I just read a thought provoking book written by my lifelong friend Peter Delani. Peter is a Vice Principal at Masconomet Regional High School in Masssachusetts and was formerly their varsity baseball coach. I am really proud of Peter and his accomplishments. He is a great friend and an accomplished teacher. He has not only coached a lot of people through life but he has actually led his varsity baseball team to the state championship. He is innovative, entrepenuerial and now a budding author and public speaker.
Here is the books description from Amazon:
A Walk With Daimon is one man's intimate journey of self-discovery from childhood to manhood. Both beautiful and tragic, instead of trying to fix his life story, Delani embraces both the wins and losses of each season by navigating through the critical moments in his life where fate and free will collide. Along the way, Delani comes to terms with having been born the "healthy" son, learns the valuable lesson that poverty is a condition of the soul, not the wallet, and experiences firsthand that the glory of being reborn means that you first must die. Delani invites the reader to take a walk with him as his invisible soul leads him back home to where his story began. A Walk With Daimon is a story of fate, calling, and destiny. It inspires each one of us to walk our own field of dreams.
The book really resonated with me. The theme of the book is about how you respond when fate and free will collide. The book is based on Peters life and his experiences growing up in Wakefield, Massachusetts. (Which happens to be my home town as well.) With Peter being a classmate of mine, his book often mentioned people and places that I was extremely familiar with. His life story was also familiar to me. I have been an observer and sometimes participant in his life's success's' and failures. To me, reading the book was like scrolling through my memories of past events and instead of having the details fade as they normally do over time, they became more vivid with his descriptions.
I read the book in its entirety last night. Starting around six pm and ending around midnight. Its a fast read and I was hooked on the book after reading the first chapter. Its had the feel of Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, only in my case there was the hook of a personal connection.
Anyone who grew up in Massachusetts during the 70's and 80's , or played a sport as a child or teenager, who has lived with an ill or handicapped family member, or who is experiencing a low point in their life will greatly benefit from reading this book.
After I read it, I went to bed, or tried to. As you know we farmers are up at the crack of dawn, so anytime I am up after 10pm I get a little anxious. Well wouldn't you know Peters book had my mind racing about my own life experiences. Once I finally fell asleep, my dreams were dominated by my life experiences and my hometown. Believe me I had one restless sleep.
How do you give a book a great review? You tell folks that when you picked it up and started reading it you could not put it down, and that as you were reading it it resonated with you, and after you were done reading it you could not sleep, and once you fell asleep it provoked strange dreams about watershed moments in your life, and finally when you woke up , you were writing about it in your blog.
Give the book a shot. It may do for you what it did for me. How did you respond when fate and free will collided? Can you think of certain times in your life when a situation was extremely difficult personally. Something major like the death or illness of someone close, or the end of a job or career, or a divorce or break up? What did you do? How did you react? What was the result? I think I could write a seperate blog, or perhaps a book on my life struggles. Could you?
In all aspects of my life the biggest advances came after the greatest setbacks. Sometimes my calamities were so major that it took me a few years to recover, other times I was able to shake off the pain and get right back on my feet. Its easy to slide into a funk during and after a challenging situation in your life, but the more times you respond and fight back, (and the older and more experienced that you become..) the more you realize that Peter's theme is correct.
I had a basketball coach in high school whose famous saying was that you could never score a basket if the ball was not up on the rim. In other words, don't worry about missing the shot, unless you shoot your never going to score.
As an entrepenuer, that is your mantra. Most of these quotes mean the same thing and we have all heard them before. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained","if at first you don't succeed, try, try again", "fortune sides with him who dares","risk not, want not." I have had many major setbacks and victories in business. Some of them where in my control and others were not. As a CEO you create the vision , develop a plan and hire the best folks that you can to help you achieve your goals. ( Free will) The things that you can not control like the economy or the price of oil, or the availabilty of cash can intervene on the best business idea. (Fate)After every setback, I tried to quickly get up and throw the ball back up on the rim. Hoping that I would score.
