Happy MLK Day! It is a day of new starts: it's still early in the New Year, the new Administration has peacefully taken power and there is a new cease fire in the Middle East. So far, so good (but really super cold!

Several of us are planning to start new things in 2025. New workout plans, new diets, book clubs, neighborhood gatherings, garden plans, new businesses, new side hustles...the list is endless.

Some people decide to go "all in" on their new thing or endeavor. Is it an obsession or just intense focus over time? Some folks in the self-improvement world have coined the term "Monk Mode" to describe this process of going all in. There are benefits and drawbacks to Monk Mode, and Adam and I are talking about them in ANT Live 14.

Here are our show topics:

Catching Up
Definition of Monk Mode
Benefits of Monk Mode
Drawbacks to Monk Mode
Tips for Successfully going into and out of Monk Mode

It should be a great show!

Catch ANT LIVE on the Small Scale Life YouTube Channel at 7:30 PM Central on Monday evenings. Adam and I talk about mindset, small business, wellness, gardening, homesteading and other topics that come up.

Remember to learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that, my friends, is a good thing!

~ Tom

LINKS:

🌱A Modern Frontier Website: https://www.amodernfrontier.com

🌱Small Scale Life Website: https://www.smallscalelife.com

🌱Small Scale Life Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/4raJ4B...

🌱Small Scale Gardening Group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/dua9Po...

🌱Small Scale Life Wellness Club Group on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/rd2j...

DISCLAIMER

At Small Scale Life, we are not medical professionals, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, or therapists. We are not in or connected to the medical community. Always consult a professional before trying any of these activities or any practice. Create and live your Small Scale Life as you choose, but do it carefully. Any actions you participate in are voluntary and at your own risk.

To see more about gardening, connecting with nature, wellness, mindset, and interviews with some cool people, check out the Small Scale Life Podcast and our site at https://smallscalelife.com

Learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that, my friends, is a good thing!

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

In this 243rd Episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, your host Tommy Cakes takes the helm for a Just Tommy Cakes Show. Adam is sick, so Tom is going to take the time to dive into the following topics:

1. The potential TikTok ban and how it could affect Small Scale Life
2. Changes to the Small Scale Life website to make it more functional and organized
3. Tommy's 2025 Garden Plans (big changes to the Small Scale Garden)
4. What Backyard Birds are hitting the Suet Feeders
5. Answering Audience Questions and
6. Talking about the direction of Small Scale Life going forward

It has been a while since Tommy has done a solo Live Stream, but he ended up covering a lot of topics in an hour! For show notes and more information, check out https://smallscalelife.com.

Catch ANT LIVE on the Small Scale Life YouTube Channel at 7:30 PM Central on Monday evenings. Adam and I talk about mindset, small business, wellness, gardening, homesteading and other topics that come up.

Remember to learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that, my friends, is a good thing!

~ Tom

LINKS:

🌱A Modern Frontier Website: https://www.amodernfrontier.com

🌱Small Scale Life Website: https://www.smallscalelife.com

🌱Small Scale Life Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/4raJ4BdYYnqSspeV/?mibextid=K35XfP

🌱Small Scale Gardening Group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/dua9PobD1A82ANXC/?mibextid=K35XfP

🌱Small Scale Life Wellness Club Group on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/rd2j5aR2TBPgchy7/?mibextid=K35XfP

DISCLAIMER

At Small Scale Life, we are not medical professionals, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, or therapists. We are not in or connected to the medical community. Always consult a professional before trying any of these activities or any practice. Create and live your Small Scale Life as you choose, but do it carefully. Any actions you participate in are voluntary and at your own risk.

To see more about gardening, connecting with nature, wellness, mindset, and interviews with some cool people, check out the Small Scale Life Podcast and our site at https://smallscalelife.com

Learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that, my friends, is a good thing!

