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Living Like The Future Matters From Soil To Soul With Donna Maltz

https://youtu.be/NQTZTf7sOhQ

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It’s time to live like the future matters because it really does. Every action you take impacts the world in a certain way. Don’t tell yourself that it’s too little because what you’re doing is contributing to the future of the whole world. Listen to this episode as Donna Maltz shares her unique perspective on how you can inspire others to change for the better. Donna has got this whole perspective of going from soil to soul. She emphasizes that more isn’t always better and shares concrete examples of seeking a better world for yourself. Instead of feeling helpless with uncontrollable circumstances, dive in for a dose of positivity and clarity in this chaotic world.

Show Notes:

04:33 Introduction

08:01 Inspiring The Younger Generations

11:50 The Role Of Businesses

14:57 Why Businesses Fail

21:33 The Whole Value Chain System

31:41 Smaller Communities

42:03 The Future Matters

48:21 A Dose Of Positivity

48:41 Regenerative Movement

About Donna Maltz

Donna is a catalyst for change, guiding individuals and businesses working in the world of human potential to live like the future matters. Donna empowers us to live with clarity and stay true to our mission. She is a Positivity Coach, Eco-entrepreneur, Business Consultant, author, blogger, speaker, and Holistic Chef, helping others live a legacy lifestyle as change-makers and thought leaders. Donna is the host of a weekly podcast, A Dose of Positivity. She provides interactive, fun courses in her Soil to Soul Academy, offering her 40 years of eco-entrepreneurship experiences. She openly shares her holistic lifestyle and connects you to the resources necessary to succeed in life and business. Her Motto is “Why Retire When I Can Inspire”

Website Links:

https://www.donnamaltz.com

https://www.instagram.com/soiltosoulsolutions/

https://twitter.com/Soil2Soulutions

https://www.facebook.com/groups/273462200518755

https://www.facebook.com/dmaloha

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Living Like The Future Matters From Soil To Soul With Donna Maltz

I’m going to share a little bit with you about the future-leaning of this show and the spirit of the summer solstice, growth, long days, and sunny afternoons that hopefully, you out there enjoying perhaps a little bit more than I am as I’m tethered to my desk here. I want to take a moment to share a podcaster’s perspective. We thrive on one thing more than most. We thrive on feedback and appreciation. Sometimes that’s as simple as sending us a note to our email addresses or writing a review on Apple Podcasts.

That has a lot of weight to it because the world sees it. It makes us happy and feel appreciated. If you are a reader or discovering the show for the first time and you enjoy it, I encourage you to do so. Send me a note. Hello@CareMoreBeBetter.com gets straight to my inbox. You can even recommend future topics on shows or other things that you would like to see me cover and questions you might even have for future guests.

On that note, I’m going to pose a bit of a reminder. I will soon be interviewing on the show Dr. William Moomaw. He is a Nobel Laureate who shares that prize for his work as a climate scientist along with Al Gore for the production of An Inconvenient Truth. He bears that because he was the lead author of the first five Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That’s the IPCC report you might hear about if you read other sustainability shows. I tend not to use the acronym too much because most people don’t understand it.

At any rate, I shared an episode of Nutrition Without Compromise on this show’s feed for those who already read the show because I wanted you to be able to hear from Dr. Moomaw himself about his perspective and the fact that he even helped to coin the term Pro-forestation. It’s something I’ve talked about before as we cover topics of regeneration.

I would invite you to go and check out the podcast Nutrition Without Compromise. You can subscribe to that show even. If you do give it a listen, I would like for you to think about what other questions you might have for Dr. Moomaw. You can send them to my email, Instagram, or whatever is easiest for you. Ultimately, I want to be able to share with him ideas, thoughts, and questions from the community when he comes on the show.

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I have a special guest for you. That is the lovely and amazing Donna Maltz. Donna happens to live on the Big Island of Kona, where she is happily enjoying a semi-retirement. I’m saying semi because she does a lot of work to make the world a better place each and every day. She’s got this whole perspective of going from soil to soul. It’s supporting our soil and our souls so that we can create a better world. This ties nicely to topics of regeneration, thinking about each of our footprints on this planet, and how we can make the world a better place.

