Personal and professional goals with your spouse

Chris: Welcome to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Before we get going, just want to give you a little insight to this podcast. This is also a podcast that is posted on 19 Minutes, our subscriber-only podcast. Just wanted to put this one on the Ag View Pitch so that those of you who are not signed up yet for 19 Minutes get a little bit of a flavor for what we do with 19 Minutes in terms of content. This one is kind of a special episode with Alyssa and I talking about couples getting together and identifying your personal and professional goals and just trying to improve communication with your spouse. And so we do all kinds of different topics along the lines of business and different things, but we thought this would be an interesting one that a lot of people would get value with. And so with that said, we hope you enjoy today's episode of 19 Minutes. On the Ag View Pitch.

And we will also have a link in the description for 19 Minutes if you'd like to get signed up. We already have a lot of episodes on there with a ton of information. And so as we head into harvest, great opportunity for you to have a lot of really good educational information to listen to on 19 Minutes. With that said, enjoy today's podcast. Welcome everybody to another episode of 19 Minutes. We're looking forward to this conversation today. You have Chris Barron and I have with me Alyssa Barron. How's it going?

Alissa

Barron: It's going great so far.

Chris: Yeah, you're pretty excited for this?

Alissa

Barron: I love doing podcasts.

Chris: Yeah, actually, uh, as a secret to all of you, um, Alyssa has to be, um, basically handcuffed to her desk here so that we get her to do this, but she has a lot of great content for this discussion. And so I'm super excited to have this conversation today about working together with your spouse and a bunch of things. And mainly it's personal and professional goal setting. And so we'll get to that in a minute. But before we do that, Alyssa, I think we should remind everybody about the Ag View Executive Business Conference, January 24th, 25th, and 26th. Anything about that or?

Alissa

Barron: Yeah, so if you haven't seen any of the promotional material yet this year, we are hosting again in Phoenix, Arizona. It'll be at the Hilton Tapatio Phoenix Resort, which is where we hosted back in 2022. We have a really good lineup of speakers again, and I would say even more so than that, I'm lucky enough to see the registrations rolling in and just the, um, people that we have signed up are from really good operations, so the networking is going to be amazing. If you've been able to participate in either of our first two, you know what the networking was like, and I think it's going to be as good or better this coming year.

Chris: Yeah, that's pretty awesome. And that's, that's the thing too, I think a lot of the people who are subscribed to 19 Minutes here are the type of operations that show up. It's these high-level operations that really are focused on the executive part of their business, for sure. Definitely. All right, well, hey, let's, uh, let's jump into the content for today, which is personal and professional goals. And I want to start out by saying it this way, as I sit in Alyssa's office, so, you know, picture this, and I would even encourage you before we get going any further here is is to get your spouse and say, hey, come listen to this conversation with me, or listen to it now and then play this back and listen to it again with your spouse because there's some really cool stuff here that I think you guys are going to want to take home and apply.

But with that said, you know, Alyssa, you came to me and said, hey, we need to sit down and have a conversation. You know, it's a lot about life balance. It's a lot about work. We're no different than everybody else. We work pretty hard. We spend a lot of time doing our work. And so we don't see each other as much as we should. We don't spend sometimes the time that we should communicating. And sometimes if there's a lack of communication that creates separation and just makes it difficult as, as a couple. And so that's why I think this is important. We're heading into harvest as we record this here for the September 9th release. And, you know, as you brought up to me, you said, you know, hey, we need to sit down, get a flip chart out like you use with your clients, and we need to have a professional meeting, just the two of us as couples. And so I thought that was a great idea.

So what we did is we brought in a flip chart. I stood up in front of the flip chart with a big black marker and first of all wrote down what your professional goals were and then what your personal goals were. And as you said them, I wrote them out and I repeated them back to you. Did I write this correctly? Is this what you mean by this goal? And so I think that was really a super good exercise for me because I'm always so visionary minded and I think everybody already, you know, I already think I know what you want and maybe I don't. I think it's just really good from a communication standpoint. Well, then I sat down and then you stood up and you wrote on the flip chart, you wrote my personal goals and my professional goals as well. And then we put them up on the wall in our office where we're sitting right now.

