July 26, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode, Keaton Turner opens with a recap of the previous cliffhanger and delves into his biggest mistakes and morning reflections. He shares insights on continuous improvement and his business philosophy, exploring the fallout from a failed mining project and the role of fear and hesitation. Keaton discusses the repercussions of trusting an unreliable customer and analyzes the cost of mistakes, highlighting their lessons. He emphasizes the importance of legacy and the human experience in business, addressing how to handle losses and the significance of trusting leadership. The episode closes with Keaton finding value in failures, offering an apology for the cliffhanger, and sharing final thoughts on embracing lessons learned.
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Episode Transcript
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(01:25):
Got no limits.
Man, I had to leave you on a cliffhanger.
I had to.
I didn't have a choice.
That wasn't by design.
I promise.
That was not by design.
Design.
I was right on the edge of the cliff, and wegot stuck with a cliffhanger.
(01:49):
Welcome back to the Purdium Podcast.
I'm Keaton Turner.
We're doing it another day.
This is part two.
I didn't even I didn't even intend to make thisa two part series, but this is part two of the
ride is worth the fall.
Last episode, I opened up with with CodyJohnson.
(02:12):
This episode, I do the same, and I I left youon a cliff talking about my two biggest
mistakes of last year.
I made a ton of mistakes last year, but I hadtwo big ones.
Two big ones that cost me somewhere between 6and $8,000,000.
I'm gonna unpack them, And I'm gonna tell youwhy I'm even sharing that.
(02:36):
I don't share that to humble brag.
I don't share that to one up your loss.
And if you got a loss bigger than 6,000,000 oror $8,000,000, please share it with me.
Love to hear it.
I'll tell you why I wanna share those.
But first, what's happening today, I I playedgolf early this morning.
Friday morning, we went out.
(02:56):
It's it's like 96 degrees and a 140% humidityhere.
So we teed off early and and got done early.
I won a little bit of money.
Played decent.
Not great.
Not terrible.
A decent round.
But I won some money, so I never complainedwith that.
(03:18):
Know, rebuilding some things, trying some newthings in business, stuff I'll talk about
later.
You know, we've had some changes recently and aa staff member or two.
We've had a, you know, a few changes out in thefield, building things.
We're always tweaking something.
Everything can be improved.
Even the things that are working really wellcan always be improved.
(03:40):
So we're always tweaking, always chasingimprovements.
But staying true to the theme of this two partseries, I'm gonna jump right in to the fall,
and why Cody Johnson describes the ride beingworth the fall, and and why I think we focus
(04:05):
too much on the destination and not the not theride, not the climb.
We focus too much on the someday.
Someday, I'll get it.
Someday, when I have more money.
Someday, when I have that that perfect marriageor that perfect house.
Someday, when I'm in a different stage of life.
Someday, when my kids are grown up and they'renot toddlers, I don't have to do every single
(04:28):
thing for them.
You know, someday, when I'm not putting out afire every day in my business and having to
manage every single person in the business, youknow, someday when we have a leadership team
and we've got things figured out and we've got,you know, like, a real self sustaining
business, someday when we have a bunch ofrepeat customers and it just works and I don't
(04:50):
have to grind for every sale.
We all chase the someday, and and I think the Ithink the beauty's in the ride.
I think the beauty's in the climb.
Garth Brooks says the dance.
You know, I think there's a ton of beauty inthat, but it's hard to know that when you're
(05:12):
going through it.
Last year, I made a couple really poordecisions, and and by the time I realized I was
making poor decisions, it was too late.
I couldn't unwind it.
These were big strategic I don't wanna say likesuper strategic.
They were somewhat tactical.
Actually, probably the perfect blend ofstrategy and tactical decision making.
(05:37):
But we had a customer who we had been doingbusiness with for for a couple years, and and
it was going fine.
It was a good customer.
It was a big investment for the customer.
They were getting into a new part of businessthat they you know, they they didn't operate
mines.
They weren't a mining company.
And so for them to open up a new mine and pickus as their mining partner, not only their
(06:02):
development contractor, we developed the fullmine from Greenfield.
They also were like their own geologists.
They were their own mine planners.
They had some engineering firms workingalongside, but they really didn't pay a whole
lot of attention or respect to the expertise ofthe engineering firms they hired, which is a
(06:24):
whole different episode probably.
And so we're we're operating this kindahaphazard mind plan with some with a client who
has never, you know, operated a mine before,never ran a mine before, and definitely had
never done a greenfield project to this extent.
And so one day comes along and, you know, as asa bunch of people had been telling the customer
(06:51):
for a long time, you know, this product isgonna be expensive.
When you compare the product we were making,and I say we, you know, we were doing all the
mining, both both, you know, wet mining belowwater and dry mining above water.
We were running the plants, a brand new, bigplant processing facility.
(07:14):
We're doing all the customer load out, loadingout of the trucks.
The product was expensive.
When you look at how we were mining it, youknow, the means and methods in which we were
trying to get moisture and waste out of thematerial, it was just it was an expensive
product compared to what you could buy the sameproduct for on the fair market.
(07:37):
And so we knew this.
We knew this going in.
But the kind of perfect storm brewed and thethe the quality of the market not the quality.
The quality of the material we were miningstarted to get worse as the mine continued to
go deeper and develop.
So the quality of the material got worse, whichmade the cost per ton go up because there's
(08:01):
more waste, less yield.
At the same time that's happening, the marketis coming down in price to go buy this material
elsewhere.
And so a decision, to spare you of all thejuicy details, a decision was made to shut the
mine down.
This mine had only been operating for, I don'tknow, eighteen months or so.
(08:22):
And so a decision was made.
We're gonna shut the mine down.
It's no longer economically feasible, based onwhat we're seeing in the markets.
And this happens all the time in mining.
This is not new.
What you know, when gold prices fall, minesshut down.
When copper prices fall, mines shut down.
When lithium prices crash, huge megamultibillion dollar lithium mines don't develop
(08:48):
on time, on schedule the way they were supposedto develop.
So this is mining.
Right?
That we're not new to this.
Our our feelings don't get hurt.
We have contractual ramifications for all this,and all the contracts worked the way they were
supposed to.
And so we begin winding down the mine.
And at some point, the customer comes to us andsays, hey.
We have reclamation requirements.
(09:09):
We're we're shutting this mine down for good.
We kinda thought maybe they're just gonna pausemining and go into care and maintenance for a
while, but they decided, you know what?
We're not a mining company.
We took our shot.
We missed.
We're gonna shut this mine down, and we'regonna reclaim the whole thing.
Like, wow.
Okay.
This is a big decision to make in the last, youknow, two weeks.
(09:29):
But, hey.
We'll do whatever you want.
So so they come to us and say, look.
We need you to reclaim the site.
We'll pay you to reclaim it.
And they had a price.
And I think the price was somewhere in the$3,000,000 range because we didn't have it was
a very small footprint at that time.
We didn't have a ton of reclamation to do.
It's not like there were trillions of yards ofdirt to go move.
(09:52):
It was some light grading, some seating, somedemo of some structures, nothing crazy.
So the site reclamation was $3,000,000.
They then had a processing plant, brand new.
I think, you know, the plant had been therefor, like, eighteen months.
And they start I don't know.
(10:19):
I'm gonna try to not get myself in in troublebecause I don't know who listens to this.
They start asking us, hey.
What if we what if we just gave you guys allthe processing facilities, all the plant
equipment?
There's like two huge buildings.
