The Sowards on Dog Poop, Tattoos, Hard Times, Youtube Success, Vulnerably and Ugly Comments

Jess and Jeremiah, Roots and Refuge. We're gonna jump right into this.

Jump in.

I want you to tell us, how do you best serve your audience?

Oh wow, we're going straight in.

Right in. In other words, how are we gonna serve these people today? Why should they listen today? Like, how do you serve people?

Um, I mean, I guess vulnerability is the number one thing on the list for me. I think that if you're ever willing to show up and be your most real self, then I mean, what else can you give people that's better than that? I might try to figure out something they might want more, but it wouldn't be authentic. So I'm just going to show up and be authentic self. And that's the best thing I can serve. I mean, not that it's always the best thing, but it's the most real thing.

Would you agree that everybody loves to see somebody else be vulnerable? But it's very difficult to be vulnerable themselves.

Yes, I, I do think maybe people think they like to see people be vulnerable. I don't think everybody always likes to see people be vulnerable. I think it can be very uncomfortable for people because if they haven't learned to embrace that level of vulnerability, being around people who do is very challenging. And so I do run into that sometimes. But yes, I think it's a lot. It's a hard thing to really embrace.

Being around someone who's vulnerable kind of exposes where you're not. Mm-hmm.

That's a good word. Can you guys give me an example of how you've been vulnerable with your audience? Two different examples.

One, I think for us it's been sharing not just the highlight reel, you know. I mean, social media is known for being a place of like comparison and showing your best and like Showing the clean part of the kitchen while the mess is shoved over in the corner. And for me, that's been one of the things that has been difficult to embrace, to just be like, okay, this is real life, um, the ups and downs. I know we shared when Maya's mom died. We've shared through the loss of homesteading, which obviously you guys know comes with a ton of loss, um, where there's livestock, there's dead stock.

Yeah, you could just pretend like it didn't happen. Yeah, you have these plans for this animal and you're so excited about it, and then it gets sick and then you can't recover, and then it dies. And then you can either just pretend like it never happened, or you can be vulnerable and address the fact, because you know you're going to get the critics. And I think you probably know this as much as me. Yeah, here's what's really happened, and everyone's like, you know, you're bad, or yeah, yeah, you could have done this better, or whatever. And that's being vulnerable, being willing to expose yourself due to the authenticity to what everyone, you know, like that said, the people are going to have opinions about her.

How do you— I get that, and I, I go there too. We're very good, bad, and ugly. I'm reading 50 Cent's book, of all things, you know, successful businessman. And he talks about making an impression. And I read that part and, you know, you know, he's talking about dressing nice to go to these board meetings and stuff. And, and I'm like, you know, I wear a collar shirt and whatever in the vlog. But I'm, but I'm to Rebecca, I'm like, you know, our downstairs is kind of jacked.

It's pretty bad.

It's kind of messed up. Should we stop showing it? And she's like, no, show it. You know, it brings out the human in us. and I'm like, what about the loft? Well, don't show the loft.

No, don't show them.

That's fine.

So that's like our hoarder room.

How do you keep an impression, also maintain your own authority? Because both of us are teachers as well, so we want to make— we don't want to look like fools. So how do you guys maintain your authority but yet bring in this vulnerability and maintain a level of respect.

I think another big thing, and I think that this is part of that maintaining that thing, that authority, I guess, would be like inspiring people. Like being inspirational and sometimes even like making that more of the priority than necessarily the knowledge. Because, and this is just my experience through it, is if I get inspired about a topic whether after I'm done failing and figuring it out, I'm going to keep doing— I'm going to keep going. If you're just out there to get the knowledge and you're getting presented this unrealistic perception of homesteading or keeping a farm and all the things that can happen, and you know, if honestly, if we never showed that our yard was messy or that our kids' toys were on the floor or my tool— I mean, my tool trailer right now is a hot mess. Like you have to step on stuff to get to the stuff you need to get to. I have no idea where half the stuff is. I love my tools and I love organization, but the mad dash to get— yeah, Arkansas to South Carolina, I mean, literally, I'm like, at the end of a 14-hour day, I'm like, I don't want to go through and put all the little bits that go back in the bit boxes up and hang all the— you know what I'm saying? So I just like set it on the floor of the tool trailer, and that's been compounding for 6 months. That's real, right? I'm saying. But, you know, I think by showing that you give people a level of, okay, this is real. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you ever look at like the highlight reel and you're like, man, how do they ever— like, how do they do all this? And it's always so perfect and it's always so clean and they never fail. That doesn't give people any inspiration that they can actually do it.

Are you even a little frustrated at looking at other people's reels when it just seems so perfect and cookie cutter?

Uh, I, I'm not. I don't really get frustrated. At other people's stuff.

Jeremiah's hard to frustrate, actually.

But no, my kids can frustrate me. If I was being honest, my kids can frustrate me. It's like, they know the little—

they know the right button.

They know the little tune, right? And it's just like, will set me off. And but that's— I mean, that's— you live in close proximity with anybody, they know you more. I'm saying you're the most vulnerable with them.

Yeah.

As far as like other people's stuff and like what they're doing, their successes, their failures, or what— you know what I'm saying? What they're presenting, if we agree with it or don't agree with it. No, we've kind of just decided like We can still be in a relationship. Like, if we disagree about something, we could still be close friends. Yeah, we just are not going to agree on that. Okay, you know what I'm saying? And that's okay, and I'm not going to judge you. I don't— like, you might do, you know, you might post a video that I'm like, yeah, I don't really agree with that. Yeah, it's not going to influence— it's not going to decide whether or not I'm in a relationship with you or even vulnerable with you.

Yeah, that's a good word.

And that's a hard thing to process and for people to accept and our current culture. Yeah, because it's like, oh, you disagree with me, well then I must separate myself from you. Or, you know, we had an argument, or, you know, I'm saying, like, this big topic that was so important. Like, I think that's a good word. Dealing with a lot of division.

I will say, I want to say this, like, the way you guys handled bringing your cow home. Yeah, you showed— you were very vulnerable. Yeah, that was real. I know that was really hard to— I would— I, I know that was really hard to be like, we're gonna show this, but I really loved how you addressed why you showed it.

Yeah, so tell them what they showed. What happened—

I didn't see that.

Yeah, was we picked up our Jersey cow. We got our first cow. We've not ever handled cows. The most experience I've had with cows is here at you guys' house.

And I've had horses, which is a big animal, but they're just different.

Yeah, very different. And we have a pretty new livestock trailer, and we've only really used it to haul goats and pigs. Which with goats and pigs, it's not a big deal if you don't have some sort of traction on the floor. And we picked the cow up. And of course, our friend we bought the cow from just didn't think about it. So it was just a mistake. But we loaded the cow and she fell while we were bringing her home. And so when we went to unload her, she had felt fallen on the slick floor. Because of course, you put a cow in a trailer in the first—

I think she probably laid down, like, you know, because of the motion.

Yeah, but she couldn't get back up.

She couldn't get back up. We're gonna get Teddy out of here.

Jonah, Jonah, let Teddy out.

Teddy. He pooped on the porch this morning. That's the gift. That's how my friends treat me. Can I cancel him or what?

I will never poop on that porch. And I'm feeding the cats.

Actually, I can't say never. I will do my very, very best to never eat something that doesn't agree with me at such an extreme rate. I'm gonna take you to the stream here.

I poop on your porch. Are we still friends?

Yeah. Wow.

Testing him to the max.

But you will clean it up.

He's like, yeah, I mean, you might get scalded. I might get scalded. I'm feeding the cat and I'm like, what's that sticky?

Oh no.

But I'm just pushing through it.

Right on the porch. Yes. I'm like, you have this whole farm. I know, right? Here's what I'm like. He walked outside and said, It's too cold.

My best friend treat me that way.

I know, I thought it was her best friend.

