Personal Growth & Professional Success in Agriculture

In Episode 28 of Coffee in the Barn, we continue our exploration of work-life balance with a special guest, Kacee Bohle, who delivered a keynote speech and led the Working Genius workshop at the recent Elevate Women in Ag event. Kacee, a seasoned coach and speaker with deep roots in the agriculture industry, shares her journey from job-hopping and burnout to finding her passion in coaching and helping others navigate the often-overwhelming demands of balancing professional growth with personal life.

Kacee discusses her background, growing up on a fourth-generation farm in Indiana, and how her experiences shaped her understanding of work-life balance. She highlights the importance of aligning your work with your personal values and the season of life you're in, offering practical advice on how to manage competing priorities. Kacee debunks the myth of a perfect 50-50 work-life balance, advocating instead for a dynamic approach where you allocate your time, energy, and attention to the right things at the right times.

Throughout the episode, Kacee emphasizes the significance of mindset shifts, such as recognizing that you don't have to do it all yourself, and the value of outsourcing or delegating tasks to maintain a healthy balance. She also introduces the Working Genius model, a tool that helps individuals and teams understand their strengths and how to utilize them effectively, both at work and at home.

Listeners will find Kacee’s insights both relatable and actionable, as she shares how these strategies have not only transformed her own life but also the lives of those she coaches. Whether you're struggling with the demands of a busy career in agriculture or simply looking to find better balance in your life, this episode offers valuable lessons on how to achieve both personal and professional fulfillment.

Key Learnings:

• Understanding the myth of a perfect work-life balance and how to find a dynamic equilibrium that works for you.
• The importance of aligning your work with your personal values and current life circumstances.
• Strategies for outsourcing, delegating, and prioritizing tasks to maintain a healthy balance.
• Insights into the Working Genius model and how it can help you and your team work more effectively by focusing on natural strengths.

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Transcript

Casey
 0:00:00
 All right, welcome back to this week's episode of Coffee in the Barn. As a follow-up to Zimpro's Elevate Women in Ag, we have the keynote speaker here. She gave us a little bit of a fun keynote speech and then led us in the Working Genius workshop. Welcome, Kacee Bohle, to Coffee in the Barn. 

Kacee Bohle
 0:00:34
 Well, good morning. Thank you so much for having me on today, Casey. 

Casey
 0:00:55
 Yeah, and I have to tell the audience I'm Casey with a C and she's Casey with a K Maybe a little confusing of Which Casey that you're asking the question to sometimes Morgan, but hopefully we'll know the key But can you walk us through your story? You have an incredible story of why that you've shared with the audience at the workshop or Elevate Women Symposium.

Kacee Bohle
 0:00:56
 Yeah, absolutely.

Kacee Bohle
 0:00:57
 So, for context, I keynoted around balancing work and family at the Zinpro events, Elevate Women in Ag, and it seemed like such a fitting topic because I've lived it, I've breathed it, I've struggled with it. And so, to be able to talk about that to some other people within the ag industry who maybe have also gone through it or getting ready to, I thought it was a super important topic to talk about for not only being proactive, but also how can we continue to work through this

Kacee Bohle
 0:01:27
 as well. And so just to step back a little bit, my story, if you will, so grew up on a fourth generation row crop farm, West Central Indiana, and worked in the agriculture industry my entire career for the past 14-ish years. And I've kind of been this little job hopper, if you will. I would spend about two years at one job and I'd kind of get through the bright and shiny

Kacee Bohle
 0:01:55
 parts of a new business or a new company and new job with new clients and new products and new experiences. And then I find myself feeling really burnt out and the spark was no longer there. And I always thought it were these like external factors such as maybe I didn't really actually believe in the product. Maybe it was my work environment.

