Episode 47: A Solo Christa Special: Choosing the Farm Education Path That Fits the Life You Want
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Christa Hein: Hey there, Welcome to the Farm Educator’s Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, former nonprofit girl turned farm education entrepreneur. I've spent the last 30 years creating hands-on programs that connect people to the land, animals, and the traditions that nourish our daily lives.
If you're listening, you probably believe what I do, that farm education is needed now more than ever. Not just on rural farms, but in suburbs, cities, and everywhere in between. In this podcast, you'll hear real stories and practical advice from farm educators all across the country. People who are creating change through their programs in creative and inspiring ways.
Whether you're dreaming about starting your first program, are already knee deep in your own farm education work, or are just curious about how others are impacting their communities through farm education, you're in the right place. [00:01:00] Let's dig in.
Christa Hein: Hey there. Welcome back to the Farm Educator’s Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, and if this is your first time listening, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Usually this is where I'd introduce you to another farm educator and we'd spend the next half hour hearing their story. But today I want to do something a little different.
It’s now been a little over a year since I launched the podcast. 46 episodes so far about the amazing work that farm educators are sharing in their communities. I'm so proud and so glad that the podcast is resonating with people. Thank you to those that have shared your feedback about how this has been supporting and uplifting you.
Instead of interviewing another farm educator today, I wanted to talk about something that's been rattling around in my head. Maybe you're still dreaming about starting your first program, maybe you've been doing this for years. [00:02:00] Either way, I bet you can relate. One of the awesome things about working in farm education is that there's never a shortage of good ideas.
It seems like every few weeks another idea comes along that makes me stop and think, “Ooh, that would be fun”. For you, maybe it's a new audience you could serve, or another program you could add. Maybe it's something you saw another farm educator doing that made you think, “Why didn't I think of that?”
Hosting this podcast definitely has kept the new ideas flowing. I get off of an interview and think, well, that's a really great idea. Then I record another interview and think, well, now I kind of want to do that. I think that's just what happens when you're surrounded by creative people. You can't help but get excited.
I seriously have to watch myself around Pinterest, or I'll come back with boards full of ideas for my husband to build for the farm. Bless his heart. Ideas have never really been my problem, and [00:03:00] I'm betting they're not yours either. I think most of us have the opposite problem. We have too many good ideas.
That's what makes this hard, because we're usually not choosing between a great idea and a terrible one. We're choosing between good and good, and that's a much harder decision. When both ideas could genuinely work, when both of them sound meaningful, when you can honestly picture yourself enjoying either one. How do you decide?
That's what I want to talk about today. Because I think that's where a lot of us can get stuck. The problem isn't how to come up with more ideas. I think we're doing just fine in that department. The question is how creative people decide which good idea deserves to become real. Because after 30 years in farm education, that's a question I still find myself asking.
With so many good ideas, we can get [00:04:00] stuck in this limbo where we tell ourselves we're still researching. So, we listen to another podcast, we watch another YouTube video, we save another post on Instagram. We can convince ourselves that once we've gathered just a little more information, then we'll know what to do.
Sometimes that's totally true. Sometimes we really do just need more information, but I also think there's another reason we tend to stay there. Because as long as every idea is still just an idea, we don't have to let go of any of them. There's something kind of wonderful about possibilities. They don't have any fences around them yet. They're exciting. And they work perfectly.
None of your animals have escaped. The group is all well behaved. The client answers all your questions, and they're a delight to work with. Nothing has gone wrong. Your imaginary idea is doing great. [00:05:00] The real challenge starts when one of those ideas has to become a real business or a real program, or even just the next thing you decide to try.
One of the things I've loved most about doing this podcast is getting this little glimpse into how differently people can build their businesses. Before I started interviewing people from all over the country, I mostly knew the world I'd lived in. I knew the programs I'd been a part of, the educators in my area, the groups I'd worked with, and honestly, I thought I had a pretty good picture of what farm education looked like.
Then I started having these conversations and the diversity really struck me. I talked to someone who had built an incredible farm all around art and healing. Then the next interview would be with somebody building gardens with city kids to teach them how to grow food and how to grow their own job skills. Then I'd meet someone who'd [00:06:00] built a farm school with the most beautiful spaces for their little learners. Another would be sharing farm experiences with kids with special needs. Every interview amazed me and reminded me that there isn't just one picture of what a farm educator looks like. There are hundreds.
