How to be the Best of the Best

If you lived in the nation of Israel in 1440 BC, Bezalel would have been a household word. Like Rolex watches, Mercedes cars, Waterford crystal or Petersen's Candy Carrots (well maybe our carrots aren't in quite the same class), Bezalel was famous among the people for being the best of the best.

Because he was the best he got to do something very special...

10 Benefits of a Micro Farm

We have 8 acres of tillable land on our farm and typically plant about 5 acres to vegetables and fruit each year.

Anything under 10 acres is a micro farm.

Here are 10 significant benefits of a micro farm...

Farming Lessons From Noah the Patriarch

A story to contemplate on this Thanksgiving weekend. We are spending some time with family and I will resume posts next week.

I believe that men are happiest when they are pursuing a big awesome vision and behind that vision is a life changing purpose.

In Genesis 6:14-16 God told the patriarch Noah that he was to build an ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 40 feet deep. That was one big boat! God gave him 120 years to finish the task.

Just for fun let us see what can we learn from how Noah might have proceeded. I'm reading between the lines here a little because scripture doesn't give us all the details, but it might have been something like this:

1. Noah had three sons. He worked with and trained them. He gave them age appropriate tasks to do and then followed up to guide their progress.
2. Noah rewarded his boys for their work and worked with them to save, spend and give.
3. Noah guided his sons in their relationships and choice of wives.
4. Noah was going to need lumber so he might have planted a few thousand acres of cypress trees. He had 100 years for the trees to mature
5. Noah was going to need large amounts of hay and grain. So he learned to grow these as well.
6. Noah learned to preserve his harvest as he would need to have enough stored up for a year in the ark and most of a season until crops could be grown again. He likely canned a years supply of salsa.
7. Noah had learned to save for a "rainy day" and was able to hire some skilled craftsmen for certain areas of construction where he was not an expert.
8. Noah worked closely with these skilled craftsman and was soon able to go to the Mesopotamian version of  "Home Depot" and get the tools he needed.
9. Noah was widely read and studied up on things like timber construction techniques and veterinary science (the zoo and exotic animal version).
10. Noah also had one of the best grape vine collections on the planet, since it was ultimately the only grape vine collection on the planet.

Like Noah my vision has been to work with my family teach them life skills that will serve and protect them as they look to the future. My work and the farm have been my big awesome tasks. Not quite as big or awesome as Noah's. But awesome nonetheless.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Emotional intelligence may sound like one of those oxymorons like "deafening silence", "random order", or "virtual reality". But it is actually a key concept in leadership theory. Many successful leaders have a high IQ (Intelligence Quotient), excellent experience and wisdom. IQ and personality are relatively fixed and won't change significantly. But EQ is flexible and can be developed throughout our lives.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and the ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships, according to Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Graves, in TalentSmart.

The research shows that in roles of moderate to high complexity, people with high IQ outperform those with average IQ just 20% of the time. People with average IQ outperform those with high IQ 70% of the time. So IQ and technical expertise are enablers, but not sufficient to make a star performer. So what is the missing ingredient?

The research shows that 1/3 of superior performance is accounted for by IQ while 2/3 is a function of EQ. A second study found that high EQ leaders exceeded performance targets by 15% on average, while low EQ leaders underperformed by about the same amount.

The conclusion is that IQ will get you hired. But it is EQ that sets us apart and will get you promoted.

For the same reason that the ambivert can excell at sales, the person with high EQ has the people skills to excell in leadership.

Learning to hone these skills can benefit the farmer in marketing, leading in his field, and persuading others to follow.

Farmers Blend Order and Chaos

To be chaordic is to harmoniously blend characteristics of both order and chaos in a pattern dominated by neither.

The definition of chaordic sounds like cryptic double speak to this farmer. So beside expanding our vocabulary of obscure words what does this mean?

The idea is to be flexible by embracing change while still maintaining enough order and continuity that your farm is successful.

Joel Salatin, that sage of farm wisdom, says that you can be a Buddhist or a nudist, but you can't be both a Buddhist and a nudist at the same time. Significant change is good, in fact farmers can be a change agent in their communities and in society at large. But too much change will cause you to loose those you are trying to lead and influence.

