Hard Work Takes No Discipline: Nicole Masters, Live at Grounded

Soil can change fast, but what about people? We're coming to you live from the 2026 Grounded Festival on the extraordinary Yan Yan Gurt West Farm, stewarded by the Stewart family, in the Otways of Victoria, Australia.

It’s early on day 1, the marquee Ironbark Tent is full, and we’re joined by global figurehead in agroecology, author of For The Love of Soil, and founder of the CREATE program with Integrity Soils, from Montana USA, Nicole Masters.

The session is billed ‘Soil Health Isn’t Always Sexy’. But we start by questioning the premise, and run from there, in conversation with me and those present, squarely in the moment, through a series of unplanned places and stories - bold, vulnerable and so instructive - woven together by Nicole’s unique, hard-won and globally influential wisdom. 

Nicole challenges the badge-of-honour culture of farming, and most other fields these days, at the outset: 'hard work takes no discipline'. From there we unpack the gap between what we say we want and what our days reveal, and why deep listening often creates more change than the best advice. 

We also zoom out to the bigger system. Nicole shares why collaboration beats doing it all yourself, how farmers and the rest of us can build profitable, creative business models that serve a growing desire for reconnection, and why peer pressure may be the most powerful agent of change. Along the way we talk somatics, self-regulation, succession stress, trust and intuition, AI as an unavoidable tool, and the quiet pull of ancestor work and lineage in a time that feels uncertain.

If you care about living a regenerative life, but you also want a life with joy and the space to enjoy it, this conversation is for you.

With thanks to the Grounded crew for this recording, at the biggest festival for better food, farming and ecological care ever held in this country.

Featuring listener voicemail at the end of the episode too.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 22 April 2026.

Title slide by Alan Benson.

See more photos on the episode web page.

And for paid subscribers, join us for the Solstice event with Fred Provenza (and co-host Katie Ross). 

Hear more from Nicole Masters (and Meagan Lannan) in ep164, Training the Wayfinders.

Hear Manchán Magan in ep290, How Old Stories Guide Us Through An Uncertain Future.

Hear Kristy Stewart in ep132, An Agroforestry Revolution.

Grounded was featured all over national media this year, including this article in The Monthly magazine by previous podcast guest Jo Chandler.

Music: 

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Transcript

Live From Grounded Festival

AJ 0:00

Welcome back, everyone. My name's Anthony James. For those of you who've just rocked up to this session, host of The RegenNarration podcast, Confluence River Journeys, and a few other things. And I'm here with our first international guest, a woman who probably needs no introduction here, but I'm going to give her one, Nicole Masters. Welcome to The RegenNarration, coming to you live from the 2026 Grounded Festival on the extraordinary Yan Yan Gurt West Farm, stewarded by the Stewart family in the Otways of Victoria, Australia. This was the biggest festival for better food, farming, and ecological care ever held in this country, receiving around 800 punters, enjoying almost 100 sessions and workshops with around 80 guest presenters. It's early on day one, the Marquee Ironbark Tent is full, and we're all set for a session with Nicole Masters. Build as soil health isn't always sexy. We start by questioning the premise and run from there in conversation with me and those present squarely in the moment through a series of unplanned places and stories. Bold, vulnerable, and so instructive. All woven together by Nicole's unique, hard-won, and globally influential wisdom. With thanks to the grounded crew for this recording, let's head back to the tent. Nicole is an agroecologist, coach, and author. Many of you will have read her book, For the Love of Soil. Now in Spanish, too, by the way, in case you're more inclined. If you haven't read it, it is available here, and Nicole will be signing it later. And uh it's also on her website, integritysoils.com. Now Nicole has decades now of global experience in regenerative soil and land management, alongside coaching and training the trainers, including with the renowned Create program, managed with her mate and partner in crime, Megan Lannon, who's somewhere in here there. Now, her estimated aggregate impact, I have read, is over 30 million acres globally. Something to ponder. All the way from Montana, USA. Please give a massive welcome to Nicole Masters. So we are gonna run this like this. We're gonna wrap. She said, I'm forbidden from being seated because she likes to, I guess, dance and stuff. We'll find out. We're gonna do it like this and then we'll bring you guys in at some stage. Now, do you want to say that's actually the title of Nicole's next talk, which is tomorrow? It's gonna be here tomorrow at four to bring the festival home. Today's talk actually is a little different title, and we're gonna start with

When Soil Health Feels Unsexy

AJ 2:49

that. We're gonna deconstruct it a little bit. It says soil health isn't always sexy, and we'll talk about what the other bit of what it says. But I want to start with that. Do you agree with that starting premise?

Nicole 3:01

Well, I mean, look around the room and see how sexy this room is. Just saying. And I mean, sometimes it's sexy, obviously.

AJ 3:10

But this is why we're standing, clearly.

Nicole 3:12

Yeah, it's all that was all for that. Um, but you know, 27 years ago, 28 years ago, thinking about soil and just going, when are gonna people catch on to the power of soil and how intoxicating it is and how it relates to every single thing that we do on the planet, and to see that now, I think, being more and more realized. And then there's the reality of what do I do now? I caught the bug. And so I think of it a little bit like the journey of raising a child, as you will well know, is right, is there's this idea of I'm gonna create this perfect child, and along the way, things happen, you know, they have food allergies or they tend more towards your wife's side of the family. Can't catch a ball, can't catch a ball. And every single one of us have something that's unique, and it's a long journey. And soil health is very much that long journey. So, how do we continue to put one foot in front of the other while keeping that passion? Yeah.

AJ 4:13

So the next bit of the title is something along the lines of building small, consistent steps and habits, but you've got a sort of a different frame that you put to this.

Nicole 4:23

Yeah.

Hard Work And Discipline Myth

Nicole 4:24

So uh I think most people don't want to be in the tent if we're talking about doing hard work and habits, right? And one thing I want to say, and I want you to just absorb it for a minute, is hard work takes no discipline. Hard work takes no discipline. We many of us were raised in families where hard work was the measure of your manliness or your success or how good you were, was how hard can you work? And so we can work and we can work and we can work ourselves to the bones. And admittedly, in times, obviously, we are bringing in crops or you're carving, there's things that are going to take that dedicated time, but just working hard takes no discipline.

AJ 5:08

Is it worth recounting the story?

Want Versus Willingness On Farms

AJ 5:11

I didn't necessarily have this in mind that Dorothy Dixie you, but the story you told me the other day. Which one about the farmer you were talking with, you didn't know who you were.

