Kristjan Hebert | Grow or Die

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The EOS Leader

Episode: Kristjan Hebert | Grow or Die
Host: Mike Paton (EOS Worldwide)
Guest: Kristjan Hebert, Managing Partner of Hebert Grain Ventures
Release Date: October 19, 2021

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Episode Overview

This episode of The EOS Leader podcast features an in-depth conversation with Kristjan Hebert, a progressive leader in Canadian agriculture and Managing Partner of Hebert Grain Ventures (HGV). Host Mike Paton explores Kristjan’s entrepreneurial journey, core leadership philosophies, and how he continues to grow and innovate in the face of constant change. Key topics include developing core values, leadership lessons from mentors, building resilient teams, and actionable advice for entrepreneurs in agriculture and beyond.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Kristjan’s Journey & Background

• Early Entrepreneurial Spirit:

  • Kristjan rented land as a high school student and credits his background in sports (especially hockey) for fostering goal setting, teamwork, and leadership skills.
  • "I think sports really actually does kind of bring out the entrepreneur in you." (02:20, Kristjan)

• Education & Return to Farming:

  • Initially planned to be a doctor, switched to business studies on his father's advice.
  • "You’re good at math. You should take business and see if you like it, because the business side is what’s really growing." (02:57, Kristjan quoting his father)
  • Worked in accounting, focused on agriculture, and discovered passion for running his own business.

Foundational Core Values (05:00–06:40)

Kristjan’s leadership is grounded in four core values, each inspired by influential mentors:

1. “Can’t Isn’t an Option, It’s Just a Challenge”
   • Inspired by his father, Louie: Find a way to make things work if it feels right.
2. Collaborate/Win-Win Mentality
   • Inspired by an accounting firm partner: "The best deals are the ones where both parties walk away excited." (05:38)
3. Innovate and Optimize
   • Inspired by Dr. Danny Kleinfelter: Small changes can drive big improvements—never get stuck in "the way things have always been done."
4. Growth Mentality
   • Inspired by Dan Sullivan and personal life/business coaches: “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”

Leadership through Sports Analogies (06:40–09:45)

• Team Uplift vs. Individual Glory:
  • Lessons from hockey: true leaders focus on boosting the entire team, not just individual achievement.
  • "A leader finds a way to put their arms around everybody and uplift everybody, they're not one to be individually focused and push the rest of the team down." (00:00, 06:48, Kristjan)
• Plus/Minus Principle:
  • Translates the hockey stat (plus/minus) into business: success depends on collective performance, not just individual effort.

Positive and Negative Leadership Lessons (09:46–11:08)

• Good Leadership:

  • Lead by encouragement, not criticism. Ask, “How can we fix this together?” instead of assigning blame.
  • “We all make mistakes...Instead of coming in and saying, ‘Hey, you just cost us that goal,’ you come in and say, ‘I’m going to get two goals for you. Can you help me?” (08:12, Kristjan)

• What Not To Do:

  • Remembers a manager whose negative energy and blame drove people away:
    • “…you can’t leave footprints on people’s foreheads and expect to get very far in life.” (10:41, Kristjan)

Leadership Style & Empowerment (11:08–16:51)

• Style as Coach and Captain:

  • In board roles: more like a coach—teaches lessons, guides strategy.
  • In day-to-day farm operations: more like a team captain—works alongside the team, leads by example.
  • “I lead a fair bit like a hockey team...the captains and assistant captains are really just those people that can communicate a little better and always keep everybody’s mindset that we can climb this mountain.” (12:21, Kristjan)

• Developing Leaders at All Levels:

  • Gives frontline employees opportunities to take the lead and interact directly with important visitors or data.
  • "As a leader, giving them the opportunity to shine in front of people that they think are, let's be honest, pretty cool." (14:13, Kristjan)

• Handling Mistakes & Accountability:

  • Trusts team to push boundaries but sets clear expectations and consequences:
    • “Your job as a leader is to explain to people where the ditches are, keep them on the road, and as long as they’re on the road, they should push the gas down as fast as they can handle it.” (14:40, Kristjan)

• Multiplying Through Subtraction:

  • Sometimes, letting go of a problem team member can elevate everyone’s performance.
  • "Your team needs to understand that you can actually multiply through subtraction if that person’s holding them back fast enough.” (16:51, Kristjan)

Communication Challenges & Fast Growth (17:25–19:35)

• Biggest Mistake:

  • Not always communicating company direction and individual impact clearly, as growth often comes from seizing unplanned opportunities.
  • “I probably don’t spend enough time maybe communicating exactly where I want to go or how we’re going to get there.” (17:25, Kristjan)

• Flat Structures and Leadership Opportunities:

  • Prefers capable teams over layers of management, which creates both potential and tension:
  • "You don’t necessarily need a whole bunch of managers. They’re very good at managing their own little project or their crew of people." (18:58, Kristjan)

Business Overview & Vision (20:28–24:27)

• Hebert Grain Ventures:

  • Now a 30,000-acre operation focused on sustainability for the land, finances, community, and industry.
  • Legacy: Leave everything better for each next generation.

