Barn Talk - Why Going Bankrupt Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Welcome back to Barn Talk! In this special episode, the conversation focused on uncovering the traits and habits that set successful people apart—especially those who've visited the barn as guests over the years. Instead of the usual hot topics, the discussion explored the common threads among high-achieving farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs, and business owners, sharing lessons learned firsthand from memorable interviews and personal experiences. A key theme that emerged was the importance of going "all in," lifelong learning, resilience, humility, and staying true to your values of faith, family, and legacy. Tune in for an episode packed with insights and real stories aimed at inspiring anyone striving to carve their own path and live a life of meaning and purpose. JOIN THE BARN TALK NEWSLETTER & GET LIVE EVENT ACCESS: We're on a mission to get 10,000 subscribers, and once we do, we're hosting a live event at the barn! Sign up to get exclusive access to tickets and details.👇🏻 Help us get there: https://www.joinbarntalk.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👇🏻 ● Barn Talk Instagram ➱ https://www.instagram.com/barntalkshow  ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS    ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4    ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS ● Sawyer’s X ➱ https://x.com/SawyerWhisler  ● Tork’s X ➱ https://x.com/TorkWhisler  00:00 Encouraging reviews and subscriptions 08:23 Oil market reactions to canal issues 13:47 Pfizer's role in cheese production 15:50 Discussing traits of successful guests 23:51 Importance of taking risks 28:45 Embracing diverse learning experiences 36:45 Focusing on priorities over quitting 40:05 Building success from failure 44:48 Embracing not knowing everything 51:25 Following your own path 56:13 Embracing contrarian thinking 01:03:09 Balancing personal and professional life 01:05:06 Balancing Work and Family Priorities 01:13:45 Life's constant problem-solving 01:19:44 Speaking at Iowa State Fair 01:20:17 Meeting us at state fairs ------------------------------- ⚠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 through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. RISK STATEMENT– The trading of Bitcoins, alternative cryptocurrencies, NFTs, individual stocks, etc. has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for all people. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice. #EP210 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, mid-sized business. We see your big ambitions, but how do you achieve the wins you want when your technology is holding you back? SAP Grow is built to grow with your business, no matter its size, with AI embedded at its core, working across every system, all ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow. AI Cloud ERP for any size business. All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear 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 stays in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be an episode with just Dad and I. We haven't done one of these in a long time because we've just had amazing guests come to the barn each week. But today we have some time to do it, so we're going to do it. got a lot of good stuff to talk about. But before we get into it, you guys know the drill.

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leave a review on Spotify or Apple. We're up to 4,000 five star Spotify reviews and we're slacking on Apple. Apple guys, help us out. We're only at 1.9. But those reviews, main purpose of that is it gives our show a lot of credibility, um, to allow us to have more awesome, great guests come to the show. and attract more people to want to come on BarnTalk. So we appreciate all of you to do that. Last thing you can do to help us out here at BarnTalk is you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter at joinbarntalk.com. We're putting out a weekly newsletter with everything going on in rural America.

Basically a Hot Topics episode rolled up in a newsletter delivered in your inbox every week. When we reach 10,000 subscribers on that newsletter, we're going to have a live event right here at the farm in the barn. and we want to have you guys out, have some whiskey, have some bushlight, and have some speakers that have come on Barn Talk, and really just have a great event. That's what we want to do. I'm sorting all my whiskey,

and I'm going to have all the stuff that I don't like available, so get rid of that. Bring a hammer. We're going to fix up the farm. Yep. Paintbrush, hammer. It's not going to be a free ticket. It'll be good.

We might, you know, we might give away some free tickets, and you just get sweat equity. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. That's what I've done my whole life. I know. Now then the role's reversed. Because I got to be a slave driver to you. I'm just your bitch, pretty much.

All the to-Tody. Yeah, I know. Well, it's all right. I don't mind. I like offloading responsibility. So it's kind of nice. You're going to be in that mower eventually with the swivel coozy, I promise. Plausible deniability. That's what I like. I just like it when things aren't my fault. Yeah. I do too. I don't like it when I asked you.

I missed you. You missed me. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. How was your trip? My trip was good. I went to Europe. This is my first time out of the country. I went to Europe about a week ago when I was gone for nine days. I went to Greece and I went to Czech Republic and Prague. And I loved every second of it. I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about other people. There was about 25 first time things that I did on that trip that I've never done before in my life. And I want to do it again. 23 of them you can talk about and two, you can't tell anybody. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, I got to keep it close to chest. But no, it was an unbelievable experience. Like I said, I don't, growing up, we didn't go on vacation very much. I'd never been out of the country before. So it was really awesome to be able to do that and treat myself a little bit to getting outside and going and see in Europe. And I can't recommend it enough. I think, I think as farmers and ranchers and small business owners, a long time, you know, I was one of those guys. It was like, if I leave, the sky's going to fall. Like the works, there's too much work

to do. I can't ever leave. Well, you got to have your ducks in a row and you have to have great people to help you out if you do leave. But I promise you, you can leave. You can do it. you just choose not to. And it's worth doing it and getting away from the day to day, you know, hustle and bustle. Because one, you get to go experience something that's great, but two, it gets you away from your day to day and gives you a fresh set of eyes and gets you kind of out of the nitty-gritty to be able to kind of look at what you are doing and maybe look at it from a different lens. So I loved it. I recommend it to anybody. Got to go, got to go see the world. a lot of world out there to go, go explore and see. So you went to Europe and I went to Nashville

and that's like going to another world too. The average age of Nashville, I think, is about 30 years old, it looks like. Might even be younger than that. It could be. Man, people are flocking there like crazy and as long as you don't have to go too far in any direction that you get stuck in the traffic, it's pretty nice. But if you venture very far, it takes a lot of driving. It takes a lot of time. It does. We had a good time. My middle brother lives down there and we went and spent the four with them. And I will say this. I don't know about the entire city of Nashville, but the part we were in, they take their Fourth of July fireworks pretty seriously. I was kind of bamboozled, like, went on for hours. And this was just like in a neighborhood. So anyway, kudos to those guys,

because it was quite the show. So I'm glad to be back. I'm glad to be back, too. By the end of the, by the end of the nine days, I was Jones and to get. You were pretty well shot. I was Jones and to get home. Yeah, I don't wait. I can only chill for so long. You can only not do nothing for so long. Yeah, for sure. You got a good old market update for us? I do have a market update.

We haven't had one for so long that I had to dig out my template because I was like, wow, where's everything at? So the market update today, corn for December, $4.60. Local, the best bid that I could find was $4.18, and Big River, has a 430 bid. Beans for November, 1191, ADM in Burlington, 1181, and Quincy across the river, 1226.

