How to build bulletproof farm partnerships with Andy Caygeon Junkin

Shay

Foulk: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today we're going to have a pretty interesting conversation that's going to be around communication, transition, succession, and everything with people trying to get along, especially in a family business. With that said, we're lucky enough to have with us again today for what, second or third time, I think.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Second time.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, second time with Andy Cajun Junkin. Andy, how's it going today?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I'm doing good. Everybody calls him Cajun, so just call me Cajun.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, Cajun. Yeah, yeah. And the, the Stubborn Farmer, I guess.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Stubborn.farm is my website. So, yep, yeah, if anybody wants a free book, just go to Stubborn.farm.

Shay

Foulk: But yeah, yeah, so Stubborn.farm. And then you can also go on YouTube, right? And I've probably listened to that book about 4 times on YouTube.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, yeah. Basically, if you go to my website, I'll send you a, um, a book. It's like 3 hours. And it's free. I don't really have much of a social media presence. I've actually— that's what I'm excited about being on today's podcast. For the last couple years, I've stayed off social media essentially.

Shay

Foulk: Stay as close as you can to the mic.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Chuck, sorry about that.

Shay

Foulk: You're good.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Apart from being— apart from the book is basically I've been working on a total retrofit of what I do For about 8, 15 years I was a mediator. And my life goal at this stage is to get rid of a mediator altogether. And so—

Shay

Foulk: So you just wanna, you wanna work yourself out of a job?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Absolutely.

Shay

Foulk: Gotcha.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I mean—

Shay

Foulk: So by the time you retire, all the farmers that are listening to this won't need us, won't need you anymore.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: My goal is to get rid of the need for me altogether, actually.

Shay

Foulk: I gotcha.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah. Which is kind of foolish, so.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. That's counterintuitive, I guess is what I would say.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I mean—

Shay

Foulk: But it is a good thing, right? If you can get people to get get along and communicate effectively, you know, that's been tried, I think, for a long time.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I think, I think that the come to Jesus I had when I wrote my book, um, Stubborn, is that there was— and I don't want to go over, um, you're going to provide a link to this podcast we did before because I didn't want to repeat what we did. I think we did a good podcast last time. But as I was saying the last time, the come to Jesus I had was everybody's pointing fingers at each other and nobody's looking at the 3 fingers pointing back at them. And so for me, the come to Jesus I had was we gotta get farm families to stop being stubborn with each other and to start being stubborn at the habits that make a farm and a farm family successful.

And so I've been, since that point, I've, at the same time as I was just finished my book, ChatGPT came out and as you know, I read 2 books a week was my goal when I first met you and I had been doing that for over 10 years and I actually came bearing gifts. I brought you a few books for you to read over the Christmas holidays here.

Shay

Foulk: And before we started recording, I'm like, I got to open these during the, as we record.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: It's Christmas. Yeah. I mean, I might kind of guide our conversation. But I think that for me to do a deep dive analyzing my niche is stubborn and my passion has been, it's been like doing DMT. And I've been basically spending 4 hours every morning with analyzing my little niche and it's been completely game shifting for me to rethink everything.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. Stay up by the mic too.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah. Yeah, see, by the— we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to get these damn things off.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, you can put them on, I guess, if you want. You're good.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: You're never gonna—

Shay

Foulk: I just want everybody to be able to—

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: you will, you will, you'll, you'll more likely find me without— with just wearing underwear and a cowboy hat than without a cowboy hat. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so that's all right.

Shay

Foulk: All right, you can keep the cowboy hat on.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: We're good. I mean, I would feel naked, but anyways.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, so, so I want to ask a quick question before we kind of get rolling here. So, you know, the book is Stubborn Yeah, and I know there's probably a lot of people listening because a lot of our clients that listen, and there's probably a lot of people that aren't clients or don't know or maybe haven't seen it. What's your— you know, and this is a big question, and so I must be— how good you are answering it in a short couple of sentences, but what, what does stubborn mean in your book? What's— what is stubborn?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I mean, I'm a 7th generation farm boy from a little town called Bobcaygeon. We, we came over in 1832 to the most rough part of the world you could possibly farm. Uh, 5 miles north of us, the corn doesn't grow. My family were successful because we were stubborn, right? We were persistent. However, my dad and I, we failed to farm together because we were stubborn with each other. And my whole premise in my life is to turn stubborn from a bad thing to a good word for farm families by getting farmers to start being stubborn to habits that are their weaknesses and turning them into strengths. And I've just taken that to a whole different level the last couple years.

I think the biggest thing for me that was the aha moment the last couple years is, is, um, I was trying to get a farmer that I was a personal friend of mine to change He had a couple kids come home to farm with him, and I was trying to put out to him what he was not getting about how he was working with his sons. And my wife made the offhand comment, you know, you can never tell him what to do, it has to be his idea. And then later that day, I was working with mules, or learning how to work with mules, and I don't care, a lot like people, which, you know, you can never tell a farmer or stubborn mule what to do.

Shay

Foulk: Do.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But if it's his idea, there's no stopping him. And with that click, like, what I've done over the last 2 years is I've put together 900 podcasts. And what I do is I send to the farmers that I work with, I send them a podcast every day that is specific to their unique needs. We've filtered it down. So you do a test with me for an hour, I can tell your personality. Then I can start sending you podcasts every, every hour, every day. And what I want you to do as you take a piss in the morning, turn that podcast on. The first 10 minutes of your day is going to set up the way you think about the rest of the day. And so if I can give you a different perspective on how to farm better with your partners in that 10-minute period that you're getting a coffee, and then you send me a text back as to, okay, was that an A or B or C or D? And rating that podcast.

And if it was an A, explain why it hit home with you. Then when I sit down with you once a week for half an hour phone call, we can go into deep dive as that conversation and figure out— I can ask you Socratic questions and make you think. I never tell a farmer now what to do. I used to be arrogant, and my whole premise is, as a mediator, you're the most arrogant son of a bitch in the room. You're getting everybody else that's arrogant with each other stop and try to listen to each other. My premise now is to never tell a farmer what to do, but to ask him questions and make him think differently about his situation. And then for him to walk away from the conversation with one thing he wants to change, that's his idea. And then we track that for 90 days and for a month after you make a resolution.

It might be that I'm going, okay, for 10 seconds when somebody tells me something important, I'm going to pause and think about what the heck they're saying. Instead of trying to be thinking when they're talking, I'm thinking about my rebuttal like a lawyer. No, for 10 seconds, I'm going to actually pause and think about what they said. And then think of something different. I'm going to ask you that question 3 weeks later. You make a resolution like that. 3 weeks later, how you doing on that? Rate yourself today. A to E, how you did on that, with A being good and E being poor. And then essentially we track, I mean, you're gonna go 5 steps forward, 1 step back as far as these resolutions. But the matter is over 90 days we track that and make this habit stick. And then we start asking your partners, how is he doing on this?

And you might be thinking you're doing fantastic, but your partners might have something different. Well, if your partner gives you a poor rating, um, I ask why, and then we have a conversation with that. On our Week of Conversations, we make a few tweaks until that habit sticks. And if you can have 12 weeks where each week you're making one habit change, and then for the 90 days after you make— you track that, within 180 days your farm is going to be 180 degrees different. If you got 3 partners doing the same thing That's 36 changes to how you work together. And then, so the first 12 weeks I work with the individual, and then the second set of 12 weeks I work with the whole family, and we make one habit change as to how you work together as a team. In 180 days, 180-degree difference. But this has been, um, obviously putting together 900 podcasts is a lot of work, but it's, it's working.

We've had 3 classes go through it. And made a few tweaks, but it's, it's working. It's unbelievable. It's like we're getting 400% better results. It's, it's unbelievable.

Shay

Foulk: That's nice. Um, one of the things I'm kind of curious on as you talk about that would be the thought process of the, the habits shifting. In other words, you know, you have seasonalities of, of the crops, and so I always notice, at least in our own operation, when you get, oh, let's say two-thirds through planting or two-thirds through harvest or whatever, everybody's— everybody's ability to provide grace to each other gets limited. In other words, they're, you know, I might— I'm going to get pissed. You know, my, my, my fuse Yeah, gets shorter and shorter as— absolutely, as the season goes on. Is there something there that fits into this? Just because it's something that I see all the time.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I mean, I look at— I look at— well, I look at 3 areas. So I look at your team decision-making, I look at how do you deal with conflict skills, and then I look at grit. How do you take personal responsibility and integrity and say what you do, do what you say? And we come back to that. There was 3 topics we come back to 3 times over the course of the 12-week program. But what I'm doing underneath is I'm looking at, without getting too much like Dr. Phil, like, I'm really paranoid about never coming across like Dr. Phil. It's like, I have an empty beer bottle on the corner of my desk, and I'm like, I'm having a beer with a boy. Right? So it's just like usually having a beer on a tailgate with me as far as our conversation. It's not Dr. Phil. But the thing is, underneath, I'm looking at your cognitive distortions. How do you get angry?

I look at— I psychoanalyze, and we have in the intake survey, I'm able to figure out how do you get angry? What triggers you? Where do you have faults in emotional regulation? And then I can understand also your partners and their dynamics. I look at 5 different personality tests. And I'm able to see how your partners think and how they think under stress. So I'm able to help you better understand what triggers you and also help, help you understand what triggers them and how you can change the course of your conversation with your partner so you get better results. And so, like, a lot of folks say, well, we don't need that. 99% of the time we get along fine. Well, it's the 1% that matters. I mean, I mean, everybody this week, it's November, we're going to go out hunting. Your scope has to be dead on. I mean, if your scope is off a couple of degrees, you're not going to hit the deer.

You might hit it, hit in the backside, but you're not going to hit the deer. Right. And I think that when we're having our conversations for problem solving and that 1% of the time that you're having discussions with your partners for that to be an effective conversation determines next year's profitability. And I think that the ability for a family to conflict in a healthy way has a huge impact on farm profitability. Anything you can do to improve the quality of decision-making is gonna have a direct impact on your farm's profitability. In fact, it's gonna skyrocket your profitability. Your ability as a family to make decisions together and then follow through on those decisions into reality and the profitability That's a key determining factor.

So when you're having moments of conflict, whether it's when things are getting tense during harvest, and as a result somebody might walk off and give you half the effort during the rest of the fall harvest, right, which I mean makes— impacts profitability. Or more importantly, when it comes to key strategic planning like succession planning, um, for you to have those crucial conversations and for those to go well I mean, it has a huge impact to your profitability. A lot of the farms we're working with, we're doubling their profitability. And a lot of people think that's BS, but I mean, if you make a simple couple simple changes to how a family makes decisions together, it's a game changer, right? Like, I'll give you an example here. This guy here, you read that, he put that in the corner of his mirror as a result of—

Shay

Foulk: Curious, not defensive, solve the root problems. By brainstorming options, anything that could cause resentment, we deal with as quickly as possible. And empathy and understanding to a successful partnership and happy life.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Now, he didn't quite spell that right, but that, that proves that that's a real deal.

