I have a hard time with this, and I feel like it's the same with social media. Is like you read this stuff and you feel seen. You're just consuming Right? Like you're not. It's not doing anything except for maybe sparking something inside you to feel validated. And I can, I go back and forth whether or not
that's helpful or not. Do I need to feel validated? Does is that is when I read that is that, you know, when it reminds me of the fact that heart is good and this is part of building and I gotta keep going. Is that good? Or am I just completely fooling myself into, you know, thinking that what I'm doing is right? Welcome back to the modern craftsman podcast, where it's just Tyler and I today, everyone's favorite, just the two of us, just
we, yeah, we're gonna get deep today. We're gonna talk about the, I mean, I don't know, we talk about everything. Talk about the fact that work life balance isn't actually a thing. Defining your why, understanding that, you know, I mean, Tyler grills me with a couple hard hitting questions that I have a very hard time answering, primarily related to my existence on this plant planet and what I'm actually trying to
accomplish. But it starts with a great quote that you know, Joe Christiansen from Cardinal crush shared with me, and I shared with Tyler, and I was like, man, like there's something here that, like, really gives me the feels. And, you know, and we digest that, we then I basically just shit on it, yeah, and then Tyler's like, yeah, you're just a puss, and you got to work
through, I think that we were. A lot of us are using hustle culture as a crutch to not work on our businesses or address some of our shortcomings, and I want to make sure that, you know, we don't get too comfortable there. But that's it. That's I appreciate the quote. I think everyone else will. I think it made for a great conversation. Before we get into the quote, let's read some sponsors here. This
podcast brought to you by Anderson windows. If you're looking for architecturally authentic windows, look no further than Anderson a series product line design in collaboration with architects, Anderson a Series products are very finely tuned, clad wood windows and doors, their matching sight lines, matching glass setbacks and size options will help you bring any architectural style to life down to the smallest detail, And with numerous glass options and
composite exteriors. They're Anderson's best performing and most energy efficient products capable of withstanding some of the toughest conditions. They're a great fit for historic projects or any projects where you need to achieve an elevated look with top tier performance. For more information, head over to Anderson windows.com/modern
craftsman. This podcast also brought to you by build a trend springs here, and if your job's anything like mine, it sounds like a swarm of subcontractors and smells like sawdust and stress. Look, busy season is awesome, but it also means stuff falls through the cracks and build a trends to do feature helps keep every task follow up in oh shoot, I forgot about that moment. Organized. You can assign tasks to your crew, set deadlines and make
sure nothing gets buried in a group text. Again, it's like a checklist, but one that actually gets used if you're juggling 10 jobs and 47 sticky notes, it's time to level up. Go to buildertrend.com/mc, demo and see how to dos can save your sanity this season, don't wait until you miss a slab pour schedule your demo now this podcast are also brought to you by Velux. You're always looking for ways to wow homeowners and who doesn't want more natural light.
With Velux skylights, you can transform any space by adding more natural light without sacrificing privacy. Bring to life focal points, including the kitchen or the living room, or brighten up small spaces such as closets or bathrooms and leave your clients speechless. Learn more at Velux usa.com/remodeler, and you guys know, we partnered with Harnish work where, well, it's a brand built by the trades for the trades through unwavering focus, physical discipline and devotion to
mastering their craft, Harnish doesn't just make work wear. It sets a new standard for how they show up, both on and off the job. This is more than clothing. It's a commitment to a lifestyle growth, performance and elevated purpose. The
new H label line is changing the game. You get high quality work uniforms with performance Grade fabric that moves with you, not against you, no excessive bulk, no second guessing your brand image, just sharp, professional design, backed by Innovative fabric tech that protects you like a multi layer system while wearing like a single layer. And when it comes to printing your logo, it's dialed clean, durable and consistent every single time, built for the field, designed for the future, tested
by the industry Harnish. Elevate what you wear own, what you build. For more information, head over to Harnish workwear.com make sure you click up top where it says partners, and you can join the modern craftsman and get an exclusive modern craftsman discount code that's for the Creator one and the Pioneer one. And. And the H label work spec t shirt, yeah, I sent this thing to you the other day, and it says, This is what breaks most founders. The hardest part of
building a business is not the work. It's holding yourself together when nothing is working, when the product is live, but no one is buying when the ad budgets gone, but you still feel invisible. You question everything, your idea, your timing, your ability to figure it out. This is the moment when most people quit, not because they're lazy, but because it's lonely, it's uncertain and it's relentless. But the truth is every successful founder has felt this
