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Growing Our Future
Growing Our Future
Always Forward
In this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast, host Aaron Alejandro interviews Ron Kitchens, the CEO of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce. They discuss the importance of gratitude, the power of a job in changing lives, and the role of agriculture and FFA in creating opportunities. Ron shares his personal journey from poverty to becoming a leader in economic development, emphasizing the value of showing up, lifelong learning, and leaving a positive impact on others. They also address the workforce challenges faced by businesses and the need to invest in the younger generation.
The conversation focuses on the importance of mentorship and leadership development in shaping the future generation. It emphasizes the need to invest in young people and provide them with the tools and guidance they need to succeed. Ron discussed the role of education and the need for mentors and support systems in helping students achieve their goals. They also highlight the importance of continuous learning and personal development in becoming effective leaders. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the power of perseverance and thinking big in order to create a positive impact in the world.
Story Notes:
- Ron's Background and the Power of FFA
- The Transformative Power of a Job
- Agriculture and FFA: Creating Opportunities
- Challenges Faced by Young Men in the Workforce
- Creating Opportunities and Competing for the Minds of the Younger Generation
- The Power of Mentorship and Guidance
- Education and Support Systems
- Continuous Learning and Personal Development
- Perseverance and Thinking Big
Learn more at MyTexasFFA.org
Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast. In this show, the Texas FFA Foundation will take on a journey of exploration into agricultural science, education, leadership development and insights from subject matter experts and sponsors who provide the fuel to make dreams come true. Here's your host, Aaron Alejandro.
Speaker 2:Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or whenever you may be tuning in to the Growing Our Future podcast, hey, listen. Number one thank you for stopping by. We appreciate the fact that you're taking a pause in your day to soak up some of this incredible insight that we get from our guest. Today is no different. I recently had a chance to meet this guest and as soon as I did, there was just several things about him that caught my attention. Number one his enthusiasm was contagious. Number two I started hearing about his background background and there was a little thing in there called FFA which got my attention and I said listen, whenever we have an opening, we need to get you on the show.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, it's an honor to bring to y'all the CEO of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce, but you're going to learn more about that. He's an author, speaker, all-around good guy. Encourage your life coach, ron Kitchens. Ron, thank you for joining us. Oh, thanks for letting me be here, ron. We're going to dive into your background here in just a little bit and get into a little deeper of maybe you know kind of the journey that brought you to this role that you're in, but I like to start every episode off, every episode with the same question, because I think it's a great place to start, not only a podcast. I think it's a great way to start every day. And that question is this Ron, what are you grateful for today?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a great question, because I actually just finished writing my weekly blog for our newsletter and it's on gratitude and it's this idea that you know, gratitude's a gift you give yourself. When you express gratitude, it releases dopamine and serotonin in your brain and so you immediately feel better by expressing gratitude to someone else. Then they get the dopamine and the serotonin hit too, and so I'm just a huge believer in gratitude and in my case, I'm grateful for and the column I wrote was that I get to live in a rural America. I get to live in this great city that I live in. That's an hour and a half or two hours from the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. I have all those advantages, but I have incredible. I got to see a band this week that I really liked.
Speaker 3:I got to see it for half the cost it would have cost me in Dallas there were 100 people in the room and they're playing at Billy Bob's next week and there's a thousand people in the room. To me, that's an incredible advantage that we have in rural America that we forget that sometimes being smaller makes us better.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's really good. By the way, I agree with everything you just said. I love the attitude of gratitude. By the way, I agree with everything you just said. I love the attitude of gratitude. I think when you really unpack gratitude, think about it. Like you said, when you express gratitude you feel hopeful, you feel energetic, you feel like you're looking for something good. One of my board members you may know. His father was the late great Zig Ziglar Absolutely Zig Ziglar's son, tom Ziglar, is on my board members. You may know his father was the late great Zig Ziglar. So Zig Ziglar's son, tom Ziglar, is on the board, on my board. And Tom was on the East Coast talking to a bunch of college kids and they were talking about gratitude and he asked them what is the opposite of gratitude? And he let them kind of stew around and think about it for a while and then he said the opposite of gratitude is entitlement.
Speaker 2:And we said. Now let that sink in. What happens to your attitude when you go from being grateful to well? That's not fair. That's mine. Give that to me. You go from this attitude and this perspective of life that's positive, hopeful, to a perspective that's disappointing and angry. And so I think when we start out with gratitude, it's always a great place to start a dialogue, to start a conversation. So thank you for sharing what you're grateful for, and I agree with you.
