May 4, 2025 • 47 mins
Keaton Turner opens this episode with a recap of yesterday's events, sharing his frustration. He addresses recent business adjustments, emphasizing equipment purchases and the need for flexibility. Keaton humorously recounts mishaps at the golf course and reflects on his family's evening routine. The conversation shifts to resolving communication issues in both personal and business settings, offering insights into marriage and customer relationships. Strategies for handling conflicts and understanding communication breakdowns are explored, highlighting the importance of listening. Keaton concludes with a call for listener feedback and support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:42):
We're back, folks.
We're back another day.
We're surviving.
Some of us are even thriving.
Although that was not me yesterday.
I didn't let the devil win.
I got man, I came close.
I came super close to letting the devil win,but we didn't let it happen.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the Purdue M Podcast.
I'm Keaton Turner.
Glad to have you finding another episode of thepodcast, another day in the life.
Glad to have you right here in the front seatwith me.
It's Saturday morning.
I I've got a fun day ahead of me.
(01:30):
I missed I missed baseball practice thismorning.
Gant I made Gant do that by himself.
I had other obligations.
Unfortunately, I couldn't be there.
But then Gant and Jeff and I, we we get to goto this event.
Hopefully, the weather cooperates, a a littlebit of an event up at the Indianapolis
Speedway.
I get to go around the track in a car.
(01:51):
That'll be fun.
And then it's kinda dog and pony show with withfood and drinks and other everything else.
So it should be a fun afternoon.
I almost let the devil win yesterday.
you guys listen to yesterday's episode, If youguys listen to yesterday's episode, man, it was
close.
It started off horrible.
(02:12):
I dropped my coffee.
As I was getting into my trucks, busted allover the ground, spilled everywhere.
You know, I then go have a decent morning inthe office and nothing crazy.
As I'm pulling into the golf course, try toplay golf on Friday afternoons.
As I'm pulling into the golf course, I get aphone call.
(02:34):
We were like a day away from signing a bigpackage of new equipment.
I shouldn't say a big package, it's a smallerpackage.
I don't know, 10 or so machines.
I don't know, eight to 10 machines for acustomer.
(02:54):
And we quickly had to pause the purchase ofthose machines.
Not cancel the purchase, just pause thepurchase.
So customer, their business change, they pushtheir change down to us and our business
changes.
And so that's kind of the business that we'rein.
(03:16):
We as a contractor have to stay flexible and wejust smile and wave.
When things change, we just smile and wave andadjust our plan.
And so we had to adjust our plan a little bit.
No big deal, not greatest call to get on aFriday because it impacts people, it impacts
(03:37):
revenue.
I mean, it's real dollars for us and it impactsour plan.
And we you know, we've got a lot of people thatlike to have a real plan and and live to a
plan.
So no big deal.
We jump through you know, we get thrown a weget thrown a hoop that's on fire and we gotta
figure out how jump through it.
And our team is I think the best in thebusiness at jumping through flaming hoops and
(03:59):
so we're doing that.
So that phone call, I'm a few minutes late toour tee time.
My group tees off without me.
I meet them in the fairway on Number 1, on HoleNumber 1 and throw a ball down and it's like,
hey guys, what's up?
What's happening?
They kinda give me a look for being late.
It's not great golf etiquette to miss the firsttee.
(04:23):
And my partner and I proceed to hit a coupledecent shots.
We go down, we both make par.
Thomas, who I'm golfing with, and his partner,I call him Pod, they bogey the hole.
So my partner and I win the hole.
(04:44):
Walk into the next tee, and I think my partnersaid, okay.
We're one off.
Pod turns around and goes, that that holecount.
Keaton didn't hit a drive.
Hole doesn't count.
I'm like, woah.
That hole doesn't count.
We just won the hole.
What do you mean the hole doesn't count?
(05:04):
He's like, we didn't hit a drive.
I was like, well, why didn't you tell me fourshots ago?
I would have gladly went back and teed it upand hit a drive.
So anyway, we start arguing.
It gets really heated for a second because Idon't you know me, I don't back down from an
argument.
I like I actually kind of enjoy, you know, awell crafted argument sometimes, especially
(05:32):
when the devil's whispering in my ear, I'm muchmore prone to argue and a lot slower to let
things go.
And so we proceed to argue, it gets reallyweird and awkward, especially as we're playing
golf on a Friday, living the dream, two grownmen arguing about whether the hole counted or
not.
Kinda wild.
Play a few holes.
(05:52):
My partner then starts arguing with the otherteam about whether his putt, he had like a two
foot gimme putt.
I don't think they gave him the putt.
They should have gave him the putt.
I think Thomas was way out of line.
No.
It wasn't Thomas.
It wasn't Thomas' fault.
It was his it was his teammate's fault.
But Thomas should have controlled his teammate.
Thomas, if you're listening to this, you shouldhave controlled your teammate.
(06:14):
So anyway, they proceeded to argue the rest ofthe round.
After the round, they continue to argue.
It was just a diabolical day on the golfcourse, to be honest with you.
The devil was at play for real.
I didn't get home.
The devil's still at play.
I get home.
I get a phone call from customer at, I don'tknow, 06:00 on a Friday night.
(06:40):
I talked to this customer for forty minutes.
And I love this customer, by the way.
Not sure that they're list I don't think theylisten, but you never know.
They might.
Talked to her for forty minutes on a Friday.
And it's obviously, every customer's animportant customer, but there were some
miscommunications, I think, between our teams,which happens.
(07:05):
It happens when you're in our business.
And then later my wife comes home.
I'm in the middle of giving Andrew a haircut.
Andrew's my 10 year old.
And I cut his hair because that's just whatkind of dad I am.
I am the best dad.
(07:26):
I'm such a good dad that I cut his hair and Ido a fantastic job.
I had to learn how to cut hair, but I got tiredof paying $40 for haircuts for a 10 year old.
So I was giving Andrea a haircut.
(07:47):
My wife walks in and she was probably lookingawesome.
She and the girls went on like a day date withmy sister.
And so she was all dressed up.
My daughter was dressed up.
They walk in and like, hey, how's your day?
And again, I've had a rough day.
The devil has been at me all day.
Had a rough day.
(08:08):
And I'm in the middle of a haircut and I didn'tpay any attention to my wife or what she was
wearing.
I didn't pay any attention to my daughter orwhat she was wearing.
I just said, Hey, hey babe, in the middle ofsomething.
Again, just got off a forty minute call with acustomer.
And you can imagine a forty minute call with acustomer on a Friday night, those aren't calls
(08:34):
to just tell us how great we're doing or thosearen't calls to tell us how amazing everything
is going.
Those are calls where generally speaking,something is going wrong on either side.
That could be on our side or their side.
Something's going wrong.
In this case, it was probably more their side,but I'll get into that in a second.
(08:55):
So anyway, long story short, my wife walks inprobably looking like a snack.
I didn't pay any attention to her.
I was focused on the haircut, not taking achunk of hair out of Andrew's head.
And we get done with a haircut.
We do dinner.
We watch a few minutes of American Idol withthe kids.
(09:16):
I can tell my wife is just not you know you cantell.
You know how husbands you know you can tellwhen your wife is kinda giving you the shoulder
a little bit.
It's not the warm shoulder.
It's the it's the the colder shoulder.
So I can just tell.
So we put the kids to bed and it's Fridaynight.
(09:41):
Sit down.
I'm like, hey.
What's what's going on?
Something wrong?
She's like, nope.
Everything's fine.
I'm like, oh, boy.
Okay.
And and I always I wanna give you guys aglimpse every single day into my day because
I'm as I'm as normal of a guy as it gets.
I am I have all the same challenges andproblems with life.
(10:05):
Everybody else does.
My situation may be just a little differentbecause of the business and how to navigate the
business and having employees and so on and soforth.
But everything else, generally speaking, Iargue with my friends, we argue, we fight and
bicker.
Wife and do the same and so a very normal life.
(10:26):
And so I wanna give you guys a glimpse into it.
I sit down on the couch right next to her and Isaid, What's going on?
I can tell you're a little quiet.
Something's bothering you.
She's like, No, I'm fine.
I was like, No, you're not fine.
If you were fine, the vibe would be a littledifferent.
(10:46):
Our Friday night would probably be a littledifferent.
What's going on?
If I've done something, let me know.
And and she says, well, you know, I feel likeyou've been distant the last few days.
And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, distant?
I've been right here.
What do you mean I've been distant?
I haven't been distant.
