Dream big

Shay: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. And today we're going to talk about your dreams, big dreams. And I have a very special guest here with me, my wife, Hannah Folk. How are you?

Hannah

Folk: I'm doing well.

Shay: It took a lot of convincing to get her to do a podcast. And I'm so excited about it. Particularly because what we're talking about today is something that she does in her role, and I think she does it very well. So thanks for being on.

Hannah

Folk: Thanks for bringing me on. Yeah.

Shay: So I guess let's, uh, let's back up here a little bit and tell the listeners, you know, who you are, how you grew up, um, maybe a little bit about where we— where and how we got to where we are today.

Hannah

Folk: Yeah. So I grew up in Central Illinois and grew up on a farm here with my family. My dad, as Shea has referenced on the podcast, has a soybean business and grows and distributes seeds here regionally. And had a passion for agriculture that continued on through college. I majored in ag business, got my degree over at the University of Illinois and And through that, met you in college.

Shay: And so we'll come back to that. So you growing up, you were, you know, crops and seed business and used to be some hogs running around on the farm too.

Hannah

Folk: Yes, there were. I— we got rid of them when I was fairly young, but I was old enough to remember going out and helping dad with the chores.

Shay: Yeah. Mark brought that up the other day, 2003, 2004, sometime in there is You know, so the buildings, we just tore a couple of them down. They'd sat empty for 20 years and it was time for them to go. Just different things. But I think kind of a cool way to grow up. You know, we had that in common. I was around cattle and you were around pigs and a lot of fond memories there.

Hannah

Folk: Lots of good memories walking down those buildings before they got tore down.

Shay: Yeah. So, and we're located, you know, just off the Illinois River here, northwest Illinois. Me being from Iowa, I always joke that, you know, I'm an import to Illinois, right? So found a woman and followed her back to Illinois here. And it's really been awesome. Your family's been so inviting. Obviously we're now very integrally involved with the seed business and the farming operation and, you know, working through transition planning and things like that. Yeah, so you went to University of Illinois.

Hannah

Folk: The real U of I. Yeah, we'll forgive you.

Shay: We'll forgive you for that. But, you know, I was Iowa State and I guess maybe from your perspective, you want to just share with the listeners how we met? Because I think people enjoy hearing that story.

Hannah

Folk: Yeah. So I got myself involved and partially started to become involved with the club because my dad was part of the club while he was at the University of Illinois in his time in college. And I had an older sister a couple years ahead of me, so I was on campus while she was.

Shay: And which club is this?

Hannah

Folk: She was part of the Field and Furrow Club. Oh, Field and Furrow. So it's the agronomy club, and I was an ag business major but was involved in the Field and Furrow Club because I had a minor in crop sciences, so had an interest in the agronomy side, and especially with how I was raised with the seed business. So it was good to add some value there.

Shay: Yeah, and so there was a regional conference in Nebraska, Lincoln.

Hannah

Folk: Yes, so the agronomy clubs, lots of land grant universities come in there involved in the SASES club. Do you remember what that acronym stands for?

Shay: Yeah, Sustainable Agriculture Soil Environmental Sciences Resources. I don't know, there's a whole bunch of stuff there, but for agriculture.

Hannah

Folk: And there were some events at the, over the conference that we were able to cross paths in and I guess history from there.

Shay: Yeah. So what she's really trying to say is, you know, we went to this conference. I was Iowa State with agronomy and with the agronomy club there and was pretty excited about going to this. Had a great time, got to see a lot of agriculture. And then on the last evening, there was a band there called Whiskey Bent.

Hannah

Folk: Yes.

Shay: And they had a social hour or whatever. And at that time I happened to be with the line dancing club at Iowa State as well. So knew how to line dance, knew how to swing dance, a bunch of stuff. And so Iowa State got out there, got the dance floor hopping, and invited out some folks there. And I looked across the dance floor and said, boy, she's cute, I wanna dance with her. And so we did.

Hannah

Folk: Yes, we did.

Shay: And I happened, I don't know, you wanna share that portion? I happened to be very sly, I think, about how I got your phone number too.

Hannah

Folk: Yeah, I actually was about to turn you down for that picture.

Shay: So I asked, I said something like, you know, you look really nice tonight or something like that, and that we need to take a picture. And she's like, oh, okay. And I was like, wow, this is, This is a really good picture. I got to send it to you, but I don't have your number. And she reluctantly, I think, gave it to me. And, you know, we were able to connect and keep a distance relationship going there. And, you know, I thank God all the time for that blessing.

Hannah

Folk: It was— the stars aligned that night for us, that's for certain.

