RPF0141-Curtis_Stone_2nd

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00:00:30.000 | Today on the show, I've got a special guest.

00:00:32.000 | We bring back the most popular interview in radical personal finance history.

00:00:37.360 | We bring back Curtis Stone, the urban farmer extraordinaire.

00:00:42.080 | He's the guy who, remember, profits 80,000 bucks farming a third of an acre.

00:00:46.560 | Pretty cool.

00:00:47.680 | But even more cool is he claims he can actually teach anybody to do it.

00:00:51.120 | If my memory is correct, he claims he can teach anybody

00:00:56.960 | how to take a $5,000 investment and turn it into $50,000 in about a year or so.

00:01:01.760 | ♪

00:01:18.160 | I guess I probably should have said, though, "for clarity," with a lot of hard work involved.

00:01:22.880 | Good morning. This is Joshua Sheets.

00:01:24.960 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

00:01:27.120 | Today is Tuesday, January 27, 2015.

00:01:30.720 | Welcome to the show.

00:01:32.160 | Curtis Stone is back.

00:01:34.240 | And this one's fun.

00:01:36.720 | Perhaps not quite as much grit as we wanted to, but a lot of interesting conversation.

00:01:43.520 | ♪

00:01:50.480 | I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation.

00:01:52.640 | When we started off, we intended to kick it off and really present to you a blueprint of basically

00:02:00.400 | how you can follow in his footsteps and build your own urban farm with some practical steps.

00:02:04.720 | And that's where the interview started.

00:02:06.320 | It wound up being much more business-minded, much more philosophy-minded, much more of

00:02:11.840 | basically just a conversation between two people we've never met, but we seem to have a lot in

00:02:16.640 | common, and it's pretty fun.

00:02:18.160 | I think you're really going to enjoy this.

00:02:20.400 | It's not ranting, but it is a lot of philosophy, and I thought it was just really interesting

00:02:25.360 | what came out in the conversation.

00:02:27.760 | If you've not heard, as I say in just a moment, if you've not heard the previous episode with

00:02:32.960 | Curtis, make sure to go back and listen to that first.

00:02:35.760 | In short, his story is that he set off and was a fairly idealistic man in his youth,

00:02:42.080 | and then he went out and decided he was going to start farming.

00:02:44.480 | He looked at different ways.

00:02:45.440 | He thought about getting involved in agriculture and various methods.

00:02:49.680 | But ultimately, he hit on the idea of becoming an urban farmer, and he started with spin

00:02:55.920 | farming, and he's since developed his own approach, I guess.

00:02:59.360 | And he started to transition.

00:03:01.200 | He's learned a lot over the last five years, but runs a very small, very efficient, debt-free

00:03:05.840 | farm, farming right in the middle of the city on borrowed backyards, basically, selling

00:03:11.280 | to his neighbors.

00:03:12.480 | And he runs a very efficient, very productive business.

00:03:15.680 | Go back and listen to the previous episode if you haven't.

00:03:19.360 | That would be a good step.

00:03:21.040 | It would be episode 40.

00:03:23.280 | And then, welcome to the interview.

00:03:26.720 | Curtis, welcome back to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

00:03:30.400 | I appreciate your coming back.

00:03:32.560 | Really happy to be here.

00:03:33.600 | So I don't know whether you're surprised or I'm surprised, but here I am, Mr. Fancy Pants

00:03:38.800 | Financial Planner.

00:03:39.600 | I figure my most popular show is going to be one of my brilliant financial strategies

00:03:45.520 | and one of my in-depth teachings on the intricacies of how to exploit all the little loopholes

00:03:51.600 | in the law to improve.

00:03:54.160 | And your episode, our interview, by far is the most popular show I've ever done.

00:04:00.800 | It's been downloaded almost 19,000 times and just the most response of any of the shows

00:04:06.080 | that I've done by a wide margin.

00:04:07.680 | So congratulations.

00:04:08.640 | You're officially the most popular guest on the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

00:04:13.040 | Wow.

00:04:13.440 | Thank you.

00:04:14.240 | That's amazing.

00:04:15.280 | Well, that and $4.58 might get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

00:04:20.480 | But I know the interview, and if anyone hasn't heard it, I would recommend prior to this

00:04:26.640 | interview, because we're going to kind of build on the last one, go back and listen

00:04:29.120 | to it.

00:04:29.760 | And episode 40, so you can find it at radicalpersonalfinance.com/40.

00:04:33.360 | The title was "Making $80,000 on a third of an acre with an urban farm without owning

00:04:39.280 | land."

00:04:39.840 | And that's kind of your story.

00:04:42.240 | So I don't want to spend a lot of time going back through that.

00:04:44.480 | I'm just going to ask anyone who hasn't heard it, go back and listen to how Curtis

00:04:47.760 | starts his, how he borrows and rents all of his backyards in the middle of the city on

00:04:53.760 | which he farms and has a small and profitable operation.

00:04:57.600 | It's well worth listening to.

00:04:59.440 | It's episode 40.

00:05:00.320 | Listen to that before this show.

00:05:01.920 | But I want to build on that and just simply say I have heard from several aspects of several

00:05:09.040 | listeners who your show just really was a transformative eye-opening experience for

00:05:13.840 | them.

00:05:14.400 | And several of them are following in your footsteps.

00:05:18.960 | And so what I'd love to do today is kind of build on that and give some ideas for how

00:05:24.880 | people can grow.

00:05:26.080 | Yeah, that sounds great.

00:05:28.080 | I'll give you one example just that I pulled up.

00:05:30.640 | I received this a couple weeks ago from a listener.

00:05:34.080 | And the listener is in Kansas City.

00:05:36.080 | And he says, you know, I was asking about their goals.

00:05:38.960 | I've been doing some listener polling a little bit recently.

00:05:42.400 | And he said, you know, that my goals have changed since I was introduced to Curtis Stone

00:05:47.440 | through your podcast.

00:05:48.880 | So while we're focused on keeping and growing our current incomes, we're only going to be

00:05:53.120 | investing in our 401ks up to the match.

00:05:55.680 | And then we are going to be investing excess funds and time into a farming or gardening

00:06:01.680 | business.

00:06:02.240 | We won't be taking on any debt or dipping into our emergency funds as long as we're

00:06:05.600 | both fully employed, no matter how good or bad the farming is going.

00:06:09.120 | And I'm going to sell at least $3,000 of food in 2015.

00:06:13.360 | I'm not worrying about 401ks.

00:06:15.920 | I'm focusing on building up this new business.

00:06:19.120 | So you got at least one.

00:06:20.160 | I've received other emails from listeners that I didn't pull up that it's making an

00:06:23.280 | impact, which must make your heart feel good.

00:06:25.680 | Oh, totally.

00:06:26.480 | And I, to be honest, I've been hearing a lot of that stuff lately.

00:06:29.520 | I've gone out, done a lot of press, especially over the last year.

00:06:34.800 | And it's been incredible, the response.

00:06:37.120 | And I mean, nothing tells you more than you know you're on the right path when you're

00:06:43.280 | having success in your own personal life, but you're also helping people improve their

00:06:47.600 | lives.

00:06:48.480 | And that's what it's all about.

00:06:51.040 | I mean, I wish more people could tune into that and do the same thing themselves.

00:06:58.000 | Yeah, it's been, I mean, since I released the show, and I know one of the things we'll

00:07:01.680 | make sure to give details on at the end, but I wanted to get you on before your Florida

00:07:04.800 | tour, you're coming to Florida and you're doing a tour of, well, let's start with that

00:07:10.320 | and then we'll get into the meat.

00:07:11.600 | So you're coming to Florida and you're doing a tour in Orlando and Gainesville?

00:07:15.680 | Yeah, so I'm actually leaving for Florida tomorrow.

00:07:18.560 | So Tuesday, I'll be there tomorrow night.

00:07:20.400 | Right.

00:07:20.960 | We have an evening lecture that's free in Gainesville on January 28th.

00:07:26.560 | It's about two hours and there'll be some question and answer stuff.

00:07:29.760 | And then we've got the next day, on the 29th, we've got a full day workshop in Gainesville.

00:07:37.040 | And then the 31st until February 1st, we've got a two day workshop in Orlando.

00:07:45.120 | And then right after that, I head over to Long Beach, California, and I've got a couple

00:07:49.120 | more US dates in there as well.

00:07:52.560 | Awesome.

00:07:53.280 | And this is going to be cool.

00:07:54.560 | And I know if people, I probably shouldn't have put it up here at the front, but if listeners

00:07:59.280 | haven't heard the previous, it's not going to be relevant for them.

00:08:03.040 | But I know I've got a friend, we're going to at some point get you here to West Palm.

00:08:06.640 | I've got a friend that I've been working with locally, who we're trying to build out some

00:08:09.920 | of the local food infrastructure in West Palm.

00:08:12.640 | I've got more ideas than ability, than bandwidth to do it right now.

00:08:17.280 | But I'm at least going to try to do that.

00:08:19.120 | If I can, I'm going to get up.

00:08:20.160 | I'm not sure if I will, but if I can, I'm going to get up to Orlando to see you if I can.

00:08:25.680 | Yeah, that'd be great.

00:08:26.800 | We'll see.

00:08:27.120 | So let's get started.

00:08:28.320 | So let's use this example listener of mine from Kansas City, 31 years old, husband, father

00:08:35.200 | of a beautiful 13-month-old girl.

00:08:37.360 | And he's trying to get started with urban farming.

00:08:40.080 | And let's use him as an avatar, as a proxy for our listener.

00:08:45.520 | If somebody is interested in following in your footsteps and building out an urban farm,

00:08:51.440 | you've got the experience now and you've made a lot of mistakes.

00:08:54.640 | Where do we start and how do we go about building that type of enterprise?

00:09:00.560 | Well, there's a lot of things that I teach people, obviously.

00:09:06.320 | But some things that I've realized recently, even in my own personal life, is to kind of

00:09:13.840 | start with a little bit of the personal motivation on people's end.

00:09:18.320 | And there's five pieces of advice I usually give all of my people that

00:09:24.320 | attend my lectures and workshops.

00:09:25.680 | Before you start looking at all the details, to go step by step through the process.

00:09:31.600 | Because it can seem daunting.

00:09:33.280 | And then people will hear me on this show or they'll come to my lectures and people

00:09:37.440 | will often say to me, "Wow, this is so cool.

00:09:40.320 | I've never been so excited about something.

00:09:42.160 | But man, you must just be really talented at this.

00:09:45.440 | And what about the average person?

00:09:46.960 | How can this work for the average person?"

00:09:49.200 | And usually I just say, "Stop right there immediately.

00:09:53.440 | Don't put me on a pedestal.

00:09:55.200 | Don't put yourself beneath me.

00:09:57.280 | Don't put yourself beneath anybody."

00:09:59.360 | Number one, you got to believe in yourself.

00:10:01.440 | Because unless you're ready to-- unless you can do that, all of these things will seem

00:10:06.000 | daunting.

00:10:06.400 | And I got to tell you, Josh, when I started this, I was totally daunted.

00:10:10.320 | And I was totally burnt out.

00:10:11.840 | And I made so many ridiculous mistakes that I felt embarrassed when I would tell other

00:10:18.240 | farmers about things that I was doing.

00:10:19.600 | It was a joke.

00:10:21.920 | But the thing that I learned over time is you got to fake it till you make it.

00:10:25.360 | You got to just put one foot in front of the other and just give her all you got.

00:10:30.000 | And when you do that, when you start going in motion and you start having little small

00:10:34.640 | successes here and there, people will really start to push you along because they'll see

00:10:39.280 | what you're doing and they'll get inspired and then they'll want to help you.

00:10:42.160 | And if you make it easy for people to help you, then you'll have people in your neighborhood

00:10:48.800 | and community helping you all the time.

00:10:50.640 | And so that was-- one thing that was huge for me was just like believe in yourself.

00:10:54.880 | There's some other things, too, that I think are really important for people getting started

00:10:59.280 | is follow the path of least resistance.

00:11:01.680 | And so what I mean by that is that if you keep running into roadblocks with certain

00:11:07.600 | things, then be more like water and flow like water.

00:11:10.960 | Water doesn't push its way through things.

00:11:12.640 | It works around.

00:11:13.680 | And so a lot of people in my sector come in with big ideological plans like, "I want

00:11:20.560 | to-- it's the whole save the world mentality," which is good.

00:11:23.040 | And I have that myself.

00:11:24.880 | But you got to put your ideology in your back pocket a little bit for a while and just get

00:11:28.880 | some small successes.

00:11:30.000 | Because if you say, "Okay, I want to go to living off the grid, growing on my own food,

00:11:34.800 | producing on my own energy, all this kind of stuff.

00:11:36.880 | I want to make my own biofuel," or whatever it is, start with something simple and get

00:11:43.520 | some successes and move forward.

00:11:46.880 | Don't just shoot for these big ideas and then be discouraged because it just seems so daunting.

00:11:54.880 | So just start small.

00:11:56.080 | You know?

00:11:56.400 | - That one is my disease.

00:11:59.920 | And it's so convicting for me.

00:12:02.400 | I'm very much a big picture.

00:12:06.080 | So I love-- I've got my little property here in West Palm.

00:12:09.440 | It's about a half acre.

00:12:10.640 | And I just think, "Oh, I can transform this thing into a tropical paradise.

00:12:14.480 | And I could do this and that."

00:12:16.560 | And I've got everything worked out in my mind.

00:12:19.120 | But in the meantime, as I sit here, I look out my window and my garden bed, my little

00:12:23.840 | four-foot by eight-foot, poor little garden bed, is chock full of weeds.

00:12:27.840 | It's completely neglected this entire-- winter is our growing season.