Beanmeal, $317 a ton. Wheat for December, 660. Smallest wheat crop in a long time. And wheat has responded. However, unbelievably to me, the world wheat crop is pretty good. size. So I think it's kind of one of those deals where time-wise, when there isn't much wheat in the United States and people are wanting it, I think the bid is going to run up. But as soon as

the world supply gets back to coming on the market, I don't know how sustained that. That market's going to be. And I'm somewhat surprised at how resilient the wheat crop around the rest of the world is considering how much of it is grown in Ukraine and Russia. But that's bamboozled me ever since the start of that war. So anyway, hogs, October 8430 and December $74. Next year, hogs not looking so hot. And I don't know where USDA thinks that they're going to get all these numbers. And if you are a crop guy, corn guy, or beans, and you like to complain about USDA and the lack of quality of their numbers,

be a hog guy because USDA, I feel like, has been getting the hog number wrong for years, maybe. But anyway, cattle, $230. Feeder cattle for August. That's the August price for fat cattle. August, feeder cattle, 348.

Crude oil, $79. I don't know if it's going up today or down today. It depends on whose viewpoint of the, of the canals. or the straight is. It's kind of funny because the longer this whole deal has gone on over there, the less knee-jerk reaction the oil market goes. When the straight first closed down, oil goes to $100,

then it comes back and it drops, then it goes back up, then it drops to $60. Now then they're talking like it's closed. It goes to $80 and then it kind of settles back down. And I don't know where it all ends, but your diesel price, I wouldn't be booking your diesel because Lord knows where this thing is going to end up. Tesla 396, they did their first quarter deliveries, and I think they were a little bit light of what the estimates were,

but not much. It was up like 6% from a year ago, so the stock price isn't doing too bad. SpaceX, $136, so after the initial offering where it went way up and then drop way down, it's come back to somewhere in the middle and I don't know if I was an investor I'd probably be pretty happy with that price right now. Deer 584 apparently right to repair didn't hurt their stock price any. They figure that yeah they've got to give that technology to anybody that wants it as far as repairing these tractors but they figure they're still going to sell all the tractors, the software and the tools so it's it's going to work out for them anyway. Bitcoin 65,000

I don't know, Bitcoin's kind of stuck in a trading range. And I don't know really right now what it's going to take to make it pop out of that. As far as currency and value of the dollar and all that, I don't feel like there's anything that's really changed. I think Bitcoin is kind of a long-term play and it will continue to be there. Gold, $4,000, silver, $59, 30-year treasuries, 5%, 10-year 4.58. and I threw in here beyond meat because I like bagging on them

and they're just about done at 61 cents and as much as we'd all like to say you know this fake meat thing it didn't work and it's going to go away it ain't going away because a lot of people big names in the meat business are throwing money at it and your good friends

at JBS they're one of the biggest meat packers in just about every protein around the world they invests $100 million and bought a Spanish biotech food company, and they also have a division in Brazil, and $100 million is the initial part,

and they're planting on pumping four times that much money in it. So they're hedging their bet that if they can't sell you a rib-eye, that they'll sell you a tofu buy. I don't know what you call it. Just a blob of lab-grown... Yeah. Ribai. Something that kind of looks like a ribeye with 83 ingredients in it.

They're probably thinking... this is another way for them to capture margin. Yep. Exactly right. So that whole deal, I don't know how you look at that. I don't know. They must think there's a market for it. Anyway, all that to say, that is the market update.

And the market update is powered by our good friends at Contera Ag. And I feel like I kind of talk a lot about the relationship banker side of those guys and if you're looking for a second opinion on your operating note or real estate, they're a good person to talk to, but something that is starting to come up more in a lot of financial conversation is leasing because leasing is becoming as interest rates have moved, leasing once again is becoming advantageous in some cases and they definitely are interested in leasing. And the other thing that they do a fair amount of is people out there that may not be directly involved in ag but are interested in hunting land uh they do a lot of financing of real

estate for hunting land so if you were somebody that's interested in either of those two situations check them out go to contara ag dot com or uh or go to the website and find your local rep and give them a call so that is the market update that was a good one very in depth today Yeah, it's, you know, I was listening to a podcast one time about a clothing founder. And he figured out that there's one of the, one of the, I don't know what brand it was, but one of like the most premier brands in clothing, the founder of one of those brands actually made sub-brands that were kind of like branded as cheap knockoffs. And he would knock off his existing, his own brand and make, make a knock-off apparel that looks just like the ones that he sells at the premium to sell to the masses.

And I was like, wow, that's crazy. Well, that's smart because... And I just made me think of JBS and Tyson and all them because they're trying to be, they're trying to, you know, play in the lab grown meat and the plant-based meat, even though that they are known for real meat because they are going to try to have the whole entire market. and that's why they're doing it. And while we're on this, something else that I meant to say this, you don't realize how many people play in the food space

that you wouldn't even realize. And a great example, and I heard this a long time ago, and I forgot about it, and I was reminded the other day. So Pfizer, do you know that they own practically the entire market of producing an enzyme that you need to make cheese. So when you pick up a block of cheese, it's a pretty short ingredient list. It's basically milk and the bacteria, the culture they call it,

and then it'll say enzymes. Well, there is an enzyme, and in tradition, you know, the old school way of making cheese, it's like a bacteria that comes out of the lining of a cow's stun. is what that bacteria is. Pfizer figured out a way to grow that in a lab, and they almost all cheese made in America uses that enzyme, and they own that entire market. So pretty much, I wouldn't say 100%, but 90% of the cheese that you... This episode is brought to you by Accenture.

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Insane. Got their fingers and everything. It's always the unknown, unsexy shit that just makes somebody a fortune. I was talking to one of my, I was talking to my cousin, who I ended up going on this trip with, and he met a guy that invented the water that goes into porta-potties. That the blue, the blue dye, the cleaning shit, whatever that goes into porta-potties. He invented that. He's just loaded.

Gosh, that's almost as good as if I could just have invented the toilet paper dispenser. Yeah. Well, it's got your name on it. I know. It really, it really rubs me the wrong way. Every time you're sitting on that toilet, you're rubbing. just rubs you the wrong way. It does. You like that?

Yeah, I do. Penny a wipe. Penny a wipe and we'd have this place, Cadillac. Yeah, we would. It's true. What are we going to talk about today? Today is going to be a little bit of a different episode. So usually when we sit down, you know, you guys are used to us doing a hot topics.

And today, we're going to change it up a little bit. And I feel like we have had some amazing guests on not only in 2026, but just in the history of Barn Talk. And I really wanted to put together an episode. of what are the traits that all of these great guests that have come on the show, what are they embody that makes them really successful? Like, we sit down in these chairs with them. We go out to dinner with them. We go out to lunch with them when they're here.

And we talk to them a fair amount. We hear them out. We know who they are. We kind of can get a read on what makes them great. And I feel like we found a common thread amongst a lot of. of these guests that have come on the show, that they all share a few of these things that make them extremely successful in whatever they're doing. And I feel like, why not share those traits with you guys? Because I've started to sit in this chair and I start to see those threads.

