On today's episode of gathering the Kings. Out there in the world, every general contractor is facing the same weather, the same supply chain, the same So contractor pool, the only thing we can do different is how we treat each other inside these Four walls. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow seven 8 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be.
We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today. Success and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up everybody? Chaz Wolf and gathering the king Chaz.
Today, we've got David Privetara here on the King stage. My brother, how are you? Hello. I'm Chaz. I am fantastic. I hope you are. Am. And the guys in the audience, I wanna just tell you, David and I have already established that if I ever need to fill in, the day would be willing to do it. This is the only other guest rule that just come in with rate voice or as they say, perfect face for radio. Chaz, you are my plan b. So I hope this scope's just okay for you, but great for me. Yeah. Exactly.
I don't want I don't want to I don't wish you ill will, but, I'm but I'm ready. You know? Alright. Fair enough. Alright, David. Tell us what kind of business did you get, brother? I'm in the commercial general contracting world. So I've been in construction now. This I did the math out. It's scary. So my 33rd year in the industry. You're not a spring table? No. Yes. I was only 40. I'm I'm only 45, so I did it when I was 12. No. It's I've been around.
I've been on the block and the beard that that maybe you can or cannot see was not this color when I started. Yeah. It's it's definitely a lighter shade of gray. Hey. That's alright. The sage stage. We use the language in gathering the king's this transition from warrior to king. And what comes after king, we don't talk about a whole bunch of sage where you've got all the knowledge and the wisdom and the gray hair. And so I think that I think that you've already worn Sage super well.
It fits nice on you. But in all seriousness, I wanna know before we dive into your story, your background a little bit, I wanna know what makes you tick. You're 33 years in. You're still doing it. You're here on a podcast. You're giving back. I why? Why the heck are you doing? I'll tell you what. One of the things that surprises me is still how high energy I am for doing, but doing this as long as I have. But one of the things this industry is that the learning curve is exponential.
I may know a lot, but there's so much more I've yet to learn. So part of that is is the it's to your point. It's gonna give you back aspect of it, but I just enjoy sharing life lessons and the things I did. You're pretty good in things I did horribly. And hoping to guide others to maybe not jump on the same pothole that I did. Yeah. Yeah. And do you think that helping other people, because that's in essence what you're saying. You still do it now to help other people.
Has that always been a driving factor for you? Chaz that grown over the course of time? Was it something different early on? Tulsa? It was different probably when I was younger. I always I always had that that that sense Chaz, take care of others and if everybody else is okay, I'm okay at that point too.
Yeah. And then as it evolves, as far as leadership scale, I always talk about it as, like, a servant leadership, but mindset, bottom up, a type leadership, and we even we even our graphics are our organizational chart. We do it upside down where I'm at the bottom and it goes up and out from there because that's essentially how the organization works. It's the people that it's the managers and the field superintendents.
It's the people that touch the clients more often than I ever will are the ones that are really face with the company because we don't really stale or have a face for radio anyway, so it's probably a better bet. I love I you hear, obviously, there's a book called servant leadership there's this idea of top down or or top up. But what you just said is that you write out your organizational chart upside down. How did you learn to do that? I mean, I love was funny.
It it was probably came out of a just moment where you said all things run downhill, right, and they land squarely on your lap. But, essentially, that's what it was. When we started talking about really the people who again touch touch the public, touch the customers, the most. It's the front line. And that's, again, that's who everybody, when they think of our company, from a public perspective, that's who they're thinking of.
So my job is to lift and support and push up and out versus me thinking I have to tug or pull up from behind. That's So wrong mindset. And it's it's worked more than it Chaz. There's there are times when you have to, I think, pull along during the dark moments in the world, but for the most part, it's about supporting and being there for others. And they will they have, and we'll continue to make me successful because they're the ones that are just out there making it happen every day.
Yeah. The just a visual picture that you've given of the front lines, which really just means, like you said, the interactions with the customer. That could be on the sales side. It could be on the client fulfillment side, but either which way, it's like they're the ones that the customer knows. And if it is in a traditional top down structure, then what you're saying really is that you are the face and then everything trickles down from there. Like, you're delegating down, which, okay.
