Excerpt from Book: Meg…From Marketing to Urban Farmer and Author

Here are some excerpts and quotes from the chapter on Meg.  You can find her on Twitter @bkhomesteader

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“My advice for people who are looking to start their own business or quit their 9-to-5 is to be comfortable being poor,” says 31-year old Meg, an urban farmer, instructor, and author.  “You have to really be comfortable with the idea of it, but also be really hungry for something more than you have.”

Originally from Baltimore, Meg decided to shake up her life by moving to New York City five years ago.  She worked for a small company in children’s fashion, doing account management, marketing, and whatever else was required.

Having grown much of her own food since childhood, Meg knew if she was going to be happy, she would need to do the same in New York.  Having also taken a beekeeping course in Maryland for fun, she remembers finding out there were people in New York City breaking the law to keep bees.  Health codes prohibited the possession, keeping, harboring and selling of “venomous insects”, which included bees, at the time.[i]

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!  I want to break the law!’” she recalls with laughter.  She asked her landlords if they would be open to the idea of putting a beehive on the roof and got the green light.

While other beekeepers hid their identity due to the legality issue, Meg put herself out there and reporters started using her name in the press for a legalization campaign.  As she became more involved with her hive and gardening, Meg began to realize that sitting behind a desk at work was a bad thing for her.

“Physically, I started to feel unhealthy.  My attention span got really short, I was consistently drifting off into space, and I knew I didn’t want to continue doing that for much longer,” she says, while acknowledging how supportive her bosses were of her urban gardening.  “The job was great because I got a lot of really good experience.  But I also know how to sit on my ass just fine in front of the computer.  I wanted to do something a little more than that.”

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To read more and find out how Meg changed the course of her career, you can purchase the book in Paperback here.  Or on Kindle here.