Kacee Bohle
 0:02:15
 Maybe it was the type of job that I was doing and all of those factors absolutely applied. And I just, I got really tired of job hopping. And I just thought, man, I just really want to find something that aligns with the season of life that I'm in that brings me some joy and some energy. And it took me on this journey of personal growth

Kacee Bohle
 0:02:40
 and professional development. I took some different leadership courses. I got really self-aware and learned a lot about myself. And we'll talk about this in a little bit, the working genius model. I took a lot of personality assessments

Kacee Bohle
 0:02:52
 to figure out what type of work does bring me joy? What kinds of things do I need to do that bring me this energy that I'm really good at, but also can pay the bills at the same time? And so essentially over the last probably four years, that is where I found my love for coaching,

Kacee Bohle
 0:03:11
 meeting people, helping other people solve problems. And it seemed like within the ag industry, a lot of the problems drill down to the balance between our work life and our personal life. And so the term is balancing work and family or work life balance, if you will.

Kacee Bohle
 0:03:31
 And so that's kind of where I specialize. And, you know, knowing that that's something that I struggled with, and they always say, you know, the person that you're best positioned to serve as your past self, I found it very fitting to say, okay, this is something I struggled with. Here's something that I've overcome and now I want to help other people with

Kacee Bohle
 0:03:49
 that. And so that's kind of what got me to where I am today. And we're probably going to dive into that a little bit further. But you know, today I work from home. I have my own coaching, speaking and training business. And I also help my parents farm. We're also homeschooling. My husband has a swing shift job.

Kacee Bohle
 0:04:08
 He also has a hay business. There's a lot of hats that we wear. And so being able to balance all of those things and kind of find the rhythm that works for us is not only what I have to focus on, but it's also what I help my clients with as well.

Casey
 0:04:21
 I thought you made a good point.

Casey
 0:04:23
 And if I think, if I remember your presentation a little bit it's not always the balance that you're looking for it's not like a 50-50 like that's what people think of balance right but it's really not it's it kind of abs and flows and where you put your time and energy and passion towards yeah that's

Kacee Bohle
 0:04:43
 yeah that's one of the biggest myths is that we think we have to give an equal amount of time, energy, attention into all the things all the time. But in reality, a healthy work-life balance is putting the right amount of time, energy, and attention into the right things at the right time for the right amount of time.

Kacee Bohle
 0:05:06
 And so that's one of the things that we dove into during that keynote as well. And I think that that was probably one of the big eye-openers for a lot of people in the room.

Casey
 0:05:14
 Yeah, I think between your conversation and the keynote panel, I think, and I've done this, is I love the idea of buy back your time, right? And I've had a lot of coaching around that as a business owner, as myself, is what can I pay somebody to do tasks for me to buy back my time? finally back to the point of saying no I can't do it all and I need a house cleaner I need some help with Arthur more on a regular basis than just when I travel and looking at that of like this shouldn't feel ashamed for wanting

Casey
 0:05:54
 somebody to clean my house or you know helping me juggle taking my son to different events while I try so work because like you I have my husband who's on a swing shift and he works nights which is great because he's that emergency child care provider and we balance that and I would say Morgan can probably add in this a little bit because her husband is on a it's not necessarily a swing shift but it's something similar.

Morgan
 0:06:23
 The shift schedule that changes every single week. Kind of like a firefighter type schedule.

Kacee Bohle
 0:06:29
 Schedules are hard.

Morgan
 0:06:30
 But at least like with my husband's job, there's predictability in it. So I know exactly, you know, once he's on his shift, I know his schedule for the rest of the year, unless his shift changes, or he has to do additional training or something. So for the most part, that helps a lot when it comes to like planning child care around trade shows or travel meetings and things. So in hindsight, it's kind of a blessing in disguise.

Morgan
 0:06:57
 You know, he's gone for 48 hours at a time, but when it comes to scheduling extracurricular and work activities, it works out. 

Kacee Bohle
 0:07:24
 Yeah, I think you're so right. It is good to know for planning purposes. It's got its inconveniences, but it also has its perks. And so I think finding those positive things in situations that could be potentially an obstacle, I think are so important. But something you mentioned, Casey, was like, yeah, we can do it all. It's absolutely possible for us to figure it out, but do we have to do it all? And I think that I struggled with that. That was one of my conditionings growing up.

Kacee Bohle
 0:07:40
 That's my generational trauma that I'm working over is, yeah, I'm an empowered, independent woman. I can do whatever I set my mind to, but do I have to? Do I want to? Do I need to do it all right now? And working through that mindset shift

Kacee Bohle
 0:07:58
 has been pretty crazy of a ride, to be honest with you. 

