. Because you will know. It’s in the details and the nuances. You have to treat it like a craft. The two steps forward and one step back. But never relenting and always pushing. Learning along the way.

That’s how you get from being an amateur to becoming a professional. And then from a professional, to the sublime heights of an artist at the top of their game.