Timeless Movement
Mindset and lifestyle podcast with luxury woven in, where we deep dive into craftsmanship, design, and mindset.
Timeless Movement
A Builder’s Journey
The moment that changes everything doesn’t always look heroic. For Casey, it was a dusty backyard bandsaw, reclaimed beams full of nails, and a teenager’s first glimpse of meaningful work. From there he built a life in remodeling, took detours through global aid, and learned the hard way how purpose, family, and craft can fit together when the plans on paper fall apart.
We dig into what travel really teaches—how to tell the difference between aid that lasts and projects that only look good in photos—and why the 2008 crash forced a reckoning with sustainability. Casey shares the rise and sudden collapse of a fast-growing construction company, the phone call no owner wants to make, and the decision to sell his truck to cover payroll. Instead of neat quotes, he offers something rarer: the calm clarity that comes from owning your choices and doing the next right thing until momentum returns.
If you’re weighing college against a trade, wondering how to network without feeling fake, or rebuilding after a setback, this conversation gives you practical handles. We talk about extracting one actionable idea from books like eMyth and Who Not How, finding mentors who’ve closed dozens of deals, and using your real interests—watches, golf, comics—as the doorway to genuine relationships. The market will swing, paths will diverge, and plans will change; steadiness comes from showing up with value, borrowing expertise when you need it, and keeping your why in view.
Ready to build a path that fits your life? Listen now, then share your biggest takeaway and subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next.
Welcome to Timeless Movement. I'm your host, Alexander Laszlo, and I'm here joined by Casey. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What's up, Alexander? Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you for coming on. Yeah. I'm a remodeling contractor. Dad grew up in Virginia. My dad grew up here in Colorado and kept we kept visiting out here and fell in love with the place. So moved my family out here a few years ago and love it. So I've been uh remodeling, I've been in construction since I was 14 and uh kind of found my way through it and have had all kinds of experiences in that in that industry. And you know, so now I I really enjoy working with clients and my kids get to help me. That's one of the things I love about it. And then I can have a lot of freedom in my schedule, so we can go camping and do fun things like that.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, nice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So what made you get into the construction at 14? Well, I was actually at a friend's, we're at like some party, and the he had this bandsaw in his backyard, and he took custom, he took these big beams. At the time in Richmond, they were renovating a bunch of warehouses, and they had these huge, big old beams that were full of nails and and stuff. And he would mill them in his backyard. And so my job for the he so at a party, he was just demonstrating it, and I dug it and I was like, this is awesome. And it just helped right there at the party, and he offered me a job. And so, like I said, for the next three years I got to do that. Spent most of my time straddling big beams, pulling nails out of the boards and getting splinters in my inner thighs.
SPEAKER_01:So how old are you now, if you don't mind me asking? I just turned 40. Yes. So you've technically been doing this for 26 years?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So in what point in time did you switch into home renovation? So my best friend's dad growing up, he was a remodeling contractor and builder. And so I started working for him some, I think I was 16 or 17, the first time I really worked for him, actually. I grew up, I grew up on a farm and they had a farm. And so I grew up helping out on the farm and doing all kinds of fun things like that, like killing chickens and chasing cows. And but I started working from in my first day, I remember it was super hot. I mean, it was like 100 degrees. And my first job was move that stack of two by fours from this side of the house to that side of the house because the delivery was there and they needed them over there. So I spent all day just toting lumber. And I loved it. So that's that that's where the start was working for him throughout high school. I was homeschooled, so I got to work a lot at different hours. And so I worked pretty steadily and obviously worked very full-time in the summers. Just had a lot of fun building houses, and we built, he built custom homes around a lake near where we grew up. And so we would work real hard, eat our lunch in five minutes, swim for 25 minutes, and then go back to work. And then, you know, it was it was kind of cool as a teenager to have that job. Yeah. I went to college and had big plans and dreams and aspirations. I I uh with a buddy of mine started a nonprofit. We were starting to support like orphanages in other countries and work with local like indigenous leaders in different countries and then graduated in 08 when the market crashed. And whatever I planned to do, those doors just kept slamming shut. The money was gone. And actually got a really kind letter from USAID saying, hey, this is why you're not even eligible for this grant. And it it was a big wake-up call to real to the realization of, hey, what we think we want and what we're trying to achieve, the way we're trying to achieve it didn't make sense at the time. And so I was doing construction anyway, and that's what was paying my bills. Uh you know, the way it's kind of like I kept looking for jobs and trying to build this thing and trying to do this, and the whole way I'm like, well, we know how to make money with these, let's go do that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh why did you want to start the nonprofit?
