Why a Corporate IT Executive Started a Farm to Feed Strangers

Welcome to the show. Tired of the hype about living a dream? It's time for truth.This is the place for tools, power, and real talk, so you can create the life you dream and deserve your ultimate life. Subscribe, share, create. You have infinite power.Hello, and welcome to this episode of your ultimate life, the podcast that I created to help you with the tools, the examples, the stories, and the yearning to live your ultimate life. A life of purpose, prosperity, and joy that you create with your passion, with your gifts, and your life experience.Today, I'm blessed to have a special guest, John Smith. And that's his real name, not an alias. So, John, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Kellen. And I have the ID to prove that I am John Smith, if needed.

Yeah, I believe you. So, John Smith, does anybody ever hassle you and ask you if that's your real name?

Only when I was younger and going to hotels.

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. John Smith. Right. Okay. There was a TV program, a cowboy show many years ago called Alias, Smith and Jones. Do you remember that?

I do not know that one.

That was. It was funny. You could look it up. It was on only three or four years, I think, and it was about two outlaws that had turned good.You know, they'd stopped being bad guys and so some version of Witness, you know, Witsack, Alias, Smith and Jones. So they were. It was actually quite funny, and it was a comedy as well as.

Sounds like they remade a little bit of that with a Mr. And Mrs. Smith movie, you know, which be a good, good run for Kelly and I. We could go that route.

You could. Mr. And Mrs. Smith. All right, so, John, I don't do introductions per se. It comes out in the. In the conversation.I like to start with giving the audience a sense of who you are. And rather than a resume or history, which we will get to some of. I want to.I want you to start with how you intentionally are adding good to the world.

Well, we've launched a nonprofit farm in Decatur, Illinois, where we live, you know, separate from our normal lives. We decided that we wanted to start doing something to grow our community, and that's what we landed on.We had some land that was floating around, and there's food deserts and food insecurity everywhere these days.And so my wife and I, on Christmas Eve of last year just kind of popped into our head, and we spent a lot of time kind of figuring out how that might work. And our primary goal is to grow food and give it away to. There's places here in town. Good Samaritan.Food banks and food pantries that are all in desperate need of more food for people in the community.

Well, that's spectacular. It brings a bunch of questions to my mind. How big is it?

So Our property is 3 acres. It has a small cabin on it already and there's a pond which is about 3/4 of an acre. We're starting small because we're new farmers.I grew up in Vermont, so we did some gardening, but really I don't have a lot of skills in that area. So we've started with probably about a half acre of it for this pilot year.And you know, we've been out there rototilling and starting seeds all over our dining room here at the house and you know, all that kind of stuff, just figuring it out and kind of waiting for the last frost to go. We started planting.You know, it's just, it's been a little adventure so far of trying to learn how to deal with earth in Illinois and you know, get things to grow and start, start moving. There's just not a lot of ready to eat food being grown in Illinois. Lots and lots of agriculture.But you know, the focus is a little different than getting food to the local community. So.

Wow. So I love that.And with a half an acre, are you guys, you and your wife doing all of the work like planting, weeding, everything or you've got help for any.

Of it so far? The vision of course, is to do some campaigning for volunteers.So we've been working with some community resources and got our social media up and kind of getting through the legality of having volunteers out on the farm.But the real goal is to have people come out and learn to farm with us, put a couple hours in and get, you know, like a farmer's share for the work that they do and at the same time helping our community.So for every volunteer that comes out and works X amount of hours, you know, we'll have this kind of model of produce bucks and at harvest time they get first dibs on some of the vegetables that are growing.Some will be going or large portion will be going to the community pantries and food banks and then we'll be doing some heirloom sales at farmers markets to try to make this a reoccurring self funded process where we'll sell flowers and heirloom tomatoes and things like that to kind of reinvest back in for the following year. So just keeps going and we'll want to keep educating and then grow programs off of it. I mean, Sky's the limit.If we can just stick to it and you know, and, and really just get it up and running this first year just to see what we need to do to make it grow after that.