And actually we reviewed them yesterday again about what, 2 weeks later, we got together and reviewed the information that we put up there together. And, you know, I mentioned this to a client, like the day after we did this, I was in Illinois with a client and there was a father-son operation and I mentioned it and the dad's like, well, we're so old, we aren't going to get anything out of that. We don't need to do that. And I'm like, well, this is, doesn't really matter what age you are. If you sit down with your spouse and talk about personal and professional goals, He's like, "Well, what about professional? We're retired, you know?" And I'm like, "Well, no, there's still a lot of things you guys do every day. Those are professional things." And so I just wanted to throw all that stuff out there that, you know, this is timeless in terms of age.

So it doesn't matter if you're 20 or it doesn't matter if you're 70. I think this is a great exercise for spouses to do. So I wanted to say all that stuff and I'm talking a lot here, Alyssa. So what do you think?

Alissa

Barron: Yeah, I'm ready to break in.

Chris: Okay.

Alissa

Barron: To go back to the beginning where Chris talked about me coming to him with this idea, just to give you a little bit of the why, why I wanted to do that. We all know that communication is number one in a relationship, in any relationship. So of course we try to communicate about, you know, family stuff, work life, all of that, but I think it's so important to be maybe not aligned on what our goals are, but at least understanding of what each other's goals are. So to be able to actually sit down and me sit and kind of dictate to Chris what, dictate as far as tell him what my personal goals are and business goals are, and for him to repeat those back to me and make sure we both understand each other's goals, moving forward in the next year, 10 years, retirement years.

And then vice versa for me to hear, hear his personal and business goals, and then to be able to look at those all together and make a plan amongst ourselves so that hopefully we're able to fulfill our individual goals but also put those goals together as a couple. And having it down on paper is really helpful because I, I don't think if we would have just sat down and had a meeting where we talked, we wouldn't have remembered probably half of what we talked about. But we're able to put these big sticky notes on our wall, and like Chris said, we went back and reviewed everything we talked about yesterday, which was probably, I don't know, 2 or 3 weeks after we had our initial meeting and go through that again and kind of see where we were with some of our thoughts on that, expand on those thoughts.

And we both wrote out action items for ourselves based on, based on our goals so that we can actually make things happen that we're talking about, not just, you know, throw things out and, well, I have it, you know, not have something actionable to make those goals happen.

Chris: Yeah. And I think a lot of it has to do with One of the things that makes people the most frustrated ever is unmet expectations, right? And if I don't know what your expectations are, or you don't know what my expectations are because we don't communicate that, then you're going to be pissed and frustrated, or I'm going to be pissed and frustrated. And I think that's a huge part of it, you know, is just understanding what, what your goals are. And if they don't align, then, okay, then where do we meet in the middle, right? You know, I think that's one of the key things. And I think part of what brought this up originally for us too, and you can comment on this, Alyssa, but is like time allocation, right? Time is always the commodity that you can't make more of, right? And so, It's like, that's a wake-up call for me by you saying, hey, we gotta, we need to sit down and do this.

That's part of the reason I wanted to pull you in here and have this conversation because I guarantee you that, you know, most of the people that are subscribed here are the guys, you know, in farm operation and they love what they do, they're focused and the amount of time that, that we spend focused on that stuff. Sometimes, like you've always said, you know, when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. And so I think that's a really key thing is, is that I wanted to do is make sure that we at least get this message across to these guys that are listening to, to 19 Minutes and saying, you know, what, what are we going to get out of this? How do we use this? What are some things that are actionable? Well, this is an absolute actionable thing you can do that can not only make your life better, but it can make your family's life better.

Alissa

Barron: Right. And the other thing I would say is that obviously Chris and I work together. This isn't necessarily only for couples who work together. I think it could be even more beneficial for couples who don't work together, because if you're in two different professions, you don't have as much of an understanding probably of your spouse's profession and what his or her goals are. So this is a way to really sit down and, you know, learn maybe a little bit more about what your spouse does day to day and what their goals are in the future.

Chris: Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, I think, you know, just— I think we should give a couple of examples. I don't know if we want to give a couple of our specific examples, but you know, that we wrote out. You know, Alyssa, what were a couple of your personal goals?

