In this episode of the "Growing Our Future" podcast, host Aaron Alejandro welcomes Tucker Brown as their special guest. The podcast aims to explore insights, expertise, and experiences from individuals who are actively shaping the future. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next," emphasizing the importance of what we sow today for a better tomorrow.
Tucker Brown, the 6th generation of the R.A. Brown Ranch in Throckmorton, Texas, shares his journey and passion for ranching, cattle, and agriculture. He discusses his involvement in FFA and how it shaped his leadership skills. After studying at Lubbock Christian University and TCU Ranch Management, Tucker returned home to the ranch in 2017.
Aaron and Tucker delve into various topics, including Tucker's responsibilities as the "manager of wild animals" and his commitment to understanding all aspects of ranching. Tucker's approach to education and advocacy involves bridging the gap between agriculture and consumers through entertaining and informative content on social media. He emphasizes the importance of being a trusted face for consumers who want to learn more about food production.
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In this episode of the "Growing Our Future" podcast, host Aaron Alejandro welcomes Tucker Brown as their special guest. The podcast aims to explore insights, expertise, and experiences from individuals who are actively shaping the future. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next," emphasizing the importance of what we sow today for a better tomorrow.
Tucker Brown, the 6th generation of the R.A. Brown Ranch in Throckmorton, Texas, shares his journey and passion for ranching, cattle, and agriculture. He discusses his involvement in FFA and how it shaped his leadership skills. After studying at Lubbock Christian University and TCU Ranch Management, Tucker returned home to the ranch in 2017.
Aaron and Tucker delve into various topics, including Tucker's responsibilities as the "manager of wild animals" and his commitment to understanding all aspects of ranching. Tucker's approach to education and advocacy involves bridging the gap between agriculture and consumers through entertaining and informative content on social media. He emphasizes the importance of being a trusted face for consumers who want to learn more about food production.
story Notes:
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Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast. In this show, the Texas FFA Foundation will take on a journey of exploration into agricultural science, education, leadership development and insights from subject matter experts and sponsors who provide the fuel to make dreams come true. Here's your host, Erin Alejandro.
Speaker 2:Well, good afternoon, good morning or good evening, or whenever you may be tuning into the Growing Our Future podcast, I tell you what we enjoy bringing special guests on the show, people that are willing to share their insights, their expertise, their experiences and the reason that's important, by the way, for our guests, the reason that's important. Abraham Lincoln once said the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. So what we plant today is the future we're going to grow tomorrow. So this program is about growing the future. So we're bringing on guests that are going to pour into us. They're going to give us seeds of greatness that are going to make us better personally and professionally, and today is no different. I am so excited for y'all to get to meet. If you hadn't already met him, tucker Brown Tucker, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Hey, it's an honor to be a part of this. I'm really looking forward to the visit.
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to cover some ground here, but I'm going to handle it well. So as we start off Tucker, every guest that we bring on here. Everybody gets the same first question. Let's hear it. What are you grateful for today?
Speaker 3:Well, today. I'm grateful for a chance of rain tomorrow and warm weather to come after that, because that means my grass is coming. I've got grass coming and my wheat's coming on. So today, right now, I can hear the rain hitting my window in the back. That's what I'm thankful for.
Speaker 2:I tell you, well, for those of us who live up in North Texas, we have experienced drought in very unique ways. Several years ago I had the state FFA president, vice president, up here and I took him to a bridge and we walked about a mile and they said, Mr Alejandro, where are we at? I said you're walking on the bottom of a lake and I said a lot of people hear about droughts but very few ever get to see it. This is what drought looks like, and when you understand that, you understand how precious that rain really is. Right, and so I agree with you, it is something to be grateful for. Absolutely Well, very good.
