July 30, 2024 • 59 mins
Have you ever wondered what it takes to transform a dream into a reality, even when the odds are stacked against you? Our guest, Henry Barlow of Utah Beef Producers, shares his incredible journey from navigating multiple industries, such as concrete work and construction, to establishing a beef slaughterhouse in Sevier County, Utah. Henry opens up about the relentless effort, community support, and the numerous logistical and regulatory challenges he overcame to bring this ambitious venture to life. Prepare to be inspired by his story of resilience and determination.
Henry’s upbringing on a farm played a pivotal role in shaping his work ethic and life perspectives. He speaks fondly of his mother and father’s contributions to the household and how these experiences fostered his appreciation for agriculture. Despite starting with no experience in butchery, Henry's creative determination has led him to success in the industry. He emphasizes the value of family unity, working with one’s hands, and the importance of balancing ambition with the stresses of life. Henry's experiences offer valuable lessons for those looking to push boundaries and pursue meaningful work.
Lastly, we tackle the critical issue of mental health within the farming and ranching community. The conversation shifts to the alarmingly high suicide rates and the significant pressures faced by farmers and ranchers. The episode concludes with reflections on happiness, resilience, and the immense power of gratitude. Join us for an enriching conversation filled with life lessons, personal stories, and invaluable insights into the challenges and triumphs of the agricultural world.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to this episode of Ag Tales.
This time we are interviewingMr Henry Barlow of Utah Beef
Producers, the new packing plantthat has come online in Sevier
County, utah.
Stay tuned and listen in.
We're going to hear whereHenry's from and what he's doing
and what drives him.
He's an interesting guy, solisten in and share this with
(00:24):
your friends.
All right, henry.
So the first thing that peoplealways want to know about is who
(00:47):
you are and what you do.
You've been fairly, I would say, recognized across the state
with just the projects you'reworking on right now, but what
I'm going to do is I'm going tolet you introduce yourself and
who you are and what you doright now, and then we'll go
from there.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay so, henry Barlow , I live in Saratoga Springs and
I have farms in Sand PeakCounty.
Throughout Sand Peak County.
There's several differentpieces that I have and I'm a
contractor business owner beenin business in the state of Utah
for about 37 years in windowand door business, concrete
(01:31):
construction, excavation,general contracting, a solar
business, ranching and ranchinghas always been, you know, kind
of a passion project.
Haven't really been able tomake a pencil financially and I
think that God's brought enoughcows into my life and cattle and
(01:53):
land into my life that I canfeel the pinch points that a lot
of the ranchers and dairymenand farmers feel, and I feel
like that's by design andfarmers feel, and I feel like
that's by design.
I think that, uh, I reallythink that all of the, all of
the things that I've been doingin my life have been getting me
ready for what I'm doing rightnow, and including the
(02:16):
resistance that I've had toencounter along the way in life
and business.
Um, at a time when there was alot of bankruptcy, people went
bankrupt, you know, in 2008, andlost a lot of things.
All the financial people aroundme said you know, you just need
to wipe the clean slate and gobankrupt and start all over.
(02:37):
And I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't file bankruptcy eventhough I had hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of dollarsof bankruptcies on me and my
business that I had to, andhundreds of thousands of dollars
of bankruptcies on me and mybusiness that I had to turn
around and pay for productanyway.
It took me a decade to dig outfrom underneath that hole, but
that was hard and it kind ofprepared me for what I'm doing
(02:57):
right now.
So recently, you know, and Istarted in 2022, building a
large scale slaughterhouse largescale for Utah, not large scale
for Kansas, but large scale forUtah beef slaughterhouse and
that was about an 80 to 90 weekjourney and a massive time
(03:20):
commitment.
And, you know, for me and formy family to be away from my
family and come and build ithere in Sevier County.
Also, that was by design.
You know Sevier County here inRichfield is for sure the right
place and it's been evidenced by, you know, the support of the
(03:42):
county and the city.
Even the state of Utah has beenreally instrumental in just
helping me be successful throughjust a really really hard push
to make happen.
I mean, it's not about justbuilding a plant, you've got to
go build a wastewaterpretreatment plant, and then
you've got to build a a wastetreatment plant, and then you've
(04:04):
got to bore underneath aninterstate freeway, and I mean,
the obstacles that we face andcontinue to face are they're big
mountains, they're bigmountains, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It's uphill.
Every step of building aslaughterhouse is uphill.
Yep, it's not really a businessthat you can walk into and
there's already a structure inplace and that you know how to
do it and you have all thesupport you need.
You got millions of dollarsthat you got to pour into it and
the approvals you need and thestate support you need and the
(04:39):
local support, and then at theend of that you've got to depend
on cattle coming into thefacility and making sure that
end is prepared as well.
Yeah, so, and we're going to,and we're and we're going to
(05:01):
come back to your slaughterhouseand your business.
It's just in 2024, we have a lotgoing on and I think it's
touching a lot more than justcattle producers, and so, but
before we get too far into that,focusing more on you as a
(05:22):
person so you're from Saratoga,you said right and um, you've
had all these differentbusinesses and and so.
So what led you into that kindof life?
So what we're really looking atnow is what was growing up like
for you, like as a kid, what,what were you doing?
What were your parents doing?
What got you started down theseroads?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
What were you doing?
What were your parents doing?
What got you started down theseroads?
Well, recently I was invited tospeak to all the ag teachers in
the state of Utah and thatactually brought back some
things that I had kind ofshelved and didn't even remember
.
(06:06):
But had an opportunity to be aspeaker to about 200 ag teachers
in the state of Utah and it wasreally interesting because one
of those teachers came up to meafter that uh talk and he said
you know, who inspired me to bean ag was your parents.
And I said really and I mean Iknew this guy growing up but I
never even considered that hesaid, yeah, your mom and your
(06:27):
dad was so patient with me and Imean I was a city kid and I
just wanted to have my own calfand they'd come down to our
little farm and so I didn't evenconsider that.
But it really speaks to how thelittle things can really play
(06:48):
such an important role.
I mean, fast forward 35 yearsor whatever.
That guy has been an ag teacherhere in the state of Utah his
whole life.
He grew up and he was always in4-H.
What I saw was this guy, hejust always did well in 4-H and
then for him to tell me that itwas my parents that inspired him
(07:09):
to do that, that was kind ofcool.
So we, I grew up in West Jordanand it was just the sticks back
in those days and we had just alittle farm and you know milk
cows and had horses and sheepand pigs and chickens and
turkeys and you know a widevariety of just a little bit of
all of it, and had one hell of alot of responsibility.
(07:33):
I mean it was just like, justlike other guys growing up, they
wanted to go play sports andscrew off because that's what
they watched all their buddiesdo.
But we didn't and uh, we really, we really grew up without
money either.
We were, we were dirt poor andso it was uh, just that early
(07:57):
struggle, um, even going backbefore that, an early struggle
of um being the youngest one inmy class and the shortest and
the smallest one in my class andhaving a lot of health problems
as a kid, super introverted Imean, two left feet couldn't
even speak to somebody andthat's why it's been kind of
(08:19):
weird for me to even be onsocial media.
Is I had to overcome that andjust I mean it was really a
decision of deciding I would notbe that guy anymore as a kid.
And so, you know, to overcome,to overcome, uh, my asthma when
(08:39):
all my friends would love to goplay and whatever, I mean, I was
just hunched over, wheezingwith asthma.
So, to overcome that, I, I, uh,I ran everywhere I went and, uh
, as a kid, going through, youknow, from private school and
then into the public school,into a damn mean school.
(09:00):
I had a chip on both shouldersno kidding in eighth and ninth
grade but I negotiated my wayinto getting two free lunches a
day and getting everything thatI could get my hands on.
I was eating, and when Ifinally hit my growth spurt in
10th grade, I gained 30 poundsin three weeks and it's crazy to
even think that.
(09:21):
But, um, that's reallyduplicated in my son.
I mean, he's a big, strong guynow, but he had the same thing.
But anyway, that that was thatinitial struggle I so appreciate
today.
I appreciate the fact that, um,I appreciate the fact that I
got bullied a lot as a kid andit gave me such a distaste for
(09:45):
bullying that I'm not afraid tostand up to any damn bully.
It is today and I think allthose things enter into getting
me ready for who I am today andwhat I'm up to today.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I like that.
So how?
How many you said you were theyoungest?
How many brothers and sisters?
Well, youngest in your class,my school class, okay, how many
you said you were the youngest.
How many brothers?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
and sisters, well, youngest In your class, in my
school class, okay, because ofwhere my birthday fell, oh okay,
so not only that.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, I was a little kid.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I was the little kid.
Yeah, people had me in mygrades by 18 inches.
I mean, I was just a scrawnylittle kid, you know, and I had
severe asthma as a kid, and youknow, in the hospital and had
all kinds of problems that way.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
So you were constantly kind of trying to
play catch up there for a whileBig time, yeah.
So what about at home?
I mean, how many brothers andsisters did you have?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So I was the fourth of 15.
Oh, wow, yeah.
So we had a big family, a lotof responsibility and, uh, we um
, growing up on a little farm,everybody had something to do
and it was just, you know,everybody had.
I watched my dad, you know weum, we had a standing order for
(11:01):
the first load of concrete outof the plant every single
morning and, just as kid, Iwatched my dad with one other
worker and his two sons justgrind it every day and then we'd
get done and he would go.
He would go drive truck atnight till usually around
midnight, one o'clock in themorning, and we'd rinse and
(11:23):
repeat every single day.
You know there was a two yearperiod of that.
That we went through that andjust just, uh, you know those
were harder times for a lot ofpeople back then.
But I watched him.
I watched him do impossiblethings and at a time we had no
money and his dream of buildinga shop.
I thought how's this ever goingto happen?
(11:44):
I mean, he has no money and hisdream of building a shop.
I thought how's this ever goingto happen?
I mean he has no money.
But I watched him go to workand at a time when his brother,
as a brick Mason, could not evenbuy a job.
I mean, there was, there wastimes that people can't even
appreciate that today, of howlean times were.
But when he, when his brother,couldn't even find work, he
(12:08):
actually would split the moneythat he made and his brother
would come and work on his shop.
So he found a way like eventhough he had no money and
didn't have the time becausehe's working two jobs, you know
to provide why he still found away.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So there's a lot of people that probably don't.
There's a lot of people thatdon't gig hard enough, but
there's.
There's always answers, andthey're not always the answers
you want, but they.
They are doors, and not onlythat, a lot of people like to
walk through doors that are tootight or uncomfortable or
require more work.
And I think that one thing yousaid really kind of hits on a
(12:48):
difference between then and now,where we say can't even find
work, and I think finding workback then is different than what
is looked at now.
From now you can, you can turnin applications from your couch,
and that's not really lookingfor work.
You know, I imagine back then,same with my dad you go around
and you find a job on your twofeet.
(13:08):
It's something you can do andget done.
It was a different time, bigtime and a real struggle.
And then have to come home.
I only have two kids and Ican't imagine coming home to 15
and looking that in the faceevery day trying to figure
things out.
So what about your mom?
What did your was your mom?
Stay at home, mom, or what didyour mom do?
She run the farm with you guys.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, she was a stay at home mom and she found stay
at home jobs.
