November 4, 2025 • 44 mins
Paul Atherton shares why most builders stall until they make an identity shift—from “in-the-field” carpenter to business owner—and how to use return on time vs. return on capital to scale. He breaks down hiring that first PM, simple systems, the five levels to a self-managed company, branding that actually works, the Four C’s (coaching, community, content, capital), and setting anti-goals so growth doesn’t cost your life.
https://www.highspire.com
Show Notes:
Introduction and Background of Paul Atherton (0:00)
The Importance of Self-Managed Companies (1:44)
Challenges in Transitioning to Business Leadership (6:20)
Building a Strong Brand and Marketing Strategy (11:25)
The Role of Coaching, Community, Content, and Capital (26:44)
The Importance of Anti-Goals (33:32)
The Journey to Building High Spire (36:23)
The Role of Identity in Business Success (37:57)
The High Spire Event in Mexico (42:57)
Final Thoughts and Contact Information (44:32)
Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano
Podcast Produced By:
Motif Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Wealth is going to come. There'sno mysterious force out there
(00:02):
keeping you from doing this.
It's a foregone conclusion. Justfollow the process. You're going
to get there. While you're doingthat, though, set up anti goals
for yourself, and what those areis negative outcomes that you
want to avoid in pursuit of yourfinancial goals. Welcome
to builders budgets and beers.
I'm Rhys Barnes and I startedthis podcast to have real
conversations about money in thebuilding industry, the wins, the
mistakes and everything inbetween. I believe builders
(00:25):
deserve to feel confident abouttheir finances, and that starts
by hearing from others who'vebeen through it too. This
industry can be slow to change,but the right stories and the
right tools can makeprofitability feel possible.
Let's get into it. Doalrighty, mics are hot. We're
(00:48):
rolling. Paul, thanks for comingon, dude. Thanks for joining the
pod. Thanks for having me. Ofcourse, of course. Um at you
know, just per usual, just sothe listeners know who they're
going to be hearing from today.
Give give the listeners a littlebackground on yourself and what
you're all about over highSpire, sure.
Yeah. So my name is Paul. I havethe privilege of running an
(01:12):
organization called high spirecoaching and capital. Later on
in the conversation here, I'msure we'll get into why this is
called coaching and capital, butyeah, so what we do is we work
with builders to in commercialand residential construction to
build wealth. We do that twoways. We help them build self
(01:34):
managed companies, and then whenit makes sense, we help them
deploy their free cash intovery, very successful real
estate projects. Love it.
Love it, self managed companies.
You could also call them ATMs atthat point, just printing cash,
and then you help them deployit. Go ahead,
(01:57):
yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean,see the the whole let's see
businesses exist to if you'redoing it right and you have the
right focus. A business existsto improve the lives of you know
yourself, your family, the staffand the various vendor partners
(02:22):
and people that work with youand the community around you,
and one of the commonalities wesee with companies that are on a
strong trajectory to becomingself managed is that they do
that very, very well. Yeah,pinching cash is part of it, but
I think another a better way todescribe it, as you create an
(02:42):
ecosystem that is just there toimprove what improve lives.
Wealth is a part of it, butthere's other factors that come
into play, of course.
Okay, well, I think this is likealready like a great topic. So
when, when you're let me telltake a step back. I want 100%
(03:05):
agree that it should be theintention of the business should
be to strengthen your family,your your personal situation,
the people that you employ, thepeople that you do business
with, the consumers that thatconsume your product or service.
That's 100% the case. But that'slike, almost too obvious. Like,
where do you see businesses notdoing that well, and what is the
(03:29):
outcome of those businesses? Iguess, like, or I guess, why do
people not just operate underthat mentality?
Oh, wow. Okay, there's a lot ofthreads to pull on there. To
reframe the question a littlebit. I think you're saying, what
are the commonalities ofbusinesses that can sustain
(03:53):
excellence and continue toadvance to becoming self
managed, and what are thecommonalities of organizations
that can't do that, or can'tseem to punch through those
ceilings. So maybe I'll answerthe latter. Did that correct?
Yeah, so I think it is, and Ithink really what I'm getting at
is, you know, it sounds great,and I think a lot of people get,
(04:16):
like, start business for thosereasons totally, but not
everyone is able to build a selfsustaining business. No, most,
most can't, exactly. So it'slike, that sounds great and all,
but where do they typicallyfail? Which is what you reframed
it as, yeah, okay, well,that's a great question.
(04:39):
And we can be real. We can bereal. I think the listeners
like, I think that's what peoplefrom this episode primarily
would be just stoked to hear,like it's like a reality, self
awareness, check, getting backon
path. Okay, all right, we'll bereal. Yeah, do.
(05:01):
One of the if you put, see, wehave a lot of big, beautiful
organizations in high Spire,okay, if you put those owners
all in a room, they're all opento learning, and they are
probably their biggest selfcritics, but they still
(05:22):
appreciate, you know, they have,like, a lot of gratitude in
life, but they're their biggestself credits, and they're always
open to learning, and they'rejust, they just thirst for
knowledge, and they're alwaysseeking to improve, or not to, I
shouldn't say, improve, butlike, change their identity and
who they are as their businessgrows interesting. Oh, here's
(05:43):
this is not going to make senseto a lot of people, and we'll
get into tactical reasons whybusinesses can't grow because I
think that resonates with peoplemore. But we've been doing this
for a very, very long time. It'san identity it's an identity
problem. Okay? Because mostconstruction companies, most of
them start off like this. Youhave a carpenter. He sees the
(06:08):
owners charging him out at 80bucks an hour. He's getting paid
35 and he goes, maybe I'm justgoing to try and do some side
projects on my own. And then,you know, pretty soon, he does a
good job. He does some goodbackyard spaces, some bathroom
models, et cetera. And he startsgetting some referrals, and now
he has a business nailed it andbut the problem is at some
(06:30):
point, right up to the pointwhere he gets to, like, a
million dollars a year, maybetwo, still a carpenter. But to
move past that, you have tobecome a business person, and
that's a whole different set ofskills that you have to adopt.
You have to be adept at managingyour financial controls, which
(06:55):
is why I'm I was so excited whenI found out about your guys's
product. Totally, it's a hugepart of business. Money, huge
everything. It drives anddictates your strategy, your
decision making, everything youhave to be you have to recognize
that you're a leader now. Sothat means you are taking your
skill set and translating thatonto others and creating a
(07:18):
system in place so that you cantrust that they're going to be
doing things at a level that'sacceptable to you when you're
not there to bird dog thesituation all week long,
multiple sites going at once.
That shift is a really, reallydifficult gap to cross for a lot
of people, they try, and thenthey get frustrated, and the
(07:40):
business just kind of bouncesoff three, four, maybe $6
million a year, and there's alot of friction, and they go,
Wow, I'm making more money backat $2 million a year. Yep, I'm
doing this. And then all sudden,they realize 35 years have gone
by, and they got some trucksand, you know, maybe a shop,
maybe in some rusty tools, andnow they're retiring. Meanwhile,
(08:00):
there's somebody else, and aftersix years, they've got a
leadership team buckled intoplace. They got a brand,
website, strong controls,training systems set up. They
have sales division that's inits infancy, but they're
starting to sell jobs withoutbeing there 100% of the time.
And like, what's the difference?
It's an identity piece. It'sjust them waking up in the
(08:23):
morning and saying, Okay, now Idon't have to be a leader. I'm a
business person. I'm a MarketingI'm an advocate for marketing my
company. I'm a salesperson.
Like, they're taking on adifferent identity than someone
that is just super good at atcarpentry.
Totally okay. And that's andlike, even just tying that back
into like, like a lot of reallysuccessful businesses at high
(08:45):
Spire, like the people that arethe most successful they they
are their biggest self critic,but they're also just, like,
yearning to learn and like,constantly shift and shape who
they are as that, in thatidentity and within their
business. Now you're 100% nailedit. Of like, the story is as old
as time trades. Person sees whatthe owner is doing. Might have
(09:07):
some friction internally,because they could be a part of
a business that's off the rails,no processes, no procedures, no
expectations, right? They'remotivated to go out and start
their own business. And you cancertainly like, do these like
lifestyle businesses to whereyou're making your 80 bucks an
hour direct to you, and you'redoing a million bucks a year in
revenue, and life is good, butnow you need to scale right. If
you're not growing, you'redying, right? You're suggesting
(09:31):
that a lot of this is like,truly a mindset shift, like
today is the day that we aregoing to start, or the
individual is going to startbuilding a sustainable business.
Now, God damn it, these lights.
I need to figure out my newpodcast. The lights is turned
(09:51):
off, and I got to move to turnthem back on. Okay, we're back.
Point being is like, like, like,tactically. Okay, so that makes
all the sense in the world. Butfor someone sitting here is,
it's like, okay, it's not justlike, waking up one day and
saying, I want to be a majorleague baseball player, right?
It's not like, just like one daysaying it, or is it? And then
it's having the control and thein the the accountability to
(10:12):
actually, like, follow up on themarketing. Can you go deeper on
that than just, like, the wakeup one day and like decide that
you're a business owner, or isthat it two questions to answer,
what's my return on capital?
