Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.
—JACK KEROUAC
Leanne
I haven’t quite figured out if being driven is a blessing or a curse. Both, I guess. When you always have the urge to go-go-go, in every sense of the word, I can only guess there’s a reason for it, this unrest. It kind of makes you wonder, what is God pushing you toward? What adventures are ahead of you that you don’t even know to wish for yet?
At twenty-three I had been in New York City for a while, and city living was getting to me. It was tough being so poor in New York, and I was longing for warmer weather. I used to walk past the Roxy store in Times Square and watch the huge screen above with videos of these girls laughing and surfing. I’d dream of the sun shining down on my face. I always had an attachment to Quiksilver and Roxy. I know I’m just a Pittsburgh girl, but I have always loved surf and skate culture. I’d look at their gorgeous window displays decorated with sunny, happy faces. I started dreaming of beaches and the Pacific Ocean, warm weather and sunny days. I wanted to be where they were.
Instead, it was raining, and I was in the subway, with drenched bell bottoms. They were like little mops soaking up the Times Square puddles, the water up to the knees of my jeans at this point. (Note to self: don’t wear bell bottoms in the rain.)
On the subway that day, there was a cute girl and a cute guy sitting across from me. They were just being silly and having fun. They were drenched, but they weren’t miserable like I was.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” I said to these total strangers.
“How’d you know?” they said.
“Because you’re having too much fun,” I said, smiling.
Of course, I had plenty of fun times in New York, but that day, I was a mess. I had hit a low.
“Do you work for Roxy?” I asked the girl.
She had a major tip-off: she was wearing head-to-toe Roxy logos.
“Yes, I do! How’d you know?” she asked.
Lucky guess.
We immediately hit it off, and we decided to get drinks. Turns out that she was the head of marketing for Roxy—the California brand that I had been dreaming of. And she asked if I wanted to come for an interview.
Yes, for real. Even as I write this, I am thinking, Man, we should all talk to more strangers!
For the interview they flew me to Los Angeles—they flew me. (It was a big deal!) It was an absolute whirlwind. I was standing on the hotel balcony, staring out at the ocean from my hotel room, on the phone with Mom. “I have a hotel room in Huntington Beach! And they are paying for it!”
Soon after, I was hired to work with the public relations team at Roxy. Aaah!
Every season, when a new line of clothing drops, a fashion brand like Roxy sends samples of their collection to magazines; the editors use these pieces in their editorial shoots or for lay downs in the pages of their magazine. My job in the PR department was to send these samples. This meant I was in charge of the sample closet.
Let’s just say the sample closet needed some love. It needed to be cleaned, organized, and—most important—edited. So I did a major edit, picking out the most interesting pieces and ditching clothes that weren’t as special. I sent editors only the best pieces from that season. I would curate and choose what they saw based on which magazine was asking, as well as what the photoshoot story was about. I worked with Vogue and Elle and People. Editors started to notice. I heard people talking about it; they were saying, “Roxy’s getting so good.”
It’s all about the edit. I was being very calculated about the style of the magazine and what they needed and what the story needed. I was curating Roxy carefully for each of them. I was also gifting Roxy pieces to celebrities. You can imagine my twenty-three-year-old reaction when I came into work one morning to a voice mail from Sarah Jessica Parker, thanking me for her gift. That was a pass-the-phone-around-for-everyone-to-hear kind of message!
Dana Dartez was the head of design at Roxy at the time, and she started to notice what I was doing with the clothes, as well as how I personally was wearing them. She took me under her wing. She loved me and, it turned out, more important for my career, she loved my style. She asked me to come help her on a photo shoot. This was not normal, to pull someone out from the PR team to help with the styling, by the way. I was thrilled. I mean, thrilled. A real live photo shoot! It was the first professional shoot I had ever been on. She knew it too. She coached me on what to do and not do and showed me what she needed help with. She gave me racks and racks of the clothes from the new season and told me to put together outfits I would wear.
I jumped in. I assisted her however she needed on that shoot, helping put looks together, dressing the models, and adding details that made the outfits and images more special. I brought a bunch of old shell necklaces and ropes and vintage pieces to add some oomph.
We talked through and tweaked how the clothes fit, how the models sat, where they sat. We added Mexican blankets and fun props, anything we needed to make the shoot special. I’m telling you that very day and that very shoot resparked my love of fashion. More important, it started my love of photo shoots and launched my styling career. Dana is the reason I got into styling; it changed the trajectory of my career and my life. Thank you, Dana!
Looking back, I never missed an opportunity that was put in front of me. I would say yes to everything. Ever heard the phrase “Fake it till you make it”? That’s my life. Jump in and learn as you go. If you have it, you will know! Some things can’t be learned; some things just have to naturally flow out of your brain. That’s the “it” factor.
I’m thankful to Dana for picking me out of a building of people and asking me to help on her shoot. Mentors are crucial in any business. I always think about that and always want to do the same for the people who are talented newbies helping me now. How can we encourage people to grow, to try things? How can we give them opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise? It is our job to inspire, encourage, teach, and push each other forward.
Steve
You had moved to California, and I was dreaming of moving there too. I was finishing a job in Pittsburgh, selling home remodeling. I was selling roofing, windows, siding, and doors. I wasn’t crazy about being a salesman in that field—would have rather been an installer, probably. But I tried a different career path, and I wasn’t feeling it.
