October 17, 2024 • 64 mins
How does one transform from a budding entrepreneur to a celebrated leader who stands on stage at the Cowboys stadium? Join us as we uncover the incredible journey of Ms. Elizabeth Ponce, the inspiring president of Picasso Contractors and a dedicated community leader. Elizabeth's story is one of resilience, community engagement, and the pursuit of excellence, culminating in her recognition as Entrepreneur of the Year. Her commitment to giving back is evident as she plans to use her award's prize to further the mission of the National Regional Hispanic Contractors Foundation.
In our conversation, I share my personal experiences of overcoming adversity and building a business from the ground up. From navigating the complexities of managing a company with family members to facing the humbling task of rebuilding after significant setbacks, I explore the importance of authenticity and empathy in leadership. The challenges I encountered taught me invaluable lessons in understanding and respecting my team, which ultimately strengthened my relationships with both staff and clients. This episode delves into the art of effective hiring, mentorship, and the critical role of resilience, particularly for single mothers striving to succeed.
Discover the powerful impact of mentorship and leadership in the construction industry, where creating opportunities and supporting aspiring professionals can lead to transformative growth. We explore initiatives like the Luna Awards and the importance of community engagement in nurturing the next generation of industry leaders. Our conversation is a testament to the belief that with determination and the right mindset, anyone can rise from challenges and make a difference in the world. Don't miss the chance to connect with Elizabeth and gain valuable insights from her journey—mark your calendars for the Luna Awards and join us in celebrating remarkable achievements in the industry.
Connect with Elizabeth at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ep2004/
https://picassollc.com/
https://regionalhca.org/calenda/luna-awards-nomination/
Make yourself a priority and get more done:
https://www.depthbuilder.com/do-the-damn-thing
Download a PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be
https://www.depthbuilder.com/books
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I did struggle a lot in the beginning.
I mean, we had a business thatwas growing.
My ex-husband and my dad were apart of it and we were
successful.
But I was not authentic myself.
I was immature.
I'm 43 years old now and I wasin my late 20s and I just stayed
(00:21):
in the office and hey, whateverneeds to be done, they will
handle it, and I'll be here tojust process paperwork.
And then, getting to a pointwhere I had to rebuild from
nothing, that whole experienceput me at a more down-to-earth
person.
It's like, okay, I need to beable to understand the employees
(00:44):
.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's like, okay, I need to be able to understand
the employees Going on L&Mfamily.
I'm super excited.
I feel like I'm interviewing aconstruction celebrity Getting
to not only me.
You two are going to get toknow Ms Ponce.
She's the president of PicassoContractors.
(01:08):
She's super involved in herlocal community.
I wish she was here in SanAntonio, but she's not.
She's the chairman of the NRHCATraining and Education
Foundation, which I'm sure she'sgoing to let us know what all
those letters stand for.
And recently she was on the 50yard line at the Cowboys stadium
receiving the entrepreneur ofthe year award.
(01:30):
It was no small thing.
There was a bunch of people ororganizations that were
sponsoring and supporting thatevent.
Otherwise, I mean, you don'tjust end up on the 50 yard line
for being a slacker.
So super excited for you to getto know Miss Elizabeth and all
the lessons learned she hasdiscovered and continues to
discover on her path to success.
(01:51):
And here we go, miss Elizabeth,how are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Doing great.
I had a blast yesterday.
It was overwhelming, you nameit.
I felt it yesterday.
It was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So that was like this is super, super fresh.
So tell us about that.
How did that whole thing comeabout?
Did you get nominated?
Did you apply?
What was the deal?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Out of the blue.
I just get an email from acolleague that is the president
of the Urban Hispanic Chamber ofCommerce, where we're a member
of, and she's like hey, Inominated you for this award.
You have to go do apresentation and there's some
other people you're competingagainst.
I was like I was alreadyoverwhelmed and appreciative
(02:36):
because I was just nominated.
So it results that they werenarrowing it down to just two
people a lawyer Hispanicimmigrant lawyer and myself and
we went and interviewed.
We were in the same room.
He went in first and then Iwent in second and they said by
3 o'clock today you should knowthe result.
(02:56):
Well, 3 o'clock came around,didn't find out anything.
I'm like, oh darn, I guess wedidn't get it.
Yep.
A day later they called me andsaid you know what?
We could not decide.
So we ended up giving it toboth of you.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And I was like whoa, that's so cool.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
So, yeah, I mean it really didn't have to do a lot
with construction.
This particular award, it'sjust more of just being in
business, giving back to thecommunity and building up our
surroundings, and so it's not anordinary award that I usually
get you know for projects or forjust in construction in general
(03:38):
.
This is completely differentand never even thought it was
going to go this way.
So we ended up getting awarded$6,000 to a nonprofit place, and
obviously we're awarding it tothe National Regional Hispanic
Contractors Foundation that I'ma chairman of and we already
(03:58):
have a good use for it, planningaround it and making sure that
we do great things with it.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Oh, my goodness, well , congratulations.
I think we just I just gotsuper lucky, well, and you just
came back from vacation too,right?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Definitely I.
You know, I guess in the lastfive years I've taken that this
is my second vacation and we hada tremendous summer, had a lot
of work.
Thank god we have employees tomanage and I told my husband I
said we need a break, otherwisewe we're gonna get burned out
(04:36):
yes we took a week and a half.
We did go see the canelo fightoh my goodness, personal level
(05:00):
relate to them and be able tojust talk offline, and so that
was rewarding.
And then from there we went toChicago and spent a whole week
over there and I think so weleft Thursday and I want to say
by Tuesday I finally left work.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I know that you know what stands out to me and I'm
super happy for you and gratefulfor you and to you.
What stands out to me?
I love seeing the smile on yourface and the energy and this
flood of amazing experiencesthat you've had in a very packed
period of time.
(05:40):
What I love about that is, youknow, the short time that I've
known you and the fewconversations that we've had,
it's clear to me that you careLike.
You don't just care about yourbusiness, you care about the
human beings, you care aboutyour impact on the community.
You care about the clients thatyou serve and the caliber of
(06:00):
people that they are, and youtake action in serving them.
And so, like all of thesehighlights that you're
experiencing right now are justevidence to other people that if
you focus on service, if youfocus on a purpose greater than
yourself, life becomes super,super amazing.
Or am I just misreading what'sgoing on, ms Ponce?
(06:22):
First, we want to give the L&Mfamily shout out, or am I just
misreading what's going on, msPonce?
First, we want to give the L&Mfamily shout out, and this one
comes.
This one's fun.
This is the shout out.
I got the message and it wasthis Jesse, you're better than
mediocre, which I was like oh, Idon't know if that's good or
bad.
The beautiful thing is it waspart of the feedback I got from
(06:45):
one of the courses.
I was some online courses, Iwas teaching and I get to work
with construction workers allthe time, and I know that there
was a lot of love packed intothat feedback about me being
better than mediocre.
So shout out to all the familymembers out there.
You already know Leave me anote, send me a DM, text me,
(07:09):
leave me a review, whatever, sothat I can read it out loud and
celebrate you.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
No, I did struggle a lot in the beginning.
I mean, we had a business thatwas growing.
My ex-husband and my dad were apart of it and we were
(07:32):
successful.
But I was not authentic myself.
I was immature.
I'm 43 years old now and I wasin my late twenties and I just
stayed in the office and, hey,whatever needs to be done, they
will handle it, and I'll be hereto just process paperwork.
And then getting to a pointwhere I lost everything and was
at a point where I had torebuild from nothing, but
actually making an investment.
(07:53):
As far as me personally,touching ground and touching the
bottom was what made me where Iam now.
Getting to a point where I lostwhere I lived, where I had to
sell everything and anythingthat I owned, is what built me
to to where I'm now.
But that whole experience putme at a more down-to-earth
(08:20):
person, at a relatable more islike okay, I need to be able to
understand the employees so thatthey can produce for us.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So you were just taught.
You mentioned, as you weretelling the kind of the
backstory of that first business.
You mentioned that you weren'tas authentic as you are now and
that was maybe one of thecontributing factors to it
playing out the way that it did.
So what I'm curious about,because I know a lot of people
(08:53):
think there's a certain way theyshould behave and operate and
then when you actually get intothe real world, that's not
necessarily true.
So I'm wondering why did youdecide to operate in that way on
that first business?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So one of the things that happened to me is that we
were at Love Field Airport andmy employees basically had a
stand down and they said theywere not going to work for me
anymore, they were not going tofinish the project anymore, and
in order for me to give in, Iwas kind of bullied where they
(09:28):
wanted a raise and they wantedsome other things to happen, and
I didn't have any previouslearning on how to deal with the
situation in that manner orthat way, and so I just kind of
gave in and said, okay, wellthen, help me finish this
project and I will meeteverything that you want me to
(09:49):
meet pay, raises or bonuses,whatever we ended up having to
do.
This was about eight years ago,and so I submitted myself to
their needs and to their demandsto be able to finish the
project, because that was theone thing I did not want to let
down finish the project.
After that, I was in asituation where I was depressed.
(10:13):
I was like is?
it because I'm a woman?
Is it because I'm so young?
I was barely 28 years old andis it?
What is the reason that theydid that to me?
And it had a lot of factors.
My ex-husband was my ex-husbandthen.
My father had been already letgo from the business, and so I
was alone, coming up to all ofthese gentlemen to finish this
(10:35):
project, and so it was acontribution of a lot of things
that developed to this point.
But, taking a step back andit's like I don't want that to
ever happen to me again I wantto know what their demands are
prior to, and I don't want themto feel like they're being
mistreated, um B, before I evenknow like hey, you know what, I
(11:00):
know I'm treating him bad and Iknow he's going to react, but I
want to be able to know thathave that upper hand to say you
know what I'm pushing it, andthat's the end result.
I never wanted that to happenagain, and so that's when I
started thinking differently.
Well, the only way I'm going toknow what they face is when I
go out to the job site andactually work side by side.
(11:23):
By that time, everything hadgotten out of my hands, out of
control.
I ended up having to go andsell everything that I owned,
even my house, and then movinginto a 1500 square foot home and
rebuilding my business from$500 projects to $1,500 projects
(11:43):
.
But this time I didn't delegateit to anybody.
I went with my employee to getit done and I remember the first
thing we did it was a littleParkland clinic.
We had to demo some cabinets anddemo the floor and the ceiling.
It was maybe like an 800 squarefoot office little building.
And so I went with themphysically and we had to do it
(12:07):
at nine because the clinic wasoperational.
And that's where I learned.
I was like, oh my God, it's hot, I want to take a break.
Oh my God.
Oh, it's so dusty in here.
Oh, this, this PPE, is soinconvenient.
And so going through all thoselessons of oh my God, they do go
through a lot and anybody wouldsay I don't need to go through
(12:28):
this, I need to get paid more, Idon't want to get paid eight
bucks an hour, I want to getpaid 10 or I want to get, but
not until you actually live.
It is when you don't comprehendit.
And that was the biggestdisconnection of I always say to
my internal bankruptcy untilafter and so before, I never
(12:49):
comprehended or knew what theylived through or what the
process was to get a job done.
Until now, up until maybe ayear and a half ago, I would
work side by side by them.
There are some projects wherewe now disconnect buildings to
make them like a storm shelternext to them and they got a big
(13:10):
openings and all of that.
I was afraid to submitproposals.
I was like because I don't knowif we can do that.
And the first one that weproposed.
We ended up landing and I waslike I want to be there, I want
to be a part of doing that, andnow I feel the confidence that I
know how it gets done.
I know the process, I know thesafety parameters that we have
(13:31):
to follow and nobody can tell mehey, you know what.
This happened because we didn'tdo this right.
No, we create a plan and go andexecute it, because now I know
that I've been able to do it.
Obviously, no template isalways going to be used exactly
the same everywhere else.
But we from the upper managementunderstand and comprehend of
(13:54):
what is going to happen out inthe field and having that
connection with the employee nowI've earned the respect from
them.
I've earned the respect fromour clients who says you know
what, if it gets down and dirtyand it's on a Sunday night and
she needs to finish by Mondaymorning when the kids come in,
you're going to see Elizabeth onthe job site.
(14:16):
I'm making sure that it'shappening, as opposed to in the
past.