Cool. Well, you know, you, you said food pantries and food banks and that kind of thing. One of the things that.Not like you're doing, but it happens up here is every year in Edmonton they have a food drive for the food bank and everybody, you know, volunteers. I've done that several years.My wife and I and even our Ukrainian mother and daughter that were living with us for a few years, you know, we'd go out and pass out the bags on the door handles. Right. And then on Thursdays and then on Saturday, you know, go pick it up, drive around, pick up stuff and then turn it into the food bank.Not that this is anything like that, but what it made me think is maybe some of the food banks people that they're serving, that would be a place to get volunteers and things as it grows from a half acre to one to one and a half to maybe the full. I don't know. Sounds like the most you could do would be two acres on the property you have now.

Yeah, yeah. And, and that's kind of, you know, what we're looking at. And we've been out talking to those folks.There's some community events that kind of drive the growth of community projects.So we've been talking with other nonprofits in town, art projects and other groups, whether it be church or just boys and girls club, stuff like that.The local school district, they all have sorts of programs where we can get interns, volunteers and trade and basically do some training on how to grow things at the same time get some help and provide those folks to volunteer with the food. We're just getting started and trying to get the word out.And really the more we do, I mean the long term role is to grow this beyond our current town.The food insecurity and these zones where people are going to get canned goods and there's no fresh food to eat and things like that is kind of rampant across the US So and, and I think the world.And if we can prove this out, you know, at a local level, as we get more people vested in it time wise, financially, whatever the case might be, we can grow it, you know, to make it more of a national program, you know, that hopefully it grows legs and we do a lot of good.

Really, I love it. I think that, that there's a high level of possibility here. What have you like what, what has driven this? What's in.You and your wife obviously are doing this together. What is in your heart or your experience that has brought you to do this? Because I'm sure you said two or three times, well, this first year it is.Which means there's going to be a whole bunch of crap that happens that you didn't expect.Which means that next year is going to be way different and it's going to be harder and there'll be more than once that you and her sit down and say, oh crap, this is harder than we thought. So that's going to happen. And you already know that. So that none of that's news.So what, tell me what's happened that made this important enough to, to do this and not only do it with this tiny toe dabbing thing, but the idea that you're going to grow it and so forth.

You know, I think a lot of it is just, you know, we've moved between communities a lot in the last, say, six, seven years. Really. Part of it is, you know, being in a, you know, in a community that we're not familiar with.So we, we don't really stay, you know, we, you know, in the old days, we'd kind of stay in the town we were in. You knew the people you knew. And we've, we moved from Arizona to Hawaii to Illinois.And in every place we've gone, we've seen similar issues with food insecurity and food availability. And part of that is balanced with we've been trying to get healthier the last few years.And the availability of literally ready to eat fresh food that wasn't shipped across the country or turned into something in a box really started getting us thinking about what we could do with it. And it really just, it started from that. I grew up in an agricultural community in Vermont, my wife in North Dakota.And you know, we see people who are in trouble and, you know, it's really, we wanted to help solve it. And, you know, I kind of feel that it's not a, you know, a really big priority, you know, sometimes in our country to do that.And, you know, my wife and I and my family have been pretty fortunate. And, you know, it's a way for us to take, you know, and give back for everything that's been given to us over the years.I mean, you know, we started simple and, you know, grew our lives and families and careers to the point that we're at.But, you know, I think it's really time for us to give a leg up and not just a donation, but put our hands in the ground and really try to get involved in our community. I've been really hands off.And, you know, I kind of feel that difference from when I lived somewhere where I was involved in the community to being in these new places where we really didn't have those ties, you know, And I see things in. In our neighborhoods, in our. In our towns, and I want to get involved and help and, you know.

Yeah, finish up. Go ahead.

Yeah. And I've been working in the corporate life forever, you know, my whole career.And, you know, this just feels different when I go out and, you know, I talk about this or I work on the farm, know, I feel lighter.

Wow.

You know. Yeah.