What's my return on time? Everybusiness owner needs to ask
(10:33):
those questions every singleday. What's my return on
capital? What's my return ontime? When you wake when you
start a company, how much timedo you have? Lots, right? I want
to say all the none, but all thetime in the world, yeah. Well,
you have, like, a lot of time.
How much capital Do you have?
None, none, yeah, after you'vebeen operating for a while,
(10:55):
those two equations start tobalance out. You don't you have
some capital and you have sometime. Now, the reason why some
organizations are able toadvance and grow is the
leadership is much better atleveraging those two equations.
So for example, they're okay tosit there and say, I'm gonna, I
(11:21):
just hired somebody to be a sitesuperintendent. I'm gonna focus
the next two months on makingsure they're being onboarded
properly into my company. Or inour case, they're saying, I'm
gonna spend, I'm just saying,like, get coaching guys, like,
come to us. Or, yes, one companyhas dozens of iterations of
success working withconstruction companies. That's
(11:41):
really important, by the way,because construction is a very
unique field, you have to workwith somebody who has, like,
tons of experience workingdirectly in our industry, yep,
and just figure out what's thebest way to move my business
forward? Right? Totally. Well, Ithink solving a problem for
(12:03):
someone, you have to train them.
What about and here's anotherone. What's my return on
capital? As far as marketing Igo, we see people all the time
with crappy brands. It looksbrutal like it's if there's
nothing there, it's just it.
There's nothing that separatesthat brand from the other brands
in the in their in their city,yeah. And this is what one of
the things I love about workingwith construction companies is
(12:26):
most of them suck at marketing,yeah. Being honest, and if you
find a company that's willing toinvest in building out a good
marketing system, they're goingto see massive gains relative to
the other organizations that arecompeting with is you can bet
that those people are notinvesting in marketing, and
that's how you get visibility,and that creates the market
wind, and that creates moreleads. That makes sales easier.
(12:49):
You have more options. It's alsoeasier to hire. When you have a
good brand out there, right? Youget more staff that want to come
work for you. Totally like that.
Return on capital. Go build amarketing program is invaluable,
sure, like, okay, totally well.
And I think that, like, returnon time, return on capital is,
like, a super interesting one.
Not like, even just like tobreak that down, like to digest
(13:13):
and you can, like, you can, youcan just plug high spire at any
point when you're just, like,giving away, like, free
consulting advice. Okay, solike, if I'm starting to ask
questions where you're like,Nah, like, they just need to
sign up for the course, let meknow. But point being, is the
like, constantly obsessivelythinking about return on time,
(13:34):
return on capital. I'm thinkingabout it even from, like, an
adaptive standpoint, right?
Software company, we run out,you go raise big seed round, big
series, a What does that mean?
You raised a bunch of capital.
You got a bunch of cash sittingin the bank. You've got all the
capital in the world. But thealternative is, is like you
(13:55):
don't have all the time in acompetitive space like software
that you might have if you were,like, say a bootstrapped
company, not say that abootstrap company, no capital is
gonna, like, has all the time inthe world, is like walking
through a field of daisies. Butthe point is, is, like, you get
all this capital, so then youcan accelerate through, right?
(14:15):
And you can, like, run fasterthan other companies can,
because you have that resource.
When you're thinking aboutorganizing from the early days,
talk about like, the million, $2million a year builder, and they
have all the time in the world,no capital. What are some of the
most like, basic things? Whatare the things that they should
(14:35):
be prioritizing in those dayswhen they have the time, or when
they're emphasizing their returnon time, or am I thinking about
this wrong?
Well, I so I think, sorry, ifsomebody has been running a good
business and they're doing oneor 2 million a year, they
(14:56):
probably have quite a lot ofcapital that point, because
those businesses can be quite.
Profitable if they haven't beenliving above their means, they
actually have some good capitalto go and make the jump up to 5
million through a couple of keyhires and building out a brand,
which is what, as soon as acompany has enough money in
OpEx, go hire a good projectmanager to get you out of the
(15:21):
field and then start building aneffective brand. And an
effective brand needs tocommunicate like people make.
Let's just go going on this pathfor a second most construction
company brands communicate. Thisis their messages, oh, on
budget, on schedule, and webuilt some houses, and that's
it. And then another thing Ialways hear from guys is the
(15:43):
phone just always rings, and Ialways get work. So I don't need
a brand. It's like, well, if youwant to grow you got to get more
fishing lures in the water, andthey got to look pretty flashy.
Yeah. Now an effective brandcommunicates that there's a
community aspect to what you do.
There's a luxury aspect to whatyou do, it's going to solve a
customer's pain, right? It'sgoing to make them more money
(16:06):
because you're investing inproperty, right? It's going to
make their life easier. Mostbrands don't communicate those
five things, but a good onedoes, and if you do it, you'll
get immediate visibility in themarketplace. Now, how you deploy
that brand is another strategyaltogether, but it's not, it's
not that expensive, and itdoesn't take that much time to
(16:28):
do it. Now, with AI and vas, andthere's a lot of good companies
out there that can help you dothat for pretty
cheap, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Well, and I think that's like,that's the tactical takeaway,
right? Is like, as soon as youhave enough OPEX, which I assume
is operational expenditure, orexpenses, like, you have, like,
enoughabove the working capital that
you need to run your operation.
(16:49):
Yeah,correct. So you have enough
like, go hire the good projectmanager that again, you can
spend time with the train up tothe level and the quality that
you're selling and you want tobe known for in the market. And
then that's when you can startactually, like, leaning in and
taking the time of like, okay,it's me and a project manager.
Might have an office managerinvolved, right? Some type of
administrator, someone like,taking away a lot of the stuff
(17:09):
that takes a lot of time. Nowyou can be really intentional,
to sit down and start thinkingabout your brand, right? And
thinking about it from a from abigger, bigger lens than just, I
have a website, it's like, no,what is this doing? This is now
going to be funneling andfueling and beginning the early
days of what a sales motion isgoing to look like at this
organization.
(17:31):
For sure. Yeah, I wouldn't saythinking about it. I would
recommend that if anyone's goingto go build a brand, they need
to hire an expert that just doesthis for a living. Yeah, they'll
build it for you. They will askyou questions to really
understand what it is thatyou're doing and what the unique
differentiators you are, youhave. And then they will create
(17:51):
that brand messaging, becausethey're the experts. So don't,
don't go try and do this with AIyourself.
Yeah, what's that? Unless you'rejust
starting out, then you don'thave a choice. But,
yeah, exactly. Do you knowCharlotte mustard by chance?
What an amazing name. I don'tit's an amazing name. She's an
amazing gal. She started acompany called im W group, and
(18:16):
this is like all they do. So ifyou don't know her, I'm sure you
have people in your network oflike, people that help build
brands, but I need to intro you,because Charlotte is kick ass,
and I'm actually working withher as I build my brand. So I'm
taking your advice Paul, alsohiring someone that knows,
and it's not I'd love to, I'dlove to meet her, and it's not
(18:37):
just about finding someone tohelp with brand, but when you're
training that project manager,because you got to, by the way,
the biggest role in anyconstruction company, the
biggest role, the most criticalrole, is hiring that person that
can keep you out of the field,or promoting that person in your
company to a position to keepyou out of the field.
(18:59):
Why because that time that mostowners are spending in the field
can be 2030, 4050, hours a week,and then as soon as they're out
of the field, all the otheractivities necessary to build up
(19:19):
like a $30 million a yearJuggernaut is actually quite
adaptable. And what I mean byadaptable is like, if you
realize, okay, like, I justhired, you know, this person
keep he or she to keep me out ofoperations. Now I have 30 hours
a week where I can focus onmarketing and sales and then
(19:42):
managing the person who'srunning my financial controls
and running ops. But I've 30hours a week to focus on
marketing and sales. You canleverage 30 hours a week in very
powerful way. Just doingmarketing and sales like one
person can be very effective inthose in those areas. Another
thing I'll say though, themanagement of operations and the
(20:04):
management of financial controlsmust be done with simple, clear
systems. In today's age of AI,you can go download hundreds of
documents and SOPs that are justgoing to confuse your team. So
one of the things that we stressis the 8020 rule. When people
come into our system, they justget simple, clear procedures and
(20:28):
accountability systems that havebeen stress tested against super
high performing companies thathave already done this. We're
not here to show everyone howsmart we are and give them
boatloads of information that wegot off chat. GPT, just simple,
clear, concise systems that havealready worked. Doesn't worked
dozens of times with greatcompanies, hundreds of actually,
if you want to count, yeah.
Okay, so that's really importantif you're going to train people
(20:50):
make sure you're you havesystems that are putting up
strong boundaries around howthey're managing their day to
day activities.
Yes. And the reason I wanted toask you the why is because
that's tying back into yourcomment earlier about the
carpenter starts a business bagson, as we call it, right?
(21:15):
They're performing the work.
They're doing the thing. Andthen it's a out of bed next
morning. Business hat on right.
I'm getting the I'm developingthe business skills. I'm
developing the finance acumen,I'm developing the marketing the
sales acumen, the brand acumen,the process acumen, the
management acumen, all of thosethings. That is what business
skill means, and that's why youneed to open up more of your
(21:40):
time. So then you can now say,Okay, I know how to do the
skill. I know how to install thecabinets. I know how to do the
trim. I know how to do the tile,the plumbing, the this or that
the other, that's all stuff thatI can get a team doing. And now
I pull my time over and I lookat my return on time from
building my business skills.
