Thriving The Future Podcast Thriving The Future

Monday I got a new org chart in my email at work. I was not on it.
The answer I got was: “oops we didn’t mean for that to go out so soon.”
That’s how soon you can be replaced.
Build something for yourself. It’s basic prepping. Build your side hustle. Multiple streams of income. Do it before you get that “Oops” email.
In this episode I will share tips on how to discover and develop your side hustle niche.
How to find your side hustle niche
Let's talk about YOUR side hustle.
Are you having difficulty finding your side hustle niche?
What are you good at?You know stuff. You may not think it is much, but there is someone out there who will pay (or pay attention) for that knowledge.Remember - Guys on YouTube are getting hundreds of views from sharpening knives or using a scythe. This week I saw a post on permies where a guy took a scythe blade that was mangled by a lawn mower and he fixed it. All are skills that can be taught or sold as a side hustle, or as sales of knives and scythes.
Grant Payne takes pruned and trimmed pieces of plants and rejects from the big box store and grows them out into full plants and sells them.
Anything like that can drive into a side hustle.
Even better - you can tell someone how to do a skill step by step and they will often PAY YOU to do it for them.
Try it. Talk about your skill in your community. Offer to show someone how you do it. Make a proof of concept web page, YouTube page, or use FB Marketplace. Sell your service or your product/what you make. Or sell your knowledge and skill.
Use Flippa as a Side Hustle Idea Generator
Get on Flippa. Check out the current listings. But, even more importantly, check out the listings that have recently sold.
The prepper site BunkerBasics.com sold not long ago for $1,100.
You could buy a website like this, build one similar, or use it as an idea for a niche.
This is my usual process and checklist for evaluating a website:
Is the site within my niche or in an adjacent niche?Is the site in my price range? Most that I have bought are starter sites that are $100-200.They must be created in Wordpress.Do I have a vision for them:Do I buy the site, build the audience, and then generate affiliate income?Will I resell the site?Do I think that I can make the site better?I usually brainstorm 10-15 article topics that I would write for each site as a proof of concept to support my decision.
Check out the show notes on the Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/side-hustle-niche
Guitar Pedal Mania
Sponsors:
Duplicator Pro - when you buy a website off of Flippa, Transfer the website over easily with Duplicator Pro plugin. It creates the database and sets up all plugins and content. Check out Duplicator Pro plugin.Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.

Andy Hickman (shagbark_hick on Twitter) shares his new adventures. Andy was on on Ep. 83 - You're Gonna Make it.
His video "You're Gonna Make it" is still the most encouraging video I have ever seen, and still puts a smile on my face.
Andy has a big Summer planned:
He is getting married to Keturah in June, with a wedding in the woods of upstate NY, with bring-your-own-picnic lunch, and campout. (Saving money and gaining family).
Before that, he is travelling the month of May coast-to-coast on Amtrak to visit new friends from Twitter in NE and TX, stealth camping, and in Oregon to greet the father he has never met.
He shares tips for traveling on Amtrak.
Plans to travel to Europe on QE2.
Making a living writing on Substack. Subscribe and support him (I do). It is a must-read!
We also talk about Thriving by being Time Rich.
Check out the show notes on the Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/shagbark_hick
Sponsors:
Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.Do you forage nettles? A guy I know forages and freezes nettles and they are his main green veg for the entire year! Check out the How to Forage and Prepare Nettles on AllGardenAdvice.com

New health challenges require Homestead Padre to rethink and redesign his garden to adapt to those changes.
After some health issues, Homestead Padre and his wife are adopting the Mediterranean Diet.
Padre shares about IBS and Crohn's Disease.
Unlike American Italian Food, the Mediterranean Diet is heavy emphasis on vegetables, seafood, lean meats, fat from olive oil, and whole wheat pasta (if they have pasta).
Padre is realigning his garden around those foods. Changing what he will grow in his garden - based on new dietary needs. Come and listen to how he plans out his journey.
The usual disclaimer: This is a personal story and is not medical advice.
Padre also shares about his updates and challenges with the farmer's market this year as they take on leadership of the market.
Check out the step by step instructions on the show notes on the Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/garden-health
Sponsors:
Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available. Now have hazelnut seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.Check out the Companion Planting Guide on AllGardenAdvice.com

Try to go without your phone for a few hours, or even the whole day.
Like most people, I reach for my phone when there is any break in the conversation, when a commercial comes on TV, or when I am even slightly bored.
This episode will empower you with some tips to reduce your screen use - and reclaim your life.

