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Living Free in Tennessee - Nicole Sauce

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Living Free in Tennessee - Nicole Sauce
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Now displaying: October, 2020
Oct 30, 2020

Today is a show where you get to ask me questions and I will answer them. Find out where I get the closing songs for Monday’s show, why you should boil your pressure-canned foods before you eat them, how to integrate a new goat on the homestead and more.

We will be livestreaming the recording of this so if I see a good question or two there, I will integrate it.

Roastery Update

  • Tale of the venting hood
  • Developing New Processes

Main topic of the Show: Ask Nicole

From Amanda:

Would you feel comfortable sharing a little background for those of us that are new followers? Such as what is your property / homestead like? 

How long have you lived there? 

How did you find your property and what led you there? 

I’ve heard you say “we” many times before and talk about shared pantry and cooking. Do you live with others? Or, do you have some type of community living happening? 

How does that work? 

Just wanted to get to know you and your homestead a bit more. Thanks and looking forward to listening!

David 

Where do you get your music that you end your podcasts with?

Joy -

Question about pressure canning - if when pressure canning the temperature gets up to 240 degrees and is high enough to kill botulism then why must you boil the contents for x amount of minutes after opening? Shouldn’t the bad bacteria be dead already? Thanks, only one season into canning but I have 50+ quarts of pressure canned meats in the pantry and want to be safe when eating.

John 

What makes decaf decaf?

David O

Over 200k people have been killed by coronavirus. How many people must die before we eradicate this deadly virus?

Ali

Is being offered stock in a company you work for worthwhile? Context-the bar/restaurant I’m managing at is going to give managers shares in the company in January, I think it’s a good passive income stream but is it really?

Alan 

Health insurance options, particularly medi   share type options or what are other self employed doing for health insurance.

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. It makes a great Christmas Gift!

Advisory Board

Resources

 

Oct 26, 2020

We have talked about pantry management a ton this year, but I got a question asking for me to go over how I manage my pantry during the youtube livestream of the Winter is Coming show for 2020 so I thought I would share with yall what I do here, with the space and other boundaries I have at the Holler Homestead. 

Announcements:

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

  • Getting ready for venison season
  • Update on shortages
  • Setting the foundation for winter lettuce

Featured Forage: Chicken of the Woods - Laetiporus sulphureus

  • Wild Edible Phil a cosophy (Mushrooms are cited for being the thing to double check -- but double check everything)
  • Eating new mushroom varieties
  • Grows on oak trees at this time of year in tn
  • Laetiporus sulphureus has a potent ability to inhibit staph bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus), as well as moderate ability to inhibit the growth of Bacillus subtilis.[6]
  • Preparing: Sautee, bread and fry, bake -- it is all good
  • Storing: dehydrate for long term, freeze for shorter periods

Operation Independence

  • Explain the independence fund
  • Roastery Expansion is all that we are doing - high quality plywood and electrical parts

Main topic of the Show: Pantry and Root Cellar Management

Pantry Management Philosophy

  • I hate shopping
  • I hate most restaurant food
  • I hate wasting food
  • I hate wasting money
  1. Make your pantry management work for you
  2. Plan for stability through weather events, job loss, etc. Build in luxury (Pad Thai) 
  3. Store what you eat, and eat what you store (Spirkodamus)
  4. Learn your needs so that you can tap into times of abundance
  • Start by paying attention (Learn what you really eat in a journal for one month)
    • Shopping online helps, eg TP
    • Involve the whole family -- gameify if needed
  • Find out why you have to bip out to the store for just one item -- what is it and why did you not include it in your weekly or monthly shopping list?
  • 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 2 months, 6 months, 1 year (And a word on hoarding)
    • Spirko’s concept of doubling
  • Pantry areas to assess
    • Food: Fresh foods, Freezer foods, Canned/jarred foods, dry foods
    • Cleaning Supplies
    • First Aid Supplies
    • Paper Goods 
    • Toiletry Items
    • Plant and Animal Supplies
  • Space considerations 
    • Humidity and temperature
    • Clutter Buster
    • Creative solutions
      • Garage shelving
      • Crawl space
      • Walls
      • Under bed storage
      • Attic
      • Outbuildings
      • Back of cabinets
      • Shelves near the ceiling
      • Send me ideas?
  • Holler Homestead process
    • Boundaries: root cellar gets hot/cold by season, canned goods cant freeze, my home is 100 sf, two bedrooms without much storage
    • What do I mean by load from the back and take from the front
    • Base philosophy: long term storage, short term storage, kitchen storage
    • Inventory system: Freezer vs other storage (Dates)
    • Root cellar process: seasonal rotation and reviewing contents
      • Potato varieties
      • Squash varieties
      • Rodent control
    • Meal planning approach
    • Dealing with spoilage
    • Establishing budget (Challenges & victories)

Only you can set your pantry up the best way for your household -- there is no one way.