I've been I've been I've been awesome.
I'm I'm the best.
(11:08):
How could how could Keaton Turner be anythingbut that?
I'm a great husband.
I'm a great dad.
I haven't been distant.
So I tell her that.
I'm like, babe, I haven't been distant.
What are you talking about?
I don't feel like I've been distant at all.
And she's like, well, you have.
I feel like you've been distant.
And I'm like, well, I'm sitting here on thecouch talking to you, trying not to be distant.
(11:32):
So this is, even if I have been distant, thisis my way of kinda closing the distance a
little bit and getting back on the same page.
I'm like, to be honest with you, babe, and thisis where Keaton Turner royally screwed up,
guys.
So learn from my mistake.
I said, to be honest with you, babe, I feellike you've been a little and I kinda paused
(11:57):
for a second.
Her eyebrows raised.
And I at that moment, I knew I screwed up.
It was at that moment I knew.
Her eyebrows kinda raised and I said, Babe, Ifeel like you've been a little And I did this
kind of gesture with my hands to put them intolike claws.
I said, I feel like you've been a little likeyou've been a little bit tense.
(12:20):
And she goes, oh, perfect.
This is classic Keaton Turner.
He didn't do anything wrong.
You flip it around and actually I'm the onethat does some that has done something wrong.
This is perfect.
This is the way it goes.
And I was like, oh boy.
And this, you know, it's amazing how quicklythese conversations can spiral.
(12:42):
And I'm like, well, I mean, I'm I mean, andagain, I'm sitting there like, okay, hey,
idiot.
Now you've really screwed up.
How are gonna recover?
And so I stand up and I'm like, you know what?
I'm gonna go watch NBA in the other room.
You watch whatever you want.
(13:02):
Clearly, we're not on the same page right now.
So shame on me.
I shouldn't have done the and I shouldn't haveflipped it on her because I probably, you know,
to be honest with you, I have a tendency ofgetting distant, especially when I have to deal
with problems like idiot friends, Delbert's onthe golf course, spilling my coffee all over
(13:24):
myself, taking phone calls from customers thatwe're at odds a little bit.
So it's easy for me as a guy, it's super easy,kind of my default actually, if I'm being
honest, to get distant.
It's easy for me to shut down a little bitemotionally.
It's easy for me to compartmentalize mysituation and my feelings.
(13:47):
And it's easy for me to come across to otherpeople as if I'm a little cold, a little
standoffish, not super lovey dovey, so on andso forth.
So fast forward an hour later, I'm in bed.
I was reading a book.
It's actually a really good book called, Idon't know what it's called.
(14:10):
That's terrible, I'm reading a book.
I'm almost done.
Don't even know the name of the title.
It's a Lencioni book, The Four Habits of anExtraordinary Executive or something like that,
or The Four Foundations of an ExtraordinaryExecutive.
I don't know.
I'll look it up later.
Anyway, I'm reading the book.
She comes in later.
She gets in bed.
I turned the game off.
I didn't even watch the end of the game.
(14:33):
And and I, you know, she's rolled over facingthe other direction, probably on her phone.
And I kind of knocked her phone out of herhand.
I roll her over, give her a kiss and I said,Okay, I'm sorry.
This is me.
I didn't mean to come across as cold.
(14:59):
I didn't mean to ignore you or give you thecold shoulder.
This is my way of saying I'm sorry.
And she's like, it's okay.
She was still kind of processing it all becauseagain, I had flipped it around on her.
We go to bed, we're on the same page.
(15:20):
It's not a perfect Friday night, but wesalvaged it.
We didn't go to bed angry.
We kind of recovered.
I get up this morning, I'm drinking my coffee,going through all the things this morning.
She comes in and sits down and snuggles up nextto me.
I always start in the morning with coffee, turnthe fireplace on, do a little reading, little
(15:41):
reflection.
She snuggles up next to me and said, Hey, I wasdisappointed.
She might slap me for saying this, but guys,this is what real marriage is like.
She goes, I'm disappointed that I was lookingreally cute.
I came home, Grace was looking really cute.
(16:02):
We both came home, we walked in and you didn'tcomment on our outfit.
You didn't tell us how beautiful we looked.
You didn't tell us how nice we looked.
You and Andrew just kind of ignored us and youwere too busy.
And I'm like, you know what?
I'm an idiot.
(16:23):
Shame on me because I do all this preachingabout, you know, being a good dad, being a good
husband, being in tune with what's happening.
And she's totally right.
I just I just didn't I I said, babe, to behonest with you, I was so locked in given the
(16:43):
haircut.
Like, I don't even think I looked up to seewhat you were wear I don't even know what you
were wearing.
It's not that I didn't think you looked good.
I don't I didn't even see you.
And she goes, well, that's the point.
You that's when when you when she's like, youknow, that's when you're distant, that's the
point.
(17:03):
You don't see me.
You don't hear it.
You're just kind of going through the motionsand your brain's off somewhere else in some
other land.
And I'm like, dang.
I totally screwed that up.
I missed the chance to see how beautiful shewas and how beautiful my little eight year old
was.
The first thing they do, you know, we all feelthis way.
(17:24):
We walk into the door at home.
We wanna be embraced.
We wanna be welcomed.
We wanna be like, oh, I missed you.
How was your day?
And I didn't do that.
I blew them off.
And so shame on me.
I'm learning these things.
But I can tell you from my perspective, andthis is a play on yesterday that the challenges
(17:48):
we had.
I'm gonna pause real quick because I don't knowif this record I don't know if this is
recording or not.
Guys, give me one second.
Let me pause.
Okay.
I think I've figured this out now.
Sorry.
I'm using a new system.
It's not as easy as it should be.
(18:11):
But again, in order to make this thing morelegit, I'm trying to iron all these kinks out
before we add the video component, which iscoming soon.
So anyway, what I was saying is I failed.
I failed as a husband in that moment.
I failed as a guy that does a lot of preachingand should be present and should be an amazing
(18:36):
husband and amazing dad all the time.
And, you know, got called out on it and thebeauty of the whole, I tell you guys this whole
thing, I'm gonna tie a bow on this, I promise,I'm gonna make it make sense.
We communicate, you know, used to, I've saidthis before, used to that argument would have
lasted thirty days, you know, thirty days.
(18:57):
That argument would have lasted three days.
You know, she would have given me the coldshoulder, I would have then gotten mad.
She was giving me the cold shoulder.
So then I would have started to retaliate andgive her a cold shoulder and it just spirals.
It's the drama triangle.
I've talked about this in the past.
(19:17):
We stopped all that.
I stopped it kind of in my own unique way byright before we went to bed, I grabbed her and
rolled her, forced her to roll over.
She kind of begrudgingly rolled over.
I apologized.
The next morning she sat down next to me on thecouch, explained the reasons why she felt I was
(19:39):
being distant and cold and not acknowledgingher.
I then understand that.
I was like, dang, I didn't even realize that,you know, what an idiot.
Full blown Delbert, how do I not realize that?
She walked in, I didn't even look at her.
We communicated.
That's what prevented it from being a three orfour or five day skid.
(20:01):
That's what prevented it from blowing up into abigger argument where we yell and scream and
throw things and kick the dog and, you know,used to, earlier in marriage, we would have
done those things.
Right?
We would have let the situation unravel itselfas these things actually do.
(20:23):
You guys have lived through this and we wouldhave been left looking at each other three,
four, five days later, like how did we gethere?
Why are we screaming at each other?
Why haven't we talked in three days?
Why has the vibe at home been odd?
Like why have we been walking around on pinsand needles?
(20:45):
And the tactic, the trick, the tip I'm givingyou is that communication just short circuited
all that drama.
It cut all that drama out of our lives and itgot to the root of the issue and we move on.
That was never possible in the past.
(21:07):
Now I'm gonna tie it back to the customer'sconversation.
We have seen, and I've seen this throughout mybusiness, but we have seen this even more
recently in recent years when we've added moreand more legit people to the team.
I used to have a guy that, you know, he wantedto litigate everything, guy on my team.
(21:30):
I used to have a guy that wanted to litigate.
He wanted to send a letter for every singletime the customer stepped out of line, every
single communication to a customer.
It wasn't a phone call, it was a letter onletterhead with revision three dot two dot and
it was legit.
It looked legit, but it looked like we wererunning a law firm.
It looked like we were building a defense caseevery time we talked to the customer.
(21:53):
And the feedback I got from customerseventually was like, look, dude, stop sending
me freaking letters.
