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Like so many of us, I was born and raised on a ranch, growing up relatively remote from town, and civilization in general. In addition to ranch-living, I was homeschooled the entirety of my grade-school career, introducing another layer of isolation to my upbringing. 

My mother was very intentional about getting us involved in extracurriculars so our social skills wouldn’t be a complete loss. I was always involved in things like livestock judging, public speaking, church choir, and piano lessons. My brother played some baseball but I seemed to have missed the athleticism gene – the closest I got to team sports was competitive skeet shooting. It was a family affair and almost every Sunday you could find us spending up to 8 hours at the local trap and skeet club. I think back on those days with incredible fondness – those hours spent between the trap houses fostered many friendships and a lot of discipline. 

I hadn’t revisited that experience in quite some time until I was reading December’s RFP Bookshelf (our monthly book club for alumni) pick, Knowledge Rich Ranching by Allan Nation. Allan had drawn a comparison between skeet shooting and ranching. He had read an article somewhere about how in shotgun sports, you often have to “pull through” the target and pull the trigger while you’re out in front of it, if you expect to make contact. We call this “leading the target” – if you want to hit your target, you have to shoot at where it will be, not at where it is. Otherwise by the time the shot gets there, the target will be long gone. Allan describes how this struck him and how we should adopt that line of thinking in our businesses. 

I found myself dwelling on this little tidbit of the book. What did Allan mean? How could we “lead the target” in ranching? Was he alluding to staying wise to the cattle market, which earlier in the book he described in much detail including indicators of certain repeating trends? Or maybe he simply meant that we should always be looking forward and ahead. Maybe there’s a comparison to be drawn between leading the target in skeet, and leading the target in our goal setting – being far more ambitious than we are inclined to be, so that when we eventually achieve those goals we are really where we wanted to be after all. 

The more I thought about it, the more conclusions I drew as to how the analogy applied to ranching and business in general. Maybe it stuck with me because the analogy is something I know well – something tangible and logical. In our industry, and business in general, we are shooting for an ever-moving target. The nature of what we do means it can be difficult to pivot quickly when the target abruptly changes. To design our businesses to achieve beyond where or what we think the target is, is to be forward-thinking and risk resilient. Ranching for Profit hones in on this concept by teaching you to drive your business using the windshield rather than the rear view mirror. We always face forward and look ahead so that we can see the changes, both affecting our business from the outside or within. 

How are you “leading the target” in your business? Are you missing the mark by doing just enough to achieve your goals, instead of thinking bigger and aiming for more? What could it mean for you to look at the target – and then beyond, and then maybe even a little bit further still? 

I encourage you to join us in the RFP Bookshelf on the Ranching for Profit Network every month for networking with alumni and thought provoking discussions. You never know when something just might strike you and lead to change in your business.

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