MCA President’s Perspective

Your Bucket

How full is your bucket? Each of us has an invisible bucket. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When it is empty, we feel awful. Every moment matters. This was the message in the children’s book How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer, which our youngest granddaughter read this week to me via facetime as we share our love for reading regularly.

I love when books give wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. I began to ponder on my bucket. Do my interactions each day fill or empty my bucket? More importantly, do my words and deeds fill or empty those buckets of people I am around?

In the beef industry and our association, daily we are provided with opportunities to be a positive bucket filler. By joining our grassroots organization, you are showing your commitment to beef producers in Missouri and investing in the future direction of our industry. Each time we interact, post on social media, or correspond with a member, our interaction has an effect far past that one member. Ultimately, when we become engaged and know the value of the association, we want every cattle producer to be a part of the positive impact to promote our product and protect our rights in the beef industry. Membership retention and membership recruitment is key to fill our association bucket. The moving force behind policy change for the beef industry are the association’s advocates who are sharing personal experiences with legislators at the local, state, and national levels. Through emails, phone calls, letters to the editor, press events, and face-to-face meetings with decision makers, MCA members are directly influencing policy which will impact the livelihoods for cattle producers today, tomorrow, and in the future. Making your voice heard is crucial to our association bucket.

As you ponder on your bucket as well as the association’s, I encourage you to focus on how every interaction in a day either fills or empties the bucket. Interestingly enough when you fill someone’s bucket, you fill your bucket too! How can you contribute to our association’s bucket today and every day?