Morgan
 0:08:30
 What type of oh, what type of mind shift strategies Do you have because I'm very much on that same exact trajectory where I'm like I don't need somebody to do something for me. I can just do it myself but then also like I'm soon gonna be a mom to three kids four and under like how You know stepping back and be like, okay, what are actually the priorities right now? What do I need to focus on? And learning how to say no, because I'm always, I've always been the one to say yes, and help anybody with whatever they want. And kind of setting those boundaries, especially for, you know, working from home, and traveling like, okay, what can and can't I do type thing. So do you have any strategies that I could implement? 

Kacee Bohle
 0:09:03
 Yeah, absolutely. I think you just, you just tiptoed into that right there, right? Is what do you want? What works for you? And I think asking yourself those questions and cutting out the noise of what is everybody else doing? What's worked for everybody else? And saying, it's just our reality, you know, not what does my spouse necessarily want? Not necessarily, what does my boss want? What is my coworker or my parents? Like not necessarily what they all think need or want, but what do I think need and want right now?

Kacee Bohle
 0:09:24
 What's the season of life I'm in right now? That's all that really matters. I mean, yes, we have to consider other people, right? Like it's important to consider your spouse, it's important to consider your kids, but at the end of the day,

Kacee Bohle
 0:09:40
 my husband doesn't care if I outsource certain parts of things in my business. It's irrelevant to him if I decide to hire a virtual assistant, right? In my business, that's what works. And then in my household,

Kacee Bohle
 0:09:54
 if I need to have a house cleaner come in and help me out one time a month, I can do that. Right now, that doesn't necessarily make sense. But early on, when my little girl was much younger, I absolutely had some.

Kacee Bohle
 0:10:09
 I mean, it was just my sister coming in. It's not like I had to hire this big crew. It's just, hey, you know what? My sister needs a little extra cash, and I need a little help. I'm not too proud to say, come on in. Now, that was something that I had to get over,

Kacee Bohle
 0:10:22
 because round one with my first kid, that was something I was like, no. I can do all the laundry. I can do all the dishes. I can cook all the meals. I can be a mom for the first time.

Kacee Bohle
 0:10:31
 And I basically told my mother-in-law to get lost because I didn't want her to think I couldn't hack it.

Kacee Bohle
 0:10:37
 Right.

Kacee Bohle
 0:10:37
 Like she wanted to come in and she wanted to be involved and help out. And I resisted. Looking back now, I'm like, I wish I would have accepted that. I wish I would have taken her up on that. Because again, can we do it all? Yeah, but do we have to? No, you don't. And so I think it's important to ask yourself what is it that you are willing to automate, delegate, or eliminate off of your plate.

Casey
 0:11:02
 I think some really good points and we had a little conversation after the event and obviously asked you to be on the podcast but you hit something really important to me that I appreciated you talking about and we talked about our businesses and we talked about revenue and profit in you know being okay with a certain revenue to pay the bills versus how the world sees business and if you're not growing that means you're failing and it really gave me confidence to say what I want my business to look like and kind of put those things in perspective. Can you kind of talk about that because I knew that a lot around what is your version of success and you kind of you're touching on that of yeah I can do it all but I don't have to.

Kacee Bohle
 0:11:43
 Well I think it's super important to talk about and I will I'm gonna share a story that might help people grasp this a little bit better in case this is the very first time they're introduced to this concept. So there's a story of this businessman who is having a really hectic, crazy day, overwhelmed, totally stressed out, super successful guy, though. And he's just like, he's carrying a lot of weight on his shoulders.

Kacee Bohle
 0:12:23
 And he just decides one day he's going to go down to the beach and go for a walk. And so he goes down to the beach, he's on his walk, and he sees this guy with his family having like a little shindig on the beach. And so he goes up to the guy and he, you know, is like, what are you guys doing? Like, looks like you guys are having so much fun. And are you going fishing?

