Barn Talk - From $4 Corn Lows to Podcast Pros: Farm4Profit's Lessons on Surviving Tough Markets

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Welcome back to Barn Talk! In this special guest episode, hosts Sawyer and Tork open up the barn doors to welcome the crew from the Farm4Profit podcast—Corey, Dave, and Tanner—for a lively, wide-ranging conversation about life in agriculture, the world of ag podcasting, and so much more. From humble beginnings podcasting in a basement bedroom surrounded by spare blankets, to building a multi-host, multi-platform media brand, the Farm4Profit team shares their journey, biggest growing pains, and the lessons they've learned along the way. The crew gets candid about balancing full-time work, family, and the never-ending grind of farming—all while building an audience and staying ahead in the quickly evolving digital landscape. Together, they tackle hot topics like farm profitability, barriers for new and first-generation farmers, generational shifts, changing technology, and the challenges facing agriculture today. Expect real talk on everything from the best equipment investments to the importance of mental health, family dynamics, and passing on knowledge to the next generation. Packed with laughs, a little bit of friendly roasting, and practical advice, this episode is a peek behind the curtain into the community that keeps rural America running. Whether you're a farmer, AG professional, or just love a good story about hard work and passionate people, you won't want to miss this one! So sit back and enjoy as Barn Talk and Farm4Profit let it all out in the barn—because what happens at the barn, doesn’t always stay there. Shop Farmer Grade 👇🏻 https://farmergrade.com/  SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c  LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  APPLE ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk   ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS   ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4   ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS    00:00 "Share the Show, Spread Value" 07:20 "Building a Thriving Conference Niche" 13:14 From Firefighter to Farmland Investments 18:58 "Crazy Manure Hauler and Pig Contracts" 23:59 Corey's Impact on Podcast Production 28:31 Time: The Biggest Podcasting Challenge 31:44 Trade Shows: Key to Partner Growth 39:08 "Communication Crisis in Agriculture" 44:25 Balancing Screen Time and Engagement 52:37 Encouraging Kids' Farm Involvement 54:49 Agronomy: Navigating Information Overload 01:00:16 Farming Struggles Without Diversified Income 01:04:54 Balancing Farm Operations & Family 01:10:45 Unsuccessful Satellite Talk 01:18:41 Occasional Chats and Guest Plans 01:20:50 "Enhancing Farm Profitability" 01:25:22 "Forming Friendships Through Interviews" 01:30:46 "Social Media's Impact on Rural Awareness" 01:35:54 Automobile Era Displaced Horse Industry 01:46:17 Choosing Finance to Avoid Struggle 01:48:28 Advice to My Younger Self ------------------------------- ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠  The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or throu... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn? Stay's in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Stay is going to be a guest episode. We got two good guests coming down to the barn today.

Southeast Iowa to have a great conversation with us. We're going to talk all things, farming, podcasting, et cetera. Before we get into it, you guys know the, drill. If you get any value from the show, please, please, share it out with the people that you know. It's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. You can get value in a number of ways. If we made you laugh, if you're related to us on something, if you learn something, just share it.

That's all that we ask. We appreciate all you that do that. We found that that's the best way to grow a podcast is word of mouth. So thank you, thank you, thank you to all that do that. Another thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk is you can leave a review on Spotify or Apple. We love hearing from you guys. We love hearing your feedback. And it gives our show a lot of credibility so we can have more guests come to the barn and have a great conversation with us. So please leave those reviews. We appreciate that as well. Last thing you can do to support us here at Barn Talk is support our direct consumer meat business, Farmergrade. Farmergrade.com. You can always use code BarnTalk to save 10% off your next order. Holiday season's approaching fast.

So you got any gifting needs? You want to send a box of meat to anybody special in your life? We'll get you covered. We're getting a pretty sweet, seamless gifting software on the site to make things easy for everybody. So be looking out for that. Do you want a gift for me? Yeah, if you want to buy a farmer grade meat box and send it to me,

that'd be awesome. I can do better. So I was talking to one of our guests last night, and he gave me literally a market. gift for you, and I'm not even going to charge you for this. The next Farmergrade T-shirt needs to say, Farmergrade, our meat belongs in your mouth. Yeah, you could go a lot of places with the sexual meat jokes. We beat our meat, we don't beat our meat.

It's the best meat that you'll ever put in your mouth. I mean, there's unlimited. There is a unlimited supply of jokes that you can use. some family values. That's right. It doesn't. That might be a shirt for my personal. I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to say, if you don't eat Farmer grade, then fuck you. Like that big, like that big red commercial in Talladega Nights. Well, I've wanted that for every entity we have. I mean, it's like, that's the perfect, that's the perfect bit. Yeah. We have a great show coming up today. So I, I'll give this away a little bit with my tone. So I'm going to introduce our guest today.

as one of the members would introduce if they were doing us on their podcast. So I got to get into character. Today on Barn Talk podcast, the Farm for Profit crew all the way from Northern Iowa probably had to stop for coffee along the way. The boys from Farm for Profit are in the barn. So without any further ado, let's get into it. Well, we're live, boys. So Dave, Corey, Tanner, welcome to Barn Talk. Thank you. What a pleasure. Thanks for making the trip. I know it probably wasn't far. I mean, you're coming from Alaska. You were on a little. Yeah. It was a long ways.

Yeah. The rest of you guys, it wasn't too bad of a trip, I hope. To get here. No, two hours, 20 minutes, something like that. Hey, just so you know, Corey, in your honor, I did the intro as in your persona. Oh, really? I gave it to today. So the intro's done. Oh, yeah. intro's done. We shoot it before you guys show up. That way we don't feel the pressure. So we really probably screwed you up when we showed up with three and soundboards and extra mics.

No, we're making it work. This is the first time we've ever had a five-person podcast. And we can't make it happen. We wouldn't have made it happen without you guys. So, hey, you're testing the limits of the barn. We'll see if we get something that's usable at the end. Yeah, no, I think we will. I think we just all stepped into your adolescence when I used to say to Soria and all of his friends.

just remember boys, all of you together are dumber than any of you by yourselves. That's where we're at right now. We're right in the neck of it. Well, I guess to kick things off, where can people find you guys? What you're up to, what you're all about. That's Tanner's deal. We're everywhere. That's the goal is to be to be every place that you can find us. Mainly, you know, Spotify is our biggest download platform, but we're podcasts everywhere. Apple, IHeart Radio, Stitcher, all the places that you could want to go. But then we've, got all of the shows are up on YouTube, our shorts are on YouTube, and then every social media platform possible, we've at least tried it. Some maybe not as successful as others, but we have

a lot of fun on TikTok, enjoy putting things out for our folks on Facebook and then all the rest. Farm for profit, right? You got to put the number four in the middle of it. Yeah, number four. Okay, sweet. Are you on threats? We are on threats. We are. Okay. So what's that? Is that, is there anybody else on there? It's just this empty space. posting ghost yeah i look at it i see it i'm like i wonder if anybody's on there Zuckerberg tried to make it run at x and i don't think it's working yeah well you never know but if it does i think it had its run in january when everyone thought tick tock was going away

yeah yeah that was the only time people were on it yeah and if you guys you know i know you guys keep it censored on on your on your on your show so if you guys got to drop an f bomb feel free this is like this is a safe place yeah it is a safe spot so yeah feel free i am so glad for that because i wanted that uh when i brought farm for fun on to the farm for profit side of things and these two uh were like hey we're all about it but maybe we should dial it back because we both have professional careers and and uh have to watch what we say and it turns out you can say fuck no. You wasted no time.

Yeah. Get it out of the way. Strip the band-aid off. I feel so much better. Okay, well, I guess what inspired what you guys are doing today, how did you get it going? Whoever wants to answer or all, you answer it. But what's your story of it? It's evolved.

So I'll give the origin story in the beginning. So Farm for Profits started when I was in Ag Finance and I moved into the community where my in-laws were. got married, moved up to the Central Iowa area, and knew nobody. So Farm for Profit was going to be a conference to where I could associate with experts across all portions of agriculture, agronomy, attorneys, you know, somebody that's going to come in and sell farmland. You know, everything that a farmer needed, I wanted to know the people they were using. So I got them convinced to be a speaker at a conference once a year.

That's how I met Dave, was through our professional careers of him as an auctioneer and realtor could speak on land values and how things were going to change. So right away in the beginning, it was selfishly created because I didn't know anybody. And what's the best way to get somebody interested in you is let them talk about themselves and what they're an expert in. And didn't realize I was finding a niche that hadn't been filled and people crave that information. So the audience grew every year we put the conference together.

And then the conference attendees started saying, hey, can you do this more than once a year? like no do you know how much it sucks to make a conference to organize speakers and food he's like yeah find a spot it was the worst day and the best day of your life every year so it's like duh i'm listening to shark farmer and i'm like why don't we take the speakers off the stage put him on a podcast so initially dave knew a lot more about audio equipment being an auctioneer we started in dave's basement bedroom good acoustics right a whole bunch of extra blankets and and curtains on the wall and did some interviews there. Kind of weird, inviting guests to come downstairs

to your basement spare bedroom. It was Dave's special room. It was Dave's special room. And it kind of blossomed out of that. And Dave and I hosted shows from July to March. So that was July 2019 into March to when we had Corey come on as a guest to talk about how he was using his farm Facebook page to connect with his landlords.

And at the end of that conversation, what did you tell us? I said, your guys' content is great, very informative, but it's boring. It was delivered in what I would call a traditional ag media way. And I was more liking the more barstool route of how, you know, think barstool to ESPN, like a little bit more edgy, a lot more just topics that are happening now. And I wanted to do that. So I said, hey, it's COVID. I can't go to the bar and see my friends.

I'm missing out on my social connections, and I said, I'm going to go to the local brewery, grab a six pack, and I'm going to come back at the same time next week. And they were all nervous, like, what are we going to talk about? I said, well,

we're going to throw that outline you have sitting in front of you out, and we're just going to shoot the shit like we're sitting at a bar or a coffee shop and make it real. And ever since we did that, that was what, June or March of 2020? It was March of 2020. May, yeah, somewhere in there. And ever since we did that, our audience just doubled.

And the next week it doubled and doubled and doubled. And we said, oh, we got something here. And so then we started going every other week, farm for, we called that Farm for Fun. So we did Farm for Profit, Farm for Fun. So I was never on the Farm for Profit shows for the first year or two that I got on. And then slowly transitioned into that when the Duret show came through. And we did some emergency episodes. And now we're two shows a week, Farm for Profit on Monday and Farm for Fun on Thursdays.

Nice. Yeah, and we've grown ever since. It's been fun. Yeah. So you're the hype, man. Have you heard his intro? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Sometimes I can be. Sometimes when I'm reviewing the shows, I can be the boy, I was not feeling it that day. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's true. Well, hey, we know what that's like. It's not, it's not always the most

easy thing to just always feel it, you know. So you're into lifting, right? Yeah. Do you use smelling salts? No. No, I'm not that hardcore. We noticed this in the beginning because the way we did it with two shows, when you go to two shows a week, that's a lot of production. So, and these two are still working full time, Tanner would schedule one day every two weeks to record four shows. And that's exhausting. Just listening that much. And then two of those would be fun shows.

