10 lessons from 2023

Shay: As we dive into this episode of the Ag View Pitch, we just want to do a quick introduction here of things that you might want to think about as we move forward. So we'd encourage you right now, grab a pen and paper. You're going to want to write these lessons down. These are just things that Chris and I saw as observations throughout the year. And one last comment that I would say when you get done with this exercise of writing down and making notes kind of on what we discuss here at the end, write down what your lessons learned are. You know, I've done that, Chris, here the last 3 years, written down the lessons learned in our operation. I think '23 is going to be a huge year for what to do and maybe what not to do. So hope you guys really enjoy this episode. We'd love to hear your feedback and your response to it and love to hear maybe what some of your lessons learned were too.

So with that, enjoy this episode of the Ag View Pitch.

Chris: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have Shay Foulk and Chris Barron here, and we are going to wrap up 2023 with the top 10 lessons. And so kind of what we're going to do here today to set the stage is I am going to have 5 of things that basically I learned from 2023, and Shay's got 5 things that he learned in 2023, and we haven't shared that with each other yet. So this will be kind of entertaining for, for both you and I, Shay, here to kind of see what you learned this year, and you're going to get to see what I learned. So I had to do a little thinking about it. How about yourself?

Shay: Well, I think I learned at least 5 things, uh, over a cup of coffee. It kind of helped jumpstart my brain a little bit, but The items that I have laid out are ones that I think are— they're timely and timeless. And so I hope this resonates with people not only as we wrap up '23, but as we move forward too. And before you get a chance, I'll pick on you first. I think you should kick it off.

Chris: Oh, great. Okay. And I don't have mine in any certain order. Did you put yours in an order or—

Shay: No, I didn't.

Chris: Okay, good. So, all right. I'll go first then. So one of the things that I learned, so my first thing of my 5, is to stay disciplined on your marketing. And what I mean by that is it was tough this year. I was on vacation in June and I just remember we were seeing $6 corn plus, $6 plus corn, and it was really hard to pull the trigger because I saw how dry it was. But I looked at the insurance and I looked at how I've always been doing my marketing before, even though there was a few years there where I sold ahead and I'd have been way smarter off to just do nothing. And I stayed consistent. And so I didn't do the greatest job of marketing in, you know, in '21 and '22, but I stayed disciplined to the same process, the same type of marketing, and didn't jump around. And I think that was a great lesson for me is like, stay disciplined. Don't try to outguess the markets.

Don't try to change how you market. However you do it, and if it's working, don't change what works. Don't try to fix something that's not broke. I guess that's my, my first lesson.

Shay: I'll follow up. One of mine was marketing related too. And my comment here is market aggressively when there's profit on the table. You know, don't, don't worry about it continuing to go to $8 corn. I'll give two examples. One, there was a gentleman that I was speaking with in late September had corn from '22 in the bin yet. He had watched that corn go to $8, and he had watched it go back down to 4-something when I was talking with him. By the time you figured in basis, and he still hasn't done anything with it. I talked with, uh, I talked with the family here the other day. So not only is that a massive amount of, you know, just interest or opportunity cost that you have there, but, um, you know, when are you going to pull the trigger when you've seen such wide ranges.

And also, to your point, looking back to June or whatever, you know, we went on vacation in Canada, and I remember going back into the house to grab another beer. And when I walked in, I checked my phone, and I saw that I had a target order hit that I had totally forgotten about that I had set a long time before for $5.50 Dec '24 corn., and I was sitting on a beach, you know, drinking a beer and had forgotten honestly that I had placed that target order. And it's right now one of the best sales that I made in, you know, $424,000 in the year ahead. So I think it's, it's not only being disciplined like you said, but it's also just knowing and having like the wherewithal and that gut instinct, hey, things are profitable. I'm probably not going to be wrong if I'm really aggressively marketing right now.

