It Builds Character
By Karl Wiggers
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation
I’m sitting on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner en route to New Orleans, by way of Tokyo and Houston. It’s a long trip home. The flight to Tokyo from Bangkok is around 6 or 7 hours. The next leg is twice as long. Add in a few hours for customs and layovers and yet, somehow, we’ll land around sunset on the same day.
This morning as I was sleep-walking through Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, I was trying to explain all of that to my wife, Brittany. As I explained the day ahead, I know she was thinking, ‘Thank God I didn’t go on this trip,’ because she hates to fly. My mind wondered to my quippy response to things that are maybe less than ideal — it builds character. I apply that to a lot; a speeding ticket, tough work assignments, difficult people, doing laundry — I think it fits everywhere.
As I look back on this trip, and my entire time in the LSU Ag Leadership program, I believe it has never fit better than now.
Day one of our first seminar in Baton Rouge finished with an afternoon taking the Meyers-Briggs personality assessment and discussing your results with a room full of people you met that morning. Most of us had to step out of our comfort zones, but it was the start of 2 years of continually stepping out and growing…maybe even building character.
Today’s long flight is only another step in that direction. As I look through all of the pictures we’ve taken on this trip (3,543 between Neil and I), I kind of shake my head in disbelief. We’ve gotten to experience some incredible things. Leaving the country in the first place is a great privilege.
Let me just list some of the places we visited.
In Tokyo
A world famous fish market known to sell tuna for millions of dollars.
A wholesale fruit and vegetable market that sells 3,600 tons of produce every day.
The U.S. Embassy
Multiple ancient temples
The Imperial Palace
A major Zen-Noh import shipping facility
Japan’s largest cattle farm
A hydroponic strawberry farm
In Thailand
A feed mill that processes the soybeans we grow in the States
A shrimp farm (like our catfish farms) where that feed is used
More incredible temples and palaces
A sugarcane research station
The world’s largest sugar mill and a nearby farm
A rice research station and rice farm
A small private rice mill
A Texas-sized feed lot and cattle ranch
A top-of-the-line spinning mill where bales of U.S. cotton is turned into yarn
The number of things we were able to see in the short time we were in these two countries is mind-boggling. There were long days with longer bus rides, but the experience is one we will all remember for a long time.
Multiple classmates have made the comment that this trip was the trip of a lifetime. I, too, would say that. It built character in us as a class, as friends, and as individuals.
As we travel home, we close the book on this experience. The chapter for us as leaders is opening. I can say with confidence that this trip is a launching point for many in our class to step out and be even greater leaders in the industry that brings us together.
Our class has bankers, scientists, farmers, ranchers, ag retail guys, and there’s also me — a public relations guy trying to tell the story of every one of those men and women. The common thread is the farm. For some that’s a sugarcane farm south of I-10. For others, it’s every acre they serve with the latest research in weed science. Its a great industry to be connected to, and with the completion of our class in this program, it will be stronger tomorrow than it is today — and that’s exciting.
For those at home ready to see us, we’re ready to see you too. Thanks for following our trip on this blog and looking at the pictures we’ve posted. I look forward to our episode of TWILA that’s on its way. I think it’s going to be one for the books. I pray it will be one that will make Mike Danna smile as he looks down on our class and this program he loved so much.
See y’all in the states.