Nicole 5:19

Yes, yeah, yeah. Um Google people before they visit you, I think was maybe the message of it. So I I was doing an event in Australia and I stayed at a farmer's place for two two nights before the event, and he didn't know who I was. And I don't expect you to know who I am, really. Um and I, you know, whenever I visit a property, I'm I'm putting my assumptions to the side, my judgments to the side, and I just listen to people and I observe their landscape. And what he was saying was, hey, look, all my mates, you know, they're doing cover crops, they're putting biologicals in. It's really easy for them. I'm just struggling. I'm not getting the result that my friends are getting. It's hard. Um, I'm getting a lot of headaches. He said, actually, every time I talk to you, I get a headache. Like, thanks, mate. He said, I actually think what it is is I'm just too old. I went, You're my age. What? But he had this experience of just everything was really hard. So I just listened to him and I just said, Tell me more about that. What's important to you? And he said, My family and my kids are the most important thing in my life. That's why I'm doing this work. I'm like, great. So the next morning I get up and he looks like a totally different man. Like he looked like he had a rough night. And he said, I've just reflected that I said that my kids are the most important thing in my life, but I do everything I can do to not spend time with them. I get home, I've maybe I've seeded a paddock or I've sprayed a paddock and I go out to the shed and I drink. And I do that until like 10 o'clock at night, and then I come home and might give my wife a peck on the cheek, might say hi to the kids when they go to school in the morning, but that's it. And he said, a part of the reason I've got a headache is because I'm drinking and I'm drinking every single day. So I told this story at an event in Australia uh six years later. Anyway, uh, are you in the room? Um and he stands up and um he says, That's me. That was me. I remember that conversation. And he's like, I was saying this is what I was committed to, but there was a huge gap in the action that I was taking. He said, That was the last night that I took a drink. I haven't drunk in six years. Like, wow, that's so cool, right? But there's a gap, and I think part of it, there's two pieces to it. One is how do we listen more deeply to each other? How can we just be there for somebody else so that they see something newly? And that's, I think, the power of coaching, why Megan and I love the coaching so much is how do we make a profound difference so that someone can see that there's been something blocking their success. But the other part of that is what are the habits that I have in place? So when we visit properties, I really think of it like we're looking at a landscape and listening to those farmers is your want versus your willingness. Your willingness shows up on what the land looks like, what the quality of your crops, the health of your animals. That's your willingness. And a lot of us have wants. And that want might be, I want to spend more time with the kids or I want to have holidays. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, but none of that gets realized until we actually align with what that deeper commitment it is. So that's part of what I wanted to talk about this

Listening Without Mansplaining

Nicole 8:28

morning.

AJ 8:28

Yeah, but I want to back up to the listening bit. In fact, we just heard of heard it with Rowan and Andrew in the first session. The the genius it occurred to me of listening, that they started, for those who didn't hear it, agroforestry legends here, and you know, we're on the land of Andrew Stewart and family. That they they went to the Victorian government at the time back in the 90s and said, we're not going to use the funding you're giving us to plant trees. And they're like, What are you talking about? This is a plant trees program. I said, We need to talk to farmers to find out what their aspirations are, to then find out where trees fit. So the listening piece was first, and they brought that genius, as obvious as it might sound from here, to do that. So there was an instance where you're with this guy and you weren't inclined to say, Do you know who I am?

Nicole 9:09

Well, that would be a wanker. So don't try not to do that.

AJ 9:14

And nor you were you're inclined in that vein to say, even you might consider this. I've got some experience. You weren't inclined to do that. No, and and yet a result far surpassing probably what you could ever dream of if you did do that, occurred. So what happened?

Nicole 9:30

I I have a really good so two years ago, I brought a Honda trash pump to to pump irrigate my property, right? So I have a ditch and I was irrigating out of it, and every time I got a brand new Honda pump. Honda. All right. And it would start and I would walk away and it would wait until it couldn't see me and it would turn off. And I asked everybody, right? I went into the store and talked about it. I called Honda, who are useless, by the way. Uh, no help whatsoever. So I went through everything. I ended up taking that pump in and replacing it because the pump was faulty. Same problem with the next pump. So my my neighbor came around and he didn't ask me, have you checked the petrol? He didn't say, Have you put oil in it? He didn't say, Is it blocked? Like all the things that like throat punch. Like that's my feeling when someone says that. He said, Show me what you've done already. And we walked through that entire system. And what we found were these perfectly round little black beads that look like they were part of the spray system that were actually blocking each nozzle. He then we took a look at the pump and we undid the switch that turns it off. If you um so we found that we had a faulty oil switch off thing. Then we jiggy, what's it? Um, but that whole process of show me what you've done already. So rarely have I had that experience of not being mansplained. And you mansplain to each other too. Like it's not just to women, right? You go, this is what you need to do. And it it undermines my intelligence or what I've already done. And we both learn something out of it. So it's part of just learning to listen to each other is ask different questions and just put ourselves in each other's shoes. It's not easy. Any of this farming stuff.

AJ 11:14

Hmm. Now I'm wondering if there's anyone from Honda out there.

Nicole 11:20

You're gonna set me up.

AJ 11:21

That's right, I should have thought about it. Finally, I knew that story. So I'm curious then for you. I feel

Burnout, Boundaries, And Rest

AJ 11:28

like at this juncture, and perhaps with the other part of your answer before, how has this sort of thing, aside from the Honda engine, I suppose, at the level you even bring to create, like, what has been your personal experience, and I guess even how hard has it been? What has helped you shift in ways you've wanted to? How hard has it been? How long has it taken?

Nicole 11:53

Well, I think this ties into the it takes no discipline to work hard. Is I work that create program is a thousand pages of curriculum. It's um my heart and soul, it's working with an incredible team like Megan and Tanya Massey and Greg Mom and Felix Egarer, just the most like power team of those modules take a lot of work. So I was working all day. I would get RSI, I'd work until 10 o'clock at night. I I mean, if if I've got that direction and I'm just gonna be creating content, just point me that way and nothing else happens, right? I'm not riding my horses, I'm not spending time with people. I'm really, really impatient. And that's when I had that realization that actually to work hard and something I'm good at takes, I don't have nothing, right? I have no personal boundaries. I'm gonna say yes to something that aligns with that, and and everything. So I started to calculate how many days off a year I was having from burnout and sickness was about six weeks a year. Of I just would crash and I'd be like, I just can't do anything, let alone the fun stuff. So I realized if I work less, I'm more effective and I was getting a lot more done. So I'm really precious now about this is work time, and then these are the things that I love. Unfortunately, I have too many hobbies. Um, but these are the things I want to do, which is ride in the mountains and move cows. That's my that's my downtime. I don't have a husband to yell at me, so cow moving's fun.

AJ 13:17

But and you paint, right? And I paint a group of painters in your in your hood.