So I mean, in addition to doingeverything she's doing, um, she
, she found ways to contributefinancially to our family and
she was, as you can imagine,extremely busy and she was the
(13:57):
long arm of the law at our placebecause dad was gone a lot and
even when us boys were oldenough, we would go with that
and we would work.
You know our summers andweekends and evenings and all of
that contributes to who we areand I think that's one of the
good things about I think that'sone of the good things about
(14:20):
agriculture that I see is thatit gives people an opportunity
to get their hands in the dirtand create and, no matter who
you are and where you are, um,it's a more healthy long-term
environment to get your handsinto the dirt in some way.
So it doesn't matter if you'vegot a job and you're writing
code, you have got to get out ofthat office and you got to get
(14:41):
outside and you got to get yourhands in the dirt and you got to
get outside and you got to getyour hands in the dirt and you
got to go produce something.
I mean, today there is so manypeople that have jobs and you
have to actually ask yourself,what am I producing?
And so when we have a job likethat, uh, it's okay, and you
(15:04):
need to go find something else,some other way to produce
something and give somethingback.
You know, if you have eighthours of capacity and you're all
spent, really is that who youwant to be in your life?
Yeah, because because peopleyou know people that are going
to go do big things.
They're going to eight hours.
Match that up against somebodywho's going to go really lean on
(15:25):
life.
They're going to put in threeeight-hour shifts.
So, no kidding, they're goingto accomplish more.
No kidding, they're going to goplaces and they're going to
have more stress in their life.
And it's by design.
I mean, all of us are goinginto the pine box when we get
done with this life and I thinksome of us will have regrets.
I don't want to go at the endof my life with a bunch of
(15:48):
regrets that I didn't lay it allon the line and just give it
everything I got.
So that's just how I think.
I think it's a better way tolive.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I like that and you know, when you're talking about
agriculture, you know there's wesee a lot of families involved
in it.
Right?
So you had, you had a family of17 people that were involved in
agriculture together.
Yeah, there's not a lot of jobstoday besides agriculture where
you can do some, where you canstill accomplish something,
(16:18):
where all of you can be workingon the same thing or have a hand
in the same pot at some point,and I think that's a really good
, not only for yourselfindividually, but for the family
unit itself.
It's good to be there together.
I see a lot of families thatare good families, including
ourselves, that we try and reacheach other through Facebook or
(16:43):
Skype or that's how our familygets back in touch some phone
calls but I'm really jealous ofthose families that wake up and
they work together and they eattogether and they go to bed
together and then they repeat it.
That's just such a good way tolive your life.
That's a full circle way oflife too.
So now, with that in mind,looking back at at you know your
(17:11):
upbringing and and thedifferent jobs you've had and
what you've created up to thispoint.
If you were to take a snapshotback and would you imagine
yourself where?
I know you said it prepared youfor where you are now.
But if you were to walk back 20years, would you imagine
yourself where?
I know you say it prepared youfor where you are now.
But if you were to walk back 20years, would you see yourself
doing this right now.
You know, could you imagine itright now?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
No, not even.
I mean, from all outwardappearances, henry Barlow has no
business, even being in thisgame.
I mean, he's never owned abutcher shop, never been a
butcher, never been any part ofit, nothing.
I mean there's, what in theworld has he been doing in this
(17:52):
industry?
And maybe it took that kind ofa naive background to be able to
just see the need and go figureout how to fill the need.
Because I mean by electedofficials I've been told that
you know, when I do things thatare, you know, I I advance when
(18:19):
all the lights aren't green andsomebody says to me well, you're
the one that, you're the onethat started without having
these two things figured out.
And I'm like, uh, excuse me, Istarted without having 102
things figured out.
And that's the difference A lotof times with the private
sector and the public sector isthe private sector that's going
(18:40):
to go get things done.
They have to go be creative andmove ahead.
And if you waited for all thelights to turn green, I would
not have 31 people that I put towork right here in the Severe
Valley, in little town ofRichfield.
We've got 31 people to workalready.
(19:00):
When I said a few months agowhen I said thousands of cattle
are not going to have to leaveutah anymore because of what
we're up to.
That's coming to reality and soI am delivering on what I say I
will do.
(19:20):
And it is sometimes inhibited byother people that you rely on
that don't do what they saythey'll do.
But you know we always find away and we keep pushing and
that's just like life.
No matter what kind of a jobyou're in I mean everybody's
everything is still everything.
You know the story of thewidow's might and and, whatever,
(19:45):
whatever level, anybody that'slistening to this, whatever
level people are at, if, if mystory can touch them in such a
way that it inspires them toturn up their intensity 20%,
that's then it's successful.
But if it doesn't, like if thepeople that interact with me
(20:08):
aren't better because of thattime that they spent with me, I
don't feel like I've reallyaccomplished my mission.
So, whether it's an employee,or whether it's the interaction
that I've had with you, or theag teachers, or the farm bureau,
or the beef council or all ofthe many cattlemen I mean, if it
doesn't produce good fruit,it's not.
(20:29):
I'm not doing my job.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I like that outlook because you know, um, I, I, I
served a an LDS mission down inMexico and I remember the guy
running it.
The president of the missiontold us it was something
probably most people would beoffended by today, but he said
be a little bit better than youwere yesterday, just be a little
(20:53):
bit better somehow.
And I don't think a lot offolks like hearing that, but
truly it was more.
The was more of the fact thatdon't be better the same way.
Don't work, work on just onething every day.
Just be better somehow.
You know, if you got up and youthought, man, I could get up a
little bit earlier and mayberead a little bit or I could do
a little exercise, do thattomorrow.
(21:13):
Be a little better somehowtomorrow.
And and and constantimprovement.
And I guess I relate that towhat you said, because you're
looking at putting something inand getting something out, but
always putting something back inRight, because someone else can
benefit from that.
If someone learns from that,then they can start to do the
(21:35):
same thing.
When you were talking about theeight-hour shifts, we have a
lot of jobs today where we putstuff in but we don't really
produce anything from it andthat kind of makes us takers
right Absolutely, and there'sdifferent ways to get it done.
(21:56):
I mean, the world is changingin a lot of different ways, but
the nice thing about agriculture, at least in my opinion, is
people still got to eat.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
People still have to eat.
Well, that's one of the reasonswhy I trademarked Salute the
Rancher and I was actuallypondering one night at the plant
, sitting alone after you know,15, 16 hour day, pondering the
(22:29):
day, and I like, I like to dothat to kind of try and gather
up the gold nuggets thathappened for you during that day
.
And I'm sitting there thinkingabout it and I'm I'm considering
my, I'm considering my nephewwho took his own life in suicide
, and I thought about all of theproblems in the world and the
suicides that we have and supertuned in to the fact that
(22:50):
particular week I was made awareof what a massive problem it is
in Sevier County.
Like I had no idea it's such abig problem.
And then I got looking into itand found out that in the ag, in
the farm and ranch community,suicide is about double Okay.
So when I trademark salute therancher, it really has multiple
(23:14):
tenants in that.
But one of the things that itwas it spoke to me is that most
people don't realize that oneand a half percent of the
population feeds 98 and a halfpercent of the population.
And although I have I come fromand have a lot of military.
Um, people in my circle withsons and son-in-laws and dads
(23:39):
and uncles and things, I mean Ican count 20 in very close
proximity.
Nothing taken away from that.
But in the military you go getyour 10% discount at Home Depot
and you get your.
You know, thank you for yourservice.
Well, when is the last timethat we said to the farmer, the
rancher and the dairyman thankyou for your service?
(24:00):
So I trademarked Salute theRancher and of course we put
that on our boxes of beef thatwe ship out.
But it really speaks to thatand it also speaks to the fact
that in the farm and ranchcommunity to address the whole
suicide, double the nationalaverage and whatever is that
(24:22):
each one of us have somethingthat we can do.
It's true that you can go getsent off to some government
program or whatever, but thinkof how much we could do when we
recognize that early somebodystruggling and just say you know
what, jump in, you're ridingwith me today and just go, let
(24:43):
them be in your space.
Um, I think there's a lot can bedone in that and so I've used
that to as a platform to speakto that and a lot of times
growing up, I mean the, the areathat we come from, and anybody
who's 30 to 60 years old why youjust didn't talk about that
(25:06):
stuff.
Because you didn't talk aboutit?
Because it was a shame to thefamily.
It brought shame, you know,because somebody took their own
life.
Well, today, I don't think youcan even look around and not see
.
Almost every single person hasbeen affected by that.
It may not be in their ownfamily, but it's in a relative
(25:28):
or it's in a coworker, it's in afriend, and so it's a real
thing and I think when we speakto it, it gives us back our
power.
The other thing that's delicateabout that is is that when you
look and you see and you observea suicide, they don't come in
ones.
Yeah, they always have a secondor a third, and so life's a
(25:49):
pressure cooker, no doubt, andwe have different mental
pressure today than ourgrandparents did.
For sure, we live in adistracted world and there's
things that we can do tomitigate that, and it's the
face-to-face contact.
I mean, we've got to manage ourdevices, and even though we can
connect to somebody on Facebookor Instagram, we can listen to
(26:10):
a podcast, we have got to pushourselves out of the house, out
of the office and go have arelationship face-to-face, and
we've got to recognize and bewilling to say the things that
somebody's going to roll theireyes and you're going to appear
dumb and your words are going toflumsily fall out of your mouth
and just go say it anyway.
I mean, if you're inspired tojust say something hard or, you
(26:35):
know, tell somebody how much youcare about them.
It might seem really odd to youbut you could really make a
difference to somebody you knowand we've had over oh heck, I
bet we've had before our grandopening, I bet we had a thousand
, two thousand visitors.
I mean, it's crazy.
You saw, yeah, how many peoplewould come in and one day we
were talking about this and backin the back there's a guy about
(27:01):
my age and you could see hiseyes just wailing up with tears
as we were talking about this.
And, uh, after we got donebecause there was a group of
about 25 people there that day,I kind of noticed that and I I
went, talked to him and heshared with me that his own
(27:23):
father took his life and it iseverything that he even thinks.
He doesn't even know if he canhold it together, that he is
trying hard to hold the familyfarm together and you know.
It really spoke to him, youknow, and he said he wanted to
get one of our hats with thesalute the rancher on it.
The point is that it meantsomething.
(27:44):
He was able to actually talkabout it and say those hard
things.
I think that those of us thathaven't had it right in our own
immediate family we don't knowwhat's around the next bend.
Life's a pressure cooker.
We've got to do what we can tobe the best version of ourselves
(28:05):
and go try.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
So I don't even know how we went down that rabbit
hole, no, and that's kind ofstuff that people want to talk
about and that's kind of stuffthat people don't like to talk
about.
Yeah, and several differentepisodes on this podcast,
something's been brought up thatis not what people expect to
hear.
And I say I should say thebeauty of agriculture but just
(28:28):
for myself, particularly the.
I work in extension and thebeauty of that is I get to see
the agriculture and I get tomeet the people and I get to and
I get to be in their homes andand hear their stories.
And I get to and I get to be intheir homes and hear their
stories.
And I tell you this I mean,whether it were to get me in
trouble or not, I spent a lot oftime Getting to know these
(28:48):
folks before I start workingwith them and some of the
stories I've heard are just mindboggling.
