Scott Smith – Earth 2 Earth Compost Pail

Scott Smith
Earth 2 Earth Compost Pail

Episode 021.

How do you gauge success? Are you positive regarding your future? Are you persistent?

Scott Smith invented the “Earth 2 Earth Compost Pail” while still working full time in construction. He is now trying to spread the word of how important composting is, and how simple the process is using kitchen scraps and small garden trimmings.

Though new to business, Scott’s passion and drive will inspire you. Listen Now!

Go to Scott’s website for more – https://www.earth2earthcompostpail.com/

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Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

 

Full Transcript

Scott: Met some very nice people had a great time.

Did it really help my business? Time will tell.

If you’re a business, you need to get out there and meet your customers.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: Scott Smith has been in the commercial construction industry for over 40 years building quality projects that have provided his customers years of trouble free use.

That same pride and workmanship is exactly what’s led him to inventing the Earth 2 Earth Compost Pail, hoping he can help every homeowner to compost and do their part to help the environment.

Scott Smith welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Scott: Thank you.

Brian: Hey, besides what we heard in your bio, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Scott: I’m a construction Superintendent by trade I’ve been in construction business all my life. Was raised to where you do a job right? Try to the best job you can, you know, get up early, go to work every day, try to earn your paycheck.

And you take pride in what you do. Kind of how I live my life by you know, I mean, and if something’s not done, right, tear it apart. You fix it. No, you make it right.

You know what I mean, because if it don’t work, what good is it?

So that’s kind of the idea behind Earth 2 Earth compost pail. I spent a couple years making them redesign them. So they work right so they’re easy to use.

So the handles are right, so it does what it’s supposed to do. Trying to provide the average homeowner a product that is easy to use, affordable, and it does exactly what it’s designed to do, you know help you compost all your organic organic kitchen scraps.

Every person can do their part to try to help do a little bit to help the environment.

Brian: Awesome. So what actually led you to building the compost pail?

Scott: It started from a phone call. A friend of mine is a truck driver. He drives over the road he called me one day he’s on top of mountain, up in Montana. And he’s stuck in a blizzard. He can’t get down the mountain.

He had to go to bathroom. So he goes back to back from his trailer to go to bathroom and a moose started chasing him.

So moose started chasing him.

So he’s running downhill and so he’s trying to get away from the moose. He gets back to his truck, and he calls me up and he says he says man, you’re not gonna believe me.

I’m going to pass him and went back to my trailer and a moose started chasing me.

You mean tell me you got $300,000 track trailer and you don’t have a bathroom and your tractor trailer?

So starting from that conversation to me, I’m working on designing a inexpensive composting toilet because he was looking at some different composting toilets and they’re anywhere from 1,000 to $5,000.

I started just working on as like just something to do. It transformed into me going from working with a composting toilet to working on a compost because that’s more where my lord he’s lied because I like the garden.

I like to play in the yard I like do certain things.

And so I started messing around with that. So that’s kind of how it transformed me working with the compost.

It was funny how it went from a phone call to me spending two and a half years working on this compost payoff a file for a patent getting my patent, having a product that I market I sell, and it actually works and out of all the compost piles that I’ve sold, I’ve had zero returns.

So that tells me one thing is that even though my product is affordable, that it’s a good product to customers that are buying a product using their product must be having success or I’d be getting some return, so that makes me feel good.

And a few months ago, I attended the Mother Earth News Fair in Frederick, Maryland.

So I’m talking to a few of the possible customers coming by and an older lady was there. She says this great idea. Because if you could sell a million of these stop millions of tons of organics from going into the landfill, you would have a successful life.

I started thinking about what she said to me. And it made me smile, because how true would that be that if my small invention could have a positive input on helping people reduce their carbon footprint to help each person do a little bit to help the environment?

And that really hit a chord with me. Is my product, right for everybody?

Probably not.

But it’s right for a majority of the people? Yeah.

Do I want my business succeed? Absolutely. I want my business succeed.

When I leave this earth, it would be nice to have a positive impact.

Do I have all the answers? I really don’t. lol.

One thing that all the years spent designing this product and testing it, testing and have family members test it that it does exactly what it’s designed to accomplish faster and more efficiently than any other product out there in the market.

And I’m really proud of what I’ve designed.

Composting is not a knowledge that we’re born with.

Composting is just like recycling. It’s something that’s learned, you know, I mean, so it’s passed down from father to son, mother to daughter.

So you get done with your plants with water bottle, you throw it into place recycling day.

If you get done with your organic kitchen scraps if you throw them into the compost, or instead of throwing them into the trash can and so the more education we can give everybody to let them understand that we only have one planet we have one earth but people polluting all the rivers and throwing all the trash and it’s just like now, today’s like disposable world.

People eat something and they throw it in the trash. Trash guy comes, picks it up, takes away anything else ended a promise. That’s just the beginning of the process.

Now you’re putting more trash bags into landfill. You’re putting all your organics into the landfill.

You know compost on a large scale is a huge job with collecting all the organic materials, the trucks to labor, the co2, you’re putting in the air, hauled it all to landfill, and then all the equipment all their.

My compost pile can compost over 520 pounds of organics a year. That’s over a quarter of a ton. So a four of us do it.

That’s one time I need a million people as 250,000 tons and we’re not putting into landfill.

Before I started working on a compost pile, I didn’t have the knowledge and understanding how much waste was actually being taken to the landfill. Because it wasn’t something I was reading about.

It wasn’t something that I was involved in. The one thing I tried to do when I invented this compost pail, I tried to make it as the best materials I could find for being in construction because I wanted to make something that was made of the best materials and it was affordable.

That it worked and it worked every time there was no guesswork so somebody from five years old, 80 years old can use it.

And they’ll get years and years of success out of it. So I tried to make the best product I could, and I feel I’ve come up with a pretty good product I really have.

Brian: Awesome, that’s really cool. And just to let the audience in on it the way I met Scott, he was a vendor at the Albany Mother Earth News Fair.

Just to give you a little bit of an understanding of this and if I have pictures, I’ll include them on this post over at offthegridbiz.com.

He actually had his setup outside he has a back of a trailer all set up you get to see these compost piles there. He shows you a live demonstration. It’s a very impressive setup.

Is this your first business Scott, have you ran businesses before if you had your own business?

Scott: Never had a business before. I did some home improvement stuff but I’ve always been a commercial construction industry and I did the Mother Earth News Fair in Frederick and we rented a tent we had a table and all but it just didn’t suit my needs.

That’s why I purchased the trailer and one thing People need to understand is that I’m from Maryland. I drove from Maryland to Oregon, which was almost 4,000 miles to attend a Mother Earth News Fair because I was hoping everything that we hear on the East Coast is that the West Coast, California, Oregon, Washington, they’re all in the forefront of the composting world.

It’s funny, stopped in California. Then we went to or we stayed in Albany, Oregon. I was talking to a bunch of different people there and they had just as much knowledge as the people on the East Coast compost.

Yes, people need compost. What’s that? Why we’re not compost. I’m seeing that the lack of education, lack of knowledge is from coast to coast. You know, it’s great that San Francisco and Seattle and those couple little cities are doing it. But those two cities can’t correct the problem.

No, it’s every city, every little town.

It’s just there’s so much positive that could come out of it. The more people we could educate, and the more people we can Get the understanding of….see, here’s the here’s the deal.

Your goal is not to get compost, compost will be your end result.

Your goal is to reduce your carbon footprint trying to compost as much of your organic kitchen scraps as you can show it don’t go in the landfill.

So whether you have a garden, everyone knows someone that has a garden or they have a community garden, or there’s a forest or there’s someplace around once you compost all your organic, that’s over a quarter of a ton that we’re not putting into the landfills, it would be great if we could go from San Francisco, Seattle, to San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Baltimore, Orlando, it’s nothing but positive that could come out of it.

If I train my daughter and train my son to complex and to recycle and not litter, then they’ll train their kids and then they’ll train their kids. Then next thing you know, once we all understand, hey, when you’re riding in row, you don’t throw your trash out the window.

Wait till you get to a gas station and you put your trash in your trash receptacle.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of education.

My father taught me something a long, long time ago, and it stuck with me my whole life. It takes more energy to be a bad person than it does be a nice guy. It’s easy to smile and is frown.

So when you compost, it makes you feel good not throwing your organics into the trash. It makes me feel good that it makes other people feel good. You know, I mean, because my trash got cut in half.

So I’m putting one less trash bag in the landfill a week. So if I put 52 less trash bags, your landfill a year, it might not be a lot, but at least it’s something.

Brian: How did you first become a vendor for the Mother Earth News Fairs?

I mean, you said was in Frederick, did you reach out to them? Did they reach out to you?

Scott: I was going to attend the Mother Earth News. I was searching online about different compost things and different things that do with recycling and composting and stuff and Mother Earth popped up on the internet.

So I started reading a little bit more about it and I reached out to them and the year before I was wanting to attend one of the shows they were having at Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, but some personal issues came up and I couldn’t attend.

I paid for the booth, but I just couldn’t attend.

I tried to make it a conscious effort this year to do these two shows. I’m just trying to promote composting as many people as I make because the last four years of my life, I live, breathe, eat, sleep, compost. The more people, I try to educate, maybe I can make a positive effect. The only promise I can make everyone out there, whoever’s listening, is that I stand behind my product.

And if there’s anything I can do to help people use the product to the best of its ability, I’m here for them.

Brian: That’s a huge business plan into itself.

If you can really be able to create great customer service, that’s something that people will go miles for. So that’s awesome to hear.

And we have a lot of other executives, business owners, entrepreneurs that listen.

Do you think it’d be worthwhile for them to go to similar events and do vending like you did?

Have you seen success from it?

Scott: Well, it’s not too early to see, about how you would rate success.

I’ve never driven in California and Oregon before and seen some beautiful country. I grew up 6966 miles from my house all the way through 40 through Arizona, New Mexico, California already back to Wyoming. So I’ve seen some beautiful country during the trip.

Did I make enough money to pay for my trip to go to Albany? Absolutely not.

But I met some very nice people. I had a great time.

Did it really help my business? Time will tell.

if you’re a business, you need to get out there and meet your customer. You need to meet some other vendors that are kind of in the same business even though a lot most of the of the vendors that were at that show didn’t have my product. They were doing other things, you know, whether it was flowers, or plants or straw houses or whatever it was.

Most of people there still had the mindset of, “it’s our Earth, let’s try to takecare of it the best we can.”

Did we see eye to eye on everything? Well no we didn’t. But we all had one goal in mind, you know, it’s like we have one planet, man. If I do a little bit, you do a little bit, hey man little bit turns into a lot.

Do I have any regrets about going to the show? Absolutely not.

I would do it again in a heartbeat to go to the Mother Earth News Fair.

It’s really cool. I mean, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to walk around and meet all the other vendors.

My wife had a chance to do a little bit of that, but she really had a great time seeing a lot of different products and different things that it was it was really cool with. If I was not a vendor, I would definitely attend. I mean, it’s nice for to take the kids here with the petting zoo and the animals.

There’s a lot there besides television and video games, is cool. It really was.

Brian: That’s great. Do you have any logistical tips for any especially vendors that are looking to go cross country or even smaller distances where they’re taking their wares with them?

Scott: Depends. My product is a little bit bigger than most products. I’ve got enough product to try to pay for my trip, but most people aren’t going to drive across country.

You know, I drove cross country because I want to drive cross country. I could’ve shipped my material out there. Could’ve flown. But then you can’t see what we did see from an airplane.

You don’t realize how much desert there is out there between New Mexico and Oklahoma in California, but some beautiful country. I mean, so all I can say if somebody wanted to tend to fare, give it a shot, what do you got to lose? It’s only money. You can’t take it with you.

You know, but sometimes you have to weigh things other than monetary. Sometimes you have to weigh things in relationships.

Meeting people is a plus get away from work for a while and then going out there and meeting all these people. It changes your perspective on things, you know, it takes the cobwebs out of your head, you start thinking a little bit different. You get away and you can relax you can breathe as the hump you know every day going to work going to work on work, so it’s cool Mother Earth News. Very nice people.

Brian: Very cool.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business.

Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets. We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.

When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you.

As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.

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These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.

They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: Where do you find new customers at besides doing shows like this?

Scott: I have a website and I have my trailer and my car has signage on it. It’s word of mouth. I’m knocking on every door I can find a knock on. You know, I mean, like, say I live in Maryland.

So I’m trying to….I’ve been sending emails and trying to meet people from San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, I’m pulling up an internet.

I’m trying to find addresses for people and I’m sending them out emails, trying to get responses back and some of them I’m getting responses back from some I’m not I just got my patent a few months ago to try to market my product.

So and right now it’s baby steps.

I can’t expect my business to be in Home Depot and Lowe’s and everywhere else. When I’m a startup business, it’s just a matter of baby steps you gotta crawl before you can walk, you know what I mean?

So it’s one of those things that my product was like Coca Cola, I wouldn’t have to educate my customer.

I’m hoping that the more composting comes up into the forefront and more people see how beneficial it is to compost that it might make my job a little easier. And only time is going to tell right now my expectations are sky high, my attitude is positive.

I know I’m going to do good, I know my business is going to succeed. I know I’m going to get my compost pail into a lot of households and I’m going to be able to help the environment in some way.

I try not to get too high. I try not to get too low. I try to stay on even keel.

I try to look people in the eye and tell them the truth. If I can provide my customer with all the information that I have about my product, so they can make an informed decision.

Then they can say it’s pretty cool My God by this or no this ain’t for me, but at least I did my job and I’ve gone them all the information, I’m not going to sit there and lie to somebody, and I’m not going to force my product or any person.

What I want the person to do is to say, Man, that’s pretty cool. Hey, I like to have one of those.

And then when they buy it, then if they have a problem, then we do FaceTime customer service and help them walk through the issues. I stand behind my product.

I can tell you the pluses and the minuses of my product. Again, the day you got to live with yourself. So long as I’m honest with me, and I’m honest with them, and I’m not trying to hustle nobody and I’m trying to provide them best product and I can make to do the best job that can do.

And I hope Chris will teach us all listening out there because I would be open to donating a few compost piles, a couple of different schools.

If they want to teach like say kindergarteners first grade, second grade of how to compost and you know, no teachers budgets are tight and they don’t have money for school supplies and also can’t donate compost pills to every school district in the country but I’d be willing to help someone.

Who knows, maybe if I donate 20 combos pails each player’s got 40 kids if they teach 200 Kids about composting folks who might be a good thing

Brian: That’s a great idea Scott.

Scott: You see the thing people don’t understand is is the company forcing whining nitrogen and homeowner provides that with their carrots, onions, celery, coffee, egg shells tea bags.

Second thing you need carbon source. Okay, with our compost pail, we’re the only compost product that provides you with a carbon source a lot of experiments of how to make it work. And you have to have the right carbon source certified we provide two carbon sources.

One carbon source we provide is peat moss. We provide the peat moss because peat moss holds moisture and the second core resource we provide is pine bedding time bedding serves three functions.

One is another carbon source, but it’s a harder carbon source so it takes longer for it to biodegrade.

The second function it serves is it keeps the pail loose so it’s easy to turn. The third function that does is that when you turn the pale the pine bedding keeps airpot inside of the material, so, the decompose organisms conform faster.

Now, a third thing you have to have is air. So top four pale and 360 degrees the pale we have air holes so mostly outside so it gets cross ventilation of air the more air that the material side the pale gets, the more the decomposer will form an AIDS and faster decomposition.

The fourth thing you have to have and you must have for compost is turning. So when I designed my compost pail as a handle on the outside of the pale, it has an internal auger inside of the pale so when you turn the handle on the outside of the pale, it turns material inside of the pale which mixes and air rates the material which aids effects or the composition with which means it’s compost faster.

I tried to make it simple.

I’ll talk to somebody was Oh, I got a big compost pile if I turned on a pitch for example, you’re 74 years old, how long you made a turn.

I mean, the thing is, most people think composting these be hard three separate bands and all this other stuff. It don’t.

With our compost pail it compost faster than anything out there. So you don’t need all that space in your yard. It’s a five gallon pail normally my wife cooks for five days a week, I have to empty my pail out about every three or four months.

So each time I empty the pail out, I’ve composted 180 pounds of organics, and I emptying out about four and a half gallons or four gallons of compost.

That’s how much organics that this pill eats because no decomposes.

But if you throw it in the trash bag. I throw 200 pounds of stuff in the trash bag, so many trash bags you got to have. So once you start seeing how it works, and how much you’re not putting in the trash that makes feel good makes me feel it’s like glowing with diet or exercise.

You know all the good intentions in the world to do the right thing. But that don’t looks awful good.

When things are hard to do and they become a hassle. You’re stopped doing it. But when you have a tool like the compost pile that’s easy to use, and you see fast results, you’ll continue to do it.

That’s why I designed it the way I did because I wanted to be fast, easy and simple.

And the main thing I wanted to be was affordable. A few people say, well, you need to make it look like something somebody can’t make themselves.

I said yeah but if I did that then I’m getting from the 40 or $50 price range up to a couple hundred dollar price range so less people can afford it, the less people are going to want to do it.

People are surprised how much organic material this small compost pail could chew. I just wanted to explain all the listeners out there that I would love them to visit my website.

I would love them to look at my product and I’m going to promise to you one works it does exactly what it’s designed to do.

It compost fer for quicker than anything else in the market. And I stand by my product you buy you don’t like it send it back and give me money back samples is everybody will be happy with it? Probably not.

But I know it’s good product.

You know, it’s good product, you’ve seen it.

Brian: It’s a great product and I love all the energy you have for it and everything else, which is why I wanted to get you on the show.

If we were to get back together. Let’s say we talked again a year from now, and we looked back over the last 12 months, what would have had to have happen for you to feel happy with the progress concerning your business and your composting pail?

Scott: Well, the number one thing is if the business could be self sufficient to where I could dedicate 100% of my time to my business. Everybody needs to understand something, everyone of these compost pails are made by hand.

They’re all made by hand in the United States by me. No, they’re not made in a foreign land.

What I would like to happen is I would like my product to be picked up by major retail like Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe’s, because right now I’m not making a ton of money, okay, and it’s the cheapest price it sounds for right now.

See, the way it works is, the more material I buy in bulk, the cheaper it is, I can create a good amount of sales, I can buy the material in bulk, then I can lower the price.

So if I lower the price that more people can afford it.

That would be what I would like to happen.

I’m kind of a pretty simple guy. I’m not a materialistic person, I don’t wear one piece of jewelry.

That’s not what I do. I work with my hands.

I’m a construction worker, you know, I build buildings and monumental that could happen.

Or if I can make the same money working for myself as I’m making work for somebody else, that would be a plus plus, because I have other things to pipeline. All the different type of composters and I’m working on besides just for household, but right now, the research and development that I need to do when those other products.

All that’s put on hold right now, because I need to make my business self sufficient.

I saw where you need to get on Shark Tank, you know, I mean, that’s a pretty lengthy process to try and do that.

But it would be really cool that one of those people like maybe not one of those people would have somebody else in my works for Home Depot or somebody works for Lowe’s or somebody out there that might listen to this broadcast and say, hey, let’s look at the product and see if it’s something that’s viable for us.

You know, I mean, I don’t know but all I know is that me making a product cheaper so I can put more money in my pockets? Not really.

It’s not really in the way I’m thinking, because whatever money I make I’m putting back into the company.

Am I having all the success that I hoped I would have or going? No.

Am I hitting a few speed bumps in the road? Absolutely.

Is it discouraged me? Absolutely not.

No, but that’s great. Now let’s be honest with you, though, I have really high hopes that I’m going to meet some people out there some people into the green building is or door right for the environment.

I’m going to meet some people that are going to see how great my product is, and they’re going to maybe open a few doors for me. If you don’t shake the tree, nothing’s going fine.

I’m one of the type of guys when I get up 3:34 o’clock in the morning, go to work and work all day. So long as I keep getting up, put my nose to the grindstone, keep moving forward day after day after day on two things and come out of it.

I’m going to do my best to just keep pushing along and try to help as many people as I can. I appreciate being on your show.

Because, you know, I’m just trying to get the word out there, you know, I mean, we have one planet. If I don’t do anything, you don’t do anything, nothing’s gonna change.

Brian: That’s great. That’s fabulous.

So are there any other questions I did ask you that you wish I would have?

Scott: Not really I just want people to understand that a lot of these different municipalities are giving you a compost receptacles trash cans, and they’re coming by picking up all your organic stuff. How much money in fuel, trucks, equipment, co2, they’re putting in the air, labor, insurance. That’s just to get it to the landfill, then all the equipment, labor, co2, how long it takes this stuff to biodegrade in the ground, to where all the money that they’re spending.

I think there are thousands of other programs out there that all these communities could benefit by taking that money and even if it’s paying for school lunches, for kids, or even if it’s like say a single mother has couple kids and she needs daycare and so she can go to school and get an education so she can get a job so she can take care of herself.

I mean those are some pretty good things they can take money and use those resources I’m sure other people have a whole lot better ideas where they can use the money to help the community instead of picking up the trash.

And I’m trying to be a smartest guy in the world, there’s a lot more smarter people out there to me that can see the Hey man if a week to more people and get to compost at home. We ain’t got all these trucks and fuel and all this stuff. You know then maybe this is millions of dollars we can use your budget help the community.

Just my opinion.

Brian: A lot of great ideas in there. I mean, everything you’re saying I think you’re heading in the right direction with everything you’re doing. What could a listener do, who’d be interested in finding out more you keep mentioning that you have a website?

What’s your website address so people can find you?

Scott: The website is Earth, E A R T H, the number 2, Earth, E A R T H, compostpail dot com (earth2earthcompostpail.com). And our email address is earth2earthcp@gmail.com.

Like I said we’d be willing to answer any of your questions. Anything you got, you know, I’m not a tree hugger by heart. I love my country. I love the world like to see the blue sky like seeing white clouds.

We like seeing green trees, know what I mean.

So I live in the Chesapeake Bay Area, right. And Maryland’s a big crab state, right?

Chesapeake Bay blue crabs.

That’s what everybody does in Maryland, right.

So ever since I was a kid Chesapeake Bay watershed, and it’s about taking care of the bay. We have one bay.

And most people in Maryland, you go to DMV, get saved to be licensed by trade take $15 to donate to the Chesapeake Bay foundation. They have all kinds of clean up programs.

Just like any other city, you know, I mean, so I drive across the Bay Bridge every day. I see the Chesapeake Bay, you know, I mean, and I was born and raised here.

I wouldn’t know what to do if I never seen it again. Because when I was a kid growing up downtown Baltimore galleries companies just dumping all their chemicals right into the heart.

Now they’re cleaning up the last 10 years, they cleaned up the Bay in the harbor.

And now the wall is coming back crab populations bigger, the fish populations bigger.

The marshes are growing back with filters to ban sediments out of the water. Everything’s hand in hand.

You know what I mean? So whether you live in Wyoming or you live in Maryland like I do, you depend on your environment.

Whether you buy my product or not, please just do even just a little bit does matter.

It really does.

Brian: Hey, thanks so much, Scott.

This has been a lot of fun, really interesting getting to hear about your journey, and we can’t wait to hear more. I’d love to have you back on another time. If we can in the future, see where you’re going from here.

Thanks for being on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Scott: I appreciate you having me and I would love to be you on your show again. I really would.

To you and everybody else, have a great weekend.

Brian: You too.

Scott: Thank you.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Scott is a really great person within the first few minutes of meeting him It was very clear that he had a whole lot of passion for his product, and all the issues that surround it.

I’m going to point out a few things that he said, just to focus on them a little bit.

I think he made a really good point when he was talking about it all depends on how you gauge your success. When he was discussing how well they did at the fair.

He said, I may not have made my money back on the trip. But I set up this huge trip to where we were going across country, dragging all this stuff with us, and got to see all these great things and meet all these great people.

And that’s really cool.

It’s good to be able to step back and look at things not just from a monetary perspective, but in the long term perspective of what am I getting out of it.

I mean, what a great story just being able to go across country and come out to the Oregon fair. He also had what a lot of people who visited the fair said, which was you have a real eclectic group of people.

And it’s not like you see eye to eye on everything, but you do have something in common.

The overall commonality of wanting to make the world a better place, and seeing each individual as being necessary to create that on their own first, and then going out from there, that self reliant message is weaved throughout every person that was tied to this mother news fair.

Very cool, very neat idea.

I love his dogged determination. And that’s one of the things that a lot of business owners or executives have in the very beginning when they’re getting their business up and running.

And sometimes you lose that over time, sometimes with success.

It takes you to a point that you don’t necessarily have that determination and persistence. But I love how he said he knocking on every door that he can, he’s looking for any way to be able to bring this dream about.

Finally, I think his most important point was a personal one.

And that’s that I try not to get too high and try not to get too low. And I try to keep everything on an even keel.

I think that’s always important to keep in mind.

Keeping your own mentality in place, while you’re going through the ups and downs, especially in the very beginning of a business is probably the most important advice you could ever get as long as you’re willing to take it.

I think anyone that listens to this can say that Scott has the right attitude about this. He’s going at it with enthusiasm, determination, but he’s also willing to let it grow on its own. He’s doing this part time This is in addition to the work that he already does during the day.

So it’s really neat to be able to have something like that that he can build up and if you know anyone that can help Scott go to the next level with his business.

Be sure and get in touch with them. Can’t wait to hear more about what Scott Smith is going to be doing in the next six to 12 months.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact. Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas.

I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.

Mother Earth News Fair 2019 – Recap

Sean E. Douglas and Brian J. Pombo
Mother Earth News Fair

Episode 020.

Have you used live events to promote your business, your book or your speaking career?

Podcast Host Brian J. Pombo and Producer Sean E. Douglas attended the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon from Saturday, August 3rd to Sunday, August 4th 2019. Located at the Linn County Fairgrounds, Brian and Sean give their reactions, thoughts and tips for attending and profiting off of shows and expositions like the Mother Earth News Fair. Listen now!

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

Full Transcript

Brian: How many people do you think actually put their email address down off of that crowd from what you could tell Sean.

Sean: If we’re playing the game. So if you understand the 80/20 principle. 80 percent of the crowd was signing up for it, which pretty much blew me away, every single time I saw that. From my observation, I was definitely making note of that.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: Alright, welcome back to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. Today’s episode is going to be quite a bit different because what we’re doing instead of interviewing somebody from the outside, I have producer Sean E. Douglas with me.

