Today I’m coming to you live from the Midwest Preparedness Project Fall Festival with a few of the people who make events like this worth showing up for. We talk about building a life on your own terms, knowing when to reset, raising capable kids, testing your gear before you need it, and why the conversations around the campfire may matter more than anything happening on stage.
Featured Event
Midwest Preparedness Project Fall Festival
Sponsors
- Midwest Preparedness Project
- Red Flyer Media
Today’s Guests & Topics
- Dawn Gorham of The Gorham Homestead
- Going from working in the court system to running her own dairy
- How Self-Reliance Festival and community helped her make the leap
- Why sometimes the first thing you try is the wrong thing — and that is still progress
- Goats, milk cows, and learning what livestock can teach you the hard way
- Building confidence by doing the thing
- Realizing the skills from your old life may transfer directly into the new one
- Knowing when you have reached maximum capacity
- Creating margin instead of trying to keep every plate spinning
- Getting back to your purpose when it is time for a reset
- Building stronger local food networks
The Gorum Homestead: https://thegorhamhomestead.com
- Britt Baker of Mission Brit
- Growing up homeschooled and around preparedness before calling it preparedness
- Mission work, including time in Africa, and how that changed her perspective
- Why your mission may be much closer to home than you think
- Helping people identify what is holding them back from their mission or purpose
- What makes preparedness events different
- Why the people around you are often the most valuable part of an event
- Getting out of your comfort zone and actually talking to people
- Testing your gear before you need it
- Camping as a practical way to build confidence
- Finding out the hard way that preparedness gear does eventually wear out
- Sydney and Craig
- How having kids changed the way they looked at the world
- Parenting as an investment of time and attention
- Moving away from the expectations they grew up with
- Raising kids with fewer screens
- Why removing something from your family culture means replacing it with something better
- Being present instead of simply adding more activities
- Helping kids develop creativity and independence in a rapidly changing technological world
- Consumption versus creation
- Why preparedness festivals create opportunities to participate instead of simply consume
- Prioritizing what you actually plan to implement instead of trying to do everything
- The friendships that happen when you talk to the person sitting next to you
- Creating enough margin for deeper conversations
- Their vision for Homeschool on Homestead, a small homeschool-style learning environment for families who cannot homeschool themselves
Some Takeaways
- Talk to people. You have no idea who is sitting next to you.
- Don’t dismiss somebody’s crazy idea before asking a few questions.
- Sometimes the thing that fails is what gets you to the thing that works.
- Learn how your livestock can hurt you before they demonstrate it.
- When everything feels like too much, go back to your purpose.
- Your local community matters.
- Use your preparedness gear now, not for the first time during an emergency.
- Kids need space to create, think, participate, and learn.
- When you remove something from your life, replace it with something that moves you toward what you actually want.
- Don’t go too hard too fast. Prioritize.
- Some of the best things that happen at events like this are nowhere on the schedule.
Get your coffee at Holler Roast Coffee: https://hollerroast.com
Make it a Great Week!