Guys and gals and children haveto just have present in their
life while they're just tryingto live.
Blows your mind with the amountof output they give back to
(29:09):
society, right, the amount ofstuff that they're able to
produce and do every day whilefacing.
You know, my wife's dying.
My mom and dad aren't hereanymore, and you know.
But going back to what you said, addressing something and
saying what it is, my wifealways has said one of the
(29:34):
beauties of psychology, ortalking to a therapist or
something like that, which we'vestarted to really try and
encourage ranchers and farmersand dairymen to do when they can
.
The beauty of it is it may.
The problem probably isn't goingto go away for a long time.
It probably never will go away.
But there's a differencebetween having a monster in the
(29:55):
in a dark closet and seeing thatmonster in the light, and a lot
of us don't like to open thatdoor.
So that door is a scary, scarything for a lot of people and
when they actually talk about it, when they have someone like
you that says, hey, this is whoI am, this is what I'm doing,
let's bring some stuff out here,let's talk and let's touch
lives, At least now someone hasfaced the monster or helped
(30:19):
someone do it and now they feellike there's someone on their
team, you know Um.
So so I applaud you for that,because a lot of people um don't
notice that in other people,they don't take the time to see
those struggles Um well, there'scertain things you can do in
life that give you back yourpower.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
And I'm telling you that when you have something
that complex and thatcomplicated and you won't speak
to it and you become introvertedI mean your outward signs of
how you carry yourself is trulya measure in inward what's going
on and when you can, you know,breathe it in deep and shoulders
(30:59):
back, chest out out, chin upand just go like walk into it
and face it and speak to it.
Those are all outward thingsthat you can do that actually
help set you free and it givesyou back your power, no matter
how damned hard the thing thatyou're facing is.
And we have to.
I mean, for heaven's sakes, inall of the things that I've told
(31:22):
, all of my circle of influenceis coming back to me, magnified,
like 400%.
I can't even believe howeverything that I've been saying
and doing and you know I liketo, I like to teach my family
you know that you need to have,you need to create your own,
basically create your own gospelLike what is your story?
(31:42):
What is the gospel?
It's God's story, what is yourstory, what is your gospel?
And it's your words to live by.
And I think that if we gather upthe golden nuggets that happen
for us throughout the day andthroughout the week and that
happens by actually getting awayfrom your electronics and
(32:03):
creating some think time and ifyou are looking for the gold, by
the end of the week you'regoing to gather up a sack full
of gold.
If you're not, you're going tostill have a sack full of
something.
Yeah, but it ain't the gold.
Yeah, if you want toregurgitate every damn bloody,
bad, evil thing that's happenedfor you, then that's what you're
(32:24):
going to pack around.
And if you want to have, youknow, consider the things that
you hear and what inspired youand what stuck to you and who
did you meet today of a sudden,when a person starts shifting
from being a victim.
Those are the little steps thatwe can do in life that actually
(32:45):
raise us up and help us to go besomebody.
I mean, go give something away,go give it back.
You put in eight hours and youlive in a cubicle.
Good Fine, go help somebody ontheir project.
No, you don't know how to plumband do electrical and wire and
weed a garden or whatever.
Go do it.
Just go be there in that spaceand just go give of yourself and
(33:07):
give time.
You know it's a naturalprinciple, that you know it's
biblical that we give back andwe produce more than we consume.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
There's a lot to be said about it.
Consume there's a lot to besaid about it.
I think ranchers and a lot ofag folks find this really cool.
When, for example, you have anintern or a kid come work for
you.
That is like where are you from, wait, you're from Guam, you're
from Highland, you're from thePhilippines, what are you doing
(33:39):
here?
Well, you're from Highland,you're from the Philippines,
what are you doing here?
Well, I don't know, this isn'teven my degree, but I wanted to
see it and that is so cool forus to see.
And what does it create?
There's one thing that italways creates it creates, in my
opinion, joy.
It creates opportunity.
But something that people arenot very good at creating
anymore is laughter.
(34:00):
You don't hear a lot of itanymore.
You don't hear people beingable to ease back because we're
so on the throttle.
And what you said aboutelectronics, I think, is one of
those major drives to that.
We're on the throttleconstantly and we're not really
driving ourselves anywherebecause there's no material
object, material gain comingback right when we're creating
(34:20):
stuff in the space that we can'teven see.
And something else that you saidI thought was pretty neat
reminded me of when you weretalking about just how you carry
yourself and how you stand, mydad used to say to us in the
morning he said he would kind ofespecially my little brother,
but he would yell in our roomand he would say what kind of
(34:41):
day is it going to be?
And he expected to say it'sgoing to be a good day, dad,
it's going to be a good day, andthat was just how he.
He did everything.
You know, it's going to be agood day, no matter what.
If you started your day sayingthat and you started your day
doing that thing, you wanted todo the least, getting it out of
the way, it was a dang good day.
You know, yeah, um, and so, andyou do see that, and I, and,
(35:02):
and and.
Before we move on, I think it'simportant to touch on when you,
when you talk about that outwardappearance of people and
noticing people, um, as I'vegotten older, even myself when
I've struggled or seen otherpeople struggle, you can see it,
and it's not always.
You're not looking for somemysterious look in their face if
they're, if their clothesaren't ironed or if their it's
(35:24):
not always.
You're not looking for somemysterious look in their face If
their, if their clothes aren'tironed, or if their hair's not
combed, or you're like man,when's the last time you brushed
your teeth?
Those are a lot of signs thatpeople are just barely getting
by.
They're, they're waking up,they're getting their clothes on
and they're going to work, butthey're not waking up and, and
you know, at the sunrise andtaking a nice shower and having
a nice breakfast, and you knowthere's a difference there, and
(35:44):
usually that's a big sign thatsomeone's having a hard time,
you know, and not taking care ofjust themselves.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Well, a lot of times we grow up thinking that the big
things is really what's goingto shape my life and the little
things don't matter.
And the older I get, the moreit's absolutely opposite of that
.
It's the little things thatreally shape your life.
Everybody's looking for a bigchange and you're not going to
(36:12):
win the long game.
Looking for that it's managingyour daily rituals.
It's what you do anywhere, iswhat you do everywhere.
Your daily rituals, it's whatyou do anywhere.
It's what you do everywhere.
It's dressing for success.
It's getting up and acting likewonderful things are going to
go happen for me today.
And and walking into your daywith that amount of confidence
(36:33):
and you actually draw thosethings right towards you.
Some things do happen andthey're just damn hard and
that's okay.
You'll get through it and Godkeeps putting men and women in
your life to be able to help youthrough it.
And it's interesting becauseGod works through men and women
of the flesh and anybody that'sfollowed me on the journey of
(36:55):
building the plant know that Icall it a journey of miracles
and it truly is a journey ofmiracles and I'll use that
platform to be able to talk topeople and, you know, get them
to realize the value inunderstanding that there is a
creator and he cares about usand loves us and wants us to.
(37:15):
And I'm going to say thingsthat you know as a, as a school
teacher, as somebody at USU, youknow you probably get told,
yeah, you don't need to say youshouldn't be saying that, hey,
this is me and I do not care, Iwill call it out and I'll say
those things and I'll I'll gettold whatever.
And that's the thing that isdifferent today than 30 years
(37:38):
ago is you can control your ownnarrative with with social media
, you don't need to havesomebody edit what you're saying
and whatever, and you can saydumb things, but it's, it's raw
and it's real and that's that'simportant.
I think that it's reallyimportant, as we decide who our
(37:59):
circle of influence is, that wedon't take advice from somebody
who's more messed up than we arefor crying out loud.
I mean we need to in life.
We need to surround ourselveswith people that are.
If we want to be up to bigthings, we need to go be around
people that are up to big things, and if we want to live a life
that's screwed up andintroverted and whatever, then
(38:20):
that's who our circle ofinfluence is going to be.
But at some point, if you're notthere to help somebody get up
out of the mud, if you're notthere with that express purpose,
then you need to makeseparation from those people and
so that you can actually get upout of the mud and God will put
men and women into our livesevery single week.
It'll help us if we will, butit's still.
(38:41):
Agency always trumps.
I mean, the opportunities willopen for us, but we have to do
the work, yep, and we have toshow up.
And those, those are thingsthat I've realized on a scale
400 percent, um, building thisplant.
I mean, for a guy that's beenable to be at home on the ranch
(39:06):
with the family my whole life, Icould not do this without being
there and just showing up.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
And so that's been really magnified to me, and
that's true of life, and that ishow you show up.
It's going to make thedifference.
So, as we talk to differentpeople that are listening to
this, why, whatever, whateveryou're up to, these same
principles work, no matter whatyou're growing or building or
doing or the hard experiencesthat you're having.
(39:36):
You know God's got a lot ofgood people ready to help.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
There are good, then there are prepared people and
there are people that arepushing hard, you know, and and
you got to surround yourselfwith people who are willing to
push, you know, and go into thatwith that mentality of I'm not
here to just benefit, I'm hereto push, push along.
Right so, and we probablyalready know the answer to this,
but, but even if we wanted todive into something even more
(40:06):
specific, the next question thatI ask guests on this podcast is
you know, I believe that we canharness a lot, that we can hold
a lot, that we can think abouta lot of different things and
there's a lot that we can attack.
(40:27):
There seems to be a commonthing that I end up thinking
about One thing or one theme.
I guess I should say Somethingthat's really keeping me up, or
it's that first thing that Ithink I've got to get that done,
I've got to figure out how todo that, or I'm worried about
(40:48):
this, or I'm excited for this.
Do you have something that youhave, something that you find
yourself coming back to all thetime right now?
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Uh, I absolutely do, and I can't share everything
that I.
I wish I could share it becauseit's it's super important to me
and it's been right at thefront of what I think about and
what keeps me up at night andhas done for a lot of weeks, and
I can't share those thingsright now, today.
But I can say that I regularlytry to use the tool that I
(41:19):
believe works, and that is thetool of gratitude.
And I think gratitude is thetool I mean it really it's, it's
the key that unlocks yourtoolbox.
Whatever you've gathered up inyour life, that you pack along
with you in that toolbox of life, that thing remains dormant and
locked up without gratitude.
(41:41):
When you have gratitude aboutwhat happens for you, it draws
good things to you and it'llhelp you through those hard
times.
It draws good things to you andit'll help you through those
hard times.
And, believe me, there are somemountains that I actually don't
know how to solve, everythingthat's in front of me right now,
(42:02):
and people don't do what theysay they'll do and they let you
down and it puts you in a badway and yet somehow, in spite of
all that, I have to keep mygame face on and keep the right
mental attitude, and I've got tostay engaged in the things, the
(42:23):
principles that I know work,and one of the things that I've,
you know, taught my kids andpeople around me is don't say
you can't.
The things that I've taught mykids and people around me is
don't say you can't.
Ask yourself, how can I?
And when you actually controlthe words that you say like
you've not heard me say thathappened to me.
You've heard me say thathappened for me.
(42:44):
So just replacing that word.
It causes you to quit being avictim and gets you out of that,
gives you back your power.
It causes you to quit being avictim and gets you out of that,
gives you back your power.
And when you ask yourselfquestions, instead of looking at
yourself and feeling how pickedon you are because somebody
didn't do what they said they'ddo and it's really screwed you
(43:05):
bad, you have to put yourself inthe space of creation, and that
is by asking yourself the rightquestions how can I?
