Ep #23: Beyond Succession: Building a Lasting Farm Legacy with Cheryl B. Mitchell
In this episode of The Land Ledger, host Brian Kearney speaks with Cheryl Mitchell, founder of Farm Legacy Now, about the importance of legacy planning for farm families. Cheryl shares her personal background growing up on a dairy farm, her career path, and how her own family’s experiences with land transfer inspired her to create farm legacy panel discussions that bring together farmers, attorneys, bankers, insurance agents, and accountants to foster open conversations. She also explains the critical difference between succession planning and legacy planning, and highlights the emotional and relational challenges farm families face.
Through kitchen table conversations and structured processes, Cheryl helps families bridge these gaps, transfer operational knowledge, and protect both their financial and cultural legacy. Listen in to hear about retirement transitions, institutional knowledge transfer, long-term leasing, and the risk of farmland being sold to outside investors if families don’t proactively plan. You’ll learn how curiosity, storytelling, and open dialogue can serve as tools to ensure farms remain connected to their heritage while preparing for the future.
What You’ll Hear About in This Episode:
Cheryl’s journey from dairy farm roots to founding Farm Legacy Now.
Why legacy planning goes beyond wills and trusts.
How family stories and values shape farm transitions.
The role of communication in bridging generational divides.
Practical ways to transfer knowledge between parents and children.
The challenges of retirement, leases, and outside investors.
Tips for staying connected to agriculture, even if you’re not farming.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“There's a why behind what I do, because as an ag person, as a connected to the land person, you can't get rid of that. And I saw a problem that needs a solution that isn't being solved.” - Cheryl Mitchell
“I really believe that every problem, regardless of whether you're a farm family or you're not, it's a communication problem.” - Cheryl Mitchell
“I facilitate the conversation because I have this instinctual ability to hear what they're not saying.” - Cheryl Mitchell
Resources:
Cheryl Mitchell: LinkedIn
Farm Legacy Now: Website
Farm Legacy or Loss: The Decision is Yours by Cheryl B. Mitchell
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Read the Transcript:
Cheryl Mitchell: To identify the legacy. To me, that's the why behind the transactional piece to keep that going, and why wouldn't you want to ensure that you provide as much of this story so that when the younger generation has the opportunity to sell, they won't.
Welcome to The Land Ledger podcast, where investing in farmland meets the future of finance. I’m your host, Brian Kearney, here to guide you through the untapped potential of farmland as an asset.
Whether you’re already investing in farmland, want to invest in farmland, or you’re just curious about safe alternatives to stocks and bonds, this is your space to learn, explore, and be inspired.
Your journey to farmland investing starts now.
Brian Kearney: Welcome to the Land Ledger. Today, I have Cheryl Mitchell and I am excited to dive into what she does for farm families. It's really unique and really impactful, so I think you guys are gonna get a lot out of this episode. Cheryl, welcome to the show.
Cheryl Mitchell: Well, thank you. I am looking forward to the conversation, and you are correct. It is a little unique.
Brian Kearney: Yes, it is. Well, let's start with a little bit of your background. Where are you fro, and tell us kind of how you fit into the ag world.
Cheryl Mitchell: Would love to. I am originally from Jasper County, Illinois. So Newton, Illinois. Grew up on a dairy farm. My Dad's family was a dairy farmer family, and my mom's dairy farmer, and they literally just celebrated 60 years of marriage.
And so they still have the farm. It's small, about 250 acres, row crop. And so grew up on a dairy farm and one way to college became a teacher. And the path kind of goes and so I was a teacher for a long time, elementary as well as graduate courses and then corporate training and development, and then, you know, just have made my way in communication and now I'm a speaker.
But this ag situation, Brian, never leaves you. I describe it like this. It is literally part of my DNA, and so it just resonates and there's this automatic, if you will, heart for farm families, and the last several years, you just recognize that there's land transfer coming, there's wealth transfer, and there's a bunch of fear. There's old guys. There's young guys. There's sort of this chasm that happens, and I'm not a person who sits well and just complains about things. And so I can kinda share that moment when I, it resonated.
Brian Kearney: Yeah, please do.
