Where Do Anger and Peace Fit into an Ag Legacy?

An•ger /’ aNGger/ noun A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. (Oxford Languages, n.d.) What is anger? Psychology Today describes anger as one of the basic human emotions, as elemental as happiness, sadness, anxiety, or disgust. Anger is related to the fight, flight, or freeze response of the nervous system; it prepares humans to fight. But fighting doesn’t necessarily mean throwing punches; it might mean motivating persons to combat injustice by changing laws or enforcing new behavioral norms. Anger: Three Kinds Your Life Counts outlines three types of anger that help shape how we react in a situation that makes us angry. These are Passive Aggression, Open Aggression, and Assertive Anger: Passive Aggression Many of us do not like to admit that we are angry, because we don’t like confrontation—this is called passive aggression. This comes out in behaviors like becoming silent when you are angry, sulking, procrastinating, and pretending everything is fine. Open Aggression This occurs when a person responds by lashing out, becoming physically or verbally aggressive, and potentially hurting themselves or others. This response is shown by fighting, bullying, blackmailing, accusing, shouting, bickering, sarcasm, and criticism. Assertive Anger The healthy way to deal with anger is through a controlled and confident approach, talking and listening, and being open to help in dealing with the situation. This assertive anger can help relationships to grow. It means thinking before you speak, being confident in how you say it, yet open and flexible to the other side. It means being patient, not raising your voice, communicating how you are feeling emotionally, and really trying to understand what others are feeling. When you deal with anger assertively, you demonstrate that you are mature and care about your relationships and yourself. Why Anger? We might reasonably ask: Why do we need anger? Ryan Martin, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay says, “Anger is associated with a bunch of consequences, everything from physical aggression and physical fights, verbal fights, property damage, cardiovascular disorders, other negative emotions, and substance abuse problems.” When people experience anger in great intensity too often, they are also likely to experience interpersonal or physiological problems. Many people misunderstand anger. It is this built-in emotion, much like sadness, much like fear, and much like a lot of our other emotions, it’s something that is universal. Through his conversations with people about their anger, Martin has learned that many people see anger as a problem. Anger may interfere in our life, it can damage relationships, it may even be scary. Martin describes anger a little differently: “Anger is a powerful and healthy force in your life. It’s good that you feel it. You need to feel it.” People can do all sorts of things when they’re angry. We also know that anger can be a motivator that encourages people to act in positive, prosocial ways. It really exists in us to alert us to an injustice and then to energize us to respond to that injustice. Although we tend to think of anger as an irrational response and that people who get angry are unhinged, we should keep in mind that we also need it. Martin relates that anger tells us when something feels wrong, unjust, or unfair. Emotions exist in us to alert us to things: sadness, which also feels bad in the moment, alerts us to loss; fear, which can also feel bad in the moment, alerts us to danger; and anger alerts us to injustice. Anger Has Meaning We should understand that if we are angry, it must mean something. If we consider the basic reasons why we get angry, one of the most basic reasons is that our goals are blocked. Achieving goals is important to human beings. We can think of anger as one of the mechanisms that allows us to power through those frustrations and obtain our goal. Martin also suggests that if we think about situations where we are likely to become angry, we can tease out some common themes. For example, we get angry in situations that are unpleasant, that feel unfair, where our goals are blocked, circumstances that could have been avoided and that leave us feeling powerless. But you can also tell that anger is probably not the only thing we’re feeling in these situations. It is important to note that anger doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We can feel angry at the same time that we’re feeling scared or sad or feeling a host of other emotions. Perhaps most interesting, when we study this further, we discover that these provocations are not making us mad—at least, not on their own. We know this, because if they were, we would all get angry over the same things, but we don’t. The reasons I get angry are different from the reasons you get angry, so there must be something else going on. That something else is how we interpret the provocation. Interpreting Anger The next question we might ask ourselves is, “What should we do when we start to recognize ourselves responding to a provocation?” How should we respond? Martin encourages people to search for insight to gain the upper hand in these situations. When you notice what’s happening to you, think about why it’s happening. Oftentimes, people will externalize that. They’ll blame the provocation saying, “Well, this thing is making me mad.” That’s good as a start. The next step should be to ask, “How am I interpreting the thing?” Is that making it worse? That is the level where we can often identify the factors that are leading us to blow things up into a much bigger situation—maybe we’re being too demanding or maybe we’ve labeled a person in a way that’s unfair. Once we’ve established how we are interpreting a situation, then we can begin to move forward with an intentional goal of deciding what we want to do with it. We might decide that now is not a good time for me to

