Regenerative Agriculture: Thriving as a Modern Rancher

Episode 11- Holistic Management Through Generations: A Journey of Growth with Kelly Sidoryk

• Christine Martin • Season 1 • Episode 11

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In this episode of Regenerative Agriculture: Thriving as a Modern Rancher, Christine chats with Kelly Sidoryk about her lifelong journey with Holistic Management, from its early days as Holistic Resource Management in the 1980s to its continued impact on her multi-generational ranch today. Kelly shares how her family embraced change, implemented intensive grazing, and prioritized the human element in ranching—an often-overlooked but critical piece of the puzzle.

Together, Christine and Kelly dive into the challenges of succession planning, the evolving understanding of grazing management, and the importance of adaptability in ranching. They discuss the role of paradigms in decision-making, the power of clear communication, and the ongoing journey of learning in agriculture. Whether you're a seasoned rancher or just beginning your land stewardship journey, this episode is packed with insights on how to thrive holistically—financially, ecologically, and personally.

Tune in to learn:
✅ How Kelly’s family transformed their operation with Holistic Management
✅ Why the human side of ranching is just as important as the grazing and finances
✅ Practical insights on grazing planning, stocking rates, and recovery periods
✅ The importance of adaptability, mindset, and communication in succession planning

Plus, Kelly shares details about an upcoming Texas workshop on livestock handling, grazing, and holistic decision-making. Don’t miss this inspiring and wisdom-filled conversation!

👉 Listen now and start thriving in your ranching journey!

Workshop Details: https://www.cattleupstockmanship.com/events/full-circle-ranch-gathering

🌿 Grab my free guide: 5 Essential Actions for Thriving Land Stewardship
🌱 Take the Ecosystem Quiz: Find out how well you can read your land
📚 Explore Self-Study Courses: Learn at your own pace!

📧 Connect with Christine on Instagram
📅 Schedule a Call with Christine: Get personalized guidance for your land. 

Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: info@thrivinglandsteward.com

Christine Martin:

Kelly. Thank you so much for joining us. For this recording episode of the podcast. I'm so excited to have you in here to share your journey with holistic management. I'd like to start off with asking you to introduce yourself and embedded in there. If you would also share how you were introduced to holistic management and and we'll go from there.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Okay. That sounds great. Thanks so much for having me, Christine. When we last saw each other in snowy Denver, I came home and now we have snowy Lloyd Minster where I am. So it yeah, it feels similar, but we're appreciating the moisture. we were introduced to Holistic management. It was called holistic resource management at the time in the early 1980s. And, my family had a intensive livestock operation that really was not so much intended to be a family operation. There was employees, et cetera. But at the time, Lots of challenges going on. And there was a fellow that my dad was a colleague with on the cattle feeders, board of directors organization. And that fellow is Blake Holtman, from Southern Alberta. They have ship will feeders. Which his daughter, Andrea Strovisawa, now manages and operates. Anyway, at the time, Blake at his operation had started making some changes. He'd already met Alan Savory, and so every time that Dad and Blake got together at one of their meetings, and they were visiting, and Dad was very curious to learn more, and he was a continuous learner for sure. And finally, Blake said you got to go to a course yourself. I can't just keep repeating these things to you. So at that point in time similar challenges as we often find in agriculture, revenue prices were low expense costs were high and trying to manage all of that anyway. So at that time. Anyone who's listening who's been involved for quite some time will recall that the introductory courses were divided into two five day for courses, and one was called H. R. M. in practice, I believe, and that was all about the finances and the grazing. There was a separate course called Building the Effective Organization, all about the people five days long. Dad and some colleagues went to the Cattle and Finances, which were his passions big time, and then came home and said to My mom and myself and another gal that was working on the management team with us. Oh, you guys got to go. To the one all about people. And so we did for five days. And that was life altering or transformational. As note, somebody else that I will mention who has been becoming. Significant mentor for me in the human resource side of things is David Irvine, and he was at that course with us in Waterton so many years ago. Anyway, one of the pieces where it really resonated with me was I was also interested in personal growth and learning, and I was living in another center working for a livestock magazine, which I really enjoyed that job. But it seemed like anything I wanted to do in regards to leadership or personal growth and development, it Was always outside of my regular job, and certainly I encountered a lot of livestock producers in the course of that, and it was the same with them. Nobody was talking about the human resource. Talked a lot about cattle, grazing, feeding, some about finances and markets, but it wasn't about people. So when I came across an approach that included the human side of things, that was a game changer for me, Christine, and so came back and we, we did turn into a family operation and now now we're third generation and there's some littles floating around that will be fourth generation. We're not this longstanding been on the same family ranch for hundreds of years. My parents came from southern Saskatchewan came up to this area in the sixties, and we've had different operations that we've owned over time. Anyway, I will stop talking about that part of it, but that was the first introduction, and I was also very fortunate as the younger person or of the younger generation because my parents were very open minded to make change. The biggest thing that we did initially was set up an intensive grazing program. We fenced a lot.

