Podcast #29 – From Drill to Dirt: Dr. Joe Barry’s Leap from Dentistry to Farming in Hawaii

Doug Dvorak (00:01.188)
Good day Mission Podcast Nation. My name is Doug Dvorak and I’m your host and podcast navigator where we interview incredible individuals that are making their mission possible in their community and the individuals that they serve. Thanks for viewing. Today on Mission Podcast is my good friend and former dentist or current dentist I should say. Originally from Chicago, Dr. Joe Barry. Hey Joe, how are you?

Joe (00:30.84)
Good, how are you, Doug?

Doug Dvorak (00:32.578)
I’m great. High honor and privilege to have you as a guest on the Mission Possible podcast. So Joe’s got a really interesting story. Joe was a dentist in Displanes, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago for many years, I think 25 or 30 years. And over the course of his incredible career, and I think Joe, you were one of the first to bring in sedation dentistry to a dental practice. Is that accurate?

Joe (01:02.478)
Well, I was one of the first to get a sedation dental license in Illinois as a general dentist. I was the second batch of dentists to get the sedation license back in 2002. So, but you know, there’s other lot of other people doing sedation dentistry for as a general dentist in Illinois. I also

Doug Dvorak (01:31.77)
But you were really tip of the spear when this was becoming an evolving and practical opportunity for your patients.

Joe (01:38.732)
Yes, yes, yes.

Doug Dvorak (01:41.504)
Excellent. So, so you’re you’re in displays, you’re building a very successful, patient driven dental practice, and you like to go to Hawaii. So on occasion, every year, other year, you go to Hawaii. And after years of running a very successful dental practice, you made a bold decision to leave the big city the concrete general jungle stop three to

One, after a very long and successful career, you decided to leave the concrete jungle, stop. Three, two, one. After a very successful career as a dentist with a sedation license, you left the concrete jungle of Chicago for the lush green jungles of Hawaii. So your journey from dental chair to farm field is one of courage.

maybe a bit of a folly, not knowing what you got yourself into and purpose, but that’s really an incredible transition from dental practice, practicing dentist to a gentleman farmer or a full-blown farmer. And I titled this and I hope you’re cool with it, Dr. Joe Barry DDS from Drill to Dirt, A Dentist’s Journey to Hawaiian Farming Paradise.

unpack, what you know, you’re in Chicago, you’re serving your clients. And then what was that pivot point that you went from from drill to dirt and where in Hawaii? Talk to us about that, please.

Joe (03:14.058)
Well, it was 2015 and I looked at my, I had built a very successful dental practice in Displanes. I had two other dentists working for me. I had about 20 people in our office. It was a large dental office and it was doing extremely well. And I,

I had gotten to the point where I looked at my accounts and I was set. I didn’t really have to work anymore. So I had no debt, which was an important part of the equation here. so I decided maybe in a year or so I’ll sell the practice. Meanwhile,

My old equipment salesman was in the practice broker business now and he brought a guy to me and said, hey, this guy’s interested in buying your practice. And it was about a year before I really was going to sell. anyway, I thought, well, this, you know, I didn’t think the guy could afford to buy it. And but I said, OK, you know, send them over because I knew I wanted to move to Hawaii.

I have been going to Hawaii every year for…

Doug Dvorak (04:43.866)
Excuse me Joe, where in Hawaii did you like to go?

Joe (04:48.172)
Well, I like to go, I like to go to Kauai and Maui mainly and then the big island. You know, I like the rural areas, the Kauai especially, there’s a lot of things to do, a lot of hiking, lot of beautiful scenery. I’ve been all over that island. Maui is very nice also, a little more commercialized than Kauai. And then my

My sister moved to the Big Island. Her and her husband are both dentists. And so I started visiting the Big Island regularly. And it turns out that the real estate on the Big Island was about half the cost of Kauai. Yeah. So I was looking for a small farm.

Doug Dvorak (05:37.71)
Really?

Joe (05:47.087)
So I started looking. It took about two years to find a really nice spot. It was kind of serendipitous that I found it, really. It’s up in the middle of nowhere at 3,500 feet on the Big Island. And it was a little bigger than I had anticipated buying. But I was looking for something like a five-acre.

little piece of land, you know, I had a three acre lot in Long Grove, lived there for 35 years, was on the village board, active in the community, was the longest serving village board member in Long Grove for all, you know, that time. anyway, so I found this piece of

property that was absolutely gorgeous, perfect for what I wanted. But it was 56 acres, you know.

