Ep. 95 - The Climb (Throwback Episode)

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On this episode, I throw it back to a podcast I did in 2019 with Robert Wierema and Michael Moore on their show called “The Climb”.

You can listen to more of their podcast episodes at www.climb-podcast.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm Keaton Turner, and this is the Per DiemPodcast.
Hey, guys.
Welcome back.
I did not earn my per diem today.
Just to be honest with you, I'm laying in bednext to my beautiful, beautiful wife, and, and

(00:23):
I had a great birthday.
Thank you guys for all the messages and and,and the wishes.
I have I probably somewhere between three andfive hundred, LinkedIn messages that I'll never
get back to all of them.
So if you sent me a message on LinkedIn, thankyou.
Appreciate that.
But I did not get a podcast recorded today, soI'm hitting the easy button, and I've saved

(00:49):
this easy button for just the most diresituations when I've fallen short, and today is
one of those days.
I I was in the office this morning, hammeredsome things out, left somewhere around 11:30,
played golf this afternoon.
One, took a bottle from Thomas every every timewe play golf, me, Eric, Dusty, and Thomas.

(01:15):
We flip a tee to see who's who's on whose team,and the tee did not fall Thomas' way today, so
he got stuck with Dusty.
And, and of course, Eric and I rarely get beat,so we we won, and we always bet.
You know, we always we always play for a $50bottle.
We got tired of changing hands, you know, themoney changing hands every week, so we mixed it

(01:38):
up.
And next week, Thomas has to lay some sort ofnice bottle of something on my desk.
So did that, and then came home and hung out,cooked dinner, and, been watching basketball
and hanging out with my lovely wife, and just,to be honest with you, totally forgot to record
a podcast.
It was one of those days where it would havebeen really nice not to have to, worry about

(02:03):
this this daily podcast that I signed myself upfor, but I do have something I'm going to let
you listen to.
If if I would say two things.
One, if you haven't gone back and listened toall of the other 94, 90 five episodes I've
dropped, this is a good excuse to skip thispodcast, this episode, and go back and listen

(02:27):
to some of the older ones, because I you know,there's there's there's a lot of folks that are
just catching up to this and haven't gone backand listened to the older ones.
But if you have listened to all the older onesand you still want, you still wanna hear my
voice today, I'm going to give you a sneak peekinto, a podcast I was on a few years ago.

(02:51):
This podcast was called The Climb, and it'shosted by Robert Weirma and Michael Moore, two
great guys with Lockton, and I had a lot of funwith those guys.
This is one of those podcasts.
It's about an hour long, so there's plenty ofmeat there.
Robert and Michael are both super successful.

(03:14):
I think they did they did a, like, a reallygood job asking questions that really some
other people have never asked, and so I talk.
You'll notice the context in which I'm talking,I'm going through a change in leadership, and
this was back when I had a bunch of my ownbuddies working for the company.
This was before our Salt Lake office everopened, this was before we hired a bunch of

(03:39):
folks from bigger corporations, so this wasback in the early days.
If I had to guess, this was probably like 2019,maybe 2020.
I'm pretty sure it was 2019, so it's been awhile ago.
I've never listened to this podcast back, so Idon't exactly know, what I said or if any of

(04:01):
it's held true today.
The audio's just okay on my part.
This was back, obviously, way before I wasdoing podcasting, and so, I don't know, I
thought you guys might get a kick out ofhearing some of the responses and some of the
questions from, from five years ago.
So, take a listen.
If you enjoy it, let me know, or give Robertand Michael a follow.

(04:25):
Their podcast, again, it's called The Climb,and they still drop them every so often.
If you want to listen to more of theirpodcasts, go to wwwclimb/podcast.com, or or
excuse me, climb-podcast.com.
Hope you get some, value out of it.

(04:47):
Let me know what you think.
Behavior is a super tough thing to change asbusinesses grow.
Right?
Because when you're small, you're scrappy, youfight for every dollar, you get big, and you
make some money, people start spending moneylike crazy.
Right?
Everyone's got platinum Amex cards and they're,you know, there's just behavior is really tough

(05:11):
to change.
And so I'm I'm looking at like, okay.
I'm coming in as an outsider.
What are the things I'm changing?
It was just clear.
It was super clear.
And and when it's that clear that there aresome people changes that need to be made,
regardless of if they're your buddies or not,like, we're not running a nonprofit.
Like, we're we're not running a, you know,church mission.

(05:34):
Like, this is a business.
And I have stakeholders that I'm gonna make areturn for.
I'm gonna make a return for myself.
I'm gonna treat the clients the way they shouldbe treated.
And if there are people that are in the way ofthat, much as you love them, you just gotta
make those tough changes.
Today on the climb, Michael and I had thepleasure of sitting down with Keaton Turner.

(05:56):
Keaton is the founder and CEO of Turner Miningand is is out there to make mining sexy again.
We had an awesome conversation with Keaton.
He has an absolutely infectious personality, anunbelievable passion, not just for life, but
for his business.
He's gracious, humble, and I think you guys aregonna really enjoy this one.

(06:18):
You're gonna hear it throughout the thepodcast, but Keaton is definitely on fire.
Thanks for joining us today.
Eaton, welcome to the climb.
We appreciate you joining Michael and I today.

(06:40):
Absolutely, guys.
Thanks so much for having me.
Looking forward to it.
As we reached out to you, we actually reachedout to Tracy, and she connected with us.
Tracy is what?
She's your head of marketing.
Correct?
Yep.
Yep.
She's our chief marketing officer, and she'sphenomenal.
She's been great.
And the reason the impetus behind us reachingout was, we've seen amazing social media

(07:01):
presence from you guys on LinkedIn, Instagram,and a few others, and said, man, we got to talk
to this guy.
He's doing some really cool things.
So looking forward to we wanna dive into that alittle bit more, but maybe first, let's start
with, you know, who is who is Keaton Turner?
And maybe bring us back a little bit and bringus up to when Turner Mining started, and then

(07:23):
we can kinda go down that path.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So you you asked, who is Keaton Turner?
I tell everyone, I'm a normal guy.
I'm I'm just like you guys.
You know, I love football.
I love drinking beers with buddies and andhunting and fishing and all that.
I happened to be a guy that, you know, when Iwas 27, I realized how short life is.

(07:44):
I just woke up one day getting close to my 20birthday, and I'm like, Man, you know, the
stats show my life's a third of the way over.
So I took the leap, and I was with a familycompany at the time, and we can get into that
later, but I took the leap of faith to start acompany and start a business.
I had a couple small, young kids, but I talk topeople all the time about life is short, and I

(08:10):
just had a conversation with a kid the otherday.
I just don't think people really grasp howshort it is and how much you're gonna regret
not doing crazy things.
So I do crazy things.
I was in a hot air balloon the other day.
That was like an awesome you know, I took mywife out for her 30 birthday, and I just I love
living life up.

(08:31):
You know?
I know this has been a weird year with COVID,and everyone's, you know, emotionally razzled.
I get that, especially the stay at home moms,but man, I just like enjoying life.
I like living it up.
That's awesome.
Well, I've never been in a hot air balloon, butyou're talking to the right guys when you talk
about hunting and fishing and drinking beer incollege football, so, you you know, this will

(08:53):
be a good conversation.
All the boxes, Keaton.
Checking all the boxes.
We did a hog hunt last week with some clients,night vision, machine guns.
It was like, These are the right kind ofclients if you can take them shooting hogs in
Texas.
I'm sure we can talk after this.
We can get that all set up with Michael downoutside of Fort Worth.