Nicole 13:21

Yes.

AJ 13:21

There are these things that are important to you. There is actually a whole body of work, too. I mean, this became a bit of a Bible for me, the a book I think was called Less Is More, actually. I had it on the shelf. We just haven't been around our shelf for a while. But there is a whole body of work, and the one I'm talking about surveyed a ton of famous scientists and writers and so forth through the ages for whom this has proved to be true, that it would be normal for them to work intensively for half a day and then get active. So it's like you're tapping, let's say, an ancient wisdom.

Awe, Micro Mindfulness, And Ease

Nicole 13:52

Yeah. Well, I think it's the colonialism of work, right? Is I was in um Kenya and these Kenyans, like, yeah, Africans were like, Why do you live in America? I mean, not only do they shoot each other all the time, and we're like, Yep, fair. Um, but they they don't they don't rest, they don't have any fun, they just work. And I was like, that's a really interesting observation from outside. And then looking at the work ethos in the US, they do. It's just work, work, work, work, work.

AJ 14:21

And here too, I would suggest.

Nicole 14:22

And what?

AJ 14:23

Here too.

Nicole 14:24

Yeah, but at least there's some traditions still, like to get together if that's a barbecue or go fishing or go hunting. There's still there's well, there's still that there. But like what were our traditions? And and the average peasant farmer as such worked, I think a quarter of the hours of what modern-day farmers do. And it's like, how what am I doing with that time and how effective could I be? And you know what? It's got harder and harder because how do we make a living, right? But how do I do things more collaboratively? Why am I doing everything myself? I'm raising the kids and I'm cooking dinner and I'm bringing in the cows, you know, like we're doing all of it. And and and I think this was meant to be done in community. So I'm really interested in what what we used to do. Like, I look at the town halls that are dying, is like we used to get together and dance. We used to get together and play music and sing and things that would regulate our bodies is where are we self-regulating? Yeah. So one practice I have is, you know, I go out first thing in the morning because I got to do chores, but taking those moments of awe of just watching the sky, sniffing, I sniff my horses. Don't tell them it's the best smell. That that regulation moment if I don't have to like, I'm gonna have a meditation practice, which has also been colonized, right? Of this is just part of my day and part of my flow. I don't have to go somewhere weird and sit there for four hours to be mindful. How do I be mindful in those micro moments? And and having awe and gratitude is a huge part of my day.

AJ 15:54

Can you go on with what you what you're talking about with colonized? What's the interpretation you're coming up with?

Nicole 16:01

I came across a statistic and I haven't back-checked it yet, but they were saying uh in the 1900s, Britain ruled a quarter of the entire world's population. Yeah. And and so we've been inoculated kind of with that, and I'm not saying it's wrong or right, but it's like who wrote the books and whose story are we listening to, and whose story do I want to subscribe to? And that story that I want is I want ease in my life. And that modern construct, there's no ease in there, there's no joy, there's no creativity, which I think is what we'll get back to the soil is sexy, but is is regenerative ag, I think brings whatever you want to label it, don't get hung up, it's okay, is of being creative, of bringing fun and joy back into it and collaborating and bringing young people back in, you know.

AJ 16:48

And this can meet livelihood.

Nicole 16:51

Oh, absolutely meet livelihood. I mean, what are we spending money on so far? But I think again, the collaboration piece is why do I have to do every single bit and every single bit well when I'm not good? I don't want to talk to people. It's like cool, but you want to market your product. Okay, how do we start to do that together together so everybody wins? But the profitability piece, if you look at current inputs and you look at yields, it's a I think it's a fallacy and a myth being pushed by the chemical industry that has never been our experience, right? So, and how do we quantify that when actually we're not just doing it because we're doing it for finances, but we're also doing it because we we love this land and we want to see land flourish and people flourish, right? But at the same time, we have to be making a living. But for many farmers, what I find is there's a story to unpack. And

Farmers’ Power And New Models

Nicole 17:43

these are the stories that hold us to be true now, which is that money is hard, money is struggle. For some people, if I'm successful, then I'm greedy. If I'm successful, there's something wrong, that I should give my money away, or I'm just gonna have to work hard for the rest of my life and I'm never gonna make a dime. And that's the story you got told, and that's the story we continue to go through. And that's why I think unpacking stories is so powerful of like that's not mine. That was that was pushed by the industrial revolution. You have to work hard, you're gonna work these hours, and you are a widget.

AJ 18:17

I'm curious to keep going on those lines because you believe this in is in fact a pivotal moment where that story can shift. Can you talk to us about that?

Nicole 18:27

So many stories. I do think personally, I think what we're seeing in is an emerging consciousness, like there's something changing in our relationship to each other and to the land that is not going back in time, but it's just a reconnection. And you know, talking to people in well, where are you living right now? You right in? Oh, and you live.

AJ 18:48

But Perth is home.

Nicole 18:49

Perth is home.

AJ 18:50

Sometimes.

Nicole 18:51

But but like talking to people in the in cities in terms of what is it that you really want? And it's this this reconnection. And and I think we've got two choices right now, right? We're gonna go down that extreme, techno, AI, and again, not saying anything wrong about AI, or we're gonna reconnect. And I think we still have that soul and that need to reconnect. And I I am we were at regen Ben's place, uh, England somewhere, in the UK, near Wales. Yeah, look him up. And one thing that he's been doing is he does one-hour walks once a week in the morning, silent walks. He gets a hundred people and they pay $20 each to walk in silence.

AJ 19:35

Business models, everybody, business models.

Nicole 19:38

Don't tell me we can't make money. I think part but there's a hundred people that want to reconnect and they want the silence. Like, you better not talk, someone's gonna kung fu you because they want that quiet. They listen to the bird noise to just walk in silence with a group of people. And meanwhile, that farmers not being put out. It's not a it's not an obstacle at all. Is how do we get more creative? And I think for so long we've been price takers. And right now, farmers hold the key from climate mitigation, ecosystem services, food production, net zero, all of the scope three blah blah that's coming out, but you're not realizing the power that you have because the story is you're a farmer, you're stupid, you're at the bottom, you couldn't get to university, or whatever those stories were. But actually, this this is the key. And I think we're gonna see this changing moment of you're not gonna do this without food, and sure, you could grow it in hydroponics in the city. Good luck with that.

Teaching Without Telling In Create

AJ 20:38

So, how do you go about teaching for want of a better word? In create. So you came to this project, we've done four runnings now.

Nicole 20:47

Five, five, five to six now. Yeah.

AJ 20:50

Really? Wow. Yeah. So it's tried and proven, but I'm sure is evolving. I'd love an insight to that. How do you then go? Okay, we're gonna create, we're gonna run this thing, and it's going to then enable other people to run their things.