Doug Dvorak (06:51.482)
So you did a 10x, instead of 5 you did 56.

Joe (06:54.798)
So I ended up closing on it. In fact, the guy who wanted to buy my practice, he showed up with a note from the bank to give, you know, full asking price. They were going to finance it 100%. I don’t know how he did that, but that was sort of a sign.

And I ended up closing on the property and the practice on the same day. I signed the papers on the same day. So I figured it was, it was meant to be. So.

Doug Dvorak (07:26.042)
Wow.

Doug Dvorak (07:32.366)
That’s a great story. How did your colleagues and patients react when you told them you’re giving up the drill for farming?

Joe (07:38.381)
Well, they were mostly in shock. you know, I didn’t, it turns out I didn’t actually give up the drill. I had gotten a Hawaii dental license. I had to take national boards over again, the written and the practical with the patients. And it happened to be given at U of I in Chicago in

in 2015 and so I did it and I passed it. so I got a Hawaii dental license and actually I’m working one day a week in Hawaii as a dentist still. And I also worked for an oral surgeon for about five years and she found out I had a sedation license and she was overjoyed and

told me to get it in Hawaii. So I got a sedation license in Hawaii also. So I was doing oral surgery and sedation in that practice in Hawaii. And I’m doing general dentistry, you know, fairly close to where I live right now, just one day a week. And I fill in for the owner doctor when he goes on vacation, which he’s doing a lot now that I’m around, but I can’t.

I can’t fault him for that. I used to do that to my associates, you know, say, you know, see you later. I’m going on vacation. He does that to me now, but it’s kind of funny being on the other side of that.

Doug Dvorak (09:16.922)
So it really worked out well for you. So you sell your practice, you close on the practice, close on the same day as you close on your farm. Then you take the boards for Hawaii. So you go from 100 % dentistry to 20 % and 80 % of your time now is involved in your new life as a farmer. What did you find most challenging about walking away?

from a successful practice and did that affect your personal and professional identity?

Joe (09:48.495)
Well, you know, because I’m still practicing one day a week, it didn’t really affect my professional identity. And there is a acute shortage of health care workers here in rural Hawaii. You know, in Honolulu, there’s enough. But when you look at the outer islands, there’s quite a shortage of physicians, dentists, nurses, any kind of health care worker.

There’s an acute shortage of skilled trades in the outer islands too, know, plumbers, electricians, know, skilled carpenters and stuff like that too. And so, you know, it’s a rural area. And I guess I, I to, know, I can reconcile it with the fact that if, you know, I wanted to move to, to retire basically in a rural area on a small farm, somewhere on the mainland United States, I would be faced with.

probably similar situation. But it’s a little different here in Hawaii than it is on the mainland.

Doug Dvorak (10:55.204)
you know, most men that spend three plus decades building a business where that’s entirety of their identity and then try to dial it down to 20 % have some challenges. But it seems like that transition was just in terms of lifestyle impact, still keeping your dental and sedation skills sharp. So when you’re in dental school, you went to Loyola, right?

Joe (11:23.052)
Right. Yeah.

Doug Dvorak (11:24.248)
while you’re studying dentistry, did you ever think one day you’d be tending crops instead of crowns?

Joe (11:31.457)
No. Although I’ve always been a gardener. I always had my own garden, you know, organic vegetables and stuff like that. I always enjoyed gardening. From when I was a kid, I was taken under the wing of a couple of older ladies in the neighborhood and I was interested in gardening. And so they taught me how to garden from when I was

basically, you know, 11 years old. So I’ve always, I’ve always done that. I did that in Long Grove too, gardening.

Doug Dvorak (12:12.026)
Cool. Joe, tell us about your farm, 56 acres. What do you grow? What do you raise or produce there?

Joe (12:19.362)
Well, most of the acreage is pasture. And so I got cows and sheep. They’re the neighbors cows and sheep, because I don’t know diddly about cows and sheep. But they graze on the property. There’s five 10 acre pastures and we rotate grazing on all the pastures with water troughs and a central water system.

that uses rainwater catchment. And then there’s about a six acre piece that’s fenced off in the middle where the house is and where the, I got a fruit orchard, a young fruit orchard that’s struggling through a drought right now. And then I had a big vegetable garden.

