Entrepreneurship is the Ultimate Freedom with Jim Gale

Entrepreneurship is the Ultimate Freedom with Jim Gale

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 42 of the Business Development Podcast, and I just wanna start today's episode out by giving a big shout out to all my Canadian listeners. Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians, and I just also wanna give a quick shout out to all of my Americans. Happy July 4th, independence Day to all of you as well.

On today's episode, we have Jim Gale from a billion dollar mortgage company to wanting to change the world through permaculture. It's an amazing episode. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more. This is the Business Development Business Development podcast, podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

In broadcasting to the world, you'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome back to the Business Development Podcast. This is episode 42, and my gosh, do we have an amazing entrepreneurial interview for you today. Today we have Jim Gale. Founder and CEO of Food Forest abundance and much more.

We're gonna get into that today. Jim Gale is the extraordinary mind behind food, forest abundance, and a true force of nature. As an international permaculture advocate, entrepreneur, and CEO , Jim has dedicated his life to transforming the way we interact with our environment, cultivating a sustainable future for all.

Fueled by faith and courage, Jim has honed his ability to manifest success through the practice of inspired visioning and meditation. At a young age of 29, he set an audacious goal to retire in three years and surpassed expectations by creating a billion dollar mortgage company. After indulging in a year of Oceanic bliss aboard his boat, Jim's path led him to Costa Rica, where he discovered permaculture and realized its potential to revolutionize our lives.

Jim's Deep Love for nature has taken him on a remarkable journey through 37 countries where he has embraced diverse cultures, sought wisdom from indigenous communities, and lived with the Maasai and experienced a vibrant island life of Hawaii. They have all shaped his understanding of the delicate balance between humans and the natural world, with a vision to bring permaculture to every household on the planet.

Jim founded Food Forest Abundance. Food Forest Abundance is a groundbreaking enterprise that empowers individuals to create their own self-sustaining ecosystems. Harnessing the abundant power of nature through innovative techniques and a commitment to education. Food forest abundance is redefining the way that we grow and consume food, eliminating the need for harmful chemicals and backbreaking maintenance.

As a testament to his unwavering dedication, Jim and his wife Andrea oversee the awe-inspiring Galt's landing an off-grid resort spanning 52 acres of ecological brilliance nestled in the heart of St. Cloud Florida. This enchanting oasis boasts thousands of square feet of flourishing food forest.

Nurturing over 200 different species of delectable food. Complete with a private 430 acre Lake. Galt's Landing offers overnight stays, immersive tours, a flourishing nursery, and an educational experience that will leave you inspired to embark on your own sustainable journey. Gem, wow, that is one heck of an introduction.

How are you today?

Jim Gale: Oh, Kelly, thank you. I'm just, I feel so present and so alive, and it's just wonderful to chat with you and your audience about how. We solve all of the world's biggest problems. Literally, what I'm going to share with you and your audience today is the solution, not the hypothetical solution, not the hopeful solution, but the demonstratable solution to mass extinction and deforestation, to cancer and diabetes and heart disease trends.

It's the end of world hunger and it's the end of tyranny when we take the poisons out of our system. And grow food instead of half of the 44 million acres of lawn in the United States alone. When we do that one logical thing, we change

Kelly Kennedy: the world. Man. That's really, really inspiring and I really wanna get into how, you know, I mean, the reality is you are, you are a serial entrepreneur, right?

You've been doing this a real long time. We're gonna get back into the backstory of kind of how you got into your entrepreneurial journey, how you founded a billion dollar company. Crazy. Like, unbelievable. I can't wait to get into that story. But I also wanna get into like, at what point, obviously permaculture became so important to you, you know, like as a business person at some point in your life you know, you, you've clicked the switch and you said, you know what?

I'm a very successful business person, but I need to change the world. And I wanna get into what inspired you to do that as well. But take us back to the beginning, Jim. Take us right back. I know what you said when you were 19 was when you started your entrepreneurial journey. Yeah. Take us back to 19.

What were you, who, who was Jim then?

Jim Gale: So I was a guy that I was lost kind of I was. I barely made it through school because I didn't like school. I was daydreaming through through school completely. I got Cs in order to wrestle. That was my, my life was really about, my identity was surrounded by my success.

Or failure in wrestling. And my senior year, I did not place in the state tournament. My freshman year was horrible, and then my college wrestling coach asked the whole team to write their goals. I was 19 years old at the time. I. And I, when he handed us all the piece of paper, it was a Friday afternoon, we were at wrestling practice and he said, have these goals on my desk on Monday morning or you're not going to be wrestling.

And wrestling was all I had. And I looked at that paperwork and I said, ah, what a pain in the ass. I don't wanna do any paperwork. I don't like paperwork. So I threw it on my desk and then I ignored it. Friday, I ignored it. Saturday, I was a procrastinator. Sunday night came and I had to get it done, and so I started reading the questions and they were put in long-term, intermediate and short-term, and it said, start with the long-term vision.

