The boys are back in town: Totally unshucked

Chris: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. This is a special edition Ag View Pitch because for the first time, as we always tell our clients, we want you to— we want to go deep with our clients. We want to understand the family dynamics and everything. And so a lot of you know Shea, and a lot of you know me, and we come to you a lot of times with some pretty serious business podcasts, but we wanted to hit you guys up with kind of an interesting discussion with the boys that are back in town. And so for us in our operation, we've got, in our family I should say, we've got actually 6 boys. Is that right? We got 6, Shay? Your mom and I. So Alyssa and I have a blended family. And so, you know, she brought 5 kids to the occasion and I brought 3. My 3 boys are here. And like I said, all of you know Shay.

We work with Shay together in the, in podcasts and consulting and everything. So what we wanted to do for the first time in 5 years, we've had all these guys together because we have a police officer sitting here, we have 3 guys that were military, and we could never get everybody together at the same time. So what we want to do is have a conversation and we're going to call it Totally Unshucked. And so we're going to start with that, but what I'd like to do is introduce everybody, and I'm going to start with Shay and have him kind of tell a little bit about himself, introduce himself, and then we're going to go around the table, and then we're going to have a conversation that's totally unshucked.

Shay: Yeah, so Shay Foulk here, uh, we actually have 7 boys and 1 girl.

Chris: Oh yeah, okay, I said it wrong.

Unknown: I'm supposed to—

Shay: Nash is gonna punch you if he hears this conversation. Well, yeah, we got 7 boys, uh, 1 girl, and, and she puts up with us pretty well.

Chris: I had 6 beers, so that's why I was— I counted wrong.

Shay: His math's not good as it is. But, uh, yeah, I mean, you know, a little bit of my background. A lot of you know went to Iowa State. From there, enlisted in the Army, had 5 years with the 75th Ranger Regiment, transitioned back, and now work 50/50 kind of between the consulting business, and then the other half of my time is spent with farm operation and seed business in Illinois. So I don't know, it's good to have everybody back together. It's, it's kind of weird. I mean, it's weird feeling you, you say 5 years that we haven't been all together, it doesn't seem that way, I guess, just because you put up with being away from family, right?

Chris: Yeah, well, you guys all looked at each other. It's been 5 years. Well, it seems like 10 years for your mom and I because we want all you guys together.

Shay: So, and I'm sure Sloan feels the same way. I mean, you come back, uh, to visit people and it's just a whirlwind tour of seeing family, right? And it's good, but there's a lot that you kind of sacrifice in between, you know. And so exactly, just, just happy to have everyone here kind of under one roof.

Chris: Yeah, happy to have you guys here. Grant.

Unknown: I suppose it makes sense to pass the mic to me, the middle Barron boy, because it's totally unshucked, and not go to, you know, one of the ends, the youngest or the oldest. So I guess I'll introduce myself. I'm Grant Barron. I'm the middle Barron boy. I graduated high school and enlisted in the Marines. Was there for 5 years, and I'm currently a student at the University of Iowa.

Chris: And we'll forgive you for that.

Unknown: Yeah.

Chris: Okay.

Unknown: Go Hawks.

Chris: All right, Carson.

Unknown: That was good, Grant. My name's Carson Baron. I'm the oldest of the three Baron boys. A little bit about me. I grew up farming underneath my dad and kind of as the oldest, as the oldest son, was kind of taught to put your head to the grindstone and work hard. With that being said, I went to Wartburg College, played golf golf for 3 years, and then after graduating, I did a short stint selling tractors before I took a big right turn and went into law enforcement. And I've currently been serving as a police officer in Iowa for 5 and a half years.

Chris: So one of the things I told you, if you remember— do you remember what I said? You know, you were selling tractors in 2015, right?

Unknown: Yep.

Chris: And I said, the way the ag economy is right now, it's going to be way safer being a cop than trying to get farmers to give you money for machinery. Good luck.

Shay: How do you feel about that now?

Unknown: Right.

Shay: Yeah, the last few years kind of stacked up.

Chris: Uh, well, you know, we've kind of gone to the other side, so maybe we're gonna sell tractors again.

Unknown: I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And as my dad taught me, things ebb and flow, so there's always, uh, ups and downs in every market or career path, I guess. But yeah, at the time, uh, it was not a great time to sell tractors, so I did follow a dream of mine to follow in law enforcement. And just like anything, it goes in spurts. So goods and bads, but it has been a good career so far.

Chris: Well, and you and Shea both did college. You got a 4-year degree in 3 years. I always told my mom and dad college should be the best 7 or 8 years of your life. I don't know what's wrong with you guys. Grant's working at that, but you're going to get it done in probably 4 or something something like that, aren't you?

Unknown: Well, no, I'm going into my third year right now in college. I will finish this year. Seems like longer than that, but yeah, he's a middle child, so you just don't follow along with him as close, right? Yeah, we tend to be forgotten, us middle children. I think about you once in a while, you know, but so, all right, let's pass it to the star of the show. So yep, the star right now. So I'm Sloan Barron, I'm the youngest of the Barron boys. I'll probably have the shortest journey so far because I'm definitely the youngest. I'm 4 years behind from Grant and 6 years behind Carson. So I went to Don Bosco High School, graduated there, uh, enlisted straight to the Marine Corps. I've done about 3 years in the Marine Corps in the communications field, got about 8 months or so left, and then most likely I'll go back into farming is most likely what I'm gonna do.

