When market pressures mount, it is easy to succumb to the “blame game.” Yet, the most resilient operations are those that anchor themselves in a mission larger than the current balance sheet. For leaders like James Burgum and Lamar Steiger, coping with stress isn’t just about managing the books, it’s about managing the mindset.
The Many Hats of the Modern Producer
James Burgum, CEO of The Arthur Companies, believes the first step in managing stress is acknowledging the sheer weight of the roles farmers play.
“One of the things I did when I stepped into my role is an exercise where I said to our team, ‘Help me understand all the hats on the farm – farmworker, agronomist, grain merchandiser, mechanic, truck driver, snow removal lead, banker, economist,’” Burgum said during a discussion at Top Producer Summit. “You start to go down the list, and its dozens and dozens of roles that an individual farmer plays.”
By recognizing the complexity of these roles, Burgum argues that producers can move toward servant leadership—prioritizing the team’s needs.
“There are things that are much more important and much bigger than the challenges we’re wrestling with on the job every day,” Burgum says. “It’s hard to juggle all the balls, but at the end of the day, we want everyone on our team to make sure they get home at night and be there for their families.”
Choosing Abundance Over Scarcity
Lamar Steiger, owner of The 808 Ranch, learned about stress through the lens of his father, a man who seemed to face every possible setback: health crises, financial downturns and missed market peaks.
The farm struggled during times of high interest rates in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s and his father was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, Guillain-Barre, that left him paralyzed for six months.
Still, his dad always had an attitude of abundance, not scarcity, Steiger says.
“With my brothers holding other obligations, I was left to milk the cows,” Steiger says. “We were so far behind, and all my dad would say is, ‘It could be worse.’”
Breaking the Silence
Eventually, his family lost the dairy. After hitting rock bottom and battling depression, Steiger realized that the “tough it out” mentality was a liability, not an asset.
“When the stresses pile up, you’ve got to find help,” Steiger says. “I wasn’t ‘man enough’ to step up and say, ‘Hey, something’s wrong here.’ I should have said, ‘Time out—this is not working.’”
Steiger’s advice for those feeling the weight of the current market is simple: Find your “who.” Whether it is a spouse, a neighbor or a professional, talking through the stress is the only way to separate your self-worth from the volatility of the markets.
“In agriculture, we’re so reliant on outside forces,” Steiger says. “You’ve got to have an attitude that it’s going to work out. As my Dad would say, ‘Well, we never missed a meal.’ That was his bottom line for ‘It’s okay.’”