doesn't mean doubt. Doesn't mean you're wrong. It means that you're in it. And this is part, this is the part that defines success, not the talent, not the luck, not the endurance. And the founders who make it, they get back up, they learn the lesson, and they move forward. You don't have to feel confident. You just have to keep going and remember, hard as normal, keep building. And I, for what it's worth, that is a post that founder, which
is, I believe it's a publication posted. I sent it to Tyler, and truthfully, Joe from Cardinal crest sent it to me. And here I am spewing everyone's dirty laundry here, but, like, I know anyone that just listened to that intro knows how real that feeling is. It's yeah, so I was trying to pull that up, and I was not finding it. I think it's a really interesting perspective. And I think that so many of us struggle, day to day, month to
month, week to week, whatever it may be. At what point do we look at that like, I guess my to play devil's advocate like, is that just lip service, at what point do we start to question what we're doing, not from just like a confidence perspective, but like, yeah, it's hard, but does it need to be this hard? Is there something wrong? Should we make a change? Is this just part of the process I'm with here on is it just lip service? I I have a hard time
with this, and I feel like it's the same with social media. Is like, you read this stuff and you feel seen, and it's you know, you're just consuming right, like you're not It's not doing anything except for maybe sparking something inside you to feel validated. And I can, I go back and forth whether or not that's helpful or not, like, do I need to feel validated? Does is that is when I read that, is that, you know, when it reminds me of the fact that heart is good and this is part of
building and I gotta keep going. Is that good? Or am I just completely fooling myself into, you know, thinking that what I'm doing is right? I don't know. Coming from what we've done the past 10 years, what I did, you know, the beginning stages of my business, and what I think that we're looking to advocate for and to help people get out from underneath, yeah, like, there's certain aspects of business that are difficult and life like Life
is not easy. But I also think that a lot of us use mantras like this, certain beliefs, certain ideologies, lifestyles to justify what we're doing, or as a crutch that like there's, there's no more action necessary, and I think that's, that's where I would question this, where it's like, yeah, it is difficult. But why is it difficult? And is the answer for me just to continue to push through this and punish myself? Or are there other options out there that make this not quite
as painful? Because if it's if it's painful for five years straight, 10 years straight, like, is that just perpetuating the whole burnout culture? Yeah, I do wonder. Like, because I feel like, especially in recent episodes and even in my Monday emails, I think about this when I was writing the one yesterday is I need to, I need to share something better, like rather than just constant struggle, constant how hard this is, because I think it's really
easy to relate to when it's tough. But you know, a good friend of mine reached I was like, Hey, I appreciate what you post and I appreciate what you share, but give me a win. Give me through your olives on your your give me a win. Like, tell me when, when this all worked. Like, what was the pay? Show me the payoff. Yeah, and I do. Think about that when we get on the podcast here and talk about stuff like this, because, you know, there's definitely this self inflicted, you know,
difficulty that I put on myself. And I think I'm pretty open about the fact that I I go after things that are hard and difficult and, you know, and challenge myself with things that people say, hey, you know, don't do that. That's that's too difficult. Do this. It's easier. And on the flip side, it's like, you know, you and I will talk offline about, how do we make our lives easier? How do we take advantage of the opportunities that we're given, rather than continuing to try to to force an
opportunity into existence. You know, when, frankly, maybe it's not worth it? Well, yeah, and I think that to have that mindset and that mentality, like, business is hard, life is hard, marriage is hard, choose your hard, right? Like it's all hard. But I, I feel that it, it helps people like it. It creates commiseration where like people love it. They love to hear that you struggle, that everything
isn't going right, because they're in the same boat. And I feel what follows that is a lack of action to say, well, everything's going through this. Everyone's going through this same thing. So just let it be right. This is just the way it is. Everyone, yeah, rather than like, Hey, this is the case. It is hard, but what's the action item that we can provide people with? So it's not quite that hard, and I think that that's
what's important. And I think it's probably similar to people kind of hopping on the whole Gary Vee mindset, where it's like, you know, work, work, work, sleep, when you're dead, and that's great. And I think that, you know, there, there's, there's times for that, but that's not sustainable, and there's a time and a place for that, but it shouldn't. It shouldn't be every day, it shouldn't be every minute. It