One of them is 580 feet long, modularbuildings.
The other one's 350 feet long.
(10:42):
You know, I think all in, they were like$50,000,000 into this plant.
All the processing equipment, the screens, theconveyors, the stackers, the thickeners, the
buildings, all of this.
I said, what if we just give it to you for freeif you take it all down and get it off the site
(11:02):
in the next six months?
And I'm like, okay.
I'm listening.
I love a good deal.
Now, the problem was six months was tight.
And so when we started to evaluate thisinternally, we loved the deal.
Like, was like, guys, this is a slam dunk.
(11:23):
This is a no brainer.
They're gonna give us all of this.
I'll take the buildings down.
I will have them shipped.
It was gonna cost about half a million dollarsto have these buildings, you know, assem you
know, shipped and reassembled in Indiana.
And so, literally, we could have had thesebuildings torn down, shipped to Indiana for a
(11:44):
half million dollars and and reassembled, andwe'd have two massive buildings where we could
store parts, equipment, whatever.
Didn't need it, but, again, it's one of thosethings.
We then also started to arbitrage our ourposition, and arbitrage just means make a sale
on something that you don't currently ownbefore you own it.
(12:05):
So we were trying to sell this plant before weactually had possession of it.
So we were trying to arbitrage our position.
We're going out to the market.
We're talking to people that would buy thissort of processing plant.
And at the same time, we're trying to sell thisplant to people.
We're trying to negotiate the contract for thisreclamation and the assumption of the teardown
(12:32):
of this facility.
And so what happens, and I just I even hatetelling this story.
What happens is we get scared.
We get scared.
Our teams evaluate all the nuts and bolts.
We get quotes.
We start taking in crane hours.
(12:53):
How many hours of the you know, this sizecrane?
How many hours of that size crane?
We start assembling crews to start tearing downand and demob.
It's it's something like, I don't know, 300semi loads.
And these are like lowboy semis.
These aren't like dump trucks.
300 semi loads that have to be, you know,coordinated and shit.
(13:14):
So it was a a massive undertaking.
As we're navigating this and again, thecustomer is gonna pay us $3,000,000, and then
they're going to, on top of that, give us forfree this whole plant.
The only kicker is we have to take it down.
It's the only kicker.
You just have to take it down and get itoff-site in six months.
(13:37):
And if you can't get it off-site in six months,there are liquidated damages.
I don't even wanna tell you what the liquidateddamages were because they're irrelevant.
They're just to be honest with you, they'reirrelevant.
I think they were capped at like a half amillion dollars.
So so nothing in the grand scheme of a a brandnew plant being gifted away.
This project could have taken us a year and ahalf, and we were capped at a half a million
(14:00):
dollars in liquidated damages.
We got scared.
It was slightly out over our skis.
It was slightly new scope.
We don't just take plants down every singleday.
This is not something we do as our as our corebusiness.
But we had a bunch of people on-site.
(14:21):
We had a 100 and some odd people on-site.
We, I believe, have built this business byfiguring things out.
We say yes first, and then we figure it outlater.
I you know, it's not it's not hard.
And for some reason, this time, we got scared.
(14:45):
We stopped believing in ourselves.
We stopped taking big swings.
And instead, we started to hem and haw and talkabout all the ways this could and would fail.
We didn't talk about all the ways it couldsucceed.
I heard from person after person internally onour teams, oh, this is a bad idea.
(15:08):
Oh, we don't like it.
Oh, we're you know, we we can't do this work.
And I can I can remember the internalconversations we would have where I'm like,
guys, wait a second?
Do you forget how we built this business?
Do you forget that we we took jobs that wereway bigger than we could've and should've been
(15:31):
able to handle, and we figured it out?
Do you forget that at one time, we didn't haveany employees?
We didn't have any ops director.
We didn't have any marketing team.
We didn't have any sales team.
We didn't have an equipment team.
We had me and a few guys in the field, and wefigured it out.
And and I got hit with blank stares.
(15:52):
I got hit with eye rolls.
I got hit with, yeah, but this is different.
We don't do this.
This is a distraction.
I forgot my position.
I forgot that I should be the one to follow mygut and should be the one to take swings and
(16:16):
should be the one to stick to my guns,especially when I believe in it.
And instead, I listened to voices that justquite frankly weren't weren't around.
And some of some of these voices actually werearound when we were taking big swings and
figuring things out.
But but I trusted my folks.
(16:38):
I trusted my team.
I obliged, and I said, you know what?
We're gonna have to really go slow on this, andand let's let's cover off all of our bases.
I challenged everyone to do more homework, morehomework, and I tried to, you know, bring them
all along and, you know, instead of my style,which is say yes and figure it out later.
(16:59):
I said, you know what?
This is making everyone nervous.
They don't like it.
They don't like the customer anymore.
They don't like the scope of work.
Instead of making them nervous and just shovingthis down their throat, I'm just gonna tell
them to all go do more homework and prove tothemselves that we can do it.
Well, the problem with that is it takes time.
And during this time, the people we arearbitraging this plant to, the people we're
(17:25):
trying to sell this plant to, they startgetting a little bit creative.
And they're ready to buy this plant from us.
They're ready to pay us $5,000,000.
Okay?
And as we're negotiating with them, they'relike, okay.
Well, you know, we gotta move this plant to theDakotas, and it's gonna take a while.
(17:45):
We gotta you know?
I and so we start literally ironing out somecontract terms.
In the process of my team doing their duediligence and homework to make themselves feel
good about taking the risk on this project.
And in the process of us negotiating the saleof the plant to a customer, the customer calls
(18:09):
our customer behind our back.
They figure out who to call, how to get aholdof them, which which was, you know, a little
bit interesting because well, I'm not gonna sayany names, but there were some conversations
had that weren't super pleasant.
But they call the customer behind our back, andour customer at this stage thinks we're getting
cold feet because we're taking so long to signthe agreement in front of us, which, again,
(18:35):
this agreement's a slam dunk.
We get a $5,000,000 plant for free.
We just have to take it down.
Our estimation was it was gonna cost ussomewhere between a million and $2,000,000 to
take it down depending on who you ask.
I believe it was closer to a million bucks totake it down.
Some people were closer to $2,000,000 to takeit down.
(18:56):
So it's a $3,000,000 profit for us.
We get the plant for free.
It costs us a million to take it down, and wehave it sold.
All we have to do is sign on the dotted line.
And on top of this, we get paid $3,000,000 togo do the reclamation, which we have probably
50% margin on at that time.
We had a lot of leverage.
(19:16):
They didn't have any places to turn in thatamount of time.
Well, lo and behold, we dicked around.
We screwed around.
We sat on our thumbs like a bunch of scaredlittle girls, and the people we were gonna sell
the plant to negotiated a stew in my opinion,stupid deal with our customer, and they got the
(19:42):
plant for free.
The kicker for them was they had to do all thereclamation.
So not only did they have the million or 2 totake the plant down, they now had the million
or 2 in reclamation costs.
So it's, you know, 3 or $4,000,000 to get a$5,000,000 plant.
(20:02):
Still a pretty good deal, but they cut us outof the deal.
You know, at the twelfth hour, I finally amlike getting ready to sign this contract
because again, I believe this is a goodcontract.
It's a no brainer.
We're gonna make $5,000,000 on this.
We're gonna sell the plant in net two or three.
We're gonna do the reclamation in net two orthree.
Either way you slice it, even if we screw itup, we're making $4,000,000 in profit.
