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Mastering Life's Arena: Leadership Lessons from the Rodeo
12 Plays1 month ago
For 101 years, the Tucson Rodeo has endured wars, recessions, cultural shifts, and technological revolutions — and every February, it rides again.In this episode of The Voice of Growth, Manny Teran breaks down what this century-old tradition can teach us about business, Stoicism, and life.
From the chaos of the arena to the discipline of preparation, from falling off the bull to getting back on the horse, the rodeo becomes a powerful metaphor for leadership in volatile times.
Using core Stoic principles like the dichotomy of control, memento mori, and amor fati, Manny explores:
- Why volatility is the default
- Why failure is part of the ride
- Why culture must evolve to survive
- Why courage without wisdom is recklessness
- And why the crowd’s applause (or criticism) is just noise
This episode is about grit, adaptability, identity, and celebrating the ride — even when you get thrown.If you’re building something that matters, this one is for you.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'The Voice of Growth'
00:00:04
Speaker
The Voice of Growth, Mastering the Mind and Market. Welcome to the Voice of Growth podcast, Mastering the Mind and Market. My name is Manny Turan, and I'm your host.
Lessons from the Tucson Rodeo
00:00:17
Speaker
What can the Tucson Rodeo teach us about business, about life, and about stoicism? One of the many reasons I love doing this podcast is I'm able to look at things in my life and apply that stoic business lens to it.
00:00:36
Speaker
The rodeo is no exception. This weekend, I celebrated the rodeo and the rest of the week, actually, Tucson is celebrating the 101st Tucson Rodeo.
00:00:47
Speaker
Matter of fact, schools have Thursday and Friday off because this is such a big event in town.
Control and Letting Go in Business and Rodeo
00:00:54
Speaker
Now, I'm going to break this down into some very ah traditional stoic principles and really use the rodeo as a backdrop, as a way for you to look at things in your own life, in your own business, and see how you can apply that stoic business lens to it.
00:01:10
Speaker
The first thing I'll say is I'll talk about the arena. The arena, dust, daredevils, all the chaos, all the madness, all the action happens right in the middle of it all.
00:01:25
Speaker
And what this can teach us is about volatility is the default. In that arena, it's a matter of controlled chaos.
00:01:36
Speaker
And in that arena, you get the understanding the bull doesn't care about your ego. The horse doesn't care about your agenda and the weather, the crowd, you can't control that.
00:01:55
Speaker
So in a small microcosm here, we understand that business is the same. You can't control the markets. You can't control your supply chain. You can't control the finicky nature of your customers.
00:02:09
Speaker
So we can use this as a backdrop to understand what you can control and what you cannot control. And so this is called the dichotomy of control. And it's something that was first described by Epictetus as a way to understand in life that there's certain things we can control and certain things we need absolutely let go of.
00:02:33
Speaker
So in the backdrop of the rodeo, The riders can control their grip. They can control their preparation. They can control their mindset.
00:02:45
Speaker
They can control how they prepare themselves, their sleep patterns, their health. All these things they can control. What they cannot control is the animal.
00:02:57
Speaker
They cannot control all the equipment. You're going to have stuff break down. They can't control the weather. They can't control the crowds. So in that moment, you have the opportunity to see, plain as day, black and white, that there's things you can step up to that bowl and control.
00:03:16
Speaker
But once you're on that bowl, that's it. You cannot control anything. So in business, same exact thing. All you can control is how you react. All you can control is how you respond, how you deal with your customers, what the words out of your mouth.
00:03:36
Speaker
Those are the things you can control. You can't control your best employee quitting. You can't control that cease and desist letter by some random competitor you never even heard of.
00:03:47
Speaker
You can't control that PO o that was coming that ended up being reversed or decided to go a different direction. So step up to the plate, step up to the bowl and realize the dichotomy of control.
Stoicism and Memento Mori
00:04:05
Speaker
The next thing we'll explore is memento mori. The ride is short. In life, as you know, especially if you're getting up in years, you recognize that our time on this earth is limited.
00:04:20
Speaker
And just like in that arena, that bull ride is all of eight seconds. All of the preparation, all of the time, all of the dedication, all of the heart heartache, all of the successes, boil down to that eight second ride.
00:04:40
Speaker
And that's how it is in business. We do all this preparation. We do all this branding. We do all these marketing campaigns. And we have that one shot to reach the customer.
00:04:53
Speaker
Well, I say one shot, but guess what? Just like in a bull ride, if you fall off after three seconds, you can get up and try again next time. Same thing in business.
