May 5, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode, Keaton Turner delves into the significance of project startup and planning, sharing insights from his journey in project management. He reflects on Josh Wisenant's preconstruction advice and discusses scaling a business through strategic planning, highlighting Garrett Excavating's contributions to project success. Keaton offers budgeting tips and emphasizes meticulous planning, intertwined with personal anecdotes and life lessons. The conversation shifts to mental health observations among college students and the impact of social media on self-worth. Keaton explores the contrast between materialism and true happiness, concluding with thoughts on engaging with listeners.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Who would have thought it would be so difficultto start and ramp up a project?
Should be easy.
Project startup checklist.
You get all the correct teams involved.
(00:22):
You apply all of the lessons learned, all thelogic.
You consult some folks who have successfullyramped up a bunch of project, ask them if they
see anything they're missing on the checklist.
Like, just follow the checklist step by step.
Milestones, deadlines, accountability,leadership should be easy.
(00:44):
Starting up a project?
Man, was I wrong.
(01:05):
Welcome back to the premium podcast.
Hey.
How you start is how you finish.
How you feel like nine to five, we staying onbusiness.
Here's the ketchup.
You gonna need a village.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
We got no limits.
Fuck.
We got no limits.
(01:29):
Welcome back to the Purdue podcast.
It'd be great to have you guys back.
Thanks for finding the podcast for another day.
I'm Keaton Turner.
This is episode five, season two of the PurdueM Podcast.
(01:52):
Thanks for thanks for following along thejourney.
I've started off the podcast so far in seasontwo kinda slow.
I didn't wanna get too crazy too soon.
No big right hooks.
No, no crazy spicy stories or anything likethat.
No no earth shattering revelations.
I wanted to start a little bit slow.
(02:13):
I wanted to get my my bearings back.
I still don't know what the heck I'm doing withthese different, softwares, this technology.
I just recorded thirteen minutes and the audiowas lost.
Stupid.
This is why I need handlers, guys.
This is why I need people that, that canliterally handhold me through stuff like this.
I'm just a one man band here trying to figurethis out.
(02:35):
So thanks for thanks for being patient stickingwith me.
It's Sunday.
It's a rainy Sunday, which I love, by the way.
Love a rainy Sunday, especially with lifelately being as crazy as it's been chasing kids
around.
Been on a couple work trips over the last fewweeks.
It just seems like it's been kind of a crazyfirst quarter of the year for, you know, q one
(02:58):
kinda blew by.
So I love I love a rainy Sunday.
Nothing at all today.
We went to church this morning.
Awesome.
Awesome church, service this morning.
And I've got something to say about that, butI'm gonna wait till the end.
Maybe throw a right hook.
And, so awesome church Went went to to eat withmy parents and the kids after church.
(03:24):
That was that was great.
And then just came home.
Nothing crazy.
We went on a little walk.
I got the kids out of the house.
Shelby and I went on a little walk, made the,you know, the kids.
They ride their scooters and bikes around theneighborhood, and Shaub and I get our thirty,
forty minutes to, just walk together, get alittle exercise, and just talk, one on one,
(03:45):
just random things.
We most of the time, we're just making fun ofeveryone else that doesn't have life figured
out the way we do.
So it's a fun time for us to go on a walk andand make fun of everybody.
But, we did that and then came home, made someyou know, whipped up some snacks, whipped up
some lunch, whipped up Shelby a super juicy.
(04:07):
Actually amazing.
I took a sip of it.
Super juicy, Bloody Mary.
And, so she's in the other room enjoying that.
I'm just sitting here drinking my water.
I'm saving my my drink calories for later.
Maybe hot tub tonight.
I don't know.
We'll see what we get into this evening.
(04:27):
But I'm in the basement.
I'm in I'm in what I'm calling the vault.
It's the room behind our basement bar.
You know, it's a it's a cool little room here.
I've got kind of a makeshift podcast studio setup in the corner of the room.
And so just a chill Sunday.
Super chill.
(04:48):
Gonna turn on golf on the TV, maybe take atwenty minute nap.
If you take a nap any longer than twentyminutes, you will ruin the day.
I've got a theory there.
If I if I nap longer than you know, if I get aten minute nap in, that's a perfect reset for
my day.
And that's rare.
I I rarely am am ever taking a nap.
But for me, a ten to twenty minute nap'sperfect.
(05:09):
If I sleep twenty three minutes, my day'sruined.
Anything over 20 anything over twenty minutes,and I am a different animal when I wake up.
And I won't fall asleep at night.
It's just it's just kinda how I am.
So I'm gonna try to make this one quick todayas quick as I can.
I've got I've got kinda two real things to talkabout.
(05:32):
I know my open was a little bit odd, but Iwanna read you something from a guy that I
follow on LinkedIn, Josh Wisenant.
I think I'm saying his last name correctly, w Is e n a n t, cofounder and CEO at Roger.
Josh seems like a cool guy.
I don't know him personally, but I followedsome of his stuff.
(05:52):
I took a screenshot of this a while back.
This is something he posted, I think, on April,late April.
April '20 first is when I took the screenshot.
And I and I you guys know I get inspirationfrom all kinds of things.
But let me read this to you, and I'm and I'lland I'll kinda tell you where I'm going with
this.
This is what Josh had to say.
Broken record on this, but 90% confident I knowthe trick on how you turn a small or midsize
(06:19):
contractor into a huge contractor.
It's not very complicated.
Here's how in a sentence.
Front load and centralize as much work and riskmanagement as possible into preconstruction and
dedicated procurement departments.
Let me expand on my one sentence.
He goes on.
The moment you know you're gonna get the joband you have the drawings, bring your
(06:42):
preconstruction and project teams together.
Write all your scopes, build your procurementlog, do a drawing review, build your submittal
log, get a CPM schedule maximally validated.
Just kick off the project insanely well.
What does this not mean?
This does not mean load all this work on yourproject team working in a trailer somewhere.
(07:05):
It's too late.
That team has no support.
You've dealt them a losing hand.
Just this week, I went out to California.
This is Josh still speaking.
Just this week, I went out to California tohang out with a super smart contractor and
boom, I saw it again.
Huge preconstruction department with brilliantpeople, derisking early, and winning 9 figure
projects.
(07:26):
All that derisking equals making money.
And what do they do with it?
They hire more people for more preconstruction.
It's a virtuous cycle.
Lots to unpack here.
But I think, Josh, you know, from myperspective and, again, this is just one guy's
perspective.
I've lived through I've lived through a lot ofprojects, couple hundred.
(07:46):
I don't know exactly how many.
I know Turner Mining Group, the company Istarted, has done over a hundred projects.
The company I came from, I don't know how manyprojects I did with them in nine or ten years,
but I've been a part of a lot of projects.
(08:10):
I used to think the exact opposite of what Joshis saying.
You know, when I was a project manager, Iwanted all the control.
I didn't want control sitting in an officesomewhere away from the job.
I wanted my guys in the field to have all thecontrol.
When I started Turner Mining Group, I wanted torun each project like it was his own little
(08:35):
business.
I I said multiple times, especially when westarted our Salt Lake City office, I said I do
not want to manage our company from the office.
I do not wanna manage our projects fromIndiana.
I do not wanna manage our projects from SaltLake, the two places we had offices.
I wanna manage our projects at the projectlevel.
(08:57):
I want the best people we can get at theproject level, and I wanna manage it like a
business at the project level.
And I I believed in this.
I I was passionate about it.
I didn't want a team of preconstruction folks.
I didn't want a team of engineers.
I didn't want a team of folks sitting in anoffice thinking they knew best for the project.
(09:19):
They weren't they weren't in the dirt.
And I was applying my own logic.
Right?
I was applying my own experience.
I had lived through projects physically beingthere in the dirt.
And I'd also lived through enough projectssitting in the office not getting all the
context I needed.
And so, you know, if you'd asked me five yearsago, three probably even three years ago, I
(09:42):
would have completely disagreed with Josh'sstatement.
I said the dude's crazy.
He doesn't know what he's talking about.
How how are you going to make all your money inthe office before the project starts?
How are gonna recognize your risk?
You don't know your risks.
Project hasn't started yet.
There's too much to unpack for me to get allthis done in one episode, so maybe I'll trickle
(10:07):
this into a couple other episodes.
And I may ruffle some feathers with my take onthis, but I, current state, couldn't agree more
with Josh's comments and his sentiment.
Front load and centralize as much work and riskmanagement as possible into the preconstruction
(10:27):
process.
I couldn't agree more.
