Herb Sargent on The Legacy of Investing in People

Join us for a profound exploration of faith, vulnerability, and the transformative power of investing in people. In this engaging episode, we sit down with Herb, a visionary CEO in the construction industry, who shares his journey from humble beginnings to leading a successful business with a legacy spanning nearly a century. Herb digs deep into his family's history, sharing invaluable lessons learned from the journals of his grandfather and father, both of whom laid the groundwork for a meaningful company culture rooted in community and trust.

Throughout this heartfelt conversation, we examine the importance of empowering individuals and fostering a culture that celebrates growth. Herb recounts personal experiences battling self-doubt and the inspiration he found in the community that ultimately redirected his life. His candid reflections on mental health, particularly the challenges he faced, shed light on why creating spaces for vulnerability is essential in today's work environment.

We also delve into Herb's proactive workforce development initiatives, illustrating how teaching employees invaluable life skills can lead to holistic success. This episode invites listeners to rethink their approach to leadership, emphasizing that true success relies not just on profits but also on the dignity and well-being of those who contribute.

As we wrap up, Herb leaves us with a powerful message about the significance of faith and the promise of leading with love and compassion. Whether you're in a leadership position or just beginning your career, there's something here for everyone to ponder on their journey to making a positive impact. Tune in, get inspired, and discover the lasting change that comes from investing in people. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this transformative experience with others!

Connect with Herb at:

http://www.sargent.us/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/herb-sargent-29a791152/

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

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There were no highways, there were no roads,
literally just horse and wagontrails.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Because my life is so damn amazing, herb, and it
would not be this amazing had itnot been for the people that
decided to invest in me.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
People that worked with me.
They bet on a three-leggedhorse and I was like, why would
you bet on a three-legged horse?
But they did.
I spent the better part of ahalf century running away from
God and when my life got upended, natasha, our CFO, was the one
that said to me you needcommunity, like you had to come

(00:36):
to church.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
What is going on L&M family If you can't tell.
I'm like jumping for joy and Iwas kind of nervous and all
riled up about today's interviewbecause this is the second time
I got to spend some time withhim.
He's been very generous andhe's a baller like he's an OG.
I send out a questionnaire oflike, how do you want me to

(01:03):
introduce you?
And evidence of him being an OGwas just Herb, and I love that
because he's been there and hedoesn't need to do need all the
showers of praise, but I'm goingto do it anyway.
So Mr Herb has 45 years in theconstruction industry.
He's impacted hundreds andhundreds of careers, which is

(01:26):
one of the things that reallycaught my attention about the
way he operates his business andhis forward thinking or at
least maybe legacy mindset ofwhat he's doing in the
construction business.
And even though he's back wherehe started, he is the ceo of
sargent.
He's got tons of experience.
I know we're going to get somebeautiful, beautiful nuggets

(01:47):
about what that is and if you'renew here, this is the learnings
and missteps podcast, where youget to see how real people just
like you are sharing theirgifts and talents to leave this
world better than they found it.
I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and you're about to get to

(02:08):
know Mr Herb.
Mr Herb, how are you doing, sir?

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Hey, jesse, so glad to talk to you again.
I'm really disappointed.
I saw you posted somewhere thatyou took somebody out with
those famous tacos you promisedme, but we couldn't make it work
that day I was hoping to getback to San Antonio for those
tacos, but I did appreciate youtaking time to meet with me on a
Sunday afternoon.
Yeah, that was awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, that's one of those things missed
opportunities that I'm going tohave to check off the list
because we ended up connectingon a Sunday and that taco place
Eddie's Taco House they'reclosed on Sundays thing on a
Sunday, and that taco placeEddie's Taco House, they're
closed on Sundays.
So somehow or some way we'regoing to make it happen.
But you were ultra generouswith your time.
We hung out, had dinner, youshared some insights not some

(02:54):
like lots of insights and youknow, for me as a, we'll say, a
budding entrepreneur, havingthat time with you really, I'll
just say, boosted my confidenceand solidified the ground
underneath my feet to say, ok,I'm not doing this entirely
wrong, especially with somebodyof your stature.
To gift me with that much timeand that much insight was

(03:15):
amazing.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Well, I don't know about my stature, but I will say
this I felt like it was myprivilege to spend the time with
you and hear your story,because it's a compelling story
too.
There's a lot of really greatstories in this business.
You know that are ground upstories, right.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, yes, yes.
So, speaking of stories in thebusiness, everybody wants to
know how easy is it to write the100th year anniversary book?

Speaker 1 (03:46):
You know I'll be honest with you.
It's been easier than I thoughtit was going to be.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Really Good.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
I have these fits and starts where I pile a layer on
it every day for four weeks andthen not touch it for a month
and then work on it again.
So I just started on it againtoday I'm so fortunate that my
grandfather kept a journal, mydad kept a journal, so I had
those assets to fall back on andthose kind of carry me in

(04:16):
overlap to the time when Istarted in the business.
So you know, and of course myknowledge of the business, my
firsthand knowledge, is muchdenser than his.
What I'm finding is, thefurther in time I get the
closest to now we get, thedenser and denser the

(04:38):
information becomes.
I've got to figure out theright balance because I want't I
want to be careful that I don'tgive the early history the
short sheet.
You know, I want to make sureeverything gets represented
right.
But frankly, some of the morerecent history in the company
has been, at least to today'speople, some of the most

(04:59):
important.
So I've got all the backgroundinformation that I really need
to write it.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah.
So what's it like?
Like going through yourgrandfather and your father's
journals.
What is that experience like?
I just have no concept.
Like that seems pretty, itfeels like it would be intense.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
It can be.
Yeah, my granddad, mygrandmother, was very ill
Shortly after they had kids.
She had some mental illnessesas well as some physical
illnesses and it shows up in hisjournal and while he had health
that came in every day andactually really helped.

(05:39):
He took her everywhere he went.
If he drove to Florida he'dload her in the car and drive to
Florida.
They usually drove even as wideall that much.
So reading some parts of that,you know his life and how
difficult life must have beenfor him with five children, and
his wife was really I'm going tosay this about Wright with

(06:01):
respect to her but he couldn'tdepend on her being there
because of her illness.
It was pretty severe and thefact that he built this business
starting at a time when reallythere were no highways, there
were no roads to speak of, Imean literally just horse and
wagon trails.

