Will Anderson| Alexander West Operational Consulting

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

And now, here's your host of Shaping Sticks Test, Wes Tankersley. What is up everyone? Welcome to Shaping Sticks Tests. I'm your host, Wes Tankersley, back again with another Treasure Valley edition. I met Will. This is Will Anderson. I met him, I don't know, maybe a year and a half ago, two years ago. It's been longer. It's probably about two years.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Yeah, probably two, maybe even three, actually. It's been a little while.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

And we met through Ryan's, who has been on here a couple times. I have uh I have his night birdies over here. He's got that going this summer, right? Uh pretty cool, pretty cool guy. He's a connector. And I think that that's one of the things that's awesome about all of these scenarios. Like I didn't, I ended up meeting you from him. And you know, I didn't reach out to you the last time, but I was looking, yeah, I was looking for another job and trying to figure out what I was gonna do. And he's like, hey, you should call Will. And I should have called Will.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Well, he texts me too, and I'm like, Yeah, sure, pass, pass whatever along, send him my way. I'll help if I can.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah. Yeah. And I ended up finding something. I just it it was kind of it's one of those things that you know, you know, you've been through a few different career changes, and it's it's always looking for furthering yourself, right? And I think that that's kind of it. And I think you you have to know people to to get connected there.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yeah. Yeah, the job world's tough. I mean, I I think, you know, I've lived in the same like 50 square miles my whole life, and I think that's probably been my biggest asset when it comes to figuring out what I'm gonna do next. I I can honestly say I've never I've never had a job or career change from a resume that I submitted somewhere. Uh-huh. It's always just been a someone grabbed you. Yeah, referral or um or I start putting out there, hey, I'm looking for a change, and you know, you you put that out there a little bit and then something comes up. It's because small, still small town USA, even though it's starting to act like it's not, but right.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

It's pretty crazy. Yeah. Uh we were talking a little bit beforehand because I had worked at Le Schwab for 11 years, and that was kind of where you I don't know if that was your first job.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

You didn't really say that, but no, my first job, I mean, I grew up working construction. My dad was a builder and uh GC um in the valley my whole childhood.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

And so working for him was really my first job. And then um I used to help out on a ranch out out in New Plymouth. Um, and uh, you know, that's basically what I did in the summers. We we moved sprinkler pipes for the for the ranch, and back when I don't think people even really use hand lines anymore, but back when that was a thing, and yeah, so we'd set hand lines and I'd work for my dad and that's the I I think that right now with this generation, and I I don't know if you have any kids or not, but I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

So hopefully they're working for you, but like I look at my kids and I'm like, oh man, they have no drive, no desire to do that. My dad was like, get out of here, go do something.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah, you know, and mine are young. I mean, so I have a six and a ten-year-old son, and my six-year-old, my six-year-old and my little Dachshund dog are pretty much like my shadow. They're with me. It doesn't matter if I'm working, if I'm fishing, it doesn't, they just want to be there. Yeah. My my older son uh doesn't have a ton of interest in that. He kind of likes to do his own thing. But yeah, I mean, it wasn't really an option when I was a kid. It's like if you're gonna be well, I didn't grow up with a lot of means, I think like most people. I grew up in like a 900 square foot farmhouse. And so for me, I I wanted to work for my dad so that I could like buy name brand clothes, right? Rather than just get like the Walmart special. Yeah. Um, and so that's kind of what I, you know, anything. My dad's always been a really fair guy, and you know, if you'll work, he'd he'd always wanted to pay pay you for working, yeah. But you had to work and uh real work, yeah. And so uh yeah, I was a glorified laborer for him, and you know, he was pretty easy on us what it was time to work, it was time to work, but you know, we did projects like up in Lohman and stuff, and you know, we'd go up there, he'd I can remember one project we did up there, he spent about four months up there converting a old barn into a bed and breakfast. Oh cool. And it was right on the river there, and um, you know, there'd be a day where I think I was probably 14 at the time, maybe 13, and I may not want to work or whatever, and so he go play in the river or whatever, and he was pretty easy on me when it came to that stuff. But but if I was said I want to make money, it was like, okay, well, today you're gonna work, put your tool belt on, let's get to it.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, and I mean that's kind of the tough thing, right? Because you you think about like summer for a kid is one of those things where it's like, man, I want to go do something, right? Yeah, but I also like like you were talking about, like I wanted a pair of Nikes, right? I didn't want to have to wear those. I don't know what my I bought my kid some of those and ones from Walmart the other day because he just trashes everything I buy him. So it's like you can trash that later on, you'll figure out how to take care of your stuff. Yeah. But yeah, but I mean that was the thing. And when you got that, it was it meant so much more to you and it lasted so much longer because you paid for it.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

I was the big deal to go to the mall back in the day. The Boise Town Square was popping. Yeah, you know, so I would just be happy to go pick up a a Hurley shirt and uh I thought I was cool, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Um that was the thing though, huh? Hurley over in New Plymouth.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

I mean, New Plymouth, even though it's a small town, you know, it's funny now it's popular to be a redneck and a hick, but back in those days it was like that's what everybody was. Right. And we kind of all just felt like poor a thing. And so we, you know, if you could, I can remember they opened, I ended up working at the Hollister store in the mall. Oh, really? And uh and boy, I thought I was real preppy then, like with the button-down shirts, and right. I can remember first time I wore a button-down shirt to school, everybody made fun of me because it just wasn't a thing in New Plymouth anyway. And so uh, but yeah, then it became a thing, you know, with the puka shells and the Hollister thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

But yeah, I got lucky because I missed out on that because I'm about 10 years older than that. The preppy thing was like when I was growing up was Eddie Bauer, like and now it's like old man stuff, but then it was like go get Eddie Bauer and you're cool. And I was rolling around with these Eddie Bauer plaid shirts with a white t-shirt underneath and unbuttoned, you know. Oh yeah. That was the deal when I was in high school.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah, no, I I finished high school in 06, and uh I feel like yeah, when I was in high school it was pop collars, people wearing two different, two different polos with the collar popped and uh puka shell necklaces, people wearing like a sweater with like a button down under it, with uh it was it was full blown, but uh identity crisis. I feel like we've always kind of had that here where you know, like I said, now it's kind of cool to be from Idaho and be from Boise and all that, and everybody likes to go to the rodeos and stuff, but back then it was like a burden. Yeah, it was like the one thing I I did look forward to um the Caldwell Night Rodeo is right around my birthday every year. So that was always what I always asked for rodeo tickets to Caldwell Night Rodeo every year for my birthday. Like that was always the big deal, yeah. And uh we still went to like the new Plymouth rodeo and stuff, but it was just kind of like because it's going on, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