It's something we've it's something we'vedramatically shifted at Turner Mining Group
over the last few years.
Now Tucker's have been a huge part of this.
Obviously, right, you got you know, it's funny.
You get smart people involved and smart peoplethat that can actually think for themselves and
(10:50):
not just regurgitate thoughts from other peoplefrom years past.
Some cool things happen.
And and and the one thing I think I always tookfor granted was how difficult it is to start a
(11:10):
project seamlessly.
How difficult it is to start a project whereall the teams are on the same page.
I took for I took it for granted, especiallywhen I was a guy that was, you know, super
involved pulling all the levers.
I tried to manage it with just sheer will, andjust sheer sheer overcommunication.
(11:33):
And now as you scale a business, it's harder todo that.
More departments, more people, so on and soforth.
But the project, you know, kind of the thewhole preconstruction side of our business is
completely different than it was even eveneighteen months ago.
You know, if if you ask me where have we as anas an organization spent 90% of our energy,
(12:00):
attention, and efforts in the last year, it'sbeen on the preconstruction, the planning, the
budgeting, the project startup side of ourbusiness.
Not even actually in in the dirt moving.
Now we've made investments there.
Right?
We've we've onboarded an operator trainer.
We've done a lot of really cool things atTurner Mining Group, but the the really cool
(12:22):
things we've done over the last twelve months,no one gets to see other than the eight or 10
people in those teams that are working superintimately on the preconstruction process.
The project handoff from from an opportunity ora sale through the bidding process all the way
through to the planning process.
(12:43):
And then, you know, you win the job.
And so now you've now now that all the realwork starts.
And again, not gonna I'm not gonna bore youwith all these details, but I couldn't agree
more with Josh and the fact that the money whatI'm learning, and I I can't I've I've done a
lot of projects.
What I'm learning is you make the money beforethe project ever starts.
(13:11):
Now that's gonna that's gonna ruffle somefeathers.
Right?
There's gonna be people to say, well, yeah, butthings change in the field.
What what happens if there's a change order?
What happens if there's something missing fromthe scope or blah blah blah?
I get it.
Totally get it.
Things can change.
But if you start with a faulty plan and youfumble the project startup, you're not
(13:37):
optimized, it's hard to ever recover.
Projects have momentum.
And when I've seen some of our most successfulprojects and I compare those to some of our
least successful project projects, there is adifference in momentum.
The most successful projects were startedreally well.
(14:01):
Clear communication, clear scope, on the samepage with the customer.
The project has a leader that's in charge andvocal and energetic.
There's momentum.
Things are happening in in a certain way.
Our biggest failures did not have thatmomentum.
(14:24):
The project started slow.
There was a lack of communication.
There was a breakdown between the customer.
Logistics were messed up.
Equipment didn't show up when it was supposedto.
Onboarding was tough.
High employee turnover.
Poor morale.
No plan.
Or if we had a plan, something changes and wecouldn't replan quick enough.
(14:46):
Right?
Weather impacts it.
We don't know what we're doing to, you know, toreplan the work.
It's a momentum thing.
Successful projects start with really goodmomentum and they carry that momentum through
the project.
Unsuccessful projects fail to ever build anyreal momentum.
(15:07):
And it's hard once, you know, once a projectstarted and again, this this is from my own
experience living through project based work.
And we've done projects every you know, mycareer kinda spans a a wild range of projects.
Everything from a two week long project that'sworth $30 to eight year contracts that are
(15:30):
worth, you know, well into the high 9 figures.
And every single one that I look back at, thesuccessful ones compared to the unsuccessful
ones, The difference was momentum.
It's really hard to build momentum at theproject level midway through the project.
(15:54):
It's really hard.
You've you've missed so much opportunity thatyou've already because, you know, a project's a
weird thing.
It's a living, breathing organism.
This is I know this sounds weird to some of youguys.
Some of you guys are tuning me out.
But for project managers, foremen, even companyowners that listen to this, some of you guys
that are project based companies, if you startslow or if you start with high turnover, if you
(16:22):
start without a plan, it's really hard halfwaythrough to build a plan.
If you start a project that's got the wrongleadership, it is really hard to change
leadership and rebuild morale.
And so one of the places we have spent so muchtime, energy, attention, and focus is on
starting really well.
(16:44):
Starting the project really well with a with adetailed plan.
I mean, I wanna know exactly how many hours weplan to run a motor grader to clean the roads.
Not just that we have a motor grader and it'sthere to if the road gets, you know, if the
(17:05):
road gets dirty, just sweep it off.
No.
I wanna know to the hour.
How many hours are we gonna run that thing?
What is the budget for the greater?
Don't tell me it's gonna run two hundred hoursa month if you only plan to run-in a hundred
hours a month.
And and definitely don't run at four hundredhours a month if you've only budgeted to run at
(17:25):
two hundred hours a month.
Same thing with the roster.
What is the plan?
This does not come naturally to me, and it'swhy our company has struggled with this for so
long.
I I'm not a planner, and I'm not a detail guy.
You guys have heard me say this.
(17:47):
Drives my wife crazy sometimes.
I just I was telling you guys I just made aBloody Mary.
I literally threw vodka in a shaker, threw someice in a shaker, threw some Zing Zang Bloody
Mary mix in a shaker, little bit olive juice.
I can't tell you all the secret ingredients,couple of little ingredients, and and shook it
(18:09):
up, poured it, couple olives, lemon, boom.
I didn't measure a thing.
I never measure a thing.
Any drink I make, any recipe I make, I lovemaking pasta, and I love cooking.
I've never one time followed a recipe.
I just it's not in my DNA.
It takes all the creativity out of it.
(18:30):
If if if you pull up a recipe or you open up acookbook, and this is just my opinion, guys.
I'm I'm giving you a look into who I am.
When my wife takes a screenshot of a recipe onher phone and sends it to me and says, hey,
make this.
I I think this looks good.
She knows I'm not following the recipe.
(18:53):
I take a pic I take a look at the picture.
I get a general idea of what the dish is.
Like, okay.
It's this kind of protein, this kind of whatand then I go to town and I I might throw all
kinds of different things in it.
I am not a detail person.
I don't measure anything.
I don't stick to a plan.
I never have a plan.
(19:14):
This podcast is a great example.
There's no plan.
The the best example of me sticking to a planis this personal development dashboard I'm
gonna share with you guys.
It's coming.
Promise.
But I don't have a plan.
And when I started our company, unfortunately,a lot of the projects we ran were the same way.
(19:42):
I just wanted people to get out of the way.
Let me get creative.
Let me assemble the fleet and the roster.
Let me adjust to the customer's needs.
Taste a little bit of this.
Taste a little bit of that and and changethings as I go.
And then I would ultimately end up with asuccessful project, a happy customer, a crew
that killed it.
(20:02):
That's just not scalable.
And I I you know, our most successful years waswhen I was running crews kind of with no plan.
And and our least successful years were when wereally tried to implement a plan.
It was really hard, because it didn't comenaturally to me.
(20:23):
I wasn't completely trusting of some of ourleaders.
The guys in the field weren't used to theaccountability of a plan and the metrics to a
plan and the budgets.
It was hard.
It was a super hard transition.
It would it would have been a much easiertransition for new leadership in our company.
And, you know, again, hindsight's 2020 if Iwould have been a person that naturally had a
(20:47):
plan and naturally lived in an environmentwhere budgets and plans and KPIs were my
natural language.
They just aren't.
Right, wrong, or indifferent.
They just aren't.
And so what I've had to learn and why why I'mtelling you guys this is it's been a real
conscious effort for us over the last severalyears to make money before the project ever
(21:12):
starts with a plan.
And fortunately for our business, I'm notinvolved in that.
Fortunately, I don't get involved in theplanning part of our business, at the project
level.
Now high level vision and plans and annualplans and all that, obviously, sure.
Yeah.
But at the project level, what we've resortedto is finding people who love plans, who live
(21:39):
in plans, who want details, who thrive onaccountability and KPIs, and they want to see
exactly how many hours this one machine isrunning, exactly the dollars and cents and the
cost per ton.
(22:00):
We've deployed people who speak that languagenaturally.
And then there is a lot less confusion.
Now we're not perfect.
Right?
We're not all the way through the journey.
I don't wanna I don't wanna, you know, make itsound like like, we've got it all figured out
because we don't.
It's an evolving process.
And I think it will always be an evolvingprocess as you're building a company.
(22:22):
But, man, I think Josh Wisenan's right in hispost and that you can really kill it if you
start the project well with a detailed plan,with a clear, clear vision of what success
looks like for the project, with someaccountability from day one.
