October 20, 2025 • 57 mins
We unpack how a contracting career slips from dream to grind and lay out the systems, boundaries, and mindset shifts that restore time, profit, and peace. We share mistakes, hard-won lessons, and practical steps you can apply this week.
• the trap of aimless growth and overwork
• one-man job versus freestanding company
• burnout, bad exits, and accountability gaps
• why home life health predicts work health
• boundaries that require advance planning
• finance basics for profit clarity and saying no
• hospitality mindset for client experience
• journaling as a fast pressure valve
• time audits, FaceTime, and fewer site trips
• first steps to rebuild processes and capacity
Set up a free 30-minute call: go to contractorcuts.com and book on the calendar. Retreat spots include up to three free coaching sessions leading in
Join us January 11–13 in Nashville for the Chart the Course 2026 Planning Retreat. Sign up now and get three free coaching sessions before the event to finish 2025 strong and hit 2026 with a clear game plan. At the retreat, you’ll tackle systems, hiring, marketing, and leadership alongside ambitious contractors, leaving with a blueprint for growth. Spots are limited—visit prostruct360.com to learn more!
Have a question or an idea to improve the podcast?
Email us at team@prostruct360.com
Want to learn more about our software or coaching?
Visit our website at ProStruct360.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:01):
Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover
the good, the bad, and the uglyof growing a successful
contracting company.
SPEAKER_00 (00:14):
Welcome back to Contractor Cuts.
My name is Clark Turner.
I'm James.
Thanks for joining us again thisweek.
So today's topic is a reallylighthearted, fun one.
The title of this episode isWhen the Dream Becomes a Grind.
Oh, you don't talk about grind,babe.
SPEAKER_01 (00:33):
Oh, I grind harder than everybody.
I grind the hardest.
I'm like a mill.
I'm like a grist mill, man.
You're making flour.
I'm making all sorts of flour.
SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
The topic is coming from I think years and years of
myself.
And I think you would be lyingif you talk to anyone who's been
in this industry for 10 years ormore who haven't had seasons of
why am I doing this?
(01:04):
Like this is just a grind.
This is not fun.
I don't enjoy this.
I'm like, I'm I feel like Iworked twice as hard this year
than last year and made the sameor less money.
Like, what is like I'm justdone.
SPEAKER_02 (01:15):
Till this day, when I ask someone how work's going
in in in our industry, andthey're like, living the dream,
baby.
I'm like, you're a liar.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
It's amazing.
It's a grind.
Yes, it is.
Actually, it's more than it'sit's a it can be a grueling
career that amounts to nothing.
Like that's how it feels, right?
Like I've been working my buttoff, and there is nothing to
show for it.
(01:47):
You laugh so you don't cry.
You laugh so you don't cry.
Uh you know, most guys don'tdream of becoming a contractor,
right?
Like most of us have fallenbackwards into what we've told
these stories.
You know, I I literally didn'tswing a hammer, do a single bit
of work.
My dad was in marketing forCoca-Cola growing up.
We were not doing home projects.
We we hired that out.
(02:09):
Uh, and I got into this becauseI had a buddy that was running a
the expansion of a projectmanagement company, and I wanted
to get Esther a ring.
So I said yes to the first jobthat came along that paid me
more than minimum wage.
And 25 years later, here we are.
(02:30):
Um it's not a career that peoplesay, you know, I'm gonna get
into construction.
Now, some do.
Some people love it, and youknow, they grew up around it,
like I can I can kill in that,and that's great.
And and even those guys havethose seasons though.
So today we're talking about acouple different things.
And and the reason I broughtthis topic up, uh, we've we've
hit aspects of this before, butI had multiple times in the last
(02:54):
month of uh coaching guys orreally new guys coming in the
coaching, um, that all like I'veliterally two different guys in
the last month said to me, Ifeel like I'm on my third year
of doing the exact same thing.
And every year I've workedharder and harder and harder.
And I went from 40 hours to 50hours, and I'm putting 60 hours
(03:14):
a week in right now, and I'mmaking less now than I did two
years ago.
And I just don't, like, I'm justI'm just out.
And if I had any other skillsanywhere else, I would be doing
that.
But like, this is where I've gotit.
I've got business, like, I can'tquit.
I got like all like there isthis, this, this epidemic in
construction because of most ofthe time the way the guys get
(03:36):
into this is I get out of highschool or college, I just need
something.
This is hiring.
I my I I renovated houses withmy dad as a kid, and this is
just where I ended up.
Right.
And so because of that, it's notlike I went to school for you
know, aerospace engineering, andnow I'm working at a doing my
(03:58):
passion as a per full-timeprofession, working for SpaceX,
doing like it's not usually atargeted career path.
Yeah, it's normally a job thatturns into your career.
Uh, and so because of that, alot of times it's aimless.
And a lot of times there's zerofoundation of building the
company.
It is, well, I started doing itthis way, and then people liked
(04:21):
how I did it.
So I started doing it more forpeople and doing more for people
and doing more for people.
And so doubling down on anill-built company only makes it
worse.
Uh, and you, it's so difficult.
I mean, the the guys that comein that are just starting or
have been in business for sixmonths, I just salivate because
(04:42):
I'm like, great, no bad habits,no bad processes.
Let's get you built and let'sbuild this foundation.
And then we can build the houseon top of that concrete.
Guys that have been doing it for10 years, I'm like, okay, we got
some work.
Let's let's break some badhabits and you're gonna keep
falling back into those same oldbad habits over the next year, I
promise you.
But just when you get intothose, let's identify them,
(05:04):
right?
Because the way that you runthings as a one-man show and as
a job to make money is differentthan building a freestanding
company that runs without you.
And those are two totallydifferent companies, two totally
different structures, and theythey they operate two totally
different ways.
And so the guy see, I want thatfreestanding dream that you can
(05:26):
step back and do something else,but I built it this way.
And there's no bridge betweenthe two.
And that's what ProStru does.
I mean, that's that's the joy ofwhat I do in terms of like,
let's deconstruct a little bit,build a foundation that we can
build this freestanding companyon top of.
Um, and when you see guys startgetting it and start their eyes
(05:48):
like, ah, uh, why don't I, well,like it's this isn't rocket
science.
It's just like, oh, I neverthought of it that way.
And though, that's I didn'trealize doing it that way, I
can't train someone on becausethat's just how I do it in my
brain.
So I can't train someone andbring them in and work for me
until I change how we do that inour processes.
That side of it is where I'mtrying to push guys and trying
(06:09):
to get them, get them to view itthat way, see it that way, and
start building those structuresaround that side of it.
But to the guys in the middle,to the guys on the right, and
even in that world, there'sthere's these deserts of whether
I'm on an island and feel lonelyand just like, am I doing this
right?
Or there's, I'm, you know, Iremember we I did it, I worked
(06:33):
or worked, I worked, I got alawsuit.
I'm back in the back square zerobecause all the money I'd built
up, I'm having to spend to fixstuff because I hired someone
that did it the wrong way.
Right.
And so how do we get past andget out of those seasons that
it's like uh this is not adream, this is a nightmare, I'm
in the middle of this companyand I hate my life.
(06:53):
I'm just this is not fun.
I don't want to go to worktomorrow.
And how do we get beyond that?
And really, how do you get intothat spot, anyways?
And then how do we move out ofit?
Um I think, I mean, we've allhad seasons, you've had seasons
of this, and I'm sure there willbe seasons in the future for
both of us of this.
And I think there's been for mea few different ways, and I'd
(07:14):
love to hear from you also onkind of breaking those or even
not breaking them, but actionsyou take when you're in them.
SPEAKER_03 (07:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:22):
Um, because I think like camaraderie, friendship,
and people that are in it withyou and have done it together
are are for me kind of a uh thethe horizon line of like, yeah,
come on.
I'm not this isn't today, isn'tthe end.
We've got it, we've got an end.
Let's let's keep going towardsthat.
(07:42):
But what about you?
I mean, what tell me yourthoughts on that?
Uh what's what's over the past15 years of your construction
career, what when you hit those,when you get in those, what how
do you react?
I mean, what's what's yourreaction in a time of like this
is not a dream?
SPEAKER_02 (08:02):
Well, I I do I think back on this a lot when I was 20
or 21 or whatever, I was still Iwas still living where I went to
college in Milledgeville and Iwas working for this uh company
S Construction and uh there wasa guy that I worked with pretty
(08:24):
closely and he had his owncompany and uh I was like so
tell me about how you got intodoing this, like how and he
before I could even ask aquestion, he was like, Don't
don't make this your don't makethis your profession.
And I was like, why?
And he couldn't looking backnow, I can see his face, and his
(08:49):
face said you couldn't possiblyunderstand like I'm not gonna
waste my breath on explainingthis to you.
I just need you to hear me.
Yeah.
Don't do this.
There's just so many things thatlike you it's hard to it's hard
to juggle all the balls that youend up being in charge of.
(09:10):
Yeah.
And up until the point whereit's too many balls to juggle,
is the point where you are like,What was he talking about?
This is great, we're making thisprogress, we're doing this,
we're doing that, and then allof a sudden you're like, oh,
okay.
There's there's too much tohandle.
Yeah.
(09:30):
I haven't built the foundationlike you're talking about.
Aimless is a great point or agreat way to put it.
It's nobody, very few people aregiving it a a roadmap to how to
make this something to wherewhen it comes time when you've
burnt your candle out, andeverybody has I don't think
(09:54):
everybody has a thing for themthat's like this is what I'm
gonna do for the rest of mylife.
No.
Some people do, and some peoplejust decide that that's what
they're gonna do.
But for me, novelty is reallyimportant, like in my
day-to-day.
Like I need new things, I needthings that excite me.
But that doesn't always exist.
Like you do need to go throughthe monotony, you do need to
suffer boredom, and that's goodfor you.
(10:17):
Um But I think when you'retalking about when the dream
becomes a grind, it's when thoseseasons turn into years, years
long stretches.
And and then it becomesdifficult to be like, yeah, I
just gotta grind, I just gottagrind.
You can only tell yourself thatso many times.
It's like, yeah, just grind,just grind.
(10:39):
Um but I I just know that one ofthe biggest parts of this
industry are your relationshipswith people.
And so um, and I don't evenremember what the initial
question you asked.
Doesn't matter.
Uh the first thing that I thinkof when I start feeling the
(11:01):
pressure of I don't want to dothis.
I don't want to do thistomorrow, I don't want to do
this next week.
I need to figure out how I, youknow, how do I get this set up
quickly so I can move on to thenext thing.
Yeah.
Because I try to reinvest in myrelationships, whether it's
calling that like even like asteel supplier that I always had
(11:23):
like a good conversation with,just calling that guy to chat
him up.
Yeah, like having theseconnections, and those that's
like the surface level type.
Like, how can I start my day offwith a good call?
I'm gonna call that guy and justtouch base.
Um but even uh deeper than thatis finding space in my week to
connect with close friends,whether that's a phone call or
(11:46):
even a Zoom or going gettingcoffee or go bowling or go throw
the frisbee or the football,whatever that looks like.
Making sure that you haveconnection points and touch
points with things that bringyou back into what reality is.
Yeah.
Because all of this bullshit canquickly become this is your only
reality.
Yeah.
(12:07):
And phone calls are scarybecause it's always gonna be
this crew drove their car ontothe grass, and I have a
sprinkler system.
And even though that's not thatbig of a deal, the client's
gonna remind you that every timesomething gets screwed up now.
Like that's the mindset.
Failures are constantly held infront of your face when it's
like, ah, I'll just, you knowwhat?
(12:30):
Let don't pay me any more money.
Just shut up.
And I'll finish this for free.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:35):
Yeah.
I I think it's um there is whenwe're in those seasons.
I I I had, you know, when Istarted ProStruct, this thing
that I love doing that, youknow, is I think what I will do
for the rest of my life.
Like no matter what, I I my goalis to partner with contractors,
(12:56):
help them grow their companies.
And I probably will hopefullykind of sink my teeth in in 10
years to a handful and just kindof double down on their board
and kind of help them get there.
And I'll probably downshift uhin new guys and let some of the
other coaches bring on the newguys.
But either way, like for me, Ilove I'm I'm good at thinking
(13:19):
outside the box andtroubleshooting and finding
holes and what people think isis good.
Like that side of it I love andI've found a passion for.
And but I wouldn't have gottenhere without making all the
mistakes myself.
Like I wouldn't have thatknowledge without going through
those seasons.
Um, uh that being said, thebeginning of ProStruct was my
burned out phase of running aconstruction company.
(13:42):
I was done.
And I will admit to everybody,the way we built Atlanta was my
learning, my playground oflearning how to do it the wrong
way.
Um, from loans to how we hiredto how I even stepped out to do
ProStruct was all done wrong.
Uh, and you know, hindsight's2020 uh and expensive uh lessons
(14:07):
that that I learned there, butwe're able to start planning
some of these other locationsthe right way, which has been
great, and helping other guysand grow help them grow the
right way and fixing Atlanta anddoing some other things.
