We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful LeeAnna Tatum. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with LeeAnna below.

Alright, LeeAnna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I first became concerned about food production in America when I was working on my capstone project while completing my Master’s Degree in Public Administration. The project included creating a virtual nonprofit – mine was devoted to animal welfare. During the process, I met someone who was an animal advocate and challenged my views on eating meat.

A lifelong carnivore, I had given thought to where meat came from but was not well-informed about how animals used for meat were being raised and treated prior to harvest. (This was 15 years ago and long before much public attention was given to animal welfare in the meat industry). A few minutes online had me convinced (not to mention nauseated) that I could not continue to participate in eating meat that was being produced for general consumption here in the US.

Not really wanting to choose the vegetarian route, I began to research if there were other options available to me. This opened up a whole new world (to me) that actually fell in line with how I thought animals were being raised in the first place – on farms with pastures, open air, clean water – you know like the lovely photos of farms we see on packaging everywhere.

The deeper I dove, the more I began to see how so many of the issues that we face come down to a single choice we each make every day – the food that we eat. The food we choose to purchase, supports the systems used to generate that food; and the system most Americans are supporting is contributing to problems with health, the environment, economics and animal welfare.

But there is an alternative. There is a way to choose food that is produced sustainably, with care for the environment and the welfare of the animals. This system also happens to positively benefit local economies and overall health. It’s truly a win-win-win.

I discovered a few things during my personal journey that led me to found Southern Soil. First, it was hard for me to find the types of food I was looking for – I really had to put in a lot of work to connect with farms in my area. And second, when I read about sustainable farming or farm to table restaurants that sounded great, they were always far away. I wanted to read about farms and restaurants in my area and I was certain that they existed.

When I founded Southern Soil, my intention was to make it simpler for local people to find local food and to read the stories of area farmers and chefs. I wanted people like to me to know they weren’t alone in their desire to eat food that was wholesome and to know that the meat came from animals that were allowed to live out their natural instinctive behaviors in a low-stress environment.

I wanted to create a space that would facilitate conversation and action to propel the growing local food movement forward in Southeast Georgia where conventional farming is still very much at the forefront.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is LeeAnna Tatum, I am a writer, publisher, photographer and podcaster sharing my views of the world one word and one image at a time!

My career path has been anything but direct, so I have a rich background in manufacturing, higher eduction administration and nonprofit management. But it was when I stumbled into a job with my local newspaper that I discovered my true vocation – writing!

I rekindled a lifelong love of writing and was amazed to realize that I could actually make a living doing something I loved, not just something I was good at.

Having a broad base of experiences to draw from has helped me be able to understand and write about an array of issues and it helps me be able to relate to people no matter their line of work or socioeconomic background.

About 5 years ago, I created and launched Southern Soil which is an online platform for promoting and celebrating the local, sustainable food movement in Southeast Georgia. Through that platform, we publish a digital magazine and podcast that shares the stories, ideas and passions of the people behind our local food. It’s more than just covering a farm to table movement, it’s about advancing the conversation around food production, food justice, food security, and so much more!

It is our goal to bring together consumers, producers, and purveyors of local food; to celebrate what’s good; to endeavor to change what isn’t; to learn from different perspectives. And to join together to grow the local food movement right here at home where sugar sand meets red clay and pine forests morph into marshlands and agriculture abounds, but fresh food can still be ironically hard to come by.

With each person that I meet and each story that I share, I gain a greater understanding and appreciation for the cycles and circles of life and the ways in which every aspect of our lives is interrelated. And that’s what I want to convey to our readers. It may seem like a magazine or a podcast about food and farming, but when you dig down deep into the topic of food – you realize that it connects to just about every aspect of life.

Southern Soil has allowed me to bring together my skills as a writer, photographer and storyteller with my passion for promoting a food system that is localized, respects the farmer, good for the planet, humane, and healthy! I get to spend my days having impactful conversations with awesome people. I get to visit farms and interact with animals. And I get to enjoy amazing food prepared by the best chefs in the area!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Wow. It’s hard to choose. There was a time in my life when I bitterly bemoaned my familiarity with “square one”. I have come to view those … shall we call them pivots? … a little more graciously over the past few years.

