OFI 897: Understand Contentment Like A High School Student | FFA SAE Edition | Devin Caselman | Laclede County High School FFA

Off-Farm Income

SHOW NOTES INTRODUCING DEVIN CASELMAN! I am 47 years old at the time of this writing. I am also highly motivated and see copious amounts of opportunity in my future by being an entrepreneur. But, I haven't always been this way. There was a time when life had really beat me up, and it seemed like I was locked into one job and one type of lifestyle for the next 20 years. Eventually, entrepreneurship rescued me from this outlook on life and that enthusiasm and motivation returned. However, after 7 years as a full-time entrepreneur that could slip away again. In my case it never has, and why that has never happened is worth exploring. While I was interviewing today's guest, Devin Caselman, it dawned on me why my perspective stays so fresh. It is because I get to speak with students like him twice per week, all year long. Devin is very busy, and he is a hard worker. However, he has the freshness of youth to frame his perspective, and all of us adults could learn a lot from him. In the interview Devin and I talk primarily about him raising cattle and mowing lawns in his community. Devin told me that he enjoys mowing lawns so much that sometimes he just does it for free. He loves to take a shaggy, out of shape lawn and turn it into something beautiful. He told me that he will sometimes stop and look at his work for so long that his dad will check on him to make sure he is alright. Devin had the same thoughts on raising livestock, and specifically cattle. We talked about turning cattle out onto fresh pasture and just sitting and watching them eat for hours. Listening to them rip the grass, ball lowly at their calf or just work their way through a paddock lowers your heart rate and puts you at peace. Devin is very content in what he does for work and for his own business. He puts the pleasure he gets from his work ahead of the money he receives. All of us adults could learn something from him when it comes to contentment. He is at an age and stage of life that he can pick work based on how it makes him feel, not how much "it makes him". In this way, work doesn't feel like drudgery. So many of us adults develop a lifestyle that commands a certain type of job or certain salary. And then we get stuck into a job that does not provide us with contentment and soon feel burnt out with going to work that feels like a burden. We should all take a lesson from Devin and adjust our lifestyles to match the work we enjoy rather than adjusting our work to the lifestyles that we have created. SUPERVISED AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE: Cattle Production, Turf Grass Management HIGH SCHOOL: Laclede County High School; Conway, Missouri MASCOT: Bears FFA ADVISOR: Mary Ann Keck CONTACT INFORMATION FOR DEVIN CASELMAN: Click on the picture below to be taken to the Laclede County High School Ag. Department's website: Devin's FFA Advisor's Email Address: [e-mail] Laclede High School's Telephone Number: [phone] FFA LINKS: National FFA Organization Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE's) Support FFA Donate to FFA - One way that FFA students are able to start small businesses is through an FFA grant of $1,000. In 2014, 141 FFA students received these grants. With your donations, more students can get this head start - pay it forward. REASONS TO DONATE TO FFA: Only 2% of Americans grow and raise most of the food and livestock consumed by the other 98% as well as the rest of the world. FFA is providing the needed education, training and resources to Americans that will carry that torch forward and insure that America continues to have inexpensive, quality food. Rural Communities will rely on entrepreneurship in the future for population growth and job creation. The FFA is a major catalyst to that entrepreneurial growth. Farmers, ranchers and those working in agriculture give the rest of America incredible amounts of freedom because the search for food is as simpl...