What's up, everybody? Chaz Wolfe Gathering the Kings podcast. I am your host. Today, I have a special guest named Steven Bray, the Kings. Maybe even as we were talking about, some of these stages, Steve knows the secret kind where I found these stages. But, I'm so excited for you to be here, Steve. A true Kings, and I appreciate your time. Thank you for being here. Good, sir. You're welcome. I'm happy to be here. It's gonna be fun. Yeah. Absolutely. Tell us what kind of business that you have.
Let's start there because, you have you have a big story and a lot to, be able to share value. And so I wanna be able to get to it. So, you know, basically, as it stands today, I started in temp power back. I was a field electrician back in, 1975 when I started in the field and and, and actually bought the company in 1984, and we Kings did the same Kings, temporary power for construction sites.
We would just supply simple polls and wire and equipment and cords and boxes and things like that for for it to build a home or a commercial site. And Yeah. After I bought the company in 84, we began I I started a generator company, and then we started a utility So we break it down into 3 different divisions. We've got construction services. We do that in Arizona, Nevada, California, and Texas. And then, we have a generator company that does generators for anything you can imagine.
We we own most of The. You know, in our fleet, we cover the United States, disasters, electrical, outages, anything you can imagine. We've done it. So if you said, you know, what about a backyard concert or what about and I had a division where we did entertainment. We did a 151 dates of the Rolling Stones. With operators around the country and the Wolfe. Eventually, we're all over the world with that. I actually ended up selling that division Wow.
You know, in in 91. But, so that rental, we we take care of people with rental whatever they need. And then the 3rd division is we service and maintain mission critical generators for hospital data centers sell sites, you name it. We, you know, we cover repairs and maintenance. So in that sense, we're like the copier, man. They call us up and they go, hey. Our copier is not working and Right. Fix it. You know? But we do that with generators and big, you know, big generators.
Yeah. The the these are not just things where they can't get something printed. This is like, we have four hundred people in beds that might die. We need you. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we we we take care of that. It's a very proactive business, you know, cycling through. We do work for Amazon, Walmart, you know, anybody that you can Chaz, you know, we we we've got a robust customer list. Yeah. Love that. Well, you've got a a huge resume.
You didn't even I mean, you I love how you just, like, slightly, like, rolled in there that you you were doing work for the Rolling Stones or It's just I I love the the rap sheet, for lack of better terms. You're you have you have a lot of success. I wanna know for a guy like you that just seems so maybe intense. When I first talked with you just a little bit ago, you're like, yeah. I like hanging out with crazy people because they're like, me, basically. You know?
So for a guy like you, same as me, what, like, pushes you? What's your why? Why are you still at it? You're talking about I sold this company in 91. We did The, like, but you're just as excited about business and life today. It seems like, what what's what's in it? Yeah. Well, originally, I I mean, to be honest with you, I mean, I, you know, I'm a Christian and I I I received a very, really, realistic calling in 1984. So prior to that, I wanted to be a pastor.
I was just kind of a field electrician and waiting sort of to get, you know, knighted as a pastor by a pastor. And, I had this encounter where I realized my life is to build value into, you know, people, in, you know, make a profit and then we move a lot of that money into, you know, world mission type of work through, a, foundation I found in 5 called The Giving University, and we basically teach people about generosity. So it's all one big ball of you know, you know, enjoying work.
And, I I always love to tell all of the friends that I know that are pastors I drive into work every day and thank god I'm not a pastor. And I enjoy and I love my job. Yeah. And so it's, you know, that that's where the energy comes from. It it because I I feel like I'm doing what I was made to do. Yeah. Yeah. That moment, I mean, I think that there's a lot of business owners that are, like, in the same seat as you.
They're like, okay. Like, I I wanna, I wanna go after this thing, this hill, this The challenge, this business. You know, we we put the thing in front of us. But oftentimes, we don't necessarily feel like this is what I was made to do. What's the difference for you? How did you get there? What's the difference? And how did you get there? One of just, like, I'm just doing this because I didn't wanna do the pastor thing versus, like, no. No. No. No. I was made to do this business.
And was there, like, a moment there? Yeah. The, you know, there really was. And that was a moment of, you know, where I what I call The moment of of, you know, calling, which was I thought the best thing I could do was to be a pastor. That's what I thought. Yep. So I thought, you know, in in 84, it was The there's 2 things you could do that were important as a Christian was be a pastor, be a missionary. So I, you know, paid pastor and, and one of my most amazing, whim, mentors was John Wimber.
John, you know, I was in his course to go plant a church. And I'm 1st quarter in the church, and he goes, I want you to go pray about where what geographic location you're gonna go to. And so I went home, you know, Jersey's, you know, where do you want me to plant The church? And I got this very clear. I don't want you to plant a church. I'm gonna bless you in business so you can be a blessing in the kingdom. Yeah. So and and Wember was all about, you know, kingdom. So that was that moment Okay.
