Author Jane Lee Rankin: Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life

An Interview With Wanda Malhotra

Ask for support. Answers come quickly when we ask and are open. Farming is not a solo support and most of what we do on the farm depends on a community of support partners. Whether it is the advice and care from a vet for our animals, hay and feed suppliers, or a web of organizations that we collaborate with, we are all better together. Time and time again, we have turned to this network with a specific question and found great wisdom.

Many successful people reinvented themselves in a later period in their lives. Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street before he reinvented himself and started Amazon. Sara Blakely sold office supplies before she started Spanx. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a WWE wrestler before he became a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder, to an actor to a Governor. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc was a milkshake-device salesman before starting the McDonalds franchise in his 50s.

How does one reinvent themselves? What hurdles have to be overcome to take life in a new direction? How do you overcome those challenges? How do you ignore the naysayers? How do you push through the paralyzing fear?

In this series called “Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life “ we are interviewing successful people who reinvented themselves in a second chapter in life, to share their story and help empower others.

As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jane Lee Rankin.

The author of Farm Family: A Solo Mom’s Memoir of Finding Home, Happiness and Alpacas, Jane Lee Rankin is a farmer and the founder of Apple Hill Farm, an award-winning first-generation farm in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. An agritourism advocate, Lee frequently speaks at conferences about the benefits of diversifying farm portfolios. In 2021, Lee won runner-up for North Carolina Small Farmer of the Year.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

I grew up in the suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky, as the youngest of 4 children and the only girl. My father was a businessman, working for a local bank and later a stock brokerage. My mother was a stay-at-home mom and an alcoholic. Like many kids growing up in the 60’s, we spent our days outside, exploring the woods, riding our bikes, and playing with friends in our neighborhood.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” — Saint Francis. When I am emotional, feeling stuck or not sure which step to take next, it is this quote that points me in the next right direction.

You have been blessed with much success. In your opinion, what are the top three qualities that you possess that have helped you accomplish so much? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

Creativity pulses through me sending excitement and a flow of new inspiration. And while I don’t act on every idea for a new restaurant, business, or book to write, I am the beneficiary of the energy they produce.

And yet, I have an ability to focus on a task, goal or learning. I am a ‘numbers nerd’ happily able to sit for hours doing accounting for the farm. My analytical focus extends to an understanding of operational systems and their role in business.

Both my creativity and focus are empowered by the most important quality, that of faith. I believe in the goodness of people, have a deep sense of hope for our future and trust in nature and the world around me.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about ‘Second Chapters’. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before your Second Chapter?

The first part of my life was a path of learning, developing confidence and figuring out what lights me up. I went to college and quit within the first year, I then went to work in our family stock brokerage business and studied basic accounting in night school to understand how my job worked. I sold office supplies, worked for a lawyer as a paralegal, worked for a seminar company, entered the real estate market, and then went into nonprofit work. Through each job or venture, I learned different skills and more about myself. In my thirties, I went back to school for a Culinary Arts degree, and then wrote a cookbook, which I self-published. In promoting that book, I found my intense love for marketing, promotion and connecting with people.

And how did you “reinvent yourself” in your Second Chapter?

In 1998, just after having battled breast cancer, I became pregnant. I was 37. When my son was one, we visited the Kentucky State Fair and I met an alpaca for the first time. I fell in love and knew that I wanted to raise alpacas. A year later we moved to a mountain top in North Carolina to start our farm.

Can you tell us about the specific trigger that made you decide that you were going to “take the plunge” and make your huge transition?

Six months after meeting an alpaca at the Kentucky State Fair, my dream was still on the inside, as I wrestled with the idea of moving from the city and upending my life. My strongest tie to Louisville was caring for Annie, a woman I had known all my life, in her final stages. Her death in January of 2001 was the trigger that gave me the freedom to “take the plunge.”

What did you do to discover that you had a new skillset inside of you that you haven’t been maximizing? How did you find that and how did you ultimately overcome the barriers to help manifest those powers?

I followed my dream of raising alpacas. It was in the process of starting a farm of setting each small ‘next’ goal that I gained my skills around farming. The learning curve in life, and farming, is long and steep. Each new barrier was an opportunity to learn new ways to respond, integrate, and plan differently. With a farm full of live animals, the next feeding or chore kept me moving forward.

How are things going with this new initiative? We would love to hear some specific examples or stories.

Apple Hill Farm is thriving. We still breed and sell alpacas, our original plan, and have added angora goats that produce mohair, and Great Pyrenees as livestock guardian dogs. In 2017, we started offering tours of our farm and educating the public; it is now a main revenue stream. We host over 10,000 visitors each year and we are open for tours, events and shopping all year.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My son, Will. At the beginning of this adventure, Will was under 2 years old. I raised him alone and he was my buddy through the journey. Six months into owning alpacas, we lost most of our alpaca herd. I was devastated and most worried about his reaction as a 4 year-old. When I told him, he was sad but responded with “It’s okay, Mom, we can get more.”

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?

The property we purchased to start the farm was the sight of an abandoned apple orchard and a derelict plot of fraser fir Christmas trees. There was much work to be done to turn the land into a farm for animals. First we built a chicken coop and added a small flock of heritage breed chickens, Dominiques or Dominickers. Next, we cleared away the Christmas trees and strung high tensile fencing and planted grass for a field. And then we built a timber frame barn.

