Barn Talk - You Could Make $280,000 a Year With Zero College Debt: Here's How

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Welcome to a new episode of Barn Talk! On this “Hot Topics” episode, Sawyer and Tork are back in the barn, diving headfirst into the biggest stories and challenges shaping agriculture and rural life today. You’ll get the latest market update, talk of spiking fertilizer prices, and a frank analysis of how global politics, tariffs, and industry dynamics are impacting real farmers. But it's not just Ag news: Sawyer and Tork get into the booming trades, the realities of AI and automation, and the need for rural youth to rethink what success looks like. From debates about universal basic income and the future of work, to personal takes on masculinity, influencer culture, and building a life that matters, this episode covers it all with humor, honesty, and plenty of barn wisdom. Tune in for fresh insight, practical advice, and the unfiltered takes you've come to expect from Barn Talk. Be sure to share the show, leave a review, and sign up for the newsletter to stay connected! 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/TorkTalk       00:00 "Grow Barn Talk Together" 05:30 Bitcoin, Gold, Geopolitics, and Deals 13:02 "Farming Costs and Tough Decisions" 20:40 "U.S. Navy's Global Dominance" 22:08 China's Oil, Trade, and Economy 27:33 "Iran, Trust, and U.S. Strategy" 33:22 Foreign Influence and Political Lobbying 42:14 "Learn Trades and Master AI" 47:10 "AI: Revolution or Passing Bubble?" 50:06 AI: Revolution, Not Bubble 56:07 "Tech Adoption and Its Impact" 59:47 "Screen Obsessed, Conversation Lost" 01:07:11 Tesla's Future: Self-Driving Dominance 01:12:34 "Success in Service Businesses" 01:18:28 "Fatherhood: Quality Time Matters" 01:25:27 Balancing Hobbies and Family 01:26:26 "Family as Your Hobby" ------------------------------- ⚠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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. Stay is going to be a barn talk hot topics episode. We haven't done one of these in a while,

and there's sure as hell a lot of hot topics to talk about. So we're going to get into all the nitty gritty here in a bit. But before we do, you guys know the drill if you've been watching or listened for a long time. All that we ask if you get any value from the show is to share it out with the people that you know. The more that you guys do that, the more you help this show grow, grow our impact here at Barn Talk. And it's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. Another thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk is leave a review on Spotify or Apple.

We love hearing your guys's feedback on how we can improve the show, your overall thoughts about the show. and it gives our show a lot of credibility. The last thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk is go sign up for our monthly, our weekly newsletter. Join barn talk.com. We're going to be putting out a weekly newsletter full of great, interesting hot topics. Basically, we're going to take our hot topics format that you guys love and put it into a newsletter. It's not going to just be a regurgitated podcast, though. It's going to be its own separate thing full of content and all the good things.

stuff that you like here at Barn Talk. So go sign up for that. We're trying to hit a goal of 10,000 subscribers. And once we hit that goal, we're going to throw a live event right here at the barn on our farm, our people, our folks that listen to the show, and have a good old time. So how are you? I'm good. Good. Good. I'm feeling it. You're feeling it. Spring is here. Once again, I'm saying spring is here. I took off the end of last week, spent a little time down in the Ozarks. Feeling refreshed. I kept everything going somehow. You did. That was great. I appreciate it.

Yeah, everything was as I left it. Nothing was burned down. Nothing got burnt down. No, no parties were thrown at your house. I kept those over at my house. We're all out of partiers. Yeah, we don't. Yeah, I don't throw.

I don't have parties anymore. Kind of a hermit now. Well, it was almost 90 degrees down in the, Ozark. So it felt real good. And although, you know, it's one of those things, there's something to be said for cooler weather because there's some people that get uncovered that probably shouldn't. But we won't, that's for a different time. We won't talk about that. It's probably good. Probably better, probably a good decision. Yeah. So what are we going to talk about today? Well, we got some hot topics ranging from ag, politics, kind of blue-collar industry.

We'll have my spotlight, but we've got to open with your market update. I have a market update fresh off the presses. I'll get the right side of the paper. So the market update, corn for May, $4.60, locally 4.35, and GPC in Muscatine have us a bit of 4.44. Beans for May, 1165. Burlington bid 1118, Quincy, 1131, bean meal, $326 a ton, wheat, 587, hogs for April, $95, cattle, $238. Feather cattle, 358. There was a story out of Russia that there is some kind of parasite that they have over there,

an outbreak and the government is quarantining, quarantining cattle and euthanizing cattle to try to stop the spread and farmers are pissed. And I guess it's not good. And that's probably the last thing we need. And the first snarky comment I saw where I read that story was McDonald's are hamburgers going up, but I doubt they buy much beef from Russia. But anyway, I'm sure that's going to probably just add to the pressure on the cattle market. Crude oil, $91. It's back and forth. Trump says that they're about done,

that there are negotiations with Iranians. I don't know who they're negotiating with, because every time somebody pops up that takes the gavel, they off them. So I don't know how that's going. It's probably some young kid now. That's probably the ruler. somewhere some person on a computer deep deep deep under a mountain somewhere i don't know but

anyway uh so that's playing with everything and that's really what's running the grain markets the grain markets are running off the oil price um and that really is the driver of everything right now um i threw tesla in there 380 dollars bitcoin seventy one dollars seventy one thousand I could do an episode about Bitcoin one of these days because it's really surprising how it's reacted through all of this, which there might be five people out there that find it interesting. But it's damn interesting to me. Gold, 4,400, silver, $62.

Yeah, the White House said they were going to have a five-day hold on any more airstrikes as they get this deal worked out. And they're saying that. But then at the same time, they're saying that, a marine amphibious assault ship arrived in the Middle East with, I don't know how many thousand Marines on it, but basically specialize in, you know,

taken over, like that island that's off the coast of Iran where they load out all their oil, that would be a good spot for the Marines to land and take control of. And so I think Trump's definitely projecting that, you know, uh here's the deal let's make a deal and if you don't want to make a deal then we'll ratchet it up the next step um the uh the whole deal with the strait of hormoose i don't know i'm surprised that we've i'm surprised we've uh we've played in that as long as we have without making

the people that are actually getting the oil out of there kind of police it for them because we don't really get any oil out of there but anyway all of that and And a USDA cattle on feed report comes out Friday. So that will have a factor in where the cattle market goes. All these and more hot topics to come. This episode of the market update is sponsored by our good friends at Contera. If you have questions about funding options for your agricultural enterprise, or you just want to get a second opinion,

the boys at Contera Ag would love to talk to you. Go to Conteraag.com to learn more. And that's all I got. I was good. I almost took off and started going down a tangent. And then I was like, oh, wait, this is the market update. This is not the time to get off on a tangent. Well, we're going to be getting into them right now.

So the first one is just the whole fertilizer spike and how it's just gone way up because of, this war that's broken out and like you said in the market update everything's kind of getting based off this war what's going on with iran and uh fertilizer oil commodities everything is is really going off of that so um it's hitting our wall it's dapp and map prices are over seven hundred a ton urea is over six hundred dollars a ton that's a 70% jump in 90 days for some products this is pretty crazy, especially with spring planting coming around. I mean, it's kind of happening at a piss poor time.