So we're drinking normally during those. And that would be a lot. And so we could start to tell we would fall off. And so we ordered, what was it called, Tanner? I was like the, the rhino. The rhino. Pure anhydrous ammonia in a bottle. Yeah.

And that, is that the stuff that Theo Vaughn smelled on Rogan show? Yeah. Take a ride on that, Joe. Take a ride on that. Yeah. And then he hit it again. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. So we started doing some of that. And at work, that lasted like three shows because it was still in the top drawer. It is. Yeah. But, I mean, if you took it out now, like Dave could smell it. there. Oh yeah.

It was just, we should have to get close. We should have brought it. Yeah. That would have been really good. It would have been hard to get that rolling tool chest up the circular. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, we need to put a, we need a hoist. We need a hoist. We put in the, the circular staircase. That keeps all the liberals out because most of those guys are elderly and they can't get up the stairs. They can't walk up in circles. Yeah.

It's too confusing. A good point since you said that. So now we kind of know where. you came from. But so David and Corey, what's your guys' background for people that don't know? Go ahead, Dave. I'm originally

Montana and went school for firefighting, paramedicine, and got a job in Ames, Iowa and lived in Ames, met a girl, got married, built a house, etc., etc. So it was firefighter and everybody said you talk too much, talk too fast, and so that led into

auctioneering. Okay. My wife had cattle, her whole families from Carol Iowa. And so they had, now they're looking at 150 years next year, the heritage award for their farm. And it's been Witt and Son Angus. And so I'm married into the cattle side of the world

and then learned agriculture, just jumped into agriculture, if you will, and realized one in five jobs in Iowa is agriculture and auctioneering fit, agriculture fit, and what pays the best? Well, farmland. So then I jumped into farmland. and selling one of the largest assets we have.

And so I eventually retired from the fire department right before COVID. Put about 20 years in there after 20 years. So a couple of kids, 20 years, married, et cetera, then started deeper in the auction and real estate world. And then last year, actually a year before last, all of the podcasting and agriculture, I'm like, I want some. And so I bought a farm. we had farmland with cattle, but not row crop.

So just recently into that, and Cori and Tanner have been helping me, and we're rocking it out. We've also been making fun of me, too. Now I'm just... A lot of making fun of. Just as poor as the rest of the world. Turns out auctioneers know a lot about farming, but the depth is not... Not very deep.

Not very deep. So we've been helping him. So now you're just a poor dirt farmer. Yes, yes. Exactly. With a pretty good paying side gig so he can throw money at it. Yeah. There you go.

That's what you need. now. Yeah. But yeah, that's kind of what led me to all of that. And then, what are we, six years with the podcast now. So amazing where it's taken us in places. They didn't say it, but we do a lot of conferences too. That's where we first met down in Kentucky. And just crazy from California to Kentucky to Illinois, et cetera, et cetera, Texas, et cetera. Should say it went from Dave's bedroom to Dave's office. Yeah. And as Dave's business grew, he's got a hair salon in one side of his office.

And then what he got? Two offices, a reception center and a board. And then a board room. And they started using the boardroom as, that's where our podcast was, started using that as offices too. So we were setting up and taken down every time. And that really, everything was screwed up. I mean, that's why like this is not going to work.

I'm just fearful of it today because when you have to plug new stuff in and don't test it. So we actually bought an old Casey's and remodeled that. So your barn is our Casey's. Yeah. So we've done that, which is pretty cool. We have a Farm Bureau agent and one side to help pay the rent. Yeah, there you go. For sure.

Dave, can you auction off our bar right now? Sure. What's it worth? That's the real question. I don't know, dad. What's it worth? I don't know. That's why you have an auction to find out of you.

So start low and everybody will go. go. How at 100? I'm down one. Here. Quarter, quarter, 50, 75. And quarter 5075, but a quarter 5075 and quarter 5075. I'm paid for sold, sold, $400. I buy that for 400. Yeah. So, Corey, you're the only one out of them that I

trust because you're an aug farmer, right? So give us your background. So I actually met Torque in, was that 2014? I think so. I started raising hogs. So my background grew up on a farm in northern Polk County, Polk City, Iowa, mainly row crop, but my grandpa had raised hogs on pasture,

had some cattle and sheep and all that. So I don't really remember any of the livestock. Always had FFA, 4H steers and pigs did all that kind of stuff. Never thought I would be into livestock because Polk County is a no-fly zone for KFOs. Yeah. So just I always had an interest in it. Actually, when I went to Iowa State after high school, I went to Ag Studies because I wanted to leave that door open. I knew I wanted to come back to the row crop side of things. But livestock was one of my passions. So I took a lot of, uh, at Dr. Scar, you know, for cattle and did some swine classes and things like that. But knowing that I didn't want to be a vet, I didn't want to be a field person or any of that. And I just kind of let that die. And then I ended up going to, the agronomy side of things. Went on to work for

Pioneer when I was out of college, did that for three years. Went to live in Webster City, and there was an existing hog site for sale that was built in 1998. And it was going up for auction. So we decided, I put my numbers together,

and we ended up buying it at auction. And it was 4,050 head, 3, 1350 barns, Rastetter, old Heartland Ag site. and we put a big remodel in it and we talked to the mashoffs. We were with the mashoffs, signed a seven-year contract,

10-year note, and did that. And one year into it, it was right when PED was coming around and the new Pers 1-7-4 and all that. And I was like, I got to get out of this. I felt like they were defaulting on their contract of,

like, when I say bad pigs, like they were dead before they got to me. They were carrying them off the, truck dead. I thought, why don't you just go to the rendering plant? Yeah. This is ridiculous. Why do I have to carry these 700 dead pigs off? Yeah. You know, and that's how bad it was. And I, I'd torque, you torque through another buddy, Kyle. Yeah. And he's like, and I'm like, if, if anyone will put pigs in Kyle's barn, they need to come talk to me. Like, I got to be a saint, you know, because Kyle's a lot. You were just on the wrong side of the street. Yeah.

You just a little, you were the bridge too far. Yeah. Couldn't quite do it. Kyle's a wild man. side note, you know, we said at the beginning of this that, you know, this is a safe space and you can say whatever you want. The one person I'm still not convinced whether or not I can allow on here, because I just don't know what he's going to say, and that would be Kyle. Well, yeah. I don't even know if I could put him on here. Kyle has calmed down quite a bit, but yeah, he's still pretty wild. He still hauls my manure, which, you know, you got to be crazy to do that, too, the way he does the amount of gallons he hauls. But, yeah, we have

had that meeting in 2014 and wasn't going to work for us. I really wanted to grow pigs for you, but we decided to stick it out and we ended our contract with the mashoffs in 2020. Thought we were going to resign with them and then they kind of changed leadership and wanted a huge remodel that was going to cost more than what we paid for the site. And that was the most terrible time or what felt like the most terrible time to redo contracts because people were literally euthanizing pigs because there was nowhere to go. and I found out, well, go to who wants to sell feed. They know who wants to grow pigs.

And all of a sudden, I did that. And I had six or seven people knocking on my door in most terrible, what I felt like the terrible time to grow hogs. And we ended up going with a small, as Pipestone managed, but a small Hutterite colony out of Falkton, South Dakota. And so I have the same flow of pigs every time. I've turned out, I've had some bad stuff,

but I've turned out under 2%, under 3% turns from wean to finish. Yep. And it's been really good. Yeah. Heck of a deal. Yeah. Yeah. It felt good when we got the barns paid off.

And you row crop too, right? Yep. Corn and soybeans. Nice. Yeah. I did attempt erronea berries on 15 acres. That was my hip. That was the hippie side of me.

Yeah. You probably saw them when you were there in their infancy. Yep. They're really healthy berry. Actually natural to Iowa. but there's just no market for them. Not yet. I do think they'll come around.

I left your place and I called, I called Oswald and I said, hey, I said, these are pretty good barns. I said, I'm pretty sure that he's headed, he's going to be growing pot here before long.

He's got these berries is into. He hasn't grown his hair out yet, but I said, I think it'll be pretty good because he's going to be just paranoid enough that he's never going to leave to go anywhere, you know, didn't work,

though. It's getting longer now. You got like bangs going right now. Yeah, we're growing our hair out for a charity deal at the Husker Harvest Days. Man bun soon then? No, no. We decided what would be the most ridiculous thing to be with long hair on top of my head, which I'm a very bland guy when it comes to that.

And so me and the guy, one of the owners of Maya Cornheads, Rick, are going to perm our hair out at Husker Harvest. If we can raise enough money to buy at least one grain bin rescue system for his local fire department. Okay. And hopefully we can raise more and buy more for others that don't have it. So that's been,

there was one yesterday in central Illinois of a guy's father that I know. And so, not saying that if they had that stuff, it would have helped, but there's a lot of people that have been saved by those. So we thought,

ah, something ridiculous. And the Maya guys are... You better be careful because your wife might actually donate the majority of your money. That's probably true. to keep you from doing.

When I told her what we were doing, she just like, do not do that. But the glory, it's not that long, right? Like, I can shave this off. It's going to be harvest, you know, so. Yeah. I don't know. How long's a perm take?

I've never had a perm. Rachel. I had half a perm mullet back in about 88. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. How long did it take to have permed? I don't know, probably half hour, hour.

I don't, I don't remember. It wasn't very long. It was just the back, you know. Yeah. It was, it was, I was in like Flynn. We got to see some pictures of this. You were Morgan Wallin before it was cool. I had, I had, you know, one of the, one of the pictures that I can't find that's been

lost to the ages that really pisses me off. Has been lost? Well, I, I think it has, which is surprising because there's a, a lot of, I inherited all like the family history in my house, but I cannot find a picture of it. I was the age of the Miami Vice look. And so there is many, many, a Sadie Hawkins dance that I attended in white pants, white blazer, aquamarine tank top with the mullet perm. I mean, really a national, really a national treasure.

But I can't, I don't know. There is, there is a picture of me with my Camaro before I went to prom. And I have the mullet. but other than that, none of the Miami Vice stuff. And I put Sunny Crockett to shame. I trust Kyle will, he'll be resourceful enough. He might be able to find it. Tork losing things?

Oh, that's a first. Yeah, I've never heard of that before. He may not find the picture, but he'll find something that looks like the picture. Yeah, there you go. All right, what's some of the growing paints, getting this whole thing going? You know, what would have been some of the biggest challenges of growing it? I think we've owned 25 cameras. Yeah.