Cheryl Mitchell: Okay. So a couple years ago, living in the champagne area for many, many years, and I was part of an ag alliance, business ag alliance, and about every other month, ag companies in the industry would get together and we would meet at some place, get some information about somebody's company, and then kinda share our struggles with what's going on in the ag world. And I'm sitting at the University of Illinois, absolutely the coolest thing. They're talking about researching growing plants in air.
Okay, we have dirt, like there's no air involved. So my brain is like, “Okay,” and I'm not a scientist, right? And then they talked about. Some of the research they're doing to map a pig's snout, and I'm thinking, “Okay, why…” I don't, whatever. Right? But it was the coolest. It was such an energizing space.
Then that was 45 minutes. Then we get to ask the question or go around who are we, who, what company, what's our struggle? The guy next to me, we'll call him, Jim, is an older gentleman and he starts in about, he's complaining. “These young kids don't know how to work.” And he's a farm manager and a businessman. And I immediately felt the air leave the room.
And I thought, you know what? We're complaining about this, but nobody's doing anything about it. And I left there convinced I wasn't gonna judge, I wasn't gonna be pissed. I was going to get curious and start to solve a problem because in my family, my dad's side of the family, in their planning, in their succession stuff, in their transfer, somebody knew the plan, wasn't communicated. Long story short, relative, I have aunts and uncles who don't speak to each other anymore, so it's a divide.
Brian Kearney: Oh, man. Yeah.
Cheryl Mitchell: And in my family, we were in the middle of that process, and so there was some underlying tensions that I knew about from the siblings' point, and so I got together with somebody, a group of guys, and we just decided to start this, what we call farm legacy panel discussions. And so there's a why behind what I do because as an ag person, as a connected to the land person, you can't get rid of that. And I saw a problem that needs a solution that isn't being solved.
Brian Kearney: Oh, man. Yeah. That is the generational divide and the emotion and the tension there is the hardest part about this issue. People think that it's the financing. They think that it's the access to the land. And that's a huge issue that is, but that can be mitigated if you're able to deal with the emotional side first. So what do you do to dive into that?
Cheryl Mitchell: The short version, as I say to the people, you have to make the grandpa cry. You have to get into cry. And they're all like, “That's true.” I'm like, “Yes.” So what I do is, I call it pregame, okay. If you go into the transactional side, that's when people shut down because it's overwhelming, it's scary. And let's be honest, attorneys cost farmers money, and they don't wanna give their money to an attorney or the government.
Brian Kearney: Yep.
Cheryl Mitchell: So I recognized kind of accidentally, which is so cool how this happened. So this farm legacy panel discussion has an attorney, a banker, an insurance agent, and an accountant, and I brought them together and I said, “I'm gonna moderate this for the audience.”
So the audience, the participants get the opportunity to ask questions without the fees, and they couldn't sell anything. Nobody could bring a business card, nobody could, they only knew this guy was insurance, this guy's a banker, and farmers are super skeptical. They're like, “What's in it? What's the catch?”
I'm like, “There isn't one. I just want you in the room to start having these conversations.” Now, neighbors sitting next to neighbors, they're like, “Well, I'm not gonna tell you because if I'm talking about my 80, you might wanna buy that.” So I first had to break down with humor, get them to talk, let's talk about the transactional things.
And then Brian, what happened is I had farmers reach out to me afterwards and say, “We don't know where to start. Like, okay, Cheryl, this information is good, but now what?” And it was only when I sat down at their kitchen tables with them and started asking questions, and I started with the word legacy rather than succession, because then they were able to say, “This matters to me. I want my kids to have the life I had. I want them to, this legacy carries on, not, here's 120 acres, et cetera.” Now the key is, so the emotional side of it, or the, I call it relational. You got father and son and father's always looking at the son as a son, not a business partner.
So it was at the kitchen table and because I have an ag background, because my family has experienced the hardship of it. And I don't have any skin in their game. Like I don't, I'm just here to facilitate the process to get you ready so that I can save you money from an attorney meeting and all those things.
So it's really hard. There's emotions and the people know are there, but they don't wanna talk about, but if they don't talk about them, you can't get to really what's going on. Because my family, my mom and dad, we said to them, “Here's the letter of the law. Here's how you set it up. What's the spirit behind it?”