It was kind of, I thought, you know, growing food in Hawaii would be easy. You know, you could just grow year round anything you want, but I was wrong. And, you know.

Doug Dvorak (13:33.242)
Well, you’re at 3,500 feet too. You’re not at sea level.

Joe (13:36.365)
Yeah, right. And there’s things that grow up there that don’t grow down low and vice versa. And so by trial and error, I tried a lot of different things, things I used to grow in Illinois and they won’t grow here like tomatoes, potatoes. There’s a blight fungus that just attacks them immediately. And then there’s the bugs, know, bugs.

Bugs grow year round here, you know.

Doug Dvorak (14:08.12)
Is yours an organic farm or do you use some pesticides?

Joe (14:12.46)
No, organic. Yeah, I do organic.

Doug Dvorak (14:16.74)
So how do you, what’s the organic prescription for some bugs? it?

Joe (14:22.764)
Well, what you do is there’s some organic pesticides like BTI for those little caterpillars that chew on your leafy vegetables. You can spray that on there and that works actually really well. You gotta keep up with it. And then there’s just basically you have to grow things that there’s no bugs that attack it.

up there. So there’s bugs down below and then there’s bugs above. You there’s different bugs and you you have to kind of grow what the land wants to grow up there. And through trial and error, what I’ve been there nine years now, through trial and error, found, you know, certain things grow well up there.

and other things don’t.

Doug Dvorak (15:24.826)
So what grows well at 3,500 feet?

Joe (15:27.192)
Well, kabocha squash, I’ve been able to grow that really well up there. people are amazed when I bring it to the farmer’s market and there’s no like bugs that have attacked it. And they’re like, how do you do that? What do you know? And you’re doing organic. Well, turns out at 3,500 feet, those bugs don’t exist. And so I’m kind of fortunate and that was kind of a luck. And then

Portuguese cabbage they call it, is kind of like collard greens. It’s kind of a collard green Portuguese cabbage. That grows really well up there.

Doug Dvorak (15:59.098)
never heard of collard greens, I’ve never heard of…

Doug Dvorak (16:06.562)
So do you grow a surplus?

Joe (16:09.26)
Yes. and the other thing is I have beehives. I got about 30 beehives. There’s somebody else’s beehives, but I did take a beekeeping course and I got all the beekeeping equipment and stuff. that’s right. So I get cases of honey. get every year I get a freezer full of beef and a freezer full of lamb.

Doug Dvorak (16:24.25)
That’s cool.

Joe (16:38.382)
from this I get and then also I grow coffee.

Doug Dvorak (16:45.924)
What kind of coffee, Kona?

Joe (16:47.742)
It’s the same variety as Kona. Actually, I’m on the opposite side of the island from Kona. They have a specific weather that works really well up in Kona. They got a rainy season and a dry season, whereas we’re supposedly supposed to have more rain on this side, but this year it’s been a lot different. But anyway,

So they used to, they first grew coffee on the big island in Hamakua district, which is where I am. And then sugar cane came in. So this was like over a hundred years ago. They planted coffee up here and sugar cane came in and, sorry about that.

Doug Dvorak (17:37.678)
You can stop. No, we’ll, that’s okay.

Joe (17:45.442)
Shut up!

Doug Dvorak (17:47.546)
All right, three, two, one. Joe, what’s one myth about farming? Stop, three, two, one. Joe, what’s one myth about farming you quickly learned that wasn’t true once you started doing it?

Joe (18:01.666)
Well, one myth, hang on, let’s do that over again. got, hang on a second.

Doug Dvorak (18:07.651)
Okay.

Joe (18:13.269)
see I had that written down here

Joe (18:23.534)
Let’s see here.

okay. Yeah.

Doug Dvorak (18:28.45)
Okay? Three, two, one. Joe, what’s one myth about farming you quickly learned wasn’t true once you started doing it?

Joe (18:37.655)
Well, what I learned quickly was that 70 % of the time farmers are fixing stuff and 30 % of the time they’re farming. So that was a surprise. Being not a 20 something farmer for sure, I got a lot of equipment.

