Producer Awakening

The Birth of a Maker

Six years ago, I was sitting at a cubicle on the 19th floor of a grey office building in downtown Calgary staring at my computer screen. I just returned from another uncomfortable meeting with the CEO of the company. I had enough. Something's been scratching for a while, and I've not been able to put my finger on it. Was something wrong with me, or is it this world we live in?

A simple question kept lingering in my mind. It started as a whisper. Over time it got louder. The more I tried to avoid answering to it, the louder it became, until it rung in my ears all the time. With everything I did, the question kept coming: "This cannot be it. Is it?"

The Question

It started one day when my oldest son asked me what it is I do everyday. At the time he was twelve. I thought it will be a quick and easy answer, but as it goes with questions from inquisitive minds, they don't relent. Neither did he. He kept pushing, no matter how hard I tried to give him a sensible reply. The more I said, the less I liked what I heard.

I've been an independent IT Management Consultant for almost two decades. I've travelled the world, and already lived on three continents. My clients included large multinational companies. At the time I was made the Vice President of IT for a utility company, after delivering a particularly challenging systems implementation. I was having a tough time with a group of luddite executives. No matter what I did, most of what I was hired to achieve for the company was opposed at every opportunity by the CEO. He pushed me to the end of my rope, and something was going to give.

My son's question fell on very fertile ground that day. I was having a hard time to answer the question for myself. I just kept staring at my computer screen and my mind was spinning. My email was open, and little reminders kept popping up in the top righthand corner of the screen. Three hundred emails already screaming for attention. Is this it? Is this what life is all about?

The Grooming Game

The more I observed my circumstances, the more it dawned on me. The corporate upper and middle management world I live in and the work I do, largely resembles the inner social workings of a troop of baboons. Very few people seemed to be making anything. Instead, we spent an awful lot of time and energy grooming each other by exchanging (or not) useless information in all kinds of ways. We do it in meetings, in emails, over coffee, chats and at impressive lunches. Everyone appears terribly busy.

I took the red pill, and suddenly I saw it for what it was. It struck me! No one around me was making anything. We are all very busy being busy. But, when the day is over, what do we have to show for it? Where is the sense of purpose and achievement? What is the value to ourselves and to those around us? An empty email inbox. Fake loyalties. Another meeting. A car we don't own. A house mortgaged to the kilter. The next thing. More stuff. This was not my idea of achievement.

There must be something more out there.

Doubts

Suddenly my contribution to this world is in question. My own sense of purpose and motivation lost. Who then are the people responsible for the world we live in? Who has purpose and the motivation to work at it each and every day?

Humans are learning entities. Curiosity drives learning. Through natural selection, the more curious amongst our ancestors were selected to continue the lineage. The ones that learned better, survived. Clearly, I have the gene in spades and it is driving me nuts.

I resigned my post. My journey of discovery commenced.

I didn't realize then, just how amazing the journey is going to be. So far it has been six years of discovery. I've not only questioned the value of the work I was doing, but slowly I've ended up questioning a whole lot of what we consider to be "normal" life. It is amazing. It has changed my whole perspective on life, for the better. It's been a phenomenal experience already, and more is to come. I

Here are some ideas that stuck:

