Going Slow to Go Fast: Joining Jeff Goebel in Action 'Doing the Impossible'

Our final episode last year was titled Achieving Consensus and Commitment to do the ‘Impossible’. It featured Jeff Goebel, and drew an enormous response from listeners, a number of whom have continued to work with Jeff since. So when I knew we were heading to the States, I reached out to Jeff. And soon after, he got in touch to say he was going to be hosting a workshop soon - would I like to come and be part of it? Would I what! It was one fascinating and enlightening experience. In so many ways. So the morning after the workshop, Jeff and I sat down on the front porch at his beautiful place in New Mexico to chat about it.

The first half is on the workshop, and in the back half we go on to talk about two other key issues. Firstly, how the processes Jeff runs can help transform how finance can work for more of the good stuff we well know is possible, in all sorts of areas. And secondly, how his current efforts are going, to attract major funding to build this capacity in people globally, in the process of addressing our toughest problems everywhere.

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

This episode has chapter markers and a transcript, if you’d like to navigate the conversation that way (available on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.

Recorded in Belén, New Mexico, on 30 May 2024.

Title slide: AJ & Jeff during this conversation (pic: Olivia Cheng).

See more photos on the website, and for more from behind the scenes, become a member via the Patreon page.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

Transcript

Jeff: 0:00

That's been my journey for a long time, since I realized that we don't have to live like we're living. We can have a better life. We can have government work very well. We can have people really satisfied and trusting their governments. We can have streams come back. We can have species not go extinct anymore. I mean all that can happen. We can have people be very profitable in agriculture.

AJ: 0:53

G'day. My name's Anthony James and this is T he RegenNarration with a very special story today that has the potential to change all the other stories. It's ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. So thanks a lot, J justin Wolfgang, for three years of incredible support as a member and much more beyond that, and to Irini Georges and Katie Stone, my generous new New Mexican members from Albuquerque, so grateful. If you're also finding value in all this, please consider joining Justin, I rini and Katie, part of a great community of supporting listeners, and if you'd like to become a subscribing member, you'll get exclusive access to behind-the-scenes stuff from me tips, news, chat space and more. Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration. com forward slash support and thanks again. Well, I've just spent a day at the incredible mesa verde national park in colorado, the site of a series of ancient cities that were developed over a few centuries and left about the year 1300. It's been said to have been shrouded in mystery for most of that period of time, but it's notable here that in the last six years, 26 First Nations tribes are now being included in the storytelling that emanates from here or included once again, and their narrative is quite distinct, more like a culture that continued to move, that these cities were just one part of the journey and never meant to be forever. It's salutary to think about in the context of our journey right now, with our big cities and the stresses we're finding ourselves under, and today's episode has direct relevance to this. On the one hand, because it dwells in the issue of homelessness in those cities becoming so chronic right now, but more deeply, because, as cities like ours and potentially these old ones here, come under stress, what matters most is how much we can stay together and find our way to best outcomes. This harks back to the final episode on this podcast last year, which was titled Achieving Consensus and Commitment to Do the Impossible. It was with a bloke called Jeff Goebel and drew an enormous response from listeners, a number of whom have continued to work with Jeff since. Hi to those of you I know introduced that episode, like this . . My name's Anthony James, and this is the T Regeneration RegenNarration exploring the stories that are changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. But really, given how many of these stories there are, there's clearly no mystery as to how we go about it. So why is the macro story, the big picture extinctions, emissions, inequality, health still going the wrong way? Is there something we're missing for all our regenerative efforts, something that doesn't just help a few of us on regenerative trajectories, but all of us, something that changes what happens not just in the margins, but all over? Welcome to a very special final episode for 2023. the last 18 months or so, in particular, a thread has emerged on the podcast that suggests there is indeed that something and we know how to go about that too. And my guest today, jeff Goebel, has been at it longer than most. You might remember my recent guest on episode 175, the award-winning author of the Reindeer Chronicles, judith Schwartz, talking about him. She wrote up an incredible story in that book of community transformation, guided by Jeff, and was so inspired by it she has since set up a new initiative with him,. S imilarly inspired, after reading Judy's book, I had to reach out to Jeff. He very graciously was happy to chat and I've been so looking forward to it since he very graciously was happy to chat and I've been so looking forward to it since . Jeff Goble Goebel a holistic management trainer with Alan Allan Savory in the mid-80s but pretty soon felt it was missing something, as did Alan Allan Then a series of uncanny events and outstanding successes in Jeff's life, including a pivotal experience with First Nations, set him on a path of what he calls community consensus work. He is now globally renowned for developing a highly effective program of respectful listening, visioning and planning that attains 100% consensus and commitment of all parties in all sorts of contexts and often where human conflict and land degradation are at their worst. You see what I mean. Could there be anything more important right now?

AJ: 5:56

Well, when I knew we were . I heading to the States, I reached out to Jeff and soon after he got in touch to say he was going to be hosting a workshop soon, this time on the wicked problem of homelessness. Would I like to come and be part of it? And look, most of you know by now I'm no mug when it comes to hosting stuff, facilitating dialogue and even transformative courses, but this was one fascinating and enlightening experience in so many subtle ways. So the morning after the workshop, jeff and I sat down on the front porch at his beautiful place to chat about it. Well, jeff, it's amazing to be with you here in person at your place. Thanks for having us.

Jeff: 6:36

Yeah, you're very welcome. It's a pleasure for us, thank you.

AJ: 6:42

We're in a particular part of your house right now, on a deck area that you were just telling us about. You've only put in place in the last half a year or so. But more pointedly, perhaps, around us is what was barren land when you moved here nine years or so ago. Yeah, but largely at the hands of your wife, myrna, I believe is now quite distinct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you describe it for us?

Jeff: 7:06

Well, she's done an amazing job. She's got a landscaping design background and I have the ecology concepts and so we bridge those. Her projects were like the Hilton Hotel and Naval Hospital and Guam, so everything was meticulously taken care of. And here you let nature lead and work with you. You know you kind of work with that. So she's done an amazing job of honoring that and allowing you know, building brush piles for wildlife and leaving vegetation that she would have used to cut, leaving it through the winter, so that is homes and shelter and food and whatnot for all the critters that use that stuff through the year. So she's done really good on doing that and she puts things in patterns that are really appealing to the eye.