I don't care what the contract says.
I don't care what your attorney says.
I don't Just pick up the phone and call me andwe can solve this.
I remember one day I had customer, Buzz, I'mjust gonna leave it at Buzz, you can go figure
(22:14):
out his last name.
He works for one of the largest aggregateproducers in the country.
And I remember we were at odds with Buzz.
We were at odds on a big contract and we weredoing work and we thought we were on the right
side of the contract.
Buzz thought his company was on the right sideof the contract.
And so our guy just sent legal letter afterlegal letter on Turner letterhead citing the
(22:40):
contract, highlighting specific sections.
And I'll never forget, I was on vacation wewere down in Naples with the family on
vacation.
My kids are young, I'm supposed to be having agreat time at the beach.
And I get a call from Buzz and Buzz rips me anew butthole.
(23:00):
Like full blown, I'm taking this phone call,looking at my wife in her nice little bikini,
supposed to be having fun.
I might even have a drink in my hand.
I have to go set my drink down and listen toBuzz rip me up and down because we kept sending
him letters.
He goes, Keaton, how many letters are you guysgonna send me?
(23:21):
And I'm like, well Buzz, you know, thecontract, you know, my guy is trying to, you
know, he's trying to help educate you on wherewe are and why we think this.
He said, I don't care.
Stop sending me letters.
Pick up the phone and call me if there's aproblem.
Let's work the problem out.
Let's talk about it.
Let's communicate.
(23:42):
And I'm like, well Buzz, you know, this guybased on his experience, like he wants to have
it documented.
He, know, Buzz, he's listening to anything Ihad to say.
He couldn't care less what I had to say.
He said, Stop sending me letters.
If you wanna solve the issue, pick up the phoneand call me, Or better yet, get on a plane and
(24:05):
come down and see me and we'll sit down andtalk about it.
I'm not gonna read your fricking lettersanymore.
I'm not gonna read it.
My guy's like, well, if you call him and youwork it out on the phone, it's he said, she
said.
We don't have any paper trail.
We don't have any defense.
And this guy was used to litigating things.
(24:26):
He came from a different world.
Mining wasn't necessarily the, you know, waslegit.
He was an awesome guy.
I have learned both in marriage and in businesscommunication is one of the foundational
(24:48):
principles that makes us successful or notsuccessful.
Period.
Communication.
You don't have to have all the facts.
You don't have to have all the answers.
You don't have to have the best contract in theworld.
You don't have to have like even the bestmarriage in the world.
(25:13):
But communication between both sides allows itto work, allows it to grow and develop.
It gives you a fighting chance of beingsuccessful in marriage and in business.
Communication, simple.
My conversation on Friday night with thiscustomer, fast forward to, you know, again,
(25:37):
forward to yesterday, we get to the bottom ofit because my customer is hearing one thing at
the ground level.
I'm hearing one thing at the ground levelthrough all of our guys.
You know, we think we're right and you know,still think we're right.
They don't necessarily think we're wrong, butthey're like, you know, again, they're going
(25:58):
through their own sets of things and someonesomewhere, you know, in the whole process of
poorly communicating between the two teams,there was one word that was said that raises
immediate red flags for everybody.
(26:19):
And this word, if you're a contractor, ifyou're navigating partnerships, if you're just
in business in general and you're trying toserve the customer and there's some differences
of opinion, there's one word that willautomatically raise red flags and do the
(26:40):
opposite of what I'm talking about, which iscommunicate.
There's one word, one word only.
You know what that word is?
That word is lawyer.
Lawyer.
There was a word thrown around and I don'tknow, I'm not looking for blame or any of that.
I'm just telling you guys kinda how this works,I've lived through this enough.
(27:05):
Somebody on one of the two teams, becauseagain, both teams think they're right, the way
they interpret the relationship, somebody said,Well, we'll just let the lawyers figure it out.
And obviously, if you know anything aboutlawyers, and I'm taking a shot at lawyers right
now, although they're necessary, if you knowanything about lawyers, they make everything a
(27:29):
much bigger deal, right?
That's their job.
Their job is to get into the weeds.
Their job is to figure out blame.
The job is to protect and defend.
And their job, honestly, makes partnerships andrelationships much, much, much more challenging
in a lot of cases when some simplecommunication between the two parties is
(27:53):
actually the medicine that the doctor ordered.
And so my customer calls and says, Hey, look,we're on both sides of this, right?
Turner's got pain, we've got pain, there'senough pain to go around.
I heard the word lawyer.
I know that's not what you want and that'sdefinitely not what we want, so let's talk
(28:17):
through it.
And so we spent forty minutes talking throughit.
And at the end of the call, I'll just tell youstraight up, at the end of the call, we want
the same thing.
Our customer and his team want the same thingthat Turner Mining Group and our teams want.
(28:42):
Where we get sideways is when communicationbreaks down.
And the challenge, especially the larger theproject, larger the relationship, the larger,
the higher the stakes, the more layers ofcommunication that happen, the more teams that
(29:04):
are involved.
And so it's super easy.
I've seen this a ton, you know, project, youknow, we do project based work.
Even our contracts that are multi years, Imean, you can still consider them a project.
They're just multi year project.
It's super easy when there are multiple teamsand multiple layers of management involved.
It's super easy for communication to gosideways.
(29:28):
Super easy.
I've seen it on on multiple levels on bothsides.
I've seen our teams struggle to communicateeffectively.
I've seen some of the most sophisticatedcustomers in the industry struggle, their teams
struggle to communicate effectively.
It's easy to screw up communication.
(29:52):
I've watched some of the best marriages in theworld, in my opinion.
I'll give my parents as an example.
I think they've got like and I'm veryintimately aware of the details of their
marriage obviously growing up and they're bothpretty transparent people like amazing
marriage.
(30:14):
When it goes sideways, it's because neither oneof them are communicating well.
My marriage is no different.
Love my wife to death?
I think most days she loves me to death.
When we are actually at each other, it's whenwe're failing to communicate.
One of us is too proud.
One of us thinks we're right and the otherone's wrong.
(30:34):
One of us doesn't wanna look at the actualfacts of the situation.
One of us is just wore out, right?
We've been beaten down, we've been like theworld's at us and we're out of bandwidth to
negotiate, right?
We're out of energy.
The kids, the sports, the this, the that, thejob, all the pressures of the world and one
(31:01):
thing happens, one little thing that the spousedoes sets the other one off.
It's like, nope, I'm out of energy.
Don't have any more bandwidth.
I'm not gonna do this.
And you shut down and there's no communication.
I'm guilty of this, 100%.
But it's amazing how similar it is betweenbusiness and marriage.
(31:24):
When things go sideways, I can almost alwayspoint to communication, almost always.
Now, the challenge is that both sides have tobe willing to negotiate and communicate.
Both sides have to be willing.
(31:45):
I've been in relationships, man, you know what,why not?
I'll just say it.
Like the Buzz relationship I was telling youguys about, I mean, long, that was five years
ago, four years ago, whenever it was.
Very, very difficult for us to resolve thatconflict because both sides were not willing to
(32:12):
negotiate.
I finally got my guy to stand down and stopsending legal letters.
I flew out and sat down to kind of meet in themiddle on our disagreements and there was no
appetite for negotiation.
There was no appetite for communication.
(32:33):
I think we had already done enough damagerelationally, you know, shame on us that we
kinda left some scars and and I think they justalso have a certain sense of pride and ego and
didn't want to acknowledge their own contractterms.
And when someone says, you know what, sue me?
(32:56):
Like it's hard to come back from that.
Someone says, hey, I don't care what thecontract says, sue me over it.
They know you're not gonna sue them or theydon't think you're gonna sue them.
That's the challenge.
But I would tell you that every time in mymarriage or in business when things go
(33:17):
sideways, it's because people aren'tcommunicating.
And it's amazing how fast it can happen.
And so what I try to focus on, especially inthe role that I'm in now in our business is
because I, again, I can default to beingegotistical and not communicating.
(33:39):
What I try to default to now is when we dorecognize there's an issue, how do we
communicate in a way that is helpful, nothurtful?
Because it's super easy for me as a husband tocommunicate in a hurtful way.
Right?
I can I can quickly jump straight to the facts,ignore emotions, ignore, someone else's
(34:07):
personality type or trait?
I can just quickly go to, well, this is how Ilike to communicate and if you can't do that,
then that's your problem.
I've literally said those words before.
And I can do the same thing in business.
I can communicate in a way that is hurtful andnot helpful.
