Why We Get S@#% Behind Our Ears

Andy Snyder|February 16, 2022

Note From Amanda: Oh boy… Andy’s up to it again this morning. In what is sure to be a classic, he describes, in a way that only Andy can, why he does what he does. He’s an investor and entrepreneur at heart… and you’re about to see why.

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We took four pigs to the butcher last week.

We’re still cleaning the s@#% out from behind our ears.

It was a mess. If you’ve ever tried to coax 300-pound hogs from the place they call home into a dark, rusty trailer, you know the task we had at hand.

Two of the pigs were great. They walked right in, excited for the journey ahead.

Hog heaven didn’t sound too bad to them.

The other two, well, they’re the reason we’re writing you today. You need to hear about them and what the trouble they gave us means for you. This isn’t just a story of pigs.

It’s a story of life… the fight for it… and why we all do the dumb things we do.

You see, those other two pigs must have been good buddies. Where one went, the other followed. And one of them didn’t want to leave home.

We pushed. We pulled. We tricked. And we begged.

No dice.

At one point, one of them jumped a four-foot wall. Up and over. Ham and bacon through the air.

Mud – and a whole lot of something that wasn’t mud – was everywhere.

In the end, we just sat down and let the old boy do what he wanted to do.

He walked into the trailer on his own… his pal right behind him.

Isn’t that life?

An hour later, though, we had to move them once more. This time, we had to get them out of the trailer.

Two went where they were supposed to. The other two didn’t budge. They liked their new home.

We sat… and waited.

Times like these make us scratch our head and wonder why we do what we do. It’s been a while since we felt such doubt.

We don’t need to raise four pigs.

We don’t need the food… the cash… or the pain. We could just sit back and live high on the hog… that some other fool raised.

After all, the skeptics will ask, aren’t you some fancy stock picker? Aren’t you supposed to be writing books and counting your money?

As we sprayed off our work pants and cleaned our gear, we thought about those things. We thought about the look of it all… what the neighbors must think… and what else we could do with our time.

It’d be easier… if we’d just take it easier.

But what fun would that be?

This is where we say life takes shape. It’s when things get hard that things get good.

To put it another way, friction slows us down. It keeps us from moving forward too fast.

But it also keeps us from moving backward.

A life of ease – one with a Teflon, nonslip coating – may sound fun and neat. But what comes with ease… leaves with ease.

Need proof?

Look at lottery winners… or welfare recipients… Or how about thieves?

Here’s more proof…

We heard from a comic this week. He used to see a shrink four times each month. His life made him sad. He was rich. But he had no friends. He had no fun.

Then he moved to a farm.

“All I needed were chores,” he said.

A sunrise is a strong drug.

So what’s this… We’re turning this column into farm notes from Andy? No, not one bit.

We invest. We make money. It’s what we do.

We’re good at it… very good.

But it is far from all we do.

Some days we get s@#% behind our ears. You should too.