shouldn't be your entire life. And I feel that sometimes it's just us justifying the chaos and what type of action items and like, like you said that, that listener response to you, it's like, I appreciate this. A lot of people probably appreciate that, because it helps justify what they're struggling with or their inactions. But it's like, yeah, what can we do to help
you? Have it not be quite as hard, because, like, it is some days are better than others, but it it shouldn't like, if, if it's a constant struggle, day in and day out, then I think we need to start assessing the bigger picture. Like, why is it this way? And I, like, for me, a lot of the guys and the the girls that I speak with, it's like, Hey, I'm getting pricing objections to our work. And it's like, you you're not making
millions of dollars doing this work right now. Like something's wrong with your system if people are telling you to are too expensive. And whether it's internal, whether it's market rates, whether it's just there's people willing to do it for less. You're not marketing. You're like, there's something fundamentally wrong with your system, where, if that same person just said, this is the way it is, I have to charge
less. Everyone's dealing with this pricing objection in today's market, like, there's inaction there that I don't feel like is productive where we you know, the conversation can be like, Yeah, this is what everyone's experiencing. But here are three things that you can do to change that, or to kind of put things in a into perspective, or shift the tide
some so that they go more in your favor. And there's things that we can control, and there's things that we can't control, and I think focusing on those things that are within our control, that we can do for our business is like a really great starting point for that. Why do you think a lot of those guys are facing pricing
objections? I personally think it's like market because honestly, when I look at what they're charging, even if they were to charge like $300 an hour at the end of the day, even what they are charging, say, somebody's charging 100 bucks an hour, they're not capturing 30% of their cost, and there's still pricing objection there. So to me, it's not like a rate thing, and they're still under bidding and they're still not capturing all their costs. So it's not like a big number thing. I think
it's just it's market. I think there's a lot of people out. Are willing to do it for less, and I think that it's just undervaluing what we do in general. I think that our our industry as a whole, has had a tough time being able to contend and compete with like rising costs and inflation, and we're just expected to absorb a lot of them, kind of like our conversation last week, and people are they're not willing
to see the value in what we're providing. So personally, I think that that's it, because at the end of the day, I think that most of what we're doing should be more expensive than it actually is. We're generally leaving a lot of money and a lot of time on the table, and I think that that compounds, and I think that there's just a lot of that out there, which basically drives down the cost of most of the work that we're doing.
Yeah, it's, you know, the market comment is definitely something that's something i i battle with internally constantly, where it's like, you know, our 45 widow project, which I'll talk about until that project's done, and off my my radar. But it's that's an exact, a great example of something that's, I didn't look at the market and say, All right, what's the the most you
know, the common denominator behind what the market wants. I was looking at this tiny niche market and being like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit that market where it's like, from a business perspective, it's like, no wonder it's so difficult. It's like, there's a tiny market for it, and the smaller the market, the less you know, the less guarantee, quote,
unquote guarantee it is. So it's like, you know, you're essentially betting, you know, an enormous chunk of your your your life savings, on, you know, a single number, rather than, you know, taking a smaller gamble. Well, I think that, like the the mindset behind that, and the approach behind that, is the entire niche market, yeah, where it's like, Hey, if you want to be able to make more than the going rate,
you have to niche down. You have to provide a higher level of service, a higher quality of product, and experience something different. And I think that that's, that's the right move. Like, if you want to be putting a certain amount of work in place and maximizing your profit, it's through efficiency, and then it's through, like, offering that higher level
service or product it's difficult to scale. And like, I think when you look at it from your perspective, it's like the amount of resources and time on the back end that you'll never be able to capture, that have gone into this, when you look at it from like, a time and a resource investment, you could build four houses, yeah, and then, like, so there's got To be a break even point where it just it's not the smartest use of
your time. I don't know where that break even point is, but I think that moving forward, like as as you continue to build and as you continue to take on projects, you have to understand, like, at what point is that scale tipping, where it just doesn't make sense? Or are you positioning yourself to be able to make the money on the projects, where these are just passion projects for you, and you're not quite as concerned as putting a big chunk of money or your life savings on red as a
