Thinking, Waiting, Fasting

Matteo and I do business coaching together. We have a special mentor called Dr B. who isn’t the stereotypical business coach you would have in mind. Rather than a Tony Robbins or Bill Campbell, Dr B. is more of a Gandalf or Yoda figure. He teaches us how to deepen our sense of Self in order to have a more conscious impact on our working environment; treading the twin paths of inner work and outer action; to be Ringbearers or Jedis, depending on which film franchise you fancy.

(Matteo and Dr B. on a leisurely walk in nature during one of our sessions)

The reason I mention Dr B. is because our most recent session surfaced a concept that has quietly been shaping our mindset these past couple months.

April and May have been a very tough period - and I mean really tough. We are facing opposition on every front: logistics, manufacturing, supply chain, farming, branding, operations. The question still looming over all of it: how does this business actually work at scale?

Furthermore, we have a number of key team members moving on in their life from Higher Farm, presenting additional operational and emotional challenges.

To navigate these turbulent times, Dr B. pointed us toward the author Herman Hesse. In his book Siddhartha, the protagonist is asked what he can offer the world. His answer: I can think, I can wait, I can fast. Three disciplines, remarkable in their simplicity and profundity.

You see, Matteo and I really want to get going and start pushing out our ketchup, but there is still so much we need to figure out that is dampening our spirits. We are new to the consumer goods industry, and have little experience in tackling the challenges we are facing. Furthermore, as I highlighted in my previous Substack (link), we are attempting to do things in an unconventional way, by creating a soil-to-bottle product with the utmost integrity.

We are now getting requests from retailers and food service venues in London and beyond Somerset that want to take our product - we just don’t have the capacity to service them, and it’s rather frustrating!

So what does Siddartha’s advice mean to us right now? It means thinking clearly about problems we’ve never faced before; trying to be patient and wait, even when everything in us wants to push. And it means fasting — resisting the urge to force growth before the foundations are solid and wait for the right opportunity. Three simple faculties that are within everyone’s power to enact: I can think, I can wait, I can fast.

(Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse, first published in 1922).

Taking a step back, I feel there is a deeper matter at play here worth touching upon: the harmonising of spiritual and the material realms through work and business.

For those who know my brother and I, you’ll be aware that we are very different. Yet behind these superficial contrasts, we share a deep set of values that bond us together and form the bedrock on which Higher Farm is built (or trying to be built).

One of these values is the belief that conscious leadership needs to play a greater part in business during the 21st century. We feel that the next generation of business leaders will be more akin to Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and Abraham Lincoln rather than Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and the like; serving humanity and a higher-purpose through business, not in spite of it.

Some people may read this and knock it as some woke, New Age crap, stating that ‘doing good’ and making money are mutually exclusive. So be it. But let me just make one point clear: We are not advocating for folk to sit around, making daisy chains, preaching love and peace and pretending to be one big happy family while attempting to build a business. Far from it.

The leaders that I reference are some of the most ambitious, hard working, determined, and indefatigable people to walk this earth, unwavering in their zeal and ardor to conquer the challenges that humanity faces - more so than any founder or business mogul.

Nevertheless, they were able to greatly impact the socio-material world and do it from a place of conscious awareness, driving success and progress in a way that, over the long-term, brought greater harmony and healing to the world, not more division and strife. This is what we are advocates for and believe, despite the naysayers, can be achieved through business.

And with the way the world is turning, who could argue against the need for such a thing?

As our generation lines up to take on the biggest fight of a century, combating world wars, ecological collapse, political chaos, national extremism, health crises, insurmountable fiscal and private debts, economic collapse, and rampant technological disruption, placing the future of our planet on a knife’s edge, who do we want leading the charge: an Elon Musk, or a Mahatma Gandhi?

I know who I’m giving the captain’s armband to.

(Gandhi leading the Salt March, 1930)

“My life is my message.” - Gandhi