Like it's all great.
But I got to a spot where Iburnt out and I was like the
first exit door that I found, Idumped the company on you and a
(14:28):
couple other guys.
I'm like, all right, y'all takethis and I run and I'm gonna go.
And I think I exited very wrong.
And it wasn't an exit, but likewe were in the same office, but
we were on different floors, andI would sneak in and sneak out
so I wouldn't have to deal withthe upstairs guys because it was
like, I don't, I just don't wantto hear from another homeowner.
I don't, and the problem wasbecause I was so burnt out and I
(14:48):
let it go so far to where I wasready to just and unplug it and
be done, and you guys handle it,and I'm not gonna give any sort
of guidance or any sort ofanything or my opinion or pass
off how I do like because I didthat so well, I did a disservice
to everyone working in thecompany because it was like a I
just flipped a switch on allright, I'm gonna chase this new
(15:11):
thing and whatever happens overthere.
Good luck with that, guys.
Uh, which was the absolute worstthing to do.
I cost myself hundreds ofthousands of dollars in that
season from from doing that.
Um, not to mention, did adisservice.
I mean, you guys were pullingyour hair out because it was
like, help, like somebody, likethis isn't like what's going on?
I don't want to do this.
(15:31):
And you put this on, like, therewas we could probably do seven
hours of diving deep into thatstuff that we me and you could
probably sit with a therapistand work through.
Like, like we've we've had theseconversations and talked through
it.
But like for me, I exited wrongbecause I was so burnt out and
just did it the wrong way.
And I wish I had a coach thatwas with me that was like what
(15:51):
the I the irony is I I turnedmyself into that coach that I
needed in building ProStructbecause it was like, I just wish
when I started I had this, andas I grew, I had this.
And then I got to a spot where Iwas like, man, I exited wrong.
Like, I wish I had a a ProStructcoach with me that'd be like,
okay, let's exit you well.
(16:12):
Like, let's do it this way.
And like, I don't have any,like, the best part of coaching
is like if I'm coaching, I'vegot no emotional tie to them.
And I tell every single coachinguh client I have, I say in the
beginning, like, I just want youto know I don't care about you.
You're hiring me to protect yourcompany.
And if your company does well,you're gonna exit and you're
gonna feel really good and takencare of.
(16:32):
So any decision I make isn'tbecause you want it, it's
because it's best for best forthe company.
And I'm not making decisions,but the advice I'm giving is not
because I want you to go on afun vacation with your family.
It's I don't care about yourvacation.
If this is healthy, you're gonnabe healthy and you're gonna have
a balanced life.
And then bigger picture, yourcompany and your life and your
family is gonna work.
(16:53):
Uh, and you know, if thatmindset, I wish I had someone
there for that.
Because all I could see wasClark's, Clark's vision in that
company and what I was dealingwith and what I didn't want to
deal with.
I I didn't want to go into Ididn't we when jobs started
going south uh after I exited,not I mean it wasn't
(17:13):
catastrophe, but there werethere were some jobs and like
some project managers that weshould have never hired, and
like guys that that were thatwere not trained well and not
not doing what they should bedoing.
When that was happening, I I gotto a spot where I was like, I
don't want to wear my my companyshirt out in public.
What if I run into one of thesehomeowners that are not happy
with our company?
And like, that's not where youwant to be, right?
(17:36):
Like, that's not how you retire.
That's not how you step out of acompany.
You would step out of a companywhere it's built better and and
you pass it off and you haveaccountability to where you help
get it to a better spot than itwas even when I was running it.
I I've replaced myself withpeople that have the passion and
sit there and are trained foryears to do it uh with me.
So again, that's I'm diving deepinto that one specific because
(17:59):
that was for me like my deepest,hardest season.
And I just was like, I'm gonnachase software and coaching.
And I'm I'm I mean, I'm sure youand other guys were like,
Where'd Clark go?
What's going on?
Like, this isn't okay, you'regoing, okay, that's all right,
we got it, right?
And and it wasn't smooth becauseI was so burnt down on it.
(18:20):
And I think that's for me, likeit was a grind to a spot where I
was like, I would rather thiscrash than to spend one more
minute upstairs dealing withthis.
And so I think that to me, it'slike I went too far down the the
grind trail that I'm trying tohelp guys avoid.
(18:41):
Um, now I mean there's there'sI'm making it sound like all
doom and bad.
Like I was still a part of it,we were still doing things and
still run, but I think the thepoint of what I'm saying is that
there was no outside voice thatwas caring for the company.
It was all people looking outfor themselves.
And when you're in the grind,that's where you're at.
(19:03):
And when you're doing the samething over and over and over and
over and over and over, and it'sjust like I can't do this one
more day, it's because there wasnot a game plan for that growth
to get out of that season.
So I think one of the things, ifI'm coaching someone who's in
that season, one of the firstthings I start with is are you
(19:24):
married, spouse, relationship,children?
Like, I need to know what'sgoing on there.
That's I I don't care what yourcompany can burn to the ground,
you can you can file bankruptcy.
I don't care like what'shappening at home.
Because when you grind for 60hours in a week, I promise you
your wife's being missed, right?
And I and I promise you yourkids don't know who their father
is.
And I promise you that yourfriends haven't seen you in two
(19:46):
months, right?
When when you get into thatseason of grind, you are missed,
and then you're not missedanymore because people just
don't see you and you're gone.
Right.
And so for for that season, it'slike, if you're getting that
spot, I want to pull you back.
Like as a coach, like let'slet's let's re-engage the
important and disengage theunimportant.
(20:08):
And you have proven to yourselfyou can't just run your way out
of this, this, this, this stormthat you're in.
So, how do we re-engage theother stuff and have a game plan
to exit the storm because you'renot fast enough?
You've been running, you're justnot fast enough.
So, that to me is you start thatwith the small changes that make
(20:30):
things rewarding again in yourlife.
And usually starts outside ofwork.
It usually starts with thosefriends.
With I I I joined a cigar clubonce a month.
I uh you you start playingfrisbee with you soccer league,
right?
Like stuff of like, I'm groundedas a human.
I'm more than just this stupidcompany that is just doing
(20:51):
nothing.
I'm more than like, even if it'sdoing well, like even those
companies that are doing well,but I'm stuck there and I'm
grinding and it's not fun.
Like, we've gotta find rewardsin our life outside of that,
right?
And so that I think that'snumber one.
It's how do we re-engage thosefriends, family, your kids who
don't care about you being thereanymore because it's just life.
(21:14):
That James is gone, Clark isjust not here, so we kind of
moved on.
Yeah, and and when that happens,friends then family, and it's
happening with families, it'slike, oh man, that's that's
where things get really dark forguys.
So I think I think that's that'snumber one for me is like find
the small rewards outside ofwork.
(21:34):
And then let's transfer to findsome rewards inside the work,
inside of work.
And I think some of the thestructure that we put provide
and some of the the coaching ofthe processes will start uh
let's start measuring whatsuccess looks like, right?
Like when we we harp, I mean,the last three podcasts have
been about finances and money.
(21:55):
That's because that's ourmeasurement of success.
And sometimes you don't know ifyou're successful or not because
you can't you're not managingthat well.
And you might be successful,you're just mismanaging your
money.
And then let's get that in placeto where, hey, let's get
budgets, let's get this inplace, let's understand where
your dollars are.
That allows us to tighten thescrews around that and make you
(22:15):
profitable.
And all of a sudden, thatmeasurement of company success
is going up, right?
And now I'm starting to makemore money.
And I think the the biggestissue that guys are having with
this is that their companysuccess, measuring that is
measuring them as their personalsuccess and who they are as a
(22:36):
person, right?
And so when the success of mycompany defines how good of a
man I am, how good of a father Iam, how good of a husband I am,
I think any healthyrelationship, if I were to say,
Hey, uh Meredith, James's wife,what why is James such an
awesome guy?
I think listing out him and howhe works and the companies he's
(22:59):
built and what he's doing wouldbe seventh on her list, right?
Not number one.
Though us, the the men doing it,that's where we get the value
oftentimes.
Is that's our number one, howsuccessful that company is.
What am I bringing home?
What have I killed and broughthome?
My my I'm failing as a husbandbecause my wife has to work now.
I'm failing as a husband becausemy kids can't go to that private
(23:20):
school.
I'm failing as a as or as afather because my kids can't go
to that.
Like, I don't know any kidthat's like, man, my dad's a
real real failure.
I mean, he's here all the timeand takes me out on dates and we
hang out all the time.
He's at every single one of myball games, but I really wish I
had a PlayStation 5.
So my dad's a failure.
Like, no, like we view it out ofsuch a uh an ugly transactional.
(23:45):
Yes.
Yes.
And what have you done for melately?
Or or what have I done for youlately?
Nothing like financially, thenI'm a failure here.
Yeah.
Right.
And I think it's realigning thatstuff in our brains and starting
to get those small wins.
Uh, even if it's not financial,even if it's not the company
growing, it's I d uh notdiscrediting the wins because of
(24:08):
the other losses happening, butstopping St.
Paul's, hey, that does suck, andthat does suck.
But look, let's let's celebratethis right here.
Like, killed it.
Awesome.
You ran that job start tofinish.
Those other four jobs thatyou're not running through our
processes are going, are on fireright now.
That's okay.
We got new processes.
How's this job going?
Right.
And so on the coaching side, Imean, like that that side of it
(24:30):
is like if we can startidentifying those, those are
it's basically you got to crawlbefore you walk, walk before you
run, right?
And let's just start crawling.
And most guys are in that stagesaying, but all those guys over
there are running.
It's like, well, you don't knowbehind the scenes, you don't
know what else is going on, likeyou can't compare yourself to
them or how many loans theyhave.
SPEAKER_02 (24:48):
Yes.
Yeah one thing that I thinkthere's a really common theme
here.
And I think anybody that's doneany sort of self-reflection or
counseling or even justlistening to podcasts that kind
of touch on that type of thing,the common theme is like
relationships are your healthoutside of work informs your
(25:14):
health inside of work.
Yeah.
So like the relationships thatyou're uh you're building it
with your friends, with yourspouse, with your kids, with you
know, whatever those things areso life-giving.
Like very I I I I never leavetime with a friend being like,
God, I wish I was just actuallyworking.
That was kind of a waste.
(25:34):
I'll go into the time with afriend thinking, yeah.
And then you leave lighter.
You leave lighter because you'rereminded of Yeah, my work is
important.
It it's what keeps food on thetable.
Uh doing someone's renovation,that's important.
We need to get from A to Z.
(25:55):
But the relationship with youand the client, that is like
bringing it back to work.
Like anybody can give them notanybody, but uh there's a plenty
of guys that can give them theproduct that they're after.
SPEAKER_03 (26:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (27:08):
And maybe five percent of those guys can give
them the product and provide theexperience.
And the experience begins withunderstanding what do what do
what do people need?
And like a lot of our jobs inconstruction becomes how do I
help this person understand whythis went wrong and why it's
okay?
Yeah.
And how they're not gonna beleft holding the bag.
(27:31):
We're not gonna abandon you.
There's some things we need todo.
It's gonna be okay.
And maintaining thatrelationship and helping them
get through that with you, likethat could be something that is
uh either a really upliftingthing as part of your job, but
the harder, the the longer yougo in those seasons of I'm just
(27:53):
grinding, grinding, grinding,the worse you become at that
part of it.
And that just starts the what'sthe uh it's like compound
interest in in the reversefashion.
Yeah.
It's like you get worse andworse than at dealing with them
because all the all the clientis to you, all your project
(28:15):
managers are to you, all yourcrews are to you, are trying to
steal your freedom, steal yourpeace, and and and every moment
your phone could ring andthere's something that you need
to deal with, and that puts youin this place of like what's the
next shoe?
That's it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:32):
Well, I I I mean, you're hitting the nail on the
head with with where guys hearthis and do it wrong and get and
trying to find the happiness,trying to find points, trying to
find, you know, rewarding timesis like, okay, you know what?
I'm not gonna miss anothersoccer game.
I'm gonna see my kid play everysingle soccer game.
(28:54):
Well, that's not a decision tomake Wednesday at 5 30, right
before the game starts.
That's a decision to make twoweeks ago when you do your
client engagement agreement andyou plan out your job
accordingly.
So on Wednesday, my I check inwith my client at three and and
lay the groundwork from whatwe've talked about three weeks
ago, how after 5 30, I'm notgonna be able to answer because
(29:16):
I'm doing this, but becauseyou've prepped your processes
well to get there.
And I think what what guys dowrong is they're like, like you
just said, they get into this,like it's this downward spiral
to where I'm not gonna answerthe phone.
No, I'm allowed to be at mykids' soccer match.
You can't tell me not, and it'slike, whoa, yeah, you you you
gotta be an adult and plan soyou can make it to your kid's
(29:38):
soccer match.
I'm not saying don't go to thesoccer match.