I start to see those common threads that I can pull on and be like, yep, I remember this guy. He's kind of the same way as this guy. And they all embody this trade or whatever, right? And so I feel like we're going to, we're going to strap some of those traits onto you today and hopefully you get some value out of it. And we'll get back to Hot Topics the next time we do a one-on-one episode with just dad and I. But I feel like this is a good changeup. So the first trait that I feel like all of these guests that we've had on or a lot of these guests that we've had on all share is the all in bet. A lot of them, you know, whether it's Rick, from Fondelock Farms. It's Taylor Moyer. It's, you know, what's the guy's name from Ranch Wright? He's going to kill me. John Haskell with Ranch Wright leaving school, leaving high school and going into ranching, right? I mean, every single one of these guys or girls, it feels like they burn the ships and go all into what they're doing. Yeah. You know, they, they're not, they're not afraid to take a risk. Yeah. Because life is too.

too damn short. And if you are somebody that has a dream, nobody's coming to save you. Nobody's going to make that dream happen for you. And you have to have the balls, the Cajonais, to say, I'm doing this and there's nothing stopping me. I'm burning the ships and I'm going all in. Yeah. And, you know, some of those people, I was just thinking like, like Jace Young even, doing it multiple, like kind of doing it multiple times. And the fact, like stepping out of a sure thing, like the banking world, and then having things not go what you thought, and then being like finding something else

and be like, okay, this is it, I'm not. And, you know, as an example, my dad, when he came back to the farm, he had been, obviously he'd been to the war, but he'd been to law school, and he really thought he was going to be a lawyer. And by the time he got done, he knew that wasn't the thing. and he said to me many times,

he said to all of us many times, that, you know, when he came home to farm, he told himself, right or wrong, this is it, I'm never changing again, I'm all in on this. And that is all these guys we've had on, you have to, like you have to,

part of being successful is drinking your own Kool-Aid to a point. And basically, willing yourself that, yeah, burning the boats. Yeah, we're not switching. Yeah, Taylor and Taylor, we just had on. I mean, left the NASCAR world, had a really successful career. Both him and Leah, his wife, had a really successful career at NASCAR. They burned the ships and said, we're going to start a first generation ranch, you know, bet on ourselves, bet on our skill set, and we're going to start a ranch. I mean, that is a common thread I see amongst people that have been on the show, but also

successful people, successful entrepreneurs. You have to drink your own Kool-Aid. You have to have the confidence. You have to have the belief in yourself and your idea. And you have to be willing to take the jump. Because sitting on your hands and planning and planning and never taking action is never going to get you where you want to go. And I've said this many times on the show. Regret mitigation is something I keep at the forefront of my mind a lot of times when I'm making decisions. I do. not want to get to my deathbed and regret a whole lot, especially when it comes to my dreams or things that I want to do. I don't want to sit on that bed and say, man, I wish I would have tried that. Yeah. And if you never take the jump, if you never go all in on something,

you're going to regret it. I mean, you just are, you know. So. And maybe we'll, maybe we'll touch on this somewhere else. But I always think about when we go to a, uh, an event that somebody puts on. And usually there's, you know, it's a motivational thing. They'll have somebody there that's an author or a coach or whatever. And they'll be,

there'll be 500 people there. There'll be 1,000 people there, whatever. And I often sit there and I think about how many of these people are, I don't know how else to put it other than, they're like, they're addicted to, what do we call it? Positivity.

Like, they just, they just consume all this and consume all this, but they never act on it. Like, they never actually step off on their own. Self-improvement masturbation or personal growth masturbation. Exactly. Like, they consume it, they consume it, they consume it, but they never act on it.

Yeah. And that's part of these guys, you know, it's one thing to have that idea, but to step out, to step out, and then turn your back and say, I'm not going back, right or wrong. I've realized that I've gotten older, taking the risk is actually less risky than the alternative of never taking a risk your entire life.

Because do you want to be like everybody else? Because what's average in America today? Divorced, fat, depressed, unhealthy as shit, financially not in a good spot. like I don't want that. I don't want that. And not taking a risk, whether it's your health as far as like, I'm going to take a risk and I'm going to go run a marathon and commit myself to run a marathon. Whether it's, I'm going to go start this side business because I want to get myself out of this situation that I'm in. Or I want to start investing money because I need to start planning for my future.

Like, those are all risks. And there's bigger risks and smaller risks, but they're risk at the end of the day that you're going to do something. you're going to change, you're going to step out and you're going to, you're going to bet on your ability, bet on your knowledge, bet on yourself. And I think that's what it takes because if you don't ever take risks, if you don't ever make those bets, the alternative is risky. It's pretty risky. It's like choose your risk. What would you rather have? Because if you step out, you strive for something better. You do that. Okay, if you fail, you're no worse off than if you did nothing. But if you did nothing, you have no options. Yeah. Like, that's the thing. Every,

every opportunity that you see that you act on, that's an opportunity. It's a fork in the road. It's an option you have. If you don't do any of that, you have zero options. And it only gets worse, the older you get. It gets harder because you're going to have kids. You're going to have more responsibilities. Life is already stressful enough. You got to take those risks. You got to risk it to get the biscuit. That's the saying that I've heard for a long time, but it's true. And, you know, the thing about it is, most of the time when you do take a risk and you bet on yourself and you try something new, or you step out, or you actually go for that idea you've always had, if nothing else, you're going to learn a shitload. And that's kind of our next point is every single person. So

number two, the number two trait that we see that's a common thread amongst the people we've had on the show and successful people that we know is they are lifelong learners and they are nerds. Every single one of them is learning every single day, whether it's books, whether it's podcasts, whether it's articles, whether it's calling up smart people in their network, whether it's going and getting an education and paying for it at a workshop or an event, these people are not afraid to go spend money, look for the answers, and they are constantly hungry to grow their knowledge of whatever they're working towards or even just general knowledge.

Like Taylor's a big cattle guy, but he also loves history. He loves cinema. He loves music. He loves reading. He reads every single day. Like, there are a lot of these guys are just constant learners of knowledge. Yeah. I talked about this. I was thinking about this the other night. It's kind of like hand in hand with that is curiosity. Like the Ted Lasso clip of, you know, him playing darts. And he talks about how, you know, he was curious. and that never-ending, like, the older you get,

the older you get, the more, the more callous you get to, like, wonderment. Like, things don't just excite you as much, I feel like as you get older. And part of that is because you get in this routine and you see the same, things, you talk to the same people, you listen to the same shows, and if you can spend yourself out of that and just find new things to read, to hear, to look at, whatever, that helps you in your everyday life. And all these people that we've had on, I think they're just naturally curious. And they don't rest on their laurels. In other words, you know, whatever business they're in,

not only are they learning outside of that, they're looking for better ways to do what they're already doing. Like better systems and trying to learn. And that's the name of the game. Yeah, I agree. And I think every single, like what I've realized as I've gotten older is being a nerd is cool. Like when you're growing up, people make fun of nerds

because nerds are nerds or whatever, right? But when you become older and you become an adult, when somebody's not a nerd about something, like they don't have something in their life that they nerd out about, you're the most boring person ever. You're the most uncool boring person ever because I want people around me that are nerds about things. Because I want to learn from them. And you can see that childlike curiosity. That's what it's about. If you can keep that childlike curiosity going inside you for the rest of your life. You're going to feel more alive. You're going to feel more curious about life. It's going to serve you. You're going to become smarter. And like you said, every single one of those people have it

and they keep it. They keep it at all costs. And I think it's really, really important. And I saw this the other day too. There's a lot of people in history. I don't have a specific example to go back to, but I know that there's a guy that's kind of around right now that does this. His name's Don Glover. he's childish Gambino. He's a rapper. But not only is he a rapper. He's an artist. He's an actor. And he's been a producer of TV shows. Like, he's a jack of all trades. And it was, it's, there's people like that that they do one thing. They get good at it. They learn from it. But then they're able to take a perspective of what they learn there and apply it to something else. And it makes them better at this thing. You know, I think that's, We get so, I think a lot of times people get so locked in that they're trying to focus on learning

just one thing, which I think is important. But if you learn one thing and then you go and learn something over here, it might give you a different perspective and, and give you something that nobody else has, I guess, as far as you as a person or your own individual self and your beliefs and how you think and how you talk and all of that is is is is is you right and whatever you soak up and learn whatever you soak up and do that is unique to you and being able to soak up multiple things forms a new perspective and forms a new you that nobody else can get anywhere and so what I've challenged myself to do is not only just learn about farming or business, but I should learn more about history. I should learn more about, you know, literature and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