College just ain't, I don't think, my gig, but I might go. Yeah, I'm gonna do it the shortest route. Just don't go for everyone's long. Yeah, Roger that. But yeah, I'm pretty Haven't had too much of a journey yet, but I've done a decent amount. Met quite a few people that are interesting. But yeah, it's good to be back though. I've been gone for about a year and a half, which is pretty long for me. I never expect to be gone this long, but it'll be good in the end. I don't got too many more times where I got to leave, so.

Chris: Yep. Looking forward to having you back so you can kind of take care of some things.

Unknown: What are you going to say? Yeah, Shay brought up an interesting point just right, right, right when he introduced himself. And it's just, it got me thinking, you know, kind of wanted to ask Sloan just how his time's been back. While he's here, because when you leave— and Sloan's been gone a year and a half.

Chris: Well, yeah, he got in the truck when I picked him up at the airport and he's like, hey Dad, good to see you. Last time I saw you was 19. I'm 21 now. Yeah, it's like, holy crap, you know, it's been a while.

Unknown: And Shay brought up, it's a whirlwind. It seems like you never get to do what you want to do. You're constantly going to see everyone else when you're back. So just, how's it going, Sloan? It's going pretty good. Uh, I've gotten to do a decent amount what I want to do because I just started doing what I want to do, I guess. But I've seen a lot of people, a lot of people with my family who haven't seen me since almost high school. It's kind of how it goes. Uh, and I definitely think goes a lot slower for our families than it goes for us because we kind of just get in the rhythm of things. Like, it does get lonely sometimes, but, uh, with COVID that's honestly the kind of thing that kept me back from Christmas. I was gonna go home for Christmas was a plan, but COVID kind of struck and I got told by my command, I was like, yeah, you're not going home.

And I was like, okay, sounds good. I was like, my mom should love that.

Chris: I think she's gonna call my congressman, but it should be good. You get to do what you're told.

Shay: So yeah, so I, I gotta say, Sloan wanted to look good when he came back, so he decided to get some, uh, bleach blonde highlights in his hair. Yeah, he's definitely looking better than any of us.

Unknown: I decided to spend like 18 weeks in the pool trying to do McQuist like Grant did, and I did that course. That was definitely the hardest course I've ever done in my life, and now I get to know how Marines just can't swim at all. So you're saying the chlorine dyed your hair? Is that what happened? That's what I'm—

Chris: that's my excuse.

Shay: Yeah, there's a lot of excuses going on here. I will ask you though, Sloan, I mean, with your time being away, it's kind of weird because a lot of the people that we talk to, Chris and I refer to it as kind of, you know, backyarditis, right? You get caught up in what's going on just in, in the small community that you live in, the small family that you live with. And you come back from being in the military and you see some of these people that you haven't seen in a long time that have never experienced something else in the world, you know, I've never— have never gone out and maybe taken a chance or taken a step away from the comfort zone that they have. Have you felt any of that since you've been back, or—

Unknown: Oh, definitely. You know, like, just in Iowa, you kind of feel a lot more than any other state, or I guess Midwest feels it. I've talked to quite a few people from the Midwest in the military Midwest kind of has a problem of— problem or something good, I guess, depends how you want to describe it. But people get stuck in like high school or just like the same culture, same little town, never leave it. And it's very hard for them to understand like the paradigms and the paradigm shifts and how people work. And like if some people are super stubborn and like just don't know why people think the other way, it's usually you being in the military, you see everyone from everywhere. I've seen the highest of affluent people coming from insanely rich families to gangland San Bernardino, California, one of my best friends.

So you get to work with a ton of people, and that's a thing that not a few, not a lot of people get to do in their lives. So it definitely gives me a lot of perspective on coming back here.

Chris: That's one of the things I wanna ask you guys, and I wanna have each of you answer this, but I wanna ask sort of one of the things that we tell our clients all the time is how important it is for perspective. We do our podcast with regard to perspective and making sure that we reflect on our businesses and how we do things and how we make decisions. So what I wanna ask you guys is, and I'll start with you, Shea, and we'll go back around the same way, but having to go do something else and be away from the farm and come back with a whole different perspective, what did that mean to you? What'd that do for you? You know, and, and how would you encourage the listeners or the dads that are listening to this that have young kids that it's like, you know, well, they— the kids want to farm or they want to be there, but they do need to go see what the world's like, right?

They need to step out of that comfort zone that Sloan was just talking about. That's, you know, it's, it's hometown. Well, the real world is not hometown, right? So talk a little about that.

Shay: I mean, for me, it's the best thing I ever did. And I'll tell anybody that the time that I spent living in Georgia, you don't have to put yourself in a high-risk situation. You don't have to go to, you know, Afghanistan or Korea or some of those other, you know, silly areas to have that kind of experience of stepping away. And stepping outside of your comfort zone is something that doesn't have to be a geographical thing too. I mean, Carson can probably speak to that for the time that you spent away from family and maybe even in more of harm's risk consistently every day. It's a, it's a really eye-opening thing. And, you know, we got, you know, 4 other young ones here that were supposed to be on this, but they're all chicken.

Chris: One of them's recording us right now.

Shay: He's done a good job. But, you know, when you look at the, the young people out there, uh, the biggest thing that I would encourage them without trying to be, uh, too pressuring, I guess, is to step away and think about going to, to going to college out of state or going to university or going to Texas or going to, uh, doing a study abroad. You know, the people that have taken that time to take the step away and realize the good things that they liked about growing up in a small town community, but also there's so much more to the world out there. And, and probably my number one takeaway of coming back into agriculture as a result of that was the problems that you face day to day in agriculture are so minor compared to all the other stuff that's going on in the world. And it doesn't make your problems any less significant necessarily.

