“It takes years to reach an ‘overnight success’”.
Those from developing countries (but not only) often share their frustration at the inability to promote and change the agro sector.
But, worst of all, when I hear a loss of faith in a better future and the unreadiness to even try changing it.
As much as I understand their frustration, there is no greater failure than that of giving up before trying.
For the New Year, this column is dedicated to those of all ages and places who dream of a future with a better reality but are considering giving up on that dream.
To those who lost faith, I say, never give up and try to create a better future; it is better to be a fool who tries and fails than a loser who doesn't even try.
Failing is part of the path to success; accept yourself as you are, with your inability, disabilities, and limitations, and use the New Year's time to love yourself regardless of the number of times you fail to reach your dream.
SETTING EXPECTATIONS
Finally, you graduate from university and receive your degree. Not a year passes, and you are frustrated; you feel your life is not taking you fast enough to where you should and rightly deserve to be.
You can't get it, "How come I am not yet a manager of a company / a successful entrepreneur / an advisor that everyone awaits his/her advice?"
Then you get frustrated and angry about your country, government, farmers, and business people, and you ask yourself, "How come my country lags so far behind?"
You answer yourself, "This horrible state of my country will never change! I am wasting my time here. I give up hoping for change or try bringing a change."
Let me ask you: is this state of mind strange to you? Did you ever have such thoughts?
Let's take a moment for a "Reality Check", for which we will assume you are one of the brightest minds in your country.
Now, ask yourself if you put in half the effort of those you envy their success and wish to be on the same list with them.
How many hours, years, and failures passed before the following happened?
Science: A Nobel Prize winner reaches the result that rewards him the honor.
Culture: Bach, The Beatles, and Charlie Chaplin became superstars.
Business: Edison (light bulb), Henry Ford (car), the Right Brothers (airplane), Alexander Fleming (antibiotics), Steve Jobs (iPhone), Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and others reached the innovation they are most known for.
Those people are known to be very smart and successful in what they do, and yet it took them years and ‘grand failures’ to reach the pinnacle of global success in their field.
Do you envy Israel for its agro sector's "instant" success?
Look at the previous column, where I shared a brief history of how Israeli agriculture’s "instant magic success" began over 150 years ago. Do you remember how, before the Kibbutz and Moshav, there were Moshavot in Israel, where 100% of those failed and their farmers lived and died in poverty!?
Do you think I am "an instant success"?
Look at previous columns where I shared many stories about failing to reach my goals for many years.
How many ‘grand failures’ did you experience? How many decades did you invest in reaching your dream?
If you want an "overnight success," begin by putting in the years of work and the number of failures it takes.
BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF
In today's media, we are exposed to endless stories of success until we get the impression that, other than us, everybody reaches success quickly and easily.
This is a destructive, unrealistic, unhealthy, and incorrect view of the way success is achieved.
As you can learn from the stories of some of the most famous and successful people in human history (some listed above), it takes years and often decades, hard work, sweat, tears, “blood”, and failures to reach an "overnight success".
You must have set the bar low if you didn't fail at least one thousand times before reaching your dream or goal.
If you have yet to reach your dream, know it is okay. Don't lose faith or hope; keep trying and love yourself as you fail.
Loving yourself when you do well is easy, but can you accept and love yourself when failing for years and even decades, as those who you consider “successful” had to endure before becoming so?
My heart is with the dreamers, those entrepreneurs, and others who suffer daily, hoping their dream will come true.
My dreamer friends of all ages, positions, experiences, and places of living, I wish for you to hold on to your dream/s and passions while you show more love, patience, understanding, mercy, and forgiveness to yourself.
Please forgive yourself for what you are not and accept yourself for what and who you are.
I am being selfish when I wish you this. Selfish because I want to see a better world, and it can’t happen without you.
How can this world be better if you are afraid of changing it because your self-esteem, love, and confidence rely on you telling yourself a story of how smart you are, that you never fail and always succeed?
Do you understand that when you fail, it doesn’t mean you are a failure? On the contrary, it means you are confident, brave, and remarkable, taking the risk of doing uncertain things.
THE BEAUTY OF HUMAN IMPERFECTION
I am not perfect, and so is the world.
An ancient Jewish saying says: "You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." (Mishna, Pirkei Avot 2:16)
"The work" refers to improving and doing things better.
When you view yourself as one part of the chain of generations, you realize that each generation did its best to leave a better world to the next generation while no one "completely fixed the world."
