My three favorite things are represented on the cover of this magazine – my family, my job and my hobby. For years, my wife has been asking when our kids get a chance to be on the cover of our June Dairy Month issue.

It’s our tradition here at Progressive Dairyman to have a staff member’s child or grandchild featured on the cover with their favorite dairy product. I’ve worked at the magazine for more than 13 years and never had a child on the cover. This is their year.

My wife requested I make an ice cream stand to serve as the backdrop for the photo. Building out of reclaimed wood is my newfound hobby. The stand you see on the cover was once wood trusses that support flat-bed cargo trailers during over-the-road transport from the factory to a distributor. She had the idea to repurpose that wood into an imaginative children’s storefront. You can see her handiwork in the staging and styling of the stand.

This photo back story is important because it also relates to something I’ve been spending a lot of time on lately – finding my why.

Toward the end of last year, a colleague introduced me to Simon Sinek’s books Start with Why and Find Your Why. Sinek imagines a world where people wake up inspired to go to work and feel fulfilled by the work they do. He says everyone, including organizations, have a why – a reason for their existence. They have actions they feel deeply motivated to do that have a significant positive effect on others.

Advertisement

Sinek has created an outline for finding one’s individual why and a company’s why. I completed the exercises for myself and recently led our company in finding its why. It only takes about half a day to do the exercises. What they produce is a formulaic statement that fills in these blanks: To ___________ so that _____________.

For example, my personal why is: To pursue perfection so that others’ eternal value is affirmed. The colleague who introduced me to the concept’s why is: To expose normalness so that others don’t feel alone.

Those probably don’t mean much if you haven’t heard the back stories that describe these statements’ meaning. But mine means something to me, and it’s helped me make decisions about the best uses of my time in life. What gives me fulfillment is the reason why I’m passionate about reclaimed wood projects.

Instead of seeing an old, worn-out piece of furniture or scrap of wood, I imagine what it could be reformed and repainted into something beautiful. I imagine how it could bring someone else joy again. I envision its eternal value, not its present value.

In preparing for our company’s attempt to find its why, I discovered how valuable the exercise could be to dairies. So I’ve got a special offer for all of our readers.

I’ll facilitate a find your why exercise for any dairy who is interested in discovering its why. Why would you want to do this? Finding your organization’s why is perhaps most important when you want to preserve it for future generations. Your why is at the heart of your dairy’s culture and, when understood, makes it possible for each employee to make the same decision as the company’s founder would.

I’ll fly to your dairy and visit for a day to learn about what makes your dairy team tick and help you discover how to put in words what makes you passionate about being a dairy family. In making this offer, I bet I don’t get five takers. However, if I do, I’ll buy any callers after the first five a milkshake.

By the way, a milkshake bet is part of our culture here at Progressive Dairyman. You make one only when you’re so sure of something you know you can’t be wrong. I feel that way about finding one’s fulfillment in a why statement. My number is printed on this page. Ring me up.

My why is also why I see each of you and your work as valuable. You and your hard work is what we celebrate during June Dairy Month. Beyond the delicious, healthy dairy products that your milk makes possible, each of your dairy produces community-building citizens who have a don’t-quit work ethic.

If you’ve forgotten how important you are, I suggest you do the following this June. Go to the grocery store and stand in the dairy aisle. Imagine the dairy products on sale there in their pre-packaged state as milk from your farm. Then watch the customers who pull a gallon of milk from the milk case or cheese from the shelves and admire your hard work.

If you’re brave enough, approach them and thank them for buying these dairy products. Connecting your hard work with an individual who appreciates it might give you the boost you need to keep going through this year’s low milk prices.

On behalf of the entire Cooley family, thank you for the work you do. We appreciate you. end mark

Walt Cooley