Our team can write letters that cite thecontract terms on Turner letterhead as well as
(34:34):
anybody.
I mean, we've got engineers that are reallyintelligent people that can easily flip to the
right page of the contract, highlight it, takea screenshot, put it on letterhead and explain
to the client why they're screwed up.
We can do that.
The question is, is that communication helpfulgiven the circumstances of the situation or is
(35:01):
that communication hurtful given thecircumstances of the situation?
And so, you know, sometimes in business itcalls for sliding the contract across the table
and, both sides remembering what theyoriginally agreed to.
(35:21):
Sometimes though in business, a simple phonecall or maybe sitting down and getting a beer
with a customer or whatever, like sometimesthat's all that it takes.
Talking at the right level is also a challenge,right?
Everyone's got goals, everyone has priorities,especially project based things.
(35:43):
Everyone wants to do a good job and it's easy,you guys have heard me use the term, telling
ourselves a story.
It's easy to tell yourself a story.
Know, like, well, this guy's just hard to dealwith.
He doesn't like us.
He doesn't care.
He's not gonna help us.
When in reality, that might just be a storyyou're telling yourself.
(36:05):
What might actually be happening is the guythat you're at odds with doesn't have enough
context, doesn't have the right information,doesn't have support from their boss or their
supervisor.
Like doesn't, like actually it's not him that'sthe problem, it's someone else in the
organization.
(36:26):
It's some other thing.
And so you have to also remember context isimportant when you're communicating or when
communication has broken down, right?
Are we talking with the right people at theright levels?
Or are we talking with people that just quitefrankly don't have the authority, don't have
(36:48):
the context, don't have the ability to solvethe communication problem.
Kind of by default now, when things go sidewaysfor me, personally, whether it's on the golf
(37:09):
course talking about strokes or talking aboutthree foot putts or whether it's in my marriage
when one of us is getting or giving the coldshoulder, or whether it's in my business where
we feel like the partnership is beingchallenged a little bit, strained a little bit,
we feel like we're not on the same page withthe customer, I by default now tell myself this
(37:38):
is a communication issue by default.
There might be other issues play, right?
There might be egos at play, there might beactual factual things that are not being
adhered to, right?
Someone actually might have done somethingwrong and screwed up somewhere.
But my brain first and foremost goes tocommunication.
(38:00):
How can I change the communication?
And I don't do a good job at this yet.
I'm learning this with you guys.
This is like relevant in my life and it was myentire day yesterday where things went sideways
for me yesterday on the golf course, at homeand with a customer was all communication.
(38:23):
Now I'm realizing that, I'm recognizing that inreal time and so I'm trying in real time to
address it, right?
I didn't give the cold shoulder to my wife allnight, we communicated.
I didn't allow my Delbert friends to keep medown.
(38:43):
We communicated.
Now, there's probably a lot more work to dothere because I think two of them left still on
different pages over whether a three foot puttis a gimme or not.
They instead deployed this stupid rule where ifit's within your putter length, it's a gimme.
If it's outside your putter length, if you layyour putter down on the ground and the ball's
(39:04):
outside the putter length, it's not a gimme.
So what does one of my friends do?
He starts shopping for longer putters.
Like that's the level of pettiness I'm dealingwith with the Delberts that I call friends.
So I don't know that that one's solved.
But then on the business side, have a reallyproductive forty minute conversation with the
(39:27):
customer and we get to a really good spotbecause we communicated.
I didn't want this experience that I'm havingto go kind of undiscussed with you guys because
my guess is whether it's your friend group,your spouse or what's happening in business for
(39:53):
you and your job, my guess is you have somecommunication breakdown somewhere.
Somewhere, you have some communicationbreakdowns and they're probably causing you
issues And you probably don't even realize theroot of the issue is actually the communication
(40:13):
breakdown.
I'm guessing, I'm just going out on a limb andguessing that you, like me, have those
challenges.
And so I felt like it was important for me totalk about this because if I could go back in
time to every single instance where thingsdidn't work out between us and a customer, if I
(40:38):
could go back in time and look at each one ofthem case by case and analyze what could have
been different, I would tell you without ashadow of a doubt the one thing that I would
have changed if I could turn the clock back iscommunication.
I would have communicated more frequently.
(40:59):
I would have communicated earlier.
I would have communicated in person ideally.
And I think it would have solved a lot of theproblems.
I think it would have saved some projects orsome relationships that ultimately just didn't
work out for one reason or another.
Now some of those of those it wouldn't have,right?
(41:23):
Sometimes you're just dealing with anunreasonable person.
Sometimes you you know, you're just dealingwith a situation that that can't be fixed by
communicating.
But most of the time, and we don't have verymany you know, we don't have very many
instances where things went sideways.
The one with buzz is a good one.
(41:45):
I don't know if I could have solved that withcommunication or not.
My hope is I could have.
But earlier communication, more frequentcommunication, and the style of communication,
right?
We were communicating via legal letters.
That wasn't the style of communication that heenjoyed.
He wasn't speaking that language.
(42:06):
He a guy that wanted to sit down and readlegalese, legal mumbo jumbo in a three page
letter every Tuesday morning or Wednesdaymorning.
He was a guy that's just kind of a good old boywho wanted someone to pick up the phone and
call him and say hey, this is the problem wehave.
(42:27):
How do we get together and solve it?
Like that's what he wanted.
And so everybody communicates a little bitdifferently.
So I think figuring out communication style,communication frequency is super important and
it could have saved me a lot of headache.
I know it could have saved me a ton of headachein my own marriage, you know, winding the clock
(42:51):
back thirteen years.
Had I communicated the way I do now when wefirst got married, man, we might not have ever
had an argument.
Or if we did it was a five minute argument andthen we communicated and moved on.
And so I don't know, this is what I'm goingthrough.
I want you guys, as I pick out nuggets of myown personal life and get value from them, I
(43:18):
want you guys to hopefully get the same value.
I'm learning in real time.
I'm living this in real time and I don't know,maybe this is helpful.
Maybe it's helpful between you and a coworkerand I'm not gonna get into the like the tactics
of communication.
Maybe we'll save that for a different onebecause there's a lot of tactics, right?
(43:38):
Listening more than speaking is one I've had toreally learn.
Like I love to speak.
I love to give my opinion.
I love to tell other people that they're idiotswhen they don't believe or agree with my
opinion.
So I like to do a lot of talking.
Listening to understand is a lot more powerfulthan listening to respond or listening to
(44:03):
speak.
That's one I've had to learn the hard way.
So there's a lot of tactics in communication.
Listening's a really good one and listening tounderstand is a really good one.
And so I don't know, I hope it helps.
I hope this landed.
I hope this slaps somebody in the face.
(44:24):
Maybe this is applicable to marriage or arelationship or maybe it's applicable to your
business with a customer or maybe it'sapplicable to the Delberts that you hang around
that wanna bicker and argue over three footputts.
I don't know, I don't know.
(44:44):
Maybe this is applicable in one of those areasbut that's how I'm navigating it in my life And
I hope you got a little bit of value out of it.
So send me a message.
Let me know what you think.
I'd love to get some feedback.
I'm gonna drop the phone number.
I'm waiting on, again I told you guys I had tochange the number.
(45:07):
I'm waiting on the new phone number to go live.
I've checked this phone a couple times now.
Come on, I'm waiting on bets to tell me thatit's working.
It's still not, the number hasn't merged yet.
The number has not merged yet.
So I don't wanna give you the new number andpeople start texting it and sending videos,
(45:31):
shirtless videos, Scott Lidster, you know whoyou are.
And I want you to send me a shirtless video andit go into the abyss and me not get it.
So I'm not gonna share the number with you yet.
But send me a message.
You can still message me Instagram if you're onInstagram, know, per diem podcast.
If you're on LinkedIn, we've got a per diempodcast page on LinkedIn.
(45:54):
I'm not much of a Facebook guy, so don'tmessage me on Facebook.
So send me a message, let me know what youthink, let me know if this has helped.
I'm always also, I'm always taking reviews.
I'm always taking reviews.
So if you wanna leave a review, we've got 70plus reviews, all five stars so far.
(46:16):
So please leave a review.
And then what I would ask is for a few prayers.
Pray for me.
Pray for me that I figure out how to continueto evolve my communication styles.
Pray for me that I get this issue with myfriend group solved with this three foot putt
(46:41):
thing.
Like, I know it sounds dumb, but you you cannotimagine how much strife this puts on a group of
grown men when you're talking about three footputts.
