9B: Episode 2: What Builds a Texas Mindset

This our best effort to capture the majesty and magnitude of the State of Texas in one digestible episode. Texas is wild and so very unusual - just ask any transplant to the Lone Star. Why are we like this?! What builds the Texas mindset? What does it mean for the future and for business? We attempt to make sense of a place that defies explanation or being told what it is and isn’t. Enjoy.

This business and BS is hashed over a beer, a bourbon, and a Boulevardier cocktail by our three bombastic, bloviating blokes in Bryan, TX — the 9B’s.

Work with us  Fidelis Creative Agency 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

9B. Alright, we are talking uh today on the 9B podcast. And by the way, 9B stands for beer and bourbon. Right here. And I'll let you say it. Boulevardier. Batched with business BS from bloviating bombastic bros. That's us, 9B. Today's topic is Texas. Alright, so my opening statement is it's a hot one. Every summer, Texas will try to kill you. Texas is not for beginners. Preach. Alright, so here's an anecdotal story. Years ago, a customs official told me that every U.S. airport that receives international flights reports the same thing. When asked about their home citizenship as they present passports, Americans answer uniformly the United States. Except Texans. We answer Texas instead of United States. Now, this is amusing on its face, but it also reveals something important. See, it's a reflexive answer. You don't stand in line composing your response to this question. It's just a quick reflex question and answer. I'm sure I've answered it the same way, not out of grand principle, but because I mostly think in terms of Texas, not the U.S. Why is that? Because it's huge. It's huge. I think it's because I mostly interact with other U.S. citizens. I'm not hopping on international flights very often. I work and have kids who go to dance practice, so I'm anchored down here in Texas. I meet people from California and North Carolina and Oregon. I don't meet many people from Mozambique. So Texas is my knee-jerk answer. It's been true my whole life. I also suspect there's a bit more to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

But why, yeah, but why isn't it the reflex answer for everyone other American that you interact with, to say North Carolina or California?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I know. I know. Texas isn't like Missouri or Nevada. Texas is Texas. And today we're going to explore a little bit. We could do an entire podcast, series after series, on this state, about the Lone Star State. For those who might not know much about this place, allow us to make this wonderful, wonderful introduction.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

All right. I think maybe we ought to do a whole podcast on this wonderful state. Texas is Texas because it's Texas. It's the only time that giving the name in the definition is appropriate. It transcends logic. Okay, I think.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

So how did Texas get to be Texas historian? Oh.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Well, I think a big part of that is the historical fact that Texas was its own nation. From ten years. From 1836 to 1845. Yeah. The Lone Star Republic. It even had its own Navy that patrolled the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, now known as the Gulf of America.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Gulf of Texas.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

I think we can make that happen. Let's do it. It was going to be, but Louisiana got mad. Now as they always do. We could say in uh in London, there was actually an embassy. Texas had an embassy representatives in London. It's now a fajita restaurant.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

That's a that seems great. Apropos, I think. That seems right. Seems great. Is it good? Is it fajitas? That's not appropriate then.

unknown 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Take it back. I mean, it's a really it's a really interesting place, right? Because it was uh it was settled by populated by native tribes, and then it was the Spanish who arrived, and then they became the Mexicans after 1821 and the the revolution there, and then that government invited Americans to come and settle in some of the the northern regions of the Mexican state, and that's how you get this Texacan or uh Tejas. Norteños? Yes, the Northerners. Um you know, slavery was not legal, but they brought their slaves anyway, so there was already kind of a up yours to the central government. Uh they were required to become Catholic, but many of them were uh did that only in name, don't like requirements. Just kind of kept up appearances. Um and then eventually has its own revolution that in the minds of those those Texacans mirrored the same grievances that the thirteen original colonies lodged against the British government in 1776. Right. Right. And there were actually and let's not forget that a lot of um Tejanos Mexican blooded Texans joined the movement to throw off San Andreas the central government in Mexico City. Yep. So from the very beginning it was a it was a diverse multi kind of racial or biracial enterprise. Yeah. From the very beginning.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Right. It was about what had preeminence in the mind. Am I Texan or am I part of Mexico? And that that wasn't about Anglo or Hispanic, it was about Texas. It was that's what loomed so large in everyone's imagination. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Hey, uh this is a question y'all might know the answer to. Now, in high school and in college, I took courses called the history of Texas, or Texas History 101 or 1301 or whatever. Do you think like Wisconsin has Wisconsin history classes?