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Test drive it at your local Subaru dealer or visit Subaru.ca. out of just like my lived experience to hopefully make me a more well-rounded person with my thoughts and hopefully make me better in the areas that I want to get smarter at. I know that's kind of long-winded, but I hope it makes sense. No, that does. But like this, my cousin that I went on this trip with, he's been to 19 countries. He's a pretty, he's a successful guy.

Being able to know, he, and he's a big history guy, big history. Big history buff. He knows a lot about a lot of things. And when we went to Europe, he was able to talk to Germans. He was able to talk to Italians. He was able to talk to people from the UK. He was able to talk to people from the Middle East

because he knows enough about all these places that he's able to disarm these people really easily and make them feel like this isn't just some dumb, arrogant, ignorant American. This guy knows. And he generally is interested in me. genuinely interested in me in my country and knowing about it. And that made an impression on me because I was like, man,

when you know some general stuff about the world and history and geography and how people have lived, it not only helps you in business, but it helps you tremendously with making connections with people all over the world. Yeah. And that's just, that's an advantage of doing that. And a side benefit of that is I truly believe

that and a lot of people would maybe disagree with this, but the more you learn about different subjects, it will keep you humble. And the reason I say that is almost every, I've heard so many people say this, the more you know, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know Jack. Like the more you, and I,

I know Bradley would say this. I'm sure the more you travel and the more you go, the more you probably feel like you don't know anything about history because you just realize that there's just so much out there. And especially today, because there's never been a time in history that you can learn about anything if you're just willing to put in the time to do it. And the more you do that, the more you realize.

And that's actually a positive thing. If you can wake up every day and feel like, man, I got a lot to learn. That's a good place to be coming from. Really good place. Because the last thing you want is to be one of these people that is arrogant enough to believe that your point of view is the only point of view. And the way you do it, that's the only way to do it. Yeah.

That's a good recipe for getting your ass beat in this world. And I think today we're in this time as well of like the reason. you want to be a learner is the world is moving so quickly and you can no longer just will yourself to working hard you have to have an element of working smart you have to work smarter and harder there's no more of this i'm just going to will myself and outwork everybody and be dumb that doesn't work you have to every single one of these people that sit in this chair that's successful they're smart yeah they are smart they know their shit they are nerds they are are constant learners. And not only are they working extremely hard, but they are learning every single

day and getting better and trying to reiterate themselves to make them a better person. So take that with a take that however you want to take that. But I'm trying to apply that to my life. I'm trying to learn something every single day. And it has served me so far. And I think it will continue to serve me. And I've definitely witnessed that with you. You definitely have, you at 55 years old have kept your childlike curiosity, which I think is really important. Keeps you young, too. It does keep you young.

You and your brother keep me young because I don't have any choice. I have to learn all this stuff. Yeah. And it's good. Yeah. But it is, it's humbling, it's humbling and it's also sometimes comical because sometimes I find myself, sometimes I find myself having conversations with my peers.

people my age, and I start talking about something like talking about Claude or talking about using whisper flow or something like that. And then I kind of stop and I look around and I'm like, yeah, these people don't, they have zero interest in this because this isn't even on their radar. Like they, and not that that's a bad thing. It's just, it's, it is different. And, um, Yeah, it's a blessing, really. It truly is. And that, going on to our next, our next point is, and it goes right along with constantly learning, is not quitting. Yeah. Like, just not quitting. And we have all kinds of examples of that in the people that we've had on here. But our own experience, us sitting here with you today, when you started the YouTube channel, 2019. 2019.

Seven years ago. We didn't make any money off of it. No. For a long time. And everybody was like, yeah, what's that? What's that about? What are you doing that?

You know, what are you doing that for? Oh, that's cute, you know? And when we started the podcast, we really didn't know what we were doing. We just knew we wanted to do it. Yep. And we're just either smart enough or dumb enough to not quit. Now, we're far enough down the road now that we say we were really smart.

We knew, but maybe not. Maybe it was we just enjoyed ourselves and we thought at some point maybe this will make a buck. Yeah. Yeah, I think that is a common thread not only shared on this show with the people we've had on the show with us here sitting in these chairs, but anybody that I've ever listened to that's successful, they hammer this point. you have to be ruthlessly committed to your campaign that you're on. And you cannot quit. You have to learn from your mistakes.

You have to keep pushing through it and refuse to quit. Now, some of you might be thinking, well, Sawyer, you had a meat business, Farmer grade. You quit that. You had to step away from that. And that was really hard for me because I, this point I've heard so many times over and over and over and over. but the idea of focusing, the idea of shifting your focus and focusing on burning the ships and focusing

on a few things versus all these things was something that I wasn't good at. I took, I bit off way too much that I can chew and I was spread way too thin across too many things and I looked at it more like a pivot and an adjustment rather than quitting. And in my opinion, whether you're a farmer, whether you're a rancher, whether you're an entrepreneur, the idea of, like, quitting to me is quitting the game forever, quitting farming forever, quitting ranching forever, quitting entrepreneurship forever. That is, that's quitting. You just have to say to yourself, if you're going to do this lifestyle,

if you're going to, if you're going to be a farmer, if you're going to be a rancher, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you're going to own a rule, you know, you're going to be a small business owner. Like, you literally have to come to the point of like, I don't know if it's this business. I don't know if it's the next business. This could be my one business I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And if it is great.

But you just have to get to the point that this is a lifestyle I'm choosing. And I am not getting off this road no matter what. I don't care how many times I have to reiterate or pivot or change or go somewhere else or do something else. This is what I'm choosing. And I am refusing to quit. Yeah. And that's where I'm at. Yeah.

And you. To be clear, there's a difference between getting to a point that you could not keep doing something and pivoting. I mean, you could have kept doing, Farmer Gray, we could have kept doing it. Yeah, we could. It was making enough money you could have kept going. It's just a matter of, is that the best use of your time? Is it the highest leverage opportunity? And is your life, is your mental state and your bandwidth and your,

and your ability to do all the things we were trying to do, could you keep doing that? And the answer is, no, something would have had, of all the things that you were doing, something had to give. And it was just the one thing that probably was the biggest mental drain with the least, the slowest upside, I would say. It's just so tight.