Well, I'm going to come down onyou if it doesn't happen.
That is not a way to lead asfar as my experiences anymore,
my way is now hey, I'm righthere to help you.
Make sure that we get it done.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Oh, that's what I love.
One.
It stinks, right, but sometimesmost of the time, the best
lessons I've ever learned happenthrough pain and failure, like
I'll never forget them and thencarrying them forward the way
that you did.
It's specifically getting outthere when you're relaunching
(14:58):
your business and doing it sideby side with your team, helps
the leader build empathy for thework.
Side by side with your teamhelps the leader build empathy
for the work.
Part of your message there waslike you're out there to
understand what does this workfeel like, because it's easy to
have super high expectations andminimize a worker's complaints,
(15:19):
but then when you go do it,it's like, oh damn, it's
freaking hot out here, we needto do something about this.
You go do it.
It's like, oh damn, it'sfreaking hot out here, we need
to do something about this.
And so good on you for for,like, getting out there and just
doing the damn thing.
Now, as you were doing that andbuilding your business, you
said you started with a littlekind of small hundred, five,
fifteen hundred dollar deals.
I imagine you got to build somepretty important relationships
(15:43):
with your field staff.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Definitely with the field staff and with the clients
as well.
Having the work ethic that wehave out there, that we're known
for, has really brought in thebusiness.
So for a very long time I wouldsay I don't have any employees.
I don't want to have any salaryemployees because I don't know
if I'm going to have work.
(16:07):
I don't be able to meet theirpaychecks every week.
A salary employee frightens meeven to this day.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
But these people won't go away.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
They've been here for like five, six years.
They've stuck around andthey've managed to get a
paycheck every week.
It's a commitment from my endto say you're a salary employee.
It's a commitment from my end tosay you're a salary employee.
It's hard, but they are here toinvest into a business that
they see growing, and I alwayswhen I received and even this
(16:38):
past weekend we received thisaward.
Yes, it's Elizabeth's name onthere.
It's Picasso, the company sheowns name on there.
But I tell my employees thishas never been able to be
possible without them.
I mean this is my name, yes, butthey are the ones that have
made me, because they're theones that represent the company
(17:01):
as a whole.
They're the ones that arebuilding this whole empire that
we all benefit from.
The more the accolades that wereceive wonderful, but the more
business that we do get, themore opportunities are open.
So in return, hey, you knowwhat, Now we can do tuition
reimbursement.
Hey, now we can do vacation pay.
(17:23):
Now we can do.
What do you call those parties?
Like once an annual anniversaryparties?
or gatherings that we do, we dothree times the bonus when in
the past we wouldn't do a bonus.
We do spring, summer and thenwinter, and so those are some of
the things that now they canbenefit from.
But we are now gettingrecognized and I don't know in
(17:48):
the past if I had mentioned thisto you, but one of the things
is that we do final cleaning, wedo general labor and I want to
say about five years ago when wewere rebuilding up, we had to
just kind of go out there andpick different GCs to work for
and whether we felt comfortable,great.
And if we didn't, we still sendpeople out there and just
(18:10):
tolerate some of those culturesthat we were not aligned with.
But one of the things was thatwe would send you know laborers
to go and help out, pick uptrash.
And sometimes our employees arelike no, I don't want to go
work on that job site.
Well, why?
Well, it's because they don'ttreat us right.
Well, I don't want to go workon that job site, well, why?
Well, it's because they don'ttreat us right.
Well, all you're going to go dois pick up the trash.
(18:32):
You don't need to worry aboutanybody else.
No, but you should see how theytreat us.
So one of the times I went outthere to the job and I was just
kind of in the backgroundwatching them and I came across
where another company employeeliterally is drinking a cup of
whatever he was drinking a Cokeor whatever and my guy was
(18:55):
walking towards him picking uptrash and he takes his cup and
throws it in the floor in frontof the employee and tells him
there's your trash so you canpick it up.
My employee picked it up andkept going and after he finished
I said you know what Iappreciate you doing that.
I appreciate you picking up thetrash and not talking smack or
(19:17):
back at them.
You just look down and keepforward.
Later on we set up a meetingand I said I never understood
why some of you guys didn't wantto go until now that I have
actually experienced it and seenit.
And I said don't worry, keep upthat same attitude, just get it
done and move forward.
Yeah, a couple years later, oneof my employees said you know
(19:42):
what?
I've only been with you aboutsix months, but I feel so proud
to work for your company.
And I said well, good, I saidwhat happened.
He's like I just feel sorespected when I put on a
Picasso vest and I said well,you're now having the accolades
of what we had to go through,because now we don't only go out
(20:05):
to the job site and do our work.
We create relationships withthose peers that we work with
the plumber, with the mechanical, with the electrical and create
those relationships where we'reconsistently doing ISD work.
And that same little networkmoves from one project to
another project.
You might see them with onecompany, you might see them with
another company, but thatculture has been always there.
(20:28):
You know what?
We're going to always respectyou and one of the things that
my parents taught me is that ifyou're not going to say anything
good about anybody.
Just don't say anything at all.
Maybe they're having a bad day,maybe they want to kick us in
the rear?
Well, we're going to turnaround and if you need to slap
me in the face, it's OK, but atthe end of the day, we're here
(20:49):
for a bigger something that it'sjust unobtainable sort of a
feeling where it's going toleave a bigger impact in the
industry.
When we now get calls directlyfrom the district.
(21:16):
They go above and beyond the GCsand they call us and say, hey,
we really need you to come andmake that Picasso, look on that
school, because you havesomething that make our schools
different reputation andbuilding that self-esteem to our
employees, where, yeah,sometimes we get kicked around
and we suffered, but now we'reat top of everybody else.
Yeah when some of those youknow idiots that did that to us
(21:38):
are not anywhere where we're at.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
So a few things.
I applaud you because you were.
You and your staff are way morepatient than me.
I've been in trouble so manytimes because I can't keep my
mouth shut.
Now it's been over a decadesince I've been in the field,
but I imagine the service thatstaying focused on executing the
contract, delivering theservices that you are expected
(22:03):
or have committed to do to thehighest quality, has and you
just said it right that's whatset you up to go direct for the
school districts because theywant the Picasso.
Look, I mean, that's got to.
When you hear that that's gotto land some kind of way like
hell, yeah, that, like thank youteam, that's that's what we're
going for.
I'm curious because I knowthere's a lot of folks, friends,
(22:27):
colleagues out there in theindustry are starting to begin
launch their own businesses orhave been doing it for a little
bit and they're stuck.
It feels like on the first wave, whatever, that is one to three
years.
You kind of have to work Ithink you said vultures, work
with some of those contractorsthat don't necessarily have the
(22:49):
culture that your crew deserves,but getting through that sets
you up to work for phenomenalclients that align with your
values.
How true is that?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
that that's you hit the nail on the head right there
.
You just you don't.
When you're a teenager, you'redating and you don't even know
who you're going to end upmarrying.
But you have to go through thatprocess.
And the same thing here.
When you own your own business,hey, you're going to take every
and any opportunity out thereand then you're going to say you
know what I am going to do,that second project for that
client, or you know what I'mdone?
I'm not.
This is not worth my headache,I'm going to move on.
(23:30):
But you have to go through thatprocess to be able to learn One
of the things that I went toone of my mentors a long time
ago.
I was like how do you interviewemployees so that you know that
you're picking the right personto work for you and I was like I
was so I mean like, oh my God,you will interview them and you
(23:52):
know exactly what they're goingto be doing in the future.
I don't know if you can readtheir mind or you can read them
or what, but I sat in throughone of the interviews he did and
I was like you just get theperfect people and he's like no,
elizabeth.
And I was like you just get theperfect people and he's like no
, elizabeth.
He's like it's all about theexperience and you eventually
learn to read and know people.
(24:13):
There's some people that aregoing to come and give you a
perfect resume.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Some people that are not going to give you the
perfect resume and you have tofind in between which one's
going to work out for you andwhere you want to put them and
(24:38):
which one is going to work out,work out for that position.
But now, beginning of June, wehire maybe 80 to 90 people for
the seasonal work and not only Ibut my HR Norma knows she's
like yeah, I went ahead and tookthem, but I know they're not
going to be up to your demand.
She's like they're not going tolast more than a week and we
know that's unexplainable.
Is that we always?
We had a pot of money.
Every time we say, hey, thisone's going to last 12 hours or,
(25:01):
you know, 40 hours.
We would nail it down to theday, to the hour, but it's just
a matter of getting to know yourclient, getting to know your
employee.
Obviously you don't want tojudge them by their cover.
I always give an opportunity,no matter what, and then the
true colors come out, whetherit's an employee or a client.
(25:21):
One of the biggest things that,as you're growing and in the
very first stages of yourbusiness, is the payment process
.
Obviously you want to get thejob done and you want to get
paid as soon as possible.
What is that process?
Is the first thing that ifthey're good to you and very
trustworthy, whether they tellyou, hey, you know what, you'll
(25:42):
have a tick within a week, andif you have it within a week,
you know what, I trust your word.
And then if they give you therunaround for two or three weeks
later, well, you know what.
I don't want to be in thatrelationship.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yep, yep.
I love the way you connected todating because, yes, right,
like you don't know, let's findout.
And then it reminds me of asaying when someone shows you
who they are, believe them, justbelieve them and move on.
Go pick somebody else.
You're talking about hiring,and of all the different weird
(26:14):
jobs and responsibilities I'vehad in my life, hiring was the
one I still suck at the most.
When I look back at all thefolks that I've hired to bring
in from outside the company backwhen I was working and had that
type of responsibility, Ididn't do a great job.
(26:35):
There's a few that were veryhigh performers, like that
really turned out to contributebig time to the company.
There's a lot that did reallygood and they were solid
performers.
There's a lot that did reallygood and they were solid
performers.
But man, if I were to count theamount of times that I made a
bad hire and compare that to allthe other things that I've done
in my career and in business,that's my biggest failure rate.
(26:58):
So I'm always interested for anycheat codes and secrets to like
.
Figure out how to get better atthat.
And also, I'm not the guy toask, because I'm great at
promoting people not so great athiring them.
You mentioned that you have amentor, and so, on the path from
restarting your businessclosing the doors on the other
one selling everything, thensaying, okay, I'm going to do it
(27:20):
again, but I'm going to do itdifferent what resources was
that mentor the only resourceyou accessed?
Or were there other things thatyou tapped into to help you
build the knowledge base youneeded to get to where you're at
today?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
So I want to say that the biggest resource was the
necessity to provide for my fourkids, because I was a single
mom and I could not not be ableto provide with them for them,
because I didn't have any kindof support from anybody and
everybody I know.
(27:57):
At a certain point, when I hadto let go of my father back in
the day, I was shunned from myfamily because how could I have
done that?
How could I have let him go andso didn't have really a support
system when it came from myfamily.
I mean, again, I have an olderhalf brother, but I am an only
child to both of my parents.
(28:17):
I don't have a huge family forpeople to kind of just turn
their back.
It was, you know what.
I just need to make it this dayso that was one of the biggest
things is like okay, how am Igoing to pay bills this next
week?
Well, I need to go get thisproject or next project and just
kind of go about it that way.
(28:38):
I just use common sense.
I don't have a higher education, I only have K through 12 and I
and graduated when I waspregnant with my daughter at 17.
And so that didn't make it anyeasier.
But, just using common sense, Ialways have to ask two or three
people.
do you think this is right?
Whether it's a mentor, whetherit's a friend, whether it's just
(29:01):
hey, you're having a networker.
I always bounce ideas off otherpeople and see, okay, well, I
think that person kind of thinkslike me and I really honor and
respect their advice and I'mgoing to try it.
I always come back to my ownconclusion, but I believe I use
(29:22):
everybody and anybody as amentor.
I'll go out there and just askquestions to people.
Now, in the position that I am,I would say my surroundings are
huge, because I've beenmentored by McCown Gordon, I've
been mentored by Turner, by BeckMcCart, all these other schools
.
I've taken one or two thingsfrom them to be able to develop
(29:44):
a common sense to my business.
Just right now, talking to mystaff during lunch, you would
assume that we have a structuredbusiness.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, we have a HR, we have an administrator, we
have somebody that's estimating,and then I oversee everything
and just tackle whatever we needto get done.