And then how can I put you in acreation mode?
And then somebody's name popsinto your mind and all of a
sudden you have an advocate thatto help you, and it's agency
(43:36):
always trumps.
We get to choose.
That's the most important thing.
So we can choose into being avictim or we can lose.
How to learn, how to exercisethe tools and ask herself the
right question and it'll drawout the good answer.
So I can't share with you someof the mountains that are in
front of me right now, and therewill be a time in the future
that you'll understand why thereare some big ones.
(43:59):
But I realize that everybody hasbig mountains.
I mean a good friend of minewho's been on this journey with
me.
I mean he worked with me for 20years and he's been one of the
really key people building thisplant.
Yesterday morning, 5.30 in themorning, we're loading out of my
shop and everything and hedoesn't even tell me what's
(44:23):
going on with his mom.
But so we leave and we get downhere to Richfield and'm 30
minutes out and I get a call andthere's some damn hard things
going on with his mom.
You know she's had to be rushedback to the hospital and
surgery.
And I get here to the plant andI'm like are you okay?
(44:44):
Your mom needs you, you need to, you need to get out of here.
And he turned around to herright back home.
She passed away yesterday, andso everybody has something that
they're facing and they're damnbig mountains and I mean, my big
things are big things, but yourbig things are big things to
you.
And the point of the story isis that every single one of us
have a mountain to climb, andthey're things that we don't
(45:07):
know how to solve.
But the reality of it is isthose things are happening for
us and it's going to make usstronger and make us better, or
it can push us into the dirt,and it just depends on how we
pitch that rudder, which wayit's going to turn us.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Yep, so I like that.
I, I truly like that, becauseyou know it's, you know it's.
I remember thinking to myselfbefore I left for Mexico, I had
to get up in church and I had togive a talk to everyone and I
kept thinking you know, what amI going to talk about?
(45:44):
Because the way the short storyof my life is that baseball was
going to be my career, that wasgoing to be everything for me.
It didn't go that way.
I went in and I started playingcollege ball and I got hurt and
it turned my whole life in adifferent direction.
And um, but I remember thinkingthat you know, my family's
really struggling right now andI don't know what I'm doing, but
(46:04):
I am glad that I'm doing this.
And that was the first time inmy life.
I thought I'm grateful.
You know, I'm actually grateful.
I don't know what I'm gratefulfor yet, but I'm grateful that I
have this direction.
And the talk that I got up andgave was titled after another
guy.
It was called An Attitude ofGratitude and it just changed my
(46:25):
outlook.
It just really changed how Iapproached those next two years
of my life, which were stillhard in a lot of different ways,
but I have come back to thatand I've remembered giving that
talk.
I've remembered thinking hey,you know, there are a lot of
things that I have in my lifethat aren't done yet, but I can
count them right now.
(46:46):
I can count them and howgrateful I am for them and for
me that's fuel.
That's fuel to do somethingelse.
And so I guess that leads tothe last question, which is and
I don't know if there's adifference between these things,
but the last question I alwaysask everyone is are you happy?
(47:10):
Would you consider yourselfhappy in what you're doing?
Are you happy?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Well, it's a loaded question, Ethan.
I mean, yeah, happiness for oneperson is bliss and sitting on
the beach drinking a Mai Tai orwhatever.
Is bliss and sitting on thebeach, drinking a Mai Tai or
whatever.
It's different for every person.
And I would say this there aretimes of extreme joy and
(47:45):
happiness and that is not fromwhat is happening for me
personally.
Extreme joy and happiness to meis the people that I meet along
the way and like therelationships.
Happiness to me is watching afamily work together.
(48:06):
Happiness to me is with mebeing gone as much as I am,
without even being asked.
Our garden's out of control.
With all the things that we'vehad, like this year, our
garden's out of control.
Happiness to me is watching myson come in and giving all the
(48:26):
kids a responsibility I nevereven asked him to do it and
giving all their kids a specificresponsibility of okay, this is
, you know, take back the gardenand we're going to go do this.
And happiness to me is thepictures that I got texted to me
yesterday of how this personowned that stewardship, and this
was the before picture, thiswas the after picture and it's
(48:48):
initiatives.
Happiness to me because you knowI'm first and foremost.
I mean I'm a parent and I'm ahusband, a father.
Happiness to me is when you cansee that your family's making
progress.
Happiness to me is therelationships that we get to
build.
(49:08):
Relationships that we get tobuild and I can say that I don't
do a good job of showing it.
I think sometimes my familywould ask me that question Are
you happy, dad?
You're right, because it's nodoubt.
It's been a walk of fire thatI'm going through, even still to
(49:29):
be gone and having you know.
It's a great big stewardship.
It's a hell of a lot to take onand there's no easy way through
it, but there are moments ofpeace, happiness along the way.
So if you say, are you happy?
(49:49):
You know every day at times butI'm not the guy that you know
goes around carefree becausethat's not my life and by design
it's not my life.
Joy, you bet, taking the horsesout and pushing the cows and
rounding them up, and that withthe, you know, with the family
(50:13):
for sure.
Yeah, stuff like that.
You know, spending time.
That's not always work, becauseI've been a whole bunch about
work, but you know, when my son,when my son was 17, I told this
story at the uh, the 200 agteachers when my son was 17,.
I told this story at the 200 agteachers when my son.
(50:33):
It was so funny because when myson was 17, he had a chip on
both shoulders.
All this responsibility.
And why the hell do we need allthese animals?
Dad, you know, I just want togo play football and I want to
do.
You know, I want to go live thelife like my buddies get to
live.
They don't have anyresponsibility, they don't have
to do anything.
(50:58):
And when he was 17, he wanted tojoin the Marines and I said no,
I'm not signing for you to jointhe Marines at 17.
I says when you're 18, you makeyour own choice.
Well, well, his mother and Iwas gone on a trip on his 18th
birthday.
He went and signed up, went inthe Marines, and I remember what
I told him when he went intothe Marines.
I said, son, you don't evenknow all of the seeds that have
been planted inside of you for18 years.
(51:20):
I says but there's going to bea day when you begin to
understand happiness.
You want to know what happinessis.
It's that phone call six monthsin when he calls up and says
dad, can I talk to you.
Yeah, go ahead.
I just want you to know, dad, Iwant to do it just like you did
it.
That's happiness Because, asgoing into the Marines, it
(51:46):
wasn't hard for him to rise tothe top.
He became a squad leader rightoff the bat and he graduated the
boot camp.
Now he's guide, he's overallthe squad leader.
So as a 19-year-old kid, he'sgot 400 men reporting to him and
he saw, with all of that, hesaw the value in those 400 men
(52:10):
of who touched ag.
In those 400 men of who touchedag, it built good men, it makes
a difference.
And the people that had moresavvy and the people that had
more initiative and the peoplethat were more willing.
Now that's speakingcollectively.
So if anybody here is listeningto this, and oh, you don't have
(52:31):
to be a victim because youdidn't grow up in ag.
No, you go create that on yourown canvas.
But that's what he saw and Iwas.
It was funny because I wastelling, I told that story To
these teachers and I had severalpeople, several teachers, come
up after I got done talking andwe broke up and you know and
(52:54):
tell me thanks for your storiesand everything.
And these two teachers come upand said what's your last name?
I said Barlow and they said youwouldn't be Levi's dad, would
you?
They were the teachers, theywere his teachers and they saw
that kid you know as a senior inhigh school and they just, I
mean, we got such a kick out ofit and they're like you nailed
(53:16):
it.
That's you know.
That's Levi for sure.
But so there's moments ofhappiness through our journey
and satisfaction, and certainlywhen we see those around us that
we care about a lot overcometheir own trials.
To me that creates a lot ofhappiness yeah you know, I don't
(53:37):
.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
I don't think that happiness may be the a deep
enough word for that question.
You know, really it reallycomes back to again are you
grateful, you know, are you verygrateful?
Because there's um, there's alot to be said about being in
the middle of a struggle andbeing grateful or being happy.
And when you look around andyou think, man, like us, we just
(54:01):
got out of college and whatever, and we're figuring things out
and you still rent or you'restill trying to find a home or
whatever.
But you can look around and yougo, man, I'm sure grateful, I
wouldn't trade Right and Iwouldn't, I wouldn't change a
thing, you know, and I wouldn'tgive up what I've got, not not
(54:22):
for anything, and to me thatthat's deeper than happiness,
you know.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
That's being okay and that's and that's, and that's
being able to say, yeah, I'm,I'm good, you know that just
triggered something for me, um,for anybody that's renting or
thinking good grief, when am Igoing to get mine?
(54:49):
I remember when I was in thatspace and I can tell you one of
the tools that unlocks yourdreams for you, and that is for
you to write them down and makea drawing, paint a picture like
those are tools that will unlockyour dreams for you, literally.
(55:13):
If it's a ranch, or if it's acar, or if it's a motorcycle, a
house, if you can visualize itand imagine it, it puts gas in
your tank and if you canunderstand how powerful that is
for you to have a written goaland a picture that you paint one
(55:37):
more brushstroke on every day.
You know, if it's a house, thenin your mind, every single day,
you imagine one more thing aboutthat house, like what color is
the front door and how will Ihave my kitchen and what will my
backyard look like, and you andyou keep your mind in that
(55:58):
creation process.
It makes you have more capacityand if you think you have eight
hours capacity today, when youstart unlocking those tools,
you'll get done with your 14hour day and you've got more gas
in your tank than your circleof influence that you're hanging
around with and you'll be like,hey, now let's go cut Mrs Jones
(56:21):
weeds or whatever.
You know what I mean.
It's just things like that helpyou along the way and it will
make the difference of youovercoming and creating that for
you in a much shorter period oftime.
That's just a tool that works.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
So a lot of people, I think, will benefit from this
because, again, saying that youknow things are different now
than they were before and and,quite honestly, the truth of the
matter is that here in theUnited States, we have the
ability to do a lot.
You know, we're we're sittinghere, we didn't have to ask
anyone's permission.
(56:58):
I get to upload this withoutpermission and, uh, it's.
It's because we, we live in thecountry we do, but the country
we live in right now is is isn'ta lot of a lot of upheaval and
a lot of good things and badthings and confusing things for
a lot of people.
But I think where people willbenefit from this expressly,
(57:19):
this episode with you isstepping back and evaluating
themselves and saying, okay,where you know, where's my
initiative right now?
Where's my drive?
Do I have the capacity to dothis?
Well, and the answer is yes,but are you?
(57:40):
You know, are you ready?
And you know, I would encouragethe folks that are listening to
this to go and, you know, notonly find out more about the
Utah Beef Producers PackingPlant, but also get to meet
Henry and his staff, becausethey are doing a lot of pushing.
They've pushed through a lot ofbarriers.
They've talked to a lot ofpeople and I think you'll be
(58:02):
hard-pressed to find someone inthe state and at this point, the
region, who hasn't heard thename Utah Beef Producers or
Henry, and that speaks to thegroundwork that's being laid and
the connections that are beingmade.
So is there anything else thatyou want to leave folks with or
anything that you'd like to say?