Yeah, no, so true story, we've got all these stalls in the bottom of the barn, and this is back in my mountain boarding days. We used to have events here for the mountain boarders, and you can imagine mountain boarders, you know, like skateboarders or whatever, punk rockers, just into drugs and drinking and all kinds of stuff, partying like crazy. Well My dad's walking through the bottom looking in all our stalls, and he looks over there. Is it? It's a big fat turd. And, and I'm down there, I'm down there with my friends, a couple of my friends, and he, and he's, he's like, come here, guys, look how Justin's friends treat him. Poop underneath my house. I'm glad I got new friends.

I canceled them, I guess. I mean, listen, listen, listen, listen. It's okay to set boundaries. My boundary is you can't poop on my house. It doesn't mean I'm canceling you.

Oh, that's true.

There is a difference.

You can have healthy boundaries.

Right.

All right. And consequences. Where were we?

Um, back to the cabin.

She couldn't get up.

Yeah. Cause she had, uh, you know, obviously evacuated some of her bowels and stuff. So she literally was sliding around. And when we stopped, she couldn't get up.

She couldn't get her legs in and she was kept slipping and falling and flailing. It was very, you know, when you're dealing with such a big animal, it can feel very overwhelming and like, you know, violent kicking and all that stuff. And I had put the camera down because, you know, sometimes there's that hard thing of like, okay, I need to figure out this problem. Oh yeah, 100%. And you have this like war raging between the person shooting the content and the person running the farm and like, who's going to get the focus and who's going to get to actually run the moment. And I finally just like, I told Ezra, because he was behind me, and it just kind of clicked in, oh, I should video this. And I, and I told Ezra, go grab my camera. I had set it down in the truck, and he went and got it. And I just filmed a little bit, and it wasn't a long time. It was, you know, 7 or 8 minutes that we couldn't get her up. We ended up getting a feed bucket. She flopped out of there.

Well, I got a halter on her, and she helped me get her turned. Like, she helped turned herself around where her face was facing the back door.

And yeah, she knew.

Then I got a feed bucket of her feed and gave her a bite and then pulled it away from her. And she, like, as much as you can imagine a fat person who can't stand up, like scooted her fat body to the edge of the trailer. Because, you know, food is the prime motivator of someone who's fat like that. She's 1,000 pounds. And so then I gave her another bite and took it away, and she literally just like flopped out of the tree. She did. She literally just like—

you got all this on tape—

hit her. I mean, it was pretty rough.

As far as a solution though, that was probably the best thing that can happen. She didn't really hurt anything serious. She didn't damage anything. No broken, you know, bones or anything.

Yeah, which is what you can— are most concerned.

She settled into the property within a day.

Yeah.

Here's— and here's the thing, like, for me, I explain to people I don't want to show this. Nobody wants to show the times that they make mistakes or there's an oversight and there's the potential of a consequence or there is a consequence that's dangerous. Nobody's like, yes, I'm so glad that my cow laid down and couldn't get up and that I didn't know better and that she, you know, all of that stuff. Nobody's excited about sharing that moment. But I did. And I explained, I'm going to do this because right now all over the place there are tens of thousands of people leaving cities and they're moving to farms and they're buying their first livestock trailer and their first cow. And that was an honest mistake that could have happened to anybody. And thankfully for us, the outcome wasn't that bad. But had she broken her leg, you know, had she ripped her udder open on, you know, the back of the trailer, like there are so many things that could have happened in that moment. And my thought is I can swallow my pride and present this as, hey, here, let, let me let you learn from my mistake, and maybe somebody's cow won't die because of it. Mine, mine really isn't in any danger anymore, but I can share this with you. And for me, like the question you asked earlier about how do you maintain, you know, what is the boundary, where, what's the loft that you're not going to show? And I kind of liken what we do to living in a glass house, you know, and even glass houses have closets and bathrooms. Like, even when you live in a glass house, you're entitled to places of privacy. And it is a really healthy mindset to me that I don't have to share everything. I choose to share these things because I can see the benefit. And I said this in that video, like, your cow is more important to me than my pride. And that's really what it comes down to, is I'll share my mistakes because you having success is more important to me than me looking good in this moment. And ultimately, that is vulnerability. Like, what vulnerability is, is, hey, I'm going to put myself in a position where you could hurt me. I'm going to put myself in a position where you could reject me. You know, it's taking the armor off. It's saying, I'm going to come and bare myself to you. And if you say I don't want it, you know, if you decide to cut me in that moment, I've given you the opportunity to. And that's what actual vulnerability is. If you are not in the position that the other person could reject you, hurt you, and, you know, cut you, then are you actually being vulnerable? And that, you know, and with that thing with the cow, I had a handful of people say you shouldn't have even gotten a cow. You know, obviously you don't know.

Nobody was more critical on how to fix the situation and how to do it better than us, right? I said, I don't want to be in that position again. I'm saying it's not like we got on the camera and we were like, well, it really wasn't a big deal, she's fine, turned out fine, no big deal, move forward. Like, we addressed the fact that, hey, this was a big mistake, like, and obviously it won't happen again. Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

I do want to say though, when we got our cows, a very experienced dairy we bought them from, I feel like the same thing happened to Phyllis.

Oh yeah, she came with a ripped udder because she got stepped on. She didn't get ripped, it didn't get ripped, it— but it was, it, it did get stepped on and we were literally milking out blood.

She was laying down in poop and— yeah, I mean and it was, it was, it was very similar. It was a little different than y'all's, but it was very similar. And this was a dairy that they've been doing cows for forever, not a dairy.

This was like legit.

Yeah, very nice. So like when I saw it, I was kind of like, yeah, this can happen.

Yeah, yeah, your farmers are going to understand. A lot of times our audiences have no clue, right? You're commenting like, you shouldn't have got a cow. Chances are they probably don't even have a cow themselves.

No, most of them— most of that really critical advice comes from people who are not doing—

yeah, yeah, we're going to do the things we're doing, and they're watching other people.

Yeah.

And they're, they're pulling what other people are doing, and they're pulling this all together, and they think they know all this stuff. But what I'm going to say is there's no textbook, right, tells you how to cope in a situation like that, right? No textbook tells you that.

And there are so many moments I can think of since we've had our farm that I'm literally like, you know that moment where you're like, oh my God, like, and you start seeing all the ways it could go bad? Like when the pigs got out. And Jeremiah, well, the first time we drove to Missouri and got out—

well, no, there's only been two serious instances, okay? So the first time when we picked the pigs up and we were chasing them through the field all night for 6 and a half hours, we got— we went to bed like 7:30 in the morning after finally catching them.

Oh my God, 6 and a half hours.

Uh, it took a long time. Like, that was so long that I wasn't— I was actually entertaining the idea of just getting my gun. Yeah, getting close enough to her, shooting her.

We're gonna eat her because 40 breakfast time.

Yep.

So that's all the days that I wasn't gonna opt out. I was gonna go full in.

Did they—

tell me this, I was so mad.

This is my theory.

Did they—

did the pigs finally give out, like wear out?

No, no, no, no, no.

They had the energy. Jessica had to take her shirt off, right, and use it like a matador, right? She's like, hey, so I'm talking like she's in her bra, she's in her bra, take her shirt off, use it like a matador, right? And I'm hiding like kind of like behind a big grass, and as it runs she gets it to run towards me, I like football tackle it like I'm a New England Patriots stopping the Seahawks, you know, from making a touchdown.

I'm like imagining like a 300-pound pig.

Yeah, that's 300-pound pig.

This is a tiny little thing. I'm talking Henry size.

Oh.

And they're fast. I mean, they're like agile. They're like happy.

Because we just spent like hundreds of dollars for a drover.

Because I just cost y'all. Okay, now wait, where was the YouTube video with you Oh no, there was no YouTube video.

Kid-friendly show.

Now, if it had, you would have had a viral video.

Yes, you would. When you were losing your religion.

That's right. You would have been judged. I would have had to apologize for words. I was like back in my Marine Corps days. Literally, like I regressed back to like when I was in the Marine Corps and I was stringing words together that I didn't know I was capable of stringing together.

Marine Corps language.

Marine Corps language. And I'm glad my kids were in bed.

Okay.

It was that kind of night.