Speaker 2:I live in North Texas as well. I tell people the same thing. I'm two hours from Oklahoma, I'm two hours from Dallas-Fort Worth, and yet I enjoy the community that I live in. I know my neighbors and I just I kind of like that part of the life that I live. But I do have an office in Austin and so I do get to fight the traffic and the hustle and bustle of a big city, and it has its pleasures as well. But to raise a family I like where I'm at Amen.
Speaker 2:So thanks for joining us, ron. You and I met and you were sharing a little bit about your background and I was real intrigued by that and obviously I'm going to tee it up by saying this You're going to learn that part of Ron's background. He's from the Midwest up north, but part of his background comes through channels of the FFA. But he's in a different role today, which I think is unique, and I think it's just another testament to what you can do with the experiences in life that you have. But, ron, you're the CEO of a midsize which I would say is really kind of a large chamber of commerce. I don't suspect you just fell into that seat. I suspect that there's a journey that brought you there. So if you could take us back and kind of walk us through your life journey and what led you into this role that you have today, Sure, you know.
Speaker 3:You told me I had to be tight on time here, so I'll go fast. So I grew up in abject poverty. Neither of my parents attended high school. My mother was 15 when I was born and my father 16. My father was illiterate, couldn't read or write his own name, not because he was dumb, but because he had a form of dyslexia, the same form that I have. But it was never addressed. And so, at age 20, he was killed in an industrial accident because he couldn't read the sign that said don't do this, and it cost him his life.
Speaker 3:And so, growing up in poverty, I looked around and realized that every family that had what I wanted for my family had one thing in common they had jobs, and I didn't know what that meant. But I know our money came from a government check once a month. My mother had two kids, no education, no family support to speak of early on, and so I knew that a job was really important. Well, it wasn't until later in my life that I realized that I could create jobs. It wasn't just about getting a job for myself that I could create jobs. It wasn't just about getting a job for myself. I could live in a world where I could help out people and family and friends. You know, it really struck me early in my career and I you know we're going to talk about the FFA, but I would not be here today if it wasn't for my FFA chapter Wow, period Wow.
Speaker 3:I had no business background, I had no mentors, I had no idea of knowing how to run a business. Too many people think that when we talk about agriculture we're talking about seeds and animals and those are really important things. But what I learned was those are business. How do you figure out earnings on that? How do you figure out your led me to learning that NAFTA had just hit the United States, my friends.
Speaker 3:I thought I was going to create jobs in my first businesses for my friends so they could come home to my little hometown and after school what I ended up doing was creating jobs for their parents because they lost their factory jobs. They lost that middle class opportunity, and that's when I really began to see what we can do in job creation. And so I've spent my career both in Texas, michigan and Missouri running organizations that focus on my core belief that the greatest force for change is a job that we change people's lives. We change their futures. We change the future of their families. We can change generations. If we can get good paying jobs with health care benefits and a retirement program into those people's lives, then they will take care of themselves. If you have the American dream then you can live the American dream.
Speaker 2:I wrote that down. That's pretty good. The greatest force for change is a job. Greatest course for change is a job. Think about that. That's powerful. I had a friend who had a, an accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury and, uh, what's interesting about what you just shared kind of inspiring is the fact that he started working at a church volunteering his time, uh, and he called it his volunteer job and the reason reason he wanted to do it is because he felt value, he felt like he was contributing to something bigger than himself, and I think that there's a lot of asset, both personal, financial, that comes with what you just said and that's having a job.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, and it goes at all levels of society. I had a friend who was a prison warden and he knew if he wanted to lower violence in the prison, if he wanted to lower drug abuse, if he wanted to lower all those things that happen in prisons, then the best thing he could do is have meaningful job training and meaningful work for the people who were in there. And it didn't matter that they got 17 cents an hour or whatever the amount was. It mattered that they could do something meaningful that had a future to it. It wasn't just pulling weeds, it was learning electrical, it was learning skills that they knew they could use on the outside, even though some of them never had any hope of getting on the outside.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. Listen to what we're talking about. We're talking both about that intrinsic and internal value, but also the contribution that we make that people freely gave their money to, through an economy, through a capitalistic society that creates wealth. And it's like I always tell the young people that I deal with. I said listen, you know, I get a paycheck and if I handle it right, at the end of every paycheck I might have a little bit left over. And if I have a little bit left over, I might be able to help somebody else that might need a little bit of help, because we've all been in situations where we need that. But you've got to have that so that you can share it with others. That's right, and I do believe you're right. You can't give away what you don't earn. Amen. By the way, you just summed up what this podcast is about.