• Make Something: There is purpose, fulfilment and value in making something. There is a whole movement towards people making things. Better than any job out there, if you make something for yourself that you like and can use, chances are that others will like it too. It is often the foundational start of a great business opportunity. See more here: http://makezine.com/ and The Maker Movement. It is easier than ever to make something. Technology is more accessible than ever before. Information is freely available. All that is needed is your interest and some energy. In the last six years I've taught myself to be a Barista, Coffee Shop Owner, Baker, Gelato Master, Nougatier, Chocolatier, Leather Carver, Street Vendor, Camera Man, Editor, and the journey just got started. See how easy it is to turn your passion into income: The $100 Startup.
• Technology is Everywhere: The tools to make things are now more accessible than ever before. No longer are workers held hostage by company owners that control the means to produce. You can order just about anything over the internet. Machines, tools, materials and knowledge on how to use it is freely available. You don't even have to own it. You can borrow it (http://www.makershed.com/).
• Learn Things: The Internet is exploding with information and educational resources. You can hunt for it on your own, join forums, scour YouTube or enrol for some quick and easy courses. Udemy (https://www.udemy.com) is a favourite. The amazing move in online education (as many classic educational institutions are discovering very quickly) is no longer to bed you for years, a small fortune and mostly worthless certificates. It is rather to get you going with a new skills or information as soon as possible. Thanks to sites like Udemy, there is more of an incentive for experts to share their knowledge than ever before. Now you can learn from people online, that actually knows what they are talking about. Their success depends on your preference for the quality and value of education you receive (now there is a novel thought isn't there).
• Sell Things: Access to a market is no longer controlled by the landlords. Again, the Internet provides amazing opportunities to sell what you make or create. The well known sites like EBay, Amazon and others are there. For crafts people there is Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/) There is also a proliferation of markets in every town and community. These markets are always on the lookout for local producers and crafts people to sell their wares. The best part of selling your own creations directly to customers, is that you get to earn more of the profits. No need to share with a retailer and wholesaler.
• Rats in a Cage: If there is one pair of shackles that is the hardest to break in my journey of discovery, it is the shackles of debt, and the lure of more stuff. It comes around every week, or month. The two goes hand in hand. There is an old and popular saying in Dutch: "Wiens brood men eet diens woord men spreekt." It basically means that you are owned by the person that pays your way. If you are working for a job, your employer largely determines your income, standard of living, and a considerable amount of your fate. The same goes for the banks and financiers. If you take their money, you are bound by their rules. The only way to get off the wheel, or out of the cage is to lower your overhead, and let go of credit traps of mortgage, credit card and other consumer financing. Here are some people that will help you get underway: The Minimalists will show you how to declutter your life, get rid of stuff and discover more. The Tiny House Movement will show you how you can live well without a mortgage. If you like traveling, see the Escapees.
• Money is Relative: I discovered that money is a means to an end. If the end changes, then the means get a whole new perspective. If there is no more point in chasing mortgages, new cars and more stuff, then it is remarkable just how different the role is that money plays in one's life. See this one: Richest Man in Babylon. For twenty years I've put money ahead of purpose, motivation, meaning and fulfilment. I've nearly lost my soul. The funny part is that it is relatively easy to make money and live well. The issue is not making it, the issue with money is finding ways to hold on to it.
• Mind-Space: In a connected world we can access all kinds of news and information all the time. No mystery there. What is mysterious is that we are now more concerned with events and people that are thousands of miles away from us, with little or no chance to influence our daily lives, than we are with our neighbour or fellow house member.  I am still looking for a term to describe this phenomenon. For the time being let us call it the "connection-fallacy". We give mind-space, thoughts and concern to matters that have nothing to do with us, and is unlikely to have any bearing on us. The Kardashians is probably the best example of the media using the "connection-fallacy" to suck people's into a world of irrelevance. The same goes for matters we cannot control. We cannot control what other people do, or say. We can have an opinion about it, but that is the magnitude of time and mental dedication that should be invested. Every additional moment of concern is wasted time. I've become increasingly jealous about my mental space and the things that I choose to think about. All the time, I am checking if it truly matters. If not, it has no place in my mind-space. It has helped to focus me.
• Relationships Matter: If there is no need to groom your fellow workers, boss or underlings in the corporate circumstances, then one can become quite selective about the company you keep. I've become impatient with people and relationships that has little value. At the same time I've become more dedicated to the people near me, and the ones that I love. These are the relationships that truly matter. The relationships that doesn't leave at 17:00, or starts at 09:00.

Conclusion

I am on a journey of discovery. Stick around and I will show you more. In the mean time... make something. You will be amazed at how your life changes when you do.