Start with the ultimate inspired vision that you can imagine for yourself. You know, and just as a quick side note, I later learned Napoleon Hill, who studied the most successful people in the history of the world. After studying these people, he deducted whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.

Now I had just got done, I started a in a network marketing company. It was called Omni Nutrition. And this, I was on my way to Texas and somebody put in Dennis Whiteley's, the psychology of winning. We listened to that tape series all the way to Texas, from Minnesota and back. And I was a different person.

So when I was writing my goals, I started visualizing myself as a su successful wrestler. And again, the two years previous, I was horrible. And state champions in a college wrestling room are frequent there. There's a lot of state champions or state placers. So when I handed my goals in, after I started writing them I got so inspired.

The next morning I handed 'em into the coach. And he, he kind of smirked and he said, these goals are kinda lofty, don't you think? He said, goals are meant to be something that you can achieve. Basically saying, Jim, you have no shot at this. And the, it was too late though, because I had already imagined myself in the picture.

Right. And that's what we do. We imagine ourself. With all of our energy, all of our being, our spirit, our soul, everything in the experience of success and something happens. So the shift was made four years later. I was four time all American and national champion. Wow. It was inducted to the Hall of Fame, and it was because the coach said, it's time to create a vision for your future.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is amazing the little things that change our lives, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it, yeah. Business to amaze me too, even in, even in my world, right? Like there's a, we talked a little bit before this show started about synchronicities and it's funny cuz I've talked with plenty of entrepreneurs about synchronicities and no one wants to admit that.

Like, oh yeah, they happen. But totally they happen. And I feel like, like you said, you talked about mindset mindset's, something else that we don't talk about a lot in business ownership or entrepreneurship. But the reality is it's if you put your mind to something and you work towards it, it is achievable most of the time.

You know?

Jim Gale: Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, whatever my mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. Now, the believing part is the part that sometimes takes a little bit of effort, right? Or sometimes a lot of effort. Yeah. Like our current goal is to change the world, and I absolutely know that we're going to.

Because it's time. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. After college, I moved to Hawaii for four years and prince was at our little we had a little restaurant, like a, a nightclub in a, in a strip mall. And Prince came there too, new year's in a row because we had some good musicians there. It was pretty fun.

And then I was then I got a backpack because a lot of people in Hawaii there in Maui were travelers, and they told me stories and I had to live those. Stories. So I got a backpack and I did the backpackers route through Africa and Asia and the Maldives and Karachi Pakistan and all these places, and I learned a lot when I got home and while I was gone, I wrote goals for the second time and it was about 10 years later.

And this time I was reading, in fact, I spent about four months at Bond University in Australia and I went to the, I didn't pay to go there. I just walked up into the library and I read every book I could find on human achievement and performance and people doing it. Different. And I had this belief system that was so strong that there's no limits.

So I wrote my goals again. I was pretty much broke. I had bartending experience. Mm-hmm. And a teaching degree. And the only reason I had a teaching degree is because I was nominated for the Hall of Fame and they had to have me as a graduate. They couldn't have had me and I, I was missing two one credit classes, so they just sent me the degrees.

Don't worry about those classes. Yeah. I wrote that I wanted to be retired and that wasn't, I was young and ignorant, right? Mm-hmm. I didn't know what retirement meant, but anyway, I got home and a series of events. Converged and the universe opened up and I ended up getting in a mortgage business, which was a hundred percent commission based, no salary, and it went from zero to 1.3 billion in revenue in three and a half years.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. Yeah. Can I stop you there for a second please? Yeah. What does that type of growth feel like? Like, like to me, it would feel almost like in that amount of time, like how do you even keep up with a machine like that? Yeah. What was that like?

Jim Gale: You don't keep it, it's about presence. And, and while I was doing this, I was studying these people and that the common theme was stay present.

Right? I was listening to Eckhart Toley, I was listening to all the speakers Wayne Dyer, and I was listening to Deepak Cho, you name it, Anthony Robins and it, it came down to. Be present to the next logical step. Right? So I didn't plan, I had the big goal. Mm-hmm. And then that was a big, general, very inspiring goal, but I didn't plan every next step.

I simply created the big vision and then I. The universe said, oh, step here. Oh, call this person. And sometimes I'd, I'd have to get up at three in the morning because there was an idea that compelled me to get my ass outta bed and get on the computer and send an email to somebody. And oftentimes it was that email or something that came from that email that led to this incredible growth.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. No, you hit the nail on the head. And it's so funny cuz even in my business, like I look at the things that have happened in my business and the people that we've connected with or like the things that have happened. Like for instance, Jim, with this podcast you're on right now, I never planned for this podcast.

