Jesse Frost: The Living Soil Handbook | The No-Till Market Garden Podcast

Posted on September 22, 2021September 22, 2021 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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Take both feet and jump right in!

It’s clear Jesse Frost is well informed on gardening and things he’s passionate about. But for he and his wife Hannah Crabtree to take that passion and turn it into not only a way of life but a way of making a living is truly impressive.

Join us for some fabulous insight, from getting a start in farming, to what it takes to get your book published.

Oh, and did we mention Jesse’s terrific No-Till Market Garden Podcast and the quality information you can get from listening…all for free!

Check out the links below for more info on Jesse and Hannah’s Rough Draft Farmstead, to No-Till Growers Podcasts and Jesse’s new book published with Chelsea Green Publishing called, The Living Soil Handbook.

The Living Soil Handbook – https://www.notillgrowers.com/livingsoilhandbook/d9z5gkf1bbnhu0w5xxb3trngiqhwgo

No-Till Growers Podcasts – https://www.notillgrowers.com/home

Podcast on Youtube Also – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhu5JoRWPgEGDoUFfQHTPQ

Rough Draft Farmstead – https://roughdraftfarmstead.com/

Show Notes

From Wine to Farming: My Start in No-Till Farming with Bugtussle Farm to Starting Rough Draft Farmstead
Type of Vegetables We Grow at Rough Draft Farmstead
How We Found Our First Customers
Why Being Certified Organic Was A Big Move For Us
Keeping No-Till Growers Podcast Accessible For All
New Book: Living Soil Handbook with Chelsea Green Publishing
Positive Response Since The Books Been Launched
How We Started The No-Till Market Garden Podcast
How To Find No-Till Growers Podcast
Big Following on YouTube
Why We Choose the keyword “No-Till”
What I Like Best About Farming & Podcasting
Being Open to New Ideas In Farming & Media
Happy Life: Importance of Family and Relationships
My Advice to Farmers

Transcription

Brian: How did you start your podcast?

Jesse: Originally, I started on my cell phone with a call Recorder an app that journalists will be familiar with. And my audio wasn’t great.

I recorded it in our cooler for our vegetables, like our walking cooler. And also we had two young kids and it was the only place I could go to do it. And it kind of evolved from there.

You know, we’re going into our fourth season this fall, each season has gotten a little better and gotten a little bit better at interviews and more comfortable.

But the beauty of podcasting, like, I think that when you’re a curious person, it really fills that need for you to just dive into things.

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: Jesse Frost lives in central Kentucky, where he runs Rough Draft Farmstead with his wife Hannah Crabtree. Frost is also the host of the No-Till Market Garden Podcast and the author of, The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Growers Guide to Ecological Market Gardening.

Jesse frost, welcome to The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Jesse: Well, thank you so much for having me, Brian. I’m excited to be here.

Brian: This is real fun. So tell us a little bit about what it is that you do?

Jesse: Well, I do a lot of different things. But my primary vocation is farming.

As you said, a small-scale farm in central Kentucky with my wife, Hannah. We are three-quarters of an acre no-till vegetable production. And that is my full-time gig.

That’s what we do for a living.

But I also do a number of other things we run No-Till Growers with my partner Jackson Rolett, he co-founded it with me, we think of it as sort of an aggregate of information where we are trying to dig up as much growing information about no-till market gardening that exists and that we can sort of create ourselves and try and seek out.

We’ve created several different offshoot podcasts from you know, I host the No-Till Market Garden podcast, as you said, but we also have Collaborative Farming Podcast that’s hosted by Jackson.

We also have Winter Growers Podcast, that’s hosted by Clara Coleman, daughter of Eliot Coleman.

Jennie Love does the No-Till Flowers Podcast.

And then we do a weekly live show with Josh Satin, who some people may be familiar with his work through YouTube, but he posts an every other week live show on our YouTube channel.

So we do a lot of stuff. It’s a lot about just getting that information out there. We try and keep it free and we are kind of a different business model in that way.

But we try and make sure that anybody can access our information.

And yeah, it’s a number of different things that we do. But they’re all very exciting and very fun for me.

Brian: How did you end up at this point, where did this all start?

Jesse: So it all kind of started with my interest in farming and agriculture, which started probably about 12 or 13 years ago, when I was actually working in wine in New York City.

I worked in wine retail, and we specialized in really small scale really like unique wines, very niche stuff like it was kind of at the beginning. At that point, it was kind of in the middle of the natural wine craze. And I really loved those wines.

I really loved this really funky kind of, you know, sometimes effervescent, sometimes really cloudy wines that just tasted so vibrant and so alive to me.

I got obsessed with the people that made them and I kind of started studying viticulture, and I went in would visit winemakers in Europe and really enjoyed seeing their love of the land.

For a brief moment I kind of thought about being a winemaker. But I kind of knew just deep down that wasn’t really my thing. I knew that I would not really be that all that interested in, you know, making just one product.

So I moved that idea to just doing vegetable farming because I love vegetables I love you know cooking that’s kind of also in my background.

And so I moved from New York City back to my home state of Kentucky and found an apprenticeship here.

That’s where that started.

So the apprenticeship was a biodynamic farm called, Bugtussle Farm in southern Kentucky. I learned everything there like just all the different techniques for kind of minimal tillage and, you know, really responsible tillage with cover crops and those sorts of things.

We did rotational grazing, we did herbs, we did livestock, all sorts of different livestock. We did chickens and turkeys and everything.

So that was a really great immersion into agriculture because I didn’t have much of a background. I didn’t have any of a background in it. My family is not agricultural, at least not in any recent history.

So, from that I met my wife there, she was the other intern in my second year, Hannah, she and I, you know, decided after our first year interning together, or her first year, my second, that we would start a farm.

So we started a farm. And one of the things that we knew we wanted kind of from the beginning was to reduce our tillage and sort of figure out different techniques for how to manage, you know, crops without tillage to reduce our cultivation needs, and to increase our water holding capacity and have better performance with the crops, like all of the things that no-till purports to do.

So we started kind of investigating these ideas, and they’re just was not a lot of information out there about it. That was one thing that we really discovered was that there’s just this complete lack of information about the technical side of managing a small scale farm, you know, high production, small scale vegetable farm without tillage was like, there was just not much out there.

That’s where No-Till Growers kind of came into it is that I had this realization that like, I wasn’t gonna be able to find the information I needed, I was gonna kind of have to dig it up.

If I was going to do that, I was just going to call people and have conversations with people who I knew were doing very interesting things in the no-tillage world. Try and, you know, record those conversations and share them as a podcast.

So that’s where that was sort of born out of.

And then No-Till Growers kind of grew from that.

Brian: Well, that’s fabulous.

So what type of vegetables do you grow on your farm?

Jesse: We do mixed production, we focus a lot on a handful of crops, garlic, cherry, tomatoes, lettuce, green onions, beets, carrots, those are kind of our main products.

But we do you know, sweet potatoes, we do a little bit of, we always grow some things that we love for ourselves and for our family. So we’ll always grow a little bit of sweet corn, will always grow sweet potatoes, winter squashes, we do a big mix of stuff.

But really, what pays the bills is those first crops, those other crops are both sustenance, but also, you know, crops that we enjoy growing and gives us some good biodiversity in our soil and in our crop rotations.

And it’s fun to have a diversity of crops like it’s, you know, we don’t want to just be a lettuce farm, because that’s really easy. It’s easy for us to sell a lot of lettuce, it’s easier for us to grow a lot of lettuce.

But we want that diversity. It’s good for the soil, and it’s good just for ourselves and for our family.

Brian: Absolutely.

How did you find your first initial customers after, so you got your farm going, you started producing, where’d you find your first customers?

Jesse: So the first model, I think it’s important to start out there, the first model we used was the CSA, you know, for the listeners who most are probably familiar, but the community-supported agriculture, just being that subscription to farm subscriptions.

And so essentially, that’s where we started.

We started a lot with family and friends, which I think is pretty, you know, for small scale, farmers getting off on their own, especially who are doing in your home, they end up a lot of times with family and friends is their kind of for supporters.

That was great because they’re much more forgiving when you make mistakes. And you know, you’re going to, especially in your first years, and CSA is really complicated, like, it’s a very complicated style of growing, and marketing, it can be really great.

But you know, you need to, there’s a lot of different things to keep in mind for mitigating your risk. And the stress because there’s nothing I just I can I still feel in my stomach, when I think about what it feels like knowing that you’re coming up on a week or two or three weeks, where you just don’t have a lot in a row, like the gardens not bouncing back, you know, you’ve had a drought or you’ve had flooding or whatever it is.

You know that things are not going to be where you need them to be on time and that is so stressful. So mitigating that like is a really big part of it.

But yeah, in terms of our customers, that’s where we started, then we kind of moved on from that to we started sort of hitting the streets and just like passed out flyers, and did a lot of at the time we were doing, you know, we had like an Instagram account. I think we started that pretty early on and so that was helpful to get the word out.

This is probably 2012 that we really started reaching out beyond our or maybe 2013.

And when we started kind of reaching out beyond our just like friends groups.

Yeah, we just kind of would go to farmers markets and set up like if we had to produce early on in the spring or maybe late in the fall before the next year, we’d go and set up and just like do CSA fairs as well, like that’s the thing, where you go and try and meet customers.

So we would do as much as we could to just get the word out and meet people. And for the most part, we were able to hit our budget to an extent.

The difficulty for us really, in the beginning years, wasn’t so much getting the customers it was getting consistent crop production. But I don’t want to sort of just stumble by that because it can be really hard for some people, depending on where you live.

Rural areas tend to be really hard to get customers to buy, you know, especially for us like now we’re certified organic. We’ve always grown organically.

I think it can be really tough to get customers in rural areas, you know, to spend a little bit extra, although in some ways it’s getting easier. Some people are more aware of what they’re eating increasingly and wanting to know where their food comes from, but that, you know, can be a challenge.

Brian: Absolutely. Well, that makes sense.

So are you basically getting customers from the same places that you’ve already mentioned? Where’s the top place that people are finding you now?

Jesse: So I should describe it.

Okay, so basically, we went from the CSA model to a more farmer’s market-based model. Excluding last year, last year, we were going to stop the CSA, but with COVID, when that came into the picture, that obviously, we just restarted our CSA, and that was all of our customers for previous years, word of mouth is really effective with that, you know, when and if we wanted to grow our CSA.

We often just asked our current CSA members if they would spread the word and that was very helpful.

We stopped doing the kind of hitting the streets and asking everybody and it got it can be hard, though it can be hard to fill those CSA is that you once you have your CSA goal, and you really want to deliver on it.

But what happened now, like what’s happened since then, and why we kind of were at least going into 2020, expecting to drop our CSA and why we were able to drop it this year, in 2021, is that we, you know, essentially decided that the farmers market fills that need for us and we can use it in a diversity of ways.

In terms of finding customers, the biggest thing that we did was certified organic, nothing has gotten us an instant customer base, nearly as quickly as certified organic. Essentially, you know, you go to farmer’s markets, and I don’t know how common this is out in the west, but it’s certainly common here where you see growers who care and who, grow good food and don’t spray or don’t spray very often, or whatever it is.

But they don’t have any proof of that like there’s nothing about they can, they can write stuff on their signs and whatever. But if they that symbol, that certified organic symbol for all of its faults is a really effective marketing tool.

As soon as you put that certified organic sign up on your table, customers will come to your booth who maybe would have walked by before because they didn’t know who you were, it just eliminates that conversation of, do you spray what kind of you know because that’s a really awkward thing to put on the customer to ask.

And it’s often they just want to know that you’re taking care of your food and growing it in the right ways and not treating it with chemicals.

They’re not growing it with, you know, chemical fertilizers and all the things that they’re trying to avoid in their diets. So I think that putting that certified organic sign behind you really just answers those questions, and it takes all that stress off of them.

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

So you have the farm, you have this business that was growing, and then you started No-Till Growers. And that’s become a secondary community almost that you’ve had set up.

And you said that you attempt to offer as much available for free as possible. Why don’t you tell us a little more about that model and how you came about that?

Jesse: Yeah, it’s a very unique model.

It’s sort of something that we’re still trying to figure out exactly how it works. But it requires a diversity of revenue streams, to have a lot of creativity and a lot of sacrifices, in the beginning, to get it going.

But essentially, the idea is, is it’s somewhat of a nonprofit that it’s actually a for-profit that operates somewhat like a non-profit recently got a grant from Southern SARE.

We also do donations not only just general donations from the public, but we do a Patreon account, our Patreon account is the lifeblood of our operation.

It’s five or 600 people there right now who donate every month, and then $2 increments, $5 increments, we have a few that in that $10, $15, $20 range, but most the majority of them are that to $2 to $10. And that is huge.

I mean that that’s an enormous amount of income for us.

And then other things that we’ve done, we do fundraisers, like we’ll print hats, and sell those we do those you know, once a year we’ll do a big printing and sell those and that’s a revenue stream for us.

I’ve recently published, The Living Soil Handbook and we’ve been selling that so that’s published by a publisher that’s through Chelsea Green, but we’ve been you know in the author anytime you publish a book you have the option of selling it through your site and we chose to sell my book through No-Till Growers as a revenue stream for No-Till Growers.

So I still get a kickback royalty from the publisher but the majority of the profits it’s almost like a bookstore go to No-Till Growers, so that’s encouraged quite a few people to order it from No-Till Growers, instead of maybe Amazon. Where in a situation like No-Till Growers, you know, that that money is going towards building more content.

And so when I said giving it all away for free, we don’t keep anything behind a paywall.

