Episode Eighteen - Leaving the rat race - From burnout to regenerative living
“Out of a very terrible burnout and depression came actually something beautiful”
Kim Taylor, Coach, Founder Little Dutch Farm & co-founder Little Regenerative Farms
Kim Taylor, founder of the Little Dutch Farm, joins us from her traditional Dutch ‘Stolp’ farmhouse, just north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands as autumn starts to arrive in Northern Europe. She shares her journey from a career in cleantech and sustainability, through burnout, miscarriages and the death of her father, to discover the restorative power of nature and creating a very different way of working and living.
The conversation touches on grief, nature connection, garden therapy and regenerative leadership, and how time on her land gave her the space to slow down, reflect, heal and reconnect. She is now on a mission to support others and offers different experiences to support individuals and small groups at the Little Dutch Farm. Research is currently underway on her six-week garden therapy programme in partnership with academics from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University of Amsterdam) to explore the evidence behind nature-based approaches. It is hoped the results will build credibility with GPs, psychologists and the wider mental-health system in the Netherlands.
She recently launched Little Regenerative Farms, a network of small regenerative farms around the world, where her vision is beautifully simple: places where nature restores people, and people restore the planet. Kim talks openly about the practical realities; from financial barriers to land access and challenges of renovating a 1900s farm, alongside the power of collaboration and building a sustainable business model.
From growing food and restoring biodiversity to creating a global network of small regenerative farms, Kim offers a hopeful and practical vision of what a different future could look like: one rooted in connection, community and taking things one zone at a time.
Listen here.
About
Kim Taylor is a nature coach, garden therapist and founder of Little Dutch Farm, a regenerative farm in the Netherlands where nature is used as a guide for personal growth and leadership. After 19 years in high pressure, fast growing companies, Kim's own burnout became the beginning of a different path, one rooted in soil, seasons and the nervous system rather than performance and productivity.
Through nature coaching, garden therapy and regenerative leadership programmes, she works with individuals, teams and leaders who are ready to slow down, reconnect and lead from a more grounded place. Her work sits at the meeting point of planetary health and mental health, showing how the two restore one another.
Kim has just launched Little Regenerative Farms, together with Little Portuguese Farm, an academy and license model bringing this way of working to farms around the world. The vision is simple: places where nature restores people, and people restore the planet.
Website: www.littledutchfarm.com / www.littleregenerativefarms.com
Insights
Bewitched by the novel... True Human: Reimagining Ourselves at the End of of Our World - one of the most hopeful and inspiring books to read on how to navigate the times we are in. I love how she frames this current time in human evolution as being in an adolescent phase, which is very immature, selfish and egoistic, but that we can emerge from this and evolve to be so much more conscious, loving and 'truly human'.
Inspired by the quote... 'What if it IS possible' - a dear friend who encouraged me that it is possible to leave the rat race, follow your dreams and build Little Dutch Farm. It became a mantra for the first two years of setting up my business and moves me from a place of fear to a place of love, abundance and hope.
Self-described relationship with nature... A lifestyle. We are outside as much as possible, We are working, cooking, living in the garden on the farm, alone, as a couple, with friends and with work...I love it and wouldn’t want it any other way.
Favourite pastimes... Cooking, being with friends, gardening, walking with Balou our Bernese Mountain Dog, retreats, new experiences, discovering
Behind the scenes image... our little farm life family and it reminds me how important and fun it is to be on this journey together with my husband Pim. I couldn't do it without him. And of course how much joy and love our animals and garden gives us daily.