Shay

Foulk: I just, I read it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, but no, no, it's, it's, you understand that. But the thing is, this family, we had a situation where it's two brothers in a partnership and they did not talk to each other. Their sister was a partner as well. She tried to facilitate conversation, but the two boys did not talking to each other. And we got them to identify, like, for them, they always were defensive whenever they got in a conversation. It was never curious as to what the other guy was saying. They were just trying to be like lawyers trying to prove their point. Well, for that guy to flip the script in his mindset, and we work with him, so that he was actually curious as to what the other guy was saying, why he was saying it. We doubled their profitability in 6 months. And that's a no-book— that's a farm in Illinois.

And just simply by him reading that to himself, he takes a piss in the morning, and for him to read that to himself first thing in the morning, it sets the whole mindset of who he's going to be for the next day. And it goes from Who you were. You're— everybody has Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? For those of you who don't read the book, Dr. Jekyll is the good guy, Mr. Hyde's the monster. Like you said, Chris, during harvest, we sometimes can fall into the trap of being the Mr. Hyde. We all have that in us, right? And the question is, what's your new identity? And when you get into those tough moments, for you to set the standard for yourself, this is who I'm striving to become. For me to be stubborn at being that guy, not when it's easy, but when it's hard, determines the success of the operation 2 years down the road.

Shay

Foulk: I, as you say that, it makes me think of the converse side of that in terms of personalities, where you get a personality that's more abrasive, that wants to have the conflict and the discussion, is going to be in each other's face, as opposed to you know, those with the personalities of, I'll just avoid the conflict, so I'm just not even going to say anything, I'm just going to let it go.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Those are the farms that there is the most conflict, right?

Shay

Foulk: They aren't talking about it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Unresolved issues leads to resentment, leads to huge problems, and as well as lost profitability. Like, half the decisions we should make— that is the problem we have. Like, people always thought, well, I was dealing with white trash people that just were assholes, right? As a mediator, they thought, well, you must be dealing with assholes. I'm dealing with the nicest farm families is who I've seen call me in the last 50— I've been doing this close to 19 years now. And for the first 15 years, it always upset me because they were always the nicest people you ever did see. It's just that they had let things go like a stone in their shoe. And the stones just rubbing, rubbing them to the point that the leg got gangrenous to the point that they didn't have me out there to actually fix their family disputes. They had me out there to get a divorce, right?

And it's just because they didn't sit down and address the issues, like take the stones out of their shoe. And what I'm saying to you is let's develop— conflict is a skill. And I don't think folks realize that it's not a character flaw. It's just that we all have 3/4 different traits as it comes to dealing with team decision-making, to dealing with conflict and taking personal responsibility and integrity. Where we have a couple— I don't care who you are, everybody's got 5% of both their character or their skills that's holding them back from 50% of their potential. And if you can, you're never going to have perfection. Right. But it's like Six Sigma. I mean, if you can, if you can get rid of, if you can make a few improvements, I mean, it's going to make a huge difference. I mean, you've got 3 partners, make, let's say there's 12 weeks.

Even if you just get 10 out of 12 weeks to get a habit change each week, that's 30 changes to your operation and how everybody's working together. It's going to be a whole different operation when it comes to sit down and making strategic decisions together. But you gotta fix, first of all, operationally, how you working together.

Shay

Foulk: I'm curious too, um, of what your thought process is, because some of us take, uh, and Che and I talk a lot to, um, you know, like people who are service providers. We work with some seed companies and, and different things on the idea of, and co-ops and things that work with, with clients or customers, and yeah I think one of the things that's hard for a lot of us to do is to take constructive criticism, right? Because sometimes we take it as a, you know, well, you know, you're putting me down or whatever, as opposed to listening to it and saying, okay, I need to hear this. And sometimes I think we block it out. I think we all have a tendency to do that. Do you see that some, or do you see where—

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Oh, I think, I think, I think being— we are, we tend to be defensive. Right. And I think there's a lot of shame. I mean, the problem we have is that we expect that we are born into a successful business where perfection is the expectation instead of having the attitude that Rome was not built in a day. This farm has transformed radically over the last 100 years and in physical format, our character has not. And there's a lot of good character qualities that your family has that's got to be retained and transferred to the next generation. But there's a few, like, it's not just teacups and land that we inherit from Grandma. We also inherit bad habits, right?

And we gotta trans— we got— I mean, when you're working with such a complex business as farming is these days, you're dealing with a whole set of complex problems, and you got to evolve your ability as a family to make decisions together. You also have a problem within farm families that, um, we're not transitioning well from a parent-child to professional working relationships as, as fast as we should. Like, one guy, he looked at me, he had a lot to say behind the barn to me I got him in front of his old man. We had around the kitchen table. He just looked at the table. He didn't say a damn thing. I said, well, why didn't you speak up? And he blew up after me about 2 hours later. I said, why didn't you speak up? He says, how the hell can I speak up when in the same seat 15 years ago, if I said, spoke out of turn, I'd get hit in the back of the head with spoon, right?

To transition from parent-child to become assertive. And to speak your mind. I think a lot of farm families, they avoid conflict because there's a belief that you can't be honest yet respectful. And to transition that mindset, to learn the skills so that you can have better conflict and accomplish what you want, yet not also be disrespectful to your parents, is fundamental.

Shay

Foulk: I think Sometimes in my observation, I've seen where, you know, the, the son or daughter will be saying some things, and this comes back to what I was saying about, you know, maybe not taking good constructive criticism, because sometimes the younger person sees things that have been done the same way forever, quote unquote. Yeah. And now it's like, okay, well, you know, the world's changed. You're doing this because you don't like change. You want it to be comfortable. How do I, you know, this is the younger person's question, you know, how do I explain to them without them getting all pissed off that, you know, we need to do it this way? And then, and then sometimes I see where a lot of the younger people will sometimes just ask for forgiveness instead of permission and just do some stuff and then really piss them off.

But absolutely, but, but just go do it because that's the right thing to do from a business perspective, but they're not communicating the why behind it, you know? So, to me, that's kind of an interesting scenario that I've got a couple of cases like that where I know the son's trying to do things and the dad will take it as disrespect. I don't think there's disrespect there. I think there's action and survival in the mind of the younger person is, "We gotta survive and this has changed and I'm gonna take the bull by the horns and run with it." Yeah, but then dad's frustrated and there's not quote unquote the respect. Do you see that? Or how would you—

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: how would you— this is what I put break apart. This is absolutely— I mean, let's put a pin on this because I just got in my mindset on, on a meeting I had Thursday morning at 5 o'clock in the morning. I got on the phone with it with the guy, and he's a guy that's trying to pass over— he's the majority owner in the business. And he's got a junior part, I mean, he's got the son that is essentially trying to take over the management of the operation. And he's trying to give him the reins and he's trying to let him go. But he sees things that are not getting done and he's very results-oriented patriarch. And the thing is that He says something, but the problem is then his son gets so defensive and then he backpedals. And not only does he piss off the son, but he also— issues don't get resolved.

And so the question's gotta be the tactics of how he gets the issues that they need to get done done. So for that operation, the first thing we did when we started working with them, was I got both them to agree to a Monday morning meeting. And now what we've identified is, okay, you need to get OKRs, objectives and key results within the business on several different levels. And then whenever you see a problem, we just have it break down to a production or profitability issue and then a human resource issue. And then each week, this guy is to email his son on Friday afternoon about one area of improvement that he could see in the operation that he wants to address on Monday. And they discuss it as data points instead of it being a personal attack or saying that the son is incompetent, right? It's just a data point.

Okay, we got What we got to adapt is instead of having a sense of guilt or shame that we have when we haven't gotten in conflict, it's just the data point. It's a matter of us continuously improving our operation at a Kaizen approach. I don't know if anybody is familiar. Are you familiar with Kaizen? It's a process of continuous improvement. When Ford— there was a guy from— he's from Iowa. I forget what town of Iowa it is. His name was Edward, Dr. Edward Deming. He was a Quaker and he was also a farmer. And he went down to Yale and then he went to Ford and became a management consultant. He went to Ford and they started breaking apart these Model T Fords. And they said, well, who should we fire for these Model T Fords breaking down in the parking lot? He says, there's, there's, you expect to have the perfect vehicle.

And They said, we do have the perfect vehicle, we want to know who to fire. He says, I guess the board has to be fired because you have the expectation that everything's going to be perfect. He says, you're always going to have problems, you're always going to have mistakes. When you have 1,000 people touching the car, there's always going to be problems.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: What you got to get good at is not blaming the person and firing people, but you've got to get good at identifying the underlying process and the root causes and fix those root causes. And what I think every farm family needs to do is have a process of continuous improvement. So instead of blame and shame and that, that frustration, obsession about sins and sorrows and crying over spilt milk, we have to have an attitude of progress or perfection where we're continuously improving how we work together as a team. And it's a matter of you learn to speak up in a constructive way where you're able to vent your frustrations, but it's putting fuel into the tank instead of fuel on the fire and getting real energy and trajectory out of that.

So for that father, for instance, that was trying to hand over the reins to his son, for him to figure out, he sees a problem, instead of getting frustrated by it, how do we make sure it gets dealt with? And you bring it up in a constructive way that's not offensive to your son. I mean, he comes to the same meeting with a few things that he sees going wrong with the production, a couple things about how we're managing our 15 employees. And both you guys talk these problems through. And then we follow up 3 weeks later, make sure it actually got done and followed through upon and the actual problem solved. And if we— if it isn't solved, we come back and fix it again until we get it, not just the issue at hand solved, but the underlying James Clear said, you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.

And I think it's a matter of evolving the systems within how you make decisions together as a team and starting with yourself. How do you think when you get angry? How do you react? I mean, are you able to improve the quality of how you think? Um, speak, act, and react with your partners. And, and, and that's what I'm looking at doing every, every week is we're just ticking, ticking away, having the farmer listen to 5 podcasts that's picked out specifically to him, and then for him to pick out one thing that really hit home with him and for him to make that improvement, and then for us make sure that that habit follows through. And if you can do that as well, and then you start adding as a system, as improving your systems as how you work together as a team, 180 days, you got a 180-degree turn in how you work together as a family.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, and that's interesting too because I, you know, everything you're saying compounds, you know, especially like with Ag View Solutions with a lot of our clients, they have fairly complex operations with a lot of, in a number of cases, with a lot of employees. Yeah. And so, you know, some are family, some are non-family.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: That further complicates potentially things and makes it so I think, like you said, we can be really good farmers and really piss-poor managers because we aren't doing all the, you know, we aren't aware of everything you're talking about. And to me, I think, you know, one of my takeaways from the first part of this conversation is that, you know, the reason there's an ROI or a financial benefit that impacts the bottom line directly is as our businesses grow, the complexity of the human resource team grows. And if we don't manage that, it's not managing the business because that's who runs the business. You know, I love what you said about the, you know, about blaming somebody because something's broke or having an issue or being pissed about it because stuff's going to break on a farm. Well, in any business, right?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I spent a lot of time looking at a lot of farmers get, we get in the rut that we get it. I spent a lot of time underlying in this program looking at what are you obsessed about? And I don't think we talk about our obsessions enough. Like in the back of this is, here's a, this back page, just write, read this for the audience.

