We Have To Like Ourselves

Hello,

Like everyone, I have my strengths and my weaknesses. I would like to think my weaknesses are few, and my strengthens are so numerous, but I don’t have time to list them all. A small attempt at humor, but in reality in order to be successful in life we have to like ourselves, and if we don’t we all have the ability to change. I’m working on my weak points, but I also rely on my strong suits to guide me through this life.

One of the things that I have always prided myself in is my management skills. I’m a planner. I map the course I think is best, then I play the devil’s advocate, and factor in the ‘what ifs.’ I try to look at all the options I have available, then plan my attack. The rodeo business would really surprise you in the planning it takes. It takes weeks and sometimes it takes months in advance to get the teams of horses, trucks and trailers, drivers, commercial and private airplanes, all in place so you can compete at the best sixty rodeos in the U.S. and Canada. In my Pro Rodeo career I have been to over a hundred rodeos in one year, but you can only count sixty towards your qualification towards the National Finals Rodeo and the ultimate quest to be a World Champion. Some rodeos have eighteen performances and are two or three weeks long, where you are required to compete four times. It takes years to learn how to enter these rodeos and give yourself the best opportunity to win. Since I am the senior member on my team, I have always done the entering, and I like it. I like planning the attack and I am good at it. Sometimes you go to as many as ten rodeos in a week, and once I went to five rodeos in one day with the use of a private plane. Management has always been one of my strong suits, and I did a good job for my team this year. So as the year starts to come to an end, the rodeo schedule starts to slow down. Now remember my goal this year was to qualify for the NFR, and I got close. As of September 5, I was nineteenth and they take the top fifteen to the NFR. I was about seven thousand behind, and that is not much. But, as you approach fall there is not that many good rodeos left where you can win big money. The week following the big Labor Day weekend is a big chance to catch up. Lewiston, ID adds ten thousand to the team roping and it coincides with Puyallup, WA, which is a tour rodeo. They are about six hours apart, and you start in Lewiston on September 8. Then, you drive to Puyallup and compete on September 9. Then, you go back to Lewiston for your second steer, then back to Puyallup and finish up. Now, the crown jewel is Puyallup, because it adds forty thousand to the team roping. I had competed at both rodeos in the first go round, finished up at Lewiston on my second steer, and has to drive back to Puyallup on September 11 to rope my second steer. Puyallup has five performances, and for some reason I thought in my mind I was up on the night of the 11th. Guess what, there were two performances on the 11th and I was scheduled to compete during the day, not the night. After I finished competing at Lewiston, I drove to Hermiston, OR and spent the night, so my horses would be rested. When I got up the next morning I went for a nice jog, then had a wonderful breakfast. I loaded my horses and set out on the five hour drive to Puyallup. We ended up leaving Hermiston about eleven o’clock. After about three hours behind the wheel, my partner who was in his own rig, called me and wanted to know where I was because I had just turned out my steer at the best rodeo of the fall schedule. I pulled over, watered my horses and drove back to Hermiston. I hadn’t missed a steer, I missed the entire event. If management is my strong suit, I would hate to see my weak ones. How could I have gotten confused on something so simple? What a bone headed mistake. These guys are tough enough to beat, and now I didn’t even show up! I could go on about what I said to myself during the three hours drive back, but it is all destructive. By the time I got back to Hermiston I was just sick. I called a friend of mine that as at the rodeo because I needed to tell someone what I had done. He asked if I had heard about the mud slide that has occurred on the Interstate. I said I hadn’t, but about the time I would have been going through there, several cars had been involved in a terrible accident. So, maybe it is a good thing I didn’t go. He said, everyone makes mistakes, none of us are perfect. If you follow the most perfect person around long enough, even he will mess up. Don’t beat yourself up. He said, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is tuff to figure out, but try to learn from your mistakes and focus on the positive. I tried to interrupt with a ‘yeah but’ and my friend said, it is over, let’s talk about something good and we did.

Sometimes I am tough on people around me, but I am really tough on myself when I make a mistake. Maybe I learned something here, it doesn’t matter how perfect we think we are, we’re not. Mistakes are part of it. Learn from them, don’t dwell on them. Make your adjustments and keep striving forward.

Until next month,

Thanks for your time.

Walt Woodard