The RegenNarration Podcast
The RegenNarration podcast features the stories of a generation that is changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. It’s ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. You'll hear from high profile and grass-roots leaders from around Australia and the world, on how they're changing the stories we live by, and the systems we create in their mold. Along with often very personal tales of how they themselves are changing, in the places they call home. With award-winning host, Anthony James.
The RegenNarration Podcast
215. Stories of Transformation from Next Generation Leaders: The CREATE Program's Global Impact
In episode 164 with Nicole Masters and Meagan Lannan (the infamous ‘armoured butts’ episode) we talked about the new ‘train the trainers’ program in agroecological systems thinking they’d created, called CREATE. This time, we visit them at home, as they gather for the first reunion of the program. Fifteen highly accomplished alumni from incredible and varied places gathered at Meagan’s beautiful regenerative ranch. And as the few days together wrapped up, I spoke with six of these people from across each of the three annual runnings of the course to date.
Those three runnings have taken place in some famous places in the US and the UK, including where our first guest today used to be an ambitious CEO for the family estate of Lady Diana. The 4th running of the course is about to start in Paradise Valley, at the foot of Yellowstone, where plans are also afoot to create a major new centre for this and other programs to flourish into the future.
So given this podcast explores the stories of human transformation that allow for the regeneration of everything, and how we can help other people along, I was fascinated to learn who these people are, why they were here, and what transformations they’ve experienced. And there was no shortage of them, from the course, and from this gathering itself.
Recorded 11-12 July 2024.
Title slide: Nicole Masters speaks to all (pic: AJ).
See more photos on the website, and for more from behind the scenes, become a member via the Patreon page.
Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).
Guests:
Garth Clark
Cody Spencer - and his new podcast Back to the Land
Rebecca Baldwin-Kordick
Sérgio Nicolau - and a short video that Sergio put together on Instagram of his journey
Francisco Alves (Herdade de S. Luís) - and on Instagram
Nia Cowcher and Jamie’s Farm
And kudos to
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And so after that moment I was completely blown away. It was a two-day workshop. I was so overwhelmed by the information that I heard in the first day that I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even go to the second day. I went up into the mountains, camped by myself, to try to reflect on what I had just heard, and I didn't know what to make of it. But I knew I was going to be studying and practicing this for the rest of my life. I
AJ:G'day Anthony James here for The RegenNarration. First up this week fan mail, that's to say, my host platform, buzzsprout, has just introduced a feature where you can text in messages. I can't reply there, though, so I'll reply here to the first message sent in this way. An anonymous listener wrote hi, I'd like to know where to find Natalie and her dad's radio show. Love your conversations. Thanks a lot. It's always great to hear how the podcast is landing with you, and the answer to your question lies in the show notes to episode 112, which was the first time the brilliant Natalie Davey was on the podcast. Or just go straight to Wangki Radio streaming from Fitzroy Crossing in the magnificent Kimberley region of Western Australia. And while we're talking the Kimberley, I just got wind of an incredible opportunity to visit Chris Henggeler and family at Kachana Station, still the home of the second most popular episode ever on this podcast. It's a few-day workshop from the 5th to the 9th of August hosted by Rangelands NRM. For more you can email the workshop organiser and podcast subscriber, Jardine MacDonald, at jardinem at rangelandswa. com. au. I know it's short notice from here, but what a way to get out to and get to know kachana station. Do let me know if you happen to make it, and speaking of generous podcast subscribers who make this ad free and freely available podcast possible thanks a lot, Jane Slattery, Nikki Blanch and Tanya Massy for your very generous subscriptions in the last couple of weeks and for such treasured correspondence too. If you're finding value in this too, please join Jane, nikki, Tanya and Jards part of a great community of supporting listeners. or as little as three dollars a month or whatever you can and want to contribute, ou get exclusive access to behind the scenes stuff from me occasional tips, news, there's a chat space and more. Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration. com forward slash support and thanks again.
AJ:Now on to this week's episode from Paradise Valley in Big Sky, Montana. You might remember episode 164 with Nicole Masters and Megan Lannan from back home in Australia last year, the infamous Armoured Butts episode. We talked then about the new Train, the Trainers program in agroecological systems thinking they've created, called CREATE. This time we visited them at home as they gathered for the first reunion of the program. Fifteen highly accomplished alumni from incredible and varied places around the world gathered at Meagan's beautiful regenerative ranch nd, as the few days together wrapped up, I spoke with six of these people from across each of the three annual runnings of the course.
AJ:To date, those three runnings have taken place in some famous parts of the US and the UK, including where our first guest today used to be an ambitious CEO for the family estate of Lady Diana. The fourth running of the course is about to start in Paradise Valley at the foot of Yellowstone, where plans are also afoot to create a major new centre for this and other programs to flourish into the future. So, given this podcast explores the stories of human transformation that allow for the regeneration of well everything, and how we can help other people along, I was fascinated to learn who these people are, why they're here and what transformations they've experienced. A nd there was no shortage of them from the course and, for some, from this gathering itself. I'll let them introduce themselves as we go.
Garth:I'm Garth Clark from the UK, living at the moment in Northampton.
AJ:If I was to ask you in more detail where you're from, like ancestry-wise. What do you know?
Garth:Farming family from as early as I can remember, a pretty typical case of a family farm in Manchester and that family farm was trying to support too many, too many families and my father was one of the first ones to break away, went into farm management and even on that fight, you know, we had cattle, dairy chickens laying, but we had, so we had the diversity. But it was wrong place, wrong time. Too many families, um, and and dad moved away, couldn't support that many families, um, and he ended up as as a farm manager managing different farms. Um, I can particularly remember the things in the midlands, then down, uh, the last 40 odd years it did some down in tunbridge wells and then, uh, kent and do. And is that what you picked up as you became an adult? Yeah, absolutely I, as I, as I then grew up, I worked on the farm with dad. He made me I must mean I was just about 16, 17 and this is how I remember it as I was working on a farm just down the road and I came in and I was even by then I'd made it to sort of head tractor driver of a couple of people on a large farm just down the road, and I came in and I was even by then I'd made it to sort of head tractor driver of a couple of people on a large farm just down the road and I pulled into the yard.