00:12:32.560 | And every single day, I sit here just hustling like crazy, trying to build this new business,

00:12:39.040 | trying to build the show, trying to get all the things that keep all my balls in the air

00:12:43.040 | that I'm trying to do.

00:12:43.920 | In the meantime, I look out there and I see this puny little four-by-eight-foot garden

00:12:47.840 | bed full of weeds, not planted, missing my entire growing season because I'm working

00:12:52.800 | from sunup till sundown.

00:12:54.080 | - Well, and that's it, right?

00:12:56.240 | And that's where people often fail.

00:12:59.120 | And that's where I failed is when I started, I took on way too much.

00:13:03.520 | And it was just like trying to balance 100 things at once.

00:13:07.520 | And then I just had a hard time getting ahead.

00:13:10.480 | Because one thing I've learned is, at least for myself, is multitasking is a joke.

00:13:16.000 | Like multitasking is this thing that everybody thinks that they should do because we live

00:13:20.240 | in this culture of, you know, be busy, have lots of stuff going on.

00:13:23.840 | But it's like you just have so many things, you're balancing so many things at once, you

00:13:27.760 | just can't get any particular thing done and done really well.

00:13:30.880 | - Right.

00:13:31.200 | - So I think it's like important to set these goals and achieve a goal and then move on

00:13:36.000 | to the next one.

00:13:36.560 | But don't move on to the next one until you get one done.

00:13:39.360 | And so it's, you know, kind of working through these things.

00:13:41.840 | And maybe in your case, it's like, you know, have a small garden and just make that happen.

00:13:46.800 | - Right.

00:13:46.960 | - And forget everything else, but just make that one happen.

00:13:49.920 | Get some successes there, learn some knowledge, get that feedback loop with the natural environment

00:13:55.120 | that you're in.

00:13:55.520 | And just go from there, then go on to the next thing.

00:13:58.960 | - Right.

00:13:59.680 | Yeah, I pretty much decided that the only way it's going to get done is, A, if I have simply

00:14:03.680 | chosen that I can't do it all and I've got to get some other stuff squared away.

00:14:09.600 | But I've just, the big one that gets me is the daylight.

00:14:13.440 | And, you know, I get to the end of the day around five, six o'clock and I'm ready to

00:14:16.960 | quit and it's dark.

00:14:18.080 | And so I've just got to readjust my schedule and go out at noon.

00:14:20.720 | - Yeah.

00:14:21.600 | - Work in the garden at noon for 30 minutes or something.

00:14:24.160 | Just do 30 minutes, get away from the computer, get away from the work and plant and harvest

00:14:30.640 | some vegetables.

00:14:31.520 | - Yeah, I think it's, you know, I've been trying to just change my morning routine as

00:14:38.160 | well.

00:14:38.480 | And I listen to, you know, Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income, and, you know, some of these

00:14:44.160 | other guys that talk about how important a morning routine is, you know.

00:14:48.240 | And so one thing I've been trying to get into is I get up and for the first four hours,

00:14:54.400 | I don't read emails, I don't get distracted by things, I just get into what I'm doing.

00:14:59.040 | And I try to involve exercise into that.

00:15:02.320 | So, I mean, right now I've got a foot of snow on the ground.

00:15:04.400 | It's starting to melt now, finally.

00:15:06.320 | But, you know, I set my bike trainer up in my living room and I get on my bike for a

00:15:10.800 | while.

00:15:11.040 | And one thing that's the best though is if the weather's kind of nice, is to go outside

00:15:15.120 | and just be outside for a bit and just get your hands in the dirt or just feel connected

00:15:20.000 | and then come back.

00:15:20.800 | And for me, I mean, I'm working on a bunch of different stuff right now.

00:15:24.640 | I've got a book coming out on a major publishing house this fall and I've got an online course

00:15:30.560 | called Profitable Urban Farming coming out next month.

00:15:33.760 | And I've been working on a computer for like ever since the fall.

00:15:38.560 | And I'm sure, you know, similar case to you, but I find I've got to break my day up.

00:15:44.800 | And when I'm on a computer for, you know, 12 hours of the day, I've got to like every

00:15:49.520 | couple hours, I've got to get up and do something.

00:15:51.120 | I built myself a stand-up desk.

00:15:52.880 | So that's helped.

00:15:54.480 | But, you know, just get outside and just do something with my hands.

00:15:58.560 | And I often find that my creativity really comes out when I'm doing something with my

00:16:02.960 | hands.

00:16:03.840 | And sometimes I'll just sit at the computer screen and stare at it for an hour and not

00:16:07.440 | write a word.

00:16:08.320 | And then some days I'll write 7,000 words in a day.

00:16:10.720 | But it's like I got to break it up and get outside and active.

00:16:13.920 | - So what would be the type of goal that you would encourage someone to set?

00:16:18.640 | Would it be like my listener said, I want to make $3,000 in 2015?

00:16:22.160 | Would you start with a monetary goal?

00:16:23.760 | Would you start with a goal crafted differently?

00:16:25.680 | How would you apply that to your business?

00:16:27.680 | - Yeah, that's a great question.

00:16:29.520 | I think really, before you make goals, you got to figure out, you know, what's your outcome?

00:16:34.880 | Like what are you looking to do with this?

00:16:36.880 | Are you looking to be a farmer so you can kind of take control of your family's, you

00:16:42.800 | know, nutritional intake?

00:16:44.640 | Are you somebody who wants to start transitioning to making a living as a farmer?

00:16:50.080 | You know, first paint out what that is.

00:16:52.800 | Set those targets to be like, yeah, what does this look for me?

00:16:58.480 | And so let's just say, for example, if it is I want to make a living at this, then,

00:17:03.600 | you know, depending on your situation, I mean, when I started farming, I went, I jumped right

00:17:08.160 | in with both feet.

00:17:09.200 | I took a huge risk.

00:17:10.320 | But some people aren't willing to do that.

00:17:12.720 | So I think if, and if they're not, maybe they're in a better situation where they don't have

00:17:17.840 | to.

00:17:18.000 | If you can hold your day job for a while and transition into something, set a monetary

00:17:22.960 | goal.

00:17:23.200 | Like say, you know, you've got a quarter acre in production or that you can set up

00:17:27.280 | into production.

00:17:28.400 | That's a good place to start.

00:17:29.520 | I think a quarter acre is the most amount of land that anybody who's going to start

00:17:33.520 | doing farming should start with if you don't have any previous experience.

00:17:38.080 | And just say, OK, the main goal here is let's, we'll keep our day jobs.

00:17:42.800 | We'll work on this on the weekends and maybe two or three hours a day.

00:17:46.160 | We'll do a farmer's market once a month or something like that.

00:17:49.120 | And then set a goal like let's try to make $5,000 from the farm this year.

00:17:53.760 | And, you know, that can subsidize our income a little bit.

00:17:57.520 | And then we'll scale it up the next year.

00:17:59.280 | And then maybe you can start scaling your hours back at your previous job or maybe just

00:18:04.800 | go for it.

00:18:05.680 | I think there's a lot of benefit in just jumping in and taking the risk because humans are

00:18:11.360 | incredibly adaptable.

00:18:12.480 | Right.

00:18:12.720 | I mean, we are resilient creatures.

00:18:15.520 | We've survived on this planet for a long time now.

00:18:18.080 | And we've gone through all kinds of atrocities, natural disasters.

00:18:23.600 | When we have to make things happen, we make it happen.

00:18:27.520 | And I think everybody has that ability in them.

00:18:31.600 | And I don't believe anybody when they say they don't.

00:18:34.400 | Because when it comes to survival, you're going to survive.

00:18:37.280 | And I'm not suggesting you go and throw everything on the line or do it the way I

00:18:42.640 | did.

00:18:42.880 | But, you know, take some risks.

00:18:44.800 | Put yourself in a little bit of a position where it's like, yeah, OK, we're taking this

00:18:49.520 | seriously.

00:18:50.000 | This isn't just Mickey Mouse and around.

00:18:52.880 | This is serious business.

00:18:54.960 | Even if it's like, OK, a modest goal.

00:18:56.720 | Let's make a few thousand dollars from the garden this year.

00:18:58.880 | And let's do a farmer's market once a month.

00:19:02.480 | Let's talk to a couple, a restaurant or two and just see what kind of stuff we can sell

00:19:07.680 | and get things going that way.

00:19:09.120 | Well, the reality is also much of the challenge is in making the decision to do

00:19:14.960 | something.

00:19:15.440 | Oh, huge.

00:19:17.040 | If you think about I like to interview people that that go off on big trips and go off on

00:19:21.520 | a sailing adventure.

00:19:22.400 | And I don't remember where this came from.

00:19:24.160 | I think it was a book.

00:19:24.800 | And the guy was saying the biggest decision is the one that's done two years before.

00:19:30.640 | Two years before when you decide I'm going to go sail around the world.

00:19:35.120 | And that's made two years before you leave.

00:19:36.960 | After that, it's just a process of going through things.

00:19:40.160 | And I think even in my own life, whether it's the decision to to get married or to leave

00:19:45.200 | a job and start a business or to leave a business and go to job, whatever it is, the hard thing

00:19:51.280 | is the decision.

00:19:52.000 | That's where all the stress is.

00:19:53.440 | Once the decision is made, it's just simply a matter of step one, step two, step three,

00:19:58.000 | and then not quitting when things go wrong.

00:19:59.840 | And making the decision, as long as you give yourself permission to basically screw it

00:20:04.480 | all up, it's OK.

00:20:05.920 | You're going to get through it.

00:20:06.640 | You're going to learn.

00:20:07.200 | You can't have that fear hold you back.

00:20:11.280 | So in some ways, just kind of jumping and holding your nose and going in overcomes the

00:20:15.600 | fear.

00:20:15.840 | And then you're in it.

00:20:16.400 | And then you'll figure it out as you go through.

00:20:18.320 | That's exactly it.

00:20:19.200 | I mean, the first step is the hardest, but every step after that gets easier.

00:20:23.120 | And the fear thing, exactly.

00:20:24.560 | I mean, one thing I've really learned over the last couple of years is that I make a

00:20:28.960 | decision.

00:20:29.680 | It's most often a subconscious decision, but I make it every morning I wake up.

00:20:34.000 | I decide, am I going to live in fear and scarcity, or am I going to live in joy and abundance,

00:20:39.360 | or like sort of fear versus love?

00:20:41.360 | Which way am I going to go?

00:20:43.040 | And when you go the fear and scarcity road, that attracts fear and scarcity.

00:20:49.360 | It's like misery loves company.

00:20:51.360 | You dwell on negative things, you'll attract negative things.

00:20:55.600 | But then you go the other way, and you focus on positive things, eliminate negative thoughts

00:21:00.480 | from your mind, at least for the long term.

00:21:02.640 | Negative thoughts will pop up from time to time, but be aware of them and think positive

00:21:07.280 | and be kind, smile to people.

00:21:09.600 | And it's amazing how your life will change.

00:21:11.840 | People will smile at you.

00:21:13.200 | People want to help you if you help them.

00:21:15.120 | And it's just incredible how just your outlook will change most of the things in your life.

00:21:22.560 | Then your actions will really start to have a snowballing effect.

00:21:26.880 | And that's what it's been for me.

00:21:28.800 | It's so cool to be providing for people's basic needs in a community.

00:21:33.760 | That's what I love about being a farmer, is that when it really comes down to it,

00:21:38.800 | I'm just growing food for people.

00:21:40.240 | It's simple.

00:21:40.960 | People can relate to it.

00:21:42.160 | It crosses cultural barriers.

00:21:43.840 | It crosses socioeconomic barriers.

00:21:46.240 | I'm a guy who's supplying food in my community.

00:21:49.040 | And I think we probably talked a little bit about this in the previous show, but we don't

00:21:54.960 | have that anymore.

00:21:57.600 | 80 years ago, 25% of the people in the US and Canada were farmers, 25%.

00:22:03.920 | And we don't have that anymore.

00:22:06.320 | When my grandfather was a kid, they were a mixed farm.

00:22:10.880 | And things that they needed, they got from the people around them, for the most part.

00:22:16.320 | Nowadays, everything's centralized.

00:22:17.680 | It's either I can get pretty much everything I want at Walmart, or it's like if I can't

00:22:24.080 | get it, well, then I got a welfare check come in or something like that.

00:22:27.440 | So when a society is completely dependent on the state, nobody really has an incentive

00:22:35.360 | to get to know one another.

00:22:36.880 | And I think there's a calling for that.

00:22:39.520 | I don't know if most people would articulate it.

00:22:42.480 | Maybe in your audience, they would, because I actually had a lot of lovely emails from

00:22:47.360 | people who were more along the anarcho-capitalist or libertarian mindset, which is really nice

00:22:55.120 | for me, because I live in a country that is so damn socialist.

00:22:58.000 | Everything that's talked about solutions is just, oh, the government's going to do

00:23:02.800 | this, the government's going to do that.

00:23:04.640 | But that's the thing that I find is perpetuating this disconnection to one another.

00:23:08.800 | And I definitely would not be so arrogant to blame that on solely the government.

00:23:14.080 | I think there's many other factors there.

00:23:15.840 | But I think people, if not consciously and subconsciously, are yearning for a connection

00:23:22.400 | with the people around them.

00:23:24.240 | And I think agriculture is a great place to start from that, because if you've got

00:23:27.680 | a good, strong food system in a community, then that local economy can build from there.

00:23:32.560 | And then you could just go on to skilled labor.

00:23:34.960 | And then once you have a system with food and basic needs, then all kinds of other people

00:23:40.560 | can participate in it as well.

00:23:42.560 | And so I think farming is a beautiful vehicle to get those things in motion.

00:23:47.520 | I want to build on that, give you a little intro, but I want to ask how you can control

00:23:55.360 | the risk, because I love everything you just said.