Yeah. So. So that you said several interesting things that I want to probe. Not probe, but just discuss a little bit more.It's like a person could say, I'm going to get healthy. Okay. I need to have a little, you know, wood garden in the backyard to grow a few tomatoes and some cucumbers and this and that.And a half an acre is quite a. What you said he was the start. So that's quite a. Quite a piece of ground. I had a house that was on a half an acre.And I just remember thinking, as you described, that the house, the driveway, the front yard, the backyard was quite big and had a shed in the corner, you know, in. Compared to, like, suburban houses. And to have all of that cultivated as a starting point, that's a lot of. That's a lot of dirt, dude.

And so more than I expected.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm thinking. I'm thinking that's.That's a lot of dirt, a lot of rose, a lot of little, you know, stakes at the end that show the plant that's supposed to show up in a few weeks. Tell me what gives you the energy? Like, if you still. You said. You said maybe before we got on, you still got a nine to five.So you're doing some work. I know you do it work. And you talk about that if you want. But what gives you the energy? Because a farm ain't trivial. It, like it's a constant thing.

Yeah. And it's. It just makes me happy when I go out there. And, you know, I've been doing it for a long time. It's a great career field.I work, you know, varying hours, you know, 40, 50, just depends what's going on every week. But when I go out and I go out to the farm and I have a purpose, that's not Just getting through the day, the week, the month, the year.There's a goal to the end of this that we're producing food to help people in our community. And that's part of it. So there's a mental checkbox there for changing how I'm spending my time.But I tell you, you go out and as I said, I have no idea what I'm doing. You know, I rented a rototiller from the local tool place. But it's fun and it makes me feel young.It makes me feel, you know, happy to be outdoors, hand in the soil. You know, probably as a kid, I didn't like touching worms. I was digging holes and worms are crawling. I mean, it was great.And so every night when I get done and I wrap up at work, we have, you know, dinner or family time. I try to do one thing for the farm every day. You know, whether it's paperwork physically at the farm, and I spend my weekends out there.And it just reinvigorates me. You know, I kind of gone through a life of, like you said, corporate work. And, you know, I've enjoyed, and I love where I work today.Great company, great, great job, and great set of people that I work with. But this is different. This calls a different part of your heart and soul that work doesn't.And I know it's work of a sort, but it doesn't feel like work when I do it. And I think that's where I get the energy from. I mean, if you ask my wife, though, I always have too much energy.So we've directed it somewhere now and, you know, so it'll do some good.

I want you to talk for a minute.You've given a great description, a very attractive purpose, a reason, a yearning to give back, which is a common phrase that we use because we don't really know what else to say to acknowledge the abundance of life that we have had by some return mechanism. What would you say to people, and this is a general question, and I know the answer is individual, but what would you say to people who have.Who say, wow, I wish I could do something like that, but I don't have a piece of property, or I don't. And they had a list of 26.4 excuses why they can't do their version of this.Like, what would you say to them by way of advice or encouragement or information?

First option would be join us, you know, but otherwise, it doesn't take a piece of property. It takes a pot, right, to stick your hands in the ground. Or a plastic tub. It doesn't have to be you starting a farm.There's an organization in your community that needs your help. So if you have the spare time and you want to feel.I think what I'm feeling when I leave work and I go to the farm, that it's really not about me growing food. It's about me getting involved in my community and not just to give back, but to have a connection with my community.I mean, I really like the idea of giving back. I like the idea of growing fresh food. So this is the lane that's working for me.And if gardening isn't your thing or digging in the ground, there's so many things in your community that, you know, you can participate in, as simple as picking up trash or working at your arts council or, you know, any of these things are available, and I don't think we engage in them. And I. I don't know if. I mean, I think we talked about it as kids, you know, being a Good Samaritan and getting involved in your community.And I think the digital age has changed that a lot, good and bad. But I really think that if you want to do something like this, it's baby steps.I mean, I think, you know, we have mint and tomatoes and a couple other things that we grow in our yard, and that has led maybe to this because we like the fruit of the labor, so to speak. But in the end, you don't have to have a plot of land you don't have.I mean, if you have a place where you live, there's water, there's potting soil, and there's plants that you can start. If gardening and food is your thing, and if it's not, what skills or what do you have or what are you interested in?And how can you then get involved in your community to use those skills, learn new skills and bring that. And you'll meet people, which is, I think, the biggest part of it. And I think we're losing a sense of community in the world right now.And some of that is technology, and some of that is choice of not being involved. It's not my problem. It's someone else's thing. If I take care of my own, that should be sufficient. Um, but yeah, I. I say take your time.Quit watching television, streaming, whatever, you know, and. And I'm a huge video gamer, so it took me a little bit to disconnect from my habits of downtime.And I find this downtime, and it's not really downtime, far more rewarding. Like, you know, I have my family, I have my job, and then this is, this is an interest, this is something I want to do.And, and once you start doing just pulls you into it. It's fantastic. You feel better. You know, I move more, I, I talk to more people. I'm excited about stuff, you know, as I get to the end of the day.And those are things that we're missing, and I have a feeling they're missing for every other person.