Garth:It was September and the farm manager came out to me and said you need to go home, that's it now. And I said what, simon? What do you mean? What that's it? And he said your dad's, he wants you to go to college. So I went home and dad had said that I had to go to college. If it didn't work out, the job would be still there. But I needed to go to college. And the two things he did and before that he made me do a summer working in a shop as a salesman, just to do something different, because he just wanted me to be certain that, you know, agriculture was a big commitment, and those are the two things he did.
Garth:So I did the shop, loved it, uh, went to college, cried it was a three-hour drive cried as a 17 year old, 18 year old all the way to college, um, to live on my own, which I'd never done before. I fell in love with it absolutely. Three years at codlow, which was one of the last small colleges. Uh, in in in the uk still still doing now, but it was. I was the last fruit student to to go through hadlow college and then that that was. So that was the 90s. Um, yeah, and I was the very last one to do their fruit course wow, and how did it shape, then?
Garth:what you've done since I went back to dover um, got a on a large estate. Uh, I've since then sort of focused on bigger farms. So I went to a large estate, took a job as a tractor driver, um for a large estate down in kent at the on the betsanger estate, and and really started to grow from there as a tractor driver. I then made it to assistant far um, assistant manager to the farm manager and and develop my knowledge and develop my working knowledge of working on farms, um and in farms, uh. Then, um, I went off and and I became a farm manager and from there that was a farm in ashford.
Garth:I moved to the dalesford which is the jcb family in in the cotswolds and I was a farm manager there and that allowed me to to get a taste of of what being a state manager was like so it's what they called the state coordinator working under the estate manager. And by then we'd had two children and I realized if I wanted the girls to have as many as opportunities as I'd have, I'd had to earn some more money. So I started aiming towards becoming an estate manager, moved from the cotswolds to Scotland, was an estate factor, so an early estate manager there From Scotland all the way back down to Somerset and 12 years with Yeovalley, which is a big dairy, organic dairy producer down in Somerset, and then Somerset to Waddesdon to manage estates for the Rothschild family and then from Waddesdon to the Spencer family and that's where the last Create course was held right, yeah.
AJ:So you ended up working with some pretty significant estates and wealth. Yes, how was that and what did you learn? Do you think?
Garth:The opportunity you know where else could attract. So, for instance, for me moving from Waddesdon to um, to Althorp, where else could attract someone as renowned as well as as Nicole Masters, to come? And she just came over the year before and did a two-day sort of a test on, you know, a succulency, um, and then we, we went from there and she came over the following year, um, and did another couple of days, and that you know. You realize the power of nicole. It was no problem to fill a room of 100 people, but they were coming to one of the most prestigious estates in in the country and you were.
Garth:You know lady spencer was allowing people to for them and lord spencer for them to share that home. So you know, lady Spencer was allowing people to for them and Lord Spencer for them to share that home. So you know, during the breakout period she would just say look other than that room. You can go and sit in the library, go and walk around the grounds, go and see where Lady Diana's buried, go to the Oval, and that in itself attracted people, which made people's ears prick up, and that's what I believe is part of what attracted that enthusiasm that they had for converting their estate that had been farmed in a certain way for generations to hold something like the Create course Very interesting and, speaking of which, why did you want to come here right now?
Garth:That changed. It was a good opportunity. I'd always wanted to come to this part of America. I wanted to bring my partner and Tan and I'd always had that opportunity but never seized it. This was that chance. Instead of just coming for three or four days, let's, let's do more and we've had a real take. You know, we've landed in salt lake city by now. We've done over 2 000 miles just traveling and being a tourist. Um, we've come in here and it's just reminded me. I mean there's, there's five, five of us from the uk, six of us from the uk from the last cohort, and just being around those people again and then being able to to the synergies of bringing first and second cohort together with the third cohort, the conversation, I mean it's life-changing for me, what's happened this week is that right?
AJ:can you go on? I it just.
Garth:It just reminds me that it's life changing for me what's happened this week. Is that right? Can you go on? It just reminds me that it's bigger than these bigger states and it's about bringing farming back to the farmer, engaging with the soil, enjoying what it is they do.
Garth:You know, I can remember a time when an agronomist was a you know, was a professional career. It was up there with doctors and you know, we a professional career. It was up there with doctors and you know, we've, we've forgotten that now. We, we, the agronomists, will, many of them will just prescribe what we blueprint, growing a crop. But for farmers to get out there and engage and see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel when they enter a field and then have that curiosity to start to look at what's going on around them.
Garth:I watched our granddaughter and just before we came out, and uh, she's, she's just over a year old, she, she wandered out into the garden and she tripped over and fell over she, she knew where she wanted to go. She wanted to go up to the end of the garden and she had that wanton curiosity and that tenacious resolve to get up, focus on where she wanted to go. When she got there she had that innocence of sitting down, picking things up, putting them in her hands, tasting them. You know just wood chip in her mouth and and it just. I just watched her and thought, you know, we're losing that curiosity.
Garth:We walk into these fields and you know you go with nicole and today we've done something on energy. You know we're sitting in fields and we're not paying attention. Our cabs are air conditions, they're closed, they're they're contained units. But to get out there and get into the land, and that's what we've done here, I mean, you know, just sitting down by the river talking to me, and I I can't think of a single person that hasn't said something, very innocently, um to me in the last three days that I think we're going away, tan and I are going to look at something quite life-changing and see what that might bring us.
AJ:I don't even have to ask you the questions. You're doing it perfectly well. Keep going, tell me what. Yeah, I'm interested in this, like what comes next, given that sense that this is life-changing, let alone what I imagine the course was in the first instance. What comes?
Garth:next for you? I think there's something happening. We've now got the opportunity to travel. Things happen for a reason and during COVID, and I still can't put my finger on it but Tan and I had the opportunity.
Garth:We looked at how we were living. We were living in a beautiful house on the Waddesdon estate and we suddenly realised that Tan was living in Bristol. I was living in this house. I'd come home late at night, I'd walk to the bedroom, walk back, have breakfast and go back to work, and I wasn't enjoying the house. So we went and purchased, um, uh, an overlander that was designed, um by a guy down in the south of England and we, we, I choose to live in that.
Garth:Now, um, you know, I've called it my home.
