The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
Welcome to the Emotional Alchemy Podcast where safety is medicine, connection is never automated and everything is relational.
The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
123. SPIRITUAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Revolutionizing Business with Community and Co-Creation with Regenerative Farmer Daniel Salatin
What happens when we shift our mindset from individualism to community? This week, we explore this concept with Regenerative Farmer Daniel Salatin, who shares insightful observations on the profound power of community, especially in business. Salatin’s approach challenges us to consider potential competitors as future partners, and demonstrates how mutual support can transform our growth both personally and in business. He brings alive the concept of interdependence and the strength of community through lessons we can learn from regenerative farming.
In our conversation, we also discuss the interconnectedness of all living organisms within an ecosystem and how this can be applied to create a robust and thriving business. Salatin emphasizes the importance of outsourcing, collaboration, and sharing knowledge openly and generously. He believes that by recognizing our own individual roles and leveraging our unique strengths, we can contribute to a common goal more effectively and foster an environment of abundance.
As the episode unfolds, we delve into the subject of finding fulfillment in our work, aligning our internal compass with our external circumstances, and understanding the role of co-creative relationships in fostering abundance. I’m so glad you’ll be joining us in this captivating conversation where we weave in the lessons of nature and farming into how to run creative and ethical businesses.
Resources:
- Daniel's mentor is Allan Nation
- Stockman Grass Farmer
Daniel Salatin is multi-generational farmer. He’s grown up in the farming landscape in Swoope, VA. Farming right out of the gate has giving him a lifetime of experience, mastery and confidence that comes from a life’s work and passion. Today he leads an ever-growing team at Polyface Farm. Daniel finds the most joy in his family, teaching, team building, healing soil, farm design, a growing relationship with Jesus, working with livestock and hunting. Managing the day-to-day flow of the farm, he works with cattle, hogs, meat birds, layers, turkeys, rabbits, sheep, and forestry, but most importantly- People. This keeps him learning something every day in a high energy, outdoor workplace. Daniel has over 30 years of hands on experience in healing land and growing healthy food.
Connec
Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
Hello and welcome to the Rooted Business podcast. Today I've got Daniel Salatin with me and if you are at all in the regenerative farming sort of landscape. The Salatin name is, I would say, quite popular. When I got to have Joel Salatin, who's Daniel's father, signed my book, I have like a little bit of a fangirl moment, and so I'm really excited to have Daniel here with me. So thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me. It's been really a pleasure to get to know you at the conference and I'm excited to talk to your folks and be part of your community here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I invited Daniel on because I went to a homesteading conference what was that? Back in the summer time? And out of all of these talks that I got to sit in on, which you know were super informative, like very sort of like nuts and bolts, the one talk that really sort of continued to sit with me even after the conference was Daniel's. And Daniel, you talked so beautifully about community, of a sort of like broader, regenerative way of living and thinking, and I'm gonna I don't, I want to say it's brilliant, but it's also not brilliant because like it's, like that's not to, like you know, insult you at all, but it's like these are yeah, these are like old concepts that I think that we have pulled away from in our modern culture.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of like more individualistic thinking. I think that a lot of my audience would sort of say that their experience of business, their experience of being in the entrepreneurial space, is largely a solo experience. It can feel very lonely and isolating and also like I feel like we've been sort of trained and ingrained in this way and so having you just sort of break that box open and look at a more sort of traditional way of leaning on each other and leaning on our neighbors and leaning on our community felt like such a refreshing thing that I just continued to think about like for months after this conference, because we're now recording this in September. So, yeah, yeah, thank you so much for your perspectives.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I'm glad that that conference and that talk had something to offer and I'm glad that it stuck with you that long. That's incredibly honoring Thank you. I think for me, you know, when we talk about, whether it's the, you know, whatever context we put it in, whether it's the American dream of having your own house and your own yard and your own picket fence and your own car, or whether it's the rugged individualists of capitalism or whatever word you want to put around it, I think you're right and that we have gotten to this. I'm gonna get mine. I'm gonna take care of me. You know again, everything from prenuptial agreements to contracts, to ironclad leases, to lawsuits. You know I mean it's all about kind of protecting me. I mean we started out with. You know we're old enough to remember the whole, like you know, my space page and then going into the more social media of my pastor talked about. You know what do you do when you hold up the phone and look back at yourself? You're taking a selfie. It's about you. It's about yourself, and not that there's anything wrong specifically about taking a selfie. It's just that, as that has grown into our culture, it has just supported this idea of you know, me, myself and I and and kind of this, this one self protection type environment, and when we think about, you know, as the, as the conference, we were talking about homesteading, which is probably very different from a lot of folks who are viewing this, but the idea of homesteader that even kind of sums up that word, like that was the whole idea.
Speaker 2:You think about the pioneers going out west. They went alone, they went a lot of times as an organ, like an organ trail, like a wagon train kind of thing. They went as a big group but ultimately they were going for their piece of property. They were getting a piece of land that was theirs and they were not intending to share necessarily. It was gonna be be their own, as opposed to more of the nomadic tribal folks that were here either before or a lot of folks around the world that still even live that way today. And so I think the homesteading there was a lot of that. You know we read more Ingalls Wilde or Little House on the Prairie. There's the. There's a lot of the sharing. You know, one, one homestead had milk and another one had honey and another one had bread and they, you know, they share to make things work. So there was a lot of communal support, communal living. I mean we think about the Amish barn raisings of today, how they come together and do things so you can have a little bit of both, I understand that.
Speaker 2:But when it sinks into your mentality that that I need to protect mine and everyone else is competition and I should not share my good ideas or not share my unfair advantage, as they call it in marketing and business sense, with people, because then they're gonna overtake me and you know it's a, it's a survival of the fittest environment.