Speaker 2:What I always tell people is I say listen, if agriculture has taught me anything, it's taught me this If you want to know what the future is, grow it. Well, how do you grow a future? Well, you've got to plant seeds, you've got to take care of those seeds, and then you're going to have to work and harvest that crop and harvest that reward one day and then, when you get it, you're going to have to work and harvest that crop and harvest that reward one day and then, when you get it, you're going to share it with others. And that's what we're talking about. So when we're talking about jobs or economies or opportunities, what we're really talking about is look around and because just listen to Ron's story and listen to mine not everybody has the same opportunities. Sometimes we've got to search and work a little harder to get to those opportunities.
Speaker 2:And then folks like Ron and I tell Ron, I tell the adults all the time I said our job as adults, our job is to create opportunities. That's our job. I tell the young people, your job is to determine the outcome. So our responsibility is you know what you're doing for the city is you're trying to help create economic opportunities. You're trying to create jobs. Now we got to get people that are willing to step up, stand out and step into those roles. We need entrepreneurs and angels and all the others that go into helping cultivate those. But at the end of the day, we need community members to help determine the outcomes of what our opportunities look like. So you just said, what this podcast is about is we're hopeful that people that tune in will hear something. Maybe you know. Here's the thing, ron you're from Michigan something.
Speaker 3:Maybe you know. Here's the thing, ron you're from michigan um a rich Missouri now. I worked in michigan for years, yep, but my Missourians will get mad at me if I don't claim it.
Speaker 2:I forgot that because I think I told you I went to paris, missouri, and did a facebook live with josh bondy in his ffa chapter. But the thing about it is is whether whether it is missouri or michigan or any place in the United States, people who are listening to this, they may have heard something there they never thought of. Oh wait, a second, I'm an FFA. I don't necessarily have to go into agriculture. I'm an FFA. Maybe I could be that person that just goes into creating jobs and I become a chamber of commerce director, an economic development corporate, an EDC person that you know, a regional planning commission person. There are so many opportunities that deal with job creation that a lot of times people don't even think about that.
Speaker 3:That's right, you know, I think, and from FFA I learned, you know, great example was, you know there was a dairy farm. I grew up in an area that there used to be lots of dairy farms and so I would work when somebody was sick or need vacation. I'd do some fill-in work, which is the toughest business I think in America is dairy farmer. But you know, the farmer taught me I can either take my wages or he would give me a bull calf that I could bottle feed and showed me that I could take that. Instead of that $10 or $15 or $20 I would make for that day's work. I could work three days, get a calf, and six weeks, eight weeks later, I'd have $150 in my pocket. Six weeks, eight weeks later, I'd have $150 in my pocket.
Speaker 3:And so you learn these lessons about how you have more control over your life than a lot of times we believe. And I think it's incredibly important that we learn. And I was a city kid, so literally we had an extra lot next to this, our little house and I'm raising bottle caps in the middle of town. You know, my FFA projects were always rabbits or something that I could do, you know, at home. But you learn such incredible lessons that transcend farming and I would say I'm not sure much transcends agriculture in america. When it comes down to it, that really is our core and without it we're not gonna. We're not going to be the country that we pretend that we are some days.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you what's so awesome about what you just shared is more connection that we have not talked about. I've got a friend here in the community that who you know. She's going to be on the podcast here as well Jackie Hager and Jackie's family has a dairy over in Winthorst in Archer County. Kids my two when they were in FFA they bottle fed Holstein cats, bull cats and exactly what you just described. One of the things I like to share and I don't want to derail our conversation here, but I think it's important because you brought something up about the importance of agriculture.
Speaker 2:I get asked a lot, aaron, what separates y'all's kids from everybody else? I get asked a lot, aaron, what separates y'all's kids from everybody else? They said you know, aaron doesn't UIL teach speech and debate. Aaron doesn't football teach teamwork and athletics. And Aaron doesn't band teach ensemble and choir.
Speaker 2:You know ensemble and Aaron, what is it that you think this ag, science and FFA thing does that nobody else does and I love that question and I always tell them I said, yeah, it's a good question and there's some great programs and guess what my kids and others have learned from all of those programs? But the one thing that separates our kids from everybody else is that in the world of agriculture, if we don't do our job, something dies. That's right, and when you instill that core value into a kid at an early age that what they do matters, that something depends on them to do their job, that is something they will take with them for the rest of their lives. It will become part of the core values of their family, their community, their job, their state and their country, and so I appreciate you sharing that perspective.
Speaker 3:You know and I. So I had a great mentor who would, you know, I'd early on you know nobody likes to get up early in the morning and he'd remind you you're not having to bust ice in the feeder this morning, get up and go to work. And today, even days today that I don't want to get up. I'm slow to get out of bed. I think to myself, hey, what am I talking about? I don't have to go bust ice in the feeder this morning, I don't have anybody who's you know going to die if I don't do my job. And you know, there's a sense of obligation beyond ourselves that FFA and agriculture give us that otherwise, I'm not sure where you learn those things.