And here's what's interesting. Not one of those people made me think, “Well, that's the one right way to do it”. They just made me think, “Wow, that's another creative way to do it.” I think that's one of the things I love most about this profession, because there's so much room to build something that's uniquely yours. But I also think that's exactly why so many of us feel overwhelmed because if there were only one obvious path, we'd probably all just follow that path.
Instead, there are all these wonderful possibilities and they all come with different lives attached to them. [00:07:00] I don't know why I never really thought about it that way before. But somewhere along the way I realized I wasn't just looking at different businesses, I was looking at different lifestyles, different rhythms, different Tuesdays.
I think when we're dreaming about a farm education business or even dreaming about what comes next in the business we already have, we naturally picture our favorite parts. We picture the child holding a chick for the first time. We picture the family who pulls a carrot out of the ground and acts completely shocked and looks at us like we've just performed some kind of magic. We picture ourselves standing in front of a group of people who are genuinely interested in something that we care about. Those moments are real, and they're pretty amazing. They're a big part of why I've stayed in this work so long, but they're not the whole job.
What you don't see in [00:08:00] those beautiful moments are everything else happening around the edges. Somebody answered the emails; somebody cleaned the bathrooms or directed the bus where to park. Somebody made sure there were enough staff for the group that day. Somebody loaded the trailer, unloaded the trailer, and then loaded the trailer again. Somebody remembered to buy the feed, and on and on. If you're self-employed, a lot of times that somebody is you.
Maybe we spend so much time thinking about the moments we want to create that we forget to think about the life we're creating around those moments. And I think that's where we can accidentally get ourselves into trouble. Once I started thinking about it that way, I realized I could stop asking myself which business sounded the most exciting, and start asking a much better question. [00:09:00] Which version of farm education would I actually want to live?
Because that's really what we're choosing, isn't it? Farm education isn't just a business, it's a lifestyle. So let me ask a question that might help. What kind of Tuesday do you want? And I don't mean your perfect Tuesday, I mean your regular Tuesday. Not opening day, not the one Saturday in October when the weather is perfect and everyone's wearing their matching flannels. I'm talking about an ordinary Tuesday, the kind of Tuesday that happens 50 times a year.
When your alarm goes off, what does that day actually look like? Where are you headed? Who's waiting for you? Are you unlocking the gate because there's a school bus waiting to pull in? Or are you loading rabbits and chickens into the truck because you're heading to a library? Maybe you're greeting the same [00:10:00] 12 children that you've seen every Tuesday for the past six months. Maybe you're meeting a brand new group every hour. Those are all completely different days.
And here's the interesting part. You might be capable of doing every one of those. That doesn't necessarily mean you'd enjoy every one of them. We're so busy asking ourselves, could I do that? That we sometimes forget to ask, would I actually want to keep doing that? Because those are two very different questions.
For me, one of the biggest realizations over the years has been that the business itself isn't the only thing you're building. You are deciding what your weeks are going to feel like and who you're going to spend your days with. You're deciding whether your work comes to you or whether you go to your work. You're deciding whether you're energized by seeing a different group of people every day, or whether you'd rather build deeper [00:11:00] relationships with the same families over time.
Those aren't little details. That's your life. And I think we can accidentally treat those questions like they're the fluffy, feelings based questions, like, we'll just figure those out later. First, we'll build the business. Then we'll worry about whether we actually enjoy running it. But I don't think it should work that way. I think those answers belong at the beginning because your business is eventually going to become your normal Tuesday, and Tuesdays have a funny way of turning into years.
Let's start with one example. Maybe your perfect Tuesday is on your own farm. You picture opening the gate because a school bus just pulled in. Kids are climbing off the bus. They're excited to be there, and you get to teach them in the place where everything actually happens. The gardens are right there; the animals are right there. If you're talking about compost, you point to the compost pile. If you're talking [00:12:00] about maple syrup, you're standing under the maple trees. There's something really special about that. The farm itself becomes part of the lesson.
I completely understand why so many people dream about building that kind of business. I worked in that kind of business for 15 years and I loved it. But here's what I think we can forget when it's all just theoretical. When you invite people onto your farm, you're inviting people onto your farm.
I know that sounds like I repeated myself, but I don't think I did. One version of that sentence is the dream. The other version is the reality. The dream is watching a group of kids discover your favorite place. The reality is wondering if the bus can actually make that turnaround in your driveway or remembering you meant to move that pile of lumber before today's program. Or having staff at your door needing to problem solve before you've even [00:13:00] finished your morning coffee. Those aren't necessarily bad things. They're just part of that version of farm education.