Christine Martin:

Interesting. So I want to go back to a comment and any of you watching this video on YouTube or on social media, I smiled when you shared that your father took the grazing and the financial, but then he delegated the social to you and your mom. Any insight why that seems to happen, because I find that the men feel comfortable with the numbers and the data and the grazing, but when it comes to the human part of it, the human resource management, they really feel hesitant, I guess is the right word. Can you share your insights?

Kelly Sidoryk:

Interestingly enough, also, back then there was short courses that you could take two days in length off of each of those five day courses. And one of the ones off the, building the effective organization side of it was goal setting. There was another one called Families in business and team building. There was another one managing individual development. I'm having to go back into the memory reserves for

Christine Martin:

doing great.

Kelly Sidoryk:

facilitated by an amazing fellow who's no longer with us, but his name is Don Green, and he really played a pivotal role. And certainly in my in my learning, but, dad would actually say quite openly because it was a few years later. When they had the annual conference, which they used to do in Albuquerque every year and ahead of it that they would hold some short courses. And so then 1 year, mom and dad went back to revisit and take the goal setting course of it. And dad would often tell stories after that, about being a slow learner and realizing that is. The key piece of it, and that's where we really need to try to start, but I'm going to say try to because, as you'll have been in some of the conversations, where is the best place to enter this learning journey? And I think it's highly dependent on the individuals and just to get started. So I, hear what you're saying. And I certainly, as I focus a bit more on the succession piece of it, realizing that for the. Without stereotyping, but the older fellas in agriculture they weren't brought up or experienced, and many of us aren't to spend time focusing on the human side of things. They are really good at producing and that is what they do well.

Christine Martin:

It's their, mission to provide, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where women are more nurturing and. Homemakers not to stereotype at all,

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah, there's some tendencies, I think, and with the genders, and that is we're wired differently, I believe, for the most part, and those characteristics definitely come out. Something else I'm going to share this will really tell you how long ago it was, but I remember, and I went to lots of different producer meetings in those years, and going to a holistic Management conference in Albuquerque, and they were focusing on Wolf Challenge and on much of the BLM land. They were having a lot of challenges around that, and they had a panel. actually included from all ends of the spectrum, belief and position wise, and that was the first time I'd ever participated in something where they actually invited the people that were on a different page, frankly, to come and share their thoughts and ideas. So that we could understand each other better. And I'd actually forgot about that now until we start visiting Christine. But that was really pivotal. I thought, holy cow a place where we are being true to the trying to create win. Relationships. The only way we can do that is if we start sitting down with those that we don't necessarily agree with and trying to understand things from their perspective. And the conference just really exemplified that.

Christine Martin:

that's amazing. Yeah. I love it because it really is bringing in that concept of the whole, the W H O L E. We're all on different paths and different phases of our journey and to be able to get everybody to your point, a win to get everybody on a similar same page is so pivotal to, Implementing successful policies, implementing successful routines programs, all sorts of things. So yeah, that's amazing. I'm slightly envious that you have had all those experiences.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah, that also at that point in time, there was a movement, this will tell you how long ago it was, the slogan was Grazing free by 93 or cattle free, like when they were trying to get all the ruminants off the public lands by 1993. So it

Christine Martin:

Wow.

Kelly Sidoryk:

than 93 that this was going on.