The good news was that I was able to pay off all my debt, clear up my credit cards, and save some money. I decided it was time for a change. So I wrote the date February 16 on my mirror. It would be my target date to leave Pittsburgh and drive to California. If I wrote it down on my mirror, that’s when I knew I would make it happen. My goal was to have everything situated and ready—have enough money, have a plan. A mirror is a good place to write a goal. Why? Because you look at your mirror (almost) every day.
Leanne
But does he?
Steve
My goal was pretty simple: I wanted to be a surfer. That was it. I figured I’d pick up odd jobs and concentrate on the ocean. After all, I was only twenty-six years old, so this wasn’t a difficult plan. I had no responsibilities, all my debts were paid, I had a car, all my money was in the bank, and I thought, Why not? So I asked Leanne if I could crash on her couch for a while.
I drove across country in a Toyota truck. It was my dream truck as a child after seeing Back to the Future. My dream car wasn’t the DeLorean; it was the truck that Marty McFly drove. When I got my job as a salesman, I was able to buy myself that truck. See, I can be very practical when I want to be!
It only took me two days to drive across country. I just made a beeline to California. Leanne had a roommate, Shilpa, and was living in Long Beach. She probably expected me to stay for a little while until I found a place of my own. But that wasn’t my goal. My goal was to be a professional freeloader.
I know that sounds a little crazy, but if you had your younger sister living in California, wouldn’t you do the same? I wanted to go full surfer mode. No timeline, no strings attached, no expectations or goals.
And I thought I was a pretty good guest. I found an empty cabinet in her kitchen and put all my clothes in the cabinet and hid all my stuff in her house so it didn’t look like I was sleeping on the couch or staying there for a long period of time. I was gone most of the time. Really! They probably only saw me when they woke up in the middle of the night or in the morning. I was trying to be a considerate freeloader.
Eventually, they both let me know that I should be paying rent. The nerve!
My freeloading didn’t last very long. I got the vibe from Leanne and her roommate that this wasn’t exactly how they imagined living: in a nice apartment in Long Beach with Leanne’s older brother sleeping on the couch. Eventually, I moved in with a friend of mine who lived in Santa Monica. But soon, he and I got an apartment in Studio City, which is very far from the beach. Technically, it’s not that far, but with the traffic, it sometimes took me an hour to get to the beach. I was thinking, Why am I even in California? Suddenly, my full-time surfing dreams were put on hold.
Looking back, it was not the most well-hatched plan. It was probably meant to be temporary—how long can you live on someone’s couch and surf? I think I pushed it to its limit and had fun doing it.
Thanks, Leanne!
Leanne
Okay. Let’s talk about this, Steve. I’m pretty sure you just invented the phrase considerate freeloader. Couple of things to note here:
1. Steve totally tricked us. He just kept staying there and staying there. We didn’t know that he had moved in to our place. He failed to mention that.
2. Steve is six foot five—he thinks he was sneaking around and we didn’t even “notice” that he was there? He wasn’t exactly invisible in our tiny little apartment, thank you very much.
3. I remember when we told Steve if he was planning on staying, then he had to start chipping in. He was shocked—like, offended that I asked.
4. I’d like to put out a formal apology to my roommate, Shilpa, for putting up with me and my big—in every sense of the word—brother as long as she did. Shilpa, thank you, and I’m sooooooo sorry.
As my career carried on, I started to build relationships with magazine editors. I had been at Roxy for about a year when Monika Steinberg, the editor-in-chief of Foam, a women’s surf magazine, asked me to be their fashion editor.
“Uh, yup!” I said.
This was a new world for me, one I wouldn’t have even thought to aspire to. She wanted me to create, produce, direct, style, and run three shoots an issue, using all the different surf brand collections. She believed I was up for the task.
I had never been a fashion editor, of course, which meant I had no true experience with running a photo shoot, let alone had a portfolio. It was a crucial time, a moment that could change my entire career. But I needed help. So I called a friend, Erik Lang, a photographer I met at David LaChapelle’s office while I was working for Heatherette. Erik was the studio manager there, but was also a great (and more important, young and hungry) photographer.
“I’m doing a magazine shoot for Foam,” I said to Erik. “I have no idea what I am doing. Want to shoot it?”
As you may have noticed, I have no shame. I completely believe in asking people for help when you need it. You have to put yourself out there or you will not move forward in life. The worst that can happen is that someone will say no. Good people inherently want to help each other. Erik was on board.
With that said, I didn’t know what I was doing, and the shoot was, dare I say, subpar. I chose way too many locations. I was overzealous, if you will. It was freezing, we were shooting swim, and we were having the models change their clothes in the car. It was pretty much torture. Everything was wrong. But I guess I didn’t know much better. I felt so bad for that crew. They were troopers!
I brought my work back to Monika at Foam. Remember: this was my interview for the job as fashion editor. But it was all I had. I sat nervously in her office.
“What did you learn about this shoot?” Monika asked me.
“I learned to get a trailer with heat for the models,” I said.
Let’s just say she agreed. Yet she hired me, bless her soul. She knew I had the ability to take on the job, even though I didn’t have any formal training or experience. But I had moxie, and I had style, and I had the drive to figure it out.