Kubota tractor, I got a K skid steer, I got a big mower, got a side by side. So I have all this equipment in a barn and that stuff, and then you got chainsaws, you got weed whackers, you got all kinds of stuff. And, know, I quickly learned that farmers…

spend 70 % of the time fixing this stuff. And fences, I had the whole place fenced, pig-proof fence, which is a myth too. Pigs, we have a lot of wild pigs up here and they just, they dig under the fence and I gotta fix the fence and block off these little highways they made. So 30 % of the time I spend farming.

which was kind of a surprise. But when I talked to other farmers, they’re shaking their head. yeah, yeah, that’s what…

Doug Dvorak (20:09.538)
never that’s that’s really interesting I never that testing one two three stop three two one that’s really interesting Joe I never would have thought that a farmer would only be farming 30 % and fixing stuff 70 % so given that ratio of 70 working on stuff 30 % farming what’s a typical day like on dr. Barry’s farm in paradise

Joe (20:35.854)
Well, you you wake up in the morning and for sure you start making coffee and I’m making, I do all my own coffee. I pick it, I ferment it, you know, husk it, I roast it. And it is really good, it’s organic and it’s…

Doug Dvorak (20:59.758)
Let me pause. Fermenting coffee? I’ve never heard that. And what is fermentation of coffee beans?

Joe (21:08.334)
Well, you pick the coffee cherry. It’s a little round red Barry with the coffee bean inside of it. And then you pulp it. There’s a pulping machine and you crank it by hand and out comes the bean and then the pulp goes out the bottom. So the bean is covered with this mucilage.

that you have to ferment to kind of break it down. So you ferment it for 24 hours. I looked into some scientific research papers by the University of Hawaii and I found that if you use a certain, usually you would use the yeast that’s there in the environment. But if you use this certain kind of winemaking yeast, the fermenting goes.

faster and better and it actually imparts a better flavor to the coffee. So I was able to get this winemaking yeast and that’s what I use to ferment it. So you ferment it overnight, then you rinse it off and then you dry it and you get what’s called parchment coffee, which is it’s got a little.

Doug Dvorak (22:13.22)
Wow.

Joe (22:27.342)
white husk on it. Then you have to de-husk it, which is the difficult part. then you sort through the beans and you get rid of the bad ones and keep the good ones. then that’s called green coffee. And then the green coffee, you…

you can roast the green coffee, which I roast myself in small batches.

Doug Dvorak (22:58.638)
How many pounds do you produce a year of your coffee?

Joe (23:01.282)
Well, I got 80 coffee trees.

Doug Dvorak (23:05.035)
And what’s the yield on one coffee tree? Is it once per year you get a yield or is it several times a year?

Joe (23:12.13)
Well, in Hamakua, there’s kind of a year round harvest, whereas in Kona, they have like one big harvest. So they say you can get a pound of coffee off of one tree. So 80 pounds a year, since my coffee plantation here is kind of young.

Doug Dvorak (23:15.875)
Hmm.

Doug Dvorak (23:27.94)
So 80 pounds a year.

Joe (23:40.461)
and I planted it over three successive years. So some of them are young and they’re not getting, I’m not getting a pound out of all of them. In fact, the first harvest I got was last summer. So, and then this year I got the second harvest. I think the third year I’m gonna get a bigger harvest from the whole thing. But it’s enough for us personally to have coffee, our own coffee.

Doug Dvorak (23:51.898)
Mmm.

Doug Dvorak (24:09.018)
So you start your morning with coffee that you made. If you had steak and eggs, would be, do you have chickens? So your own eggs, your own beef, your own lamb and your own, you know, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Joe, have you found any surprising similarities between running a successful dental practice and running a successful farm?

Joe (24:15.65)
We got chickens.

Joe (24:29.134)
There’s a lot of business in dentistry if you want to be successful. It’s a people business and farming is kind of the opposite. You’re kind of out there solo working with the land and the environment out there in the weather.

you know, doing stuff, you know, in nature. they’re kind of polar opposites. You know, but I went, I went to a, you know, a few years ago, I went to a, a course, they give a course at the farmer’s markets. And it was on the business of farming. And it was about, so I, so there’s about 20 people there and the guy giving the course, he says, okay, raise your hand if you

get your entire income from your farm. And I looked around, you know, nobody raised their hand. He goes, raise your hand if you got some other side gig that gives you income. Everybody raised their hand. He goes, yeah. He says, that’s, that’s what I see. You know, that farmers, and I think that’s true on the mainland too, in a lot of cases that, you know, farmers have a side.

