Mom and Dad were both dropouts. They told me they didn’t always know how they were going to provide for us, they never ran away with their tails between their legs.

They built a foundation in my character that I couldn’t destroy despite my best attempts through college.

My sister Tracy and I grew up poor.

We shared a bedroom in a two-bedroom trailer.
Dad bought the trailer so he could get us out of his mother-in-law’s basement.

The land was leased. Three years into the lease, the landowner told dad he planned on building a house. We were in his way.

In 1980, Dad bought an acre of land from his father’s best friend, John Reade.
John was a dairy farmer and worked land like a blackjack dealer handles cards.

He carved one acre of his two thousand acre lot, by moving his barbed wire fencing.
A moat of barbed wire on three sides and a road on the fourth side was where dad moved his family and his metal castle.

Moving expenses, combined with the need to drill a well and place a septic system, we didn’t have money to fix the lawn. It was a cow pasture. And now it was our homestead.
It would take another five years before we’d manicure a lawn.

The fence was poorly built.
The cows escaped every summer and invaded our garden for a taste of dad’s sweet corn.

I hate cows.

As a kid, my sister and I would jump the fence to play in the creek. It was more of a trickle. But regardless, throwing sticks and stones into a body of water passed the time in an otherwise boring childhood.

We learned to run with our heads down, ever avoiding the steaming piles of crap.
We also learned to identify the bull.
The cows didn’t mind us.
Bulls are territorial and didn’t want young kids in his territory.
Whenever we hit a home run, I had to identify the whereabouts of the bull before going over the fence.

Mom didn’t like it when Tracy crossed the fence.
I was older. I could run faster and climb quicker.
I could climb the fence’s three rungs like a ladder and hop over the other side.
My sister was afraid to climb so she would crawl under the first row of barbed wire.
Sometimes lazy, I would send her to fetch the ball.
Looking up to her big brother, she would do whatever I asked.
Her long hair loved to tangle with the burrs.
She’d get stuck by the hair and I’d have to cut her out before mom found out.

There are only two things I love about cows: ice cream and hamburgers.

Other than farmers, farmer wannabe’s, and hippie animal activists, no one cares about cows.

There’s one thing growing up poor taught me – Never to be poor again.
Poverty is not just the money in your bank account. It’s the thinking in your brain.

You are poor when you live your life in fear.

You think poor when you make decisions to protect what you have instead of taking what you want.

The word coward is from the Latin, “coda”, which means tail.

The people who write bad ads are full of cowardice.
They write to not offend.
They write to maintain, to keep the status quo, or to gain a little bit.
Ad writers, who play it safe, write with their tails between their legs.
They use cliché, meaningless Cow-words to protect cliché jobs and meaningless lives.
In fact, by taking the safe route, they miss the real opportunity.

Nike, with the help from their ad writers at Weiden Kennedy, didn’t play it safe with “It’s only crazy until you do it”.
They hired the original anthem kneeler, Colin Kaepernick as the narrator. And proved that not all customers have to agree for sales to rise.
The President of the United States hated it.
People who agreed with him burned their Nikes in the street and posted to Youtube.
Tucker Carlson argued Nike should stick to selling shoes and avoid political commentary.

In one campaign, Nike forced us to have an opinion on the company.
And despite all the hate, the burning, and negative press, sales went up.

Nike didn’t change its corporate values.
They stood up for what they believed.
They followed their own advice to “Just do it”.
As of today, Nike’s stock price is up 275% by being courageous.

Look at what drives your fear.

Are you writing ads with your tail between your legs?
Are your competitors using cow-words?
If you’re not acting like the young bull with nothing to lose, someone else is.
You can take the safe route.
But know the safe route is for suckers.
While you keep your head down to maintain your business, the young bull is breaking things, smashing ideas, and taking opportunities away from you.
And the fear of losing sales come true when you play it too safe.

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