Today we had a new hire andshe's going to do accounts,
receivable and the invoicing andjust paying out the
subcontractors and all of that.
(30:14):
I want to be able to structureourselves to kind of have many
departments.
Yeah, but that's because now Isee that from companies that I
get mentored is like okay, let'sgive them single
responsibilities as opposed to athousand responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, break it up.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, start breaking it up.
So it's more of a hey, you knowwhat?
That's one of my goals.
I want to get to and let's worktowards it.
But definitely have a person togo to, maybe twice a month, I
mean every other month maybehave a lunch with somebody, and
you will never find that oneperson that's always going to
(30:54):
help you.
I mean, and some people they'relike I made a mistake at the
beginning to ask people, can youmentor me, can you help me?
And then they never did.
But I would still say, hey, canwe meet up for lunch.
And then I'm like, hey, I'mgoing through this, how should I
handle this?
And unofficially they were mymentor, whether they accepted it
or not, but they still answeredquestions for me.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yes, yes, now, I love that for a lot of reasons.
Like, I've had several peopleluckily right Then maybe they're
just crazy and they didn't haveany other options.
But I've had several peopleluckily right Then maybe they're
just crazy and they didn't haveany other options.
But I've had a lot of peoplereach out to me to mentor them
and it's like in my head it'slike okay, sure On what?
And they're like okay, then Idon't know.
(31:39):
Like, if you want me to mentoryou on salsa dancing, I can do
that, but is that what you want?
And so I think there's part,there's like two parts.
One thing that you said that'sreally important is you're
inviting somebody to lunch thathas experience doing the thing
that you're dealing with.
So you have a very specificthing that you're looking for
insight on.
So I think that's superimportant for anybody that's
(32:02):
looking to get a mentor.
Have an idea of what for.
And also, what I love aboutwhat you said is like not
everybody can be a mentor, likenot everybody knows how to
mentor If you ask them.
There are some people that Iknow that their attitude about
it is if somebody asked me tomentor them, it's on them to set
(32:26):
up the calls and tell me whatthey need.
And da da, da, da da, which is,I mean, that's a way.
I don't agree with thatentirely, but mentoring is.
It's a superpower and it can beaccomplished in an informal
manner, just like you said.
Right, like I pick people, Ihave lunch with them, I ask
specific questions and I getwhat I need.
(32:48):
You know, one thing that yousaid reminded me of how amazing
single mothers are, because Iwas brought up by a single
mother as well, and you said oneof the things was out of
necessity, right.
What?
That's what helped you get towhere you're at, right, what?
That's what helped you get towhere you're at, and so, on your
(33:16):
path to growing your business,bringing it back to life,
raising your four kids, therewere some sacrifices you had to
make along the way.
And so maybe for the, for thesingle mother or, on the rare
occasion, the single father outthere, that is, is working to
build and leave a big impact onthe world, what insider advice
would you offer them?
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I would say it's never going to be easy, whether
you have a support system athome, to try to start your own
business, or whether you'realone.
You're going to face the samecircumstances You're going to
face.
Well, how am I going to paythese bills?
Sometimes it's better.
My business has growntremendously now.
I got married in April to myhusband that has been with me
(33:58):
since the beginning of mybusiness.
He's been my best friend and nowwe recently got married.
But just the wanting to be ableto succeed and the wanting to
be able to provide a better lifefor your kids, or just that
drive that nobody is going to beable to develop for you other
than yourself, just kind ofmotivates you.
(34:21):
But life is hard on its own.
I mean you make it harder.
No-transcript, this onecontract almost wiped you out,
(34:49):
or it probably did.
Well, you know what?
You're still alive.
You got two hands.
You're going to have to get upand keep going.
I've hit rock bottom where it'slike you just see everything
crumbling and you have no way ofcontrolling it Right.
Just let it fall apart.
And once it's all falling apart, okay, try of controlling it
Right.
Just let it fall apart and onceit's all falling apart, okay,
(35:10):
try to piece it back togetherand start over Love it.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, yeah, give yourself permission to be
depressed.
Give yourself permission to besad, to be angry.
I think that is expert OGadvice, because the friction to
like it kind of drives me alittle crazy when people are
like don't be mad, don't beupset, just like don't go be
(35:37):
upset.
And what you said, though, washere's the important part Give
yourself a time limit, right?
It turns out that when I getdepressed, or angry, or fresh,
when I got a lot of emotion pentup, emotion, one of the things
I do to like process, that is,eat delicious, greasy, sugary,
fatty food, and so it's like allright, jess, whatever happened
(36:01):
wasn't great.
You got half a day to go to thepanaderia and get you some pink
cakes and some marranitos, andlet's go and pig out, and then,
yeah, like, what are you goingto do next?
What's the next step?
So I think there's deep wisdomin going into the abyss, or the
(36:23):
darkness of the feeling for aperiod of time, because we have
to process that emotion and wealso need to get out of it.
So, man, thank you for that.
Now you and I have amazing tens, and you are the chairman of
the NRHCA.
(36:43):
How did that come about and whydid you decide to take that
responsibility?
On?
Speaker 1 (36:52):
So it goes back to maybe 15 years ago I don't know
my mom when she was in Mexico.
She lived in Mexico some of hertime and she was always into
politics, la Politica going tothe free and to all of this, and
so I don't know if it comesfrom her or it's something that
(37:13):
it's just kind of built in ourgenes.
But I've always, and to thisday, I tell my husband I was
like I want to change the worldand he's like you can't.
And I said, yes, I can one dayat a time.
Watch me, watch me.
Yes, probably years ago, Istarted with the association and
became a member of it, andthey're the ones one gentleman
(37:36):
in particular, adam Trevino.
So I worked for a constructioncompany where my dad worked as a
receptionist.
And then, as I worked as areceptionist, this company was
growing, doing all kinds ofprojects all over the United
States.
But then they came to a pointwhere they closed their doors,
but in the process, well, asthey were letting go of people.
(38:00):
Well, elizabeth, now I need youto help in the project
management.
Now I need you to help whatsupervisors are.
Now I need you to helpaccounting.
Now I need you to help all ofthese other positions.
And so I would help.
And I remember I went into thepresident's office and I said,
hey, I'm getting paid $8 an hour.
I've done a lot in the last twoyears.
Can I get paid $10 an hour?
(38:22):
This was in February of 2004.
And she's like well, no, Ithink we can't afford it right
now.
You should see, they wereclosing all of these offices and
letting go of all theseemployees.
And I said, yeah, but I think Ireally do deserve this.
And she said no.
And I said, okay, well, I wentand gave my two weeks notice.
They didn't believe that I wasgoing to do it.
(38:44):
They didn't believe that I wasgoing to do it.
But then I leave and I'm like,well, ok, I feel so big and so
competent that I can do all ofthese things, but with no
education nobody would hire me.
So I went from February to Mayand, like I think in April, I
went on food stamps in Tanabecause I had already two kids
(39:05):
and my husband then was workingin a factory and wasn't getting
paid like two hundred and ninetydollars and we needed to be
able to provide for our two kids.
And I remember going to theassociation because one of the
things that I did for theprevious company is like, hey,
let's go to the networkers andfind us jobs, yeah.
So then I went back to theassociation.
(39:28):
I was like, hey, can you guyshelp me find a job?
And then Adam sat me down andhe said you know what he's like.
There's not very many women inconstruction.
He said I don't know that youcan find a actual job where they
would hire you as aconstruction worker, but you
already know a lot, elizabeth,why don't you start your own
business?
(39:48):
So I was like you know what, Iprobably can.
I said I know everything andanything about looking for work
and getting the work.
And so I went to my dad and Isaid Dad, can I borrow $5,000 to
buy the insurance and buy theasbestos license and everything
I needed to get to have a legitcompany, the corporation?
(40:09):
And so he let me borrow it andI established a company in May
of 2004.
Within that year we sold$60,000 worth of work.
My dad would go do it at night,he would get employees to do it
on the weekends, and so we kindof built it that way and moving
forward.
Again, being a part of theHispanic Contractors Association
(40:32):
, I met Frank Cortez that passedaway.
He used to be the MWB for DARTand so he's like hey, there's a
solicitation for asbestos ofhouses and apartments and
buildings to be done in the newrail lines at DART.
He had the blue line, greenline, yellow line.
(40:52):
He said I think you should goafter it and he helped me,
guided me in how to download thesolicitation, how to put it
together and what I needed tobuy as far as insurance, and so
we submitted.
That was in 2006.
We landed the project by 2007.
We were already doing over $2million worth of work.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Son of a gun, so from 04 to 07.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah, they were giving us now, hey, go do this
house for $30 dollars, go demo,innovate it, go do it.
Okay, will we go do it, collectour money.
Now let's do three houses,let's do this building this
motel, this club, and so it kindof helped us build there.
But they got the process aswell.
They're like, well, we needpeople to run for board members
(41:39):
of the association.
And I was like like, okay, I'llrun.
And so I ended up getting onthe board and they're like
Elizabeth, what are you going tobring to the table?
Well, how does this even work?
Because I don't even know whatbeing the board member means
Nobody ever teaches you thesethings.
So with their guidance they'relike, okay, well, you need to
(41:59):
kind of do service hours to theassociation, help with events
and try to go out and collectsponsorships.
And so they taught me all ofthat.
And so I did that.
But then I also said you knowwhat, guys, I still don't feel
confident on how to submit aproposal.
I don't know how to read plans,because when you do as best as
(42:21):
removal, you don't need to learnhow to read plans like you do
for a construction project.
All you do is just take thesurvey and off of those numbers
you go.
And so I was like can we get aclass for how to do blueprint
reading?
So they got this otherarchitect to come in and give us
free classes.
I'm like, okay, well, I needsome accounting.
(42:41):
How do we use QuickBooks?
Can we find somebody thatteaches QuickBooks?
Well, elizabeth needs that.
So, elizabeth, don't worry,I'll find the students.
And it was more because, hey, Ineeded the information and
other people needed to learn ittoo.
So we kind of built up and sothen we had a whole program.
I'm like, okay, and then twoyears went by and hey, do you
(43:04):
want to stay on board.
Sure, why not?
Two more years After that.
Then I became secretary of theassociation, eventually becoming
chairman of the association andthen also in the process,
building the Luna Awards.
Because so I was sitting at theboard meetings and they're like
, yeah, we're having the golftournament, we're having the day
of the construction worker,we're having the clay shoot
(43:27):
where we raise funds and thisand that and the other.
And I said, well, what are wedoing to recognize women in
construction?
Well, nothing.
I mean, elizabeth, go and puttogether a luncheon to recognize
the women in construction.
And I was like, okay, and thenJohn and Yolanda had this great
idea that Maria Luna had beenhere as an entrepreneur.
(43:48):
She sold tortillas and shedidn't know how to make
tortillas, but she got herfriends to make the tortillas
and then she would go and sellthem, and so that's how she
started her business.
And so, with their knowledge ofputting these events together
and with me somebody telling mewell, I don't think you can do
it, but go and try you know,that attitude.
(44:09):
Well, you know what I mean.
I'm going to go make it happen.
And so we did.
And the first year we had LunaAwards to recognize.
We give out seven awards towomen in the construction to
recognize the administrative ofthe year, the business owner of
the year.
Well, the first year we hadabout less than 60 people attend
our luncheon, and then the nextyear we had a hundred.
(44:31):
And here we are now at fivecities, and when we have it here
in Dallas we have well over 800people attend.
And so, moving forward, justleaving those little impacts in
the association have been nowaccolades for me, where I
receive and people want tomaintain me to be a part of it.
(44:52):
And so now, moving on to assoon as I finished my
chairmanship, we're like okay,well, all the chairmen from the
past that have served move on tobe chairmen of the foundation.
Now COVID came around and wereally didn't have an
interchangeable kind ofstandstill for chairmen, and so
(45:14):
I just kind of got stuck therefor a little while.
This is going to be my last USchairman, but one of the things
that we want to leave as animpact is that we instilled a
new internship program that wenow take the turn or the bow,
for the Phillips made the bigsky that you need an intern.
(45:35):
Let the RCA foundation help youfind them and then put them in
your companies.
And so, just with this $6,000scholarship that I received this
past weekend, I'm putting ittowards the association to
create a luncheon to invite.