(22:47):
You know, we've got this project startupchecklist, and I'm not the guy to speak to
this.
You know, this has kinda been a living,breathing thing for us over the last man, I
don't know how many years.
We started a project project checklist, projectstartup checklist years and years ago.
And it used to be very simple things.
Right?
Like fuel trailer and grease and blah blahblah, like high level things.
(23:10):
Now it's, I don't know, how many hundreds ofitems long across multiple teams, HR,
onboarding.
We got finance things in the checklist.
I mean, a lot of it lays on the ops team.
There's HR.
There's safety.
There I mean, operator training.
There's all kinds of things on this checklist.
(23:30):
Permits, underground utility locates.
We're mining.
We don't know, underground utility locates.
We're in a mine.
But there's all these things now that we haveto check off to ensure a smooth project
startup.
We have to check off to ensure that all theemployees know what success looks like for the
(23:53):
project.
We cannot be gunslingers and shooting from thehip.
We have to know what we're doing if and whensomething changes.
What do we do in inclement weather?
What happens if there's lightning?
Do we stand down for ten minutes?
Do we stand down for an hour?
Do we go home?
You know, I love running business shooting fromthe hip.
(24:15):
I love
it.
Ice I, Jake Jake texted me.
Jake's our asset manager.
Jake and Patton were the truck the other dayriding together, and Jake texted me and said,
hey.
What was the name of the company gonna be ifyou didn't pick Turner Mining Group?
I responded right back.
He said he said, Patton and I are arguing.
We we both think we we know what the companywould be called.
What what did what were you gonna name it if ifyou didn't pick Turner Mining Group?
(24:40):
I responded super simply.
Dilbert's backhoe service.
And I'm telling you right now, I could runDilbert's backhoe service with my eyes closed,
and I could kill it.
I'm confident.
I could shoot from the hip.
I could gunsling every day.
I could wake up a pot of coffee into the fieldwith my guys shoulder to shoulder, slinging
(25:06):
backhoes left and right, not paying attentionto anything, not having a clue what the PNL had
to say, not having a clue what our plan was forthe day, but we'd figure it out.
That is natural.
That's what comes naturally to me.
And that is not the way to scale a business.
(25:29):
So I wanna read part of Josh's, words again.
Josh says, I am 90 confident I know the trickon how you turn a small contractor into a huge
contractor.
And what Josh is saying is how you go fromDelbert's backhoe service to a nationwide
(25:55):
leading mine services company is not shootingfrom the hip, unfortunately.
Unfortunately for me, it's not shooting fromthe hip.
And so I've had to learn this.
I mean, I've learned this year after I I mean,I say year after year.
I've learned this day after day for eightyears.
Day after day.
(26:15):
Because my natural tendencies would have neverallowed us to scale.
My the way I wanted to manage, crews and manageprojects would have never allowed us to be a
nationwide service contractor in the miningindustry.
Would have never allowed it.
We could have been an awesome little Dilbert'sbackhoe service company.
(26:37):
I could have made some really cool apparel andsold a bunch of T shirts that said Dilbert's
backhoe on it with a cool little backhoe, youknow, on the shirt.
I coulda had eight or nine, ten guys, 10 of thebest dirt movers I know.
We coulda killed it.
We coulda been a great small business doing$10,000,000 a year.
(26:58):
Probably woulda had horrible cash flow, but wewe would have been a great small business.
Probably had a lot of fun, but that's not howyou scale.
You have to start projects extremely, extremelywell.
You gotta know all your risk before you go in.
You gotta know where there are gaps in theplans and the drawings.
(27:22):
You and your customer have to be on the samepage way before you ever break ground.
You have to know what's what does a changeorder process look like?
Is my team trained on it?
Do I have a PO?
Do I know where invoices are getting sent?
Like, the little bitty details.
I I probably can't share with you guys.
(27:42):
I'm getting too I'm getting inside baseballhere.
I can't share with you guys our projectchecklist, project startup checklist.
It'd be cool if I could.
We've had guys over the years spend so manyhours on it.
It would I would, I'd be it'd be crazy to sharethat, but build your own.
And I'm and I'm sure there are people outthere.
I mean, shoot.
Shout out to, man.
(28:07):
I'm giving this away, but I'm gonna be on, thedirt crew with Andy, here real soon.
They they talk about stuff like this.
I'm not talking about, you know, projectstartup checklist with Andy, but, I mean, the
(28:27):
dirt crew, Andy Garrett, Garrett Excavating,shout out.
You can join the dirt crew.
I don't know what it cost.
Don't quote me on it.
Maybe I maybe I can work with Andy and get youguys a discount or something.
But go find people that have lived throughthis.
Ask them to share their secrets.
(28:49):
I think project momentum is one of the keys tosuccess at the project level.
And if you start in the middle of the project,once you realize you're not making any money or
once you realize employee turnover is too highor customer's upset or whatever, it might be
too late.
You might have the wrong momentum.
You might have some you might have some realnegative momentum.
(29:11):
It's hard.
It's really hard to change course.
So I'm gonna pivot.
Okay?
I'd love I could, I mean, I could talk on thistopic for hours.
But the gist of it is you small businessowners, you guys running dirt crews, you guys
run electrical crews, whatever whateverbusiness you're in, dry even drywall crews.
You're never going to scale your businessshooting from the hip.
(29:35):
You're not gonna do it.
Go make the investment.
Put one guy or gal on your team that lives indetails, like annoying.
Annoying how much they care about the details.
I mean, the smartest guys around me annoy me todeath with details and budgets and plans.
(29:58):
I'm I'm dead serious.
Hundred percent dead serious.
I you know, we for our annual meeting, ourstaff meeting, the whole team, we got a big
room.
Everybody's sitting in there.
We got the executive team up there.
They're all gonna talk, you know, about thedifferent parts of the business.
Before they did it, I jumped on stage and said,hey.
(30:19):
Just want everyone to know one thing.
All these guys up here are gonna talk aboutbudgets and plans.
I don't care about budgets and plans.
And then I went into why I don't care about itinvolved.
And I I don't know if I, I don't know if Ilanded that plane super well or not, but it's
not my DNA.
So I've had to put people around me consciousdecision to invest and put people around me
(30:44):
that are really good at the things I'm not, andthat's details.
That's planning.
That's project startup.
That's budgets.
That's thinking about cash flow.
You're just never I mean, again, unless youwanna be running Dale Burke's backhoe service
forever and stuck in the hamster wheel of thebusiness that that is.
(31:09):
You know, if you and that and that's fine.
If if you're all about that and that's yourlifestyle and you want your business to be a
lifestyle business, that's great.
But if your business is a lifestyle businessthat makes no money, if you can't pay yourself
at the end of the year, you know, you're like,man, where's where's the money?
(31:30):
I don't I'm not making any money.
Then it's not a business.
It's a hobby.
And so my words of advice from where I sitbecause I've lived through this.
You can't be a gunslinger and scale a business.
You can't shoot from the hip and scale abusiness.
So hard pivot.
(31:52):
Quick water drink here.
Hold on.
I'm drinking this out of my, almost everysingle one of my YETI or Arctic mugs.
Any any of these, like, thermos mug things thatI have, they all have got dents and dings and
have dropped so many of these freaking things.
(32:15):
This one is it's got three big buffalos on it.
It's a c 12 It's a c 12 thermos.
And, and the reason they have buffalos on it,is because they wanna represent buffalo
culture.
I'm gonna tell a quick story.
I don't know if any of you guys know this, butthe American buffalo, the bison, is the only
(32:37):
animal I believe this.
Don't quote me on this story, but this is whatI was told.
I don't know this to be a fact.
I'm not a buffalo whisperer, but but theAmerican bison or the buffalo is the only
animal that runs into a storm.
When they see or feel a storm coming over themountains, they can see it out over the plains.
(32:59):
They a herd mentality into the storm directlyinto it.
And, and when when, you know, this was firstrecognized.
I'm sure the Indians recognized it way beforeus common folk got here.
But when they when when when folks started torecognize the buffaloes running into the storm,
(33:22):
I started to some research around it, and theyconcluded I don't know if this is scientists or
what.
Again, I'm not the expert on the story, butthey concluded the reason the buffalo run into
the storm is because they have a much shorterduration if they run into and through the storm
(33:43):
than if they ran away from the storm and had toexperience the weather for a longer period of
time.
And so they want to minimize the the durationof how long they're enduring the storm, and
they do that by running into it and through it.
And so I thought that was really cool.
