185. Achieving Consensus & Commitment to do the ‘Impossible’, with Jeff Goebel

Welcome to a very special final episode for 2023. After seven years of this podcast, covering many inspiring stories, there’s clearly no mystery as to how we go about regeneration. So why is the macro story, if you like, the big picture - extinctions, emissions, inequality, health - still going the wrong way? Is there something we’re missing, for all our regenerative efforts? Something that doesn’t just help a few of us on regenerative trajectories, but all of us? Something that changes what happens, not just in the margins, but all over?

Throughout the last 18 months or so, in particular, a thread has emerged on the podcast that suggests there is indeed that something, and we know how to go about that too. And my guest today, Jeff Goebel, has been at it longer than most. You might remember my recent guest on ep175, the award-winning author of The Reindeer Chronicles, Judith Schwartz, talking about him. She wrote up an incredible story in that book, of community transformation guided by Jeff, and was so inspired by it she has since set up a new initiative with him.

Jeff Goebel became a Holistic Management trainer with Allan Savory in the mid-80s. But pretty soon felt it was missing something, as did Allan. Then a series of uncanny events and outstanding successes in Jeff’s life, including a pivotal experience with First Nations, set him on a path of what he calls community consensus work. He is now globally renowned for developing a highly effective program of respectful listening, visioning, and planning that attains 100% consensus - and commitment - of all parties, in all sorts of contexts. And often where human conflict and land degradation are at their worst.

Head here for automatic cues to chapter markers (also available on the embedded player on the episode web page), and a transcript of this conversation (please note the transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully serves to provide greater access to these conversations for those who need or like to read).

This was recorded on 8 December 2023.

Title slide: Jeff Goebel on Navajo land in 2013.

Music:
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, off the soundtrack for the film Regenerating Australia.

Find more:
Community Consensus Institute.

Do the Impossible.

Transcript

Jeff: 0:00

But I think part of that movement, what I'm challenging people, if you think you're doing regenerative and your neighbour is not doing what you're doing, you're failing. You're not doing regenerative. Regenerative is about the world changing, not about me changing my little place.

Anthony: 0:22

G'day. My name's Anthony James and this is The RegenNarration, exploring the stories that are changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. But really, given how many of these stories there are, there's clearly no mystery as to how we go about it. So why is the macro story, the big picture - extinctions, emissions, inequality, health - still going the wrong way? Is there something we're missing for all our regenerative efforts? Something that doesn't just help a few of us on regenerative trajectories, but all of us? Something that changes what happens not just in the margins, but all over. Welcome to a very special final episode for 2023.

Anthony: 1:09

Throughout the last 18 months or so, in particular, a thread has emerged on the podcast that suggests there is indeed that something - and we know how to go about that too. And my guest today, Jeff Goebel, has been at it longer than most. You might remember my recent guest on episode 175, the award-winning author of The Reindeer Chronicles, Judith Schwartz, talking about him. She wrote up an incredible story in that book, of community transformation guided by Jeff, and was so inspired by it she has since set up a new initiative with him. Similarly inspired, a fter reading Judy's book, I had to reach out to Jeff. He, very graciously, was happy to chat and I've been so looking forward to it since. Jeff Goebel became a holistic management trainer with Allan Savory in the mid-80s but pretty soon felt it was missing something, as did Allan. Then a series of uncanny events and outstanding successes in Jeff's life, including a pivotal experience with First Nations, set him on a path of what he calls community consensus work. He is now globally renowned for developing a highly effective program of respectful listening, visioning and planning that attains 100% consensus and commitment of all parties in all sorts of contexts and often where human conflict and land degradation are at their worst.

Anthony: 2:41

You see what I mean. Could there be anything more important right now? Before we start, i nestimable thanks for making this listener-supported podcast possible, t o some incredibly generous regular donors, starting with my Vic Friends, the wonderful Bate family. Thanks so much for your three years of support so far, in gratitude for every day of it. Likewise to Thomas Macindoe and Jeremy James for your three years of support and, for over two years, thanks so much to Lee Ramseyer-Bache, Paul Hawken, Joanne Blyth, Jeff Powell and Michelle McManus, Impact Seed, Dominique Hes, Sadie Chrestman, Oliver Barnes, Chris Dowling and Cargill.

Anthony: 3:25

I couldn't do this without you, along with all you brilliant subscribers, including the newest this week, Ruth Seeber. Thank you. It's what makes this ad-free, freely available podcast possible, so if you're also finding value in it, please consider joining this great community of supporting listeners. With as little as $3 a month, or whatever amount you can and want to contribute. Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration. com/ support - and thanks again. I'll have more to say in signing off for the year after this conversation, but for now let's join Jeff Goebel at his home in New Mexico.

Jeff: 4:05

AJ: Morning, Jeff. How are you? JG: I'm doing well, Thank you. Good to meet you tonight. AJ: terrific to meet you.

Anthony: 4:10

Just terrific. Really looking forward to this, you're my finale for the year so I couldn't imagine a better one. So this is home for you, where I find you at now?

Jeff: 4:19

Oh, yes, in New Mexico. AJ: You weren't always there though, were you? JG: No, I've lived a lot of places. My career has been to kind of go around and learn how to do lots of different parts of regeneration, and so the people stuff the land, stuff, the financial stuff, corporate things, government things, all of that. So I've been around a lot, which has been really valuable for me. It's, you know, because I have a broad understanding of a lot of things.

Anthony: 4:53

So, yeah. AJ: yeah, I'd like to delve into it. In a sense, I wonder first, what led you to holistic management back in the 80s, as I understand r ight, relatively early? JG", right right. AJ: What led you there in the first instance? I imagine that was a significant turn for you at the time?

Jeff: 5:13

Yeah, it was. Yeah, I grew up well. My dad was a range professor at Washington State University. He studied at Utah State to get his PhD in range and his, like a lot of the his professors were sort of the godfathers of range management, you know Stoddard Smith and Box, folks like that. And so I kind of grew up under that exposure and I, when I went to college I went and got my first degree in natural resources, in range management and forestry, and had him for a couple of my classes during that time and then when I graduated, you know, I went out and got a job with the soil conservation service, as it was called at that time, part of US Department of Agriculture.

Jeff: 6:09

So you know. So it was very conventional range management stuff, you know. So I was doing that right out of college and while I was doing that work 19,. So I started that in 1980 when I graduated. And then 1982, alan Savery came to Washington State and he was invited by the Cattle Growers Association and I went to it. I was actually doing a side stint as volunteer with a natural resource camp for kids, youth high school kids, and so I was the director of the camp.

Jeff: 6:50

So during that time at that camp and those responsibilities, I went to hear Savery speak and it was two days. In the first day, you know, I kind of slept through it as I was just exhausted from my work you know my volunteer work. And then the second day, you know, I got good rest the night and I listened and was pretty amazed with what Savery was saying and also so also at this was one of my dad's peers in colleagues in the university and he was kind of the man for range management in Washington State and he was pretty sarcastic with people like Savery is, and so he waited. He was very quiet, listened to what Alan said and then at the end of the two day presentation he asked a question that was putting Savery on a, really trying to put him on a hard spot, and Savery took that and just slung it right back at Ben and embarrassed him in front of all his peers. You know people laughed and it was really embarrassing for him, and so I knew that that relationship was destroyed at that moment, like many others. That was a pattern.