There's some trade schools herein Dallas that focus in
construction.
(45:56):
And so we want to invite thosestudents to come to a sit-down
luncheon and have a TDIndustries project manager at
the table, have a superintendentat the table, have a project
engineer at the table, so thatway they can tell them what
their jobs are and expose themmore to construction and
(46:16):
hopefully they can startbuilding those relationships
Like hey, remember I met you afew years ago, I want to apply
for your company now.
I went to trade school and Iwant to work for your company
and so creating that exposureand I guess just because of the
drive and the vision and thewant to be able to help and
(46:37):
support, not necessarilyfinancially but just being there
and listening to people, hasbeen able to keep me with the
association where they want meto be around, because it's just,
it's a positive impact foreverybody.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yes.
So I mean, sister, you got alot going on.
But again, one of the thingsthat I hope our listeners out
there are taking from this likeyou're contributing so much to
through your business, to yourpeople and to the construction
community, and then, through theRegional Hispanic Contractors
(47:17):
Association, you're contributingso much to other contractors.
Now we're talking about careersof folks entering the industry
and expanding that influence,and so from the outside looking
in, people might say like, oh myGod, you're doing so much and
how do you have the time, how doyou have the energy?
But I get the impression thatyou're energized by seeing the
(47:40):
impact you're having on people'slives.
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Definitely.
I mean it's the adrenaline of Imean you have no idea how many
people come and tell me thatI've changed their lives, wow.
And it's so rewarding Not onlybecause they have a direct
connection with me, whetherthey're an employee or it's one
of.
I mentor about 20 differentcompanies.
(48:05):
We meet at least twice a yearor I meet with them individually
at least once a month.
Like not too long ago I postedit.
We didn't win a job, but welearned so many lessons.
And I get direct messages wherethey tell me you know what you
just now motivated me becauseI've lost the last four and I
wanted to just stop.
And now I'm going to go aheadand submit again because I know
(48:27):
you're going through it.
But that's why we post what wepost, or that's why we say what
we say, because it does changesomebody's lives out there.
You just don't know how muchimpact that you have and thank
God that people reach back outto me and say, hey, I appreciate
you doing this or you doingthat.
But I want to say that therewarding part of having my
(48:50):
business is the platform thatgives me the opportunity to do
this.
I couldn't have a businesswithout my employees.
It's a domino effect.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
You treat your people right, appreciate them and
honor them.
You treat your people right,appreciate them and honor them.
It has this effect.
It gives you an opportunity tohave amazing experiences and
contribute at a greater capacity.
I'm so glad and grateful thatyou're sharing it with me and
the L&M family, because it'svery easy to be seduced by the
(49:19):
idea that by starting a businessI'm going to make a lot of
money, and sure you can.
But if all you're doing istaking, I think it limits the
potential quality of life that aperson can have.
And so sure you got to get themoney in so you can keep doing
cool stuff.
But when you go and contribute,share your gifts and talents
(49:42):
out into the world, it has themultiplying effect and I think
your story is a beautifulexample of that.
And I'm looking I'm here kindof nerding out on the website,
on the RHCA website, and itlooks like they got something
going on here in San Antoniothat maybe I should get involved
with.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Definitely, and I will be there so you can be
definitely my guest and attendthe Luna Awards here in October.
They have it in five differentcities.
The first one's in Houston onOctober the 3rd, which
definitely I will be there.
Sometimes we work really hardand nobody really recognizes us
(50:22):
because we're the owners andthey're like you make good money
.
But sometimes I'm up late atnight, two, three o'clock in the
morning, working make sure thatthese proposals get done right
or that I have the time to beable to have an interview or go
out there and mentor somebody.
There's still work to be donewithin the business, but you're
making some priorities on thetop of your list first, then the
(50:47):
second ones and for somebody tonotice some of those things.
Well, that's why we created theLuna Awards, because you are
the business owners and we wantto make sure that people know
that you work hard to make surethat you have established
business or that you're not atypical administrator that just
sits in the back of a desk anddoes what everybody else tells
(51:10):
them to do.
No, you go beyond and above tomake sure that everything gets
done properly, and so thosepeople deserve to get a
recognition, and that's whatLuna Awards does and that's what
Luna Awards does is recognizesthose people, specifically women
, that have excelled in ourindustry.
Because we're the minoritythere's not a lot of women in
construction, but we're gettingthere.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, and I'm sure you've noticed there's been a
tremendous I say tremendous,maybe that's overstating it I
know that.
I've seen in my career Istarted in 95.
I've seen in my career Istarted in 95.
Compare then to now, like justthe number of women that are in
construction.
I mean hell.
I almost never go to a job sitewhere there's not at least one
woman.
Back in the day you just didn'tsee, we didn't see women in the
job site.
And now they're runningbusinesses and they're
(51:57):
executives for the generalcontractor and they're
installers in the field, andthere's plenty of room for them.
We need them, we need them, badwe need everybody.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
We're a little more organized.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
I follow you on LinkedIn.
I'm a lurker sometimes, but Isee you posting that you're
speaking at local schools,engaging with students, engaging
at universities.
If somebody, if one of thelisteners wanted to like get
involved and start engaging withour youth about careers in the
industry, what are some pointersyou could give them?
Speaker 1 (52:33):
I would say be authentic, don't try to powder
coat what oh?
You're going to get paid Xamount, $100,000.
No, you know what.
You're only going to get paidthat if you work your butt off,
you invest and if you put inthose long hours I think that
goes in any industry you can getpaid really well, but you've
(52:54):
got to do your personalinvestment.
And so I would say be authenticwhen you're putting out there
the information.
Speaking to all these schools,I'm sure that in every city out
there, a trade school, whetherit's and this is the one thing
that I just learned not too longago is that it may be a trade
(53:14):
school for high school students,which they will be impacted and
learn.
But then there's also thosecolleges or community colleges
that have classes aboutconstruction, and you can even
go and talk to those people,because some of those people
that's why they went back tocollege or that's why they're in
those community classes,because they want to know a
(53:37):
little bit more about theindustry.
Just like any human being,sometimes we don't listen to our
parents because it goes in oneear and comes out the industry.
Just like any human being,sometimes we don't listen to our
parents because it goes in oneear and comes out the other.
Sometimes when you're sittingin front of that professor, that
teacher, all semester long, itgoes in one ear and comes out
the other.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
But when?
Speaker 1 (53:54):
you come from a very different person from out in the
field.
You might leave one or twopointers for them to like oh my
God, that is so true.
I want to be able to try that.
Or you know what I can relateto that.
And so it's not necessarilyjust high school, higher
education as well, or a tradeschool.
(54:15):
Just go out there and you mightend up learning something from
some of these people as well.
One of this high school that Ivisited I end up learning
something from some of thesepeople as well.
One of this high school that Ivisited I was speaking and then
one of the gentlemen's waitedfor me and after everybody left,
he comes to me and he said doyou think this is right what I'm
doing?
And I said so.
He showed me his phone and he'slike I print t-shirts and sell
(54:36):
them and I'm doing it onInstagram.
And then he's like I orderedthem from China and they come in
and then I print it on mycomputer and then I iron them
and and I was like you got alittle business and here you are
, like 16.
I'm not like you're going tobecome something when you grow
up.
I was just so amazed and I leftvery rewarding.
I was like, oh my God, there'sanother Hispanic student right
(54:57):
there, already setting his path.
And so had nothing to do withwhat I said or had nothing to do
with the purpose of that, butjust to know that there's
somebody out there that you knowle está echando ganas and he's
going to be successful.
And so going through that isalso rewarding for yourself.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah, anytime I get a chance to interact with high
school students particularly,they're my favorite.
Well, you know what that's alie.
Elementary kids are my favoritebecause they don't care, like
they're totally to use your wordauthentic.
And two of my favoritequestions I've gotten from like
third graders.
One is why haven't you retiredyet?
(55:40):
You look old.
One is why haven't you retiredyet?
You look old, come on.
And then the other one is howmuch money do they pay you?
Like they don't care, they'rejust good, like they're just
curious, right, like what do youbuy with your money?
Like, yes, oh, love them.
But high school kids, like yousaid, I think the most important
thing for me that I practice,based on what you said, is just
(56:06):
be just talk straight to them,because it's about connection
more than it is educating themRight.
It's about connecting them,letting them know that there's
actual human beings that haveproblems, that learn, that
struggle, that win in theindustry.
And so if they can connect withthat's my kind of focus If I
(56:28):
can connect with one or twostudents in that session and
help them see that I'm livingproof of what they can do, it's
a win, like it's a straight upwin and like trying to give them
all the details and all thepositions and all the career
paths, like that's static.
Yeah, be human.
What do you say?
Speaker 1 (56:49):
No, absolutely.
There was a graduation thatthey invited me to speak at for
some scholarships that weregiven at the Southeast Chamber
of Commerce and they gave me anaward and recognition and part
of my speech I told to thestudents.
I said I've been in your shoesand the parents obviously went
with their kids because theywere receiving a scholarship and
(57:11):
I didn't see them from thestage.
But there was a young lady inthe back of the room with her
mom and the young lady waspregnant, and so I was talking
about how I was going to dayschool for the 11th grade and
night school for the 12th gradeand telling them I ended up
graduating and here I am stillsuccessful and had my daughter
(57:31):
just turning 17.
And the mom comes to me at theend and she said I never I
thought my daughter's life wasover because she was already.
She's going to be 17 and she'shaving a baby.
She's like I just thought sheneeded to marry off and hope to
find a good husband, and thatwas it.
I said, oh no, she's got somuch potential and I said you
(57:56):
just need to continue to supporther and whatever she wants to
go, be she will be her andwhatever she wants to go be, she
will be.
One of the bad things about myex-husband is that I would tell
my son and daughter you can bewhatever you want to be, you
want to go to Harvard, you cango to Harvard.
And he was not the rightpartner and he would laugh at me
and he's like how do you tellthem that that is not anything?
(58:18):
You should tell your kids,because they're stupid, they're
not going to succeed more thanjust stay here in Dallas and I
said no, you need to be able toleave the world completely open
to be whatever they want to be.
And when my son is a chef andmy daughter has a master's in
accounting and a bachelor's inbusiness administration, in
(58:39):
business administration.
If I would have had thatmentality, this is all I'm made
for, and my kids too, we wouldhave never raised from where
we're at.
We would have been stuck there.
And I do see that in ourculture, hispanic culture, where
it's like, okay, all we're madefor is to go out and work in
the field.
Some of you guys are smartenough and probably know a few
(59:00):
more things than the actualowner.
You just need to put moreeffort and build your own thing.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, my God, I'm inspired and Iknow whoever's listening.
You better be inspired becauseMiss Elizabeth is bringing the
real talk.
So was there what did I forgetto ask?
What other amazingaccomplishment did I fail to
cover, Miss Elizabeth?
Speaker 1 (59:27):
I don't know.
I have so many stories, I know.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (59:31):
I would say the biggest thing is that if anybody
fails, just know that you canget up and you can start all
over again and there's nothingever holding you back over again
.
And there's nothing everholding you back.
And trust me when I say you canget depressed and you can be at
the bottom.
Sometimes I say I was in.
I was at ground level, rockbottom and sometimes probably
(59:53):
even bedrock beyond that.
But just take it one day at atime and build yourself back up,
Whether it's hey, you know what, I'm going to get out of bed
today and take a shower.
Hey, that's a bigaccomplishment.
Right there, I'm going to get towork and I'm going to get to
the office on time, just doingone thing at a time.
I say always do right by people, and the more right that you do
(01:00:14):
, the more that you're going toreceive.
The more you give, the moreyou're going to receive, and
don't ever expect it from thatsame person.
I've taught some people how toread plans and then they move on
, but then to know, oh my God,you're a 50 million dollar
project all on your own.
You know what?
I was a part of those first fewyears of your life, and it's
just one, one thing after theother that will happen and you
(01:00:39):
won't even know how you gotthere.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Man, I love it.
I love it.
Did you have fun?
Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
I did.
Thank you so much I reallyappreciate it and anybody can
follow me on LinkedIn and I'malways open for meetings, lunch
or coffee or, if you want to,I've had people.
Just give me a call and wespend an hour on the phone and
hey, just talking, something'sover.