She likes to be called Mama Donna. She’s a catalyst for change that works to empower us to all live with clarity and stay true to our personal missions. As you get to know her, think about whether or not you could benefit from our services, if you would like to subscribe to her newsletter or even be a part of that Soil to Soul Academy. Without further ado, I’ll bring Donna straight up. Donna, welcome to the show.

I am so honored to be here. Aloha, everyone. Corinna, I’m so grateful to you for bringing all these changemakers, thought leaders, and social and environmental justice activists together to care more, be better, and shine all of our light into the world. Thank you for the opportunity to be on this platform. I wanted to mention it to everyone. Some of you readers might have already tasted it or had this. Like Corinna, I was in the natural food industry for a number of years.

I developed the first organic cocoa and chocolate syrup in the nation under the brand Ah!Laska. Corrina and I met over branding and looking at what we are doing with our lives and our careers from the soil to the soul and how can we, as women, empower others to be the change as Gandhi said we must see in the world. In addition to that, both of us have been in the natural foods industry serving people. For many years, I ran the first natural organic restaurant in the State of Alaska.

I don’t live in the state of Kona. I wanted to make everybody know there is no state of Kona in Hawaii. It is the Big Island. We call it Kona because that is where the industrial complex is, and that is what the industrial food system is like. That’s why I look at Kona. Every time we go to Kona, we have to jump in the ocean before we come to Kohala, where I live on the Northern tip of the Big Island.

There’s a distinction. I’ve heard it called interchangeably. I’ve been to the Big Island. The North Shore is more remote as it is as most of the islands. It’s a little more tropical and wild. It’s a beautiful space. Thank you for joining us. As we get started, I want to connect on the topic of this show. Tell us what Care More Be Better means to you.

Care More Be Better means from the soil to the soul. It means Living Like The Future Matters.

I suspected that you would tie it directly. That’s why I wanted to bring it up. Your slogan is, “Why retire when I can inspire?” Why are you still working on the beautiful Big Island when you could be slow living and perhaps stepping into a different type of retirement?

For anybody who’s reading this, I got my Medicare card. It was a huge awakening for me. It put even additional fire under my belly for regeneration. In my book Living Like The Future Matters, I talk about that in the last chapter, which is called Regeneration. Paul and I met each other when he was writing the book Regeneration. The healthier we are, the healthier the world is going to be.

I am 65 on Medicare. I think about all these people who are on drugs eating from the industrial food complex diet. They have a responsibility and ability to inspire the younger generations. We can’t expect them to clean up the mess that we have made. The fire in my belly came when I listened to a lot of your different shows. One that I listened to, which I love, is that woman, Clover Hogan, a climate activist who has done so much. If you haven’t read that episode, tune in. It’s amazing.

She’s very young. I called her more accomplished at 22 than I am at 45. The reality is she got her start as a climate activist when she was only thirteen years old. In that short time, in those nine years or less than a decade, she has made an impact. A big part of that impact is because the media is starting to understand that you need to go to the future. Going to the future is going to the youth.

She’s getting coverage in places like Forbes. Since that episode aired, she was nominated by Forbes as a 30 Under 30 to watch. It’s surprising because she’s in the not-for-profit space. How many times do you see Forbes jump out and say, “Here’s somebody in our 30 Under 30 and they’re in the not-for-profit space.” It’s not very often. Correct me if I’m wrong there. Maybe there will be someone listening who’s like, “These three people were also nominated.” I don’t recall seeing them.

Being An Inspiration

There’s her, Greta, and all of these young people. Why retire when I can inspire? Even for you, being an elder, I could be your mom. I am relentlessly out there in a loving and compassionate Mama Donna way, inspiring changemakers, thought leaders, and social and environmental activists to step it up. We need to escalate this whole process.

Caring And Being Better

I’m also hopefully inspiring more elders like myself and all these beautiful Native American leaders out there who are aging. They have so much to teach. Thank God, so many of them are out there in the universe who are championing this with organizations such as the Bioneers, which I love. If you tune in to them, the Bioneers is an amazing organization that is working on caring more and being better.

They’re creating bio-oriented solutions. Looking at the human experience, we’re part of a biome.

Speaking of biomes, the other thing about “Why retire when I can inspire?” and Living Like The Future Matters is it all ties into the microbiome of the soil and our gut microbiology. You’re looking at our brain and how our brain looks like mycelium when you look at them under a microscope. We are nature. The closer we get to nature, the closer we get to our true nature.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing with Soil to Soul Academy? What is this all about? How can people get involved?