Speaker 2:So, in a nutshell, what I wanted to convey in the talk that has clearly stuck with you was the idea of interdependence creates a much stronger community than independence and when we look at it from that perspective, and whether it be, you know in the realty space, whether we're looking at other realtors as our competition versus our support and networking and creating a bigger community of involvement. I mean you think about I'll do one more example and we'll go to the next question but I think about the classic movie the miracle on 34th Street, the classic Christmas movie, and people were going into the Macy's store wanting to buy the toy right and the Santa Claus is telling them oh, we don't have it, but you can go to the other place. And what a great. You know. Of course the corporate guy was first going.
Speaker 2:Oh no, this is terrible and then all the customers are saying, oh, how thoughtful they are, and most of you are aware of the scene and how thoughtful they are and this is great. I'm gonna come back to Macy's for everything and I think about that as we, as we've gotten away from that and the idea that we should look to people who have strengths outside of our own and building a community that is incredibly interdependent and don't try to do everything yourself. I think that was it from a homesteading perspective, which is the context I'm coming out of is most people want to be completely self-reliant, incredibly independent and self-sufficient, and in the reality, that's just not the way it's gonna work and you're just not gonna be good at everything. You're not gonna have everything you need. You're going to need other people and other strengths, and so, anyway, I just think of taking that, realizing where we are as a culture, realizing where we are as business advice for a long, long time. I mean, there's the book. It's lonely at the top right. I mean that's, that's how it is and we want to.
Speaker 2:My goal, I guess, would be to to convey the idea of how do we look to our competitors, that we would have phrased them before and say how can we partner with them and and all grow together. I realize in some worlds it's not quite feasible. You know tech world, you know you lose a. You know you lose a piece of technology and it can become detrimental to your business. I get that, but in general, as we begin looking for, even in big businesses, it's it's not one department against another, it's how do the departments work together to solve each other's problems. How does a problem over here become a solution over there? And and instead of just worrying about my promotion and my good name and my award at the end of the Christmas dinner, how do we make the whole business better? And I think those are some really great things that I think, if we all apply them, can be very beneficial. Yeah, that was a long rant.
Speaker 1:To maybe sum up a short speech well, I think that you know, if you were a conventional farmer, I'd be sitting here having a very different conversation with you.
Speaker 1:I think that the regenerative aspects of even just the like practical ways in which you farm and look at land and look at the relationship between yourself and land, and you know, all the critters that you're raising, all the sort of vegetables that you're raising, and seeing them as part of an ecosystem, versus conventional farming, which tends to be like a monocrop and, you know, use the soil as like a blank slate to add then like chemical fertilizers. You know, I think, that if you get down into the roots of it, like you recognize on like a deep and like tangible level that every microorganism in the soil needs to be there has a place in the ecosystem. You know, the pig has a purpose in it, the cows have a different purpose, the chickens the different crops that you grow. And so when you, when you start looking at things as like a community, not just from like a business perspective but also from like a tangible farming perspective, I think that has to bleed into how you treat people absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think. I think that's. You know, I appreciate that not everybody can be a farmer, I get that but I think the idea of that connecting to soil real life, life and death, the interconnectingness of each species from one to another, and and realizing, if you take any part of the equation out, stuff starts to fall apart, things start to suffer. It's it does create a much more balanced view of people and and I stand as someone who has plenty of interpersonal problems and needs to grow and needs to learn and treat people better on a daily basis and all of those things but it does create that that sense of respect to truly look for the value of another individual or another organization or another company as as well. I mean whether it's like you talk about the pigs, whether it's co-labors.
Speaker 2:I mean for me, you know, we use pigs to turn our compost, which is something I would typically have to do myself, and so when I get the pigs to do it, they're like co-labors, they're actually like part of my staff, not just something that I get to eat bacon later, it's something that is part of my staff and so that creates a a respect situation that is not just something that makes me money, but it's something that serves a purpose and we work together to solve this goal, to reach this goal, and that then creates a situation where, when I'm, when I meet someone who I don't understand, or maybe is very different from me, or whatever my first reaction should be huh, what part are they playing that I don't understand?
Speaker 2:yet or what value are they bringing to everything and the the world around me or my, not just my business, but the greater community as a whole? That I don't understand yet, and that's that's a beautiful thing. I mean, a handful of soil has literally billions of bacteria, different bacteria in it, many of which we have, we have not even, we don't even have names for yet, and so I don't know what they do. I have no idea. But the idea of of having that ability to do that we need to to have those respect for each individual person that we run into and being able to have those interactions from a from a mutually encouraging perspective.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's something that I talk about with my people all the time, of like business being relational and, and so you know, instead of looking at you know your audience or your customers as something to extract from, or looking at collaborators as, like you know something that I can get something from right, you start being able to look at sort of the broader picture of you know how does this person fit into you know my personal ecosystem, and so if we take it into the sort of like business world I'm thinking about one of the very first hires that I did was for someone to do my books like.
Speaker 1:I hate bookkeeping. It is like my least favorite thing in the world and you know there's, there's somebody out there who you you, I enjoy that. It's hard for me to like think about that as being an enjoyable experience, but I have a friend who's a bookkeeper and she loves it, and so then if I'm bringing on somebody to help me with my books, I'm now, you know, able to sort of like extend where my money goes as well. It's like the money that I bring into my business now then gets to be fed into my community, and so then there's a way that we like this, like rugged individualism thing, like you don't have to do it, it doesn't have to be that hard. You know can you bring other people on who enjoy doing some of the tasks that you just despise doing, and you know by doing that you're actually helping support their lives as well.
Speaker 2:Right, that's, that's so well said. Yeah, that's so well said. And the idea I mean, we're all, we're all familiar if you're in business at all, I'm sure people, everybody in your world has seen the whole you know bringing back to the circle of focus of where you're, you know the best of what you're good at, what you love and what you like, you know those kinds of things of bringing that down to a circle and the smaller you can pinpoint that, the more effective you are. We've also been aware of the concept of more working on your strengths instead of your weaknesses. You get further by doing that than working on your weaknesses, and I wholeheartedly agree and that's basically what you said so well, and I think that that is that idea, that that you know when you start a business you do have to do everything. You know we get that, you, you, you do everything. There's no money to pay anybody. Most times it's, it's, it's difficult, we get that. But the with the mindset of I want to let go of things is something that's not real, is kind of rare, I think, and the desire to go. Okay, I really, as you said, I dislike the books. I'm there too. I'm terrible at keeping track of numbers and stuff like that. I'm like, yeah, I would, I would definitely go to, like you know, insurance, jail or something if I didn't have someone else handling that part of our business.
