When you have a son or daughter come back to the family operation, are you setting them up for success, or failure? Are you dropping them in the deep-end with oppressive amounts of debt and no knowledge of how the business works? Or are you giving them space to make small mistakes and learn what they need to know to be successful later down the road? Wanting to help your kids is a great thing, but saddling them with $500K to $1M debt, and no understanding of the significance of that money, isn't the way to help.

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So many of our members in the Ag industry share the same problems, no matter where they are in the country. One issue that arises most often is dealing with bankers. There are issues with farmers not knowing their numbers, but there are equal and opposite issues with bankers not fully understanding the Ag business. You have to be on top of your numbers so you can give your banker the information they need to not question you, and know you are a great customer.

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When you have a safe job, you get comfortable. This is stagnation, and you can use manufactured pressure to motivate and push yourself. The most successful people can generate the discomfort they need to stay motivated and get themselves moving. Once your business becomes stable you can unnecessarily and accidentally revert back to this mindset and make things harder than they need to be, this is called the "build and burn." The key to this is finding a balance.

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Everyone wants to sit in the leadership position and reap all the benefits that come with it, but no one wants the price of making hard decisions that come with weight, backlash, and impact on others. These decisions also raise your awareness. You can now see the impact of not only your decisions but the impact of all the decisions of your team members. This awareness is most sensitive when their decisions affect you.

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The number of hills you should be willing to die on in business shouldn't be that many. So many things we think we need to fight to the death for, just really aren't worth it. When we run up against a challenge, it's important to ask ourselves if it's a hill worth dying on, or if it wont even matter in a few hours, days, or weeks. Asking yourself this question also stops meaningless issues from stealing your time and energy.

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When you go out on your own and start your own business you completely remove any safety net and you are completely responsible for yourself and your family. There are farmers in their 50's and 60's that are still expecting their fathers in their 80's and 90's to save them. If you are still looking for someone to save you, you need to recognize that all the power and growth is found when you accept that no one is coming to save you.

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It's common to hear farmers say that it's hard to find good help. The truth of the matter is that they don't have the correct incentives set up to draw in the right people. If you do have a solid team in place, it is important to ask them what incentives they want to help drive up their productivity and efficiency. Incentives completely depend on the person. Some people want money, some want shorter working hours, the list is endless.

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Not knowing your numbers, poor leadership, deterioration of relationships at home, are all great ways to rot your operation to the core. You can't kick the big issues down the road and hope that they'll just go away. They won't, and the longer you do, the more painful it'll be when you finally face reality. These issues and rot can even be seen in the banking industry, and it's important for you to understand that when going in for a loan.

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You need to make a decision or the universe will decide for you. The longer you avoid handling problems or challenges, the more you'll pay for them later on when you finally decide to take care of them. The consequences later will always outweigh the price of taking action today.

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As we approach the 7 year anniversary of my decision to leave the banking industry and go out on my own, I reflect on the greatest lesson I have learned. Have patience and trust God's process. When things don't go the way we expect, it is very easy to get sucked into the worry spiral. Every time things get rough, God always opens another door that we didn't even know was there. We are all impatient and try to rush things when God just wants us to slow down and trust his timing.

Check out the Impact Legacy Farmer is having on the American Farmer here: www.legacyfarmer.org