(09:15):
Absolutely.
No, just keep coming back and eradicating thisproblem that we have down here because, I mean,
the hogs are not going away.
We made small dent in it last weekend.
Thank you.
Well, and so, Dean, did you you're Indiana,born and raised?
Born and raised.
Bloomington, Indiana.
Yep.
Okay.

(09:36):
So you're Hoosier then?
No, you went to Indiana State, I saw, right?
You know, yeah.
You know, it's funny.
Everyone that grows up in Bloomington, most ofthe people either go to IU, or they're the or
they're they're, like, the weird theater kidsthat move off of LA and do the whole loss you
know, Los Angeles thing.
So I I was one that was kinda in between.

(09:56):
I wanted to get a little bit further away fromhome.
My dad played basketball at Indiana State withLarry Bird way back in Wow.
Yeah.
And and IU, fortunately or unfortunately, theydidn't have any construction programs back
then.
So Indiana State did.
I went to Indiana State.
It was an awesome time.
Had a blast there.
What drew you to the construction space?

(10:19):
Like I said, I'm one of those guy I'm a guy'sguy.
Like, I love being outside.
I'm not that smart of a guy.
I'm not a numbers guy.
I just kind of wing it.
I'm not super organized.
I think of something, and I wanna go do it, andI wanted to see some results.
And so, really wanted to be in commercialconstruction.
You know, I wanted to build buildings.

(10:41):
I thought real estate was cool.
I worked for a real estate mogul, so to speak,in high school, a big developer, and I thought
that was really cool.
And then I got to college and went through abunch of estimating classes on how to cost
projects and how to manage projects.
I did some business stuff.
And so, yeah, was just kinda off to the races.

(11:05):
I think I'm a natural DNA entrepreneur typeguy.
I have a real hard time working for otherpeople.
My mind just doesn't really work that way.
So it was just kind of off the races aftercollege, getting out in the real world.
Hey, Keaton, real quick.
As we think about kind of the pillars andcornerstones of this podcast with crossroads

(11:28):
and defining moments, you mentioned that age of27.
I think a lot of people probably that lightbulb goes off, whether it's because you're
having kids or college was a long time ago.
I'm a big music history follower, and it wasJimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Morrison that

(11:49):
all died at 28.
So, I mean, I just can't let you off the hook.
What was it about '27 that just said, I gottakick this into high gear?
Yeah, I don't know.
People have asked me that, and it's weird.
I was living the dream from '22 to '27.
I was working for my family's company, myuncle's company.

(12:11):
I was making a great salary.
I was I was kinda like the number two guy ornumber three guy.
You know, basically, they gave me free range.
I could do whatever I wanted.
I was managing my own projects, stuff that wasprobably way outside the realm of what a 24 or
five 26 year old should manage.
So I was living the dream, really.

(12:31):
But I don't know, something just, as got Itseemed like every year, whether it was New
Year's Eve or my birthday, I started to getkind of depressed, and it was a weird feeling.
I've never really talked about this, but it waslike, Man, my time is running out.
And I was like, Well, what is my time runningout for?

(12:54):
And I kind of bolded down.
I'm like, I just feel like I could do more.
I feel like I could impact more people.
I feel like I could you know, wake up and justfeel excited instead of those I talk about
Sunday scaries sometimes, where it's Sundaynight, Sunday night football's over, you gotta
wake up and go to work on Monday, and it'slike, man, I don't love the feeling of Sunday

(13:16):
night.
Now, what I'm doing now, I can't wait forMonday morning.
Like, I'm in here on Saturdays sometimes, andthere's people humming around.
So I don't know.
I think I just, you know, I'm a Christian, I'ma believer, and I realize there's a verse, and
I can't quote it, because like I said, I'm notthat organized, but your life is a vapor.

(13:40):
And I every year I got a little bit older, I'mlike, man, my life is a vapor, and it's a third
of the way over.
I gotta go do something.
So I don't know.
I took the and I tell guys here in the office,I don't think they believe me, but I tell them
all the time, If what we're doing fails todayor tomorrow, we've had a lot of early success,
but if it all fails tomorrow, I'm gonna do thesame thing again.

(14:02):
And I can fail three or four times, five times,being a young guy in business, and to me,
that's just okay.
Don't know, maybe I'm weird, but that's justthe way my brain works.
I think what I love about you saying is loveand wake up on Monday and go to work, and we
talk a lot about you know, when you got workand play and how do you do you make that feel

(14:24):
like that's happening every day?
And there is no work and play, right?
Like, and it sounds like you got that, which isgo going for you, which is awesome.
How do you continue to drive that forward whensome challenges come at you and things like
that?
Like, how do you keep that mindset when, youknow, the stress is the inevitable of business
or life come at you?
It's a great question.

(14:45):
We, you know, early in the We've been inbusiness almost four years now, and we've been
sued probably more than four times.
Quit counting after the second one.
But, you know, just recently, I've had to letgo of some of my best buddies that worked for
us, that were early guys in the business, thathad a ton of loyalty.
I had to let go of some people who didn't quitefit our company, but were amazing human beings.

(15:09):
They were just awesome people.
We just lost two massive contracts that wouldhave really transformed our company, and we
lost them on a technicality that, I mean, wouldjust If a normal person knew the circumstances,
it would be super depressing.
So I say all that to say, there are a lot ofdark days in business, especially as a young
guy, as a founder, you know, trying to start abusiness in a big, scary industry like mining.

(15:36):
There's a lot of bad days.
There's more bad days than good days.
But I think, you know, for me, because I'llhave those bad days, and I'll get home, and
sometimes I'll sit in my truck and say, Theseare the things I'm thankful for.
I know life is short, so it works to make thesemassive swings and strike out sometimes.
I also, while I know how short life is, I'mkind of fighting for an eternal goal, right?

(16:02):
Like, I'm trying to impact people in a positiveway.
I know I can't take the money with me.
The watches and the cars and the equipment andall stuff that the world says is awesome stuff
to have.
It's awesome stuff to have, but it doesn't meananything at the end of the day.
So I try to think about the big picture, evenwhen days suck and you kick in the balls.

(16:25):
Like, I'm super blessed to be a guy that getsto go try to do something like this in America.
If I were if I were in Saudi Arabia, I'dprobably don't get to do this.
Right?
Or some of these other countries, this, youknow, we have tons of opportunity.
So I try to look at the positive even when,man, it's hard sometimes.
Ketan, one of the things you mentioned that Iwant to circle back on is, you know, when you

(16:49):
started this company, you brought on a lot ofyour key buddies from growing up, which, you
know, it doesn't get any better than getting towork with your buddies, but then you also
mentioned that you've had to let these buddiesgo, which I can't imagine anything tougher.
I mean, talk about a crossroad and definingmoment in your business.
Just give us some insight into that and how youwent about it.
Yeah.

(17:09):
Guys, these guys, they're just like you and I.
These are the best dudes.
These are guys that have worked for me in thepast.
I mean, I built my company around these guys.
These are guys that, you know, some of themwere like like, one of them was employee seven
and employee, like, 20.
And so they were really early guys on a list of800 plus employees, whatever the number is.