He also joined me in Albany, Oregon for the Mother Earth News Fair.

And we’re going to talk about our experiences there.

First, we’re going to go off of why we went. What made this one standout in our mind of something that we wanted to highlight on the show, and go to when it happened this year.

And really, that comes back to an episode with Brad James from BeePods.com.

He’s the one that mentioned Mother Earth News Fair off of the podcast, we had a small conversation with him about how he got involved with them and was giving a speech at one of the other events.

So that led us to look a little further into Mother Earth News Fair. We were very familiar with the magazine. And as we were looking into it, we noticed a number of speakers that had all the media capabilities.

They had been on podcasts before many of them had, many of them had written books. And it was something that was interesting to us that we wanted to explore via the podcast.

So in leading up to the actual fair itself, we decided to start emailing and calling some of these people and seeing if they’d be willing to be interviewed on the show.

Sure enough, they did.

As you may have heard up until now, and if you haven’t, go back and listen, we had 11 episodes with a different interview on each episode, all from different backgrounds, some of them writers, some not.

We produced them over a very short period of time in order to hit that deadline of the show itself.

The last one that you may have heard with from Jereme Zimmerman was taken at the show itself.

So you got to hear us on location and it was interesting, what were your expectations going into it Sean.

Sean: Well, thankfully as Janice Cox was so nice to print out the whole schedule there and the different speakers and times for you when she met up with you to do your recording.

We were able to hit the ground running on understanding the different speakers, especially people that we’d had on the show. We wanted to try to hit up as many as we could.

While we were there for the two days and trying to map out most of them would speak more than one time. I think there was only a couple that only had one speech if I’m not mistaken. Most of them are speaking 2,3,4 times maybe even putting on workshops.

Definitely expected to want to get in there and see as many people as I could and me personally, you got to understand I’m probably about as city slicker is you’re going to get.

Overtime as we’ve been doing the self reliance and learning more about the field.

Brian knows a lot more about these things than I do.

And it’s been a really educational and an eye opener for me and this series that we had before we got there was an no exception, it was very much eye opener for all the different range of topics that were being covered from the different speakers.

And so I was really curious to get to sit down and spend some time listening to them, see them in action and see people that were listening to different questions that would come up.

Really want to see that, wanted to see all the different exhibitors and how things were laid out there, how everything was set up. What the bookstore looked like, because I heard some things about, they have this really nice bookstore, you know, so I had an idea of how it might look.

But really being able to go in and see this atmosphere, and how it all worked together. Being there, it exceeded what I could picture in my mind. And it was, it was just very fun time. Before you knew it, the two days were up and it was time to go home.

Brian: Yeah, no, it really was it in terms of my expectations are very similar. I have been to expos and events like this previously, but none quite like this.

None put on by a world famous magazine like Mother Earth News. None that were that professional in terms of directing people. My expectations just weren’t there.

As far as that goes, I knew there was going to be vendors. I knew there were going to be speakers. I knew they’d probably be selling some books there because of all the writers that were going to be there.

Besides that I wasn’t quite certain how it was going to all play out.

I wasn’t sure how big it was going to be. They’ve got six different ones every year, depending on which event you went to. It may be larger or smaller.

I think this one in Albany tends to be over on the smaller end of things from the speakers that I know of that went to the other events. So I wasn’t sure about that.

But with first impressions, let’s talk about first impressions.

We showed up Saturday morning. We got there.

I was surprised how warm it was. It was very warm weather.

A good portion of the event was outdoors, also that was interesting.

This kind of see the mixture of the indoor and the outdoor parts of the event.

One thing I knew right away, there was going to be more to see than we could possibly get to the fact that there were 10 presentations and or workshops, going at any given time that you had to choose one out of those.

One, unless you want to only get partial viewings, you had to jump around to one of the 10 stages to catch whoever you’re interested in seeing.

One thing that we figured out pretty quick was that we were not going to see everyone that we wanted to see or at least get to see them speak.

And sure enough, there were people that I had met through the podcast that I did not even get a chance to go up and say hi to because we were so busy. That’s just part of the first impressions.

We’ll get into a deeper dive as we go along. What were your first impressions Sean that first morning when we got there?

Sean: Oh, yeah, it was a real eye opener.

In trying to get in. You know, there’s people there at the gates obviously they’re attentive making sure that you got your wristband or this, that and the other. But very very friendly, not super locked down like a you know, it’s not like…oh boy, if you go to a sporting event or something like that these days, or obviously going to the airport.

That’s a whole nother story as far as trying to get into a place like that, but no, no, it’s not super intensive or anything like that trying to get in.

So that’s really nice, again, friendly.

I think everybody there was seemingly in a pretty good mood. It wasn’t hard to figure out where the different stages were at.

It didn’t seem to take too long. Getting in there, figuring out the layout of the place, and taking it all in.

And as we were doing that I was surprised we kept running into different speakers as we were just walking around and then Michael Foley, Leah Webb, and a few others even before we even sat down.

And first one we watched was the Shockey’s and Kirsten was doing her speech. I think that one started about 45 minutes after we walked in the door or something like, that half hour after walked into the door.

So just taking in a lot of stuff. That’s all I can say.

Brian: And you mentioned the Shockey’s talk, so we got to see Kirsten and Christopher Shockey they were the first speech that we got to witness. And I had some notes I was looking over.

It was interesting because it was outside, it was it was slightly breezy. And you could kind of hear that it was kind of over underneath a large tarp and the tarp was kind of hitting up against the poles a little bit.

You could hear that they were kind of next to a petting zoo. So you could hear a few animal sounds here and there that they kind of integrated into their presentation but kind of joking about it.

Kirsten was the one that did most of the presentation. It was very professional, very interesting.

Kind of a good starter on just fermenting vegetables and the the concept behind that how to do pickling in a traditional fermented pickle in way is really good stuff.

We jumped from…..we’re going to go a little bit deeper. Just kind of giveing some highlights, just so you know, we kind of jumped from speaker to speaker after that.

We got to see you Jereme Zimmerman discuss beer making. Then we saw Leah Webb talking about belly biochemistry that was very interesting, lots of heavy duty knowledge on that one.

And then we saw Frank Hyman with Hentopia show some live examples of ways that you can create water feeder. I mean, he discussed it on the show.

So if you listen to what he was saying he was going to talk about, that’s what he talked about.

And it was it was a lot of fun. He’s very entertaining.

And then we got to see Janice Cox, talk about lavender for health and beauty.

So these were all people that we had had on the show. It was great meeting them in person.

Afterwards, many of them you were directed back to a signing table, which was over in this bookstore area, which is kind of an area in the expo that’s kind of cornered off where all the books being sold by the Mother Earth Mews Fair were there.

Most of the authors had their books in the bookstore and after they had had spoken many of them, you can go and get your book signed with them. That was a really interesting process.

So you watch a speech, you’re encouraged to go by the book and have it signed. Anything else you want to say about that first day shot?

Sean: Yeah, just a little bit further on having them go for the signing. The people that I made note, here we saw in total in the two days, and we’ll get into Sunday, we saw nine speakers, five on Saturday, four on Sunday.

And part of that is because on Saturday and ran an hour longer, I think it went till six and on Sunday and only till around 5. And most of those people that we watched, they had they were going to do a signing either right after or very, very soon after, and I didn’t look at the ones that did not do that when we were at their speech.

There were other times where it was quickly afterwards that they did that on other speeches. So this is something that definitely was….definitely is something that somewhere down the line that Mother Earth News is organized with their speakers to try to at least do that. It seems like at least one speech for most of them every weekend. So that that’s really good. I mean, when you think about it, I mean, a lot of the tie within this is going back, that’s your funnel, that’s where your call to action is, if you will, to go back there and do the signing and go to the bookstore and get them there.

But also I noticed, with various speakers not to say that they wouldn’t want to take questions or anything like that…everybody was friendly and all these things. But more to say that because you can see pretty much after a lot of these talks, you can see like a little bit of a crowd wanting to get around the speakers right after they were done.

Waiting to ask questions, and I’m sure, if I had to sit down with Andrew Perkins or whoever with Mother Earth News. If they weren’t doing this kind of thing before, they probably may have gotten bogged down with these questions. Right after the speeches, and so you can see a clear call to action to go back to the bookstore for a signing in to answer questions. And that’s part of the thing there.

But it also frees up that situation from getting kind of bottlenecked there so that they can also in turn, get ready for the next speaker to get ready. Because as you said, they could be having like up to 10 of these things going on at one time.

And there’s one after another that’s happened and again and again. So if you put it all together, it just makes sense for a lot of different reasons to have that kind of thing going on.

Brian: Mmmhmm.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business.

Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets. We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.

When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you.

As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.

If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away.

These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.

They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: Absolutely, it was great because there were different ways that they encouraged people to go purchase the books or to go and sign.

One of the ways that we saw on the first day, both Frank Hyman and the Shockey’s, had these flyers that were handed out during their speech. And you can tell they’re put together by Storey Publishing, because well, it says Storey Publishing on it, but also it has that they have a similar look to them.

So on one side, it’s got their picture, it’s got the picture of their book, that the item number, the price of it when their book signing is the fact that that you can get 20% off of the bookstore, which seemed to be a constant thing all weekend.

And then on the other side, they’d have details about that person.

So for example, the Shockey’s on the other side had a few recipes one for green peppercorn mustard, one for holy fermented bazell is really cool, nice little recipes on the other side and area for another.

And then on the other side of Frank Hyman’s four ways a hatch is better than a hinged roof.

And so it’s kind of a step by step talking about the advantages. That’s a neat little way to be able to get people to do the next step to be able to go through the process.

Another neat thing that we saw happening, and the first person we saw doing it was Leah Webb, and that was hand around a…..did she have a clipboard?

I believe she did. She had clipboards.

Sean: Two clipboards.

Brian: Had two clipboards. And she was asking for people’s names and email addresses and what and the reason for it, she said, if you put your name and email address down, I will basically have a raffle at the end of the speech and give away one of my books.

How many people do you think actually put their email address down now for that crowd from what you could tell Sean?

Sean: If we’re playing the game, so if you understand at the 80/20 principle….so if we’re playing that game, I would say we’re at least on the 80% side.

So that meaning at least I would say 80% of the crowd was signing up for it, which pretty much blew me away. That that would happen.

And that was not the only person that I would say…..every single time I saw, that from my observations, because I was definitely making note of that.

I would say from playing that 80/20 game, it’s going to be on the 80% side that we’re looking at for the conversion rate.

Brian: Yeah, that was pretty incredible. And you got to think about that as a speaker, if you’re a speaker, and you’re looking to get out there, how can you get the most out of this experience?

Well, one way is to encourage them to purchase something, purchase a book, if you’ve got a book for sale.

Another way is to get their information so that you can have an ongoing conversation with them after the show.

I mean, it only makes sense that they would do something like this. And there were a number of speakers that didn’t do anything of that sort.

But there were also a couple other speakers. I know Gary Collins did, I know, Janice Cox also passed around bags, they had little slips of paper that you can fill out.

I believe that was setup by Mother Earth News because that’s their publisher, you can see how the book publishers do everything they can to help out the process.

Also, just because a person’s a speaker, or has written a book doesn’t mean that they’re running a really full scale business on this.

What we’re talking about is the business aspects of all these things.

As we discussed throughout all the interviews leading up to this, why would someone want to write a book?

Why would someone want to give a speech at an event like this?

And so we’re kind of talking in and out of all these things as we go along, really entertaining speeches, and presentations, on on all levels. I mean, we enjoyed everyone that we saw. And it was very, very interesting if you’re just wanting to get some info, especially on a particular topic that you know, is in this realm, and you know, a certain speaker is going to be there.

It’s worth the price just to go in for that, let alone all the vendors have great presentations and everything going on.

There’s always more that can be done in terms of business.

And we’ll be talking more about that in future episodes. But just to see what was done.

I’d also like to mention, Chris White, who we had on the show from DripWorks.com.

We got to talk with him a little bit. We didn’t get to catch his speech, but he had mentioned how he told people about his booth, but he didn’t necessarily see people go over to his booth right away after being done with the speech.

But he found people filtering through all throughout the rest of the weekend. That had been to the speech that saw him there and came over because they saw a speech.

So even though he didn’t have a book for them to purchase, he did have an opportunity for them to come by the booth and take part in the activities that were there at the Drip Works booth. So that was pretty cool.

Sean: I forget if I asked him or not if he had something he was giving away during his speech, trying to mirror and match some ways. They do this with the books where there’s maybe there’s something given away or there’s a speech, you know, hey, they’ve got a draw to do signing or something like that. Was there a draw right after the speech to get them to that table so that they would go there right away?

But yeah, he was, he did say we’ve seen steady people coming in through the rest of that day.

And we talked to him fairly early on Sunday. And they seem fairly pleased that they’re just steady people coming back again and again, that they had saw the speech and one drop by and say hi and inquire about Drip Works, so that was terrific.

One other point I wanted to say on the speaking before I forget and also for that this is it’s a biz podcast. So we are talking about business stuff, but I do not want to undersell, I learned so much, again, I like I said I’m like a city slicker on a lot of this stuff.

I learned so much stuff from these people, in sitting down, and hearing what they had to say, taking notes with everybody all the way through, you know, even from a health standpoint, at least to start out, you know, I was so impressed by Leah’s conversation that I bought her book, and I’m implementing some of the things she’s got with her cookbook.

So I’m really pleased about that, just on a personal level, did not expect to get anything like that out of out of this, this whole ordeal, but just for my own benefit, I’ve gotten that.

But I learned so much stuff in getting to see again, like Kirsten Shockey, you know, they had the cameras up there and it was really nice to see her working on the fermenting and everything.

So I mean, I really enjoyed what the people had to say. I mean, it’s not just all business.

And it was very much an eye opener and I am very much encouraged to learn more about these types of things just over time.

Don’t expect to learn it overnight for sure.

But another thing that I thought was great and the first person we saw again, the Shockey’s, had their books right up there at the front, nice big books.

Most of them have you know, big lettering on the covers and you can see it, we were way in the back, I could see those things nice and clear from the back, you know, that you see that.

And again, you’d see a lot of these people have in their books right up there at the front and I thought that was terrific.

What a great way to remind people that you have these books.

And it’s, it’s right there. You can’t can’t dispute the it’s right there you can see it fresh in their minds as you’re talking. There it is.

So I thought that was another great idea that you’d see consistently through the different talks.

And it was just really nice. I know like Uncle Mud. We saw him on Sunday and he was kind of doing his own thing with his whole setup but they had the book layout right there for all his stuff, he pretty much had that spot is pretty much dominated his little area through the whole weekend.

But he had his books right there that you could get, you know, there were people available to help sell books or what have you, right there for his purposes, too. And so it just it was just it was great stuff.

Brian: Yeah, and that Uncle Mud we’re looking to have him on the show in a future episode here.

He was the specific talk that we watched of his was on rocket mass heaters. Really great personality, really interesting guy, got a lot of interesting background to go off of so I can’t wait to be able to talk deeper with him on that.

We got see Andy Brennan from Aaron Burr Cider. We got to see Gary Collins from the Simple Life.

We got to see Crystal Stevens from GrowCreateInspire.com, and she’s also someone that we were hoping to have on the podcast in the future, but you definitely want to check out her stuff.

Just a really good day on Sunday.

Got to meet a lot of great people.

Well, the whole weekend we did. Got to meet a lot of great people, didn’t get to see close up all of the vending opportunities there all the booths and everything that were set up. But we did get to meet a few people.

We’re going to have some of those people on the show get to talk with them about their final experiences with The Mother Earth News Fair and kind of give a wrap up to this entire series.

Now, it doesn’t mean it ends a lot of our relationships with these people, we’re going to go beyond that.

And we’ll have them back on the show, or have them on the show for the first time, even though we met them there. But we’re really going to, we’re going to go in a little bit deeper and find out some more people’s perspectives on the Mother Earth News Fair, this particular one for 2019 from Albany, Oregon, and, you know, overall impressions for me was that it’s very well organized, very clean, very straightforward.

Once you’re there for a few hours, you get an idea of the layout, and the overall process of the whole thing.

And there’s lots of opportunity for people with businesses. If you have a personality business, it really works out great because you may be able to get one of the slots to speak somewhere.

You could promote a book, you could promote anything that you possibly selling would fit that crowd. And it’s very much a self reliance based crowd, a homesteading crowd, you got a whole lot of anything that’s even closely related to that was represented there at the Mother Earth News Fair.

I know there’s a couple of the sub niches that I know people in that have been at those events in the past and I’m hoping to see them back again in the future and really see it.

Some even more variety at the shows, but lots of fun our overall impression was it was I can’t wait to go back next year. I hope to be able to hit up some of the other ones.

Also, who knows maybe even take part in some of the opportunities myself that any overall impressions from the whole event, Sean?

Sean: Yeah, I mean, you pretty much summed it up pretty good right there.

Definitely would like to go back again and it would be awesome to go check out some of the ones that are beyond just Oregon. I know talking with some of the speakers there were different, this was set up a little bit different than some of the other different one.

It’d be interesting to see how the layout is different, especially I think it was in Pennsylvania, Andrew Perkins was talking about how that’s a whole nother type of feel, with that one that’s very unique from the other different ones, the other ones that they have.

So like definitely like to check that out one day totally plan on going back again next year.

It was amazing. The first day there’s so much to take in because it was the first time that we had gone there and to see how it all was and you’re processing that by the second day, okay, you kind of got an idea how the feel is and how things are going to go.

And so it was a little bit different and I’ll be very interested to see how the second time we go out there how that’ll go had a great time.

Everybody seemed like out there they were doing it’s just a really fun time, just like you, while the stuff we’ve heard and the episodes that we put together. It held to it.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: So we’ve got a few more episodes to go in our Mother Earth News Fair series. So be sure and listen to those and we will continue on we’ve got some great interviews already lined up after the series also stay tuned.

Thank you for joining us on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. If there’s anything that you’d like to hear more about, please let us know if there’s anyone you’d like to be on the show please let us know and you have a great day.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact. Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas.

I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.

Jereme Zimmerman – Make Mead Like A Viking

Jereme Zimmerman
Make Mead Like A Viking / Brew Beer Like A Yeti

Episode 019.

Are you willing to break the barriers of your “comfort zone?” Is your natural personality holding you back? Were you made for employment or entrepreneurship?

Jereme Zimmerman is a writer and traditional brewing revivalist who lives in Kentucky with his wife, Jenna, and daughters, Sadie and Maisie. In 2015 his book Make Mead Like A Viking was published, and became an unexpected hit! He followed that up with Brew Beer Like A Yeti in 2018.

Our conversation with Jereme goes into his life as a freelance writer and how it has lead him (inadvertently) to publishing books, and giving public speeches about homebrewing and the history surrounding it. His story is interesting and inspiring – Listen Now!

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

 

Full Transcript

Jereme: I almost think I’m just kind of made to do this kind of thing. Same as when I was homeschooling I could I get up in the morning, my dad taught high school English, you’d get up really early, I get up with him do my work, I’d be done by 11 o’clock.

Sometimes, the rest of the day I’d be playing in the woods, doing chores and stuff. And then when my school friends came home, they’d been set in school and I’m like, ready to go.

So it’s the idea of just being able to get up. And even though it can be daunting, sometimes at least I know, okay, well, here’s a list of what needs to get done.

I’ll get as much done as I can and often do my chores now.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: Jereme Zimmerman is a writer and traditional brewing revivalist who lives in Berea, Kentucky. He has been published in various magazines and websites and travels globally to speak on topics such as fermentation, natural and holistic homebrewing, modern homesteading and sustainable living.

He is an avid fermenter and researches extensively into traditional fermentation practices in order to revive lost food arts, and to educate people on how to preserve food using traditional natural and healing ingredients and techniques.

His first book Make Mead Like a Viking was published in 2015. His second book, Brew Beer Like a Yeti, was published in September 2018.

Okay, Jereme Zimmerman. Welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jereme: Thanks for having me.

Brian: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are, and what you do?

Jereme: Well, you’ve already said my name. So we got that far.

I grew up on a goat farm in Kentucky, homeschooled all the way up through high school, didn’t go to high school. And my family was very self sufficient, can then preserved and hunted and fished and dad made his own wine from, you know, stuff he found in the woods and grew and that kind of thing.

That was my background.

And I chose to become an English major and actually use my English major for my job at this point.

I’ve been a freelance writer about 15 years now. And up until the past five, six years.

Yeah, it was just standard, just kind of business technical writing kind of thing.

My interest in homebrewing kind of started to get out there on the internet. I started blogging about it and from there very quickly turned being asteroid magazine articles to now having two books out.

Brian: What made you jump from the writing of articles to making book?

Jereme: I didn’t so much jumped as I was pushed.

So it was always this sort of yeah, like doing this, but I don’t know if anybody really wants to hear me write about.

Basically I had a friend who started a website called EarthandAir.com, which isn’t around anymore, but it was all geared toward homesteading kind of people.

And he kept pushing me to write blogs and I’ve been brewing beer. I was getting into Mead, and that was such a simpler thing to write about and talk about and I thought it was good for homesteading audience.

So I started blogging under a pseudonym redhead, a Yeti.

And he just was getting a tons of hits on the blogs and just turns out mead and Vikings were getting to be pretty big and they still are. So from there, just you know, I found a publisher at a Mother Earth News Fair.

They connected with me a presentation that I did and it just, things moved quickly from there.

Brian: So how did you end up doing presentations?

Did you ask them? Did they ask you how that start out?

Jereme: Again, I was pushed.

I my goal in becoming a writer was to live out in the woods, summer by myself, send my workout and I’d ever have to interact with people.

Turns out, you know, you kind of have to get out there in front of people.

So again, my friend Dan was here he was connected with Mother Earth News. So I’d never done anything more than talk in front of like five people at a time. And he connected me, got me doing a mead presentation to a couple hundred people at a Mother Earth News Fair in Asheville, North Carolina.

And, so I was like, do or die, why not? I’ll go ahead and do it.

And it went really well.

People kept asking if I had a book that some publishers were there and so that’s from there, I realized that the speaking thing is kind of important. So I’ve really honed my speaking skills and I’m actually starting to enjoy it.

Brian: Yeah, it’s great.

We got see your first your first presentation. Here today on beer making. That was great.

Me and the producer Sean here. You’ve written a couple of books here, can tell us a little bit about them for people who haven’t seen them yet.

Jereme: Yeah, so the first is make need like a Viking. And mead is a honey wine. It’s basically just an alcoholic beverage made from honey primarily.

And that was kind of my first blogs and my first workshops I called that, Make Mead Like a Viking.

Part of the inspiration for that was I was interested, I’ve always been interested in history and mythology and all that kind of thing.

But I’m specifically interested in how people made food and made and drink alcohol and other beverages. How they live, you know, everybody needs a drink.

So I kind of went at that from a DIY perspective.

And that’s where that came about.

And then my second book is almost twice as big as the first it’s called, Brew Beer Like a Yeti.

We decided to keep with a similar theme, but I went way beyond Viking in that one. So we didn’t didn’t really call it for beer like a Viking. And what that one is is essentially all the research I found on beer traditional beer brewing that just didn’t make sense man that made book.

So they’re kind of companion books basically.

Brian: Very cool. Got see your talk on beer making initially which is great, especially great for beginners people have never done anything like that before. I had a little bit of background I had a brother in law that had done it and so forth.

So I’d seen quite a bit of it before, it’s really great.

What’s your other presentation going to be about?

Jereme: So basically, I do a presentation for the beer book and presentation for the mead book.

So the one I’ve been doing at every Mother Earth News Fair since the first one I did like five years ago, I think it’s just make mead like a Viking. Is talking about the basics of me making and a little bit about the history mythology behind it.

And but I also do a third one Mother Earth News Fairs have started doing hands on workshops where people actually make a little bit of something and bring it home.

So we’ll be making a mead starter.

So basically, everybody takes a jar put some honey and water in a few other like fruits and berries and herbs. And that will then when they take it home as they do it right it’ll turn into a starter that they can then use as yeast to start a new batch of beer or mead.

Brian: That’s excellent. That’s so cool.

What do you hope people will walk away with after watching any of your presentations?

Jereme: Well, the one thing I always like to hear is, oh, that sounds a lot easier than I thought it would be.

So my goal has always been fermentation at its core is a very simple thing.

There are lots of lots of things you can do to make it not necessarily more complex, but more interesting. Although some people do like to make it complex.

I just really want people to understand that. It can be as complicated as you want it to be or it can be as simple as you want it to be.

So simplicity is the keyword for what I want people to walk away with.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business.

Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets. We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.

When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you. As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.

If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away. These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.

They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: We were talking before we started recording about how your publisher has set you up to attend these. Chelsea Green Publishing, right?

Jereme: Yeah.

Brian: And besides selling more books, what do you hope to get out of it? And what do you get out of putting these on coming to these events and so forth?

Jereme: Well, honestly, I’ve been doing it a few years now.

And I run into lots of the same people. It’s almost like a family reunion or a bunch of carnies is now I think about it.

It’s kind of a traveling carnival not just the fellow speakers, but all the people who put on the event, producers and you know, all those people are become friends and we all hang out afterwards and, you know, have a beer or whatever.

So it’s got that element.

I run into a lot of a lot of the same people who were just attending. Like this year, a guy came into my work shop and started talking to me, and I’m like I, I remember you. Yeah, I think I talked to you last year.

So there’s this real camaraderie. But I also use it as a springboard to tag on other events when I’m in a completely new area.

So I’m looking for article research for magazines. I’m finding other places in the area where I can do presentations to sell books. And you know, kind of a little bit of fun, too.

Brian: Well, that’s great. That’s really good.

Did you have a lot of history tied into everything that you do a whole lot of it’s a history lesson. Has that always been an interest to you?

Has it been something that’s just grown out of the general interest of making these things?

Jereme: Yeah, little both. I mean, I’ve always been just a history geek and and not just history, but the literature mythology and stuff of different time periods. And I always just figured it was just me and a couple of my geeky friends and it would never go beyond that.

But it just naturally became part of what I teach. I don’t really want to just teach.

Here’s how to do this A, B, and C, good job, go home. I want to learn how other people did in the past and it just kind of has become a natural thing for me to then pass it on to other people.