(20:26):
It's a no brainer.
Customer calls me and says, yeah.
You guys you guys jacked us around too long.
You're out.
You're not doing any of it.
You're not doing the reclamation.
The plant's not yours.
By the way, we want your stuff off-site becausewe got somebody coming.
And I'm not lying.
When these guys showed up to start taking theplant down, they made us look like idiots
(20:50):
because they had the whole thing down in twomonths.
We got six to take it down.
They had it down in two months.
Maybe three was the last few loads that had toleave.
I think they had it taken down, shipped acrossthe country, and re set in four months total.
Now they were good at it.
It was their core business.
They were uniquely positioned to go do it.
(21:11):
Good for them.
I'm happy for them.
A bunch of bunch of freaking idiots for cuttingsomeone out of the deal, but good for them.
They made a business decision, and and theytook a swing, and it and it connected for them.
It's a huge mistake by me.
Huge mistake.
Cost us $5,000,000.
$5,000,000 in net profit that would have fallento the bottom line last year.
(21:34):
So right after this, and you can tell this I'mpassionate about this.
I I I am I am hot just telling these stories.
Right after this, another customer pops up outof nowhere.
Never heard of them.
Don't know anything about them.
They seem a little sketchy, and and we're kindof jerking them around.
I've got a little bit of whiplash from thisdeal falling through my hands.
(21:56):
And so I get on the phone with the owner of thecompany of this new customer that pops up.
I talked to him.
Seems like a great guy.
Seems like a a reasonable guy.
The contractor they were using to do theirmining was falling short of their production
targets, and this guy wanted to switch to us.
(22:16):
And and he he said, look.
I'll I'll do whatever you need to do to gethere.
You know?
Send me a mobile, whatever, but I need youhere.
We're not even talking to anybody else.
We're only talking to Turner.
And so, again, my team, they're Hemming andHolland.
And I'm and they're like, we don't we don'ttrust this guy.
He doesn't have any you know, his there'sthere's no financial backing with this company.
(22:37):
They're in tough position.
Like, they're they're not making money.
All the things.
Right?
And I and I I remember looking around.
I said, guys, we just screwed ourselves out ofone of the easiest jobs we could have ever
done.
We could have made four or five million dollarswith a blink of an eye, and we were afraid to
(22:58):
take a swing.
I said, I'm not doing that again.
I trust this guy.
He seems legit.
He sounds legit.
The other people are there.
I know the reputation of the other company thatwas doing the work, and it's not great.
I'm like, we'll come in and look like rockstars.
We'll make this thing for him.
We'll make him money.
It'll make us money.
We're doing it.
I'm not gonna get screwed twice.
(23:19):
We are doing this job.
We're taking it.
Everyone's like, okay.
We got our marching orders.
So what do we do?
We sign a contract.
We ship a bunch of equipment to site.
We ship a bunch of people to site.
We get on-site, and people are like, okay.
This is a little sketchy.
(23:41):
This looks a little weird.
The plant looks there's there's, like, half amillion dollars in citations here.
Nothing's working.
They're gonna need a lot more help.
And we get to work.
And from day one, it was an absolute disasterfrom day one.
(24:06):
Nothing was what they said.
The contract terms that they signed, they hadno clue what they were signing.
They were they were, like, reading us backpages in our contract with a total
misunderstanding of how to even I I don't eventhink some of these guys knew how to read, let
alone decipher contract language.
(24:27):
And long story short, month after month forthree months in a row, we never got paid a
dime.
We did special favor after special favor.
We helped as much as we could help.
And it comes to the final blow where we'reninety days in, a million invested into this
(24:47):
operation, which it's it doesn't take long toinvest a million dollars even on a small
operation.
This was a small operation.
My people are walking in my office saying, hey.
It's a trash fire.
What do you wanna do?
We're we're here.
We did it just like you asked.
We're on-site.
We're moving.
We're not selling any product like we weresupposed to.
The product we are selling is junk.
(25:09):
The customer, nowhere to be found.
You call them, goes to voicemail.
They haven't paid a dime.
They keep promising.
Wire's in wire's on its way.
Check's in the mail.
Never one time got a red cent.
The ninety day mark, I said, I'm I'm pullingthe plug.
Pack all the stuff up.
(25:29):
Move it out.
We're a million dollars in the hole.
We never made a dime.
The customer's never paid us.
Still hasn't paid us.
My auditors are making us write the whole thingoff.
Why do I tell you those two stories?
It's it's, you know, $5.06, $78,000,000 becauseit's not just the million dollars we wrote off.
(25:53):
We we invested a million dollars in hard moneyin that operation.
The opportunity cost on those machines, thatcrew or the multiple crews, the bandwidth of
all of our people that were trying to managethe operation, the trash fire that it was, the
opportunity cost is another million or sodollars.
(26:14):
And so you add it all up, and trust me, I'vedone the math.
You might just have to take me at my word.
When you add it all up, in the worst scenario,my two bad decisions cost us $8,000,000.
In the best scenario, my two bad decisions costus $4,000,000, $5,000,000.
(26:35):
The best case scenario, I lost this 4 or$5,000,000 with two decisions.
Why do I tell you all that?
It's part of the ride.
It's not fun.
I don't tell you that to, like, sound toughand, like like, we've got infinite money.
We don't have infinite money.
$5,000,000 is real money to anybody, let alone,you know, a guy like me.
(27:02):
I tell that to you because that has been mystory week after week, month after month, year
after year for going on nine years of buildinga business.
It's five steps forward and some days, 10 stepsback.
It's big contract win when that prints moneyand money reigns from the heaven to a big
(27:26):
contract loss where you thought it was harmonyand match made in heaven, and next thing you
know, you're divorcing the customer.
It's the ride.
Here's the good part about it, and and there isa good part about losing $4.05, $6.07,
$8,000,000.
The lessons, the people, the experience gained.
(27:54):
In Cody Johnson's second verse, he said, I'vehad some nowhere near it's.
Those two decisions that I made were nowherenear it.
They were nowhere near good decisions.
One of them was a no brainer.
We should've done the contract, And in sixmonths, $4,000,000, $5,000,000 dropped to our
bottom line.
(28:18):
By letting that fall through our hands, we werenowhere near it.
We were nowhere near making the right strategicdecision there for our business, the right
tactical decision that day.
And the next decision was the same thing,nowhere near it.
I should have never trusted that othercustomer.
They didn't have the finances.
I overlooked so many red flags, let alone beigeflags.
(28:41):
The second decision was nowhere near it.
Cody Johnson then says, I've had some almostwases.
I believe they were both almost wases.
What if it would have been a good customer?
It was almost a good customer.
What if the first contract would have landed?
I and we almost made the 4 or $5,000,000.
What would I do with that money right now?
(29:06):
He goes on to say, because what I should havedone and what I could have been And even
knowing now what I didn't know then, I'd climbback on again because the ride was worth the
fall.
This is the point.
The point is some of you guys that are goingthrough this stuff and again, this is not to be
(29:32):
motivational.
It's not to be inspirational.
It's I'm I'm trying to be as real as I canbecause you don't see this stuff on Instagram.
You don't see YouTube videos about it.
I mean, sure there's some books about businessguys taking massive losses and then converting
them to massive wins or pivoting theirbusiness.
But you don't you don't get this stuff onLinkedIn from normal people that are building a
(29:54):
company.
You don't get this on on, you know, the WallStreet Journal from the guy that's built the
$2.03, $400,000,000 company.
