Seeds Are Slow
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Seeds Are Slow
Tim Reed
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Almost anything in life that’s worth having or doing is slow.
The farmer who works the ground day after day knows this better than anyone. If we want to produce something of substance with what we’ve been given, we must apply the same diligence over time—a long time.
At the end of the day, business leaders are all stewards of limited resources.
You only have so much time, energy, personnel, and money—and there has to be a return on the investment you’re making, or else the fields go fallow.
And your entire responsibility as a leader is to use those resources well so there’s abundance when the harvest comes.
But one of the temptations that we all face is to spend our resources on trying to speed up the harvest, rather than working to make the harvest as plentiful as possible—come when it may.
Nothing compares to the taste of the small strawberry that’s ripened in its own time.
And these two drastically different mindsets lead to two vastly different outcomes.
The wisdom of our age says that the fool waits for the harvest while the rich man makes the harvest. Gone are the days of cultivating, watering, and waiting. With today’s technology, we can inject our crops with chemicals to pump them bigger than ever. Then we pick them earlier, ship them faster, and continue the cycle until private equity offers a fat multiplier to retire on.
But the astute farmer knows that the harvest can’t be sped up—and any attempt to do so will sacrifice the quality of the crop. Sure, you can buy big, bloated, half-green strawberries at the supermarket that taste okay—but nothing compares to the taste of the small strawberry that’s ripened in its own time.
While no amount of work we do will hasten the harvest to come, our work can—and will—make a tangible difference in its abundance when it arrives.
This means that we don’t look for shortcuts to alter the weather cycles. Instead, we find tools and innovations to help cultivate the ground and water it more consistently. We invest in technology to support and extend the work that the people in our business are already doing so it can become more fruitful. We work to make the small things better—because when the small things get better, the big things get better.
So, where are you investing the resources you’ve been given?
Are you chasing bloat and vanity—pumping it bigger and picking it earlier? Robbing Peter to pay Paul so you can scale. Inflating your ego by rubbing shoulders with other titans of business who no longer wait for the harvest. And stuffing the still small voice that wonders why none of it brings fulfillment.
All that’s required is faithfulness day in and day out.
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Or are you preparing for the harvest—taking the limited resources you have and using them to till the soil, plant the seed, and water it faithfully? Trusting that doing the right things again and again, slowly over time, will provide the prosperity that you need. And believing that life isn’t found in the pursuit of speed, growth, or scale, but in the way we steward the work—and the people—we’ve been given.
The enemy isn’t gain, possessions, or influence. These things come with the harvest.
The enemy—and ever-looming temptation—is to believe that we can control the day and the season if we just strive hard enough. But all that does is waste the precious resources we’ve been given and leave us lacking when the harvest finally arrives.
So as this year’s burn season approaches, stand firm. Keep going. Sleep well at night knowing that you’ve done what you can do for the day, and nothing else is required. All that’s required is faithfulness day in and day out—to make your fields ready for an abundant harvest.
Because it’s coming.
And the wise farmer prepares for it.
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Tim Reed
Tim Reed is the president of WhyFire, where he helps business leaders in the hearth industry take control of their companies by providing them with sales tools to save time and make money. He’s also the host of The Fire Time Podcast, which is actively helping thousands of people grow themselves—and their companies.