SPEAKER_01 6:02

I couldn't speak to Wisconsin, but being uh a native of the state of Colorado, I did take Colorado history and native. Did they have that? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Oh, that's true. Okay. State history.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

They just generically call it. But it was a very short course. I think, as I recall, it was just the teacher saying, um, our state sucks, Texas is better. I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

That's what that said. Yeah. And we're gonna put on a movie now. Yeah. Yeah. Skiing microbreweries. We're gonna put on every version of the Alamo now.

unknown 6:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

That's exactly what they did.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Okay. Um, so then there was a bunch of other strange things that have sort of marked our state. Um Bonnie and Clyde, JFK's assassination, uh, the Waco branch dividian cult. Going dark here. Sorry, hurricanes, it gets better. Bucky's. There's there's some pros, some upside. We have two flagship universities, Land, Sea, and aerospace space grants.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Uh Friday Night Lights. How about Texas High School?

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Texas High School football. Stevie Ravon, Willie Nelson. I mean, Texas has its own. Bob Wills. Still the king. Come on. All right. So let me let me speak to uh Texas culture and mentality. First, Texas means friends in Cado, a native tribe. That's the origin of the word. So you'll find that a greeting handshake means that we all start as friends, and this is coded into our blood. We assume we're all going to get on just fine, and that is mostly true until we don't. We even drive Texas friendly, which means you pull to the right side on the shoulder to let traffic zoom past you. That's just being friendly. Second, there's really a different mindset here. I read this quote years ago.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Could I could I interject something on the Texas-friendly thing? Again, I'm uh from Colorado and I got here about you know 20 years ago or so. There's a great song about you're not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway. Yeah. And I got here, or the old adage, I got here as fast as I could. But I remember when I first started driving on the roads of the the great Lone Star State, you'd you'd pass a vehicle on a one-lane country road, and that person gives you a little flip of the hand off of their uh the two-finger. This is not the two finger. That's not happening in Colorado. No. Oh, that's a shit. Or they they go around, you know, you let somebody go around you on that Texas-friendly drive, and they get in front of you, and then they do the little tap on the brakes to say thank you. No, polite.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

That's not happening. What are why are they going around ruining people's days? Man, every time I get a two-finger wave, I'm like, day made. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Solid. That guy's salt of the earth. All right. Second, there's definitely a mindset here. I'm gonna I read this quote years ago. It is the custom in Texas to behave however you please until you're shot for it. And this is true. Texans tend not to ask permission. They don't follow protocols or patiently wait for invitations to the right tables. Generally speaking, we assume we belong just about anywhere, and we want to go anywhere we want to go, and people receive us on roughly the same terms that we receive them. My grand grandfather used to uh say a few key phrases. He would say, walk in like you own the place. He would say, do whatever you think you're big enough to do. And he'd also say, never start a fight, but if it looks like one can't be avoided, at least make sure you get the first punch. Those phrases are distinctly Texan. It's like American bravado and regard for the common man percolated a little too long on its journey west. And what remained through the evaporation process is a higher proof individualism that has finishing notes of swagger and sweat. That mindset is unmistakably Texan.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

A couple of years ago, there was a guy, uh, a Brit who had a uh TikTok channel, I think, or like a YouTube channel or something, but he came on as a uh essentially an expat from England to Texas. And one of his best pieces was, I think I have figured out and now finally understand Texans. It's essentially that Texans just want it anything, everything. They want it a little bit harder. They're just thrilled by, oh, you think it's hot, we want it, it's hotter here. Or you think it's uh got sand in it, oh yeah, we put sand in our tortillas, and that's what we do. There was something of like this, it's not even just bravado, it's like a lived out bravado. It's a Texas makes you earn it. Texas makes you earn it.

unknown 10:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

And there's there's a lot of pride that comes through hardship. And so choosing hardship at the outset, you can't help but get a little bit prideful about it.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yep. And it is always shocking to me to think about Texan settlers who would have some of them would have shown up here in June or July and thought, yeah, this is we'll we'll set up right here.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Vacation land right here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Um, I think Texas is also characterized economically in its history by um, you know, heading out for the for the territories. The the families that were part of that original 300 or or that that settled the state, um, those were families that couldn't couldn't afford land in Alabama and and Mississippi and Louisiana to start a plantation, and they could in Texas. They could they could get a start in in that society that was that was you you made yourself by being a part of that slave econom slave owning economy.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