I'm saying it's yourresponsibility to plan and prep
so you can make it there withoutdropping your work
responsibilities, right?
And I think that's like uh thatis one of the biggest issues of
why processes and procedures,the two things that I live my
(30:00):
life by, which if you ask myparents when I was 20, they'd
laugh at.
Uh, but like that that causesthe ability to get out of this.
But you got you gotta haveself-control to do those first.
Like, like, like you weresaying, with the uh you get to
the spot where like I'm notgonna answer that, I'm not gonna
do that, and all these people,and every single time the phone
(30:22):
rings, it's because you haven'tset up the processes to deal
with proactively those clients.
Because by then, it's areaction.
SPEAKER_01 (30:31):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:32):
And when you're reacting the wrong way, it's
your fault.
But if I proactively said, well,just so you know, you know, uh,
I don't, I don't do phone callsafter six, this, if you need
anything from me, and you setthose boundaries and you've
ordered the materials.
And we've talked about carpetselection in three weeks ahead
instead of the night beforewe're actually going to be
buying and installing thecarpet.
If you've prepped well and havesome sort of self control and
(30:54):
process to make sure that youcan check out Wednesday night
for your kids' soccer game.
Then you got the green light todo it.
And I think that's that's wherethe disconnect is for a lot of
guys who are like, I'm trying toembrace.
I like I'm saying no to work andI'm saying yes to my family.
And it's like, cool, but you'reyou're you're not doing it what
the right way.
SPEAKER_02 (31:13):
It's not to forsake the other in the other
direction.
SPEAKER_00 (31:16):
It's I'm not asking you to say no to work.
I'm asking you to do workdifferently, so work doesn't
demand that of you becauseyou've prepped, you've planned,
you've set you've setboundaries.
SPEAKER_02 (31:26):
Because guess what?
If you if the 530 game thatyou're trying to make, it's
like, well, I'm I can't makethat game because I have to work
late.
You're gonna work late anyway.
I promise you.
If that's where you're at rightnow, you're gonna end up working
late.
Why don't you hit the game?
SPEAKER_03 (31:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:43):
And then work late after the kids go down.
That's okay.
I bet your wife could understandthat.
She sh you showed up for thegame, you were dad, you were uh
happy, you were making sureevery like you were doing the
thing.
Yeah.
And then you know what, I haveto I have to work tonight.
And that's not a thing that youwant to live on.
But if you have to make thosedecisions, if there's a bunch of
(32:05):
work that needs to be done, andwe are a seasonal type of
industry, there's gonna beseasons that are more heavy than
others.
But like making those decisionsand figuring out how to fit
life, and that's a bad way tosay it, but sometimes you gotta
fit life inside of the nooks andcrannies.
And really the idea is to setyourself up and to set your
(32:26):
processes up so that work fitsinside of your life because you
there's no substitute.
Yeah.
And if and if life is hell,work's gonna be hell.
It's just how it is.
And then the guys that get likeyou lose your family, you you
you lose your wife because lifework became so much hell that I
(32:48):
had to just dive into that hard.
Then family fell by the wayside,and it just I didn't have space
for both.
SPEAKER_03 (32:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (32:56):
Like that's that's a pretty common story.
And it doesn't it doesn't getbetter.
Like you're not just gonna catcha big break because like you
need to like you need tomanufacture that yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (33:10):
Yeah, well, and I I think guys point their fingers
at themselves for the wrongthings and don't for the right
things.
Because I uh you know if youhave again processes in place,
but the the processes of how dowe say yes to jobs and more
importantly, how do we say no tojobs?
(33:31):
If I if I've if I've got thatthree weeks ago, I'm like, let
me look at my projections forthe next six months.
Oh, I can't say yes to this jobuntil December.
I can't say yes to this jobuntil January.
And I tell the client that.
(34:06):
Guys get mad for not showing upto the soccer game.
I'm mad because three weeks agoyou said yes to a job, but you
don't realize that because youdon't have a process in place to
identify how full your scheduleis.
And if you do, we can look andbe like, hey, you can say no to
every job for the next sixmonths and your pipeline's full.
Feel good.
You got the money paid.
Let's put some stuff in place.
Let's work on a new hire.
(34:27):
Let's get you going, but let'sget you down to 40 hours a week
because it's okay to say nobecause we don't need to just
squirrel money right now.
What we're doing is building acompany, right?
And if we can see thelonger-term picture, and uh I
say this to guys when they startwith me.
Worst sales pitch I have is thatI'm not gonna make you more
money for the next 12 months.
We're gonna be building afoundation and I'm gonna steal
(34:49):
as much time away from yourcompany that makes you money as
possible to do that because thennext year we duplicate and we
build on it and we hire someonein that's also another project
manager, and that's when youstart making money.
But it's this I got to say yesto everything, I gotta do
everything now, I've got toreact to everything.
And by doing that, I'm setting28 fires a day because I
(35:09):
haven't, I haven't thoughtthrough this stuff.
I'm just reacting to what'shappening.
Yeah, you're not making a socceron Wednesday.
It's not gonna happen.
But it's not because you had togo to a job site, it's because
you didn't plan ahead.
Right.
And so it's this it's the jobisn't the problem on Wednesday
night.
You three weeks ago was theproblem.
So I think that's that's my mymain point that I try to drive
(35:32):
in of like, we don't get out ofthese seasons reactionary.
We don't get out of this likegrind season by just doing
something different.
It's it's it's a long, slow burnto say, okay, I'm gonna set
these processes up now.
I'm gonna do intakes this way.
I'm gonna do my clientengagement agreement.
This is how I I'm gonna do a ittakes extra time to do a
(35:55):
subcontractor onboarding, how welike to do it with the paperwork
and the meetings and all.
That takes a lot of time.
But do you know what that'ssaving?
That Wednesday night when youwant to go to the soccer game
and the crew is trying to dosomething and screw you because
they didn't know it's notscrewing you, but they're not
abiding by how you want it torun and they're and the client's
pissed off because the clientthat's because you didn't do the
prep work last month ononboarding them well, right?
(36:16):
And so it's like this is it youhave to have self-control and a
bigger vision of why we're doingthis stuff to be able to
eventually get there.
You're not gonna change howthings are acting today, but you
can change how next month looksfor your company.
And that's by having theprocesses on the new jobs coming
in.
It's a it's setting up on thesmall stuff.
(36:38):
I'm not gonna do this, I amgonna do this.
Client, you're not allowed to dothis.
Crew, you're not allowed to talkwith my clients.
Clients are not allowed to talkwith my crews, all communication
goes through me on our jobsites.
All of the stuff that we set upand prep before starting a job
then allows you to have twofires a day instead of 27 fires
a day while you're operating thecompany.
SPEAKER_01 (36:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:57):
And so it's it's a it's an entire ecosystem that
we're building one step at atime.
It's not just, I'm it's not justas simple as an outsider views
you running, you know.
I I talked with one company thathas a coach and he's like, well,
we got to hire someone for this.
We got to hire an accountant,you need to hire an estimator,
you need to hire that.
And I was like, Does this coachknow anything about
(37:18):
construction?
He's like, No, he comes from thebusiness world, but he's really
good at business.
I was like, Where, where?
And he came from the softwaredevelopment side.
And I'm like, their margins are70%.
They can hire eight people andstill be making a ton of money.
Our margins are five percent.
Like our the the residentialremodelers of America did a
study.
The average profit forremodeling companies are four
(37:39):
percent.
He's dealing with 70 pluspercent profits, two different
companies.
Don't hire everybody, don't doit that way.
Let's get with constructionbusiness coaching.
SPEAKER_02 (37:49):
And and not only that, but their product is uh
basically a program.
Yeah.
And part of your product as aconstruction company is your
brain.
And just humans executing aprogram that you've created that
the the issues still exist inthe program like it does in
software, then you gotta fix thebugs and tweak and tweak and
(38:11):
tweak.
Yep.
But then you add in all thevariable of the human experience
and what happened the nightbefore or what happened the
previous week, that the guy'smom died.
Like there's a baj, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (38:21):
Yeah, it's it's the product is customer service, not
selling an actual product.
And it it's it's honestly likeif you're gonna get a coach from
outside of the constructionworld, get someone who does
hospitality and hotels becausethat is the customer service
side.
Yeah, that's all they coach onthere.
They clean places, friendlyfaces.
(38:42):
Yes, thinking through whatpeople want before they even
know they want it, right?
And that's what we're doing.
We're just selling a differentproduct than a hotel room.
We're selling a new kitchen.
SPEAKER_03 (38:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (38:50):
So I think it's again, going back to all of
this, it's that process ofpreset.
If someone walked intoRitz-Carlton and the person
standing up front had no cluewhat they're supposed to do next
or what the game plan is, couldyou that experience is like,
yeah, you're not going hometonight until you figure out
what room they're gonna sleepin, until you get their bags and
put them somewhere, until youget like there's a hundred fires
(39:12):
that just got set because yousaid yes to someone staying at
your hotel because you didn'thave a game plan that was
prepped for the last two weekson it.
So, again, all this being said,I think let's talk about if
you're in that season now or ifyou find yourself in this
season, what are the things youcan be doing today to start
working your way out of it?
I think number one, I want youto write down why you started
(39:33):
and why you're doing this.
I think it's journaling is sucha cuss word for men.
But even just did you write thatdown?
Yeah.
In your journal?
In my journal.
Yeah.
I I think number one, you don'tneed to, you're not sitting down
and saying, Dear diary, today,James, hurt my feelings.
We're not doing that.
That's what you think about whenyou're doing journaling.
(39:56):
James, tell me, like, when youjournal, what are you doing?
Like what does it look like?
What would you suggest ifsomeone was never journaling and
they're gonna get started?
Where do you start?
Where do you get get and growinto just some sort of mental
space that isn't on the gas?
(40:17):
Give us a uh 10 30,000 foot viewof starting with journaling and
why and where.
SPEAKER_02 (40:23):
Just you you get yourself all you do, just get
yourself a nice journal thatlooks like something that you
want to write in.
Or come on the retreat becauseyou'll get on the um I like this
one because it has it's likekind of like graph paper, it's
just dots.
So I can write notes, but I canalso do drawings in here.
(40:44):
So the rule that I gave myselfwhen I started these journals
specifically, there's only onerule, and it's that I can use it
for anything.
Like instead of the mindset ofoh, this is where my feelings
go, I write a lot of oh, I justhad this idea.
I'm gonna jot this real quickscribble of an idea.
(41:05):
And maybe while I'm on thephone, literally for me, if I'm
on the phone with somebody, ifI'm taking notes, I need to be
doodling when they're talking.
SPEAKER_00 (41:14):
I was gonna say, I only know that James is tracking
with me when he's drawing thatlittle face of that dude with
his nose.
I bet we can find it if we flipto the pages.
Probably when when we're talkinga meeting, if he's doodling, I'm
like, cool, he's tracking.
I'm listening.
SPEAKER_02 (41:28):
And if I take notes and I keep writing notes while
you're talking, I'm expoundingon the notes I've already taken,
and that's not good if I'mlistening.
SPEAKER_01 (41:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (41:38):
But if I'm doodling, then I'm listening.
I'm actively listening, and yousay something that perks up like
that's important.
I write that down.
So I've I'm like when I'mtalking to someone, this is all
available for me to write downanything that I need to write
down.
Part of it's gonna be gibberishand doodles.
I might even write, oh, thiswould be a good song lyric, or
(41:58):
this is a funny joke, I justthought of.
But something to just get thenoise out and onto something so
that I can just do that quicklyand not ruminate on something
when I'm I'm not ready toruminate on it.
Writing and then going backthrough it over the week or over
the day, like I took a lot ofnotes today.
I need to go back through andcircle some stuff and expound on
(42:21):
some stuff.
Like I'm constantly journaling.
Constantly.
It's like my my just dumping mybrain onto paper, and then I can
go back and look through thosethings.
There's things that I go backand look at from like a year or
two ago that I'm like, I'll goback and look at my journals and
like, oh, I had this thought acouple years ago, and that
(42:41):
actually makes sense for wherewe are now, but not then.
And it it just opens up this uhit opens up a new world for you
because you're tracking there'sthere's so many random things in
here that I can go back andrelive those experiences and
think through them because I'vejournaled them out.
SPEAKER_03 (43:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (43:03):
There's also just uh you know, being able to draw a
quick sketch of somethinginstead of spending all this
time trying to figure out how amI gonna uh I want to give a
client a drawing of somethinglike you can just get something
done really quickly and thenspend some time on it later
instead of letting it monopolizeyour time, right?
SPEAKER_00 (43:23):
I've seen on a desk estimate with James over on a
Zoom, and he's like flippingthrough with his finger, he's
like this.
And he holds it up to the camerabecause it's like this is what I
was thinking about your kitchenlayout.
SPEAKER_02 (43:31):
Yeah.
And that might seem like like Ithink for it might seem a little
like uh quirky or shoddy.