Nicole 21:05

Yes.

AJ 21:06

How do you teach that?

Nicole 21:08

Such a loaded question. Uh, so it's a 30, 30, 34-week program. And what I find is we've come with these filters, we've come with these paradigms around success or around money or around self-belief. And we work with some of the, I'd say some of the best in the world, like incredible graziers, croppers who are now like, I'm ready to turn this into a career and teach others. And meanwhile, deep down, they feel like an imposter. Deep down, they feel like they're not good enough, or no one's interested in what I have to say. Or the really loud ones are doing that on top of feeling like they're stupid. I don't know if you notice that. If you ever feel stupid around somebody else, it's because they feel stupid. So bringing empathy to what other people are going through of how do you kind of break that open so that anything becomes possible? So at the end of create, some people want to become coaches, they become consultants, they're educators. Facilitators, they work with some of the best organizations in Australia. I'm less interested in what people do with the knowledge than what they do in terms of how do I align my deeper commitment and make a difference in the world and find joy, right? I mean, I think we're so bloody significant and we get so tied up and tight and wound up. And it's like there's there's joy if we can just let go of some of that worry and that anxiety. And I'm not saying it's a utopian planet, right? That would be nice. We've got a bit of reality to get through in the next few years, I think. Um, but yeah, that's that's the purpose of the program is how do we absorb knowledge without telling people what to do, without using those old consultant models or the like, I'm gonna show up at your place and you've been doing it wrong and you do it like this. No, uh, which uh hands up if you appreciate when people do that. There's no one ever, right? But that's what's being taught, and not bagging the universities, right? That that's what people are coming out with. I've got the answer and I'm gonna tell you. And it just it nobody likes it. No.

AJ 23:04

I wonder in the writings you've had so far, what has been revelatory to you? Perhaps even you didn't expect, or it, or it, or it just came through in ways that or levels you didn't expect.

Nicole 23:17

Oh gosh. I feel like the whole every iteration's been like that. Like we are constantly, well, I think blown away by often the most capable people and the most successful people have some of the worst stories about themselves. It's like there's a devil on their back and it's whipping them to be successful. And you never reach that destination because there's always something bigger, there's always something more to learn. I've always got to prove more of what happens when we get that off your back is just absolutely incredible. And I think it never ceases to amaze me is meeting people and going, wow, you've got this far and this successful. Like, so one of my stories about myself was that I'm invisible. So what I do is things to make myself publicly visible, right? But a consequence of that, I was a lead singer in a band, and I would sing this far from the mic because I didn't want you to hear me, because I'm invisible. And I'm like, there's a disconnect, right? Of like the disconnect of what if I what if that story wasn't true? What if I didn't grow up thinking I was invisible or stupid, right? So that there's those stories of what if I'm just truly being myself and being authentic and working through this world and and enabling other people to do that. So it it has blown my mind that we get to hold a program like that.

AJ 24:34

Wow, Nicole. And there's an aspect to it that we were comparing notes on, having just run our first river journey, Confluence, in a similar mode. I mean, certainly partly inspired by conversations we had in Montana. If it is time feels plastic, but a year and a half ago or something. And when we were sharing notes about the the listening first, and you're not you're not telling people the way things are, and even as a a coach of coaches, you're not doing that and how to do things. That there is a there's a somatic base to it. You're letting it happen, you're setting the conditions up, and then it's self-organizing. Could I even use that term? What's your your observation, your wisdom that you've just seen from you've gleaned from seeing it play out on that front?

Somatics And The Question Why

Nicole 25:23

All right, just uh some guidelines. I don't feel particularly wise at any point, right? We're just kind of working this out, but for so long I felt like a walking head, right? The body was second hand to the fact that the brain was walking around and observing and analyzing and judging, right? Well, oh my god, I can't believe they did that. They didn't move the cows fast enough, right? Of like that head was so powerful, but what I was missing was the it the entire body of like what does it feel like? And and then to train other people and being able to feel into not only landscapes to feel the animals, can you feel the plants? What's happening with that person that you're talking to? Of that's mostly how we see the world is through our own filters, right? Of how we see the world, the assumptions that we have, and then we interact with people through those filters. Oh, you remind me of my dad, you know? No, but I'm gonna interact with you like you're my dad. I'm not doing that by the way, but um it's just being r like we're not it's being responsible and kind of seeing this. And once I'm so so much of what we do is either you know academic or we're training people to we think about the analogy like fishing, right? You could give someone a fish, which is like many of the government programs, or you could teach them to fish, which we're seeing a lot of in the re regen space right now, is I'm gonna teach you about these practices, or we could come in and say, Why are you fishing? Right? It's a very different thing. And I had this conversation. A woman was about to buy 800 acres that was next door to her existing property. And I just said, Why? She had like a full mental breakdown because she never thought, why did she want to buy it? It was just next door. And then she came back a couple weeks later and she's like, Oh, thank God. I I didn't need to buy it, it was just, you know, it was there and I needed more, but no one had ever said why. So I think having that that that feeling into what it is that someone's communicating, or that feeling of like trusting my body, which means I'm gonna eat well, I'm gonna get enough sleep, I'm drinking water, is these really basic things. And I'm seeing a lot of this in Australia right now as people are talking about energy, which is fantastic. But most people don't know how they're breathing. It's like the thing inside your body is disconnected. So if we start just with this bit, then maybe you're gonna be more connected to what's happening energetically, like, oh, that was a bad feeling. And I'm like, I think you needed to fart. And if you fart, that might feel a lot lighter, just saying.

AJ 27:57

Do you know someone farted in my company last night? No, yeah, wasn't me. Is she in the room? I'm not gonna I'm not gonna out her. I'm not gonna out her. But it happens, but yeah, and she's just saying, sorry about that.

Nicole 28:08

But we're we're asking a lot of ourselves.

AJ 28:11

Oh, there we go. Our friendship has deepened.

Nicole 28:13

There was some there was some blushing. Excellent. But it's like we're being asked to do something and we're we're wanting to see this on the land. And I think it comes back to the habits of you know, we want this incredible, abundant landscape. Meanwhile, we're thrashing our bodies and ourselves and beating ourselves up mentally and expecting these extraordinary properties. And when I go to places that are just like you, oh, just go, wow, like the abundance, the joy. I love the James Ranch. Um, there's a documentary called To Which We Belong that Megan and I in uh Megan's running her Barney Creek livestock, if you look her up. Um, and one of the properties is called the James Ranch. And the dad went to an event in the 1980s, and the it was an HMI type event looking at grazing. And he said to the speaker, you know, what's your measure of success? And the speaker said, How much fun I'm having. And this grazer was like, No, okay, that that wasn't that was weird and fun. And he went back and it was so impactful for him that he said to five kids, if you want to come back to the ranch, you can, but we're gonna be having fun and you need to run your own enterprise. And you come onto this place, and they're one of the kids is doing pigs and chickens, one is doing uh dairy, uh, doing cheese, one was doing trees, one's running the restaurant, and the joy was palpable to the point like I I just kept crying because I'm just like, this is so intense to be in this space and just hear the bird life and the bugs and the whole thing. But it started from this context of how do we have more joy, how do we bring more joy onto the property and connect?