I was the fashion editor at Foam for a few years. I did all parts of every shoot: creative direction, production, and styling. Finding new creative ways to show the same style of clothes over and over. I loved it! I worked with some amazing talents, models, photographers, hair and makeup stylists—people I still admire to this day.
Whatever you dream of doing—do it. Do it for free; do it for fun; do it for the love of it. People will be drawn to your gusto, to your spirit, and, therefore, to your craft. And if you’re lucky—and you will be one day—someone is going to pay you to do what you would otherwise do for free. As the saying goes: “Fortune favors the brave.” I still can’t believe people pay me to create!
Steve
While Leanne was working at Roxy and Foam, I was making my way up the ranks as a background actor. Yes, I’m serious. Basically, it’s a great way to make a little money if you live in Los Angeles. I went through a central casting company. All you had to do was show up, and you’d work on the movie set all day, and they’d feed you—just for standing there in the background of their shows or movies.
I also worked some construction while I was out there. There was a house being built down the street from Leanne’s place, and I walked over there one day with my hammer and my tool belt.
“Are you hiring?” I said. “Because I need a job.”
I did some framing at that house, and that turned into a few other jobs. Ultimately, the stories from Central Casting were more fun and exciting than the ones from my construction jobs—even though I was learning a lot on the construction jobs.
It’s amazing how many shows you can do as a background actor. I did a number of TV shows, like Jericho, House, Numb3rs, and The Office. I also did a couple of movies, like Live Free or Die Hard and Dreamgirls.
Dreamgirls was my real claim to fame as a background actor because I was actually in the movie for about two whole seconds.
In 2006, Dreamgirls was playing on Christmas Day in theaters across the country. Leanne and I went home to Pittsburgh for Christmas, and we went with my entire family to see the movie together because I was in it. Let me tell you: it was the longest movie ever. It was especially long when your family is sitting there just to see you. I’m just in the background, and my big “role” doesn’t come on until the end. The camera starts on my face and then pans away. I got a solid two seconds of major motion picture time.
Leanne
Watching Steve in Dreamgirls—or should I say waiting to watch Steve in Dreamgirls—was amazing. He took the entire family with him over Christmas holiday to see his big film debut.
We waited.
And we waited.
And they started singing another song, and we waited. No Steve.
Finally, he told us this was his scene. He was thrilled. Here he comes—and nothing. His scene was him and about a thousand other extras in a crowd. We kind of shrugged and looked at each other.
“Great job, Steve. Sorry we couldn’t see you.” We were pretty disappointed.
All of a sudden, Steve’s face comes up on the entire screen. And only his face—in a Fu Manchu–style mustache, mind you. We all screamed and jumped up and down. The entire family was high-fiving and hugging there in the theater. And that was that; the movie went on for some more musical numbers like nothing ever happened.
I laugh every time I think about that day. We have to watch it again, Steve!
Speaking of stars of the family, and not to outdo Steve’s Hollywood debut, but this was around the time the real star of our family showed up, Tom Ford the dog. Yes, that’s really his name.
I adopted Tom while I was living in LA, shortly after my dad died. He’s about seventeen years old now. And he’s still going strong, thank you very much. His full adopted name was “Turbo Tripod Tom,” Tom for short. And of course he took my last name, so there ya go. Tom is a true gentleman, the self-proclaimed president of the Scrappy Dogs club, with his big, droopy eyes and rock ’n’ roll haircut. He’s invincible.
While I was living in Long Beach, there was an article in the local magazine that read “Save These Dogs.” All the dogs had full body pictures, but not little Tom; he only had a side profile of his face. This dog got dissed, I thought.
We grew up with West Highland terriers, and I loved terrier faces. So I kept talking about Tom, how cute Tom was. I wanted to meet him.
Finally, my friend threw me his phone. “Call Tom,” he said.
I called and asked, “Is Tom there?”
The owners were so excited that I called. The woman on the other end, his foster mom, started telling me all about Tom.
“He’s a little pistol. A charmer with the ladies,” she said. She was going on and on about Tom this and Tom that. Then, after about forty-five minutes, she said, “So we cut it off.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Cut what off?”
Apparently, Tom had come to them with a broken leg. They couldn’t fix it, so they had to amputate it. Tom is a three-legged dog.
“I’ll be right over,” I said.
Tom was a little gray scruffy guy, maybe about ten pounds soaking wet. He’s got one back leg, so he hobbles around.
I had found the dog of my dreams, a perfectly imperfect pup who needed a home.
“He’s perfect,” I said.
“Well, if you think he’s perfect, you better take him,” the lady said. “Because no one else wants him.”
But I wanted him. I wanted him because of what he looked like. This is what Tom has always looked like, for all of his seventeen years. He’s always looked like an old man and a puppy dog at the same time.
When Tom goes to the bathroom, he does a full-on handstand. Yes, a handstand. He lifts his back leg and stands on his two front legs. It’s his best party trick; it’s very impressive!
Tom’s a little nomad scrapper. He has lived with me in Long Beach, in Pittsburgh, in Nashville, in LA, and in New York. He’s driven across country four times with me. Tom may not be a looker, but he’s absolutely perfect for me. When I say “I love you, Tom,” he stops whatever he’s doing to come over and give me a little doggy kiss. Then he goes right back to what he was up to, which—let’s face it—is usually snoozing or eating. He’s added such joy to my life. He’s lying beside me right now, probably reading over my shoulder.