As a farmer, like in business, most everything that you do is a calculated risk for a desired return. You plant crops in hopes of a succesful harvest and eventual sale of the bounty. You raise animals with the hope of a healthy herd that will eventually feed you and your community. Your responsiblity is to make sure that your crops and critters get all of the help that you can possibly give them. Clean fresh water, good solid nutrition, clean living conditions and love. (Free will)The wild card in the equation is mother nature....floods, sickness, predators (theft) all can effect the success of your enterprise. (Fate) The farmers who are succesful wipe the manure off of their pants and start over. Hopefully learning from their experiences and becoming better at their craft.
Here are some things to think about. Who knows but you may be developing you own crisis exit strategy as you ponder the questions.
At a point of crisis or emergency, where free will and fate collide, how will you respond? How will your business respond? How will your community or your country respond?
Our world is in crisis, our nation is in a crisis, and around these parts I know a lot of families are in crisis. Peter mentions in his book that the Chinese define the word crisis as danger and opportunity combined. Great leaders learn how to respond to a crisis by studying history. They look at their own experience and that of others and they apply that knowledge to the events that they face or are about to face. In their solution they create opportunity.
Whats is an opportunity exactly? To me its a ball up on the rim, a new business idea or concept launched, a seed planted in the field, a calf born on the farm or a positive change in your lifestyle or relationships. Its essentially hope and vision combined with experience. Awaiting your opportunies is the collision with fate. And your life story is based on how you react after the crash.
In this time of crisis I think we should all look for the opportunities that present themselves. Thats the best thing to do when fate and free will collide. Plant your seeds, nurture your crops and hope.
Talk to you next week....
David
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sign Of The Times
Being a farmer, or a part time farmer, gives you a real unique perspective on the world. Out of necessity, most farmers are great observers. What is also interesting is that the things that you observe on the farm are very often evidence of larger problems in our Nation or the world.
As a farmer you need to watch your animals. How are they acting? Are they active? Are they sick? is someone in heat....? Are the eating enough? Do they have clean water? Over time you learn most every animals personality to some extent. If not personality then at least there behavior patterns.
You also need to watch the weather. You plan your day around the weather. If its raining, you try to figure out what you can do inside. Maybe muck the stalls, clean out the chicken coop or worse, maybe do paperwork.
You need to watch your crops. Do they need water? Fertilizer? Are they being invaded by insects?
You need to watch your customers. Are they happy when they are in the farm stand? What do they buy? What do they look at and put down? How do they react to your prices? What are they buying? Is it expensive cuts of meat, or stew beef?
All of these observations lead you to make a judgement. Based on that judgement you make a decision. Based on that decision you plan your day, week or even season. In farming the best laid plans often go astray. There is nothing that will make you alter your schedule like a sick cow or pig.
One of the observations I have made at the farm recently is that the economy where we live is really starting to hurt folks. I make this judgement not just because of my own families struggles to pay bills and make ends meet, but because of a few trends and incidents.
In the area of New England that we live in, most folks are either retirees, contractors, farmers or they are transplants that commute an hour plus to the nearest city. In the summer time, summer folks or lake people swell the population and pump dollars into the local economy. In the fall and winter things slow down dramatically. Its now fall and we are in the slowdown phase of our seasonal economy. Unfortunately this year the summer was slower than most. Even the lake folks were not spending money like the normally do. Our greenhouse sales were down about 25%. Overall our sales were off about 20%. Most of my friends are contractors. Builders, electricians, equipment operators and handymen. Many of them are suffering because of the real estate slow down. Some of them are barely getting by.
So back to my observations...
In front of our barn on the main road we keep a cooler. In the cooler are eggs for sale. The eggs are three dollars a dozen and are sold based on the honor system. We keep a little jar in the cooler filled with miscellaneous change and folks take a dozen or two and drop in their money.We have about 200 laying hens at the farm and the girls pump out about 15 dozen eggs a day. At the end of most days we sell out of eggs. Maybe not in the middle of winter but most days. So using simple math, we should end up with about $45.00 at the end of the day and no eggs.
