Sweet corn cooked on the grill is so good. I could eat sweet corn all year if I could get it. A few years ago, I planted several rows of sweet corn seeds in my garden. After a few weeks of waiting to enjoy some of my grilled crops, I got impatient, because I didn’t have any ears of corn growing in my garden. Nothing was happening fast enough, so I dug up the seeds and moved them to another spot in the yard. I thought maybe the seeds needed more sunlight or maybe softer ground. Still, after a few weeks, no corn.

Getting hungrier, I decided to move the seeds again. This time I put them in planter pots with miracle grow and potting soil. Starving and frustrated, I sat on my front porch dreaming of sweet corn casserole and buttered corn on the cob. After a month or two of waiting still no ears of corn. It was a lot of fun watching the sprouts break through the dirt, and I could taste the fruit of my labor, but still no ears of corn. Finally, I said heck with it, and just decided it was probably best to pull up the corn plants and plant tomatoes instead.

I know. My gardening technique is mentally irregular; and totally made up. I’d never plant tomatoes. LOL! But the truth is; even the best farmers cannot produce sweet corn from seed to grill in less than nine months. The lesson in all my gardening errors has taught me that life and success work a lot like growing vegetables. So many times, in my life I have given up or moved my efforts before they produced the desired result. Sometimes in life, it is not about what you plant but where you plant it and giving things in life enough time to produce the desired results.

Don’t go giving up on what you set out to do in the beginning. That will get you nowhere; I can promise you that. Before you decide to make sure you think things through enough before you put your seeds in the ground. Once you decide what to plant, make sure you have the right expectations of how long it will take to produce fruit. Life is the same way.

Ever take a new job and get frustrated after six months? What about a new relationship? Sometimes things in life take time to develop and mature. The laws of nature often influence many aspects of our lives and reflect much more than what we grow in our garden. Some people just never understand the value of growing where they are planted. In my professional life, I have sat back and watched people change careers several times in one year. They jump around like the grass is always greener only to find that it was perfectly fine where they were. I only see this so clearly because I have experienced it so many times myself.

A mentor of mine once said, “James, you have itchy feet.” I’d be excited about an opportunity only to find myself ready to bounce at the first hint of trouble. I had a great corporate opportunity to advance in my career, but a gloomy acquisition and other adversities convinced me to jump ship. Today, people I trained and helped hit their compensation goals, are now upper level managers at this company. Hindsight is always 20/20 as they say; but I should have kept my seeds in the ground on that one.

Back to my planting seeds analogy brings me to a question. How many pumpkins can you get from one pumpkin seed? The answer is infinity. One pumpkin seed placed in the right soil, with the right conditions, can produce an infinite amount of pumpkins given the proper amount of time. If you give up today, on whatever it is you are trying to accomplish, you will find yourself right back in the place you started, and likely never experience real growth and the fruit of your labor.