Shay: It really did. And so, you know, graduated from college, and you decided to follow me down to Georgia with the military. And we were in Savannah for 4 and a half years. We kind of got to the end of that time frame and we thought, well, you know, what's it look like? We knew that we were done with the active duty military. We had a great time there and met a lot of awesome people, but knew it was time to come back home. And so we thought, well, you know, where do we want to call home? And, and family is really kind of what drew us back to this area, I would say. You know, we got family all over, of course, but I knew how important it was for you to, to get back to the side of your family and be around your grandma and, you know, just be able to spend time here getting involved with the operation. So that's been great.

Hannah

Folk: It's been a good fit from the aspect of you being involved with both family businesses and being able to still maintain that in a good capacity too.

Shay: So, you know, maybe I should talk— when, when you were, when you were down in Savannah, not a lot of agriculture-related jobs down there. So here you are, you got this ag business, you know, degree, and you're looking to put it to use, and everything that we were looking at was like 2 hours away, and it was peanuts or cotton or ag retail or, you know, something that maybe didn't fit exactly what you were looking for.

Hannah

Folk: That was a very long drive for what, what was The goal when moving down there was to be close to you and not have to drive an hour to go to work. So had to go down some different alternatives and the job search kept on going on and I had to use some alternate routes than the online searching for, for jobs. I worked through the network that I had and actually had a connection with a wife that was, her husband was working with you and really great people. And I give her so much credit for where I'm at today. She didn't even work for the company that I ended up finding a job with, but her boss knew my future boss that was later gonna hire me, got me linked in with a financial representative over at a Northwestern Mutual office. Was offered a job on the spot and started the next day.

Shay: That was a little bit of a relief for you, wasn't it?

Hannah

Folk: A little bit. And it was nice because it was— how long did it take me to get to work? Was that like a 3-minute drive? I think I could make it 3 minutes if the lights were green.

Shay: We were spoiled. Like, everything that we needed in Savannah was within a 2-mile drive.

Hannah

Folk: It was a wonderful time of our lives living down there. We definitely were Really enjoyed it.

Shay: So you get on with Northwestern Mutual and this wasn't, you know, you had the skill set for it, I would say, you know, you're organized and professional and very task-oriented, but that was kind of a big step into that side. So talk a little bit about what the leap into the financial, you know, industry and insurance and investments was like.

Hannah

Folk: It was a major jump and you think that you know everything that you need to know to get a job when you're out of college. And that was not the case for me because I quickly came to learn that I knew nothing about what I just signed up for. But that's OK. I'm always up for a challenge. And it was when you were away at training, I took a few late nights during that time to learn my job and to really get proficient at it.

Shay: And you look back at your early 20s and you're like, wow, we had so much time. What did we do with ourselves?

Hannah

Folk: Yeah, you really don't realize it until you have kids.

Shay: It's like the— I was having the conversation, you know, I just got back from drill weekend here for the Illinois National Guard, and I was talking to some guys and they said, well, would you ever let your kids, you know, join the military? And I thought about it for a little while and I said, you know, if they were interested in it, I would. And the reason for it is it's new experience, it's new places. But the joke is, you know, 3 hots and a cot, right? You get 3 hot meals and a place to sleep every night. And that's about the extent of your worries. And you can kind of make that experience what you want. So you use those nights to study and get proficient in your job. And I tell pretty much everybody, that I talked to about this, you had a really awesome team down there, right?

Hannah

Folk: Really good team. And I stay connected in with them to this day. Was able to visit them after a year being moved back home and keep connected in with them and actually was able to, in the time that I was down there, get a close friend of mine down there connected in with the team that still works down there. So great people. And it's hard to come across people that you don't get along with in the company. So no shortage of that.

Shay: And we're gonna talk about how that kind of comes full circle here with the dreams and you as a dream manager here in a minute. So, you know, we moved back to Illinois then. Let's fast forward. We moved back to Illinois and you transferred teams essentially still within Northwestern Mutual, correct?

Hannah

Folk: Yes. And at the time I was trying to figure out what my next step was. Do I go back and find a job in agriculture? Do I stay? Stick with what I was doing. It's another leap of, am I gonna get transferred up to Illinois onto a team that I enjoy? I had such a good fit in Georgia that it's too good to be true to find another team like that. Well, I actually had my previous boss at the time reach out to what would be my, my current boss right now and, um, and got me connected in and A couple days later, I had a phone conversation and we were already getting signed up to get me moved on to my existing team in Peoria, Illinois.

Shay: Mm-hmm. And so you were doing a lot of the same responsibilities, but quickly took on more, if I remember correctly, as you kind of transitioned back. So talk a little bit about, you know, how did you add responsibilities or how did your role kind of change here over the last couple years?