So pray pray for these Delberts that I callfriends.
And and I, in turn, will pray that you'rekilling it and pray that you're getting it for
(47:01):
the end.
And I'll pray you show up one more day.
Thanks, guys.
Do it again tomorrow.
We're back, folks.
We're back another day.
We're surviving.
Some of us are even thriving.
Although that was not me yesterday.
I didn't let the devil win.
I got man, I came close.
I came super close to letting the devil win,but we didn't let it happen.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the Purdue M Podcast.
I'm Keaton Turner.
Glad to have you finding another episode of thepodcast, another day in the life.
Glad to have you right here in the front seatwith me.
It's Saturday morning.
I I've got a fun day ahead of me.
(01:30):
I missed I missed baseball practice thismorning.
Gant I made Gant do that by himself.
I had other obligations.
Unfortunately, I couldn't be there.
But then Gant and Jeff and I, we we get to goto this event.
Hopefully, the weather cooperates, a a littlebit of an event up at the Indianapolis
Speedway.
I get to go around the track in a car.
(01:51):
That'll be fun.
And then it's kinda dog and pony show with withfood and drinks and other everything else.
So it should be a fun afternoon.
I almost let the devil win yesterday.
you guys listen to yesterday's episode, If youguys listen to yesterday's episode, man, it was
close.
It started off horrible.
(02:12):
I dropped my coffee.
As I was getting into my trucks, busted allover the ground, spilled everywhere.
You know, I then go have a decent morning inthe office and nothing crazy.
As I'm pulling into the golf course, try toplay golf on Friday afternoons.
As I'm pulling into the golf course, I get aphone call.
(02:34):
We were like a day away from signing a bigpackage of new equipment.
I shouldn't say a big package, it's a smallerpackage.
I don't know, 10 or so machines.
I don't know, eight to 10 machines for acustomer.
(02:54):
And we quickly had to pause the purchase ofthose machines.
Not cancel the purchase, just pause thepurchase.
So customer, their business change, they pushtheir change down to us and our business
changes.
And so that's kind of the business that we'rein.
(03:16):
We as a contractor have to stay flexible and wejust smile and wave.
When things change, we just smile and wave andadjust our plan.
And so we had to adjust our plan a little bit.
No big deal, not greatest call to get on aFriday because it impacts people, it impacts
(03:37):
revenue.
I mean, it's real dollars for us and it impactsour plan.
And we you know, we've got a lot of people thatlike to have a real plan and and live to a
plan.
So no big deal.
We jump through you know, we get thrown a weget thrown a hoop that's on fire and we gotta
figure out how jump through it.
And our team is I think the best in thebusiness at jumping through flaming hoops and
(03:59):
so we're doing that.
So that phone call, I'm a few minutes late toour tee time.
My group tees off without me.
I meet them in the fairway on Number 1, on HoleNumber 1 and throw a ball down and it's like,
hey guys, what's up?
What's happening?
They kinda give me a look for being late.
It's not great golf etiquette to miss the firsttee.
(04:23):
And my partner and I proceed to hit a coupledecent shots.
We go down, we both make par.
Thomas, who I'm golfing with, and his partner,I call him Pod, they bogey the hole.
So my partner and I win the hole.
(04:44):
Walk into the next tee, and I think my partnersaid, okay.
We're one off.
Pod turns around and goes, that that holecount.
Keaton didn't hit a drive.
Hole doesn't count.
I'm like, woah.
That hole doesn't count.
We just won the hole.
What do you mean the hole doesn't count?
(05:04):
He's like, we didn't hit a drive.
I was like, well, why didn't you tell me fourshots ago?
I would have gladly went back and teed it upand hit a drive.
So anyway, we start arguing.
It gets really heated for a second because Idon't you know me, I don't back down from an
argument.
I like I actually kind of enjoy, you know, awell crafted argument sometimes, especially
(05:32):
when the devil's whispering in my ear, I'm muchmore prone to argue and a lot slower to let
things go.
And so we proceed to argue, it gets reallyweird and awkward, especially as we're playing
golf on a Friday, living the dream, two grownmen arguing about whether the hole counted or
not.
Kinda wild.
Play a few holes.
(05:52):
My partner then starts arguing with the otherteam about whether his putt, he had like a two
foot gimme putt.
I don't think they gave him the putt.
They should have gave him the putt.
I think Thomas was way out of line.
No.
It wasn't Thomas.
It wasn't Thomas' fault.
It was his it was his teammate's fault.
But Thomas should have controlled his teammate.
Thomas, if you're listening to this, you shouldhave controlled your teammate.
(06:14):
So anyway, they proceeded to argue the rest ofthe round.
After the round, they continue to argue.
It was just a diabolical day on the golfcourse, to be honest with you.
The devil was at play for real.
I didn't get home.
The devil's still at play.
I get home.
I get a phone call from customer at, I don'tknow, 06:00 on a Friday night.
(06:40):
I talked to this customer for forty minutes.
And I love this customer, by the way.
Not sure that they're list I don't think theylisten, but you never know.
They might.
Talked to her for forty minutes on a Friday.
And it's obviously, every customer's animportant customer, but there were some
miscommunications, I think, between our teams,which happens.
(07:05):
It happens when you're in our business.
And then later my wife comes home.
I'm in the middle of giving Andrew a haircut.
Andrew's my 10 year old.
And I cut his hair because that's just whatkind of dad I am.
I am the best dad.
(07:26):
I'm such a good dad that I cut his hair and Ido a fantastic job.
I had to learn how to cut hair, but I got tiredof paying $40 for haircuts for a 10 year old.
So I was giving Andrea a haircut.
(07:47):
My wife walks in and she was probably lookingawesome.
She and the girls went on like a day date withmy sister.
And so she was all dressed up.
My daughter was dressed up.
They walk in and like, hey, how's your day?
And again, I've had a rough day.
The devil has been at me all day.
Had a rough day.
(08:08):
And I'm in the middle of a haircut and I didn'tpay any attention to my wife or what she was
wearing.
I didn't pay any attention to my daughter orwhat she was wearing.
I just said, Hey, hey babe, in the middle ofsomething.
Again, just got off a forty minute call with acustomer.
And you can imagine a forty minute call with acustomer on a Friday night, those aren't calls
(08:34):
to just tell us how great we're doing or thosearen't calls to tell us how amazing everything
is going.
Those are calls where generally speaking,something is going wrong on either side.
That could be on our side or their side.
Something's going wrong.
In this case, it was probably more their side,but I'll get into that in a second.
(08:55):
So anyway, long story short, my wife walks inprobably looking like a snack.
I didn't pay any attention to her.
I was focused on the haircut, not taking achunk of hair out of Andrew's head.
And we get done with a haircut.
We do dinner.
We watch a few minutes of American Idol withthe kids.
(09:16):
I can tell my wife is just not you know you cantell.
You know how husbands you know you can tellwhen your wife is kinda giving you the shoulder
a little bit.
It's not the warm shoulder.
It's the it's the the colder shoulder.
So I can just tell.
So we put the kids to bed and it's Fridaynight.
(09:41):
Sit down.
I'm like, hey.
What's what's going on?
Something wrong?
She's like, nope.
Everything's fine.
I'm like, oh, boy.
Okay.
And and I always I wanna give you guys aglimpse every single day into my day because
I'm as I'm as normal of a guy as it gets.
I am I have all the same challenges andproblems with life.
(10:05):
Everybody else does.
My situation may be just a little differentbecause of the business and how to navigate the
business and having employees and so on and soforth.
But everything else, generally speaking, Iargue with my friends, we argue, we fight and
bicker.
Wife and do the same and so a very normal life.
(10:26):
And so I wanna give you guys a glimpse into it.
I sit down on the couch right next to her and Isaid, What's going on?
I can tell you're a little quiet.
Something's bothering you.
She's like, No, I'm fine.
I was like, No, you're not fine.
If you were fine, the vibe would be a littledifferent.
(10:46):
Our Friday night would probably be a littledifferent.
What's going on?
If I've done something, let me know.
And and she says, well, you know, I feel likeyou've been distant the last few days.
And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, distant?
I've been right here.
What do you mean I've been distant?
I haven't been distant.
I've been I've been I've been awesome.
I'm I'm the best.
(11:08):
How could how could Keaton Turner be anythingbut that?
I'm a great husband.
I'm a great dad.
I haven't been distant.
So I tell her that.
I'm like, babe, I haven't been distant.
What are you talking about?
