Fall Down 7 times, Stand up 8

This is an old Japanese proverb that I heard at David Mas Masumoto's talk at Stanford University last week. An organic peach farmer, David is a well-published writer, he has nine books to his credit.

More important than either of these, he is a deep thinker, and a wonderful narrator. While sitting in the talk, I was transported to his farm. I was with him when he told his father after high school that he was not returning to the farm. I was with him when he spent two college years in Japan, working on a farm in a small town - this is the town his grandfather has left, because he was the second son of the family; only the first one inherited the farm.

I was also with him when he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and went back to his farm. And, I was with him when his father had a stroke, and had to come out of his stroke by relearning everything, including farming.

We think of people who live by physical labor to be so burdened with their labor, that they don't have time time to think and to write (everyone else is burdened too). I could not be more wrong in the context of David Masumoto. He took each situation - positive or negative - and converted it into a learning experience. A learning experience not just for himself, but for others.

Wouldn't it be a wonderful world, if we all did the same.