7 Rewarding Homestead Lessons for Proactive Small Business Owners

The Start of the Homestead University

Mar 29, 2024

Hi there.

Are you one of those who want to move to the rural countryside?

It's not just since the pandemic that people think living in the country is a great idea. And it is. In addition to being self-sufficient in food, having your homestead also offers a private university for business matters.

Can't believe that?

Come with me on a little journey through the library of my homesteading experiences.

Living around dogs, cats, and other animals is one thing above all: never boring.

But anyone who thinks only animals can teach eye-opening business lessons is wrong. The teachers at the homestead university come in all colors and shapes:

If you stop learning, you've already lost - in your private life, but even more so in business.

The following lessons are part of my life.
They also serve as pointers in my business life. If they help someone question certain events in their own life, then my goal has been achieved. If I can persuade someone to move to the country with my descriptions,
then our world will gain someone who learns to appreciate nature.

As a business person, you will want to experience Homestead University!

Perspective matters more than time
Sometimes you have to kill your baby
Patience can be learned
Garbage is the base for new things
Protection (Foresight) is much better and cheaper than damage
Weather and Markets are unpredictable
Death (of your best apple tree) is inevitable

Perspective matters more than time

Have you ever planted a bamboo?

Probably not. But this grass (yes, bamboo is grass) is an excellent example of perspective and time. In three years, you won't see anything of your new bamboo. It only grows in the root area. From its point of view, it is completely unnecessary to show off before a solid foundation is built.

It grows at an enormous pace but is invisible.

Even in today's popular "build in public" businesses, you need a minimal foundation.

For example, knowing what makes people tick and act.

Sometimes you have to kill your baby

What is your favorite thing to do in your business?

We all have a favorite. It might be a job that we like. Or, a whole department that's close to our hearts. Rarely, but sometimes we have to part with that favorite. Be it the beloved but far too expensive old printer or the favorite cat in the yard. Something that becomes terminally ill and can no longer be saved must be put out of its misery.

This is the hardest of all these lessons. But one that can save your business.

Patience gives you strength

Everything can be learned, my parents used to say.

True, as I learned later in life, but not everything with the same ease. Patience was one of those things that I didn't learn for a lifetime. It took a heart attack to plant patience in my thick skull!

Do as the fish do. Gather your strength in the winter (whatever your winter is) and be patient until your time comes.

Garbage is often the base for new growth

We humans are masters at throwing things away.

Unfortunately, this is a widespread fact and the polluted waters and forests can tell us a thing or two. What we can still learn in many areas is recycling. And I mean this at all levels. Even in business life, we all too often throw away things that could still be of great service.

From old desks to employees who retire far too early and take their know-how home with them.

When we observe nature, we see that it deals with the "old" in a rigorous manner.

But it never does so to leave behind pointless waste. The best example that comes to mind is our huge compost heap. All old wood, leaves, weeds, and other waste go into the compost.

And the wonderful work of the microbes creates new nutrients that keep our garden alive.

Protection and (Foresight) are much better and cheaper than damage

The list of self-inflicted damage in my life could fill books.

You're reading the shorter version now on your favorite digital platform 🙂. Countless proverbs tell us that it is better to keep the damage away than to clean it up. Do we believe it?

I didn't believe it until I saved money on the foundation for the greenhouse and it collapsed in a storm 6 months later...

Weather and markets are unpredictable

Speaking of the weather.

There are things and situations in life, difficult or impossible to influence. Let alone prevent them! For example, storms or radically changing conditions in your market. One of my companies was hugely affected by the economic crash in 2008. 80% of our customers literally "died" in 6 months.

Hardly anyone had predicted the wave of bankruptcies in the construction industry and we were in no way prepared for it.

Death (of your best apple tree) is inevitable

Your best customer has just sold his business to a competitor?

Living with animals and plants teaches you one of the most important lessons. The day will come when you lose a favorite. The first time your favorite sheep dies at night it breaks your heart.

The world stops spinning and you make every desperate move to find the reason.

And often you find nobody to blame!

Who knows why the sheep died? Or why your best apple tree with the sweetest fruit didn't wake up this spring - you don't know. Things that we have to accept because they are beyond our control.

Call it nature, the universe, God, or whatever it is that eases your pain.

Bonus lesson: Your investment is just useless (guard dogs protecting ducks)

Imagine you buy a big dog.

Its task is clear from the start and that's why you've invested in its purchase, pedigree, and training. But he fails miserably in his task. Instead of herding and protecting "his" ducks, he chases them around the yard at night until they all die of heart failure.

Less dramatic but sometimes just as painful is the realization that the new employee you have invested so much in is simply not up to the job...

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