AJ 29:51

Okay, we're gonna come to the floor next after I give you one more Nicaragua. Because I I mean you've hinted at some stuff already, but when things

Joy Through Succession Conflict

AJ 30:01

get tough, because none of this is smooth, like life's not smooth, right? So when things hit tough spots, is there a sort of an MO that you turn to to get through? Hire a good bod.

Nicole 30:19

Yeah, well, I think having a team that's as phenomenal as Megan, but having that person to debug. Um, but part of it is I allow myself to feel the feelings. Oh, I love road rage. I just don't cut me off and throw stones on my window. I go ape shit, and it's the most amazing. I'm like, I allow myself to feel rage, right? I don't say, hey, that's an emotion you can't have. If I feel sadness, I allow it to move through. So an emotion only lasts in the body for 90 seconds. That's it. If you can ride that emotion out for 90 seconds, then the rest of what I'm dealing with is my story and my feelings about that moment, which is not present, right? So it gives me the ability to be able to shift off and through stuff fairly quickly. There's some things that'll get stuck, and I'll be like, I'm I'm just gonna rant about this because I need to kind of allow it to move through, and then I reflect on how am I processing this? What am I making a story up about the situation versus this is something that happened, and I don't have to kind of get all in the swampy grossness of of whatever, right? And that gives me freedom. Like my mind is so quiet, and I thought that was something you had to do through meditation, but most of the time my mind is really, really quiet. And that's that's been that's been 20 years of learning how to do that. But if I can pass that on to someone else, it's like, well, now what becomes available is I'm gonna do the hard thing, I'm gonna do the thing that needs to be done. I'm gonna check off my list instead of avoiding that phone call that I've needed to do for six months that weighs on me very heavily and makes me feel grumpy. Is I just go to what's the thing that right now I feel like I've lost power? And I go and look at it. It's a conversation that didn't happen. It's something that I said I was gonna do that I didn't do. I gotta get to it, and then I feel a lot freer.

AJ 32:06

It's a nice frame. It's also along these lines why this festival has bodywork stuff. There'll be qiglung tomorrow, and I think there's a few and yoga, obviously at the start of each day. Uh, no accident, and I'm so delighted to see it.

Dale from audience 32:20

Anyone want to chime in? Um, my name's Dale um from the Riverena in New South Wales. This is not the talk or the question that I thought I would be asking today. But um, so I I guess continuing on the theme a little bit, and it's I guess I'm not quite sure where I'm going to yet, but we'll get there. So I I come from the land and I've come back to agriculture and currently going through a very disjointed and dysfunctional succession planning uh process. Uh I've read your book, loved your book, came back uh, I guess, a couple of years ago, uh, read The Lunatic Farmer, uh, found Alan Savory, of course. I graduated from the ANU in about 2010 with a natural resource management degree, and don't think I once heard in my degree the terms regenerative ag, since professionally, of course, but in a very different space, found regenerative ag and that was really the inspiration for me to come back to the land was the opportunity, the optimism, the vision that it provided for agriculture, for food, for our climate, etc. So coming back to the farm, going through a succession phase, there isn't a lot of joy. And that that's because there's dysfunction on the farm, you know, thing the system, that the ecological health of the system isn't there and things don't mesh well. So I think it's not all quite as easy as it should be. So the question is I guess it was a question back to you to to build on that. So it's it's kind of through your experience there, is is what uh how do you get through that?

AJ 33:51

You know, um it is precisely what came to mind when you're talking about joy. I was thinking of exactly these scenarios.

Nicole 33:56

So uh life happens. Who's had life happen? Right, and I can't control that. Uh can't control Trump. Don't think anybody can, right? Can't control my parents, can't even control my child at any time, right? The only thing that I I can do is is work on this piece, right? So, how do I still bring joy when I'm dealing with succession, right? Of having someone perhaps that you can talk to and walk through that process of, well, what is the worst case scenario? Would if if I if I lost the farm, or if I got the farm, or if I had to share it with somebody else, like working through some of those scenarios, you work through a lot of that emotional charge because people are gonna do people shit all the time. And it's like I still get to be responsible for I can I can stay as still and present and listening and empathetic for whatever they're dealing with. And I do believe that people are doing the best they can in those moments, right? And they got taught that. Like my mother grew up in a really abusive household. So my uncle is a gang member, my other uncle uh committed suicide, my cousin got murdered. We have this legacy in my family of just violence, and I grew up like that. And when I was 25, I went, that's it. I can I there might have been magic mushrooms. Not saying there was. Uh, and and and I decided I was gonna heal that relationship with my mother. I'm gonna recreate who she is for me. She doesn't get to you know treat me like that now as an adult, obviously, but I can just love on how hard that was for her as a child. And it totally transformed our relationship. Is I'm recreating people all the time. I have breakdowns with people. There's there's stuff that happens, right? Is I'm committed to actually seeing an outcome, right? Whatever that might be for succession, like I want to see the family be able to keep the farm, or I want to be able to see this work out. But talk to a succession planner, Megan Lannon, uh, does succession. So maybe talk to her. But finding someone that you can lean on, right? And keeping this this piece intact, no one gets to take this away from you, right? And we give it away, like, oh, that person took my joy. No, you gave it to them.

AJ 36:19

So much in every bit of that answer, I reckon. There's also a bloke in front of you. I don't know if you know him, Dale, but you could speak to him too.

Nicole 36:25

Oh, yeah.

AJ 36:26

Yeah. Is there another hand?

Nicole 36:29

I don't know how to ask a question. This is weird. We'll keep going.

AJ 36:32

We're just so good, Nicole. What can we say? Also, shit, they're asleep, one or the other. So I'm curious as we stand here today. I imagine someone is just tapping this stuff and creates flourishing, that there's there's always something

Learning Field And Organizational Stories

AJ 36:50

bubbling up. What's emerging for you right now?