You know, I'm always open,available and definitely, if you
(01:01:07):
want to volunteer, be a part ofthe program, we're always
welcoming.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
People definitely attend the luna, whether it's in
these cities in dallas with elpaso, houston, austin, san
antonio and dallas well, I'mgoing to make sure and put those
links in the show notes so thatfolks can click specifically so
they can make sure they canconnect with you.
You already heard Ms Elizabethon the LinkedIn.
(01:01:32):
Hit her up, she will give youthe time.
I had the fortune of having aconversation with you one day.
I'm like, oh my God, you'reamazing, can I please interview
you?
I'm like, oh my God, you'reamazing, can I please interview
you?
And we'll make sure we put alink to Picasso and the link to
the Luna Awards, because I needto get that on my calendar.
Make sure I'm here in Octoberso I can go check that out
(01:01:54):
because I've been slacking.
I did struggle a lot in the beginning.
I mean, we had a business thatwas growing.
My ex-husband and my dad were apart of it and we were
successful.
But I was not authentic myself.
I was immature.
I'm 43 years old now and I wasin my late 20s and I just stayed
(00:21):
in the office and hey, whateverneeds to be done, they will
handle it, and I'll be here tojust process paperwork.
And then, getting to a pointwhere I had to rebuild from
nothing, that whole experienceput me at a more down-to-earth
person.
It's like, okay, I need to beable to understand the employees
(00:44):
.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's like, okay, I need to be able to understand
the employees Going on L&Mfamily.
I'm super excited.
I feel like I'm interviewing aconstruction celebrity Getting
to not only me.
You two are going to get toknow Ms Ponce.
She's the president of PicassoContractors.
(01:08):
She's super involved in herlocal community.
I wish she was here in SanAntonio, but she's not.
She's the chairman of the NRHCATraining and Education
Foundation, which I'm sure she'sgoing to let us know what all
those letters stand for.
And recently she was on the 50yard line at the Cowboys stadium
receiving the entrepreneur ofthe year award.
(01:30):
It was no small thing.
There was a bunch of people ororganizations that were
sponsoring and supporting thatevent.
Otherwise, I mean, you don'tjust end up on the 50 yard line
for being a slacker.
So super excited for you to getto know Miss Elizabeth and all
the lessons learned she hasdiscovered and continues to
discover on her path to success.
(01:51):
And here we go, miss Elizabeth,how are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Doing great.
I had a blast yesterday.
It was overwhelming, you nameit.
I felt it yesterday.
It was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So that was like this is super, super fresh.
So tell us about that.
How did that whole thing comeabout?
Did you get nominated?
Did you apply?
What was the deal?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Out of the blue.
I just get an email from acolleague that is the president
of the Urban Hispanic Chamber ofCommerce, where we're a member
of, and she's like hey, Inominated you for this award.
You have to go do apresentation and there's some
other people you're competingagainst.
I was like I was alreadyoverwhelmed and appreciative
(02:36):
because I was just nominated.
So it results that they werenarrowing it down to just two
people a lawyer Hispanicimmigrant lawyer and myself and
we went and interviewed.
We were in the same room.
He went in first and then Iwent in second and they said by
3 o'clock today you should knowthe result.
(02:56):
Well, 3 o'clock came around,didn't find out anything.
I'm like, oh darn, I guess wedidn't get it.
Yep.
A day later they called me andsaid you know what?
We could not decide.
So we ended up giving it toboth of you.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And I was like whoa, that's so cool.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
So, yeah, I mean it really didn't have to do a lot
with construction.
This particular award, it'sjust more of just being in
business, giving back to thecommunity and building up our
surroundings, and so it's not anordinary award that I usually
get you know for projects or forjust in construction in general
(03:38):
.
This is completely differentand never even thought it was
going to go this way.
So we ended up getting awarded$6,000 to a nonprofit place, and
obviously we're awarding it tothe National Regional Hispanic
Contractors Foundation that I'ma chairman of and we already
(03:58):
have a good use for it, planningaround it and making sure that
we do great things with it.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Oh, my goodness, well , congratulations.
I think we just I just gotsuper lucky, well, and you just
came back from vacation too,right?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Definitely I.
You know, I guess in the lastfive years I've taken that this
is my second vacation and we hada tremendous summer, had a lot
of work.
Thank god we have employees tomanage and I told my husband I
said we need a break, otherwisewe we're gonna get burned out
(04:36):
yes we took a week and a half.
We did go see the canelo fightoh my goodness, personal level
(05:00):
relate to them and be able tojust talk offline, and so that
was rewarding.
And then from there we went toChicago and spent a whole week
over there and I think so weleft Thursday and I want to say
by Tuesday I finally left work.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I know that you know what stands out to me and I'm
super happy for you and gratefulfor you and to you.
What stands out to me?
I love seeing the smile on yourface and the energy and this
flood of amazing experiencesthat you've had in a very packed
period of time.
(05:40):
What I love about that is, youknow, the short time that I've
known you and the fewconversations that we've had,
it's clear to me that you careLike.
You don't just care about yourbusiness, you care about the
human beings, you care aboutyour impact on the community.
You care about the clients thatyou serve and the caliber of
(06:00):
people that they are, and youtake action in serving them.
And so, like all of thesehighlights that you're
experiencing right now are justevidence to other people that if
you focus on service, if youfocus on a purpose greater than
yourself, life becomes super,super amazing.
Or am I just misreading what'sgoing on, ms Ponce?
(06:22):
First, we want to give the L&Mfamily shout out, or am I just
misreading what's going on, msPonce?
First, we want to give the L&Mfamily shout out, and this one
comes.
This one's fun.
This is the shout out.
I got the message and it wasthis Jesse, you're better than
mediocre, which I was like oh, Idon't know if that's good or
bad.
The beautiful thing is it waspart of the feedback I got from
(06:45):
one of the courses.
I was some online courses, Iwas teaching and I get to work
with construction workers allthe time, and I know that there
was a lot of love packed intothat feedback about me being
better than mediocre.
So shout out to all the familymembers out there.
You already know Leave me anote, send me a DM, text me,
(07:09):
leave me a review, whatever, sothat I can read it out loud and
celebrate you.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
No, I did struggle a lot in the beginning.
I mean, we had a business thatwas growing.
My ex-husband and my dad were apart of it and we were
(07:32):
successful.
But I was not authentic myself.
I was immature.
I'm 43 years old now and I wasin my late twenties and I just
stayed in the office and, hey,whatever needs to be done, they
will handle it, and I'll be hereto just process paperwork.
And then getting to a pointwhere I lost everything and was
at a point where I had torebuild from nothing, but
actually making an investment.
(07:53):
As far as me personally,touching ground and touching the
bottom was what made me where Iam now.
Getting to a point where I lostwhere I lived, where I had to
sell everything and anythingthat I owned, is what built me
to to where I'm now.
But that whole experience putme at a more down-to-earth
(08:20):
person, at a relatable more islike okay, I need to be able to
understand the employees so thatthey can produce for us.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So you were just taught.
You mentioned, as you weretelling the kind of the
backstory of that first business.
You mentioned that you weren'tas authentic as you are now and
that was maybe one of thecontributing factors to it
playing out the way that it did.
So what I'm curious about,because I know a lot of people
(08:53):
think there's a certain way theyshould behave and operate and
then when you actually get intothe real world, that's not
necessarily true.
So I'm wondering why did youdecide to operate in that way on
that first business?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So one of the things that happened to me is that we
were at Love Field Airport andmy employees basically had a
stand down and they said theywere not going to work for me
anymore, they were not going tofinish the project anymore, and
in order for me to give in, Iwas kind of bullied where they
(09:28):
wanted a raise and they wantedsome other things to happen, and
I didn't have any previouslearning on how to deal with the
situation in that manner orthat way, and so I just kind of
gave in and said, okay, wellthen, help me finish this
project and I will meeteverything that you want me to
(09:49):
meet pay, raises or bonuses,whatever we ended up having to
do.
This was about eight years ago,and so I submitted myself to
their needs and to their demandsto be able to finish the
project, because that was theone thing I did not want to let
down finish the project.
After that, I was in asituation where I was depressed.
(10:13):
I was like is?
it because I'm a woman?
Is it because I'm so young?
I was barely 28 years old andis it?
What is the reason that theydid that to me?
And it had a lot of factors.
My ex-husband was my ex-husbandthen.
My father had been already letgo from the business, and so I
was alone, coming up to all ofthese gentlemen to finish this
(10:35):
project, and so it was acontribution of a lot of things
that developed to this point.
But, taking a step back andit's like I don't want that to
ever happen to me again I wantto know what their demands are
prior to, and I don't want themto feel like they're being
mistreated, um B, before I evenknow like hey, you know what, I
(11:00):
know I'm treating him bad and Iknow he's going to react, but I
want to be able to know thathave that upper hand to say you
know what I'm pushing it, andthat's the end result.
I never wanted that to happenagain, and so that's when I
started thinking differently.
Well, the only way I'm going toknow what they face is when I
go out to the job site andactually work side by side.
(11:23):
By that time, everything hadgotten out of my hands, out of
control.
I ended up having to go andsell everything that I owned,
even my house, and then movinginto a 1500 square foot home and
rebuilding my business from$500 projects to $1,500 projects
(11:43):
.
But this time I didn't delegateit to anybody.
I went with my employee to getit done and I remember the first
thing we did it was a littleParkland clinic.
We had to demo some cabinets anddemo the floor and the ceiling.
It was maybe like an 800 squarefoot office little building.
And so I went with themphysically and we had to do it
(12:07):
at nine because the clinic wasoperational.
And that's where I learned.
I was like, oh my God, it's hot, I want to take a break.
Oh my God.
Oh, it's so dusty in here.
Oh, this, this PPE, is soinconvenient.
And so going through all thoselessons of oh my God, they do go
through a lot and anybody wouldsay I don't need to go through
(12:28):
this, I need to get paid more, Idon't want to get paid eight
bucks an hour, I want to getpaid 10 or I want to get, but
not until you actually live.
It is when you don't comprehendit.
And that was the biggestdisconnection of I always say to
my internal bankruptcy untilafter and so before, I never
(12:49):
comprehended or knew what theylived through or what the
process was to get a job done.
Until now, up until maybe ayear and a half ago, I would
work side by side by them.
There are some projects wherewe now disconnect buildings to
make them like a storm shelternext to them and they got a big
(13:10):
openings and all of that.
I was afraid to submitproposals.
I was like because I don't knowif we can do that.
And the first one that weproposed.
We ended up landing and I waslike I want to be there, I want
to be a part of doing that, andnow I feel the confidence that I
know how it gets done.
I know the process, I know thesafety parameters that we have
(13:31):
to follow and nobody can tell mehey, you know what.
This happened because we didn'tdo this right.
No, we create a plan and go andexecute it, because now I know
that I've been able to do it.
Obviously, no template isalways going to be used exactly
the same everywhere else.
But we from the upper managementunderstand and comprehend of
(13:54):
what is going to happen out inthe field and having that
connection with the employee nowI've earned the respect from
them.
I've earned the respect fromour clients who says you know
what, if it gets down and dirtyand it's on a Sunday night and
she needs to finish by Mondaymorning when the kids come in,
you're going to see Elizabeth onthe job site.
(14:16):
I'm making sure that it'shappening, as opposed to in the
past.
Well, I'm going to come down onyou if it doesn't happen.
That is not a way to lead asfar as my experiences anymore,
my way is now hey, I'm righthere to help you.
Make sure that we get it done.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Oh, that's what I love.
One.
It stinks, right, but sometimesmost of the time, the best
lessons I've ever learned happenthrough pain and failure, like
I'll never forget them and thencarrying them forward the way
that you did.
It's specifically getting outthere when you're relaunching
(14:58):
your business and doing it sideby side with your team, helps
the leader build empathy for thework.
Side by side with your teamhelps the leader build empathy
for the work.
Part of your message there waslike you're out there to
understand what does this workfeel like, because it's easy to
have super high expectations andminimize a worker's complaints,
(15:19):
but then when you go do it,it's like, oh damn, it's
freaking hot out here, we needto do something about this.
You go do it.
It's like, oh damn, it'sfreaking hot out here, we need
to do something about this.
