President Dwight Eisenhower was raised on a Kansas farm, and he never forgot the lessons he learned there. He's said to have told the following story, in response to a tough question from the press.

“An old farmer had a cow that we wanted to buy,” Eisenhower recalled, “so we went to visit him and asked about the cow’s pedigree.

“The old farmer didn’t know what the word 'pedigree' meant, so we asked him about the cow’s butterfat production. His answer was that he didn’t have the foggiest idea. Finally we asked him if he knew how many pounds of milk the cow produced each year.

“The farmer shook his head and said, ‘I don’t know. But she’s an honest cow, and she’ll give you all the milk she has!’

“Well,” Ike concluded, “I’m like that cow. I’ll give you everything I have.”

President Eisenhower didn’t just want to get by. He was committed to do his best. You can see when people are committed to a project or cause; they refuse to settle for anything less than their best. They are willing to learn and work hard.

Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie said people fall into three basic categories: Those who did not do all their duty, those who only professed to do their duty and those who did their duty plus a little more.

If you make a commitment, you need to see it through. No slacking off, no excuses. Commitment must start from the inside out. Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do, long after the mood you said it in has left you.

“Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision and gives us the right stuff to turn our dreams into reality,” said James Womack, founder and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute.

Some might be tempted to back off those dreams when the going gets tough -- which it often does. But being truly committed provides the motivation to persevere, another word that is important in seeing projects and dreams through to the finish.

Commitment is a prerequisite of success. Commitment is the state of being bound -- emotionally, intellectually, or both -- to a course of action. Commitment starts with a choice and is sustained by dedication and perseverance. Actions speak louder than words.

Lou Holtz, the Hall-of-Fame college football coach, believes there are four things any person or organization needs to be successful.

“First,” he says, “you have to make a commitment to excellence. Second is complete attention to detail. The third thing is to have sound fundamentals, and the fourth requirement is discipline.”

I will add another essential element of commitment: confidence in your ability to succeed. Ask any successful entrepreneur how often they questioned their judgment, their sanity. I’d wager that any who were truly committed had some moments of uncertainty. But they believed in their potential. As I’ve preached so many times, it’s important to believe in yourself, even when no one else does.

I’m not sure how people can be totally satisfied with themselves if they are not committed to doing their very best. Sure, there are going to be failures, but that’s no excuse for not trying your hardest. You can’t hold back because of fear of failure.

I firmly believe that all human success is the result of persistent commitment. Not luck, not just being in the right place at the right time. Commitment is a decision that is easier to make than to see through. Commitment is what keeps you forging ahead once the initial glow has faded.

We’ll go back to the barnyard for some perspective. A chicken and a pig were talking about commitment.

The chicken said, “I’m committed to giving eggs every morning.”

The pig said, “Giving eggs isn’t commitment, it’s participation. Giving ham is total commitment.”

Mackay’s Moral: Motivation is what gets you started. Commitment is what keeps you going.

History will long remember 2021 for many reasons, not the least is the sound of the glass ceiling starting to shatter. With the swearing-in of Kamala Harris as vice president of the United States, the role of women in politics, as in other fields, is bigger than ever.

Additionally, women make up just over a quarter of all members of the 117th Congress -- the highest percentage in U.S. history and a considerable increase from where things stood even a decade ago, according to Pew Research. Counting both the House of Representatives and the Senate, 144 of 539 seats -- or 27% -- are held by women. That represents a 50% increase from the 96 women who were serving in the 112th Congress a decade ago, though it remains far below the female portion of the overall U.S. population.

March is Women’s History Month, which originated as a national celebration in 1981, when Congress requested that the president proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982, as Women’s History Week. These proclamations celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States and recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields.

Women have played a pivotal role in our national development, and it’s amazing to me, as a student of history, that we haven’t heard more of their stories.

In the 19th century, Elizabeth Blackwell was rejected by 29 medical schools. When she went to visit the schools in person, she was told she should pretend to be a man, because women weren’t fit to receive medical schooling. She refused.

The dean and faculty of Hobart College (then Geneva Medical College) put her candidacy up for a vote with the 150 men currently enrolled. The school decided that if even one person objected, Blackwell would be denied admission. The 150 men thought the vote was a joke and unanimously voted to accept her.

The joke was on them. Blackwell was accepted, and she matriculated. Many doctors refused to work with her, but she persevered and graduated.

Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States in 1849. She then built a medical practice, created a place where women could have medical internships (since many health care facilities didn’t welcome women), served impoverished families, and established the first medical college for women.

How much do you know about women in history? Take this quiz and learn something about the role of five extraordinary women:

Question: Which mother led a 125-mile march of child workers from the mills of Pennsylvania to President Theodore Roosevelt’s vacation home on Long Island?