Fine. We know we gotta delegate. But, really, what I'm hearing you say is that what that means is that all everything comes to you, and then it comes down Chaz opposed to it coming to your team, the front line items, and then eventually those things get sifted, and then just the things that you need end up on your lap at the end as opposed to everything on your lap first. Am I understanding this philosophy correct? That's part of it.
Again, I think from my perspective, is, again, my legacy in this industry is not gonna be the buildings that I was a part of. It's gonna be, I think, the the people that I've helped develop, any leaders that I've created through the lessons that I've learned. And, again, to me, that's, again, that's that support. Think of it as, I'm the foundation, and I need to build people up. So that's this is the way I just approach it. And it's the way I raise my family.
It's the way I've helped grow this business, and it's just the way I've always led my life. And, again, going back to where it all started, it's for me. It's that I just feel good and feel better when everybody around me is to the best of my ability taken care of. And it's just been just that's just That's an innate wiring that I can't take any credit for. It's just the way. So god made me a Yeah.
It's something that I deeply resonate with, and it's got me super intrigued we're gonna have to continue the conversation. But I think for the listener too, I think there's I think there's different types of people. I think there's people lead from the front and lead from the back, and I think there's benefits or maybe challenges to both, the way that you've described, even just take making sure everyone else is taken care of, I resonate with that.
That's how I've run most of my companies even thinking down to a Valentine's Day at edible arrangements where it's if I'm in the store location, I'm literally gonna make sure that everybody's got food. Before I I would never grab a piece of pizza before I knew somebody didn't. And I think it's just the little things like that. I don't mean I don't mean to have myself on the back, but it's the same that's a super practical showing of the of what I think that we're saying the same thing.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at company events, again, I will eat the last second to last if it's a buffet style. That's just because, again, I'm good, and everybody should be that's working really hard if nothing else should be able to get what they want, and I am good with with I think leaders should eat last. And that and that's not I didn't come up if somebody else came up with that, but that's real. And that's all part of it. Thing that sends a very subtle, the clear message. Yeah. 100%. Love it.
Okay. So let's talk about just your story. Let's how did you get into the business? Was it this business was the first one? Was there one before that? Just tell us about the beginning of your journey in business. Yeah. No. It's really been, again, going all the way back. All those Eons ago, I thought I wanted to be an architect and I learned very quickly in college that I wasn't a bad designer and had to be a port pretty important aspect of it.
Again, it was less about it was more I Chaz an engineering type mind where I was more focused on the process and whatnot. Got out of school and and talk about sage advice. I thought about my father, and his advice was, okay. Go find a job. And I'm like, okay. That's I could do Chaz. And I can read blueprints, and I stumbled into it back in 1990. And it just went from there.
And I've held many different propositions within the construction industry, and I work for a handful of companies, but I've touched it my entire career. So there's never been a I've dabbled in other things more on the side, but my main gig has always been building things and really in the part of that, there's a building teams and then eventually building product, which in this case is buildings of all shapes and sizes.
Yeah. Yeah. I had the format there of thinking that you wanted to do one thing, but it really just led to something slightly different. I think we can all relate to that a like, up until you can finally get to the right place. So, I wanna know just a little bit more about business. Like, why how did you reading plans and working for a company, how did that eventually turn into you running your own business? Like, there's a big difference between working for somebody and doing your own thing.
What was that transition for you? What did that look like? It was it happened about 17 years ago, a little bit over 17 years ago, and I was going through some personal change in my life and not necessarily the most positive experience, but did things happen? And I think there's always mild post markers in people's lives, things moments where you'd have to take that leap of faith one way or the other.
And there were some things happening in one aspect of my life that I felt like that it was time to if I'm ever gonna do something, now is the time to do it. And I had met my partner who had started this company actually about 10 years before we met. And I called one of my leaps of faith when I took this chance because I had a young I had young children and young family, and it was a chance for me maybe do something more.
And I jumped in, not necessarily fully understanding my most of my business acumen occurred after the leap. It wasn't leap up to it. I didn't know what I didn't know. And that's Chaz that and I think there's a moment in time as you evolve as a professional matter of what you're doing where you get to that point where you begin to know what you don't know.
And that's a really important time in a person's life, because, yeah, even to this day, I don't have all the answers, but I know where to go find them. And that's what I tell people. Like, it's okay not to know. Just go find out. Seek higher counsel, whatever that might mean in the circumstances. And knowing, again, there are things that I wish I head now. And, but, again, you learn lessons and all those things shape you as you go through your career.