Christine Martin:

So how has holistic management, the framework, helped you in challenges that we get presented on a day to day basis? The succession, the familial delegation of responsibilities, how has that helped you

Kelly Sidoryk:

I think one of the pieces. That has often been hard for me to really, really, Oh, I don't even really learn or assimilate if that's the right word. I'm not sure it is, but the recognition that it honestly is a journey. And I remember in the earlier years feeling like, Oh, my gosh, but we're not doing this. We're not doing that. Our goal is only our financial planning could be better. And again, I think that as a organization and a movement, we need to really be mindful of that and, accepting of everybody is at a different point. And where you enter. As I mentioned before, will make a difference. But your current set of situations, will circumstances will make a big difference, too. So certainly we've gone through lots of transitions. I think of thing that I can now reflect on that had a big impact. I've already mentioned my parents being very open minded and, Dad was very inclusive in decision making. And so when we would go through planning processes, it was predominantly my brother and I that took over but we were always included in all the conversations, be it about finances, debt, and we knew the people that were the resources for that, our bankers, our accountants, our lawyers. He took us to all the meetings before we were even formally, owners of our own company that were invested in the bigger group. So that was so helpful. And then sitting down and doing the projections in the planning and those were going through some pretty harsh times with up here. We had the drought of 0203 and BSE, which was just a complete double whammy. And when I think back the impact of that is it's far reaching when I start seeing what calf prices are these days and. kids roll their eyes at me, but it's like, Whoa, this is a never have I ever is how I've phrased some of our sales lately. Again wereally focused on the grazing point and, as I said, the land we were managing some of it had been in crop because we were growing feed. We pretty much seeded everything down to grass put lots of fences in and really worked hard at at becoming good graziers. But again, that has other impacts to mother nature and what's going on. Will have a lot to do with that. So try to use the financial piece of it. The gross profit analysis and the testing questions, I think, as far as the framework goes, was something that we just got better at all the time and trying to think about things about what is our weak link in this chain of production and, drilling down in that once we'd gotten to the point where we were. Growing a pretty decent amount of forage. Then what was it? It was more product conversion was the weak link, because how are we converting that to revenue at the end of the day?

Christine Martin:

Yeah, that's currently my problem. I've, got a product weak link. Cause I have way more grass than I have livestock. So I've grown all this beautiful grass. But with cattle prices the way they are, I just I can't make them the numbers work.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Going back to that example, something that we did that people used to shake their heads at, I'm sure. Lots of things we did. People Probably shook their heads at, but we not only have an owned livestock enterprise, we have a custom grazing enterprise as well. I will never say they're static, that we always have this many cows and we always run this many owned yearlings or Stockers, as you guys call them, and as well as custom, but going through the gross profit has been a helpful way for us to determine what numbers as well as the records that we keep from the grazing management. So we know how many grazing days we produce on average in a year. Is it going to be dry next year? Should we scale that back and, that's been helpful to all the records for animal days per acre that we get from our operation.

Christine:

I know that's been very important. I'm a relatively new grazer compared to you. I started this midlife career change and not having that data, because it was new land to me. So I was learning the land because I didn't have the history of what was done before and then not having The carrying capacity, what each pasture could, produce. The first couple of years was a struggle, but now that I have that data, it makes decisions and management so much easier

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah, We had a good conversation at a field day that I was at not too long ago, and one of the starting points that we were using with people is if you were haying that, how many bales per acre would you get? how much do your bales weigh? Okay you just said pounds per acre, right?

Christine Martin:

by

Kelly Sidoryk:

if you consider that, a cow or a steer or a heifer eats two and a half to 3% Body weight dry matter right there. You can figure out a rough carrying capacity. And I think there's part of our challenge in holistic management is helping the segue to people that are just starting into

Christine Martin:

course.

Kelly Sidoryk:

who's saying, you know what? We get 80 animal days per acre off of this paddock. And that's one way that I found without going off on a tangent is because almost all cattle producers will have a sense of yeah, How many bales of hay they could produce off Something.

