by Monte Nevitt
At Texas A&M’s TEPAP (The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers) a couple of years ago one of the presenters shared the principle that hog producers need to quit thinking of themselves as pig farmers and to start recognizing their larger more strategic role as a manager of manufacturing plant of a live food based product.
I found the comment to be of interest at the time. In retrospect, however, the thought can withstand a semester’s worth of development and study. This thought came to mind this week while reading an article from the “Masters” by Jim Rohn. At a time when I generally push material, information, emails, and texts away as I work on information overload in attempting deal with the highest priorities in life – this article entitled “The Miracle of Personal Development” is worthy of a pause in our busy schedule to contemplate.
Rohn touches on the shift in mindset that is needed in order for us to become more successful in our business. The thought deals with the critical need to reinvent ourselves and our attitudes in making room for the changes that success brings.
Here are a few of the highlights of Rohn’s article:
- Income rarely exceeds personal development.
- Sometimes income takes a lucky jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle.
- If someone hands you a million dollars, you'd better hurry up and become a millionaire.
- A very rich man once said, "If you took all the money in the world and divided it equally among everybody, it would soon be back in the same pockets it was in before."
- It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.
- So here's the great axiom of life: “To have more than you’ve got, become more than what you are.”
- This is where you should focus most of your attention. Otherwise, you just might have to contend with the axiom of not changing, which is: “Unless you change how you are, you’ll always have what you’ve got.”
In short – farmers are among that elite group that stares down the federal government in adapting to evolving regulation and technology – in continually finding ways to provide a return, not just for themselves, but to provide employment, educational opportunities, and quality of life for employees and their children. Farmers are the perpetual optimists who endure weather and tough times to find ways to continue to feed America. In that quest to remain profitable, however, we’re reminded of the need to allow our thinking to evolve to create emotional capacity to deal with future success. There is a very real possibility that our lack of vision costs us far more than periodic setbacks.
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