This podcast just kind of. Fell outta left field as an opportunity to try this January. And I was like, ah, yeah, why not? Why not? I, so I bought the equipment and I, in February, I hopped on and started talking to the wall. Right. Love it. But it's like, sometimes it just kinda lined up. And what's crazy, dude is like, we, we, we only had like three months in around 30 episodes and we won an award for Best Business Podcast 2023 by Quill Inc.

Up here in Canada. Which was crazy. Congratulations. Yeah, thanks man. Yeah, it's, it's nuts. But you just, like I said, I had no plans for this podcast and it's so funny cuz people reach out to me all the time and I'm sure you too, cuz we're gonna get into it. You have a very successful show as well. But people reach out to me all the time and they go, Kelly, like, tell me how did you do this?

How did you build this great podcast? And I'm like, I just started like, that's it. Just start. Cuz the reality is you can't do nothing if you don't start right.

Jim Gale: Yes. Whatever you can do or think you can begin it. Boldness has genius power and magic in it. It's about taking that first step, planting that first seed is so empowering, and then just open up to the guidance that will come.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, totally, totally. And, and I think too, it takes like, you know, I mean, I struggle with this too because I'm always trying to make things work in my life. I feel like I haven't quite been able to just release things to the universe yet. I still love, I still love to, I feel like it takes action, right?

It's like the universe will help you, synchronicities will happen for you, but you still have to kind of take that first step in your life. You have to take action for good things to happen to you. What would be your stance on something like that?

Jim Gale: Oh, for sure. And the most empowering action is to breathe and go deep.

Within that is the foundation of all presence. It's breathe, look around, feel, sense, experience. In fact, Tesla said, if you wanna find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration. But there's one word that's out of place in that amazing quote. Don't think thinking is the past right?

Feel, experience the frequency and vibration all around you, and when you can feel the present moment so deeply, then. There's no effort to this. Mm-hmm. It's simply just taking the next step that appears through the guidance that comes through source.

Kelly Kennedy: So, Jim, I I do have to, I do have to ask something because I, you know, I mean, we are talking to a different audience than your typical audience.

So I wanna, I wanna just pause you there for a second cuz you're talking to a lot of new entrepreneurs. You're talking to business owners, you know, at high level executives. That are, you know, including myself, who have not spent a lot of time thinking about the things and, and researching the things that you've researched, right.

So, yeah, what was the moment? You know what I mean? Like the reality is I know, I know my fiance is very much into, into some spirituality and things along those lines. She's very, very spiritually connected, which I, you know, I mean, I struggle with a little bit of times cuz I'm not as, I, I, I believe in God and stuff and I believe in good things, but, I'm not at the same level, if that's fair.

Right. Like I'm sure most people can you potentially let us know what was the point? You know, I mean, you were incredibly, I did this, did this kinda like spirituality connection, holistic connection come before you, you made it, you know, before you built a billion dollar company or did, was this, did this happen after you had time to reflect?

Jim Gale: It came in bits and pieces. It's a constant evolution of awareness. So it wasn't all of a sudden one time, although there have been those times where the moment lit up, where enlightenment, which means an idea whose time has come, a light bulb goes off in the brain and everything becomes more clear. That has happened quite a few times, but it wasn't one time.

It was a series of events. That were led on oftentimes by struggle. Oftentimes, like I literally went from 20 million to negative 80,000. Wow. I didn't have a job, I didn't have income, I didn't have, I didn't know how I was gonna get past it. I was crying and all of a sudden I just let go of the fear and scarcity in my mind, in my heart, and then I literally, everything got brighter around me.

It was crazy. Beautiful. And from that day forward, that was 30 months ago. Things have just been divine.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. No, that's amazing. And, and first off, let me just, I didn't get to do it at the beginning, but I just wanted to congratulate you on your success. There's not a lot of people who have been able to attain the level of, of personal growth and financial growth that you have.

And, and, and not to mention the struggle, you know, I've. You are the second person on my podcast who has lost everything and I was talking to and also built it back. The other person did as well, and that that's something that I just want to kind of speak to. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are really, really afraid, especially new ones, especially ones with a great idea that are standing on the fence because.

They don't wanna fail. And you know, I mean, me too. I'm, I'm one of those people. I don't wanna fail. I, but I also understand that some things are out of our control and failure is a mindset and it, and if you can change your mindset, like what, you know, you mentioned you lost everything. What were your thoughts at that time?

How were you able to stay positive and motivated that you could come back and do it again?

Jim Gale: Thanks to a lot of great teachers. I'm constantly like, I haven't listened to the radio unless I'm in the car with my daughters or my wife. I don't listen to the radio. I listen to educational, motivational tapes.