Speaker 2:And the idea that when we really look down deep, there is someone out there who truly genuinely is impassioned and loves what we quite literally hate or despise. I mean it's just, you know when I kind of put it this way if you make it to do list for the week and there's going to be things you don't get to, of course, and if the same thing is on next week's to do list, right, and it doesn't get done, then and you do that a couple of weeks in a row and you're like, huh, this couple of items down here I didn't get to because I really didn't want to, but I continued to put it off and put it off. That's some things that you should really work at getting off your list like completely, so it shouldn't even be in your world. And when that happens, you know, I think about it from from my perspective. You know I'm a farmer but I am not a mechanic, so if it's not gas or the battery, I got nothing, and the idea that we've hired on, you know, two wonderful mechanic type people and they like read owners manuals and operators manuals for like fun at night Are you insane? And they just love it. And the idea of tearing into an engine and all is just so. So I think it's just really important to think about that.
Speaker 2:And so then, exactly what you said, I'm now able to focus my energy on things that I'm much more passionate about. You know, raising animals, taking care of land, land management, et cetera, increasing soil fertility, blah, blah, blah, and that creates a much more synergistic thing, and so we can also, as a business. We're able to get so much further when we partner with these kinds of people, both internally and externally. You know, whether it be accountants that handle your books outside, whether it be outsourcing things, from power washing your business facade to resurfacing your parking lot to, for us it's, you know, hauling cattle from one place to another. We've outsourced that, so someone else gets to do that, and it's. It's so rewarding to see that begin to, quite literally.
Speaker 2:You know the rising tide lifts all boats, and seeing one of my other mentors again not, this is not as you said at the beginning, it's not rocket science and it's not amazing but it's good, it's worth going over. And that idea of you will get where you want to go if you make sure enough other people get where they want to go. And man, I mean that is something. That is when we really internalize that and look at it from the perspective of nature and realize that you know one oak tree is not trying to get theirs and hopes all the other oak trees die Like they are trying to get what they need, but they're feeding off of each other.
Speaker 2:You know the leaves from this oak tree fall over here and are benefiting that piece of ground and leaves from another one are falling. You know they're feeding each other and it's it's not about about getting just their own thing. And I think that's a really key piece here that we really can look at and realize okay, that realtor across town or that software company in the other city is not my competition. How can we learn from them? What are they doing well, what am I doing that they need to know? And how can we have major breakthroughs in our industry that can quite literally change the world?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean to me, like what you're speaking to feels very similar to the like pig analogy that you were making earlier of. Like you know, I don't always want to be the one who's like churning up the compost, so how wonderful is it that these pigs actually enjoy that and it's like something that brings some joy in their life and so like we get to outsource that to the pigs. And then when you started talking about the oak trees, it's like a little bit easier, I think, for most people to be like oh, I don't like bookkeeping, I'm going to outsource that to a bookkeeper. It's a little bit harder and a little stickier when you're kind of doing the same thing. So like an oak tree and another oak tree have very similar needs, has a very similar like way of like existing in the world.
Speaker 1:And so then I know that you guys at Polyface Farm do a lot of like internships, where people can come on and learn how to farm the way that you all farm, and then they go out and, you know, do a very similar thing, perhaps not that far from where you are. So can you speak a little bit to like the stickiness that comes up and why you continue to share information so freely and so generously?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, no, thank you. That that's very, very kind of you to say, and that is our goal. We have a very open-door policy. We want anybody to be able to learn what we're doing, and, and some of the organizations and even probably experience that at the homesteaders conference it's just generally people, whether it be speakers or attendees we're just like, hey, you know, what can we help you with? Here's how I solve this problem. Let me be helpful. I think that's a great community to be a part of in, anyway, I think I think a couple analogies that are good and for me, kind of going back to that tree analogy, I Don't know how much this, this group, is gonna maybe follow this analogy, but when a tree grows by itself, it becomes very unhealthy.
Speaker 2:It goes branchy and has lots of branches. It doesn't grow tall and straight, it grows short and squatty and it becomes very unvaluable from a lumber perspective, and which is not its only value, but it becomes if that's what you're going for it becomes very unvaluable. When a bunch of trees grow together, they protect each other. You know, you don't have a bunch of forest trees blow down in a storm. It's the one that's out by itself that blows down or the one on the edge Is what blows down. And so I think, putting that obviously into the business sense, when we are doing very much the same thing, there is the benefit in the grouping and growing together and and being mutually helpful, because, you know, a tree by itself for lack of a better term becomes a lightning rod. Right, that's what I mean, not not to mention the fact that it's unhealthy, it's unstable, it's very susceptible to storms, damage, those kind of things, but it's also a lightning rod. So anything that's going to hit it, it's going to hit that tree. If you're in a group of 20 trees or 50 trees, or you know thousands of acres of trees, the idea of getting hit is very, is a lot, much, as is much, much smaller.
Speaker 2:And so, whether that be government regulation, bureaucratic oversight or involvement, you know, maybe you want to become a part of an organization. I mean, there's plenty of organizations that help group people together to become stronger or create lobbying power or political change, or what have you? Activism and and solving each other's problems. You know, hey, this, this happened to this company, it's about to happen to me. How did they solve it? And vice versa.
Speaker 2:So I think that that that strength through Through grouping is very important and even though you might be doing the exact same thing and there's a lot of examples with that in business, you know, from trade organizations to, to activism groups, things like that and and I think it should just go on past that and and okay, maybe you're not sitting down every Monday morning for a coffee with your competitor to swap ideas, but you are going and you're beginning to view them and it. I will admit I'm not there yet, but the goal is to truly be excited for the success of a competitor, and that's not an easy place to be, I get that, but it's it. It creates a much more Healthier person, business etc. When you can truly be happy and and and excited about a competitor's success.