If you were a guy and you happen to have liquid fertilizer tanks at your farm and you filled them up last fall, you're probably feeling pretty smart about right now. Yeah. I was going to call old Witt off and see what nitrogen, what liquid nitrogen was selling for right now. But it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction. But also, to your point, I mean, it's all kind of coming at once because at the same time that you've seen this spike, you've seen the Senate investigate the fertilizer companies, and there's all these, you know, allegations of price gouging. And then the nutrient profit report that came out and got spread everywhere where their profit was up like, what, 225% or whatever. Their earnings.

Their earnings. that all plays into it. And there is tariffs. There is tariffs on fertilizer coming into our country. And it's funny because the same companies that are making, have had pretty good profit margins, they've also spent a lot of money lobbying to keep these tariffs in place.

because it benefits their business. Now then some people will make the argument, and you could make the argument that in the past, foreign countries have literally, and when I say foreign countries, you know, China, Russia, they were dumping fertilizer on the world market at prices that were really low

where other people couldn't compete. Now, whether it's still that way or not, I don't know, but those tariffs definitely aren't helping the price that the farmer's seeing on the farm. And so there's a big debate going on those because those tariffs are supposed to expire and whether they'll be renewed or not, I don't know, but I would be a little surprised

that if you're a senator from an ag state and you get to vote on this, I don't know whether I'd want to be the one voting to put those back on. So it'll be interested to see how that all falls out. Yeah, it's interesting. We get this bail out. And then, I mean, do you think that the administration knows, like, do you think they knew what the impact would be

if we did what we did in Iran as far as the economy and ag economy? Or, I mean, surely they got people that are smart enough to kind of predict that, right? like run projections on what the outcomes would be if we do do this. I, because it's like, did he butter us up or think he was buttering us up because he gave us this bailout? And then he's like, well, they'll be able to deal with what's coming after I do this. I mean, I don't think that the administration. Because right, I mean, it's this is, I mean, agriculture's tough.

We've taught, you guys know, we, we've been saying that for a while now. And you know, I did see a comment the other day, though, back in one of our old episodes when corn was $7. Yeah. That was pretty good. So we're not, our podcast hasn't always been doom and gloom about what's going on in ag. There's been some highlights, too. But right now it's a tough time in ag. And then you add this on top of it with fertilizer going way up, especially with planting coming right around the corner here.

Doesn't make things any easier, you know. And there's probably a lot of. of farmers are pissed off. Yeah, definitely. I'm sure there are. Now, I would also say that most farmers, well, I guess I don't know. I'd love to hear in the comments whether you've got your fertilizer bought or not,

or whether your distributor has their fertilizer bought. So you take like, you know, you take like the people that we deal with, they're nitrogen tanks full. They bought, you know, they bought all through the year, mostly in the fall to fill that thing up, because traditionally your price is better, you know, everybody knows it's going to go up in the spring. So, I mean, some of this is, some of this is kind of already baked in there and the fact that I would guess a majority of farmers have a lot of their inputs bought. Now, then that said, you take like for us, in our case, I'm planting on side dressing corn this summer, and I don't have any of that nitrogen bot. And I could have bought it, and I chose not to do it.

So if it's as high as it is now, well, will I put all that on? I don't know. it'll be determined by what it looks like and what that looks like on my cash flow as far as a per field cost cost per acre I don't know but it is certainly even if you take out these fertilizer prices given the price of commodities and the cost of equipment and the cost of your seed and all your inputs it's it's tougher than it's been in a long time. And the other thing you have to remember is there's always a generation that's trying to get started.

I mean, there's a generation that's retiring. I mean, you go through any place that you get your news. There's, to me, I feel like there's more like retirement auctions than I've seen in a while, but that I don't have any, I don't have any hard numbers on that. So you got guys that are getting out and then you got young guys that are trying to start and if you're trying to start now,

I don't know, it's pretty tough. But to what you said about the administration, whether they knew this was going to happen, I really think that the belief amongst the Trump administration was that they were literally going to be able to go in there. There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that

handles everything from drop off to off road, and the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams, or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family. Whatever you want, wherever you're going, start your search at ototrater.ca, Canada's car marketplace. And in two weeks, they were going to be able to have Iran neutered by the balls. Yeah. And this, the ability that they've had at some level to keep sneaking these missiles out and being able to strike other people around the Middle East, I don't think that, I don't think anybody saw that coming.

I think that we felt like, of course there was going to be in the initial barren. of that as they were basically trying to let off everything they had before it got destroyed. But the way they've been able to find ways to launch well into this is pretty surprising. And also the fact that they've hit their Arab neighbors, I didn't see that coming. And I don't think many people did. I mean, I'm sure Saudi Arabia and EAU and all that, I'm sure they didn't see it coming. It's a deal, but that's what's running it. I mean, that uncertainty is definitely running that fertilizer market.

And it makes it tough. Now then, is that going to change people's planning? Are there guys out there that, you know, we're going to plant one-third beans, two-thirds corn that are now going, I'm going to change my seed order. I'm going to plant beans. I'm going to plant 50-50. I don't know. Yeah.

I mean, I've thought about that. Yeah. I could do that. I don't know whether that'd be more profitable or not. Hey, thanks for sticking with us. Man, something I'm always thinking about is how we can get ahead of problems instead of always reacting to them on the farm. I mean, how much yield do we lose every year to issues we don't even see before it's too late?

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We talked about it a little bit with David's, when we had David on, about just our thoughts on the war and why we did it. And you had a really good, just thought process on it as far as you think this is all because we're trying to. trying to basically hurt China because you keep the Russia-Ukraine war going. Russia continually gets weaker. You do what we did in Venezuela. China invested a shitload of money down there of infrastructure to basically get oil. You weaken that. And then Iran, you do what you did in Iran.

Are they getting oil from Iran as well? China gets, they get at least 20% of their oil. oil from Iran, but they probably get, and somebody will more than happy to correct me on this, I want to say they get maybe 40% of their oil comes out of the Suez Canal that they buy from other Arab countries there. So I feel like that kind of makes sense. I think, and then we did see in the news, didn't he want to sit, weren't they going to sit down China and Trump? And then they postponed it. My, what do you think, do you think this is all just leveraging power so that when he does sit down with them,

he can pretty much run the gammon on them and tell them this is the deal. One of my thoughts that I had is, one, everybody says, if that's true, one, he's probably going to say, we want you to buy all our shit.

I want you to buy all our shit, right? You want China to buy our stuff so we can help our economy. But the other thing that I think might be a factor is, maybe not. But do you think it's on the table that Trump might sit down with them and say, you're going to let us win the AI race.

Well, I think it's definitely in the... Because everybody talks about how it's China and the United States trying to rush to develop AI the fastest and whoever wins that race ultimately is going to have a lot of power for the world to come. And that's kind of the... That's what people have been saying. So for me, I'm like,

Trump might just go in there and be like, yeah, you need to buy our shit, but you also need to slow down your... AI development because we're winning this race and you're not. Yeah. I mean, first of all, the Chinese are going to, they're great liars. I mean, history is proven. They'll say whatever and they're going to do behind their back. I think the biggest issue that people that are always been China Bulls just don't seem to get. And what has happened very recently should be your wake-up call.

People casually blow this off, but here is the simple truth about China. China is a huge country with very little of it actually usable, tillable, hospitable land. The western, I mean, three-quarters that country is wasteland. And they import everything. and they don't have a blue water navy. And by that I mean, the entire, you know, people will put up these charts about how many ships the Chinese Navy has versus the United States.

