Legacy Farmer The Podcast

In our latest podcast episode, I share a personal story about my family's experience when our farm operation went under almost 20 years ago. Financial instability shook my grandad's $10 million operation, and in the blink of an eye, everything he worked his entire life to build was gone. This tragedy is all too common, with many farms facing a similar fate every year. We explore the emotional stag...

When Is Enough, Enough? Owning up to our actions, understanding the results we've created, and deciding where we want to go next can be incredibly challenging. This struggle is evident in many areas of life, including our body and fitness. Most people aren't satisfied with how they look and often postpone necessary changes, returning to their comfort zones. This pattern isn't unique to fitness—it'...

Whenever someone starts a business, and assumes all the risk, the very first thing they focus on acquiring is money. You can't be drowning and build an impactful business at the same time. The whole process is hard and unrelenting. Each new phase the business enters as it grows has its own set of challenges for the owner. If you are doing $1 million in revenue right now, you are not the same perso...

We all have different perceptions around things in our lives, at different points in our lives. You think different things about your parents as a teenager than you do when you are a parent yourself. The key to perception is challenging it. Is what you are seeing the truth, or, is your brain telling you a story, and influencing what you are seeing? Don't let false stories stop you from confronting...

The ego misleads, the numbers don't. Once you know your starting point and the decisions that got you there, you can start to build your way out. Only getting out of your comfort zone and making hard decisions will get you back to stability. The ego is what blocks the reality of the truth of knowing your numbers. Are you running your operation based off your ego or off the facts?   Check out the I...

Many of the older generation of farmers are set in their ways and reluctant to change. The members of the younger generation have to be willing to adapt and change with the world around them if they want their operation to survive. Once you have gotten an operation up and running and, most importantly, stable, you figure out your own way of doing things that works best for you. This makes the proc...

This time of year can be extremely scary and stressful for people in the Ag Industry. It's a time with high bills and low income, which can cause people to panic and start to tell themselves stories that they aren't financially stable, when they really are. Knowing your numbers is the best way to alleviate all of that stress and worry. Without knowing your numbers, the stories will control you for...

The farming and ranching industry has a very high suicide rate, and it's only gotten worse over the last decade or so. Many times we think that if we just had money it would solve our problems. What we don't realize is that the problems run far deeper than that and once the surface-level problem of money is gone, all we are left with is the deep, festering, real issues below it.     Check out the...

All business owners go through pits and peaks when starting and growing a business. It's very important to be able to recognize when you are in a bit and to not let yourself get stuck there. Our lives can be broken up into the 4 categories of body, being, balance, and business. Many times when the business is struggling it is one, or multiple, of the other categories pulling it down. Focusing on t...

We all get into what we are doing to build something better for the next generation. We all have a vision on how we get to that point, and if things don't go exactly as planned, we can start to feel like a failure. Sometimes, we also have to reevaluate the path we are taking to make sure it's the most sustainable. Holding the goal of handing down a legacy is the most important, but you have to be...

A lot of people like to tell themselves that once they fix their financial problems, everything will come together in their life. The issue is, once you fix the financial problems, all you are left with is the real problems. When it comes to solving financial problems, for some people it's quick, for others, it can take years. When you are trying to build something great with your life, it will co...

On the farm there is usually a massive disconnect between leadership, and just telling people what to do. When you are telling people what to do you are just managing them, you aren't teaching, building them, or growing them, like you would if you were leading. Leadership means leading people to become better versions of themselves. It's important to lead your team members because they will come u...

There are times in our lives where we do take risks, but on the flip side, we must understand when to hold fast and protect what we have. Seekers take on unmanaged risk and always swing for the fences. Which is fine as long as you are considering all the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order consequences that come with failure. Hiders are risk averse and avoid it at all costs. This is also fine as long as it's...

Right now, because of the economy, both people in the Ag industry and banks are getting apprehensive about taking out, and loaning out, money. Many people are trying to figure out how to recover from poor financial decisions they made back during the pandemic because borrowing money was easy. Greed drove both the banks and farmers to make poor decisions over the last few years. Our Farmer Metrics...

Everyone hates hearing the truth when it's something they don't want to hear. We hate feeling exposed and having our faults pointed out. This is especially true when talking about finances. We don't want to fail our business financially, and we especially don't want to fail our family financially. But, we live in a world of reality and ignoring the truth won't help us improve ourselves or fix our...

Sometimes it can feel like all your neighbors in the Ag industry are constantly growing and expanding their operations. It may look good from the outside but the majority of them do not know their numbers and are guessing with each decision they make. Even if you put together an annual cash flow projection, neither you nor your banker are looking at that again after you create it. In Legacy Farmer...

Zero percent financing is very enticing, it makes you think you'll save a ton of money, but it's injecting the opportunity to fail for the year. It lulls you into a false sense of security, feeling like the bank account is full and you don't need to be as careful with your spending. If you aren't religiously tracking your numbers you wouldn't even see the dangers coming until it is too late. It is...

When you have a son or daughter come back to the family operation, are you setting them up for success, or failure? Are you dropping them in the deep-end with oppressive amounts of debt and no knowledge of how the business works? Or are you giving them space to make small mistakes and learn what they need to know to be successful later down the road? Wanting to help your kids is a great thing, but...

So many of our members in the Ag industry share the same problems, no matter where they are in the country. One issue that arises most often is dealing with bankers. There are issues with farmers not knowing their numbers, but there are equal and opposite issues with bankers not fully understanding the Ag business. You have to be on top of your numbers so you can give your banker the information t...

When you have a safe job, you get comfortable. This is stagnation, and you can use manufactured pressure to motivate and push yourself. The most successful people can generate the discomfort they need to stay motivated and get themselves moving. Once your business becomes stable you can unnecessarily and accidentally revert back to this mindset and make things harder than they need to be, this is...

Everyone wants to sit in the leadership position and reap all the benefits that come with it, but no one wants the price of making hard decisions that come with weight, backlash, and impact on others. These decisions also raise your awareness. You can now see the impact of not only your decisions but the impact of all the decisions of your team members. This awareness is most sensitive when their...

The number of hills you should be willing to die on in business shouldn't be that many. So many things we think we need to fight to the death for, just really aren't worth it. When we run up against a challenge, it's important to ask ourselves if it's a hill worth dying on, or if it wont even matter in a few hours, days, or weeks. Asking yourself this question also stops meaningless issues from st...

When you go out on your own and start your own business you completely remove any safety net and you are completely responsible for yourself and your family. There are farmers in their 50's and 60's that are still expecting their fathers in their 80's and 90's to save them. If you are still looking for someone to save you, you need to recognize that all the power and growth is found when you accep...

It's common to hear farmers say that it's hard to find good help. The truth of the matter is that they don't have the correct incentives set up to draw in the right people. If you do have a solid team in place, it is important to ask them what incentives they want to help drive up their productivity and efficiency. Incentives completely depend on the person. Some people want money, some want short...

Not knowing your numbers, poor leadership, deterioration of relationships at home, are all great ways to rot your operation to the core. You can't kick the big issues down the road and hope that they'll just go away. They won't, and the longer you do, the more painful it'll be when you finally face reality. These issues and rot can even be seen in the banking industry, and it's important for you t...