Business Owners

The Soil to Soul Academy has been incubating inside of 4me, probably for twenty years. Running a restaurant and a company, having a kid, and all the things that I did back then were the incubation for this. When I wrote the book Living Like The Future Matters, I realized when people read that they wanted to learn how to be socially and environmentally responsible business owners. I have a quote in the book that starts my book. It says, “Since the Ice Age, businesses have changed the world faster than anything. Ethical businesses and business leaders with the moral courage have the ability and responsibility to change things for the better and faster.” Care more and be better, in other words.

CMBB 94 Donna | Future Matters Living Like The Future Matters: The Evolution of A Soil to Soul Entrepreneur

I want to bring this up because it clearly resonates with a couple of things that come up from many circles, specifically in the sustainability space, which relates to how little our personal responsibility for the climate matters in the scope of things. We’re akin to a rounding error if each individual lived as clean as possible, removed their carbon imprint, and be living in a regenerative household, farming their food, not creating a lot of omissions, planting trees, and doing everything right. That person’s impact would be akin to .0000000003%.

We could be living 100% as cleanly as possible. We could not be using all these electronic devices, slurping Wi-Fi, cell towers, and everything else that we impact, driving a car or doing whatever. We’re connected all the time. What I’m eluding to is the fact that even when we’re living the most mindful existence, the impact we’re making isn’t huge.

That can be daunting. That can make you feel like, “I’m calling it in. It’s not even worth trying because I’ll pitch all my plastic trash in the river as opposed to caring about where it ends up.” This is an extreme example, but it can get to the point where it feels like, “There’s no difference I can make.” Let’s talk about remaining optimistic.

That is why the Soil to Soul Academy is happening. It’s your business how you live your life. Your business starts right there. You can learn right there about health, family, and business. We’ve got to prioritize those things because if we’re not healthy in healthy relationships and we’re at work, home, or the family, our businesses are going to be unhealthy. The first responsibility is at home for you taking care of recycling, eating those algae green drinks, and being so conscious.

Building Your Community

It’s great, but why not create a business around that because your social and environmental impact is going to be greater? The Soil to Soul Academy is teaching people how first to be healthy, understand how to have healthy relationships, build in their community and homes, and then how to do that in their business. The reason most businesses fail is because they don’t know how to talk to people, be compassionate, loving, and caring.

To me, this is business right here. It’s getting to the heart of the matter and teaching that to the Soil to Soul Academy, where you’re going to have more love, compassion, and care. People are going to be better because that is part of having a soil to soul business. That is part of being an eco-entrepreneur. It’s understanding that connection from the soil to the soul. You don’t start a business being an a-hole.

There are enough a-holes out there and they are so overloaded with these oversized egos that they’re constipated. They’re making us constipated and getting into our psyche. We are turned into sheeple. People are clones. Enough is enough. When I say no because our little thing isn’t going to make that much of a difference, it is. Doing what you’re doing every day is making a difference. Let’s magnitude what you’re doing and turn it into a business because it is what’s going to help change your family, community, state, and the world.

We got the Mama Donna soapbox. I get it.

You’re doing it. I love you for what you’re doing.

Bringing it back to the beginning of this part of our conversation, you said that businesses could make the biggest impact. That’s what my perspective is as well. However, by having personal responsibility in that, you can affect change. It’s everything from the purchasing decisions you make to how you lead your daily life, how you raise your children and guide those around you, to the conversations you inspire, like the one that we’re having. As I’m reflecting on this, I’m also thinking about a podcast I guested on, which was A Sustainable Mind, led by Marjorie Alexander.

She’s an incredible interviewer. She asked me a question specifically about how you build a regenerative business from the beginning and then another question about how you do it later. This latter question is the harder one to get to because you are mindfully building a business from the beginning when you’re saying, “What is the carbon impact of how I’m conducting this? How many resources do I need versus what am I buying? What is the life cycle of this particular raw material that I’m using? What was the impact that materials’ creation had on the environment?”

It gets very complex, but if you’re architecting it from the beginning that way, you can create something different than if you started from a more extractive perspective and are now having to retool it. That being said, there is value in doing that and going through that hard work. There are great leading companies that are choosing to do that hard work. It’s ultimately deconstructing their products and then trying to reassemble them. Too often, though, what I see is that companies will say, “We will go ahead and create a sustainable product. We will create an offshoot or a sneaker made from algae but we’re still going to stay with all this other material that we have used.”

