Ep 192: Greg Peterson ~ Urban Farming & Transforming the Global Food System

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Truth and Transcendence brought to you by being Space with Catherine Llewellyn.

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Truth and Transcendence, episode 192, with special guest Greg Peterson.

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Greg is here today to talk about urban farming and taking a stand the lifelong food growing aficionado working on fixing the broken food system.

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I have a deep respect for the importance of high quality natural nutrition and I feel very good in my health and in my body as a result and I love what Greg is doing.

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So you can actually find Greg on urbanfarmorg and we'll tell you that again towards the end of the episode.

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So, greg, thank you so much for coming on the show.

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Oh my gosh, thanks for having me.

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I excited to chat excellent so, um, this theme of taking a stand, that which is very interwoven with what you're doing with, with urban farming, would you like to share with us when taking a stand became a real thing for you and you became somebody who takes a stand?

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well, there was a lot of things that happened prior to 1991 um, one of which was I wrote a paper when I was in the eighth grade on how we were overfishing the oceans.

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I was 15 at the time wow who knows where that came from, and just right now, when I shared that, I got chills again.

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It's just.

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It was there for me in 1975.

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And that planted a seed for me that in 1991, I did Landmark Forum and the Advance Course, and in the Advance Course they encouraged us to create a vision for our life or a stand for our life, and the theme through a lot of the Landmark work is taking a stand, and so I've been known to take outrageous stands, which I'll talk about a couple more of them, but the one that I took around our food system was I'm the person on the planet responsible for transforming our global food system.

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Right.

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Well, that's bold.

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It is bold, and it's what gets me up in the morning, yeah, it's what has me be motivated every day.

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It's what has me keep hope in the hopelessness that can show up in a lot of what we as human beings are doing in the world.

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So it's my juice that gets me up in the morning, the coffee that gets me up in the morning, yeah, me up in the morning, the coffee that gets me up in the morning.

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And so that was the big stand of my life, but a big takeaway from me, from Landmark Education and from self-expression and leadership one of their courses that they give was the power of our words.

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Our words have power, and I wish the politicians of the world would pay attention to this that those words that you're speaking can change the world.

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And so one of the other things that I took on back then was I'm the kindest man that anybody ever meets?

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Was I'm the kindest man that anybody ever meets?

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Now, am I always the kindest man that everybody ever meets?

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No, but when I'm not, I know about it and it's like oh, that didn't feel right.

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And so for me, those are the kinds of stands that I take.

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Another one I love this one.

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This is how I make my living.

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Actually, in 1999, in Phoenix, arizona, I decided I wanted to plant 500 fruit trees.

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Now I've been growing fruit trees since the 1970s and for me, 500 fruit trees was a huge stand.

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So I went and did all my work and I came to understand how to buy trees wholesale.

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And oh, by the way, I wanted to buy 50 trees the first year, but oh, by the way, I had to buy 100 to get them wholesale.

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So I placed an order in 1999 for 100 fruit trees.

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50 of them ended up in pots in my backyard because I didn't yet have a place to plant them.

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And my friends started saying, greg, how do I grow fruit trees in the desert and can you teach me how?

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And can I buy trees from you?

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And it was like whoa hold on, that's cool.

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So I started by giving classes in my living room at the Urban Farm in Phoenix and the first few years I'd have three or four or eight people show up and I'd teach classes on growing fruit trees in the desert.

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Wow.

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And each year the program would grow a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more.

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And if you do the math, 1999 was 25 years ago.

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And so here I am, 25 years into making a stand that I was going to plant 500 fruit trees in the Valley and, believe it or not, we have sold.

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So what people do is I give them free education and then they can purchase fruit trees from us.

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Believe it or not, we have sold over 80,000 fruit trees in Phoenix, arizona.

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Now, if you would have asked me when I took that, I'm getting chills again if you would have asked me in 1999, when I took that stand, if it was going to look like this after 25 years.

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I'd have told you you were crazy.

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Yeah, but you didn't think about the dynamic of all these people getting involved and coming in the trees and planting them.

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Right, and it's changing the food environment in Phoenix.

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It's changing the food environment in Phoenix, it's changing the heat environment in Phoenix.

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Phoenix is one of the hottest cities in the United States, for sure, and so it's making those changes.

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And that all came out of me saying you know what?

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I'm going to plant 500 fruit trees in the valley.

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Yeah.