While Steve, Tom, and I had a great time in California, you’ve probably noticed that I’m a bit of a wanderer. I actually love every phase of what I’m doing, but then, I tend to move on. I love new adventures. I love traveling.
I remember watching a documentary about Vincent Van Gogh when I was maybe twenty. I was fascinated by the fact that he didn’t even know he could paint before he was twenty-six1—he had never picked up a paintbrush! It got me thinking, What if there’s something I am good at that I didn’t even know I could do? I decided that twenty-six was going to be my “Van Gogh year,” and maybe I, too, would find something I was good at that I didn’t even know I had skill for.
Then I forgot about it. On my twenty-eighth birthday I remembered my idea of the Van Gogh year and thought, Oh, shoot. I missed it. Then I realized, Wait a second. No, I didn’t.
This is the story of my Van Gogh year.
I decided on a whim to pack up all my stuff in California and move to Nashville. It had enough of a creative industry that I could continue to style and do photo shoots. And I have always loved the South. Plus, in Nashville, I could afford to rent a house and have a yard for Tom. So I decided I was going to give it a try. I packed little Tom Ford and all my worldly belongings into my old Toyota Land Cruiser and hit the highway.
“What are you going to do in Nashville?” someone said to me. “Go be a hick?”
Uh, not exactly.
I was drawn to Nashville for so many reasons. Music is my favorite art form. I love classic country music. No one in my life—meaning folks in my New York and Los Angeles worlds—understood what country music was about. Once, I had to go to a Willie Nelson concert by myself because none of my friends knew who Willie Nelson was. Blasphemy. I realized, If my friends don’t like Willie Nelson, I’m in the wrong town!
In Nashville, I rented a house—an actual three-bedroom house!—for the first time in my life. I found two roommates to share the space and the rent. In the end, I was paying $200 a month. In New York, my room alone cost four times that.
The question of what I would I do for a living wasn’t a problem. I was already a stylist, coming from the big city, and I had a large portfolio to prove it. I had a very exciting wow moment: I’ll just go style the country singers.
Taking risks is part of my M.O.: With Mom’s kitchen cabinets. With her refrigerator. With Heatherette. With Roxy. With the way I got into fashion. And now with jumping into the big leagues with some of the best and most well-known musicians in the world.
Steve
Every day Leanne and I take risks. Lately, we’ve been taking so many risks with people’s homes that I would love to take fewer risks—or maybe that’s just how I’m feeling right now. Working on this show is one of the most challenging jobs I’ve been part of.
I’m not afraid of taking chances for myself either. Because if you want something bad enough, you don’t really worry about the risks. You just think, I’m going to make it happen.
Okay, let me reword that: if there is something I want so deeply, then it doesn’t feel like a risk. It feels like the right thing, rather than a risk.
Leanne
Totally. That’s how I felt about Nashville. It felt like the right thing.
I got to Nashville and connected with a small fashion agency there right away; they started sending me on some amazing jobs. I styled Miranda Lambert for a magazine, Jason Aldean’s album cover, Lee Ann Womack for award shows and Good Morning America. In fact, Diane Sawyer told Lee Ann Womack that she loved her shoes on national TV—the shoes I chose for her! Fun!
I worked with and met some really fun people. I lived in Nashville for three years and had some incredible experiences there.
It was also the place where I officially became a songwriter. Bet you didn’t see that one coming!
Sometimes, words come out of me rhyming. The poem comes out of me without me doing anything. In fact, I’ve never actually been able to write a poem when I have tried. It would just roll out, and I would write it down however it was, wherever I was, on the back of a check or in the margins of a book. Now I use my phone, thankfully. But before, I used to grab a napkin.
I had tons and tons of writing, piles of it. And I never did a thing with any of it, until I moved to Tennessee.
When I moved to Nashville, my friends were all musicians—some well-known and some not so well-known. We were all poor and happy running around town together. Any time any friends would be at a loss for words and need lyrics, I would dig into my box of poems and find something that matched the mood they were in. That’s when my friends started turning my poems into songs.
Hearing someone sing my poetry is one of the greatest thrills I’ve felt in my career, and it still is pretty much my favorite creative outlet ever. It’s so fun.
My friend Nikki Lane turned a poem of mine, called “If You Take Him,” into a song. It was the first time I’d heard my words sung. It was something I’d written to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” character. Nikki sang it and emailed it to me one day. I was hooked. (I still think she should put it on her album someday!)
Then there was my new friend Jess Maros. She was an amazing singer and guitar player and she wanted to write, but she didn’t have a ton of lyrics. We’d met at a clothing party I hosted. My clothing parties are pretty much just that: I swapped and sold clothes to my friends. I made a lot of great girlfriends that way—and paid my rent.
Anyway, Jess came over, and we wrote this song from one of my poems called “Rodeo Queen.” It’s a song about a girl waiting for her rodeo man to come home from his travels. We had the best time writing this song, and pretty soon after we wrote it, we played it for my friend Tyler James.