Let's assume that you're right, that there, there's, you know, studies and other things that have said that the supposed increase in connectivity that the devices and the technology is provided has actually created more isolation and more mental illness and more struggle. Why? So we've built ourselves into isolation. We're clearly built to love and serve each other.Just look at the neurotransmitters and how the body works. And I'm quite sure there's a spiritual equivalent of neurotransmitters in our energetic being. We just don't have names for those.Because it isn't just your body that feels good, it's your heart. It's that other thing that feels so exciting. And you have picked a lane that came out of some other experiences.But your advice is good and I like it. It warms my heart to hear you describe that.Why do you think we have allowed ourselves to become so isolated and in many cases, armchair critics or armchair bullies of other things that are going on, like what's happening.

I think it just became easier to be uninvolved and not care about people outside of your circle. And I think. And technology is part of it. I think global communication still, technology is a big part of it too.We're being told a lot about how to think and how to feel about things. And I don't remember any of that growing up. I mean, like we were talking about, I'm in my mid-50s, I'll be 56 in May.And when I grew up, I mean, there was. You didn't care who you played with, you wanted to play, you didn't care necessarily who you danced with, you wanted to dance.You know, if you went to a dance and it's become very different. And I think that starts at the community level. I mean, we just. We're not built to be the way that we're headed.And, you know, it's going to take a revolution of some sort. And I don't mean get rid of technology. I am in technology. I love its uses.But, you know, there's got to be a balance in life of dealing with these things and how we interact with others around us, because these are tools. They're not a way of life. And you choose to use tools how you choose to use tools.And that way you can take away from them what they're really intended for, and you use them for the purpose that suits you. And ideally, you do that to enhance your involvement with the people around you and to make things better around you.I call AI the robots, and I use them for all sorts of stuff, but they don't run my life and they don't tell me what I need to do. They give me consolidated sets of information, and it's fantastic.And then I use my own brain to filter out how I'm going to leverage that data and what I'm going to do with it.And, I mean, we just have to get back to shaking hands and talking to people and let people be who they are and embrace them for that, even if it's not who you are.

So that's. I love it. And that's some really, really good advice. I'm struck by the name Dizzy Goat. Where did Dizzy Goat come from? I love the picture, by the way.I think it's a cool picture. So where did Dizzy Goat come from?

So originally, this land we were going to build the house on, and my wife Kelly and I have wanted to be homesteaders, not in a. Ignore our community, you know, isolate ourselves homesteaders. We wanted to provide more for ourselves.And she did this exercise and basically aligning words and things that we loved. And this. This name, Dizzy Goat Farms has been sitting around. It was going to be the name of our homestead for probably the last decade.And it started with, you know, those goats that when you make noise, they collapse.

I don't know that.

So there. There's a type of goats that are afraid of every noise and they're.I don't know that they're afraid, but their reaction to them is to pretend like they've died. You know, they just fall over. And so it started, I think, from that.We had looked at a lavender farm in central Arizona when we lived in Phoenix area, and they had these goats. And it was so amusing to be out there. And anytime, like a horn got or you made a loud noise, the nearest goat to you just collapsed to the ground.And so I think that was the start of the Dizzy Goat, you know, moniker, because we were going to buy that farm. We've been going to buy a lot of farms for a long time. So she And I, I'm the impulse and she's the reality of this relationship.And, and you know, and if Carla and I, who, you know, my mother in law, Kelly's mom, are left alone, you know, the input, we're the impulse people and Kelly's kind of our navigator, but that name came from her and it's just been floating around forever and now we've stuck it on, on this endeavor because it needed a home and it needed to belong to something just like the rest of us. So.