Jeff: 8:06

We get a large hummingbird population. We don't use feeders here because it's kind of like sugar water. We like them to have their choice. We plant a lot of diversity here, so there's a lot of different types of flowers and then all these different pollinators can pick what they like. We generally do natives here Almost 90% are natives to encourage what is still living around this area to thrive and whatnot. So yeah, it's just a very appealing place. We have visitors come a lot and the common words that they use for being here is beautiful, oasis and peaceful, and that's what we want here, so yeah, and I note from myrna that she actually consulted some experts about how to turn this barren patch in such a dry place.

AJ: 9:04

Yeah, into this. Yeah, eden, and, and came up with nothing. Yeah, right little for her, yes, and so she just experimented. And it's experimenting, yeah, it just. It's such a um. It's another example for all of us, really, wherever we are, because it does make me think instantly. Imagine if we took how big is this property? Two acres, two acres. Imagine if each of us took our place, however big or small, with those three principles in mind, if you like.

Jeff: 9:33

Yeah.

AJ: 9:34

And all lived up to that.

Jeff: 9:36

Yeah.

AJ: 9:37

Yeah.

Jeff: 9:39

How that would look. And I might just add, we do things for soil health. We've done a lot to enhance the health of the soil here. We do things for pollinators, we do things for species diversity, we do things to provide shade and cooling the earth, working with the wind in a way that is beneficial for us. It's really a holistic ecological experience. It's not just this or that soil health or pollinators or this, but it's a whole thing that we're looking at doing here, taking care of water, carbon, all of that stuff.

AJ: 10:22

Harks back to some of the old experiences we talked about last year.

Jeff: 10:25

Yes, that you've worked with over the decades. Yeah, yeah.

AJ: 10:29

And speaking of holistic approaches, let's go to the other domain, the related domain, yeah, and pick up the thread from what was my privilege really? To be able to join you and your community here in Berlin at one of the workshops you run? Yeah, and this time on the theme of homelessness yeah to. I think I can fairly say can I to end homelessness or go as close to it? Yeah, as we can.

AJ: 10:56

And such an acute issue both here and where I'm from and in so many other places so it was really interesting to be part of yesterday and to be part of it, not just observe. So thank you for having me there.

AJ: 11:09

I'd love to debrief on it a little bit here because it was so interesting, and as much because there was a nine o'clock to three o'clock time span and can we say maybe half the agenda was got through. Yet it seems universally deemed a success. And I'm talking amongst facilitators, organising group and the well, 54 in total, but probably 40 at any one time people that were there. How does that happen when the process doesn't go through to fruition? Yeah, to the outcome.

Jeff: 11:46

Yeah Well, I shared what the path was for the day, you know the proposed agenda and that sort of thing. So they had some kind of awareness of that, and yet the community chose to take more time. Awareness of that, and yet the community chose to take more time. And um, which you know, as I also reflected on it this morning, is that was really important for the community is to they needed the time we took for the activities that we worked with it was clear because it could have been quicker yeah, I mean I said that I've done that before.

Jeff: 12:21

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, you said you'd deal with a thousand people 130 people in 70 minutes with 10 questions, and it was completely effective. So I mean we had people engineers changing their views about only structural concrete matters, or landscape designers realizing that concrete can be of value. You know, for armoring things and you know so. Just there is a shift in that 70 minutes so we can go quickly with this. The community said no, we want to go slower. So we went slower, and you did. You didn't ring a bell, no, it adrenalizes people.

AJ: 13:03

In that sense, you didn't even raise your voice no, it adrenalizes people In that sense.

Jeff: 13:05

you didn't even raise your voice. No, it adrenalizes people. I was there. That's the last thing we need is to adrenalize people. You know we're addicted to it, but yeah.

AJ: 13:13

This is it. So for me it was really interesting that I guess the other common argument would be to keep it moving so the dominators don't dominate or take up the space, talk forever in breakout groups even, but you, you just let it happen and it it doesn't fall into that trap, then what was?

Jeff: 13:39

you know, I was observing where the um, the slow groups were the ones that were taking more time, and one of the individuals was a convicted convict for 32 years and had become a priest and he had a story to tell and he spent the time telling his story. That was critical for him. Another group, the slow person, was a homeless person that has gone through incredible things with a family, with a young family, and was telling his story, and what I observed yesterday in terms of during the time, but also following the time and on the reflection at the end of the workshop, when we had that space for that, was that those people really appreciated finally being heard and finally being treated as just other people. It wasn't, you know, they weren't special. The, the um, you know, the leaders of the group weren't special. We were all humans and they were treated that way and they really welcomed that. It created a sense of safety and trust and so, you know, so it was. You know, on the reflection and also how easily people spoke of the hardships in their life. You know things that we normally would be shameful of being a person on crack or a mother who's really struggling with raising a son and having her issues with addiction and whatnot. So I mean, I was really. We created a space where people were respected and that's what the group needed yesterday.

Jeff: 15:29

And the thing is, you know, what often happens with this work is the ripple effects. So people are going to talk about it, homeless people are going to go out in the community and they're going to say this is what happened, this is what happened with these people. They listened to me. So we've, in a lot of ways, have set the stage for future work and you know, there's a lot of fear about involving homeless people directly. You know, because there's a shame in our society about it. We probably should be ashamed that we have it and have the issues like that.

Jeff: 16:03

But it was done with respect. There was concern that there would be violence or anger that would show up and whatnot. There was none of that. People were treated very respectfully yesterday and I think that the people that were very connected to homeless people, I think they shifted and realized that if you create this safe environment for people and a respectful environment for people, people will be respectful and will be. You won't have the violence, you won't have the anger. You know that's a basic human need, a basic foundation.

AJ: 16:39

Yes, it's like. Conversely, the violence comes from not being heard, from adrenalizing context.

Jeff: 16:42

Conversely, the violence comes from not being heard from a adrenalizing context, exactly. And it goes from frustration to anger, to taking it out on things, to taking it out on people verbally, to taking it out on people violently, so we can pull that back and take the frustration out way back to where it's peaceful, and it's just a simple act of listening respectfully. Yeah.

AJ: 17:10

So there was well, there were some notable reactions to me Knowing. There was a well knowing to some degree. There was a diversity of people in the room in terms of their expectations and they ranged from people who sort of openly were saying we're doing, kind of people you know we're going to get on with it in terms of their expectations, and they ranged from people who sort of openly were saying we're doing kind of people you know, get on with it to others who were data-driven and sceptical of such a human approach.

AJ: 17:33

Let's say I knew there were people in there like this, so when it came to the end, where people were saying what they thought and so forth, I was really wondering are we going to hear some of that?