It doesn't mean that you don't have struggles going on, but that perspective of saying, hey, is this really as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be? And if not, how do I take a step back and kind of appreciate everything that I've had going on? That's been the biggest thing for me, kind of stepping away here, I guess.

Chris: Awesome.

Unknown: Wow, I really got to follow that.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, sorry, I should have had Shae go last, but you know, you're the middle child, so you'll come up with something really creative, I'm sure.

Unknown: Um, so coming back to the farm from 5 years away, well, I guess starting off, you know, right when I finished all my training and everything, I kind of— how I remember myself is I, I was a kid, and then I finished everything, and I was an adult or a man. Um, and so I— that's how I viewed the farm. View the farm from the eyes of a kid. I didn't know what was going on. Uh, and going through some of the things I went through, meeting the people I met, the perspective shift that Sloan and Shay both talked about is exactly what I saw also. I saw everything from a new angle. And that's really what has changed for me.

Chris: That's awesome. Cool. Carson, you're up.

Unknown: Well, I think just to piggyback on their same sentiments that they talked about, growing up for me, I was in a— I had a great family life. I had kind of a bubble. I was in small-town Iowa with very few things that I could complain about necessarily as my growing up. You know, experience. Um, with that being said, choosing the career that I did in law enforcement, I almost get that wake-up call and that perspective every single day that not everyone gets that. Um, not everyone. There's a lot of people out there that struggle every day, um, in that same realm of just growing up, just being a kid. Um, unfortunately, I get to see sometimes the people in their worst state every single day. And usually when they call 911, it's like the worst day of their life. And unfortunately, I answer that call every single day, most days multiple occasions.

So for me, it's given me the perspective of, you know, there is true pain, struggle, and hurt that people face growing up. And it makes me have a perspective of I'm thankful for my upbringing, but it also gives me the perspective that that's not everyone's upbringing. That's not, you know, everyone's ultimately what they have to go through to get through life. So bringing that back, that perspective, it just gives me an overall look at, you know, people in general, maybe thinking about other people's problems and like they said, keeping it in perspective of, you know, what truly matters in life. I guess that's kind of the biggest takeaway that I've seen leaving the farm, leaving that bubble that was so comforting growing up. I have a lot to attribute to that bubble, but at the same time, that perspective has made me appreciate it even more.

Chris: So when I'm complaining about it hasn't rained for 2 weeks, it's a little different perspective, right? Right.

Unknown: It's just a different perspective. It's really dry though, you know, we haven't had any rain for a long time. And unfortunately, that complaint is something that we have no control over, right? Um, yeah, at the end of the day. So, um, yeah, it's definitely— that perspective is huge. I think anyone, um, I, I don't meet people that say I shouldn't have done that, you know. It's always a learning experience that makes you really appreciate, you know, maybe your upbringing, right?

Shay: Yeah. I'm gonna ask you some more questions on that later.

Chris: Yeah, we'll let shit— yeah, we'll let, let Sloan go.

Unknown: Yeah, so just on the perspective thing, I guess, uh I've learned a lot of things too, because being the youngest, I kind of get to see everyone grow up. And I think it's kind of weird. I kind of— I thought of a philosophy, I think, on how youngest and oldest are. Middle just stays middle.

Chris: Sorry, Grant.

Unknown: But so oldest comes to the mic. Yeah. Oldest usually grows up the fastest and then the middle, because basically when I became a freshman in high school, I had no one else. And I feel like the middle or the last one kind of slingshots forward. I think I grew up pretty quick in high school and started realizing what I care about and what I don't. And then I got some advice, like I've gotten advice and just like little sayings here and there. One thing that comes to mind though is Carson, one of the things he told me before I was going to the Marines, 'cause I was like, he's like, "Why you wanna join the Marines?" I'm like, "I wanna be like everything they espouse to be, have dedication in my life, have discipline, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the things they espouse." And Carson said something that is kind of true.

He's like, okay, well, all the Marine Corps is going to do is put a drill instructor in front of you for 3 months and then they're not going to be there. And that was honestly true. Like, you see people even in the military stop, like, caring about their goals. And it really is kind of on you to keep your goals in perspective if you want to do something and kind of keeping your individuality and knowing who you are and what your goals are. So I got a perspective there, like of what the normal trend is, even in the military, whether that's good or bad, um, and kind of staying true to myself. I thought that was a really interesting perspective.

I've slowly learned throughout the years, and it even rings true to, to even back home, on some people are just stuck in high school, college, or whatever, and just kind of keeping your individuality, I think, is pretty important, and knowing what you want in your life.

Shay: Yeah, the, the military will suffocate you just like life. If you don't have that discipline. I mean, you don't have someone there holding your hand to achieve the goals that you want to. And so I guess the question that I would ask for you guys, and if you don't have something to add here, is, you know, for, for Grant and Sloan, you guys chose to go in at a real young age into the military. How did that affect you, and do you wish you would have done it differently?

Unknown: I don't wish I did anything differently. I— Sloan, just off your point, you know, I think that you're exactly right. At the end of the you are who you are. If you are a farm kid from Iowa that goes into the military, everyone's gonna want you in their corner because they know you're a hard worker. If you— if you're— okay, excuse me, if you're a turd, if you're a turd going into the military, you're gonna stay a turd. The drill instructor can't turn a turd into not a turd. But so, he's— Sloan's exactly right. And no, I wouldn't do anything differently. Joining the military right off the bat, you know, graduating high school, like I said, it turned me from how I view myself at least, maybe how others view me too, from a kid to a man. And I wouldn't change that. You know, I think I did the right thing.

