Changing Minds: how to listen deeply, ask good questions and help loved ones open up.

Vance Crowe [00:00:01] Thanks. Well, I wanna start off by saying thank you to everybody for coming. I am a firm believer that your attention is the most valuable thing that you own. And I realize that on a day like today, there are many places that you could go and pay attention to things that will impact your future. It could impact, you know, the decisions you're making with crops and how you diversify or what you get to practice on debate and the the speaking work that you guys do. So, thank you for coming. My name is Vance Crowe and I came to agriculture unexpectedly. I grew up in small town central Illinois, and just like most kids, all I wanted to do was leave and get away from small town central Illinois. And it wasn't until many years later where I was invited to go work at Monsanto, where I became the director of Millennial engagement. And that's kind of a funny job title, but at the time, which is about 10 years ago, there was a lot of pushback against GMOs and pesticides. And so my job was to go out and talk with people about those concerns. And this was a wonderful experience for me. It re, it led me back to my cultural roots, which was being in small town America and an understanding of how rural communities work. And so it is a great honor for me to be here talking with you today because I wanna share with you things not so much about what I learned about being a speaker, but about what I've learned over the last five years of being a listener.

Vance Crowe [00:01:40] And now, as they were talking about in my biography, I spend my time recording people telling their life stories so that future generations can watch these recordings and know their family history. And through this I've been able to learn a lot about not just the heritage of our country and about the inner workings of families, but I've also had a chance to learn on a much, much deeper level how to help people open up and talk about things that truly matter. If you consider the idea that when somebody is recording their life stories and we are proposing we will store these stories for hundreds of years, they are really sitting there thinking, what is it that I have to share that is of deep enough value that a hundred or 200 or 300 years from now, somebody of my family line can watch this and pull something valuable out of it. And so in order to help you maybe kind of understand the where I'm coming from, I wanna start off by getting you to think deeply about a question. What is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on? If any of you are listeners to my podcast, I have a weekly podcast called the Ag Tribes Report. Is there anybody in here that listens to the podcast? Alright, a few. During this podcast, I ask people this question and the reason I ask them this question is because it makes 'em uncomfortable, right?

Vance Crowe [00:03:13] This is a challenging question to ask because actually as human beings, we are optimized not for truth. We think we are, we think we always want the right answer and the true answer. But the reality is, if you go back and look at where our beginnings were when we were in tribes and we were, you know, trying to scour the world every single day was a hunt for calories, we needed to get along with our group of people, it, it created a mind that is optimized not for the right answer, but to get along with other people. And so this question is one that I love to ask people. We call it the Peter Thiel paradox because it's really got two parts to it. The first thing is, I ask you this, and if my guest says something that people don't, they already agree with, well then they failed, right? But then if they tell me something that everybody disagrees with, now they've created a, now they've created a new problem because now they have to find a way to convince me of something that I don't already agree with.

Vance Crowe [00:04:14] Okay? Now that this podcast has been running for a little bit, I thought I would just pause and give you a little bit of context about what's going on here. I am giving a speech at the American Farm Bureau's Fusion Conference. This is an enormous conference that brings in Farm Bureau members from around the United States. And they're from a bunch of the different committees and groups that really make Farm Bureau what it is. The young farmers and ranchers, the Women's Leadership Group, there are a whole lot of communicators there, and even presidents from various farm bureaus. And they invite speakers in to either teach about technology or talk about different changes that are on the horizon. And I was honored to be invited to have a conversation with all of these communicators about communicating. And so this talk Changing Minds is about what I've learned doing Legacy Interviews. You, I'm sure you heard me open it up and kind of talk about Legacy Interviews, but I really am pretty excited to share this with you. Oftentimes when I go to give talks, it feels like a private conversation between me and the people standing in front of me. And when I get a chance to share these things, I'm always a little nervous, right? When I'm in front of an audience, I can see their reaction, we can interact, I can answer their questions, but here I'm just releasing it out into the wild. Now a lot of speakers, they, they really protect what they, their speeches. They don't want people to get out. They don't want their jokes or their whatever it is that they're saying to get out. But for me, all of my talks are unique.

Vance Crowe [00:05:46] Every time I am invited, even if the talk has the same name, it's gonna be different. And in fact, the talk that I gave at this Fusion conference the night before, I was changing out huge chunks, adding in things that you're about to hear now that I've never talked about, that I've never even put before an audience. To me, one of the biggest benefits of being in front of a live audience is that it is electric. There is an energy that you are sharing and what you are saying is not so scripted that you can't update it as you're going. So I wanted to share this with you, one, because I think it's a great way to share all that I'm learning in Legacy Interviews with you. And two, because if you are a person that is putting together a conference and you want something really unique for your audience, consider having me come and talk about Changing Minds. The audience was filled with young men and older women and all different kinds of people from throughout, and we received great feedback about what they thought about it, how much it would change them, how much it updates, the way that they think about interacting with others. So I'm gonna let you get back to this podcast, but I wanted to break in here, kind of explain what was going on and, and just say, I'm glad you're here.