They do it as an offshoot. It’s more like a market test, “Will consumers buy this?” If they don’t buy it and if it flops, then they retract and retreat to the world of creating the extractive products that they had before. Especially when we see big companies make these leaps, all of us need to be like, “That’s fantastic. We love you for this.”

Go out and support that product because it will direct that company’s change and the resources that they put behind those sorts of initiatives. It’s because they’re seeing that the customer community that is out there is supportive of it. This might be a slippery slope in some cases, specifically when we’re talking about things like wearables or technology that’s more sustainable. Lean in, support those companies, give them a little credit when credit is due, and push for more change and more of what they have been doing to correct action. That’s my perspective.

I have so much I want to share with you on that. First of all, I want to refer back to another one of your shows. You interviewed Zach Stein from Carbon Collective. It was very interesting. I even shared it on my Facebook group and had my husband read it. There is so much of it that I had a hard time sipping the Coca-Cola. I couldn’t get down that, whether it’s aluminum, glass, or plastic. The point is what you’re saying, and this question that this podcaster asked you are fantastic.

It’s always shocking when it comes out of Mama Donna’s mouth that who has solar panels, drives in the most carbon-neutral vehicles, and is energy efficient. We call ourselves the one-light bulb family because we only have one-a light bulb on at a time, except when I’m doing these shows because you need to have good lighting if you don’t have good lighting. That’s a good thing to think about. Are you a one-light bulb family?

Here’s the problem with all of this renewable and regenerative talk about energy where I have a problem. We’re looking at solutions. We’re not looking at the word that I would like to get into soulutions because all this energy and extraction that we’re doing to produce all these battery-run cars, phones, and all the electronics that we use are mining for chromium.

All these minerals and resources come from the Earth. We know and understand that. Most people do. It’s huge. I don’t want to go over the numbers but it’s growing every day. The pits are getting deeper and the resources are getting scarcer. They’re non-renewable resources. The thing that struck me in what you said about this podcaster is what happens to the waste and the whole value chain system of these batteries. I look at it as the next nuclear disaster. I don’t value the idea.

CMBB 94 | Future Matters Future Matters: We should constantly be looking for solutions.

This is where I love being involved with the younger generations. We need soulutions. The soulution is not how we can get all these alternatives and renewables so we can live the same lifestyle, which gets back to what you said. This person doing all these things is only this nano percentage. That is the business of what I’m trying to do. Could you imagine if 3.5 billion of the people on the planet out of close to 8 billion started living like that?

That’s a business to teach people how to live better with less, live with more of this, look into people’s eyes, care about nature, and get out into nature. There are companies out that are doing incredible solutions. They’re doing things. In China, they created this sponge city. I don’t know if you heard about it. It’s a sponge-type of algae system. There are ways to sequester carbon and create breathable and habitable air.

People can even get outside. Four thousand people a day die in China because of air pollution, carbon, and batteries they’re making for our solar panels. I’m saying, “This is a bridge.” I’m not saying, “Don’t do it.” We’ve got to stop fossil fuels and digging up dead plants, animals, and dinosaurs. That is our karma. You dig up a grave. What happens?

This is exactly what we’re doing. We’re borrowing from the future. We’re not living within our means. We think about things from a means perspective, being cash. I’m living within my means, but we’re not living within what our climate means are and what is a truly sustainable world. This is why lead environmentalists have abandoned the term sustainability.

They don’t even like that it’s in my show title right there. They say, “This is all greenwashing. It’s a bunch of BS. The things that people are saying are sustainable are simply not true. We need to get to a regenerative business world and the systemic world, or we are done.” They will say done as not tentatively done or possibly done. It’s done like, “Our planet won’t support life in 200 years.”

That’s four generations. We have how many years to get this right. We have maybe the next twenty to get solutions in place because there’s this thing called Climate Lag, which is hard to wrap your brain around. What it means is that even if we were to stop all carbon emissions, we would still experience the negative effects of our warming oceans and the carbon that’s in the atmosphere for another twenty or more years.

We need to get to a space where we understand this and ingrain it and also where we come to learn and grow to live with less from all aspects of life, not just, “I need to have sixteen different outfits in my collection for the spring every year.” Who needs sixteen different outfits every spring? You build a wardrobe that you can sustain over time.

