Behind the Mic: Urban Farm Podcast with Greg Peterson

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Hey, hey amplify you family. Michelle Abraham here your host. This is a behind the mic interview with host of the urban farm podcast, Greg Peterson. Greg, how are you today?

Fantastic. Thanks for having me. Okay, well, I heard about this.

Absolutely. Well, I we met recently at one of our challenges for our podcast Sales Machine. And I was very inspired to hear about your podcasts that you've had going for six years, which is awesome. had over 3.2 million downloads to your podcast. So Holy cow, that is like a strive. You know that a lot of people, first of all six years is like an ancient time in podcasting time. So that means like you kept consistent and kept going for six years, which is incredible. So congratulations on that. And reach over not just a million downloads, but 3.2 million downloads is also an amazing, amazing feat. So tell us about your show. How did it get started? What was your vision with it?

Really my vision with it is to share with my listeners people's stories about gardening. from small to large. And what I do is a it's two parts. There's two parts to the podcast, there's the interview part. And then there's the questions part. And the interview part. What I do is I get the get the guests sharing about what's their heart work. What do they do in here? Why do they do it? And it really just tells their story. It's basically it's their origin story. Like how did this happen? I've had people on the podcast from rock stars, literally Jason Mraz was on my show. Jason. Yeah, he right. He has an avocado and coffee farmer in San Diego County. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, all the way down to Joe and Susie, backyard gardener. And you know, and that, that breath, breath between them is really important so that people can, you know, they can say, alright, well, I can go do Rockstar work, like, you know, all these guys are doing, or I can just get started. And it shares their successes and failures. And then the second part of my podcast interview is five questions. And the first question, in my opinion, is probably the most important question. And I asked people tell me about a time you failed, and what you learned from it? Because when you're starting to grow things, you're gonna fail.

Yeah. And if you're feeling right,

and you have to be okay with failing, because that's where we fail forward. Right? And that's where we learn things. Think about it, those people in the world that never fail. There's not generally, there's not a whole lot of work that they've done in the world, right? Well, that fail a lot, generally, do a lot more work in the world. They're just because they're not afraid to step out. And the reason that question came to be is because in 2004, I started a business 2003, I started a business, and it was, go big or go home was really my attitude back then, which was the death knell of that business is that I went bigger, went home, I went big and didn't go home. And in retrospect, I lost about 80 grand on it. And in retrospect, it was, well, I didn't really want to be in that business in the first place. So that was a good thing for me. What I would have loved to have done is rather than starting out at 80,000 plants, the first season started out at 8000 plants and I would have lost, lost less money. And at the same time, I would have could have could have probably learned the same lesson. So that's really where that question comes from. Is You know, to showcase to people, you know, it's okay to not get it right every time. And then I follow it up exactly then with the next question of Tell me about your biggest success. So they can you know, okay, this is where I failed. This is where I succeeded. And then the next question is, what is your big why? Why do you do what you do? And this gives them an opportunity to, you know, it's about my kids. For me, I never had kids, but it's about the kids.

Yeah, that's about kids.

Yeah, about the future generations, what are we leading the future generations? That has? I never wanted kids. But that has always been in my mind, what are we doing as a culture to nurture the future generation of kids that are coming in. And so we get all kinds of, you know, stories about what their big wires and then I asked them to share a book title, primarily because I'm always looking for good books to read. And, and then I asked them for a piece of advice. And so that's, usually the podcasts are somewhere between 25 minutes and 45 minutes. I just let them go. Until they conclude themselves. And I've had like I said, I had Jason Morales on I've had David Holmgren who was the co founder of permaculture this guy's an international rocks Rockstar in the permaculture arena permaculture I like to call the art and science of working with nature. And Joel Salatin who is a rock star and farming, and what I do with them, I don't limit them. If I get an opportunity to talk to them, I just let them talk. And you know, Joel, both Joel, all three of the people that I mentioned, I got two or three episodes out of their conversation because I just I just let them go.