This is stuff that's like behind the scenes.
These are the things that most CEOs, mostleaders don't ever want you to know.
They don't want you to know they're badmistakes.
But the beauty is it is part of the ride.
(30:16):
Like, staying alive one more day, fighting onemore month, grinding as a business one more
year, eventually, at some point, those losses,the moments where you are feeling like, man,
I'm part of the fall right now.
I'm in the fall.
I'm a free fall.
(30:38):
That's what makes you tougher, stronger, morewell positioned, more uniquely positioned, more
strategic, more thoughtful for the nextchapter.
That's what ultimately brings success.
I couldn't talk about any of this withoutliving through it.
I couldn't I couldn't, like, use these twoterrible decisions I made last year.
(31:05):
I couldn't use them to make better decisionsthis year if I hadn't have made the terrible
decisions last year.
I've made bad decisions on people.
I've fired people too soon, and I should havekept them longer.
I've held people too long, and I should havefired them sooner.
We've made a marketing pivot and should havedone one thing when in reality, looking back,
(31:25):
we should have done something different.
We sold to one customer that we should'vestayed away from.
It's part of the ride.
And I really believe it'll be interesting tosee where my journey goes, you know, over the
next twenty, thirty years in my career, howeverlong I'm blessed to to do this.
But it will be interesting to see when I get towhatever the end of this ride looks like,
(31:50):
whether I hand the keys to someone else to runthese businesses or we sell them to somebody
and and there's just a bunch of money or theyjust end in a fireball.
Who knows?
I believe I will look back and say, man, what aride.
Look at all the memories.
(32:11):
Look at all the miles.
Look at all the people we met and got to dobusiness with.
Look at all the people that got to work with uson our teams.
Look at all the states we traveled to,countries we traveled to.
Like, look at the ripples that then turned intowaves that made impacts across industries.
(32:31):
Like, at the end of all of it, we don't get totake the money.
People forget our names.
Like, there's no statues of Keaton Turner.
Even if there was a statue someday, peopleforget.
People stick chewed up gum on these statues.
People paint them and deface them when, youknow, Black Lives Matter crew runs into town or
whatever.
Like, the statues come down.
(32:53):
Nobody ultimately is ever really remembered inhistory for that long.
Right?
There's one guy, but I've already preached onhim.
People forget you.
So, you don't take the money.
You don't take the legacy.
Like, it's about the ride.
It's about the journey.
It's about the experience.
(33:13):
It's about living this human experience whilewe're here doing it.
And unfortunately, this is the part where itfeels like ball kickings.
This is the part that gets us frustrated.
This is the part that gets us bummed out.
This is the part that leads to the stress, theanxiety.
Like, this is the part that when things don'tgo our way, we get down and out.
(33:36):
It's the ride.
This is the this is the whole thing.
Because at the end, I think we all look backand think, man, the ride, that was it.
That was it.
I don't know if any of this makes any sense,but if nothing else, I seem a little bit more
(33:56):
human and relatable, and you guys now knowwhoop.
Hold on.
Sorry.
I dropped my microphone.
That was wild.
The clip broke off.
Or maybe the magnet just oh, there we go.
If nothing else, you guys realize that takingbig swings also means making big mistakes and
(34:21):
having huge strikeouts.
You know, all these companies that are bettingbig and winning big, they are also usually
betting big and losing big.
You just don't see their losses.
You don't see you don't see what they write offon the balance sheet at the end of the year.
You don't see the people don't talk about them.
(34:41):
They sweep them under the rugs.
And so I just I want to be real.
I want other people to learn from the mistakesI'm making.
And what I what I take from those two mistakeswas one, obviously, first and foremost, trust
your people, no doubt.
Believe in your people.
Trust your people to do a good job.
But at the end of the day, so goes leadership,so goes the company.
(35:06):
And if the company doesn't have a leader, it'sa dangerous position to be in.
And when I fail to lead, I've lived this Idon't know how many examples over now, when I
fail to lead, when I fail to make the decisionthat I think is right for the organization, bad
(35:27):
things happen.
And when I overcompensate, because I because,again, I swung the pendulum too far one way.
Right?
We missed an opportunity, and I didn't wannamiss another one, so I swung the pendulum too
far.
And I listened to my team the first time, andthen I didn't listen to my team the second
time.
Some of these are just you're gonna take shotsand miss, and and I I'm I'm just a believer in
(35:53):
that.
Some of these are your gut can every once in awhile lie to you, and that's okay.
That's usually when you take a shot and miss.
But, man, don't get too down in that.
Don't get too discouraged.
Don't hold on to it too long because there'sanother chapter, and it doesn't have to end
(36:15):
this way.
It really it really doesn't have to end thisway.
It can end with learning and applying theterrible moment for the new chapter.
Here's what I'll tell you, and and I wannarelate this back to the song.
He says, the smiles were worth the tears.
The tears were worth the miles.
The miles were worth the pain.
The pain was worth it all.
(36:36):
In both of those terrible decisions I made thatcost us money, one of them one of them was just
an opportunity cost.
The other one actually cost us hard money.
In both of those poor decisions, we have had somany amazing people come to our team who are
still on our team, by the way, from those twoterrible projects.
(37:00):
The one prod the first story I told you, theone project, I don't know how many dozens of
people stayed on our team for a long time.
Some of them are still here because of thatsingle project.
So we got we're we're still getting a lastingimpact in the efforts that they're using to
lead our company.
One guy specifically has has led severalsuccessful projects for us, and he came from
(37:22):
that first project.
So we wouldn't have him without it.
The second story I told you, we still havepeople from that operation, people that we
would have never had on the team, people thatwe didn't never cross paths with.
And so I believe in these terrible decisions wemake, there's always a silver lining.
And and you gotta choose how you're gonna lookat it.
(37:44):
These little ripples that look negative,sometimes the waves look big and and scary and
crashing down.
Every once in a while, these little rippleshave a positive effect.
Even amidst the storm around you and howterrible it looks like, man, we have to write
off a million dollars in receivables from thiscustomer.
(38:04):
But we got some really good things out it.
A, I learned a lesson.
B, we put some new process in place.
Our CFO helped with that.
C, we got some good people out of it.
So some total loss.
Still hurts.
It still sucks.
It's still an ego shot to me, but I've neverchased a perfect record.
I've never chased all wins.
I always embrace the losses and the lessonsthat the losses teach.
(38:29):
That's that's where the beauty is.
That's the ride.
So I hope you guys got something out of this.
I know I've been kind of a little bit all overthe place here lately.
Some of these I know are seeming moreinspirational.
That's not the intent.
I wanted to tell that story.
I did not mean to leave you on a cliffhanger.
I I got tied up.
I went to dinner.
(38:49):
On the way home from dinner, I got a phonecall.
I just one thing led to another.
I had to push pause on my recording.
And by the time I sat down to finish recordingit, I was like, you know what?
I don't have the mental capacity to tell thesetwo stories.
So I hope you got something out of the twostories.
If you're listening and you were involved inone of those two stories, you know, think, hey,
(39:10):
thank you for your contributions unless you'rethe reason I made the wrong decision.
In that case, you're dead to me.
No.
But seriously, thanks for thanks for listeningto the stories, and hopefully some hopefully,
it makes someone else's terrible decision stinga little less.
Hopefully, it makes someone else's bad yearsting a little less because that would've that
(39:32):
would've really made us had a banner year kindathere at the end in in q four.
Adding $56,000,000 to the bottom line would'vebeen, would've been something special.