Jeff: 8:15

So this was an interesting spot for me because Savery's stuff made a lot of sense and I grew up with range management. This was one of my dad's colleagues and I had to make a choice, and so I just decided I gotta learn more about this, and a couple of my ranchers had been going to Savery's school and had learned from him. So I spent some time learning from these ranchers more about what Alan talked about. And one of my ranchers he was a pretty large landowner in the state and he said I ought to go quit the government and go learn more about this. And at that time Alan got a grant from a foundation out of Texas to fund training for six people, and so I applied for that and I got it. I got one of the positions, one of the six. I went to New Mexico with my young family, left a good government job for six months of uncertainty, and that's sort of how it all started.

Anthony: 9:24

Yeah, yeah, Wow. Is that when you first came to New Mexico as well?

Jeff: 9:28

Well, yeah, but it was my first trip to New Mexico. So I came here for six months of training and then Alan actually asked me to go to Texas and Oklahoma. He was frustrated with a lot of human dynamics in happening in Texas, a lot of anger and all that sort of thing. So he said you've got a pleasant personality.

Jeff: 9:56

So, why didn't you go, yeah, and fix my mess? And so that's how I got started. So we continued our different, the six of us continued the training and learning and things like that, and I was in Texas for about two years or so and I was frustrated with the human side. I didn't feel like holistic management had that really right, and so I was just curious with that. So I left Savory's nonprofit and actually the family that had donated the money to train us.

Jeff: 10:39

I was living on one of their ranches in exchange for consulting to them in Texas, and so I was just frustrated with how the human side was and whatnot. And so they said well, would you like to go? We have a ranch that's not doing well at all, it's in Hawaii, and would you and your family be willing to go there for a year? And we don't know what to do? It's wide open for you to do whatever you can figure out, because we just don't know what to do. So Hawaii is kind of at my place in life. Hawaii is always sort of this exotic place to go, great place. But my attitude was who wants to go to Hawaii? So they flew me over there, my wife and I over there ex-wife, and we spent a week there and I was going. God, this is like heaven here. Well, not the ranch, but Hawaii.

Jeff: 11:46

So I said, honey, why didn't you go home and get the kids? And I'll stay here. So, anyway, we went there and it was an amazing experience because, I mean, the land was deteriorating horribly, the animal condition was horrible, we were losing three quarters of a million dollars a year on the ranch. We had Union Cowboys, afl-cio, union and we had Hawaiian activists that were angry with us, and actually the Cowboys were angry because the financial situation, the ranch, the corporate people in Dallas fired people randomly were, well, what they wanted to see and they violated Union contract with that. And this was about a month before I was to go over there. So they had to hire these angry people back that lost their jobs, were terrified financially, and so they had to hire them back. And they got hired back about a week before I got to the ranch. So I was coming onto this ranch with this 17 member team of Union Cowboys that had just been fired inappropriately and then rehired, and so it was like I got off the airplane and said, hi, I'm from Dallas, I'm here to help you, and they said we don't need your help, and so, yeah, but the next year was Absolutely amazing. You know, I practice holistic management and also use some of the human stuff that I've been reading about with Edward Deming's work as one of the and several other people, and it's really about how to treat people well, and so what happened in that ranch was mind blowing to me. The land healed really quickly, it responded really well, the animals health really took off, really improved.

Jeff: 14:02

We went from losing three quarters of a million a year to breaking even in one year's time, and we, the cowboys, you know, we had to cut staff. I mean, that's what the corporate was trying to do, but we, you know. So we had to do that, but we did it in a way that honored the people, and so nine out of 17 voluntarily went to other jobs. They told me what they would be willing to do, what you know. They gave me all the exact requirements and then I went, looked, brought back what I found, and 12 of the 17 gave me things they would be willing to do, and nine of them decided to go to other jobs. So we were able to cut, you know, our salaries in half within six months, and they would cut our other expenses in half, and so we brought, you know, our expenses from a million down to half a million. We're generating a quarter million from cattle.

Jeff: 15:01

So I started doing a thing called CalPy tours which was taking people from a luxury hotel out on the landscape Luxury hotel was part of the family's business there took them out on the landscape, showed them, talked with them about what we're doing with ecology, with financial planning, with working with unions, working with activists, and people just got absolutely fascinated by it.

Jeff: 15:29

They got fascinated by it so much that hotel occupancy went from 50% to 95% within that framework that I was there. And so it became you know something people around the world wanted to come see you know the wealth. So that shifted the cowboys and then the activists who had been attacking our ranch and vandalizing and then taking us to court and things like that. You know. I learned what their issues were. There's two big issues and we worked on resolving that and then the activists actually became our allies and it absolutely, you know, and that happened again about in six months time. So it was amazing how rapidly we can shift the landscape and shift the whole landscape the ecological landscape, the economic landscape, the social, cultural landscape. So that got me started.

Anthony: 16:29

Yeah, how interesting that you were deafed enough with those processes already at that time. I guess it's something of the disposition that Alan spotted in you and I take note that Alan himself at that point even sees where he's lacking in a sense, which is credit to him. And yeah, it is To then try and compliment it with you in that instance. But then, yeah, you clearly went on with this path, the extra layer, if you will, of how you can reach people like this, because you know it is. It is a bit what is it? Is it despairing? I don't know.

Anthony: 17:06

I think it's interesting to see that Alan's still fighting, you know there's so much polarization still around An amazing body of work that when you do get to do what I'm doing, you travel around and, as you've done, to see people and how the land is responding and how the?

Anthony: 17:23

animals are. It's unequivocal. Yet here is this polarization, so you've gone this extra level. I wonder then for you, jeff, was there another critical juncture that really made you think, yes, this, if we call it, I don't know, were you even thinking of it as consensus work at the time, like what really took you into thinking this is what's needed, this is the life I've got to bring to it. Here we go, yeah.

Jeff: 17:52

Well, there was. I would say there was two pieces that were pretty important. One happened it was actually that rancher that encouraged me to go to learn from savory stuff. We're standing on his ranch looking over a waterfall that drains the Palouse country of Washington State, ni. And it was said that for every bushel of wheat they produced, there's two bushels of soil that went down the river. So we're standing overlooking this waterfall that was just as muddy as anything you can imagine and at the same time the agency that I was working with, the Soil Conservation Service, was celebrating 50 years of being in business and I looked at that river and I was just I was appalled that this was all the better we could do. So that was one big turning point because I said I can't go the same direction I'm going right now. It's not working. So that was 1985. Then the other piece was actually that Hawaii ranch.

Jeff: 19:04

I had three things, three questions that were really bone deep, that I didn't know the answer to about people. The first one was that I worked with that family on four of their ranches. They had three managers on four ranches three ranches in Texas, one in Hawaii and all three managers quit or were fired within a couple months of me working on the ranch. There was just this really strong unwillingness to adopt new ideas. They were very threatened by what I was sharing and they just quit. Or one last one was fired, anyway, for different reasons actually too, but it was tied into that, but anyway. So that was one question is really seriously how do you take a good history of knowledge that people have the conventional thinking and they were considered to be good managers. They still had a lot of respect for them, but they just had a different way of thought. And how could some guy who's never been to Hawaii, never really worked with a ranch before except as a government employee, how could I, in the matter of months, totally turn something around that had been going a certain direction, failing for 10, 15 years? How could you embrace that good old knowledge, which is valuable, with new ideas? And so that was one question I did not know how to solve and as I felt pretty bad, I mean.