I mean, Corey is a blessing and a curse to this podcast in so many different ways. But one of the great things that he's brought to us is he's got such a high desire for high quality. So that initial canon that we had, it shot film, but it was very granular. And then we upgraded another one. And it only run for 30 minutes because we didn't know what the hell. None of us have any type of audio technician background. or being able to run camera equipment. And so just trying to figure all of that out

and get used to all of those things to where now we finally found a camera that shoots a good video, it runs for over an hour on a battery time, it does a really good job for us. And there's still times where we're like, man, this could be better. Yeah. So I'd say that probably for me, that's one of the biggest growing pains,

because these guys will tell you I'm cheap as shit. I don't spend money hardly anywhere. When he offered me something to drink, I'm thinking about taking two or three for the road. Yeah. So we don't have to stop at Casey's when we leave town. There you go. I joke, he splits the two-ply in toilet paper just to make it go further. He's got the thin shit at the office.

We have to, because if you take Dave-sized dumps, you plug the toilet. Apparently, yes. Yeah, I hate that. Anybody that has that thin is, oh, I can't stand it. Remember, Dave, it takes a big dog to weigh a ton. That's right. It takes a lot bigger dog. to shit a ton.

So you're the man. It is. But now we're almost to that stage of perspective to where it's worth it to spend the money for the really good stuff because you don't buy the two stages in between to get there. I mean, this soundboard that we brought is way more than I ever thought we'd ever spend on audio equipment. But hopefully we don't have to upgrade it for a long time. Fifth soundboard? Yeah, probably fifth soundboard. We're doing pretty good.

We're only on our second. So we're doing pretty good. I guess. Did you ever want to quit? Did any of you just be like, fuck these guys? I'm sick of them. Yeah, well, there's one person off camera that. Rachel.

I think she might leave before. This could be the end, but I'm. She's probably sick of smelling them dumps. Yeah, probably. She's probably like, I'm getting out of here. I've never wanted to quit doing it. Yeah. There's times to where I've been frustrated with the type of guests that we get

and the lackluster content that we put together. So we've just gotten to that high level of standard that we just don't hear it. Right? Now you've got to work extra hard to get back on schedule, but I have not wanted to quit doing it. Yeah. I wouldn't say ever quit. I would say there's been some burnout time, you know, one just this summer. Like we had the busiest summer we've ever had.

Like I said, in the beginning, we used to schedule one day every two weeks to get together as this has grown. Quality's gotten better. As we've taken on partnerships and things like that, like, there's. There's way, like this is the easy part. There's way more background stuff beyond editing, you know, that just the relationships and meetings and all that. And that's where we hired Rachel as full time to help us with that. And it's been a blessing.

But as you grow, like you know with Farmer grade, like, oh my gosh, you could never have enough employees, but you got to get the income to get there, right? Yeah. Yeah, the to do list just never ends. Like you could chop, you could just chop at the bit and knock stuff off, but it just feels like it, you take something off, something's added. You always feel behind. I think one of the biggest pivotal moments for the podcast, Tanner was doing all the audio editing and I would get Snapchats from him at 10.30 at night sitting in bed editing. You know, I'm like, that is unsustainable for you as a husband.

Yep. Right. You know, plus it can't be very fun, right? and actually got him to give up some of those. So giving up the things that cause you stress. And it took him like six months of babysitting, our audio editor. But then how freeing once you got something and you could actually do what you do? Great.

I would have quit like 10 times because I'm not organized like Tanner is. So from day one, we had an agreement. He says, I'll line up all the guys. I'll line up everybody, you come and talk. So that works for my, I would never started, let alone quit, if we wouldn't have Tanner on the team. So when you talk about growing pains, I think the biggest growing pain is an equipment.

You can buy equipment, go on Amazon, wherever you want. The biggest growing pain is time. From the time that we started in the basement, getting guests, getting their times. We had people cancel on us. then we had time to fit in another style episode with Farm for Fun. Then we had time of let's record them all in one day, time to take off from our current jobs as people want to start podcasts.

Everybody wants to start podcasts until you need to take two weeks off and you're using your vacation from your other job to go support your hobby of podcasting that doesn't pay very well. And then now time even further as it's grown into media company, just finding time with all of us having jobs, that's just, I mean, you guys as well. Luckily, agriculture gives you the time to make the choice. Am I going to do this today or that today? When you have a W-2 wage that you have to go and you're supposed to be somewhere every day,

that makes a little harder. So I think the biggest growing pain is finding time and when it works. And every podcast that you watch that doesn't succeed, it's because they didn't have the time to put towards it. and they did it once or twice and it wasn't consistent. So back to the start, I would have quit 10 times if it wasn't for Tanner to keep the consistency, to keep it going forward. I think that's the biggest pain and draw to what's made it successful.

Yeah, that's great. That is a great point about time because one thing you guys do that I just, kudos to you guys, because people try to get us, they're like, hey, come here and shoot a podcast, and we're like, nope not gonna do it but you guys and i think i realize now that kind of comes from the way you started because you started with having these with having these events so you guys have always done like remote podcasts how like have you ever just been like all right we're we're done we're not going to do any more of that or have you just gotten your comfort level with it is to the point where you've just always done it, so it's no big deal.

Yeah, so it's like a four-fold answer. And I'm analytical. We basically quadruple dip when we travel. You talk about one day of recording four shows, and that covers two weeks worth of content. Well, if we can go somewhere and in three days, shoot 12 to 15 shows, we've got six to seven weeks of content, because some of them aren't going to be great, right?

if you shoot that many in one spot at one time, either we're going to suck or a guest is going to suck. But ultimately, so first of all, one, we get content that we get to put out on our show. Our business model is we run ads on our episodes. So there's content that we filmed that is going to have an ad rain on it later. We're also getting paid to go and be at these events.

We didn't always get paid very well, but now when we say no, it's because it's not worth it financially to go there. Yeah. So now you've gotten content built up. You can run ads on that for revenue. You got paid to be there. And then the fourth one is, is we probably pick up the most new partners by being able to see somebody face to face. And where is every marketing person? They're babysitting their booth at a trade show. Where's every decision maker head of sales trying to sell you something at a trade show? So for us, there's probably more points on top of that. But it's, it is, and I'll let the guys talk about, it further is it's a high and a low all at the same. I'm just trying to see all the cool places we can record. This is the first time in a barn. But we have done a plane.

We have done vehicles. We have done hotel lobbies. We have done trade show. I don't know that we've done a train. Haven't had a boat. Haven't had a boat or a yacht. We need a yacht. So it's not a boat.

There you got a boat. Go to a yacht. Yeah. We just got to get up. Or cruise ship. We could get on a cruise ship. Yeah. That would work.

But it's truly a leverage of time. It's a lot of work to travel to a trade show. it's always better in person than it is virtual. So that's where all the people are. But as they said, and Dave said, consistency is key. So we knew we had to be there every Monday and Thursday. Well, when we can bank up all those episodes, and it's time to combine, it's time to go.

When it's time to plant, it's time to go. And then we can be opportunistic. Like, hey, it's a rain day. Should we get this person on or that person? And so it handcuffs us because then we have to be really knowledgeable about, really can't talk current events. Right? Because this show might not come out for two months. Yep.

And on the business side of the world, I mean, I was in Alaska last week, and I'm thinking, okay, look at the schedule. Corey says, hey, come over here. We're going to Washington. Ah, crap. I'm just getting back. I got to do this. Got to do that. You know, every time you come back from vacation, it's like, all right, now we're drinking from a fire hose again.

And then I get an email that, oh, tomorrow we have something. And then Saturday, Sunday, you should spend time with family. Kids are back to school. Oh, next week, we're in Decatur at Farm Progress Show. It's like, great. When do we do our real job here? This is, this is, that's, it's such a wild battle of when can you say no. Yeah.

Because you want to say yes so much, right? Mm-hmm. But, but ultimately, that's the cool thing about having three hosts is I don't have to be there. Yeah, we talked about before this. I was just sit out. Yeah. Probably would have been a better show. Oh, no.

Oh, I don't. I think it's going great. We have that flexibility of, yeah. It could be just Dave on an interview. It could be just Corey. I've done it by myself. It's usually better when we're all together. But you have that flexibility to where

if something really demanding of your time comes, we've been very open about it. Sometimes we have three different perspectives too. You guys, you know, from the same cloth, so you have the same perspective. Yeah. Tork's always right. Do you have a bullet?

There you go. I don't know. I think people like young version, old version. There you go. Gen Z. I don't know, what are you, Gen X? yeah whatever well Tanner and I both came

boomer from farm backgrounds grew up farming and Dave got into agriculture later completely different part of the country will come out with some you know maybe something that Tanner and I wouldn't think

you know from left field which is great for conversation like we don't all have to agree which is awesome yeah hey that reminds me so so David you know he's done all the things that he's done so he can start farming

Yeah. Tanner, I mean, he's weasling his way in with his in-laws, and eventually he's going to be farming. So do you have any desire to get into ag lending or become an auctioneer? I mean, no, we always joke about that. You know, you don't farm all your life and then want to go be a lawyer or a doctor. But everyone wants to be a farmer when they retire, you know. And boy, what a, what a, I'm desired, I guess. What a, yeah. I've got me wondering, though, because T-Bonds are paying better than my return. my Edward Jones is paying better than my return.

My commercial real estate's paying better than my return. Are you saying you shouldn't be in farmland? I hesitate every once in a while when you think of the fiscal responsibility. So that's why it's good for him to be in that. Everybody needs a ride off. Yeah. No, taxes. Game on. Yeah.

There is no better tax shelter than agriculture. Yeah. What, uh, you guys have had a shitload of people on your podcast from all different walks of ag. What are you, what do you guys think is the, what are some of the insights that you've discovered by talking to so many people? Like, what are the biggest challenges you think ag faces? What are the biggest opportunities? I'll start on this one. So we're farm for profit, right? So originally we started everything profitable and over 500 episodes now, the two things that have run clear in my mind being outside of agriculture and now, I mean, in agriculture, but more on

the sales side and now now moving forward into it two things that bring profit uh tile and grain bins everybody has two more bushel an acre everybody's got something else but the two things that have nobody's ever given negative about tile and grain bins yeah that's a good answer on on grain bins sometimes you put it in there and then it's not as worth worth as much yeah it does have a lot of logistical help too but i would say oh boy probably i'll leave I know what Tanner's going to say. I know what Tanner's going to say. He's going to say something on farm succession.

I'll go with the young kid trying to get back into farming. We get that question everywhere we go. And I was that young kid trying to get back in. And if you don't have a farm to go back to, what uphill battle? I mean, the barrier to entry. And so I don't know if I have an answer for it. We get it all the time too. But like we've interviewed several first generation farmers that are making it work.

and they've had resiliency. They are willing to do the crap that no one else wants to do, whether it's go chore a pig barn for someone else or go farm that little peat patch that, you know, drowns out every two out of three years and no one else wants it. They're willing to stick their neck out there and work for it and, you know, maybe get in with a retiring farmer that doesn't have an error to the farm. And that's one of the biggest things is I want to help people get back in to get into,

get into farming. And I'm going to say this right now. I fucking love all farmers, large, small, whatever, because we get a lot of our hate, which we don't get a ton of it, is that we're only for big farms.