Speaker 2:I agree with you and I couldn't agree more. My kids did it and guess what? They didn't realize. One of my other dear good friends here in our North Texas area is the guy that owns Warriors Way Martial Arts Academy, and I remember when he started Warriors Way Martial Arts Academy always got a kick out of it because they would play dodgeball with focus mitts and if you got hit by the focus mitt you had to do 10 pushups and then you could get back in the game. And he and I were talking one day and I said you know that's pretty clever the way you're doing that. He said yeah, he said if I told the kids to line up and we're going to do 50 pushups, they would all complain about it. But if I put it in a dodgeball format, he goes they may do 70 pushups and never complain about it because they want to get back in the game. And so I think a lot of times it's how we look at things, it's how we evaluate them and how we engage with them.
Speaker 2:Ron, let's go back here and talk just for a second. You know, one of the things in through my role at the foundation is I get to work with a lot of corporate leaders across the state of Texas and across the country and I have the opportunity to hear them tell me what their challenges are, to hear what opportunities they're trying to create in their organizations and their businesses, and I will tell you that the number one issue that I hear number one, there's not even a close second is workforce. Aaron, we need workforce. We need people that will show up. We need people that can get along with their peers. We need people that can communicate in a positive way.
Speaker 2:I would argue that Ag science and FFA kids represent everything that we just said, but I want to hear it from your perspective, ron, from somebody who's in that role of cultivating businesses, attracting businesses. If you could give kids a tip right now, if you could just reach into every classroom and say young people, listen, here's some tools, here's some seeds that, if you'll plant them, they will help you get a job, keep a job and get promoted in a job, what would you share with them?
Speaker 3:I think part of it is showing up and I think you know, as we talked earlier, if you got animals, you got to show up, and so when I you know we deal with folks every day and you know we look at the data, there's 7 million young men between the age of 18 and 26 sitting on the sidelines. They're not in college, they're not working. It's first time in America post-war this has ever happened. When we look at the American workforce, we have 4 million fewer jobs today than we had pre-COVID and we've got at a time where 60% of all college students are women. It's never happened before. There are more women as associates in law firms than there are men for the first time in the history firms and there are men for the first time in the history. The graduate schools are dominated by women. So I have this real fear for young men that they're getting lost and they're just not getting what they need in schools to teach them to work.
Speaker 3:And part of it is that you said it's a sense of entitlement and you know Ray Wiley Hubbard, the great singer, songwriter, says the day I keep my expectations lower than my gratitude, I have really good days, and so I think we have to teach people that you can get out of life, anything you want, but there are certain rules you have to live by, and those rules are you got to show up. You got to show up in life. You got to show up for work, you've got to continue to invest in yourself, and that means lifelong learning. You got to constantly be learning, and it's no secret that women do that better than men, you know. If we look at you know, as you said, I write books, huge percentage, depending on whose number you believe 60 or 70% of all books, maybe 80%, are bought by women. Average man doesn't read a book in a year.
Speaker 3:And so this idea that we've got to continue to learn, and then we've got to understand that we have a responsibility to leave, whether it's our family, our world, our community a better place than it was. You know, people talk about what's the meaning of life. Well, the meaning of life to me is to make sure that on my last day that I touched more lives and made them better than invested in me, I gave back one more dollar courage opportunity than I received. Now I'm going to think I'm going to do better than that. But if we just live by those rules, we'd have pretty good opportunities. But I'm terrified for the young men of America today because I just don't see. I see us losing a huge percentage of people and we can't afford it.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that for a second. By the way, you know one of the guests that's been on this show I was fortunate to get to know and spend some time with, and he's kind of somebody that you would know, a guy by the name of Mike Rowe. And Mike Rowe talks about that very thing right there of how much talent is sitting on the sidelines. And I guess one of the things that I wonder, ron, that I don't necessarily know that we look at. I kind of look at like Wayne Gretzky. I like what Wayne Gretzky said one time when they asked Gretzky, what makes you such a great hockey player? And Gretzky said most players skate to where the puck is. I skate to where the puck is going. I think there's some wisdom in that. I skate to where the puck is going. And so to your point, ron. I think we look at point B and that's what we see. How do we fix point B? We're right here. How do we fix point B? Well, point B is really a result of point A. Something happened here at point A that's created point B. So when I look at point A, I'm saying this is where the puck is going.