Speaker 2 (58:24):
No, I mean, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but
you know, I just I guess, if I,I just I guess, if I gave you
one arrow to put in your quiverthrough all of the things we've
talked about today, it would bemy ask for each of us to turn up
(58:45):
our intensity with gratitude.
I mean, gratitude is the keythat's going to unlock the
toolbox for us so that changeslives.
It changes lives and helps usout of our slumps.
It gives us back our power.
So gratitude, that's what Iwould wrap up with.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
I appreciate it and I appreciate having you on here
and, you know, again, share thisepisode with your friends.
We covered a lot of good stuffin this episode, and and and and
.
People benefit from listeningto successful people and driven
people, and definitely you'reone of those people, henry.
So so thanks for being here.
I appreciate it, thank you you.
Welcome to this episode of Ag Tales.
This time we are interviewingMr Henry Barlow of Utah Beef
Producers, the new packing plantthat has come online in Sevier
County, utah.
Stay tuned and listen in.
We're going to hear whereHenry's from and what he's doing
and what drives him.
He's an interesting guy, solisten in and share this with
(00:24):
your friends.
All right, henry.
So the first thing that peoplealways want to know about is who
(00:47):
you are and what you do.
You've been fairly, I would say, recognized across the state
with just the projects you'reworking on right now, but what
I'm going to do is I'm going tolet you introduce yourself and
who you are and what you doright now, and then we'll go
from there.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay so, henry Barlow , I live in Saratoga Springs and
I have farms in Sand PeakCounty.
Throughout Sand Peak County.
There's several differentpieces that I have and I'm a
contractor business owner beenin business in the state of Utah
for about 37 years in windowand door business, concrete
(01:31):
construction, excavation,general contracting, a solar
business, ranching and ranchinghas always been, you know, kind
of a passion project.
Haven't really been able tomake a pencil financially and I
think that God's brought enoughcows into my life and cattle and
(01:53):
land into my life that I canfeel the pinch points that a lot
of the ranchers and dairymenand farmers feel, and I feel
like that's by design andfarmers feel, and I feel like
that's by design.
I think that, uh, I reallythink that all of the, all of
the things that I've been doingin my life have been getting me
ready for what I'm doing rightnow, and including the
(02:16):
resistance that I've had toencounter along the way in life
and business.
Um, at a time when there was alot of bankruptcy, people went
bankrupt, you know, in 2008, andlost a lot of things.
All the financial people aroundme said you know, you just need
to wipe the clean slate and gobankrupt and start all over.
(02:37):
And I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't file bankruptcy eventhough I had hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of dollarsof bankruptcies on me and my
business that I had to, andhundreds of thousands of dollars
of bankruptcies on me and mybusiness that I had to turn
around and pay for productanyway.
It took me a decade to dig outfrom underneath that hole, but
that was hard and it kind ofprepared me for what I'm doing
(02:57):
right now.
So recently, you know, and Istarted in 2022, building a
large scale slaughterhouse largescale for Utah, not large scale
for Kansas, but large scale forUtah beef slaughterhouse and
that was about an 80 to 90 weekjourney and a massive time
(03:20):
commitment.
And, you know, for me and formy family to be away from my
family and come and build ithere in Sevier County.
Also, that was by design.
You know Sevier County here inRichfield is for sure the right
place and it's been evidenced by, you know, the support of the
(03:42):
county and the city.
Even the state of Utah has beenreally instrumental in just
helping me be successful throughjust a really really hard push
to make happen.
I mean, it's not about justbuilding a plant, you've got to
go build a wastewaterpretreatment plant, and then
you've got to build a a wastetreatment plant, and then you've
(04:04):
got to bore underneath aninterstate freeway, and I mean,
the obstacles that we face andcontinue to face are they're big
mountains, they're bigmountains, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It's uphill.
Every step of building aslaughterhouse is uphill.
Yep, it's not really a businessthat you can walk into and
there's already a structure inplace and that you know how to
do it and you have all thesupport you need.
You got millions of dollarsthat you got to pour into it and
the approvals you need and thestate support you need and the
(04:39):
local support, and then at theend of that you've got to depend
on cattle coming into thefacility and making sure that
end is prepared as well.
Yeah, so, and we're going to,and we're and we're going to
(05:01):
come back to your slaughterhouseand your business.
It's just in 2024, we have a lotgoing on and I think it's
touching a lot more than justcattle producers, and so, but
before we get too far into that,focusing more on you as a
(05:22):
person so you're from Saratoga,you said right and um, you've
had all these differentbusinesses and and so.
So what led you into that kindof life?
So what we're really looking atnow is what was growing up like
for you, like as a kid, what,what were you doing?
What were your parents doing?
What got you started down theseroads?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
What were you doing?
What were your parents doing?
What got you started down theseroads?
Well, recently I was invited tospeak to all the ag teachers in
the state of Utah and thatactually brought back some
things that I had kind ofshelved and didn't even remember
.
(06:06):
But had an opportunity to be aspeaker to about 200 ag teachers
in the state of Utah and it wasreally interesting because one
of those teachers came up to meafter that uh talk and he said
you know, who inspired me to bean ag was your parents.
And I said really and I mean Iknew this guy growing up but I
never even considered that hesaid, yeah, your mom and your
(06:27):
dad was so patient with me and Imean I was a city kid and I
just wanted to have my own calfand they'd come down to our
little farm and so I didn't evenconsider that.
But it really speaks to how thelittle things can really play
(06:48):
such an important role.
I mean, fast forward 35 yearsor whatever.
That guy has been an ag teacherhere in the state of Utah his
whole life.
He grew up and he was always in4-H.
What I saw was this guy, hejust always did well in 4-H and
then for him to tell me that itwas my parents that inspired him
(07:09):
to do that, that was kind ofcool.
So we, I grew up in West Jordanand it was just the sticks back
in those days and we had just alittle farm and you know milk
cows and had horses and sheepand pigs and chickens and
turkeys and you know a widevariety of just a little bit of
all of it, and had one hell of alot of responsibility.
(07:33):
I mean it was just like, justlike other guys growing up, they
wanted to go play sports andscrew off because that's what
they watched all their buddiesdo.
But we didn't and uh, we really, we really grew up without
money either.
We were, we were dirt poor andso it was uh, just that early
(07:57):
struggle, um, even going backbefore that, an early struggle
of um being the youngest one inmy class and the shortest and
the smallest one in my class andhaving a lot of health problems
as a kid, super introverted Imean, two left feet couldn't
even speak to somebody andthat's why it's been kind of
(08:19):
weird for me to even be onsocial media.
Is I had to overcome that andjust I mean it was really a
decision of deciding I would notbe that guy anymore as a kid.
And so, you know, to overcome,to overcome, uh, my asthma when
(08:39):
all my friends would love to goplay and whatever, I mean, I was
just hunched over, wheezingwith asthma.
So, to overcome that, I, I, uh,I ran everywhere I went and, uh
, as a kid, going through, youknow, from private school and
then into the public school,into a damn mean school.
(09:00):
I had a chip on both shouldersno kidding in eighth and ninth
grade but I negotiated my wayinto getting two free lunches a
day and getting everything thatI could get my hands on.
I was eating, and when Ifinally hit my growth spurt in
10th grade, I gained 30 poundsin three weeks and it's crazy to
even think that.
(09:21):
But, um, that's reallyduplicated in my son.
I mean, he's a big, strong guynow, but he had the same thing.
But anyway, that that was thatinitial struggle I so appreciate
today.
I appreciate the fact that, um,I appreciate the fact that I
got bullied a lot as a kid andit gave me such a distaste for
(09:45):
bullying that I'm not afraid tostand up to any damn bully.
It is today and I think allthose things enter into getting
me ready for who I am today andwhat I'm up to today.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I like that.
So how?
How many you said you were theyoungest?
How many brothers and sisters?
Well, youngest in your class,my school class, okay, how many
you said you were the youngest.
How many brothers?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
and sisters, well, youngest In your class, in my
school class, okay, because ofwhere my birthday fell, oh okay,
so not only that.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, I was a little kid.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I was the little kid.
Yeah, people had me in mygrades by 18 inches.
I mean, I was just a scrawnylittle kid, you know, and I had
severe asthma as a kid, and youknow, in the hospital and had
all kinds of problems that way.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
So you were constantly kind of trying to
play catch up there for a whileBig time, yeah.
So what about at home?
I mean, how many brothers andsisters did you have?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So I was the fourth of 15.
Oh, wow, yeah.
So we had a big family, a lotof responsibility and, uh, we um
, growing up on a little farm,everybody had something to do
and it was just, you know,everybody had.
I watched my dad, you know weum, we had a standing order for
(11:01):
the first load of concrete outof the plant every single
morning and, just as kid, Iwatched my dad with one other
worker and his two sons justgrind it every day and then we'd
get done and he would go.
He would go drive truck atnight till usually around
midnight, one o'clock in themorning, and we'd rinse and
(11:23):
repeat every single day.
You know there was a two yearperiod of that.
That we went through that andjust just, uh, you know those
were harder times for a lot ofpeople back then.
But I watched him.
I watched him do impossiblethings and at a time we had no
money and his dream of buildinga shop.
I thought how's this ever goingto happen?
(11:44):
I mean, he has no money and hisdream of building a shop.
I thought how's this ever goingto happen?
I mean he has no money.
But I watched him go to workand at a time when his brother,
as a brick Mason, could not evenbuy a job.
I mean, there was, there wastimes that people can't even
appreciate that today, of howlean times were.
But when he, when his brother,couldn't even find work, he
(12:08):
actually would split the moneythat he made and his brother
would come and work on his shop.
So he found a way like eventhough he had no money and
didn't have the time becausehe's working two jobs, you know
to provide why he still found away.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So there's a lot of people that probably don't.
There's a lot of people thatdon't gig hard enough, but
there's.
There's always answers, andthey're not always the answers
you want, but they.
They are doors, and not onlythat, a lot of people like to
walk through doors that are tootight or uncomfortable or
require more work.
And I think that one thing yousaid really kind of hits on a
(12:48):
difference between then and now,where we say can't even find
work, and I think finding workback then is different than what
is looked at now.
From now you can, you can turnin applications from your couch,
and that's not really lookingfor work.
You know, I imagine back then,same with my dad you go around
and you find a job on your twofeet.
(13:08):
It's something you can do andget done.
It was a different time, bigtime and a real struggle.
And then have to come home.
I only have two kids and Ican't imagine coming home to 15
and looking that in the faceevery day trying to figure
things out.
So what about your mom?
What did your was your mom?
Stay at home, mom, or what didyour mom do?
She run the farm with you guys.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, she was a stay at home mom and she found stay
at home jobs.
So I mean, in addition to doingeverything she's doing, um, she
, she found ways to contributefinancially to our family and
she was, as you can imagine,extremely busy and she was the
(13:57):
long arm of the law at our placebecause dad was gone a lot and
even when us boys were oldenough, we would go with that
and we would work.
You know our summers andweekends and evenings and all of
that contributes to who we areand I think that's one of the
good things about I think that'sone of the good things about
(14:20):
agriculture that I see is thatit gives people an opportunity
to get their hands in the dirtand create and, no matter who
you are and where you are, um,it's a more healthy long-term
environment to get your handsinto the dirt in some way.