I don't feel like I've been distant at all.
And she's like, well, you have.
I feel like you've been distant.
And I'm like, well, I'm sitting here on thecouch talking to you, trying not to be distant.
(11:32):
So this is, even if I have been distant, thisis my way of kinda closing the distance a
little bit and getting back on the same page.
I'm like, to be honest with you, babe, and thisis where Keaton Turner royally screwed up,
guys.
So learn from my mistake.
I said, to be honest with you, babe, I feellike you've been a little and I kinda paused
(11:57):
for a second.
Her eyebrows raised.
And I at that moment, I knew I screwed up.
It was at that moment I knew.
Her eyebrows kinda raised and I said, Babe, Ifeel like you've been a little And I did this
kind of gesture with my hands to put them intolike claws.
I said, I feel like you've been a little likeyou've been a little bit tense.
(12:20):
And she goes, oh, perfect.
This is classic Keaton Turner.
He didn't do anything wrong.
You flip it around and actually I'm the onethat does some that has done something wrong.
This is perfect.
This is the way it goes.
And I was like, oh boy.
And this, you know, it's amazing how quicklythese conversations can spiral.
(12:42):
And I'm like, well, I mean, I'm I mean, andagain, I'm sitting there like, okay, hey,
idiot.
Now you've really screwed up.
How are gonna recover?
And so I stand up and I'm like, you know what?
I'm gonna go watch NBA in the other room.
You watch whatever you want.
(13:02):
Clearly, we're not on the same page right now.
So shame on me.
I shouldn't have done the and I shouldn't haveflipped it on her because I probably, you know,
to be honest with you, I have a tendency ofgetting distant, especially when I have to deal
with problems like idiot friends, Delbert's onthe golf course, spilling my coffee all over
(13:24):
myself, taking phone calls from customers thatwe're at odds a little bit.
So it's easy for me as a guy, it's super easy,kind of my default actually, if I'm being
honest, to get distant.
It's easy for me to shut down a little bitemotionally.
It's easy for me to compartmentalize mysituation and my feelings.
(13:47):
And it's easy for me to come across to otherpeople as if I'm a little cold, a little
standoffish, not super lovey dovey, so on andso forth.
So fast forward an hour later, I'm in bed.
I was reading a book.
It's actually a really good book called, Idon't know what it's called.
(14:10):
That's terrible, I'm reading a book.
I'm almost done.
Don't even know the name of the title.
It's a Lencioni book, The Four Habits of anExtraordinary Executive or something like that,
or The Four Foundations of an ExtraordinaryExecutive.
I don't know.
I'll look it up later.
Anyway, I'm reading the book.
She comes in later.
She gets in bed.
I turned the game off.
I didn't even watch the end of the game.
(14:33):
And and I, you know, she's rolled over facingthe other direction, probably on her phone.
And I kind of knocked her phone out of herhand.
I roll her over, give her a kiss and I said,Okay, I'm sorry.
This is me.
I didn't mean to come across as cold.
(14:59):
I didn't mean to ignore you or give you thecold shoulder.
This is my way of saying I'm sorry.
And she's like, it's okay.
She was still kind of processing it all becauseagain, I had flipped it around on her.
We go to bed, we're on the same page.
(15:20):
It's not a perfect Friday night, but wesalvaged it.
We didn't go to bed angry.
We kind of recovered.
I get up this morning, I'm drinking my coffee,going through all the things this morning.
She comes in and sits down and snuggles up nextto me.
I always start in the morning with coffee, turnthe fireplace on, do a little reading, little
(15:41):
reflection.
She snuggles up next to me and said, Hey, I wasdisappointed.
She might slap me for saying this, but guys,this is what real marriage is like.
She goes, I'm disappointed that I was lookingreally cute.
I came home, Grace was looking really cute.
(16:02):
We both came home, we walked in and you didn'tcomment on our outfit.
You didn't tell us how beautiful we looked.
You didn't tell us how nice we looked.
You and Andrew just kind of ignored us and youwere too busy.
And I'm like, you know what?
I'm an idiot.
(16:23):
Shame on me because I do all this preachingabout, you know, being a good dad, being a good
husband, being in tune with what's happening.
And she's totally right.
I just I just didn't I I said, babe, to behonest with you, I was so locked in given the
(16:43):
haircut.
Like, I don't even think I looked up to seewhat you were wear I don't even know what you
were wearing.
It's not that I didn't think you looked good.
I don't I didn't even see you.
And she goes, well, that's the point.
You that's when when you when she's like, youknow, that's when you're distant, that's the
point.
(17:03):
You don't see me.
You don't hear it.
You're just kind of going through the motionsand your brain's off somewhere else in some
other land.
And I'm like, dang.
I totally screwed that up.
I missed the chance to see how beautiful shewas and how beautiful my little eight year old
was.
The first thing they do, you know, we all feelthis way.
(17:24):
We walk into the door at home.
We wanna be embraced.
We wanna be welcomed.
We wanna be like, oh, I missed you.
How was your day?
And I didn't do that.
I blew them off.
And so shame on me.
I'm learning these things.
But I can tell you from my perspective, andthis is a play on yesterday that the challenges
(17:48):
we had.
I'm gonna pause real quick because I don't knowif this record I don't know if this is
recording or not.
Guys, give me one second.
Let me pause.
Okay.
I think I've figured this out now.
Sorry.
I'm using a new system.
It's not as easy as it should be.
(18:11):
But again, in order to make this thing morelegit, I'm trying to iron all these kinks out
before we add the video component, which iscoming soon.
So anyway, what I was saying is I failed.
I failed as a husband in that moment.
I failed as a guy that does a lot of preachingand should be present and should be an amazing
(18:36):
husband and amazing dad all the time.
And, you know, got called out on it and thebeauty of the whole, I tell you guys this whole
thing, I'm gonna tie a bow on this, I promise,I'm gonna make it make sense.
We communicate, you know, used to, I've saidthis before, used to that argument would have
lasted thirty days, you know, thirty days.
(18:57):
That argument would have lasted three days.
You know, she would have given me the coldshoulder, I would have then gotten mad.
She was giving me the cold shoulder.
So then I would have started to retaliate andgive her a cold shoulder and it just spirals.
It's the drama triangle.
I've talked about this in the past.
(19:17):
We stopped all that.
I stopped it kind of in my own unique way byright before we went to bed, I grabbed her and
rolled her, forced her to roll over.
She kind of begrudgingly rolled over.
I apologized.
The next morning she sat down next to me on thecouch, explained the reasons why she felt I was
(19:39):
being distant and cold and not acknowledgingher.
I then understand that.
I was like, dang, I didn't even realize that,you know, what an idiot.
Full blown Delbert, how do I not realize that?
She walked in, I didn't even look at her.
We communicated.
That's what prevented it from being a three orfour or five day skid.
(20:01):
That's what prevented it from blowing up into abigger argument where we yell and scream and
throw things and kick the dog and, you know,used to, earlier in marriage, we would have
done those things.
Right?
We would have let the situation unravel itselfas these things actually do.
(20:23):
You guys have lived through this and we wouldhave been left looking at each other three,
four, five days later, like how did we gethere?
Why are we screaming at each other?
Why haven't we talked in three days?
Why has the vibe at home been odd?
Like why have we been walking around on pinsand needles?
(20:45):
And the tactic, the trick, the tip I'm givingyou is that communication just short circuited
all that drama.
It cut all that drama out of our lives and itgot to the root of the issue and we move on.
That was never possible in the past.
(21:07):
Now I'm gonna tie it back to the customer'sconversation.
We have seen, and I've seen this throughout mybusiness, but we have seen this even more
recently in recent years when we've added moreand more legit people to the team.
I used to have a guy that, you know, he wantedto litigate everything, guy on my team.
(21:30):
I used to have a guy that wanted to litigate.
He wanted to send a letter for every singletime the customer stepped out of line, every
single communication to a customer.
It wasn't a phone call, it was a letter onletterhead with revision three dot two dot and
it was legit.
It looked legit, but it looked like we wererunning a law firm.
It looked like we were building a defense caseevery time we talked to the customer.
(21:53):
And the feedback I got from customerseventually was like, look, dude, stop sending
me freaking letters.
I don't care what the contract says.
I don't care what your attorney says.
I don't Just pick up the phone and call me andwe can solve this.
I remember one day I had customer, Buzz, I'mjust gonna leave it at Buzz, you can go figure
(22:14):
out his last name.