I have friends in my community. They’re like, “I applied to Stitch Fix.” They ship them clothes each and every month. I don’t think that we need a world in which our mind is so focused on the outward of what we look like and the things that we wear to mean our personhood. We get stuck in this. We need to think about our impact and the flightiness of things like fashion and say goodbye to fast fashion.

Think about things from a durable perspective. It’s step one to start to think about the food we’re putting into our body, the effect it has, how that food is procured, and whether or not it’s made with a lot of chemicals that wash into our water tables. These are all the things. When you say soil to soul, I want to get back to this discussion of soil and what we’re doing to our planet Earth and its soil reserves.

We have 60 years or less of farmable soil left as far as people see the prices of commodities. At the gas stations, prices are going crazy. We’re entering a recession. The only difference between one person’s perspective of a recession and depression is the person next door to you is in a depression when they lose their home and everything they have worked so hard for. You’re still hanging on by a thread. That’s what’s happening. People are in denial about the magnitude of the crisis.

True Solutions

Here’s the thing. I don’t focus on that. There are enough people talking about that. I focus on soulutions. I want to share with the readers the difference between a solution and a soulution. This will help. Even the word regenerative is so much more powerful than sustainable. The word solution is what they’re trying to do day and night while they’re feeding us a bunch of you-know-what.

These are not solutions. These are Band-Aids and their puss is oozing. What we need are soulutions. Those are getting back to the soil level from the soil to the soul. If we have a kid who’s crying, you can’t say, “This is a solution.” It’s driving me crazy. What do we do? We put some duct tape on them, threw them in the closet, and closed the door for quiet.

That’s what we’re doing in every single industry, our school systems, education systems, political systems, and the economy. Those are solutions. They’re working. If we don’t hear the kid crying, everything is fine. If we don’t hear the planet crying, it’s fine. We don’t hear what’s going on with domestic violence because we put it back there or throw some stuff into the media and the news, so we get everybody screaming and freaked out.

That’s why I wrote this book in the middle of the pandemic called Conscious Cures: Soulutions to 21st Century Pandemics. I did a rewrite of it. I’ve got to get it out there. I look at the root cause of the soil issues, these problems, and the health pandemic. There are six pandemics. First is the environmental pandemic. The soil is sick. We’re doomed. There’s the political pandemic, economic pandemic, food pandemic, drug pandemic, and inequality pandemic. There’s a fear of media conspiracy.

I feel like that’s part of the political problem.

It’s part of the political problem because the politicians are owned by the big corporations.

It’s mostly Big Pharma and Big Oil.

Pressing Issue

There’s food and drugs. That’s why that is the theme in Conscious Cures: Soulutions to 21st Century Pandemics. It all comes back to the number one pandemic that we have to clear up. These are all global pandemics. It’s the environmental pandemic. Without the environment, we don’t have to worry about anything because we’re doomed. This should be the number one pressing issue. There should be no duct tape on anything about this. It’s front and center news day in and day out until we get this right.

CMBB 94 Donna | Future Matters Future Matters: It's your business how you live your life. We have to prioritize crucial things because if we're not healthy and we're not in healthy family relationships, our businesses are going to be unhealthy.

I’m curious about your perspective as it relates to climate justice because this ties to the social impact of our climates and how we have this inequity between here in the West and somebody living somewhere else in a smaller country with fewer resources or a smaller economic power. Many spaces around the globe are feeling the ravages of our climate change much worse than we’re seeing it here because they don’t necessarily have the same resources in their grasp.

They don’t have an air conditioner or heating and cooling the same way that we do. Those things are changing pretty rapidly. We, in the West, are creating much more pollution on a per capita basis than in some of these other spaces. As access improves, those demographics are going to shift. I’m curious about your perspective on climate justice and how we address the inequities.

This is such a good point. I’m grateful you’re bringing this up because it’s one of the problems. We will go to the soulution about this. Most of the Western world’s lifestyle is being produced in these Third World countries and the smaller villages that are being impacted by the cities and the water systems that are filtering down into these smaller communities. A lot of these smaller communities have lost their whole culture, farmlands, and dignity to these major corporations.