Nicole 36:53

So we say create the programs flourishing, but we are still ready to adapt and pivot because there's stuff coming, right? So, how how do I prepare my business for the worst case scenario? What does that look like to build resilience in my local community? Like we're doing the thinking and then putting every step in place to make that program successful. And if it's not, then it's not, and I go and do something else, right? So the evolution right now is we're working with organizations. It's called the learning field. Hopefully, you'll see some shirts in the next day of people wearing the learning field. It's a great big dung, flying dung beetle, of working within organizations that right now are shaping the food system, and they're doing that from a scarcity mindset. They're doing it from old industrial paradigms, and they're like, here's the certification. Click the box and pay your money. Like, just the same old shit. And I'm like, can we not do that? What does it look like to be regenerative within my organization, within myself, working with people out in the world? And so that we've been doing that work probably for the last five years. So we work with uh New Zealand Marino to develop the regenerative index. When that index was released, half of New Zealand high country farmers signed up, five million acres signed up for that program. But developing programs that really meet farmers' goals. So working, we're working with farmers themselves or ranches or families to do the thinking. Like, how do we communicate differently than that? Oh, you owed me because you sent me to boarding school stuff, right? It's like can we get past that and just deal with who's in front of us? Um, so the learning field is really looking at working with large organizations, um, nonprofits, to ask some different questions. And like, we call it the mythic and the mundane. What are the stories that hold an organization together that pervade even in a time when things are so uncertain, but there's so much uncertainty right now? How do we build that into the organization? And then the mundane is, you know, here's the day-to-day things that happen in an organization, which still fits. And that would apply to to farming as well. Like, what are some things that I do that, yeah, they just did it because granddad did it?

AJ 39:04

Any

Young Farmers And Avoiding Burnout

AJ 39:05

hands? Yeah, bang. And then there, maybe Robin, start with you.

Josephine from audience 39:08

Hello. Yeah, you got me. Um, I'm Josephine from Robertson, the Southern Highlands, and I uh raise goats for land conservation. Um, yeah, no, I best I guess I just wanted you to ask if you could elaborate on when you say farmers hold the key to everything. Um, I'm really interested in like the new generation, say moving from the city. Like, who wants to work in the finance world in the city when you could be a farmer growing beautiful produce? And so um, yeah, and I I'm observing in the Southern Highlands that there are young, you know, farmers like 30, 40 year olds who are moving their families or moving solo and there's you know becoming artisanal farmers. But if you could elaborate more on how you see that would be great. Thank you.

Nicole 39:47

Yeah, and I think it's awesome, and it's back to the soil and sexy, is this is fun, this is attractive, but there's also a really, really hard reality. And watching people come in with all that excitement and then you know, they do something crazy like get goats. No, like but like but like stacking enterprises, like I'm gonna do the chickens and the turkeys and the sheep, and I'm gonna direct market, and then I'm gonna do my own beef, and we should oh yeah, we should do pigs. Of like how how do we do these in ways that are still inspiring, but I'm not being driven by having to prove myself. I'm not being driven by being the best at this, or I'm on Instagram and I'm gonna show, I'm gonna influence the planet, right? Is that's the opportunity, I think, is how do we do this for deeply nourishing food that means I'm not working 80 hour weeks, right? And right now that's not the experience for most young people or people involved in like we talked about this yesterday, like cafes and restaurants. It's like you're doing that because it's a lifestyle and you enjoy it for a while, and then the reality sets in. And I think that's the that's why we need the elders to be having this conversation. And right now, and I I think of AI is a little bit like this: like there's no adult supervision happening, there's just a bunch of kids very excited pushing buttons, and sometimes thinking about how where's those mentors? Where is their older generation? And they're not trying to tell you you're wrong, but how do we support those young people in having something that is really enjoyable? It's not going to burn them out.

Angus Neaves from audience 41:22

Uh yeah, my name's Angus Sneeve, so I guess I'm from Gitchland origin. But um my question is around you sort of touched on energy there, and actually, before we do energy work, having to go within ourselves. How like where is that step? I guess we used the analogy like staircase. Like, how do we take the next step up the staircase in this sort of self-development and energetic world? And where do you see, like, I guess, society taking that?

Nicole 41:54

Wow, it's a profound question for the day.

Trust, Energy Work, And Lineage

Nicole 41:58

So good. Um, I I think it's like your soil health journey. There's not one step that fits everybody, right? But I do think the piece of nourishing yourself in order to be able to connect more deeply. A lot of my most profound experiences have happened when I was doing something else, right? I wasn't like I'm gonna focus right now and tune in. What do you need to tell me?

AJ 42:21

Um that was that was the other part of that book, by the way, was that the rest of the time, and when you're in the mountains and stuff, or in the shower, like whatever. Yeah, that's when the subconscious bubbles.

Nicole 42:31

That's right. Well, I don't even think it's a subconscious.

AJ 42:34

There you go.

Nicole 42:35

But it's also not questioning when uh it's trust, actually. I I would have to say, I think trust is is one of the first pieces of my brain wants to analyze and scientifically prove something, like I need the literature on the voice that I just heard, instead of can I trust that? Like I trust my horse. If it doesn't want to go up that mountain, we're not going up there. Like, how do I learn to trust what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, what I'm thinking? Is and often we can't trust ourselves, or we can't trust our intuition because we're not nourishing our gut, right? Like how much of this microbiome is affecting your brain chemistry is I need to be nourishing self and then I can trust myself more, right? How do I deepen into that intuition? But I don't I think there's a there's a lot of diversity in the room, and you've probably all had different experience. Hello, Graham, all had diverse uh experiences in different ways, right? And and to think we can cookie-cut it. And that's where I think again, working, it's the same with working with your soil health journey, is we're we're following in the footsteps of like a minefield of the person in front of you, but maybe like 30 footsteps behind if they go, you're in the safety zone. If I'm gonna what what worked well for you, right? How do I connect more deeply? And also being able to trust whoever's whoever's walking in front of you. Because there's people that are involved in the energy space that I don't. Feel a particularly trustworthy. And we've got no way to gut check them if your gut's not operating well. Right. So just trusting. And I think that's where the awe and gratitude piece really comes in. It's the things that I see and the the birds and the insects and the animals that come in when I'm in trust. Have you had that experience? Like just chilling and something kangaroo pops past. I don't know. Like stuff. You've seen it with sharks.

AJ 44:30

Well, even the guitar being played before changed everything in uh in Rowan and Andrew's session. Just yeah, the vibe.