Speaker 2:So, as these people that we train go out and become successful, it opens up opportunities for us to grow, try new things, go, find other customers, hone our marketing Language and techniques so that we become better, create more lasting relationships with the customers that we have, because we're in marketing, so we sell, so you know, those of those of folks who are watching this that are in sales understand all that and and the idea of it. You have to be, you have to be hungry, or someone younger and hungrier will take your lunch Right and and that's a key, the key facet Well, I think what? That's a background always there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think that what that brings up for me is like if we were just gonna beat this like oak tree analogy the death here, but like the, the healthy, you know, mature oak Through the mycelial networks is actually gonna send resources to the younger ones that need more resources. You know, and so Like. When I think about poly face farms, where y'all have been doing this for I don't even know how long yeah, lots of information, lots of Good experience that y'all are passing down and ultimately what that does is it helps the whole industry Be more robust and and just be stronger generally, because you guys are, you know, competing against the Tyson, you know, distributors of the of the United States and so like, the more people as consumers who can have access to and see that there's a different way to raise birds or there's a different way to raise a pork, like it's really only going to solidify, solidify the market in such a way that you guys are going to be stronger as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and that's that's the. The fun part about it is to To have a success tree and to have a bunch of graduates out of our program or whatever, to see them flourish. You know it, the idea of, of mimicry is the highest form of flattery, right, and but the idea at of when Someone goes up to these folks and says, oh yeah, where did you learn how to do this? This is so cool.
Speaker 2:Whatever they're going to say polyphase, and it does point back to that, and so those, those young trees, are also dropping resources that the big ones are using too, and so it definitely is a neutral connection of that and and I think that especially, um, I think really in any industry I can't think of really any industry where this, this next statement, wouldn't apply and that is, it's a lot bigger group of people to sell to than we think. You know, we think of it, oh, you know, uh, someone else starting across towns, going to take my business, etc. But at the end of the day, there is so many people um in the world, uh, certainly, but even in your city, your town, your locality, um, and Realizing that if you have a jump start on anybody, whether it be one year, two years, ten years, you are automatically going to be that much ahead of them, always, like forever.
Speaker 2:And so, whatever, if you're applying yourself to learning, to growing to Again, staying hungry you are going to be that far in front of them forever, um, and it doesn't mean that Again back to the tree. It doesn't mean that that young tree isn't growing. It just means you're always out pacing them by a little bit, and that's okay, and so they can get huge, they can get as big as you at some point, but it doesn't mean that you have to worry about it and you're going to shunny, shrivel up and die. You know, again, the resource of the tree is the sunlight. There's plenty to go around, right, and, um, yeah, the trees that the trees that grow right next to the big one typically do die off. So it's good to give yourself a little space. Um, but the idea of working together and being that closely related Is because there's really plenty to go around.
Speaker 2:I mean, we, we did this challenge. We have a town about 20,000 people, 20, 25,000 people, about 10 miles from our farm, um, and one of our graduates or students was kind of had a farm right on the other side of town, so 20 minutes apart, and they were like well, why would I start a farm? You've already got the market saturated. Why would we ever want to do this? And we said I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:For the next week, you ask every single person you meet if they have heard of us and see what you find, and but the end of the week they came back and they had found less than 5 of the people they had talked to had even heard of us. Much less were buying miles, and so it was just a good. I mean. He said, okay, I get it, I'm gonna go forward, it's gonna be great and it was also a reassuring to us going. There is still a lot of fish out there to be caught, if you will, and that that need to be aware of, of who we're doing. So our marketing needs to step up and there's plenty of plenty of opportunity to go do it.
Speaker 1:So, um, yeah, there's just a lot more opportunity out there than we think and yeah, to me it's sort of like highlights this concept of like a community mindset is also an abundance mindset, you know and.
Speaker 1:Like I'm being reminded of something that happened early on in my career. So before I was a coach, I, um, was an acupuncturist and, and you know, I started out sort of as a generalist and then I started, you know, getting more and more attracted to folks who are struggling with like depression and anxiety and like women's health. And I had this man come in and he needed help with his knee and, um, it was right at that point where I was like I really just want to stop seeing sports injuries Like this is so, like not my jam, I can treat this, but I really it's like I'm not happy, I'm like treating knees all day long, um, and so I treated the guy and I told him hey, the guy that you actually want to go see is this teacher that I trained with. He sees knees all day long and he's going to give you a much better treatment. He's going to be a much better fit and practitioner for you. But if you know anybody who's you know struggling with anxiety or depression or women's health, like, send them back to me. Um. And so he went off.
Speaker 1:He continued getting treatment with this teacher His name is Anthony and, um, I got a card several months later from that client and he was like thank you so much, anthony's been amazing. My knee is completely better. I'm about to run a marathon, um, and I'm so glad that you gave me his information. You were totally right. He was a much better fit. And then he ended up sending his wife and his mother to me and so, like I think that sort of to go back to what you were saying you know, lean into the gifts and the things that you really enjoy doing, and sort of like, use the mycelial network and send what you don't want to other people, even if it's Something that's very similar, something that you could actually be making some money off of. It actually does them, does the client. It's better for the client, it's better for your industry, it's better for you. Know the other people out there who you might deem as being quote-unquote competitors, um it's really just what's that phrase?
Speaker 1:Um Like, the rising tide raises all ships, or something like that. I'm yeah. I'm really horrible at phrases, but um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I you use the word there that I love and that's abundance. And I think that when you, when you look at yourself, it's very easy to feel like I have a fine amount of time, fine, I'm out of energy, fine, out of money, you know, and so you know from a, you know from a maybe a price-believing a worldview of you know, god owns everything. God can give me what I want. You know, as a child of the king, I can, you know, I can get what I can give me, whatever I, whatever he wants, because he owns everything. And when you're looking at nature, that just you know, just explodes that concept of hey, there really is everything, I mean, whatever it is, there's everything that it needs out there in nature. Um and so when you look at it within that community aspect, suddenly it's like wow, instead of it just being me on my farm, on my homestead, on my business, it's all of us working together. Well, suddenly that's a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of energy, and I think that that's that word.
