April 29, 2025 • 34 mins
When Benjamin Haugh was 19, he opened his business, All Nation Restoration—not because he wanted to, but because it was the only option he had. Born into challenging circumstances and overcoming adversity at a young age, Benjamin and All Nation Restoration have become a pillar of the Austin, TX community, helping people rebuild and pick up the pieces when disaster strikes. A terrible flood personally affected Benjamin, proving that even those in the restoration business aren’t immune to tragedy. However, when you spend your life helping others, they are there to support you when it’s needed most.
Join Ben Walter and special guest Dr. Laurie Santos, a Yale professor and host of the podcast The Happiness Lab, as they chat with Benjamin about his unlikely journey from Texas teen to CEO, how he put everything he had into the business, and the incredible resilience that fueled his remarkable path to success. These are The Unshakeables.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ruby.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We hear all kinds of stories here on the Unshakeables.
We've heard about frozen fields and battery investors and wire fraudsters.
But today we're talking about vans. And Benjamin Haugh from Austin,
Texas has a.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
My favorite work van for restoration is a Mercedes, specifically the 170 wheelbase dually high top 3,500 diesel. They're beautiful vans, absolutely beautiful, and they're the best for restoration work in my opinion. Unfortunately, they're also the most expensive.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Expensive to the tune of about ninety thousand dollars for
Benjamin's purposes. A few years ago, Benjamin replaced his entire
fleet with these dream vans.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We got all the vans wrapped, we sold off most
of the old ones, and we barked them all in
the parking lot.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We went home. So the neighbor to.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
The property calls me, and it was probably about ten
o'clock at night.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I was home and he called me just totally.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Freaking out and he's like, your vans are floating across
my property. Every one of those brand new vans, it
washed off the creek into the creek. They were gone.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That was a panic moment for me because I was
well over a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby
Studio for iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business.
On The Unshakeables, we're sharing the daring moments of small
business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories
of how they got through it. Today we have a
story of overcoming overwhelming adversity and a guest who somehow
(01:42):
stayed optimistic through it all. His mindset is fascinating. I
wanted an expert's opinion to really dig into this, so
I brought in a special co pilot for today's episode.
She's a psychologist, the host of the hit podcast The
Happiness Lab, and also the professor of Psychology and the
Good Life, which is the most popular class in Yale's history.
(02:03):
I'm thrilled to welcome to the Unshakeables today, Dr. Laurie Santos. Laurie,
thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Today's episode centers on themes of grit, resilience, and optimism
in the face of obstacles, and Laurie is the perfect
person to help us explore that.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I think there's two big inputs you want to build
up if you want to become more resilient in business
and in life. I think the first one is your mindset.
The second thing, though, is I think you want to
build up social support.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Both of which play a critical role in Benjamin's story.
So let's get to it. On today's episode All Nation
Restoration from Austin, Texas. Today, we're doing something a little
bit different, which is to start with Benjamin. How's upbringing.
This is a business show, so we usually focus on business,
but in this case, Benjamin's childhood is in many ways
(02:54):
the foundation of his business.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I was born into basically a conservative group. It's non-denominational, Christian, super strict religious group. They would say, if you were to ask them, they would talk about the education system as being homeschooled, but the reality of the fact is, is those organizations, in my opinion, they operate by controlling the narrative. And so the real goal is no education. I didn't buy really the narrative, and I saw too many conflicts of interest in the belief system. Leaving was very difficult for anybody. It takes a lot of bravery to leave or it takes a method of sabotage. They had the systems to deal with the typical rebellion, and I took it definitely a step further where it was radical rebellion. It was, I don't care one bit if I'm dead or alive, I'm going to make your life hell no matter what. When they realized they couldn't take me anywhere, they couldn't do anything. I was out of control is when they said, "Yeah, we got to ship him off."
Speaker 2 (03:55):
One night, Benjamin was out with his friends when they
got pulled over. He tried to run, He was caught, detained,
and taken to juvenile detention. Benjamin was fifteen at the time.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
When I went into JUVI. You know, I probably would
stay there for a couple of days, Max, but I
wouldn't go home.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
He wouldn't leave. His dad didn't want him to come home.
It was a stalemate.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
We were in the standoff, which resulted in a three-month juvenile stay for me, which was not fun. Through that process of going to juvenile detention and stuff, I started to see people that actually really cared, just like the general public. And there was a judge involved in my case in the juvenile court, and he just really put his neck out on the line and had my back, and the judge was like, "No, I'm not going to take him and put him in a prison where he learns to be a criminal.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
He's smart." And it was the first time in my life somebody ever called me smart. He said, "I'm going to send you to this boy's home," and he said, "they're not going to be fun. It's going to be hard." He said, "You make a year commitment. You go there and when you're out, I'll file the paperwork to emancipate you."
How old you at this point,
I turned sixteen in the boys program in Houston.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
The program had a deal where once the boys matriculated,
they would buy them a one way bus ticket to
anywhere in Texas.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I had told him I want to go to Bryan
College station, and they looked it up and they're like, yeah,
there's a bus that leaves here at like six in
the evening headed to Brian. And I was like no,
because I'll get off the bus and it'll be dark, right,
and I don't know anybody there.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
But there was a bus leaving for Austin. Forty five
minutes later. Benjamin got on.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I didn't have a plan. I don't know if there's
any way humanly possible to describe really the feeling and
the fear and the excitement, the mix of adrenaline and emotion.
But I haven't felt it since. We'll put it that way.
I've had plenty of things happen in my life since
have been very scary or very exciting, but nothing that
really hits that point. I tried to calm down, but
(05:48):
it was starting to get Towards the evening. I realized
that I needed some form of transportation, and I found
a bicycle that was not being intended to at the moment,
and I took it because I needed it. And then
I started realizing that who I really needed is somebody
I knew. I had to have connection, because if you
don't know anybody right, you're kind of completely screwed.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What happened next is a story for another day, but
here's the gist. Benjamin needed to find someone, anyone to
throw him a lifeline. Remember this is a sixteen year
old kid with no money and no family, so he
biked around looking for anyone he knew, and finding no one,
he rode twenty two miles to Round Rock, Texas, mainly
on the Highway access road. Unsurprisingly, the police pulled him
(06:31):
over for biking on the highway and escorted him to
a local hotel, where a young woman working reception took
pity on him. She let him crash in an empty
room for the night. We're going to pick our story
back up the next morning. Benjamin was out of the
room bright and early, and there were only a few
other folks in the hotel parking lot, including one guy
named Sean.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
A guy probably in his fifties or so, he was sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck. I finally got the courage to go up to him and I said, "Hey, quick question, sir, do you have any work I can do?" And he said, "Well, what do you know how to do?" And I said, "Whatever you tell me to do, I need to work." And he's like, "Well, I got a few errands I got to run first thing in the morning here, and I'll think about it and stuff." So he drove away. About 30 minutes, maybe an hour later, he showed back up. He had a house in Round Rock. I went to the house and helped him out. I cleaned his shed and changed a tire on a vehicle, and just the typical, and he's like, "I need to know who you are and what's going on.", and so you told him the whole story. Now,
(07:28):
you gotta bet I told him the whole story. It's
funny because I told him the whole story. He listened
and he said, okay, I'll tell you what. Don't ever
tell anybody that story again. I mean, he's like, well,
I don't want to make you feel weird wherever, but
you're welcome to stay with me. He had four boys
and was married and stuff, and.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
He invited you into his home.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah he did, but I accepted it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I want to pause a second here. This moment is extraordinary. Again.
This is a sixteen year old kid with a bike
and no education approaching a business owner looking for a lifeline.
The courage it takes to do that is staggering, and
Sean was kind enough to hear him out and give
him the bridge he needed to start this new life.