Speaker 2:So let's start off here and tell us a little bit number one, about you. How did you get to where you're at right now at the RA Brown Ranch, and why do you do what you do? Just kind of take us on a journey and bring everybody that's never met Tucker Brown and, by the way, this guy's kind of like a social media, what they call an influencer, so you can follow him on various platforms. I love his little snippets. We'll talk about that here in a little bit. But, Tucker, kind of bring everybody up a little bit about you and how you got to where you're at. Yeah sure?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll tell you that I grew up on the RA Brown Ranch and that didn't start with me or my parents. I'm the sixth generation there and I've got a lot to be thankful for. You talked about being grateful. I have a lot to be thankful for and I learn more every day about the wisdom of the people that came before me to help me get to where I am today.
Speaker 3:So, as the sixth generation of the RA Brown Ranch, I grew up here in Throckmorton, texas, raising, as we like to say, cows, cows, kids and quarter horses. We raised registered bulls, black, red and semangous bulls. Those are kind of that. That's kind of our main deal of what we do. But we love being a part of the community here in Throckmorton. We love to be a part of the ag industry. As you know, mr Alejandro, my parents are very involved in FFA, as I was too, both my parents being national FFA presidents, kind of, and being involved with cattle genetics. Everybody I ever talked to said, hey, well, you're the golden child to be the next president. That wasn't the plan that I had, or that God kind of put on my heart, but I was very involved in FFA growing up in high school.
Speaker 3:It took a lot of those leadership skills forward into school and went to Love of Christian University, actually played a little bit of college basketball. I'm a big competitor. I really like to compete, whether it's chess, whether it's the playing pig basketball, shooting outside or playing college basketball. You know from all of it. So I went to after whenever I left home. My plan was to only be back for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Speaker 3:Possibly I didn't exactly plan on coming back, but the more I went to Love of Christian University, which isn't exactly an ag school, and I got to meet a whole different group of people that were raised very differently than myself, had different. We all had the same morals and Christianity and loving each other, but as far as the connection to the land and agriculture, we were very different there. The longer I was there, the more I realized I want to go back to that. So, graduated from Love of Christian, I went to TCU Ranch Management, knowing I needed to learn a lot to prepare to go home and that was fantastic. And now I've been home since 2017 and love where I'm at. Thankfully, I tricked my beautiful wife, carly Brown, into marrying me before I moved back to Throckmorton.
Speaker 3:And she likes to remind me of where did you bring me.
Speaker 2:It's got its charm.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I see it all the time. I just had to talk her into seeing it, that's all.
Speaker 2:Great. So when I was perusing the RA Brown website, I noticed that your title, your official title, that's on the website is Manager of Wild Animals and Happy Cows.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Tell us, what does it look like a day in the life of Tucker Brown?
Speaker 3:Oh man, a little bit of everywhere I've been involved. I mean just being here a short time, five years, I guess six years that I want to learn each part of the ranch, from the feed side to genetics, to cow calf, to reproduction. I want to learn it all. I started out as I came back, just helping everywhere. I was just basically a full-time intern, kind of what I am today as a full-time intern and helping everywhere. But my main responsibility in taking care of today is the fish and wildlife side of things and whether that's leasing country out or selling hunts. And then I'm in charge of the cow herd and the pasture rotations, preparing cows for breeding, embryo transfer, ai, getting the bull out, vaccinations. That's kind of my main deal. But I do, just like every ranch, help everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting that you said this. This is interesting when you go back and you look at all the episodes that we've recorded for the Growing Our Future podcast. You're the third college basketball player that I've interviewed. Ah, so I interviewed one of my board members, Cleo Franklin, who was very he's in the Hall of Fame up in Iowa. Wow, I interviewed a guy by the name of Dan O'Walabi you might have passed or heard that name out there in Ohio, near Bruce and Margie Cub, and he was a accomplished college ball player. Now you're the third that I've interviewed. And anyway, you said something else, though that kind of got my attention Cleo Franklin.
Speaker 2:Cleo and I were doing a program one time at the International Association of Affairs and Expos and I talked about the importance of becoming an SME, a subject matter expert, and I think people should do that. I think it's important to find something you're passionate about, Sink your teeth into it and strive to become an SME. Well, Cleo challenged me on that a little bit and he said Aaron, he goes. Let me tell you the problem with an SME he goes. The SMEs they think they know everything and so they're not always willing to learn. He said what you really should try to be is an intern in the SME. And so when you gave your example wall ago of learning the ranch, I sat there and I thought that's exactly what we want. We want somebody who has the capacity to be the subject matter expert but also has the humbleness to realize I don't know everything. I want to ask questions, I want to learn things, and it's like you've kind of taken on that, that role.