The second example that I would give on that is just the number of people that we've seen here, Chris, that, you know, their numbers, their projections actually looked really good throughout the year with where prices are, at least at the beginning of the year, despite the drought outlook. But a lot of farm operations were just very lackluster in how aggressive they were on their marketing. And I'm starting to see a lot of numbers that went from double-digit profit margins to single-digit or even negative profit margins. And that's a, That's not a good feeling.

Chris: Mm-hmm. Interesting. Cool. So now we go on to number 2.

Shay: Well, that was number 2, so you're number 3.

Chris: Oh, okay. All right. So my next one is, starts with a statement, but basically working capital is easy to erase. So basically what my point is, is, you know, prior to 2020, 2020, we, we had a pretty tight go of it. Most operations, I mean, we were just trying to kind of tread water, stay even. You know, COVID hits, we get Trump bucks, we get all these commodity price increases with inflation and everything. And inflation is a good thing for a farmer. So there was a ton of working capital built up. But the process of that also brought to many of our clients the idea of capital purchasing, you know, the opportunity was there. There was enough money to make a down payment on that 80 acres that laid next to you at too high of a price. Or there was, you know, machinery and equipment updates that were held back for a while and got purchased.

And maybe instead of buying really good used, you know, there were some new purchases being made. So maybe there was a little bit more money being spent than otherwise might have been. We also saw the return to management, or what many people call that, the overhead expense increase. And we saw that inflationary component, you know, pushing the 30% envelope in terms of the amount of increase. If you look at what you were spending at the grocery store in 2020 versus what you spend now, and a lot of other goods and services, you know, we're coming off Christmastime and all those things. And I think people feel that. But, you know, I just think that, you know, we have to be really careful going into 2024. My lesson from '23 is how already just with the balance sheets that we have looked at, there's been a pretty big working capital reduction already just in a really short period of time.

So I guess to me that just means pay attention and be really careful with, with any spending moving forward and kind of watch that working capital number.

Shay: I think that ties nicely into number 4, which is know your numbers really well in the years ahead. We've had lots of discussions throughout 2023 of the semblance it has had with 2013 and the cycle that we saw after that. Or I've started referring to it as a wave, really, because cycle assumes that it's going to come back around, but wave is just kind of like it happens and then it stops and it happens and it stops. You never really know when that's going to be, but knowing what you have in the years ahead by running good projections in your business and being diligent about the numbers that you're assessing.

Obviously we do that through Profit Manager, but even longer-term outlook of the things that we do with like equipment trade plans, you know, knowing what your capital burn rate is going to be, uh, making sure that you have a clear outlook on what the strategy is for your business and what opportunities you think may present themselves. So that you have, you know, powder, dry powder primed and ready to go to take advantage of growth opportunities, even when it seems like it's an economic downturn. And to, and to pair with that, you know, you reference Return to Management or those cost of living expenses. There's so many people that, that reach out to us that realize they just don't have the grasp that they need on their accounting. You know, they've either not done it as well as they should have or their business has outgrown and outpaced what they're doing in their accounting.

And I'm guilty, you know, I'm guilty of that. Hannah and I just hopped off a meeting here of the accounting changes that we're making in 2024. But here, especially the last month and a half, as people start to realize, hey, we're going to have a downturn of some sort, at least in '24, in the economic environment, probably better have those numbers in order And so you understand, you know, what that return to management cost is. You understand how it changes throughout the year. Are you setting a budget for each of those line items? You know, Chris, I know you do that in your operation. You guys kind of do a projection, a budget projection, and then you say, well, how close were we?

And, you know, it's easy sometimes to see how, oh man, we accidentally spent a bunch of extra money on, on repairs or just stuff that we either didn't account for or decided that we needed, and it was something that the operation needed throughout a year. So know your numbers in the years ahead, and particularly when it comes to your projections and also your accounting.

Chris: Got it. Excellent points. My next one here is going to sound like I— well, I don't know, the seed companies are going to like my statement. This is an observation and it's a lesson that I learned probably the last couple of years I started to notice it, but I really saw it this year when I ran the numbers. And here it is: the price of seed has gone up. However, the cost of seed has been steady with the production increases. And so when I look at the cost of seed, say, 10 years ago with what we were paying and what the yields were for the typical farmer, and for, you know, a lot of our listeners, the producers that grow you know, high yields. They're highly productive producers. And when we look at the cost of seed today on a per-bushel basis, it's about the same.

