Part 1

Planning Your Escape

I went from a dead end day job to being self-employed, earning over 3x as much, & living life on my own terms, & YOU CAN TOO!

I’ve raised almost 150k in crowdfunding in the past 6 years, launched 9 online courses, and published 16 books in 6 languages. My online courses are used in schools, workshops, and homes on all continents except Antartica. My advanced program and books are accredited, aligned to standards, and peer-reviewed. I work with scientists, educators, researchers, farmers, mycologists, citizen scientists, students, and families from all walks of life and from all corners of the earth. I’m a former high school teacher but I never intended on being a teacher - it was all a freak accident.

I was a touring and studio musician in NY city, supporting my family with my bass, catering, and coatchecking in nightclubs - at one point I had 6 jobs to pay for our 2 story Brooklyn apartment. I had the privilege of playing bigger stages, recording in legendary studios, playing with amazing people, and traveling to beautiful locations, but I wasn’t saving money, I was still living paycheck to paycheck, and I was starting to see that even folks I’d loved and respected that were known weren’t making much money. It was at this time that I began teaching music at a private music school and began working on my first book: The Matt Powers Guitar Method - it was a book of visual music theory to help my students understand higher level concepts earlier on in their development. It was at this time that my wife was also first fighting cancer and she asked me to leave NYC and to move out west to recover with her mom to help which would in essence end my career and derail my progress as a musician. We prayed about it, and while I didn’t like the answer I got, we left the east coast, and while I did have the pinnacle of my career out west in LA (and truth be told I was back in the studio last week in LA working on a track by my son and a grammy winning artist), at the time, 10 years ago I wasn’t making enough money to afford to stay in the game and my family needed me badly. They were up near Yosemite and I was down in LA have the time or touring the country with two bands. I grudgingly became a substitute teacher in Fresno and Madera, but soon found myself a full time teacher and dedicated student advocate - my heart was drawn to their situation: something had to be done. It was a nightmare come to life - they had no real options, no real education, and no marketable skills being taught. 6th graders were being groomed by police officers in the classroom daily to join the military. 11th graders were being given hop on pop to read. And all the while the real focus was to keep them in class, keep attendance high, to net the $100 per student a day from the government - I found myself not only drawn to their situation, I soon found myself caught in it with them.

I was stuck in my in-laws refurbished mechanic garage and woodshop, now with two boys, more bouts with cancer behind us, more debt, and with each passing year they’d raise the cost of healthcare just a bit higher than the increase in my salary, so I’d earn a bit less than I did year 1 every year even as a tenured head of the English department with a Masters degree in Education. Over the years I’d learned to save more and more money applying permaculture, growing gardens, saving seeds, and living more simply. Then I heard about Geoff Lawton’s Online Permaculture Design Course, a “PDC”, and my wife revealed she’d been saving money in secret and we had EXACTLY the amount it cost to take his course. We went for it, and I got to ask all my higher level questions, and dive deeper than I’d ever gone into permaculture, BUT it didn’t make me any richer - I put in a ton more swales, bought a bunch more trees, and used a ton more water which all concerned my family and in-laws. I got enthusiastic and soon had a bigger system but still no savings, no earnings, and only the promise of abundance in the future, and I realized I needed to make something that helped me more directly and I realized the only way to do it was to figure out how to help someone else to such a great degree that it would come back to me. I decided to do the thing I was trained to do, the thing I’d been doing every day for years, and the thing I knew how to do well: I decided to write up new curriculum but this time for Permaculture not English, Music, or History. I asked permission of Geoff to turn his entire course, the PDC, into a book set, and with his blessing and advice along with advice and reviews from a half dozen leading experts, I did just that, and Geoff and Nadia had it translated into Arabic, and it’s what HE uses in his Arabic PDCs. By going to all the experts, getting their blessings, their advice, and their promotion, I blasted through my Kickstarter goal in only 3 days - my first campaign was a bold, stallion of success, and it immediately made me realize that I DID have a way out. I DID have choices. I could CREATE & DESIGN my future, and step INTO IT.

Do you have a dream? Do you have a desire? Do you want OUT?

Are you afraid of what tomorrow brings? Are you ready for a New Future?

Let’s dive into a Framework that will help you make it happen.

Now we can generate our GAME PLAN - plotting your course through your brainstorm, seeing the excess ideas and options as backup plans and alternate routes, you can devise the shortest path to your goal. You may bootstrap your life for 6 months but come out of it with a new career, new life, and new bounce in your step, freed from your current circumstances.

You know where you want to go, how you want to serve, what steps need to be taken, and how to accelerate the process: now it’s up to you to go out and make it happen.

Find that higher education from people who have actually launched a proven profitable regenerative business. Personal growth is directly linked to progress in your business - the more skill you gain, the better your business will perform: go after those new skills both your business niche and soft skills, your enthusiasm, your mindset, your heartset. This is the lynchpin in everything.

Find your team, your peers, and your mentors, surround yourself with them, and start focusing on your vision every day, every morning, every night, and throughout your day as many times as possible. Print out this framework, fill it out, and post it on your wall. Print it out small and keep it in your wallet or purse, but FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS and you will start to see progress.

Just Imagine…

You follow this framework, you fill it out, you print it out, you find help, you find the funding, you find the resources, and you are now months into the process… You’ve quit your job… You’ve stopped thinking about what could go WRONG and instead you are caught up and your full self is ALL IN with your mission. You wake with it on your mind and you go to sleep with it too - and it’s a pure joy, you LOVE it, and you’re growing DAILY, helping more and more people as you see yourself improve and grow into your new role. Your making more money than you did in your old job, you have more time, and you love it - you feel FREED by the work, it brings you clarity and energy, and you can’t imagine doing anything else. Your cup overrunneth with joy and gratitude because YOU KNOW this is your PURPOSE the reason you were born, the fabric of who YOU ARE.

BUT if we don’t pursue it with focus and a framework, we’ll be lost to all the whims of the day, everyone’s emergency quickly becomes our own, and we are mired in the details of a day that is no longer focused but stuck in reaction and other people’s priorities. We’ll have to stay in that job just to keep going because we won’t have confidence in the leap to the new life. You’ll hesitate on that edge and stay put, watching your dream vanish over the horizon and out of sight.

Follow your PLAN - Make it Happen - Your Future is POSSIBLE but it’s going to take WORK. You’re going to have to make sacrifices. You’re going to have to make hard choices. But in order to get the BEST, you have to say NO to the REST and that means saying no to the GOOD and the GREAT… think about that, in the process of building your Best Life you’re going to push away, say NO, refuse, and remove the GOOD & the GREAT… because there’s only so much time, there’s only finite space, only finite attention, you have to make CHOICES & take Chances to get ahead. So plan well, & be BOLD, because tomorrow is soon today.

Join our Regenerative Entrepreneurs group on Facebook & LinkedIn & post your plan. Get support & feedback from the group & get EXCITED & INSPIRED!! YOU ARE POSSIBLE - so let’s do it!!

I’m Matt Powers.

Grow Abundantly, Learn Daily, & Live Regeneratively.