I have a quick word of advice to the young cotton farmer.

In short: What you are looking for requires time and patience.

My point here could be advice for the young anything, if you want to know the truth.

Take a deep breath and understand this: The key to mastering all skills is found in time and patience.

If success were easy, everyone would do it. It takes effort. That fact works to your advantage because it keeps lazy people out of the game.

-Scott Adams, How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big

This is the same in cotton farming. No one is born better at it than anyone else.

Because prodigy is a myth.

Now that is not to say that others can’t have better water, or better weather, or more money, or whatever. 

But instead of worrying about what you can’t control, what if you focused on what you could control.

What if you resolved to get a little bit better each year?

• What if this year you took an economics class or studied for your Series 3 exam to better understand the markets?
• What if the year after that you took a soil class?
• What if in year three you went without that new truck and invested it back into your farm?

See, success looks a lot more like laying bricks than it does winning the lottery.

In fact, I think, you should quit worrying about that big break entirely.

We love to praise the “Big Break,” that wonderful moment when the stars align and serendipity visits you, making you an instant success. We wait for such moments, even long for them. But here’s the truth: the Big Break is a myth.

-Jeff Goins, Real Artists Don’t Starve

The truth is, there is no new app or system that is going to suddenly solve all of your problems.

A vocation is a long game – and focusing on the short term is not going to get you where you want to go.

Like I already said, the only thing that will work is a work ethic grounded in time and patience.

Do not forget the power in persisting, in doing a little bit better than most, for a little bit longer than most.

After all, every day that you keep going is one more day that someone else gave up.

Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.

–Seth Godin, The Dip

You can do it.

We’re all waiting to see what you are made of.

This post was first published by CottonGrower.com.