So we know how to execute on what this says. We wanna understand the spirit, and that's what I try to get families to do because then you get somewhere because it gets to the heart of them, which sounds fluffy. Yeah, but it's different than here's a financial person that says, “Here are the numbers.”
Brian Kearney: Yes, it is. And it's different than just a stock portfolio that's way easier. There's not the emotional tie to your S&P 500 ETF, but there is that tie to that 80 or that 120 that you remember seeing great grandpa farming, like there's guilt there. There's fear there, there's a lot to work through.
Cheryl Mitchell: Yes, there's fear. I'm working now with a farm family and the dad is late seventies and the sun is coming in and he's put a date on it next July to have this done and okay, we're meeting with attorneys and things and I just said to the dad, okay. I told the wife, here's the other thing, I just very said, “You can't speak like, you be quiet.”
'Cause she just talks over him. I'm like, “Stop talking.” She's like, “Okay.” And I said to the guy, to the dad, “What is it that you need to feel comfortable by next July one that your son needs to know?” Well, Brian, he goes, “He needs to know how to market grain. He needs to know repair and trading equipment, labor, when, how, because how I did it is different than how he's gonna do it. And then there was another component of it.” And I was like, “Okay, we can work with that.” Right?
Brian Kearney: Right, right.
Cheryl Mitchell: Because this is now the specific transfer of operational knowledge.
Brian Kearney: Right, right.
Cheryl Mitchell: So what I'm doing for them now, okay, because the dad has some health issues, maybe dementia starting, so he doesn't know where to start.
So I said to them, “How about I build, for lack of a better word, a curriculum that we start with, let's start grain marketing and let's build four sessions around that. That you sit down with your son and you have a dialogue back and forth. He has some action items. You transfer your knowledge; how do you do this? How would he do it?” And you should have seen his face like, “Okay, that's good.” I didn't think about doing this in a very succinct way because it's chaotic. And I bring the clarity to go, “Okay, wait. Let's do this and this. Then we'll add another topic.” And then cyclical, and it releases the pressure from them and brings peace because the old guys are afraid that these guys aren't gonna know.
And the truth is they're not. They can't. Some of you have to learn on your own, right? To just go, yeah. I will give a very personal example. So my dad passed away a month ago and–
Brian Kearney: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
Cheryl Mitchell: Thank you. It was beautifully holy. It was the coolest exit out of this world that he wanted, where, now, you have to know my family and we're funny and we have a sense of humor.
'Cause my dad, I mean, on his dying deathbed. Literally he was coherent. My niece, who leans a certain way politically, he's like, “But Ally, don't you wanna, like, give me my dying wish?” So that's kind of okay, that's our family, right?
Brian Kearney: That's funny.
Cheryl Mitchell: Literally minutes before my dad passes away at five in the morning, my brother goes, “Pete, dad, you can't go yet. Where's the pipe wrench? Where is the pipe wrench?” Now you laugh about that, but think about the fear of Oh my God, he's now gone and we, he knew where everything was in his head. But it wasn't written down. So there's also spraying some compelling why for me to get these guys to go, “You know what, you could die tomorrow of a stroke. We gotta make sure this guy knows what, at least a little bit of what you know.” And they just have never done it. They're just farmers. They just plant. They know what they know. They know who their team is. That's the other thing I do is help them, “Okay? If something goes wrong in your field, who do you call?”
“Well, I call this guy, this guy, this guy.” Okay. If you have a finance question, you, “Oh, I call this one and this one.” Okay, well that's your team, but you have to, in school, I use this term, if you want a behavior, you have to teach the behavior. So you have to tell that kid like intentionally give it to them.
And I think that's one of the big mistakes we make in farming, we don't think business-wise like that. Knowledge transfer. And then we don't go where the pipe wrench is, you know?
Brian Kearney: Yeah, that's true. I think that's a problem with all small and medium, well, probably all businesses in general, really.
Cheryl Mitchell: Yeah. Institutional knowledge.