Doug Dvorak (25:40.878)
Ha ha ha ha.

Joe (25:56.193)
side business and then they farm, you know.

Doug Dvorak (25:59.738)
That’s cool. Joe, so what gave you the courage to make such a dramatic life pivot? Was it mindset, timing, or something different, or an amalgamation of all those?

Joe (26:11.53)
Well, think the thing that I think I always wanted to do it, you know, you know, to go off grid, which I am out in a farm, grow my own food, you know, drop out of the rat race, you know, and and the thing that really

combination of two things. One is I was in my 60s and here I am looking at my accounts and saying to myself, know, I don’t have to work anymore. And the other big major thing is I had no debt, no mortgage, no nothing. And so looking at everything, I’m like, I can retire and you know, I have a

relatively modest lifestyle.

you know, incredibly expensive car, although I could, I could buy one if I wanted. I just don’t want to. And I could have anything I want if I wanted, but I just, you know, I mean, I’ve always lived below my means. And so I did accumulate a substantial savings and I thought, well, you know what? I’m not getting any younger. And if I’m going to do this, I should just do it. So,

So I did and this guy showed up to buy my practice and gave me a really decent price for it. I did. That’s basically it.

Doug Dvorak (27:53.594)
Cool. So how has living in Hawaii changed your outlook on success, on happiness and purpose?

Joe (28:01.292)
Well, you know, it’s very interesting because there was a lot of differences here between Hawaii and Chicago. Okay. In Chicago, everything is, you know, fast, rapid fire, you know, and there is a rat race, you know, the traffic, you know, being back here. I was just on the tollway last night going to a meeting and

Here the toll road, the speed limit is 60, sometimes 65. And I’m looking down, keeping up with traffic, and I’m going 80, 90 miles an hour. Which I like, you know. In Hawaii, they just, they go, they pull out in front of you going 10 miles an hour.

The highways are just two lanes, one in each direction. They pull out in front of you going like 10 miles an hour and it takes them a mile to get up to their eventual top speed of 10 miles under the limit.

Doug Dvorak (29:16.238)
Yeah, no, we share that because I lived in a ski resort in rural Idaho for 20 years and I find when I travel to these larger cities that, you know, in my judgment there’s four areas for a well-balanced life, personal, professional, family, and spiritual. And when I’m back in that rat race, all four of those degrade. But when I’m in nature and not in that rat race, I just find life

more livable and beautiful and I find I’m more mindful and spiritual on how I treat people. I’m not going at 120 and living and the stresses that that include that. So living off grid that’s an incredible incredible story. How do you handle the inevitable challenges? You know you were dealing with not everybody likes to go to the dentist and I heard I don’t know if this is true that

dentists have the highest rate of suicide as a profession. Is that accurate?

Joe (30:20.374)
Well, I think it is, but we trade off from year to year with the psychiatrists.

Doug Dvorak (30:27.894)
Okay, I didn’t know that. So you’re dealing with stress in your practice for 30 plus years. You talked about only 30 % of your time is spent on farming 70 % fixing stuff. But how do you handle the inevitable unknowns and challenges, whether crops isolation, maybe having to wait five days for a park because you’re not on the mainland? How do you handle those unknowns, the stress of farming if you would consider it to be stressful?

Joe (30:57.486)
Well, it’s not five days, it’s more like two weeks or a month for a part. That is a little bit stressful. And then the weather, of course, you don’t have any control over the weather. That can be kind of stressful when the first two years I was there. The average rainfall where I was, which I researched, is 82 inches a year. I think Chicago’s about 45.

Um, so, uh, so I thought, well, there’s plenty of rain here and everything. So the first two years I get there, it’s 200 inches a year. And I’m like, what the heck is this? You know? And then, and then as soon as I planted the fruit orchard, stopped raining and now it’s nothing, you know? So it’s the average of, of 82 is, is it goes from, I found out it goes from 23 to 200.

Doug Dvorak (31:27.322)
Wow.

Doug Dvorak (31:39.991)
London.

