Guest Blog

When I saw the title of a recent interview of The One Thing’s podcast, “The Gift of Struggle,” I thought: “Gift of struggle. Come on, what kind of gift is there in struggle? Anyone who thinks there is a gift in struggle probably hasn’t had much of a struggle.”

Have you ever noticed that when you have to break some seemingly bad news to your young children, they aren’t nearly as bothered by it as you anticipated? A friend from school moves away, one of their show calves catches some strange disease and dies, or the water park plans get canceled because the hay is ready to bale.

My summers growing up were filled with showing my horse, dogs and a borrowed cow at county fairs, the state state fair and through local horse clubs. It was an opportunity for me to show off a year of hard work, along with making friendships and memories to last a lifetime. The same goes for many producers and youth involved in agriculture. 

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of blogs Rebecca Shaw is providing about female entrepreneurs and what the dairy industry can learn from them.

One lesson that has changed the way I approach any situation is to stop saying sorry if I’m not actually sorry.

Springtime on the farm is always a wonderful season, as the earth comes alive again, and the old winter is finally behind us. It’s exciting getting out in the fields and working the land and putting the tiny seeds into the ground, anticipating a bountiful harvest later in the season.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: How agriculture presents itself to the public needs to change. Personally, most people in ag follow more conservative values, and I’m one of them. But professionally, publicly, in the way we market our lives and our product, it’s time to let them go.