I'm going to mention in a second when I read a theory about business, is the last thing I want to say about the culture is soon more than half our state will be Hispanic, which means we know how to have a great time, we have the best cuisine, and we know how to work hard, and also accordions and jalapenos and great music. Great music. So uh at this point you want to shift into actually talking about business in Texas? I'd love to. All right. Wait, what were you gonna say about it?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Well, just and I think then you get another kind of round of uh that freewheeling, willing to risk anything, um, take take crazy business risks with the start of the oil industry in Texas. And enormous fortunes made, but then you know, people also lost their shirts in in that as it developed over time.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I it is true that I think Texans have some pretty crazy high risk tolerance in ways that maybe people in Connecticut don't. I think that that may be true. I don't know how you would possibly be able to find any metrics on that, but I do think it's part of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

One of the and the and the oil and gas industry, I'm sorry, it's it's of an its nature, it is an up and down, very, very unpredictable or uh or it can be type of industry to try to survive in and thrive in.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

Yeah. One of the biggest indicators of business success is perseverance. Just the straight this sucks, and I'm gonna grit right through it. And I think that is um really the key to why oil business is constantly moving. Yes, it our whole nation's built on it, and our whole globe is built on the energy output of that, but it takes a special kind of person to go out and go get that done.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

And to ride the highs and the lows.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

To ride the highs and the lows to hang on when it sucks hard and it's like, okay, great. That that's what a Texan really is.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

So business in Texas. Yep. So first the geography. The balcones escarpment runs north and south. I-35 interstate matches it roughly. If you look at a map that shows climate, green for moisture and brown for dirt, for dry dirt, you're gonna notice that the state is green on the east and of that escarpment, and then brown and sandy beige to the west of that escarpment. So it kind of divides the state in half. Yep. So on the right, very humid. That's where we are, humid. What is the Texas Triangle? Well, that's where the bulk of the population and economic engine resides in this state. So it is DFW at the top, Houston down to the southeast, San Antonio and Austin creates this giant triangle. There's 23 million people in that triangle. The rest of the state looks like a ghost town by comparison. It's not, but those are some gargantuan metroplexes. And mainly the story of Texas is a story about the land and what to do with that land. So initially you were just pushing herds around on top of it, and then planting and harvesting grain and cotton, and then we tapped it and brought the oil and gas industries online. The spindle top oil field hit big in 1901, and then eventually West Texas went boom. So that kind of tees up your point about the oil and gas industry.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

You mix that with some uh more favorable to business uh governmental policy. Texas is a great place to start business. Yeah. I mean, we got people who know how to suffer, we got people who know how to persevere and grit it out. Uh, we have resources galore, we have uh a government that is favorable to small business, even when uh the federal government wasn't as favorable. Uh you got you got people fighting for you to s to not just survive but to thrive. And uh I honestly maybe it's just getting older, but I couldn't be more pro-Texas than I am now.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

It it's um it's getting more so. I feel like it's building more and more into the state population. And I could see a time where, depending on how the rest of the nation goes, that Texas might really make a push for independent.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Also, oh oh well I was gonna say it as an additional point in the business side of things that business networking, where it's typically like kind of fraught with awkwardness, there is something universal about being Texan that makes business networking a little bit better here. As the this kind of like commonality of, oh yeah, this heat, oh my gosh, are you kidding me with this heat? And then you got it, and you're in. It's not just like, oh, the weather's really nice again, like it was yesterday. It's like, no, we can actually suffer together and kind of trauma bond.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah. 340 days of bliss and sunshine in Boulder, Colorado. There's no bonding over that.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

So back to what you were saying, you're calling for succession?

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah, that's right. I'm just saying, I think that there's an optionality in the hearts and minds deep in Texans that would go. I'm listening. We could do it. We could probably pull this off. Yeah, I think we might be able to pull this off.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

I mean, there's gargantuan problems with doing that.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

I know, I know. Well, let's just hope we it never comes to it. We don't have to find out.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

We're cocky enough to uh just uh still entertain the