The Law of the Yield: Planting the Seeds for Greater Success

By Greg McClanahan

If you lack a sureness about how to define your dreams or how to achieve your dreams, The Law Of The Yield is a must read.

One of the things we want more than anything in our lives is to have a sureness in knowing that what we are doin

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gold Canyon Press
• Release date: Jan 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989794522

Greg McClanahan

Greg McClanahan's degrees are in Business Management and Industrial Relations however, his most significant education has come from his corporate and small business experience. He worked his way into his first corporate training position was with America West Airlines. That was followed by a training position for National Computer systems. Greg spent nearly 30 years in the home building industry. First as an employee and then as the owner. He led his company to become one of the largest regional builders before selling it 20 years later. Greg is a lifelong learner who has wanted to both improve himself and find ways to assist those around him to achieve higher levels of success. He has served locally for charitable organizations and donates his time to local schools where he hopes to help improve student success. Writing became a passion to help fulfill his desire to share what he has learned to a larger audience. Greg belongs to the John Maxwell Leadership Certification Program. Helping others find ways to achieve successful outcomes in their lives truly captures his greatest desires. He is still building but instead of houses, he now helps build individuals and organizations.

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The Law of the Yield © copyright 2024 Greg McClanahan. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, by photography or xerography or by any other means, by broadcast or transmission, by translation into any kind of language, nor by recording electronically or otherwise, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in critical articles or reviews.

Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9897945-1-5

Hardcover ISBN: 979-8-9897945-0-8

Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9897945-2-2

Front cover design by Mikayla Jones

Interior design and typesetting by Jess LaGreca, Mayfly Design

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2024900155

First Printing: 2024

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Law of the Harvest

Chapter 2: The Law of the Yield

Chapter 3: Yield in Action

Chapter 4: The Miracle of Love

Chapter 5: Building a Life with Yield in Mind

Chapter 6: Rearview Mirror

Chapter 7: The Storms of Life

Acknowledgments

About the Author

To my wonderful parents, Butch and Jean McClanahan, thank you for planting the seeds of success in my life.

To my amazing wife, Toni, thank you for inspiring me to strive to be my best. I hope to every day be more like you.

To my remarkable children, thank you for being the highlight of my life.

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.

—William Arthur Ward

Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have changed the world.

—Jane Addams

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

—Robert Louis Stevenson

INTRODUCTION

Many things occur in our lives that shape our character and influence who we become. For me, as the youngest child of a small-town grocery store owner, the many hours I spent working at the store greatly influenced my life. When I was two years old, my parents purchased the store, so it became the place where our entire family worked. In my younger years, I was given small jobs after school to help out where I could; but as I got older, jobs with greater responsibility filled my summer months. I was an adult before I more deeply appreciated what I learned from those early work experiences. I came to realize just how much my character was shaped by my time working in the family store.

The most influential people throughout those years were my parents. I watched how my father devotedly served the community, and I watched how my mother lovingly supported my father. My father treated every customer with courtesy, kindness, and respect. He showed sincere appreciation for every customer’s patronage, and I knew they could feel his gratitude in the way he greeted and served them. He always searched for ways to make improvements to the store and to be as progressive as the larger, chain stores in the city. He sought out growers and suppliers of local products that could not be found in the city and he strived to provide his customers with the best buying experience he could create.

My father’s kindness also extended to his employees in the way he treated them with great respect. He regularly gave pay raises when he felt they were earned, he financially helped them when something unexpected came up, and he also regularly gave his department managers bonuses at the end of each year. He worked to find a way to offer health insurance when it was not typical for a small business to absorb that kind of shared expense. He cared about his employees as if they were a part of our extended family. As a result, he had thirty-plus year loyal employees, because he was loyal to them.

As I look back, I can see how he paid attention to every detail in the store; and he enjoyed the rewards of a successful life. So much so that after his untimely passing in his early sixties, our town’s city council unanimously voted to name the newly built community library after him.

The store was a central part of our community, and the people in our community were another significant influence in my life. As I got older and my job responsibilities in the store expanded, my awareness and curiosity grew concerning the various customers who came through the store. Each person was unknowingly helping me to frame an ideal of who I wanted to become and what I wanted for my life.

One of the most significant things we all want is to know that what we are doing now is leading us toward achieving the successful outcomes we desire.

With a town population of only 600, and a surrounding area population of a few thousand, I easily became acquainted in some way with nearly everyone. In this setting, I began to witness and wonder why I saw such varying degrees of success and prosperity among our town’s citizens. The question that regularly surfaced in my mind was, How can I end up at the upper end of the success scale?

I moved away from home for college and, as I worked my way through school and began my employment career, I continued to see the different levels of success being achieved by my peers and colleagues. Not long after being hired as a reservation’s agent for a major airline, I was hired as a corporate trainer within the reservations department. In that training environment, I saw more closely how different people approached their work with varying degrees of interest, effort, and intention.