Nicole 44:36

The vibe. So find your thing. Find your thing, right? And it might be music, drumming. But I often think a lot of ceremonial stuff. Um we work a lot with um tribal members in the US and like things like sweat lodges, cold plunges, drumming, circle, toning, wailing, all of these practices that we used to have are tuned in into our epigenetics, right? Tuned into your cells. There's a remembering when you come across a ceremonial practice that if you go back in your lineage, you had that. You used to do that. And it was important because that's what regulated cells. That's what helped your body trust. So I think bringing back the town hall, bringing back music, that like the profound impact, or like, you know, when you've heard a really great poem and you just burst into tears and you're like, I don't know what happened just then, of being moved by each other, right?

AJ 45:27

You know, there was a Mohawk woman, speaking of being moved, I was moved by this almost closing line to a book called Healing Grounds, which I highly recommend. It was a Mohawk woman called Stephanie Morningstar, who, when the author who'd set about an examination of regenerative agriculture's place in addressing climate concerns, was like, How much can I trust that? And uh, but she ends up asking this indigenous woman at the end of a whole unexpected path, so what is it after all? And she said, ancestor work. And that stayed with me as a bit of a catch cry. And I hear that ringing in my head again when you talk about that.

Jen Robinson from audience 46:02

Hi, Jen Robinson uh from Nepalina. Hi, Bart, Tassie. Nicole, in the talk that we had in this tent just before you, there was a theme around the idea of creating space for conversations to affect

Peer Pressure As Change Agent

Jen Robinson from audience 46:15

kind of cultural change. And reading a bit about um from authors like Michael Bungy, Stania, about the advice monster, it leans into what you've talked about again today, about not telling people how to do things differently, but creating a space.

Nicole 46:32

Right.

Jen Robinson from audience 46:33

In terms of our organization, that's something that we really like to try and do as well. Um, what does that look like for you in terms of actually creating that container that people can come into to do the self-reflection piece to then take the step towards change, whether that's for themselves or their business or their farm?

Nicole 46:51

So it's a great question. I love it. Uh what's the most powerful force for change in agriculture? People mindset? Is it making money? You wouldn't have that truck if it was. No. What's the most powerful force and agent for change in agriculture? Results. People in what way? People. So people only look at change if it's going to cost too much. That is true if you're on the poverty line. They don't know about that other pathway, but it's also the water that you're swimming in. So the most powerful agent for change in my mind is peer pressure. What we we call the social squeeze, right? Is what I've seen happen now in happen now in communities is the weirdos are the ones that aren't talking about soil health. Right? What does that look like in a community? Right? So I'm going to talk about this tomorrow, but basically working in areas now that over 42% of the land area is being managed using adaptive grazing, using biologicals in the region we've been working in for quite a while. Is what did that take? It took an invitation. It took a rancher saying who was in the Republican Party. He's in the cattlemen's association, he's very well respected in the community. And he just opened his doors and said, I'm trying this stuff, come and take a look. And that community were like, he's not crazy. Let's go and take a look. He's not like some New Zealander with their bare feet on a stage talking about feelings, right? Is that's who those people are gonna listen to. So that's why I'm more interested now in training the trainers, is I'm not the one that's gonna make the impact in the community. You are. But what's stopping people is you're not telling your stories. You're worried they're gonna think you're a weirdo. That time's gone. They did that when you were five, they already knew you were weird, right? Of like just having that courage to speak up and go, hey, I'm trying this thing. What do you think? What do you do for this? I mean, the the the I think of like the anthemantic resistance in New Zealand. Now, 50% of New Zealand's flock is resistant to your parasitic, you see, wormers. These guys are in constant cycles of what's it, what is it here in Australia? Drenching? How often are we drenching? What? Pretty close, right? So it's like, what do you want to spend your time doing? And then you have a conversation with someone that's like, I don't drench my sheep at all. What would that look like for you? How much more time would you have to get busy doing something else? Right? How much more time would you have not doing that? So I think some of this is just getting really curious about what is it that other people are dealing with and speak to their values. I've heard values mentioned a few times. So when I talk to conventional farmers and I don't wear this outfit, is I say, What do you want? What do you why what do you really want for your system? We want something that's easy and something that's efficient and simple. And I'm like, well, let's make your program easy, efficient, and simple, because a lot of this approach in the biological system is complex and complicated and it sounds really hard. You mixed what and you were naked at a full moon? It happens. No. What would be a program to get someone started so that in year three, they're like, I I actually can see the results, I'm seeing it in my livestock, I'm seeing it in my costs. What does it look like to trial? Right. So those first couple of baby steps, we talk about like making the first steps easy. So if you're having a conversation at the pub, it's like, well, yeah, I'm reducing my glyphosate or the G word. Uh with a little bit of phobic. Cool. If that gets someone started on their program, they're saving money and they're actually feeding biology. Let's get going. Right. So I I think the big piece is to not be dogmatic. Take your dog for a walk, take it out the door, is dogma, and especially in this space, is the most off-putting conversation. They're not going to do it the way you did it. Don't judge them. Right? I have some thoughts about paracord. I have some thoughts about well, neonicotinoids. I have a lot of thoughts, but they need to be banned. But apart from that, uh, whatever you're doing, okay, that's what you're doing. How do we help you achieve that simple outcome and be able to regenerate soil?

Sam Baldry from audience 51:03

Hi, Sam Baldry, and I work at the intersection of Netflix and Human Capital. And since about 2020, uh, I've seen a lot of people leaving the industry. And this isn't necessarily isolated to agriculture too, but doing a lot of work on themselves and a lot of work on the energy fulfillment, you know, somatic work, etc. Now we're seeing those people come back. And as I said, it's not necessarily isolated to agriculture, but we're coming back in. Plus, there is that shift that you talk about that is happening on a ripple effect, even if you haven't left and come back,

AI, Mystery, And Staying Human

Sam Baldry from audience 51:40

etc. With that in mind, we've got a strong driver to do better, a desire and a drive to be more connected, and a desire and drive to be more fulfilled. How do you see, though, AI playing a role in that when you said at the start that there is connection and then there's AI? I'm going to preface this before I stop talking that I think I should have been born in the 1920s and I don't like my smartphone and much prefer horses. Like, um, but I do see there being a role in AI, and I just wanted to see your opinion based on an earlier comment.

Nicole 52:16

Yeah, and it's such a hot topic, and I'm sure you've all got strong views on this one. I was listening to the Emerald podcast, and something he said really resonated with me, which is we lost the mystery, right? We lost the thing that's bigger than ourselves, we lost religion, we lost spirituality. And in part, that's what AI is now doing. It's we've got something that's bigger than us, that's out of a different form of consciousness that we don't understand that we're going to give our power over. And it was driven by 20-year-olds in Silicon Valley, right? Is again where are the elders and having these conversations? But I think everything can be a tool. There's no putting AI back in the box. Um, how do we do that strategically and thoughtfully? But again, this is where agriculture has okay, sure, there's gonna be robot farming that's happening. But how do we do this in a way that supports your business? Like, there's a lot of really, I think, good tools in AI, and there's no there's no getting rid of it. So I don't have like a strong opinion about what we're gonna do or not do. I think it's really interesting evolving space.