And that I couldn't be further from the truth. That might look like that because that's, you know, a Corteva or a John Deere comes and partners with us, but they're the people that want to be heard, I guess,

and willing to pay for it. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. over the last couple of weeks a lot of time to reflect and not because I've had a lot of extra time but have chosen to try and reflect on what we've been a part of. We've been trying to compile lists of categories because if you've got a brand new listener that comes in and you've got 500 shows, it's like these bottles of bourbon on your back wall. I want to try all of them.

Yep. But I can't and walk out of here. So we're trying to categorize them into, you know, these are our most informational livestock episodes. These are the most on succession planning. these are ones that if you are ag-adjacent, ag sales, these are just fun to listen to. You know, how can you jump in and have a little bit of a roadmap? But my biggest concern and the challenge that's coming forward is the more and more that we get into our phones and the internet is we're losing so much of our ability to communicate.

And that can transcend into the succession planning. This can transcend into just doing regular business with the feed supply guy. But when we do our episodes on mental health awareness, it comes back to can you communicate what you're feeling, how you're having troubles with things. And when you can't, you burn bridges, you ruin relationships, you alienate your family,

you have divorces, you have all these problems that Ag is going to face. Then you roll in succession plan, if you don't get along with your dad, how are you supposed to say what your dream is? How is he supposed to say what he hopes you do? And if you are just purely assuming, because nobody in this world can communicate anymore,

except for a couple of text strings, the egg's going to fall apart. Well, that's kind of why we started what's working an egg, too. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it goes to any small business. I mean, I still run into this with a skill that I'm not good at. I'm trying to get better at is even when you want a team member to do something for you

or you send them a task or whatever it is and you provide no context, it's like, oh, I knew what I want to done. but if I can't effectively communicate that to anybody, ag's going to run into that. We used to have old-time farmers that would stop in the middle of the gravel road and have a conversation. Now sometimes when you drive past your neighbor, you don't even wait. Mm-hmm.

I stop in the road and Greg, he just drives by. Yeah, I know. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, terrible. Wild lightning. Yeah, I have noticed in small towns, the waving has gone down. Like, nobody waves anymore. I get pissed when, especially if you're on a gravel road

and like my gravel road, if you don't wave, like you're a suspect. You're a suspect. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's true because I mean, I remember growing up and you're waving to everybody, but it doesn't happen anymore. That's a good point.

Yeah. Yeah, I think we always talk about it on here. I think our biggest thing we see is, you know, just the idea that you have to, it's either get big or die or create your own market. I mean, that's just the sustainability of agriculture in general of just how to farm for profit is just becoming, harder and harder and harder.

And that's, you know, that's the problem. I think that the system in that regard feels broken to me because how long can we keep kicking the can't? I mean, how long can guys keep growing and growing and growing and do guys want to continue to grow and grow?

I mean, we had Doug O'on here, Larson Farms, and you know, he shared like, gosh, he used to love it. Like, he used to love farming because it all was on his shoulders and that's the way he liked it. But it's, he'd, you know, more and more love goes out year after year

because you've got to get big to stay. If you're going to go that route. Not doing the jobs that he loves to do. He's doing what has to be done. Yeah. But to your point, one thing that I think is an opportunity because we like to get pissy about everything getting bigger and we like to get pissy about all the technology

and how everybody's got their nose and a phone. And I don't know if I've said that. this. I probably have said this. But I actually started, uh, I have, I have a coaching deal every two weeks that I meet through, uh, through Jay's Young. And boy, I tell you what, that's some convicting shit. I mean, every week I'm like, oh, man. But the, the best, like the best thing that, uh, I have heard,

Jay said this to me. He said, think about when you started and all the things that you had to figure out on your own that your dad didn't teach you because the two of you are too proud to have the hard conversations about whatever.

He goes, now think about your kids. He goes, think about how much more successful your kids could be if you could get out of your own way and not be so stubborn and proud and actually teach them. Like, from one generation of the next, if we as farmers actually passed on the knowledge,

because we're really, you know, everybody talks about passing on the farm, but think about how far, how much further ahead a lot of these young people would be if the honest conversations were really had and you actually passed on that knowledge. and I was like, boy, that. Yeah, that.

How do you do that? Well, I'm thinking we need to get your ass in the hog barn do a hog barn fix it series. And you just, everything that breaks, we just film you and I'll keep it in an archive. Oh, I didn't know where that was going. It's like, I'm going to whip your ass. You know, whatever.

No, no, I just think you could leverage video, you can leverage audio or sit down and have the conversation or watch you actually do it. Yeah. Because that's tough, right? I want people to have their nose in their phone because that's business for us. The more that they care about watching us, the better it is on our side of things. But you also want them to have that relationship.

And if you can't get the attention of the younger generation, we got a show that comes out in a couple of weeks with high-tech farmer. And he had a parody on TikTok to where what is the different generations walking from the house to the shop? and the younger generation, if you got two minutes to check Snapchat, you're walking and looking at Snapchat rather than, oh, did that need mode? Is this waterline leaking? Is what, what's going on? Because you could sit, I mean, I signed a guest book up here and saw Vance Crow's name. He's doing his legacy interviews.

He's preserving the past one three-hour interview at a time. Three hours ain't going to cut it. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I've actually started doing the videos for just a stupid, things like how to unfold the roller, right, that no one else knows. Some, some of them have, they all have different things or our young guy that helps chore in the hog barns. Like, this is how you change, you know, this is how you would recognize that a fan's not turning as hard and you

need to change the belt, you know, just simple things like that that I take for granted that I've done for 12 years. That's it right there. Like, because I started Google Drive. Yeah, I think that's the way. I mean, you do that with any other position at any other organization. You got to, you have SOPs. Standard operating procedures. Yeah. So. And I'm terrible.

Yeah. Terrible at it. Dad's a really good at be like, get out of the way. Let me do this. Yeah. It's like here I'm going to show you, here I'm going to have you do this. And then about 30 seconds into it, it's too, it's too painful for me to watch. Do you think it's generational?

Do you think it's generational? My dad was a Marine. So when he says, when he says jump, you don't ask why. You say how high, right? And that was more the, that generation, where as we went younger and younger, it was just tell me why and I'm on your team but if you can't explain it then I'm not on your team yeah my younger brother didn't grow up involved

on the farm as much as me so he was more sports oriented so he came back four years ago or so and really wet behind the ears and if I was there it was just me doing it I think the podcast of me being gone more has actually forced him into use some common sense get on YouTube figure it out like it's

it's not that hard right it's just if someone else is there they're just like get out of my way. I'm just going to do it because it'll be way way easier and faster. Yeah, and that's the other side of this whole thing about, you know, technology and our phones. You say this all the time. I mean, yes, that is a pitfall and young people that don't develop people skills

as far as being able to have conversations one on one, that is a problem. But then the other side of it is there has never been a time in history that you have as much knowledge and can learn as many things as fast as you can right now. I mean, it is just, it's never been, this is the greatest time to ever seize opportunity ever in history. But it's also very competitive. And I think what I always say is like the downside isn't just the one-on-one conversation. It's the dopamine hit.

You're getting addicted to these phones. like you can use it as a tool or it can use you. And I think there's a lot of people out there. And I think we all have the struggle. We all have a somewhat of a phone addiction. But there's some people that like screen time six to eight hours, 10 hours a day. And like, no wonder you're walking around and you're like, I just, I'm numb. I don't feel anything.

I'm not happy. I'm not whatever. Well, it's because you're just scrolling every day. You're going from happy video, sad video, funny video. I don't think our brains are supposed to do that. No. I don't think we're wired that way. No.

And so that's the hard part. You got to use it as a tool to seize opportunity, but you can get very caught up in letting it use you. The podcast kind of ruined social media for me. I don't scroll social media for enjoyment. I scroll it for work. I'm scrolling it trying to find the next guest. I'm scrolling at trying to watch what somebody else did

for an advertising campaign. and I sent these guys one that, maybe no free ads, a company put out for Farm Progress show, I'm like, man, that was cool. We should do something like it. Don't copy it, but that's what I spend my time doing. It's no longer pure enjoyment. I find funny stuff.

Yeah. That's what I hate about all the, I say old-timers. Downcasting technology, though, because if I'll give a real good example, I'm selling a condo in Des Moines and they don't have laundry. It's just on the floor. Well, my clients would like laundry in their room. And I call the association and said,

can we modify this condo and put laundry in it? Nope, nope, we can't. Haven't done it for 22 years. It's not going to happen. I said, did you have internet 22 years ago? No, do you have internet today? Well, yeah, I mean, we do. Life's about changing.

There is going to be change. You either embrace it and get on board or you get lost. Yeah. Period. So, no, you don't have to go overboard, but you do have to accept a little bit of it. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say that's the thing about content.

Like, you have to stay up with what's happening or else you're going to get left behind. It's like of all these algorithms are changing. Everything is changing all the time. And what worked a year ago might not work right now, you know. So, yeah, it's threads. If it wasn't for our audience, we'd be done. Yeah.

And I'm not saying that because obviously if nobody consumes it, what's your effort to keep doing it? But all our show ideas come from somebody that listens. They're all like, hey, you should talk to this person. Have you ever talked about this type of livestock? Have you ever looked at these things? Have you, we get emails, text messages. We get people that walk up to us at a farm show.

And that's why we can put content together. I mean, otherwise it just gets repetitive. Do you guys ever get dumb ideas that people want you to do? Oh. Oh, yeah. I'm trying to think of one. But I can't. A cool t-shirt idea that came up this morning.

Yeah. That's cool t-shirt idea. I said in the intro, I said, oh, I thought it was going to be, if you don't eat Farmer Grade, then fuck you. You know, that big red commercial in Tel Degna nights. That goes with your family values, but put your meat in your mouth. Well, you could go a lot of ways with the meat jokes. I mean, there's a lot of things that you can do, a lot of things you could say. But I think, I don't know if that'll boat well.

But, okay, well, what about some of the, I mean, you guys are all kind of involved somewhat into farming operations, right? what are the challenges each one of you are facing in your own, your own farms, you know, in your own little what's going on with what you guys are doing on that side? I can start and mine is just, just time, as we've said,

I mean, that's a recurring theme here. Obviously, as the podcast has grown, it's my time off the farm is a lot. I used to love the farm because I love driving tractors and growing a crop and I still love that aspect of it, but now I love the farm because I can make my own schedule.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the biggest benefits of it. But dad is still involved at 67 years old, but wanting to slow down and transition out. And like right now he's in Ireland over for the Iowa State, Kansas State game. Oh, yeah, sure. And so I'm glad they're starting to do more stuff like that. And I'm glad that I have my brother back at the farm to keep the train on the tracks. But as dad steps back, if this continues the way it is, I will have to find someone

to help my brother. But how do you... This is a podcast. We've been doing it for six years, but it still could be gone tomorrow. How do you invest in something like that? Yeah. That's my biggest challenge.