Shay

Foulk: How about if you read it? I'm a slow reader.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Oh, shock. Sorry about that.

Shay

Foulk: Well, basically I just have you write down that many words there, but go ahead.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, Here, you can read that just as good as I can.

Shay

Foulk: So what am I supposed to read? Just think, things can't— or things I can't control but try to anyway, and then write those 5 things down.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, I mean, for you to become obsessed about the things you can't— I mean, too often we are obsessed and we waste a lot of energy in, um, thinking and talking about things we cannot control. Instead of being obsessed about the things we can control.

Shay

Foulk: And then I get the farmer to identify new positive mindset, things I can control that I should focus on. And, and that's something that we preach about a lot, is on the cost of production side of things, there's a ton of things we can control. But you can't— last time I checked anyway, I haven't figured out how to control the markets or the weather, but there's a lot of other things we can.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I think the thing we got here is what I get a farm family to be obsessed about is the investment of your time. When I start working with a family, I mean, I'm very concerned about them becoming obsessed about, actually, here, I'll give you.

Shay

Foulk: Oh, I have to start opening presents?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, you gotta start. I mean, we kind of lost—

Shay

Foulk: I didn't bring you any presents.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Aw, shucks, Chris. Just your friendships are presents to me. Okay, appreciate that.

Shay

Foulk: But all right, well, there's 3 books in here.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: There's 3 books in there. But, but this here, read this here.

Shay

Foulk: Find Smiles Inside.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: No. Well, yeah.

Shay

Foulk: What do I do?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, when I start working with a family, this is the first thing I work— well, this is the first thing we deal with. Because too often we get obsessed about the things we cannot control. That's not a book. That's something I want to hang beside your toilet. What does it say?

Shay

Foulk: Says, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Now, that's the Serenity Prayer that they use in Alcoholics Anonymous, right? And if you don't understand the wisdom in that, at some point in time, you might have to go see Alcoholics Anonymous. Because the thing is, too often as farmers, we get obsessed about the markets and weather, like you said. We can't control that. But what I do when I start working with a farmer, that is the first thing for me, the acid test for me is, are you gonna hang that beside your toilet? And the first thing in the morning when you take a piss—

Shay

Foulk: I might put it in the mirror so when I'm like wetting my hair down or something.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, the thing is, here's a simple thing I do is that, when I start working with a family, first thing I want the guy to do at the first 10 minutes of your day, how you set yourself up and how you're thinking is going to set up the rest of the day. And the question you got to ask yourself first thing in the morning, and I'm going to be obsessed about the things that I want that I can't control and ask myself hard questions that strategically I need to be asking myself, am I thinking about the constant things I need to constantly ask myself in order to grow this operation? Am I asking myself, are my employees happy? Are we getting the most out of our employees because they're highly motivated, for instance, right? That might be a simple question you ask yourself.

But for you to become obsessed about that rather than spilt milk over Something stupid your employee did that, I mean, you can't, it's done, you can't deal with it, right?

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: These type of things, become obsessed by that is absolutely critical. And then simply put, before leaving the mirror in the bathroom, for you to set the day by asking yourself the couple things that you recognize are areas of deficiencies you have working with people. And sometimes we don't care what everybody else is thinking. We just care about what we're thinking and trying to drive our agenda. And that gets in the way of what we really ultimately want to be curious as to what your partner's saying, because half the time your partner's going to be correct, not just you. Right. And too often we become obsessed that I'm smarter than you are. Everybody should do as I say. And that makes you an absolute fool.

And for you to be recognized, to try to be curious as to your partner's partners thinking and having the attitude of it doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong in this conversation. What matters is the right decision gets made. Really changes the whole trajectory of the farm.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, for sure. And it's, it's that way with a lot. I mean, just had a conversation with my, my nephew. I had all the yield data calculated and I was like, yeah, you know, I had my number. And he's like, and I was just dumping the numbers into the cash flow and we were off 9 bushel. I'm like, okay, we're gonna have to go back and figure out, you know, because if you can let the numbers kind of drive that, but you know, if you bring in the numbers from two different places and they don't match up. Yeah. Probably both people need to go back to the drawing board. It's not, it's not one of us. Well, one of, one of you is wrong. Well, maybe we're both partially wrong. Maybe, you know, I don't know.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But that conviction that you are correct. Is what's causing most farmers to lose half their potential profitability, right? And for you to, to learn to listen to each other and take conflict to the next level, from weakness to a strength, so that you're able to, to, I mean, not get emotional but be able to make rational decisions together, I mean, that game is a game changer to the farm's profitability.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Communication in lots of ways. Okay, let's get these out.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Communication is a silly word until somebody gets a punch in the face, right?

Shay

Foulk: Right, exactly. Yeah. And that hurts too. What's, what's, what's this?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: That, that's my book that I mean that you were showing, but, but I think that's important that that's another thing I really spend time obsessing about is getting a farmer to be investing his time like it's money. And we spoke a bit about this last time, but I think it's important to say is that for the farmer to be, instead of reactionary, to be intentional about the use of his time. And what are the— where's the 80% of his effort got to go in the 20% of things that matter most? And for him to rank, plan, what is he going to get done by tomorrow night? If there's only one thing that's done, it might just be a phone call. What is the one thing I'm going to do tomorrow that's going to move the needle as far as strategically? Moving us ahead in this operation.

And then understand the value of your time and the value of the tasks that you're doing and asking yourself, am I spending my time this afternoon doing $15 an hour task of cutting the lawn, or am I spending $100 or $300 an hour jobs crunching numbers for next year? And become obsessed with the use of your time. And then each day reflecting at the end of the day, what was the mistakes we made? I mean, rating the day overall. And I think the thing is, too often we get a sense of— 25 years ago, I would have said this is a bunch of biggest bunch of BS, but I have seen so many guys fall in a state of depression because they got obsessed about what's going wrong instead of what's going right. And for a guy to just simply write down on a slip of paper what went right today, and to celebrate one win, even if the rest of the day was a gong show. I mean, it's keep you off the antidepressants.

And for a guy to rate day to day, how productive were we? How good did we function as a team? And what was my mindset? And how would I describe my mindset today? And overall, what was one mistake that happened or problem that happened And what are we going to do about it? Instead of just bitching about things, what's the constructive improvement and when are we going to address it? Should it ever be addressed, right? Some, some ideas you have, maybe don't just put for next January, but then overall ask yourself at the end of the day, was I the partner and friend anybody would want to farm with? And just by simply filling out 2 pages, what's the plan for tomorrow, and then at the end of the day, what actually happened? What were the fires that caused us to prevent us from getting done what we should get done helps you become more self-aware.

And the challenge we have is knowing thyself, right? Understanding not just how to better work with your partners, but also how to work with yourself. And that self-reflection process— I mean, just sitting down and writing this down might— 25 years ago, I would have said this is a bunch of BS. I really would have. But this is the BS that prevents a farm from accomplishing what they want.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, I think some of us too, and not all of us, and I'm saying us because I include myself in this, but show up with a frickin list that's like a full page long. Yeah. So like, here's one of my lists for, you know, and then it turns into like it's 3 days of shit you got to do. Yeah. You know, and so it's like, so then you take the stuff that was on the list for Monday and you move through 4 of the things to Tuesday and then 3 of those things, but then 4 of the things tack on.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: So, you know, that's one of the things I think is a hurdle for many people is figuring out how to, um, how to navigate prioritization, right? Is— sure. And delegation is, you know, absolutely. You know, who else could be doing that? Back to your, you know, are you doing $15 or $20 an hour jobs? Are you doing the $1,000 an hour jobs?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But if, if I want— like, I've done a lot of farm debt. I wrote the book, uh, um, Tough Times Never Last, Tough Farm Families Do. I've done a lot of farm debt turnarounds, as have you, right? And what I found, I mean, instead of first of all looking at the financials, if I can get a farmer to be obsessed about the use of his time and to get him to put 80% effort in the 20% of things that matter, it's not only gonna improve production, it's gonna change the whole mindset of finite resources. And if you can get a family disagreeing with each other about the use of the time, like too often we operate in silos. And we don't function as a team as a result, as a side effect of everybody just doing whatever he thinks is the best. Right?

Shay

Foulk: Right.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Being able to agree to disagree and getting good at conflict over the use of your time. Then when we sit down 90 days later to talk about financials, it's freaking easy. Because what I do is I get families obsessed about the skillset about how to better conflict and how to disagree with your father about whether he's cutting the lawn on Tuesday afternoon or he's He's paying the bills, right? And getting— how do you do that respectfully, but we get the results, right? And too often we have this belief that we cannot be honest yet respectful.

Shay

Foulk: Well, and one of the things we see too is you mentioned bringing that next generation in and then you have longtime employees.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: They're like family too.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. And now all of a sudden though, you have a— a leadership role shift from father to son or daughter, and now that 50-something has to listen to that 30-something lead. Well, sometimes that's an issue too.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I think it's a matter of that kid becoming obsessed with being the best at conflict. So he's honest yet respectful, right? And doing the critical things, like when it comes to having grit. To not just being telling people how to do things, but walking the talk. Yeah. And being somebody that anybody would want to respect and follow in war. Right. Or through hard times. Mm-hmm. I mean, the real acid test for a young leader is what a 23-year-old that's taken over an operation would, if your hired men couldn't get paid for 2 months, would they stay? Would they stay?

Shay

Foulk: That's a great way to think about it. Yeah.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And I think that by, by— I mean, I mean, really, whether or not you're going to be able to avoid a situation like that in the next 5 years is really determining— I mean, if guys are just there for the check, they're only giving you half the effort. But if they're working for you because they want to see you, the young lad, succeed, because they believe in him, because he treats them with respect.

Shay

Foulk: He also pushes them hard and also has empathy for when they make mistakes and don't do things right because they're not you and they can't do what you do sometimes.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Absolutely. But what I'm saying to you is this, is that we all are assholes. We just don't know how. Excuse me for cussing.