gamble? Yeah, correct. And that's kind of what we're saying where it's like, yeah, it it is hard, and this project is hard, and life is hard and money's hard, but does it need to be this hard, or are there other options to be able to do what you're doing and get get the results that you need without it being this hard? Like, that's the conversation, yeah. And I think it all, I think it obviously ties back to, like, obviously, what is success? What is success for
each person, right? Like, the definition of success is different, and you know specifically where, you know, when you talk to we'll call, we'll call them ultra successful people. They all say how difficult it is in the shit that they go through. And, like, it's just this long, painful growth. And to your point, it's, you know, I think that's where I think a lot of people that listen to this podcast, and a lot of people that we talk to are kind of in that they're the
entrepreneurial mindset. They want to grow, they want to be super successful. They want to build a brand like, etc, etc. And, you know, there's fewer, probably from a listenership, there's probably fewer people that listen that are completely okay with where they're at, and they're just listening to to, you know, to listen and you know, they're not looking to to continue to scale or grow. And I'm not saying that they have it easier, or they have an easy life, or it's easy for them, but
I do think. It is easier, you know, in the sense that you know they they understand, like, where they're at, and they can find comfort, and they can and they can really, you know, kind of follow, like, not, I guess plateau would be the right way to explain it, like they're plateau, and now they're just going to continue to copy and pace. What they're doing in their own world, work at their own speed. And it's not this constant moving of the goal post where it's like, when you think
about the ultra successful you know that's different. Like the goal post always moves. It's always changing. There's always resistance. They're constantly putting out fires. And I think that's what that the founder post was really about, is that's that it's the the willingness and the in the ability to endure that, where it's just this constant, you know, push, push, push back, that you have to fight through.
Well, I think that most people who have that mindset and that, like, true entrepreneurial spirit, they're just, they're never satisfied with what they're doing, which is going to lead to burn, burn. Yeah, burnout and the disappointment. And just, you know, I think that some of that has to be mindset where you're always chasing the next thing and the next thing.
And I think that some of the most uber successful people in this world, that's why they like you have people who you don't need to work anymore, you would be completely set for life. There's no need to work. And a lot of people would question, well, why are they still working? And it's because enough really is never enough, and they're never satisfied. And whether that's from a self growth perspective. Maybe that's just drive maybe it's insecurities, maybe it's ego.
Who knows where that's coming from, but I think that that's why most people who are highly successful in whatever realm that may be, is for one or many of those reasons, and yeah, they're not ever really satisfied. Good enough is never really good enough. And I think that that does lead to success, but does it lead to like, happiness? Does it lead to
purpose? A meaningful life, meaningful relationships? I think that that's where you need to start questioning those things and why you're doing them, and maybe, maybe that like your needs and your desires are never satiated from like that internal perspective, but maybe there's other areas of your Life that benefit from you taking a step back or or trying something else, or finding just a different path towards that.
It's tough to say. I think like you have to consider why you're doing all this, and I think that your drive and your wants and your needs in life and what like makes a successful life can, for you, can be very different than what makes a successful business. Yeah, I think having that clear mission is, is what makes the
hard days bearable. Yeah, it's like you're reminding yourself as to, like, why you're doing this, other than, yeah, I understand you want to build the best houses and, like, create this product to put you in that world and really, like, cement NS in that space. But what is the main motivator when you dig deep down to be like, Yeah, I'm gonna take this on, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, like, every single day. Is it is it business? Goals, is it life
goals, is it both and what are the like? What do those look like? I was asked this earlier today, the same question, very similar, damn, yeah, and I didn't know how to answer, and I still don't know how to have plenty of time, because it's hard. Like, I want to say, because I think if I did your, your, your point about deep like, deep down, like, what
is the actual reason? I think that's what trips me up. Because at surface level, it's like, yeah, I want to build the best homes i i I want to build crazy stuff, and I want to work with the team that builds crazy stuff. And I want to, ultimately, you know, reward myself and my family financially. Because of that, I want my team to be rewarded financially. I want to, you know, I, I want to be known for, you know, building amazing homes and giving back to the industry.