SPEAKER_00:Why? That's a good question. I traveled, I I I went to China for like a month and a half, my I think my second year in college, the summer of my second year in college. And it was a big eye-opening experience for me. And I knew I knew I had friends who were like choosing missionary, choosing different, you know, choosing the mission field and choosing different things like that. I was considering joining the Marine Corps actually at the time, and decided that that wasn't the right fit for me. And so like some of those change some of those decisions had been made just before I left for China. And what I saw while I was overseas was I I just I just saw the impact that some of these missionaries and and some of these other organizations. That trip was amazing. I got the opportunity to meet business owners. I got both indigenous and and American. I got to see some really cool missions that seem to be effective, and I saw some stuff that was super ineffective. And so that stirred in me the idea that, hey, I want to, I want to do this in a way that's sustainable and actually supports the people where the where the aid actually gets to where it needs to go. It's not just for some you know high school kids to take a cool photo or some you know mission board at a church to be like, oh, look what we're doing. Take photos of something they're building, but realizing that the the long tail effect of what they're doing actually is detrimental to the community. And that that started in that trip. The next summer I went to uh Niger and and joined a Peace Corps trip. If you're familiar with Peace Corps, it's it's a it's a you know it's an NGO where they where young people go for a couple years and they get embedded in a community and they they work on you know programs. The way you get aid or the way you get funding if you're a Peace Corps volunteer, is you submit for it and generally get denied, or you beg your friends and family to bring it. So I was the friends and family, the the Peace Corps volunteer, she was somebody I went to school with. She graduated and joined the Peace Corps, and so we showed up in the middle of Sub-Saharan Africa with suitcases full of school supplies. And it was so cool to see the long tail effect of what we were part of was more sustainable, but it was highly bureaucratic. And, you know, that's it was just really interesting to see that, but be able to talk to the the education minister of Holopnesia, be able to have all these kind of uh insight. And while we were on that trip, somebody, one of our team got really sick and watching just how it got really close. I mean, like minutes away from him not making it. And it just it just happened to be some of some connections that we had which got him to the resources he needed, which got him through the night, which then got him safely home. And just kind of watching, watching all this to say, okay, here's a there's there's gotta be a way to create a more sustainable link between people in the US who want to support organizations and communities where it's more about what are we doing in the community. And so anyway, finishing realizing that and then I I traveled to Nicaragua several times and built some houses there. And over the course of three different trips, I saw what we were trying to do, and over the course of a year, what actually was happening. And again, it was it was kind of like this vanity project to a degree that wasn't really creating the result that we were expecting. And so coming back, you know, going going on all these trips really opened my eyes. And when we realized that this the way we were trying to pursue things wasn't sustainable. I I remember a conversation Phil and I had where he said, you know, well, we we really don't have a lot of experience. We don't we don't know what we're doing, and we're both kind of trying to figure out our lives. We were both getting serious about our lives and families. And so he chose to go the government route and and worked in nonprofits in the government, found found an avenue there that he he loved. And then I and I was building my construction company or you know, skills at the time. It wasn't a specific company at the time. And being able to kind of our our paths kind of diverged at that point, and we decided to let them diverge. You know, and that was 15 years ago. So it's like, well, what that that kind of uh goal got me to that point to where then, you know, the last 15 years of that's always kind of in the back of my mind, like what is my purpose? I don't want to just put two by fours together and paint stuff and make it look pretty. I want to do something that matters. I want to be present in my own kids' lives and and looking back subconsciously, I like Tony, my my best friend's dad, was always there, was always around on the soccer field, was you know, at at church, at the community events. Sometimes he was covered in sawdust or or dirt, but you know, he was there. And so wanting to be able to have that same connection with my kids, that's a big part of what brought me back to being in construction.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That that's a really good why.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:My thing's, you know, even just I've traveled to Europe, I've traveled to like the second, third world countries. But like even going to Europe, it's completely different than here. Yes. And you know, it's funny because my brother's like, yeah, you know, even traveling in Europe, you can see why America is the best country in the world. And and I, you know, just traveling there, it's like we are more advanced than they are.
