Kid Rock is teaching us all a lesson about taking risks and embracing our differences. He came to Arlington this week to announce he’s starting a rodeo that’ll coincide with the PBR World Finals in May.

We’ve all [and by “all,” I mean “me”] become risk averse. For instance, reporters typically refer to people by their last name after the first mention in a story, but in that link above, I thought, “It’d be cool to just start calling him, ‘Rock.'” But I went and took the cautious route and kept using Kid Rock.

He had an idea to come in triumphantly riding a horse.

In that audio, he uses the term, “bad-ass.” The mayor of Arlington explained he was glad for the opportunity to follow suit.

The horse may not have been as majestic as Rock envisioned, but the mayor said the event coming the same weekend as the PBR World Finals means Rock can enjoy becoming part of the Arlington family.

Rock says he was glad to do something he believes in. Rodeo is the last great American sport.

But in that clip, he acknowledges he’s a “Detroit cowboy.” He embraced the sport after playing rodeos like Cheyenne Frontier Days. He says a lot of his friends are skeptical about rodeos until they see one.

I told him I was a Dayton cowboy and was only introduced to it after moving to SuperOregon.

Not every risk Kid Rock has taken has succeeded [some of those risks were considerably more substantial than riding a horse to a press conference], but he says doing something different helped his career. He started out wanting to be all-things hip-hop, but he says once he started learning about country and western music, he started incorporating the influence of other artists.

Kid Rock may be emerging as the voice telling us to spend less time arguing with strangers about politics in comments sections. Instead, try something new like opening the Beer Frontier or becoming a fashion icon.

Don’t do either of those two, though. I already called dibs … and then did nothing for seven years.