Tensions of Farm Succession

Farm succession is more than the technical details of legally transferring the ownership of assets and tax management. Farm succession can be messy because it involves people rather than just assets, and people have different emotions, different values, and different goals. These emotions, values, and goals can cause tensions among farm and family members. Powering through the technical process of succession without acknowledging and addressing the tensions in your situation will give you a plan, but how long will it last when the tensions build to a breaking point? It is normal to have tensions around farm succession. As noted, it can be emotional, and for many, change is something to be avoided. Normalizing the fact that there will be tensions and taking the time to consider your farm’s tensions can set the farm on the path to a more resilient succession plan. It’s better to have awkward and necessary conversations now rather than later. The Five Areas of Farm Tensions In 2009, researchers in Pennsylvania interviewed farm family members who were in various stages of succession planning. From these interviews, they concluded that there were five tensions present in these conversations. Similar tensions were found from focus group research conducted in 2017 in Wisconsin. While your farm may have unique tensions, there are five common areas/topics where tensions arise around farm succession: Finances Communication Inheritance Change Control Finances In the Pennsylvania study, this was referred to as “profit versus affordability.” In Wisconsin it was described as the competing financial needs between the generations. Both research studies noted that increasing land values coupled with tighter profit margins make this one of the more common tensions. When farms are managed by one person, couple, or generation, financial recordkeeping and analysis may focus on tax document preparation and numbers to support loan requests. However, when bringing another person, family, or generation into consideration, more comprehensive financial analysis provides a place for necessary conversations around the past performance of the business and the capacity of the farm to support more people. If analysis of the past 3 to 5 years indicates the farm has adequate capacity and performance, the questions around this area of tension tend to fall into these two potentially conflicting categories: What does the owner generation need/want for the assets? What can the successor generation and the farm afford to pay for the assets? Communication In both the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin studies, farmers recognized the need for clear conversations around succession planning. Unfortunately, many farms rely instead on assumptions. In Wisconsin, the word used most to describe tension about communication was “transparency,” especially around income/finances, roles/responsibilities, and decision-making.If the succession is between parent and child, both generations must work to break any unhelpful communication patterns. The other tension under the communication category was “starting the conversation.” A surprising number of farm families do not have intentional conversations when a family member returns to the farm to work. At a minimum, farm members should discuss the job description, the compensation, and the possible pathways to eventual management and ownership for the incoming generation. These conversations happen more often when the incoming person is not related! Inheritance This tension concerns the following question: Should the distribution of assets at the owner generation’s deaths be equal or fair among the heirs? This is one of the most common questions farms must answer. Inheritance can symbolize love, trust, and competence. If most of the owner generation’s net worth is in farm assets that are needed for the farm to continue, equal distribution can put the future of the business at risk if the non-farming heirs want the value of the assets immediately. Recent research from Oklahoma State University (OSU) used a representative farm model to analyze options to transfer ownership to an on-farm heir while considering inheritance distribution with an off-farm heir. The OSU research indicates that unequal distributions improve the likelihood of transferring the business and of the business reaching basic success milestones over a 20-year period. Equal distribution of farm assets stems from the desire to treat all children fairly, not considering that the children’s contributions to the business can vary after they become adults. This is an example of family goals and values influencing business decisions to the detriment of the long-term viability of the farm. And this fairness value can be in direct conflict with another common farm family value: legacy. Change The Pennsylvania researchers described this as “progress versus continuity.” The owner generation sees no reason to make changes to the operation (continuity), and the successor generation wants to put their education, experience, and management skills to work in the hopes of making a positive mark on the business (progress). The challenge in this tension is that the owner generation may take the suggested changes from the successor generation as judgment. The owner generation hears: “You’ve been doing it wrong all these years.” While in some cases that is exactly what the successor generation means, many more times it is not the intention. The successor generation is eager to show their value and see the business move forward. If the owner generation has gotten the farm to a place where a succession plan can be considered, they’ve made some right decisions along the way. The successor generation would be wise to consider this and acknowledge this fact. On the other hand, the decisions the owner generation made were made in the past, and now the successor generation may have a completely different “set of facts,” such as the economy, markets, and environmental regulations. The farm and family members may want to define continuity less in the way things get done, but more broadly in the facts that the farm continues to be a farm, or the land continues to be in family ownership, if those are important goals they’ve identified. And progress may be the path to reaching those goals. Control This was described as “retaining versus letting go of control” in the Pennsylvania study. Insisting on keeping