Brian: So you travel quite a bit to do these type of things. You have any logistical tips for other people that might be traveling and speaking doing some more things?

Jereme: Yeah, I probably got a ton of them. I don’t I don’t know how many am I want to get into.

But basically, try to get as many expenses covered as you can.

Like I said, you might my publisher helps to a degree that Mother Earth News Fair people help to a degree, but when I’m tacking on other events that aren’t tourism, then there’s no shame and asking for even just a little bit.

Travel pay, like you know, at least cover my gas maybe make sure you put me up.

Occasionally I’ll get an event where they can’t quite do all that but I understand that it’s really good for book sales or for networking.

So as far as if you’re just traveling to try and sell your stuff and sell your books, those are some of the biggest tips is just watch your money try to find any way you can get any of that I’m compensated because I’m not getting rich off this, but I’m at least getting by.

Brian: Absolutely. And then the book writing process.

Do you enjoy that whole process you like, don’t you? You see yourself doing it again?

Jereme: Yes and no.

Another author, you know, I was jokingly saying, she was working on a manuscript and I was like, it’s fun, isn’t it?

She like yeah, it’s fun when it’s done.

So there is a lot of you know, I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t something I didn’t reeally like some aspect of. You know, parts of it.

They’re just a lot of fun. The research is what really I think is fun for me but also gets tedious after up I’m like, Okay, I gotta stop at some point.

The writing is fun it’s when you get into the the final stages of proofing and editing which never seems to end, but I’m kind of a perfectionist unfortunately my editors are too.

So that’s almost fun in a way it’s just going through and tightening up some of the text or being like, you know, I think one of the phrases here sometimes is kill your darlings. You got sometimes there’s a big chunk that put a lot of time into and it’s just not working so I cut it out, but I always save it and I basically got a second book out of that. I still had to cut a lot of stuff out but yeah, it’s enjoyable, but there’s just there’s just so much more to it than just writing.

Brian: Makes a lot of sense then it’s funny because your background I was just curious. Being homeschooled and everything, homeschooling tends to be weaved throughout the DIY community.

Is Do It Yourself schooling, how how does that fit into your…..I don’t know, adventurous spirit or your ability to just kind of go out there and try new things, or have you seen that tie into it at all?

Jereme: Yeah, I mean, I always think it would be harder for me to do this if I didn’t have that background.

And I’ve thought about it. I’ve been basically self employed freelancing for most of my career and was 15 years now. And even though there are aspects of having a regular full time job, like insurance and retirement and all that.

For one thing that appealed to me and I do occasionally apply for a job that looks like something I might enjoy, but you know, basically, I think I’m just kind of made to do this kind of thing.

Same as when I was homeschooling I could I get up in the morning, my dad taught high school English, he’d get up really early, I get up with him. Do my work, I’d be done by 11 o’clock sometimes.

The rest of the day I’d be playing in the woods, doing chores and stuff. And then when my school friends came home, they’d been sitting in school all day and I’m like, ready to go.

So it’s the idea of just being able to get up. And even though it can be daunting, sometimes at least I know, Okay, well, here’s a list of what needs to get done.

I’ll get as much done as I can. And then I’ll go off and do my chores and have some fun.

Brian: Yeah. I appreciate you taking time out. It’s a busy weekend and everything taking time out and hanging out with us.

What’s the best way for people to get in touch with you or to get a hold of your books or anything else?

How would you direct them?

Jereme: Well, the easiest thing to do is just to Google my name, because I’m on like multiple different platforms. So my name is my website, which is the name spelled a little different, it’s, J E R E M E, and the website is, Jereme-Zimmerman.com.

So yeah, long enough of a name might be quicker to Google that, but I’m also if you have a business Facebook page, which is different from my personal so that’s, that’s where you can find me on.

I’m on Twitter a little bit.

I don’t use it much, but @JeremeZimm is my Twitter and my Instagram login. And for getting books. I mean, it’s all over Amazon you get if my publisher Chelsea Green Publishing, but my website I sell them through my website and I always sign anything I sell.

So you want a signed copy can do that and 24.95 the jacket price, but I usually sell for a little less.

Brian: Right on. Hey, thanks so much Jereme Zimmerman for being on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jereme: Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s been great.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Really nice guy, lots of fun to sit down and talk to very personable.

Which is interesting because he’s also kind of admitted that he’s somewhat of an introvert, but he got pushed into not only becoming a writer but becoming a public speaker.

You have to get out there in front of people to promote your books and so forth and to get your name out there. And that’s a big piece I think that most people completely miss when they start down the road of writing a book.

We spoke with Andy Brennan in an earlier episode. And it’s impressive to me that these people who would normally consider themselves introverts do so well on a stage.

And he did well on a stage, Jereme was very good on a stage and was able to put these very complicated concepts and make them very simplified. I really liked it.

His willingness to go along and try out these new things and finding other opportunities and being open to other opportunities is really cool, too.

It’s an attitude that I think all successful business owners have, and people that are on their way to becoming successful. You need to realize that those are the good parts of you.

The parts that seek out opportunity, the parts that are willing to go beyond your comfort zone, don’t neglect that side of you because that is what’s going to lead to success for sure.

And also the realistic end where he says that there’s no shame in asking for travel pay. It’s something that’s necessary when you’re moving ahead.

But it’s like he said, You don’t do it just to sell your books, you got to make sure you can at least get by.

Don’t spend more money than is necessary to be able to go out and promote your books in order to make money. Your budget has to match up at the end of the day. Really good advice.

I like how he blends history along with the How To of making beer or making mead or all the other things that he talks about. That’s very much a personality thing.

And for him to allow himself and his personality to spread out, makes his entire brand unique. He doesn’t have to worry about competing against everyone else telling you how to make beer or how to make Mead.

These are all things you can look up online.

What he brings to it is personality background, and something that you just get from anywhere else.

If you have that type of courage in your writing in your speaking in your content development, you’re going to get a good response back and you will delete any sense of competition.

Finally, I love when he said, I guess I’m just kind of made to do this type of thing.

And he was referring back to homeschooling. And he related all that back to being self employed. Tying in directly with the homeschooling, that self reliant attitude is great because we have a podcast here about self reliance, but also it goes to the core of what being an entrepreneur is all about.

And Jereme definitely has that entrepreneurial spirit.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact. Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas. I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.

Michael Foley – Farming for the Long Haul

Michael Foley
Farming For The Long Haul

Episode 018.

How close in proximity do you get to your customer base? What would you do if the world economy went bust? Are you connected with a local customer base, and can you survive independently?

Michael Foley is a farmer, local food activist, and writer. He is the author of Farming for the Long Haul: Resilience and the Lost Art of Agricultural Inventiveness. He takes a historic look at farming, (with a global perspective) and discusses what he considers “good economics” especially regarding small farming.

Are you a homesteader? Do you take it seriously, or is it just a fun hobby? Michael may give you a new perspective of what it means to be self-sustaining.

Are you doing what you love in your business? Do you feel guilty for how EASY it is for you? I think you’ll relate with Michael’s story regarding writing and teaching. Listen now!

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

Full Transcript

Michael: That’s something that I’ve emphasized. I work with a lot of young farmers both through the school and through farmers market and through something we created called, the Farmers Guild, that direct sales are really what you’ve got to do at least as part of your market, if your going to make it.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: Michael Foley is a farmer, local food activist and writer. Formerly a political scientist, he now runs Green Uprising Farms in Willets, California with his wife and oldest daughter. He is also a co founder of the School of Adaptive Agriculture, a farmer training program and Willits.

He is the author of Farming For the Long Haul – Resilience and the Lost Art of Agricultural Inventiveness.

Michael, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Michael: Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian: Yeah. Besides what we read out on your bio, what else can you tell us about yourself and let people know a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Michael: I actually just stepped down as manager of the Willets Farmers Market, which I did for nine years. And that put me in touch with lots of local produce vendors and a few, a few meat producers and I to know the sort of alternative agricultural community.

That doesn’t mean bunch of hippies and liberals by any means, though.

There are some people in this community who think of the farmers market that that way. But in fact, a lot of the people producing out there are second, third generation residents of this place and old school in a lot of respects, they just understand the worth of direct sales.

That’s something that I’ve emphasized. I work with a lot of young farmers, both through the school and through farmers market and through something we created called Farmers Guild. And that’s something that I emphasize with them that direct sales are really what you’ve got to do, at least as part of your market. If you’re going make it.

Brian: Oh, that’s great advice. What else can you tell us about the Farmers Guild?

Michael: Well, the Farmers Guild, it started out as a pretty much a social organization among young farmers. So some of us old folks played a role in it, and it’s gone back to being pretty much a social organization.

But for a while it was an organization where all of us traded ideas and learn from one another and sometimes we had worked parties on weekends to help one another on one another’s farms. So it was good source of solidarity for people who were doing, especially market gardening, but also, you know, the kind of farmers market sales.

Brian: I mean, I read that you had just written, Farming For The Long Haul.

Can you tell us a little bit about that book?

Michael: Okay, well, that book grew out of, I don’t know, 50 years of interest in farming and reading about agriculture, reading anthropology and history. And the book is kind of unusual in that respect among farming books, because it really goes back into a lot of that history and anthropology, but the reason it does so is to think about what farming in the future is going to look like.

Our industrial scale farming is just a blip on the screen. Though there been other experiments in large scale farming.

Roman senators, for example, had huge, huge latifundia, that were farmed by slaves, and it destroyed Roman soil, just like we’re destroying American soil with our industrial scale farming.

Our farming systems not gonna last, it’s not gonna last through the end of petroleum. And we’ve got to look for something else.

And so the book explores what we can do to make ourselves more resilient now, while still making a living farming. What we would look like in the future, what we would look like in the future, from my point of view looks a lot like what we looked like in the past.

And I spent a lot of time emphasizing that a lot of farming cultures for successful for hundreds, even thousands of years.

By and large people were prosperous, and they didn’t have all the gadgets we have, but they were prosperous, they ate well, and they lived well, most of the time, all those years.

So that’s an important point. I am underlined in the book, but I look at all kinds of innovations. I mean, after all, traditional farmers without any scientific training came up with all the cultivated crops we have today. All of them, and multiple variations on them.

That’s where the embeddedness comes in, you know, they, you didn’t need a plant breeder, trained at a university. And you didn’t need a plant breeder employed by Monsanto. You did it yourself. And some farmers are still doing it themselves, especially in poor parts of the world, but also increasingly here in this country.

Brian: So what led you to write the book to begin with?

Michael: Two things. One of them was frustration at the business advice young farmers for getting it was scale up, scale up, borrow. If you have to borrow be because you’re scaling up just go full tilt.

And I knew from my reading of the recent…that is the last 50 years of American farming. That’s a recipe for disaster.

That’s how millions of American farmers lost their farms.

So I was upset with that.

And I wanted to present an alternative point of view. A lot of the book is actually about the economics of farming or what should be the good economics of small farming. And then the other thing is, like I said, I’ve been looking at and thinking about and reading about and as a political scientists actually doing some research about farming around the world for 50 years.

I started teaching a class on the history of agriculture with, at the School of Adaptive Agriculture. And realized I had all this knowledge, some of it tucked away in notebooks that I’d forgotten about. I really want to share it. So those are the two impulses for the book.

Brian: Very cool. And I saw that it’s published by Chelsea Green Publishing. Did you reach out to them? Did they reach out to you? How did that work?

Michael: Yeah, I was unknown, in the farming literature world. You know, I did academic publications that nobody’s interested in. And so I got this thing started in summer of 2017. And I got far enough that my wife said, you know, you got to put this out.

Chelsea Green Publishing was my first choice of publisher, I looked up what they required a prospectus with two or three finished chapters and an outline and various things. And so I put that together and set it off. And they said, Yes, we talked a little about the timeline. How long was going to take me and I, of course, committed to a quick a timeline. Though I’ve met it, and we went from there.

Brian: Did you enjoy that whole process? Would you do it again?

Michael: Yeah, I enjoyed it.

I’m one of these people who find it easy to write. And I’m sort of embarrassed about that because so many people find it so hard, but it’s satisfying to me the way cooking is satisfying to me.

There’s some similarities. Yeah, I enjoyed the process and I enjoyed digging out stuff that I once knew and didn’t know quite and learning a lot of new stuff and I always like doing that.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business.

Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.

When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you. As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.

If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away.

These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.

They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: So you’re slated to present at Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon, right? What will you be covering?

Michael: Well, the first talk is called the future of farming is homesteading. And it emphasizes one of the points of the book and that is that if we want to survive economically, our farming ought to feed ourselves, at least to some large extent, like it used to.

As recently, as you know, the 1950s American farmers were feeding themselves.

So that in hard times, you got something to fall back on. Wendell Berry tells a story about Kentucky in the 30s when the population actually grew, because people who were out of work went back to the farm because they knew that there was food there, at least then they could help out and make more food.

And he wonders what would happen today?

I think this was 2008. So the you know that prices of 2000 what would happen today because most of those farms don’t exist anymore, and they don’t produce for themselves.

So that’s why I say the future of farming is homesteading, not in the sense that we won’t be producing for the market. But in the sense that yeah, we’re going to have to learn to produce for ourselves and most homesteaders, my senses don’t produce enough for themselves.

It’s an ideal but none of us do. That’s a threat. And the second one is about the real economics of farming, and makes that point. And also the point that, you know, we have to sustain our land if we’re going to sustain ourselves economically, we have to start learning to farm from the resources available to us, instead of buying in all these external inputs and fancy tools, and that are all the rage, even among very small market gardeners today, because we’re not going to have the income to do that sort of thing.

And we have to meet a bottom line right now, we have to meet a bottom line. So the more we can minimize our expenses, the better off we’re going to be.

Brian: What do you hope people will walk away with after watching either of these presentations?

Michael: I hope they’ll be inspired to find new ways to make what they’re doing more satisfying, both personally and economically to themselves. Yeah, you know, they’ll either find new value in what they’re already doing, or they’ll do more of it and build more resilient farms and homesteads and gardens out of what they’re but they’re doing.

Brian: Well, that’s great. And what do you hope to get out of this?

Michael: Again, I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but I I like to teach I, I just do. I like to. I like to talk to people.

My style tends to be a lot of talk, but also a lot of interaction. I like to try to draw people out and get to know people and hear from them. That’s always something I get out of these things.

Brian: Have you done this before at the Mother Earth News Fair?

Or is the first time?

Michael: No this is my first time.

Brian: Oh, great.

Michael: Yeah.

Brian: Have you done it at any other expos or anything of that sort like this?

Michael: The only thing that I’ve done so far is we launched the book at EcoFarm, the EcoFarm Conference in California, which is, you know, the major sustainable farming conference that was in January.

And so I did a round table kind of thing there where I sort of laid out the basic argument and then opened it up to discussion. We had a great time.

Brian: Who are you most hoping to reach? Like if there was an ideal person that you think you can touch either through your speaking? Or one on one? Who would that be?

Michael: I think my target audience. So people I was thinking about as I was writing, where these young farmers and aspiring farmers that I know, and that I work with, in some cases taught but also just worked with on some local projects.

Brian: Very good. Very good. So we have a lot of business owners, executives who listen to the show, do you think it’d be worthwhile for them to plug into events like this?

Michael: Well, I think it depends a lot on the business. I mean, you have you have featured some businesses where yeah, it clearly makes sense. But yeah, it definitely depends on the business. everybody’s gotta, you know, judge their market find their audience.

Brian: Yeah. Good point. So how did you end up becoming speaker here was that set up through your publisher did you reach out to them, did they reach out to you?

Michael: Yeah, Chelsea Green Publishing presented it as an opportunity to me. So I went through the application process with Mother Earth News. And then I think Chelsea Green gave them a little nudge to and then they put me on the program.

Brian: Well, fabulous. But is there anything I haven’t asked you that you think you’d like to say?

Michael: Oh, boy, um, I guess there’s two things.

One of them that I spent some time on is being aware of what I call the whole farm, or what I’m beginning to call more and more the skin of the farm.

And there were a lot of uses that underpin the economy of the farm that need to be revived.

I ran into some biodynamic farmers who described the wild outer edges of their farmers skin. And I like that concept, because it’s porous and it lets good things in and protects the farm, but it’s also a resource and traditional farmers used the water wild edges of the farm, and a lot of them had woodlands or wood lots.

Some practices that we don’t know much about it all in the United States like coppicing, cutting trees down to their base, letting them grow up long straight poles, or ones that can be used for basket weaving or for pole construction or anyway. Just various practices of managing the wild that can be useful economically.

And good for the wild and good for the farm.

So that’s one piece.

The other pieces that I really emphasized the importance of community.

I think community is kind of the social skin of the farm, that the people in your community are your natural customers. And increasingly, as the crises of the century unfold, they’re going to be our principal customers, they are not just our customers, but our support.

I mean, I can’t tell you how many times people have said, keep the change, you work so hard at farmer’s market. Or given me exorbitant fees for, you know, for something simple, or people come out to help raise money.

The local community helped us raise money for drilling a well.

And that and then our farmers helping one another. Some friends, homemade hoop house, huge thing blew up in a storm, they were ready to quit farming and a bunch of local farmers came out, help them rebuild it.

One of the guys who’s an engineer or former engineer and a volunteer at the school, helped them redesign it so it wouldn’t blow up again.

Brian: Wow.

Michael: That kind of, you know, that kind of helping one another mutual aid some people call it which is common among the Amish and used to be common and American farmer, kind of country.

Yeah, that’s really important. And it’s important to the bottom line, I keep emphasizing, you know, it’s not just good feeling, which is important.

We don’t want to be depressed. But it’s also good for our bottom line. It’s supporting us.

Brian: Those are great points. Really good.

So, what could a listener do? Who want to find out more about you maybe get their hands on your book? Where’s the best place for them to go?

Michael: Okay, for the book, I would say, go to your local bookstore. Free Shipping, just like Amazon.

Avoid the giants if you can.

You can also go to Chelsea Green Publlishing.

I have a website called AnotherMadFarmer.org. And that’s where I rant and carry on and give information about where I’m speaking and post some reviews.

Brian: Yeah.

Michael: And so they can go there that comes from a poem by Wendell Berry’s that I like the, Mad Farmer Liberation Front. Then this the website for the farm itself Green Uprising, just look up Green Uprising Farm, to find it.

Brian: We’ll put the link in the description for it.

Michael: Okay. Yeah, good.

And then there’s then there’s the School-Of-Adaptive-Agriculture.org. Those are words separated by hyphens, or you could just type adaptive agriculture.org and get the website and see all the things we’re doing.

We’re doing a wonderful workshop series right now. That’s been really fun to see develop.

Brian: Fabulous. Well, that’s great. Hey, thanks for spending time with us, Michael.

I know you’ve had a busy week. And we’d love to have you back on the show.

Thank you for being on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Michael: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me, Brian. It’s been delightful.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Good conversation with Michael.

He’s a very interesting person, has a lot of great insights. Afterwards, it kind of hit me he’s really in the field of economic emergency preparedness, if you think about it.

And I relate with that, because my original interest in homesteading kind of came from a similar background. He has deeper thoughts about homesteading.

And he’s kind of a historian in that field, type of person we really haven’t spoken to up until now, I wanted to point out some of the ideas that he put out there.

The first one was, what brought him into writing a book to begin with, and that’s that his wife pointed out is that he’s got all this knowledge, he learned all this stuff, he might as well put it out there for other people to be able to consume. And that’s a great point.

I think a lot of people, they learn how to do things, they get out there and do them and they don’t take that extra step to teach it to pass it along.

And Michael already has a background as a teacher.

So writing a book really was a natural step for him.

Made a lot of sense, especially since he already found it. So easy to write. I mean, he said he’s embarrassed that he finds it so easy to write that he finds it so satisfying, and that he likes teaching. He likes to teach people he likes to talk to people. I think this is very, very common.

You’ll hear the same thing said in a lot of our other interviews that we’ve had with speakers from the Mother Earth News Fair, especially the part about being embarrassed about it.

I think that’s pretty common. If I were to guess where that comes from, I know for myself, I’ve always seen those speakers, teachers that are out there that enjoy the sound of their own voice, you know, they’re really into it, they really enjoy it, and it kind of leaves you feeling a little icky afterwards.

I don’t think any of us want to be that person. And so when we say that we enjoy talking to people, and we enjoy speaking in front of people and writing and all the rest.

We don’t want to sound egotistical, I think as long as you’re careful. Not to enjoy things too much not to get too much into it, you should be able to have a good time.

Enjoy yourself be happy that you have the inclination to be able to talk to large amounts of people to be able to express your thoughts in words, either physically or on paper.

That’s a great thing because it allows you the chance to be able to live beyond yourself and really pass your ideas on to the next person, something real magical about that we’ve been talking about learn, do teach from all the speakers because they’ve all gone through a similar process.

And that kind of brings me to the idea of publishing a book.

I like hearing his process of how he went about doing it. He wanted to get the book out there, he found a publisher that he thought matched him and that’s really important to do.

Chelsea green Publishing is one of the big ones in this space. Everyone I know that it’s been publishing with them seems to have good things to say about them, but it’s important They’re a match for you, you look at the other things that they have published, talk to maybe other authors that have published with them and whether they appreciate the services.

Then go through the process that it takes to get published. Michael’s willing to do that.

So he ended up with Chelsea Green. They in turn, linked him up with speaking opportunities, including the Mother Earth News Fair, and the rest is history. Everything works.

Well, when you’re working with people that are on your side.

The last thing I wanted to point out about what Michael said was his big point at the end about community and about community customers, it ties again, some of the first things he was talking about in regards to the farmers market.

And that direct sales, one on one relationship with people.

It’s like he says, not just for good feelings good for the bottom line. It’s a practical thing.

So whether you’re talking economic or ecological apocalypse, obviously in those situations, it’s good to have some self sufficiency with a homestead or something similar.

And it’s good to have that reliability of personal relationships, personalized customers that you can work with.

Everything online is an echo of physical reality. And a lot of times, people get caught up with the online world as if it’s more real than the real world.

When in reality, everything starts at the real world. And if you get in with a real relationship with your customers, one on one, even at a distance over the telephone is a good start.

But in person, maybe at events like the Mother Earth News Fair, maybe locally at a farmers market or what have you, you’re really hitting on that advantage that the big guys can do.

This is what the Amazon.com’s of the world cannot produce.

They cannot have that one on one relationship, use that advantage.

Use it, because it’s always good insurance in the long run, regardless of what happens on a global scale.

Even if you’re having a bad year as a business, if something bad happened within your business that’s lowering things, having that security to depend on those one on one relationships.

Those are the things that never go away. As long as you don’t burn those bridges.

You’re always going to have those connections out there, don’t take them for granted. And I really do thank Michael for coming on the show.

I hope to find out more about his ideas and concepts and theories as we go ahead in the future.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact. Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas.

I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.

Chris White – DripWorks

Chris White
DripWorks

Episode 017.

How good is your customer service? Do you send REAL people to represent you at events and on podcasts?

Chris White has helped customers with their irrigation needs across the United States as a Sales Representative with DripWorks. Drip irrigation can be a tricky business, and with lots of young people who are first-time gardeners, as well seasoned professionals looking to save water, Chris travels to shows like the Mother Earth News Fair to teach and help people overcome the mystic behind their product. With the economics and ecology behind water conservation, making every drop count matters now more than ever.

How do you educate your customers? How easy do you make for brand new customers to test out and use your products?

Chris represents his company well, and his perspective of the irrigation business is quite interesting. Listen now!

Find out more about DripWorks: https://www.dripworks.com/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

Full Transcript

Brain: We’ve got business owners and executives who listen to the show. Do you think that it would be worthwhile for them to plug into events like this, in the same way that DripWorks has been doing?

Chris: Yeah, they’re running 15,000 to 20,000 people to these shows, if people are paying to come to that show, which is important because they want to come and they want to learn, and they want to see what’s out there. And that’s one of the nice things about doing the show.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your Maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.


From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: Chris White has worked for DripWorks for five years, helping customers from all across the United States with their irrigation needs. He’s worked with Master Gardener groups, local school farms, colleges and community and commercial farms, educating them on the importance of conserving water by using drip irrigation.

DripWorks has been in business for almost 30 years and works hard to educate customers and communities on the importance of saving water through irrigation.

Chris White, welcome to the off the grid biz podcast.

Chris: Thanks for having me today, Brian.

Brian: Yeah, happy to have you here.

So besides what we heard about your bio, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for your course.

Chris: Well, I work as the outside sales representative. You know, our main goal here at DripWorks is educating the public and our customers on the importance of knowing how to use our product either properly so last for years to come, but also educate him on important to saving water, conserving water and getting basic water where it needs to go.

And as to the plants or trees, or vegetation that they’re growing.

There’s a lot of people this time of year busy with kids and family and sports and instead of spend time weeding and hand watering. We want them to be able to enjoy their family time and know that they got you’re gonna have a good healthy gardener flower garden and not wastewater.

Brian: How did you end up here? How’d you end up working with DripWork?

What was your story up until here?

Chris: I’ve always worked in the public sector, and about eight years ago, I lost my job like let other people didn’t interrupt her accepting to be hired and I applied and so I basically started in our call center, which is staffed with about eight to nine train people and grep learn a lot about irrigation and worked with a lot of different people.

Then they asked me to go out and basically be the face of the company and get talked to people in groups about saving water and using irrigation the proper way.

Brian: From your perspective what makes DripWorks different from everybody else out there?

Chris: Well, for one you know, we’ve been in business 30 years. So we’re not a fly by night company.

The number one thing is customer service and education.

And they go basically hand in hand where if I get our website DripWorks.com and you go to resources, or even look at our catalog, we send out almost a half a million catalogs every year to our customers space.

The training tools to help the customer, the end user, to educate them on how to use a proper product properly.

If they don’t understand so we have a glossary terms. We have different calculators, gallery plans, Garden Planner, and our Owner Leon, you know, he writes a monthly blog and talks about irrigation and different gardening techniques throughout the year.

Also Bar None, and not very many companies out there actually have a call center we can actually talk to a live person here in the United States and you’re going to get that instant feedback and customer service.

So then with the education Customer Service so for the customer purchases product and during the installation if they got any questions they can call us or we have the live chat, where they can get that instant feedback.

Or they can go to the YouTube videos and watch videos on how to.