And there's all these like things that I want, but it's like, but deep down, what like? What is it like? What do I really want? And I think when I think about life in general, like, deep down, I want to be successful. I want to be, I want to be. I. Finance more than financially stable. I want to be
wealthy. I want, I want to, you know, have my my family, live a life that is, you know, full of yeses and little nos and and in doing that, like if I were to ignore what I was doing right now, building homes like, we both know that there's better ways to to become wealthy and make money. So then it's like, well, then why am I doing this? And then that goes back to like,
well, that's what I'm really passionate about. And I think this is where I start trending into this, this mental state of like, I believe so much in what we're doing that I believe that that is a path to the outcome that I want. Do you think that business is going to create like that financial freedom or or wealth is going to create the lifestyle that you desire? I do. I think the issue is that I, I think it, I think in my
mind, it's sooner than it will be. Yeah, it's it's funny, because I feel like what you want in bit, and this isn't you, I'm talking me as well here, but what you want in life and in business are so similar, but at the same time, they're so different from each other, and you would think that the way that you set your business up and your life up should be working in unison, yeah, but they're not, and that they're they're not coming from two completely different places.
They're very similar, but they don't seem to mesh that well, when I think about it, I think about being on a road, and the road is going straight, and as business and life go on, they split, yeah, and they get really far apart. And the question is, is, when do they merge back together? And that's like, the thing that you can't see, well, it's like, you're like, you're you're trending like, because to your, you know, to your point, into the person that asked me earlier. It's like, yeah, I
could just do boring stuff and make a ton of money. Like I could, I could go, because we've, we've done all the complicated stuff, like we do incredibly complicated projects. I could go build, excuse me, really simple projects and and find a market that could support that, and just copy, you know,
copy, paste them, and print and, quote, unquote, print money. But I'm not, I'm like, veering off, way, off path, because it's like, I want to do this really great thing over here professionally, which I believe, if I do it long enough, eventually that road will come back and meet my personal life. But it, I find it interesting that your wants and needs, from a business perspective and a life perspective, although aligned, create such separation as they grow and move forward, like I
think of right and life. Life is about relationships and having meaningful relationships, being with your family, the people who you care about, who you love, right? It's having purposeful work, like what you do on a daily basis matters. It matters to your family. It matters to you. I think it's about having freedom and control over your time. It's about growth and progress and and every day feeling as though you're in a
better place than you were before. And then in business, it's the same like from a freedom mentality and perspective autonomy. Like, to me, that's a huge driver where I want to run my business on my terms and not my clients or not like the terms of the market. I want to be independent of that. I want alignment, working with my clients, working with subcontractors, teams who value what I do in my standards. I
want profitability that supports the lifestyle that I want. I want to be recognized for my craft and being respected for my expertise, and not just like what we put out and those things
in life and business. They all they seem the same, like everything that I just spoke about, seems as though they're going to put me on this trajectory that's going to have these two roads that are just going to crash into each other and make this like amazing life, but as you grow and as you want more, and as you strive for these things more and more, for some reason those those roads, like you say, Split and they get further apart, and that, to me, is like the what's most
perplexing about chasing those things and trying to find where where you belong in life and where you belong in business, and that you have those same wants and needs, but they drive you further from each other. Yeah. Yeah, that's the tough thing for me. It's like, the more success you want for your business to create more freedom and the lifestyle that you want for your family, the more it pulls you away from your family.
And I think this goes back to the endurance thing, where it's like, you know, in theory, if you do something long enough, eventually you'll find alignment, right? Like you just keep pushing through all the shit, like eventually you'll come back and the two roads will meet again. And I think when as they split, like that's what becomes so difficult for people,
where it's like, I'm so far off path. This isn't working, you know, and it forces people to question whether they should quit or whether they should just continue to endure this and you know, and keep trusting the process. You know, it's what I've said for forever. It's like every everything that I want to do, you know, has the opportunity to be successful. Anything anyone wants to do has the opportunity to be successful. It's just how much you're like, how much are you
willing to endure to make it that? And you know, in like to expand on that, it's not you know that that that endurance might be giving up something, or changing the course or or, you know, going backwards for a moment, but eventually, like you start walking, you start moving forward again. And you know, it's the same, it's the argument, I say all the time. It's like, there's nothing wrong with giving up or quitting, like, that's part that, that's ultimately part of the process.