Yeah, they have all of these ships. And none of them can sail, almost none of them can sail more than a few hundred miles from the mainland. and they rely 100% on the United States Navy to police the waters of the rest of the world, like everybody else. I mean, that's U.S. people talk about the currency and they talk about this and that. If you want to trade anywhere in the world, the only reason you're able to do that is because the United States Navy. And if the United States Navy decides they don't want to police that or they,

They don't care if your ships gets pirated or some other country attacks your ship, you're in trouble because there's nobody else coming to get you. And if the United States decided that they wanted to choke off China, you could do it in a matter of weeks because they are 100% dependent upon importing oil and exporting all the goods they sell to the rest of the world to fuel their economy. plus their demographics are terrible. So to your point, I think part of the deal with Trump sitting down with China, he doesn't want to do it until he has the Iran deal settled.

And he knows that he's got his thumb on the oil production coming out of Iran because a lot of that oil goes to China. And he is also taking Cuba off the board, and that's kind of gotten lost in the news, but there's rolling blackouts in Cuba because they don't have any oil because most of their oil came from Venezuela, and they probably were buying some from Iran

that was sanctioned oil that was never supposed to be sold anyway. But Trump has taken these pieces off the board to where China is going to have to play ball. And I think that's why he put off the, the, summit they were going to have. And I think it'll still happen. I think trade will be a big part of that. But people have to remember that China's economy is never going to come back as far as for all

of these commodity groups. And I'm in a lot of these commodity groups. And they love to talk about exports to China and the hog guys loved when China was buying pork like it was going out of style and buying beans, buying bean meal, buying corn. They will never get. back to the level they were because their economy is never going to recover because their demographics are so bad that they are losing a generation of employable people to build out their infrastructure. And if your population is declining, you do not need an expanding infrastructure. It's retracted.

So there's a lot of things that are stacked against them. So that is why they are investing so hard in AI. And I think that will definitely be part of the conversation. Yeah, because I mean there if you if because right now I mean honestly what's stimulating our economy is AI. And I mean, if they if they can do that over there. Yep. That could stimulate their economy too. And they control.

That's where your rare earth minerals. That's where your copper. That's where all of these basic processes. they control that, and that's why we're desperately trying so hard to onshore more of that back to the United States because we screwed up. We should have never let all of those industries go overseas.

It made sense at the time because of just the basic economics of it. You could... I mean, hell, we did this when I was selling hog buildings. There was a time in there where I could go to China and I could get a gestation stall made and all the steel over there is metric. You could buy a gestation stall that was 10% heavier.

So in other words, the steel was 10% bigger. And you could have it made in China, put in a cargo container, shipped to the port at Los Angeles, put on a connex trailer or put on a train, hauled to Omaha or to Chicago, put on a conX trailer and hauled to Washington County, Iowa, and that crate would cost you 10% less than if I bought it from EIP and Earlville,

Iowa. And people couldn't believe it. But it was because, I mean, that time will never come. It's not that way today. And that was just a place in time. But the labor was so cheap and the raw materials were so cheap, it just made sense to do it. And that was just, that's just one small example. So there was a reason why we did that. But now we're paying the price for it because rare earth minerals, basic building blocks of the industrial plant, so much of that stuff, China still controls. And that's their chip to play in all this. And Trump knows that. So there are things that we need from them, and I think the AI is going to be the back and forth.

Because they need that stimuli, they need to simulate their economy the same way we are. and AI is a way to do that, but we want to win the race. So you're right. I just don't know how that all goes. I've always said, I mean, I've said it on here a lot. I think China's goal to survival is, or their tactics are win the AI race, pay off American politicians and try to buy land, try to get leverage on America in some capacity. Buy land.

spy on us with drones whatever like they're trying their best to like having up in some capacity over us in some way because they I think they know yeah so and this isn't on we isn't on our list but you talk about them paying off

politicians you know this whole thing about Israel that we're doing Israel's bidding I think there's two different wars being fought there the U.S. is not fighting the same They're not fighting the same battle as what the Israelis are.

The Israelis world is as small as Iran. They want to put Iran on its back to where it can never again fund all these proxies that have been shooting rockets into Israel, all these terrorist groups. They don't want them to ever be able to have nuclear weapons. I mean, that is their singular. focus. The United States is playing the long game and the big game. It makes sense. And I think they truly believe that none of these news places should be trusted because they're spinning everything. If you listen to them, you know, they want to talk about how, you know, they almost

want to play it like the United States, and they're going to say the Trump administration, but just the United States government, like, they don't know what they're doing. Like, they don't know why they're there. Like, they, they didn't really have good intel that this was really a problem. Well, the Iranians lie, all, they've been lying for 50 years. So for anybody to say that they, that they weren't working on nukes, yeah, hell yes, they were working on nukes. They've been doing that since day one. And obviously, there was enough intel there that they decided that they needed to move. And the Israelis were more than happy. I mean, if it was up to the Israelis, we would have done this clear back. We would have done this clear back during George Bush. I mean, they've been

pushing for this forever. But the United States is playing the long game and the big game, and China is at the end of that, not Iran. Iran is an asset of China. They want to weaken them because it's the right time because they did Venezuela. Cuba's in bad shape. Iran is on its back. Russia's on its... Russia is losing an entire generation by its own doing by fighting this war in Ukraine. And so then you have China.

And that's the long game. Yeah, I think that's something that we talked about. You know, there's a lot of people that think we went to war. We started this. We kicked this thing off with Iran because we're in bed with it. Israel. And Israel, you know, there's all these conspiracies of people saying Israel is actually controlling American politicians and all this shit. We say it on here. We don't know. We don't know. We have no fucking idea. But at the same time, I think your point and kind of theory is there's a

bigger game to play. We're playing the bigger game. We're not really doing Israel's bidding. Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center.

Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. for them. There's two ways to look at it. A, we might have done it for Israel. And that, you know what people say? That could be, that could be true. We don't fucking know. The other side is, we're playing a bigger game. Israel's just happy that we're playing the game that we're playing that benefits them and they're kind of long for the ride, but we're going the long game for China. You know that movie scene that, you know, it's copied a thousand times on social media or a million times. And it's Ben Affleck when he comes and he's like, I need you to come with me. I can't tell you where we're going, and you can't ask why.

And he's like, yep, that's Israel. Yeah. Israel. So England, so Britain, they used to be when, like in the Gulf War, they were our toady. They were the person that we're like, hey, we're going to go kick this thing off. We can't tell you why. Just trust us. And England was like, all right, we'll do it.

Well, we kind of lost them because they've become wussified and they've kind of lost their identity. But Israel, if it's anything, and really, I think it's anything anywhere in the world. If we asked them, hey, you need to help us, the Israelis would do it. Now, granted, they think they're going to get something back for it. Yeah. So, and say this too, because people, I see a lot of people say, why are we giving fucking billions, tens of billions of dollars every single year to Israel? Yeah. What have you said?

Well, to me, it's simple because Israel has arguably as good, maybe even better intelligence than ours. And you can argue, well, it wasn't that good because they didn't see, they didn't see what was that October 7th or whatever that. I don't know. I think that was intentional. I think they wanted that to happen. They let it happen. Yeah. But and the, so they're very, they're very useful. And there are things that we can't do that the Israelis will do for us. I mean, they're a very useful outline to us. And part of that money that we spend gets us connections, and it gets us, what do you want to call it? It gets us plausible deniability.