Speaker 2:Abundance is absolutely the home run that you want to drive home here today, is that, instead of looking at that to-do list and feeling like you're drowning, um and fighting that uphill battle, but look at it as a group and say, man, but together we can really tackle this and we can get it all done. Um, and I love the story about the customer because that, or the you know, the guy with the knee, because realizing that not every Customer is a home run for yourself or not every opportunity is the best opportunity for you, and so spending that time and that reflection to know what is truly my gifts, my talents, my strengths, my desires, my goals, my mission, and doing everything you can to stay in that, um, really reads, as your story showed better is leads to the home run rewards, um, that that can only be done when you stay in those those roles?
Speaker 1:um, I'm curious if you can talk a bit about, just because I I stayed after the talk and was like listening to you answer questions. That was like a little crowd of people after your talk and, um, it was I don't know, he must have been like 11 Ish or so, and he asked this like he wanted to talk to you about raising duck eggs. Um for um, yeah, it was just like. He was so cute, I just wanted to like, like, be his cheerleader, but anyway, so, so there's this little boy and he's asking, um, you know about like, raising ducks for market?
Speaker 1:And I just saw your eyes light up because you were saying, like, oh my gosh, there's such a big market for duck eggs because, you know, certain like bakers love duck eggs, certain restaurants are gonna love them more than chicken eggs. And, um, like, can you speak a little bit about finding those like nishi places that, um, maybe it's hard to think about because there's not someone out there like there's plenty of chicken egg farmers but not very many duck egg farmers, right, like, and so you don't have like a model for someone out there who's already doing it and sort of like like encouraging folks to be brave and take those steps into those little niche places that are exciting yeah sure, sure?
Speaker 2:Well, one of my, one of my mentors I think I can. One of the best ways to answer that question is one of my my mentors, alan nation. He wrote a. I was editor of a magazine called Stockman grass, farmer for the, for the agricultural community. The sense passed away, but he always said if your neighbors are doing it, it's already a bad idea. And if you go to your neighbors and you say hey, I'm thinking about doing this and they say it's a good idea, it's also a bad idea because it's not new enough, it's not, it's not innovative enough, it's not creative enough.
Speaker 2:So I think about, you know, like in the homesteading world, goat milk soap. God bless, I mean, there is so much goat milk, so and clearly there's a need for it, clearly a lot of people love it, clearly a lot of people want to make it awesome. But, like, I think we've done the goat milk soap thing like to death, right, there's just, it's everywhere and and maybe not, maybe, there's still need for more. I'm not. If ever somebody out here wants to do goat milk soap blast, go ahead, do it. But I think and I think that's realizing that there are some people who are good at that to coming up with those new things and really seen that and not beating yourself up if you're not. You know, I think there's a there.
Speaker 2:Just from a personality perspective, I mean, my father's an incredible visionary. He has like a new idea every minute. He's not happy if he's not doing something new. And I'm very not, and I think now we're. You know, we're getting into the real nitty gritty right about like what really gets you excited in the morning, like why do you get out of bed? What? What makes you like? What your story about the knee? Like, if you see a patient, it's not just a patient to you, it's something that you can connect with. It's something that you can really get excited about and be and value and so for, like my dad, it's got to be a new idea, it's got to be something new and visionary. For me it's like All right, I'm the plotter, I like to see something maintained, I like to see the to do list done. I like to, you know, have kind of a plan.
Speaker 2:So I think that it's important to know those things about yourself so that you're not trying to be someone. You know, if you're not an entrepreneur visionary, maybe starting a business is not for you, and I'm not saying don't, but partner with someone who is a visionary, whether you meet with them once a week, whether they consult with you, whether they come in and look at your business a couple times a year to just give you ideas. But don't feel like I have to come up with all the ideas and I have to do all the work myself. You know, realizing where you fit in that and I've taken maybe a little different track on this but looking at looking at really your interpersonal strengths we talked a little bit about this at the beginning but I think it now we're talking about it as an individual and don't feel like, you know, we go to these business conferences and we listen to these motivational speakers and we or we look at these, you know, top 10 ways to be successful in business and all this stuff we think, okay, we'll just take that formula, plug it into my business, boom, and we're going to have results. And I don't think that's a fair comparison when we really don't take the time to evaluate ourselves and say, well, what are my really interpersonal gifts and strengths? And and realizing that sometimes creating this. You know some people think about it like songwriters. You know they sit out and you're like, how in the world does someone write a song? Like, how does that happen? And then you have songwriters that talk about how you know, while I wrote four songs today and you're going, how does that work? And so I think about that for myself is like I don't suddenly want to go out and say I'm going to now work on becoming a good songwriter. That's not who I am, I'm not good at it, that's okay. And that just strengthens the concept of our need for interconnectedness and our need for really tying into someone else's gifts and talents and strengths. And so back to the egg.
Speaker 2:Analogy is looking for, looking for things that you really number one, looking for things that you struggle in, and being quick to ask for someone else who just comes. It comes easy and don't feel like well, I have to learn how to write my marketing slogans. Now, you don't. You can go to someone else who can write, write 10 of them in like five minutes and you just pick the one you like. Right, and that's easy. At the same time, you also want to look and say, well, what, what am I constantly being asked to do? Or what am I truly impassioned to do and how can I turn this into a business? You know, you know you took acupuncture and moved it into mental health, women's health, etc. And you're still very much in the acupuncture industry. You could go talk to another acupuncturist and learn from them. You would be able to learn from different acupuncture schools or conferences.
