Brad on God and farming

This is indeed a thought provoking commentary and a topic that has a permanent reservation in my consciousness. A couple of my interpretations:

• In life, your family is going to suffer or your work is going to suffer, so choose. I disagree completely. Career and family is not a zero sum game. All too often one comes at the expense of the other, but that is a choice and not a mandatory outcome. It boils down to what you consider “suffering” or a sacrifice. 14 months ago leaving a great job at AEGON, a fantastic employer and reputable and significant financial services company, to work for a startup in healthcare was by someone’s yardstick a setback in my career prestige or pay. But I didn’t view that as a sacrifice, rather an incredible opportunity to have an even better balance of family and career.

• Plow the field God gave you. In concept I agree. Yet, it is easy to use this idea to avoid the difficult fields God gave you to plow. Choosing a path of least resistance is not synonymous with plowing the field God gave you. I have avoided difficult situations in my life under the facade of not being my field to plow, which ended up being big mistakes that hurt me and my family.

• Consistency and faithfulness. Discipline is a lost art. People don’t run marathons not because they can’t, but because they don’t have the discipline to commit to training over an extended period (6-12 months). Extrapolate that to lifetime goals and commitment…

• Stop measuring your crops. I could not disagree more. Measuring so you can go into town and tell everyone about the height of your corn is completely different than measuring so you know if what you are doing is having the desired impact. How can you possibly know if you are doing what you set out to achieve without a barometer of your impact? You should always measure your crops, you just don’t have to build a big bright scoreboard on which to advertise those measurements.