So we've had price increases, but the value and the pricing relative to the bushels of production— and this year it really stood out because I looked at my farm operation where, you know, we last few years we've been yielding in the 240 range. You know, and I look back in 2012 when we had a drought, we yielded 149. This year, with the exact same amount of rainfall, we yielded 191. So our— even though we paid significantly more than we did in 2012 for seed, our seed cost on a per bushel basis was very similar.

Shay: So how much, how much of that do you attribute though, Chris, to better management practices, better education, better decision-making. Obviously every year is different, even though you had different levels of rainfall. You know, how much do you say— management— I run a seed business too, but you know, how much do you say is truly attributed to the seed and the genetics and kind of the resilience that they have versus the other things going on in the farm operation?

Chris: I think it's both. I mean, and I think one can't happen without the other. I think they do that in concert. So I I think, you know, you can be the best manager in the world, but you got to have genetics to go along with it. And, and conversely, the other way, you have the best genetics, but if you do a crappy job of planting or doing some things wrong, you can't capitalize on that investment. So I think they go hand in hand. I did some thinking about what you just asked there too, and, and I think they both got to go together.

Shay: Yeah. Okay. So next one that I have is get your data in order. And so, Chris, we talk a lot about the metrics that we utilize in our farm operations that we don't really care about benchmarking. It's more so just having a benchmark against yourself and the changes that you're making. And I think that what that boils down to is really what variables do we care about in our business? Which variables can we control and which variables actually matter from a decision-making standpoint? And getting your data in order is all-encompassing of the amount of information that we look at in a, in a farm business.

But in particular, things like, um, you know, your as-applied data, your yield data, your soil test data, the information from rainfall and water movement, just simplifying what we're doing so that we don't have this like web of stuff that we're trying to sift through and find the data and find the information that's useful to the business. And I think over the last 10 years, as technology has improved and as we've gotten so many more tools and technologies, we've wanted to add complexity and add capabilities. And I'm not sure that pharma operations have taken enough time to simplify what they're doing and simplify the information that they're looking at. So I just see that as a big opportunity.

That maybe people have missed in 2023, or it's just repeated conversations that have come up of like, okay, I got all this stuff going on, but really I just want to be a better business manager and I need to know this and this and this and this with my data to make good informed decisions. How do I get there? And again, like I said, the technology advancement that we've seen in the last 10 years has been foundational to making sure that happens. And that we have the option to make those decisions. But how do we do it? How do we implement it? So I would say lesson learned from '23 as we move into '24 is just getting your data in order, making sure it's simple and concise and easy for you and the next generation to understand.

Chris: Mm-hmm. That's a great one, 'cause I would echo what you just said. You know, with data, you can easily have information overload, or conversely, you can sit down and say, what is it that I need to know? Identify those items and then get it right. Go for it and get it and track it.

Shay: That's awesome. And like, keep blinders up for all the other stuff that doesn't matter.

Chris: All the other noise. Yeah, sounds good. All right. My next one is— what number are we on here? Number—

Shay: I've done 6, so you must be 7.

Chris: Okay, sounds good. I lose track on counting. This one's a one that I thought kind of long and hard about including it, and I think it's super important. So we see a lot of producers not doing this, but it's basically get away from the grind. And what I mean by that is step away from the business, either in a vacation, either in 10, 15 minutes every day, or whatever it is, whatever your way of getting away from it is, because when you come back, you can look at it with a fresh perspective. And I'll give you a couple of examples there. You know, I mentioned when we were in Florida last June, when I came back, I had a much more clear picture, and I was making sales from there too, because I wasn't looking at a crappy crop. I wasn't looking at the temperatures and the crop going backwards and everything. I was actually away, and I wasn't exposed to backyarditis.