It wasn't like a yeah, we did that when I was when I was growing up. My dad worked in Homedale, so we would always go to like the Homedale fair, the Homedale Rodeo, and they'd have the siphon my dad's company would have a siphon tube contest, so they like had one row of siphon tubes and the guys would go go race to see who who was the fastest time. But it was kind of that thing, it's like the Homedale Rodeo wasn't that big of a thing, but it was a thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Yeah. Yeah, I mean there was like all the things like you go to Marsing for the fireworks, and you know, you go to the Caldwell Night Rodeo and you kind of just bounce around throughout the summer and yeah, small town stuff. Pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

That's and to think that that's not really what it is anymore. I mean, New Plymouth is kind of that way.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

I went through there the other day and I was like, yeah, I still New Plymouth. Although the the bar did burn down a couple years ago, I think it's been now, which is tragic, but um it's it hasn't changed much, and I don't get back there much.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

I took so when I first started doing this podcast, I was doing some of it actually in New Plymouth at the the guy that was helping me produce it before I started just doing it on my own. He was out of that truck stop like they shut that thing down and now it's this big old empty building. Oh, really? I didn't know that. And so I had some gal from New York come down here. Um we were talking about some stuff, and she ended up being on the show. So we went down there and then we walked across the street and had a drink at that bar in the double diamond.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

And it was like the lady who I don't know who the lady was serving us, and she did a great job or whatever, but like she this gal, you know, just picture when I say New York, you picture New York, you know, like she's in there with high heels on, she's got her like bootcut jeans and a blouse and all this stuff, and we walk in there, and that lady's standing behind there with stains on her shirt and stuff, and she's like, I can't remember what her name is, and I want to say it was like Midge or something, you know, like just like something, right? And it was the funniest thing ever, but we were in that thing and it was like this is a dive bar.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Yeah, yeah, to the to the max. Yeah, um, yeah, it's too bad about that. I I don't know what happened with that. I just heard about it on the news. But yeah, yeah, it was one of the it was one of the staples going through town there.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Well, I wonder I I was I drove through there the other day. I go through there every once in a while because our home office is in Ontario, so I'll do Fruitland Ontario pay at, but mostly Boise. Okay. Um I'll have to look next time I drive through there because I'm sure I'll be through there again.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

I didn't know they shut down truck stop. I wonder where they moved that to or what their Oh, it's you'll know where it is when you see it. If you Well, I knew about the building, so the guy that started that company was like m one of my very he was probably my first person I'd call a mentor.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Scott Mosc, who who actually it used to be the internet truck stop. Yeah, he sold it now, then isn't he? Well, he it was internet truck stop, and then what I understood when I was in high school, he sold that uh and they kind of tanked it and he bought it back, and then he made it truckstop.com. Yeah. And uh when I was I was big into pole vault when I was in high school, I used to compete for the Idaho Junior Olympic team for US. And being from a small town, you're not you know, sponsorships and all that, and my parents weren't gonna be paying for me to go on all these big national meets. Right. So Scott really took me under his wing and he he didn't know anything about pole vaulting, but he's super smart, like awkward smart. And like I I would compare him to like an Elon Musk type, like just super, super smart. Not a lot of like EQ, but extremely intelligent, and he would and so he he's like, Well, I don't know about pole vault, but I know physics, and I think I can figure out how to help you be a better pole vaulter. So that's awesome. So he had like an indoor pool at his house, and we'd do training, we'd do different different things that he look up and we'd read these books, and he would pay for me to train with Jan Johnson at the time US Olympic coach. Oh man. And that's so I'd go down to California and train at his house at his camp, and he'd pay for that stuff, and he'd he was just like a huge influence for he he bought the whole school track, cross-country teams, new shoes every year. Uh he'd pay for the jerseys that the kids have their names on the back and all kinds of stuff. So he was a big, big dude. I think he ended up being the the mayor in New Plymouth for a while there, and but he uh super awkward, but just an extremely charitable guy. Right. Um was a big influence to me because growing up without a ton of resources, you know, a lot of people grow up thinking that grow up like that. I think like people that have money are like bad or greedy or and he was the only real example I knew of anybody that had a load of money and he was super generous, and so I always thought, well, if you make good money, you can do all these cool things with it. Right. And so I never had that like negative programming of like rich people are bad or any of that stuff that you hear about because I just had I had Scott and his wife at the time.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

It's kind of weird. I think that you know, society kind of right now, especially in this like demographic that we're in, it's like everyone's like, Oh, rich people, they got enough, they need to give it to everyone, right? Like, and then they start getting like Musk, right? Yeah, he's a trillionaire. What is he doing with all that money? Well, he earned that money, he's working for that money.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Yeah, he he made that money by adding value to the marketplace. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

And to sit there and think that you know you should just give your money away. He does though. Like they all do. Yeah, all of them give their money away. It's just you don't see where they give it away. Sure. Where he was it sounds like he was pretty charitable to the town that he was in, but you know, I think you know, a lot of people don't realize that these people who have lots of money, the reason why they keep some of their money is because they give some of their money away.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Oh, well, and you know, Scott was a really good example of that. I don't know, somebody that worked for him at the time would be able to tell better than I would, but I had heard that when he sold the majority of his company, he gave everybody there like a massive bonus, like almost like a year's salary bonus. Yeah. Um and I don't know how much of that's folklore or truth, but I I wouldn't doubt that one bit. I mean, he was just like that guy that he didn't really value like money or things like that.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

He just he liked to build a cool business and uh well you'll see the building, the building next time you're driving down to like you're headed towards like Twin Falls or whatever, uh-huh right on Cole Road. It's there's a there's a sign right on the side of it. I just saw it yesterday, I think, when I was heading there.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

But okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

They opened another one, but I think what happened was they COVID happened, right? And then everyone worked from home and then they realized they didn't need that building.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yeah, I know they had they had opened up a big branch down in I want to say like Phoenix at 1.2. But yeah, I think all that happened after he after he had sold and I'm not sure what year he sold, but it's been a little while. He uh he actually paid for me. I only went to college for like a year, went to T Vcc C, went to junior college just because I thought that's what you were. We called that Chucker U. Yeah, Chucker U, yeah. That probably sounds better. But I uh you know, he was like, if you'll keep if you'll keep pole vaulting, I'll pay for you to go to college. Basically, anywhere you want to go, I'll pay for it. And you chose TV C C I didn't choose TV C C. My grades were so bad she wouldn't let me in. And so they're like, No, you need to go at least do a year at at junior college, get you get your academics up, and then you can go to Boise State. So that was the plan. And so he uh he graciously paid for me to extend my high school education by a year at TVCC, and I realized you know I didn't like the first 12 years, I I didn't like the 13th either. Well, you chose something a little different though, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:20