Speaker 2:But you're taking it in a passion that's meaningful for you. And so when you say I'm going to get up in the morning and I'm going to, you know, minister to people, treat people, be a blessing to people, whatever you want to say, it's in the circle of your strengths, gifts and passions and not just I'm an acupuncturist and I think that's the way it is. You know, for me, I'm a farmer but, as you alluded to earlier, I'm not a chemical fertilizer, pesticides, big tractors, big agriculture, silos and an infrastructure type of farmer, and so that does not excite me. But I'm a regenerative farmer where I'm interested in what's going on in the soil, how the animals are interacting, and I like to teach people. So having people around the farm as a teacher is very rewarding. And so the idea of you know for me, if I wasn't in agriculture, I would probably be like I love coaching, so it would be some type of coaching, whether it be youth and sports or a little bit like what you're doing. That would be the role that I would see myself in, and so being able to marry those two things. Farming is just a tool that I use for coaching and teaching and that creates the reward.
Speaker 2:And so when you really, as you said, ask you know five or 10 of your closest friends, what do you? As you mentioned and it is very humbling and exciting to hear you say you know, my eyes lit up when I was listening to this. What lights up your eyes? What gets you excited? And so when you're doing a, whether it be an interview with a new potential partner or an employee or a staff member, let the conversation wander.
Speaker 2:I was just doing one this week with someone and we were talking about something about the job and we kind of wandered into a different path and this particular individual got super excited about this and I just kind of put a little note down no big deal, just kind of brought it back and we kept going. And when we went to actually, you know, put an offer together and hire this individual, I said, hey, I think you're going to do this job. This is the job of hiring for right now, but you got really happy when we started talking about this other job and I'm just just so you know we're going to keep that here on the side and we're going to try to move you in that direction and this individual was really excited about that and so you know they can start in one role and move toward another. So paying attention to what make people excited about the day can really harness a lot of energy for synergy and moving forward. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's so many places that I want to take this, but I feel like the first piece to sort of highlight is I love the comparison that you made between you and your dad, because it really gives us permission to look at our sort of like natural design and be like what am I sort of most well suited for? And so you know, knowing that your dad's more of the visionary ideas guy, you are more of the like nuts and bolts, like got to keep the farm running guy, like it's so important that both of you exist Right and both of you have this like really beautiful role to play in the business. And so you know, sort of taking it to my people, I think it gives us permission to be like hey, like I might be an ideas person where I come up with something different. You know, I don't know anybody else who talks about business being a spiritual practice the way that I do. But there's also space for folks who are just wanting to do, you know, something that's very similar to what they see around them. Like I have folks who are doing relationship coaching, folks who are Riki practitioners, folks who are therapists building up their businesses and so like, like it gives us all permission to sort of like look at the thing and and and really look at our own design and be like, okay, so what am I? What am I best suited for?
Speaker 1:I think the other piece there that I think is so, so important, that you were saying is farming is the vehicle to do the thing that you're passionate about, you know, and then that gives us the flexibility to be able to change the external circumstances of our life, our business. But then that internal piece sort of gets to stay, your compass. You know, for me, when I think about I've, I feel like I've had so many careers at this point but they all sort of feed into this new ish career it's three years old of like working with business owners and helping them like figure out how to run ethical businesses essentially, and so, like it doesn't negate my time as an acupuncturist, it doesn't negate my time as a vet tech, it doesn't negate any of my like time as like a bartender and as a server, like I get to bring all those pieces forward and sort of align with that internal compass of like really wanting to help people examine, you know, the challenges and struggles that come up, whatever the container is you know, and so, like I love that you know you're.
Speaker 1:You see, I don't know how to put it it's sort of like you don't see farming as your identity. It's like a farming helps support your identity in, or rather the purpose of, what it is that you want to accomplish in this life, and so it's a really sort of like flip around to how people often think about their jobs and think about work for themselves is like you know, how often do you meet somebody and you ask them, like, what do you do for a living? And it's like the assumption is we're going to talk about your job and and ultimately your job, especially if you feel like a soul alignment with your career and your work. It's not just that external sort of like shell of a job that you're, you're playing with.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and the nice part is when those two come together. You know, that's where the real secret sauce is. So I, you know, I do think that you know I am passionate about farming, I'm passionate about regenerative agriculture and I enjoy teaching, coaching. So you put those together and it really becomes. You know, the secret sauce that creates, creates magic, and you said that very clearly is that the end of the day, if we're not striving to help someone else in some way, it's probably not going to be really fulfilled at the end. It's going to be kind of a dead end job. You know, if we don't and that can be done in any way I mean you can be on an assembly line and look to help people. You know whether it be, hey, I'm here to help this company, I'm here to help my family, and so I'm here, for that's my.
Speaker 2:There's lots of ways to motivate yourself, but is, if it ultimately doesn't come down to serving people or helping people, you're probably not going to last very long. Well, you're going to be very disgruntled. You're going to have a long line of, like, unfulfilling jobs, and it's okay if you move around a lot in jobs, as long as you're moving from, you know, serving in this area, to moving to something else, where you're serving in that area, they can be fulfilling, as you said. But if you constantly are looking to find that value in a task or in a specific role or even in the mission of a business, sometimes you can have a lot of unfulfilling.
Speaker 2:You know a line of unfulfilling jobs, so you know, coming back to helping someone, supporting someone and seeing someone being successful is what really to me, you know, leads to fulfillment in life, and that's that's what it's really all about.
Speaker 1:And I think that that ultimately comes back to like again, this sort of like mindset of a regenerative farmer, which, you know, I think I feel like I need to sort of define that as, like I look at regenerative farming as more like your soil farming. You know, you're looking to the health of the soil and you're looking to the whole ecosystem rather than looking to see what can I extract from this resource that is the earth. And it always comes back to the community. It always comes back to this concept around like, yes, how can I help others, but in the process of helping others, I'm also helping myself, and that's kind of what helps move that wheel forward.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I mean, when you're looking at that, how, realizing that the you know, cows, cows eating the grass, putting that on the soil, feeding the soil, making the soil better, which then grows more grass for more cows, you know, and then helps your bottom line because you're raising more cows, you know, those kind of things always, always, work like that, especially in nature, and the ability to just, I think, see that on a regular basis, I think it's again, I appreciate, as I said earlier, not everyone can be a farmer, but if you can spend some time in that natural world and spend some time in that, that, how truly the you know, the Lion King circle of life is really shown on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:Again, whether it be just a micro garden in your backyard where you can put your table scraps out on it and it feeds your soil and you have better tomatoes next year, or whether it be on a big scale where you can see, you know, massive herds of cattle on on rangeland that are improving it over time, all of that leads that, that thought process of, of interconnectedness, community, both always having benefits to something else and and encouraging and and building when you work.