The entrepreneurial kinda bite didn't really happen until I got really probably post recession. So going back 10, 12 years ago now when we all felt it at different times. And we felt it later Chaz, I think, other industries because we work off backlog and So it was if it happened in 2008 for most of the world, we didn't feel till late 9 or early 10. And, those were some tough lessons to learn.
Because I don't think I don't think anybody knew how deep and how wide that that economic pullback was gonna go. There's some valuable lessons. And then coming out of that, though, when the pendulum began to swing back probably, again, 2011, 2012, it's never stopped. And that leads us to, what, when year 3 of the pandemic, if you still wanna call it Chaz, the catalyst that has been for our business is mind boggling.
I can't fully explain why we were considered our industry as a whole was considered essential at the beginning of this whole darn thing. And I can argue that I don't agree with that, but it was. And, again, supply chain issues and labor issues, inflation, price escalations, all that stuff is real, but it has to stop. And part of it is where we are in the country in the south part of the US, Charlotte, North Carolina. It's a robust market.
It's gonna be for some time, so we're very blessed to be here, but it's our growth in the last 2 years has been incredible. And I don't give credit to the pandemic, but it was a catalyst that I just didn't didn't foresee. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Okay. I wanna know along the lines here, maybe go back to 2010 ish when it was a little bit of a crazy time for you. Or maybe at the beginning, I just wanna know not when it was super easy and cush and you're crushing it. Like, you have been.
Not to say that's easy, but I wanna I just wanna go back to a different time. And I wanna know if a good decision you made then Chaz you can look back on now and be like, oh, because I did that then, something that's super strategic that has led us to where we are today. What is that? You know, one of the things that I think has has helped me. Some people would say that I run fairly conservative as it relates to my business decisions. I just manage risk and fairly well.
And one of the things I've always we I think we all have egos. I think you to have some level of ego to get to any level of success, but keeping it in check and watching motivation. That's the word I ask. So what why are we doing and I think making decisions and things that we didn't do at those moments in time.
So take on a project with a, maybe, a questionable client or take on a project that maybe the financing was a little wonky, not taking on those legacy issues that would have impacted our business for years to come, paid us dividends. So having that that that conservative risk management streak that runs through me, has helped us again. And again, as things get better and as you get a little bit older, a little bit wiser, you understand what risks really are out there.
But in in today's world, again, there's a whole bunch of new risk. So that's a big part of my role as I'm nurturing the next generation is really think about your motivation. Why are we doing this? We're not are are you chasing? Is it the right client? Is it the right location? Is it the right market segment? If you can't check all those boxes, then is it really worth doing? And if the answer is I'm not sure. No. That is time to just step away. And that's hard to do.
It's hard to do when you're trying to keep the barn fed and signing new, a big new deal and everybody gets excited, but gotta think about, you know, what if. And if you could plan for a worst case scenario, a reasonable worst case scenario, and you can see yourself navigating through it, then it's worth talking But if you can't tolerate what that might feel like, then it's not worth it. Yeah. No. You're a 100% right.
I wanna try to just press into this a a little bit because most of the listeners here today are in a place where they obviously wanna grow, but they have they they're calculate It's probably a good word. Right? They're wearing a lot of hats. They're making a lot of decisions, whether they realize it or not. They're probably still very much in the business every single day. And so it's tough to calculate risk from a very what is this gonna do to us later this year, next year, 5 years from now.
Because like you said, they're just trying to get the barn fed. They're just trying to get the new contract. We're just trying to survive even a little bit. You know, like, we're stuck in the mode. What would you say to that person who feels or it is in the mode of that? How do they get to where what you just said having the poise? It will you you said one very subtle that you said working in the business and carving the time and being intentional about working on the business.
Just change change that one letter from I to o And that's something that that most smaller businesses don't do, whether it's they can't afford it time wise, or they're not sure of it, but taking a time. I have a cartoon on my Wolfe, that says you can't read the label from inside the jar. And somebody sent that to me and I printed it and stuck it on my wall because it's very true.