Speaker 3:Right? Well, there's. There's one thing that I really, that I really don't like, and that's that's losing, and part of losing is being wrong, that I lose in the conversation of being incorrect with what I'm stating. Many times before I mean. One thing I learned through my dad or my parents and FFA, was just knowing the fat, learning the facts and speaking, being educated on what you're speaking in, and so that means that I get I get corrected quite a bit, which I need because I want to be right, I want to be corrected, and I think there's many out there that don't want to be, but if we want to be right, if we want to be correct, if we want to move forward, we have to be corrected.
Speaker 1:So I really like it. I'm like hey, tell me, tell me, where was.
Speaker 3:I where, where was I wrong, where do I need to get better? So, which is kind of hard to tell people sometimes, but whenever I beg for it, almost it's easier for my peers to tell me well, this is where you lack. So that gives me the kind of place to look forward, move forward to and when I can surround myself with people who are those SMEs, those experts in that field, that I can just pull, that I can pull off of that, I love that situation.
Speaker 3:So, going to whether it's, you know, texas FFA or national FFA or Texas Southwest Cattle Razors, and being around people that I, that are leaders and up in their company, who have worked hard, that I get to pull off of that energy and wisdom, I get excited. You can hear me, I get excited doing that.
Speaker 2:I love it. I have a philosophy. Everybody that knows me knows here's my philosophy. You know, we've never even met before and I'm sitting here listening and going. This guy thinks just like I do. Number one if you want to be the best, train with the best.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You want to be the best at something, go find the best and hang out with them. And then the second thing that you said which I think is a mark of a great leader, by the way is it's okay to be a little bit vulnerable.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Because being a little bit vulnerable and a little bit humble allows you to open up that door, to absorb just a little bit more that you might not have known.
Speaker 3:Sure no great point.
Speaker 2:And whether that's in agriculture and life and government. Think about all the things that we could learn about, but just having that humbleness of being a little bit vulnerable to say you know, that was a good point.
Speaker 3:And I think that being that way tends to put me in a way between two fires of people who are very, very passionate about two different opinions, and I draw from both of those, and so it tends to put me between two different fires. But because I want to understand the logic of both sides and which way should I go, and I want to know both sides, because I want to go the best way, I tend to find myself sometimes between two fires on different occasions, whether it's politics, or cattle, or vaccinations, you know a little bit everywhere. But that's where I want to be, that's where I live to be.
Speaker 2:That's where I thrive too, by the way. So every summer I take 36 teachers on a bus for a week long leadership experience and we'll visit about 15 locations. We'll travel over 1000 miles. We'll hear from over 60 presenters Wow. But when they get on the bus and we give them their notebook, they open a notebook. The first thing that they see in their notebook when they open it up is the word question.
Speaker 2:And I always ask people what's the root word of the word question? Quest to go on an adventure. I said your responsibility this week is to go on an adventure and, just like you, when you look at life as this, I'm going to ask questions, I'm going to try to learn and guess what. Sometimes you got to ask tough questions because tough questions is what prompts them to give you the insight that we're really hungry for. So there's nothing wrong with the tough questions. Matter of fact, everybody knows me, knows I like tough questions because it forces me to think, it forced me to compile what the right answer for that moment is, to draw on the experiences and the resources and information that you've been able to gather in your lifetime. And if you keep doing that, just think about that capacity, your capacity of knowledge is only going to continue to do one thing, and that's grow. I hope so. Well, it has to admit there's no other way for it to go. So you went to see you. You did the ranch management. You come back now. You're definitely right in the heart of it. I saw you at the NCBA activities and you know, I've been watching kind of some of the things that you've been doing, both personally, professionally, and trying to really help people understand more about agriculture and how we get our food.