It gets us a shadow where there are things that the Israeli, do around the world that Massad does around the world that we don't even know about that that money buys. And that's the dirty part of government and whatever. And I'm not going to give you like conspiracy theory about it. I think it's just basic politics and money. We have, we have a lot of shared interests in the fact that we have a lot of the same enemies. And they have, they give us plausible deniability. And I think we're willing to pay a lot of money for that. Yep. And, you know, could be the other way too. We don't know. Yep. We could just be paying them because, again, we are just speaking on what, well, I mean,

we don't really know. We're, you know, we don't know. But we don't know. When you put the pieces together and you kind of put the dots together, what you're saying doesn't make, I mean, it's not like completely out there. Well, look, how much money, we all bitch, we all, we all, all bitch and moan about how much influence the Chinese had. There was a time in there hasn't been that long ago that people

were just, they couldn't believe that somehow the Chinese had purchased all this farm ground right next the Air Force base where they fly the where they fly the B1 bombers and the F-35s out of out in the middle of nowhere the Chinese ended up owning that ground. I mean,

every foreign country around this world that wants things, spends money in the United States, and you can bet your ass if they can find a way to funnel money to a politician that they can make sympathetic to what they want or the outcome they want, they're going to lobby them. The Israelis are no different, but whether that's to the point that they really had that much influence, I have no idea, but I guarantee you their peddling influence. just share a lot of the same objectives, especially in the Middle East.

So not surprising that we give them a lot of money, not surprising that we're both in or on. And let's face it, today, nothing surprises me. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think that was a good tangent on that. We touched on this a little bit. It was kind of our next one up, but phosphate,

they're going to be, basically there's a phosphate tariff they're trying to fight it. And, you know, over 50 ag groups sent a letter to the Department of Commerce on Friday, demanding they revoke the duties on phosphate fertilizer for Morocco and Russia. Back in 2020, Mosaic got these duties put in place. Now they're up for a sunset review. So the ag groups say these duties let a few big companies control the market and drive up prices. For many growers, fertilizer was 40% of their operating costs in 2025. So they're trying to fight this whole deal, fight this tariff.

When the economics of agriculture are as poor as they are, deals like this come to light, and everybody cries that we're getting screwed over. And they don't want this tariff allowed to renew. And you're absolutely right. I mean, it wasn't just mosaic that lobbied hard to get that on there. But at the time, basically Russia, Morocco, for what they could produce that fertilizer for, and you have to remember, there's no OSHA over there. There's no, I mean, their cost to produce it is pretty cheap because their labor cost is cheap. They don't have any of the safety requirements.

None of the environmental. There's no EPA. They don't care about any of it. And so they were literally putting on that side of things, a lot of the domestic fertilizer companies, they couldn't compete. And so that was why they went to Congress and probably the World Trade Organization, although I don't know whether they would do anything about it or not, and said, hey, you know, we can't have this. We got to get it on an even playing field. well, today, fertilizer prices are way out of whack compared to what the American farmer is getting on the income side.

So you look at it and you say, we got to get these prices down, we need more product to drive the price down. And so, I mean, it makes sense. I don't know if they'll get it done. Here you get it. You know, we're talking about how much influence does Iran have, or how much influence does Israel have,

How much influence does China have? Well, how much influence does your big fertilizer have? Because that's going to tell the tale. I mean, if they vote to not, if they vote to renew it, because like I said in the beginning, if you're a senator for an ag state and you vote for this, you're going to get, I mean, you're going to get crucified for it. But at the same time, follow the money.

So it'll be interested to see whether it gets renewed or not. And it's kind of a weird deal because you could argue that by keeping that in place, you are helping domestic fertilizer production, right? And that's the argument they'll use. They'll use that as, well, we're trying to onshore all this stuff. We've got to make sure these companies can compete. But then, well, if the farmer can't compete and everybody's going to lose their ass, well, then you're going to have to subsidize it somehow.

So I don't know what the right answer is, but it's definitely a hot topic right now. Yeah. And we do need to onshore. We need to onshore more of our fertilizer production. To me, that is a national security deal, because if you cannot produce, ask Europe. And I mean, I feel like the Europeans have kind of forgotten about this,

but, you know, if you have a population that's hungry, pretty hard to govern when they're hungry. And to me, have an adequate fertilizer supply to grow a crop to feed our country, pretty important. Yep, I can't disagree with any of that. I think it'll get solved one way or the other. I hope the ag economy gets better. Yep.

And if you are, if you are, to increase fertilizer production in the United States. You need a bunch of plumbers, electrician, construction workers, da-da-da-da, which see that? I said it right up for you. You did. Next hot topic up is the trades are winning and nobody told Rule Kids. So, you know, we talk about this a lot, but I went and got some data on this. So a new report shows demand for robotics technicians is up 107%. HVAC engineers are up 67%. construction rolls are up 30% since 2022. Electricians working on AI data centers are making 240,000 to 280,000 a year under age 30 with zero college debt.

That's crazy. I don't know. I don't know how accurate that is. I'd be curious if there's anybody out there that's an electrician working on a data center. I'd love to know. I mean, I guess don't tell us, don't tell the world how much money you're making. But is that. ride is that accurate? Are you making a lot of money? Navidia's CEO called the AI boom, the largest infrastructure build out in human history, and it needs plumbers, electricians, and welders. The construction industry needs 349,000 new workers in 2026 alone. Rule kids have been told for 30 years that they need a four-year degree to be successful. Meanwhile, the guy who went to trade school is making $250,000, relatively debt-free. And this is the conversation I think more people need to have.

I mean, we've had it on here a lot. We talk about it a lot. But those are the numbers. That's the data. People are making good money. People are making good money. This boom is happening. There's nothing stopping it.

And I also think the other side of it is, yes, like we talk about on here, this AI boom's happening. These data centers are getting built out. That'll all come to a hole someday. but still, that shit's all got to still get repaired. You're still going to have to come in there and fix things. And there's going to be obviously other stuff to be done. I mean, there's obviously other stuff that you can use that skill for.

And the truth is, there's not going to be enough people still to do all the other shit that needs to get done outside of these data centers. And last point on that, I think if you get in the trades, your job's safe for the most part when it comes. to get displaced by AI. I mean, it just until robotics, if ever, if that can ever happen, get involved in the mix and they can become as skilled as a skilled laborer is or skilled tradesman is, I don't really see that happening for a very long time.

But I think you got job security for a long time. Yep. Like if I, like we just had a young kid up in the barn the other week. Brandon's son. Brandon's son came, yep, from NBC Customspray. Yeah, his son came along with him and was in the studio. And we got off the podcast and we were talking. And I just told him, like, man, if I was your age, I would learn a trade and I would learn AI.

I would do both. Like, I would learn how to do use your hands, have a skill that you can use for job security. There's going to be more work than you can possibly ever think to do. Plus, if you can know and understand the tools of AI and how to use, use them at the same time, dude, you're going to be like, invaluable. Invalial. 100%. If you can prompt Claude to know how to do this, this, this and that, you can build

shit on Claude code, but also you can go wire, wire or weld or plum anything for anybody. I mean, shit, dude, you're like a, you're like the best Swiss Army knife there is. Yeah. You know? So, I, yeah, we needed, that needs to be promoted way, way more. And I think it's starting to happen more. but get in the trades man that's I mean that's if I didn't have all this going on I would I mean truth be told I totally would because it's I think it's the opportunity of a lifetime

and I think for job security right now you got to really be thinking about that for the long run how long is your how long is your career's runway right now I think everybody's trying to have that kind of has that in the back of their mind I mean it's it's it's a really really weird time in human history. It is very. And the nice thing about that is, if you're one of those people, you'll probably be able to vote.