Christine Martin:

sure. And I know we've talked about this, but as I coach and teach workshops with newer land stewards all the. Let's call it jargon we throw a lot at them and so to be able to go back and say, this is what I'm meaning when I say animal days per acre which goes to what you've just shared and, all of the other components. There is a lot of learning and I will be honest the first year I had a cheat sheet that I used to carry Because I'm slow, but I'll get there eventually but that cheat sheet really helps Sure

Kelly Sidoryk:

we adapted how we would do our grazing back in the day. Actually, it's funny thinking about this because we had some binders and that we had in the pickups and we put the calendars in there and then the. then we also had pieces of notepaper that had the order we were going to go in paddocks so then we would have the grazing order figured out an estimated days from the grazing planning back in the day. I used to be quite detailed and I okay, we were in that paddock for. 4. 76 days and everybody like, Yeah, no, four and a half. That's good. We don't need to go into any further detail. We adapted the way we identify our animal units because we are switching back between yearlings and cow calf. And so we don't do it the same as everybody else with 1000 pound animal unit. We have a 700 pound yearling is an average animal unit. And then we can easily say, most pairs of our cows would be double that. So it's just a 2 to 1 ratio. So easy math. If we were running 100 cows on that grazing cell, we could probably get away with 200 yearlings. Of course, as the days is an important factor there, too. But if you're doing it the same growing season, those are just some of the adaptations we used over the years, and now we do lots. Just on our phones where we, have notes in there to say when we're moving the cattle and then put that into the spreadsheets.

Christine Martin:

,I love that our colleague Brian Welberg has he shares he has his grazing chart on the bathroom door. So everybody can see what they're supposed to be doing. And he shares that he just puts one year over the other one so that you can flip through and look at the history of it all. So

Kelly Sidoryk:

happened last year.

Christine Martin:

Yeah,

Kelly Sidoryk:

And certainly learning more and more all the time. The importance of recovery. That's such a changing piece. And as an educator, you know that everybody wants to know what recovery period they should use and always hesitant to say. And over time, when we've been, going through some dry years. We've extended it. So I was almost coming to the conclusion that initially we had too short of a recovery period. But this summer at the beginning of the season, we had really optimal rains, and it reminded me of yes, when the conditions are good in our country on pretty good grass. We can have a shorter recovery period, but it's not static. We can't say that every year plants will recover in X number of days. See, I don't even want to say a number.

Christine Martin:

And it's very location specific, right? It's very environmental, how much rain, condition of the soil, how severe graze or not. So there's so many variables that affect that recovery.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah, And it's always, going through a drought, you probably will have to do more severe grazing than you would like, but we're lucky where we live, it's more non brittle, that it is pretty forgiving with some moisture.

Christine Martin:

Yeah, I'm in East Texas. So I've got an average rainfall of about 50 inches a year, which is pretty consistent. So, yeah, so I have a little bit more grace.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yes,

Christine Martin:

Yeah,

Kelly Sidoryk:

percent you know, and learning that is one of the founding principles of holistic management. You know that Is different in different environment and conditions. And I think that's important to note that one as well.

Christine Martin:

Yeah, so I've been on this property for four years and I bought it and it had previously just been hayed and there were some animals on here at one point, but it was continuous grazing and it had been cropland before it used to be cotton. But within the first two years. Of being on this property because I was rotating the animals into the respective. Pastures when I was allowing for that recovery, I tripled my carrying capacity within those two years just due to management. Soil conditions were still the same. The past management was still the same. But because I allowed for that recovery. I tripled it. It's amazing, right? And and I'm noticing here in East Texas, July and August typically is pretty dry, and then we have rainfall in September. So we really have two growing season. Obviously, the springtime is, a much longer growing season. But I've noticed that despite the small drought period, we've My recovery times I'm having to shorten because my ecosystem functions are improving because of the management, because density recovery, all of these different tools that we have available to us. So it's when people ask me for a recipe, I said, I can't give you a recipe. The answer you're going to get from us is it depends.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yes, for sure. And certainly one of the things that, I was sharing With our son. The other day is just the fact that we have a lot of paddocks gives us some flexibility because even when then it got really dry and we were short, but there's still there's some outlying paddocks that we hadn't even bothered going into. They've got heaps of growth or just those kind of favorable unintended consequences from having a lot of paddocks in, a more non brittle environment, that just really can help a lot. Really can help.

