5 minutes with the YOLO Farmer
Wayne Langford, the man behind the You Only Live Once Farmer blog and President of Federated Farmers Golden Bay. How did you come to be the YOLO Farmer? After struggling with my mental health I decided that I needed to do something to get myself out of “the rut” before things got worse. On my 34th birthday I jumped out of bed and headed to the beach with our family. After having a great day (the first in a long time) I told my family, “We are going to do something every day for the next 365 days to say that we have ‘lived’ for each day.” One of the kids said “YOLO” (You Only Live Once) and that’s when our journey started. I started recording what we were
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doing each day on our Facebook
eventually became more light than dark.
page, YOLOd2, YOLOd3. After
It takes time and it’s absolutely worth it.
365 days and having a bunch of
Did you have any idea where it would
people following along, we created its own social media platform. We are now at YOLOd1580 with over 30,000 people following along.
end up? We thought it would be a massive achievement to make 365 days. So to make it to where we are today
What are some of the
has blown us away. Little did we
things you have done?
know how much it would change
At first I thought it was going to be one of those movies – climbing to the top
our lives and how many doors it would open along the way.
of mountains, travelling the world and
You must have helped a lot of people.
finding myself. What I didn’t realise
Tell us about some of them.
was it was going to be the small things
One of the reasons we kept going
each and every day that would make
after 365 days was because we
the huge difference. Whether it be a
were getting numerous messages
trip to the beach, a bush walk, throwing
every week of other people sharing
rocks off a bridge or playing sports,
their stories. By being slightly
it all helped. Most of all, connecting
vulnerable myself, it helped others
with old friends and members of the
feel it was OK to share what they
community was our biggest win. Each
were going through. Mental health
conversation opened my mind, just a
can often be seen as dark and cold.
little bit at a time. Remember my mind
I wanted to change that to a positive
had closed itself off to the world, so by
experience, showing smiles and
opening it up a little piece at a time it
happiness that come from living life.
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