Vance Crowe [00:07:04] So the reason that I ask you this is because I know that everyone in this room has things that they believe that other people don't necessarily agree with. Now that might be on some grand national level, Hey, I believe this policy should be this way, or I believe farming should head in that way. Or it might be something on a much smaller scale. It might be that you believe something about the way your family is operating or about choices that you should make and that you know that other people don't agree with you because you've said it before and people didn't listen to you or they didn't like what you had to say. Now I want you to think about this question for yourself because I want you to feel that discomfort. That discomfort is something that when people come into my office to record their legacy interview they're dealing with, because everyone that comes in, oftentimes the Legacy Interviews are gifted. You have adult children that say, I wanna have make sure mom and dad are recorded so that my children, their grandchildren can know where they came from. They can understand what dad was really like. So they know what I went through and why I treat them the way that I do. Now, you would think, or at least I thought that when people would be receive this as a gift, that they'd be like, oh gosh, that's great. I can't wait to tell my story. But it turns out a lot of people are afraid to tell their story.

Vance Crowe [00:08:37] The reason that they're afraid to tell their stories is because they have been working their whole lives, they've been gripping on, they've been one of these two do people that have gotten things done. So they are wound up tight, they're always trying to make sure things are going and they've never taken the time to look back. And so oftentimes they'll come into my office and usually if it's a couple, there'll be one person that's marching right in there. They've got a lot of good stories they want to tell. And there's another person that walks in with their arms folded like this, right? And they're not so sure that they wanna be here and they're not so sure who I am, and they're not so sure that they want to tell me anything at all. And so you have to ask yourself, how can we go from a person coming in like that and getting them to be like this? To be open, to be telling a story, to be laughing. These people, when the man came in there, he did not want to, his name is Steve. He had no interest in this. He told me the same thing that many people tell me, ah, I don't really have any interesting stories. Nobody's really gonna care. I've lived an unremarkable life. And here you see, he's sitting there telling a story, he's so engaged and his wife's laughing. So the question is, how do you get somebody to move from this closed off position into being somebody that's willing to open up? And I would take this a fur a step further, is to say, why does this matter to you? Why should you care about getting somebody to want to open up and tell their stories?

Vance Crowe [00:10:14] Well, it's here that I actually wanted to throw a, a thank you out to one of your fellow Farm Bureau members, Kelly Roberts from the Virginia Farm Bureau about a year or so ago. She and I had a conversation. I will occasionally call up people I know in ag and I'll say, Hey, what's going on with your members? What are the latest problems that they're experiencing? And is there anything that I know about that I could come talk about that? So Kelly and I had this conversation back and forth and she talked about how so many of her farm members, the young farmers and ranchers are on operations where they don't know when is it going to be my turn to make decisions? When is it going to be a chance that my family and I can know what's going to happen in the future so that we can start to plan, so that we can start to actually build out our lives with confidence knowing what mom and dad or grandma and granddad are gonna do. Now up until this point, I had never really thought about it, but as Kelly's describing this, I started to remember that many, many times about a month after I've done the legacy interview with a, with an individual or a couple, I'll get a phone call from their kids and their kids will be like, Vance, you are not gonna believe this. I am right now on my way to the estate attorney because mom is finally decided that she wants to let the farm get passed down and she's gonna move in with her sister in Minneapolis.

Vance Crowe [00:11:46] And she's wanted to do this for 10 years since dad died. And she's just never done it before. She just couldn't get herself to do it. Or I'll get a phone call with somebody, be like, Hey Vance, you ain't gonna believe this. Dad came downstairs yesterday morning and announced that he was gonna take his first vacation in 40 years. And so as I'm talking to Kelly, I started to realize I am experiencing so many people setting down who they were, letting that go and taking on a different role in their family. And this wasn't because I had instructed them on anything. We hadn't even talked about what their succession plan was or what they wanted to do. Really all they were doing was telling their stories. And this became something I think that's really important, particularly in agriculture. You know, you think about an ag, particularly the Farm Bureau. I spent years working with your PALS program and different, or organizations inside of the Farm Bureau where they've been like, Hey ag, you need to tell your story, tell your story, tell your story. And that's true. But there's another set of stories that need to be told. And it's not your story, it's actually getting other people within your operation to tell their stories. Because when you do, you will see that they will change. When you get other people to open up and talk about what went on in their past, I believe they're able to set that past down.