Hannah

Folk: Yeah, I've done a little bit of everything. Started out as a receptionist and worked my way all from doing prepping the cases for client meetings to working on insurance applications, account setup of investment accounts, any kind of servicing of accounts you can come up with. And when I moved up to the team in Illinois, I was strictly focusing on investments and The needs of the team changed a little bit after about 6 months or so and ended up managing both investments and insurance account opening and then took a leap and focused on strictly insurance and where I'm still focusing on a little bit today.

Shay: So, so what's your, what's your role now? What's your title?

Hannah

Folk: I'm the operations manager on the team.

Shay: Right. And so And to me, it's been really cool to watch that develop. And I give you a lot of credit for all those different roles that you've taken and the effort that you've put into that. While you were talking there, I was just kind of thinking, you know, you're the adjustable wrench in the toolbox. You know, some people are a half-inch or a 9/16, whereas they know investments or they know insurance. In the consulting world as well as what you do, we kind of think of ourselves as an adjustable wrench because you need to know a little bit of every different part of the business. And I think a lot of the listeners here that are in farming operations or ag businesses understand the value in that. So I think that's really cool.

Hannah

Folk: And it's probably a little bit of the background why I, um, was thrown into my role and why I wanted to figure every— so to say, you can't figure everything out, but I wanted to figure everything out. So I was trying to get myself dipped into everywhere so I could be useful, and so that when the time came that I could teach others, which I've gotten the opportunity to train others starting out on the team and help develop them into the roles that they're going to be learning and working towards.

Shay: So the title of this podcast is is Dream Big. I don't think I told you that before, but it's Dream Big, right? So we're halfway through here. It's Dream Big. And, and so I want you to talk a little bit about, um, the Dream Manager role that you fill. And maybe we should start by talking about, uh, the book by Matthew Kelly.

Hannah

Folk: Yeah. Um, so I— my boss introduced me to the Dream Manager program. We actually had a a different dream manager in our office before I took over the role of the dream manager. But the idea of it— the book is based off of a company of janitors, and this janitorial company was experiencing a lot of turnover, and they were trying to figure out what the reasoning why, why they were having all this turnover. They later developed a role within their company called the Dream Manager. And hey, I'll let you incorporate too, if you find anywhere, because you just finished.

Shay: Yeah. So in full transparency, I just listened to this audiobook in the combine today. I've known that I wanted to do this podcast for a long time just based on the cool things that you're saying. And so this Admiral janitorial, they went from like a 400% turnover which is every 3 months.

Hannah

Folk: It was very high.

Shay: And basically changed it to where they were retaining employees for 12 to 36 months, which was huge.

Hannah

Folk: By implementing Adrian Manager.

Shay: Yeah, and so they kind of took this concept of, you know, people don't quit jobs or leave places or take on temporary work and leave it early just because of pay or just because of the people that they work with. They don't maybe have a sense of purpose or they don't have a drive or they don't feel that what they're doing is taking them to the next level of what they want to accomplish in their life.

Hannah

Folk: Yep, and so the idea, the dream manager is someone who meets with each of the employees to sit down and discuss what their personal dreams are, what their professional dreams are. There's many different categories that you could be focusing in on, but it's, to help your employees go after their dreams and aspirations and to think, to not be ordinary about those dreams too, to think outside the box of like, what's fulfilling to you personally and what is gonna bring your heart to life?

Shay: That's really cool, bring your heart to life. You know, I was thinking about the, listening to it as pulling wagons home here like an hour and a half ago and I'm gonna butcher the analogy, but at the end of the audiobook, the example that was given is if you have people that are passionately pursuing their personal dreams and their personal goals, that's gonna transfer into the workplace. And vice versa, if you have someone that is passionately pursuing their business goals and professional aspirations, that's gonna transfer back into their personal life. And one of the examples in there was they started actually— I don't think you're doing this in your role currently, but they started bringing in spouses of the team members and saying, you know, how can we help? What are your dreams? Or how do you play into this? Or what are you seeing?

And one of the spouses said, it's been so invigorating and exciting to see my husband excited about his job and to see him dreaming again and to see him passionate about the things that he's doing in work and work and at home. And it's making him a better father and a better spouse. And just the impacts here, I think, can be huge.

Hannah

Folk: Absolutely. And it's not— we reference it's the— this janitorial business where the Dream Manager program idea started. But it's not just janitorial jobs, it's not just that industry where this Dream Manager program is being successful. It's also banks, any kind of organization this program can be implemented into and can drive a lot better retention of your employees and get them to be a lot more fulfilled in their jobs.