Yeah, fair, yep, yep. It's afull circle
(22:05):
moment that's exactly and assoon as you get yourself out of
operations, it's a clear shot upto level five, self managed
company, yeah. First level,chuck in the truck. Second
level, you're, you're wearingall the hats. Most businesses
never get through that level. Bythe way, nothing wrong with
that. Most businesses neverpunch through. That's where the
owner's managing finance,marketing, sales ops. Third
(22:28):
Level, those were the ownersonly managing sales, sales and
marketing. Fourth. Fourth levelis where the owner has a
leadership team running sales,marketing, operations and
finance. And the fifth level iswhere the owner has a general
manager, managing the leadershipteam, and that's a true self
managed company. And at thatpoint, at that point, that's
(22:53):
when the companies really takeoff, because it's usually about
that. It's usually at that levelwhere they're rolling out like a
little bit of equity ownershipto their leadership team and
their general manager, and thenthose people are all
incentivized themselves tocontinue growing the
organization beyond its currentstate of its doing, 20 million a
(23:14):
year. You'll see it'll jump to30 million. And then they'll
start talking about differentrevenue streams, etc, maybe
operating in a different area,because they're all motivated to
continue growing theorganization beyond your
capabilities, and frankly,they're going to be better at
their job than you at thatpoint, because all they focus on
is operations, or all they focuson is financial controls, which
(23:35):
is great, and that's one of thehallmarks of a great leaders.
They're able to train peopleunder them to execute at a
higher level than they can, loveit, love it. And that's, I think
that's like the dream, right?
Like you can, just like the likethe people that are listening
are like, God, like, how do I dothat? Why do people and we this
(23:55):
might be redundant, but why isit level two that always is like
the biggest roadblock, thebiggest hurdle.
They just can't. I think I mightbe wrong, but I mean, I could.
I'd love to chat with you aboutthis further offline, but I
think it's the identity piece.
Guys just can't. They just, theyjust can't get themselves out of
(24:18):
being a foreman that manages ajob site. Yeah, have to get
themselves out of operations.
And, I mean, we could do itoffline if you wanted to, but I
think that, like, frankly, like,I guess this is how I've just
ran builders budgets and beers.
It's like very authenticconversation is, is, I think the
conversation is good from a selfawareness standpoint, because I
(24:44):
think, like, you need to havelike, takeaways in a podcast and
like, people push structure,which I could probably get
better at, but I'm just like, sooff the cuff. I think when
you're when you're thinkingabout the guys that can't get
out of the way of being a formerDo you think that it's because,
like, you. That's where they'veseen the most success, and
that's where they likeinternally, place the most value
on themselves, like it's acomfort thing, right?
(25:09):
100% yeah, there's a has.
Actually, I had a conversationwith a doctor friend of mine
about this a couple months ago,and he goes, Ah, that's being in
what's called the zone ofproximal development. That's a
medical term. You can Google it.
He said, people who areconsistently advancing their
(25:30):
life, they're always in the zoneof proximal development. What
that is, is that's a place inlife where you need help. You're
always in a place where you needhelp. You're not comfortable.
You need coaching, you needmentorship. You need to be in a
community of people that areworking with you as you roll up
your sleeves, tell everyone,hey, I'm inadequate at what I'm
doing here, and I need help.
Yeah, and you're right where youneed to be, okay. But what
(25:51):
you're talking about is asituation where someone shows up
in the day and goes, I am sogood at building houses. I am so
good at organizing the subtrades. Yeah, and, but if
somebody sees a vision of theirlife as doing that at scale,
like having 6789, 10 job sitesrunning at once, where that's
(26:14):
happening, you have to havepeople that you're employing who
are waking up in the morning andsaying that, yeah, and you're
saying I am so good at trainingthis team to run 10 sites at
once. Yeah, we are so good atcommunicating our brand message
to the marketplace. I'm so goodat building a sales division.
(26:35):
Yeah, right, yeah. Okay, sothat's, that's the like, and
it's, huh, that's thedifference, yeah, and that's,
that's where, when that's theit's not as much of, like, the
just wake up out of bed and,like, decided it comes with
action. But it really is. It's,like, own, own the identity that
(26:55):
you're currently trying to getto, own, the identity that
you're Yeah, because, like,effectively, it's like, you
might not be the best atbuilding a division of project
managers that are managing 6789,10, but if you're seeking that
mentorship and that advice, andyou're constantly getting
better, that's where you startto, like, mold into that next
(27:19):
identity. Is that getting toofluffy, or is that what
you're no the then those smallsuccesses that you see create
more action, just compounding.
It's just compounds. You wake upin the morning and you say,
look, okay, I'm just going totake this step. I'm going to
hire or I'm going to promotethis form into being a site
(27:41):
superintendent, and theneventually a project manager.
And then you watch it work. Oneyear, you're spending 30 hours
in the field, I'm just sayingprobably more, but you're and
then the next year, you'respending 50% less time because
they're more capable at theirjob. And when you see that start
to work, and you start building,building the blocks. It's,
there's four buckets, though, ofareas to really focus your your
(28:07):
energy, and that's what we focuson. So we call it four C's, you
got to have good coaching inyour life. So you got to have
people like, it's like sports.
You got to have somebody whoknows how to take your existing
like the resources, yourcapacity, and leverage it to
create more skill. Okay, so yougotta have good coaching. You
(28:29):
gotta have a good communityaround you, like you got to be
in a room with people that aresmarter than you, and you also
have to be in a room with peoplethat are asking you for advice
so you can reframe whateverparadigm you believe you got to
have good content, like you haveto, like, a lot of times, guys
are saying, Oh, how do I holdaccountability with my team?
Well, you know what? That'sactually a process for that, and
(28:52):
we just copy what we've seenwork with other companies have
already done that. And then youhave capital coaching,
community, content, capital.
Capital is a whole another.
What's your relationship withlenders? What's your tax
strategy as you build yourorganization? How do you
translate your organization'sequity onto a leadership team
one day? How do you go and buyan office and do it properly?
(29:15):
How do you like investors comein and they want to maybe work
build a spec home with you in areally wealthy part of your
city, how do you structure thatdeal? That's capital, yeah,
which is actually when peopleare becoming more advanced in
business, that's where they getmost of their value is knowing
how to do that well, becauseit's it can be millions of
dollars one way or the other.
Yeah, four C's, coaching,community, content and capital.
(29:39):
Love it. Love it, okay? Andthat's like, again, this is just
to, like, boil it down. That'swhere you, that's where you
just, you have to start beingintentional and, and, God, what
was it? What was the term livingin the what zone of proximal
development?
The zone of proximaldevelopment, knowing. Thing
(30:00):
actually a medical term. I know.
I'm gonna look it up. I'm gonnalook into the zone of proximal
development, which I think islike, it's great because, like,
No, you're no one. No, you'renot. If you want to build a 40
million, $50 millionconstruction company, you're not
going to be that CEO. Onemorning when you wake up and
say, I'm going to be thatperson, but you start thinking
on that path, and seeking thecoaching, seeking the community
(30:25):
build, getting the content,getting the capital, and doing
those things and moving in thatdirection. I gotta ask. I mean,
where did you how did you starthigh Spire, what was, what was
the drive? What was how did youstart
(30:45):
it? Well, I was just having amorning coffee.
Okay, let's hear it. I want tohear it.
I needed a change in life, andthis is a little over two years
ago. I needed a change in life,and I we, I've been working with
a lot of construction companiesand and I just thought to
(31:06):
myself, Okay, what do thesebusinesses actually need? They
don't need lots of systems.
Okay, go lots of people outthere offering systems they
don't need. What they need is away to truly build wealth to
reach that financial escapevelocity that is going to help,
like we said, their companies,their communities, etc, what do
(31:27):
they need? And I thought back toall the people I'd worked with,
and the people who had builtbeautiful organizations, had
built self managed companies,and they use their companies to
develop their own real estate.
So they became their owncustomers. They built once, and
they got paid for and they setthemselves up to being paid for
(31:47):
decades. And then I thought,Okay, I'm just gonna go build a
company that does that for theconstruction industry. These are
good people. Man, totally.
Anyone who's built aconstruction company that I've
met, that's my own anecdotalexperience. They're good people.
100 not be a good person ifyou're able to go out and build
(32:08):
these execute on these complexprojects and have people work
for you and sell these jobs likethese people all deserve to run
big, awesome companies thatproduce a lot of wealth and make
people's lives better, andthat's what our whole whole
company is built around.
I love it. So was your was yourbackground in construction?
(32:29):
Yeah, so I worked for a numberof years in commercial
construction. I worked allthrough the states. I'm
Canadian, but you know, I'veworked in Wisconsin and Texas
and Utah and Seattle, and I justworked in China for a
while. Do you mind me askingwho? What was the
commercial contractor you workedwith? Oh, gosh, oh, I worked a
(32:53):
whole bunch of them worked for acompany in the US called it
would be no one that you'drecognize. Yeah, okay, okay, it
is fine. Like they're just bigholding companies for, for, for,
like, large national bakeriesand cogen plants and mines and
(33:15):
yeah like that. Yeah. Okay. Igot married in
2016 and my wife said, Hey, whydon't you start business
coaching, or what? No, she said,Don't travel so much. I need you
here. And so I thought, Okay,well, that sounds good. And then
I got into a little bit ofbusiness coaching and worked for
another organization for awhile, and then when I knew I
had to leave it, this wassomething that I thought would
(33:37):
be a next step for me, and thatwas it, dude.