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So that's the power of for me, me, that's the power of taking a stand very powerful, very exciting.

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I'd like to, I'd like to ask you a little bit more about um, the, the process of.

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I think you know you said you the thing about writing something about overfishing when you were 15, was that you taking a stand then?

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Or was the taking a stand thing something that only really kind of landed for you during and after doing the Landmark Forum work?

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I think number two-ish, yeah, I think number two-ish, yeah.

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So I started my first business in Phoenix when I was 15 years old, and what I used to do this is not going to be surprising.

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I used to clean, service and build fish ponds.

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Right.

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And mostly I was building fish ponds for koi for people, decorative fish ponds in their backyard.

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But when I was 16, 17, 18 years old in the late 70s, I was building aquaculture ponds for people in their backyard.

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So I was actually building fish ponds that they could grow food in to eat.

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I knew how to do that back then.

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For some reason that's the way my brain worked, so that that formative paper when I was 14 or 15 kind of led into all right, I'm going to figure out how to grow fish, not in a fish aquarium but in a bigger space yeah yeah and um, you know, there was an article in the newspaper about me I don't know, I must have been about 20 years old about this guy that's building aquaculture ponds for people, and so, yeah, I would say that was me taking a stand when I was 15 yeah, but it sounds like it it became much, much of a stronger thing for you after you did the personal growth work with Landmark Forum.

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Well, and it became understandable.

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Prior to that.

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That was just what I did.

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After that it was like oh, the power of a stand and the power of words is incredible.

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Yeah, okay, so you were already doing it, but your relationship with it shifted.

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Yes, your understanding of it deepened.

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So, for people who have never really undergone a shift like that, do you have any awareness around how that happened?

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You know like, or what it felt like for you going through that particular shift?

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there was a moment in 1990 when a piece of paper, a postcard, arrived in the mailbox and it was a flyer and to this day I have no idea where this came from.

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I don't know how this postcard found me.

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I don't know how these people found me, but the postcard arrived in my mailbox and it was for a permaculture design course.

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Permaculture I like to call the art and science of working with nature.

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How do we work with nature?

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It's a design methodology that Phil Mollison and David Holmgren created in the early 70s and they teach a 72-hour introduction to permaculture.

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It's an introduction to how do we look at natural systems and mimic them, because every human system that has ever been created I'm going to say that again created.

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I'm going to say that again Every single human system that has ever been created is degenerative.

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It breaks down over time.

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Cars, this microphone I'm talking into our computers roadways, pipelines, bridges it all breaks down over time and every single natural system is regenerative.

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Yeah, which?

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I ran into the house and I was married at the time.

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I said, michelle, I'm going to do this course, are you going to do you want to do it with me?

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And she said yes.

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So as a couple.

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We did it together and I think a piece of that is that I'm curious, I'm curious and I'm always looking for magic in the world and that particular moment was magic.

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I see that Right, and it was just me paying attention.

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It was just me paying attention to what was going on in the space.

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So I hope that answered your question.

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Well, you know, I think it's one of those big questions that's impossible to really answer fully, but it asks a big section of it, you know.

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So you've been intuitively following this particular path, and then this piece arrived that was offering you a significant piece of nourishment and learning, congruent with your path, which then helped you take it to another level.

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And then you did Landmark Forum.

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You were then traveling along more powerfully, with more information and more clarity, and then you did the Landmark Forum thing.

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What did that do for you?

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it explained a lot of things.

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It explained the power of my word.

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It explained taking a stand.

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I have this formative moment.

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Michelle, my wife at the time, and I were standing in the forum room, the room that they give the forum in after the forum.

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So the day was done, volunteers were in the room and they were using a three-inch wide roll of tape to measure the distance between each chair and each row.

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And I looked at Michelle and I said isn't that stupid?

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I'm getting chills again sharing this.

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And she looked.

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She looked at me and she said Greg, imagine if we use that kind of integrity in our business yeah and that was like yeah, you know, it was, it was.

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You see me?

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I'm tearing up a little bit.

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That's how impactful that moment was.

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Yeah, for me and yeah.

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So those are the kinds of things I learned from Landmark Forum, and a lot of it just came out of curiosity.

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Amazing you reminded me of.

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Back in the late 70s I went and did a seminar called Exegesis, which was very, very similar to the original Est, out of which the forum later evolved, and, um, I was often on the assistant team, you know, after the original thing and you'd be on the team and and you'd literally be measuring and lining up the chairs exactly and created an atmosphere when everyone came in.

