Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 111: World Champion Brian Curless on the Journey That Built His Career

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111: World Champion Brian Curless on the Journey That Built His Career · CattleUSA Daily

0:00
Welcome to another episode of the Cattle USA Daily podcast.
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Today we are welcoming Brian Curless on to the podcast.
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Brian is another one of our King of the Ring contestants for our
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King of the Ring competition in Dodge City later this July.
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And we are so honored to have Brian on today to share more
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about his story, his life and experience and everything else.
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And just he has some great advice for future auctioneers or
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just future cattlemen within the industry.
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So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into this episode
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with Brian and hear it right from him.
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Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily podcast, your go to source for
0:42
the latest livestock markets, industry insights and the
0:45
updates shaping agriculture today.
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I'm your host, Lauren Moylan, a passionate advocate for
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agriculture here to keep you informed and connected.
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Now let's dive into today's episode.
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Brian, welcome to the podcast. We are so excited to have you on
1:04
with us today. For you to share a little bit
1:06
more about your story and all the things, I'd love it if you
1:09
could just take it away and share with the audience kind of
1:11
who you are, what you do, and a little bit about your story.
1:14
Well, hey, Lauren, it's just a real pleasure to be with you.
1:16
You know, I'm excited about what's to come with this, with
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why you're having this interview.
1:21
This this king of the ring is exciting for me to get to go to
1:24
dodge. So that that's, that's first and
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foremost, you know, and, but I live here in West Central
1:29
Illinois. My wife and I of 32 years now
1:33
have have three kids here. We have a cow calf operation
1:37
been in the auction business forever.
1:39
My grandfather started in the auction business here back in
1:42
the 90s now. So it was quite a story how our
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family got involved in the auction business.
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But that makes me third generation.
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My son who is helping me with the auction business now is is
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4th generation. Father and grandfather were not
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auctioneers, but they were deeply involved in the auction
1:59
business. So that's kind of how we got
2:01
started and we had ownership of the local livestock auction
2:04
market here from that time back in the back in the 40s up until
2:09
in our town of Pittsfield, IL, we closed the market down sadly
2:14
in 2002 for multiple reasons. In our environment, it just made
2:20
sense. A lot of reasons led to that
2:23
barn needing to close down. So in 2002 that's what happened.
2:28
And so then I from there went to work for other livestock markets
2:32
around the area, around the region.
2:33
And we have continued with our local lives local auction
2:39
Business Today selling farmland and machinery, prime it
2:42
primarily and continuing with local livestock auction markets,
2:46
pure bed sales, things like that.
2:48
So that, that's that's kind of the the journey up till today.
2:53
Yeah, share more about the history of your family's
2:57
operation back in the 1940s. I would love to hear that story
3:00
of. Your grandparents.
3:02
And all that. Yeah, so back in the 40s when
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the fellows that owned the the Pittsfield Community Sale in
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Pittsfield, IL, some of them had to go to war and went, went to
3:12
World War 2. So my grandpa, who was at these
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auctions pretty often, they asked him one day if he if he
3:19
wanted to kind of help him with the paperwork and clerking and
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so forth. And sure enough, he jumped in.
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So then war goes on. Those guys come back
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unannounced. They walk into the sale, they
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watch what's going on. They see how these guys are
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running the sale in their absence.
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A couple of years later and grandpa kind of said, hey,
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here's here's the keys, here's the thing, back here you go.
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And they said, no way, you guys aren't leaving.
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You're staying here. You're doing too good a job.
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We really appreciate what you've done, what you're doing.
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So, so we want you to hang around.
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So that's what they did. There were a couple of those
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guys that just hung in there and stood stuck with it.
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And then so there you go 60 years later, you know, near 50
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years later, grandpa was in that business for, for over 50 years.
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So that's where we all, that's where my dad grew up.
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That's where I grew up. We started in the back of the
4:05
barn and, and you know, kind of eventually gravitated towards
4:08
the front and, and through ownership and so forth.
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So it was and, and with our local auction full service
4:15
community auction service as well.