Christine Martin:

Brittleness is based on the average annual precipitation of the, rainfall and the frequency I, call myself between a five or six on a scale of one to 10, where would you put yourself at?

Kelly Sidoryk:

we'd be slightly more brittle than you

Christine Martin:

Okay.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah, mostly because we don't get quite as much rainfall as you and probably when we started this, I would have said the same because we used to have more consistent rainfall than we do now. It seems so,

Christine Martin:

So you're seeing less rainfall because of. Ecosystem functions being ineffective. Yeah. Oh, more erratic. Okay.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah. All our animals are used to a single electric wire. So people really did think in the early days when we had these single wires everywhere, like what on earth were we thinking? And we still do put because of the social weak link. Perimeter fences are a little bit more robust than that, but they don't need to be, in my opinion, once the animals are used to it and trained to it. And we have a different set of yearlings come in every year. And we work with a feed yard that we try to get them to train them to the electric fence so that they're familiar with it when they come to our place.

Christine Martin:

Oh, that's fabulous. That's a great bonus. So how long does it take them to get used to the electrical fence, the yearlings?

Kelly Sidoryk:

three days.

Christine Martin:

Okay. And how do you know when they've learned the lesson to stay away from that fence?

Kelly Sidoryk:

because nobody ever touches it. Like in the Hours, somebody will go up to it, touch it, everybody jumps back and yeah, pretty soon they don't touch it at all.

Christine Martin:

Because I'm starting to bring in stockers to meet my direct to consumer beef demand. So I have a training paddock that I have that I put them in and with time I'm noticing that when they stay about a foot away from the wire, then they're ready to go out to the pasture.

Kelly Sidoryk:

yeah. You could probably do a test and just stick a bit of hay, if you had a small square bale, just under the wire. And if they don't even try,

Christine Martin:

Yeah. Usually because that paddock isn't used very often except for training purposes so that it's always very lushful and when they see that grass, but they stay away it's cool.

Kelly Sidoryk:

We, started working with, Livestock handling and worked a fair bit with Bud Williams. We actually met him at one of those Albuquerque holistic management conferences, and he came up to this area and then relocated and the feed yard that I was saying. We work with VT feeders. He worked there for many years. And that's where Dawn Hnatow, who is also a very well known livestock handler. She trained under Bud. And so she's from my neck of the woods. And we're planning a workshop down in Texas in Weatherford, so excited about that. And, we're also going to have Cooper Hibbard, who's going to be talking some more about the livestock and the grazing. Dawn's going to be talking about the livestock handling, and I'm going to be talking probably more from the holistic management side about the people and financial side of things.

Christine Martin:

Fabulous. Yes. And I'll make sure and put that on the episode show notes so that if people want to come join us.

Kelly Sidoryk:

And

Christine Martin:

Yeah.

Kelly Sidoryk:

getting the details, as I mentioned, you put into place, and I'll share that with you. Yeah, shortly.

Christine Martin:

Yeah. I'm planning on being there because I wouldn't miss learning from you because we're all learning,

Kelly Sidoryk:

good.

Christine Martin:

We all learn from each other. We never have this mastered, right? This is a journey. There's always something new to learn.

Kelly Sidoryk:

There totally is. Yeah,

Christine Martin:

I'd like to steer the conversation a little bit towards more the people because I know from our conversations before that you're very involved in succession and helping families the next generation take over and you shared a little bit of your story about how your father was so open minded, but to talk more about the people side, because I think that's one of the biggest hurdles we all encounter. I'll share that As a single operator. I'm running this place by myself. Even though it's just myself, the people portion of that my mindset, my thought process, my condition tendencies, whatever it was, keeping me from being more profitable, more successful, more adaptive than I could have been all that to say, you don't have to be part of a management team to encounter people issues. It could be your own self that is blocking you too.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah. Yeah. And certainly in the the earlier learnings of the foundations of holistic management, the idea of paradigms and, or you can call that a perception and really starting to explore what paradigms am I operating under, and there's nothing wrong with them. We all have them. But are there some that are limiting and no longer serving us? And I think those exercises as the learning process to sit down and say what are some of the paradigms that I'm operating under that we just talked about electric fence a paradigm that everything has to be in a five wire tight as a guitar string, barbed wire fence. In some situations, that'll be ideal, right? But other times, it might not be so and I think we're constantly, evolving with that and even challenging some of the paradigms that we now have as holistic managers over the years, are those still serving as well? I think we should be challenging ourselves on that. It's very easy to point the finger at other people who have limiting beliefs or paradigms, but you're right, shining it back on oneself And trying to even when I put that example about going through BSE and the drought certain paradigms came up,

Christine Martin:

Sure.