Speaker 2:I think that's something else, tucker, that a lot of people don't. We sometimes talk amongst ourselves and you know, let me give you one for ag teachers. You ready, I'm going to give you one for ag teachers. So back in about 2017, they did a survey on the words of agriculture and we discovered that about 79% of Americans don't even know what agriculture is. They don't really have a reference point.
Speaker 2:When you say agriculture, yeah, okay, when education is in the news, is it usually good or is it bad? Tends to be bad, tends to be bad? Right, oh, we're agricultural education. We're what you don't understand and what you don't like. How come you don't understand this? How come you don't listen to us, yeah, and so I think programs like this and for people to see the example of what you're trying to do and the fact that I'm out here doing a podcast that I'm writing for Forbes nonprofit council we're trying to bridge to an audience to talk about where food comes from.
Speaker 2:They may not understand agriculture, but everybody understands food, so let's help them understand where this animal protein comes from. It didn't just fall into the supermarket, right How's? Don't know, it's Christmas time, I mean, somebody had to get out there and feed them. And so I think sometimes in the world of food production, in agriculture, we sometimes talk too much amongst ourselves and we miss the opportunity to help reach an audience that doesn't really understand where their food comes from, the care that went into it. I think that's a good point.
Speaker 3:I think that's a. I've been kind of living in that statement for the past two years probably is when I kind of took on the this Ag advocate persona and trying to push that out. I've, my mother is a very talented photographer and I've kind of she I've been trained to see her eye and what is a good picture and what people want to see and where their eyes move to on a photo first, and things like that, and so I've just kind of meshed that with with my. You know we're surrounded by nature and cattle and horses and things that people want to see every day that don't get the chance to, and I get to share it. I kind of call it the Yellowstone effect of where people have watched Yellowstone and now they're more interested in whether it's the cowboy lifestyle or be for their food, now more than more than ever. Covid helped out with a lot of that too.
Speaker 3:But since Yellowstone I've been asked, it's given me an opportunity so to bridge that gap, because people are now questioning, because you say I think you made a good point toward the word education, kind of as a negative, like you hear that let me educate you and you're like, oh no, I already know and that's what the our consumer thinks right. So if I don't, if I don't tell them, hey, let me educate me here. I'm here to educate you If I just say, hey, I'm a dad, I'm a father, I'm a hardworking man, that's what they connect to, that's what they want to. I want to be a face that they can trust, a voice that they want to listen to, and there's some new data that came out that says that the rancher is in a. It goes back and forth from number one to number two of the most trusted source when it comes to learning about food people wanting to hear from a rancher about learning about their food or farm.
Speaker 1:So I mean that's.
Speaker 3:I'm like that's me, I can. I can do this. I've got the capability and you know FFA helped me with whether it was learning to speak or be able to put that speech together and be able to broadcast that out, and social media gave me this platform to use to reach millions of people in a matter of one video, however long that is a week, and so I get really excited about it just because I know how much opportunity there is out there. And, as in ag, like you said, we do a lot of conversation around ourselves. I mean we love talking to other people in ag. I do.
Speaker 3:I love going to the State FFA convention or NCBA or TSCRA and getting to speak with other cattlemen and other people in ag and we've kind of it's not that we don't know how to tell our story, because that's we've been saying that for probably 10 years now Tell your story, tell your story. This is not that we don't know how, but I think we've. I think we need to learn how to tell it to where our consumer understands. That's right and that's where I've probably learned the most in the past couple of years of well, what do they? What do they think they know? What do they think they know that is incorrect, and then how can I change that idea? Besides telling them, hey, you're wrong, let me educate you, because the moment somebody tells me that I wall up, no, not listening to you.
Speaker 3:But if it's somebody that I know has worked really hard, built up, you know, from from the ground, and continues to work and is driven and competitive, no matter where they are, I draw from that and want to hear and I trust that.