Make it a great week!

Song: 911 by Sauce

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

 

Oct 23, 2020

It is interview show day and I am excited to tell you about today’s topic: a better way with Xavier Hawk where we talk in minute detail about his alternative platform for living, transacting and building communities, Phireon. This may not feel like homesteading or entrepreneurial as we start but as the episode progresses, you will see why I think this is such a great topic for our community.

Kickstart Holler Roast Update: Will start shipping next week -- look for an email with your preferences over the weekend.

Show Resources

Phireon Partners: https://phireonglobalpartners.com/

Phireon: https://phireon.com/

Main content of the show

Xavier Hawk co-founded a home health agency with his family in 2001, and then went off grid with his wife and four daughters to their mountain homestead. Here he went on to invest in real estate, commodities, and crypto currencies where he found his Niche. He architected the world's first asset backed blockchain system, negotiated the world's first blockchain solution for a nation, and architected the intentional neighborhood design growing in popularity with real estate developers around the globe. He currently sells emerging tech in the sectors of off grid energy, border security, last mile infrastructure, connectivity, and border security to enterprise level clients through his company Phireon Global Partners.

Interview

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Advisory Board

Resources

 

Oct 21, 2020

Winter is coming is our theme for this week and along with winter comes the holiday gift-giving season. We have an annual tradition of sharing handmade gift ideas at LFTN and today, we will review four things you can do to share that you care in a more personal, homemade way.

Links to past episodes on handmade gifts

#HollerHatWednesday: Where is she and who is she with?

Holler Neighbor Livestream, Thursday at 7pm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feyXBL1ibC4

Stump the Sauce

  • From Samantha: Do you dry your herbs in bundles or do you strip the leaves and put them in the dehydrator? Or something else entirely? 

Tales from the Booze Wisperette -- need questions

What’s Up in the Garden

  • Garlic is planted -- this winter is coming schedule is the BOMB
  • Transplanted half the hydro strawberries -- will see how they do
  • Harvested Horseradish, and transplanted it, interplanted with the strawberries
  • Planted two peach and two cherry trees -- they look a little shocked so we are checking in on them every day
  • Greens are coming off the AP, as are green onions
  • Need to get the Egyptians planted

Main topic of the Show: 4 Homemade Gift Ideas

Family Recipe Boo

Bourbon Kahlua

  • 1 liter bourbon, 100 proof
  • 2 vanilla beans (where to get them)
  • 4 cups strongly brewed coffee – i mean really strong man, like espresso
  • 8 cups brown sugar (I use 4 now)

Walking Stick

Advent calendar

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Advisory Board

Resources

 

Oct 19, 2020

Today we have a reminder about winter. Winter is nigh. Soon the plants will go to sleep, bare root trees will beg to be planted, and the cold times will be upon us. With the cold comes a need to keep our water from freezing, our animals from taking sick, and ourselves ready to get snowed in. This looks a bit different on a homestead than in the city and we will talk through what we do at the Holler Homestead to prepare.

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

  • Winter perspective: Auditing everything to make sure we are ready
  • Use up vs Put Up
  • Moved canning out of the kitchen’
  • Drying more herbs
  • Mushroom season

Operation Independence

  • Made it home with the roaster, saw friends

Main topic of the Show: 2020 Winter is Coming

Usually, we start our winter preparations in August and I do this episode on the hottest day ever. Not this year. Cold temperatures have hit us a bit sooner than normal an caught me without things in order for winter.