Kelly Sidoryk:

that I have to continually remind myself another gal that does a lot of succession work, not necessarily in the holistic management field, but she's Canadian, Elaine Fraze. And she has a good phrase that is,'that was then, this is now'. And sure there might be some similarities, but Each year is a new set of circumstances as you well know. And I think that's something that we need to remind our people about too, to be gentle with themselves and offer some grace because some of your learnings might not be applicable anymore. And the idea of sitting down, getting clear on your values and what's really important to you. And then also spending time to envision what sort of operation and life do you really want that kind of goes outside of certainly back in the day that was way outside of what you would take it at ag production workshop. And all that personal development work as well. So much of Stephen Covey's teachings we follow. I already talked about the win That one comes from him. Sharpen the saw does the time management quadrants is another Stephen Covey principle. So I think all of those continuous learning, really. Can be applied and those kind of conversations doesn't matter what sort of production model you're in but to have your team and or even yourself. It starts with yourself. What kind of life do you want to create for you and then coming together with the different layers or the other people that are in your whole under management and To see if there is some commonality and can we all be on the same page? Sometimes we won't be and that's okay too because maybe if you can. Reach that outcome through some discovery and personal reflections, then you can figure out ways to be more independent as opposed to interdependent. I often say,"just because we're related doesn't mean we have to work together" but maybe we can do it in a creative and I, I really give a lot of kudos to the younger generation because they do think more outside the box there. Creativity on organizational structure and business relationships I think is something that we can really look to the future of what these operations should and could look like.

Christine Martin:

Yeah. I know that I always get a lot of good feedback when I'm teaching and coaching, when I share that, our operations and our goals. Are not going to look the same in 10 years than they are now, right? Because we get older because we get more clarity because we're adapting to financial political Mother Nature. I've been doing this for 12 years now. My operation now doesn't look anything like it did 12 years ago. And it doesn't look anything like it did four years ago when I moved onto this property. And one of the things that I've recognized myself and I share this when I'm, helping people go through the decision testing questions is that last question: the Gut check. Sometimes you're testing an action or decision and, mostly passes, and you get to that gut check and it just doesn't, something just doesn't sit right. A lot of times I find it's because there's a value embedded there that I hadn't recognized. That I need to go back and update my holistic goal to say, this is now important to me. This is now, something that I need to take more consideration of.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah. Yeah. And so then along with that when we're trying to create. These visions and statement of purpose, if you will, but there needs to be, good communication. And the reality is that most of us are quite poor at that. And also knowing and hopefully giving some skills and. Tools and strategies that bit by bit people can improve their communication skills in their operation. David Irvine, the mentor that I referenced he talks about it's like a muscle and we just need to make a practice of getting better at it, whether it's having regular meetings or whatever the strategies are listening exercises and, that type of thing. Because, I say this often, but, logically, I know that everybody has a different perspective. it's emotionally, it's really hard for me to sometimes get that. I think this is how I'm seeing something. It's so obvious to me. Isn't it obvious to you, Christine? And you will say. No,

Christine Martin:

No.

Kelly Sidoryk:

obvious to me at all. This is how I see it and taking the time to really try to figure out and giving people the opportunity to say how they're seeing things for sure.

Christine Martin:

So you've been teaching and coaching many more years than I have. So I'm going to defer to your wisdom with respect to communications and you've worked with many families. We don't typically have a standard recommendation because we're very adaptive, right? And everything, everybody has different values, what do you tend to suggest to help families improve that communication? Is it meetings? Is it personal development? What, are your typical suggestions?