He works for one of the largest aggregateproducers in the country.
And I remember we were at odds with Buzz.
We were at odds on a big contract and we weredoing work and we thought we were on the right
side of the contract.
Buzz thought his company was on the right sideof the contract.
And so our guy just sent legal letter afterlegal letter on Turner letterhead citing the
(22:40):
contract, highlighting specific sections.
And I'll never forget, I was on vacation wewere down in Naples with the family on
vacation.
My kids are young, I'm supposed to be having agreat time at the beach.
And I get a call from Buzz and Buzz rips me anew butthole.
(23:00):
Like full blown, I'm taking this phone call,looking at my wife in her nice little bikini,
supposed to be having fun.
I might even have a drink in my hand.
I have to go set my drink down and listen toBuzz rip me up and down because we kept sending
him letters.
He goes, Keaton, how many letters are you guysgonna send me?
(23:21):
And I'm like, well Buzz, you know, thecontract, you know, my guy is trying to, you
know, he's trying to help educate you on wherewe are and why we think this.
He said, I don't care.
Stop sending me letters.
Pick up the phone and call me if there's aproblem.
Let's work the problem out.
Let's talk about it.
Let's communicate.
(23:42):
And I'm like, well Buzz, you know, this guybased on his experience, like he wants to have
it documented.
He, know, Buzz, he's listening to anything Ihad to say.
He couldn't care less what I had to say.
He said, Stop sending me letters.
If you wanna solve the issue, pick up the phoneand call me, Or better yet, get on a plane and
(24:05):
come down and see me and we'll sit down andtalk about it.
I'm not gonna read your fricking lettersanymore.
I'm not gonna read it.
My guy's like, well, if you call him and youwork it out on the phone, it's he said, she
said.
We don't have any paper trail.
We don't have any defense.
And this guy was used to litigating things.
(24:26):
He came from a different world.
Mining wasn't necessarily the, you know, waslegit.
He was an awesome guy.
I have learned both in marriage and in businesscommunication is one of the foundational
(24:48):
principles that makes us successful or notsuccessful.
Period.
Communication.
You don't have to have all the facts.
You don't have to have all the answers.
You don't have to have the best contract in theworld.
You don't have to have like even the bestmarriage in the world.
(25:13):
But communication between both sides allows itto work, allows it to grow and develop.
It gives you a fighting chance of beingsuccessful in marriage and in business.
Communication, simple.
My conversation on Friday night with thiscustomer, fast forward to, you know, again,
(25:37):
forward to yesterday, we get to the bottom ofit because my customer is hearing one thing at
the ground level.
I'm hearing one thing at the ground levelthrough all of our guys.
You know, we think we're right and you know,still think we're right.
They don't necessarily think we're wrong, butthey're like, you know, again, they're going
(25:58):
through their own sets of things and someonesomewhere, you know, in the whole process of
poorly communicating between the two teams,there was one word that was said that raises
immediate red flags for everybody.
(26:19):
And this word, if you're a contractor, ifyou're navigating partnerships, if you're just
in business in general and you're trying toserve the customer and there's some differences
of opinion, there's one word that willautomatically raise red flags and do the
(26:40):
opposite of what I'm talking about, which iscommunicate.
There's one word, one word only.
You know what that word is?
That word is lawyer.
Lawyer.
There was a word thrown around and I don'tknow, I'm not looking for blame or any of that.
I'm just telling you guys kinda how this works,I've lived through this enough.
(27:05):
Somebody on one of the two teams, becauseagain, both teams think they're right, the way
they interpret the relationship, somebody said,Well, we'll just let the lawyers figure it out.
And obviously, if you know anything aboutlawyers, and I'm taking a shot at lawyers right
now, although they're necessary, if you knowanything about lawyers, they make everything a
(27:29):
much bigger deal, right?
That's their job.
Their job is to get into the weeds.
Their job is to figure out blame.
The job is to protect and defend.
And their job, honestly, makes partnerships andrelationships much, much, much more challenging
in a lot of cases when some simplecommunication between the two parties is
(27:53):
actually the medicine that the doctor ordered.
And so my customer calls and says, Hey, look,we're on both sides of this, right?
Turner's got pain, we've got pain, there'senough pain to go around.
I heard the word lawyer.
I know that's not what you want and that'sdefinitely not what we want, so let's talk
(28:17):
through it.
And so we spent forty minutes talking throughit.
And at the end of the call, I'll just tell youstraight up, at the end of the call, we want
the same thing.
Our customer and his team want the same thingthat Turner Mining Group and our teams want.
(28:42):
Where we get sideways is when communicationbreaks down.
And the challenge, especially the larger theproject, larger the relationship, the larger,
the higher the stakes, the more layers ofcommunication that happen, the more teams that
(29:04):
are involved.
And so it's super easy.
I've seen this a ton, you know, project, youknow, we do project based work.
Even our contracts that are multi years, Imean, you can still consider them a project.
They're just multi year project.
It's super easy when there are multiple teamsand multiple layers of management involved.
It's super easy for communication to gosideways.
(29:28):
Super easy.
I've seen it on on multiple levels on bothsides.
I've seen our teams struggle to communicateeffectively.
I've seen some of the most sophisticatedcustomers in the industry struggle, their teams
struggle to communicate effectively.
It's easy to screw up communication.
(29:52):
I've watched some of the best marriages in theworld, in my opinion.
I'll give my parents as an example.
I think they've got like and I'm veryintimately aware of the details of their
marriage obviously growing up and they're bothpretty transparent people like amazing
marriage.
(30:14):
When it goes sideways, it's because neither oneof them are communicating well.
My marriage is no different.
Love my wife to death?
I think most days she loves me to death.
When we are actually at each other, it's whenwe're failing to communicate.
One of us is too proud.
One of us thinks we're right and the otherone's wrong.
(30:34):
One of us doesn't wanna look at the actualfacts of the situation.
One of us is just wore out, right?
We've been beaten down, we've been like theworld's at us and we're out of bandwidth to
negotiate, right?
We're out of energy.
The kids, the sports, the this, the that, thejob, all the pressures of the world and one
(31:01):
thing happens, one little thing that the spousedoes sets the other one off.
It's like, nope, I'm out of energy.
Don't have any more bandwidth.
I'm not gonna do this.
And you shut down and there's no communication.
I'm guilty of this, 100%.
But it's amazing how similar it is betweenbusiness and marriage.
(31:24):
When things go sideways, I can almost alwayspoint to communication, almost always.
Now, the challenge is that both sides have tobe willing to negotiate and communicate.
Both sides have to be willing.
(31:45):
I've been in relationships, man, you know what,why not?
I'll just say it.
Like the Buzz relationship I was telling youguys about, I mean, long, that was five years
ago, four years ago, whenever it was.
Very, very difficult for us to resolve thatconflict because both sides were not willing to
(32:12):
negotiate.
I finally got my guy to stand down and stopsending legal letters.
I flew out and sat down to kind of meet in themiddle on our disagreements and there was no
appetite for negotiation.
There was no appetite for communication.
(32:33):
I think we had already done enough damagerelationally, you know, shame on us that we
kinda left some scars and and I think they justalso have a certain sense of pride and ego and
didn't want to acknowledge their own contractterms.
And when someone says, you know what, sue me?
(32:56):
Like it's hard to come back from that.
Someone says, hey, I don't care what thecontract says, sue me over it.
They know you're not gonna sue them or theydon't think you're gonna sue them.
That's the challenge.
But I would tell you that every time in mymarriage or in business when things go
(33:17):
sideways, it's because people aren'tcommunicating.
And it's amazing how fast it can happen.
And so what I try to focus on, especially inthe role that I'm in now in our business is
because I, again, I can default to beingegotistical and not communicating.
(33:39):
What I try to default to now is when we dorecognize there's an issue, how do we
communicate in a way that is helpful, nothurtful?
Because it's super easy for me as a husband tocommunicate in a hurtful way.
Right?
I can I can quickly jump straight to the facts,ignore emotions, ignore, someone else's
(34:07):
personality type or trait?
I can just quickly go to, well, this is how Ilike to communicate and if you can't do that,
then that's your problem.
I've literally said those words before.
And I can do the same thing in business.
I can communicate in a way that is hurtful andnot helpful.
Our team can write letters that cite thecontract terms on Turner letterhead as well as
(34:34):
anybody.
I mean, we've got engineers that are reallyintelligent people that can easily flip to the
right page of the contract, highlight it, takea screenshot, put it on letterhead and explain
to the client why they're screwed up.