Joe (31:56.911)
You know, so from and I guess that’s normal. So I didn’t realize that it would change that much. And so as a farmer, the weather is totally out of your control and it basically controls, you know, what you’re what you’re producing. You know, and if you have an extreme weather event like we’re having an extreme drought right now, the grass doesn’t grow, you know.

Doug Dvorak (31:57.658)
And that’s normal over a historical timeline.

Joe (32:26.754)
The cows eat it down and then you move them to the next pasture and the first pasture doesn’t grow because it’s not raining. And so you’re using up all your grass and a lot of farmers around here now are having to sell cows because they’re running out of grass, which is kind of unheard of.

Doug Dvorak (32:45.092)
Wow. Joe, what, sorry to interrupt you, what advice would you give someone feeling stuck in their career or their life or they’re afraid to follow a new calling like you did? Cashing it all in or if they can’t cash it in, just saying, this is not for me, I have this idea, this passion. How do they make their mission possible if they feel stuck?

Joe (33:10.048)
I would say don’t be afraid. I would say if you have a passion, if you want to do something that you like, if you’re doing something that you like, you will be successful at it. And the other thing is, when you move someplace to a new place,

You’re going to be successful there. you were doing well at the place that you were before, you’re going to do well at the new place too. Because guess what? You bring yourself to the new place. And if you take an inventory of yourself, your pluses, your minuses, write it down, meditate on it.

And if you realize, you know, life is kind of short and it’s too short to work at something that you hate or that you dislike just for the almighty dollar, that you can be successful doing what you really love and be happy that way. You know, it’s kind of easy to be happy on a farm in Hawaii.

Doug Dvorak (34:37.59)
Absolutely, but a lot of people feel stuck, you know, and you’re in that rat race. You don’t think you have options, but you really do. So do the thing you fear the most, and that’s the death of fear. if you, to your point, as we in our mid-60s, you and I have known you for a few years, I’m having to say goodbye more right now to other friends, family members.

I told my wife, I’m not making any more old friends. I want 20 year olds. So they’ll be around hopefully for 40 years and I’ll be around for 40 years. But it gives you a new sense of being in the fourth quarter of one’s existence and doing what you love, having that privilege, taking some risk is a huge, a huge accelerant to a great life. Joe, what’s your definition of success and how did that evolve now after making this change?

Hawaii versus Chicago.

Joe (35:33.391)
Well, I would say success is really peace of mind and that comes down to a whole bunch of things. Your health, know, the physical and mental health. And so if something’s disturbing you,

physically, mentally, whatever. You gotta change. You gotta make a change. And like in Hawaii, okay, it kinda drove me nuts at first getting used to the slower pace. But this state has the longest lifespan of any state. So, you know, I gotta ask myself, these people are, they’ve slowed down. Everything is kind of…

at a slower pace. They don’t really, there’s no real, in fact, there’s kind of a lack of smart business sense here. They don’t have to bust their butts. so I’m wondering, who is right? Is it right to be in the rat race and

make as much money as you can and run yourself into the ground or is it right to slow down and live life a day at a time and be happy with what you have even if it isn’t as much as you would like.

Doug Dvorak (37:18.554)
That reminds me of an old quote, success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you have. so, slowing down, I’m gonna ask you this question, don’t answer it, because I want to answer it first, because we’re both from Chicago and

Doug Dvorak (37:36.538)
Maybe you made the smarter choice. I get 350 inches of snow a year and you get 365 days of paradise. So do you miss any aspects of your old life in Chicago or is paradise permanent? So when I moved, the two things my wife and I missed beyond family and friends, Portillo’s and Lou Milnati’s pizza. So do you miss any aspects of your old life in Chicago or is paradise permanent?

Joe (38:02.36)
Well, paradise is permanent. That’s the easy part. And yes, I do miss Lumel Natties and Portillo’s, you know, the food. Now, that being said, the seafood in Hawaii is outstanding. The Asian food is outstanding. The Mexican food, not so much. Okay. And I love Mexican food. I love

Good pizza. The pizza here is like central Wisconsin pizza. Yeah, it just no, you know, the, you know, the burgers here, there’s there’s one really outstanding burger place on the Big Island. There used to be three, but two of them went downhill after the pandemic. You know, so there’s one good burger place, but you know,

Doug Dvorak (38:38.458)
Bowling alley.