I mean, the book is the closest thing to a paywall that we really have. We have had the Patreon account but we’re not putting up special information there.

People who are Patreon members know that they know that they’re not necessarily getting special treatment. They’re supporting us by giving it away for free so that anybody can access it.

Because there’s a lot of inaccessibility in terms of, you know, starting a farm is expensive in the early years, you don’t have hundreds of dollars to pour into your education or 1,000s of dollars. Sometimes depending on the resources, it can be very expensive.

So we try and just make it extremely accessible. Because we feel like that’s the fastest the most rapid way to get the information out. That’s the most rapid way to get it to the most amount of to disseminate it to the most amount of people and to just grow the movement faster and create healthier food and healthier environment and all the things that matter to us.

Brian: Oh, that’s great.

Tell me a little more about the book, who’s idea was it to write the book, how did you go about doing it? Tell me a little bit about that process?

Jesse: Yeah, I’ve been a writer for a long time and it’s something I’ve been passionate about. I’ve really spent a lot of time as a writer, studying the book industry, you kind of have to understand the publishing industry a little bit to be able to get your foot in the door to get somebody to want to publish you.

So I started a long time ago, assuming this was years and years and years ago that I started studying this stuff and looking at agents and all those things.

But as I got into agriculture, as you niche down, it gets a little easier in some ways.

So as I got agriculture and later on, like when I decided to write the book, because I felt like there was a need for it and use that I could feel, and I can talk about that in a second.

But basically, we go to the publishers who publish in your genre, and in our case, it would be agriculture. And there are several really good ones, and you kind of go through and you pick, the one that you feel like is most fits your personality or fits your goals the most.

And then you follow their guidelines case of Chelsea Green, I had to submit a query letter. Query letters are a very specific thing, when I talked about studying the industry, you kind of have to study the query letter, it’s very, it’s like the most important thing to get your foot in the door.

It’s the elevator pitch of writing. And so you really have to study that and figure out exactly how to do it, well have it edited in practice, right, a bunch of them every idea, you have just write it out like a query letter.

Once you get their interest, once you pique their interest there, if they want to, if they want to publish what you’re writing, then they asked for a proposal.

The proposal includes a bunch of information that they request specifically. And then beyond that, they asked for two chapters. So two already written chapters.

Now, if you’re submitting fiction, for instance, it’s going to go totally different because they want a manuscript. But in the case of nonfiction, they actually want some control over the structure.

So submitting two chapters, you could submit a full manuscript if you had one, I suppose. But, you know, fully finished all the chapters, everything, but if you but generally, you’re going to submit you know, a partial, so two chapters minimum, if you have three, that’s great, too.

But you want to give two really nice chapters, plus all the other information that they request, the bio and, you know, possible sales outlets, and all the various things that they are going to request.

Because not only do they have to like the idea, but they have to know what’s marketable. So you go through that and that’s a big process.

Then you start sitting down with the editor, you get an editor, you get assigned an editor, you start sitting down with that person. And in my case, it was for and Marshall Bradley, she’s amazing.

She’s kind of a legend in the agricultural world. She was amazing. And she and I kind of designed the outline together, we came up with something that I was really excited about.

And we have hammered that out for I guess, it took about nine months of active writing, but it was with all the work that I was doing through No-Till Market Garden Podcast and stuff several years in the making, like just me, kind of thinking about how I wanted to do this book.

A lot of farming books are written from the perspective of a single farm. And I wanted something that was more of a choose your own adventure.

I say that I use that term loosely because choose your own adventure is very specific.

But the idea being that I wanted to say not this is how things happen on my farm. And this is how you know you can do it, I want to show this is how soil works. And this is how you can properly address its needs, no matter where you are.

So that was kind of the idea behind the book is that sort of I wanted it to not context-specific. I didn’t we have a lot of books with and I love them dearly from the north, for instance, from Maine through Canada. And those are great, but those aren’t super helpful always to me down here in Kentucky.

So I wanted something that would be helpful to anybody anywhere. So that’s what I was kind of striving for. And I think maybe that’s that niche that I chose that direction that I chose help to get it published helped get beat the publisher’s interest.

It also, I mean, part of that too, if you’re interested, I’m talking about this in a way for somebody who may be interested in writing a book that you know, you do want to spend a good amount of effort while you’re getting your idea together.

While you’re practicing your query letters and all of those things, you want to spend a good amount of time getting a base from which to work because the publisher needs to know that they can sell the book they need to know that people know who you are.

It is not as big of a deal in agriculture because a lot of the best minds in agriculture don’t have big social media followings or anything like that. But those aren’t bad. I mean, those will help.

Those are little things that may, you know, if you have a good social media following in our case, obviously the No-Till Market Garden Podcast, and our YouTube channel and all the things certainly helped for getting my foot in the door.

But you want those things you want to think about.

Like how can you grow your audience, it’s also good practice, use it, you know, if you’re a writer, right, you got to write all the time. You have to be able to show them that you can finish a book that’s important to a lot of people who want to write a book, but don’t spend a lot of time writing.

I’ve written every day for 17, 18 years. And that’s what I do. I get up every morning and I do it. And I’ve done it for years, and years and years.

That’s not a requisite like lots of people can just kind of start to slowly pick it up and do a decent job. But you’re gonna have to show that you can produce a book at the end of the day.

Brian: Absolutely. After you’ve gotten the book published, what effects have you seen come off of it for No-Till Growers?

For everything else that you’re doing, what are the benefits to having a book like this out there?

Jesse: Yeah, that’s a good question. I like these questions, Brian, this is fun talking about the specifics of the book writing.

So it’s only been out since July 20. So not that long that I think the effects that I’ve seen so far. So we’re recording this on August 9. And the effects that I’ve seen so far.

One, it’s sold really well, which is great. I mean, it shows that the support for what we’re doing is really big. And I think that people have really responded to like, the business model that I described earlier.

It’s genuine, it’s not us, you know, we’re farmers that we want that information, we want to share this information for free because we are seeking it out ourselves. It’s important to us, it affects our business.

I hope that is going to help people who don’t necessarily listen to podcasts or watch YouTube videos, or I think, for us having a diversity of mediums of media, for people who may be different kinds of learners have responded to things differently, or gravitate more towards one kind of medium than another.

This way, they have another option that isn’t just the podcast, because not everybody can listen to podcasts.

I know for one, moms have a hard time with podcasts a lot of times because they are taking care of their children and they’re busy and but maybe at the end of the day, they can sit down even while they’re nursing a baby and read a book. And I know that just from my wife’s experiences.

So maybe that’s an option for somebody like that.

Or somebody who yeah, doesn’t watch YouTube videos, there’s a lot of accessibility issues to with, you know, hearing impaired and those sorts of things who may not be able to listen to podcasts.

So I don’t know. I mean, it was just another option. I hope that it’s able to help people what the response has been and how it’s changed things so far as is maybe too early to say. But it’ll probably I mean, certainly, I will get to present at conferences that I maybe didn’t get to before because of a book.

And this is just speaking in generalities that anybody that produces a book can put the word author behind their name so they can have a wider reach.

Maybe be able to present to different audiences in different places and travel a little bit more if that’s what they’re interested in. That can be great depending on what your field is, and what kind of book you’re writing, and the kind of audiences that you want to reach.

But it’ll also give you an opportunity maybe to yeah, to travel and be able to meet people in person who’d be really interested in what you’re doing.

Brian: That’s really great.

It’s a lot of good background on both the process of getting things ready for the publisher and what a book can do for you. I really appreciate that.

On the same end, I’d like to ask you, how did you start your podcast originally?

Jesse: So I started my podcast, I read some blogs about how to how to do a podcast and they were not it turns out very informative. I didn’t choose wisely.

But I started on my cell phone with a call recorder and app that journalists will be familiar with. And it was not great. It dropped a few calls but I didn’t lose any the first year but it was the audio wasn’t great.

I recorded it in our cooler for our vegetables like our walking cooler, because the sound and also we have two young kids and it was the only place I could go to do it.

So it started really small and rough and rustic and it kind of evolved from there.

Each season, we’re going into our fourth season this fall, and each season has gotten a little better. I’ve gotten a little bit better at interviews and more comfortable.

But the beauty of podcasting like I think that when you’re a curious person, it really fills that need for you to just dive into things because I did journalism for a while, and I really liked journalism, I’ve always liked reading journalism.

And one of the things I loved is, I did a little bit of science journalism. And one of the things I really enjoyed was calling people who’ve spent their entire lives work like 40 years, just working on the one question you have to for like one sentence to be correct.

You know what I mean?

Like you get in, you meet people who’ve just dedicated their lives to like one small portion of what you need answered and it’s really amazing. Like, you just meet these incredible people, they’re so passionate.

They don’t all love talking to journalists, but it’s the ones that are nerdy and passionate and love spreading and sharing their information and are good at science communication, I had so much fun, that is what I wanted to bring in.

That’s what I got excited about when I was calling farmers because it was filled that sort of that love I had of talking to people who were just really into what they do. And it was fully fulfilled.

In the beginning, it was hard to figure out all the technical details, because I’m not particularly savvy when it comes to audio equipment and audio engineering or anything like that. I was definitely very, very low fi.

But it didn’t matter because the content was so good.

Like, the quality of the content is always going to trump… not always, but almost always trump the quality of the sound.

And so, for me, that was what I focused on. I was like, I’m not there yet. I’m not good at the sound part but I’m good at the content quality. So I focused on that.

Because it’s so niche and because it was such an interest in it. I was a little bit surprised, I thought nobody would listen to the podcast, but yeah, since it was such an interest in it, that it resonated. And that was exciting for me.

That kept me going and interviewing more people and improving my audio skills.

And you know, I think it’s okay to start in a rough spot, and not without the best equipment and not exactly know what you’re doing. And kind of you got to figure it, you got to start somewhere.

I think it’s good now, like in retrospect, now since I’ve been doing it, and since podcasting has become more popular, there’s so much more information out there to dig into. So that’s good.

I mean, that’s super, super helpful for, you know, anybody that’s interested, they can watch a lot more videos and read a lot more articles than I could at the time.

Commercial: Okay, let’s take a break from that conversation. I wanted to bring up a question for you, during these crazy times, do you feel like your business is indestructible? Most people don’t?

And if not, the real question is why?

And what can you do to make it as indestructible as possible?

Well, that’s the basis of my new book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

Let me talk about what we discussed in the third chapter.

The third way for you to Amazon proof your business, which is be different.

In the third chapter, I go into, really, how do you put yourself out there and be seen as unique, where you really don’t even have competition. And there’s ways of doing this. In fact, I talk about two specific books that you should go out and get.

And these are difficult books to read.

These are fun books, books that will inspire you and give you creative juices necessary to be able to really stand out and be different, you don’t have to be wacky, you don’t have to be outrageous, but you do have to appear different. And if you can appear different from everyone else out there, not only will you not have the competition of amazon.com, you won’t have any competition.

But I also have eight other ways to Amazon proof your business, basically the idea of making it competition proof to even someone as big as Amazon.com.

So if you’d like to get your hands on a free copy of my book, go to AmazonProofBook.com sign up and you will get a free copy and get the chance to purchase a physical copy of it for a special price. And now let’s get back to our show.

And now let’s get back to our show.

Brian: How are most people finding No-Till Growers, is it via the podcast or YouTube or what?

Jesse: Ah, that’s a good question. I mean, we have the biggest following it’s probably on YouTube at about I think we’re just under 60,000 subscribers as we record this.

Instagram has been helpful.

Honestly like, so the name of the book is, The Living Soil Handbook. We almost went with living soil growers as the name of our website. But the reason that we didn’t, the reason that we stuck with the word No-Till is controversial, and it’s kind of confusing as it can be, is because it’s a great keyword.

So a lot of people find us because we chose that word. And we knew that we did it intentionally. We knew that it would come with some amount of pushback because not a lot of people don’t like that term, it rubs people the wrong way sometimes.

A lot of work to try and quell the sort of dogma that can be associated with No-Tillage.

The people who think it’s all or nothing or that any sort of disturbance is bad disturbance and any of those things we’ve or that, you know, you just stop tilling. And that’s the only way to do it like you there’s no transition period, you just have to put down the cloud and move on.

And we’ve tried to sort of temper that idea, that dogma.

So I think that’s helped in the eyes of people who’ve been reluctant to embrace No-Till, as in, we’ve done that intentionally as well to kind of invite them into the fold and invite them to learn into the information that they weren’t gleaning from the world, and that they’re welcome to.

And it also No-Till is often associated with like big farms, like people in grain country think of is No-Till is, is a heavy dose of glyphosate to kill, you know, grass or cover crops and then planted into that, and it’s not necessarily more ecological.

So yeah, I mean, we did have a little bit of an upward battle but that that wording was really important.

Brian: That’s a really great point you make. And it’s one of those that most people don’t spend the time to talk about how the titles of their books or podcasts or the things that they have out there, how their brand name is attracting attention, and just the fact that you understand the nuances of that, I think that’s really important. Really good stuff.

I got another question for you.

What do you like best, what would you say about your business and your industry?

Jesse: On the farming side, or on the No-Till Growers side?

Brian: Pick one.

Jesse: Well, I can probably do both.

I mean, what I like best about farming as an industry is that it’s very open to sharing. And people are very, at least for the moment pretty open to sharing their techniques and their tricks and what they’re doing. And that is, I think a little bit unique to farming, and I see it in cooking too.

But it’s very, you know, in like restaurants, professional restaurants and that sort of thing.

But there’s less of a proprietary feel to it, when people are very open to share what they’re doing. And I think that’s been really helpful to get young growers who need that information and need and maybe don’t have access to the education or didn’t grow up in agriculture, to have access to that information.