And here's where I think that knowing yourself becomes really important. When I look at my own small farm, I know myself well enough to know I don't actually want people coming here every day. I love the privacy. We don't have room for buses. We don't have a separate education center or public bathrooms. And honestly, I like that. That's not a limitation I've had to work around. It's one of the reasons I built the business that I built. My business, Bring the Farm to You, exists because I realized I'd rather pack everything up, go out into the community, teach a great program, and then come home again. That rhythm fits me.
Now, somebody else might hear me say that and think why on earth would you load all those animals into a trailer every day when you already have a farm? Which is a completely fair [00:14:00] question, because for them, staying home might be the dream. They might love showing kids how the seasons change on one piece of land. They might love watching families come back year after year and build memories in the same place. They may be perfectly happy solving parking problems and bathroom questions because what they gain is worth every bit of it.
Neither of us is wrong. We're just building different Tuesdays. And I think that's a really important distinction because I don't think we ask ourselves often enough which hard parts am I actually willing to live with? Every business has hard parts, every single one. You're not choosing between a business with problems and one without. You're choosing which problems come with a life that still feels like yours.
And that's why I think sometimes we start with the wrong questions. Not because they're bad questions, they're actually really important questions. [00:15:00] A lot of us are just wired to jump straight into business mode. How much should I charge? Is there enough demand? Who would pay for this? What kind of insurance do I need? Can I make this profitable? Those are all really important and you absolutely need good answers to those questions. But sometimes we can get so focused on the details of building a business that works, that we forget to ask whether it's a business we'd actually enjoy living inside of, because those aren't the same thing.
We can build a business that makes money and still quietly dread parts of it every single week. Or you can build something that fits your personality so well that even the hard days still feel like they belong. I think that's what we're really trying to figure out. Not just what could work, but what fits you.
Here's a simple example. Let's say somebody told me there was [00:16:00] incredible demand for weekend farm birthday parties, and let's say they were right. Let's say I could make more money doing birthday parties than anything else. That still wouldn't automatically make it the right business for me because I'd also have to ask myself, “Do I actually want to spend most Saturdays doing birthday parties?” Now, somebody else might answer, “Absolutely, I love birthdays!” Great. That's useful information. But if my honest answer is no, not really, I shouldn't ignore that just because the market likes the idea.
The same thing is true if you absolutely love having people at your farm, or if the thought of strangers pulling into your driveway every day makes your shoulders tighten, pay attention to that. That's information. I think sometimes we treat those kinds of answers like they're somehow less important because they're personal, almost like they're selfish. We tell ourselves, I shouldn't base a business on what I [00:17:00] want. But why not? You're the one who's going to wake up and live that Tuesday every week. If your business creates the exact life that you were hoping to escape, that's probably something worth paying attention to before you spend years building it.
Now, that doesn't mean you ignore the practical side. You still have to ask all the business questions. Is there a demand? Who pays for this? Can I deliver it professionally? Can I price it in a way that's actually sustainable? Those questions matter. They matter a lot. I just don't think they get to be the only questions in the room. I think the personal questions deserve a seat at the table too, because at the end of the day, we're not just building businesses. Remember, we're building our lives.
One of the reasons I feel so strongly about all of this is because my own journey in farm education didn't start out looking anything like it does today. [00:18:00] Sometimes people hear me say I've been a farm educator for 30 years, and I think it accidentally sounds like I had some grand master plan. I promise you I did not. If only. It would've saved me a lot of trial and error.
What those 30 years actually look like are a whole bunch of different seasons, different opportunities, ideas that worked really well, ideas that I thought were going to work really well. And didn't times when I realized, oh, I'm actually better at this than I thought I'd be. And other times when I realized, you know what? I don't think I ever want to do that again.
I think that's just a part of building something. Bring the Farm to You certainly didn't appear fully formed. I didn't sit around the kitchen table 15 years ago when I launched my business and somehow predict every program we'd offer, every kind of client we'd work with, how many staff we'd eventually have, [00:19:00] or all the things I'd learned along the way.
I started. Then I paid attention. And honestly, I think paying attention has probably shaped this business as much as planning ever did. Every year the business taught me something. Sometimes it was encouraging, sometimes it was really humbling. There were programs that were more popular than I expected, some that I absolutely loved that just didn't catch on the way I thought they would. Sometimes I realized I enjoyed teaching a specific audience so much that I wanted to build more around them. And sometimes I realized a program everyone else loved took so much work behind the scenes that I found myself quietly hoping that nobody booked it.