Tyler started putting this beat to the song. We were just sitting there in his family room, and all of a sudden, this song turned into a living, breathing, amazing song. That day the two of them started their band Escondido, a dreamy, country desert rock band. Several of the songs on that first album, The Ghost of Escondido, were written with my poems.
They just put their third album out, and I have a couple of songs on there. In fact, there’s a song called “Cold October” that is all about my first big breakup. Escondido performed the song on Conan O’Brien! I was backstage on Conan, watching my best friends playing a song that I helped write. It was so awesome, and I was so proud of them. Talk about tears! The excitement was like nothing I could compare it to.
We’ve had songs in movies and on television. A big TV show asked for another one of our songs just recently. So I get what they call “mailbox money.” I get a small check every month. It’s my biggest thrill. And here’s a fun fact: Escondido and I actually wrote the theme song that you hear at the beginning of Restored By the Fords. It’s called “Roam On Home.” You can hear the entire song on their album Warning Bells. These things don’t happen on their own. I wanted to write these songs with my friends, so I put that out there to them—and they took it.
Here I was, writing songs in Nashville and taking on styling jobs, but I was also living a kind of poor artist’s life. And I was always looking for ways to make extra money. One day, I was at a gas station in Nashville and found this dusty old box of vintage sunglasses, mostly from the ’80s. They were selling them for fifty cents each. They were just dead stock, collecting dust. The gas station didn’t know what to do with them. So I bought a bunch, and I started selling them to my friends for ten dollars. I had a huge box of them, and I never told anybody where I got them. When I ran out, I’d go to the gas station and buy a hundred more.
One year, Nikki and I wanted to go to South by Southwest (SXSW), the massive music, film, and media festival in Austin, but we had no money for gas. We were both so broke.
“I have an idea,” I said. We went to the gas station and bought all the sunglasses.
The guy at the gas station looked at me funny.
“What do you want with all these?”
I didn’t want him to know that I was making a profit off of them. So I fibbed.
“I’m having sunglasses parties!” I said.
Nikki and I had hundreds of pairs of sunglasses. We loaded up the car and drove to Austin that day, drove thirteen hours. We set up a blanket and a vintage mirror outside one of the bars at SXSW, and we started hocking the shades out of an old suitcase. We were these two cute little hippie girls, yelling, “Shady business! Shady business, here! The future is bright. Gotta wear shades!”
We called our new little endeavor “Gas Money Glasses,” and we were the “Shady Ladies.” We made thousands of dollars! I kid you not—thousands of dollars. We carried a suitcase from spot to spot, and we’d just sit down and open our suitcase. We got some press out of it. We were in WGSN, a trend forecasting company publication. We even had a few celebrity clients.
We were never a legit business. We paid for our gas and then split a big old pile of cash. We kept going back to SXSW, and we had repeat customers. People would see us and say, “There’s the Shady Ladies!”
After two years selling those gas station glasses, we ran out of stock. Hey, it was fun while it lasted, and we got our gas money. Success!
Steve
While Leanne was out there in Nashville, selling Gas Money Glasses and writing songs, I decided to go back to Pittsburgh and open a clothing store. Which, of course, sold Gas Money Glasses.
Yes, that’s right. I, Steve Ford, the guy who wears the same black T-shirt every day, had a clothing store.
How did it happen that I decided to open a clothing store? Well, when I lived in California, I was working with a guy named Steve Coe, whom I actually met through Leanne.
Leanne
When I met Steve Coe, I knew immediately you would hit it off. “You should be friends with my brother,” I told him. And then you were.
Imagine two of Steve. That’s what it’s like when Steve Ford and Steve Coe are together. Both big beer-drinking, big-dreaming, burly men, only one of them has a British accent. Actually, that’s a perfect description: Steve Coe is Steve Ford with a British accent.
Steve
Steve Coe owned a brand called Worn Free. He sold rock ’n’ roll T-shirts. He would take John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” slogan, license the image, and then put it on a T-shirt. I worked with Steve on and off for two years. Yes, that’s around the time I was freeloading off Leanne and her roommate—well, while I wasn’t surfing or framing houses.
It was a great time in my life because I was surfing almost every day, but after a while, it became a little too unstable. I couldn’t just keep doing work for Steve Coe, framing houses part-time, and surfing. My surfing-every-day plan kind of washed away (pun intended), and I felt like my life needed more purpose—a bigger commitment.
“I don’t know what I’m doing with myself,” I said to Steve Coe. “I think I need to move back home and figure out my next career move.”
“You’re always talking about opening up a store,” he said. “Why don’t you open a store?”
“How am I going to do that? I’m broke,” I said.
And I was broke. But I had been hanging out with all these guys who were artists and who were starting T-shirt brands. They were creative people. If they asked me for help, I would say yes. I helped them with construction work and whatever else they needed. That’s the kind of guy I am.
“Talk to your friends who are starting T-shirt brands,” Steve Coe said. “I’m sure they’ll give you clothes to sell.”
This is something Leanne spoke about too—you have to be able to ask people for help.
I met up with this group of guys who were all creating interesting artwork. There was Buff Monster, the graffiti artist. There was Steve Aoki, the musician, record producer, and DJ, who was running his record label and lifestyle brand, Dim Mak. I was also friends with another artist who just went by the name Rama. I loved hanging out with these guys because they were so inspirational. They were carving their own paths for themselves.