• Other Ventures:

  • Maverick Ag: consulting/data house for progressive farms.
  • Global Agrisk: private crop margin insurance company.
  • Family office: invests in ag startups, helps young entrepreneurs with buyouts.

• Vision of Retirement:

  • Inspired by Dan Sullivan: “Retirement is when you completely control your calendar.” (24:27, Kristjan)
  • Will keep working, but only on meaningful projects, with the ability to pick and choose.

Agricultural Innovation & Sustainability (25:14–28:36)

• Doing Right by the Land:

  • Precision farming: annual soil sampling (every 4 acres), variable-rate nutrient application based on real data.
  • Uses weather stations and data analytics to optimize yield and minimize environmental impact.
  • “It’s really turned into a science of the soil…We’re going to do what’s in the best interest of the soil.” (25:36, Kristjan)

• Balancing Profit and Sustainability:

  • Only adopts sustainable practices if they're also financially viable.
  • “We can’t just spend money on every new technology…if it makes us go bankrupt.” (26:19, Kristjan)

• Learning About the Industry:

  • Recommends following real farmers and networks like Global Farmer Network on social media for authentic insight.
  • “Just try to not believe everything that automatically hits Google would be our first statement.” (27:43, Kristjan)

Advice to His Younger Self & Entrepreneurs (29:05–31:00)

• Trust Your Gut (But Build a Process):

  • Build a system for acting on gut feelings so ideas become actionable for teams.
  • “It’s not high risk if you really believe in it. That’s the number one risk, is if you don’t believe in it.” (29:36, Kristjan)

• Aim for a Small Edge, Not Perfection:

  • Only need to be “5% better than everyone else, one time out of 20” (30:01, Kristjan, referencing Danny Kleinfelter)
  • Use networks and mentors for feedback and support.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Team Leadership:

  • "A leader finds a way to put their arms around everybody and uplift everybody." (00:00, Kristjan)

• On Coaching vs. Criticism:

  • "If you want to lead this team, you gotta come into the bench and say, hey, we all make mistakes. I’m going to get two goals for you. Can you help me?" (08:12, Kristjan)

• On Difficult Decisions:

  • “You can actually multiply through subtraction if that person’s holding [the team] back fast enough.” (16:51, Kristjan)

• On Growth Mentality:

  • “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” (Throughout; especially 06:08)

• On Sustainability:

  • "We want the land and the financial statements as well as our community and industry to be in a better state generation after generation." (20:36, Kristjan)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00-02:15 – Kristjan’s self-introduction and early background
• 04:45-06:40 – Four core values and mentors
• 06:40-09:45 – Leadership lessons from sports and early mentors
• 09:46-11:08 – Negative leadership examples and their impact
• 11:08-16:51 – Leadership style, empowering teams, and accountability
• 17:25-19:35 – Communication challenges and flat organization structure
• 20:28-24:27 – Description of HGV, associated businesses, and growth
• 25:14-28:36 – Practices for sustainability and advice for understanding modern agriculture
• 29:05-31:00 – Advice to his younger self, trusting your gut, building a feedback network

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Connect with Kristjan Hebert

• Twitter: @kristjanhebert (most active)
• Websites:
  • hebertgrainventures.com
  • kristjanhebert.com
  • maverickag.com

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Final Takeaway

Kristjan Hebert’s leadership journey highlights the importance of core values, the power of team-first thinking, embracing relentless growth, and adapting innovative, data-driven approaches to business and agriculture. For entrepreneurs and leaders, his advice is a reminder to trust your instincts, build strong networks, and never lose sight of the mission to leave things better for generations to come.

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Transcript

[Christian Hebert]

The leader finds a way to put their arms around everybody and uplift everybody. They're not one to be individually focused and push the rest of the team down. And so some of those lessons were pretty important. The more I look back.

