How to make the most of meeting a group of new people: Stock Cropper Field Day Talk

Vance Crowe [00:00:10] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here Today. I'm gonna do something a little bit different. I'm gonna play a talk that I gave at the Stock Cropper Field Day over the weekend. Now, a field day, for those of you not in agriculture, is when at the end of the summer, right before Harvest begins, ag companies bring together their customers and they say, Hey, let me show you how the different products that we were selling performed in the field. So we, we planted these different types of seeds, or maybe we use this different type of pesticide, or we even use these conservation methods and they put on a steak dinner and they have sodas and beer and invite people to bring their families. And they come and they stand up there to give a little bit of a sales pitch. Now there's nothing wrong with that, right? Nothing happens unless something gets sold. But what's interesting about the stock cropper Field day is there is nothing for sale there. Zach was bringing together, I think, close to about 200 people to just share what they've been working on to share about how they're doing inner relay cropping, which is where you grow a few rows of corn and then forage in between. So that way you can run livestock in between. In Zach's very awesome stock cropper barns where he is got different animals that can go in between the rows and these pens that move using GPS guided and winches. And it's just an amazing system. You, if you've not learned about it, you can go back a few months and listen to my podcast with Zach. But the reason that the, the field day is so interesting that Zach put together is that all the people are there just to share what they've learned.

Vance Crowe [00:01:46] And people came in from all over Nebraska, South Dakota, Indiana, Missouri, St. Louis. So people drove hours and hours and hours to get together with other people that wanna farm weird like them. And it's really, the result is something pretty magical. It's people getting together and looking at soil and saying, Hey, this is what I'm doing. Or, Hey, we tried this and it didn't work out. This is what we've been running into and what's kept us from being able to make this go larger and larger. And I can tell you, after having been to many, many field days, that going to one like this is something really special. So I decided that after we gave the talk, it was recorded that I'd shared this with you so that you could have an idea about what these people are feeling as they're about to head into the rows of crops and see some of the machinery that Zach has built. I was one of a few people that got to give talks there. It was a big honor to be there. And then after we were done, I actually had a couple of Legacy Interviews to do, which was really amazing. We've not really done very many remote interviews, but I think now if we can find a situation where there's a town somewhere that we can go to and we can do two or three interviews before we come home, that may be something we'll do. So if you've got two or three Legacy Interviews somewhere far away, it's hard to get people to come all the way to St. Louis, let me know and maybe we can work something out because I can tell you doing a legacy interview in a farmhouse with some really amazing people just capped off the whole stock cropper weekend.

Vance Crowe [00:03:22] I want to thank Zach Smith. He's an incredible guy. He's doing some really interesting stuff. If you're on Twitter, go check out the hashtag Farm Weird, which is something Jason Mauck came up with a few years ago. And I think it really captures the essence of trying to do something new and different and exciting. All right, without further ado, let's head to this talk and we'll be back next week.

Zack Smith [00:03:43] And our next speaker is Mr. Vance Crowe. He's from St. Louis, Missouri. I met Vance actually for the first time when Jason asked me to come to his field day, I think it was four summers ago. And Vance and I talked and spoke. I met him then and we reconnected about a year and a half ago through our mutual friend Keaton and Vance invited me, well, I guess Vance has got a, a background that's really interesting. He went to college, you were in the Peace Corps, is that right? And then you worked at the World Bank and then Monsanto and, and what was your role? You were the PR for director of millennial engagement, director of millennial engagement for Monsanto. What a fun job that must have been. So, but he's moved on. He made the switch about the time the stock cropper happened to go off on his own. And he has something called the Vance Crowe podcast, which I become an avid list listener to, which is fantastic if you don't listen to it, tune in on that. The other thing that he does for business now is he does something called Legacy Interviews. And you probably, if you follow me on Twitter, you've probably seen me talk about this. But he has a business where he interviews family members to record the history of the family, typically of parents or grandparents, you know, with the idea of trying to preserve that before PE people pass on. And I, I saw this on Twitter and I thought it was a really cool idea and I got it from my dad for his 70th birthday last or two springs ago, I guess. And we really didn't know what we were getting ourself into. But my folks drove down to St. Louis last fall, and Vance did a fantastic job of taking care of them and capturing kind of our family history.