SPEAKER_00:And it's in some ways. In some ways, yes. I have cousins who live in France and an uncle who lives in South France. France is the only European country I've been to. And there are, you know, there are things here in the U.S. that we obviously have that, you know, the I work construction. I work with a lot of guys who have risked their entire lives and families to be here in the U.S. to give a to give a future to their kids that they want, you know, opportunities for kids that they wouldn't have in their in their home countries. One of the things I love about travel is that you always gain perspective if you pay attention. Yeah. And yeah, there is some things where it's like, okay, there's a better here or better there, whatever. But everywhere I've traveled, one of my favorite experiences was in Morocco. And I saw communities that thrived. And they were super different than anything I'd ever had experience. It's, you know, it was very all the communities revolved around the local mosque and being able to, you know, we weren't allowed, we were we went into one of the mosques as a to tour, but we weren't allowed to go in, you know, during the the time of prayer. But we were in that area and they all came out and just watching the communities thrive and watching the interactions and watching like I was just I I I was uh it was kind of one of those experiences where I knew that this was going to be something that was gonna stick with me forever. And just watching that, and it's and I I go back to that a lot and think, okay, this is something that instead of thinking that, well, we're better or they're better, whatever, it's looking at to say, hey, this is this works for them and this works really well, and it's really beautiful. And kind of finding the beauty in that about what works and or what what what gives them life. I think especially in you're an entrepreneur, I'm an entrepreneur, like in entrepreneur conversations, a lot of times we're always looking for what's the best. What's the best? What's the the, you know, what book you're reading, what what method are you applying, what what's your morning routine, whatever. And recognizing that just because that works for me doesn't mean it works for you, or vice versa. You know, what else is going on in your life that is informing your decisions to get to where you want to be? Yeah. When I was 18, right? You're 18? Yeah, when I was 18, looking back at my decisions, I chose because I I was making decisions for what I thought was best at the time, you know? And instead of thinking it as is best, I've learned been learning to think about, okay, what what's the why behind this and is it serving? Is this productive, is it valuable or not? Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know if you golf at all, but poorly. There's there's a saying in the golf world, swing your swing.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it doesn't matter how ugly your swing is, it doesn't matter if it's terribly out of line. But if it works for you, then it works for you. And you just gotta keep swinging and keep enjoying.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. Uh and I so I I've never really had time to to invest in golf. When I was in college, we had a a free three-part course, nine-hole course. So it was right by the school, and we love going there with you know just a pitching wedge and having fun. And you know, I realized early on I wasn't it wasn't something that I wanted to invest a lot of time. I admire people who do. It's just not something I've been able to spend time. And so for years, you know, I'm in construction. It's kind of common for construction, you know, builders to to go golfing. Uh and so someone taught me this, man, 10 years ago, they said, you know, instead of worrying about pushing so hard to try and be good at golf, he said, like if you're just having a day where you you don't feel like you're, you know, the point of golf is to enjoy being on there and to play your game. If you feel like you're dragging, just pick up the ball. Go to the next hole. You know, and so there's there's whole courses where I'll go the whole course and I'll just pick up at six. If I'm if I'm at six and I'm still not on the green, well, you know, I might drop and put a couple for fun, but we're gonna go to the next one and just kind of have fun with it. And so instead of having that pressure, but kind of like what you just said about swinging your swing, is as I've found that there's plenty of times where but I set that expectation in advance. I say, hey, uh, I'd love to come play golf. Just fair warning, like this is not something I have a lot of time to practice and be great at. This is how I've learned to enjoy my game. And it works. So yeah, so instead instead of like trying to find like what's better, I find what works, you know, and what I enjoy. And that way I can just in in focus on the interaction.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because everything, everyone works differently in in real estate, you know, people will be like, oh, go door knocking, go cold calling, right? Whatever. I mean, for me, those I haven't found that those work. I mean they work for some people, but they don't work for me. Right. So I've done them, but I was like, you know, these aren't working. So I'm gonna move past those and go to something that I actually will enjoy doing and will actually work for me.
SPEAKER_00:What has worked for you? Just curious, like what what do you enjoy doing right now?
SPEAKER_01:Finding people like you, it's Instagram, you know, just doing the videos and reaching out to people. Finding potential clients, it's going to events, going to open houses. And then I've started going to or experimenting with like just going to coffee shops or going to be a comic book guy, so I'll go to like the comic book store. That's cool. And just kind of chat with people around there and almost considering the world my open house.
SPEAKER_00:Right. That's cool. I think it's I've seen other people say that, but Homose is the one that sticks out as he says, you are your niche. And so don't don't worry about trying to figure out what your niche is. You are your niche. And so being yourself. And so, like you said, you're a big comic book guy. You know, there are every niche has you know a community of people who when they're buying or selling a home, they need a realtor. And so, you know, it's building those relationships with what makes sense for you and showing up in that way as yourself authentically, as opposed to trying to force something that doesn't work, right? Right.