AJ: 17:45

yeah, and so I was then amazed when we didn't like even those people self-admitted, yeah, said this has been outstanding or words to that effect, right right astonishing yeah, that's an inside joke amongst the organizing team where there was some skeptcepticism, I'm told as to whether this would work, that essentially then it was universal and you know I was also watching. Then are people just going to? What's the word? Blow sunshine to you? But because they were self-admitting their urges in that way and their predispositions and of course, the urgent need it's understandable yeah, that it's felt so genuine that it was universally acclaimed as a success.

AJ: 18:32

So some of the notable reactions to me I wonder what stood out to you, but one of the ones that stood out really quickly to me was pamela's, and this is how she said it. Of course I noticed it, and you would have, and probably others did too. She basically said I blew my trumpet hard at the start, telling you how I was able to get this done and this done, and I got this money and this money and we can do it, it is possible, let's do it type of thing. And it went for a while and at the end, with a much different look on her face, yeah right, Good observation.

AJ: 19:05

She said that she realized she could have done so much more if she'd done it with others.

Jeff: 19:11

Yeah, what about you? What stood out to you? So one of the things with this work is we have a saying called you've got to go slow, to go fast, and all the time I get the doers that want action and whatnot. And I could tell so many stories, which I've shared many with you, of where people were complaining about not getting things done for 11 years and talk about it at every meeting for 11 years. It's like have you ever counted up the amount of time complaining about something and not getting action? You think you're getting somewhere. You talk about it all the time and nothing's happening and that was said many times yesterday too.

AJ: 19:55

Yeah, yeah, this is people's experience in this room on this topic.

Jeff: 19:59

That's right. So with this process, by this approach of going slow to go fast, and basically by creating an environment of safety, creating an environment of trust, creating an environment of understanding, where people understand each other and what people's concerns are and what their hopes are, when you build that basis and whatnot, then you've created the opportunity for accelerating change and making things happen. So in my own experience, you know, I worked in two places in Oregon, two different places, one in Central and one in West, and it's a big state. So 11 years for both of these of not getting permits and to do some work to improve the environment. And I just asked them if they wanted to solve it because I was tired. I just don't enjoy hearing people complain, say they want action and nothing happens. So I just said to them, I offered them, I said I can help you change this. The first step is to get some folding chairs and go sit by the stream and listen to each other, and for half a day we did that and within nine months of doing that, within nine months, one project had a million dollars raised 26 projects designed, permitted and constructed within nine months of sitting for half an hour or half a day by a stream. The other project, same thing. They got projects designed, permitted, permitted and constructed, you know, within nine months of sitting by the stream for half an hour. So it's difficult for us because we don't realize the power of going slow, to go fast, of that part, that step of this work. And time and time again, you know and I just see this, you know people say, well, you know it's a waste of time, you know we got things to do and it isn't. You know it's what you got to do to make human change happen. So you know I was reflecting about, you know, talking about. You know there is an agenda that I'd shared and there's things about it I would have liked to have gotten done, because there's a part of this process that puts things in motion, puts it in motion in people's minds. It's called the magic and what you do is construct a puzzle that the mind does not want to leave unsolved and it's got the elements now to solve that puzzle and it will tirelessly work, like for days, weeks, you know months, to figure out how to solve it and it will solve it. So you know I wanted to take that extra step yesterday, um, because of the noise of doing and acting and stuff. But what I learned from the community is this is the speed that they needed to go right now. It was getting to know and to trust each other and people are talking. That's what happens. They're going to be talking about this and so they're going to talk about it in the homeless community, the young people that were there there was some people that were there that were juvenile, you know, they were in juvenile court and they changed. You know just a remarkable thing that I saw happen yesterday there and also the community view of homelessness changed yesterday with the people that were there and ideas of places that they could go to solve things.

Jeff: 23:55

One person also struck me yesterday which I really appreciated the courage and the and and hearing his voice was a business owner from Albuquerque and he was. He talked about the trash and the defecating and the disrespect and the challenges and the threats and all of that, and he didn't stay with us the whole day. I really appreciate he came and he didn't stay with us the whole day. I really appreciate he came and he spoke and he spoke honestly and people listened to what he had to say and I think about, you know, is there I and I will think about this and this is what I was talking about.

Jeff: 24:37

It puts this stuff in motion. This, this I think about, is's something that could be done by somebody to clean up his neighborhood, his place of business and, as a result of him having the courage to speak up about it. So you know, next week when we meet, I'm going to I'll raise that point, because it's that's. One of the side effects of homelessness is how it's spilling out on other. You know how it's affecting business and other people's lives and whatnot. So that's on my mind, just thinking about that.

AJ: 25:15

Me too. It makes me wonder at the same time what he might have taken away. Yeah, and that would be a nice conversation to be having. Did he see something different? Yeah, in his daily experience from being amongst that yeah, yeah and imagine having more people with experiences like that at the next one, when, yes, as the intent is to go on with it and complete that agenda yes, and moving in a different way we did did have a woman who manages lands where encampments are and not willingly having the encampments there.

Jeff: 25:53

It's just that the property is so vast and so isolated that you fix it here, it moves over there, and she was there all the way through the end. And there was another great idea that came out about work in the city to the south, las Cruces, where they successfully created an encampment, a tent encampment, and they had central facilities where they could have showers and they could cook, and they made a decision in the community to allow for self-governance for them to take care of their own community and, you know, enforce rules that they agree to and that sort of thing. So you know there is a willingness and an openness to possibilities like that and you know, so this, this group that has the land, possibly they would find a place that would work for that. And then you know the rest of us, you know, just work on supporting creation of some idea like that.

Jeff: 27:00

So, and and that's one thing that you know as far as this issue, uh, there's a great article I saw recently about finland and the first thing they did with their homeless in finland was invested in creating a safe space for people to stay at nighttime to clean themselves up to um, prepare for their jobs or to, you know, to go get a job or to get education or whatever, and it was a place to securely have their things. And what happened in Finland's case was that four out of five people that had homes created spaces like this got on their own, successfully moved forward and were able to get out of this situation that we're in. And that's what we keep hearing here, and that's what some of the homeless people that were with us yesterday said is that they just need a place that they can be safe in, and let's start with that. So there's a lot of good ideas that showed up yesterday, even though we didn't get to that point, to the workshop, but I'm already thinking about them. Yeah, that glitter.

Jeff: 28:15

I know that other people are thinking about them.

AJ: 28:17

yeah, yeah, that's true.