I mean it's funny because you were talking about Le Schwab and how they were treating you, and like I kind of feel like that's kind of a military thing. Yeah. Like I just was having flashbacks to when I was there because what happens is you start working there, and the first thing they do is throw you in the junk trailer. Right. Yeah. They're like, go do this. You're like, okay, gotta learn how to do this. Yeah. So you're on all the dirty, dirty work or whatever. But that's kind of like your next step, right? Like joining the military was very similar.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Well, I was I had gone to TVCC for a year, and my dad, who was a Marine and owned a construction company, was like, you know, at this time, I graduated high school a little young, but uh, you know, he's like, either you're gonna stop, you know, taking advantage of Scott's generosity with the school money and get good grades, or you need to get a job, move out of my house. Like those are the only options. And I'm like, Well, I don't see myself getting better grades. So, you know, 2007, the easiest way to get a job for me was join the military. My brother had already been in the Navy two years. My dad was a Marine. My whole family, I mean, we added it up at one point in the early 2000s, and my immediate family had like over 250 years of active duty time if he added it all up. And it was just kind of this thing that was always there. And so I told my dad, I was like, I'm gonna go join the Marine Corps, and he's like, Hell no, you are not doing that. That's not for you. And so, you know, he said, Go talk to your brother about the Navy, you know, see how he's like in that. Uh my uncle was a real high-ranking guy um in the army and the guard unit in Idaho at the time. He said, Go talk to your uncle. My grandfather was a 26-year pilot in the Navy. So he said, Go talk to your family members, see what what they think. My my brother and my grandfather both told me, unless you're gonna be an officer, don't join the Navy. Okay. And uh and my uncle at the time said, you know, Air Force has the best deployments, best assignments, best food, best housing. Right. And he had just come off of helping out, like in Katrina. He's like, I I I think the Air Force is like where you should go. All all three of them told me to join the Air Force, including my dad, actually told me as well. And then they proceeded to give me shit for it for 11 years after that.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

It's crazy that your dad was a Marine and he didn't like I feel like Marines are always like be a Marine, you know, but he must have had a lot of people. Well, he knows me too, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

And and I think, you know, 2007 wasn't a great time to be Army or Marine Corps. You're going right there. So he was, I think he's a little worried with how hot things were still in the Middle East. And um, and so yeah, I ended up training to be a pararescue man, and that's what I I just like set my heart on being a PJ, and that was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen, and uh I wanted to do it as soon as I learned about it.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Um is that the hanging from the helicopter picking people out of water or what?

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Yeah, well, yeah, so kind of it's uh it's Air Force Special Forces, they've got a couple different lines you can go there. Um but that's one of them, or you could be a combat controller, but um or I guess technically maybe Sears as well, but but yeah, pararescue is essentially a paramedic that their job was is to go in and basically make an area safe, get somebody out of a combat zone.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

So did you like jump you jump out of the plane with a parachute? Is or am I just throwing para in there and thinking?

SPEAKER_02 18:54

No, so they do it. So the thing is the training I think is like two years. And I I trained for like six months before even going into the military because I was not a swimmer. Wow. And so you had to pass all like the there's like two different swimming things, and you'll have to forgive me, it's been a long time since I did all that. But it was like a a 25 meter underwater swim that you couldn't come up for, and then there was like a timed, I want to say it was like a 1300 meter swim. And I was not a swimmer, like I could swim, but I wasn't a swimmer.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Yeah, like I yeah, I mean you listen to like what David Goggins had to do to be a you're like uh yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

So you had to pass these just to go into the training. Right. And so I I worked on it for about six months to get my swimming up, and then when I do my final med screening, they're I failed my eye exam. Uh-huh. And they're like, Yeah, you're not gonna be pararescue. So and I'm pretty I'm not I'm not delusional enough to think like I would have passed the training because it's I don't know what the percentage I think at the time was like two percent or something, super low. But I sure would have liked to try. Oh yeah. But uh they said, no, you scored high in mechanics, so I ended up joining as a uh mechanic and engines mechanic on uh F-15s, Pratt and Whitney Motors. And I uh I enjoyed it, I liked it. It was uh the first few years of it was really good, but it it's not like the most ambiguous thing to do. Like it's very precise. Right. Take this bolt at this part number, torque it to this value with this thread compound on it, and safety wire it with this size safety wire, now move to the next step. And it's just like okay, you do that for so long, and it's like, okay, well, I'd love to actually use my brain again. Yeah. And so jet engine mechanics was cool, but it was after about six years of that, I got the opportunity to go back to school and I went to school for uh fabrication metal fab. Okay. And I got to choose that, and so I went back to school for 13 weeks down in Texas and uh met a really good buddy of mine, still one of my closest friends today down there, and um and I did that for another five years before leaving the military. And along the way I met my wife in England, she was a crew chief on F-15s, and we both had an assignment over there and uh she's from here.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

She's not English though, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:20

She's from Oklahoma. Yeah, right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, she's not from the UK, but um that's where you were stationed at then though.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Yeah, both of us. So but yeah, I I spent eleven years total in the Air Force and then just um, you know, we kind of got to the point where my wife was pregnant on my last deployment and it was kind of like uh a realization that like I can be a dad and a husband or I can stay in the military and not be that and and I respect the guys that can do a whole career of constant, you know, back to back deployments and things like that and uh Um it just wasn't for me. I just it I I wanted to make better money. I wanted to be more present. And after my son was born, it was just like I was born to be a dad. Like I it was just like first time I held my son, I was like, okay, this is where it's at. Like I I just knew I was meant to be a dad. And so um, so yeah, I left the military in 2018 and uh rolled my sleeves up and just started hard charging as fast as I could up the corporate world. I was totally, I mean, it was foreign to me, you know, my my whole adult life. I'd been in the military up until that point. Right. And so I had to figure out how to be not in the military. Yeah, in a civilian in the in the workforce, which was it was interesting at first, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Well, you did a bunch of things in between there too, but you I feel like you always end up back every every story I've ever heard from you, you always end up back to trying to do something yourself, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Yeah, I think that just comes from like you know, growing up with a dad that was a business owner and I don't know if I got a little bit my dad's southern, he's from Arkansas. I don't know if I got a little bit of that southern stubbornness in my DNA or something, but I, you know, when I find a better way to do something, I want to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