And, you know, I have, you know, I I I know that you're gonna you know, ask the question at some point about what was your, you know, what bad decision did you make? I didn't value the business that I we had. So there was a period of time in the, you know, in the late nineties where I hated, you know, the, you know, the power business and, you know, the oil and iron and dirt and generators and construction guys and you know, employees everywhere and the service aspect of it.
You know, just all those difficulties. I hate it. And because everyone was creating these, you know, you don't have to make profit, you know, internet success, all of these Kings. I thought I missed it. I missed it. What did I you know, I was focused on on this thing and Chaz all blew up. You know, the dot bomb blew up. And Right. I was out raising money, and I was talking to a VC guy, and and he invested. He bought 28% of my company at that time in 2000 1.
And I said, you know, why did you invest in this company? Oh, we hate internet business. And we want bricks and mortar, and we want business, you know, people that are doing things that have long lasting You know? In fact, I Power is not going anywhere. And you know what? And then I had this epiphany where I was like, Oh my gosh. I'm sitting in the Chaz bird seat with power.
We, you know, we can do anything with, you know, with power and it's always, you know, necessary and, you know, we've we've, you know, I've operated from that standpoint ever since. And part of the energy is that I love, you know, growth. And so we grew from 1984 through to, 2006 at a 32% compounded growth rate. Wow. And yeah, which is like, sometimes I think, you know, if I was counseling a guy, you know, 27, I'd say, don't do that. You know?
Yeah. I mean, you were hiring people left and right, all kinds of challenges. I can only imagine that that was just the stickiest 2 decades of starting. Starting things and, you know, and and and all of that. So, but, I mean, what a blast. We, you know, we we've had you know, we're still having a blast. I have a lot of great people that work for me. And they're all intricately involved you know, in in the business. So it's been, you know, it's been a lot of fun.
So Chaz, I think that answers, you know, you still have energy and passion for it because the Yeah. You don't have to. Every, you know, everyone has these, you know, you know, I wanna sell my company and I want to you know, move on to the next thing. Well, what's the next thing you're gonna golf? You know, you know, it's like that would be a sentence of death to me. And my wife and I would probably divorce if Yeah. You need to go do something more extreme. So Which is, you know, it's funny.
We we, likened over a quick, a quick big game hunting few minutes before we hit the record button, but it's it's things like Chaz. When you said about your wife, I I think about the moments where, you know, even though Julie, my Wolfe, because I'm younger or I have younger kids, And so, you know, me being gone for 2 week elk hunt isn't necessarily the most practical thing when we've got four under the age of nine, but But at the same time, she's like, get out of here. Please.
Like, go do the extreme thing because that's what gives you energy, which is exactly what you're talking about, even after all The success and you've, have froze. Its purposes hit the mountain top. It's like, no. No. No. It's just a false top. I'm not even there yet. You know? Right. Exactly. It is. It is.
And, you know, even like with hunting, I always, you know, talk about the fact that it's it's actually not you know, getting the elk or the antelope or whatever you're hunting, it's actually the whole process in, you know, that's Kings Chaz you're going through. And those are the stories you're talking about. Right. The of my best hunts was I got totally skunked for 7 days. I rode 64 hours on horseback.
And as I'm as I'm clicking through, you know, my, you know, my ride, my time, it it, you know, it was all these stories that we were talking about and all these experiences and all this stuff that was happening. So it was really, really amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there's a uniqueness of the correlation between, especially Alconning, just because you can go a long time without seeing one. And then all of a sudden Right. Boom. They're all there. Right.
Yeah. You get The opportunity, one shot type of Kings, or maybe it maybe it don't. And you don't get any opportunity and you go home and with tag suit. But the reality of it there is that if that was the only thing you were going for to your point, you missed it. Yeah. You missed it. And then The camaraderie, the guys, everything. Right. Exactly. So it's it's and that and to be honest with you, that's a lot about business.
I mean, you there there's every once in a while you hit, you hit a home run. Very rarely do you get a grand slam, but you've got to base your baseball on hits, you know, hits and on bases, steals, all those kinds of things. That's that's how you get points, not Yeah. Grand slamming it. Exactly. It was funny. Just keep this vein here for a second on hunting.
Oh, my nine year old, daughter, she's learning how to pull back a bow and she's shooting a little kid's bow and we were talking about practicing and, you know, and really the point of even her practicing right now, because it's not like it has any weight on it. It's just she's learning how to to hold the bow, to balance it, to, you know, pull it back, to get The just the feel of it every single time, do the same thing every time, get the motions.
And, so I was explaining to her what the the the purpose of even at this age, even though she can't shoot an animal with this bow. Like, there's no, like, this is not gonna do anything. She can't go hunting. But it's the it's the mechanics. It's the little things that she's learning because later when she does have an opportunity, even at my stage, it's like, I practice over and over and over and over.
So that way when I am in the moment, when I do have that one very quick one opportunity, I didn't, like, self sabotage. And so correlating that to business. It's like, okay. So all these, you know, hits and steals and runs along the way are what add up to over the course of time. You can look back and go, well, I wasn't really focused on, you know, just killing the animal every time.