In this 242nd Episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, Adam and Tom put the icing on the cake by talking about 2024 Wins, Losses and Lessons Learned. It is an interesting blend of small business and gardening. Speaking of interesting blends, Tom shows off a new creation from the kitchen and takes a bite on the air!

Catch ANT LIVE on the Small Scale Life YouTube Channel at 7:30 PM Central on Monday evenings. Adam and I talk about small business, gardening, connecting with nature, mindset, homesteading and other topics that come up.

Remember to learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that, my friends, is a good thing!

~ Tom

LINKS:

🌱A Modern Frontier Website: https://www.amodernfrontier.com

🌱Small Scale Life Website: https://www.smallscalelife.com

🌱Small Scale Life Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/4raJ4BdYYnqSspeV/?mibextid=K35XfP

🌱Small Scale Gardening Group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/dua9PobD1A82ANXC/?mibextid=K35XfP

🌱Small Scale Life Wellness Club Group on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/rd2j5aR2TBPgchy7/?mibextid=K35XfP

DISCLAIMER

At Small Scale Life, we are not medical professionals, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, or therapists. We are not in or connected to the medical community. Always consult a professional before trying any of these activities or any practice. Create and live your Small Scale Life as you choose, but do it carefully. Any actions you participate in are voluntary and at your own risk.

To see more about gardening, connecting with nature, wellness, mindset, and interviews with some cool people, check out the Small Scale Life Podcast and our site at https://smallscalelife.com

Learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that, my friends, is a good thing!

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas, friends! Glad Jul! Happy Winter Solstice! In this 241st Episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, Adam and I are going to be discussing how we are getting ready for 2025 and setting the stage for success.

We have 9 days left of 2024, and then this chapter of our lives closes and becomes a memory. It has been an interesting year: we started this livestream, Adam attended a lot of farmer's markets, and I built a new garden. Things are moving along on a number of fronts, and now it is time to take a deep breath and think about this year and what we would like to accomplish in 2025.

Catch ANT LIVE on the Small Scale Life YouTube Channel at 7:30 PM Central on Monday evenings. Adam and I talk about mindset, small business, wellness, homesteading and other topics that come up.

Remember to learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that’s a good thing!

~ Tom

LINKS:

🌱A Modern Frontier Website: https://www.amodernfrontier.com

🌱Small Scale Life Website: https://www.smallscalelife.com

🌱Small Scale Life Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/4raJ4BdYYnqSspeV/?mibextid=K35XfP

🌱Small Scale Gardening Group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/dua9PobD1A82ANXC/?mibextid=K35XfP

🌱Small Scale Life Wellness Club Group on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/rd2j5aR2TBPgchy7/?mibextid=K35XfP

DISCLAIMER:

I am not a doctor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a therapist. I am not in or connected to the medical community. Always consult a professional before trying any of these activities or any practice.

Create and live your Small Scale Life at your own risk, but do it carefully and at your own risk. All actions you participate in are voluntary and at your own risk.

To see more about mindset, homesteading, adventures and interviews with some cool people, check out the Small Scale Life Podcast and our site at https://smallscalelife.com

Learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that’s a good thing!

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

In this 240th Episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, Adam and Tom discuss watching drones, surviving Christmas gatherings and closing out 2024. Besides the conspiracies and parody songs, Adam and Tom discuss 9 Tips for Surviving Christmas Gatherings, which Tom admits he will be putting into play this week! From drones flying around our county to our Christmas/Yule Plans to Closing our 2024, Adam and Tom (the ANT Squad) covering a lot of ground tonight.

Maybe it was the full moon, maybe it was the winter solstice energy, maybe it was the old Yule traditions...whatever it is, we are covering it tonight. We look forward to our awesome audience providing input and questions as usual,. and I am sure we will dive down some strange rabbit holes with these topics.

Oh come, all ye faithful
Joyful and triumphant
Let's talk about
Magic, technology, Old Gods, Old Ways, traditions, the New Year and aliens....why the hell not?

