The Kitchen Table and the Incentives

What's on my mind?

How the way we get paid shapes the advice we give — and the lives we build.

My nephew Alex called me Saturday night on his way to dinner with his parents.

I’ve been thinking about that conversation all week — not because he said some perfect line I wrote down, but because I could feel where he was standing.

A decision point.

He wants to stay in agriculture. He wants to build something of his own. He wants to work hard, do it right, and not make a mistake.

And while we talked, I kept finding myself wanting to give advice.

After we hung up, I realized the better move would have been to ask more questions.

But there was another reason the call stuck with me.

My mind kept drifting from Alex to the system he’s growing up inside.

Because when you’re young and trying to learn, you’re surrounded by “advice.” Some of it is great. Some of it is noise. And a lot of it — in agriculture and in plenty of other places — is shaped by one simple fact:

Most people only get paid if they sell you something.

That’s not an accusation. It’s not a complaint. It’s just the air we all breathe.

Seed. Chemicals. Fertility. Soil tests. Equipment. Additives. Programs. Subscriptions. “One more thing” that will move the needle.

Some of those products are helpful. Many are probably necessary in certain situations.

But here’s the piece I can’t stop thinking about:

If the only way someone can feed their family is by selling a product…
how confident are we that their advice will always be unbiased?

Even good people are affected by incentives.

If my paycheck depends on selling you something, I’m naturally motivated to sell you something.

And if it doesn’t work the way you hoped — if you don’t see a genuine benefit — there’s an easy escape hatch built into the system: maybe it wasn’t applied correctly. Maybe the timing was off. Maybe the weather. Maybe the rate. Maybe next year we try a different product.

Meanwhile, the person making the recommendation isn’t sharing the downside the way the farmer does.

The income isn’t tied to outcomes.

That’s the part that matters.

And I’ll be honest — I’ve watched versions of this play out in the most ordinary places.

Last year I was out doing yard work and a lawn care professional pulled into our neighborhood. It was around 6 pm on a weekday. It looked like his spouse or partner was driving. I remember feeling a real respect for the hustle — second shift, door to door, trying to pay some bills.

Then I watched him work.

He had a clipboard and a pitch. He also carried two leaves — one healthy and one infected with a fungus he said was showing up in our neighborhood.

His offer was simple: he’d spray your lawn with a fungicide for $150.

I watched him close two sales in about six doors.

And I felt conflicted.

Not because I think the guy was a villain. I don’t. I respect the hustle. I just question the incentives.

My lawn didn’t have fungus on it, at least not that I could see. And he didn’t inspect a single blade of grass. He didn’t pick leaves from anyone’s yard. It was the same two leaves, repeated door after door.

Maybe the fungicide helped those neighbors. Maybe it didn’t. I don’t know.

But I do know what the system rewards: a sale.

And it made me wonder how different it would feel if that same person could get paid to tell you the truth.

To walk your yard, look closely, and say: “You don’t need this.”

So what happens when we flip the model?

What happens when you pay for advice… instead of products?

Or even more radical:

What happens when the person advising you only wins if you win?

So picture this: two people sitting at the kitchen table in the winter, planning the year ahead. Not one person trying to sell something, and the other trying to guess if it’s worth it — but two people on the same side of the fence.

Maybe the farm made $100,000 last year. Maybe this year, with smarter decisions and better testing, it makes $150,000. Under a 50/50 profit-share on the increase, the advisor earns $25,000 and the farmer keeps $125,000.

Is it a perfect model? Probably not. There are too many variables. But the point is the incentive. The advisor only wins when the farm wins — and that changes the kind of advice that gets given.

Now the advisor has skin in the game.

Now the advisor is motivated to recommend whatever is best — not whatever they sell.

Now the advisor might say, “Let’s test this on 50 acres first,” instead of rolling out something expensive across the whole farm because the commission check is tied to volume.

Now the advisor might shop for the best solution — seed, fertility, biology, process — because they win when the farm wins.

And here’s the part I actually love about this idea:

It doesn’t require the farmer to be “less ambitious.”

It requires the farmer — and the advisor — to be more honest about what success is.

Because this whole idea only works if the goal is clear.

If success is only profit, you can design a model around profit.

But if success includes soil health, long-term resilience, family time, lower input dependency, community reputation, less stress, more sleep… then you need a definition of success that can hold all of that.

And this is where it loops back to Alex.

When you’re young, you’re surrounded by models of success that sound obvious:

Work harder. Earn more. Grow faster. Get bigger.

But agriculture has a way of humbling that kind of thinking. Weather doesn’t care about your plans. Markets don’t care about your effort. And soil doesn’t respond to pressure — it responds to time, attention, and good decisions repeated.

And here’s the part where I have to admit this isn’t theoretical for me.

I’m asking these questions because I’m trying to build something with my own business that stays honest — something where truth-telling, alignment, and staying in relationship aren’t just nice ideas, but baked into how it works.

I don’t have the perfect model yet, but I catch myself thinking about things like a membership option — where customers can pay for access to my advice, and then have access to products and services at a transparent cost-plus margin. Something that rewards long-term trust instead of one-time transactions.

I don’t know exactly what that becomes. I just know I’m paying attention to the incentives, because I don’t want to accidentally build a system that rewards the wrong behavior.

So if I could call Alex back and start over, I’d ask him questions like these:

• What kind of life are you trying to build while you build the business?

• What would “success” look like if you couldn’t use money as the only measurement?

• What are you optimizing for: profit, freedom, family, pride, health, peace — or some mix of all of it?

• And who are you learning from… and how are they getting paid?

Because incentives shape behavior.

Behavior shapes outcomes.

And outcomes shape the life you get to live.

I don’t know if Alex will end up in seed sales, or on his own farm, or running something none of us can see yet.

But I do know this:

When you’re standing at a decision point, it helps to step back far enough to see the whole system — not just the next move.

And it helps to remember that you’re allowed to choose a different model than the one you inherited.

Even if it takes longer.

Even if you have to test it on 50 acres first.