Sacred Growth Pt. 1: Your Business As A Food Forest

What is a food forest, and how does it apply to building your online business? In part one of Sacred Growth, Sam breaks down the permaculture concept of a food forest — a layered, self-sustaining growing system — and shows you how to apply that same design thinking to your business.

You'll walk through setting your foundational business goal (not your revenue goal — something deeper) and doing a full "site assessment" of where your business and industry actually stand right now, before you start building anything new.

This episode includes a guided quiz to help you get clear on the business and life you actually want three to five years from now — you'll need your answers for what's coming in part two.

Want the full training now instead of waiting for new episodes? Get instant access to all four videos, the companion workbook, quiz, and transcripts, completely free: 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_01 0:56

Hello, and in case you missed it, this is a lovely little series here on the Return of Business Podcast called Sacred Growth, the Food Forest Framework for Online Business Success. I'm Sam Garcia, you probably know that. And this is episode one of four in the series, where you will set your Food Forest business goal and do a full site assessment. Now, these episodes are going to be dripping out over the next few weeks. If you want them all right now, or you want the full workbook that goes with this, the quiz that goes with it, all the transcripts, the videos that go with this. Everything is waiting for you right now, completely free at thedirtyalchemy.com/slash forest. Yes, the link is in the show notes. So let's get into it. Welcome to Sacred Growth, nurturing your online business like a food forest. I am so excited you're here, so excited to share this body of work with you, and so excited for all that you're going to be able to unlock through installing the Food Forest Framework for online business success. If you're here, I'm going to assume you know who I am, but in case a friend forwarded this training to you, here's a quick 10-second intro. Hi, I'm Sam Garcia, founder of Dirty Alchemy for Thought Leaders and Course Creators whose businesses are devoted to revolutionizing the world. And I live on an off-grid regenerative farm. My husband designed in Stewards on Maui. I wrote the best-selling book Regenerative Business, which is about how to use nature's design principles to have a more impactful, joyful, abundant, and easeful business, which is what this video series is about, too. So first is housekeeping. Over these four videos, you will be designing your business as a food forest. If you don't know what that means, I do not expect you to and will explain shortly. So in video one, this here video, we're going to be talking about what a food forest is, setting the goal for your business as a food forest, and prepping your site. In video two, the different types of food forests, and you'll choose one based on your goals. In video three, we'll be exploring the nine layers of a food forest to set within your business. And then in video four, we'll be addressing the climate and soil quality of you and your energetic blueprint. I'm trying to keep these as distilled as possible for maximum potency so you can focus on actually taking action. The point is to lay the groundwork for a regenerative business. That's why you'll find companion activities below each of these videos. And as a neurospicy human, I am very aware that different people have different learning styles, so you will find the full transcript below each of these videos if you prefer reading. I'll also publish the audio from this video as an episode on my podcast Regenerative Business with Sam Garcia if you want to listen on the go. All four videos are available now in case you are a binge watcher like me, and I'll also be sending you reminder emails to go through everything in case you'd prefer tackling it in smaller chunks. Now on to our first training. The concept of a food forest is something I learned when I got my permaculture design certification in 2012. The term permaculture is a play on the words permanent agriculture and was coined to describe designing food growing systems that mimic how nature grows food. Of course, it doesn't actually originate there. The food forest concept I first learned in permaculture echoes the forest gardens common among indigenous societies of North America's northwestern coast and worldwide. Indigenous peoples around the world have lived and continue to live in relationship with land. Nature doesn't grow food like large-scale commercial farms, with rows and rows of the same crops acting like a salad bar for bugs, requiring pesticides and human intervention, and centered around making a profit. Nature grows food in forests. Rainforests cover less than 2% of the Earth's total surface area, yet they are home to 50% of the Earth's plants and animals. Out of 3,000 plants the U.S. National Cancer Institute has identified as useful in the treatment of cancer, 70% of these plants are found only in the rainforests. At least 80% of the developed world's food originated in the tropical rainforests. It's gifts of fruits like avocados, oranges, tomatoes, vegetables like corn, potatoes, winter squash, spices like black pepper, coffee and vanilla, and nuts like Brazil nuts and cashews. All of these originate from rainforests. These food forests or forest gardens are a part of our nature and are resilient as fuck. A sad example showing this is the forest gardens established around First Nation villages in Alaska. Colonists forcibly removed the indigenous people from their villages 150 years ago, but the forest gardens are currently thriving without human intervention for 150 years still. The land is waiting for its people to return. These systems don't require pesticides to thrive or human intervention. They don't require humans at all. Nature designed them to be self-reliant and to self-regulate. Through many species of plants, animals, fungi, insects, bacteria, rocks, minerals, molecules, elements, all collaborating and cohabitating in a multidimensional cycle of death and growth, all in the name of increased aliveness of the system. In ecological succession, most ecosystems end up like a forest. And without significant disturbances like wildfires or severe climate changes or humans coming through and clear-cutting it, a forest will endure indefinitely because the system becomes stable and self-perpetuating. So within perp culture, whether you're designing a backyard