Besides, not being able to make any money on farming right now. So do you think... Do you want your kids to be involved? Do you think your kids will have the opportunity to involve? So I have two daughters, nine and five, and we actually live in the town of Slater. So city kids.

Slater's not really a city. I mean, they get to go out on the farm as much as they want, go out to the pigs and whatever. And my whole deal is like, I have no desire to push them into it, but if they want to be there, I would love for them to be involved. But by no means am I expecting,

forcing, my brother's got two kids, a three-year-old boy and just had a daughter this spring. And they actually live on the farm. Yeah. who knows what that looks like and will there be a farm there with the way we're getting pressure from the metro

I don't know I hope they'd be involved but they don't have to be I just want them be successful and happy yeah Dave got any challenges on farm side of thing he's just trying to decide where to invest capital because he's just got

there's so many ways you go with this this answer to a question so I didn't have a dad to share how you do it at all. So the only way I know how to do it is everything we've asked people on a podcast is how to do it and or friends, comrades, confidants that you trust. And AI. Yes.

And they all give me crap. Who's his preface? They all give me crap that like AI give a bad decision. AI gave a great decision. I just didn't interpret it right as the human part of it. The human part of it didn't know that there's this type. and that type, it gave me the right answer, but I didn't execute it right. So that's my biggest challenge is I like to geek out on data and tech.

And so I want to farming's fun for that aspect, but I don't have a whole lot of time. And so the whole lot of time, I want to do it most efficient, as fast as I can do it, and still get out there and get it done to create the generational wealth and have down the road. really it was a retirement gig for me. So if we go there, but there's things you just don't know, the agronomy aspect, I didn't go to school for agronomy. So every time I talk with somebody, I'm like, oh, well, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.

But then how much of it do you apply? If you are just the consumer that walks through Farm Progress show listening, oh my God, chatter, chatter, chatter the whole time. If you trusted every person that's there, you'd be spending money nonstop and does it do anything? So now the biggest challenge is vetting, what do I need to do on my farm? Does my soil work with this? Does my equipment work with this? Does my budget work with this?

So it's processing all the information that comes in and making the right decision, I think is my biggest challenge. If you do pure consumer math walking through the farm progress show, dry land corn yield should be 750 bushels. You just add two bushel, five bushel, three bushel, two and a half bushel, one point five, and just go through there. It's like 700 bushels. It's easy. On the other side, my wife does show cattle, and there's just nothing right about that.

So the biggest challenge is getting her not to buy another $10,000 ever. Torque's a big show job now. So my eyes have been opened to the world of show cattle. I had no idea how much artificial hair could be put upon a cow until watching the steers for the government or the governor's steer show. I was like, here's glue and twine and dye and, you know. Spray paint. Yeah, I was like, wow.

How was that? Did you win? And they're all photoshopped in the magazine. I swear. It's like if you didn't have abs, we'll just grow hair there and I'll cut abs in. We'll make it look right. Yeah.

That was the most interesting thing about that whole experience to me. It was a great experience and it was a great cause. And I was very thankful to have the opportunity to do it. But people's, like people's excitement level, and show pigs are the exact, I mean, same thing.

But within that world, if I had one, I bet you I had eight people that came up to me that were cattlemen, that literally said to me, I hope you're ready for that. Because, boy, when you walk in their ring,

that it that does something to you it's electric it's electric it's electric it's electric and your ass was puckered yeah i mean i was i was looking at that steer as i was leading him in there and i'm like all right i hope we're ready for this and it was somewhat anti-clamatic because you know it was but i'm not you know i'm not that cattle guy but to those people and to take nothing away from it i mean it's a great. It's a great thing. But man, I mean, if that's your world, it's redneck tailgating. Every time I walk through the barns, it's like everybody's got their drinks out.

It's tailgating with cattle. Yeah, it's something. I don't think I could sleep down there in the heat and the flies. That's what the alcohol is for. That's what the alcohol is for. Good point. It's also $18 a cup, but still. You take your own.

Oh, you bring your own. Yeah. That's why you need us. That's why you need a 40-foot trailer for two steers. All the other things you need. All the other stuff. All the other stuff. What about you, Tanner?

It's just, I feel like it's just more of the same, right? I spend more time on a weekly basis with my in-laws. So it's that family dynamic of that they've got my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, and now his two boys. And we joke all the time that my nephew's baby boss, right? He doesn't know what he doesn't know, but yet it's his farm. It's not, but it's the way it goes. And Corey got to hear me bitch for 45 minutes at the beginning of our drive.

And he goes, we got to start talking about something positive. Otherwise, we're going to carry this into it. It wasn't wrong. But that's the issue because it's just constant of, you know, we've done 500 episodes. I've got perspective. Yeah. I'm an outlaw. Yeah.

My idea is only good if my father-in-law hears it. And then it comes up to be his idea. two weeks later. I'm exaggerating, but a lot of the listeners kind of feel the same way. And then the last one's capital. Jesus, could we do a lot of things if we just had more money? Oh, yeah. But how do you make it? How do you get it? How do you deploy it? If we had a million dollars, it still wouldn't do the things that we want to upgrade, wouldn't buy the farms we want to buy. Yeah, by 80 acres. Right. And then if you had $10 million, well, you still couldn't buy it and upgrade and do all the things that you want. I think it's just a

battle everybody's feeling, but we're all in it day after day. Aren't you guys, this is a thought that we have a lot. For all of the busyness and all the stress of trying to balance it all, aren't you thankful that you got too many opportunities? Like, I think about how, like, when we're bitching about, you know, being busy or not being able to get it all done. Every once in a while, I'll just stop and I'll say, well, thank goodness that we have too much stuff to do and we have too many opportunities. Because if I was farming, like if all I was doing was chorn, chorn pigs and row cropping my little farm, and I didn't

have everything else we were doing, I'd be pretty depressed. And I think there's a lot of people out there in ag that as you see the numbers and you see your cost of production going, up and you see the numbers coming in as far as prices and you're getting squeezed. If you don't have something, some opportunity that you can bring some outside income into that farming operation, it's a tough, it's a tough world. I think for people like you and me, it would be. Imagine just row crops. Yeah, you didn't have the chores. Yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot to do, but there's a lot of time. That's why they all have boats. Yeah. You can get into your own head.

Yeah, for sure. But I also wish that if you did desire to just farm that way, that you can. Right. So I think that's like what, like Ryan Kelly would come in and say, well, you should be able to make a living, farming, a small, small farm like that. Can you? No. Thousand acres.

Yeah. One family unit, a thousand acres per family unit. You can. You just got to get creative. Like, maybe not just two-corn. Well, no, but that's what he's saying. Right. Well, I'm saying maybe gross.

some hay, right? And you're diversified. Maybe you have some cattle or whatever. Like, you walk it off the farm on, on, with farmer grade, you know, type of a deal, you know, there's, there's ways to do it, but maybe how you grew up thinking it in your mind, this is how I'm going to do it. I should that I should be able to make my living just, just doing corn and soybeans. Well, that's not reality for everybody. Yeah. Most of us anymore. It's becoming, that's the reality of it. Yeah. Well, and then, you know, something else I've thought about and I'll, I'll thank Tony Reed for, for this is you see like he was putting new he was putting a new auger in his 9610 boy we all think we all think like around here anyway you know it's like well who in their

right mind would still be running something like that i mean hell you can't you'd never be able to make it through a fall well no you can oh yeah the truth is we all could we all could be running equipment that is not what it is. We're also over equipped. It's absolutely ridiculous. Efficiency though. Well, that's, but that's what we say. We need that for the efficiency.

Well, do we? I mean, I'm curious about what your actual, how much of that efficiency is justified, like it really, you really have to have that and how much it is we're just accustomed to having the creature conference that come with all that and all the technology that comes with that. And we want to get this crop in as fast as we can and we want to get this crop out as fast as we can. I remember when I remember when it took us a month, you know, it took us a month to plant corn. If you planted, if you planted 25 acres in a day,

boy, that was a good day. Yeah. And somehow it all got in. Now, it didn't get. get in and it's optimal time and all of that. But there's just questions. When I see stuff like that, I just wonder how much of what we all think we need to have is, that's a real quantifiable thing and how much of it is the story we tell ourselves based on where we are and who our neighbors are. I think it's a mix.

I mean, I remember grandpa talking about, we just go down, I don't know, middle of maid and get, to pull the 7,000 planter out, make sure the chains were all on, loop them up, and make sure they all spun and they were good. Yep. You know? And now, like last year we had, we were out of the field for 30 days of planting because of moisture.

Like, so our window was extremely tight. Yep. To, if you do want to get bigger, like, you do have to have some efficiency level of it there. Yeah. Harvest wise, too. We all have been through those crappy, wet falls, which we're looking right now, if we stay the same pattern, it's going to suck.

Yeah, for sure. So I think as acres have gone up, people have got out of agriculture. We've consolidated. Like that efficiency is there, but boy, there is some opportunity there to be a small farm with small equipment that's paid off. You have a lot of overhead that other people, gone, that other people don't. Yeah, it's interesting. I get both perspectives because my in-laws operations of fat cattle feed yard and several thousand acres of crop ground. And everything's done, big equipment because we got to do it in a short time window.

And then my family, I grew up for a to finish. Now it's a finishing operation in row crops. But dad had a scare with melanoma and had surgery this spring to put him on a 10-pound weight restriction. So I went up and I planted everything, did most of the tillage. And he doesn't have any GPS. I planted with markers, the whole thing with markers. But still planted all the corn in three days and all the beans in three days. to where, yeah, they were longer days.

Yeah, I was snapping in the dark. It's really hard to follow a marker at night. Right? Can you imagine what the headlights I'm operating with are? But it was also kind of refreshing that we can do this. Just because auto steer didn't work. Sure, would we have saved 25 tillage passes? Probably.

Yep. But the 25 tillage passes was an extra hour, hour and a half of working. But then you come back and you run a, a big planner and you hit resume on your AB line and you have your iPad up. Yep. It's kind of nice also. It is. I don't know if we saw in the beginning.

Tanner actually owns pigs. Really? You wanted me to come on and talk pigs. Tanner, I don't own any pigs. Tanner actually owns them. Yeah. So we got in,

it was tri oak at the beginning and then now it's double oak. Yeah. So then my wife and I, we own a third of the group. My parents own a third of the group. And then Gaywin and Galen on the other third. so it's not a lot of super management for me i don't sort them don't load them don't check them because they're in northwest iowa but um still forces me to pay attention to the markets and try

to figure out what's going on so it's conventional genetics just yep yep so do you you own shares in a sal unit or no are you just buying the open market buy on the open market yep look at you gunslinger yeah You know, I feel like that could be the future of the pork industry. You know, we talk a lot about the pig space rent that you get paid for a cattle guy. Your yardage has not gone up. But the cost of building buildings and doing your repairs and all that has. But if you had skin in the game, if you could find an integrator that was willing to give you 40%, right? You still got to fund that.