The ANT Live Show is every Monday at 7:30 PM Central on the Small Scale Life YouTube Channel. We then post the audio on the Small Scale Life Podcast as soon as we can....barring any reindeer, aliens or drones!

Ho Ho Ho! Drink your drinks with your pinky out, and let's go!

Catch ANT LIVE on the Small Scale Life YouTube Channel at 7:30 PM Central on Monday evenings. Adam and I talk about mindset, small business, wellness, homesteading and other topics that come up.

Remember to learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that’s a good thing! See you tonight!

~ Tom

LINKS:

🌱A Modern Frontier Website: https://www.amodernfrontier.com

🌱Small Scale Life Website: https://www.smallscalelife.com

🌱Small Scale Life Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/4raJ4BdYYnqSspeV/?mibextid=K35XfP

🌱Small Scale Gardening Group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/dua9PobD1A82ANXC/?mibextid=K35XfP

🌱Small Scale Life Wellness Club Group on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/rd2j5aR2TBPgchy7/?mibextid=K35XfP

DISCLAIMER:

I am not a doctor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a therapist. I am not in or connected to the medical community. Always consult a professional before trying any of these activities or any practice.

Create and live your Small Scale Life at your own risk, but do it carefully and at your own risk. All actions you participate in are voluntary and at your own risk.

To see more about mindset, homesteading, adventures and interviews with some cool people, check out the Small Scale Life Podcast and our site at https://smallscalelife.com

Learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. And that’s a good thing!

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

In this 239th episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, Adam and I discuss attending small town tree lighting ceremonies and building new barrel garden planters. We also discuss the 2024 Acres USA Eco-Ag Conference including new trends in Regenerative Agriculture and homestead and small farm business ideas.

Adam attended all four days of the conference, and he had a chance to attend presentations from Gabe Brown, Mark Shepard, and even Joel Salatin. He got to shake hands and rub elbows with a lot of leaders in the Regenerative Agriculture world Adam will lead the way and give us a recap of what he learned and what interesting things are coming down the pike in the Regenerative Agriculture space. I am curious if Joel Salatin talked about his new position as an advisor in the new administration and ant new policies he will be pushing.

At the same time, our audience provided some good feedback and interaction with us, and Adam and I had a chance to brainstorm about what we would do to start a small business on a 8-agre homestead. Adam has an 8-acre homestead and has had a lot of irons in the fire, and I had a 10-acre homestead before moving to The Landing. We come up with some interesting ideas, and our listeners appreciated the brainstorming session.

For links, support and other information, check out the Small Scale Life website at https://smallscalelife.com.

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

In this 238th Episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, my friend Adam and I discuss how to cook a turkey including brining the turkey, spatchcocking the bird vs. cooking it whole and how we serve the turkey to family and guests. We discuss our favorite side dishes and a couple failures in our Thanksgiving dinners (homemade stuffing).

This podcast will be connected to a much more in-depth guide on Small Scale Life titled "How to Cook a Turkey for Thanksgiving." In that guide, I walk you through thawing a frozen turkey to brining the turkey (with three different brine recipes), spatchcocking the turkey, quartering the turkey, and cooking the turkey.

Check out the article on Small SCale Life, and let me know what you think at [email protected]. If you have any tips or recipes, let me know!

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

In this 237th Episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, Adam and Tom discuss 20 Simple Steps for a Better Holiday Season.  By using these 20 Simple Steps, we cannot guarantee that you will have a joyous and calm holiday season, but we can definitely say that you will be lined up for success since you are ready mentally and have prepared for what is coming.

Gatherings and obligations wash over us like the raging gales of November, and if we are not careful and do not plan, we can be dragged down the dark and cold depths like the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior. The Gales of November and December are starting to pick up; can you feel them?

It doesn't have to be that way.

It shouldn't be that way.

How can we do better and be better to avoid these storms during the holidays?