I was I was clear-minded because I wasn't thinking about all the other stuff that needed to be done in the operation. And so I think that's important. I think it's important. We've got a lot of clients that go to the lake on the weekends. They do a lot of things, you know, to just take time away. And, and I think daily getting yourself away from the grind daily is really important. You know, my, mine is going and working out every morning first thing. I mean, I might put Joe Wachlowicz on or, you know, Alyssa gives me a bad time because I don't listen to music. I'm listening to market stuff, but I like to just let my mind relax, do my workout, and that's kind of my personal time. But I think for some people it's meditation, it's prayer.

You know, it might just be some quiet time to yourself because I think we spend so much time with so many things going on and so much noise that we don't stop and just think. And just be patient, chill out. And then when you come back to the decisions you got to make, you make way better decisions. So that's, that's one of my lessons for, for 2023.

Shay: I think there's a lot of power in that. And I actually just had a phone call with Millwright, uh, that we're working with on a project, and he said he's going to be, you know, stepping away for a couple weeks. And I was like, that's awesome, you know, where are you going? And he told me where he was going and I said, you know, I tend to do a little bit of work, but I find that my work is a lot more clear while I'm on vacation. And he said, yeah, last year he goes, I closed the biggest deal that we've ever had in the company's history because I just had time to focus on it and like get my mind right. And, and there's satisfaction in doing that. So, you know, some people say, oh, you got to totally disconnect. Well, I don't know many farmers that probably actually totally disconnect. I mean, right, from the day-to-day activities.

But like you said, you take a step away and get that clarity in the business. I— that's a really good outlook. Uh, so this would be number 8. Um, time is your friend in transition planning, and it's become more and more apparent big picture, the number of transitions that are going to continue to occur in the next decade or two. Um, age of farmer, all those discussions that we've heard a thousand times.

But really, if you have not done— and it's going to lead into my last point, so I won't, I won't jump ahead— but if you've not done a clear outlook on your transition and really understand the amount of dollars that you're dealing with, like some of you guys that are running really good businesses and really good progressive operations or looking to move in and partner with those types of people probably are doing a disservice by not evaluating just the sheer amount of dollars and the business capital and the business aptitude that it's going to take to get a proper transition done. And so time is your friend. 7 years is ideal. 10, in a lot of cases, is better from like a financial transition. And then a minimum of 3 to 5.

You know, if you're, if you're like, I want to be done in 3 years, you're gonna have a massive financial issues, you're going to have managerial stress for the operation that's taking over, especially if it's within family and you have some sort of legacy planning involved. There's a lot more to it than just the dollars and cents. So time is your friend in transition. Some of the favorite people that I work with, not, not being picky or anything, but I really enjoy when someone reaches out and they're like, hey, I'm mid-40s, early 50s. I'm thinking about transition. You know, I want to just make sure that we have our business set up and structured so that it's ready to go and get a timeline in place and kind of what we need to be thinking about. Even if they don't have a clear person that they're looking to transition to, they are setting their business up for success.

And I think if more people had that forward thought from a time perspective, it's, you know, one of those things that you can't get back. I think a lot of people would have made some better decisions in '23 as a result of it. And I would just encourage you guys to think about that in your operations as you move forward. And it's hard, by the way, transition's hard. It doesn't have to be, but people make it hard because of unmet expectations, discussions that should be had and are not being had. So yeah, use time as your friend.

Chris: Yeah, it's one of the— transition is one of the easiest things to procrastinate on. And it's one that is probably fairly easy to justify. Well, I'm going to do it next year. Well, I'm going to do it next year. Well, when the hell does next year ever come? You know? And so, yeah, that's a, that's a great, great lesson from 2023.

Shay: I'll give the listeners a little piece of advice here. One thing that I do when I sit down with clients is they say, well, probably in 5 or 6 years. And I say, okay, so that's going to be December 27th of 2028, right? And they kind of look at me funny and they're like, well, I guess I hadn't really thought about it. I'm like, well, that's 5 years. Like December 27th, 2028. That's 5 years from right now. Is that when you're going to be ready? Is—

Chris: okay.