You still got to be a part of that. You got to write a check when the time's bad. But maybe you get some extra bonus on the top of it. is there a trend that we could go back that direction to incentivize guys to do a good job? What's your incentive to do a good job right now so you don't get pitched at? Pretty much. I mean, I want to do a good job for pride. But yeah, if they end up sending me mash-off pigs that 50% of them are dead, then, yeah.

I mean, it wasn't a very big risk. Dad failed to finish his entire life. After my grandpa had his heart attack and he came back, he started a small sow herd, and then we extended the gestation barn and built another failing room. it and that was not that it burnt me out as a kid but my job was I took care of stillborns and after birth and I ground all the feet just repetitive all the time the shit jobs that's the stuff that'll drive you to want to be a banker yeah that's exactly right it actually forced me to go to the weight room because I was also the one that had to pull pigs because my arm was smaller than dads

I was like I am gonna get big biceps yeah I can't do this anymore didn't work so you talk about you talk about, you know, what makes you, what makes you want to do a good job? When I was at, when I was at Eichelberger's, I had a grower literally, I stopped his place one day, and good grower for them. And he says, he says, if you were to, if you were to rank me as, you know, where am I as far as your growers go? And I said, well, I said, I say you're pretty good. I said, I'd say you're above average. And he's like, yeah, but would you say I'm like the best? And I'm like, no, I would not say you're the best. He goes, good, good.

And I go, what? And he's like, well, if you were to tell me that I was like one of the best, I'm working way too hard for what you're paying me. But I don't want you talking about me at the meetings on Wednesday. I just want to be right there in the middle where no, like you barely even remember that I'm working with you guys. He goes, that's the sweet spot. He goes, everybody leaves me alone, but I'm not going to get my contract. I fully understand that because when I got in,

I wanted to do the best job. I wanted to be top of every list. And you know what that got me? Every time a corporate person flew into Des Moines, I was one of the closest sites, like, we're going to Hillbos. And the worst part is when they had challenged pigs and your site was one of the ones,

they're like, should we give Corey good pigs? Or we should give him the bad? Oh, we'll give him the bad ones. Yeah, because he does a great job. Yeah. That's exactly right. Oh, man. Yep.

It's the opposite. Yep, that's right. It's upside-down world. Yeah. in the we need to finish world. What's the worst episode? Like, in your personal opinion, what's the worst episode that like when you guys,

and it's probably different for all of you when you got done in either the guest went a direction that you were like, what in the hell is wrong with this guy? Or I guess the other thing is, have you ever had one go so well that you were all three basically would have gotten public in talks by the time you got off the off the episode.

Like you don't remember finishing the episode. Well, that would have been the top secret episode that got us banned on TikTok with Melanial Farmer and Master Pipe Player. I think they drank a bottle of rum between the two of them. Yeah.

But our worst shows, we didn't air. Yeah, I was going to say there's a handful that aren't out there. I'm trying to think if there's anything that didn't do well. We had one a while back that was with a gal that was overseas and had a little bit of a thicker accent. And she was talking about satellites and what satellites brought value to agriculture. And that just sticks out to me as kind of like, man, she didn't say anything earth-shattering.

We all know they're up there. We all know that they can take a picture of your farm and they orbit so many times. You know, that's the first one that pops out my head. And I feel safe enough saying that one because she probably doesn't have a job anymore. It's the Family and Friends event at Shoppers Drug Mart. Get 20% off almost all regular-priced merchandise. Two days only. Tuesday, April 28th and Wednesday, April 29th.

Open your PC optimum app to get your coupon. There's been some that you guys know as hosts. There's a time to pause, bite your lip and bite your time, the time to ask a question, and a time to interrupt. Like, okay, we need to keep this conversation moving. There's been some where you get the salesman of whatever product, and they just won't stop talking at all. And you're trying to look at each other like,

should we interject? Should we like stop this? Like, okay. And with another story. And then we're, you know, right? Those are,

those are some of the worst. They won't yield. They won't yield the mic. Oh yeah. That was a recent one we didn't put out. Right. And, yeah,

not going to say their name. I'm not going to drag them through. But yeah, it was literally we had them on for something else because we found it interesting. And they didn't want to talk about that at all. They just wanted to talk about their product over here. and wanted it to be a giant commercial.

And it was actually a Farm for Fun show. So we were literally just trying to have fun with their story and all that. And it was, and then they're pissed that we didn't put it out. And it's like, we didn't have you on to be a commercial. We're very picky about who we do work with because it has to work. It has to be a good product. They have to be good people. We've got one coming up that is going to be a stretch.

And it is going to take our six years of combined experience. to be able to, and I have confidence that we can, right? You just direct the conversation. You ask their questions to get it to go that way, and I'm sure it'll be just fine. But it's, it's, uh, 2026 is going to be a really fun year because we, we've already got great plans. We've already got got good guests lined up.

We've got folks that are, are, uh, wanting to be on and we've said no. Because there's just, Corey keeps that level of quality just. Yes. Almost unattainable. There's some that are, you think are going to be bad. Like, what's this guy do? What are they?

And then, oh, that was cool conversation. And then there's other ones that like, oh, this is going to be good. And it's so dry. Do you see that, Sawyer? They got shit planned out in 2020. Oh, geez. Yeah.

Who got next to week? We're just figuring it out as we go here. So I was just happy that Sawyer showed up today. Yeah. Just like God, I hope he comes. Yeah, two-man show still to this day. How many people do, does farm for profit have like how many people do you guys employ all together to keep it all

straight these days we always tell people 10 they're not all full time yeah right nice yeah 10 people have paid what they're worth yeah yeah what three or i'm not really full time but i probably put full time hours in at least mentally thinking about it all the time yeah tanner's full time Rachel's full time. What are some of the annoying habits each one of you do that drives everybody and you guys? Should we tell our own or should we tell their? No, tell your.

Yeah, no, tell somebody else's annoying habit that just irks you. Because, I mean, I don't know, Dad, what's a habit that I do that irks you? You get really, you get, you do not do well with flying. Like, you want to have everything nailed down. and if it's not, like, you texted me that David was going to be here. And I purposely, like, waited a little bit because I was like, oh, man. He is going to just freak out and he's going to be up here pacing and just freak out. He was a little overbored.

I wasn't that stressed out. I just like it. It's quality. I like to be good. I want it to be good. The only other thing I'll say, too, is we should have a box. You talk about your mic box. I should have a box literally with a Snickers in it

Because if he hasn't eaten Hangary Oh it's terrible And you'll be like And he knows he knows Be like have you anything to eat And he'll be like fuck you Where's that stickers

You just took one of their answers away Because that's you and me Yeah I'm the same boat Yeah We were at a trade show With a former employee of ours And didn't get lunch

When lunch was available for me He puts it on the schedule I put it on the schedule I know I'm going to be hungry. And I got done with that interview, and I saw that that person had not left their seat when it was time to go get lunch at this show. And I said, boy, I'm hungry.

Oh, I'll go get that. Knowing full well, they'd already close the food line down. Yep. Man, obviously, I've never forgotten. Yeah. Don't make that same mistake. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know what I would say for you. I'll jump in and I'll say my first thing for both these guys. They're both in the same boat for this. And it is due to the nature. of the entire conversation we've had, they are one minute early or one minute late people. Like, we got an interview at 10. You will see them at 10.

We're doing other stuff. I didn't say anything wrong. I'm a 20 minute early guy. Yeah. So for me, I'm accustomed to it. It's been six years. There's absolutely no problem with it now. But that's still a little inert like, man,

if I didn't have all this ready for you. I'm not allowed to touch your stuff anyway. So to me, I can just show up. I would say for Tanner, he's so black and white. And one of his best qualities as far as what Dave said is he's so organized. He like can't get out of that. Like he's, was it on the contract? Was it in the email?

Was it this? And like sometimes has no regard for like, hey, this person just doesn't feel like they're getting us for long enough or, you know, whatever. Has no feelings. Yep. He's a robot. Darth Vader. Yeah. And for Dave, we've talked about it openly,

he can ask some two-minute-long questions and answer it in the same time. And then the guest goes, that could be you too. That could be you too. Yeah. That is a bad, and I'm conscious of that, but as I'm talking to somebody,

it'll remind me of a story that I really want to tell. So I'll ask the question. I'll ask the question so that I can, can tell my story. It's all about me. It's all about guiding the conversation. We had a deal in one of our early episodes where it's like a year deep before Corey where we said, do you realize you say this all the time? And I said, I don't remember what it was, but. Tanner should say fantastic. Tanner says fantastic. You said fantastic. I thought you were just making fun of him. It's fantastic. I was like, oh, perfect. He's already on it. So you say, we say,

10-4 probably too much. 10-4. 10-4. You know, yeah, or I don't know. What else do we say all the time after somebody says something? What the fuck? Probably. We probably do say fuck too much.

That episode, you know you have a problem where when the number one comment on the podcast you put out with Larson's parents was. Gosh, I wish every episode was like this. Yeah. I don't think you guys. swore once in that. Did you swear in that? I don't think Sawyer swore on that once. It's like well, yeah. So how do you

get to a point to where it's Larson's parents? It's totally random. Yeah. You know, I'd be like, hey, this is Torque's kids. I talked to Chet pretty, I'm not regularly, but we talk every once a while and he said that

Doug O and Amy were going to be down here around the area, so I'm like, hell yeah, let's go. Have them on. So they came on and it worked out but yeah getting chat here is a little bit more of a challenge because he's pretty busy but we'll get him someday i think but yeah but there yeah that was you're right and that was you know that is that's one of those episodes i love about doing what you do because you you have an idea of what you think something's going to be and then every once in a while it's just like you're

done you're like wow that was that was really good i mean just at a different different way, not what you thought it was going to be. And I like episodes like that. When's this going to air? Probably next week. So the week after, we had a conversation with the CEO of Des Moines Waterworks and the CEO of Central Iowa Waterworks. Oh, man. Yeah. That's going to drop the first of September. That's one of those conversations to where we got out of that. And we didn't know where it was going to go. We didn't know how well the communication was going to happen. And I felt like we had been through three days at the trade show. I don't prepare for shows and I prepared for that show.

I bet you were. I watched and listened to a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have to sit on your hands at any time during that? No, it was, uh, is honestly very good. I think that'll come out. I think it was a great place for two parties to come together. They were, I felt very authentically trying to learn. Yeah. And so it's good. What it, what's like the, go ahead. And they, I think they felt right away that we were prepared. We weren't just coming in. to a gotcha conversation. So I think about 10 minutes in, everybody was kind of like, all right,

they started ticking. Mm-hmm. Good. Nice. That's good. What's like the overall, you know, you can think about what farm for profit means or stand for or what your guys' mission is to do what you guys are doing.

