#113 - Food, Fuel & Financial Growth: How Regenerative Agriculture Creates Economic Stability

What does the food on your plate have to do with entrepreneurship, economic stability, and the global food system?

In this special Podcastathon episode, I explore the powerful connection between nutrition, human capacity, and business success.

Before becoming a business coach, I spent many years running a plant-based nutrition education and catering company in New York City. That experience shaped a core belief I bring into my work today: personal wellness is a foundation for sustainable business growth.

When we fuel our bodies well, we improve our focus, energy, and decision-making — all of which directly impact our ability to build thriving businesses.

But this concept goes far beyond individual entrepreneurs.

When communities have access to nourishing food, they can learn, innovate, and build resilient local economies. When food systems break down, the ripple effects impact education, health, and opportunity.

In honor of Podcastathon, I’m highlighting the work of the Abundant Earth Foundation, a nonprofit supporting communities through regenerative agriculture, sustainable farming education, and food security initiatives.

In this episode, I share:

• Why nutrition impacts productivity and business performance
• How regenerative agriculture strengthens local economies
• My personal journey into gardening and growing food
• Simple questions to rethink how food fuels your life and business

If you care about sustainable entrepreneurship, wellness, and building a better world, this episode will expand your perspective on how food, fuel, and financial growth are deeply connected.

**Learn more about the Abundant Earth Foundation and donate: HERE

Mindset to Market is a Luminous Creative Production. If you'd like to learn more about our business coaching program and group coaching container, please visit us online at DeborahcSmith.com.

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Mindset to Market is produced by Deborah C. Smith and designed to inspire and support big-hearted creatives in finding their own unique path, building a sustainable business, and creating financial, spiritual, mental wellness and abundance.

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Transcript

 Have you ever thought about how the food on your plate connects to the larger global economy, not just your health, like not just what you put in is what you get out, but the stability of entire communities, the strength of local economies, and even the future of the planet. Because when people are nourished, they can focus, they can learn, they can build businesses, they can care for their families, and they can contribute to society.

But when communities are struggling with food insecurity and malnutrition, the ripple effects touch everything, right? Education, opportunity, and economic stability. So today I am participating in an event called Podcast hon. And so this is a special episode. Um, podcast Ortho is a global event where podcasters around the world highlight nonprofits that are doing important work in the world.

And so today I'm gonna be sharing the story of an organization that's helping communities restore their land, grow their own food, and foster hope through regenerative agriculture. And I'm also gonna tie this into how important this concept is to you as an entrepreneur and someone building a business.

So let's talk about how food resilience and economic stability are all connected. Hey there. Welcome to the Mindset To Market Podcast, your go-to space for practical tools and solutions to the everyday challenges of being a creative and soulful entrepreneur living in a material world. I'm your host Deborah Smith, a holistic business coach and marketing strategist with 17 years of experience.

I help my clients bust through mindset blocks and learn daily marketing practices that balance personal wellness with financial growth and impact. I'm here to offer you support with creativity, mindset, practical how-tos, and getting into imperfect messy actions so you can experience daily breakthroughs as you grow.

If you're a purpose-driven entrepreneur building an online business, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Hey there, and welcome back to The Mindset To Market Podcast. Or if you're new here, welcome to your first episode. Um, if you've been listening to the show for a little while, then you know, I talk a lot about foundations. And like not hacks and overnight successes or chasing marketing trends, but really the foundations that make entrepreneurship sustainable for the long haul.

And one of the core values of my coaching philosophy and my business as it is, um, that maybe is a little bit different from other business coaches or marketing strategists, is that I truly believe your personal wellness is directly connected to your business success and that self-care nourishment and building a healthy foundation for.

Personal wellness comes first because here's, here's the truth that that's based on. Your body is the engine that. Runs your life, right? Which runs your business, your brain, your focus, your creativity, your emotional regulation, your nervous system regulation, uh, your ability to make decisions, the stamina that you have for problem solving and showing up co consistently, right?

The capacity that you have to hold space for other people. If you're a service provider, all of it is powered by how well your body is fueled. Um, and I know this not just from theory, of course, but from experience because before I pivoted to full-time business coaching and marketing support, I spent the first 15 years of my entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurial journey, uh, running a plant-based nutrition education and catering company in New York City where I worked with literally thousands of people over the course of those years, helping them build healthier relationships with food and learn how to nourish their bodies in a way that actually supports their lives.