Again, it's if you're in it every day and it throws a bit, taking a step back and looking at and doing Chaz, not necessarily 10 year plan, but that 12 month, 36 month, planning session and looking at what's what moves I have to make. It you have to be intentional. You have to force yourself to put time on your calendar and do it. If you don't, it's going to keep you in that cycle of just working in the business. So how do you do that? It starts with a lesson that my parents taught me.
I taught my kids, and I talk about the time is who you surround yourself with, and you gotta have the best people you could find. I've had a lot of good people, nice people, honestly, the right people around me throughout my career. And I learned that having if you could find the blend of good people that are also the right people for your team, then that's when the magic begins to happen. But if you've if you find yourself in the business consistently, you gotta step back and ask yourself.
If you're a control freak, a micro manager, then I don't know how to help you. But if you really wanna do this for real. You're gonna be willing to let go a little bit and give others around you a chance to grow, but make sure you've got the best people you can possibly find at every level from to the people that sit in the office with you, to people that, you know, your vendors or contractors, your clients, you gotta have the right clients. If you don't, it's not worth doing. Life's too short.
Old school lesson, but surround yourself with the best people you can find in every aspect of your life. Yeah. The the working on versus in and scheduling the time, it's interesting because when I talk to entrepreneurs, whether it be 6 figure business owners who are looking to join our 6 figure gather in the Kings, or our larger gathering of the Kings. It's usually the conversation.
The 7 figure plus guys, when I say we have a 3 hour round table every month where it's scheduled and you're expected to be there and it's part of working on the business and they nod their head just like you are now. Yep. That makes sense. Like, it makes sense that I would schedule time to work on the business. I come, and I strategize with other owners, and I get ideas and inspiration, and we solve some problems, and then I can go back. But a lot of the smaller guys. They're 3 hours.
How am I supposed to do that? How how am I supposed to step away? Fully sleeping 3 hours. What are you talking about? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Now it's it yeah. It is not easy and to get over that home, but it and it's all relative to, I think, to what you do. I think every industry is a little different. I actually, you know, for the longest time, I thought, okay. I've been doing this a long time. I I know enough.
I see council when I need to, but about 18 months ago, I went out and got myself a coach, I have a CEO coach, and I'm part of it as a peer advisory group that we meet once a month, and we spend 4 hours together. And it's 12, just Wolfe of us. Business owners. Every industry is different, but when you sit down and start listening to others, it the challenges and the opportunities are very similar. Maybe the margins are different and the and the cadence of business is different.
But at the end of the day, it's the same stuff. And I have I'm kicking myself for only doing it for 18 months. I've been doing it for 18 years. But, yeah, it's surround yourself with people in that kind of setting where it doesn't matter if they sell widgets and you sell construction services. It's very the themes are very it. And, I'm a huge, huge fan of Chaz. Huge fan. 100%. Love it. Okay. Tell me about a bad decision. You said you you've got some good ones. Tell us about one of them.
Some of the good decisions I make were born out of bad decisions. Policy is born out of things not going as planned. I think early in my tenure in in the role I'm in now. Again, we were growing, and I got out in front of my skis a little bit. And I did hire some people that weren't the right people. And it was beyond just not making money or losing money on a deal. It was more about the personal equity I burned through with clients.
And for me, it was I kept thinking that I had to beat the back in the day, I played baseball. Alright? And I'm going somewhere with this. So bear with me. I was a catcher. And I was trained to when there's nobody on base and there's a ground ball, you take off and you run down, you back up the first basement. Okay. So I trained Chaz, and I did that, and I did that, and I did that until a point where I realized the 1st basement stopped bending down. Why?
Cause I was there to back them up, and I was exhausted. And I got and I take that and apply it to business is that I kept just backing everybody up and catching all the balls that they were coming through. And as opposed to me, Stein, why are so many balls getting through? Is that people just got, again, good people, maybe Chaz in some cases, not even good people, and definitely just not the right people. So I have made mistakes hiring folks and aligning myself.
I've gotten during desperate times back in the recession. I did do one small deal for a client that halfway through. I don't know why I did this. The view wasn't worth the client. The juice was not worth to squeeze is a better way to say it. Right. And it was awful. It was awful. The way broach it in the company today is that, again, talking about people and is that out there in the world, every general contractor is facing the same weather, the same supply chain, the same subcontractor pool.