So it’s you know there’s a lot to it, it’s not a lot of people get intimidated by arrogation and we try to make it less intimidating. You know, there’s some work that goes into and there’s an investment here big allocated budget, but you know, usually two three years people can actually get the gardener their flower beds and all that set up.

And so their initial investment could be chunk of change, your return on your investment is going to pay off time you save the water you save and the money is saved by not having to replace your product on a year to year basis.

Brian: Got it. Out of everything that you guys provide, what would you say is your top selling product or the most popular product?

Chris: Top products are our irrigation kits that we sell.

So we have everything from garden bed kids to drip tape kits to individual plant kits, and they come in different sizes.

If you have a small backyard, maybe you live in a condo, or even an apartment complex and you got a small back terrorists, you can buy a kit for that your Farmers Market level where you got half acre acre, or what have we actually have kids get those needs.

Kits make it easy for people that don’t have a whole lot of experience and maybe might be a little intimidated by your education.

Everything comes pre-boxed and it’s basically turnkey. And we’ve already done the math for people so they can just, you know, look at the diagrams and install it.

So a lot of our products, young and old can use.

Brian: That’s great. And beyond that if a person has more experienced you also have all the parts, all the replacement parts and anything that they’re needing beyond that right?

Chris: Yeah, and if a person see they want to expand or maybe the dog or their local bear or gopher chewed the hole to their line, they can always call and get replacement parts.

If they decided that they want to maybe go to a xeriscape type of garden pull up their lawn, we have all the conversion kits to go from sprinkler systems to to irrigation.

So we have the replacement parts.

Again somebody has any issues or any questions, they can always give us call at our in our call center.

Brian: And you’re slated to present at the Mother Earth News Fair, what are you going to be covering there?

Chris: Really appreciate the opportunity with mother earth news, to have the opportunity speak there.

That’s a great show. Great event. We do that one at Texas also.

And we have a booth presence here.

So we’ll be talking about basically irrigation and the basic setups importance of conserving water and how to talk into basically to the beginner intermediate person on how to design set up and pick the right product fit their needs. Just going to be given information to people so they can either be hopefully purchased through us or go to their local nursery or what have you.

Brian: What do you hope people are going to get from watching your presentation?

What do you think they’re gonna walk away with?

Chris: Hopefully, the number one thing is know where to go to get their information because as you know, when you’re doing these shows, you go to any kind of class, you can get a lot of information thrown at you quickly.

Number one goal is basically after the show you get home, you’re looking at your garden plan. Where do you go to get that information?

So you can go okay, I remember Chris saying, go to DripWorks.com.

Internet’s huge now. There’s tons of information or there local nurseries and master gardening groups to YouTube videos.

Yeah, the main thing is education. Make sure people understand that, you know, conserving water is important in California went to the drought.

And where I live, we are down to 150 gallons a day per household. Like when I was working on a ranch and as a kid growing up, the old cowboy told me that when he was a kid, his dad said our waters gonna be more valuable than gold. And darn if he wasn’t right about that.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast.

These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business.

Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets. We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.

When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you. As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.

If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away.

These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.

They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: Have you done the Mother Earth News Fair before?

Chris: Yeah, we’ve done a Mother Earth News Fair here in Oregon. Probably the last, I want to say at least five years.

Brian: Oh, great.

Chris: Yeah. And we’ve done the one in Texas in Belton. They first did that show, probably four years ago. So we attended our first one four years ago and done it every year since and they’re great shows.

Our company, basically one time we first start with the only online arrogation company in the US.

Brian: Oh, wow!

Chris: Yeah. And we ship all United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean.

You know, we have a large customer base throughout the United States and especially in Texas and the southwestern states.

And actually, I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of our original customers in Texas.

Yeah, that’s an exciting show.

Albany shows, It’s always nice go out and me people and talk when they have a real interest in, you know what we’re doing on and about farming and sustainability.

And we got people that have been reading Grit magazine or had been apart or following Mother Earth News since the 60s and now they’re bringing their grandkids to the event.

Now it’s a great show.

It’s nice again, you’ll get to see people every year to all the old timers and get talking to them.

And you can always learn a lot from your customers.

Just because we’re saying you know, just saying one way how to do it. There’s always other ways to do things, especially if you like the tanker, talking to the old timers can be you know, you can learn a lot.

Brian: Absolutely.

From a business perspective. What do you guys get out of this?

What’s the best thing you get from doing shows like this?

Chris: The number one thing for us is making a face to face contact with our current customers.

Tom, thanks for their continued support in the business and and having the opportunity to make new customers and make new friends definitely had kind of business level. Yeah, there’s a cost to doing, sending people these kind of shows but before we get get out there and not just walk the walk, to talk to talk and have that face to face interaction.

Where you can talk to you about important saving water, doing things the right way and also to everybody’s busy these days.

So if they can put an irrigation system in, and they don’t have to spend as much time waiting, they’re not spent a whole lot because water is not free.

Whether you live off the grid, you live in a municipality, you’re paying for water one way or another.

Either your pumps takes electricity, there’s cost to that to maintain a gravity fed system.

Then obviously, you know, if you’re coming off of a municipality, you’re paying a substantial amount of money, you got a combination of things, you’re saving water saving time, and products are going to last for years to come.

So you’re not having to go and replace stuff every year so you can build on what you got and maintain it.

And so people can spend that quality time with their families or their daily lives.

Brian: Excellent.

So who are you most hoping to reach who’s the ideal person that you’re hoping to connect with either via your speech or in-person?

Chris: Our core customers, also I like to connect with just about anybody younger, the youth is important to their future.

I think also people who may not they may be thinking about irrigation, and they used to hand watering or using flood irrigation or other types of irrigation and to talk to them and educate them on how drip irrigation work for them and work for all of us.

Because if we all work to save water than that’s best for us in the future.

Brian: Absolutely.

We’ve got business owners and executives who listen to the show. Do you think that it would be worthwhile for them to plug into events like this and the same way that DripWorks has been doing?

Chris: Yeah, you see it when you attend these shows.

I mean, are there running a lot 15,000 to 20,000 people to these shows in a couple days and you people are paying to come to that show, which is important because they want to come and they want to learn and they want to see what’s out there.

And that’s one of the nice things about doing the shows.

People come talk to us or they have either small interest. They’ve heard about reports, they’ve heard about irrigation.

They’ve went to their local, you know, store and saw, but they maybe might have been intimidated by and so you have that opportunity to talk to them face to face for one and provide them some information so they can go home and do some research to make the best decision for them.

So whether you’re selling irrigation or tractors, are you talking about poultry. You know, they have their cattle or mills there, they got all kinds of stuff.

So when it comes back down to homesteading sustainability, and, you know, reaching out to those people that have that interest, this is a great show to attend.

And they have a far reach, you know.

Brian: Absolutely. Absolutely.

So you’ve been doing these fairs for five years or so.

Do you know how that relationship originally started?

Did you guys reach out to Mother Earth News Fairs? Did they reach out to you?

Chris: Well, we’ve had a relationship prior to my being with DripWorks, with Mother Earth News, I think through advertising to the catalog.

It basically evolved to attending the shows and wanting to, you know, expand our reach and get that visibility.

So far it’s been a great partnership and you know getting the opportunity to speak, to me is huge, I enjoy talking to people and being out there and I’ve had opportunities to speak at that Baker Creek Heirloom Show in Sonoma County, California.

Which, I’ve been doing that last two, three years. And I’ve actually gone to Alaska speak in front of groups up there during the conference and Fairbanks by about four or five years ago.

Then to be able to speak at this event that has national exposure is pretty cool. And especially events where people are wanting to come and listen to you.

You know, they’re not told they have to go and listen to you they are totally happy to listen to you or not just part of one thing execute is to come.

Brain: You’ve traveled quite a bit to do these events and you have any logistical tips for other people doing similar things in their speaking or doing vending at some of these other shows at a distance?

The important thing is communicating with the event that you’re working. And then planning.

Because there’s a lot of logistics and shipping product and whether it’s plane tickets to go and lodging, because a lot of cost to do these shows.

So you got to make sure that try to be efficient and cost effective as you can, but also get the best bang for your buck.

By working with, you know, guys like Robert, who I’ve been working with, or Judy Massey, in the past, she retired, was a great lady. Working closely with them and picking their brain kind of, because they’ve been doing this stuff a long time.

So, you know, just gather as much information you can so you can make the best decisions and plan your trip well.

Brian: That’s great.

Well, Chris, I really appreciate you carving out the time to speak with us today. What kind of listener do would be interested in finding out more about DripWorks?

Chris: Yeah, you go to our website DripWorks.com.

You can google us, we have a huge web presence.

You can also call our 800 number at 1-800-522-3747. If you want to talk to one of our customer service representatives, basically from Monday through Friday 8am to 4pm Pacific Standard Time.

And YouTube, there’s hundreds of videos that we do that we have out there on how to

And they ever come to California see the redwood trees or see where Seabiscuit was at, or see Pacific Ocean, they can always stop by our our shop here in Willits.

Brian: All right, awesome.

Chris White with DripWorks. Thanks for being on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Chris: Thank you, Brian, really appreciate this.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Chris is really a nice guy and it was great meeting him.

I like having a sales representative perspective on things. It’s the first time we’ve had that on this podcast.

So a few things I wanted to point out about the things that he brought up.

I like how he said that the company has a focus on customer service and customer education.

Those are two things that I think get left behind so often when it comes to most companies as they’re growing.

On the customer service end, they have their call center.

And I have to ask you, do you have a call center?

Do you have anyone available to be able to answer customers questions?

I know in the days of automation, it’s really easy to just put everything online and just say, Hey, leave us a message online, and we’ll get back to you.

Whenever you have that live person. It allows you to stand out in the marketplace for sure.

That’s a huge piece of customer service, especially if they are trained up on being good with people dealing with people’s problems quickly getting them to the solution as quickly as possible on the customer education and they have live trainings like what he’s going to be doing at the Mother Earth News Fair.

And they also have online materials like he mentioned on YouTube, a lot of how to materials as well as their website.

This is necessary in their market because drip irrigation could be a little intimidating to someone who’s never used it before.

And if they’re just trying it out, it’d be real easy to get scared away from it.

But if you make it easier and easier to learn more than people are going to be more likely to purchase from you when the time comes.

The fact that they’re able to have kits available introduction kits for people who have never done it before, that’s very useful to bring new people into the marketplace.

I like how he has a clear concept of who he’s looking to meet and who he’s looking to impact most at these events.

Talked about focusing on the youth on young people, that goes a lot with the education aspect of everything, then trying to educate more people on how to use drip irrigation, why they use it, and also him wanting to reach out more to people already use other types of irrigation and encouraging them to try out drip irrigation.

If you know who you’re trying to talk to.

It’s a lot easier to be able to frame your language, frame the perspective you’re coming at, you’re always going to find people who are not in that perfectly ideal realm.

But if there is somebody that’s your target market, if they are there, if they are listening to you, they’re going to connect, and you’ll have the ability to bring on a lifelong customer.

If you look at what they’re doing at the fair itself, oftentimes, you will find people that will have a vendor set up an affair, they’ll set up a booth like he’s talking about, but they don’t go that extra step of having someone out there, putting on a presentation.

That’s important.

Put those two things together, that makes a big difference.

And if you’re wondering how to get the attention of the people putting on a certain event, look into advertising look into having to some type of business relationship with them ahead of time, like he mentioned, they were already advertising in Mother Earth News.

It was an automatic fit that they’d be be able to become a vendor and therefore be able to become a presenter or a speaker.

Lot of these events are looking for speakers, they’re looking for people to present, are you taking advantage of that opportunity, it’s one more chance to drive people back to your booth, it’s one more chance to make that initial sale and have an ongoing customer relationship.

Also the point that he made, that people who come to the shows are paying for it, especially when you’re dealing with an event, where there’s a cost to get into the event, the people that are going there are going to be much more serious than people who are just showing up and browsing.

These people care about these issues.

And they’re more likely to be the crowd that’s going to be interested in your product.

More importantly, they’re more likely to be willing to purchase your product because they’ve already shown the desire to put money out to get what they’re wanting out of the subject matter.

There’s a lot that Chris brought up here on my really interested to see his presentation and see the booth that DripWorks have set up definitely go check out DripWorks.com to find out more.

They have a lot of information there when it comes to drip irrigation if you’re curious at all I’d go and check them out.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact.

Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell.

Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas.

I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.

Christopher & Kirsten K. Shockey – Ferment Works

Christopher & Kirsten Shockey
FermentWorks

Episode 016.

Are you selling physical products? Can you scale fast if necessary? Have you considered adding information, education and/or entertainment to your product line?

Kirsten and Christopher Shockey had a farmer’s market-based fermented edibles business (think sauerkraut) that was so popular and grew so fast that Whole Foods Market put in a massive order for their chain of stores! While many would think that was the beginning of a huge product empire, it actually forced them to rethink what they really wanted out of their business.

Years later, they have transitioned to an information-based business, that provides entertaining books, courses and live-training all regard how to make fermented foods of all shapes, sizes, smells and colors.

They have authored 3 great books:

  • Fermented Vegetables: Creative Recipes for Fermenting 64 Vegetables & Herbs in Krauts, Kimchis, Brined Pickles, Chutneys, Relishes & Pastes
  • Fiery Ferments: 70 Stimulating Recipes for Hot Sauces, Spicy Chutneys, Kimchis with Kick, and Other Blazing Fermented Condiments
  • Miso, Tempeh, Natto & Other Tasty Ferments: A Step-by-Step Guide to Fermenting Grains and Beans for Umami and Health

Listen as we discuss their tragedies and triumphs in business, and presenting at shows like the Mother Earth News Fair.

While, in certain spots, this episode is difficult to hear, we’ve provided a full transcript below. Listen & read now!

Find out more about the Shockeys: http://ferment.works/

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:

You’re listening to the Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast. I’m Brian Pombo. I’m going to set the scene for you a little bit with this next interview. You see this all started when I was set to meet one-on-one with Kirsten and Christopher Shockey. This is kind of different because up until this point, I had not done any live interviews with anybody for this podcast. Everything had been done either by phone – we also do it by zoom, which is a digital communication similar to Skype and so being one-on-one, I thought I had all my equipment working properly.

Sadly, I was wrong. After finishing up, I realized that my microphone was not fully plugged in to my recording device. What we ended up with was subpar audio. The conversation I had with the Shockey’s was so interesting, was so revealing, that I found it necessary to get as much out of this audio as possible.

What we ended up with is – there are some parts of the audio you may not be able to fully understand what the person’s saying. So here’s what I did to help resolve the problem: We attempted to get the audio to sound as best as we could and I’ve added in transcription where you can actually read what everybody is saying. If you would rather read it, go check out the description or go to offthegridbiz.com, and right in the post, you can read every word that is spoken in the podcast. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy this great conversation that I had with the Shockeys.

Brian: Kirsten. Christopher, welcome to the Off the Grid Biz Podcast.

Shockey’s: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Brian: So why don’t you just let everyone know a little bit about who you are and what your roles are at Ferment Works.

Kirsten Shockey: Yeah, so I’m Kirsten Shockey and what we’re doing now is teaching people to Ferment and most of that is through writing books, and then that takes us all over the place teaching classes. The fun part is fermentation is becoming more and more well known as such an important food for our gut-health and so people are curious. People want to feel better. And, yeah, that’s where we come into picture.

Christopher Shockey: The previous incarnation of the business we made products, we are an organic food company and we would take organic produce in the valley here and turn it into fermented vegetables, pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, things like that. We sold at farmer’s markets and sold in Grants Pass and Medford and Ashland – in that area. And we basically grew to where we service this area. And then when we were facing the first Whole Foods order, that was as big as everything we’d produced before. That was the realization that we either grew and became something bigger, and moved our facilities and everything else, or we decided to transition it to this phase. And this is what we’ve been doing since the book came out 2014.

Kirsten Shockey: Yeah and part of that was when we were at the market, we realized how interested people were in understanding these foods more than we would of known. So, that as part of the decision.

Brian: Very cool. So, how’d you end up here? What’s your basic life? Up until this point?

Christopher: We’re old enough. That’s a long story.

Brian: Just give a brief synopsis. I mean we learned a little bit from your bio.

Christopher: So we met in Arizona Community College. We back in the day, back in the 80s. For those of you that maybe don’t remember, it was as crazy as it looks in the pictures. And my first career was at Hewlett Packard. So, um, we lived in Boise, then we moved to Corvallis. So that’s what brought us to Oregon. East Corvallis. In the meantime, we had four wonderful kids. So Kirsten homeschooled, she was trained as a school teacher. So, she homeschooled the kids and we got ever progressingly larger pieces of property to also manage. So we had an acre in Corvallis and then we wanted the kids to grow up in a rural setting to know where their food came from.

And we looked all over the country actually. Everything from played out dairy farms in New York to South Dakota. Places you could get a lot of land for not a lot of money. It was one of the trips down to California. We came through this valley and we have friends, the Pennington’s that live in the valley. Yeah, just fell in love with it. We found a farm that was – the people had raised four kids there and they had it on the market for 14 years. And basically they’re waiting for a family like, that they wanted to take the farm over. So we kind of interviewed for it, really (didn’t know it) but it was 110 that day and so the kids stripped off and played in the creek, and you know… it was the place we probably should’ve found. So that was in 1998, and that’s what brought us here and we’ve been trying to figure out how to make farm pay for itself ever since.

Kirsten: So we were homesteading and a lot of that, like Christopher said, was so that the kids could know where their food came from, a part of just being rounded individuals. And so we had dairy animals and that led us to cheese making. Not as a business ever, but that was kind of one of the first ferments that we were doing. The farm came with a lot of really old, wonderful apple trees. So cider making also became a thing. And then vegetables sort of started with a Christmas present. My mom gave us a crock with sauerkraut in it already fermenting wrapped up under the tree. So, from there we realized that fermenting vegetables from the garden was a much better way to preserve them and back to trying to find a little family business to make the farm, you know, a little bit profitable. That was when we did the small sauerkraut company.

Brian: And so you transitioned from having the physical product into basically….you’re an information business in a sense. Right?

Kirsten: That’s true.

Brian: So you’ve written a few books. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about them?

The first book is, Fermented Vegetables and that’s the one that really came out of that whole farmer’s market experience. And so what we were doing is, we were taking seconds and overages and things like that from the local organic farms. We get called up and ” I have 400 pounds of burdock or parsnips or fill in the blank, can you do something with this?” And at the time there wasn’t a lot about vegetable fermentation on the Internet there weren’t a lot of recipes. There was nothing that said, “yes parsnips are safe to ferment,” or “not safe.” “This is how they would taste good.” And so I just started experimenting and turns out the science is such that you can’t kill yourself with fermented vegetables, any vegetables will ferment. But at that particular time I didn’t quite have that down yet. So all that experimentation became, what, 50 or so varieties in that first year, because we were just working so locally, um, and just creating recipes from what was available at that moment in time. So, that became that first book. That and having people come to the farm and learn and really listening to their questions and what people didn’t understand. And so we tried to make it a book that was like somebody coming to the farm and then also something where anything that came out of their garden or from their CSA gasket they could figure out what to do with it. So the second book was a – taking that a little further with condiments and hot sauce.

Christoper: I went to the Grange and brought too many peppers home. So we had a lot of peppers and we didn’t want to dry everything. And so Kirsten to start experimenting, fermenting because that’s what we knew. We came up with some great hot sauces. The first book is in five languages now, I think. And we were just in South America for the Spanish version, teaching people in Buenos Aires and Chile how to ferment; and we were just in Spain teaching the Spanish version. Some cultures like spicy things and some cultures don’t. Fiery Ferments has had – where people who like things a little bit spicy, they love it. And for other people, its like the first step into something a little more spicy. But they don’t have to be hot. Then this latest book is something still for fermented, but very different than those first two. And this took us three years, write. Labor of love.

Kirsten Yeah. There’s a lot of topics in there. So it’s fermenting grains and legumes – beans. They’re all very different and with different microbes. It’s a fun book.

Brian: Well that’s great. And those of you who are listening, if you haven’t seen these books, they’re very thick. Full of a lot of colorful pictures. Very well produced. I mean that’s just really impressive. What led you to write the first one?

Christoper: We were lazy. So anyone that has the romantic image of being at the farmer’s market and selling things. And you go through and you say, “someday I’m gonna leave my job and be one of those people at the farmer’s market.” The reality is, is that, you know, you’re getting up early. You spent the day before putting all this stuff in jars and labeling and touching it about seven times. Keeping it cold. You get to the farmers market about seven in the morning, you get it set up at nine o’clock. And then all day long people come through, they tell you how good your stuff is. They may or may not buy it. Then you take home everything that you haven’t sold and you repeat. It is, I mean, we met so many people, but it’s a hard way to make a living. It’s hard because you end up doing farmer’s markets four times a week. Building a product, making product in between.

So one was, it was hard to see doing that for a long period of time. We’re also bad drug dealers in that people would get addicted to the product and then they wouldn’t have the money to pay for a jar. And so we would start passing out recipes to teach people how to do it. Because I would say, “You just need a cabbage and some salt and you can make this yourself.” And they’d say, “Really?” And I’d say, “Yeah.” And they’d comb back and say, “Well it’s not as good as yours, but was really good.” And I’d say, “Alright.” And so, I think between those two things, we just had more of a passion for seeing people having success and being happy about eating it. The product which “you should of bought ours” versus somebody else’s. And so that’s what lead us in to just, “We should just teach people how to do this” instead of making it and having them eat our version of it.

Kirsten: We just feel like the food is empowering and making it yourself or with friends or whatever is so much more empowering then going out buying it.

Brian: So about the book-making process, the writing and everything that goes into the production, do you enjoy all of that?

Christopher: Yes, we’re a little unique in that we are a husband and wife writing team.

Kirsten: We’ve made it through three books and haven’t killed each other.

Christopher: There have been times.

Kirsten: Actually, we’re on the 4th one and we still haven’t.

Christopher: We have a lot of author friends now. One of the biggest things is finding a company that’s good to work with. Storey Publishing is who picked us up. They’ve been really fabulous to work with. If you have a good editor that, you know, can walk you along the process. And like you said, they’re really beautiful. They have really quality photographers that come out and shoot these things. So you know, it looks very professional. It is very professional. So that helps. The writing processes, it’s interesting because Kirsten and I are very different in that I’m more of an ideas guy and kind of scattered and I like to talk about things. I don’t necessarily write anything down. Kirsten is also a big ideas kind of person and also she’s the one that can put flavors together. Since this is going to go with that, I don’t know if you gave me water colors, I’ll always end up with brown. You know, maybe I want to paint something pretty, I just add too much. It ends up always brown. So she’s got that flavor palate skill. Between the two of us, we kind of fill in the gaps. Don’t you think? She keeps me on task. I’ll say, “Oh my gosh I found this piece of research, its really great, it explains this.” And she says, “Did you write it down?” I said, “No, but, I also just-” “Stop. Go right down.” It’s working.

Kirsten: Oh very much. I, mean, there are day.

Brian: Yeah.

Kirsten: Deadlines are ugly.

Christopher: Like today: So, this is our second podcast. Just did a demo. We’re on tour – just starting to tour for this book. We just got the manuscript back yesterday for the next book. And Kirsten’s working on the third book.

Kirsten: We don’t get bored.

Christopher: Partly we’re just kind of squirreled away, trying to come up with words. It’s much more just work ethic, you know, it’s just like any other job. Several – I have multiple projects at the same time.

Kirsten: And I think what’s probably changed with writing is you do have to find other outlets. So, physically teaching or teaching online, or whatever that is, is a way to help make the books possible – because you certainly don’t make a living writing books. And then the other thing is, I mean, our books sell so well, but there’s a lot of work just constantly trying to be out there with just free content for social media or whatever. Just constantly putting it out there, and I think that’s probably what’s changed a lot for authors. It used to be your royalties and whatever made you the living, and you could “squirrel away” like Christopher said – but now it’s, it’s not like that. I think, you just, you’re constantly just reminding people what you’re doing. Who you are. Whatever.

Brian: So where would people go beyond the books with you? You said you have classes that they can get involved with?

Christopher: We wanted something that people could use to start easily right away. So on our website, we’ve got a seven-day course that they can sign up for – which is free. There’s no hidden anything in there. And then we’ll start email them each day with, “Here’s what you need to get,” “this what we’re going to make.” And we’ve got thousands and thousands of people who have done that and sometimes they bought the book, but they still just needed that very focused, “We’re going to make sauerkraut tomorrow. So today you’re going to go buy cabbage, and some salt. And tomorrow we’re going to make it. And we’re going to make lemon kraut – lemon dill. Then we’re going to.” We get people all over the world to do that one and so like I said, I don’t know how many thousand people completed that and that’s usually the first start. We usually do a whole classes on our farm every year and we have people that come in either from the west coast, or we’ve had people as far as New Zealand and Europe come to the class, so it’s a chance to do an intensive couple of three days, just dive in and do all kinds of ferments. And then in the Rogue Valley, we do a lot of libraries and things in Ashland and Medford. We just try to keep doing things for the community. Usually they’re free or your minimum costs things so people can come. Sometimes they just need to see it, experience it and then we do things around the country in terms of Mother Earth News Fairs, workshops, other places that are doing things like that. We do those things too.

Kirsten: We’ll partner with people to put together workshops, so that, you know, everybody gets paid. And we’re working on some online content and classes and things like that that we don’t have date for all that. But we do have a lot of big ideas and hopefully that will help supplement so that we don’t have to travel as much. We enjoy the traveling, but still just paying for our time to you know, find more of those sources of (what’s the word I love?) passive income.

Brian: Yeah.

Commercial (Brian): Okay. We’re gonna pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business. Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets. We’re going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business. When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page. Put in your email address and we will be sure and update you. As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this. If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away. These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited there, talking about how to use events, books and speaking all to build your business. That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets. And now back to the conversation.

Brian: Makes a lot of sense and you mentioned the Mother Earth News Fair, for those of you who weren’t aware, they’re going to be speaking at the Mother Earth News Fair and Albany, Oregon. What are you going to be covering there?

Kirsten: Ferments. We’re going to be talking about making condiments. Fermentation with condiments. We’re going to be talking about gut health. A lot of what we’re doing now, it started out just really just culinary, like, “Preserve your vegetables” or “You can get some probiotics. Your vitamins are going to be increased” and all of that. But since the first book came out, five years ago, the country has gotten sicker and the science has gotten stronger that our guts are everything.