Well, I love it. I just thought it was fun. So what do you think? Like, I know that you've, you designed or Kelly has.If you haven't some kind of a plan over this year, next year, two years, three years, can you share a little bit of what your vision is? Like a question you've probably heard me ask before in other contexts is what does the world look like after you fix it?

Right. It needs more fixing. Is it possible to fix everything? I don't know, but I think.

Well, no, but after the thing you're doing, like what does the world look like after you fix what you're after to fix?

So I mean, I think we just keep growing. Not just from a food perspective, but there's so many things and yeah, Kelly is a big part of what we could add on to this.Part of what we're doing right now as a side piece is putting together guides on how to, you know, what services are available, you know, as far as, you know, snap, and how you can do prescription food and all these other things. But I think ultimately we're going to tie some coaching into it.There's going to be, you know, kids camp type thing, learning how to grow and participate in the community, from putting stuff in the soil to selling it at a farmer's market kind of life skill stuff. But really, you know, our five, we kind of have a five year plan, a loose one. First year is make the farm viable, which is this year.Second is really expanded to its true capability.That would be the year two and three through five is really to grow this nationally and bring attention to it not just from delivering food, but, you know, more of a media sense, whether it's documentaries, you know, a food channel exercise, a podcast, perhaps, you know, but, but with each of these things in every community that we end up touching and talking to, really the hope is that we inspire other folks.I mean, take our ideas, take our processes, grow this beyond what we can do by ourselves, or take this same thought and this energy and apply it to what means something to other people, really to give hope and encouragement for folks to do what we're doing, whether they have resources or not. There's stuff out there that you can do and there's ways that you can find to do it and get help in getting it started.And I like to encourage a movement really more than anything else. I mean, I want us to be successful in this because I like what it is and what it means for people as we expand and for growing communities together.And the more of the togetherness and the growth and giving communities resilience is really going to grow into fixing other things that I don't feel like I have control over. And this is something I think I can do to help things move, to move a dial.And if we can encourage more people to help move the dial, we get back to where we were. I don't know if we were always there, but more of a sense of community, helping people around us. Less division, you know, those kind of things.And food is. Food is a core resource that every single person needs.And to do it with sustainability and do it in a local basis where it makes sense, you know, to get food to people. These are all the things that I think matter.And as you pull communities together, there is just going to be less and less of the negative and more of the positive.

Well, I love it.

Sparks other positivity.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm glad I asked that because you've got a year or two to focus on the growth of this particular application. But what you're.Sounds like you're saying is, look, you, whoever you are, you can grow food, you can grow your soul, you can grow other things based on your life experience. You can find the things where you can create and add good to the world. You know my words. But in. In your way, with your.Your experience, your passion, your expertise, your skill set and figure out and your. Your example is, hey, you can do this, we did this. What can you do in. In your place? And you can start anywhere and do anything.And you know, if you have, I'm sure you've thought of all this, but, you know, there's community pooling of resources, that sort of thing. And that's probably for later. I like the idea of a podcast because one of the things I think will give your.Not because you're on one, but because one of the most important things when you want to start a movement of any kind is the documentation of it. Not after you're done, but along the way. And so a choice to do that, I think, would be really good. That would be fun.You know, you could talk about the inception and the idea and the daily challenges and, you know, the things that you've said earlier about it being energizing for you and about somebody being the dreamer and somebody being the navigator. You know, all those are issues that are going to face anybody who's going to try to start anything of any substance.

