Advice for planning with a spouse: bring the booze

I always thought of myself as a good planner and goal-setter. I’d set a goal, develop a plan for how to get there and every once in a while I’d actually achieve it. Sweetbreads and I have run two (very) small, but profitable, businesses in the past and that required a fair amount of forethought and also taught us a lot. However, I will tell you one thing for certain, no amount of experience in my prior life prepared me for the type of planning required to start a farm business.

What got me thinking about this was when we sat down recently to write down, review and discuss our timeline of goals and vision for the future. I’m a firm believer that sitting down, discussing ideas and putting them on paper will make accomplishing a dream a reality. This is not a one-time process, it is rolling. It needs to be done on a regular basis and it needs to be highly flexible on the edges, but firm in the center. For us the center is our Core Values. Our planning process involves everything from the next month, two months, six months, year, two years and well beyond. Oh yeah, it also involves a fair amount of beer and wine so that we don't kill each other.