Shay

Foulk: No, you're good.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But the thing is that we all have the good intentions to be great leaders. You know what I mean? It's just that we don't know how we piss people off. And so when I'm able to break down this person's personality, like this person is a driver, this person's very detail-oriented, this guy is all about support, right? This guy is all about relationships. For me to understand the different dynamics within your family and help you understand how they think differently than you do, and so that you can change the way you talk to people in the way that they need to hear, not the way you think, right?

Shay

Foulk: And so that, you know, I see that a lot. Not to interrupt, but I see that a lot with, um, you know, because I am one of these— I'm one of these people who tries to avoid conflict at all. And then, and then it's— and then sometimes, like you said, you know, you can nicely say something to somebody that probably needs to be treated like— treated like an asshole for a minute, you know, so they hear what you're saying. Or is there a better way?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, I mean, there's There's different ways, and that would be what I would cover is I would send you podcasts specifically to that topic, and then you tell me what you got out of those podcast, out of the podcast, what really hit home with you, and then send me a text and I'll break down a whole lesson. So when we talk for 20 minutes on the phone and you're in the tractor, I'm able to help you think differently. And then as a result, you walk with one resolution of something you want. Change, right?

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. And that— and I, as a specific example, that's a good one too, I think, because that happens a lot. You know, you get people that are quiet, um, well, you know, that, that aren't saying what they're thinking. And then the person that, that talks louder, you know, the squeaky wheel is getting the grease type of thing, you know. I mean, they're the ones pushing. Somebody else might have a better idea, it never gets implemented because it's never brought up.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, it comes back to that example I gave you, the father that's trying to let his son go. Is that he's there as a supportive party trying to do the best for, to support his son, right? He doesn't want to tramp, he doesn't want to rain on his son's parade, I guess you'd say. But it's a matter of him identifying, okay, what's the systems? Like, when am I going to bring up these issues? Okay, how am I going to bring up these issues? Can I send him a text on Friday night about the two things I want to talk about Monday so that, I mean, He knows it's coming. And then more importantly, can we address this issue? Is there a time and place that's a safe space to address this issue? And more importantly, is there a time 3 weeks later that we come back, we make sure that there's follow-through?

Because in that situation, the son was great about promising to do things, but then he gets distracted about certain things and things don't get done. And that, those little things that fall between the cracks that really make a huge difference at the end the year. I might not be today, but it's at the end of the year as to profitability. And that was driving him nuts, right? And it was almost to the point he was about to walk away from the operation, right? He didn't trust his son. Well, it was, it was an issue of you not owning the— you thinking that you had to be the leader. Where you need to show leadership was making sure we have the systems in place. To address there being a time and place to address issues and then making sure that they get followed through on. Yeah, right.

Shay

Foulk: Yep. Good stuff. Yeah. I want to know what this book is, or you— well, that— this is another one.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I mean, well, that, that's just, that's just— I mean, it's, it's, it's your business meetings. Yeah, I, I just, I've been doing that for 15 years. So basically what I do is I have— I, for the first 12 weeks of work with a farmer I just work with an individual. And then, and then after we start having family business meetings, you're probably familiar with, um, um, Traction is handed around a lot. Yep. I, I've put together about 30 different concepts from different books like, like Traction and applied it in a practical way for a farmer. And then after, after we have, you know, as a result, at the end of the 12 weeks, what we do is we get we filter down to within the family. I don't know if I've shown you this before. I think I have, but for your listeners, we filter down. Where are the 5 areas that you have a problem working together as a team?

And let's get the groundwork and rules in place. So like for this family, we make all decisions together. Nobody— what does it say there?

Shay

Foulk: It says— you can read it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I'll read it here. It says, I must earn respect and trust and respect daily. Nobody's smarter than our guy. We make all decisions together. In this situation, the father was going off. He'd ask his sons what they thought about a farm, but his two sons said, we don't think it's a good deal. The father did. He went and bought 100-acre operation without his sons being bought into the whole idea. Now I have to spend the next 30 years by paying for it. That was when they started calling me, right? But now we make all decisions together, right? And for you to have that framework of governance within your operation, but that comes as a result, first of all, knowing thyself and knowing each other and then coming to consensus. Okay, where are the weaknesses we're going to have within our family?

And let's get those rules in place so that We— there, no matter what the challenges are, there's no challenge we can't rise above.

Shay

Foulk: Awesome. I thought it's good stuff.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I think so.

Shay

Foulk: All right, what else do we get? What else?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I think, I think we covered— I've covered a few other things here. Um, I think that the biggest thing I want— why don't we wrap the big present here first?

Shay

Foulk: Unwrap the bag?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I, I think, I think I do want to talk about this just a little bit.

Shay

Foulk: I'm supposed to open it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, that's your present.

Shay

Foulk: All right, what do we got? 1984.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, George Orwell. So I mean, 1984 is a book that everybody knows. Now we could talk about our society in general and how things are freaking crazy, um, but the thing is, I want— I want to make the point about is let's assume that this is 1978 and we're going into the '80s. And I think that the decisions that were made within a family farm in 1979 were a hell of a lot different than 1984. And I think that we have to start making decisions this year.

Shay

Foulk: I mean, in 2025, as we're recording this, November 2025.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: November 2025. Yep. Assuming the worst, hoping for the best, right? And I think that what we have to ask ourselves is how do we bulletproof our operation, right? And I think that we gotta get realistic that maybe the government supports are not gonna be around in a couple years, right? I mean, uh, what I said on Damian Mason's podcast that pissed off a lot of people was that, you know, the agriculture— we are no longer the majority of of a population. There's about— Shay was saying that there was 120,000 farmers that—

Shay

Foulk: that's— we're just under 1% of the entire population.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Shay was saying in one of his podcasts with Damian that 50,000 producers produce 75% of America's crop, right? And I think that we have to understand that we may have different policy changes as a result of that, and it's better for us to get ahead of that now and assume, okay, there is not going to be any farm programs around in 10 years' time, and to change your business models and get realist. And now to set the goal as a family, okay, we have to become 25% more profitable, right? To set an audacious goal. I had this farm family, for instance, we had, they called me on 2019, February 1st. And He had his—

Shay

Foulk: sure.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: They— their bank pulled the financing. And the guy was obviously— and it was a situation where there's 5 cousins in a partnership together. And just a lot of things had gone on that operation. And we had a come-to-Jesus moment with them. And we got them to set one goal, one number that unified them. For them, 10% meant that they were going to— they let go of all their employees. They all had to give 10% more. For them, that meant they started their day at 6 o'clock in the morning. Now, the truth was in that operation, there's some family members came in at 7, some family members came in at 9:30 in the morning. You know how that goes. They all started the day at 6 o'clock in the morning. They all started doing 50 pushups together, right? And they had that mindset of American exceptionalism, right? And they said, "Our grandpa was exceptional.

We have to again become exceptional." They sold 10% of the land base that was way out, right? They sold 10% of their land that shouldn't be farmed with corn, beans, they put into hay. They have, they did a bunch of other things. They cut 10% of their production cost, improved their yields by 10%. They went through the number 10%, had a special meaning to them. And then on the back, what we had them do, I cut out their family's name. This is actually was put up in their shop. In order to survive, we all have to work harder and smarter than everyone else. Everyone has to pull their weight, maximize their talents, and try to be the ultimate partner anyone will have. Make each day count. And for them, making each day count meant planning their day.

For them to have a 10-minute phone call every night so that the next day they had 5 guys showing up at the shop putting in 10-hour days instead of pissing one guy working his ass off what he thought was a priority and then being pissed off that his other partner was doing something else, something that shouldn't be done. They were able to let go of their employees by just simply getting everybody on the same page as to what the priorities were. And that was 2019. There are 3 successors that are back on that farm full-time now. And they're farming successfully. And that's how you do that, is by not making decisions as a reaction, like a lot of farms had to in 1984, but recognizing in 1979, okay, we got to start doing things now, right? And for your family to simply pick one simple number, like for a lot of farms, like this is a dairy operation Um, they— can you read that?

Shay

Foulk: Consistently milk, uh, 100 pounds ECM for $15.75, 100 weight, and every— everyone goes home happy.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: For, you know, for a family that set that as their goal, their cost of production was $20. Within 6 months, we dropped their cost of production by $2 a 100 weight. They, they, they thought they were— that there was no way they could become more efficient. But it was because they said an absolute truth that at some point the lowest they got was down 15.15 a hundredweight. And for them, that there is a very likely chance that they get down 15.75 cents a hundredweight within the next 5 years. They had to get their cost of production down to that and break even at that point. Right? And that was by getting rid of the egos, getting good at conflict, and then by focusing on the skillset of conflict resolution, we were then able to have disagreements where partners actually listened to each other.

And within 6 months, we were able to drop by 2 bucks a hundredweight, which you might think is impossible., but I've been doing this for 20 years. But the biggest challenge that I see is getting those soft skills that become hard problems in agriculture. And that's been my obsession, especially the last couple years. I mean, it's been a real game changer as far as results because, you know, for 15 years I was trying to push guys to change. By getting these podcasts so the guys decide for themselves what they want to change, frickin' game changer as far as how everybody's getting along.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: People like to make their own decisions, especially if you can, if you have some choices.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: Right.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But here, this is this, this coffee. This is a, this is my— tell me what this is, Mike, because message— this is my core message for today.

Shay

Foulk: Okay. Don't tell me—

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: coffee cup. Do you know who Cam Haynes is? I— you know who Cam Haynes is? Who? Cam Haynes, buddy of Jocko. And he's— anyways, buddy of Jocko.

Shay

Foulk: And, uh, nobody cares, work harder.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, that's my message to everybody here in this season is nobody cares, work harder. And you and I have been at the kitchen table of farms that things are not looking good. And what do you spend the first half an hour talking about?

Shay

Foulk: Uh, I don't know, tell me.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: What do you— generally ag policies that you can't change.

Shay

Foulk: Oh yeah, well, we get sad in the weather and the markets, bullshit, what we can't control.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, right. And, and I think the thing is nobody— I mean, for us to expect that people are going— I mean, whether you have an issue, whether it's farm finances or you have family relationship problems. You can complain to your seed salesman all you want. They'll listen to you because they want your money. But the truth is they really don't care. But the only way you're going to fix it, by working harder. And the way you work harder, I mean, farmers don't have a problem putting in more, another 20 hours of work. There's no, I mean, they work themselves to the bone. But to do the hard things you don't want to do, to actually have a 5-minute conversation about something you don't want to bring up to your partners. That's hard. I mean, to go work another 20-hour day, that's easy, right? We gotta get good at doing the hard things, like to sit down and do your software program, Chris.

For a lot of guys, they think that's hard. That's something that they don't enjoy doing. They'd rather be cutting the lawn.