And I don't know if that's southern. I think that's just this mentality that people get. Because I'm I'm the same way. I was having this conversation with my daughter about it the other day because she's a she's 12 and she's a an artist, like and I'm an athlete. So I was trying to explain to her how and I'm sure this is the exact same thing with you, but like how competition plays in my life, right? And how I may not be competing directly with you, but I'm competing with myself. And that's the one thing that I learned as I got older was you can't compete with other people because in a roundabout way you are, but it's about being the best you that you can because and if you compete with yourself, it's always yeah, honing and making it better.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Yeah, I mean it it may sound absolutely insane, but I I didn't actually have a full concept of like self-improvement until I was like in my mid-20s. Yeah. And you would think because I had been an athlete and stuff, like you would you would get that, but I was just young and full of it. And so, you know, in my mid-20s, I met a guy in church uh who's a very good friend of mine to this day, who owned a really successful like real estate business, and he owned like an Amway business, and just he was just like a true entrepreneur. He's like, I'm gonna find something that works. And he's like two years older than me. And uh he he and I grew up the same, but he's from Alaska. And he he'd be like, he and I met and and uh you know, I was obviously I was still in the military at the time. And he says, uh you know, I I was asking him, like, how is it that you and I grew up the same? You barely finished high school, I barely finished high school, both grew up small town, blue collar, and now you have like these successful businesses, and I'm over here struggling, making, you know, less than 50 grand a year in the military. And uh he just he just started just sewing into me a little bit of like, you know, what you put in your mind matters, and if you're not adding value to yourself every day, like you can't expect yourself to have better finances or more influence or any of those things. And and to me, you know, 15 years ago, the concept of like a self-help book was I'd never even, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Well, you think about yeah, it's it's it's way different.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Yeah, the podcast, the the information we have, it just wasn't really yeah. So, you know, he he was like, you know, you need to start how many books that's the one thing he asked me. He's like, How many books are you reading every year? I'm like, I hate to admit this, but I had never read a book in my life. All the way through jet engine mechanics, everything, I had just done the bare minimum.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Got what you needed.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yep. I think I finished high school. The reason I went to Treasure Valley is because I think I had like a third grade reading level when I finished high school. Really? Yeah, it wasn't my thing. I'd always been told as a kid, Oh, yeah, you're just not a good reader. You're good at competition, yeah, which is, but you you know, you're just not a good reader. And so I was the guy that would like dip out and try to go to the bathroom when they were going around and everybody's reading out loud in class.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Which is like one of the worst things you can do to a kid.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Right. Yeah, I don't think they do that anymore. They don't. Um, but yeah, I I had never even thought about reading books, and so I told him, Look, I'd I've never been a reader. I and uh he challenged me and was like, Well, are you gonna be that way your whole life or do you want to change that? And I'm like, Well, all right. Uh so he he gave me just like a reading list, and it was like how to win friends and influence people, and um rich dad, poor dad, and think and grow rich, and you know, just some of the basic fundamentals that now seems like everybody knows. Yep. And uh, and I'm like, well, where do I start? He said, You definitely need to start with how to win friends and influence people. I mean, I had been only in the military, grew up in construction, like I didn't have a whole lot of EQ. There wasn't a lot of you know, right. I wasn't a great conversation. Yeah, you didn't try because you didn't know. Yeah, it was I was just only in command and control environments where you know, you if I know more than you, you're gonna listen to me. And the real world just doesn't work that way, right? Yep. And so um I started there. I think it took me, I don't know, I think it took me a month and a half to get through that book. And it's not a long book. I think it's like 200 pages.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

No, but I it's funny that you talk about that because I think that's one of the first ones that when I started doing this, I read. And I mean it's been like seven or eight years ago. And I did read, you know. Yeah. I mean, I just didn't really because I I I have a I have two degree, I have a master's degree, right? And I was the same way. It's like, where in this book can I find what I need to put on this piece of paper so that I can turn it in? Yeah, you know, and those books are just I don't know, I those are like the three that everyone always talks about first, and they're like the most helpful ones out of all.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yeah, yeah. So I mean I I kind of felt I read that book, and there was a point in that book where I was I was kind of still pretty young and arrogant at the time, like, yeah, I know all this stuff. Like this is this is G whiz. But there was a point where I was like, but how much of it do I do? Right. Because I wasn't doing any of it. And uh, and so there was uh kind of a humbling that went on, and then over the next 12 months, I think I read 36 books. Oh damn. Just anything I get my hands on, and I and I'd say the first probably dozen or so was you know, leadership, self-help, you know, personal ownership, accountability of your own performance. And then I got into some of the business stuff, and I just and I like to this day, it's like if I can find an article or even a textbook or something that will help me, I just fell in love with how businesses operate. Right. And I've always just been blown away by like how these successful people will actually write down and give people for 15 bucks what they know. Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

