I can’t remember where it happened, but a while back at a Ranching for Profit School a participant made a comment about “The Parable of the Mexican Fisherman”. Not being familiar with it, I watched it that evening and the tale has stuck with me ever since. You can watch a version of it here if you too are not familiar with it. Below I’ve adapted the tale to fit a rancher.
The Wyoming Buckaroo
Adapted from “The Parable of the Mexican Fisherman”
One crisp October morning a Wyoming buckaroo was easing a small bunch of cows through a cottonwood creek bottom.
The cows were content.
His horses were in good shape.
The grass looked healthy.
By lunchtime he’d be headed home where he planned to help his daughter start a young horse she’d been working with. After supper he and his son were going to spend the evening building a saddle together.
Life wasn’t perfect.
Some years were dry.
Some calves brought disappointing prices.
Machinery broke.
Fences needed fixing.
But overall, life was pretty good.
One evening he was visiting across the fence with an older neighbor.
“You ever been to Ranching for Profit?” the neighbor asked.
The buckaroo shook his head.
“I’ve heard of it.”
“You ought to go.”
“What’s it about?”
The neighbor smiled.
“Depends who you ask. Some folks think it’s about making more money. I think it’s about figuring out why you’re in business in the first place. It was a game changer for me when I was at your stage of life.”
The next winter, curiosity got the better of him.
He signed up.
The week was unlike anything he’d expected.
There were no miracle grazing systems.
No secret genetics.
No silver-bullet marketing plan.
Instead, every session challenged the way he thought about ranching.
At the school he found himself seated at a table with several experienced ranchers.
Two of them owned ranches far larger than anything he had ever imagined.
They talked about managing thousands of acres.
Large cow herds.
Multiple ranches.
Employees.
Managers.
Expansion opportunities.
The buckaroo listened with admiration.
“How’d you get there?” he finally asked.
One of them smiled.
“We never passed up an opportunity. If good grass came available, we leased it. If we could run more cows, we bought them. We hired good people and just kept growing.”
Another nodded.
“Growth creates opportunity.”
The buckaroo looked around the table.
These ranchers seemed successful in every way.
Someday, he thought.
That’s what success looks like.
He left Ranching for Profit energized and full of ideas.
He learned about enterprise analysis.
Gross margins.
Managing overhead.
Cash flow.
Decision making.
But somewhere during the long drive back to Wyoming, one important idea quietly changed.
Without even realizing it, he translated “build a better business” into “build a bigger business.”
So that’s exactly what he did.
He bought more cows.
When a neighboring ranch became available, he leased it.
Then another.
And another.
He hired employees.
He bought larger tractors.
More hay equipment.
Another pickup.
A skid steer.
A feed wagon.
Eventually a semi.
The machinery yard grew.
So did the repair bills.
Payroll.
Insurance.
Interest.
Fuel.
Depreciation.
Management.
Complexity.
At first it was exciting.
Every year the ranch got bigger.
His gross revenue tripled.
His balance sheet grew.
People admired what he’d built.
“You’ve really grown.”
“That’s one impressive outfit.”
He smiled politely.
Inside, he wasn’t so sure.
His horses spent more time standing in the pasture while he spent more time sitting behind a desk.
His mornings were filled with calls to bankers.
Afternoons with insurance companies.
Evenings catching up on paperwork.
He hired mechanics because there was too much equipment to maintain.
He managed employees instead of cattle.
He served on boards.
Attended meetings.
Flew to conferences in Denver, Dallas and Kansas City.
His calendar filled.
His life emptied.
He missed helping his daughter start horses.
His son finished building that saddle without him.
He missed the concerts. He missed the ball games.
Brandings became management exercises instead of family gatherings.
The ranch had become larger than he’d ever imagined.
But somehow the life he’d imagined had quietly disappeared.
One evening his wife looked across the supper table.
“Do you remember why we started all this?”
He stared out the window for a long time.
Finally he admitted,
“I don’t think I do.”
“We need to get recentered” she said.
The following winter they enrolled in Ranching for Profit.
This time together.
Something was different.
The lessons hadn’t changed.
They had.
This time they heard something they had somehow missed the first time.
The instructor explained that every successful business has two responsibilities.
It must serve its customers.
And it must serve its owners.
Serving customers made perfect sense.
Without customers, there is no business.
But then the instructor asked a question that stopped them both.
“How does your ranch serve you?”
The room was quiet.
He continued.
“Most people answer that by saying, ‘It gives us an income.’ That’s true—but it’s incomplete.”
“Profit is essential. Without profit, a business won’t survive. But profit isn’t the purpose of the business.”
“It’s what allows the business to fulfill its purpose.”
“A ranch serves its owners by helping them live the life they want to live.”
“For one family, that might mean building a large, complex ranch with multiple locations and a management team.”
“For another, it might mean spending more days horseback than behind a desk.”
“It might mean being home for supper.”
“It might mean having time for grandchildren.”
“It might mean taking a vacation without worrying whether the place will survive while you’re gone.”
“There isn’t one right vision.”
“There is only your vision.”
The buckaroo looked over and made eye-contact with his wife.
For the first time, they understood what had happened.
They hadn’t been pursuing their own vision.
They had been pursuing someone else’s.
They had assumed bigger meant better.
But bigger had never been the goal.
The goal was building a ranch that served the life they wanted to live.
On the drive home they talked almost the entire way.
Why does our ranch exist?
What kind of life do we want it to provide?
How much is enough?
What work brings us joy?
What work simply creates complexity?
What would success look like if nobody else were watching?
Over the next several years they made different decisions.
They gave up leased ground that created work without creating enough value.
They sold machinery that wasn’t earning its keep.
They simplified their operation.
They focused on the enterprises that truly created wealth.
They built systems instead of complexity.
They measured success by profit instead of production.
Little by little, the ranch became the right size for the life they wanted.
One crisp October morning, years later, the buckaroo was once again easing a small bunch of cows through that same cottonwood creek bottom.
The grass was healthy.
The cows were content.
By lunchtime he’d be headed home to help his granddaughter start a young horse.
After supper he and his now grown son would spend the evening in the shop, welding up a project together.
Life still wasn’t perfect.
There were still droughts.
Markets still fluctuated.
Machinery still broke.
But now the ranch had a purpose.
It wasn’t built to own the most cows.
Or lease the most acres.
Or impress the neighbors.
It was built to serve the people who owned it.
And because they finally knew what they wanted their ranch to do for them, they had stopped measuring success by size.
They measured it by whether the ranch was helping them live the life they had chosen.
Because growth isn’t a destination.
It’s simply one possible strategy.
The goal isn’t to build the biggest ranch.
The goal is to build the right ranch.
The one that serves your customers.
The one that serves you.
The one that gives you the freedom to live the life you set out to create.
I share this tale because the path to creating the life you want is not the same for everyone. Taking the time to figure out what you and your loved ones care about, is a foundational milestone on that path. We believe a good business must fulfill owner value. It is up to you, the owner, to determine what that is. We teach the essential principles that can help any agriculturist develop that business. Our mission has always been to help create profitable businesses, healthy land, and happy families.
Wonderfully insightful and overarching post! How much is enough?
That is one of the best articles you have written. Downsizing here I come.
Thanks Dallas. This story nicely sums up what the RFP school is doing for our ranching community. Ranching has a wonderful culture, that is not sustainable unless the soil is healthy, the business is profitable and the people are happy. Keep up the good work!