This stuff doesn't just happen every day, but I've seen
(08:12):
time and time again that small business owners show up
for their communities, especially in time of need. If anything,
I hope this inspires all of us to look around
our own communities and take a chance on someone who
may desperately need it. So you moved in with him,
you went to work for him. Yes, so tell me
about the business. What was his business?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Water? Fire, mold and crimes and cleanup. Those are the
main pieces of what he did.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And you learn all about how to restore physical property, right.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, there's always this big question mark with education for me,
like how am I going to be successful without the
tools of education, not being able to read and write,
and like how am I going to be a benefit
to this company? And how am I going to be
a benefit to this guy's taking his chance on me?
And so coming into his world and seeing that you
could replace a lot of the standard education with your
(09:01):
willingness to learn and your willingness to work.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
You got it on the job education.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Absolutely. Yeah, it was basically an apprenticeship. I got to
see the good, the bad, the ugly. I got to
see it in real time. He was a real support
to me, and he taught me that industry inside and out.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Seawn's restoration company was called a best sounds like a
Yellow Pages play.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, it was one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I'm old enough to remember that, Okay, Yeah, that's exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
What it was, and when you could easily search stuff
online on your phone, the Yellow Pages overnight dried up
and blew away.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Soon a best went by the way of the Yellow Pages,
and Benjamin found himself once again out in the world
without a real plan. But this time he had connections,
employment history, a little bit of cash saved up, and
skills he could leverage. He went out looking for a job.
He got lots of interviews, but every time he went
in he was asked to fill out a job application.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I can't fill out the paperwork, but I'm really good at my job. "I'll work really hard, I'll be on time." And the guy looked at me and he was like, "Look, man, if you can't fill out the paperwork, how are you going to do your job?"
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Benjamin was stuck. Then Chris, an old co worker from
a best, reached out.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
He's like, hey, can I come work for you? And
I just literally start laughing. I don't know if it
was because I thought it was funnier because I was
in a complete panic myself, but I just cracked up laughing.
I think I was eighteen, and Chris is like, well, look, man,
if there's anybody that I think can do this. It's you.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So you decided to start the company or is that
too much of a stretch.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I would love this to be more of a hero story,
but really it was a lot of fear. I truly
did not believe I had what it took to run
a company.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You just need an income, so you gotta go.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, and that was pretty much it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Benjamin called Chris back. He still wasn't sure, but Chris was.
Chris was so sure that he offered to work for free.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I mean that was the offer. He's like, you can't
pass that up then, and I was like, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Benjamin quickly realized that starting a business takes capital, a
lot of capital, and he had much less money coming
in than he had before.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
One of the lessons for me was if I was
going to start a company, I need to lwer my expenses,
like big time.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Well one my girlfriend didn't like the reduction in income.
That problem resolved itself. She left.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
That took care of it.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, she left, And I realized that the idea of
faking it until you make it it wasn't going to
work for me. I went on a mission to sell
basically everything that I had. I bought a camper and
I moved it to RV Park in East Austin and
Chris moved in with me. So we lived in this
little camper. We split the rent in the camper, and
(11:32):
we worked our butts off.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Doctor Santos, what did you think of Benjamin's story?
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I mean, what an incredible human and what an incredible story. Right.
It's amazing because it violates the intuitions that I think
we usually have about what makes for a successful business person.
A successful business person you get to NBA, or they
go to some fancy school, or they're the kind of
person that has had a straight path to where they're going. Now,
Benjamin's story really reminds us that, hey, there's so many
(12:03):
different paths to being a successful business person, and you
don't necessarily have to worry if you're kind of missing
one of the things you think you need. Right, you
might not have that fancy college degree, you might not
have that fancy experience, you might not necessarily even believe
that you're able to do what you're doing. One of
the things I found so compelling about Benjamin's story is
that at one point, when he's handed the keys to
(12:25):
this new business. He says, I definitely don't think I'm
going to be successful, Like, there's no way I'm going
to run this business as well as the person before me.
And you know, look at the amazing things he's done.
And so I think it really reminds us that a
lot of the ideas we have about successful business people
who can be a good leader, some of those ideas
are really mistaken, and we might really need to visit
(12:46):
thinking about them differently.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, it's clear from Benjamin's story that starting and running
a business, whether you come from a background like his
or not, if you list to all our stories, takes
a certain level of resilience. How do you develop resilience
as an asset as a tool in your life. What
are the inputs that help people build that muscle.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I think the first one is your mindset. He had a mindset that things were going to work out. It wasn't so much blindly hopeful, but he just had faith in his own abilities to push through things when things were tough. And this is really a mindset of optimism, something that's really important for resilience. You realize, hey, it's not that tough stuff's not going to come up. I'm not blindly hopeful that no problems will ever come up, just if problems come up, I have faith in my ability to push through. And I think that was really inherent in Benjamin's story, but I think it's something that all resilient business leaders need to build in, because we can't blindly think that no problems are going to come up. They're going to come up, this is what we hear on your show a lot. The problems come up, but I think we need to have a mindset where we just have some faith in our ability to get through it. It turns out that that belief, believing that you can
(13:50):
do it, is kind of half the battle for getting
through things. And so I think that's resilience ingredient number one,
the right mindset of resilience. The second thing, though, is
I think you want to build up social support. You
want to have people that you can ask for help.
You want to have businesses that can help you out
when things get really tricky. I think you want to
build a set of social supports around you that can
(14:13):
really take care of you when times get tough. And
I see this in Benjamin's story a little bit too right,
He really made good use of the opportunities he had
socially of the people who did believe in him. He
kind of locked onto that and really used those individuals
to fuel his success.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, I really want to hear what you think about
the rest of Benjamin story. Let's listen. At this point,
Benjamin and Chris are living in the RV. They had
lots of small residential projects and slowly built up their
name and their reputation. Finally, they got a big break,
a contract with a research and development lab in Austin.
Not only did it help them financially, but it also
(14:49):
gave Benjamin the nudge he needed.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
That's why I kind of realized that there was a
good chance we could line up more of those and
actually start to build a business.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
So once you really got it going, then there's a
which you really started to invest, right. You started to
buy equipment, You started to buy everything you needed, and
then you bought some vans. Tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I started investing in the company from day one, buying
restoration equipment fans do use, and the things we needed
in box trucks and used vehicles.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Their transportation inventory reached a critical moment in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
We realized that our fleet was just aging out. It
was just one disaster after the.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Other, one broken belt away from whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, and turbos and being late to customers houses all stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
This was Benjamin's chance to get his beloved eighty to
ninety thousand dollars vans.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I was going to kind of rip the bandaid off
and replace the fleet with these vehicles. I told the
sales guys, we want to replace our entire fleet of vans.
It's about fifteen vans we're looking at. He's like, we're
not going to get those allocated to us.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
If you remember anything about the car shortages during twenty twenty,
then you know what Benjamin was facing. Unlike many Americans,
the shortage actually worked out in his favor.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I didn't want to do it all at once. Let's
put that in when I was when they come in,
we'll trade it out for one of the vehicles that's
in rough shape with the company. So he calls me
about a month later, he's like, hey, good news. I
was able to get all of those vans allocated and
I started the order on all of them. And that
was a panic moment for me because that was well
(16:17):
over a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You didn't have a million in cash to just hop
on it.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
No, I didn't, okay, So it was a total panic. I got with my banker, we started looking at everything financials, and he just helped me recast my financials and he kept coming back to me like, "I don't know how we're going to make this happen, but we're going to make it happen." And I was like, "Okay." So sure enough, those vans start rolling in just one after the other, every day. I was getting stretched to pretty much to the limit. And then Covid had a huge impact on all businesses. We were no different. And so from when the order went in to when the vans became available all at one time, the company was also not doing fantastic.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Somehow, Benjamin got all his vans. The van panic was
almost over. Almost just after he got the final van
wrapped and road ready, he got a call from the
guy next door to his business property.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
He's in a complete panic. He can't eve get a
straight word out "Ben Oh my god". And I was like, no, dude,
what's going on. He's like, "all of your vans are
floating away in the creek and it wasn't even raining",
and I was like, stop joking with me. It wasn't
storming and it hadn't even been raining. The ground wasn't saturated,
and I was like, you have to be kidding me.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
What happened? Was it raining upstream? Like? What happened? Here's
what happened. Benjamin and the All Nation Restoration facilities were
near Walnut Creek in Austin. Surrounding the creek is a
large natural area with miles of biking and walking trails.