Brian: Yeah.

Kirsten: And so we do the talk on gut health and kind of pull it all together. We’ll be talking about the new book. We’ll be making some hands on miso so folks to sign up for that class.

Christopher: I’ll be teaching hordes of little kids how to make sauerkraut. Kirsten will disappear right before that then she’ll show up at the very end. It’s really cool because you know, part of it is just, it’s one of the things that people – well, they basically park their kids someplace and go do stuff – so kids have very low expectations about what’s going to happen. And when we say, “How many of you like pickles?” Maybe 2 kids will raise there hands out of 50. Or, “How many like sauerkraut?” And there’s always like one brave little girl, who finally raises her hand. And everyone else – kids’ll be holding their nose. Then we talk about what it is, we talk about microbes and their job is to eat sugar, and fart. And then the kids are like “I’m interested – that’s a job!” And we’re going to do that. And then, “We’re going to get to touch our food.” And they’re like, “With our hands? Yuck!” We’ll have them taste raw cabbage, and I would say 80% of the kids have never tasted raw cabbage. They don’t know. And they taste it and they say, “It’s sweet .” “That’s sugar, that’s what the microbes want.” They’ll say, “There’s sugar in vegetables?” “Yeah!” And then they’ll taste it and we’ll make sauerkraut and we’ll say it tastes like salt and chips. And they’ll be like, “Oh that actually tastes like a potato chip.” I’ll say, “Well, yeah, kind of.” And then they’ll put it in a Ziploc bag, and we’ll talk about, you know, millions-

Kirsten: -We have them taste it. We bring already fermented food so they can taste that.

Christopher: Then they take a little Ziploc bag home with millions of microbes here, they have to take care of, and sauerkraut. I mean, so they’re looking at the bag, and they’re so excited that they’ve done this. And, you know, the parents will come to pick them up and they’ll like, “Oh, I made sauerkraut! Look at all these microbes are farting!”, And you can tell the parents are like, “What?” At the Farmer’s Market, the thing that would just kill us would be: kids would come up to us and they’d start grazing on the samples and they loved it. And the parents would slip in and say, “Oh, you’re not gonna like that, that’s sauerkraut.” And the kids would, like mid-fork, put it down, “Oh I didn’t like it.” But they loved it. We grew up with sauerkraut coming out of the can and it sucked. So, we perpetuate those things that we think are bad without letting our kids taste it, or experiencing something new. And so I think for us who are kind of dedicating our lives now to this, getting to the kids is really important, because shortcut out that part of what we as adults think and just go straight to them. And you know, they typically love it and if they’re brave and they taste it and they like it, they don’t know it’s weird, and they just eat it. And then now they’ll tell their kids, “Yeah that’s sauerkraut and you can eat that.” So to us to make a huge difference, kids are really important. Everywhere we go, we’re trying to make sure there’s some kind of kids thing that we do to, sort of, infect them with this cool thing.

Brian: That’s huge too, because the demonstration and getting their hands in it, creating that memorable experience. I mean that works with adults, but with kids that’s highly impressionable. That’s awesome. What do you hope that everyone else is going to walk away with after watching your presentations? What’s your main goal there?

Kirsten: So fermented foods, are basically processing food with microbes. And for the last 100, 150 years we’ve been told that ears told that microbes are not often a good thing. Antibacterial is what we do. And for good reason. Um, however, now we’re realizing, “Oh, wait a minute some microbes are good. In fact, there are a lot that keep us going.” So I think that people come with fascination, curiosity, they’re feeling bad, they want to feel better, but they also come with a head full of fear about these foods. They don’t understand them. And so walking away, understanding them and feeling safe enough to go home and try it. Because, honestly, you know, these foods – sauerkraut, you leave it on your counter for a few days or a weeks and then you stick your fork in it, right? Now everybody’s been told you don’t do that, right? Or some of these ferments in the new book, you know, you’re growing fungus, so you’re in, working in these temperature zones that we’ve been completely told will make food spoil. So I think that’s a big part of actually when we’re live with people you’d be surprised how many people are raising their hands because they’re afraid of the food. The big take away is: it’s easy, we’ve got this, it’s not scary. I know safe.

Brian: It’s really funny about American culture and how you’re slowly seeing this change, and I think it is because it’s in the news all the time about the gut biome and the connection to mental health and everything else and it’s amazing all the things that are tied back to gut health. And just thinking of American culture. Me growing up, that was the same thing is, “You won’t like that.” Especially when it came to sauerkraut and things of that sort. And it was always one of these things where, we were always pushed away from that. And nobody was doing it on their own, that I knew of that, was actually fermenting foods themselves. My wife was born in Ukraine and they did a lot of that. So when we started hanging out together, she was showing me all these things she was doing. It was different, but at the same time I’m adventurous so I was willing to go with it.

Kirsten: And she’s probably cute.

Brian: Oh yeah, of course! So it is really interesting how things are changing. You guys are helping to change the world here. It’s really cool. If someone is thinking of going to, let’s say the Mother Earth News Fair, let’s say, the one in Albany, Oregon or any of the ones that they’re putting on all over; what’s the main thing you would say to encourage them to come out?

Christopher: Well, the neat thing about the Fair is that it’s one place that they pull together a lot of similar – even if you’re into homesteading or self-reliance or alternative energy. It’s all there and you can go at your own pace. There’s usually a group five stages going at every time, so you can plan it out. It’s very kid friendly. So you can take the family and learn everything from tractors to microbes and everything in between. There’s lots of animals. And so it’s kind of got that country fair feel to it too. But at the same time if you really have projects or there’s something you’re trying to figure out, you can go and ask someone who is in that line and you can answer your questions face-to-face. And I see that all the time, when people ask me really in-depth conversations about starting a farm or gardening or going into business doing one thing or another. And I think that’s really neat that there’s a place with like-minded people and lots of vendors, but kind of focused around that.

Kirsten: It’s really – if you’ve seen the magazine – it’s kind of like the magazine come to life. You know, the speakers are very accessible and there’s just a lot of information shared.

Christopher: Yeah, and there’s a huge book store. You really can see somebody speak or look at the book, go ask them questions, you know, look through the book before you ever make that decision to buy the book. So it’s kind of nice that way too.

Brian: If you were to describe, like, the ideal person, the person that maybe you’ll have a long-term relationship with or what have you, that you’re meeting at something like this, who is that person? Who is the ideal person that when they come in contact with you, they’re like, “Wow, this is a piece I’ve been missing and I can’t wait to learn more.” Just the people that just really eat it up.

Christopher: We can do a couple, because there are demographics – um, 20-somethings are really, as a demographic, they’re kind of rebelling against being told what to eat.

Kirsten: That whole Millennial group, they’re rebelling against that thing that was really loved in the 50’s like, “My burger is always going to taste the same at this place.” I think we’re getting away from that now, and that generation is really leading the charge.

Christopher: And there’s so much more information out there. So when somebody tells them, “That’s harmful,” people look it up in the phone they have in their pocket. And so it’s a time now where society can make their own decisions about things. And so, when we are at some places, it’s funny, because it’s those younger people that just think this is cool and they want to do it for themselves, that really “do it themselves” ethic, and flavors. And then, surprisingly, it’s an older population too. We have people now in our classes that are in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s who are very traditional, would be considered traditional in-terms of-

Kirsten: -Just conventional lifestyles.

Christopher: Yeah, and for some, they’re working on their health. You know, and they’ve come to this from whatever avenue, whether it’s diabetes or osteoporosis, some lifestyle thing. And they found fermented foods and they want to make it themselves. You know, they’re eating enough of it that they want to do it themselves. They’re the ones that I think, email us when they make the first one – they show us pictures. Our email… If – we get a lot of attachments and – the good and the ugly. We see, we see successes and failures all over the world.

Kirsten: I think we mostly see failures.

Christopher: Sometimes we’ll see one and they’ll say, “Look at my beautiful thing it worked!” It’s like that’s a pretty one. We get a lot of mold pictures. Because people just want to know “Is this okay eat still?” And so we do a lot of that, a lot of outreach about that. But those are the kind of people that, once they’ve had a success, they get excited, they start combining flavors. They’re just proud that there doing it and they want to share it with people. So we become friends.

Brian: We have a lot of business owners and executives that listen to this podcast because we look at the self-reliance field from the business point of view of not just what you’re providing people, but specifically you and the fact that you’re looking to, kind of, run things to become more self reliant. I mean that’s your whole story. You think it would be worthwhile for them to do something similar? Would you encourage other people to write books and speak in the same way that you guys are doing?

Chirstopher: Well see, so our path was: a product company and then. Like we said, we saw information now. It’s a very crowded world as you know, you’re one of a few podcasts, right? I mean, people have limited amount of time. So, I think, just in the information economy, as well, you need to have a clear voice. Something that’s strong and differentiated from the others. And the other thing is you just have to keep building upon it. So if we’d stopped with Fermented Vegetables, we would be one of many, many Sauerkraut books now, out there. We kept learning. So that’s the it advice, is that even if you have a niche, whatever it is, you need to continue building upon that with your own experiences or others or new information and data to stay up on that and be willing to pivot. You know, we thought we were a product company, and now we’re books and classes. Don’t know what we’ll be in the future. But whatever needs are there, you’ve got to keep your eyes open about what’s not being filled, right. Books are like that too. No one’s really written about that. So we didn’t grow up making miso or tempeh or natto. It’s not like Kirsten’s Korean and I’m Japanese, and she said, “Let’s just do these flavors that we grew up with because these American’s don’t eat it as much.” You know, I grew up in the Midwest, “casserole city”. Yeah, so you have to be willing, I think too, when you see an opportunity to be able to invest your time and expertise to really learn that deeply, and then write from that knowledge. It’s also very rewarding.

Kirsten: Well, and it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of hustling. For – I mean, we’re making it, and it’s fun; and I think that’s the best part. We’re doing what we want to be doing and we’re doing it together. Which – you know, our product company was our first go at that, because before that we had a traditional – Christopher had the outside job, and kids. But you know we’re also, we’re traveling. We live where we want to live. Don’t necessarily need anymore. A little more, may be good.

Christopher: Oh income?

Kirsten: Yeah.

Christoper: Always.

Brian: You won’t turn it down if it shows up, right?

Kirsten: No, I mean, I guess what I’m saying is (and I believe I said it once, but) book writing isn’t a path to wealth.

Brian: Yeah.

Kirsten: It just isn’t. But it is a path to credibility and opportunities that get your message out there. If you have a passion and something to say too.

Brian: Well said. Great Advice. How did you end up becoming a speaker at the Mother Earth News Fair? Was that through your books? Did Storey [Publishing] set that up for you or did you reach out to them? Did they reach out to you? How’d that work?

Kirsten: Yeah, the first Fair was through Storey, who set it up. Yeah, the first go-round, the first set of fairs that I did was all through Storey. We have a good relationship now with Mother Earth News Fair. And we both do, you know, freelance articles, things like that with Mother Earth News – and they’re launching Fermentation Magazine. Just coming out in September. So we’ve been helping with that.

Brian: I bet.

Kirsten: And then otherwise, you know, it’s really like any other field it’s like who you know, and we all try to connect each other. And you know, this friend says, “Hey, we know these guys doing a fermentation festival here. Why don’t I do an email introduction?” You know, and we do the same thing. The fermentation community is very welcoming. Like any business, it’s the same thing. It’s just, who do you know, and connections and trying to get yourself out there.

Brian: Awesome. And you guys have been traveling a lot, because you’ve been hitting all the different fairs and so forth. So, what are some logistical tips that you would have for other people that are doing, speaking a lot of traveling.

Kirsten: Well, if you have to travel with ferments, good luck! You’re going to always be checking your bags. You’ll always get a love letter from TSA.

Christopher: Traveling with knives and blocks of mold. Pretty much gets you on their list.

Kirsten: Jars of sticky things that are is getting warm in your bag and starting to waft up. Hot sauce bottles.

Christopher: We both teach in the workshops and I think in all those cases, my biggest thing is manage your energy. Because when you’re, you know, some of those things, some of the days you teach for six hours, a few hundred people and you really drained at the end. Just staying on top of a class full a hundred people with knives is, you know, that’s a lot of mental energy just making sure no one whacks somebody with a knife. And everybody’s got fingers at the end of the time. There’s no blood, and everybody’s happy. So just taking care of yourself on the road. You’re getting enough sleep – drinking enough water. Trying to eat right. It’s tough for us, because we wind up in really difficult places, that just have chain places to eat. And so just taking care of yourself when you’re on the road, because it can seem very romantic and you want to just go experience everything. You just come home completely drained for a few days if you’re on the road all the time and you don’t have those recovery times. So I think that’s a big one on the speaking side. The other one is just, you know, it’s a business too. And so we can get caught up speaking and not take care of, “Where is this going next?” Making connections. You know, trying to plan out like Kirsten said, you’re always hustling. So remembering that you are the speaker but you’re also the CEO and you’re also the marketer and you’re all those things. And so, depending on –

Kirsten: – You’re also the contact person. Sometimes for my personality it’s hard to say, “yeah I actually do need pay for this.” And I think that’s probably something that writers and speakers in this day and age really, really suffer with because so many magazines or blog posts, it’s like they’re happy to get free content and they’ll expose you to so many people. And I think while this online self-publishing thing started, a lot of writers, in a way, shot themselves (and the whole writing industry) in the foot in that people expect free content and it still takes work to make it. It still takes time to take pictures, and develop the recipes or whatever your content is you’ve invested in it. And yes, you do have to give some of it away – that’s part of it. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing – I’m just saying at some point if you want to make it a career, you have to start valuing yourself and being able to say, “Yes I’ll do this, but here’s what I require.” Whatever that is, if that’s $50 dollars or if it’s $2,000 dollars. And that’s hard move to make.It’s really hard to take that leap, to say, “Yeah I would love to come do this. But, let’s talk about how to make that happen so it’s good for everybody.”

Brian: Absolutely. It’s funny I spoke with Gary Collins with The Simple Life earlier today. He was mentioning the same thing about having to deal with the fact that we’ve created kind of an entitlement society in a sense that people kind of all have their hand out and they’re expecting everything for free and it’s eventually you’ve got to put a price on things because if it’s actually going to be valuable because everyone needs to eat. That’s some great, great advice, definitely if you’re new to the information business is something you definitely need to keep in mind. If you aren’t new, you already know it but you have to keep on top of that for sure. I really enjoyed my time here with you guys. What could a listener do who’d want to find out more, want to read your books, everything else, and all the classes that you provide, where could they go?

Kirsten: Our website has got our calendar for classes, we also got the free e-courses at Ferment.works. That’s probably the best place. I think we’re most active on Instagram as far as just, sort of that, what’s going on kind of place. And that’s also “@ferment.works.”

Chirstopher: There’s Facebook.

Kirsten: Facebook. And the books are available anywhere that you buy books. You’re a little mom and pop, brick and mortar store to big online sellers, they’re there.

Brian: Fabulous. Hey, thanks so much for being on the Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Chirstopher: Thanks for having us.

Kirsten: Absolutely. Thank you.

Brian’s Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed sitting down with Kirsten. Christopher, I wanted to point out just a few things from this conversation. First, the fact that they use an initial free course, this is common throughout Internet marketing, but not as common within the realm of self-reliance businesses and it’s something that I think is quite useful. They mentioned, they have thousands of people who have signed up for this course and it’s called, “Five Ferments in Seven Days.” It’s an e-course. You can find it on their website. Ferment.Works. So why is something like that so useful? It’s useful because it starts the conversation. It gives someone something quick valuable in exchange for their email address so that you can continue communicating with them from that point on. And today, the world is so distracting. Any chance you get to be in front of the same person more than once is a good thing for your business. Something you should keep in mind is any form of lead generation like this, a way that you can have a lead that you can go back to that you could communicate on a regular basis with that is very valuable and it’s way overlooked by most people in the self reliance field.

I love their story of starting and stopping having these tough days at the farmer’s market. Getting their product out there, going through all of the hassle, realizing finally when they’re at the peak, when they’ve got this great deal with whole foods that this is going to get even harder. You know, with the physical products and them looking themselves in the mirror and saying, what are we doing? Where do we really want to go with our business and making the courageous decision to say, no, we’re going to pull back and go in a different direction. And how did they choose that direction? They chose it by listening to their audience. Their audience wanted to find out how to do it themselves. It’s all because of the fact that as he said, they’re bad drug dealers. They were giving it away. They were giving away the information straight off the bat, allowing people to make their own, but through doing that, they found out that many people were more interested in doing it themselves.

Then in purchasing the final product and the dirty little secret is that an information business is a lot less backbreaking if it’s done correctly and this is the thing that they point back to over and over again. They’re doing what they love to do. Yes. It’s a little tiring if you’re traveling, if you’re on the road and promoting a book, putting on presentations, these are all things that you have to way along with it, but overall information is delivering a book in the mail. It’s sending information online. It’s having online courses like they’re talking about having more of. The best thing about information, it could be added to any current running business. Even if you have physical products that you’re already getting out to people, you can tack on an information business like we’ve heard other people do, like Gary Collins. You can go and listen to our conversation with him and that would give you more of an idea of how he’s been able to do it.

I think it’s great that they’ve been able to work as a couple. They can deal with all of the stress that comes along with that because they have two very different personalities, but at the same time they found a way to work around it. Part of the struggle of having an information business is constantly reminding people who you are and what you do. And that’s what Kirsten said and that’s dead on. That’s a huge piece of what they’re all about right now and it’s important that they have their eye on that. It’s also important that they have a focus on developing passive income because they don’t want to run around forever. They don’t want to have to keep this thing going on its own. They have to have some pieces of their business that run on their own that allow people to access it without them having to hold people’s hands every step of the way. That’s what automation is all about. That’s what outsourcing is all about and I’m glad to see that they have their focus in that direction because I think they’re going to get the best results with that in the long run. And finally they mentioned that free information problem that Gary Collins had also mentioned and this is something that that the information marketer has to think about. What can I afford to put out there for free of the free stuff that I am putting out there? How much of it is encouraging people to take the next step? We can go on and on and we will definitely be touching about that idea in the future. We will no doubt be talking again with Christopher and Kirsten because they live so nearby me. I can’t wait to be able to dig in a little deeper into their concepts of business and the adventurous they’d been having on the road.

Janice Cox – Natural Beauty for All Seasons

Janice Cox
Natural Beauty for all Seasons

Episode 015.

Do you take FULL advantage of events? Do you challenge yourself to meet new people and focus on new opportunities?

Janice Cox is a leading DIY natural beauty and skin-care expert from Medford, Oregon. She is the author of several books including Natural Beauty from the Garden, Natural Beauty for All Seasons, and Natural Beauty at Home.

She’s a member of the International Herb Association, the United States Lavender Growers Association, and the Herb Society of America.

Janice brings an bright energy into everything she says and does. Her enthusiasm is contagious. Listen now!

Find out more about Janice Cox: http://www.janicecox.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

 

Full Transcript

Janice: I think I said this to the fair director, the world would kind of be a better place if everybody acted like they do it Mother Earth News Fairs because you have all walks, all backgrounds. There’s urban people, there’s, you know, country people, but everybody gets together because they really do want to learn and share and grow ideas.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.


You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: Janice Cox is an author and leading DIY natural beauty and skincare expert. She is a wife, mother and grandmother and loves creating her own bath and body products.

She’s also a freelance magazine writer and beauty editor for Herb Quarterly Magazine. Janice is a member of the International Herb Association, the United States lavender Growers Association, and the herb Society of America.

She will be speaking at the remaining Mother Earth News Fairs for 2019 in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. Janice, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Janice: Thank you for having me. This is fun.

Brian: Sure thing once you let everyone know besides what’s in your bio, just tell us a little bit about who you are what you do?

Janice: Well, I am kind of a DIY beauty. I’ve just always had a passion I grew up my dad was a farmer. My mom was a home mech major. So I kind of grew up in a DIY environment anyway. And I’ve just always had a passion for body care products.

Now growing up, we lived out in the country, so I couldn’t run and buy things. So we had to craft things. And I had to use what was on hand when I first started out, people really liked my recipes. Because you could save a lot of money, which you still can.

Today, I’ve noticed that my message is kind of shifted, where it’s people are really concerned with the products and the ingredients that they’re using on their body. And so knowing what goes into even the commercial products that you’re buying, because there’s a lot of great products out there helps with your overall wellness.

I mean, I’ve seen people change their health, you know, just in the ingredients they choose. So that’s kind of a little bit of where I’ve come from, I started out just making this stuff for fun, then I was saving money.

And now I’m really looking at it as a whole wellness part of your health regimen.

Brian: Excellent. So how did you end up here?

What’s your life story to this point, what brought you to this field?

Janice: I was a mother. And so I wanted a career that I could do with my family and also so I had the passion for making my own products.

We used to live in Australia before we moved back to the United States where beauty products and do yourself things are just super popular.

So I had a collection of recipes from family from history books from just travels. And when we came back to the US, my husband went and bought me some soap that I liked using in Australia.

And he kind of complained about the price of it and said, You should just learn to make this yourself, which was nice. I mean, he said it in a nice way. So I thought, you know, there was really a need for this, you know, so I put together all my recipes.

It was my first book was called Natural Beauty at Home and that was back in the 90s.

Now I’ve written four books and for a variety of magazines, and it’s just become a career that I am lucky because I got to do it at home with my family.

Brian: Awesome.

We talked a little bit about your books. Can you tell us more about the books you have?

Janice: Well, my books are written cookbook style, and so if you can read you could make body care products there’s a variety of things I have like thousands of recipes so you can make shampoo and a stringent bath products cleansers you know if there’s a commercial product you’re using.

Chances are you’ll probably be able to make one out of one of my books and they’re a little bit like muffins like once you get down, say the cleansers, you can then just kind of play around with the ingredients. So if you’re somebody that really likes rosemary or really likes mint, then you can adapt it to your own and your skin too.

So I kind of give people the tools but they’re really in control. They’re the manufacturer of their products so they can make them any way they want and tailor them to where their skins at that’s kind of nice to you have the control of in the winter, you might need more oil in the summer you might not need as rich of a product.

Brian: So what led you to write books to begin with?

Janice: I guess if I didn’t really start out to write books, but I wanted to share recipes. So that was an easy way to share my recipes with people is to put them all into like a cookbook, that they can easily get at the store.

Brian: Got it?

Did you enjoy the process?

Janice: I like meeting people. I think what I like about the writing, writing is kind of a solitary process, but it’s very creative. So I like that.

But I also like it when I go out.

The best compliment I can get is when somebody comes up to me with my book, and it’s just all marked up and used. It has oil stains. I love that.

And then a lot of times I learned from my readers, they will send me you know, like we like this, but have you thought of using jojoba oil? Or have you thought of, you know, doing this with rose petals?

And I like that part of it. So yeah, it’s just I just like everything about it.

Brian: That’s great.

Janice: It’s a good career.

Brian: So you’re slated to present at Mother Earth News Fair, you’ve already presented at the earlier ones.

What are you going to be covering in Albany?

Janice: Okay, in Albany because this is my second round of Mother Earth News Fairs and my second Time in Oregon.

This year, I’m taking ideas out of my book, Natural Beauty From The Garden, which is all plant based recipes. How to enjoy your plants that you might have or your neighbors might have in a new and different way as in body care products.

I also have a book coming out at the Oregon fair for the first revised edition of Natural Beauty For All Season. So that’s a lot of gift giving ideas.

What we’re going to do up in Albany is we’re going to have I’m going to give a talk on garden beauty.

We’ll talk about all the different plants that you might not have thought of using like parsley.

It makes a nice cleanser or roses, you know, you can also use in the bath or you know, just common plants that you have. And then we’re also I do a talk on lavender, lavender has been very popular now as a plant.

And so we’re doing a whole lavender for health and beauty and on Sunday we’re doing a lavender breakfast, where I’ve teamed up with the Oregon lavender association which represents all the farms and growers in the state.

We’re going to talk, we’re gonna have some farmers there. We’re gonna have some plants there.

We’re going to make a whole breakfast with lavender inspired dishes like a quiche and scones and we’ll have lavender coffee.

And we even have a sampling of lavender mimosas.

Yeah, so you get in early to the fair and you can have your lavender breakfast and then go off and enjoy everything else.

And then I’m going to do a hands on workshop that day, I work with Mountain Rose Herbs out of Eugene, and they’re sponsoring the ingredients that we’re going to use and we’re going to make some baskets at a newspaper and then fill them with about six different body care products.

We’re going to make a soap and a cleanser and hairspray and I’m trying to think what some summer those roll on perfumes.

I mean, it’ll be really fun. People last year, I did this, and it’s about two hours and we do make a lot of things but people really enjoy it and it kind of takes on a life of its own.

Brian: Very cool.

So what do you hope people are gonna get when they walk away from your presentations, what do you hope they get out it?

Janice: My mission is to make people better consumers.

That’s really where I’m at right now, in my career. I think a lot of people will buy things and they don’t necessarily read the ingredient label.

And there’s a lot of good products out there. There’s a lot of things that you’re spending a lot of money on, and which is basically water, or salt.

I’m teaching people how to read a product label, and also realize what the ingredients are not all ingredients are bad.

I’m not down on, you know, natural beauty products, which is not really a regulated industry in this country. I mean, in other countries, they’re very, like Canada and Europe.

I mean, there are products that, you know, they have like lists of thousands of products, I think our list is maybe 11 that can’t be in body care products.

So and anybody can say natural on their label, and it might not necessarily be natural.

I’m just trying to teach people how to read a label, know what they’re using, if they want to create their own chances. Are they have things already at home or in their garden that they can do that.

And so I’ve seen people, you know, people live like a healthy lifestyle or even a gluten free lifestyle, but they don’t think about what they put on their body every day.

I kind of say what goes on you goes in you, because they’ve proven that 25% of the ingredients in your skincare products goes directly into your bloodstream. I mean, that’s why nicotine patches pain patches birth kit works so well through our skin, because things go directly and so by looking at the your body care products.

I mean, there are people like I said, gluten free, and they’re using a shampoo that has gluten in it. So there you go, you’re not really getting anywhere.

Brian: Yeah, good point.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business. Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.

When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you. As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.

If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away.

These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.

They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: Why are you going to these Mother Earth News Fairs and putting on presentations?

