MM219 - Cowboy Up

According to the Urban Dictionary, Cowboy Up means when things are getting tough you have to get back up, dust yourself off and keep trying. In the military, we say “harden the f*** up”.

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello, once again and welcome back to Morning Mindset. I am your host Paul Markel. I hope that you are still with me. I hope you're with me for the for the new year. If you are new if you just started, excuse me if you just started listening to Morning Mindset podcast that has a whole lot to discuss and you've got 200 plus episodes that you can go back and listen to.
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You can just get the book as an Amazon Kindle put it on your phone or your tablet or e-reader or take it with you everywhere you go. Alright, and now at the if you've been here a while if you've been with this show for several months, well this may all actually go back maybe six months or more. I said that I am not. Mr. Rogers. I am not Bob Ross. I am not the fictional Saturday Night Live character Stuart Smiley. I'm all about reality and sometimes reality is hard. Sometimes when you speak the truth, it hurts people's feelings because they don't want you to speak the truth. They want you to say what they want to hear. Now, I'm going to say every time I come to this microphone.
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I'm going to say what I believe needs to be said, but I'm not going to alter that and I'm not going to modify it because I think that someone might not want to hear. Now, you saw the title today's episode. It says Cowboy Up. I started seeing t-shirts with this slogan on it. Probably. I'm guessing about five years ago, maybe a little more. I remember going to 4-H Camp and hearing I think it was one of the nurses tell somebody that they needed to Cowboy Up. One of the camp nurses told one of the campers that they needed to Cowboy Up and it was the first time I had heard that and what it essentially means and if you want the Urban Dictionary definition, I'll give it to you according to the Urban Dictionary and you got to be careful when you go to the Urban Dictionary.
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This is one of those things you probably shouldn't do when your children around and hope your children aren't going there. But Cowboy Up means when things are getting tough you have to get. Dust yourself off and keep trying. Well, there's there's nothing. There's nothing R-rated about that Paul. Now, there's not Cowboy Up essentially means this and it goes and it from a literal translation a Cowboy is on a horse. Maybe he's in a rodeo and he gets thrown from his horse. Now, he could just, you know, kick the dirt and whine and cry and say this isn't any fair and I'm going to go home. But they don't because it Cowboy can't do that. Right? So for cowboy gets thrown from his horse or falls down or whatever. He's got to get up take off his hat dust himself off and get back up on the horse and keep doing it not make excuses.
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Not quit, not suck his thumb and go sit in the corner. He's got to keep on going now when I was in the military and well, I was a contractor and was working with young people. We had a phrase in there was a phrase that was thrown around. Of course, it wasn't thrown around in official classes because we weren't allowed to say squares and official classes, because our military is run now by, basically weak people, but the term that real serious infantry people Fighters Warriors in the military use is hardened the f*** up.
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Yes, it's miserable. Yes, it's raining. Yes. We're cold. Yes, we're hungry. Yes, the truck didn't show up with the Chow on it. Yes, we're going to have to walk farther. We're going to have to go over this mountain over this Hill Cross this River and it's going to suck but we all have to do it so hard in the f*** up and let's get the job done. Unfortunately, we live in a world where cowboy up or Harden the f*** up is frowned upon. We live in a world that will tell you that your own personal Comfort both physically and psychologically is the most important thing in the whole widest world.
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That's not how we get things accomplished. You cannot accomplish goals. You cannot accomplish missions. If the moment that the goal or the mission becomes uncomfortable or difficult or tough if the moment that happens you quit and say I don't want to do this anymore. It's no longer any fun. I thought this would be easy and I just discovered that it's not easy. Well if it's not going to be easy and I can't do it immediately and it can't be done in five minutes and I'm just not going to do it and that is the world that we live in. We live in a world that encourages people to quit the moment. They become uncomfortable.
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We live in a world that encourages people that the millisecond that they and God forbid get dirty or fall down or hurt their Bruiser Widow knees or what have you we live in a world of safe spaces and political correctness and all kinds of weakness and nonsense, and we try to pretend like this weakness and nonsense makes us more civilized and stronger and better as a society, but it doesn't it does exactly the opposite. Instead of teaching your children that all you don't like that. Oh, did it hurt? You? Whittle feelings will come over here, let mommy give you a hug. Oh, that's hard, that's difficult.
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You thought you were going to be able to buy a guitar pick it up and become a rock star the very next day how many guitars sit in the in the corner or in the closets all dusty and not use because we found out that that actually playing the guitar was tough, that you had to actually practice. How many as seen on TV Fitness AIDS? Whether it's the perfect push-up or the perfect shit up or the the the universal all in one gem or whatever how many of those things are in the closet sirs tucked up under the beds because well it's actually was hard and it didn't work immediately.
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So I just quit and put it away. How many of you have not reached your goals? Because when you realize that your goal was going to be more difficult or tougher than you thought it was going to be you stopped. I didn't think it was going to be that hard. You know, not everybody can be a United States Army Special Forces Soldier. Not everybody can wear a Green Beret not everybody can be part of force Recon or MARSOC or a Navy SEAL or you know why they can't it looks cool, but it's hard, and if you quit you don't get to do that you don't get to wear the Green Beret or the Trident or whatever. Sometimes in life.
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We need to encourage each other to Cowboy Up. We need to encourage each other. Yeah, you fell down you hurt your bruise your knee. You're dirty. You're tired. You're sweaty that happens Cowboy Up. Or in the military vernacular, which I'm most familiar and comfortable with we need to encourage each other to harden the f*** up and drive on, and you'll be amazed at what you can achieve if you will simply Embrace that phrase and if I wounded your spirit today by using the swear word, well, I do apologize for that.
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But there's nothing else that can be done about it. I don't swear. I don't use adult language gratuitously. I use it when it is proper and incorrect context and that is exactly what we did today because I'm not Mr. Rogers. I am Paul Markel, and I will talk to you again real soon.

 [OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

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