It was I was the mechanics, which put me in the right position, at that time so that I could kill the animal, but there was lots of other times where I didn't get the opportunity. Right? Right. Yep. That's really good. What do you think? For the golfers, Guido Tiger Woods hits a 1000 golf balls a day. Exactly. Yeah. Wolfe isn't bad. It's just bad for me and you. What do you think? Let's let's transition here.
You've you've you kinda told a little bit of a story there around growing multiple divisions, you know, buying the company. Tell us just real quick, of a good decision that you made in those maybe early years when it was really chaotic and you were growing Chaz maybe led to the growth or that helped you manage the growth. Yeah. So, if if, you know, every once in a while, somebody will say, well, what two qualities, you know, propelled you Chaz is I'm extremely fiercely curious. Love that.
Define that for me. What does that mean? Well, it, you know, you you you've got this power platform. What else could we do with that? And then dig into that. You've got, you know, you've got all these ancillary ideas and products and things like that. Go you know, go chase after those and figure out how you can make those integrated into the company or, you know, dump the idea and, you know, keep moving. Curiosity, allows us to learn and grow.
And so I am, you know, I'm I'm, like, fiercely curious. Parsh partially because when I stepped into business, I you know, when that moment happened, where, you know, I I'm getting called into away from being a pastor and into business. I was like, me, I barely graduated from high school. Literally. I graduated in January because they wanted me out and I had to come back to my small town to, you know, walk with and get my, you know, degree.
But I didn't have any background in business, finance, banking, you know, all those things. I Chaz to learn every single Gathering. I, you know, I had to plot through that. That curiosity is what what helped me. The other thing, that allowed me to you know, grow and to develop, the the company as it is today is I I'm a fierce delegator. I love to delegate. I like to see other people do the work, you know, that that I know I can do, but I'd like to see them do it themselves.
And that allows them, you know, to have a greater role in the company, but it also allows us to grow and expand. So you don't You don't grow at 32% compounded rate if you're you you know where everything is. Exactly. Impossible. Yeah. It is. It's it's actually lack of control, but that sounds bad. Like, wait a second. I'm out of control. I don't know where everything is. What would you say to that listener who's thinking those thoughts right now?
Well, if, you know, if if you're talking to a banker or, you know, an auditor and they go, you're out of control. You wanna Yeah. You know? Button it up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. You might wanna, you know, you know, talk them down from that observation. But, you know, you know, right now, you know, I have pea I have, you know, I've 3 or 400 trucks on the road all over the country. You know, am I in control of that?
Well, I've got really good people that are you know, watching monitoring, fixing, repairing, and things like that. Can't possibly have my fingerprints on all that stuff. I you you have to let go in order to, you know, operate and, you know, build your your organization. So control is a tricky word because It is. I feel like we have a really good control on our business. And, but it's not all about me. Yeah. You said we. We have control. We. It's not that control doesn't exist.
Because control still has to exist in order for there to be. Yep. Order. In order for The to be success, you have to have order. Okay. So we're back 19, you know, 89, 90, and you're growing at, you know, 32% compounding growth. Which means you're Gathering, you know, I mean, you're hiring whole teams at once and, and all across the country. This is not just in one singular office. Wolfe, at that in in in 91, we were pretty much local in Southern California because we were growing Okay.
You know, we are growing the construction services business, and it wasn't till later on, you know, like, mid nineties, we started to expand into other states. And partially, you know, we went to we went to, Las Vegas because we were in, you know, we we could feel the recession coming, and we knew that we had the ability to go to that state and do do the work that that was there.
So a lot of the adversity caused us to push out, you know, move, you know, move to you know, move out to other geographic locations that were, you know, wrong green, you know, green green grass. And, so you know, the the biggest migratory, you know, animal in the world, you know, Moe's grass. They have the biggest Bison, and they, you know, the the African Bison, and they just keep chewing and moving and, you know, keep, you know, keep Kings. And that's that's what we did.
Hey, Kings and Queens. Jazz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things on social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast, mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this.
Let's help each other. Let's hope each other grow. Yeah. I love that. Just keep chewing. Keep going. My, I guess, my Kings underneath question for that would be Okay. So you're delegating. You're giving things away. You're not you're controlling, but not con you know, putting your fingerprint on everything. What were you saying to yourself at that moment?
Because I could see or hear some of the listeners saying, well, I'd be super overwhelmed, or there'd be a lot going on, or I'd come home, and I wouldn't be able sleep or my, like, all of these things that could be happening inside of a growth, you know, tornado like Chaz. What was happening inside of your mind at that time? What were you telling yourself? You know, I and, you know, look, we can't help wiring. You know, like, I know people that you know, deal with a lot of anxiety over things.
