coach loads of visitors starting to turn up. They’d say “What’s that over there?” I’d reply “I don’t know, why don’t you go andfind out” and hand themamachete. Heligan is a garden unlike any other, returned towhat it had been like in its heyday, thewhole romantic opera. Some 400 people have had their ashes scattered there, people fall in love here. Therewere 40,000 visitors in thefirst year and nowaround 380,000 annually. HUMPTYDUMPTY One of themost important aspects of Heligan is the emphasis on fruit and vegetables, on historic varieties, and looking back to a timewhen gardening was a distinguished profession. Skills and knowledgewere needed to feed a community 365 days a year. In the past, April was the ‘dyingmonth’ because that waswhen stocksweremost likely to run out if husbandry had not beenmanaged properly.We need those kinds of professional skills again. The key to healing theworldwill be putting land back into good heart, improving soils for biodiversity andwater management and carbon sequestration. We don’t have the people to do that, which iswhy the Eden Project has set up degrees aimed at younger people, making gardening hip by looking at how an urban life can be combinedwith growing crops aswell as taking on issues like carbon capture. If I was to start out as an entrepreneur now, I’d have a picture of Humpty Dumpty on thewall. Because that’s our job. The specialisation of knowledge has meant losing sight of the bigger picture; of howbusiness, the environment, society, all needs towork together. People specialise, they own knowledge, and don’t share between disciplines. In the 19th centurywe had ‘natural philosophy’, now it’s just loads of specialists. With our natural environment and countryside, we still have our own Eden, it’s not a lost paradise. Instead of just seeing farms, we need to re-imagine the countryside in terms of the different ways it’s important to people, for wellbeing, for connectingwith the land and the seasons, formaking us self-sufficient. As an entrepreneur, you need to start with a big picture of what ‘great’ would look like, what would really be rewarding, the best kind of business, andwhat you need to get there. At the Eden Project, we decidedwewanted to use local companies to supply the shop and catering. Theyweren’t capable of doing it, sowe trained them and gave them long-termcontracts so they could get loans fromthe bank to help themgrow. We need companieswhowant to help other companies. Capitalismneedsmore intelligence in order to liberate available wealth. Enterprise shouldn’t be about appetites – everybodywantingmore – but purpose. Not business and consumers, but all of us as citizens. Agood, open-hearted capitalismwould produce farmorewealth than the niggardly versionwe’ve become used to. When I was younger I always thought “theywould sort things out”. Now I realise there is no ‘they’, just ‘us’. 50 | Sir TimSmit’s rules for business • Don’t think of yourself as an ‘entrepreneur’ – just someone with a good idea and a sense of purpose. • Always accept the third invitation – you’ll meet the people you didn’t know you needed to meet. • Say what you plan to do publicly so you have to go through with it. You don’t want to be a liar, so it fuels you to act. • Lose the fear of being disliked. Trying to please other people leads to bad decisions. • Ignore negative people. • Don’t be a hippy. You need to know how to add up and be disciplined. Cash is king. Sir TimSmit KBEis Co-founder and Executive Vice-Chair of the Eden Project and Executive CoChair ofEden Project International (which aims to have an Eden Project on every inhabited continent by 2025). Plans forEden Project Northon Morecambe seafront are being submitted to the local authority in 2021. ©Hufton+Crow ©Hufton+Crow ©Hufton+Crow ©Hufton+Crow
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