Alissa

Barron: Well, my number one was for Chris to be home more, which he already knows that, but I had to make sure that was at the top of the list. Another one I would say was just that we continue to have personal check-in meetings a couple times a month. And that we actually put those on the calendar. So we've actually, well, we actually scheduled one for next week and we've already had to reschedule that, but that's okay. But that just means we have it on our calendar for twice a month to sit down for an hour and talk through, you know, whatever not necessarily is bothering us, but things we might have on our mind that we just don't take the time to maybe when we're sitting down at dinner to discuss.

Just a little bit more of the important things that maybe you don't want to discuss in front of the kids, or you just want to make sure you have some actual, you know, face-to-face time to talk about. And I would— we also did business goals. So, you know, with, with our business, something that's really important to me is just a little bit more business structure, which Chris is a a visionary, so he's fine with just kind of going with the flow and, you know, going where the wind takes him and what, you know, what he loves to do and what sounds good to him. I want a little bit more of a structure, so how can we work together to make that structure happen so I'm more comfortable, um, you know, from the business side?

Chris: And that's the other thing too, is, you know, we work with a lot of our clients, a lot of people listening to 19 Minutes on kind of their vision, right? You talked about being a visionary, but it's like, what's the, you know, like a 1-year specific plan, 3-year plan, 10-year plan? And, you know, that was, I think, one of your business goals was let's sit down and update our VTO, our Vision Traction Organizer, to make sure that we're on the same page also with Shay and Hannah who help us in the consulting side. And then also to make sure that you know, where the farm's going. One thing that you brought up to me, Alyssa, too— I want to bring this up before I forget to mention it— but, you know, when you first brought this idea to me, I'm listening, I'm like, yeah, it's a good idea.

But one thing that hit home that you said to me was you're always telling all these farmers, um, how, you know, to focus on how much time you work on the business versus working in the business. And so my message here is, based on this conversation, is how much time for the listeners here, how much time do you spend working on the relationship versus in it? So in it is, you know, you show up and you have dinner and you do the family things and you do all that stuff. But how much time do you step back and do this type of thing? And I would argue that most of us don't spend hardly any time working on the relationship as opposed to working in it.

Alissa

Barron: Everybody's busy and you come home from work and all you want to do is eat some supper and sit down and watch Netflix or YouTube or Relax. You don't want to get into all the nitty-gritty, but it's definitely a great exercise to do.

Chris: Mm-hmm. Yeah. One other thing we did that a lot of you do that we just did in our second meeting as we met too was we went through the Delegate and Elevate exercise as well. And that was, I thought that was pretty good. Did you like doing that or what'd you think of that?

Alissa

Barron: Yeah, it's really good. So the Delegate and Elevate, if you've never been exposed to that, it's just an exercise where you have a piece of paper, you have 4 columns. One column is you're going to list the, basically the things you do. So the first column is you love doing it, you're great at doing it. The second column is you like doing it, you're good at doing it. Third, you don't like doing it, but you're good at doing it. And the fourth column is you don't like doing it, you're not— and you're not good at doing it. So for us, as we, you know, get not close to retirement but closer, it's a way for us to look at what we really like doing and what we really don't like doing to figure out what we want to do, you know, for the rest of our working years, the things that make us happier. Yeah.

Chris: And that's kind of as a couple too, right? Because we do this in business, and I guarantee you there's a bunch of people listening to this we've already probably you've done this exercise with and, you know, think about what that looks like with your spouse being involved so that you can understand where they're coming from and vice versa. You know, so I don't know, anything else, Alyssa, that you can think of that we need to hit on?

Alissa

Barron: Well, and another way to look at that delegate and elevate is, you know, if you don't work with your spouse, I think what Chris was alluding to is maybe it just has to do with things around the house. Maybe there's a way you could split up things around the house, you know, that one person really likes doing and the other person hates. And if you just kind of spell that out, it might make for a lot less headaches, you know, amongst yourselves. If, if you know what the other one likes or doesn't like doing.

Chris: Because you like laundry and I'd rather do dishes.

Alissa

Barron: I love laundry.