Yeah, no, you're quirky forsure.
Definitely quirky.
But I'm thinking about it.
Like I'm spending more time.
I guarantee you, I'm spendingmore time thinking about how you
are going to use this renovationin your day-to-day life than the
(43:55):
anybody else that you're workingwith.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:57):
It means something to me to be able to like before
this call, I spent 30 minutesearlier today just thinking
through it, even though I didn'thave to.
SPEAKER_02 (44:05):
It's like the the first couple questions I'm
asking people are about like whyare you doing it?
Like, what's the reason for therenovation?
That's gonna inform almost everysuggestion I'm gonna give you.
It's gonna inform the way thatwe need to map this out.
What kind of benchmark walks dowe need?
Are you gonna be living there?
Then there's a whole nother listof things that we need to cover
(44:26):
and I need to think throughbefore we execute this project.
And there's not like umrenovations are so variable from
every person to person thatthere's really not a good way to
capture a process when it comesdown to that level of minutiae.
Yep.
And so journaling really helpskind of build that out.
(44:49):
And that's just for work.
And then you go to the personalside of it and you can do the
same thing.
Like just thinking aboutself-pity.
It's a huge thing when peopleare stuck in the grind versus
wanting to live the dream.
You uh self-pity is huge.
Everybody is like everyone'strying to take my peace,
(45:10):
everybody's trying to take myfreedom, and then you start
resenting uh everybody that isneeding something from you,
whereas before you felt thegrind, it was nice when somebody
needed something from you.
Oh, I have something to offerthat makes me feel valuable.
Well, as soon as that becomes anobligation versus something that
(45:31):
is like I can't wait to give youmy opinion on that.
It self-pity.
So just journaling aboutself-pity.
I'm feeling like this.
Here's like a couple of thethings, and then you can look at
that and just decide then youcan even journal about that.
Here's why that that doesn'tmean anything.
(45:51):
Here's why they don't owe meanything.
SPEAKER_00 (45:52):
So baby baby steps into a little sneak peek into
the retreat.
The in the back of the the the2026 planner you're gonna get is
we have a section forjournaling, and I have kind of
sectioned off for differentthings like marketing journaling
and brand journaling and bigpicture journaling, and then
I've got one section that'scalled vent then praise.
(46:14):
Like, I want you like if you'repissed off about something, just
take the page.
No one's gonna see this.
Write why you hate it so muchand everything that's stupid
that you feel, and then all Ineed you to do is the set the
the opposing page, praise it.
Why?
Why is it good though?
But at least this client, youknow what?
I'm gonna be done by next weekand I'll be out of there and
(46:35):
I'll be 100% done.
So I gotta let me just get thisdone.
You know what?
The the profit I made wasn'tgreat on this, but I made 15
grand and we're gonna take thekids to Disney World for spring
break.
You know what else is great?
You know, this lady, you know,she's had a rough life.
Like, give me a big vent andthen give me a praise about it.
And it sounds so childish, itsounds so touchy-feely, but it's
(46:56):
like I have never written ventand praise and walked away
pissed off.
SPEAKER_02 (47:00):
Yeah, and you know what?
Sometimes it's gonna look like abig bowl of spinach.
And if you like spinach, thenforget I said spinach.
Yep.
But um, spinach leaves like thisdry patch on the back of your
teeth.
You notice that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what I don't like aboutspinach.
It's not the flavor.
SPEAKER_03 (47:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (47:16):
But you look at that, you look at your vent,
then you look at your praise,and then you just look at it,
and you just eat that whole bowlof spinach.
Yeah.
Because even though you mightnot walk away feeling like,
okay, no, I don't have anyattention left over.
But like looking at that, andlike you'll laugh.
SPEAKER_00 (47:34):
There's a reason.
You'll laugh.
I'm like, what a baby.
All right, I'm over this.
Like it's like, yeah, yes.
Yeah.
So uh uh you don't need to starta journal to be dear diary, and
every day, today is the firstday of October, and I'm gonna be
like, what uh that's not whatthis is about.
This is about what's bouncing inyour brain that you've thought
about seven times over the lastthree days.
(47:55):
Throw it on a paper and get overit.
And it's not just swallowing it,it's understanding why.
Like, why am I like that?
If you can answer why does thispiss me off so much?
And the answer isn't thatbecause that client's a jerk,
but instead it's like, oh, maybebecause I'm I feel really out of
control right now, and they'readding to that chaos.
Yeah.
Right?
Great, put that down.
(48:16):
So what yeah, give it a like putone positive thing at the end of
it.
Give me something positivethat's coming out of this.
SPEAKER_01 (48:22):
Yeah.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (48:22):
Because there is.
There, there you can find it.
And and just writing it down,laughing about it sometimes,
putting something positive, andthen closing the book, and you
might never look at that again.
SPEAKER_02 (48:32):
Or it might be you're complaining about a uh a
crew or a project manager or apartner, and like you do your
whole vent and then you writeyour positive, and you've gotten
that, you got the venom out, andnow you can look at it and say,
this actually needs to be aconversation.
Yeah.
But I need to go into thatconversation having consumed my
(48:54):
bowl of spinach, and now I canactually have a conversation
without just like because whenyou get into that conversation
and you still have all thatvenom built up, it's not the way
you want the conversation to go,but it's going that way.
Yeah.
Turn to the Clark page.
Or is that a whole section?
It's just like a dagger withblood kind of thing.
unknown (49:13):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (49:14):
All right.
So journaling, I think, is agreat place to start.
And it, and I think it feels soweird as a guy if you've never
done it.
Um, and I probably don't do itas much as I should and need to,
but it's something that just tryit this way.
Like, just literally the nexttime you're angry, get a piece
of paper, write, you know, vent,write a praise, throw it away.
(49:36):
I don't care.
Just try it and see what it'slike.
And maybe, just maybe you get alittle bit of peace out of it.
Maybe, just maybe you get alittle bit of like, oh, okay,
that's legit.
I need to talk to that personabout that.
Um, we're not asking you to goto therapy.
If you want to go to therapy,please go to therapy.
But I think this is like babysteps of like, you know what, I
may at least not shove it intothe back of my brain so it comes
(49:59):
out tomorrow.
Um, that's number one.
Number two, I want you toidentify one part of work that
you actually enjoy and make sureyou're doing that.
But at the same time, identifyone part of work that you do not
like.
And you don't like it, mostlikely because you're bad at it.
So, what we need to do is I wantyou to like, you know, if you
(50:21):
love writing an estimate, Ireally love getting into the
weeds with an estimate and canand hunting it down.
Great.
When you, when it's time to dothat, find two hours instead of
one hour to do it and get andjust get that enjoyment out of
it.
Or if you're someone that'slike, my least favorite thing is
to write the estimate that's toomuch detail, I'm not good at it.
Great.
(50:42):
Let's find two hours and you'regonna do it really well.
And you're gonna pretend thatyou're one of those guys that
are really good at it, andyou're just gonna do it.
And you're get you're going toat the end of those two hours,
you're gonna be done with it,and you're gonna have that
estimate that you've beenputting off for three weeks
finally written.
Like, I want to lean into thereally stuff that you love to
get that dopamine and the stuffthat you hate to start
(51:06):
processing.
I'm going to have someself-control around the stuff I
hate because I guarantee youit's back burner stuff and it
all piles up, and that's themost stressful stuff.
The stuff you don't like, let'sbackburn it.
So, one thing you love, onething you hate every single
week.
I'm gonna try to circle those.
If you can do that, great.
You're you're you're getting thedopamine and you're starting to
work dig yourself out of thathole.
(51:27):
Um, also, uh, one thing that Ido with guys starting coaching,
if they're kind of chaotic, isI'm gonna have them write down,
I'm gonna I want a paper journalof like a calendar for two
weeks, and I want everythingsingle thing that you do for two
weeks, day in and day out.
My number one place I start withguys that are out of control in
(51:49):
terms of just everywhere andchaos is I want to try and start
finding more time in their week,which is stop visiting so many
job sites, is usually the numberone answer.
It's guys, it feels good to jumpin the truck and go talk to
Juan, your buddy at the jobsite, and we have the best time
and we're gonna talk about thisand we're gonna talk about our
favorite restaurant.
That's great.
(52:10):
You don't have time for that.
That's that's the problem withyour company is that you are
spending 17 hours a week on thejob site when you only need to
spend seven hours a week.
And so we just found 10 hours ofyour week that we can start
organizing and getting someprogress going.
So I want to cut out one thingthis week that you don't have to
do, but you kind of do it and itwastes your time.
(52:32):
Um, and so, like I said, look atwhen you go to job job sites.
Can one guy probably listens tothe that's gonna laugh at this
because I say it to him weekly.
Can that job site meeting be aFaceTime?
Can that be a FaceTime?
Can it be a FaceTime?
Oh well, he had a question aboutthe the transition.
Can that be a FaceTime?
Yeah, yeah.
I guess we can just FaceTime andhe can show me on the video and
(52:53):
we can make that decision.
I just saved you two hours,three hours of your day.
SPEAKER_02 (52:57):
Yeah.
Guys are guys are reluctant, oldheads are reluctant to because
it seems like it's a uh a lesserversion.
Yeah.
And maybe it is, but there'splenty of things that you can
identify on FaceTime.
SPEAKER_00 (53:14):
It's not lesser, it's lesser in your ego.
You're not the man walking intothe job site that everyone's
waiting to make the finaldecision, and oh, I got Clark's
eyes on it, and now we can ah,great.
Uh like there's this ego aboutwalking onto the job site to
make the final call that guysjust feed and they love.
SPEAKER_02 (53:32):
But there is also like you get pictures that lie
to you.
Sure.
Of like finish and this, that'sit.
So you do need to figure outwhat things you actually can't
do on FaceTime.
But that is totally like thereare so many instances where it's
like you it doesn't even need tobe a FaceTime.
You don't need to show up there.
Call the guy on the phone andget the information you need.
SPEAKER_00 (53:54):
There's no reason.
And I'm not saying don't visitthe job sites.
I'm saying I was thereyesterday.
You have a question of where weshould stack the wood that was.
I was there earlier today.
And you want to know where westacked the two by fours that
were just delivered.
Let's walk around on FaceTimeand figure out where those are
gonna go.
Like, I don't need to drive outthere to be like, oh, let's put
it in that corner of the garage.
Yeah.
(54:14):
You just like you just like tomake trips.
You like hop in your truck andgo because then then you're
useful.
So let's start identifying stuffwe can say no to and cancel out,
and let's let's cancel one thingthat you hate.
It might be delegating it, itmight be eliminating altogether,
it might be, hey, I'm I'mterrible at this.
You know, uh my wife starteddoing some of the bills, maybe,
right?
Like I'm gonna try and startgetting finding the free time
(54:38):
back in my weeks so I can startthen taking that free time and
working on the processes to togrow this and to duplicate
myself.
Um the last thing I have thatyou can do to do literally right
now while you're while you'relistening to this to take one
step in this direction is go tocontractorcuts.com and set up a
(54:58):
free coaching session with me.
We've got three free coachingsessions when you come on the
retreat.
It's if you go to the website,you get it, you sign up.
My calendar's on the websitewhere you can sign up for 30
minutes with me.
We're gonna have a conversation.
If you don't come to the web thethe retreat, that's fine.
Uh it's it's to talk about theretreat and hear about your
company, see if it's a good fit.
(55:19):
If you're coming on the retreat,I'm doing free coaching with
you.
So we've got uh, you know,depending on what month you're
listening to this, if you'relistening to this day one that
it releases, you got threesessions.
If you wait a couple weeks,you're gonna go down to two
sessions because I've kind ofgot monthly sessions leading up
to the retreat where we're doingsome financial planning and some
understanding of your company.
So when you hit the retreat,I've got some personalized stuff
for you when you get there.
(55:41):
That being said, all of this, ifyou're in a funk, set up a
30-minute call.
Even if you're not coming, Iwill give you 30 minutes for
free just to chat, chat withyou.
Have an outsider's voice tellyou you're not crazy or man,
you're acting crazy.
Like, what's going on?
Right.
Like, I will be very honest withyou.
I think one of my strengthscould be a weakness if you ask
my wife, but my strength is I amall cards on the table, very
(56:04):
honest, straight shooter.
Um, don't hold anything backwhen I see stuff.
So that's a great place to startof set up a free meeting.
Let's chat with with uh whereyou're at.
And if you're in the middle ofthe grind and it's not a dream
anymore, let's talk about takingsteps to get out of that.
Thanks for talking.
(56:25):
Any final final words?
We need to have like a JerrySpringer like final words that
you need to have at the end ofthese.
I think that'd be great.
Like just has nothing to do withwhat we're talking about, but
just like Jerry Springer finalwords.
Is that a thing?
Yeah.
Didn't you ever watch JerrySpringer as a kid?
No.
Yeah, I guess my age is showing.
Anyways.
SPEAKER_01 (56:45):
I mean it was on.