Shay: And if that's the date, then we got to start backing into that, buddy, because there's a lot of stuff that needs to happen between now and then. So yeah, you're fine.

Chris: All right. My last one is one that— and I got to give credit where credit's due for the statement here. I used to work with Mo Russell for 10 years. He was my, my business consultant in our, in our farm business. I'm a firm believer of having somebody from the outside looking in at what you're doing. And his statement always was bulletproof your balance sheet. And one of the things that I have seen some of our clients do over the course of the last 3 years is they bulletproof their balance sheet. And I've been trying in my own operation and I don't feel like we have quite yet. I mean, we're working on it. But it's really hard to bulletproof your balance sheet. But it's something that I've observed several of our clients, and you probably can think of a couple of them right off the top of your head too, that have done that. And how do you do that?

Well, they've got, you know, 100% working capital, which maybe you don't need to be that high, but they've got, you know, their working capital in line. They're borrowing very little short-term money. They've got all their long-term money locked down at very low interest rates. They've been cautious and careful with their spending. They've capitalized on, on investing in the best, you know, inputs to increase their yield. And they bought levels of insurance that has allowed them to make sales and be proactive in their marketing. And it's just, it's really refreshing to see some of our clients that have been super successful doing that and that have literally bulletproofed their balance sheet. And I aspire myself to be that way. I mean, I think, you know, like I said, you know, there's, there's other things. Sometimes there are some luck that comes along with it.

Sometimes it's management. Sometimes it's a combination of a bunch of things. But, but the last thing I'd like to say about that is, you know, do your math when, when times aren't so good. You know, I've been watching some of these guys as they bulletproof their balance sheets, doing their math, you know, when times are awesome and it's very easy to spend money. It's very easy to grow and to try, or at least to try to grow. But I would also say that I've watched some of these people when they bulletproof their balance sheet, they have the opportunity to take advantage of situations and opportunities when other people can't. So if land values trickle back a little bit, you know, they're going to be the ones that's going to be able to buy that land at a lower price and to do some of the the things because of the advantages of bulletproofing their balance sheet.

So that's, that's a lesson from '23 for me, just watching some of the people and, and, uh, aspiring to, to, to get to that point as well.

Shay: What I would add to that is those are some of the same people that we saw that at one point maybe weren't in a great financial position and have really built that over the last 5 years. So if you're, you know, if you're listening to us right now and you're like, well, I don't know how in the hell I'm ever going to bulletproof my balance sheet when it feels like a freaking train wreck right now because I didn't market enough grain at $6.50 when I should have in 2023. And now I'm showing a loss. And, you know, don't let your mind get a hold of you. Just slap yourself in the face if you need to and say, okay, let's do a 5-year outlook. Where do I want to be at the end of 2028? Is it possible for me to have a bulletproof balance sheet, or is it possible for me to consistently and methodically build into the position that I want to be. And that's what we've seen those operations do.

Some of them had really large growth, some of them had really good years, but I would say most of them that I can think of were just consistent with what they did and really diligent about their decision-making and, uh, took very calculated risks when they needed to. And whether or not we see that sort of economic environment to lock, you know, lock in long-term low-interest debt or to, you know, whatever it is, some of the stuff that people are able to take advantage of here the last 3 or 4 years in particular. I don't know. But I think it's very feasible and attainable regardless of the position that you're in.

And I would also encourage you that if you are in that position, or maybe a question back to you, Chris, is if you're already in a position where you do have a bulletproof balance sheet, You know, do you take that as an opportunity for growth or, you know, do you take that as an opportunity to be aggressive when maybe people are going to be more conservative over the next few years in an economic downturn?