And so good on you for for,like, getting out there and just
doing the damn thing.
Now, as you were doing that andbuilding your business, you
said you started with a littlekind of small hundred, five,
fifteen hundred dollar deals.
I imagine you got to build somepretty important relationships
(15:43):
with your field staff.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Definitely with the field staff and with the clients
as well.
Having the work ethic that wehave out there, that we're known
for, has really brought in thebusiness.
So for a very long time I wouldsay I don't have any employees.
I don't want to have any salaryemployees because I don't know
if I'm going to have work.
(16:07):
I don't be able to meet theirpaychecks every week.
A salary employee frightens meeven to this day.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
But these people won't go away.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
They've been here for like five, six years.
They've stuck around andthey've managed to get a
paycheck every week.
It's a commitment from my endto say you're a salary employee.
It's a commitment from my end tosay you're a salary employee.
It's hard, but they are here toinvest into a business that
they see growing, and I alwayswhen I received and even this
(16:38):
past weekend we received thisaward.
Yes, it's Elizabeth's name onthere.
It's Picasso, the company sheowns name on there.
But I tell my employees thishas never been able to be
possible without them.
I mean this is my name, yes, butthey are the ones that have
made me, because they're theones that represent the company
(17:01):
as a whole.
They're the ones that arebuilding this whole empire that
we all benefit from.
The more the accolades that wereceive wonderful, but the more
business that we do get, themore opportunities are open.
So in return, hey, you knowwhat, Now we can do tuition
reimbursement.
Hey, now we can do vacation pay.
(17:23):
Now we can do.
What do you call those parties?
Like once an annual anniversaryparties?
or gatherings that we do, we dothree times the bonus when in
the past we wouldn't do a bonus.
We do spring, summer and thenwinter, and so those are some of
the things that now they canbenefit from.
But we are now gettingrecognized and I don't know in
(17:48):
the past if I had mentioned thisto you, but one of the things
is that we do final cleaning, wedo general labor and I want to
say about five years ago when wewere rebuilding up, we had to
just kind of go out there andpick different GCs to work for
and whether we felt comfortable,great.
And if we didn't, we still sendpeople out there and just
(18:10):
tolerate some of those culturesthat we were not aligned with.
But one of the things was thatwe would send you know laborers
to go and help out, pick uptrash.
And sometimes our employees arelike no, I don't want to go
work on that job site.
Well, why?
Well, it's because they don'ttreat us right.
Well, I don't want to go workon that job site, well, why?
Well, it's because they don'ttreat us right.
Well, all you're going to go dois pick up the trash.
(18:32):
You don't need to worry aboutanybody else.
No, but you should see how theytreat us.
So one of the times I went outthere to the job and I was just
kind of in the backgroundwatching them and I came across
where another company employeeliterally is drinking a cup of
whatever he was drinking a Cokeor whatever and my guy was
(18:55):
walking towards him picking uptrash and he takes his cup and
throws it in the floor in frontof the employee and tells him
there's your trash so you canpick it up.
My employee picked it up andkept going and after he finished
I said you know what Iappreciate you doing that.
I appreciate you picking up thetrash and not talking smack or
(19:17):
back at them.
You just look down and keepforward.
Later on we set up a meetingand I said I never understood
why some of you guys didn't wantto go until now that I have
actually experienced it and seenit.
And I said don't worry, keep upthat same attitude, just get it
done and move forward.
Yeah, a couple years later, oneof my employees said you know
(19:42):
what?
I've only been with you aboutsix months, but I feel so proud
to work for your company.
And I said well, good, I saidwhat happened.
He's like I just feel sorespected when I put on a
Picasso vest and I said well,you're now having the accolades
of what we had to go through,because now we don't only go out
(20:05):
to the job site and do our work.
We create relationships withthose peers that we work with
the plumber, with the mechanical, with the electrical and create
those relationships where we'reconsistently doing ISD work.
And that same little networkmoves from one project to
another project.
You might see them with onecompany, you might see them with
another company, but thatculture has been always there.
(20:28):
You know what?
We're going to always respectyou and one of the things that
my parents taught me is that ifyou're not going to say anything
good about anybody.
Just don't say anything at all.
Maybe they're having a bad day,maybe they want to kick us in
the rear?
Well, we're going to turnaround and if you need to slap
me in the face, it's OK, but atthe end of the day, we're here
(20:49):
for a bigger something that it'sjust unobtainable sort of a
feeling where it's going toleave a bigger impact in the
industry.
When we now get calls directlyfrom the district.
(21:16):
They go above and beyond the GCsand they call us and say, hey,
we really need you to come andmake that Picasso, look on that
school, because you havesomething that make our schools
different reputation andbuilding that self-esteem to our
employees, where, yeah,sometimes we get kicked around
and we suffered, but now we'reat top of everybody else.
Yeah when some of those youknow idiots that did that to us
(21:38):
are not anywhere where we're at.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
So a few things.
I applaud you because you were.
You and your staff are way morepatient than me.
I've been in trouble so manytimes because I can't keep my
mouth shut.
Now it's been over a decadesince I've been in the field,
but I imagine the service thatstaying focused on executing the
contract, delivering theservices that you are expected
(22:03):
or have committed to do to thehighest quality, has and you
just said it right that's whatset you up to go direct for the
school districts because theywant the Picasso.
Look, I mean, that's got to.
When you hear that that's gotto land some kind of way like
hell, yeah, that, like thank youteam, that's that's what we're
going for.
I'm curious because I knowthere's a lot of folks, friends,
(22:27):
colleagues out there in theindustry are starting to begin
launch their own businesses orhave been doing it for a little
bit and they're stuck.
It feels like on the first wave, whatever, that is one to three
years.
You kind of have to work Ithink you said vultures, work
with some of those contractorsthat don't necessarily have the
(22:49):
culture that your crew deserves,but getting through that sets
you up to work for phenomenalclients that align with your
values.
How true is that?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
that that's you hit the nail on the head right there
.
You just you don't.
When you're a teenager, you'redating and you don't even know
who you're going to end upmarrying.
But you have to go through thatprocess.
And the same thing here.
When you own your own business,hey, you're going to take every
and any opportunity out thereand then you're going to say you
know what I am going to do,that second project for that
client, or you know what I'mdone?
I'm not.
This is not worth my headache,I'm going to move on.
(23:30):
But you have to go through thatprocess to be able to learn One
of the things that I went toone of my mentors a long time
ago.
I was like how do you interviewemployees so that you know that
you're picking the right personto work for you and I was like I
was so I mean like, oh my God,you will interview them and you
(23:52):
know exactly what they're goingto be doing in the future.
I don't know if you can readtheir mind or you can read them
or what, but I sat in throughone of the interviews he did and
I was like you just get theperfect people and he's like no,
elizabeth.
And I was like you just get theperfect people and he's like no
, elizabeth.
He's like it's all about theexperience and you eventually
learn to read and know people.
(24:13):
There's some people that aregoing to come and give you a
perfect resume.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Some people that are not going to give you the
perfect resume and you have tofind in between which one's
going to work out for you andwhere you want to put them and
(24:38):
which one is going to work out,work out for that position.
But now, beginning of June, wehire maybe 80 to 90 people for
the seasonal work and not only Ibut my HR Norma knows she's
like yeah, I went ahead and tookthem, but I know they're not
going to be up to your demand.
She's like they're not going tolast more than a week and we
know that's unexplainable.
Is that we always?
We had a pot of money.
Every time we say, hey, thisone's going to last 12 hours or,
(25:01):
you know, 40 hours.
We would nail it down to theday, to the hour, but it's just
a matter of getting to know yourclient, getting to know your
employee.
Obviously you don't want tojudge them by their cover.
I always give an opportunity,no matter what, and then the
true colors come out, whetherit's an employee or a client.
(25:21):
One of the biggest things that,as you're growing and in the
very first stages of yourbusiness, is the payment process
.
Obviously you want to get thejob done and you want to get
paid as soon as possible.
What is that process?
Is the first thing that ifthey're good to you and very
trustworthy, whether they tellyou, hey, you know what, you'll
(25:42):
have a tick within a week, andif you have it within a week,
you know what, I trust your word.
And then if they give you therunaround for two or three weeks
later, well, you know what.
I don't want to be in thatrelationship.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yep, yep.
I love the way you connected todating because, yes, right,
like you don't know, let's findout.
And then it reminds me of asaying when someone shows you
who they are, believe them, justbelieve them and move on.
Go pick somebody else.
You're talking about hiring,and of all the different weird
(26:14):
jobs and responsibilities I'vehad in my life, hiring was the
one I still suck at the most.
When I look back at all thefolks that I've hired to bring
in from outside the company backwhen I was working and had that
type of responsibility, Ididn't do a great job.
(26:35):
There's a few that were veryhigh performers, like that
really turned out to contributebig time to the company.
There's a lot that did reallygood and they were solid
performers.
There's a lot that did reallygood and they were solid
performers.
But man, if I were to count theamount of times that I made a
bad hire and compare that to allthe other things that I've done
in my career and in business,that's my biggest failure rate.
(26:58):
So I'm always interested for anycheat codes and secrets to like
.
Figure out how to get better atthat.
And also, I'm not the guy toask, because I'm great at
promoting people not so great athiring them.
You mentioned that you have amentor, and so, on the path from
restarting your businessclosing the doors on the other
one selling everything, thensaying, okay, I'm going to do it
(27:20):
again, but I'm going to do itdifferent what resources was
that mentor the only resourceyou accessed?
Or were there other things thatyou tapped into to help you
build the knowledge base youneeded to get to where you're at
today?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
So I want to say that the biggest resource was the
necessity to provide for my fourkids, because I was a single
mom and I could not not be ableto provide with them for them,
because I didn't have any kindof support from anybody and
everybody I know.
(27:57):
At a certain point, when I hadto let go of my father back in
the day, I was shunned from myfamily because how could I have
done that?
How could I have let him go andso didn't have really a support
system when it came from myfamily.
I mean, again, I have an olderhalf brother, but I am an only
child to both of my parents.
(28:17):
I don't have a huge family forpeople to kind of just turn
their back.
It was, you know what.
I just need to make it this dayso that was one of the biggest
things is like okay, how am Igoing to pay bills this next
week?
Well, I need to go get thisproject or next project and just
kind of go about it that way.
(28:38):
I just use common sense.
I don't have a higher education, I only have K through 12 and I
and graduated when I waspregnant with my daughter at 17.
And so that didn't make it anyeasier.
But, just using common sense, Ialways have to ask two or three
people.
do you think this is right?
Whether it's a mentor, whetherit's a friend, whether it's just
(29:01):
hey, you're having a networker.
I always bounce ideas off otherpeople and see, okay, well, I
think that person kind of thinkslike me and I really honor and
respect their advice and I'mgoing to try it.
I always come back to my ownconclusion, but I believe I use
(29:22):
everybody and anybody as amentor.
I'll go out there and just askquestions to people.
Now, in the position that I am,I would say my surroundings are
huge, because I've beenmentored by McCown Gordon, I've
been mentored by Turner, by BeckMcCart, all these other schools
.
I've taken one or two thingsfrom them to be able to develop
(29:44):
a common sense to my business.
Just right now, talking to mystaff during lunch, you would
assume that we have a structuredbusiness.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, we have a HR, we have an administrator, we
have somebody that's estimating,and then I oversee everything
and just tackle whatever we needto get done.
Today we had a new hire andshe's going to do accounts,
receivable and the invoicing andjust paying out the
subcontractors and all of that.
(30:14):
I want to be able to structureourselves to kind of have many
departments.
Yeah, but that's because now Isee that from companies that I
get mentored is like okay, let'sgive them single
responsibilities as opposed to athousand responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, break it up.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, start breaking it up.
So it's more of a hey, you knowwhat?
That's one of my goals.
I want to get to and let's worktowards it.
But definitely have a person togo to, maybe twice a month, I
mean every other month maybehave a lunch with somebody, and
you will never find that oneperson that's always going to
(30:54):
help you.
I mean, and some people they'relike I made a mistake at the
beginning to ask people, can youmentor me, can you help me?
And then they never did.
But I would still say, hey, canwe meet up for lunch.
And then I'm like, hey, I'mgoing through this, how should I
handle this?