Shay: Mm-hmm. Farms, ag businesses, you know, the people that we're targeting. And I forgot to mention this at the beginning, but I think this would be a really cool one before we get into like the real meat and potatoes here, some of the, you know, more practical examples. If you've been listening to the Eggview Pitch for 1 episode or 400 episodes, it doesn't matter. But if you haven't ever really sent anything to your spouse, I think this would be a really cool one to send to your spouse because I've seen how it's, you know, personally affected our lives and just some of the discussions that we've had here in the last couple of weeks and and maybe not even what we've said out loud, but I've had it on my mind a lot, you know, when, when you shared your list with me and I started reading through that. It's like, you know, how can I, how can I better serve you?

And how can I make sure that we're achieving your dreams? Because sometimes I, I feel a little selfish, right? Because we've integrated into the seed business and we're growing the farm and starting a family and doing all this, and a lot of it feels like you supporting my dreams. And I just want to make sure that we don't get too off course to where, you know, your dreams are not being implemented or pushed to the wayside. And I don't mean that in a bad way either.

Hannah

Folk: I just— and it's a beneficial thing too, because you can't read my mind, and I don't expect you to be able to read my mind.

Shay: Say it! I am so glad I have this on recording.

Hannah

Folk: And it's not a way to, um, say, hey, this is what I want, you better do it. It's a way to— so that you know what's what's coming from my heart and what I'd, like there's categories that I have one specifically for our marriage and what I would, dreams that I have for our marriage. And those could be ones that I have for, this is a dream for 20 years down the road. This is a dream for in the next year or a consistent yearly dream, you name it. But ones that, it keeps us transparent with each other too.

Shay: So let's talk about— let's go back to the basics here. All right. So you're, you're the dream manager. You're implementing this. And I want the listener to think about this from the perspective of, okay, how do I do this in my family? How do I do this with my business partners or employees, regardless of what size operation you are? How do I implement something like this in my team? So are you guys meeting on this annually or quarterly, or how often are you evaluating?

Hannah

Folk: We meet as a team to discuss, or to take time to dream once a year. We do it on our quarterly meetings, and then we actually set up regular scheduled meetings with myself, the Dream Manager, and it's usually every other month that we do check-ins just to see what kind of progress everyone's making towards their dreams. And as the Dream Manager, you're in a You're an accountability partner. You're there to make sure that you're holding them accountable so that they can go after their aspirations and their dreams. But just to start out with, the goal is to get to 100 dreams. And 100 is the goal to start out with. Take 45 minutes to sit down with a notebook or pull pull up your Notes app on your phone and just start writing down all your dreams.

Shay: 100 dreams is a lot.

Hannah

Folk: 100 dreams is a lot, and that's why, um, you start out with the goal for 100 is because you start to get outside of the items you already have in mind and you have to start thinking outside the box. What else comes up that you might not have thought of on a normal day? So you're coming up with a whole bunch of things that you really didn't expect to come up with and Hey, I think that I can make that happen. I think that might be realistic.

Shay: Mm-hmm. I think when I first, you know, had this idea come to mind when you brought up what it was, I instantly thought it was really cool. But then my second reaction was, well, I don't know what my dreams are. Or, you know, that we actively pursue them every day. So it kind of gets lost in translation. And I think the exercise is really cool. Because it forces you to think about, what do I want? You know, what are my dreams? Because if you're running your ag business or consulting or you're a teacher, whatever it is that you do, you kind of get caught up in that day to day. We always refer to that as, you know, working in the business instead of working on the business. And this is a very personal reflection to instead of working, you know, in your day-to-day life, of working on yourself and what do you want to see.

So you're saying, you guys are offsite, by the way, for this meeting, right? Yes. Yep, so step away, don't be sitting in your conference room, don't be having the conversation in a pickup truck.

Hannah

Folk: Don't have distractions.

Shay: No distractions. Go somewhere nice, comfortable, relaxed, in a team environment, and have this. And so you're saying, all right, 45 minutes, Everybody go to your own place. Shut up. Don't talk to me. Talk about your dreams, right?

Hannah

Folk: Yes. And a big area that I found beneficial is you can have a notebook to write them down with, but it's really beneficial to utilize something that you can have on your phone so that you can build a list that you can have in the palm of your hands at any point in time where, okay, you do this exercise and a couple weeks down the road, you think of a new dream to add to your list so that you can continue to expand on it. Because if you do the 45-minute exercise, you might— you'll quickly find out that it is difficult for most to come up with 100 dreams.

Shay: And you shouldn't be limited to 100 either. No, you know, so if you're sitting here thinking on it 3 weeks later, like, sky's the limit. Oh yeah. Well, and one thing that I thought was awesome, uh, from this last checkup, or, you know, your guys' quarterly meeting that you had here recently, you're like, yeah, my boss suggested putting it on the phone and putting it in your notes. And so I started reading through your dream list on your notes, and I'm like, hey, I'm going to share this with myself. And you're like, uh, okay, yeah, you know, I mean, you weren't against it, but to me, that's a really cool way for me to check in and say, okay, once a month I'm thinking about this. How do I help Hannah achieve her goals? Or what can I be doing right now to serve you or to empower you or to encourage you, to hold you accountable to your goals?

