Yes You Can

Yes You Can

My clock radio registers 3:18 am.  I just can’t sleep anymore knowing tonight I have to deliver a 7 minute, inspirational speech to the most important constituents of our time—the young men and women of the next generation.  Kids if you will.  This will be the first time presenting in front of young people that have our future in their hands.  It will be an honor to look into those faces and instill some passion for agriculture and the family farm. I am part of our local Toastmasters Club mentoring a group of 4-Hers to achieve the confidence in public speaking. This snippet in time for me comes on the heels of a new president saying, “yes we can.”  Words so short, but so necessary to invoke the emotion in these children that will take them beyond the challenges of life.  My aim is to reinforce this message of hope.

I’m reminded of my past experience at trying all kinds of stuff as a kid.  It sure seemed like a good idea to till my mom’s garden with two pigs until I realized training them to electric fence should happen before I started the project.  The consequences: scared pigs, hurt ego, muddy clothes and a great story.  This exercise didn’t deter me because I had the will, the farmer gene and the support from my family to persevere.

Who can remember their first time trying to drive standard?  I wanted so much to prove to my father that I could shift that ole Chevy truck by the end of the field.  Remember trying to ease the clutch and gas in one fluid motion, only to have it buck and snort and finally stall.  Boy that was disheartening for a young lad.  My dad would say just keep practicing, as I rolled over the 10 acre hay field time after time.  Finally I mastered shifting in all “three” gears by the time the hedgerow was at the bumper.  Ah, victory!

These small triumphs and experiences cannot be over-looked as you take on the myriad of daily tasks in the negativity of today’s world.  It takes a lot of energy to stay positive, keep your head down and forge ahead when others don’t believe.  How sweet it is to be the positive deviant in the crowd.  How important it is to tell young people you can do it.

It’s almost sick to want someone to tell you no.  Warning, don’t ever tell me I can’t do something!  This prophecy came true again when a coalition of us submitted a grant proposal to gain some seed money to fund a powerful, farmer communicator training program, only to be turned down because it lacked measurable results.  I couldn’t let it go, they said the magic word.  So I called the funding source to disagree (which is usually not a good idea).  I argued that without providing farmers with good communication skills and practice you wouldn’t be able to attain the measures.  Good point but still no.

“Maybe you should look into changing a policy somewhere for the measure and resubmit the grant next year,” the funder said.  “Next year!  Farmers can’t wait another year,” I barked.  The organization baited us, they hurt our pride, they doubted our hard work and passion and they didn’t understand that this was about changing the future for our children among other things. 

I take these experiences with me to inspire our local 4-Hers that they too, can do. Hopefully my words of encouragement, pig humor and shared stories will steer the youngsters to overcome the apprehension of public speaking, which is tonight’s topic. We adults call this “seven minutes to freedom.”  I have a sneaking suspicion that these kids with their youthful, reckless abandon will really excel at this project, much more than their adult counterparts.  It’s going to be fantastic to watch a young person accomplish goals without the pressure of no.