You are not perfect, and your task is not to make the world perfect. Your task is to do your best to (continue) improve the world, even though you know you will not complete that task in your lifetime.
Does this make sense to you?
Your part is significant, setting foundations for your children to continue to improve the world, maybe at a faster pace.
How can you improve the world?
By improving yourself; a possible mission when you realize and accept that you are not perfect.
You see, the journey of improving yourself is interrelated with that of improving the world.
As the world is beautiful in its imperfection, so are you and others. Embrace your imperfection, and with it, go on a journey to improve yourself, others, and the world.
EMBRACING MY IMPERFECTION
I set myself free once I fully realized and embraced my limitations and imperfections, which are not few.
· I hardly know two languages: I would like to know all languages, but I am imperfect.
· I hardly understand my culture, let alone others: I would like to understand all cultures, but I am imperfect.
· My understanding of science, politics, human interaction, history, global challenges, and even agriculture is far from what I wish because I am imperfect.
· I was wrong more times than I can count because I am imperfect.
Funny enough, when I realized how often I was wrong, big time wrong, I said to myself, “I am only human; I can be wrong”.
This didn’t diminish me, but on the contrary, it freed me to change my mind faster than before and be more open to other ideas, for "I am only human, and whatever I was convinced until now may be wrong”.
I was wrong many times to name three of my "mega-wrongs": (i) practicing crop protection based on pesticide sprays, (ii) believing technologies are the solution to all problems and challenges, and (iii) thinking the Kibbutz/Moshav models have completed their job in the world decades ago.
“We learn all our lives and die stupid” is what I came to accept.
This attitude makes me humble and ready to embrace my limitations and imperfections while opening a new page in my book of life, one yet to be written, and writing it as a new person free of my old constraints.
A new year is a perfect time for a fresh chapter where we can be kind to ourselves, accept our errors, and leave behind our old selves for a new self, one healthier for us and the world.
We are only human.
ONE CHAIN IN TIME
All people lucky to be alive are part of one chain of human generations. This chain includes our fathers and children.
Understanding we are merely a dot in time of a ‘human chain of generations’ enables the freedom not to try to complete everything.
I set my goal in life to move the wheel forward in the fields that I am most passionate about, which, in my case, is about improving farmers’ lives. I practice this through three distinguished paths -
* Consultancy on rural communities' lifestyles, e.g., Kibbutz and Moshav.
* Local & national programs related to export by using Dream Valley’s operational concepts of a global vertical value and supply chain. Dream Valley chain connects input suppliers with farmers in developing economies and farmers with consumers in premium markets.
* Crop protection: Biofeed, an eco-friendly zero-spray solution development, production, and protocols.
* IBMA Conference - To learn, share, and practice novel business models: the IBMA 2024 conference theme is “Reshaping Agribusiness Models for Building Prosperous Rural Communities." Register now.
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What are your dreams and goals with which you want to turn the wheel a bit to improve this world?
Be humble and acknowledge your role in the ongoing chain of generations, contributing to the world's improvement while understanding that perfection is an unattainable ideal.
You can use those questions to reach self-clarity:
* How will I “push the wheel forward”?
* Am I ready this year to accept myself as I am, with my imperfections?
* How does accepting my imperfection manifest itself?
* Do I have new, different goals?
TAKEAWAY MESSAGES
Ø EMBRACE YOUR imperfections.
Ø FORGIVE YOURSELF for not being "perfect", and all that comes with it.
Ø HOLD THE MOMENT to make an imperfect world a bit better.
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More on the October 7th genocide in South Israel:
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*** Mental and Economic Freedom Are Interconnected. ***
See you soon,
Nimrod
Dr. Nimrod Israely is the CEO and Founder of Dream Valley and Biofeed companies and the Chairman and Co-founder of the IBMA conference. +972-54-2523425 (WhatsApp), or email nisraely@biofeed.co.il
P.S.
If you missed it, here is a link to last week's blog, “Why Farmers Without Certainty Are Poor Farmers and How To Overcome This."
P.P.S.
Dream Valley is a field-proven disruptive business model based on the successful Israeli Model.
To learn more and become a Dream Valley partner, contact me at nisraely@biofeed.co.il, +972-542523425 (WhatsApp/Text)
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Change Begins With A Decision That The Existing Reality Is A Choice and Not A Decree of Fate