So hopefully spouses listening, or, you know, if you're sharing this with your spouse, that take that into consideration, I guess.

Hannah

Folk: And to get you brainstorming too, I've— the way I broke down my list is in different categories so that it helps you kind of get in the right mindset of where of expanding on that topic. So one for spiritual, one for family, one for our marriage, one for things I'd like to learn, professional and travel. So different categories that are hot topics of where I have a lot to expand on.

Shay: And we were talking here, I don't remember, there's like 12 categories that the book listed out similar to what you just said of maybe helping to organize those thoughts a little bit so that you're not just looking at a blank piece of paper and like, well, I don't think I know, you know. I mean, 45 minutes of sitting here looking at myself, I guess. But, um, I really like the categories. I like how you have yours broken out. Um, and I have for, for the dream list that I started on, you know, mine's a physical copy right now. I'll get it transferred over here. But I think you had some really cool things So talk to me a little bit about, um, well, here, I'll come back to that. In the book, or how the Dream Manager idea is laid out, is you kind of have your near-term and your midterm and your long-term goals.

So you have near-term is within 12 months, midterm is 1 to 5 years, and long-term is 5 years plus. When you sat down and made your dream list, did Do you think through it like that or did you just kind of like spitball?

Hannah

Folk: I just started spitballing. Yeah. And I will say when I'm, when I'm putting on my dream manager hat and I'm meeting with our employees, I'm discussing dreams that they're focusing on that year and the next year. So we're discussing some very short-term dreams just for that accountability partner aspect, making sure that they're going after those and taking steps to get close to taking the steps that they need to meet those goals. Excuse me.

Shay: Well, it makes it more manageable too. Exactly. And I guess I would think, you know, when I started thinking about like employees or truckers or business partners that you work with, they might only be short-term. You know, maybe they're there for 2 years, maybe they're there for 5 years. So how do you empower that person in that short time period. One, to show that you truly care and that you're dedicated to them, but also to elevate them. Maybe they want to go run their own business. Maybe they want to truck full-time. Maybe they want to sell local honey, you know. I mean, there's, there's all these different cool things that people have. And as I say that, one of the, one of the best reminders in the book was They're not employees, they're not salespeople, they're not personnel, they're not staff, they're people. People are people are people.

And we're all very human in the aspect that sometimes we tend to lack accountability. Sometimes we get caught up in the things that we do day to day. And sometimes we forget that other people have dreams and aspirations. And I— that's just a very human thing. I don't mean that in a negative way. Um, you know, if you're listening and you've been guilty of that, that's okay. I'm guilty of that too. We sometimes come— become hyper-focused on our own dreams and forget that those around us also have aspirations.

Hannah

Folk: Absolutely. And I will say that I had one that I knocked off my list last summer, um, that was on there for a while. And it was back when I was meeting with our previous dream manager, and I had a dream on my list to work remotely in, in a different city for a week. And I went back to our old home of Savannah, Georgia. I went down there for a week, and I really was close to pushing that off and saying, oh, we'll do that another year. I was really close to pushing that off, but my dream manager at the time, she said— she kept on asking me about it and prying on it a little bit, and she just pushed me enough to All right, let's start planning this and let's look at some places to stay and made it happen. And I really wouldn't have done that if I didn't have the accountability partner.

Shay: Mm-hmm. And we should add too here that the dream manager can serve in many different ways. So not every company or every business out there is going to have the financial capacity to support dreams in a financial way. Mm-hmm. Of saying, hey, you know, buy your airplane ticket, or hey, we'll, you know, match any savings contributions that you have. And there are some really cool things out there of companies that do that and have created that as an example. But mainly just that accountability and checking in and saying, hey, is there anything that we can do to help you? Because you don't know unless you ask, right?

Hannah

Folk: You don't know what you don't know.

Shay: Yeah. And some of the, some of the best, I guess, opportunities and changes and implementation of new ideas comes from employees and people that are living and breathing it every day. And so as folks that are running a business or building a legacy or empowering others that they work with, Don't forget to stay grounded and just come back to the basics of what do you want to do, how can we help you, and how are we part of the solution of, you know, you're part of the solution and what we're doing here, how can we be part of the solution of what you want in life as well. So anything else, I guess, on the, you know, the implementation, the Dream Manager roles, or, you know, anything that we haven't covered from standpoint that I forgot to ask you about?