So that’s one thing that I really like about the farming side.

And that same thing exists obviously, that’s what fuels the media side, the No-Till Growers side. But what do I like most about that, and that I think that insures industry is interesting because it’s ever-evolving, you know, we were seeing numbers in YouTube views across the board on everybody’s channel going down because tic tock is starting to take a big share. And so there’s this sort of feel and need to kind of always be adapting to that.

In one way, nobody really loves change that much who’s in a business. But in another way, I think it offers up the potential for more creativity.

Because we aren’t staked in one revenue stream like we’re not depending on solely our YouTube profits to get by, that we can be a little bit more flexible. So that’s kind of what I like about the way where we’ve settled ourselves in that industry.

We’re also with that, and this is maybe not necessarily on topic. But we’re also looking at the idea of turning our media company, which is not something I guess I’m just now referring it to it as a media company for you. But that’s really what it is, is his media company, we do a bunch of different podcasts and all the things.

So what we’re looking at, though, is turning it into something that’s more of a cooperative model, and where maybe more of like an owner cooperative, where multiple people have a stake in it so that, you know, the contributors for instance, so that when they’re contributing, they have more incentive to share it, but also that everybody is invested in it a little bit more.

Everybody can earn a little bit more from it from that work. So yeah, we’re looking at more cooperative models for our media company, which I don’t know how many media companies are. There are like that.

But I think it could fit well with what we’re doing with the sort of for-profit business acting like a nonprofit.

Brian: That’s great. That’s really interesting.

I’m interested to see where you end up going with that. If you can change one thing about both the farm and the media company, what would it be?

Jesse: We’ll stay with the business side.

I need to be better with numbers and keeping up with our profitability. I think that I do an okay job, but I do it on the back of a napkin and it’s not like I need better systems for that. So that’s one thing that I would change personally about that side of things.

At large, something that I think the industry needs, is definitely to continue on that path away from dogmatic thinking and to be open to new ideas, and to be to trial things on small, small scale.

I also think that there needs to be like I mentioned earlier, the collaborative farming podcast.

I’d like to see an emphasis on people starting farms together, especially while the land is so expensive. While it’s really hard to access, seeing more people going on farms together and find more models and more systems for that to work.

On the media side, I think that I would like to see people getting creative about reducing paywalls and getting that information out there a little bit better.

I don’t think I see the value of a paywall, and I see the need to some of the products that are behind paywalls are so good, they’re really high quality and obviously, cost money. But figuring out ways to make that more accessible.

I’d like to see more of that, personally. Yeah.

Brian: Oh, that’s great.

If we were to talk about a year from now, let’s say we got back together, and we had you back on the podcast, and we were to look back over the last 12 months.

What would you say would have had to have happen for you to feel happy with your progress, both professionally and personally?

Jesse: Well, everything for me comes down to my family and my relationships.

This is something I’ve emphasized quite a bit in my own work, but just the value of your relationships with people around you is paramount.

I’ve said this on other podcasts, but I think it bears repeating that you know, there are several studies but the biggest study, the Harvard study did this, you know an 80-year study, and it’s still ongoing of Harvard, sophomores and they’ve incorporated all sorts of other people into the fold.

And they’ve been doing this really long study to figure out what people value at the end of life.

What it always comes down to is relationships.

And that to me is something that I’m that I always have in the back of my mind is the value of your relationships throughout your life, not just at the end of your life, but throughout your life, determine your health, at the end of your life, determine, you know, have determined how your happiness, your levels of depression, all of these things.

So that matters as much when you’re in middle age too, as it does at the end of your life.

So that’s what I’m always focusing on thinking about how do I how am I managing those things? With all the other things that I’m doing? Are those things getting managed?

Because at the end of the day, and at the end of life, that’s what really matters.

Brian: Oh, that’s great. That’s good stuff.

What are the obstacles standing in your way of being able to both keep and grow those relationships?

Jesse: I think work is tough. I mean, I think you get, especially because I’m doing full time farming and the media company that you It takes a lot of time. And it takes time out of places where you don’t necessarily have time.

And I’ve asked a lot of my wife over the last few years to get all this up and running, and especially writing the book. And she contributed actually to the book.

She’s a great artist, and she did the illustrations. But it’s a lot to ask.

We have two children and it’s a lot of the workforce with the kids has fallen on her especially while also while we’re building the farm where I’m out doing a lot of the farming stuff.

And we just moved to a new property what I said building the farm, we just moved to a new property last year.

So we moved in December. We still have a lot of infrastructure work to do and it’s put a lot of work on her shoulders.

So being conscious of that is, you know, extremely important to me.

Brian: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

This is The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

So we look at the business side of very different type of businesses that are self reliance base. And so what from your perspective, would you have any advice for other business owners out there just blanket advice that we haven’t already covered?

Jesse: For this specific business, one thing I often recommend and one thing I regret about my own journey to having a sustainable business was that I didn’t spend enough time learning how to farm and I definitely didn’t spend any amount of time learning about the farm business.

I was really interested in the farm and then the homestead life style did not care enough about the business side. But also I didn’t spend enough time on enough farms like I didn’t learn enough techniques from in different styles and different growing methods.

And I think if I could do anything over again, about my journey here, it would be to probably spend another year or two working with another farm just a totally different farm from the farm that I apprenticed on because we basically went from the apprenticeship to our own farm.

And I kind of wish that we’d spent two years just working on somebody else’s farm somewhere in the region, right staying sort of where we want to grow because farming, you know, learning the weeds, learning the diseases, learning the pests, learning the climate, are all really important.

If you know where you want to end up, it’s good to go where you want to, you know, learn to grow where you want to end up.

And not that I didn’t have a great education but that diversity of education, I think would be really important and really valuable to me now.

Brian: Wow, that’s a very unique perspective. I haven’t heard that one before. That’s good.

What could listeners do who want to find out more about Rough Draft Farmstead or the No-Till Growers?

Jesse: Yeah, so NoTillGrowers.com is a great resource we you can find all of our podcasts and all of those things there.

You can obviously listen to those through your podcast apps but we you know, we have all the resources there for you to find individual podcasts that you may be interested in.

And then Rough Draft Farmstead, we do all the requisite social media and we’re on Instagram and we have a website we don’t update the website as much but we update our Instagram and those sorts of things.

Same with No-Till Growers you can find that on all the requisite social media as well. Try and keep it simple. Those are the easiest places to find us.

And then like I mentioned earlier, there’s the No-Till Growers YouTube channel if you just go to YouTube and look up No-Till Growers, you should find the videos that we put up weekly we put up a like I said. And twice a month we do the live show with hosted by Josh Satin. That’s every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern Standard Time.

Every other Tuesday rather and yeah, so those are the best places to find us I think.

Brian: Hey, Jesse Frost, thanks so much for being on, The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Jesse: Well, thank you so much for having me Brian, it’s been a blast.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: We first started going out and finding people to interview for Off-the-Grid Biz, close to three years ago. And in all that time, I’m always amazed by the different types of people we keep running into, and the types of interviews, and the directions that these interviews go.

And this one with Jesse was no different. It was no different from the fact that it was completely different from everything else we’ve ever done. And it was a lot of fun.

We got into a lot of different areas, and different concepts that you won’t hear on any of the previous episodes.

So a couple of these things that he brought up this idea of going against the concept of having a paywall, people needing to subscribe in order to get content.

Now, they are having ways to be able to make money but they’re not just holding all the content back, they’re trying to put as much of that content forward, which is a really neat way of looking at it.

But also he has built into his farming, business subscriptions, and other sorts of types of money-making activities that you wouldn’t normally see with that style of business.

So there’s so much ingenuity and so many different ways of thinking about the same issue that Jesse and his team are kidding here. It’s just really, really neat.

His conversation about how the No-Till concept, and how that term has been used through the years and misunderstood or misused and to the point to where just calling themselves the No-Till Growers for the podcast and so forth.

It paints them a certain way with some people, but on the same end, it gets them attention they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

So it starts that conversation even though it’s not necessarily the most perfect way to be able to start it. And that was a very interesting point of view that he had on that.

All in all, I love the conversation that we hit on with how to get a query letter to a publisher if you’re wanting a major publisher like Chelsea Green to be able to publish your books. That was really interesting.

We’ve never had anybody go into that type of depth into the process. So that’s one if you’re interested in that area, go back and listen to that.

Maybe even check out the transcription on our website at OffTheGridBiz.com.

I can’t wait to see how Jesse is doing in the future and where all this takes him no doubt in the next year or two. His business is going to look completely different than how it looks right now, if you just look at where he’s been up until now, so that’s going to be really exciting to see.

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.

Bevin Cohen: Small House Farm | The Artisan Herbalist

Posted on August 18, 2021 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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**The Artisan Herbalist, by Bevin Cohen**

Bevin Cohen is an author, herbalist, seed saver and owner of Small House Farm in Michigan.

Join us as we discuss topics like –

* why homesteading is a life long obsession

* The joy Bevin gets from sharing his knowledge with others

*Bevin’s latest book The Artisan Herbalist

Grab a copy of his latest book & other fine products today – SmallHouseFarm.com

1:53 Small House Farm: We Believe in a Simple, Small, Intentional Life
2:48 What Brought Me Into Homesteading: A Life Long Obsession
4:03 From Music Festivals to the Beginning of Small House Farm
5:49 Educational Products to Help You Grow
7:09 Bevin’s Latest Book: The Artisan Herbalist
8:11 From Our Seeds & Their Keepers
9:11 Story Telling & Becoming an Author
12:28 How Book Writing & Speaking Opens Doors for You & Help Others at the Same Time
15:18 Teaching at Events like Mother Earth News Fair
17:43 Gardening & The Power of Curiosity
19:26 Small House Farms Top Sellers
- - - Herbal Wellness – Witch Hazel
    - Seeds – Pineapple Ground Cherry’s
    - Books – The Artisan Herbalist
    - Workshop Classes – Seed Saving
21:29 The Joy of Meeting New People at Classes and Workshop Events
23:34 New Book Coming Out in February 2021 with New Society Publishers
- - - - The Complete Guide to Seed & Nut Oils
25:45 The Secret to Success: Have Fun!
27:15 Where to Contact Bevin and pickup his latest book, The Artisan Herbalist

Transcription

Bevin: I think that with everything in life as business owners or wherever we’re at when we put ourselves out there, challenge ourselves to try something new.

And it’s just that little bit of success can boost that confidence enough to be like, Okay, let’s try that again. Let’s push forward on this, let’s see where we can take this thing. Even if it doesn’t turn out we’ve tried something new, right and we’ve grown as a person because of that.

But nine times out of 10 it is gonna work out and that’s the beauty of pushing your limits, is we can find that we’re capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit.

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.

Brian: Bevan Cohen is an author, herbalist, seed saver, and owner of Small House Farm in Michigan. He offers workshops and lectures nationwide on the benefits of living closer to the land through seeds, herbs, and locally grown food.

Bevin is a freelance writer and videographer whose work has appeared in numerous publications including Mother Earth News, Hobby Farms, Grit magazine, and the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company catalog.

He’s the author of, Saving Our Seeds, and The Artisan Herbalist.

You can learn more about Bevin’s work at www.SmallHouseFarm.com

Bevin Cohen, welcome to The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Bevin: Thanks so much for having me.

Brian: Great having you here.

Can you give us a little bit more about what it is that you do and how you got to this point in your life?

Bevin: Sure.

So my wife and I own a small homestead business we call Small House Farm, which is more based on the philosophy of living as opposed to the size of our building really, you know, a small house, we believe in simple, small, intentional life.

We grow a majority of our own food here we grow seed crops that we offer commercially. We’ve grown forage a number of herbs that we then craft into a full line of beauty, wellness, and cosmetic products that we also offer via our website.

In my spare time, I guess, I split wood to keep the house warm in the winter, and I do a lot of writing. We’ve published four books in the past four years, and we’ve got another one coming down the pipe and a little bit as well.

So I just like to stay busy. I don’t do well, just sitting around. We’ve always got something exciting going on here at Small House Farm.

Brian: What brought you into this lifestyle of homesteading and then beyond that, actually building a business out of it and teaching people and everything else?

Bevin: Well, you know, how does anybody get anywhere really, I found that the best thing I could do with my life is just getting out of my own way. I’ve been fascinated with plants ever since I was a little boy. I lived with my grandmother in an apartment on the edge of town and we were lucky enough to be right up against what was at the time, hundreds of acres of woods.

Now it’s been developed into housing and that sort of thing. But back then it was endless woods where young guys, we could just run out there and just play all day long.

So I started with this early age, spending so much time out in the woods, learning about the plants around me. And it became a lifelong obsession, that’s really kind of snowballed out of control, very organically, small houses came to me, what we offer commercially is just simply the way that we live.

We decided to share that with the people around us and people really responded well to it. We started offering some educational programs, the co-op in town, health and wellness store not far from here.

People really took to what we were offering and it just kind of took on a life of its own.

Somehow, here we are and the rest is history, I suppose.

Brian: Yeah.

Had you ever owned any other type of business before or is this something that you jumped into naturally?

Bevin: Well, that’s kind of funny. What I could consider a lifetime ago, I used to organize a small Music Festival, very different than what I do now. But there were a lot of overlapping similarities.

We did what we could to give back to the community. All the funds that we would generate through this event, we always donated to a different charity, big brothers and big sisters was one of our big charities that we donated to.

We got to work with artists, creative types, we got to see people that live a slightly different lifestyle than that nine to five job, you know, artists and musicians and those types of folks, we’re kind of coming at the world from a different angle.