These experiences continued to increase my interest in trying to figure out how I could personally achieve more, and caused me to ask what I should be doing to move my life to higher levels of success. I found that one of the most significant things we all want is to know that what we are doing now is leading us toward achieving the successful outcomes we desire. Unfortunately, doubt and uncertainty are often our closer companions.

As I saw those who steadily moved upward in their careers, it seemed that they were confident, calm, grounded, at peace, and successful both professionally and personally. They seemed to attract success rather than chase after it. They seemed to be in control of their future and were living with meaning and purpose.

I admired these people because they seemed to have figured out how to apply the laws of success at a higher level. The fact that they had a higher yield in their life caused me to ask; are these people aware of some unique set of principles or laws that I don’t know?

I came to understand that the answer to this question is Yes. They knew some things that I didn’t yet know.

As my career progressed, I was able to realize some measure of success along the way, but I always knew that there were higher mountains to climb. I often felt frustrated because I knew that I could achieve more, but I wasn’t sure which path would lead to those higher peaks of success.

Moving through a few career changes, I found that I was good at sales. I excelled in that role at a residential home building company where I was employed. In my early thirties, I was married and our family was growing when the owner of the company decided to retire. With the help of an inheritance from my father, I had enough for the down payment I needed to purchase the business. The historical business performance of the company supported the idea, so I took the leap, obtained a loan for the balance, and became a business owner.

The pressure I felt from the business loan payment, and the monthly fixed overhead of the company, made it a necessity for me and my sales staff to be successful in our sales efforts. I was now seeing the different levels of success within the employees of my company, and I needed to figure out why their levels of success varied so greatly, and how I could improve our results. The question continued, What was different between those who realized high levels of success and those who experienced only mediocre results?

I studied our sales process, searched for even the slightest differences in my staff, and toiled earnestly for answers. Over time, I came up with some contributing characteristics that improved sales and I found some things that made one individual more successful than another; but I could never seem to put my finger on a complete answer.

Meanwhile, as my heart was drawn to help every person in my company succeed, my children were finishing high school and asking me for life and career advice! I quickly realized that I didn’t know how to help them as they tried to set a course for their future. I remembered not knowing myself what to do when I graduated, and I clearly hadn’t become any smarter over the years.

Wanting to help my children caused me to become even more committed to answering the question about what is involved in achieving success and how I could possibly help my children find their pathways to an abundant life. As I continued to read and search and consider new ideas . . . it happened!

I finally figured it out in a way that I could understand for myself, and in a way that I could pass along the answer to my children and to my employees. The Law of the Yield discloses these discoveries and describes how to use this law to our best advantage in having surety in our direction and achieving the highest levels of personal and professional success in life.

This law, along with all other laws that govern the universe, is timeless. All laws apply to our great-great-grandparents, just as equally as they will apply to our great-great-grandchildren. For example, through the law of gravity, we know that if we drop a rock, it will always go down, never up. We know through the laws of nature that spring will always follow winter, that a low tide will be followed by a high tide, and that the sun will rise and set on schedule. The law of the lift is reliable, making it possible for an airplane to fly. The laws of motion led us to an understanding of classical mechanics, and the law of supply and demand provides an understanding of financial markets.

Every law, when understood and followed, allows us to move through life in a more sure way.

Every law, when understood and followed, allows us to move through life in a more sure way. These laws make outcomes predictable, and when we understand these laws, we can work within their boundaries and apply them to our advantage and success.

In defining the law of the yield, I came to understand that the law of the harvest is one of the most far-reaching laws of nature, and a law that merits our most careful attention and deeper appreciation. The discoveries I made and share in this book were founded upon this law.

In the simplest of examples from an agricultural point of view, if we want to harvest wheat, the law of the harvest teaches that we must plant wheat seeds. If we want to harvest corn, we must plant corn seeds. This is completely understood. The earth will produce a harvest of any kind, but it is up to us to determine what it is we want to harvest, and then plant the corresponding seeds.

Now as we expand the application of the law of the harvest, it holds true with the seeds we plant within our character and how we live our life. If we plant kindness, we will harvest friendships. If we plant gratitude, we will harvest appreciation and if we plant courtesy, we will harvest cooperation.

Conversely, if we plant arrogance, we will harvest resentment. If we plant dishonesty, the only harvest that can be realized is distrust. These are predictable outcomes because that is the law—the law of the harvest.

From this agricultural perspective, if I were to rephrase the question I was asking myself for all those years regarding success, it would be: Why is the yield so varied from person to person at harvest time?

I surprisingly found that the laws of nature provide the answers to the question I was asking!

We find that the seeds we choose to plant in our life, and the way we nurture these seeds, will ultimately influence our yield. Identical conditions might yield ninety bushels of success per acre for one person, while another may only realize a fifty-bushel per acre yield. The secret to why this happens is revealed within these pages.

Equally important to learning what the laws of success are, we must learn how to apply these laws to the daily events of our life.

Equally