Jeff: 28:18

And then we had some financiers. You know two women that you know had really dispersed a lot of funds in, you know, in the state for helping with. You know these issues and they had quite an awareness. You know they talked about at the very end that areas of their programs that were entirely being missed by them and that they were right, they were way off track and this little idea would be like a little turning the screw. You know the invention of the telephone. You know it was created but it wasn't working. So you know the story is that they turned a screw on it and all of a sudden it worked really well, that's. You know they had a good program that they were talking about yesterday and I think that they found a little screw that they could turn. They could really help things differently.

AJ: 29:13

Yes, yeah, I heard that from a few people actually, and yeah speaking of another one of those points when noelle spoke at the end. So one of the organizers, yeah, and indeed one of the people who work at the place that was hosted, which I should mention to an old bus port, I believe that's our community center barn.

AJ: 29:31

Yeah, the garage for the buses, school buses I took note how every detail had been thought through as to where and how the? Setup is and yeah, just to put that on record. We could talk about that at some detail too, but the story that she said at the end that she and perhaps others had gone to meet a congresswoman like a- congresswoman who had to her credit.

AJ: 29:54

Noel thought, said you, you, you and you are going to go away and meet with the people and determine what needs to be done to fix this, and then you'll come back to me. And Noel felt like this was now done.

Jeff: 30:06

We did it, that's right.

AJ: 30:08

But I also recall that she said at the outset of her feedback was when she heard you were going to do this process, she was like six hours. Are you kidding?

Jeff: 30:18

me. No one's going to sit here for six-hour meetings go for two hours if we're lucky, meetings go for two hours.

AJ: 30:26

If we're lucky, exactly, it's usual. Yeah, but it spoke to what you said earlier that so we have bucket loads of two hours meetings. Yeah, that don't get it done. Yeah, and she too embraced. Yeah, the result of half an agenda that played out in six hours.

Jeff: 30:38

It's quite extraordinary, and I want to add to that that we have another saying in this work that time's not the problem, the problem's the problem. So if you're not done with solving the problem in two hours, do you want to have another two-hour meeting two weeks from now, or do you want to solve the problem? You know, invest the time to do what it needs to take to do it right. Then you never have to come back and do it again. You've done it right the first time and the savings of time is immense. You can invest in doing the next other issues that are important.

AJ: 31:13

This is why we hate meetings and this is why half the people said it.

Jeff: 31:17

I say it yeah, I said it and you're the workshop man.

Jeff: 31:22

Facilitator of the meeting. Yeah, no, I always have had an aversion to meetings that just start talk, and if you really watch a meeting, you know what I typically do in my work is efficiently and effectively. Start with what's the present situation and let everybody answer that. Then we go to the next one what are your concerns or fears? Because that's what's cropping up big time in their head when they think about the present situation. It's like, oh, this is really bad, this is really bad. This could happen. You know we could all die, or you know people are going to rob us or whatever.

Jeff: 32:02

So get that out. Have everybody express what they're afraid of right at this moment. And then the next thing we talk about well, what would be your hopes? What would you love to see happen? And then have everybody talk about what their hopes are, because what you've done is you've quieted that part of the brain that's so triggered by the fears.

Jeff: 32:22

Then the next thing is focus on what do you need to do and ask the question what, not how? What do you need to do to make the best happen and develop the pathway and get the focus of the brain making the best happen so you can structure highly effective meetings that require so much less time and really exactly get movement towards the desired outcomes. If you watch a typical meeting where there is that kind of structure, you'll have somebody talk about the present situation and somebody will jump to their fears and then somebody will go to a solution and then somebody will come back and add some more present situation stuff and then somebody will talk about a solution and then somebody will come back and add some more present situation stuff and then somebody will talk about best outcomes and it just bounces all over the place for the whole time without any structure. It's completely a waste of time.

AJ: 33:15

And the chair will then say we're out of time. See you at the next meeting.

Jeff: 33:18

Yeah, two hours, we're done here we go.

AJ: 33:22

What was also really you've alluded to it a little bit, but really moving was hearing the people who were or are homeless.

Jeff: 33:30

Yeah, report back at the end as well yeah I think it was david who said I never realized so many people cared yes, yeah yeah yeah well, that tells you you're on to something we we were, I, they were hoping, the organizers were hoping to have around 30, and we ended up having 54. That they counted and nearly double what they were hoping and we actually. My concern was we were going to get too much for me to manage. One is space, because the facility we were in was not air-conditioned. The swamp cooler was broken In 90 degrees 34-ish Celsius.

Jeff: 34:14

Yes, yeah, so a hot day. So we were going to get this group and we were already filling the whole room with what we got there filling the whole room with what we got there and so I actually worked on encouraging restricting people's, you know lots of participation for this meeting, because I really wanted us to really focus and I wanted to do this really well and I wanted to get where people felt safe, especially the homeless people, because the thing is, we, time and time again, we do this stuff, we plan this stuff for them. We never ask them what they think is important, and they know that and they don't like it. You know they have a voice. They are the only ones who can tell you what's going on. So let's create an environment that is safe for them to come and speak and where they can be open and be honest and whatnot, and where we'll hear them and where they'll feel heard and whatnot. So that's what happened yesterday.

AJ: 35:21

Yes, it was such certainly that I come out of it feeling a sense of community with you all and certainly caring. I said this, I think I was speaking to erin at the end briefly about it, one of the participants and uh, and I said I can't help but care. Now I feel invested in your place, such was the connecting and grounding and everything that we've talked, the time that was taken, yeah, um, so I genuinely look forward to hearing, yeah, what happens from here and we can have a chat about it yeah, yeah, great the other key thing I thought would be interesting to um speak on air about yeah, I've mentioned to you is some of the some of where the podcast has tracked things to indeed back home and beaming in from afar as well.

AJ: 36:08

Yeah, the impasses around finance.

Jeff: 36:11

Yeah, yeah.

AJ: 36:12

Where so many people doing good things in all sorts of fields are experiencing impasse. Yeah, pass, yeah that if only for finance now, this could really shift gears and open opportunities up for more people who either can't get access to land or capital or indeed just be able to re-establish distribution centers in regional areas, for example. It's the stuff that enables people to do good stuff. Yeah, more people to do good stuff, yeah, and that finance seems to still be operating on the terms it's always recognized.

AJ: 36:51

So we talked about some area, some examples, where there were people who are nominally holding the power of such organizations that they might be the chairs or the founders of these investing companies, for example, and all the good words will be said and all the intent and the relationships will be good. So there's a lot of time spent on relationship building and trust building and all this sort of stuff. But then, when people went away to make stuff happen, it comes a cropper or it's not hitting the mark or, worst case, it gets really bad and there's a lot of stress and tension for everybody. Relationships are broken, things fail and the talk that goes out from there is negative. It's the other dynamic. Having observed that, the first thing you said to me was you have to have everyone who affects decisions or is affected by decisions involved, and that would include the people back in the offices who are supposed to be implementing yeah where some of this stuff is coming from.

