My father ran a successful aquatic shop several years ago but has since retired but is still in demand for his installations of fish tanks at many establishments. I have mentioned before that I get my inspiration or insights from many different sources and this is an example of finding inspiration from unusual sources. This is an extract taken from one of my fathers aquatic books.

In the book the author, Takashi Amano, who is a world authority in Aquarium design tells of a story not dissimilar to so many successful people regarding their many failures in there field of expertise, which has led them to become world experts.

Its one of those paradoxes that we have to fail in order to succeed.

Please enjoy.

 “My mother died at age 62 of a blood clot to her brain.

Her life was one of constant work and little play, but she truly loved the work of raising produce on the family farm.

She was proud of her eggplants and tomatoes, and even as a child I could tell hers where better than most. Like most farmers in those days she didn’t go to school, but she observed the crops everyday and recorded her observations in a college notebook.

In those days, if there was a dry spell or heavy rains, there would always be losses from diseased or stunted growth but ours would we never failed to reap a decent harvest at our farm.

The neighbors would come around asking for my mothers “secret”, but they always went home disappointed. Oh, she tried to teach them, but she couldn’t explain in an afternoon what it took years of patience to understand.

 Success only needs the awareness of things that other people take for granted.

 My mother realized this.

 In time I did my own research on aquatic plants, and learned some secrets myself.

I think that it is nearly impossible for me to explain them all. I could explain 90% with scientific theory, but the remaining 10% is based on many years of experience and is a kind of intuition that I rely on to help me make decisions under ever changing conditions.

 In Japanese there is a word I often use, Kandokoro, which means the crucial point that calls for intuition. My intuition is my guide at those key points when answers are not clear.

Everyone has intuition, some more than others, usually depending on the amount of experience they have. I’ve spent many years trying to create the perfect plant aquarium and im still failing.

Of course, the plants don’t die anymore, but I cannot count the number of times I mistook the amount of water to add, or put to much CO2 and awoke the next morning to find all the fishes floating at the surface. But my intuition grew.

When a customer compliments my work, I tell them that while it is true that I raise beautiful aquatic plants now, no one has created more failures again and again more than I have.

 Most people do not repeat the same failures, but not me.

 But I can be glad for one thing, and that is that I always keep notes.

When I screw up the same thing a number of different ways, then they are at least all good experiences and I gain a lot of practical knowledge from them.

Thinking back now, so many plants have died by my hands that it is tragic, but something of them survives in me, in my intuition.

 And in my notebooks, in the same way, a part of my mother lives on.”