AJ 53:24

There is also AI and there's AI, like they're not all the same, and the people managing them are not all the same. So it's worth, as with anything, being discerning and getting quality AI as we would quality food. The Team Human podcast with Douglas Rushkoff is a bit of a touch point for me, and he did say way back, but it stayed with me, and I think it's still it's still relevant. He's more concerned with humans acting like machines rather than what the machines will do to humans. And in fact, they are connected. If we can get more along the lines that I think you're talking about, Nicole, be more fully human in the world, then the machines we program could reflect that.

Nicole 54:01

Which I think comes to your river drift and like friends of mine run an internship up in the mountains. It's it's three months. Uh, the only thing they promise they don't pay, they promise you uh clear skies and fresh water. It is a grueling position to live with cattle up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. They get 280 applicants every year for those roles. If people just want to, and their drive, their goal is we want to get people excited about agriculture that live in the city. So they're taking city people who've never ridden a horse in the mountains and putting them on horses. But that reconnection, and I think that's part of what are you currently doing that is the resource. And right now, I think the biggest resource is people wanting to reconnect. What is it that you could do in order to service that? It's bigger than food.

unknown 54:50

Okay.

Nicole 54:50

What is it that you love about this that maybe someone else would? I think the whole thing with young men is really concerning. Is okay, how do we how do we support them? What does that look like? You're gonna go and do a hard day's work when you've never lifted more than your keyboard finger.

Dan from audience 55:04

Hi, Nicole.

Ancestor Work And Closing Thanks

Dan from audience 55:05

Uh, my name's Dan over here. Anthony, your your point earlier about the Mohawk woman segue is straight into this question. It's also thematic to connection, but I'm curious how you bring uh your ancestry and ancestors into your life and your work, or maybe more adequately, how you bring your life and your work into your ancestors.

Nicole 55:27

Uh so good. I think one of the pivotal moments I had, like I've always felt like I'm not as connected to someone who's First Nations. Like I had that sensation. Like, I I wish I was Maori, like growing up, especially all my friends were Maori, and we run around in New Zealand, and I'm like, I wish I had that. And then I met Man Khan Magan, who wrote 32 Words for Field, um, listening to the land. You interviewed him, fabulous um podcast. And Man Khan really reconnected me back to my Irish roots of you know, these were the traditions. In order to prove that you were a man, you had to build soil. Like that was a proof of manhood, which is I'm not saying anything, but we might be missing some men. I didn't say that. But oh not in this room, obviously, and we're building some soil, but like very manly room. Very manly room. But those rites of passage, and and and something really kind of lit up for me, which is you know, I'm indigenous to the planet, and I have access to be able to reconnect to that indigenity. So I got much more interested in my own genealogy and what had happened in the the genocides in the 1850s in England, I mean in Ireland, but what the English were doing, or the beat up on the English, because I'm also English, right? I'm not going to reject part of my genealogy that's English. I'm also Romani, which probably explains my gypsy nature, right? I'm just getting really curious about what was that mixing part, which I think Australians and New Zealanders have, and what were their traditions. And I don't have to fully adopt any tradition because I'm making it, this is my generation, right? What does it look like for me to just yeah, connect more deeply into the past? And wailing, which is a New Zealand tradition, I thought, a Maori tradition, is actually an Irish tradition, which is what you do at a funeral. You wail. We don't do that anymore. Like, you know, you sit all quiet and stoic and we don't show feelings, is wailing has become part of my process. When I feel the grief of what's happening in the world, the grief of what's happening environmentally, I allow myself to wail, like to allow the sound to move through. And it feels so right to me because it's not mine. Like that's something that's really old in the bones. So I think playing and not being significant, am I like culturally inappropriate? And I took someone's whatever, right? Because yes, we acknowledge where something might have come from, but for me and my own personal practice, like I'm not teaching people that it's yours.

AJ 57:57

For what it's worth, Dan, the first half of what Nicole was saying, Ditto. The second half not so much, but maybe I should. We'll see what happens next.

Nicole 58:05

We're gonna get you wailing.

AJ 58:06

There we go. Time is up. Thank you so much, Nicole. Please give her a massive hand. That was Kiwi Turned Montanen, author of For the Love of Soil, and founder of the Create Programme with Integrity Soils, Nicole Masters. Live in conversation at the 2026 Grounded Festival in the Outways of Victoria. With thanks to the festival team. And if you'd like to hear more from the festival, including from the Stuart family, stay tuned to the Grounded Podcast. Meantime, if you haven't heard Christy Stewart on this podcast yet, on location on the farm also, duck back to episode 132, an agroforestry revolution on family, community, and spiritual transformation.

Listener Voicemail And Support Options

AJ 58:52

Before we go, last week our third listener mail bag went out on the pod. This week, let's experiment with including a voicemail at the end of an episode. Let me know if you like the idea. It's a good one. So here goes. From new subscriber, Richard Savage, commenting on episode 305 with Pete McBride on how to save the Colorado and maybe all rivers.

Richard Savage voicemail 59:16

Another extraordinary episode. Thank you, AJ and Pete, for your enduring humility in your work. The idea of getting the policymakers onto river or simply on her banks reminds me of John Muir's famous three-day hiking trip with US President Theodore Rosefeld through the Yosemite Valley in 1903. Multiple conservation proclamations followed. It has to ask who in the current group of the river basin states policymakers, First Nations, and Mexican government reps will be remembered in a hundred years' time for forging consensus on the new river Colorado River Basin Management Plan. Let's hope Pete's presence can inspire the policymakers to center their objectives on a best river basis. Those of us in Australia now face a similar challenge with the revision of the 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Thanks again to you both for your incredible work.

AJ 1:00:12

Thanks for that story, Richard, and for sharing the documentary about it, Yellowstone to Yosemite. Another layer of inspiration to this general premise. I'm paying attention. If, like Richard, you like what you hear, and if you'd like to join us for our live podcast event with Fred Provenza on Friday, week 19th of June, become a paid subscriber on Patreon or Substack if you'd like some writing too. This episode was only possible with your support, so thanks so much to old friend Chris Grose for joining on Patreon and the wonderful Stacy Curcio for joining on Substack. And Jen West, thanks so much for increasing your support on Patreon. Love you's all. And thank you all for sharing, rating, reviewing, and telling your friends, even your enemies about it. Nah, no one has enemies here, do they? The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.