Vance Crowe [00:13:23] They're able to let go of being this to do person, and they start to become a person that can become the wise person or a person that's living out a new chapter of their life. And what I came to realize in talking with Kelly is that this is so much bigger than just my individual business that's designed to record people telling their stories that the truth is, it will actually do more good for the world than anything I've ever spoken about. If I can teach you how to get people to open up and tell their stories, then we can start to solve this log jam that we've seen happen in our culture and and agriculture of people struggling to let go of who they were and letting the next generation go on. And so I want to talk a little bit about how to become not just a better listener, but a person that can prompt other people to reflect on their lives, lives and share with things that are important to them. And then watch where that goes. Because wherever it goes, I can't predict, but I can tell you it will be an adventure and I think it will be a net major positive for you. And I'm gonna start off by talking about this concept po I was a US Peace Corps volunteer, and I was living in a remote part of rural Kenya and there i, I was, you know, just working on different projects. And one day, the guy that's supposed to be teaching me how to integrate into culture, his name was Daniel.

Vance Crowe [00:14:56] Daniel came to me and he said, Vance, we need to go to, to say Poe for a woman whose husband died. Now, Poe, if you go look this up in the dictionary, Poe equals, I'm sorry, right? It's what you say when somebody dies or gets sick. So here I am, an American guy that's got a lot to do. I'm really focused on getting things done. And I'm like, well Daniel, you know, where, where is this funeral? He's like, oh, it's just there. We'll just go for a bit. So I'm like, all right, let's go. So I stand up, I'm not really interested in doing this because I actually hate going to funerals. And one of the reasons I hate going to funerals is because of the way they work in American culture, right? We go and we stand in line and we shuffle up to the family, maybe we see the the casket and then we keep moving on, and then we see the family and we hold out our hands. And what do we say? I'm sorry for your loss. Now, the reason that I really dislike this is because it feels so disingenuous. I'm always afraid in the back of my mind that the person's gonna say, sorry, what are you sorry about? What? Why? Because there's some kind of failing in our language, right? There's something that doesn't fit with saying, I'm sorry, when you weren't responsible for anything. So I'm imagining as Daniel's telling me this, we're gonna go over and say I'm sorry to a person that I've never even met their husband. How could I be sorry about this? So Daniel and I start our walk. Now, what Daniel didn't tell me was just there meant walking all the way down a mountain, crossing a river, and walking all the way back up another mountain.

Vance Crowe [00:16:34] So by the time we get there, I'm already pretty upset. He's been wasting my time. We've already dedicated more time to this than I ever thought we were going to. So finally we get to the compound, and as we go in, I notice that the women are sitting over here by the fire, they're making tea and food, and the men are sitting over here. The widow is very obviously sitting in a place of honor. And so I think we're going to walk over there, say I'm sorry and leave. But that's not what we do. What we do is we walk over to a table of a group of men and boys and we sit there and a little girl comes over and she brings the tea over. Now you guys have heard this term, chai tea in Kenya. Chai tea is really, really caffeinated tea with a Kool-Aid level, amount of sugar in it. And so I'm sitting there and they pour me that chai tea and I start sipping on it. And I think, all right, we're gonna do one cup of tea, and when I finish this, then we'll go. So I drink down that tea and just as that little tin cup is getting empty, I, you know, make sure to hit it on the table. So Daniel hears, I'm done. We can go say I'm sorry and get outta here. But as soon as I do, that little girl over there pops up, she's got her kettle walks back over, pours more tea for me. So now I'm moderately caffeinated, a little bit annoyed, but I'm like, I can suck down another cup of Kool-Aid tea here. Let's do this and we'll get done. So I drink this next cup of tea a little bit faster, hit the thing again, of course I'm expecting Daniel to stand up and go say Poe and then we're gonna get outta here.

Vance Crowe [00:18:09] But that girl comes over and fills the cup up and now I'm really caffeinated and really agitated and this goes on for hours. Finally, Daniel stands up, dust himself off, says like, whoop. And then we start walking to leave and we go to leave the compound. And I said, Daniel, I think you forgot to say I'm sorry to the widow. We better go back. We're not gonna get credit for having been here. Daniel looks at me and I said, Daniel, we didn't say Poe looks at me like I'm totally nuts. And so I end up saying, you know, we, he keeps walking and I'm falling behind him. I'm like, Daniel, we didn't say Poe. Daniel, you forgot. We didn't say Poe. And he thinks he's completely bewildered by this. This is a cultural divide here. So finally I re I figure out that Daniel isn't stopping. We're gonna walk all the way down the mountain and come back up it. So now I'm in a hurry. I'm like rushing right behind Daniel. I'm trying to get him to move faster down the mountain 'cause I got things to do. And I trip over a branch and Daniel turns and he says, Vance Poe Poe. And in that instant, my understanding of human beings changed. It was immediate because in that instant I had a revelation. Something I had never thought of before, something I never realized, something the Kenyans knew far deeper than anything that I had ever been taught in my own culture. You see, pootle when you go to the dictionary equals slow down.