(06:23):
And he built this business inthat period with five kids and
that situation.
It really tells a story about aguy that was not only really
ingenious in his own way, reallyhumble guy, super humble guy,
but just a guy that never gotoverexcited.

(06:45):
He was so level and in fact Iwas reading earlier today one of
the New England instructions inthe story and the writer was
kind of saying, like we'retrying to picture Herb on a job
site where he's, you know,demeaning and swearing at all
the men, like apparently theyhad witnessed elsewhere, and
like we can't picture this withthis guy.

(07:07):
So a lot of this stuff isreally great and he was such a
great mentor to me.
Uh, he passed away around.
I think I was 43, so I knew hima good long time of my life, uh
, and we spent a lot of timetogether so yeah, you've got a
collection of journals that yourgrandfather wrote, a collection
of journals that your fatherwrote.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Was that kind of a practice like hey, let's
document our thoughts so that wecan pass it on to the next
generation, or was it justsomething that kind of worked
out that way?

Speaker 1 (07:36):
I think it just worked out that way.
I don't think either one ofthem thought, you know, like in
1943, when my grandfatherstarted his journals been in
business 17 years but still avery small business I don't
think he thought anybody wasgoing to be referring back and
writing the 100th anniversarybook and that this would be

(07:58):
handy to them.
At the time I don't really knowwhat his thought process was.
I don't really know what histhought process was and there
were some periods across thedecades where you know, he'd
miss nine months of a year andhe'd pick it up again and say
sorry, I missed the last ninemonths or something like that.
Yeah, yeah, they were mostlyfactual things.

(08:18):
Like my grandfathers werereally only four or five lines.
So they're just like here'swhat happened.
Today my dad has gotten intomore detail, but still factual
stuff.
It wasn't neither one of themwere like how they're feeling or
not, like journaling in atherapeutic sense.
It was more journaling in justkind of a record-keeping sense.

(08:41):
But my dad's are much moredetailed, much his could take up
half a page, but he frankly Iwas going to say he had a little
going on, but I guesstechnically he did, but he had
different technologies to helphim, like the telephone, the
computer, the automobile, theairplane, that my grandfather

(09:02):
did not have early on.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Wow, and so being able to take that snapshot, or a
snapshot of back then, what aresome consistent things that
transferred to now, with orwithout the technology?
There's got to be some likehuman dynamic stuff that they're
like yep, it was the same thenas it is now.

(09:25):
That's such a great questionand when?
I can't remember if I've toldyou this, but before you get to
know we're going to do the L&Mfamily member, shout out.
This one goes out to MissClaudia.
Miss Claudia says I had awonderful opportunity yesterday
to join a group of industry rockstars in their pursuit of

(09:47):
continuous improvement.
Jesse's time managementworkshop is just what I needed
to get 2025 started with theright mindset.
Claudia, thank you for takingthe time to leave that message,
because it just made me happy,because I don't want to waste
people's time and I'm glad thatyou had a good time and folks

(10:07):
you already know hit me up,leave a comment, leave a review,
so that I can take theopportunity to shout you out in
the future and so that you boostmy ego just a little bit, not
too much, just a little bit.
I just love to know who's outthere listening and getting
value from these conversations.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
My dad and my uncle sold the business in 1998.
And then I bought it back in2005.
And when we were combining mycompany with that company, we
had a two-day retreat and one ofthe questions was okay, like,
the tools we have today to workwith don't even resemble what

(10:45):
they had back then.
Like it was small cable shovelsand two-yard dump trucks.
And now we're dealing with, youknow, sometimes 50, 100, 50,
200 ton excavators, 60-yard loadtrucks.
We have GPS now.
Back then it was tape measuresand the hand level in great
states.
What we were building back thenwas roads and airports primarily

(11:08):
.
There were no landfills beingbuilt.
Back then there was barely anycommercial work being done of
any scale, so it was almost allinfrastructure type work.
Compared to now, we buildlandfills, airports, highways,
commercial data centers right, Imean stuff like this and we've
even drained it.

(11:28):
So the tools we had then andnow are totally different.
What we've built then and noware totally different.
And so we realized that and wesaid okay, what has been the
same for all these years?
What has been the same?
And basically what we came upwith is we need to invest in
people.
That's one of the same things,because Herb was a very staunch

(11:54):
investor in people.
We have to do the right thing,regardless if anybody's watching
or not.
We've got to do the right thing.
We've got to always hone ourcraft.
We've got to get better everyday at what we do, and these are
our values.
We've got to win in the field,and winning in the field means
everybody.
This part of the project wins,regardless of where you are.

(12:16):
If you're the owner, you feellike we're going to show up with
a spirit of execution that sayswe're going to win this for you
.
And those are the four thingsthat we wrote down, that we
codified as our core values.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Nice.
The one thing that really comesacross is invest in people, and
I say it really comes acrossbecause I'm totally biased in
that direction, right, I knowthat.
Great, and because my life isso damn amazing, herb.
And it would not be thisamazing had it not been for the

(12:52):
people that decided to invest inme, and there were periods of
time when it was a badinvestment and they did it
anyway.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
I say, mike, you know people that work with me.
They bet on a three-leggedhorse.
And you know I was like whywould you bet on a three-legged
horse?
But they did.
And so when you recognize thatwait a minute, I'm a
three-legged horse, I better runmy ass off.
I mean that investment in youpropels you to do things more
and better and you want torespect that investment that

(13:27):
they're putting in you and notlet them down.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
That's to me a big yes, yes, no, that's exactly
right.
I'm like, okay, they seesomething, I'm gonna try like
hell, just so they don't theyain't wasting their time.
And it turned into something.
Yeah, now, philosophically, Ithink most people would say,
yeah, that's a great idea.
But when it comes to operatinga business, I mean you're saying

(13:50):
it's one of your four corevalues, but you're not just
saying it, because you have awhole workforce development
program that can not just go tothis class, but you help build
careers and lives, like that ispart of the system within your
organization.
That's a different thing thansaying we believe in people,

(14:13):
we're going to invest in them,and so, in terms of developing
that thing because we know whereit came from and I applaud you
not just for listing that Maybeyou have the time horizon to say
what was true then, that istrue now, which is brilliant,
and maybe a lot of organizationsdon't have that, but there's
still a level of commitment andsacrifice and courage that a

(14:36):
leader has to make to actuallyinvest dollars that help develop
, nurture and groom people.
Was that just an easy press ofa button?
What was that like for you?