Answer: Mary Harris Jones, who became known as “Mother Jones” and led the march in 1903 to call attention to the evils of child labor.

Question: What did Dolores Huerta do for farm workers in the United States?

Answer: Dolores Huerta, a labor activist, co-founded the United Farm Workers Union in 1962 and served for more than 20 years as its vice president, chief lobbyist, spokeswoman and labor contract negotiator.

Question: Which Asian-American physicist disproved a fundamental scientific law?

Answer: Chien-Shiung Wu came to the United States to study science and became the world’s foremost female experimental physicist. Her most famous experiment showed that the principle of conservation of parity could be violated in nature.

Question: Who led the movement to improve conditions for poor immigrants?

Answer: Jane Addams co-founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889, which sought to improve the lives of immigrants by providing English classes, childcare, health education and recreation. Addams won the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize for her dedication to the cause of international peace.

Question: Her 1939 Easter Sunday concert drew a crowd of 75,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Who was she?

Answer: Marian Anderson had earlier been barred from singing in Washington’s Constitution Hall because she was Black. Her open-air concert was a triumph over bigotry.

Women entrepreneurs today are multiplying two, three, four times faster than men, depending on which part of the country that you study. Women now represent 40% of all business travelers.

These are just a few examples of women’s achievements. Let’s hope history can keep up!

Mackay’s Moral: Borrowed from Juliette Gordon Low -- “The work of today is the history of tomorrow, and we are its makers.”

A bird was searching for a home to lay her eggs so they’d be safe during the coming rainy season. In her search, she saw two trees, so she went to ask them for shelter.

When she asked the first tree, it refused to give her shelter. Disappointed, she went to the second tree.

The second tree agreed, so she built a nest and laid her eggs.

Then the rainy season arrived. The rain was so heavy that the first tree toppled over and was carried away by the flood.

The bird saw this and laughed. “This is your punishment for not offering me shelter.”

The tree smiled. “I knew I wasn’t going to survive this rainy season. That’s why I refused you. I didn’t want to risk your and your children’s lives.” And it drifted away.

The bird got tears in her eyes. Now that she knew the reason, she felt gratitude and respect for the tree.

How many times have we perceived the wrong scenario, or perhaps the wrong reason for a no? A rush to judgment can lead to disaster, or at the very least, regrets. It’s so important to give your brain time to consider all the available facts before taking action that is difficult to reverse.

A variety of factors affect your perception: what you can actually see, hear or feel, previous experiences, opinions of others, even concerns about how you might be perceived. How you perceive a thing determines how you receive a thing. If you perceive something as negative, that’s exactly how you will receive that message. In other words, your outlook often determines your outcome.

“We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world,” wrote Stephen R. Covey in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.”

That’s why it matters whether you have enough good information to make a judgment about a particular situation. If you are operating on faulty premises or preconceived notions, your response may be completely unreasonable. Look at what you complain about and see if a change in perception can help you.

Therefore, it is critical that you develop your perceptive abilities so that you won’t reach the wrong conclusion. The power of perception can change your life.

There are several strategies you can practice that could help you develop more precise perceptions.

Look at yourself as others might see you. Past experiences can evoke powerful memories that guide your perceptions. For example, a particular negotiation with a difficult customer has made you dread doing business with them again. But move to the other side of the table: maybe that customer has had some bad experiences with quality, delivery or price that affect their perception. A little empathy can go a long way.

Know what triggers your responses. Certain smells or songs can remind you of good times or unhappy memories. Remind yourself that you are in the present situation and try to ignore some of the factors that color your judgment.

Ask for others’ opinions. We all see things through our own lenses, and different perspectives can help you shape your perceptions incorporating things you may not have noticed. You may not agree with their observations, but you will have a broader range of possibilities.

And finally, don’t overlook the obvious. Quite often, the truth is right in front of you. When the facts all add up, it’s reasonably safe to conclude that your perception is accurate. You can trust your intuition when you have good information. Second-guessing yourself when you have good information is an exercise in futility.

An old story tells of two cowpokes who came upon a man lying on his stomach with his ear to the ground. One cowpoke said to the other, “You see that guy? He’s listening to the ground. He can hear things for miles in any direction.”

“Really?” The other cowpoke got down off his horse and approached the prone man. “Is anything nearby?”

The man looked up. “One covered wagon,” he said, “about two miles away. Two horses, one brown, one white. A man, a woman, one child and a piano in wagon.”

“That’s incredible! How can you know all that?”

“Simple,” the man replied. “It ran over me about a half-hour ago.”

Mackay’s Moral: What you see may not be what you get -- but maybe it is.