Chris: Well, that's one of the things too. And Shay, I'll, I'll hit you up on this. I know you had some questions for Carson, but, you know, we just come off of last week, you and I traveling together for 3 days in a row working on business, you know, development meetings and stuff. And so one of the things you talked about a lot in the presentation we were giving was just being decisive, right? Um, talk a little bit about the importance of that and kind of the perspective you guys all get from what you've seen, what you've learned, and the importance of being decisive. Because I think a lot of times these farming operations and those who are listening to this podcast sometimes are waiting for all the information, right? You wait for 100% of the information before we can make a decision. Should we buy this piece of equipment? Should we invest in this piece of land?

Should we do some of these things? And I think it's really important to make sure that we're making decisions and, and not just sitting there forever to have all the information because you're never going to get it all, right?

Shay: Yeah. So I'm going to turn to Sloan real quick, uh, to answer that same question. Are you happy that you did what you did, uh, going into the Marines as quickly as you did?

Unknown: So I'm absolutely happy I went to the military right away. I don't think college was for me. Like, I could have done college and probably got A's, but personally I don't want to do that. That was never a thing I wanted to do. Like, college still, even for me, I don't particularly want to do it. Just because I'm a pretty principled person and I truly do love efficiency and asking like, is this doing exactly what I want to do for me? So I'm happy I joined the military. Um, maybe I would have followed a more, uh, route that you did, um, going into the Special Forces community. Even Grant would agree with that too. The Special Forces community has a lot better people on average because it's hard to get into.

Chris: You have to be better.

Unknown: So if I, I would have joined the military no matter what, but maybe I would have thought to do the route of Air Force Pararescuemen, that would have been the route I would have gone to. If you'd go talk to 18-year-old Sloan, I don't know if I would have passed it back then, but I could have trained. But as Grant said, and he said before, we did, we did the most with the information we had at the time. Like, that's the information I had at the time, and I did it. And I've, I took advantage of the Marine Corps, I think, as good as I could, or more not take advantage, but took the opportunities and tried to use them to the best of my ability. But, um, yeah, I don't know. I'm really happy I joined the military though, for sure.

Shay: Yeah, dude, I tried to tell you. I remember a specific conversation. I reached out to you and I'm like, hey Sloan, I don't care what you do, man. It's your choice. You can do whatever you want, but you should really think about like going the path of the Rangers, or, you know, think about the Army. And, and that's okay because it doesn't matter, right? The point that I want to make back to Chris's question is the decisiveness, and you guys made a decision. What I heard both of you say just now is you don't regret it. You didn't know what the hell was facing you when it came to joining the military or going into the Marines, but it didn't matter. Um, you know, from my perspective, when I was 18, I wanted to join the Marines. We had a couple Marine recruiters come to a football practice, and I was like, hell yeah, I want to be a Marine!

Look at these guys, you know, they put us through this like, uh, this task thing or whatever that we had, and they look so good in those uniforms.

Unknown: So good in those uniforms.

Shay: I was, man, just want to kiss him or something, you know. You know, when it comes to that, I thought that's what I wanted to do. My dad's like, hey, no, I really want you to go get a 4-year degree. And that's okay. But about halfway through that time period, I had that calling of, you know, who are you as a person? Grant said, you know, how do you become the person that you want to be, that you know that you are internally? And so while I was going through that college time frame, I thought, man, you know, it's my time to enlist. This is what I want to do. I didn't want to go the ROTC route. I didn't want to do the officer thing. I wanted to be the person out there kicking in doors. But when it comes to making a decision, I think for all of us, it did not matter what anybody else said because we knew who we were.

And we're very fortunate to live not only in the time period that we do, but also in the environment when we can make those decisions individually. And we didn't have all the answers. We didn't need to. And so when you think about, you know, farm operations or you think about businesses out there, you know what the right path is, you know what you want to do with your life, at least for, you know, the next 3 to 5 years, you think that's the decision that you want to make, you just go after it and, and be flexible with your decision-making process. I mean, I, I would turn to Grant, you know, he's going through the college time frame right now, he's kind of deciding what the next step is for him. The doors are kind of unlimited, right?

You're going to have a lot of opportunities from having the degree, you're going to have a lot of opportunities from being a disciplined person with a military background, you have opportunities probably to come back to the farming operation in some capacity if you wanted to. But, you know, you kind of have your heart set on what you want to do and what that next step looks like. And if you don't do that, you might regret it, right? So how do you make that decision moving forward? And I think that's just probably one of the biggest things. I don't know if anybody has—

Unknown: yeah, I'll add to that. What is it? Yeah, with decision making, I guess I have one thing to say. If you're a person like me, I like to think a lot. I am super about like getting as much information as I can. For people like that, you definitely have to worry about analysis paralysis. That's a huge thing you have to worry about.

Shay: We might have talked about this last week.

Chris: We just, we just spent last week talking about this. Perfect.

Unknown: That's good. But yeah, you got to watch out for that. But I think Carson wants to say something. Yeah, it's funny a little bit. It's kind of Interesting to listen to Grant, you know, thinking about that next step and even Sloan coming back and talking about decision-making in general. For me, I think I have a little bit of a different perspective than these guys, even being in the military, just because of the job I do every day. But Grant finds himself in kind of the same situation that I found myself in after college, making that decision of what is your next step and and, you know, weighing out all the options and what career path am I going to take. And it seems like this daunting decision to be made. But with that being said, it was almost— looking back, it was an easy decision in that I had time to make that decision.