Look what’s happening in the rainforests. It’s despicable. There are oil spills happening right in the rainforests as we speak. There are fires blazing. What are they doing? They’re producing palm oil, cattle, and the resources that the Western world is addicted to. Something we haven’t addressed yet is this addiction to the American dream. It’s so part of not living like the future matters.

The American dream is toxic. Can we say that?

My whole book is about the addiction to the American dream. Living like the future matters is not being addicted to the American dream. It creates personal addictions. This comes back to the health, family, and business arena. When you’re sick and addicted, it’s almost impossible to give up this. We have become addicted to this unsustainable world. It’s at the expense of exploiting and destroying the lands of these other people in these other countries.

Unfortunately, it’s not something we can solve while we’re on this show. Hopefully, we will continue to inspire people to act and change their buying habits. To date, I am proud to say that I’ve worked in this natural products industry for a long time. I have formulated hundreds of products. I’ve never once worked with palm kernel oil. It has been on the docket like, “Let’s get our vitamin A from palm kernel oil. It’s used as an emulsifier. You don’t want to use trans fats. This is a good alternative.”

It’s not a good alternative, even supporting a so-called sustainable farm. By using palm kernel oil, you’re encouraging the use of palm kernel oil, which is the problem we have with oil and gas. By using even a little, you’re encouraging the use of it. I’m on a quest here to reduce our reliance on these fuels. I did have an electric car for a while. We turned it in after the lease because it wasn’t our favorite.

I’m considering buying another used one but I’m back to gas for now. I’m trying to drive a lot less. I bike if I can and walk to the store. When I go to pick up my kids, I make it a part of the circuitous trip. I’m only leaving my house once a day to get them all in this circle. I go to the store if I need to and come back home so that I’m not spending a lot of time in my vehicle.

I want to jump in here because you said something, and I want the readers to be clear. The word less means more love, more time with people that you care about, more time in nature, and more time in the garden. It means less BS. It means more quality of life. What we want to talk about is more better. Who told you that these other things and getting this clothing shipped once a month from a factory in a Third World country made by children is better because you get more clothes?

More isn’t better. I would point people to an earlier episode where I interviewed Dr. Vimal Thomas George. He is a medical doctor. He comes from India. He even talks about the fact that they didn’t have utensils. They were considered a luxury. We consider having the latest iPhone within a month of it coming out as a luxury. Why is this part of how we view ourselves in the world?

Why have we allowed that to feed our ego and not the power of the way we’re able to lead our lives with the people that we love? I have my cell phone here. This is an Android. I’ve had it for five years. I will probably have it for another year or two before it goes completely kaput. It’s cracked on the back. It’s got some issues but it works. As long as it works, it will serve.

What a fabulous business model for Apple or the Android company to jump in and say, “You will never have to buy another hardware again in your life because you’re subscribed to us. For $49, every two years, we’re going to send you the tiniest little microchip to update your phone in such a way that this is going to be like a new phone. You can download apps and all of this but this is a specialized type of thing.” It’s the same thing with our cars. Why are they not building the bodies of the cars in such a way every 3 to 5 years because it’s not trendy to buy this model?

They do have recycling programs. Some of them are better than others. Both Android and Apple have the facilities for recycling your phone. They will break it down to its raw components and take out the rare-earth minerals that are used within it. They have become less modular. If you remember, we had cell phones that had removable batteries, SIM chips, and all that so you could update your phone. It’s becoming less commonplace now. It’s a brick once it has lived its life. If you broke the screen, you almost have to get it replaced.

I’m seeing a re-emergence of the so-called repair economy. This is a conversation that’s continuing in different areas. For instance, our air conditioner went nearly kaput. We replaced the coils. That meant that we were no longer expelling freon into the atmosphere, which is one of those greenhouse gases that you cannot pull down. Repair before you replace and try to think of the life cycle of a product. Consider cradle-to-cradle and not just cradle-to-grave because if we’re in this cradle-to-grave perspective, we’re making our own.

When I was a kid, we had repair shops. If her shoe broke, she went to the shoemaker. If the toaster broke, we went to the appliance store. For the blender, it’s the same thing. If you’ve got clothes and you changed your size, you go to the tailor. These guys had booming businesses in their cottage industries and community building. I knew Rocco the Shoemaker and Leo the Tailor.

These were part of our extended family. You come and get your things back. You could feel the craftsmanship, the love these people put in, and the dignity they had to do that. These are huge opportunities coming up for people when you talk about building a new economy based on repair, more love, more compassion, and less stuff.