It also has a large floodplane. All Nation Restoration was
in that floodplane and today was Benjamin's unlucky day.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So it took all these vans off the creek, and
it took them down the creek, some of them miles
and just obliterated them. And then it's also just embarrassing,
super embarrassing, like the restoration company that usually helps people
with floods loses all their vans in the creek. Right.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Did you think the business was going to survive at
that point?
Speaker 1 (18:08):
No, I was pretty sure it wasn't. We bought in
the middle of COVID, so prices were elevated from all dealerships,
so we're paying over what the vehicle was worth. On
top of that, we didn't put gap insurance on stuff
when we bought them. We were in such a hurry
just to get this to happen. And then because of
the cost increase on my insurance premium, which I really
didn't fully take into consideration when I bought all these vans. Yeah,
(18:31):
I didn't really think about it. I had opted for
a high deductible ten thousand dollars per vehicle because in
my mind there was no way that I would lose
all of my vehicles.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
So how did you resolve this? What'd you do? Well?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
It's interesting because I think things resolve themselves if you
stick in there, if you persevere through them. We went
through the normal things, getting all of the equipment that
was in those vans out and back up onto the
dry land, and then working with a towing agency to
get all of the vehicles out of the creek, which
was a huge effort, filing claims on all of it,
and then try to negotiate with our insurance company on
(19:03):
all the vehicles. We went to rental companies and re
rented vehicles, and there's a company in town that does
our lettering. They felt bad for us. They put temp
lettering on all of our rented vehicles and then offered
to take them off clean up when we were able
to return them.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I love when I hear stories like that, like small
businesses supporting other small businesses.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, it was super. Austin Sineco has been really good to us. But then came the interesting thing, and I thought to myself, you don't deal with something like this for no reason. There has to be something that we can learn from this and some way we can grow in a positive direction through this. And so, although I still believe that the Mercedes Sprinter van is the best for restoration, there is also negatives. And then some of the negatives are that they're high roof, which is good to work in, but they're not good for overhead damage. We had a lot of overhead damage claims that were coming in. Then just the weight of the vehicles on the road and the impact on the environment.
(19:55):
Burn a lot of guess and yep, tires, more tires,
fires for of it, and then the insurance costing everything else.
So I went back to the drawing board and I said,
we're going to go way smaller on vehicles. And we're
going to buy cash, so we're going to rent and
then we're gonna start knocking out those rental vans, getting
them returned back to the rental company by replacing as
fast as we can, replacing these vans with cash vehicles.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
At that time, Benjamin was also spending a ton of
money on marketing the company, trying to drum up business
and replace what he lost during COVID.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I ended up moving my marketing dollars out of promoting
the company digitally, and in said, I bought a dumpster company,
and I logoed out the twenty five dumpsters with full graphics.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So they became a marketing vehicle for you because the
dumpster sits outside and everybody drives by it.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah. So I was like, I can basically purchase this
company out right with my budget.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And it'll make money and do marketing at the same time.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
That's right, And then it allowed us to buy smaller vehicles.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
The good Ninja move.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Well, I looked back and I was like, yeah, pat myself on the back, I figured something out. And then I bought all these little transit vans and I used the insurance company to get out of the debt with the vans as best as possible. And then the debt that was remaining, we went to the bank and we were like, "Look, this is the situation. Here's the pictures. Can we consolidate?" So we actually came back from this whole thing a lot stronger. So at first I was like, man, nobody's going to believe how stupid I am parking all my vans in a floodplain. And then once we solved all these problems, I started thinking, oh man, I hope nobody thinks this is insurance fraud like I intentionally dumped my fleet to switch gears to do something better. So I feel really blessed that it actually happened, which is really weird because I think we came back so much better and on a different trajectory, a much more sustainable trajectory, a much easier trajectory to grow.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Laurie, we talk a lot about mindset on this show,
but I got to say, Benjamin's mindset is next level.
Even when he's panicking or he's in a really tough spot,
he's able to keep showing up. It would be so
much easier to quit, but he doesn't. Can you give
us a little insight into what it takes to have
a mindset where you can keep going.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
You'd be surprised how becoming a little bit more other
oriented and purpose driven can give you the resilience to
push through when times are tough for yourself. That's providing
a foundation that's boosting your happiness, that's boosting your sense
of self worth. That can kind of help you out
when things get tough. So I think becoming other oriented
in an odd way is a way of sort of
selfishly protecting yourself. That said, I think you also need
(22:29):
strategies when the tough times come up to help yourself,
and a big one is really mindfully noticing how things
are going, mindfully noticing like, oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed
right now, I'm feeling really stressed out. I'm feeling a
little lonely, like I haven't had a chance to see
my family in a long time. I often tell my
students that negative emotions are like the dashboard light on
(22:49):
your car. You know, if your tire light goes on
or your engine light. You have to notice that and
pay attention to it, not necessarily immediately, but at some
point you've got to rectify the situation and fix things
I think our own negative emotions and mindfully noticing those
negative emotions work like that. If you want to be
a resilient business leader, you have to take time to
notice when you're feeling a little overwhelmed, you're feeling a
(23:11):
little stressed, you're feeling a little down, maybe feeling a
little angry, you're anxious. Right, These are all emotions that
push us towards some behavior that we can use to
resolve things and feel better. That sort of mindset research
shows can really be good for getting through tough times,
but also making sure you're motivating yourself in a healthy way.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I mean, those are really forms of emotional preparedness, right.
I spend a lot of time with clients and guests
on the show talking about financial preparedness, risk preparedness, thinking
through what could happen. What I hear you saying is
you have to do the same for your own mental
health and emotions exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
And I think that sadly, this is something that we
don't teach people very well. I mean, I think Benjamin's
School of hard Knocks has really taught him to develop
that emotional preparedness. I think, just as we have lots
of courses on financial literacy. We actually need equivalent business
courses on emotional regulation literacy. Right, How do I regulate
my emotions, notice them and tackle them in tough times?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, and I think that's become a lot less taboo,
is the good news. Right, Mental health in general has
become less taboo. But it's also the hard one because
I can't put it on a spreadsheet like a lot
of the things that I do.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Yeah, but it is going to be the kind of
thing that business leaders take into account because I think
more and more you recognize that mental fitness and by
that the ability to regulate your emotions, having a resilient
mindset and so on. Mental fitness winds up mattering for
your business performance. We want teams that can regulate their emotions.
We want teams that have a positive mindset that are
going to keep pushing and persevering when times get tough.