Garth:We We've downsized massively, we've got two wonderful daughters, one living in the UK and one down in Portsmouth, and I said we don't need to, we don't need all of this, we don't need a 60-inch TV, and I've never been happier, never, ever been happier than just living in this lorry. Unfortunately, what it's meant is that my job, we haven't been out and traveled in the lorry as much as we wanted to. So I think this is that opportunity to say come on, let's just. Let's just do something now. We've traveled around in this little camper for the last week and a half and tan and I realized that what we may give up with the salary and the pension and all of that, we've gained so much just with the people and the experience it's been amazing life, no, and you're going to blend this, your senses that it'll blend, with what you want to go on with I think if you look at the whole, you know I've just watched tan sitting with people um, you know, she's a thai massage specialist, you know.
Garth:So somebody's got a sore neck, she's treating a neck, then she's got nicole and treating her. You know plantar fascia, whatever it is, you know. And and bringing that, bringing locally produced food, cooked well, with the right ingredients on a farm, and bringing all of that connection back and being able to do that in a single unit, we rock up, we don't put anybody out, you know we can arrive, we've got composting toilets, we've got solar panels, we don't even need to connect to electricity. And and now it's about spreading the word and people saying, look, come and help us out. You know, come and do this and we can come up with a way of, you know, of bringing all of that into one place.
Garth:And I just see that as a really holistic, as much as we want to view the farms and estates holistically. But just, you know, body works, body works, great food, local ingredients and um, and being able to be intimate with the land because we're literally living on it and I think a big part of it is designing that lorry. So we are responsible for every part. We're responsible for the waste. You know our own waste a composting toilet, you know. So we've got that responsibility that we take with us as well.
AJ:Yes, and I gather then you're, you'd be a consultant, consultant of sorts, but of a different kind, and it'd open up, I imagine, even different forms of exchange, because the whole thing's sort of a value before you even start the work.
Garth:Yeah, well, I mean just sitting with farmers, landowners, anybody really and engaging them with at a coaching level, you know, going into that coaching state and and again using those same things as see what you see, hear what you feel. Um, so, see what you see, hear what you hear and feel what you feel, even with the people, just spending time with them. We've, we've seen it today, even with tan, you know. Just, we witnessed her in a coffee shop just sit down with a random person who was on his own and spoke for 20 minutes while we were all waiting for a coffee, and it was because we'd been talking about it earlier and she said no, I just wanted to sit with him, I just wanted him to talk. And I watched her and I just thought this is what we should be doing.
Garth:And this whole trip has been an analogy of we walk down into the Grand Canyon, we turn around to walk out, and I've my career from years 16 17 years old, has always just been to get to the top. No, no regard for anybody else, no regard for my relationships, no regard for my family. And I suddenly watched Tan walk up the canyon and every five minutes, stop, look at the wildlife and the berries and take account of what's going on, start again, and I think that's what I need to do now. You know, I've got to the top of my career. As I see it and actually I'm not sure I like the view and I think that's what creators has really taught me is, you know, have that own, you, breathe that curiosity into yourself and then see what comes. And we talked about it yesterday. Nicole's mum was there. You were there and being open to that, you know, not grasping for something, you know, yeah, life-changing.
AJ:Profound From one cultural story to another. And it's interesting then with tarn, with her thai culture, how she relates into it sort of seamlessly, without even doing the course, but but all the same then in the company today, taking new steps for herself. It's been wonderful to meet you both.
Cody:Cheers garth thank you very much thank you I'm cody spencer and I am a bison rancher, agroecologist, land steward from southern Alberta, canada, and so, for people who don't know where that is, that's where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains. We're just north of Glacier Park in Montana and just a beautiful ecosystem called the Crown of the Continent. Is it really? Yes, it's really, it is the Crown of the Continent.
AJ:I imagine it is beautiful, but that's interesting and your broader family background.
Cody:Yeah, so my ancestry is largely European, about half Belgian, I have English ancestry and I also have a component of Indigenous North American from the Northwest Territories further up in the Boreal regions. So if people are familiar with the you know, the Great Slave Lake region of the Northwest Territories and the Dene people, Chippewan people and the Cree, I've been able to trace some of that lineage back, actually somewhat recently, which has been fascinating Really. You've been doing that, I've been, my family has done that in the past and some of the groundwork. But I've able to, thanks to the internet, find all these trails that have traced me back to these historical events that are absolutely fascinating, where I can find my 5X great-grandfather accompanying Alexander Mackenzie on the first overland trek across North America 12 years before Lewis and Clark, Just things like that. It's like wow. I mean, it shows the power of the internet right there.
AJ:Well, that's the good power of the internet, yes, which is important because we know some of the bad power, but that that's there too is cool. Wow, how has that? I'm curious instantly how that has changed you, if at all.
Cody:Well, I mentioned that I'm a bison rancher and so my work with bison has really, you know, it's connected me to the land in a way that I mean I've never experienced before. I grew up on a farm Alberta-Montana border, but I was never really connected until I discovered bison. And when I discovered bison it opened up a whole new world for me. And of course there's all these deep indigenous connections with the bison, and so I always knew that I was Métis. Métis is the term for indigenous and European mixed ancestry, so I've always known that, but I didn't know to the extent or the stories behind it. And so as I explored it more and realized that, wow, my ancestors were actually hunting buffalo on the Canadian prairies, you know like in the decades before they went, you know, nearly extinct and tracing it further back where they were actually subsisting on these animals and you know, entire economies were built on it and religions. It has just strengthened my relationship to what I've chosen to do with my life.
AJ:I wonder, does that past and those people and the experiences and stories, wondering if there's been any sense of an echo in yourself that you have been able to perceive?
Cody:The way that I have felt it manifest through me is I am now thinking generations, beyond seven, ten generations. How can we build systems and how can we facilitate these systems to go beyond our lifetimes, hundreds of years? And that's really altered my thinking, because prior to that it was, you know, how do we have a business that can get us through the next couple of years and make our payments and some of those things right that were trapped in this cycle, whereas now it's sort of opened my thinking to larger possibilities.
AJ:Yet the latter still applies You've got to get by. How has the longer term thinking affected that?
Cody:Well, I think that for me it's if you are focused on creating this immense innate value to the world and value can be defined in many different ways but if you are embodying that and you are living that and you are empowering other people and and encouraging you know these systems to flourish, then that other stuff sort of takes care of itself. You know the money aspect and the livelihood. You know if you are being a person of value, it will work out.