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It was an absolute, like secure structure.

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Yeah, we knew they'd been really well thought through, even to the point of picking pieces of lint off the carpet.

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Some people called us a cult because we were so sort of anal about this sort of thing, but we said no, we know why we're doing it, we're actually doing it to serve the space such that the growth can occur within it.

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We're not doing it because we are going to have a meltdown if we see a bit of lint on a carpet.

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It's because we want to create the space that people can grow in, and I think it's very important.

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I love the combination in what you've described already of it's very important.

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I love the combination in what you've described already of a natural preference that you had around food and natural systems and the following of oh, here's a piece of nourishment that's really going to help me.

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Oh, and, by the way, I'm inviting my wife to do it with me, which is great, because a lot of people, when they see something that's great and they go off, I'll learn that they leave people behind and then they wonder why their relationships break down or whatever.

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But you know, do you want to come with me?

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Yes, fantastic, you know.

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And then the landlocked forum showed up yeah, well, and interestingly, michelle and I did the forum together as well yeah so we did yeah, yeah, which is, which is?

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which is great.

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So you're, you're following where you want to go and then you're noticing the things that occur along the way that help you, but they're not telling you where to go you're following where you want to go well, and so there's this piece of magic that happens.

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Remember, I talked about my fruit tree program and about five or six years ago I started hearing my team.

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So there's about eight or ten people on the team for this fruit tree program that come together once a year.

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It's a pop-up nursery, so we only open about 20 once a year.

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It's a pop-up nursery, so we only open about 20 days a year.

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Janice, my partner, and I, my business partner and I do education all year round and then people pre-order trees and then we come together and when I was in the lot, maybe five or six years ago, I started hearing people talking about the garden gods and it was like okay, hold on.

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And it was like okay, hold on.

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And they generated the conversation without me.

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Were they talking about you?

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They were talking about me, because what happens in my life and this is the power of our words what happens in my life is I'll speak things like, oh my gosh, wouldn't it be cool to do this, or wouldn't it be cool to have this happen.

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And it would happen.

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And my team was noticing me saying those things and then having them occur.

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They learned that from watching me, they learned that from watching me, and for me, that was another one of those formative moments where, oh my gosh that is a deeper cut at words have power.

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We have to be so careful about the words that we use, about what we speak, because we can make that happen, and I've had magical things happen in my life because of that.

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And so be careful about what you say.

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It might happen.

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Absolutely yes.

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Well, I've got quite a bias about this myself.

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I don't like it when people seem to invest into negativity, when they seem to talk a lot about negativity, not because I want to ignore the shadow side we can't ignore the shadow side but I don't want to add anything.

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Feed it, I don't want to feed it.

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That's right.

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I don't want to add anything.

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Feed it, I don't want to feed it, that's right.

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Yeah, I don't want to feed the negativity, and some people seem to make that into a lifestyle, and then they wonder why they feel miserable and unhappy.

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There you go.

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But to them it appears like they feel miserable and unhappy because of the negative stuff that's happening.

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It's the other way around, the other way around.

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You know I'm enjoying my my life.

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You know, to be fair, there are awful things to happen to people that are not happening to me, but equally, I've had things happen in my life that some people would find absolutely devastating.

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That I didn't find devastating because I don't want to invest in the negativity.

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So I think I can resonate with what you're saying in that regard, and it's very interesting that you chose this whole thing around food.

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So would you tell us a bit more about what you're doing now around food growing?

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Oh yes, so I lived in Phoenix for 54 years.

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I'm 63 years old, and so that 98% of my life I lived in Phoenix, arizona, and, uh, I created the urban farm in Phoenix, and the urban farm was a third of an acre, that's 80 feet wide and 160 feet deep Um, so not a very big piece of property.

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And I lived at the urban farm for 32 years, and what I did over that 32 year period of time was I created a food forest, an edible space that I would just walk out into the yard and harvest things Because, again, in nature, nature is regenerative, it regenerates itself.

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So I would let carrots and parsley and basil and cilantro and I would just let them go to seed, and rather than harvesting the seeds, or rather than harvesting them completely, I would let them go to seed and those seeds would automatically spread.

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In fact, a few years ago, I was on a walk out with my dog and I noticed some lettuce growing in the yard, in the lawn of the yard across the street from me.

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Now, those seeds came from my lettuce plants.