Did you lose it on each other?

No, no, no. Stayed attentive that way.

Yeah, teamwork.

Afterwards we like hugged and then fell asleep. Hugged and fell asleep. Called my sister and said, hey, you need to come take care of our kids.

Have you since eaten those pigs? Have they grown up?

They have given us lots of pig babies.

They were our breeders. They were our breeders. So the mama pigs that were supposed to be giving birth into the spot where one of the high tunnels was about to go to tear up the grass, kind of loosen up the soil, and then I'm going to take them off and then throw down like bedding and chips and all that. Then we're going to build a greenhouse around that spot. And I never had them get out of like hog panels before. Okay, I had Gerard jump over a hog panel, but I mean, he really—

Gerard is your goat?

No, he was the boy. He wanted to get with the ladies.

This is a podcast.

Well, he wanted to, uh, be with his lady friends or doing what that male pigs do.

And we call it mating, right?

Mating. Yeah, that's it. I feel like I'm talking like a 5-year-old, like, you know, doing the thing. But, uh, so that's the only time I've ever had them get out of a hog panel. And so I just didn't think that it was necessary. But when we moved into this property, we had stuck the— all the hogs on the small pond, and they got used to just having that water source and the mud, and, you know, it's like pig heaven. And so when I pulled her out of that and put her in with none of that, she wasn't having it. And so she jumped up and bent the hog panel and jumped out and went and got in the big pond and just laid there. And I was like, well, this isn't going to work. So we started trying to, like, you know, I tried to coerce her with food, and then she just— actually, I think it's probably the same pig. Yeah, that got out when I was a kid, because she was just as much of a pain in the butt.

Yeah.

So I had a friend there who was helping us work on some stuff, and so he was in the four-wheeler, I was on the side-by-side, and she was just— we were chasing her all over the farm for almost 2 hours trying to get her to go back in where she was supposed to. And at one point she had gotten out on the road. Now across the street from us is like 800 acres of woods, and she went into the woods, and she decided to continue into the woods like she probably would have had her babies and be a set of wild pigs out there. Yeah, luckily I checked. I was able to turn her. It's a thing. It is. They could happen. I was like, this is— I was like, I was having that thought. I'm gonna go get my gun.

But she was pregnant.

I don't care.

Well, because it was like, hey, this is an investment. This is like our future meat.

Yeah, but I'm not gonna let her just disappear into the woods. Not gonna have to give her some time, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, decision in her life. We treat a lot of our like like our permanent animals, like they're not, you know, like I don't talk to the meat chickens, but like, you know, obviously you guys are on a one-way track. 58 days, you're off. Exactly. But like our goats and stuff, like we talk to them like they're children. But, uh, I basically circled, made a wide circle and got behind her and pushed her back to the road. And then my friend Wes was on the four-wheeler and he ran her against our fence until she turned back into the property. And eventually we got her into the spot she's supposed to. Rehab. Yes. And then I ran, uh, I had ran a hot wire across the top so she wouldn't jump out anymore. And then I also, uh, gave her a bunch of water so she can make a little wallow so that way she could cool off if she wanted. I think that's what it was. She was— it was kind of a hot day. She was like, where'd my pond go? This is a bunch of crap. I don't go backwards. Honey Boo Boo only goes forward. So she jumped out and went to the pond. I mean, I can't really blame her. It was it wasted a lot of time.

Have you ever posted something so vulnerable— you were sick?

Yes.

And doubted, should I do this?

Absolutely.

Should I take it back?

Like talking about my mom dying.

That was right.

That was rough.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I mean, I share a lot of things. Like, I make devotional videos where I talk from like a faith place. Those are probably the hardest as far as that kind of vulnerability, because you just are never going to have universal agreement, and so many people don't know how to handle disagreement. And so what I was talking about earlier, it's, it's just hard that— and I'm always glad I did it like 2 weeks later, but for that first few days, it's rough.

Have you ever pulled something or nothing made it because you're like, I don't know, Jeremiah, pulled a video? Let's not put that in there.

I don't think I have.

We've never pulled a video that's like since we actually were doing YouTube. Now, when we first started, I don't know if like our first go at YouTube was like a collaboration YouTube channel called the Homesteads of Billy Goat Mountain, which is the mountain we lived on. And there was like 4 videos. It got us monetized, so there's that. Nice. But I mean, it took like 3 years for like 4 videos. So I mean, like, we did take down some of those, but they were— no, we took down one because of my friend Jake. He had like talked— he titled it like, you know, mountain lion or something like that, but like there was actually no footage of the mountain lion. He shot at something and there was like blood splatter, and like it got a views, but then people were like, there's no mountain lion. We're like, this video isn't that useful to what we're doing, so we took that down.

Who reads the comments?

Um, I do.

Jessica does.

I do, yeah.

I do read comments, but like, he doesn't read most of them.

Sounds like maybe you should be reading the comments. I should, but sounds like maybe you're a little more—

my— it is, but my, my lack of being influenced by it also has brought me to the point that I like, I really like just don't have time.

No, there's some good— I'm saying influenced by it.

Yeah, I'm not actually—

comments.

I do read comments.

What are—

let's— we'll talk about ugly comments, but first, again, how you serve people. What are people saying in the comments that are proving this? And sure, how are you serving them based on what they're saying?

Most of my comments are extremely positive. I would say I probably have an unusual amount of uplifting Wonderful viewers. When I really try, like, when people ask questions, to kind of keep a, to kind of keep a running list of those questions and make sure that I'm answering and clearing things up, like making sure that people are understanding. And I try to keep in mind, like, I'm very much my own worst critic, but also I'm constantly like grading myself, like, did I communicate this well? Did they understand? Like, if I got a whole bunch of questions on something I wasn't clear, next time I come around to talking about that topic, I'm going to make sure to cover that. Like, and so just, it's almost like you're built, and you understand this because you're very much a teacher at heart, but like, when you are a teacher, how your, how your classroom is grading on something and how they're receiving something and the questions they're asking, it can mold you into a better teacher. True, because— and I think I'm much better now at relaying information than I was 3 years ago because the way my comment section has grown me to help me understand, well, you have to explain that. Like, I always— now I always convert, um, the temperature. I always tell Fahrenheit and Celsius too because people would ask a lot. I have a lot of viewers that don't live here, so that kind of thing. But I mean, it also— I will say there is a negative side to it in that when you know that criticism is there, it makes that vulnerability harder. It's like you're like, I'm gonna take off the armor and allow people to cut me, and some of them are gonna do it.

Yeah, I'm gonna do it anyway.

You keep saying cut me. Yeah, some of them. So I'm under the impression that you can get some ugly comments and it not really bother you, but I'm under the impression that some really get into the soul.

Some are just like ridiculous. Yeah.

Tell me, what's the most ridiculous nonsensical comment.

I get to say one too. I get to say one too.

They get to say one too.

You go first.

Okay. One time, some lady, a lady left a comment and she said that Jessica was going to hell because she has tattoos and she was filthy.

Oh, that's not my—

She was what?

Filthy.

Filthy. I've gotten that one a lot. That doesn't bother me. That wasn't the most ridiculous. Like, that's not ridiculous.

I will take a vote. You ready, Jason? We're going to take a vote.

And over— you're over here, and this is what I'm talking about. She's over here having compassion on that person. She's like, oh, they're just having a problem. Like, they're having a heart issue. Probably someone with tattoos did something bad to them. Like, have grace for them.

Hey, are you—

what's the one that you're—

are you going to have tattoos in heaven?

I hope so. Hope we get a clean slate and get to start over again, you know? Yeah, you know what I mean?

We'll get to that in a minute. I wrote it down, tattoos. We're going to get to that in a minute, the little wink.

So Like, to me, the mean comments that are just hateful— like, when a person's hateful, like, from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Like, they're just showing their bitter heart. Like, a person being hateful doesn't bother me. But the most bizarre comment I ever got was this person who was like, you should feel ashamed for how poorly you're stewarding the land. Is it not a problem to you that when you moved on this farm, all the trees are alive, and now you've managed to kill every tree on your farm? I said, it's winter.