We can do that.
The question is, is that communication helpfulgiven the circumstances of the situation or is
(35:01):
that communication hurtful given thecircumstances of the situation?
And so, you know, sometimes in business itcalls for sliding the contract across the table
and, both sides remembering what theyoriginally agreed to.
(35:21):
Sometimes though in business, a simple phonecall or maybe sitting down and getting a beer
with a customer or whatever, like sometimesthat's all that it takes.
Talking at the right level is also a challenge,right?
Everyone's got goals, everyone has priorities,especially project based things.
(35:43):
Everyone wants to do a good job and it's easy,you guys have heard me use the term, telling
ourselves a story.
It's easy to tell yourself a story.
Know, like, well, this guy's just hard to dealwith.
He doesn't like us.
He doesn't care.
He's not gonna help us.
When in reality, that might just be a storyyou're telling yourself.
(36:05):
What might actually be happening is the guythat you're at odds with doesn't have enough
context, doesn't have the right information,doesn't have support from their boss or their
supervisor.
Like doesn't, like actually it's not him that'sthe problem, it's someone else in the
organization.
(36:26):
It's some other thing.
And so you have to also remember context isimportant when you're communicating or when
communication has broken down, right?
Are we talking with the right people at theright levels?
Or are we talking with people that just quitefrankly don't have the authority, don't have
(36:48):
the context, don't have the ability to solvethe communication problem.
Kind of by default now, when things go sidewaysfor me, personally, whether it's on the golf
(37:09):
course talking about strokes or talking aboutthree foot putts or whether it's in my marriage
when one of us is getting or giving the coldshoulder, or whether it's in my business where
we feel like the partnership is beingchallenged a little bit, strained a little bit,
we feel like we're not on the same page withthe customer, I by default now tell myself this
(37:38):
is a communication issue by default.
There might be other issues play, right?
There might be egos at play, there might beactual factual things that are not being
adhered to, right?
Someone actually might have done somethingwrong and screwed up somewhere.
But my brain first and foremost goes tocommunication.
(38:00):
How can I change the communication?
And I don't do a good job at this yet.
I'm learning this with you guys.
This is like relevant in my life and it was myentire day yesterday where things went sideways
for me yesterday on the golf course, at homeand with a customer was all communication.
(38:23):
Now I'm realizing that, I'm recognizing that inreal time and so I'm trying in real time to
address it, right?
I didn't give the cold shoulder to my wife allnight, we communicated.
I didn't allow my Delbert friends to keep medown.
(38:43):
We communicated.
Now, there's probably a lot more work to dothere because I think two of them left still on
different pages over whether a three foot puttis a gimme or not.
They instead deployed this stupid rule where ifit's within your putter length, it's a gimme.
If it's outside your putter length, if you layyour putter down on the ground and the ball's
(39:04):
outside the putter length, it's not a gimme.
So what does one of my friends do?
He starts shopping for longer putters.
Like that's the level of pettiness I'm dealingwith with the Delberts that I call friends.
So I don't know that that one's solved.
But then on the business side, have a reallyproductive forty minute conversation with the
(39:27):
customer and we get to a really good spotbecause we communicated.
I didn't want this experience that I'm havingto go kind of undiscussed with you guys because
my guess is whether it's your friend group,your spouse or what's happening in business for
(39:53):
you and your job, my guess is you have somecommunication breakdown somewhere.
Somewhere, you have some communicationbreakdowns and they're probably causing you
issues And you probably don't even realize theroot of the issue is actually the communication
(40:13):
breakdown.
I'm guessing, I'm just going out on a limb andguessing that you, like me, have those
challenges.
And so I felt like it was important for me totalk about this because if I could go back in
time to every single instance where thingsdidn't work out between us and a customer, if I
(40:38):
could go back in time and look at each one ofthem case by case and analyze what could have
been different, I would tell you without ashadow of a doubt the one thing that I would
have changed if I could turn the clock back iscommunication.
I would have communicated more frequently.
(40:59):
I would have communicated earlier.
I would have communicated in person ideally.
And I think it would have solved a lot of theproblems.
I think it would have saved some projects orsome relationships that ultimately just didn't
work out for one reason or another.
Now some of those of those it wouldn't have,right?
(41:23):
Sometimes you're just dealing with anunreasonable person.
Sometimes you you know, you're just dealingwith a situation that that can't be fixed by
communicating.
But most of the time, and we don't have verymany you know, we don't have very many
instances where things went sideways.
The one with buzz is a good one.
(41:45):
I don't know if I could have solved that withcommunication or not.
My hope is I could have.
But earlier communication, more frequentcommunication, and the style of communication,
right?
We were communicating via legal letters.
That wasn't the style of communication that heenjoyed.
He wasn't speaking that language.
(42:06):
He a guy that wanted to sit down and readlegalese, legal mumbo jumbo in a three page
letter every Tuesday morning or Wednesdaymorning.
He was a guy that's just kind of a good old boywho wanted someone to pick up the phone and
call him and say hey, this is the problem wehave.
(42:27):
How do we get together and solve it?
Like that's what he wanted.
And so everybody communicates a little bitdifferently.
So I think figuring out communication style,communication frequency is super important and
it could have saved me a lot of headache.
I know it could have saved me a ton of headachein my own marriage, you know, winding the clock
(42:51):
back thirteen years.
Had I communicated the way I do now when wefirst got married, man, we might not have ever
had an argument.
Or if we did it was a five minute argument andthen we communicated and moved on.
And so I don't know, this is what I'm goingthrough.
I want you guys, as I pick out nuggets of myown personal life and get value from them, I
(43:18):
want you guys to hopefully get the same value.
I'm learning in real time.
I'm living this in real time and I don't know,maybe this is helpful.
Maybe it's helpful between you and a coworkerand I'm not gonna get into the like the tactics
of communication.
Maybe we'll save that for a different onebecause there's a lot of tactics, right?
(43:38):
Listening more than speaking is one I've had toreally learn.
Like I love to speak.
I love to give my opinion.
I love to tell other people that they're idiotswhen they don't believe or agree with my
opinion.
So I like to do a lot of talking.
Listening to understand is a lot more powerfulthan listening to respond or listening to
(44:03):
speak.
That's one I've had to learn the hard way.
So there's a lot of tactics in communication.
Listening's a really good one and listening tounderstand is a really good one.
And so I don't know, I hope it helps.
I hope this landed.
I hope this slaps somebody in the face.
(44:24):
Maybe this is applicable to marriage or arelationship or maybe it's applicable to your
business with a customer or maybe it'sapplicable to the Delberts that you hang around
that wanna bicker and argue over three footputts.
I don't know, I don't know.
(44:44):
Maybe this is applicable in one of those areasbut that's how I'm navigating it in my life And
I hope you got a little bit of value out of it.
So send me a message.
Let me know what you think.
I'd love to get some feedback.
I'm gonna drop the phone number.
I'm waiting on, again I told you guys I had tochange the number.
(45:07):
I'm waiting on the new phone number to go live.
I've checked this phone a couple times now.
Come on, I'm waiting on bets to tell me thatit's working.
It's still not, the number hasn't merged yet.
The number has not merged yet.
So I don't wanna give you the new number andpeople start texting it and sending videos,
(45:31):
shirtless videos, Scott Lidster, you know whoyou are.
And I want you to send me a shirtless video andit go into the abyss and me not get it.
So I'm not gonna share the number with you yet.
But send me a message.
You can still message me Instagram if you're onInstagram, know, per diem podcast.
If you're on LinkedIn, we've got a per diempodcast page on LinkedIn.
(45:54):
I'm not much of a Facebook guy, so don'tmessage me on Facebook.
So send me a message, let me know what youthink, let me know if this has helped.
I'm always also, I'm always taking reviews.
I'm always taking reviews.
So if you wanna leave a review, we've got 70plus reviews, all five stars so far.
(46:16):
So please leave a review.
And then what I would ask is for a few prayers.
Pray for me.
Pray for me that I figure out how to continueto evolve my communication styles.
Pray for me that I get this issue with myfriend group solved with this three foot putt
(46:41):
thing.
Like, I know it sounds dumb, but you you cannotimagine how much strife this puts on a group of
grown men when you're talking about three footputts.
So pray pray for these Delberts that I callfriends.
And and I, in turn, will pray that you'rekilling it and pray that you're getting it for
(47:01):
the end.
And I'll pray you show up one more day.
Thanks, guys.
Do it again tomorrow.
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