Shay

Foulk: Oh, I would too, but it doesn't— it does. Last time I checked, I mean, I, I love mowing the lawn on an 80-degree day, having a beer, and sure, Monday afternoon, but the, the paychecks come from doing the hard stuff.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But I think that what— just like 1978, there's a lot of guys got divorced in '83, '84.

Shay

Foulk: There were a lot of suicides too.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: There was. And I think that the thing that we don't recognize is the need in order for us to avoid suicides, in order to— caused by profitability or a bad succession deal, right? Or a divorce is for us to get better at doing difficult things. And the most difficult things for most farmers is they do everything they can to avoid conflict.

Shay

Foulk: Just be, just be friendly, just be nice about it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And, but there's, it's a skill. Yeah. And it's just like fixing a tractor. Back 100 years ago, my grandpa didn't know how to fix a tractor. It's a skill you had to learn, right? And to problem solve with your family difficult complex issues. I mean, it might, I mean, it's one thing to change oil and grease, but it's another thing to fix a tractor in these days. This day and age. It's a skill set you need to pretty much go to college for, become a diesel mechanic, right? And yet we don't recognize, we think it's like a gift. We don't look at it as, or a character trait instead of a skill. And so for somebody to learn to listen instead of talk over somebody, to learn how to manage your anger, these are all skills that have to be learned.

And if you can recognize If you can, you can go through a Walk Through Fire process where you're challenged on 12 areas that are your core weaknesses, and you decide for yourself how you're going to handle that and how to handle it differently, and you need to follow through and change things. There's nothing you and your partners can't accomplish together.

Shay

Foulk: That's interesting. You know, as just a comment on that too, you know, my nephew and I have conversations a lot of times because he's He's a really good mechanic and I'm pretty good at breaking stuff. Yeah. So, you know, so it works out good that way. Uh, his forte is not managing people. Sure. And he recognizes that and says, you know, somebody else is going to need to do that. But that still doesn't mean that if I break something, I shouldn't be there to help fix it or I shouldn't be involved. Yeah. Conversely, Um, you know, I think those who don't like the people management part, which does limit growth of operations, because if they don't like the people part, they're the ones that say, I'll just do it myself because nobody can do it right anyway. Yeah.

And so, but, but I think coming back to that is, to your point, or my takeaway from what you just said, is that it's a skill and we don't have to be the best at it, but we need to be good enough at it that we can recognize where we're not as good at it and maybe delegate some of it, but yet still be able to do some of it or be involved in it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I'm obsessed with unlocking synergies. I'm obsessed with unlocking synergies, but at the same time, helping guys become more self-aware about some things that where their partner might have a— like, for instance, there's a lot of farms, like you just said, there's one guy that's good with people, one guy that's not. The frustration that the guy that's good with managing people, he puts so much effort into it. It just takes a 5-minute conversation for him to wreck it. Yeah, absolutely. And it's just a matter of being self-aware about a couple areas that you can improve on. It doesn't mean you have to be managing people directly, but like for something simple, like, like learning, like coming back to that father-son situation, that was a situation at hand was the father wasn't very good with managing people. The son was, right?

But the son, I mean, the father was causing, I mean, the father had caused some of the employees to leave, right? And it was a matter for him to learn some skills on how to better do that. And that ties into my last present here, I guess. I'm going to, I think what we're going to do is just kind of wrap it up.

Shay

Foulk: Just use that as the whole.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I think we're good for today.

Shay

Foulk: Okay. But I get to open this one.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, you get to open that one. I think that's how I want to wrap it up, or unwrap it, unwrap it, whatever it is.

Shay

Foulk: Oh, you gonna make me read again?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I'll, I'll, I'll say it for you. I should have said it for you, but this is, uh, this here is, uh, well, this— you got that?

Shay

Foulk: Mhm.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Um, this So I've been obsessed with narcissism for the last— I think we talked about this a little bit on our last podcast.

Shay

Foulk: I think I get this memorized from reading it at a wedding or something.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I think— well, the thing is, is that we often— so for the folks just listening to this, this is 1 Corinthians 13, verse 4 to 7. And essentially what I have had done for several years is what I've recognized is that the— so I read 47, My Dad Was a Narcissist. He plowed down my crops. I accused my dad being entitled, my dad being narcissistic, my dad being arrogant. Truth is, 20 years later, I can recognize I was equally the same, and I pissed off my dad in ways that I didn't understand. Right? I was arrogant. I came home The day I left for college, my mom, she showed me the farm financials. We were about to lose the farm. I came home with a bunch of ideas, trying to make these changes like a lot of guys. I think that we should be— I hear this, this is a book you need. Why does my wife have two?

She has— I'm going to have to open both these packages because I don't know which one's which. Yeah, go with that one. I'll give you this. We all—

Shay

Foulk: have you read— this is a good book.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, have you read The Obstacles of the Way?

Shay

Foulk: Yes, that's a great book.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I think that any—

Shay

Foulk: read it and, uh,

Grenada: On Vacation. That's a really good book.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Okay, there's two books I recommend everybody reading this fall.

Shay

Foulk: The obstacle is the way.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: The obstacle is the way. And the subtle art of not giving an F. We'll talk about this one in a minute. My book Stubborn ties into this, but the thing is, is that when we talk about the farm economics and it being tough times, I think there's never been a time in agriculture that's more exciting because every time you have a challenge, there's an opportunity. And I think there's an opportunity to dramatically change the profitability of your operation. Um, you know, essentially we lost the Chinese as buyers of our beans, right? That blue-haired cousin that's coming to your Thanksgiving dinner this, this, this Thursday probably is a foodie that has a bunch of ideas that you used— you would think is a bunch of BS. I remember when I was 13. I mean, my aunt said, well, she said, well, we're making Thanksgiving.

We were having Thanksgiving and my aunt said, well, I said, where's the turkey? And she says, well, we're having a vegetarian meal. I'm like, who the fuck is a vegetarian? And I got sent to the car, but I didn't get yelled at too loud. But point of it is, is that we all have these weird cousins that have different—

Shay

Foulk: we might be the weird cousin though.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I am.

Shay

Foulk: I am definitely.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: In my family, definitely. But, but well, and actually I, I have celiac. I would never have thought that I would have, I don't know what gluten is, but whatever gluten is, it sure is effing good. Yeah. And it took me, I was sick for quite a few years and I didn't understand what that, why it was. And I always laughed at anybody who had, have these type of diseases, but there's only like a grocery shelf that is both Yale, yea wide right now, that the bread on it is 3 times what it should be, what the rest of the bread is, and is a month old, is stale as a brick. And there's never been an opportunity in agriculture. There's, there's a lot of people that are messed up with me now. I don't understand why. I have no understanding why. And I would have been the last guy— if I was anybody listening right now, I'd be laughing at me.

Because, you know, I always laugh at anybody until they're afflicted with these type of food allergies. But there's a lot of food allergies. I don't understand. But that— there is a huge amount of opportunities in agriculture. And I'm not saying that you shift your business model like this. This farm here, they got into making a breakfast cereal and now they don't have enough acres to grow it. And they're, they're 3 times the size of your operation.

Shay

Foulk: Right.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Interesting. Point of it is, is that they, um, the point of it is, is that we're going into tough times. It might, it might be 4 or 5 years until we get into really tough times, but I think that the time is to now, this winter, to have tough discussions about opportunities. And I would say next year, if, if 1% of your ground and 1% of your assets is not dedicated to growing 10 crops you and I can't spell and seeing what the opportunities are, what does your blue-haired cousin that's coming over for Thanksgiving dinner want to eat for her child that has celiac? And, and I'm not saying dedicate more than 1% of your acreage. To growing different types of crops. But I think 3, 4 years from now, you got to be thinking about different opportunities than just growing what the government is willing to give you crop insurance for. I think we really got to start thinking outside the box.

I think, I think it comes back to that the obstacle is the way. And I've, with a lot of farms going through farm debt bankruptcies, there's been a lot of— I've guys I've, I've prevented from having suicides. That are now very successful because they read that book, because they had the come-to-Jesus moment. Maybe the way I've been farming, like my county extension agent told me to do, is not the most profitable way. Maybe there's a fundamental shift in my mindset. The same thing with your marriage. You know, for you to treat your daughter-in-law with contempt, you know, 3, 4 years from now, she might not be around either. Same thing for your partners. For you to treat them like crap every day, 3, 4 years from now, they might not be around. And somebody in 1984 that's going through a divorce would do anything to go back to 1979 to really question what they were doing.

Shay

Foulk: How the decisions were being made, why they were being made.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Absolutely. And I think that it's a matter of us, instead of having a sense of entitlement that this is all going to land butter side up, I think the key for us is to have the expectation that this is not going to go butter side up. Well, and we've got to stop complaining about our problems and stop bleeding and do something about it. And that's by us being harder with ourselves, being more stubborn on our habits, both related to how we manage the business and how we manage our relationships. And, and I think that, that this 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 is— you hear that at every wedding. And here's the fundamental truth I've come to realize in life, is nobody gets married to an asshole, but everybody gets divorced from one. Yeah, right?

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, that's how it works.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: How many guys, how many guys, they say— I mean, we, when we go to weddings, like, I've officiated 42 weddings back home in Ontario. I used to officiate with shotguns. I'd get up in front of— I mean, we did.

Shay

Foulk: That'd be interesting.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, my buddy won the biggest redneck wedding, so we, like Homer Simpson, we went online and I got my wedding license. And so I came out of the dairy barn and I fire off the shotgun and said, everybody, everybody sit down now, you hear? And I got up the front and I said something about love and marriage. And I said, first Corinthians 13. And then I reloaded the shotgun. I says, anybody have any objections? Which is fine. And then I fired off a round and the guy came down with the tractors and we had a wedding. 13 minutes later they were married and I reloaded the shotgun and we had a good party. But anyways, but the point of it is that too often weddings are a big party and we say this verse, 1 Corinthians 13, but I think it's critical to not just the success of every marriage but also every farming partnership as well.

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Because it says, love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking, is not easily angered. It keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in truth. Always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, and love never fails. Now, when I did COVID, mm-hmm, I read 42 books on narcissism. And each one of these books, the psychologist, the only answer they had to narcissism was tell your partner he's an asshole. And if he doesn't change, divorce him. Basically is what it came down to. Yeah. And the thing is, is that we all have a bit of narcissism in us, right? I mean, there's 10 traits of a narcissist.

And the thing is, when we get into succession planning, somebody that's sweet— I've seen grandmas, they're the sweetest little ladies that made really good pie. But that succession discussion brings out the worst in her. And she's saying things to her grandsons that you'd never expect to come out of her. You've been in those meetings as well, right? I think that We all— I mean, these psychologists, they all diagnose narcissism as being something that somebody either has 7 out of 10 traits or they don't. I think we all have them. And just so that you understand what— I'll just go through this list. I wish— I mean, I'll go through it for you. Well, why don't you just list off the different bullets and what's in the bold there?