Phone Settings to Fight Screen Addiction:
Night ShiftFocus settingLevel Up on Fighting Screen Addiction with the Grayscale Setting:
This is a tip that Father Turbo gave to Perpend: You set your phone to Grayscale. Nothing changes, but everything is in shades of gray.
It is designed to lessen the draw to the phone, as well as decrease the dopamine hit that you get when on social media. Things just don't look as appealing in grayscale and they don't trigger the same things in the brain.
Watch Your Scrolling Habits
Focus on your Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern:
Let’s get real. That thing that is happening in Texas that is the Outrage-of-the-day on social media. Does it really impact me?
If I don’t live in Texas, chances are it doesn’t impact me at all.
Does it even concern me?
Probably not.
Wear Blue Blocking Glasses at night
This helps me to manage my circadian rhythm and helps me to sleep.
Be Time Rich:
Put things in perspective. Spend time on things that matter. Especially your family. Your kids will grow up before you know it.
Check out the step by step instructions on the show notes on the Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/screen-addiction
Sponsors:
Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available but Hurry before they come out of dormancy. Now have pecan seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.Check out the Companion Planting Guide on AllGardenAdvice.com

Scott the Little Pine Farmer on Twitter is back with me and we are talking about his bakery and how he favors
"Why don't you come down to this market or deliver to the boutique in the city? We want to feed our neighborhood first."
Scott the Little Pine Farmer
It's all about the goal:
"The overarching goal is to stay home, produce value, and have people bring us money."
Reaching that goal through:
Bakery, focusing on sourdough.Making relationships with the animal shelter. Selling bread in the animal shelter parking lot, which is a schools bus drop off.Community compost program.Dog sitting service.Community pasture grazing - like Rent-a-Goat but in the neighborhood.Be the Gray Man and Build Alternative Systems:
Choose the path of focusing on building new alternatives rather than fighting the behemoth. If you get to the point where you are driving tractors down to the state capitol - it is too late.
"I am of much more benefit to my community working here on the farm than sitting in a holding cell in the big city."
Spend your time building alternatives and be the Gray Man. Did you learn nothing from Covid? If you ignore them, fade into the background, and do your thing - it's most likely that they will not be paying attention to you.
Find the Remnant:
Go to dinner or drinks with people.
Build Local Community, Grow Local Food. be the Gray Man. Build alternative systems. Much more effective than protesting.
Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/local-community-local-food
Sponsors:
Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available but Hurry before they come out of dormancy. Now have pecan seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.Check out the Companion Planting Guide on AllGardenAdvice.com

Grow Food, Not Lawns
How to Create a new garden bed with Milpa
How you create a new garden bed depends on what time of the year it is. Most people sheet mulch by covering an area with cardboard, then layers of compost and woodchips. This works well, but only if you do it in the Fall AND you get lots of rain in the Winter to break down the cardboard. This year we had lots of snow in January and the bed that I created last Fall broke down pretty well, although while digging a hole in the new bed to plant a hazelnut bush, I dug up a piece of cardboard that wasn't completely broken down.
To Use Cardboard or Not Use Cardboard?
Permaculture leaders, like Ben Falk and Paul Wheaton, are increasingly warning against using cardboard as the base when creating new garden beds over lawn grass. And scientists warn against using cardboard as well.
Cardboard reportedly has dioxin and PFAs and "forever chemicals". The article also says that cardboard inhibits soil life. Only plastic sheet mulching is worse (supposedly).
I use Milpa to create new garden beds
In the Spring, I don't have time to wait for the cardboard to break down. I would lose the entire planting season.
My soil is compacted heavy clay, with little worm activity in places, so I would have to add a large amount of woodchips and compost to get something to plant in. And the grass always manages to poke through and take over anyway.
So I take my trusty Meadow Creature Broadfork and turn over the sod. Then I add a layer of compost. I sow with a Milpa seed mix, and then cover with a light layer of woodchips.
Milpa Seed – Buy or Mix Your Own Seed
What is Milpa? It is a mix of seeds, usually with the Three Sisters - corn, squash, and beans - as the core plants. Beans to add nitrogen, corn to provide structure, and squash to grow up the corn or out. Milpa also has other seeds, with a focus to grow as much food as possible on a small garden plot. It sometimes can have buckwheat, okra, cucumbers, greens, radishes, or anything that you want.
The idea is to spread out the harvest through the seasons as well.
I mix my own mix of Milpa seeds:
Grazing corn or Strawberry corn - something that is shorter. Mix it lightly.Red ripper cowpeas, which work well in heavy clay soil.BuckwheatCucumbersSquash that I have leftover or I get from a Spring seed swap.Pollinators.You will get a dominant crop based on when you plant. If you plant early in the Spring, the buckwheat and beans will be dominant and the squash will be shaded out. If later in the season (late May, early June) then the squash will become dominant.
By using this technique you can create a new garden bed with minimal effort, avoid using cardboard, and get an abundant crop in the first year (even with poor clay soil). At the end of the season chop and drop the chaff from the buckwheat and beans to mulch for the Winter.
Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/milpa-garden-bed.
Sponsors:
Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available but Hurry before they come out of dormancy. Now have pecan seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.Check out the Companion Planting Guide on AllGardenAdvice.com