Another year comes to a close! I have been been doing my annual New Year's blog post for 5 years now. This will be the first one that doesn't start with me standing in the very cold weather giving thought to the year past. This year it is actually quite mild! I had a friend and coworker over today for some fun and spent some much needed time with the family as well. There is more work on some projects that I want to finish soon but are not huge priorities so they can wait another day or two!
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| Nothing like the last few new years eve's!!! 40 degrees and no snow!!! |
I like to reflect on the year past and see where we have come from and where we are headed. At the end of last year I was still catching up from two months of being down due to illness and a broken finger. Through that experience I learned that I cannot rely solely on myself to get everything done. I learned that prioritization is very important and perseverance is extremely important!
I knew last year that as a family and a business we were at a huge milestone/turning point. As a family my wife and I have seen our kids go from malleable little children into individuals who have an opinion, personality, and world of their own. Both of our children our now in school and beginning to build a world of their own making. I am continually amazed at how different they both can be even though they both come from my wife and I. My wife and I are challenged every day with how to help them the best way possible to help them succeed in life. However, it is a challenge we both accepted when we decided to bring life into this world and we will work till we cannot work any more to help them succeed.
My wife is going through a tough transition in her life right now with the end very near to a position she has held for five years. She is currently back on the job market and looking for a long term position that she can grow with moving forward. She does not know where this road will take her and it will probably be bumpy along the way, but, she knows now that she has the support of all of us to get through it! I look at her current situation as a huge opportunity. She gets a chance to start an entirely new path of her making. We are currently in a position that she can take some time and find what is best for her. In the mean time she can spend some time with the kids and work here around the farm. This was not an option before and I envy her being able to do this. I am blessed every day to have her as a companion. Even when I am upset I remind myself that I would not be where I am today without her continual guidance through life!
As for me I have had many changes personally since last year. I went from a field management position at work to more of a full management position. It has been a struggle at times this year stepping out of the world I have grown to know and love into a world where I cannot do everything myself and I have to motivate those around me to accomplish the tasks at hand efficiently and timely. I am used to being in total control of a job site and being able to make the physical world bend to my will. However, the physical world of dirt and wood and stone is completely different than the world of employee relations, management of budgets, and growing everyone around you along the way. In the past year I have realized where some of my greatest weaknesses lie and where my best strengths can take me. I have and will continue to learn every day how to control my emotion and see the worth in everyone around me before I see their faults. Every person has value and every one has something they do really well. The key is finding what everyone does well and grow on that. I am excited beyond belief for the new year at work. I finally have an opportunity to show another level of my potential. I also am excited to know that I will not be able to get there alone and can only achieve this by taking everyone around me with me!
As a family farm we have turned a huge corner with the passing of this year. We have finally seen some financial return from the farm. The first 6-7 years were spent just busting our butts and doing whatever needed done to get to a point where we could be productive. The money and time we have spent to this point will take another 6-10 years to be fully paid back if we stay the course. The future is ours to make. If we continue to grow and learn and fix the tiny little things along the way the big things will work themselves out. While it didn't seem like it, we did sell a lot of cattle this year without reducing the total head count. We are expecting a new record of calves born on the farm this year of 17. While this may be a day's worth of calves on a big ranch that is a years worth of income for us! It was only a short time ago that we were unbelievably excited over having three calves in one year! With the new building being done, the equipment updated, and the herd tweaked to our best cattle, we are looking to grind out a couple years of fine tuning and paying off debt. After that the sky is the limit! Our only competition will be ourselves moving forward
This year as I look into my pasture I see huge challenges and even bigger opportunities. I see two young children that are in the most influential point of their lives. I want to give them the opportunity to do whatever they put their minds to. I see a herd of cattle that just a few years ago was a dream of mine that I could envision but wasn't sure when or if we would get to that point. I see my wife who has supported me, and most importantly helped me make better decisions along the way. Without her I would still be where I started years ago. I see a new group of pigs that I was ready to give up on last summer when I lost our beloved boar Redballs. Double stuffed has picked up the torch with his new girls and is slowly getting things back to normal. Our first litter of the year is due any day now!
I want to close with a quote from Steven Covey. He wrote a book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I am not one to read. For me to read it either has to be required or it has to be something that grabs my attention and holds it with a force that is unbreakable. This book was given to my by my fellow manager at work. At first I started reading it and wasn't really drawn in but I knew if I wanted to grow as a person I needed to push through. By chapter two I was completely drawn in and hooked. This book is a long read and there are audio versions available that are much shorter. In the second chapter of the book this quote is what grabbed my attention. This hit me pretty good because this is so true for me as an individual.
“ You can buy a person’s Hand but not their Heart. Their heart is where their Enthusiasm and Loyalty is! You can buy a person’s back but not their Mind, that’s where their Creativity, Ingenuity, and resourcefulness is contained.”
As a leader you cannot force the best out of people. The best you can get out of a person by forcing them is the bare minimum. If you want their heart and their mind you have to earn it, you cannot buy it, you cannot force it, and you cannot take it from them! There are some people that I will never be able to earn their heart or their mind and I accept that but I still try.
You can only grow if those around you grow as well. If you only enter into something with yourself in mind you will not be successful. So as you go throughout your year please take a moment and start thinking about the outcome. Begin with the end in mind. How will you benefit from what you are doing? How will those around you benefit? Are you the only one that will learn and prosper from this or will someone else share in your victory? What good is a victory if you celebrate it alone and lose those around you along the way?
As I reflect back over the years of my past and look out into my pasture I can now clearly see that when I started with the end in mind and worked on something that benefited those around me as well as me I was successful. When I was simply doing something to benefit myself it rarely turned into something good and prosperous!
I want to wish everyone a prosperous New Year! Keep in mind that every day is a new chance to start again. If you slip two weeks from now don't wait until next year to change. Get back up and get right back on course. I hope someday you can come tell me about your experiences and show me what you have in your pasture and what you have grown and those around you grew as well!
Thank you everyone and here's to 2016!!!!!!
Kenny
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