Our most successful farmers don’t wallow

THE are many different types of people in the world today. In fact, we are groomed from the day we are born to be the person we grow into being later on in life.

The surroundings one is born into from a family, school, society, sport, creed, etc point of view combine together to form the values that guide us throughout our lives.

However, we as humans often tend to stereotype people depending on their upbringing. In the general population, farmers have a reputation for complaining about everything from weather to prices. Is this accusation true of every farmer in the country or is it just those who complain most get all the airtime?

We all know the reality is that farming by its nature is a cyclical business, weather and prices are volatile so in any decade there will be periods where its all good and “we make hay” and also there will be periods where its all bad and all we hear is “doom and gloom”.

Winston Churchill once famously said “never let a good crisis go to waste” in reference to the conditions after World War II.

Our most successful farmers think like Churchill, they don’t wallow in the doom and gloom nor do they engage in pitching farmer against farmer, instead they see opportunity in crises such as Brexit and the current drought for the progression of their farm business.

They prepare well-researched business plans and simply get on with it.

I once read a book by a Japanese-American called Robert Kiyosaki called Cashflow Quadrant which perfectly explains the differences between people when it comes to successfully managing and/or owning a business.

It is very revealing to look at Kiyosaki’s ideas from a farm business perspective. Kiyosaki categorised people into four sides of a quadrant as follows: Employee Business owner

Self employed (you won a job)

Investor (money works for you)

Employee

Employees exchange time for money. Not many farmers by definition fit into this category, but many act as if they are employees by slavishly following the same routine from day to day, expecting things to get improve rather than making them improve. The limit to an employee’s income is the amount of time they work.

Self employed

A self-employed person is someone who owns a job. In general, they work very hard, are very good at what they do, are poor to delegate and the graveyard is full of them. At their funerals, one can hear mutterings by friends and relations such as “he was some man to work”, “his children would not hold his coat”. The limit to a self employed’s income is also the amount of time they work. Many, if not most Irish farmers fall into this category.

Business owner

He/she hires people so that they can get more done. An ability to manage people is a pre-requisite to be a successful business owner. This is the new breed of Irish farmer, they work smarter not harder. More Irish farmers must strive to get into this category.

Investor

An investor is somebody who invests money into a farm business but is not the owner of that business. This is a per-