I love it. Okay, so themotivation of the spouse just a
classic, a tale as old as time.
It's now saying, hey, I need youat home. And then you're like,
all right, damn, I'm gonna goout and build it. Totally, yeah,
yeah.
One of the things we always tellpeople is, set up good anti
(33:58):
goals for yourself. There's onething to tell, okay, because
what can happen is we tell thesepeople to go build these
companies, build wealth, buildself managed companies, yeah,
grow to 30 million, and we'regoing to show you the path to
get there, yeah, like they getall excited about building
wealth. But the other thing thatwe say is, hey, look, wealth is
(34:18):
going to come. It's there's nomysterious force out there
keeping you from doing this.
It's a foregone conclusion. Justfollow the process. You're going
to get there while you're doingthat, though, set up anti goals
for yourself, and what those areis negative outcomes that you
want to avoid in pursuit of yourfinancial goals and your
business goals. Okay? Yeah, say,hey, look, I am not going to
(34:40):
build my company if it meansthat I can't take my wife on a
date once a week. I'm not goingto build my company if it means
that I can't be home to havedinner with my children, or that
I can't drive my kids to schoolthree times a week, or I'm not
going to be able to work out or.
You know, go to wing nights withmy with my buddies once a week,
(35:02):
or whatever it is, the thingsthat give you fulfillment and
happiness starts with family andlooking after yourself. By the
way, you're not going tosacrifice those things in
pursuit of your goals. Thebusiness is there to support
your fulfillment, happiness andyour quality of life. Totally
super important,man, dude, the anti goal, that's
great. And I think that even toois like, when you think about
(35:23):
this just again to map it backinto the conversation, it's
like, like, again, you're thesmaller, you're the business
guy. This is like, to yourpoint, you someone could listen
to this podcast and they'd belike, I'm gonna go out and I'm
gonna I'm gonna talk to Paul,I'm gonna build this huge
company, I'm gonna do all thisstuff. But it's like, where do I
start? It's like, well, maybeyou start by like, defining what
do you want your company to looklike? What do you want your
(35:44):
company to provide for you?
Yeah, and it's like, it's dude.
I don't think it needs to be anyrocket science, but I also think
people can lose sight of whatthey want the company to be in
the day to day, right? It'slike, I've got the project, I've
got the job. I need to finishthe job. I've got the next job
(36:04):
coming up. Like, I need to getprepped for that job. And I
think just with all thebusyness, you can lose sight on
the anti goals, right? And itjust slowly starts to creep in.
How? What's your take on that?
How do you how do you advisepeople to stay true to their
anti goals.
It's an identity piece. It goesback to the identity and here's
(36:27):
actually one of the things,because fortunately, we have a
lot of very, very highperforming organizations in high
Spire, and so when people comein, and they might be maybe five
years back from reaching thoselevels of success, we can say,
Look, listen to us. Set up antigoals. Follow this path to you
(36:48):
know, build up the company thatyou want that reflects these
other people that you cantangibly see in our in our
program and in our community.
But go talk to them, and theywill tell them the exact same
thing. They'll say, Look, yourbrain like this is from someone
who's already built up abeautiful company from nothing.
They will always say, hey, look,your brain is going to be
healthier and you're going toattract more high value, high
(37:13):
performance people into yoursphere of influence if you are
fulfilled and happy, so if youare just folk, they can tell
that you are a person that isputting themselves first. I mean
that in a very, very direct andclear way, like everybody I know
(37:37):
who has built up beautifulorganizations, they recognize
they have to put themselvesfirst before they can pour out
and be that good husband, thatgood father, that good friend,
that good boss, they're alwayslike gaging their own ability to
operate at a high level.
(37:57):
Yeah, totally, dude. I love it.
I love it. I think just like ona on a parting note here, I
mean, we've talked a lot aboutidentity, which, like, that was
really like the recurring theme,and I like fully, I think maybe
just like a direct response. Doyou think that it's as simple as
somebody waking up one morningand saying, I'm going to do this
(38:20):
and they're going to shift theiridentity. Do you think it's that
simple?
It is, but they have to putthemselves in a room with people
that have already done this aswell, because the motivation
will disappear. You will runinto challenges. You have to
(38:41):
understand what the rhythms ofsuccess look like and what that
path looks like, and putyourself on that path so that
when you wake up in the morningand you're not feeling
motivated, and you find out thata job's going south, and your
top person quit, and you know,maybe you know you you know
you're you and your spouse gotin a fight or something, and
it's just not the best day, andit's raining outside, and you're
(39:02):
one of your people just crashedyour truck like a bad day,
right? Right? Your your businessand your execution is not
relying on your own motivationto become that person. Because
you are going to as you are inthe zone of proximal
development. You are going toyou're going to experience these
days where you feel thisimposter syndrome, you feel like
(39:23):
you don't belong, and you feellike you can't do it, but your
business and your life has to befollowing a process that is
going to result in hitting,hitting your goals, and it's
going to result in that growththat we're talking about,
for Sure. So, and that just goesback to like the C and
community, right? It's likebeing a part of that community
(39:46):
is massive,and getting advice from people
that have already done this,it's that return on capital,
return on time. How do I managethose two equations? There's
people out there that can giveyou the answer. Uh, we'll give
you the answer. Like, check outour website. Well,
and that's what I was gonna say,like, dude, like, shameless
plug, like, because you, like,that's like, a lot of what you
(40:09):
guys are doing. And even if youjust want to give like, a quick,
like, elevator on, like, whathigh spire is doing and how
people can find you, that'd begreat. Who's a good fit, who's a
bad fit, right? What do you needin order to be a good fit, that
type of thing. Oh yeah,yeah. Www, high Spire, calm, H,
I, G, H, s, p, i, r, e.com, runInstagram, LinkedIn. I'm active
on very active on LinkedIn, soyou can message me too. Yeah,
(40:33):
good fit, bad fit. We havepeople in the organization that
are doing 80 100 million a year.
And we also have companies havecompanies in our organization
that are doing a million a year.
But it's all about justpatience. Another thing that I
say is we talk about buildingwealth, and everyone thinks that
we're trying to get people tohit a home run. Building wealth
(40:54):
is about just getting people onbase again and again and again,
yep, just slow, incrementaljumps, and then after five
years, if you've done itcorrectly, you realize that the
wealth trajectory of yourgrandkids is probably going to
change now, and that can happenin as little as five years. But
you look back and you don't seethese massive grand slam home
runs. You just see you've justbeen a consistent Moneyball
(41:15):
player like that. Brad Pittmovie always use that analogy,
like just you're getting peopleon base, yeah?
So, okay, so good fits are oneto 100 million. If you're a
builder doing this and you'relike, you're sitting here
banging your head against thewall, what do I do to go to the
next level?
(41:35):
Give Paul a call. Yeah, yeah.
Love to, love to chat. Yeah.
No. This is great. This isgreat. And I think just even, I
think probably the most positivething from this is, like there
were certainly, like, somereally strong tactical
takeaways. But I think just likeyour your positive conviction
(41:56):
that this is very doable fornearly every business out there,
just takes the individual who'srunning it to be willing to to
claim that identity. And dude, Ikeep missing it. What is it
that? What is it the state of,what
zone of proximal development?
It's about just getting thoselittle, tiny wins, those little
(42:16):
wins. You get a little win abunch. See a really successful
friend of mine. He said successis built on the back end of a
series of very small but correctdecisions.
Very small but correctdecisions. Yeah.
(42:37):
So you got to be in a goodcommunity, have good coaching.
You have to have to have goodsystems that have been
benchmarked against people thathave built companies that have
already done this. And you haveto be in because eventually,
when your business starts seeingsuccess, capital is another very
key component that most peoplewait until way too late start
thinking about the earlier thebetter. Earlier the better.
(42:57):
Okay, no, well, I think thiswas, this was killer dude, dude,
I'm stoked to see you in Mexico,and also you.
And actually, yeah, anotherplug. Um, yeah, give him a plug
on, on my Coba. Oh, yeah, yeah.
We have a we have an event we'rerunning in January. It's five
days long, and we have expertscoming in from all around North
(43:20):
America, like top salesconsultant in the construction
industry in North America iscoming, two of the top tax
strategists that were partnersand top accounting firms working
directly with construction andreal estate development
companies. We got aI expertscoming in to work with us. The
top builder in America is comingto teach people about how he
(43:40):
grew from nothing to running a$50 million company operating
five different locations. Thereason why this is a five day
event is because we only work inthe mornings and then in the
afternoon. We just give everyonea chance to go out into the
resort and hang out with eachother and talk and connect,
because we're all builders andwe're all and we're all and
there's a lot of experts in thisarea, and you can get a lot of
(44:02):
value just sitting by the poolchatting with somebody, too. And
it's also in a five star. It'salso in one of the nicest
resorts in North America, too,Fairmont Maya Cove. I look it
up. It's pretty, pretty Ballen.
Yeah, great, too. So it's got tonot super expensive.