Let them go curious. What do you do with you with those five questions that you asked at the end of every interview? Have you made them into like a book or turn them into something like have you taken those and extrapolated them and like made something with them? I think that would be so cool. After 700 People at the ask those questions. It's gonna be really cool content in there.

Oh, my gosh, that's an interesting idea. Yeah. Like even

this, like each of those questions on their own could be an own book like asking 700 People like what this? What is your WHY like, oh, crazy. You think of like the chicken soup? For the soul book series? Right. Right. Yeah. The farmers for the farmer soul. So cool. Anyways, just to give you some more work to do, but just that was just something I was curious.

That's a good idea. That's a great idea. Thank you. One of the things so I had a podcast prior to this, it was called freshly green. It was in 2006. We did 40 episodes, a years worth of almost a year's worth of episodes. And I also was, when I went back to college, I went to the farmers market, I was actually harvesting food out of my front and backyard and I was going to the farmers market. And one of the things that I learned in both of those cases was that if I wasn't consistent at the farmers market, or if I wasn't consistent with my podcast, I'd lose people the next week. And so when I started the urban farm podcast in 2015 So actually, I think this has been we're coming up on seven years

is the only thing you can do and as long as my daughter has been alive

and I we signed up for John Lee Dumas is a podcasters paradise course they it was, I don't know, 1500 bucks or whatever. I am a lifelong learner and I, I for me, it's really important to engage with people that are better at something than I am. And if they have something to offer me, it's like, Oh, tell me what do you got? And one of the big takeaways from podcasters paradise was be consistent. For the first three years of our podcasts we put out three episodes a week. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of work and and so and for the balance of the last three and a half years we've been putting out one episode a week, which is actually much more doable, right? Yeah, much more sustainable. And we have never missed a podcast episode ever mister pocket podcast and we've never missed a we've they've all been new. Yeah, we've never gone back and pulled one of the old ones and

sleeve replayed any extras. Yeah, that's amazing. So how so what do you think has been the success of your show? Do you think that like, obviously over 3 million downloads, you got some listeners. So what is it about your show that you think is drawn so many listeners yet?

The format? For sure, because it's storytelling. Bottom line is, this is storytelling. I bring people on and I let them tell their stories. And I'm, I let them tell their stories. I don't, you know, in a interview like this, I might have, you know, in a 45 minute interview, I might be talking for seven minutes, maybe. So I let them tell their stories. And I find guests that have done cool things, whether it's Joe, backyard gardener, doing a cool thing in his neighborhood, or in the backyard, or whether it's, you know, rock stars of the world. And I people like hearing stories, for sure. Yeah, people like hearing stories. So I think that's a big piece. As I mentioned earlier, the consistency piece is really important to us. Yeah. Huge. Yeah, don't miss an episode. And part of how I do that John Lee Dumas taught me this as well. I batch them. You know, I do batches all like the first week of August, we're going to record for the next three months.

So yeah, I'm a big fan of batching, too. I'm new to batching just the last like year or so that I've been doing it, but like, this is my seventh interview today. So I was doing batching because I'm doing two different podcasts. But we're doing batching once a month, covers me for both podcasts for the month. Right. So that's really Yeah, so I am enjoying it. Because I'm in the flow of it. It's just my podcasting day get to talk to a bunch of cool people, you know, you're in the flow of it. I really love the batching thing. It's, you know, it's much easier to do that into like, interpretate, go do a podcast interview, then go do sales, or then go do something else. And yeah, it's always lovely. It's really cool. Yeah. And now you like you can take breaks, right? So we had a lot of clients earlier this summer that wanted to take the summer off. And I was like, Great, take the summer off. Batch all your episodes in March, April, May, so that it doesn't feel so overwhelming. And your podcast doesn't lose that momentum. Because they've seen it over and over like the charts just go from listeners to hear after even a week or two of missing a show. All that hard work goes down goes. Because you lose your listeners chest. Yeah.

Yeah, that's huge. That is huge.

Yeah. So great for

plus, plus, it takes all this energy to get things rolling. Yeah. And if you take some time off the energy kind of declines over time, then it takes a lot more energy to get it back rolling again.