I always tried to work with them and offer my work to them. At the time, I was trying to figure out my life, so it was really influential and inspirational to work around artists.
One day, I was talking to Rama and he told me he had a back stock of sweaters and hats and sweatshirts they had been making.
“Here. Take all this stuff, and you can sell it by consignment,” he said.
Once I spoke to my friends, it was like magic: I drove back to Pittsburgh with a truck filled with merchandise. When I got to Pittsburgh, I met up with people who were making Pittsburgh shirts and bags. It happened to be right around Christmastime—perfect timing. I found someone who was running a holiday pop-up shop and started selling clothing.
I killed it.
I took the money I made at that pop-up shop and invested it in getting a storefront for myself. The store I rented was a former pet store on East Carson Street. It was in a 150-year-old building, and it was an ugly mess. The South Side of Pittsburgh was the place for college students from the many Pittsburgh universities to live, and they partied off-campus. There were too many bars and restaurants and coffee shops to count along East Carson Street, but no boutiques. I had a vision for my store; I sold jeans, coats, sweaters, and Pittsburgh T-shirts. Since I was so into surfing, the store also had a real surfer vibe to it.
Leanne
Now that I think about it, we grew up in freezing-cold Pittsburgh, yet we were both fascinated by surf culture. I wonder why!
Steve
I named the store Decade. I decided to live there while I was fixing it up. Even though everyone told me that opening a store would be a very risky venture, living in the store essentially lowered my risk because I didn’t have to spend money on an apartment. I’m lucky to have the skills to fix up my own place.
Not going to lie: operating Decade was scary. It was a huge run on my credit card. Luckily, it was well received, and I was able to keep up with my bills.
“Are you sure you should do this?” the family said.
There weren’t many private boutiques in Pittsburgh. Hopefully, we’ll see more. I wanted to create a space that I could identify with here in town. The store had a similar design vibe to Leanne’s style: white painted-brick walls, black ceiling, white floor, clean merchandising.
When I really think about it, installing Decade was one of my first big renovation jobs. I bought old doors from demolished houses at Construction Junction, a salvage store in Pittsburgh. I lined the twenty-foot ceiling with the doors. Thankfully, I had many, many friends who pitched in to help with this project.
I thought Decade was the coolest shop in the South Side, and so did everyone, including my family. For me it was not only my business but also the center of my social life. We would have bands playing and lots of parties right there in my storefront.
Around this time, my friends and I started our moped gang. I guess you can say that when I get into a hobby, I become obsessed, because once I got one moped, I wanted to buy a whole bunch more. I scoured Craigslist for mopeds and started collecting them. I bought every moped I could find—and they were pretty cheap too, about $100 each. My friends and I would bring them back to the store, and we’d get them running again.
Ed Zeiler and I have about ten mopeds between the two of us. It was a funny sight to see: me, a six-foot-five guy, on this tiny little moped. It was like a circus. Ed would fix the mopeds, souping them up. A moped usually goes about twenty miles an hour; Ed got it running to fifty miles an hour. (Don’t try this at home, kids.) We had so much fun riding around town on those little mopeds that we named ourselves the “Dead Boys Steel City Moped Crew.” I even sold T-shirts out of the store.
I was into motorcycles also, so eventually when we got tired of hunching our bodies over on those little mopeds, we moved on to motorcycles. Not as hard on my back! I eventually sold most of the mopeds—about eight of them. Anything to make a buck. It was a good time!
Mom was doing some research about our family history based on family memories, and she found out that my great-great-grandfather, Paul Fallert, had a photography studio at 1405 East Carson Street in the 1800s and into the early 1900s. I opened Decade in 2007, at 1407 East Carson Street, just one door away from my grandfather’s former photography studio. I was amazed by the coincidence. The Fallert Photography Studio was a well-known Pittsburgh photography studio, and we have since found old photos with the Fallert name stamped in gold. To be in touch with my family roots like that was so cool. It made me feel like I was in the right place at the right time.
There were a lot of things I loved about owning Decade, but one of my favorite things was making window displays. I loved the creativity of it. And I guess I did a pretty good job at it because it attracted Keith Keegan, who was vice president of marketing and creative director for American Eagle, and a member of his team, creative director Brad Shaffer. Their headquarters is in Pittsburgh. Keith really liked my window displays. They started hiring me, asking me to build window displays. They would come up with concepts on paper, and I would build them. It was a great side business for me that turned into something even bigger, because word got around the American Eagle office that I could create anything.
It was a great freelance gig—all because of my store. Then other opportunities came up; other clothing brands hired me, like ModCloth, a vintage-inspired store in Pittsburgh, and rue21, another local retail brand. My name got around. Gotta love word-of-mouth marketing.
Decade, my store, was open for ten years. (Yes, ironically, a decade.) It opened a lot of doors for me. I met a ton of people, made lots of connections. People came in, we’d become friends, and then I’d work for them, like what happened with American Eagle. Most days I’d sit on the street in a chair, just hanging out, and I’d meet people in the neighborhood and invite them into the store. This was my entire life for ten years. Owning and running that store kept me creative and fluid, and it made me realize that I liked being visual.
I closed the store after ten years because what Leanne and I were doing was getting bigger and bigger. Financially, working with Leanne was more profitable than owning Decade, with all of its overhead. While I wouldn’t necessarily call the store profitable, I wouldn’t consider it a failure. It was an experience that opened so many other doors.