Speaker 1 (14:50):
So, to be fair about our values, you know there have
been periods in time where wehave not been very good at them,
or there have been, there hasbeen a year when all our jobs
didn't necessarily live up tothose values, right?
So, just to be fair about us,there was a period where we did
not invest in people that much,and I will tell you that I've

(15:13):
said this and posted this onlinemy biggest mistake of my career
is going through the GreatRecession and not being at an
altitude.
We were flying low, not beingat an altitude that allowed us
to see 20 years ahead, andinstead of investing in people
during that period because wedidn't have the financial

(15:36):
capacity to do that like wewanted to we were, frankly, just
trying to keep the plane in theair for the next mile frankly,
just trying to keep the plane inthe air for the next mile and
so we did not invest much fromlate, let's say, 2010 to 2014.
And it became clear to me that,you know, if we were going to
be an organization that wasdurable, that was going to be

(16:03):
sustainable, we need people, andin 2010, 10% of our people were
under 25 years old and 34% wereunder 40.
So 66% were over 40.
And in 2015, I think it was, Isat down with one of our

(16:25):
regional managers, kevin Gord, areal good friend of mine.
He and I started laboringtogether in 1983.
And I said to Kevin I need todo something different, we need
to bring some people in and Ineed you to be our guy, our
workforce advancement guy thatgoes to the high school and
brings people in and we're goingto try to do 15, 20 people a

(16:47):
year and bring in immediate highschool grads and and try to try
to build our workforce back up.
And and he said I don't thinkthat's going to help us next
year.
And I said Canada, it's notnext, it's not for next year,
it's for 2025.
It's for this year that we'rein now.
And so now our under 25component this is field work

(17:12):
only is 25% versus 10% in 2012.
It's at 25% now and our under40 component went from 36%
almost 56%.
So we're in that range.
So that's in a growingworkforce number, right?

(17:33):
It's not like we just said well, let's let all the old guys you
know die off or hit with allthe old guys.
That's a growing component ofthe growing workforce.
And I created Kevin and PeteParizeau in our office, and my
team, eric Ritchie and TashaGardner, for believing in that

(17:54):
investment.
When those investments startedto gel in people, that's when we
started really to take off as acompany again from 2018, 19, 20
, 21 to now.
And we've really just startedtaking off as a company and I've

(18:15):
shown our corporate altitudefrom 2005 to 2025 at the
Build-A-Lit Area in our oldsummit and, you know, showed our
people getting smaller andsmaller and smaller through the
recession and then we kind ofcame out of the recession.
It shot up a little bit, butthen we outgrew our people and

(18:38):
so I said, all right, now's thetime we got to invest and as we
grow, those people and theybecome players that were, you
know, in the AAA I use a lot ofsports analogies AAA baseball
players we had them playing atthe big league level for a while
, but now they're playing at thebig league level because we've
really focused a lot ofattention on them came in from

(19:02):
high school and put them throughthis academy.
We had Two people in specific Ican think of that are both
senior forward for us.
They'll be superintendentsbefore long and you know these
guys, they came out of highschool Just needed a job.
Right and our guys Pete andKaren, they'll bring them in and

(19:23):
they start.
They're teaching them how tocook chicken.
They teach them how to go getgroceries you know how to get
lunch and breakfast on 50 bucksa week and they literally make
the budget out.
They take them to the grocerystore, they buy the food, they
come back.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
And they put together lunches.
They teach them how to checkinto the hotel and not track
dirt all over the place, how tobe respectful, check into the
hotel, how to set up a checkingaccount, making sure that public
health accounts are set up, andit's so much more than just
what we can get out of them.
It's really the way we see it.

(20:01):
There's the professional piecethat most companies are
interested in, there's therelational piece, the financial
piece, the physical piece andthen the mental piece.
You know we wanted to havemargins of safety across all
five of those, if we can.

(20:22):
My goodness You've probablyheard stories over and over and
over, and you may have heard ityourself.
I know I have.
The biggest stress I had in amarriage was financial early on.
Yeah Right, and it's okay if wecan figure out the financial
piece and make that go away as ahill we've got to shed blood on

(20:42):
, you know, between our families.
If we can make that in a way wecan focus on the other things
that really matter, like ourrelationship, our children, our
families, our friends, that sortof stuff.
That's the way.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah.
So two things huge, onedivision, right.
Like the foresight to play thesuper, super long game Cause I
love that Like this ain't goingto help us next year yeah,
you're right, this is for 10, 15years down the road and like
just the courage that that takesreal courage to to make that

(21:19):
decision, cause I'm sure therewere more than one, at least
more than one person saying whatthe hell are we doing here?
This isn't solving our problemright now.
Second, you don't just have aworkforce development program,
you have a program that developsthe whole person.
Based on what you told me,because, man, you know, when I

(21:41):
hit traveling jobs you may havenever heard this story before
from anybody, but the first timeI got hit for some traveling
work, they gave me the per diembefore I went to like so that I
could pay for my hotel and allthis stuff.
And guess what it lasted me?
One night it was gone.

(22:01):
I went and had a blast and Iwas eating bologna and ramen for
10 days because I just had.
No, it was party money.
It was like I had no rightforce, right, like I was
thinking about right now I got afew hundred extra bucks.
I'm gonna have to sleep in thetruck now and I'm gonna eat
bologna and this is what it'sgonna be.
It's easy because I've been inin this position where I said,

(22:23):
well, it's not my fault, theydon't know how to manage their
money, and so for you guys totake ownership of that and say
let's teach them how to besuccessful with this bucket of
resources that they have istremendous.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
I've seen it too many times.
I had one of our one of ouremployees been with us over 50
years, came to me probably fouryears ago.
One of our employees has beenwith us over 50 years.
He came to me probably fouryears ago.
He said if you gave me $150,000, I could retire.
The guy is close to 70.
I said you've had a 401k fordecades.