Goal of winter preparations:

  1. Livestock taken care of
  2. Humans covered
  3. Water systems secured
  4. Preset spring growing

This year, we are taking a catch up approach

  • 10am-12pm WINTER IS COMING blocked time

Heat: Firewood and fire organization, chimney sweep and stove repairs, kerosene and propane heaters checked on, finishing the rocket mass heater

Livestock: Increase feed on hand, first aid audit, bedding needs, water antifreeze systems, shelter update

Humans: Audit first aid, add winter preps to the pantry (like milk), winter clothing & comfort audit

Food storage: move roots to the root cellar, reset kitchen to use up rather than put up

Systems: prepare the gas things for overwintering, remove window AC units, take in summer water things, secure the pump house against cold, drains

Gardens: reset the hydro system, drain the AP wicking beds, row cover, prepare the ground gardens for spring, plant the garlic, fall bulbs, row cover

Winter Festivities: Handmake gifts, start special foods, decide what will be “held” for holiday meals.

There is so much to do when winter is coming -- this is why I usually start in August. But not this year. This year, it is not to be. But despite all that, it will get done. It always does. And the time will come so fast when I am tucked in by the fire, brandy in hand, planning the spring gardens...

Make it a great week!

Song: Grandpa's Song by Sauce

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

Oct 14, 2020

Today, I wanted to go back to a concept we talked about around this time last year. The word of the year. One word that you use to change your life for the better and you concentrate on it all year. Jenni Hill has been a rising start with this approach in the LFTN network and I linked to an interview we had with her about it.

I figured this month would be a good time to start sharing the progress of my word of the year: Grow.

Announcements

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

  • Packing keto for a road trip
  • Harvested the rest of the dryable herbs -- a freeze is coming
  • Freezer reorganization observation 
  • Holiday food shortages

Operation Independence

  • #roadtrip
  • Trading for labor

Main topic of the Show: Grow as a Word of the Year

>>What is word of the year

Jenni’s Episode

>>How do you find one?

  • Journaling
  • What do you want to change
  • What will get you there
  • Take time
  • How does it fit your life strategic plan? 
    • Link to episode
  • Word of 2020: grow

Grow: How are we doing?

  • Q1: Lost 20 pounds on Keto, coffee was up 20%, corporate facilitations booked, workshop sold out fast, launched new webinar concept and it was being well received
  • Q2: COVID -- workshop delayed, all corporate facilitations cancelled, coffee flat lines for two weeks, LFTN 20
    • Hyper overdrive
    • Choices: business resupply
    • Choices: focus
    • Choices: mental and physical health
  • Q3: LFTN20 financial hit, the corner (link to episode), a heart to heart with John Pugliano, the decision
    • SOE project
    • Unloose the Goose 
    • The fire
    • Mental and physical health
    • KickstartHollerRoast.com
  • Q4: Coffee, Podcast, Webinars, Personal Growth, Election, Riots, Civil War
    • Launch new subscriber portal
    • Launch new HollerRoast.com Portal
    • Christmas Coffee
    • Grow another 20% listenership

The hardest part about your success and mine is that we are each in the driver seat -- drive your best trip.

Make it a great week!

Song: Learning What Leaving Is

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

 

Oct 9, 2020

Today is a TOTW day where was have a shorter episode about just one random thought I have had. And Nashville is threatening to (and probably will) retroactively enforce a 33% property tax increase on its people. I am one of those people and it made me think of taxes, thuggery and the company store.

KickstartHollerRoast.com New perk: JUST A MUG for $30!

DirectDownload

Let’s talk about how we want to evolve as a society shall we? How we think things could be? 

I imagine a world where the “human nature” approach of bonking someone over the head with a club to steal food, their spouse or children, gold, or clothing from them is not acceptable. Where we are free trade, to give, to help, to feel, to be. 

What do you envision?

Because right now, we still find it ok to steal food, children, money and life from people in the interest of serving the greater good. What does the greater good even mean? This definition gets so twisted. As if clubbing someone over the head is ever in service of the greater good anyway… How can it be good if the only way to get there is via pillage and thuggery?

It makes me think of the Company Store approach in mining towns. Workers had to buy their housing, food, supplies and health care from the corporation they worked for. Full stop. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty. Plenty went wrong. By establishing this dependency on one source for basic needs and extending store credit from time to time, these mining operations established a legal form of slavery. The overpriced goods, underpaid employees and if you pushed back, they sent their thugs to beat you.