(17:31):
You know, really early guys that were loyal, Imean, would've taken a bullet from me.
After I fired them, I don't know if they'd takea bullet for me today, but they would've.
And I just think that sometimes, I mean, we'vehad massive growth, that's a good thing and a
bad thing.
It's blessing and curse.
Sometimes, founders, as they go through thesegrowth curves, and they realize their company

(17:57):
has to transform to get to the next level, youjust outrun certain people.
You outrun their capabilities.
I think one of the massive mistakes that I madewas I gave those guys a ton of I gave them a
ton of responsibility and authority, and I gavethem a title when we were a small business.

(18:18):
And it worked really well.
They were awesome operators of a small businessclimate.
When we got to a big business, and we had ateam of executives, and we have real structure
in our organization, those titles didn't meanas much, and their responsibilities were shrunk
down.
You get sued so many times, you realize youneed to have some real rules and processes and

(18:41):
regulations in place.
Those were guys that just didn't fit that mold.
Right?
They were people in the office call us cowboys.
Like, you know, it's it's okay for the founderto be a cowboy a little bit and just kinda say
things and do things like Elon Musk, But yougotta have people around you that stop you from
making monumental mistakes, and I make tons ofthem.

(19:03):
You can't have a bunch of cowboys.
You know?
You gotta have really thoughtful people, reallysmart people.
Again, I'm not that smart of a guy.
And so I it just led up to us trying to get tothe next levels of business and as an
organization.
And those guys, while they're awesome guys,it's really hard for everyone to fit into that

(19:28):
next ranking up as a business.
So I think there's a lot of founders andbusiness owners that go through that, through
growth.
Well, there's also a lot of people thatwouldn't take the chance or the dive of hiring
their friends to build a business too.
So, I mean, it's kind of damned if you do,damned if you don't, right?

(19:49):
But as you guys were experiencing thismonumental growth, and you've got these
lawsuits coming in, like how did you go about,or someone helping you on your leadership team
identifying the issues and who they were, andthen the realization, oh, shit, these are some

(20:10):
of my best buddies, and then, okay, hey, Jimmy,we got to sit down and talk.
Yeah, it's a great question because if I didn'thave the people around me now, I would've kept
all those guys, and we would've been the samebusiness that we were two years ago.
Because I'm thinking, well, these guys areloyal.

(20:32):
They're legit.
They know how to do the work.
They're awesome guys.
Why would we need to ever get rid of them?
To answer your question, I've put so many smartpeople around me that are way I mean, this
business runs If I leave tomorrow, thisbusiness probably runs better, truthfully.
And I don't say that in, like, a humble bragkinda way.

(20:53):
You know, our chief operating officer has gotan MBA from Harvard.
Our acting CFO, my business partner, you know,went to went to Yale.
Now another one went to Stanford.
Like, these people are just on a differentlevel.
Right?
I got a guy that does analytics and stuff forus.
He walks in here and starts rattling offnumbers, and I just say, man, you must go do it

(21:15):
because I don't know what you're talking about.
So, you get enough really smart now, they gottabe good human beings, right?
Because there's a ton of smart people that arejerks.
But you get really smart people who know thingsthat you don't, and are experts in things that
you're not experts in.
They start to call out your dark corners ofyour company.
They start to tell you areas where there'swaste or where there's efficiency problems or

(21:38):
where there's financial issues, which we had aton of.
I'm just a huge fan of putting people that areway better than me in all these management
roles, and they just elevate you.
It's wild.
But if you put people in that if you're thesmartest guy as the owner of the company, and
everyone else is kinda below you, the companylives and dies on that guy.

(22:03):
My company would die if I'm the smartest guy.
It just would.
I can run an awesome small business of 50people or 80 people.
I cannot run a big corporation without a ton ofpeople way smarter than me.
So that's I've recognized my own weaknesses,and I've tried to cover them up with smart
people.

(22:24):
So then, when you are gonna sit down and havethat conversation with one of your friends,
like this isn't working out, do you have someof these other people in the room with you?
Like, walk us through how that process tookplace.
You know, I I didn't.
There was such a there was such an emotionalthing there because I love these guys so much.

(22:47):
It had been made aware to them where thecompany was going, and I think they had sensed
for a while that their role and and how theyfit their role, it just it wasn't quite jiving
anymore.
And so there was kind of an unspoken thing.
Right?
Everyone there was an elephant in the company.
So I just took these guys to the side, satdown, and I'm like, man, I love you.

(23:09):
It's just not working.
And it's it's really not even a you thing.
Like, I'll refer you.
I'll get you a job tomorrow with any company.
I paid them well to go do the next thing.
I wanna do it as the most professional way Ican, and some of these guys here in the office
are saying, Man, you did that for them.

(23:31):
To me, it's just a love thing.
I love these guys, and they're probably notover it, right?
It sucks.
It stings.
It's not fun.
There are days I still wonder, like, did I makethe right decision?
You know, I kind of regret it.
I think we could have coached them out of it,but, you know, it's just a big fan of brutal

(23:53):
honesty, and I'm a big fan of, like I said, thebig picture, and they both one of them, not
both, but one of them has said it was the bestthing we ever did for him.
So, you know, whether he's saying that to makeus feel better, him feel better, whether it's
the truth, I don't know, but, you know, it'sit's not fun any way you slice it up.

(24:14):
Were they surprised, or did they know it wascoming?
They I think they were surprised on thesurface, but I think in their heart, man,
they'd known it.
I don't think they'd ever tell me that oranyone else because they were so loyal, and
they thought, you know, this company will takecare of them forever, but I just, I don't know.

(24:37):
Yeah.
When you said too, hey.
We could you know, when you're thinking back,we could've maybe you could've coached him out
of it.
I think that's an interesting comment because Ithink that happens a lot.
And it says, well, we can keep working withthis.
We can keep working with at what point did yougo, okay, I gotta draw the line.
We can't be coached anymore.

(24:57):
I mean, because I think that can go on.
And then all of a sudden you got people belowthem that are going, this person's not working
for me as, you know, my leader.
And then maybe you get exodus there, and thenit becomes an even bigger problem.
So how did you decide when to act?
Yeah.
So there's a When things aren't going right inyour company, as the guy, as the one that kind

(25:19):
of orchestrated the whole thing, you look atwhat's not going right.
And and sometime, you know, I'll go home, andI'll get in the shower, the hot tub, whatever,
and I'll just think, okay, if I'm there'sthere's a show, Restaurant Impossible, where
this restaurant consultant comes in to failingrestaurants and tells them all the things they
need to do to fix it.

(25:39):
Most of the time, the owners know all thethings they needed to do.
They just waited for someone else to tell themto do all those things.
Right?
It was a person.
It was the process.
It was an operating line, a credit, whatever.
They knew what to do.
They just didn't do it for whatever reason.
They waited way too long.
And so I looked at our business.
I'm like, Man, if I'm a guy that this companyhires to come in, 100% objective, is to make

(26:06):
this thing work.
Names don't matter.
People don't matter.
Relationships don't matter.
What are the changes I'm gonna make?
And when I looked at it from that lens, man, itwas clear.
I love these guys, and there's several things.
It's not just these two guys.
There are there are processes.
There are behavior.
Like, behavior is a super tough thing to changeas businesses grow.

(26:30):
Right?
Because when you're small, you're scrappy, youfight for every dollar, you get big, and you
make some money, people start spending moneylike crazy.
Right?
Everyone's got platinum Amex cards, and there'sjust behavior is really tough to change.
And so I'm looking at like, okay, I'm coming inas an outsider.
What are the things I'm changing?
It was just clear.

