The gratification you feel from making tangible progress while running is just about unparalleled, so I understand why people love it. But it's also hard, grueling work. Those feel-good benefits have to be earned four to five times a week.
I feel a little bit like a drill sergeant sometimes. Some elements of my personality, as a parent, I'm not real crazy about.
Without God, for me, I'm not the best version of myself.
I've learned that if I can convince myself to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, then I can run as far as I want to.
I believe we are built to have thriving personal lives, and I think we're built to have thriving professional lives. Where the error occurs is when one becomes secondary to the other.
I want my kids to date; I want them to go out. I just remember great experiences as a kid, you know? Driving your car for the first time, picking up a young lady on a date for the first time. All those were little milestones to some extent.
Though farm chores and construction work are the most physically demanding jobs that I currently do, they feel like recess to me. And there's something really beautiful about work that feels like play.
I have learned very quickly where my strengths are, and color coordination of particular things is not a strong suit.
I've gotten a little bit pompous. When I get out in public, I really notice myself looking at my reflections as a I walk though. New York is not a great place for me.
Getting up at four in the morning to tend the farm while the world is quiet - feeding animals, mucking stalls, gathering eggs, filling water troughs, checking fences, letting animals out into the field - is a high point to my day.
I don't listen to music when I run; I like the quiet. It gives me time to think about my family, our businesses, the farm - there's not much I don't think about, to be honest.
It probably would be wiser, from a time-management standpoint, if I hired a crew to take care of the farm so I could get a little more rest. But the thing is, when I start my morning out there, I'm more productive for the rest of the day.
When I was supposed to go to a certified kindergarten that's supposed to teach you actual things like how to read, I went to a daycare that my parents thought was a kindergarten. I was Crayola-ing inside the lines with no fundamental education at all. So I walked into the first grade with no formal education at all.
If you're talented and hardworking, great - good for you. You're gonna make it; you're gonna go places. But if you're talented and don't have the work element behind it, the guy that works harder is going to eventually outpace you and outrun you.
We do the impossible when we tell ourselves we can.
A job is something you do for money. Your life's work is done for a bigger purpose... And when you manage to find that work - that's when it starts feeling like play.
Capital was always the struggle. I always had these amazing visions. Had this amazing work ethic. Had this amazing work partner in my wife. But I was always struggling for capital. I owe a lot to local banks who were willing to take chances on Jo and I early in our career.
I've lived a real charmed life. I'm just one of those knuckleheads who literally can't remember a season of his life that he didn't enjoy. I was a happy kid.
Obviously, Jo and I, as a couple, we just don't want to redline. You know, we don't want to run so hard after some dream or some goal only to find out that we've neglected the thing that means the very most to us, which is our marriage and our relationship.
In my junior high and high school days, I would just pick up a mower and go mow the neighbor's grass and make an extra 30 bucks.