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So that's, that's one big thing that I've done is I created an edible food forest, and when I left Phoenix, arizona, I purposefully found someone that would take on and nurture the space.

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In fact, I had six someones that wanted the space when I went to sell it.

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That's how much interest there was in an edible landscape in Phoenix.

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So that what's that?

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I'm not surprised.

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Right, well, and so for those people that are listening that have created a, uh, a food forest around your house, um, I added 10% to the cost of selling the house with, without the real estate agents blessing.

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He thought I would.

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He thought I was a little bit what.

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You're going to add 10% because there's a nice edible landscape.

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I said, yes, we are.

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And guess what?

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We actually got more than that 10% when I sold the house.

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So there's value in that.

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It's encouraging that other people are valuing that.

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Well, it's encouraging that other people are valuing that Exactly Well, and of the seven people that gave me a bid on the house, six of them specifically wanted it for the landscape.

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That's the power of an edible landscape.

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It also was my space, over 32 years that I lived there, to practice permaculture.

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Yeah, practice how to work in the flow of nature rather than against nature.

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So that's one of the big things that I've done.

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I mentioned the fruit tree program that I do with fruit tree education and, by the way, all of the education that I give not only works in the desert but it works everywhere else, because two and a half years ago I moved from Phoenix, arizona, all the way across the United States to Asheville, north Carolina, and we bought four acres with the intent of figuring out how much of our own food we could actually grow of figuring out how much of our own food we could actually grow.

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And one of the things that happened I don't know if it was this is December.

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One of the things that happened in end of September was we had a massive hurricane that hit Asheville, north Carolina, and we were without power and without water and without internet for a week, and then it was another week before the grocery stores were up and running and you know.

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So on and so on, and during that three-week outage we ate potatoes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, swiss chard, kale, lettuce, basil, oregano, cilantro, and that's just what I can remember Out of our landscape.

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Yeah, this was food that I was eating out of the landscape.

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And so 1991, we've already distinguished that as a powerful year in my life.

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I did Landmark, I did the permaculture design course.

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There were two more things that happened for me in 1991 that were very impactful.

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I read a book called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

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It's a work of fiction and he talks about how our food system came to be the way that it is, and he says in his writings that food used to be free because you just go out and harvest it.

00:25:31.182 --> 00:25:50.436
The fourth thing that happened for me in 1991 goes right into what I just shared, and that is, a friend of mine was in the South Pacific on a sailboat and they anchored at an Island looking for a grocery store and he shared this with me after he got back and again I'm getting chills from it.

00:25:50.436 --> 00:25:59.987
They went looking for the grocery store and the people on the island said go pick your own.

00:25:59.987 --> 00:26:10.582
Yeah, it was another just explosive moment for me in my life.

00:26:10.582 --> 00:26:12.144
Explosive moment for me in my life.

00:26:12.144 --> 00:26:25.416
So what I've done is I've dedicated, pretty much taken a stand, dedicated my life to helping people discover how they can build their own food forests.

00:26:25.436 --> 00:26:26.258
Yeah, and I do that in a podcast.

00:26:26.258 --> 00:26:34.105
We have the Urban Farm podcast with over 850 episodes coming up on nine years old at this point.

00:26:34.105 --> 00:26:36.729
We have online courses.

00:26:36.729 --> 00:26:48.869
I do monthly chats where I find a food guest and they just come in and we chat about whatever they want to talk about.

00:26:48.869 --> 00:26:54.462
So I'm and most of it, honestly, most of it is passion project.

00:26:54.462 --> 00:26:57.556
My podcast it doesn't make any money.

00:26:57.556 --> 00:27:02.505
Um, you know, our classes, we, while we make a little money.

00:27:02.505 --> 00:27:13.765
Uh, like I said, my big, my big project is getting fruit trees planted in phoenix yeah so those are the kinds of things I'm up to how fantastic.

00:27:13.904 --> 00:27:18.400
And, of course, that what you're doing now is generative, isn't it in the sense?

00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:19.801
Oh yeah, you know.

00:27:20.363 --> 00:27:48.355
So you are being, you are um falling in with the way of nature in what you're doing exactly so one of the reasons that I spend the money that I spend to do the podcast because you know it takes money, energy, time to do a podcast, right, and I get this email from this guy a year and a half ago and he said, greg, I'd like to share my story on your podcast.

00:27:48.355 --> 00:27:49.922
And I said, okay, tell me about it.

