Lizzie Schafer

I definitely attribute most of my success to my parents. They pushed me really hard from a young age. I started being involved in the livestock industry from the day I was born, and I showed my first pig when I was 3 years old. I never really have stopped since then. I have been pushed really hard to take advantage of every opportunity that I've been given, and I've been fortunate to be given a lot. So I definitely think that my work ethic and accolades can be attributed to my parents.

I think the biggest or best career advice that I've ever received from people was play every card in your deck, which basically just means do everything that you can in your power to make the most of every opportunity and everything that you're given. I think that that has been awesome for me, because every opportunity that I've had, I've given it my all, and if something that I really wanted doesn't work out, I know that I've done everything I possibly can in my power to make that opportunity happen.

What I would say to young women entering our industry is it's really tough, you have to be gritty, you have to be able to overcome challenges, and I know that things have gotten a lot better for women in recent years, especially since I've been born, but I think that there's still a little bit of hard times you have to go through in order to be respected, and I think you have to work twice as hard. So I want to say to just be prepared to face some challenges and setbacks, but you have to push through them, because nothing worthwhile is going to come easy, so you gotta make sure that you work as hard as you can to make those dreams happen.

One of the biggest opportunities that I have, especially in what I like to focus on, is there's not that many people telling the story of agriculture right now, and that's an opportunity that I'd really like to capitalize on. I really have enjoyed starting to take that journey now and be able to showcase what we do on my family's farm, but I'd like to take that to a larger level and do other people's farms as well eventually. But I think one of the hardest things that we're coming to is in this world, there's so many people that are starting videography and starting to do all these things that they see scrolling reels, so the market's kind of getting flooded right now. I feel like you have to be able to capitalize on what you're good at in order to actually make it, because there's so many people that are getting into the industry.

I think that the biggest value that I have, especially in my work, is being able to tell the story of people everywhere, especially farmers and ranchers. Being able to tell the story about how they raise their livestock and be able to raise their products to be able to get to the consumer's plate in a safe and healthy environment is really important to me. I think that it's really hard to be able to get that story properly, and I really like to understand what my customers want first, because their story at the end of the day really matters. So definitely being very customer-based and wanting to understand exactly what they want me to tell the public is one of my biggest values. And then personally, I just want to enjoy every opportunity that I get and be able to live a life that I can say I'm really proud of. I want to be able to make a true difference in people's lives.