Jeff: 20:52

And then the second one second issue was and it didn't help that the family hired those people back or the corporation hired the staff back after they fired them inappropriately, about a week before I show up, but having me superimposed there and, coming from Dallas, it's like, is he a spy? Is he going to re-geparatize my job? And so it took me six months to build trust with them that they really knew that I was there, that I really cared about them and I wanted the best for them. I wanted their success all the way around. I don't believe in firing people. So that was the second question was how do you build trust? Not in six months or a year or never, but how do you build it like within a week or a couple days or even a couple hours? And so that was the second question I had is is there a way with humans to build trust rapidly, with a lot of history and stuff?

Jeff: 22:03

And then the third question was, unfortunately, when I left that ranch and I came back there nine years later, it had gone backwards. Everything we had done had gone like I hadn't been there, just washed away. But the interesting thing was I ran into the foreman from that ranch who became the manager after I left and he knew how to take care of the land and all that stuff. I mean, nine years later he knew like as if I had been there the day before. You know what we talked about. He knew that knowledge and he cared, he deeply loved it. And what I was frustrated with was how do you empower people to continue on a path of success? And that was the third question that came to me is how do you create empowerment so that something that's working well can continue to work well and continue to even get better and better? So those are my three things that I said I got to go find the answers for and that's the consensus stuff actually fit the bill, which I ran into that about three years later after being there.

Anthony: 23:22

Right, how did that happen?

Jeff: 23:24

Well, it was a little bit odd. After leaving that ranch I did some work in Northern California with Conservation District and then I had an opportunity to work with a large Indian reservation in Washington state as their lead natural resource planner and to bring in they were willing to bring in holistic decision making for the whole reservation and it was 1.4 million acres of land, mostly forest based, a lot of range land, and we had about 1500 employees in our department natural resources and the tribe had 250 government programs and I think 2500 employees or whatever, but anyway. So I got that position to work there. So I was looking at how to do things differently in terms of how do we plan, for instance, what I observed over the years is that most planning work is done by a planner and they're the ones who actually draft and make the decisions about how the path forward and I really believe it's really important and this gets to the empowerment piece is to find out what the people are that you're working with, what they want to see happen, and then make that happen, not what I see, what they see. So in the course of that and being a non-tribal member and not having the understanding of the values and that sort of thing, the tribal values. It required like a whole education for me to understand things. So I was really fortunate enough to have.

Jeff: 25:16

My secretary was a traditional Ness purse woman and she invited me to come to the longhouse to their ceremonies and I was willing to do that. My family was willing to go with me, so we just started experiencing that and I learned a lot from that. Anyway, so in the course of my work my boss, who was a tribal member, said you know, you really aren't listening to the Indians. And I was like, yes, I am you know, but he said, well, no, you're not.

Jeff: 25:52

And so he said I know a guy who can help you with that and he lives in Oregon. And so he said there's this guy named Bob Chadwick. You know who I'd like you to go meet, and it's like Bob Chadwick. Bob Chadwick is that the one that, when I was nine years old, he and his wife used to go dancing with my parents?

Anthony: 26:13

Unreal.

Jeff: 26:14

So I called him and said I is this Bob? He says yeah. He said I'm going to ask you. You know, are you the Bob Chadwick that my parents used to dance with.

Jeff: 26:24

And he goes yeah, we're the same, Wow. So I go, wow, yeah. So anyway, he invited me to a workshop in Oregon to go learn what he does, which is the consensus building work. So I got down there and, you know, met him in his house and we drove out in the middle of the Oregon and there was a conflict that he was invited to work with, which was between ranchers, environmentalists and government, and that was, you know, that's pretty volatile stuff. Back, in 1993, I believe 1990, no 1992.

Anthony: 27:02

And it still is today, hey, jeff. I mean, this is why this is so relevant, that's right.

Jeff: 27:06

Yes, that's right, it still is today, which is amazing. And I wrote something earlier today. It was about Texas A&M and Allen, you know, and how Texas A&M is starting to teach this stuff, or it's been teaching it for a little while. But I remember, you know, when I went to Texas in 1985, 86, how angry things were. It was amazing, yeah. So, anyway, I went to that workshop with Bob and you know, we did three days and it was a real pleasant experience. People were respectful, they were honest with each other. You know, they're listening to each other. And I was hoping to go to a workshop where there was a lot of conflict. Yeah, you have a fireworks and everything, and but this was just, they were nice to each other. And so, as we drove away at the end of the workshop and the other thing is nothing got solved. You know it was, you know, with three days, and there was no, you're going to do this, you're going to do this. There's no concrete stuff. And so, as we drove away, bob said well, what'd you think, jeff and I go. Well, that was great, bob, but you know, first of all, it wasn't much of a conflict, you know. You know I was looking for something. You know, I wanted to work with real stuff, you know. And then not friends, you know, and yeah, and then also I said, you know, and the other thing is, you know you really didn't get anything done at the end. You know it. Just, you know there's no conclusion. And I said, you know, you ought to look at the work I'm doing with holistic management, because I've got 200 people trained in holistic management in one year already at the Calville tribe. You know, look at all that, look at that accomplishment, 200 people. And I said, you know, maybe you ought to be looking at what I do, you know, and Bob was very good and this is a power thing. He said, well, maybe you're right, jeff, you know, but what I didn't realize is I had 200 people trained but not a damn thing was happening. You know they weren't doing anything with it. You know they had this knowledge but nothing was happening.

Jeff: 29:23

Anyway, I got back up to the reservation. I was up there, you know, about two months, and I thought, you know, that was an interesting experience. I wonder, you know, bob, bob offered to come up. I said, why don't you come up? And, you know, work with me a little bit and see if we can do something you know with with more, better results, you know here. So he said okay.

Jeff: 29:46

So he came up and he asked me said well, what issue, what conflict should we work with? And I said, bob, you know anything in forestry, because that was pretty important for the tribe that they were stuck with not getting timber sales, which didn't generate the money they needed for the tribe, for their jobs and government and stuff. I said, you know, let's work on the forestry issues, but do not work with the clear cut issue. You know, cutting the trees all down. I said that one's too volatile, we don't want to do that one. And so Bob said, okay, you know so. So he said I'm going to do some more interviews and who else should I visit with? So I gave him some ideas, some other people gave him ideas. He went out and did interviews and when he came back, just before he started the workshop, he said, well, we're going to work on the clear cutting issue. And I go, oh my God, I'm going to lose my job. It's not, you know, it's just going to be really bad.

Jeff: 30:49

And I had invited like 40 of some very important people from the tribe, from, you know the government decision makers and, and you know, the forestry people, the wildlife people, the water people and cultural people, and all these had 40 really important people show up for three days of a workshop and the workshop went really well, people were very respectful to each other, kind, and that sort of thing. But again, you know, at the end of three days nothing happened. And I go, bob, how am I going to? I said I'm going to be out of here. You know, we had three days together and nothing, you know. And he said, well, said, yeah, maybe you're right. So he said but what I'd like you to do is, in about two months, I'd like you to get some folding chairs and I'd like you to invite people to come back and go up on the up in the mountain, somewhere where there is a proposed clear cut and with the gravel road in front of it, and then I'd like you to first have everybody will do a grounding, introduce each other.

Jeff: 31:57

I said also to bring the for the logger, the guy who's going to cut it, he wasn't at our workshop, bring the logger there to that. And so we got there and we introduced ourselves, walked out into the forest and he said just go out there and just be by yourselves for a little bit. Then come back and in those chairs on the gravel road just talk about how you feel about the forest and that it's going to be a clear cut. And what did you learn from the forest that will help the tribe be successful? And so we did that and we got back in that circle on the gravel road and the elders talked about the pain that they had thinking about.

