Dirt Road Charm: Beer, Blogs, and AgNerds

So last week I got the honor of being a guest blogger to cover the events at the 29th Annual Alltech Symposium. For those of you who have never heard of Alltech check them out! They have some great products for both the livestock and crop industries. I was way excited for this opportunity for many reasons.....1. it was in Lexington KY, home of green grass, white picket fences, horses galore, bourbon and beer. 2. Alltech owns a brewery...after attending this conference I don't feel the need to attend any conference ever again unless they own a brewery.... You get a bucket of beer placed in front of you at every sitting.....amazing! 3. I got to meet up with some of my favorite social media friends....some I had yet to meet in person!

Most of the group: L-R Nicole Small-Tales of a kansas farm mom, me, Ryan Goodman-Agriculture Proud (Also Ag's most eligible bachelor), Carrie Mess-Dairy Carrie, and Jenn Zeller-The South Dakota Cowgirl, Missing: Janeal Yancey-Mom at the meat counter

So as we are sitting waiting on the opening ceremonies to begin we hear a hello from behind us.....you'll never guess who it is! None other than thee Ganaderia Mexico (@GanaderiaMex on twitter)!!!! This guy is a celebrity in Mexico twitterverse.

As the opening ceremonies began we had the opportunity to hear from the president of Alltech, Dr. Pearse Lyons. Listening to this guy speak it didn't take you long to realize that he is legit. This man is a successful businessman for many reasons and I will just quote a few.....

Dr. Pearse Lyons

"A leader’s job is to awaken a person’s greatness”

“What is greatness? Greatness is going the extra mile. Greatness is being out front. Greatness is the guy who lets the others take the credit.”

“Leaders create a space to flourish and remove the nay sayers. Put your best people in the opportunity not the problems.”

“Our industry is our own worst enemy. We run from our story. We are the world’s worst marketing people.”

“There is no greater group of entrepreneurship than farmers”.

His statements were short but powerful and he pretty much hit the nail on the head with all of them! It was with these statements I realized that many a company could learn quite a bit from this man. He came out with intense energy and it followed throughout the whole symposium...(or the thought of beer kept us going).

One of the unique things that they did during every session was have someone doing a character sketch. This was awesome. One of the many things that set this symposium high above the rest!

These people have mad talent!

While this symposium has honestly been one of the best I have ever been to, mostly for the high energy, amazing speakers, and copious amounts of beer, the highlight of the whole thing was snagging this amazing serape in trade for an orange scarf. Yes it is a serape, not a poncho!