Speaker 2:What are we doing to compete for this, and the example that I use is Friday night football and, as you know, being in Texas for any period of time, friday night football is a big deal. So I go to a Friday night football game. There are seven coaches on the sideline. At halftime three came out of the press box and then I found out there were three more that were out scouting other teams. Now do the math on that Thirteen coaches For what? For one night in one sport, in one field of a kid's life? Simply to compete. That kid's got the rest of his life ahead of him, her life ahead of them.
Speaker 2:And I always ask adults what are we doing to compete for their minds? What are we doing? You know and I'm not going to, we won't get into a discussion of communities, but the reality is, if we're not competing for the minds of where the puck is going, how can we be disappointed when it doesn't turn out the way we want it to turn out? That's right. Abraham Lincoln said that the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. That's the reason I'm so passionate about. We got to plant the right seeds, we got to jump on podcast and social media, and we've got to find out where the kids are to get in front of where the puck is headed, so that maybe we can give them some insight, some tools. And, like you said, ron, we don't expect everybody to watch the podcast or read the book, but guess what? God's got who's watching this for a reason, god's got who's reading it for a reason, and our job is to make sure that it gets out there.
Speaker 3:That's right, you know, I served on the board at Western Michigan University for a number of years and so I really wanted to understand how our education worked, because I can look at that and tell you that somebody who's middle class or upper middle class we never believed anything different than our daughter was going to graduate from school in four years. And we sent her to a school where all the kids believe they're going to graduate in four years and, lo and behold, they do. Now why? Because they have mentors and they have assistants and we invest in them and we're putting together small groups that are investing in them and we're telling them here's what it takes to get there. We're in big, large public schools. We kind of go good luck, god bless, and hey, if you're here for six years, that's, you know, another two years of revenue for us. And so we as adults have got to step up and say this is what success looks like and we're going to mentor you and we don't have time today, but I've written about it, we've talked.
Speaker 3:You know I went into business because, you know, my knee got, got blown out, I couldn't play college football and I had no fallback and I had six mentors who came alongside me, who taught me how to be in business, who taught me how to do my books, who taught me how to pay taxes, who taught me how to generate customers, who taught me how to be grateful, taught me how to expand and treat employees, and without those men I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't have the impact. I have multiplied their impact. We've got to make a commitment and a recommitment to people that we want to create impact that can be multiplied.
Speaker 2:Well said, well said. And you know, I think there's a couple of things in what you just shared. Number one you've got to be willing. I mean, if you're a student right now listening, and it doesn't have to be this podcast, it could be a coach, it could be another mentor, it could be anybody. But just listen to what Ron just said.
Speaker 2:The first thing is you've got to have some want to. There's got to be some want to intrinsic into your system that makes you say I'm going to step out here and maybe try to do something better than what my parents had, or I'm going to do something better than what I saw somebody that was successful. I want to be that successful, maybe even more successful. It starts with a little bit of want to. So the first thing we need is you to find your want to. And then, ron, I think you're right, it behooves all of us in adult roles and leadership positions. We've got to want to pass it on. You know, one of the things that we talk about in our camp a lot is one of the quotes. I've got two quotes that we use a lot around our shop. One is when your values are clear, your choices are easy. So when your values are clear, the choices that you make are pretty easy. And then, number two, the essence of leadership is to plant trees under whose shade you may never sit.
Speaker 2:People ask me all the time why I do what I do, and I said, well, it's because I don't know. Maybe what I do is going to create my granddaughter's doctor one day, or her elected official, or my grandson's mentor or his teacher. That's the reality of the world that we live in, is that we're really planting seeds with purpose in hopes that one day they feed, help somebody else. And I think, to your point, we've got to be willing to step up. One of the things that I ask the young people and you'll like this is I said tell me about your business.
Speaker 2:And they always look at me puzzled. They say, well, mr Alejandro, I don't have a business. I said, yeah, you do. You're it. Do you get up on time? Do you show up on time? Are you customer service friendly? Can I understand you? There's a lot of stuff that you do because that is your business. And then to your point, ron, you said something else I hope people got, and that was this Get yourself a personal board of directors. That's right. Get you some people around you like you just talked about. That poured into you, that made you better.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and that's in. You know, we know, nobody knows everything. And then you mentioned Zig Ziglar. So you know, there's this great quote, my favorite, by Zig you can have anything you want in this world if you just help enough. Other people get what they want. Well, when you get yourself around people who believe in abundance, then that board of directors becomes people who are giving to you because they know it's going to come back to them and it may come back to them a generation past them. It may come back to their grandchildren, it may come back to their church, it may come back to the community that they love. It isn't directly quid pro quo, but people who believe in abundance pour into each other, and why would you want to spend your life with anybody who didn't believe in that?