That was always inspirational to see that there’s so much more than this world has to offer that we may not realize if we’re just focused on that daily grind, whatever.

The world has everything that we need right at our fingertips, but we’re usually moving so fast that we don’t even have the opportunity to notice it.

Working at the festival with these artists, I came to realize that if I did slow down and look around me, everything I had was already waiting for me there. And that was in a way the impetus for Small House Farm, where we decided, we’d move out to the country, we bought this property. And we thought, let’s try to do something a little more intentional, a little more focused on ourselves and our family.

We have two children now, but at the time, you know, Elijah, my oldest, was just a little baby. And we thought, wouldn’t this just be nice to think about life in a much smaller scale than we had before?

And well, small house, I guess, here we are.

Brian: It’s fabulous.

How long has that journey been, when did you first move out there?

Bevin: I want to say that we’ve been on this property for we’re going on our eighth year.

Brian: Awesome. Wow, that’s great.

You started out as almost like an educational service you had started putting out there. How did that grow into the other pieces to where you have your product?

You have books or everything else, how did that come along?

Bevin: Well, the books were a natural step from the educational process.

The books that we offer, help people learn to do some of the things that we’re doing here out at the fire, you know, the artists an herbalist is going to teach folks how to grow and forage all these different herbs, and then craft them into this full line of love his products very similar to what you can buy from us, certainly.

But at the end of the day, I like to put myself out of business, I would like other folks to be learning how to do all these things on their own. That’s very important to me.

My other book, Saving Our Seeds is a guide to teach you how to grow and gather and collect seeds from 43 different species of crops.

While I do sell seeds from my farm, I think the world would be in a better place if folks just learn how to do these things on their own. So the writing was a natural segue from the teaching, offering the products, it’s just kind of a thing that we just do.

Because people love the things that we offer, we didn’t really mean to get into the business of selling herbal wellness products, that was never really my goal. It just became a thing where so many folks kept asking for it.

So we started going to the farmers market to offer it and there was such a demand for what we offered, we thought well until I can get everybody making their own, I suppose we could provide them with some quality products in the meantime.

Brian: It’s such a cool dichotomy there and how that all fits together.

I was looking through your latest book, Artisan Herbalist and how you lay it all out there you show exactly how a person couldn’t go about doing this themselves. And it’s really great that you can have the final product, or here’s a way for you to do it yourself, which is what you’re all about. It’s what you’re promoting with the homesteading lifestyle. So that’s fabulous.

Bevin: It is all about doing it yourself. There are so many challenges that we face when we decide to start taking these steps in this different lifestyle. And one of them that I find with people, it’s a very common challenge that people seem to have is a lack of time where everybody’s very, very busy.

So as we find the time to maybe alter our lifestyles, even just small baby steps here, they’re where we work to free up that time to learn to do these things on our own.

In the meantime, we still want to have these high-quality, natural products. And you know, Small House Farm kind of fills in that gap.

Brian: Fabulous.

Saving Our Seeds. That was your first book.

Bevin: No, that was my second book.

Brian: Okay, what was your first book?

Bevin: My first book is called, From Our Seeds and Their Keepers: A Collection of Stories. It was out of all the books, it’s actually my favorite just because it was so much fun to write.

It’s as the title says, it’s a collection of stories.

As I’ve traveled about the country, I’ve met gardeners and seed savers, homesteaders, and preppers all these amazing different people. And they all have these fascinating stories to share and these wonderful seeds that they’ve also shared with me.

All of these seeds have a story in them as well.

So I realized along the way, that while it’s fun to sit around and tell these stories, right snapping beans or having a beverage and sharing stories with each other is wonderful stuff. But there’s going to come a time where maybe these stories are forgotten.

Maybe we’re not going to be there to tell the story anymore and too heavy responsibility.

But I kind of picked that up and I said I need to start writing these things down. These stories need to be documented in some way. So we collected these seed stories, as well as the stories of the people that keep the seeds.

They tried to get them all into one place and that is what ended up becoming my first book.

Brian: Now was that on your own impetus that you stepped out to write a book or did someone push you into it or how’d that occur?

Bevin: Well, the story starts with a lady by the name of Sylvia, an older lady that I met down in Kentucky.

Sylvia had this corn story that she was telling me about how her family had grown this corn. The grandfather had grown this corn had been passed down through the generations and we’re trying to trace this history back and fires because I sitting there and talking on the phone and one of the conversations Sylvie says to me, Bevin, I’m so thankful that you’re interested in hearing the stories that I have to tell because my children have already heard them.

They don’t want to hear about it, other people aren’t as interested in corn as you are. I don’t have other people to tell this story to.

These stories that Sylvia was telling me, it was more than just the corn. She would talk about how her father would come home at night and work in the gardens or how they would take their harvest to the mill to have it turned into cornmeal. She started telling me stories about when she was a young girl, when she would get sick, how her mother would go out into the woods, to gather plants to make the medicine from this little corn seed.

So many things came out of this story.

And I realized that if I didn’t write down everything that Sylvia was saying, there was going to be a day that Sophia wasn’t going to be there to tell the story anymore.

That’s all I needed, I realized the significance of the moment that I was in and we started writing the book. It just really, like everything else kind of took on a life of its own. And it manifested itself into, I think it’s just a wonderful collection of tales, is still probably to this day my most popular book.

I just had a gentleman call me yesterday, a guy in San Diego, who had bought the book was fascinated with the stories and wanted to call me and talked about some squash, you know, so the story continues to move, we tell the story.

But then the story has continued to have more chapters added to it.

Brian: That’s beautiful because there are so many people that have those stories that they’re wanting to tell, they have something that they want to get out there.

We’ve got business owners that are listening that want to get down write their first book. Where did you go from there, did you self-publish it, did you find a publisher, how did that happen?

Bevin: The first book was self-published, we did that ourselves, we independently published it here at Small House Farm. And it was really, boy what a learning curve.

That was a whole other thing.

It’s one thing to write a book, it’s another thing to publish and market a book. Right?

That’s a whole different skill set. But you know, it was fun.

At the same time that it was challenging. It was really a process that I enjoyed participating in, I would recommend it to anybody, if you’ve got a story that you think is worth telling, write it down, because you believe in that story. Other people are gonna believe in it, too.

We self-published it, and we put it out there. And just because of the nature of what I do for work, I do a lot of traveling to teach about gardening all over the place, I was able to bring the book with me.

It worked out very well having that book by my side, as I travel, people were very interested.

But publishers kind of picked up that idea to so now the books that we’re putting together, like The Artisan Herbalist, New Society Publishers contacted us, and they wanted us to write this book.

You got to start small and everything grows, just like with any small business. That’s how it is, as long as you believe in what you’re doing and you continue to do that, good things will come from it.

Brian: How would you describe the benefits that you’ve gotten?

You’ve put out three books, obviously, there are benefits tied to it, how would you quantify that?

Bevin: Oh, in so many ways, it is just it opens the doors to new conversations with people. I’ve gotten to meet so many interesting folks that when I go somewhere to teach, I inevitably always learn every time I’m on the road, you know, so it’s really enriched every aspect of what I do.

Being able to take my ideas and find a way to put them into words that other people can appreciate, it’s helped me fine-tune my own thought processes.

What we do here at the farm, it’s really helped me to tweak our operation by understanding it a little bit more, knowing that I’m doing something that is helping other people improve what they’ve already got going on in their life.

That’s awesome. It’s empowering to know that I’m having an impact on other people, just like I mentioned, the gentleman that just called, he was so excited to talk to me, he was so inspired by the book, even just reading a couple of chapters of it, he got a hold of me says you’ve changed the way that I’m looking at things, you’ve changed my perspective on what we’re doing.

And that’s powerful stuff to know, the impact that we can have every time we interact with a customer or client, or anybody in the public. We’re planting seeds, if you will. And those seeds are going to grow into beautiful things.

Brian: That’s really great.

Commercial Break: Okay, let’s take a break from that conversation.

I wanted to bring up a question for you, during these crazy times, do you feel like your business is indestructible? Most people don’t?

And if not, the real question is why? And what can you do to make it as indestructible as possible?

Well, that’s the basis of my new book, nine ways to Amazon proof your business. Let me talk about what we discuss in the first chapter, determine focus. So one of the main ways that you can Amazon proof your business is by determining the focus of your business. And the real problem isn’t that you’re not doing enough, the real problem is, is that you may be doing too many things in too many places.

So one of the things I suggest is decide whether your focus is going to be acquisition, ascension, or monetization. And I go into the details of what that means in this chapter. It’s really the only three ways that you can grow your business. And if you just do that one step of determining focus, you can have a huge change in your entire business. But I also have eight other ways to Amazon proof your business, basically the idea of making it competition proof to even someone as big as amazon.com.

Brian: And you’ve connected with all these great organizations and magazines, publishers out there, Mother Earth News and so forth.

I saw that you’ve put classes on for them, and courses. That’s kind of how you were explaining how you started out doing that?

Was that a natural fit for you, have you always kind of consider yourself a teacher? Or was it just being in the music festival industry that you’re kind of outgoing and used to kind of showing people the way?

Bevin: Well, I think that’s what it is, at the music festival, I would go out and I’d like to introduce the bands and stuff. And you know, you go out on a stage and there are 5,000 people out there, you can’t have any stage fright, you get used to public speaking very quickly when you’re in that type of a situation.

I think it made me very comfortable getting in front of groups of people to talk right, I was able to overcome that very quickly. As far as the teaching goes, it just kind of fell into my lap, the first couple of opportunities that I had to go and teach something.

There’s a local community college not far from here. They had a small-scale urban farm program that they were offering. And they were hiring local farmers to come and teach small classes, they’d asked me to come and talk.

So I went to this thing, and I prepped for it, you know, I really prepared for this thing, I felt like I was a little in over my head on what I was doing going to this college to talk to these folks. So I really put a lot of effort into preparing this, you know, get this presentation ready.

I went there, and it was a smashing success. Everybody seemed to really respond well to and I had a lady come up to me. And she asked, Did you go to school to learn about teaching? Or you know, do you have a teaching background?

No, absolutely not. I’m a gardener, and I’m farming over here.

She says, well, the way that you presented the information, it was very well-spoken, very impressive, you’re a natural, you may have found your color.

And I thought oh, you know, that’s laying it out heavy lady, but I appreciate it.

But I thought, you know, it kind of gave me that boost of confidence that I needed to try it again. Let’s go out there and do this one more time. And I think that with everything in life, as business owners, or wherever we’re at when we put ourselves out there challenge ourselves to try something new. And it’s just that little bit of success can boost that confidence enough to be like, Okay, let’s try that, again. Let’s push forward on this, let’s see where we can take this thing.

Even if it doesn’t turn out, we’ve tried something new, right?

And we’ve grown as a person because of that.

But nine times out of 10 it is gonna work out. And that’s the beauty of pushing your limits is we can find that we’re capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for.

Brian: Awesome.

Yeah, that’s really great.

Have you noticed characteristics or a certain mindset of people that get the most out of your books and courses and then people that become customers?

Are they newbies to the homesteading lifestyle, or have they people that have been around for a while?

Is there anything common within the people that you’ve met?

Bevin: I think you know, the commonality would be curiosity, people that are interested in trying something new. Some folks that I meet, certainly a great number of the people that I’ve met have been new gardeners, new seed savers, new to working with herbs, whatever it may be, and they’re excited about trying something new.

But I’ve worked with a lot of like, very experienced homesteaders very experienced folks in the industry that have come back and said, You’re coming at this with a different perspective, you’re approaching this subject from a different angle than what I’m used to. And I appreciate that because it helps us.

It’s so easy to fall into a bubble in our thinking. If we stay in the same group of people, and we keep doing the same things, it’s very easy to fall into a set pattern of doing stuff.

But when somebody can interject with this different perspective, this different point of view, helps us see what we’ve been doing in a different way.

So I’ve certainly had some old-school homesteaders that appreciate the angle that we approach them from. I would say that, since the pandemic has happened, that has blown the doors, on trying to choose the demographic for the folks that are in the home setting.

I mean, it seems to be anybody and everybody from all walks of life in some way or another even if their apartment, wants to grow something on their balcony. If they live in a city and they want to forage at the park, whatever it might be.

People from all walks of life are suddenly realizing that there’s a potential to this simpler lifestyle to come back to mother nature, that there’s something special in this moment that we’re in. It’s challenging is that maybe, certainly, it’s full of opportunities.

Brian: What would you say is the most popular service or course or product that you guys provide at Small House Farm, is there one that sticks out that people go bananas over the most?

Bevin: What we do is so diverse, we offer so many different things that it’s kind of hard to pick one so we’re going to break this answer down into subcategories and give us the best sellers in each category, right?

As far as say, the herbal wellness products that we offer via our website number one, hands down is the Witch Hazel that we make. We make a witch hazel, topical astringent from which has like a native shrub that grows out in the woods here that we gather and process from the bark.

And it is hands down the most popular product that we make. It’s unbelievable how people respond to that.

If we’re going to talk about the seeds that we sell this year, the number one selling seeds, for some reason are pineapple brown cherries.

And I can’t put my finger on why that is. It’s pretty common.

You can buy pineapple brown cherry’s from a number of seed sources. It’s not really unique that we offer it, but for some reason, and I mean, by a long shot, it’s the most popular scene that we’ve been selling this year.

It’s easy to grow. It’s very delicious.

I guess we have a nice photo of it on our website. I’m not sure what the appeal is, but boy, it’s really taken off. That one’s been really popular.