And so Well, you gotta think about it. Like for them, it's like how many people are gonna read it and how many people like you can read it, but how many people are gonna actually follow it? So they're not scared because they don't think that it's gonna take you or me or someone who's really gonna use those skills that they use to well, and I think those people are beyond to like they're beyond thinking about the competition of it, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Like you think about like my example with Scott growing up, like you think he was worried about me growing up and building a bigger business, like he'd be lit for me if I did that. Right. And I think the sentiment is is there. And because I had him as an example, I didn't really question why what someone's motive or motivation would be to be generous with that information. Um I just took it in, and so you know, I kind of fell in love with just learning about business. And I um, you know, I don't have a degree, I don't have any, I've got probably more licenses and certifications than I care to even talk about. But I've always just looked at education for the sole purpose of being educated. And I I go learn this or get this license because I want to know that thing. I don't care if you give me a piece of paper, but I definitely need to know that to get here or to get there.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Well, and I think that that's what we kind of got lost in. I I think it probably and you're and I'm a few years older than you, but it was everyone goes to college, right? Right. That was the thing. Right. But what we're finding out now is that you didn't have to go. You could do the same thing on your own without paying someone to tell you how to do it.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Well, now, and the thing with college is everybody just talks about it's more about the college experience, and I'm like, well, that sounds like awful to me.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah, I can go live by myself, drink and party and do all that stuff without paying ten thousand dollars a semester.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Yeah, yeah. I think about my kids, and I'm like, I'm definitely not paying that price tag for you to have an experience, you know. Go to Disneyland. Yeah, exactly. We'll send you off there, we'll be good. So, but yeah, so I you know, I had I had fallen in love with that, just learning about those things probably five years before I left the military. I had gotten really and into that stuff, and what happened was I I really felt like I had outgrown my environment in the military. Yeah, like my leaders weren't trying to improve their leadership skills, my leaders weren't trying to, you know, find way to build assets and um and you know, as private as you want to be about that stuff, it still made it feel like there was a gap between like where I wanted to go in my life and where I could go in the path I was on. And it made me feel just very different than the people I was around every day. Like I'm not thinking the same as them, and it's not a bad thing or a good thing, it's just different. And so, you know, a big part of me leaving the military was just realizing I'm not gonna get where I want to go right on the path that I'm on. And so um, so when I left the military, I did have a pretty steep climb and a fast, I guess, ascension in a lot of people's eyes into corporate America, but it was all because I had been working for five years before that mentally to be doing the work applicable, right? And so, you know, that that same buddy that got me into reading self-help books, um, you know, was like, hey, I said I want to go start a business like as soon as I leave the military. Yeah. And he said, uh, you need to know sales. Like, if you're he he comes from that background too. He's like, if you're gonna do anything in business, you gotta know sales. Like everything is sales and business. No matter what you're doing, it's all sales. And uh, so he gave me that advice. I was gonna go start a fab shop and do this stuff. And he's like, just slow down, go sell, go sell for a couple years, take what you learn in sales. Uh, because I definitely have a more operational mind. Yeah, he's like, you have to know at least what makes these people tick, what motivates them, what they deal with every day. And so I went and I sold for three and a half years for uh a large national home builder, went back to the home building world because that's the one.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

That's when so that was with Toll Brothers, right? That's where you started selling. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Yeah, that was my first, that was my first thing and had a lot of fun, loved working there. Um, and it was my first dip into the civilian corporate world. And uh that was here, that was locally, yeah. Yep. And uh yeah, sold like I don't know, three or four phases, maybe five or six actually out at Legacy and Eagle, sold here in Middleton, West Highlands, over by the high school, sold opened that newer part up and it was pretty recent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was 2018, 1920. Um maybe 21, maybe just before 21. But uh it was a great experience for me. It would it definitely opened my eyes to the world of sales. Um but I had a blast and I had a I had a really incredible experience, you know. Toll brothers a big national company, but it locally it's run like a local business because they kind of have their own little division here at the time it had just been acquired. It was it was Coleman Holmes, yeah. Coleman. And Thomas Coleman was still running it as a president, and so it it still felt like a small business. And I had an experience when I was I'd only been working there maybe six months, and um I was having a little bit of a low point in my just like you know, the corporate world's different, it's dog eat dog, everyone, and in sales. A lot of people are just kind of out for themselves, you know, you start getting some pressure, it's all about the numbers, it's all about quotas.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

And were you so were you like a you were a realtor for them kind of sort of because they don't have like you did you have a real estate license too? Okay, so you were actually yeah kind of like because Brighton does that too. They're they do these, they're not you're not an actual like you're you're a realtor for them.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Yeah, you're not that's all I was I was a real estate agent for them. I got my license before working for them, but I'd only done real estate in a traditional sense for a few months before I started working for them. And um so I you know I was kind of having this lull of like you know, starting to lose a little faith in humanity because of this just the dog eat dog nature of it, even though I was with a really great team and everybody was really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Did you get bored? Because like I I'm so I'm in sales, right? Like I just it's not that I don't mind doing it, but like it's it gets old.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

And I can do it really well.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Yeah, I didn't at that time I hadn't yet. I don't think I ever really got bored, but you also got to realize boise the Idaho, it's been insane for sales. Like I didn't have the time to be bored. A lot of times, I mean it was.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

No, and I don't mean like in the board of like you didn't have enough work, just the redundancy of it. I I to me like selling is a challenge, and I'm really good at it. Yeah. And I'm just sitting there and I walk into a house and I can I can in the window covering world, like it used to be, hey, we're gonna give you an hour and a half for this house, and it's like seven windows, and you've got to help this customer. Well, I can be in and out of a house with seven windows in about 30 minutes. Yeah. And it's like, oh, here's another one, on to the next one. Yeah, like it just like what's the challenging ones are the ones that are fun because then I have to work a little harder, but right now I'm like, ah, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Well, I I generically, I mean, I don't generally speaking, I don't really I get bored pretty easy. Yes, my wife is probably one of her biggest frustrations with me is if I get good at something, I get bored at it pretty quick. Yeah. Um and so it it took me about three years to kind of get to that point with Toll Brothers, but I also gotta realize um, you know, I was my first six-figure income. Yeah, that was my first chance of being like, holy cow, I can I can kind of like make whatever I want if I just work harder. So I kind of fell into that like workaholic trap a little bit. Um and just was like, I'm gonna stay and just knock out contracts and do, you know, I'm gonna just work it and make money, and and I did. And but I kind of fell into this lull um about six months in, and I had a I had a situation happen where my son got sick. My my oldest son got sick with cancer when he was three. Oh dang. And I was working for Toll Brothers at the time. I got the phone call while I was at work, and my wife had taken him and they had found out that he was sick, and um I called my manager at the time and just said, look, I gotta go. I don't know when I'll be back, but there's something really bad going on and I need to go to the hospital. And um and it just for the next two weeks my co-workers just blew my mind. Like I'm in I'm in one of the hardest challenges I've ever dealt with as a human being. You find out this little child is sick, yeah, kidney cancer, and you don't know what everything's gonna look like. And my co-workers and a couple people I was in the military with um started to go fund me. You know, this is pretty early when in GoFundMe, but they started to go fund me, they started a meal train, they did all those things and and I I didn't even really know the people I worked with very well. Yeah. And my assistant at the time was just like like it just blew my mind. She, you know, bringing setting up stuff like that, you know, wanting to go buy our apartment and clean it for us and help with our laundry. And, you know, they'd raised enough money in like 24 hours to pay our whole copay on our insurance for the year. And I was just so grateful. Like my faith in humanity was just completely restored. Yeah. And we could have a whole separate conversation about what it's like to have a sick kid and go through that whole thing. Yeah. But it really, really, you know, the reason I stayed at Toll Brothers for three years was I I felt a real sense of loyalty to those people after they were.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