(24:39):
And so I think more and more we're going to
be seeing businesses paying attention to all these so called
squishy psychological topics.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
More. It's squishy when it's everyone else's, but it doesn't
feel squishy when it's yours.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Right, Definitely, definitely does.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
The research suggest that there are any conditions or tools
or anything else that can help us when we go
through tough times experience growth as opposed to trauma.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Yeah, well, one tool really is the right kind of mindset,
and I think Benjamin exemplifies this really well. He seems
to have this really lovely ability to look for a
silver lining in the midst of all these things, to
be grateful in the face of really bad times. Research
has shown that having a grateful mindset noticing the blessings,
can be one path to having a mindset that can
(25:21):
help you through resilient times. And that's important because our
natural instinct is to focus on the negative, to notice
only the bad stuff. When we train our mind to
focus on the blessings, that means that even in the
midst of terrible things, we can notice stuff that we
can be grateful for and that can give us a
kind of motivation to sort of push through. So I
think that's one thing. He really has, this mindset of
noticing the blessings. Even though he went through such a
(25:42):
terrible childhood, he was able to make great use of
the social support that he did have from the judge
who gave him a little bit of a benefit of
the doubt, to the hotel owner who helped him out
a little bit, to business owners who gave him a chance. Right,
I just want a job, I just want to jump in.
I'll do anything. He was able to make good use
these moments of social support. And one of the things
we do know is that if you're going through a
(26:03):
tough time, whether that's in your personal life or in
a business, having that social support, noticing that it's there,
asking for help, these kinds of things can matter a
lot too.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I mean that's even correlated with the longer life, right,
having healthy social connections exactly.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
And there's study after study really showing that if you look at longevity, people who have and maintain their healthy social connections wind up living longer, and living longer more healthfully. So you don't just live for a long time, but you avoid things like heart attacks and so on. Social support winds up helping us out a lot, and it's a great stress buffer, and I think we see this a little bit in Benjamin's story, as well. Times that would normally hit us really hard, didn't hit Benjamin as hard, I think because he was relying on his team, he was relying on the social support that he'd grown to love, and I think that that's a lesson for a lot of us, too. It's not just having these social supports, it's really maintaining them, putting time in, and being willing to go to them when times are tough.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Thank you for those insights, Laurie. Now we've heard about
All Nations past and present, but I wanted to ask
Benjamin about the future. We've been talking a lot about
succession planning on the show recently, so much so that
we dedicated a bonus segment to it. So please go
take a listen. You can find it in the show's feed.
In twenty years, what's your wish for All Nation?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
As the company grows and expands, I want its focus
to remain on helping people that are less fortunate. I
think a lot of times companies start selling out to
shareholders and people that are really interested in that profit,
which I understand that path, But as we grow as
a company, I want to give back to those type
of kids that are getting out of those programs or
young people that are struggling with addiction. And I would
(27:39):
like to do it in more than one city. We're
doing it in Austin. But if we can grow into
multiple cities and give people an opportunity for employment. I
think for me, the biggest struggle wasn't changing my life
in the boys home, it was what to do once
I got out. And I think that path to a
career that can support yourself is a key piece. I
think that's missing in so many places.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And my final question I ask every guest on the show,
if you had one piece of advice for a business
owner or aspiring entrepreneur, what would that one piece of
advice be.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Don't give up? Do not give up. Persevere. All the
time I see people that have the answers, they have
the solutions to grow, they have it. They just run
into a problem. They run into a moment in their
life when it's impossible and they throw on the towel.
And if they persevere through that, a lot of times
they come out so much stronger.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Thank you very much, Benjamin how it's been a pleasure
having you on The Unshakeables. Thank you for sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Thank you, Ben.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Laurie, the thought that kept going through my head is that I think we have this one-dimensional definition of education, but I'm sitting across from this guy who's incredibly articulate. I was lucky enough to meet his wife and daughter. He has this great family, and so I think we have this one-dimensional education means I graduated from this and I can do X and Y, and he just kept making me think, do I have that definition wrong in my head? Is that too limited?
Speaker 4 (29:01):
He really shows the power of the school of hard
knocks for lack of a better term. Right, he's learned
a lot from running his business, but he's also learned
a lot from the kind of failures and the difficulties
that have come up. And I think this is something
that we get wrong about success. We think success is
about figuring something out the first time right, getting it
right all the time. We forget that our biggest teachers
(29:23):
can be the awful times, the traumas when things don't
go well, when all your vehicles are flooded, and like
you have to figure out how to get the right
insurance and what your business does after that. And that
means that sometimes as business leaders, we avoid those risks. Right,
if there are possibilities that might seem risky, we don't
go for that because we're worried about the failure but
what we forget is that if we mess up, we
(29:43):
might not necessarily mess up, but if we mess up,
that mess up might be our biggest teacher. It might
be the thing that allows our business to grow in
ways that we couldn't have expected. And so Benjamin's story
can really remind us avoiding risks completely or worrying that
if you hit a hard time or something comes up,
you won't be able to handle it. That's just not
what research really shows. What research shows is that trauma
(30:05):
can sometimes make us grow. And that's trauma in life,
as we've seen with Benjamin with his upbringing and so on.
But it's also kind of trauma in the context of business.
When things go just as bad as you could possibly imagine.
Sometimes that comes with some good too.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Laurie, can you talk to us a little bit about
more modern psychological frames for advantage disadvantage, how we approach others.
A lot of people in society would judge because he
can't read and write. Now, that's not his fault. He
grew up in an environment where that wasn't taught to him.
And if I'm honest with myself, I was on some
level surprised that he has been able to be as
(30:41):
successful as he has been when he can't fill out
a form. And I sort of feel bad about feeling
that way, but I'm being honest about it. How does
stigma and other things play into societal expectations around these
types of things?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Yeah, well, I think they play in a lot in
two ways that are really important. First, these kind of
cultural notions of like, well, who's educated, who belongs here right?
Who can fit into business world? Who has the skills
to do it? I think those expectations affect the opportunities
that we give to the people that come our way.
As business leaders, know, if someone can't fill out a form,
you might not give them the benefit of the doubt
(31:15):
to become one of your team members, But just like Benjamin,
it might be an amazing individual. And so I think
it reminds us that we need to give folks grace,
that the normal stereotypes we have about the kind of
person who belongs in our organization might be wrong, and
that we might want to rethink some of those. But
I think Benjamin's story also shows a second way in
which some of these beliefs can really affect productivity, which
(31:38):
is the beliefs that an individual has about themselves. If
you're disadvantaged, if you have something that is stigmatizing, like
the fact that you can't read, or the lack sort
of normal education or something like that, that can affect
the extent to which you yourself believe in yourself. I
was really taken by Benjamin's story of kind of what switched,
where the judge was like a smart guy, like you
(32:00):
should have had these opportunities X, Y, and Z. He
was really changed by the fact that there was somebody
else out there that believed in him. And I think
this is something that we neglect as business leaders. Right
A quick one off compliment about you did such a
great job, where you're actually really good at this, or
you're a really hard worker. Those quick kind of one
offs can actually change a person's beliefs about themselves. It
(32:21):
can make someone more resilient over time. And I think
it just reminds us as leaders that like, sometimes we
think those kind of compliments in our head, but we
don't often share them. And I think that's especially true
for individuals from disadvantage backgrounds who might have a stereotype
against them that causes them to have a threatened belief
about themselves. Just these small kind of things, especially to
(32:42):
individuals in disadvantage groups, can mean the world of difference,
like literally can change someone's life.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, we spend a lot of time at the bank
thinking about how to serve all different types of people
and it's pretty resource intensive. You can imagine. We have
language barriers, obviously, we do have people who can't read
and write, and we have to be able to serve
them as well with people with physical disabilities, and that's
not a small investment. I'm incredibly proud that we're able
to do it, but it takes work and you have
to do it intentionally.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
I mean, I think what the research really shows is
that work is probably paying off. Allowing individuals to get
through the door. Kind of democratizing access to these opportunities
really changes the face of what's possible in business.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Doctor Laurie Santos, thank you so much for being on
the show that this was really insightful and I appreciate
the time you've spent with us.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables.
If you liked this episode, please rate and review it.