00:27:49.922 --> 00:27:56.428
And he was a long distance runner and worked in corporate America and retired at like 55 ish.

00:27:56.428 --> 00:28:19.423
And he said when I retired, I was looking for something to do, and so I listened to your podcast and I started a 10 by 10 garden and then I started, then it was a 10 by 20 garden, and then it was a 20 by 50 garden, and then it was a 50 by 20 garden, and then it was a 20 by 50 garden, and then it was a 50 by 100 garden, just because I was so inspired by growing all this food.

00:28:19.423 --> 00:28:19.943
And then it was.

00:28:20.506 --> 00:28:23.101
He said what do I do with all this food?

00:28:23.101 --> 00:28:35.709
And then I was listening to your podcast and you interviewed somebody that ran a farmer's market and it planted the seed for me to be able to go to a farmer's market.

00:28:35.709 --> 00:28:40.605
So this summer which would have been the summer of 2023,.

00:28:40.605 --> 00:29:01.782
This summer I've been going to a farmer's market and I am having so much fun and people are buying my produce, produce and for me that was a thousand percent worth the price of admission for me doing my podcast, because you know what that does.

00:29:01.782 --> 00:29:07.636
That helps me figure out how to transform our global food system by speaking to people.

00:29:08.038 --> 00:29:08.258
Yes.

00:29:09.058 --> 00:29:09.239
Yes.

00:29:10.740 --> 00:29:44.564
Yeah, so again it's another, another event which is feeding back into and supporting and nourishing what you're doing yeah so you're drawing towards you um influences and content and information that actually help you to then elevate what you're doing yeah congratulations and and here's the best part, and I pause, there's a pause here on purpose the best part is I have fun every single day.

00:29:45.085 --> 00:29:52.240
I love what I do yeah absolutely love what I do yeah, fantastic.

00:29:53.163 --> 00:29:54.165
Well, I love that.

00:29:54.165 --> 00:29:54.787
You love what you do.

00:29:54.787 --> 00:30:05.921
I think what you're doing is absolutely fantastic, really wonderful, and I'm almost inspired to start growing vegetables Not quite yet.

00:30:05.921 --> 00:30:32.157
I've had people saying to me you could grow vegetables, catherine, and I'm like, yeah, I've already got too much to do Okay, which, if you look at it that way, you can always have too much to do, but you're very inspiring in the way that you talk about it and um it, you know, in the way you talk about it it doesn't sound like, um, a massively burdensome task.

00:30:32.309 --> 00:30:34.478
It sounds kind of a dare I say.

00:30:34.478 --> 00:30:39.144
Organic, yeah, exactly, but burdensome task, it sounds no kind of a dare I say organic and okay, unfold, exactly, but it's patient.

00:30:40.065 --> 00:30:41.405
Here's the powerful thing.

00:30:41.405 --> 00:30:46.609
What is the most expensive thing to buy in the grocery store?

00:30:46.609 --> 00:30:52.977
Food wise uh meat meats, for sure, but also herbs.

00:30:52.977 --> 00:31:01.705
Herbs Right, a little packet of basil can be a huge price.

00:31:01.705 --> 00:31:02.767
Guess what?

00:31:02.767 --> 00:31:06.199
The simplest things to grow are herbs.

00:31:06.199 --> 00:31:09.638
Yes, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary sage.

00:31:09.638 --> 00:31:14.602
You can ignore them mostly and they will grow.

00:31:14.602 --> 00:31:18.518
Yeah, and you can grow them on a sunny windowsill.

00:31:19.099 --> 00:31:31.561
Yeah, I actually do have quite a lot of herbs in the garden which were planted by who knows back in the day, and I actually noticed the other day that mint goes everywhere.

00:31:31.561 --> 00:31:35.876
Oh yeah, there's actually mint in the grass, yep everywhere there's actually mint in the grass.

00:31:35.876 --> 00:31:48.392
When I'm outside hanging the washing, I'm walking across the grass, I have the scent of mint coming up.

00:31:48.392 --> 00:31:50.474
I noticed this in the summer and I thought my God, that is beautiful.

00:31:51.236 --> 00:31:53.680
Right, well, and here's another interesting thing.

00:31:53.680 --> 00:32:02.778
So I have a fairly large pasture that I have to mow and in the springtime, when I'm mowing, I'm smelling onions.

