The first step

The first step in growing your business and yourself is the hardest.

Maybe you are one of those creative ideas people. Some of those ideas would fall into the now trendy category of ‘side hustle’. Maybe you dream of adding value to the high-quality milk you produce, or using that old barn for something cool. Maybe you dream of starting your own company because you can paint, or are really great at accounting, or the town really needs a good café, and you can cook! New ideas run through your head each and every day, but you have convinced yourself they are silly and that “it would never work.”

Maybe you are a planner who loves creating a strategy to take one good idea to completion. You have been working the numbers on a singular dream for months or years. Or your creative partner has lots of dreams, but there is one that has potential. You have been daydreaming about how you could adjust your assets or workforce to make it work. Maybe you see this new business as an excellent way to bring in the next generation. You are the planner, the one who thinks through the details, and you think it can work.

Maybe you are blessed to have a little of both dreamer and planner in you.

No matter who you are, there is a barrier. Ok, there are many barriers. But there is just one that holds us all back, no matter our skill, energy, or know-how. The first step.

That is one thing the women on these pages have in common. They started. It’s the same with Dairy Girl Network. There was a good idea, and we took the first step. Now we are incredibly proud to have a small part in many dairywomen taking their first tiny step forward, no matter the pursuit. I realize there is no time or money. I know this first step might be so small that no one else will see it. But you will know, and that will make all the difference.

"What you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." -Goethe