Kacee Bohle
 0:12:42
 Because he sees he's kind of getting some of his lines tied up and ready to go fishing. He's like, yeah, you know, we catch a couple of fish, grill out, have some fun here on the beach. And the businessman was like, you know, if you if you upgraded that fishing pole to XYZ thing, you could catch more fish. And the guy goes, why would I want to do that? You know, we catch as much fish as we need to feed our family for this cookout. And the businessman goes, well, because if you catch more fish, then you could sell the fish that

Kacee Bohle
 0:13:15
 you don't eat at the farmer's market, you could make some money. And the guy goes, well, why would I want to do that? And the businessman goes, then you could use that money to buy a bigger boat and you wouldn't have to fish on the beach and you could get even more fish and you could commercialize it, you could sell more fish at more markets and make more money. And the guy goes, well, why would I want to do that?

Kacee Bohle
 0:13:35
 And the businessman, so that way you could hire people to do this work for you. So that way then you could sit on the beach and do whatever you wanted to do. You would make all this money and not have to do any of the work. Again, why would I want to do that?

Kacee Bohle
 0:13:47
 That's what I'm doing now. I'm on the beach. I'm catching just as much fish as I need to satisfy my need right now. And so there's two ways of thinking about that. You could absolutely continue to scale up, work harder, make more money,

Kacee Bohle
 0:14:04
 start to automate systems, sell more places, get more clients, grow your business and scale, hire people to do the job that you want, love to do. Or you can look at it in another perspective and say, is this working for me right now? Is this satisfying the need that I have at the moment?

Kacee Bohle
 0:14:24
 That's okay too. There's even a whole third perspective that's a little bit of both There's not a right or wrong way of doing it and that again Morgan is some of the mind-set shifts that I've had to kind of call attention to is Why do I feel this need to continue to to scale up get bigger do more?

Kacee Bohle
 0:14:44
 Well, I look back at the conditioning that I had growing up and it's like if you're sitting around not doing anything, that must mean you're lazy. There's no time for rest. If you have time to watch TV, you have time to work on some piece of equipment. You have time to do more chores, right?

Kacee Bohle
 0:15:00
 And that defined who we were. That defined our level of productivity and our level of success. And so that's where I see so many people struggling with this work-life balance. Because in one ear, we have people saying,

Kacee Bohle
 0:15:13
 you're not doing enough. And then in the other ear, we have people saying, rest, take care of your mental health, slow down, enjoy life, life is short, you may not get another chance, your kids are gonna be grown soon

Kacee Bohle
 0:15:24
 and you won't have this back, right? And so we're constantly struggling with this tug of war. And I say work-life balance very loosely because I don't think it is an equal balance, right? And so when we hear balance, that means you're balancing things, right?

Kacee Bohle
 0:15:39
 Like if it's out of balance, we're not using the word balance. And so we struggle with that. But at the end of the day, you need to look at what season of life are you in? What are your values? What are you willing to do and not do? What's important to you? Who is important to you? And that doesn't look like anybody. 

Casey
 0:16:06
 No. And I love how you said it and hopefully the women who've asked me for advice can hear it from you as well Because I do get women like me. We're very driven right we want to excel You know, I wanted to be VP of a company and I gave myself a title president my own company Yeah, when I started it a one so yeah, whatever I got the title, but so many people are like my kids are young You know, how do I do that versus I want to promote my career and I'm like well These promotions are these different jobs come with more travel and it's just to me weighing the importance of being there when your kids are young Versus when your kids are older and I'd say this is only a woman issue

Casey
 0:16:44
 But now I'm meeting men who you know a very successful in their career, and I won't say his name on here But you know a very successful person Who is not going to take a full-time role as a professor and work part-time on his business So he can be home with his children while his wife Got her dream job, and so he you know they're moving universities and things and I'm like wow I love to hear this that you know it's not just women thinking about this but also men In the season of life and what works because he doesn't have anything else to prove to people you know he's top of his field

Casey
 0:17:27
 PhD and there's so many women out there I think that get guilt to say because I have a PhD I should be at this level my peer my male peers are at this level. And a lot of times we don't go back and look at the peers that are in the levels we want to achieve or where we think we should be, what have they done so they can be there? Because it's probably not sitting at home with their family as much as you think it

Casey
 0:17:55
 is.

Casey
 0:17:56
 And they're probably not running the kids to soccer practice and they're probably not, you know, cleaning the house and preparing meals all the time and so I think it's so important and I love how you you know touch on that that because you love that yeah you can't eat all raw vegetables home-cooked meals and have your kids in three sports.