Let’s talk for a moment about what Patagonia is doing with Worn Wear. They’re making it cool. This is one of the things I love about them. They’re still using a lot of plastics in their products but they will repair any item of clothing they have ever made in their repair shops. They are selling used versions of their clothes in their retail shops right alongside the new product. People can make a choice to buy something and give it a second life as opposed to buying something new.

CMBB 94 Donna | Future Matters Future Matters: Your social and environmental impact is going to be greater.

We can get away from this obsession with newness and think about durability, giving something a new life, and being proud of it, like the dress that I wore that I bought for $0.25 at a garage sale. I’m not kidding. It’s one of my favorite dresses. You can live a little bit more simply and still buy the things that you want and need, but you may need to be a little bit more careful and thoughtful about it. Get out of this mindless consumption.

One of the gals I’m interviewing is coming up on my show, A Dose of Positivity. This is a great story. She was an art student studying the environment. While she was in her environmental class, they were talking about how toxic the textile business was and the companies. When she would go into her art class, she was using all these acrylic, paints, toxins, and all of that. She needed to make some money.

She was a sewer. What she did to put herself through college as she made the first 100% recycled stuffed dolls in full satin and silk. She would go to the thrift store and turn it into a small cottage factory hiring primarily women with a daycare center. It was such a beautiful combination if everybody were studying and understanding this at every grade level and class, including the art class. How toxic art can be if you don’t know the source.

In sourcing everything from the soil, understanding everything that we do, and every action that we take, we say, “Is this living like the future matters? Is buying this particular brand or thing living like the future matters?” That is how I came up with that. It’s almost like a mantra for me and for those that I teach. It’s asking that one simple question when you’re ready to turn on an extra light in the house, “Is this living like the future matters?”

Sourcing Everything FromThe Soil

“I’m going to go buy soda because I’m thirsty. It’s an old pattern. I’m addicted to Coca-Cola. Is this living like the future matters?” You did go into the garage sale and buy your favorite dress for $0.25. Not only did you do that and wear that, but you’re also sharing that story. These are the stories that each of us, every day, instead of being ashamed of something like that, that is like, “I want to sign your dress.”

I got 2 or 3 different dresses like that. I was like, “They’re giving them away for $0.25.”

I’m dressed for $0.75. I’m with you all the way.

I am proud of that. It takes making those things cool to build the change.

That’s what the Soil to Soul Academy is about. The other thing about what you’re saying brings me back to the guy who did the stock stuff. Zach Stein was saying about making investments, “If you invest like that, you’re investing in buying regenerative clothing lines and secondhand used cars.” I’ve got a fleet of renewable cars. There are three of them because we rent one out for our vacation rental guests. They’re all for less than $30,000.

We sold our other two cars Prius for $3,000 each because we drove them until they were almost at the end. It cost us $14,000 to have three amazing energy-efficient vehicles. That’s a story I’m proud of. It wasn’t $0.25, but still, for most people, one car costs them $40,000 to $50,000. One of them is a truck and it’s our dump truck. We go to the dump with it. We live on a three-acre farmstead. We’re harvesting fruit or whatever we need to use a truck for.

Everything should have a place and a purpose. With everything that we drink and eat, we make that choice of, “Am I living like the future matters?” Everything in this green drink that I’m drinking was produced by my local farmer. I’ve got cucumbers, celery, three kinds of parsley that were growing in my yard, ginger, and turmeric all here in Kohala, where I live.

Am I eating like the future matters? One bite at a time, we make a difference to stop thinking when you say something, “Is this living like the future matters?” When you say that to yourself, “Yes or no. It is,” and make a choice, that’s huge. In one bite at a time, we make a difference. In one business at a time, we magnitude that.

I want to talk for a moment before we part about your podcast and what you’re doing with your podcast so that readers here can go find you there. Tell me about your podcasting journey, what you’re enjoying about that, what you’re talking about, who you’re connecting with, and how people can find you.

Thank you. You are the hugest inspiration for me to turn mine into a podcast. I’m on Spotify. I did it on Anchor. I’m not doing very professionally but I’m listening to the other station that you do, The Mediacasters. I had my intern there. She connected with a couple of people there. We’re going to be learning from you because you’ve got this down in such a beautiful way. I stand on your shoulders. I will learn everything.

