Resiliency in the Midst of Change: Grit - Passion and Perseverance in Agriculture

Resilience in agriculture often starts with grit.

The times, they are a-changin’. That has never been truer in agriculture than it is right now.

As a family business advisor, I spend a lot of time with farm families across the Midwest and Northeast.

I sit at kitchen tables.

I walk through barns.

I listen carefully as families talk about their businesses, their relationships, and the decisions before them.

One thing becomes clear very quickly. The farms that weather change best are those built on resilience. For me, resiliency often starts with one trait: grit.

"Resilient farms are not built on luck. They are built on grit."

What Grit Really Means

In the book Grit, Dr. Angela Duckworth describes grit as the combination of passion and perseverance. Both of those qualities show up everywhere in agriculture.

Passion is easy to recognize. You can see it in the way someone talks about their cows, their crops, their soil, or the next generation coming up behind them.

For me, passion is captured in a single photo.

Everything I’m passionate about in one picture.

Passion Is Personal

My kids were little. Julia was about four, and Nathan was about eight. They were wearing swimsuits and barn boots, getting ready to swim in a cattle tank. Behind them were cows and green grass.

Everything I cared about was in that one image.I wanted to farm so I could raise my kids on the farm the way I was raised.

That was my passion.

Your passion might look different. It might be genetics, soil health, independence, family legacy, or the challenge of building something better year after year. Whatever the reason, passion is often a shortcut to your values.

Perseverance With Purpose

The second half of grit is perseverance. When I explain perseverance, I often talk about two swimmers.

One is Dory from Finding Nemo. Her advice is simple: just keep swimming. Sometimes perseverance looks like exactly that. You put one foot in front of the other and keep moving.

But perseverance can also be more intentional.

Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky is a great example. There is a home video of her as a kid practicing in the pool. She swims a few strokes, stops to rest, then swims again. When she climbs out, she tells her dad, “That was so hard, but it was great.”

What she was doing was pushing her limits a little each time she got into the pool.

"Grit is not just continuing. It is continuing with intention."

In Conclusion

The resilient farmers I work with do the same thing.

They keep moving forward, but they also ask an important question along the way.

How can I get better?

In times of change, grit matters more than ever. Passion keeps us grounded in the why behind this work. Perseverance keeps us moving forward when the path gets difficult.

Both are essential to agricultural resilience.

Ready to build a more resilient farm or family business?

Let’s start with a conversation. Whether you’re navigating change, thinking about transition, or simply trying to move forward with more clarity, I’m here to help you take the next step with intention.

Reach out today to begin the conversation.