As far as books go, of course, The Artisan Herbalist is the number one seller it’s been moving like hotcakes. We’ve just been thrilled with how well-received is been.

We were Amazon’s number one bestseller for a while. But that’s selling new release when it came out. People have really been enjoying the book for sure.

As far as workshops that we offer. Seed saving has been a big one, you know, we do a number of seed saving workshops, people have really been coming back to if they’ve gardened in the past, they want to learn how to save seeds.

But even if they’re new to gardening, they realize the significance of learning how to save their own garden seeds. And that’s a class that I teach almost year-round, it seems like.

Brian: Overall, what would you say you like most about your business and your industry as a whole?

Bevin: I like meeting people, I like spending time with folks. I like to sit down and chat and everybody comes to conversation with them such a different place, different backgrounds, different histories, different religions, different politics, all these different things.

But when we come together, we’re not thinking about any of that we’re thinking about what we have in common, you know, and that’s pretty powerful stuff and I really do enjoy that.

And of everything that we do, that’s always the highlight is just all these wonderful people that I get to meet.

But also sometimes I’ll be out in the woods gathering plants. And I realized that, man, that’s my day at work right here is sitting out in the woods with my kids. And that’s pretty groovy too.

Brian: That’s awesome. On the other hand, if you can change one thing about your business or industry, what would it be?

Bevin: Yeah, that’s such a good question. And I don’t know if I have a good answer for you really, you know, I’ve tried to think about that.

One thing that I have the challenges us here at Small House Farm, is the seasons.

In the wintertime, it’s very difficult for us to do much of anything, because we’re not growing without harvesting. Sometimes travel can even be limited. But now, there’s something positive to be said about the natural cycle of the seasons. Even from a gardening standpoint, that cold, cold winter is really going to help keep the bug populations down the insect populations.

There are pluses to that as well, so I couldn’t choose that.

So I thought, well, what about the wacky weather that we have? That can be very challenging out here on the farm, when I’ve got all my ducks in a row here counting on the seed harvest to get me through and the gardens flooded?

That’s certainly a challenge too.

But at the same time, that’s kind of part of the fun of it all, are these unexpected challenges that we have to learn to overcome.

So if I could change one thing about my business, there’s nothing I would change. I have no answer for you Brian, I love it all.

Brian: That’s a great answer.

If we were to talk again, a year from now if we had you back on the show, what would you say would have had to have happened over the last 12 months for you to feel happy with your progress both professionally and personally?

Bevin: Well, I’ve got a new book coming out next year. This is, you’re gonna hear it here first folks, this is the worldwide announcement, I suppose.

I’ve got a new book coming out from New Society Publishers, February of 22.

The Complete Guide to Seed & Nut Oils.

It’s all about growing and forging seeds and nuts specifically for oil extraction. That’s another thing that we do at Small House Farm, we extract seed into oil, we use it as ingredients and our wellness products, as well as offer, you know, just the oil for culinary purposes as well.

And so for me to be super satisfied, 12 months from now, I want that book to come out as a smashing success. I want people to get their hands on it and really, really enjoy and make use of it. That’s the thing. It’s fun to read a book and enjoy it. But I want people to use these books to take this knowledge and make the world a better place.

Brian: What would you say are the obstacles standing in your way of getting there?

Bevin: Right now the greatest obstacle that I have is that most places have had to close down. And we don’t know if they’re going to be able to stay open. That’s kind of where I’m at, right?

So this is kind of a tricky place to even have an opinion in this world right now, what we want to say about how that works, but regardless, we all have different approaches to what we think the solution may be and we may not agree with each others solutions.

But we all have the same end goal. We all want the world to get back to where it once was, so we can all spend time together in person again, right?

But you asked me what my favorite thing about the business was, and my favorite thing is spending time with people. And for all of 2020, I wasn’t even allowed to, you know, we did a lot of virtual stuff and I guess that’s very nice.

We should be blessed that we have this opportunity to meet this virtual wonderland, certainly. But is that the stage during a meal with somebody and shake hands with people.

So for me, the greatest challenge that I have is the challenge that the whole world is facing, it’s possibly the greatest challenge that we’re all facing, as people, as business owners over we want to look at things. That is our greatest challenge, isn’t it?

Brian: Yeah, absolutely.

You’ve been on this journey for eight years on this particular half of it, this Small House Farm journey.

What advice would you have blanket advice out there for other business owners that want to take their passion and turn it into something that can make a difference, but it’s also sustainable?

Bevin: Yeah, to make sure you’re having fun, you know, and that might seem cliche, I suppose. But that’s what it is.

Obviously, you got to think about the bottom line and you got to think about marketing and you got to think about all these different things. And that certainly comes into play.

But none of that matters if you aren’t enjoying what you’re doing.

It’s all about pleasure, right?

We’re lucky if we get to hang out on this planet, 60, 70 years, that’s all you get, right? And then you’re done.

You want to enjoy it. You want to enjoy what you’re doing, if you believe in what you’re doing as a small business owner if you truly enjoy that, and maybe it’s not even considered work, even it is more challenging times.

That passion, that pleasure that you have, your customers will pick up on that. They’ll feed from that.

You’ll be able to bring that pleasure and translate into something that they’re going to want to exchange for Federal Reserve Notes, I suppose.

But at the end of the day, all that matters is that you enjoy what you’re doing and everyone else enjoys what they’re doing. We can find a way to kind of overlap that pleasure.

Brian: Fabulous. Yeah, that’s, that’s great. Thanks, Bevin.

I think you have a positive perspective but you also keep things nice and light. I really appreciate that. Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you’d like to answer?

Bevin: Where can people get a copy of my new book The Artisan Herbalist? h

Brian: There we go.

Bevin: And if anybody’s interested in that they can get copies via my website, SmallHouseFarm.com. It’s also available on Bookshop, Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Brian: Awesome. Also, where could listeners who are interested in everything else that you talked about, where can they find out more about you and Small House Farm?

Bevin: So the website definitely the central hub for all things Small House Farm, which is again, SmallHouseFarm.com.

But folks can also connect with us via our Instagram, or Facebook page, which is also Small House Farm on our YouTube channel. For folks that are visual learners, we have a YouTube channel, you can find also under Small House Farm, where you can spend time with us out in the gardens or foraging making maple syrup.

Any of the adventures that happen here at the homestead are going to find their way to YouTube. And that’s a great community for us to connect to that as well.

Brian: This has been a great talk I can’t wait to see more from you. I can’t wait to see this new book coming out and be able to look over your other stuff coming out.

Thanks so much for being on The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

Bevin: Thank you so much for having me, what fun.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Bevin was a lot of fun to chat with. He has a lot of great ideas, and just his whole energy about him was just fun to be around and inspiring.

I think I’d say that the most about this conversation was very inspiring in terms of if you know you’re doing things right, if you can’t come up with a single thing that you’d like to change about your business, and the industry that you’re working in, it’s a good thing.

It just seems like he’s in a really great place and moving in a really great direction.

I want to point out something that you might be able to use in your business, two major things.

First thing, the teaching factor that Bevin has built into his business from the very beginning. It started out as a process of teaching and most of us don’t start businesses that way.

Most of us start businesses from a different direction and then we grow into a teaching factor. We eventually may write a book or we eventually may put on a course or speak at an event regarding what it is that we do and train other people how to do it.

But he went the other way around where he began teaching. And then that grew into a product source and a website and all these other things.

I think it’s a huge factor in how happy he’s been in building his business.

That comes to the second point.

What he mentioned at the very end about having a good time is so imperative to your business, because if you aren’t having a good time, nothing else seems to matter.

It’s not that it’s the most important thing, it is a factor that is necessary for doing the most important things in your business. If you want to get a message out there, if you want to get a product out, there is a service out there.

You have to be having fun in order to sustain that business growth had to handle the ups and the downs, the goods and the bads that come along with running a business.

Those factors, I think really make a big difference and it’s something we can all learn from.

Also looking at how he structured his books, and how he structures his courses and workshops that you could find online.

Be sure and check that out because I think everybody can learn a lot from Bevin Cohen.

I really appreciate having him on the show.

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.

Gianaclis Caldwell – Pholia Farm

Posted on October 12, 2020 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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Some people are just experts in the subjects they excel in.

Others are experts with a joy for helping others and learning from those they interact with.

Tune into this podcast and checkout some of the links below, and it won’t take long to get an impression that Gianaclis is the latter.

Now, I could spend time talking about her love for Nigerian Dwarf Goats here.

Or perhaps her extensive knowledge in Cheesemaking.

Possibly even her 6 nonfiction books or her ventures into fiction writing.

Maybe you’d even like me to spill the beans on her thoughts on speaking and teaching classes?

Well I’m not going to do that, no, not at all.

But if you want to know more about the subjects we cover in this episode, please checkout the links below, because Gianaclis is someone you’ll want to follow and learn from!

Checkout Gianaclis’s books, future classes, consults and more at her website and Facebook page –

https://gianacliscaldwell.com/

https://www.facebook.com/gianaclis/

For more about Pholia Farm – https://pholiafarm.com/

Transcription

Brian: Oregon native Gianaclis Caldwell grew up milking cows, but was lowered to the goat side where she remains a committed devotee. She was a commercial cheesemaker at the Caldwell Off Grid Dairy Pholia Farm for over 10 years.

She now milks her Nigerian dwarf goats just for pleasure. In between writing books in which he has six, speaking, and judging cheese, which she considers the most fun.

Gianaclis Caldwell, welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Gianaclis: Well, thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian: Yeah, so why don’t you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do on a regular basis?

Gianaclis: Oh, gosh, it sure varies from day to day. And I was just talking to my mother about people who are drawn to this kind of life really have to be nonlinear, because you just can’t really schedule your day or your week sometimes with animals and farm life and that sort of thing.

So still milking the goats, you were very correct and I do it for pleasure, love having them can just working with the animals. We’ve been breeding the Nigerians now since 2003, and have developed a good name for the breed or as a breeder, I should say, of Nigerian dwarfs. Particularly for strong, long milking animals and with good milk production for that breed.

And that’s, that’s something that’s hard to imagine. And we’re getting older now, of course, as we all do. But it’s difficult to imagine giving up but that process of working on a breed and all those those genetics and all those improvements, and of course, there’s this addiction that every goat person will confess to.

I think about waiting for those babies to come every year. And goat babies are there’s a good reason that they’re all over YouTube and such.

They’re they’re so appealing, and they pretty much stay that way as adults.

So we work our local farm is mostly a pleasure farm now, we do Airbnb with a couple of farms days we have, and that keeps us busy also, but it’s a great income stream for the farm supplement a lot of the feed bills and that sort of thing.

And then working on books, which you said correctly, six nonfiction books and now I’m switching to what was originally my first passion which is trying to and I say that because I want to be humble about this, I write fiction.

And then we also are caring for elderly parents and current with all of that and that’s a wonderful thing to be a part of that certainly is a ongoing team team. Source of activity for us.

Brian: Absolutely.

What drew you to go after work in on a dairy?

Gianaclis: Well, it was a family dairy here growing up so wasn’t a commercial dairy.

But I had been dairy cattle for each leader and just always loved cows and had that typical kind of superior complex that dairy cow people have over goats. And that our youngest daughter was six or seven at the time and she wanted to get be a part of the livestock project.

I was just ready to get a cow again, got to a point in were my husband’s Marine Corps career and our property where we could have a milk animal. Our daughter was too small to handle a cow and I thought, well, maybe I should consider goats.

And so we got a couple of these Nigerian dwarfs because they’re so small that it’s easy for a child to handle and I just assumed it would be, you know, nice thing but fell in love with them.

They’re so much more interactive than a cow is and a little bit more trouble in some ways because they’re such thinkers that they’re so easy on the land and the biggest thing I like about working with them when no milking is they don’t have that long tail to smack you in the face with.

Brian: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Gianaclis: Oh and the fact that the manure isn’t floppy wet all over the place.

Brian: I grew up around cattle also so yeah, I get it. lol

Gianaclis: Dairy cattle or beef?

Brian: Mostly beef.

Gianaclis: Beef. Yeah, yeah. I still love cows that they are definitely a different, different mindset for them and they can afford to be that way when they’re so big, smaller the animal typically the more they have to think their way out of situations and bullying.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely, that’s great.

What led you to jump into kind of the public arena and becoming a public figure and doing writing and everything else?

Gianaclis: When we moved when Vern, my husband was getting ready to retire from the military. We were down in Southern California and we knew we could come back to this piece of the family land that my was left on.

My parents started by 220 acres when they were in high school here in Southern Oregon, back in the 40s. And this piece of it was going to be going to me eventually.

And it didn’t have any power on it yet and just was, it had a large cleared area and it was the early 2000s then and right about when you were starting to hear a lot about goat cheese and small farms and Creameries and I’d already been making cheese at that point and really, really loved the process.

I love processes where it’s a merger of science and art.

We were some things are under your control, some things aren’t and it’s ever changing.

So I very much enjoyed the cheesemaking and we thought about the farmstead creamery and fell into that that little romantic crevice that many people still do. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it being a such a romantic thing to do, and a way to come back to this land and be closer to our parents.

And all that was true. It was great, really loved the whole process.

It was all consuming, though.

At that point, when we decided to move back here, I’d been doing fine art for many years. And that was my focus of what I did. I did have solo shows and just loved thinking art. And I had this idea that I would still be able to do that.

It rapidly became evident that I took the time to make art, I would be taking away from work that needs to be done here at the farm. And somebody else would have to do that. I couldn’t feel comfortable with that.

Writing, nonfiction. When it became obvious that after we got started, there were many people out there that wanted that knowledge how to get started in a small scale creamery, and how could they do it and you start getting calls and emails and people wanting your time.

