There is a Redbud tree in the garden behind our historic home in Old Town Alexandria that has something important to say this week.

All winter it stood bare — patient, still, giving nothing away. The ornamental grasses around its base lay flat and brown. The brick wall behind it, which has witnessed more than two centuries of seasons, offered no clues about what was coming.

And then, almost overnight, the Redbud said everything. No tentative budding. No gradual easing into color. Just a full, unhesitating declaration that winter is over and the growing season has arrived.

I know something about that feeling.

March 31st marked my final day as a HeartLand employee after nine fantastic and fast-moving years. The succession plan we began in the summer of 2023 reached its quiet, intentional completion. What didn’t end — what won’t end — is my commitment to the leadership development work that has been the center of what I’ve cared deeply about professionally for nearly five decades.

This transition simply clears the field.

Every farmer knows this truth: you cannot plant what you haven’t prepared for. The work of winter — the reflection, the finishing well, the handing off of well-tended ground — is not wasted time. It is the essential preparation that makes the next season possible.

My next season has been composting for a long time.

Fifty years of leading, observing, failing, recovering, and growing alongside remarkable people across industries as different as telecommunications, citrus, foliage production and commercial landscaping have been quietly accumulating into something. A framework. A set of principles. A book that I am now devoting the focused attention it has long deserved: The Cultivated Leader: Growing a High-Impact Life.

More on that in the months ahead. The field is prepared. Planting is underway.

For now, I’ll take my cue from the Redbud — and from Derby, our English Springer Spaniel and my wife’s devoted service dog, who has observed it all from the courtyard with characteristic composure and wisdom.

Winter’s work is done. Spring has arrived. It’s time to grow something.

What field are you planting — and are you giving it the full attention this spring deserves?

Tempus Maximize!