Brian Kearney: Yeah. Yeah. It's a problem. Or it can be. Let's dive a little bit deeper. Let's go back and dive into that difference between legacy planning and succession planning, because what we hear a lot is like, “Oh, we're good. We've got a will, we've got a trust.” It's like, might not be enough. Let's dive in a little deeper, so.
Cheryl Mitchell: Right.
Brian Kearney: Let's circle back to that.
Cheryl Mitchell: Yes. So to me, simplistically, succession is all the transactional things. “I have a will. This is where it goes. It's in the trust. You call this person, when I die, the titles need to go, da, da, da, da, da,” okay? The legacy is what keeps you together as a family and a culture and a unit, and the why behind, ‘We don't just sell for the money.’ Because the money looks pretty good or here comes the solar farmer, here comes the wind farmer. Here comes the data center. So the legacy ties the emotion to the real reason to execute on the transactional.
I wrote a book, actually, called Farm Legacy or Loss: The Decision is Yours, and in that I define it as that invisible thread that connects the past, the present, and the future.
So when I think about that for my family, like my dad is no longer with us. My mom is there, gonna farm it, then my brother's gonna take it over. If we didn't have legacy, as soon as my mom dies, we wouldn't go back there. We don't care. It's Matt's farm. It's whatever.
Brian Kearney: Yeah. Yeah.
Cheryl Mitchell: That's different. So, there's a tie, because this is, and in some ways, unfortunately, you're working with your family, good, bad, or ugly.
You can't fire them, right? So when I think legacy, I think that's the “Why do you go out and do this?” If you don't do it to make money, the margins are shit. Sorry, can I cuss on here?
Brian Kearney: Yeah, you're fine.
Cheryl Mitchell: But seriously, I mean, look at what the inputs are. What's the price of corn? All the, you do not do it to make money. Ask a row crop farmer, “If you weren't doing this, what else would you be doing?” They have no idea. So to identify the legacy, to me, that's the why behind the transactional piece to keep that going, and why wouldn't you want to ensure that you provide as much of this story so that when the younger generation has the opportunity to sell or not and get out because the margins aren't good, they won't.
Brian Kearney: Yeah, a hundred percent, 'cause really the goal at the end of the day, and this is why the intro to you all and your organization was awesome, because I think we have a very similar goal and it is we have a huge transition monetarily coming that has to transition somehow and what we don't want is it going to the auction block or it going to the wealthiest investor from the coasts that wants to buy it. That's what we can't have. So the legacy part is the only thing that can fight against that, really.
Cheryl Mitchell: Correct. And we all have legacy in our family. I mean, I have boys, they are not farmers, but there's a legacy that I want to leave with them.
I mean, instinctively, that's what we do, right? I mean, we don't just have children like an animal has them and sends them out to the woods. We're instilling values. We're instilling the why. We're instilling, and again, I keep going back to my own family. There are 10 grandchildren and every one of those 10 grandchildren love to come there.
They want to work, they ask for the list. I mean, there's pride in it. Again, okay, let's, the other thing is that's the older generation. They built this, there's pride and they wanna transfer that it isn't transferred Brian in a, “Here's your trust and here's your money and here's your acres.” That's not how it's transferred.
It's transferred in the stories. I mean, we will tell that story of my dad's death forever because it epitomizes my dad. So, and we don't, I would venture to say that there's no one in agriculture who farms that doesn't feel a connection, that doesn't, at the heart of them physiologically, the endorphins and the adrenaline when you can get that tractor out in the field.
“Come on, let's watch it.” Right? Henry's out there and the other guys are like, “Ooh, Henry's out.” He's just driving around to make everybody else feel like that. So there's like, and that's why I keep saying why. If we have all these resources. We have companies, we have coaches, we have financial people in the industry, and still 77% of farm families do not have something solid in place to pass on. Why? Something's wrong.
And I say, in my experience, it's that we have not connected them to the actual legacy, which is the root and the foundation to get us to do the transactional, 'cause when you get here, it's hard, costs money. It's time. It's scary. And we have to admit our mortality. We don't do that well.
Brian Kearney: Yeah. Oh, no. No, no, no.