On the next episode, we'll hear the story of a
man whose childhood trip to Pakistan quietly set the course
for his future. Years later, he's using some of the
most advanced technology to take on complex challenges in healthcare.
The kind of work that feels a little bit like
(33:52):
science fiction, real star trek stuff, which you know I love.
I'm Ben Walter and this is the Unshakeables from Chase
for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you
back here soon. Real customer compensated
Ruby.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We hear all kinds of stories here on the Unshakeables.
We've heard about frozen fields and battery investors and wire fraudsters.
But today we're talking about vans. And Benjamin Haugh from Austin,
Texas has a.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
My favorite work van for restoration is a Mercedes, specifically the 170 wheelbase dually high top 3,500 diesel. They're beautiful vans, absolutely beautiful, and they're the best for restoration work in my opinion. Unfortunately, they're also the most expensive.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Expensive to the tune of about ninety thousand dollars for
Benjamin's purposes. A few years ago, Benjamin replaced his entire
fleet with these dream vans.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We got all the vans wrapped, we sold off most
of the old ones, and we barked them all in
the parking lot.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We went home. So the neighbor to.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
The property calls me, and it was probably about ten
o'clock at night.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I was home and he called me just totally.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Freaking out and he's like, your vans are floating across
my property. Every one of those brand new vans, it
washed off the creek into the creek. They were gone.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That was a panic moment for me because I was
well over a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby
Studio for iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business.
On The Unshakeables, we're sharing the daring moments of small
business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories
of how they got through it. Today we have a
story of overcoming overwhelming adversity and a guest who somehow
(01:42):
stayed optimistic through it all. His mindset is fascinating. I
wanted an expert's opinion to really dig into this, so
I brought in a special co pilot for today's episode.
She's a psychologist, the host of the hit podcast The
Happiness Lab, and also the professor of Psychology and the
Good Life, which is the most popular class in Yale's history.
(02:03):
I'm thrilled to welcome to the Unshakeables today, Dr. Laurie Santos. Laurie,
thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Today's episode centers on themes of grit, resilience, and optimism
in the face of obstacles, and Laurie is the perfect
person to help us explore that.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I think there's two big inputs you want to build
up if you want to become more resilient in business
and in life. I think the first one is your mindset.
The second thing, though, is I think you want to
build up social support.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Both of which play a critical role in Benjamin's story.
So let's get to it. On today's episode All Nation
Restoration from Austin, Texas. Today, we're doing something a little
bit different, which is to start with Benjamin. How's upbringing.
This is a business show, so we usually focus on business,
but in this case, Benjamin's childhood is in many ways
(02:54):
the foundation of his business.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I was born into basically a conservative group. It's non-denominational, Christian, super strict religious group. They would say, if you were to ask them, they would talk about the education system as being homeschooled, but the reality of the fact is, is those organizations, in my opinion, they operate by controlling the narrative. And so the real goal is no education. I didn't buy really the narrative, and I saw too many conflicts of interest in the belief system. Leaving was very difficult for anybody. It takes a lot of bravery to leave or it takes a method of sabotage. They had the systems to deal with the typical rebellion, and I took it definitely a step further where it was radical rebellion. It was, I don't care one bit if I'm dead or alive, I'm going to make your life hell no matter what. When they realized they couldn't take me anywhere, they couldn't do anything. I was out of control is when they said, "Yeah, we got to ship him off."
Speaker 2 (03:55):
One night, Benjamin was out with his friends when they
got pulled over. He tried to run, He was caught, detained,
and taken to juvenile detention. Benjamin was fifteen at the time.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
When I went into JUVI. You know, I probably would
stay there for a couple of days, Max, but I
wouldn't go home.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
He wouldn't leave. His dad didn't want him to come home.
It was a stalemate.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
We were in the standoff, which resulted in a three-month juvenile stay for me, which was not fun. Through that process of going to juvenile detention and stuff, I started to see people that actually really cared, just like the general public. And there was a judge involved in my case in the juvenile court, and he just really put his neck out on the line and had my back, and the judge was like, "No, I'm not going to take him and put him in a prison where he learns to be a criminal.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
He's smart." And it was the first time in my life somebody ever called me smart. He said, "I'm going to send you to this boy's home," and he said, "they're not going to be fun. It's going to be hard." He said, "You make a year commitment. You go there and when you're out, I'll file the paperwork to emancipate you."
How old you at this point,
I turned sixteen in the boys program in Houston.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
The program had a deal where once the boys matriculated,
they would buy them a one way bus ticket to
anywhere in Texas.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I had told him I want to go to Bryan
College station, and they looked it up and they're like, yeah,
there's a bus that leaves here at like six in
the evening headed to Brian. And I was like no,
because I'll get off the bus and it'll be dark, right,
and I don't know anybody there.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
But there was a bus leaving for Austin. Forty five
minutes later. Benjamin got on.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I didn't have a plan. I don't know if there's
any way humanly possible to describe really the feeling and
the fear and the excitement, the mix of adrenaline and emotion.
But I haven't felt it since. We'll put it that way.
I've had plenty of things happen in my life since
have been very scary or very exciting, but nothing that
really hits that point. I tried to calm down, but
(05:48):
it was starting to get Towards the evening. I realized
that I needed some form of transportation, and I found
a bicycle that was not being intended to at the moment,
and I took it because I needed it. And then
I started realizing that who I really needed is somebody
I knew. I had to have connection, because if you
don't know anybody right, you're kind of completely screwed.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What happened next is a story for another day, but
here's the gist. Benjamin needed to find someone, anyone to
throw him a lifeline. Remember this is a sixteen year
old kid with no money and no family, so he
biked around looking for anyone he knew, and finding no one,
he rode twenty two miles to Round Rock, Texas, mainly
on the Highway access road. Unsurprisingly, the police pulled him
(06:31):
over for biking on the highway and escorted him to
a local hotel, where a young woman working reception took
pity on him. She let him crash in an empty
room for the night. We're going to pick our story
back up the next morning. Benjamin was out of the
room bright and early, and there were only a few
other folks in the hotel parking lot, including one guy
named Sean.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
A guy probably in his fifties or so, he was sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck. I finally got the courage to go up to him and I said, "Hey, quick question, sir, do you have any work I can do?" And he said, "Well, what do you know how to do?" And I said, "Whatever you tell me to do, I need to work." And he's like, "Well, I got a few errands I got to run first thing in the morning here, and I'll think about it and stuff." So he drove away. About 30 minutes, maybe an hour later, he showed back up. He had a house in Round Rock. I went to the house and helped him out. I cleaned his shed and changed a tire on a vehicle, and just the typical, and he's like, "I need to know who you are and what's going on.", and so you told him the whole story. Now,
(07:28):
you gotta bet I told him the whole story. It's
funny because I told him the whole story. He listened
and he said, okay, I'll tell you what. Don't ever
tell anybody that story again. I mean, he's like, well,
I don't want to make you feel weird wherever, but
you're welcome to stay with me. He had four boys
and was married and stuff, and.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
He invited you into his home.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah he did, but I accepted it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I want to pause a second here. This moment is extraordinary. Again.
This is a sixteen year old kid with a bike
and no education approaching a business owner looking for a lifeline.
The courage it takes to do that is staggering, and
Sean was kind enough to hear him out and give
him the bridge he needed to start this new life.
This stuff doesn't just happen every day, but I've seen
(08:12):
time and time again that small business owners show up
for their communities, especially in time of need. If anything,
I hope this inspires all of us to look around
our own communities and take a chance on someone who
may desperately need it. So you moved in with him,
you went to work for him. Yes, so tell me
about the business. What was his business?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Water? Fire, mold and crimes and cleanup. Those are the
main pieces of what he did.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And you learn all about how to restore physical property, right.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, there's always this big question mark with education for me,
like how am I going to be successful without the
tools of education, not being able to read and write,
and like how am I going to be a benefit
to this company? And how am I going to be
a benefit to this guy's taking his chance on me?