It was okay.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (56:47):
You were just healthy.
I didn't watch um, I'vedefinitely seen episodes, but I
never like stayed to the end andlike I don't know what the Jerry
Springer.
Like, give me an example.
SPEAKER_00 (56:56):
I I I can't.
It's just like some sort of likelike you see all this trash for
30 minutes, and then at the endit's like this like words of
wisdom from like Proverbs.
Okay.
And it's like, what?
Like final words.
SPEAKER_01 (57:12):
Like family's important.
SPEAKER_00 (57:13):
Yes, yes, yes.
So, anyways, all right, thanksfor listening, and we will see
you guys next week.
Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover
the good, the bad, and the uglyof growing a successful
contracting company.
SPEAKER_00 (00:14):
Welcome back to Contractor Cuts.
My name is Clark Turner.
I'm James.
Thanks for joining us again thisweek.
So today's topic is a reallylighthearted, fun one.
The title of this episode isWhen the Dream Becomes a Grind.
Oh, you don't talk about grind,babe.
SPEAKER_01 (00:33):
Oh, I grind harder than everybody.
I grind the hardest.
I'm like a mill.
I'm like a grist mill, man.
You're making flour.
I'm making all sorts of flour.
SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
The topic is coming from I think years and years of
myself.
And I think you would be lyingif you talk to anyone who's been
in this industry for 10 years ormore who haven't had seasons of
why am I doing this?
(01:04):
Like this is just a grind.
This is not fun.
I don't enjoy this.
I'm like, I'm I feel like Iworked twice as hard this year
than last year and made the sameor less money.
Like, what is like I'm justdone.
SPEAKER_02 (01:15):
Till this day, when I ask someone how work's going
in in in our industry, andthey're like, living the dream,
baby.
I'm like, you're a liar.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
It's amazing.
It's a grind.
Yes, it is.
Actually, it's more than it'sit's a it can be a grueling
career that amounts to nothing.
Like that's how it feels, right?
Like I've been working my buttoff, and there is nothing to
show for it.
(01:47):
You laugh so you don't cry.
You laugh so you don't cry.
Uh you know, most guys don'tdream of becoming a contractor,
right?
Like most of us have fallenbackwards into what we've told
these stories.
You know, I I literally didn'tswing a hammer, do a single bit
of work.
My dad was in marketing forCoca-Cola growing up.
We were not doing home projects.
We we hired that out.
(02:09):
Uh, and I got into this becauseI had a buddy that was running a
the expansion of a projectmanagement company, and I wanted
to get Esther a ring.
So I said yes to the first jobthat came along that paid me
more than minimum wage.
And 25 years later, here we are.
(02:30):
Um it's not a career that peoplesay, you know, I'm gonna get
into construction.
Now, some do.
Some people love it, and youknow, they grew up around it,
like I can I can kill in that,and that's great.
And and even those guys havethose seasons though.
So today we're talking about acouple different things.
And and the reason I broughtthis topic up, uh, we've we've
hit aspects of this before, butI had multiple times in the last
(02:54):
month of uh coaching guys orreally new guys coming in the
coaching, um, that all like I'veliterally two different guys in
the last month said to me, Ifeel like I'm on my third year
of doing the exact same thing.
And every year I've workedharder and harder and harder.
And I went from 40 hours to 50hours, and I'm putting 60 hours
(03:14):
a week in right now, and I'mmaking less now than I did two
years ago.
And I just don't, like, I'm justI'm just out.
And if I had any other skillsanywhere else, I would be doing
that.
But like, this is where I've gotit.
I've got business, like, I can'tquit.
I got like all like there isthis, this, this epidemic in
construction because of most ofthe time the way the guys get
(03:36):
into this is I get out of highschool or college, I just need
something.
This is hiring.
I my I I renovated houses withmy dad as a kid, and this is
just where I ended up.
Right.
And so because of that, it's notlike I went to school for you
know, aerospace engineering, andnow I'm working at a doing my
(03:58):
passion as a per full-timeprofession, working for SpaceX,
doing like it's not usually atargeted career path.
Yeah, it's normally a job thatturns into your career.
Uh, and so because of that, alot of times it's aimless.
And a lot of times there's zerofoundation of building the
company.
It is, well, I started doing itthis way, and then people liked
(04:21):
how I did it.
So I started doing it more forpeople and doing more for people
and doing more for people.
And so doubling down on anill-built company only makes it
worse.
Uh, and you, it's so difficult.
I mean, the the guys that comein that are just starting or
have been in business for sixmonths, I just salivate because
(04:42):
I'm like, great, no bad habits,no bad processes.
Let's get you built and let'sbuild this foundation.
And then we can build the houseon top of that concrete.
Guys that have been doing it for10 years, I'm like, okay, we got
some work.
Let's let's break some badhabits and you're gonna keep
falling back into those same oldbad habits over the next year, I
promise you.
But just when you get intothose, let's identify them,
(05:04):
right?
Because the way that you runthings as a one-man show and as
a job to make money is differentthan building a freestanding
company that runs without you.
And those are two totallydifferent companies, two totally
different structures, and theythey they operate two totally
different ways.
And so the guy see, I want thatfreestanding dream that you can
(05:26):
step back and do something else,but I built it this way.
And there's no bridge betweenthe two.
And that's what ProStru does.
I mean, that's that's the joy ofwhat I do in terms of like,
let's deconstruct a little bit,build a foundation that we can
build this freestanding companyon top of.
Um, and when you see guys startgetting it and start their eyes
(05:48):
like, ah, uh, why don't I, well,like it's this isn't rocket
science.
It's just like, oh, I neverthought of it that way.
And though, that's I didn'trealize doing it that way, I
can't train someone on becausethat's just how I do it in my
brain.
So I can't train someone andbring them in and work for me
until I change how we do that inour processes.
That side of it is where I'mtrying to push guys and trying
(06:09):
to get them, get them to view itthat way, see it that way, and
start building those structuresaround that side of it.
But to the guys in the middle,to the guys on the right, and
even in that world, there'sthere's these deserts of whether
I'm on an island and feel lonelyand just like, am I doing this
right?
Or there's, I'm, you know, Iremember we I did it, I worked
(06:33):
or worked, I worked, I got alawsuit.
I'm back in the back square zerobecause all the money I'd built
up, I'm having to spend to fixstuff because I hired someone
that did it the wrong way.
Right.
And so how do we get past andget out of those seasons that
it's like uh this is not adream, this is a nightmare, I'm
in the middle of this companyand I hate my life.
(06:53):
I'm just this is not fun.
I don't want to go to worktomorrow.
And how do we get beyond that?
And really, how do you get intothat spot, anyways?
And then how do we move out ofit?
Um I think, I mean, we've allhad seasons, you've had seasons
of this, and I'm sure there willbe seasons in the future for
both of us of this.
And I think there's been for mea few different ways, and I'd
(07:14):
love to hear from you also onkind of breaking those or even
not breaking them, but actionsyou take when you're in them.
SPEAKER_03 (07:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:22):
Um, because I think like camaraderie, friendship,
and people that are in it withyou and have done it together
are are for me kind of a uh thethe horizon line of like, yeah,
come on.
I'm not this isn't today, isn'tthe end.
We've got it, we've got an end.
Let's let's keep going towardsthat.
(07:42):
But what about you?
I mean, what tell me yourthoughts on that?
Uh what's what's over the past15 years of your construction
career, what when you hit those,when you get in those, what how
do you react?
I mean, what's what's yourreaction in a time of like this
is not a dream?
SPEAKER_02 (08:02):
Well, I I do I think back on this a lot when I was 20
or 21 or whatever, I was still Iwas still living where I went to
college in Milledgeville and Iwas working for this uh company
S Construction and uh there wasa guy that I worked with pretty
(08:24):
closely and he had his owncompany and uh I was like so
tell me about how you got intodoing this, like how and he
before I could even ask aquestion, he was like, Don't
don't make this your don't makethis your profession.
And I was like, why?
And he couldn't looking backnow, I can see his face, and his
(08:49):
face said you couldn't possiblyunderstand like I'm not gonna
waste my breath on explainingthis to you.
I just need you to hear me.
Yeah.
Don't do this.
There's just so many things thatlike you it's hard to it's hard
to juggle all the balls that youend up being in charge of.
(09:10):
Yeah.
And up until the point whereit's too many balls to juggle,
is the point where you are like,What was he talking about?
This is great, we're making thisprogress, we're doing this,
we're doing that, and then allof a sudden you're like, oh,
okay.
There's there's too much tohandle.
Yeah.
(09:30):
I haven't built the foundationlike you're talking about.
Aimless is a great point or agreat way to put it.
It's nobody, very few people aregiving it a a roadmap to how to
make this something to wherewhen it comes time when you've
burnt your candle out, andeverybody has I don't think
(09:54):
everybody has a thing for themthat's like this is what I'm
gonna do for the rest of mylife.
No.
Some people do, and some peoplejust decide that that's what
they're gonna do.
But for me, novelty is reallyimportant, like in my
day-to-day.
Like I need new things, I needthings that excite me.
But that doesn't always exist.
Like you do need to go throughthe monotony, you do need to
suffer boredom, and that's goodfor you.
(10:17):
Um But I think when you'retalking about when the dream
becomes a grind, it's when thoseseasons turn into years, years
long stretches.
And and then it becomesdifficult to be like, yeah, I
just gotta grind, I just gottagrind.
You can only tell yourself thatso many times.
It's like, yeah, just grind,just grind.
(10:39):
Um but I I just know that one ofthe biggest parts of this
industry are your relationshipswith people.
And so um, and I don't evenremember what the initial
question you asked.
Doesn't matter.
Uh the first thing that I thinkof when I start feeling the
(11:01):
pressure of I don't want to dothis.
I don't want to do thistomorrow, I don't want to do
this next week.
I need to figure out how I, youknow, how do I get this set up
quickly so I can move on to thenext thing.
Yeah.
Because I try to reinvest in myrelationships, whether it's
calling that like even like asteel supplier that I always had
(11:23):
like a good conversation with,just calling that guy to chat
him up.
Yeah, like having theseconnections, and those that's
like the surface level type.
Like, how can I start my day offwith a good call?
I'm gonna call that guy and justtouch base.
Um but even uh deeper than thatis finding space in my week to
connect with close friends,whether that's a phone call or
(11:46):
even a Zoom or going gettingcoffee or go bowling or go throw
the frisbee or the football,whatever that looks like.
Making sure that you haveconnection points and touch
points with things that bringyou back into what reality is.
Yeah.
Because all of this bullshit canquickly become this is your only
reality.
Yeah.
(12:07):
And phone calls are scarybecause it's always gonna be
this crew drove their car ontothe grass, and I have a
sprinkler system.
And even though that's not thatbig of a deal, the client's
gonna remind you that every timesomething gets screwed up now.
Like that's the mindset.
Failures are constantly held infront of your face when it's
like, ah, I'll just, you knowwhat?
(12:30):
Let don't pay me any more money.
Just shut up.
And I'll finish this for free.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:35):
Yeah.
I I think it's um there is whenwe're in those seasons.
I I I had, you know, when Istarted ProStruct, this thing
that I love doing that, youknow, is I think what I will do
for the rest of my life.
Like no matter what, I I my goalis to partner with contractors,
(12:56):
help them grow their companies.
And I probably will hopefullykind of sink my teeth in in 10
years to a handful and just kindof double down on their board
and kind of help them get there.
And I'll probably downshift uhin new guys and let some of the
other coaches bring on the newguys.
But either way, like for me, Ilove I'm I'm good at thinking
(13:19):
outside the box andtroubleshooting and finding
holes and what people think isis good.
Like that side of it I love andI've found a passion for.
And but I wouldn't have gottenhere without making all the
mistakes myself.
Like I wouldn't have thatknowledge without going through
those seasons.
Um, uh that being said, thebeginning of ProStruct was my
burned out phase of running aconstruction company.
(13:42):
I was done.
And I will admit to everybody,the way we built Atlanta was my
learning, my playground oflearning how to do it the wrong
way.
Um, from loans to how we hiredto how I even stepped out to do
ProStruct was all done wrong.
Uh, and you know, hindsight's2020 uh and expensive uh lessons
(14:07):
that that I learned there, butwe're able to start planning
some of these other locationsthe right way, which has been
great, and helping other guysand grow help them grow the
right way and fixing Atlanta anddoing some other things.
Like it's all great.
But I got to a spot where Iburnt out and I was like the
first exit door that I found, Idumped the company on you and a
(14:28):
couple other guys.
I'm like, all right, y'all takethis and I run and I'm gonna go.
And I think I exited very wrong.
And it wasn't an exit, but likewe were in the same office, but
we were on different floors, andI would sneak in and sneak out
so I wouldn't have to deal withthe upstairs guys because it was
like, I don't, I just don't wantto hear from another homeowner.