Cheryl Mitchell: And I also say to farmers, too, “You're all gonna die. Like, nobody gets outta here alive, so what are you gonna do?” So, yes, go ahead, interrupt you.
Brian Kearney: No, that's true. No, please. If you look at that generation, I think there's also a little bit of fear because not every family is like yours. More often than not, those 10 grandkids have never been to the farm.
They do not care. And they know, like we hear all the time, and it kind of breaks your heart, like, “Ah, I'll die. And then they'll do whatever.” And what that means is they know, “Well, I'm gonna die and then they're gonna sell it.” And man, that's just, so for those people, what advice do you have?
Cheryl Mitchell: That's a great question. Why would you throw your hands in the air and not try to change that outcome? You have nothing to lose by sharing the stories, talking to them about why this matters to you. Forget the numbers part. I mean, 'cause in the end you, if young people look at the numbers, you are not going to convince them that this is a good investment.
You can't prove that out. The science, right, sell 'cause you're gonna make a lot more money. Okay, check that off the list. But if that is your biggest fear, avoiding it is ensuring that it will happen. That's what I would say to them. Avoiding it ensures that it's gonna happen. So what's the worst that can happen if you talk to them?
Now the other thing is, and I've had families say this to me, “Cheryl, we can't do this by ourself. We need a neutral party 'cause this is too emotional.” So I've sat with family, so that would be the other piece of advice is to say, “If you can't share it, bring somebody in who can help foster the story so that it's there.” Even if it's having somebody help you write that down to communicate it through.
So the advice I think is, “Sure, ignore it and what's gonna happen is what's gonna happen. And if that really doesn't matter that much to you when you're dead, because you're not gonna be here anyway, okay, then do you.” I mean, I guess I ask lots of questions to go, “Really, what's behind that? And if you do nothing, okay, but do something, think differently to do something that could maybe change the outcome, that you have no opportunity to change the outcome if you just go, ‘Okay, well, you know.’”
Brian Kearney: Yeah. That's how they go to the auction block.
Cheryl Mitchell: That's how they go to the auction, right? That's correct. And then the neighbor buys it and everybody's pissed. And so now you have all that too. And it's also small town.
Brian Kearney: Oh yeah.
Cheryl Mitchell: I mean, don't sell the…family 'cause, or don't sell the Bearman family, you know what I mean?
Brian Kearney: Yeah. I come from a town of 2,300 people, so that…
Cheryl Mitchell: So you know.
Brian Kearney: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's how it is in the Midwest. But the other beautiful part about the Midwest, to be honest, is while that's true, anytime you have an actual issue, everyone is gonna help you. So it's this weird kind of dichotomy that people don't understand if you're not from it.
Cheryl Mitchell: Right. And they are so private and personal and they don't wanna share because there's a level of insecurity and fear because it's a really hard industry to be in. Like literally.
Brian Kearney: Yeah, it is.
Cheryl Mitchell: Okay. Here's the other thing that I would say as I'm kind of walking through this with some families and men in particular, and we are wired. As a Christian person, I believe that men are wired a certain way and women are wired a certain way and men are wired to provide and to control and take care of things.
There is zero control in farming. I was back in my hometown a weekend ago, all my parents' crops look like crap. And I'm like, “Mom, what?” She goes, “Cheryl, they all look that way.” Well, we drove then to another small town for church. And I'm like,
Oh my God.” She goes, “The year is bad.” And I talked to another farmer and he said, “It's just what it is.”
So, and somebody asked me, “Well, if they don't get water, can they water?” I go, “No, it's just not like a garden.” But this is a person who's not in ag, right? So where can we control things? We can control information. We can control that we don't want to give it up because we're scared.
Brian Kearney: That's so interesting. Yeah.
Cheryl Mitchell: Right. And generationally speaking, the boomers, if you were gonna put some generalizations on it, the boomers are workaholics and the young guys are like, “We don't want that life. We don't wanna miss stuff.” So there's a gap there. And they, the other thing is, what are they gonna do if they retire? They don't, it's their identity, Brian. So again, that's what I work through with, and I have this natural way, literally, of sitting at the kitchen table with them over a cup of coffee, going, “Okay, let's talk about that.” And asking hard questions. And then it's not so scary because it's safe and protected, but they get to share what, on their heart. They're thinking about that when they're in the combine.