Speaker 3:So that's where I want to be is, is that a trusted face to help do that? And I do it through. I found the most success in doing that through entertainment. I mean my videos, pictures or videos tend to on social media, tend to have some type of humor in it, and one I just I think everybody I love to smile, I love to have a good time and I want to give, I want people to do that around me because it makes me happy. So I call it edutainment. If I can entertain them enough to keep them to watch that video, and that video has educational stuff in it, and they go oh, I didn't know that. Then they go to my page and they watch another one and another one, and that's where I found the most success and the most the better ability to be a trusting face.
Speaker 2:Everything you said is correct. By the way, the polls show that people trust farmers and rangers. Yes, okay, so that that tells you right now. And, by the way, I think that that I've always been told we're not, we're not going to get into a deep philosophical, spiritual discussion, but I've always been told there's two things you can't argue about. They said you can't argue. You can't argue the Bible or somebody's testimony, and so when you're sharing your story, when you're sharing your testimony, it's one thing to share it, but, like you said, you've got this new vehicle called social media and the reason.
Speaker 2:I think that's important. I like to tell people all the time I want you to go outside and get some of that green time. Go out there and get, go out there and get that green time, but then I want you to share it on screen time because, because it's what you said, I think when people see you riding and working cattle and and with your dogs and your family, and they see you out in this natural environment, I do think there's something that's in all of our DNA about the earth, because I think it's part of who we are. And now you've got this platform that allows you to bring it to an audience of not just those who ride horses and say let me see how he's riding, but you've also got it for the people. Like you said. They're new to it. They're saying I didn't know that I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:So I like the fact that you bring that green time to screen time and you're also reaching a new audience. I read Stegall's a friend of mine and Red and I talk about that and that's what I tell Red all the time is. I appreciate so much that his programming, what he's done, he's attracted so many people from major urban areas that he's the cow, but that's okay, because that cowboy guy is sharing some real critical information about how food gets to our dinner tables, right, and I think you're kind of doing that again and you're attracting that next audience and I'm going to tell you that's important for people like me. I tell people all the time that if agriculture has taught me anything, it's taught me.
Speaker 2:If you want to know what the future is, grow it. We want to know what our country is going to look like. You better start getting involved with young people. You better start with the seeds of what we want them to be and having advocates like you willing to share your story, your testimony. The other thing that you've said that I really like have you had a chance to meet Gordon Davis yet? Oh, I don't. I don't think so. Vw Davis they just named the ag college at Texas Tech after him.
Speaker 3:Okay, I have not.
Speaker 2:no, no, that's who I was thinking of, but no, I have no idea. So GW Davis I had the pleasure of working with him when he started CV multimedia. But Gordon Davis, when he gave his speech the day that he made the gift and this was my big takeaway, I love it he said it's okay to win. It's okay to win. So I'll ask you the question I asked kids, because you're fixing to jump all over this one how many high schools do you think there are in the state of Texas?
Speaker 3:I may be way off. I'm just going to throw a number and say 4,000.
Speaker 2:That's not bad. There's over 3,000 high schools in the state of Texas. Okay, think about that. So 3,000 plus high schools. How many of them are going to have a graduating class this year? Everyone of them, hopefully, all of them. Yeah, but think about that. All these kids are going to be out looking for a job, scholarship or an opportunity.
Speaker 2:My question to everybody is what's your competitive edge? What separates you from somebody else? And it sounds like maybe for you you found a competitive edge and some athletics. You might have picked up some skills through the FFA. That gave you a little bit of a competitive edge above your peers. But I want you to take off on this idea of competition. How important is it to understand that it's a competitive world? How important is it to understand? By the way, competitive doesn't mean you have to be unsportsmanlike. It doesn't have to be that you're mean or that you're. I mean, being a competitor to me is like being a warrior. To me, it's very noble. Yeah, but I'm curious what your take on this. If you were talking to young people right now talking about that necessity of a competitive edge, what would you tell them? Yeah, let me come to that. Yeah, big time challenge. Yeah, wanna have a little fancy fat dance.
Speaker 3:I love competitiveness just because it's what drives me, and if I'm not competing against something in my mind, I don't have a reason to be better than I was last year at this time or yesterday or however you want to compete against yourself or somebody else. I do better when I compete against somebody else, whether it's showing up to the ranch on time, whether it's having a bull, that is better. I can compete in a whole lot of things, and I'm always facing the clock. I compete against the GPS when it tells me what time I'm going to arrive at a place. So that always makes me I think it makes me better because it holds me accountable.