Yeah, no, this is, this isdefinitely one to think of if
(44:23):
you just go to high spire.combackslash, HX, hyphen, Maya,
Coba, hyphen, 2026, I'm surethere's an easy way to find it.
You can probably get to it fromthe high spire website. But no,
I think this is great. I can'twait to hang out with you guys.
More super solid episode. Iappreciate
you jumping on, Paul, yeah, thisis fun. Good seeing you. Reese
(44:44):
as always, yes, likewise, well,we'll chat soon. All right, man,
take care.
Wealth is going to come. There'sno mysterious force out there
(00:02):
keeping you from doing this.
It's a foregone conclusion. Justfollow the process. You're going
to get there. While you're doingthat, though, set up anti goals
for yourself, and what those areis negative outcomes that you
want to avoid in pursuit of yourfinancial goals. Welcome
to builders budgets and beers.
I'm Rhys Barnes and I startedthis podcast to have real
conversations about money in thebuilding industry, the wins, the
mistakes and everything inbetween. I believe builders
(00:25):
deserve to feel confident abouttheir finances, and that starts
by hearing from others who'vebeen through it too. This
industry can be slow to change,but the right stories and the
right tools can makeprofitability feel possible.
Let's get into it. Doalrighty, mics are hot. We're
(00:48):
rolling. Paul, thanks for comingon, dude. Thanks for joining the
pod. Thanks for having me. Ofcourse, of course. Um at you
know, just per usual, just sothe listeners know who they're
going to be hearing from today.
Give give the listeners a littlebackground on yourself and what
you're all about over highSpire, sure.
Yeah. So my name is Paul. I havethe privilege of running an
(01:12):
organization called high spirecoaching and capital. Later on
in the conversation here, I'msure we'll get into why this is
called coaching and capital, butyeah, so what we do is we work
with builders to in commercialand residential construction to
build wealth. We do that twoways. We help them build self
(01:34):
managed companies, and then whenit makes sense, we help them
deploy their free cash intovery, very successful real
estate projects. Love it.
Love it, self managed companies.
You could also call them ATMs atthat point, just printing cash,
and then you help them deployit. Go ahead,
(01:57):
yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean,see the the whole let's see
businesses exist to if you'redoing it right and you have the
right focus. A business existsto improve the lives of you know
yourself, your family, the staffand the various vendor partners
(02:22):
and people that work with youand the community around you,
and one of the commonalities wesee with companies that are on a
strong trajectory to becomingself managed is that they do
that very, very well. Yeah,pinching cash is part of it, but
I think another a better way todescribe it, as you create an
(02:42):
ecosystem that is just there toimprove what improve lives.
Wealth is a part of it, butthere's other factors that come
into play, of course.
Okay, well, I think this is likealready like a great topic. So
when, when you're let me telltake a step back. I want 100%
(03:05):
agree that it should be theintention of the business should
be to strengthen your family,your your personal situation,
the people that you employ, thepeople that you do business
with, the consumers that thatconsume your product or service.
That's 100% the case. But that'slike, almost too obvious. Like,
where do you see businesses notdoing that well, and what is the
(03:29):
outcome of those businesses? Iguess, like, or I guess, why do
people not just operate underthat mentality?
Oh, wow. Okay, there's a lot ofthreads to pull on there. To
reframe the question a littlebit. I think you're saying, what
are the commonalities ofbusinesses that can sustain
(03:53):
excellence and continue toadvance to becoming self
managed, and what are thecommonalities of organizations
that can't do that, or can'tseem to punch through those
ceilings. So maybe I'll answerthe latter. Did that correct?
Yeah, so I think it is, and Ithink really what I'm getting at
is, you know, it sounds great,and I think a lot of people get,
(04:16):
like, start business for thosereasons totally, but not
everyone is able to build a selfsustaining business. No, most,
most can't, exactly. So it'slike, that sounds great and all,
but where do they typicallyfail? Which is what you reframed
it as, yeah, okay, well,that's a great question.
(04:39):
And we can be real. We can bereal. I think the listeners
like, I think that's what peoplefrom this episode primarily
would be just stoked to hear,like it's like a reality, self
awareness, check, getting backon
path. Okay, all right, we'll bereal. Yeah, do.
(05:01):
One of the if you put, see, wehave a lot of big, beautiful
organizations in high Spire,okay, if you put those owners
all in a room, they're all opento learning, and they are
probably their biggest selfcritics, but they still
(05:22):
appreciate, you know, they have,like, a lot of gratitude in
life, but they're their biggestself credits, and they're always
open to learning, and they'rejust, they just thirst for
knowledge, and they're alwaysseeking to improve, or not to, I
shouldn't say, improve, butlike, change their identity and
who they are as their businessgrows interesting. Oh, here's
(05:43):
this is not going to make senseto a lot of people, and we'll
get into tactical reasons whybusinesses can't grow because I
think that resonates with peoplemore. But we've been doing this
for a very, very long time. It'san identity it's an identity
problem. Okay? Because mostconstruction companies, most of
them start off like this. Youhave a carpenter. He sees the
(06:08):
owners charging him out at 80bucks an hour. He's getting paid
35 and he goes, maybe I'm justgoing to try and do some side
projects on my own. And then,you know, pretty soon, he does a
good job. He does some goodbackyard spaces, some bathroom
models, et cetera. And he startsgetting some referrals, and now
he has a business nailed it andbut the problem is at some
(06:30):
point, right up to the pointwhere he gets to, like, a
million dollars a year, maybetwo, still a carpenter. But to
move past that, you have tobecome a business person, and
that's a whole different set ofskills that you have to adopt.
You have to be adept at managingyour financial controls, which
(06:55):
is why I'm I was so excited whenI found out about your guys's
product. Totally, it's a hugepart of business. Money, huge
everything. It drives anddictates your strategy, your
decision making, everything youhave to be you have to recognize
that you're a leader now. Sothat means you are taking your
skill set and translating thatonto others and creating a
(07:18):
system in place so that you cantrust that they're going to be
doing things at a level that'sacceptable to you when you're
not there to bird dog thesituation all week long,
multiple sites going at once.
That shift is a really, reallydifficult gap to cross for a lot
of people, they try, and thenthey get frustrated, and the
(07:40):
business just kind of bouncesoff three, four, maybe $6
million a year, and there's alot of friction, and they go,
Wow, I'm making more money backat $2 million a year. Yep, I'm
doing this. And then all sudden,they realize 35 years have gone
by, and they got some trucksand, you know, maybe a shop,
maybe in some rusty tools, andnow they're retiring. Meanwhile,
(08:00):
there's somebody else, and aftersix years, they've got a
leadership team buckled intoplace. They got a brand,
website, strong controls,training systems set up. They
have sales division that's inits infancy, but they're
starting to sell jobs withoutbeing there 100% of the time.
And like, what's the difference?
It's an identity piece. It'sjust them waking up in the
(08:23):
morning and saying, Okay, now Idon't have to be a leader. I'm a
business person. I'm a MarketingI'm an advocate for marketing my
company. I'm a salesperson.
Like, they're taking on adifferent identity than someone
that is just super good at atcarpentry.
Totally okay. And that's andlike, even just tying that back
into like, like a lot of reallysuccessful businesses at high
(08:45):
Spire, like the people that arethe most successful they they
are their biggest self critic,but they're also just, like,
yearning to learn and like,constantly shift and shape who
they are as that, in thatidentity and within their
business. Now you're 100% nailedit. Of like, the story is as old
as time trades. Person sees whatthe owner is doing. Might have
(09:07):
some friction internally,because they could be a part of
a business that's off the rails,no processes, no procedures, no
expectations, right? They'remotivated to go out and start
their own business. And you cancertainly like, do these like
lifestyle businesses to whereyou're making your 80 bucks an
hour direct to you, and you'redoing a million bucks a year in
revenue, and life is good, butnow you need to scale right. If
you're not growing, you'redying, right? You're suggesting
(09:31):
that a lot of this is like,truly a mindset shift, like
today is the day that we aregoing to start, or the
individual is going to startbuilding a sustainable business.
Now, God damn it, these lights.
I need to figure out my newpodcast. The lights is turned
(09:51):
off, and I got to move to turnthem back on. Okay, we're back.
Point being is like, like, like,tactically. Okay, so that makes
all the sense in the world. Butfor someone sitting here is,
it's like, okay, it's not justlike, waking up one day and
saying, I want to be a majorleague baseball player, right?
It's not like, just like one daysaying it, or is it? And then
it's having the control and thein the the accountability to
(10:12):
actually, like, follow up on themarketing. Can you go deeper on
that than just, like, the wakeup one day and like decide that
you're a business owner, or isthat it two questions to answer,
what's my return on capital?
What's my return on time? Everybusiness owner needs to ask
(10:33):
those questions every singleday. What's my return on
capital? What's my return ontime? When you wake when you
start a company, how much timedo you have? Lots, right? I want
to say all the none, but all thetime in the world, yeah. Well,
you have, like, a lot of time.
How much capital Do you have?
None, none, yeah, after you'vebeen operating for a while,
(10:55):
those two equations start tobalance out. You don't you have
some capital and you have sometime. Now, the reason why some
organizations are able toadvance and grow is the
leadership is much better atleveraging those two equations.