You know, as I've been in law enforcement, a lot of the decisions I make, especially as a patrol officer, I don't have time on my side. I don't have as much information as I probably wish I would have, but I'm the one looked at to make that decision every day. I'm told, this is what I know right now, and I've got to make a split-second decision or a very short-lived decision with limited information. And I think everyone listening to this probably knows the state of law enforcement today and the political atmosphere that we find ourselves. But with that being said, I have an interesting perspective on that, being a law enforcement officer and just talking about how making decisions, you know, every decision might not be easy, but, but we only have one life to live and you have to make a decision.

You have to finally come to the conclusion and then hit it as hard as you can with everything you have and not look back. That doesn't mean we don't make mistakes, or anyone might make a mistake in the career path they choose or the decision. Even going back to farming, the marketing decision they make. You know, but with that being said, we learn from those decisions that we make and then we get better with time. And in most decisions, hopefully aren't life or death. Now, obviously, all 4 of us can probably speak to— there are some decisions that are life and death, and that just raises the stakes. But with that being said, most important thing is once you make a decision, committing to that decision and, you know, not looking back. And then understanding that if you did make a mistake, learning from it and then making better decisions going forward.

Chris: That's awesome. I don't know, any other comments before I get to my next question?

Shay: I guess I'll interject here. You know, Carson, one thing that I would ask you is, from my perspective, having been through the military, I had a couple deployments that I really enjoyed. I mean, I got to do exactly what I signed up to do, you know, exactly what I wanted to, right? And you chose a career path that presents you with more challenges, probably more difficult challenges every day than a good guy, bad guy, right? That's not as simple as it is all the time, right? Even in war. But I'll tell you, you know, I don't know, last time we saw each other in person, year and a half, 2 years ago, right? I think about you often, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for what you do because I don't know if I could do that. Personally, when I think about what I want for my future, I want to go live in the country so frickin' far away from any town, right?

And a bunch of the stuff that you deal with. Yeah. How do you think about that from a, from a day-to-day basis? How do you kind of carry that load? Is it a conscious decision that you have to make daily, or is it just the calling that you have of understanding this is where I can have the most impact?

Unknown: Sure. I think, not to speak for everyone here, but we come from patriotic red, white, and blue bleeding families and upbringing that I think was probably at the root of a lot of us choosing the paths we did, with that being military or law enforcement. It was definitely one of the causes that, that drove me into a law enforcement career. With that being said, I think You know, I don't think about the choice every day because it's just the job. It's just what you chose to do. And all I know from my upbringing, being that being on a farm, is you do the best you can and you work as hard as you can. And at the end of the day, I can rest my head knowing that I did that, you know.

So ultimately, it just comes down to, for me, and I'm like you, I'm a country boy that likes to hunt and fish and be out of the woods and not necessarily be down in the thick of the city and dealing with that type of issues. But I find myself every day being in law enforcement dealing with those issues. But back to our earlier question of perspective, I guess what it does for me is gives me the perspective of really being thankful for the opportunities to go and hunt and go and fish and get away from the craziness that I find myself every day. And it's a— it's a— I struck a good balance. In my life where I can go to work and that's my job and I do it the best I can every single day. But then I do have hobbies and things that get me away from that and allow me to have a good balance in my life.

And I think that's super important nowadays, especially in the career field of law enforcement, that you have to have that balance to keep yourself sane.

Shay: The other thing that I would say on that, I think for the four of us sitting here, is we don't bitch about the decisions that we make. Right. It's ownership, right? I mean, it's that extreme ownership. No one asked me to join the military. No one asked me to, to do the deployments or to go on patrol or to take the, the freaking swimming test silly ass Marines do, you know, whatever it is. I mean, no one asked us to do that, right? It's self-inflicted, right? And even if we didn't fully understand the challenges, we make that decision pretty often on is this what we want to continue to do. And I think that perspective is really important because We see some farm operations sometimes that say, well, you know, the world is happening to me. That's not the case. I mean, there's things that you can control on a daily basis.

There's decisions that you make about the equipment that you buy, about what you make with your cropping decisions. And yeah, there's a lot of things that are out of your control, but that stuff isn't as important as the things that you actually can control on a daily basis. Right.

Chris: Any other comments from you, Grant, or Sloan? Otherwise, I'm going to go to another question. I'm going to give you guys your opportunity to roast me here for a second.

Unknown: And so, you know, everybody's like, oh yeah, we're gonna do that, so this is awesome.

Chris: So, you know, last week Shay and I had the opportunity to work with some really awesome business people and work on business development stuff, and one of the things that we talked about in that thing was being able to take constructive criticism. So one of the things I want to challenge everybody watching this and listening to this— and if you're listening to this, I encourage you to go back to YouTube and watch this because I think it'll be more meaningful to you and, and worth your time. So what I want to do is I want you all to think about what I'm going to ask these guys and think about your own operation. Think about what you do in your operation and your leadership team that works with you, for you, your family. A lot of these operations have family members, a lot of them have employees, but are you able to take constructive criticism?