So, you know, I was the operations and sales manager. I was the marketing director of that business, but the product that we sold was. Food. And so the business was deeply tied into the food economy coming in and out of New York City. So I had a real, um, you know, firsthand experience of where our food actually comes from and how it's handled and how it's processed and, you know, the food service, uh, component of our business was.

Really tricky to operate. So anybody who's ever run a food-based business, you're nodding along with me right now. It's really volatile that industry. Um, it's a very low profit margin for a tremendous amount of work. So restaurateurs, it's not for the faint of heart. Um, but one of the biggest mindset shifts that I've seen people make over the years is, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs tell themselves, I'll focus on my health after I get my business straight and I'm making good money, right?

I'll eat better once the business is making money. I'll take care of myself when I have some more time, once things calm down. But I believe that the opposite is true, and my coaching program is designed to sort of reverse engineer that. So when you fuel your body well, when you increase your capacity to receive, to serve, and to show up and you know, have tenacity with your work, um, when your capacity increases, your ability to think clearly, stay focused, manage all the stress, and take consistent action that leads to improved business results.

So, in other words, it's not, I'll eat better when I make more money. I'll buy the high quality nutrition. Once this business is working, it's I'll eat better and that will help me make more money, right? That will help me run the business. Yeah. And this philosophy is really baked right into the core program that I, that I share with clients because if we wanna create sustainable businesses, we have to create sustainable human beings, right?

So when you zoom out and you look at this idea on a larger scale, something really interesting starts to appear, which is the relationship between nutrition. Human capacity and economic stability. It doesn't just apply to individual entrepreneurs, it applies to entire communities. And when people are well-nourished, they have the ability to learn, to work, to innovate, and to contribute to the greater good for all of society.

But when communities are struggling with food insecurity or malnutrition, that ripple effect. Uh, it impacts everything. Education, opportunity, health, economic stability is just part of that. Right. So that brings me to today's special topic, um, and the nonprofit that I chose to highlight as part of podcast Aon.

Which is truly amazing. By the way, I'm gonna link to this in my show notes. Podcast is running this entire week and there are hundreds and hundreds, thousands of podcasters highlighting and promoting, um, their chosen nonprofit and the nonprofit that I chose to. Focus on and highlight is called the Abundant Earth Foundation.

So the Abundant Earth Foundation supports grassroots projects around the world that address some of the most urgent challenges that we're facing today when it comes to this topic. Climate change, social inequity, and a global malnutrition crisis. And their focus is not just on providing food sort of in the short term.

But they teach communities how to grow their own food sustainably through regenerative agriculture. And y'all, I cannot say regenerative agriculture without slowing it down. So we're just gonna keep trying. Okay. Regenerative agriculture, what is it? This is a holistic farming practice and it promotes rehabilitation of the ecosystem through the regeneration of the soil, right?

By building more nutrients back into the soil by rotating crops, increased biodiversity, um, holistic animal grazing. Like they literally, you know, let the animals naturally move and then build their farming practices to follow the trail because animals as they graze, they leave behind really nutrient rich.

Um. Waste, uh, and then agroforestry, which is the practice of managing trees and food crops together in their natural ecosystem. So this is like the low hanging fruit of regenerative, regenerative agriculture. Uh, the benefits include economic opportunities for the community that's doing it. Food security for the people, farming and growing the food and tending to it.

Obviously nutrition is gonna be a major benefit here. They're gonna be eating much healthier. And then climate change resilience for vulnerable communities around the world. And this is cool because it can be done in urban settings or in rural settings. And this company, this not-for-profit. Um, the Abundant Earth Foundation, they, they work in a variety of different locations, but they're targeting areas that are the most sort of malnourished and where the economy either doesn't exist or they have a real devastation.

So they have, uh, partnered with places that have had natural disaster and need to rebuild. They have partnered with places where there's just already food scarcity and lack of support. And it's just a beautiful offering that they've created. Um, their, their, you know, their mission is basically, or their philosophy is that when communities can grow their own food, um, they, something very powerful happens, which is they regain agency, they regain dignity and integrity and that.

In turn begins to rebuild the local economy from the ground up. So they're not only, you know, sustaining nutrition and nourishment and literally life, but they're teaching this, these communities how to grow their own crops that can become an economic, uh, offering and it's rebuilding, you know, the way that they function as a people.

So it's just, it's really powerful work. So if you go to their website, which again, I'll link in the show notes, um, you can see the different projects that they're currently focused on. And one of them is, uh, it's called the Regenerative Holistic Resource Center, and it's located in Nairobi, in Kenya. And from there they are working directly with communities.

