Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Harvest Fair Building

It's that time of year again.  The time when our seasonal summer crew has gone back to college and harvest has cranked up to Ridiculous Speed.  To keep ourselves from running to fat we added the madness of Harvest Fair a few decades back.  We're getting on in years now and our joints don't appreciate the decision as much.  Tossing bales and building pyramids are great activities for keeping fit, but after an 18 hour day of our regular chores we often lack enthusiasm for the added event.  We have been been blessed over the years with a small dedicated group of family friends that come volunteer with the building and implementation of Harvest Fair Activities.  It's a gift of love most family farms rely on.   The fair has grown and changed over the years but the labor involved has not lessened.  We considered dropping it all together last year, exhaustion ran deep and physically fit employees are difficult to hire on after school starts up.
The family thought it through again: do we do it this year? But the calls keep coming.  There are those of you who seem to really appreciate the effort. For you, our loyal customers and champions on market day, the hours are worth it.  You line our driveway opening day, your laughter ringing through the corn field, children of all ages gleefully skipping out to the pumpkin patch, the smiles beaming across the bins of apples fresh from the orchard and we know why we work so hard.

Wilson Banner Ranch Musings: Food Partners

Wilson Banner Ranch Musings: Food Partners: Food Partners I have several friends where one of the partners is slender and gifted with a high metabolism, and the other partner is more ...

Hugh's Observations




This is a competitive world. No matter who you are or where you are in your stage of life or your business. There always seems to be someone better than you, better than your business, better than your kid. Looking left and right you can always find prettier, faster, smarter, better, richer and wiser. Looking in the mirror you can always find reasons to be disappointed because you are not, as Andy Stanley puts it, more "-er" than the next guy and the next guy's kid.

Typically this is because we manufacture not just any kid to compare our children with, but we invent a Superkid. All these comparisons prevent us from enjoying life, our businesses and even our kids.

Ambition. We would not be in business if we were not ambitious. Likely, it is in our blood and family mythology. My Grandfather Hugh, who died when my father was 18 years old, was that mythological figure in our family. He grew his farm to a size not before seen in the area, had the first mechanical combine and was considered an innovator in the industry which, at the time, was the potato business. He was ambitious anivity on the positive side and envy on the negative side. Competition and ambition aren't badd I always sought that acclaim as well.

Ambition is a good thing. It drives innovation which creates jobs and products and livelihoods. Without the ambitious, I fully believe that America would not exist  and we'd likely be peasants serving a king somewhere. Ambition in society creates competition which inspires creat, but the envious  byproduct is.

Envy. If you've ever secretly hoped that someone successful would fail, you have felt envy. Follow the path of your life and you see a pattern of envy creeping in everywhere. When you were young, you wanted your friends toys. (My friends had big TVs and Atari)When you were in school, you wished to be cooler, smarter and definitely more popular. (Me: D. All of the above.) When you were in college, well honestly, it was just high school with beer until it was time to get a job, then you had to get as many offers as your friends.

In work and business, it's bigger, better, faster, more. Then get married and your spouse, well, you probably secretly wished to be thinner, taller, smarter, better paid, more active etc. (Except for me because mine's the best already. Love you, honey!)

Your kids. Then came your kids. Once you have kids, you are welcomed into the world of parenthood by your family and community. It really is a magical time, but competition starts early, so be ready if you want to win.  (Pardon me if you are reading this without having, or yet having, or never having kids. I'll bring it back to business soon enough, just stick with me. If you don't have kids and you think you'd be any different than I am about to describe, you are delusional. I know because I was, too.)

Prenatal competition. Mom's hook earphones to their bellies in hopes of teaching baby Mozart in the womb. "Preggo" yoga. Mommy-to-be fitness classes. Read to your womb. Seriously I've just scratched the surface. (I'd love to hear some of the far out things you did or "have heard about a friend who did.." PLEASE post them on the blog or Facebook.)

When baby arrives, ring the school bell. Baby Einstein, anyone? $90million in sales. Baby sign language? Did it and my daughter's smarter than yours. Kindermusic? The boy just got  "4" on the report card! Preschool? Preschool prep school? Early to kindergarden? Summer Academy for 1st grade? Do you see where this is going? We seem desperate to advance our kids in the world at any cost. 

Enter the Superkid. Time goes on. Kids grow. Competition increases. We hide the way we push our kids by saying as Andy Stanely put it, "We just want them to reach their full potential", but really we want them to beat those other kids so we feel good about our parenting skills; so they will win one for the family. So to rationalize pushing them further and harder, we invent Superkid. 