00:32:02.778 --> 00:32:08.171
Yeah, because there's wild onions that grow in the pasture.

00:32:08.171 --> 00:32:10.913
Yeah, it's amazing.

00:32:10.913 --> 00:32:13.193
So growing food can be that simple.

00:32:13.193 --> 00:32:14.315
So growing food can be that simple.

00:32:14.315 --> 00:32:17.757
Plus, there's this really cool tool out there.

00:32:17.757 --> 00:32:21.398
It's done by a company called Juice Plus.

00:32:21.398 --> 00:32:24.101
It's called a tower garden.

00:32:24.760 --> 00:32:26.502
Oh, I've heard of those.

00:32:26.663 --> 00:32:32.826
Yeah, so I've been growing in the ground for 50 years For 50 years.

00:32:32.826 --> 00:32:46.060
I started my first garden 50 years ago and in 2010, I stumbled across the tower garden and I got so excited that I bought one and I use it all the time.

00:32:46.060 --> 00:33:01.826
It's super, super, super simple and when it's grown up it's about six feet tall and when it's grown out it looks like a six-foot-tall Christmas tree that's growing lettuce and Swiss chard and cool things like that.

00:33:01.826 --> 00:33:08.743
So I mean there are so many simple things that you can do.

00:33:08.743 --> 00:33:22.438
You know there's garden beds that are two-by-two that you can start up and get rolling in 20 minutes, so it doesn't have to be hard.

00:33:22.959 --> 00:33:24.736
Amazing, very, very inspiring.

00:33:24.736 --> 00:33:29.922
Well, honestly, greg, I could talk to you for hours, but I promise we're not going to do that.

00:33:29.922 --> 00:33:33.961
So I'm just going to switch slightly and ask a slightly different question.

00:33:36.522 --> 00:33:52.757
So there is a lot going on in the world at the moment, right, and everyone's got their own opinions about it and in amongst all of that, there are a lot of people in leadership positions in one sort or another, and also a lot of people who are just trying to be good leaders in their own lives.

00:33:52.757 --> 00:34:00.786
Yeah, and I like to think that most of these people are trying to be part of the solution, and some of them are listening to us right now.

00:34:00.786 --> 00:34:12.882
Is there something you would like to say to those people who are trying to provide helpful leadership in the world at the moment, perhaps linking back to some of what we've been talking about today?

00:34:20.349 --> 00:34:21.512
back to some of what we've been talking about today.

00:34:21.512 --> 00:34:25.800
Find the good, find those things that are good and nurture that good.

00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:32.514
And you know, I've been understanding about climate change since the 1970s.

00:34:32.514 --> 00:34:38.009
I wrote a paper and we've already said this about overfishing the oceans in 1975.

00:34:38.009 --> 00:34:39.771
How does a 15-year-old know that?

00:34:39.771 --> 00:34:40.293
I don't know.

00:34:40.293 --> 00:34:59.902
But I know how nature works and I know a lot of the things that have been happening and could be happening and that could really get me down and that could really get me down and if I concentrate on that, it takes me out of the game.

00:35:00.969 --> 00:35:02.192
Yeah.

00:35:02.431 --> 00:35:13.885
So when I'm and I purposely stay off of the news feeds I fill my Facebook feed with positive things.

00:35:13.885 --> 00:35:23.077
And how do I do that is I click on the links that are the positive things and then it feeds me more of those positive things.

00:35:23.077 --> 00:35:34.838
If something is political out there that is bringing me down a little bit on my Facebook there's a thing that I can say that marks it, as I don't want to see any more of this stuff.

00:35:34.838 --> 00:35:37.182
So we have some power over that.

00:35:37.182 --> 00:35:51.382
And what I've noticed is that when I do get into the newsfeed, it brings me down and it takes me out of the game and I cannot, at this point in my life, be taken out of the game.

00:35:51.382 --> 00:35:55.273
I have to stay in the game, the game.

00:35:55.273 --> 00:35:58.617
I have to stay in the game, and that comes with positive, happy, fun.

00:35:58.617 --> 00:36:01.579
Nurture that.

00:36:02.161 --> 00:36:05.184
Yes, that's a wonderful piece of advice.

00:36:05.184 --> 00:36:06.525
No, you had an and.

00:36:21.050 --> 00:36:22.717
And be careful what you say, because it will and it can and will happen.

