Playing Cowboy and Indians for Money
As you probably might have realised by now, our mantra is – Dream. Believe & Make it Happen. We believe that everyone should live their dream life, and that it what we are doing.
Yesterday, during Nate & Rossi’s radio show on Vibe FM, we’ve been asked us how are we funding our travels; which is a very logical question to ask. We told him that we believe that people can make money through their passions by using their talents. We will not delve into the subject of how we are funding our dream in this article, which has already explained in great detail in the eBook that was written by Luke. You can now get access to a copy of this book through our Inspire me Section.
In this article, we want to share with you another inspiring story. The story of the Czech family Kohout, who are making a living for themselves, and for another 16 people through playing Cowboys & Indians.
That’s right. They make money through their childhood dreams Cowboys and Indians. For these 3 days, we are being hosted by Kohout family in Pilsen, Czech Republic. Jiri and Ludmila Kohout together with their daughter Petra and son Jan have inspired us to share their story.
Jiri, has been fascinated by Cowboys and Indians since he was a little boy. In those times in the 1970’s, Czechoslovakia was under communist regime and information was not freely shared. Having access to books of certain nature was prohibited, but still Jiri managed to get his hands on some books about the Wild West, and he studied them carefully. He kept on learning about these cultures until the revolution that saw the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Communism, which allowed greater freedom to its people including Jiri’s hobby.
This freedom gave them the possibility to travel and that meant one thing for Jiri & Ludmila - “Go to America”. So they did in 1994,they headed to the USA and spent 3 weeks, across 13 states and drove more than 14,000 miles so that they could see with their own eyes what’s left of the Cowboy and Indian culture as described in the books that he had studied since he was but a little child.
When Jiri became an adult, he had responsibilities. He needed to feed his family and worked as a plumber. Ludmila had already started her own little business sewing handmade clothes for cowboy and Indian enthusiasts as well as theatre and films. Jiri’s burning desire for Cowboys and Indians grew with age, he was determined and at one point he figured that he could make money off of it. They started doing some shows in 1996 that had an increasing popularity as he had also become the founder of Pow Wow in Czech Republic, a big festival for all hobbyists of Cowboys and Indians. Pow Wow foundations exist in many countries in the world and now meet yearly in an artistic manner displaying the best costumes, playing music collectively as well as singing and living the Wild West Dream.
He spent years doing two jobs at a time, being a full-time plumber and doing money through his passion part time. From the start he worked long hours to make his dream a reality. But determination is was kept Jiri and Ludmila going.
As the demand for their shows increased, Jiri was confident enough to leave his full-time work, and move to working on his hobby full-time. To further grow the business, tin 2001 they opened a shop in the city centre that further developed Ludmila’s sewing business and now sells custom leather-wear, and apparel of cowboys and Indians. Now a successful family man whose children also inherited the love for Cowboys and Indians, Petra does horse shows while her brother Jan works full time doing this hobby with his family.
After a lot of hard work they moved from their apartment in the city and moved to live in a house that has a big area of land. They have developed Czech Republic’s own small authentic Wild West village. It has representations of the 4 most important peoples of the Wild West; the Indians, the Cowboys, the Gold Diggers, and the Trappers. The village also has replica buildings of the Sherriff’s office, the carpenter and even the whore house.
In this mini-village, West Park, the family and a team of 16 others do shows people in their own arena that attract those interested to learn more about the traditions of this long lost tribe and its cultures. In their own garden they invite schools to educate them about these cultures through play. The business has also expanded internationally, as they also do shows outside the country, mostly in Germany.
With determination and hard work, Jiri & Ludmila have created the kind of life-style they want, by doing the things they enjoy. Naturally, there’s a lot of work involved in running the business and performing the acts. Jiri works 16 hours a day, but he loves it. He doesn’t want to spend less time working because for him, working means, spending time enjoying his hobby.
We feel that this story was worth sharing with you, because this family has managed to merge what they love, with what they know, with what the world needs, entertainment - to create income through doing things they love. If this family can make a living through playing cow boy and Indians then so can you make money through your passions.
We firmly believe that everyone has talents, that when cultivated can lead to something great through determination and persistence. The only thing that is needed for this to happen is that the individual cares to go through a discovery self-process. This family is enjoying this lifestyle because they have had the courage to actively work on making their dream come true. I want to make that too, with you. So if you now like this idea, then I think that we should talk. For now, I am not going to suggest much, just that you send an e-mail to start the conversation. We’ll take it on from there. Naturally, this is free.
The journey will not be easy, but it will be worthwhile if you see it through to the end. I encourage you now to take the first step. Contact me here.
