I’ve been involved in sports since I could walk. However, as I grew older, I learned about the importance of hard-work. When I was about to enter the sixth grade, my soccer coach taught me and my teammates about the “Law of the Harvest.” It basically says that you reap what you sow. If you work hard at your craft, you certainly reap the rewards in one way or another. For me, working hard on soccer paved the way for not only a successful career, but it gave me an opportunity to travel to different parts of the country and provided an opportunity to go to college.
I also learned that even if you don’t get a tangible reward for your work, at the very least, the feeling of personal satisfaction and inner peace is guaranteed.
And then, there’s the flip-side. When you do evil, sooner or later you are going to have to pay the consequences. I learned this the hard way. Mental health issues, low self-esteem, and even my own pride led to self-medication with drugs. It took me down a dark road. As always with the case of an addiction, it will take you down farther than you want to go. You pay a lot more than you expect. My poor decision to get involved with drugs cost me my family, my career, and opportunities coaching soccer.
For me, to get back on my feet and start a new life, I knew I had to work hard. To work hard to regain trust from loved ones.
I drive past farmland on the way to the studio every day. I think of what a farmer needs for the harvest. A farmer has to prepare the soil, fertilize it, plant the seeds, water it every day, get rid of the weeds, protect it from insects and other harmful things. Lastly, a farmer has to check on it constantly to harvest at the right time.
Harvesting a crop is a slow and long process and there is no shortcut for it. It requires a lot of hard work and patience. It is not possible for the farmer to harvest a great crop unless he invests a lot of time to work on the growth of the crop carefully and consistently over a long period of time.
I had to reach back to the sixth grade Jeff Turner. I also had to visualize the farmer hard at work, tending to his crops. I was ready to go to work and rebuild my life. Time spent in the New Life Program at the Boise Rescue Mission provided the environment needed to do so. I needed to work hard everyday. I had to relearn the habits of success; Dedication, persistence, commitment and hard work. Recovery from addiction has served me well over the last six and a half years; I have a stable day job, a great career in radio, a fun opportunity to coach soccer here in the Treasure Valley, and the most important, I have reconnected with my children and have an active role in their lives.
Your choice determines the kind of harvest you are going to reap.
Stephen Covey said it best, “When you pick one end of the stick, you pick up the other end too.”