And slavery is bad is it not? 

Why then is it any different to demand payment from people at the cost of their property, their personal freedom, their lives if the do not pay? Why is it ok for anyone to keep part of my labor and work? Why can they take my children if I do not pay and put them in a system with a long history of sexual and physical abuse? Why do we allow this to happen?

Some people think I am crazy for thinking of taxes this way, but that is what they are. People are extorted for money in order that it can be used to pay for things like an education system that is failing our children, social services rife with abuse, medical services that can fail the individual with a one size fits none approach, and yes. The roads. They extort money for the roads. No opt out. Fines, loss of property, jail time and loss of your children if you do not pay.

How is it not thuggery to get money in this way? How is it not slavery that you do not keep what you earn to spend as you will? How is it not thuggery to take my money and force me to finance your foreign wars? Your ripping apart of families through the drug war? 

People will answer that I signed a social contract to live in the US -- I have to pay to live her. I signed no contract.

People will answer that it has to be because if we did not force everyone to pay for some things, people will use drugs, die on the street, never fix the roads and children will stop learning.

To which I ask - really? Is that really what will happen if we move away from a forced-taxation system? Are you sure? 

What if instead of fighting with me about defining taxation as thuggery, you put your creative energies toward something a bit more creative? Like ask yourself this: How can we care for people in our society without a taxation structure? How can we build and maintain roads without enslaving people? How can we do this a different way?

Just because we do not do it this way right now does not mean it cannot be done and really the core issue that seems to get in the way of truly solving this question is envy and greed. Not what you may think of in this regard though. It is the greed of some who have less than they wish they had wanting to force those who have more to use it toward this end. Meaning those who wish they had more want to force those who do to spend their money in a way the person who has it may not wish to spend it.

 

They have more so they should spend more. Really? Is that any of your damn business? You have no right to tell other people what to do with their labor, their capitol. 

You have no right to send armed men to their homes to arrest them just because they earn more than you and you think they need to give more than the do, do you? Well, some people think that they do have this right> the right to force people to pay, to steal from them, to harm them if they do not comply. And the tricky thing is that they frame it in humanitarian terms. But stealing from Michelle to help Amanda isn’t a moral act. Helping Amanda is a moral act. And we seem to have forgotten the difference.

We’ve talked a bunch about prioritizing the will of the masses over the rights of the individual -- a practice that ends in abuse of the many individuals that make up the collective in the best of cases. Taxation is just a fancy word for piracy and thuggery. A way to make you feel good when your labor is stolen to support things you may or may not agree with. 

Let’s work to do better than this -- to envision a world where we answer this question: How can we care for people in our community without pillaging everyone? How can we care for people without greedily judging your neighbors and coveting what they have accomplished? How can we care for people in our communities with compassion rather than through enslavement? 

That is the world i want to see and that I know we can build.

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. It makes a great Christmas Gift!

Advisory Board

Resources

 

Oct 7, 2020

Last week, I was away for five days doing some very important family time. Next week, I will be gone again. So there have been other people handling the homestead -- people well prepared to do everything here. Yet, no matter how well I prepare things always seem to get jiggy when I leave town. Today we will talk about the homestead madness that greeted me at 11:30PM Saturday when I returned from a trip to California.

#HollerHatWednesday: Where is she and who is she with?

Kickstart Holler Roast update: preparing for the building and the sign from SUE

Cybersecurity Webinar October 15 at 7pm CT: https://www.livingfreeintennessee.com/2020/10/07/webinar-cybersecurity-with-andy-higginbotham/

Stump the Sauce

  • From Lynn - Changing the codes on chickens
    • Raise rabbits, quayle and other “pets” that are quiet
    • Know thy neighbor -- and no roosters
    • Changing code is hard
      • Assess the reason it was put in place
      • Learn the laws and codes at the state, county, city and local level. Where is the problem?
      • Find who supports you and who does not in government leadership for the level of govt that impacts this rule
      • Launch an initiative to change it
        • Stories
        • Marketing
        • Signature drives
        • Support Groups, etc

Main topic of the Show: Homestead Madness

  • What happens when you leave town or one of you leaves town.
  • Nick Ferguson and the Pig
  • 12 hours flying with a mask
  • Power outage
  • Ways to keep baby chicks warm: How warm they need to be, Body heat, move them inside, hot water bottles, water heater, any heater!!, move them to a friend’s home, generator and lights (not the best but the easiest in our case)
  • Limpy Duck Surgery (How to do it and why)

It always seems like things go nuts when one person is gone and that may be true -- or it may be that you unknowingly do things a little each day that avoids calamity on the homestead and when that eye is gone things save up until they bust. 