Right? Absolutely. So for a podcast listeners listening right now that are home still thinking about podcasting, or thinking this might be a thing for them. What is something that you wish you knew, when you now that you know, now that you wish you had known back when you got started?

I'm gonna say, the way that I talk to people, interviewing people, is a bit of an art. And I listened to probably two years of podcasts and more specifically, John Lee Dumas, JLD over Entrepreneur on Fire, to see how he was interacting with people. I have been on episodes, I've been in interviews where I was being interviewed, and I had to drive the interview, right? I have a very specific script that we use, that drives the interview, so that I don't have to think about that. And then I have a team that helps me get the person that I'm interviewing set up. So that when they step into the interviewer of the podcast, we both know what's going on. And we both know how it's gonna go. And so I started by reading the bio that I have for him, I say, You know what, I'm gonna read your bio here, make sure I got it. Right. And that starts the conversation going and, and, you know, I've had some people on my podcast that are harder, you know, they gotta pull harder to get it out of them. And other people that, you know, it's like, go and they, they're gone. They're not there. They're off to the races. So no,

I just say another word for another half an hour. Right? Right. Yeah. Do you find that people specifically a lot of people that you're interviewing around urban gardening or urban farming don't aren't used to being on podcast so is that something that you had to kind of get used to educating your, your listeners and or educating your guests unlike how to show up on a podcast?

We have a very specific system setup. When I find somebody I want to have on my podcast, I send them a link They sign it, they pick a time, a time and date. And at the same time, they're told that they're going to have a conversation with Janice, my manager for 15 minutes before the date of their podcast. So I'm getting, and that's usually two or three days beforehand. I'm getting people that are already prepped. Right. When we step into the interview, which makes all the difference in

what they're doing, and I needed podcasting, they have a microphone.

Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so that helps a lot. And, you know, sometimes people are a little nervous. And especially the ones that are starstruck. You know, I was I was at an event. A week after I moved to Asheville. It was a plant sale. I walked into this booth. I had my shirt on. And this guy in a worm booth. A worm composting booth. looks at me looks at my shirt. He said, Oh, my God. You're Greg Peterson. I listened to your podcast all the time. It's awesome. Right? And so we had a conversation, I got a hug. And his dad was excited to meet me and his wife was excited to meet me. And then I invited him to be on the podcast.

Oh, that's so cool.

Right? Yeah, exactly. And he has a story to tell though. He started a worm, casting a worm composting business four years ago, out of nothing out of the air, or he'd never garden. He'd never done any of this. And he started this business. What a great story to tell. So when he arrives, I already knew from Janis that he was a little nervous. So all spend five or 10 minutes on the phone with him saying, You know what? This is just a conversation between you and me. Yeah, that's cool. All right. It's a conversation that we're gonna, we're gonna have. And you were just friends. We're going to just chat. And you're going to tell me your story. And here's the thing, once people start telling their story, yeah. Good luck turning them off.

Right, right. People love talking about themselves.

Because it's their story. Yeah. It's their how they did what they did. How exciting. Is that? Right? Yeah. So.

Oh, I love it. Those are so great. Great. Good. Thank you so much for sharing them with us today. Hey, if our listeners want to find out more about you, obviously, listen to urban farm podcast.com. And there, tell them what else you've got going on over there.

Oh my gosh. Well, it's so the urban farm. Urban farm.org is my website and urban farm podcast lands there. And we give online courses. We have monthly chats that we do. I have in Phoenix, I have a urban farm fruit tree program that I've run for the past 22 years that even in living in Nashville, we still run that so there's all kinds of information on how to grow food, how to garden.

That's awesome. So cool. So if you guys had piques your interest, go head on over to urban farm.org Check out what he's up to. And definitely tune into his podcast given worldview and tell him that you've given him a review your heard him on your podcast, right, that makes podcasters hearts sing. So make sure you head on over there. Give him a great review. And Greg, this has been so much fun. Thanks so much for being on amplify you today and love this behind the mic interviews and right back. Gotcha. Awesome. All right, amplify, you finally go out there. Have a fabulous day. We'll see you again next week.