I was gonna say that had to be really tough to walk away from.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Yeah, it was, it was. And you know, I still keep really good in touch. You know, I ran into some of the one of the person the people I worked with at Toll Brothers the other day, and it it's like an instant connect, like you just never lose that connection. You know, they came and visited, like we had three or four people a day literally bringing us food, bringing my son toys, helping my wife with anything she needed. And it was it's just one of those things, you just have that connection that doesn't go away. As soon as you see that person, you go immediately right back to who they were when you needed them to be a high character individual.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

And so, yeah, all things that like they didn't you weren't even thinking that way because you were just know anybody even cared, you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

I just I hadn't even worked there that long, right? Yeah, but it definitely made made me feel a sense of loyalty, not necessarily to the company, but a company is its people, right? And so I was loyal, I was and still am very loyal to all of them. If any anybody that was in that world with me called me right now, anything they need, like I'm I'm taking care of it. I'm here. Yeah. So yeah, but three three years went by, um, had some basically what it what it turned what it came down to was their um the real estate world lost its mind in Idaho for a few years, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Now they're trying to get it back. Yeah. It's a little different now.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

But uh it lost its mind a little bit, and I, you know, ended up having some compensation disagreements with with the higher corporate toll brothers, and I just felt a sense that it was time to move on. And then uh somebody approached me, a real estate agent that I worked with, and said, Hey, you know, the guy that I uh that owns the brokerage that I work for is looking for somebody um to be their operations VP, and I think you'd be like the perfect guy for it. And uh and so I said, Well, worth the conversation. And so um I had already kind of had a little bit of a disagreement around compensation with with my my supervision at Toll Brothers, and you know, mind you, I'd always been a high performer, you know, I'd always well exceeded, I think I was 250% a goal. You know, I was like, I've always and for me, yes, I wanted to do well for them, but it was how I provided for my family. So I didn't need them to like give me a quota, it was more like how much can I earn? Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Well, and it's weird too when those parameters sometimes like change, right? Yeah, like my previous owner would be like, okay, well, we're gonna have to pay this way now. And you're just like, all right. What did I make you too much money? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

You know, well, and you know, I I just felt like it was time, like these things kind of added up, and I was like, all right, well, I know this wasn't gonna be forever anyway. Right. I feel like this is the next healthy step in a career for me. I've always leaned towards the operating side of business anyway. And so that position was excuse me, that position was really my first, like take what you think you know from reading all these books and doing all these things and see if you can actually grow, help grow a business. And it was awesome. Like he brought me in for a very specific reason, which was to improve some retention issues they've had. They had uh they had I want to say so the broker's had about 160 agents and 11 employees, and I think they had turned over like 80% of their employees year over year. Like they just had a major retention issue. And uh like I don't know everything, but I think I can fix that. Um and so yeah, I went in to help with retention and just overall improve operations we had. Um I ended up just spending a year with them, but it was, you know, we only lost one employee that year, I which was somebody I had to let go. Actually, we lost two. I had to let them go. Went from 80% to basically flipped it, and I was uh I was really, really proud of what we had accomplished there, but you know, I I knew that that role wasn't also I knew a couple weeks in that that company probably wasn't a good culture fit for me. And so, but I wanted to learn. I wanted to stick out just uh the education side of it and figure out, you know, add value where I could, right. Even though I knew It it it didn't really I didn't really feel like I was at home there. Um and so I went from there to uh being a COO of uh plumbing and HVAC, a group of plumbing and HVAC companies. Again, another situation where somebody said, Well, if you're open to a move, you should meet with this guy. I think he you could really help him. And they owned uh three different plumbing and HVAC companies. They needed a COO. I said, Look, I've never been a COO, but um I'm gonna figure it out based on what you say you need, I think I can do that. And uh and so it was it was uh really huge shift for me. Um it was a big role, uh company that was growing fast, um, the biggest staff I'd ever worked with. And yeah, we achieved some really cool things. We you know, their revenue went up uh almost a hundred percent and in that first year, and just every profitability went from 11 to 21 percent. And it was like all these actual things where I'm like, okay, this is this is big, this matters business-wise, like this is this is how I know if we're succeeding or not. Right. The team was better than ever, we built some amazing teams. Um, we were able to just build structure around that company to where the owner didn't have to be literally everything to that company anymore. Right. And it was really affirming that, like, okay, I don't know at all, but I did do this. And I was like, maybe I do know a few things about how to operate a company. And there was some, you know, there's some scars along the way. There's some things that that had some tough learning lessons. And um I I ended up, you know, saying, you know, if I can do this, I feel like I could do this for myself. Right. And so at that time, while I was working for them, I started my own kind of business on the side, which was a junk removal business. I thought I'd do construction cleanup. I kind of came from that world and I was like, there's a need there. And uh they they didn't really appreciate me doing something other than working for them. And so they kind of gave me an ultimatum. It was like you either do that or do this, but and I think they were hoping I would just shut my own thing down. Right. But I said, All right, well, I'm gonna choose me then. I think it's time. So I went and started that. That turned into me starting a um uh demolition company about a year into that, and uh and then I yeah, the last three years I've been growing those.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Um so you have both of them still?