(26:51):
It was super clear.
And when it's that clear that there are somepeople changes that need to be made, regardless
of if they're your buddies or not.
We're not running a nonprofit.
We're not running a church mission.
This is a business, and I have stakeholdersthat I'm gonna make a return for.

(27:13):
I'm gonna make a return for myself.
I'm gonna treat the clients the way they shouldbe treated, and if there are people that are in
the way of that, as much as you love them, youjust gotta make those tough changes, you know?
Keaton, you mentioned, I mean, first of all,it's just incredible that all of this has
occurred in such a short amount of time.
I mean, this feels like much more of a story ofsomebody we'd be talking to fifty years into

(27:38):
their business.
With the lawsuits, and Bob and I see this a lotin our work, that is the test of the fabric of
your culture, of your mission, of the people,of how you go about doing your work, and that
can either be proven or wrecked as the resultof the lawsuit.

(27:58):
Probably these lawsuits aren't done yet asquick as they've come, but can you talk about
that and how you guys have worked through them?
Yeah, I mean, for me, I was meeting with a guy,CEO of a massive company, and you would think
this company has been sued a zillion times,right?
I mean, they're a billion plus dollar company,10,000 employees.

(28:23):
They've never been sued.
And so I asked the guy, How have you never beensued with 10,000 employees?
I would think you'd have a hundred lawsuitspending.
He takes the approach of, If I'm doingsomething to someone that they have a reason to
go after my company or after my money orwhatever the case may be, he's a 51, 40 nine

(28:44):
guy.
So he wants to give a little bit more than hegives every time.
And he's happy to do that because he's got aneternal perspective, right?
He's thinking, Okay, God is entrusting thisbusiness to me, and this money, and these
employees.
I'm gonna go above and beyond and makeeveryone's lives a little bit easier.
So you got a vendor who doesn't deliver.

(29:06):
Yeah.
You could sue them.
Right?
And you could go get the money or what, youknow, whatever the thing is you're chasing.
But instead, this owner, and he's this guy'sworth a lot of money, he drives and meets with
the vendor, and he sits down, and he talks toit like a normal human being.
He's it it's kinda like divorce.
Right?
It's like, well, it's not even an option.
Same to thought.
We're gonna sit down and work this out, andyou're gonna hate it, and I'm gonna hate it,

(29:31):
and maybe we hate each other, but there's abigger picture here.
And so, I don't know.
We try to take that now.
We've learned a ton of lessons, especially asit regards to rules.
Like I said, some of these lawsuits, I'm acowboy, right?
And I just do crazy things, and I'm not a bigfan of rules.
I don't want people telling me what I can andcan't do.

(29:52):
I don't want the government telling me what Ican and can't do.
I just, that's my DNA, but you go through thatenough.
You know, you get people that are like, hey,this is, we're gonna do this the right way.
And you start to mature.
You know, as a 27, 20 eight year old kid withearly success, you're even more rebellious.
You care even less about the rule.

(30:13):
Just like, yeah, sue me, whatever, you know?
So you start to mature, but I mean, me, I justtry to look at the big picture.
And when we have conflict, whether it's alawsuit or a disgruntled employee or whatever,
I wanna be the 51%.
I wanna go a little bit further.
I wanna give up the more money or whatever thething is, and, you know, I just wanna be the

(30:37):
bigger person.
So it doesn't always work out that way, butthat's kinda what's going through my mind.
One of the things I wanted to talk about was,and you mentioned it a couple times, being a
young guy, being in business.
So what are some of the challenges there from aleadership standpoint?
And then also, and maybe after that is thesecond question is, seems like you have a lot
of a younger group surrounding you too, atleast from what we're seeing and reading.

(31:03):
Can you talk a little bit about that too?
Yeah, so I think a young guy being in business,I would say that the toughest challenge that
I've had is the same the same challenge a new afirst time parent has.
Right?
You get you have a baby.
You have no clue what you're doing.
You there you know, you can read all the books.
You can meet with all the advisers and thecounselors.

(31:24):
You can go through the classes at the hospital.
Until you're holding that baby, none of itmakes any sense.
Right?
So I thought I was super ready for business at27.
I was like, man, I'm gonna go build the bestthing ever.
And then you get there.
And you're like, I have no clue what I'm doing.
Right?
And I'm a big believer in, like, you learnthrough all the lessons.
You learn through all the mistakes.

(31:44):
I've got three kids.
The third kid, we have parented a whole lotdifferently than the first kid.
And so, for me, as a business owner, I thinkthe thing that I would go back and tell my 27
year old self, Don't beat yourself up over allthe mistakes.
We've had several, and I can't tell you howmany million dollar mistakes where you look

(32:07):
back and you're like, Man, I could have thatkind of money sitting in the bank.
And you have to worry about adjusting to thosefailures and learning from them and moving
forward than dwelling on, or being even afraidto change.
There's so many business owners that are afraidto make change.
We make change really quickly.

(32:28):
When we see a thing not going right, forgeteverything else, we're changing right now.
We're gonna pivot, we're gonna change theprocess, we're gonna change the approach,
whatever the thing may be.
So that's, to me, that's the challenge of ayoung business owner.
You don't know anything.
You learn every year.
You make mistakes.
You repeat.
And then someday, forty, fifty years from now,we'll think, maybe we've got it figured out.

(32:53):
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is, with all these youngpeople, I truly believe that passion in what
you do is the most important quality.
You guys probably know a lot of really smartpeople or a lot of really talented people that
just don't have passion, and they don't goanywhere.
I'd rather have the passionate 26 year old guywho is learning, and we're paying for some of

(33:18):
his mistakes while he learns.
I'd rather have that guy that works eightyhours a week to try to figure out and master
his craft than the 50 year old guy who'slearned it all, but has no passion.
Because again, for me, this is not about money.
If I was trying to maximize profit, sure, maybeyou have a bunch of non passionate people, and

(33:41):
everything's mundane.
That doesn't excite me.
What excites me is seeing people develop, andit excites me for me to develop.
Now we do have a lot of older people.
I'm not gonna say, you know, older people throwthem away, but our older people are on fire.
Like Paul, and I don't even know how Paul is.
He's our chief commercial officer.
I think he's 60 maybe.

(34:02):
The dude runs around here faster than the youngguys.
You know?
JJ, one of our sales guys, one of our ops andsales guys, he's he's probably, you know, 55 or
60.
I don't know.
May maybe I'm off.
But he's got the gray beard, not much hair,best dude on the planet, super passionate.
You know?
So for me, it's not even an age thing.

(34:22):
I don't discriminate with age.
I discriminate whether you're passionate ornot.
That's just how I think about it.
Ketan, you can't judge age by the gray beardand the losing hair.
I mean, I'm only 43.
Where am I going from
plenty of gray coming in, and honestly, I havetold several people, I am going to get a Just

(34:44):
for Men gray kit because I've lost contractsbecause I don't have enough gray hair.
There you go.
That's a true story.
That's a true that's the other tough part aboutbeing a young business guy.
No.
That's what that's what I was gonna ask.
I mean, you're you're sitting down in the room,and especially in, like, the industry you're
in.
Right?
Like, it's a very much an older industry.
And here here comes Keaton, this young guy,right, walking in.

