Be the buffalo and face life’s storms: Mindset
Are You a Buffalo or a Cow?
There is a great lesson about success and leadership from studying the way that buffalo and cows respond to storms.
Sometimes we have to go to nature to get the best advice. Appreciating this wisdom and the spirit of animals, we can apply this metaphor to life and our life lessons.
In your life, when a storm hits you, do you handle it like a cow or like a buffalo? What cows do is very natural. Cows sense the storm coming and so they start to try to run. They bolt away from that storm as fast as they possibly can.
There is a problem with this method of handling a storm. If you know anything about cows you know they aren’t very fast.
The storm catches up with the cows rather quickly. And without knowing any better the cows continue to try to outrun the storm. But instead of outrunning the storm, they get caught in the storm and end up running with it, exhausted, in pain, and prolonging the time it takes for the storm to pass. By trying to outrun the storm, they are just maximizing the amount of pain and time and frustration they experience from that storm!
Isn’t that stupid?
How many of us human beings put off challenges in our life that we don’t want to do? Most people deal with their storms in life by being an ostrich with their head in the sand, or a cow(ard) running away from their problems as fast as they can. We spend so much of our lives constantly trying to avoid the inevitable challenges that come along with the difficult circumstances that our very own choices have led us to be in.
People who are in debt constantly try to find ways around paying their bills. People who are unhealthy make rationalizations for why they can’t do anything about it or why it doesn’t matter. People who are struggling in their marriage are often trying to avoid the difficult but meaningful conversations that need to be had to reconcile that relationship. Salespeople do everything to try and avoid making a sales call.
And the key insight that leaders and entrepreneurs have made that not yet necessarily everyone else has is this: Entrepreneurs realize that problems that are procrastinated on are only amplified.
Waiting always makes it worse.
What buffalo do on the other hand is very unique for the animal kingdom. Instead of running away from the storm, buffalo turn and CHARGE directly into the storm. By running into the storm, they run straight through it, thus minimizing the storm’s impact of the amount of pain and time and frustration they experience from that storm. They quickly break through into the sun on the other side.
Deal with your life’s storms like a buffalo. Notice how it’s the exact same storm that the cows see, the difference is, the animal’s reaction to it. It’s such a great metaphor for all of us because all of us are dealing with the same types of storms.
We all have some relationship issue or health battle or financial struggle.
And we don’t always get to choose whether or not we have storms. The only choice we get to have is how we respond to those storms.
And more specifically here, when we respond to those storms.
This buffalo mentality is very representative of a leadership and entrepreneurial mindset.
They charge directly into problems because they realize that procrastination and indulgence are simply creditors that charge you interest.
How do you apply this theory to your own life? Get a plan in place to help you weather life’s storms like a buffalo.
Which direction are you heading?
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Jackie: Personally, as a redhead Taurus, I love this metaphor. I can be a little bull headed. I prefer to think of this as determination rather than just plain stubbornness, but this attitude does help me face problems head on.
Brett Wininger: It’s been often said that fear is a mile wide and a mile high but only paper thin.
Plus, fear is of future events, what could or might or maybe or possibly happen, its not in the present.
As I learn to stay in the present moment, I’m less fearful of future happenings.