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna just do this right in front of you guys. These guys didn't even know this was coming, so they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So now, right now, I can tell The gears are turning. They're thinking, okay, now what can I talk about? You know, what can I rip on Dad about or whatever, you know? And I know Shay, I drive him crazy a lot because he's the type of person that thrives on conflict. And like, I avoid conflict like the plague. I just don't like conflict. However, I'm pretty good at taking Constructor Chris and my thinker. You're going to find out real fast here right now. So what I want to do is, I haven't decided, and I'm going to let you guys decide who goes first, and you guys can— You want to go? Okay, maybe Grant wants to go first. So, all right, well, we're going to let Grant go first.

Shay: It's the middle child syndrome.

Chris: Yeah, but this is the whole key of taking constructive criticism, and, you know, and then I'm also a pansy, so I'll try not to cry here, you know. Anyway, so here we go. How about it?

Unknown: All right, um, constructive criticism. Um, I elected to go first because I think that I'll probably be stealing this from Sloan or Carson's brain, um, because they probably have thought the same thing over the years. But I would say, you know, growing up on the farm and growing up, you know, trying to be like Dad and farm, I would say, uh You're not the— you're not the best at teaching us how to use equipment. I mean, I can just remember hours of laughing.

Chris: I can—

Unknown: I can remember hours and hours of, you know, trying to learn how to field cultivate. And you just couldn't believe that I didn't know how to do it just as well as you.

Chris: Why the hell do you not already know this?

Unknown: When I'm, you know, I don't even know, 6 years old. And he's like, you don't know how to— already, you know, operate every single piece of equipment on the farm. And yeah, you know, so, uh, it took— the learning curve took longer because I don't know if you knew how to teach the 6-year-old the best yet. But, uh, that'd be my constructive criticism.

Chris: Okay, thank you.

Unknown: Yeah, no, to piggyback off Grant, I mean, same sentiment. The teaching of the smaller things was always a struggle, and we always learned, but it was through the avenues that we had to We had to make it happen for ourselves, whether it was call a friend or whatever it had to be. But after Dad got done yelling at us— but no, um, I think I could sit here for hours and, and speak to who Chris Barron is as a farmer and his just talent as a farmer. I don't think anyone that's ever met my dad has ever thought that guy should be doing a different career. He should be You know, he's right where he's supposed to be, and he's always been there, um, and he, and he hits it hard every single day. And, uh, and it's always, you know, it's, it's cool to see for me as a, as the oldest, I guess, looking for my career path going forward.

But with that being said, piggyback off Grant, there was a time, I guess, or a few times that I can think of where, uh, um, the one that's most sticks out to me right now is, uh, driving the 4020, which has been in our family for since 1969. Yeah, as I've been told, my dad has started planning on it at 8 years old, you know, 6 years old. And anyways, he knows the 4020 like the back of his hand. So, um, obviously, as when I'm 7 years old, I should know the 4020 like the back of my hand as well. Um, with that being said, I did not know the 4020 like the back of my hand. And, and the, in the gears, uh, in the, in the shifting tree did not have the stickers anymore because like you said, it's been from 1969 or whatever. So I did not know where the gears were located or how to work the gears on the 4020. And I should have known though. I should have had that born into my brain when I was—

Chris: You're supposed to know that right when you sit on it.

Unknown: And so, yeah, he couldn't— he was dumbfounded that I could not get the tractor up the field by myself. So he had to come do it for me and Yeah, I learned through trial and error, and I was always scared that I was going to flip it on myself or something because he made sure that I knew that I could do that if I messed it up. So anyways, that was— it was always fun. And I was lucky to have brothers, younger brothers growing up that we could always, you know, just laugh at those things together because we all had the same sentiment, you know. But we, we, we we turned out all right.

Chris: And I think I can speak for the other ones. It's funny you said that because I just had Nash, who's our 11-year-old, on the 4020 two weeks ago, and he was going through the gears. I'm like, you gotta pull on it. It's not like, it's not like an 8, that's not like going to these tractors, you know. You got to actually pull on the gear shift, you know. And so you guys are maybe gonna have to talk after this, I think.

Unknown: So yeah, so for me it's kind of more of the same, but I'll, I'll go a little bit more on like the actual constructive side of it. So it's not just my dad, I would say. I'd say it's even other farmers though too. And, um, just from what I've met, and honestly people everywhere, even in the military I have this happen too, is, um, people not understanding tacit knowledge, um, which is basically like fundamentals of things. So I can give an exact example of my dad. So I was running the inline ripper and, um, just learning how to do it And it's just, it's on 3-point hitch and it's 5-shank. And I'm driving it and I'm like, I think I got this.

Chris: You know what, my dad hasn't yelled at me yet, so I think I'm doing pretty good.

Unknown: So I'm like, I'm like, bear, I like click it up and then I start turning really quick. So it was kind of still on the ground though, and I didn't know. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And I'm like, what? He's like, God, you're gonna rip the thing off the back. And, um, I'm like, oh, that's good to know. Anything else to know?

Chris: Don't turn the stuff in the ground.

Unknown: Yeah, he's like— so he told me that and I was like, that's good to know. What else do I need to know about this? So just so much like the tacit knowledge, like they'll be like, yeah, like any farmer telling you how to drive anywhere is, yeah, so you turn by Harry's place and then 5 things down you're going to see Joe in his Whopper uniform and you should be good there. Like, okay, Google Maps, no.

Shay: Okay.

Unknown: Sounds good. But so that's my constructive criticism.