(35:07):
I mean, I can only imagine some of the meetingsyou've had with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We not it's not so much more these days becausewe built an awesome brand, and and we've done a
lot of work.
We've done a lot of really good things.
And so I try to stay out of the spotlight asmuch as I can.
You know, if you follow any of our content,some of the podcast and stuff you see me in and

(35:29):
but I'm not the I'm not the focus.
I'm not the mascot.
But two years ago, we had a massive contract.
It would've been our biggest at the time, andwe were the best proposal.
We were we were the cheapest.
We were the best service.
Everything everything was perfect.
The board said no because they knew how young Iwas, they saw a picture of me, and they were
like, this guy looks like he's 18 years old.

(35:50):
You know?
We can't trust him and his company with thismassive opportunity.
Fast forward, we won that same opportunity.
They gave it to someone else two years ago.
They kicked those people out.
Our company won it this year, just a few monthsago.
So I think you just gotta persevere.
Trust me, I'm getting plenty of gray.

(36:11):
It will come.
And I think I'm too young to have all this grayhair already, but you know, that's definitely a
challenge getting people to say yes to a youngperson.
It's just a challenge.
A question I had around that was, you talkedabout there are some older, more seasoned

(36:32):
people in your organization, but their energylevel is high or higher than the rest of the
workforce.
Is it a two way street feed, meaning theyounger people are feeding off them and they're
feeding off the younger people?
Or do you really just think they're gettingthat energy because they're so passionate about

(36:53):
what they do?
Just talk us through that.
To me, it's a DNA thing.
Those people have a DNA to be passionate.
We just, we I wouldn't say just.
A few months back, we had some folks on staffhere in the office who were the most talented
young guys in their twenties and thirties, themost talented.

(37:14):
Like, if if you saw their resume, you wouldthink these guys are a no brainer for this
company.
They looked the part.
They had the experience.
They had the education.
I mean, everything, they had everything.
They did not have the passion, and they're nolonger here.
And so, for me, it's just a DNA thing.
I mean, I think that, you know, I wasn't taughthow to be passionate.

(37:37):
It's the way I am.
Some of our people here in the office And Idon't think you need every single role to be
someone who's passionate.
If you have an analyst, for example, maybethey're not passionate about mining, but
they're passionate about numbers.
You You got an IT guy.
The IT guy, he could care less about ourequipment.

(37:58):
He doesn't care about the fancy pictures orInstagram or any of that.
He cares about, I'm gonna go problem solvecomputer stuff today.
So, don't want it to seem like every singlerole, every single person has to just be on
fire.
I think that's unrealistic.
But I think there are some critical roles wherepassion is the number one ingredient.
And I think that it's just a DNA thing.

(38:22):
How do you continuously keep that going as youguys continue to grow?
I think getting people to buy into the visionof where we can go.
I've said this several times over the last sixmonths or year.
I think what we're doing, we've got a bigenough opportunity that someday, hopefully

(38:43):
later rather than sooner, but someday, thisthing gets bigger than what I can manage.
I don't think I'm equipped to be the CEO of ahuge company.
Right?
I think my talents top out somewhere.
And so by saying that, what I'm really sayingis we have a humongous opportunity as a

(39:04):
company.
If people can see that you know, the number 12guy at Facebook is doing okay.
You know?
The number 20 guy at, you know, at Twitter orInsta like any of these companies.
Right?
Salesforce, for example.
The fiftieth guy in line at Salesforce probablydoesn't have to worry about too much.

(39:24):
And so, you know, I want people to realize weare three and a half years in business.
You know, we we are we are doing things weshould not be allowed to do.
We have a We have a hundred plus million dollarproposal going out of our office at the end of
the day today.
That shouldn't even be a thing.
I want people to buy into where this thingcould go, and to me, that's motivation enough.

(39:49):
If you wanna do something in life that is arocket ship ride, this is a great opportunity
to do that.
And if that's not what you want, that's okaytoo.
Maybe you do your three or four years here, getsome really cool experience, and go somewhere
else that's a little less fast paced or crazyor whatever.
But that's what I want, and that's what ourcore group of people here have signed up for.

(40:12):
They want the rocket ship ride.
He, Neil, Bob and I talk to a lot of businessleaders and entrepreneurs.
I mean, at 27, to already understand that yourvision, what you're creating now, could get
bigger than what maybe your skill set or justwhat you want to do is insane insight.

(40:37):
So, I mean, if I'm sitting there as part ofyour team, I'm thinking, you know, I believe in
this guy because he has the ability to lookinward and say, you know, here are my
strengths, I'm bringing those to the table, butthere might be a certain time when somebody
else needs to help me.
That is awesome.
Well, I can tell you, you know, it doesn't evencome from a place of humility.

(40:59):
It comes from a place of practicality.
You know, Twitter forced their CEO out, thefounder.
You know, he wasn't the right fit.
At a certain stage, he wasn't the right fit.
And I just know that my abilities and myeducation and my experience only take us so
far.
And so if I'm the limiting factor on theopportunity this company has, that's a big

(41:24):
problem, right?
I will gladly step aside and watch someone elsedo what I'm not able to do.
A buddy of mine, the guy I was just telling youabout, the 10,000 employees, I compare myself
to that guy and his abilities, it's night andday.
And I wish, ten years from now, the story'sdifferent, and I can feel confident that I can

(41:45):
go do 10,000 employees well.
I can't sit here and lie about that today.
So I want the brand and the logo to go where itcan go first.
Me personally, I'll be all right.
I can sell baseball cards or whatever, but I Iwanna be super practical.

(42:07):
And that goes back to the getting rid of yourbest buddies, you know?
If you wanna go where the company can go and Iyou guys know a ton of small business owners
that could take their thing and turn it intosomething unreal.
Right?
The problem is they're the limiting factor, andthey don't want it to go above them.
They want the control.
They want the ego thing.

(42:27):
They wanna be the guy.
You know?
I love that too.
Don't get me wrong.
I got an ego, and I'd love to be the guy.
But if everyone around you is looking at youlike, Man, you're not the guy.
Get out of the way.
You gotta get out of the way.
Well, you're right.
I mean, a lot of the to their credit, right,it's their company, but a lot of the small
business owners becomes a lifestyle business,right, and it supports their lifestyle, and

(42:51):
that's good enough, not really wanting to takethat next step or that next risk of where they
could take it if they did the inward lookingthat you do.
You know, Keaton, you're running a massivemining company.
I mean, some people say the insurance industryis the second oldest profession, but maybe

(43:12):
mining's the third.
Like, it's been around forever, but you'rebringing this social media, YouTube channel,
podcast pump.
Like, can we just kinda go down that rabbithole of you're changing an industry that's
thousands of years old?
Yeah.

(43:33):
And and honestly, guys, to me, it's not eventhe technology.
Right?
Like, people see what we're doing on Instagramor Facebook or LinkedIn or YouTube, and they're
like, wow.
They're using all this technology in such acool way.
All we're really doing the real secret behindit is we're just exposing the people that have
been doing this work for thousands of years.

(43:55):
Right?
Like, if people if people in the eighties hadTV shows about minors, it would have been
awesome content.
Right?
And and I think one of the reasons why we'vehad early success is we're just peeling the
curtain back, and we're showing everyone, thisis what happens in mining.
You get kicked in the balls.
You have massive wins and massive losses.