Jeff: 32:41

All those trees are going to be cut down because in their value system they don't take everything, they only take what they need, but they leave the forest, you know. So it's just a huge violation of their tribal values. The forester said well, there's a lot of disease. If a forest fire came through here, just wipe everything out. You know a lot of insects. This is really bad. We've got to clean the forest.

Jeff: 33:08

And then the logger was kind of last to speak and he was a tribal member as well as a logger and he said well, I understand what the elders are saying. I'm a tribal member and we don't take everything. We take what we need and we leave, you know, the rest for the future. And he said I also understand what the forester's concern is, because the disease and the overstock stands and that sort of thing. And he said, when I walked through there I saw that you know, per acre there was like five or six big big trees out there, ponderosa pines and he said the foresters are allowing me to cut those for the economics of it. They're about $5,000 a tree, five or six an acre. It's a lot of money and, you know, quite an incentive. But he said, you know, looking at the forest, there's enough trees out here that if I take all the other stuff and leave those trees, the elders are going to feel good about it because these healthy big trees are out there and they're spaced enough. So the fire issues won't be a problem. And I will also satisfy what the foresters need by cleaning that forest up. So I'm willing to do that.

Jeff: 34:29

And what was amazing was that was the moment that everything changed at the Calville Reservation and from that moment on we, within a year, we were able to double land treatment from 10 to 20,000 acres. We did it to a higher cultural and environmental standard and we're able to cut a million dollars out of a $17 million budget. And that was 100% agreement to do that and with all these different programs and stuff. And when we took that to the business council, the tribal council, and said here's our request for our budget this year we're going to do twice the work, we're going to do it to a better standard than you've ever seen and we want a million dollars less money than last year, and they said they looked at us, their eyes are big. They said did you get your numbers right? We said yeah, yeah, we did, because there wasn't even any reason for us. You know, we weren't like required to drop the budget.

Jeff: 35:32

Yeah, it was like this is yeah, this is the right thing to do. And after they got over that, we knew what we're talking about. They said could you do that for the whole government? And so I said I think we can have 250 government programs. And I said so what I need is we need to create this idea of a holistic goal for the whole tribe, and then what we need is training, build capacity on consensus building and holistic decision making, and then we need to, over the next few months, follow this plan for financial wealth.

Jeff: 36:14

So we went ahead with that and their best outcomes were to have 250 government programs unanimously agree to a budget. They wanted 14 council members to agree. They wanted the budget done three months early. We're, like the United States government, still trying to figure out what to do the budget. October is when the new budget is supposed to start and we're not even going to have a real budget, maybe by January and February. We wanted three months in advance of this.

Jeff: 36:51

And then we wanted not to lose a job or cut any salaries and we wanted to cut $4 million out of $55 million out of the budget out of $55 million. So that's what we wanted as best outcomes. We went forward with the plan and when we got it all set and done, a few months later, we had all 250 government programs agreeing, all 14 council members agreeing unanimously 100%. We didn't lose any jobs or cut any salaries or get rid of any programs that were sacred, like elders and children. We got the budget done three months early and the only thing that we didn't accomplish was that $4 million reduction. We ended up actually cutting $16 million out of $55 million. So it was absolutely amazing.

Anthony: 37:50

So what occurs to me? I mean, you said it as much with the federal budget. Now, this was 30 years ago. I know this is what you've thought about a lot that we know how to do this. Before we go on and talk in a bit more detail about how we do it, I want to come back to Bob. So you've clearly been convinced by his methods, I imagine at this point.

Jeff: 38:17

I always looked for success. Like I said, ed Deming was the way I wanted to see people managed and I looked at Tom Peters back then. So I always looked for people who are delivering the goods and Bob's the best that I've seen at delivering these kind of goods. 100% agreement, because if you have 99% and 1% feels not listened to, somehow you're going to end up with sabotage lawsuits and that is a hell of a waste of time. I would rather get 100% agreement, which it works. It happens you can get the like. I did a government budget for a large tribe and we had 100% agreement on reducing the budget.

Jeff: 39:14

Money is one of those things that scares a lot of people, especially if you're talking about cuts, and here we are cutting 16 million out of 55 and we all agree to it. So it was remarkable, so what?

Anthony: 39:30

I mean, because you knew Bob as a kid then as well. What's the quality that he brought that then you learned that was the critical difference. And does it relate I mean, judy obviously wrote a bit about the harrowing nature of some of his background Does it directly relate to some of that?

Jeff: 39:48

even, yeah, a couple of times in my life we really built a great friendship and a couple of times in my life when I was going through some really difficult issues. Personally, he would say that conflict is his friend, and I thought he was sick, I thought there was something wrong with him. But the thing is, is he got to see conflict as a friend? It was, yeah, it's uncomfortable. I always am uncomfortable when I go work with anybody with conflict. It always makes me feel like there's days I go. Why am I going to help these people? Why don't I just stay home at my comfortable home you know my little farm and just enjoy life? There is this discomfort that shows up around conflict, but there's this amazing thing that happens when you can help people move from a place of great pain and a lot of suffering and whatnot to where they become friends and they're excited about life. They have hope, they have a lot of hope and then they have accomplishment toward their desired outcomes. It's amazing that happens, like one thing I learned from Bob at that time was not to work with the easy things but work with the really difficult things. One of the reasons for that that, he said, was that you have this pent up negative energy in these really difficult issues. People are scared, they're very fearful. They're already probably living I'm sure Most times they're living their worst outcomes and it's a nightmare. Why would I want to delve into that or why would they want to delve into it? That's what keeps people, actually creates paralysis. It's one of the reasons why people don't want to confront conflict. It's because they're terrified. But what's powerful with it is that there's this pent up negative energy. If you help them look at their worst fears, if they confront the issue, and then you ask them what's the worst fears if you don't confront the issue, they're usually either similar or, if you don't confront it, it's actually worse. So it's like your brain goes what do I got to lose if I deal with it? But it looks like if I don't deal with it, it could be really bad. Like well, there could be death but there could be financial bankruptcy if I don't deal with it. So it creates this discomfort mentally that I don't want to be where I'm at and I don't know where to go. So the next question is where would you like to go? What would be your best outcomes? And in that order if you ask the fears. First you know to acknowledge why they're afraid. It relaxes this part of the brain which is where the worst outcome stuff comes from causes, paralysis. It relaxes that. And then you say, well, what would be your best outcomes?

Jeff: 43:12

It's all of a sudden this really magical, unbelievable place and people get really enthused about that. And what happens is there is this sense, a little bit the sense of disbelief, but it's like, well, what if we could do that? And then you start. What you've done is you've created this puzzle in their mind about how to get from where they are now which is living their worst outcome to what their desired outcomes is. And they start moving. They start doing it and if I was to pick a word with this work, people will say magical that's the dominant word people will say about this process.

Jeff: 43:59

And it is not at all magical. It's not something from outer space or some wizard, but it is remarkable because people start talking with other people who they haven't talked to for decades, who are important in terms of solving the problem. They start listening to other people, the people they've had arguments with. They actually start listening to them with respect and learning things from that different point of view that is useful for the solution of the problem. And then all of a sudden, with that new information that's going on up here, not written down on paper or anything, it's up here. This is where I talked about those workshops. Nothing happened. Well, it was happening.

Jeff: 44:41

It was happening up here and it was just like that logger. He figured out a solution that worked for everybody and all of a sudden everything changed. At the reservation. We doubled work, we improved quality work, we cut our expenses down just because he learned new information from everybody. And it's that simple. That's the funny thing about all of this. It's actually a very simple process. I have six graders do it and make things happen. It's not that hard. The biggest thing is the fear part I talked about earlier, and also it's the belief systems, the way we see the world, because that has to change. It's what I call transformational change and we hold dear the way grandpa did it and dad did it and stuff. We hold dear to that stuff and some of that's not working for us very well. So it requires an internal change and that's hard for people to do. Yeah, yeah.