That's on my, that's on my thermos.
(34:04):
Somebody fact check me on that.
If there's, if there's an animal expert onhere, send me a message.
Let me know if you can corroborate that storyor not or if I was just, you know, thrown a
total fable.
Hard pivot.
Went to church this morning with my, my family.
(34:28):
I'm not gonna get preachy.
I promise.
I I always I always say that, and I'm realizingif I when and when I listen to some of these
back, I'm like, man, he just said he wasn'tgonna get preachy, and then he and then he
preached for eight minutes.
I'm not gonna get preachy on this one.
There were probably, I don't know, 30 or sokids, college kids, baptized this morning,
(34:53):
which is not super normal for our church.
I mean, we we've got a big I I would sayprobably half of our congregation's college
students.
Shout out Embassy Church.
They have an awesome, college ministry calledSalt Network, and, and it's just the SALT
Network, all it does is is, you know, basicallyinteract on in and around and on campus with
(35:18):
college kids and and and really just preach thegood word and preach the gospel to kids that
are are willing to listen and hear it.
And and so big part of our congregation'scollege students, which is awesome.
My wife and I both found Christ in college.
And we were not on the path to fight.
It's not like we were, you know, lookinglooking for him.
(35:40):
I promise you that.
But we found it.
And so it's it's got a soft spot in our heart.
And so this morning, I wasn't aware of this.
There's about 30 or so kids that got baptized.
And before they get baptized, they come onstage and they say a few words about their they
kinda give their testimony.
They they explain why they're making thedecision to get baptized.
(36:05):
And I'm not gonna bore you with all thedetails.
I there's a guy I wanna bring on the podcasthere soon.
Once I have video, I wanna bring him on, telltell his story.
I got to be a part of his story and do some dosome cool stuff with him here a while back.
But this morning, when I listen to these 30kids jump on stage, and a lot of, you know, a
(36:32):
lot of them are crying.
Like, this is a big life moment for a lot ofthem.
Right?
They're they're college kids.
They're confessing like, man, I'm living a lifeof sin.
And a lot of them said, I was raised in thechurch.
I never knew what it meant.
And I always believed there was a god, but Ididn't actually know god.
And, you know, some of them are like, dude, youcan imagine the things I've been doing, the
drugs and the women and the the this and thethat.
(36:54):
Like, I'm I'm I'm so free.
But there was one common theme.
And I bet you more than half of the 30 kids whogot baptized said that they struggled with
depression and anxiety.
I bet you I bet you of the 30, maybe 20 of themin in their testimony, in some part of their
(37:21):
testimony mentioned that they were strugglingwith depression and anxiety.
And that stuck out to me because you guys haveheard me say this.
I think it is an epidemic right now.
I I I truly believe it.
(37:43):
Now I don't talk to many college kids anymore.
You know, I talk to enough enough middle agedmiddle aged folks, but not not college kids.
I think there is an epidemic going around, youknow, specifically our country, but probably
the world with young people around depressionand anxiety.
(38:08):
And so I started wondering as I as, you know,as I'm watching all these kids get baptized.
It's amazing.
It's super emotional.
The people in the audience are crying andclapping and there's praise.
And it's just it's it's kind of a life changingmoment for, even for people sitting in the
stands that, or sitting in the the audiencethat aren't getting baptized.
It's pretty wild.
Powerful stuff.
(38:29):
But I started thinking about this thisdepression anxiety thing.
And I fully believe, especially, you know, ifif if this resonates with any you guys that
listen, I fully fully believe that we're livingat a time now more than ever where it's so easy
to compare yourself, your life, your situationto other people.
(38:52):
I think social media makes that super easy.
We see everyone's highlight reels.
We see everyone's new car.
We see everyone's new house.
We see everyone's smiling family sitting at thedinner table every night.
We see how smooth their kids drop off is and,you know, everyone's posting their highlight
(39:15):
reel.
And we feel like when we see their highlightreel, we compare it to our current situation,
and we're like, man, we I must be doingsomething wrong.
If Timmy and Jimmy and Tommy and Colbert havegot life so figured out where everything looks
(39:36):
good, They're just they must just be making aton of money.
Like, they got the house, the car.
They're they're all smiling.
They're all happy.
Like, my life is not that.
So how what what have I screwed up?
And you start doing this comparison game.
And and and I'm I'm a huge believer thatcomparison is the thief of joy.
(40:00):
We all do it.
Especially if you're on social media, you doit.
And I really think that kids now more than everstruggle with confidence.
They struggle with self image.
They struggle with keeping up with society,keeping up with the world, making money,
getting the job, making their parents proud.
Like, of course, we all like, you know, we hadsome of those same challenges.
(40:23):
But but even even my generation, mine, I'm only36.
Like, social media wasn't really a thing for mein college.
It wasn't like, hadn't really caught onFacebook was around, but Instagram didn't
exist.
TikTok didn't exist.
Twitter was only, like, a 40 characters, so itwas just irrelevant.
(40:43):
I think over the last fifteen years, our youthis comparing their life and their situation to
everyone else's highlight reel, and it'skilling them.
It's filling them with depression.
It's filling them with anxiety.
And the issue, in my opinion, is that they'reputting their trust and their hope and their
(41:09):
joy in something that's never gonna be superfulfilling.
Even if you do get the car, even when you dobuy the house, even if you do land the job and
make the money.
Those things just don't fill you I mean, youguys know this.
Those things don't fill you up long term.
You know, they just don't.
I I was talking to somebody recently.
(41:30):
They just got a brand new big suburban nice,you know, nice car.
It's like a $90,000 car.
Awesome.
Every nicest of everything.
Stitching all all the cool bells and whistles.
Somebody else walked up and they they had, youknow, they had gotten a new car, I don't know,
six or eight months before.
And they're like, man, I remember I was lookingso forward to mine.
(41:52):
It was amazing.
And then I drove it for about three weeks andrealized it's just a vehicle that gets me to
and from.
And all of the all the joy I thought it wasgonna bring me just kind of fades away.
And then you're looking at other people andtheir new car, and you're like, well, dang.
Maybe I shoulda got that car.
You know, it's it's really wild how thiscomparison things work.
(42:13):
I'm not gonna preach on this.
I just thought it was odd, a kind of alarmingto me that so many of these kids that were 18
to 23 or four years old, male you know, bigdude.
There was a couple big jacked guys, like,looked like football players, like, big manly
guys and then little bitty gals.
(42:35):
Also, the same thing.
I struggle with depression.
I struggle with anxiety.
My life was going nowhere.
I've made this decision, and I'm filled withjoy, filled with peace.
Like so I don't know.
That's a little bit of a shameless, shamelesspitch there for you.
If you struggle you know, two things.
(42:56):
One, if you struggle with depression, anxiety,so on, what are you putting your hope in?
If if you're putting your hope in a job, acareer path if you're putting your hope in
something that's gonna end, you're eventuallygonna be disappointed, in my opinion.
If you're putting your hope in money or a, youknow, a physical relationship, you're just
(43:21):
gonna be disappointed.
Because even when you get the thing, it onlylasts for a little while, and then you're like,
man, I'm on to the next thing.
That didn't fill me up.
I didn't fill my cup up.
Filled my cup up for a day or a week or amonth, but didn't actually fill me up.
And so don't know.
I thought it was really wild that all thesekids I'd never heard.
I've been a part of you know, we went we didthis thing at Long Hollow Church down in,
(43:44):
Gallatin, Tennessee where there was, like, acouple hundred people baptized.
It was wild.
I I didn't expect to hear so many people thismorning, college age kids struggling with
depression and anxiety.
I I mean, depression and anxiety was never evena word I heard in college from any of the
people that I knew.
(44:04):
So I don't know.
I I I'm curious if if that helps or resonateswith anybody.
If you, if you guys, you know, if you see thesame thing, if you're feeling the same thing,
if you've got college kid college age kids, youknow, that's the one thing I'm so in tune with
is what you know, how do I keep my kids fromfeeling that way?
And it's, you know, it's hopefully pointingthem to the things that will keep them filled
(44:27):
up, you know, and have an internal perspective.
And and so I don't know.
I I hope that helps.
And and I'm forty four minutes in.
Said it was gonna be a short one.
Though, I again, I've I failed.
I I failed.
Okay.
That's it.
It's a Sunday.
I'm gonna go enjoy the rest my Sunday.
Thanks for listening.
(44:47):
Pray you're killing it.
Pray you're not filled with anxiety anddepression.
I I really do.