SPEAKER_02 46:35

I do, but yeah, I've got I'm in the process of basically dissolving both of those. Um and I want to say three years ago when I left the real estate brokerage, I started um that's when I had had a couple clients just consulting. And so I started a consulting firm just to legitimize what I was doing. Right. And so I was actually interviewing the plumbing and HVAC companies for a consulting contract just to be like a fractional team member for them. Yeah. And they were like, Well, can we pay you this? And you just work for us full-time as our COO. And that's kind of how that transpired. And if it hadn't been a really big number, I would have said no, but I was like, uh, that's more than I've ever made. Yeah. I think I'll give it a go. Right. And so after I started my own businesses, that happened once more. I had had a couple consulting contracts as a fractional COO that went really, really well. And because of those, somebody referred another person to me. I was looking for a new, so I've only ever kept one or two, maybe three of those clients at a time. And somebody had referred another one to me. And uh I had interviewed with them, and once again, they they said, Well, we need a full-time, like, we don't just want you one day a week or two days a week, like what would it take? And so I gave them a number of what it would take, and they were like, Well, I think we can do that. And I was just like, Really? And so, you know, I have to bad when you're like, uh, this is the moon, and they're like, Okay. I said, Well, if you can't you can't pay me that and it doesn't make sense on your books, like I'm gonna know because I'm gonna first thing I'm gonna do is review your whole business. And oh no, we can, you know, we're good. And and so I'm like, you realize I have like two other companies that I'm still owner operator with, and oh no, yeah, you're good. And and so um I ended up being their COO um for about a year and real remembered why I decided I wanted to do my own thing. Yeah and uh and so yeah, right now we're looking at a move, and my, you know, my heart, my everything has just pushed me back to what I know, which is operating businesses, trying to help bridge the gap between totally owner-run and operated companies to that next generation of hiring a really successful executive team that you can lean on that's gonna allow you to peacefully take vacations, not worrying about all the balls dropping at the same time, while navigating a really complex challenge, which is take something that you know everything about and trust somebody else to care about it as much as you will. And it's it's a it's a difficult thing, but um I've done it enough to see a lot of the nuance and had some success with it. And um it's a real need. I mean, it's the reason my dad didn't sell his business and ended up dissolving it. And um, I've got a huge heart for all of these owner-led companies that um build these incredible businesses, but they don't end up maintaining the the lifestyle that they they built those businesses to create.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Yeah. So that's crazy because you know, you you think about it's and it's I think it's cool because no matter what, you're go from barely being able to read to reading all these books to doing all these things and having these leadership rules, getting out of your your comfort zone, really. I mean, I don't know. Like I think about like you're talking about, like it certain things just get boring and are meticulous, and just like how can you and my wife doesn't understand that. My wife is a nurse, sure.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Well, and my wife to, you know, as well. So she was a mechanic, but she's very much, you know, follow the rules, you know, find find a way to check every box on the checklist and um and then just stay there, and just yeah, and then just stick to what you know, it's safe, what's predictable, right? Getting paid the first of 15, you know, kind of thing. Yep, exactly. And um, and so yeah, I put my wife through hell quite a bit on some of that, but I think now, you know, we've been married 15 years almost, and and I think she's she's pretty well conditioned. I think, you know, once you realizes like, okay, no matter how scary it looks, he's gonna find a way to do better every year.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

I wish my wife had figured that out because she hasn't quite got that under control yet. It's like I'm sitting there, okay, where are you at? Did you sell that one? Did you get it? I'm just like, yeah, listen, I'm gonna get there. It doesn't matter. It might not look like it today, but give me three, four days, we'll be there. You know, I I can't not do it.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Yeah, yeah. So I I mean, I I think over time it's helped her loosen up a little bit on that stuff, but it's not perfect still. Um, but yeah, I think you know, I was I was having a conversation with a couple of folks that uh that work for a large company, and they're they were just reaching out asking for some guidance in their career path, and um they were saying, Oh, I feel pigeonholed, and you know, I don't feel like my leadership wants me to progress. They don't want me to. They because I'm good at what I do, right? That's all they want me to do. Yeah, they don't want me to be promoted or go to be any, you know, and um I I've just never been that person to ask for permission. Like I one one of the things when I was at Toll Brothers, um, another thing that mentor friend of mine told me was like, find people that are further along than you, take them to lunch, ask for coffee, like be willing to just ask people that have been further along for help. And so I had reached out to a a regional VP at Toll Brothers and somebody way above my reach at the time, and was just like, hey, I'm a nobody, you don't know who I am, but we have the military in common. And is there any way we could hop on like a Zoom meeting for like 30 minutes and I could just pick your brain? I've got a load of questions, I'm always trying to, you know, just get better. And he's like, sure. So he and I hopped on a call, and the thing he said on that call that really resonated with me is don't decide like what role or what title that you want to have, just find the next step in your career and just learn half that job. Be the person that's like when an opportunity comes, you're just like the most obvious choice, right? You already know half of it, and so if you're that person that's just constantly pushing to know more, to do more and be more, when an opportunity opportunities always come, right? Just make it to where you're just so obvious of a pick that they don't even look anywhere else. Right. And I took that to heart where it's like, I don't really care what my manager is doing, I don't really care what anybody else is doing. I'm gonna I'm gonna be reading the books and listening to the things and shadowing this, and I'll stay an hour extra to go see how this person does this thing, and I'm gonna go figure out all these things because I know when the opportunity comes. I just want to be that person where it's like, well, well, I think Will already knows half that. Let's give him a shot. And so um, you know, that was some of the best advice I had career-wise. And it's like I went from entry-level sales to being COO of a company in four years, four and a half years, I think.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:46

All just that mentality of like figure out what the job is, and I do think there's obviously there's a level of being willing to just get egg on your face and fail miserably and not let that affect you, you know, from trying again. But um I just wish more people would be willing to rather than say, okay, what do I gotta do to make a paycheck? What do I gotta do to not get fired? How about be like, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna take like ownership of that path, and I'm just gonna figure out how do I become the most valuable person.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

Because if you're not in the right company with the right leaders and all that, it doesn't really matter. You're gonna be that valuable to somebody, right? And they're gonna see it, and then they're gonna say, you know who who would probably be good for this, and then your name's gonna be top of mind. Yeah. And so I mean, that's been my whole career. Um I never looked for, you know, a fractional COO role or any of those. It's always been, hey, I saw what you did over here, you should talk to so and so. And it just it just kind of happened that way.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

Yeah, you get back, you get back what you put in. I mean, that's really what it is. And it's I think that it's cool that you know you have the ability to do what you're gonna be doing next and and be able to help other people because that's to me, I think that that's one of the things that I learned, you know, really early was the more the people around me know, the better off we all are as a whole. Yeah. And there then there's that other side, like you were talking about, where they keep everything next to him. The guy could have said, Hey, I'm not gonna talk to you about this. You're on your own, you figure it out, you know. But those people are the ones that are growing something by taking in all the information and maybe they learn something from you too. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:29

Well, I and the way I look at it is you know, if you're wise enough to know that you don't know it all, you know, a lot of a lot of entrepreneurs I meet, you know, business owners get a bad rep from a lot of people. The people that we work for them that they get a bad rep from a lot of people. They get they get labeled as just like these greedy people. Um I will be the first to tell you a lot of business owners, small business owners are just flat insane. Yeah. Like clinically insane people. And whether they became that way through building their business or that's how they built their business, that hyperfixation, that's kind of like rare um unsupported confidence that doesn't really have any reason to be there. Whatever that is, has been an asset to them in building their company. Yeah, but once it gets to a certain point, it starts hurting them. And that point tends to be, you know, in that 10 to 50 million dollar, 26 employee, 25 employee to 100 employee, you know, type of range, yeah, where you can't do it all anymore, you can't be at all. It doesn't matter if you work 24 hours a day, you are gonna just make yourself even crazier. And they start to realize that. And then I think the humbling happens where they say, you know what? I think I need help. And then they start looking for somebody, hopefully, that will offset that, whatever their strengths are, whether it's they have strengths as an operator, which I find is a little bit less common. And I mean as a business operator, right? Usually most business owners are really good at what they started a business around doing. Right. Like the plumber got tired of working for somebody else, so he started his own plumbing company. He doesn't know anything about business, but he's an expert plumber.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Yeah, he's really good at tightening that pipe.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