So, you know, it's part of it, part of theride, part of the journey, part of the dance.
Hope you got some value out of it, and andwe'll keep doing this.
We're gonna keep the podcast alive for anotherday.
(39:54):
We're gonna keep trying to earn our per diem,and I pray you tune back in one more day.
Peace.
Got no limits.
Man, I had to leave you on a cliffhanger.
I had to.
I didn't have a choice.
That wasn't by design.
I promise.
That was not by design.
Design.
I was right on the edge of the cliff, and wegot stuck with a cliffhanger.
(01:49):
Welcome back to the Purdium Podcast.
I'm Keaton Turner.
We're doing it another day.
This is part two.
I didn't even I didn't even intend to make thisa two part series, but this is part two of the
ride is worth the fall.
Last episode, I opened up with with CodyJohnson.
(02:12):
This episode, I do the same, and I I left youon a cliff talking about my two biggest
mistakes of last year.
I made a ton of mistakes last year, but I hadtwo big ones.
Two big ones that cost me somewhere between 6and $8,000,000.
I'm gonna unpack them, And I'm gonna tell youwhy I'm even sharing that.
(02:36):
I don't share that to humble brag.
I don't share that to one up your loss.
And if you got a loss bigger than 6,000,000 oror $8,000,000, please share it with me.
Love to hear it.
I'll tell you why I wanna share those.
But first, what's happening today, I I playedgolf early this morning.
Friday morning, we went out.
(02:56):
It's it's like 96 degrees and a 140% humidityhere.
So we teed off early and and got done early.
I won a little bit of money.
Played decent.
Not great.
Not terrible.
A decent round.
But I won some money, so I never complainedwith that.
(03:18):
Know, rebuilding some things, trying some newthings in business, stuff I'll talk about
later.
You know, we've had some changes recently and aa staff member or two.
We've had a, you know, a few changes out in thefield, building things.
We're always tweaking something.
Everything can be improved.
Even the things that are working really wellcan always be improved.
(03:40):
So we're always tweaking, always chasingimprovements.
But staying true to the theme of this two partseries, I'm gonna jump right in to the fall,
and why Cody Johnson describes the ride beingworth the fall, and and why I think we focus
(04:05):
too much on the destination and not the not theride, not the climb.
We focus too much on the someday.
Someday, I'll get it.
Someday, when I have more money.
Someday, when I have that that perfect marriageor that perfect house.
Someday, when I'm in a different stage of life.
Someday, when my kids are grown up and they'renot toddlers, I don't have to do every single
(04:28):
thing for them.
You know, someday, when I'm not putting out afire every day in my business and having to
manage every single person in the business, youknow, someday when we have a leadership team
and we've got things figured out and we've got,you know, like, a real self sustaining
business, someday when we have a bunch ofrepeat customers and it just works and I don't
(04:50):
have to grind for every sale.
We all chase the someday, and and I think the Ithink the beauty's in the ride.
I think the beauty's in the climb.
Garth Brooks says the dance.
You know, I think there's a ton of beauty inthat, but it's hard to know that when you're
(05:12):
going through it.
Last year, I made a couple really poordecisions, and and by the time I realized I was
making poor decisions, it was too late.
I couldn't unwind it.
These were big strategic I don't wanna say likesuper strategic.
They were somewhat tactical.
Actually, probably the perfect blend ofstrategy and tactical decision making.
(05:37):
But we had a customer who we had been doingbusiness with for for a couple years, and and
it was going fine.
It was a good customer.
It was a big investment for the customer.
They were getting into a new part of businessthat they you know, they they didn't operate
mines.
They weren't a mining company.
And so for them to open up a new mine and pickus as their mining partner, not only their
(06:02):
development contractor, we developed the fullmine from Greenfield.
They also were like their own geologists.
They were their own mine planners.
They had some engineering firms workingalongside, but they really didn't pay a whole
lot of attention or respect to the expertise ofthe engineering firms they hired, which is a
(06:24):
whole different episode probably.
And so we're we're operating this kindahaphazard mind plan with some with a client who
has never, you know, operated a mine before,never ran a mine before, and definitely had
never done a greenfield project to this extent.
And so one day comes along and, you know, as asa bunch of people had been telling the customer
(06:51):
for a long time, you know, this product isgonna be expensive.
When you compare the product we were making,and I say we, you know, we were doing all the
mining, both both, you know, wet mining belowwater and dry mining above water.
We were running the plants, a brand new, bigplant processing facility.
(07:14):
We're doing all the customer load out, loadingout of the trucks.
The product was expensive.
When you look at how we were mining it, youknow, the means and methods in which we were
trying to get moisture and waste out of thematerial, it was just it was an expensive
product compared to what you could buy the sameproduct for on the fair market.
(07:37):
And so we knew this.
We knew this going in.
But the kind of perfect storm brewed and thethe the quality of the market not the quality.
The quality of the material we were miningstarted to get worse as the mine continued to
go deeper and develop.
So the quality of the material got worse, whichmade the cost per ton go up because there's
(08:01):
more waste, less yield.
At the same time that's happening, the marketis coming down in price to go buy this material
elsewhere.
And so a decision, to spare you of all thejuicy details, a decision was made to shut the
mine down.
This mine had only been operating for, I don'tknow, eighteen months or so.
(08:22):
And so a decision was made.
We're gonna shut the mine down.
It's no longer economically feasible, based onwhat we're seeing in the markets.
And this happens all the time in mining.
This is not new.
What you know, when gold prices fall, minesshut down.
When copper prices fall, mines shut down.
When lithium prices crash, huge megamultibillion dollar lithium mines don't develop
(08:48):
on time, on schedule the way they were supposedto develop.
So this is mining.
Right?
That we're not new to this.
Our our feelings don't get hurt.
We have contractual ramifications for all this,and all the contracts worked the way they were
supposed to.
And so we begin winding down the mine.
And at some point, the customer comes to us andsays, hey.
We have reclamation requirements.
(09:09):
We're we're shutting this mine down for good.
We kinda thought maybe they're just gonna pausemining and go into care and maintenance for a
while, but they decided, you know what?
We're not a mining company.
We took our shot.
We missed.
We're gonna shut this mine down, and we'regonna reclaim the whole thing.
Like, wow.
Okay.
This is a big decision to make in the last, youknow, two weeks.
(09:29):
But, hey.
We'll do whatever you want.
So so they come to us and say, look.
We need you to reclaim the site.
We'll pay you to reclaim it.
And they had a price.
And I think the price was somewhere in the$3,000,000 range because we didn't have it was
a very small footprint at that time.
We didn't have a ton of reclamation to do.
It's not like there were trillions of yards ofdirt to go move.
(09:52):
It was some light grading, some seating, somedemo of some structures, nothing crazy.
So the site reclamation was $3,000,000.
They then had a processing plant, brand new.
I think, you know, the plant had been therefor, like, eighteen months.
And they start I don't know.
(10:19):
I'm gonna try to not get myself in in troublebecause I don't know who listens to this.
They start asking us, hey.
What if we what if we just gave you guys allthe processing facilities, all the plant
equipment?
There's like two huge buildings.
One of them is 580 feet long, modularbuildings.
The other one's 350 feet long.
(10:42):
You know, I think all in, they were like$50,000,000 into this plant.
All the processing equipment, the screens, theconveyors, the stackers, the thickeners, the
buildings, all of this.
I said, what if we just give it to you for freeif you take it all down and get it off the site
(11:02):
in the next six months?