Yeah. And the true comedy of your failures, which are really just, you know, helping you learn to do the next step properly. And.And we're already in hitting those.I mean, we rolled out fabric, you know, for rows, for 500, you know, feet of rows, and then realized we were doing that on rows where, you know, we had to plant things under the ground, and we've just covered it with fabric and, you know, but we didn't realize it until we had gone through a pretty impressive effort to get those things through the fabric and under the ground and before it dawned on us. So, you know, that kind of information, it's not so much about how successful we are. You know, are we getting £10,000 of food to a food bank?It's not a. It's a business of us just getting, you know, something done and starting the movement.And we are going to make all sorts of mistakes, but I think by showing really how poor a farmer we are, as we learn, it'll make it accessible to other people who are like, well, there's too many of these concerns. And we mentioned that earlier. There's a lot of work. There's a lot of things we don't know.There's a lot of stuff that has to get done constantly, but it's fun. And even when you mess up, it's. Everybody messed up. I mean, everybody messes up everywhere. Failures are just. They're not a failure.They're just teaching you something so you do it better the next time and find humor in it.I mean, sometimes it's frustrating, sure, but, you know, look back on it and go, yeah, probably should have recognized that before I laid fabric and tried to shove onions under it.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it shows people that it's.

Doable, which is I. Podcast is the perfect way to do it. And the reason is you could do a series of articles on Medium or Substack or, you know, some kind of thing like that.But a podcast, right now, they're big. You know, they're in favor. Everybody and their dog is doing one.And, you know, your encouragement, because of the fun name, you could just call it Dizzy Goat.Farms and it would be, you know, the subtitle would be Exploration of Resilience and Growth in a Tech, in a Technology World or Back to the Dirt Despite Technology or some other thing. Right. And I think that could be really cool.

Yeah, we, we've been kicking a few names around like common growth or grounded growth and things like, I mean, just for product related stuff. And I think it would be, it's good. I mean, there's so many fun, cute ways that we can address it because we're not serious.I mean, we're serious about what we're trying to do, but we don't take ourselves serious. I don't have these milestones I have to meet and you know, donations and vendor, you know, all that.We are just going through this and figuring it out as we go and we're excited about it. We want other people to get excited about it. And we will, you know, we'll grow it, you know, at the speed that we're able to grow it.And we're going to do the good that we can do, you know, with the resources that we have.And as we, we get more of a name around it, I think that'll grow exponentially to where we can really, really do some good, not just in our local area, but everywhere.

So let me just one other thing and then I want to switch topics. I would really encourage you to figure out some way to document this growth and process. The doing of it needs to be.It doesn't need anything but to document it. Because six months from now, a year from now, the things that you have recorded and talked about or whatever it is, are going to be priceless to you.And for those that you want to share the truth that you're saying, you can do this in your way, wherever you are, and if you have a legacy of articles or episodes or whatever you choose, it'll be, it'll be the trail, the breadcrumbs, the trail markers.

Yep.I love, really want to document the process and I hate the word kit, but we want to put, you know, a kit together that people can follow and there's a million of them out there. I mean, I can, can't throw a stick on Facebook without running into, you know, another piece. But the more the merrier. This isn't a competition thing.We need to make food and we need to, you know, help communities, you know, strive. And I think like you said, if we document the fun, the, the good, the bad, the ugly as we go, it really will encourage people to do it.

Well, it Makes the journey accessible, do their own thing. Yeah, yeah. Makes the journey accessible instead of just seeing the end product. So I wanted to go to in a completely different direction.What else is going on in your life? Like you have a 9 to 5 in it. Kelly's doing something and I can't remember what that is. And so what kind of choices? Whatever a person picks.There's a, there's a trade because you weren't spending a lot of time sitting in a chair with your feet up counting dots on ceiling tiles, you know, and those little holes in the acoustic tiles. You weren't spending a lot of time doing that. So you had a life, it was full. You would have said before that you were busy.What kind of decisions and trades are you guys making and what has been the criteria for those choices for you?

