14. Harvest
Principle: You can’t reap valuable rewards until you plant and nurture valuable seeds.
Journey to Americus
Not too long ago I was invited to travel to Americus, Georgia, to serve as the Keynote Speaker for the Boys & Girls Club of America’s annual Steak ’n Stake dinner in that small town about 300 miles south of Atlanta. Because it was close to the end of the summer and the weather was still great, I decided to drive down and I asked my wife, who rarely travels with me, to join me for the trip. I always love to get opportunities to speak in front of crowds, but this opportunity was a little unique, which caused me to be more excited than usual. One of the selling points to get me in the car and on the back roads of Georgia was that my wife and I would have dinner with former United States of America President Jimmy Carter, and then he would be introducing me to deliver my keynote. As if that weren’t enough, I was told he was looking forward to meeting me. “How cool was this?” I thought as my wife Jan and I prepared for the trip. After living in Georgia for more than 20 years, I’ve become accustomed to the beautiful countryside and love to take advantage to take drives in the country especially when the leaves on the trees are at their brightest preparing for season’s change.
The landscape was beautifully painted in golds, yellows, reds, and orange, which served as beautifully crafted music to my range of view. I noticed field after field being Harvested and it hit me like never before. The men and women I saw working in the field had worked all year for this moment. It was time to Harvest. They had labored hard all year round, prayed for the rain, and hoped for enough sunshine and not too much wind—basically they wanted the perfect conditions. There had been a lot of planning as well as a lot of waiting. Now was the time to gather all that they had waited and worked so hard for.
What the Harvest Means
It made me stop and really think about what the Harvest meant to these farmers. Growing up in Detroit, I didn’t understand the significance of farming until I saw my first farm. I didn’t give any thought to what it took to run a farm until I talked to a farmer. The more I began to see how it worked and understood the significance, plus what it took to make it work, I realized it was a lot like our financial lives. Think about all the things you work hard for, as well as the waiting and praying that you will have something to gather a bounty from your hard work.
My mother would talk about the excitement she felt during Harvest time growing up in Arkansas on the farm. She shared stories that described the dust, the busy chores, and her brothers taking turns riding in the combine and on the tractor.
“There was a feeling in the air,” she explained.
Remembering that made me think about all of the hard work my grandfather invested in a plot of land. He put his blood, sweat, and tears into the land. He was committed to back-breaking work and overcoming challenges to ensure that he had all he needed to prepare the soil to ensure that it was just right to receive the seeds—similar to the way you must prepare your mind to accomplish a task. Whether it’s the task of discovering exactly who you are, which for all intents and purposes you are the farmer. You are the one who identifies the plot of land, determines if it’s ripe for planting, and finds what it is that you’re passionate about, what comes naturally, and what keeps you engaged. Maybe it’s knowing and being honest about your current financial position, which might cause you to put pride aside to ask for help.
It became evident that it was much more than a mere act of doing, but it was also knowing that you didn’t toil in vain. It was confirmation that your due diligence and hard work were purposeful. Sure, it might seem difficult to create a plan, cut back on spending, save until it hurts, or work hard to achieve your goals by leveraging your assets, but see yourself as the farmer in the field experiencing that Harvest feeling that permeated the country air.
You might have just experienced a cold season, and therefore your Harvest wasn’t very plentiful. The circumstances of life have caused you to stop planting because you haven’t experienced the Harvest that you envisioned yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to stop. Instead, it’s time to take the wisdom you’ve established along with the assets you’ve accumulated along your journey to create a plan that you can use as your leverage to reap your Harvest. When you’ve worked hard to move forward and manage the resources you’ve been given or maybe stretching your dollars until they couldn’t stretch any further while working your plot of land, you can appreciate a Harvest even more.
What Is Your Harvest?
Even if it is back-breaking work, you must remind yourself that you are working on maximizing your W.E.A.L.T.H. and becoming a better manager of your resources and assets. To ensure that these things manifest themselves, you must realize you are working on building a solid foundation that can become the edifice that you are proud of and provides for many generations to come.
To maximize your opportunity for a great Harvest, you must
Make sure the conditions are appropriate to plant. Know exactly where and what you are planting. The saying “garbage in, garbage out” also rings true when planting. You must plant quality to reap quality.
Protect from pests. Keep all things that don’t belong in your crops out. It is your job to protect all that you have; therefore, you must make decisions that benefit the crop. Pests in your Harvest might be emergencies or unexpected expenses that pop up and threaten your Harvest.
Have the right amount of nourishment. You must be sure to give your crops the right amount of tender love and care, attention, time, and planning to make sure that they have the correct balance of nutrients needed to flourish.
Reduce exposure to unfavorable climates. Your crops were created to grow in a particular environment. If that environment begins to change, you want to be sure that it’s ripe for the growth you desire. You might have experienced pain due to financial challenges, setbacks, or shortcomings, but this doesn’t mean you have no crops, just that the conditions are not as favorable as they could or should be. So you must work to change them and not allow your crops to die.
Too much rain can cause your crops to become oversaturated and die, but not enough rain can cause your Harvest to shrivel and die before you have the opportunity to reap the rewards. Therefore, it’s your job to keep the right mix of knowledge, exposure, resources, and energy vested in your crops to make sure your family will have a Harvest. Their lives will have a bounty that you can’t even imagine.