I don't, and the problem wasbecause I was so burnt out and I
(14:48):
let it go so far to where I wasready to just and unplug it and
be done, and you guys handle it,and I'm not gonna give any sort
of guidance or any sort ofanything or my opinion or pass
off how I do like because I didthat so well, I did a disservice
to everyone working in thecompany because it was like a I
just flipped a switch on allright, I'm gonna chase this new
(15:11):
thing and whatever happens overthere.
Good luck with that, guys.
Uh, which was the absolute worstthing to do.
I cost myself hundreds ofthousands of dollars in that
season from from doing that.
Um, not to mention, did adisservice.
I mean, you guys were pullingyour hair out because it was
like, help, like somebody, likethis isn't like what's going on?
I don't want to do this.
(15:31):
And you put this on, like, therewas we could probably do seven
hours of diving deep into thatstuff that we me and you could
probably sit with a therapistand work through.
Like, like we've we've had theseconversations and talked through
it.
But like for me, I exited wrongbecause I was so burnt out and
just did it the wrong way.
And I wish I had a coach thatwas with me that was like what
(15:51):
the I the irony is I I turnedmyself into that coach that I
needed in building ProStructbecause it was like, I just wish
when I started I had this, andas I grew, I had this.
And then I got to a spot where Iwas like, man, I exited wrong.
Like, I wish I had a a ProStructcoach with me that'd be like,
okay, let's exit you well.
(16:12):
Like, let's do it this way.
And like, I don't have any,like, the best part of coaching
is like if I'm coaching, I'vegot no emotional tie to them.
And I tell every single coachinguh client I have, I say in the
beginning, like, I just want youto know I don't care about you.
You're hiring me to protect yourcompany.
And if your company does well,you're gonna exit and you're
gonna feel really good and takencare of.
(16:32):
So any decision I make isn'tbecause you want it, it's
because it's best for best forthe company.
And I'm not making decisions,but the advice I'm giving is not
because I want you to go on afun vacation with your family.
It's I don't care about yourvacation.
If this is healthy, you're gonnabe healthy and you're gonna have
a balanced life.
And then bigger picture, yourcompany and your life and your
family is gonna work.
(16:53):
Uh, and you know, if thatmindset, I wish I had someone
there for that.
Because all I could see wasClark's, Clark's vision in that
company and what I was dealingwith and what I didn't want to
deal with.
I I didn't want to go into Ididn't we when jobs started
going south uh after I exited,not I mean it wasn't
(17:13):
catastrophe, but there werethere were some jobs and like
some project managers that weshould have never hired, and
like guys that that were thatwere not trained well and not
not doing what they should bedoing.
When that was happening, I I gotto a spot where I was like, I
don't want to wear my my companyshirt out in public.
What if I run into one of thesehomeowners that are not happy
with our company?
And like, that's not where youwant to be, right?
(17:36):
Like, that's not how you retire.
That's not how you step out of acompany.
You would step out of a companywhere it's built better and and
you pass it off and you haveaccountability to where you help
get it to a better spot than itwas even when I was running it.
I I've replaced myself withpeople that have the passion and
sit there and are trained foryears to do it uh with me.
So again, that's I'm diving deepinto that one specific because
(17:59):
that was for me like my deepest,hardest season.
And I just was like, I'm gonnachase software and coaching.
And I'm I'm I mean, I'm sure youand other guys were like,
Where'd Clark go?
What's going on?
Like, this isn't okay, you'regoing, okay, that's all right,
we got it, right?
And and it wasn't smooth becauseI was so burnt down on it.
(18:20):
And I think that's for me, likeit was a grind to a spot where I
was like, I would rather thiscrash than to spend one more
minute upstairs dealing withthis.
And so I think that to me, it'slike I went too far down the the
grind trail that I'm trying tohelp guys avoid.
(18:41):
Um, now I mean there's there'sI'm making it sound like all
doom and bad.
Like I was still a part of it,we were still doing things and
still run, but I think the thepoint of what I'm saying is that
there was no outside voice thatwas caring for the company.
It was all people looking outfor themselves.
And when you're in the grind,that's where you're at.
(19:03):
And when you're doing the samething over and over and over and
over and over and over, and it'sjust like I can't do this one
more day, it's because there wasnot a game plan for that growth
to get out of that season.
So I think one of the things, ifI'm coaching someone who's in
that season, one of the firstthings I start with is are you
(19:24):
married, spouse, relationship,children?
Like, I need to know what'sgoing on there.
That's I I don't care what yourcompany can burn to the ground,
you can you can file bankruptcy.
I don't care like what'shappening at home.
Because when you grind for 60hours in a week, I promise you
your wife's being missed, right?
And I and I promise you yourkids don't know who their father
is.
And I promise you that yourfriends haven't seen you in two
(19:46):
months, right?
When when you get into thatseason of grind, you are missed,
and then you're not missedanymore because people just
don't see you and you're gone.
Right.
And so for for that season, it'slike, if you're getting that
spot, I want to pull you back.
Like as a coach, like let'slet's let's re-engage the
important and disengage theunimportant.
(20:08):
And you have proven to yourselfyou can't just run your way out
of this, this, this, this stormthat you're in.
So, how do we re-engage theother stuff and have a game plan
to exit the storm because you'renot fast enough?
You've been running, you're justnot fast enough.
So, that to me is you start thatwith the small changes that make
(20:30):
things rewarding again in yourlife.
And usually starts outside ofwork.
It usually starts with thosefriends.
With I I I joined a cigar clubonce a month.
I uh you you start playingfrisbee with you soccer league,
right?
Like stuff of like, I'm groundedas a human.
I'm more than just this stupidcompany that is just doing
(20:51):
nothing.
I'm more than like, even if it'sdoing well, like even those
companies that are doing well,but I'm stuck there and I'm
grinding and it's not fun.
Like, we've gotta find rewardsin our life outside of that,
right?
And so that I think that'snumber one.
It's how do we re-engage thosefriends, family, your kids who
don't care about you being thereanymore because it's just life.
(21:14):
That James is gone, Clark isjust not here, so we kind of
moved on.
Yeah, and and when that happens,friends then family, and it's
happening with families, it'slike, oh man, that's that's
where things get really dark forguys.
So I think I think that's that'snumber one for me is like find
the small rewards outside ofwork.
(21:34):
And then let's transfer to findsome rewards inside the work,
inside of work.
And I think some of the thestructure that we put provide
and some of the the coaching ofthe processes will start uh
let's start measuring whatsuccess looks like, right?
Like when we we harp, I mean,the last three podcasts have
been about finances and money.
(21:55):
That's because that's ourmeasurement of success.
And sometimes you don't know ifyou're successful or not because
you can't you're not managingthat well.
And you might be successful,you're just mismanaging your
money.
And then let's get that in placeto where, hey, let's get
budgets, let's get this inplace, let's understand where
your dollars are.
That allows us to tighten thescrews around that and make you
(22:15):
profitable.
And all of a sudden, thatmeasurement of company success
is going up, right?
And now I'm starting to makemore money.
And I think the the biggestissue that guys are having with
this is that their companysuccess, measuring that is
measuring them as their personalsuccess and who they are as a
(22:36):
person, right?
And so when the success of mycompany defines how good of a
man I am, how good of a father Iam, how good of a husband I am,
I think any healthyrelationship, if I were to say,
Hey, uh Meredith, James's wife,what why is James such an
awesome guy?
I think listing out him and howhe works and the companies he's
(22:59):
built and what he's doing wouldbe seventh on her list, right?
Not number one.
Though us, the the men doing it,that's where we get the value
oftentimes.
Is that's our number one, howsuccessful that company is.
What am I bringing home?
What have I killed and broughthome?
My my I'm failing as a husbandbecause my wife has to work now.
I'm failing as a husband becausemy kids can't go to that private
(23:20):
school.
I'm failing as a as or as afather because my kids can't go
to that.
Like, I don't know any kidthat's like, man, my dad's a
real real failure.
I mean, he's here all the timeand takes me out on dates and we
hang out all the time.
He's at every single one of myball games, but I really wish I
had a PlayStation 5.
So my dad's a failure.
Like, no, like we view it out ofsuch a uh an ugly transactional.
(23:45):
Yes.
Yes.
And what have you done for melately?
Or or what have I done for youlately?
Nothing like financially, thenI'm a failure here.
Yeah.
Right.
And I think it's realigning thatstuff in our brains and starting
to get those small wins.
Uh, even if it's not financial,even if it's not the company
growing, it's I d uh notdiscrediting the wins because of
(24:08):
the other losses happening, butstopping St.
Paul's, hey, that does suck, andthat does suck.
But look, let's let's celebratethis right here.
Like, killed it.
Awesome.
You ran that job start tofinish.
Those other four jobs thatyou're not running through our
processes are going, are on fireright now.
That's okay.
We got new processes.
How's this job going?
Right.
And so on the coaching side, Imean, like that that side of it
(24:30):
is like if we can startidentifying those, those are
it's basically you got to crawlbefore you walk, walk before you
run, right?
And let's just start crawling.
And most guys are in that stagesaying, but all those guys over
there are running.
It's like, well, you don't knowbehind the scenes, you don't
know what else is going on, likeyou can't compare yourself to
them or how many loans theyhave.
SPEAKER_02 (24:48):
Yes.
Yeah one thing that I thinkthere's a really common theme
here.
And I think anybody that's doneany sort of self-reflection or
counseling or even justlistening to podcasts that kind
of touch on that type of thing,the common theme is like
relationships are your healthoutside of work informs your
(25:14):
health inside of work.
Yeah.
So like the relationships thatyou're uh you're building it
with your friends, with yourspouse, with your kids, with you
know, whatever those things areso life-giving.
Like very I I I I never leavetime with a friend being like,
God, I wish I was just actuallyworking.
That was kind of a waste.
(25:34):
I'll go into the time with afriend thinking, yeah.
And then you leave lighter.
You leave lighter because you'rereminded of Yeah, my work is
important.
It it's what keeps food on thetable.
Uh doing someone's renovation,that's important.
We need to get from A to Z.
(25:55):
But the relationship with youand the client, that is like
bringing it back to work.
Like anybody can give them notanybody, but uh there's a plenty
of guys that can give them theproduct that they're after.
SPEAKER_03 (26:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (27:08):
And maybe five percent of those guys can give
them the product and provide theexperience.
And the experience begins withunderstanding what do what do
what do people need?
And like a lot of our jobs inconstruction becomes how do I
help this person understand whythis went wrong and why it's
okay?
Yeah.
And how they're not gonna beleft holding the bag.
(27:31):
We're not gonna abandon you.
There's some things we need todo.
It's gonna be okay.
And maintaining thatrelationship and helping them
get through that with you, likethat could be something that is
uh either a really upliftingthing as part of your job, but
the harder, the the longer yougo in those seasons of I'm just
(27:53):
grinding, grinding, grinding,the worse you become at that
part of it.
And that just starts the what'sthe uh it's like compound
interest in in the reversefashion.
Yeah.
It's like you get worse andworse than at dealing with them
because all the all the clientis to you, all your project
(28:15):
managers are to you, all yourcrews are to you, are trying to
steal your freedom, steal yourpeace, and and and every moment
your phone could ring andthere's something that you need
to deal with, and that puts youin this place of like what's the
next shoe?
That's it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:32):
Well, I I I mean, you're hitting the nail on the
head with with where guys hearthis and do it wrong and get and
trying to find the happiness,trying to find points, trying to
find, you know, rewarding timesis like, okay, you know what?
I'm not gonna miss anothersoccer game.
I'm gonna see my kid play everysingle soccer game.
(28:54):
Well, that's not a decision tomake Wednesday at 5 30, right
before the game starts.
That's a decision to make twoweeks ago when you do your
client engagement agreement andyou plan out your job
accordingly.
So on Wednesday, my I check inwith my client at three and and
lay the groundwork from whatwe've talked about three weeks
ago, how after 5 30, I'm notgonna be able to answer because
(29:16):
I'm doing this, but becauseyou've prepped your processes
well to get there.
And I think what what guys dowrong is they're like, like you
just said, they get into this,like it's this downward spiral
to where I'm not gonna answerthe phone.
No, I'm allowed to be at mykids' soccer match.
You can't tell me not, and it'slike, whoa, yeah, you you you
gotta be an adult and plan soyou can make it to your kid's
(29:38):
soccer match.
I'm not saying don't go to thesoccer match.
I'm saying it's yourresponsibility to plan and prep
so you can make it there withoutdropping your work
responsibilities, right?
And I think that's like uh thatis one of the biggest issues of
why processes and procedures,the two things that I live my
(30:00):
life by, which if you ask myparents when I was 20, they'd
laugh at.
Uh, but like that that causesthe ability to get out of this.
But you got you gotta haveself-control to do those first.
Like, like, like you weresaying, with the uh you get to
the spot where like I'm notgonna answer that, I'm not gonna
do that, and all these people,and every single time the phone
(30:22):
rings, it's because you haven'tset up the processes to deal
with proactively those clients.