Vance Crowe [00:19:45] And I believe, and in that moment came to realize that the dictionary different definition, when they said polling equals, I'm sorry, was somebody making a very serious translation mistake? What the Kenyans knew that US Westerners had forgotten was that when somebody is in pain, when somebody is experiencing something, there are no words that will help them get past it. There is nothing you can say. And so when they went to say Poe, they weren't saying anything at all. Instead, they were spending time with people. And this became something that helped inform so much more of how I interacted with people. Because you have all felt the experience of somebody sitting and truly being with you. It's profound. And it doesn't happen very often. What normally happens when we are sitting with our loved ones, maybe you guys can relate to this. You're sitting with somebody that you love, you care about them so much, your husband, your boyfriend, you're, you're, you see them kind of staring off into space. You know they've had a long day. And so you ask them that question that's burning in your heart. What is the question you ask that person? What are you thinking? And how well does that go? Terrible, right? And how many people in here, I'll ask the men, how many men in here like being asked, what are you thinking about?

Vance Crowe [00:21:24] Nobody? Why? What's going on there? This is a profound realization, right? Because you think the woman is sitting there saying, I want to connect with you. I want to know what's going on with you. When you ask, what are you thinking about? The man gets mad. Why are you asking me that? I'm not thinking anything at all. And the woman is sitting there saying, what do you mean you're not thinking anything at all? I can see it as written right on your face. But the truth is, most of what we think of as thinking isn't thinking at all. Most of what we're doing when we're staring off into space is experiencing emotion. We're experiencing what happened to us earlier in the day. We're reliving it. We're trying to say, that guy cut me off, or maybe I should have said this back, or whatever. But we're not thinking about it in words. So when you ask somebody, what are you thinking about it? It's a little bit like asking somebody, what does that color smell like, right? They're like, I don't know. And now you've ripped them out of what they're doing, and nothing good happens from that. So what can you do instead? Well, when a person walks into my office and they've got their arms crossed, and we're about to spend six to eight hours together, I need to find a way to get on their wavelength, right? I need to find a way to synchronize with them. And if I ask them, are you mad or are you frustrated? Or How are you feeling? They're gonna say no, right? I am fine. Why? Why do you ask?

Vance Crowe [00:22:55] So what I do instead is I show them this painting in my office. We stand in front of it. It's almost as big as this thing is right here. And I ask them a very simple question. I ask them, what do you see? And I would ask you that question. You have to think about it in your mind. 'cause as soon as somebody throws out an answer, you're gonna see that too. I've asked hundreds of people this, so I'll ask you, what do you see? Anybody planting seeds? Anything else? A tired woman. Anything else? What's that? Survival. Survival, yes. So people come in and they look at this, and it isn't a trick. I've heard hundreds of answers. People think that this is a woman walking in a jungle or crossing a street or carrying groceries or whatever it is that they see whatever it is that they see, it doesn't matter. I'm sitting there looking at this painting with them, and I ask them, what do you see? And now we can get on the same wavelength. I'm not judging them. I'm only listening. And oftentimes I'll ask you, what are they feeling? And they'll tell me what is it that they're feeling? And in some ways, it's a bit of a Rorschach test. Maybe they'll tell me a little bit of a glimpse about what's going on in their own lives.

Vance Crowe [00:24:26] But more than anything, what it does is it shows them that I'm listening because most of us go most of our lives without ever having anyone listen to us. Sure, you go to to the checkout line and somebody knows that you're taking that shirt and you want to get it checked out, and you have that interaction, but they're not really listening to you. But when somebody is really listening to you, when they're fully present with you, that changes your state. And so while it's not easy as what are you thinking about trying to direct somebody and saying, Hey, what is it that you see here? What are you observing shows them that you are synchronized with them, that you are listening? And if you can do this, if you can be present with people, they will feel it. You don't have your phone out. You're not trying to go anywhere necessarily. You are just trying to be present with them. We all know what it feels like when somebody is really deeply listening to us. It feels so good that we often find ourselves waking up partway through the conversation being like, why am I telling you so much stuff? And it's because when somebody's present with us, it feels so good and so rare that we wanna share. And so now as they're beginning to open up, you have to ask yourself, how can I be a better listener? Right? This is something that people wanna do, but it's really hard to become a better listener because what's the answer?

Vance Crowe [00:25:59] If somebody says, you should become a better listener, what should I do? Be quieter, harder, right? How can I do that? What is a good listener? How do you know if you're a good listener? Is there anybody in here that thinks they, they're a good listener? There's gotta be more than that in here, right? Yeah. Okay. There like people are good listeners out there, right? And when somebody's a good listener, it really opens people up. And I want to talk about an experience I had a couple of years ago. A woman was telling me a story about her life, and she's given me permission to share this story. She had moved from St. Louis out to LA and she was telling me this story about how when she got there, she fell madly in love with an artist. And this artist was somebody that she just became so into that. She said, I would finish my work as fast as I could, and I would go to his house and I would sit in his studio and just watch him work. And I absolutely loved it. And he would get so annoyed with me from being in that studio that he would shoo me and the dog out and he'd say, go watch movies. And then we'd go watch movies. And yeah, it was, that was an unfortunate thing. And then we broke up and it didn't work out. So the story kind of trailed off. Now, if you are a really good listener, what is it that you would ask that person next? Think about that question, what you would ask them next.