[Mike Peyton]

Hello, everybody, this is Mike. Hi, I'm Peyton with the EOS Leader podcast. And today I have the great pleasure of speaking with Christian Hebert, the managing partner of Hebert grain Ventures, or HGV, a progressive 22,000acre farming operation in Saskatchewan that prides itself on doing things right by the land. Interestingly, Christian began his career as a CPA, but quickly realized his true calling. After returning to the family's 1500 acre farm, Christian devoted himself to learning and growth, ultimately receiving a prestigious graduate degree from Texas A and M's executive program for agricultural producers. After growing the farming operation to 22,000 acres and founding or leading a number of businesses dedicated to helping farmers optimize their land and their profits, Christian is widely recognized as one of the best and most progressive young leaders in agriculture. Christian, thanks so much for taking the time to be with me today.

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, you bet. Thanks for having me on.

[Mike Peyton]

So I gave you my version of your background. How do you introduce yourself when you meet somebody new?

[Christian Hebert]

Oh, lots of times I just say, hey, I'm just a farmer. You know, I think it has, I think it has connotations in today's world of, you know, some people take that as a real, you know, positive and that you have a lot of different strengths. And some people kind of give you the a bit of a one eyed look, wondering that all you do is farm. So it usually leads into some pretty good conversations.

[Mike Peyton]

Is either combative or fun, one of the two. Why don't you walk us back through your history as an entrepreneur from the very earliest days of you thinking about your future. Why don't you tell your own story?

[Christian Hebert]

You bet. Yeah. So I mean, when I was in high school, I always rented land from dad and dealt with landlords and stuff like that. And I mean, I was always big into sports and I think sports really actually does kind of bring out the entrepreneur in you. And if you're, you know, part of leadership and how you work with other people and having goals in mind. So hockey, I think led a lot to my entrepreneurial journey as well. You know, on the school or education side that people follow, I, I went to U of S in Saskatchewan here, and I was going to be a doctor because my good marks and teachers kind of led me down that path and did one year Came home and said, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I hate this. So I told my dad I was. I was going to take agriculture, be a farmer. Dad goes, you know what? You're good at math. You should take business and see if you like it, because the business side is what's really growing. And I can. I can teach you how to farm the agronomy side, something we can hire and teach. So that led me into taking an accounting and a finance degree. And I really enjoyed it. I. I enjoyed the classes, enjoyed everything about it, and came home and the farm was pretty small to sustain us both. So worked with a large accounting firm in Canada and focused as much as I could in agriculture, probably 90% of my time. Right. From succession engagements to corporate agriculture to small farms to everything you could in agriculture. And that really led me down the path of making me realize how much I loved the industry and I wanted to run my own business.

[Mike Peyton]

Great story. Describe the relationship you had with your father during this period. Period of your life.

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah. So, I mean, dad and I have always been pretty close, like, as business partners, and he was always my hockey coach. We're. We're really close that way. I mean, he comes from the generation that. I wouldn't say that our discussions around feelings have always been that strong, but I couldn't have asked for a better business partner. I mean, the way we have things set up, it's a. It's basically a corporate partnership. And his company, him and my mom are. And my wife and I, everything we do is still in. In a corporate partnership. So obviously, you know, I'm more or less in control now, but still, every business we're part of, he's part of with me. So I would kind of say he was. He's one of my three or four, you know, mentors that I can remember at a pretty young age that. That really drove probably what I would call my core values and how they show up in our companies. He. He was the number one driver behind one. And, you know, as I was thinking about the podcast prior to coming on, I can kind of see how my four core values came from my four main mentors. It was. It was pretty neat to think about.

[Mike Peyton]

Oh, that's cool. What are the four core values?