Historically we have always finished the day with about $40.00. I always figured that was from folks who were short on cash and maybe only through in two bucks instead of three. Occasionally we would get a note with an IOU. Very occasionally we would get an extra five or so. I assumed that was make up money.
Over the last few months we have been ending the day with about $30.00 in the jar. That means that either 1/3 of our customers are short a buck everyday or.....someone has decided to help themselves to the eggs or to the cash. Now we never have more than 5 dollars of cash in the jar, we sweep it a few times a day. So more than likely a few folks are helping themselves to eggs.
In the retail security industry, ( which is where my other career is based), we have what we call shortage. Shortage in retail is unexplained loss. Its typically viewed as a % of sales. The national average in retail has historically been around 2%. My egg business has historically run at about 8-10%. Which is explainable as we are running on the honor system and retailers have cashiers and store detectives and lots of cameras in place to keep their shortage in check.
Over the last few months I have seen my shortage jump to 33%. If that is a national trend retailers could end up with a shortage number of 6% of sales. That number would represent an increase in loss of up to 100 billion dollars in the United States alone. Add that number to the cost passed on to the consumer....Its no wonder our economy is in a slow down.
We had another incident this week at the farm. One of the things we do is process firewood. Every year we selectively log some of the forest land on our farm. We then cut and split the firewood and sell it locally.
A couple of evenings ago, in the middle of the night, someone came on to the farm and helped themselves to a pick up truck of firewood. Now if you really think about it, a pickup truck can hold about a half a cord of wood if it is carefully stacked. We are currently selling wood for $325.oo a cord. That means that someone needed firewood so bad that they risked arrest (or worse if the farmer caught them) to steal $175.00 or so of wood. They did this sometime between 2:00 am and 5:00. It probably took them an hour or so to load the wood. The perpetrator had to be pretty desperate to wake up in the middle of the night, go exert themselves for an hour and risk detection.
As a farmer my observations are that these are really tough times for folks. I have never blocked access to the farm. It is not surrounded by no trespassing signs. We don't have any gates or a surrounding fence. The local folks use the property to horseback ride, hunt and hike. The state snowmobile trail cuts across the back pastures. I am not sure what to do. Should I block access and allow a few to ruin the enjoyment of many? I really can't afford any more losses though. I wonder if this is the same thought process that our government is going through with our wall street and banking meltdown. Is it possible for a few to ruin it for so many? If so how do you regulate it?
For now I think I slap a note on the egg box telling folks about the losses. Maybe that will make the egg thief's think a little. As far as the wood goes, maybe I will spend a couple of nights in near the woodpile with my shotgun on a stake out...Not quite sure.
Where will it end? Who knows. I hope that good will prevail over evil and the few miscreants who cause harm to so many will see the light. I pray that the morals and ethics that help build our great nation prevail. That applies to the folks in Washington, in Wall street and those in the neighborhood of Tumbledown Farms......
Just one Farmers observations.....
As a farmer you need to watch your animals. How are they acting? Are they active? Are they sick? is someone in heat....? Are the eating enough? Do they have clean water? Over time you learn most every animals personality to some extent. If not personality then at least there behavior patterns.
You also need to watch the weather. You plan your day around the weather. If its raining, you try to figure out what you can do inside. Maybe muck the stalls, clean out the chicken coop or worse, maybe do paperwork.
You need to watch your crops. Do they need water? Fertilizer? Are they being invaded by insects?
You need to watch your customers. Are they happy when they are in the farm stand? What do they buy? What do they look at and put down? How do they react to your prices? What are they buying? Is it expensive cuts of meat, or stew beef?
All of these observations lead you to make a judgement. Based on that judgement you make a decision. Based on that decision you plan your day, week or even season. In farming the best laid plans often go astray. There is nothing that will make you alter your schedule like a sick cow or pig.
One of the observations I have made at the farm recently is that the economy where we live is really starting to hurt folks. I make this judgement not just because of my own families struggles to pay bills and make ends meet, but because of a few trends and incidents.