The answer is found byy following the advice from my Assistant Scoutmaster days: "Planning and being prepared." As I look back on what was successful during the holidays (and especially at what wasn't), it really comes down to having a plan and executing. It also comes back to being able to laugh, go with flow and not getting wrapped around the axle of agendas, poor planning and endless guilt trips. You do that by not taking yourself too seriously and not having a plan.

We have 20 simple steps, but you never know, we might come up with a few more along the way. I am super excited to talk about Step 16: Establish New Traditions.

For links, show notes and support, check out more at https://smallscalelife.com. Please note: the article has a lot more of my commentary about each of the 20 Steps.

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

In this 236th Episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, Adam Rick leads the way as he discusses how to find your first customer when launching a small business or even a podcast. To do this, Adam relates finding customers to fishing in a northern lake for big walleyes. It wasn't easy, but they ended up catching some massive fish after striking out for two days! The same thing happens in business.....

The parallels are very obvious and make a lot of sense as he walks us through a story about his fishing experience in the Great White North. After two hard days of fishing, his group found the right spot holding the right fish, used the right bait, and kept at it until they caught some beautiful monster walleyes. It took persistence and the right amount of work to land those big fish, and the same process can be used to land your ideal client.

It isn't easy. Sometimes it is a lot of hard work and isn't fun. The lake is full of other hungry fishermen that are trying to load their stringers with keepers, and it's up to us to read the lake, understand the behavior of the fish, go where they are and keep on casting (or jigging).

For links, support and show notes about the 10 Steps for How to Find Your First Customer and some more of my thoughts on the RFK Fast Food scandal, check out my post at smallscalelife.com.

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

Can you actually Manifest Your Future?  Do your dreams and goals seem to be out of reach?  For many of us, we never feel like we are good enough to achieve much of anything.  We sometimes feel like it takes all of our energy to get out of bed and drag ourselves to a J-O-B.

But we are meant for so much more than that.  The world is a big, amazing place that is full of opportunity if we are willing to work for it, but we tell ourselves we can't do better, we couldn't do better and we don't deserve better....so we don't ever try.

Let's try to break that pattern and stinking thinking, shall we?

This week on ANT Live, Tom and Adam are going to talk about Dreams, Goals and How to Manifest Your Future.

Manifesting your future is an exciting and empowering process that combines clarity, intention, action, and belief. While it’s often associated with visualization and the Law of Attraction, the underlying principles of manifesting your dreams and goals are more about aligning your thoughts, emotions, and actions with the future you desire.

I am sure you are saying, "Sure, that sounds good and all, but how do you manifest your future?"

As I have gotten older, I realized from my own experience that it is possible to manifest your future.  You can achieve those dreams and goals, but the keys are aligning your thoughts, you actions and your focused intensity over time.  It is possible, especially when we understand the execute on the 9 steps for Manifesting Your Future.

I am sure Adam has a lot to say from his own experience. After all, he is manifesting his dream with each Farmer's Market and sale!

Special Guest: Adam Rick.

How do you find your passion? Do you even know what your passion is?  If you know what your passion is, are you doing something that taps into that internal fire that lights you up?

Many of us have a skill, a talent, knowledge, experience, ability or product that we create or do without thinking about it. We have that secret something or interest that drives us and lights us up. Some of us take it to the next step and create a hobby out of that thing. Others tell us that we are "really good at that thing and could sell it or make a business out of it." Some of us take that step forward and create that business or follow that passion in our career.

There are others, however, that struggle with finding that thing. They don't seem to have that bright fire for one particular skill or thing.

In this episode, Adam and I are focusing on how to find our passion. We hope to answer the following questions:

• How can you discover your passion?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of following your passion?
• What are you willing to sacrifice for your passion?

Not everything is rose petals, rainbows and unicorns. The rose does have thorns, and there are some drawbacks of following your passion, and Adam and I will talk about those things as well.

 For links and show notes, head over to Small Scale Life Website!

Special Guest: Adam Rick.