And unofficially they were mymentor, whether they accepted it
or not, but they still answeredquestions for me.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yes, yes, now, I love that for a lot of reasons.
Like, I've had several peopleluckily right Then maybe they're
just crazy and they didn't haveany other options.
But I've had several peopleluckily right Then maybe they're
just crazy and they didn't haveany other options.
But I've had a lot of peoplereach out to me to mentor them
and it's like in my head it'slike okay, sure On what?
And they're like okay, then Idon't know.
(31:39):
Like, if you want me to mentoryou on salsa dancing, I can do
that, but is that what you want?
And so I think there's part,there's like two parts.
One thing that you said that'sreally important is you're
inviting somebody to lunch thathas experience doing the thing
that you're dealing with.
So you have a very specificthing that you're looking for
insight on.
So I think that's superimportant for anybody that's
(32:02):
looking to get a mentor.
Have an idea of what for.
And also, what I love aboutwhat you said is like not
everybody can be a mentor, likenot everybody knows how to
mentor If you ask them.
There are some people that Iknow that their attitude about
it is if somebody asked me tomentor them, it's on them to set
(32:26):
up the calls and tell me whatthey need.
And da da, da, da da, which is,I mean, that's a way.
I don't agree with thatentirely, but mentoring is.
It's a superpower and it can beaccomplished in an informal
manner, just like you said.
Right, like I pick people, Ihave lunch with them, I ask
specific questions and I getwhat I need.
(32:48):
You know, one thing that yousaid reminded me of how amazing
single mothers are, because Iwas brought up by a single
mother as well, and you said oneof the things was out of
necessity, right.
What?
That's what helped you get towhere you're at, right, what?
That's what helped you get towhere you're at, and so, on your
(33:16):
path to growing your business,bringing it back to life,
raising your four kids, therewere some sacrifices you had to
make along the way.
And so maybe for the, for thesingle mother or, on the rare
occasion, the single father outthere, that is, is working to
build and leave a big impact onthe world, what insider advice
would you offer them?
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I would say it's never going to be easy, whether
you have a support system athome, to try to start your own
business, or whether you'realone.
You're going to face the samecircumstances You're going to
face.
Well, how am I going to paythese bills?
Sometimes it's better.
My business has growntremendously now.
I got married in April to myhusband that has been with me
(33:58):
since the beginning of mybusiness.
He's been my best friend and nowwe recently got married.
But just the wanting to be ableto succeed and the wanting to
be able to provide a better lifefor your kids, or just that
drive that nobody is going to beable to develop for you other
than yourself, just kind ofmotivates you.
(34:21):
But life is hard on its own.
I mean you make it harder.
No-transcript, this onecontract almost wiped you out,
(34:49):
or it probably did.
Well, you know what?
You're still alive.
You got two hands.
You're going to have to get upand keep going.
I've hit rock bottom where it'slike you just see everything
crumbling and you have no way ofcontrolling it Right.
Just let it fall apart.
And once it's all falling apart, okay, try of controlling it
Right.
Just let it fall apart and onceit's all falling apart, okay,
(35:10):
try to piece it back togetherand start over Love it.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, yeah, give yourself permission to be
depressed.
Give yourself permission to besad, to be angry.
I think that is expert OGadvice, because the friction to
like it kind of drives me alittle crazy when people are
like don't be mad, don't beupset, just like don't go be
(35:37):
upset.
And what you said, though, washere's the important part Give
yourself a time limit, right?
It turns out that when I getdepressed, or angry, or fresh,
when I got a lot of emotion pentup, emotion, one of the things
I do to like process, that is,eat delicious, greasy, sugary,
fatty food, and so it's like allright, jess, whatever happened
(36:01):
wasn't great.
You got half a day to go to thepanaderia and get you some pink
cakes and some marranitos, andlet's go and pig out, and then,
yeah, like, what are you goingto do next?
What's the next step?
So I think there's deep wisdomin going into the abyss, or the
(36:23):
darkness of the feeling for aperiod of time, because we have
to process that emotion and wealso need to get out of it.
So, man, thank you for that.
Now you and I have amazing tens, and you are the chairman of
the NRHCA.
(36:43):
How did that come about and whydid you decide to take that
responsibility?
On?
Speaker 1 (36:52):
So it goes back to maybe 15 years ago I don't know
my mom when she was in Mexico.
She lived in Mexico some of hertime and she was always into
politics, la Politica going tothe free and to all of this, and
so I don't know if it comesfrom her or it's something that
(37:13):
it's just kind of built in ourgenes.
But I've always, and to thisday, I tell my husband I was
like I want to change the worldand he's like you can't.
And I said, yes, I can one dayat a time.
Watch me, watch me.
Yes, probably years ago, Istarted with the association and
became a member of it, andthey're the ones one gentleman
(37:36):
in particular, adam Trevino.
So I worked for a constructioncompany where my dad worked as a
receptionist.
And then, as I worked as areceptionist, this company was
growing, doing all kinds ofprojects all over the United
States.
But then they came to a pointwhere they closed their doors,
but in the process, well, asthey were letting go of people.
(38:00):
Well, elizabeth, now I need youto help in the project
management.
Now I need you to help whatsupervisors are.
Now I need you to helpaccounting.
Now I need you to help all ofthese other positions.
And so I would help.
And I remember I went into thepresident's office and I said,
hey, I'm getting paid $8 an hour.
I've done a lot in the last twoyears.
Can I get paid $10 an hour?
(38:22):
This was in February of 2004.
And she's like well, no, Ithink we can't afford it right
now.
You should see, they wereclosing all of these offices and
letting go of all theseemployees.
And I said, yeah, but I think Ireally do deserve this.
And she said no.
And I said, okay, well, I wentand gave my two weeks notice.
They didn't believe that I wasgoing to do it.
(38:44):
They didn't believe that I wasgoing to do it.
But then I leave and I'm like,well, ok, I feel so big and so
competent that I can do all ofthese things, but with no
education nobody would hire me.
So I went from February to Mayand, like I think in April, I
went on food stamps in Tanabecause I had already two kids
(39:05):
and my husband then was workingin a factory and wasn't getting
paid like two hundred and ninetydollars and we needed to be
able to provide for our two kids.
And I remember going to theassociation because one of the
things that I did for theprevious company is like, hey,
let's go to the networkers andfind us jobs, yeah.
So then I went back to theassociation.
(39:28):
I was like, hey, can you guyshelp me find a job?
And then Adam sat me down andhe said you know what he's like.
There's not very many women inconstruction.
He said I don't know that youcan find a actual job where they
would hire you as aconstruction worker, but you
already know a lot, elizabeth,why don't you start your own
business?
(39:48):
So I was like you know what, Iprobably can.
I said I know everything andanything about looking for work
and getting the work.
And so I went to my dad and Isaid Dad, can I borrow $5,000 to
buy the insurance and buy theasbestos license and everything
I needed to get to have a legitcompany, the corporation?
(40:09):
And so he let me borrow it andI established a company in May
of 2004.
Within that year we sold$60,000 worth of work.
My dad would go do it at night,he would get employees to do it
on the weekends, and so we kindof built it that way and moving
forward.
Again, being a part of theHispanic Contractors Association
(40:32):
, I met Frank Cortez that passedaway.
He used to be the MWB for DARTand so he's like hey, there's a
solicitation for asbestos ofhouses and apartments and
buildings to be done in the newrail lines at DART.
He had the blue line, greenline, yellow line.
(40:52):
He said I think you should goafter it and he helped me,
guided me in how to download thesolicitation, how to put it
together and what I needed tobuy as far as insurance, and so
we submitted.
That was in 2006.
We landed the project by 2007.
We were already doing over $2million worth of work.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Son of a gun, so from 04 to 07.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah, they were giving us now, hey, go do this
house for $30 dollars, go demo,innovate it, go do it.
Okay, will we go do it, collectour money.
Now let's do three houses,let's do this building this
motel, this club, and so it kindof helped us build there.
But they got the process aswell.
They're like, well, we needpeople to run for board members
(41:39):
of the association.
And I was like like, okay, I'llrun.
And so I ended up getting onthe board and they're like
Elizabeth, what are you going tobring to the table?
Well, how does this even work?
Because I don't even know whatbeing the board member means
Nobody ever teaches you thesethings.
So with their guidance they'relike, okay, well, you need to
(41:59):
kind of do service hours to theassociation, help with events
and try to go out and collectsponsorships.
And so they taught me all ofthat.
And so I did that.
But then I also said you knowwhat, guys, I still don't feel
confident on how to submit aproposal.
I don't know how to read plans,because when you do as best as
(42:21):
removal, you don't need to learnhow to read plans like you do
for a construction project.
All you do is just take thesurvey and off of those numbers
you go.
And so I was like can we get aclass for how to do blueprint
reading?
So they got this otherarchitect to come in and give us
free classes.
I'm like, okay, well, I needsome accounting.
(42:41):
How do we use QuickBooks?
Can we find somebody thatteaches QuickBooks?
Well, elizabeth needs that.
So, elizabeth, don't worry,I'll find the students.
And it was more because, hey, Ineeded the information and
other people needed to learn ittoo.
So we kind of built up and sothen we had a whole program.
I'm like, okay, and then twoyears went by and hey, do you
(43:04):
want to stay on board.
Sure, why not?
Two more years After that.
Then I became secretary of theassociation, eventually becoming
chairman of the association andthen also in the process,
building the Luna Awards.
Because so I was sitting at theboard meetings and they're like
, yeah, we're having the golftournament, we're having the day
of the construction worker,we're having the clay shoot
(43:27):
where we raise funds and thisand that and the other.
And I said, well, what are wedoing to recognize women in
construction?
Well, nothing.
I mean, elizabeth, go and puttogether a luncheon to recognize
the women in construction.
And I was like, okay, and thenJohn and Yolanda had this great
idea that Maria Luna had beenhere as an entrepreneur.
(43:48):
She sold tortillas and shedidn't know how to make
tortillas, but she got herfriends to make the tortillas
and then she would go and sellthem, and so that's how she
started her business.
And so, with their knowledge ofputting these events together
and with me somebody telling mewell, I don't think you can do
it, but go and try you know,that attitude.
(44:09):
Well, you know what I mean.
I'm going to go make it happen.
And so we did.
And the first year we had LunaAwards to recognize.
We give out seven awards towomen in the construction to
recognize the administrative ofthe year, the business owner of
the year.
Well, the first year we hadabout less than 60 people attend
our luncheon, and then the nextyear we had a hundred.
(44:31):
And here we are now at fivecities, and when we have it here
in Dallas we have well over 800people attend.
And so, moving forward, justleaving those little impacts in
the association have been nowaccolades for me, where I
receive and people want tomaintain me to be a part of it.
(44:52):
And so now, moving on to assoon as I finished my
chairmanship, we're like okay,well, all the chairmen from the
past that have served move on tobe chairmen of the foundation.
Now COVID came around and wereally didn't have an
interchangeable kind ofstandstill for chairmen, and so
(45:14):
I just kind of got stuck therefor a little while.
This is going to be my last USchairman, but one of the things
that we want to leave as animpact is that we instilled a
new internship program that wenow take the turn or the bow,
for the Phillips made the bigsky that you need an intern.
(45:35):
Let the RCA foundation help youfind them and then put them in
your companies.
And so, just with this $6,000scholarship that I received this
past weekend, I'm putting ittowards the association to
create a luncheon to invite.
There's some trade schools herein Dallas that focus in
construction.
(45:56):
And so we want to invite thosestudents to come to a sit-down
luncheon and have a TDIndustries project manager at
the table, have a superintendentat the table, have a project
engineer at the table, so thatway they can tell them what
their jobs are and expose themmore to construction and
(46:16):
hopefully they can startbuilding those relationships
Like hey, remember I met you afew years ago, I want to apply
for your company now.
I went to trade school and Iwant to work for your company
and so creating that exposureand I guess just because of the
drive and the vision and thewant to be able to help and
(46:37):
support, not necessarilyfinancially but just being there
and listening to people, hasbeen able to keep me with the
association where they want meto be around, because it's just,
it's a positive impact foreverybody.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yes.
So I mean, sister, you got alot going on.