What would that be? It's never changed. When I set out to put speakers on stage, I could see it having a business background, got a business degree that farms weren't ran, and still aren't some today, ran like a business. And there's so many things that go into decisions that you can make that if you cared about it, like,

I got to meet this quarterly return, or I got to meet this annual return that business owners do, it didn't exist and it's growing in agriculture. But from the beginning, it's always been helped farmers achieve higher levels of profitability. Because if you can show a profit, at the time in finance, I have a better odds of my payment getting made.

If you don't show a profit, now I got to fight who's not going to get paid to get me paid first before everybody else. So from the beginning it started out selfishly. Now you see that it's a need across the nation, across the world, that we have to help farmers achieve higher levels of profitability. And we say higher on purpose

because it doesn't cap it. It doesn't take a small farmer out of the equation. It doesn't make it only about big ag. No, if we can do something to help share a message with you to make more money, that's a win-win for everybody. And then we got to do it in an entertaining way. That's what I was going to add is that I bring in, it has to be entertaining.

It can't be stuffy old ag media. It has to be what you guys are doing, what we're doing. We have to deliver it in an entertaining fashion that someone's actually going to turn it on and listen to it. Yeah. You got to consume it. Otherwise, it's not worth anything. I always wanted to do coffee shop talk because I'd go to coffee shop. And coffee shop, the old guy wouldn't talk to the young guy.

The young guy wouldn't talk to the old guy. But then at every conference or everything, when everybody gets to the bar after the classes, that's where the real deals happen. So we kind of started what's working in egg. I just wanted coffee shop brought into where guys wouldn't talk about it, but now nobody's watching them. So here's a podcast. Nobody's watching you, but give me your best.

You piloted that at an auctioneers conference to where you just had a session. you know pick your a session B session C and he was in this what's working for auctioneers and people spilled their guts yeah that's what we started is like screw wait till the bar they're like well what's this class about there isn't a class

somebody go get a whiskey because we're going to have it right here just what are you doing what works for you what works for you because what works for Corey on his field doesn't quite work on mine because mine's bottom ground what works for you with your hogs might not work with you know so conversation's good what's your guys

his biggest opportunity going like when you look down the road what do you strike what do you think is can take you guys I don't know achieve your goals whatever one thing we should have done sooner

as I see your YouTube on the wall over there we started YouTube way late in the game all socials really I mean we had a Facebook we had a Twitter but like TikTok we just ran on our personal accounts for two or three years. We should have been on there right away.

And I don't know that we ever, oh, lost my train of thought there for a second, but where I was going with it is that it wasn't going to turn into a media company. It was just a podcast at start at the infancy. But now everybody has a podcast. What's the next thing? Is it threads? Is it this? Is it that?

So when you think of like, what's the, the next, it's just staying abreast of what's out there, that it might be RFD TV TV show. It might be, you know, whatever. Don't know. Don't know what it is. You're not going to hit a home run. You ask what's big? What could we do down the road? You're not going to hit a home run doing because we'd have done it. Right? We'd have been flying down here instead of driving down here. That's still a dream of ours. Have a little PJ. Get everywhere in a minute. Yeah. But I think the biggest opportunity for us is when we can add a couple more team members and then be able to step back and reflect on all the connections that we have. And there's got to be ways that we can leverage the

people we know. We get asked to be in consultation meetings with some of our partners that we were never contracted to do because we're so connected. We're at this conference, that conference. We know, like, they just want to hear our opinion on this new product or whatever. And it's like, we don't charge for that. Maybe it's something we should be. We do 104 interviews a year. We've got good email addresses, most of the time good cell phone numbers to where if you needed to get a hold of somebody, we have that connection.

We have that ability to. And then when you spend an hour and a half talking with them, specifically about them, all of a sudden there's this magical friendship that's formed, even though they never asked you a single question. Well, they know about us because there's 500 episodes that they can consume and do all of this together. So it's a fascinating spot to be in that we don't take lightly. We don't just hand out phone numbers. We try to, hey, Tork, can we give your number to somebody else? Yep. Because otherwise that'll bite you and ask too. But I do think our biggest opportunity down

the road is there will be a lightball moment, hopefully two or three of them to where we go, you need to know this person and I want half. Yeah. I still think some of the newcoming content is where everybody's got their niche now that's out there. And, when you get Tony Reed and Farm for Profit and Barn Talk and Larson Farms and you put them all together and see what happens, I think, I think that's, yeah, I think there's more of that to be done. Yeah. Get on it because we're ready. Yeah.

I think, where's yours? Oh, boy. For Barn Talk, I mean, we just want to continue to have fantastic guests come on this show. Good, valuable conversations. Valuable conversations. We want to grow that. I think we want to become one of the top podcasts out there. Become, I think you are.

Well, I just mean, you think of the Sean Ryan's, Joe Rogan, all that. We only have such a market, though. Agriculture is only this niche where they're talking to the entire world. We're talking to egg world. Yeah. I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of room to grow in that just because the vast majority of podcasts out there. For one, there's a lot of turnover because, like you said,

a lot of people start and they don't start in the end of mine and they don't get instant results. And let's face it, everything's gotten harder. I mean, you think about from the time we all started, trying to start now, it's kind of like farming. It's like you've got to grind hard to get any kind of traction. We launched two new shows this summer. Yeah.

We launched Beyond the Jacket for FFA and Young, interested in farmer, and we launched Rush Hour Ag, which is policy focused. And it is. We're going to have to grind it out. I'm happy with where they're at and the traction they've gotten to begin with,

but it is. It doesn't just double and double and double like we did. Yeah, we were just lucky. We never set out to make money or start a business with it or anything. You know, it just truly was having a good time. And that's part of it. That's part of the art of it.

Yeah. because you didn't force it and you put in the time and you reap the benefits. For me, I feel like what I would like to see, we have kind of built everything we've done as a funnel to bring, get people to know us, bring them to us, and then sell a box of meat. I mean, that's kind of the, but I think what we'd really like to do is take this space

and maybe do, we're thinking about possibly doing some events where it's almost a little bit like the lifestyle. Yeah. Like work with a few partners that are in our wheelhouse and kind of give people an experience. Yeah, I would just say build a community. build a community and make it a kick-ass community and try to get on guests that that's a big reason why we called it barn talk was so that we weren't so isolated in just ag. I know that we are farmers, but that's why we've had Marshall Yonda on. That's why we've had Ron DeSantis on. That's why we've tried to have people. Like I want Barn Talk to be known as like what Micro is. Like Micro, you look at

micro, you're like, that's an American, real American dude that like, has a, real conversations with just other real Americans. And that's what I want it to be. I want us to have on just that American kind of podcast. And then I'd really like to be replaced at some point. I was going to say, how you retire from a podcast? Well, I'm going to stick it out and it's getting longer every day. I really want to stick it out until we can do at least one podcast with the generation

after him. And then I'd just like to hand that off. You know how that works, don't you? Yeah, I got to get busy. Yeah, right. One thing I wanted to touch on, because speaking on that whole topic of kind of getting outside of ag, I mean, you guys all have families, you're all dads.

Like, when you look at the landscape of the world right now, not just in ag, but just the way the world's going, what do you think about it for your kids and the next generation and just what the world will look like? What scares you? What seems like a great opportunity? You know, what do you think? It is scary out there.

And I think it's always been scary, but social media brings that to our doorstep in small town America. And so I'm... What's scary? The way of the world now. How people have gotten so far removed from agriculture. They don't know where their food comes from. they think we are the devils, you know,

and that's why we chose invite the Des Moines Waterworks people in. Because out of anybody, like, they should want a thriving Iowa economy, which involves agriculture. And so we see that on social media, but then you go to one of these big cities on the coast or whatever, and you see the homeless population that's there or how they're ran. Like, I do not want my kids to go into that world,

But I do want them to be educated about it and know about it. I don't know. It's wild. I think agriculture's cool because we can still be out here in small town America and grow our kids up with good family values. Yeah. You don't think it's scary, dude? Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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Here's the not grown up on the farm, like, perspective. Right? Yeah, I, sometimes I think about, is it just scarier because we're more connected than ever before and we see every bad thing that is ever out there is put out there? Or is it actually more? The craziest it's ever been?

I don't know that. I mean, so those people don't know where agriculture is, but then as AI comes and all our farmers don't know where the technology should be, then are, you know, do the other people think that they're crazy? You know, we think they're crazy. It's just perspective.

I also think the ability to think for yourself has gone away. Like it's so absolute. Like are you right or left, right? And it's, there's nothing in the middle anymore. Mm-hmm. Of, I know I can have, I'm on the right or side of things. But if I believe in something, I'm, I'm okay going a little bit to the middle or on the left. If that, you know, if it makes sense.

It'll come back, though. It's cyclical. A prime example. We're just on a cruise. And I don't know people from other. countries or I don't speak the same language as them. But you know what brought us together? Cell phones.

You want to know why? Everybody wanted a picture. Will you take our picture? Will you take our picture? Starts the conversation. And here the thing that Drew pulled us all apart now brought us back together. And everybody, we started so many conversations taking pictures of other families because nobody had selfie sticks. So we were all doing that.

So it's just perspective and how you take it. I think it's cyclical. It will come back generation after generation and humanity. I get that I think you're a pure optimist. 100%. Yep. Well, okay, I'll give you something that I think we can all agree on with all this technology. I'm an 80s kid.

Where's my fucking jet pack? Because I watched a lot of Johnny Quest and we got all this technology and I'm like, I don't get it. There are some personal vehicles that can fly you around. I know, but it should be like you should go to wall. I went, I had to get a new coffee maker, $27, Mr. Coffee at Walmart. I'm like, I remember being the kid, you know, in the 80s. I'm like, I fully expected that by now I'd be able to just go down to Shields.

They'd have eight different models of Jetpack. It's like, I don't get it. Where's all this technology? Yeah. We need some for sure. You know, you talk about the future and kids and family and where that goes. One thing that I don't know that people know is there's so many jobs out there. Podcasting wasn't a job.

What, 50 years ago, right? So I read a statistic and I can't remember it so I won't even say it. But there's a statistic out there that says that a certain percent of jobs aren't even created yet. We even know what they are. So I didn't ever think I'd be a podcast host by any means. So when we think of the future where our kids are, heck, half the jobs that they're going to potentially have to do, we don't even know what the hell they are yet. So I'm optimistic about there's some cool shit that they're going to get to do that we didn't even know exists yet.

Would I like them in farming? That'd be cool. Would I like them in auctioneering? That'd be cool. But one thing I have figured out through my time is it takes money to make it happen. So which way would I like to push them? Hey, anesthesiology pays pretty good. Hey, attorney over here pays pretty good.

It takes money to make the world go around. So, yeah, don't settle. You've got to like what you do, but make money while you're doing it. And this isn't the first time in history. It won't be the last that you've had a big. change as far as a big move in society brought by technology.

And I'm going to slaughter these numbers because it's been a while. But I saw this somewhere somebody was talking about the advent of mass-produced automobiles and in a city like New York, in the matter of like a four-year period, all of the

hay brokers, all of the horse sales people, all of the carriage builders, all of the livery stables that took care. Within a four-year period, like 95% of those people, and I can't remember what that number of people was, but it was a huge number and it was a huge percentage of jobs, just gone. Because as the automobile became mass produced and it got adopted so quick, it displaced all those people. And their example that was they were showing news stories, newspaper stories, which were basically like what people are talking about with AI.