You know that, you know, if you stop doing everything entirely like that, that's it. That's giving up, but quitting or giving up or changing the course, like, it's not giving up, that's not failure, that's just, that's a pro, that's part of the process in ultimately getting to to where you're trying to go, all those difficulties and it, you know, you know, I think that's, that's what I continue to remind myself constantly, where it's like, hey, when it's hard, these are
the things that need to happen. You know, this might be a big failure. This might really hurt you, financially, physically, mentally, emotionally, like, whatever it is, like, this is gonna this is gonna suck, but this is just part of the process. Do you think that there is a world that you can create a balance
between the two, like, between life and business? Well, I think that's, I think that's the important part in like creating boundaries between, you know, creating boundaries to protect your family, and while building a business, because, you know, ultimately they there is no work life balance. I don't believe in it. I believe that one will always suffer, and there will be days that my business suffers, and there's
days that my family suffers. And outside, looking in, it probably looks like my family suffers the most, but inside, I feel as though I balance it to what makes sense. There's days where I would give up my business for more family time, and there's I was I was gonna say vice versa, but I wouldn't give up my family for more business time, but you understand that. What I mean the
so I think it's creating those boundaries. And as a dad and as a husband, I think it's you know, finding what works for you and making sure that you're there for your family and therefore your you know your wife and your kids and or your husband, whatever. And I think that is something that I personally certainly struggle with. And I think where most of that struggle comes from is, you know, communicating what I'm
doing. That's what I've learned recently, is that, you know, I am someone that likes to hold everything in and work through difficult times and difficulties and and, you know, I will do whatever I can not to burden someone else with that issue. Yeah, because I know that ultimately, I can do this on my own, but I have found that that has caused more damage than it has saved, like a relationship or or or just some a simple conversation. You know, it's more damaging to the overall
process. So Nick and myself are excited to announce a new monthly workshop series we'll be holding on Zoom each month. We're going to select a topic, a worksheet or a form from one of our online courses and dive a little bit deeper into it with you. We'll provide the resource and the workshop completely free. All you need to do is sign up for our newsletter at modern craftsman.co, if you want to be a part of this new journey. Don't miss out. Sign up for the newsletter to get access to
these free monthly workshops. Once you're signed up, you'll just need to pre register for each session. We hope to see you at the next one. Yeah, I think that what we're always working toward with life and with business is to try and create some sort of balance. And I, I it's the wrong word for it. I don't think that, you know, like, nothing in life is balanced. Nothing in nature is balanced. I think that it's this. It's a romanticized term, and I think that a lot of times
it leads like the chase for balance. Perfect Balance creates guilt with us right where it's like we're spending more time here or there. And I think that ultimately, life, a lot of
times, moves in in seasons. And I think that, like, there's there's parts of my life, my life where I think that I worked way more than I spent time with my family, and there's other parts where I spent more time with my family and then I worked in each each season came with different guilt, um, whether it's financial guilt, whether it's emotional guilt, and I think that when you look at it from like these need to be imbalanced. They need to have equal weight. I think that that
creates just struggle internally. And I think that it's it's more, it's not necessarily about distributing them equally as as much as maintaining a rhythm between them where it's like, yeah, sometimes I'll spend more time on this. Other times, I know I'm going to circle and I know I'm going to pull back, and I'll put the time necessary into this, and knowing when exactly to push and when exactly to pull is somewhat of the key, rather than trying to maintain a perfect
balance. Because I don't think that that's possible in life, and I don't think that that's possible in business, and I think a lot of it is about just making sure that your needs are met and your family's needs are met, and aligning the needs, not necessarily having them equal each other. Because I think that when again, when you try and find that balance between the
two, it's just never going to happen. I think that it leads to resentment, it leads to bitterness, it leads to guilt, all of which are definitely not productive, as we're trying to lead a healthy lifestyle and build a healthy business with a healthy bottom line, I think that you need to be positive. You need to be working with clarity. And I think that when you're trying to find balance in something that is imperfect and
impossible to find a balance that just doesn't help. Is there anything that you've done recently that you feel has been like a step in the right direction to, I guess, blend or marry those two things, like between moving forward and progressing in business while still progressing towards the lifestyle that you want for your family?