I just don't I don't have that. You know, I, like, you know, I've been jumping off a high things for a long time, and I like, you know, I like taking risk. And you don't do that by you know, Kings, you know, and so I, you know, I don't do a lot of that. A lot of that is wiring. So And and so, you know, having good people behind me, hiring smarter than myself, which, you know, wasn't hard to do because hire people that knew how to do things that I did not know how to do.
And along the way, I learned those. You know, I learned those things. And so, you know, ultimately, you know, it, some of it comes, you know, down to wiring. And I would say, look, not everybody should grow a big company. Not everybody should expand across the United States. It depends on a lot of who you are. And and I would say, most of what's wrong with So if I'm talking to your audience, most of what's wrong with your company is what's wrong with you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're inside.
The of my favorite movies is with Ben Seller in in, the the secret life of Walter Mitty. And him having to deal with this dream of becoming a skateboarder, you know, on the professional The at 13 Chaz dad dies, and he ends up taking over you know, he he ends up taking over, a really boring job leading the family Kings at a pizza place. The You know, the whole story and if you dissect that story, he had to overcome that. Well, one of his survival techniques was he lived in the stream Wolfe.
Yeah. Chaz wasn't getting him anywhere. So a lot of times what what inhibits us is what's going on inside of us. The other movie I like to, use this analogy is, what's eating Gilbert grape? You know, Here's another guy that was dealt to set of circumstances. And so a lot of, you know, my, you know, a lot of my talents and a lot of my, gifting comes from the hardship that I grew up in my family.
And so it taught me a lot of, you know, not only survival skills, but also, you know, ways of dealing with things in in chaos. And so I Yeah. Persorfulness. Right. I grew up in chaos. So, you know, I went off and created chaos. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, yes, I can see that and and the listener, can hear that clearly. What would you say to the person listening right now that feels like they're in chaos too, but it's just maybe a different level. And and I kinda go back to your point here.
Of maybe not everybody's designed to have a big company because we're wired differently, and and you've used this pun intended or not. Obviously, you're the you're the wiring guy or the power guy. But yeah. Exactly. But I'm a I'm a huge fan here. We we use Culture Index, working genius, like like, there's certain ways that we're just designed. And and we play into that and you try to overcome either weakness and or play into the weakness and or strengths. We there's a whole game plan on that.
But Right. The person listening right now who's listening to you going, yeah, I feel like I'm in chaos right now. Is it for them to figure out and bring order? Is it for them to just press harder, hire somebody else, make a bigger chaos. Like, I mean, I know it's gonna be dependent here, but I'm I'm warning your answer on women what Kings dependent I I, you know, to be honest with you, I think that, you know, I've done all the Myers Briggs and all the surveys and weed implement those Kings.
We interview people with all all of that in mind. Trying not to put people in a in a situation that they aren't, you know, really going to succeed at because we want people to succeed. So I think, you know, what what people have to do is step back and set their expectations Kings are not going to self manage. They're just not. You know? Yeah. You you know, the leader of of the organization is going to have to figure out who The best people are.
And then, you know, night them in their Wolfe, let them make mistakes deal with those mistakes. Don't let them make them twice, but, you know, you're it's a constant influx of of of teaching and training and and, observing, we do a we we do a Monday meeting management call, call. It takes 2 hours. We get an update on every single division in the company. You know, do I need that? Maybe not as much as it's a training tool for all the people that are coming up. In the organization.
And they get to see all the decisions from the financial decisions to, you know, the safety decisions and you know, they're not they're not caught off guard when we get sued for something and they go, oh, how did that happen? They they already knew. What was happening. So it's, you know, it's it's a great, it's a great tool that we use. So And, yeah, and I don't know that there's a really a general question.
You know, like, I would be more than happy to talk to somebody that you know, is listening to The. It says, you know, hey. Let me, you know, unpack a situation and maybe I could get him some specific, you know, advice on that. I general generalizations and comparisons are death. It's good. Just pure just pure death. Just take a knife to your throat and slit it. If you're Kings to sit there and compare yourself to me or to anybody, you know.
Yep. I mean, look, every once in a while, when I need a humble, you know, check on myself, I just think back to 1984, April. I started, you know, basically in my garage. Well, there was another guy that started in his garage in 1984. His name is Bill Gates. That's right. I'm not even my whole life's work hasn't even it isn't even a rounding error. It's not a rounding error. So I, you know, you take that moment, you go, could I do more? Can I, you know, figure this out? Yeah. You know?
But just realize that comparisons, you know, really bad. Yeah. I I really appreciate that because there's there's freedom in Chaz. And there's also, you know, there's there's there's a charge also in that because you said, like, yeah, could I do more Yeah. Like, that there's a recognition that they're still they're still more for you. Right. But specifically comparing yourself to him or someone might be listening today going, I mean, dude sent 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars.
How what what are you talking about? But but you're right. That's not even a rounding error for for the other guy. Yeah. It's it's death, but how does one, like, take that from what you just heard? So, okay. Well, yeah, it's death. I shouldn't compare. I mean, how do I put the The on? How do I stay focused on what it is that I'm called to or that I'm good at? Well, you know, you know, I I I like to, you know, make a sports analogy. So, we're all, you know, our bodies are all different. You know?