Because I listened to a really interesting podcast two weeks ago. And the whole idea of it was, this guy's theory was that as AI advances, as more and more people's jobs, are replaced. And the first jobs that are going to go, well, I mean, they already are, but so much of it is clerical stuff

and editing and and codes. Jobs that, yeah, coding, jobs that involve kind of book knowledge. White collar. Yeah, white collar. And here's something interesting. Do you know that in New York,

there is a bill. in the New York legislature to ban the ability of people to get medical advice or law advice, legal advice, from AI platforms.

Do you know who's pushing that? The lawyer guild, the lawyer union, and the doctor union for the state of New York because they're like, now then they are, they're all putting this as, well,

you're putting people at risk because they could get bad advice. Like, you know. Caring for the little guy. Caring for the little guy. But actually what you're doing is you're taking the people that can least afford to pay outrageous legal fees that can get advice off of, you know, AI. You're basically throttling that so they can't do it, which I think is kind of bullshit. But anyway, I get off. I digress.

The whole point of this conversation was that, They think that a very possible outcome is that as you get this huge productivity boom from AI and you have all these displaced people, there is going to be this push for universal basic income. However, if you have people that are 100% dependent upon universal basic income from the government, should they or should they not get to vote in politics? And this guy's whole thesis was that the people that actually have jobs that contribute to society and pay taxes, those will be the only people allowed to vote.

And people that are on 100% government assistance will not get to vote. And I thought, holy cow! Now that is a, that'll be an interesting. Well, hey, I believe in the tradesmen. They'd vote correctly. Well, no, they would. We'd be in good shape if they were the ones that could vote. It all goes back to, though.

It all goes back to the great Ronald Reagan quote. Actually, I think it was Margaret Thatcher that said that maybe, that the problem with socialism is that you can vote your way in, but you have to shoot your way out. And we may be way too far down the socialist train by the time that ever gets to, where you would have a choice otherwise. But I thought it was a very interesting viewpoint. Well, here's something that I think about a lot. Because, you know, I feel like we're in this,

we're in this moment right now. I don't know about you guys what you're seeing, but it just seems like every single day there's a new, new skill that you can add to your clod, and you can do this with clod now, and you can do this with mayonnaise, and you can create this and build this and it's all just evolving so fast. and people are just screaming from the rooftops,

how this is going to displace people. But then, you know, you have other people, like I've seen people at XA, they think AI is a bubble and it's going to pop. And all this money and all this infrastructure is going to be, it's going to go to, it's going to just pop. It's not going to be as big as everybody thinks it's going to be. We're not going to get displaced as much as everybody thinks we're going to get displaced.

And it's just not going to be this huge, big, revolutionary thing. but then I think, okay, so you got two examples. You got crypto. And you remember how when that came out, I mean, man, everybody was buying these shit coins and buying NFTs. And there was just this massive crypto push and how this is the future. And we're going to go this way. And there's going to be multiple realities in the blockchain and all this shit. And everything will be traded on the blockchain in cryptocurrency.

Yeah. And like there's still some of that around, right? There's Bitcoin still, but that is really, all that shit kind of has come tapered off way off. Then you have the example of social media. Social media started, you know, I don't know if anybody, any of you know Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V. Gary V was one of the first people. He hopped on YouTube and created one of the first YouTube channels that there was at the time, called Wine Library TV.

And he basically reviewed wine, right? and he was doing that in like 2008 when nobody was using YouTube. And, you know, he's built his career on being the social media expert. But everybody looked at Gary Vee at that time and said, social media is a fad. We're never going away from the advertising that we're doing.

It's not here to stay. It's not here for the long run. And look at where we're at. Social media has been one of the greatest, greatest things to ever be invented for a lot of people. I mean, it's got a lot of downsides, but it's made a lot of careers and made a lot of people money.

And it's produced an incredible amount of knowledge. You were just talking about that. Yeah. Knowledge, opportunity, all that. It's honestly one of the greater inventions that's ever happened for the human race when you look at the positives. But there's also a lot of negatives with it too. But I digress on all that. What do you think AI will be?

Will it be the example of social media where it's here to stay and it's longer than what people think? Or is it going to be more like crypto where everybody pushes it and is pushing it and pushing it and pushing. And it's something else here now, something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch.

Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. eventually pops and it's not as grand and big and doesn't last as long as everybody thinks. I don't know. I think I would fall more on the social media side. And I think that it could be similar to the whole internet bubble that I grew up that I saw go through where, you know, first we thought that everything, like it was the internet. boom was a little bit like the crypto boom in that we thought that you were literally going to

buy and sell everything on the internet, which we're still slowly moving there. I mean, Amazon has pushed every other brick and mortar company to sell online, but there was a pile of people. I mean, there are so many companies that boomed and busted during that time. And I think AI is more that way. I think that the upside to human productivity and the amount of

the amount of work that you can multiply yourself with to me, the biggest advantage I see to AI is for small businesses, startups, because today, a startup, you can leverage AI to do so much for you

that you otherwise would have had to hire people to do those basic things to build those systems as you were starting out. So you got people with very small businesses that are competing with these large, entrenched companies that have been at it for a long time because they're able to leverage the AI. So I don't think it's a bubble at all.

I'm just not sure. how. I just think what people worry about the most with it though. I mean, wasn't there a poll that was put out? People, they talked about this on all in. What is it? 80% of Americans are out on AI.

Nobody likes talking about it. Yeah. And I know this because we hear it in the comments. We hear you guys. Everybody has a negative connotation. When you say the word AI, people don't like it. And most people do not fucking like it. And you're seeing it with the,

with the data. People don't want data centers. Yeah, so in All In they were talking about it. And if you go to China and you ask that poll about what do you think about AI, in their population it's generally positive because they see it as growth and they see it as opportunity. Same way with Japan, Europe and America, negative. And part of that is because of our politicians and our media because, and just like that, I gave you with New York.

We are very entrenched in what we think, and I'm guilty of this. I'm old enough that I like what I like and I like things the way they are and I don't like change very well. And so, you know, you look at AI and it's change. And it's change at an alarming rate. And so if you're not an Uber optimist, it's really easy to fall prey to. to that, oh, this is terrible. I don't want it. I don't want to change. So, well, yeah, I think people's biggest thing is, are we creating something that's going to

ultimately be the demise of the human race? You know what I mean? Or in our thriving of, of human beings. I mean, that's the, if there's anything that'll pop the bubble, there's anything that could pop the AI bubble, it's human, it's a human revolt. I mean, it's a human revolution of, we're shutting this fucking thing down. We don't want this shit. I mean, honestly, I don't know. I just, I wanted to throw that thought out there because it's very interesting to me. It would be interesting to see what you guys think on that. Do you think it leans more towards the internet and social media and it's here to stay?