The only thing we can do different is how we treat each other in Southeast Four Wolfe. And I it's Bible around here. We we're going to have the best people we can find And if we can't, well, if we can't find the right client, can't find the right subcontractors can't find the right employees, we're not gonna do it. Goes back to that motivation comment.
I rather have this company pull back a little bit for the right reasons and keep the quality of life of the people who are in the business at a higher level. Then just try to plug the holes and keep bending down backing up the first basement because that makes for some very long long days. Yeah. Yeah. There's no sustainability with something like that. No, sir. No. And it it burns people out. This is a it's a high stress business in the best of times.
And you factor in all the different things we've been talking about, and it's just everybody skews is very short. So I gotta make sure that people are getting backed up in the right way, but I have plenty of catchers to pack up all the first placement, not just one. That's right.
Yeah. I think that just something I wanna point out to the listener is that it I think we all as entrepreneur, know that we can run, you know, not necessarily, like, better, but we've got we got more energy in the box or or in the tank, and we just forget sometimes that they don't run like we do, and we expect them to run like we do. And what that does is not only burns us out, but it burns them out, which then further burns us out because then they leave.
And so I think that everything that what you're saying as far as if you can create systems and then, obviously, give things away. Like, you're talking about not just feeling like you have to be involved with everything. It's really not just the longevity of you. If you won't do it for you, at least do it for them. Exactly. Oh, and that's the one thing I've been doing this a long time, but I still have some runway in front of me.
And, again, like I sit here and think every day what snacks they mean. I'm not saying I've hit a glass ceiling in my industry, but again, I'm, I I run this company. The company And maybe I've taken this company as far as I can take it, and maybe we need that fresh blood. So those two things we're working on internally too is that continuity and and succession planning for the company because that's the legacy.
If we can create a situation where this company lives on to another generation of Beyond and keeps growing in a better way with better people, And my job is just to, again, keep dropping down the York charts a little bit, and then eventually kind of just stay out of the way. That's my goal really and simple in this most simplest terms is that get people ready for that next chapter and then just stay out of the way and let them run. Let them run and let them set the guardrails.
They're gonna bang off of them. Those are the best lessons you learn is when you bang off the guardrail. My job is to keep them going off of the ditch. Chaz makes sense? 100%. I love it. What kind of process or maybe even discipline do you have around making decisions now. So we've gone through your good and bad back then. What about now? You're at this successful point where you're even considering succession What type of discipline do you find around as a decision making? Build a smart room.
Again, have people in the room with different perspectives. I think you need that diversity of thinking we all thought the same way we'd be rolling the boat in a circle. Right? So having people in the room that can see things from different perspectives, again, there's there is there are some wildly talented people out there several of them work in this organization, make it more of a set the standards.
And and, ultimately, we're not a democracy, but it the way on the term we use as merit talk see if people are great people and can grow, give them a chance to grow, but make sure the room is really smart and talk through things and gain those perspectives And then if everybody's nodding their head, yes, and that's the reason to move forward. What would you say? You've mentioned having great people, the best people. You fill the room with smart people.
I can only imagine when you do that, obviously, the conversation is rich and the people respect the other person across the table. And they're like, wow. Like, I'm not only do I feel great, but then I feel great because that person is a high caliber individual, and it's just like a rising tide. But speaking to the person who's listening right now, who's thinking I I can't afford an a player or I can't afford multiple a players. I'm just trying to find a laborer or whatever.
Like, how do they get to that mentality where they're trying fill a room of a pay people or or smart people to have those types of conversations when they're stuck or at least they feel stuck at the current moment where they are. It's funny. 2 weeks ago, we had that peer advisory group meeting, and there was one gentleman who's in the group, and his approach is always go get the business first and then find the people. And I went at him a little bit saying because I think that's backwards.
You will sell with more confidence and you will be more and you will see a higher return on your investment if you build the right team and then go after the opportunities. Again, Chaz doesn't mean that an opportunistic moment can't happen and you have to react to it. But if you're that's tactical, but if you wanna be strategic, you gotta be willing to and start with 1, you know, to find a whole team.
If you have one person, maybe there's a person team how that, okay, if at the end of the day, if you have a question or something that's going on, who do you pivot to? If there's nobody there, then it then it's time to think about starting with that one person. But if there's somebody in your organization now that you trust, because it starts with Chaz. Starts with you have to, and that doesn't come instantly. I think you can like somebody and, like, a good track record and all those things.