(22:58):
He said my son's wife hadcancer and I drained all my
money.
Yeah, and so that story isrepeated over and over and over
stories like it, and so we'retrying to teach people through

(23:20):
the risk or health savingsaccount, put money away for
health through the risk orhealth savings account.
Put money away for healthBecause if you don't need it now
in your 20s, 30s and 40s,you're going to need it when you
turn 60s and 70s and this isalmost just like another
retirement account.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
They can put money in every year, rematch the money.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Wow, Just another retirement account that they can
have another $200,000 to$200,000 in that account.
So if they're going to need itsomeday, right, you and I are
going to need it someday forhealthcare.
And so we're trying to hit themon every and I think, almost to
the point where they becometone deaf to it in a way.

(24:00):
but we try to hit them with allthese things at once.
We try to okay, now, what aboutthis?
And Karen and Pete and Kendalland Tim, our workforce
advancement guys, when they goout on the field they talk to
these young guys about thisstuff and if they don't have it
set up, they go okay, let's goin the office, we'll call the
NATO office, we'll get this setup.

(24:21):
And they take the time to do it.
I mean it's just such animportant thing because, man,
I've said this my whole careerIf somebody comes and works in
this business for 20, 30, 40years, I mean they're taking a
lot out of their body.
You know that.
They ought to be able to retirewith a surplus of dignity.

(24:43):
I mean they ought to be likethis guy that came to me and he
knew he wasn't going to get$150,000, but that's not very
dignified for him.
I feel bad for him.
Now we'll do what we can tohelp him through retirement,
work him where we can, but I'drather have.

(25:07):
It's like the same thing ofmanaging hazards versus managing
injuries.
When we're managing hazards,we're investing attention.
When we're monitoring injuries,we're paying attention.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yes, oh, my God, I love that distinction.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
It's a huge difference and when we're paying
attention to injuries, ourattention is off the management
piece.
We're over here and that's whenyou know.
That's when we cream inside thehead or something.
We end up taking all ourmanagement time and putting it
in injury.
So the same thing with finance.
It's the same thing with allthese other things.

(25:48):
If we can learn I think I heardit put we need to stop pulling
people out of the river and goup river and figure out why
they're falling in.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yes, yes.
Well, it's getting in front ofit again and so it's proactive
approach to OK.
What can we do preemptively tocreate the conditions we want?
If we don't do that, we'regoing to be in a reactive state.
That is not beneficial foranybody in the long term.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
We're paying it but there's no return on.
It's like paying taxes.
It's like Tony bills thatmoney's gone, there's no return
back on it.
Right, but if you don't, soit's investment versus paying.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah.
Now for for the folks out therethat are listening to this and
saying, yeah, sure, that's easyfor you to say now how many
people do the sergeant employright now?

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Right now we're around 525.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
now, right now we're around 525, baby 525, and when
you, when y'all made the shiftto say, okay, we're going to
invest in our people that youstarted developing, because I'm
sure the, the workforcedevelopment program has evolved
over time, every year it changes.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
I mean literally karen and pete take a look at
every single year and we surveythe people that go through it,
every piece of our training.
They survey what went right,what went wrong and we make
adjustments.
Those guys, it will not settle.
But I interrupted you.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
No, no, it's beautiful.
That's actually a phenomenalpoint.
So the question you're 500 now.
You started this a while back.
How many people did you haveback then?

Speaker 1 (27:29):
We were about 325.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Okay, so 60-ish percent of where you're at now,
and so we're not talking.
I mean, we're talking likeserious dollars.
We're talking people dedicatedto manage and develop this
program, deliver the training,the follow through, the feedback
loop, the whole thing.
This is a segment of yourbusiness.

(27:52):
Would that be a misstatement?

Speaker 1 (27:55):
It's becoming a bigger part of our business.
The first year that we did thatacademy in 2016, I think we had
15 kids who came through it andthey cost us $11,000 apiece to
put through a six-week course.
So it was almost $200 for that.
Now we changed it prettydramatically.

(28:17):
Now it's a two-week start andthen they go in the field and
then they come back for twoweeks in the winter, yeah, and
so we, instead of just turningthem loose, now we have the same
set of weeks that we work with,but they get to go out and
learn what they don't learn,learn what they don't know, and
come back and talk about howthey put it into practice and

(28:38):
how we can continue to build onthat.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
It has become a piece of investment for us.
The investment people, thoseguys, when we started this, we
had, you know, superintendentforum meeting every year for
three or four days, and now wehave training at every level
multiple times in the wintertime.
It just, those guys never stop.

(29:03):
They really never stop.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Okay, so you said winter time a couple of times.
Why winter time?

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Oh, we're in Maine, so in Maine quite often we can't
work.
Some projects you can work, butquite often we can't.
Virginia and North Carolina notquite as bad, but it can be a
little iffy on work, so we tendto focus that, historically, we
need to make hail and the sunshines, which is primarily

(29:29):
mid-April to mid-November.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Got it.
I want to point that out right,because I've said it and I've
heard it said a bunch of timeswe just don't have time, but we
do.
There is time in our seasonsand the way the business is
operating.
Having the whole winter it's adifferent thing, but I think the
principle that anybody can takefrom this conversation and

(29:52):
apply to their business is whenthere's a downturn, we'll say
slower season.
What you're doing is you'recapitalizing and leveraging that
time to further develop yourpeople.
Yeah, we are capitalizing andleveraging that time to further
develop your people.
Yeah, we are.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
I was, though, because I get a lot of comments
well, you're a big company, youcan afford to do this stuff.
I just want to highlight thatthis is more a posture of
intention and wanting to helppeople, and it is an expensive.
In other words, it doesn't haveto be expensive, it has to be

(30:25):
intentional.
So what I mean by that is, ifyou're a company with five or 10
people, if your heart is comingfrom the right place, that I'm
going to bring people in and I'mgoing to help them grow, then
you will find a way to do it.
If your posture is that you'lldo it without even knowing and I
think that's the way a lot Ithink probably some of your

(30:50):
mentors I know my mentors theydidn't say I'm going to mark out
an hour on the calendar andcall it to her.
That was just the way they wereright.
Yes, so if you can motivate yourheart to go to that, go to that
place.
Like the Grinch retires in thatposture, I want to grow people.