And so coming into his world and seeing that you
could replace a lot of the standard education with your
(09:01):
willingness to learn and your willingness to work.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
You got it on the job education.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Absolutely. Yeah, it was basically an apprenticeship. I got to
see the good, the bad, the ugly. I got to
see it in real time. He was a real support
to me, and he taught me that industry inside and out.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Seawn's restoration company was called a best sounds like a
Yellow Pages play.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, it was one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I'm old enough to remember that, Okay, Yeah, that's exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
What it was, and when you could easily search stuff
online on your phone, the Yellow Pages overnight dried up
and blew away.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Soon a best went by the way of the Yellow Pages,
and Benjamin found himself once again out in the world
without a real plan. But this time he had connections,
employment history, a little bit of cash saved up, and
skills he could leverage. He went out looking for a job.
He got lots of interviews, but every time he went
in he was asked to fill out a job application.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I can't fill out the paperwork, but I'm really good at my job. "I'll work really hard, I'll be on time." And the guy looked at me and he was like, "Look, man, if you can't fill out the paperwork, how are you going to do your job?"
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Benjamin was stuck. Then Chris, an old co worker from
a best, reached out.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
He's like, hey, can I come work for you? And
I just literally start laughing. I don't know if it
was because I thought it was funnier because I was
in a complete panic myself, but I just cracked up laughing.
I think I was eighteen, and Chris is like, well, look, man,
if there's anybody that I think can do this. It's you.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So you decided to start the company or is that
too much of a stretch.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I would love this to be more of a hero story,
but really it was a lot of fear. I truly
did not believe I had what it took to run
a company.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You just need an income, so you gotta go.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, and that was pretty much it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Benjamin called Chris back. He still wasn't sure, but Chris was.
Chris was so sure that he offered to work for free.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I mean that was the offer. He's like, you can't
pass that up then, and I was like, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Benjamin quickly realized that starting a business takes capital, a
lot of capital, and he had much less money coming
in than he had before.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
One of the lessons for me was if I was
going to start a company, I need to lwer my expenses,
like big time.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Well one my girlfriend didn't like the reduction in income.
That problem resolved itself. She left.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
That took care of it.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, she left, And I realized that the idea of
faking it until you make it it wasn't going to
work for me. I went on a mission to sell
basically everything that I had. I bought a camper and
I moved it to RV Park in East Austin and
Chris moved in with me. So we lived in this
little camper. We split the rent in the camper, and
(11:32):
we worked our butts off.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Doctor Santos, what did you think of Benjamin's story?
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I mean, what an incredible human and what an incredible story. Right.
It's amazing because it violates the intuitions that I think
we usually have about what makes for a successful business person.
A successful business person you get to NBA, or they
go to some fancy school, or they're the kind of
person that has had a straight path to where they're going. Now,
Benjamin's story really reminds us that, hey, there's so many
(12:03):
different paths to being a successful business person, and you
don't necessarily have to worry if you're kind of missing
one of the things you think you need. Right, you
might not have that fancy college degree, you might not
have that fancy experience, you might not necessarily even believe
that you're able to do what you're doing. One of
the things I found so compelling about Benjamin's story is
that at one point, when he's handed the keys to
(12:25):
this new business. He says, I definitely don't think I'm
going to be successful, Like, there's no way I'm going
to run this business as well as the person before me.
And you know, look at the amazing things he's done.
And so I think it really reminds us that a
lot of the ideas we have about successful business people
who can be a good leader, some of those ideas
are really mistaken, and we might really need to visit
(12:46):
thinking about them differently.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, it's clear from Benjamin's story that starting and running
a business, whether you come from a background like his
or not, if you list to all our stories, takes
a certain level of resilience. How do you develop resilience
as an asset as a tool in your life. What
are the inputs that help people build that muscle.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I think the first one is your mindset. He had a mindset that things were going to work out. It wasn't so much blindly hopeful, but he just had faith in his own abilities to push through things when things were tough. And this is really a mindset of optimism, something that's really important for resilience. You realize, hey, it's not that tough stuff's not going to come up. I'm not blindly hopeful that no problems will ever come up, just if problems come up, I have faith in my ability to push through. And I think that was really inherent in Benjamin's story, but I think it's something that all resilient business leaders need to build in, because we can't blindly think that no problems are going to come up. They're going to come up, this is what we hear on your show a lot. The problems come up, but I think we need to have a mindset where we just have some faith in our ability to get through it. It turns out that that belief, believing that you can
(13:50):
do it, is kind of half the battle for getting
through things. And so I think that's resilience ingredient number one,
the right mindset of resilience. The second thing, though, is
I think you want to build up social support. You
want to have people that you can ask for help.
You want to have businesses that can help you out
when things get really tricky. I think you want to
build a set of social supports around you that can
(14:13):
really take care of you when times get tough. And
I see this in Benjamin's story a little bit too right,
He really made good use of the opportunities he had
socially of the people who did believe in him. He
kind of locked onto that and really used those individuals
to fuel his success.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, I really want to hear what you think about
the rest of Benjamin story. Let's listen. At this point,
Benjamin and Chris are living in the RV. They had
lots of small residential projects and slowly built up their
name and their reputation. Finally, they got a big break,
a contract with a research and development lab in Austin.
Not only did it help them financially, but it also
(14:49):
gave Benjamin the nudge he needed.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
That's why I kind of realized that there was a
good chance we could line up more of those and
actually start to build a business.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
So once you really got it going, then there's a
which you really started to invest, right. You started to
buy equipment, You started to buy everything you needed, and
then you bought some vans. Tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I started investing in the company from day one, buying
restoration equipment fans do use, and the things we needed
in box trucks and used vehicles.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Their transportation inventory reached a critical moment in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
We realized that our fleet was just aging out. It
was just one disaster after the.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Other, one broken belt away from whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, and turbos and being late to customers houses all stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
This was Benjamin's chance to get his beloved eighty to
ninety thousand dollars vans.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I was going to kind of rip the bandaid off
and replace the fleet with these vehicles. I told the
sales guys, we want to replace our entire fleet of vans.
It's about fifteen vans we're looking at. He's like, we're
not going to get those allocated to us.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
If you remember anything about the car shortages during twenty twenty,
then you know what Benjamin was facing. Unlike many Americans,
the shortage actually worked out in his favor.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I didn't want to do it all at once. Let's
put that in when I was when they come in,
we'll trade it out for one of the vehicles that's
in rough shape with the company. So he calls me
about a month later, he's like, hey, good news. I
was able to get all of those vans allocated and
I started the order on all of them. And that
was a panic moment for me because that was well
(16:17):
over a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You didn't have a million in cash to just hop
on it.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
No, I didn't, okay, So it was a total panic. I got with my banker, we started looking at everything financials, and he just helped me recast my financials and he kept coming back to me like, "I don't know how we're going to make this happen, but we're going to make it happen." And I was like, "Okay." So sure enough, those vans start rolling in just one after the other, every day. I was getting stretched to pretty much to the limit. And then Covid had a huge impact on all businesses. We were no different. And so from when the order went in to when the vans became available all at one time, the company was also not doing fantastic.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Somehow, Benjamin got all his vans. The van panic was
almost over. Almost just after he got the final van
wrapped and road ready, he got a call from the
guy next door to his business property.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
He's in a complete panic. He can't eve get a
straight word out "Ben Oh my god". And I was like, no, dude,
what's going on. He's like, "all of your vans are
floating away in the creek and it wasn't even raining",
and I was like, stop joking with me. It wasn't
storming and it hadn't even been raining. The ground wasn't saturated,
and I was like, you have to be kidding me.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
What happened? Was it raining upstream? Like? What happened? Here's
what happened. Benjamin and the All Nation Restoration facilities were
near Walnut Creek in Austin. Surrounding the creek is a
large natural area with miles of biking and walking trails.