Anthony: 45:48

We had a conversation with Nora Bateson on the podcast a few years ago and it ended up being titled a phrase she said as a part of a system's thinking lineage, a great lineage with an old man and beyond, and it was solve everything at once. And I'm reminded of that as you speak, when you said go to the hardest thing, because then there's this cascade from it, Because the belief system and the attachments and the fears, all that moves at once.

Anthony: 46:16

Yes, it does, which is interesting then, because so much of what we continue to try is. You talked about the five or six trees per acre. It would be like, okay, maybe we cut down one less of those per acre and that's a 20% improvement and the equivalent of that sort of thing happens everywhere still and you hear the words like it's a step in the right direction.

Jeff: 46:38

Yeah.

Anthony: 46:39

Yeah, exactly. And then like something like yes, that we've never got time to do the toughest thing but, we've got time to keep going around in circles, and it's reminiscent of what I said to a friend going back a bit about these dynamics too.

Anthony: 46:55

I said if you want to go somewhere fast, start by not going backwards or sideways. Just go to the juggernaut, go to the biggest thing. It's an amazing thing that Bob brought to you in that moment and you continued to carry on. Yeah, jeff, how do you perceive I mean even in New Mexico this incredible story that Judy wrote up in the reindeer chronicles? Even in New Mexico, you were last resort, as I understand it. Yeah, that's right you were brought in as last resort.

Jeff: 47:23

Yeah, they gave up.

Anthony: 47:25

They gave up. What is stopping us from doing this all the time, everywhere?

Jeff: 47:31

Yeah, that's been my lifelong search is to figure that out. You know, I see fence line contrasts of somebody doing regenerative work and right across the fence it's failing. The land is collapsing Economically. They're failing socially, culturally, and one of the things that I believe has to be part of this piece you're asking about is this has got to become a movement.

Anthony: 48:01

Yes.

Jeff: 48:02

We've got to see the possibility in it when I think part of that movement, what I'm challenging people, if you think you're doing regenerative and your neighbor is not doing what you're doing, you're failing. You're not doing regenerative. Regenerative is about the world changing, not about me changing my little place. You can have great stuff happening on your place but if it's not moving, it ain't regenerative. It has to go through communities, through neighborhoods, and I have just a couple of acres here and it was just bare dirt when I bought it nine years ago and now there's vegetation all over the place in our place. It's remarkable how it's changed in that time. But I have a fellow to the North of me who uses lots of chemicals. I have a fellow in the back, I have a fellow on the other side and what's been fun is they're adopting this work and they're even volunteering. They're spending their time, their money to actually help us do our work better and it's wonderful it's spreading through this area and my first conservation district I worked with when I started with USDA and I was very fortunate with this in Washington State is they would do that the board members who are farmers, young farmers or ranchers would do some conservation practice like strip copper cropping or no-till or cover crop on their place, and of course everybody sees it. But what they would do in the wintertime with us, with the agencies and them, they would invite their neighbors and come to the living room or the shop and then they would just say you know, here's obviously you've all seen what I've been doing. This is why I'm doing it. This is the good stuff I've learned from it and this is some of the troubles that I'm seeing with it.

Jeff: 50:14

So it was a real casual, very candid conversation and what's happened is that whole county has turned to conservation. I mean, you fly over it, over that county and you can actually see the county boundaries by the conservation work that happened. So it was really powerful for me to have that as my first conservation district that was doing that kind of work. They weren't even doing consensus work. Well, actually let me say this I define consensus. I define consensus as 100% agreement to do the right thing and I measure it by behavior, not by words. So consensus is really more the behavioral part. It's not, you know, it's not even a formal process like how help people do, it's behaving consensually. That's what the conservation district did and that changed things. So yeah, so it's remarkable what we can do it really is.

Anthony: 51:16

I take note of what you said then about we're not regenerative if it's just in our boundary line, in a sense. Again, systems thinking folk that I'm partial to have said over the journey, you can't be carbon neutral in a society that's not carbon neutral or, better said, regenerative. You could talk about the term even further than that.

Anthony: 51:36

But at the very least, we can't pick ourselves out of that, Extract ourselves from it, and much less. Why would you want to when you talk about what we're talking about here? So that then makes me think about all right, what are the means then? If we aspire to be regenerative, just run with that terminology and you talk through a beautiful local example then. So if we define it like that, then we're contemplating more of what I heard from you at the start.

Anthony: 52:08

When you said you thought you were listening already, and I think we think and my hand is firmly up we think that we are listening, we are regenerating already, but I'm certainly still increasingly learning the limitations. Well, also, I use different language around that like, beautifully, how it keeps opening up in front of me, oh, this is listening, another level of it, wow. So I'm really reflecting back more for myself and then the people I'm conversing with Again, getting right firmly away from looking at the other as what needs to be converted, etc. And looking back on ourselves if we're feeling this impasse still exists at this macro level and so many micro levels within.

Anthony: 52:59

What are we doing that's perpetuating that, and I'll take note, then, that you called your enterprise at the outset about listening. I guess it came from these sorts of realizations.

Jeff: 53:09

Yes, yes, I find that there's. You know, on the listening part, there's three areas that I pay attention to. One is better listening to other human beings, like, if you can imagine a conflict. I do a lot of the work in a circle, so the ones who sit over there, they would tell me they see books and some plants and a beautiful painting. So that's what they would say is here. And I look forward and I see my computer screen. I see you, I see this really beautiful painting that I got when I left the Calville tribe, with a herd of bison and a white bison in the front. It's powerful. You know, that's what I see.

Jeff: 53:56

And we could argue who's right. And if you think about conflict, that's what we do. It's like, no, there's this painting here, and you would say, no, there's these books. And I say I don't see books, I see a painting. And what we have to do at that level of listening is to open up and value what the other person is seeing, even if you don't see it, believe it, understand that it exists for that person. And then the other thing is to with that 100% consensus or consensus is 100% agreement is what does that person need for that person to feel they have been listening to and they've been incorporated in the decision process. What do they need? Without me co-opting my point of view, because I'm also one of the people in the circle. So there's that part of listening that's really critical. There's also when I do my work. I also work on the listening to people's gut level feelings, and I have a friend who's from Mali. His dad, his grandfather, was a spiritual leader and he says too many people think from their head and from their heart, but very few people listen to their gut, that deeper knowing, and so I do a lot of work.

Jeff: 55:28

Well, my work is about listening, helping people find that deeper listening, that deeper knowing, because that I find there's amazing truth in that and if I can tap into that with people, which I pretty much do all the time, it may not be, you know, this amazing thing, but it's an important answer when I'm looking for solutions and whatnot, like when I ask the question, like when I do interviews, what would meet the needs of all parties, and of course it becomes quiet because they don't, they haven't thought about that side. They thought about what do I need, but what does everybody need? And as they start thinking about that, you know the answer that comes out is like absolutely amazing. And sometimes they'll tell me well, it's impossible to meet everybody's needs, or they'll say I don't know. And so what I'll say is that, given that it's impossible, if it were possible what would you do? And guess what? The answer comes out. So that's that deeper knowing, and I need other people to help me know that deeper knowing, because they'll come out with stuff that I may not have thought about. But when I listen to it it's like, wow, you're absolutely right. So that's another part of the listening.