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So, and today. So then in gosh, I went to
4:19
auction school about the time I got married back in the early
4:22
90s and have been an auctioneer ever since.
4:25
But bought that business. You know what, when I was was in
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the sale barn and doing all the odd jobs that it takes, you
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know, that we all learn from from the very beginning.
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That's that's how we grow a passion for it is just beginning
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in the back of the barn. But when as I got to looking
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around before I went to auction school, I thought, you know, it
4:45
never occurred to me to be the auctioneer.
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It was never something that I aspired to do.
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I talked to so many people and they look at the auctioneer and
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that's what they want to do. That's what they want to be.
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I was around auctions 345 days a week.
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It was just part of life. I didn't think about being the
5:00
auctioneer. We were just working.
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So as I looked around, those other auctioneers were getting
5:05
older. I thought, you know, one of
5:07
these days somebody's going to need to do this around here.
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So with some encouragement from my soon to be wife and some
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other friends, they shipped me off to auction school.
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And so the rest is kind of history, you know, just came
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back the the very first day home from auctioneer school.
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They stuck me up in the truck and and we sold pots and pans on
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on grandma's estate down the street in Pittsfield.
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You know, so that was kind of the beginning of it.
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And so when I once we closed the market down and then just had
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the opportunity to go help other markets around the area and
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build new relationships and really from that point found a
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whole new love and appreciation and passion.
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Stepping away from the day-to-day involvement with that
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market gave me a whole new appreciation for what goes on in
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our local livestock markets. I will say when I, I didn't get
5:55
involved with the, the Lac until 2012.
6:00
So the, the decades just keep flying by here, you know, but in
6:05
2012 I gotten with some encouragement from one of the
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from Bob Fiddler at, at the Fairview Sale Barn in Fairview,
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IL, I got involved with the WLAC and that's, that ramped up a
6:17
whole nother level of love and passion and understanding for
6:22
local livestock auction markets. And what they truly do for our
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communities is just incredible. And, and, you know, sometimes
6:29
when we're mired in the deep, we, we don't see all those
6:33
things, you know, but, but that brought in a whole new level of
6:36
appreciation. It takes a lot to walk away from
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a business and walk away from especially a family legacy and
6:44
just decide that, hey, this isn't our path anymore and there
6:49
is something better out there for us, even if we don't
6:50
necessarily in this moment know what that is.
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I am trusting God and trusting the situation that hey, we're
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it's time. It's time to close this down.
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It's time to move forward. And I'm sure you now look at
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your life and you wouldn't trade it for the world.
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You look at it now and you're like, yeah, there was a lot of
7:06
hidden blessings in that decision and in the life that
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you are probably walking right now.
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Is that correct? I can't tell you how blessed
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I've been when every every walk, every way with everything.
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I wouldn't trade my life for anybody.
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I'd love to go see other places to, to go visit other people.
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That's something that being able, I've been fortunate to be
7:27
able to travel around some and that's what brought me back
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home. I actually after college, I was
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gone for a year or so and it was strictly a travel.
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I was working but was able to travel all across the country,
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saw some of the most beautiful places in the country.
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But what when I came back here for a Christmas visit, I saw
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that it's just as beautiful and fantastic and the people are
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just as wonderful here as they are any place in the world.
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So I was happy to come back here and to get involved.
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And from that point, you know, just with my wife and three
8:01
great kids and, you know, being able to be involved in our Cal
8:06
Cal calf business and being out on the land and to be involved
8:10
as a producer that way. But also with our local auction
8:14
business, with selling farmland and machinery, our purebred
8:17
sales, just the different contacts that we have with this
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just amazing maze of people, blessed in every way.
8:24
Lauren, it's just, I can't, can't tell you.
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I would love to hear some of your favorite memories that you
8:29
have of your time as an auctioneer or just growing up in
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the industry, just kind of whatever you think there.