AJ:It sounds glib at times to say things like that, and I've thought and said it as well, but when I hear you say it on the ground, in these realities that otherwise, in this day and age, are quite marginalized, like it makes it harder than ever in what you're doing, let alone with Bison, and I hear it increasingly as well. This is a theme, so I take stock. So then, in that context, how did you come across Nicole and the course, and what did it? What value, I guess, did it offer you at the time?
Cody:About three years into my journey of raising bison, I discovered regenerative agriculture. About a year and a half in, and three years in, in about 2017, I went to a workshop and it was this lady I didn't know whether she was from Australia or New Zealand and I had never heard of her before, and it was about soil. That's all I knew. And I thought, oh yeah, well, I've, you know, gone through holistic management courses and managed grass for a bunch. And I walked in knowing that this would be like another sort of box to tick. And I went into this workshop and this woman at the front of the room the most bold, audacious woman I had ever heard, and she steps up and delivers this punch in the gut to me. And that punch in the gut was that soil is a living, breathing super organism. And prior to that moment, I knew that there were, you know, little creepy crawlies and critters in the soil doing their thing, but I had never grasped the gravity of the situation, that, you know, these soil organisms and our relationship to them is actually the foundation for life itself. And so, after that moment, I was completely blown away. It was a two-day workshop. I was so overwhelmed by the information that I heard in the first day that I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even go to the second day. I went up into the mountains, camped by myself, to try to reflect on what I had just heard and I didn't know what to make of it. But I knew I was going to be studying and practicing this for the rest of my life and fast forward maybe two years.
Cody:My wife and I moved to Texas to manage a bison ranch down there and we had brought Nicole down for a workshop and so we worked with her on that and she consulted with us on the ranch and we got to know her and she mentioned that, hey, I'm developing this course for coaches and consultants and people who are managing land like you. And I said count me in as soon as you develop this. I'm in, like hands down. So she called me up a year or two later and said all right, it's done, it's ready to roll, this is what it's going to be. It's called the Create Program. And I said, oh, I'm in.
Cody:So I was one of the first people to sign up for the Create Program, knowing that if Nicole Masters is involved, it's going to be transformational. I didn't know entirely what to expect. But as I went through that first cohort, with all these amazing, incredibly diverse, well-accomplished people in the regenerative space coming together into this melting pot and, just you know, having our minds, you know, boiled down and sort of put back together collectively, we all had transformational experiences. I think most of us were going in expecting to learn a lot more about the technical side of soil, and of course we did. But we learned far more about ourselves and our place in the world and what we can do to empower the land people, you know, through our evolutionary purpose.
Cody:And so, as that create program wrapped up, nicole asked me to join her on her coaching team to deliver the next CREATE program as a coach. So roles reversed, I had no idea what to expect. I was, of course, flattered but I'd never coached. You know I was nervous, but at the same time I do know that one of my good qualities is listening. So I think maybe that's why she saw something in me there. And over the last two years we've developed or we've delivered the last two CREATE programs and it's been an amazing experience to be on the other side and refine my skills as a coach.
Cody:Interesting, so you've alluded to it, probably, but I'm curious in an explicit sense, why you made the time to come here for this to be one of the few people who have got to know intimately everybody who has passed through the create program, from all around the world and these are amazing people doing incredible things and so to be here on the land and reconnecting with everybody and all my friends who, some of them who have not met each other before, and to see all these sort of connections and and new relationships forming and just building out this network of the CREATE program and Integrity Soils and just the regenerative movement in general, that to me is very, very powerful.
AJ:What does it mean for what you do next? Or how is it already shaping what you're moving on to?
Cody:Well, it certainly allows me to be a much better land steward and to operate on a level that I never could have before because I did not have certain understandings, I did not have the ability to listen to the land, to form relationships with people on a level that I would not have prior. So, on the land level, I mean it's indispensable, I mean it's just incredible. I also work with other producers, coaching and consulting, and prior to going through Create, it's something I never would have even thought that I had any value to offer. But now I know that really each and every one of us has something to offer and in fact, by me not sharing that with other people and engaging in that, I'm holding something back from the world. And you know my evolutionary purpose I want to empower the ecology of the mind, the body and the earth, and so by me holding myself back, I'm not stepping into that evolutionary purpose. So my work in the create program has allowed me to just step forward and and charge into that magnificent.
AJ:It's been a pleasure meeting you, cody. Thanks for speaking with me. Thanks, man.
Rebecca:Hey, I'm Rebecca Baldwin-Kurdik and I'm based in Denver, colorado.
AJ:And if I was to ask you where you're from at a deeper level, like ancestry, what do you know?
Rebecca:Well, on my dad's side he had Czech, german, austrian blood, and so I'm from sort of the former Czechoslovakia, I guess, and so those are my roots there. I actually visited there after college and it was very similar to where they ended up in the United States. I was like, oh wow, this looks like Iowa where they immigrated to the Cordycs.
AJ:Was that deliberate?
Rebecca:I mean, they probably arrived here and were like this looks like home. We'll stop here.
AJ:I wondered. It's interesting how it plays out, hey, and then shapes your life in turn oh yeah, definitely yeah.
Rebecca:So it was nice to go back there and I visited um, my, a family member of the last name, cordick too, and he had a horn shop. He like made brass instruments, uh, by hand and it was really impressive. So it was, it was neat to see that. And I saw um. He looked exactly like he looked like my dad I was. It was strange. I was like you have a mustache just like him. You have a full head of hair just like him, same color and everything. So it was quite striking striking to be able to like be in a place and meet people that look like your family, but you have no idea who they are it's so interesting.
AJ:My brother visited some of our long lost irish family.
AJ:I've never never, even been there and he saw photos on the wall and the photos on the wall were all like dad and his siblings and stuff and it was like whoa, you're someone you never even thought you'd be. In that sense it was so off the radar for us. I still can only imagine that. But uh, but I'm increasingly interested and the more that I see the relationship with this sort of work to where we're from and and the stories that come through the generations and some of the lost knowledge. Even has it been applicable in your case?
Rebecca:oh, absolutely uh. So on my mother's side, the Baldwin side, that's English it's not as clear to me how they ended up in Indiana. But my grandfather was a farmer and I have a picture of him and he has two horses two draft horses behind him and he must be 18 years old. He's got some overalls on and a cute little hat and I just look at that photo and I see those two horses and I know that he was working those horses to to like till the land by with the animals, and so it was during his generation that all of that started to change and all the mechanization happened and extreme use of fertilizers, and he was really resistant to that at the time.