If you are, let's let's chat about it because Ithink I've got some things hopefully that would
be a little bit different perspective maybethan you've heard.
So reach out to me if that's something you'redealing with.
I'd happily help you.
And pray you're pray you're always getting yourpre m email back.
Pray you show back up tomorrow.
(45:08):
Thanks, guys.
Who would have thought it would be so difficultto start and ramp up a project?
Should be easy.
Project startup checklist.
You get all the correct teams involved.
(00:22):
You apply all of the lessons learned, all thelogic.
You consult some folks who have successfullyramped up a bunch of project, ask them if they
see anything they're missing on the checklist.
Like, just follow the checklist step by step.
Milestones, deadlines, accountability,leadership should be easy.
(00:44):
Starting up a project?
Man, was I wrong.
(01:05):
Welcome back to the premium podcast.
Hey.
How you start is how you finish.
How you feel like nine to five, we staying onbusiness.
Here's the ketchup.
You gonna need a village.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
We got no limits.
Fuck.
We got no limits.
(01:29):
Welcome back to the Purdue podcast.
It'd be great to have you guys back.
Thanks for finding the podcast for another day.
I'm Keaton Turner.
This is episode five, season two of the PurdueM Podcast.
(01:52):
Thanks for thanks for following along thejourney.
I've started off the podcast so far in seasontwo kinda slow.
I didn't wanna get too crazy too soon.
No big right hooks.
No, no crazy spicy stories or anything likethat.
No no earth shattering revelations.
I wanted to start a little bit slow.
(02:13):
I wanted to get my my bearings back.
I still don't know what the heck I'm doing withthese different, softwares, this technology.
I just recorded thirteen minutes and the audiowas lost.
Stupid.
This is why I need handlers, guys.
This is why I need people that, that canliterally handhold me through stuff like this.
I'm just a one man band here trying to figurethis out.
(02:35):
So thanks for thanks for being patient stickingwith me.
It's Sunday.
It's a rainy Sunday, which I love, by the way.
Love a rainy Sunday, especially with lifelately being as crazy as it's been chasing kids
around.
Been on a couple work trips over the last fewweeks.
It just seems like it's been kind of a crazyfirst quarter of the year for, you know, q one
(02:58):
kinda blew by.
So I love I love a rainy Sunday.
Nothing at all today.
We went to church this morning.
Awesome.
Awesome church, service this morning.
And I've got something to say about that, butI'm gonna wait till the end.
Maybe throw a right hook.
And, so awesome church Went went to to eat withmy parents and the kids after church.
(03:24):
That was that was great.
And then just came home.
Nothing crazy.
We went on a little walk.
I got the kids out of the house.
Shelby and I went on a little walk, made the,you know, the kids.
They ride their scooters and bikes around theneighborhood, and Shaub and I get our thirty,
forty minutes to, just walk together, get alittle exercise, and just talk, one on one,
(03:45):
just random things.
We most of the time, we're just making fun ofeveryone else that doesn't have life figured
out the way we do.
So it's a fun time for us to go on a walk andand make fun of everybody.
But, we did that and then came home, made someyou know, whipped up some snacks, whipped up
some lunch, whipped up Shelby a super juicy.
(04:07):
Actually amazing.
I took a sip of it.
Super juicy, Bloody Mary.
And, so she's in the other room enjoying that.
I'm just sitting here drinking my water.
I'm saving my my drink calories for later.
Maybe hot tub tonight.
I don't know.
We'll see what we get into this evening.
(04:27):
But I'm in the basement.
I'm in I'm in what I'm calling the vault.
It's the room behind our basement bar.
You know, it's a it's a cool little room here.
I've got kind of a makeshift podcast studio setup in the corner of the room.
And so just a chill Sunday.
Super chill.
(04:48):
Gonna turn on golf on the TV, maybe take atwenty minute nap.
If you take a nap any longer than twentyminutes, you will ruin the day.
I've got a theory there.
If I if I nap longer than you know, if I get aten minute nap in, that's a perfect reset for
my day.
And that's rare.
I I rarely am am ever taking a nap.
But for me, a ten to twenty minute nap'sperfect.
(05:09):
If I sleep twenty three minutes, my day'sruined.
Anything over 20 anything over twenty minutes,and I am a different animal when I wake up.
And I won't fall asleep at night.
It's just it's just kinda how I am.
So I'm gonna try to make this one quick todayas quick as I can.
I've got I've got kinda two real things to talkabout.
(05:32):
I know my open was a little bit odd, but Iwanna read you something from a guy that I
follow on LinkedIn, Josh Wisenant.
I think I'm saying his last name correctly, w Is e n a n t, cofounder and CEO at Roger.
Josh seems like a cool guy.
I don't know him personally, but I followedsome of his stuff.
(05:52):
I took a screenshot of this a while back.
This is something he posted, I think, on April,late April.
April '20 first is when I took the screenshot.
And I and I you guys know I get inspirationfrom all kinds of things.
But let me read this to you, and I'm and I'lland I'll kinda tell you where I'm going with
this.
This is what Josh had to say.
Broken record on this, but 90% confident I knowthe trick on how you turn a small or midsize
(06:19):
contractor into a huge contractor.
It's not very complicated.
Here's how in a sentence.
Front load and centralize as much work and riskmanagement as possible into preconstruction and
dedicated procurement departments.
Let me expand on my one sentence.
He goes on.
The moment you know you're gonna get the joband you have the drawings, bring your
(06:42):
preconstruction and project teams together.
Write all your scopes, build your procurementlog, do a drawing review, build your submittal
log, get a CPM schedule maximally validated.
Just kick off the project insanely well.
What does this not mean?
This does not mean load all this work on yourproject team working in a trailer somewhere.
(07:05):
It's too late.
That team has no support.
You've dealt them a losing hand.
Just this week, I went out to California.
This is Josh still speaking.
Just this week, I went out to California tohang out with a super smart contractor and
boom, I saw it again.
Huge preconstruction department with brilliantpeople, derisking early, and winning 9 figure
projects.
(07:26):
All that derisking equals making money.
And what do they do with it?
They hire more people for more preconstruction.
It's a virtuous cycle.
Lots to unpack here.
But I think, Josh, you know, from myperspective and, again, this is just one guy's
perspective.
I've lived through I've lived through a lot ofprojects, couple hundred.
(07:46):
I don't know exactly how many.
I know Turner Mining Group, the company Istarted, has done over a hundred projects.
The company I came from, I don't know how manyprojects I did with them in nine or ten years,
but I've been a part of a lot of projects.
(08:10):
I used to think the exact opposite of what Joshis saying.
You know, when I was a project manager, Iwanted all the control.
I didn't want control sitting in an officesomewhere away from the job.
I wanted my guys in the field to have all thecontrol.
When I started Turner Mining Group, I wanted torun each project like it was his own little
(08:35):
business.
I I said multiple times, especially when westarted our Salt Lake City office, I said I do
not want to manage our company from the office.
I do not wanna manage our projects fromIndiana.
I do not wanna manage our projects from SaltLake, the two places we had offices.
I wanna manage our projects at the projectlevel.
(08:57):
I want the best people we can get at theproject level, and I wanna manage it like a
business at the project level.
And I I believed in this.
I I was passionate about it.
I didn't want a team of preconstruction folks.
I didn't want a team of engineers.
I didn't want a team of folks sitting in anoffice thinking they knew best for the project.
(09:19):
They weren't they weren't in the dirt.
And I was applying my own logic.
Right?
I was applying my own experience.
I had lived through projects physically beingthere in the dirt.
And I'd also lived through enough projectssitting in the office not getting all the
context I needed.
And so, you know, if you'd asked me five yearsago, three probably even three years ago, I
(09:42):
would have completely disagreed with Josh'sstatement.
I said the dude's crazy.
He doesn't know what he's talking about.
How how are you going to make all your money inthe office before the project starts?
How are gonna recognize your risk?
You don't know your risks.
Project hasn't started yet.
There's too much to unpack for me to get allthis done in one episode, so maybe I'll trickle
(10:07):
this into a couple other episodes.
And I may ruffle some feathers with my take onthis, but I, current state, couldn't agree more
with Josh's comments and his sentiment.
Front load and centralize as much work and riskmanagement as possible into the preconstruction
(10:27):
process.
I couldn't agree more.
It's something we've it's something we'vedramatically shifted at Turner Mining Group
over the last few years.
Now Tucker's have been a huge part of this.
Obviously, right, you got you know, it's funny.
You get smart people involved and smart peoplethat that can actually think for themselves and
(10:50):
not just regurgitate thoughts from other peoplefrom years past.