Zack Smith [00:05:20] My dad told a lot of stories, it was about hour and a half of footage and Vance set it together and it was just absolutely fantastic and I was so happy with it. We talked some more and then he invited me down to do the Vance Crowe podcast here, I don't know, what was it, I think in May or something like that. And he invited me to his house. We really connected and shared a lot of common thoughts and we talked a lot about stock crop. I'm like, man, I gotta get this guy to come and speak at my field day. And so this guy normally gets a gig to show up at corporate places and speak. He probably doesn't want me to tell that he's coming here today to free or for free to speak to us. And so can we please give a warm round of applause for Vance Crowe?

Vance Crowe [00:05:20] Well, normally my speaking rate doesn't come up when I'm about to get on stage. So that was a little weird. But you know, where we met was actually at Jason Mauck's Field Day, and I felt a ton of pressure when I was at that one. The same pressure that I feel for this one here, and the difference between when I get paid to give a speech versus what's going on right now is that those things, they're doing exactly what Jason said. They're trying to bring people there to sell 'em something, to have a board meeting to, to try and draw people in. The reason this is so important is every single one of you weeks ago, and then again this morning, made a decision that you were going to not do whatever else was in front of you and come here, and you're gonna come here because you're living out your values.

Vance Crowe [00:06:56] You are actually care about something that's gonna take you time and energy, and you don't know exactly what will come from it. So you've taken this bold step, and most people didn't take this bold step. You did. And I, I spend my life now day in and day out, talking with people that are reflecting back on their lives. They're not at the end of their lives, but they've generally hit some chapter, some point where it's time to stop and really think about what was it all about? What was the effort I put into the work that I did, the sacrifices that I made, why did it matter? And I, I think about this all of the time, and it really has changed the shape of the way I think about the decisions I make. And I think about moments like this are the moments when somebody's life changes. And I don't mean that you're gonna end today and go make some monumental change, but a day like this allows you to meet somebody. It allows you to get an idea that you never had before. It allows you to get that little seed of confidence that matters. And so I really understand the power of the time that we have together. And I was thinking for a long time about what I would say when I was up here on this stage, and I found that just a few nights ago, I had one of those rare moments of quiet when I was feeding a bottle to my 1-year-old child, right?

Vance Crowe [00:08:28] Because most of the time when you have a 1-year-old, it's not quiet. When you got that bottle shoved in there, you got a moment of quiet. And what came to my mind was actually, as I was thinking about today, what is it that I would tell this 1-year-old if she wasn't one, but she was 18, and she was telling me, dad, I'm gonna go up to this field day, right? She doesn't really know what's gonna go on. And I realize this is a dream 'cause. 'cause 18 year olds don't ask their dads for advice, but I'm imagining that she did. What would I tell this little girl? What would I tell her about how to make the most outta the moment you're in right now, so that it has the largest impact on her life and the lives of all the people she interacts with? And as I was thinking about this, I realized that during the Legacy Interviews, when I'm talking with somebody, one of the early questions I ask people after we've gone through their name and tell me about your parents and where are you from? I end up asking everyone, what did you imagine you would be when you grew up? Now, this is a funny question because some people, including maybe you right now, knew immediately what you wanted to be. I wanted to be a farmer, I wanted to be a mom, I wanted to be a, and you knew, and then you went out and did it. But a lot of people, when they're looking back on their lives, they take a look at that question and they kind of chuckle. You know, they have this nervous laugh, and then they look down. And in that moment, they looked down because they had a voice in the back of their mind at some point in their life that said, you should go be a nurse.

Vance Crowe [00:10:06] You should go be a fireman, you should go be a veterinarian. And because of how life turns out, you go from being a landscaper to running your dad's farm because somebody gets sick because something happens. You didn't get to do the thing that that little voice I was telling you to do. And so people often feel this like little hint of shame in that. But what I've discovered is that as we go through the interview a little bit later in the conversation, it always comes out that the person that always dreamed of being a nurse, somewhere along the line, a family member got sick and they stepped up. They're the ones that ended up caring for someone, or the veterinarian maybe didn't get to get a license and do that. But they are the ones that care for animals or take care of of the way that their family treats their livestock in a different way. And what this is really called to mind for me is that when you're a child, you don't actually know what that voice is telling you to do. All you can do is say, I have this inclination. I have this voice that's telling me there's a calling for me. And even if you don't get the job that you said you were, the important thing is that voice is real. That voice is what led you here today, because maybe you don't know exactly what it is that you're doing here, but that voice is the thing that allows you, when we are walking around and you're looking at things, it's made you unique, it's made you maybe like a teacher, maybe it's made you observant and allows you to ask questions just a little bit differently than everyone else.