It is important in business to be flexible. My customers, family, and friends were all sad to see Decade close. We had a lot of good times there, and a lot of retail happiness for all. I may reopen it someday. We’ll see.
But what I learned from owning Decade is about developing my passion. It was part of who I was. Look: a lot of times in your life you have to take a job to get a paycheck. You have to make money, so you take the job. But I wanted more than a job. I wanted a challenge.
This doesn’t mean that you’ll be worry-free following a passion. I always worry a little bit. Now I worry about budgets. My only worry is budgets—and how to get things done on time, and if everyone is happy. I’m worried right now writing this book! I’m worried I’m not going to be able to meet my general contractor Bobby Benson at the house we’re working on tonight to finish the job.
Leanne
What does it mean to take a risk? Does it mean you think you’re going to fail?
Adam Grant, author of Originals—an incredible book that I’ve marked with underlining in so many places—did an enormous amount of research about original thinkers and people who take risks. “Originals feel fear, too,” he explained in a TED talk from 2016. “They’re afraid of failing, but what sets them apart from the rest of us is they’re even more afraid of failing to try. They know you can fail by starting a business that goes bankrupt or by failing to start a business at all. They know that in the long run, our biggest regrets are not our actions but our inactions. The things we wish we could redo, if you look at the science, are the chances not taken.”2
What’s the worst that could happen? You need to weigh that risk. Can you lose money? Lose sleep? Lose peace of mind? Or is it simpler? Is it the fear of failure?
This doesn’t mean that your twenties are the only time you can take a risk. It certainly makes it easier if you don’t have any responsibilities tying you down; that is true. But it’s just as scary, and sometimes even more crucial, to take a big leap of faith when you’re older.
Truth be told: our mom is in the same house we grew up since I was born. There’s a stability to that, which I think has given both of us a concept of safety. I also think Steve and I were able to run around the country and move to all these places because we knew we’d have her house to go back to if any plan backfired. Maybe that’s what gave me the courage to move to Nashville, despite everyone’s protests, despite it being a wild card.
Moving to Nashville ended up being a tremendous success because that was where I needed to be in my life at that time. Living in Nashville was my choice, my risk. It was about me jumping into my career and jumping into a quality of life because that’s what I craved. It was the time in my life that I was really able to get creative in the fashion world, and to do it in Nashville was a dream. Enjoy living in the moment—even if it means a potential for failure.
Steve
As much fun as I had in California, moving back to Pittsburgh was one of the best things I’ve ever done—just like creating Decade. I like that there’s no traffic here. (Or less traffic, I should say.) The cost of living is lower than in California. It made it easier to do the things that I liked. Here, my bills are easier to pay.
After living nine months in the back of the store, using my Murphy bed, my garden hose as a shower, and a Pittsburgh potty in the basement, I finally moved to the apartment above my store that became available after the neighbors moved out. (That may or may not have been because of my late-night parties.)
Leanne
I have always stayed connected to Pittsburgh and always will. It’s where my family is; therefore, it’s where my heart is.
I moved back to Pittsburgh from Nashville and lived above Steve’s apartment. I wasn’t there for even a year, but that didn’t stop me from fully decorating it. I painted the old, beat-up wood floors white and ripped out the dumpy old uppers in the kitchen. I used old fabric I had as wallpaper down the hall and filled the place with thrift-store finds and hand-me-downs. I had a desk looking out the window over the South Side of Pittsburgh, and I would sit there and type out songs and poems on my old typewriter.
I always think about Dad’s favorite book, Acres of Diamonds, by the founder of Temple University, Russell H. Conwell. Conwell’s philosophy was simple: you can find everything you need for your success in your own backyard.
Conwell tells one story I’ll never forget, about a wealthy Persian farmer. Maybe you’ve heard it? He had learned that his country was filled with diamonds and became obsessed with finding them; he wanted wealth and would do anything to obtain it. So he sold off his farm, and off he went in search of diamonds. He spent his entire life trekking around, looking for these precious stones, traveling to Palestine, to Europe, until he got to Spain, where he gave up on everything and threw himself into a river. He died hopeless, penniless, and alone.
Meanwhile, the man he sold his farm to was out taking a leisurely walk. He saw a flash of light in his garden brook and reached down into the water. He lifted up a black stone with a tiny sparkle, illuminating all of the colors of the rainbow. He thought it was so pretty that he took the stone into his house and put it on his mantel to enjoy. His friend came over to the house, saw the stone, and said, “Do you know what that is?”
It was a diamond. In fact, that farm turned out to be one of the largest diamond mines on the continent. The poor, misguided man who had sold it off in his quest for riches forgot to look in his own backyard.3
I loved the adventures of my years in New York, LA, and Nashville. I still spend a lot of time in all those cities. I learned so much about myself and about what I want my life to be. But it turns out that my hometown of Pittsburgh would be the place the big stuff in my life would happen. It’s where Steve and I would start working together, which would set us on a path that we still have trouble believing is real at times. Pittsburgh is where I bought my one-hundred-year-old schoolhouse, which launched my decorating career. This is the place where Steve and I renovate homes for so many people and, through the magic of television, give millions of others ideas of how to make their spaces beautiful too.