8:36
What are what are some of your favorite memories that come to
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mind with that life? Yeah, You know what, it starts
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when I was a kid in our local market and just being involved
8:47
with all those great producers, with the unreal cattle buyers
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that give gave me so much grief. But before I became an
8:56
auctioneer, you know that I had a relationship with those guys
9:01
and and just remembering the dealings with those fellows.
9:05
And that's something that I that I learned after being involved
9:08
with the WLAC and visiting a lot more markets.
9:11
Everywhere you go, the markets, as different as they are,
9:16
they're all the same. No matter where you go, as
9:19
different as the people are, for all their intricacies, they're
9:22
all exactly the same. You can walk into a sale barn
9:25
anywhere in the land and you're going to see the same guys, the
9:29
same people, the same producers, the same buyers.
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Truly, it it's it's just it's fantastic because everywhere you
9:37
go, you can feel like you're at home.
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Yeah. I think that's such an amazing
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part about agriculture, right? We always joke that we're such a
9:43
small, tight, close knit family industry, but we really are like
9:47
if you go and experience a ranching operation in northern
9:51
Montana or whether you're experiencing one in southern
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Florida, you're still going to feel the same vibe because we
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have a certain standard of life that we live as agriculturalist.
10:00
And it's crazy to see how I'm very well traveled to, I've
10:03
traveled all across the country, all the different operations.
10:05
And we may do do things differently in certain aspects,
10:08
just the way that we run our operations.
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But in our heart and in our soul, the passion is still the
10:12
same, the drive is still the same.
10:14
The reason that we are showing up is still the same at the end
10:17
of the day. It's just the, the love of the
10:20
land, the love of the livestock, the love of people, you know,
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and, and, and no matter what you're doing, you're, you're,
10:26
you're involved with people. And it's a matter of having and
10:30
building, growing, fostering those relationships with those
10:34
people. And sometimes it takes a while
10:36
to do that right, sometimes. And, and, and I'm probably
10:39
guilty of that myself, just maybe having a, a little bit of
10:43
a shell that I got a break out of every once in a while, you
10:46
know? Yeah, absolutely.
10:48
Can you share a little bit more about your journey as an
10:50
auctioneer? You said that you got started a
10:53
little bit later in life when it was in the 90s when you first
10:56
got started and then life just kind of looked a little
10:59
different for you. You weren't necessarily on an
11:01
auction block at a sale barn every single week.
11:04
You were, you're doing a little bit of this, a little bit of
11:06
that, a little bit of everything.
11:08
And then as you got involved in competitive auctioneering and
11:11
all those things too. I'd love to hear that story.
11:13
Yeah, Yeah. So, you know, at our at our
11:14
local market, indeed, once I went to auction school and
11:18
that's one that that's something that's just fortunate to be in
11:21
the right place at the right time like a lot of guys are.
11:25
But I was at that market a couple of days a week.
11:27
So I had an opportunity to be behind the mic quite a bit.
11:31
You know the the other thing that helped me and I think it
11:34
helps a lot of guys also. I, I was kind of in that those
11:37
early, late high school college, coming out of college and
11:41
hauling a lot of cattle in and out for producers cattle and in
11:44
in our country, hauling a lot of feeder pigs.
11:46
So spent a lot of time in a truck, spent a lot of time on a
11:49
tractor wearing out the tapes from the Missouri auction school
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absolutely wore them out. Just listening to them and
11:56
working on them and listening to the Champions that nothing
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different than a lot of people do.
12:00
And these guys today have obviously have a great
12:02
advantage. They didn't have to, you know,
12:04
they didn't wear out of tape and then have to wait for the next
12:06
one to come. They just listen over and over
12:08
and over, you know, being being able to be in that market and,
12:12
and on the be in the auction truck selling farm equipment and
12:15
that kind of thing. You know, so it was, I was, I
12:18
was very fortunate to get to have a lot of practice.
12:20
So, you know, just kind of slugged it out.
12:23
But you know, as long as, so for, you know, give or take 10
12:26
years when we had the market open here, was able to just just
12:30
work on it and try to get better and, but was not, it was not
12:33
really watching, you know, that's what that's not true.