(44:17):
You know?
You've got Betty and Bobby, and they'refighting, and things are bad, and then they
love each other.
Like, we're just telling stories.
And and and it's, you know, it's almost likeour own TV show, and people resonate with it
because we're real.
You know?
We have overhyped ourselves, and we havesugarcoated things in the past.
I hate it.

(44:37):
I wanna be real.
Good or bad, it's why the Keeping Up With theKardashians went for twenty years.
Right?
Like, you're getting a real look at what theircrazy family goes through.
I want the same thing for mining.
You know, people are so scared to show theirhaul truck flipped over.
We had one catch on fire and burn to theground.
That's real stuff, man.
That happens.

(44:57):
The biggest mining companies in the world havefatalities.
Haul truck aren't on fire.
They have people doing idiotic things.
We're no different.
We're just we're just showing it.
Now that, I mean, that's that's just phenomenalperspective because whether it's it's the
mining industry or the energy industry, I mean,you mentioned Salesforce, you know, it just

(45:19):
replaced Exxon on the Dow Jones, right?
Like, that's an absolute old economy versus neweconomy example right there.
And then you've got like this investorsentiment around, you know, ESG, and your
approach to all of that is, like, we're justgonna showcase all of it.
Like, I how did you how did you say, you know,the kimono's open.

(45:41):
Walk in.
Check it out.
Yeah.
Well, I'm a consumer of content, so I love,like I tell people, I'm not a mining guy.
I'm not even really a business guy.
What I do well is marketing, and I loveattention.
And I don't even wanna be the center ofattention, but I love to think about, like,
where is attention going, and where are peoplespending their time?

(46:04):
They're not looking at, you know, Pit and Coreymagazines anymore.
And I love Pit and Corey, But kids are onInstagram.
Right?
Like, you guys.
You guys are doing a podcast.
You know?
Guys your age five years ago weren't doingpodcasts.
You know?
And so I I don't know.
I just I want people to see mining where theyconsume content.

(46:26):
If we were just doing this on certain miningchannels or just focused on mining peep, we
would be missing 95% of the people that consumeour stuff.
And so, I'm a big fan of real marketing.
I'm a big fan of getting people's attention.
And we kind of have a little bit of a cheat ora hack to it, because the equipment is so big

(46:50):
and so cool, everyone just loves it.
Right?
Like, if we were in insurance, I'm trying tothink how I could make insurance sexy.
There's people to do it.
What we say is we want to make mining sexyagain.
And so that's what We're focused on that.
And some of our clients love it.
Some of our clients hate it, right?
They want to stay a secret.

(47:11):
They have enough environmentalists after themthat, you know, they don't want their stuff
exposed.
But, you know, we have a ton of fun lighting upwhat I think is one of the coolest industries
on the planet, one of the oldest industries onthe planet.
Like, should get a ton of recognition.
And people should know all theenvironmentalists that are driving their

(47:32):
Priuses around or their Teslas that are againstmining, that car, every single material in it
besides the leather on the seats, was came tomy mind.
You know?
And and so I I just you know, I think there's aton of education we can do someday just to the
general public, but you gotta get theirattention first.
And that's what we're super focused on is weneed to get everyone's attention, and we're

(47:56):
doing pretty good at it.
I think there's a ton more we can do, and we'remaking some big changes currently with how we
do it.
So, yeah, a lot of lot of fun stuff coming up.
Yeah.
I I just think about, like, what you said aboutgetting attention.
I mean, that's how we were trying to draw intoyou.
Right?
I mean, would we have come across you guyswithout that?
Probably not.
Maybe.
But I got to imagine too, it's probably drawnfor you guys from an employee standpoint, a lot

(48:21):
of diverse backgrounds too that makes thecompany different.
Is that is that accurate at all?
Yeah.
So we've hired we've hired a person from all 50states.
We get the number changes a little bit, butit's actually going up.
We just a few days ago, we were getting 26applications a day.
That number, as you get into wintertime, itgoes up to closer to 50 applications a day just

(48:43):
due to people being displaced due toseasonality type stuff.
But, I mean, to think about getting 20 peopleapplied to your company a day, the real issue
in our industry is people.
Right?
Most of the people we service, they can't getanyone to apply to their company.
We have 2,000 people backlogged that if wesaid, You're hired tomorrow, they would be

(49:07):
ready to work tomorrow.
So 2,000 people's a lot, and I'm sure thatnumber goes up and down if someone finds a job,
whatever.
But to me, how we win, get everyone'sattention, and get all the people.
And that's what we're focused on.
And obviously, they gotta be good people.
They gotta know something or have some sort ofskill or talent or passion, whatever.

(49:31):
I always say my biggest mistakes are peoplemistakes, without a doubt.
So, to me, that's how I'm thinking about ourindustry.
Over the next twenty years, the people problembecomes an even bigger problem.
The average age of the minor in our industry is52 years old.
The average age of our employees is 28 yearsold.

(49:53):
So we're we're, yeah, we're setting ourselvesup for the next thirty years, not not just the
next two or three years.
Because it's there is a lot of pain.
I I don't think I've ever said this.
There is a lot of pain in learning and a lot ofexpense that comes with building a company
around 28 year old people.

(50:14):
You just there's just a ton you know, theydon't have the experience.
You know?
We had a we had a kid, super talented 20 yearold kid, the blade off of a dozer.
You know, that's a 5,000 or $10,000 mistake.
You know?
If that guy was 52 and had thirty years in theindustry, he probably wouldn't have done that,
you know?
Because he did that twenty years ago.
But I don't know, for me, we're making theinvestment now in our workforce, and in our

(50:39):
marketing and in our brand awareness.
We want to be positioned for this people game.
Yeah.
Coming out of that, what's one of the biggestchallenges you have?
Mean, you talked about some of these littlemistakes.
I mean, are you are you pissing people off inthe industry with the way you guys are going
about things?
I mean, do you have some some enemies outthere?

(51:01):
Yeah.
We're what I would say is we're pissing all theright people off.
I love it.
And I probably need to explain, because there'ssome people listening to that, and they're the
ones that are pissed off, thinking, oh, that'sthat's wild.
There are companies we compete against who arejust legit companies.
Right?
They you know, the KeyWit, Leadcore, and like,the big companies who do things right.

(51:26):
When Leadcore or KeyWit or someone like thatsees us on a bid list, I don't think they get
super pissed off.
I think they know that we're professional.
We have the right values.
We're not we're not the scabs of the industrythat they're just gonna go after the lowest
price.
Like, you know, there are people out there thatwe know when we see them on a bid list or an

(51:46):
opportunity, there's just no reason for us togo any further because they're the bottom
feeders, they do things that cost, they nickeland dime the client.
It's just a terrible way to do business, in myopinion.
But we're pissing those people off.
Right?
Because what we do is we try to hire goodpeople.
We try to develop our team.
One of our values and our mission statement ismake life better in the mining industry.

(52:11):
Well, if you get contract, let's say it's for$50,000,000, and your cost is $50,000,000 to do
it, you make no money, eventually, you gottahit the client with change orders and nickel
and dime for this and that to go make somemoney.
That's not making life better for anybody.
It's making life worse.
So I think all the right people are gettingpissed off.