Hannah

Folk: I don't think so. I just— it's something that you kind of have to get out of your comfort zone and just, just do it. And it's amazing what comes out of it when you, when you do take the time to do so. And, and make your— I've assigned Shea as my other accountability partner for my dream.

Shay: So he's— this is news to me—

Hannah

Folk: he has my list and he's, he's my accountability partner for this is what I'm going after this year and make sure I do it.

Shay: It was really refreshing for me to see that. It really was. I was, I don't know, grinning from ear to ear, I guess, when I read through it. I'm like, this is really good. I really like this list. So tell me, you know, I got my list here and I think we'd be remiss if we didn't share a couple of our things that we went through, but I don't know, pick a couple. What do we, what's your first dream? Or what do you want to do in the next year? We haven't really talked about this.

Hannah

Folk: I've got a dream to, I would love to go, I've been to Italy and I would love to be able to take you over to Italy and show you around the area there.

Shay: Is this because I was talking about the Alps earlier this year?

Hannah

Folk: It is.

Shay: It is.

Hannah

Folk: That is one. I've got plenty on here, but I've also got one where we are going to cook lobster at our house in Illinois.

Shay: Yes. So fancy. So last year we went to Acadia in Maine, Acadia National Park, and had awesome lobster in the Bay Area there.

Hannah

Folk: So good.

Shay: And we figured that you can actually fly lobster from Maine overnight, or we have a really good seafood place here in Peoria, not too far away. And then this summer we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. We started talking about the Alps. And maybe the lesson here is that dreams inspire dreams. Mm-hmm. It's like Inception. I don't know if you guys have ever seen that movie, but dreams inspire dreams, right? So you go and do cool things and then it's like, well, what else do I want to do? And I think that snowball effect is really cool and probably why the dream manager role and implementing it in businesses works so well. Let's focus on the short-term and midterm dreams And as you get the ball rolling and kind of compound some of those things, you have that exponential effect, I guess. Does that make sense?

Hannah

Folk: Absolutely. And I will say we're big travelers and we love our hiking. Shay and I do. And my travel list is pretty extensive.

Shay: So we've got— I think that's like a third of your list is just travel stuff.

Hannah

Folk: All the different places we will go to one day.

Shay: No, I think that's good. Mm-hmm. See, I look at my list here. So I think, I think Hannah's list is more specific, and I probably need to go through the exercise again to do that. You know, one of mine is 3 years from now, as we look at the farm and the seed business, is to be, you know, 40 to 50% of the way complete in a transition process. And that seems kind of daunting, you know. And if you put a hard date on it, I did this actually when I was sitting at supper by myself at the Top Producer Summit last year. I went down and got a nice steak and a glass of red wine and I just sat there for a couple hours and mapped out my dream list. This was shortly after you had kind of started doing this. And one suggestion that I had heard from another book is put a date on this. So my date is, by February 15th, 2025. Very specific, right?

But by that point, you know, to have the farm transition 40 to 50% complete, that makes it very tangible, makes it, makes it something to strive after. What else you got?

Hannah

Folk: Yeah, and you mentioned putting the date on there. Marking the date that you cross it off too is a good idea, just to see where you've, where you've come to.

Shay: So the date you write down the dream And then the date that you— which is kind of cool because if you keep this, you know, running note like you got on your phone here and you add one in, you can add the data. How quickly did you accomplish?

Hannah

Folk: Yeah, because some of these might be on here for, for a long time because some of them are for very— for the long distance here.

Shay: So what else you got?

Hannah

Folk: So one of them, just, um, I've got on our marriage category of marriage retreats. It's something that is, we've done them in the past with military connection, and it's something that is healthy for relationship building, and we always enjoy those exercises of going to those, going to those and meeting different people, and just a weekend to focus on us.

Shay: And so the one, one of the ones that you're referring to They have a podcast. They do. Famous at Home. So you're listening to this podcast and we're recommending other podcasts. So go listen to the Famous at Home podcast. I don't know, some of them I really like, some of them I just kind of, eh, whatever. But it's a couple that talks about their faith and their marriage and raising a family and everything else. And they were at one of these marriage retreats. And I I think here in a few months they're going to start one about being in business with your spouse.

Hannah

Folk: Yes, they are.

Shay: Businesses together. And so Hannah told me that and I was like, oh, that's gonna be a good one. So, you know, uh, one of the things on the Ag View side is, uh, doing a professional development every year. And so I think maybe we should pursue that, you know, see where it's going to be and when it's going to be.

Hannah

Folk: And love to do it with you.

Shay: I think that'd be a really good one.

Hannah

Folk: You should sign up.