Rebecca:Yeah, he would call it dirty farming, yeah, when farmers would apply excess nutrients and neglect the cycles that were. You know he knew to be the correct thing to do so in terms of diversity and cover crops and, you know, having animals integrated into your farm. So it was just. It was such a change that happened over his lifetime and it actually affected his health.
AJ:It did.
Rebecca:Yeah, so he got sick, got um an autoimmune disease that eventually led to cancer, and so um it was.
AJ:Just there was a lot of prolific use of herbicides at the time what a microcosm, or an early, I mean I don't know how early, I don't know how many more instances instances of this there were prior to that, but potentially what an early sign of what was to come en masse yeah from that sort of agriculture yeah, and it extends into further generations.
Rebecca:you know his son, so my uncle. He developed a leukemia related to roundup use, so he still lives in indiana and his, his farm sorry, his house it's just a regular American home but it's surrounded by cornfields and soybean fields, so you can imagine that exposure is very, very close by and so, yeah, he's just living with this kind of chronic, low-level leukemia.
AJ:Wow, I'm wondering instantly how much this shaped, why you're here.
Rebecca:Yeah, absolutely. I saw what happened to my grandfather and I recognized that he felt that you know things could be better and I knew things could be better in the way that we relate to the land and that we relate to our food and all of that tradition that was lost within those two generations. And during that time too. A lot of people were pushed off of their farms during the crisis of the 80s, and our family was one of those farms. My uncle was definitely not going to be able to continue farming. There was just no way. They weren't big enough. It was either you get big or you get out, and that was just not going to happen for them. So there's just such a loss of connection then from the next generation to where does food come from? Where do we fit into that puzzle? To where does food come from? Where do we fit into that puzzle? But for me, I saw how the environment is shaped by agriculture and how we're shaping that environment, and the way that we're shaping that environment directly affects our health. You can't have one without the other. It's a direct correlation.
Rebecca:So I went to school for engineering in undergrad. Yeah, I wanted to be an environmental engineer. I didn't really even know what that meant. Eventually I thought like, oh okay, I realized that this means I'm going to be at a desk job and I'm going to be sort of like maybe remediating mines or something like that or doing water treatment. And through school I just kept doing projects about agriculture. I made all of my projects about agriculture and just it was so fascinating.
Rebecca:I visited a farm when I was in college and I remember this was also one of those aha moments for me. So I visited a farm in college and it was a multi-species, diverse farm. They had pigs running, they had cattle running, they had sheep running, they had chickens, all kinds of poultry so five, six different species running one after the other, and they were able to engage in their natural behaviors. And it was on this parcel of land in Monument, colorado, close to where I grew up. And you could see this parcel of land had.
Rebecca:I looked down at my knees and the grass was just blowing in the wind. You know it was super thick and there were so many animals that were living off of it. I was like, wow, this is so lush and it was windy that day and I noticed there was something in the air, I started coughing and I looked up and I recognized that there was dust blowing from the adjacent parcel, same size, but there were only two horses on that parcel and they were looking directly at me with their ears forward, and I looked down at their feet and the grass looked like a five o'clock shadow, and so you can see, for me that was the aha moment of oh my gosh. This is that relationship between air quality and human health, and management and the subtleties of management are so important to being able to make an agricultural system that works for humanity, for human health, for animal welfare.
AJ:And the rest of the planet.
Rebecca:And for the land? Yeah, for all of the species that we share this world with.
AJ:Wow, so with your engineering, then did you change tack soon after.
Rebecca:Yeah, so I finished my engineering degree and then I went to school and I studied soil science at Iowa State.
AJ:University.
Rebecca:There you go, and then, what led you to create? I always so. Since that moment, that aha moment, I recognized the importance of management and education for management, for proper management, and I knew I wanted to be able to share that with landowners because, ultimately, all landowners want the best for their land.
Rebecca:They want the best you know they live most of them, hopefully, live on the land that they manage, um, at least to some degree, and have this intimate, so they care for the land. And so I wanted to be someone who could help facilitate that learning and that experience. So I wanted to be a consult like, someone to consult with in farming, and so that was sort of always in the back of my mind when I went to school that I wanted to do that and I didn't have enough experience. So I went to go work on a ranch for a while because I didn't have on farm experience or animal experience. So I worked on a ranch for a season, got some really hands-on training in animal husbandry and ranching, and then I worked for a non-profit for a couple of years doing farm planning work. So I was working directly with farmers and I recognized, wow, okay, I can give these recommendations to farmers but they're actually not even that interested in what I'm recommending to them, you know, because I'm just telling them what they should do. And it was very it's very like a sterile exchange and it just it was not a way to make change.
Rebecca:So after that I transitioned out of that job and it just so happened that Create. My friend called me up who had taken the first Create course, wyatt Ball, and he said, rebecca, I don't even know how to explain this, this course, this experience that I've gone through. He said, but I know you'll love it, I know you'll love it and I think you should do it. And I was like, well, okay, interesting, he's like just call Megan, call her up and talk to her. So I did and, yeah, just what they were offering, especially the human approach. I had a lot of the science already, but it really deepened my experience and the depth at which you can actually make change on the land with the information at hand.
AJ:Yeah, and on that note, what have you gone on to do or how has it changed what you've done, or how is it in motion that sort of changed to what you're doing?
Rebecca:Yeah. So I mean it totally changed my outlook to being initially, it was okay, I'm an expert and I can share with you what to do, and now it's we're on a team together. I can paint this really detailed picture of what's going on on your land with you, and then from there we understand what's going on, what are some breakdowns happening in the system, and then that's where we troubleshoot together to come up with a solution to try and address some of these issues, and then we have monitoring over time. So it just feels far more holistic, far more effective, because these ideas are coming from the farmer themselves and the rancher themselves and it's going to be something they're interested in and that they think is doable because they were part of it. They were part of the genesis of the idea.
AJ:It's interesting you're actually finding that in practice. So I'm curious then why come to this here right now?