Morgan
 0:18:16
 yeah yeah and I I think that's a very common conversation that like my husband I have just had within the last year or so is, you know, he works two days on four days off every week, it changes. So the four days a week that he is home, he has a stay at home dad, he could be pursuing a master's or going to school to do something else or starting his own business. But

Morgan
 0:18:46
 we both agreed that at this point in time, it's probably best that one of us, either if I'm home or he's home, you know, we're able to balance childcare with the help of family as well. But him being home with the kids at this time is probably the best bang for our buck we're going to get, being that they are so young before school. And so that's something that I've toggled with too is like, okay, I work full, I work full time, but how do I balance being home? How much do I travel? You know, but the days that my husband is home with kids, okay, can I schedule meetings around their nap schedule? So things aren't that chaotic, but I also get to go on a walk with them on my lunch, or feed them breakfast in the morning. in the morning. You know, I'm able to take time throughout my day to play with them when they're home with us. Like, as of right now, we kind of have the best of both worlds. But

Morgan
 0:19:47
 being able to find that balance is, you know, like you said, it's different for everyone. 

Kacee Bohle
 0:20:07
 Well, I think Casey, you hit the nail on the head when you said like, we had a point to prove, right? And I think so many of us, myself included, I had this point to prove, right? I got to get out of this small town. I got to go make something of myself. I want to climb that corporate ladder. I'm a woman in a male-dominated industry. I have got a point to prove. And if you fail at that, then what does that mean about you? If you didn't climb all the way that you said you were going to climb, what did that mean to you? And I don't think that that's a thing.

Kacee Bohle
 0:20:23
 Nobody is keeping score. Nobody is tracking everything that you're doing that closely to be like, she posted she was gonna do this thing on social media and she didn't actually do it. Like this is a big deal breaking news, right?

Kacee Bohle
 0:20:39
 Like most of us are not that important to where so many people are keeping score of what we're doing. Now, obviously when you're a big name in an industry or somebody famous, people are keeping closer tabs on that. But the majority of us can let that pressure go. Let that responsibility expectation go because nobody's keeping score.

Kacee Bohle
 0:21:00
 And even if they are like, don't you have anything better to do? You know, it sounds like there's a much bigger problem here than what I'm thinking. And so I think you're so right. Like we do have this point to prove. And I was that same person. I climbed the corporate ladder.

Kacee Bohle
 0:21:17
 Like, what does it mean for me to leave this company that I have worked my way up the ranks in? Like I have a pretty great looking resume. I have a lot of skills and certifications. Like am I just throwing it all away to come home and be with kids and put all of my risk

Kacee Bohle
 0:21:35
 into a business that may or may not go anywhere. I don't know, I don't wanna sit around and not know. So it was worth the risk to me. And so I think that's something that you have to look at or what are the pros and cons? What's the weight here in this season of life?

Kacee Bohle
 0:21:51
 Maybe my husband does need to be home with the kids more so I can go off and scratch the itch that I have. I don't think there's anything wrong with that either. That happened for us too. There were several years where my husband was home with the kids and I was up and down

Kacee Bohle
 0:22:04
 the roads of the Corn Belt working. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's no longer the season of life I'm in. It wasn't easy to transition my mind to keep up with our reality. But that's the reality. And you know what I mean?

Kacee Bohle
 0:22:21
 You get to decide what that means for you. It looks different for everybody. And I think that the moment you pull yourself out of the, got to fit into the spots, got to look like them, got to make sure that I'm fulfilling everybody else's expectations is the moment you start to have some relief

Kacee Bohle
 0:22:37
 and some freedom. So yeah, you absolutely have to do that work to figure out what's important to you right now.

Morgan
 0:22:50
 Does the AgriMinds play into the Working Genius? So AgriMinds is like a 12-week group coaching program and we do have Working Genius inside of that, but they are kind of two different avenues.

Morgan
 0:23:09
 So I know during the Elevate Women in Ag, Kacee, you spoke on the Working Genius program, and you are a coach, certified coach, and you offer this through your workshops and training. Could you elaborate a little bit more on what exactly that program is and how you incorporate that into your teachings?