I thought all maybe this would be a good opportunity to try to write a book, write a book, take the time to do that it would be a resource for people, then I would learn a lot.

And it would just be something that meshed in with what we were doing. I wrote a proposal and it was picked up by Chelsea Green, which has been one of my main publishers, and I love them and what they do.

And that just became an addictive process because as with cheesemaking, it’s a process by the research, there’s a lot of growing as far as having people read and criticize and taking those criticisms to heart as like thank you for telling me that these pants make my rear end look big.

You know, you really have to want to be open.

And I gained as much as anybody from writing and every time I try to write it’s that same thing again. So it just kind of fell into that. And then we were members from the beginning of the American cheese society, co-founders of the Oregon Cheese Guild in 2005, or six when it got started. Then became more involved in, I won’t say the politics of cheese, but the bigger world of cheese.

Vern, my husband, is currently finishing up his last year as a board member of the American Cheese Society and once I stopped being a commercial cheesemaker, and I was able to be a chief judge or judge at competitions, without there being any conflict of interest.

And that’s been a wonderful, challenging, exciting and delicious thing to do.

You know, so it just kind of happened organically over that period of time. And I love that about life. Sometimes you follow one thing and if you just try to do it well, it usually leads to something else that you never would have never anticipated and got to go with it.

Brian: No, that’s a great philosophy.

How did you fall into doing speaking? Was that after writing your book? Or how did that come about?

Gianaclis: Well, I’ve always liked to teach. And I think that I was aware of that. Once I wanted to become a 4-H leader even, you don’t have to know much. And this may sound like, I don’t believe you should know should know much. But there’s always something you can share or teach to somebody just beneath you in their knowledge.

During and by sharing, you learn.

People ask you questions, and if you’re humble, you say, I don’t know, but I’m going to find out and you learn and you learn and you learn.

So I think teaching, speaking is a way to make your brain keep working. And to see the enthusiasm of others is very, few will view your own work. You know, seeing what you’re doing through others. That passion that you once felt about something, it rekindled it so it I kind of feed off of that.

I’m not a social person at all. But I do love teaching, speaking. Parties, I’m not that good unless it’s a cheese party and I’m teaching.

Brian: So did someone ask you to speak the first time or did you seek it out? How did that happen?

Gianaclis: Well, if you mean speaking at larger events that definitely coincided in my memory anyway, to the when you write a book. That’s something you really are signing on for when you write a an instructional nonfiction.

And even if you wrote fiction, you’d be expected to speak, although it’s usually in a smaller venue.

So I think if you’re not ready to sign on for that, it’s unlikely that no matter how good your idea for a book is, a publisher is going to feel like you’re not being part of a team.

So being part of the team for promoting your book involves that.

Brian: Absolutely, absolutely.

So that came along with your deal with Chelsea Green?

Gianaclis: Yes, I believe so I honestly haven’t thought about it and I don’t tend to remember or pay attention to try and remember all the things that have happened along the way.

But yeah, I was teaching before then and, you know, working as artists in residence at a school and in talking to the kids and things, but not speaking, as far as larger venues go.

Brian: Describe the type of person that was interested in the same topics that you were interested in the ones that would get involved and purchase your books and maybe you became friends with along the way, what type of person would that be?

Gianaclis: Well, there’s quite a spectrum from people now that I have six different topics or six topics that cover different areas.

You know, from people who just want to learn more about making cheese to people who are tastemakers that want to try to perfect their craft And then of course, on the business side, people who are thinking about doing this as a business. There’s definitely a lack of information that’s easy to find.

I knew that from trying to find it myself.

One of the more recent books on goat care and know how to approach a whole herd management from a holistic standpoint, which includes everything from herbal to traditional, but there I used to be a nurse.

I was a nurse first and that the LPN LVN. But when you’re a nurse, you learn to assess systems and you look at what you can interpret from the health and health symptoms present in a patient.

So you do that as a herd manager to you should be anyway, observing for changes in that homeostasis that indicates animals taking care of itself. So helping people to learn to look at their herd, that way is what that book is focused on.

And then what to do when it’s not going well, which every go owner stacks up a lot of information about that. And I definitely, always count on tapping into other people’s knowledge.

For any subject I try to write about or speak out and there’s for as much as you learn a lot goes out the other side of your brain to or isn’t accessible anyway in the moment.

That’s right thinking we got to always try to stay humble or otherwise you’re gonna get smacked upside the head by karma and the universe.

Brian: Absolutely.

What do you like best about your industry in your career as a whole?

Gianaclis: The cheese and food in general in the industry, but the small scale cheese and even some of the mid to large scale producers, it’s such a small worlds that it was, it was so embracing and still is for the most part. new people coming into it that you felt immediately part of this community.

And this is on the cheesemaking side of it.

Not that I’m mentioning right now. It was just so welcoming and so supportive and Oregon here where we are in particular, the guild is just, you know, no one is worried about competition.

There are a few that are, but for the most part, people are like, Yeah, get on board.

The more the merrier.

It’s a win win for everybody, and supportive and that’s, that’s wonderful. And then you bring in the fact that you’re talking about making something that other people love.

That’s one thing I found really gratifying compared to doing artwork, artwork you’re doing usually from yourself, it’s sharing some inner part of yourself. And that’s a very vulnerable thing to do, and isn’t always very gratifying and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But when I switch making cheese or when cheesemaking took over my life. It was so gratifying.

You know that have people try this thing and find out, you know, have their eyes light up and that they never knew goat cheese could taste like that and just super gratifying.

So that’s been been a really wonderful part of it too.

Brian: And why do you think that is, that distinction between those two worlds?

Gianaclis: Which the cheesemaking and art?

Brian: Yeah, between cheesemaking and art? Why is one more gratifying, do you think?

Gianaclis: Well, we all got to eat right and there’s really no, you know, that old saying now that quickly to someone we to be man part through their mouth and or through their stomach, that the quickest way to I think it really is true.

If people like to eat and there are very few people who don’t.

It’s a way to make a connection pretty faster than art is.

And the same way when it now that I’m going to suspect the fictions that will be more like art. As far as no matter how good of a book you write, there will be people that hate it. And they will.

But I guess that was true with the cheese a bit too you know you people who think they don’t want goats and have it stuck in their head that much less so food is an instant connection.

And this is why families gather for meals is why people are missing going to restaurants right now during the pandemic and just having that social thing centering around food.

Brian: It’s a great point is it since you bring it up, but how has COVID affected your life and in this this lifestyle that you’ve kind of chosen?

Gianaclis: Well, gosh, it’s interesting because if we had still been commercial tastemakers, it would have affected it much more greatly.

But the fact that we had already stopped it really hit us the most through the loss of Airbnb or pharmacy income. Oh yeah, yeah, cuz we shut that completely down until the first of July. And that was, it was definitely a tough period in that regard.

But, you know, another thing to the universe that also coincided I bought, all by speaking events were stopped also, classes are canceled. So that whole income stream went away also and gratifications stream if you will, was dried up.

But it coincided with our my husband’s parents, and my mother needing extreme amounts of our time is actually a wonderful time to have all that extra time if you will, to focus on something else. So it all worked out fine.

And we’ve opened up the Airbnb now with a lot of stipulations on masks and distancing and rules for contact, as well as how we take care of the space.

In between guests and now that most people are accustomed to doing those things, and it’s not new news to them, it’s going along very well.

Brian: Oh, good. Well, I met so much of that’s necessary right now.

How many guests can you accommodate at one time?

Gianaclis: We have two farmstays, but we’ve only opened one up for the season, because we felt that that was the best approach to keep the interaction between guests down.

So if we had one step that you know, wanted to be in a shared space, because there are certain parts of the barn that are shared spaces, that it wouldn’t overlap and make it anybody so awkward.

But we had an old Airstream trailer that we fixed up and three to four people can stay in that and that’s the one that’s open right now. And then the other ones a little little tiny building that we call the bunk callus that is has a justice two people capacity.

So it’s not like an inn by any means.

Brian: Oh, absolutely. Well, that’s really cool. I mean, and you have a variety that you’ve gone through just the past few years your life, it’s just..

Gianaclis: Yeah.

Brian: It’s such a great mix that’s cool.

Gianaclis: Yeah, you know, I’ve always felt even when I was young, or maybe in my late teens, I started feeling like life is really short.

And you got to get going, you know, if you’ve got something you want to do you better get started. And not wait.

You know, not dive in recklessly. But don’t keep waiting until you think you’re ready. Because if you do, you’ll be waiting forever, pretty much.

And Vern, my husband. He’s also very malleable that way. We always felt like if something’s not working well, in regard to…I’ll give you the example, being the cheese production, I still love making cheese and I miss making cheese commercially and selling it and then seeing people eat it, but it was not the right time to continue it.

We’d lost, or not lost, but our our children, adult children and moved away. And so that element of help went away.

And I was doing more and more traveling for the books and I really enjoyed that.

Then physically just getting older faster than you thought, were that sort of physical work of keeping up with everything help the number of goats I needed to manage.

Then I was the main cheese maker, also. The main goat care and the main cheese maker. It just becomes too much.

So I know let’s sit down and we’ve talked about what in our life couldn’t give what doing are we not ready to give up?

But what could we do without and probably be okay and then move forward from there. I miss making art, you know, I miss riding horses. I’m of that age where I don’t want to get broken.

So as much as I missed them, it would be really silly to start that up again. That’s how it is.

I think we’re kind of meant to enjoy things and parts of life, whether it’s when our children are really little, and then remember it and realize that you can’t have and do everything at once. That’s the way it goes.

Brian: No, that’s a great point.

So if we want to talk in like a year, let’s get you back on the show or something like that.

We look back over the last 12 months, oh boy, and just looked at where you’ve been what you’ve done.

What would you say would have had to have happen for you to feel happy about what you’ve accomplished?

Gianaclis: Well see now if I had an answer for that, I would be breaking my own philosophy, wouldn’t I?

Because I think, you know, if I’m really gonna follow what I said, it’s that I don’t know. I’m just trying to make good decisions now.

And I could fantasize you want my fantasy version?

Brian: Sure, let’s hear it.

Gianaclis: Okay, my fantasy version is that an agent decided my manuscript for this novel is just fantastic. And she’s going to shop it around and let’s see, our parents are all stable, and we’ve bought an RV. And we’re traveling to places and beautiful parks in the US that I’ve never seen. There you go.

Brian: Oh, that’s good.

Gianaclis: Oh and somebody moved into the farm to care for the goats because I don’t want to give them up either.

Brian: So how many goats do you have?

Gianaclis: We’re down, I’m down to milking only about seven. And then there are a number of goats and retired goats. So I think it’s only around 20 or so now, like at the peak, I milked 40, because you need to need a decent amount of milk to to make cheese and make it fairly efficiently.

So that, you know, you’re probably trying to get in the picture and because we live off the power grid, managing that system means that leaving this place if we leave for a few days.

Somebody’s got to be here to understand how to read all that and how to make sure that it seems cared for properly. We really have tied ourselves down.

And thank goodness, we really love this piece of land and love our place. But it does make that little fantasy I just shared a little bit implausible.

Brian: Sure, sure.

So what advice would you have for other people that are adventure seekers like you or I don’t know. how would you define yourself? First off, what would you call yourself?

Gianaclis: I don’t know. Farm girl, I guess. Yeah.

Brian: I think that’s a common thing that we see with both guests we’ve had on the show and yeah, listen, that they don’t really they do so many different things and go in so many different directions. They couldn’t just label themselves with one thing.

Gianaclis: Yeah, and if you are running a farm or a small piece of property, you do have to be a jack of all trades and to be able to fix things and he grew up like I did without money as a resource. You learn to make your brain your resource and you learn.

When we were first starting to do our own construction and plumbing and electrical. I thought I had to hire somebody. And then I realized, well, I can’t afford that. Hmm.

Do you think maybe I could learn it. And that was even in the days before YouTube that you go buy a couple books. And you read and you pay attention and you realize, well, that’s how everybody gets to be a master of something, they just study and practice.

So why not do that on your own stuff, and it’s definitely been, and that’s something we also love to do. We love to remodel houses, and it’s just so many things to do.

I feel very blessed and lucky that there are those things to do and that you know, despite how crazy the world is right now and has been off and on since we moved out of the trees and into the rest of the continent.

You know, there’s also lots of things to always be grateful for, and to try to focus on as positive.

Brian: That’s great. Yeah, absolutely.

Are there any other questions by then that that you’d like to answer?

Gianaclis: Oh, I don’t think so. I slipped up things about being off the power grid in there. And, and that’s something to people. Yeah, I guess I’ll speak a little bit about that for a second that for people who aren’t off the grid, that also sounds very romantic.

And I think it’s something we try to with our guests and anybody that comes to look at our system, ground people in the fact that first if you’re trying to be green for the planet sake, getting renewable energy and being grid tie is better for the planet.

So don’t think that we’re these wonderful examples of how everybody should be in that regard. But it also is a it’s another job.

Living like this, and it’s one we’ve adapted to and really appreciate as far as you don’t have a credit card for power, you only have a bank account and that bank account is filled by the sun and micro hydro we had and then in the worst cases a generator.

You can’t stand it just by plugging in. You know, you’ve got to think and I like that way of living for the most part.

But then again, I’d love to have a hot tub so that’s another fantasy is to live somewhere where we can, we can just plug in. So be conscientious that it’s easy to spend your life as a role model for how everybody should do it. But that’s not true.

And that’s not honest.