But in 2, a true measure of a person is how they behave when things are difficult. It's really easy to be fun and jovial and celebrate when things are good. Yeah. But if things are difficult and how how people behave during those moments when things are not going as planned, that's the true measurement person. And if you've been in the trenches with somebody and they've stood by you, maybe they were waiting for you to make a decision, but they were with you. Start there.
But you have to be willing again to give up a little bit in order to go up. That's don't know any other way to do it. I have lived, had to react in a tactical way, and that works for the short term, but a long term strategy is build that build it with one person that would seem like that confident at that point, I think you'll, again, you'll be able to sell with more confidence. You'll tend to have more consistent returns. It may be it'll be a slower rise. Sure. But that's okay.
It's you got life is short. I've said that, but it's a long road. There's a lot of runway out there. And if you think I don't care what you do. If it's transactional and it's gonna be a one hit and you're done, then this is probably not the right conversation for you. But if you wanna have a long term plan, and you wanna be able to exit with some level of quality of life, just turn off the lights and lock in the door. You gotta start that thinking now. And it and just be slow and steady.
Again, I wish I had a more profound way to say it, but I think that's ultimately it. It's that build build it first and then the opportunities will come versus reacting or waiting until that great deal comes along, and then I'll hire somebody. I think you'll be waiting a long time if you approach it that way. Yeah. And then just to hammer him from that other guy's perspective. He's obviously got a sales background. That's what he's comfortable with.
And I would say that almost every sales background guy is gonna lean to let me just go get the client, and then I'll figure it out, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but strategically knowing what I know now about because that's how I let's just run. Let's we'll create a mess. And then and through the mess, we'll create systems. And there's and, again, I think that is how the majority of business owners do it, but I'm not necessarily saying is the best way.
The well thought out, especially once that's what Dave is talking about right now is that he's been through the fire. I've been through the fire. And even with gathering the Kings, this is a little bit more of a passion project than anything. Yes. We have a mastermind group That's peer to peer advisory. Yes. We charge for that. Like, it's a business, but I've been able to look at how we're building this with all of my other business experience and be like, okay. Who do I need?
Who are the people? And it's okay that it's it's more strategic now, and it's a little bit slow. I got a little bit more poise. Of course, I want things to go fast. But I want real relationships. I want a real machine on the inside where people are like, this is great as opposed to, Wolfe, this is a really big mess. Although it still feels like Chaz, I'm sure, to some people in every one of our businesses. You are who you are, and you're not gonna change overnight.
And if you're wired that way, and trust me. I I I can say these things now, but there were times where I would outrun my blocking because I was young and aggressive and wanted to get something That's right. Again, the most successful running backs in NFL do better when they wait for their blockers to get out in front of them versus trying to outrun every buddy. So true. Lots of sports analogies, baseball, and football. What's next? I know. What the you're the business sports coach.
Yeah. I don't know about all that. I don't know about all that. Okay. I wanna know I'm gonna come at you at a different angle here with some speed round questions. I wanna know if you had to dwindle your entire business down to one trackable metric. Something that you would track forever and ever and you only get to pick 1. What would it be? You had thought about this. You know, we we have so many KPIs that we utilize now and all these different metrics that we look at.
So To me, it's more about I wish there was a way I can measure an associate's personal stress level. I think there's so many things happening in people's personal lives. We wanna separate, well, that's personal versus business. That's bull. Yeah. The world is intertwined. Our work life and our personal life are intertwined, especially the last couple of years with work from home and things of that nature.
So to really have the having a empathy gauge to make sure I fully understand what people are with because everybody's dealing with something. And some people hide it really well. Some others just are you can read it as soon as they walk in the room. Have I wish I had a better understanding of what people were dealing with. Not that I could solve their problems, and maybe that's not my business, but at least I haven't understand again, have that empathetic view of things.
I wish and, again, that's so easy to say and so hard to make happen, but I think everybody's dealing with so many unique things in today's world at so many levels that if we could find a way to understand that. It doesn't mean we solve their problems for them, but at least it gives us a a different perspective. Yeah. It's interesting.