Kacee Bohle
 0:23:31
 Absolutely. So part of becoming a coach, I wanted to put some tools in my tool belt to help my clients. And I've gone through several different personality assessments through my different roles that I had in my career. Like I would go through sales trainings,

Kacee Bohle
 0:23:49
 and I would take disk assessments, and Myers-Briggs, and I even did color. And personally, I did the Enneagram task, right, tons of different things that you can do to just understand yourself better. And I thought all of them were a great layer to understand

Kacee Bohle
 0:24:05
 yourself better. But what I found to be kind of my favorite is this model called the Working Genius. And the first portion of the day at Zinpro Elevate Women in Ag event was focused on balancing work and family. Then we transitioned into the panel discussion and then we transitioned into Working Genius Workshop.

Kacee Bohle
 0:24:25
 And why I feel it is so important to kind of tack on to that, to kind of combine them together or at least talk about both things, is because if we're thinking about balancing work and family, right? Like we're trying to figure out how can we earn an income and fill our cups up, find some energy, right? And the Working Genius model is a really cool tool that can help us not only align our passions with our paycheck, but help us fill our cup up outside of work and inside the office as well.

Kacee Bohle
 0:25:02
 So the working genius model essentially is there are six types of geniuses. We're like, I can do that. If I do too much of it, it's kind of going to burn me out. And then two other geniuses that really drain you and frustrate you. And so why we talked about the working genius at this event was to say, OK, if we are prioritizing some personal time or if we're prioritizing ourselves

Kacee Bohle
 0:25:32
 in some capacity, wouldn't it be great to know what filled our cup up. Wouldn't it be great to know what types of work bring us joy and that really just come naturally to us so that way we can utilize them both at home and at the office. And so we talked about the Working Genius Workshop. We went through the model and everybody in the audience took the assessment.

Kacee Bohle
 0:25:55
 You can find it at WorkingGenius.com and take the assessment there. But what I thought was really cool during that workshop is so many people were like, wow, I knew I was good at this thing, but now it makes sense why it frustrates me to do it. Because especially if you're an ad, right, it doesn't matter if it brings you joy, work

Kacee Bohle
 0:26:16
 half get done.

Kacee Bohle
 0:26:17
 You know, sometimes we don't enjoy it, but we've become good at it. And so the working genius model has helped us say, oh, here's what my natural skills and abilities are. Here's what I can bring to the table that fill my cup up. And here's the things that don't necessarily come naturally to me. So how can I build a language around that, have an ability to increase the awareness about that around myself, but also around my team, too,

Kacee Bohle
 0:26:42
 so we can work a little bit more cohesively. We can know we can put the right types of tasks onto the right type of people. We know when to pull certain people into what stages of work. And so, yes, I utilize that tool with my one-on-one coaching clients. I utilize it inside of my group coaching program

Kacee Bohle
 0:27:01
 called AgriMinds. And then I also do working genius workshops like I did at Elevate Women in Ag. I go to a lot of different agriculture companies and organizations, do these workshops with their team, help managers hire more effectively

Kacee Bohle
 0:27:16
 and intentionally, and put the right types of projects and tasks on the right employee. So that way the work-life balance is, wouldn't it be great if I could work smarter and get things done more productively, maybe even faster. So that way I have more time for family at home.

Kacee Bohle
 0:27:35
 How do I delegate appropriately? So that way my team is feeling utilized, my team is feeling fulfilled and energized. We're able to communicate with someone so that way it's like there's not a misunderstanding of do we go ahead and do the work or are we just in the brainstorming stages? And so I utilize that tool in pretty much every conversation that I have, and it was so good to hear the aha moments that people had after the workshop at that event.

Kacee Bohle
 0:28:04
 And it's been such a powerful tool in people's marriages too. Like, oh, that's why my husband does this thing. Or that's why my employee does this thing. Or this is why I don't really see eye to eye with women. So it makes so much sense. So, yeah, it's one of my favorite tools to utilize.

Casey
 0:28:22
 Well, that was a great snippet, and I would say participating in the event, it changed things for me and that in the last episode I told Kaylee, it made my whole team take it. 

Kacee Bohle
 0:28:37
 Oh, did it really? 