00:23:57.520 | And what's funny about my audience, I've got the coolest audience in the world.

00:24:01.120 | I get emails from people that say, "Joshua, I'm a liberal Democrat.

00:24:05.840 | Joshua, I'm an anarcho-capitalist."

00:24:08.240 | I got a cool cross-section of people, and I love that, to have a healthy, vigorous debate

00:24:13.920 | and discussion, and just simply have the ability to have an adult conversation and part as

00:24:18.800 | friends no matter where we wind up.

00:24:20.160 | Exactly.

00:24:20.960 | I think I'm building one of the coolest audiences I've ever heard from, and I get

00:24:25.200 | to get the emails.

00:24:25.840 | It's super, super fun.

00:24:26.800 | So I love everything you just said, and yet there's also a corollary.

00:24:33.440 | I'm all for jumping in with both feet, but if you're going to jump in with both feet,

00:24:38.080 | don't start off with a 100-foot high dive.

00:24:40.640 | Start off with one that's two feet above.

00:24:42.640 | And so what I love is if there's a way where you can minimize the potential risk of failure

00:24:48.720 | while maximizing the return.

00:24:50.080 | I think this can be applied in every business.

00:24:51.600 | I'm super thrilled.

00:24:52.960 | Just this last weekend, I think I figured out a way, as I kind of grope about and learn

00:24:58.320 | how to build the business side of my show to where it can make a living, I think I've

00:25:02.560 | found actually a massively potential kind of side business that will be supported by

00:25:08.320 | the show that will actually make me some money.

00:25:09.840 | And the risk, basically I calculate my risk.

00:25:14.640 | Maximum risk, I'm out anywhere from 500 bucks to 2,000 bucks.

00:25:19.840 | And maximum upside is hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars.

00:25:24.160 | That's a risk I'll take every time.

00:25:25.600 | So how can we do that in farming, and how can we figure out a way to minimize the risk

00:25:33.440 | and yet maximize the reward?

00:25:35.360 | Yeah, that's a great question.

00:25:36.960 | And that's actually one of my-- this is one of my top pieces of advice that I tell

00:25:42.400 | people that kind of goes a little outside of the technical side but speaks more to the

00:25:47.520 | personal side, is source high-grade information.

00:25:50.480 | So that means-- I do a lot of consulting for--

00:25:56.000 | That means buy your course that you're writing is what that means.

00:25:58.720 | Oh, it literally does.

00:26:00.400 | That's awesome.

00:26:01.600 | Yeah, that's great.

00:26:02.560 | It's a way to just promote my own stuff.

00:26:04.560 | But the thing is, I suffered for five years on your behalf.

00:26:09.680 | Right?

00:26:10.240 | I've learned the hard way because I felt that I had to rewrite the book, which is a

00:26:15.760 | huge mistake.

00:26:16.960 | I mean, I did learn a lot of things from other farmers.

00:26:19.520 | But it's like people have suffered on your behalf.

00:26:23.040 | So why would you go and start from point A when you can go-- don't go to university

00:26:29.360 | for this stuff.

00:26:29.920 | Don't go get a master's degree in urban agriculture.

00:26:32.640 | I know there's people that are providing it.

00:26:34.080 | Don't go waste $20,000.

00:26:35.760 | I'm talking about spend-- if you spend $1,000 on a little bit of consulting and going to

00:26:40.640 | some workshops and doing some online research and reading some books, you will save yourself

00:26:46.000 | years of trial and error and thousands of dollars of wasted money.

00:26:50.000 | And one example is-- I didn't really learn this right away.

00:26:54.320 | I did in my last couple years.

00:26:56.160 | And I actually would pay people for consulting and actually, hey, I'm willing to bring value

00:27:03.280 | to the table for you because I really value your information.

00:27:06.560 | Things like irrigation.

00:27:09.200 | I heard from all kinds of different farmers on certain ways to do irrigation.

00:27:13.760 | I had some bad advice as well.

00:27:16.320 | Often, I find the advice that's the most free and abundant can be sometimes the worst advice.

00:27:21.200 | Sometimes it's worth it to find the person who's doing this, pay for the time, and learn

00:27:25.040 | it the right way.

00:27:26.080 | I've got thousands of dollars of irrigation stuff that I don't even use anymore.

00:27:29.920 | Because if I would have just gone to somebody in the field, an expert, paid for their time,

00:27:35.520 | I could have saved all that messing around.

00:27:38.880 | And I was screwing around for hours a week on irrigation and buying all these things

00:27:43.760 | I didn't need.

00:27:44.560 | So there's things like that.

00:27:46.800 | And then there's also things on the production side of whether you're-- how to grow certain

00:27:51.520 | things or even in the marketing side.

00:27:53.520 | I mean, the marketing side is huge.

00:27:55.120 | But it's like if I would have just swallowed my pride a little bit and said, hey, there's

00:28:00.480 | got to be a better way to do this.

00:28:01.920 | Maybe I can have a value exchange with somebody to save that time.

00:28:06.320 | That's got to be the biggest thing.

00:28:07.520 | Because I think most people-- it might be a little different from your audience.

00:28:11.680 | The emails that I got from some of your listeners after doing your show was a lot of real practical

00:28:17.920 | minded people, the kind of people I really identify with, that were like, OK, what's

00:28:25.040 | the step A for me?

00:28:26.480 | Are they coming from a previous career and want to start something new?

00:28:31.280 | And it's just go the path of least resistance.

00:28:35.600 | Go learn what you can from other people and start from there.

00:28:39.600 | And then you don't have to suffer.

00:28:41.040 | I mean, the whole reason I've put together this online course, this Profitable Urban

00:28:46.000 | Farming course-- people, if they're interested, can just go to profitableurbanfarming.com

00:28:49.920 | and sign up for the newsletter when we release it.

00:28:54.320 | Is that my goal is sort of-- I don't want to say altruistic.

00:28:59.200 | But I would like to see millions of small farmers across the US and Canada start farming.

00:29:06.400 | Because I think decentralization is sort of a way that we're going.

00:29:09.760 | I mean, I look at some of the cool technology today, and it's this trend of decentralization.

00:29:14.320 | It's awesome.

00:29:14.800 | It is awesome.

00:29:16.160 | And I think there's going to be some technological solutions for urban farmers.

00:29:20.160 | I'm working on some myself.

00:29:22.960 | But I would like to see these millions of small farmers across the US and Canada-- so

00:29:27.760 | build this local resilient system.

00:29:30.560 | And it can start with farmers, and then it can go into other things.

00:29:32.720 | But everybody needs to eat.

00:29:33.840 | That's the beauty of it, right?

00:29:35.040 | It's simple.

00:29:35.520 | Everybody needs to eat.

00:29:36.320 | You can't argue that.

00:29:37.600 | So there's going to be a need for farmers.

00:29:39.840 | And California is in this massive drought right now, and they feed-- well, California

00:29:44.640 | and Florida, in fact, feed a lot of North America.

00:29:47.280 | So the California thing can't last forever.

00:29:50.640 | And so there's going to be a need pretty soon.

00:29:52.720 | And there already is in demand.

00:29:53.840 | Right.

00:29:54.320 | But I'm talking serious need.

00:29:56.560 | I think there's a demand, and there's not much perceived need right now.

00:30:00.800 | In my area, I have looked for local sources, and I can't find it.

00:30:05.280 | And I know-- I just poll my friends, and I know the demand that is there.

00:30:10.640 | But it's hard to find the supply.

00:30:14.960 | And so I think it's changing.

00:30:18.080 | I want to jump on-- it's so funny.

00:30:20.160 | You and I, we got to actually meet.

00:30:23.040 | I got to make a point.

00:30:23.840 | If I can get up to Orlando, I will.

00:30:25.040 | But you and I, we seem to jump on all these things that are consistent.

00:30:29.440 | So this weekend, my business idea is-- and I'm not going to give the subject out.

00:30:34.240 | But I finally figured out, I think, the course that the market is screaming for from me.

00:30:38.880 | And I was blind to it until Friday.

00:30:42.320 | And all of a sudden, I figured out.

00:30:43.760 | And I can't get past them.

00:30:45.200 | This is what the market is screaming there's a demand for.

00:30:49.040 | And in order to meet the demand, I need to create a course.

00:30:51.840 | And so I've been thinking about this, this course idea.

00:30:55.840 | And I'm thinking, OK, how do I structure it?

00:30:58.240 | I am so convinced beyond measure of the benefit of the course I'm going to create

00:31:03.840 | that when I think about the dollar amount, the highest dollar amount that I can put on it,

00:31:08.080 | I cannot conceive of how it could be anything less than a 10 or 20 times or 30 or more rate

00:31:13.360 | of return for the person, if they're in the right demographic that I'm going to target,

00:31:17.680 | with this course that I'm going to create.

00:31:19.520 | And I can't see how it's not-- I mean, just so much more valuable.

00:31:26.240 | But what's funny is I'm thinking through, OK, how am I going to position it?

00:31:28.960 | I was thinking about what I need to learn to prepare what I need to do.

00:31:36.320 | So the first thing I did, once I figured out the idea, I said, oh, OK, I need to go.

00:31:40.160 | And I need to get some information.

00:31:42.000 | And so I was researching.

00:31:43.520 | And I've got three courses, two of which I already have access to,

00:31:47.120 | and one of which I probably need to buy, that are all focused

00:31:50.000 | on how to launch a successful online course.

00:31:53.040 | This is the information that I need specifically at this point in time.

00:31:56.800 | And this information, for me, is so valuable because it solves a need.

00:32:00.480 | And I was thinking about compare that to how we usually seem to handle life.

00:32:06.240 | Usually what we do is we say, well, I'm going to go out.

00:32:09.920 | And I'm going to spend thousands of dollars on a general primary and secondary school education.

00:32:15.040 | And I'm going to spend tens of thousands of dollars on this general knowledge

00:32:18.640 | of this college degree that's not applicable to what I need.

00:32:22.160 | And that's not how an adult approaches information.

00:32:25.120 | So most of us, I've spent $80,000 on my undergraduate college degree.

00:32:31.920 | And that was so foolish as far as the payoff of investment versus potential reward.

00:32:38.240 | But now for me to go and spend $1,000 bucks or $2,000 bucks or whatever I spent on the course

00:32:43.280 | for specific knowledge to a specific need, that's intelligent education.

00:32:47.840 | - Oh, yeah. That's just getting to the goods, right?

00:32:50.640 | I mean, just think about all the time, like how many years did I waste in public school?

00:32:55.040 | - Right.

00:32:55.360 | - It's like all the garbage that the state shoves down my throat in public school.

00:33:02.000 | And probably the only things that I use that I learned in public school are basic addition,

00:33:06.800 | maybe a little bit of geometry and geography,

00:33:10.400 | and maybe some people skills that I learned in school.

00:33:13.040 | I probably could have learned those in four years.

00:33:15.040 | You know, I find that stuff ironic because now Obama's talking about,

00:33:18.560 | we're going to give two years of education.

00:33:20.400 | It's like, okay, so it didn't work for the first 12 years because everybody in the US

00:33:25.840 | and Canada has these garbage useless degrees and worthlessness.

00:33:29.440 | And now we're going to give you two years of more free crap that's not going to do anything for you.

00:33:34.880 | I love the irony of all this stuff, you know.

00:33:37.520 | But that's it, you know, and that goes back to the source high-grade information stuff.

00:33:41.280 | Forget the crap, get to the guts of the stuff.

00:33:44.640 | - Right.

00:33:44.880 | - Give the hard details.

00:33:47.040 | And that's what I'm all about, man.

00:33:48.560 | That's what I teach in my workshops is like, I'm going to save all the fluff.

00:33:52.400 | You know, I talk a little bit of personal stuff because I think that's relevant to

00:33:56.480 | people's learning experience.

00:33:57.600 | But, you know, get to the nitty-gritty, the real goods.

00:34:01.200 | - Right.

00:34:01.360 | - And, you know, you go study agriculture in university and you'll get years of theory

00:34:07.920 | and all kinds of stuff that is just like where you could just go to a farmer who's in the business

00:34:13.280 | and spend a little bit of time with them and get miles ahead of all the people that are wasting

00:34:18.080 | $20,000 a year and just get some piece of paper that just becomes wallpaper, you know.

00:34:22.640 | - Right.

00:34:23.040 | - Right.

00:34:23.120 | - And here's what's so cool though, part of the decentralization thing.

00:34:27.680 | I've been thinking about this and here's the opportunity that we have today in 2015 that

00:34:33.120 | did not exist in 2000, well, did not exist in 1995.

00:34:38.000 | The major, so if people can go, there is never a downside to buying specific expertise applied

00:34:48.240 | to a specific situation if you can have trust and confidence in the source.

00:34:52.960 | But if you can't have trust and confidence in the source, then there is tremendous risk

00:34:57.840 | of, oh, maybe the source is not good.

00:35:00.720 | And this is the problem that has existed in buying transactions throughout much of human

00:35:07.840 | history is how do you know the source on a mass market basis?

00:35:11.440 | But today, when you can find the world's expert and that world's expert can establish their

00:35:17.120 | credentials, not necessarily with some external credential granting institution, although that's

00:35:22.720 | fine, but actually can establish it with free and open information to establish who they are.

00:35:28.320 | Like anybody who listens to my show knows who I am.

00:35:31.360 | Anybody who's listened to three or four of your interviews is going to know who you are.

00:35:36.320 | And now, then you can trust a person.

00:35:39.360 | And so we've lowered that disconnect, that fear of counterparty trust out of transactions,

00:35:48.480 | financial trades.

00:35:49.760 | So now, if I know who you are and if I'm interested in starting an urban farm, I can come to you,

00:35:54.800 | I can feel confident that you know what you're doing.

00:35:56.960 | I can spend enough time with your material, with your content, with your talks.

