Dream Believe Achieve
Can you remember what you were like when you were 13? What school you went to? The friends you had? Where you lived ... and what dreams you had for the future? As MiNDFOOD turns 13, it seems like a perfect time to reflect. Entering teenage years, there is much ahead of us I am sure, and looking back MiNDFOOD has accomplished many things since its launch on March the 8th, 2008 into the cloud of the Global Financial Crisis and now of course recently riding the COVID-19 wave and the many challenges that that has presented.
During those 13 years we have experienced exceptional highs and, like any small family business, some bumpy, not-so-great moments.
Yet right now, in this moment, what would your 13-year-old self think of what your life has become? As a teenager, we all had dreams of achieving great things. Looking at your parents and friends and family around you, perhaps you wanted to emulate what they had achieved in life. Or perhaps you desperately wanted to take a different path, and carve out a new direction.
For me, growing up in Whangārei, my mum would buy the Listener and the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly magazines each week on a
Tuesday afternoon at the weekly supermarket shop; my dad would subscribe to Time and New Zealand Gardener magazines and an impressive French magazine called Réalitiés. These magazines gave me the opportunity to lose myself into different worlds. At 13, I had no idea that creating magazines was a job. That didn’t dawn on me until much later, when not only did I want to be part of creating a magazine, I wanted to own my own magazine one day. Nothing like dreaming big.
No one in my family or the parents of my friends was involved in publishing or media at all. One thing that those range of magazines did give me was a point of view and a range of unique worlds outside my own childhood experiences. Something else it gave me was a thirst for wanting to travel and experience firsthand some of what I would read about and learn. I still remember thinking at 13 that perhaps I would become a teacher ... an art teacher even? My mum was a teacher; she taught both me and my brother in Standard Two. My three sisters also became teachers, perhaps I would follow that path? At 13 I also remember thinking I will never make my children wear hand-knitted, chocolate-brown poloneck jerseys with three stripes running across the chest. Despite being created and made with much love, those tight, ribbed, neck-scratching garments were truly awful to wear.
So looking back at my 13-year-old self, he would never believe or comprehend the steps in getting to where I am today. I don’t think I was afraid to dream, but as a teenager perhaps my dreams were a little limited in thinking because quite simply I would never have known how to create something like MiNDFOOD and what could be achieved from growing up in small-town New Zealand. Looking back, I think I would be amazed at some of my life experiences now and been proud of the many different things I have achieved in life.
Sometimes, though, you need the support of others around you to point out your talents and at the same time what you potentially can achieve. For me, it has mainly been the women in my life who have been the confidence boosters that have never doubted me, the ones who have seen the potential within me. My mother, my sister, a favourite sister-in-law, my wife, great friends and my daughters have been the cheerleaders in my life that celebrate who I am.
Launching MiNDFOOD on International Women’s Day 13 years ago – this year going on sale again on that same launch day, March the 8th – makes me proud of all those talented women I’ve had surrounding me who believe in my potential, perhaps when at times I can’t see it myself. So take this time to celebrate those who celebrate you. More than anything, though, I realise MiNDFOOD, with its range of experiences and stories, is also a cheerleader for others and those who want to achieve their dreams.
Remember, at 13, what you felt and the path that perhaps you could or couldn’t see for yourself was just another moment in time. It is today, right now, this minute when you are reading MiNDFOOD, that you must become whoever and whatever you want to be. Just start and don’t let anyone tell you that it can’t be achieved. Because from experience, anything is possible.
“IT IS TODAY THAT YOU MUST BECOME WHO YOU WANT TO BE.”