Shay

Foulk: Well, narcissists display entitlement. Um, self-seeking, you know, narcissist is going to be so self-seeking. Lack of empathy. Grandiose and boastful. Um, let's see, what's the next one there?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: They exaggerate their need for praise.

Shay

Foulk: Yep. So, and that's, and that's just telling you everything they did and telling you what they know as opposed to teaching you something. Exactly. I know, instead of here's, here's how I can show you how to do this. Exactly. Um, didn't mean to go into— no, that's good on that one. But, um, dishonoring others, prioritizing their own needs, highly reactive and easily angered, victims and keep a record of wrongs, and deceptive and distort the truth. And I think that's it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, I think, I think the thing is, is that somebody listening here, they're— they just— I just described their brother. I think we all described our partners on their worst days, and I think we all have a Dr. Jekyll of being a good guy, and we all have the narcissist and the asshole in us. That's the bad guy that's displayed in these traits. Now, you might have— it's a matter of figuring out. I don't care who you are, everybody has 2 or 3 of these traits that are not their best sides. And I think it's a matter of being able to say, this is the standard we have on this family operation. What I came to truth is I got really dark thinking, here I am trying to fix narcissism and all these psychologists. I took 13 courses online, 47 books. They all said you have to divorce that person. But the truth is the opposite of these traits is what actually makes a good team. Mm-hmm.

And I think it actually— the culture that you want on your family farm is actually defined in this Bible verse. Now, whether you think that was written by a wise man or divine inspiration, I mean, that's up to you. But the thing is, it really ties in together. The opposite of displaying entitlement is to be patient. The opposite of being self-seeking is to be kind. The lack of empathy does not envy. The lack of grandiosity and being boastful, you don't— does not boast. Um, the opposite of exaggerating your need for praise is to not be proud. The opposite of dishonoring others is just simply said there, just don't dishonor others, right? The opposite of being easily angered, it says there, do not be easily angered. And keep no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. Always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

And I think the thing is, is that as you're getting together for Thanksgiving, I'd love to— for you to put this up in your kitchen. And the families I work with, when they say get together and they say grace, there's even some families where the families are not even churchgoers. There's some people that are even atheists, but not family. But they've gotten the habit of saying this verse when they get together for meal. And they say it to themselves every day, every time they have a meal, even if they're an atheist, to ask yourself, today, was I patient? Was I kind? Did I envy? Was I boastful? And for you to self-reflect on that and for you to set the goal of rising to a higher standard. See, the thing is, is that, like I said, nobody gets married to an asshole, but everybody gets divorced from one.

And for us, and it's the same, I mean, for farming partnerships, like I said in our last podcast, you know, because of modern health sciences, You know, it's no longer a situation where there's one generation farming at a time. You know, you have 2, 3 generations farming together at the same time. It's a marriage, and you cannot have two siblings split up an operation or else you lose your economies of scale. You're stuck together if you want to farm successfully. You have to make this partnership work.

Shay

Foulk: You need the scale as the world moves forward.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But then you need the synergy of talents as well.. And that's accomplished by you living your belief system, not on a church pew, but behind the barn.

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And, but that's accomplished by you turning conflict from your biggest weakness to its strength. This term stubbornness, to stop being stubborn with each other.

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And start being stubborn with the habits that make a farmer, farm family successful, to be the partner for anybody wouldn't want to be. And I think that's the basic premise of what I wanted to talk to you about today.

Shay

Foulk: Well, I think everything you're saying from a comprehensive standpoint is what's going to make an operation successful multiple generations down the road. And I tell our clients that a lot is like, if we're working with an operation, I'm constantly thinking about, you know, 3 or 4 generations down the road. When I think a lot of times we're thinking about tomorrow, which is important. Yeah. But we need to be thinking about when we make a decision or we are doing something, is that gonna be advantageous for 3 generations down the road? And if we're gonna argue or debate about things about what's gonna happen from this generation to this one, we're never gonna get it to the one after that.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Absolutely. But I, I think the thing is we, we have a sense of entitlement. Like, it used to be that in order to farm successfully, you just had to be better than average, right? In order to farm now, you have to be in the top 1% because, I mean, you got 3 different factors you got to be in the top 1% of. You have to have top 1% of profitability, so, or at least shooting for that, so that you're within the top 10% in the county. Because, I mean, the bloodbath we're going to go through, there's only going to be a few players left, right? And it doesn't mean you have to have big economies of scale. It means you have to have your numbers dialed in.

And the only way you're going to do that is working together also as a team and making decisions together and just functioning day to day instead of having, you know, like that family I was talking to you about before, that 2019, they got the news from the bank, they got rid of a couple employees, but by them pulling through and planning their day and working together as a team, They got so much done. They got their crop planted an extra 3 days earlier than they normally did, right? There's farms we've done 2 weeks ahead, right? But I think the thing is, is that you also have to have the top 1% of marriages and figuring out that work-life balance. I mean, farmers call me up and they say, well, I'm entitled to this lifestyle. I'm not going to work as hard as dad did. I'm like, you're not going to be around. I mean, farming is a competition.

One of the major factors that's key determining ingredients of who's going to succeed or who's not is how much you work. But the question is, how many hours do you work in the business and at home? Like, what's the quality of time that you're spending in the business? On Tuesday afternoon, are you screwing the dog and then spending Saturday afternoon instead of going to a wedding with your wife? You say, I got— no, I got to work. Well, the truth is, if you If you'd have worked on Tuesday afternoon, you could have been out of there, right? But the thing is also Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday evening, are you coming in from the shop and the only time you tell your— you say that you value family time, but the only time you talk to your kids is tell them to get out of the way of the television.

Or are you spending half an hour playing chess with your sons or doing some sort of games or spending 20 minutes listening to your wife? And actually having quality conversation, right? I mean, what I'm saying to you is, are you being purposeful with your lives? And I mean, are you obsessed about the right things? And we only have— are you putting 80% effort into the 20% of things that matter? And I think that what we got to do is get really hyper-focused on and obsessed about what the things we need to become obsessed with and forget about the rest. And that's why I really recommend the book. The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. It gets you thinking. And I suggest you give that to every family member at Christmas. It gets— I mean, we as farmers, we got to become obsessed about our goals.

Back home, the only time my cousins don't hunt is during deer hunting season, because the rest of the season they hunt with a .22. Right. And they have really gamey, gamey beef in their freezer, but they never go— they never starve, but they always make the headshots with the .22.

Shay

Foulk: Okay.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Gotcha. And, and the thing is, is that I would say instead of hunting deer with an AR-15, we got to get really good like we're shooting for a .22. And what we got to be obsessed by is what are the— what are the critical things that matter when it comes to business profitability, when it comes to family relationships, and also relationships with our, with our, with our employees and with our marriages. And we got to stop being entitled. And we got to do— we got to assume that the farm is lost. We got to assume that the marriage is lost. We got to assume that the partner doesn't want to be partners with you in 5 years' time. And we got to ask ourselves today, what do I got to be stubborn at and changing my habits so that in 6 months' time we have a culture that everybody wants to be in.

And we're— we have a culture that we know that even though things are tough, we're going to get through because we're making the right decisions together as a team. We're following through.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, those are all excellent comments. And I would add to that and say just a little perspective, I guess, from, from a vantage point that we have at Ag View. We've— and I think I've told you this before, but It seems like a lot of the operations that call us are, for whatever reason, I would say are probably on the higher end of that hierarchy. You know, that executive— they're pretty good executive-wise and stuff, and there's just some other things they need to do. And a lot of the times those other things they need to do are some of the stuff you're talking about, you know, because they've got the financials pretty well dialed in, the scale is there, but there could be some underlying things to like, how do you transition to the next generation? How do we fix some of the communication? How do we make sure that the day-to-day is not frustrating or stressful?

Yeah, in a way that could, you know, some days can be frustrating no matter what, but you, you can, can you manage that, right? And so one of the things that we see is, again, you know, these operations that are really strong, really good, really doing a lot of the great stuff, and probably have pretty darn good communication, but you always ask yourself, can it be better? And how good is it? Because if you want to be honest with yourself a lot of time, and it's, you know, I'm thinking of my, my family's operation, same thing. I mean, we have to constantly work on it, and it's asking yourselves, you know, is there, is there room for improvement? And to get to the point where you're saying is, you know, can you get to the level you need to?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I, I'm a firm— like, my, my program costs the same as it would to buy a tractor tire. It's just that simple. But the thing is, is that the ability, you know as well as I do, the ability for a family to have healthy conflict with each other and for conflict to be there, to be followed through, I mean, that's a 5% return on— I mean, you've seen it. Oh yeah. You've seen the finances. You speak to that, Chris, because I don't think folks realize the difference in the quality of communication, how it impacts in profitability.

Shay

Foulk: You know, to me, what I— how I would handle that is, and I think I said this to you before we started recording, is that I think we're guilty as producers of investing in— and let's use equipment, for example. If, if we have, let's say, 3 or 4 power units that need either repaired or updated, yeah, we don't even think twice about it. We just take them to the shop and we fix them and we update. We, we do what we need to. We might trade it off and spend $300,000 to update that, that one power unit and spend $30,000 on the other two. Or whatever it is, and it's impactful and we think about it, but we make a known decision that this is an investment for the improvement of the business. But then if you think about it, do we step back and we say, okay, for our human resource team, which is family and non-family, are we investing in that portion of the business?

Because I think that's where I You know, I look at that and I see some of the clients we work with that invest in that portion of their business, and some of it's with us, some of it's not, some of it should be with you, um, from the standpoint of how do you get to that next level? Because that's what a lot of them reaching for, right? They're, they're at 90%, how did they get to 98% of, of success or whatever it is?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I, I think the thing is what excites— I mean, when I met— I mean, I deal with a lot of succession planners and I often get in a situation— I mean, they're— I should say this, you know as well as I do, there's a lot of succession planners out there. There's very few guys that are actually competent in this space. Like, like, I can list on less than one hand, right? And, and I, and I feel that, like, what you find exciting and I find it— I mean, like, for you to do financials I can do it, but I'd rather do something else. Right. Like cut the lawn. Yeah. The beer on the side.