Rebecca:So the experience of going through Create was you really established a lot of camaraderie and it's such a unique shared experience. You can't really talk about what you've learned here with too many people outside of this circle, talk about what you've learned here with too many people outside of this circle. And so when we go through Create, some of us go into the fellowship and that's such a wonderful way to keep the communication, the conversation going of. You know, what are you working on? What are you discovering? What's really interesting about these results that you found? And you can also, you know, lean on other people. What do you think's going on? Because everyone at Create has all these different angles and all these different experiences. You know, we have people working in wine, we have people working in bison, we have people working in vegetables, we have people working, you know, in all of these different types of agriculture and it's it's such a wealth of knowledge, all of us together, and we're all great people we're so amazing you are.
AJ:So I wonder, even coming out of this, does it fill you with a sense of something else to go on with, or is it more in that general domain of what it gives you?
Rebecca:Yeah, I think I've seen sort of how it's grown, and so I took the second CREATE course and now the third CREATE course has been taken, through Europe of course, and so it's just really exciting to see the progress and that this is moving more internationally and that this, this way of thinking about the land systems, thinking holistic understanding, and um whoa, did you see that?
AJ:we just had an enormous falling star beautiful. Streak across a clear night sky over the mountains.
Rebecca:Wow, that was awesome. That was awesome. I don't want to mess up the recording.
AJ:Where were we?
Rebecca:I don't know that was amazing though. You should have seen it oh my gosh.
AJ:Uh, we were talking about create and, uh, where it's come, or what it, what it meant, or even what this gathering, what this gathering was all about has it shifted anything, even just in this week?
Rebecca:it's a life-changing experience.
Rebecca:Really Create was life-changing for me and it led me to do so much more personal development work too, because you know, before I was like I don't need personal development work, that's for other people.
Rebecca:Then I recognized that in order to be the most available version of yourself to help facilitate change in others, you need to have a really good foundation, you know, to be able to share out with others authentically and to be able to create a space for them to share authentically, because there are some things that producers maybe don't even talk about or consider unless you're actually having a conversation.
Rebecca:That's either about the birds or about you know why they really actually love doing what they do. You know it's those sorts of conversations that actually get to the root of okay, like you really love interacting with the animals, you love seeing the animals go from birth to all the way to, you know, adulthood and then harvest and recognizing the, the beauty in that cycle, and that is such a different conversation than talking about the irrigation or the. You know the tractor or you know, and so you can. You can actually start to talk about concepts and okay, if this is what you really love, why are you doing these other things and they can start, so we can start to unravel those those types of conversations that are actually quite important to have. Mental health is very important to farmers and anders as well.
AJ:So making sure they're not spread. Oh, everyone else. This is the connection I mean full circle, back to where we started with the health picture.
Rebecca:Yeah, but you know, being able to recognize those things and I think being able to facilitate very deep, important conversation is crucial.
AJ:Rebecca, that's profound. Thanks very much for sharing with me. I really appreciate it. It's been terrific to meet you, and power to you. May we speak again in 10 years and see what you've picked up in that period of time Absolutely.
Rebecca:Thank you so much.
Sergio:Yeah, so my name is Sergio Nicolau. I'm from Portugal, very close to Lisbon, in Torres Vedras, and I have got 10 hectares of vineyards that I inherited from my parents, from my grandparents. Now I run the business now and, yeah, we make grapes for sale and also we make our own wine called Regenerativo, and I'm also a consultant with my friend, francisco, and two other friends called also Francisco and João, from Portugal, and yeah, we help other farmers to coach and coach other farmers to make the transition from conventional, organic or whatever to a more regenerative way of farming.
AJ:Perfect segue to you, Francisco.
Francisco:So my name is Francisco. I'm from Portugal too. I was born in a family of farmers. I manage a family farm with 700 hectares that is, in a family of about five or six generations I don't really know a long time ago and we raise livestock different species goats, sheep, pigs and cows In the Montado system. It's an agro-silvopastorist system very old, with cork trees, and our goal is to sell the meat directly, regenerative way. So five years ago we started to sell it directly and we have our brand of cured products too, of the pig, and we open a farm every day to receive workshops, events, intern and at the meantime, like Sergio told it, we developed Orgo, our company, because we feel that we are a little alone in this experience. So, with different skills, we put all together and we developed the company that we are working now and, yeah, I think, in a good way?
AJ:Yeah, wonderful, I wonder, with each of you, was there a change in the way you ran your farms, your family farms? Or, going back those generations, were they already doing things in a regenerative way?
Sergio:Well, I am definitely doing many different things from my father, but looking back like three generations ago, it was regenerative because my great-grandfather had, like sheep, cows, potatoes, cereals, orchards and vineyards, orchards and vineyards and then we specialized in fewer things along the time and started applying chemicals my, my grandfather after the second world war, like everyone else, and my, my father also, of course, and I was raised in that environment. But I was I was also very much connected to the, to nature me and my friends also in nature, in boy scouting, everything. But for me it was natural to be seeing people playing chemicals. I didn't have the notion that it was a bad thing because I grew up on it. And then when coming to agronomy school, I went thinking that, yeah, that is the way, because we are formatted to think that way.
Sergio:But then I went to consulting and being farm manager for large companies and running also my own farm with my father helping him, and I was seeing everywhere the biology being less and less and the ecosystems being degraded and the lack of water, the water cycles were being broken and, yeah, a lot of stuff that was going wrong and that set me on a journey to go to the root causes of the problem. That's when I started doing some courses of organic, and also in 2018, 19, we make the conversion from our vineyards to organic and then to regenerative. I started making some journeys to other countries and listening to podcasts, reading some amazing books, like the one from nicole, for example, for all of the soil and many others. And, yeah, it's and and now we are full regenerative like some years now yeah really interesting francisco you.
Francisco:So our specific, specific case, my father, only to understand it never spray any synthetic fertilize, never till the soil, because you have the montage system. We know all of the trees and the year that I start working in a farm, about 22 years ago, my father developed a system, a maternity system for the pigs, always in natural, in open areas, and it was the beginning to see completely different change in the management of the animals, because in the past we do a high prophylactic plan with vaccinations and interventions in the animals, but when we change the management we stop with everything and open our eyes to change the management with the other livestock too. So I don't begin in a very conventional way, but yeah, 22 years ago we don't listen about regenerative agriculture, but we see, we saw the difference and after that I start to to be more courageous about, about the, the subjects, read books, like sergio is telling, I start to share my work in the instagram and when they, nicole, send me a message because I share something and we start to talk and I'm after I listen the audiobook and yeah, and after this, it spreads our work and yeah, and after this, it spread our work and put in, connect with people with this mindset and yes, but in the old times in my region, people used the animals to get the natural resource, because our system it's a very strong natural resource. We have the acorn, we have the grass, you can do cereals, we can do a lot of things, and so sheep and pigs was the main livestock that my grandfather or my grand-grandfather produced at the time.