00:05:04
Speaker
You take your shot, you miss it, you go back to the drawing board, you reformulate your process, and you go at it again. That idea that in life,
00:05:19
Speaker
that it's limited, that momentum ori is that remember you will die, should give you razor sharp focus in getting up in the morning, in dedicating your day to whatever you need to get done in your hands and your mouth and your mind, how you actually do things.
00:05:41
Speaker
Momentum ori should be a sharpening stone for life. How much time do we spend room scrolling? How much time would do we spend worrying about things that we cannot control?
00:05:53
Speaker
The wringing hands and and the the not being able to sleep. All these things, they're distractions for you to get distracted away from what you really want in life.
00:06:07
Speaker
So Memento Mori, like in the bullring, like in that arena, needs to be crystal clear. And so I'll ask you now, what are you doing for that eight seconds?
00:06:18
Speaker
What are you doing in life to prepare for that eight seconds? And how can you be ready for when you fall, because you will fall, to dust yourself off and get up and do it again?
Embracing Amor Fati in Chaos
00:06:34
Speaker
Speaking of dust, the next topic we're going to talk about is amor fate. Love your fate. one of the cornerstones of stoicism.
00:06:45
Speaker
The idea in rodeo is that it's all about the dust. It's all about the chaos, whatever will come your way, accept it and love it. You get that horse that you thought was going to buck to the left is now bucking to the right. You're going to get that bull that is having a bad day and is extra content, content, or bad or, or, um,
00:07:07
Speaker
Angry, you're going to get it. Whatever that fate is, hang on and smile. And this is really hard to do for somebody that has a lot of things coming their way. You know, we're so inundated with things that we don't know sometimes which way to go.
00:07:25
Speaker
But remember that you get to do what you do. You get to show up in the morning and slay your day. Just like that bull rider will step up and on that stand, get on that bull, tie their hand to the bull, to this 2,000-pound animal, open the gate, and let's see where it goes.
00:07:47
Speaker
That attitude in those bull riders, the wranglers, and all the people in the rodeo is just so positive. When I was there this weekend, just watching all the the interaction of the the clowns and the crowds and and all that, it's just, it's amazing.
00:08:06
Speaker
how much energy there is and recognizing that somebody has mere seconds to prove themselves as they're going down and doing the team roping and they miss that lasso and in weeks and weeks of preparation, all the time it took to get there and they miss.
00:08:24
Speaker
And when they're done, they take their hat off and they wave nonetheless. in business and life, same thing. We get kicked off that proverbial horse in business. We lose that contract. We get fired, whatever might happen.
00:08:37
Speaker
The best thing for you to do, the only thing for you to do is to dust yourself off, get back on that horse and do it again. Such a powerful statement we can learn from the rodeo.
00:08:52
Speaker
The next thing we'll talk about is the tradition.
Adapting Traditions and Tolerance
00:08:56
Speaker
The tradition and the fact that it's been around for 101 years, what does that mean?
00:09:03
Speaker
That means that a part of the rodeo has remained relevant across a century. And why is this important in business and in life? Because you need to figure out how to stay relevant.
00:09:16
Speaker
You need to figure out how to bring in what's happening in the culture of the world and sew it in and weave it in to the very nature and the very process and identity of your culture and your company.
00:09:31
Speaker
It was interesting to see at the rodeo. There's boots, there's denim, there's cowboy hats, there's pickup trucks. There's all of this sort of old tradition. There's leather and it's juxtaposed by AI driven ads on the big screen.
00:09:52
Speaker
It's juxtaposed by the music. I mean, there was everything from ACDC to some reggaeton and you you name it, it was all relevant and the crowd loved it.
00:10:03
Speaker
And what's interesting about this crowd is, is I'll get maybe slightly political. You think that there is this sort of like very negative view towards people that are out outside of that domain, outside of the the cowboy Western culture.
00:10:21
Speaker
But there's an incredible amount of tolerance built into that that framework, that way of being. There was all walks of life walking down breezeway with the the vendors, all walks of life.
00:10:38
Speaker
And there was no fights. There was no snarls. There was no and none that I can see in the time I was there. And there was nothing but high fives and beer and and handshakes and and love.
00:10:50
Speaker
not saying it's always this way in life, but going back to that that tradition, the adaptation, if it's going to survive another hundred years, it's going to have to continue to adapt.
00:11:03
Speaker
And that adaptation is is really, if you look at the business of rodeo, because I was thinking about it, They've had to adapt to new sponsorship standards and new ways of raising money. They've had to adapt to ah new veterinary standards and new PETA regulations and all that stuff.