And I'm like, okay.
I'm listening.
I love a good deal.
Now, the problem was six months was tight.
And so when we started to evaluate thisinternally, we loved the deal.
Like, was like, guys, this is a slam dunk.
(11:23):
This is a no brainer.
They're gonna give us all of this.
I'll take the buildings down.
I will have them shipped.
It was gonna cost about half a million dollarsto have these buildings, you know, assem you
know, shipped and reassembled in Indiana.
And so, literally, we could have had thesebuildings torn down, shipped to Indiana for a
(11:44):
half million dollars and and reassembled, andwe'd have two massive buildings where we could
store parts, equipment, whatever.
Didn't need it, but, again, it's one of thosethings.
We then also started to arbitrage our ourposition, and arbitrage just means make a sale
on something that you don't currently ownbefore you own it.
(12:05):
So we were trying to sell this plant before weactually had possession of it.
So we were trying to arbitrage our position.
We're going out to the market.
We're talking to people that would buy thissort of processing plant.
And at the same time, we're trying to sell thisplant to people.
We're trying to negotiate the contract for thisreclamation and the assumption of the teardown
(12:32):
of this facility.
And so what happens, and I just I even hatetelling this story.
What happens is we get scared.
We get scared.
Our teams evaluate all the nuts and bolts.
We get quotes.
We start taking in crane hours.
(12:53):
How many hours of the you know, this sizecrane?
How many hours of that size crane?
We start assembling crews to start tearing downand and demob.
It's it's something like, I don't know, 300semi loads.
And these are like lowboy semis.
These aren't like dump trucks.
300 semi loads that have to be, you know,coordinated and shit.
(13:14):
So it was a a massive undertaking.
As we're navigating this and again, thecustomer is gonna pay us $3,000,000, and then
they're going to, on top of that, give us forfree this whole plant.
The only kicker is we have to take it down.
It's the only kicker.
You just have to take it down and get itoff-site in six months.
(13:37):
And if you can't get it off-site in six months,there are liquidated damages.
I don't even wanna tell you what the liquidateddamages were because they're irrelevant.
They're just to be honest with you, they'reirrelevant.
I think they were capped at like a half amillion dollars.
So so nothing in the grand scheme of a a brandnew plant being gifted away.
This project could have taken us a year and ahalf, and we were capped at a half a million
(14:00):
dollars in liquidated damages.
We got scared.
It was slightly out over our skis.
It was slightly new scope.
We don't just take plants down every singleday.
This is not something we do as our as our corebusiness.
But we had a bunch of people on-site.
(14:21):
We had a 100 and some odd people on-site.
We, I believe, have built this business byfiguring things out.
We say yes first, and then we figure it outlater.
I you know, it's not it's not hard.
And for some reason, this time, we got scared.
(14:45):
We stopped believing in ourselves.
We stopped taking big swings.
And instead, we started to hem and haw and talkabout all the ways this could and would fail.
We didn't talk about all the ways it couldsucceed.
I heard from person after person internally onour teams, oh, this is a bad idea.
(15:08):
Oh, we don't like it.
Oh, we're you know, we we can't do this work.
And I can I can remember the internalconversations we would have where I'm like,
guys, wait a second?
Do you forget how we built this business?
Do you forget that we we took jobs that wereway bigger than we could've and should've been
(15:31):
able to handle, and we figured it out?
Do you forget that at one time, we didn't haveany employees?
We didn't have any ops director.
We didn't have any marketing team.
We didn't have any sales team.
We didn't have an equipment team.
We had me and a few guys in the field, and wefigured it out.
And and I got hit with blank stares.
(15:52):
I got hit with eye rolls.
I got hit with, yeah, but this is different.
We don't do this.
This is a distraction.
I forgot my position.
I forgot that I should be the one to follow mygut and should be the one to take swings and
(16:16):
should be the one to stick to my guns,especially when I believe in it.
And instead, I listened to voices that justquite frankly weren't weren't around.
And some of some of these voices actually werearound when we were taking big swings and
figuring things out.
But but I trusted my folks.
(16:38):
I trusted my team.
I obliged, and I said, you know what?
We're gonna have to really go slow on this, andand let's let's cover off all of our bases.
I challenged everyone to do more homework, morehomework, and I tried to, you know, bring them
all along and, you know, instead of my style,which is say yes and figure it out later.
(16:59):
I said, you know what?
This is making everyone nervous.
They don't like it.
They don't like the customer anymore.
They don't like the scope of work.
Instead of making them nervous and just shovingthis down their throat, I'm just gonna tell
them to all go do more homework and prove tothemselves that we can do it.
Well, the problem with that is it takes time.
And during this time, the people we arearbitraging this plant to, the people we're
(17:25):
trying to sell this plant to, they startgetting a little bit creative.
And they're ready to buy this plant from us.
They're ready to pay us $5,000,000.
Okay?
And as we're negotiating with them, they'relike, okay.
Well, you know, we gotta move this plant to theDakotas, and it's gonna take a while.
(17:45):
We gotta you know?
I and so we start literally ironing out somecontract terms.
In the process of my team doing their duediligence and homework to make themselves feel
good about taking the risk on this project.
And in the process of us negotiating the saleof the plant to a customer, the customer calls
(18:09):
our customer behind our back.
They figure out who to call, how to get aholdof them, which which was, you know, a little
bit interesting because well, I'm not gonna sayany names, but there were some conversations
had that weren't super pleasant.
But they call the customer behind our back, andour customer at this stage thinks we're getting
cold feet because we're taking so long to signthe agreement in front of us, which, again,
(18:35):
this agreement's a slam dunk.
We get a $5,000,000 plant for free.
We just have to take it down.
Our estimation was it was gonna cost ussomewhere between a million and $2,000,000 to
take it down depending on who you ask.
I believe it was closer to a million bucks totake it down.
Some people were closer to $2,000,000 to takeit down.
(18:56):
So it's a $3,000,000 profit for us.
We get the plant for free.
It costs us a million to take it down, and wehave it sold.
All we have to do is sign on the dotted line.
And on top of this, we get paid $3,000,000 togo do the reclamation, which we have probably
50% margin on at that time.
We had a lot of leverage.
(19:16):
They didn't have any places to turn in thatamount of time.
Well, lo and behold, we dicked around.
We screwed around.
We sat on our thumbs like a bunch of scaredlittle girls, and the people we were gonna sell
the plant to negotiated a stew in my opinion,stupid deal with our customer, and they got the
(19:42):
plant for free.
The kicker for them was they had to do all thereclamation.
So not only did they have the million or 2 totake the plant down, they now had the million
or 2 in reclamation costs.
So it's, you know, 3 or $4,000,000 to get a$5,000,000 plant.
(20:02):
Still a pretty good deal, but they cut us outof the deal.
You know, at the twelfth hour, I finally amlike getting ready to sign this contract
because again, I believe this is a goodcontract.
It's a no brainer.
We're gonna make $5,000,000 on this.
We're gonna sell the plant in net two or three.
We're gonna do the reclamation in net two orthree.
Either way you slice it, even if we screw itup, we're making $4,000,000 in profit.
(20:26):
It's a no brainer.
Customer calls me and says, yeah.
You guys you guys jacked us around too long.
You're out.
You're not doing any of it.
You're not doing the reclamation.
The plant's not yours.
By the way, we want your stuff off-site becausewe got somebody coming.
And I'm not lying.