Chris: Yeah, I hate— I don't— I'm glad you love it away, but I love doing it. That's good, that's good. So yeah, and when I did business goals, you know, for me, a lot of you know me, I mean, for me, it's, you know, I love doing the, you know, working with help, helping producers be successful. That's what I love doing. And the other thing I love doing is farming. And, you know, for me, I had to, you know, this forced me to think about timeline as well. And so whether you're younger or older, You know, maybe you have a dad that's in business with you, or maybe you're the dad, or maybe you're in between and you're in a multi-business, multi-generational business. But for me, what it did was made me think a little bit about the timeline. Like, how do I transition this workload that I have so it's not quite as intensive as it is currently? So that really helped me a lot, you know.

But there's still some things that I put on there. I'm just looking at right now on the wall there, Alyssa's You know, I still love being around in the spring. I want to help plant and I want to be involved in the, in the spring field work. And I want to be involved in the fall. Regardless if I'm running a grain dryer or running a combine, whatever, I want to be involved those times of the year. But there's probably, as I get older, I don't have to be around for some of that other stuff. But then that's when I love doing the consulting part too. So, but it's, but it's making a balance there too, right? I mean, that's, that's your, was your point to me, Alyssa. Definitely. So I guess the other thing too is just for y'all to kind of think about this and what it can do, not only again for your relationship, but for your family and for your business.

If everybody's happy at home, it makes the workload a lot better. And as we get in, as we record this now, a lot of people are just getting into harvest, they're already in harvest, maybe you're listening to this as you harvest. But, you know, think about, you know, a rainy day or a day where you can sit down with your spouse, go through this, and, and just kind of have a conversation. And communication is always the number one thing we run into. And that's why I thought this was so important to have this conversation as we go into harvest, because there's gonna be a lot of long hours, everybody gets tired, sometimes people get frustrated, and sometimes you're not in the best mood.

Alissa

Barron: So, and I definitely do recommend when you do this, put it up where you can see it. I know Chris has told me he's actually come in my office a couple times at night just to look over it again and review it. We're going to keep it up on the wall. And I mean, this isn't just a one-time thing. We're going to keep reviewing this, making changes to it. Um, you know, just going through this exercise. I don't even know how often we're going to do it.

Chris: Yeah, I think we were talking a couple times a month. Yeah, together and just review things. And I think that's, that's the point for all of you to think about is, you know, it's, it's kind of like when we talk to people about doing an estate plan or, or working your business and figuring out, you know, a strategic plan, any of those plans or any of that stuff is always a living, breathing document, right? It's not, it's not like static. It's not like this is the end-all be-all. This is written in concrete and we can't change it. You know, we all change and people change and it comes down to communication. It comes down to respect for each other. It comes down to if you have some expectations, just communicate them instead of being pissed. You know, say, "This is how I feel. This is what I want. This is something I need," and be receptive both ways.

Alissa

Barron: Well, a lot of times I think we think that our spouse knows what we want for the future and what our goals are and our needs and they don't always know, or maybe they need to be reminded. This is a growth exercise. I mean, for growth as a couple, uh, growth in your business, even if you don't work together. I mean, I just think it's a powerful tool to use for you, um, you know, as a couple and individually.

Chris: Yeah. So last thing I'm going to say is get a, get a flip chart, get a day where you can get together with your spouse each of you write down your business goals and professional goals. You write them down for your spouse, your spouse writes them down for you. Communicate each of them back and forth, get on the same page, and communication will get better. And that's the whole purpose for why we want to have this conversation for you guys, is we're going to get busy, things are going to be rolling hot and heavy, and, and we want to definitely try to help you not only just in the business side of things. But as I've always told many of you, you can get all the numbers right, you can have the best financials in the planet, and if the people can't get along and people can't make it work, it won't work. And so that's why it's so important to us that, that you all can learn from us.

And if you guys have other suggestions or ideas or thoughts on this topic, please let us know. Love to hear that too. Any final thoughts, Alyssa?

Alissa

Barron: I don't think so. You did a good job.

Chris: Oh, you did a good job. See, now I can take the handcuffs off the desk so you can step away. All right, that sounds good. Well, hey everybody, really appreciate you listening. Like I said, we're heading into harvest. Please be safe out there. And if you've got topics and other things you'd like us to be getting out to you, let us know. We will be kicking you a bonus episode because this episode will be on, uh, the regular podcast, the Ag View Pitch. So we will be kicking you a bonus episode here in the next few days to keep you current on information from the business side. With that said, thanks everybody. We'll catch you again next time on 19 Minutes.