Kelly Sidoryk:

I think, yeah, certainly a regular how do we communicate and even assess that and see what everybody thinks? Okay so if we're saying in our goal or context that we want to have open, honest communication, what does that look like? Have that conversation. Okay. What systems or behaviors do we need to have? So linking it back to that three part goal. Okay. One of them is regular meetings, everybody can have a personal learning plan. Or being intentional about, especially in our ag operations where we are the winter time's great. Everybody take turns and go get off the ranch or the farm and go to a conference and learn something so some of those different kind of things maybe having operating agreements where you're defining roles and responsibilities and expectations. Because again, that can be a disconnect for sure. And sometimes even those basic things to improve communication, won't always help. Maybe there's a underlying logjam that needs some attention. And if those are serious Personal issues sometimes trying to help determine a way to address that, whereas still continuing to run the operation can be very challenging. We talk about this with Simon Sinek and his Golden Circle and the Art of Why?, and really talking about why are we doing this, because if we can keep coming back to that, then the how and the what can be easier, right? And really understanding each other working, to understand each other better I think is an important component of that.

Christine Martin:

Yeah, the power of the five whys. I learned while I was still doing my training to become an educator with Holistic Management International, I was given the opportunity to help teach the foundations course, the foundations of holistic management to. a group of, underserved African Americans in, Arkansas. And they were new agrarians that were going through an apprenticeship. And so we were talking about formulating the holistic goal. And I use Elizabeth Mark's value worksheet. With the list of the values and like 50 different value words and you pick the ones that most resonate to you and then you rank them and two of these young men picked power as their top value. And in my training I was asked to start using the five Why's, so I asked these two gentlemen why is power important to you? And I kept asking why. And for both of these gentlemen, the reason they picked power was because their heart was to help, support others to improve their quality of life. They felt that if they had the power, they would have then the means to be able to help those that can't help themselves, that don't have the privileges, don't have the opportunities, don't have the funding. So I will never forget the power of the five Why's now.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yes.

Christine Martin:

Because, Making decisions with respect to power versus making decisions to what I want to help my, community, improve themselves is completely different.

Kelly Sidoryk:

For sure. And developing that statement of purpose of why are we really doing this? What are we

Christine Martin:

Exactly. Exactly.

Kelly Sidoryk:

And that again I'm glad it's more commonplace now, but traditionally, that is not a question. farmer ranch family or team would sit and talk about around the kitchen table.

Christine Martin:

no. We are getting close to our time together. Anything that you wanted to share that I haven't asked you that, you're passionate about that, you wake up every morning saying, this is what I want to be doing today.

Kelly Sidoryk:

I think that, just the learning and then continuous learning that we encourage and engage in holistic management. I mean in the growing season working with. grazing Animals and particularly cattle in our situation. It's just something that I am really passionate about. But then also part of, our holistic goal is to have a sustainable, viable. operation, but it's for me. It's not only for us and our family, but to be able to take our learnings and wins and losses and help others in the ag community and beyond apply some of what works for them that they can, improve their operations. Thriving is a word I like these days, and I think it connects a bit with our, connection with nature and those processes that we talk about. And helping their where it goes beyond to the community at large, not just your own. That's also somewhat of an age thing. I think I've noticed that when we're younger and Trying to make sense and figure out who we are. It might be a little bit more siloed, if you will, until you get to a point where you're have partners and children and families that then your outlook becomes more expansive.

Christine Martin:

So that leads me to a question. Because of what you said. Do you think the holistic management framework appeals to people who have personalities, who have character traits that acknowledge that change is needed. There's some people that really like to learn. They like challenges and they like to conquer challenges. And so by this they're constantly learning. But I know I've encountered some people that they're quite happy with the tried and true. And they're like, if nothing ever changed, I would be very happy. Any thoughts on that?