Speaker 3:Basically and not that we talked about if we don't do our job, something dies in the ag industry, and that may not be the case in everything that I do, but there's a whole lot of truth in that. Anytime it involves cattle and horses, which is my job a lot of the time. So, gosh, I love to compete and I didn't realize how much I did until I was done playing basketball and I didn't play for a little bit and then I went back and played just a little bit of pickup ball. I was like, oh, I forgot how fun it was to be getting right up against somebody else and just see who's better. And I try to bring that to whatever I'm doing because I know it does make me better.
Speaker 3:And it's always in the back of my head that if I'm not training or if I'm not studying, that person I'm competing against is, and I'm not going to win. And I already told you I don't like to lose. So that's where, that's where that's in me. So that competitive edge is, I think, in for high school graduates who are just getting out. You don't have to be very competitive to be recognized.
Speaker 3:I don't think today in a lot of jobs because, I think the bar is has been lowered as time has gone on on what competitive means, and so by just a little bit, and I think that that'll just make you hungrier to be just a little bit more competitive. And then every time that you jump up to that next level of people who are who have studied more, or you get that raise and get to another job, I'm always trying to find that that best. Who's next? Who am I competing against next? Because I'm, I'm, I'm done competing with the guys who got me to where I am. Who's going to beat me? Who's going to be better than me to train me to where I need to go? So, gosh, I think that makes the world go around is competitiveness.
Speaker 2:Well, like I said, we've never met before, but I couldn't agree with you more. Everybody that knows me knows that's what I'm telling people all the time. You know, I tell people as adults. Our job is adults. Our job is adults are to give kids opportunities. The kids job is to determine the outcome. Our jobs try to help them get to the opportunity and give them the skill set to go out there and compete. But we can't do it for them. And it's just like this podcast. I wished everybody would tune in to grow in our future pocket.
Speaker 2:The spectrum of guests we've had on here. There is so much wisdom. I know not everybody's going to do that, but there's probably going to be some young person today watching this is going to say, you know, I kind of like what Tucker said about I got to be a little more competitive, I got to have an edge when I get out there and or maybe it's even a parent or a boss that's listening to this and company and says you know, I really need to spur my long. A little more accountability, a little more expectation. You know, here's the thing.
Speaker 2:People that know me and you'll appreciate this they say, aaron, what do you want? What is it that you want for the Texas FFA? I said that's easy. I want to be the best. Yeah, because if we're not striving to be the best, what? Maybe we should just hang a sign up that says no worse than the competition. You know, if you're not striving to be the best, where's your passion? Where's persistence? You're drive yeah, you're always working to be the best. You're always honing your competitive edge. You're always listening to what other people have to say. You're always looking for a way to make yourself better. And success beget success. Like you said, if you can get a little bit of success, you realize, wow, if I could just improve myself a little bit more, maybe I can have a little more success. Sounds like that's kind of what you're doing there at the ranch. You're taking on these roles and responsibilities to build your competitive edge in a future marketplace.
Speaker 3:That's my hope, you know, and I'm loving to win. The hard part for me is, I mean, once you do get that first win on, no matter what it is, you get that first win, then losing hurts a little more. And then, once you lose, that win feels that that's where that winning, that feeling of winning, feels so good, because you know you've lost before and we can get complacent in the spot where we are yeah, just continue to win and just stay where we are not getting better and just stay where we are, continue to win. But that doesn't mean we get that. We get better. And so I think being a leader means knowing when you need to lose, maybe getting in your head, over your head a little bit, forcing yourself to kind of pull the best out of you. It's about being the best and winning, but to be the best because I've lost a lot of things. I think that's taken me to where I am, whether it was with social media, there was, there was a time where I was just frustrated. And why aren't people?