(31:12):
I'm here for people.
It doesn't.
All it has to be is intentionaland not expected.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
I love it and you're 100 percent right.
I've had some leaders and I gotto admit like I've been ultra,
ultra fortunate in the volume ofamazing leaders that I've come
across that have, for whateverreason, decided to pour into me
or maybe, like you're saying,they probably did it for
everybody and I just think I wasspecial Right, but it's just

(31:38):
the way they rolled, it's justtheir mindset, the way they
operated.
They invest in people.
And I think now I heardsomebody say I was listening to
a podcast this morning thismoney thing.
Right, people just want money.
You got to give them more money.
People are asking forridiculous amounts in salary and
it's no, no, no, no, no.
Every job, everything that'sout there, there is a dollar

(31:59):
amount that somebody's going toget paid.
It's not like thedifferentiator is what else?
As an employer, are youoffering a value that is
exceeding the minimum, which ismoney that everybody else is
giving, and that conversationwent into the key or that.

(32:21):
Whoever that per the gurusecret that was talking is like
my promise to people.
The thing that I'm offeringthat value, that per the guru
secret that was talking, is likemy promise to people, the thing
that I'm offering that valuepoint that I'm offering recruits
is that I'm going to developtheir career.
I'm going to support them inreaching the objectives and
goals that they have in mind.
And then the question theinterviewer asked so does it

(32:42):
have to be in line with thebusiness?
And she said no, it's like itwould be great if their.
Does it have to be in line withthe business?
And she said no, it's like itwould be great if their biggest
goals were to be the VP ofeverything or whatever.
But some of them just want tostart a new business.
Some of them just want to learnanother language.
Some of them want to startsomething with their kids.
I'm going to help them withthat.
What do you think about that,herb?

Speaker 1 (33:04):
To me, like our academy that we have.
So we put about over 10 years,about 150, 200 people through it
.
Our retention is about 40%.
It's not as high as I'msupposed to say, but you're
getting 18-year-olds that don'tknow really what they want to do
, right.
So there's that.

(33:26):
But at the same time Kevinexpressed me concern.
You know, geez, we're only got40 percent and I said that's
fine with me, the other 60percent are going out there.
At least they know how to attacklife.
At least they're aware ofretirement and planning around
retirement.
At least we talk to them aboutrelationships a little bit.

(33:46):
At least they know that theycan.
There's such a thing as a foodbudget that they can make.
They understand that there's aday they're going to lose a
transmission or a rear end intheir truck and they don't want
that to become a crisisimmediately.
They just want to be a problemthat they manage.
So again, if they have somemargin of safety in their life,
then that's one law.

(34:08):
I've got, I say, a young guywho's probably in his mid-40s
now, I guess, and he owns abusiness a couple hours north of
us in a small town.
He's started his business fromscratch and it was a great
employee for us.
We had really good you you knowhigh hopes for him and the day
he gave his notice it was kindof like man, that's too bad,

(34:30):
we're going to lose him.
But when I heard his plans, youknow, I said this is going to
be good for him.
It's going to be good for hiscommunity because he's going to
go in there and he's going toemploy some people and if
there's a project to be builtright, somebody's going to build
it.
So it's not like in theconstruction world we go create

(34:51):
important you know a job thatsomebody was going to do, no
matter what.
But what we do it with and theway we do it and the way we
treat our people and the waythey come out of that job is
really the important thing to us.
And so this guy, josh, that I'mtalking about him going to
start this little company inHolton Maine is going to be

(35:13):
better for the community thansomebody else doing it.
And so I'm going to do thecommunity things and the
employee things that Josh isdoing and he's making a huge
difference in that whole town upthere.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
I don't know what he wants to do for his future.
I mean, he just wants to stayin that town and be a really
outstanding member of RECUNER,and he already is.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, and that's beautiful Right.
If he already is, yeah, andthat's beautiful right.
I mean that's.
You know, I remember having theconflict of I was real critical
of people because they didn'twant more right.
Because I was in charge of thetraining, the workforce
development program for a littlebit and I would see potential
and talent in people and I wouldkind of force them down a path,

(36:03):
whether they liked it or not.
I just decided this is whatyou're going to do and I'm going
to make you do it.
And a lot of folks, a lot of theguys, are like I don't want to
be a foreman, I don't want to bea superintendent, and I would
get super irritated Like why not, don't you want more for
yourself?
Until my buddy, fernando, hepulled me to this.
He's like Jesse, here's my deal, I'm involved.

(36:28):
He was involved in hismotorcycle club.
They had a little nonprofitwhere they did every year,
seasonally, four times a yearthey had a different.
They had a bike fair, if youwill like, where they would get
donations and get a bunch ofbikes and assemble the bikes for
Christmas and hand them out tothe kids in this low-income part
of San Antonio and they woulddo a fan drive during the summer
so they could get box fans anddistribute them in the community

(36:50):
, where they didn't have airconditioning.
It's super, super, damn hot andthey need some kind of
circulation.
He said, jesse, if I take onthis foreman role, I'm not going
to be able to spend my timedoing these things.
And this is more important tome.
And I swear when he says like,oh my God, I never considered

(37:11):
that there is other ways.
There are other ways tocontribute to our community
beyond just advancing up theorganizational chart and that's
meaningful.
And so I had to.
I had to calibrate my, my, myambition a little bit.
After that one, I had to eat alittle bit of humble pie and you
know I can say for myselfpersonally.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
I told my son this you know my son is not in this
business.
My son's a musician and Irespect that a lot of what he
does.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
And I remember one time we're driving down the road
and I used maybe 14, he's 30now and I said what do you want
to do when you grow up?
And he said, oh, I don't know.
You know you're the thirdgeneration of the business and I
think it's a time out, time out.
You do you, I'm working my luck.
Now fast forward 10 years andwent through a particularly
rough time personally and wentthrough a particularly rough

(38:03):
time personally.
And I'm talking to him and Isaid you know this thing about
climbing the ladder, that initself is almost addictive,
right?
And I get that next run, getthat next run, and then what you
find out is, when you get onthat next run, your footing of
the ladder is in quicksand.
You're not any fucking higher,you're just another run on the

(38:24):
ladder.
Yeah, you might be higher inthe company, but you're lower in
life.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
So be careful.
What you want and I'm notsaying I mean I sure am happy
people want and aspire to bemanagement, because our company
would be dead without Eric andTasha and Justin and all these
people that are moving up intoroles that are going to drive us
ahead for the next 20 years, 30years, but it shouldn't be at

(38:54):
the cost of someone's soul.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
It ought to be.
All those steps on the ladderought to contribute to a better
human.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
With more dignity, more spirit, not less dignity
and less spirit.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, and it's a tricky path, right, Because I
love that Going up the ladder.
I was not going up the ladder,the ladder just kept sinking
because my life, my whole lifeexperience was out of whack.
It was a disaster because itwasn't for me, until I realized
wait a minute, what if I didthings that bring me fulfillment

(39:30):
?
What if I shared the thingsthat I've been blessed with in
service to others?
And then when I started doingthat, it was like, oh my
goodness, I mean heck.
It put me in front of you Now.
You mentioned, mentionedmaintaining one soul and
unfairly, I get to brag I got toget a glimpse or a preview of

(39:51):
what your speech was going to beat the BuildWit conference here
in San Antonio that you had, asan individual, that I think I
don't know maybe hundreds ofthousands of men in construction
not just men, but I feel likemen have that experience because

(40:12):
of the expectations anddynamics that are out there
around what it is to be a man inconstruction.
And so I'm wondering are you,how do you feel about shining a
little bit of light of what youshared at that conference?