You know, I think probably the first choice criteria event that happened.I mean, all of our kids are adults now, so they've grown up, they've gone off to do their things and you know, Kelly and I found ourselves with, you know, that empty nester free time scenario.And it's not free time, but less purpose time, let's call it, you know, tasked with, you know, making sure kids were doing well, homework, you know, relationship management, you know what all of that stuff that being a parent is.And, and it's, it doesn't end abruptly, it feels abrupt, you know, that your life circled around making sure, you know, these things happen, you know, in the family and you know, and as that time kind of freed up, you know, we moved to Hawaii and thought that was going to be, that that'd be the perfect fix for everything. And you know, Hawaii is fantastic. I would love to live there again. It's, it's pretty expensive to be there. We found ourselves to be lonely there.We, we broke into a new community. We are used to being in a community where we raised our children.So we knew people, we, you know, we had family around us, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I think that was probably the beginning of, of this transition.You know, you only can watch so many episodes of something on TV before, you know, the novelty of it wears out. And you don't care if there's another show or another movie or another concert or, you know, you're missing something.And that, I think that disconnect for us was going from being parents to we're still parents. Obviously, you know, we like to stick ourselves into our kids lives still and vice versa.But you know, that, that left a little bit of space in our Lives. And, you know, we spent probably the last six years trying to figure out how to fill that space from. We tried flipping homes.I thought I'd be a diamond vendor for a little while. You know, I mean, just absolute crazy stuff. And we moved to Decatur, Illinois, sight unseen. We've never been here before.Again, having a hard time breaking into the community. You know, it's. Make friends is not as easy as it used to be.I mean, we've talked about some of that from an electronics perspective, but where do you go, you know, to meet people in a brand new place and find acceptance and community really. And, you know, we've made inroads there and then, but we're still missing something. I mean, our jobs are our jobs. They have been forever.You know, it's. So you just kind of feel like some of that's missing. And this. We've cycled through, like I said, a bunch of ideas.And I don't know what number Dizzy Goat Farms ended up being in those, but it's the one that when we talked about it, other than annoying our children about constantly talking about it in some cases, I think my daughter was here in March and after like an hour, she was done hearing about the farm. She thought it was a great idea, but she didn't need to know everything I was sharing with her.That we found a level of excitement that frankly annoyed other people. So we knew that we had something special.

Right, right, right.

We got excited about it, but we don't shut up about it. So it kind of gave us the feeling that this was the direction. And I think it was really to fill a spot, I mean, you know, of transition in our life.And that was our particular story, you know, whether that, you know, applies to a lot of other people or not. But that's where I think we found the space in our lives. And I used to work for the sake of working, pretty much a workaholic.You know, I would grind away at something, you know, well past, you know, the time that I needed to be at work. But I like to advance stuff. I like to be prepared for everything, which never works. I don't know why I stick to that plan, but.And now, I mean, this just filled. I think something was missing that may not have realized was missing. You know, it just. Yeah, it just hit the right chord for us and.And we found the time and pushed other things aside that were not good uses of our time, perhaps.

Well, I love that part. So that was, you know, I. The ceiling tile time, which nobody has. There's all kinds of things.And one of the things that technology has provided is an endless array of potentially meaningless stuff. So there's an infinitude of nothing that is sparkly and seems fun. And then when you do it very long, the sparkle wears off.And I say that not just because of what you said, but over and over again. I hear people expressing similar sentiments that the thing they finally settle on to do has two things.It fills the need of service because we're literally built to love and serve each other and it is meaningful. It does something valuable.And so both of those things are, I would say universally, I'm going to say almost universally, just so I'm not absolute, but universally true. But because of what it feels like, our own neurochemistry, our divine heritage, you know, whatever you want to attribute it to.And I love that you guys are doing that. And is there anything so.So we've talked about the farm, what it is, how you're doing it, why you're doing it, annoying your kids, the difficulties of, you know, breaking in the kind of society we've created. What else would you like our listeners to know about what you're doing? Not about the farm or about it doesn't matter.What else would you like to share?