00:36:00.160 | I can go on YouTube.

00:36:01.120 | I can find your talks at what's Diego Garcia's Permaculture Voices.

00:36:07.680 | I can go and hear you on 10 different interviews.

00:36:10.080 | I can hear you develop over time.

00:36:11.360 | I can read your stuff.

00:36:12.720 | I can be confident that you are who you say you are and that you're the person I need.

00:36:16.400 | And if that's the right fit, boom, whatever.

00:36:18.000 | I don't know what you're going to charge for your course, but it's worth it because I've

00:36:21.840 | solved that.

00:36:22.720 | It's a low risk transaction at that point.

00:36:24.880 | - Exactly.

00:36:25.840 | We've taken out the middleman, right?

00:36:27.520 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:36:28.880 | - Through a university to learn something, you can go on my YouTube channel and I'll

00:36:35.040 | show you stuff that I'm doing in the field and you can see that I know what I'm talking

00:36:38.720 | about.

00:36:39.360 | And that's the beauty of it.

00:36:40.720 | I mean, there's all kinds of cool, there's a great tech app that's actually come out

00:36:45.440 | of Kelowna, my hometown here.

00:36:48.080 | It's a website called Soilmate.com and it's basically a way of connecting anybody in a

00:36:56.000 | local geographical area to farmers who grow their stuff.

00:36:59.040 | So you go on this website, you can search, I'm looking for beets.

00:37:02.400 | Who in my, this zone that I pick has beets and it'll list these farmers.

00:37:06.800 | You can prepay the transactions there and then you just go and pick it up from the farmer.

00:37:11.280 | It's stuff like this that is more decentralized software applications.

00:37:18.080 | I love, I'm a huge tech fan.

00:37:19.760 | - What's that called?

00:37:20.640 | - It's called Soilmate.com.

00:37:23.200 | - Okay, cool.

00:37:24.080 | - And I think it'll be big.

00:37:26.640 | I think they're onto something that is yet to really take off yet but the concept is

00:37:31.760 | there because it removes a lot of the barriers.

00:37:33.840 | Like even sometimes picking up at the farmer's market isn't always convenient for people.

00:37:37.920 | You know, they don't wanna, maybe they're a little bit more adverse to the crowds and

00:37:42.480 | they don't wanna go and park or all these.

00:37:45.120 | But you now connect directly to the farmer and find farmers in your local area anywhere.

00:37:50.320 | So I mean, yeah, farmers should go and sign up on that too because there's the potential

00:37:55.200 | of it.

00:37:55.360 | It's huge.

00:37:55.840 | And that's not the only one.

00:37:57.040 | There's all kinds of other ones.

00:37:58.800 | This guy I met in New Zealand started this one called Ubi, like four O's, B-Y.

00:38:03.600 | It's like out of our own backyards.

00:38:05.040 | It's another software solution to connect people to food producers in their area.

00:38:11.200 | Like the potential of this is great.

00:38:13.200 | I mean, but at the same time, I don't think the grocery store in that whole system is

00:38:17.680 | gonna go away overnight.

00:38:18.640 | - Definitely not.

00:38:19.200 | - But it's cool to know, and I mean, I shop at the grocery store too, right?

00:38:22.640 | Like I'm not completely self-sufficient.

00:38:24.560 | But it's cool to know that we're transitioning now.

00:38:28.800 | And so I think like right now, there's never been a better time to get into agriculture.

00:38:34.960 | - Sure.

00:38:35.440 | - Just looking at, you know, I don't know about you, Josh, but I believe personally,

00:38:40.080 | everything is supply and demand.

00:38:41.280 | Whether it's relationships, information, or money, or skills, whatever it is, everything's

00:38:48.160 | supply and demand.

00:38:48.960 | And if you look at the supply and demand of farmers right now, that says a lot.

00:38:55.440 | We have gone, in the last 80 years, we have gone from having 25% of our population directly

00:39:00.400 | involved in agriculture to 2%.

00:39:03.360 | And now we see a massive interest in nutritional, wholesome, local food.

00:39:09.200 | And people wanna know their farmers because they don't trust what the labels tell them.

00:39:12.880 | You know, issues of genetically modified stuff.

00:39:16.000 | We've got all the kinds of adverse health and environmental effects that the industrial

00:39:20.480 | food system has caused.

00:39:22.160 | People are saying, "Hey, I don't want that garbage.

00:39:24.560 | I wanna know who grows my food."

00:39:26.560 | And so this is a trend that's going to continue no matter what happens in the economy.

00:39:32.640 | In fact, I think if the economy gets worse, it'll probably grow faster.

00:39:36.400 | So, you know, to get into farming right now is kind of like--I personally, and just even

00:39:43.440 | in my own personal experience, I see it sort of like the dot-com thing where it's like,

00:39:48.560 | "Hey, this internet thing is starting to happen.

00:39:50.720 | Okay, let's do it."

00:39:52.160 | I think millionaires will be made in farming in the next 10 or so years because there's

00:39:58.880 | going to be a massive need.

00:40:00.320 | I mean, farmers are aging, right?

00:40:02.160 | The average age of a farmer in North America is around 60 years old, and there's not enough

00:40:06.800 | people moving in to fill those jobs.

00:40:08.480 | So, you know, we talk about the economics, whether it's inflation, and rising food prices

00:40:14.640 | because of rising energy prices.

00:40:16.080 | Right now, this is just a little anomaly, I think.

00:40:18.080 | I mean, it can't last as far as energy prices.

00:40:21.440 | Food prices will continue to go up.

00:40:23.120 | They have been for, like, steadily since I was a child.

00:40:26.400 | That's not gonna change.

00:40:27.440 | But the real fact of the matter is that there's just not enough farmers.

00:40:31.760 | And so, if more people aren't going in to fill those shoes of those farmers, you won't

00:40:36.240 | have any food at any price.

00:40:37.920 | It doesn't matter.

00:40:38.480 | Right.

00:40:39.200 | So, you know, the time is now.

00:40:40.880 | It's interesting.

00:40:42.640 | This last couple weeks, I've been personally researching a few things and trying to figure

00:40:49.120 | out if there's any way that I can actually start a personal experiment of exclusively

00:40:54.400 | isolating the GMO food variable in my diet.

00:40:59.280 | And I'm overweight, and I've been overweight for a long time, and it doesn't make sense

00:41:03.360 | to me why I'm as overweight as I am with regard to knowing what I know about nutrition, physical

00:41:10.320 | activity, recognizing how much I eat.

00:41:12.640 | Like, it's never made sense to me.

00:41:14.560 | And so, I've had some experience with some family members who finally kind of figured

00:41:18.480 | out some external factors about basically toxins and the impact of toxins on their body.

00:41:25.280 | And I've been trying to figure out, one of my projects for 2015 is to try to figure out,

00:41:29.760 | like, do I just lack discipline?

00:41:33.440 | You know, that's what I always have told myself for years.

00:41:35.440 | Well, Joshua, there's something wrong with you.

00:41:36.720 | You lack discipline.

00:41:37.760 | Or is there something going on?

00:41:39.440 | Because I shouldn't be as fat as I am.

00:41:41.680 | I really don't think I should be.

00:41:43.040 | So, I was reading some discussion and listening to the guy who wrote, what's the documentary?

00:41:50.480 | I haven't watched it yet, but I was listening to a talk by the guy who gave the documentary

00:41:54.080 | Genetic Roulette, I think.

00:41:55.920 | And he was presenting information and-

00:41:59.200 | Michael Pollan?

00:42:00.320 | No, it wasn't Michael Pollan.

00:42:01.360 | I know Michael Pollan.

00:42:03.120 | I've read some of his work.

00:42:04.000 | I'll find it in a second.

00:42:05.440 | I'll Google it once we switch the conversation back to you.

00:42:07.840 | But I'll duck, duck, go.

00:42:10.240 | Excuse me.

00:42:10.640 | I don't Google anymore.

00:42:11.520 | So, I was reading about it.

00:42:14.480 | I was wondering, like, huh, I wonder, could some of my health issues be a result of GMOs?

00:42:20.160 | But the problem is to isolate that variable.

00:42:23.280 | Because a lot of times, if you go to GMO-free, then you go to organic.

00:42:29.280 | Or if you go to- I mean, there are other things.

00:42:31.600 | And organic, I'm not trying to isolate necessarily organic, inorganic.

00:42:34.960 | Although I prefer to eat organic.

00:42:36.560 | I'm interested in isolating that GMO variable.

00:42:39.280 | And so, I've been researching, is there any way that I could do it?

00:42:42.640 | It's tough, if not impossible, for me to do, because the supply doesn't exist locally.

00:42:48.240 | And so, I would do it if I could.

00:42:50.640 | And I might still be able to.

00:42:52.640 | I'm still trying to figure out if there's a way I can do it.

00:42:55.520 | But it's a very difficult problem to face.

00:42:57.520 | And what I've learned is that there are other people who have exactly the same problem.

00:43:00.720 | And I can't even run the experiment, because the supply is not there.

00:43:04.720 | - Right, right.

00:43:06.560 | But that tells you that the demand is there, then, right?

00:43:09.200 | There's a huge market opportunity in all this for anybody who-

00:43:13.360 | You know, the cool thing about our roots as North Americans, we're pioneers.

00:43:19.520 | We are, in our blood, most of us have farmers in there.

00:43:25.280 | So, I don't think any of this is anything new.

00:43:28.320 | And I don't think it's anything that anybody wouldn't be capable of themselves.

00:43:34.000 | But, I mean, as far as the GMOs, I totally agree with you.

00:43:37.600 | When you go to a whole food diet, and I'm by no means a nutritional expert,

00:43:41.280 | but I've got a pretty damn good quality of life.

00:43:43.920 | I mean, I go, even in the winter here, two feet on the snow,

00:43:47.760 | I go up my greenhouse and pick fresh kale and spinach and juice it in the morning,

00:43:51.840 | and make myself smoothies with frozen berries and things that I get from other farmers around me.

00:43:56.800 | I mean, it's a pretty cool quality of life.

00:43:59.520 | But, you know, I also eat a lot of good bacon and stuff.

00:44:05.120 | I eat stuff that's fatty as well, but I eat good quality.

00:44:07.920 | I know the farmers that I get my stuff from.

00:44:09.680 | And man, I have bacon every…

00:44:11.440 | I've got like sort of the hippie redneck breakfast going on,

00:44:14.160 | where I have like a green smoothie with kale and spinach with bacon in the morning.

00:44:18.160 | But, it's all about the quality.

00:44:22.320 | - I'm with you.

00:44:22.880 | I can't… I don't know.

00:44:24.480 | Here I am.

00:44:25.120 | I can't find…

00:44:27.280 | I love bacon, and I can't find a decent source.

00:44:32.080 | And when you understand, as I think is true, you know,

00:44:36.640 | toxins are generally locked up in fat.

00:44:39.200 | And you think, I don't have any problem with the fat,

00:44:41.520 | but I don't want the Johnson and whatever, the Johnsonville or whatever.

00:44:45.040 | I don't want that pig that has just stood there and hasn't been able to move for six months.

00:44:50.240 | Anyway, we'll get off of this.

00:44:53.360 | I wanted to come back to one thing on the course,

00:44:54.720 | and I want to continue with some practical education for people who are interested.

00:44:59.120 | But one other thing on the course.

00:45:00.640 | I used to think that the primary benefit that somebody could bring was information.

00:45:09.440 | And I realized that I learned this, and I don't think I fully grasped it until recently,

00:45:14.400 | is I thought that as a financial planner,

00:45:16.240 | that what I was doing was bringing information to bear.

00:45:19.120 | And I've since learned that information is free.

00:45:22.000 | All the information that somebody needs about urban farming,

00:45:26.240 | everything you know, already exists out there.

00:45:29.680 | Because somebody else is…

00:45:30.800 | You got it from somebody else who synthesized something,

00:45:33.120 | and there may be one idea that you actually discovered on your own,

00:45:37.360 | but it was with the application of two ideas that someone else had.

00:45:39.840 | So if you spend enough time on YouTube, or if you spend enough time reading,

00:45:43.440 | whether it's current urban farming things,

00:45:45.520 | or go back to 1638 and read about what they said to do then,

00:45:49.200 | the information is out there.

00:45:51.680 | But the problem is we're drowning in information, and we're bereft of wisdom.

00:45:56.800 | And what we get paid for, and what is so valuable,

00:46:00.320 | is when I finally figured out what I get paid for as a financial planner,

00:46:03.600 | is the application of broad-ranging knowledge to a specific situation.

00:46:08.720 | And that is worth big money, because it saves time.

00:46:13.040 | And as information multiplies and multiplies and multiplies and multiplies,

00:46:17.200 | we don't need information.

00:46:18.720 | We need application of wisdom to a scenario.

00:46:20.880 | I think of, you mentioned earlier, Tim Ferriss' podcast.

00:46:23.440 | I listened to an interview he did with Kevin Kelly.

00:46:25.760 | And I didn't really know anything about Kevin Kelly.

00:46:28.320 | And I was just fascinated by this interview he did though,

00:46:30.960 | because he made the statement.

00:46:32.000 | He said, "I predict that in the future, books will be free,

00:46:36.080 | and what we will pay Amazon for is not the book,

00:46:38.400 | is for the suggestion of the next book to read."

00:46:42.000 | Because that's what's overwhelming.

00:46:44.080 | And it blew my mind.

00:46:45.040 | And since then, I haven't gotten away from it.

00:46:46.800 | That's what we need, is we need the application of expert information

00:46:49.920 | in a specific situation.

00:46:51.520 | And that's what experts bring to the table.

00:46:53.600 | Well, and that's just it, because going on what you said there too,

00:46:57.040 | is that, yes, you're right, all the information is free.

00:46:59.520 | It's all there.

