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The Regenerative Mindset:The Goose who thought he was a chicken: - Coggle…
The Regenerative Mindset:The Goose who thought he was a chicken:
Q1. Can you tell us how this all started — what made you go to a composting toilet workshop in the first place?
Friend bought a remote wood on the Isle of Wight.
Saw Gavin & Lucy on Ben Fogle’s New Lives in the Wild.
Sent him the link — he booked us both on it as a surprise birthday gift.
Expected toilets. Got a life lesson.
Q2. What was it about the workshop that surprised you most?
It was way more than toilets — it was a masterclass in observation, design, and letting systems do the work.
Quote from Gavin: “I’m most interested in what I don’t have to do.”
It's not laziness — it's elegance. Systems that thrive with less intervention.
Q3. Talk to us about the nettles and the chickens — what’s going on there?
Nettles = abundant, wild, high-protein, calcium-rich.
Gavin was sneaking nettle powder into family meals.
Breakthrough: mixed it with mashed potatoes and fed it to chickens.
Created a high-protein, zero-waste feed from “unvalued” ingredients.
Line: “He turned base nettle into gold.”
Lesson: Value is often hidden behind what we overlook or discard.
So you met a goose called Mr Duck who thinks hes a chicken? I have so many questions!!
Goose hatched from an egg meant to be eaten — raised with chickens.
Likely thinks he is a chicken.
Someone asked if they were raising him for food.
Gavin: “Some things are more valuable than protein. Knowledge is one of them.”
He observes Mr Duck to understand what geese need — so he can build systems around them, not just use them.
Insight: Not everything needs a commercial or consumable outcome to have value.
So where does this link back to business and leadership?
Start with what’s already there.
Observe first.
Design for harmony, not just output.
Questions we should ask in business:
What do we think is waste that might be valuable?
Are we defaulting to effort when smarter systems would set us free?
why are we all chasing “Protein” or "Profit" when the real value is in insight?
Q6. You made a comparison to elite athletes — tell us more about that.
Big businesses hire from elite sport for focus, resilience.
But there are other kinds of elite performance.
If permaculture were an Olympic sport, Gavin and Lucy would be gold medallists.
They train daily — not in gyms, but gardens.
Their metrics: soil health, community resilience, closed loops — and clean loos.
It’s a high-level operating system for sustainable life.
So...This isn't just about toilets and chickens… is it?
Global systems fixate on end products (profit, yield, power) and end up devouring their foundations.
Permaculture offers a different model:
Regenerative
Observational
Self-sustaining
Could be applied at the level of boardrooms, parliaments, neighbourhoods.
Line: “Not survival in spite of the system, but survival because of it.”
If someone wants to learn from this way of thinking, where should they start?
Spend a day with Gavin and Lucy at Permaculture Island.
It’s not just a course. It’s a mindset reset.
“If you observe properly and listen well, you’ll leave with something far more valuable than the course content.”