You will have a Harvest because of how you choose to deal with the challenges, by working instead of waiting, planting instead of pouting, and tiling instead of talking. Your Harvest will come from your choices, whether you make choices from scratch or make choices because of the result of someone else’s choices. It all results in collected bounty you call your Harvest. As with anything in life, you reap what you sow, so those things that are so important to you must be the things you love most, and take the time to care, work, and fight for. So, this is a great way to look at life and remember that you must be diligent in all that you do and continue to plant the right seeds and pray for rain.
To track and monitor your progress, you must be sure that you have established the six steps that you plan to receive the best Harvest possible.
You Must Have Processes, Plans, and Structures
These components must be in place for managing your financial life and the resources and assets available to you. These processes, plans, and structures must be connected to each other and your life rather than operating separately outside of your plan. To enable plan execution excellence, you must integrate all these processes and structures and align them with your plan. This plan must also be actively managed and improved on an ongoing basis to remain relevant and effective.
Accept the Facts
Many people refuse to face the truth of their situation. You must take full responsibility and ownership for where you are right now. Ignoring the problem makes it worse. You must face the truth and then recognize the lesson that can be learned from that truth. Once you see the lesson, it’s time to adapt to your newfound reality and change accordingly. This is essential to successful plan execution and achievement.
Be Accountable
You become a product of your behaviors, beliefs, and values, which is built in all facets of your life. Be dedicated to action and following through. You must define, value, support, and reward yourself for your commitment to accomplishment, which serves as the foundation of accountability for results achievement.
Review Your Plan and Action Steps Daily
You must actively facilitate plan execution. Revisit the fundamentals of your Financial Success Plan to its effectiveness, progress, and potential to facilitate change in your financial life.
Focus on Strengths
To be successful at executing this plan, you must focus on your strengths and delegate the rest. Know what areas you’re skilled in and where you are not. You must have the right people with the right skills doing the right job in the right place at the right time.
Make Strategy Execution Personal
When you are invested in something, you naturally commit to making sure that it is sustainable and successful. When you can see the possibilities and begin to see some results, whether small or big, you experience a sense of execution and achievement. You must remain encouraged and realize that your financial success depends on how well your plan is crafted to meet your specific needs and also your ability to execute the plan. Remain committed to making progress with your plan execution while remaining committed to making progress, which helps you remain encouraged and motivated. Your commitment to achieving the results you desire is what will propel you. You must remember the lean times or times when you were without the essentials you needed to live the life you envision. Allow yourself to explore those feelings from the past and use them to serve as your inspiration to press forward. The idea is to do everything within your power to avoid going back to unfavorable situations. Your plan, along with the correct W.E.A.L.T.H. mindset and the steps to execute effectively and efficiently, will get you there.
You must continue to assess and build your current assets and capabilities. Next you can begin to systematically close the gap from where you are to where you want to be. The key is to change your mind and your life will follow.
This journey to Americus made me think about what my Harvest was. This is when it all came full circle. I realized that my Harvest was the manifestation of my “why.” It was getting what I needed to supply or fulfill my “why.” It was the culmination of a plan implemented and executed with excellence. It was the money I set out to make from my business. It was reaching the savings goal that I thought I would never reach. It was rebuilding my credit when I thought there was no recovery in sight for me. It was my children growing as well as my relationships and business. It was my assets becoming stronger and multiplying to help me reach my goals and fulfill my dreams.
As we reached Americus, it was almost time for me to head over to the college where I would be speaking. When we arrived, I was taken to an area where a VIP reception was held for the donors, honorees, and speakers. As soon as I walked in, there he was. The 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter with his wife Rosalynn. I was in awe already, but then the former President standing there with secret service in tow told me that he had been looking forward to meeting me. He said that my bio was impressive and he was proud of the work I had been doing to help those in need, something he had dedicated his life to.
President Carter shared stories of being in the Navy, college, helping his father with the peanut farm, and being a plumber for 17 years. He truly knew the meaning of planting and reaping. It just so happened that his Harvest was the highest office in the nation, but in his reality that was just one of many, and in the end his biggest Harvest was where he helped those who needed it most.
At that moment, I realized that my Harvest was manifesting. I was experiencing the fruit of my labor, the rewards for sticking to a plan and not only setting but also achieving goals. I felt like I was in the field, riding the tractor with the aroma of fresh country air filling my senses, realizing the seeds I had sown were now being reaped in this year’s Harvest. And not long after, I began to set my sights on the next Harvest.
Remember, you already possess the power and the W.E.A.L.T.H. Now you have to apply it to your life to reap your Harvest.
Mind Changer
Whatever you plant in the soil of your mind is what will multiply and spring forth.
Remember...
You must also have some practical knowledge and tools at your fingertips to carry out your plan.
Know yourself better than anyone and know what motivates you and discourages you.
Know what you will and won’t do to succeed.
Don’t be discouraged by where you are now, but rather use it as fuel to propel you.
Set realistic W.E.A.L.T.H. goals that you are committed to carrying out.
Paint the picture of success so clearly you can see it.
Make your “why” so strong that it pushes you to continue even when you want to quit.
Continue to build your non-monetary assets and know how to convert them.
Always use whatever you have to get that which you desire. Remember, you always have something.
Continue to remind yourself that you can have whatever you set your mind on; if you assess your inventory and know how to leverage what you have by creating a plan of action, ultimately you will acquire the wealth you seek by using the W.E.A.L.T.H. you’ve been given.