So I, you know, I, you know, I like to run to stay in shape so I can, you know, do all the things that I like to do. It's not my focus, and I don't enjoy it. Somebody said, oh, you should go do a marathon. Okay. So, you know, I, you know, I go go out. I attack, you know, LA marathon and, and, I'm out there and my goal is to do a 3 a half, you know, 3, you know, 3 hours and a half marathon. And I get to mile 22. Okay. Mile 22. And I am sub 3. I'm I, you know, I'm at 2 hours 28 minute.
I I mean, 2 hours 59 58 minutes. And I'm almost to 3 hours. And, you know, it takes me 42 minutes to finish the rest of the race. Wow. 42 minutes. So it's like a 10 minute mile. I just, like, I broke. I go look at the stats because, you know, you know, comparison is like where am I at? The guy that won the race okay, at mile 22 of 26 miles, did a sub 5 mile. Right. It's like, I wasn't built for that. I'm pushing too much beef and gas. Yeah. And so there's, you know, we're just all different.
And so that's where the comparison Gathering, it's good to have a measurement but not beat yourself up to to to be able to say, hey. This is, you know, you know, I can take this to the next level. You know, I I'm I'm planning on, you know, you know, growing my company a lot bigger than it is. You know? Yeah. But every once in a while, you, you know, kinda look back and say, hey. We're, you know, we're doing good.
You know, it's not exactly what, you know, what I thought it would be at this point. And, you know, for me, it it there's always that that impetus at that moment. It was like, that would be in a different place, you know, The where we are right now. Yeah. So and and there's lots of market factors and lots of things that you don't control. Exactly. Well, especially over the course of decades, Right? Like, we were talking about, okay. What was my 3 year goal?
I mean, you're you told me before we hit the, the record button Chaz you have a 100 year legacy plan. It's like, well Right. When you start making decisions in centuries Right. You know, the the the needle that we're moving is different. Right. And and just just by virtue, the guy that inspired me to do that, he he had a 1000 year plan. Wow. And I I laughed. I said, I can't say that with a straight face. So 100 years, you know, Chaz Yeah. I I could I Chaz do that.
Yeah. And maybe it grows into a 1000 year plan because I've had that happen before too where I've Right. Been around somebody who thinks so much bigger than me. And I just laugh. I just chuckled. I'm like, yeah. It would be fun to say that, but I don't currently believe it. So why would I say it? Cause I don't believe it. But I can wrap my mind around, in this case, a 100, or I can wrap my mind around be, you know, Okay. Fine. Maybe it's you becoming a millionaire. Maybe it's you. Right.
Making sure that all of your kids, don't have the same blah blah blah, you know, whatever Chaz you know, generational issue in your family. It's like, okay. We gotta pick something to your point, make it specific to what we're what we're doing, what we're called, to what we're what we're passionate about, The one last thing here on this, like, growth and not comparison.
For me, it seems like the answer, and I wanna know if, like, maybe agree or if maybe add something here, but it feels like the answer really is, like, this self pursuit or this mastery of, like, I'm I'm I'm just after it. I wanna keep going. I'm not at my best version yet because even though you didn't know before the race that you were a mayor, you weren't know, a marathon runner. You are a marathon runner because you finished, but you said I'm not built for that.
Okay. Well, you recognize that maybe later saying, you know, I don't really know if I wanna do this every quarter. Or every year for that matter. Right. But you didn't really know that until you did it. And so you pursued you. You pursued the best version of you. You did it. You tried it. And you're like, you know what? Check it, but, like, no. Thanks. Or Yeah. That could be for a lot of us. Right?
So I guess what I'm saying is in order to stay away from comparison, but yet still be the best version of ourselves is like there's this relentless pursuit towards becoming that. Would you agree? Would you add anything? Yeah. I you know, I I think of it you know, I I think of it in terms of, you know, The, you know, Kings of finding a balance.
You know, it's If you don't sleep, you know, like, I went through The cycle where everyone was talking about, you know, I Chaz work and do all accomplish all these things on, you know, 4 hours sleep. But, you know, you but you're gonna die younger, you know, but by doing that, you destroy your brain. We're we are made to rest and we were made to pursue and we were made to, you know, to have, you know, a balance.
I have a 168 hour, week, you know, people will say, well, what, you know, what's that what's that look like? Well, if we sleep 56, We work 50 because if you work less than 50, you're lazy. And if you work more, you're probably a little whack, and that's okay. If you, you know, you go above that and exercise 10 hours a week, okay, you have 52 hours left in your week Right. To do it to to do whatever you want to do. So Love them.
It's it's, you know, how do you how do we push ourselves and also, you know, take care of ourselves because when we get to the, you know, when we get let's say you hit The success milestone, let's say you burned out your wife and she doesn't, you know, she wants to divorce you or your hate kids hate you or they don't know who you are or whatever, you know, and you, you know, you you your kid's 18 and you introduce yourself. Hey. You know, I'm your dad. You know? Right.