00:36:22.717 --> 00:36:26.210
I have created, simply by speaking, some magnificent things in my life, like I'm going to plant 500 fruit trees in the desert.

00:36:26.210 --> 00:36:27.010
Well, how silly is that?

00:36:27.010 --> 00:36:36.465
Here we are 25 years later and now I didn't personally plant 80,000, but that's how many trees that we have sold over this 25 year period.

00:36:36.465 --> 00:36:43.179
So you know, just be happy, go find the happy.

00:36:43.179 --> 00:36:43.721
Oh, here's what.

00:36:43.721 --> 00:36:44.282
Here's another one.

00:36:44.282 --> 00:36:45.789
I love this story.

00:36:47.773 --> 00:37:07.552
Coffee house about four years ago in Phoenix I always used to hang out at called Lucy's and it's 7 30 on a Monday morning and I walk into Lucy's and there's, I'm in line and there's somebody in front of me in line and there's two baristas, so they're helping both of us and I'm happy.

00:37:07.552 --> 00:37:08.431
How you doing?

00:37:08.431 --> 00:37:11.074
You know this is me in the world.

00:37:11.074 --> 00:37:15.777
And this woman next to me looks at me and she says what are you so happy about?

00:37:15.777 --> 00:37:28.525
And I said well, I have a choice every day I can wake up and find the yuck or I can wake up and find the happy, and I choose happy.

00:37:28.525 --> 00:37:30.166
And you know what she said to me.

00:37:30.166 --> 00:37:35.652
She said well, stop it.

00:37:35.652 --> 00:37:38.054
That was exactly my response.

00:37:38.054 --> 00:37:39.356
That was I laughed.

00:37:39.356 --> 00:37:42.039
I absolutely laughed in the moment.

00:37:42.039 --> 00:37:44.641
So there you go.

00:37:45.001 --> 00:37:46.804
Yeah, that was obviously a challenge to her.

00:37:46.804 --> 00:37:50.106
Well, who knows what she's done with that since then?

00:37:50.106 --> 00:37:53.396
Who knows, it may have transformed.

00:37:54.099 --> 00:37:54.320
Yeah.

00:37:57.210 --> 00:37:58.632
She may have gone home or gone to work or whatever.

00:37:58.632 --> 00:38:11.643
And and said there's this guy who says he chooses the happy I hate him and they're like hey why, an interesting idea right, yeah I love, I love it, I love well and thank you.

00:38:11.722 --> 00:38:14.157
And here's how it can spread in a business.

00:38:14.157 --> 00:38:33.934
So remember, remember, I do this fruit tree program in Phoenix and it's a pop-up nursery and so we interact in person with customers about 20 days a year and I have a team of people, some of which, some of who I have been working on my team, so they come in January to help.

00:38:33.934 --> 00:38:35.237
They get paid.

00:38:35.237 --> 00:38:39.103
They're tree workers for 20 years.

00:38:39.103 --> 00:38:42.358
Some of them have been with me for 20 years.

00:38:42.358 --> 00:38:46.574
That's how much fun we have Every morning on the lot.

00:38:46.715 --> 00:38:51.936
Before we open, we start with the following conversation there's three rules.

00:38:51.936 --> 00:38:54.277
These are absolute rules.

00:38:54.277 --> 00:38:56.894
Rule number one is be safe.

00:38:56.894 --> 00:39:00.172
We have to be conscious and be safe of what we're doing.

00:39:00.172 --> 00:39:04.612
We're dealing with wheelbarrows and shovels and people and that kind of stuff, so we have to be safe.

00:39:04.612 --> 00:39:08.423
Rule number two is be happy, have fun.

00:39:08.423 --> 00:39:13.235
If you're on this lot and not having fun, we don't want you here.

00:39:13.235 --> 00:39:15.280
So find your fun.

00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:20.721
And rule number three is kind of after rule number two and that's don't, don't steal Janice's purple pen.

00:39:20.721 --> 00:39:28.677
So that is the flavor of our business.

00:39:28.677 --> 00:39:33.112
So when people come to the lot, that's what they experience.

00:39:33.112 --> 00:39:40.811
They experience fun and happy and positive and oh my gosh, it's honestly.

00:39:40.811 --> 00:39:45.121
It's like the holidays when people come to the lot to pick up their trees.

00:39:45.121 --> 00:39:53.650
It's like they're getting a christmas gift or a hanukkah gift or a holiday gift and that that's what they're there to get.