Brian Kearney: Oh yeah. Yeah. That's, I never connected until right now, the stereotype of farmers needing to control what they can and anyone who, it's pretty accurate, for the most part, it's pretty accurate. But that makes sense.
'Cause it is an industry where there is no control. That does make a lot of sense. When you're having that conversation about retiring, what does that look like? Because we were talking to a client. Might've been last week. And he's like, “Well, yeah, he is like, your dad's 70.”I'm like, “Oh. So he's probably got another 20 years of farming, honestly.”
Like that's, I think he's gonna farm until he can't. So how do you broach that? Because you can be farming and not making the decisions and transitioning that part while you still can. Is that what you try to tie into?
Cheryl Mitchell: Yes. So when I say, I don't use the word retirement because, and what I do is I say, “You will never retire from this. You can't. It's in you. So let's talk about what that actually looks like. Do you wanna let go of some of the responsibility and not have to think about all the time grain marketing, because you wanna go to Florida for a couple months in the winter?” Okay. “What is the span of control that you want? Do you wanna just go do the freaking fun stuff, which is drive the combine?”
Literally, that's what, let everybody else do all the other work, right? Because to you, that's not work. And so I help them identify, literally drill down with, and people say, “Cheryl, my gosh, how many questions can you ask?” I'm like, “All of them, plus some more.” But it helps them identify, like just that control thing when you go, “Here's what you can control and here's why you do that.”
And son, this is why he does that. So retirement? No. How, what is it that you, when you get up in the morning, you wanna go do and you go, “I don't have it in me to do that anymore.” So once we do that, and then we, again, take all this chaotic stuff, kind of, I actually put it on chart paper sometimes and map it out and go, “Okay, well you don't wanna do this. Okay, so let's figure out who and how and when you transition that so you’re comfortable going, ‘I just wanna show up when I wanna show up.’”
Brian Kearney: That makes sense.
Cheryl Mitchell: And helping them see life be on, 'cause here's what I will say to them, “Okay, you wanna retire?” And I say this with even companies that I work for, teachers, anybody, “Okay, you wanna retire, you need to plan three years in advance because you have, let's call it 40 minimum, fifty, sixty, seventy hours a week that you now need to fill with something else.”
Brian Kearney: Yeah.
Cheryl Mitchell: With people with thought, with decisions, and take away decisions from a guy who makes all the decisions, and literally, how many people do you know, retire and die quickly? A lot. So I help them see that what the image or what the world says about that doesn't fit them, so how do we customize that and do it one step at a time?
Not, “Okay, I'm done.” 'Cause no farmer's gonna walk out to his son and go, “I'm done.” They're not gonna do that. Realistically, I also call out, like I call bullshit a lot and go, “Yeah, that's not what you, no, let's be realistic people.”
Brian Kearney: Yeah, no, it's true. Like, we're working with one right now. That generational gap is really hard when you're trying to figure out how the farm is going to grow or transition as well.
Because it's a tough time to buy farms, like interest rates are high, farms are expensive, commodity prices are low. It's brutal. But you talk to a lot of the old timers like, “Well, this looks kinda like the late seventies, eighties farming.” But then you ask them, “Well, what did you do during that time?”
They're like, “Well, I guess we did buy some ground.” Like, “Well, exactly. That's what your kids want to do now.” Like farms went under, right? But they went under because they were too aggressive and they had too much debt. So let's figure out how to not do that. But we can't bury our head in the ground either, and that's a hard conversation.
Because I get it, if I'm 90, I'm not gonna want that either. Like, I'm not gonna want to go buying a farm, but your 55-year-old kid might need to or want to.
Cheryl Mitchell: Okay. And so I really believe that every problem, regardless of whether you're a farm family or you're not, it's a communication problem, right?
Because dad is 90 and he has 90 years' worth of experience and knowledge and all of the things. And he knows this person, let's call him 30, only has 30 years of, and so there's this gap of not generation, there's just gap of experience and age and wisdom and hard knocks and okay, the other thing is even though the world is sort of the same, it's also really different when this 90-year-old was 30. We are technologically different. You can't compare, but they wanna compare. And the other thing is not blaming, not shaming, not making them right, or there's no right or wrong here. And as you were talking a minute ago, I had this vision of a lot of what I do is shine light into the space because think about it.
