Sacred Growth: Introducing the Food Forest Framework for Online Business

Most of us were taught to build businesses like factories — pump money into ads, pump people into a funnel, and hope something comes out the other end. It works, technically. But it's exhausting, it doesn't build anything resilient, and for a lot of sensitive, purpose-driven entrepreneurs, it makes marketing feel genuinely gross — which quietly caps the impact we're actually here to make.

Today, Sam introduces a different model: building your business the way nature builds a food forest — layered, self-sustaining, and diverse enough to weather a bad season without collapsing. This concept comes from permaculture (worth naming honestly: developed by two Australian researchers, building on food-growing wisdom Indigenous cultures have practiced for thousands of years) — and this series takes it and applies it, step by step, to your business.

Over the next four episodes, you'll learn:

• What a food forest is, and how to set your foundational business goal
• The three types of forest-style business ecosystems — and which one actually fits you
• The seven layers every regenerative business needs
• The energetic and mindset side of business growth — because the two are more connected than you'd think

New episodes drop every few days right here on the podcast. Don't want to wait? Get instant access to the entire series — including the companion workbook, quiz, and transcripts — completely free, right now: https://thedirtyalchemy.com/forest

Open until July 29 at 11:59pm! The Regenerative Business Ecosystem is my membership for values-led entrepreneurs building businesses that regenerate people, planet, and profit. Learn more & enroll while you can here: https://learn.thedirtyalchemy.com/ecosystem-2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Hi everyone, welcome back to Regenerative Business. Sam here, of course, and today I want to introduce something a little different than normal. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be sharing a full training series here on the podcast called Sacred Growth: the Food Forest Framework for Online Business Success. And here's the idea: most of us were taught to build businesses like factories. You pump money into ads, pump people into a funnel, and hope something comes out the other end, that output. And it works, technically, kind of, but it is exhausting and it's not how anything resilient actually grows. And it actually makes most of us sensitive folks just feel really gross about business, about marketing. And what that does is it really squashes our impact potential, the potential for us to make the biggest impact and the impact that we're meant to make in this lifetime through our businesses. So instead, I will be walking you through how to build your business, the way nature built a food forest in a way that is layered, it is self-sustaining, it is diverse enough to weather a bad season without collapsing. This is a similar concept to what I talked about in my book, Regenerative Business, except it is completely different materials. It is the concept applied step by step. There's an actual quiz inside and a site assessment to figure out what type of system fits your business, not someone else's. And if you don't know what a food forest is, this is a concept from permaculture. I got my permaculture design certification in 2012 or 2013, but it's kind of a whitewashed framework for the way that indigenous cultures have been co-creating with nature and food systems for thousands of years. And in current day, I didn't know that at the time. I was totally in love with the idea of permaculture when I first found it, but of course, these are like two made by two Australian white men. But I like to give credit where credit's due, and it's the first place I heard of these topics. So in the next four episodes, you're going to get and learn about. We're going to be going through what a food forest is and how to set your foundational goal and how the whole concept of a food forest applies to your business. And oops, I just was like, oh, if you don't know what a food forest is, what it is, and then I didn't actually explain it. Luckily, the next episode, which is already live today, the first episode in the series of Sacred Growth, we'll talk about what a food forest is. Then video two, podcast episode number two in the series is the three types of business ecosystems, forest style business ecosystems, and which one actually matches your goals. Then in the third episode in the series, we're going to go into the seven layers every regenerative business needs. And then the fourth episode is the energetic side because your mindset and your business are more connected than you think. I mean, if you're listening to the podcast, you probably realize that they're connected, but we're going to go into the actual like what to do about or what to do on the energetic magical mindset side to support your business. So I will be releasing this episode, this first episode right now. You'll see it right after this one here. Then from there, I'm going to be releasing the next one every few days here on the podcast. But if you do not want to wait, or you want the companion videos, the companion workbook, the quiz, the transcripts, everything that goes with it, you can get instant access to that right now, the entire series right now. And you don't have to wait for me to drip out these episodes completely free at thedirtyalchemy.comslash forest. I will link it to it in the show notes. So I cannot wait to share this with you. And I'll see you in the next episode.