So it doesn't matter if you'vegot a job and you're writing
code, you have got to get out ofthat office and you got to get
(14:41):
outside and you got to get yourhands in the dirt and you got to
get outside and you got to getyour hands in the dirt and you
got to go produce something.
I mean, today there is so manypeople that have jobs and you
have to actually ask yourself,what am I producing?
And so when we have a job likethat, uh, it's okay, and you
(15:04):
need to go find something else,some other way to produce
something and give somethingback.
You know, if you have eighthours of capacity and you're all
spent, really is that who youwant to be in your life?
Yeah, because because peopleyou know people that are going
to go do big things.
They're going to eight hours.
Match that up against somebodywho's going to go really lean on
(15:25):
life.
They're going to put in threeeight-hour shifts.
So, no kidding, they're goingto accomplish more.
No kidding, they're going to goplaces and they're going to
have more stress in their life.
And it's by design.
I mean, all of us are goinginto the pine box when we get
done with this life and I thinksome of us will have regrets.
I don't want to go at the endof my life with a bunch of
(15:48):
regrets that I didn't lay it allon the line and just give it
everything I got.
So that's just how I think.
I think it's a better way tolive.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I like that and you know, when you're talking about
agriculture, you know there's wesee a lot of families involved
in it.
Right?
So you had, you had a family of17 people that were involved in
agriculture together.
Yeah, there's not a lot of jobstoday besides agriculture where
you can do some, where you canstill accomplish something,
(16:18):
where all of you can be workingon the same thing or have a hand
in the same pot at some point,and I think that's a really good
, not only for yourselfindividually, but for the family
unit itself.
It's good to be there together.
I see a lot of families thatare good families, including
ourselves, that we try and reacheach other through Facebook or
(16:43):
Skype or that's how our familygets back in touch some phone
calls but I'm really jealous ofthose families that wake up and
they work together and they eattogether and they go to bed
together and then they repeat it.
That's just such a good way tolive your life.
That's a full circle way oflife too.
So now, with that in mind,looking back at at you know your
(17:11):
upbringing and and thedifferent jobs you've had and
what you've created up to thispoint.
If you were to take a snapshotback and would you imagine
yourself where?
I know you said it prepared youfor where you are now.
But if you were to walk back 20years, would you imagine
yourself where?
I know you say it prepared youfor where you are now.
But if you were to walk back 20years, would you see yourself
doing this right now.
You know, could you imagine itright now?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
No, not even.
I mean, from all outwardappearances, henry Barlow has no
business, even being in thisgame.
I mean, he's never owned abutcher shop, never been a
butcher, never been any part ofit, nothing.
I mean there's, what in theworld has he been doing in this
(17:52):
industry?
And maybe it took that kind ofa naive background to be able to
just see the need and go figureout how to fill the need.
Because I mean by electedofficials I've been told that
you know, when I do things thatare, you know, I I advance when
(18:19):
all the lights aren't green andsomebody says to me well, you're
the one that, you're the onethat started without having
these two things figured out.
And I'm like, uh, excuse me, Istarted without having 102
things figured out.
And that's the difference A lotof times with the private
sector and the public sector isthe private sector that's going
(18:40):
to go get things done.
They have to go be creative andmove ahead.
And if you waited for all thelights to turn green, I would
not have 31 people that I put towork right here in the Severe
Valley, in little town ofRichfield.
We've got 31 people to workalready.
(19:00):
When I said a few months agowhen I said thousands of cattle
are not going to have to leaveutah anymore because of what
we're up to.
That's coming to reality and soI am delivering on what I say I
will do.
(19:20):
And it is sometimes inhibited byother people that you rely on
that don't do what they saythey'll do.
But you know we always find away and we keep pushing and
that's just like life.
No matter what kind of a jobyou're in I mean everybody's
everything is still everything.
You know the story of thewidow's might and and, whatever,
(19:45):
whatever level, anybody that'slistening to this, whatever
level people are at, if, if mystory can touch them in such a
way that it inspires them toturn up their intensity 20%,
that's then it's successful.
But if it doesn't, like if thepeople that interact with me
(20:08):
aren't better because of thattime that they spent with me, I
don't feel like I've reallyaccomplished my mission.
So, whether it's an employee,or whether it's the interaction
that I've had with you, or theag teachers, or the farm bureau,
or the beef council or all ofthe many cattlemen I mean, if it
doesn't produce good fruit,it's not.
(20:29):
I'm not doing my job.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I like that outlook because you know, um, I, I, I
served a an LDS mission down inMexico and I remember the guy
running it.
The president of the missiontold us it was something
probably most people would beoffended by today, but he said
be a little bit better than youwere yesterday, just be a little
(20:53):
bit better somehow.
And I don't think a lot offolks like hearing that, but
truly it was more.
The was more of the fact thatdon't be better the same way.
Don't work, work on just onething every day.
Just be better somehow.
You know, if you got up and youthought, man, I could get up a
little bit earlier and mayberead a little bit or I could do
a little exercise, do thattomorrow.
(21:13):
Be a little better somehowtomorrow.
And and and constantimprovement.
And I guess I relate that towhat you said, because you're
looking at putting something inand getting something out, but
always putting something back inRight, because someone else can
benefit from that.
If someone learns from that,then they can start to do the
(21:35):
same thing.
When you were talking about theeight-hour shifts, we have a
lot of jobs today where we putstuff in but we don't really
produce anything from it andthat kind of makes us takers
right Absolutely, and there'sdifferent ways to get it done.
(21:56):
I mean, the world is changingin a lot of different ways, but
the nice thing about agriculture, at least in my opinion, is
people still got to eat.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
People still have to eat.
Well, that's one of the reasonswhy I trademarked Salute the
Rancher and I was actuallypondering one night at the plant
, sitting alone after you know,15, 16 hour day, pondering the
(22:29):
day, and I like, I like to dothat to kind of try and gather
up the gold nuggets thathappened for you during that day
.
And I'm sitting there thinkingabout it and I'm I'm considering
my, I'm considering my nephewwho took his own life in suicide
, and I thought about all of theproblems in the world and the
suicides that we have and supertuned in to the fact that
(22:50):
particular week I was made awareof what a massive problem it is
in Sevier County.
Like I had no idea it's such abig problem.
And then I got looking into itand found out that in the ag, in
the farm and ranch community,suicide is about double Okay.
So when I trademark salute therancher, it really has multiple
(23:14):
tenants in that.
But one of the things that itwas it spoke to me is that most
people don't realize that oneand a half percent of the
population feeds 98 and a halfpercent of the population.
And although I have I come fromand have a lot of military.
Um, people in my circle withsons and son-in-laws and dads
(23:39):
and uncles and things, I mean Ican count 20 in very close
proximity.
Nothing taken away from that.
But in the military you go getyour 10% discount at Home Depot
and you get your.
You know, thank you for yourservice.
Well, when is the last timethat we said to the farmer, the
rancher and the dairyman thankyou for your service?
(24:00):
So I trademarked Salute theRancher and of course we put
that on our boxes of beef thatwe ship out.
But it really speaks to thatand it also speaks to the fact
that in the farm and ranchcommunity to address the whole
suicide, double the nationalaverage and whatever is that
(24:22):
each one of us have somethingthat we can do.
It's true that you can go getsent off to some government
program or whatever, but thinkof how much we could do when we
recognize that early somebodystruggling and just say you know
what, jump in, you're ridingwith me today and just go, let
(24:43):
them be in your space.
Um, I think there's a lot can bedone in that and so I've used
that to as a platform to speakto that and a lot of times
growing up, I mean the, the areathat we come from, and anybody
who's 30 to 60 years old why youjust didn't talk about that
(25:06):
stuff.
Because you didn't talk aboutit?
Because it was a shame to thefamily.
It brought shame, you know,because somebody took their own
life.
Well, today, I don't think youcan even look around and not see
.
Almost every single person hasbeen affected by that.
It may not be in their ownfamily, but it's in a relative
(25:28):
or it's in a coworker, it's in afriend, and so it's a real
thing and I think when we speakto it, it gives us back our
power.
The other thing that's delicateabout that is is that when you
look and you see and you observea suicide, they don't come in
ones.
Yeah, they always have a secondor a third, and so life's a
(25:49):
pressure cooker, no doubt, andwe have different mental
pressure today than ourgrandparents did.
For sure, we live in adistracted world and there's
things that we can do tomitigate that, and it's the
face-to-face contact.
I mean, we've got to manage ourdevices, and even though we can
connect to somebody on Facebookor Instagram, we can listen to
(26:10):
a podcast, we have got to pushourselves out of the house, out
of the office and go have arelationship face-to-face, and
we've got to recognize and bewilling to say the things that
somebody's going to roll theireyes and you're going to appear
dumb and your words are going toflumsily fall out of your mouth
and just go say it anyway.
I mean, if you're inspired tojust say something hard or, you
(26:35):
know, tell somebody how much youcare about them.
It might seem really odd to youbut you could really make a
difference to somebody you knowand we've had over oh heck, I
bet we've had before our grandopening, I bet we had a thousand
, two thousand visitors.
I mean, it's crazy.
You saw, yeah, how many peoplewould come in and one day we
were talking about this and backin the back there's a guy about
(27:01):
my age and you could see hiseyes just wailing up with tears
as we were talking about this.
And, uh, after we got donebecause there was a group of
about 25 people there that day,I kind of noticed that and I I
went, talked to him and heshared with me that his own
(27:23):
father took his life and it iseverything that he even thinks.
He doesn't even know if he canhold it together, that he is
trying hard to hold the familyfarm together and you know.
It really spoke to him, youknow, and he said he wanted to
get one of our hats with thesalute the rancher on it.
The point is that it meantsomething.
(27:44):
He was able to actually talkabout it and say those hard
things.
I think that those of us thathaven't had it right in our own
immediate family we don't knowwhat's around the next bend.
Life's a pressure cooker.
We've got to do what we can tobe the best version of ourselves
(28:05):
and go try.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
So I don't even know how we went down that rabbit
hole, no, and that's kind ofstuff that people want to talk
about and that's kind of stuffthat people don't like to talk
about.
Yeah, and several differentepisodes on this podcast,
something's been brought up thatis not what people expect to
hear.
And I say I should say thebeauty of agriculture but just
(28:28):
for myself, particularly the.
I work in extension and thebeauty of that is I get to see
the agriculture and I get tomeet the people and I get to and
I get to be in their homes andand hear their stories.
And I get to and I get to be intheir homes and hear their
stories.
And I tell you this I mean,whether it were to get me in
trouble or not, I spent a lot oftime Getting to know these
(28:48):
folks before I start workingwith them and some of the
stories I've heard are just mindboggling.
Guys and gals and children haveto just have present in their
life while they're just tryingto live.
Blows your mind with the amountof output they give back to
(29:09):
society, right, the amount ofstuff that they're able to
produce and do every day whilefacing.
You know, my wife's dying.
My mom and dad aren't hereanymore, and you know.
But going back to what you said, addressing something and
saying what it is, my wifealways has said one of the
(29:34):
beauties of psychology, ortalking to a therapist or
something like that, which we'vestarted to really try and
encourage ranchers and farmersand dairymen to do when they can
.
The beauty of it is it may.
The problem probably isn't goingto go away for a long time.
It probably never will go away.