Yeah, I think auditing my time and auditing what I spend my time on, and trying to be as productive as possible, I would argue that, I mean, it's been two years now that I kind of really prioritized my health. I think that was something that in my mind, I was doing for the betterment of both and basically to wake up and say, I'm going to be the best version of my I can be for myself every day. And I think that was something that, truthfully, I think that that was what was my, my original
stepping stone. And from that point, for the last two years, I've consistently audited what I'm doing each and every day and what I'm focused on. And trust me, there's days I'm not productive. I think I had one of those yesterday. And you know, when you go home and you just kind of feel like, gross, yeah, and it's like, Why do I feel gross? It's like, I feel like I
didn't really do much today. I had one of those days despite looking at my calendar and having like 18 meetings like probably got a lot done, but I think generally speaking, it's been auditing my time and making sure that when I'm at work I am focused on progressing forward. And I would say that the third thing would be spending more time with my team at work to understand what our goals are and make sure that we're all working towards that and and delegating it right, spreading
spreading it out. You know, we're just on vacation for two weeks, and the ability to be there, and I was forcefully not checking in and kind of just allowing things to flow. And you know, I would, I would interact and answer questions as they came up. But generally speaking, stuff progressed and stuff was moving along. And, you know, things that I typically would chime in on and ask about, or be like, like, offer my opinion on, and I would. Just, I backed off, and I came back, and someone on
my team was like, Hey, can we, the four of us, sit down? I just feel like we aren't progressing on something, and I want to get everyone's feedback. And I, I, I got off from a desk, and in my head, I said, I'm not commenting. I've, I've spent two years trying to get this to work. I keep on the wrench, and I keep throwing the wrench in the wheel, and everyone, everyone goes off and can't make progress, so I'm going to shut up and just let someone else run this. And they sat down. They
had a plan. They looked at me. I said, sounds good, and now it's progressing faster than it was. Yeah, it's, uh, go ahead. Sorry, no, I was gonna say so. I think those three things are like, in order, have been the stepping stones for me to find clarity in the business, which has allowed me to, you know, be more present in
clarity, bring more clarity to my home life. And truthfully, you know, on the home side, like, I mean, have a great relationship with my wife and my kids, but it's something that you know is I'm looking at personally saying this is a priority for me to to make better, be a better husband, be a better dad, not because I think I'm being a bad one of either, but just seeing opportunity and room for
improvement. So making that a priority, it's funny, you were talking about being productive and increasing productivity, and how that can help us feel as though we're progressing in life and in business. And I remember speaking with Nate, who we've had on the podcast, who has a military background, and he was talking about, like, productivity and the difference between what the military wants, which it's it's done to completion, versus done to
standard. And how, like, how do you distinguish between the two when you get so busy that it feels like, Hey, I'd like, I just want to get all this shit done to completion. I want to check these things off my list. It's decluttering, but at the same time, it like for me, that doesn't really help, because I'm more of a done to standard where I don't just want to check it off. I want to check it off and make sure it's done. Well, how do you distinguish between those two?
I think, generally speaking, the Dunder standard is controlled by the fact that we all have a clear, under clear understanding of what our standards are, right, and the expectations. And
that's and everyone's bought into that, which is huge. But I will say that there's oftentimes where, you know, I want things to be to a certain standard, and, you know, and I want to perfect them, but I, I do oftentimes balance and will lean on, you know, progress over perfection, yeah, and and realize that, hey, this one's going to go out, this proposal is going to Go out. It's not where we want it to be, but it's pro it's progress, and we've it's better than the last one.