Because by then, it's areaction.
SPEAKER_01 (30:31):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:32):
And when you're reacting the wrong way, it's
your fault.
But if I proactively said, well,just so you know, you know, uh,
I don't, I don't do phone callsafter six, this, if you need
anything from me, and you setthose boundaries and you've
ordered the materials.
And we've talked about carpetselection in three weeks ahead
instead of the night beforewe're actually going to be
buying and installing thecarpet.
If you've prepped well and havesome sort of self control and
(30:54):
process to make sure that youcan check out Wednesday night
for your kids' soccer game.
Then you got the green light todo it.
And I think that's that's wherethe disconnect is for a lot of
guys who are like, I'm trying toembrace.
I like I'm saying no to work andI'm saying yes to my family.
And it's like, cool, but you'reyou're you're not doing it what
the right way.
SPEAKER_02 (31:13):
It's not to forsake the other in the other
direction.
SPEAKER_00 (31:16):
It's I'm not asking you to say no to work.
I'm asking you to do workdifferently, so work doesn't
demand that of you becauseyou've prepped, you've planned,
you've set you've setboundaries.
SPEAKER_02 (31:26):
Because guess what?
If you if the 530 game thatyou're trying to make, it's
like, well, I'm I can't makethat game because I have to work
late.
You're gonna work late anyway.
I promise you.
If that's where you're at rightnow, you're gonna end up working
late.
Why don't you hit the game?
SPEAKER_03 (31:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:43):
And then work late after the kids go down.
That's okay.
I bet your wife could understandthat.
She sh you showed up for thegame, you were dad, you were uh
happy, you were making sureevery like you were doing the
thing.
Yeah.
And then you know what, I haveto I have to work tonight.
And that's not a thing that youwant to live on.
But if you have to make thosedecisions, if there's a bunch of
(32:05):
work that needs to be done, andwe are a seasonal type of
industry, there's gonna beseasons that are more heavy than
others.
But like making those decisionsand figuring out how to fit
life, and that's a bad way tosay it, but sometimes you gotta
fit life inside of the nooks andcrannies.
And really the idea is to setyourself up and to set your
(32:26):
processes up so that work fitsinside of your life because you
there's no substitute.
Yeah.
And if and if life is hell,work's gonna be hell.
It's just how it is.
And then the guys that get likeyou lose your family, you you
you lose your wife because lifework became so much hell that I
(32:48):
had to just dive into that hard.
Then family fell by the wayside,and it just I didn't have space
for both.
SPEAKER_03 (32:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (32:56):
Like that's that's a pretty common story.
And it doesn't it doesn't getbetter.
Like you're not just gonna catcha big break because like you
need to like you need tomanufacture that yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (33:10):
Yeah, well, and I I think guys point their fingers
at themselves for the wrongthings and don't for the right
things.
Because I uh you know if youhave again processes in place,
but the the processes of how dowe say yes to jobs and more
importantly, how do we say no tojobs?
(33:31):
If I if I've if I've got thatthree weeks ago, I'm like, let
me look at my projections forthe next six months.
Oh, I can't say yes to this jobuntil December.
I can't say yes to this jobuntil January.
And I tell the client that.
(34:06):
Guys get mad for not showing upto the soccer game.
I'm mad because three weeks agoyou said yes to a job, but you
don't realize that because youdon't have a process in place to
identify how full your scheduleis.
And if you do, we can look andbe like, hey, you can say no to
every job for the next sixmonths and your pipeline's full.
Feel good.
You got the money paid.
Let's put some stuff in place.
Let's work on a new hire.
(34:27):
Let's get you going, but let'sget you down to 40 hours a week
because it's okay to say nobecause we don't need to just
squirrel money right now.
What we're doing is building acompany, right?
And if we can see thelonger-term picture, and uh I
say this to guys when they startwith me.
Worst sales pitch I have is thatI'm not gonna make you more
money for the next 12 months.
We're gonna be building afoundation and I'm gonna steal
(34:49):
as much time away from yourcompany that makes you money as
possible to do that because thennext year we duplicate and we
build on it and we hire someonein that's also another project
manager, and that's when youstart making money.
But it's this I got to say yesto everything, I gotta do
everything now, I've got toreact to everything.
And by doing that, I'm setting28 fires a day because I
(35:09):
haven't, I haven't thoughtthrough this stuff.
I'm just reacting to what'shappening.
Yeah, you're not making a socceron Wednesday.
It's not gonna happen.
But it's not because you had togo to a job site, it's because
you didn't plan ahead.
Right.
And so it's this it's the jobisn't the problem on Wednesday
night.
You three weeks ago was theproblem.
So I think that's that's my mymain point that I try to drive
(35:32):
in of like, we don't get out ofthese seasons reactionary.
We don't get out of this likegrind season by just doing
something different.
It's it's it's a long, slow burnto say, okay, I'm gonna set
these processes up now.
I'm gonna do intakes this way.
I'm gonna do my clientengagement agreement.
This is how I I'm gonna do a ittakes extra time to do a
(35:55):
subcontractor onboarding, how welike to do it with the paperwork
and the meetings and all.
That takes a lot of time.
But do you know what that'ssaving?
That Wednesday night when youwant to go to the soccer game
and the crew is trying to dosomething and screw you because
they didn't know it's notscrewing you, but they're not
abiding by how you want it torun and they're and the client's
pissed off because the clientthat's because you didn't do the
prep work last month ononboarding them well, right?
(36:16):
And so it's like this is it youhave to have self-control and a
bigger vision of why we're doingthis stuff to be able to
eventually get there.
You're not gonna change howthings are acting today, but you
can change how next month looksfor your company.
And that's by having theprocesses on the new jobs coming
in.
It's a it's setting up on thesmall stuff.
(36:38):
I'm not gonna do this, I amgonna do this.
Client, you're not allowed to dothis.
Crew, you're not allowed to talkwith my clients.
Clients are not allowed to talkwith my crews, all communication
goes through me on our jobsites.
All of the stuff that we set upand prep before starting a job
then allows you to have twofires a day instead of 27 fires
a day while you're operating thecompany.
SPEAKER_01 (36:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:57):
And so it's it's a it's an entire ecosystem that
we're building one step at atime.
It's not just, I'm it's not justas simple as an outsider views
you running, you know.
I I talked with one company thathas a coach and he's like, well,
we got to hire someone for this.
We got to hire an accountant,you need to hire an estimator,
you need to hire that.
And I was like, Does this coachknow anything about
(37:18):
construction?
He's like, No, he comes from thebusiness world, but he's really
good at business.
I was like, Where, where?
And he came from the softwaredevelopment side.
And I'm like, their margins are70%.
They can hire eight people andstill be making a ton of money.
Our margins are five percent.
Like our the the residentialremodelers of America did a
study.
The average profit forremodeling companies are four
(37:39):
percent.
He's dealing with 70 pluspercent profits, two different
companies.
Don't hire everybody, don't doit that way.
Let's get with constructionbusiness coaching.
SPEAKER_02 (37:49):
And and not only that, but their product is uh
basically a program.
Yeah.
And part of your product as aconstruction company is your
brain.
And just humans executing aprogram that you've created that
the the issues still exist inthe program like it does in
software, then you gotta fix thebugs and tweak and tweak and
(38:11):
tweak.
Yep.
But then you add in all thevariable of the human experience
and what happened the nightbefore or what happened the
previous week, that the guy'smom died.
Like there's a baj, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (38:21):
Yeah, it's it's the product is customer service, not
selling an actual product.
And it it's it's honestly likeif you're gonna get a coach from
outside of the constructionworld, get someone who does
hospitality and hotels becausethat is the customer service
side.
Yeah, that's all they coach onthere.
They clean places, friendlyfaces.
(38:42):
Yes, thinking through whatpeople want before they even
know they want it, right?
And that's what we're doing.
We're just selling a differentproduct than a hotel room.
We're selling a new kitchen.
SPEAKER_03 (38:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (38:50):
So I think it's again, going back to all of
this, it's that process ofpreset.
If someone walked intoRitz-Carlton and the person
standing up front had no cluewhat they're supposed to do next
or what the game plan is, couldyou that experience is like,
yeah, you're not going hometonight until you figure out
what room they're gonna sleepin, until you get their bags and
put them somewhere, until youget like there's a hundred fires
(39:12):
that just got set because yousaid yes to someone staying at
your hotel because you didn'thave a game plan that was
prepped for the last two weekson it.
So, again, all this being said,I think let's talk about if
you're in that season now or ifyou find yourself in this
season, what are the things youcan be doing today to start
working your way out of it?
I think number one, I want youto write down why you started
(39:33):
and why you're doing this.
I think it's journaling is sucha cuss word for men.
But even just did you write thatdown?
Yeah.
In your journal?
In my journal.
Yeah.
I I think number one, you don'tneed to, you're not sitting down
and saying, Dear diary, today,James, hurt my feelings.
We're not doing that.
That's what you think about whenyou're doing journaling.
(39:56):
James, tell me, like, when youjournal, what are you doing?
Like what does it look like?
What would you suggest ifsomeone was never journaling and
they're gonna get started?
Where do you start?
Where do you get get and growinto just some sort of mental
space that isn't on the gas?
(40:17):
Give us a uh 10 30,000 foot viewof starting with journaling and
why and where.
SPEAKER_02 (40:23):
Just you you get yourself all you do, just get
yourself a nice journal thatlooks like something that you
want to write in.
Or come on the retreat becauseyou'll get on the um I like this
one because it has it's likekind of like graph paper, it's
just dots.
So I can write notes, but I canalso do drawings in here.
(40:44):
So the rule that I gave myselfwhen I started these journals
specifically, there's only onerule, and it's that I can use it
for anything.
Like instead of the mindset ofoh, this is where my feelings
go, I write a lot of oh, I justhad this idea.
I'm gonna jot this real quickscribble of an idea.
(41:05):
And maybe while I'm on thephone, literally for me, if I'm
on the phone with somebody, ifI'm taking notes, I need to be
doodling when they're talking.
SPEAKER_00 (41:14):
I was gonna say, I only know that James is tracking
with me when he's drawing thatlittle face of that dude with
his nose.
I bet we can find it if we flipto the pages.
Probably when when we're talkinga meeting, if he's doodling, I'm
like, cool, he's tracking.
I'm listening.
SPEAKER_02 (41:28):
And if I take notes and I keep writing notes while
you're talking, I'm expoundingon the notes I've already taken,
and that's not good if I'mlistening.
SPEAKER_01 (41:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (41:38):
But if I'm doodling, then I'm listening.
I'm actively listening, and yousay something that perks up like
that's important.
I write that down.
So I've I'm like when I'mtalking to someone, this is all
available for me to write downanything that I need to write
down.
Part of it's gonna be gibberishand doodles.
I might even write, oh, thiswould be a good song lyric, or
(41:58):
this is a funny joke, I justthought of.
But something to just get thenoise out and onto something so
that I can just do that quicklyand not ruminate on something
when I'm I'm not ready toruminate on it.
Writing and then going backthrough it over the week or over
the day, like I took a lot ofnotes today.
I need to go back through andcircle some stuff and expound on
(42:21):
some stuff.
Like I'm constantly journaling.
Constantly.
It's like my my just dumping mybrain onto paper, and then I can
go back and look through thosethings.
There's things that I go backand look at from like a year or
two ago that I'm like, I'll goback and look at my journals and
like, oh, I had this thought acouple years ago, and that
(42:41):
actually makes sense for wherewe are now, but not then.
And it it just opens up this uhit opens up a new world for you
because you're tracking there'sthere's so many random things in
here that I can go back andrelive those experiences and
think through them because I'vejournaled them out.
SPEAKER_03 (43:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (43:03):
There's also just uh you know, being able to draw a
quick sketch of somethinginstead of spending all this
time trying to figure out how amI gonna uh I want to give a
client a drawing of somethinglike you can just get something
done really quickly and thenspend some time on it later
instead of letting it monopolizeyour time, right?
SPEAKER_00 (43:23):
I've seen on a desk estimate with James over on a
Zoom, and he's like flippingthrough with his finger, he's
like this.
And he holds it up to the camerabecause it's like this is what I
was thinking about your kitchenlayout.
SPEAKER_02 (43:31):
Yeah.
And that might seem like like Ithink for it might seem a little
like uh quirky or shoddy.
Yeah, no, you're quirky forsure.
Definitely quirky.
But I'm thinking about it.
Like I'm spending more time.
I guarantee you, I'm spendingmore time thinking about how you
are going to use this renovationin your day-to-day life than the
(43:55):
anybody else that you're workingwith.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:57):
It means something to me to be able to like before
this call, I spent 30 minutesearlier today just thinking
through it, even though I didn'thave to.
SPEAKER_02 (44:05):
It's like the the first couple questions I'm
asking people are about like whyare you doing it?
Like, what's the reason for therenovation?
That's gonna inform almost everysuggestion I'm gonna give you.