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, so, I mean, the first one is. Can't. Isn't an option. It's just a challenge. And that's the one that my dad, Louie, really lives and breathes. Right. Is that if you feel like it's the right thing to do, Then we'll find a way to do it. And so that it really helps in our business. He's on the farm every day and he's one of my project managers. So he gets assigned some of the tougher projects. Cause he'll find a way to get it done with the crew. You know, another one is we collaborate or win win mentality. So I feel that the best deals are the ones that after you shake hands, you walk away so excited about the next deal, not that you won or lost. That came from one of my mentors when I was at Myers Norse Penny, one of the partners I worked for. And you know, especially through succession engagements or even honestly, we negotiated a few different divorces. The best thing was to get everybody's mindset in when we walk out of here. It needs to at least be fair. But in a perfect world, win, win. The next one is that we innovate and optimize. So it doesn't matter how small you are or how big you are. Don't get stuck in the way things have always been done. And 5% or 1% always matters, especially if it's to a top line because it's a multiple on your bottom line. That one really got drilled into my head when I was down at Texas A and M by one of my mentors, Dr. Danny Kleinfelter, who sits on my advisory board now too. Then the last one is kind of a growth mentality, we call it. So, you know, I've always said that if you're not growing, you're dying. Right. Inflation's 3%. And so there's a pretty easy goal to chase. But you know, especially in the world of business, but even in your personal life, if you're not finding ways to grow, you're just. You're just here. You're just a cog in the wheel. So I looked for actually coaches, business and life coaches around this mentality too, when I was. When I was a little bit younger. So I've been going to strategic coach out in Toronto for a number of years and. And I use Dan Sullivan as kind of my, let's say, mentor on the growth mentality. But it's something that's been, you know, I think it's been built into me since I was basically born.

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah, that's fascinating stuff. Who's the first person you remember thinking about as a leader back in the early days?

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, I mean, probably my dad. I don't know that I would have looked at it as a leader at that time because it was just your dad. Right. But that was the first one that came to mind. And then I had a couple hockey coaches that taught me some really important lessons early in my life. Things like is simple in the world of hockey, plus minus is the number of goals you're on the ice for versus the number that gets scored against you. And how that's more important on a line by line basis than who does the scoring. And so really understanding that a leader finds a way to put their arms around everybody and uplift everybody, they're not one to be individually focused and push the rest of the team down. And so some of those lessons were pretty important. The more I look back.

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah, I'm preparing to write the data book for the traction library. And the plus minus, I think is the best example of a measurable that gets everybody engaged in the mission of the organization and drives individual accountability for doing their part. It's a fabulous, fabulous measure. Yeah. Who's the best leader you've ever worked with or for?

[Christian Hebert]

You know, I think that's a tough question. I mean, I bounced around through some different jobs in university and then, you know, around the farm. And I honestly have to say that I can't pick a best. I can pick best characteristics of a number of leaders I worked for. Yeah, right. And the one major one that we just discussed is, you know, just my one hockey coach was so focused on as a leader on this team, you need to focus one, on plus minus and two, on making the team always believe so. I mean, he was always big on if we get scored on because one of our teammates makes a mistake, you know, if you want to lead this team, you got to come into the bench and say, hey, we all make mistakes. I'm going to get two goals for you. Can you help me? Right. Instead of coming in and saying, hey, you just cost us that goal. We might lose this game because of that. And so that, that really drove into me as we build teams. In any job I've had of that, if you can make the team feel that they can never lose or at least always have the opportunity to win versus it being a very selfish me, I, you know, you need to suck it up to stay up with me type of a mentality, it, it really changes life. Then I go back to my dad that, you know, that can't isn't a challenge or can't isn't an option. It's just a challenge. That no quit attitude. Now I understand there's times when you in business, you just have to cut loose on a bad idea that didn't work. But there's a lot of mountains that need to be climbed that I think a lot of entrepreneurs quit early because it gets inside their head that they can't do it right, when in fact, probably all they needed to do was ask, who can help me get to the top of the mountain? We're also worried about doing it by ourself when I think there's a lot of opportunity, whether it's, you know, a mentor, someone on your team, or just someone in your network that could give you a little nudge or a piece of information that could help conquer that mountain.

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah, that's great stuff. Have you ever had a leader whose style or approach turn you off or somebody who you want to make sure you don't make the same mistakes they, they made?

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I can, I can specifically remember a manager one time that, you know, you could still hear the footsteps coming down the hallway. Cause it was a stomp right in the, in the office building and, and it was very short deadline, low communication. You know, if something went wrong, it was always the lower level teammates fault, never their fault. Right. And when things went right, you know, they had always done everything and the lower levels hadn't done anything for them. And it just really showed me how you can, you know, money is not enough to convince people to stick around to work for someone like that. They need to know that, you know, as you grow, you're going to take them with them. Right. I always kind of say that growth for a lot of people in this world is to jump on the right coattails, but really they shouldn't be on the coattails, they should be inside the plane. And so that leader really taught me that you can't leave footprints on people's foreheads and expect to get very far in life.

[Mike Peyton]

Well, those things have a way of coming back on you.

[Christian Hebert]

And

[Mike Peyton]

I don't know how you can sleep at night when you've left your footprint on somebody's forehead. I just, I have enough trouble sleeping without, without trying to do that intentionally.