Chris: I think a lot of it has to do with what your definition of growth is, because for some it's just continue to have and maintain that financial strength. And for others it might be to buy that next farm., you know, and then if in fact there is a bit of a downturn and they have an opportunity, or that farm that lays next door to you comes, comes into play, or you're going to bring a family member back to the business that, you know, it's going to require, you know, more cash flow, it's going to require reaching out and maybe renting some more ground and doing some things, but the cash is there to take that next step of growth. And so it really depends on what your definition of growth is, because I think for a couple of these operations I've referred to, their definition of growth over the last 3 years has been to bulletproof their balance sheet.

It just— I think it depends, and we all have to define that for ourselves.

Shay: What a great non-answer. I'm just kidding. I, I get it. But it might— my comment there, I guess, would be that the people that do that heading into rougher economic times are able to take opportunities where maybe others aren't. So calculated risk. How you define growth, what you've staged yourself for the last 5 years, how does that change in the next 5 years?

Chris: Yeah. And some of it is, is being able to take risk and you can't take risk without some money. It takes money to make money. So, you know, they position themselves to take the next layer of risk too.

Shay: Okay. Certified Financial Planner and budgeting is the last one that I had. When I come to a meeting for transition planning, I've just started it off, Chris. You and I haven't done one together in a little while, but I just start off the meeting by saying, I'll tell you right now, the senior generation having a certified financial planner or a plan in place is probably going to be a key action item here. And of the last 6 or 7 that I've done, every single one of them, that's been the number one action item. And I'll tell you why. Because if you are the senior partner that is looking to transition to the next generation, whether it's a family member or not, They cannot effectively handle the transition without knowing what you need as a draw from the business.

And you cannot make good financial or emotional decisions for your family in your next chapter in life until you feel confident that you know you're going to be taken care of long-term. And most of you have done a really good job of outside investments, or you've bought land, or you have money in the equipment, you know, low debt on the equipment. You're going to have Social Security coming in. You're going to have land that's going to be paid off. And so your debts are going to be reduced, but you don't know because you've never put it on paper. And so I'll start by saying that I'm— a really crude tool that I built for transition planning in our own family. I'm working on building that out to make it easier to use. Chris, you know, we've shared the Budgeting for Transition worksheet, which basically just helps you dial in your cost of living.

There's a lot of people too, especially, uh, you know, if you're just waking up and making money because you got a good farm operation, they're like, well, I don't know what my cost of living is, we just go and do what we need to do. Well, that changes when you need to decide how much you need from the farm operation. Are you going to cash rent your ground? Are you going to do 50/50? Are you going to give the, the next generation the best possible chance to succeed? Or, you know, I'm not saying that you would make a cognizant decision of that, but You know, an example is you just cash rent your ground to the next generation, or do you offer to farm 50/50? What does your timeline for transition look like? Um, you know, what can they feasibly and fiscally take on in the growth?

And not having a financial plan in place and not understanding what your budget or your cost of living as you move into retirement is, is, uh, it's one of the number one things. And so even if you're not, you know, even if you're not looking at transition, even if you're 10 or 15 years out from that, reach out to us for the sheets. I'll send it to you and fill it out and just say, what are my numbers? You know, what is my cost of living? And maybe you got good accounting that's tracking that well, but take that and say, okay, what is my cost of living going to be into retirement? Because I'm going to travel more, or maybe I'm going to do less stuff associated with the business, so it'll be lower. But it's huge.

It's been an eye-opener for me in 2023, and I think there's a huge opportunity for you all listening to this to position yourselves well as you move forward of having a financial plan in place. And by the way, just find a good certified financial planner, whoever you trust. You know, Mike Finley has had some good recommendations on, you know, who to work with. So go back and listen to some of those, or what types of services and and fees and offerings should be involved with that. But just have a stinking plan in place. Understand what it's going to look like for you into retirement. It's not only setting you up for success, but it's answering a lot of the questions that the next generation needs and eliminating uncertainty from your mind. So that was, that was my fifth one. I do have a bonus one that I thought of, um, to wrap things up, Chris.

But any, any final thoughts on that from the financial planning or budgeting?