What do you hope to achieve personally for your business?

Janice: Well, I’m kind of a super fan of Mother Earth News anyway. So besides whenever I don’t know, I might have a reputation because I also go to the classes, I also go to the talks, and I just love everything about it.

It really is an event where the things that you read in the magazine can be inspiring, but also you will up your skill level for sure.

Or maybe be exposed to something that you might not have. I took a class last year on growing mushrooms and I hadn’t even thought of that, that I could do that at home and you know, and now I have some spores, you know, out in my yard under my oak tree.

But yeah, there’s things like that that you will discover. I don’t know.

I like going to the fair. I like the magazine, I like meeting people.

It also energizes me and gives me new ideas for articles that I can write. And you know, so because I speak at other events also, not just Mother Earth News.

So a lot of times I might be working on things like lavender, or like my loofahs sponges, I did a lot on loofah sponges.

And then I ended up doing a webinar for Herb Society of America. And it really helped me because after a year of talking about loofahs sponges and with people about loofah sponges, you know, it turned into a really nice class.

Brian: Oh, that’s great. Who are you most hoping to reach with your presentations, both, you know, in person, and in your speech at the event. What was the ideal person you’re hoping to connect with?

Janice: Well, I don’t know if I have a type. I think everybody has skin and hair and is concerned about their health and wants to keep their body in good shape.

So I think anybody that’s concerned with health, wellness, and just wants to have a good time, you know, learning something new. And, you know, even making the workshop this year.

We’re gonna even focus on things that you could make and give as a gift or put in your farm shop if you’re somebody that’s already has products, so things like that. So anybody I’ll talk to anybody.

Brian: We have a lot of business owners, executives that listen to the show, because we kind of look at the entire self reliance field from business perspective. So do you think that it’d be worthwhile for them to plug into events like this?

Janice: Oh, definitely, definitely. Because the thing that’s nice about it, it’s a small, very intimate event.

In a way, I think a lot of things happen even outside of the booth outside of the talks outside of the workshops. I’ve seen people networking and getting together, you know, and even, it’s funny, there’s businesses there like I there was one, it’s a chicken company, but the people that are either the customers or new customers, they’ll get around that.

And they’ll just be like, these big, almost like a mini conference, about a product or about a skill, I’ve seen that a lot of people will go just to network.

Brian: Yeah.

Janice: And it’s you know, people are very open to talking about products and sharing ideas and even helping you improve yourself.

I think I said this to the fair director, the world would kind of be a better place if everybody acted like they do at Mother Earth News Fair, because you have all walks, all backgrounds, there’s urban people, there’s, you know, country people, but everybody gets together because they really do want to learn and share and grow ideas.

Brian: Awesome.

How did you end up becoming a presenter to begin with Mother Earth News? Did you reach out to them? Did they reach out to you How did that happen?

Janice: I asked them.

Brian: Yeah.

Janice: See there I go. I’m a super fan.

So I did, I asked them, I read the magazine. I’m a subscriber.

And then I saw the fairs advertised, I had never been to a fair contacted them and said, you know, this is what I’m about and it fits perfectly with what you’re about. And I would love to be a part of your event.

Lucky for me, they said yes. And they’ve let me in and they still keep letting me show up.

Brian: So do you have any logistical tips for other people that travel?

I mean, you’ve got to travel a lot to go to these. Do you have any logistical tips of things to keep in mind if they’re either speaking or presenting or putting on an exhibit or anything like that, and these both these fairs or any type of events like this?

Janice: I’ve gone to all the fairs and I would say, you want to really make the best of your time so I would come the day before. And if you’re working, if you can kind of walk right everybody’s setting up but you get a feel for the layout.

You also can go online, I usually go online right now you can print the whole fair brochure and schedule and see all the speakers and I see a lot of people that will show up with that already highlighted.

So they kind of make the most of their day because some of these workshops are like an hour or two hours, and so you want to make that, then you’re going to see what you want to see.

I mean not to say you, you don’t really want to be to planned out because sometimes things take on a life of their own. I mean, I’ve gone to, you know, Uncle Mud’s stuff about making a pizza oven.

And I wouldn’t have maybe thought of doing that. But it just turned out, I had that time open.

So you have to come, but you can plan ahead of time online.

And then also, I would stay close to the fair because I think that’s kind of nice, because you can kind of come and go easily, and just be open.

I would say the best thing is to come with a good attitude, and be open to maybe what you might discover. I know that there’s a lot of these stories and maybe you’re coming up to the fair for the first time you might meet somebody.

I met a guy in Maryland that he has a very successful chimney cleaning company, and he wouldn’t have ever had that company. If he hadn’t been a magazine reader gone to the fair learn some skills. And now this guy, you know, that’s all he does is clean chimneys. But he said He owes it to Mother Earth news fair, which is kind of

Brian: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. What else Haven’t I asked you that you think would be good to talk about?

Janice: I don’t know, I think I’ve told you about how, you know, you want to take good care of your skin and hair, keep it clean, full of moisture and protected from the sun. I think I’ve told you, you want to go up to the Mother Earth News Fair with a good attitude, and open to learning something new and even talking to somebody new.

A lot of times, I used to have a game if I went to an event, I try and meet three new people.

And I think going to the fair, maybe discover three new booths or talks would be good.

I don’t know just have fun. It’s, you’ll see and well, maybe I’ll have to come back up here because we kind of live by each other.

Brian: Yeah.

Janice: And do a post fair.

Brian: Oh, that’d be great.

Love to have that for sure. So what could a listener that’s interested in finding out more about you checking out your books, everything else, where’s the best place for them to go?

Janice: They can go to my website. JaniceCox.com and because you can send me an email, ask me questions. My books are available pretty much everywhere. They’re on Amazon. They’re Barnes & Noble, you know, any bookseller has the books.

But if you want to speak to me directly, you can just go to my website. It’s JaniceCox.com and I will talk to you.

Brian: Awesome. Awesome.

Janice, thanks so much for being on the show. Really enjoyed having you here. We’ll definitely have you back.

Janice: Oh, I hope so. Thank you. See you at the fair!

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Janice is such a ball of energy. I’m so glad we got to meet in person.

She went through so much in that short period of time where we were talking that I’m just going to point out just a few things.

Janice follows along with that process of learn, do teach. Here’s a person that enjoyed learning these ideas so much. She automatically got out and started teaching other people how to do the same thing. But she said she soon switched Instead of just helping people to save money, she started showing people how to focus on health and all natural items really focusing on the quality life.

And that could be a different market that could those can be different people, she may be able to charge higher pricing for those type of items versus just playing to people to show them how to save money. These are things you have to consider when you’re letting your business grow.

What market are you playing to?

What needs wants desires are you attempting to fulfill in your customer base, you have to know who you are, what you’re good at what you aren’t good at because she’s a people person.

She learns from her readers. She relates back to people directly, she realizes that she enjoys being in large crowds of people. In a previous episode, we were talking with Andy Brennan. And while he enjoys teaching and being around other people and doing everything that goes along with being a speaker, he is initially an introvert, he tends to need some alone time to be able to recharge.

These type of experts have been doing it long enough that they know themselves and if you know yourself, you’ll know what you’ll be good at and not good at, and you’ll be able to focus in your strengths.

And like I always say, you focus on your strengths and you want to outsource all your weaknesses.

Janice puts a lot of focus on collaboration to a lot of great tips when it comes to going to events, attending events, both as a spectator and a person that’s going on business.

She plans things out, but at the same time, leaves things open enough to be able to have things happen on their own.

Another thing I want to point out is that she lets her niche or niche expand out so that it not just fits within a bubble. I mean, she has this entire book on creating gift ideas and you flip through this book.

These are not super hard to do. These are simple concepts, but can really create an impact.

If you’re looking at making your own gifts from scratch like this, her focus on skincare on all natural skincare. She’s taken her niche, and she has expanded it out to areas where it normally would not go. And she talks about it in a way that other people don’t talk about it.

This allows her to really stand above and beyond. You’re going to hear Kirsten and Christopher Shockey in a later episode discuss the same concepts.

Overall her super fan attitude about Mother Earth News and the Mother Earth News fairs is pretty contagious. I love that line.

I wish everyone in the world acted like they do at the Mother Earth News Fair. And once again, she has a huge focus on just having fun, just like we heard from Frank Hyman.

There’s so much more I wanted to get into with Janice and I’m happy she lives so nearby where I am in Grants Pass, Oregon so we’ll definitely be hearing from her if not at the fair, definitely after the fair.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact.

Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas.

I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.

Jessicka Nebesni – Mountain Rose Herbs

Jessicka Nebesni
Mountain Rose Herbs

Episode 014.

Have you sold out to your profession? Is your passion contagious? Do you hire people who are great at what they do, but also LOVE doing it?

Jessicka Nebesni is a Marketing Strategist for Mountain Rose Herbs in Eugene, Oregon. She manages a lot of the content than is produced through MRH’s blog, and even writes some of the articles herself.

She is a humble homesteader and herbal tinkerer who loves all things wild and natural! Jessicka loves to preserve food, make herbal preparations, garden, and spend time in the great outdoors.

It’s clear that Jessicka is enthusiastic about the natural health/sustainability lifestyle. Find out what drives her and what she’ll be presenting in Albany, Oregon at the Mother Earth News Fair.

“People want to see the face behind the brand. They want to have a personal experience. They want to have a conversation. They want to have advice from someone who knows.” Listen now!

Find out more about Mountain Rose Herbs: http://www.mountainroseherbs.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

 

Full Transcript

Jessicka: I originally grew up in New Jersey, where I had a really rich cultural experience but not a lot of exposure to natural food, or any kind of homesteader kind of lifestyle. And I was really yearning to get back to the land and learn to be more self sufficient.

So I did what any other 21 year olds would do. I quit my job. So got my things and packed up my car with my St. Bernard and my cat and whatever else with it, which wasn’t much after them, and I headed to Northern California.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: Jessicka Nebesni is the marketing strategist for Mountain Rose Herbs. She describes herself as a humble homesteader, who loves all things wild and natural.

She loves to preserve food, make herbal preparations, garden and spend time in the great outdoors.

Jessicka writes many blogs for Mountain Rose Herbs, featuring her experience with herbalism, natural food prep and body care recipes. She also helps to facilitate the partnership program and Mountain Rose Herbs and gains inspiration from all the amazing homemade goods made in their own homestead using herbs and spices.

Jessicka, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jessicka: Thank you so much for having me, Brian.

Brian: Yeah, sure, let us know a little bit beyond the bio. Let us know a little bit about who you are and what you do for Mountian Rose Herbs.

Jessicka: So I am one of the marketing strategist here at Mountain Rose Herbs. As you mentioned, I primarily work with bloggers who create DIY content, using our ingredients.

And I also help with some of the PR relationships and I write some blogs as well, which is my favorite part.

I love to write.

That’s most of my day to day with Mountain Rose Herbs.

Brian: Great. How did you end up here?

Jessicka: So I originally grew up in New Jersey, where I had a really rich cultural experience, but not a lot of exposure to natural food, or any kind of homesteader kind of lifestyle.

And I was really yearning to get back to the land and learn to be more self sufficient. So I did what any other 21 year old would do, I quit my job. I think we packed up my car with my St. Bernard and my cat and whatever else would fit which wasn’t much after them. And I headed to Northern California.

And there I did a WWOOF program and if you’re not familiar with that it stands for worldwide opportunities on Organic Farms.

So I essentially did a work exchange on an organic farm.

And it was there that I learned a tremendous amount of knowledge on gardening and food preservation. They also practice macrobiotics, so be able to learn a lot about fermented foods, how to make them definitely how to eat them. My favorite part.

And then I was there for about a year and then I was offered a great opportunity to come to Eugene, Oregon, and to maintain 140 acre ranch, where I’d be able to homestead more and really do a lot more gardening in my own personal garden. So I was just another big life decision to make.

And after weighing out all the options, I did decide to come to Eugene.

Kind of a fun fact one of the things on my list or coming to Eugene was that Mountian Rose Herbs was here. Maybe one day I would get a job with them.

And ironically, it was the first and only job that I applied to and Eugene.

I’ve been here for three years now.

So yeah, that’s kind of how I got to Eugene and got to Mountain Rose Herbs.

And really took my you know my city experience from New Jersey and transformed it into a more homesteading philosophy of life.

Brian: Wow, what a great story.

So let me just jump right into the fact that we’re talking to you because you’re slated to speak at the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany Oregon.

So what are you going to be covering there?

Jessicka: So as I mentioned with the organic farming that I got to experience came learned a lot about fermented foods. And one of my I call it my gateway preservation project was sauerkraut and it was so accessible for me really instilled a lot of confidence in my ability to create fermented foods and to make food preservation projects possible.

And so I’m going to be teaching how to make sauerkraut.

I’ll be talking about some of the basics but also how to make them unique and fun for the use of herbs and spices.

You know, no two batches my sauerkraut have ever been the same.

I love getting to do it and I really hope to share that with the audience and have them feel confident by the end of my class, that they’re able to go home and make sauerkraut on their own.

Brian: Fabulous. Beyond that, is there anything else that you hope they’re going to get by watching your presentation?

Jessicka: I definitely want them to understand just how easy it is to make it their own. I’m going to be talking about a lot of different aspects how to make it more crunchy, how to make it more sauce, different flavor profiles of the different spices.

So really, I want to give them the confidence to continue on and I basically want them to go home and make sauerkraut after the presentation, I guess.

Brian: That’s great. So have you been to any of these fairs before?

Jessicka: You know, I haven’t actually made it to this area. But I’ve heard such amazing things. And I took a look at the lineup on the website and I can’t believe I haven’t gone before.

I mean, it’s totally in line with my philosophies and my lifestyle.

So I think there’s going to be an incredible amount of content knowledge to be shared there. And I would definitely encourage people to go and check it out. It’s not expensive.

So it’s definitely doable for a lot of people.

Brian: Absolutely.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business. Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.

When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you. As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.

If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away. These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.

They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: Why are you doing this? You know, what do you personally get out of it?

And what does Mountain Rose Herbs get out of putting on this presentation and being seen there?

Jessicka: I mean, that’s kind of the same for both of us, I would say. I think it’s primarily to being around conscious people who are also into the natural ways of doing things.

We really resonate with that audience, I personally, on a personal level do and also at Mountain Rose Herbs, we really resonate with the DIY people.

We love to be part of a community of like resilient people who are just in line with our sustainability commitments and just really valuing the natural resources that are around us.

Brian: Who are you hoping to reach who’s the ideal person that you’re hoping to connect with either in person or to your presentation.

Jessicka: So I think it really ranges and I would say people that are DIY aficionados. And then also people are just getting started with the lifestyle, having it be so accessible to them.

And, you know, we have a booth there, so we’re able to answer a lot of questions, offer some advice, from our experience.

I think that’s really the kind of connections we’re hoping to make there. And yeah, we all have something to learn from each other.

Even the person who’s just starting out sometimes the new person, will ask questions and you know, it kind of brings you back to the basics. And you’re like, Oh, yeah, I forgot about that part or, you know, I have something to offer.

We’re just really looking forward to talking to everybody there.

Brian: Yeah. So you’re in Eugene, you and Mountian Rose Herbs are in Eugene.

And, this is going to be an Albany. So it’s not too far distance for you. Right?

Jessicka: Correct. Yes, about an hour away.

Brian: So that’s great. Have you got to travel much to other expos or conventions or anything of that sort?

Have you done anything like this before? Is this your first time?

Jessicka: Yeah, I’ve definitely done events, we primarily stay within an hour radius. But I have gone out of state before. I’ve been to New Hampshire for the Northeast Women’s Herbal Conference, which was amazing.

We didn’t booth there anything like that. But I just went as a representative of the company and, you know, talk to a bunch of people who are just our people, you know?

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Do you have any logistical tips for other people that are planning to travel and do do presenting what you’re doing?

Jessicka: That’s a great question. I wish I did. But we’re really lucky.

We have an amazing event coordinator. His name is Nathan Hutchison. And he takes care of all that. Lucky to have him.

Brian: Yeah, well, that’s a tip unto itself or any of the business owners listening, make sure you have somebody that’s put aside to actually focus on that stuff for you. That’s great.

Jessicka: It’s important, you know, he has a checklist of things that he keeps in mind, and that he learns from each event that he goes to all of those lessons are, you know, they’re kind of cumulative.

So he’s got it down to a science now. He’s quite incredible. So very lucky.

Brian: Great. So in addition to that, like I said, we have business owners and executives that listen to this podcast because we are looking at homesteading and self reliance from a business perspective.

So do you think it’d be worthwhile for them to plug into events like this?

Jessicka: Oh, absolutely. It’s a really valuable way to reach like minded people. And you know, people want to see the face behind the brand.

So they want to have a personal experience, they want to have a conversation, they want to have advice from somebody who knows. So it’s really important to plug into these kinds of events, and be present with the people and really develop genuine connections and relationships.

Brian: As the marketing person there, I imagine that this is a huge piece of what of what you guys are looking at doing all year around that Mountain Rose Herbs. Is that right?

Jessicka: Absolutely. We’re definitely into building genuine connections.

We don’t just pay people to promote our products and you know, celebrities and all that kind of thing. We really keep it more low profile and with people that are just more connected with our genuine brand and what makes us so unique and our sustainability and our organics as well.

Brian: Well, Jessica, I really look forward to meeting you at the fair.

This is going to be my first time as well, so I can’t wait.

Jessicka: It’s gonna be fun, I can’t wait too.

Brian: Yeah, so what can listeners do, who are interested in finding out more about Mountain Rose Herbs, your products and so forth?

Jessicka: Yeah, so we have a website and it’s MountainRoseHerbs.com.

We also have a customer support team. If you want to call in and have any questions, you can certainly do that. The phone number is on our website.

And then we have an amazing blog with hundreds of recipes and tips and tricks, to herbalism and homesteading, and you know, different culinary recipes and that kind of thing.

So definitely encourage you to check out those resources as well.

Brian: Thanks, Jessica, for setting time aside to talk with us and we’d love to have you back. Thanks for being on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Jessicka: Thank you so much Brian.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: That was really great talking with Jessicka. I think what she represents is a huge spirit of self reliance.

And you just look at the passion that she has for homestead and natural health.

I mean, this all led her to quitting her job and moving toward an organic farm. But having that idea for that dream job and Mountain Rose Herbs, and then actually getting it that shows you a determined focus.

That’s inspiring. A second thing I wanted to point out about our conversation was her focus on using networking and creating genuine connections and unique connections really getting down and finding that ideal person to connect with.

She said, that’s a big piece of Mountain Rose Herbs marketing strategy, and it’s what she likes to do when she goes to events like this.

It brings up the question, what are your values as a company?

Does that come through in your marketing strategy?

And how about the events coordinator, she mentioned that she couldn’t even come up with anything that had ever gone wrong and an event because the event coordinator had done such a great job.

I’ve heard so many good things about this company.

In a future episode with Janice Cox, you could hear her discussing the fact that she’s teaming up with Mountain Rose Herbs. Likewise David and Beth Pruett from AMP-3 they told me how they were blown away by their vendor setup and past years at events like these.

If you go to Mountain Rose Herbs website, mountainroseherbs.com, you can see a whole lot of what they offer.

Their title tag pretty much says it all it’s bulk organic herbs, spices and essential oils.

That’s their main business.

So they got herbs and spices, teas, aroma therapy, a lot of basic ingredients that you can work with bath and body items, containers, home goods, it just goes on and on and on.

I love to learn some more. I look forward to meeting Jessicka and a lot of the other people at the Mother Earth News Fair.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact.

Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas.

I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.

Leah Webb – Deep Rooted Wellness

Leah Webb
The Grain-Free Sugar-Free Dairy-Free Family Cookbook

Episode 013.

How do you handle adversity? Are you always worried that the worst-case scenario will occur? Can a bad health diagnosis ever lead to something good?

Leah Webb is the creator of DeepRootedWellness.com and the author of The Grain-Free, Sugar-Free, Dairy-Free Family Cookbook: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Cooking with Whole Foods on a Restrictive Diet.

When Leah’s son Owen showed signs of food allergies and asthma, and then her daughter June was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disease primarily affecting the lungs and pancreas, something major had to be done. Leah has always been passionate about health, but this lead her down an entirely new field of nutrition that completely changed her personal and professional life.

“I no longer accept feeling powerless and defeated. I no longer accept the doctor’s word as the final say. I no longer accept that disease has to be terrible.”

What if a slight change of perspective could change your health forever? Find out why Leah calls this situation a “gift from the darkness.” Listen now!

Find out more about Leah Webb: http://www.deeprootedwellness.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

 

Full Transcript

Leah: This was an opportunity that fell in my lap. And I talked about that a little bit in the book.

I call it a gift from the darkness, because we did end up with some tough circumstances. It’s the idea that when you open the door to allow the light to come in that there can be gifts that you get from these dark circumstances. And I truly believe that this book was one of such opportunities for me.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.


From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.

This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid.

Brian: Leah Webb mph obtained her health coach certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. After earning a bachelor in Science degree in environmental biology from Appalachian State University and a Master of Public Health degree in environmental health sciences from Georgia Southern University.

She’s worked in nutrition and gardening education since 2009, with a focus on engaging children and healthy eating habits, experiential learning and discovery, Leah started and runs the deep rooted wellness blog on which she posts stories and tips regarding nutrition, gardening and healthy families.

She lives in the mountains of North Carolina with her husband TC and her two children Owen and June.

Owen has a life threatening anaphylaxis allergy to wheat and June has cystic fibrosis a genetic disease severely impacted in the lungs and pancreas. Leah is the author of the grain free, sugar free dairy free family cookbook a comprehensive guide for families interested in learning to cook more meals from scratch in a manageable way.

Her commitment to a restrictive nutrient dense diet has played an important role in their children’s integrative care. When not at work, you’ll find Leah in her garden tending to her chickens, volunteering in children’s schools or engaging in a variety of forms of exercise that feel nourishing.

Leah web Welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Leah: Thanks, Brian. I’m super excited to be here with you and just have the opportunity to talk about some of the things I do. And yeah, I’m excited to talk about Mother Earth News Fair today. It’s an exciting place.

Brian: That’s great, no we’re happy to have you here.

So besides what we heard in your bio, tell us a little more about who you are and what you do.

Leah: So I am a certified health coach.

And I started my business by doing one on one coaching and teaching cooking classes, workshops and things like that. One of the themes that I repeatedly saw that people struggled with was being able to implement some of the strategies that you give them for being healthy.

You can give them recipes, and you can give them tools. But unless they really have a plan for implementing those tools for implementing those recipes and for whatever system that you’ve decided that would be beneficial together, you know, they really need a little bit of further guidance.

And so that’s kind of where my work started moving in this direction of really teaching people, the house of implementing a healthy diet.

That’s how this book came about is, some of it was because I did deal with these pretty major challenges with my kids.

My son has an allergy to wheat and barley that made it to where we really are not able to eat out with him very easily. We have a couple of restaurants that are safe for him and honestly read out about twice a year.

Just because it’s it’s not a safe thing for him.

Then with my daughter, her being born with cystic fibrosis, I felt that somebody having a genetic disease was already starting at a disadvantage and it felt really important for me to give her the correct nutrition that she needs to be able to support her body in any way that I could just to help her along.

And so I kind of combine these two things. I had this these issues with my kids where my kids really needed a healthy diet.

My son especially needed a restrictive diet, one that had to be very specific to meet his needs.

Then watching all these people really struggle with meal planning and prep through all of those experiences is how I was able to develop a system for meal planning and prep that I wrote about in this book. And this is a complete guide for people who are interested in learning how to meal plan and prep and cook healthy foods for family on a regular basis.

Because as you all know, we’re all really busy. Cooking from scratch takes a lot of time.

This is a modern day problem. We’ve got to figure out solutions on how to prepare more meals from real foods while allowing that to fit into a time constraints that we all have.

Brian: Great. Well, tell us a little bit more about your book.

Leah: So this is published by Chelsea Green Publishing one of the largest publishers of sustainable living and Integrative Health books in the US.

They were phenomenal to work with.

I feel that I had great content to offer, but they just really made it that much better. And so the whole first part of the book I start with an introduction is to explain the science behind this diet, why it is that somebody might be interested in going, in eliminating grains, sugar and dairy.

I’m a why person, I have a background in research. If you tell me to do something, my first response is, well, why.

And so that’s what I wanted this book to this book really reflects my personality and just kind of the thoroughness that I approach things with.

This whole first chapter talks about why this diet is important and why it would be valuable. And then in the next three chapters, I talked about how you can get your kids involved.

What are some of the strategies to get them interested in being in the kitchen?

What are some strategies for introducing solids for correcting picky eating.

Then I move into how you get prepared to do this, because this is where I was talking about when people lack a plan. They tend to not follow through their actions. And I wanted somebody to get this book and say, Well, yeah, I want to be able to make these recipes.

But if I don’t have a plan on how it is, I’m going to do it, it may not actually happen.

And so I tell you, everything from what types of things you should put in your pantry in your freezer, what types of cooking utensils you need, up to how it is that you formulate a meal plan.

Then one of the key pieces of the book that I really hope that everybody sees this piece and reads it and is able to implement it is just rethinking this idea of quantity. And I have some meal plans in the book and the appendices.

Where I recommend that people double, triple even sometimes quadruple recipes when possible, because a number of recipes are able to be frozen for later.

The time investment that it takes to double, triple or quadruple a recipe is not nearly as much time as it would take you to prepare that recipe from scratch down the road. And that piece alone can save you hours in the kitchen every week.

And so with these meal plans that I’ve developed, the first week you start out by having to spend around six and a half hours in the kitchen total and this is making breakfast, lunch dinner and snacks from scratch for a family of four. Which I feel like most families have for spending six and a half hours in the kitchen anyways and they are not preparing that much food from scratch.

And then in these later weeks because you are pulling foods from the freezer, you’re able to cut down on your time investment as you keep going with the system.

So a system of preparing in bulk freezing foods and pulling from the freezer so that you reduce your overall workload.

And then the recipes are all really simple. I didn’t want this to be…this is a practical everyday guide. It’s not intricate culinary masterpieces that require all these unfamiliar ingredients.

This is for a busy family that just, sometimes you just got to get it done. And that’s what I’m trying to help people do.

Brian: That’s great advice. I know from personal example, my wife does a lot of cooking at home, by far majority of what we do is all at home, and that’s one of the things that she’s had to follow.

