April 2017 – Letters From Lisa

When I think of a harness, I immediately start thinking about a horse. You all know that I love horses (if you didn’t, now you do), and I would say my love is really a passion. Today I feed and clean a stall of a retired champion show horse that is 27. I can’t ride him any more, he’s just a pet. But, I feed him dressed for work, so I regularly go to work with hay hanging from something. I clean the stall at the crack of dawn to get it done before other duties call, and during the week I pay someone to clean for me. If you are like my family, you are asking, “Why does she do this????”

Passion is what inspires you and what gives you the drive to move forward. It gives you a reason to get up, get going and climb into bed excited for it to be morning so you can do it all over again. It’s that adrenaline pump that wakes you up in the middle of the night with a vast idea — one that will be the next (insert something big here).

Based on this definition I would say Tubby is my passion. I carry that passion around with me every day. I only have one thing on my bucket list, and that is to show a horse again. Although I am starting to realize this might not happen, it drives me every day. I feel the same way about BioZyme® and the work I do for it.

“Passion is not something you go after as an end in itself. It’s rather a symptom of your engagement with anything into which you are fully immersed. It’s also not something you usually know you have. Others notice your full involvement with something and they call it ‘passion’. I just call it doing what I feel like doing.” – David Allen, the originator of the book Getting Things Done

So, should one try to harness passion? My family has routinely tried to convince me that I do. My answer is I don’t. Passion shows up in many shapes and forms and you just don’t get to be passionate about one thing or one aspect of life or work. So any kind of harnessing, in my opinion, would be dumb. However, balancing your passion with those around you, your pocketbook and your commitments is not dumb.

I am very passionate about the value of our additives in this new antibiotic-free world, and I believe we will be a leader in developing even more science and products to help animals thrive; however, I don’t only read, meet and think about that. While we are investing money into this exciting, potentially life-changing opportunity, we aren’t going out on a limb financially to do it. We are still working on our commitments to impact the lives of our family (yes you) positively through marketing, programs and support at the same time.

Remember, passion is like chocolate cake, it is amazing, but you can’t survive on it alone. You must know when to give passion a break and bring in reason. Passion slams the gas; reason steers us safely. Passion throws us out of an airplane; reason pulls the parachute cord.

 

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