Some cool things happen.
And and and the one thing I think I always tookfor granted was how difficult it is to start a
(11:10):
project seamlessly.
How difficult it is to start a project whereall the teams are on the same page.
I took for I took it for granted, especiallywhen I was a guy that was, you know, super
involved pulling all the levers.
I tried to manage it with just sheer will, andjust sheer sheer overcommunication.
(11:33):
And now as you scale a business, it's harder todo that.
More departments, more people, so on and soforth.
But the project, you know, kind of the thewhole preconstruction side of our business is
completely different than it was even eveneighteen months ago.
You know, if if you ask me where have we as anas an organization spent 90% of our energy,
(12:00):
attention, and efforts in the last year, it'sbeen on the preconstruction, the planning, the
budgeting, the project startup side of ourbusiness.
Not even actually in in the dirt moving.
Now we've made investments there.
Right?
We've we've onboarded an operator trainer.
We've done a lot of really cool things atTurner Mining Group, but the the really cool
(12:22):
things we've done over the last twelve months,no one gets to see other than the eight or 10
people in those teams that are working superintimately on the preconstruction process.
The project handoff from from an opportunity ora sale through the bidding process all the way
through to the planning process.
(12:43):
And then, you know, you win the job.
And so now you've now now that all the realwork starts.
And again, not gonna I'm not gonna bore youwith all these details, but I couldn't agree
more with Josh and the fact that the money whatI'm learning, and I I can't I've I've done a
lot of projects.
What I'm learning is you make the money beforethe project ever starts.
(13:11):
Now that's gonna that's gonna ruffle somefeathers.
Right?
There's gonna be people to say, well, yeah, butthings change in the field.
What what happens if there's a change order?
What happens if there's something missing fromthe scope or blah blah blah?
I get it.
Totally get it.
Things can change.
But if you start with a faulty plan and youfumble the project startup, you're not
(13:37):
optimized, it's hard to ever recover.
Projects have momentum.
And when I've seen some of our most successfulprojects and I compare those to some of our
least successful project projects, there is adifference in momentum.
The most successful projects were startedreally well.
(14:01):
Clear communication, clear scope, on the samepage with the customer.
The project has a leader that's in charge andvocal and energetic.
There's momentum.
Things are happening in in a certain way.
Our biggest failures did not have thatmomentum.
(14:24):
The project started slow.
There was a lack of communication.
There was a breakdown between the customer.
Logistics were messed up.
Equipment didn't show up when it was supposedto.
Onboarding was tough.
High employee turnover.
Poor morale.
No plan.
Or if we had a plan, something changes and wecouldn't replan quick enough.
(14:46):
Right?
Weather impacts it.
We don't know what we're doing to, you know, toreplan the work.
It's a momentum thing.
Successful projects start with really goodmomentum and they carry that momentum through
the project.
Unsuccessful projects fail to ever build anyreal momentum.
(15:07):
And it's hard once, you know, once a projectstarted and again, this this is from my own
experience living through project based work.
And we've done projects every you know, mycareer kinda spans a a wild range of projects.
Everything from a two week long project that'sworth $30 to eight year contracts that are
(15:30):
worth, you know, well into the high 9 figures.
And every single one that I look back at, thesuccessful ones compared to the unsuccessful
ones, The difference was momentum.
It's really hard to build momentum at theproject level midway through the project.
(15:54):
It's really hard.
You've you've missed so much opportunity thatyou've already because, you know, a project's a
weird thing.
It's a living, breathing organism.
This is I know this sounds weird to some of youguys.
Some of you guys are tuning me out.
But for project managers, foremen, even companyowners that listen to this, some of you guys
that are project based companies, if you startslow or if you start with high turnover, if you
(16:22):
start without a plan, it's really hard halfwaythrough to build a plan.
If you start a project that's got the wrongleadership, it is really hard to change
leadership and rebuild morale.
And so one of the places we have spent so muchtime, energy, attention, and focus is on
starting really well.
(16:44):
Starting the project really well with a with adetailed plan.
I mean, I wanna know exactly how many hours weplan to run a motor grader to clean the roads.
Not just that we have a motor grader and it'sthere to if the road gets, you know, if the
(17:05):
road gets dirty, just sweep it off.
No.
I wanna know to the hour.
How many hours are we gonna run that thing?
What is the budget for the greater?
Don't tell me it's gonna run two hundred hoursa month if you only plan to run-in a hundred
hours a month.
And and definitely don't run at four hundredhours a month if you've only budgeted to run at
(17:25):
two hundred hours a month.
Same thing with the roster.
What is the plan?
This does not come naturally to me, and it'swhy our company has struggled with this for so
long.
I I'm not a planner, and I'm not a detail guy.
You guys have heard me say this.
(17:47):
Drives my wife crazy sometimes.
I just I was telling you guys I just made aBloody Mary.
I literally threw vodka in a shaker, threw someice in a shaker, threw some Zing Zang Bloody
Mary mix in a shaker, little bit olive juice.
I can't tell you all the secret ingredients,couple of little ingredients, and and shook it
(18:09):
up, poured it, couple olives, lemon, boom.
I didn't measure a thing.
I never measure a thing.
Any drink I make, any recipe I make, I lovemaking pasta, and I love cooking.
I've never one time followed a recipe.
I just it's not in my DNA.
It takes all the creativity out of it.
(18:30):
If if if you pull up a recipe or you open up acookbook, and this is just my opinion, guys.
I'm I'm giving you a look into who I am.
When my wife takes a screenshot of a recipe onher phone and sends it to me and says, hey,
make this.
I I think this looks good.
She knows I'm not following the recipe.
(18:53):
I take a pic I take a look at the picture.
I get a general idea of what the dish is.
Like, okay.
It's this kind of protein, this kind of whatand then I go to town and I I might throw all
kinds of different things in it.
I am not a detail person.
I don't measure anything.
I don't stick to a plan.
I never have a plan.
(19:14):
This podcast is a great example.
There's no plan.
The the best example of me sticking to a planis this personal development dashboard I'm
gonna share with you guys.
It's coming.
Promise.
But I don't have a plan.
And when I started our company, unfortunately,a lot of the projects we ran were the same way.
(19:42):
I just wanted people to get out of the way.
Let me get creative.
Let me assemble the fleet and the roster.
Let me adjust to the customer's needs.
Taste a little bit of this.
Taste a little bit of that and and changethings as I go.
And then I would ultimately end up with asuccessful project, a happy customer, a crew
that killed it.
(20:02):
That's just not scalable.
And I I you know, our most successful years waswhen I was running crews kind of with no plan.
And and our least successful years were when wereally tried to implement a plan.
It was really hard, because it didn't comenaturally to me.
(20:23):
I wasn't completely trusting of some of ourleaders.
The guys in the field weren't used to theaccountability of a plan and the metrics to a
plan and the budgets.
It was hard.
It was a super hard transition.
It would it would have been a much easiertransition for new leadership in our company.
And, you know, again, hindsight's 2020 if Iwould have been a person that naturally had a
(20:47):
plan and naturally lived in an environmentwhere budgets and plans and KPIs were my
natural language.
They just aren't.
Right, wrong, or indifferent.
They just aren't.
And so what I've had to learn and why why I'mtelling you guys this is it's been a real
conscious effort for us over the last severalyears to make money before the project ever
(21:12):
starts with a plan.
And fortunately for our business, I'm notinvolved in that.
Fortunately, I don't get involved in theplanning part of our business, at the project
level.
Now high level vision and plans and annualplans and all that, obviously, sure.
Yeah.
But at the project level, what we've resortedto is finding people who love plans, who live
(21:39):
in plans, who want details, who thrive onaccountability and KPIs, and they want to see
exactly how many hours this one machine isrunning, exactly the dollars and cents and the
cost per ton.
(22:00):
We've deployed people who speak that languagenaturally.
And then there is a lot less confusion.
Now we're not perfect.
Right?
We're not all the way through the journey.
I don't wanna I don't wanna, you know, make itsound like like, we've got it all figured out
because we don't.
It's an evolving process.
And I think it will always be an evolvingprocess as you're building a company.
(22:22):
But, man, I think Josh Wisenan's right in hispost and that you can really kill it if you
start the project well with a detailed plan,with a clear, clear vision of what success
looks like for the project, with someaccountability from day one.
(22:47):
You know, we've got this project startupchecklist, and I'm not the guy to speak to
this.
You know, this has kinda been a living,breathing thing for us over the last man, I
don't know how many years.