The leaves fall off.

It's winter. Our leaves aren't gone in South Carolina. When I was driving up here today, I saw all the leaves. I'm like, for shame.

You thought of it. You thought of it today.

We bring that comment up and make, you know, laugh about it because it's like, yeah, I'm sure someone came back and read that later. Or maybe the person who posted and they're like, what the heck was I talking about?

No, they probably just don't live where there are deciduous trees. Like, and they don't— I don't know. But I was literally like, I mean, it was, it was harsh too.

It was like, you gotta think though, everyone lives in a first-person narrative, and so like what they're pursuing, I'm saying what is in their area, yeah, they're saying like for them that's all that there is.

Yeah, a lot of times.

And you get like pegholed into like, well, if it's not like that, if it's like that here, it must be like that over there.

Yeah.

And you've done something wrong. Jess killed everything.

I killed every tree on my farm.

I was like, well, I mean, I do kind of want to chop them down and turn them into 2x4s, but I decided not to.

Let's go tattoos in a second. Before we do, the comments that pierce to the heart. I know from experience you're reading 100 good comments and then there's one ugly and it's louder than the others.

Yes. So we try to—

you feel like that's the entire audience?

Yes, I can, I can get 1,000 positive comments and 5 that are bad and I'll think nobody likes me anymore, you know, like, and I'm the one that has to—

ah, yeah, she has to come to me.

Yeah.

Have you ever gone to therapy?

Therapy? Um, I have brought it up in therapy. I actually do like see a therapist and I have brought it up about like how do you handle the negative opinions of people. And I will tell you the one phrase my friend Nora messaged me, it was actually when we launched Wilder Seal because you know, like anytime you do anything new, you get flack. And that was something that a lot of people, it happened when we launched our course, it happened when I sold, like I announced my book. I'm like, I've had a dream of this since I was a child and hear this and you've sold out and like all that stuff. But this was when—

No, I didn't sell out. I'm selling a book. It's two different things. Yeah, I mean, I mean, with the amount of attention it's getting, it probably will sell out. But keep prophesying that. Tell us the future.

During that launch, um, you know, I had a few people, and I went— she did my hair, and I went and I was getting my hair done, and she said, Jess, the people in the cheap seats boo the loudest. And it's like, you know, the people who are signing up for these things and buying the book and getting the course and doing that, they don't have negative things to say. The people who have like skin in the game and a stake in what you're doing and have value for what you're doing, they don't have the negative things to say. It's the people who are like, I'm not paying for that. You're not worth that.

I don't want anything like that. I can't believe you did this. I can't believe you did that.

They say these things and like, what are they? They're the ones that I mean, they're not, they're not getting behind us.

There's no skin in the game either.

And there's no skin in the game. And so it's like the people in the cheap seats boo the loudest. And that has helped me weigh out that 5 to 1,000 ratio. And I've just— I have this rule.

Yeah, we try to operate by this rule. It doesn't always work, but it's good to have like a standard that you try and maintain. And this is one of the reasons why I try not to just check a whole bunch of comments. I try— I do like answer questions if someone's like, hey, Hey, how did you build that? Or what tool did you use? You know, I see that, I'll try and answer it. Um, but the old— the old— under— or I guess the, the foundational rule for commenting is, is if you haven't responded to every single positive comment, don't respond to a negative one. There's never— there's never going to be a time that we could respond heartfelt to every positive comment. And so I kind of like— because I'm real good at ranting.

Yeah.

About— and so like, this is also why I don't let the comments bother me, is because I mean, like, as much as they could hurt us, like, I could hurt you 10 times worse. Yeah. And so that's my whole life. My whole life was me being the younger brother and talking beyond my muscles could handle, and my stronger, stockier older brother handling it. Yeah. Over and over again. That's my whole life. So you know how to push the button.

I do.

And I've learned That's actually not really necessarily a good trait. It can be like, if we ever needed to raise an army, I'm your guy. You know what I'm saying? I could get everyone like motivated.

But we're not at battle here.

No, we're not. Not yet.

They haven't pooped on your porch.

Oh, let them poop on my porch.

So it's a lot easier.

I can shoot a whole podcast just talking about it.

It's a lot easier to get on there and say, it's winter.

Right, exactly.

Say to everybody, oh, we love you guys. You're so inspiring.

But even responding to that, you know what I'm saying? Even being like, hey, that was rude and you didn't need to— it's just good. Have you— I'll be— this is just my opinion, my perspective. Again, I'm just saying that because I always try and leave a disclaimer, like, this is obviously not absolute. But like, I've never been like— had like actually tried to respond to someone who was that ignorant or rude or mean and then be like, oh, you know what, thank you for commenting back, and I didn't understand that that's what was going on, and I apologize for what I said. Usually it's like, yeah, this is worse. Oh no, you didn't respond to me and try to tell me that saying something wrong. Yeah, you're even worse than you were before. Yeah, now I'm going to tell my grandmother about you.

Have you ever made a comment replying to a negative comment and deleted it?

All the time.

I did make a comment once. They said something really mean to Jessica. It is therapeutic. They said something really ugly about Jess, and, and we, we try and delete the comments that are about the other person. So like, people call me fat all the time, apparently. I've never seen those comments, but she deletes them for me. And so I try and catch the ones like for him, for Jessica, but there's just more because she's on the videos more. But, uh, one time I did respond and I was like, you're a jerk. I was like, and nothing you're saying is, is real. I was like, well, all that stuff you just said, I was like, I don't know what's going on with you. I was like, but you're not going to be allowed to be on this channel, and I just wanted to let you know that before I blocked you and deleted this comment. And I just, I sent it, I gave him 10 minutes to check it, and then I removed them. It was mostly for me because I was like, out of there. Like, you know what, you call me fat, you know, say my beard's scraggly, things I already know, you know what I'm saying? I'm overweight, I'm a little bit overweight, and working out's hard, especially with kids. They just want to sit there and watch you breathe, and I'm like, get out of the room. I'm like, I'm trying to stay in shape here. You're like— I literally, as you know, one time came into the family room, got a bowl of cereal, sat on the couch, and I'm like doing like my, you know, my— and I'm like— and he's like sitting there eating, and he goes, man, Dad, you're breathing heavy.

I was like, thanks.

That's it. All right, so, but I'm saying, you're saying things I already I know, you know what I'm saying? But like, when they say stuff about Jessica, that's actually when I get defensive. Like, I'll reach through the internet. Yeah. And find you.

You can get the forks.

Hey, hey, I got a little advice for you. When you can't tone, tan. Just go lay out in the sun.

I was like, a tanning bed? Yeah, no, lay out in the sun. The sun, okay.

Middle of the day, get some tan. It's also good for you. Tattoo, and a heck of a lot more comfortable and easy. And it makes you look better.

Jessica can't breathe over here.

This is why you married me.

All right, okay, tattoos. We're gonna keep on in the spirit of fun. Your audience is 60-year-old ladies. Yeah, is that right? For the most part.

I mean, 35 to 60, 65. Yeah, Christian. Probably not.

That's the thing is I don't know that that's actually— they probably might be like 50%, you know, maybe the majority, maybe 60%. You'd be surprised.

Women are Christian or conservative?

You'd be surprised how many— well, I'd say probably Christian conservative women. No, we have a lot of other women, which is just a fascinating thing about our channel. Even the fact that we don't, uh, hide faith and Jessica does devotionals, you'd be surprised. The worst commenters on devotionals are religious people The real— the reason why Jessica keeps doing it is because the people are like, actually, I don't agree with your beliefs, but I watched this anyways and it moved me and I got something out of it. Yeah, and it's like, okay, that's what you're doing it for. Yeah, right. And so actually, like, I think we actually have a pretty diverse group of—

but mostly women.

Religion. Yes, mostly women.

And yeah, my favorite comment, because of that being people who don't necessarily agree with tattoos or whatever, whatever, is my favorite thing is when people are like, yeah, I ignored your videos for a while because I didn't want to watch some tattooed girl, you know, face pierced and all that stuff. And it's so bizarre to me.