food growing system or a hundred-plus acre farm, you're using this concept of a food forest in its design. Because who's the most fertile, abundant, resilient systems designer? Nature. And when we design like nature does, our systems are less reliant on us. We get our freedom and time back and we create something beautiful and wild for the world that can shock the current industrial status quo. And it doesn't have to stop at food growing systems. We can use nature's principles and teachings to design our business systems too. Our focus today is an important one. You may want to skip it because it's less flashy than the next couple trainings, but this step is absolutely necessary to complete before starting the next two. Today we'll be setting your food forest goal and analyzing your site. This is different than your annual revenue goal or anything like that. So setting your ultimate goal. Before designing a food forest, you need to be clear on what your goal is, because a goal of growing enough food for your family with as little work required from you as possible versus you creating a community hub and demonstration site versus you wanting as much food production as possible so you can sell your extra to local restaurants and create value-added products to sell at farmers markets. All of those could be done on the same plot of land. But what you plant and what systems you set up would be significantly different based on those goals. Down below this video, you'll find a list of questions to go through today to get clear on what your business's ultimate goals are. It's essentially a short quiz whose answers will enlighten the decisions you'll be making in the next two videos. So let's go through them together now. You can mark down your answer as we go along or return to this later. Do record your answers in a journal or your notes app, and please really tune into what you really want versus what's flashy or what you could brag about. It is just as worthy and valid and valuable to want to design your business to support your preferred lifestyle and help your people in your corner of the internet as it is to want to build a massive organization where you're featured on the view. So first let's let go of any current stress. So I invite you to close your eyes and adjust so that you're comfortable. Let's take three breaths together. We'll do six counts in, six counts hold, six counts out, and six counts hold. So let's breathe in. Okay, so keeping your eyes closed, let's start by relaxing your muscles from the top of your head to your toes. So just imagining all the muscles in your scalp releasing. Your brain. All the tiny muscles in your face, relaxing. Your jaw, your tongue, your throat. Relaxing your shoulders and down your arms. Feeling relaxation in your hands. And rolling down your stomach, your torso. Releasing all the organs in your gut, in your stomach, in your pelvis. Feeling relaxation going down your legs and your feet. And from here you can just feel the weight of your body being pulled into the earth. That safe, loving gravity from the earth pulling us down, keeping us rooted into the ground. Coming towards you, going over and through you, in through the top of the head, around your body, and just clearing out any residual tension, blockages, energy that's not yours, energy you don't want. That bright, beautiful white light. Cleansing and clearing as it goes through your body and penetrates all of you, all of your cells, all the space between your cells. Feeling peace, ease. And when you're ready, just start moving your body, maybe shake it off. And we're doing this so that we're not bringing tension and other people's expectations into this practice and this assessment. So let's go through this quiz from a three to five years from now perspective. If you can think back three years ago, actually do this now, where were you in your life and business three years ago? Recognize how much can drastically change in three years. So let's assume you can start putting regenerative business systems in your business now. So three years from now, your experience of life in business is drastically different and very intentional. Where do you want to be? Let's get specific. So the first question is how hands-on do you ultimately want to be in your business? Again, thinking three years from now or more. First option A is I actually love my work. I want to be working hands-on every week in my business, knowing that work is 80% in my zone of genius and can be full or part-time depending on my preferences. Option B, I want to be in my business but with very flexible schedule. A ton of automated and handed off to a team, but I still want to be making the main decisions and the creative source. Third is I want to be very hands-off. Collaborating with my business only as a visionary role. Next up is do you want to be the face of your business or have your business slash brand be the face? Option A is I want to be the face of my business. Option B, it doesn't matter to me, whatever serves the mission. And then option C is I like being behind the scenes and would rather my business slash brand become famous. Our next question is how much visibility do you want you slash your business to have in five to ten years? Option A is I don't care about visibility, I just care about having satisfying work and a lush income. Option B is I'd like to be a respected name and a go-to person slash brand in my industry. And then option C is yeah, bitch, I want me and my business to be famous. I see my work featured on Oprah or on the cover of Times. In five years, how much money would you love your salary slash profit to be? So I'm not talking about your overall revenue. I'm talking about your salary, your take-home pay that you're paying yourself. Then in five years, how big of a team do you want? Option A is solopreneur automating as much as possible. Option B is a lean team with one to two people supporting you, taking annoying stuff off of your plate. And option C is I'd love my business to give more people more fulfilling work slash careers. So our next question is in 10 years, what do you want to be known for? Don't freeze from this question. If you're newer in business, then it's totally normal to be completely unsure. But the best advice I can give is to commit to something and go all in. This is the best way to know for sure what it is you want, and you get to change directions anytime you like, so there are no negative repercussions to making a decision and running with it. So after answering that, is that similar to or different than what you're doing