Lon Stroschein’s story started with a local farm kid earning his education at South Dakota State University.
Fast forward 20 years and he had climbed the corporate ladder to become an executive at Raven Industries — but he no longer felt fulfilled.
“I didn’t want to come home and say, ‘Honey, look, I know we’ve got a lot, but I’m not happy,’” shared Lon on an episode of the Sioux Falls podcast Common Cents on the Prairie™.
He had a German car parked in his driveway, an impressive title on his business card, a corner office, and a choice to make: maintain an image he had spent more than 15 years building or leave the corporate grind to pursue his true passion.
“[My wife] looked at me and she said, ‘I know you’re wrestling with something.…I know you’ve got an opportunity to stay with Raven, and you’ve got an opportunity to go be a CEO of another company,’” Lon recounted. “And she said, ‘I don’t think your future’s at Raven. And I don’t think your future’s at this other company either. I think your future is Normal 40.…You need to go do this.’”
“She absolutely pegged through the frustration, through the fear I was feeling, through the anxiety, through all that,” he added. “She saw what it was that made me happy.”
Where the story started
While growing up on the family farm near Warner, South Dakota, Lon says he was the natural choice from the fourth generation, which included him and his three siblings, to take over the operation.
“I was going to be the farmer,” Lon told podcast host Adam Cox. “I was the first one to buy and own and keep cattle. I was the first one to [buy and rent land] for the cattle. And I was an operator.”
“It wasn’t something I was thinking about,” he continued. “It wasn’t something that I was just going to be gifted. I was incoming; I was part of the operation.”
He started college at Northern State University but later transferred to South Dakota State University, where he planned to earn a degree in agriculture “so that I could come home and treat the family business like a business.”
But, plans changed when he received a call from a United States senator’s office the January before his May graduation.
“I got off the phone, and I set it down, and I just kind of stared at it,” Lon recounted. “And I’m like, ‘What am I going to do with this, really?’”
The senator’s office had called to inform Lon of a job opportunity where he could travel and serve as representation for the senator, as well as help draft agriculture legislation for the then-upcoming Farm Bill.
Lon decided to apply and was later offered the job.
“By then, the decision [was made for me],” he said. “I was allowing myself to be excited about it. It was an adventure. It was mine. It was new. It’s something that I was going to go chase and just see what it was.”
Separating from the W2 race
Twenty years after the phone call that permanently detoured his career path, Lon had worked his way up the corporate ladder to an executive role at Raven Industries.
It was December 2019 when, according to Lon, he started to recognize his feelings of frustration, unhappiness, guilt, annoyance, anger.
“That was 2019 Lon. I didn’t leave until 2022,” he recounted. “I don’t want anyone to think that this was something where there is a magic potion — that I just, one day, woke up enlightened.”
His journey was one of small steps, like pursuing an executive coaching certification to open up the possibility of mentoring others.
One of the bigger steps, though, was a conversation with his wife in a Minneapolis bar after a George Strait concert.
The conversation in which she told him his future was the business venture of Normal 40.
“February of 2022, I decided my work [at Raven] was done,” Lon said. “I was doing good work — some of the best work in my lifetime — but my work there was done. And I had to go find out what was next, and the only way I knew to do that was to leave.”
In the couple of years since, Lon has launched his professional training and coaching business, Normal 40.
He also published a book called “The Trade: Moving From the Life You Have to the Life You Want,” and started a podcast.
As for that passion he was searching for: he’s found it in helping others separate from the corporate grind to find greater fulfillment in life.
“It’s a long, long process,” Lon said. “Now, what I’ve been able to do is help people turn that from a three-and-a-half-year process into about a six-month process. Because I can help you shortcut a bunch of these things that I stepped on the rake 15 times for.”
He also says that he feels “totally fulfilled now” in this business venture.
Success is no longer measured by the car in his driveway or the title on his business card.
For Lon, he will know that he’s found success once he’s received 1,000 notes of thanks from people who have been impacted by his work.
To learn more about how Lon Stroschein left the corporate world to find fulfillment, watch the full episode of Common Cents on the Prairie below.
And if you find yourself inspired by his story, reach out to our team at First National Wealth Management; we’d love to start a conversation.
Any comments, insights, or strategies discussed in this article are intended to be general in nature and, therefore, may not be suitable for you and your situation, whatever that may be. Before acting on anything written here, please consult with your attorney, CPA, and/or your financial advisor.