Well, she's got a face pierced.

Yeah, the, um, I know, it's just normal. Yeah, like that. It— and people will say, I thought, what can this person teach me about gardening? And then they say, but I came around and, and I'm so glad I did. I love that. I love when people are like, hey, I had a bad first impression but I checked that myself, and I'm so glad I got over my assumption because you were, you were worth getting over my assumption. That's always nice.

Yeah. So what do we say? So now you've been here and we introduced you to a number of people, including Grandma, Rebecca's mom, who's in her 70s. Yeah. And doesn't understand tattoos.

Yeah.

But loves you.

Yeah.

And will tell us about you. I mean, we get our news from you, from her.

Yeah, she'll be like, oh, Jess, this is it, like telling me about your videos.

She's like talking about this party today, like, Jess is coming. I'm like, wait a minute, we didn't tell you that.

How do you know?

She saw it on the video.

Uh, what do you say? What do you say to Grandma? Uh, I like what you said about the grandma pushing through. Is that what you say? You just say, hang with me.

Yeah, I mean, my thing is, is I think people put way too much stock on temporary things. I mean, like my skin— I mean, truly, this— I know this is really extreme, but this is where my mind goes, so track with me. Like, if I got in a wreck tomorrow and my arm had to be amputated from the shoulder down, I wouldn't have tattoos anymore. Now obviously that's really the only case, and I'm not gonna have them anymore because they are permanent ink, but like, I would still be me if that happened. Yeah, just like I'm me with the ink on my skin, just like I'm me before that. The truth is I just love colorful things. Things. Like, I love— my home is colorful, everything that I do is colorful. I just— every— I love colorful things. It's, it's beautiful to me. And so, and there's actually—

there's also like a— there's a cool story behind, you know, Jessica's tattoo. I mean, and even—

okay, so tattoos, tattoos.

Oh, it is.

Well, except for I do have it. I do have it.

Well, and also there's that time when you, you know—

no, we're gonna get there. We're gonna go there. Hang on, hang on to that thought. We're gonna talk about the regrets. We're going to talk about the regrets.

No regrets. Plural. No regrets.

Go where you're going.

Okay. Um, so my little brother is a tattoo artist.

Okay. And so this makes sense.

He's 2 years younger than me.

He's like lots of tattoos.

And he's very, he's very good at what he does. And, um, we were best friends when we were kids. I mean, like just inseparable, even all through like middle school and high school, we spent a lot of time together. And our parents got divorced when we were teenagers. And I lived with my dad and my brother lived with my mom and our lives really kind of got on different tracks then. But we stayed pretty close. He lived with me after I was older, and briefly. But then he went down the route of becoming a tattoo artist, and he became very nomadic. He moved around a lot, and I had kids and got married, and, you know, I had my older boys when I was really young, and our lives were just really different. And I went into ministry, and honestly, I had a period of time where I will comfortably say that I think I was pretty religious. Religious, and my brother was living a life that we could call at that point, maybe kind of wild. And so we were really separate. And in 2015, I was 30 and I hated visible tattoos. I thought they looked bad. I didn't, I was like, oh, I don't ever want to have that. I liked it on other people, but for myself, I was like, no. And I had really been praying for my brother and just praying. And I don't know exactly what my prayer was at the time, maybe for my brother to maybe know God, or I don't know exactly what my prayer was, but I just prayed for him a lot. And I just started to get this, you know, this idea that I wanted to have these tattoos. I wanted to get Drew to do this sleeve for me. And it got in my head and he came to my mom's house for Mother's Day and I saw him and I was like, hey Drew, would you do a sleeve for me? And I wasn't even fully committed to it actually, but I was like, I just wanted to do it. It.

And I might be the first person that ever got a sleeve tattoo that was like kind of playing with the idea.

Yeah. And he was—

and because that's a commitment.

Yeah. He was like, you know, I've really been wanting to do something for you. I would love to do that. And, you know, some people will be like, God didn't tell you to get tattoos. Like, so many— that will rile up some people. I know. But I really do feel like— I really do feel like he did. I really do feel like this desire was planted in my heart. Art. And I actually went to my brother and I said, you know what, I want you to do it. Your art, you come up with it, I'll get whatever you want.

That is, that is intense. And so I, um, so did you know what he was gonna do before he did it?

There was going to be a peacock, a rooster.

I knew there was going to be cardinals, and then the sunflower came in last.

Yeah, he did that. That wasn't me. The sun, he did. Wow. And so, so he did a really good job.

He didn't just No, I mean, he took it very seriously.

The first few years he tattooed, he wouldn't even tattoo me because he's like, no, he's like, he's like, I gotta get better. I gotta look at your tattoos forever, you know, like, you're my sister. So what happened was I made the appointment and we outlined the whole thing wrist to shoulder in one day, like, so I couldn't back out. And, um, I went and we got in the car together and we went to this art museum in Northwest Arkansas. We went to lunch before and we got in the car and I was like, I used to, whenever we were kids, I used to call him Doo because his name's Drew. And I was like, you know, Jess and Doo together again. And he looked at me, he said, I don't think I've been alone with you in 10 years. And I was like, I know. And over the course of what, 18 months of going once a month to work on my sleeve and work on, and it became a self-care thing. It became a thing because at that point, I mean, I'd had all these kids for so, you know, like I'd been having babies and nursing babies for 10 years and, and it was just this thing that, I mean, healed me in a massive way, helped me find myself and like take time for myself. And my brother over the course of doing my tattoo, like became my best friend again. And like we still, like I talked to him for 2 hours on the phone the other night. He's traveling the country in an Airstream and tattooing all over the place and fly fishing and Lots of fly fishing. You know, we've kind of like— we're living in different places, but he's still one of my best friends. The tattoo's still not done. I still haven't done my elbow because I am a weenie and I don't like getting tattoos. It's very painful.

I was gonna ask that. It had to have been extremely painful.

Well, he has a few secrets, but we can't reveal those.

Well, if I ever get a tattoo, I'll get him to do mine.

Yeah, he's coming up this area. Yes, he, he did, he did that, and it wasn't It's funny because as I was driving up here and you messaged me, you're like, hey BFF, you were to be on the podcast together. I was like, we should get matching tattoos. And look at the topic you brought up.

That is one thing Jess and I have not done is tattoos. We've talked about it, but we just really couldn't.

Tear drops. What's also— we'll have one on our left. Yes, facial tattoos. Let's go right for it. That's right. That's straight up. Straight to the face. I think that means something.

I think that means you're dead.

That's like something about killing people in prison. Oh yeah.

No tear drops. Considering I haven't ever been to prison.

I don't know, I've got a message for the prudes out there who might think tattoos are a sin. Love covers a multitude of sin. Yeah, I mean, this is the story.

I hear so many things and people who like argue with that and all, and I just kind of fall down the line of like, I think everything's permissible but not everything's beneficial. And while I won't be getting any teardrops on my face, because I can't see that there would be a benefit in it.

I would have to tragically die or something.

Your initials in there.

She'd get my initials as permanent tears.

But I can say I have definitely seen the benefit of the tattoos that I have. I forget that that's a weird thing. Like, I mean, I don't even really think about them. I did wear long sleeves for 3 weeks after I got them because change is hard for me. But You know, I'm really just yourself.

Why do you laugh so hard at that comment? Change is hard for me.

We felt like we were going to move to South Carolina 3 years ago. It took that long to get okay with it.

Wow. I have to say, I found you on Instagram a long time ago. You were writing for some magazine, and I remember, like, seeing your sleeve and I was like, that is so cool. I want to see it up close.

Like, in that direction too, though. Yeah, because it is cool.

It gives you a— it gives us—

it gives us, uh, people don't forget you. You're the girl with the sleeve, you know what I mean?

I'm saying a different world other than just the Christian conservative woman world. The tattoos actually do— they open up conversations. Where'd you get your work done at? And we're like, our brother, or my brother-in-law, you know. Then the only main tattoo I have, he did also. Yeah. And So, but like, what was cool how it played out, and we couldn't have known then how it was going to, but like, you trust Drew to do this, this picture, right?