So for example, they're okay tosit there and say, I'm gonna, I
(11:21):
just hired somebody to be a sitesuperintendent. I'm gonna focus
the next two months on makingsure they're being onboarded
properly into my company. Or inour case, they're saying, I'm
gonna spend, I'm just saying,like, get coaching guys, like,
come to us. Or, yes, one companyhas dozens of iterations of
success working withconstruction companies. That's
(11:41):
really important, by the way,because construction is a very
unique field, you have to workwith somebody who has, like,
tons of experience workingdirectly in our industry, yep,
and just figure out what's thebest way to move my business
forward? Right? Totally. Well, Ithink solving a problem for
(12:03):
someone, you have to train them.
What about and here's anotherone. What's my return on
capital? As far as marketing Igo, we see people all the time
with crappy brands. It looksbrutal like it's if there's
nothing there, it's just it.
There's nothing that separatesthat brand from the other brands
in the in their in their city,yeah. And this is what one of
the things I love about workingwith construction companies is
(12:26):
most of them suck at marketing,yeah. Being honest, and if you
find a company that's willing toinvest in building out a good
marketing system, they're goingto see massive gains relative to
the other organizations that arecompeting with is you can bet
that those people are notinvesting in marketing, and
that's how you get visibility,and that creates the market
wind, and that creates moreleads. That makes sales easier.
(12:49):
You have more options. It's alsoeasier to hire. When you have a
good brand out there, right? Youget more staff that want to come
work for you. Totally like that.
Return on capital. Go build amarketing program is invaluable,
sure, like, okay, totally well.
And I think that, like, returnon time, return on capital is,
like, a super interesting one.
Not like, even just like tobreak that down, like to digest
(13:13):
and you can, like, you can, youcan just plug high spire at any
point when you're just, like,giving away, like, free
consulting advice. Okay, solike, if I'm starting to ask
questions where you're like,Nah, like, they just need to
sign up for the course, let meknow. But point being, is the
like, constantly obsessivelythinking about return on time,
(13:34):
return on capital. I'm thinkingabout it even from, like, an
adaptive standpoint, right?
Software company, we run out,you go raise big seed round, big
series, a What does that mean?
You raised a bunch of capital.
You got a bunch of cash sittingin the bank. You've got all the
capital in the world. But thealternative is, is like you
(13:55):
don't have all the time in acompetitive space like software
that you might have if you were,like, say a bootstrapped
company, not say that abootstrap company, no capital is
gonna, like, has all the time inthe world, is like walking
through a field of daisies. Butthe point is, is, like, you get
all this capital, so then youcan accelerate through, right?
(14:15):
And you can, like, run fasterthan other companies can,
because you have that resource.
When you're thinking aboutorganizing from the early days,
talk about like, the million, $2million a year builder, and they
have all the time in the world,no capital. What are some of the
most like, basic things? Whatare the things that they should
(14:35):
be prioritizing in those dayswhen they have the time, or when
they're emphasizing their returnon time, or am I thinking about
this wrong?
Well, I so I think, sorry, ifsomebody has been running a good
business and they're doing oneor 2 million a year, they
(14:56):
probably have quite a lot ofcapital that point, because
those businesses can be quite.
Profitable if they haven't beenliving above their means, they
actually have some good capitalto go and make the jump up to 5
million through a couple of keyhires and building out a brand,
which is what, as soon as acompany has enough money in
OpEx, go hire a good projectmanager to get you out of the
(15:21):
field and then start building aneffective brand. And an
effective brand needs tocommunicate like people make.
Let's just go going on this pathfor a second most construction
company brands communicate. Thisis their messages, oh, on
budget, on schedule, and webuilt some houses, and that's
it. And then another thing Ialways hear from guys is the
(15:43):
phone just always rings, and Ialways get work. So I don't need
a brand. It's like, well, if youwant to grow you got to get more
fishing lures in the water, andthey got to look pretty flashy.
Yeah. Now an effective brandcommunicates that there's a
community aspect to what you do.
There's a luxury aspect to whatyou do, it's going to solve a
customer's pain, right? It'sgoing to make them more money
(16:06):
because you're investing inproperty, right? It's going to
make their life easier. Mostbrands don't communicate those
five things, but a good onedoes, and if you do it, you'll
get immediate visibility in themarketplace. Now, how you deploy
that brand is another strategyaltogether, but it's not, it's
not that expensive, and itdoesn't take that much time to
(16:28):
do it. Now, with AI and vas, andthere's a lot of good companies
out there that can help you dothat for pretty
cheap, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Well, and I think that's like,that's the tactical takeaway,
right? Is like, as soon as youhave enough OPEX, which I assume
is operational expenditure, orexpenses, like, you have, like,
enoughabove the working capital that
you need to run your operation.
(16:49):
Yeah,correct. So you have enough
like, go hire the good projectmanager that again, you can
spend time with the train up tothe level and the quality that
you're selling and you want tobe known for in the market. And
then that's when you can startactually, like, leaning in and
taking the time of like, okay,it's me and a project manager.
Might have an office managerinvolved, right? Some type of
administrator, someone like,taking away a lot of the stuff
(17:09):
that takes a lot of time. Nowyou can be really intentional,
to sit down and start thinkingabout your brand, right? And
thinking about it from a from abigger, bigger lens than just, I
have a website, it's like, no,what is this doing? This is now
going to be funneling andfueling and beginning the early
days of what a sales motion isgoing to look like at this
organization.
(17:31):
For sure. Yeah, I wouldn't saythinking about it. I would
recommend that if anyone's goingto go build a brand, they need
to hire an expert that just doesthis for a living. Yeah, they'll
build it for you. They will askyou questions to really
understand what it is thatyou're doing and what the unique
differentiators you are, youhave. And then they will create
(17:51):
that brand messaging, becausethey're the experts. So don't,
don't go try and do this with AIyourself.
Yeah, what's that? Unless you'rejust
starting out, then you don'thave a choice. But,
yeah, exactly. Do you knowCharlotte mustard by chance?
What an amazing name. I don'tit's an amazing name. She's an
amazing gal. She started acompany called im W group, and
(18:16):
this is like all they do. So ifyou don't know her, I'm sure you
have people in your network oflike, people that help build
brands, but I need to intro you,because Charlotte is kick ass,
and I'm actually working withher as I build my brand. So I'm
taking your advice Paul, alsohiring someone that knows,
and it's not I'd love to, I'dlove to meet her, and it's not
(18:37):
just about finding someone tohelp with brand, but when you're
training that project manager,because you got to, by the way,
the biggest role in anyconstruction company, the
biggest role, the most criticalrole, is hiring that person that
can keep you out of the field,or promoting that person in your
company to a position to keepyou out of the field.
(18:59):
Why because that time that mostowners are spending in the field
can be 2030, 4050, hours a week,and then as soon as they're out
of the field, all the otheractivities necessary to build up
(19:19):
like a $30 million a yearJuggernaut is actually quite
adaptable. And what I mean byadaptable is like, if you
realize, okay, like, I justhired, you know, this person
keep he or she to keep me out ofoperations. Now I have 30 hours
a week where I can focus onmarketing and sales and then
(19:42):
managing the person who'srunning my financial controls
and running ops. But I've 30hours a week to focus on
marketing and sales. You canleverage 30 hours a week in very
powerful way. Just doingmarketing and sales like one
person can be very effective inthose in those areas. Another
thing I'll say though, themanagement of operations and the
(20:04):
management of financial controlsmust be done with simple, clear
systems. In today's age of AI,you can go download hundreds of
documents and SOPs that are justgoing to confuse your team. So
one of the things that we stressis the 8020 rule. When people
come into our system, they justget simple, clear procedures and
(20:28):
accountability systems that havebeen stress tested against super
high performing companies thathave already done this. We're
not here to show everyone howsmart we are and give them
boatloads of information that wegot off chat. GPT, just simple,
clear, concise systems that havealready worked. Doesn't worked
dozens of times with greatcompanies, hundreds of actually,
if you want to count, yeah.
Okay, so that's really importantif you're going to train people
(20:50):
make sure you're you havesystems that are putting up
strong boundaries around howthey're managing their day to
day activities.
Yes. And the reason I wanted toask you the why is because
that's tying back into yourcomment earlier about the
carpenter starts a business bagson, as we call it, right?
(21:15):
They're performing the work.
They're doing the thing. Andthen it's a out of bed next
morning. Business hat on right.
I'm getting the I'm developingthe business skills. I'm
developing the finance acumen,I'm developing the marketing the
sales acumen, the brand acumen,the process acumen, the
management acumen, all of thosethings. That is what business
skill means, and that's why youneed to open up more of your
(21:40):
time. So then you can now say,Okay, I know how to do the
skill. I know how to install thecabinets. I know how to do the
trim. I know how to do the tile,the plumbing, the this or that
the other, that's all stuff thatI can get a team doing. And now
I pull my time over and I lookat my return on time from
building my business skills.