Speaker 2:Again, it's kind of that servant hat. It's that servant hearted attitude really. It really comes back to that. And so when you're, when you're coming into that homesteading mind of I'm going to get mine and take care of myself, it doesn't lend to the fulfilling life of seeing all of this other stuff be successful and flourish and and so when you really try to to come in with that servant mind and that servant attitude, you know great things happen and you see that in nature it's demonstrated in our nature world and in some, in some people that we all know and in some businesses that we all know, it is also demonstrated and it works.
Speaker 1:And I mean I think that ultimately, like what you're speaking to is and I'm really excited that I get to also participate in this because, as we're recording this, we're in a really, really beautiful window of time my husband and I just put an offer on our dream property and they've accepted, and so we're about to close in about a week and like I can't even like my heart is bursting even just thinking about this. But the thing that I get really excited about is the idea of co-creation, which I think you get to be in touch with every single day, and the thing that I've wanted to be in touch with every single day is how can we be in co-creative relationship with land? You know, I very much feel like this land, this particular plot of land, has been like we've been in relationship since we met, like a year ago, as I was telling you, and like I feel like the land itself has ideas of how it wants to be stewarded and how it wants to be fertilized and how it wants to sort of show up and be in relationship with us. But then there's also this really massive barn on the property with like an indoor arena and an outdoor arena, the full horseback riding, and so then I'm also thinking about how can we bring in sort of like, sort of like community into this space that I feel like has been really lonely and been craving like it's like such a beautifully suited place to like bring together people as well as bring together relationship with land, and I think that there's something about like sharing when you have enough that feels like it needs to be said here.
Speaker 1:Like I don't feel like this land is, like my husband and I were just talking about it yesterday and we're like can we, can we not call it like we own this land, like can we come up with like a sort of different sort of term so it doesn't feel like we are sort of like in control of and in charge of and we haven't quite figured it out yet but like to me, that's sort of the whole like thesis of our conversation here is can you be in co-creative relationship with, with other people through your business? Can you be in co-creative relationship with your collaborators, with people who are learning from you, with people you are learning from, and not have it be this like scarcity mindset of, like this is mine and only mine and you know, and so, yeah, I just felt like that, that wanted to be named.
Speaker 2:Right, well, no, and that's. That's a beautiful, a beautiful statement and the idea that it comes back to what you said earlier and that's that concept of abundance. And I think that, again, you know not to pick on urban, I don't think, but I'm biased. Okay, I admit it, I'm biased. I like we're all not better. So you know the idea of going to a, you know, I mean some people might get this feeling if they go to, like, a supermarket or a grocery store and have the feeling of abundance. But I think it's not quite the same. It's definitely not the same for me.
Speaker 2:When you go on a piece of land and you think of all the things that this land offers, and when done right, you don't. When you go into a grocery store, the only abundance it has is if you take something off the shelf and there's a hole there, you take it and it's gone Right. When you're on a piece of land, if you do it well, you can take and take and take and there's never a hole. It's always still filling back up. And I mean you have to do it right, you have to know what you're doing and you have to, you know you have to work together with it, as you said, your co -laborers with it, your stewards of it, not domination of it. But that's that sense of abundance, you know. I mean you think about you harvest a piece of grass, whether you make hay, or have cows eat it or sheep eat it or whatever, and you take off literally thousands and thousands of pounds of grass off of an acre or a field or what have you, and in literally months it's right back the way it was and it had very, very, very little to do with any. You didn't, you didn't go put anything down, you didn't have to do anything. I mean, again, it rained, it's sunshineed, and if you did it well, you left more. Even though you took thousands of pounds away, you left more in the soil than you did before you grazed it the first time. And I mean that's math that no one has ever been able to figure out yet.
Speaker 2:And I think that's where that sense of abundance really comes in is because you're going. You know, I've lived here, I've built a life here, I make money here, I have sustenance here, and it's more abundant now than it was when I was a kid. And you know how was that? How is that possible? How have I been able to to quite literally take and take and take, and yet still there's more here, there's a more abundance, and I think that's just so incredible.
Speaker 2:I mean, you think about, I mean you know, whether it be wildlife and deer and and squirrel or rabbits or what have bird, wild birds, forages, all those things, and that's so different from a. You know, you go to a car lot, you buy a car. Now there's not that car. That car doesn't magically replace itself in that parking spot on that car lot. It has to come from somewhere else, it has to be, you know. And and whereas you can go, you know, pick that tomato today or harvest that, that deer today, and in six months to a year it's replaced with very, very little effort on your part. And that's that sense of abundance that you spoke to, which is incredibly rewarding.
Speaker 1:And I think that the like doing it right piece feels like it needs to be named as well, because I think that the way that our modern culture thinks about farming is like right now I'm in Eastern Washington, it's September, while we're while we're, you know, recording this, and all around here it's like hay country, and all around here I'm looking at acres and acres and acres and acres of land that has been mowed and like is just missing life.
Speaker 1:You know, and to me that's the sort of like extractivist way that a lot of farmers at least conventional farmers like think about the earth rather than thinking about how can I put more into the earth so that she's giving out of like abundance, and giving out of a sense of gratitude and like a thank you for taking care of me, so I'm going to take care of you as well.
Speaker 1:Like those hay fields are now gonna have to be, you know, fertilized next spring. We're gonna have to add things to them that is not natural to this ecosystem in a way that we're like manipulating the earth to continue to give to us, and I think that this is where the rightness is important, whether we're talking about farmland or we're talking about like a plot of homestead or we're talking about. You know our businesses have that have nothing to do with, you know, being outside and farming. If we can sort of look at everything around us and I think this is the sort of like servant attitude that you were talking about is if we can look at the world around us and be like, what can I give in such a way that that thing wants to also be in relationship and participate with me? Like that is the thing that brings up abundance in my life and in my experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's well said. One of my other mentors here lately has been walking me through some stuff and the idea of you know, truly evaluating yourself and asking it simply is are you a giver or a taker?