Here are some examples. Making the transition from conventional to organic production is good. But I have seen farmers who have not studied the requirements sufficiently and therefore were not well prepared. Or maybe they got the idea they they wanted to grow blueberries and their soil was not the right type. Or they wanted to grow 5 acres of raspberries without developing their markets and were not able to sell all the crop. Or they want to grow organic pigs or chickens without having a good source for the very expensive grain required. The list can go on.

Chaordic farmers have the following characteristics:

• They study and understand the traditional approach to their chosen crops. They mine this knowledge for the best principles and practices.
• They notice new trends or create them. 
• They are a catalyst for change in their chosen farming area. They are change agents.
• They create the conditions of innovation.
• They facilitate the availability of new knowledge to other farmers and stake holders
• They balance advocacy of new ideas with investigation of their own ideas.
• They turn emergent ideas into best practices and teach others to use them
• The focus on today while implementing innovations that shape the future
• They create positive disruption and perturb the system
• They are persistent and patient, if something doesn't work the first time they find a better way
• They refuse to lose.

There is much wisdom in this list and much opportunity to innovate at the fringes of most agricultural fields. We have found the local farmers market to be a great laboratory for marketing ideas and new product development. We watch for trends, we listen to our most innovative customers, which are often chefs or other innovative eaters.

Occasionally, we lead the trend, because our customers and our competition have caused us to think in this direction. For example, I have been looking for a cost effective source of baby kale seed so I could provide traditional kale to our customers way ahead of the time in the season when regular kale was available. I found some last spring and had a great crop in process. This kale sold way better than I had thought it would and I later found out that kale was a major focus of the Gourmet cooking magazines for the spring season. That definitely helped, but having delicious baby kale was the lynch pin. Was this just dumb luck or had we anticipated a trend. I'll let you be the judge.

If You Are At The Head of the Class You May Be in the Wrong Class

As students we strive to be at the head of the class and we should strive for the highest levels of learning. As adults we should still strive for the highest levels of learning but I'm not sure being at the "head of the class" is always the best strategy. Think about it, if you are the best performer in your work group, you probably aren't challenged and aren't learning as much as you could. Same thing applies to farming. If you are the best of the farmers in your peer group and aren't being challenged to new ideas and better methods then you are going to stagnate quickly.

So what to do?

Seek out a group where you are not the best and the brightest. A group that you can learn from and grow with. Find a group with new and different ideas. Learn how to use the technology better and how to use new resources. Sometimes I think that we need to think small as well as think big. Small farmers are often the best innovators. The big guys just don't have the time.

Read good books. Zig Ziegler said, "If you don't read, you can't lead". He meant that a good leader will always be challenging his mind with the best ideas and literature. Biographies of great leaders are a good place to start. Great speeches in time of war or social transition are also a good source of ideas and learning. Reading doesn't always mean sitting down with a book either. For me the cab of my pick-up and tractor is a class room of listening to books, speeches, and pod casts.

Ask to spend time with someone who has achieved what you would like to achieve in 10 to 15 years. Learn what they do that creates a successful environment. If you want to be a millionaire you need to do what millionaires do. If you want to be a successful organic farmer you need to learn and then master those skills.

What are the goals you want to achieve. What are your goals for your family. They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert and there is research to back that up. So what ever you sent your mind to do that sooner you get to it, the sooner you will reach your goals. But just because you have spent 10,000 hours, there is always someone who has spent 30,000 hours or 50,000 hours. There is always someone who learns quicker or who has worked harder.

So next time you are feeling like you are at the head of the class consider what that means and look to expand your horizons, try something new and learn from those that have more experience.

Vital Not Viral

When Reed and I started our blog our goal was to provide useful information on the topic of market gardening and a family farm. We also wanted the content to be high quality and to use photography to add a level of interest. We are learning as we go and the project has been very educational for us both.

We wanted to develop a significant amount of content before sharing the blog address with a large audience. We now have about 150 posts published with about 175 posts written and pending publication over the next several months. We went public May 1 and have had 2500 posts read since then.