And it's become so symbolic.

It's very symbolic. Okay, so like, this is before, uh, Roots and Refuge has really become like a YouTube channel or any of that. We haven't even settled on a logo or any of that, right? So all this stuff gets done. All right, now our logo is a sunflower because Jessica was on this trip and like, you know, read about how sunflowers eat radiation. So it's like, it's poison. Yeah, it's like, so that's like, they'll radiate radiation from soil, sunflowers do. So that's like why it's in our logo, and she's got this big sunflower on her arm, but she got it before we ever established that. All right, and there's some other things. So like, you know, one time if you read in Revelation, yeah, you read in Revelation about the colors in the throne room, and the colors that it describes in the throne room of the gemstones are actually— because he didn't do like a traditional peacock, he just chose colors that he wanted, and he ended up choosing the colors that it describes, barrel and all those colors, that's the peacock colors. And it's like, okay, so like, my favorite is that this is different.

The first time we came to South Carolina after we bought our land and we went exploring and we went into Columbia and we were driving past the stadium and there's this massive— because it's the Gamecocks, right? And there's this massive rooster. And I've always wondered why he made my rooster like this, because it's like—

she wanted like a calm chicken.

I thought it would be beautiful and like, you know, majestic, and it's like in a fighting spurt.

It's a flogging rooster. And I always was like, oh, he was so mean.

And we drive drove past Columbia and I was like, hey, look, that looks like my chicken. And he's like, how about that, you got a South Carolina tattoo 5 years before you lived here.

Yeah, there's like a lot of meaning.

Mom's favorite bird was a cardinal, so she had these cardinals. So it's like this whole picture kind of plays out.

Yeah, it's really neat.

I have chill bumps.

Yeah, which ones didn't play out?

Any regrets?

There was a regret.

Yeah, he didn't do that one. You know, like, young makes bad decisions.

I have a Christian tramp stamp.

It's a cross right above the buttocks. But this is the best part. Let's see. It's only a tattoo for me, right? But after all the childbearing, it's a little distorted. It's an old rugged cross. Yeah, it's that rugged cross, you know what I mean? Like It kind of closely resembles, you know, like an old Roman cross kind of thing. It's got like nail holes in it and it's a little twisted root, you know.

It's true, man. But hey, I was 18 years old, it was a Tuesday afternoon before my shift at the Golden Corral, and I had $70 burning a hole in my pocket.

And that's what she got, and she chose the location.

Yeah, yeah.

So now here's the thing, you kind of want to cover it up, but then you just have a different tramp stamp. So it's like, yeah, I'm committed.

Just ride it out. Let it go. Let it ride.

Oh, this is hilarious.

Let's talk about your business story a little bit. There's 4 S's, as Zig Ziglar would point out. There's in stages, and we'll find out what stage you guys think you're in. But there's a survival stage, there's a stability There's success and then there's significance. There is a step beyond success. So I have an idea where I think you are. You're definitely not in survival stage anymore. Let's go there. What was the pit of your survival stage?

We told— we talked about that in episode 1, didn't we?

Well, let's go there again. Wilder still.

Okay.

Well, before we had the YouTube channel, we had our farm. And we were still really trying to find our identity of like what our farm was going to be. I did the farmer's market thing briefly. I learned that really was not for me. Is this my phone that keeps doing that?

I don't know. Somebody's dingin'.

It's probably me.

It's not me.

I thought I know better. Hang on.

Because I turned mine off.

Okay.

Mine doesn't ding.

Who is going to blow me up?

Not me.

Who is it?

I always know it's not me because I'm like, my phone's always sounding off.

Your family's group texting.

I turned that off. Sorry.

So I did the farmer's market thing for a little while. And learned that was not for me at all, I was trying to figure out like, what am I going to do? And really it was just hustling. Like I was doing, oh, I want to have colorful eggs. You know, I can get an incubator, I can do this, I can sell these to the feed store and, and just constantly trying to make the thing pay for itself because we couldn't afford to pay for it. So like we needed the farm to pay for itself and my mom helped pay for it. Yeah, his mom helped and she was really into it, you know, and did a lot of the stuff with us. Us. And we were learning, we were failing.

You know, we connected those two.

Yeah, there was a lot of both of those going on simultaneously. And, you know, we built our first big garden. I was trying to figure out like, what do I want to grow? What I want to do? Learning to do hard work because I was like a neighborhood kid, you know, that grew up. I didn't, I never grew up doing work like that. And that, so when I look at my survival stage, I really consider that like the pre-YouTube stage and maybe like that first bit of YouTube. And then we got into stability pretty quickly as YouTube started to take off and learning like what was required there as far as showing up and producing content and learning to, to deal with like negative feedback and learning to maintain vulnerability in the face of that. And I would say like that first year of YouTube YouTube, there was a, there was like the survival stage giving way to stability. It wasn't like a—

and we had a decision to make. There was a, there was a turning point in that because how it came down is, you know, I was trying to do all kinds of stuff to make money. The farm obviously wasn't making money, so I like started a lawn care business and was working 12-hour days, you know, 6 days a week, bringing in money. But like the farm was like suffering, bleeding. I mean, pretty much almost dead. We had a few chickens, maybe, you know, a couple of goats that we actually had sent to our neighbor's house because we weren't taking care of them. Yeah. And we— she came to me, and this was kind of the turning point. She came and she said, I— we can't keep doing this, and I've resolved that I'm okay if you just want to move back into the city, but we can't keep doing this. Wow. And I said— and I said— she said, take time to think about it. And I thought about it, and I said, no, I don't want to do that. And so I, I I sold off our contracts and shut the lawn care business down, which I knew would have consequences, and came back to the farm. And we just kind of waited almost there for 6 months, trying to, you know, waiting to see, focusing on the farm, but like not sure how this was going to work. And that's when they came and got the chicken coop and repossessed our chicken coop and then evicted our chickens. And then, and also, we didn't put this in the first episode, but, you know, we were hosting kind of like a house church at the time, just with some close friends, not like trying to actually grow a church, but just like doing something because we were out of the mainstream church. And it was on Sunday when all of our friends were there, and we were like, you know, I think we had a friend there playing guitar, leading a little bit of worship, fellowshipping, whatever. And that's when the tow truck showed up, and I had to have my friends move their cars in the middle of worship so they could tow our car that we couldn't afford anymore.

More.

Oh yeah, they're like, why do we need to move our cars? I'm like, well, they're gonna come. It's like, they're repoing my car, so they gotta get through your car to get there. And so, and the thing is, is like that month Jessica had done like her last like traveling, which she used to travel around to, you know, different churches and preach and stuff. And the lady had come up and said, you know, I felt like the Lord told me to sow this into you, and it's a $1,000 check. Okay, so that was the most— that was the turning point, I'm telling you, because we had it. That $1,000 check could have got us caught up on our car and given us a little bit of like a couple hundred dollars left, right? And we talked, we said, well, do we want to get caught up on the car or do we finish the garden? We didn't have the garden finished because we didn't have enough for the soil and the rest of the wood and stuff that we needed to finish the first half of the garden. And we decided to let the car go and finish the garden.

And it was my first garden tour, was my first video on YouTube that took off. And that was about 4 months after that. So, and that, that was the turning point from survival to stability. Yeah, it was really—

pin it back from going to survive. Yeah, that makes sense. What was your mentality like, uh, going into YouTube, into that from the gardening tour on? How did your mentality change? Because you had been putzing around on YouTube.

Yeah, before the garden tour, she came to me. I was sitting with my mom at her kitchen table and we were talking about something, and literally it's like, imagine something out of a movie, you know, like, like Judge Dredd kicks the door open, right? So the door flies open, she walks in, she goes, I'm gonna do YouTube like my job and it's gonna get us out of debt. Walks and leaves. And me and my mom just said, okay, because honestly, like, we believe—

I have a flair for the dramatic, right?

I mean, like, hair flip and everything. And then she like went and got the camera.