00:39:53.851 --> 00:40:39.172
It's like they're unwrapping this package of magic, and it been for you a favorite part of our conversation today the magic, because I haven't.

00:40:39.172 --> 00:40:41.054
I haven't revisited this in quite a few years.

00:40:41.054 --> 00:40:47.103
Revisiting the magic of that moment of me saying to michelle, my wife what are they doing?

00:40:47.103 --> 00:40:47.965
Isn't that silly?

00:40:47.965 --> 00:40:53.018
And she says to me imagine if we ran our business with that kind of integrity.

00:40:53.018 --> 00:41:00.373
And then revisiting all of the magic that happened around that three or four year period.

00:41:00.373 --> 00:41:04.610
So yeah, that would be my favorite place, because you can tell I'm lit up.

00:41:04.610 --> 00:41:09.963
I've gotten chills multiple times since we started this conversation.

00:41:10.349 --> 00:41:10.771
Me too.

00:41:10.771 --> 00:41:13.213
Seriously, thank you very much indeed.

00:41:13.213 --> 00:41:14.476
Fantastic, oh, my gosh, absolutely.

00:41:14.496 --> 00:41:14.675
Seriously.

00:41:14.675 --> 00:41:15.217
Thank you very much indeed.

00:41:15.217 --> 00:41:15.898
Fantastic, oh, my gosh absolutely.

00:41:15.918 --> 00:41:19.242
I'm just going to remind people how to find you which is urbanfarmorg.

00:41:19.242 --> 00:41:36.195
Yep and finally, finally, is there some sort of I'm inviting guests to do this now, if they feel to do it which is to offer the listeners some sort of reflection question that they can take away into the coming week?

00:41:36.195 --> 00:41:41.161
That will help them to get more connected to some of what we've been talking about today?

00:41:44.271 --> 00:41:46.597
I'm going off topic here a little bit, but it'll apply.

00:41:46.617 --> 00:41:47.099
Mm-hmm.

00:41:48.710 --> 00:42:06.851
When you go to change a habit because essentially this is what we're talking about the entire last 45 minutes it's about changing habits when you go to change a habit, you have to notice that there's something you want to change.

00:42:06.851 --> 00:42:22.561
I had to notice that there was a problem with our food system before I could make an action to change our food system and so find something in your life that you want to change.

00:42:22.561 --> 00:42:31.981
It's usually a habit, and then there's a process by which you change it, and that first process is noticing first step.

00:42:31.981 --> 00:42:37.119
Notice that it needs to be changed, yeah, and that you want to change it.

00:42:37.119 --> 00:42:44.423
And then, as things happen, it's like, oh, okay, I didn't get that change yet.

00:42:44.423 --> 00:42:59.391
But then it becomes a process by which you notice it sooner, and then, all of a sudden, that noticing it sooner goes behind you and you catch it before it, before it actually comes out of your mouth.

00:42:59.472 --> 00:43:06.353
Does this make sense yes, it does, so the question is really, what is the thing I want to change in my life?

00:43:06.353 --> 00:43:12.393
And then that question to become more conscious of when yes that we can free ourselves.

00:43:12.914 --> 00:43:13.416
Beautiful.

00:43:13.416 --> 00:43:15.340
I love it, greg.

00:43:15.340 --> 00:43:17.603
This has been such a fantastic conversation.

00:43:17.603 --> 00:43:35.338
I'm very grateful to you for what you're doing and I'm delighted that you're doing a podcast, because that means people all over the world can benefit from what you're doing and what you're learning, and you also listen to people when they write to you and that to your learning and then presumably add that to the podcast.

00:43:35.338 --> 00:43:37.405
So I love it.

00:43:38.047 --> 00:43:38.530
Bless you, thank you.

00:43:38.530 --> 00:43:40.275
Thank you so much for coming on the show.

00:43:40.275 --> 00:43:42.380
Absolutely, it's been a joy.

00:43:46.311 --> 00:43:55.297
Thank you for listening to Truth and Transcendence and thank you for supporting the show by rating, reviewing, subscribing, buying me a coffee and telling a friend.

00:43:55.297 --> 00:44:07.503
If you'd like to know more about my work, you can find out about Transformational Coaching, Pellewa and the Freedom of Spirit workshop on beingspaceworld.

00:44:07.503 --> 00:44:10.385
Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.

Ep 192: Greg Peterson ~ Urban Farming & Transforming the Global Food System

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