Casey
 0:28:38
 Yeah. read his books and I follow him and the team and all the stuff they put together. What are all the things that you can offer for our audience, either from a business perspective, from like team leaders to the individual? 

Kacee Bohle
 0:28:59
 That's a great question. So Maxwell leadership, for those who don't know, John maxwell, kind of like the leadership guru, he's the personal and professional development and growth guru. And so if you don't know who he is, I highly encourage you to check him out. Tons of free resources online, lots of different books that you can use for your own personal development and for leadership.

Kacee Bohle
 0:29:26
 And so several years ago, when I was kind of dipping my toe into how can I grow and just be better in my career, I took a leadership program through our county, which was through Purdue Extension, and it was called Leadership Vermillion County. And it really just kind of opened my eyes to what leadership

Kacee Bohle
 0:29:45
 was, which I was very wrong about. And I had a really skewed perception of what leadership was, and I got to experience what it was. And I was like, wow, this is, this is powerful. And so I kind of got hooked on leadership development. So I started taking the masterminds and participated in different programs around leadership. And that's I found out who John Maxwell was and eventually got connected with some of the leadership team at Maxwell Leadership, which wasn't called that when I joined. It was called John Maxwell team, I think, at the time. And so I've been been around the block a little

Kacee Bohle
 0:30:23
 with them and I joined Maxwell leadership just to take it back to my team. How can I be a better manager? How can I coach my clients through some of the things that they're working on? I, I found myself being the kitchen counselor a lot, right? Going on farm, working with clients on different things. And I ended up just kind of being put in these counselor positions, you know,

Kacee Bohle
 0:30:47
 like sometimes those are the only people that they see other than their employees is their sales reps or some of the reps that they have in different businesses. And I found myself feeling not qualified to have some conversations, but I wanted to figure out how I could support them. How can I coach them? How can I help them make decisions that they feel empowered to make?

Kacee Bohle
 0:31:06
 And so that's that's why I got into leadership development through Maxwell leadership. And I thought, you know what? I'm just going to go ahead and become a certified coach. So became a certified coach, been almost five years now I think. And when you become a coach,

Kacee Bohle
 0:31:23
 you get licensed to do tons of different things. So the amount of access that I have, that I can offer companies is vast.

Kacee Bohle
 0:31:33
 But the ones that I do offer right now, I focus on working genius, ad reminds and one-on-one coaching.

Kacee Bohle
 0:31:41
 And so what that looks like today is, you know, depending on like if you're an entrepreneur or if you want to invest in yourself personally, we do one-on-one coaching. If you are a company that wants to invest in some of their managers or their staff in some capacity,

Kacee Bohle
 0:31:57
 I get hired on by companies to train, coach, and lead some of their executive teams. And then I also have people who come in and do the group coaching, which is in AgriMinds. And I take all of the information from all of the different resources,

Kacee Bohle
 0:32:14
 not just within Maxwell Leadership, but all the different things that I have experienced and been trained on in other capacities, and I tailor it to the ag industry. And I think that's the important piece, because so often, you know, like I remember going through different sales trainings in my career and I'm like, OK, but have you

Kacee Bohle
 0:32:32
 ever tried to pull that off with a farmer like they could see right through that script or like there's no way you could say that to somebody within the ag industry. Like that sounds really slimy. And so I've taken some of the learnings and experience that I've had, I've tailored it to the agriculture industry. And what I'm finding is that most coaches don't always have that experience.

Kacee Bohle
 0:32:57
 So other companies within the ag industry that I've worked with that are like, yeah, we used to have this executive coach, but they didn't really understand what I meant when I said, blah, blah, blah, and you get that. And so that's what kind of sets me apart from other coaches.

Kacee Bohle
 0:33:11
 And I do know that coaches in the industry exist, and I love that, and I think there needs to be more of them. So if that's something that you need coaching around or you're curious about, I want you to call me because I think more people like me need to be available within this industry.

Kacee Bohle
 0:33:27
 There's no way that I could serve everyone, but I just wish that I had someone like me when I was starting off in my career or when I was trying to transition from, going from career to business owner or, you know, deciding to make certain pivots within my career. I wish that I had someone to

Kacee Bohle
 0:33:46
 bounce those ideas off of that understood what it was like to be in

Kacee Bohle
 0:33:50
 this industry. So that's a little bit about what I offer without going too in depth or boring anybody. 

