I was nine years old in the fall of 1992. It was a cool afternoon in northern Denmark, as the sun began to set behind the trees. I was working with my father in the front yard, cutting and splitting firewood for the winter.
At the end of the day, we had a substantial birch log left on the lawn. At three feet long, it was too large to split. So my father issued a challenge; if I could saw the log in half by the following weekend, he would issue a crisp 100-kroner bill, equal to about $15.
I was on the job immediately after school on Monday. With that much money on the line (my allowance at the time was a weekly $3), the work simply had to be accomplished. But I was the smallest kid in my 4th-grade class, and it became obvious that the log would be a challenge.
My father heard my daily reports, my sinking into despair, as the weekend closed in and the log appeared triumphant. “If only I could have a bigger kid help at the other end of the bow saw,” I said one evening. My father smiled. “I told you I would pay 100 kroner when the log was cut. I didn’t make any rules about how you go about it.”
That day I learned the difference between schoolwork and the real world, a difference that cannot be overstated. In school, you have to do your own work to get the points. You have to follow the rules to complete the assignment. But the world is different. The world cares about results, not about made-up rules. The world lets you find your own assignments, as many as you want, and write your own rules. The world has customers instead of teachers, and happy customers don’t care how you got it done.
With that in mind (a lesson that I’m sure my father was pleased to stage) I hired a friend. I paid him $3 for his efforts, and made full disclosure that I would myself pocket 4 times that amount. That fact didn’t bother him at all; he would make a week’s worth of allowance in an hour’s work (he was much larger and more effective at sawing than me), and he was quick to accept the invitation before I offered it to someone else. An entrepreneurial seed was born.
Christian
Have you met that married couple dedicated to a life of mutual irritation? How about the other one, the two that are so in love that their surroundings become ill?
Imagine with me that a friend in 1942 told you “Hey, I want to start a diner in the town of Sikeston, Missouri.” You might respond by asking a few questions, like “where is Sikeston,” and “how does that possibly sound like a good idea?”
My first job after college was on the “plug line” at a commercial greenhouse in Manhattan, Kansas. The plug line is as sexy as it sounds, a conveyer belt surrounded by college students, all aiming to “plug” seedlings into moving planting trays fast enough to avoid a pileup. Only I wasn’t a college student, but a recent college graduate. And I was making $6.25 per hour.
As pathological encouragers of small agricultural business, Rachel and I are occasionally asked a variation on the following question: “Can I survive on a cottage business that sells scented candles? How about Merino wool, lavender oil, or bee’s wax?”
You Have Three Cows... 