00:11:24
Speaker
There's been an adaptation. Of course, there's always gonna be a push and pull and there's people that are gonna be fighting for it ah in one way or the other, but nonetheless, they are so they're keeping with the times and staying true to their very nature.
00:11:37
Speaker
This is like classic Stoicism 101. This is like you're going forth and your identity is becoming clearer and clearer and you're staying with it. But at the same time, you're being tolerant to those around you.
00:11:54
Speaker
It's one of the things that actually got me into Stoicism is some quote that I read that was stating that, b take your own life to the highest standards possible.
00:12:07
Speaker
but be tolerant of others. Man, that's powerful. That's one the thing that got me on this this track. I mean, I was like recognizing that I was ah was falling in certain aspects in my life and I didn't know how to to deal with people around me that that were falling themselves. And it was this jung jumbled mess in my head. And I got that clarity by that quote that, you know, be whole people, hold yourself to the highest standard and be tolerant of others.
00:12:40
Speaker
tolerance being one of the core stoic principles. And then we might as well talk about courage as well, because when that bull rider steps on that 2,000 pound bull or that bronco rider gets on that crazy horse, there's a lot of courage involved there.
00:12:57
Speaker
a lot of wisdom as well, right? They know that when the animal does a certain thing, their wisdom, their experience tells them, I better do this thing the other direction.
00:13:10
Speaker
I was watching the the wranglers, so that the folks, these are the guys that are out there um that are part of the rodeo framework, not the competitors per se, but the ones that are involved with wrangling the animals around and all that.
00:13:23
Speaker
And I was watching them during the the bullfighting bull riding event you know They'd be kind of in the corners. The clowns were running around.
00:13:33
Speaker
The chute would open. The bull would come out with the rider. And and they were just there being ready to to lasso that bull and do whatever it takes to to protect the people around there. And I was watching them, and I was watching the the the horse and the rider together, and they were one unit.
00:13:56
Speaker
It wasn't like the rider and the horse were separate. they were actually one unit. I could see them operate. Same thing goes for the bronc riding or even the team roping. There's this connection between animal and human that just blows my mind.
00:14:13
Speaker
And so... There's just a lot of tradition there. And so in in business, let me bring it down to a couple more things and I'll move on to the next one is the idea of the fact that we have our own traditions, our own culture, our own values, and we need to celebrate them.
00:14:32
Speaker
In every organization, there is the user's manual, right? The um employee manual, but that's nothing compared to what the actual culture is.
00:14:44
Speaker
How do you actually do things in your company? Is there a ah culture of all risk? Is there a culture of belittling belittling, so if you say something wrong or do something wrong, you're beaten down.
00:15:00
Speaker
Is there a culture of inclusivity? Is there a culture of expansion? Is there a mindset of abundance? What's happening in your culture? And what's beautiful is whatever it is it's not set in stone.
00:15:14
Speaker
You can actually spend time by first mapping it out in your own brain of what you want your company to become, and make that your vision, and then take your your weekly meetings, take your managers, take whatever steps needs to be taken to propagate that vision into reality through your culture.
00:15:40
Speaker
I've seen it happen in both directions. I've seen companies that were bottom of the barrel, terrible culture, spend time, and in a matter of three, four, five months, turned it all around and were a different company altogether.
00:15:56
Speaker
I've also seen it the other direction where you had this amazing culture. couple of things happen, a couple of leaders leave, and then it denigrates to nothing. it's It's something that I've seen both ways.
00:16:10
Speaker
And I challenge you to, if you have a culture that in is some way is not what you want it to be, change it.
Celebrating Failures
00:16:22
Speaker
The next thing I'll talk about here is falling is part of the game. You watch those bronc riders, you watch those bull riders, you watch the whatever, all these aspects of the rodeo and they're falling all the time.
00:16:37
Speaker
And that falling is just part of the game. Why don't we celebrate that more in life, in business? Because when those guys celebrate, the announcer says, in Tucson, we give folks that that give it their best big round of applause.
00:16:52
Speaker
And the crowd goes wild. But in business, in life, when we fall, we're not celebrated. Well, guess what? As a business leader, as an entrepreneur, you're gonna fall a lot.
00:17:05
Speaker
You're gonna fall sometimes more times than you think. And what's important is not only to build in the the discipline inside so that you get back up,
00:17:18
Speaker
but also change your mindset so that you not only learn from that fall, but celebrate it and be happy for it. Took me a long time to realize that.
00:17:30
Speaker
I have some falls in in my business world and my my experiences, big falls. But now I'm on this side and I'm still on this side of the earth, of the of the ground.