Because you you you're out of balance. There's a balance and every single person has to find that balance. Now I still run for, you know, for exercise, but I realized that I'm not going to be that you know, that, you know, that runner Chaz wins marathons or does alter marathons. I have to pick Right. You know, what do I wanna give myself? Yeah. You know, too. So I don't I don't know how else to say it except for you know, Kings do the internal exploration.
As I said, what's you know, sometimes, you know, we create chaos because inside of us is chaos, and we haven't resolved some things that we're where we can come to to balance. And so the only thing we know how to do is, like, create chaos Wolfe, that's not good.
Yeah. Yeah. That's it's never gonna it's never gonna lead to a winning result with the exception of creating, you know, I guess, you just gotta go go and create sometimes, and sometimes that creates chaos, but you're talking about just out of out about knowing Oh, absolutely. When I go, you know, away to a conference or something, everyone gets scared at work because they know I'm gonna come back and go, Hey. I just found out we're gonna do this and they go. Oh, yeah.
Well, that's that's really encouraging to hear at your level because that's what my team says about me, as well. And I and well, there and there's two sides of the story too. Right? Like, there's you you this is part of your design. This is who you are to the company. Right. But that's it also has to be not curbed. That's not the wrong word, but it has to be, prudently. Yeah. You have to do it with, like, you know, like a like a design.
You know, like, you don't just show up every day with a new idea. It's gotta be it's gotta be done with maturity. You know? Right. Yeah. And, you know, and if you did that, you know, and well, I did that, you know, at one point, we were into all kinds of Kings. And then what typically happens is some cycle, you know, a hurricane of financial disaster comes at you and then you go, well, we really didn't need this and we didn't need Chaz.
And you start Yep. You know, get rid of things and and and making things same. Again. Right. Yeah. That's good. That's good. Is there ever a point in time that you've experienced or that you would maybe suggest that you know, rather than waiting for that financial Kings of hurricane, if you will, to do that for you, that you Kings have maybe a checking balances along the way of, like, do we need this?
Is this something that we can get rid of now and kind of bringing things back to sane, as you just said, before the chaos. Yeah. And so, you know, I I have this you know, people always say, you know, of public companies or private companies or, you know, they they they sort of make a decision point, that it's the best Gathering, like thinking long term Kings, you know, short term thinking, mid term Kings, Wolfe, each one of those things can be very good.
There are short term thinking things that are really, really beneficial. You're nimble. You're you're fast. What you have to do, what we what we like to do is ask the question, well, what could go wrong? Or what's the unintended consequence of this decision we're Kings. Because you can plot those things. You can kind of figure it out. And when you're, you know, planning some, you know, new venture or whatever, what, you know, what could go wrong. And and, you know, we did that in Texas.
We, you know, you know, sent, a team of guys out The, you know, with our temp power and and, you know, what? We were defeated by some. We didn't even see The utilities do all that work for them for free. How am I gonna charge a customer for something Chaz, and we we didn't see that coming coming. So that was another, hey. We can figure this out in advance of us taking a step. So yeah. Yeah. That's really good. Okay. Let's talk about a bad decision that you've made.
We've kind of, been in a really good place here. I fell The the conversation, gave her some great value. Let me let me hear of a not great hour and how you navigated it. Yeah. So, you know, that is the, you know, The has been, you know, really, really weighing on me. Okay. So if you take the concept that we don't and, you know, everyone, you know, this is Kings like a known quantity. We never fire people soon enough. Right? Yeah. We hang on to people.
And especially for me Chaz, as, you know, as a as a you know, Christian, I think, well, I could I can save it. I can figure it out. I can, you know, I Yeah. You know, I I can make this work. And Yeah. I did that with the COO in, 2000. Wolfe, it started. He he Kings created a little bit of a coup, on, you know, on me with a few people And when I confronted the whole thing and and, you know, broke it all up, he, you know, he came to me and he said, you know, hey, you know, I'm sorry.
I should have fired him right then. Had I done The, it would have been a really good decision. It was a really bad decision for me to try and hang on to them. And, and, you know, some of the he he eventually did it again and 2007. And, eventually, he stole a laptop, took the hard drive out, took all of our information out, gave the laptop back with a new hard drive in it, you know, a brand new one and then went on to begin to try and compete with us.
And, so this individual, I could have saved myself that, you know, that heartburn at that point had I seen that and, you know, gotten rid of the person. Later on, he went on to Duke several investors into a into a an investment deal that where they lost 2 to 2, 2,300,000. And later on after that, he went and duped a whole bunch of people created a ponzi scheme and now is is going to be under trial for mail fraud, wire fraud, number of things. He's looking at you know, 40 years in prison.
And and he duked his son in line to doing that. And I'm thinking to myself, had I Yeah. Done it The. What would have changed? Now I don't take any responsibility for anything he did to, you know, other people. That's not that's on them. But Yeah. I saw the seeds of something bad in that Kings. I did not fire him, and I wish I had fired him. Like Yeah. Yeah. That, you know, it's a really bad decision. Yeah. We can all relate to that.