SPEAKER_01:That's cool. Yeah, um I I don't know if you're on threads at all. Or like the Instagram, Twitter now. Yeah, yeah. I like what they do. They have this, they do like communities. So they'll have like comic book communities, they'll have like golf communities, they'll have car communities. Cool. And so I'll just go on there and I'll try and post in one of those a day, just stay top of mind, stay in the conversation and just kind of uh respond to people in there. That's cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So what and so going to comic books stores, you know, coffee shops, open houses, these kind of events, how are you, what do you what are you thinking of before you go in? Like I I think you're you seem to be like a mindset guy. Like you seem to think about a lot of your mindset. So like as you're walking into the event, what are you thinking of mindset-wise?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it really depends on the event. Like I went to a watch fair a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And just going in there, I was like, you know, I'm I don't have really any big expectations for this. I'm just gonna go in, yeah, look at cool watches, and if there's a conversation, then there'll be a conversation. And in that fair, I had a conversation with a guy from Raymont Watches. Okay. Um we talked for an hour. Just us talking. That's cool. Yeah. And I was like, I think like you can expect the best and you can hope for the best. But if you're going there saying I need to have an hour-long conversation, yeah, ultimately I think the pressure won't make that happen. Right. So if you're going in there, you're just like, I want to have fun. And then if a natural conversation sparks up, then the natural conversation will spark up.
SPEAKER_00:That's really cool. Yeah. Well, because and I know you've shared about your watches in the past and how that's really important to you. You know, it building these relationships outside of what you need out of the relationship, right? Being able to show up just as yourself. That's where I found that's where I'm able to provide the most value and connect with people well. Does that make sense?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's cool.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Um, going back to a previous episode with Jackson Granger, we were talking about how if you bring up right away that you're a real estate agent, most people will be like they'll kind of hesitate and pull back a little bit. But if you just get the conversation going and naturally comes up that your real estate agent would just what do you do for work? People are more comfortable talking with it and going forward with you.
SPEAKER_00:I know. I love asking questions, you know, that are like not what do you do? You know, finding better ways of asking those questions of, you know. So one of one of my favorite questions I love asking, I'm gonna ask you, is you know, what what's going on right now that you really enjoy that you're really excited about?
SPEAKER_01:I know I already told you this, but yeah, nervous and excited about moving out and experiencing being by myself and seeing how kind of works.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And like planning for that journey, I I know a lot of I have I have four kids, and two are in high school, one in middle school, and one her last year in elementary school. And so, you know, kind of this idea of moving out and what's next and college, not college, trade school, uh whatever. There's so many paths. You know, what does that look like for you as you've been preparing for this? And even it doesn't sound like you've been like kind of running down the track to it's it sounds like it's been working for you and the opportunities you've been looking at the opportunities in front of you. Is that right?
SPEAKER_01:Almost my dad was like, you know, you if you're not going to college, you're gonna need to move out this year.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you just get away from the family so you can grow, is what he says. That's cool. And so he, you know, my parents are helping me out a little bit, and the apartment I found they'd run like a six-week special. So ultimately for four months, it's like a thousand a month.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Which is pretty good. Yeah. And preparing for it, I I mean that just packing up really. Yeah. I like just to jump into things and just see what they take me.
SPEAKER_00:That can serve you very well. It can also make life very interesting. I do that often as well. So I get it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So and that's so your dad gave you that kind of that boundary of saying, okay, this is if you're not choosing college, because you said I listened to in a previous episode that you said that you know you you knew you wanted to try real estate. You know, real estate was something that you felt like was really interesting to you and you wanted to go for. And so then taking that choose choice to pursue that as opposed to more of a quote-unquote traditional route of college. I was reading this past week that the some government agency audited all the jobs that were listed, that in finding out what jobs actually required a college degree. Did you see that report? I haven't no. If you could guess, how many government jobs actually require a college degree? Percentage-wise.
SPEAKER_01:10%.