Speaker 3:wanting to see these videos that I feel like they're really good. And then I was able to find a guy that was really good at it. Talk to him. He said look, here's why, here's your reason that you're not doing this. Implement that and it's changed the game. And so as long as I keep moving up, losing a little bit and then feeling that win again to drive me, that's where I do best is winning, winning, losing pretty hard, just enough to make me remember why I don't want to lose, and then get right back on my feet, go with. So I know a lot of people that are happy winning every day and the place that they're at, and that's okay because they're really good people and they're good at their job. That's just. That's just not what I do.
Speaker 2:Well, always on these interviews, I'm always listening for the title. So I'm always listening to the person talking, thinking okay, say something. That's going to be the title for this interview and you, just you just hit the nail on the head. The title of this interview is going to be get in over your head. Get in over your head.
Speaker 3:I like it Because it's so true.
Speaker 2:Get in over your head. That's good stuff. All right, let's give the listeners some tips real quick. If you could listen, if you were that ad kid sitting in that ad classroom back, what would be three leadership tips? What would you tell them they need to do to be successful leaders?
Speaker 3:I'll tell you two things come to my head immediately. And I think leaders are well-spoken, I think they're easy to listen to and whenever we, when many of us think of the leaders, when we think of leaders, we think of somebody who is driving the ship and kind of telling everybody else what to do in a way that everybody understands. So being well-spoken and being able to speak and communicate can get you a long ways. There is a little bit of truth to people who you know, getting you to where you are. But you have to have that ability in you to back it up for it to be long-term. But there's a whole lot of eyes you can catch, of people who will help you just by being able to be well-spoken. And that's I mean. You don't have to do all the speech classes or anything like that, but training a little bit on that I think, goes a long ways. I agree with you. I think the second, kind of along the same path and I may be the same thing but a little bit different that networking is so powerful and underused that I remember going to Texas FFA and only wanting to stay with my people, that I was going to go back home and be in the same chapter with when I just I wish that I would have met people outside of my chapter, whether it was the state president or the national president. I mean, we have these people here who will visit with us, who will talk to us, and I wish that I would have taken that opportunity, at all the FFA events, at the competitions, at the conventions, to meet people outside of that, because I think there's a lot of growth, a lot of growth in friendships that you make from people who are like you but have different experiences and can help you. So I think networking is an unbelievable tool that is very underused today because it's right there in front of us and we just have to. But there's many of us that are so scared just to go talk, just to go talk to somebody and I used to be there, I'm not there anymore but just going and saying hello, hey, I'm Tucker from Throckmorton. And then that's when you start asking those questions and with FFA it's easy. It's like what competitions do you do? Are you in chapter conducting? Are you? Have you done any welding, which is, I think, it's easy in FFA, because it's people who are very similar to us. I just wish I would have taken those opportunities in networking which I do now. I feel like I use networking a lot.
Speaker 3:And the third one it's a I don't know if I've ever heard somebody say it as a leadership skill, but I think consistency is another powerful tool by and I think setting goals helps us be consistent. So if we can, if we can set some short term goals, set a long term one and then set some short term goals in there to help us know if we're on track or not, that helps us keep consistent. You know whether it's me saying I'm going to post certain amount of posts for six months, I have to post this many posts and well, to do that, I don't need to do this many per month. That means this many per week and that helps me know whether I'm on track or not. And then you take it to the business world I'm going to study where I'm going. I'm going to study that this many times a week, this many minutes a day.
Speaker 3:I think that really helps with consistency, and maybe it's setting goals, maybe that's what, but it's in that same category. But just that being consistent goes a very long way, because nothing happens in that short term and that's where it's so frustrating, and that's why so many people quit. You know, whether it's losing weight or social media, or work, I mean everything. So many people quit very short because they weren't consistent at it.
Speaker 3:So that would be my three being well spoken, networking and being consistent.
Speaker 2:Tucker, how did you not ever become a foundation ambassador and work for me at convention? I don't know that. The foundation ambassador program. Are you ready for this? You're going to love it. I'm ready to throw it out. So we give an award to one of the ambassadors every year because here's what we teach them we teach them to go out and meet anybody within three feet of them. And it's called the three foot award because we want them to go out and realize that everybody they're about to meet is going to be their future colleague, constituent, customer. Get to know as many people as you can.