And anyway. Yeah. But yeah, that's, I mean, that's, that's, that's something that you, you will find amongst really successful people when we've, we've met on the show. I mean, Rob Brennaman, I don't know, that's an older episode, but Brennam Pork, one of the biggest hog producing, hog producers in the country. Uh, how many times, that's a great example. Yeah, I mean, that guy has been raising pigs, his whole life. He's had a so many block blocks in the road.

And he has refused to quit and just kept going no matter what. And now he's one of the top producers in the entire country for a reason. Your old boss. Yep. Claude. Yeah. Went bankrupt. But did he quit the game of entrepreneurship?

No. Now he is a successful guy, really successful guy. And he learned. That was the whole thing. And he, if, you know, Claude, you're still welcome to come on the podcast because I think you have a lot of great value to give. If he was here, he would tell you that he would have never been as successful in the business that he ran for all those years if he would not have failed at the first business.

Because it's kind of like I've said, the worst thing it could have ever happened to me was if somehow, through the late 90s, I would have made enough money. I could have done a good enough job that I would have gotten through and kept Farrow and Pigs. because I'm convinced that if I would have done that, I would probably be, I'd probably be 40 pounds heavier than what I am,

an alcoholic and divorced, and I don't know whether I'd be farming with my kids or not, because it was not, like, that was not sustainable at the scale that I was at, and it was hell, but you know what, I learned from it, and through all that, I met all the great people that I did, got to do the things, that I did that I learned so much that I was able to get to where I am now.

And that's a beautiful thing about being older is you have perspective to look back where when you're young you don't have as much perspective. But anyway, all that to say, you know, that was, I quit that. But that was a deal where I had to. I didn't have any choice. I mean, it was the point where, you know, there was not, it was not a viable deal. And I had to. But if you've got a dream and you believe in it, you know,

burn it to the ground, run that thing until you don't have any more options. And the example that we had written down was our governor's race. So you think about that. There's two guys in state of Iowa running for governor. And neither one of them,

kudos to politicians because you talk about a thankless job, that's a thankless job. And I don't care whether you're going to vote for Rob or you're going to vote for Zach. Those guys, they are dedicated to that and they're going to run that to the ground and one of them is going to have to pivot and do something else. But you take in Zach's case, you know, he complained about the state of politics, complained, complain, complain, complained. And then it was finally his wife that said to him, well, what are you going to do about it?

And he decided, all right, I'm going to go. and he didn't quit when everybody said they didn't have a chance and look at him. He pulled it off and he's your nominee. So it'll be interesting to see. But yeah, just not quitting. That'll get you a long ways. That'll get you a long ways. Andy Fricel always says this.

If you have refused to quit and you learn from your mistakes and you just never stop, that'll get you far. Next trade up that we're going to talk about is asking, dumb questions and leaving your ego at the door. All these people that we've had on this show, most of them, they are not afraid to ask questions that they don't know the answer to, to seek out information that they don't know. I think that is something as I've gotten older that I've realized about most people.

People's ego gets in the way of a lot of shit. and it's very easy to pick up on. When you're having conversations with people or you're in a group setting, you can see the ego come out in people. I think the smartest people don't know what their ego get in the way of them learning or they don't have to be the smartest person in the room and they're fine with that. They're fine with that. The person that can't allow themselves to look dumb in front of other people,

that person's got some shit going on inside of them. And you can tell. You know, the people that put other people down or never want to look stupid in front of other people or always want to feel like that they're the smartest in the room and can never put their guard down enough to ask people questions that they don't know of. And they might go along and act like they know what you're talking about

just to make themselves, just to make sure that you know that they, that you know that they know, they want to make sure that you don't feel like they're stupid. Yeah. And they want you to know that they have the answer. And you know, like deep down, you know, this motherfucker doesn't know what I'm talking about,

but they're acting like they know what I'm talking about so that they don't look stupid because they can't allow themselves to look stupid. Or, and it's not even stupid. They just can't allow them. The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus. Starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Blum.

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Yeah. There is a lot of that in conversational. that you have with people as you get older. But what I observed from the smartest people that I've ever been around and most successful is they are not afraid to look stupid, to ask questions that they don't know the answer to, and they strive to be the dumbest person in the room. They don't want to be in rooms where they're the smartest person in the room.

That's just the truth. I think the most important part of that is what you said, They're not afraid to ask the question. And that's a big difference between people, the people you're talking about that don't want to appear dumb, and they're so worried about their self appearing a certain way. And I think we talked about this like two years ago. Like last year, was it last year we said like our message of the year was,

just ask. Like when we were getting started, when you were getting started in the meat business, you have a like we're not going to go through the whole thing but you have a great example of when we were trying to figure out how we were going to get the pigs that we processed and you went through this whole thing at the end it just came down to one question you asked the question they're like yep that's fine but um never being afraid to ask because most the other thing I I will say is of all the people that we've talked to, successful people,

they love to, like, share that knowledge with people if they're just willing to ask. But most of these people, they're successful, are humble to the point. They're not going to just stand up and say, I'm so-and-so, and this is what I did, and this is how I did it. They're not those people. But if you are interested in what they're doing, they love to talk about their business. They love to talk about what works, and they love to talk about what doesn't work to help you not make the same mistakes that they made. But you have to ask. And you have to be, you can't be a prick.

Yeah. You know, get out of your own way. Yeah. I think that, like, what I have found about being a young person talking to older guys that have been successful, they find it, I think older guys find it endearing when a young person can be humble enough to say, just ask the dumb questions. And be a sponge of knowledge. They like that shit. I mean, they do.

They like, they look at you and they're like, he knows he doesn't know a lot. And he's asking me. And they're like, that's endearing to me. Because now I want to help this kid. I want to, I want to provide, shine some light and maybe help him and point him in the right direction. But when you go in there thinking you're a hot shot,

thinking you know everything and you can't put your guard down at all, they're not going to, they're not going to tell you anything. Like, I think there's this, this reality that people think that if you come off and you act like you're a hot shot, that these other guys that are successful are going to be like, oh, man, he's really, he's really crushing it. I respect him. Now I'm going to give him all my secrets. It's kind of the opposite.

Yeah. It's kind of the opposite. I mean, yeah, share your wins. If they genuinely ask you what you're up to, share your. share about your business, share about what you're doing and how you're winning. But don't let that blind you. Don't want that ego creep up to not be just as interested in them as they are into you. And don't let, don't ask the dumb, don't be afraid to ask the dumb questions because most likely they're going to be willing to share. But yeah, like you said, if you come off like a prick that thinks

they know everything, it's not going to work. You're not going to ever, they're never going to put their guard down. And they're never going to want to share. what they know with you, for sure. And it is, it is important for at whatever stage of your business that you're in, to find a community of people

that share that curiosity. Because it is, it is always refreshing to realize, to get with a group of people that together all know, you don't have the answers because it's lonely trying to build a business in whatever,

you know, whatever space you're in. I'll give you an example of like within, within, and there's other, there's other platforms that do this, but the one I'm going to give an example of is legacy farmer. There's community calls in that. And the thing that I love the most about it is everybody on those calls, there's no ego there because everybody that has spent the money to be a part of that, they're part of that because they know they have a problem. They know they have the goal of making their farm viable and they know they aren't there and they're there to learn. And the conversations are fantastic and there's no ego there. And so don't be afraid to ask the questions, but also find, you know, try to find whether that be coaching or whether that just be a community of people that you meet.