It's gonna inform the way thatwe need to map this out.
What kind of benchmark walks dowe need?
Are you gonna be living there?
Then there's a whole nother listof things that we need to cover
(44:26):
and I need to think throughbefore we execute this project.
And there's not like umrenovations are so variable from
every person to person thatthere's really not a good way to
capture a process when it comesdown to that level of minutiae.
Yep.
And so journaling really helpskind of build that out.
(44:49):
And that's just for work.
And then you go to the personalside of it and you can do the
same thing.
Like just thinking aboutself-pity.
It's a huge thing when peopleare stuck in the grind versus
wanting to live the dream.
You uh self-pity is huge.
Everybody is like everyone'strying to take my peace,
(45:10):
everybody's trying to take myfreedom, and then you start
resenting uh everybody that isneeding something from you,
whereas before you felt thegrind, it was nice when somebody
needed something from you.
Oh, I have something to offerthat makes me feel valuable.
Well, as soon as that becomes anobligation versus something that
(45:31):
is like I can't wait to give youmy opinion on that.
It self-pity.
So just journaling aboutself-pity.
I'm feeling like this.
Here's like a couple of thethings, and then you can look at
that and just decide then youcan even journal about that.
Here's why that that doesn'tmean anything.
(45:51):
Here's why they don't owe meanything.
SPEAKER_00 (45:52):
So baby baby steps into a little sneak peek into
the retreat.
The in the back of the the the2026 planner you're gonna get is
we have a section forjournaling, and I have kind of
sectioned off for differentthings like marketing journaling
and brand journaling and bigpicture journaling, and then
I've got one section that'scalled vent then praise.
(46:14):
Like, I want you like if you'repissed off about something, just
take the page.
No one's gonna see this.
Write why you hate it so muchand everything that's stupid
that you feel, and then all Ineed you to do is the set the
the opposing page, praise it.
Why?
Why is it good though?
But at least this client, youknow what?
I'm gonna be done by next weekand I'll be out of there and
(46:35):
I'll be 100% done.
So I gotta let me just get thisdone.
You know what?
The the profit I made wasn'tgreat on this, but I made 15
grand and we're gonna take thekids to Disney World for spring
break.
You know what else is great?
You know, this lady, you know,she's had a rough life.
Like, give me a big vent andthen give me a praise about it.
And it sounds so childish, itsounds so touchy-feely, but it's
(46:56):
like I have never written ventand praise and walked away
pissed off.
SPEAKER_02 (47:00):
Yeah, and you know what?
Sometimes it's gonna look like abig bowl of spinach.
And if you like spinach, thenforget I said spinach.
Yep.
But um, spinach leaves like thisdry patch on the back of your
teeth.
You notice that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what I don't like aboutspinach.
It's not the flavor.
SPEAKER_03 (47:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (47:16):
But you look at that, you look at your vent,
then you look at your praise,and then you just look at it,
and you just eat that whole bowlof spinach.
Yeah.
Because even though you mightnot walk away feeling like,
okay, no, I don't have anyattention left over.
But like looking at that, andlike you'll laugh.
SPEAKER_00 (47:34):
There's a reason.
You'll laugh.
I'm like, what a baby.
All right, I'm over this.
Like it's like, yeah, yes.
Yeah.
So uh uh you don't need to starta journal to be dear diary, and
every day, today is the firstday of October, and I'm gonna be
like, what uh that's not whatthis is about.
This is about what's bouncing inyour brain that you've thought
about seven times over the lastthree days.
(47:55):
Throw it on a paper and get overit.
And it's not just swallowing it,it's understanding why.
Like, why am I like that?
If you can answer why does thispiss me off so much?
And the answer isn't thatbecause that client's a jerk,
but instead it's like, oh, maybebecause I'm I feel really out of
control right now, and they'readding to that chaos.
Yeah.
Right?
Great, put that down.
(48:16):
So what yeah, give it a like putone positive thing at the end of
it.
Give me something positivethat's coming out of this.
SPEAKER_01 (48:22):
Yeah.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (48:22):
Because there is.
There, there you can find it.
And and just writing it down,laughing about it sometimes,
putting something positive, andthen closing the book, and you
might never look at that again.
SPEAKER_02 (48:32):
Or it might be you're complaining about a uh a
crew or a project manager or apartner, and like you do your
whole vent and then you writeyour positive, and you've gotten
that, you got the venom out, andnow you can look at it and say,
this actually needs to be aconversation.
Yeah.
But I need to go into thatconversation having consumed my
(48:54):
bowl of spinach, and now I canactually have a conversation
without just like because whenyou get into that conversation
and you still have all thatvenom built up, it's not the way
you want the conversation to go,but it's going that way.
Yeah.
Turn to the Clark page.
Or is that a whole section?
It's just like a dagger withblood kind of thing.
unknown (49:13):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (49:14):
All right.
So journaling, I think, is agreat place to start.
And it, and I think it feels soweird as a guy if you've never
done it.
Um, and I probably don't do itas much as I should and need to,
but it's something that just tryit this way.
Like, just literally the nexttime you're angry, get a piece
of paper, write, you know, vent,write a praise, throw it away.
(49:36):
I don't care.
Just try it and see what it'slike.
And maybe, just maybe you get alittle bit of peace out of it.
Maybe, just maybe you get alittle bit of like, oh, okay,
that's legit.
I need to talk to that personabout that.
Um, we're not asking you to goto therapy.
If you want to go to therapy,please go to therapy.
But I think this is like babysteps of like, you know what, I
may at least not shove it intothe back of my brain so it comes
(49:59):
out tomorrow.
Um, that's number one.
Number two, I want you toidentify one part of work that
you actually enjoy and make sureyou're doing that.
But at the same time, identifyone part of work that you do not
like.
And you don't like it, mostlikely because you're bad at it.
So, what we need to do is I wantyou to like, you know, if you
(50:21):
love writing an estimate, Ireally love getting into the
weeds with an estimate and canand hunting it down.
Great.
When you, when it's time to dothat, find two hours instead of
one hour to do it and get andjust get that enjoyment out of
it.
Or if you're someone that'slike, my least favorite thing is
to write the estimate that's toomuch detail, I'm not good at it.
Great.
(50:42):
Let's find two hours and you'regonna do it really well.
And you're gonna pretend thatyou're one of those guys that
are really good at it, andyou're just gonna do it.
And you're get you're going toat the end of those two hours,
you're gonna be done with it,and you're gonna have that
estimate that you've beenputting off for three weeks
finally written.
Like, I want to lean into thereally stuff that you love to
get that dopamine and the stuffthat you hate to start
(51:06):
processing.
I'm going to have someself-control around the stuff I
hate because I guarantee youit's back burner stuff and it
all piles up, and that's themost stressful stuff.
The stuff you don't like, let'sbackburn it.
So, one thing you love, onething you hate every single
week.
I'm gonna try to circle those.
If you can do that, great.
You're you're you're getting thedopamine and you're starting to
work dig yourself out of thathole.
(51:27):
Um, also, uh, one thing that Ido with guys starting coaching,
if they're kind of chaotic, isI'm gonna have them write down,
I'm gonna I want a paper journalof like a calendar for two
weeks, and I want everythingsingle thing that you do for two
weeks, day in and day out.
My number one place I start withguys that are out of control in
(51:49):
terms of just everywhere andchaos is I want to try and start
finding more time in their week,which is stop visiting so many
job sites, is usually the numberone answer.
It's guys, it feels good to jumpin the truck and go talk to
Juan, your buddy at the jobsite, and we have the best time
and we're gonna talk about thisand we're gonna talk about our
favorite restaurant.
That's great.
(52:10):
You don't have time for that.
That's that's the problem withyour company is that you are
spending 17 hours a week on thejob site when you only need to
spend seven hours a week.
And so we just found 10 hours ofyour week that we can start
organizing and getting someprogress going.
So I want to cut out one thingthis week that you don't have to
do, but you kind of do it and itwastes your time.
(52:32):
Um, and so, like I said, look atwhen you go to job job sites.
Can one guy probably listens tothe that's gonna laugh at this
because I say it to him weekly.
Can that job site meeting be aFaceTime?
Can that be a FaceTime?
Can it be a FaceTime?
Oh well, he had a question aboutthe the transition.
Can that be a FaceTime?
Yeah, yeah.
I guess we can just FaceTime andhe can show me on the video and
(52:53):
we can make that decision.
I just saved you two hours,three hours of your day.
SPEAKER_02 (52:57):
Yeah.
Guys are guys are reluctant, oldheads are reluctant to because
it seems like it's a uh a lesserversion.
Yeah.
And maybe it is, but there'splenty of things that you can
identify on FaceTime.
SPEAKER_00 (53:14):
It's not lesser, it's lesser in your ego.
You're not the man walking intothe job site that everyone's
waiting to make the finaldecision, and oh, I got Clark's
eyes on it, and now we can ah,great.
Uh like there's this ego aboutwalking onto the job site to
make the final call that guysjust feed and they love.
SPEAKER_02 (53:32):
But there is also like you get pictures that lie
to you.
Sure.
Of like finish and this, that'sit.
So you do need to figure outwhat things you actually can't
do on FaceTime.
But that is totally like thereare so many instances where it's
like you it doesn't even need tobe a FaceTime.
You don't need to show up there.
Call the guy on the phone andget the information you need.
SPEAKER_00 (53:54):
There's no reason.
And I'm not saying don't visitthe job sites.
I'm saying I was thereyesterday.
You have a question of where weshould stack the wood that was.
I was there earlier today.
And you want to know where westacked the two by fours that
were just delivered.
Let's walk around on FaceTimeand figure out where those are
gonna go.
Like, I don't need to drive outthere to be like, oh, let's put
it in that corner of the garage.
Yeah.
(54:14):
You just like you just like tomake trips.
You like hop in your truck andgo because then then you're
useful.
So let's start identifying stuffwe can say no to and cancel out,
and let's let's cancel one thingthat you hate.
It might be delegating it, itmight be eliminating altogether,
it might be, hey, I'm I'mterrible at this.
You know, uh my wife starteddoing some of the bills, maybe,
right?
Like I'm gonna try and startgetting finding the free time
(54:38):
back in my weeks so I can startthen taking that free time and
working on the processes to togrow this and to duplicate
myself.
Um the last thing I have thatyou can do to do literally right
now while you're while you'relistening to this to take one
step in this direction is go tocontractorcuts.com and set up a
(54:58):
free coaching session with me.
We've got three free coachingsessions when you come on the
retreat.
It's if you go to the website,you get it, you sign up.
My calendar's on the websitewhere you can sign up for 30
minutes with me.
We're gonna have a conversation.
If you don't come to the web thethe retreat, that's fine.
Uh it's it's to talk about theretreat and hear about your
company, see if it's a good fit.
(55:19):
If you're coming on the retreat,I'm doing free coaching with
you.
So we've got uh, you know,depending on what month you're
listening to this, if you'relistening to this day one that
it releases, you got threesessions.
If you wait a couple weeks,you're gonna go down to two
sessions because I've kind ofgot monthly sessions leading up
to the retreat where we're doingsome financial planning and some
understanding of your company.
So when you hit the retreat,I've got some personalized stuff
for you when you get there.
(55:41):
That being said, all of this, ifyou're in a funk, set up a
30-minute call.
Even if you're not coming, Iwill give you 30 minutes for
free just to chat, chat withyou.
Have an outsider's voice tellyou you're not crazy or man,
you're acting crazy.
Like, what's going on?
Right.
Like, I will be very honest withyou.
I think one of my strengthscould be a weakness if you ask
my wife, but my strength is I amall cards on the table, very
(56:04):
honest, straight shooter.
Um, don't hold anything backwhen I see stuff.
So that's a great place to startof set up a free meeting.
Let's chat with with uh whereyou're at.
And if you're in the middle ofthe grind and it's not a dream
anymore, let's talk about takingsteps to get out of that.
Thanks for talking.
(56:25):
Any final final words?
We need to have like a JerrySpringer like final words that
you need to have at the end ofthese.
I think that'd be great.
Like just has nothing to do withwhat we're talking about, but
just like Jerry Springer finalwords.
Is that a thing?
Yeah.
Didn't you ever watch JerrySpringer as a kid?
No.
Yeah, I guess my age is showing.
Anyways.
SPEAKER_01 (56:45):
I mean it was on.
It was okay.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (56:47):
You were just healthy.
I didn't watch um, I'vedefinitely seen episodes, but I
never like stayed to the end andlike I don't know what the Jerry
Springer.
Like, give me an example.
SPEAKER_00 (56:56):
I I I can't.
It's just like some sort of likelike you see all this trash for
30 minutes, and then at the endit's like this like words of
wisdom from like Proverbs.
Okay.
And it's like, what?
Like final words.
SPEAKER_01 (57:12):
Like family's important.
SPEAKER_00 (57:13):
Yes, yes, yes.
So, anyways, all right, thanksfor listening, and we will see
you guys next week.
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