00:47:00.240 | But how much time do you have?

00:47:01.520 | And the more information, we are in an information age,

00:47:04.000 | where information is in an abundance, but expertise is in scarcity.

00:47:07.920 | So what can I do to save time to sift through all the crap?

00:47:14.160 | Spend a thousand bucks.

00:47:15.920 | And go straight to the heart of the matter, get what I need,

00:47:19.680 | and get in production and get on with my life,

00:47:22.160 | instead of sitting in a classroom for a year or two or three or four.

00:47:25.120 | Get to it and start your life today.

00:47:29.680 | I mean, it's interesting, because when I started,

00:47:33.120 | I was at sort of, I had a few different things I wanted to do

00:47:36.560 | to learn how to do this.

00:47:38.160 | And one of the things that I was really looking at,

00:47:40.000 | was going to this farming school.

00:47:41.760 | And it's a cool program.

00:47:43.120 | It's out here on the west coast of BC.

00:47:45.680 | And cool program.

00:47:47.920 | But really, when I looked at what I had to do,

00:47:50.320 | is I had to go into this program for a year.

00:47:52.080 | It's going to cost me about $20,000, a little bit more with living expenses.

00:47:55.920 | And when I came out of it, I would have to,

00:47:59.680 | if ultimately I wanted to do is be a farmer,

00:48:02.640 | well, then I'd have to raise the capital to start the farm.

00:48:04.720 | Basically, I said, you know what, I did this bike tour down the west coast.

00:48:08.880 | I don't know if I mentioned this to you in the last show,

00:48:10.960 | but a real big turning point in my life was,

00:48:14.240 | I rode my bike from Kelowna to Tijuana, basically.

00:48:17.440 | I went down the west coast.

00:48:18.400 | I visited, not urban farms, but eco villages and homesteads,

00:48:21.600 | and all kinds of things like this.

00:48:22.800 | Got really inspired about what people were doing.

00:48:25.200 | More or less, got inspired about myself,

00:48:26.960 | because I realized that when I wear my values on my sleeve,

00:48:30.480 | this is who I am, take me or leave me,

00:48:31.920 | I'm not afraid to show some vulnerability in my imperfections.

00:48:34.480 | People really gravitated towards that.

00:48:37.200 | But I also felt like I could do anything.

00:48:38.880 | And so that's where I was like,

00:48:40.080 | I started to think about going to take this course.

00:48:41.680 | And I said, you know what, why don't I just go all out, take the risk,

00:48:45.280 | take that money I would have spent at that school,

00:48:47.600 | and just put it into my own business.

00:48:48.960 | And even if worst case scenario, it failed,

00:48:53.760 | well, at least I'd have a hell of a lot better idea how to do it the next year.

00:48:58.080 | Or if I didn't even want to do it,

00:48:59.440 | it would have been the same as spending the money in the school.

00:49:01.680 | But I was willing to take that risk in the sense that if I do okay,

00:49:06.480 | then I can do it again the next year and maybe make some more money at it.

00:49:09.600 | And so that was a far better thing to do, is to just, let's go for it.

00:49:14.720 | - Right.

00:49:15.120 | That resonates with me, because same thing.

00:49:19.440 | I mean, I try very hard not to regret the past.

00:49:21.600 | We all are, in many ways, our lives simply reflect a series of decisions we've made,

00:49:26.000 | and you can't go back and predict anything.

00:49:28.080 | But I've had the same thought.

00:49:29.200 | Man, if I would have taken that 80 grand that I spent on college,

00:49:32.960 | and I would have just simply said,

00:49:34.160 | I am going to blow every last dime of this.

00:49:37.280 | I'm going to blow 10,000 bucks on books, and I'm going to read them.

00:49:41.680 | And I'm going to blow 70,000 bucks on just wasted business things.

00:49:47.200 | I don't think there's any possibility that I could finish blowing the $70,000

00:49:51.840 | without having a few million dollars in the bank.

00:49:54.000 | If you give yourself the permission to fail,

00:49:58.720 | and you give yourself a little bit of capital,

00:50:00.800 | not even necessarily a lot, but a little bit.

00:50:02.320 | Let's say I put myself on a budget.

00:50:03.680 | I'm going to waste $20,000 a year over the next four years

00:50:08.000 | until I get a business that works.

00:50:11.440 | A, I'd either have a business that went,

00:50:14.560 | or I would have 80,000 bucks worth of hard lessons learned,

00:50:18.400 | and I would be on the cusp of the business that was going to work.

00:50:21.760 | A lot different than having the diploma.

00:50:23.520 | - Well, and that's the thing too, is that, like you said,

00:50:27.040 | give yourself the permission to fail, but then take that and fail better.

00:50:31.200 | Learn from your failures and channel those.

00:50:35.680 | Because if you don't learn from your failures, then you're wasting time.

00:50:39.520 | - Right.

00:50:39.840 | - So failures, that's good.

00:50:41.760 | That's good.

00:50:42.240 | And again, it goes back into this choosing fear or love in your day-to-day life.

00:50:47.840 | And when you choose love, you look at things positively.

00:50:51.520 | And so every time I screw something up, I go, "Hey, there's an opportunity."

00:50:55.120 | And the cool thing about it too is, I mean, I'm of the thinking,

00:50:58.560 | and I'm sure you can relate to this, and probably a lot of your listeners too,

00:51:01.280 | is that when you really boil everything down,

00:51:03.280 | everything just comes back to human relationships.

00:51:05.680 | That's really all that's important.

00:51:07.200 | I could lose everything in the stock market.

00:51:09.760 | I could have my house burned to the ground.

00:51:12.640 | People could steal all my crops.

00:51:14.080 | But at the end of the day, all that matters is the relationships

00:51:16.800 | that I've built in my life.

00:51:17.840 | And so this comes back into failing, is that in the sense,

00:51:25.200 | sometimes we fail with each other.

00:51:27.440 | Sometimes a customer of mine might complain about something, right?

00:51:31.920 | And so every time there's a failure, there's an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive

00:51:37.600 | by saying, "Okay, this person has given me an opportunity to make it right."

00:51:42.160 | And so this is something my dad really hammered into my head.

00:51:45.120 | My dad is a real, like a small businessman,

00:51:47.200 | did many different entrepreneurial things in his life.

00:51:50.880 | But he always said, "You don't just make it right, you make it better."

00:51:55.360 | So there's an opportunity.

00:51:56.320 | So for example, somebody would come to my farmer's market stand and say,

00:51:59.520 | "Oh, I bought a bag of salad mix from you last week,

00:52:02.320 | and it's spoiled by the time I go home."

00:52:04.240 | So it's like right there is an opportunity.

00:52:06.400 | So what does a bag of salad mix really cost me in the day?

00:52:10.080 | So to give them another one, it doesn't cost me anything.

00:52:13.280 | But to make it better now turns this situation that started off negative into something better.

00:52:19.040 | So, okay, here's a bag of salad mix.

00:52:20.640 | Here's a few other things as well.

00:52:22.400 | And then they leave with a smile on their face saying, "Wow, I wasn't expecting that."

00:52:26.320 | Because most people, when people take criticism,

00:52:30.480 | the most of the time that just a guard goes up in front of them,

00:52:33.760 | and they say, "Oh, that's defensive.

00:52:35.760 | Oh, what? No, what are you talking about?

00:52:37.200 | I never have this."

00:52:37.920 | And this sort of pride mechanism kicks in.

00:52:40.320 | But it's like, "Hey, humble yourself."

00:52:42.400 | You know, here's an opportunity for now to make this person make their day better.

00:52:48.000 | And you know what?

00:52:48.640 | In the end, they're probably going to come back the next week and bring their friends.

00:52:52.480 | Right.

00:52:52.720 | So that's what I mean by taking an opportunity that was bad,

00:52:55.760 | not just making it right, but making it better.

00:52:58.320 | That's how we can make-- with our failures,

00:53:01.120 | we can always fail better and improve ourselves through that process.

00:53:05.520 | And you really only do that through experience.

00:53:07.760 | You don't really get that when you go to university for something, right?

00:53:10.800 | I mean, let's face it, too.

00:53:12.320 | I mean, we're-- like we said earlier, we're in an-- information is in abundance.

00:53:16.560 | And like universities, since they've been subsidized by the government, have gone rampant.

00:53:21.520 | I mean, everybody's got a degree now, right?

00:53:25.360 | I mean, people working as a bouncer at a bar probably have a degree in like social science

00:53:30.320 | or something.

00:53:30.640 | You know, who knows?

00:53:31.840 | But everybody's got a degree.

00:53:33.360 | So it all goes back to the supply and demand thing.

00:53:36.640 | If everybody has the same stuff, its value goes down.

00:53:39.840 | And so a degree today, eh, I'd say you're better off putting your money into a business

00:53:46.720 | and starting to make something happen, get into production, provide-- it's so simple

00:53:51.760 | in business, right?

00:53:52.320 | Provide stuff that people need.

00:53:53.680 | - Right.

00:53:53.920 | - Right?

00:53:54.240 | - And keep a habit.

00:53:55.280 | - Yeah, that's really all it is.

00:53:57.440 | And it can be so fun along the way, too, because when you go into that love-based mindset,

00:54:02.880 | I mean, every day is fun.

00:54:05.360 | Human relationships are incredible.

00:54:06.960 | I mean, I love-- even just with farming.

00:54:09.520 | I mean, I love going on the road, coming to places like Florida and meeting awesome people,

00:54:12.640 | too.

00:54:13.120 | But I mean, just with farming, I mean, you get to talk to great people all day.

00:54:17.120 | People who shop at farmers markets want to talk to the farmer.

00:54:19.760 | I mean, it's a dream, man.

00:54:21.440 | - Right.

00:54:21.840 | I want to share one concept.

00:54:23.760 | I love everything you said.

00:54:24.720 | And it just shocks me when big businesses don't seem to recognize, if I just keep a

00:54:29.360 | customer, it's like their entire goal is to tick off their customer sometimes.

00:54:34.000 | And little businesses know that.

00:54:36.880 | Hey, what if-- here, it was spoiled here, three bags of salad mix and a bunch of other

00:54:42.400 | stuff with it.

00:54:43.360 | And it's so cheap compared to future customers.

00:54:46.640 | But I want to go back to something you said on failure.

00:54:48.640 | And this is turning into swap business stories, I guess, instead of how to start an urban

00:54:53.680 | farm.

00:54:54.000 | But you and I, we seem to have a synergy of some kind.

00:54:57.040 | One concept I thought that just-- excuse me, one concept I learned that has completely

00:55:04.800 | transformed my willingness to fail is to stop thinking in terms of success or failure and

00:55:12.000 | to think in terms of feedback.

00:55:13.520 | And what I realized, I believe if I were to cite the source, I believe this was part of--

00:55:20.720 | years ago, I thought I wanted to become a copywriter and write advertising literature.

00:55:26.640 | And it seemed to be kind of an ideal business for me.

00:55:29.200 | I was OK at writing.

00:55:30.400 | I figured I could do it from anywhere in the world.

00:55:32.800 | I could make a lot of money.

00:55:34.160 | So I pursued it.

00:55:35.120 | I bought a course.

00:55:35.920 | And I was working my way through this copywriting course.

00:55:38.640 | And I think they were talking about the failure rates.

00:55:41.120 | And the thing about copywriting, when you're writing, let's say, a traditional direct mail,

00:55:46.160 | an advertisement in the mail-- now you see it online.

00:55:48.960 | But there's still plenty in the mail.

00:55:51.200 | Because you're always just testing.

00:55:52.880 | And you're always testing.

00:55:54.080 | And you send out one letter.

00:55:55.360 | And you see what the response is.

00:55:56.880 | And then you send out another letter.

00:55:58.240 | And you see if the response is better or worse.

00:56:00.960 | And you're just getting feedback.

00:56:02.080 | And if the response is better, then that letter becomes your standard.

00:56:05.520 | And that's the one that everything's measured against.

00:56:07.360 | And you're always, always testing, testing new things, trying this, trying that, trying

00:56:11.840 | this, trying that.

00:56:12.880 | And a copywriter, a salesperson, never thinks in terms of success or failure.

00:56:18.080 | They just think in terms of feedback.

00:56:20.240 | Wow, this one flopped.

00:56:21.600 | This one had a bad response rate.

00:56:23.440 | We'll trash that and go on to the next thing.

00:56:25.120 | It's no big deal.

00:56:26.400 | So they test in small batches.

00:56:28.320 | And then they continue on.

00:56:29.440 | And they don't worry about and assign this whole emotional weight to, oh, this letter

00:56:35.760 | just failed.

00:56:36.800 | I am a terrible person.

00:56:38.080 | My business is a disaster.

00:56:40.000 | I should just quit.

00:56:40.800 | I hate my life.

00:56:41.600 | No, that letter didn't work.

00:56:43.760 | Feedback.

00:56:44.320 | Marketplace gave us feedback.

00:56:45.840 | Move on.

00:56:46.400 | And that's what capitalism is supposed to be.

00:56:48.160 | Money is just a form of feedback.

00:56:50.400 | But what happens is we often assign this great emotional weight to certain things.

00:56:54.880 | And we say, oh, if I do this, and this business doesn't work, it's going to fail.

00:57:00.080 | Ignore failure.

00:57:01.200 | It's just feedback.

00:57:02.320 | Market says this isn't valued.

00:57:03.840 | Market says this is valued.

00:57:05.440 | And if we disconnect this emotional weight and just listen to what the market is saying--

00:57:10.080 | Exactly.

00:57:11.600 | And that's the cool thing about-- I always look at these correlations.

00:57:14.560 | And I love the correlation between-- I consider myself like a true free market capitalist

00:57:21.280 | in the traditional sense.