Shay

Foulk: Right.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But the thing is, like, for you, I mean, for you to deal with a family in conflict, you'd probably rather have hemorrhoids. Right. But the thing is that—

Shay

Foulk: I don't know if I'd rather have hemorrhoids. I'd rather—

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: there's other stuff. Rather be sitting on the lawn mower. Yeah, for sure. So when I was excited about meeting you, I think that what you and I do is apples to oranges.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And I further went down that applesauce road and really developed this course so that a family can go through this in 180 days and turn around how they work together in 180 degrees. And then sitting down with you for an afternoon or a day to sit down. And once they understand what their purpose is, once we have the 6 pillars of self-esteem, they all understand what their purpose is in life. They all have integrity. They're saying what they're going to do, do what they say. They all have the ability to have healthy conflict together. They all have the ability to have the right mindset. So they're obsessed about the right things instead of being obsessed about what's going wrong. They're obsessed about what's going right and constructively problem solving towards those goals.

And most importantly, they all have a high degree of self-acceptance, seeing themselves in the mirror for who they are and continuously improving themselves day to day. And I think that self-acceptance tying into what you were just saying, that, you know, I just talked to a farmer on Saturday afternoon and he, uh, they had a bad year but they still made money. And he feels he's not being recognized because they could have easily not had that. I mean, there's no performance bonus for him because, I mean, The profit's not there, but at the same time, he's not getting recognized. And I think that what we have a biggest problem is the type of farm that you have that's a highly successful operation where the son's taken over and maybe doesn't hear too many words of praise from dad, or vice versa, the dad doesn't hear praise from his son.

Shay

Foulk: And appreciation and acceptance.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah. That is a very dangerous person. You know, somebody that I've seen farms get sold where a brother says, write me a check for $10 million. It has nothing. He doesn't know what he'd do with $10 million. He drives an '83 pickup, right? That would be what he'd blow his money on is buying antique tractors. And I mean, he'd have a house in town. What the hell would he do with that? But the thing is, he wanted to be recognized by his brother. And too often that, that farmer was talking about on Saturday afternoon, his pay bonus at the end of the year, it wasn't about the pay bonuses being recognized. And what he needed to do was rewire his brain set. And this is what he went and did this morning, is he rewired the brain set so that he has something like this where he's recognizing his faults And he's turned them into strengths.

And he recognizes that, you know, I might not be appreciated for it, but farming with family isn't a challenge of working with difficult people. It's a difficult challenge to become a better person. Mm-hmm. And my life purpose is to make sure that the people I'm buried with, not cemetery 2 miles down the road, from our farm, that not only me and my siblings, but the next 3 generations are going to be stewards of this land and the county around this. Mm-hmm. It's not just the metaphor of turning into the soil, but our life purpose to be stewards of the soil in this county. And our purpose is to Our challenge is to not just live, to live, create heaven on earth between here and there. The farm can be hell on earth, or it can be heaven on earth. And it all depends on the type of culture we have, we instill.

And that's the culture we instill is not by my brother changing, is by me changing and becoming the best version of myself. And, and, and this— I don't need to be praised. I'm going to set the standards for myself. I'm going to set the 1 Corinthians 13. I'm going to set the standards for myself. I don't need to receive praise. If I know I've turned weaknesses such as being easily angered, and over the course of the next year, I can turn that from weakness into strength. I will grow stronger and more self-confident in myself, and I won't need praise from others, right? I will gain satisfaction from doing the right thing always, especially when it's hard. And so that my family— I'm working toward my purpose in life is working towards never needing recognition for what I've done, but building a business environment that everybody can be happy, that the family together can be successful.

We can find synergies and we can find happiness working together, and, and we can have a great life between now and whenever we end up in the graveyard.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, to me, that's, that's the comprehensive, uh, component of the conversation that I said at the beginning of the discussion. Yeah, that I'm saying now is it's the full circle, right? Absolutely. Uh, it's full circle. It's the opportunities that we all have, even if we have a successful, quote unquote, operation, which most of our listeners, I would say, are very successful. However, we all have room for improvement in lots of areas of our businesses.

And one of the areas that we always see with our— and I'll bring it into peer groups— when we, when, you know, when we have 8 operations and we, you know, 7 of them roll in on one in their site and they start to share all their information and their peers dig out of them what's going on in their business, whether it's financial or transition or, you know, employee management or whatever it is, whatever their topics are that they want to, to be dug out. One of the things that I would say 100% of the time comes out as a weakness or a threat to the business every single time is communication. Yeah, but what it comes down to is the stuff you're talking about. It's all the little pieces because communication envelops all of these things we've talked about in this whole comprehensive discussion.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, for sure. And, and I think the ability to have conflict and making sure that everybody's fully self-confident, right? I think that when, when, before you have that succession discussion, to make sure that everybody's self-esteem has been shored up, their weaknesses in their self-esteem, their fears have been dealt with, and they feel confident in themselves is absolutely critical before we get in that discussion. Or very quickly, you have brothers wanting to sell out their shares in the farm because— and for something that they don't— yeah, just because they want their recognition.

Shay

Foulk: Yep. Yeah. And occasionally we see where they're getting along really good, but sometimes if you dig deep enough, you find out there's other— oh, there's— there are a couple layers of things that never got talked about. Yes, we get along great. Sure. Okay, but there's probably one or two little things that never, never got discussed.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And like I said, let that one— if you get along 99% of the time, but 1% of the time you have conflict, but you're not able to have healthy conflict, it's like shooting a gun but you're, you're a couple degrees off, right? What's really important is you get that gun sighted in dead on so you're able to take a shot and hit the target and drop a deer. Mm-hmm. Right? And what's really important is that you're able to identify issues instead of walking away from that conversation without issues resolved.

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Being able to constructively problem solve. Like, we don't understand that problem solving with our family is a skill. And learning that skill and taking it to the next level. I mean, the level of sophistication in 1950 versus now, from a mechanic standpoint is a lot different. Why the hell hasn't our ability to discuss complex family issues evolved?

Shay

Foulk: And it might be getting worse. That's a whole nother topic, so we won't even go there. But with social media and all of the things that the next generation, I wonder if that's making it so that the eyeball conversation and the confrontation stuff is if that's impacting it some too.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I think the thing is, is that you go to Walmart right now and you can get some good food that's healthy for you, but there's a lot of crap on the shelves. Like they had orange puffballs at the end of the aisles, and I would love to buy that, right? But yeah, and the thing is, is that it's the same thing with social media. But my question to all the farmers is, how can you become obsessed about I mean, there's so many distractions in this world. There's so many distractions in the farm. There's so many, so many seed salesmen that will sit and you can complain to them and they can get you worked up and convinced that your partner's an asshole and that you've done nothing wrong. Right? There's so many distractions we can have on the farm. The truth is what really, for us to know thyself, objectively, and for us to see the faults in what we're doing.

And that's why I put together these podcasts, because I got tired of telling guys what they were doing wrong and they were being defensive. For guys to actually just get a podcast today that's picked— I cherry-picked 4 of them, and out of the 6, they'll, they'll definitely hear 2 or 3 that really hit home. And for us to have a conversation and there to be actually changes made that are micro habit changes, right? Not huge. Like to listen to somebody for 10 seconds before you think about a rebuttal. That's a game changer in how your son come into you in 6 months' time with a really good idea and you actually listening to it and making that change instead of you being defensive to how you done things over the years. And that's a 5% difference in return on assets right there. You've seen that in financials as well.

Shay

Foulk: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The— there's just a lot to it. Um, I guess as we wrap up, what I want to do is if, if people want to, you know, obviously Stubborn is out there, that's a great book. I think I've listened to it about 4 times. Sure. Um, and I, I've shared this with a lot of our clients, and I know we've got a lot of clients that have used it. Sure. If people want to have a conversation with you and just kind of give you some perspective of their business? How do they go about doing that just to get started?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, here's the thing is, first, first of all, I want to address that. So I spoke at your conference. I really, I mean, I really loved everybody I met there. Like, I, I thought it was exceptional conference. If anybody's not been to Chris's conference, that's the money you spend on. Like, most of these conferences you go to these days is a complete frickin' waste of your time.

Shay

Foulk: Well, there's a lot of advertising that goes on.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, I mean, but the thing is, is that your conf— I was really impressed by the quality of people there. Unfortunately, my mother died at the end of that conference. And the week after, I guess the same day, we had a problem with our website. And that got overlooked because of the chaos there. So I know that a lot of guys wanted to get a copy of my book. They didn't get a copy of my book. I apologize about that. So my quest is that you go to my website, get a free book, right? Because— and share that with your family this Thanksgiving. Share that with the neighbor in Christmas time. And I mean, and if anybody wants— I mean, for me, if you want 5 copies of this book, I'll send it to you in the mail. I don't, I mean, I don't care. I don't give money to UNICEF anymore because they're just a fraudulent organization. I'd rather hand out $5 books and whatever.

But the thing is, and also if there's anybody that's a banker or an equipment dealer and they can think of 4 or 5 farmers that they'd like to hand out this book to, just give me a holler. I'll be happy to send you a free book because there's no sense in these things sitting in my basement. I'm all about changing perspectives. And I mean, I came to America to save family farms and, and to fundamentally shift how we, how we do things. We stop being stubborn with each other and start being stubborn the habits and make a farm family successful. As far as working with me, um, I don't do sales pitches. I don't come out to your farm. I just start working with you. And the thing is, is that I don't suggest involving your whole family. I'll just work with you, the individual, for a month.

And you can kick the tires of my program, you can go through and I'll give you— I'll give you my— you give me an hour of your time to explain your situation, a detailed survey so I can figure out your family dynamics. And it's a pain in the ass survey. I know, I understand that. But the thing is, I'll give you a couple hours of my time throughout the next month. And you can see how I work with you. And then if you like it, pay the invoice. If you don't, you can buy me a beer or I'll buy you a beer next time I see you. But that's how I work with folks is I just do it all over Zoom or over the phone. And I stand behind what I do. If you don't like what I do, don't pay the invoice. And that's why we've gotten results is that I've done that for 18 years. You don't like what I do, Don't pay the invoice. And that was lean times the first couple years I got started.

Shay

Foulk: But you learned how to do it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Well, maybe, maybe figure out how to do it.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, right, exactly.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And, uh, I stand behind what I do. Yeah, so that's awesome.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, so yeah, so I, I recommend people, if, uh, you get a chance, uh, at least get the book and then start from there. I think having a conversation with you is well worth it. Sure. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. Start with.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, and I recommend what Chris does too. I think what you and I do is apples and oranges, and I really, I really like— I'm a big fan.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, there's, there's synergy there for sure. But I, but I, you know, like you said, I mean, it's the why. Um, you know, why you do what you do is because you're passionate about helping people, and why I do what I do, and Shay and Andy and Joe and Jeremy, um, is the same thing. There's a reason why those guys are helping and they're part of Ag View now is because one of our core values is we care. And I think that's the difference, I think, of those who help and those who maybe aren't there to help.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: There's a lot of frickin' shysters in the profession.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, I think that's kind of the difference. And, you know, and I'm the same way. I mean, you know, we're We're not here to try to fix everything. We're here to try to help you work through the challenges that you have. And I think in agriculture, to your point, I think we're gonna have some challenging years ahead. I think there's gonna be some opportunities though too for a lot of our clients.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Huge opportunities.