I get YouTube on or one of these social media apps and I listen to somebody and some, sometimes, in fact, I would say that's. Probably the best thing I've ever done as far as when you stack the time that we're in the car, the time that we're traveling, when you put turn that into an educational time, yes.

It's crazy valuable.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. You hit the nail on the head. Thank you so much for bringing up that point. Literally just talked about this, Jim, in my previous podcast episode we're talking to, I was talking to other marketing, business development people, that sort of thing. I'm like, look, you know, you guys spend six, eight hours in a car.

Probably every second or third day. Why aren't you listening to audiobooks? Why aren't you listening to educational programs? Turn off the radio, turn off the garbage, and put on something educational, because it's a great opportunity that your job provides you, you know? Yeah.

Jim Gale: Yes and when your ultimate vision, Yeah, for it is.

And when your ultimate vision for yourself is inspiring enough, then you wouldn't do it any other way. So that's the key is to have a vision that's inspiring that makes you feel so good. When you imagine yourself here, like here, this is what I've been envisioning now, now the evolution of this for 15, 16

Kelly Kennedy: years.

Let me Sorry, Jim, let me just explain, sorry, my podcast listeners, we don't have a video podcast. We have an audio podcast, but I just wanna explain to my listeners Oh, ok. Ok. Jim, Jim is showing us his absolutely beautiful, beautiful property. Where are you, Jim? Today

Jim Gale: I'm in central Florida at a place called Galt's Landing, G A L T S Landing, where we are a hundred percent off grid.

We produce all the food, water, and energy on site.

Kelly Kennedy: That's, that's unreal. Yeah. It just, the visuals that we're getting today, I do wish I could show the audience, you know, potentially, Jim, you can send me a picture and I can post it on the podcast page. I would love to show my audience a picture of this. I sure will.

Yeah. So take us back. You know, you, you went, you've traveled a lot 37 different countries you've been to. What was that like for you? You know, what was the perspective change?

Jim Gale: Well, it's interesting. I, I traveled twice. The first time I traveled to the 37 countries, I was on a backpacker's budget. And then, then after I made a bunch of money, I went to about 10 more countries with a lot of money.

The backpacker's trip was way more fun and exciting than the trip with money, right? Because I got to stay in hostels with all these people. If I did it again, I don't care if I have a lot of money, I, I will stay at the youth hostels because you meet so many incredible people and, and you have so many experiences that are unplanned for, right?

That the surprises that we have, they're so much fun. I, I love. You know, some surprises.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, of course, of course. As long as they're not like permanently damaging. Yeah, right, right. Oh man. No, that's that's super, super impressive. So, okay, so you built, you built your, your mortgage company. Did you end up retiring?

Did you retire for a little while?

Jim Gale: I did. I, I bought a 42 foot Carver motor yacht and I went out on the ocean. I didn't know anything about yachting or boating. Really? Yeah. So I hired this guy, his name was Captain Stew, literally, and he showed me how to turn it on and stuff like that. Yeah. And we went out for a couple days just touring around and, and then it, it was crazy.

Like a year on the ocean. I was, I really, I was bored. Silly. You know, it's epically beautiful when you're out in the middle of The Bahamas where there's no lights for miles, but you can only look at that for so long before you're like, I gotta do something again. Yeah. So that's when I started. Kind of searching for my next thing and it actually took me a while to find it.

And then I moved to Costa Rica because I love the jungle, and that's where I learned a bunch of stuff. I learned what was going on in the world. I had my first two daughters, which are my primary motivation. I've got four daughters, and my motivation is to create a world that is abundant and beautiful for them to live in.

Yeah, to the best of my ability, right? Because that's what I can do. And so I also learned permaculture, and that's where I tell you that's where it blew my mind when I learned the science of permaculture, the agricultural design science that, again, has the solutions to all the world's biggest problems.

It's logical, it's simple, and it's actionable for everybody. That's when I made a life commitment to turning this whole world into the Garden of Eden.

Kelly Kennedy: When you were in Costa Rica that's where you learned permaculture and did you learn it from the local indigenous tribes there?

Jim Gale: I actually learned it because, so I was developing a golf course community.

We bought a a about 180 acre cattle pasture, and we were, which was pretty much dead land. There was, you know, there was grasslands and there was some streams where there was some forests in there, but most of it was just, Kind of not very lively. So my vision, and I didn't know permaculture yet. My vision was to line all of the fairways with fruit trees, take out all of the poisons and create a habitat for animals.

Well, two of the local and environmentalists who I'm very thankful for to this day, they. Criticized me heavily. They publicly made slanderous comments about me. They basically beat the shit outta me as much as they could. Instead of reacting with, you know, disgust and anger and hatred and lawsuits, I invited them to my office and I said, let's talk because I think you'll actually like what we're doing.