I was just this past weekend talking with my my dad and stepmom about the same topic, but my sister, one of my sisters is a counselor, and she spent some time in a school first, and she's going on to do some other counseling things.
But this is the topic inside the school where she was talking about mental health and different things that are going on with different students and the fact that someone was bringing items to school that they were gonna hurt themselves with, like, that that nobody knew Chaz, but she knew that because that's what her role was. And without sharing those things, but really giving the opportunity to speak up and say, hey. These things are happening.
And so then I immediately go to 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and everybody was on a farm. Is this really a concern? And that's how it's just my simplistic mind, like, is it are we really dealing with this? But a lot has changed. Maybe we don't have to go out and milk cows anymore, but but social media, or the fact that certain pleasures or certain even amenities that we do have that causes us to either think or not have certain things that maybe they did have a 100 years ago or 200 years ago.
So I think that the conversation to your point of if I know what's happening inside of my people, it can just it can help you lead better. It's really what I'm hearing you say. Absolutely. And to your point, I think, you know, things are changing at a much faster pace. Just think about where we were 3 years ago. 3 years ago, pandemic. I can't even spell pandemic and look at us now and look how the world has evolved.
And things between technology and innovation and things like social media, and just it that's there's so many platforms now. It's going to the world is gonna keep evolving at a more rapid pace. I don't know what the turn rate's gonna be, but it's gonna be faster. And I think what we're dealing with today, 10 years from now, it's gonna be a completely different world. Again, I think there'd be a lot of positive things.
There's gonna be some problems that this next generation is gonna have to deal with that I can't even contemplate right now. Yeah. 100%. What book would you recommend, David, for a 6 figure business owner to read? Alright. See, I'm staying in a good vein here. So it's about coaching and sports. So the book is called $1,000,000,000,000 coach. Okay. And it's a biography about a guy named Bill Campbell. And Bill Campbell, and I won't do it justice, but it was written by 3 former exec for Google.
Bill Campbell was a guy. He was a a football player at a Ivy League School and Chaz to be coming to coach there. And then from their springboard and ended up in went from the east all the way out to Silicon Valley and became this mentor and coach for people at Google and Facebook at Apple and his legacy. And, again, he the people that he's worked with, and he was a, I guess, he was a very he was a Yankee, so he's very crude. I can relate to that.
It was very crude and, but very straightforward and just really built teams. And, again, I'm not doing it justice, but it's a phenomenal book. And it's a it's stories. It's not a It's a biography in the sense, but it's people telling their experiences with Bill Campbell, and it's awesome. And I'd be able to glean so many pearls of wisdom from it. So I recommend it very highly. A $1,000,000,000 coach. Yeah. That's perfect. We'll put it in the show notes as well.
People can click on it and get a purchase. It you've already talked about, obviously, the peer advisory, and it sounds pretty similar to setup that we have with Gathering Kings, but I wanna know normally, my question is, what do you think about it? Obviously, you already do it. What would you say to the person listening today who doesn't do it? Whether it's something local or an event that they need to go to or mastermind. They just haven't. They don't. What would you say to that person?
Back to the ego comment I made earlier in the conversation. As a business owner, it's hard to be vulnerable. And when you're dealing with stuff that's beyond you and in today's world, we're all dealing with things that are beyond us. There are people that are just like you out there and dealing with things, again, different industries, different parts of the world, whoever the case may be, but there's a common thread.
And if you can allow yourself to be a little bit vulnerable, and put it out there, it'll come back to you in waves. And it's amazing to me. The part of it is that I hear these common thread type issues from my peers and I'm dealing with the same thing inside my own world. But when I hear for them, I have all the clarity on the in the world to be able to give them so true. Those thoughts and those pearls of wisdom and those and those simple things in my mind.
Yet, I turn the mirror on look at myself and go, dummy, why aren't you doing kind of thing. It's amazing. So though, just put a little bit out there, and you'd be amazed how much we'll come back. And most people are fierce who strong, but I think it is a level of apprehension when it's when you hear the word vulnerable, it means, oh my god. I'm exposing myself, and they're gonna see all my flaws. Guess what, man, we all have chinks in the We've all banged off the guardrail.