Shay

Foulk: Because not everybody's gonna work on culture. Not everybody's gonna focus on the things they need to. Not everybody's gonna do the hard work. And I think that's really a key.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I think you should wrap this up like looking at this. You take a $5 million farm, and you take a $40 million farm. Now let's just say with both, both farms, they have the same amount of siblings, families, they get along fine 95% of the time. By that 5%, they're butting heads and pulling the farm in different directions, and money slipping between the cracks because half the decisions that should be getting made are not getting made or getting made adequately. Because they avoid conflict. Now the $5 million farm, they decide to turn conflict from their weakness into the strength. They spend what, what it would cost for a tractor tire, they turn into strength of their family. $40 million farm does not. $40 million farm has some competitive advantage as far as scale, scale. But let's assume 7 out of the next 10 years, it's difficult times.

Which family is going to be able to survive? Which family is going to be able to strategically pivot in order to survive? Mm-hmm. It's no longer a game of economies of scale. It's how you communicate as a family, how you problem solve, and the way that you problem solve not being a problem in itself.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, it comes down to decision-making.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Quality decision-making is— yeah, it determines—

Shay

Foulk: yeah. And I think we're on the same page there, you know.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: It's—

Shay

Foulk: yeah, it's one thing to have the data, but the data is only part of the equation. The other part of it—

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: part of it—

Shay

Foulk: yeah, the other part of the equation is what do you do with it. Yeah. And, and I can give— I just had this conversation with the guy the other day, and then we'll be wrapping this up, but they just had a conversation with a guy the other day about You know, we have, um, the same data in front of 5 people in a business that work together, and you're going to have at least 3 to 5 different opinions on the decision that needs to be made with that exact data we just gave them. Yeah, because they, you know, and it's the same exact data, but, you know, okay, we, we've got this, we've got these 3 options, what do we do? Yeah, and one of them is going to be on one of them, and two of them are going to be on one, and the other two are gonna be on another.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: But I think what's important is that we get from a mindset that I'm right, you're wrong, and we get looking at things from 5 different perspectives. And then we, we properly communicate that out. What are the 5 different options? And, and when you start the conversation, you might only see 3, but being patient and spending a bit of extra time Thinking about the other two options we haven't thought about here. Yeah. I mean, how would Elon Musk think in this situation differently than we would? Yeah. And using a couple of decision-making tools to make you think differently. And then, and then the consensus is we're going to make this decision together and nobody's got to be right. I mean, we got to get rid of all sense of arrogance and have a sense of humility and actually listen to each other. And being curious instead of being abrasive and defensive.

Well, and what matters is that it doesn't matter who is right or who's wrong, the right decision gets made.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. Yeah. Or hopefully it's the right one. It's got a consensus.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: We got to have the obsession. We got to change the culture within a family from one person or all the partners being obsessed about always being right to the family being obsessed about being wrong half the time.

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And the right decision gets made.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. I think where it's hard for some too is in some of these operations, we have those who do a lot of research and a lot of data, just create a lot of data. Intuitive. And then you get another couple of people in, in the decision that don't bring all the data. And then those who brought the data can sometimes get frustrated because it's like, I went to all this work.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: And now I got to go back to the drawing board. Well, good, go back to the drawing— you know, I used to have that issue with my brother-in-law. I would, I'd put all these numbers together and his common theme was, no, we're not going to do that. Well, what do you mean? And he'd be like, well, show me this, show me this. Okay, well, I gotta go back and come up with more information.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: That dynamic is what I'm obsessed about fixing, right? And understanding what your partner needs for information and what you— how you think differently than he does, right? Is he an intuitive decision maker? Are you a fact-driven decision? What, how do you, how do you make decisions together as a partnership? If you can evolve that, that has a huge— that's a 5% return on investment improvement next year. Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: And it's talking about the vision though too, right? Because sometimes those conversations weren't as much about that one thing as it was about, um, how does that impact the future? Yeah. You know, I want to slow down. You know, we see that with the generations. I want to slow down. I want to speed up. Yeah, how do you, you know, and it's getting that, getting that navigated too.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: If over 90 days I can improve day to day how these guys make decisions together on a small scale and tweak that, then talking about where the farm's gonna be in 10 years' time, freaking, it's easier.

Shay

Foulk: Easy conversation, definitely. Yep, right?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah, that's where, that's where, that's where somebody like yourself can come in and then start putting the, the longer term strategy together. Well, how much time, like What's the difference in your, your, your bill to a farmer for a family that's dysfunctional, can't sit down in the same room together, as opposed to a family that can sit down? And how effective are you in an afternoon on those type of situations?

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a— and we see that too, because, you know, there's operations we can, we can roll in and within a year, turn them around, we can get everything up and running. Yeah. And then when there's dysfunctional culture, we'll call it, it might never get done, you know, or we create all these action items and none of the action items get attacked, or some of them do, but there's a fall-off, right? Yeah. And so that's where, back to your culture piece, you know, if you don't have that, it's time to work on some stuff. Yeah. Any last comments? I'm gonna give you the last word. I'll give you 60 seconds for the last words of wisdom and we'll wrap it up.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Shucks, you got me out of there. Just the core message is to be authentic. I think that we have a lot of guys that in a coffee shop that are this afternoon that would say they're Christian farm families who vote Republican, they're profitable, and that they, um, they put family first. And I would call bullshit on that because they say they put family first, but the truth is 77% of farmers do not have a succession plan. And you're setting your whole family up, possibly one of your family members having serious mental health issues as a result of dysfunctional family situation. You say you're Christian, You go to church every Sunday. How do you treat your family members behind the shop in tense moments, right? And, and you say you vote Republican. What percentage of your check is from the government? Are you thinking about what the consumer wants?

Are you obsessed about being an entrepreneur and sell them what the market needs. And I'm challenging you to think differently and to get the culture— like, I came home from my farm with a bunch of ideas, and my dad got really offended by these different ideas, and it caused everything. He plowed down my crops, right? And it was the whole culture of my arrogance. And I would say that what we need to do is get a culture where we are treating each other like we would pretend— we treat each other behind the barn like we would in church, right? We are genuine entrepreneurs where we're growing our crop and getting good money for it based on what consumers want, right? We are— we not only are putting family first, the farm first, but we're also putting family first and we have excellent marriages.

And I think that the challenge is for us to stop being entitled, stop taking the farm's long-term future, treat it like 1979, and assuming avoid the hard decisions in '84 by making hard decisions today. And improving profitability, become obsessed. What do we have to do to have an obscenely profitable operation that can be bulletproof against any operation? I mean, how can we get a situation where, like the milk prices, we know what the milk price lows are going to be. How can we be bulletproof in the worst case scenarios that, I mean, if, if it's, if the markets are rising higher than that, we're making good money. Right? More importantly, how can we have really good business partnerships?

Where are the faults in our business partnerships that, that we need to tweak so we have amazing partnerships so that 1% of the time where we have conflict, it's healthy conflict and it results in the farm being better, not us being the worst version of ourselves. And then more importantly, if you get that within your partners, like you cannot change the nature, you, I mean, there's a huge risk factor as far as divorces, right? Which is a huge liability for a lot of operations. I don't care how you insulate things. If you change the nature of how your partner deals with conflict within the business partnership, it's gonna have a healthy benefit to his marriage from two different angles. He's gonna treat his spouse or their spouse it's going to be a more successful relationship because they're able to deal with conflict in a healthy way.

It's going to teach him skills that he can bring home as well. But more importantly, it's going to help you figure out the work-life balance for you to have those difficult conversations with your business partners so that you can figure out how to have a successful family life as well as be able to dedicate the time and work more hours than your dad did. Be able to put, invest your time like it's money in the operation so the farm's more successful. So my 3 things is, the key premise of my book, "Stubborn," is that we are entitled, we are narcissistic, we are arrogant. At least when my dad and I farmed. My key challenge is to be the opposite. Instead of being arrogant, Be humble. Be obsessed with being able to make good quality decisions together instead of being narcissistic. Adapt this as a higher standard your family lives.

And every month, identify one of these traits and make self-improvements as far as development skill set. Like, if you're easily angered, what do I have to do to change my anger management?

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And then finally, stop being entitled. Stop taking your business partners for granted. Start, stop taking your, your, the farm profitability. Assume it's 1979 instead of making hard decisions in '84, whether it's your wife leaving you and, and you having to chase after her, or the bankers leaving you. Start making decisions in '79 proactively and, and making the changes to, to really not— like James Clear says, it's not the level of your goals, it's the level of your systems. By, by stop being stubborn, the habits make a— stop being stubborn with each other and start being stubborn. The habits make a farm, farm family successful.

Shay

Foulk: Awesome. I think that was more than a minute, but I'm really good. But it was really good. It's all good stuff.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. So, and if— and I would recommend, you know, people might need to go back in certain portions of the discussion because there's things that are applicable to certain parts of your business or certain parts of the things that are challenges or opportunities that you're working through.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: And I think that for Thanksgiving— this, this is airing a couple days before Thanksgiving, so why don't you share with a couple friends who you know that this Thanksgiving things are a bit rough. I mean, they're getting together for Thanksgiving with their family, or they might not be, but inspire them to turn conflict from their weakness into strengths. So next Thanksgiving, or even by Christmas, you could wholly, totally change dynamics. Yeah, both as far as farm profitability and family relationships.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Right. And farming becomes fun. The goal.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, that's the goal. Well, hey, I really appreciate it, Andy. Thank you. Really good to see you live. So yeah, good, good having you. Appreciate all, all your wisdom and all the things you're doing to help farmers. Absolutely. Awesome. With that said, um, if anybody wants to reach out, check out Stubborn, um, stubborn.farm. Yep, go to stubborn.farm, stubborn.farm, and check out Andy's stuff. Got some really good things there. The Obstacle Is the Way. That is a really good book too, by the way. And, and you got to read this book, The Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Yep, absolutely. Because there's a lot in there that addresses the mental health issues that are causing farm suicides.

Shay

Foulk: Yep. Yeah, good stuff. All right. Hey, you good?

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: I'm good.

Shay

Foulk: All right, I'm good. Hopefully you're good.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: With that said, share this with somebody.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, definitely share it.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Um, show me you care.

Shay

Foulk: Have a great Thanksgiving. Have a great holiday season. If you're listening to this after Christmas, it's still worth listening to, still worth sharing. Stay out there. Stay strong. With that said, thanks, everybody. And we'll catch you again next time on the Ag View Pitch.

Andy "Caygeon"

Junkin: Take care and God bless.