And they were, they were angry, angry women. They were very angry and I, my intention was to. Share with them the vision that I had and get them to advocate for what I was doing well. They beat the shit outta me. And they, they were never gonna advocate for any developer because they were past that point.

And there was quite a bit of kind of hypocrisy in there too, based on how they were living. But that was a side story. They taught me the word permaculture, and they gave me a little bit of what that meant. After they left my office, I dove in and I went online and I studied and I, that I was hooked. I was like, I can't believe I've never heard of this before.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I had to Google permaculture before this meeting, so I don't, I think there's a lot of us who who don't really understand it.

Jim Gale: Yeah, it's so simple. It's modeling after nature's design or God's design, whatever perspective you come from, and it's putting together guilds of plants that support each other, and diversity is the foundation of the strength of the system.

So where I'm sitting now, There's 230 different species of food producing plants along with a lot of functional plants, like beneficial insect detractors, flowers, nitrogen fixers, and. Chop and drop drop plants. There's plants that shade other plants. There's plants that stop the wind from blowing, and when you put these plants in your landscape in a designed way, then it's less maintenance than a lawn.

It, it's literally it. You want it to be zero maintenance then? It can be. It'll, it just, it'll look like a, a jungle of food. Yeah. Right. If you want it to be fancy. Yeah. It can be fancy.

Kelly Kennedy: So, okay, so I have a question for you. So you, you know, you went to Costa Rica, you learned about permaculture, right? It's one thing to learn about something and be like, oh, that's neat.

It's another thing to invest every dime you have into creating a gigantic permaculture business. What was that switch for you? What, what was the thing that you were all in? What, what did that, you know, out of everything you could have invested in, what was it about permaculture?

Jim Gale: That's a profound question because at the same time I learned about permaculture, I also learned that the world is being destroyed rapidly.

That we are going through the sixth mass extinction, that the bee colonies are collapsing, that the fish populations are collapsing, that all of the poisons, and it starts with the poisons, right? If we only took out the poisons, That are being sprayed in our air, in our soil, in our water, in our minds. If we just took out the poisons, and by the way, fear and scarcity are the ultimate poison, when we take those poisons out and replace them with nature's design, with God's design, then we solve all of it.

And I recognize that unless we do something that scales, unless we achieve mass adoption of this, we don't, my, my grand, I won't have grandkids. Yeah. That's powerful.

Kelly Kennedy: You chatted to to fear and scarcity being the ultimate poison and you know what I mean? I know I'm gonna get people that write into the show, Jim, that are saying like, well, Jim's rich, what does he care?

You know, like the reality is how did this, he understand the scarcity of somebody who's has a regular everyday job. What would you say to those people?

Jim Gale: I would say my dad was a pipe fitter. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and we had a great life. You know, we didn't have a lot of extra money. We went fishing, we went camping, we did things that were wonderful.

I then made money. And then, I don't know if you've heard of T. Harv Eker, the financial blueprint? Well, my financial blueprint, when I had 20 million was. I'm not a rich person. So, and at the same time, I invested every bit of that, knowing that someday it would turn around and 20 million to negative 80,000.

So I went, and that was only 30 months ago. It, it took me 15 years to, to get to that point, but I went. Negative 80,000 I was done. So I know what being broke is all about. I didn't have a job and I had a family to feed. So if anybody thinks that I don't know about scarcity, well I do.

Kelly Kennedy: How in that situation were you able to keep an abundance mindset?

Jim Gale: A lot of meditation, a lot of study, and. Finally. And you know, the thing is though, the problems of the world and my personal world were infinitely complex. The solutions are always embarrassingly simple, is to step out of the fear and scarcity mindset into the awareness of the presence, and then create the goal, and then follow the steps.

Kelly Kennedy: It's so funny, Jim, I, I, I'm not sure ha have you had a chance to listen to much of my podcast yet? I, I, I don't expect you to. You've been able to listen to too many. Okay. Yeah. Beautiful. One of the things that we talk about a lot on the podcast is active versus a passive marketing strategy. And what I talk about is we live in a world where people want this passive marketing strategy.

They wanna just be able to like put LinkedIn posts and website and everything and people will just come. Right? They don't want to do that little bit of hard work of actually. You know what? You actually have to call these people. You actually have to reach out and build a human to human connection because that's how humans are wired, right?

Yeah. I talk about that all the time. Yeah, and it's so funny cuz you know, you talk about, you know, you talk about that you just have to take an action or abundance mindset is just about doing something in a, in a positive direction. And I talk about it all the time. There's just this fear. People want things to just come to them, but they don't want to put in the effort.