Work Life Balance

We just finished our farmers’ market season. We are ready for a break. A break from extra early Saturday mornings and my husband working every night restocking the market trailer after working outside on the farm all day. I often spend evenings entering inventory or writing the newsletter. Therefore, the title of an old article I ran across struck me as important and something we could use a refresher course on. The article was about work life balance. It’s hard for those of us that come from what I refer to workaholic families. The unspoken rule was the more work you do the better. Family vacations could be counted on one hand with fingers left. This is not a good habit nor is never leaving the farm something to be proud of. Let me share what I learned from the article Robert Milligan of Dairy Strategies LLC wrote. Robert suggested four reasons for working “too” much. Our financial status doesn’t allow opportunity to hire sufficient labor to enable us to work reasonable hours. No one else is capable of doing the work we do. Time working is more urgent, even though not more important. There is nothing important to do in non-work time. The first reason is a challenge for many, but it’s also used to justify the next two reasons. The last reason often happens because while we’re young and able to handle all the physical labor farming requires. We don’t realize the need for hobbies and off farm activities. Sometimes we must force ourselves to get off the farm to develop other interests and nurture hobbies. It’s important to do so in order to develop interests before we don’t have other things to pursue when we need to slow down because our bodies can’t keep up with farming or it’s time to transition the farm. Those of us who work too much believe subconsciously or consciously, or unintentionally or intentionally that we are the only ones that can do the job right. We need to get past this challenge. Here are four suggestions we can learn from: Make Life Balance a Priority Steve Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Successful People) developed a four-quadrant rectangle, which included: 1. Quadrant of crisis, the goal is to reduce the time spent on these items. 2. Quadrant of Quality, the goal to expand the time spent on these items. It includes everything important but not currently urgent. The quadrant includes many work activities such as leadership, management, training, coaching, and professional development. It also includes much of our personal/family time. Two other quadrants include: 3. Quadrant of Deception and 4. Quadrant of Waste. This is where unimportant activities are located. Items we are doing that do not have value or are wasteful of our time. These can be eliminated. Success requires expanding the time available for Quadrant 2 activities. This is done by making these items a priority, by setting aside time in our schedule for these things. The first step is the hardest, start small and expand the time little by little. Remembering time management is not about time but about priorities. Plan for Life Balance We need to be off work at 5 pm to meet family obligations or evening meal but always work an extra hour or more because there are always uncompleted tasks that need to be completed. Many of us do that, we work too much because we don’t have a plan to do otherwise. Some ideas to help in this instance are: Outline what needs done. Determine what can reasonably be done in the time available. Complete high priority tasks only we can do first, even if they are tasks we tend to avoid. Delegate tasks to others. Become more efficient with work time. Train Others to Complete Some of Your Tasks Employee management, failing to recognize employee capabilities can be a huge area potential loss on a farm. Sharing responsibilities spreads the burden of tasks to be completed over a larger group of people. Stop focusing on the weaknesses of employees and look for the strengths and potential. Based on employee strengths and potential, select one task you currently do that one or more employees can successfully complete. Develop a plan: Create employee(s) excitement for the task Provide required training Establish performance expectations Coach and provide feedback, including comparing actual and expected performance expectations. When the employee is successfully managing the task, select another task to transfer from our task list. Not only are we freeing up more time for Quadrant 2 activities, including personal time, but we are also increasing productivity and job satisfaction of our employees as we trust them with the activities. Enhanced Personal Efficiency Sometimes stepping away from an activity is the best way to become refreshed to return and accomplish what needs to be done. While working through long days and nights without a break creates burnout. Failing work life balance also creates a very inefficient work style. The next time we just can’t go anymore get off the farm and do something, anything to create more work life balance. We will come back to the task refreshed and renewed, even if it’s a short break. Good work life balance makes a person more efficient at work and happier in life. It’s like a lot of things we know we should do but often don’t take time. Its time work on creating a better balance for the sake of our family, our farm and ourselves.   