Shay: Okay, let's see what is on my list. Oh, this one's kind of cool. So, um, we have one daughter, Clara. She's 10 months old. She's just about walking. She's all over the place. But one of the goals that I have, um, by the time she's 3 is to have time reading with her every night. And that's a big task too, because a lot of times, you know, I'm on the road to Fairmount or harvest nights get late or whatever else, but I'd like to be able to read to her every night. And to me, that, you know, how do you track that, right? Well, 365 nights I read to our daughter. I don't know if that's feasible, but just having a goal.

Hannah

Folk: And I know that that's on your list too. So I try to be intentional about asking or not keeping our daughter up very late, but trying to plan around what your schedule is to try to not put her to bed if you're gonna be home in 5 minutes or something like that, so.

Shay: I've noticed that.

Hannah

Folk: If I know it's on your list, I wanna try to support that as much as I can.

Shay: I'm very appreciative of that, by the way. Get done with bath time, it's time to read.

Hannah

Folk: Exactly.

Shay: She's kinda squirmy at 10 months old though. She's like, eh, I'll flip the pages for a little bit and.

Hannah

Folk: She's good at flipping the pages.

Shay: She's good at flipping the pages.

Hannah

Folk: She's real good at that.

Shay: All right, what else you got? We'll share one more dream.

Hannah

Folk: All right, last one. Um, a dream for spending a week on a trip with some of our family. Mm. And that could be any part of our family.

Shay: For those family listening to this out there, first one to reach out, this is your opportunity. Better catch us quick. But we were gonna do Hawaii 2020, and then That kind of got shot to hell with COVID but starting to put seeds out there of renting a cabin in the mountains. Lots of cool places.

Hannah

Folk: Yes, there are.

Shay: I think that'd be fun. Yep, we've done some of that before, um, skiing in Colorado and spending time with family. But as, as families grow and, you know, the immediate family here, be kind of fun to make some of those memories. Very neat. What timeline is that on your end?

Hannah

Folk: I don't have a timeline on that.

Shay: You better get one.

Hannah

Folk: I do need to get one.

Shay: You gotta figure out which category it fits into. You got anything else there?

Hannah

Folk: I'll just throw out there that, you know, I've got a professional list on there too, of as it relates to the farm. We've got some pretty old buildings on the farm and we've been pitching back the idea of making a museum out of one of the buildings. So I've got that on my list because I've, I'm a, I'm a wonderer. If you've heard of The Working Genius, that's got to be another podcast for down the road.

Shay: Oh yeah, go listen to Working Genius stuff.

Hannah

Folk: And I've got a whole bunch of ideas for putting a museum together of the history of the farm.

Shay: So that's on my list too, actually. The conference room at our seed business that we'll use also for you know, working with ag operations and businesses on the consulting end is, I think we'll maybe be able to get that done this winter. That's kind of my goal is to get the conference room done by this winter. Phase 3 is to add a social area, bathroom, you know, kind of have a full add-on there. And so by 2025, February 15th, 2025, to be more specific, is to have that building 50% restored. And so that, you know, for those of you that aren't familiar with it, it's got all the old seed grading and seed cleaning, the original seed treater in there. It was a state-of-the-art drying system that had forced air, you know, up and down for the corn hybrids that actually, that built the business that exists today that we're a part of.

And so we When we redid the office here last year, we had to make a very conscious decision of, you know, do we put up a new office space or do we put it back here? And I was kind of a proponent of, hey, let's put it here because that forces us to preserve this history. And who else has that, you know?

Hannah

Folk: There's not too many.

Shay: Not too many. And so that's kind of cool of, you know, building these dreams and building the legacy, I think, is what's so cool. And that's what attracted me to wanting to do this podcast with you. And also just the concept behind it of, you know, what, what is it that we're striving towards? Another thing that hit me in the book is we spend most of our lives working. And I heard that today and I was like, that's right, you know, we do. We spend 90% of our lives are working. And so one, if your dreams include not working, you better darn well make time to do that because otherwise, what are you living for? What are you working for? And if you don't have an idea of what your dreams are, how do you achieve them?

Hannah

Folk: Yeah, and I struggle with people not, with hearing dreams from others in our lives of, I'd like to go visit this place, I'd like to travel here. You can't do it until you plan it. And I think a lot of that is those people just need it. Maybe I need to step in and be an accountability partner and help, help those achieve those and be able to plan trips. And because I know I've got a long list of travel and we're gonna knock those out.

Shay: Mm-hmm. No, that's cool though, the accountability piece there of how do we How do we hold ourselves accountable to hold others accountable and just be that good partner there? Well, I think that's pretty much it. I mean, I just, I think it's such a cool concept. I know that the listeners here find it very difficult sometimes to take that moment to work on the business or on ourselves. Instead of just working in the business or getting caught up in the day-to-day. And there's some other things, you know, we're going to do a podcast here in a little bit. We're currently halfway through, or I'm currently halfway through the 75 Hard Challenge. You're doing the 75 Kind of Hard Challenge.