And the good news is you're not alone. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that if we keep the mindset of do we actually wanna be better? Do we wanna reach the potential, or do we wanna go to the next level, or do we just really wanna stay here and make it seem Yeah. Like, we we wanna go to the next level. Because if you do wanna go to the next level, it usually takes some exposing. And that's, again, that sounds aggressive, but it's like, just need somebody to be able to go, you know what?
I see you doing this, and you probably don't notice it, but if you this or that or switch that around or reverse engineer it, it just allows for a completely new way of thinking. So Yeah. It takes intentionality. You have to be deliberate. And once you've forced yourself down that path a little bit before you know it, you're just you're strumming along and you look forward to those moments. I look forward.
I'm actually I'm in a I'm in a personal group and a business group, and I get things out of both of them. And some I talk and some I do mostly listen I think each time you have to read the room, but it's been awesome. And, again, sometimes it just takes, I think you get get to a certain point in life. But, yeah, if you're going through the motions, then just stop wasting your time and your and just it is what it is. But if you really wanna make a change, be deliberate about it. Be deliberate.
It's good. Last question here for you, David. If you lost it all, What would you do? I'm gonna I'm gonna host your podcast when you go home. I told you that already. I come on. Land me. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Yeah. It's so hard to comprehend losing everything. Again, I've been doing this for so long. I still have, again, a lot of energy, so I would do something. It's only something different.
I would never go in the food and beverage business, but love to cook, and my family says, you should open a restaurant. I'm like, no, I shouldn't. No way Chaz out of your binds. Again, I think my wife says that when I go on to my next chapter, whatever that might look like, it's just you should be a consultant.
I'm like, well, I hate that word consultant, but I get asked all the time for people that I'm doing business with, people that I know, things I'm not even part of just to pick my brain, and I Wolfe only do it. So I'd be a bad consultant because I wouldn't make any money doing it, but I go back to there. There's two moments in my work life where I'm at my happiest. They're one of my most energized.
And that's when I'm selling to a client or really for me selling is helping a client figure out a problem. Because I've come with a project. A project is a problem and helping them think through it and navigate it and do it with the same way I'm speaking with you now with no no preconceived notions of success on it.
And the second thing is when I'm talking to young people and doing some recruiting because that's one of the things I like to at least have a phone call with every potential candidate for 30 minutes on the phone. Just don't want to break the ice Yep. And make him be comfortable with, hey, I'm the top guy, and you can get along with me. You can get along with anybody in this company. And just in helping young people think about what that next chapter for them might look like.
So I think there's something in that world of business development slash recruiting slash, I guess, cooking. I don't know. I made that up. But at that end, and I love to talk dream job would be for me to pay me just to stew what I'm doing now. I with you, I'd be, man. I have to be a lot too. I'm not looking for a huge profit center just to break even. Just enough. Enough to get by. A spot in the broadcasting work for you. We you never know.
There there could be there could be some advisory roles open up within Gathering and the Kings as well as we continue to grow. That that that could be a fun overlap for sure. Please keep me in mind then. I think that I think that it would be it would be a pleasure to just continue a conversation. Think that when like minded guys rub shoulders, man, it's just I love the ideas that flow, and I've done, at this point, I've met slash done deals with slash who knows with podcast guest.
And so it really is a pretty incredible thing just when you put two people together in the room and you just see what happens. David, I wanna know how can the listener connect with you? I want them to have the chance to have the same access. No. I appreciate that. But the best way is probably through LinkedIn. I mean, that's the I'm not a huge social media person. Personally, but through I'm probably most active on LinkedIn from business perspective.
So, yeah, they I sent a a link to my profile, so I welcome people reach out. And that's go at least start the conversation, and that's really how I met you was through LinkedIn. So Yeah. It does work. But back to your point, I think one thing I wanna say is that people do business people that they like. So if you can if you can just write with start with people that you like, and then if you can go that trust, man, oh, man, that's in the magic to begin happened. Yeah. 100%.
That's the best way is LinkedIn. I'd start there. I love it. I love it. You have been absolutely incredible and much more you're in the king stage. I know you got that sage wisdom in there, but, man, you've been very kingly here today in all seriousness. Thank you. Just incredible insight, business perspective, and story. So thank you. Wish you nothing but blessing and success on you and your family. Thanks for being here. Pleasure. It's mine.
Thank you so much, Chaz. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. I hope they you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple business and multiple different industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that It's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com.
Want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.