We started a project project checklist, projectstartup checklist years and years ago.
And it used to be very simple things.
Right?
Like fuel trailer and grease and blah blahblah, like high level things.
(23:10):
Now it's, I don't know, how many hundreds ofitems long across multiple teams, HR,
onboarding.
We got finance things in the checklist.
I mean, a lot of it lays on the ops team.
There's HR.
There's safety.
There I mean, operator training.
There's all kinds of things on this checklist.
(23:30):
Permits, underground utility locates.
We're mining.
We don't know, underground utility locates.
We're in a mine.
But there's all these things now that we haveto check off to ensure a smooth project
startup.
We have to check off to ensure that all theemployees know what success looks like for the
(23:53):
project.
We cannot be gunslingers and shooting from thehip.
We have to know what we're doing if and whensomething changes.
What do we do in inclement weather?
What happens if there's lightning?
Do we stand down for ten minutes?
Do we stand down for an hour?
Do we go home?
You know, I love running business shooting fromthe hip.
(24:15):
I love
it.
Ice I, Jake Jake texted me.
Jake's our asset manager.
Jake and Patton were the truck the other dayriding together, and Jake texted me and said,
hey.
What was the name of the company gonna be ifyou didn't pick Turner Mining Group?
I responded right back.
He said he said, Patton and I are arguing.
We we both think we we know what the companywould be called.
What what did what were you gonna name it if ifyou didn't pick Turner Mining Group?
(24:40):
I responded super simply.
Dilbert's backhoe service.
And I'm telling you right now, I could runDilbert's backhoe service with my eyes closed,
and I could kill it.
I'm confident.
I could shoot from the hip.
I could gunsling every day.
I could wake up a pot of coffee into the fieldwith my guys shoulder to shoulder, slinging
(25:06):
backhoes left and right, not paying attentionto anything, not having a clue what the PNL had
to say, not having a clue what our plan was forthe day, but we'd figure it out.
That is natural.
That's what comes naturally to me.
And that is not the way to scale a business.
(25:29):
So I wanna read part of Josh's, words again.
Josh says, I am 90 confident I know the trickon how you turn a small contractor into a huge
contractor.
And what Josh is saying is how you go fromDelbert's backhoe service to a nationwide
(25:55):
leading mine services company is not shootingfrom the hip, unfortunately.
Unfortunately for me, it's not shooting fromthe hip.
And so I've had to learn this.
I mean, I've learned this year after I I mean,I say year after year.
I've learned this day after day for eightyears.
Day after day.
(26:15):
Because my natural tendencies would have neverallowed us to scale.
My the way I wanted to manage, crews and manageprojects would have never allowed us to be a
nationwide service contractor in the miningindustry.
Would have never allowed it.
We could have been an awesome little Dilbert'sbackhoe service company.
(26:37):
I could have made some really cool apparel andsold a bunch of T shirts that said Dilbert's
backhoe on it with a cool little backhoe, youknow, on the shirt.
I coulda had eight or nine, ten guys, 10 of thebest dirt movers I know.
We coulda killed it.
We coulda been a great small business doing$10,000,000 a year.
(26:58):
Probably woulda had horrible cash flow, but wewe would have been a great small business.
Probably had a lot of fun, but that's not howyou scale.
You have to start projects extremely, extremelywell.
You gotta know all your risk before you go in.
You gotta know where there are gaps in theplans and the drawings.
(27:22):
You and your customer have to be on the samepage way before you ever break ground.
You have to know what's what does a changeorder process look like?
Is my team trained on it?
Do I have a PO?
Do I know where invoices are getting sent?
Like, the little bitty details.
I I probably can't share with you guys.
(27:42):
I'm getting too I'm getting inside baseballhere.
I can't share with you guys our projectchecklist, project startup checklist.
It'd be cool if I could.
We've had guys over the years spend so manyhours on it.
It would I would, I'd be it'd be crazy to sharethat, but build your own.
And I'm and I'm sure there are people outthere.
I mean, shoot.
Shout out to, man.
(28:07):
I'm giving this away, but I'm gonna be on, thedirt crew with Andy, here real soon.
They they talk about stuff like this.
I'm not talking about, you know, projectstartup checklist with Andy, but, I mean, the
(28:27):
dirt crew, Andy Garrett, Garrett Excavating,shout out.
You can join the dirt crew.
I don't know what it cost.
Don't quote me on it.
Maybe I maybe I can work with Andy and get youguys a discount or something.
But go find people that have lived throughthis.
Ask them to share their secrets.
(28:49):
I think project momentum is one of the keys tosuccess at the project level.
And if you start in the middle of the project,once you realize you're not making any money or
once you realize employee turnover is too highor customer's upset or whatever, it might be
too late.
You might have the wrong momentum.
You might have some you might have some realnegative momentum.
(29:11):
It's hard.
It's really hard to change course.
So I'm gonna pivot.
Okay?
I'd love I could, I mean, I could talk on thistopic for hours.
But the gist of it is you small businessowners, you guys running dirt crews, you guys
run electrical crews, whatever whateverbusiness you're in, dry even drywall crews.
You're never going to scale your businessshooting from the hip.
(29:35):
You're not gonna do it.
Go make the investment.
Put one guy or gal on your team that lives indetails, like annoying.
Annoying how much they care about the details.
I mean, the smartest guys around me annoy me todeath with details and budgets and plans.
(29:58):
I'm I'm dead serious.
Hundred percent dead serious.
I you know, we for our annual meeting, ourstaff meeting, the whole team, we got a big
room.
Everybody's sitting in there.
We got the executive team up there.
They're all gonna talk, you know, about thedifferent parts of the business.
Before they did it, I jumped on stage and said,hey.
(30:19):
Just want everyone to know one thing.
All these guys up here are gonna talk aboutbudgets and plans.
I don't care about budgets and plans.
And then I went into why I don't care about itinvolved.
And I I don't know if I, I don't know if Ilanded that plane super well or not, but it's
not my DNA.
So I've had to put people around me consciousdecision to invest and put people around me
(30:44):
that are really good at the things I'm not, andthat's details.
That's planning.
That's project startup.
That's budgets.
That's thinking about cash flow.
You're just never I mean, again, unless youwanna be running Dale Burke's backhoe service
forever and stuck in the hamster wheel of thebusiness that that is.
(31:09):
You know, if you and that and that's fine.
If if you're all about that and that's yourlifestyle and you want your business to be a
lifestyle business, that's great.
But if your business is a lifestyle businessthat makes no money, if you can't pay yourself
at the end of the year, you know, you're like,man, where's where's the money?
(31:30):
I don't I'm not making any money.
Then it's not a business.
It's a hobby.
And so my words of advice from where I sitbecause I've lived through this.
You can't be a gunslinger and scale a business.
You can't shoot from the hip and scale abusiness.
So hard pivot.
(31:52):
Quick water drink here.
Hold on.
I'm drinking this out of my, almost everysingle one of my YETI or Arctic mugs.
Any any of these, like, thermos mug things thatI have, they all have got dents and dings and
have dropped so many of these freaking things.
(32:15):
This one is it's got three big buffalos on it.
It's a c 12 It's a c 12 thermos.
And, and the reason they have buffalos on it,is because they wanna represent buffalo
culture.
I'm gonna tell a quick story.
I don't know if any of you guys know this, butthe American buffalo, the bison, is the only
(32:37):
animal I believe this.
Don't quote me on this story, but this is whatI was told.
I don't know this to be a fact.
I'm not a buffalo whisperer, but but theAmerican bison or the buffalo is the only
animal that runs into a storm.
When they see or feel a storm coming over themountains, they can see it out over the plains.
(32:59):
They a herd mentality into the storm directlyinto it.
And, and when when, you know, this was firstrecognized.
I'm sure the Indians recognized it way beforeus common folk got here.
But when they when when when folks started torecognize the buffaloes running into the storm,
(33:22):
I started to some research around it, and theyconcluded I don't know if this is scientists or
what.
Again, I'm not the expert on the story, butthey concluded the reason the buffalo run into
the storm is because they have a much shorterduration if they run into and through the storm
(33:43):
than if they ran away from the storm and had toexperience the weather for a longer period of
time.
And so they want to minimize the the durationof how long they're enduring the storm, and
they do that by running into it and through it.
And so I thought that was really cool.
That's on my, that's on my thermos.
(34:04):
Somebody fact check me on that.
If there's, if there's an animal expert onhere, send me a message.
Let me know if you can corroborate that storyor not or if I was just, you know, thrown a
total fable.
Hard pivot.
