When you launch a business via a crowdfunding campaign it's almost in reverse. You have to go public and start rolling a little bit before you normally would. I was lining up for the leap but someone gave me a little push. I heard it being likened to throwing yourself off a cliff and making the parachute as you go down. Couldn’t agree more!

As I think about the past 12 months there are some smart things and some really dumb things I have done.... 

Not only is drone aficionado Meg Kummerow featured as our podcast guest this week, click here to listen, but she’s very generously answered some ‘get to know you’ questions for us too!

As you may have picked up from some of my previous posts, the financial planning part of a business is not my favourite. 

But speaking to Brian Costello from Financial Grace for this week’s podcast, I realised just how fantastic it is that there are people out there who live and breathe it. 

Brian has a diverse and interesting background, including a long career as a bush pilot before turning to financial services. 

He prides himself on putting the ‘service’ back into Financial Services and is very passionate about his rural companies and their success at having secure finances now and into the future. 

Mark Sowerby is Queensland’s Chief Entrepreneur- what an amazing job!

He was pretty reluctant to take on the role because he’s one of those incredibly energised people that take on a million things at a time and nail them all- not least his own brain child- Blue Sky- an alternative investment business and swimming the English Channel (to take a mental break !?) and being a family man as well. 

It’s not often that a dream job offer comes up in your local town. So Sascha Estens made her own. Wanting to stay in her beloved Moree, she started her own business, Rabbit Hop Films and has never looked back. She now services a huge market- locally, nationally and internationally, passionately telling the stories of rural Australia. 

Despite spending years trying, I can’t make more time in the day! 

Luckily there are people who spend their professional lives trying to perfect ways to better manage time. 

Like Jill Rigney, featured on this week’s Beating Around Bush podcast!

Jill has spent most of her career training people in regional and rural areas on time management through her business The Right Mind. http://www.therightmind.com.au/ourpeople

There’s not a lot that Kris Trevilyan can’t turn her hand to. She’s a self-confessed jack of all trades, master of few, but I think that’s a bit modest! Her (current!) day job is managing a cropping enterprise at Banana in Central Queensland, but she’s also an inventor, manufacturer and an alternative health therapist. 

So I got completely distracted while researching James Woodford from Youcamp before our recent interview. 

I haven’t been camping for years and all of a sudden I have a list of potential family holidays I want to do around our area that’s as long as my arm thanks to their website featuring amazing camping and accommodation options on private land. 

The concept of carbon trading and soil health isn’t a new one. But many industry stakeholders, including farmers/graziers themselves, still don’t understand the full potential of trading the carbon in their soil, or that in some cases, it could double their income.