00:17:43
Speaker
And I still get to give it my all every day and and give my best to this world and to my family, to myself, to my friends, to those around me.
00:17:54
Speaker
Man, there's a lot of value in that. So figure out that you're gonna fall. And when you do, recognize you gotta get back up and get on that horse and do it again.
00:18:08
Speaker
The next topic is the crowd will cheer or boo.
Handling Public Reactions
00:18:14
Speaker
The crowd in the business domain is maybe your audience, maybe your community, maybe the world at large.
00:18:20
Speaker
They're going to celebrate your wins and they're going to denigrate your losses or whatever, but recognize that whatever is out there is just noise, just noise.
00:18:32
Speaker
And it's hard to to really separate the noise sometimes when it's it's cheers. when So you do something great and you get these these applauses, you feel good about yourself and you want to stand up straight and you want to put something on your LinkedIn profile and you want to celebrate it It goes back to what I just said about failure.
00:18:51
Speaker
When we fail, we tend to shy away from that because we feel that we believe that we're going to be brought down by our peers or embarrassed straight up. So learn to separate your personal operating system away from the idea that failure is bad. It's going to happen.
00:19:13
Speaker
The crowd will cheer or they'll boo. Either way, like it, love it, and do it again.
00:19:22
Speaker
As a closing reflection, I'll say this. The volatility in that arena, the chaos is all part of the game. It all should be celebrated like in business, like in life.
00:19:35
Speaker
There's gonna be volatility. The markets are gonna shift. Your number one supplier is gonna go bankrupt. All these things are gonna happen. And the best you can do is celebrate it.
00:19:51
Speaker
You're in that arena. You're fighting the good fight. Do it again. Recognize that risk is going to be part of your everyday vernacular.
00:20:04
Speaker
Everything you do in business is going to have some level of risk. Man, I've been so close to certain POs. Matter of fact, I got a PO one time many years ago, super big PO. o It represented like almost half of our yearly revenue was coming in the form of a PO and it was actually given to us.
00:20:25
Speaker
We received it. And somehow in the middle of getting the down payment for the project, they canceled it. And I'm like, can they even cancel POs?
00:20:37
Speaker
And sure enough, I looked at the T's and C's and buried down in there was a cancellation clause. And that really, really hurt. That put us back.
00:20:49
Speaker
but it didn't stop us because just like a slingshot is pulled back before it launches, it brought us back. We took our vision, we so we sharpened it. We took our processes and we sharpened them and we came out better and higher and in a better place when it was all said and done.
00:21:10
Speaker
Don't avoid the falling. Recognize you're gonna fall.
Building Independent Teams
00:21:14
Speaker
Be you ready for the fall. Be ready for getting up for the fall. That second part is sometimes missed in how we do business.
00:21:22
Speaker
But this is why we've talked about the idea of a blank space. So if you wanna move in a different direction, you can create a blank space team that operates semi-autonomously, that can go out and try your different, whatever it might be. We've talked about the five Ms. You have to have a mission.
00:21:42
Speaker
What are you trying to do with this blank space team? You have to have the the metrics, how you actually gauge success by taking this team and going to that next, direction the new direction.
00:21:53
Speaker
You have to have the the other M is management. Who's going to manage this? Who's going to report to who? You got to figure all that out. You've got to have the money so it's well capitalized and you're actually able to take it to the end.
00:22:07
Speaker
And then you have to number one or number five and the strongest of them all, in my opinion, is you have to build a moat around that team So you're actually able to get things done and not poach your resources and take the whole thing so that it topples.
00:22:26
Speaker
Super, super powerful idea of the blank space team. The other thing I'll say about the rodeo to to finalize here is that you can't control the weather. You can't control the crowd.
00:22:38
Speaker
Can't control the horse. You can only control yourself. Remember the wisdom comes in the form of experience and being able to look at your own experiences in business and in the rodeo and figure out what you did wrong, but also look towards others.
00:22:54
Speaker
like this podcast, like other podcasts, like people you you know in business, like people that are maybe not even in business, but you value their their perspective, ask for their their advice, figure out what they would do.
00:23:09
Speaker
And you make your own decision, right? You're not going to be married to whatever they say, but you'll look at what they say and you'll apply it to your own thought process to see how you might go a different direction.
Rodeo as a Metaphor for Life's Challenges
00:23:24
Speaker
To finalize the rodeo, like in life, like in business, like in stoicism, is one hell of a ride. Be ready for it, celebrate it have a lot of fun.
00:23:35
Speaker
and when you fall off, dust yourself off and get back on that horse again. Cheers.