Shay: I think I can speak to that the same way, not growing up in this farm operation but from the consulting side. You know, Chris, I think as a, as a worker, the, the work ethic that you have is phenomenal, and I don't think any of our clients or people that we've ever worked with have questioned that because they know how hard you work in the farm operation, and they know how hard you work in the consulting business to provide value to people. But from my side on the consulting, and kind of what I've heard here today, is you'll give me 30% of the information, be like, hey man, figure it out. And I'm like, what do you mean figure it out? Like, this is— these are, you know, these are severely important questions. And I thrive off of that personally because I think it's important then to do the research into what are the things that you need to know.

It's not like a 40/20 when you're out there trying to shift and you can't see the freaking numbers, trying not to rip the 5-shank off the back. It's a little bit more— it's a little bit more delicate than that. Um, but it, you know, from a, from a senior partner to a junior partner perspective, uh, I think there's a lot of value in having people figure out that stuff on their own, and you kind of just have to feel it out, right? Whether you're pulling a, pulling a cultivating tool behind you or trying to figure out how the 4020 runs, uh, you can't teach someone what it's like to shift between the gears on a, on a tree that's a little different than you're not used to, or not like one of these 8000 Series tractors in the back that does it for you. There's a little bit of a talent and an art to that, but it takes time.

And I think these guys are very fortunate to have spent that time growing up on the farm operation with you and learning some of those things. And it's not the principles of, hey, here's how you farm. It's the principles of, hey, here's how you go through life. Mm-hmm. You know, you have to have that experience. You have to have the time behind the steering wheel in order to say it's time to put my big boy pants on and I understand what's going on here.

Unknown: Mm-hmm.

Shay: So I think those principles are good. We all have room to grow, right? I mean, I know, you know, one of the biggest things we talked about in some of these presentations over the last week is what are our weaknesses and what are our challenges. You know, we don't have everything figured out in the consulting business. We don't have everything figured out in our, in our farming operations, but we make the decisions with the information that we have. And there's a lot of value in that. There's a lot of truth and understanding that we don't have to have it all figured out Because life comes at you really freaking fast.

Unknown: If you all had it all figured out, then there'd be no stories to tell like this that we can laugh about.

Shay: What are you gonna do?

Chris: Yeah, yeah.

Shay: What, what more is there to it?

Chris: Yeah, exactly. Well, I, I appreciate you guys roasting me. And again, what I would encourage the listeners to do is, is to sit down with your team and have that roundtable discussion a little bit. Probably maybe not quite this lighthearted unless you grab a couple of beverages and have the conversation, but I think You know, it's really important that we step back and we take that constructive criticism to try to make sure we all do and make better decisions for our businesses. So with that said, I guess, Shay, do you have any— anything? You know, you're also the other half of the podcast thing. Is there anything you can think of, or not to put you on the spot, but anything else we need to be talking about to wrap up, or any other comments that you guys have?

Whether it's from, you know, it was funny last week we were in Indiana and we were from the southern part of the state to the northern part of the state and we carried a rock with us and, and Shay, you can talk to this, but you know, we spent a lot of time picking up rocks, right, in this area. You guys are like, yeah, I don't even want to talk about it, but you know, we're just in an area where there's a lot of rocks and one of the things that I think is important is that We recognize that, you know, we do the things that we have to do even though we don't— certain things we don't want to do in what we do. And we're lucky to get to do what we do, but we got to also do those things that aren't as much fun in the business. And a lot of times we talk about working on the business versus working in the business.

And that's kind of where I want to wrap up, but is for the listeners to think about this. You know, we ask this question all the time. You know, for our clients, right, Shay, of, you know, how much time are you spending stepping back, going up to about a 30,000-foot view and looking at your business and saying, how am I making decisions? What am I doing? And when— where is this business going? And if you're in the business and you're the one that's sitting there all the time doing the work, you're not necessarily always going to make the best decisions. And I'll finish up with that. I'll let you make some comments, and then we'll let these guys kind of close out with any comments.

Shay: I'll say you're also guilty of asking about 6 questions in a row and asking someone to answer all of them.

Chris: Yes, I answer all 6 of them.

Shay: Going back to the rock question, I mean, the message behind that is Extreme Ownership, right? And so if you have a rock, if you have a pile of rocks in one portion of the room, and you need to get that pile of rocks to the edge of the field, or you need to get it somewhere else in your life, what that rock represents is the ownership in your life of, guess what, buddy, you have to do something about this. You know, whether it's in a relationship with a spouse or with someone that you care about, or whether it's in your business and the work that you care about, or tough decisions that you don't want to make in your job but you have to anyways, the message behind that rock is you still have to do something about what's going on there, right?

And so when you think about that decisions, I would just encourage everybody listening to this message of don't just sit there, because the risk of doing nothing is greater than the implications of the decisions that you're going to make. Carson hit on that earlier. I mean, at the end of the day, you still have to make a decision. You have to live with that, whether it's marketing, whether it's some of the higher value stakes that we have, whether it's the career decisions— do we go to college or do we join the Marines or whatever it is. So that would, that would be the first thing that I would say. The second thing that I would say is this is, this is real life, right? These are the conversations of You know, what Chris and I, part of what we wanted to demonstrate here is we're just a family. We're people that have our own problems.

We're people that work through the challenges that everybody faces. We don't have it all figured out, and I think we're very candid about that in some of the discussions that we had is we're not a shining example of exactly here's what you need to do. There's some principles that we've been able to learn over time by working with people of maybe more importantly, saying, hey, here's what you shouldn't do, right? And, uh, as we go through life and kind of figure out some of those things, I think it's important to share those stories. It's important to share the things that are working and not working. And, uh, at the end of the day, just do the best that we can. There's not much more else that you can do.