now? How is it different? How is it the same? And finally, what is the ultimate goal of your business? Four options here. A, I want a fulfilling career that impacts the world for the better. Option B, I want a self-reliant business that provides fairly passive income for my desired lifestyle. Option C, I want to build a legacy for my family andor my community andor my industry. And option D, my mission is my lifeblood, and I am all in on drastically changing the world through my business. So, from this, tune into your body. Is there anything else that comes through that feels important to note down right now? Now go ahead and do that. Okay, great. We will use these answers over the next couple of videos to determine the type of forest-like system you should install in your business. Again, don't answer this the way you think you should answer. See yourself in the future and the type of life you want to have. Try and let go of any good girl programming on what the right or good answer is. Just tune into your heart, gut, body, and be honest about what you want and what really feels right to you. So go back and update any of your answers that feel like you only answered that way because of programming or you would get in trouble or be judged if you answered how you really wanted to answer. Okay, next up is analyzing your site as it is now. When I got my permaculture design certification, they told us that ideally you will sit and observe for a year before installing your system. I thought they were nuts. I'm impatient, what can I say? But a decade has shown me the immense value in it. Don't worry, I am absolutely not telling you to sit and do nothing for the next year, but I am telling you that a certain amount of planning and observing will give you the results you want faster and easier. That's what we'll be doing here. You, your business, the industry you're in, the internet, the collective, it's not a neutral place. There are things happening here and now that's different for each of us, and knowing what that is will help you prevent any roadblocks or hiccups. On a piece of land, you would observe over the course of a year, over all the seasons, how water falls on the land. Does it naturally flow because of how the earth is leveled? Are there divots where water pools? You would observe how the sun shines at different times of the year, what parts of the land gets the most sun or shade, when frost begins, or when the first flowers of spring bloom. You would notice what plants are already there, what animals roam through, what mushrooms pop up. All of this observation informs the site plan. You can pair your goals with your current site's flows and rhythms. And there is the reality of different plants being better suited for different environments. For example, palm trees are fantastic in hurricane areas for their flexibility. Their trunks can go almost sideways in hurricane-level winds without breaking. And their leaves may be tattered afterwards, but they handle. Unlike large, solid, rigid trees, which, despite their massive size, will break. So in business, if you're in a turbulent area, a turbulent industry or country, you need to plan around that. You need things that can pick up and go, you can change quickly and easily, or you're diversified enough to handle changes in your field. So let's jump into what observations you'll be making before jumping into video two. These questions are below, but let's go through them quickly together right now. One, how stable is your industry? How stable is your personal life? Do you have an established business? Do you have an established customer base? Do you have a seasonal business where different parts of the year tend to be super go and other ones are super stop? A good example of this would be a store that sells Halloween costumes or a pool installation business, right? There's clear seasons when you can actually do the work. Are there already people doing what you're doing? This isn't a bad thing, by the way. This signals that there are already people interested in buying what you sell and you don't have to create a completely new market. What are common prices in your industry? What offers have you sold in the past? And list those prices below. What offers are you currently selling? List those below. What offers do you plan to sell in the future? List that below. What have you seen other people sell that feels super exciting to you? Because this can indicate potential future offers for you. Do you already have an array of different offers that touch different investment levels? Think both time and money investments. What has felt really easy about business for you? And some options there could be writing in a way that attracts my perfect fit people, doing my craft, managing myself and my team, tech, sharing about my work publicly and consistently, coming up with unique ideas, managing money, and then same with what has felt really hard. Writing in a way that attracts my perfect fit people, doing my craft, managing myself and my team, tech, sharing about my work publicly and consistently, coming up with unique ideas and managing money. So once again, tune into your body. Is there anything else that comes through that feels important to note down right now? And with that, amazing work. In the next video, that's all for today, or all for this video, if you're going and jumping in right into the next video. The next video we will be diving into the three types of food forests, and you'll decide which one is the best for your business. You can jump into that now by hitting the button below, or schedule time tomorrow on your calendar to return to it. So you don't just drop off right now. And if you've just watched this video and haven't answered any of the quiz questions, stop. Do not watch the next video yet. Like you won't be able to actually complete the exercise in the next video. You actually have to do the quiz. So take some time right now, or again, schedule some time later. As you can tell, this doesn't take that long, right? And go answer all the quiz questions, do all the assessment questions, and all those answers will serve you in the next video. So that is episode one of Sacred Growth. Go grab the quiz at thedirtyalchemy.com slash forest. If you haven't yet, you will need your answers for episode two. The next episode is going to be dropping in a few days, but you don't have to wait. The entire series plus the workflow transcript audio is ready for you right now at thedirtyalchemy.comslash forest. And I will see you in the next episode for the three types of business ecosystems.