Finance with Don Fraser Fraser Farm Finance

The definition of the word ‘harden’, which dates back to the 13^th century, is ‘to become more definite and strongly felt’, or, ‘to make someone less emotional and less likely to feel sorry for other people’.

Now this is a very wide topic and not for the faint-hearted, but it seems that we are being pushed back and softened by a ‘nanny’ state. You can look at any sector of our economy or business to find the push towards taking over our ability to think independently and make our own decisions. Apparently one of our major weaknesses as an economy is that we lack productivity. To get more productive we need more grit and attention to achieving more. It seems that we do work long hours, but with low productivity.

More pain

Recently I was at a physiotherapy presentation on keeping mobile and flexible and the physio said we need to go to 20-30 per cent pain. In other words, we need to push two to 30 per cent past our pain barrier to get a result. It was from that comment that I realised we are soft and only going to 10 per cent and then we give up.

What if we all just made the extra effort when we are doing a task, making more effort to get it right and do it better for longer? What if we refused to give up so easily and stayed on task for longer? What if we inspired others to make more effort and ‘harden-up’ a little?

On the farm we are making millions of decisions, all interlocking, which will affect the outcome of the business. The ability to harden-up and focus on the tasks at hand could have amazing results.

We have English doctors leaving their homeland and coming to New Zealand to get away from form-filling and bureaucracy, only to find it is following them here.

‘Moaning Kiwis’

Are we becoming a bunch of ‘moaning Kiwis’, blaming everyone else for our woes, rather than hardening-up and facing the issue and getting it sorted ourselves?

Sometimes we will see a situation that has stalled due to the inability of people to move forward and they start looking to the legal system to sort it. Maybe we need to harden-up, step-up and get it sorted ourselves, rather than looking elsewhere for a solution. Now we find that ‘hardened-up’ immigrants are doing some of our work which we softies refuse to do for low wages.

It is all a bit worrisome really, all because we wanted our kids and their kids to have a better and easier life than us. We do however, seem to have made it easier and easier which has made them softer and softer. Maybe we need to ‘harden-up’ and ‘become more definite and strongly felt’.

Disclaimer – These are the opinions of Don Fraser of Fraser Farm Finance. Any decisions made should not be based on this article alone and appropriate professional assistance should be sought.

Don Fraser is the Principal of Fraser Farm Finance and a consultant to the Farming Industry. Contact him on 0800 777 675 or 021 777 675. A disclosure document is available on request.