AJ: 37:47

Yeah, but you've had experiences too when you mentioned the finance people in the room yesterday but you've had other experiences where, indeed, finance people have been brought together with people nominally solving stuff or making good stuff happen. Yeah, and these divides have been bridged, so it applies to these contexts as well, oh as well.

Jeff: 38:08

Yeah, Tell me how it plays out.

AJ: 38:10

It's about people. Yeah, all of it, all of it. So there's no, on the surface there's no conflict. I mean, sometimes it gets to conflict, yeah, and then it's all shot, it seems. Yeah, so that's one think it could be pivotal to the community. Yeah, but I need this money. Yeah, and you helped.

Jeff: 38:31

It was forty thousand dollars short, yeah, and he wasn't able to get you know the financing for that. So, um, and he saw the work that I was doing, so, yeah, um, in the, in the community, and so he, uh, he approached me and said, you know, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to get this financing. And so I said, well, let's bring the people together. You know, like you said, the people that are affected by or affect decision-making. So I said, get the financers, the people that could lend money.

Jeff: 39:02

I said, get the city officials, because they were involved in permitting and things like that and awareness. You know, they need to know what's going on so they don't restrict or hold things back. And so just let's get them together and we'll meet for about an hour, I think maybe two hours, and then I had each of them talk about. I had first the landowner, the restaurant business. I had him talk about his situation and how he was feeling about it, and then I had all the others talk about what could be done to help this fellow be successful. I think actually, in that meeting it came out that some of the finance well, with the city there there was this confidence that the financial people needed, and so they said, yeah, I think we could make this work. Well, within two weeks he had the financing, and within a month he was open for business. And so that's. It's that simple.

AJ: 40:07

It's another example that strikes me of. I can imagine people thinking let's just go one stakeholder at a time.

Jeff: 40:13

I'll talk to the financiers then I'll talk to the city people, but you're like bite it all off at once which harks back to our original conversation last year.

AJ: 40:21

Yes, take off the hardest, go to the top.

Jeff: 40:24

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you know, you and I also were talking about the beam counters, yeah, you know, and how you may have the corporate heads or whatever, agree, but the the, the staff, uh, sabotages it. You know, for whatever reason it's like oh, it won't work, they just don't believe it can be done. They've seen it happen before. You know they're trying to protect the company or they just don't believe it'll work.

AJ: 40:53

It's for good reasons.

Jeff: 40:54

Yeah, it's not necessarily sabotage for being mean or whatever, but they sabotage it. And so what I do is the diversity perspective. It's like my mentor friend wrote a book called Finding New Ground, not Finding Common Ground. Anybody can do that. That's compromise and that's simple. What we've got to do and I'm reflective of the recent regenerative video that came out in the US called Finding Common Ground or something like that yeah, common Ground, yeah, and it's like you know, that's simple let's do the hard stuff, but the real stuff, let's solve the problems and whatnot. And that's where you look for diversity. The people that are adversaries Bring them in and not see them anymore as adversaries but as keepers of information that could be invaluable to figuring out why you're stuck. You know, and if you see people that way, instead of like trying to get you know, it's this spat between Savory and the other fellow you know, it's like, you know, come on, you know and go into battle.

Jeff: 42:04

You know, I mean, we did that in the middle in the Crusades and stuff. I mean, haven't we evolved as human beings, you know? So, you know, got to stop seeing people as the enemy and embrace people. And when we wrote the Healthy Soil Act here in New Mexico, you know, one of the things that we agreed with on our team was to do this by consensus, not by making a list of adversaries.

Jeff: 42:26

And one very strong opportunity that showed up was when we were in the legislative session and the Farm Bureau said we're neutral about this legislation. They said we're having troubles with the word carbon in the legislation and the concept of practices, but they totally were supportive of principles, totally supportive of principles, said we can do that, but let us figure out how to do it. Don't tell us prescriptive practices. We know what to do to do that. We just need to know the end mark. And as far as carbon, what I told my team is you know we already got the carbon piece licked in this thing. It's called principles. If they practice principles, what's the product? Carbon.

AJ: 43:13

So it seems to me it's another form and for listeners, we talk about this in more depth. We talk about some of these key things that the format, structure of the workshops and this topic here in more depth the first time around. But it seems to be another example, like, as I hear you speak, we don't mean it, do we? But it's a form of condescension, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, to say, okay, you're not going to get the principle, so let me tell you what to do. Yes, yeah, because we don't trust we don't trust we.

Jeff: 43:39

We just don't believe. I mean, they don't have a history of doing it right and it's a complex system. And Edward Deming you and I talked a little bit about him with total quality management. He said all my life I've seen performance appraisals and all this kind of crap we throw on employees thinking that that's going to make the system work better. It scares the hell out of them. When people are scared, they don't perform at their peak potential. Now they might do it for a short period of time, but then they stop, you know, when they reach a place of safety.

Jeff: 44:11

But um with with demizai, you know he's a statistical analyst with the total quality movement back in the last century and what he, what he continually said is that this management, or the system management creative is 94% of the problem for lack of quality or productivity and only 6% or less is attributed to the employee. So why are we focusing on these performance things to fix them, when really it's the system? We've got to look at the whole system. It's us. You look in the mirror. The enemy is. You know it's. You know, you look in the mirror, the enemy's us.

Jeff: 44:46

So, so interesting yeah, yeah and it's like I told our group with the homeless thing. I said the problem is sitting in this room. You know, it's our beliefs that permeate through this community and if we don't change, nobody's going to change, and that's what started happening. That's why the astonishing comment comment that was made this last couple of days or yesterday was, you know, from the skeptic.

Jeff: 45:12

Yeah because now you know, she now has a view that things can be different and so before it was like it won't. So you know, with the financial piece that's, you know it's a systems issue and it's a belief issue, and you change the beliefs. You know, with the financial piece that's, you know it's a systems issue and it's a belief issue, and you change the beliefs, you change the outcomes. Well, you know, I could just give countless examples. But Africa, they had 85% food insecurity. By getting them conscious of the beliefs that were causing them to stay hungry and then to look at other alternatives to those beliefs, within 15 months they nearly doubled food production. And that's a financial thing, because it's about food. It's about you know you can sell food for profit or for whatever you want or, conversely, have to buy it in for example yes, exactly exactly.