Mine started more like a live show with my tribe for my Facebook group. I realized when I was doing it that people wanted to listen to the replay. I put it up on YouTube so that I could download it to my Facebook group. I realized I could go on Anchor for free. I started doing this. I’ve had incredible guests on there like Alan Cohen and Sally Fallon, who wrote Nourishing Traditions and who’s big in the food thing. It’s interesting and a little controversial. She started the Weston A. Price Foundation, which is fantastic.

There’s also Natasha Campbell, who started the GAPS Diet. She’s a wealth of information about learning how to live with more love, more attention to focus on the land, and more possibilities. I started realizing, “I want to talk to these kinds of people like Alan Cohen on spirituality. I’ve always wanted to meet Sally Fallon.” It took me going out of my comfort zone. I knew that the information I was sharing was going to help my small tribe live more like the future matters.

It’s serving your purpose. People can find it on Spotify as well as other podcasting platforms. It’s simply called A Dose of Positivity.

You’re coming to the show in September 2022. I am over-the-top excited to have you on. You’re incredible.

CMBB 94 | Future Matters Future Matters: The pits are getting deeper and the resources are getting scarcer.

I can’t wait. We have had to reschedule a couple of times because of COVID and whatever else.

What we’re doing is so important. These conversations we’re bringing forward are a dose of positivity or a spoonful of medicine. A green drink makes the medicine go down, not sugar. We have to unlearn so much so that we can relearn the possibilities and stay positive. That’s the best thing that comes out of all this.

When you are working in the regenerative movement, caring more, and being better, it is hard to go down. It is the most positive place we can all be. There’s one thing I want to say to you, Corrina, because you are a gem. Being tied to your desk is not sustainable and regenerative. You’re going to come to Hawaii and let me nurture you. We have a beautiful farmstead here. Part of what I also do is we bring guests here from burnout to bliss.

On farms, you put me to work and I’m happy because I will muck stalls and work with the animals because that’s what feeds my soul. I’ll look forward to one day seeing your farm, Mama Donna. Do you have one thought that you would like to leave our audience with or perhaps a tip or a tool that you would like them to take with them as we close?

Live like the future matters and know that you matter. It’s one bite or one person at a time. Margaret Mead said, “It’s a small group of people who made the changes in the world.” Indeed, all it takes is for all of us to come together, collaborate, not be fearful, and not live in fear of media conspiracy. Live in positivity. Live with love in your heart and the mantra, “I’m living like the future matters.”

You will feel better. If you’re on medication, you will be able to get off most medications when you live like the future matters because you’re eating like the future matters. If you are feeling overwhelmed with clutter and chaos in your life or you live like the future matters, that stuff goes away, including the thoughts in your mind when we encounter the interconnection or the intergenerational relationships, not just with humankind but with all of life-kind.

That is something through my legacy and my life to interconnect humanity to the systems and cycles of nature and live with life-kind, not with humankind. Once we do that and understand that the ants make up weight per weight ten times more than all the humans on the planet, and they are going to be here long after humans, so with the cockroaches and the rats. These are the things that we annihilate and are pests. They are part of the community. All of this is part of it.

Building a healthy planet is something we all need to be concerned with.

It’s building a healthy planet and interconnecting that we are the planet. We are made up of all the elements of Mother Nature.

Mama Donna, thank you so much for joining me.

It was a privilege and an honor to know you and to continue to know you. Thank you so much for all you do and how you help us all care more and be better.

Thank you for the plug. I appreciate you. As we wrap, I implore you to lean into discovery, stay curious, and ask questions. Invite your inner toddler to enjoy a moment in the sunshine. It’s the longest day of the year. Enjoy every moment of it. Doing so will ensure you continue to grow and stay motivated and optimistic about creating change. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, so you’re sure to be notified each time we release new content.

If you do want to reach out and tell me what you loved or what you didn’t, I appreciate every outreach. Send me a note at Hello@CareMoreBeBetter.com. If you will do me the favor of writing a review, that certainly helps more people discover the show. Remember, those reviews and messages are the fuel that keeps us going. I would love to hear your voice. You can even leave me a voicemail on CareMoreBeBetter.com. Readers, this has been my honor and privilege. I love all of you. Together, we can do so much more. I invite you to lean in and enjoy a moment in the sunshine as summer starts.

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