00:57:22.320 | I don't believe what is represented in the US or Canada or most of the world today is

00:57:26.800 | what true free market capitalism is.

00:57:29.360 | But there still is a little bit of it left.

00:57:31.120 | And I love the correlation to what you're saying to the feedback that exists with your

00:57:36.080 | customers or products or whatever.

00:57:37.680 | I like to-- I'll pull that back from being a farmer and say, you know, there's also this

00:57:42.480 | feedback loop in nature that is so cool.

00:57:44.960 | And when you're a farmer, you see it right away.

00:57:47.360 | And I think being a farmer has made me so much of a better person because of being aware

00:57:52.480 | of these feedback loops.

00:57:54.000 | For example, things you do when you're growing plants, there's this pretty immediate feedback

00:57:59.200 | loop that if you're doing something that doesn't work, you notice it.

00:58:02.320 | You can notice it the next day with the health of your plants or your crops.

00:58:06.160 | And we've become so-- everything that comes to us through the power of the state, through

00:58:14.160 | the barrel of a gun, comes in one way.

00:58:16.720 | It's one way direction.

00:58:18.400 | There is no feedback loop.

00:58:20.800 | If the government-- if something doesn't work for a government program, there's no feedback

00:58:25.680 | loop.

00:58:26.000 | They just pump more money into it, right?

00:58:28.560 | There's no feedback loop.

00:58:30.000 | And that's the thing is that when we really assess ourselves as human beings, as like

00:58:34.480 | emotional human beings that care for one another, these feedback loops exist in the free market,

00:58:40.320 | in the real free market.

00:58:41.280 | It exists a little bit today, but all these things exist in nature.

00:58:44.480 | They exist in economics across the board.

00:58:47.200 | These feedback loops exist.

00:58:49.040 | And if we don't pay attention to them, that's when things go wrong.

00:58:52.880 | And this is like for me-- I open a can of worms at this, but this is like the ultimate

00:58:56.720 | failure of the state, the ultimate failure of the American dream originally, or what

00:59:02.800 | the forefathers wanted was an incredible thing.

00:59:07.520 | But we've gone so far from that.

00:59:09.840 | And these feedback loops just don't exist.

00:59:12.960 | But if you are aware of the feedback and you start a business or you start a farm or no

00:59:20.400 | matter what your mission is in life, if you become aware of these feedback loops in everything

00:59:24.800 | that you do, you can make tremendous strides in your personal and business life, like very

00:59:31.520 | easily.

00:59:31.920 | But it's just opening your ears and eyes.

00:59:33.920 | And I love how you talked about it.

00:59:35.600 | It's just like forget about whether it's failure or not, because if you say failure, then there's

00:59:40.640 | sort of this sense to feel sort of defeated or feel like you made a mistake.

00:59:45.440 | But it's just like that's just a market response.

00:59:47.840 | And the beauty of a real free market is that a free market exists in everything, not just

00:59:54.000 | economics.

00:59:54.880 | There's a free market-- we are voluntarily discussing ideas here.

00:59:58.960 | This is a free market of ideas, too, right?

01:00:01.440 | And as soon as we say, let's stop the free market, well, that's when I started to get

01:00:07.280 | a little freaked out.

01:00:08.000 | But I just try to live my life the best I can and lead by example instead of trying

01:00:14.320 | to force people into the way I want to see the world.

01:00:17.840 | I'm with you.

01:00:19.920 | So I want to ask you one question.

01:00:22.320 | And so I thought when we started, we were going to talk about how to get into farming.

01:00:26.880 | And we've done very little of that.

01:00:29.120 | Yeah, we've done that.

01:00:29.760 | But it's been good.

01:00:30.560 | You said you are in the future going to be running a course and you're coming out with

01:00:35.040 | a book in the future.

01:00:36.400 | Yeah.

01:00:36.400 | OK, let's do another interview another time when you're closer to that.

01:00:42.160 | And let's actually go through that how to get started in farming.

01:00:46.640 | And you can give some snippets away.

01:00:48.720 | And that'll help you publicize whenever you-- let me know after the interview, whenever

01:00:53.360 | that's coming out.

01:00:53.840 | And that'll help you publicize your course.

01:00:55.600 | But I want to ask you a question now before we wrap up.

01:00:59.200 | I want to ask about investment.

01:01:00.880 | And here's the question.

01:01:02.480 | I've had a number of people contact me.

01:01:04.480 | And they're interested in investing in things like you describe-- local economy, sustainable

01:01:12.560 | agriculture.

01:01:13.600 | They're interested in supporting ideas like you have.

01:01:18.160 | And frankly, this is probably where I am.

01:01:19.840 | I would love-- I'm working hard on some business pursuits.

01:01:23.200 | And although one of my backup plans is to start an urban farm in my backyard and the

01:01:26.880 | backyard of all the neighbors, that's one of my backup plans.

01:01:29.760 | But right now, I don't think it's-- it's not my primary plan.

01:01:32.800 | But I still really would love to invest in it.

01:01:35.600 | I'd love to invest.

01:01:36.560 | And I'd love to own or be a partner in a local free-range cattle operation.

01:01:42.800 | We've got one of the most amazing places in the world for beef production is here in Florida.

01:01:47.840 | And I just drive through central Florida.

01:01:49.600 | And I think, look at the squandered opportunities here.

01:01:52.560 | And obviously, there are-- anyway, how could I as an investor, how could an audience, listener

01:01:58.800 | as an investor who has a similar philosophical bent to what you're describing, how could

01:02:05.200 | they actually invest their money profitably into an organization, operation like yours

01:02:12.000 | or with similar ethics?

01:02:14.080 | Yeah, OK.

01:02:14.580 | Well, first of all, I'm in no way an investment advisor.

01:02:20.080 | I don't want to tell people what to do with their money and then have something go wrong.

01:02:24.320 | And then they say, hey, that was a bad investment.

01:02:26.080 | So I'm not the best in that regard.

01:02:28.320 | But I've got some ideas on some things that I think in time in the future will prove lucrative

01:02:35.760 | for people in a couple ways.

01:02:37.440 | And so I don't-- it's interesting.

01:02:40.560 | Your show is about finance for the most part.

01:02:43.440 | And I definitely agree with you on most things regarding finance.

01:02:47.680 | But I like to think about investment in a more holistic way.

01:02:51.360 | I like to think about the sort of the triple bottom line return that you can get on investment.

01:02:58.320 | And what I mean by triple bottom line is the economic, the social, and the environmental

01:03:02.880 | benefit.

01:03:03.760 | And I think this is where new capitalism or new free marketism will go, because it just

01:03:09.520 | makes sense.

01:03:10.160 | So there's some cool things.

01:03:12.720 | I met a young rancher in rural Alberta.

01:03:15.920 | I was teaching a workshop there.

01:03:17.680 | And he had a really cool way of getting investment for his farm.

01:03:22.160 | And so when you're starting a ranch, a pasture-raised pork or cattle, there's some capital you need

01:03:30.560 | up front.

01:03:30.880 | I mean, in my business system, you can start an annual vegetable urban farm on $5,000 to

01:03:35.440 | $10,000 and turn that into $50,000 your first year if you follow my steps.

01:03:40.240 | But for cattle ranching and things like that, it's a bit more.

01:03:43.280 | And so this young man had a really cool system where he got people.

01:03:47.360 | He found, I think it was five investors to put in $5,000.

01:03:50.960 | And they basically made a bond.

01:03:54.160 | And so the legalities of this, I'm not exactly sure.

01:03:56.560 | It might fall into some gray area.

01:03:58.080 | But what they did was they got everybody to put in $5,000.

01:04:01.520 | And then he took that money.

01:04:04.160 | And for three years, he gave them a 5% return on that investment, paid in a dividend, either

01:04:11.200 | in the form of cash or product.

01:04:13.520 | And then at the end of the three years, he gave them their money back.

01:04:15.840 | So in a world where governments print money and we live in a low interest rate world,

01:04:22.320 | 5% return, yeah, sure, it's not a lot on investment if you only think about the financial

01:04:27.920 | return.

01:04:28.640 | But if you think about the social and environmental returns, they're of a way higher magnitude.

01:04:35.360 | And this is why investing in your local area is so important.

01:04:39.680 | Because not only do you benefit from this young man starting a ranching operation that's

01:04:44.240 | going to feed you and your family, potentially for generations, but you are also improving

01:04:49.760 | soil, top soil.

01:04:51.120 | That's a resource capital, right?

01:04:52.640 | That's an investment in resource.

01:04:54.000 | And you invest in a young man or woman who is going to start farming and then teach other

01:05:01.200 | people to farm.

01:05:02.000 | And then there's a social ripple effect there, too.

01:05:04.560 | So I think as far as investment, I don't have a silver bullet to say, hey, this is

01:05:11.040 | going to make you millions of dollars.

01:05:12.560 | But what I will say is you might make a few bucks from it, but look at the other things

01:05:17.040 | that you benefit from and how they affect your community.

01:05:20.000 | Because really, it all comes down to relationships, right?

01:05:22.880 | And without that, you can lose all your money in the stock market.

01:05:25.360 | And if the mood of Europe or America is bad one day, you can lose everything.

01:05:30.880 | But when you really talk about the real forms of capital that are most important, that's

01:05:36.000 | what it is.

01:05:36.400 | And so I think investing in young farmers, so because they're the future, right?

01:05:41.120 | There's an aging farming population right now, but there's a new group of farmers that

01:05:44.480 | are looking at more holistic ways to do it.

01:05:46.400 | And I think that's important.

01:05:48.240 | But I think there are ways that people who have some money could come together, start

01:05:52.480 | maybe in some kind of investment fund that invests in young farmers and puts money into

01:05:58.160 | infrastructure.

01:05:58.800 | And you have to be a little careful with these things, because I've seen some negative

01:06:02.960 | effects where people offer too much money available to farmers, and it might attract

01:06:11.280 | people that aren't necessarily maybe the best farmers.

01:06:15.120 | Because it's all the easy come, easy go, right?

01:06:17.120 | Like, I think it's important that people work hard for those kind of things.

01:06:23.120 | And I don't see any problem in charging some interest either, because I think if it's

01:06:28.320 | too easy come, it's too easy go.

01:06:30.320 | So have some interest in there, but it's got to be realistic.

01:06:34.640 | So here would be a question.

01:06:38.720 | This is actually a selfish question.

01:06:40.000 | I had some correspondence with a listener, and this listener was interested in sustainable

01:06:49.520 | agriculture, was interested in building the local economy.

01:06:53.280 | And the listener had enough money to where they were able to fund everything in life

01:06:59.200 | that they needed.

01:07:00.080 | And there are some kind of stages of wealth.

01:07:03.120 | And one of those stages of wealth, I think, is you have enough financial capital, or at

01:07:07.040 | least enough assets that are going to support anything that you can possibly personally

01:07:11.360 | consume.

01:07:11.840 | And if you reach that point in time, then you start thinking less, and maybe you want

01:07:20.480 | to set aside some consumption for your kids, maybe, or other people that are close to you.

01:07:24.960 | But once you reach that point, there's a limit to what you can consume.

01:07:28.320 | And then you start looking at advancing your agenda for how you think the world should

01:07:31.840 | be.

01:07:31.920 | And this is what the wealthy do.

01:07:33.360 | So you see it primarily, I mean, probably the clearest example is if I've got $3 billion,

01:07:39.200 | then there's not a chance in the world that, A, any of my kids are going to spend $3 billion.

01:07:44.480 | And there's not a chance that I'm going to let the government spend my $3 billion.

01:07:48.960 | So I'm going to give a couple hundred million to the kids, and I'm going to put the rest

01:07:53.360 | of it into my nonprofit foundation.

01:07:55.280 | And that allows me to change society from beyond the grave and never pay taxes on it.

01:08:00.480 | That's the whole point of many so-called philanthropic nonprofit organizations, is to

01:08:05.760 | change society over time.

01:08:07.520 | And it allows wealthy people to extend past money into power, which is ultimately one

01:08:14.480 | of the things that money is often tied to.

01:08:16.480 | So I recommended to this listener, I said, listen, if you've got things stabilized, then

01:08:20.080 | just go invest.

01:08:20.880 | Do what the rich people do.

01:08:22.000 | Maybe you don't have a billion dollars to set up the Carnegie Corporation or the Rockefeller

01:08:25.680 | Corporation or the Gates Foundation that should change the world and make it into my image,

01:08:30.720 | how I think it should be.

01:08:31.920 | But at least deploy a few million bucks into what you care about.

01:08:36.560 | So if you had a few million bucks sitting aside, for round numbers, let's say five.

01:08:41.760 | And let's say I've got five million bucks tucked aside, and I really care about supporting

01:08:47.440 | some of the issues that Curtis Stone is into.

01:08:50.720 | Then how would you deploy that today in 2015?

01:08:55.040 | What ideas would you have for that listener?

01:08:56.960 | >> Hmm.

01:08:59.460 | >> Didn't expect that one, did you?

01:09:02.480 | >> No, but I think there's going to be -- the key is, is we need to have more farmers because

01:09:09.200 | we need to have more teachers.

01:09:10.560 | And the more young farmers we have out there doing stuff and having successes, the more

01:09:15.840 | opportunities there will be to pass on those successes and learn from their experience.

01:09:19.840 | I see huge potential in setting up agricultural schools in a practical sense.

01:09:24.640 | I mean, one of your friends I've talked to about coming down to West Palm Beach and doing

01:09:29.360 | something like this, setting up a hub where we can bring in new farmers, put them through

01:09:35.760 | a couple-month program, get them the things they need, and get them out in the field and

01:09:41.040 | starting those.

01:09:41.760 | I see potential there.

01:09:44.720 | >> Would you follow the permaculture model, basically an internship?