Hendrik van Wyk

Get rewarded for supporting our local Producers. Receive special offers and invitations from the Two Cowboys.
Please help us to bring you more of these programs by supporting us on Patreon: www.forwardthefavour.com. 

The Simple Things in Life

"Our life is frittered away by detail."  Henry David Thoreau

Isn't it interesting how the simple pleasures in life has the most profound impact on our lives?

Busy lives

Our days are easily filled with all kinds of must-do's and do-not forgets. From the moment we open our eyes it is a rush to get ready for work. Get the kids to school. Be on time for the meeting. Grab a coffee. Do the presentation. Get the food ready for dinner. Do the washing. Walk the dog and get to bed in time to have enough energy for tomorrow to rinse and repeat.

We can be forgiven for getting tired and depressed just thinking of it all. If the daily grind is not enough, we have the weekly and monthly reminders that push us along: Pay the mortgage. Close the deal. Settle the bills. Buy the food. Service the car. Celebrate the birthday. Clean the yard. Make it to Summer and then to Christmas.

Then there are the goals for life: Pass the exam. Find the job. Marry. Earn the promotion. Buy the house. Build the career. Raise the kids. Retire. Before we know it, eighty years have passed and we are lying alone in bed with a drip and catheter wondering, what just happened?

In and Out of Control

The holidays provide a welcome chance to reevaluate what life is about.

With the years ticking by, I've slowly and painfully learned a profound lesson about the things with which we fill our days. It doesn't matter how much money we make, it is likely not going to be enough. It doesn't matter what house we live in, it is likely going to be too small. I've realized that some things are inevitable like hair loss, being despised by your teenage son, or the death of your dog. With this realization I've learned that while we may not be able to control these things, we can control how we think about them. We can choose to be helpless or hopeful.


There are many other things that are there by choice, and not by chance. Most of what happens every day is with our consent, consciously or otherwise, and within our direct control and influence. We can choose how busy to get, how many things we have on our minds, and what we must and mustn't do. Another profound lesson I've learned from this, is that no matter what happens, there are only a few simple pleasures that make it all worthwhile. Without these, we may as well head straight to the drip and catheter.

Simple Pleasures

Some people meditate. Others read or run. For many, the pleasures are primal. All of them have the profound power to put life into perspective. When everything is stripped away. When the noise gets too much. When we realize that our mind-space is out of control, then we can withdraw to this simple zone for perspective. We can again become basic human.

For me it is a campfire, a piece of meat, cold beer and sharing it with good friends. This is my happy place. Simple.

When everything we do as people are stripped away, the simplicity of a shared meal around a fire with good company may just be the most profound equalizer. No matter where we live, what we drive, which job or qualification we have, it all simply comes down to those moments humanity celebrated for thousands of years.

These are the moments we must collect most of all along our life's journey, before we're booked for our appointment with old-age plumbing. We should cherish the simple pleasures in life.

Disconnection and Control

We live in a bizarre world. We are disconnected from our local communities and neighbours, yet have all the news and gossip about people and events, that has little to no bearing on our day-to-day lives. We know more about our Facebook "friends" than we do about our neighbours. We eat food, wear clothes and use tools from people we don't know, and is unlikely to ever meet.

Every month we hand over the majority of our earnings in taxes and interest to bureaucrats who profess to have our best interest at heart. They assure us, they have a higher moral compass and knows best what we need. This we do while these people have no knowledge of who we really are. We are connection rich, morally sedated, responsibility abdicated, and community poor.

We worry about things we cannot influence or change. I am trying to find a term for this state, and is open to suggestions.

What we miss is to be mentally and physically involved in the things around us. We should consciously choose our world and give it priority. Not someone else's fabrication somewhere else. We should choose to interact with people we meet on the street, in the shops, by talking to them. The old fashion way.  We should get to know the people in our community. These people, and us make the community. The butcher, the baker, the carpenter and builder. Our producers.