But again, one of the thingsthat I hope our listeners out
there are taking from this likeyou're contributing so much to
through your business, to yourpeople and to the construction
community, and then, through theRegional Hispanic Contractors
(47:17):
Association, you're contributingso much to other contractors.
Now we're talking about careersof folks entering the industry
and expanding that influence,and so from the outside looking
in, people might say like, oh myGod, you're doing so much and
how do you have the time, how doyou have the energy?
But I get the impression thatyou're energized by seeing the
(47:40):
impact you're having on people'slives.
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Definitely.
I mean it's the adrenaline of Imean you have no idea how many
people come and tell me thatI've changed their lives, wow.
And it's so rewarding Not onlybecause they have a direct
connection with me, whetherthey're an employee or it's one
of.
I mentor about 20 differentcompanies.
(48:05):
We meet at least twice a yearor I meet with them individually
at least once a month.
Like not too long ago I postedit.
We didn't win a job, but welearned so many lessons.
And I get direct messages wherethey tell me you know what you
just now motivated me becauseI've lost the last four and I
wanted to just stop.
And now I'm going to go aheadand submit again because I know
(48:27):
you're going through it.
But that's why we post what wepost, or that's why we say what
we say, because it does changesomebody's lives out there.
You just don't know how muchimpact that you have and thank
God that people reach back outto me and say, hey, I appreciate
you doing this or you doingthat.
But I want to say that therewarding part of having my
(48:50):
business is the platform thatgives me the opportunity to do
this.
I couldn't have a businesswithout my employees.
It's a domino effect.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
You treat your people right, appreciate them and
honor them.
You treat your people right,appreciate them and honor them.
It has this effect.
It gives you an opportunity tohave amazing experiences and
contribute at a greater capacity.
I'm so glad and grateful thatyou're sharing it with me and
the L&M family, because it'svery easy to be seduced by the
(49:19):
idea that by starting a businessI'm going to make a lot of
money, and sure you can.
But if all you're doing istaking, I think it limits the
potential quality of life that aperson can have.
And so sure you got to get themoney in so you can keep doing
cool stuff.
But when you go and contribute,share your gifts and talents
(49:42):
out into the world, it has themultiplying effect and I think
your story is a beautifulexample of that.
And I'm looking I'm here kindof nerding out on the website,
on the RHCA website, and itlooks like they got something
going on here in San Antoniothat maybe I should get involved
with.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Definitely, and I will be there so you can be
definitely my guest and attendthe Luna Awards here in October.
They have it in five differentcities.
The first one's in Houston onOctober the 3rd, which
definitely I will be there.
Sometimes we work really hardand nobody really recognizes us
(50:22):
because we're the owners andthey're like you make good money
.
But sometimes I'm up late atnight, two, three o'clock in the
morning, working make sure thatthese proposals get done right
or that I have the time to beable to have an interview or go
out there and mentor somebody.
There's still work to be donewithin the business, but you're
making some priorities on thetop of your list first, then the
(50:47):
second ones and for somebody tonotice some of those things.
Well, that's why we created theLuna Awards, because you are
the business owners and we wantto make sure that people know
that you work hard to make surethat you have established
business or that you're not atypical administrator that just
sits in the back of a desk anddoes what everybody else tells
(51:10):
them to do.
No, you go beyond and above tomake sure that everything gets
done properly, and so thosepeople deserve to get a
recognition, and that's whatLuna Awards does and that's what
Luna Awards does is recognizesthose people, specifically women
, that have excelled in ourindustry.
Because we're the minoritythere's not a lot of women in
construction, but we're gettingthere.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, and I'm sure you've noticed there's been a
tremendous I say tremendous,maybe that's overstating it I
know that.
I've seen in my career Istarted in 95.
I've seen in my career Istarted in 95.
Compare then to now, like justthe number of women that are in
construction.
I mean hell.
I almost never go to a job sitewhere there's not at least one
woman.
Back in the day you just didn'tsee, we didn't see women in the
job site.
And now they're runningbusinesses and they're
(51:57):
executives for the generalcontractor and they're
installers in the field, andthere's plenty of room for them.
We need them, we need them, badwe need everybody.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
We're a little more organized.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
I follow you on LinkedIn.
I'm a lurker sometimes, but Isee you posting that you're
speaking at local schools,engaging with students, engaging
at universities.
If somebody, if one of thelisteners wanted to like get
involved and start engaging withour youth about careers in the
industry, what are some pointersyou could give them?
Speaker 1 (52:33):
I would say be authentic, don't try to powder
coat what oh?
You're going to get paid Xamount, $100,000.
No, you know what.
You're only going to get paidthat if you work your butt off,
you invest and if you put inthose long hours I think that
goes in any industry you can getpaid really well, but you've
(52:54):
got to do your personalinvestment.
And so I would say be authenticwhen you're putting out there
the information.
Speaking to all these schools,I'm sure that in every city out
there, a trade school, whetherit's and this is the one thing
that I just learned not too longago is that it may be a trade
(53:14):
school for high school students,which they will be impacted and
learn.
But then there's also thosecolleges or community colleges
that have classes aboutconstruction, and you can even
go and talk to those people,because some of those people
that's why they went back tocollege or that's why they're in
those community classes,because they want to know a
(53:37):
little bit more about theindustry.
Just like any human being,sometimes we don't listen to our
parents because it goes in oneear and comes out the industry.
Just like any human being,sometimes we don't listen to our
parents because it goes in oneear and comes out the other.
Sometimes when you're sittingin front of that professor, that
teacher, all semester long, itgoes in one ear and comes out
the other.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
But when?
Speaker 1 (53:54):
you come from a very different person from out in the
field.
You might leave one or twopointers for them to like oh my
God, that is so true.
I want to be able to try that.
Or you know what I can relateto that.
And so it's not necessarilyjust high school, higher
education as well, or a tradeschool.
(54:15):
Just go out there and you mightend up learning something from
some of these people as well.
One of this high school that Ivisited I end up learning
something from some of thesepeople as well.
One of this high school that Ivisited I was speaking and then
one of the gentlemen's waitedfor me and after everybody left,
he comes to me and he said doyou think this is right what I'm
doing?
And I said so.
He showed me his phone and he'slike I print t-shirts and sell
(54:36):
them and I'm doing it onInstagram.
And then he's like I orderedthem from China and they come in
and then I print it on mycomputer and then I iron them
and and I was like you got alittle business and here you are
, like 16.
I'm not like you're going tobecome something when you grow
up.
I was just so amazed and I leftvery rewarding.
I was like, oh my God, there'sanother Hispanic student right
(54:57):
there, already setting his path.
And so had nothing to do withwhat I said or had nothing to do
with the purpose of that, butjust to know that there's
somebody out there that you knowle está echando ganas and he's
going to be successful.
And so going through that isalso rewarding for yourself.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah, anytime I get a chance to interact with high
school students particularly,they're my favorite.
Well, you know what that's alie.
Elementary kids are my favoritebecause they don't care, like
they're totally to use your wordauthentic.
And two of my favoritequestions I've gotten from like
third graders.
One is why haven't you retiredyet?
(55:40):
You look old.
One is why haven't you retiredyet?
You look old, come on.
And then the other one is howmuch money do they pay you?
Like they don't care, they'rejust good, like they're just
curious, right, like what do youbuy with your money?
Like, yes, oh, love them.
But high school kids, like yousaid, I think the most important
thing for me that I practice,based on what you said, is just
(56:06):
be just talk straight to them,because it's about connection
more than it is educating themRight.
It's about connecting them,letting them know that there's
actual human beings that haveproblems, that learn, that
struggle, that win in theindustry.
And so if they can connect withthat's my kind of focus If I
(56:28):
can connect with one or twostudents in that session and
help them see that I'm livingproof of what they can do, it's
a win, like it's a straight upwin and like trying to give them
all the details and all thepositions and all the career
paths, like that's static.
Yeah, be human.
What do you say?
Speaker 1 (56:49):
No, absolutely.
There was a graduation thatthey invited me to speak at for
some scholarships that weregiven at the Southeast Chamber
of Commerce and they gave me anaward and recognition and part
of my speech I told to thestudents.
I said I've been in your shoesand the parents obviously went
with their kids because theywere receiving a scholarship and
(57:11):
I didn't see them from thestage.
But there was a young lady inthe back of the room with her
mom and the young lady waspregnant, and so I was talking
about how I was going to dayschool for the 11th grade and
night school for the 12th gradeand telling them I ended up
graduating and here I am stillsuccessful and had my daughter
(57:31):
just turning 17.
And the mom comes to me at theend and she said I never I
thought my daughter's life wasover because she was already.
She's going to be 17 and she'shaving a baby.
She's like I just thought sheneeded to marry off and hope to
find a good husband, and thatwas it.
I said, oh no, she's got somuch potential and I said you
(57:56):
just need to continue to supporther and whatever she wants to
go, be she will be her andwhatever she wants to go be, she
will be.
One of the bad things about myex-husband is that I would tell
my son and daughter you can bewhatever you want to be, you
want to go to Harvard, you cango to Harvard.
And he was not the rightpartner and he would laugh at me
and he's like how do you tellthem that that is not anything?
(58:18):
You should tell your kids,because they're stupid, they're
not going to succeed more thanjust stay here in Dallas and I
said no, you need to be able toleave the world completely open
to be whatever they want to be.
And when my son is a chef andmy daughter has a master's in
accounting and a bachelor's inbusiness administration, in
(58:39):
business administration.
If I would have had thatmentality, this is all I'm made
for, and my kids too, we wouldhave never raised from where
we're at.
We would have been stuck there.
And I do see that in ourculture, hispanic culture, where
it's like, okay, all we're madefor is to go out and work in
the field.
Some of you guys are smartenough and probably know a few
(59:00):
more things than the actualowner.
You just need to put moreeffort and build your own thing.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, my God, I'm inspired and Iknow whoever's listening.
You better be inspired becauseMiss Elizabeth is bringing the
real talk.
So was there what did I forgetto ask?
What other amazingaccomplishment did I fail to
cover, Miss Elizabeth?
Speaker 1 (59:27):
I don't know.
I have so many stories, I know.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (59:31):
I would say the biggest thing is that if anybody
fails, just know that you canget up and you can start all
over again and there's nothingever holding you back over again
.
And there's nothing everholding you back.
And trust me when I say you canget depressed and you can be at
the bottom.
Sometimes I say I was in.
I was at ground level, rockbottom and sometimes probably
(59:53):
even bedrock beyond that.
But just take it one day at atime and build yourself back up,
Whether it's hey, you know what, I'm going to get out of bed
today and take a shower.
Hey, that's a bigaccomplishment.
Right there, I'm going to get towork and I'm going to get to
the office on time, just doingone thing at a time.
I say always do right by people, and the more right that you do
(01:00:14):
, the more that you're going toreceive.
The more you give, the moreyou're going to receive, and
don't ever expect it from thatsame person.
I've taught some people how toread plans and then they move on
, but then to know, oh my God,you're a 50 million dollar
project all on your own.
You know what?
I was a part of those first fewyears of your life, and it's
just one, one thing after theother that will happen and you
(01:00:39):
won't even know how you gotthere.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Man, I love it.
I love it.
Did you have fun?
Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
I did.
Thank you so much I reallyappreciate it and anybody can
follow me on LinkedIn and I'malways open for meetings, lunch
or coffee or, if you want to,I've had people.
Just give me a call and wespend an hour on the phone and
hey, just talking, something'sover.
You know, I'm always open,available and definitely, if you
(01:01:07):
want to volunteer, be a part ofthe program, we're always
welcoming.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
People definitely attend the luna, whether it's in
these cities in dallas with elpaso, houston, austin, san
antonio and dallas well, I'mgoing to make sure and put those
links in the show notes so thatfolks can click specifically so
they can make sure they canconnect with you.
You already heard Ms Elizabethon the LinkedIn.
(01:01:32):
Hit her up, she will give youthe time.
I had the fortune of having aconversation with you one day.
I'm like, oh my God, you'reamazing, can I please interview
you?
I'm like, oh my God, you'reamazing, can I please interview
you?
And we'll make sure we put alink to Picasso and the link to
the Luna Awards, because I needto get that on my calendar.
Make sure I'm here in Octoberso I can go check that out
(01:01:54):
because I've been slacking.
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