We’ve got three kids, three pretty young kids at home. And so, same thing, you’ve got to double, triple, quadruple the recipe, and you got to be willing to do that. Definitely a time saver. That’s great advice.

Leah: And I think we also underestimate how much we can eat sometimes. I mean, especially when you do have young kids, I have a boy and a girl and my son he is just like a bottomless pit sometimes.

Brian: Yeah, lol.

Leah: I mean, it’s incredible how much food he can eat. And that’s some of really rethinking this idea of quantity and being realistic and the amount that you prepare.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

So with that in mind, you talk about being a why person, I totally hear you on that. So why did you write the book? Why did you go through that whole long process and that most people never get around to.

Leah: But I have a very unique story. I don’t think that it happens like this for most people.

I was asked to write the book. And I saw this as a really excellent opportunity, especially given the quality of the publishing company. At that time, my daughter was still pretty young. I mean, she’s only four now, but I think she was around 18 months of age.

With her disease. It also requires a huge investment of time.

That’s some of why I had to streamline this meal planning and prep process as well.

Her daily treatments and therapies take about an hour every single day and there’s a greater time.

Investment when she’s sick being in that period of when you have a young infant, and they need all this extra care plus I had the sun with all these allergies, I felt pretty open to doing something outside of just being a mom.

And I think for me, this felt like a really great escape to use that energy for something positive.

So when I was asked to write the book, I really, I jumped on it. I think I was looking for something that could be a little bit of an escape. And I think that going through this process and using my story as something that could help other people, I think I’ve actually found a lot of healing in that process as well.

This was an opportunity that fell into my lap and I talked about that a little bit in the book. I call it a gift from the darkness, because we did end up with some tough circumstances.

And I think that when you open the door to allow the light to come in that there can be gifts that you get from these dark circumstances. And I truly believe that this book was once one of such opportunities for me.

Brian: Absolutely. That’s a great way of looking at it.

We’re already doing your blog at that time, or did that come after?

Leah: I had been blogging for about six years. And my editor, my developmental editor for the book, when I was doing my health coach training certification, I did a free workshop to a group of new moms.

And she was one of the first 10 people that I put on my mailing list.

I had no idea who she was, what she did, anything.

And so she had been following me for years.

And when Chelsea Green Publishing started publishing more Integrative Health books. What a lot of these integrative physicians are recommending is that people eliminate grains or gluten, dairy and sugar.

My family had slowly transition to that diet due to our health circumstances. And she had watched us go through this transformation and she thought, you know, she could write a book about this. And that’s how it all worked out.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019 at the time I’m recording this, we have learned so much about how to take advantage of events and I want you to be able to use this information in your own business.

So it really was just kind of this line of, I don’t even know what to call it, it’s just, fate seemed to work out.

Go to BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

We are going to be putting out helpful materials on how you can use events to grow your business.

When you go to this page, you will either see our latest programs or if you make it there early enough, you will see an email address, capture page, put in your email address and we will be sure and update you.

As soon as we get these out there, you’re not going to want to miss this.

If you get in early enough, you can get a special deal. These are principles that never go away.

These programs will be based on the experience of people who have written books, spoken at the events or exhibited.

They’re talking about how to use events, books, and speaking all to build your business.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets.

BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: Yeah, that’s beautiful. That’s so cool, how all these things lined up for you.

You enjoy the process of writing a book, the whole thing, everything from the writing, to the end all publishing?

Leah: I loved it. absolutely loved it.

Some of that was because my editor was fabulous. The editorial team, everybody I worked with Chelsea Green was just so easy to work with.

That’s some of why the process went so well. And some of it was because I do have these kids that every now and then they require a little bit of extra attention.

It’s hard for me to maintain a normal work schedule.

And with writing the book, I could shut it down when I needed to. And we had a couple of months while I was writing where my daughter ended up being extremely sick, I couldn’t focus on writing at that time.

I had to stop working because she required so much of my attention and my energy and she ended up getting admitted to the hospital, my son had had a pretty major and galactic reaction.

It’s just kind of a traumatic thing at times. And you know, it’s hard to pick yourself back up and just jump right back into work.

The book afforded me the opportunity to really give myself the space to take care of my kids and help them deal with the issues that they have. But then also to turn around and give myself what I needed, so that I could get back to being a good mom and a good author and doing all those pieces and I also just like writing I think that when you’re writing, you’re also learning.

I mean, the research that I did write that first chapter of looking up all the scientific information that was so much fun for me. I used to work in research and it’s like getting to use those skill set that I got to use before I was a mother and it just feeds something in you that doesn’t get fed in other ways.

Brian: Do you see yourself writing another book again someday?

Leah: I do play with that idea all the time.

Yeah, and I’m not quite, I have some ideas. One of the things that I also do that I feel that I do fairly well as gardening, I have considered writing a gardening book because I do post on Instagram and Facebook and all the social media outlets.

Some of the advice that I have for gardening and people are always joking asking when my gardening book is going to be released, but I’m not really sure I think for right now.

I’m really enjoying the process of having this book and it being out in the world and just the opportunity news that are coming from that. And so I think that there would be something in the future. I’m just not quite sure what that would be yet.

Brian: That’s great. So you had mentioned that you’re going to be speaking at the Mother Earth News Fair. And we’re specifically talking about the one in Albany, Oregon.

What are you going to be covering there?

Leah: I’ve got two talks for Albany. And the first one is going to be the art and mastery of meal planning and prep.

This is the talk where I discussed the system of how it is that you can cook efficiently making more meals from scratch.

When I designed this talk, I kind of wondered, you know, are people really that interested in listening to someone talk about meal planning and for an entire hour and the first time I gave this talk was in Asheville at the Mother Earth News Fair, and I had over 200 people show up.

I sold out of my book, I mean, it went really well.

And so it was encouraging to me to know that people want this information and that they are willing to sit there for a whole hour and learn how to cook more meals from scratch. And I thought that was just great that so many people are interested in this.

The second talk I’m giving is called belly biochemistry.

And this is a talk where I describe how digestion works, the role of microbes in your digestion. And then how it is that those microbes what we know about microbes and disease.

There’s so much new information on even in the soil environment, but I think people are starting to learn more and more about the benefits of microbes in the human gut and the soil and what it does for nutrition, disease and health. and there are a lot of gaps in this research.

But there’s still a lot of really interesting things that we do know. And that’s the information that I present during that talk. Part of being a someone who works in public health with my Master’s of Public Health is people in public health are trained to be the liaison between the science and the general public.

That’s what this talk is about for me is really taking this kind of difficult to understand scientific research and conveying it to layman in a way that they feel that they can apply it in their lives and that they can really understand some of the science that is new and upcoming.

Brian: So who are you hoping to reach with these presentations?

Who’s the ideal person that you’d like to connect with either through your presentation or in person?

Leah: That’s a great question. I mean, I feel like this information is for everyone.

But if I did have to get really specific, I would say that it’s generally for moms and dads who are feeling overwhelmed by all of the pressure of being a parent and working full time or part time and trying to raise kids. While also feeling that food is such an important piece of raising a healthy child yet it also feels like something that’s on tangible.

Because there are so many pressures on parents these days and it’s hard to be everywhere at once.

So my hope is that some of these parents can find this information and feel like they’ve got some strategies to accomplish some of their goals.

Brian: So why are you doing this?

You know, what do you get out of it?

Leah: I get super jazzed on public speaking.

I don’t know how else to describe it. But I love to teach.

I love getting new information. And I love turning that information into a usable form for people.

That it’s exciting to me to think that I can create a career out of teaching and helping people and providing people with the resources and the support and the information that they need to reach their goals.

Because there is just so much information out there and being able to sort through it and know where you can get reliable information can be really challenging.

And I feel that these speaking engagements, especially for things like Mother Earth News. When there are 10s of thousands of people there that you’re able to reach It’s an opportunity for me to provide them with the information that I feel like is most valuable.

And it’s just really fun. I love meeting people.

I am an extrovert to the core. And it’s fun for me to hear people’s stories, get to connect with them and provide them with some support.

Brian: How did you end up becoming a speaker for the Mother Earth News Fairs?

Did they reach out to you? Did you reach out to them?

Was this through your publisher?

How did it all begin?

Leah: It was through my publisher, which is interesting because I’ve attended Mother Earth News Fair for a number of years. Because Asheville is one of their big fairs and it’s only 45 minutes from my house and those have always been my weekend away from the kids.

I just go and I soak in all this like homesteading and gardening and I just love these fairs.

I remember when I was writing my book, I thought, you know, if I could speak at Mother Earth News Fairs, this would be like bucket list type material.

This would be, I will have arrived. If I get to Mother Earth News Fair, then my book came out on April 19.

The Mother Earth News Fair in Asheville was April 26.

And so Chelsea Green Publishing lined up my speaking gig.

It was like a dream come true. And I was only scheduled to speak at a couple of them.

But then the producer for the fairs asked me to come to Oregon and he’s interested in having me be more involved next year, which is especially exciting.

I know they’re doing one of the fairs at Polyface Farms in Virginia next year, which that will be an awesome opportunity just even see such a huge working farm.

Brian: Awesome. We have a lot of business owners and executives who listen, do you think it’d be worthwhile for them to plug into events like this?

Leah: I do, because I think that there’s so many people there that are interested in getting the tool sets and the products and information that they need to implement homesteading and healthy living.

There’s such a diversity of people who are there that are interested in different things.

I know that is specifically i’d spoken with some of the people that sell electric fences for chickens. And I know that Mother Earth News Fair are really great promotional tool for them, because you hear these speakers talking about all the benefits of raising your own meat and having your own eggs.

And you get really excited about the idea, and then hey, start walking around, you see these vendors?

Oh, here’s the guy that sells the electric fence. And, you know, maybe we should talk to him about getting started on our chickens.

So I think there’s a lot of energy and excitement around these new ideas at the fairs. And so showcasing the products that will help get people there. It is a good opportunity for those individuals.

Brian: That’s a great point, that common synergy that occurs in a location like that. That’s really interesting.

Have you gotten to travel much up until now to hit the other fairs?

I know you’re coming across country to go to the Oregon one.

Leah: Yeah, I’ve so far I’ve been to Asheville and Maryland and then I’m scheduled for Pennsylvania and Oregon. So those are the only four that I’m doing this year.

Brian: Oh fabulous.

Leah: Yeah.

Brian: You have any logistical tips for anyone that’s doing something similar or looking at being coming a speaker.

Leah: I used to travel a lot before I had kids and I feel like traveling feels pretty naturally to me. But I would say especially I guess I we went to Maryland with the kids, we decided we were outside of DC and we decided you know, let’s bring the kids it’ll be fun we said it actually did end up being fun.

It was a little bit hectic having them at the fair and I think what we realized from that was that if I am going to be traveling for work with the kids, my husband has to take them away from the work. While I’m doing the work and then we can all convene at the end of the day and and enjoy ourselves that way.

But if you go to my….if people are interested in seeing how I pack travel foods that is I have lots and lots of suggestions for that for the logistical piece of that because my son can eat out.

And so when we do travel, we pack all of our foods, I do have some information in my cookbook as well.

But I have a specific one of the highlights on my Instagram page for Deep Rooted Wellness.

If you go to travel foods, you will see how I have this system of freezing jars and having fresh food in jars and how you can pack an entire cooler with food. And that has this built in cooling mechanism so that it will stay cold for as long as you need it to.

Then the other benefits of packing all your food wherever you go is that you don’t have to prepare food when you’re there.

And you save money but not having to buy it. So if people are interested in food logistics, I happen to be an expert.

Brian: That is great. I can’t wait to show my wife that she’ll really get a kick out of that. This was great. We keep going. I’d love to have you back on the show in the future. If you’d be up for it.

Just what could a listener do that’s interested in finding out more about you maybe get their hands on your cookbook and everything. Where’s the best place for them to go?

Leah: The best place would be for them to visit my website at DeepRootedWellness.com, there’s a link for my cookbook where you can find it in Canada, UK and international link in the US there’s a lot of options for purchasing it.

I would suggest that people go there and they can also get a kind of a preview of what it is it’s in the book and what type of information they that they couldn’t anticipate seeing in there.

Then if they want to follow me on Facebook, especially Instagram, I share a lot of information on there.

Just trying to give people tips and especially with gardening right now because the summer is such a garden heavy time. I try to show people really simple things that can make a big difference in their productivity.

Brian: So cool. Hey, thanks so much for being on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

We’ll see you out in Albany, Oregon.

Leah Webb and everyone if you missed that, that’s DeepRootedWellness.com.

Leah: Thanks so much for having me and you’re gonna have to come find me and say hey, when we get there.

Brian: Definitely will.

Leah: Alright, sounds great. Thanks, Brian.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Yeah, Leah was really cool interview, really cool person.

And the word that keeps coming to mind when I think of her is, sharp. She’s just very sharp.

She’s to the point.

She’s very thorough in her analysis and the way she describes things really had a good time can’t wait to talk to her again, I’m going to point out just a few things that she said that I thought is worth looking even closer at. She mentioned how her book reflects her personality.

And I think this is something that everyone should strive for.

If you decide to set out and write a book, get a book published, have it reflect your personality, not just obviously, in the words itself, but in the style in what you cover.

If you tend to be all over the place, let your book be all over the place a little bit. If people reflect with you, they’re going to reflect more with the book and vice versa, if people are getting to know you through the book, they are going to get to know your personality as you are.

This is why I very much recommend the audio way of writing a book.

In other words, recording yourself talking the book out first, before you go through and clean it up and make it read nicely.

That way, you’re really reflecting your own vocabulary, and your own personality a whole lot more.

I doubt that’s the way that she wrote the book. But if you’re looking for a way to really have your book reflect your personality, that’s a great way of doing it.

I love it when she said, it’s exciting that I can create a career out of teaching and helping people.

This is very much a theme that you hear running through all of the conversations that we’ve been having with speakers from the Mother Earth News Fairs. Those people who have been doing it a while, are still enthralled with the fact that they’re able to do something they love and get paid for it.

Another thing to focus on even if you’ve already been in business for awhile. Find those things that you do best.

Find those things that you love to do best within your business, and focus more on those, outsource the rest of it, find a way to automate the rest of it and keep doing what you’re best at and get better at it.

I love how she mentioned the synergy of the events. I can’t wait to see that myself at this point in time we still haven’t been so I can’t wait to see how that synergy actually plays out in front of you.

Her comment about having a gift from the darkness.

In other words, finding the silver lining and the clouds if that’s not too cliche, well, here’s another cliche making lemons from lemonade. This is the entrepreneurial mindset that I love about these people to begin with.

And people like Leah, the ones that can recognize it in themselves, the ones that can see that, yes, my children have these food issues, but I’m going to learn from it. I’m going to strive above it.

I’m not going to complain about it. We’re going to work around it.

And after working around it, she found a way to be able to pass that knowledge on to other people and make their lives better.

That’s the beautiful thing about being a true hearted business person, a person that can use tragedy to not only their benefit, but the benefit of yourself.

Are you running against tragedy in your life that you’re not looking at how you can use it to help other people about how you can learn through it?

It’s a good lesson to remember a gift from the darkness. I love that.

Overall, our conversation really speaks for itself. So many great nuggets in there.

Can’t wait to meet Leah at the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon, and can’t wait for you to hear all the other conversations that we have coming up.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact. Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas.

I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.

Gary Collins – The Simple Life

Gary Collins
The Simple Life Guide to Financial Freedom

Episode 012.

What do you want out of life? Distilled down to its simplest form, what would your ideal lifestyle TRULY be?

Gary Collins has lived a wild and unique life. He’s worked in military intelligence, in the U.S. State Department Diplomatic Security Service, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He has taught at the University College level, consulted and trained college level athletes, and been interviewed for his expertise on various subjects by CBS Sports, Coast to Coast AM, The RT Network, and FOX News to name a few.

He now lives off-the-grid part of the year in a remote area of northeast Washington State, and the other part of year exploring in his travel trailer with his trusty black lab Barney.

Gary is the writer of the best selling Living Off The Grid and The Simple Life book series. His books blow the lid off of conventional life and wellness expectations.

“Today we’re bombarded by too much stress, not enough time for personal fulfillment, and failing to take care of our health… there has to be a better way!”

How can you run your business while living the most fulfilling life possible? Listen now!

Find out more about Gary Collins: https://www.thesimplelifenow.com

Find out the business events secrets for growing and strengthening ANY company: http://brianjpombo.com/secrets/

Full Transcript

Gary: What I’m teaching is not the norm, challenging. It’s challenging in the sense that it’s more that you have to look inside yourself and go, okay, am I happy?

The statistics say that Americans are not happy. They’re not living the life they want to live.

I was one of those people. And I finally said enough of this. I’m tired of it. I’m going to do something about it. And I did what I did.

It isn’t it perfect for everyone. I just tell you my story.

Podcast Intro: If you’re someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family.

If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing.

You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman.

We are here to celebrate you whether you’re looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel.

From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure life off the grid.

Brian: Gary Collins has a very interesting and unique background and includes military intelligence special agent for the US State Department Diplomatic Security Service, US Department of Health and Human Services, and US Food and Drug Administration.

Collins’s background and expert knowledge brings a much needed perspective to today’s areas of simple living, health, nutrition, entrepreneurship, self help and be more self reliant.

He holds an AAS degree in exercise science, BS in criminal justice and MS in forensic science.

Gary was raised in the high desert at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in a rural part of California. He now lives off the grid part of the year in a remote area of Northeast Washington state and the other part of the year exploring in his travel trailer with his trusty black lab Barney.

He enjoyed and considers himself lucky to have grown up in a very small town experiencing fishing, hunting and anything outdoors from a very young age. He’s been involved in organized sports, nutrition and fitness for almost four decades.

He’s also an active follower and teacher of what he calls life simplification.

He often says today we’re bombarded by too much stress, not enough time for personal fulfillment and failing to take care of our health. There has to be a better way. In addition to being a best selling author, he’s taught at the University of college level, consulted and trained college level athletes and then interviewed for his expertise on various subjects by CBS Sports, Coast to Coast AM, the RT network and Fox News to name a few.

His website www.thesimplelifenow.com. Best Selling, Living Off The Grid and The Simple Life Book Series.

His total lifestyle reboot blows the lid off the conventional life and wellness expectations and is considered essential for every person seeking a simpler and happier life.

Gary Collins, welcome to the Off The Grid Podcast.

Gary: Thanks for having me on Brian.

Brian: So why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Gary: Well with that great bio, which I did not write, but basically what it says, you know, I grew up in a very small rural town, grew up poor, single wide trailer and wanted to better myself and what I’ve always been exploring life in that sense.

And my journey, I left the government and started a health business. Bought 20 acres off up here in Northeast Washington.

He’s like, Oh, hold on here…all of a sudden the record screeching right and I went Yeah, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. You know, I grew up very rural, and I’m looking for quiet just to get away. I’m not looking to hold myself up like Ted Kaczynski and right some Manifesto.

I fell in love with area years and years ago and basically did an interview and people asked me what the heck I was up to other host did and I said, well you know, writing a book, or not writing but I’m building a house off the grid.

But you know, just get away just quieter life, easier life, simpler life.

And so it started. I decided to document I got a bunch of emails, asking me about it, how I was doing it, how I found the land.

Gosh, here’s my next book. And I wasn’t really a writer, I still don’t really consider myself a writer.

I mean, I didn’t go to school for English if you couldn’t tell, I’m a dummy. And I’m a math guy. That’s more my thing.

And so kind of document it, wrote it and it took off.

I mean, I guess it was right place right time. And that kind of pushed me off into another direction. I’d written three health books prior in a health program prior to that, but the health books for mainly for clients.

I had a marketing guy who said, Hey, throw them on Amazon. And if you’re an aspiring writer, never just throw something on Amazon. That’s just to give you some good advice. It will be there forever.

Yeah, I look at those things and they’re still sold used.

I took them all off and got rid of them and burned every copy I had even though the content was good, but I didn’t know what I was doing and they’re still out there.

So luckily people still enjoy them. Shockingly enough, even the used version so, you know, they were for clients primarily.

And so this was going off the grid was my first real thought out book. I mean, I had a professional cover done, layout and put some thought into it.

Not that I didn’t put any thought into my other ones but more of the professional or professional looking side of it. It would be the best way to put it and like I said, it just kind of took off and next thing you know, I’m off in a whole nother life direction and everything I was pursuing was life simplification.

Even though I was and still am primarily a health guy, because that’s what I preached for everything right?

But as I kind of moved on, I realized my message was getting a little bit confusing company wise, you know, after working with clients and on the health side and writing blogs and articles and speaking on all that.

I realized I needed to change the direction of the company and basically relaunched it less than a year and a half ago.

So new website new domain, the simple life book series had to come out establishing the brand.

Anyone who’s done this, anyone who owns their own business knows how difficult it is. But if you’re not willing to pivot when you need to, you’re going to suffer and people who are following me or suffering too, and that’s what I noticed is they were confused.

They’re all, What the heck is this guy doing you know, is primal paleo health guy. And then there’s this off the grid book. And, you know, the next book after that was RV living.

And then you know, I had to rebrand so I put out the health book, buttoned it up and put some more stuff in there and changed it around.

But the simple life is what it is. That’s the series.

I’m three books into it. The fourth book is done. I’m going through a different process on this one. So it’s taking a little bit longer, and I’m glad but yeah, and a simple life and then the off the grid stuffs a little bit separate.

I did a book with Mothers Earth News this year. And that’s the workbook for living off the grid.

And then I did a follow up called Living Off The Grid.

Those books, I consider them a little bit separate, even though the simple life pieces all fit within that, but that’s its own series.

And as it unfolds, people kind of…it’s hard when you only have two books out and then you know once a health book once an RV living book and what the heck is this guy doing?

What’s the simple I book series, RVing and a health book, you know, this makes no sense.

As it unfolds, it will make more and more sense. The pieces will all come together.

The next book is financial freedom, The Guide to Financial Freedom.

The book before that was, Decluttering Your Life. Which is the newest book, and the financial freedom one I’m excited about because there’s never been a financial book done this way.

I use all math and basic math and numbers and basically show how the average American is destitute or broke or poor partially by design, but also by us not paying attention.

I’ll take you through growing up as a kid, step by step how the system is set up to take a chunk out of you every step of the way, financially.

And if you’re not paying attention, you end up how we are today, where 60% of Americans don’t even have a retirement savings. They can’t even pay for an emergency.

So we’re in a bad spot financially, even though economically everything looks rosy, the average Americans in a bad place.

And that’s where I kind of go through and I break out the math on how the average American loses money on their house. And people freaked out on that one.

I was on a coast to coast and the lines lit up when I said that, what’s he talking about?

The American dream and I go, Hey, man, I had real estate license for eight years. That was my side hustle. And the government was real estate. So I’m no dummy.

And I’ve owned several properties. So I know how the game works. And not only that, but I own commercial properties too.

Brian: Oh, wow.

Gary: Yeah. And if you don’t understand how the system set up, it’s going to take you and like said, it’s a little peace here, little peace there.

Next thing you know, you’re 25, 30 years old, you’re in debt that you can’t get out of.

You’re literally in a perpetual debt cycle.

That’s how the system set up. So I’m really excited to kind of bring that about. And you know, it’s not a tin hat, or tin foil hat book, don’t get that.

Like said, I prove it all with basic math and show you how the numbers work.

And it ended up being around a million and a half dollars average american will waste during their life, waste get nothing out of, we’re all millionaires, and we just don’t even know it.

And not only that, but I prove, you know, obviously, the minimum wage is a big deal right now.

$15 an hour. And you know, there’s arguments on both sides. And remember, I grew up poor.

I started my first job at 13, making $3 and 35 cents an hour. So Trust me, I know how wages work.

I had a comment someone got on me one time said he has no idea what a living wage is.

No, you need to read my background before you open your mouth. I’m a little blunt sometimes.

So if you’re gonna say something stupid, I’ll let you know that hey, you might want to look into my background before you say something like that.

But average minimum wage is $31,400 a year if you only work 40 hours a week. Well guess what the richest 1% in the world, the line there, it’s moved a little bit. I think it’s now it’s around 34,000 because countries are developing very rapidly, their economies, but our poorest people in this country are considered the richest 1% in the world. Let that sink in.

I mean, that’s why I had to write that financial book. Because I’ve made all the same mistakes, too. Okay.

I’m not perfect at all.

But financially, I’ve realized that compared to most of Americans, I’m lightyears ahead and I didn’t ever considered myself that way. Breaking out the numbers. It was it was eye opening to see where we spend our spend and waste our money. I know I went off on a tangent.

Brian: No, that’s awesome. I mean, that’s right up the alley, I think most of the listeners here when you plan on having that financial freedom book out?

Gary: Of all goes well, six weeks. I just uploaded for the audio version to have a narrated. I don’t do my own narration, people want me to, I just don’t have the time and energy to try and do because then once you start you got to do all your books.

Brian: Yeah.

Gary: So plan to do them hopefully at some point. It’s just right now I can’t it’s too much to add on.

But yeah, it’s done. It’s been edited. It’s all done.

And we’re working on layout right now covers done. It’s very, very close in.

I just think it’s a book that had to be written because it’s not about most financial books are about how to invest right how to create wealth.

Well, I’m saying we already have the wealth. It’s just we’re pissing it away. That’s the problem.

That’s the primary problem.

You can invest if you don’t have any money to invest.

So you have to look at your personal finances first. And I think all of us without investing one dime would be very, very well off.

If we just paid attention to how we spend our money. It’s a consumer economy.

Brian: That’s sounds great.

And people always say, well, if everyone went out and saved all their money and didn’t buy all this useless crap that we tend to buy, well, the economy would implode or just I go, No, it wouldn’t it would change, it would adapt, it would turn into something healthier, something better for all of us.

Businesses would be more mom and pop again.

That’s problem today, too, is consumers is driven by very large companies who have an agenda.

You know, I worked in the health industry, I worked in the biggest health industry in the country, the Health Department of Health and Human Services.

We spend over a trillion dollars a year on health care, and we’re one of the sickest developed countries in the world, let that sink in.

We spend the most money by almost three times the next developed country, and we’re some of the sickest people in the world. So we’re going about it wrong.

And I’ve always said I say this on almost every interview I do. There’s no money in healthy people.