Speaker 2:And not just in this one. You know interchange. You know, am I giving you money to get a coffee? But the idea of am I looking at it from the idea of what I can get out of this and what I can take versus what I can give? And that's just another way of saying exactly what you said and I think that's it's definitely been a challenge to me to reevaluate some of my motivations and my relationships and my business decisions. You know, am I really looking at this to where I can give or what I can get? And you know, some decisions I've made well and some I need to do better on.
Speaker 2:But the idea of really having that spirit deep down and whether that's within a business, within a customer, within a marketing, within finances or within your relationship with the land and this new property you just got, having that spirit, which you know you already clearly have, is really the first rung in the ladder to climbing this idea of being able to have this life of abundance and not fear, whether it be the apocalypse or going out of business or whatever you have. You can live a life of abundance, without fear, and that's a really beautiful place to be. Yeah, yeah, well, I feel like that was we just traveled all over in this conversation.
Speaker 1:I just so appreciate your perspectives and the way that you think about the world and I'm curious is there anything that you feel like needs to be done? I'm curious is there anything that you feel like needs to just be landed in here, anything that you feel like called to say at the very end of the year.
Speaker 2:No, kat, it's been really a joy. I really enjoy your questioning style. It's definitely thought provoking and you know these are. This is a two-way learning experience and it's been a really pleasure. You know, I think it's, I really do. It has been a blessing to me in my life as I'm certainly not old but I'm getting a little older with the opportunity to see it play out over time.
Speaker 2:You know and realize that you know you might think, well, I need to protect this part of my business. Or you know, I rent properties, for example, for me, and I rent land and, like man, I need to make sure that my leases are all ironclad and they can't get out of them and we've got ourselves protected and at the end of the day, it's just not worth it. It really isn't. And what really? What it really comes down to is A relationships, b trust and C coming to a negotiation or a conversation with. You know your hands like this open and if the more you try to close in on it, the slippery it gets. And just the idea of letting in the example of the land, it's like, well, you know, you lose this one, like 50 acre piece, and you're bummed and it's like, oh man, that's really disappointing and I really wanted to be there and it was so pretty.
Speaker 2:And then what's really cool is, you know, you turn around and God has like a hundred acre place for you and he's like, hey, this is what I really want you to have.
Speaker 2:And if you just don't argue with it and you just let it go, suddenly you have this much beautiful gift, much better gift. And so, there again, when you're really saying, hey, this 50 acres is better for the landowner to take back over or someone else to have, or whatever, and you truly, in turn, when the rubber beats the road, I have to internalize that and I'm saying to myself because it's you know, it's not easy. And suddenly you have this opportunity to say, okay, I truly genuinely mean that I'm excited for this loss in my business and my life, which is not fun, but I know it's going to be better or whatever. And then the blessings come back and you have this incredible like opportunity to jump to something else. And it doesn't always happen right away and it's not a guarantee, but I can tell you the little bit of life that I've lived. It has rung true and I've certainly come out ahead. You know, in quotation marks over my life by trying to enter into these agreements or these negotiations or these conversations with that in mind.
Speaker 1:And it's great, it's a really fun time, oh, I love that it's something that, like, I'm learning from my dad right now.
Speaker 1:My dad is now in his 70s and it's so weird to hear him say this, because I had a very different experience of my dad growing up, because he was like I'm going to push and I'm going to struggle and I'm going to hustle and like override and overdo. And I've been turning to him for counsel as we've been going through with this land purchase and he has to keep reminding me, like if it's not an open door, don't step through it. If it's not an open door, you don't have to, like you know, knock the door down. And it's been such a deep learning for me Having my dad sort of be that like solid base, of, like find the flow. You know, if and he's even put it out that he's like if this plot of land is not meant to be yours, then it's going to show up as like a closed door and so just accept the closed door. If that's what's going to come to pass, that means that there's something better for you out there or that this land was meant to go to somebody else.
Speaker 1:And I mean I'm very grateful that it's been pretty much open doors all the way through this whole process and I don't want to jinx it, but yeah, that's been an important learning for me too and something that I've kicked and screamed and fought the entire way.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we're all there, and we've all been there, and we're all going to be there at some point so it's.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that there again, that speaks to that community of sharing openness about what you're dealing with and what you're struggling about, and trying to be vulnerable because and I'm not very good at this at all, but the times that I've had success with it you do have those opportunities where someone else steps in and says, hey, let me help you with that, or hey, let me show you how that works for me and give you peace about it and give you, you know, confidence that it's going to work out for you and so. But that creates, but that's, that's back to the homesteading concept. That means opening the gate, that means letting somebody come on, that means not having a bunker, it means having an open concept and letting, like you said, your community come into your riding area or people come for picnics and dinners and things like that. And it means being that kind of open so that people can see into your world and and you know, be helpful. So that again leads to the idea of community and not rugged individualists.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Well. Thank you so much for spending your afternoon with me and for sharing this conversation with me, and are there ways that you like for people to find you? I'll put all the links down in the show notes here so people can find you, but is there anything like right off the bat that you wanna just share?
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, no, I mean thank you for watching. But yeah, just if they wanna learn more about our farm, it's just polyfacefarmscom and then go right to a website there If they are looking for. If anybody's looking for product or something like that, we do ship nationwide and that's just polyfaceyumcom and the farm we have here at the at the place here in we're in Virginia. And if anybody's ever out, we do have an open door policy 24 seven. You can come and visit, you can come see the animals, you can look at the land and enjoy your time here, and we'd love to have anybody come and visit at any point, and that's the open door policy that we have, and so please come in and take advantage of it. We'd be honored to have you come and visit.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Well, thanks again and I'll be again. I'll be sharing all those little links down below and I hope you have a good rest of your day, daniel.
Speaker 2:Awesome, thank you.