Like, it was the end of the world that, you know, we were going to be in a depression because, you know, all these people are going to be unemployed with nothing to do. And it was not that way at all. Now, there's the automobile didn't turn into Terminator, you know. Yeah. Doesn't have the ability to think for itself. Right.

or think for us. So it's not 100% true, but there will be opportunities. Yeah, 100% I agree. Having read or listened to Tractor Wars by Neil Dalstrom, it's kind of the same thing with the tractor. Yep. What that did to agriculture and what jobs that eliminated, but then you still needed someone to repair the tractor

and put tires on it and sell this attachment to it. And it was fascinating to see the adoption of, you know, not quite as fast as the automobile, but once it got going and they got functional it took over. That's what we're talking about on the technology side. But one thing, again,

I think Vance Crow has a lot of insights and he said the one thing with AI is AI can't tell you no. It can tell you it has limits because of its creator told them you can't go do these things, but AI won't tell you no. I've seen the TikToks to where,

oh, I used to hate arguing with my husband, but now every time I put my argument into Chad GPT and it tells me I'm right. it's it's uh i love to hate it and hate to love it i every phone conversation i just went on an airline and i had to call them because we lost our bag and it takes me six minutes now to get to a real person before like all he did is there a i that can just listen to the ai and not waste my six minutes in my time so frustrating yeah yeah well we'll just have to see how it turns out Think of the last 100 years in farming.

I was just going to say. 1925, steel wheels, horses. Then we got rubber, hybridization of corn, you know, all the wars and all that. Like, farming has always been about innovation. So, like, we're used to it. But then to sit there and say, well, and we need to go back to the old ways. Well, what's the old ways? We've only had 100 years of this.

It's pretty crazy. And if it's done that much in 100 years from, horses to drive yourself, what's the next hundred look like? Who knows? Crazy. Just hope the dollar stays intact. Bitcoin. Not Bitcoin?

It's coming. I don't know. There's an argument for it. I can honestly say Torque, he's an influencer, because he influenced me to buy Tesla stock. Yeah. There you go. This is not financial advice. I mean, no.

I took it as. We're not a proven financial resource. Yeah, there we go. Tears got us covers. So that's where you're, what you talked about, like being able to think for yourself. And I mean,

I won't. The simple story on that was that was a case where the amount of hate that was put out there over Tesla when that was all coming to market was so great. And I had just enough time on my hands. And I'm enough of a contrarian that I was like, is that really? Is it really that much, you know, bullshit? Is it? And so I downloaded the annual report. I started reading the annual report. And people are like, that's, that's way simpler than the manual for my 7820. I mean, it's not that hard. And by the time I got through it, I was like, they're going to make a lot of money. I mean, this is going to work. And then when you start put it out there, people are like, oh, you're crazy. You're crazy. I still think, I mean, never been. bet against Elon. Never bet against Elon.

So anyway. We followed a Tesla on the way down here that had a circle and a line through Elon. Yeah. You're still driving the Tesla. You're still driving it. It's the equivalent. The greatest, I don't know what your guys is like. Did you really have that? You didn't post that on social media, did you?

No. Because I just saw that on social media. I was going to mention it. Passed a black Tesla on the way down here. Of course, we were obviously driving. Yeah, circle that says no Elon, but They probably got their tire slashed too many times. Yeah, because everybody hated Elon when he was helping out Trump. But do we want to go back in technology?

Like I'm looking at your flat panel TV there and I'm thinking of all these people that come to the auction and they say, hey, I got this entertainment center. I mean, you know, in the 90s, you had to have an entertainment center and you had that CRT TV that fits there. Now you can't sell any of them. They're all crap firewood now, but they paid whatever. I don't want an old CRT TV anymore. I want a thinner, flatter, bigger, you know, all technologies that way. Do we really want to go back to a tractor that doesn't drive itself?

Do we really want to go back to, you know, think of anything innovation? Yeah. No. I don't want to go back to the Nokia 6190, although it was very cool. Yeah. Motorola razor was the best cell phone I ever had. It lasted longer than any of the rest of them, but I don't want to go back. So when are we going to put the hats on?

Oh, the tinfoil hats. Yeah. When I was, I was doing a little cleaning up, uh, we're out of conspiracy theories. All the conspiracy theories that we used to put the hats on, they've all, they all turned out to be true. So it's like, we got to come out with some new, I don't know. We're hoping to come out with some new ones.

Uh, what's, what's the best really shitty comment you've ever gotten? Because my favorite shitty comment that we've ever gotten is a guy literally said, I hate you guys so much. I can't stop listening. That's my favorite. Like, I love that. I don't even look at comments. I just, yeah, I don't have a specific one, but I just love that people hate.

And it just drives the algorithm. I know. And my favorite comment back is like, thanks for the comment. Yep. There's nothing better. You know, so. Or they always come on. Like, you guys don't farm at all.

You know nothing about farming. It's like, okay. Yeah, I just play one on TV. Yeah. Probably what it bothered me the most out of everything is, you know, we had an episode, one of early episodes with just a Jackson thing. And he talked about how he was going to, or what wasn't even him, it was the one-legged mama was talking about her son was nine years old, was right in five acres, and he was

going to be responsible for buying all the seed, all the inputs. They were making him open a bank account for this. And they tore this kid apart. There's no way nine-year-old's doing it by himself, doing it. I'm like, does it, fuck does it matter? Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't.

Doesn't. Even if dad's floating him or grandpa's got the tech and the track. It don't matter. The kids get to farm five acres. It's, yeah, people are cynical. We've had comments about our guests that then that makes our guests mad. I'm like, look, it's just, surely you have this, but, you know, so those are bad comments. It was no ill intent to any of them, but that's just what people commented.

That's true. We have taken a couple of shows down because of idiots. Well, I'll tell you what. if anybody gives you guys shit, you're just shit out of luck. We're going to, we're going to air this thing no matter what. There you go. We will be in the comment section, fueling the fire. Yeah.

I love the guy. Sorry to interrupt you there. I hate the comments being, so there's two jobs that people hate, and one is auctioneer and one is realtor. And I'm both. And so it's just like, you crooked son of a bitch, blah, blah, blah, like all the time. I'm like, you have no clue that it's still a service business.

And it's service for people at the right time. but I get a lot of that on social media, not necessarily podcast-wise, but it's like- There is a really good Instagram account that's like, it's like hate for realtors. Hate for realtors, yeah.

And it's awesome. It's so funny. Like, crooked, crooked, well, if you can't laugh at yourself, right? Like, there's a time for realtors and there's a time, yeah, you probably could sell yourself. Well, but it is, that's, that's something, that the disconnect is so strong because I would argue that

those are two professions that are more dependent on personal reputation that about any other it's one of the most dependent upon reputation occupation. People do business, people they trust. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, so it's pretty obvious that if you were those things, you would not be successful.

I mean, it's not like you can be, you can be a really shitty clerk, a court at some, you know, courthouse, and you could probably have that job for a long time before, you know, probably your whole life. But you can't have your job. and do a shitty job because people vote with their checkbook.

I mean, it's just how it is. So, well, boys, you guys got anything else for us? Or is there any dying, any question, burning desire questions you want to ask? I want to, but I'd like to invite you guys up to our studio sometime. We tried to have both you on at Farm Progress two years ago and you were hugging a toilet. You were, yeah. Oh, yeah. I got food poisoning.

Torque came down and gave us a little bit, but I would love to have you guys on for Farm for Fun Show and come to our bar we'll do I love it let's do it we'll make it happen for sure the R bar our bar oh I'll give you one last question because I want to ask this to yourself to your to your to your 18 year old self what would be one piece of advice that you looking back because you you talked about perspective you've got some perspective what would your advice to yourself be maybe 20 18 still I don't know I mine would fit for 18 so I I went in and got a finance degree because I saw how hard it was on my parents growing up. I mean, I graduated 2006, was old enough to understand what was happening in the hog markets

in that year and a couple of years before that. You know, I'd put your patches on your sweatpants and sew things back together. Like, I got that. And so I went and identified the community member that I thought had the most security financially. So I was going to go into finance. and what I would go back and tell myself, I don't have any regret for the years of experience that I spend in banking.

That's not the point. I just put so much emphasis on money that that is what it would take to be successful and happy. And I would go back and tell myself that it seems like whenever you think you don't have it, it magically shows up or an opportunity does or a perspective does to where, I wouldn't have spent so much brain space on how can I make a million bucks.

That's good. I would just tell myself to say yes more, stick your neck out more. I mean, at that age, you feel like you have to get married or no one's going to marry. You feel like you have to figure out what you're going to do with your life. I didn't travel abroad for, I went to college. I didn't travel abroad until my senior year and I did it for on a two-week deal down to Panama. And I was so, I just remember coming back and being so pissed at myself

that the three years prior, I'd said no to so many, because I didn't want to leave. I felt like the farm needed me to be around. I felt like I couldn't leave my friends or whatever. I mean, you should have no perspective at that age. You just have what's, you know, do I have enough in my bank account

to get through the bars next weekend, you know? And I just wish I would have said yes more. And network, right? Because it's, it truly is not what you know, it's who you know and it's crazy the opportunities you get and the doors that open when you say yes. David, he studied a lot of broads. Or wait. No, that's how you said that.

Sorry. Go ahead. Yes, yes. The two things. Well, three probably, but two for sure. So I was just in Alaska last weekend and there's young people everywhere that come there all for the tourism industry. And I was so dead set on got to get a job, got to get married, got to build a house, got to Got to grow up immediately.

I would go back and tell my 18-year-old self, dude, explore, go out, go to Europe, go to Alaska, and work up there as a cook for six months or whatever because there's a lot of opportunity out there. So I was so focused on growing up too quick that now I want to be 20 again. So that's one thing. And then the other thing is the world is ruthless and don't trust anybody or be careful with who you trust because I've been burned throughout my. life a few times and and I've had very good mentors but learning who to trust and who not to trust is very important. Yeah. Power of discernment. You can tell he still wants to be 20 by his hair. Yeah. A lot of broads. Yeah. What else? What was you showing your dating life in 18?

Same thing. Just explore. Just explore. Just explore. Just explore. Yeah, you're up. Alaska. Yeah. There you I love it. Okay. Well, guys, hey, it was an absolute pleasure. It was an absolute pleasure have you guys on. If you guys got any value, go follow these guys and what they're doing.

You guys are absolutely killing it for our industry. And I think we need to definitely make a trip up and try out your bar too. So I might have a cocktail after this. I don't know. It's pretty early, but maybe we'll just try something.

We'll sample something. But if you got any value from the show, follow these guys, share it out with the people that you know, leave her view on Spotify or Apple. we love you guys we appreciate you and we'll see you back here next week for another episode