Practical Dreamers
Practical Dreamer's Handbook
by Sarah & Paul Edwards

Stuart Wilde
Action: Keep Doing What It Takes
  
Lesson: “When I got frustrated with lack of progress, I would make more ‘to do’ lists, start doing them and ‘dream harder.’”  

       New Yorker Stuart Wilde wanted to set an example with his life for how to live in harmony with the environment. His plan was to save enough money to buy some land in a remote area of the Pacific Northwest. But he feared that “the more money you make, the more you spend. If I waited until I could save enough to buy the land I’d still be waiting.” So, instead, this single dad sold his comic book collection for gas money and headed for the northwest with only a few hundred dollars in his pocket.

         While he was driving through Taos, New Mexico, his car broke down and he fell in love with the beauty of the land and the environmental consciousness of the people he met. So he stayed, got a job and rented a five-acre tract of land at the western base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains along the southern end of the Rocky Mountains. There, while backpacking with his son Zach, Wilde had an idea for how to fulfill his dream: he would create Wild Earth Llama Adventures, a wilderness guide service and llama trekking company taking hikers into the pristine beauty of the wilderness

          “When the idea for Llama Nature Adventure Tours came to me,” Wilde recalls, 
 "everyone thought I was nuts. They told me ‘You can barely afford to feed yourself. How do you expect to feed a herd of llamas, let alone purchase them?” And true, these gentle, sure-footed creatures are ideal pack animals, but they’re quite expensive. To overcome all the negativity from family, friends and colleagues, Wilde wrapped himself in his dream, living it out in his mind. “To keep it alive while I figured out what I could do to actualize it,” he explains,  “I imagined it in every little detail over and over and over again to ‘incorporate’ it (make part of the body) into my life.”

He spent more than two years putting all his ideas down on paper, everything from a business plan to ‘to do” lists, from detailed Forest Service permit applications to in-depth questionnaires for liability insurance; even the text for a brochure he couldn’t afford to print. “I took the dream as far as I could go without the actual funds to buy the llamas,” he recalled. When he got frustrated with his lack of progress, he’d make more “to do”  lists, start doing them and “dream harder,” until the day came when he met someone who believed in him because he believed in himself. And, he adds, “because I had everything ready to go expect the checks to write.”

 Llama Nature Adventures was almost a turnkey operation by the time Wilde got the chance to buy his first two llamas on credit. He convinced their owner to sell them to him on a payment plan, $200 down, the rest to be paid off month by the month. Since then, most of his other llamas have been given to him, because he’s now known as a “llama whisperer.” Desperate llama owners, eager to relieve themselves of the care of their unusual pets, call Wilde for help. He’s traveled as far as a 1000 miles to rescue a llama.

             Eleven years after arriving in Taos, Wilde is now buying his own land, 12 ½ acres where his llamas can roam when they’re not off trekking., “If one is persistent,” he has concluded “and diligent in keeping one’s dream alive, feeding it with thoughts and images and doing whatever it takes to manifest it, it will work out. Not by magic, but by keeping at it and earning it by working toward its creation.” 

        Stuart tells us his business has been growing substantially over the years. This past winter was the  first winter he didn't have to take a winter job to keep his seasonal business going. That left time to updated and redesigned his  website where he's now getting almost 1000 hits a week. "The phone is ringing off the hook," he says "and our season
looks to be almost twice as big as last year!"

            Visit Stuart Wilde and Wilde Adventure Tours at that fab web site:
www.LlamaAdventures.com

 or email him at LlamaTrek@aol.com

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