Brooke Bradford
College Student | Former Arkansas FFA President & National Officer Candidate
Hometown: Shirley, AR
Briefly describe your role:
A 19-year-old studying communication and leadership in the agricultural industry trying to figure out what it looks like to dream big in a way that allows me to be a part of feeding the world and making young people more ambitious than ever.
Q: Is what you’re doing now what you always pictured you would do?
A: yes and no – I always knew I’d go to college and have big dreams that I’d undoubtably chase, but I never ever imaged it’d have to do with agriculture or for many years FFA. Growing up I thought I wanted to be a doctor, now I’m pretty sure the only way anyone will be calling me doctor is if I get a Ph.D. or go to law school. I always knew I wanted to be someone who changed the world, but never guessed it’d start happening in a blue corduroy jacket in the 8th grade.
Q: What do you see as the greatest challenges for women in your chosen industry? What are the greatest opportunities?
A: In my experience, fighting stereotypes has easily been the biggest challenge I’ve faced as a woman. More than that, hearing stories from mentors, teachers, and other women in agriculture, I consistently hear about times when our (woman’s) abilities, knowledge, and relevance is questioned before we even start talking. More than that, we face the challenge of trying to balance meeting the societal norms for females and breaking them in a graceful manner. It’s also what I see as the greatest opportunity, to be someone who can gracefully uphold tradition and honor while simultaneously breaking glass ceilings in a way that opens doors for future generations of women is epic. We get to begin to set the standard creatively for what it looks like to be a leading lady in the most important industry in the world.
Q: Who has inspired you in your life/career?
A: I would say Taylor Wisemen McNeil inspired me in my FFA/Leadership pursuits. Bob Goff inspires me in the posture of my heart and my ambition to reach people and leave a legacy in the world. Finally, my mom, inspires me to be a strong southern woman who doesn’t take no for an answer and yet can lose with grace. She taught me everything about what it looks like to live small town and dream worldwide. Collectively, I’d say, they all directed me to use my gifts to leave people and the world better than I found it and to do so in a way that makes Heaven crowded.
Q: What advice would you give to an aspiring professional?
A: Become a friend with failure and rejection. My standard is and will always be excellence, but in the pursuit of excellence with big dreams you are bound to experience both failure and rejection. Even in the most casual lifestyle you’ll experience these two things. The more comfortable you become with both the idea and the reality of failure and rejection the better you’ll be in the aftermath of it. Anyone can look good and feel good when they are successful, but to be able to walk through failure or rejection confidently, now that really says something.
Q: What’s been your secret to success?
A: Never build a ceiling, I often say that my biggest fear is waking up without an ambition. It truly scares me to think about having no dream, no driving desires… I always have a dream list and I’m constantly adding to it. If I ever stopped, if I ever built a ceiling where I’d be comfortable with my achievement, I’d never have to keep growing or evolving. I think my secret to success is that I don’t have any desire to be comfortable with my position in life. I always want to be content – but never comfortable, and because of that I’ll never stop striving to be more and therefore I’ll achieve more. It has everything to do with a mindset, and mine, is to never build a ceiling.
