Jackson Millan

Petra: As the Czech Republic is blessed with natural and cultural beauty, is planning a fairy tale wedding in magical places a dream job?

Světlana: Yes, it is! Here we have a diverse landscape, rich cultural heritage, well conserved chateaus and palaces - guests feel like they’re in a fairy tale! What more could you wish for?

Petra: Do you have a personal morning ritual when preparing a wedding and overseeing every single detail?

Světlana: Yes I do, it’s to check everything a thousand times! We are expected to deliver perfection and there is no space for mistakes, everything must work from the start; there are no second chances and that is why precision is extremely important.

Petra: On the wedding day, what does your personal experience look like?

Světlana: In majority of cases, it’s not just one day, but on average three days. The first and last parts are devoted to installations and cleaning, with the wedding day itself in the middle. On average I spend 18 hours: I’m at the preparations and the wedding day itself until the very end; I direct the complete logistics, suppliers, my wedding team; I moderate (MC)the wedding and look after the newlyweds. Also, we organize various pre-wadding parties, so sometimes it turns from just a wedding into a week of various events.

Petra: What brings you the greatest satisfaction of a job well done - is there a particular moment you are waiting for in each wedding?

Světlana: Happy clients - knowing that I’ve made their big day unforgettable. Also, to see the process of my work from beginning to end gives me real purpose.

Petra: What makes the Czech Republic the perfect destination for dreamy romantic weddings?

Světlana: We have incredibly beautiful nature here, gorgeous chateaus and palaces, rich cultural heritage, and fantastic services. Also, we facilitate weddings at the top global level with dramatically lesser budgets than at similar locations elsewhere.

Visit: https://www.boutiqueweddings.cz/en/ Images: © Boutique Weddings Prague

DAY 6

Imagine creating the life of your dreams with your partner at your side - a new way of life, and that life thriving. How many people like this do you know? Now I am happy to bring you a YARN with one such person - Jackson Millan about life, wealth, nature, animals and the freedom to choose your own adventure. I enjoy watching Jackson ‘having a go’ at being a hands-on farmer, planting an edible garden and collecting animals of all sorts. He’s like the Aussie Noah in his tropical paradise.

Petra: Where were you born?

Jackson: I was born in Wollongong, around an hour south of Sydney.

Petra: Where are you based now?

Jackson: I currently live on a 70 acre (28.3 ha) farm an hour south of Cairns in Northern Queensland that we found 12 months ago while we were travelling around Australia. We’ve since started turning it into an animal sanctuary and have 60+ animals already.

Petra: How would you describe your farm?

Jackson: Our property, Aureus Acres, is a rainforest retreat located in the centre of the World Heritage Wet Tropics. We’re surrounded by 5,000 acres (2023.4 ha) of lush greenery, filled with wildlife which includes cassowaries, native marsupials and a healthy population of tree snakes and pythons.

Our vision was to create a self-sufficient permaculture food forest which provides enough sustenance for us and our animals in less than an hour a day. We’re working towards creating facilities to host business owners and their families who can come to learn and experience holistic living and sustainable farming practices that can be implemented by busy people.

As busy business owners ourselves, we wanted to set an example of how to live a healthy and fulfilled live on the land without sacrifice or compromise.

Jackson: I’ve never had any farming or trade experience. It was my father’s lifelong dream to have a small farm and we dreamed about it for my entire childhood. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to achieve his dream before he died, and I felt it was my duty to carry out his legacy.

Through my research, the common feedback I received from others who had purchased a farm was that it was an incredible amount of work. Many felt the need to sacrifice in their businesses, careers and social life in order to meet the ongoing needs of their farm.

This wasn’t something we wanted to do, and we set out to design a system that would allow us to have freedom, flexibility and create a sustainable environment for us to thrive without being a prisoner to our farm chores.

What we quickly discovered was that most modern farming principles work against nature and result in a constant battle between people and the environment. Through studying permaculture and syntropic principles, we designed what we call ‘Perma-Wealth’ - a method of no dig, self-care systems that allow us to plant primarily perennial crops, care for our animals and work towards having produce in excess of our needs within 18 months.

The entire maintenance of the system currently takes us around an hour a day and extra time is invested on a weekend to further the infrastructure development.

Petra: Do you make everything from scratch yourselves and what are some examples?

Jackson: Right now, we have three core farming projects:

1. A market garden containing our daily vegetables which primarily are perennial greens such as Timor lettuce, aibika, tropical spinach varieties, sweet potato, luffa, bean varieties and seasonal vegetables like tomato, capsicum, cucumbers and zucchini. 2. A food forest orchard which utilises multiple layers to create microclimates and allow for year-round production of fruit such as banana, papaya, passion fruit, citrus, and other tropical fruits such as mango, jaboticaba, sapote and peanut butter fruit. As this matures, we will continue to add further layers for water retention, nitrogen production and additional nutrients. 3. Our animals for whom we maintain a ‘no slaughter’ system. We utilise our cows and goats for clearing pasture and producing biomass to feed our plant systems, and our chickens and ducks for eggs.

Our next project is to add a beehive in the Spring which will assist in pollination and maximising fruit and vegetable yield.

Petra: What is the dream?

Jackson: The dream for us is all about a balance of work and life on the property. Our first goal is to get to a position of being 100% self-sufficient within the next 6 months. This requires us to double our food production and set up our solar and hydro power.

Next, we want to submit our plans for expanding our animal sanctuary to allow us to rescue more animals in need and have facilities for having on site help.

Lastly, we want to create a series of tiny homes and retreat facilities to allow us to have up to 30 guests at a time - primarily our private clients who are successful business owners and their families, and allow us to run immersive experiences on the property.

Petra: You managed to travel and even adopt another dog in a lockdown, plus buy your farm while working online. Can you describe the experience?

Jackson: I’ve always been a non-conformist and chased my dreams, even in the face of adversity. If I want something, there is very little that will get in the way of my goals.

I see so many entrepreneurs focus on vanity metrics and build a business or a life that becomes a prison of responsibilities and constraints for themselves. My mission has been always to find ways to work through these constraints and find more sustainable solutions that allow people to have their cake and eat it too.

Having scaled a multi-million dollar business with over 800 clients and 25 staff, I wanted to show people what is possible with the right plan, the right strategies and the right action.

So, I spent a year planning and getting my business ready. I fitted out a Toyota Troop Carrier and we packed up our home in Sydney and hit the road with my partner and two dogs (which turned into three along the way).

Many people thought we couldn’t do it; others thought we would destroy the business and burn everything to the ground that we’d worked so hard to build. We proved those people wrong: the business doubled; our clients were happy and inspired; we had an experience of a lifetime; and we found our dream home in the process.

It just goes to show you can ‘have your cake and eat it too’, and life isn’t all about sacrifice and compromise.

Petra: What is important to you?

Jackson: I focus on three core metrics in everything I do in life and business. This framework has allowed me to build a portfolio of 10 businesses and create my dream life by 33. The core metrics are: 1. Profit - is my activity and actions resulting in more profit; 2. Time - am I working to disconnect my effort from my income to spend more time doing what I love; and 3. Wealth - am I creating leverage through passive income and accumulating assets that work for me effortlessly

If it doesn’t improve the above, then typically I don’t do it.