From layoffs and hostile workplaces to an economic turndown, it seemed like my work life was always full of unexpected turns that felt like setbacks. The dreaded “square one”, where I felt like I kept finding myself due to no particular fault of my own, was a very frustrating and disheartening place to be.

I eventually came to the understanding that what felt like “square one” was really a whole new place. It was more like a landing on a spiral staircase, it seemed like I wasn’t getting anywhere, but in hindsight I could see that I really was advancing upward.

Each of those situations taught me lessons that I needed to learn – sometimes they were lessons about myself, sometimes it was learning a new skillset – but all the lessons have served me well as an entrepreneur.

I’ll focus on one specific pivot to make the point. Having already gone through many twists and turns and unexpected setbacks, I found myself (at 33 years old) with a newly minted Master’s Degree in Public Administration just as the economy took a nose dive in 2008.

The public sector was not hiring ANYONE at that time, let alone executive level administrators. I was left scrambling for literally any job I could find. This meant working temporary and seasonal jobs, doing menial work and wondering if I had just thrown away the last two years of my life and an accumulated 15 years of work experience and higher education.

I grabbed at a lifeline, a job as a staff writer and ad salesperson at the local newspaper in the small town where I lived. Demoralized, downtrodden and completely discouraged; I took this job out of sheer desperation.

Little did I know that I would not only discover a natural talent for interviewing and unlock my love of writing; but I would also learn new skills and make important connections that would be invaluable to me as I started my own business a few years down the road.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Oh so many of them, where to begin?

As I came up through school and as I entered the workforce there was a recurring lesson throughout – the importance of conformity (following rules, fitting in and doing things the way they’re “supposed” to be done).

It’s a lesson I’m sure we’ve all learned in one workplace or another with comments like “that’s not the way we do things around here”. It’s certainly the lesson for the Public Sector where rules and regulations reign supreme and creativity is most certainly not appreciated.

I knew what it took to make it as a top executive in the public sector. I knew how to look the part and how to walk the walk and talk the talk. I was always very good at my job, capable, hardworking, determined and eager to move up the ladder.

But I was miserable.

I didn’t exactly know it at the time. It was really only after stumbling into starting my own business that it fully dawned on me how unhappy I had been.

You see, I’d spent my entire life striving to be someone that I’m not. I was trying to thrive in a world that was designed for extroverts. I was working so hard to succeed in an environment that required conformity when I was an outside-the-box thinker. I was bending over backwards trying to fit into a workplace that had no space for someone like me.

I’m what we politely refer to today as “neurodivergent” which just means that my brain is wired differently than what is considered typical – I’m a dyslexic introvert with ADD. Under the usual conditions of a standard nine-to-five job, these differences were more often than not, obstacles that I was forced to overcome.

However, as a creative and an entrepreneur, I consider them my super powers! I think that I’m an excellent example of how one can truly flourish when given the freedom and space to do so!

Typical workplace environments reward extroverted behavior. But as an introvert, I had spent a lifetime learning to be an excellent listener and I have put that skill to good use! I have a way of putting people at ease and engaging them in meaningful conversations (not small talk) which serves me very well both as a writer and a podcast host.

While ADD will always present a host of challenges to running a business, there is a lot of technology available today that helps to mitigate many of those pesky problem areas like: time management, scheduling and organization.

But as an entrepreneur and small business owner, I like to put my ADD to good use. Anyone who owns a small business knows – you have to wear a lot of hats! Having a broad variety of tasks to do helps keep my everyday work interesting and engaging. There’s never a dull moment.

There are always new skills to learn, new projects to start and new challenges to overcome. This helps keep my ADD brain engaged and working for me, not tripping me up and getting in my way (as it did in some of the more mundane nine-to-five jobs that were very routine-oriented).

And here’s the thing about dyslexia; it is largely described as a learning disorder, but the truth of it is that it’s simply a different way of processing information. We’re visual thinkers and studies have shown that those with varying degrees of dyslexia also exhibit “big picture” thinking and have excellent problem-solving skills.

Who doesn’t need skills like that when starting a new business?

The lesson I unlearned was quite simple. I had to unlearn who the world had told me I needed to be in order to succeed and learn who I really AM!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.southernsoil.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southern_soil_magazine/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southernsoil
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeannatatum/
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/lee.anna.tatum/ https://www.instagram.com/southern_soil_podcast/ https://anchor.fm/southernsoil