We will likely never go viral in the way some of the online content does, but that is not our focus. We don't want to be sensational or titillating. We don't need any big names or fancy titles. We aren't inventing any new technology or patents. Only tried and true information that has stood the test of time.

We are sharing the story of our families years of experience at raising and selling vegetables in the upper Midwest, near Rochester, Minnesota. We also have teenagers that have been involved in our farming operation since they were preschool children. Our family experience and raising children is intertwined with our farming experience and many stories in our posts come from when our children were young.

It is our quest to provide information, experience, farm lore, family stories, and answer lots and lots questions for our friends who are new to gardening and those who are very experienced. For many things there is no wrong answer only an alternate perspective.

If our blog is "Vital" not "Viral" we will consider our efforts a success.

EntreLeadership On and Off the Farm

Dave Ramsey defines EntreLeadership as "The process of leading to cause a venture to grow and prosper". Webster says a leader is "someone who rules, guides, and inspires others."; accordingly, the word entrepreneur means "one who takes a risk."

We have raised our children with a spirit of EntreLeadership. Since before they were school age they have contributed in an age appropriate way to the farm and selling at the farmers market. They each have had areas that they have enjoyed contributing to and they have developed expertise in. Reed has been our root expert: radishes, onions, garlic, leeks and potatoes. Jenna is the herb expert: basil, rosemary, mint and chives. Andrea is an expert in, well, practically everything. She especially likes transplants and flowers.

Now that they are teenagers how has that EntreLeadership spirit worked out:

• Andrea, a music education major, in the summer of her freshman year in college, is planning to organize summer music theory classes for middle and high school students. She has put together a syllabus and will develop curriculum for all the age groups. She was on a path to do this independently and offer classes to schools in the area. Her first stop was the honors choirs of SE Minnesota. Turns out they had been wanting to offer classes just like this and they are interested in hiring her. So an entrepreneurial venture turned into a summer job and may go well beyond.
• Reed has had a strong interest in electronics since he was little. When he was 8 I got him an Lego NXT robot that he could program. When he was 10 I got him a PIC microprocessor and bread board. He has done numerous electronics projects. In Junior High he got interested in buying and selling electronics like laptops, ipads, ipods and iPhone. He is now a freshman in high school. He averages one purchase/sale per week. He recently bought a iPhone with a broken screen and had to completely remove all the contents to replace the screen. Pretty cool operation and it worked perfect when he put it back together. He has a nice business started. It all started after winter market a few years ago when I paid the kids about $300 dollars as an end of the season bonus. Reed wanted to buy an ipod and a new one was a little over $200. I told him he could get one for half that price if we was willing to wait a buy a used one. He found one for less than half price on Craig's list and was hooked.
• Jenna, a junior in high school, has been working at Great Harvest. She decided she wanted to work there and was able to get a job. They are flexible on hours so that works great with her school schedule. She really likes bread and cooking so this is an ideal position.
• Jenna recently bought a camera with her earnings and she is a very talented photographer. She is working on ways she can use her camera to earn extra money for college.

Top Leadership and Business Books

At its heart farming is a business. So I think it is appropriate that farmers be current on the best leadership and business books. As I scan back over the books I have read recently, the following titles come to mind.

I Love to Listen

Only slightly less important than the love of good books is the way technology has enabled the ability to listen to some of the greatest thinkers and speakers of our time. Almost every book is now available on many kinds of media.

I am constantly listening to speakers and books, I typically wear out the tape player in a vehicle every 20,000 miles or so. My vehicles are pickups. I spend many hours loading and unloading compost by hand. Remember my first post on compost? Well most of those 3,000,000 pounds of compost were shoveled on and off of one of my pickups by hand...so that would make 6 million pounds handled by hand. This is good exercise for the body and if you are listening to some worthy literature or speaker, can be good exercise for the mind and soul.

We Love To Read

We are a family of readers and I love to read.

Jenna (a high school freshman at the time) and I had a contest a few years ago. We both wrote down our books read for the year and both of us clocked in at over 200 books for the year. She let me count books on tape or she would have won hands down.