SPEAKER_00:Close. It's like seven and a half. Yeah. So 93.5% of jobs don't actually require a college degree. And so edit, you know, they're they've been auditing that and editing all the postings to remove college requirement. Yet college actually wasn't required. Yeah, it's a big conversation in our home.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:With our boys, is what they kind of what are their avenues available to them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's I think college can be a good place to like if you don't know what you want to do, I think it's a good place to figure out where your next path might be. But I think if you know fully what you want to do and it doesn't require a college degree, then I don't think that college should be on the table. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I even want to take that further back. If you're not sure, I think going and working for a couple years may be a great place to go find out what you want to do. You know, college is super expensive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I so I graduated college in 2008. Almost almost all of my and I went to a liberal arts, small liberal arts school. That was like the way you should do school, is what I was taught and the expectation, and there was no question I was going to college. So college was very expensive. You know, and and I walked out with debt and it took me years to pay off my debt. And it wasn't until I started it wasn't until I was it took me until I was 30. I think I was 30 when I finally sent that big check to pay off the last bit.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But I've been paying it off for eight years and had barely made a dent. So I, you know, I sent a big check to c to close that out. But everybody I know went back to school. Or did a job that could make the money that had nothing to do with the degree that they you know that they paid all their money for. And so I think I think that was the beginning of a shift away from you have to go to college. Because the like the the workforce up until that point it it was consistent, it made sense. You could go get a job that could take care of your family. Whereas now, you know, we're all hustling, you know, we're all figuring stuff out. And a lot of us, our jobs are our our our income is from coming from either relationships or really hard work, you know, or multiple streams of income, or you know, yeah, it's it's not just like you could go go to school, get a job, and you're fine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the kind of the one of the biggest scams is just a business degree.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because, you know, why if you want to build a business, why are you requiring yourself to have a degree?
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Well, and and I always talk about like all the all the mistakes I've made, those were way more expensive than college ever was, but I learned way more. You know, I mean I've paid I've paid a college tuition four or five times over uh in the last 15 years with making dumb mistakes and learning from them and making different mistakes and learning from those.
SPEAKER_01:So Yeah, I don't know. I've already mentioned this book many times on this podcast, but uh Million Dollar Weekend, it's it has a passage in there and it says like essentially to the point stop reading books, stop overthinking, and just jump in and do it because you're gonna learn so much more than if you just keep researching and keep reading because you're always gonna fail. Right. But it matters when you start.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. I I I agree with that a lot. And I also I listen to books while I'm working. I still am hands-on tools somedays. And so I just I just finish eMyth again. You know, there's so many books that I've found kind of in the past I was using those those books was okay. Once I have that information, then I will. Whereas now I'm already running 100 miles an hour.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:If I can and instead of like saying, oh, okay, now I'm gonna adopt everything in that book, instead I've said, okay, what's the one thing I can take out of that book to adjust where I'm at and to improve where I'm at? Because you can make the you can jump, you can, you can you know, go after what you want and realize you've got to make a 180-degree turn, you missed an exit, you've got to go back here, you know, and and that's fine. And those are the ways to do it. If you can, if you can learn something from somebody else that that helps you miss some of those expensive U-turns, then it's ideal. Yeah. But sometimes you can't plan for that. Sometimes you've just got to go through it. And there's you know, the the average millionaire has nine I think nine failed businesses. I think right now is the and I'm I I counted recently at where right right at about nine from past businesses that I've started and failed or closed and I had a partnership that went really sour after a year, and you know life each each one of those failures was a huge opportunity to learn. Expensive opportunity to learn. But like, did did I learn? Did you learn? You know, looking back at those, did you learn? I I have uh I had a construction company fail a couple years ago, and that was really challenging. I had to go through a lot to to get back up on my feet. But I know multiple guys who went through similar experiences who never got back up on their feet, who never chose to pick themselves back up and go try again, you know? So I'm sure you've seen that as well. You've seen guys who just kind of languish, uh who are like, well, I guess I'll just do this, and what you know, what are they actually doing with their lives?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's kind of a misconception that failing is failing. Right. Because you only truly fail when you take the failure and you say no more.
SPEAKER_00:You don't want to do that. You choose to take that on as an identity. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And what kind of led you to building all those nine businesses?