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Well, it's out there now.
So I think what you'rereferring to is a project I was
on.
I was about 23 years old and wewere installing sewer in this
town really deep, big sewer,like 48 inch concrete pipe, 25
feet deep in the ground.
Really really tough situation.

(40:48):
I mean, anybody that'slistening or watching this knows
it works in undergroundutilities.
If you've got pipes that kindof cross each other or skew,
it's a nightmare.
And we had a water line, an oldcast-iron water line that just
kind of wandered off in thewaterline and we'd break it
every day and you know it.

(41:08):
Just it was a nightmare.
It was cold in the middle ofwinter.
Somebody might say why didn'tyou write camper water?
Because that would have frozenon top of the first night.
So we were fighting thiswaterline all the way through
and we had to have this job doneon the Friday before Christmas.
And so we're going along, andthis is 1986, so we didn't have

(41:33):
all the weather apps we got now,right, we didn't have all this
stuff.
We didn't have cell phones, wedidn't have computers or email
or internet or anything.
So we're going at it and we getup.
We didn't have computers oremail or internet or any of that
.
So we're going at it and we getup in the morning on this
Friday and it's snowing like abastard, I mean a blizzard.
And so we know, you know thecrew's looking at me and I'm

(41:56):
like come on, we've got to getout there and get to work.
I'm going with you.
So we all go out, we startdigging this hole.
You get this manhole set, thelast manhole, get the pipe in
and we need to pour concretecradle around the manhole and
the pipe.
But it's a blizzard and there'sno way the suppliers are going

(42:17):
to sell, you know right.
So I finally got a hold of oneguy.
He was like two hours away.
They sent the truck and theinspector said you can't use it
because that load's hot.
It's been in the truck too long.
So now it's four in theafternoon and this time of year
in Maine it gets dark at fouro'clock.
It's four in the afternoon,it's dark, it's still snowing

(42:39):
like crazy and I had to make thedecision to back call the hole
so we could open the street outfor Christmas and all of that.
And we're all in there andwe're beating down, we're
beating pops, we're back in theoffice trailer, we're chipping
the ice off our clothes and itaccumulated.
We're soaked to the bone.
I look over and the phone.

(43:01):
We had a message machine on thephone and it was flashing.
I just checked the messaging.
It said call me.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
And I think it said if it's after work you don't
call my house.
So I said, all right.
So I just told everybody yougot to take off.
Like no cell phones, I couldonly make the call from the
trailer or wait two hours untilI got home.
So I got everybody out of thetrailer and I made the phone

(43:29):
call and what I heard was didyou get it done?
I said no, you know, a fuckingfive-year-old could read the
contract and know this has to bedone.
We put you on that job becausewe thought we could trust you.
And those two things, those twophrases, one was an assault on

(43:51):
my intellect and the other wasan assault on my person.
They thought they could trustme.
And I drove home and all theway home I was writing my
suicide note, my brain, becauseI said to myself at 23 years old
if it's this way, I don't wantit.
The other thing I shared at theconference, at the Dirt Road

(44:12):
conferences my childhood wasvery challenging.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
And.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
I don't think you know.
I say this in no worse thanmillions of other kids, right?
But I say this in no worse thanmillions of other kids, right?
But I say this only because Ithink people go all those guys.
The CEO of a big constructioncompany probably never had a
brain in his life.
That's not true.
But suicide was something thatwas on my mind as a kid.

(44:40):
That's where I could go.
That was like a rest area forme.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Got you Thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
I could say you know what, I'm just going to pull
over here and think about notbeing here tomorrow and not ever
seeing the ship that I'm seeing, and I never got to the point
where I was like starting toplan things out, but it was
always a place that I could goand it was almost, I don't know,
like I said, it was like arescue on the highway, and so
that's where I went that evening.

(45:09):
And I remember I got home mygirlfriend.
I just kind of walked rightpast her into the shower because
I was freezing my pants off andI heard the shower and I just
started bawling Wow.
And I walked out and she saidare you okay?
She noticed my eyes were redand I said yeah, I just got salt

(45:30):
in my eyes.
Let's go get a beer.
Right, that's what we do.
Yep, it's time for the industryto be different.
I guess that's why I told thatstory.
When I got up there to tellthat story, I didn't know what I
was going to say.
Yeah, I didn't know how far Iwas going to go in telling that

(45:50):
story.
I just decided you know what?
There's no sense of leavinganything on the table now.
So I told that what I just said.
And I'm not I don't really wantto be running around the
country telling that story,right, and it's not like I'm
sure you know, I'm looking forspeaking gigs to tell that stuff

(46:10):
, but because my kids don't evenknow that, right, my brother
and sister don't even know thatstory, but it's, it's a real
thing.
So and it's time those of us inthe industry that have faced
the real thing and wantsomething different for the new
people coming into the industrystood up and talked about it and
I was greatly inspired by a guynamed Dr Vince Hefele who got

(46:35):
up and told a similar story andhe was before me and my whole
point in that sharing we can doa lot better in our industry.
We can read with love.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
We have a chance in this industry to make such a
difference for people and inpeople and the idea that we have
to be combative with our peopleis is asinine and I've never
been that way.
I've been with people in ourcompany that have been that way.
I've personally never been thatway.

(47:13):
I there's been periods in mycareer where I probably haven't
had the empathy that I shouldhave.
But we just gotta love people.
We gotta love people.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
We got to love people .