12:36
I will tell you the 1st, So I go to auction school in 1992.
12:40
By 1997, I was kind of getting interested and I was, I
12:44
obviously had paid a lot of attention to the Champions, to
12:47
WLAC, but I went to my first world livestock auctioneer
12:51
contest that was in Fort Pierce, South Dakota in 97, watched Joe
12:56
Fraser win the win the contest. You're right, I wasn't really a
12:59
kid anymore. But I will tell you, I sat on
13:02
the front row of that auction that day, did not get up, did
13:07
not leave, sat and watched the whole thing.
13:09
What an incredible experience was was blessed to be able to go
13:13
there and see how that all works.
13:15
So that obviously I come back with a whole new focus.
13:19
But but but even then in 1997, you know, it just just made me
13:23
kind of work a little harder pay pay a little closer attention,
13:27
but still didn't probably have the maybe the nerve right, maybe
13:34
the confidence at that time to jump into the WLAC myself.
13:39
So as as that as that went on and I moved on selling for other
13:43
markets then with with some encouragement.
13:46
I remember the first time selling it at the Fairview sale
13:49
barn. Bob Fiddler had been to South
13:51
Carolina in 2011. Charlie Cummings wins the
13:55
contest out there. Charlie comes to the market,
13:57
sits down and Charlie was very encouraging to me as well.
14:00
He said, dude, what are you doing?
14:02
Do you you need to get to work on this?
14:04
You know, so that was a little bit of shove in that direction.
14:07
Bob Fiddler was a shove in that direction.
14:09
So with those guys encouragement that that helped me kind of kind
14:13
of boot me into competitive auctioneering.
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I had been in a couple of smaller contest previous to
14:19
that, but you know what, I, I was just also content with being
14:23
here on the farm doing what we did in our local community.
14:27
That's just fine too. But like I say, when you get
14:29
involved, and that's a great thing about competitive
14:32
auctioneering is it forces you to be better.
14:34
It forces you to pay attention to the details.
14:36
And that's what I, you know, when I, when I get to talk to
14:39
someone who's young and they're asking for advice about what can
14:44
I do? What do you think about my
14:45
chant? What do you know, what can I do
14:47
to improve? And I say, well, the best thing
14:49
I can tell you is record yourself and listen to it and
14:54
listen to these tapes of, of champions and pay attention to
14:58
the difference between what you hear in yourself.
15:02
Video yourself. What do you see in yourself?
15:04
What do I hear? What do I see?
15:05
What am I doing any different? If I want to be a champion, then
15:09
what do I do any different? Not to fit the mold necessarily,
15:14
but just to eliminate the mistakes.
15:16
So in anybody's chant, I feel like don't compare it to
15:21
somebody else's chant necessarily.
15:24
Do the best that you can with what you have, eliminate
15:26
mistakes, pay attention to the details.
15:29
And after that it's up to you. Then, then, then you have to
15:32
have the passion to drive to work on it and and just keep
15:35
going. But so that's what I tell young
15:37
guys now. I love that.
15:38
That's such a great way to continue to grow and develop
15:42
yourself and continue to challenge yourself.
15:44
So that's great advice to anyone else kind of growing up and
15:49
looking at the auction business or growing up in this industry.
15:51
What what other advice do you have for them, for young
15:54
individuals coming up? I think there's a ton of
15:56
potential. I think we are at a turning
15:59
point here where I think that this industry has got so much
16:02
potential and in different directions.
16:04
Our livestock marketing industry there, there's so many
16:08
opportunities. I know it's a different
16:09
landscape. We're all well aware that we're
16:11
in a different time, we're in a different world and we can all
16:15
look at the negatives and and and talk about how it's
16:18
changing. But you know, if we we have a
16:20
passion for it and we continue to look for ways to fill a need
16:25
within our community, wherever that community might be, if it's
16:28
across the street or if it's across the world, obviously we
16:31
can touch people across the world in an instant now.
16:34
So what whatever need you find within that community to fill,
16:39
say, find it, have a passion for it and do the best you can and
16:43
make all the relationships you can, but focus and pay attention
16:46
to the details and be the best you can be.