Vance Crowe [00:27:31] And I wanna talk about the two interruptions that I think most people have. What actually keeps them from asking a great next question. And I think almost everybody falls into one of these two camps, these interruptions, these things that as you are synchronizing with the person, you hit this wall and the conversation drops off. The first interruption is the internal dialogue. This describes my wife to a T, right? She meets a person, they start talking as they're talking, she's like, wait, what was his name again? And wait, what? Where did he work? Oh gosh, okay, now who is he connected with? Right? And the conversation starts going, and is she listening in that way? No. She's so lost in trying to keep up with it. How many people in here get lost in your own internal dialogue in a conversation there? The hands are going up, right? That's easy to do, right? And we get stuck in this thing of like, oh no, what am I gonna ask them next? And then when the time comes for you to ask a question, you're just scrambling and trying not to embarrass yourself. Now, the other interruption, this is the one that I am guilty of if I'm not careful, is what I call fast matching. Fast matching is when you're listening to a person and you find the fastest, most surface level way to connect with what they said. And you say, oh, you did that. I did that, right? Oh, you went there, I went there. I'll give you an example, right? Imagine a person has just told you, oh, I, I dropped my parents off the train station for their cruises to The Bahamas, right?

Vance Crowe [00:29:06] And the fast matcher will be like, oh yeah, where? Where in the ba Bahamas are your parents staying? Now why is the fast match? You're asking that? Yeah. 'cause they've been to The Bahamas and they hope that you are staying at the same place that they stayed at. And now you're gonna be able to talk about that. And we're lured into that, right? In Western culture, we are told, Hey, the best way to relate to another person is to find some commonality as quick as you can and find a way to connect with that. But the obvious next good question, the person that dropped their parents off at the train station to go to The Bahamas doesn't wanna talk about their trip to The Bahamas. The thing they want to talk about is why in the world did you drop your parents at a train station when they're going on a cruise? But the fast matcher misses that. That's me. I'm a fast matcher. I want to connect with people as fast as possible. How many people in here are fast matchers? Got a few of those too, huh? Okay, so what can you do instead? If you have this challenge, what is it that you can do to keep yourself from doing this? And what I do is I call it a game. It's really just a mentality. I call it the tiniest choices game. When someone is telling you a story, particularly a story that they have not thought about very much, they're telling you about their past, they're telling you about something that happened, maybe they're telling you about something, that this is the first time that they've really revisited this story maybe in their whole lives. You have to understand how people tell these stories, right?

Vance Crowe [00:30:38] When you're telling, when you're thinking back, you're viewing it in these snapshots, I view, I talk about it being like plunging your head into a, into a bucket of water and looking around at those experiences all you get are these snapshots. Now, you would think a person would tell a story, A to B, to C to D, right? Just what did you see that happened? But the truth is they're telling you these snapshots, and oftentimes they include these details in the story that are completely irrelevant from A to Z. But they included them in there anyway. And the reason that they included them in there is because the core of the story may be from A to Z. But the interesting things are in those details and they don't even know it. So let's think back to the artist. What was the tiniest detail she included in her story? What's that? The dog. The dog, right? Why did she include the dog? Why was the dog pushed out with her in the studio? So what I asked her next was what I was really curious about, but she's telling me about this and the natural reaction that normally what you would say is, oh, you're in la Where? Where were you living in la? Oh, you had a heartbreak. I had a heartbreak too. Yeah, let, let me tell you about mine. Or, that was really rough, wasn't it? But what I asked her was, tell me about this dog. And the woman lights up, right? She goes, oh my gosh, his name was Sky.

Vance Crowe [00:32:11] He was this fluffy malamute. He had no business being in la. And oh, I loved him so much. I would take him for walks and I got him special food. And you know, come to think of it, I remember when I was talking with my boyfriend and he told me that he actually didn't want the dog anymore, but it would be more work to get rid of the dog than it would be to just keep him. And so that's when I knew that's actually how he felt about me. And so I took the dog and I left, right? That key detail, right? She had not even connected that it was critical, super important to the story because it actually is what guided her her towards what she was doing next. Now, when you are listening to people tell stories, they are littered with tiny details. And we sit there, I know I've done it for years with my own mother before I realized what was going on. It's those tiny details that to me is like he's in a rabbit hole. Where's she going with that? But that is where all the gold lies in the tiniest detail that they're telling you about. Now, of course, you can't explore every detail. So how do you keep this from being another internal dialogue where you're like, is it that detail that I should ask him about? Is it that detail? So what I'm proposing is if you want to be a great listener, you have to trust yourself. You have to let go of thinking, I'm going to try and find the next perfect question and instead let go.

