Learning to fail

This article was bought to you by Chandler Agribusiness. 

By Dwain Duxson - DelayPay and Farm Tender

We don't take failure in Australia too well; nobody wants to fail, whether it be in business, sport or any other pursuit, we want to be seen as winners.

That's not a healthy attitude because it makes us scared; it makes us risk-averse.

Farmers, however, are great ones to teach the wider community how to fail, they fail all the time, and that's a good thing.

I struggle to watch the news these days, it's all too negative, and I scan the papers online looking for good stories only, it's all about trying to bring people down.

Failure in Farming makes you a better Farmer; not everything goes right. When dealing with the elements, the elements are going to win sometimes, and most Farmers accept that.

 Having spent some time in the US, they have a different attitude to failure, they accept it, some even embrace it. We seem to celebrate it in a different way. It gets bought up in a lot of conversations; old mate got this and that wrong, I get caught up talking about it myself and afterwards think, that was pretty negative.

I think we put to much pressure on ourselves to get everything right; it doesn't work like that.

 We know in Farming, what we do today may not work out tomorrow. It is such a fine line, and I think Farmers do it best, we can teach the wider community that it's ok to get things wrong. Often we find we do things wrong one time, do it the same way the next time and it works out.

But even Farmers have a threshold on how many failures they can accept. The drought is a testament to that, even the best and most positive Farmers are tested when things fail time and time again like they do in droughts.

We are never going to get anywhere without failure, so let's start embracing it and as a community (and a country) we will be much better off.

And for the record, I/we fail all the time, many of you who have been with us (Farm Tender) for a while would have seen things come and go. Things I thought would fly, only to realise after six months trialling, nobody wants it. Read here my story about failing in the US.

Don't be scared

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