Francisco:And with the change of the political system in the time of my father, we increased a lot of the cows. And now, in the last 20 years, in the time of my father, we increased a lot of the cows. And now in the last 20 years, our goal is to balance the perfect number of the different livestock, because it's a system of high complexity and so we need different tools to manage the complexity. And, yeah, we are putting a lot of costs down.
AJ:At the moment, we only have one worker with us, so we are learning and understanding that it's a different way to do it and it blows me away just how nuanced and detailed the knowledge is with both the wine, sergio, and the pork, especially that we sampled here, obviously, yeah, we have about 200 cows, uh, 16 sows, 100 goats and 100 100 sheep.
Francisco:Uh, what makes sense for us it's to these multi-species. Not because I want to do that I produce a lot of different stuff but because the land is asking for these different tools and um, and yeah, we, and at the same time, like I tell you, it's, put the costs down, get the natural resource. So for the goats, we use the brumbles, the clean, the, the bush and the water lines. For the, the pig teeth, the acorn, the cows are the biggest one and the more efficient. So go to the open areas to clean the, the grass and the sheep we use like gardeners in the specific fence of the farm. And yeah, and I think in the next three years we can grow in the little number of the sheep and goats. Maybe I will put the little cows down. Yeah, and the challenge is sell 100% grass-fed animals, high density in nutrition and at the same time, don't have the need to put flowers or supplementation, only natural resources.
Sergio:The first time I went to his farm I couldn't believe the work of the goats. It was like a herbicide. It's amazing. Instead of both of those things working with an animal as a tool. Not only is it saving a lot of money, a lot of diesel, a lot of man work, but it's also putting, transforming a thing like a bramble into pounds of meat and potatoes.
AJ:It is amazing, isn't it and this is something for me as a non-farmer, to change that lends wow, there's actually a creature that can do that, their stomachs can do that, they like to do that.
Francisco:They love it. It's very handy. They're born to do that, yeah, well.
AJ:So you guys formed a duo, a consulting duo, and had you done that?
Sergio:before. No, we are four.
AJ:You're four, there you go. And you had done that before you got onto this Create course and then you thought, oh, we need to do that. Or was it the other way around? How did that roll?
Sergio:Yeah, we started before the Create course. But then, when you knew Nicole, told us that she was opening the Create course in the UK and we immediately wanted to do it.
Francisco:Yeah, it's a win-win situation. So we are in the beginning of a company and you have an opportunity to learn more and to see the difference, because one thing that we talk about a lot is the difference between coaching and consulting, and we learn a lot about the subject in the course in the Create. So for us it helps a lot now with the relationship with the client, the questions that we want to ask, all of the stuff that you need to listen about the client. So, yeah, it makes a huge benefit in our company.
AJ:Yeah, it was amazing, and so much so that you're clearly motivated to have come all the way just to these few days.
Sergio:Yes, it's been amazing, so much so that you're clearly motivated to have come all the way just to these few days. Yes, it's been amazing. We thank you so much for inviting us to be with this amazing group of people like Binded and co-create something. Yeah, just be here, Just be. We feel like we already belong to this place here. Just be below you and then we feel like we already belong to this place.
Francisco:Yeah, I think the the great thing is um around the world, we have people that we are trying to do different things, and what we understand it's that doesn't matter the climate, doesn't matter the the landscape, or doesn't matter if rain a lot or not, it's possible to walk in a better way for all the the human. So it's this is the most important in the find people that we meet in this week, in these few days, and after 10 minutes or of talking, you understand that, yeah, these guys try to do the same way that I want to do, so we are not alone. It's good because we spend a lot of time in our farms and closed in our country.
Sergio:Sometimes it can be very lonely and you think that we are, but we are not alone. It's always so good to connect, yeah.
Francisco:So, yeah, we want to do this now, in future, all the year. Let's try. Let's maybe do the next meeting in Portugal and put all the creators in Portugal.
Sergio:And of course we want to go to Australia also.
AJ:Okay, Very good and I'm curious too, like what's the state of play in Portugal? Are there a whole bunch of people doing this, like? Nicole talks about there being 42 of the valley up there of land under regenerative management now, and potentially that's the highest concentration of any region in the world. What's the state of affairs where you guys are and in portugal in terms of people taking these practices on or or at least being open to them? How do you read it?
Sergio:Well, it's in the very beginning yet, but there are many people doing a lot of stuff. Few people and there are many people trying to do or in the beginning doing it. So in the vineyards, for example, in my context, we started a WhatsApp group with two or three friends and we were three or four and now we are 200, for example, for regenerative vineyards Whoa.
AJ:There are many people yeah so many interested, not necessarily way down the track, but many coming onto it.
Francisco:Yes, yes, yes More and more people are with a curiosity about the subject, and in the livestock production, because the costs are very high. We don't have so much rain, the fertilizers are more expensive, so if people don't change, they close the door. They don't have any opportunities. So I think they let's see I have to try a different way to do, because what I'm doing now it's not function. So, yeah, I think in this is was in the last three, five years. So I believe in the next five years we'll change completely. But at the same time, uh, some people start at the in the beginning, but after three or four months they don't have so much confidence to do that alone. So we need to develop more capacity to spread the word and put the people with the knowledge.
AJ:I think it's very important, wonderful guys, it's been so good meeting you both this week and tasting your wine and other products. It's just unbelievable. So thanks for speaking with me here as well.
Francisco:Eh, thank you so much thank you and we wait for you in portugal my name is nia coucher and I come from wales, in the uk.
Nia:I grew up on a family farm, a sheep and beef farm.