And I want people to understand that too, that they shouldn’t avoid doing something because it sounds hard, but they also should boot camps approach it from either side, the romantic side or that’s going to be too hard. somewhere in the middle is is the truth.

Brian: Absolutely. That’s great.

What can a listener do that wants to be able to follow your exploits online or be able to find some of your books or anything else?

Gianaclis: Yes, well we fully a farm has a website, pholiafarm.com. I have a website slash blog, which is my name GianaclisCaldwell.com.

Then we have the Facebook pages for both myself and the farm.

And I do my best to keep up on Instagram. But it’s for myself and for the farm so they’re all those three people can find email links from that and and message as the books of course are on all the usual online sites.

And through the publishers and I’m sure in a few stores to immigration one is a yogurt and keeper making book published by Storey which is probably will be the most visually appealing of the six.

So thanks to Storey’s, great work. It’s called, Homemade Yogurt and Keefer.

So, if you’re looking for some probiotics, including those in your life, hopefully that book will help.

Brian: That’s fabulous.

And what if someone would like to would like to come and stay on your farm at Airbnb?

How would they look that up?

Gianaclis: Yes, they can certainly look on Airbnb. And we’ve been doing this for long enough now I think about nine years that our listing comes up pretty, pretty high on the rankings.

So it should show up but it’s are also links on our on the Phila Farm website (philafarm.com).

So you can you can take a look at them there and if you can’t find it on Airbnb, we love having guests here. It’s been another one of those things where, as I said earlier, you start seeing what you’re doing to other people’s eyes.

So you can share a bit of that spark with somebody else and have them fall in love with goats or the fresh air and the beautiful stars, learn a little bit about the power consumption.

So when they leave, maybe they think more about it.

It’s nice for us, makes us feel good about what we’re doing.

And the income is helpful as well.

Brian: That’s awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show. Gianaclis.

Gianaclis: Yeah Brian, thank you.

Brian: Thank you for being on The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Was a really cool conversation with Giannaclis. I really had a good time. She reminds me of a quote that a friend of mine always uses a line from Helen Keller, which says, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

And it seems that’s Gianaclis’s life, it’s just a constant adventure. She’s just going from one concept to the other. And, the way she talks about, it seems like no big deal. But if you actually think about all these different steps, and all these things that she’s done, she’s done so many things that people go their whole life without ever doing.

But those things that people are always interested in doing. Like she said, there’s romance behind so many of these ideas, when you get down into them, they tend to get a little bit dirty and a little bit messy.

But at least she went out and did them. It’s really cool.

There’s a couple things that she said that I want to point out.

One is that food is an entryway. That it’s quicker to get to a person’s basically to get to a person’s desires than through art, getting through via the stomach, you know, and reaching them that way. That was very interesting.

I’ve never quite heard it put that way, though. I’ve known a lot of artists that we’re also into the culinary arts. That was interesting.

I like her perspective of being a creative person in kind of an entrepreneurial role. And doing these projects over and over.

Each one is like a little art project for her. And it’s very cool to think about it in those in those ways.

I also like that she hasn’t held herself to labels, you know, she’s not just a cheesemaker, or a dairy person, or a, an Airbnb person. You know, she’s, she’s done it all, and continues to do it all. And just, you never know where the circumstances are going to lead you.

She’s very much of a free spirit and a very cool person to talk to and I think a really great addition to our conversations here on Off the Grid Biz Podcast.

Mother Earth News Fair 2019 – Recap

Posted on September 8, 2019March 30, 2020 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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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

Posted on September 7, 2019March 30, 2020 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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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 more about Jereme: http://www.jereme-zimmerman.com/
Buy & Read his books: http://www.jereme-zimmerman.com/products-1?category=Books
Follow him on social media
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeremeZimmYeti/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremeZimm
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremezimm/

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.

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.

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.

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

Posted on August 1, 2019January 18, 2021 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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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

Posted on August 1, 2019March 30, 2020 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Posted on July 30, 2019March 30, 2020 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Gary Collins – The Simple Life

Posted on July 30, 2019March 30, 2020 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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: 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.

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.

Andy Brennan – Aaron Burr Cider

Posted on July 27, 2019March 30, 2020 by brianjpombo@hotmail.com

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Episode 011.

Do you truly love what you do as a business? Is your passion so clear to others that it’s undeniable?

Andy Brennan is truly passionate about his craft and trade. Andy is the founder and owner of Aaron Burr Cider and author of Uncultivated: Wild Apples, Real Cider, and the Complicated Art of Making a Living.

A life-long artist, Andy did not set out to be a wild apple cidermaker (though always intrigued by the fruit), a writer nor a speaker. His publisher, Chelsea Green Publishing, were able to seduce him to attend and speak at the Mother Earth News Fair being held in Albany, Oregon. Due to his interest in visiting Oregon, (he admits a desire to interview some Pacific coast trees) he unknowingly was set on a direct course to be interviewed by Brian J. Pombo for the Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast.

How does a struggling artist end up becoming an apple farmer? How does he stand out in the growing and crowded cider market?

The way Andy mixes his business with his philosophy, while continuing an uncompromising life is instructive and liberating to any searching or struggling entrepreneur. Listen now!

Find out more about Andy Brennan: http://aaronburrcider.com/

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

Full Transcript

Brian: Have you found any way around that yourself?

Andy: For sure. The best solution is always to build intimate relationships with customers which ask questions and you know, certainly large companies, they don’t have the time or the inclination to have one on one relationships with their customers.

Even though I said I’m an introvert, I can’t hide from the fact that bonding with my customers is the only thing that that’s going to save, I think people like me from actually becoming road kill to bigger, faster and cheaper.

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.

Brian: A homestead farmer who began making cider in 2007 from wild apples. After rising to national prominence with his cider company, Aaron Burr Cider. He wrote a book Uncultivated, which just came out.

Andy Brennan, welcome to The Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Andy: Thank you. It’s great to be talking to you, it’s an honor.

Brian: Yeah. So, who are you, and just let us know a little about what you do?

Andy: My name is Andy Brennan and I am a homestead farmer, Apple farmer and cider maker. The town of Wurtsboro, New York, which is 75 miles North and West of New York city.

It’s in the foothills, the first few mountains as you’re approaching the Catskill mountains and we’re very close to the Hudson Valley. But in terms of a cultural region, we’re more associated with the Catskills.

Brian: So how did you end up here? What’s your life story up to this point?

Andy: Well, I was an artist first. That’s what brought me to New York city from originally I’m from the Washington D C area. And after art school, I ended up in New York.

Like a lot of people ended up living on couches for 10 years, trying to be the, you know, famous artists or whatever.

Eventually I got jobs working in architecture that at least pays little or as the art wasn’t working out.

After finding a sort of a love for Apple trees, I then looked for land near New York City where I can, grow apples.

Brian: Very cool. So what form of art were you interested in?

Andy: Well, I’m a painter and ever since I was a kid, I excelled, I guess in art, but also perhaps at the expense of being extremely bad at all the other subjects. It was kind of the one field in which I showed any talent for.

I’ve always been encouraged, I suppose, on that level to draw and paint. That’s how I ended up in art school.

But, uh, I’d say I’m not, I’m currently innovative paint as an artist. I’m inspired by people like Sazon who just looked at his work and say it’s just about the act of seeing transcribing, um, that act of seen on a painting or on a canvas.

So it’s not, I guess you would say I am. I worked from life and it’s somewhat realistic.

Brian: Very cool. You’ve written a new book, like we mentioned the full title Uncultivated: wild apples, real cider and the complicated art of making a living. So tell us about that.

Andy: Uncultivated is my original title was a book in which I wanted to describe my, methodology as an Apple grower and why I feel like that’s important to cider making.

The subtitle is – wild apples, real cider, which is an ancient drink, to distinguish it from the modern sort of a hard cider that most people are familiar with and the complicated art of making a living.

It’s a reference to what it’s like to be an Apple grower and cider maker at a small homestead farm level.

I should mention that subtitle was proposed and we loved it by a man by the name of Ben Watson, who’s not just my editor. He’s also the publisher of one of the most popular cider books out there.

But he’s also the guy who organized the Cider Days, which is the nation’s largest cider event. I worked very close with him on the book and I owe him a great deal of gratitude because I’m not a writer, I’m a farmer.

Brian: So what led you to write the book in the first place?

Andy: Well, originally I wanted to explain sort of the 101’s to people. I get at the farmer’s market all the time, People asking like, how do you make cider?

Or what makes these apples different than conventional apples?

And I wanted to explain that or give it the full space to thrive. What makes it different and what is cider and all those things.

But, there’s another reason and I think this is really what I ultimately was fueled by when I wrote book. Well, I want to show people what to look at, what to see when they see cider, what types of businesses and farms are growing apples.

In keeping with the ancient tradition of cider and, a world that modernity has really overlooked. I find it stunningly beautiful.

The cider world, the Apple world, these old homestead farms. And I wanted to paint that picture for people so that they know what they’re looking at when they approach cider.

Brian: Excellent. So did you enjoy the process of writing a book and getting it published?

Andy: I really did. It was…I’ve been writing blog journals now for 10 years, which is just more like a diary that I would publish. And I think there’s like two readers. I’ve been doing that for a long time.

When approached by my editor about writing a book, my original thought was that I would take all these blog posts, many of which weren’t even published. They’re just on my computer and I would sort of create a narrative which tied them together.

But it morphed into something different as I was writing it and it was just absolutely obsessed writing for on average, 12 hours a day for every day, for, for a year.

Brian: Wow.

Andy: I never got tired. I woke up and I just couldn’t wait to get writing again. So yeah, I really enjoyed it.

I should also say the last year when I did write, it was an off year for Apple, so there was literally nothing to do on the farm, so I really lucked out that way.

Brian: Yeah, that’s useful. Do you see yourself writing another one in the future?

Andy: Maybe.

Right now I don’t. It feels good to be a done with that project and I’m just in love with being out in the orchard right now. The same sort of passion I had for writing last year is right now, it’s just applied to my orchard and not excited about making cider this fall.

I just want to spend every moment working with the trees. And, um, so that’s where my energy is now, although I do have ideas that are brewing so it might happen.

Brian: Yeah. You’re slated to present at the Mother Earth News. Fair. One of the main reasons how we found you. What are you planning to be covering? Especially in, I guess you’re going to be in Albany, Oregon, which is the one that I’m going to.

Andy: The thing I’m most known for is wild apples because it’s 75% of all the cider I make is from wild Apple.

So they’re not even on my farm. And I wanted to discuss wild apples and what makes them different, which is such an enormous topic.

Again, I kind of want to introduce people, wild apples to tell them about what makes them so special. So it’s going to hinge on that. And I’ll talk about what they mean to cider, what they mean to a homestead farmer, what they mean to businesses even.

Which are, like I said, it’s all that’s all tied to the book, but an introduction to wild apples and what makes them so important. Because they are to a human.

So that’s one topic and the other I’ve just been asked to do another talk the following day on cider, which really does need its own full focus.

The second day I’ll be talking about, making cider and the 101’s and the history of it and that stuff.

Brian: Have you been to any of these before? These Mother Earth News Fairs, and have you presented on them?

Andy: I’ve never been to the Mother Earth News Fairs. In the Northeast here we have these organizations called Maca and, and Nopa and these are statewide and Northeast organic conferences.

And there’s one in Maine called the Common Ground Fair, which is I think very, very similar to the Mother Earth News Fair, which is largely small scale farmers and homesteaders.

Involves everything from, you know, seminars on solar energy and siphon by hand. Same sort of demographic and these are my people.

We just don’t have a Mother Earth News Fair in our area.

I’ve been excited to be a part of it. And I’ve read that magazine since I was in my twenties, long ago.

So yeah, it’s right up my alley.

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

Andy: I hope they’re inspired to make cider and, if not cider, wine or whatever fruit grows in their area. I really don’t want to live in a world where it’s just specialists to do one thing that’s part of living on a homestead farm.

You don’t just tap your maple trees or grow vegetables and sell eggs and have honey. You do all those things, rather than just one.

I’m hoping to inspire people to embrace what is, I guess, my specialty in cider.

I’m not fond of calling myself a cider maker.

That’s just one of many things that I do, but I want people to realize just how simple and natural it is and hopefully they’ll making it and become part of this, tradition themselves.

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.

That’s BrianJPombo.com/secrets. BrianJPombo.com/secrets and now back to the conversation.

Brian: So why are you doing this? Why are you coming out to present?

You’re going all the way across country and everything else. What do you hope to get out of it personally?

Andy: Well, there’s a lot of reasons why I wanted to go to Oregon.

One is I have a great number of my cider customers are in Oregon and I think the demographic of that state is sympathetic to what it is I’m doing. So they’ve always been interested in my cider and sold around the state.

I have like minded people and so on the cider front, I’ve wanted to do that. And my publisher also, has asked me to promote the book and I….selling stuff is not my specialty and I feel it makes me nervous but I’ve agreed at least to do, four or five events to promote the book.

This is really an opportunity to accomplish many things or let’s use a phrase, to shoot you birds with one stone.

But this is more like five birds, a lot of things that are all coming together for this.

Brian: Very cool.

Are you going to have some time to check out the rest of Oregon while you’re out here?

Andy: Yes.

I have a couple of days. My distributor who’s a company I should mention as console on, they mostly distribute line, Ian is his name.

He’s lined up some accounts that I should visit and I think we’re going to do a couple of tastings at the swine or restaurants and he’s going to show me what I should be looking at and people were going to be able to try your cider, that are already out there now with that distributor.

And I’m toying with the idea of bringing some very, very odd ciders, although it’s going to be hard to bring them while traveling.

But yeah, they’ll be able to drink that at the fair.

