LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM, BUILD YOUR OWN FARM!

How often do you hear anyone drop everything he is doing, buy a plot of land and creating what will eventually be his life-long dream -- a farm? Writer Kurt Timmermeister embarked on his journey of pursuing his American dream of owning a home, only to find himself creating a vegetable business, making honey and cider, then buying another 8 acres of land to eventually create his pastures for his sheep and cows in his incredible story Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land. Kurt’s entrepreneurial spirit and determination to succeed inspires me to review how I approach business and fulfillment.

Capitalist America has evolved in recent years to create the innovation revolution, popping out entrepreneurs faster than Kurt can milk his cows. While everyone is talking about the exciting technology coming out Silicon Valley and coding becomes the new fast track to wealth, Kurt prefers to get into the muddy grit of it all by entering the small farm business. Knowing nothing about farming and never intending to enter this space, the soon-to-be farmer self-learns and experiments with various sources of crops until he could optimize and run his business successfully. Every new chapter introduces a new type of crop, a different way to run each venture and an important business lesson.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again

Entrepreneurs fails all the time, but what makes them successful is the perseverance to continue working towards their goal. Kurt’s negligence killed his first batch of bees and the post office’s storing conditions killed his second batch, but he kept trying until his bees finally produced honey 2 years later. Deer ate away at planted orchards, but Kurt determined to make hard cider kept replanting his apple trees until they became tall enough to survive on their own. Mistakes made the first time becomes a lesson for the second or even third attempt until it becomes success.

Take the Leap

“I was grateful I didn’t know what was to come for fear of never starting out” Kurt wrote describing his cow, Dinah. Creating a farm from scratch, milking a cow for 2 hours, and having orchards eaten away by deer are daunting if Kurt knew about the time and effort commitment beforehand. However, if he did not jump right in and adjusted his learning as needed, he would not have created his awesome farm. Taking fear of failure out of the equation by keeping optimistic about what he ultimately wants enabled Kurt to stay determined about adding new equipment and improvements on his plot of land.

For Kurt fulfillment, happiness, and wealth is being able to look at cows grazing his pasture and eating produce from his self-sustaining farm. In a world where money makes the world go round, this perspective is refreshingly eye-opening. There are other ways to be happy instead of chasing after money. Though I will not one day leave my city life, buy land and create a farm, I am inspired one day own my own house and grow my small garden of produce for tangible fulfillment.