Nia:I've got two older brothers and, um, we're all sort of involved in the farm a little bit, but one of my brothers mostly, um manages the farm now. Yeah, my parents are first generation farmers and they, well, initially it was just learning about farming but, um, quite early on they were keen to convert to organic and um farm in a way that was, yeah, just better for the environment. So they converted to organic back in 2000 and I think their influence has sort of, yeah, set on a path to sort of be interested in how can we make it work well, um, to farm in harmony with nature, and I didn't know when I was growing up that farming was going to be for me. Um, yeah, but um, things have brought me back to it and, yeah, really passionate about agriculture and yeah, followed nicole for a long time and keen to sort of learn while she's sharing so I'm so curious, firstly what your broader ancestry was in that sense and what they were doing if it wasn't farming, and then what made you gravitate back to it as well.
Nia:So, yeah, my grandparents on my dad's side, they were accountants and actually my dad's dad was really keen to farm and but he was said that, um, he was told he's not practical enough to farm so he sort of got encouraged to go down the accountancy route, um, and I think and then dad, from a very young age, knew that he wanted to farm. I think, yeah, you didn't necessarily grow up on a farm, but I think he's surrounded with, he'd spend a lot of time on the neighbor's farm and had cousins and relatives that sort of had poultry and things, so he'd spend spend time there. But yeah, everybody says as soon as Dad could walk he knew that he wanted to farm. And I think, yeah, his dad supported him. He was really determined to support him to be able to follow his dream to farm and yeah, they'd sort of been involved in the farming community a lot because of his accountancy within farming.
Nia:And then mum actually grew up in sweden and, um, a rural community, spent a lot of time outdoors, um, they're all keen on sports and my grandma was a big animal lover. She loved spending time outdoors. Um always had animals at their small holding and I think mum was getting getting to the end of school and her older siblings asking her what are you going to do? What are you going to do? And she said I'm going to be a farmer. And I think she says that they laughed at her initially. But she was even more determined then and went to farming college and just really enjoyed experiences there and set out to travel across the world and learning about farming you were going away from it all the same.
AJ:So what brought?
Nia:you back um, what brought me back, I think, after studying I actually my placement year from uni. I actually spent it in new york city so I'd experienced city life and, um, got a taste of what else is out there and had an amazing time like great experience, um, but I think I knew that countryside was where I wanted to be, um, and yeah, then on graduating then, yeah, I was back in Wales, close to home, and initially did sort of the business management side, so worked for farming consultants, and I think it was at that point that I got the opportunity to spend time on a lot of different farms and I was like they are doing a lot of really cool things and what I really loved about farming was the variety. Like you're sort of you're veterinarian when you're doing business, the next you've got to learn about soils and grasslands and there's so much variety and you're just always learning and I think that really suits my personality. I just love that constant yeah, learning.
AJ:That sounds really good, doesn't it, when you think about the ways we do get siloed in our specialities, our jobs. Yeah, I'd never thought about that either, but I'm seeing it too, and so why? I mean, why did you even come this week, let alone get involved with this program at all?
Nia:for the people. I think it's just an incredible group of people, all with a shared vision and sort of shared values and how, how we'd like to farm and produce food, and understanding how we can do that, yeah, in harmony with nature, and a belief I think that we all have that that really brings abundance, like in nutritional quality of food and, yeah, lifestyle of farmers. Um, it all brings abundance in many different ways. I think I grew up on a farm as well. Like, having grown up on a farm, I know what goes into farming and I know how much like my family, my parents, put into it and then I think, yeah, they deserve to sort of realize the abundance. So, sort of understanding what practices aren't working and understanding how we can farm in a way that, um, yeah, it just works better, I was really keen to sort of understand and so what are you going, or perhaps already underway or going on to do out of all this?
Nia:yeah, so, um, I've post create. I've been doing a little bit of consultancy and so working with a farm consultant who works with grazing livestock businesses in the uk and they're called Precision Grazing and, yeah, sharing some of what we learnt, do and create through that, and also working closely with Jamie's Farm, their farming charity based in the UK. They've got three residential farms sorry, they've got six residential farms across the UK and one in Waterloo as well and across those farming sites they've got sheep and beef cattle, other main commercial enterprises, and then there's other livestock that the young people get involved with. But I'm supporting them to progress their regenerative journey and they do amazing work.
Nia:The young people spend a week long on farm and a lot of them are inner city kids that haven't had the experience of growing up on a farm, and I feel so privileged to have had that experience myself. So it's really wonderful to see other young people get the opportunity to experience what that's like, and the change in them is just incredible sometimes, and so I feel really passionate to support them and I'm excited to. Yeah, they're keen to really progress their farming and just make sure that their practices are as best as they can be to make sure that we're caring for the environment and the yeah, the land that we're managing.
AJ:Yes, I remember we talked about this when we first met the other night and that movie, backtrack boys out of australia, which is covering another story similar in that way, but it's not, they're not even the only ones I've heard. It's sort of really consistent theme and it it says a lot about being on the land, I think, and being in communion with the other animals there that you work with and what it does for the human spirit. I wonder, on that note, is there something in particular that you think is different in you since you engaged with this group of people?
Nia:I think it's. I've been so grateful and it sort of amazed me in some way how quickly you can realise how much we share in how we want to farm, and it's super motivating and supportive to be connected with a group of people that sort of believe in that same way. You can bounce ideas off each other and you can see how others are doing it in very different contexts. But, um, it's yeah, it's an amazing way to learn and I think that's what drew me to um. Create initiative more than anything is. I like the way that Nicole has a very holistic view of things. Um, I think we can, all you know, we can. Like I said, in farming there's lots of different specialists and you can really dive down into an expert of one particular area. But to grasp that holistic view, I think, yeah, it was really something I wanted to understand better, and I think sharing stories with everybody else that we connected with is a big part of that as well.
AJ:Nia, you're an inspiration. Thanks for speaking with me. It's been great to meet Thank you so much really appreciated. AJ: That was Garth, Cody, Rebecca, Sergio, Francisco and Nia, but a selection of the formidable folk from the first reunion of alumni from the CREATE program at Barney Creek Ranch in Paradise Valley, Montana. With enormous thanks to Nicole and Mum, Michelle Masters, Meagan Lannan and Pete Maloi and the rest of the family, and the broader crew gathered, for welcoming us in and sharing with me so generously for this episode See various links in the show notes and a few photos on the website, with more, as always, for subscribing members on Patreon. That's with great thanks to all of you generous supporting listeners for making this episode possible. If you'd like to join us, just head to the website or the show notes and follow the prompts. With great thanks and thanks also for sharing the podcast with friends and colleagues. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listenin, than y.