Speaker 1 (47:27):
That's what we're called to do.
I mean, there are people outthere that do bad things right
Somebody recently in our cycle.
It's not a bad person, it's aperson that's in doing bad
things.
So, in other words, if thatperson, if we were able to slab

(47:48):
off those behaviors, that's agood person.
We're trying to lead people ouramount of people in a way that
they understand that you don'tjust have one future.
There's an infinite number offutures out there for you and
some of them you damn know howto run away from.
I mean, you shared with me thatyou should have run away from

(48:08):
some of your futures, and Ishared with you that I should
have run away from some of myfutures, and I think we kind of
embrace the wrong future.
And what we're just trying toteach our young people is, when
you get to this point, this node, this future node you're going
to be faced with some decisions.
And let's think about decisionsand at least make people aware

(48:34):
that there are different options.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yes, because.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
I think for me, coming out, it was okay, work's
over, let's go grab a six-packof beer.
Nobody's going to eat dinneruntil we all drink a six-pack
each.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
I didn't know there was another option.
I mean, obviously I did, butfrom a I'm going to get along
with everybody camaraderiestandpoint, I'm going to be one
of the guys.
Standpoint there wasn't anotheroption for me, right, I was
going to be one of the guys.
Standpoint it wasn't anotheroption for me, right.
Frankly, pretty suggestible atthat age.
A lot of yeah, there are right.
So we got to find a way to tobe suggestible toward things

(49:11):
that we create a better futureand greater margins of safety in
all those five areas of theirlives yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
So in terms of showing people that there are
options and we get to pick whatfuture we're going down, you
sharing that story, which, again, thank you.
This is the second time I getto hear it, which I know, or
maybe I assume that you're notthe only human being that has

(49:41):
had that experience in ourindustry.
And then you said it at theDirt World Summit.
Did anybody connect with thestory?
What was the response in termsof what you shared and how the
audience responded?

Speaker 1 (49:58):
So I mean everybody clapped when I was down and that
was kind of it, but I did havea few people come over and thank
me for sharing that.
No, I mean I didn't.
I didn't talk to a lot ofpeople.
I was approached by a softwaresalesman who wanted me to to
give him feedback on his productand that took 15 minutes and

(50:19):
literally I'm like dude, you'renot reading the room, I just
poured my fucking heart out ofyou.
You're one of the there wasbrutal and I kept saying to him
he can talk to you, he can knowI want your opinion and I just
said I can't help you.
But there were some other peoplethat you know that came over
and you know, heartfelt thankyou for sharing and and, I think

(50:45):
, a lot of people, even people Iwork with, you know like we had
, I think, 10 people here.
You never heard that.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Wow, wow that was new to them.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
So nobody in my life.
I think you might have been thefirst one that I told that
stuff.
That was right before man.
So nobody in my life knew thatstuff.
I mean, they may have knownthat the phone call happened,
but not that I was going homewriting my suicide note.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Right, right, well, again I get to brag, but I'm
ultra, ultra grateful that youshared that with me before and
now again.
And what I want the L&M familymembers out there to learn or
take away is you're not alone.
And by sharing it and what Ilove is you're sharing it to

(51:35):
help people say we got to dobetter.
You're sharing it to helppeople say we got to do better
and that Dirt World Summit isballers, right, like decision
makers, influencers, big playersin the industry.
You shared super intimate,vulnerable stuff and said we can

(51:56):
do better.
And I guarantee you there werepeople in the room that like,
yep, they know they've beenthere and it gives what I, what
I think is the most impressive,and thing that I'm like oh man,
I wish I could just readeverybody's minds and see how,
how many of these futuresshifted direction a degree or
two because of what you said.
But it gives people permissionto say I have pain and I don't

(52:23):
have to keep propagating that, Idon't have to keep spreading it
.
I can do better because you are.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Let's break that chain that's bound us.
You know like my dad had achain.
My grandpa, whatever, my momhad a chain, let's break that
chain.
And my dad?
I couldn't talk to him aboutanything, anything.
I could not talk to him and Idon't know.
He never talked to me about hischildhood, you know, with his

(52:53):
mom being so low, you know,emotionally and mentally, he
never talked to me about hischildhood.
They just wouldn't talk.
And I just think it'sunfortunate you never talk to me
about a childhood that justwouldn't draw, and I just think
it's unfortunate that peoplefeel like there's not an outlet.
Now, the other side of that is,I think when we do see someone

(53:15):
that's acting differently, whenwe just check with them and say,
okay, what if you're actingdifferently?
Is there something you want totalk to?
We can get you in touch withresources, and I think what they
don't need is our advice.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yes, I don't think anybody needs my advice because
I suck at it.
I wouldn't have had all theproblems I've had in my life if
I didn't suck at it.
And I mean overall.
I've got a friend that says,herb, you've got the worst luck
of anybody I know on the earth.
You've also got the best luckof anybody I know on the earth
and, lucky for you, you're goodluck outright with bad luck.

(53:57):
So I just think it's importantto have, for us to model the
vulnerability so that peoplefeel comfortable, because it's
that vulnerability piece I mean,it's not just when we have
major problems like we need it,when we have a team that wants
to be created.
We need the people to step out,be willing to step out and go.

(54:22):
Okay, I'm inching out on theplank here.
I'm going to say something andhopefully nobody saws it off
behind me, and I have a greatexample of when we were in
strategic planning three or fouryears ago.
One of our guys came up with anidea and I have spent like
hundreds of hours in a pickuptruck with this guy, so I know

(54:43):
him well.
We as we do in this business,you know, and each other all the
time.
And the good thing is, you know, I'm just as open to that as he
is and we uh, so we work oneach other that way.
But he came up with this idea.
That wasn't a terrible idea,but I didn't like it, sure, and

(55:04):
I said that's the stupidest ideayou've ever come up with.
And so we took a break andwe're walking over and Tasha,
our CFO, comes over.
She says can I talk to you fora second?
I said sure.
She said, you know, when youjust told Doug that that was the
stupidest idea you ever came upwith, what you did is you told

(55:24):
everybody else in that room.
You better not say a word.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Ooh.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Ouch, and you talk about somebody.
I mean, if there's one that Ican trust Tasha for and one of
them is C-Blindspot yeah, just awonderful human being, a great
friend, a great boy, a great CFO, and when we sat that down I
just said, okay, I'm going toform this out right now.
You guys need because everybodydidn't know that Doug and I had

(55:54):
this.
You guys need to know that Dougand I got this thing going and
we can kind of over-eversizethings.
And so what I want you to knowis you can say stuff and you're
not going to be driven back.
So you need that.
At the job site level, if alaborer has a safety concern,

(56:18):
you need him or her to be ableto step up and say I saw this
and feel 100% comfortable doingthat.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
That's the way we get better.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
So that vulnerability thing is something we need to
model and we need to cultivatewith everybody we work with.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Yeah, 100%.
When I was 30 yeah you know, Ithink there's a few things,
because it's easy to think.
Vulnerability means spilling myguts in front of everybody and
crying and getting messy aboutmy emotions like, maybe, but
that let's.