But you know what I mean. What I talk about on the show all the time is, The reality is, the reason why your business is struggling is because you're not doing that one or two easy things that you know you should be doing, but it's fear that's holding you back from doing them. But if you just take that step, you pick up the phone, you make those cold calls that are scaring you, or, or you know, you send that email or you follow up on that proposal that you know you need to follow up on, or you book that lunch meeting, that face-to-face, you're going to find success.

It's, it's, it's sitting back and waiting for things to come to you on their own without taking action that's holding you back.

Jim Gale: A hundred percent. I mean, when you create that vision, everybody start with the vision and it, guess what? It will get better and better and better over time. But start with whatever vision that gets you to pick up the phone and then make those a hundred phone calls a day, like whatever it takes, and then have fun doing it.

And that's a big thing. Yes, I no longer effort into anything I know based on numbers and based on. Well, now it's so easy because we're sitting here in this situation, but when I had none of this, when I was dead broke, I didn't really see a path forward. So the next logical step was to make that next phone call.

The next logical step was to send that next email to go to the next Toastmaster so I could learn to speak. Right. I actually, I, I went to three different Toastmasters groups a week for about six months.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. It Well, it shows you speak very well.

Jim Gale: I, yes, my, that's my role is Chief storyteller.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely.

No, I love that. I love that as a role. I forget which one I had the other, oh, designer in chief was another one that I had that I really enjoyed. Love it. Love it. Jim, I want to, you know, I wanna also touch on, you know, freedom is something that's very important to you. You wouldn't have started an off-grid community if freedom wasn't important to you.

I wanna talk a little bit about the freedom that entrepreneurship brings. The reason is, is that, Jim, we have a lot of people listening to this show who are, you know, new entrepreneurs, they're executives, but they're looking to take that step, or they haven't quite took that step yet. Let's inspire them a little bit.

Talk to us about the freedom that entrepreneurship has brought to your life.

Jim Gale: Oh, it's, I don't think I'm employable. Quite frankly. I mean, there's so many people that said when I was down, said, Jim, you're good at sales. Why don't you get a job selling cars or selling mortgages again? You were really good at that.

I'm like, I, I can't do it. I've got a knowing inside of me that this vision has, it's like I planted a seed that was growing and I couldn't imagine another thing. But once you get to the point where you start seeing cash flow and, and, and imagine it, by the way, even before you've got it, start imagining the cash flow start.

Not just imagining, but knowing that it's all around you. Already, right? That it's a frequency thing. There's so much to this. It's so important to rise your frequency through meditation and learning, and relaxation and joy and games and so on, and then turn that into your lifestyle. So yeah, I don't, I can't, what was the question again?

Kelly Kennedy: Basically if, if you could, if you could provide like, some type of inspiring thing as to why, you know, why entrepreneurship has changed your life, why an entrepreneur might want to take that step. Oh man. Some of the freedoms that it provides.

Jim Gale: It's, it's the ultimate freedom. And then it leads to more and more and more, like for an example, I'm sitting here at this off grid home and we have a hundred percent off grid.

We don't get permits for anything. I pay no taxes. I, my life is in trust. I am completely free of the system. Now, will the system try to use force and violence against me at any point? I. Maybe, but I am gonna stand as a man, as a free man, like my hat says. And I'm gonna stand man to man with anybody who tries to, tries to impose force and violence against me.

And we are going to serve our community. And that's. What's so strategic about what a free person does is they serve right? A true free person is free of the scarcity of needing to do, use any kind of manipulation or unethical behavior against anybody. So I'm free from all of those belief systems and I've recognized the ultimate freedom is the freedom to serve my fellow humans.

In every way and this planet in every way possible. And the more service that I can manifest for humanity and for this planet, the more abundance comes to me. So it's actually quite selfish to be loving.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Well, I, I find it funny that, that your path to, to, to richness here is to ultimately inspire other people to, to essentially grow their own food and, and to save money.

Like it's kind of a, it's ironically a win-win for the world if more people do what you're doing.

Jim Gale: Yeah. You know, Victor Hugo said there's one thing stronger than all of the armies of the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. What I'm sitting with right now, and what I'm sharing with you is the idea whose time has come and this idea will turn all of those armies of the world, which are energy systems into benefactors of the world.

It's just a matter of demonstrating this freedom at every level from your heart and your mind to your land. And so we've made a business out of that. We use the permaculture principles and we reinvest the surplus, which creates more abundance, which is a reflection in a mirror. It's just, it's an abundance cycle.

It's so beautiful and fun.

Kelly Kennedy: Jim, tell us about Food Forest Abundance. Tell us about the company and if people are interested, how they might be able to get ahold of you.

Jim Gale: Awesome. So we started, we launched 26 months ago. It was April 21st, earth Day 2021. And I was broke and it was just me and my friend Travis, and one part-time designer.