Speaker 2:I hope everybody was listening. There was another one of those apples of gold right there. People who believe in abundance pour into others.
Speaker 2:Good stuff. That is good stuff. Let's stay kind of on this topic, but stay with me here for a second. Let's talk about leadership this topic, but stay with me here for a second. Let's talk about leadership, Because I like to think that the people that will listen to this podcast or the people that might be taking notes in a classroom right now I've got to believe there's some aspiring leaders in those situations. If you were to share some leadership tips, what would be some tips that you might share to a young person to be a more effective leader?
Speaker 3:don't confuse title and position with opportunity to lead. Too many times we think we have to be granted something before we're a leader, and I had a great high school football coach, a guy named Paul Skeens and Coach Skeens is a great guy, great mentor, but he was the first person who came to me and said, hey, you're a leader and I want you to know that that's a muscle we have to build. And so he gave me a book to read. It was written by Grant Taft, who had, I think, was still or had just been the head football coach at Baylor, and about leadership, and it was the very first leadership book I ever read. And so it was somebody who saw that in me.
Speaker 3:But what I realized? That it was my behaviors. What I did spoke far more loudly than any title I had, and that anything I said. And so, as great leaders, just go do the right thing every day. You know it's not glamorous some days and it's not sexy some days, but the fact of the matter is those are the people that are going to change the world.
Speaker 2:I agree. By the way, I tell people I've shared the same thing. You just said a different way. I always say if leadership were easy, everybody would do it. I mean, I know in your job and my job I get told no a lot, but that's okay. I was actually at a Tom Ziegler. I was at a coach leadership training and he said something I'd never heard before. And they said Aaron, you know you're in the right office if they told you no. And I'm like what? He goes yeah, you're in the right office if they told you no. And I said well, how is that? I don't understand that he goes. If they had the authority to tell you no, then you're in the right office because they can tell you yes. So now you've got to figure out how to get them to yes, that's right, but I thought that was a good point.
Speaker 3:And you know, and it is a leader. So my team we go through leadership training constant, continuous. There's a book laying on the table behind me. That's our next team book read. So we read a leadership book every month and that's from the person who answers the phone at the front to our senior.
Speaker 3:Most people we're developing constant leadership strategy. Everyone has to be the CEO of an organization and that's okay. But what we can do is everybody needs to be a great leader, whether it's a great leader at home One of the toughest jobs in the world is to be that stay-at-home parent who's got to lead. Whether you're leading your child's Girl Scout troop, or whether you're just teaching your young children how to be good leaders and understanding what that looks like. We have to build those muscles and so, as organizational leaders, if you're not developing the team around you every day to be great leaders, you're cheating them and you're cheating yourself. So I encourage you or into leadership training and development. There's so much of it that's easy and free, so much of it that we can do together.
Speaker 2:Boy, you've settled some really good stuff. By the way, number one, leadership's a muscle. You got to work it and you got to have coaches and trainers that help you improve it and I think, like you said, investing in yourself and I didn't know some of the statistics that you shared that was really interesting about women versus men and when it comes to reading and strategy and stuff, but that is a common theme.
Speaker 2:I will tell you about guests that have been on the show. They talk a lot about you've got to invest in yourself, you've got to improve yourself, you know. And my philosophy you know. One of the things I like to share and, by the way, this is one reason you're on this show alluded to earlier is harley elmore, right here in wichita falls, texas, who's the head of warriors way martial arts academy and early on he taught us.
Speaker 2:He said if you want to be the best, train with the best. So we don't go train with the black belt of a black belt of a black belt. No, his philosophy is if you want to be the best, train with the best. So who do we bring in? The heads of systems, the top people? Why? Because when you hang out with them and you hear from them and you train with them, you're training with the best. If you want to be the best, train with the best round. If you're looking to be a better leader, find somebody who's a really good leader and you may find that person in person or you may find them on an audio book or in a printed book but find that person and train with that person, and it will make you better, if that's another way of saying it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I had a great ministry leader in Chicago and the largest church he was actually the minister at that time of the largest church in America and Bill would say my job is to mentor tens of thousands of people every year. I can't do that one on one, so I have to create content for them.
Speaker 3:But what we have to do is create that content in a way that's agnostic, so you can read it online for free, you can buy a book, you can listen to an audio, you can come to a seminar, you can do all these different ways, but in the end he was pouring into ministry and business leaders so that they could embrace, you know, what he was teaching. And so, as leaders, we have to remember you know, just because I like to read books, there are people who would rather hear it on an audio, there are people that would rather have a digital version of it. Get agnostic about how you learn, but you got to be a learner. Agnostic about how you learn, but you got to be a learner, and I've never met a CEO or successful leader ever who wasn't a learner ever.