Maybe not the the the, you know, the circumstances that turned out specifically like like yours, but think we can all relate to that. What do you think is Chaz we hold on to? I mean, is it just because we have a belief in this person? Or we wanna see it better? Like, we because you said I knew. I saw it. I know. It wasn't like a shock, but you still kept him. Yeah. I okay. So now I'm gonna go into what, you know, what I talked about.
What's wrong with your company is what's wrong with inside you. So At one point, I was praying and asking god, I wanna be a better leader. And I got this really clear answer similar to, you know, you know, starting a business, not being a pastor. I got this really clear answer. 2 things. 1, Kings. You know, I was I I I was drinking was it was it was hurting my leadership. It was hurting you know, it was hurting things. I was drinking too much.
Yeah. The second was my mom, my relationship with my mom, and I said, What's the deal? I forgive my mom. And I got this very clear word back. Your mom didn't love you. And I'm like, all moms love their kids and and I grew up in a really, you know, bad family. My dad left when I was 5. My mom was, you know, basically, you know, a crazed sex person. She was like a Marilyn Monroe James Manfield look alike.
Wow. And she, you know, and she just, you know, went down this row we were basically neglected. And so I so, I got this. Well, remember a time when your mom intervened looked at you, loved you, you know, took. And I couldn't think of 1, and I can remember my whole childhood every bit of it. I don't have, like, regressive memory. Oh, you can't remember. Right. And, and I so I I asked the question. So then what did I do? I said, well, you pretended. So you could survive.
Yeah. And so you brought pretending into your leadership. Oh. And so I pretended that this guy was okay. I pretended that I wasn't seeing some of the things I was saying. I pretended. Wow. What's Gathering Gilbert grape? What's eating Steve Spray? So Yeah. Yeah. You know, those are those are really clear seeds of that. And and that doesn't just go away. You have to Right.
Face it and deal with it So a lot of times people go, I I'm just gonna be busy and focus outwardly, but, you know, I would say to your business leaders out there, What's what's in you that's holding you back? What? Yeah. You know, whether it's your childhood, whether it's, you know, you know, entitlement, whatever it is. You know? You know, interesting. Powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting is the is the Chaz, the the very, very top nugget of it. There's a whole lot more in there.
I think we could probably have a whole another show if I kept my curiosity up, on that. So I'm gonna I'm gonna curb that for a secret conversation that I'll have with you later. Maybe we'll be able to share that. But the the question I gotta ask about you or I wanna ask now is about family. You've mentioned you know, your family and and kids and legacy and even just your wife and Mhmm. Like, upset. We we we talked about balance, and and I hear your deaf mission of balance.
And I think that that's right. The word balance rubs me the wrong way just because, you know, I wanna go I wanna go all in. Right? Like, that's just who we are. Right? We're not balanced individuals. We're obsessive. Right. But I get what you're saying. You're saying you you gotta have it all. Like, you a 52 hours here, 50 hours here, like, organize it.
So my question to you is how have you obsessed or balanced your marriage, your kids, legacy mindedness, as well as running a huge company and building it. Right. Well, and and, you know, there's gonna be some holdbacks who, you know, So, you know, starting and running a business is harder when you have, when you have convictions, when you have morals, when you have integrity, The are hard things.
And at when I was 27, I realized I was working around these people that were, like, working 100 hour weeks. And I I projected that out. And I said, well, Chaz, you know, I'm gonna get to this place where I'm really successful sitting there, Shmok Kumar, and my kids hate me, and I'm on my 3rd trophy wife. Right. And I I said, I don't wanna do that. So I made a decision.
I was gonna work till 6 o'clock at night, not work the weekends, I was gonna, you know, date my wife, play with my Kings, and, you know, and so, you know, I have one wife, 4 kids, and a dog named Skipper. And, you know, and a white pig offense. So So and and look, look, you know, my wife and I have, you know, you know, we want somebody asked me one time, well, how have you, you know, stayed married for, you know, almost 42 years?
It's like, Wolfe, when we hated each other, we just didn't do anything about it. Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, that's that's That's the truth. Yeah. There's periods when, you know, I know my wife has just hated me and, you know, there's times when I'm like, whatever, you know, and Yeah. You know, done the dismissive thing with her. Totally. So Yeah. You know, the the balance is somewhat of a, you know, it's a decision you have to make. It's not just gonna come at you.
So you look at even the hours that I told you, you have to make a decision every week about exercise, about work, about sleep, about you know, you know, you're you're you're pursuing adventure, the, you know, the battles that you're in. All of it. You know, you you have to those are decision points. They're not just gonna fall out of the sky. They're they're deliberate. And it's harder when you have ethics when you have, you know, a real conviction, you know, to live a certain way.