It also has a large floodplane. All Nation Restoration was
in that floodplane and today was Benjamin's unlucky day.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So it took all these vans off the creek, and
it took them down the creek, some of them miles
and just obliterated them. And then it's also just embarrassing,
super embarrassing, like the restoration company that usually helps people
with floods loses all their vans in the creek. Right.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Did you think the business was going to survive at
that point?
Speaker 1 (18:08):
No, I was pretty sure it wasn't. We bought in
the middle of COVID, so prices were elevated from all dealerships,
so we're paying over what the vehicle was worth. On
top of that, we didn't put gap insurance on stuff
when we bought them. We were in such a hurry
just to get this to happen. And then because of
the cost increase on my insurance premium, which I really
didn't fully take into consideration when I bought all these vans. Yeah,
(18:31):
I didn't really think about it. I had opted for
a high deductible ten thousand dollars per vehicle because in
my mind there was no way that I would lose
all of my vehicles.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
So how did you resolve this? What'd you do? Well?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
It's interesting because I think things resolve themselves if you
stick in there, if you persevere through them. We went
through the normal things, getting all of the equipment that
was in those vans out and back up onto the
dry land, and then working with a towing agency to
get all of the vehicles out of the creek, which
was a huge effort, filing claims on all of it,
and then try to negotiate with our insurance company on
(19:03):
all the vehicles. We went to rental companies and re
rented vehicles, and there's a company in town that does
our lettering. They felt bad for us. They put temp
lettering on all of our rented vehicles and then offered
to take them off clean up when we were able
to return them.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I love when I hear stories like that, like small
businesses supporting other small businesses.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, it was super. Austin Sineco has been really good to us. But then came the interesting thing, and I thought to myself, you don't deal with something like this for no reason. There has to be something that we can learn from this and some way we can grow in a positive direction through this. And so, although I still believe that the Mercedes Sprinter van is the best for restoration, there is also negatives. And then some of the negatives are that they're high roof, which is good to work in, but they're not good for overhead damage. We had a lot of overhead damage claims that were coming in. Then just the weight of the vehicles on the road and the impact on the environment.
(19:55):
Burn a lot of guess and yep, tires, more tires,
fires for of it, and then the insurance costing everything else.
So I went back to the drawing board and I said,
we're going to go way smaller on vehicles. And we're
going to buy cash, so we're going to rent and
then we're gonna start knocking out those rental vans, getting
them returned back to the rental company by replacing as
fast as we can, replacing these vans with cash vehicles.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
At that time, Benjamin was also spending a ton of
money on marketing the company, trying to drum up business
and replace what he lost during COVID.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I ended up moving my marketing dollars out of promoting
the company digitally, and in said, I bought a dumpster company,
and I logoed out the twenty five dumpsters with full graphics.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So they became a marketing vehicle for you because the
dumpster sits outside and everybody drives by it.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah. So I was like, I can basically purchase this
company out right with my budget.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And it'll make money and do marketing at the same time.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
That's right, And then it allowed us to buy smaller vehicles.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
The good Ninja move.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Well, I looked back and I was like, yeah, pat myself on the back, I figured something out. And then I bought all these little transit vans and I used the insurance company to get out of the debt with the vans as best as possible. And then the debt that was remaining, we went to the bank and we were like, "Look, this is the situation. Here's the pictures. Can we consolidate?" So we actually came back from this whole thing a lot stronger. So at first I was like, man, nobody's going to believe how stupid I am parking all my vans in a floodplain. And then once we solved all these problems, I started thinking, oh man, I hope nobody thinks this is insurance fraud like I intentionally dumped my fleet to switch gears to do something better. So I feel really blessed that it actually happened, which is really weird because I think we came back so much better and on a different trajectory, a much more sustainable trajectory, a much easier trajectory to grow.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Laurie, we talk a lot about mindset on this show,
but I got to say, Benjamin's mindset is next level.
Even when he's panicking or he's in a really tough spot,
he's able to keep showing up. It would be so
much easier to quit, but he doesn't. Can you give
us a little insight into what it takes to have
a mindset where you can keep going.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
You'd be surprised how becoming a little bit more other
oriented and purpose driven can give you the resilience to
push through when times are tough for yourself. That's providing
a foundation that's boosting your happiness, that's boosting your sense
of self worth. That can kind of help you out
when things get tough. So I think becoming other oriented
in an odd way is a way of sort of
selfishly protecting yourself. That said, I think you also need
(22:29):
strategies when the tough times come up to help yourself,
and a big one is really mindfully noticing how things
are going, mindfully noticing like, oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed
right now, I'm feeling really stressed out. I'm feeling a
little lonely, like I haven't had a chance to see
my family in a long time. I often tell my
students that negative emotions are like the dashboard light on
(22:49):
your car. You know, if your tire light goes on
or your engine light. You have to notice that and
pay attention to it, not necessarily immediately, but at some
point you've got to rectify the situation and fix things
I think our own negative emotions and mindfully noticing those
negative emotions work like that. If you want to be
a resilient business leader, you have to take time to
notice when you're feeling a little overwhelmed, you're feeling a
(23:11):
little stressed, you're feeling a little down, maybe feeling a
little angry, you're anxious. Right, These are all emotions that
push us towards some behavior that we can use to
resolve things and feel better. That sort of mindset research
shows can really be good for getting through tough times,
but also making sure you're motivating yourself in a healthy way.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I mean, those are really forms of emotional preparedness, right.
I spend a lot of time with clients and guests
on the show talking about financial preparedness, risk preparedness, thinking
through what could happen. What I hear you saying is
you have to do the same for your own mental
health and emotions exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
And I think that sadly, this is something that we
don't teach people very well. I mean, I think Benjamin's
School of hard Knocks has really taught him to develop
that emotional preparedness. I think, just as we have lots
of courses on financial literacy. We actually need equivalent business
courses on emotional regulation literacy. Right, How do I regulate
my emotions, notice them and tackle them in tough times?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, and I think that's become a lot less taboo,
is the good news. Right, Mental health in general has
become less taboo. But it's also the hard one because
I can't put it on a spreadsheet like a lot
of the things that I do.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Yeah, but it is going to be the kind of
thing that business leaders take into account because I think
more and more you recognize that mental fitness and by
that the ability to regulate your emotions, having a resilient
mindset and so on. Mental fitness winds up mattering for
your business performance. We want teams that can regulate their emotions.
We want teams that have a positive mindset that are
going to keep pushing and persevering when times get tough.
(24:39):
And so I think more and more we're going to
be seeing businesses paying attention to all these so called
squishy psychological topics.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
More. It's squishy when it's everyone else's, but it doesn't
feel squishy when it's yours.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Right, Definitely, definitely does.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
The research suggest that there are any conditions or tools
or anything else that can help us when we go
through tough times experience growth as opposed to trauma.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Yeah, well, one tool really is the right kind of mindset,
and I think Benjamin exemplifies this really well. He seems
to have this really lovely ability to look for a
silver lining in the midst of all these things, to
be grateful in the face of really bad times. Research
has shown that having a grateful mindset noticing the blessings,
can be one path to having a mindset that can
(25:21):
help you through resilient times. And that's important because our
natural instinct is to focus on the negative, to notice
only the bad stuff. When we train our mind to
focus on the blessings, that means that even in the
midst of terrible things, we can notice stuff that we
can be grateful for and that can give us a
kind of motivation to sort of push through. So I
think that's one thing. He really has, this mindset of
noticing the blessings. Even though he went through such a
(25:42):
terrible childhood, he was able to make great use of
the social support that he did have from the judge
who gave him a little bit of a benefit of
the doubt, to the hotel owner who helped him out
a little bit, to business owners who gave him a chance. Right,
I just want a job, I just want to jump in.