Speaker 2:I agree with you. I tell people all the time I said every person, every successful person that I've dealt with, I bet you could say the same thing there is one word that they have in their vocabulary next, it doesn't matter if it's a failure, what's next. It doesn't matter if it's a failure, what's next. It doesn't matter if it's a success, what's next? And then I guess that kind of leads me to a question I wanted to ask you because in your book which, by the way, uniquely you, I'm going to throw a shameless plug in here for you, I'll take it In Ron's book, uniquely you he's got a saying in there and he signs off with it too and it kind of got my attention Always forward. Tell us a little bit about that. Why always forward?
Speaker 3:I was at a point in my life that I was young, I was still in high school. My high school football coach was a great mentor to me and you know I was lamenting, I just didn't know what to do. You know I wasn't particularly a great student. I was dyslexic. I hadn't been diagnosed with dyslexia, so I struggled academically, happened to be a pretty good athlete, and we were having this discussion and he said, hey, doesn't matter how fast you go, just always be going forward. Some days you're going to go backwards.
Speaker 3:And you know there's a rugby ball behind me and I played rugby for years and got to travel the world doing it and the sport of rugby you pass the ball backwards to go forward.
Speaker 3:Everything you know is you got to go a little bit backwards to go yards forward. And so for me it's a constant reminder that it doesn't matter what day I'm having. It doesn't matter Some days we advance the ball miles and other days it's inches, but so long as we're always moving forward, we know that in the end we're going to reach our goals and for us that's more and better jobs, you know, and for me in particular, you know, one of my oldest memories is of my mom sitting in an orange Formica table. You know she's 19 or 20 at the time and she's crying. She got her checkbook out. She's got to make a decision whether to pay the rent or fix her car. She pays the rent, we can stay in the house, but there's no way to go get groceries. If she fixes a car, we can live in the car, which we did multiple times and you know, and she can try to figure out the next thing, I go to work every day because I want there to be one fewer mom crying at a table Every day.
Speaker 3:I looked at a picture of an orange for my table every day because if we can just go forward a little bit, I don't need to do thousands of jobs, which I've done. I've hung out with the greatest leaders in America and in the world. I've had private jets at my beck and call, but in the end, none of it matters if we're not helping one more mom get an opportunity for her and her children, if we're not changing the life of one more person by creating more and better jobs. So I don't, I just have to go forward every day. Some days it's big and some days it's small, but I just have to go forward every day. Some days it's big and some days it's small, but I just got to go forward every day.
Speaker 2:I love that philosophy and I really appreciate you sharing. I also appreciate the core value and the perspective that drives your passion for that purpose. It shows, ron, just so you know, and that's a good thing I'm very people that know my story know I'm very driven for FFA and ag science because it changed my, it changed my world. We're actually recording this today. We're actually recording during National FFA Week. How awesome is that? And I basically said you know, hang on, kid, it's going to be a heck of a ride.
Speaker 2:When I look at what you've accomplished and the opportunities that you've been granted, I think there's another leadership and seeds of greatness lesson here for everybody. Folks. I had a person one time tell me, ron. They said you know, I wished I could just get away from the storms of life and they confided in me some of the challenges that they were facing. And I remember I looked at him and I said you know, I just want you to know I hear you and I empathize with you.
Speaker 2:And I said I could solve your problem. And they said, really. I said yeah, I said I can take you to a place where you'll never experience another storm. I can take you to a place that it never even rains. And I said that place is called a desert and nothing grows. But you show me somebody that's had some challenges, show me somebody who's had a few storms, storms, and I will show you somebody that, if they planted the right seeds, that they're going to grow into something incredible. And I think, ron, your story and your testimony is part of that. Thanks, I appreciate that.
Speaker 3:You know it's nothing happens by accident in this world and you know it's all about what you do with the lessons that you learn.
Speaker 2:And I've been blessed with great mentors that helped me see the value in the journey. Well, and I think something else, ron, that I think I can share with you on this podcast. Um, that, uh, and it's in my role too as a development officer. That, and it's in my role too as a development officer. A lot of times what people don't see is cultivation. The only time you see cultivation is when the cash register rains. So they don't always see the behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:And I got to thinking about the Chinese bamboo plant, and I'm sure you've heard this story.
Speaker 2:But you put a Chinese bamboo plant seed in the ground and you've got to care for it every single day.