Yeah, yeah. Or um, it doesn't really matter what it is, it could be engineering, it could be a lot of medical worlds that way. You know, they come up, they're a surgeon, they decide to start their own surgery practice. They don't know anything about business whatsoever, right? But they're a really well-renowned surgeon. And so I think the smartest ones say, okay, I need to bring a business expert in here. Right. The person that's like me in surgery, but for business. Right. And I just have found that that's what God gave me a talent around that, and I love it. And I can dissect just like a surgeon, I can dissect a business and say, okay, I found your sickness. Here's where your profit issues are coming from, here's where your retention issues are coming from, here's where your lack of revenue growth issues are coming from, and just start turning little knobs and fine-tuning things. And um, at first it was scary, but now there's been enough great results where I'm like, please just let me help you. You're good at it. I I got this. Like, yeah, there's a few things, there's a lot I don't know, but this I do know, and I got you.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

Well, it's awesome to see like where it's come from because you know, starting as you know, some kid out doing construction or changing pipes. I did that when I was really young and then I didn't do it ever again. Um but you know, I've been there. I you go out and you you think I think the number one thing is is like, do I want to do this the rest of my life? Do I want to be out there changing some regular pipes? Do I want to be out picking apples off of trees for some guy for four dollars and fifteen cents an hour? Or do I want to make more money? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

Well, and how you want to live, you know, that's a big part of it too. But I've found that there's my passion wanes on a lot of things. When I like I said, I get good at something, I get bored. Yeah. But when it comes to business, I think there's so much complexity to it that I don't get bored with it. It's just like there's hundreds of ways why you could have profit issues. Yep. There's hundreds of ways why you can have any of the major issues in business. And somebody also may have like a really well-built company, but then their life is just in disarray, you know, going through a few different marriages and they're not the dad they want to be. And it's like, okay, well, that's not separate from your business. That's the same, that's the same issue. You gotta figure out how to make it to where if you decide you want to be that person again, you don't lose everything you've built your entire life around. Right. And so, you know, working as a fractional person that comes in, you know, typically the way I've built this uh company is to be six or twelve month agreements. And it ends in me helping find a long-term person and helping them hire that long-term person that's gonna go take what we built together and and transaction it for the long term for them. They're gonna they're gonna be taken care of. And so for me, that keeps that it's always fresh, there's always a new challenge, there's always a client that needs help, and and there's an end in sight, like there's a finish line for us to where we say, okay, I'm gonna give you my brain for this time, I'm gonna help you fix as much as possible, and then it's it's gonna have long-lasting change after me because you and I are gonna put the perfect person in there to help that gets it. And rather than them trying to just like pick up all the pieces from the get-go, they're gonna get a well-loiled machine. You're gonna have a very clear vision on where you want the company to go and how you want it to run, and they're gonna have an extremely clear picture of what their role needs to look like for them to be successful, so it just increases your likelihood of actually finding the right person.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Yeah. So well, that's awesome, man. It's a great great to get to talk about it. If someone is like looking for you and they want it, they want you to come help them do this. What's the best way to get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

Yeah, they can send me an email. Um uh you can also I have a website, they want to go to awlimited.com and uh or if they want to just shoot an email over to info at awlimted.com. Um, they can also shoot me a personal email. It's just will at awlimted.com. That's fine. Um, and I do have you know industry experience and construction in a lot of the blue-collar worlds, that's where I tend to stay. But I'm learning there's more people than I actually realize in the medical world that are like, hey, can you help me? Hey, I mean, so surgery practices it seems to be like are really prevalent right now for some reason of needing help on the business side of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

So yeah, and it's weird because I think if you can do it with one company, you could probably do it with any because it's like sales. Like, I sold tires, I sell window coverings, you give me another product, I'll figure it out, I'll sell it. And that's what you're doing. You're bouncing between products basically.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

Yeah, I will I will say there is some nuance, like it does help to have a foundation in in some or at least the ability to understand what they do to a degree. But the size companies that I work with, that small to medium-sized business, they usually have an an actual operations team in there, whether they're executing well or not, it's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

But and that's your job to figure out if they figure out, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

And what I found is a lot of a business will reflect that that individual's expertise. So either they lean heavy on the sales and marketing side of things, or they lean heavy on the operating side or the operational side of business, the execution side. And whatever they're not good at, usually their issues are a reflection of that. So if they're better at the operational side, they're usually suffering on revenue and and profitability. If they're really good at sales and marketing, their revenue and profitability is great, but they're losing clients out the back, the bad reviews, right? Their execution's not timelines are too far out, like all of the other side of the business. And it's not that simple to just make it that black and white, right? But you can find evidence of those things. And um, and usually it's like you you get called, like I get called to treat symptoms, like a doctor. Right. Hey, I'm having this, this, and this issue. Um, but you know, my job is to roll my sleeves up, find the cause, and figure out how to actually fix that cause so that it's not an issue anymore. Right. My favorite thing is when somebody tries to tell you what the cause is, and all they know are the symptoms. And I'm like, well, if you knew the cause, how can you haven't fixed it yet? Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

How come you not how can you not execute this?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

Um, why don't we just like let me see if I can find the cause? And maybe you did find the cause, and maybe you just need support in fixing it. But most of the time I think it's kind of like you don't really know your own family's messed up until you bring some stranger that you know, a friend of yours or whatever, to your family reunion, and they're like, your cousins are kissing. Like that's weird. This isn't work. I never thought about it, you know. And a lot of people's business is that because they're they're so close to it, they just can't see that that's not that's not a healthy thing, that's not normal. Um or or that's holding you back, kind of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

So well, I'm excited to see where it goes, man. Yeah. I appreciate you coming by and talking with me. And I mean, this is you know, this is the second time we've talked before, but it's it's really cool to just you know see where that's going, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

Well, thanks everyone for hanging out for this episode of Shaping Success Treasure Valley with Will Anderson. I'll get all the stuff in the show notes. You can check it out. You can check me out with Robert Watson every 7 o'clock or 7 o'clock Eastern Time every Monday morning for two nobodies who know nothing, and check me and Jay Finning out on OneDrink Wednesday, every Wednesday at 7 o'clock Pacific Standard Time. Until next time, I challenge you to find the shape of your success. And then we try to turn it off from here.