(52:32):
The people that are rooting for us are thecompanies that have tried to make some changes
in this industry for a while.
Keaton, you mentioned Elon Musk and electriccars.
Mean, from a mining perspective, I think yousaid everything but the leather seats.
I mean, do you see that industry and what'sneeded for the batteries as an expansion

(52:55):
opportunity for you guys globally, or how doesthat play into your business strategy?
Yeah, so there's a saying, If it's not farmed,it's mined.
And as you see the world population continue togrow, common sense would tell you, you're going
to have to mine more natural materials, whetherit be stuff for coal that's not Coal's not

(53:19):
happening much here in The States anymore, dueto a lot of reasons.
But lithium, I mean, are you could there's alist of minerals and materials and metals that
our government puts out every year, and you cansee that list and how much we import from other
countries.
Right?
We have a lot of those right here.

(53:39):
We could be self sufficient, and people feel alot of different ways about it.
I'm not gonna get into all the politics,environmentalists, and all that, but common
sense would tell you, as the population grows,the mining industry grows.
You know?
You just I mean, the farming industry.
The more people, the more food.
The more people, the more roads, the more cars,more whatever, buildings.

(54:02):
So, yeah, there's a I think it's one of thoseindustries where, on a global scale, it's never
gonna slow down.
And we get asked all the time to come todifferent countries, Canada, Mexico, South
America.
We're gonna figure out our business here in TheStates First.

(54:22):
Three And A Half Years then, I'm not superambitious to go to Africa, but yeah, I mean,
the goal someday is to make an impact beyondjust The US soil here.
Keaton, being down here in Texas and the wholemining of sand for the fracking industry
started up more, Wisconsin and other areas too,but for a variety of reasons, mostly

(54:49):
transportation, the in basin sand got a lotmore affordable down here.
And in my backyard outside of Fort Worth andthen certainly out in West Texas, sand mines
have popped up everywhere, and so much sand wasproduced, then there was a pricing issue and a
margin issue.

(55:09):
Do you guys have any exposure there?
And if so or if not, just what are yourthoughts on the mining industry as it results
to sand?
Well, thank God we didn't have any frac sandcontracts.
We were fortunate enough to I mean, we quoted aton of frac sand stuff over the last two or
three years.

(55:30):
We lost all of it because the pricing was justso cheap.
And we had safeguarded a little I don't want toact like we're geniuses and predicted a crash,
but anytime you get into a commodity that ebbsand flows, gold, right?
Like, okay, we can go heavily invest in goldright now.
What happens in twelve, twenty four, thirty sixmonths?

(55:52):
Does it come way back down?
So like I said, we've got a lot of smart peoplearound here that are thinking about risk and
thinking about markets and those sorts ofthings.
So we weren't in frac at all.
I think we did one frac sand project.
And on I'm I'm I'm remembering now.
We have one frac sand project.

(56:13):
They owe us a million dollars, and they'reprobably gonna file bankruptcy.
And we're gonna maybe kiss most of that milliondollars goodbye, but that could have been
$50,000,000.
Right?
That could have been a whole lot.
And there's companies that we compete with thatI know are in a bad way due to their heavily
investment in frac sand.
But I think if you're doing business for theright companies, which is one of the reasons

(56:36):
why we love building materials, aggregates,cements, industrial sand, stuff not used for
fracking.
We're always gonna be building roads.
We're always gonna be building bridges.
The housing market and commercial constructionmarket comes up and down, but you look at those
materials versus some real volatile stuff likeoil and gas or gold, copper.

(57:01):
Copper's taken a beating this year.
Iron ore.
You just got to know the game you're playing,and you got to know your risk going into it.
Yo, you shared a lot about Turner Mining.
Thank you for that.
And you've shared a lot about kind of some ofthe trials and tribulations you've gone
through.
When it comes down to Keaton as the person, howdo you continuously work on your yourself,

(57:24):
both, you know, whether it's personally orprofessionally, to get better?
Well, I think the real answer is I don't alwayscontinuously work on myself.
I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna sit here andlie to you and tell you I get up at five in the
morning every morning and read, you know,business journals.
Are times where, sure, that's the case, right?
I'm just like any other human.

(57:47):
I get motivated in chunks.
I may have a three month chunk where I'm supermotivated, and I'm on fire to go do x, y, or z.
I had a chunk right in the middle of COVIDwhere I didn't wanna do anything.
Mentally out of it, fogged up, like, desire towork out or no desire to improve anything.
And so, I think it comes and goes, but I think,I listened to a guy, Andy Purcella is someone,

(58:12):
he's on Instagram, he runs a big supplementcompany.
He's someone that's super motivating.
And he said the other day, You're eithergetting better and you're growing as a human,
or you're getting worse and you're dying.
It's one of the reasons why, as Americans, youlook at most Americans at 55, 60 years old,

(58:34):
they're way overweight and unhealthy.
Whereas 20 years old, they were healthy, right?
So slowly, they've died, and slowly, they'vegotten worse as they've gotten older.
And that really just hit me right in the mouthbecause I'm like, Man, the last few months, you
know, I've not been getting better.
So I've been getting worse.
Stuff like that, if you can feed your mind withthe right thing, which I don't always do, but

(58:57):
if you can feed your mind with people that areimproving and people that wanna get better and
wanna take big swings, everything we do here asa business, we are swinging for the fences.
We are just not big fans of the bunny one outthere just to get on We'd rather swing for the

(59:17):
fences than strike out and try again,
You know?
How how many times did Reggie Jackson strikeout?
A lot.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
I mean, more than anybody, and look how manyhome runs he hit too.
Oh, it's getting uncomfortable every day.
You know, Michael, we talk about that all thetime.
Finding a way to get yourself uncomfortable,get out of that comfort zone.
Key, one of the things we like to ask is, youknow, you have your passions in life, and when

(59:41):
we ask people, you know, we used to ask andthey'd say, number one, well, of course, my
family and my friends, and number two maybe iswork.
So talk about three and four, and what are someof those other things that you keep front and
center in your life that keep you, you youmentioned fishing and hunting, and I don't
know, I mean, what are they?
Where do you get some of that passion from?
It's a it's a great question.

(01:00:03):
Mine change all the time.
Right?
I I in the spring, I can't wait to go fishing.
By middle of summer, I've fished plenty.
I'm tired of fishing.
I don't wanna fish.
You know?
You know, I'm one of those guys that I'll buyfour or five guns and do the gun thing for a
while, and I'm like, man, I'm over guns.
Like, I wanna get into whatever the thing is.
You know?

(01:00:23):
Buy a motorcycle or whatever.
So I I am sporadic, diabolical person.
Right?
Whatever my mind is into, and sometimes it'sthe end of the business.
Sometimes I wanna focus on the business.
I'm gonna work one hundred and twenty hours.
I'm gonna pour into people.
Sometimes it goes to something completely awayfrom the business.
And I actually might take away from what I'mdoing at the business.

(01:00:45):
So, like I said, I love hunting.
I love fishing.
I love guns.
I love dirt bikes.
I love building people, but I get tired of allof it at some point.
So I just I just try to keep it fresh.
I, you know, mix
it good stable of different things to keep youinterested in those.
That that's great.

(01:01:05):
I've I've had way too many hobbies.
Way too many hobbies.
I love how you mentioned that too because,like, I was up in Northern Michigan musky
fishing the other day, and we've been fishing,you know, all summer, and we can't we pulled
the boat in, and I'm like, I'm done.
I've had enough.
You know?
Like, we've been doing this.
It's time to move on to something different.
And I think my fiance is very happy that thattime has come for me.