Chris: Yep. So I think what we'll do here is we'll kind of wrap up, and you can wrap up, and then we can hand it around. Or I might have you go last, Shay, because that'll give you a little time, unless you want to go first.

Shay: I gotta pee really bad, so how about I go first?

Chris: Yeah. All right, go ahead.

Shay: With what?

Chris: Uh, just wrapping up. I don't know, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up kind of the conversation.

Shay: I mean, I'm, I'm thankful for these guys, right? Because the country that we live in, the— and these arbitrary conversations that we're able to have is because there's a lot of people that lay their life on the line, right? Uh, you know, whether it's protecting our freedom or protecting us from the people in our communities or, um, just making decisions that have profound effects in our community. I'm thankful to be associated with these people. I'm thankful to know them, and I'm thankful to be impacted by the messages that they have and that they're able to provide to us every day. That's all I would wrap up with.

Unknown: Again, I have to follow Shay's, you know, amazing message.

Chris: And he's got to pee, so he's leaving. And then you come right back.

Unknown: Say goodbye to him. Be right back. I mean, obviously, I'm also very thankful I'm glad that we got to do this podcast. I hope everyone enjoyed it so far, and, uh, I hope everyone has a good, great year. Great year.

Chris: Make a lot of money.

Unknown: Make a lot of money.

Chris: Go ahead, Carson.

Unknown: I'll also try to follow up, Shay. Um, but with that being said, we talked about earlier, um, this is the first time in approximately 5 years that we've been able to sit down and just talk. So I guess for me, it's just being blessed to be in the same room and share these memories. Life goes fast, and it's, and it's super short. It's shorter than we could even fathom. Unfortunately, life changes on a dime, and sometimes we don't get to choose when that is. So I guess my perspective, you know, has changed over the last couple years, and I've, I've seen that You take every— you don't take every day for granted. Embrace the challenges that you have because it means you're still living and you get to deal with the challenges. And also hold those people close to you that you hold dear in your heart, that family.

You know, it's a blessing that I get to sit next to my brother who hasn't been back for a year and a half and hasn't even met my youngest daughter who is a year and a half years old now. So I just would wrap up with life's short. Do the best you can so at the end of the day you can lay your head down and say, I made an impact and I did the best I could with what I had. And the people who are close to my heart know that I love them. And, and that's kind of, that's kind of how life goes. So I appreciate the opportunity to be on here and talking to you guys. I'll let Sloan wrap it up.

Chris: Thanks, Carson.

Unknown: I gotta finish this. All right, yeah, so wrap it up, Sloan. So yeah, I definitely say I'm thankful to be home. It's definitely been a long time, longer than I expected to ever be away, um, at a time. So yeah, just, uh, I don't know, grateful to be around people who I am with. Uh, I definitely had a great environment growing up, like Carson said.

Chris: We've had—

Unknown: we were really lucky to have these great environments that we could actually figure out who we were and not a lot of people get to do that. But I definitely always say to people, remember who you are and what you want in your life, because, um, other people might try and live vicariously through you or tell you what you should do, what you shouldn't do. Um, but definitely it's very important just to remember who you are, what you want in your life, uh, even if some people say that's the wrong decision, especially if it's not just a personal decision. I'd say go with it. What is it also too for decision-making? Because that seems to kind of be one of the themes here. Um, one of my best piece of advice is on, on at least learning in life, uh, was given to me I think by my dad even.

Um, was he said, he's like, it's good if you learn from your own mistakes, but you should definitely try and learn from others' mistakes before you make that mistake. Because there is going to be a price you pay with a mistake and trying to recover from that price you paid was learning from that mistake so you don't have to make it again. But if you can learn from others, which is like peer groups and everything of what mistakes they made, you can be better and even be ahead of other people because you didn't make these mistakes in the beginning. You thought it out and you asked other people for help and what they did and what they think, what they think might help you. So yeah, that's basically my final thoughts. Back to you, Dad.

Chris: Good job. I'm glad that you remembered that advice. That's awesome to hear you. Bring that back out. And again, you know, that's, that's kind of the whole idea of this, of this podcast, of this, um, what we're bringing to you on YouTube is to reflect a little bit on our business, to give you guys a little bit of insight to what Shay and I are up to doing and, and our family. And, you know, again, we've got a bunch of other younger, younger kids in the family that we couldn't get them on here. They were all scared to be up here, didn't want to be. And we got one that's really important that's with us, Joseph of recording this. Thank you, Joe, you do a great job of putting together the podcasts and, and doing all that. We really appreciate that. And thank you, all of you guys, we really appreciate, you know, Sloan, Carson, Grant, Shea, thank you very much. You guys are awesome.

We also want to just encourage you in your own operations to step back, bring in the people or the teams that are on your family, and do some reflection. That's one of the things we did last week is I went back and put together some case studies of our seed agency, of our farming operation, of our consulting business, and going back and reflecting. And Shay did a great job last week of talking about the importance of recognizing your successes and being happy about that, but also be willing to be roasted a little bit and find out some of those things that you can improve on and some of those those things. But with that said, any final thoughts from anybody here?

Shay: I would just say, Chris, congratulations on, on young men that you've raised and the operation that you've built and the hard work that you've put into it. I don't think there's anybody here that questions what you've put into there. And with that, I'll wrap it up by just saying thank you everyone for taking the time to listen to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and catch you next time.

Chris: Awesome, catch you next time.

Shay: The boys are back in town!

Unknown: The boys are back in town! I said—