Yeah, fair, yep, yep. It's afull circle
(22:05):
moment that's exactly and assoon as you get yourself out of
operations, it's a clear shot upto level five, self managed
company, yeah. First level,chuck in the truck. Second
level, you're, you're wearingall the hats. Most businesses
never get through that level. Bythe way, nothing wrong with
that. Most businesses neverpunch through. That's where the
owner's managing finance,marketing, sales ops. Third
(22:28):
Level, those were the ownersonly managing sales, sales and
marketing. Fourth. Fourth levelis where the owner has a
leadership team running sales,marketing, operations and
finance. And the fifth level iswhere the owner has a general
manager, managing the leadershipteam, and that's a true self
managed company. And at thatpoint, at that point, that's
(22:53):
when the companies really takeoff, because it's usually about
that. It's usually at that levelwhere they're rolling out like a
little bit of equity ownershipto their leadership team and
their general manager, and thenthose people are all
incentivized themselves tocontinue growing the
organization beyond its currentstate of its doing, 20 million a
(23:14):
year. You'll see it'll jump to30 million. And then they'll
start talking about differentrevenue streams, etc, maybe
operating in a different area,because they're all motivated to
continue growing theorganization beyond your
capabilities, and frankly,they're going to be better at
their job than you at thatpoint, because all they focus on
is operations, or all they focuson is financial controls, which
(23:35):
is great, and that's one of thehallmarks of a great leaders.
They're able to train peopleunder them to execute at a
higher level than they can, loveit, love it. And that's, I think
that's like the dream, right?
Like you can, just like the likethe people that are listening
are like, God, like, how do I dothat? Why do people and we this
(23:55):
might be redundant, but why isit level two that always is like
the biggest roadblock, thebiggest hurdle.
They just can't. I think I mightbe wrong, but I mean, I could.
I'd love to chat with you aboutthis further offline, but I
think it's the identity piece.
Guys just can't. They just, theyjust can't get themselves out of
(24:18):
being a foreman that manages ajob site. Yeah, have to get
themselves out of operations.
And, I mean, we could do itoffline if you wanted to, but I
think that, like, frankly, like,I guess this is how I've just
ran builders budgets and beers.
It's like very authenticconversation is, is, I think the
conversation is good from a selfawareness standpoint, because I
(24:44):
think, like, you need to havelike, takeaways in a podcast and
like, people push structure,which I could probably get
better at, but I'm just like, sooff the cuff. I think when
you're when you're thinkingabout the guys that can't get
out of the way of being a formerDo you think that it's because,
like, you. That's where they'veseen the most success, and
that's where they likeinternally, place the most value
on themselves, like it's acomfort thing, right?
(25:09):
100% yeah, there's a has.
Actually, I had a conversationwith a doctor friend of mine
about this a couple months ago,and he goes, Ah, that's being in
what's called the zone ofproximal development. That's a
medical term. You can Google it.
He said, people who areconsistently advancing their
(25:30):
life, they're always in the zoneof proximal development. What
that is, is that's a place inlife where you need help. You're
always in a place where you needhelp. You're not comfortable.
You need coaching, you needmentorship. You need to be in a
community of people that areworking with you as you roll up
your sleeves, tell everyone,hey, I'm inadequate at what I'm
doing here, and I need help.
Yeah, and you're right where youneed to be, okay. But what
(25:51):
you're talking about is asituation where someone shows up
in the day and goes, I am sogood at building houses. I am so
good at organizing the subtrades. Yeah, and, but if
somebody sees a vision of theirlife as doing that at scale,
like having 6789, 10 job sitesrunning at once, where that's
(26:14):
happening, you have to havepeople that you're employing who
are waking up in the morning andsaying that, yeah, and you're
saying I am so good at trainingthis team to run 10 sites at
once. Yeah, we are so good atcommunicating our brand message
to the marketplace. I'm so goodat building a sales division.
(26:35):
Yeah, right, yeah. Okay, sothat's, that's the like, and
it's, huh, that's thedifference, yeah, and that's,
that's where, when that's theit's not as much of, like, the
just wake up out of bed and,like, decided it comes with
action. But it really is. It's,like, own, own the identity that
(26:55):
you're currently trying to getto, own, the identity that
you're Yeah, because, like,effectively, it's like, you
might not be the best atbuilding a division of project
managers that are managing 6789,10, but if you're seeking that
mentorship and that advice, andyou're constantly getting
better, that's where you startto, like, mold into that next
(27:19):
identity. Is that getting toofluffy, or is that what
you're no the then those smallsuccesses that you see create
more action, just compounding.
It's just compounds. You wake upin the morning and you say,
look, okay, I'm just going totake this step. I'm going to
hire or I'm going to promotethis form into being a site
(27:41):
superintendent, and theneventually a project manager.
And then you watch it work. Oneyear, you're spending 30 hours
in the field, I'm just sayingprobably more, but you're and
then the next year, you'respending 50% less time because
they're more capable at theirjob. And when you see that start
to work, and you start building,building the blocks. It's,
there's four buckets, though, ofareas to really focus your your
(28:07):
energy, and that's what we focuson. So we call it four C's, you
got to have good coaching inyour life. So you got to have
people like, it's like sports.
You got to have somebody whoknows how to take your existing
like the resources, yourcapacity, and leverage it to
create more skill. Okay, so yougotta have good coaching. You
(28:29):
gotta have a good communityaround you, like you got to be
in a room with people that aresmarter than you, and you also
have to be in a room with peoplethat are asking you for advice
so you can reframe whateverparadigm you believe you got to
have good content, like you haveto, like, a lot of times, guys
are saying, Oh, how do I holdaccountability with my team?
Well, you know what? That'sactually a process for that, and
(28:52):
we just copy what we've seenwork with other companies have
already done that. And then youhave capital coaching,
community, content, capital.
Capital is a whole another.
What's your relationship withlenders? What's your tax
strategy as you build yourorganization? How do you
translate your organization'sequity onto a leadership team
one day? How do you go and buyan office and do it properly?
(29:15):
How do you like investors comein and they want to maybe work
build a spec home with you in areally wealthy part of your
city, how do you structure thatdeal? That's capital, yeah,
which is actually when peopleare becoming more advanced in
business, that's where they getmost of their value is knowing
how to do that well, becauseit's it can be millions of
dollars one way or the other.
Yeah, four C's, coaching,community, content and capital.
(29:39):
Love it. Love it, okay? Andthat's like, again, this is just
to, like, boil it down. That'swhere you, that's where you
just, you have to start beingintentional and, and, God, what
was it? What was the term livingin the what zone of proximal
development?
The zone of proximaldevelopment, knowing. Thing
(30:00):
actually a medical term. I know.
I'm gonna look it up. I'm gonnalook into the zone of proximal
development, which I think islike, it's great because, like,
No, you're no one. No, you'renot. If you want to build a 40
million, $50 millionconstruction company, you're not
going to be that CEO. Onemorning when you wake up and
say, I'm going to be thatperson, but you start thinking
on that path, and seeking thecoaching, seeking the community
(30:25):
build, getting the content,getting the capital, and doing
those things and moving in thatdirection. I gotta ask. I mean,
where did you how did you starthigh Spire, what was, what was
the drive? What was how did youstart
(30:45):
it? Well, I was just having amorning coffee.
Okay, let's hear it. I want tohear it.
I needed a change in life, andthis is a little over two years
ago. I needed a change in life,and I we, I've been working with
a lot of construction companiesand and I just thought to
(31:06):
myself, Okay, what do thesebusinesses actually need? They
don't need lots of systems.
Okay, go lots of people outthere offering systems they
don't need. What they need is away to truly build wealth to
reach that financial escapevelocity that is going to help,
like we said, their companies,their communities, etc, what do
(31:27):
they need? And I thought back toall the people I'd worked with,
and the people who had builtbeautiful organizations, had
built self managed companies,and they use their companies to
develop their own real estate.
So they became their owncustomers. They built once, and
they got paid for and they setthemselves up to being paid for
(31:47):
decades. And then I thought,Okay, I'm just gonna go build a
company that does that for theconstruction industry. These are
good people. Man, totally.
Anyone who's built aconstruction company that I've
met, that's my own anecdotalexperience. They're good people.
100 not be a good person ifyou're able to go out and build
(32:08):
these execute on these complexprojects and have people work
for you and sell these jobs likethese people all deserve to run
big, awesome companies thatproduce a lot of wealth and make
people's lives better, andthat's what our whole whole
company is built around.
I love it. So was your was yourbackground in construction?
(32:29):
Yeah, so I worked for a numberof years in commercial
construction. I worked allthrough the states. I'm
Canadian, but you know, I'veworked in Wisconsin and Texas
and Utah and Seattle, and I justworked in China for a
while. Do you mind me askingwho? What was the
commercial contractor you workedwith? Oh, gosh, oh, I worked a
(32:53):
whole bunch of them worked for acompany in the US called it
would be no one that you'drecognize. Yeah, okay, okay, it
is fine. Like they're just bigholding companies for, for, for,
like, large national bakeriesand cogen plants and mines and
(33:15):
yeah like that. Yeah. Okay. Igot married in
2016 and my wife said, Hey, whydon't you start business
coaching, or what? No, she said,Don't travel so much. I need you
here. And so I thought, Okay,well, that sounds good. And then
I got into a little bit ofbusiness coaching and worked for
another organization for awhile, and then when I knew I
had to leave it, this wassomething that I thought would
(33:37):
be a next step for me, and thatwas it, dude.
I love it. Okay, so themotivation of the spouse just a
classic, a tale as old as time.
It's now saying, hey, I need youat home. And then you're like,
all right, damn, I'm gonna goout and build it. Totally, yeah,
yeah.