SPEAKER_00:Um each time was different. I mean, ultimately the last the last one that got pretty big before it failed, I was working for ironically, I was working for Tony, who my dream was to work for him. Like always I wanted to be able to come back and work for him. And I'd been working for him for about a year. I wasn't happy, wasn't, you know, and it's like, you know, happiness, there's a lot of things I do now that I'm not I'm not happy, but it's just, you know, I I I have some kind of sense of like, okay, this is what I'm doing to get where I'm going. I didn't have that. And I wanted to. It's funny because there was a guy who worked for me last year who he kept making mistakes. And I told him, Man, you know, some of these mistakes, the only way you're gonna learn, like I feel like the only way you're gonna learn is if you start your own company and like you start paying for these mistakes yourself where I'm not paying for them. And a couple months later, he did start his own company, started a um house cleaning business. And he called me like three weeks later. He's like, How do you do this, this, and this? I was like, I just hustled, dude. Like that's that's what I was doing. I had that that the partnership that partnership that went sour, this was 2012 or 13, I think. I was the sales side of the business, he was the production side of the business. And I would come in the mornings, work with him for a couple hours, go meet with clients. Like I was really erratic on the job site. Sometimes I'd meet the clients in the morning, come work two, three hours, and then go meet with clients again. And he just saw me coming and going. He was like, You're just overhead. Like I can do this better without you. Like I, you know, like I was I was being really disruptive to his schedule. He wanted things consistent. And he called me three months later. He's like, Where'd you find all these jobs? I was like, What do you think I was doing? I was meeting with clients constantly. I was constantly going out and finding those jobs and and working. And and he would be doing working on QuickBooks and project management until 10 o'clock midnight. I was writing proposals until 10 o'clock at midnight every night, you know, and it's just you know, so kind of finding that each each of those failures is like, okay, what why did I start that business? Why did I do that? Part of it's like, I need to pay bills. I have kids, I had family. And part of that was when I made that jump from from working for Tony to starting my own business, literally had$100 in my pocket. Like actually a hundred bucks. That was it. And that first job, I when I sold it, I I knew I didn't have enough money to get gas for the next day. Like that was it. I had to sell a job and I did. And then I sold another job, and then I sold another job, and I sold another job, and I leveraged the teams that I had around me. I worked with a painter. You know, I kind of just focused on what I knew was the highest impact thing. But I wanted to ultimately I I couldn't drive to a job anymore. I couldn't go to a work anymore. You know, I had to, I had to show up where I felt like I was doing, I was doing something valuable, making a difference that I had some control over. Entrepreneur, you know, other entrepreneurs and business owners, I know we kind of joke that there's something wrong with us, that we can't just like go to work. You know, we have to trade a 40-hour job for a 120-hour job that gives us more freedom where I don't have to ask anybody if I'm spend, you know, take break eat breakfast with my wife and you know, have a slow morning with the kids because they need some extra support, or if I'm gonna be home early to go to an event or coach soccer, or you know. Um it's probably easier ways to do life, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Makes it more fun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I enjoy it. So what has been the biggest lesson you've learned from your failed businesses?
SPEAKER_00:There's a couple. And they're less about the tactical side of the business side. One thing that's come up a lot recently is that nothing anybody says helps you get through that just the worst part. You know, there's a lot of sayings out there, you know, it gets worse before it gets better. It's only failure if you quit. All what's another one? All failure is psychological until death. You know, you've you've probably heard some of these.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:None of that helps at all. A lot of it you just have to go do. You just have to get through it and just focus on what's right in front of you. And for me, I had to choose what I wanted for myself, for my family, for my life. And and I needed to hold back onto some of those dreams that I had and say, okay, that's that still exists, that's still alive for me. I need to get back through it. I also learned that I I have to take 100% responsibility for all of them. You know, like I brought up that one about the partnership. He came to me one day. He just said, I don't want to do this with you anymore. You're overhead. I can do it better without you. And uh we'd been, we've been, it'd been challenging for a while. So I was like, well, if you have the balls to say that to my face, it's all yours. You know, I'm out. And I looked at that like, oh, he did this, he's such an asshole, whatever. No, I have a lot of responsibility with how I showed up in that partnership. I was not somebody that he wanted to partner with. And so I've I've had to own that. Uh this most recent, the you know, which was the biggest, we we had the company was growing. We'd gotten really big. And when it collapsed, it collapsed really quickly. And it all came back on me. I I had to call my crew in and say, You're I we're out of money. We I gotta close the business down. And I turned around and sold my truck to pay payroll. Like we were on, we were out, we're done. We had nothing. And I had to take that responsibility. And as much as I know it hurt people and sucked and was very painful for a lot of people, like the one person who had to pay for as much as possible was me. The one person who like I'd spent almost a decade building that business. But like my lack of being able to manage or run that company affected a lot of people. Employees, suppliers, clients, subs. You know, it like I was building something that served a part of the community, and when it collapsed, it left a void. And there were other companies to come in and pick them up, but you know, it's not that I was just building something building something. It was I was showing up to to be to bring something valuable to my community as well. And I don't think I fully accepted that responsibility. Does that make sense? