What is the value of a dollar? That might be a touchy subject in this day and age, but it’s a question that comes up in every single episode of Neil Dudley’s podcast, The Cowboy Perspective. Even a simple question like that brings out some insightful answers from Neil’s guests – who range from rodeo superstars to company presidents and motivational speakers.
We sat down with Neil to find out how the Cowboy Perspective came to be, balancing work life and content creation, and even a few of his favorite episodes so far.
Who is Neil Dudley?
I am a fifth generation rancher in Central Texas. My family walked over from Arkansas, and found some property here – where we still live today. We’ve had pieces of the property in the family for over 100 years. And we’ve been ranching and farming that property and making our living. My dad, his dad, his dad before him – they made their living off the land. And I still do to a certain extent.
I used to crawl into my mom and dad’s bedroom as quietly as I possibly could to try to sleep by my dad’s side of the bed. So when he got up, he had to step on me. And I would know and he couldn’t get out of the house without taking me with him. That’s just, it’s in my bones.
Ranching and horses are really the things I draw to the most. But I love building fence. I mean, that’s part of that cowboy perspective. My dad and those guys that raised me alongside him, my mom, they taught me to find a passion in whatever you’re doing.
It was obvious that my generation was not going to get to come back to the ranch and make a living. There was my dad, and all of his brothers and cousins – they were still running the ranch. And the ranch had not grown to a place where it can now handle all of those kids coming back and supporting them. So we all knew we’re going to have to do something.
So I rodeoed, I went to grad school, just floated around with no real direction or no real idea what I was going to do. Not even understanding my awesome skill set. I mean, I had no clue I had a skill set that put me ahead of most people in business. I learned that over time.
I ended up being a leader, captain of the football team, leader on the basketball court, you know, President of the Rodeo Association, because as a kid, I was expected to take responsibility. So it just seemed natural to me.
How did the Cowboy Perspective come to be?
So I really never read a book. I hated reading. I thought I knew everything. So about 40 years old, I decided, oh, I need to get smarter.
I started paying attention to Gary Vee. I was just driving along listening to Gary Vee, and he says something like, “if you’re not podcasting your mind….” So I drove straight to the office, bought mics, bought recorders, bought all the wrong stuff (I had to end up re buying it later).
But I started. And that’s why now, three years later, we’re having this conversation, actually.
Everybody always says, “Well, why are you doing this, Neil?”
I don’t know exactly. I think God’s leading me to do it. And so I do it. And I love it. I love having conversations. I never was a radio guy. Every guest that ever comes on the show is like “Man, that was easy.” Well, yeah, it is easy. We’re talking about your life, the things you know – you’ve lived it!
What is the Cowboy Perspective?
I call the podcast that because I think nobody will ever steal it. It’s kind of like an easy way to get some good SEO. I want attention. I want fame, because I want the chance to give people some value, right? I don’t want to be thought of as just the brilliant guy who didn’t expect or want a little fame or something – because I do.
The cowboy perspective to me is salt of the earth. Do the right thing – every time, even when nobody’s looking. Make million dollar deals on a handshake. That’s the kind of thing that I feel is true for me. And it’s true for those people that I bring to light on the show – or even just know in my life – that have an effect on me.
What is it about your show that listeners are responding to? What do you get the most positive feedback about?
The truth is, I don’t get a lot of feedback. On every episode, I’m like, “hey, if it sucks, tell me. If you loved it, share it with somebody.” I really don’t think anybody’s doing that.
With the Cowboy Perspective, what I do, it’s not it’s not real actionable. It’s more about stories, entertainment, and thought provoking. I’m not saying anything somebody has probably already heard some other time. Maybe this time they hear it on this platform, in this scenario, and it sticks.
So the podcast in that way is really me just trying to infiltrate everybody’s brain, put a little thing in there that they may use, they might not. It may be that it just comes to the forefront sometime down the road.
Who’ve been some of your favorite guests so far?
Randy Bernards, one of them. I just really liked that guy. He ran IndyCar for a little while. He was the president of the PBR. That’s why that is the golden nugget episode of all of mine. And it hasn’t gotten near the attention.
I think it’s partially because Randy’s kind of like a behind the scenes guy. He manages Garth Brooks now – I mean, this guy is connected! Big time!
He’s done lots of cool stuff in the PBR, that’s a great example of what cowboys can do. A bunch of bull riders built a sports property that is growing, valuable. Totally entertainment focused. You wouldn’t really think that would happen. But there were some bull riders who said, “Hey, we want to get paid more, we can do this better. Let’s start something”
And the Rob Rastavich episode – that’s a really, really good one. It was cool to talk to Rob because he’s built tech companies. And he even says in the interview, “my life on the ranch gave me an advantage in tech, because I knew nobody could outwork me. If you think tech is hard, come with me for a couple of months, I’ll show you hard.
There are no days off on the ranch. There’s no such thing as vacation. There’s no such thing as not planning – if you want to crop next year, you better start thinking about that. Actually, you’re late if you’re just now thinking about that.
So it teaches you a lot of stuff that you can take into the business world and just kill with. But everybody has their own journey and they’re all fun. They’re all very beautiful.
What’s the hardest part about producing a podcast like this?
So I would advise people that are going to do this – hire somebody to produce it. That’s what I did. I don’t have editing software. I’m not interested in learning that. I mean, I could, I can Google it. I can probably buy GarageBand, I could do this stuff. But I just hired a guy who’s now a close friend. He’s been helping me with it for three years. He’s a great asset. He’s never gone up on my price.
So the things I know are gonna be hard for me and stress me out, especially with all the other things going, I just take off the plate. I’m gonna just use money to solve that problem. And that’s why you need money. It’s why you want to make a lot of money. Money gives you leverage.
That’s one of the questions you’ll hear a lot at the end of my episodes – what’s the value of $1?
Really, money is my opportunity. It’s my leverage. I have some money, I can pay somebody to do the production of this podcast. And I’m in charge of getting the guest, interviewing the guest, uploading the assets. And then I have a team that takes care of graphics and that kind of stuff. I’m not a graphic designer. Luckily, we own a marketing agency. So I just feed this stuff into that agency.
At the end of the day,when I die, the podcast is there for my daughters to listen back to and think about. That’s how dad would have done it. Or these are some great conversations, or it’s fun just to hear his voice, it makes me feel good.
That is special to me. There’s a few videos of my granddad, I get to hear his voice and it just makes my heart feel good. So if this podcast only does that, I think I’ve done a great thing.
You also balance the show with your day job at Pederson’s Farms – what’s that like?
So I was the VP of sales. The president of Pederson’s has been my best friend since kindergarten. And we’re talking, and I’m like,” Man, I think it’s time for me to find a different role within the company.”
So we started the Pederson’s Farms Podcast, I’d love for people to go listen to that. If you want to know where your food comes from, if you really want to know the dirty gritty insight about everything about it, go listen to the Pederson’s Farms Podcast, we’re telling that story.
We tell the story through conversation with consumers. So we talk to people who eat our product. Also, people that buy our products, like grocery stores, restaurants distributors, and so on. We talk about vendors. We don’t do what we do without vendors, without people that help us provide labels, provide refrigeration service, provide insurance service, provide brokerage service. There’s an episode on there with a guy named Andy Epstein, who’s a broker for our products up in the new New York metro area. I think that’s a great episode, people should go listen to that. Like if you didn’t understand there’s stock brokers, insurance brokers, and food brokers, there’s your chance to learn.
This article was originally written for the Summer 2022 Issue of Modern Cowboy Magazine. (Previously known as Cowboy Lifestyle Magazine). Catch more stories from this issue below!