Uh. Schools, orphanages and, and the like to restore what they call natural capital. So this is the ability of land and people to sustain themselves through regenerative farming and sustainable practices. So they're providing education, they're going into these communities and actually teaching them how to farm the type of land that they have.

Um, they're helping people learn how to grow food in ways that rebuild soil health, so that's gonna support long-term sustainability and the work doesn't stop there. They also support orphaned and vulnerable children, so they're helping provide housing stability, education, nutrition, and like literally teaching these people how to grow food and provide sustenance for themselves and their community.

And I think this is such a, an aligned mission and, and sort of this type of organization for me to personally support because not only of the journey that I've taken on my own business career, which had a lot to do with food, but the, the way that I think about building businesses and the projects that I focus on with my clients, I'm always thinking about how can this really sustain the type of lifestyle that you dream of, which.

Should include high quality nutrition, having access to, you know, nourishment that fuels your body to, to maintain, uh, a healthy body. So, you know, it really does all, uh, tie back to the idea that we started this with, which is food, because food is the foundation. When people are nourished. When we are nourished, we have the capacity to learn, to grow and to contribute to the world around us.

And when communities are, are nourished, they can build economies, create opportunities, and strengthen the wellbeing of everyone around them. So on a personal note, this really resonates with me. It's something that I've spent my life thinking about and trying to help people with. And I have to say, I.

Something that is incredibly meaningful in my own life, just on a personal note, um, is that during the pandemic, my husband and I made a decision to start growing our own food and, you know, we had this big empty law in our side yard. And remarkably, even though I had been in the wellness industry and particularly, you know, plant-based nutrition and food related services for almost, you know, for 15 years, I'd never ever.

Not ever tried to grow anything of my own. And so for as much as I knew and understood the business of food, like how it gets shipped from different countries and arrives on these paled, you know, cargo boats at Hunts Point in New York City and then makes its way through local distribution centers to get to people's, you know, dinner plates or to restaurants or whatever, I'd never really dipped my toe into the world of like, what does it feel like to dig your hands in the soil and plant seeds and actually grow your own food?

So we started with one raised bed, um, 12 by four. Now we're up to about 14 raised beds, and I have become an avid gardener to my own surprise, um, something that I'm looking forward to all year round. And it's really, it's one of the most peaceful, humbling, and rewarding things that I've ever done. It's such a relationship between you and nature, right?

It's watching this like miracle of life burst outta the ground in the springtime, and then tending to seeds as they grow leaves and buds, and then bloom into flowers. And then the fruits and the vegetables and the herbs, they develop and grow from those flowers and those buds, and it's, it's truly expansive work to tend to the garden.

It gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It becomes, you know, you're managing relationships with all the pests and animals and the local sort of, truly the local ecosystem. You get to really know your. Earthly neighbors. Um, and we've been learning how to preserve foods so that when we do, you know, grow a lot of something we can eat from the garden year round by, you know, freezing it and dehydrating it and making soups and canning and, you know, all kinds of fermentation.

We've just been experimenting for the last six years. And there's just something so deeply grounding about it. But I think the, the most impactful thing is that it reconnects you to the rhythms of the earth. Uh, for me, it reminds me where nourishment actually comes from, and it makes me want to share what I have learned and, and this ability to grow your own sustenance with, with anyone and everyone.

So I've been connecting with all of these women on Threads and, you know, different places on social media who are, um. You know, trained in permaculture and regenerative agriculture and truly fascinated by it. So that's why I chose the Abundant Earth Foundation, because not only are they helping communities, you know, grow food and sustain and nourish life, but they're actually rebuilding and restoring entire ecosystems, right?

They're strengthening communities and creating resilience in a world that desperately needs it. So with all of this in mind, I wanna offer you something to contemplate as we head into spring. And this could be something that you could journal about if you're interested in and you have a journaling practice.

Um, but it might just be something that you wanna insert the pause and kind of slow down and ask yourself these questions around nutrition, nourishment, and really that as a foundation for the fuel. In your, in your body, but also in your work and also your relationship to the entire global economy of it.

Right? So just a couple of questions to, to ponder. One, how is your relationship with the food that you're eating? Do you even think about it? Right? Where does it come from? How is it impacting your energy level? Do you have a balanced source of clean fuel to help you focus and execute your work? Um, are you even aware of the balance of nutrition in the food that you're consuming?

Like, you know, the macronutrients and the micronutrients that we all need a balance of, um, if not. You know, would that be something that you're willing to take a look at? Right. Can you, can you learn a little bit about the balance of your macronutrients? Um, it's a huge starting point for most people on their health journey is really understanding what your body type, your height, your weight, your particular hormone, you know, levels.

