What do we really need to live well? And how might learning to meet those needs ourselves change the way we experience happiness, freedom, and sustainability? In this episode of Green Minds, host Esther Vallado speaks with Max, founder of El Mandala, about self-sufficiency as an eco-competence and its powerful role in building ecoliteracy.
For Max, self-sufficiency begins with understanding needs. In a world shaped by excess consumption and constant acceleration, he argues that realising how little we actually need can be deeply liberating. He illustrates this through a formative experience: walking St. James’ Way with a small backpack. Carrying only what was essential, he discovered that simplicity brought not deprivation, but fulfilment, equality, and joy. This insight became a cornerstone of his understanding of self-sufficiency.
Throughout the episode, Max explains that self-sufficiency is not about withdrawing from society, but about reclaiming agency. Growing food, building with natural materials, and learning practical skills allow people to meet basic needs — shelter, food, energy — in ways that are regenerative and empowering. This competence, he suggests, is especially important in times of ecological and socio-economic crisis, as it shows that living well with fewer resources is not only possible, but desirable.
Max’s life story reflects this journey. From working as an engineer in Paris to years of travelling, learning, and eventually founding El Mandala, he describes a gradual shift away from externally defined success toward a life rooted in meaning and connection. A pivotal moment came when he realised that houses, like ovens built from earth and straw, could be created by hand — freeing people from long-term debt and opening new possibilities for autonomy and creativity.
The conversation explores self-sufficiency through the lens of head, hands, and heart. While knowledge and skills are essential, Max emphasises that attitude comes first. Believing that learning is lifelong — and that mistakes are part of the process — is what allows knowledge to turn into real competence. Hands-on practice, repetition, and patience are key, a lesson he illustrates through a moving story about his daughter learning to read: persistence, not perfection, is what makes progress possible.
For Max, learning is visible when people act. He measures success not through indicators, but through phone calls from former learners who are rebuilding houses, growing food, and changing their lives. “Dirty nails,” he says, are the true sign that learning is happening.
The episode also addresses challenges. Developing self-sufficiency can be difficult when family or social environments are critical or unsupportive. In these fragile early stages, encouragement matters more than judgement. Max’s advice to educators and trainers is simple yet profound: help people trust the learning process, remember that everyone starts from zero, and keep going even when it feels hard.
The episode closes with a reflection on ecoliteracy and permaculture. By reconnecting with seasons, place, and context, self-sufficiency helps people rediscover their role as part of nature rather than separate from it. Living simply, adapting to local conditions, and learning by doing become pathways toward a future where both people and planet can thrive.
In this podcast, you can listen to:
- What self-sufficiency means and why it goes beyond survival
- How reducing needs can increase happiness and freedom
- Why self-sufficiency is vital in times of crisis
- How head, hands, and heart come together in learning
- Why persistence, practice, and “dirty nails” matter more than perfection
We close with a reminder that self-sufficiency is not about doing everything alone, but about reclaiming confidence, meaning, and connection — one small, practical step at a time.