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Running your own Business

by Alice Warner |

This is probably a topic that many of you can relate to. I know lots of people who either do, or would like to, run their own business. Running your own enterprise is for me everything I dreamed it would be – both the good and the bad.

I’m a planner and so before I started my own business last year I researched and researched and researched. I played through all the different negative scenarios in my head. Working 100 hour weeks; totally missing the point of what customers want and being unable to sell anything; floods and fires devastating my farm; plagues of locusts (or caterpillars); my daughter hating me for never ‘coming home from work’. However, I also imagined the positives I hoped to get out of my new business. The freedom to make decisions about my own work hours and tasks; the satisfaction of building something successful from nothing; the lack of bureaucracy and paperwork; the job security I could plan and ensure for myself and my staff; the joy of shaping a truly sustainable farm that produces nutritious and delicious food and knowing that what I do has a true and important purpose – to feed people. Not to mention that I can decide when to go on holidays, which after years of being a teacher is no small thing. 

So, 9 months after starting is it all it’s cracked up to be? Yes, I believe it is. I have learnt to be patient, as a business doesn’t grow overnight. I have achieved things (particularly when wrangling machinery) that I never thought possible. I have been braver than I knew I could be. I have been challenged and I have grown. I have learned to ask for help and been gobsmacked by the generosity of friends and family. I have realised the importance of having mentors and asking questions. I have thought outside the square.

Life is rich and rewarding and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Ask me when it’s raining non-stop for 2 weeks again and I may have a different view – but I’d rather be on a rollercoaster than in a traffic jam.

Yours in veg, 
Alice

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