Financial Stress

Financial stress can be a major factor when running and growing your farm.

Time Management Stress

I don’t know about you, but the very sound of that title gives me stress.  The thought of scheduling and planning my time makes me feel inadequate and anxious.  While I tend to be an organized person by nature, I am also a multi-tasker, procrastinator and one who struggles with ADD – all of these wreak havoc on a Time Management Plan.  So, while Time Management is exactly what I need – I have struggled to follow the plans that I develop.  Keep It Simple Years and years of stress from lack of planning my time have made me more vigilant about being intentional in this area.  The one thing I have learned over the years, that I feel applies to any new habit or practice we are trying to implement in our lives is – keep it simple.  Don’t pick a 20 step Time Management Plan where you’ll be managing every minute of every day.  Start by focusing on one area that you can implement fairly easily and be consistent with for a couple months, then add in another area. For example, maybe one of your areas of stress is meal preparation and all that goes into it – including meal planning, getting the groceries, and the actual preparation.  One thing I implemented when my children were younger and all still at home, I took Sunday afternoons to pick my meals for the coming week (many times incorporating my children into the planning process) and make a list of needed food.  I would post the meals for the coming week on the fridge so that everyone knew the options for that week.  I did not go grocery shopping that day – I just planned.  I would shop on Monday morning when there were far less people in the stores than over the weekend – which also made shopping less stressful for me.  The planning process, even though I dreaded it many weeks, became my saving grace.  I found that I didn’t stress or worry about what was for dinner or whether I would have enough ingredients for my meals or not.  Instead, it brought a sense of calm consistency for not just me, but the kids as well because they knew what was planned.  I did not stick to a rigid daily meal plan – just picked 5 meals for the week and sometimes we decided that morning which of the meals on the list we were in the mood for, or which ones would work with doctors’ appointments, sports schedules and church.  Another example might be laundry or other household chores.  I learned a great tip from my grandma while growing up – her generation (or maybe it was just her) did certain chores on certain days.  For example – Monday was laundry day, Tuesday was ironing day, Wednesday was dusting/vacuuming day, Thursday was bathroom day and Friday was baking day.  I implemented a similar plan when my kids were too little to help much with the chores.  The house stayed cleaner overall because I didn’t wait until Saturday to do all the cleaning.  Leaving it all until Saturday can be overwhelming and sometimes doesn’t get done because there are other activities and places you want to go on the weekend. Before you start implementing any new Time Management strategies, evaluate your situation. What works best for your family, as well as your priorities and/or goals that you’d like to obtain as a result of being a better time manager.  Prioritize Here are just a few things that have helped me over the years and things I still use at the beginning of each year.  While I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, I evaluate my roles, responsibilities and commitments at the beginning of each year.  They tend to change over the course of a year of two. I like to make sure my priorities are still in order and that I am not so over committed that my family, my home or my job suffer in any way.  When you are going to implement any new habit or practice into your life you must first be honest about where you currently are, where you would like to be and how you are going to get there.  Be intentional.  Take at least 30 minutes to an hour of uninterrupted time to make a list of your priorities as well as all the things that cause you stress. Identify your priorities. Ask yourself – What are the things in my life that are the most important to me?  Ex: Marriage, Children, Grandchildren, House, Pets, Career, Community and/or Church Involvement, Health, etc. Identify your stressors. Big things or little. From finances, job situation, or caregiving, to the things like making dinner or paying bills.  (Keeping a notepad with you for a week or two and writing down every time you feel stressed, what you were doing at the time and why it stresses you will help you more clearly see your triggers.) Prioritize these lists. Rank them from most important to least important and from most stressful to least stressful.  Focus on what you can change/impact. Separate into two categories – controllable vs uncontrollable.  Some things are beyond our sphere of influence or ability to change – we aren’t going to focus on those here as we can’t change them.  However, many times, our stress can be linked to poor planning of our time and/or over committing by saying yes to too many things and always feeling pulled in every direction. We will focus our efforts on the items on these lists that we can control and change.   Once you have your lists prioritized.  Ask yourself if there is one area that seems to cause the most stress.  Can I implement a Time Management technique that would help alleviate some of the stress associated with this area? Do I need outside help or accountability to stick to the plan? Do I need to step down from some committees, clubs