16:48
And as you said, that's a great point.
16:50
Don't measure. Measure yourself against
16:51
everybody else, but measure yourself against yourself.
16:54
Make yourself sharper. Make yourself better than you
16:56
were yesterday, as they say. Yeah, I always like to say the
16:59
1%, you just got to be 1% better today than you were the day
17:02
before. And all of a sudden you're not
17:04
going to see it yesterday, you're not going to see it
17:07
tomorrow. You're not.
17:08
You're not even going to see it in a couple weeks.
17:10
You're not going to see the difference.
17:11
But hey, in six months you're going to look back and you're
17:13
going to see one hell of a difference if you just try to be
17:16
1% better or even half of a percent better.
17:19
Like some days I get out, I bet and I'm like, we're we're going
17:22
for a half a percent better today.
17:25
For sure, no, and what a great outlook and I obviously if we
17:29
do, if we continue to do that and if we continue to do that to
17:31
improve the industry, I feel like is the same, the same
17:34
thing. You know, we can only do our own
17:37
little part, right? So whatever that is, make those
17:41
small improvements. What are the gifts of that God
17:43
has given you and capitalize on those.
17:46
We can't, each one of us, do everything but find the gift
17:49
that you've been given and make a difference in your community.
17:52
That's that's wonderful. So well said Brian, as you look
17:55
towards the future, what what kind of does the future have in
17:58
store for you? What's on the horizon?
18:00
I know you said that you are have the blessing to work with
18:02
your son. What's what's in the future for
18:04
you guys? Yeah.
18:05
So we are, we have a strong intention to grow this local
18:11
business, our local land auction business.
18:14
He is also a land broker. So that brings another, another
18:17
aspect into that love selling at the local livestock markets that
18:21
I am am fortunate to be able to serve love these purebred cattle
18:26
sales. So you know, to, to, if I can
18:29
work on that 1% as you suggested every day and, and, and maybe
18:34
maybe we'll try to average it at two or three if we if we work a
18:37
little harder, you know, so between that and and love having
18:41
a cow herd on our farm here. So want to continue that and see
18:45
what see what opportunities come, yes.
18:47
That's wonderful. I, I always love asking that
18:50
question to people and just seeing what's on the horizon
18:52
because I'm, I'm a very futuristic person, so I love
18:55
hearing what what people have in store for their futures in their
18:58
lives as well. Do you have any other final
19:01
comments or things that you would like to say as we round
19:03
out the podcast? Well, I think the future is very
19:06
bright and I and I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.
19:10
I'm excited for our industry, all aspects of it, you know,
19:14
just like, like a lot of industries that have had
19:17
struggles as they come and some of them go, the good Lord put
19:21
green grass and sunshine on this planet.
19:24
And the best thing we can do with that is to put a Mama cow
19:27
on it. So far, nobody's been able to
19:29
put them in a building and can find them.
19:31
If we can, if we can keep that shut off and we can still keep a
19:34
Mama cow running on an acre of grass, 40 acres of grass, then
19:39
then I think the world will be a, a very happy, successful
19:43
place. We'll, we'll all be just fine,
19:44
long as that can happen. I could not agree more, Ryan,
19:49
seriously, thank you so much for your time today.
19:52
Today was a blessing and a pleasure having you on and just
19:55
hearing more about your life and your story and your passion for
19:58
the industry is amazing. And it is something that I have
20:02
been able to absorb just through the other end of the screen.
20:05
And I know all of our listeners had the blessing of being able
20:08
to do that too. So thank you for your time and
20:11
to all of you listeners out there.
20:12
We will see you all tomorrow on another episode of the Cattle
20:16
USA Daily Podcast. Podcast make sure you like
20:18
subscribe, rate, review, share this podcast with a friend.
20:20
If you loved Brian's story and you think it would resonate with
20:23
someone, please make sure you share that with them as well.
20:25
So as always, have a great day and we'll see you all tomorrow.
20:28
Have a good one y'all.