In our shrink-wrapped ready to wear, ready to eat world, we walk past these people never really knowing who they are. We don't know what they do. How they do it. We are worse off because we don't take the time to reach out to them and get to know them. In the process, we lose the opportunity to get to know more about ourselves. It is time for us to take time to meet each other.

If we do, we are likely to buy their bread - our community's bread - instead of the bread from a faceless corporation, paying minimum wage. We can drink our community's beer. Eat our community's meat and vegetables. If we support our local producers, we are directly and indirectly supporting ourselves. Then our children have true meaningful opportunities to learn to make something and be part of a place and its people. Then our youth will become the engineers, carpenters, builders and bakers of the future, instead of aspiring to careers in minimum wage mindless corporate jobs. Then the values in our communities and our people are restored.

In the following weeks we are going to feature some of these producers.  We hope you like what you see. We are certainly having a lot of fun getting to know them better.

See what happens if you support your local producers: http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1903632,00.html

"At the most basic level, when you buy local more money stays in the community. The New Economics Foundation, an independent economic think tank based in London, compared what happens when people buy produce at a supermarket vs. a local farmer's market or community supported agriculture (CSA) program and found that twice the money stayed in the community when folks bought locally. "That means those purchases are twice as efficient in terms of keeping the local economy alive," says author and NEF researcher David Boyle. (See the top 10 food trends of 2008.)"

Hendrik van Wyk


Get rewarded for supporting our local Producers. Receive special offers and invitations from the Two Cowboys.
Please help us to bring you more of these programs by supporting us on Patreon: www.forwardthefavour.com. 

I Made This...

Authentically Hand-Made - Fatto a Mano Autenticamente!

In 2010, thanks to a fortuitous incident with a short sighted luddite CEO, and a spineless Executive VP, I was given the phenomenal opportunity to step into the world of being a Producer. I embarked on a sabbatical from IT management, and devoted my attention to journey towards the truly authentic. Towards something I make that is “real”, that I can taste, touch and smell. After 20 years in the IT industry, it felt as if what I do, held no real value. I produced nothing. It certainly was not appreciated by those I am doing it for. It held no value for me personally. So, why bother?

I took some time out, and wanted to make something that is valuable to me. Something real and authentic, in which I can recognize artistry, mastery, fulfilment and purpose. With no knowledge of Coffee, Gelato or Nougat I embarked on a dramatic learning curve to build my own Gelateria in small-town Southern Alberta, Canada.

Why a Gelateria? Because there wasn’t one. I remembered that some of my happiest times of my life was sharing a cup of coffee, or going for an ice cream with a friend or family member. I therefore embarked on a mission to pull the most authentic Italian Espresso, make the most authentic and classic Italian Gelato, and the best Honey Nougat I’ve ever tasted. If the coffee, Ice Cream and Nougat is good. Think of how good the friendships can be with them. Figaro’s was born (www.figarosgelateria.com).

The journey was by no means easy. Don’t start businesses you know nothing about. But, while chipping away at the challenges of producing a truly authentic, quality product amongst a colossal industry of substitutions and fakeness (more about that later), I’ve come to learn some valuable lessons. The most important lesson I learned was: How to creatively produce. How to become a Producer.

Why is this the most important lesson? What follows should provide some perspective on the value of production, and why I consider myself now part of this neglected minority that has given us so much, of what we have in society today.

Creatively Producing

Creativity heals.  By creating, we transcend ourselves, we become more than we are, and greater than we conceived. Our creations extends us, expands us.

When we as Producers practice our form of artistry, we realize self-value. When others recognize our products, and derives value from it, it transforms them too. Therefore, production has social value, extending beyond the Producer to the group. When Producers offer their creations for the benefit of others, it unlock commercial value, an equal exchange for the benefit of the other, and an incentive to for continued pursuit of the calling. It is this commercial value that forms the foundation of commerce, of the market, which in its part, is the lifeblood of civil society.