Jeff: 56:51

And then another part that's really critical that we've really lost a lot in our scientific world of knowing the earth is we've stopped listening or we don't listen to the earth very well. You know whether it's the animals, the plants, and understand what the earth is telling us, and it's remarkable what we can learn at that level. It's like when we walked out in the forest, the clear cut, and asked what, what are we learning from the forest? And then the, the logger knew. He just said well, there's five or six trees out there per acre. You know, look at that. And he said they give it. You know, and I can clear the rest of the stuff, I will make plenty of money, the elders would be happy, foresters would be happy, we're all happy, and then the tribe will be happy, you know.

Jeff: 57:43

So, like the four years I worked at the Calville tribe, every single resolution I brought to the business council to pass and this, this doesn't happen there Every, every resolution passed unanimously in four years and I brought things from like clear cutting to the whole financial budget process to the tribe. You know all those issues. I brought them to them and they passed unanimously, but yes, on all of that in four years. So that's the kinds of we. I just help co-author the Healthy Soil Act for New Mexico four years ago and we nearly passed that 100% in our legislature.

Jeff: 58:24

Our state is divided blue and red, you know, republican and Democrat, just like most of the West and with it. So it took us three months from inception to take it into the legislature. That's a very short period of time to educate a whole bunch of people, create awareness and in the house, which was the first place we brought it with with the divided political landscape, we passed it 48 to three in the house and when we went to the Senate just right after that we passed it unanimously Republicans and Democrats on a law about how to take care of the earth. That's what can be done, and most people say that's impossible. And they're right. You know, and humans are capable of doing the impossible all the time we have the potential. It's remarkable, yeah.

Anthony: 59:18

I'm curious with that. Had you run a group process of some kind to get that agreement, or it was a different sort of methodology?

Jeff: 59:26

So remember I said, consensus is behavior not words.

Jeff: 59:30

So we actually didn't do the formal process but we did the behavior of what we need to do to create that. For instance, the Farm Bureau, which is tends to be more conservative, more Republican because, as the farmers, ranchers, more land based. When, when we were putting this through there, they said we're neutral about this legislation with 60,000 members, you know. But they said if you would change two things One is get rid of practices out of the legislation, those words and those concepts, and I'd actually mentioned to my team that I co-authored this with I said let's basis on principles, not practices. But they still felt the need to put practices in. So I let, without co-opting, I let them, you know, do that.

Jeff: 1:00:21

Well, when the Farm Bureau said take those out, well, they took them out and they listened to the rationale and it's perfect. And then they also said take the C word out, carbon. And a couple of my co-workers said oh my God, you know this is all about carbon. And I said I said we have principles in there about taking care of the earth, and what are those principles do? The Farm Bureau is not against the principles. What did those principles do? They capture carbon and it's like you know. So let go of the word and let's just go out and capture carbon you know, with those principles.

Jeff: 1:01:01

And then they. And then I also said I said you know the earth doesn't think. You know it's the earth we're working with and the earth doesn't think in English. You know, we're kind of arrogant, as you know, americans thinking English is the language you know, but the earth thinks in different words, different things, different thoughts. So just drop the word carbon, it's not you know.

Jeff: 1:01:25

And so the instant we did that, you know, because, because we still were going to get the product we wanted, the outcomes, you know, carbon, but we just didn't have to have the word there. And it's been amazing how this has really grown since four years ago. It's just really very cool. What's going on financially with the support, politically with the support, the land support and doing has been great but anyway. So as soon as we did that, took the carbon word out, the Farm Bureau people said thank you, we can get this to our members and we can back this 100%. And what was really interesting is they almost seem to be backing this even stronger than us.

Jeff: 1:02:09

You know, after we did that change. So that's the thing. It was a behavior. Is we? We listened to them. We said you know, we listen to what their. You know their view was and we and it wasn't. We weren't going to lose anything. You know we're going to get carbon. Even if we take the carbon word out, we're still going to get it because of the principles. So we embraced their thinking. They felt appreciated and listened to and that they mattered and that we were genuine. And it's been remarkable how this thing's grown since that time.

Anthony: 1:02:39

Very interesting.

Jeff: 1:02:41

Yeah, yeah, so it was. It was we practice to practice the behaviors of consensus, not not have formal structure with it. So yeah, Terrific.

Anthony: 1:02:52

You know, you mentioned listening to the land as well, and I, yeah, it's funny with language too, isn't it? It can, it can pass. It's so ephemeral, but that really landed with me. And then how you related back to that story of being out in the forest and that that was Bob's instruction Go out there, yeah, yeah, cause then you wonder what shifted in that bloke. Who was able to see? I see a way we can bridge here. Yeah, that you'd have to say some part of it came from the voice in quotations of the land itself. That's right. So when you talk about as I totally agree with when you talk about building a movement now around this that then will result in the physical manifestation of regeneration, that this movement of how we can be with each other, then I'm thinking we need to have more people able to listen in these ways.

Jeff: 1:03:50

Yes.

Anthony: 1:03:51

Yes, and then there I wonder what you think about that. How do we cultivate more people who can listen in these ways and, I guess, then run processes or navigate context like?

Jeff: 1:04:03

this, yeah, yeah, what I mean? First of all, the process is pretty simple and even, like I said, sixth graders, second graders, they can do it when not you know, so maybe they should be we should be doing that in schools.

Jeff: 1:04:18

Oh, they actually love it too. They appreciate being treated like that. They matter, and that would be part of the answer to your question whatnot? So what I do, and the process is very transferable. So I just did two workshops in Colorado dealing with water scarcity, which is a state north of us, and one was on a stream management plan and resiliency and with fire, and the other one was with the headwaters of the river I live on, where they have rapidly dropping water table. It's so serious that the state has said if you don't fix something within the next five years, we're going to cut all of agriculture off in this valley and it's a huge valley, wow. So it's about 30 miles by 30 miles. It's a big, big area.

Anthony: 1:05:18

Yes.

Jeff: 1:05:19

So both of those.

Jeff: 1:05:20

What I did was there's a series of four workshops that kind of teach a lot of different angles of conflict resolution through consensus building. So issues with change, issues with diversity, issues with scarcity, issues with power dynamics, those are the different topics that we were in some other topics, but those are what we work through and in that process I have the people lead that process. They learn how to facilitate, they learn how to record, they learn how to participate and they solve problems, real problems, using that process which builds their confidence up about a way to do things. Also, in those we had some local people from the community volunteer to be co facilitators with me, so I worked on empowering them. This gets back to the ranch in Hawaii and how do you build the capacity? You know, and part of this too, as a facilitator, is learning to get let go, you know and give up control. You know it's like I'll just let people lead things and and let them do stuff and and it's and it's remarkable what they do, and it is, it's absolutely remarkable what they do, and so I think those are some important things as facilitators or people that you know, understand and believe in.

Jeff: 1:06:51

This process is not to be in control of. It. Is that? And and that's the thing, is that that mad, that magic? You know what you do is you create this puzzle in their mind about where they are and where they want to be. And Then what happens if you don't solve it, like if I don't take control and say, okay, you do this and you do that, if I just walk away, just like Bob did at the end of those workshops and and and it's like Bob Nothing happened. You know, he didn't control it, he just let go of it and people all of a sudden start doing things and Remarkable things start happening without anybody really asking about it, and that are in line with the bigger picture of what people want to see. It's absolutely remarkable.

Jeff: 1:07:38

So it's about letting go of control, because control, I think, is really based, you know, power. Control is based on fear that if I don't do it, it's going to get out of control, it's not going to work. So I have to be in charge of getting in and work which stifles other people. You know, I'm not empowering them, I'm holding them back, I'm check, you know, keeping them in check because I don't believe they're going to take care of it or they won't do it right. So the thing I do is I just empower them and just let it go. So I think that's enough.