But there's a differencebetween having a monster in the
(29:55):
in a dark closet and seeing thatmonster in the light, and a lot
of us don't like to open thatdoor.
So that door is a scary, scarything for a lot of people and
when they actually talk about it, when they have someone like
you that says, hey, this is whoI am, this is what I'm doing,
let's bring some stuff out here,let's talk and let's touch
lives, At least now someone hasfaced the monster or helped
(30:19):
someone do it and now they feellike there's someone on their
team, you know Um.
So so I applaud you for that,because a lot of people um don't
notice that in other people,they don't take the time to see
those struggles Um well, there'scertain things you can do in
life that give you back yourpower.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
And I'm telling you that when you have something
that complex and thatcomplicated and you won't speak
to it and you become introvertedI mean your outward signs of
how you carry yourself is trulya measure in inward what's going
on and when you can, you know,breathe it in deep and shoulders
(30:59):
back, chest out out, chin upand just go like walk into it
and face it and speak to it.
Those are all outward thingsthat you can do that actually
help set you free and it givesyou back your power, no matter
how damned hard the thing thatyou're facing is.
And we have to.
I mean, for heaven's sakes, inall of the things that I've told
(31:22):
, all of my circle of influenceis coming back to me, magnified,
like 400%.
I can't even believe howeverything that I've been saying
and doing and you know I liketo, I like to teach my family
you know that you need to have,you need to create your own,
basically create your own gospelLike what is your story?
(31:42):
What is the gospel?
It's God's story, what is yourstory, what is your gospel?
And it's your words to live by.
And I think that if we gather upthe golden nuggets that happen
for us throughout the day andthroughout the week and that
happens by actually getting awayfrom your electronics and
(32:03):
creating some think time and ifyou are looking for the gold, by
the end of the week you'regoing to gather up a sack full
of gold.
If you're not, you're going tostill have a sack full of
something.
Yeah, but it ain't the gold.
Yeah, if you want toregurgitate every damn bloody,
bad, evil thing that's happenedfor you, then that's what you're
(32:24):
going to pack around.
And if you want to have, youknow, consider the things that
you hear and what inspired youand what stuck to you and who
did you meet today of a sudden,when a person starts shifting
from being a victim.
Those are the little steps thatwe can do in life that actually
(32:45):
raise us up and help us to go besomebody.
I mean, go give something away,go give it back.
You put in eight hours and youlive in a cubicle.
Good Fine, go help somebody ontheir project.
No, you don't know how to plumband do electrical and wire and
weed a garden or whatever.
Go do it.
Just go be there in that spaceand just go give of yourself and
(33:07):
give time.
You know it's a naturalprinciple, that you know it's
biblical that we give back andwe produce more than we consume.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
There's a lot to be said about it.
Consume there's a lot to besaid about it.
I think ranchers and a lot ofag folks find this really cool.
When, for example, you have anintern or a kid come work for
you.
That is like where are you from, wait, you're from Guam, you're
from Highland, you're from thePhilippines, what are you doing
(33:39):
here?
Well, you're from Highland,you're from the Philippines,
what are you doing here?
Well, I don't know, this isn'teven my degree, but I wanted to
see it and that is so cool forus to see.
And what does it create?
There's one thing that italways creates it creates, in my
opinion, joy.
It creates opportunity.
But something that people arenot very good at creating
anymore is laughter.
(34:00):
You don't hear a lot of itanymore.
You don't hear people beingable to ease back because we're
so on the throttle.
And what you said aboutelectronics, I think, is one of
those major drives to that.
We're on the throttleconstantly and we're not really
driving ourselves anywherebecause there's no material
object, material gain comingback right when we're creating
(34:20):
stuff in the space that we can'teven see.
And something else that you saidI thought was pretty neat
reminded me of when you weretalking about just how you carry
yourself and how you stand, mydad used to say to us in the
morning he said he would kind ofespecially my little brother,
but he would yell in our roomand he would say what kind of
(34:41):
day is it going to be?
And he expected to say it'sgoing to be a good day, dad,
it's going to be a good day, andthat was just how he.
He did everything.
You know, it's going to be agood day, no matter what.
If you started your day sayingthat and you started your day
doing that thing, you wanted todo the least, getting it out of
the way, it was a dang good day.
You know, yeah, um, and so, andyou do see that, and I, and,
(35:02):
and and.
Before we move on, I think it'simportant to touch on when you,
when you talk about that outwardappearance of people and
noticing people, um, as I'vegotten older, even myself when
I've struggled or seen otherpeople struggle, you can see it,
and it's not always.
You're not looking for somemysterious look in their face if
they're, if their clothesaren't ironed or if their it's
(35:24):
not always.
You're not looking for somemysterious look in their face If
their, if their clothes aren'tironed, or if their hair's not
combed, or you're like man,when's the last time you brushed
your teeth?
Those are a lot of signs thatpeople are just barely getting
by.
They're, they're waking up,they're getting their clothes on
and they're going to work, butthey're not waking up and, and
you know, at the sunrise andtaking a nice shower and having
a nice breakfast, and you knowthere's a difference there, and
(35:44):
usually that's a big sign thatsomeone's having a hard time,
you know, and not taking care ofjust themselves.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Well, a lot of times we grow up thinking that the big
things is really what's goingto shape my life and the little
things don't matter.
And the older I get, the moreit's absolutely opposite of that
.
It's the little things thatreally shape your life.
Everybody's looking for a bigchange and you're not going to
(36:12):
win the long game.
Looking for that it's managingyour daily rituals.
It's what you do anywhere, iswhat you do everywhere.
Your daily rituals, it's whatyou do anywhere.
It's what you do everywhere.
It's dressing for success.
It's getting up and acting likewonderful things are going to
go happen for me today.
And and walking into your daywith that amount of confidence
(36:33):
and you actually draw thosethings right towards you.
Some things do happen andthey're just damn hard and
that's okay.
You'll get through it and Godkeeps putting men and women in
your life to be able to help youthrough it.
And it's interesting becauseGod works through men and women
of the flesh and anybody that'sfollowed me on the journey of
(36:55):
building the plant know that Icall it a journey of miracles
and it truly is a journey ofmiracles and I'll use that
platform to be able to talk topeople and, you know, get them
to realize the value inunderstanding that there is a
creator and he cares about usand loves us and wants us to.
(37:15):
And I'm going to say thingsthat you know as a, as a school
teacher, as somebody at USU, youknow you probably get told,
yeah, you don't need to say youshouldn't be saying that, hey,
this is me and I do not care, Iwill call it out and I'll say
those things and I'll I'll gettold whatever.
And that's the thing that isdifferent today than 30 years
(37:38):
ago is you can control your ownnarrative with with social media
, you don't need to havesomebody edit what you're saying
and whatever, and you can saydumb things, but it's, it's raw
and it's real and that's that'simportant.
I think that it's reallyimportant, as we decide who our
(37:59):
circle of influence is, that wedon't take advice from somebody
who's more messed up than we arefor crying out loud.
I mean we need to in life.
We need to surround ourselveswith people that are.
If we want to be up to bigthings, we need to go be around
people that are up to big things, and if we want to live a life
that's screwed up andintroverted and whatever, then
(38:20):
that's who our circle ofinfluence is going to be.
But at some point, if you're notthere to help somebody get up
out of the mud, if you're notthere with that express purpose,
then you need to makeseparation from those people and
so that you can actually get upout of the mud and God will put
men and women into our livesevery single week.
It'll help us if we will, butit's still.
(38:41):
Agency always trumps.
I mean, the opportunities willopen for us, but we have to do
the work, yep, and we have toshow up.
And those, those are thingsthat I've realized on a scale
400 percent, um, building thisplant.
I mean, for a guy that's beenable to be at home on the ranch
(39:06):
with the family my whole life, Icould not do this without being
there and just showing up.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
And so that's been really magnified to me, and
that's true of life, and that ishow you show up.
It's going to make thedifference.
So, as we talk to differentpeople that are listening to
this, why, whatever, whateveryou're up to, these same
principles work, no matter whatyou're growing or building or
doing or the hard experiencesthat you're having.
(39:36):
You know God's got a lot ofgood people ready to help.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
There are good, then there are prepared people and
there are people that arepushing hard, you know, and and
you got to surround yourselfwith people who are willing to
push, you know, and go into thatwith that mentality of I'm not
here to just benefit, I'm hereto push, push along.
Right so, and we probablyalready know the answer to this,
but, but even if we wanted todive into something even more
(40:06):
specific, the next question thatI ask guests on this podcast is
you know, I believe that we canharness a lot, that we can hold
a lot, that we can think abouta lot of different things and
there's a lot that we can attack.
(40:27):
There seems to be a commonthing that I end up thinking
about One thing or one theme.
I guess I should say Somethingthat's really keeping me up, or
it's that first thing that Ithink I've got to get that done,
I've got to figure out how todo that, or I'm worried about
(40:48):
this, or I'm excited for this.
Do you have something that youhave, something that you find
yourself coming back to all thetime right now?
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Uh, I absolutely do, and I can't share everything
that I.
I wish I could share it becauseit's it's super important to me
and it's been right at thefront of what I think about and
what keeps me up at night andhas done for a lot of weeks, and
I can't share those thingsright now, today.
But I can say that I regularlytry to use the tool that I
(41:19):
believe works, and that is thetool of gratitude.
And I think gratitude is thetool I mean it really it's, it's
the key that unlocks yourtoolbox.
Whatever you've gathered up inyour life, that you pack along
with you in that toolbox of life, that thing remains dormant and
locked up without gratitude.
(41:41):
When you have gratitude aboutwhat happens for you, it draws
good things to you and it'llhelp you through those hard
times.
It draws good things to you andit'll help you through those
hard times.
And, believe me, there are somemountains that I actually don't
know how to solve, everythingthat's in front of me right now,
(42:02):
and people don't do what theysay they'll do and they let you
down and it puts you in a badway and yet somehow, in spite of
all that, I have to keep mygame face on and keep the right
mental attitude, and I've got tostay engaged in the things, the
(42:23):
principles that I know work,and one of the things that I've,
you know, taught my kids andpeople around me is don't say
you can't.
The things that I've taught mykids and people around me is
don't say you can't.
Ask yourself, how can I?
And when you actually controlthe words that you say like
you've not heard me say thathappened to me.
You've heard me say thathappened for me.
(42:44):
So just replacing that word.
It causes you to quit being avictim and gets you out of that,
gives you back your power.
It causes you to quit being avictim and gets you out of that,
gives you back your power.
And when you ask yourselfquestions, instead of looking at
yourself and feeling how pickedon you are because somebody
didn't do what they said they'ddo and it's really screwed you
(43:05):
bad, you have to put yourself inthe space of creation, and that
is by asking yourself the rightquestions how can I?
And then how can I put you in acreation mode?
And then somebody's name popsinto your mind and all of a
sudden you have an advocate thatto help you, and it's agency
(43:36):
always trumps.
We get to choose.
That's the most important thing.
So we can choose into being avictim or we can lose.
How to learn, how to exercisethe tools and ask herself the
right question and it'll drawout the good answer.
So I can't share with you someof the mountains that are in
front of me right now, and therewill be a time in the future
that you'll understand why thereare some big ones.
(43:59):
But I realize that everybody hasbig mountains.
I mean a good friend of minewho's been on this journey with
me.