Or do you feel like it's a bubble that's going to pop like crypto? I'd be here, be curious to know your thoughts. Other kind of small little hot topics that we're not going to run too long on, but wanted to throw in there. And first one is the metaverse. Remember when the meta, talking about bubbles, right? Talking about booms and bus. Metaverse is kind of in that same period of crypto going and blockchain and all this shit. Meta rolled out this whole metaverse and how we're going to do this whole virtual reality deal

and they're going to create this whole world with these Oculus goggles that you're going to put on. And basically, if you've ever seen the movie Ready Player 1, that was, that's what they were building. And, well, they're ramping way fucking down on that. So they've reportedly have lost like $80 billion, $80 billion since they've done it since they, since they started that whole thing up. And they've laid off over a thousand employees in this division. So I don't know if the whole department is shutting down, but they're rampant, throttle in it way back, way back. And honest to God, I'm glad. I'm glad that that's something that humans have said, we are out on that.

Yeah. We do not want to live in a virtual world. We are good living in reality where we are today. We don't need more screen. I think what it comes down to, humans are figuring out, we need less screens, not more. Yeah. We need less consumption, not more. We need less media, not more.

You need more personal. personal time. You need more... I think we're real... I think your generation is learning that you need socializing. Phones are kind of like cigarettes. Yeah.

Like back in, you know, when they ban... I think it's an interesting time too because this is like the first time... This is the first time that I think technology is starting to not just get adopted. Yeah. Because, you know, like,

80s, every new thing that came out, Americans went fucking nuts for it. And it kind of just kept going, you know, then the phone came, then the TV, then, like, and then Apple introduces the iPhone, or you got the BlackBerry, you got the Motorola Razor, then iPhone comes out, then, and then

the MacBook, and then it just keeps going and going and going, and we've adopted all of it. And now, I think humans have just, just realized all this shit. Yes, it's useful. It's got great use cases. It's helped our lives.

But it's also been a huge detriment to a lot of areas of our lives too. Yeah. And we're getting to a point where it's like, we're not going to just adopt everything you tell us to adopt. Yeah. So it's that adoption rate is what you're talking about. So there's a, there's a chart you can find pretty easy.

And it goes all the way back to like the rate, I think maybe, and it shows how quickly within, and this is all American numbers, I think, but it shows how quickly are, how quickly we adopted certain technologies. And, you know, it's just, it's a line that just goes pretty much, it goes at a pretty even rate, and then iPhone, it goes, I think they call that parabolic. It just goes like straight up. So the iPhone, the adoption of the iPhone was just the fastest adoption of any technology. And then I think we thought that that was just going to keep.

So each new technology was going to be adopted even faster. And the metaverse was one of those things. I think part of what happened with the metaverse is that the rate of AI giving people way more free time didn't ramp up, has not ramped up as fast as what the metaverse technology. I think that they thought

that they were building this into a time where we were just going to have this amazing boom in productivity to where people were going to just have oodles of time on their hand that they could spend and it just never happened. But I just also think maybe I'm wrong.

I mean, maybe people are okay just doom scrolling when they get home from work and watching TV. I mean, there's, and playing video games and hopping on the metaverse. Maybe there's a lot more of that

than I know of. And I know there is a lot of that. But I also just think there's a lot of people that just realize, like we gotta live. Like, we got to like live off these screens. You got to get off these screens

and like, we got to like sometimes not be consuming all the time. You know, like a lot of young people, we're playing pickleball. We're, you know, we're golfing. We're fishing. We're getting, I just feel like young people today are just, I think we're realizing we can't be. I always consuming all the time and getting on our phones and getting on the TV and getting all on all that shit all the time. And that's our world because you just end up feeling like shit.

I think you're, I think you're right on that because I'll tell you. is something that I saw this weekend, Trish and I were gone. We went off down to the Ozarks, and we rented a cabin down there. But when we went out in public to eat, and we ate a lot, the most depressing thing that I saw,

and this, about every place we went, young people get a bad rap for the amount of time, that they're on their phones. I saw a lot, don't get me wrong, I saw plenty of young people on their phones as far as that goes, but I saw a lot of groups of families

where the kids were, you know, present. They were all talking and then doing whatever. The number of tables that I saw in restaurants where you had a husband and wife sitting there waiting for their food or waiting for their check and not talking at all and both of them with their heads and their phone the whole time. I think my generation is as bad or worse

than this younger generation because I saw that everywhere where you had either that or there's just a really lot there's a lot of really unhappily married people. I don't know, but I was like, we saw that a lot. When you start noticing how many adult people and people 40 and over that, I mean,

they're just completely oblivious to what's going on and they're checked out. Yeah. It's sad. That is sad. I'm sure it's a mix of both. I'm sure there's a lot of unhappy marriages. And I'm also sure that a lot of them just want to be on their phone.

And I terrified, I terrified my wife because whenever I'd see that, I'd say, I'm going to go over there and see if they're asking them if they're watching Barn Talk. Oh, man, that's funny. That is sad, though. Yeah, I don't know. I just think, I think young people are starting to realize,

like my brother, he doesn't have any social media. My brother is all, and he's 30. So my brother's 30. He's deleted all social media. He don't use it. And he, like he just said it's night and day. Yeah. I mean, he said, because I ask about that,

because it's kind of an odd. It's not an odd thing, but it's not popular. Like, or maybe it is, and I don't know. But I think it's so cool that he does that. Yeah. He has social media for his business and they use it very well. He just doesn't use it at all for his personal. He doesn't have it personally.

But he said, you still occupy your time. Like he said, I'll still read the news. You know, I'll still, I'll go on Reddit every once in a while. But he says it's been good for me, my, you know, my mental health. Like, I just, it's good for me not to have it. So it works. But yeah. Last little quick hot topic.

Let me just, yeah. So all I want to say about the last topic is, what is it? You can all kiss my ass because Tesla will win. In the end, they're going to win. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you can't, you can't hate on dad's opinion on Tesla because he has been kind of saying this from the beginning.

is out on electric vehicles. They're not completely abanding electrical vehicle production, but they are significantly pulling back on large, all-electric models due to low-demand and high costs, taking a massive $19.5 billion hit to pivot towards hybrids and cheaper, smaller EVs. The company is canceling all-electric three-row SUVs and the current F-150 lightning, which in my head, I'm like, this again makes. me think Tesla's going to win because Tesla kind of has that market. The thing

that separated Ford on the electric side was the F-150 Lightning. That was kind of the cool offering that they were bringing to the table, but now you're taking that away. I mean, why would I buy a Ford mid-sized small EV when I could go to Tesla

that's good at that. Get one that actually works. Right. You know. That has a good interface. Yeah. So I just think I think EVs are not going to be as big of a thing as everybody. That was also a really big boom, right? Evies are going to control. I don't think that's going to happen. There's going to be room.

There's going to be room for both. But I do think Tesla is going to own the EV market. I mean, they just are. They're the best. They've been doing it the longest. They have the most data. They have. And I'm not prompting you to go on a Tesla rant here.

I know. He gave me guidelines at the beginning that I can't go. I've only got a few points I'm going to make. Yeah. But basically, Tesla's going to win in the end. I think they have and will continue to be a dominant player in that space. And it's going to be hard for legacy vehicle companies to really come in and do anything. Yeah. So they should just stick in their lane probably. Yeah. Well, so the next shoe to drop on this will be GM. And this will happen. GM will pull the plug on their stuff. I'm making this prediction. And it won't be till Mary Barr retires because she, She's so invested in it. But she's going to step down as CEO there at GM. And when that happens, the next guy that comes in, he'll be the one to unravel the EV. Volkswagen has, they've lost a pile on EVs.