[Christian Hebert]

So.

[Mike Peyton]

I'm with you 100%. Let's talk about your leadership style. If I were to ask a couple of the folks that look to you as a leader to describe the way you lead, what would I hear?

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, I think depending on. I got a few different businesses that I'm involved in at different levels. So I mean, I think if you talk to the businesses where, you know, where I chair the board or I'm a, or I'm. Or I'M just a large shareholder. They'd probably say I'm more like a hockey coach. Right. I spend a lot of time trying to explain the mistakes and the lessons I've learned to hopefully guide them to not have to make the same ones or at least fail fast instead of taking a long time. And, and I think that they probably say that I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that we got the right people on the right lines and have the right strategy in place to be, you know, at least have the opportunity for success. It's not going to go right every day. The businesses that I'm involved in, you know, the farm, I'm still pretty, pretty day to day, especially in seeding and harvest. Those guys would probably say I'm a lot closer to the captain of a hockey team. Right. Which you'll find me. One day if I have to, I'll be in shoveling a bin and the next day I'll put more hours than anybody in the drill. But, you know, I'm no more important than the guy that runs the lawnmower or runs a drill beside me. It's, you know, I, I lead a fair bit like a hockey team and that the captains and assistant captains are really just those people that can communicate a little better and always keep everybody's mindset that we can, we can climb this mountain, but everybody is as important depending on the situation. Right. If the other team has a breakaway, the goalie is the most important player on your team, not your captain or your coach. And, and so that we do a lot of, kind of situational analysis of when we need everybody to be a leader. It's just my job to make sure that they're ready to leap.

[Mike Peyton]

Talk to me about that. How do you teach a frontline employee, somebody maybe new to the operation, how do you teach them to kind of lean into that opportunity to lead?

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, I mean, I think some of the stories you hear over life and that you see work. So, you know, I can remember, actually, I'm pretty sure it was the traction book reading. One that really hit me in the forehead was the secretary realizing that if she answered the phone after two rings, it changed their customer success survey versus if she answered in two rings or less and with a, you know, with a cheery attitude. So I think in all your organizations, you know, the closer you can get down to ground level and explain to them how that affects, you know, top line. But I'm not even as big on top line. I'm more on how it affects the real value that we're trying to create because some of that might show up three, four, five years from now. So I think a thing's as simple as we do a lot of work with John Deere corporately around North America, and we'll have different people from different levels of John Deere out all the time. You know, we've had people as high as the, you know, the CEO of Canada or of North America for Deere out, and, and I'll have them walk around with my, with my sprayer operator or go through our. A bunch of our data on a computer with our controller, because those two know more about those two individual pieces of the data set that they're looking for than I do. And so part of it is making them understand why we think the data is important and SOPs are important, but the other part is as a leader, giving them the opportunity to shine in front of people that they think are, let's be honest, pretty cool, right?

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah. Yeah, that's fun. You have to take some risk to entrust your people to do that. How do you process through that risk and decide you're going to take a

[Christian Hebert]

leap, hire slow and fire fast?

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah.

[Christian Hebert]

So, I mean, definitely, I probably err a little bit on the side of just trusting my people. And if they, you know, if they make a mistake, we'll deal with it. But a good friend of mine once said, right, as a leader, your job is to explain to people where the ditches are, keep them on the road, and as long as they're on the road, they should probably just push the gas down as fast as they can handle it. And so when I'm putting them in those positions, I mean, it's my job to explain, you know, here's the areas that you're not allowed to cross into the ditch, and if you do cross into the ditch, I better be the first person to know, and I better know right away because then we'll fix the problem.

[Mike Peyton]

Very, very well said. How do you decide somebody's run into the ditch too many times and you got to make a change?

[Christian Hebert]

I mean, changes are never fun. Right. But probably in our case, a lot of the times is it's more of a team decision than just me. Right. Especially on the farm, you know, there'll be 15 to 20 of us working shoulder to shoulder in our key seasons. And so if I see someone that they're running into the ditch is really slowing down the whole team, it would be pretty normal that a few team members would either bring it up to Me or my ops manager to say, like, hey, we gotta do something about this. It's slowing us all down. They know that I really value speed now. I also value perfection. But the minute we get it perfected, let's move fast. And so if the mistakes and the ditches are causing issues there. So, I mean, we'll normally do one discussion to say, hey, there's too many ditches and here's the ways that we believe you can fix it. And then after that, the process either corrects itself or ends fairly quickly.