And now we are in 54 countries helping people grow food. Every US state we have modern homesteading on Discovery Channel was just here. The we're partners with Darren Ian, who has Down to Earth, which won the Emmy last year. We've got our own TV show called Land of Plenty coming out, and we have a council that includes generals and Green Berets and Emmy Award winners and all these amazing people because we're all coming together.

And when I say we all, that means you. That means anybody listening. We are coming together to demonstrate in a way that creates massive abundance for everybody involved. The freedom and the the ways to achieve it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Hundred percent. A hundred percent. Why? Why should, why should an entrepreneur aspire to change the world?

You know, why? Why was that? Why is that something that maybe more, more entrepreneurs should aspire to?

Jim Gale: Well, to inspire to serve is a way to change the world. Whether your goal is to serve, you know pet owners and help them have better relationships with their pets, which is incredibly valuable. Or maybe it's to do what we're doing or anything in between, right?

It's a matter of. Aspiring to serve and, and to benefit people. And with regard to our particular business, we have now about 2000 abundance ambassadors around the world. We have 140 cooperative partners, and those are the folks who are actually in, basically it's a landscaping business where we go into the backyards of, of people's homes and we turn their lawns, we take out the poisons, and we turn their backyards into the Gardens of Eden.

It's. Epically. It's the best investment anybody could ever make. And then the ultimate is where I'm sitting now, it's called a Freedom Farm Academy, and that is to be completely off grid to create this incredible food forest around your house, and then to demonstrate and educate and inspire and empower your neighbors to do the same thing, because that's when we're free.

When we have. F a free community that produces all of its own food, water, and energy. And it's incredibly profitable. Like we have over $500,000 worth of landscapes going in around us right now, and we have over eight 80 landscapes going in around the world at this very moment that our food forest landscapes.

Wow. And everybody wins.

Kelly Kennedy: That's wild. That is unbelievable. It's fun. Like for such a short period of time too, right? Like you've only done this for what? A little over five? No, almost six years now. Hey?

Jim Gale: No. Two years. I've been with this company which I founded it's been 26 months.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Holy moly. Oh, okay.

Cause I, I was looking on your LinkedIn and it said that you'd been at Food Forest Abundance for five years, but you've really been active only for a few of them.

Jim Gale: Well, actually, I'll, I'll share th that. So I started, I had a booth at the mall and my goal was, is always about scale, like the mortgage company.

So I had a booth, it was a beautiful living demonstration of permaculture. I sold plant medicines and I sold permaculture designs and the booth got shut down. In fact, I even had the food forest abundance started with a. Mobile food truck that grew its own microgreens and created microgreen smoothies in the food truck.

Okay. We had solar panels on top water catchment. And so when the government shut down my business at the mall because of this covid thing, then I was, that was when I was dead broke because I put all my final money into the mall store, which I designed, and it was rocking. It was three months open. Wow.

So three months into it we were kicking ass and then it shut down. Oh. That's when I moved into the landscape food forest business that we're in now.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. So that's, that's impressive success considering it's only been a few years since, since then. It was crazy. Unreal. It was such a rollercoaster. So you're on your way, you're on your way to another billion dollar company.

Jim Gale: Yeah, trillion was, and, and we're gonna raise, we're gonna take trillions of dollars of fiat, and we're gonna compost it. We're gonna put it right in the ground, and they return on investment on every dollar, on every fruit tree, on every plant that you put in the ground. As long as you put it in the ground correctly, then the return on investment is infinite over time.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. Yeah, you know, we believe in that too at Capital. You know, we're always, we're always looking to do business development and provide exponential value over time, cuz that's what good business development does for you. So totally, totally get where you're coming from. Wanted to also chat briefly about your own podcast.

You are also a podcaster. You have the Jim Gale Show, and actually that is how we connected, because I connected with your cohost Matthew Britt. Who is a Canadian and, and I was just connecting with Canadian podcasters and he goes, you know what, Kelly, you gotta talk to our CEO, Jim Gale. He's got one heck of a story and you have not disappointed.

Ah, buddy Us tell what is the Jim Gale show?

Jim Gale: Well, it's a show that we invite people on that have solutions. We're all about exposing the problem and then focusing on the solution. Right? And, and it's important. In fact, I'm gonna share some about, we, we have a group of people that are incredible doctors and, and Yale and Harvard, Harvard lawyers and, and campaign strategist and.

Really incredibly smart guys that worked at Google in the AI departments and they're, they've now come into this movement of exposing what's going on, but more importantly, demonstrating the solution. So this weekend we're gonna be strategizing and we have a campaign strategy that over the next 16 months, we'll change the world completely.

It'll catalyze a shift in consciousness that will raise the awareness that will lead to mass adoption of taking the poisons out and growing food instead of lawns. We're going directly to the candidates and we're giving them on a silver platter, a strategy that they can use. And I'll give you two examples.