Vance Crowe [00:11:44] So when Zach was saying there's no bad questions, he means that you will uniquely bring questions to this, that if you have it in the back of your mind, speak it out loud, ask people, make observations. Because what we're doing here is not having the guys that are leading the tours telling you this is how it's done. It's saying, this is what I've done. What can we do together better? The second thing that I would tell my daughter if she was still listening to my advice would be that it's really easy to focus when you look back on your lives about the successes that you've had. But one of the questions that I ask people during Legacy Interviews is, what was the toughest lesson to learn that was the most valuable to know? Almost none of those tough lessons came from when things went easy, from when they were successful, from when they worked. Almost everything a person tells me, when they are focused on the life that they've had and the things that they've learned along the way came from those moments of failure. Sometimes abject failure, sometimes when they lost things that they couldn't imagine living their lives without before that happened. And yet deep down somewhere in there was a lesson that made them ready for what came next. My sense about farm weird having been around it for a few years now, is that this is not a story of success, but it is a story of failure, figuring things out, getting better, getting back up and sharing it.

Vance Crowe [00:13:22] And so today, when you're walking around, if you find out that somebody found a success, certainly congratulate them. And hey, you figured that out. But even more importantly, if I was talking to my daughter, I would tell her, pay attention to when somebody is open enough to tell you about when they failed. And don't judge them for that failure. Be grateful that they were open to you for it. And I would also say for anybody that's here, this is a rare opportunity for you to be around people that understand that it takes failure to succeed. So share about the things that didn't work out. Share about those times where you really learned the lessons the hard way so that the other people around you don't have to learn that lesson and farm. Weird can keep progressing. And then finally, the last piece of advice I would give my daughter would be to make sure that you laugh when you're at a thing like this. When the great Barry Flinchbaugh, he was an agricultural economist from K State, he one time was sitting with me telling me about how to become better at getting people to open their eyes and to think about things new and different. He told me once Vance, when people are laughing, their minds are open. That's one of the great things about getting together in a group like this, not just being on Twitter. Certainly when you're on Twitter and you can be in the field and you can look at what somebody did that was silly, you can laugh about it, but it's not the same thing as laughing and joking and being in community together. You know, there's a funny thing about laughter.

Vance Crowe [00:14:53] Laughter is a universal signal. We all have this ha ha, ha sound, and we put it out when we've connected two things that we didn't really realize were connected before. That's why a joke is funny. We say, oh, somebody, a comedian took an idea and it to another, and then you point it out and you're like, ha, I get it. I laugh about that. And it's also why we sometimes laugh when we don't get a joke. Why? 'cause we don't want to be left out. But at a day like today, be open, be joyful, laugh, find ways to work together. Because when people look back on their lives, and we're at the very last questions when we're talking about what did it all mean? What is the value of everything? They always come back to their family and their friends and their community and the joy and the work that they shared. And that's what's so amazing about today that everybody here decided they would spend their Saturday morning bringing their families to come into community and learn together. And I'm deeply proud to be here, and I hope everybody makes the most of this wonderful day. So have a great day. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks, Zach.

Zack Smith [00:14:53] Thanks sir. That was awesome. Thank you, Vance. That was absolutely fantastic.

Vance Crowe [00:16:14] Thanks for listening to the whole talk. I wanna throw out that I got to see a bunch of podcast listeners at this talk. Wes Carney. I got to see Bump Craiger, I got to see Matt Eichner that it was just a a lot of cool people. And next year, mark your calendar for fall. Make sure you're following the hashtag farm. Weird. Definitely, definitely, definitely get up to Zach Smith's thing. I think this year was about 200 people. I would guess next year will probably be about 500. If you are interested in having me come address your audience for more than 10 minutes, like doing something that really fits what your group needs to talk about, communications, negotiations. I have a new talk that I'm delivering on how the mind changes and how to change minds. And really it's about succession planning and why sometimes your parents maybe need to tell more of their stories and the values that they've learned along the way before they're ready to figure out exactly how to do succession planning. So if you're interested in learning more, go to Vance Crowe dot com. And if you'd like me to do a legacy interview, head to Legacy Interviews dot com. Alright, we'll be back next week.