And sometimes it takes the eyes of a stranger to give fresh perspective and insight that is more valuable than gold.
For those who have gone through life without an aha moment, I truly feel for you.
These wonderful, life-changing epiphanies happen at the most unexpected times and lead you down the most extraordinary paths.
My wife Kylie and I have had a few over the years with various levels of harmony and success. But one that really sticks in my mind was the realisation our modest hill country sheep and beef farm tucked away in a corner of Rangitikei can be a life-changing experience for someone who walks in off the street.
Ting was a petite and polite young Asian student who happened to visit our farm to get a change of scenery from the bland landscape of university. After spending some time with her we felt obliged to ask if she had enjoyed herself, as you do wonder with some people.
Her response was that it was the best experience she had enjoyed in New Zealand in nearly two years.
Hang on a minute, did we hear that right?
How could gazing out at lush grass, feeding pet lambs and touching a few woolly sheep have such a profound impact?
It was then that the realisation dawned on us that through a different set of eyes what we see to be ordinary, others find extraordinary.
Since this lightbulb moment over 10 years ago our business has evolved considerably.
Back then I would have described us as a typical, youngish farming couple with a great opportunity to farm in our own right thanks to the efforts of generations past.
Today we are parents, sheep and beef farmers, tree planters, water quality improvers, tourism operators and event managers of a mud run among other things.
Through a decade of hard graft, persistence, lateral thinking, ambition and even tragedies our business and lives have evolved in ways that we could not have dreamed possible.
Now I am not suggesting every farm in NZ has to become a tourism operation but one thing I have been taught by being a tourism operator is to look at our business, environment and myself through an outsider’s pair of eyes.
Our guests are normally well educated, enthusiastic consumers of the products we produce who hail from all corners of the globe. They ask confronting and insightful questions that actually make me pause to consider why we actually do that the way that we do.
We need to incorporate more of that thinking in all aspects of farming.
There has been much commentary of late about disrupters on the horizon.
Mark my words, they are not coming, they are already here.
Kiwi farmers have long been touted as world leaders in agriculture but when it comes to self-promotion and self-analysis we can certainly improve.
We need to move away from a philosophy where we farm behind closed gates and throw our gates open and farm like the whole world is watching, because it is.
Primary Industries Minister Damien O’Connor was recently quoted saying “Agriculture is our noblest profession. This is an absolutely core component of our existence. People expect food to be delivered. But there is a complete disconnect to the realities of how it has been produced.”
As farmers we need to take these sorts of statements as seriously as a heart attack.
The days of relying on others to champion our industry are gone.
We need to stand up and shout from the rooftops all the positive aspects of farming in this country or we risk being run over by the bus that is the global economy. It might be the way we interact within our communities, our portrayal of ourselves to the urban masses or our knowledge of where our exported products are ending up.
All of these facets need our hard work and attention as much as the lush green farms that we call home.
I am the first to admit I do not have all the answers but I can predict the future. If we, as an industry, make this investment in ourselves today the riches we will reap in future years will be beyond our current comprehension.
And remember that simple mantra that enriched our lives all those years ago.
Our ordinary is to someone else extraordinary.