When these guys showed up to start taking theplant down, they made us look like idiots
(20:50):
because they had the whole thing down in twomonths.
We got six to take it down.
They had it down in two months.
Maybe three was the last few loads that had toleave.
I think they had it taken down, shipped acrossthe country, and re set in four months total.
Now they were good at it.
It was their core business.
They were uniquely positioned to go do it.
(21:11):
Good for them.
I'm happy for them.
A bunch of bunch of freaking idiots for cuttingsomeone out of the deal, but good for them.
They made a business decision, and and theytook a swing, and it and it connected for them.
It's a huge mistake by me.
Huge mistake.
Cost us $5,000,000.
$5,000,000 in net profit that would have fallento the bottom line last year.
(21:34):
So right after this, and you can tell this I'mpassionate about this.
I I I am I am hot just telling these stories.
Right after this, another customer pops up outof nowhere.
Never heard of them.
Don't know anything about them.
They seem a little sketchy, and and we're kindof jerking them around.
I've got a little bit of whiplash from thisdeal falling through my hands.
(21:56):
And so I get on the phone with the owner of thecompany of this new customer that pops up.
I talked to him.
Seems like a great guy.
Seems like a a reasonable guy.
The contractor they were using to do theirmining was falling short of their production
targets, and this guy wanted to switch to us.
(22:16):
And and he he said, look.
I'll I'll do whatever you need to do to gethere.
You know?
Send me a mobile, whatever, but I need youhere.
We're not even talking to anybody else.
We're only talking to Turner.
And so, again, my team, they're Hemming andHolland.
And I'm and they're like, we don't we don'ttrust this guy.
He doesn't have any you know, his there'sthere's no financial backing with this company.
(22:37):
They're in tough position.
Like, they're they're not making money.
All the things.
Right?
And I and I I remember looking around.
I said, guys, we just screwed ourselves out ofone of the easiest jobs we could have ever
done.
We could have made four or five million dollarswith a blink of an eye, and we were afraid to
(22:58):
take a swing.
I said, I'm not doing that again.
I trust this guy.
He seems legit.
He sounds legit.
The other people are there.
I know the reputation of the other company thatwas doing the work, and it's not great.
I'm like, we'll come in and look like rockstars.
We'll make this thing for him.
We'll make him money.
It'll make us money.
We're doing it.
I'm not gonna get screwed twice.
(23:19):
We are doing this job.
We're taking it.
Everyone's like, okay.
We got our marching orders.
So what do we do?
We sign a contract.
We ship a bunch of equipment to site.
We ship a bunch of people to site.
We get on-site, and people are like, okay.
This is a little sketchy.
(23:41):
This looks a little weird.
The plant looks there's there's, like, half amillion dollars in citations here.
Nothing's working.
They're gonna need a lot more help.
And we get to work.
And from day one, it was an absolute disasterfrom day one.
(24:06):
Nothing was what they said.
The contract terms that they signed, they hadno clue what they were signing.
They were they were, like, reading us backpages in our contract with a total
misunderstanding of how to even I I don't eventhink some of these guys knew how to read, let
alone decipher contract language.
(24:27):
And long story short, month after month forthree months in a row, we never got paid a
dime.
We did special favor after special favor.
We helped as much as we could help.
And it comes to the final blow where we'reninety days in, a million invested into this
(24:47):
operation, which it's it doesn't take long toinvest a million dollars even on a small
operation.
This was a small operation.
My people are walking in my office saying, hey.
It's a trash fire.
What do you wanna do?
We're we're here.
We did it just like you asked.
We're on-site.
We're moving.
We're not selling any product like we weresupposed to.
The product we are selling is junk.
(25:09):
The customer, nowhere to be found.
You call them, goes to voicemail.
They haven't paid a dime.
They keep promising.
Wire's in wire's on its way.
Check's in the mail.
Never one time got a red cent.
The ninety day mark, I said, I'm I'm pullingthe plug.
Pack all the stuff up.
(25:29):
Move it out.
We're a million dollars in the hole.
We never made a dime.
The customer's never paid us.
Still hasn't paid us.
My auditors are making us write the whole thingoff.
Why do I tell you those two stories?
It's it's, you know, $5.06, $78,000,000 becauseit's not just the million dollars we wrote off.
(25:53):
We we invested a million dollars in hard moneyin that operation.
The opportunity cost on those machines, thatcrew or the multiple crews, the bandwidth of
all of our people that were trying to managethe operation, the trash fire that it was, the
opportunity cost is another million or sodollars.
(26:14):
And so you add it all up, and trust me, I'vedone the math.
You might just have to take me at my word.
When you add it all up, in the worst scenario,my two bad decisions cost us $8,000,000.
In the best scenario, my two bad decisions costus $4,000,000, $5,000,000.
(26:35):
The best case scenario, I lost this 4 or$5,000,000 with two decisions.
Why do I tell you all that?
It's part of the ride.
It's not fun.
I don't tell you that to, like, sound toughand, like like, we've got infinite money.
We don't have infinite money.
$5,000,000 is real money to anybody, let alone,you know, a guy like me.
(27:02):
I tell that to you because that has been mystory week after week, month after month, year
after year for going on nine years of buildinga business.
It's five steps forward and some days, 10 stepsback.
It's big contract win when that prints moneyand money reigns from the heaven to a big
(27:26):
contract loss where you thought it was harmonyand match made in heaven, and next thing you
know, you're divorcing the customer.
It's the ride.
Here's the good part about it, and and there isa good part about losing $4.05, $6.07,
$8,000,000.
The lessons, the people, the experience gained.
(27:54):
In Cody Johnson's second verse, he said, I'vehad some nowhere near it's.
Those two decisions that I made were nowherenear it.
They were nowhere near good decisions.
One of them was a no brainer.
We should've done the contract, And in sixmonths, $4,000,000, $5,000,000 dropped to our
bottom line.
(28:18):
By letting that fall through our hands, we werenowhere near it.
We were nowhere near making the right strategicdecision there for our business, the right
tactical decision that day.
And the next decision was the same thing,nowhere near it.
I should have never trusted that othercustomer.
They didn't have the finances.
I overlooked so many red flags, let alone beigeflags.
(28:41):
The second decision was nowhere near it.
Cody Johnson then says, I've had some almostwases.
I believe they were both almost wases.
What if it would have been a good customer?
It was almost a good customer.
What if the first contract would have landed?
I and we almost made the 4 or $5,000,000.
What would I do with that money right now?
(29:06):
He goes on to say, because what I should havedone and what I could have been And even
knowing now what I didn't know then, I'd climbback on again because the ride was worth the
fall.
This is the point.
The point is some of you guys that are goingthrough this stuff and again, this is not to be
(29:32):
motivational.
It's not to be inspirational.
It's I'm I'm trying to be as real as I canbecause you don't see this stuff on Instagram.
You don't see YouTube videos about it.
I mean, sure there's some books about businessguys taking massive losses and then converting
them to massive wins or pivoting theirbusiness.
But you don't you don't get this stuff onLinkedIn from normal people that are building a
(29:54):
company.
You don't get this on on, you know, the WallStreet Journal from the guy that's built the
$2.03, $400,000,000 company.
This is stuff that's like behind the scenes.
These are the things that most CEOs, mostleaders don't ever want you to know.
They don't want you to know they're badmistakes.
But the beauty is it is part of the ride.
(30:16):
Like, staying alive one more day, fighting onemore month, grinding as a business one more
year, eventually, at some point, those losses,the moments where you are feeling like, man,
I'm part of the fall right now.