What is it that you need as a human body to sustain, uh, nourishment? And then, you know, what can you eliminate from your daily intake? Or what can you add into your daily consumption that will support your health goals and give you the nourishment that your body needs in order to function? So that's on a personal level, just how is your relationship with food and, you know, can you take a step back?

View it more as a source of fuel in your life, and then of course in your business. And I always say, you know, don't do sales on an empty stomach. Don't do content creation on an empty stomach. Like just. Really don't do, don't do number crunching on an empty stomach. Don't do business on an empty stomach.

And it's so funny because there's all these sort of business tropes of like the staunch business person in their suit, at their desk with their giant cup of coffee, you know, crunching away all day and working long hours. And I think that's kind of what I wanna flip the script on is like, that's not.

That isn't gonna work for me, that doesn't work for anybody that I support. No one I know wants to work 40 hours a week, like if they don't have to. And I love what I do. I jump into work in the morning and I'm excited about it, but I still wanna take giant breaks to eat nourishing food and spend time in the garden and, you know, play my guitar or do the life that I, that makes, that nourishes me on a spiritual and creative level.

So I guess my point is. When we start to look at this holistically, it's important to question, you know, our relationship with the source of energy that's running the whole picture. Um, and then part two of this is have you ever tried growing your own food? Um, if you're laughing, 'cause you live in a big city right now, I just wanna remind you that you can grow, you can grow herbs and even tomatoes and some smaller things, right on a window sill.

All you need is sunlight and water. So if you've never tried to grow your own food before, I, I challenge you to it, it's a wonderful way to, you know, shift the focus of how you consume. Um, it is possible to do it just about anywhere. We live in zone six, which is really mountainous red clay. The soil is not very nutrient rich, and so we had to build raised beds, but, and, and sort of develop the soil, but you can.

You can grow food just about anywhere. It's actually pretty revolutionary. I would argue that the simple task of growing an edible source of food would transform how you think about your relationship to the earth, your relationship to the elements, the sun, the cycle of the seasons. Uh, it's gonna bring you closer in touch with.

You know, this sort of miraculous cycle of energy that we're existing in. Um, not to mention the food that you eat and the entire ecosystem that supports your life. It gets me thinking about where food actually comes from. Um, and it helps me think about where it goes back to, right? Like we have this huge global food waste crisis in the United States alone.

Food waste is estimated to be between 30 and 40% of the food supply. So, and this is, this is from the US Department of Agriculture's website. Um, it's has a really far reaching impact on society because these wholesome foods that are being grown and could have helped to feed families who are desperately in need and where there is food scarcity and in, and, you know, poverty, it's being sent to landfills and rotting and, you know, contributing to.

All kinds of imbalance in the ecosystem in that way. And then also the land, the water, the labor, the energy, and all the other inputs that are used in producing and processing and transporting and preparing and storing and then disposing of these foods is also being wasted. So, I don't know, I'm just. For me, I feel like it's a responsibility as a citizen of planet Earth to be aware of it and to do something to try to mitigate the impact of it all.

So I know I'm just one person, but I don't know. I just think that if we all become more aware of these things, it helps to. Become a part of the solution, hence highlighting this organization that's actually actively building regenerative agriculture systems. Um, I'm sure I'm gonna learn more about this in the next decade.

I just feel really compelled by it. So I hope this was enlightening. And these questions give you some place to start thinking about your relationship to food and how you want to incorporate that into the way that you're building your business, and also how it actually directly impacts the economy that you're a part of.

Um, of course I'm gonna include the link in the show notes. You can learn more about the Abundant Earth Foundation and you can make a charitable contribution. If you feel called to, um, you know, if this message resonates with you, you can support their mission directly. You can certainly take it upon yourself to start working on these issues in your own local economy and your own, you know, neighborhood.

And even if you can't donate, um, simply just learning about their work and helping to spread the word is, you know, awareness is always the first step. And at the end of the day, you know, I think building a better world doesn't come from just a single action anyways. It comes from thousands of small, little micro actions taken by lots of people who actually care.

So on that note, I thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being a part of this community and for caring about the bigger picture because when you know, when the work we do and the businesses that we build and the lives that we create, I. Are all seen as a part of a larger ecosystem. And when that larger ecosystem is healthy, then we all win.

We all thrive and that is the goal. So with that, my friends, I will see you next week. Uh, tune in same time, same place. Tuesdays at usually 6:00 AM I drop these and until then, may you be vibrate.