Vance Crowe [00:33:44] And it's hard and say, when this person's done talking, a question will come to mind. Something will be there and it will be the right question. And because you are fully present with them, if you let your curiosity wait, you will be able to ask them questions that alert them to the idea that you are really there. And even with your own parents listening all the way through to a story that you've heard a hundred times, letting yourself go all the way to the end, and then waiting for that question to come up. If you can trust yourself enough to do that. And you might find sometimes that you fall down just like ice skating, right? You're trying to do this thing and you fall down and you don't have a question there. But if you really trust yourself, a question will come to mind. Now, it's not perfect. So maybe somebody in here is thinking about, well, what are some questions that you could ask or that you could have ready to get people to open up? And so I wanna share with you some of the things I've learned about asking questions that get people to open up, whether they're really close family members to a new person that you're just meeting for the first time in networking with one of the first things that you realize, if you get a chance to ask hundreds of people, hundreds of questions, right? I'm now hundreds of thousands of questions in, there are some questions when the way you ask them, the person kind of curls up and they say, oh, I, I don't know.

Vance Crowe [00:35:21] I haven't really thought about it. And they kind of move away from you. They put their arms in front of you. And so you can start to get signals about what questions make it so people get closed off. And one of the questions that we intuitively are really almost always asked are why questions, right? Why did you do that? And why? And we kind of believe that why is the thing that we're all after to understand. But I would actually suggest that most of the time what we as humans do, we do without reason, we do without really thinking about it. So if you ask somebody a why question, they actually are going, and there's MRI studies that show this. If you ask somebody a why question, most of the time what they are going to do is make something up you. And think about this like your dad comes storming into the house and why did you handle this thing this way? Right? Now you're either trying to figure out, should I be defending myself with this answer? Should I frame my question so that I'm protecting myself? Or if you have a why question where you get to puff yourself up and you get to create all these grand reasons why you did this thing that you did, why questions almost never get at something beautiful. So I instead have figured out that if you ask how questions, it will totally change the conversation. So if you were to ask somebody, for example, how did you and mom decide to sell the dairy herd?

Vance Crowe [00:36:58] How did you get out of bankruptcy? How did you do this thing? What happens is a person asked a how question. We'll go all the way back to the beginning and they'll start to tell you what happened. Well, this happened and then this happened. And oh yeah, in order for you to understand this, you need to know this detail. And as they're telling you about how, why we'll emerge and it'll oftentimes emerge for them for the very first time. Because when they were doing it, they weren't doing it thinking deeply about it. They were reacting to what was going on in their lives, what was going on in their world. And think about now that you're reaching the age that you are, there's so much going on. You don't take time to stop and look back. You just keep moving forward. So if you can describe how, and that leads you to your own, why people start to really open up another great question that you can put into your pocket and you can use at almost any time. I learned when I was in high school, now you remember that day in middle school and then in high school when they separate all the girls and all the boys and the boys are like, where are the girls going? And they're going to have their own conversation and the boys are all stuck like watching some lame movie. I remember when that happened. We had this teacher named Mr. Simmons. And Mr. Simmons was this hardcore marine. And he comes walking into class and I have no, to this day, I have no idea what possession of this, but he marches down to the bottom of the classrooms and he stands up there and he says, boys, one day you will be men, and one day you will have a child and that child will come home from school and they will hold up something that they painted or drew for you.

Vance Crowe [00:38:50] And if you ask them, what is it? I will personally come to your house and kick your ass? That's something that sticks with you, right? So you're like, well, what should I ask? He says, A child that has just painted something, they've poured themselves into this and they're showing it to mommy or daddy. They think it's so obvious what it's, and if you ask them what is it, you've destroyed that trust. So one of us timidly opened, raised their hands, not me, said, well, Mr. Simmons, what should we ask? And he said, you should ask. Tell me about it. You told me about crying. I'm thinking about doing this with my own children. 'cause it actually works. It is profound with children if they hold up a painting and instead of saying, what is it you say, tell me about it. They're like, well, this is where the horse was jumping over the rainbow. Look at it. It's so great. No, I drew it with these people and they really, really get into it. This is true with a 4-year-old named Violet or an 80-year-old man named Sam. When he's built something that matters, if you only ask him something as simple as tell me about it and you have demonstrated that you're willing to listen, he'll share with you things that he's never even shared with anyone in his life.

Vance Crowe [00:40:30] Not because he's trying to keep it hidden. In all those years, nobody asked, nobody asked, tell me about this tractor collection that you have. Tell me about why you chose to, you know how, how you chose the color of paint on this barn that you're so proud of having this question. Tell me about. It can be used in any circumstance and it's one of those questions that you can put in your pocket and use over and over and over again. And so few people get asked to tell them about the things that matter to them, that it will open them up. Now, the final question that I wanna share with you, it took me a long time to learn. And in Legacy Interviews, what I've come to realize is that if you are deeply present with another person, if you are really listening to them, they will share things that are deep and important and sometimes horrifying, sometimes really, really sad. And so you get through hearing somebody tell you about something they've experienced and a question doesn't come, there isn't a tiny choice for you to grab out of that when you hear about somebody being abused or about terrible crazy things that happen that you can't relate to. So what question can you ask there? Well, one day I was hearing a woman tell me a story about abuse and I didn't know what to ask, but I waited and eventually it came to me.