Producers, like artists are visionaries. They routinely practice a form of faith, seeing clearly and moving towards an elusive creative goal. It is often visible to only them, but invisible to those around them. It is their work that creates the market, not the market that creates their work. Producing is an act of faith. It is a solemn driven desire. Producers practice this drive. It is their calling. They are called into pilgrimages on its behalf. Like many pilgrims, they doubt the call even as they answer it. But, answer it is what they do, every day, staying true to benefit themselves, and those around them. It is only in production, that the true calling of an artist transforms into the calling of a Producer.

They are the prime movers. The first movers, and also the last movers. They are true to their own truth. Producers know no other truth. Tradition and custom, what others have done before them, or what others wish them to do, doesn’t constrain them as free thinkers, but rather drives them to keep re-inventing. The Producer is a first mover, a prime mover, a creator of value, a creator in the only possible sense of the word. They are the life-giving principle itself, of civilized life. With them civilization moves. Without them, it ceases to exist.

Their work is their only reality and only great passion. Happiness depends on nothing but achievement in value. The Producer finds in that achievement, a sensation beyond happiness, a sensation for which the word ecstasy is inadequate, a sensation which is a reason in itself, which justifies all existence: Humanity at its highest possibility. The creator of worlds.

That is why the Producer is the most precious amongst us. Without Producers, there simply is no future. They are the foundation of civilization, of civil society, and of who we are in humanity. We must celebrate those amongst us, who move us forward in producing our world, and for our worlds. We call out the Producers amongst us, that share their creations for our collective benefit.

Because now, as never before, these Producers are under threat from looters, above the law, with unimaginable fabricated rights, allowing them to deny liberty, contain free exchange of value, constraining, and take what is not theirs. They lay claim to what they never produced, and destroy the respect and dignity of work, of production, of creativity. They are destroying the one creative endeavour that transcends ourselves to become more than we are: Production.

Let us celebrate Producers, Production, and the Prime Movers: The creators of society, and of our future.

Conclusion:

Stepping into the role of Producer certainly changed my outlook in life. What changed for me is a further realization that I developed an utter impatience with those that produce nothing and expect something in return. Through some mythical “right”, human or otherwise, bestowed on them through some external divine moral invention, they give themselves the right to deny existentialism, and destroy liberty.

I have no time anymore for those that are in the way, by inhibiting output and curtailing production. These are the ones that are busy for busy’s sake, and those that believe they have the right to take, what isn’t theirs. The decision makers with immeasurable power, yet no clue.

They are the people that steal my time, by putting me in meetings with no outcome, and forcing me to comply with rules with the only benefit, the justification of their existence. The corporations that expect my presence, yet limit my ability to be effective, and help them succeed. The “authorities”, governmental or otherwise, with little to no responsibility, that have the “right” to decide about my property, my morality, my privacy, my education, my business, food, and my freedom.

They take what I earn through taxes and levies, to give to the ones that produce nothing, under a corrupt ideology of “the benefit for the greater good”. These are the people that consider themselves justified to spend my earnings, yet have no appreciation or recognition for the effort it takes to realize it in the first place. These people we call the Looters, the takers.

Every hour of my day I evaluate my action’s ability to contribute towards a desired and valued outcome. I aim to produce something of value for myself, useful to others. If it is useful to me, it will be useful to those around me too. I am developing a laser focus on output, progress and value that move me, and those that are with me. We call ourselves Producers, the makers. It is people like us that move civilization forward.

I cannot go on strike like John Galt. But, for the cause of liberty, free market, limiting authority, and the rule of law, I will continue to wear black, and only black clothes as I’ve done for 5 years now. For this cause I will focus on spreading the message of the Producer, the prime mover, and the maker of civilization. This I will do in every possibly way available to me.

For this cause I will continue to mourn the country I left behind to the looters, and grieve for the culture and identity I had to sacrifice for the “greater good”.

Hendrik van Wyk

Credit to: Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged), Julia Cameron (The Artist Way).