Jeff: 1:08:10

Well, well, here's, there's three phrases my friend Bob gave me. We had a couple times in life where, besides him telling me that conflict is my friend, there's a couple times we just went out for a ride on a motorcycle and sat next to a big river and just talked about how to solve the world's problems and he said you know, jeff, he says there's three things that In his whole life he says there's three phrases that he would put it all together in. And he says number one is to let go, so basically let go of fear. But he later changed that to know it's Acknowledge fear and not necessarily let go of it because it's really difficult. You know we've got A lower brainstem so you can't let go of it, but you can acknowledge it and say you know, I'm afraid of this, says number one. Number two, he said seek richness. So look for the good in the world, look what you're grateful for and move toward that richness. And then, third, he said trust the process, or Trust that inner voice or trust the universe, whatever perspective one wants to have trust that. And he said those are the three things. And he said you know, when you practice that you see things move in an amazing way and whatnot. So that's, you know, that has made sense Throughout life.

Jeff: 1:09:35

Yeah, yeah, and I had to show you one other piece here that's interesting in I was losing a little bit of Hope for the future, oh, that last couple of years. So I, yeah, I was just, I was feeling, you know, from my ecological background, I was just saying you know, we're losing too much water that's in ice, we're like glaciers and Snow packs. We're losing permafrost, we're loot. You know, our water piece on the earth has really, really deteriorated and shifted. I mean, I looked at TV a year ago here in the United States and from the Mississippi River all the way half our country, all the way over to California, all the major rivers were like dry, going dry. The real grand, the Grand River.

Jeff: 1:10:30

Here when was dry last summer. So but I mean from. I mean it's the same here, jeff, same here, yeah, exactly yeah. And so I decided that May a year ago, that I needed to go Say goodbye to the glaciers and basically thank them for what they've given us, you know, and I have four grandchildren, so I, you know, have a lot of concerns about what, what's happening for them. So we went up to Alaska to say goodbye to glaciers and I thought I got to do better than just say goodbye. I got to own up to some of this and so I said I'm gonna ask the glaciers for advice, the listening to the earth, so I get there and I get by this amazing glacier. And it was interesting, you know, I mean this is a little Well, this, this is the little vulnerable part.

Jeff: 1:11:23

But when I, when I first saw the glacier that is, you know, coming to, I felt this anger from the glacier toward me, but it wasn't toward me individually, it was toward me Representing the human species. And it's like, kind of like, why could you do it? Why would you do this? You know you had a good thing. You know, why would you screw this up and still keep doing it? But that, past it, it lightened up and is like okay, jeff, here's what I'm gonna tell you. One it said to me let go. So just Don't push this anymore, just let go and let it go where it's gonna go, like so these fence line contrasts and regenerative being more than just Playing on your dirt, you know, but it's, it's getting your neighbors, helping their neighbors, but not pushing them. You know, letting go but expecting it to move. So that was the first thing. And then the second thing that came was to listen differently. The glacier told me to listen to like, like back at the tribe. You know, it's like Jeff, yeah, learn to listen differently.

Jeff: 1:12:35

Yeah, it's like even still so and yeah yeah, and so.

Jeff: 1:12:40

So after we got done on the on that trip, the next week we went down to see my youngest grandchildren and and my son and his wife and and I've been reading stories to them over internet because zoom, because they Live ways of ways away. So my granddaughter, my daughter-in-law, picked a book out, said this would be a good book for you to read the grandchildren. I said, oh, really, you know. So she showed it to me and this was the name of the book. The other way to listen oh, and that's what the glacier just told me to do was to listen differently, listen the other way. So it was like, well, I guess I am supposed to do that and this book is right on with that other way so.

Anthony: 1:13:27

Really, yeah, it's perfect, noted, noted. Yeah, it reminds me too of when your own Kenny connection made to bob in the first instance as an adult, you know going into this work. So yes, and and that you did say. You know, judy reported that you had said uncanny seems to follow this, do? You think, even now and even for you, that listening is still the message to go further with that it changes everything yeah.

Anthony: 1:13:58

You know what else just before we sign off, occurs to me? I was listening To some of the latest. As an old sports person, I sort of get intrigued by by this domain and how it's shifting on this front. And, sure enough, elite sport now has gone a similar way, that elite sports people are going to people who run processes that effectively run the gamut through to Okay, given it's not possible for you to beat such and such a person or to improve such and such a time, yeah, if it was, what would you do? Yeah, and they are finding similarly that extraordinary Unanticipated outcomes that they end up achieving well beyond what they thought it. Yeah, isn't that fascinating coming up in parallel domains.

Jeff: 1:14:40

Oh, yeah, yeah, just in Africa, mali. I was working there a few years ago and they had they had 87 percent food insecurity in their villages and they had seven ethnic groups, ten villages, and they were at many of them were at war with each other. They had had some bad things happen. So one of the workshops was on the managing scarcity. I asked them if there were some things we could do. That seemed to be impossible, and I said how about if we See how we can increase food production for you? And they said you know, of course that would be important. And I said, well, let's find a number that. So we have something specific to work on. And they and I said could you increase food Production by five or ten percent? And they said, oh, we probably could do that. And I go well, you probably should do that. You're hungry, your kids are hungry. So I said, well, what about 20 percent increase? And they said, well, we probably could do that too, and I go well, so I want to know a number that you just cannot imagine being able to do. So I said could you increase it 50 percent, which I didn't believe they could do either and they said, oh, that would be impossible. And so I said, good, let's use that number.

Jeff: 1:16:02

So I said, so I did, I do some things in the workshop and I'll try, or to that, and then, when I get to that point, I want to work on something. One thing I will do is I will get the mental picture in their mind. I will ask what's the what's the richness in your community and what's the richness in your personal life? And so I get their mind thinking about the good stuff that they've got in their life. And so when it's in that state, then what I eat, with endorphins and serotonin and all that stuff, then I say, okay, we talked about uh, 50 increase in food production would be impossible. So give me all the reasons why it's impossible, why you can't do it. And they said well, you know, we only have 45 a year per capita income, we have poor rains, we have poor soils, we're even lazy, you know. So those, yeah, they were very honest. And so at that point I said, okay, everything that you've listed is a belief system, like your 45 dollars a year per capita income or your limited rains, or just limited soils. I said even your belief about laziness. And I said as long as you believe it. What will be the outcomes? Nothing will change. You will not ever increase food production. So I said okay.

Jeff: 1:17:26

So I'm going to ask another question, which is what I asked earlier, given that it's impossible, because they just proved it to me. If it were possible, what would you do to increase food production by 50%? And of course, it's quiet for a couple minutes because they're thinking, and then all of a sudden, one idea pops out, and actually, when one idea comes out, it is no longer impossible because the human brain is finding the solution. And so, anyway, they just keep going and they come up with more ideas and more ideas. Pretty soon they had quite a list of ideas and again, what I do at that point is I leave, I, I don't solve it. I don't say, okay, you do this, you do that, you, just what I've done is I've created the puzzle in the brain To keep working on trying to figure out how to solve this.