Joe (39:00.236)
The food in Chicago is outstanding. The Italian food, the pizza, the Mexican food, just, you know, in Chicago, if you have a mediocre pizza, you’re out of business in a year. You know, and here on the Big Island, you know, there’s no place else to go. That’s all you have is mediocre pizza, you know.

Doug Dvorak (39:16.801)
Exactly.

Joe (39:28.91)
And so, you know, it’s so there, you know, you have to, and you know what, you’re in a rural area. If I was in a rural area in Idaho or Wisconsin or someplace, I wouldn’t be faced with kind of the same thing, right? You know?

Doug Dvorak (39:43.62)
Yeah. So Joe, if your farm had a motto that reflected your current life philosophy, what would it be?

Joe (39:51.438)
Let me let me look at what I put down here. Yeah.

Doug Dvorak (39:55.778)
Let’s Let’s stop.

Joe (40:03.726)
Okay, I made some notes here.

Doug Dvorak (40:06.618)
That’s okay.

Joe (40:24.17)
Okay. So it’s, yeah.

Doug Dvorak (40:25.892)
All right, three, two, one. Joe, if your farm had a motto that reflected your current life philosophy, what would it be?

Joe (40:36.012)
I would say as far as the farm goes, you figure out what the land and your place can give and then just nurture it. You’re living off the land in a certain place, at a certain elevation, with a certain rainfall, with a certain kind of soil.

what it wants to give. so figure out what that is and nurture it and take care of the land.

Doug Dvorak (41:17.668)
being outside, doing something physical, doing something untethered from a smartphone or a device. That is what I hear, you know, that tactile feeling of working in the dirt or whatever that is, but being outside untethered from social media and watching videos or playing games for 10 hours a day in your basement. I believe for some of the younger generations, social media screen time is their version of

cancer in terms of not literally but figuratively the degradation of the mind, the heart, the spirit, the social skills. Just get out and do something fun.

Joe (41:58.211)
Right, and be active. You’re outside, you’re doing work, you’re active. I swim a lot. I have a swim workout I do. I swim in the ocean. I was in two years in a row. I was in the Hapuna Roughwater one-mile swim race.

Anyway, I want to do that again next year because I went into a new age group. I’m seven.

Doug Dvorak (42:28.346)
Well, you won the one age group, right?

Joe (42:32.27)
Well, I didn’t win it. No, I got I was I was in the middle there. But but this time, I don’t know, I’ll give it a try. I’m 71. So I’m in a new age group. So I’m going to try to kick those old farts asses in that swim race and see what happens. I’ll probably get mine handed to me because there’s a lot of really good swimmers here in Hawaii.

Doug Dvorak (42:59.674)
Cool, well good luck. Joe, this is the tail end of our podcast interview. It’s my rapid fire round, which I’m calling Smiles to Soil. And I’m gonna ask you about five or six different questions. One or two word response rapid. Are you ready? Favorite tropical fruit? First thing you do every morning on the farm? One thing you’ll never go back to doing?

Joe (43:15.617)
Yes.

Mango.

Make coffee.

Joe (43:26.478)
The treadmill of the rat race.

Doug Dvorak (43:29.22)
Harder job dentist or farmer.

Joe (43:31.618)
Farmer.

Doug Dvorak (43:33.166)
Favorite Hawaiian word or saying that sums up your new life?

Joe (43:37.324)
Hang loose.

Doug Dvorak (43:38.788)
Coffee or coconuts? piece of advice you’d give to your younger self.

Joe (43:40.376)
Coffee.

Joe (43:44.78)
Don’t be afraid.

Doug Dvorak (43:46.746)
Awesome. My guest today has been Dr. Joe Barry, a dentist from Chicago, now a farmer in Hawaii. Joe, it’s been a high honor and privilege. I appreciate your time. I’ve really enjoyed to get to know you better, even though we have been friends and we see each other, you know, about once a week. But thank you, Mission Podcast community. Check us out on Spotify, YouTube, as well as MissionPossible.biz. Have a great day.

Everything is possible when you’re on the right mission with the right attitude. Carpe Diem.

Joe (44:21.4)
Okay, thanks Doug.

Doug Dvorak (44:22.99)
Let me stop, stay on.

Joe (44:25.133)
Yeah.