I stole the title ‘Show your Work’ from the book by Austin Kleon. I read his book a while ago, felt inspired, and now I find myself writing about it, and the choices I have made because of it…

The Book
Regardless of what it is you ‘do’, some people share an interest in it. They want to know more about what it is you do. They want to learn from you. They want to exchange information. They want to share their interests and connect with like-minded people, people like you and me.
This may have been quite difficult to achieve a few years ago, when an individuals ‘reach’ was determined by where you live, who you know and often also by how wealthy you are. In recent years, thankfully, the internet has done away with those physical limits. Any person can now share their ideas online, and people from anywhere in the world can have access to those ideas, and connect with that person.
This reach can be immensely powerful.
The biggest limiting factor now is oneself. We have our insecurities, and we keep telling ourselves why we could not and should not do something. ‘I am not good enough’, ‘I am still learning’, ‘I am not a professional’, ‘What do I know’, ‘Nobody will care about what I have to say’, and so on.
In this book, Austin encourages us to put the self-doubt aside and to put ourselves out there, just as we are, right now.
He encourages us to just share whatever we are working on, and be real about it.
People will find you. Some will learn from you, and some will teach you something new. Others will help you in various ways. They will give you feedback. They will get involved in one way or another. You will form a community, and exchanges of all kinds will take place. Soon a network develops, and in that lies endless opportunity.
All you need to do is start sharing your work with the world. Put yourself out there! Attract your crowd.

My Work
In 2019, I became a certified Permaculture Designer. At that stage it had become a passion of mine, as I have been intensively YouTubing and reading about permaculture since late 2014, when I had first stumbled upon it online.
My time studying at the ‘Greening the Desert Project’ in the Dead Sea Valley, Jordan, was an absolutely incredible experience, something I might tell you more about in a future post.
After becoming a certified designer at this iconic permaculture demonstration site, I was full of fire and motivation to design ‘stuff’, but with no idea where to start. The more I learned, the more I became aware of how much I have to learn.
That brings us to today, a year and eight months later… I have learned a lot. I am still learning. I still do not know everything. ‘Same, same, but different’, as the Thai saying goes.

A Leap Of Faith
Therefore, inspired by the writings of Mr. Austin Kleon, I have decided to start where I currently am, and develop it from there.
I am not a professional just yet, but I do know a thing or two about permaculture and related topics. I will start the conversation with what I know and what I discover and learn in the future. I will now share what I am working on. My hope is that I will eventually attract my crowd. Those who can learn from me, teach me, help me, motivate me, and tag along with me in this experience.

The Foreseeable Future
My partner and I have recently finalised the purchase of an undeveloped property in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Here we intend to create our home; our ‘paradise’. We will design and develop it according to the permaculture principles and within the climatic, geographic as well as regulatory limits of the area.
This design and implementation process, amongst other things, is what I intend to share here over the coming months, possibly years. I will learn a lot and make mistakes. Things will go both ways, right and wrong. But we will take it as it comes, and share the experiences.
In doing so, I hope to build a community of like minded people, with similar careers, interests, passions and desires. We can then learn, teach, help and support each other wherever we are, with what we have and who we are, right now, and nobody needs to wait until they ‘know everything’.

In Conclusion
We are currently based in Mallorca, Spain. It will be a few months until we can make the move to Mexico and start the physical work on the property. But until we plant the first tree and lay the first brick, there is a lot to do. I will start working on the mainframe design of the property, and dive deeper into the details of the systems we intend to implement on our land.
So, for the next few months I will be sharing the behind-the-scenes and my approach of the design process. Then, once we get to Mexico, we will carry on with the physical work of implementing the design.
We most certainly are excited!

Thank you for reading this post, and I hope to see you again on the next one.

In the meantime,
· check out Austin and his work here: https://austinkleon.com/
· I recommend getting his book Show Your Work
· see the ‘Greening the Desert Project here: https://greeningthedesertproject.org/
· follow our project in Mexico on Instagram @permabaja