Farmer Post 2
Now that I have reached the end of the book, I can say that the book was a good read but not a book that I would choose to read on my spare time. Although the topics can be interesting, I am no interested in being a farmer or even in the process of farming. The positive takeaways that I took from this book is that although I did not love the content, the author is a very good story teller and generally easy to follow. Secondly, Although I do not want to be a farmer, I believe there is a lot of lessons in the book on life as an entrepreneur and how to start a business.
One of the main parts that I didn't like about the book is the fact that the story is not told on a single timeline. He took an interesting strategy of splitting up the chapters by types of crops or animals as opposed to writing it in a sequential format. Although this format allowed for great detail on each crop or animal, it was tough to imagine how the farm looked as they time laps overlapped a lot.
As a business student, I would've liked the author to incorporate more business terms and financials into the story telling of how his farm came to be. He rarely mentions his costs and even less often mentions his revenues. He talks about a lot of different failures through trial and errors but doesn't mention how much each of these errors cost him and whether they were calculated risks or not. Lastly, in terms of things I did not like about the book, he seems very concerned with being perceived as a legitimate farmer. I believe that if his concern was more focused on being a successful business man, his farm would have been more fun for him and in turn would've made him a more legitimate farmer.
However, the book was not all negatives and there were aspects that I did enjoy to read. Most notably, this entire book is essentially the story of starting a business and it's success' and failure's. I enjoyed reading about how he would prepare to milk cows or plant trees or become a beekeeper and do all the research necessary but at the end of the day nothing prepared him more than trial and error and experience. I think these are all very valuable lessons in business. Every business must do all the research possible before starting a new venture but you must also be brave enough to start it knowing that you will truly begin to learn what's most important once you have begun and must often accept failure to reach success.
One of the main parts that I didn't like about the book is the fact that the story is not told on a single timeline. He took an interesting strategy of splitting up the chapters by types of crops or animals as opposed to writing it in a sequential format. Although this format allowed for great detail on each crop or animal, it was tough to imagine how the farm looked as they time laps overlapped a lot.
As a business student, I would've liked the author to incorporate more business terms and financials into the story telling of how his farm came to be. He rarely mentions his costs and even less often mentions his revenues. He talks about a lot of different failures through trial and errors but doesn't mention how much each of these errors cost him and whether they were calculated risks or not. Lastly, in terms of things I did not like about the book, he seems very concerned with being perceived as a legitimate farmer. I believe that if his concern was more focused on being a successful business man, his farm would have been more fun for him and in turn would've made him a more legitimate farmer.
However, the book was not all negatives and there were aspects that I did enjoy to read. Most notably, this entire book is essentially the story of starting a business and it's success' and failure's. I enjoyed reading about how he would prepare to milk cows or plant trees or become a beekeeper and do all the research necessary but at the end of the day nothing prepared him more than trial and error and experience. I think these are all very valuable lessons in business. Every business must do all the research possible before starting a new venture but you must also be brave enough to start it knowing that you will truly begin to learn what's most important once you have begun and must often accept failure to reach success.
Comments
Post a Comment