01:09:50.240 | For example, one of the farms I liked -- because they have beautiful photography -- I look

01:09:54.400 | at Milkwood Farm in Australia.

01:09:56.720 | I just watch what they're doing on their farm, and they seem to be having a real impact there

01:10:01.440 | in their area.

01:10:02.080 | They bring people in, they run their market garden for them.

01:10:05.040 | Would you pursue that type of approach, or how would you design it?

01:10:08.160 | >> Well, a little bit.

01:10:08.880 | But I've done that a little bit in the past.

01:10:11.520 | To be honest with you, I find that if the perceived value is too low, it actually affects

01:10:18.560 | the quality of education you get.

01:10:20.160 | In the past, I've actually taken interns -- because I get people that email me from literally

01:10:26.160 | all over the world -- that say, "Hey, I want to come down and work on your farm for a week

01:10:30.080 | if you teach me stuff."

01:10:30.960 | The perceived value is that, "Hey, they can get a free education if they come to my farm,

01:10:37.840 | and then they'll walk away with all this stuff."

01:10:40.240 | But the problem is, if I have to take time away from my production to teach you something,

01:10:47.040 | it's hard to do it in a week.

01:10:48.240 | You need to have time.

01:10:49.280 | So I actually think that there's better potential in paid apprenticeships, where people come

01:10:55.600 | and pay to be part of a program.

01:10:58.000 | That money commitment on their end not only helps the farmer so he can take time away

01:11:03.840 | from his operation to teach them, but it also shows level of commitment.

01:11:09.760 | I often see this in the permaculture community, is there's a lot of idealism, a lot of videos

01:11:15.680 | out there.

01:11:16.480 | There's a lot of great stuff in that community.

01:11:17.920 | I definitely wouldn't say anything bad about it.

01:11:19.360 | There's a lot of stuff that's like these big promises.

01:11:22.560 | A lot of it's just based on a lot of altruism, opposed to practicality of, "Okay, altruism's

01:11:31.280 | great, but you've got to feed yourself first, and you've got to make sure you build resilience

01:11:36.560 | in your own personal life and business life before you can start getting other people

01:11:41.280 | to do the same thing."

01:11:42.240 | So I see more potential in a paid internship, where people pay the farmer, come on the farm

01:11:49.600 | for two months, and maybe even they get the money back at the end.

01:11:52.960 | You put in $2,000, and if you stick around the entire season, you'll get that $2,000

01:11:58.400 | after.

01:11:59.120 | But it shows a level of commitment, because a lot of people romanticize farming.

01:12:04.560 | They watch a guy like Jeff Lawton, who I'm a huge fan of, but they'll watch his videos

01:12:08.720 | and say, "Oh, I want to green the desert.

01:12:10.400 | I want to do all these things."

01:12:11.680 | And then they come on my farm, and they realize that reality is pretty far removed from ideology.

01:12:21.280 | So farming isn't all that glamorous, really.

01:12:24.000 | Sure, I make it look glamorous when I tell everybody how great it is, and it is great.

01:12:30.480 | But there's a lot of other work that just needs to get done.

01:12:32.880 | A lot of sore backs some days, right?

01:12:35.040 | Yeah, totally.

01:12:35.760 | What I try to do in my systems is make things streamlined and as efficient as possible,

01:12:41.120 | so we avoid those kinds of problems.

01:12:42.960 | But the reality sometimes isn't all that.

01:12:49.360 | I think there's going to be investment opportunities in systems to create more farmers.

01:13:00.480 | One person can only make so much from farming, right?

01:13:02.960 | Let's be honest.

01:13:04.080 | My farm is very profitable for its size.

01:13:06.480 | I can do $80,000 on a third of an acre, probably more next year.

01:13:10.240 | But I work full days.

01:13:13.680 | I work a full-time job.

01:13:15.040 | I'm happy to say now I don't work much more than 40 hours a week.

01:13:18.240 | But a person isn't going to gain that overnight.

01:13:20.480 | But still, that's just $80,000.

01:13:22.880 | I've got to pay an employee in there.

01:13:24.080 | I've got some expenses as well.

01:13:25.440 | Getting farming isn't a get-rich thing, especially on the small scale.

01:13:29.440 | But I think the information…

01:13:30.800 | We have to train a lot of farmers, and I can't do it myself.

01:13:34.560 | We need to get more farmers who can do what I can do and also get out there as well.

01:13:40.240 | Because if we say that it's an aging population of farmers and less than 2% of people in North

01:13:46.720 | America know how to farm anymore, hey, there's 98% of people or whatever it is we want to get

01:13:52.080 | farmers back up to as far as percentage of the population.

01:13:54.880 | There's a lot of people to train.

01:13:56.880 | And there's a lot of people without jobs in the US right now.

01:13:59.920 | And hey, there's a lot of opportunities there for people.

01:14:03.760 | I like what you say, though, about the paid apprentice model.

01:14:07.360 | I think that's going to…

01:14:08.880 | That is probably coming over time.

01:14:12.880 | And it's kind of a mixture.

01:14:17.040 | Because if you actually look at some of the heroes, I mean, the reality of a paid apprentice

01:14:25.920 | is going to attract probably a different caliber of person.

01:14:29.120 | And if I were serious about getting into farming, I bet you what I would do, how I would approach

01:14:34.240 | it, I would go and woof somewhere or volunteer somewhere for a few weeks and let the romanticism

01:14:41.360 | get out of my blood and just get into the hard work.

01:14:44.160 | OK, I wouldn't pay money until I'd first dealt with the fact of, "Joshua, are you being

01:14:48.640 | romantic about this lifestyle?"

01:14:50.240 | Exactly.

01:14:50.640 | That's a great point.

01:14:51.520 | Or, "Are you actually serious about willing to do this?"

01:14:54.080 | And once I got that out of my blood, man, I would pay anything I had.

01:14:57.920 | Assuming I had a little bit of savings, and if I didn't, I would get some.

01:15:02.080 | I want the best instruction in the world.

01:15:04.080 | So I want to go.

01:15:06.160 | And if I had to pay to go and work on Lawton's farm, or if I had to go and pay to work on

01:15:10.640 | Salatin's farm, or if I had to go to pay and work with, I don't know, Mark Shepard or Greg

01:15:15.600 | Judy or whoever the other kind of heroes of the faith, so to speak, I would pay.

01:15:21.760 | Because, A, that's going to get me social access.

01:15:25.360 | Salatin launches his interns, and they've got their business set because we're part

01:15:30.000 | of the Salatin brand.

01:15:31.120 | Well, and there's a model there, too.

01:15:32.480 | Right.

01:15:33.200 | There is a pay model there, too.

01:15:34.640 | And that's the thing where, that's what it really is.

01:15:36.240 | From my end, anybody can come to my lectures, anybody can come to my workshops.

01:15:41.040 | That's a cheaper way to get my time.

01:15:43.040 | But if you want my time on the farm, you're going to pay because I don't have time to

01:15:48.800 | waste on people that aren't going to be successful.

01:15:51.120 | Right.

01:15:51.680 | If you're going to come on my farm, you're going to pay that because I want to make sure

01:15:56.080 | that you, like just what you said, Josh, is a great point, is going through some wolfing.

01:16:00.400 | It isn't just a romantic idea anymore.

01:16:04.880 | They're committed.

01:16:05.760 | They want to do this because I want to see a million more.

01:16:10.560 | I want to see 30 million new farmers start in North America.

01:16:14.000 | And I want to make sure that everybody that I spend time with personally is on that track

01:16:19.440 | because I want them to also do what I do.

01:16:22.080 | Not everybody is going to be as much of an advocate as I am, and that's fine.

01:16:26.320 | But the more successful farming models that we see out there will create those advocates.

01:16:33.040 | That's what I want.

01:16:33.840 | I want to have impact that way.

01:16:35.840 | So, yeah, if you're coming to my farm, you're going to pay for it because you're going to

01:16:40.080 | get the highest quality value you can.

01:16:42.160 | But I want to make sure that you're committed so that you are going to be one of those kind

01:16:45.840 | of people.

01:16:46.720 | And some people just want to farm, and that's totally fine.

01:16:49.920 | But I think we'll have a crazy ripple effect once we get more people out there talking

01:16:56.000 | about it and inspiring people where this becomes a mainstream thing.

01:16:59.520 | I want it to become in the next few years.

01:17:02.400 | I want to see it become mainstream where you know a farmer now.

01:17:06.240 | I mean, I'm still within the thousands of people that I've met in my life, I'm still

01:17:11.440 | probably one of five people that actually farm for a living.

01:17:15.440 | It's rare.

01:17:17.600 | I know more people that have studied public relations or political science or fine arts

01:17:24.800 | than I do farmers.

01:17:26.160 | And I'm a farmer.

01:17:27.040 | They're still in a huge minority.

01:17:29.920 | So I want that to change.

01:17:31.280 | Interesting.

01:17:31.780 | Interesting.

01:17:33.200 | I have to provide the counter argument for the stuff that we were talking about with

01:17:36.560 | college.

01:17:37.360 | That's what college used to be and still is in some places.

01:17:40.720 | The reason you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a prestigious exclusive university

01:17:47.040 | is you're paying for social access.

01:17:49.040 | And it's still worth the money for people who are getting social access.

01:17:52.640 | And there always has been and there still is for those who didn't have the money.

01:17:58.000 | In the same way that if there was somebody that came to you and got your attention through

01:18:02.320 | their hard work and through their dedication and through their whatever, just their character

01:18:06.960 | qualities, even if they didn't have the money, you would bring them under your wing.

01:18:11.120 | And that's what still you can still do that if you don't have the money to pay for access

01:18:15.120 | to that social circle, then it would still happen.

01:18:17.760 | So that was the whole point of university originally is to allow the social circles

01:18:21.920 | to stay pure.

01:18:22.640 | And that's the whole point of the boarding school system.

01:18:25.280 | That's the whole point of Harvard.

01:18:26.480 | That's the whole point of I mean, there's a reason why every I don't know how it is

01:18:29.840 | in Canada, but in the United States, you don't you don't get to be president unless you're

01:18:33.120 | part of the club.

01:18:33.680 | You know, there's a Harvard or Yale somewhere in your in your somewhere in your history

01:18:38.160 | or a bunch of them somewhere in your family.

01:18:40.560 | Totally.

01:18:40.960 | And if you and the key is, is like, I mean, this sounds cliche, but the key is if you

01:18:45.280 | really want to make it happen, you'll make it happen.

01:18:47.680 | And I just find as unfortunate as it is, is that sometimes a dollar value is just a better

01:18:53.040 | way of vetting the person.

01:18:54.480 | Like, I don't want I'm not trying to say, oh, to get access to me or this kind of farming

01:19:00.880 | requires X amount of dollars.

01:19:02.400 | I'm not saying that at all.

01:19:03.840 | But what I am saying is that that dollar figure more often than not will represent a person's

01:19:10.240 | will to do it.

01:19:12.000 | So like just like you said, at the university, if you really will work your ass off and make

01:19:16.240 | it happen, then you're going to have that be in that mindset of that more abundance

01:19:20.960 | mindset than the scarcity mindset.

01:19:23.120 | And that's often I hear that a lot.

01:19:24.560 | I mean, I get people that say, oh, well, you know, what about why don't you have like X

01:19:31.200 | amount of free tickets for people that are marginalized or whatever?

01:19:35.360 | And, you know, it's like and we do we always do in our workshops, there's always some

01:19:39.920 | kind of like scholarship or free stuff to some degree, but you can't help everybody.

01:19:46.640 | But it's like if you're stuck in that scarcity mindset, well, then this might not be for

01:19:52.400 | you.

01:19:53.400 | You if you want to do this successfully, you got to get out of that mindset and start to

01:19:58.160 | see the abundance that actually exists in the world.

01:20:01.400 | Because frankly, the guys that are really rich in the world, Warren Buffett, whatever,

01:20:06.160 | love him or hate him.

01:20:07.400 | They're in that they're in that mindset.

01:20:09.080 | They're in that abundance mindset and abundance attracts abundance.

01:20:12.520 | And nature is abundance.

01:20:14.160 | It's the law of nature.

01:20:15.320 | It's the law of abundance.

01:20:17.400 | One lettuce plant will produce a thousand seeds to reproduce itself.

01:20:21.500 | Nature itself is abundant.

01:20:23.500 | And people need to get out of the mindset of scarcity.

01:20:26.800 | People you know, it's like climate change this or we're screwing the planet.

01:20:30.720 | And I won't say we aren't, but there's still a lot of abundance.

01:20:34.760 | There's still so many opportunities, but don't let the mainstream media convince you that

01:20:41.600 | it's all going to shit and there's nothing you can do about it.

01:20:44.560 | You know, that you can do something about it.

01:20:47.240 | You just got to believe in yourself and take action.

01:20:50.280 | I will listen to anybody who wants to convince me that climate change is going to result

01:20:55.920 | in the death of all of us.

01:20:58.060 | If they can illustrate to me what they're actually doing that actually makes a difference.

01:21:02.200 | I listen to those people with ears wide open because I simply don't know.

01:21:08.920 | I'm done listening to people who tell me that here's why the world is going to crazy.

01:21:12.640 | So therefore that's why we got to control your life and tax you.

01:21:15.320 | Exactly.

01:21:16.320 | I'm done.

01:21:17.320 | I refuse to.

01:21:18.320 | When you show me that you're out greening the desert, I'll listen to you on climate

01:21:21.760 | change.

01:21:22.760 | When there are people who are greening the desert and you're not, sorry, like you don't

01:21:27.440 | have a ground to stand on.

01:21:28.440 | I know people that can go out and green the desert and you take one half of one percent

01:21:33.840 | of what you're spending on all the rest of the stuff of controlling people and you give

01:21:37.520 | it to the people that are out greening the desert.

01:21:39.920 | And man, you can change the climate.

