It’s Friday at 6:30 pm. Quiet. Too quiet. I took Gram’s to the airport this morning at 7 am. Her normal bustling and “putzing” as she calls it no longer fills the bus. Even the lighting doesn’t feel homey here without her. Sadie and Dutchy have been snoozing soundly. The only sound I hear is a nicker from outside my window and the response back from Cash’s new pen neighbor.

What am I forgetting? It was a full week already with my first work trip of 2025 under my belt. Tuesday morning, I set out for the airport at 4:30 am for my own flight to Casper, Wyoming. It was one of the first meetings I had been to 10 years ago when I started working in this market. The old hotel is very much the same. But I feel like a trilogy of time has passed through the pages of my life since then.

Wyoming was windier than I have ever lived through. My 30X Tacchino hat felt like a tortilla, ready to collapse into the gust. The wind pushed my suitcase through snow to my rental car. There I sat, waiting for the feeling in my fingers to come back. It had been windy in Arizona, but coupled with a balmy 16 degrees, this was a humbling welcome back trip.

The first work conference of the year talks me into doing what I do for the rest of the year. I love talking with people, but I do need my alone time to be social in a constant setting. The new year is fresh, and unwritten, yet competition will be at war once again. I say this somewhat jokingly, but some days, it feels like a war.

“Success is never owned; it is rented. And the rent is due every day.”—Rory Vaden

This season has impressed me with the importance of paying rent every day. No, I’m not talking literally what it costs to live every day, but the choices of what to commit time to. And what to leave alone. Some days, I get it right. And others…well I feel drained because I either didn’t choose correct timing or my priorities seemed aligned until I got to the end of the day with mandatory to do’s left on the list.

I was glad to have a speaking spot this week on the agenda. I enjoy public speaking, sharing my ideas and hearing others through my presentations. The time slot was at 4 p.m. on Wednesday:  the last session before happy hour and a banquet after a full day of slides and speaking. Arguably one of the toughest time slots to draw, but I was glad to have it. Because it was a training, I tried to be as impartial as possible, and not promoting myself or my business, only discussing my experiences and facts from the field.

After rolling through the technical pieces, I reserved the last few slides for business insights. One of my competitors has been quite actively going after a market that I spearheaded the efforts on. And, just like any good idea, the greatest ideas will breed competition in a free market. We knew this would happen. But I said something I never have before in front of my customers and competitors:

My company is not the only one who offers this service. You have options out there. And guess what. I don’t believe in gatekeeping because I believe it will take all of us to make this industry better. The most powerful thing in business I’ve learned is that not everyone is going to be your customer, and that’s ok.

At the time, it rolled out of me like a river cutting through a rock. But I believe the confidence to uphold this sentiment is another rent payment that is due every day. I think a lot of times we initially believe that we will remain confident in who sticks with us in business usually because we have no reason to believe anyone would go anywhere else. And when someone chooses us, it feels great! But then, another option comes up and challenges everything. I’ve told some of my other friends who are entrepreneurs, “If your business is so fragile that the entire trajectory relies on no one doing anything similar to you, then I don’t believe you have a good business plan.” The muscle memory of repetition is more of a crutch than a concrete foundation.

I got on the plane out of Casper on Thursday morning at 5:00 a.m., landing back in Arizona by 9:30 a.m. The full day after the full day of flying kept me moving, constantly. I went straight to the gym, between work calls, went on some parts runs for my pickup, then got back to home base by 3:00 p.m. I was glad to see Grams and company.

After going back to the airport Friday morning, I decided to go rope at a friend’s place. I had been roping great before I left. Today was a day of fixing. I couldn’t feel my rope. Each run if I got to position, my rope just felt terrible. I kept adjusting. Sometimes it kind of worked, but it wasn’t pretty. Finally, one of the handiest men in the pen rode up to me and said, “I know what you need to do. You can’t feel your rope.” I agreed and said, “Yea, it feels terrible.”

He and his wife are a joy to be in the roping pen with, and very good at coaching. He had me do some drills I had done a long time ago and felt new when I revisited them today. Back to basics. After about four or five in a row with the results I wanted, I quit on a high note. It had been a long day, but well worth it for the breakthrough. My confidence had been absolutely rocked, broke down, only to come back together and realize, “ok. I can do this.” After being gone for 3 days, rent was due on my roping technical skills, and I paid up and then some.

Another gentleman didn’t feel the same sentiments, as he was adjusting but still frustrated in the learning process. He said, “Isn’t this awful.” I lightly smiled and said, “This is the sport we chose. It’s part of it.” I loaded up my horse and sipped my water on my 45-minute drive home. I started to think about what was next, in Grammy’s absence. Cleaned pens, fed dogs, unhooked my trailer, sat down for supper, turned the hot water heater on, watched the sunset and then, I remembered:  I hadn’t written my blog post for the week yet.

Could there be a way I switch to a biweekly post? Would my readers notice if I skipped a week? My eyes heavy, I prayed and spent some time with the Lord. Quiet. Tired. I read in Proverbs:

“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so your poverty will come like a stalker, and your need as an armed man.” Proverbs 24:33-34

Ok. I can do this. I realized that no matter if anyone noticed or not, I committed to it. Slacking on a commitment to myself is just as bad as slacking on a commitment in my business, maybe even worse. My friend, Sue, used to say, “Jesus understood mental health because He said, ‘Love others as you would love yourself.’ You must love yourself in order to love others.” I love her Sue-isms. For a second, I had almost convinced myself that it wasn’t important to write because maybe not many people see it. But I didn’t start writing for people to see it. I started writing because God put it on my assignment. Sometimes why we continue our commitments is more important than the commitment itself. I’m glad I “signed a lease” on the Wild Hearted Drifter this season. And I sure wasn’t going to pay rent late. Thanks for coming back, and I’ll see you next week.