(01:01:28):
Oh, I'm
But hunting season's around the corner so that,you know, the eyes have shifted elsewhere.
Yeah.
They don't realize you you spend more time inthe woods hunting than you do on the boat
fishing.
Right.
That's not a great trade off for them.
But and and it's like you have a I'm like, I'ma very outgoing person, social, wanna be out,

(01:01:50):
wanna be talking to people, and she goes, howdo you sit and hunt and no one's around?
I'm like, because that's my time.
It's fantastic.
Because it's some of the best time I have.
No, you know, mean, the reason that there'sseasons is a lot more for like the population
control of the particular animal or waterfowlor whatever that we're talking about.
But I also think it's for us.

(01:02:11):
I mean, if I could hunt year round, it wouldn'tbe as special as when it comes back around
again.
It just feels like that changing of the tides,the leaves are changing, you get all fired up
about it again.
And one thing I wanted to ask, just because Ithink your mind's a lot like Bob and I's, where
it's the reason that we can handle a whole lotof things going on at once, is you can bounce

(01:02:34):
from meeting to meeting to strategy to thisproposal, this proposal, we're going after
this.
But I think another reason that Bob and I areeffective at what we do, and I want to get your
insight on this, is the ability, when you haveto, to slow that down and just narrowly focus
everything on this one thing, and likeeverything else slows down.

(01:02:55):
Do you have that process when you really got tozero in on something?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you know, my phone's a great example.
You know, it's just a million notifications,and my phone doesn't ring, it doesn't vibrate,
doesn't do anything.
I leave it off all the time.
When I'm in a meeting, my mind is very easilydistracted, right?

(01:03:16):
I probably have ADD or something.
I don't know.
But when I'm in a meeting that I'm passionateabout, whether it's proposal or meeting with a
person that we're trying to improve or coach ormentor or whatever, I wanna be super conscious
of focusing on that thing 100%.
I do really well at that sometimes.
The things that I'm less passionate about, I'llnotice myself in a meeting on my phone

(01:03:40):
scrolling through emails.
Like, if it's something I'm just like, ah, thisis not this doesn't, like, light me on fire.
I'm not gonna add a ton of value in thisconversation.
There's I mean, just the other day, there wasan important meeting happening here, and we had
some visitors in the office.
And fifteen minutes into the hour long meeting,I realized, I'm not gonna add any value here.

(01:04:02):
My time is better spent somewhere.
I just got up and walked out.
And I apologized later, and I'm like, Hey,guys, don't take it the wrong way.
I'm not being rude.
I'm not gonna add value to that.
So, my time, I've had to learn how to manage itway differently than I did three years ago,
especially with kids.
I'm hoping my wife doesn't divorce me, so Igotta pay attention to that.

(01:04:25):
You gotta be very conscious about time, andit's something I always underestimated.
And so now, I live and die by my calendar.
I have appointments for everything.
I say no to almost everything, social stuff.
Good things are okay to say no to, and it tookme several years to learn how to do that.

(01:04:46):
But yeah, I I wanna be intentional.
When I'm sitting somewhere, talking to someone,or having a meeting like this, there's a
million things going on around here.
Like I said, there's a massive proposal goingout in just a few hours.
I'm not even thinking about it.
I'm with you guys.
So that's, I I try to do that.
I'm not always great at it, though.
Well, we appreciate you saying yes to usbecause we've definitely enjoyed the

(01:05:09):
conversation.
Yeah.
I have too.
I love it.
Keaton, you know, just in thinking about comingon this show, is there is there anything that
you had wanted to hit on that we haven't?
I don't think so.
I mean, my message is pretty similar across allthese that I do.
Right?
Life is short.
Go have fun and be happy.

(01:05:30):
Like, don't put your focus on the wrong thing,which is so easy to do, you know, especially
with Instagram.
You know, everybody wants the new truck, or thenew car, the new house, or whatever.
Like, you know, there's so much good in theworld.
I think that's the one thing I would touch on.
Like, everyone, especially in an election year,everyone is so divided.

(01:05:51):
Like, man, there is a lot of good going on.
Amidst all the riots, amidst this COVID thing,there is a ton of good, there's a ton of
opportunity.
People just need to think about that.
That was great.
That was awesome.
So, of, you've teed up my question, and you'veanswered part of it, but I wanna direct it more
just towards Keaton, and you can use it to talkabout the company and the culture again as

(01:06:18):
well, but this is the question that we ask.
You've heard the saying growing up, it's notwhat you know, it's who you know, But we like
to say, it's not who you know, it's who knowsyou.
So if you think about your podcast, yourYouTube channel, this podcast, what do you want
people to know about Keaton?

(01:06:40):
Yeah, that's a great question.
For me, I want them to know that amidst all thechaos, I truly have good intentions to be a
good human being.
My goal is to impact as many people in apositive way as I can.
We're about $300,000 in revenue per employee.

(01:07:01):
So if you think about it, man, someday if Ihave 10,000 employees, that's a lot of revenue,
right?
That's not even a thing on my radar.
I want 10,000 employees so that I can impact10,000 families in a way that maybe they
wouldn't have been impacted otherwise.
It's a huge goal, right?
It's not easy to be different in an age oldindustry and still impact people in a positive

(01:07:23):
way every day.
Don't get me wrong, we screw up a lot.
Yeah.
But man, I just, I want to bring more good tothe world.
Just like my comment a second ago about howmuch good is going on out there, I wanna bring
more good to the world than what people arehearing or are seeing.
I want our content to be happy.
I want our employees to be smiling.

(01:07:44):
Not just for the camera when it's on them, butevery day.
I want you to be happy and fun and enjoyinglife.
That's what I want people to get out of whatwe're doing.
Keenan, I'm going say one thing that I don'twant to hear from you anymore, and it's stop
saying you're not that smart of a guy, becausetoday's conversation was awesome.

(01:08:04):
You got an Absolutely infectious personality.
I mean, your passion, the gratitude, thehumility, it shows.
And that's exactly like I can just tell that'swhy that company is thriving that you're
building, and that's why you probably gotpeople around you that are just running through
walls for you.

(01:08:24):
So keep it, man.
Appreciate that.
It's awesome.
We appreciate the time.
This has been a lot of fun.
Could not agree more.
I think Bob and I are ready to get into themining industry.
Yeah.
Are you guys hiring or what?
Come visit anytime.
We are hiring.
And you know what?
I'm going to do, I'm going to take thatrecording of all those nice you said, and I'm
gonna play it on repeat for our people here inthe office.

(01:08:45):
Like, don't forget it.
And your wife.
That that's the that's the real one rightthere.
Yeah.
Important one.
Absolutely.
This has been great.
Thank you.
No.
Thank you, guys.
It's been fun.

(01:09:05):
Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode ofThe Climb.
If you enjoyed the episode, please considersubscribing.
And if you know someone who you would thinkwould enjoy the podcast, feel free to share
this with them.
Thanks again, and we'll see you on the nextepisode.

(01:09:47):
Alright, guys.
Thanks for listening to that.
Again, apologies.
I hit the easy button today and didn't recordone of my own.
I let Robert and Michael do all the heavylifting today from from five years ago.
So thanks for listening.
I pray you did better than I did today.
You, you got your per diem.
But it's my birthday, so I guess I can use theexcuse of being a little bit lazy today.

(01:10:11):
So thanks for listening.
Tune back in tomorrow.