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What uh what would be your biggest advice to like the younger generation, you know, my age or younger?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I like what you're doing, which is just getting out there. I had a conversation with my 14-year-old the other day where he's like, Well, I can't go get a job. You know, we were talking about he he has some things that he wants. He has kind of expensive taste. And he's like, Well, I I don't I can't go get a job. And I said, You can go knockdoors, you can pull weeds, you can he he has a drone. You he he for a little while was selling drone photos for his clients where he would take a drone photo of their home. I was like, go do. Go try something. There's this kid I'm following on Instagram that McLean Power Washing, you know, where it's like, this is my 100th day of getting to$25,000 profit. And he's on day 111. And he's at I think he's at 15 or 16,000 right now, something like that. Mid mid mid-teens. He's just doing it. He's doing it while he's at school. He's he's hustling, he's just trying things. There's so many people like you said who sit there and read the books or sit there and do, you know, go to you know, open houses or or or networking events, you know, get the business cards, but they never actually show up. They never actually do anything. And it's really hard to bring value to somebody else. Like the first thing you you probably know this, the first thing you should do for someone is bring value to them. Don't ask for anything. Just show up and bring value. It's really hard to bring value if you don't do anything. If you're like, well, I'm here. Well, that's not valuable. Like there's a lot of people here. It's millions of people in the city. You know, how are you showing up that's bringing value? And I have to do that every time I walk into someone's home. I can't come in and say, well, it's gonna be this much money. No, I have to be really clear. What value am I providing? What value am I providing to my the guys who work for me? What value am I providing to my vendors? What, you know, where am I showing up? So for you, you know, the best advice I can give to you is to go out and do and show out where you can bring value. Because if you know, you can you can practice all day long. You can do the mental, but until you go out and do some courses, you don't play golf. You know, you may own a great set of call clubs, shoes, the whole kit, whatever, but until you go out in all kinds of weather, you're not a golfer. You know? And so like going out and trying things and find out, okay, this is where I'm great. This is where I could bring value and to be able to have that confidence that when someone says, Hey, can you help me do this? Because like I think you said this on a previous podcast episode, like the the certification for being a real estate agent, like none of that really helps you be a realtor. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So you've got to go find out what makes you special that you can actually show up and bring value to people. And it's not just a transaction. You know. So what are some things that like so me saying that, what are some things from your perspective? I'm really curious, like, how does that land for you or or what are some things that you're doing already to show up and bring value?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Besides a podcast.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that that is the reason I created the podcast, is just for business owners and me. Yeah. For a little bit of value. I mean, the I mean, I don't have much experience to like the biggest thing I can bring is knowledge or make it an easy process or a fun process, or you know, connecting on some personal level would just be like the biggest thing I can bring. And I think that a lot of people don't really appreciate how big knowledge could be. I don't know if you follow Austin uh Wickham with Red Rock Roofing. He posted a story the other day that I really liked. It was like an email with like a signed contract or something for a roof. And in it he was like, it wasn't the lowest price. They chose me because I had the best knowledge and the best hustle out of everyone else. And you know that you don't always have to have 10 years of experience to bring value. You can bring value with what you know and how you can help people.
SPEAKER_00:I yeah, and I I would take that one step further. Because you're starting out in your career. How much how many deals have you done? None.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So how many what what experience do you have doing deals? Not much. Okay. And what how close do you have any mentors who have done a lot of deals?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like how many deals have they done done this year? Someone who's close to you this year?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know the number off the top of my head, but at least 20, I would say.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So you have an opportunity to work with people who have done 20, 40, 80 deals this year. Building those relationships, you then become the one person point of contact because people who are doing 80 deals a year, what do they not have? Time. They don't have any time. What do you have a ton of? Time. Yeah. So you can provide, like if I were you, you, I would look at you know, co-listing or or things like that to where you're bringing people in and you're not. All you're doing is bringing in the client. Because then what you're in the comic book store and somebody's talking about, yeah, I'm trying to buy a home. My aunt's been trying to help me, you know, or my aunt's best friend's a realtor, and she's been kind of trying to help me, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And it's like, well, how many, you know, one of the things when people tell me that I always ask them, well, how many deals have they done this year? Well, one or two. Well, I can understand why you're having a challenge. Like, you want to work with professionals who have done, who are doing deals. You don't want to work with somebody who has their license. There's 