Be curious and have a group and, you know, don't be afraid to ask those questions. And don't worry about looking dumb because, you know, if you're in a room with me, you don't have to worry about looking dumb. I'm probably going to look dumber than all of you. So, yeah. Well, that's our next point is willing to look stupid and not give a fuck about other people's opinions. I think that is one of the best superpowers you can, you can have in your holster, having your, having your belt. The ability to not give a fuck about other people's opinions of you is super powerful. If I cared about what other people thought, we would never be here. If I cared about what people thought, I would have never started Farmer grade.

I would have went to college because everybody was telling me I should have went to college. I would have gotten an Ag Studies degree. I would have drank a shitload of beer at Iowa State. And I would have came back four years later and I would have never built any of this because I will listen to the opinions of other people. And this could all go to zero tomorrow. But I don't regret my decision whatsoever. And I had the enough conviction to do what I thought was right that was going against the grain. and I did it and I'm happy that I did it and I'm glad that we're sitting here today because we build

something awesome. And that's the case for a lot of people. When you let go of other people's opinions of you that are trying to get you to stop doing what you know is right and what is your dream, once you let go of those opinions, the chains are unlocked. You break away from those chains because there's just a lot of people in this world that grow up, they go to school and they go through high school, and they never lose that high school mentality. They stay, they keep up with the Joneses. They're always buying shit to impress other people.

They're doing shit to impress other people. And social media has just made that even bigger now. And I think we're all guilty of it. There's all of us are guilty of wanting to buy something to look a certain way or et cetera, et cetera. But when you can try to eliminate that as much as possible, and just do shit because you know you love it or that you know you need to do it and you don't care what other people think. That is very, very, very powerful. And I'm not saying you shouldn't

value, you should care a little bit about, I mean, you should care about your reputation, right? Take care of your stuff. Look presentable. Don't be a slob. You should care about your reputation. But when it comes to people getting you off the path that you know is right for, for you. Do not let people get you down and get you off your path because they talk some shit or spew some hate towards you. Don't allow them to do that because the best way to shut people up like that is just to fucking win. Yep. And when you go out and you do the thing that they hate on and you win, that's just going to piss them off even more and it's going to make them shut up. So just keep going. And every single person that's ever been successful, everybody that comes up,

on the show. They all got haters. They all got doubters. They all got people that think that what they're doing or when they started it, that they're crazy, that they're like they're the, they're the contrarian. They're stepping outside the box. Like how many people have we had on the show that are contrarians that do something that not everybody else does? Does multiple things that not everybody else does and has gotten some slack for it. Yep. Probably. every single one of them. Every single one of them. It's the man in the arena. Yes. It's the man in the arena. And just know, just know that half the people in your, half the people you know aren't going to agree with you. It's just, it's, it's the way it is. I mean, it is the, it's

the George Carlin, you know, half the people on the road, anybody that drives fast, anybody that drives slower than you is an idiot, and anybody that drives faster to you is a maniac. And, And, you know, in your world, you're always going to just, there's people that are negative and there's people that are positive. And you just can't, you can't allow that to get in your head. You just have to, you say it, like the bucket of crabs mentality. And I feel like that's something where smaller communities, it's harder or that's more, that's more prevalent. Yeah, prevalent because you obviously you know everybody, and so you know that. But, you know, getting caught up in herd mentality is, I mean, that's America today,

and that's consumerism. And when you were talking about that, I was just thinking about being in Nashville. I don't think that I've ever been in a community in the United States that I have seen as many range rovers as I did in Nashville. And if you know anything, they're one of the most horrible cars. in the world. I mean, the dependability is terrible. It's terrible. And yet there's somebody down there. Somebody owns the Ranger Rover dealership. And they must be, they must be painting a hell of a picture to people because, man, they're everywhere and all them people think they got to have one.

And, you know, it's that herd mentality that, oh, you haven't arrived until you have one of these. And, you know, who cares that you can't drive it more than 10 blocks without it breaking down on you? But anyway, no, it's, I, I, I think that you, the people that are the most successful are willing to look stupid, think out the side of the box, be contrary and not allow other people to get them down. And, you know, Steve Jobs has an amazing quote that I, and it's a video, it's him talking about when you, when you realize that you can poke your finger, into life and something can come out on the other side of it. And the things that are around you are created by people that are no smarter than you and that you can build your own things. You can create your own things and you can poke your finger into life and create something and build something that is going to be used in this world. That's contrarian, but that's the truth. And not

everybody believes that. And when you go to, when you step out in your community and your city, whether it's your family, your friends, your community, the people that you know, a lot of them are going to look at you and say, that'll never work. Or that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Or have you taken this thought into consideration or this risk or this risk? And they're going to be negative. And I'm not saying you can't, you need to be able to take criticism and be able to apply it to your thought process. But you have to weigh out who's telling me this information versus who, who can I trust that's bringing me information? But it's the whole idea of when you step out and you try to do something that's that's

contrarian, you are, the people around you are looking at you and they're thinking, it's like a mirror staring back at them. When I heard that analogy, it always stuck with me. When you step out and you're in the same community as somebody else and they don't do what you're trying to do and you do something that's contrarian, it's like they're looking in a mirror. when they look at you, they're looking at a mirror because if you're doing something,

why can't they do it? And that's what they're thinking to themselves and it pisses them off. So don't ever let people get you down from going after your dreams because that, again, back to regret mitigation, are you really going to get to your deathbed and be like, man,

I really care. I'm glad I didn't do that thing because I was afraid of so-and-so's opinion. They're probably going to be dead. Yeah. I mean, and if you want to get ruined, If you want to get real big picture, we don't got a lot of time on this earth. Like, you zoom all the way out.

You're a drop in the bucket. You're a blurp. You got this much time. Like, your lifetime is like this long. And I'm holding up my fingers, like, not even very far from each other. Like, it is short. It's a snap. Yep.

And you got one life. You got one freaking life. Are you going to allow other people to dictate? what you choose to do with your life, are you going to, are you going to be the one to set, set the standard and set the precedent of what you want your life to be? Yep.

I mean, that's the question you got to ask yourself. And again, do you really want to settle for average in today's world? Because I'm going to tell you, I fucking don't. I do not want to get to the end of my life and be like, my life did not mean shit.