I don't know if you've ever had that experience. You look at your calendar and instead of thinking, “Oh good, you think, “Oh, right, that one.” Okay, that's [00:20:00] useful information. Not because it means you're doing something wrong, but because it's teaching you something about yourself. I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to make the perfect decision at the beginning that we forget that businesses are supposed to evolve to teach us things.
There are things you simply can't know until you've actually done the work. You don't know what it's going to feel like to load the trailer twice a day until you've loaded it twice a day for a month. You don't know whether you love teaching preschoolers more than fourth graders until you've spent enough time with both. You don't know whether you enjoy running big public events or small recurring classes until you've experienced them both.
Real life has this way of giving us information that we couldn't have gathered any other way. And I think that's why I want to take a little pressure off the word “choose”, because choosing your path isn't the same thing as locking [00:21:00] yourself into it forever. You're not signing a contract that says, this is the only kind of farm educator I'll ever be. You're deciding where you want to begin. That's very different.
Businesses grow, they change, they respond to the people you're serving, and hopefully they respond to the person you're becoming. I also think there's an important difference between letting your business evolve and trying to build every version of it all at once. A business evolves because you start paying attention. You notice what people keep asking for. You notice what fills first. You notice which programs leave you energized and which ones leave you completely drained.
Your business starts teaching you things. Trying to build everything at once is different. That's usually fear talking. It's that little voice that says, but what if I choose the wrong thing? What if I leave something [00:22:00] out? What if I should be doing all of it? I understand that feeling because every one of those ideas probably could become something someday, but I don't think they all have to become something today.
Now I do want to make an important distinction here because I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying. I am not telling you not to think ahead. Please think ahead. In fact, I think one of the smartest things we can do as business owners is to have a long-term vision. If you're building a barn, don't build one that's already too small for the business you hope to have five years from now. If you're putting in fencing, designing a driveway, planting an orchard, or making any other investment that's difficult and expensive to change later, absolutely think beyond today. Future you will be really thankful you did.
But there's a difference between planning ahead and trying to build everything ahead. Future [00:23:00] you doesn't need present you to solve every future problem this month, or implement every idea on your Pinterest board this year. I think that's where so much of our overwhelm comes from. We aren't just trying to solve today's questions, we're trying to solve next year's questions and the questions from three years after that, all before we've really gotten started.
I think vision and focus actually go together. Vision is knowing where you're headed. Focus is deciding what deserves your attention today. You need both.
I'll give you an example. Let's say you've decided your long-term vision is to eventually have families coming to your farm for field trips and camps. Great. That vision might absolutely influence where you build your driveway, where you put your parking area, or how you lay out your property. [00:24:00] Those are smart decisions to think ahead about.
But it doesn't mean that this year you also need to have birthday parties, homeschool classes, summer camps, field trips, a preschool and traveling programs all figured out before you've successfully launched your very first program. Those are different kinds of planning.
I think one of the biggest gifts we can give ourselves is permission to say, that's a really great idea, just not yet. I don't know why we tend to treat “not yet” like it means never. It doesn't. Sometimes it just means that's not what I'm building first. And every time you decide what isn't today's work, you make more room to do today's work really well. I've had to learn that lesson myself repeatedly.
I wish I could tell you I always stayed focused. I don't. I've chased shiny ideas just because they were exciting [00:25:00] or because I could see the possibility. I still do once in a while. I think that's just part of being a creative person. But over the years I've realized something: clarity doesn't limit you, it gives you momentum. Choosing one direction doesn't mean closing the doors on all the others. I think it just means opening the door right now wide enough that you can actually walk through it.
The other doors don't disappear. If they make sense later, they'll still be there. You're simply deciding which one deserves your full attention first and not trying to build and walk through five doorways all at once. And honestly, I think that's why so many creative people feel stuck. Not because they don't have enough ideas, but because every good idea is demanding equal attention.
I don't think our job is to stop having ideas. I think our job is to decide which one deserves to become real first. Because once something is [00:26:00] real, it starts teaching you things, and those lessons are almost always more valuable than another six months of trying to think your way to the perfect answer.
So, after all of that, you might be thinking, “Okay, Christa, this all sounds great, but what am I actually supposed to do with it?” Honestly, I don't think your job is to have all the answers. I don't think you need to sit down with a blank business plan and map out the next 15 years of your life. I think your job is something much simpler.