Jeff: 1:18:13

And so I came back 15 months later, because I came back to the US. And then I Went back there 15 months later and they were actually standing on the side of the road waiting for me. They knew I was coming and they have no idea how long it takes to fly over the Atlantic Ocean, or you know, they're just, they're standing there waiting for me and and I'm with the driver, and so as soon as I pull up, they run over to the truck and they grab the door and they and they start. Well, they pull me out of the truck and they took me out in the field and in 15 months, they increased food production, not by 50%, they increased it by 78% in 15 months. Yeah, it's just amazing how they figured out Whatever. You know, it's that magic. Yes, yeah, and Judy said that one of them named a child after you.

Anthony: 1:19:10

Yeah, yeah, jeff, yeah, yeah, that was Fanta.

Jeff: 1:19:13

Yeah, there was it. Oh, it's in all seriousness.

Anthony: 1:19:19

It is beautiful. What an incredible moment and Outcome. And, yes, as you said, they did it. Yeah, before we sign off, you've collaborated with Judy since, because she's been as inspired as I have by by seeing it in you and seeing it with some Practitioners here in Australia. I've had on the podcast too, in in varying but similar ways and and and similarly extraordinary outcomes, and so you've collaborated with Judy on this thing. That's just soft launch online. Do the impossible earth, which am I really like, yeah, yeah and for obvious reasons.

Anthony: 1:19:52

What's you thinking around that?

Jeff: 1:19:54

Well it's, it's great, it's. It's amazing how people's lives change with this work. If we created a movement when people where they could experience that and experience it a lot, it's absolutely amazing. So that's what I would like to see. You know, that's my best possible outcomes. We can turn this around. I mean, I've done it lots and lots of times. It's just not the scale that it needs to be, but, um, we can do this thing. So, yeah, yeah, it's my hope.

Anthony: 1:20:28

Yeah, yep, and I see, I see when it proliferates like that now with Judy and the other colleagues that have come around that table, yeah, and then certainly over here there are a few of us talking more about it, I hope this podcast helps. It's why we're doing it, yeah exactly, yeah, yeah.

Jeff: 1:20:45

And you know one thing, anthony that the land reflects us as humans. What's interesting is that, or you know, when we're in conflict with the earth, with each other, it's always taken out on a lesser entity. So if we're fighting the environmentalists, or if we're rancher or environmentalists and we're fighting the rancher, it's taken out on the land. The land is the one that suffers. That's what was happening up in that watershed and that Judy wrote about. And uh, now that land is coming back and it's it's remarkable, and it didn't take much for that land to come back, because All we just did was rearrange a few things. And it's just coming back and it's changing the rancher's son. He's now changed his career, what he's studying in school, because he see he's just amazed with what's happening on the landscape magnificent Jeff to go out.

Anthony: 1:21:41

I wonder, is there some music that's gone with you through that journey, or maybe even something that's You're enjoying at the moment? But but I'm always doubly curious if there was something that accompanied a transformation, so any of these moments for you that were really pivotal.

Jeff: 1:21:55

Yeah, been reflecting on that and All the way along there's been just significant music that just seemed to be the right thing. For me, it and I can't say it's any genre or anything like that, it's just, you know, this was the right piece. And I remember not long ago oh, it was probably 10 years ago now, that's time but you know they're, they're finding that there are mathematical formulas with music and that they find that songs that people love have the same, no matter what, like if it's classical or if it's a rock or if it's country, there's this mathematical formula that shows up in like best hits and whatnot. So it's interesting because I have songs you know, downloaded, whatnot, and they, uh, they're, they're just powerful songs for for my space as a human, so that's my music story. There's just this multitude of music that I think there's like 2000 songs, and I put it on random, so it's all kinds of music all the time, but it does, it's very powerful. AJ: Can you pluck one example out? JG: That wouldn't really be fair.

Jeff: 1:23:13

AJ: Fair enough JG: because there's so much good.

Anthony: 1:23:17

Yes.

Jeff: 1:23:18

Um, well, you know Bob Dylan and all along the watch tower. AJ: Yes, very good. JG: all night long with Lionel Richie. AJ: Yeah! american women, by guess who?

Anthony: 1:23:30

yeah, yeah, well, you're traversing Time there, aren't you? Just in those examples. Yeah, I can imagine the different times in your life. You know even even before what we really talked in detail about here.

Jeff: 1:23:41

Yeah, I remember in Hawaii like uh, Kris Kristopherson, you know, was living there and was he he'd go riding his bicycle in the morning in front of the ranch and we waved to each other. So I, just when I listen to the song from him, I think about when I was moving the cattle and uh, uh, the mina birds that would fly, you know. I trained, you know, a thousand cows to move to a whistle. Then I would take hotel guests out on the on the tour. At the end of the tour I'd give them a whistle and they would move the thousand cows in 10 minutes and they were thrilled with it. That's how hotel occupancy went from 50 to 95 percent. Well, they just were so thrilled with the thing that it's just like wow.

Jeff: 1:24:26

So anyway, it helps me bring back those different experiences and what not.

Anthony: 1:24:32

Here's to it, speaking of gratitude and the joys. JG: Yeah. AJ: Yeah, well, Jeff, thanks very much, mate. I really appreciate it. JG: Thank you, yeah. AJ: it's just been wonderful speaking with you, and all the very best where you go from here.

Jeff: 1:24:44

Yeah, thank you. I'm just gonna let go and let it happen and listen!

Anthony: 1:24:49

Me too! I've taken stock of that list. That was the award-winning facilitator, Jeff Goebel. For more on Jeff, the Community Consensus Institute, and the new Do the Impossible, set up with Judy Schwartz and company, see the links in the show notes. Jeff and I talked a bit more after we stopped recording, including about his previous time in Australia around the Murray Darling Basin, our major river system, the one I referred to in our conversation that's also in trouble. Conscious of the great conflict around that, Jeff said 'oh yeah, that'd be a great one to work on'. How's that for some of the spirit we need right now? He did say he's available too, so there's an opportunity!

Anthony: 1:25:32

Well, that's it for the seventh year of the podcast. Thanks so very much for accompanying me on another heck of a journey. I feel another level of changed out of it, to be honest, and wonder if you do too. Do let me know if you fancy sharing. I can't help but feel some new things bubbling away too, including some additional experiments with the podcast next year, including for subscribers. A nd I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you. For now, I'll be taking a little break over the new year period as usual - some rest with family, some summer ocean and some metaphysical time with dad you might say - sorting through the last of his things in the wake of his passing. I hope that, wherever you're at, you get some rest and time with loved ones too, and I look forward to sharing your company again next year.

Anthony: 1:26:25

Of course, I have to say one final enormous thanks to the generous supporters of the podcast for making it all possible. Heartfelt thanks to all subscribers, donors and other supporters of the podcast. An enormous thank you to my Vic friends, the wonderful Bate family in particular, once again, for your extremely generous ongoing support. Special thanks too, to very generous longtime supporters, Peter, Lee, Edward, Nelson, Oliver and Paul. This year was also the second full year of the Patreon page, so huge thanks to the now 122 brilliant subscribers who've jumped on board - and to those who hope to return as their circumstances improve. I'm so very grateful to you all for all your contributions and support and look forward to kicking on with you in 2024.

Anthony: 1:27:22

If you are able to join this beautiful community of listeners and, of course, enjoy additional benefits, y ou can do so via the website in the show notes regennarration. com. Thanks a lot. A nd, as ever, thanks for rating and sharing the podcast too. Well, that's it for 2023. The customary soundtrack of highlights from the year will be with you next week, but as this will be the final word you'll hear from me for a few weeks, I'd like to wish you all the very best for a wonderful festive season and, of course, a regenerative new year. The music you're hearing is Regeneration, with great thanks once again to Amelia Barden and the makers of the film Regenerating Australia. My name's Anthony James. See you next year.