Jim Gale | Food Forest Abundance: Solutions, Visualizing Success, & The 12 Permaculture Principles
Jim Gale is the incredibly vibrant and positive founder of Food Forest Abundance. We discuss Jim's vision for this company and the possibility of "saving the world" by turning yards into food! We also talk about taking visualization practices to the next level, and watching life in the external fractal expand as we take more responsibility for our life force energy within.
The Plus+ Extension with Jim Gale contains talk about enlightened selfishness, regenerative capitalism, the 12 Permaculture Principles, cryptocurrency, the controlled demolition of the current economy, and much more.
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In this episode
Core themes
Turning lawns into food forests
Jim Gale calls America's roughly 50 million acres of lawn the biggest mass brainwashing scam of all time, arguing that lawns take more human energy and more poisons than any other crop while yielding no food for people. He says a well designed food forest needs less upkeep than a lawn, pointing to a 700 square foot patch of about 30 species that he says has needed no maintenance for over a year, and to a partner's tenth of an acre holding 63 edible and medicinal species. Chance and Jim both picture a new Garden of Eden, with food growing everywhere.
Goals, visualization and a new story
Jim traces his turnaround to a painful state final loss in high school wrestling and a three page goal sheet from his college coach. He says he spent two and a half hours writing that he would become a three time All-American and national champion, telling himself a new story, and by his account went on to become a four time All-American. Quoting Napoleon Hill, he argues the edge of potential is only what the mind can conceive and believe, and he credits later business success to setting an intention, reverse engineering the steps and following inspired messages.
Chance's tree of life visualization
Chance admits he was once discouraged by people who dismiss the law of attraction as culty, and he agrees action is required, but he says holding a vision lets the next step arise on its own. He describes starting each visualization rooted in the trunk of the tree of life, drawing light into his body one section at a time before picturing what he wants to become. Citing the hermetic principle of mentalism, he notes that someone had to picture a chair before building it, and Jim answers with Einstein's line that imagination is more important than knowledge.
Raising your vibration over fear
Both men treat personal energy as the root of experience. Jim draws on David Hawkins and Power vs. Force to say emotional states are tied to vibration and that raising it is our joyful duty, and he argues no amount of suffering he feels can help anyone else. That lands for Chance, who has wondered whether he must visit the valley of sorrow, and who says the only thing anyone controls is their own vibe. Jim describes a period when his finances collapsed and he chose, walking down a sidewalk, to go full speed in faith.
Building Food Forest Abundance as a cooperative
Jim recounts planting thousands of fruit trees at a demonstration community in Costa Rica, which he says the government shut down in 2012 after an official sought a payoff. His current company took off after a letter to Del Bigtree led to a segment on The HighWire, and he says it now helps people grow food in 15 or more countries. Calling the permaculture principles the best business model, he describes throwing out a 244 page franchise document for a two page cooperative contract, backed by a 54 hour course featuring Geoff Lawton and Bill Mollison and a 45 page blueprint for each yard.
Quotes
“It's a waste of resources. The lawn takes more human energy and more poisons than any other crop, and it provides no food yield, at least not for people.”
“The edge of potential is only what your mind can conceive and believe. Like Napoleon Hill said, whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
“Everything really does start in the mind. Before there's a chair built, someone had to picture that chair in their mind.”
“There's no amount of pain and suffering that I can feel that can help anybody do anything.”
“The only thing you even have any control or responsibility over at all is your vibe. Only worry about managing that, and the rest of the world takes care of itself.”
“I started with a 244 page franchise disclosure document and an 89 page operations manual. It made me sick. I threw it in the trash because every line in there represented control or fear.”
“Cheap food doesn't exist for me. This is just what food costs. This other stuff isn't even food.”
“Start adding value, and then the value will come back to you like a mirror.”
Jim Gale is the founder of Food Forest Abundance, a company that converts residential yards into productive food-growing systems built on permaculture principles.
See all Jim episodes→Kyle and Serena Denton are community herbalists creating wild-crafted and organic plant medicines out of Milwaukee since 2015. I have used their teas and tinctures on an almost daily basis for years now. Kyle is a great friend of InnerVerse and has appeared on the channel more times than I can count. These products work, not in the allopathic "pharma-medicine" way, but in a terrain-support, consciousness bolstering plant-teacher sort of way.
