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I don’t remember the exact origin, but after I traded in my shiny Toyota Corolla for this old 1990 classic pickup, we decided to name her “Farm Truck.”
We were far from any kind of urban farm, still living in LA so our friends poked fun of 'farm truck.'
Fast forward two years and I’ve hauled endless loads of bulk soil, plants, flowers, Lowes tools and of course surfboards (not farm related) and the rest is history with Farm Truck!
If I think back to how it all began, it was a combination of creative daydreaming about the life Chad and I wanted together, coupled with a more serious look at how we were going to get there (ah-hem, finances + goal setting, etc)
Daydreaming is important, but figuring out ways to get there is even more important. I think the how is most certainly the hardest part.
Chad and I call this life design, and this is one of the reasons we really decided to document our journey and share our tools for life design-ing, because we know many people are yearning for direction.
Let's start with a simple exercise together, grab a pen and paper (for realz, go get it, I'll wait....)
Make a list of 3-4 things you'd love to do more of, if time and money were no issue.
Here are a few things on my list, as inspiration to get your started:
Some pretty lofty goals, right? Chad shares some of this vision, but he also has some of his own personal goals, like hosting events in the Uncharted Spirits bar they built earlier this year, more on that later...
But for me, selling my new car was one thing that could easily put $10k back in my pocket, adding it to the down payment for this house.
And when it comes to buying property, every frigging dollar counts.
Selling my new shiny Toyota Corolla was actually part of the how we were going to get there, the catalyst to Teaquila Farm, inviting us to start building out this dream.
I know it seems so trivial, and if money is no issue, well then this blog post may be irrelevant, but my guess is for most of you reading, money is an important factor and perhaps even an obstacle to getting what you want out of this life.
This advice is not novel, we've all heard this when setting goals yet do we actually follow through and keep our dreams visual?
Chad and I kept a giant whiteboard in our kitchen in Culver City, it literally took up an entire wall and was a bit of an eyesore, yet this ugly whiteboard is how we started outlining the steps we needed to buy our first home.
See ugly / messy whiteboard photo below. Since it's nearly impossible to read Chad's writing, below are a few things that were listed on our whiteboard in May 2020:
We were essentially trying to make the space 'live-able' so we could move in by June 2020, and looking back now I can't believe we actually lived in our fixer upper during this process!
Whiteboards used to be old school, and now they are totally coming back.
Think about it...who are some of the most successful people when it comes to reaching financial goals and getting what they want?
SALES people.
Sales folks have always used whiteboards or some visual tool to track their revenue, build their funnels, reach their goals.
Many of us use whiteboards to track our never-ending to-do list, but what about our life design?!
How does our own life design get recorded, revisited, refined and executed? It's part of the how, and I'm urging you that if you have the desire to build the life you want, this is the first step we found to be incredible helpful with taking action.
This is our favorite whiteboard, it's $18 and a great place to start. If you're new to life design, I suggest starting with a small whiteboard versus getting the full wall size like we had, you can always upgrade in the future.
The things Chad and I put down on our whiteboard in Culver City are probably 70% - 80% of what we've executed two years later, but it's still important, it allows us to measure and execute.
How is it that our to-do lists are taking priority over our own life design?
Make the effort to write your dreams / goals down on paper.
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