yeah, but why…?
did you start Freight Farms?
did you choose to spend 40+ hrs a week in a fucking metal box for months when no one outside your co-founder “got it”?
did you continue to spend 60+ hrs a week when everyone said your idea “would never work”?
Fast forward to 2018 and some of these questions don’t apply anymore but in many ways that feeling I struggled to articulate has never been more important. It was less complex to communicate, clarify to the community years ago because there weren’t that many of us and our small tribe spent an exorbitant amount of time together(for better or worse). The size, scope and reach of what we’ve created has increased along with the complexity of communicating such a personal feeling.
I’ve read a million times that it’s critical to set the vision and shape everyone/thing to that vision to ultimately achieve success and make the vision a reality. 99% of the time I agree but it never rang true for me even from the earliest days creating Freight Farms. I wasn’t inspired by or driven to spend long days in a container and force my wife to tears by my singular grand vision of the future.
I’ve experienced my highest sense of satisfaction and purpose knowing other people enjoy what I’ve created and empowering them to contribute to the experience. Essentially, I love to be surprised by what people create independent of my vision and push me to think in new exciting ways to solve a problem.
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When Jon and I began this journey, I had never experienced such an energized, engaged and intensely focused feeling to go, go, go no matter what. In retrospect, I had experienced this feeling in fleeting moments as part of a few very special teams or productions with people who became inspirations after our moment had passed or the performance/season ended.
It’s this feeling that is my answer to the “why”? Before Freight Farms, I had a number of jobs with career potential from getting paid to talk with celebrities on a top 10 morning radio show to creating/supporting a wireless transcription system for a hearing impaired student. Those jobs still sound fun and fulfilling to me and sometimes I question why anyone(including me) would walk away.
I thought the answer was to create my own thing and I was fortunate to have started a great company before Freight Farms working with some of my best friends, awesome people and inspired global brands but…
Something was missing and without knowing it, I kept looking for what could challenge me, force me to think, engage, create, help, inspire and benefit others through my work. I unsuccessfully looked for these things in a number of places such as athletics via triathlon, work via a surf/film company, education via my masters degrees and writing via carfreebrad.com.
As life tends to happen, it was a random cup of coffee with an old employee/friend at a Dunkin Donuts that flipped a switch inside me, connected the dots and ignited the future for me.
For the first time I saw an opportunity that is unique and very challenging, in an area that impacts everyone, has no clear “right” solution and would be totally turned on it’s head by the emerging tech that I saw a unique way to approach. Beyond all these things, food that is better for you, the environment, the people who grow it, local and transparent is something that that I would be excited to see solved in general. I will feel 100% satisfied being part of the solution and/or helping to unlock the power for someone else to solve it.
The realization that Freight Farms is now a global company with customers, partners and community members around the world is great but the reason I spent the better part of a decade on this endeavor is for more than selling, growing and putting farms into thousands of communities(although that’s VERY important) but to continue to be surprised and delighted by how others use, implement and empower others thru what we’ve created at Freight Farms.
This feeling/idea/motivation is something I plan to explore more in the future to see if I can find a way to communicate my personal feelings succinctly and accurately. Until then, consider this part 1 of…