Even little kids, right? A room is dark and it's scary. Now there's a bed, there's a dresser and you don't know, and you can bump into it even though you sort of know that stuff is there. But what I do is pull that back and go, Look, it's not that scary. Actually. What we have is we all wanna get out the same door. We just have different obstacles to go over. So let's just look at what, call it realistic. Like let's call it what it is, right? Here are my fingers, here are my fingernails.” “Oh, okay. Now I know what I'm working with.” And then it's not so scary and it takes away the fear, which again is the pre-game to actually doing the succession planning and all these things, because then we can walk in confidently to our accountant or a financial advisor and go, “Look, I'm not positioned to take on debt. I can't.
So we gotta find another way,” instead of being scared. But that generational, the other thing is I work a lot with young professionals, and I'm telling you, they are starting to resemble the older generation. They want security, they wanna save their money, their thinking, purpose, legacy. And so we're not that far apart really, if we could get to the heart of it.
Brian Kearney: Right, right. Probably just as far apart as that older generation was with their parents is probably the case. There are generational tendencies for sure, but human nature is still human nature and it kind of always has been. I think that's part of the push we make for people as well is if you look at it purely numerically, renting makes more sense in our area. A lot of the time it makes more sense. You make more money, but you don't have the security there and you don't know what's gonna happen in 20 years.
When you talk about the difference, even AI is starting to scare people in every industry and in farm ground, farming's a little bit more insulated than being an accountant right now would scare me. Being a lawyer right now would scare me, being a farmer, meh. But there will be things that come, and what I know is that if you own that ground, you're going to benefit from it.
If you're renting, it could be an issue long-term. We really don't know. So that's, what's your thought on having that conversation with them? Because again, most of our audiences, I-state row crop farmers, they kinda get it. But if you're not, you might own 400 acres and farm 1500 acres, and that's pretty common.
So how do you go about that conversation as well of transitioning those leases, of seeing, “Hey, how do we position ourselves in case they do go to the realtor, to the auction block?” How do you have those conversations?
Cheryl Mitchell: Sure. Again, it's, let's lay out the facts, okay? Let's see what we have and map out the numbers. I also ask a question a lot, okay, “What's the best that can happen if we do this? Let's map that out long term. What's the worst that can happen?” And I really, you ask me the question specifically, how do I go about that? I facilitate the conversation because I have this instinctual ability to hear what they're not saying.
Brian Kearney: Okay.
Cheryl Mitchell: So they say something and I know there's other things they're not saying. So then I can lead them with question, not lead them to an answer, but I can, "Okay, what's the next question?” And they go, “Oh, I didn't think about that. Oh, I didn't think about that.” Because objectively, okay, we all get in our own head.
Human nature, we're all in there. We're spinning, right? Okay. And we have people in our world who help us with leases or whatever. Well, if you bring somebody in who has general knowledge, but I'm not deep in the weeds and all that, and I'm simply here to facilitate getting this out of your head so you know how it actually sounds, right? And mapping out the “What are the risks of having landlords?” Okay. And I often ask this question, “How old is that landlord now?”
Brian Kearney: Correct.
Cheryl Mitchell: And who's his succession in line? Does he have that lined up? And have you had that conversation? Oh, you haven't. I mean, I literally just had this with one of my clients and they've had this tenant, they're the landowners.
They're the landlords, but they've had tenant farmers for, and they didn't have a lease in place and said, oh, you know where it's a handshake and now we're going, look, first of all, put it in a long-term lease because there's value in that for you, security and the 'cause they were like, “Well, are they gonna think that we don't trust them?”
I'm like, “No, they're gonna be grateful that you are thinking of them. Yes. And you wanna protect them.” So let me back up and say that I facilitate the conversation to bring reality to what you are saying instead of conjecture, ask a couple questions on the worst case scenario and let's map that out, 3, 4, 5 steps.
