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PODCAST

My Self Reliance Podcast

Welcome to the Cabin. I’m Shawn James, the host of the My Self Reliance podcast and YouTube channel.This is the story of how I am withdrawing from modern society to pursue a free, natural, healthy, meaningful and satisfying life and how you can too. Join me as I build an off grid homestead in the wilderness complete with log cabins, an outdoor kitchen, a wood-fired sauna, lumber mill, vegetable garden, fruit orchard, food forest and haven for wildlife.

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All Episodes

10:26

How Competence Becomes A Second Income

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/09/21

A couple hours of splitting kindling turns into a surprisingly sharp money lesson: the fastest way to lower your cost of living might be to get better at everyday skills. We walk through why doing things yourself isn’t just a hobby or a personality trait, it’s an economic strategy that can replace bills the way a second income would. The core idea is simple but overlooked: when you learn a skill you used to outsource, you don’t only save once. You save every time that skill shows up again for...

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15:21

Off-Grid Money Reality - What if Freedom is Mostly...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/09/14

Most people love the idea of an off-grid cabin life right up until the question lands: “Okay, but how do you make money out there?” We’re sitting on the porch with coffee, watching the world wake up, and telling the truth that gets skipped in so many homesteading conversations. Money doesn’t disappear past the tree line, and pretending it does can sabotage the very freedom you’re trying to build. We walk through how remote living really gets funded, from earning online to the older, proven w...

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18:41

037 How To Lay Out A New Homestead Property

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/09/07

You can buy five acres or 150 and still feel stuck the moment you step out of the truck with the keys in your pocket. The land looks wide open, but the real question hits fast: where should anything go so you do not regret it later? We walk through a practical system for homestead layout that starts with patience, not construction. Before you place a cabin, garden, driveway, chicken coop, or woodshed, we talk about watching the land through the seasons that matter most. Spring melt shows you...

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27:37

035 Why Modern Life Keeps You Tired And Wired

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/08/31

That “not quite anxious, not quite depressed” feeling can be a constant chemical pressure in the background and it has a name: cortisol that never fully comes down. From the cabin, I talk through what it feels like to live in that low hum for years, why so many of us normalize it, and why I no longer see it as a character flaw. We get clear on what cortisol actually does in the body, how it supports you during real danger, and what goes wrong when the threat never ends and the stress response...

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13:55

034 There Is No Right Time So Begin Today

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/08/24

The “right time” never shows up, and waiting for it can be one of the most expensive habits we carry. From the cabin, I talk through how procrastination and paralysis by analysis disguise themselves as responsibility, and why “being careful” can quietly become a decision to stay stuck. If you’ve been telling yourself you’ll start when you have more money, more time, more confidence, better weather, older kids, or a calmer world, this is your reminder that life does not arrive pre-cleared of o...

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13:50

033 The Hidden Cost Of Convenience

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/08/17

Convenience feels like a clean win until you notice what you traded away to get it. From my cabin in Northern Ontario, I dig into the real price nobody prints on the label: the slow loss of competence, the erosion of confidence, and the kind of dependence that creeps in so quietly you only see it when something breaks or a system fails. We talk about everyday places where this shows up fast: food you can order in a minute but can’t grow or prepare from scratch, repair habits that defau...

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28:38

032 Working Alone Safely and Effectively

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/08/10

Working alone in a remote cabin build sounds peaceful until you do the math: one body, two hands, heavy materials, sharp tools, and nobody around if something goes wrong. We talk through the practical reality of solo homesteading and off-grid construction, including why jobs that look “simple” on video often take triple the time in real life. The hidden cost is not motivation or grit, it’s all the engineering you have to do to replace a second person: jigs, levers, clamps, braces, rope riggin...

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9:05

Hearthside 06 The Cabin I Never Built | Introduction

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/08/07

A childhood dream can be more than nostalgia. Sometimes it is a compass that keeps pointing to the life you were meant to build. We kick off a new series by sharing a first draft reading from Shawn James’s upcoming book, “The Cabin I Never Built.” It starts with a boy wandering pines and creek beds, picturing a handmade cabin on a hill, then follows the hard turn into adulthood: chasing the kind of success that looks good on paper, living under fluorescent lights and constant notifications, ...

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14:53

031 Unplugging As A Path To Presence And Calm-...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/08/03

Something feels off for a lot of us, and it’s not because we’re broken. We’re moving through days packed with convenience, screens, and constant input, and then we wonder why our chest feels tight, our minds feel noisy, and time seems to speed up. From a quiet morning at the cabin, we zoom out and talk about the real mismatch: human biology shaped by seasons, firelight, physical work, and face-to-face community colliding with fluorescent nights and endless feeds. We dig into what “unplugging...

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10:57

Hearthside 05 Slowing Down Gave Me More Life To Live

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/07/31

Hurry feels normal until you realize how much it costs. I used to live slightly ahead of myself, chasing the next task, the next goal, the next version of “caught up.” I got busy, but I did not always get happy, and I was not always fully there for the moments that mattered. Slowing down took time to learn, and it turned out to be one of the hardest and most valuable lessons cabin life has taught me. I am not talking about laziness or doing nothing. I mean doing less on purpose and doing it ...