Vance Crowe [00:42:08] I asked her what was the lesson in that? And the woman stopped and she had never been asked that question. She was telling me the story because she wanted her grandchildren to hear it and to know what had happened to her. It wasn't in great graphic detail, but it was enough to let them know. So I asked her what was the lesson in that? And she paused and she said something that changed my life, changed the way I parented my children. She said, in this family we don't keep secrets. A few months later, that woman called me up and said how grateful she was to have been asked that question. 'cause it was the first time she was able to take something so terrible and turn it into something valuable. In fact, maybe the most valuable thing that humans create, more valuable than anything, they're gonna pass down on the farm, more valuable than their land or their tractors or any inheritance or anything that they have. The thing that human beings earn and you can only earn it, is wisdom. And that wisdom comes when people can understand what happened to them, the experiences that they've had along their lives. And so when you're talking with somebody, imagine the difference you can make in their lives if you help them go through, look through their experiences, the good ones, the bad ones, the moments when they fell down and they were low and they got back up.

Vance Crowe [00:43:45] And I can tell you so many people in this life never went back and looked at it. They never looked back on what they did because when they start to look back there, they remember the painful things that they got through. But what they don't remember until somebody asks them questions to get them to talk about their lives is that they did stand up and they did dust themselves off and they did figure out a way to move on. And whatever it is that they discovered through that, that they could get past it, that they could move beyond it, that's wisdom. And if we can get them to record it, they can pass that wisdom on for hundreds of years and it allows them to let go. Like we were talking about before. So I give you this question, what was the lesson in that as maybe the most valuable thing that I've learned from Legacy Interviews? There are an infinite number of circumstances where if you are really listening to somebody, you are going to find yourself in an area where you don't know what to ask next. And that question, what was the lesson in that? Brace yourself and be prepared to allow them to find something back in their history that they never knew and never understood despite having gone through those experiences. But once you get them to think about it, it becomes wisdom and you have done a great kindness to those people.

Vance Crowe [00:45:15] Okay, I'm gonna break in before we get to the end of this talk and the q and a, which actually the q and a was quite profound, but I wanted to suggest that if any of you are interested in having me interview your loved ones, if you want me to sit down and ask them about their lives and capture these memories, these stories, the wisdom that they've learned along the way, then consider going to Legacy Interviews dot com. And there what you'll find is a a contact page where if you fill it out, I will give you a phone call, we will chat about who you wanna capture, what it is that you're hoping to get, and we'll figure out what's the right thing for you and your family. I know sometimes people are like, well, I don't know if I'm gonna do it. I just wanna hear a little bit more about it. I need to talk to my siblings, or I gotta get my parents on board with it. That's fine. The whole concept is really, let's just have a conversation and let me see what questions I can answer. It's no obligation. I am probably to a fault, not great at following up with people because I really just want it to be your decision. We've been so successful here. I just tell people what it is that we offer and when it's right for them, they do it. So go to Legacy Interviews dot com, fill out that contact form and let's see if we can make something really beautiful for you and your whole family.

Vance Crowe [00:46:33] So I wanna conclude here is a, a couple of things I want you to think about. There is no replacement for being present with somebody sitting down and fully just being there, not expecting yourself to have great creative questions. I had to let go of my own ego being like, oh, I ask all the greatest questions. That's why people open up to me. No, people really open up when you're just sitting there and you're just patiently waiting and you're open to whatever they bring. Also, trust your curiosity. Don't feel like you have to know the exact right question. Don't feel like you have to have a question and hold onto it as they're going through the, the rest of what they're saying. So you can ask that question, let it go. Be there with them and a question will come to your mind, I promise. If you wait for that question, it will come in your curiosity. The deeper parts of your brain, maybe it is your soul will give you that question and it will be the exact right question. And then finally, be open to helping people explore their experiences. This is harder than it seems. You have to be prepared to let people flounder around not really knowing, not always having their stories. B, clear A to B2C. And when you can do these three things, when you can do it with your family members, your parents, your grandparents, your uncles, your aunts, the neighbor that you're renting land from, you will begin to see that as they tell you their stories and as they understand their past, they're gonna let it go.

Vance Crowe [00:48:18] And when they let it go and they begin to be a different person, they will turn to you and they will want to share and they will want to move on. And you might get to be a part of that. So I recognize that this was not a conversation about succession planning in terms of being, you know, the legal work or the accounting work. It's not even the part that happens when people are in a fight, right? This is before all of that. It's figuring out how to get people to open up, understand their past and move on in a profound way. So I have a challenge for you. I, this is something you guys have a great opportunity. You are going to be with people for the rest of the weekend and I want you to try and find a way to be present with another person so that they will be comfortable enough sharing their Peter Thiel paradox with you. This kind of inverts it, right? You don't have to worry about can I express myself? Can I explain my idea? That makes me uncomfortable. But can you get another person to feel comfortable enough in a conversation with you to tell you the thing that they're a little bit afraid to tell people? And if you can do that, you will know that some of the lessons that we talked about here can work. So I'm gonna say thank you very much for you guys coming and talking about this. It is a great honor. And I said before about your attention, I hope that this was worth your attention and I'm grateful for your time.