Either way, even with the best homestead sitters and farm sitters in the world, best to schedule a catch up day or two when you have been on the road both for yourself and for the health of your plants and animals!

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Advisory Board

Resources

 

Oct 5, 2020

Today, we will talk about how people are pushing back in big and small ways against the cultural mind controls that are being instilled on us and if this pushing back works?

 Announcements

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

Where we talk about storing what you eat and eating what you store.

  • One last round of herbs for winter: lemon balm, mint, comfrey, chamomile tea, (echinacea from Brian??), Mullein, berry leaves
  • Time to harvest sweet potatoes
  • Last round of winter squash for storage
  • Keeping an eye on weather for root cellar set up

Featured Forage: chamomile

  • antipeptic, antispasmodic, antipyretic, antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-allergenic activity.
  • sleep aid, treatment for fevers, colds, stomach ailments, and as an anti-inflammatory
  • Harvest flowers
  • Make tea

Operation Independence

  • Dig a ditch? Add extra lines
  • Simplification Schedule

Main topic: Does Pushing Back Work?

I’m not Givin away my SHOT! 

In many ways, they are glorifying the violence that it took to make the American Revolution happen. A country born of violence. Furthered by violence in the civil war under the auspices of ending slavery – an institution that was dying even as the civil war started. 

More violence. Pushback.

And today, we are seeing violence. Violence and the call for the opposite of freedom under the auspices of being against that fascist orange guy and FOR FREEDOM. Because apparently no leader who has come before him was furthering fascism. Just the orange man.

And the right screams socialism. And the left fascism. Never caring that both are two sides of the same authoritarian coin.

14 years I dedicated to working in the Liberty movement. FOURTEEN wasted years in many cases desperately trying to get people to just PLEASE TRY to communicate about liberty in a way that grounds the morality of protecting the individual in the why not the what, in the emotional reasons not the data. 

In a way that explains why protecting individual rights over collective opinions is the basis for lifting more people out of poverty, finding the means for caring for our sick, and growing both intellectually and spiritually. And the sharpest resistance to this idea, this approach were the most intelligent among the liberty thinkers. Voices were raised. Efforts were undermined. Some really smart people rose like stars in the movement, loved by others who already agree with them. 

But the whole time, the targets were wrong. 

Convincing people who already agree with you is not how to create enduring liberty. Creating a society that values people and their individual rights doesn’t just happen without an ongoing barrage from those who either want power over others, who are scared to be in control of their destiny, or who simply don’t want to think, they just want to live. 

And most people fall into the last category. They just want to live.

Hell - I fall into that category -- I want to live the way I want and for people who disapprove to leave me alone. I am not hurting anyone am I?

Yet for fourteen years, I did not give up. I pushed. I fought. I scrapped. I politicked. And at the end, I was so tired. SO beat. 

I had found some great allies. I had found some folks who were better at furthering my marketing mission than I was. And I saw a coming tidal wave. One I wrote about in the 90s. I missed the deadline. Did not stop the swell and now the wave is peaking. 

In Hamilton, people run around the stage excited that they are making history. So much change! A world where an orphan immigrant can become part of the leadership. And he’s not giving away his SHOT!

But do you really want to be a part of history? The American Revolution spurred lots of suffering.

And now our country has people fighting on the streets. Assassinations. An industrial media complex that falls in line with whatever narrative is needed to keep the masses divided. 

A rising generation cultivated to put the opinions of the masses above the rights of the individual.

Did you see the shift? It started with code complaint calls to the city inspectors. As if someone else’s tall grass is an attack on the whole neighborhood. The tattle culture. 

Moralizing of small indiscretions making the disciplinary action for it way out of sale of the perceived transgression. Where pointing your finger like it is a gun can get you expelled. Where CEOs get fired from companies they founded for unpopular opinions. Where people allow themselves to be locked inside their homes well beyond the duration of the perceived threat because authority has said so. Where science only matters if it fits the narrative.