Reenact this in a Wilder Still. I should, uh, the cinematic camera.

And that's what she said, that she was serious about it.

Yeah.

So she started taking—

that was March. And so I started making videos real regularly for a few months, just, you know, 200 views views. You know, I milked a goat, it got demonetized because apparently can't show an udder, you know, like up close or something, I don't know. And it didn't get enough views, you know, it's really disgusting. You know, it has to get like 1,000 views within 7 days for them to even consider putting the monetization back on, and it didn't. It's still demonetized. Um, but yeah, like I was not getting a lot of views.

And I think it was— that's geese.

I think it was June that that first garden tour took off. So there was like a period there that I was like really steadily doing it. And then after it started to take off, honestly, the mindset I had was, it was, I was just mostly dumbfounded.

Yeah. I think, you know, I know that feeling. Yeah.

It is that, wait a second, they're going to give us money? Like, I know I get money for this. What? And coming from a place of real lack, This is that struggle stage between survival and stability. That is where your poverty mentality, your lack mentality, like has to die to really get into, because you can be in the stability stage and maybe even get to the success stage, but I don't know that you can get to significance if you don't lose the lack mentality. Like it just makes you so close-fisted and so afraid and And like, you know, we talk about like parable-wise, like you have seed to sow and daily bread. It's the same stuff. It's the same bag of wheat. And like poverty mentality makes you want to eat everything. I think for me, like being in that period of, okay, there's money coming. I probably spent the first 6 months of getting a check from YouTube feeling like, okay, this is going to be the last one. Like this is going to be the last one. Yeah, it's gonna dry out.

So what we did is we basically just like, we basically spent a lot of it on the stuff that we needed. Our kids needed new shoes. I'm talking like, this is the kind of stuff that was going on.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Oh, we needed to update some stuff in the kitchen. We needed to fix this.

Our roof was leaking.

Like, there was like tons of stuff. And so like, we spent honestly that first year of just making money getting caught up on all the stuff out of a hole.

Yeah, out of the hole, paying off debt.

The next year was paying off debt.

Yeah. And it was, it was really a wild thing. And I look back at that and I, I'm so thankful now because I don't think you can ever really truly succeed or reach any sort of significance if you're just terrified of losing what you have because it takes it, whatever seeds you get, it just makes you want to consume things. It makes you so short-sighted. It's hard to think of legacy. When all you can think of is the hunger you're feeling right now. And I feel like that's what poverty mentality does to us is it makes us feel like we're starving to death even when we just ate. You know, it's that feeling of like every meal could be your last meal. Every, every dollar you get could be the last time you get a dollar. Like everything you get, you're constantly trying to say, what do I make the most of this for right now? And I don't think you can think in long-term goals when you're in that place. And truly, I can look back and see a lot of the ways that we were really like led in obedience to confront those poverty mentalities before we were doing well, you know, like giving away your last $10 and giving away your last bit of money and being generous even when you didn't have a lot to give. And that really confronts poverty mentality. But truly, the biggest test is when you actually get some money to manage.

Change.

Like, that's when you really start to see what you have. And so, yeah, that— I would say, like, when I look back at that first year of YouTube and, like, my mindset, where I was, um, it was really just tearing down a lot of broken, like, thought patterns in my own mind about how to manage things.

Did you manage it well?

I think we did.

I think we did pretty good.

Yeah, I think pretty good.

When, when you, when your tow truck comes and they're repossessing your car and you're telling— this is, you're probably not hanging out with a community that's like used to that.

No.

Friends getting repo'd. That's got to be embarrassing.

It was.

So that has to—

no, it was perfectly fine, right?

This is like, they don't even know, like, why you having me move my car? There's tow truck, you know, they're not even connecting what's going on here.

Uh, do the repo people come to your like front door?

That though, do you use that as a driver to fuel your fire in getting up early every single day, putting out a video whether you feel like it or not?

Yes, there was definitely a lot of that. There was definitely this thing of like, I see I have a key here, I'm going to use it to unlock this. I think the real thing that that fueled more than anything though was what we were talking about earlier with vulnerability, because when you like stand in a place where you are humiliated humiliated. You have two choices. Like, you can run and hide, or you can just be like, okay, here's the truth, you know? Like, take me or leave me. Reject me if you want to. And, you know, those people came back for house church the next week, you know, because we sat there. You want to know what we did? We actually went and sat down at the piano, and I was just like, I feel like a fool. I feel humiliated. But you know what? This isn't who I am. You guys are here. And I mean, there was that feeling these people are going to leave. They're not going to want to have anything to do with us. Like, obviously, we're, you know, you have to feel all that condemnation. We're irresponsible. We're stupid. You know, like you feel all of that and it's a choice. Am I going to be vulnerable? Hey guys, here's where we are. We made these choices. We, we really think we're supposed to be doing this farm and we made these choices and this is the consequence. But we're even now, we're not going to bail ourselves out of this. We're going to keep moving and know that we're going to be able to fix it later. Of course we did. We settled that debt a year later.

Yeah.

When we had—

how do you transition from that being your fuel, you know, the sleepless nights, yeah, embarrassment, the leaky roof? How do you transition from that being your fuel to what you're speaking of, where you got to put aside this poverty mindset and you got to adopt the abundance mindset? How do you make that transition?

I think it transitions into desire for legacy. And desire for like my kids to not have that poverty mindset, I— that is still there. Like that idea and the awareness of people living in poverty is still very much there. I can see it on other people and I can— I want to keep it off my family. You also have to find another level of satisfaction in a thing. And truly, I would say what we're talking about right now is a struggle that I've really had over the last probably 6 months to a year. When it's like, I don't have to post videos 5 times a week anymore, 6 times a week or whatever it is. I don't have to do that.

Hustle as hard.

I don't have to hustle as hard. I don't actually, I'm not super motivated by like stuff or money. Like, so to me, having all the needs met and having all of that, it kind of, that hustle is gone in that sense. But you want to know what I have found really motivates me? Me now is, well, I can show up in a way that a lot of people don't have the opportunity to show up in. And so when I show up, I'm creating, I'm creating a way out of poverty mentality for other people. I can support other people's businesses. I can build something that's going to be influential in a culture. I can change the food system for, for people. I can help people change the track of their lives. I can, you know, teach people about things and get them— and it's kind of what— it's just kind of this thing of like, I'm on solid ground now, so I could lay down and take a nap, or I could like be braced firmly on the solid ground to lift other people up onto it. So it is definitely a shift in motivation. I don't feel the hustle for my own family anymore, but more about what could I do—

hustle for our own family family was easier to steward than the wholesale of a cultural impact. Yeah, like if you want to influence the culture, like honestly, one of the big things is, in my opinion, is you need to steward wealth. Like you have to have— like you're going up against like the opposite of what, like let's say, like what we believe. Like the people who are doing the things that we don't agree with, all the broken food system, all the broken food system, they have money. Right? And they're putting out advertisements and they're, you know what I'm saying? And you can't expect to just come to that table without being able to steward wealth and have an impact. It's part of the equation. It's not the only thing, but it— we've dealt with a lot of, uh, poverty mentality with the people, you know, getting upset at us that we actually have, you know, money now.

Yeah.

And it's— and I mean, it's just the wrong mindset because it's like, what do would you— like, would you feel better about your situation if I didn't have a nice car, or if I didn't buy a new tool, or if I— you know what I'm saying— if I didn't have this thing in my life? Like, it would make you feel better? You know what I'm saying? Would it? But the thing is, is you have to get past that, because having these things and having the, you know, a platform of wealth lets you be generous. Like she said, invest in other ideas, invest in other businesses. Like, that's one thing I I think that was one of the bigger, biggest shifts is when we got out of survival, we even in survival, we just had less resources to be generous with. Yeah, we've always stayed generous.

But now you can just bless more people.

Yeah, right.

Now you used to.

But the thing is, is like you're always challenged to be more because here's the thing is like sometimes we were generous when it hurt, right? And now for us to be generous when it hurts, It's like, yeah, yeah, like that's really—

that's what you're saying.

