For the curious...
Last week, Aaron and I gave a presentation about our father-son experiences at the Top Producer Seminar. There is a video excerpt here.
For those of you unfamiliar with our backstory, start here, part 1.5*, part 2, part 3 (pdf).
* Oops - forgot one.
2 comments:
John and Aaron, The parallel paths that our 2 families take continues. We have just completed the first cropping year, that included the transfer of the home farm (1755) to a son (9th generation). Like John says in the video, I do not remember being that challenging for my father either, during our transition. I think it is called rewriting history. None the less we made it then, and still believe we will do it now as well. Hopefully the spirited discussions of the past year were more about the urgency of the moment, and less about anger. The year is past and behind us, and we look forward to the upcoming year with anticipation. My wife and I just spent a relaxing evening with our son and daughter-in-law, and we all feel like we are finally caught up and actually have the discressionary time to do some things we always believed should be possible in this venture. Moving 2 families along with redecorating and refurbrishing 2 farmhouses and 1 farmstead is an ambishous task in any year, yet alone trying and do it in 2009. I am finding that as I let go, there is indeed competient leadership and ability waiting in the wings; I just have to let them come on stage. The bottom line for me, continues to be that we can all sit down and celebrate, at a large table on Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas and look everyone around that table in the eye. That is still more important than bushels per acre, average daily gain, color of machinery and on the bag of seed. I also need to remind myself that it is the journey that needs to give joy, not just the end point!
Karl:
Old friend - you calm my fevered brow. Thanks for the update.
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