I don't know how far they'll let it go. But Porsche has already, they're walking back. They're going to quit making any EV versions of Porsche. And here's where Tesla played the long game. All these companies that got into the EV deal, they didn't have the technology as far as the infrastructure for charging. And they were relying on these outside companies to build out the infrastructure across the country. And you take a company like Rivian, I love, I mean, I love Rivian.

I went to the teaser deal in New York City when they rolled out the Rivian, and I wanted one. I, for a long time, wanted one. The problem they've got is their software is not great, and you can go on and see many people that have bought them, and then they try to do a cross-country drive using their map technology and their charging infrastructure, and it's not good. And I mean, Tesla made the decision. They own the charging network. It's their chargers.

It's their software. It's all proprietary. And you're seeing these companies. Did you see that Ford is going to pull Apple CarPlay and what's the other one? If you don't have Apple CarPlay, you have. I heart. I don't know. Amazon.

It's like the other version. version. You're either Apple or your... Android. Android CarPlay. They're pulling both of them out of there unless you pay for them, I think, is their deal. Tesla, their technology is so much better. And also, the last thing I'll say about it is, I honestly think that it's only a limited amount of time that Tesla is going to keep making the Model 3 and the Model Y. They're phasing out the Model S and the Model X.

and I don't know about cyber truck, but they're all in on the cyber cab, and they're full self-driving. And I think that you could find, I think the day will come that they may give up on selling the individual cars to people, because I think they may just put, they may put Uber out of business,

where if you go to any large city all the time, taxis are going to be Teslas, and they're going to own it, they're going to own it from top to bottom. So you're going to reserve it. You're going to reserve it through their, through their software, their app. It's going to be their cars. They're going to own the cars. They're going to own the software. And the amount of money that they could make off of that alone is insane. But I think Elon's long game is now the robot. I think the robot is where they're going to spend the profit and the cars have just been kind of a stepping stone to that. That's what I think. But in the EV business, they're going to be the only player until they choose not to be in it.

Look at that. That wasn't too bad. That was too bad. It was only a few minutes. Yep, that was good. One more thing. We've added a new segment, and it's called the Sawyer Spotlight. And we should have like an actual spotlight or maybe like a disco ball or something. Just come from the ceiling. So our large barn ceiling just come all the way down. Yep. Yep. Or we could live. lift your chair up. Yep. Like your Celine Dion or something, you know. That'd be pretty cool.

We'll work on that. You drop the prints and make it happen and I'll just enjoy it. Like, share, subscribe, and sign up for the newsletter because every penny helps get us to the hydraulic chair. Yep. So what do you think, Sawyer? What's the spotlight? So my first thing on the Sawyer Spotlight is my favorite thing that I consumed this month. So I read, I started reading a book called,

The Sweaty Startup by Nick Huber. And in there, he talks about the Blue Ocean Strategy and the Red Ocean Strategy. And the Blue Ocean Strategy is a book written by two of these entrepreneurs. And basically, the Blue Ocean Strategy says that the path to success involves creating a new market where competition does not exist. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch.

deep, flip, or that, and enjoy. Via Rail, love the way. Is therefore irrelevant. The authors of this book think by doing this, you'll be able to expand your offerings and own all of the market share in your industry because you've come up with this super innovative idea. And I feel like that's what we get pushed a lot

as business owners, entrepreneurs, creatives. You need to come up with this revolutionary, innovative idea, the Shark Tank people of the world, right? Everybody goes on Shark Tank, invented this thing, invented this widget or made this thing, and it's this thing that's never been done before. And Nick argues with that point and says, you should instead focus on the Red Ocean strategy where you can study the market, you can choose the opportunities you want to pursue, you can assess the way things are done and figure out if you can compete or have a competitive advantage of some kind. You can learn from competition. The truth is, a lot of

companies are horrible at answering the phone and doing what they say they're going to do. Many don't have a website. Many use a fax machine in their offices still and make millions of dollars of profit every single year doing it this way. The competition is weak in today's world. And the example he also threw in there was call around in your city and your town, call around home builders, and ask them to build you a deck. How many of them are going to answer the phone? How many of them are going to say you're two years out before we can get to you? How many of them got a website?

How many of them use AI? How many of them use software? How many of them are up with the times of how they can use all of these tools to their advantage? How many of them have a social media account? How many of them can actually spit you out an estimate? How many of them can get you an invoice on time? I mean, that was really, it seems like kind of common sense, but again, sometimes not.

Because I do think when people think about entrepreneurship, they feel like they have to reinvent the wheel. They have to be Elon Musk. They have to be this revolutionary person. And that's 0.001%. Like that is like not for the common man, right? That is not the way to be. successful and be wealthy. And I agree with them because if you're going to take the bet on

entrepreneurship and build your own business, do it on something that you know works, but just needs to be disrupted and you can do better. And I agree with, I mean, that example, is that not truth? How many service-based businesses out there are like that? Yeah. A ton. A ton. And he has mentioned in there, he's told so many stories in this book. And I highly recommend. recommend this book to anybody. He has so many friends make $10 million a year. They started a service-based business and they eventually hired a CEO to run it and now they are free. They have complete freedom and they didn't reinvent the wheel. They do a lot of, he says in this book, the more boring, the less sexy, the more grit it takes as a business opportunity, the more

interested I'm into it because the other thing that weeds out is these passionate people that will stay in a business for way too long and you'll just have this crazy amount of competition because people are just passionate about something they'll hold on to it long and stay in the industry for too long versus when it's unsexy it's not popular those are where the money's made that's where the money's made and it really just stuck with me so that was my favorite thing that I consume this month. Were you going to say something on that? I was just going to say thinking about all of my experiences with service-based businesses over the last, I bet you, five years. There's only two companies that I know of that

there's one plumbing and heating company that I've had an experience with where they actually invoiced you while they were there and they wanted paid. like right there. Like they had the, they had the, the, the, on their phone to where they invoiced you, emailed it to you,

and you swiped your card right there. And the other one is a pool company where they invoice you as they're driving down the road. You have it and you can pay online and it's streamlined. And scheduling-wise, I haven't ran into anybody

that has like an online scheduling. So yeah, I'd say all of those are ripe for, innovation. Yeah. So I would just say, I encourage anybody to read this book. And if you're a young guy, you know, we talk about trades, getting into home service, getting to a trades. If I would own a trade's business. If you have the skill, go, go build a trades business. Because being the business owner, that's where you're going to make a lot of money. That's where you're going to build wealth. And there's a lot of disruption, I think, out there. And there's a lot of industries that need

disruption from young people. So go get it. My young man thought of the week is there's this new Netflix documentary out on Netflix right now called the Manosphere and the loneliness crisis. It's, I would say with any documentary, depending on who is the guy that made the documentary, there's biases. When you get on a, when you get on a documentary about food, and it's made by somebody that hates animal agriculture.