Kelly Sidoryk:

I think that, from my learnings and the amazing people I've got to meet such as yourself in this community, If they're okay and doing well where they are, that's great for them. And it's easy with the way the biases work where you can see how somebody else could improve their lot in life, so to speak with an outside lens, but. Who am I to say that, right? So that welcoming people in whatever point in the journey they're at to make some new discoveries and learn. I do like you have that. core For belief that everybody is destined to grow and develop, just like all the, creatures in mother nature, right? I feel that's part of the process but I acknowledge that we do it at different rates and different speeds and different ways. If some people are less inclined to be wanting to take big steps, something that I often. We think about and we talk about to in our educators circles is in this idea of change management, is it better to encourage what's more effective, like sweeping 180 degree changes or incremental bit by bit small steps. And I think, as you said earlier, the answer to that is it depends. Know, How we embark and adapt to change will not be the same in every situation.

Christine Martin:

Yeah, it reminds me of a workshop that I helped facilitate actually with Wayne Knight, our executive director. In Central Texas, and we had a one day workshop, and this gentleman from South Texas came in, and he was probably 75, 76, very healthy, cowboy, and when we started and we had introductions, we had everybody answer the question, why are you here? And he goes, I have been doing the same thing for the last, 50 years. But I've just found out that what I'm doing is. Not helping my granddaughter who has just been diagnosed with this sickness. So I am here to learn how I can do things differently. So I'm not harming my granddaughter and it gets me emotional every time I share that.

Kelly Sidoryk:

can completely understand that for sure. For sure. And, yeah, that, that's so true. And so his reason for change was, at his heart.

Christine Martin:

Yes. And I know that was a loaded question, but it does strike me as interesting. I've been here four years in my previous operation. I was there for quite a number of years, and I was doing things differently, and they look at me weird. And to your point I'm putting up poly wire and moving these animals every day. But when we have that drought period in July and August, I'm still green, right? Grass is still growing, and they're out feeding. hay, And I know we've shared in our, educator forum that why is it that our neighbors who see this day in, day out, don't come over and say, tell me how you're doing this.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah. There's a lot of reasons for that. I think that, but, again, the uniqueness of the situation to be sure.

Christine Martin:

They have to be at the right place.

Kelly Sidoryk:

organization are getting in a movement, if you will, are getting better at Being more expansive or accepting of, because that's the way that we're going to move the needle more is, inviting more people in. It also makes me think Simon Sinek has the Bell Curve Early adapters and innovators. I think I've got that. I might have those, maybe those are reversed, and it feels like for the longest time in holistic management, we were down here, but I think we're starting to go up here. Early majority is what that first part of the

Christine Martin:

Yes.

Kelly Sidoryk:

is.

Christine Martin:

Yeah.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Certainly Different things. I was going to mention this earlier that a big aha for us when we first got started was to look at the soil surface and the amount of bare ground. That was huge. Because before we'd always looked out across pastures and judge the condition of the cattle as much as anything. And so now so many years later to see this whole, discussion and inquiry into below ground and soil health and all the myriad of interrelationships there. I think that that's been another big step. I'm old enough now. I've been at this long enough that when I look back and see some of the what were some of the big changes that's certainly going to be another one. I think.

Christine Martin:

Yeah. No. And I know at least in, in my area, my region, we have a whole new set of land stewards, landowners that COVID food supply issues, health issues. They've left city, they bought land, and they're trying to figure out how to be more self sufficient and be more sustainable so they're, already coming in with that paradigm shift, right? Which, which definitely it facilitates the change.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Yeah, 100 percent 100%. Yeah.

Christine Martin:

Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom with me and sharing it in this episode. I appreciate you so much.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Oh thank you for the opportunity. And I know it's not as good as when we have in person conversations, but this zoom platforms getting Or the other virtual platforms is getting pretty darn good to have engagement. And I mean that as we talk about how do we learn more and help people learn more about holistic management? Nothing beats boots on the ground face to face, but that's not always realistic. Incorporating this kind of models certainly helps

Christine Martin:

If we didn't have zoom, then I'd have to invite you to Texas where it's what we decided it was 25 degrees Celsius here. And it's,

Kelly Sidoryk:

minus degrees here. Yes. Yes.

Christine Martin:

but I appreciate your time, Kelly.

Kelly Sidoryk:

Thanks so much, Christine.

Thanks for listening to Regenerative Agriculture, Thriving as a Modern Rancher. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, share with fellow ranchers, and leave a review. Together we can regenerate our lands, our profits, and our lives. Until next time, keep thriving.