I didn't do nothing. I just, I just consumed. and I worked my job and I got fat and I didn't exercise. I got unhealthy. I had a, I had, I got heart disease. I have to take pills for and, you know, it just, it sucks. I got divorced and like, I don't want that life. Yeah. I do not want that life. I don't think any of you that are listening and watch Barn Talk want that life either. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are

created equal. Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive. When it comes to gut health, Activia is the number one family doctor recommended probiotic yogurt brand. Choose Activia. Feel good from the inside out. Visitactivia.ca for more details. Piggy backing off what you said this morning I was at Men's Breakfast. They have a men's breakfast in Colonna, Iowa, third week, third Wednesday of the month.

so if any of you around it, they always have a good speaker there. Today they had Terry Brands, the Iowa Hawkeye wrestling coach. Legend. Yeah, and I'll tell you what, he is well on his way to being, he is an awful lot,

if you listen to him, he's an awful lot like Dan Gable in the fact that he kind of knows what he wants to talk about, but when he gets up there, he never looks at his notes, he just goes. And sometimes,

sometimes you're like, wait, what's he talking about? But his message today was about, um, you know, whatever, whatever is your thing,

whatever is your thing, God put you on this earth and, and your, your salvation, there, it's not through works. And people like to, like,

they like to, somehow in this country, uh, excellence, excellence has been like tramped down and we want to give everybody a participation trophy. And we want everybody to be mediocre. And his point was that,

you know, you, you don't, your salvation doesn't come by works. However, God didn't give you the gifts. And it was at Gangerich's well shop. And he's like,

you know, Corwin's out. every day to be the best well driller he can possibly be. That's his gift. I'm here because I coach men and my goal is to be the best coach and produce the best men out of that program that I possibly can. I'm not in this to be mediocre and the good Lord didn't put me on this earth to just be average. And so it's whether us doing a podcast or raising pigs or whatever we're doing, you should strive to be the best you can be at it. And don't worry about, as you said,

when you're on the end of your life here, you ain't going to care what your neighbor Bob thought about you or what your coworker thought of you. It's between you and the Lord Almighty, and it's like, what did you do with the gifts that I gave you? So go get it and don't worry about looking dumb. Yeah, that's good. It's kind of the same point of Jobi Martin.

It's the retirement is not a biblical value. God did not put you on this earth to coast. Yeah. He put you on this earth to co-create on his ultimate creation. And he has blessed you with gifts. So you can either numb it and coast or you can make your life mean something, you know. And I don't know about you, but I want purpose and I want my life to mean something.

And I think every single successful person that has sat, in this chair wants the same thing, and they're not willing to allow other people to get them off that path. Last section, last trait that we have, that we've seen that has a common thread between the people we've had on this show is every single one of them. Faith is important to them, family is important to them, and legacy is important to them. And this kind of ties into your last point. But, you know, like, you cannot do, like, I'm somebody that struggles with this. If you're a farmer, if you're a rancher, if you're striving for success, it's really hard sometimes to find balance. But my, my kind of life razor at this point in my life is,

and after reflecting when I quit Farmer Grade or shut down Farmer Grade, I had to like, because I was, I was burning at all ends, just working. working nonstop. Like I felt like all I did was work. All I thought about was work, work, work, work, work. And that got to a point where that wasn't healthy. That wasn't healthy at all. Like, I don't need perfect work life balance at all. Like I like to work, but the way that I was going was not healthy. And I thought back and I just was like, at the end of the day, I want to be successful, but I want to be successful, but not at the detriment of losing the people that I love and hold close to me. Like that's, I'm unwilling to, I am unwilling to be successful if it means I'm going to lose

the relationships that matter the most to me. So I will strive to be successful and work as hard as I possibly can to be successful so I can do and co-create on God's ultimate creation and provide and make this world a better place. But I am unwilling to sacrifice the relationships that I hold the closest. I'm unwilling to. I will not have my kids hate me. I will not get divorced. I will not be close to my dad. Or I want to be close to my dad. I want to be close to my mom. I want to be close to my brother. And I'm unwilling to sacrifice those things. I won't do it. Because what's it all worth if you get to the end of your life and everybody that you love and care about doesn't want to have a relationship with you? And there's a lot of miserable fucks out there that burn the bridges, sold their soul to I am going. to work 16 hour days every day i'm going to miss all my kids events never take their wife on a date and where do they end up yeah lost have nothing nothing to share this the success with and they get to the end of their life and they're miserable and they never take god into account they probably don't

have a relationship with god they don't have a family and and and and then what's your legacy what's your legacy. Oh yeah, dad. Dad's a successful guy. He worked hard, but had no relationship with us. Well, that's a terrible legacy. Or if you're a farmer, like, I think about legacy all the time. Legacy's huge for farms and small business owners. Get to the end of your life and you're one of these old farmers that never, never had a will. Now your legacy for the rest of your, for when you get put in that ground, your legacy will be dad just didn't have it figured out and it caused a lot of mayhem in our family. that's your legacy because you are unwilling to think about that.

So I don't know what that is for you, but I know that every single one of these guys, people that have been on the show, they have, the important things are at the top of their mind. Building their business is important to them. Striving for success is important to them. But I feel like a fair amount of people, most of the people we've had on,

they have a healthy relationship with knowing what's really important. Well, for most of them, the reason that they're on their own and they started these businesses because they wanted to build the kind of life they wanted where they could have family involved in it or have the time to do, you know, what they want to do with whoever that is, you know, whatever that is. and I mean, there's a lot of good bits, but, you know, the ultimate freedom is getting to the point that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whoever you want, for as long as you want to do it. And you'll never get those things working for somebody else.

I mean, maybe, but that's, that's a good way to look at it. And yeah, I don't, I think that's what I think. You know, I am so blessed that I get to sit and do what I do with you, but our whole family is close. And, you know, I try to make, my goal is not mess that up because, and that's part of the reason why, you know, at the end of the day, that's part of the reason why I left sales because I didn't want to be that person.

Because when I started that, it was all about helping people build these barns to give them the freedom that I got from building my own because I saw the value of it. And by the end, it was all about, you know, more, more, more, you know, how many of these can I sell? How fast can I sell them? And that was the wrong heart to have.

and that's, you know, why I left. And I'm a lot better off for it because I don't think that I would be, I sure wouldn't be where I am doing what I'm doing, and I don't think I'd be the kind of person that I want to be. And I'm not perfect. I'm far from it. But definitely better off working for myself than working for somebody else. What do you think is the one that really sticks out to you?

and as you think about that, I'm going to step away and get a high-quality bottle of whiskey to do my thoughts and do a whiskey minute because I forgot to bring the bottle to the table. All right. You do that. Yeah, you know, the question is, of all these traits,

which one do I think is the hardest to actually practice every day? I would say the one for me is, You know, man, that's a, that's a hard, that's a hard question. I got to think about it. I think for me, as easy as it say to stop letting other people's opinions get you down or don't let them get you off your path, sometimes you have those days, especially when you're online and you're on social media.

There's a lot of shitty comments that get thrown in there a lot. You know, there's a lot of people that are judging you or looking from the sidelines that are, you know, saying they're too. sense and it's not always great. It's not always great. And when you're in that, when you're having a bad day or you're having a day of self-doubt or if you're having a day of feeling down, sometimes it's hard to not let that get to you a little bit, you know, but I would say most the time I practice like, you know, when you talk about macro versus micro, I think macro, I do a pretty good job and not letting other people's opinions deter me from what I want to go after and

and achieve. But, you know, in the micro day to day, when you have a shitty day, sometimes it's hard to not let those opinions get to you, you know. And I think that's true for everybody. You know, it's hard sometimes to not let people get you down or their opinions hit you a certain way. But you just, at the end of the day, it's kind of a macro, just don't allow it to get you off of the path that you know is right for you to achieve what you want to achieve. That's the most important thing. You're going to have people say some shit that's going to piss you off or make you feel down or whatever. And that's going to happen no matter what. That's life. But just don't let them affect what you know is right and what you know is on your heart to go after.