Speaker 2:And then the other one is we always say consistency creates credibility, and I like what you said about you. You try to win, but sometimes you fall back and that drives you to want to win again. That's the way consistency works. Consistency doesn't mean that we're going to win all the time. It means that I may get a dip here, but guess what? I'm still moving forward. I'm going to be found climbing. I'm not done. You know what? In agriculture, what do we say? When you're green, you grow. When you're ripe, you rot. I don't want to rot. You know. I've had people say well, aaron, what are you going to retire. I said why there's more work. You know there's more doors that need to be built so that more people can walk through those doors, and people like you inspire me that there's these future voices that are passionate about agriculture and food and family and faith and liberty and freedom and all the things that make our country great. Why would we not want to plant those seeds in people's lives?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, I applaud you for what you're doing. All right, we better wrap up. We could go on. I could talk to you.
Speaker 3:I could go, I could keep going.
Speaker 2:Okay, everybody gets a fun question at the end. Here's your fun question, tucker Brown what's the best concert you've ever been to?
Speaker 3:Oh man, best concert I've ever been to was it was actually not from my favorite artist and it was not a full band. I'm a Texas Country music fan and I went to school at Lubbock. There's a lot of music there. It was a William Clark Green acoustic show on a Tuesday night. Wow, pretty small crowd. There was probably 200 people and I loved it. I don't know, I feel like he was more personal, he was a little more joking around, which made it a whole lot more fun for the crowd, and that was that's. My favorite concert was the acoustic show from William Clark Green on a Tuesday night. I love it.
Speaker 2:What is that? That's good stuff. Yeah, that's good stuff. Well, tucker, I appreciate you coming on the show. I appreciate the voice and, by the way, do you recognize the name, zig Ziglar.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, great motivational speaker. Well, zig Ziglar son Tom Ziglar, is on my board of directors and I'm and I have a lot of conversations about his dad because his dad was one of my mentors. But the thing that I like about Tom Ziglar is Tom's not trying to be Zig Ziglar, tom's being the best version of Tom Ziglar that he could ever be. And they say that we create a legacy. Everybody creates a legacy. You either create it by design or default. And what you're doing is is you're establishing your brand. It's a great family brand, but Tucker's taking it out there and he's saying let me show you how I'm going to establish my legacy. And that's. That's a good thing, because you're taking the best and standing on the shoulders of all those people that went before you. But you're also reaching down, saying to the people below here look, come here, let me give you a hand up because I want you up here with me.
Speaker 3:Right, that's my hope. That's, that's what I hope for.
Speaker 2:And so I just want to commend you for that. I hope that you keep doing that, and we wish you all the luck in the world.
Speaker 3:I sure appreciate it has. I think you're very wise and Mr Ziglar is very wise also.
Speaker 1:But you know whenever we get.
Speaker 3:To find being nice for what we did, rather than maybe, than what what this brand did. There's something special about that that makes me drive forward and then makes me love the brand even more. So I thank you for the kind words. It sure means a lot and that helps me keep going.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a. We have a couple of sayings around the ambassador room. You ready, here they are. One when your values are clear, your choices are easy. When your values are clear, your choices are easy. And number two the essence of leadership is to plant trees under whose shade you may never set.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Thank you for planting some trees today. Glad to be a part.
Speaker 2:All right, Until our past cross. Again, everybody, thank you for tuning into the growing our future podcast. Remember, if you want to know what the future is, grow it. That means you got to plant seeds. You got to take care of them. You got to water them, nurture them. You got to be consistent and you can't sell it. Let you go out and tell somebody about it. You got to be well spoken. You got to have a network where everything Tucker said today that's what they're growing our future podcast is about. Thank you all for joining us. Go out and do something great for somebody and we'll catch you down the road on the next episode of growing our future.
Speaker 1:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the growing, our future podcast. This show is sponsored by the Texas FFA Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen agricultural science education so students can develop their potential for personal growth, career success and leadership in a global marketplace. Learn more at mytexasffaorg.