Vance Crowe [00:49:51] Thank you. I don't know, how are we doing on time? Good. So we have about 10 minutes left. Do you mind if we take questions? Are there yes. Do themselves have the words to express? So his question was how do you listen to somebody that doesn't always have the words to express in their own head? So this happens a lot with the exact group. You'd think, right Men that are between the ages of 50 to 70 that have never really like stopped. So towards the end, particularly in a couple's interview, I'll ask, you know, what did you learn about this woman by being married to her for 40 years and this man who has all of this gratitude and this understanding that the life he has is is born. You know, the children that he has, all of these things were because of her and he goes to put things out and he can't choke and get it out. The wife's reaction is always to cut the tension in half. She deeply wants to know the answer to this, but she can't handle the discomfort of him stammering and not having an answer to it. And so I always try and keep the wife from cutting that tension because he will get there and he'll get there, even if it isn't in words. He'll get there in the way that he breaks down, he'll get there in the way he shakes his head or in the way that he leans over and kisses her.

Vance Crowe [00:51:26] And so I think that there are many experiences where there aren't words to do it, but they're, they're saying something all the same. How have these interviews helped you bring intimacy into your friendships and your relationship with your family? So the question was how has Legacy Interviews helped me bring intimacy with my family and my friends? That's a great, so that's a great question. That's a really good question. How many of you guys have young kids? So I have a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, and every night I'm so tired, right? I've finally gotten them to take their baths and they're in their sleep diaper and finally in their sleep sec and they're finally laying down and they're getting out of bed and they're doing all these things. And then finally I get them to lay down and they're right as I'm about to leave. They're like, dad, tell us a story. And they're like, I don't have any stories. Tell us about when you were a little boy. And I have so many times been like, I just don't have anything left. But now knowing that all of your experiences once understood, or wisdom, now I try and sit there and think of where are those times in my life that I fell down that for anybody else in the world I would be embarrassed to tell them.

Vance Crowe [00:52:58] But if I can figure them out, if I can pull them out, then I can give them wisdom so that they don't have to fall down. And I think that, I don't know that that directly answers your question, but I won't let myself shut off the light if my kids are asking for a story. And if I hadn't had Legacy Interviews, I probably wouldn't have done that. Yes. Gosh, these are the best questions I've ever heard. So you guys all hear a question, you know, are there themes that you can pull out of here? Yes. One of the things that I have pulled out from hearing a lot of older women talk, which I had not spent much time with, 60, 70-year-old women, it just wasn't a part of my life. And hearing them talk about, one of the questions I ask people is, what was the most difficult lesson to learn that was valuable to know? And there's something that women say consistently, maybe 80% of 'em, I hope I'm not gonna offend you, but this is, this is my reality. This is what I see. And that, did anybody have a guess on what, what women say is their biggest regret? They the most difficult thing to learn was the most valuable to know any, anybody speak up more? So something like that? Yeah. Is I wish I didn't, I wish I didn't go so long worrying about what people thought of me. And over time, what I've come to realize is that the a woman's role in many families, not every family, not every woman, but my experience is many women are the PR agents for the family.

Vance Crowe [00:54:34] It is really important that in a community, somebody is looking out for how do other people think of this? Because it does matter your family name, it does matter how you are perceived, how the kids are perceived. But that can go too far. And that can be something where people were really limited by what their mother-in-law thought or what their mom thought. And they realized much, much later in life, if I had only thrown that off, I might have taken a different chance. I might have done something different. So women talk a lot about that. And so that's something I think is important. And men, I think the consistent pattern with men that I've seen, and this goes to your words concept, is many, many, many, many men, this probably changed the intimacy with my family. Said, I wish I would've known earlier that my wife was my partner. And like, you think about that and you're like, what do you mean? Like, and, and what happens is a man will say, I was hiding the fact that I drank a lot from my own wife because I thought she'd be mad at me or she would judge me. And when I finally understood that she was on my team, then all of a sudden I had somebody that was there. And that profoundly impacted how, to your point, how I interacted with my wife to be like, Hey, this is a thing I'm struggling with. I like, I'm not trying to keep it in for you. I'm understanding we're in this together. So I guess those would be the two things I, I want to thank you guys so much for having me here. If you're interested in Legacy Interviews, it's right there.

Vance Crowe [00:56:05] I also have the ag tribes report on Thursday nights at 6:00 PM And so there, there's the survey for how we do it. Thank you.