Casey
 0:34:22
 Well, I would say you also do speaking events, which I would highly recommend. I keep posting that on LinkedIn. If you're looking for somebody to be a keynote speaker, Kacee is your person. So hopefully people are paying attention to that as well because you only gave tidbits what you offered of your journey, your story, you know, and then working genius. But incredible experience. We appreciate having you on the Coffee in the Barn and we appreciate what

Casey
 0:34:31
 you're giving to the world of agriculture. 

Kacee Bohle
 0:35:14
 Well, thank you so much for saying that because what I think is important to call out is I didn't set off to be a speaker, right? And I think that's important for people to understand is that when you follow the nudge to do something, steps just kind of happen to align after that. When you step into your purpose, things start to align. And for so long, I've resisted talking about what I talk about, because it's not common, it's uncomfortable, it's, it's tough. This is the stuff most people don't want to talk about. Most people don't want to admit that they're struggling with certain things, which is kind of where I specialize, right? Like I have a thing, like I help people talk about the things that they don't want to talk about and work through that. And so when I set off to be a coach,

Kacee Bohle
 0:35:29
 in that season of my life, it worked really well with what I had going on at home with young kids and being home and not having to travel because I didn't want to travel. I wanted to be home more. And so doing coaching online via zoom worked well for me, just like you mentioned, Morgan right now, like I have this flexibility that I didn't have when

Kacee Bohle
 0:35:50
 I was doing the corporate shit, you know, I, I didn't have that. I couldn't just be home and, and be in Kentucky at the same time. And so now I have this flexibility, but now that my kids are older, my husband has a new job and I have a support system around that I didn't have when we lived in a different place,

Kacee Bohle
 0:36:10
 I have the flexibility to travel more. And somebody else asked me, they're like, so how do you find clients? How do you find these speaking opportunities? And I'll just say, every single thing I've ever, every client, every opportunity that I've ever been presented with has been word of mouth.

Kacee Bohle
 0:36:31
 And so when you hone in on the thing that you are, I would not call myself an expert, but the thing that you are passionate about, the thing that you know about, the thing that you've lived and have experienced, it all kind of comes together. And so it's not natural to me to talk about being a speaker, because that's not what I set out to be. That's not what I set out to do.

Kacee Bohle
 0:36:53
 It has kind of formed from the coachings that I do. And so it feels really like imposter syndrome still to call myself a professional speaker when that's not what I thought I was going to be doing, but it has become something that I could never imagine. It has almost become something I do more of than coaching.

Kacee Bohle
 0:37:16
 Because I can say yes to certain events. It's not, you know, I can make more money in one short amount of time versus six months with coaching, right? Like, so my season of life, I'm starting to see shift and I'm doing more and more speaking.

Kacee Bohle
 0:37:29
 But again, that wasn't what I set out to do. And so it's just, it's so foreign to me. And I think it's important to call that out. Because again, if we're thinking about the transitions of our season of life and seeing changes in our business and changes in our roles and our careers, it may not be something that you expected or planned on doing, but when you take one step, the next step is going

Kacee Bohle
 0:37:50
 to become clear to you. And that's kind of what's happening to me right now. So it's just so much fun. So thank you for calling that out and letting me provide some context around that. 

Casey
 0:38:07
 Well, thank you Kacee, for being on Coffee in the Barn. And it's always a pleasure.Hopefully, we'll have you back in the future as well. But before we go, one last thing. How do they reach you? Via social media, email, website, how do they find you? 

Kacee Bohle
 0:38:32
 Well, if you're on Instagram, I'm agcoachkacee, and what you'll find there is a very stagnant profile. I encourage you to look at it because it's not like anybody else's profile on Instagram. But you can find me there. I'm very active in stories and I'm also very active on LinkedIn. So Kacee Bohle, which I'm sure you'll spell out in the show notes. That's probably where I hang out the most is Instagram and LinkedIn.

Kacee Bohle
 0:38:49
 Or you can visit kaceebohle.com.

Casey
 0:38:51
 Awesome. Thank you

 
 
 Transcribed with Cockatoo