And so that one, I think, is the hardest one to practice every single day. Yeah. Well, what about you? Well, you were talking about, you were talking about, you know, people coming after and, you know, there's always the haters. And I just, you know, for anybody that is out there, I appreciate all of the really shitty comments because I think they're hilarious because I've been a short, chubby kid my whole life. And when I went to school, I had the name Tork.

And, you know, that was always a point of, when Mork and Mindy came out, remember that TV show and you're like in fourth grade and your name's Tork, and you became Tork from Ork or, you know, whatever it was. I've been made fun of and teased in some degree my whole life. And I was watching Tony Reed yesterday. Any of you that were living under a rock,

Tony Reed's a farmer in Illinois and has a huge TikTok, and he's hilarious. But he's putting a scale, he's putting a scale on his grain cart, and he's got an old grain cart. And to do this, he had to cut the stub axles, off and put on sleeved axles that you could put the waybars on. And somebody said a really snarky comment.

Apparently they thought that he had put a weld on these old spindles, and they were critiquing his welding ability. And in typical Tony fashion, he basically just told him where they could go and gave him a roadmap how to get there. And as I thought about it, you know, some people, and I comment, and I said, I really feel triggered by the Tonyer 4. but I didn't because my dad had talked to me like that 83 times or more as a child and you know you just realize that he's just it's a teachable moment and he's just trying to teach you and so it didn't

bother me a bit but I thought that was hilarious and brutal brutal honesty is starting to come back I feel like it's it's it's really it's kind of becoming in fashion and for me out of all these things that these people have in common, I guess the common thread is just resiliency in that no matter what happens, you just keep going, and you only, you know, you manage what you can manage.

And your brother said to me the other day, they had a car, they had one of their cars broke down for their business, and then their refrigerator broke, and at one of the rental properties, there was something wrong. And he said to me, he goes, is the rest of my life,

is all you do is just worry about fixing shit? Is that what adulthood is about is just one thing going wrong after another? And I just laughed and said to him, I'm like, you know, yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of what it's about. And whether it be farming or whether you own a plumbing business or your, you know, whatever you are, being your own boss and providing for your family is really about, it's all about problem solving. It's because stuff just goes wrong every day. And to stay on track,

to be resilient, that's, I think that's the key is to just not let the outside voices in. Don't worry about looking dumb. Be resilient. Don't quit. I mean, it's all those things.

But at the end of the day, it's really just believe in yourself and be resilient. And, yeah. uh the whiskey minute today uh is that this is a bottle of willet and before you all get excited this isn't the the high dollar 12 year 15 year this is the bottom end four year willet and i was just lucky enough that i walked into a liquor store in spring hill tennessee turned down the aisle and there was a bottle of willet and i'm like well heck i'm going to get that and it was

reasonably priced i think this was 60 bucks which 60 bucks is kind of you know getting to the top of my budget. I won't pay secondary price. I have for a few bottles, but not much more than that. But I was like, well, let's see, you know, let's see what it's like. I'll see if I can do the, oh, that wasn't too bad. That was a pretty low-key pop. Are you going to, a sampler, are you just going to let me do it? I don't know. I've kind of had a, I had a fair amount of alcohol when I was in Europe. Hey, you should tell them, what was one of the highlights of your, your evening at the beer hall. And, uh, I arm wrestled, I arm wrestled some Germans and won. So that was pretty cool.

That's pretty good. I texted dad. I was like, my grandpa fought in World War II. So I texted dad. I said, hey, I just let you know, I arm wrestled some Germans and won. Lawrence would be proud. Yeah. I thought that was pretty good too. No, what I loved about Prague specifically, I went to Prague and man, that, that city's awesome. But a lot of Europeans go there to go on vacation. And so we got to talk to Italians, Germans. We talked to like five dads in a beer hall that are from Manchester. I mean, it was just cool to be able to connect with so many different people from so many different places. And yeah, that was definitely a highlight, was wrestling, arm wrestling some Germans.

And it is so true. You can drink a lot of beer and a lot of wine in Europe and you don't feel the effects of alcohol like you do here, which is crazy. but it's the truth. I feel like this is going to have a little, this has got a little fire to it. I don't know what proof this is. I don't think it says how many proof it is, but it smells like it says 123.

Proof? Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah. So you can kind of smell, you can kind of smell the hot on a little bit. Well, all that to say it definitely has

definitely has quite a bit of spice on it but surprisingly it drinks a lot smoother than what you would think for that proof and it has you know what I'd actually say it to me it tastes like it really tastes a lot like

cherry on the front and the hot's not too bad So that was like a $60 bottle, and it'll look good on the shelf over there. And I would have that. You could drink that neat. I don't usually drink hot, hotter stuff neat, but I could drink that. What would you rate it? All factors considered.

I would give it like a 7-8. 7-8. That's pretty good. 7-5-7-8? Yeah, it's only four-year. Wow. So, yeah. Well, it's not too bad then.

No, it's, it's good. Yeah, it's good. It's not the best I've ever had, but it's definitely not the worst. It's better than Bushnell's Prohibition. That's no shame. That's the bottom. That's our low point.

Wouldn't you say that's our low? That's the lowest score we've ever given on this show. We should sample that again sometime just to remind us how, I just put it in a spray bottle and use it to clean the windows. Yeah. That's about what it's worth. That's about as what it's good for. Well, folks, I think that's going to wrap it up.

We really appreciate every single one of you guys for tuning in. We hope that this provided some value to you. I know we kind of went all over, but those are the traits that we have seen amongst the people that have been on the show and the successful people we've met in our lives. Hey, I want to add one more thing. We're probably close enough. We should start letting people know.

Can we say that we're going to where we're going to be? Yeah. Yeah, we're going to. We're going to the Iowa State Fair on the first weekend of the Iowa State Fair on Friday. We're going to be on the main stage talking, interviewing people. So if you're going to go to the Iowa State Fair this year, we're going to be there and come say hi. Come say what's up because we're going to be there interviewing people on stage and then we'll be walking around. So we'll be there.

We're also going to go to the Keystone Cooperative co-op event that they're having and we're going to be speaking there as well. So we're going to be doing more speaking engagements this year. So if you are a farmer in those, or if you're somebody that listens to show and you're in those areas and you're going to be at the State Fair or you're going to be at the Keystone Cooperative event, we'd love to meet you. We'd love to say hi. We'd love to say what's up. So we'll keep letting you guys know where we're going to be and where we're going to be speaking

so you can catch wind of it. Probably should start mentioning that in the beginning of the episode, not the end. But for those of you, they're still here. You true believers. Yeah, check us out there. come say what's up. We'd love to meet you guys. But yeah, that's all I got. Me too. So we love you guys. We appreciate you. Hope you got some value. Share the show with the people that you know. Get out there, kick ass this week. And we'll see you back here next week for another episode.