I used to consider myself more of a "doer" than an "idea" person.
When you're raised on a dairy farm in Iowa there is plenty of "doing."
In fact, twice a day 365 days each year we were doing.
(Yep, holidays, birthdays, weekends.. it didn't matter.)
I left for college, did a few years in the Army and then taught school.
And then I was dairy farming again.
That's when I discovered how much of an idea person I had become.
It wasn't pretty.
At age thirty-one I gushed more ideas about the family business than my Dad could absorb. I had ideas about the facilities, the feed, genetics, machinery, and crops. You name it; I had an idea. My retired grandfather used to try to slow me down. He'd say, "You know, this will all be yours someday and it will be paid for." And that's when it happened. I collided with the "vision" thing.
My grandfather was right. Somewhere around age fifty, I likely would be given charge of the farm. At age sixty-five I might even inherit it and own it outright. I immediately started looking for another line of work. My vision for our dairy was young, vital and loaded with possibilities. My Dad's was mature, steady and dead as lead. It all became clear that this was never going to work.