I'll do anything. He was able to make good use
these moments of social support. And one of the things
we do know is that if you're going through a
(26:03):
tough time, whether that's in your personal life or in
a business, having that social support, noticing that it's there,
asking for help, these kinds of things can matter a
lot too.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I mean that's even correlated with the longer life, right,
having healthy social connections exactly.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
And there's study after study really showing that if you look at longevity, people who have and maintain their healthy social connections wind up living longer, and living longer more healthfully. So you don't just live for a long time, but you avoid things like heart attacks and so on. Social support winds up helping us out a lot, and it's a great stress buffer, and I think we see this a little bit in Benjamin's story, as well. Times that would normally hit us really hard, didn't hit Benjamin as hard, I think because he was relying on his team, he was relying on the social support that he'd grown to love, and I think that that's a lesson for a lot of us, too. It's not just having these social supports, it's really maintaining them, putting time in, and being willing to go to them when times are tough.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Thank you for those insights, Laurie. Now we've heard about
All Nations past and present, but I wanted to ask
Benjamin about the future. We've been talking a lot about
succession planning on the show recently, so much so that
we dedicated a bonus segment to it. So please go
take a listen. You can find it in the show's feed.
In twenty years, what's your wish for All Nation?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
As the company grows and expands, I want its focus
to remain on helping people that are less fortunate. I
think a lot of times companies start selling out to
shareholders and people that are really interested in that profit,
which I understand that path, But as we grow as
a company, I want to give back to those type
of kids that are getting out of those programs or
young people that are struggling with addiction. And I would
(27:39):
like to do it in more than one city. We're
doing it in Austin. But if we can grow into
multiple cities and give people an opportunity for employment. I
think for me, the biggest struggle wasn't changing my life
in the boys home, it was what to do once
I got out. And I think that path to a
career that can support yourself is a key piece. I
think that's missing in so many places.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And my final question I ask every guest on the show,
if you had one piece of advice for a business
owner or aspiring entrepreneur, what would that one piece of
advice be.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Don't give up? Do not give up. Persevere. All the
time I see people that have the answers, they have
the solutions to grow, they have it. They just run
into a problem. They run into a moment in their
life when it's impossible and they throw on the towel.
And if they persevere through that, a lot of times
they come out so much stronger.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Thank you very much, Benjamin how it's been a pleasure
having you on The Unshakeables. Thank you for sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Thank you, Ben.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Laurie, the thought that kept going through my head is that I think we have this one-dimensional definition of education, but I'm sitting across from this guy who's incredibly articulate. I was lucky enough to meet his wife and daughter. He has this great family, and so I think we have this one-dimensional education means I graduated from this and I can do X and Y, and he just kept making me think, do I have that definition wrong in my head? Is that too limited?
Speaker 4 (29:01):
He really shows the power of the school of hard
knocks for lack of a better term. Right, he's learned
a lot from running his business, but he's also learned
a lot from the kind of failures and the difficulties
that have come up. And I think this is something
that we get wrong about success. We think success is
about figuring something out the first time right, getting it
right all the time. We forget that our biggest teachers
(29:23):
can be the awful times, the traumas when things don't
go well, when all your vehicles are flooded, and like
you have to figure out how to get the right
insurance and what your business does after that. And that
means that sometimes as business leaders, we avoid those risks. Right,
if there are possibilities that might seem risky, we don't
go for that because we're worried about the failure but
what we forget is that if we mess up, we
(29:43):
might not necessarily mess up, but if we mess up,
that mess up might be our biggest teacher. It might
be the thing that allows our business to grow in
ways that we couldn't have expected. And so Benjamin's story
can really remind us avoiding risks completely or worrying that
if you hit a hard time or something comes up,
you won't be able to handle it. That's just not
what research really shows. What research shows is that trauma
(30:05):
can sometimes make us grow. And that's trauma in life,
as we've seen with Benjamin with his upbringing and so on.
But it's also kind of trauma in the context of business.
When things go just as bad as you could possibly imagine.
Sometimes that comes with some good too.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Laurie, can you talk to us a little bit about
more modern psychological frames for advantage disadvantage, how we approach others.
A lot of people in society would judge because he
can't read and write. Now, that's not his fault. He
grew up in an environment where that wasn't taught to him.
And if I'm honest with myself, I was on some
level surprised that he has been able to be as
(30:41):
successful as he has been when he can't fill out
a form. And I sort of feel bad about feeling
that way, but I'm being honest about it. How does
stigma and other things play into societal expectations around these
types of things?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Yeah, well, I think they play in a lot in
two ways that are really important. First, these kind of
cultural notions of like, well, who's educated, who belongs here right?
Who can fit into business world? Who has the skills
to do it? I think those expectations affect the opportunities
that we give to the people that come our way.
As business leaders, know, if someone can't fill out a form,
you might not give them the benefit of the doubt
(31:15):
to become one of your team members, But just like Benjamin,
it might be an amazing individual. And so I think
it reminds us that we need to give folks grace,
that the normal stereotypes we have about the kind of
person who belongs in our organization might be wrong, and
that we might want to rethink some of those. But
I think Benjamin's story also shows a second way in
which some of these beliefs can really affect productivity, which
(31:38):
is the beliefs that an individual has about themselves. If
you're disadvantaged, if you have something that is stigmatizing, like
the fact that you can't read, or the lack sort
of normal education or something like that, that can affect
the extent to which you yourself believe in yourself. I
was really taken by Benjamin's story of kind of what switched,
where the judge was like a smart guy, like you
(32:00):
should have had these opportunities X, Y, and Z. He
was really changed by the fact that there was somebody
else out there that believed in him. And I think
this is something that we neglect as business leaders. Right
A quick one off compliment about you did such a
great job, where you're actually really good at this, or
you're a really hard worker. Those quick kind of one
offs can actually change a person's beliefs about themselves. It
(32:21):
can make someone more resilient over time. And I think
it just reminds us as leaders that like, sometimes we
think those kind of compliments in our head, but we
don't often share them. And I think that's especially true
for individuals from disadvantage backgrounds who might have a stereotype
against them that causes them to have a threatened belief
about themselves. Just these small kind of things, especially to
(32:42):
individuals in disadvantage groups, can mean the world of difference,
like literally can change someone's life.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, we spend a lot of time at the bank
thinking about how to serve all different types of people
and it's pretty resource intensive. You can imagine. We have
language barriers, obviously, we do have people who can't read
and write, and we have to be able to serve
them as well with people with physical disabilities, and that's
not a small investment. I'm incredibly proud that we're able
to do it, but it takes work and you have
to do it intentionally.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
I mean, I think what the research really shows is
that work is probably paying off. Allowing individuals to get
through the door. Kind of democratizing access to these opportunities
really changes the face of what's possible in business.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Doctor Laurie Santos, thank you so much for being on
the show that this was really insightful and I appreciate
the time you've spent with us.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables.
If you liked this episode, please rate and review it.
On the next episode, we'll hear the story of a
man whose childhood trip to Pakistan quietly set the course
for his future. Years later, he's using some of the
most advanced technology to take on complex challenges in healthcare.
The kind of work that feels a little bit like
(33:52):
science fiction, real star trek stuff, which you know I love.
I'm Ben Walter and this is the Unshakeables from Chase
for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you
back here soon. Real customer compensated
Hosts And Creators
Ben Walter
Kathleen Griffith
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