Chris: Yeah, I think, you know, in my observation of years of helping producers and families in transition, comes down to a couple of pretty simple things. It comes down to, I think, the senior partners want security, and I think the junior partners want opportunity. And I think they can both be true at the same time. But it comes down to that communication because what is the definition of security, right? What do you mean by that? How much do you need? You know, what are you going to take? Because then that allows the younger generation then to see, okay, I, you know, I'm going to have to accommodate, you know, an extra $100,000 out of the operation per year to subsidize, you know, them in retirement for X amount of years or whatever it is. But having that clearly defined meets both of those needs. It provides the security for the, for the exiting partner or the slowing down partner.

And I think it illustrates the opportunities that lay ahead for the, for the younger ones. I think that was a great lesson from '23 you came up with there too.

Shay: Any bonus items?

Chris: Nope. Go ahead. I want to hear you. I want to hear yours.

Shay: My last one is, are you controlling your emotions or are you letting your emotions control you? And when it comes to the decision-making, as I think back to, you know, how our crop year went, It was a roller coaster. You know, you had the drought, you had the prices, you had the most expensive crop ever. Certainly one for the books. I hope we don't live it again in '24. I'm not sure. You know, I tell people that 2023 was like the longest 2 or 3 years of my life just because of like how emotionally tasking and draining it was for me, just with a lot of changes that we had going on. But because of the crop year as well. And I think one thing that let me get through it with my sanity was just being able to separate my emotions and even your thoughts too. So I, you know, I heard a really interesting talk recently that's like, you are not your thoughts.

So when you have a thought that comes into your mind that says, oh, you're not good enough, or you're not making good enough decisions, or whatever, all you have to do is recognize that that's a thought and then just say, that's interesting, and then move on from it. Like, that's not you. And same thing with emotions, like, don't let your emotions control you. You you get to control your emotions, or more importantly, you get to control how you react to your emotions. You know, emotions are just things that you feel. Um, an example— Hannah wouldn't mind if I shared this, but there was something, I don't know, a couple months ago, she was pregnant with our second, and she was crying about something, and she's like, "I'm sorry." And I'm like, "Why would you apologize for crying?" Like, it's an emotion. You can't control it. You just feel it, right?

Same thing with, like, anger and sadness and bitterness and uncertainty. And those are all emotions, you can't control how you feel. It's chemical reaction in your brain, but you can control how you react to that. And I think some of the best decision makers in the farm operations that we work with, they're not emotionless like some people think that they are. They just know how to control their reaction to their emotions, and there's huge power in that.

Chris: So when I'm crying at a peer group meeting, I'm actually happy, you know, and I'm controlling the emotion, but You say so. Now, I—

Shay: yeah, just— you're just expressing how you, um, but I think especially when it comes to critical decision-making and from the Key Outlook, you know, um, there's, there's a time and a place.

Chris: So yeah, I would just add to that one other, one other additional thing too is I think it's also limiting the noise. It's that external stuff that sometimes drives those emotions that are going on outside of your control. And some of that, sometimes you got to block that noise. I think sometimes we see and hear way too much stuff and we get information overload, and I think we got to limit that too. I think that's one of the challenges for us as we move ahead too, as well.

Shay: Well, I think, I think, Chris, we've— the important message here is that you and I have learned some things in '23, so that's good. We didn't go the whole year without learning anything, but Hopefully this helps you guys. I mean, this is, this is us working with a lot of operations, seeing a lot of what's going on in the industry. And just again, our, our purpose of doing this is to provide value and perspective back to you guys. So I'm sure this resonates with, with quite a few of you. If you got questions, if there's anything in particular you want to reach out to us, hope you do it. So that's all I got, Chris.

Chris: Yeah. And I would just say, you know, for those of you that feel like you learned some things, sit down and write them out and think about it. I think it'll help you actually apply maybe those lessons. And if you got other lessons you want to share with us that you guys learned and things that we can help others with, let us know. With that said, thanks a lot, Shay. Appreciate it.

Shay: Yeah, thanks for listening, and we will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.

Chris: We'll catch you next time.