So one example is imagine your favorite presidential candidate. I know you're in Canada, but you probably still have a favorite US presidential candidate. We still pay attention. Imagine them in a pri. Yeah, right? Imagine them in a prison surrounded by the prisoners, and they're helping the prisoners grow their own food.

They're saying we are going to use the same resources we're using right now. And the prisoners are going to grow their own food instead of taxpayers paying for their food, which is laced with poisons. You know, growing food with poisons is absolutely insane. So now the prisoners are growing all of their own food and they're learning the ethics and principles of permaculture.

The candidate can make the claim. My, I am going to reduce crime by 50% in the next four years. That's a monstrous claim. Nobody's ever made a claim even close to that big, that would be a Nobel Prize worthy result. And guess what? It's already been done. People that have had, or prisons that have had gardening programs have reduced crime by by from 60% recidivism to under 10% with just three years of these types of programs.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Yeah, we were talking about that the other day actually. And, and we were, actually, what we were talking about was, you know, whether you believe in it or not, I'm a believer of, of the moon landing. I definitely believe it happened. But we were just talking about. You know, just the audacity of making that claim that J F K made at the time that we're gonna go to the moon in the next 10 years before we even had remotely the technology to do it.

I, I guess the, the conversation at the time that I was kind of, I, I was making the, the statement that, We haven't had anything inspiring like that in many, many, many, many years. I would argue maybe since that time, like there hasn't been anybody who's got up on the stage and said, we're gonna do something amazing, mind blowing, and that that will, that will be amazing.

A hundred years from now since that time and, and it's, yeah. I feel like there's definitely like a reluctance to make any major jumps in anything.

Jim Gale: You know, the good news about what I'm explaining is it's not a hypothetical, it's been done. Yeah. And people can point to the facts that it has been done.

Mm-hmm. Now, the other one that I wanna expose, and in fact I've got four that are going out to the world here very soon with. A very tactical way, by the way. The other one is at schools. So imagine your favorite presidential candidate at a school saying, we are gonna take the poisons out of the school lunches, and we're gonna take the poisons out of the school grounds, and the kids are gonna grow their own lunches at school.

Now, this is not hard to do. In fact, it's the most logical thing we could ever do. So now the kids are learning permaculture. They're learning how to be self-reliant. They're learning how to grow their own food and how this relates to accounting and business and health and all of these different structures.

So they can literally use this practice to learn all of the structures and. The result of that childhood diabetes will be cut in half. Dis-ease suicide. The use of pharmaceuticals will go down to almost nothing over time. So imagine the candidate sitting there with the kids. Imagine the optics and the function of the that claim, that one thing, using the same resources called the school system, and using that resource to actually create health and wellness and self-reliance in our society.

That would change the world, and we're gonna put it out there in a way that cannot be denied.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. No, I, I, I love the idea of more people, of more people taking responsibility for their own food. There's no question. I think all you have to do is look around at, you know, especially here in Canada at the food price increases that we've had over the past four years.

My gosh. Like, you know, they say over here it's something like, like 16%. It feels, I, you know, I mean, I don't think that's true. I think, I think overall it's probably closer to 40%. Food price increases up here in Canada, and you know, that's next level and, and there's not a lot of help coming for those people that are having to eat that extra cost.

You know, you're just having to live with it. So I think, you know, you kind of, you have a great idea at the right time, at a time when people are like, you know what? I think we need a solution here because this. This isn't working.

Jim Gale: Yeah, exactly. This is the idea that whose time has come stronger than all of the armies of the world.

This is it. And anybody listening, if you wanna participate, it's fun, it's profitable. Everybody wins.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's amazing. Jim, if people wanna get ahold of you they're interested in this, they maybe want to put a food forest in their backyard. How do they get ahold of you?

Jim Gale: Foodforestabundance.com .

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing.. Do you have any questions for me, Jim, before we wrap up the show today?

Jim Gale: Just to say thank you for, for shining a light on these solutions that are gonna change the world. And, and I can't wait to show you around Gulf Landing if anybody out there is either in central Florida or wants to come visit.

We had people from Alaska the other day. People from all over the world are coming here. We're, we're on 51 acres on a private 430 acre lake with a mile long paved runway to our east. So if anybody wants to come here and stay and experience this type of environment, then please do.

Kelly Kennedy: .That's amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Jim. Thank you for inspiring some entrepreneurs and hack. Maybe we've even inspired some people to put a food for us in their backyard and start to grow some of their own food. That's a pretty cool idea. We haven't had anything like that on this show yet.

So once again, it's been a pleasure. This has been episode 42 of the Business Development Podcast. We've had Jim Gale, founder and c e o of Food Forest Abundance, working to change the world one backyard at a time. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Kelly. Until next time, we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization. Is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca . See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.