Obviously, you know how it's going to be painted. This guy, he's a liberal. I mean, you can just tell he's a liberal, but I do think there is some kind of eye-opening moments in this documentary. Basically, he goes around and spends the day with all these big-time, toxic masculinity influencers like Justin Waller, you know, the Andrew Tate type of guys, right? Sneco is a big streamer. I don't know if any of you guys know who these people are. Basically, these guys that are like extreme on the masculine, masculinity, I guess, opinion, train. And it just sparked a thought, you know, I did some digging into this. In a 2025 report found that two thirds of young men regularly engage with masculinity influences online.

line. Why are so many young men drawn to these online figures? Is it because they're not getting guidance from anywhere else? What does it mean to be a man in 2026? And who is defining that? I think there's some really good sources of some masculine figures, but I think there's also some people that go way too far with it. It's really hard, I think, in this world today to to know what's good advice on how to be a man and what's not. Because there's this very thin line where you can get too far on the toxic masculinity train. I hate that word. I hate that term because I think being a man and being masculine is what we're meant to do.

But when you're, you can go too far with it. You know, you can go way too far with it. There's these guys that want these, they want wives, but then they can go and cheat on their wives, and that's just the way it is, right? That's like, that's way crazy. That's way out there. And these are the guys that are talking to our youth, you know?

And that's a scary thought. So I think there's a middle ground to be had. Well, there's a middle ground to be had. And it's the same way with, you know, the feminine movement. You know, there's a lot of women that go way far on hate men. Men are useless. You don't need men. Yep.

And there's a middle ground there too where we need to stop listening to this crazy toxic shit and kind of get back to the middle. And I think that's the same way on the, on the masculine side too. Well, at the end of the day, the best role model, a young man can have is a father that's engaged and it really is about quality time and by quality time I mean like doing things together and being an example and you know if if a kid grows up and has that not only a son but a daughter you know if a daughter has an example of a father of a father that their mother with respect and, you know, doesn't belittle, doesn't belittle them and is just

honest and honorable in their dealings. That's the best, that's the best role model you can have. And I think that young parents are overwhelmed and it seems like too much sometimes. And we've had enough, we've had enough young men on this podcast that I think I'm pretty safe in saying this. You, the pressure that young parents put on themselves to give children these experiences and to have all this stuff is so misplaced because most young people that we've ever come in contact, when you ask them about the challenging times that their parents went through, if we know that the parents went through a challenging time, the kids have no, they have no recollection of it.

They don't know anything about it. All they know is the experience they had and basically, you know, that their parents were there for them and they had quality time with them. They didn't know that they didn't know that they didn't have the latest and greatest and they didn't get to go to all these places or all that. So, I mean, that's society. Society is nothing but consumerism. Like, your kids should have this.

Your kids should do this. You've got to have everything. They got to have these shoes. They got to have trips to Disneyland. They don't need any of that. They need somebody to read a book to them. They need somebody to teach them how to tie their shoes. They need somebody to teach them how to ride a bike.

However crappy that bike is, they don't care. they just need the time. And if we can get back to that, I think the rest of it will take care of herself. And then, you know, they're not looking for that online influencer that might or might not have the same values that you would hope that.

Well, I would challenge that a little bit. I mean, I think that is one million percent right. But, I mean, I had a good dad and I still have consumed that kind of content. Not those, not crazy outlandish. But you had a frame of reference. Yeah. I had a frame of reference.

kind of filter it. Filter it. That's exactly right. If you don't have the filter, it's hard to filter it. And you might take those ideas and really apply them to your life. Like, I think the, what you can really, if you're not careful and run that through a filter, what can happen is you can really start to look down on women. You can start to really have this dog eat dog world, which it is that to a certain extent, but you can almost become heartless and not have much,

like it's all performative base. Like your whole identity as a man is to just be all about performance. It's all about what you create, what you consume, how you look, all that shit. And that's a very slippery slope because if you're,

if that's what you're classifying yourself as and it's all based on those things, there's not really a lot inside internally that I don't think you're going to feel full as a man, you know, because I think you got to have, yes, it's important to provide. Yes, it's important to go out and get yours. And yes, it's a black and white world to a certain extent, right? Like, yeah, you do have to produce as a man.

You're not going to be giving shit, right? You got to go out and get it. But you can't lose. the like compassion and the soft like the soft side too like you got to love your kids you're going to have to love your wife you're going to have to like joey martin said this there's a lot of men in this world that classify themselves as men but act like dudes because they base their masculinity off of all the shit that they consume and what they have and what they produce but at the end of the day what makes a man is to love like Jesus.

I mean, that's, that's what his message is. You have to bow before the name Jesus, and it's about who you worship internally, not about all the other shit in your life. It is, it is the verse of a man can gain the entire world, but lose his soul. And then what does he have?

Well, you don't have anything. I think when it comes down to, if you live it that way, You have to, yes, you have to produce, protect your family and go get yours and it's good to have drive. But you also have to have a servant's heart. Because when, I mean, you have more experience of leading a family than I do, obviously, but you're a pretty good servant leader. I mean, you always have been.

You serve your family. You serve your wife. And you lead the family. And that's what it takes. Yeah, I mean, you don't, you have to decide what you want because. if you want a guy told me once that, you know, his greatest, a retired guy told me that the thing he was most proud of was that he was, his kids were all grown and they still wanted to spend time with him. He said he's got a lot of friends that have made way more money than he has and raised a family and their kids don't want to be around them. and I mean that tells you something because at what cost at what cost did you gain the world yeah

you're financially you're financially well off but you've alienated your family I mean so I mean as a as a father or starting out you have to decide it's like it's and it's like it's like it's like this craze about you know uh men that have hobbies I just, that's bullshit. If you're a, I'm, and I mean, I'm, I know that's as unpopular, but, you know, it's, I had hobbies before I got married and had kids. And then once I, once I had kids, my kids' hobbies were my hobbies. I mean, that, I wasn't a child. I was somebody's father.

And men, I mean, you can have a hobby, but you really have. to put that in check. And like the men's group that I go to, the guy that started that, he has a great line. He doesn't speak up there very often, but one of his things he'll tell

you is that his porn had horns. Because he didn't have a problem with pornography. He had a problem with hunting. That was his addiction. That was his hobby turned into an addiction. And he realized that that

was taking time from his kids and from his wife and everything else. And, you know, I think that the best advice I can give to young men that are starting a family is that family, that's your hobby. Your hobby is to guide them for the next, how are many years, to make them good humans. And that means that, you know, you can have a hobby, but that takes second. that's the back burner compared to what your kids need. And, you know, what your kids... And your kids can be the same way.

I mean, they can get way... I mean, as I think as a society, we get way too addicted to all of the stuff to fill the void and hobbies are one of those things, and we won't get into that. But anyway, yeah, I mean, your family should be your hobby. Yeah. Last thing that I think that toxic shit will...

that toxic masculinity, those guys will instill in you as just selfishness. Yeah. You know, and I, again, the best men that you know are they selfish, extremely selfish? Probably not. No, they're extremely humble, usually. Yeah, they're humble and they're servants and they help and they contribute, you know. So we need more of that. Yeah.

Less of the, less of the Andrew Tates and that kind of shit. We need more examples of what real, real masculinity looks like. And so if you're, if you're listening to any of that, any of that shit, I think there's some good that you can hear from it, but you got to filter out the bad stuff and you can't take all that shit to heart. Because it, if you're not careful, you'll, you'll tread too far one way, you know. So that's, that was my young man thought a week. That is Sawyer's spotlight.

And that's really all I got. for this week's hot topics, guys. So if you got any value, share the show, leave your review on Spotify or Apple, sign up for the newsletter at joinbarntalk.com. We love you guys. We appreciate you. And we'll see you back here next week for another episode. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs' national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, productivity, and innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable

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