Like, it can actually happen. But that thing, that kind of thing can have a big impact. It could be like that person— I don't know what her— the person that gave us a $1,000 check, okay, which funded the garden, right, which got us to where we're at now. That is the turning point. Like, I don't know what her financial situation was. That could have been the whole entire $1,000 she had. I mean, I don't know what happened.

I don't know.

But I'm saying she chose to be generous in that moment, and this is the result. So now every time that we choose to do something similar, we can anticipate a similar— yeah, like unfolding, like yeast in bread.

So what's next for you guys then? What's your significant goals?

I want to be just like Justin Rhodes.

That is a lot to go.

Stop it.

I brought the wrong kind of hat.

He brought the wrong kind of hat.

Um, I mean, right now I will tell you there's a tiny bit of like survival struggle going on because we're building our farm from scratch. And it's almost like we kind of got to this place that we had this really broad view of where we wanted to go. And then starting back, we had to hone that back into our home. I think you guys probably experienced that when you came back here and had to start over building a farm. And it's like, what's right in front of you is is the most demanding thing. But I kind of am looking past when that is over, whenever we have our farm built and our infrastructure in place, our systems in place, and we're really wanting to move business out into our region, into the town that we've moved by. Um, eventually my big lofty goal is to have a learning center essentially like Polyface Farms meets Waco, Texas silos, you know, like, like that kind of thing. That will happen.

That's only 2 hours away from here.

That's great.

I'm excited that people can come to like a destination food spot that inspires you. Because like I said, like, we believe, like, if someone came to us and they didn't necessarily learn a particular skill at that moment, but they left inspired, right, right. The thing is, is you still have to go home. Even if you go to a conference where they have all this information, that's true, you still have to go home and start doing it. And you're not going to remember all the things that they said and all the— all the— and so you still just— but if you can leave inspired, you'll get on YouTube and watch Justin Rhodes or us or someone, right? And you'll get after it and make it work. And you're going to fail, you know what I'm saying? Getting through the failure, it's true. Like, each expansion of these successes levels has come with failure on the the other end. Yeah, right. Not making a wise financial decision, not doing this right, not doing that right. We're starting over on this farm and we honestly have no idea how to rotationally graze. This is what we're learning to do now, you know, pasture pigs. We didn't have enough grass. Like, rotationally grazing in Arkansas was like, well, you get this little patch of grass, don't eat too much of it though, I got to give a little bit to— you know what I'm saying? Like, we had no grass anyways. Like, so now we're like stewarding these fields. We're like, yeah, the summer grass dies and we've got green fescue. I'm talking like 10 inches high. I'm just like, we got some pasture, we got grass, like now let's do it right.

Yeah, yeah.

Where are the parts that are not great?

Well, you know what I'm saying? Oh, we're gonna be so much better.

Yeah.

And so like, but we're basically learning from square one again and failing. And you know, our cow falls down in her own poop and pee and, you know, but I'm saying like each— but we're getting after it because honestly we're inspired as much as we're inspiring people.

Yeah.

And so I think that's probably, for me, it's one of the driving forces for why I get up every day and all that. I mean, like meeting people when we go to events or when we've done book signings and stuff, like the stories of, I mean, just all from all, you know, the farming stories, hey, I just started my first garden, to I was depressed and contemplating suicide side, and we found your video, you know, came up on a something, and I watched it, and like, now— and it's just like, I've had— we've had so many testimonies. I mean, we've had testimonies, people being like, we were about to get divorced and we watched this video, this devotional Jessica did, and they saved their marriage, and now they're running their own YouTube channel that's being very successful. It's like, that's the kind of stuff that like really fuels Yeah, it feels me. Yeah, you know, the testimonies of what's actually happening, you know what I'm saying? When you're shooting a video and you're putting it out there, oh, people are watching it. Like, even for Jessica, like, those numbers don't really mean anything until you go to a conference and there's 3,000 to 4,000 people there that all know your name. You're like, oh, these are real people on the other end of this, right? And it's impacting lives and it's doing something. it doesn't feel like it's doing something when you work from home and you shoot a video from home and you upload it from home. All right, yeah, you don't really understand the impact. And so getting glimpses into like what's actually happening on the other end of our investment is a motivator.

Good for you guys. I'm proud of you guys. I'm going to take that generator starting up for the food truck getting here. We're going to have a showing of your show Wilder Still and our show Rooted.

And I have a question though for you.

Yeah, sure.

Where did you think think we're at?

Oh yeah, you're definitely in significance.

Yeah, you guys have made it.

And you may not know, it's not always clear, especially when you can look back and say it was the $1,000. You didn't know it at the time, right? Just saying. And we'll have to look back at and figure out, well, where did you jump from success best significance. We might not even know, but just the things you're saying— you're not saying, oh, I want to earn $5,000 a month so I can pay all my bills. You know, that would be somewhere in stability, right? But your goals are not— your goals are a coffee shop. Yeah, to blow up this town, the Silo Center, right? A restaurant.

That's a restaurant.

You're talking about going from a mentality of of poverty and just, ah, and just get the roof fixed to how can I make a difference.

Yeah.

And that's become your driver. So it's very obvious to me that y'all are in significance because now you're making significant goals as opposed to successful goals or stability goals or survival goals.

Nice. Did you—

where did you, where did you think you were at? I mean, obviously success.

Success, obviously.

You would, you would be in success.

But, you know, we don't have time to get into— we'll have to do a part 2 with you guys because what is success, you know? Yeah, monetary. We didn't get to touch family dynamics with you guys.

We kind of have to do that again. That'll leave everybody on the hook. You have a part 2 topic at home and we'll just talk about the important topics of the day.

You know, it's Success, you know, we're talking about— are we talking about monetary? Are we talking about happiness? Uh, family dynamics?

It has to be fulfillment. It has to be all that. You can be super rich and have a— be a horrible father. You're not successful. Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, but even, even looking at you guys on a holistic scale, you're still in that significance because we're going to watch episode 2 of Wilder Still tonight and you're talking— you're not concerned about so much about the animals and how they're Justin, you're, you're worried how are your kids doing.

Yeah.

And how are they taking this? And you're finding inspiration in the kids just going along with it and supporting you in that. Those are your concerns. So across the board, you have these significance concerns as opposed to— you're not worried anymore about getting them shoes.

No, no.

You're worried about how are they emotionally, yes, this change into our new life life of impacting the world. How are they coping with the glass house? How do I protect them in this glass house? These are—

how do I enable issues to be significant in their own right?

Yeah, there you go. See, that's getting into—

yeah, that's awesome.

Why we don't force them on the farm, how they'd be successful, right? But I mean, you know, as far as like the focusing on the kids, you know, when Toby was born, right? I think it was Toby was born. Asher came in and held him, and he looked down at him and he said he is so rare.

Oh, right.

And it's always stuck with Jessica and stuck with me. And the thing is, is like, if rarity, you know, the loose definition is, you know, something like limited quantity, you know, hard to find, like each person is rare because that's a good way to put it, iteration of that person. Yeah, there's no other person like Rebecca or Justin or Jessica or Henry or anyone.

And so, or Jeremiah.

Or Jeremiah. There might be others. But I mean, like, focusing on that part of your children, like, this is a one shot. This is, this is that time that you get with them, you know, to teach them how to make decisions and how to steward and all that. And, and so it's more important than the pigs and the cows, even though those are very important also.

Good word, good word. Where—

yeah, he's ready.

We've talked about— you, you've referred to your episode that's Wilder Still That's on Abundance Plus. Where else can folks find you?

Roots and Refuge Farm on YouTube.

Okay.

And rootsandrefuge.com is our website. And yeah, while there's—

Refuge on Instagram.

Yeah, Roots and Refuge on Instagram. We're just Roots and Refuge everywhere.

Okay.

All right, all right, good.

Yeah, you put in Roots and, it's probably going to come up.

We'll have a— we'll have you back.

Yeah, we're only a couple hours away now, so.

Yep, nice.

Thanks for coming.