I had heard about a woman, Teri, in the area, who raised alpacas. As the barn was completed, I ran into someone who suggested she might be moving. I rushed to visit Teri, learning she lived just down the road, only a mile or so away as the crow flies. Not only that, she had years of experience in the business, was an expert at alpacas, and had the heart of the teacher. She taught me how to handle and care for alpacas and Will was always included in the process.

We bought our first alpacas from Teri and boarded them with her until we were ready to bring them home to our farm: Celeste, a white pregnant female; Frosty, a grey pregnant female; and Millie, a 4 month-old bottle-fed alpaca. The morning after we signed paperwork and paid for them, Teri called to tell us that Celeste was in labor. We rushed down the road and arrived just after Celeste gave birth to a healthy female ‘cria’ that we named Wild Card.

Did you ever struggle with believing in yourself? If so, how did you overcome that limiting belief about yourself? Can you share a story or example?

Self-doubt and criticism have never gone away. Once I realized this, it was easier to carry on and not listen to their limiting point of view. So, I focus on keeping them at bay, keeping their volume down. I find practices like journaling, meditating, reading uplifting material, and walking in nature to be helpful. Ultimately for me though, it is about learning to live WITH the limiting beliefs.

In my own work I usually encourage my clients to ask for support before they embark on something new. How did you create your support system before you moved to your new chapter?

I tend to just dive in first and then figure things out. It was in the moving into the new chapter that I created my support system (not before it.) The dream of raising alpacas came first, taking steps toward the dream of a farm, second and my community of support grew in the process.

Starting a new chapter usually means getting out of your comfort zone, how did you do that? Can you share a story or example of that?

On our first trip to our local feed store to buy alpaca food, a local farmer struck up a conversation about what animal I was raising. He had never heard of alpacas and had lots of questions. Before it was over, I was explaining breeding and why we didn’t artificially inseminate. And yes, every man in the store had gathered to listen to the conversation.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started” and why?

1. Relax. Worrying doesn’t help anybody or anything. When I travel, I have a habit of getting hyper focused on completing everything on my overzealous ’to do before I go’ list. I force myself and my energy into a frenzy that is often counterproductive. I barely sleep for my worry and concern in the days before I leave. As a result I am tired for the first few days of a trip and it takes longer to relax — all over details that would have been completed in due time.

2. Ask for support. Answers come quickly when we ask and are open. Farming is not a solo support and most of what we do on the farm depends on a community of support partners. Whether it is the advice and care from a vet for our animals, hay and feed suppliers, or a web of organizations that we collaborate with, we are all better together. Time and time again, we have turned to this network with a specific question and found great wisdom.

As a morning journal writer, I often end with a question. Just the other day, I woke up feeling extra stiff in my knees after a bike ride. I ended my journal entry by asking the question, “What do I need to do to loosen up?” At a restaurant later that day the waitress, Karen, asked as I was paying my bill, “Have you ever tried Yin Yoga?” She went on to explain that Yin Yoga focuses on the fascia or deep connective tissue. I had not told her about my stiffness, yet I had an answer.

3. Enjoy the ride. Look up and enjoy the scenery. Connect with the people you encounter along the way. The journey is the goal. On a recent spring morning, I left early for the barn. Instead of walking, I wandered. I checked the bird house beside the light post to see if any birds had moved in, Nope. I inspected the garden I had just weeded days before to see the gooseneck loosestrife were an inch taller. I stopped and listened to the morning sounds of the farm. A blue jay called, the mourning dove on the barn called until his partner joined him, and upon seeing me, Buckaroo, our miniature donkey, honked his hello. In less than five minutes I had changed my internal state on the way to reaching the goal of getting to the barn to start my day.

4. Trust. Everything will present itself in the perfect time and order. I have two things on my list that are urgent. One is to sign and scan a document and then email it. The second is to take my car to get an inspection at the gas station. Figuring the first one will take less than 5 minutes I start there. On page one of five, the automatic feeder on my copier stops working. No problem I think, I will just place each page on the screen. No dice. The words SCANNER ERROR show on the screen. I turn it off, turn it back on to no avail. Having spent over a half hour, I haven’t accomplished a thing. I turn my attention to the car. When I go out to start it, the battery is dead. Great. Just then, Robert, who works at the farm, pulls in and sees my dilemma. Before I can retrieve the jump box, he has my car started and I am on my way. Plus, there is no line at the gas station. What I thought would take 5 minutes is still incomplete. What I thought would take an hour is compete in half the time.

5. Laugh along the way. Spend time with people, animals and things that make you laugh! There is no shortage of laughter with a farm full of animals and nowadays, all we have to do is tune into short videos to find something that will leave us laughing to the point of tears. I have a friend, who is a whirlwind of negativity. She gets a cold when getting her haircut because her hair stylist was sick, she painted her bathroom and the cat tracked paint through the house, and every car she buys is a ‘lemon’. Somehow every interaction I have with her leaves me drained. And then I have another friend who, when I am with her, something silly happens and we are in hysterics. I leave our dinner together lighter.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

We are never too old to live our dream. Big or small, focusing on a dream, changes us. We are kinder, happier, and more open to the world around us. Living a dream makes the world a better place.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

Jamie Kern Lima. I have devoured both of her recent books, Believe It and Worthy. She is a powerhouse communicator and I know we could fill more than a lunch or breakfast with great conversation.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Our website for the farm is www.applehillfarmnc.com. We can also be found on Facebook @applehillfarm and Instagram @applehillfarmnc. My author website is https://janeleerankin.com/ and I can also be found on Facebook @jane.l.rankin.1 and Instagram @janeleerankin.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.