And that’s what you have to understand is I don’t like to rally against people.

Companies I use them too but they’re geared to make us spend money we really shouldn’t be spending making us waste our time on things that we should not be wasting our time on and people who know know what, how my feelings are social media do I use it?

I use it as a tool. I do not use it as something to waste time.

You know, I don’t even use Facebook anymore. I gave that up over a year ago.

I never used it personally that much if at all.

On the business side, I just got sick of the typical why can get this information free?

I can reach out and ask you a question for free. I go no, no, absolutely. Actually, you can’t.

I’m not going to play that game. You know, I run a business just because I run a business doesn’t mean you can just reach out and ask me random questions. Don’t troll me and call me nasty names and that kind of that game. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

When I grew up, if I want to get in touch with an author, anyone you know, I looked up to I had to write them a letter and I may get a response back. I think I wrote one author a letter when I was a kid, once I’ve never been a celebrity guy could care less.

It’s just, times have changed. It’s instant access to everyone. It’s dysfunctional voyeurism is what I call it.

Focusing on your own life instead of focusing in on others, that’s what you should be doing. And that’s kind of where all this project came from.

I mean, that’s, honestly, in a nutshell, where it came from, is kind of where society’s gone. And I’ve just said enough. Now for the noise. I don’t want to deal with it.

Brian: So you were talking about how your writing process has evolved at where it’s at right now. Do you see yourself writing more books?

Do you enjoy it with where it’s at right now?

Gary: It’s evolved in the sense that I’ve had to learn a lot.

I’m primarily self published and have been, which means you get to make a lot of mistakes that everyone gets to see. So that’s a little rough.

You know, I didn’t go to school for journalism. I had to learn this on the fly.

English is not my strong point far as writing. Like I said, I’m a math guy, I’ve got a scholarship from Bank of America for God sakes. I started off as a mechanical engineer. So trust me, yeah.

And then I end up criminal justice. I always pursuing my love.

Then being a mechanical engineer was not exactly fun.

Brian: Yeah.

Gary: But I realized that in the writing process, it’s just evolved in the sense that I’ve learned more, it’s getting better, I’m getting more more efficient.

I just hired a whole new team for this financial freedom book.

So it’s new editor, new cover guy, new layout. All this is all brand new for this book.

So I’m starting almost starting over and this is pretty common with authors especially self published as you go through these steps and this journey, because there’s no publishing company holding your hand telling you what to do. You just figure it out.

You put a book out and people go, you suck, I hate you.

Or you know, they go I love it, or it’s a split. It’s actually always a split.

You always got a question the books where it’s all five star reviews go you know, on ones that perfect. But also what I write can be considered a little, I wouldn’t say divisive, it’s more of you have to expand your mind and think a little bit wider.

You know, what I’m teaching is not the norm.

Brian: It’s challenging.

Gary: It’s challenging in the sense that it’s more, you know, a little more introspective, that you have to look inside yourself and go, okay, am I happy? The statistics say that Americans are not happy.

They’re not living the life they want to live. I was one of those people. And I finally said enough of this, I’m tired of it. I’m going to do something about it. And I did.

What I did isn’t perfect for everyone. I tell everyone I go, I just tell you my journey. I tell you what I’ve learned the lessons. You know, I spent half my life in the federal government. I’ve been all over the world. I’ve been in the military.

I have some experience.

And I didn’t just come out and have some life altering event as a 20 year old and now I’m a self help guru.

I’m pushing 50 I’ve been around and so I’m just sharing because people wanted to know, so that’s what I did. Trust me, I could make far more money doing something else. But it’s also my life purpose.

Now, I get pleasure out of educating, helping people. People helped me, you know, that’s part of the process too. I get to learn along the way.

I’m always learning. I tell people if you’re not learning or dead.

And that’s another problem we have in society today, people aren’t learning, what they’re learning or what they call learning is just basically garbage in, garbage out. Or getting caught into political tribalism or getting caught into the celebrity vortex.

I call it false prophets.

You go and follow someone you shouldn’t be following who’s giving you really bad advice, but they’re a celebrity.

Well, what are they a celebrity for? Being a celebrity?

I always use the Kardashians, a perfect example. They’re famous for being famous.

That’s not a skill.

That’s just slick marketing and tricking you. The fact that you follow him and you know, the whole thing where she’s gone and gotten people out of prison, has Kim Kardashian.

That’s a that’s great. But the skewed guy in me goes, she’s doing it for PR more than likely.

She may be doing it for a part of it for a good purpose, but also the other purposes.

She wants a camera on her. That’s what she does. That’s why she’s famous.

You know, do you really want to follow those people? Are they making you better?

They teaching you lessons that you can use?

You know, I try and tell people follow someone who you respect. Something that you want to aspire to.

All the people I follow all the people I look up to, I’m trying to better myself and learn the lessons from them. And that’s why our society was based was learning from our peers. Right, right, Brian, that’s basically how we learned everything from our elders.

They were the ones with the wisdom they had the time in, you know, they’d learn the lessons, they share them with us. And today, I’m not seeing a whole lot of that, more of, who has the fanciest marketing campaign who can blow as much smoke up your butt as they possibly can.

In a lot of it’s basically placating to you and telling you what you want to hear.

I call it the telling you….kind of reinforcing what you want as opposed to what you need.

There’s a big difference, you know, I want a Ferrari, do I need a Ferrari?

No, that’s how I look at it. And today, we’ve just kind of lost our way a little bit on that sense.

And the false prophet syndrome is a troubling one, to me.

It’s hard because there’s a lot of people peddling a lot of BS out there, and they sell a lot, you know, they’re multimillionaires, or you kind of go, oh, boy.

And that’s what’s hard about what I teach. Because there I tell people there’s no BS here. It is what it is.

Either you like it or you don’t.

And if you don’t, I’d prefer you not say nasty things and just move on your way because that’s not the way to live your life either.

But that’s another problem we have today too, as people have lashing out at other people that they just don’t agree with or they don’t quite understand. And you see it a lot specially in the on the political side.

And I don’t talk about politics in any of my books. I was there I stood next to some of the most powerful people in the world.

I’ve been in senators and congressman’s office, I’ve heard their private comment, you don’t want to know.

Brian: Yeah.

Gary: Both sides are not on your side. Let’s just put it that way.

And I see people get spun up and waste a lot of energy on that. I’ve done it, trying to get out of that.

That’s basically what I teach. I just teach you to look at life from the perspective of, how can you be better?

You know, how can you treat other people better?

How can you be a better person?

How can you make what’s around you better your family, your friends, your community?

That’s what basically what I teach what the simple life is all about.

Commercial Break: Okay, we’re going to pause the conversation right there. What you’re listening to right now is a special edition podcast. These episodes all have to do with the Mother Earth News fair in Albany, Oregon of 2019.

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BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: Fabulous.

You went through so much there, we’re going to have to have you come back sometime. We have more time unpack some of this, cuz there’s a lot of great wisdome there. And a lot there that I think business owners, in genereal face a lot.

And yes, they’re being encouraged to be more in that way of distracting people and playing to the bad side of people and honestly lying to people. And people enjoy being lied to.

And it is I mean, there’s a lot of deep stuff there that that needs to be discussed and talked about.

And it’s great that you’re delivering some of that tough love, that tough truth to people.

It’s a tough road to hoe to get attention that way because you push a lot of people away but you sure I’m certain you draw a lot of people to you because you’re saying things that other people aren’t willing to say.

Gary: Well, that’s part of it.

But I also tell people, if you want to do things right, it’s going to take you 10 times as long to succeed.

That sounds like, kind of a little bit of poop in the punch bowl. But it’s not because doing things right.

It’s not get rich quick. It’s not the fast road. It’s the right road, the right road takes time.

Because as you know, when I started, I didn’t know anything.

I’d been running a business before but as a real estate business, it was a little different. You know, I wasn’t doing a lot of marketing. I wasn’t writing books.

So it was a whole different process.

As I evolved, I had to figure this stuff out. So a supplement line, I’ve had a supplement line I teach, you know, I worked with clients.

The last thing I wanted to do is do any harm to someone.

I was always really, really careful with what I did, what I sold. And to this day, I don’t even advertise my supplement line. People are shocked.

It’s a terrible business model. But my supplement line is to the benefit of my followers. That’s it.

I have the background in it. Everything I sell, everything that’s on there is the best quality I could possibly produce. And it’s things that I’ve used personally and have used with clients that I know that work.

I do not want that stuff coming back on me. I just don’t.

I’m not here just to sell you something. And I think we get caught in that especially as entrepreneurs when people step out, and I wrote a blog post about this and it’s about turning pro being a pro.

And a lot of entrepreneurs I found this that they have their day job and they hate it right?

Just most Americans, I think it’s like 70% say they hate their job.

So they go I’m going to run my own business. And I go Okay, that’s great.

But what have you been doing in the job that you hate?

And they go I hate it. I go, are you screwing off?

Are you blowing time?

What are you doing?

And I have a lot of friends so I know. I let them talk to me I guess what do you do at work all day. I know you don’t like your job and they spend most their time wasting their day figuring out how to not work.

And I’ve seen people do this and they go out and they create their own business but they take within those bad habits.

I go, you have to look at working as a stepping stone.

If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you’re going to run your own business.

Again, it’s becoming a good follower before you become a good leader.

Well, you have to be a good employee before you can be a good boss. And they go all hand in hand together.

So I go, what you need to do is….even if you hate that job, you have to go there and act like you own that business.

You go in there, you use it as a learning experience. You pick up the tools, you’re going to need to run your own successful business.

And what they do instead of doing that, they go in, they complain, they gaff off their entire day.

There on Facebook, social media screwing around.

Guess what they do when they start their own business. They have no ability to plan their day.

They have no ability to prioritize.

They get caught in all these rabbit holes and vortexes of timewasting, and they can’t figure out why their business fails.

That’s why.

And not only that, but they weren’t. I always say you better have a year savings to live comfortably before you start your own business bare minimum.

Because as we know, to entrepreneurs, it takes three to five years before you know your businesses even going to work.

And everyone just thinks, Hey, man, I watched the Shark Tank.

You know, I watch the Donald Trump show whatever the heck that was…

Brian: The Apprentice, yeah.

Gary: Yeah, there you go.

I thought that was the dumbest show known the man. And they watch that and they think everything’s instant success.

You just fall out of bed one day sit in your bathrobe and you make millions of dollars on the internet.

If you’re a crook, probably.

But if you’re honest, not a chance in the world, not gonna happen.

So it’s about learning in and kind of taking the steps and that’s what I you know, I made a lot of mistakes, but I took it slow.

I got out you know, I worked. I did had jobs in between kind of figured out what the heck I was doing.

You know, didn’t rely purely…and that’s another thing, if you jump out and you’re relying purely on being a business owner and entrepreneur, well, if you gotta feed your family, feed yourself, you’re not quite making it.

Well, human nature makes you start cutting corners and doing things that you probably wouldn’t do otherwise, because now you got to pay the bills on your own.

So that’s where those ethical dilemmas come in.

And I tell people, you know, make sure you don’t get in that position. Because as a former criminal investigator, and I did a lot of white collar investigations, and people will be shocked.

But these were legitimate business owners who you probably are neighbors next to doing very illegitimate things.

And what I found is once you cross that line, it’s over.

There’s no going back, you’re done.

So once you start going that route, what are you going to do, you can try and take a step back or I’m going to be honest now. No, it’s too late.

And not only that, but as an entrepreneur, you have to realize that you depending what you’re doing, you’re causing harm to other people in order for you to benefit.

You’re causing harm to someone else. You’re taking something from I call, it’s just straight out stealing.

If you’re being dishonest.

Yeah, that’s how I kind of look at the the entrepreneur business model. And what I try and teach people is, you know, take it slow, learn, yeah, be patient.

Brian: That’s great advice.

But really important and not said often enough for sure.

The way that I actually found out about you was because you’re going to be a speaker at the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon. What are you looking at covering their?

Gary: August third and fourth, Saturday, Sunday in Albany, Saturday from 10am to 11am.

I’ll be doing an introduction to primal living and eating how to live a healthier and happier life.

And Saturday from five to 6pm, I’ll be talking about decluttering your life.

And Sunday 330 to 430, start your journey on the simple life live off the grid and change your health.

I talk about a multitude of subjects and I don’t like being a one trick pony.

I’m a very, I get bored very easily.

So I tend to learn many things, some not so well. But also for people who are coming to realize none of my speaking engagements are the same. I do not run off PowerPoint, PowerPoint, had good presentations in the government and sit through enough of them, it actually makes my eyes glaze over.

I can’t do PowerPoint anymore. So what I do too, is I gauge the audience and their experience level not only with what I do, but the subject matter.

And so I’ll tailor the discussion within the first five minutes to my audience.

I like to keep at least 20 minutes to questions and answers because that’s where we learn the most, I feel is from the questions awesome.

Brian: So have you been to any of these before?

Gary: Yeah, yeah, I’ve been speaking out of all year.

Brian: Oh, fabulous.

Gary: Yeah, I speak at all of them all their fairs on that. So I didn’t do one the one in Asheville, North Carolina because I had another engagement but yeah, speak at all.

Brian: Very cool.

What do you hope that people walk away with? After watching when your presentations, what do you hope they’re going to walk away with?

Gary: You know, it depends.

And that’s why gauge to to see where the audience is primarily in the journey.

Each city’s different each towns different. Each presentation I choose different.

The biggest thing I want people to get away from what I teach is that anyone can do it don’t have to be rich, you don’t have to have any special powers.

The life I live in what I teach others to live is something anyone can do also today in our society, it’s about not waiting for someone to do it for you.

You know what I mean?

We have a lot of expectations that it should just happen. Nothing works that way.

You have to go out there and do it.

And in the lifestyle I live. Trust me it is in the beginning. It is very difficult because there’s you have to basically change everything you do, how you’ve been living your life, and what we’ve been taught and what we follow in society today.

What I live is quite a bit different than that and not not not in a better way, not in a worse way. It’s different.

It’s a different type of lifestyle.

It’s quiet, I like things quiet. I’m getting older. And I don’t like all this noise.

It’s about focusing in on things you can change, not worrying about all this noise around you the things that you can’t change.

So I hope that’s what they get out of it is that anyone can do it and it’s like that financial freedom but prove a very valid point.

Anyone can be a millionaire in this country, anyone.

We still live in the freest…and we got a lot of problems, trust me, we got a lot.

But still, we live in the freest nation in the world.

And I don’t think we’re taking advantage of that instead of getting better.

You know, it seems like we’re getting a little worse. We don’t treat each other very well.

That’s another thing I like to teach too is you be nice. We don’t need to hate on each other.

It’s wasted wasted energy. We should hope that everyone can be successful.

Brian: Awesome, great message.

Now, why are you doing this? What is your highest hope for attending these? And putting on presentations like this?

Gary: It’s teaching. It’s what I do.

And not only that, but public speaking is kind of my strength. It’s what I’m barely good at. I like doing it.

This is the most fun I have the funnest part of my job is interviews in speaking to me. And guess what the two worst things most authors find in their job speaking and doing interviews.

So I’m the opposite.

And not that I don’t like the writing. I actually do like writing. I like the process and and I do enjoy it. Otherwise I wouldn’t do it.

And that’s something people need to learn about me too.

I don’t do things because I have to. I do things because I want to know, does that mean there’s things in there that I don’t like you know, so much that no, I still do them because I got to get them done.

It’s part of the deal. It’s the good, the bad comes with the good here and there. B

But what I choose to do is what I want do.

Brian: Yeah, that that really ties in with your whole philosophy.

I mean, you’re talking about personal freedom.

You’re talking about life simplification, it’s really designing your own lifestyle, right. And sticking to that.

Gary: Absolutely. And that’s the thing too, is that’s why I always emphasize it, hey, just don’t mimic what I do.

It’s your journey. Your journey is specific to you.

I can only give you the pieces that I share.

You take what you want, put it together into into your lifestyle.

Living off the grid is a wide, wide swatch of different types of lifestyles. You talked to someone who lives off the grid and you get a whole group of us together. Everyone does it differently. Everyone.

There’s no template to living off the grid. It’s it’s different philosophies.

It’s different lifestyles, different family situations.

It varies across the board. It’s basically about freedom.

And that’s why I tell people what I teach is your own personal freedom. And understanding that what’s wrong with pursuing the lifestyle you want long as it doesn’t cause any negative impact on anyone else.

That’s how I look at it.

If I’m not causing any harm to anyone who cares, why get wrapped around the axle?

You know, it’s like a good example it this is not do not take this the wrong way, gay marriage, right?

People have very strong beliefs in it and and I just go does it affect you?

And what’s the answer you get?

Well, no.

Then why do you care?

Why do you care?

Why are you getting all spun up on this?

And I just use that example people. Please don’t take that as any religious belief or anything like that.

It’s just a pure example of where people just gets on up on something. And that’s what I teach to is live your life.

Don’t worry about everyone else’s, you know, that’s going to get you nowhere. I’ve done it too, again, I’ve learned lessons from this too.

You know, authors use this as we always talk about compared it is kind of it when you compare yourself against other authors, right?

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve compare yourself against other entrepreneurs.

And what it does is it gets you?

Very depressed very quickly.

Because you’re looking at someone who’s doing better than you, right?

You know, are they doing better than me?

Man, their books suck, or, you know, that guy doesn’t auto run a business, what’s going on?

You gotta, yeah, that’ll take you down quick focus on what you can do, how you can improve your life, how you can improve your business.

That’s basically in a nutshell of everything I teach is focus on the things you can focus on. all that other stuff, just a waste of time.

Brian: Great.

We have a lot of listeners that span all the way from people interested in starting a business all the way to seasoned business owners and executives. Do you think it’d be worthwhile for them to do something similar to write books to speak events like the Mother Earth News Fair, would you encourage them?

Gary: Absolutely.

Here’s my attitude. If you’re passionate about something, and there’s something you want to do, do it.

This is your life, and as far as we know, this is it.

We don’t know what’s on the other side.

Again, don’t take that as a religion. I just don’t know.

No one’s come back and told me, you know, once we’re done, we’re done.

And I hope there’s something, I really do. I hope there’s another something on the other side, I really do.

But I live life as a sense of, I don’t know.

So this is the only thing I’ve got that there’s not going to be any reincarnation. I’m not going to know, I don’t know, I’m going to live this life fullest.

And that’s what you should do anyway, even if there was something we knew was on there.

So you still should live it to your fullest.

So sure, but here’s the thing if you do not like public speaking, and you would rather not do it, and it makes you very uncomfortable. Maybe that’s not your thing.

That probably means though that something, you have a strengthen another area.

And I’m not saying don’t focus on weaknesses.

Now, if you have a business model where public speaking is an integral part of it, well, you better get good at it and you better figure it out.

But I never tell people don’t force yourself to do something that you absolutely hate and don’t enjoy.

It’s like physical fitness.

The easiest way to stay physically fit is to do things you enjoy.

That doesn’t mean sitting on the couch twiddling your thumbs picking lint out your belly button eating donuts.

What it means is getting out and if you like swimming, there’s your exercise, go swim.

I like riding bikes, I ride bikes.

That’s the stuff I like to do. I like going hiking. It’s the same thing.

If you’re going to stick with it and do it well do something you enjoy you know don’t force yourself do something.

Yeah, absolutely attest. So yeah, absolutely.

The Mother Earth News Fairs, the speaking, if you’re a speaker, it’s very diverse group of people there and I love it.

The more diverse my audience though. I just enjoy thoroughly, because that’s pretty killer.

Brian: Yeah. Fabulous. So do you have any….you’re attending all of these fairs?

Do you have any logistical tips, especially for someone with a background and traveling and so forth?

Gary: Yeah. Luckily, I’ve traveled a lot in my life for the government.

But it’s been a while. I haven’t done a lot of travel like this in a while.

But I still have my systems flights are tougher today.

It’s when you know, when I was in the government, I could get direct flights coast to coast easy, they’re hard now. And if they exist, they’re pretty expensive.

You know, they’re not cheap.

What I do is I just prepare my day, I have to leave here usually by three in the morning, to get to the airport and be able to get to my destination the day before, because then I speak the day after.

I just plan my workday around a little bit, just fill in that time with something productive. I’ll sleep for the first couple hours on the plane. And then after that, I have my laptop with me. I right. I get work done.

And that’s what I would do. Make sure you’re productive.

Travel, eat healthy, don’t go off the rails taught a lot of that traveling eating.

I always get asked that question, well, when you travel, how do you stay healthy and I go, same way you do at home, you don’t eat the junk, stay away from the garbage.

But obviously, it’s not perfect with that try and I tell people work out as soon as you hit.

That’s one of my things too is I get straight to the hotel and I go, either, you know, if they don’t have a gym, try and see if there’s anything around.

If not just go for a long walk and just walk around there.

Check it out, spend an hour so walking around, get some exercise, get the blood flowing.

And that’s what I recommend to you know, try and stay in a in a healthy routine because people who travel a lot, it’s very easy to get stuck in that travel itis as well.

Where do you just say, ahh screw it? When you eat crap. I’m not going to exercise.

I’ll do it when I get home.

Don’t do that. It makes it a lot easier and actually keeps you sharper, as well.

Brian: Fabulous. So you’re going to be at the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany as well as the ones following that.

Gary: I went home right here. Oh, glad that Topeka, Kansas October 19 20th oh and Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, September 13 and 15th. Those are the last two, after Albany.

Brian: That’s great.

How else can listeners find out more about you and your products and so forth?

Gary: Just go to my website, thesimplelifenow.com.

Don’t go to the simple life you’ll probably end up at Nicole Richie in Paris Hilton’s website.

I forgot that when I came up with the name but yeah, thesimplelifenow.com.

I sell all my books on my website.

My supplement line my blog has a ton of information. I’m sold worldwide amazon books are pretty much everywhere digital just started did my first audio book, the guide to RV living is out.

It just came out maybe a week or two ago and audio so I’m starting to do those.

Like I said earlier, the next book will be audio as well. So yeah, you can always find me my websites the easiest. Don’t look for me on Facebook.

Brian: Well, hey, Gary, this was a great conversation. I can’t wait to have you back. Dig more deeper into some of your concepts there. Thanks for coming. Thanks for being on the off the grid biz podcast.

Gary: Oh, thanks for having me on, Brian. I really enjoyed it.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Gary Collins, wow!

He’s just full of ideas and concepts. So, so interesting.

Can’t wait to have him back on the show. Like so many others. He’s got just this larger than life character.

He’s a renaissance man. He’s got kind of that no BS attitude that’s very colorful, very earthy.

I don’t mean that in a degrading way at all. I mean, I think it’s really, really cool.

And I think it endorse him to his audience. I love how he says his opinions on everything from celebrities, and discussing people marketing to what you want versus what you need.

I mean, these are concepts that aren’t talked about often enough.

And I think they need to be brought out there. I think we need to dig into some of these ideas.

There just wasn’t enough time to get into it with him.

But I can’t wait to be able to talk to him in the future.

And I love his concept of don’t do what I’m doing. Don’t just follow me and do what I’m doing, go and develop your own lifestyle, and develop the program that you want out of your life and make it happen. That’s inspiring. There’s a whole bunch of points I want to point out here.

One of them is how he creates his content and his energy behind his content.

Just his writing alone. He how he takes the questions from people to be able to create the content that becomes the books in the future and that he is mechanical engineer, I think he said, and he said, I’m not a writer.

I’m not an English major, but you go on amazon.com. He’s got nine different books up there, let alone the ones that he says he’s getting ready to publish.

That shows you you don’t have to be the greatest writer in the world. You don’t have to have an English degree.

It’s all about putting your concepts out there, putting your ideas out there, putting your personality out there, and seeing what people relate to and what they don’t.

I love how he says, All I do is I just tell you my journey.

I’m not saying you have to do it my way. This is just me.

I’m just saying what I’ve done up until now.

That’s very refreshing to because I think a lot of us when we sit down to create content, we sit down to write, or put our ideas out there. We think that we have to be something special, that we have to be something far and beyond.

All you gotta do is just tell people what you’ve done, and let them take it or leave it for themselves. He gets pleasure out of educating out of helping people and that speaking, interviews and writing, those are the things that energize him, he enjoys that and the things he wants to do.

There’s always things that you don’t want to do that you have to do.

But he’s been able to create a life that allows him to also do those things that he loves to do. It’s important to have that in your business. Don’t forget that.

Next I like his mindset hacks is what I call it.

The things that help keep him focused. His whole idea is focus on the things that you can change. Focus on just what you need to focus on. Oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, we let these things escape us, because we get distracted easily, but it’s important to keep these things in mind. Look at how he uses an in terms of social media, he uses it for business, he doesn’t waste time with it.

He doesn’t use it as a time suck in his life. You know, and I think a lot of us can sometimes get sucked into social media instead of using it for what it is and not letting it waste our time.

Also how he says, Be nice hate is wasted energy. It’s a good practical way of looking at the whole idea of getting caught up in politics and all the things of the world.

If you’re hating on something, if you’re getting obsessed about something, it’s wasted energy, just practically it pulls you away from the things that are useful from the ways that you could be helping people through your business.

Finally, I like how he says he doesn’t allow any type of instant access to himself. And he makes reference to the idea that free information is creating kind of entitlement and people out there that people think that they should have all the information for free because so much of it is free out there.

It’s important to stand up to that to put a price on the information that you’re providing out there regardless of whether that’s your main product or not.

One of the things that we promote here constantly and the things that you’ll hear, especially on these interviews regarding the Mother Earth News Fair, is how information has a value. Put a good price on the information that you’re providing and people will respect it more.

You’re going to hear more from an interview later from Christopher and Kirsten Shockey.

Christopher mentions the same concept of about free information. Overall awesome conversation.

I’m making a lot of great friends that I can’t wait to meet in person over at the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany Oregon.

Outro: Join us again on the next Off The Grid Biz Podcast brought to you by the team at BrianJPombo.com, helping successful but overworked entrepreneurs, transform their companies into dream assets.

That’s BrianJPombo.com.

If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast, offthegridbiz.com/contact. Those who appear on the show do not necessarily endorse my beliefs, suggestions, or advice or any of the services provided by our sponsor.

Our theme music is Cold Sun by Dell. Our executive producer and head researcher is Sean E Douglas.

I’m Brian Pombo and until next time, I wish you peace, freedom, and success.