Went to church this morning with my, my family.
(34:28):
I'm not gonna get preachy.
I promise.
I I always I always say that, and I'm realizingif I when and when I listen to some of these
back, I'm like, man, he just said he wasn'tgonna get preachy, and then he and then he
preached for eight minutes.
I'm not gonna get preachy on this one.
There were probably, I don't know, 30 or sokids, college kids, baptized this morning,
(34:53):
which is not super normal for our church.
I mean, we we've got a big I I would sayprobably half of our congregation's college
students.
Shout out Embassy Church.
They have an awesome, college ministry calledSalt Network, and, and it's just the SALT
Network, all it does is is, you know, basicallyinteract on in and around and on campus with
(35:18):
college kids and and and really just preach thegood word and preach the gospel to kids that
are are willing to listen and hear it.
And and so big part of our congregation'scollege students, which is awesome.
My wife and I both found Christ in college.
And we were not on the path to fight.
It's not like we were, you know, lookinglooking for him.
(35:40):
I promise you that.
But we found it.
And so it's it's got a soft spot in our heart.
And so this morning, I wasn't aware of this.
There's about 30 or so kids that got baptized.
And before they get baptized, they come onstage and they say a few words about their they
kinda give their testimony.
They they explain why they're making thedecision to get baptized.
(36:05):
And I'm not gonna bore you with all thedetails.
I there's a guy I wanna bring on the podcasthere soon.
Once I have video, I wanna bring him on, telltell his story.
I got to be a part of his story and do some dosome cool stuff with him here a while back.
But this morning, when I listen to these 30kids jump on stage, and a lot of, you know, a
(36:32):
lot of them are crying.
Like, this is a big life moment for a lot ofthem.
Right?
They're they're college kids.
They're confessing like, man, I'm living a lifeof sin.
And a lot of them said, I was raised in thechurch.
I never knew what it meant.
And I always believed there was a god, but Ididn't actually know god.
And, you know, some of them are like, dude, youcan imagine the things I've been doing, the
drugs and the women and the the this and thethat.
(36:54):
Like, I'm I'm I'm so free.
But there was one common theme.
And I bet you more than half of the 30 kids whogot baptized said that they struggled with
depression and anxiety.
I bet you I bet you of the 30, maybe 20 of themin in their testimony, in some part of their
(37:21):
testimony mentioned that they were strugglingwith depression and anxiety.
And that stuck out to me because you guys haveheard me say this.
I think it is an epidemic right now.
I I I truly believe it.
(37:43):
Now I don't talk to many college kids anymore.
You know, I talk to enough enough middle agedmiddle aged folks, but not not college kids.
I think there is an epidemic going around, youknow, specifically our country, but probably
the world with young people around depressionand anxiety.
(38:08):
And so I started wondering as I as, you know,as I'm watching all these kids get baptized.
It's amazing.
It's super emotional.
The people in the audience are crying andclapping and there's praise.
And it's just it's it's kind of a life changingmoment for, even for people sitting in the
stands that, or sitting in the the audiencethat aren't getting baptized.
It's pretty wild.
Powerful stuff.
(38:29):
But I started thinking about this thisdepression anxiety thing.
And I fully believe, especially, you know, ifif if this resonates with any you guys that
listen, I fully fully believe that we're livingat a time now more than ever where it's so easy
to compare yourself, your life, your situationto other people.
(38:52):
I think social media makes that super easy.
We see everyone's highlight reels.
We see everyone's new car.
We see everyone's new house.
We see everyone's smiling family sitting at thedinner table every night.
We see how smooth their kids drop off is and,you know, everyone's posting their highlight
(39:15):
reel.
And we feel like when we see their highlightreel, we compare it to our current situation,
and we're like, man, we I must be doingsomething wrong.
If Timmy and Jimmy and Tommy and Colbert havegot life so figured out where everything looks
(39:36):
good, They're just they must just be making aton of money.
Like, they got the house, the car.
They're they're all smiling.
They're all happy.
Like, my life is not that.
So how what what have I screwed up?
And you start doing this comparison game.
And and and I'm I'm a huge believer thatcomparison is the thief of joy.
(40:00):
We all do it.
Especially if you're on social media, you doit.
And I really think that kids now more than everstruggle with confidence.
They struggle with self image.
They struggle with keeping up with society,keeping up with the world, making money,
getting the job, making their parents proud.
Like, of course, we all like, you know, we hadsome of those same challenges.
(40:23):
But but even even my generation, mine, I'm only36.
Like, social media wasn't really a thing for mein college.
It wasn't like, hadn't really caught onFacebook was around, but Instagram didn't
exist.
TikTok didn't exist.
Twitter was only, like, a 40 characters, so itwas just irrelevant.
(40:43):
I think over the last fifteen years, our youthis comparing their life and their situation to
everyone else's highlight reel, and it'skilling them.
It's filling them with depression.
It's filling them with anxiety.
And the issue, in my opinion, is that they'reputting their trust and their hope and their
(41:09):
joy in something that's never gonna be superfulfilling.
Even if you do get the car, even when you dobuy the house, even if you do land the job and
make the money.
Those things just don't fill you I mean, youguys know this.
Those things don't fill you up long term.
You know, they just don't.
I I was talking to somebody recently.
(41:30):
They just got a brand new big suburban nice,you know, nice car.
It's like a $90,000 car.
Awesome.
Every nicest of everything.
Stitching all all the cool bells and whistles.
Somebody else walked up and they they had, youknow, they had gotten a new car, I don't know,
six or eight months before.
And they're like, man, I remember I was lookingso forward to mine.
(41:52):
It was amazing.
And then I drove it for about three weeks andrealized it's just a vehicle that gets me to
and from.
And all of the all the joy I thought it wasgonna bring me just kind of fades away.
And then you're looking at other people andtheir new car, and you're like, well, dang.
Maybe I shoulda got that car.
You know, it's it's really wild how thiscomparison things work.
(42:13):
I'm not gonna preach on this.
I just thought it was odd, a kind of alarmingto me that so many of these kids that were 18
to 23 or four years old, male you know, bigdude.
There was a couple big jacked guys, like,looked like football players, like, big manly
guys and then little bitty gals.
(42:35):
Also, the same thing.
I struggle with depression.
I struggle with anxiety.
My life was going nowhere.
I've made this decision, and I'm filled withjoy, filled with peace.
Like so I don't know.
That's a little bit of a shameless, shamelesspitch there for you.
If you struggle you know, two things.
(42:56):
One, if you struggle with depression, anxiety,so on, what are you putting your hope in?
If if you're putting your hope in a job, acareer path if you're putting your hope in
something that's gonna end, you're eventuallygonna be disappointed, in my opinion.
If you're putting your hope in money or a, youknow, a physical relationship, you're just
(43:21):
gonna be disappointed.
Because even when you get the thing, it onlylasts for a little while, and then you're like,
man, I'm on to the next thing.
That didn't fill me up.
I didn't fill my cup up.
Filled my cup up for a day or a week or amonth, but didn't actually fill me up.
And so don't know.
I thought it was really wild that all thesekids I'd never heard.
I've been a part of you know, we went we didthis thing at Long Hollow Church down in,
(43:44):
Gallatin, Tennessee where there was, like, acouple hundred people baptized.
It was wild.
I I didn't expect to hear so many people thismorning, college age kids struggling with
depression and anxiety.
I I mean, depression and anxiety was never evena word I heard in college from any of the
people that I knew.
(44:04):
So I don't know.
I I I'm curious if if that helps or resonateswith anybody.
If you, if you guys, you know, if you see thesame thing, if you're feeling the same thing,
if you've got college kid college age kids, youknow, that's the one thing I'm so in tune with
is what you know, how do I keep my kids fromfeeling that way?
And it's, you know, it's hopefully pointingthem to the things that will keep them filled
(44:27):
up, you know, and have an internal perspective.
And and so I don't know.
I I hope that helps.
And and I'm forty four minutes in.
Said it was gonna be a short one.
Though, I again, I've I failed.
I I failed.
Okay.
That's it.
It's a Sunday.
I'm gonna go enjoy the rest my Sunday.
Thanks for listening.
(44:47):
Pray you're killing it.
Pray you're not filled with anxiety anddepression.
I I really do.
If you are, let's let's chat about it because Ithink I've got some things hopefully that would
be a little bit different perspective maybethan you've heard.
So reach out to me if that's something you'redealing with.
I'd happily help you.
And pray you're pray you're always getting yourpre m email back.
Pray you show back up tomorrow.
(45:08):
Thanks, guys.
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