And so, you know, for the most part, Mike, kids still like me, you know, and my wife my wife my wife was, you know, we were talking about you know, having this conversation today, and she goes, just be yourself, man. Yeah. So Yeah. Well, that's the that's I mean, that's how you've been with her. Right?
Yeah. Which is which is a little bit scary, actually, because I think, high driving entrepreneurs, at least for me, like, I mean, some of my, like, worst moments The worst I've been to people has been to my Wolfe. Unfortunately, you're like, well, wait a second. She's the one I love the most, but I've treated the most kindly or the they're the most poorly. At times. Right. But to her point there, you know, we hopefully got to see the real you today, but she's for sure seen the real you.
You've seen the real her. And the decision that you're talking about is to work through the real version, not The version that we saw each other, you know, for my wife and I at 1817. And there's just been a lot of growth and change between, you know, 1836 for me. And Right. 1735 for her. It's like, wow. The decision really is important for sure, but because we're both growing and changing. And she's really seen the real me, and I've seen the real her.
And and that's the beauty of what actually what love is now. At 1817? The met The, married at 21 20. Yeah. So it's been a minute. Alright. Steve, I got one last question here for you. And honestly, I've asked this question a lot, but I might be the most excited about your answer. I wanna know if you had the opportunity to whisper in the younger Steve's ear. What would you tell him? Don't do it. No. No. What would I tell him?
Yeah. I would say, you you know, it's funny because I didn't have the type of growing up, you know, encouragement from parents and things like that. My mom didn't know anything about me. My dad certainly did because he left. But what I would say is that there are good people out there that are rooting for you On the sidelines, you can't see him because you're focused and you're blurred, but, you know, The love you. And I didn't have that, you know, when I started.
I was sort of just like, you know, I grew up as a kid that survived So all those survival skills were really, you know, on one hand, what made me wired the way I was wired. Yeah. Exactly. That's and so I'm very thankful for those. I never had this moment where, god, why did you do x, y, z? You know, No. I I realized, wow. You know, I get to do what I'm doing because of that you know, the those experiences.
And so and, you know, I to be honest with you, if you knew my background, you know, I don't ever look at a homeless person and say, how did they end up there? I say, how did I not end up yelling and screaming at the world, you know, on the sidelines because I should, you know, I should be probably dead. You know, by now. And, and, you know, I attribute that to the redemptive story of Jesus in my life. And then that calling and then just kinda utilizing those skills.
And so I would tell that younger me you got The. Even, you know, even though you you feel like you're a bit alone in it, you got this and you Chaz Yeah. Love every part of that answer.
And, in fact, this will have to be for that secret next conversation that you and I are gonna have, but I've said the same Kings, some of those same things to myself around, like, I've, you know, I've never had that moment where I was like, oh, you know, I didn't have a dad or, you know, Kings mom family or whatever the scenario is. I've always counted it as a blessing and part of my story and Right. A reason for whatever The that god has for me. And so, I appreciate that perspective.
It's it's wholesome. It's right. For the ones that are listening right now that, you know, aren't or can't, or or may maybe don't know how to get to that place of just really just being okay with the good and the bad and the ugly and allowing it to be fuel, really. I would encourage you to do that. You know, for for Steve and I, it's obviously, like I said, it's faith based, and, being redeemed when you know when you know you're not worth anything to begin with.
The you know you need a rescuer, doesn't really matter how great or how bad the circumstances are. You need a rescuer. So, I think that that's that's a great place. I'm I'm just thankful to be in arms with you on that. But, Steve, how can the listener find you? Number 1, if they I don't know. Maybe they're listening and they run a big old hospital, and they need they need their copy machine. Not their actual copy machine, but they they need help.
Or if they're just, a business owner and they're looking to connect with an incredible, incredible mature keying or sage, how can they find you? So they can reach me on my email srbray@powerplus.com. That's the best, way to do it. You you know, reach out, reference, you know, this podcast, you know, Chaz Wolf and, you know, I'll respond to it. I have a really quick finger. Kings. Delete. I have no social media whatsoever. I'm one of 2 humans that never opened a Facebook page.
And I I really don't wanna spend my time you know, trying to get likes and followers. I had an Instagram for probably 2 years. I had 14 followers. And, and I it was too much for me manage. You know? Yeah. A lot going on there. Yeah. So so, you know, it's it's simple. I, you know, I'll I will respond. I enjoy, you know, answering questions, bantering back and forth. And, you know, when we do that, we'll, you know, we'll set up a call or something if somebody wants to reach out.
Yeah. I I appreciate that. The even the simplicity of it, I appreciate, your willingness to help as well. Steve, you have been, sensational here today. Thank you for telling us just even pieces of your story. I personally am gonna press in and and get to know the full story. But, thank you for your time. Thank you for just the endurance of decades of of work and persistence and pursuit of your wife and all of the things we've talked about here today.
We wish you nothing but blessing in all of those things as you continue. Thanks for being Thank you. Appreciate it, Chaz. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. I hope that 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 Kings it all on your own. Gathering the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 The 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 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 see that 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 Gathering.
I 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.