(57:00):
It's simple.
Simple Get comfortable withsaying I don't know and I need
help.
That's vulnerability.
And if you're in a leadershipposition or responsible for
guiding a group of people, theway you respond to problems is
going to either shut it downJust like the example you gave,
not exactly in alignment withthis but the way I respond to a

(57:24):
problem is going to signal to myteam whether it's safe or not
to surface problems.
When I bite people's heads off,guess what they're going to do.
They're going to hide problems.
If I receive them and say, oh,what should we do about this?
They're going to bring moreproblems to us.
In your example, you have thiscommon relationship with
somebody where you can have thiskind of dialogue and it's just

(57:48):
the way you interact.
Now the person that there wastwo in my head there were two
big, giant actions invulnerability.
One was your CFO going out ongetting out on that plank, like
you said, to say, hey, you knowwhat you just did Because there
was risk for that.
And then you saying, oh, allright, let me go back and reset

(58:10):
the room which is profound.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
The only way you do is fall on your sword Right.
We had a superintendent thatthat had some safety issues.
We had a superintendent thathad some safety issues and I
heard through the grapevine thatthere was actually they were
actually running a pool whensomebody was going to be
seriously injured on his job.
Oh God, yeah, yeah, so I went tohim and I said I want you to

(58:35):
know what's going on.
I want you to know what he saidabout you, because I don't think
this is you, but the you talkto us makes people feel like
they can't bring things up, andthe only way you can do this,
the only way you can do this, isgo out there and fall on your
own soil and say I understandthat this has been said about me

(58:58):
.
I'm hurt by it, but I'm sureit's not just being made up Like
this, isn't just some justbeing made up, and that also
begins to.
And he did that and the crewrespected him for it.
But he also changed hisbehavior, right, he changed the
way he addressed people.

(59:19):
He changed his behavior andsuddenly now this guy's one of
our leaders in terms of safety,in terms of people respecting
his safety prowess.
And the other thing about thatvulnerability thing is
initiative is really tiedclosely to it.
So if you take the initiativeon, let's just say, jesse,

(59:44):
you're supposed to mow my lawnonce a week, but you notice that
it's tall five days in.
That's what happens in May,right?

Speaker 2 (59:54):
So you go.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Hey, you know everybody came over to mow your
lawn five days in.
But you know, I hope you don'tmind and I go.
What the hell are you thinking?
You mow my lawn once everyseven days and don't bother me
again about what are you goingto do.
You're going to mow my lawn inseven days, but also if you see
something wrong, you're probablygoing to keep shut about it

(01:00:16):
because you don't want to getright 100% so there's
vulnerability in initiative andwhen you start to slam off that
vulnerability, when you start topunish people for it and kind
of take initiative, it's thenokay, we're going to stay in
safe zone, we're going to stay15 feet 15% behind that margin

(01:00:41):
of safety and we're not going togive 15 feet 15% behind.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
You know that, that margin of safety.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
And we're not going to give anything more than what
you just paid me for.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Yeah, yep, I love that there is vulnerability in
initiative, because there is, ohmy goodness, oh, all right, mr
Herb.
So you've had.
I got the final question comingup.
It's an easy one, all right,you.
You've had tremendous impact inthe industry, in people's lives

(01:01:12):
and careers in your community.
You're writing the 100th yearanniversary book, which I think
like that.
That's probably one of thoseexperiences that there's a very,
very small number of peoplethat even had to wrestle with
that idea, and so, because ofthe years of experience and
growth that you've had, I thinkthis question is going to be a
piece of cake, but super, supermeaningful for everybody out

(01:01:35):
there listening.
So here's the question what isthe promise you are intended to
be, mr Herb?

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
What is the promise I am intended to be?

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
That's a twist of question, so I guess the way I'm
reading that, I'm going torephrase the question what is
God intended?
I would say what God intends meto be is someone that hopefully
leads other people tounderstand that he's the place
you need to go.
He's the one they need to know,that you can reach out to him

(01:02:19):
and he listens, and that's.
I'll put it this way.
I spent the better part of ahalf century running away from
God and when my life got upended, you know, 12, 13 years ago,
tasha, our CFO, was the one thatsaid to me you need community,
like you had to come to church.
And I went to church with herand I told you earlier that

(01:02:43):
suicide was just that off-rampfor me.
It was a rest area for me.
I don't know how many times Iwould have gotten off that rest
area without starting to plan it, without starting to go further
with it.
But she invited me to churchand, just so happened, her

(01:03:06):
daughter, who was 14 or 15 atthe time, played guitar and she
got up and did a solo and it waslike everybody else in that
church moved aside and she wassinging directly to me oh, wow.
And that's the day that.
I mean, I always believed inGod, but I always ran away from

(01:03:28):
God, and that's the way I.
That's the day I believe God istelling me it's time for you to
come back.
I've never had a suicidalthought since.
It's never crossed my mind.
Wow, I believe God supplantedall that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Set the stage and say come on home, herb.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
So if you ask me what I'm, you know I don't remember
the question exactly, but Ithink I'm intended to help
people see what can be if youhave faith.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Yeah, yeah, amazing, amazing.
I know I am not shocked thatyou would have such a deep and
meaningful response to thequestion.
Did you have fun?

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Yeah, I appreciate it Seriously.
It is a privilege, and youmentioned that not many people
get to write a 100th anniversarybook and it made me feel like
damn, I haven't been gratefulenough for that privilege.
Yeah, I mean, and that's such aprivilege.
But it's also a privilege totalk to you again and be here

(01:04:40):
with you and I'm kind of lookingforward to those real tacos
when I get back to San.