[Mike Peyton]

Right? Yeah. I really am intrigued by your thinking about it through the perspective of the team, and that's especially right now with as difficult as it is to find and keep great people. I see a lot of leaders struggling to call the question when they've got somebody who's holding everybody else back. And this idea of, you know, if eight people are disadvantaged by this person being here, is that person really an asset? Is a pretty powerful thought process to get them to process that. So really good insight.

[Christian Hebert]

I mean, I think your team needs to understand that you can actually multiply through subtraction if that person's holding them back fast enough. But you also need your team to be on board. Right. If you letting someone go makes them feel that they're going to be overworked, that's probably not the right path to take. There's probably ways to find the new person prior. But if they really feel that, hey, like, we're losing 20% each because of this person, then they're all on board. They're happy when it happens.

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Have you ever made a mistake with regard to the way you coach or lead people? And if so, what. What was it?

[Christian Hebert]

I'd say, you know, one of my weaknesses that are main mistakes is that, you know, we tend to grow really fast. I mean, I hear your. Your introduction at the start. 22,020. I think that was probably about a year ago. I think we put in 28 this year and close to 30 next year. So our growth pattern, it tends to be pretty quick. Not that we really search for it, but we don't miss. You know, opportunities do tend to come to us and anything that fits in, we take. And so I probably don't spend enough time maybe communicating exactly where I want to go or how we're going to get there. Right. And part of it is because we're more of an opportunistic growth company. I have a hard time just throwing a number on the Wall and saying, hey, we're going there and this is how we're going to get there. Where I'm more of a, you know, a value add and the long term value and we might bolt three or four more companies on to get to where we need to be. So just that communication of where we're going, how we're going to get there, and exactly how each person fits in has probably been my mistake in the past. You know, I'll have teammates feel undervalued for a period of time before they'll bring it up to me to sit down to have that chat. So I know I need to allocate a bit more time even just to have lunch individually with people once or twice a year instead of leaving a lot of it up to the HR group.

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah. I think that understanding why and having a rough idea where we're going helps people prepare for that change. And when you're surprised by change, it's almost always harder to process through it yourself. So that's good insight there too, I find, too.

[Christian Hebert]

I don't know what you found is that the more good people you have. Right. One of the kind of, I don't want to say complaints, but the questions you'll get back is, is there enough room for leadership and do I get more responsibility? And yet on the other side, they're like, man, I really like everybody I work with and they have so many good skills. So I find that, you know, I'm pretty anal about having great people. Which means that you don't necessarily need a whole bunch of managers. Right. They're very good at managing their own little project or their crew of people. So that, you know, I think growth helps that, to be honest.

[Mike Peyton]

Right.

[Christian Hebert]

But it's one of those fine lines that we finally have to communicate our way through.

[Mike Peyton]

One of my favorite quotations is change is hard. You go first. And so, you know, it is a sort of a human condition to kind of once when you're hitting on all cylinders, you know, which. Which we all get to from time to time in our businesses, nobody wants it to change, but at the same time, if you're not changing, if you're not growing, you are dying. And we're creating opportunities for people to change them and improve themselves too. And so, you know, that tension is always going to be there. And it's why our jobs as leaders is so consistently challenging. Help the listener understand, Christian, you know, the nature of your business and the other businesses you're in. So first of all, describe HGV for Me, sounds like I got the number of acres wrong because I haven't been close enough to you over the last couple of months to know about these changes.

[Christian Hebert]

So. Yeah, so, I mean, Heber Grain Ventures is a, just right around a 30,000 acre grain and oilseed farm. You know, grows malt barley, canola, hard red spring wheat, peas, rye, oats, kind of whatever works best in our rotation from both a financial standpoint and the land standpoint. And really kind of the legacy statement of it is we want the land and the financial statements as well as our community and industry to be in a better state, generation after generation. And that's our, that's our goal. We also have a consulting company called Maverick Ag that my CFO runs for me, but it's kind of a, it does a lot of work for other large farms, but it's, I would call it a data house in the world of agriculture to do benchmarking, et cetera, for large farms as well as. I shouldn't say large for progressive farms as well as some of the corporate agriculture companies that, you know, really are trying to better understand this level of progressive farmers versus maybe the old school mentality of what farming is. And then I'm fairly involved with a private crop insurance company called Global Agrisk. I chair the board and own part of it. And it ensures margin in the world of agriculture. It's virtually the only one in the world. And so it's taught me a lot around the, you know, around reinsurance and risk management and how having a proper risk management plan, really, it allows you to go out there and try and hit a home run every year because you're not worried about striking out and how that mentality changes your, your entrepreneurial journey.