Hannah

Folk: I call it the 75 Semi-Hard Challenge.

Shay: Semi-Hard Challenge. And so, you know, physical growth and how do you make sure that you're taking the time to take care of your body and So we're going to be doing a podcast on that. And, you know, one other thing that I kind of wanted to tap you on here while I got you is we got the business conference coming up and you went to that last year in Phoenix and had a ton of fun. I mean, as Clara was like 2 months old.

Hannah

Folk: Not even 2 months old.

Shay: Yeah. And so Hannah and Clara and you know, the whole fam-dam went out there and decided to see Phoenix, Arizona, and listen to some awesome speakers. And we're planning on having the whole family down there again this year. You and Claire are going to come down. And I guess what was kind of your outlook on the conference or what was your— what was your thoughts there of the lineup and the event and the group size and that sort of stuff?

Hannah

Folk: Yeah. So there was a really good turnout of of spouses also coming with those that were attending. And it was about 50/50, I'd say, for spouses joining in in the meetings. But if you have any interest in like in what's going on in the ag business, and even if you don't and you want to learn more, attending those speakers, there's a lot of value and information to learn. I hadn't been around as you might say, the ag talk. I hear what's going on with our farm here, but it'd been a long while since I'd been in a conference setting. And it felt good to be back, I guess, as you might say, because it'd been a while since, and I'm really looking forward to this next one. And I tried to be as much as what I could in Phoenix with a 2-month-old, but But a lot of interesting speakers there.

Shay: And I think when people hear conference too, so, you know, if their spouse is listening to this or whatever, people hear conference and they're like, well, I don't know, he just goes to this conference and I don't know what he does there or goes to machinery show and I'm not really interested in that. This is, it's way different. Smaller group interaction. Pretty, I don't want to say fast-paced, but there's It's constantly engaging and constantly entertaining with the variety of speakers and the different topics. And it's a full, you know, it's a full 2 days with the social and everything else. Talking on dreams, though, you kind of had some cool ideas. So you're not going to be at probably every session of the conference, but talk a little bit about kind of what your idea was while you were down there in Florida.

Hannah

Folk: Yeah, I'll be there and we'll see if we need to Set aside some time in between some of the sessions for some dream, for some dreaming, we'll work towards those 100 dreams.

Shay: Yeah, but then you were also talking about doing some water stuff, right?

Hannah

Folk: Oh yes.

Shay: So if you guys don't know, Hannah is way cooler than me. She's scuba certified. And when I see big water, I'm not afraid of water, I just have a healthy respect for big water. I like to snorkel. My ears are kind of messed up though, so I don't do the scuba thing. But you scuba dive.

Hannah

Folk: I love to scuba dive.

Shay: And so you're going to try and find, you know, a charter or two while you're out there. And, you know, one thing that you said is if your dad's interested, you know, he would need to get recertified. But if he decides to come down, maybe go scuba dive with him or You know, one of my uncles, if he's listening to this, I think he's scuba'd in the past.

Hannah

Folk: So, or for any of those attending the conference, join us.

Shay: Anyone that wants to go, you know, I think, I think we're going to go, you know, 25th, 26th, 27th, and then stay afterwards for a couple of days to just kind of hang out. And this is January of 2023.

Hannah

Folk: And I will say the point of it is to go and get value out of the conference. But I will say we always spend a couple of days after the conference just to enjoy the area a little bit. And that's the beautiful part about the locations that we're going to. It's, it's a nice getaway area to take some time to, um, to focus on just taking a couple days off and being with your spouse for a couple days.

Shay: Good time of year to do it too.

Hannah

Folk: It is, escape the cold.

Shay: So if anyone's interested, you can check it out. Go to the Ag View Solutions .com website. There's Conference Backspace on there. You can look at the agenda, the registration links, the, you know, all that good stuff that you need to know for planning a trip. But Hannah's going, excited to have Clara there too, have the family there, and just enjoy some much-needed time away, but also see a lot of awesome operations.

Hannah

Folk: Yeah, it's gonna be It's gonna be a good time and we're gonna learn a lot.

Shay: Well, I think this is it. Kind of wraps everything up and just thank you so much for joining us and I'm excited to see how this progresses with you being the dream manager and watching your dreams and supporting them. I think it's so cool what you're doing. Very proud of you and thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Hannah

Folk: Thanks for asking me to join and thank you all for listening too.

Shay: Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Ag U Pitch, and we will catch you next time.