Pay attention. Really pay attention. The next time you hear about a farm education program that makes you stop scrolling, don't just think, “Oh, I want to do that.” Get curious. Ask yourself, what was it about that that caught my attention? Was it the age group, the relationships, maybe the creativity, the fact that they were outside all day? Maybe the flexibility or the slower pace? Was it the chance to build something [00:27:00] that really belonged to them? Keep asking yourself, why?
Because the first answer usually isn't the deepest one. Maybe you think I want to start a farm preschool. Okay. Why? Is it because you love the idea of teaching the same children over time, or because you like the rhythm of recurring programs, or because you want your farm to become a part of someone's childhood? Those are three different reasons.
Or maybe you find yourself thinking, I want to take animals into schools. Why? Is it because you love teaching? Is it because you want to be a farm educator but don't want the public coming onto your property? Or because you like the idea of bringing agriculture to kids who might never get to visit a farm again? Those answers point you in slightly different directions.
I don't think most of us are wanting to copy somebody's business exactly. [00:28:00] I think we're trying to understand what about it resonates with us. Sometimes another farm educator isn't showing you your future, they're simply helping you recognize yourself in a piece of it.
I think that's one of the biggest gifts this podcast has given me. Every interview reminds me that there are so many beautiful ways to do this work, but it also reminds me that I don't have to build every beautiful idea I see. Sometimes, I just need to pay attention to why one of them made me stop and think, because that's usually a clue, not an instruction. A clue.
And over time those clues start painting a picture. Maybe not overnight, maybe not even this month, but eventually you begin to notice patterns. You keep getting excited about the same kinds of relationships, the same kinds of learners, the same kinds of experiences, and after a while, it starts becoming a little [00:29:00] easier to trust what you want. Not because someone else finally gave you the answer, but because you've been collecting your own.
And honestly, this whole idea is exactly why I ended up creating something new that I'm really excited about. Over the last year, I've talked with so many people who want to get into farm education or who are already doing it and trying to figure out where to go next. And you know what I've noticed? They're usually not short on passion. They're definitely not short on ideas. What they're looking for is clarity. They want somebody to help them sort through all the possibilities.
That was the idea I was holding as I worked on a way I could offer that kind of support through a quiz, not because I wanted to put people into neat little boxes, actually, kind of the opposite. I wanted to give people a place to think through the questions we've been talking about today. Not just what sounds fun, but [00:30:00] what kind of life am I trying to build? Who do I really want to serve? What kind of Tuesday do I want? Because I think once you start answering those questions honestly, the path usually starts becoming a little clearer.
So if it'd be helpful for you, if you could use a little clarity, there's now a tool that might help. The “Discover Your Farm Education Path” quiz. The point is definitely not to have people think, well, I guess that's who I am forever. In fact, I hope you don't treat the results like a label at all. I hope you treat it like another clue.
Maybe you read your result and think, yes, that's exactly what I've been picturing. Great. Maybe part of it surprises you. That's interesting, too. Or maybe you realize, you know, I like parts of this, but the thing I'm really drawn to is over here. That's useful. Because remember, the goal is to help you recognize what resonates most. [00:31:00]
That's why I keep coming back to this idea of paying attention. Pay attention to the ideas that keep pulling at you to the work that energizes you. Notice which hard parts you're actually willing to carry. Pay attention to the Tuesday you keep picturing. Those aren't random thoughts, they're clues. And if you pay attention long enough, those clues might start pointing in the same direction. You don't have to see the entire path before you take the first step.
I certainly didn't. Most of the people you've heard me interview on this podcast didn't either. What they did have was enough clarity to take the next step. Then they paid attention. They learned, they adjusted, and over time, their path became clearer. I think that can be true for all of us.
If today's conversation has you thinking, okay, it's time. I stopped collecting ideas and started sorting through them, [00:32:00] I'd love for you to take the quiz. I'll put the link in the show notes. And when you get your results, don't just read them. Sit with them for a little while. Notice what feels exciting, notice what feels uncomfortable, notice what feels like you. Your reaction is part of the answer, too.
Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know this episode was a little different than our usual interviews, but I hope it gave you something to think about the next time you find yourself heading down another Pinterest rabbit hole or dreaming up your next big idea. Because there will always be more good ideas. The challenge isn’t finding them; the challenge is deciding which one deserves to be your next step.
Thank you for joining me on another episode of the Farm Educator’s Roadmap. If this episode resonated with you, please follow the show and share it with someone who could use a little clarity [00:33:00] as they plan their own paths in farm education. And until next time, keep dreaming, keep growing, and keep connecting people with the land.