Steve
Pittsburgh is steeped in history, which is pretty cool. Sometimes when I take a back road to my place, I wind up the hilly streets, looking at all the public staircases that weave their way through the terrain. I think about how the steelworkers would trudge up those steps, up through the hills to go home. Our grandparents worked hard in these hills to get their families to a better place in life. And then I think about Dad, and how proud of us he would have been.
Leanne
Yep. Dad would have been thrilled that we were here, filming our show in Pittsburgh. Right here, as Conwell preached, in our own backyard, renovating houses together and giving people a home that they love.
Steve
The only thing I really missed about California when I moved back home was the surfing. So I figured out how to surf right here in Pittsburgh.
I know. Those two words, surf and Pittsburgh, don’t exactly go together.
But I’m not your average person. I look at life a little differently than everyone else.
I love the water. I love how it feels to be free. Making time to get out to where where I feel close to nature is so important for my soul. You have to do what you love and make time for yourself; for me, that’s wakesurfing.
At Decade, I talked about surfing with many of my customers, since the store had a real California surfer vibe to it. I knew people in a landlocked state like Pennsylvania were going to be interested in wakesurfing.
The Monongahela River runs right through Pittsburgh, and it’s clean here. It’s not a lake, but it’s a great option for wakesurfing. Hey, work with what you’ve got, right?
A friend first introduced wakesurfing to me in 2002. The sport is similar to waterskiing, except you’re not on skis. You’re on a board. We actually spend more time on a nine-foot-six nose rider than on the smaller boards. As with waterskiing, you need a rope to get going, but once you catch the wake of the boat, you let the rope go. You surf right behind the wake, and sometimes the wake can reach four feet. It’s pretty incredible.
Wakesurfing boats are made especially so that they sit extremely low in the water without sinking. Because you’re trailing closely behind the boat in wakesurfing, the prop is in the middle of the boat—a lot safer.
A special wakesurfing boat costs about $40,000. And guess what? I didn’t have $40,000.
Because I like to try to work my way out of every tough situation, and because I never really give up, I bought a $5,000 boat and tried to turn it into a wakesurfing boat. I called it the Werewolf, because it roared.
Nothing was going to stop me from surfing on that river. The Werewolf was so fast—so fast that it would turn on a dime. If I turned it hard enough, and if you were on it, you’d fall off the back of it. You need slow for wakesurfing. You need torque—power, not speed.
But that’s not all you need; you need the back of the boat to sink down into the water without it filling up with water. I know—tricky. And I couldn’t sink this boat deep enough. Some friends and I tried. We had a one-thousand-pound bag of water weighing the boat down, but we still couldn’t make it happen. The bag of water sank the boat—you’ve seen the movie Titanic. I needed a boat that would create a wave, not a boat that would sink to the bottom of the river.
So how could I get the $40,000 wakesurfing boat? I had a new plan. I’d start a wakesurfing business, and teaching lessons on the weekends would pay for the boat. I loved teaching people how to wakesurf. It was so much fun. That was enough to convince me—that was the plan. I sold the Werewolf, bought a wakesurfing boat, and named her Simply Business.
I launched Surf Pittsburgh, and people became as interested as I knew they would be. A lot of people in the business district flocked to it. Imagine how cool it would be to come out of your building after work and hop in the river to surf. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.
Of course, at first people were surprised. They would see us on the river with the boat and someone spinning in the waves. People would just stand there and stare, eyes wide open, like, What on earth is that?
At first, maybe I’d see one other person wakesurfing in Pittsburgh. But then, a year later, I saw six other people doing it. One of my clients wanted to go out on the water every Friday. He used to do golf trips on Fridays, and now he just wanted to do wakesurfing. He’d bring a whole crew with him, and I’d pick him up downtown after work.
I ran Surf Pittsburgh for three years—taking people out on the boat and giving them experiences they enjoyed. And I loved it! But, again, the overhead cost more than my earnings, so Surf Pittsburgh became a happy memory.
I had lots of fun and connected with people who are still part of my life today. I still have a boat, and I surf as much as possible. It was just another “failure” that’s not a failure in my book.
If you’re afraid to fail, you’re going to be stuck. You’re never going to experiment. You’re never going to try. You’re never going to surf!
I think people expect success too quickly; they put such high expectations on themselves. Instead of writing challenges off as failures, think of them as experiments. It’s all a part of what makes us who we are. It’s about living on purpose.
Leanne
We Fords are resilient, aren’t we? Steve and I have had multiple careers—and we’ll probably have more.
People seem to think that they have to have it all figured out by a certain age, but life doesn’t work that way. We need to leave space in our lives to evolve. We are works in progress. And for progress to happen, you have to let that process happen. And if that means starting a company where you teach people how to surf on the river in Pittsburgh—then cool, go for it.
WORKING ON PROGRESS
Is there anything you’ve always wanted to do that you haven’t done yet? Is there any way you can do it now? Even temporarily?
Have you found something to love that adds joy to your life?
You don’t need to leave everything to start something new. What can you do and create right where you are with what you have?
What are the opportunities you have in your own backyard that you are overlooking?
Whom can you help as they are looking to create opportunities in their own backyard?
In the simplest form, what makes you happy? How can you do more of that?