AJ: 46:03

While we're on that, because the more detailed and and lovely story is on the first conversation we had on the podcast while we're on it. You did have a child. You found there was a child named after you oh, yeah, right, yeah, yeah do you, do you know this child yet?

Jeff: 46:18

well, I, I don't know him um and um, actually, um, a couple years after he was born he had an accident and he passed away. So it was really uh, you know, just really sad and whatnot, but but it was interesting that, uh, this is what was happening. There was, um, part of this process is empowering all people, not just the leaders that are already empowered or whatnot, or take the power, but it was empowering all people. In this particular situation, the women weren't empowered much and the work I gave permission for empowerment for women to speak up and whatnot, and it is interesting, fertility increased in those villages where I worked, you know, and so they were attributing it to the work that I was doing, which was the funny thing why Jeff got his name. And the same thing too is that every workshop during the dry season you know, I did my workshops in the dry season over four years and did five workshops Every workshop was affiliated with water, with rain and sometimes massively intensive rain.

Jeff: 47:42

I mean being in a schoolhouse that had a tin roof and it was deafening. For 20 minutes we couldn't. I just opened my mouth for the beginning of the workshop and the rain came down, and that was the second workshop and it was the second time this happened, and their eyes were just really huge and they were looking at me, you know, because this is like, well, wait a minute, that happened last time. And then the third workshop, same thing, similar thing happened, and they just looked at me and they just smiled and laughed. It was pretty interesting. But for whatever reason I've heard that happen. I mean, it happened to my friend Bob too, who we talk about too. In the first, in the Klamath Basin. Yes, yeah, okay, they've got the world's largest dam removal project going on now.

AJ: 48:27

Yes, I'd heard about this, but I didn't know of that history. Oh yeah, I was connected to that.

Jeff: 48:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was there during what's called the Bucket Brigade, when the irrigation ditches got shut off from the river and no water was getting out to the farmers. So the farmers formed a bucket brigade to get water out of the river and just pass it down the line of people and there was, you know, violence during that time and then the next year they shut the water off for the salmon and thousands of salmon died, you know. And so that's where the agreements you know.

Jeff: 49:04

Well, that's when bob got involved and he had worked there earlier. He was actually the first forest supervisor of the winoma national forest, which is um, which was once the klamath indian reservation, and they had terminated the tribe um, the land base of the tribe, and turned it into a national forest. So he was the first forest supervisor at that time and had to address the transition and that's where he learned a lot of his consensus work from those early experiences working with the tribes and stuff. So Bob had an affinity for that area and went back to work in helping to solve this very serious issue and now they've got four dams coming out in that system or they're all well, they're out, the river is flowing free and they're yeah, they're replanting plants.

AJ: 49:55

There's such joy for the indian people and whatnot, so it's an extraordinary story, yeah yeah, and we do talk about your more, of your relationship with bob too, which is amazing on many levels in the first time on the podcast, the first time we spoke. But it also made me think yesterday. Of course it was part of my closing comments that you yourself said to Bob after an experience of his work, nothing was achieved, just a hark back to where we started this conversation, but you yourself were in that boat, and it humanizes some of yes.

Jeff: 50:29

This doesn't make sense. Intellectually it doesn't make sense, but I can blow the socks off of anybody with things as outcomes and whatnot. I mean that's what happens time and again. Is we exceed what people imagine? You know the practical outcomes. We go beyond practical, we make things unimaginable, you know, and that's you know on the surface. I always like to bring that up, that point, because that's how I met that with Bob. I even suggested he changes and does what I did. That's right. I was proud of 200 people being trained in holistic management, but not a thing was happening you know, I mean, they had this knowledge.

Jeff: 51:22

But you know like, oh, we spent a week in a fun workshop, you know? Okay, now I'm going back to life I could so relate to.

AJ: 51:28

That is the as what I look back on more precocious, ignorant young fella who thought what he was doing was pretty important yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff: 51:37

Well, you know, and that, and you know I shared the story my frustration when I was working with the colville tribe was things weren't happening. You know, yeah, and when I went to you know, on the advice of my secretary, she said to talk to the spiritual leaders you, the tribe and the elders, and tell them what your ideas are and ask for their advice. And sure enough, you know, I got welcomed and things started happening. And that goes back to this consensus piece about listening, with respect. So, yeah, it is different. People do facilitate, people do record, people do sit in circles. That doesn't make things work.

Jeff: 52:21

You know, I do those things too. Yes, but it's how you, what you do in that experience. You know, um, you know, like a recorder, the simple act of writing accurately what somebody has said. What you're doing is you're telling the person you're writing for that I'm here, you here's your words, right here, you see them, what you just said. And for that person they can trust you, they can trust somebody in the group because there's their words, I was heard and that's, and that's me.

AJ: 52:53

You've just put me up there, you know, yes yes, I take note of all the little ways that you live that out in these processes, including having other people facilitate almost as much as possible. Actually, in the whole thing, it's almost akin to the landscape work, isn't it? You let the land do it and you tend in just the littlest ways you can to make it happen.

Jeff: 53:24

Yeah, and we talked last time about the glacier trip and one of the takeaways from there is learning to listen better and in a different way, and it's the same with the way we interact with the earth is to hear the earth differently. Yeah yeah, yeah, because it's telling us. It tells us what it needs and why, and backing off from pushing too much.

AJ: 53:50

Yeah, well, that's an interesting comment you just made from pushing too much, yeah, because some of what I'll hear back and again, understandably so, from people dealing with investors and so forth, at a scale of money you know, in the millions, yeah, not the tens of thousands, is that.

AJ: 54:05

Oh, we don't want to push it too much, let's, let's just have another meeting, yeah yeah, right and build trust yeah it's all good intent, yeah, but but you know, I say this humbly because I've I've just tested the waters with some people to say you tell me if I'm off the mark. But no, this is a bit of the sentiment that that's not working, it's not bringing it together, but you believe that these things aren't mutually exclusive the building, the trust and the speed. In that sense, yeah, it's go slow, you can still go fast.

Jeff: 54:34

Yeah, you do go fast. I mean, it's not just go slow, you go fast. Yeah, you do go fast. I mean, it's not just go slow. And that's what most people think. Consensus is is go slow, then go slow, then go slow, then go slow. It's like no go slow to go fast. That's what it is, and even at scale, even at these scales we're talking about.

Jeff: 54:50

And I want to say too that consensus is 100% agreement to do the right thing. When I was working at the colville tribe, they could not wait, so I was brought there to help them resolve a financial issue. You know, they were not getting timber sales to the market because of the conflict. So we and that wasn't something that could be resolved 100 years from now, it had to be resolved this year. And uh, because it's bleeding what's the?