Best case scenario. But really, to get what's in your head out so somebody else hears it and then we can do something about it, 'cause if it's just in here, I can't. And then I pull in personal experiences to help them see this is actually happened and this is the benefit, or this didn't go well.
Brian Kearney: Yeah. No, that makes sense. Yeah. This has been a really fun conversation. We're getting kind of close on time. So a couple last things. The first one is how would people reach out if they want your help with their family situation? What does that look like? How would they get started? Let's dive into that a little bit.
Cheryl Mitchell: Sure. I have a website and it's called farmlegacynow.com, and that lays out very clearly in videos different processes, like a legacy panel discussion. I'll come to your town and bring my team and get people talking and there's different steps, so farmlegacynow.com, they can email me and reach out at any point and just say, “Hey, can we have a conversation?” And I would simply say, just call me and say, I don't know if this is a fit for us or not, because my first step always is to do what I call a discovery call. I wanna know what your story is because I had some families where I say, “I'm not your person. You are not ready to be in this, you're not transparent.” Whatever it…I'm not ready. I'm not your person. So a discovery call, you reach out to me and then my book is on Amazon too. And I would say, if you don't want to talk to a person yet, this book, I laid it out specifically in four steps that you can actually write things down that's private, right, and get all those fears out that you don't have to share with anybody.
But it's the start of why it fricking matters to you so much? Because, Brian, it is emotional. It is an emotional connection, and there's defensiveness in families that you wouldn't wanna be a part of this. Well, so we've gotta acknowledge that first. So, reaching out to me, phone call, I would have a discovery call and conversation.
Brian Kearney: Yeah. Okay. I'll put all that in the show notes and I'll, definitely a link to the book. It is a really good start. Last question is for someone who maybe came from an ag background, that is in their DNA, like you said, but they're not currently working in ag and they might feel a little bit of that call back to it. What advice would you give?
Cheryl Mitchell: Don't ignore it. Don't push your way in. Be curious and ask questions that would help people tell the story, so you can start to identify why is that pull there? Do you wanna take over something? Do you realize that as you grow up, the direct connection is farther and farther apart? And man, you wanna honor that.
So curiosity, and I just kind of say, come open-handed and spend some time really asking yourself what pieces, like when this happens, “Oh, I like, I wanna know more,” or, “That doesn't interest me.” And identify those so you can be drawn to really getting clear on what does that mean. And it might mean you don't own a farm, but it might mean that you say, “Can I come during harvest and spring planting or baling straw time? And I just wanna be there.” And that's enough to feed that part of me that I don't want to die because I'm afraid of losing it. The feeling, the memories, et. Come curious.
Brian Kearney: Oh yeah. And your uncle will allow you to come bale hay. Don't worry.
Cheryl Mitchell: Yes. They will call and go, “Hey.”
Brian Kearney: Exactly.
Cheryl Mitchell: Literally three years ago, my dad called. He goes, “I know it's 110, but Cheryl, we need you.” I'm like, “I'll be right there, dad.” I get there, I'm like, “What am I doing? I'm 57 years old and I am out here sweating.” And I'm like, “Love this.” At the end of the day, because we ordered pizza and everybody's like, “Look at what we did.”
So there's family pride. See, that's the endorphins, right? That's the piece of it. And again, I would ask that person, “Is it because you wanna see the rose? And then the corn come up?” And then there's just something about the seasons. And I, for me, it's a spiritual thing too. So yeah, I would say come curious and, yeah.
Brian Kearney: Yeah. No, that's great advice. Well, thanks for jumping on the show. We'll put all that in the show notes. Anyone who in the back of their mind is thinking this might be valuable, definitely reach out. I think, if that's in the back of your mind, it is valuable, so.
Cheryl Mitchell: And I the panel discussion. I don't know when this will air Uhhuh, but we're doing Uhhuh, the panel discussion at the I&I Tractor Show in Penfield coming up and also the Half Century Progress Show in Rantoul August 22nd or something. So my panel will be there. So there are places will be.
Brian Kearney: Perfect. Well, hey, Cheryl, thanks for the time. This has been great.
Cheryl Mitchell: Thank you.
And that’s a wrap on this episode of The Land Ledger.
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