And one quick note, while we are annoying our children, all of them want to participate in it, you know, once it's ready and has a role for them because they love the idea. But otherwise, like tonight we're going to open mic night at our local brewery.I mean so we still find non work, non farm related things to go have fun. We recently the Kelly, my wife, Carla, my mother in law, Kelly's mom who you know, we were just in Iceland, in Ireland for two weeks.So you know, we had a bit of an adventure and we suspected it was going to be warmer. I don't know why we went to Iceland in the winter, but what a great, great place. Iceland and Ireland. Love both of them.I met the president of Iceland by accident walking into our Hilton hotel. Interesting note, did not have an army of security around her. She is beloved by everybody there.And we just had a quick how's the weather conversation. Had no idea she was the president. So we definitely still love to travel. Looking forward to more trips and exploring cultures.I mean I've spent a lot of time traveling the world. I was in the military when I was young.I expatted a lot in my IT career, lived in Czech Republic in the UK and Malaysia and you know, got to visit a lot of fun places so somehow we're going to find a balance between, you know, our new hobby, our jobs and still being able to see the world and experience different cultures and, you know, eat the good food.Yeah, it was, it's, it's fantastic to get out and you know, just meet people and talk to everybody and just experience how other folks are living and you know, really how many similarities. Everyone's always how different it is.But really when you go somewhere, you really should be noticing all the similarities between us all and what we're doing and not looking for the differences and, and really just check your mind out of it. Enjoy what you're seeing there and what you're participating in and the culture that you're living in. And you know, it's just, it's fantastic to.

So if somebody wants to know, if somebody wants to know about this, like do you guys have a website up yet or if you had a YouTube channel, we could send them there, but I don't think you do yet, but any of those. But where can somebody go to learn more about John and Kelly and what you guys are doing?

Facebook and LinkedIn are probably the primaries right now.

We are working on Dizzy Goat Farms or John Smith.

Dizzy Goat Farms and John Smith both. Well, the John Smith one's a little more complicated because yeah, I was going.

To say there'd be a couple of those.

Yeah. Dizzy Go Farms is readily accessible.Of course Kelly and I are tagged on a lot of the posts we've been posting as we go through and do some of the steps. But really social media is the place right now.There's a website in progress and you will be my first entry in a media kit since I've never done anything media related. So yeah, I'm kind of an anonymous John Smith so I'm a little hard to find and.

John A. Smith. John Anonymous Smith.

Yep. Maybe it might have to be my new, my new handle everywhere. Although perhaps that's taken as well.You know, the, the creative minds are probably ahead of me on the Internet, which is interesting being an IT guy, being behind.

Right.

Yeah. But my, my wife's a little bit more well known. She is been around for, you know, a bit doing non profit work.She used to work for the American Lung association and ran programs and you know, a large portion of the west coast program or the Western US program. So I think she's a little bit more social media, you know, intense or heavy on, on content that's out for her.But yeah, the easiest way to find us is through Dizzy Go Farms because ideally that's going to be the primary focus of our jobs and eventually, you know, take over and replace our nine to fives as well.

Take over the world. Well, John, I want to thank you. What I really noticed is that you've covered so many things.We've talked in the context of disigote farms, but what we've really talked about is the truth of everyone having gifts and talents, the truth of the calling we all have to add good to the world, the truth that we're made to love and serve each other and a bunch of other things that were, you know, that came up peripherally but were really, were really present in this. So I really want to thank you for being with me today.

Well, I appreciate the time and I've enjoyed, you know, other sessions I've had with you as well as this. You know, I actually really enjoy your energy. So it's been fantastic meeting you this year and look forward to many more conversations with you.

Yeah, thank you.I want to listeners, I want you to pay attention here because even though we talked about the farm and the small purpose and the first year and the second year and the growth and then the national movement and the worldwide movement, the emphasis is on community. The emphasis is on meeting people.The emphasis is on sharing the intimacy that community once provided and the mutual support and the fact that we're more same than different and all of those related things because those are fundamental, eternal truths. And in this conversation we talked about them in the context of John and Kelly's goal, but they are true.And each of these things are going to help you move forward as you create your ultimate life. Right here, right now. Your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you.Every episode gives you practical tips and practice practices that will change everything. If you want to know more, go to kellenfluekegermedia.com if you want more free tools, go here YourUltimateLife CA Subscribe.

Sam.