AJ: 55:17

how are we talking?

Jeff: 55:18

well, it's uh. Well, it was well 1500, well it's 2500 employees. Yes, so, um, they were just spending what they were making, that that at that point in time it was, um, you know, there wasn't the stress that we got reduced, our markets went down on timber. We don't have several million dollars now. So it wasn't that point. But what it was was an even deeper, more important point, which was that the future of the tribe if we saved money today, it's not like the federal government, where they take it back the next year they'll give you less money.

Jeff: 55:59

The Colville tribe, you know, as an entity of itself, they make their own decisions and unfortunately they had some policies that were kind of stupid. Like the federal government, the use or lose. But we said, you know, if we save money that can be used next year or 10 years from now, or reinvested 100 years from now, it was not a loss to the tribe. So if we were spending foolishly, or even not knowing we were spending foolishly, that's money lost for the future of what we're doing. So we did some visioning work. It actually was high school students that helped us do it. It's remarkable, and what they found was, you know, the importance they created and envisioned that this money could be used for the well-being of the whole tribe and it could be used for seven generations, not just today. And so our department took that to heart and we found we could be much more efficient with how we use the money, and so we're talking about a $17 million budget. So we doubled outputs, you know, I mean, if you can imagine, cranking up to do twice the work and at a higher quality than you've ever done before.

Jeff: 57:15

The environmental and the cultural values or standards got improved. So we weren't just slaughtering the land with timber, you know, big equipment and whatnot, but we were doing it in a way that would regenerate, you know the soil, would bring medicine plants back, would get streams flowing again that used to be permanent and now are intermittent. So we did things very mindfully to improve the environment and we, you know, we brought the medicine plants that you know huckleberries, their foods and things like that. We brought that stuff back, so culturally, some very important things, also respecting their values, where you don't do clear cuts, because they've learned that that's like raping their mother. When they saw a clear cut on a forest land, it was like you've taken, you've raped my mother, and so you know the cultural values were respected.

Jeff: 58:09

And so we did twice the work, at a higher standard, and we cut a million dollars out of a $17 million budget. And we cut a million dollars out of a 17 million dollar budget, which one of the questions we had is like, okay, well, we could give this back to the tribe or we could spend it. If we give it back to the tribe, do we think that, do we trust them to spend it wisely or are they just going to squander it? And we said, well, that's actually not our decision, that's the council's decision. So we will just say we need less money next year and we're going to do more work and more outcomes.

Jeff: 58:43

And the beautiful thing that actually happened is, when we made that request, the tribal business council said could you do that for the whole government? Could you get you know? Could we do this for education? Could we do this for public works? Could we do this for the police and the courts? Could we do this so that there's effective build, actually a very effective, functioning government that fulfilled all of its requirements and still did better with taking care of money? And here is the interesting thing with that, when you think about conflict or unresolved conflict and the cost which we do not look at. We never think about how much is going to lawsuits, how much is people being disgruntled, how much is all that stuff costing us.

Jeff: 59:37

When we did this approach for the whole government, 250 government programs, remarkably we saved $16 million out of $55 million. So in terms of the financial potential, you know, by working collaboratively together and it was beautiful because we agreed that everybody would be treated equal, so there'd be, you know, we were hoping to do a 5% cut for everybody. Well, some departments over the years have been so effective at getting money that they were fat with money. And some programs that were critical for the tribe, that were, you know, autonomous, you know were scarce on getting money. And so these ones that were fat with money said, you know, I'll take my 5% cut, but I agree that this department needs more, you know, and so I'm willing to give, you know, some of my money to them. And in the end, that department that was um, that on its own was deemed to be the, you know, the critical link for the tribal success, and so they actually increased, because of the willingness of other departments, that they got a double their budget, doubled during this time when we cut 16 million out of the out of the tribal by virtue of these processes realizing yeah, realizing the well-being of them is going to help the well-being of us, but that wasn't happening without these processes

Jeff: 1:01:10

not at all. I mean, the very easiest example to look at is washington dC. I mean, for me, knowing what the potential is, it just makes me crazy the stupidity of these theoretically highly educated Ivy League school people and that's the best they can deliver to this country and the impacts on the world. It's just. It's just and they are. They put their pants on the same way I do and the way the people at the tribe do. It's not, and and the tribe had had a history of being just like washington dc. Yeah, you know they had the same constitution and the whole system set up.

AJ: 1:01:55

Yeah oh, so many of us. I mean, I'm even thinking of some not-for-profit experiences I've had where it's been like that and you just pull your hair out because it's like what about the mission?

Jeff: 1:02:05

Our joint yes, yes, Like what's best for that rather than our segments. And that gets right back to Edward Deming's stuff that 94% of the fault of lack of quality or productivity is management and the system that management's created.

Jeff: 1:02:19

You know. So it's about taking a look in the mirror and figuring out. You know, how do we do this better? And it's really, really discouraging to see where our nation is now. And you know, in many of the states and many of the counties and many of the cities, and you know all these organizations of human beings that are there for, theoretically, for good intention, and it's not working.

AJ: 1:02:42

So well, this segues perfectly to the last part of what I was hoping to speak today about and that is where we ended last time too about resolving that we need a movement of people who can facilitate these sorts of processes yeah, so that it does happen more frequently.

AJ: 1:02:59

The tragedy we've just outlined doesn't have to continue the way it is and we can get more outcomes, like yesterday and the other stories you've just talked about, and you talked about last night that you actually went for a chunk of money speaking of which, oh yeah, the car through foundation.

Jeff: 1:03:17

Yeah.

AJ: 1:03:17

I mean, I note firstly that you, like I said before, embody this in everything you do. So every workshop you do is training people to be facilitators while we actually do the thing.

Jeff: 1:03:26

Yeah.

AJ: 1:03:27

So it's a double whammy in that sense, but you actually went for a concerted impetus with a large amount of money from a foundation that in the end wasn't granted, and this is combining with some people in australia too. I should add yeah, but wasn't granted. And as I was reflecting on this overnight, I was thinking how interesting that I'm interested in what we've just spoken about running these processes to bring finance together with the people doing stuff in the right way or in a really constructive way.

AJ: 1:04:00

And here is this very notion of having this capacity built, yeah, around the place, yeah, that we all. We need this sort of a process to actually run, yeah, to get that to come together different way of doing things, and so there has to be a knowledge transfer of how to do things differently so in your case, where you went to a foundation for a concerted amount of money in that more, let's say, conventional way, I gather, of making an application to an institution, they had their processes set and said no ultimately.