Also there’s a couple of wines stores that are doing pourings where I’ll be talking as well. I know I’ll be in Portland, and a couple of other towns up there. I’m drawing a blank on where they are, but certainly the fair and then a couple of places around Portland and perhaps further.

If anyone listening is interested, my website probably says that, which is AaronBurrCider.com, and there’s an events page.

Brian: We’ll link to it in the description too. Tell us about that name Aaron Burr Cider, how’d you come up with that?

Andy: Do you know Aaron Burr?

Brian: Yeah, I’m a history buff so. Lol!

Andy: Oh wow. My wife and I are real history buffs too. And we moved to this farm, which was bought by William Brown and 1817.

The Browns had it in their family as the homestead farm for 150 years. As we were researching the deed, when we took it over, we were intrigued by the lawyer who wrote the deed and that was Aaron Burr.

And this was 1817.

And we we’re thinking, you know, could this be the actual, Aaron Burr, who shot Hamilton?

And sure enough, as we did the research, his political career was over at the time and he returned to law and that’s what he did for the next 30 years.

He, mostly sold property deeds. Back in 1817, there were huge properties that were getting divided and sold to homestead farmers. It was a lot of need for that type of a paternity.

Brian: Wow! That is…that’s quite a cool story to go along with the product. That’s great.

Andy: If I could also say we wanted a local name who represented the area, which we very much believed is the prime time or the peak of cider production, not just in America but in the world, which was just after the revolutionary war in the early 18 hundreds.

Cider production in America was just…..the only thing I could think of it as an analogy would be, like 15th century Florence, when there were artists in every loft.

I mean, every town had a cider maker and the Apple cultivation, was just at its peak then.

Brian: Have you got the travel module promoting the book you’re putting on presentations?

Have you got to travel a whole lot, I imagine Oregon’s probably the farthest you’ve traveled, right?

Andy: Yeah. Short of resisting traveling, promoting because after writing the book, like I mentioned, I’m really just in love with farming again and I want to get into the groove and give the trees the attention that they might not have had last year.

So I’ve been resisting it and I only have maybe four or five events lined up before the big harvest this September.

Brian: Well that’s great.

I think what you’re saying is pretty common, especially in this industry and in this niche. A lot of people, they have their own place and traveling is kind of outside of their realm, having to travel a whole lot, especially if they’re interested in what’s going on at home.

You have any logistical tips, anything that for people to keep in mind while they’re traveling, especially if they’re resistant to it?

Andy: I need a lot of alone time. That’s the plight of the introvert.

I just, I love engaging with people and telling people about wild apples and cider if they’re interested in that. And, I didn’t really love it, but my interaction with people…I’m sort of like a cell phone battery.

I go out and then after maybe about two hours or three hours, I just crash and I need to be alone and recharge.

So, you know, that I think is a textbook definition of an introvert and that I need that. And if I have that then, I like to travel.

I’m really excited to see just how apple’s also are adjusting to the soil out there compared to, you know, I know it’s a very different climate, but a different soil structure and I’m used to the Northeast apples so I want to interview some trees while I’m out there.

Brian: Yeah, I think that’s really good tip, especially for people who are more introverted to be able to have that set on their schedule ahead of time. So it’s not completely miserable the entire trip. I really appreciate your time with us.

Could you tell us if a listener is interested in finding out more about you, your book, about Aaron Burr Cider, where’s the best place for them to go?

Andy: Well, our home page, Aaron Burr Cider is really a directory to all the different projects, which includes the book and the cider.

I want to say that it’s not just us. I mean there’s so many other great cider producers out there and small farmers.

I was really, really lucky to have a lot of attention thrust on me, early on as cider was sort of taking off.

In some ways. It’s not fair.

My trees are my trees and somebody else has their trees and the way we all have a relationship to the land. And, I appreciate the focus and the interest from customers.

But, I would say any local, Apple farmer is deserving of that attention.

And, um, I think it’s a local drink.

I appreciate customers far and wide interested in our cider, but, ultimately I think it’s about people bonding to their region, their land.

So, I encourage people to really dig, because the small producers are out there. They just haven’t been as lucky as I am in terms of reaching the people.

Ultimately, I hope that’s what brings them back to apples.

Because you know, the nation, we were all Apple growers and we need to be, we need to be again, so many great lessons there.

Brian: Absolutely. And are you still doing your blog journal? Are you keeping up on that?

Andy: Yeah, I still do about a post every two months or so. And that was always my case.

I keep a lot to myself because I feel like sometimes I’m just a curmudgeon, just jaded and depressed by what’s happening in the modern world. And so I often, I’ll write something, I’ll give it about a week before and if I think there’s something positive, I’ll publish it. But a great number of my rants don’t go unpublished.

Brian: Can people reach that from the Aaron Burr Cider website?

Andy: That’s also linked to the website.

We have all these weird projects because like I mentioned, I’ve got an art background.

I have something known as The Aaron Burrlesque, which is supposed to be the antidote to Hamilton, the play, which any anti-federalist knows to be federalist propaganda.

So, The Aaron Burrlesque is the additional anecdote to…I think his name is Lin-Manuel Miranda, his famous Hamilton play.

That’s a photo series, that’s on the website.

The blog is attached to the website.

We have a whole line of underwear, which is a really long story. People wanted us to advertise our logo on shirts or something like that because we have a neat logo. Has the old gun, the duel gun. And I’m opposed to the sort of corporate advertisement in public.

So we came up with the underwear and I said, well, if you’re going to wear our logo, nobody’s going to be able to see it.

So we have that because they’re all just art projects, really.

Brian: It’s great that you allow yourself to be so expressive and to find new ways to be able to put things out there and just kind of follow passions the way you do, it’s really refreshing.

What makes wild apples and wild Apple cider, so uniquely different that comes straight from a domestic orchard?

Andy: This is a long story, but I’m going to try to say as fast and I’ll say with each sentence it can unfold into a huge topic on its own.

But my interest in wild apples as a farmer is that they exist unsprayed and apples are the most sprayed crop in America. And there one of the most in the world.

They’re extremely manipulated and they have to be because about 150 years ago, we’ve kind of stopped the evolution of the Apple.

Meanwhile, every other disease and insect has been keeping pace. And, now these trees are sitting ducks.

So that sort of describes your conventional orchard, um, monocrop environments, which is what is now a sitting duck for diseases and insects, which can destroy your crop and literally kill the tree.

A wild Apple is an Apple tree, which has figured out how to acclimate to the environment. And it’s a very diverse environment.

Here in the Northeast, they’re everywhere.

They’re along the roads and old pastures and they don’t get any of that attention and yet they still survive.

So that’s one way to describe a wild apple, but just even genetically, it’s very different than a farmed apple.

This is fascinating. And um, and every single Apple are five seeds in every single seed, it’s going to become genetically its own variety.

So whereas in your grocery store, you have five varieties that we all know, golden, delicious and red delicious and McIntosh apple. In every single Apple, are five new varieties that this world has never seen.

And then on just one tree alone, there is, on a good year, there might be a thousand Apples.

So that’s 5,000 varieties that this world has never seen.

And the point of that is to put as much heat out in the world and see what survives and what type of genetics are needed for that, for where that seed just happens to end up.

That’s not done on farms.

What happens on a farm is they fall in a particular variety, let’s say a Granny Smith and they’ll take a piece of wood from the original Granny Smith, which is a variety and they just graph that onto the root system of hundreds and thousands and now hundreds of thousands if not millions of trees.

So that what grows above that graft union is just one variety, Granny Smith. And every single wild apple tree, if it’s a from seed, it’s going to be its own variety.

Brian: Wow!

Andy: I should also mention that genetically they are infinitely more diverse than humans and humans have not cloned or at least to say that we’ve never had two humans exactly the same on the planet.

So I find that, alarming that something that as sophisticated as an apple tree is not able to given the green light to express itself genetically.

Nor is it allowed to defend itself or acclimate to various environments.

I’m telling you about apple trees and sadly as is true of pretty much everything, from farmed animals to farm crops. Apple trees are particularly diverse and I believe they might be the most genetically diverse plant in the plant kingdom.

Brian: That is really interesting. You know, I’ve heard it expressed on occasion some pieces of that, but I’ve never heard it said quite that way. That’s really interesting.

Is there anything else that you want to cover?

Andy: We’d like to say something about, I don’t know how to do this and even after writing the book, I still don’t know how to do this, how to really say what I find is important about running a business in the modern world because we have the economy is constantly going up.

Costs of living are constantly going up.

And as a business owner, usually it’s just assumed you’re going to be larger next year than you are this year.

But that doesn’t really apply to a farmer. You can’t enlarge your farm.

You have a relationship with the land and a limited amount of acreage or so or a limited amount of trees.

And there’s an economy to be worked out on every homestead farm on how to survive and how to maximize what you wait and get from your farm. But in the end, that’s not the larger economy just demand so much more.

So there’s a real disconnect between farming sustainably and that includes cider that includes, fur sure, apples and particularly the old versions…or I should say the real versions of the apple seedling tree.

All these things are in direct competition or I should say out there that they’re so easily or antiquated by a world where everything is a cheap and expanding and homogenizing and it’s really, we live in a world where efficiency is King and expansion is King.

Those are not applicable principles for what I feel like is real cider and real apple growing in the end.

Agriculture is about a relationship and I think that I tried to cover that in the book. I don’t know exactly how to do it, how to give that limited scale business, just deserts.

So what I did, at least in the book is I really tried to focus on the people and the culture around me in the farm and hopefully the reader empathizes and will understand just what’s at risk or what sort of just overrun by the modern expanding economy.

Brian: Do you have any clue as to what possible solutions might be to some of that? Have you found any way around that yourself?

Andy: For sure, the best solution is always to build intimate relationships with customers.

Which ask questions, and you know, certainly large companies, they don’t have the time or the inclination to have one-on-one relationships with their customers.

So yeah, even though I said, I’m an introvert, I can’t hide from the fact that that’s bonding with my customers is the only thing that that’s going to save, I think people like me from essentially becoming roadkill to a bigger and bigger and faster and cheaper.

Brian: Wow!

That is a very, very, very important point there that you just made. I hope everybody that’s listening catches that because it’s such a simple concept, but that one thing, like you said, it’s the thing that the big guys can’t do, even if they have an inclination too.

They’re not able to do what the smaller operation can do in terms of having that one-on-one relationship.

So that’s really important. That’s a really great point.

And your book plays into that too because you’re helping to educate and like you mentioned, kind of answer the questions that people already had about the process.

Have you found that to be true?

Have you gotten feedback as far as that from your customers or future customers?

Andy: Yeah, I can’t believe how much people seem to like the book.

You know, I’ve even been mistaken as a professional writer.

So yeah, I’ve been fortunate that way that I think the book was a success. And, every year I make cider and some years it’s fantastic.

But I don’t know how I did it and it just happened that way and I could never repeat it. And that’s really how writing the book was. I think it is good, but I have no idea how I could ever do it again.

Brian: Well that’s great. I mean, if you’ve been able to achieve that much with one book, that’s a huge deal that so many people go through their lives, including business owners and homesteaders that never get to do anything like that.

So that’s fabulous that you’ve been able to reach out like that and been able to make a difference.

Andy: I want to share that attention with all small apple farmers and cider makers and encourage everybody to dig deep and find those local resources.

Because like I said, I’m just one of literally thousands around the country.

Brian: Absolutely. Well, fabulous.

Hey, thanks so much for being on the show, Andy.

This is a lot to chew on and you’ve got so much information and such a depth of thought put into everything that you do that we’d love to have you on the show in the future sometime. And in the meantime, look forward to meeting you out at The Mother Earth News Fair In Albany Oregon.

Thanks again for being on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.

Andy: Well thank you. Thank you for your podcast. I’m looking forward to meeting you.

Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Andy’s a really sweet, really smart guy. Lots of fun to talk to. A lot of this conversation went back in my mind to the importance of understanding your own nature.

If you happen to be a nonconformist, if you happen to be an introvert and allowing room to continue being who you are, just like he talked about, allowing time to just be alone while he’s out and traveling, it really comes down to know thyself.

I think it’s cool how he has this history, this background story to the name of his cider, Aaron Burr Cider.

It’s great to have those types of things. I know he didn’t do it on purpose, but the fact that it came about and he’s taken advantage of that, that shows a lot of ingenuity along with all the different ways that he’s able to be artistic and be himself and be able to express himself even in ironic ways when it came to putting his brand out there on underwear and everything else. It’s just very funny. Very cool.

Right toward the end, the point he made about relationships, about really having that one-on-one with your customers and how the larger corporations and brands, they can’t compete with that.

You could bring something completely different and be able to have that one on one relationship and be able to be an actual person to your customers.

Not just a personality, but be a real person, someone they can talk to on the phone or communicate via email.

I think that’s important and it ties in so great with his book because his book puts himself out there.

It’s him spending hours and hours and hours putting this book together. I mean that talk about blood, sweat and tears.

I can’t wait to get into that book.

It his passion for a worthwhile cause. He has this concept of the way that it was the way we should be paying attention to our agriculture and our plants.

It’s important to have that. It’s important to be able to voice that and have that be tied to your brand also so that people who either already have that cause in mind can be connected with you and your brand and also it brings other people who have liked your cider.

Now they can come in and learn this story.

That’s something they would not have known otherwise and you can bring new people into the cause. Overall, I expect really big things from Andy Brennan in the future and can’t wait to try his cider at The Mother Earth News Fair.

Outro: Join us again on the next off the grid is 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.

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.

Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast

Stories for the Self-Reliant!

Tag: book-writing

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