I'm in the fall.
I'm a free fall.
(30:38):
That's what makes you tougher, stronger, morewell positioned, more uniquely positioned, more
strategic, more thoughtful for the nextchapter.
That's what ultimately brings success.
I couldn't talk about any of this withoutliving through it.
I couldn't I couldn't, like, use these twoterrible decisions I made last year.
(31:05):
I couldn't use them to make better decisionsthis year if I hadn't have made the terrible
decisions last year.
I've made bad decisions on people.
I've fired people too soon, and I should havekept them longer.
I've held people too long, and I should havefired them sooner.
We've made a marketing pivot and should havedone one thing when in reality, looking back,
(31:25):
we should have done something different.
We sold to one customer that we should'vestayed away from.
It's part of the ride.
And I really believe it'll be interesting tosee where my journey goes, you know, over the
next twenty, thirty years in my career, howeverlong I'm blessed to to do this.
But it will be interesting to see when I get towhatever the end of this ride looks like,
(31:50):
whether I hand the keys to someone else to runthese businesses or we sell them to somebody
and and there's just a bunch of money or theyjust end in a fireball.
Who knows?
I believe I will look back and say, man, what aride.
Look at all the memories.
(32:11):
Look at all the miles.
Look at all the people we met and got to dobusiness with.
Look at all the people that got to work with uson our teams.
Look at all the states we traveled to,countries we traveled to.
Like, look at the ripples that then turned intowaves that made impacts across industries.
(32:31):
Like, at the end of all of it, we don't get totake the money.
People forget our names.
Like, there's no statues of Keaton Turner.
Even if there was a statue someday, peopleforget.
People stick chewed up gum on these statues.
People paint them and deface them when, youknow, Black Lives Matter crew runs into town or
whatever.
Like, the statues come down.
(32:53):
Nobody ultimately is ever really remembered inhistory for that long.
Right?
There's one guy, but I've already preached onhim.
People forget you.
So, you don't take the money.
You don't take the legacy.
Like, it's about the ride.
It's about the journey.
It's about the experience.
(33:13):
It's about living this human experience whilewe're here doing it.
And unfortunately, this is the part where itfeels like ball kickings.
This is the part that gets us frustrated.
This is the part that gets us bummed out.
This is the part that leads to the stress, theanxiety.
Like, this is the part that when things don'tgo our way, we get down and out.
(33:36):
It's the ride.
This is the this is the whole thing.
Because at the end, I think we all look backand think, man, the ride, that was it.
That was it.
I don't know if any of this makes any sense,but if nothing else, I seem a little bit more
(33:56):
human and relatable, and you guys now knowwhoop.
Hold on.
Sorry.
I dropped my microphone.
That was wild.
The clip broke off.
Or maybe the magnet just oh, there we go.
If nothing else, you guys realize that takingbig swings also means making big mistakes and
(34:21):
having huge strikeouts.
You know, all these companies that are bettingbig and winning big, they are also usually
betting big and losing big.
You just don't see their losses.
You don't see you don't see what they write offon the balance sheet at the end of the year.
You don't see the people don't talk about them.
(34:41):
They sweep them under the rugs.
And so I just I want to be real.
I want other people to learn from the mistakesI'm making.
And what I what I take from those two mistakeswas one, obviously, first and foremost, trust
your people, no doubt.
Believe in your people.
Trust your people to do a good job.
But at the end of the day, so goes leadership,so goes the company.
(35:06):
And if the company doesn't have a leader, it'sa dangerous position to be in.
And when I fail to lead, I've lived this Idon't know how many examples over now, when I
fail to lead, when I fail to make the decisionthat I think is right for the organization, bad
(35:27):
things happen.
And when I overcompensate, because I because,again, I swung the pendulum too far one way.
Right?
We missed an opportunity, and I didn't wannamiss another one, so I swung the pendulum too
far.
And I listened to my team the first time, andthen I didn't listen to my team the second
time.
Some of these are just you're gonna take shotsand miss, and and I I'm I'm just a believer in
(35:53):
that.
Some of these are your gut can every once in awhile lie to you, and that's okay.
That's usually when you take a shot and miss.
But, man, don't get too down in that.
Don't get too discouraged.
Don't hold on to it too long because there'sanother chapter, and it doesn't have to end
(36:15):
this way.
It really it really doesn't have to end thisway.
It can end with learning and applying theterrible moment for the new chapter.
Here's what I'll tell you, and and I wannarelate this back to the song.
He says, the smiles were worth the tears.
The tears were worth the miles.
The miles were worth the pain.
The pain was worth it all.
(36:36):
In both of those terrible decisions I made thatcost us money, one of them one of them was just
an opportunity cost.
The other one actually cost us hard money.
In both of those poor decisions, we have had somany amazing people come to our team who are
still on our team, by the way, from those twoterrible projects.
(37:00):
The one prod the first story I told you, theone project, I don't know how many dozens of
people stayed on our team for a long time.
Some of them are still here because of thatsingle project.
So we got we're we're still getting a lastingimpact in the efforts that they're using to
lead our company.
One guy specifically has has led severalsuccessful projects for us, and he came from
(37:22):
that first project.
So we wouldn't have him without it.
The second story I told you, we still havepeople from that operation, people that we
would have never had on the team, people thatwe didn't never cross paths with.
And so I believe in these terrible decisions wemake, there's always a silver lining.
And and you gotta choose how you're gonna lookat it.
(37:44):
These little ripples that look negative,sometimes the waves look big and and scary and
crashing down.
Every once in a while, these little rippleshave a positive effect.
Even amidst the storm around you and howterrible it looks like, man, we have to write
off a million dollars in receivables from thiscustomer.
(38:04):
But we got some really good things out it.
A, I learned a lesson.
B, we put some new process in place.
Our CFO helped with that.
C, we got some good people out of it.
So some total loss.
Still hurts.
It still sucks.
It's still an ego shot to me, but I've neverchased a perfect record.
I've never chased all wins.
I always embrace the losses and the lessonsthat the losses teach.
(38:29):
That's that's where the beauty is.
That's the ride.
So I hope you guys got something out of this.
I know I've been kind of a little bit all overthe place here lately.
Some of these I know are seeming moreinspirational.
That's not the intent.
I wanted to tell that story.
I did not mean to leave you on a cliffhanger.
I I got tied up.
I went to dinner.
(38:49):
On the way home from dinner, I got a phonecall.
I just one thing led to another.
I had to push pause on my recording.
And by the time I sat down to finish recordingit, I was like, you know what?
I don't have the mental capacity to tell thesetwo stories.
So I hope you got something out of the twostories.
If you're listening and you were involved inone of those two stories, you know, think, hey,
(39:10):
thank you for your contributions unless you'rethe reason I made the wrong decision.
In that case, you're dead to me.
No.
But seriously, thanks for thanks for listeningto the stories, and hopefully some hopefully,
it makes someone else's terrible decision stinga little less.
Hopefully, it makes someone else's bad yearsting a little less because that would've that
(39:32):
would've really made us had a banner year kindathere at the end in in q four.
Adding $56,000,000 to the bottom line would'vebeen, would've been something special.
So, you know, it's part of it, part of theride, part of the journey, part of the dance.
Hope you got some value out of it, and andwe'll keep doing this.
We're gonna keep the podcast alive for anotherday.
(39:54):
We're gonna keep trying to earn our per diem,and I pray you tune back in one more day.
Peace.
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