250,000 licensed realtors who are quitting this year because they're not doing deals. That's that's a huge number, you know? And then there's a bunch of guys like you who are coming in because you're like, I want to do real estate. And so it's a it's a calling. It's, you know, it's a it's a bunch of people who aren't renewing their license because they're not doing deals anyway. And so then you have access to people where you can build relationships in the watch community, the golf community, in the comic book store community, in whatever community that you have where you can present deals. But it's not just that you have the knowledge, you have access to knowledge of people who've done hundreds of deals in this kind of market. You know, this is an odd market. It's it's a very lopsided market. I do feel like it's gonna swing. And I think it's gonna be a seller's market in I don't know, 24 months or so. And that's that's gonna cause some whiplash for some people. They're gonna be really shocked. But it's you know, so navigating these changes and like earlier, the you know, the market dropped 20%. Well, it was back up two weeks later. And like volatility like that causes some stress. And so what people need more than the knowledge is is that trust. Is are you gonna help me navigate this? And so if you have that access to someone behind you, uh there's a great book called Who Not How. Have you heard of that? Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Uh, it's a really simple book. He's got a series of books. Gap of the gain, who not how, and 10x is easier than 2x. They're quick books, highly recommend them. But the idea of who not how is you need to know who can do the solution, not how to do the solution. And that's what makes you an entrepreneur as opposed to a technician. Kind of goes back into the just going out and trying things. As you go out and try things, you're going to get connected with people. So okay. So you're I asked you what kind of what you know your reflection of that is. So you're going out and you're you're trying to connect with people and sharing whether it's knowledge or like how does it make sense where that value, that value proposition is actually higher that you're connected to those people that do have done a lot of deals.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then turning around to them and saying, hey, how can I help you? You know, what are some things that I can do to help y'all? Because if you're indispensable, you probably don't have access to multimillion dollar deals, but maybe you have access to someone who does. And they just need someone to stop by the house every day and make sure that it's clean and it looks like a$2 million house every time there's a showing, you know? Yeah. Being able to offer to do stuff like that, even if you're not part of the deal, even if you have the time, that's that may be something that gives you in front of. And then you can see, oh, what's a two million dollar deal look like? You know, what what is what are and maybe maybe you don't want to do two million dollar deals. Whatever, I'm just making it up. Like if that's what you want, if you want to be on the luxury watch golf, you know, comic book millionaires list, well then that may be the type of deal that you're looking for, is is kind of higher-end deals, right? Uh what watch are you wearing today, by the way? Got this black Bolova. Sweet. Yeah. What do you got? Got my tag. My wife got it for me a few years ago.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Big fan of the Monaco. Yeah, that's a cool watch. I saw I is that the automatic or? Yeah, automatic. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Manual mail are the or no, this is a quartz. Yeah. Automatic kind of get on my nerves sometimes because it's just winding them. You can feel them. Do you feel them too when you're on your wrist? I don't mind the rotor moving or anything, but it like when you have to wind it up and or sometimes you forget to and then it you have to reset the time and everything.
SPEAKER_00:I got I got one of those watch boxes that was auto like that that kept it going and it would spin it, you know, once every hour or something like that. Um I have a a Carrera, a tag Carrera that isn't automatic. But it's I've got to it's not working, so I've got to figure out what the heck's going on. But yeah, so this one's a quartz. But I I do love that watch. Yeah. And it's it's like never one of those things that are like, oh yeah, let me grab the watch and take it to go get it fixed. It's never on my list of to-dos. But it's funny the first time I felt the rotor move, it it I was like, what is that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I uh now it's more comforting, you know. Yeah. I've golfed with it a couple of times. Yes. And sometimes in the swing I'll just hear it in my ear going. It's very distracting when golfing.
SPEAKER_00:I do not worry when golfing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Uh not to cut you off, but uh as we're running out of time here, any final thoughts?
SPEAKER_00:No, I appreciate it. Um first off, I I just admire your hustle of showing up and you know, starting this podcast. And there's like I said a couple times, I have, you know, I'm a dad to some teenagers. And one of the biggest challenges that I have is how do I help them show up? Like how do I help set up them, that them up for success and what you know what they need in life. Because it's fuzzy now. It doesn't feel like it's really clear anymore. And so it's encouraging to see you show up and show up in your way and your, you know, be authentic in the best way you can and say, this is this is what I love and this is where I'm showing up and pursuing your your dreams and your ideas. So thank you for that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, thank you for reaching out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thank you for coming on. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00:I'm glad I saw the message. So yeah, I just I admire you for for showing up the way you are. So yeah. Yeah, I've listened to a few of your podcasts, and I said this just before we got on the show. I didn't want to come in with a big preconceived notion of who you were. Yeah, it's this has been enlightening. So yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Yeah. And thank you everyone else for joining us here on Timeless Movement Podcast. And we'll catch you next week.