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9:14

030 If Work Gets Easier, What Gives Life Meaning?

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/07/27

AI fear is loud right now, and we hear it constantly from people who feel uncertain, stressed, and stuck watching the digital world speed up. From a quiet morning at the cabin, we offer a calmer counterpoint: big technology shifts tend to expand the economy and raise the standard of living over time. The transition can be disruptive, but it can also open real opportunity for everyday people, not just the ultra-wealthy. We talk through the uncomfortable reality of the K-shaped economy and why...

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8:09

Hearthside 04: An Hour By The Fire: What my Evenings...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/07/24

A quiet fire can do something a screen never will: it can hold your attention without taking anything from you. I’m at the cabin at the end of the day, the work is done, the stove is fading, and Callie is asleep on the cool floor. Instead of trying to fill the evening with one more task or one more scroll, I sit down and let the hour be empty on purpose. That empty hour sounds small, but it changes everything. When the night finally gets dark and there’s nothing left to do, my mind starts to...

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23:25

029 How to Find Your Tribe: Building Community in a...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/07/20

Feeling lonely while surrounded by people is one of the strangest parts of modern life and it’s a big reason many of us start craving self-reliance, homesteading, and a simpler, more intentional way of living. From the cabin, I talk through the fear that stops people cold: if you leave the city, will you end up alone, invisible, or cut off from the world? We untangle a key idea that changes everything: quiet is not loneliness. Silence can feel unsettling when you’re used to constant traffic,...

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9:35

Hearthside 03: Hearthside Is Where We Unplug And...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/07/17

The internet has a way of speeding up everything, your attention, your mood, even your sense of what a “normal” day should feel like. So we’re trying something different: a quiet corner that feels like stepping into a cabin, sitting by the fire, and letting the day settle. This welcome to Hearthside is Sean James sharing, plainly and personally, what this membership is meant to be and what it is not. We talk about why slow living and self-reliance are more than projects and productivity. Hea...

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34:00

028: How to Convince Your Partner to Leave the City

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/07/13

You can price out land, map out schools, and build a flawless plan and still watch your partner shut down the second you say, “Let’s move rural.” I’m recording from the cabin after a loud, rainy night, answering the question I get constantly: how do you convince your spouse or partner to embrace a more rural, hands-on, self-reliant life? I start with the deeper why. For me, the pull toward the woods is about biology and mental health as much as preference: the quiet, the work, the sensory re...

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20:32

027 The Other Costs Of Self-Reliance

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/07/06

The most common question we get is “How much does this life cost?” and the honest answer is that money is only the surface. The deeper price tag is comfort. It’s the moment you stop defaulting to “someone else will handle it” and accept that when things break, fail, freeze, or fall apart, you are the plan. We talk about what “success” can look like from the outside and how easily it turns into a costume: the image, the validation, the fake-it-until-you-make-it momentum that quietly piles on ...

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15:13

026 Produce More Than You Consume | The Daily Habit...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/07/03

“Produce more than you consume” is five words, but they’re a compass. I start most mornings with one quiet question: What am I going to make today? Not what I’m going to buy, watch, scroll, or order to the door but what I’ll bring into the world with my own two hands. That simple shift has become the backbone of my self-reliance mindset, and it’s the most practical productivity habit I know for building competence, confidence, and a calmer mood. I talk through how easy it is to become a cons...

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22:29

025: Two Is One, One is None | Redundancy May Save...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/06/29

One broken lighter is annoying. One broken income is catastrophic. That’s the real meaning behind “two is one and one is none,” and we’re taking it way beyond spare gear into the uncomfortable places where most of us have a single point of failure. We talk through why redundancy matters in real life, not as a panic response, but as a quiet form of good architecture. I share the personal backdrop that made this mindset non-negotiable for me: building a fast-growing commercial roofing company,...

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35:01

024: Built to Last: How I Think About Physical Health...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/06/22

Your plans, your gear, and your hard-won skills only work if the body running them actually holds up. From the cabin, we zoom out on “health” and make it brutally practical: your body is the most important tool you own, and everything else depends on how well you maintain it. We start with sleep as the master variable. When sleep slips, everything slips with it: mood, patience, cravings, immunity, and decision making. We break down a few simple sleep hygiene levers that punch above their wei...

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12:31

023: The Foundation: Physical, Mental & Emotional...

My Self Reliance Podcast ·

2026/06/15

The land doesn’t care how many podcasts you’ve listened to or how much gear you’ve bought. When it’s bitter cold, when the woodpile is low, when the pipes need attention, it calls on you, not your wishlist. That’s the premise we start from at the cabin, and it leads to a blunt conclusion: the most important foundation for self-reliance is your health. We break self-reliance down into three essentials that rarely get the spotlight: physical health, mental health, and emotional health. P...

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42 results

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