The only reason this shift is happening is because we allow it. So how do we push back now? The reality ahead is a really messy election and more violence. Possibly a fundamental shift in governmental structure. Seems like we live in a time when history is being made, doesn’t it?

Far from being invigorating, I wish it were not so. But that wish is wasted, I suppose.

 So then, does pushing back on this reality do anything? That is the real question. Right now, there is not a clear enemy other than an idea – the idea that the collective matters more than the person in it. And when the collective matters more than the person in it, it becomes pretty easy to use the person in it as a slave, or to imprison them, or to kill them – does it not?

Collectivism is spun as a way to care for all, yet it disregards the needs of the individual to do this. Somewhere in there is a flaw. Somewhere in there you end up with a collective that fails most as it grows. 

But back to the question – does pushing back work?

In many ways no.

  • One person not wearing a mask while outside changes nothing – even that lady with the viral video. It only served to support the this or that narrative of masks = the only lifeline there is vs masks are bullshit. And furthering that divide makes it even harder to stop the tidal wave of tyranny.

  • One person standing on the street corner yelling Jesus Died For Your Sins is also not an effective way to grow a church, is it?

  • One person standing against an angry mass of collectivists rising up against the structural systems they hate will get consumed and tossed away like trash – which is what they are in the eyes of the collectivists – and they will be forgotten in no time.

It is no different than how we interact one on one is it? The first reaction when someone tells you no or argues with you is to dig in, stand your ground and refuse to hear beyond your established opinion. It is hard to reprogram yourself to consider the other side - and I mean really consider it. It takes work. Most people don’t like to work.

Yet pushing for something rather than against something is what we need to ride this tide. You CAN push back. You can stand up if you BUILD something rather than against it. 

And it may or may not work. 

Think of the famous Tank Man of Tiananmen square and the people massacred by their own government. And the subsequent failure liberalization in China until a few years later -- and the current back-stepping of the progress enacted in the late 90 and early aughts.

Tank man pushed back, pushed for something. And perhaps the international reaction helped put pressure as the soviet union and Berlin wall fell. 

Pushing for something  -- or building it -- rather than just against it seems to be the best way to see change for the better. And individuals working around bad systems to replace them, as ueber did for example, seem to get that spark going. 

And individuals working together to help each other can create quite the pushback. Think of the underground railroad or the many who helped Jews escape death camps. They pushed back - but they did so in a way that pushed for something.

Punching a nazi or a commie doesnt get you anywhere in this game So why do it?

Arguing with people who drink the kool aid changes nothing but the amount of time you have left to do something productive. 

But pushing for something just might -- so think about that next time you are looking at how things are changing. Creating pathways around the dysfunction -- to build your own way and help those around you do the same is the only pathway I can see.

So are you going to give away your shot to make some momentary noise, or spend it on something that can endure?

Make it a great week!

Song: Strange Child by Sauce

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

Oct 2, 2020

Today I come to you from California where I have had five great days with my family, learning new things while also pushing the ball forward on LFTN and Holler Roast Coffee. I have made a ton of tradeoffs this week, including two episodes. We will talk about the what and why of tradeoffs and why they are important to your long term success and happiness.

  • Next Week’s Schedule

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

  • Chickens are in the freezer
  • Grabbed 4 turkeys from Schoolbell Farm -- glad someone local is willing to raise them
  • Selfish Sunday will revolve around a last round of gathering herbs for drying
  • Need to address the firewood problem

Operation Independence

  • KickStartHollerRoast.com update
    • Reached 20k
    • Found a building
    • BHAG -- How you can help

Main topic of the Show: Episode 351 - Tradeoffs are Good

You know that pang? That little feeling of guilt and remorse? That moment when you are doing one thing and not another, or many other? 

That little pang is good. It is an indication that you are doing the right thing. That you have come to a point along your journey toward your true purpose where it is time to work through a series of tradeoffs.

It is not a sock in the gut -- oh shit I am doing the wrong thing sort if feeling. Merely a brief moment of remorse when you realize that you need to focus one place and the expanse of another to move things forward.

Not everyone has that feeling, but everyone who is successful does have one thing in common: the need to choose the most important place to focus for long term progress. And often this means letting the less important thing wait. Or letting it go completely.