[Mike Peyton]

Interesting, interesting. Anything on the horizon in terms of growth, business opportunities, new businesses you're thinking about getting into?

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, my best friend and I kind of have a goal that we want to have our own mini, you know, family office or private equity firm. So we've probably invested in 5 to 10 either startups or, you know, the current entrepreneurs at the end of his journey and the young person working for him can't afford the buyout. So that for us, that's kind of my interesting spot is I feel that's what I'll call retirement is having a family office that keeps my mind busy enough that I don't bug every day the person that takes over the farm. But we tend to focus on two things. One is, as I said, helping young people buy out the current business they're part of and helping coach them through it. And two, investing in startups that fall around a bunch of the stuff we're doing in agriculture. So I mean we've got money in a lithium startup, you know, just so that we learn more about the world of batteries and electric, et cetera, and where it goes. And you know, another one is a potash startup that can, they're kind of like mini potash mines that have way less capital investment. So, you know, I really like to focus on the areas that obviously affect my industry, but also our consumers so that I can really just educate myself better. I find that I pay attention to things better if I have some money in them versus just pretending I'm going to read all the time.

[Mike Peyton]

Well, yeah, the way you think about something you're considering investing in rather than just reading about it in the media is a completely different thought process, isn't it? You have to understand what the consumers or customers want, how the company delivers value. All of that is just a fun thinking exercise.

[Christian Hebert]

Regardless, I love it. And I mean especially some of the more tech type plays where it's not EBITDA valuations, right? It's churn and monthly cash flows, et cetera and units. So that when you flick the light into positive income, how does it explode in value? And it's a different way of doing business than especially those my CPA background shows. But yet it's a phenomenal thing to learn about and just really try to understand.

[Mike Peyton]

Right. Well, and you're living your core value of if you're not growing, you're dying. Pushing yourself outside of that comfort zone is so important. And I also think your definition of retirement must come from Dan Sullivan. My favorite Dan quote is death is coming, look busy.

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, no, I remember, I still remember to this day when Dan said his definition of retirement was take one week of every month off, right? To do nothing but the personal life side. And I've pretty much convinced myself of that. Right. And kind of my definition of, of when you've made it as an entrepreneur or even maybe that is retirement is when you completely control your calendar, right? When you decide if you want to be busy every day. And you know, I'm not there yet, but I've made a huge amount of strides from where I was 10 years ago and that would be kind of my goal of by the time I want to deem myself retired is I'm not going to quit working. I just want to have complete veto on what I say yes and no to on A day to day basis and really only do things that I love are in my unique ability. And so that's what we're working towards.

[Mike Peyton]

Awesome. I want to talk about agriculture a little bit because I think agriculture is a subject that hits the news a lot but a lot of people don't really understand where it is and where it's going. And so, you know, the first question I have for you is help the listener understand what doing things right by the land really means to you and your organization.

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, you bet. So I mean it for us. You know, we grid soil sample every 4 acres of our 30,000 acres every single year. That then allows us to know what each, you know, macronutrient and micronutrients at, what our organic matters at, what our PH levels at. And then we, we do variable rate nutrient application from that point. So I can tell every single fall exactly what my crops taken out of that field and exactly what it needs to grow. You know, an average crop the year after. You know, we have, we got weather stations with four foot soil probes running algorithms off the water capacity of what the yield can be so that you know, in June or early July we'll go top dress extra nutrients if needed to hit that high yield. We're not just over applying a whole bunch of nutrients to run off in the water like you'll see in some, you know, in some magazine articles. So it's really turned into a science of the soil. I mean my family's farm for a number of years and we plan on it taking place forever. So I mean we're going to do what's in the best interest of the soil. Now don't get me wrong, we also need to be financially sustainable. So some of the items that come forward, we're going to be a little slow to adopt or quick to adopt because we need the hybrid of being sustainable for both the soil and the financials. We can't just spend money on every new technology and every new idea and make our soil better if it makes us go bankrupt. So it's really that fine line between the two with the end goal of being, as I said, we want the land and the statements to be in a better state every single generation. If we don't do that, the next generation is going to have a higher chance of failure, which is not what we want.

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah, yeah. And that's the stuff that's really difficult to understand if you're not there looking at the soil, understanding what makes for healthy fields and what makes for unhealthy. Unsustainable fields. And I so far haven't found a source in the media to give the uninformed person a real solid handle on that. What would you recommend the people who want to learn more about where agriculture is going, what should they look at, read, study, et cetera?