Speaker 2:And imagine how discouraging it would be to care for it every single day for an entire year and nothing happens. Year number two, nothing happens. It actually takes five years of taking care of that seed in the ground, with no sprout, with nothing, for it to one day stick its head through the soil and then hang on to your hat, because within five weeks that sprout goes from in the ground to over 90 feet tall and what you don't see is the root system that's being created under the surface to withstand the weight of that much growth that quickly and when I think of what Ron does in the world of business cultivation and I think about what we do in the world of ag science and FFA cultivation. Unfortunately, a lot of times people don't get to see us working behind the scenes and the hard work and the ups and downs, the challenges of what it takes to propagate seeds that may take a year or two to grow. But when they do that, mom goes to work.
Speaker 2:Absolutely absolutely when that, when they do that new mentor becomes available in the community. So that was a great analogy, ryan.
Speaker 3:I just want to thank you for sharing yep, and I love the bamboos as an analogy. It really does show that um, we've got to be committed to our work and understand that if you want immediate results, well then the return on investment of immediate is pretty low and you will live in a life of low opportunity. If you want big opportunity, you got to be committed to the long term.
Speaker 2:Well, and you said another word that I like, by the way, and that is big. I always tell people if you can't think big, you can't teach big. If you can't think big, you can't inspire big. If you can't think big, the people in your care can never be big. That's right. Think big. All right, ron, listen, time flies when you're having fun. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day and joining us on the Growing Our Future podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Really do appreciate that you get one last question. So every guest on this show gets the last fun question and you get a fun question to wrap the podcast up. Tell us, Ron, what is the best concert you've ever been to?
Speaker 3:I got to see right after 9-11. We had planned to go to New York and our trip got derailed because of 9-11. A few months later, president Bush said hey, we need you folks to come back to the city. And so we did. And this is pre-internet. And so happened to find out that Jimmy Buffett was doing a fundraiser for his kids school and we went and saw Jimmy Buffett with 150 people at a kids school fundraiser and took our daughter her very first concert and I have a picture of her us there. She actually got to meet Jimmy that night and so it was one of those. Took our daughter her very first concert and I have a picture of her us there. She actually got to meet Jimmy that night and so it was one of those really rare, very cool moments.
Speaker 2:All right. So everybody, just everybody some people have been watching this podcast knows what I'm about to say, but I get to get to tell Ron. Ron, what you don't know is that I am a diehard Parrothead. I didn't know that. I have been to see Jimmy Buffett, I think five or six times in concert. I'm definitely a bubbles up kind of guy and I've got pictures of all my kids doing fins to the left and fins to the right and I just want you to know that is awesome, because I would have loved to have been in that position. I think he's an incredible songwriter and I heard he's just an all-around neat person.
Speaker 2:I read a story recently about a lady that was in her 60s or 70s fishing on a pier in Florida and this guy comes up and sits down and says hey, do you mind if I fish with you? And she said sure, and he sits there and they just fish and talk for a while. He gets up and leaves. She ultimately gets up and leaves and she stops by the little concession stand on the way and she said the guy looked at her and said well, you must be famous too. And she said what are you talking about? And she said you're fishing with famous people. She said I don't know what you're talking about. That man just came and we just sat and talked.
Speaker 3:They said, well, that was jimmy buffett and what a great guy. So it's. And it tells you, good people don't need um, they don't need pomp and circumstance, they just want to be around other good people. And if you're surrounding yourself with those kind of people in your life, great things are going to happen.
Speaker 2:Amen to that. One of my board members, another one he's been to Wichita Falls several times. He spoke at Midwestern Cleo Franklin. Cleo has written several books, but one of the things Cleo and I always talk about that he shares with me is he said his grandfather told him he said Cleo, don't ever speak on the obvious. And he said game recognizes game. And so, to your point, don't have to talk about it. Trust me, game recognizes game.
Speaker 2:All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for stopping by for another episode of the Growing Our Future podcast. We know your time is precious and you gave us some today. We appreciate you stopping by. We appreciate this incredible platform. Who would have ever thought we'd have the technology where we could bring people like Ron and others on and just say share with us seeds of greatness that we can plant in our lives? That might help us along life's journey, and today Ron was willing to share that with us. As we say in the world of agriculture, if you want to know what the future is, grow it. Today was an opportunity to grab some more seeds of greatness, plant them and go out and do great things. Until we meet again, do something great for somebody else. You'll feel good about it. Guess what? Our world will be a better place to live, work and raise our children because of it. Thanks for stopping by.
Speaker 1:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast. This show is sponsored by the Texas FFA Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen agricultural science education so students can develop their potential for personal growth, career success and leadership in a global marketplace. Learn more at mytexasffaorg.