Yes. tradeoffs are good. They mean you are growing. They mean that you are willing to do what it takes to succeed. And when you have the big picture in mind, they are not easy to figure out.

If you tap into our Mewe Group you will see folks at different places in their walk to freedom, often paralyzed with too many options, not sure where to go. They what if themselves to death when they could have been moving forward. And some what iffing is good -- I mean I have four or five ways to get home from California right now if my flight does not happen in the morning. Those ways came from a healthy amount of what iffing.

But when you spend all your time what iffing, you forget to spend your time actually doing. 

And when you spend your time trying to be everything for everyone, to do everything for everyone, you lose yourself in the shuffle and build a lifestyle that is no different than being a slave wager, stuck in dept, working for someone else rather than building your life how you want it.

Tradeoffs are hard sometimes. And it can hurt when you realize that you really should not do what you used to do. But if you really embrace tradeoffs and relentlessly focus on trading off the things that get in the way of your progress, you will find that you end up in a much happier place.

Yes. Happier. Not necessarily richer. Happier.

Because really what we are building with our side hustles, with our enterprises, on our homestead or city steads -- what we are building is the life we want to live and that means happiness.

Someone in our network recently told me that he does what he does to finance all his interests -- all the fun stuff he gets to do because his business is successful. To which I though --RIGHT ON. This is a person who had built his business they way he wants it, built his lifestyle the way he wants it, and it allows him to do things he wants to do.

And that took tradeoffs. I see him up before me doing homestead chores. I see him working out much later than I do. I see him helping lots of people around him achieve what they want to achieve. I see him not giving up -- never giving up.

Nut you know he has tradeoffs, right? Sometimes he trades sleep. Sometimes he trades a night of partying. Sometimes he trades -- well heck -- sometimes he trades things we will never know about. Because he is doing it the right way and not bitching about his tradeoffs.

But tradeoffs are there -- they are always there.

Take this week. Here I am in California, two podcasts in the hole, putting together a guerrilla show for y'all because I traded off recording in order to recover and to have quality time with my family. That may not seem like the best business choice but it is. And here is what the tradeoffs look like:

  • Holler Roast needs to get lots of things completed by mid October. More than full time input while keeping other things moving -- traded off promotion time for LFTN, a holler neighbor livestream, New web contracts, sleep, time with my animals -- Kept my commitments to other content creators depending on me -- this means I took a small hit to my own podcast because I had to trade off time  and rather than 
  • Immune system taxed -- Cancelled livestream, chose one thing per day to achieve and rolled back hours to make sure I handled this
  • Roaster schedule vs california -- family won (why this is), Tradeoff: promoting kickstarthollerroast, podcast episodes, new web clients, being onsite for the roastery preparations, legal appointments -- goose got done because it is a livestream.

And the end result? My niece had a great birthday with her family. I have learned to paint by numbers and make slime. I have had a chance to catch up with my sister on some important things. My energy is back. And there is a lifestyle clarity coming.

I love working hard. I love having plants and learning new things. I love getting sleep and exercise. I do not have time to do this if my income-generating projects take 12-14 hour days, seven days a week.

So there were tradeoffs this week. And some things need to be permanently traded off if I want a life I enjoy living. With time for new things, for being with family and friends. 

It may sound like a cop out, but it isnt. It is a shift that has been coming all year as we grow. Growing means MORE. But more of the right things, not more of everything right? And to do it well, to make sure that you are able to have the kind of life you want financially, in your relationships, and at home -- tradeoffs are part of the growing game. This for that, not always this AND that.

Thought when asked if she wanted ice cream and whipped cream on her apple crumble, my niece did say both -- and she was not wrong.

But look around at how you are building your world? Farmers market taking a ton of time and not bringing in what you could if you had that time to really focus on doing what you need? But it means a temporary drop in revenue that you are not entirely sure you can replace. Ask yourself, what is the best choice for the long term? What transitional steps do I need to take. Because if you cannot do both and end up with a lifestyle you want, then why do it at all.

And no I do not mean just let things got -- I mean let the RIGHT things go. When you dont do the right things, you will often find you get a sock in the gut ,not a pang of regret. That pang is there to let you know you traded… make sure you trade up.

And. Embrace the pang!

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

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