I mean he worked with me for 20years and he's been one of the
really key people building thisplant.
Yesterday morning, 5.30 in themorning, we're loading out of my
shop and everything and hedoesn't even tell me what's
(44:23):
going on with his mom.
But so we leave and we get downhere to Richfield and'm 30
minutes out and I get a call andthere's some damn hard things
going on with his mom.
You know she's had to be rushedback to the hospital and
surgery.
And I get here to the plant andI'm like are you okay?
(44:44):
Your mom needs you, you need to, you need to get out of here.
And he turned around to herright back home.
She passed away yesterday, andso everybody has something that
they're facing and they're damnbig mountains and I mean, my big
things are big things, but yourbig things are big things to
you.
And the point of the story isis that every single one of us
have a mountain to climb, andthey're things that we don't
(45:07):
know how to solve.
But the reality of it is isthose things are happening for
us and it's going to make usstronger and make us better, or
it can push us into the dirt,and it just depends on how we
pitch that rudder, which wayit's going to turn us.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Yep, so I like that.
I, I truly like that, becauseyou know it's, you know it's.
I remember thinking to myselfbefore I left for Mexico, I had
to get up in church and I had togive a talk to everyone and I
kept thinking you know, what amI going to talk about?
(45:44):
Because the way the short storyof my life is that baseball was
going to be my career, that wasgoing to be everything for me.
It didn't go that way.
I went in and I started playingcollege ball and I got hurt and
it turned my whole life in adifferent direction.
And um, but I remember thinkingthat you know, my family's
really struggling right now andI don't know what I'm doing, but
(46:04):
I am glad that I'm doing this.
And that was the first time inmy life.
I thought I'm grateful.
You know, I'm actually grateful.
I don't know what I'm gratefulfor yet, but I'm grateful that I
have this direction.
And the talk that I got up andgave was titled after another
guy.
It was called An Attitude ofGratitude and it just changed my
(46:25):
outlook.
It just really changed how Iapproached those next two years
of my life, which were stillhard in a lot of different ways,
but I have come back to thatand I've remembered giving that
talk.
I've remembered thinking hey,you know, there are a lot of
things that I have in my lifethat aren't done yet, but I can
count them right now.
(46:46):
I can count them and howgrateful I am for them and for
me that's fuel.
That's fuel to do somethingelse.
And so I guess that leads tothe last question, which is and
I don't know if there's adifference between these things,
but the last question I alwaysask everyone is are you happy?
(47:10):
Would you consider yourselfhappy in what you're doing?
Are you happy?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Well, it's a loaded question, Ethan.
I mean, yeah, happiness for oneperson is bliss and sitting on
the beach drinking a Mai Tai orwhatever.
Is bliss and sitting on thebeach, drinking a Mai Tai or
whatever.
It's different for every person.
And I would say this there aretimes of extreme joy and
(47:45):
happiness and that is not fromwhat is happening for me
personally.
Extreme joy and happiness to meis the people that I meet along
the way and like therelationships.
Happiness to me is watching afamily work together.
(48:06):
Happiness to me is with mebeing gone as much as I am,
without even being asked.
Our garden's out of control.
With all the things that we'vehad, like this year, our
garden's out of control.
Happiness to me is watching myson come in and giving all the
(48:26):
kids a responsibility I nevereven asked him to do it and
giving all their kids a specificresponsibility of okay, this is
, you know, take back the gardenand we're going to go do this.
And happiness to me is thepictures that I got texted to me
yesterday of how this personowned that stewardship, and this
was the before picture, thiswas the after picture and it's
(48:48):
initiatives.
Happiness to me because you knowI'm first and foremost.
I mean I'm a parent and I'm ahusband, a father.
Happiness to me is when you cansee that your family's making
progress.
Happiness to me is therelationships that we get to
build.
(49:08):
Relationships that we get tobuild and I can say that I don't
do a good job of showing it.
I think sometimes my familywould ask me that question Are
you happy, dad?
You're right, because it's nodoubt.
It's been a walk of fire thatI'm going through, even still to
(49:29):
be gone and having you know.
It's a great big stewardship.
It's a hell of a lot to take onand there's no easy way through
it, but there are moments ofpeace, happiness along the way.
So if you say, are you happy?
(49:49):
You know every day at times butI'm not the guy that you know
goes around carefree becausethat's not my life and by design
it's not my life.
Joy, you bet, taking the horsesout and pushing the cows and
rounding them up, and that withthe, you know, with the family
(50:13):
for sure.
Yeah, stuff like that.
You know, spending time.
That's not always work, becauseI've been a whole bunch about
work, but you know, when my son,when my son was 17, I told this
story at the uh, the 200 agteachers when my son was 17,.
I told this story at the 200 agteachers when my son.
(50:33):
It was so funny because when myson was 17, he had a chip on
both shoulders.
All this responsibility.
And why the hell do we need allthese animals?
Dad, you know, I just want togo play football and I want to
do.
You know, I want to go live thelife like my buddies get to
live.
They don't have anyresponsibility, they don't have
to do anything.
(50:58):
And when he was 17, he wanted tojoin the Marines and I said no,
I'm not signing for you to jointhe Marines at 17.
I says when you're 18, you makeyour own choice.
Well, well, his mother and Iwas gone on a trip on his 18th
birthday.
He went and signed up, went inthe Marines, and I remember what
I told him when he went intothe Marines.
I said, son, you don't evenknow all of the seeds that have
been planted inside of you for18 years.
(51:20):
I says but there's going to bea day when you begin to
understand happiness.
You want to know what happinessis.
It's that phone call six monthsin when he calls up and says
dad, can I talk to you.
Yeah, go ahead.
I just want you to know, dad, Iwant to do it just like you did
it.
That's happiness Because, asgoing into the Marines, it
(51:46):
wasn't hard for him to rise tothe top.
He became a squad leader rightoff the bat and he graduated the
boot camp.
Now he's guide, he's overallthe squad leader.
So as a 19-year-old kid, he'sgot 400 men reporting to him and
he saw, with all of that, hesaw the value in those 400 men
(52:10):
of who touched ag.
In those 400 men of who touchedag, it built good men, it makes
a difference.
And the people that had moresavvy and the people that had
more initiative and the peoplethat were more willing.
Now that's speakingcollectively.
So if anybody here is listeningto this, and oh, you don't have
(52:31):
to be a victim because youdidn't grow up in ag.
No, you go create that on yourown canvas.
But that's what he saw and Iwas.
It was funny because I wastelling, I told that story To
these teachers and I had severalpeople, several teachers, come
up after I got done talking andwe broke up and you know and
(52:54):
tell me thanks for your storiesand everything.
And these two teachers come upand said what's your last name?
I said Barlow and they said youwouldn't be Levi's dad, would
you?
They were the teachers, theywere his teachers and they saw
that kid you know as a senior inhigh school and they just, I
mean, we got such a kick out ofit and they're like you nailed
(53:16):
it.
That's you know.
That's Levi for sure.
But so there's moments ofhappiness through our journey
and satisfaction, and certainlywhen we see those around us that
we care about a lot overcometheir own trials.
To me that creates a lot ofhappiness yeah you know, I don't
(53:37):
.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
I don't think that happiness may be the a deep
enough word for that question.
You know, really it reallycomes back to again are you
grateful, you know, are you verygrateful?
Because there's um, there's alot to be said about being in
the middle of a struggle andbeing grateful or being happy.
And when you look around andyou think, man, like us, we just
(54:01):
got out of college and whatever, and we're figuring things out
and you still rent or you'restill trying to find a home or
whatever.
But you can look around and yougo, man, I'm sure grateful, I
wouldn't trade Right and Iwouldn't, I wouldn't change a
thing, you know, and I wouldn'tgive up what I've got, not not
(54:22):
for anything, and to me thatthat's deeper than happiness,
you know.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
That's being okay and that's and that's, and that's
being able to say, yeah, I'm,I'm good, you know that just
triggered something for me, um,for anybody that's renting or
thinking good grief, when am Igoing to get mine?
(54:49):
I remember when I was in thatspace and I can tell you one of
the tools that unlocks yourdreams for you, and that is for
you to write them down and makea drawing, paint a picture like
those are tools that will unlockyour dreams for you, literally.
(55:13):
If it's a ranch, or if it's acar, or if it's a motorcycle, a
house, if you can visualize itand imagine it, it puts gas in
your tank and if you canunderstand how powerful that is
for you to have a written goaland a picture that you paint one
(55:37):
more brushstroke on every day.
You know, if it's a house, thenin your mind, every single day,
you imagine one more thing aboutthat house, like what color is
the front door and how will Ihave my kitchen and what will my
backyard look like, and you andyou keep your mind in that
(55:58):
creation process.
It makes you have more capacityand if you think you have eight
hours capacity today, when youstart unlocking those tools,
you'll get done with your 14hour day and you've got more gas
in your tank than your circleof influence that you're hanging
around with and you'll be like,hey, now let's go cut Mrs Jones
(56:21):
weeds or whatever.
You know what I mean.
It's just things like that helpyou along the way and it will
make the difference of youovercoming and creating that for
you in a much shorter period oftime.
That's just a tool that works.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
So a lot of people, I think, will benefit from this
because, again, saying that youknow things are different now
than they were before and and,quite honestly, the truth of the
matter is that here in theUnited States, we have the
ability to do a lot.
You know, we're we're sittinghere, we didn't have to ask
anyone's permission.
(56:58):
I get to upload this withoutpermission and, uh, it's.
It's because we, we live in thecountry we do, but the country
we live in right now is is isn'ta lot of a lot of upheaval and
a lot of good things and badthings and confusing things for
a lot of people.
But I think where people willbenefit from this expressly,
(57:19):
this episode with you isstepping back and evaluating
themselves and saying, okay,where you know, where's my
initiative right now?
Where's my drive?
Do I have the capacity to dothis?
Well, and the answer is yes,but are you?
(57:40):
You know, are you ready?
And you know, I would encouragethe folks that are listening to
this to go and, you know, notonly find out more about the
Utah Beef Producers PackingPlant, but also get to meet
Henry and his staff, becausethey are doing a lot of pushing.
They've pushed through a lot ofbarriers.
They've talked to a lot ofpeople and I think you'll be
(58:02):
hard-pressed to find someone inthe state and at this point, the
region, who hasn't heard thename Utah Beef Producers or
Henry, and that speaks to thegroundwork that's being laid and
the connections that are beingmade.
So is there anything else thatyou want to leave folks with or
anything that you'd like to say?
Speaker 2 (58:24):
No, I mean, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but
you know, I just I guess, if I,I just I guess, if I gave you
one arrow to put in your quiverthrough all of the things we've
talked about today, it would bemy ask for each of us to turn up
(58:45):
our intensity with gratitude.
I mean, gratitude is the keythat's going to unlock the
toolbox for us so that changeslives.
It changes lives and helps usout of our slumps.
It gives us back our power.
So gratitude, that's what Iwould wrap up with.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
I appreciate it and I appreciate having you on here
and, you know, again, share thisepisode with your friends.
We covered a lot of good stuffin this episode, and and and and
.
People benefit from listeningto successful people and driven
people, and definitely you'reone of those people, henry.
So so thanks for being here.
I appreciate it, thank you you.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.