One of the things we always tellpeople is, set up good anti
(33:58):
goals for yourself. There's onething to tell, okay, because
what can happen is we tell thesepeople to go build these
companies, build wealth, buildself managed companies, yeah,
grow to 30 million, and we'regoing to show you the path to
get there, yeah, like they getall excited about building
wealth. But the other thing thatwe say is, hey, look, wealth is
(34:18):
going to come. It's there's nomysterious force out there
keeping you from doing this.
It's a foregone conclusion. Justfollow the process. You're going
to get there while you're doingthat, though, set up anti goals
for yourself, and what those areis negative outcomes that you
want to avoid in pursuit of yourfinancial goals and your
business goals. Okay? Yeah, say,hey, look, I am not going to
(34:40):
build my company if it meansthat I can't take my wife on a
date once a week. I'm not goingto build my company if it means
that I can't be home to havedinner with my children, or that
I can't drive my kids to schoolthree times a week, or I'm not
going to be able to work out or.
You know, go to wing nights withmy with my buddies once a week,
(35:02):
or whatever it is, the thingsthat give you fulfillment and
happiness starts with family andlooking after yourself. By the
way, you're not going tosacrifice those things in
pursuit of your goals. Thebusiness is there to support
your fulfillment, happiness andyour quality of life. Totally
super important,man, dude, the anti goal, that's
great. And I think that even toois like, when you think about
(35:23):
this just again to map it backinto the conversation, it's
like, like, again, you're thesmaller, you're the business
guy. This is like, to yourpoint, you someone could listen
to this podcast and they'd belike, I'm gonna go out and I'm
gonna I'm gonna talk to Paul,I'm gonna build this huge
company, I'm gonna do all thisstuff. But it's like, where do I
start? It's like, well, maybeyou start by like, defining what
do you want your company to looklike? What do you want your
(35:44):
company to provide for you?
Yeah, and it's like, it's dude.
I don't think it needs to be anyrocket science, but I also think
people can lose sight of whatthey want the company to be in
the day to day, right? It'slike, I've got the project, I've
got the job. I need to finishthe job. I've got the next job
(36:04):
coming up. Like, I need to getprepped for that job. And I
think just with all thebusyness, you can lose sight on
the anti goals, right? And itjust slowly starts to creep in.
How? What's your take on that?
How do you how do you advisepeople to stay true to their
anti goals.
It's an identity piece. It goesback to the identity and here's
(36:27):
actually one of the things,because fortunately, we have a
lot of very, very highperforming organizations in high
Spire, and so when people comein, and they might be maybe five
years back from reaching thoselevels of success, we can say,
Look, listen to us. Set up antigoals. Follow this path to you
(36:48):
know, build up the company thatyou want that reflects these
other people that you cantangibly see in our in our
program and in our community.
But go talk to them, and theywill tell them the exact same
thing. They'll say, Look, yourbrain like this is from someone
who's already built up abeautiful company from nothing.
They will always say, hey, look,your brain is going to be
healthier and you're going toattract more high value, high
(37:13):
performance people into yoursphere of influence if you are
fulfilled and happy, so if youare just folk, they can tell
that you are a person that isputting themselves first. I mean
that in a very, very direct andclear way, like everybody I know
(37:37):
who has built up beautifulorganizations, they recognize
they have to put themselvesfirst before they can pour out
and be that good husband, thatgood father, that good friend,
that good boss, they're alwayslike gaging their own ability to
operate at a high level.
(37:57):
Yeah, totally, dude. I love it.
I love it. I think just like ona on a parting note here, I
mean, we've talked a lot aboutidentity, which, like, that was
really like the recurring theme,and I like fully, I think maybe
just like a direct response. Doyou think that it's as simple as
somebody waking up one morningand saying, I'm going to do this
(38:20):
and they're going to shift theiridentity. Do you think it's that
simple?
It is, but they have to putthemselves in a room with people
that have already done this aswell, because the motivation
will disappear. You will runinto challenges. You have to
(38:41):
understand what the rhythms ofsuccess look like and what that
path looks like, and putyourself on that path so that
when you wake up in the morningand you're not feeling
motivated, and you find out thata job's going south, and your
top person quit, and you know,maybe you know you you know
you're you and your spouse gotin a fight or something, and
it's just not the best day, andit's raining outside, and you're
(39:02):
one of your people just crashedyour truck like a bad day,
right? Right? Your your businessand your execution is not
relying on your own motivationto become that person. Because
you are going to as you are inthe zone of proximal
development. You are going toyou're going to experience these
days where you feel thisimposter syndrome, you feel like
(39:23):
you don't belong, and you feellike you can't do it, but your
business and your life has to befollowing a process that is
going to result in hitting,hitting your goals, and it's
going to result in that growththat we're talking about,
for Sure. So, and that just goesback to like the C and
community, right? It's likebeing a part of that community
(39:46):
is massive,and getting advice from people
that have already done this,it's that return on capital,
return on time. How do I managethose two equations? There's
people out there that can giveyou the answer. Uh, we'll give
you the answer. Like, check outour website. Well,
and that's what I was gonna say,like, dude, like, shameless
plug, like, because you, like,that's like, a lot of what you
(40:09):
guys are doing. And even if youjust want to give like, a quick,
like, elevator on, like, whathigh spire is doing and how
people can find you, that'd begreat. Who's a good fit, who's a
bad fit, right? What do you needin order to be a good fit, that
type of thing. Oh yeah,yeah. Www, high Spire, calm, H,
I, G, H, s, p, i, r, e.com, runInstagram, LinkedIn. I'm active
on very active on LinkedIn, soyou can message me too. Yeah,
(40:33):
good fit, bad fit. We havepeople in the organization that
are doing 80 100 million a year.
And we also have companies havecompanies in our organization
that are doing a million a year.
But it's all about justpatience. Another thing that I
say is we talk about buildingwealth, and everyone thinks that
we're trying to get people tohit a home run. Building wealth
(40:54):
is about just getting people onbase again and again and again,
yep, just slow, incrementaljumps, and then after five
years, if you've done itcorrectly, you realize that the
wealth trajectory of yourgrandkids is probably going to
change now, and that can happenin as little as five years. But
you look back and you don't seethese massive grand slam home
runs. You just see you've justbeen a consistent Moneyball
(41:15):
player like that. Brad Pittmovie always use that analogy,
like just you're getting peopleon base, yeah?
So, okay, so good fits are oneto 100 million. If you're a
builder doing this and you'relike, you're sitting here
banging your head against thewall, what do I do to go to the
next level?
(41:35):
Give Paul a call. Yeah, yeah.
Love to, love to chat. Yeah.
No. This is great. This isgreat. And I think just even, I
think probably the most positivething from this is, like there
were certainly, like, somereally strong tactical
takeaways. But I think just likeyour your positive conviction
(41:56):
that this is very doable fornearly every business out there,
just takes the individual who'srunning it to be willing to to
claim that identity. And dude, Ikeep missing it. What is it
that? What is it the state of,what
zone of proximal development?
It's about just getting thoselittle, tiny wins, those little
(42:16):
wins. You get a little win abunch. See a really successful
friend of mine. He said successis built on the back end of a
series of very small but correctdecisions.
Very small but correctdecisions. Yeah.
(42:37):
So you got to be in a goodcommunity, have good coaching.
You have to have to have goodsystems that have been
benchmarked against people thathave built companies that have
already done this. And you haveto be in because eventually,
when your business starts seeingsuccess, capital is another very
key component that most peoplewait until way too late start
thinking about the earlier thebetter. Earlier the better.
(42:57):
Okay, no, well, I think thiswas, this was killer dude, dude,
I'm stoked to see you in Mexico,and also you.
And actually, yeah, anotherplug. Um, yeah, give him a plug
on, on my Coba. Oh, yeah, yeah.
We have a we have an event we'rerunning in January. It's five
days long, and we have expertscoming in from all around North
(43:20):
America, like top salesconsultant in the construction
industry in North America iscoming, two of the top tax
strategists that were partnersand top accounting firms working
directly with construction andreal estate development
companies. We got aI expertscoming in to work with us. The
top builder in America is comingto teach people about how he
(43:40):
grew from nothing to running a$50 million company operating
five different locations. Thereason why this is a five day
event is because we only work inthe mornings and then in the
afternoon. We just give everyonea chance to go out into the
resort and hang out with eachother and talk and connect,
because we're all builders andwe're all and we're all and
there's a lot of experts in thisarea, and you can get a lot of
(44:02):
value just sitting by the poolchatting with somebody, too. And
it's also in a five star. It'salso in one of the nicest
resorts in North America, too,Fairmont Maya Cove. I look it
up. It's pretty, pretty Ballen.
Yeah, great, too. So it's got tonot super expensive.
Yeah, no, this is, this isdefinitely one to think of if
(44:23):
you just go to high spire.combackslash, HX, hyphen, Maya,
Coba, hyphen, 2026, I'm surethere's an easy way to find it.
You can probably get to it fromthe high spire website. But no,
I think this is great. I can'twait to hang out with you guys.
More super solid episode. Iappreciate
you jumping on, Paul, yeah, thisis fun. Good seeing you. Reese
(44:44):
as always, yes, likewise, well,we'll chat soon. All right, man,
take care.
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