You may not even know that you are doing it, but you are creating Superkid. Superkid gets his powers like this: We take the 5-10 of our kid's classmates, cherry-pick the best skill from each child and merge these best skills. Superkid is the best at everything because he represents the single best ability of 5-10 kids. We then proceed to hold our child up next to imaginary Superkid to compare and contrast. 

"Well you might have gotten a 95% on the spelling test, but Timmy got 100%." 
"You got an A in music, but Sally got an A in English." 
"You scored a goal in soccer, but Billy's on the travel team."
"Oh, you're in the Gifted program, nice but I heard Kyle is skipping 6th grade."

Now let's be honest, Kyle can't play soccer. Sally needs help with math. Billy can't spell and Timmy can't carry a tune in a bucket, but TOGETHER they merge to form Superkid: The unassailable-bastion-of-everything-awesome-that-would-really-help-us-feel-better-about-being-a-parent-as-I-live-vicariously-through-you! (Cue superkid's theme song)

How to defeat Superkid. Every Super Hero has a weakness and Superkid's is glaringly obvious: He doesn't exist. Just as we have had to come to terms with our own strengths and weaknesses, our own shortcomings and advantages, we must come to terms with those of our children. No one in the world is put together like you are. No one in the world is like your child. Super heroes are super because they are unlike anything else in the universe and each child is already uniquely their own little person. Superkid's real power is mind control over adults who, despite rational understanding and self-control, perpetuate the idea of Superkid as "real".

SuperBizKid. We do this in our businesses every day. We wake up and should look forward to another day serving our customers, doing what only we can uniquely do. Instead we wake up in fear of SuperBizKid. We take the best of our closest 5 competitors and we mentally merge them into one being, so powerful we could never survive.

We start thinking of all the ways in which we fall short of Jones' berries, Smiths' sweet corn, Carolyn's school tours and Jerry's corn maze. Why, in the face of all that, one look in the mirror tells us we just don't measure up.

How to defeat SuperBizKid. The first chink in the armor of SuperBizKid is that our internal feelings are universal. Everyone feels like this! Carolyn wishes she grew corn like Smith, Jerry can't grow berries, Jones is scared of talking to kids and Smith is navigationally challenged.

In agritourism, more than any other industry we can each focus on our primary area of interest, mix in our special mix of all the unique things that make us who we are, add a heaping helping of hard work and be successful. 

Is your mindset fixed or flexible? Going around the circles of literature these days is the idea of "Fixed" vs. "Flexible" views of the world. Kids are a great example. Is a child's I.Q. and ability to be successful fixed at birth or flexible to grow throughout life? 

Fixed. Fixed mindset says, "You get what you get. If you are smart, you were lucky to get it at birth." In studies, kids told they were "smart", or given a fixed mindset, were less likely to try difficult problems they didn't know how to solve because they were worried about using the designation of "smart".

Flexible. The flexible mindset says, "Growth and learning are a process. You make mistakes along the way, but that's part of learning to get better." Kids told they were "hard workers", excelled in solving tough problems because they weren't wrapped up in losing their "title" of "smart". Making mistakes is part of the process.

Being a Superkid. Let's face it: We all want to be Superkids. We all want the best for our families and businesses and we sure do like to win. Being a Superkid takes a lot of hard work, persistence, patience and a willingness to permit failure. If we want tough, resilient kids, we have to allow them to fail, stick by them, dust them off and put them back in the game or classroom to try again. We also must allow them to be the unique conglomeration of strengths and weaknesses they are without the pressure of living up to a fantasy Superkid.

It's the same in your business. Be that magical, unique amalgamation of strengths and weaknesses that only you can be. Fail early and often. Pick yourself back up and do it again. Focus on being hardworking and persistent, so you don't have to be "smart'". Be flexible and treat your business experiences as a ongoing journey towards mastery. That's how to be truly super, and you can be sure your kids are paying close attention to what you do and how you do it. 

My son recently asked, "Daddy why do you have to travel so much?" 
I answered, "Because I'm building our business." 
He asked, "Isn't your business big enough already?"

Don't let competition with Superkid devalue the wonderful life you already lead. Fight the desire to push your kids to compete with Superkid and simply enjoy their individual life-learning adventure. Squeeze great pleasure from serving the customers you have really, really well. Stay ambitious, but keep gratitude in your heart for each blessing that has already been bestowed.

You've already got Superkids. Do you really know them?

Have a great week.
Hugh


From the Maze Master “Your kid vs. Superkid”