Jeff: 1:04:32

Right, yeah.

AJ: 1:04:34

What potential is there? Have you thought about this, because I know it's not dead in your mind to propose to foundations like that that an application isn't made but a process is run where we come together around a table. Have you thought about that? Would this work? Would people like that be interested?

Jeff: 1:04:55

Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, that's the question. You know, the work gets the results and the results are what people seem to want. You know and we talked earlier about this you know how can you go slow to be successful. There's these doubts and these challenges to work with, like, in this case, the MacArthur Foundation have actually applied for them twice and they're asking again right now and there is a little bit of dialogue of you know, we've already got everything laid out. I mean, we kind of worked out in the first time, but then we worked out better in the second time.

Jeff: 1:05:36

How would we build capacity around the world and solve problems while we're doing it? So there's a story of success that we could track and build on. But we also have just capacity built all over the place with people that could work. So we've got that all worked out. We've got what the numbers are for doing all that traveling and having people working and things like that getting gainful employment. So it's all worked out. World is going to shit, excuse me, and um, and, but I mean it is, you know, and um, there's fear and if we keep doing the same thing, we're going to keep getting the same results. So you got to do something different, and so it's. It's, it's getting to whoever's got that willingness, that ability. Because the thing is is, you know, I, I'm one little individual, I don't have the resources to go travel here or there. I got the requests. There's people all the time asking me to come to help and whatnot.

AJ: 1:06:45

Well, even from our podcast there are others yeah yeah. We need this to be everywhere.

Jeff: 1:06:50

Yeah, and so how do we create a condition where I don't need to? You know, it's like money's not the issue for me to move, to go over and help somebody do this. You bring some people together, we'll get them trained, we'll solve this problem and then let's move on to the next thing you know. So how do we create, you know, a pathway like that? That is simple, you know, and so that's that's. You know, that's been my journey for a long time, since I've realized that we don't have to live like we're living. We can have a better life. We can have government work very well, we can have people really satisfied and trusting their governments, we can have streams come back, we can have species not go extinct anymore. I mean all that can happen. We can have people be very profitable in agriculture. I mean, if you just think about it, the ecosystem, it functions best, highly productive, when it's healthy, and so you create a lot of abundance as a result of having healthy lands, more than what you have when you don't have healthy lands. So you create abundance and then, because that land is healthy, it's more stable, it's more fertile, all that stuff, all this crap we throw into, you know, in for agriculture to try to fix that. You don't have the input costs, so your profit margin goes up. So I mean it's like it's a no-brainer, so all this stuff can work.

Jeff: 1:08:29

It's like the Colvilles and that tribe how much money we saved. And it's like where did $15 million from with? Or $14 million it was, where did that come from? You know, out of $55 million, it's like didn't the government topple? Well, no, it didn't. It functioned better, you know, and we did everything we need to do and then more. You know, because we reinvested that money, asked the tribal membership if they were willing to support that reinvestment. I guess it was $16 million actually. Because they reinvested, the tribal membership trusted the government enough to reinvest $8 million into the high productive areas, and then we did it.

AJ: 1:09:11

So yeah, yeah. Hearing you speak about getting more productive out of healthy land makes me think about the workshop yesterday, because what I was thinking, as it played out and as we talked about it here, was how the foundational stories are the basis for everything. Get the foundation right when you're listening to the people, to the land, when you're listening to the foundation of what is clearly needed to the people, to the land, when you're listening to the foundation, what is clearly needed.

Jeff: 1:09:43

the rest builds on that in ways that you'd scarcely imagine, when I started my career with this approach, I worked with a ranch in Hawaii that was losing three quarters of a million dollars. And we just really sat back and looked at the budget of you know a million dollars of expenditures on that land and for that ranch and we said, do we need to spend all of this? Do we really need to spend all of this? And we had union cowboys there. So I mean we had restrictions with labor, we had attacks by local, local people, the hawaiian community, and then, just you know, we're dumping chemicals all over the land and all that stuff which was causing the protests by the locals and whatnot.

Jeff: 1:10:30

I mean so, um and so when we really sat back and looked at it and said, okay, what do we really need to spend money on? And then, what are the other opportunities that we have? And when we looked at both of those things, we were able to cut half a million dollars out of expenses. So we got it down to half a million and we also, with looking at opportunities, generated twice the money doubled our revenue generation. Generated twice the money doubled our revenue generation and within one year we went from a $3.25 million loss to breaking even. That's big money on a ranching scale, and so the thought is you can do this stuff, you can do this stuff and you just have to think differently. You've got to just look at the world differently. Anyway, that was a lesson I learned very early in my career and it stuck with me. You know, that was just a thinking process. All we did, we thought differently and it worked.

AJ: 1:11:32

So yeah, there, it is full stop. Jeff, what a great pleasure it's been to be with you and to speak with you again.

Jeff: 1:11:41

I'm glad that you guys came to the US and you know, visit here and you know, hopefully we'll get over your way and visit there. Indeed, here's to that.

AJ: 1:11:51

And uncannily again, as these things work, it happened to be when you were running a workshop.

Jeff: 1:11:57

Yeah, that was nice, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, thank you, I appreciate it too.

AJ: 1:12:01

Yeah so if we were to go out with the tune, yeah, piece of music, what would it be now?

Jeff: 1:12:06

oh gosh, uh, let's see I these birds. It's just, it's magic. You put a little water in the desert, you put, you know, some trees and some flowers, and then you get this beautiful sound out there.

AJ: 1:12:24

JG: So that's my music today. AJ: T that was Jeff Goebel, master people whisperer, at his home in New Mexico. See various links in the show notes, including to that first conversation Jeff and I had late last year, a few photos on the website and more, as always, on Patreon for subscribing members. With great thanks to Jeff and his wonderful wife Myrna for hosting us so warmly and to the diverse community of folk at and behind that workshop. Thanks for welcoming this Aussie blow-in into such raw and open processes. I'll never forget it. And, of course, to you generous supporting listeners, thanks for making this episode possible. If you'd like to join us, just head to the website or the show notes and follow the prompts. With great thanks, including for sharing the podcast with friends when you can think of someone who might enjoy it. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden, and at the top it was Green Shoots by the Nomadics. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.

Jeff: 1:14:07

Well, look at him run.

AJ: 1:14:09

What was he dropping, Postman yeah he's a FedEx person. He's had a bad experience. I reckon, yeah, yeah, yeah his worst outcomes.

Jeff: 1:14:20

That's where we get it. Unfortunately, most of them were imagined, or fortunately they're not real, but it looks like his are pretty real.