01:21:42.520 | We can make rain.

01:21:43.520 | We can make grain.

01:21:44.800 | We can make green.

01:21:45.800 | We can soak up all kinds of carbon dioxide.

01:21:47.360 | It's tree food.

01:21:48.480 | And when you show me you're actually putting your money where your mouth is and you're

01:21:52.200 | not just sitting around trying to control me, I'll believe it.

01:21:55.400 | That's exactly it.

01:21:56.400 | I'm sold.

01:21:57.400 | It's all the same mechanisms that are used over and over again in history and people

01:22:01.680 | don't really seem to learn.

01:22:05.200 | The people that do will and they'll always be the change makers.

01:22:09.160 | But it's just all this fear crap.

01:22:11.480 | I mean, yeah, I'm not saying that climate change exists or not.

01:22:15.760 | I actually personally see effects of it.

01:22:18.840 | What is caused by that, I don't know.

01:22:20.800 | I'm not a scientist.

01:22:21.800 | I listen to some scientists, but I also see different opinions on it.

01:22:26.560 | So in the end, it doesn't matter to me because in the end, I'm still riding a bike every

01:22:30.920 | day.

01:22:31.920 | I'm still green in the urban areas that I live in.

01:22:34.040 | I'm still doing the best I can all the time.

01:22:36.840 | And that's all that matters.

01:22:38.960 | I've gone down the rabbit hole, Josh, with probably every conspiracy theory that you

01:22:43.320 | can imagine.

01:22:44.640 | And I've gone through periods.

01:22:45.640 | It's endless.

01:22:46.640 | Well, yeah.

01:22:47.640 | And the thing is I often start, I'm starting to see that there's people that benefit from

01:22:52.200 | that fear.

01:22:54.960 | And so I'm going, you know what?

01:22:57.040 | Hey, I believe a lot of stuff.

01:22:58.480 | I'm sure it exists.

01:22:59.960 | But you know what?

01:23:00.960 | I'm not going to be afraid because that doesn't help me at the end of the day.

01:23:04.480 | It doesn't help anybody at the end of the day to give up and say, oh, this 1% control

01:23:10.400 | everything and all that.

01:23:11.400 | It's like, who cares?

01:23:14.440 | Maybe they've figured out something that we haven't.

01:23:17.020 | Maybe there's some things we can learn from them.

01:23:19.600 | I'm just so tired of this race baiting and this class baiting of people saying it's us

01:23:26.560 | against them.

01:23:27.560 | I'm so tired of that crap because it doesn't get you.

01:23:30.480 | It doesn't change your position.

01:23:32.320 | It doesn't help you.

01:23:33.800 | Whether it's true or not, whether there's some people have privileges and some don't.

01:23:38.320 | Yeah, they do.

01:23:39.320 | Get over it.

01:23:40.320 | Move on.

01:23:41.320 | Everybody can say that somebody else has it better than they do.

01:23:45.320 | Even in the 1%, my family only makes $100 million a year.

01:23:49.520 | Well, this guy's family makes a billion dollars a year.

01:23:52.440 | Somebody is always going to have it better and somebody is always going to have it worse.

01:23:56.400 | Get over it.

01:23:57.400 | Move on.

01:23:58.400 | Believe in yourself.

01:23:59.400 | Put one foot in front of the other and just make it happen.

01:24:03.600 | Stop complaining and just do it.

01:24:05.840 | I'm just so tired of the people that are just – they're well-intended.

01:24:10.200 | There's a lot of – there's a saying.

01:24:12.520 | I don't know who says it but it's like the road to hell is paved by good intentions.

01:24:17.200 | I see that so much in the mainstream media especially because the mainstream media has

01:24:21.760 | really gone to the left as far as Obama.

01:24:26.320 | I grew up in a left family.

01:24:28.200 | I mean I have a lot of left opinions in a way but when it comes to making people afraid

01:24:35.760 | of each other, especially when it comes to like, "Well, you're a black person and

01:24:40.920 | I'm a white person and you have this and you have that," it's like who cares?

01:24:44.120 | We're humans.

01:24:45.120 | I'm a human being.

01:24:46.120 | Why don't you just call me by my name instead of calling me about what I am.

01:24:50.360 | Like I'm a farmer and I'm a human.

01:24:53.280 | That's good enough for me.

01:24:54.920 | Let's work together and make things happen.

01:24:58.960 | There's a time of personal transformation.

01:25:03.400 | Sometimes I think where people react, I know where I reacted and who knows, maybe I still

01:25:08.960 | do and who knows, maybe I still will.

01:25:10.880 | Because you get disillusioned when you find out you were lied to.

01:25:14.040 | That's tough to take.

01:25:15.720 | No matter what it is, whether it's when I was a kid I thought my parents were perfect

01:25:21.160 | and then I realized they were people and you're like, "Wow, that's disillusioning.

01:25:25.800 | Here I was, I thought my parents were perfect."

01:25:28.160 | Or when you think, "Wow, my political party is, wait a second, what's going on?

01:25:33.440 | I've been lied to."

01:25:34.440 | It's kind of disillusioning and it takes a little time to get over it.

01:25:38.120 | But the good news is that more people who can live and again, goes back to that open

01:25:42.080 | information and open discussion, that can be super valuable for people.

01:25:47.640 | So Curtis, we're recording this on Monday the 26th.

01:25:52.240 | When are you going to be in Florida again?

01:25:54.040 | Tomorrow.

01:25:55.040 | I'll be in Florida tomorrow, leaving on the 27th.

01:25:56.880 | I'll be in Gainesville January 28th for a free lecture.

01:26:00.640 | So I think we've got room for a lot of people.

01:26:03.280 | Come out, check it out.

01:26:05.440 | That might inspire you to come to the workshop in Gainesville the next day, which is a one-day

01:26:08.720 | workshop.

01:26:09.720 | But then I've got a two-day workshop in Orlando, which is, there's a lot of information

01:26:13.600 | in the one day you'll get.

01:26:15.320 | Just with two days, of course, there's going to be a little bit more stuff.

01:26:18.120 | Then I'm on my way to Long Beach, California.

01:26:20.640 | After that, I'm going to be in Seattle on the 14th of February, back in BC on the 21st,

01:26:25.440 | doing a workshop in Puerto Vallarta, which I'm pretty stoked about.

01:26:28.200 | Fun, awesome.

01:26:29.200 | On February 28th, March 1st.

01:26:31.040 | Anybody can just go on my website, greencityacres.com.

01:26:33.040 | I've got all those dates there.

01:26:34.760 | If people are interested in my online course that I have coming up, the basic premise of

01:26:39.040 | this course is I want to save you two or three years of the mistakes I made and get you ahead

01:26:43.280 | so you can start making money as a farmer right away.

01:26:45.600 | It's profitableurbanfarming.com.

01:26:48.200 | They can sign up to the newsletter and they'll get a notification when the course is released.

01:26:51.440 | Do you have an estimate of when you think you're going to be publishing the course?

01:26:54.440 | Yeah.

01:26:55.440 | We're hoping we're shooting for one month from today.

01:26:58.200 | We're in post-production right now.

01:27:00.640 | We're editing the last bits of video and the content is up.

01:27:05.280 | It's a really cool site where you can navigate.

01:27:08.080 | It views like a book with chapters and sub-chapters.

01:27:12.160 | You can read content and then there's videos on how to do stuff.

01:27:15.040 | I've been filming content for this thing for two and a half years now.

01:27:18.520 | It's got tons of stuff in it.

01:27:22.060 | If I would have seen this stuff, man, it would have saved me a lot of time.

01:27:25.960 | Are you doing a big timed launch videos, the product launch formula?

01:27:30.440 | Are you just doing a simple launch?

01:27:32.680 | What kind of launch are you doing?

01:27:34.400 | We're kind of launching it.

01:27:35.920 | I don't know exactly.

01:27:37.080 | I have a partner in the US named Luke Callahan and he manages the production.

01:27:44.480 | What we're doing is we're just going to launch it because we want to get this information

01:27:48.000 | out to people.

01:27:49.920 | We're going to launch it for a lot cheaper than what it's worth, basically.

01:27:52.720 | I don't know the price exactly, but we're going to launch it for probably half of what

01:27:57.080 | it will be over time.

01:27:58.680 | We want to get the information out there and we want to get people using it.

01:28:03.440 | We're committed to making it better and better constantly.

01:28:06.280 | When you sign up for it, you get access to it forever.

01:28:10.760 | We want to make it better over time.

01:28:13.280 | It's slick.

01:28:14.280 | This thing is, like I said, the information is so valuable and it goes into so much detail.

01:28:20.540 | You can watch it from the convenient of your own home.

01:28:22.640 | You can view it on an iPad when you're out in the field.

01:28:24.960 | How did Curtis do that thing?

01:28:26.440 | You can pull up the video and watch me do it.

01:28:29.480 | Awesome.

01:28:30.480 | Tell you what, give me a week or two, but then let's see if we can get you back on.

01:28:35.160 | You prepare some thoughts and let's go ahead and give some info to help you with your course

01:28:38.840 | launch.

01:28:40.680 | Let's do another recording.

01:28:41.680 | It was a fun conversation.

01:28:42.680 | We kind of got off base.

01:28:44.960 | Let's see if we can help you with your course launch.

01:28:46.920 | I know for a number of my audience that'll be helpful.

01:28:50.240 | Maybe you can put together some more of the outline that we're going to go with today

01:28:53.560 | on how to get into urban farming and that'll help you get some people in that course.

01:28:58.080 | I'd like to do that if you're willing.

01:29:00.080 | Great, yeah, absolutely Josh.

01:29:01.760 | Anytime.

01:29:02.760 | Awesome.

01:29:03.760 | Maybe I'll see you in a few days.

01:29:04.760 | If I can make it to Orlando, I will be there.

01:29:06.280 | I'm not sure about it.

01:29:07.280 | It's a busy week, but if I can make it to Orlando, I'll be there.

01:29:10.160 | Anyway, thank you for coming on.

01:29:12.080 | I'm sure this is going to be a hit with the audience.

01:29:15.040 | If the first one is any indication, this one's also going to be quite well received.

01:29:18.240 | Awesome, yeah.

01:29:19.240 | I look forward to it.

01:29:22.040 | I love that kind of interview because it can really be a solution for many people.

01:29:27.280 | As I know from the emails that I've received and also the emails that Curtis has received,

01:29:31.360 | it's a solution for at least a few of you.

01:29:33.480 | I hope some of the ideas, some of the information in today's show made a difference for you.

01:29:37.800 | As far as I'm concerned, if it makes a difference for even one or two people, it's worth it.

01:29:42.720 | I know that it's made a difference for more people than that.

01:29:45.080 | It's amazing to me.

01:29:46.080 | We have over 18,000 downloads of that show.

01:29:48.080 | Excuse me, just under 18,949 downloads of that show.

01:29:54.240 | It's a great one.

01:29:55.240 | I hope this was inspirational to you.

01:29:57.240 | I hope it was encouraging.

01:29:58.240 | I hope you learned something.

01:29:59.560 | I'll make sure to bring Curtis back on with some of the meat and potatoes.

01:30:03.680 | We'll stay away from philosophy and try to give you some actionable strategies when he

01:30:10.720 | gets ready to launch his course.

01:30:12.040 | I didn't know when he was getting ready to do that, but we'll make sure to do that in

01:30:16.240 | the next few weeks or next month or so whenever it happens.

01:30:19.400 | Thank you so much for listening.

01:30:20.400 | I appreciate each and every one of you being here.

01:30:22.040 | Thank you for the support for the show.

01:30:23.840 | I really value it and I simply say that.

01:30:27.160 | Thank you for listening.

01:30:28.160 | If you'd like to support the show financially, please consider joining the membership program.

01:30:31.900 | You can find the details at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/membership.

01:30:36.400 | But that is the way that I'm building to fund the show and fund my ability to bring this

01:30:41.240 | to you about five days a week.

01:30:43.880 | I try to bring you straightforward, as unbiased as possible.

01:30:48.760 | None of us can fully get away from our own bias, but I try to give you as much unbiased

01:30:53.160 | information as I can.

01:30:54.920 | When I do have bias, I try to disclose it at least so then you can understand and you

01:30:58.160 | can factor that in when making your own decisions.

01:31:01.320 | I'm not necessarily right in everything.

01:31:03.160 | I'll just share what I've learned and why I think the way that I do.

01:31:07.200 | Hopefully, as a thinking person, you can understand what's right for you.

01:31:11.360 | So that's it.

01:31:12.360 | Thank you so much.

01:31:13.360 | Talk to you tomorrow.

01:31:14.360 | [music]

01:31:19.360 | [music]

01:31:24.360 | [music]

01:31:29.360 | [music]

01:31:34.360 | [music]

01:31:39.360 | [music]

01:31:44.360 | [music]

01:31:49.360 | Thank you for listening to today's show.

01:31:50.360 | If you'd like to contact me personally, my email address is Joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.

01:31:56.960 | You can also connect with the show on Twitter @radicalpf and at facebook.com/radicalpersonalfinance.

01:32:04.360 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment.

01:32:11.240 | But your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing

01:32:17.200 | anything about you.

01:32:19.120 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and

01:32:26.480 | trustworthy and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific

01:32:32.720 | needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.

01:32:39.800 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person

01:32:44.960 | and I make mistakes.

01:32:46.720 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please help me by coming to the show page

01:32:51.160 | and commenting so we can all learn together.

01:32:54.720 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.

01:32:56.720 | Hey parents, join the LA Kings on Saturday, November 25th for an unforgettable kids day

01:33:01.640 | presented by Pear Deck.

01:33:03.040 | Family fun, giveaways, and exciting Kings hockey awaits.

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RPF0141-Curtis_Stone_2nd_Interview