In the area of New England that we live in, most folks are either retirees, contractors, farmers or they are transplants that commute an hour plus to the nearest city. In the summer time, summer folks or lake people swell the population and pump dollars into the local economy. In the fall and winter things slow down dramatically. Its now fall and we are in the slowdown phase of our seasonal economy. Unfortunately this year the summer was slower than most. Even the lake folks were not spending money like the normally do. Our greenhouse sales were down about 25%. Overall our sales were off about 20%. Most of my friends are contractors. Builders, electricians, equipment operators and handymen. Many of them are suffering because of the real estate slow down. Some of them are barely getting by.
So back to my observations...
In front of our barn on the main road we keep a cooler. In the cooler are eggs for sale. The eggs are three dollars a dozen and are sold based on the honor system. We keep a little jar in the cooler filled with miscellaneous change and folks take a dozen or two and drop in their money.We have about 200 laying hens at the farm and the girls pump out about 15 dozen eggs a day. At the end of most days we sell out of eggs. Maybe not in the middle of winter but most days. So using simple math, we should end up with about $45.00 at the end of the day and no eggs.
Historically we have always finished the day with about $40.00. I always figured that was from folks who were short on cash and maybe only through in two bucks instead of three. Occasionally we would get a note with an IOU. Very occasionally we would get an extra five or so. I assumed that was make up money.
Over the last few months we have been ending the day with about $30.00 in the jar. That means that either 1/3 of our customers are short a buck everyday or.....someone has decided to help themselves to the eggs or to the cash. Now we never have more than 5 dollars of cash in the jar, we sweep it a few times a day. So more than likely a few folks are helping themselves to eggs.
In the retail security industry, ( which is where my other career is based), we have what we call shortage. Shortage in retail is unexplained loss. Its typically viewed as a % of sales. The national average in retail has historically been around 2%. My egg business has historically run at about 8-10%. Which is explainable as we are running on the honor system and retailers have cashiers and store detectives and lots of cameras in place to keep their shortage in check.
Over the last few months I have seen my shortage jump to 33%. If that is a national trend retailers could end up with a shortage number of 6% of sales. That number would represent an increase in loss of up to 100 billion dollars in the United States alone. Add that number to the cost passed on to the consumer....Its no wonder our economy is in a slow down.
We had another incident this week at the farm. One of the things we do is process firewood. Every year we selectively log some of the forest land on our farm. We then cut and split the firewood and sell it locally.
A couple of evenings ago, in the middle of the night, someone came on to the farm and helped themselves to a pick up truck of firewood. Now if you really think about it, a pickup truck can hold about a half a cord of wood if it is carefully stacked. We are currently selling wood for $325.oo a cord. That means that someone needed firewood so bad that they risked arrest (or worse if the farmer caught them) to steal $175.00 or so of wood. They did this sometime between 2:00 am and 5:00. It probably took them an hour or so to load the wood. The perpetrator had to be pretty desperate to wake up in the middle of the night, go exert themselves for an hour and risk detection.
As a farmer my observations are that these are really tough times for folks. I have never blocked access to the farm. It is not surrounded by no trespassing signs. We don't have any gates or a surrounding fence. The local folks use the property to horseback ride, hunt and hike. The state snowmobile trail cuts across the back pastures. I am not sure what to do. Should I block access and allow a few to ruin the enjoyment of many? I really can't afford any more losses though. I wonder if this is the same thought process that our government is going through with our wall street and banking meltdown. Is it possible for a few to ruin it for so many? If so how do you regulate it?
For now I think I slap a note on the egg box telling folks about the losses. Maybe that will make the egg thief's think a little. As far as the wood goes, maybe I will spend a couple of nights in near the woodpile with my shotgun on a stake out...Not quite sure.
Where will it end? Who knows. I hope that good will prevail over evil and the few miscreants who cause harm to so many will see the light. I pray that the morals and ethics that help build our great nation prevail. That applies to the folks in Washington, in Wall street and those in the neighborhood of Tumbledown Farms......
Just one Farmers observations.....
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