[Christian Hebert]

Like you said, it's one thing agriculture has done a pretty poor job of is getting the real story across. So I mean, there's some networks, the Global Farmer Network really does share a lot of good information I think too, if you kind of just try to find some social media groups to follow. So I mean, they're welcome to follow Hebrew Grain Ventures and ask questions and I could name it. You know, there's a number of operations in the US that I like to follow. I mean, Black Gold Potato Company and Tom Farms out of Indiana. Like I said, there's lots of different operations to follow. And don't be afraid to ask some questions. I mean, we'll answer when we get a second. But you know, just try to not believe everything that automatically hits Google would be our first question or our first, you know, statement. And secondly, you know, we're working on doing a better job of telling the story of agriculture and so just bear with us and hopefully we improve.

[Mike Peyton]

That's so great. I have a 14 year old son who starts a lot of sentences with I saw it on the Internet. So you are 100% right. All right, Christian, let's go back to your thinking and philosophy about leadership. Go back to the day you decided the family farm was where you need to relocate and that was your future. What piece of advice would you like to have gotten or given yourself, knowing what you know now, probably to build,

[Christian Hebert]

you know, it's not really an algorithm, but build your own process on how to trust your gut, you know, and it's hard to probably explain to anyone that isn't an entrepreneur, but every entrepreneur will understand what I'm saying. Saying is that, you know, there's times when we don't trust our gut because we just can't get the communication across to our team. And, and then there's times when we do because we've been convinced by somebody else and yet we felt off on it and it's probably the worst thing we can do. So I mean, you know, build your process of what you need to do to take an idea that feels right in your gut and get it to the point that it's implementable by your team. You can't just, you know, throw it at them as an idea. You have to sit down. And even though, you know, even though many of us struggle a little with adhd, we got to get it wrote into a process that the rest of our team can comprehend. So that would be one piece of advice, is really just trust your gut. It's not high risk if you really believe in it. That's the number one risk, is if you don't believe in it. I think the second thing would be, is, you know, one of my mentors, Danny Kleinfelter, he's saying is, you know, the difference between a.300 hitter and a.250 hitter, right? It's just they only hit the ball one more time every 20 at bats. And yet, you know, that's. That's the difference between an all star, you know, someone that probably wins the World Series, etcetera, Versus just an average player in the major leagues. And, and so if you think of that as an entrepreneur, like, in order to be successful, you only need to be better 5% of the time than everybody else one time out of 20 at bats, more. And so don't feel that you always have to be right. You're going to make mistakes, you're going to learn from other people. And so make sure that you use that network and spend time building that network that you have, you know, a whole bunch of people smarter than you to lean on when you need some, you know, points of advice or direction or someone just to poke some holes in your theory so that you can be ready for the, you know, the weaknesses in it when they come.

[Mike Peyton]

Boy, is that two great pieces of advice, Christian. Thank you for that. Where can the listener go to learn more about you and your operation?

[Christian Hebert]

Probably I'm reasonably active on Twitter. It's Hristian Hebert. My first name spelled a little weird. K R I S T J A N H E V E R T. And then both, you know, personal and the farm have websites, so just hebrewgrainventures.com or christianhebert.com and maverickag.com is our consulting company, but we're pretty active on all social media. But Twitter be the one that I'm most personally active on.

[Mike Peyton]

Awesome. Thank you for sharing that, Christian. It's been an absolute joy getting to know you today. I'm sure our listeners feel exactly the same way. This podcast is all about helping us feel like we're not alone when we're leading and managing people. And you've done a great job of telling your story in a way that helps with that. So couldn't say thank you enough.

[Christian Hebert]

Yeah, thanks for having me on. And I think it's something that us as an entrepreneur share as we all go through that feeling alone. And so to find whether it's a coach or a podcast or a network to be your safe haven to lay all your crazy ideas out or things that are bugging you that you don't feel that you could talk to with your normal group of friends or even your family, it's pretty important that we stick together and find those places.

[Mike Peyton]

Yeah. Thank you very much. That's, that's this episode of the EOS Leader Podcast, hopefully helping you go out and be your best today, tomorrow and every day as a leader. Thanks again, Christian. If you got value from today's episode, do me a favor. Open your podcasting app and subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. If you've already subscribed, please subscribe. One of your friends

[Christian Hebert]

sa.