Agribusiness Leadership provides the necessary tools to unveil the fundamental principles of
Empowered Leaders that Trust themselves and the relationships they lead and leaders who are curious to discover who they are and who they lead.
Today I walked into a field of canola. If you’ve ever tried walking through a thick canola crop, you know it isn’t exactly easy. The plants grab at you. Every step takes effort. You push forward, make a little progress, and pretty soon you start wondering if it’s worth continuing.
Today, I didn’t get very far before I quit. And as I stood there looking at the path I had made, I thought about how much that can feel like life. Sometimes pressure feels like walking through canola. You know there is somewhere you want to go. You might even be able to see it. But everything between here and there feels hard. Work. Family. Expectations. Money. Relationships. Decisions. The future.
It can all start grabbing at us. And when enough of it does, sometimes we stop, because the destination doesn’t matter anymore. But because we become so focused on how difficult the path feels that we forget to ask one important question:
What’s possible?
Looking back at that canola, something else stood out to me. Even though I didn’t get very far, I had made a path. There was now space where there hadn’t been space before. I think that’s what learning to manage pressure can do for us.
We don’t have to solve everything today. We don’t have to control the weather, the markets, our employees, our families or what somebody else thinks of us. But we can create a little space.
Space to think, to choose, to respond differently. And that’s where my four R’s come in.
What is actually happening right now? What am I feeling? What am I carrying? What is mine to control—and what isn’t? Recognition is simply noticing the canola around you instead of blindly fighting your way through it.
This is where I come back to the question:
What else is possible?
Maybe the situation hasn’t changed. But could I see it differently? Could there be another explanation? Another conversation? Another choice? Another path? Pressure has a way of narrowing our view. Reframing helps us widen it again.
Now I get to choose. Not react.
Respond.
This is the intentional piece. Who do I want to be in this moment? What response moves me toward the person, leader, partner, parent or friend I want to be?
Sometimes the response is a conversation. Sometimes it’s taking action, it’s letting something good or it’s simply taking one more step.
What happened? What worked? What did I learn?
Where did I handle pressure differently than I would have six months ago? Reflection isn’t about beating ourselves up for where we stopped. It’s about looking back at the path we’ve already made.
That’s what I keep coming back to. Living and leading differently doesn’t happen because one day we suddenly figure everything out.
It happens through intentional moments. Recognize, Reframe, Respond, Reflect.
Then do it again.
The Pressure Reset I’ve created is built around conversations like these—not someone telling you how to live your life, but creating the space to explore what is happening, how you’re responding and what else might be possible.
Because sometimes when you’re standing in the middle of the canola, all you can see is canola. A conversation can help you see the path.