And because I think that for a long time, you know, I would prioritize perfection over progress. And what would happen is just it, we wouldn't make we wouldn't make any headway. And that's exactly what happened when someone on my team called that meeting for the four of us, it was primarily related to our post construction. And in all the post construction documentation, I have this grand vision of the book that we hand our client and what it looks like and how they interact with
it, and the tools that we use to build it. And it's like, All that sounds really fucking cool, but it's just, you know, we don't even have version one. Let's get version one done, because version one for the client is going to be a big smile on their face anyway. And when we give them version two, it's going to be unexpected and and it's just going to and it
will be better than the last one, yeah. But instead, you know, for two years, we've prioritized perfection and the client, the first client that we're supposed to give it to. It's literally been almost two years since we were supposed to give it to them, and it's like, that's a great example of like, we prior, we were prioritizing perfection. Now it's not the client didn't get anything. Yeah, yeah. Like, it could stunt you. And totally, you're basically
like paralysis by analysis and not getting them anything. I think even I don't know, for years, I was, I think that I I worshiped being busy, and I worshiped the hustle culture, and I think that it led to actually, like, stunting my business growth. And I, I've had the conversation with people before where it's like, the more that you slow down, the more successful you'll be. I think that we get to a point in
business we like, we want to be busy. We want all of this work, and then we get there and we don't have the systems in place. Place. What we're defining as success is having those jobs come in, those leads come in, and we get to a point where it's like, oh, this is all we ever wanted. And we say yes to everything, and then we're ill equipped to handle them, and it creates this hustle culture where we're somewhat just
worshiping busy. And I think that it actually, from like a growth perspective, stunts our growth because we're so concerned with just keeping everything afloat and going from one thing to another, and we're we're more concerned with completion, rather than executing the standard or working on our business, or understanding why things aren't working, I think that you don't, you don't track what's right and what's wrong with your business, and you don't have the systems
in place. I think that once, like, once I started putting, like you said, two years ago, you started, started putting boundaries on your time and productivity and when you're going to be home, when I started doing the same thing like for me, it was always my own time. And it wasn't that I was bleeding money, but it was that I was spending all of this time for clients, and I wasn't putting my family first, and I
wasn't putting myself first. So when I actually started putting boundaries on work, on work, and the times that I wanted to work, and my rates and how I was going to capture my time. It made me realize how inefficient I was being, and how much I was leaving on the table, and how even though people had pricing objections to my my work, that my systems were flawed, my business was flawed, and when you look big picture at the numbers, that I wasn't really creating a sustainable model.
And I think that the more that I step back, and the more I prioritized making sure that my systems were right and that my numbers were right and that I wasn't selling a job because I was hungrier, because I needed to support or feed a machine. The more profitable my business was, the more successful I was the more time I could spend on refining my business to actually grow it and make money with it, which was good, like, completely counterintuitive to everything that I had thought before that.
But it's like I worship the hustle mentality so much that I was hustling and working 2x what I probably had. I had the right systems, the right clients and the right numbers. Would only have needed to work 1x to make and the more that, like I speak with people all the time where it's like, you're not you're not
capturing your time, you're not charging the right rate. You're questioning how you can charge more because you're already having pricing objections, and it's you can't just say it's everyone else, it's the market like it may be the case, but you have to find a way that you're not over investing, and that you're not spending too much time, and you're not working 24
hours a day to work eight hour to make eight hour salary. And I think that once you do that, and once you become okay with slowing down a little bit, you're actually going to create, like a much more profitable business. And at that point, if you, if you want to hustle and you want to work, you know 16 hours a day at least, you're making an appropriate rate at that point, and you're not doing it just because your head's
underwater. Like slowing down was one of the best things that I was able to do a couple of years ago for my business, to be able to get my life back, to understand that what I was doing wasn't working. Yeah, I just, I took on more and I got busier because I thought that that's what I needed to do to make more. And it just compounded and and really, like, showcased a lot of the inefficiencies of my business. And it wasn't until I was so afraid of slowing down and not and just being busy,
like, that's all I want. I just wanted to be busy and I needed to be busier because I wasn't making enough, as is, so busier would make me more money. And it was until I, like, stepped back and realized, like, busyness does not mean success, that I started making my money and capturing my time and charging my rates. When you were describing that, I like, I have this vivid memory
of a dream. I feel like I actually have often, and it's, it's like, I'm driving a car and I'm going so fast, and I'm trying to go and then I try to go around a corner, and I lose complete control of it, and it's like, but then I can't slow down, and I'm trying to regain control, and it's just like, it's just getting worse and worse, because you're going, you're moving too fast. Yeah, I don't know if anyone else has that dream, but it's like, it's one I have constantly where it's
like, why don't I just slow down? And as I say it out loud, it's like, hey, that's probably a sign. Nick, like, hey, you know. Slow down a little bit, but that's exactly what it is. It's, you know, you're, you're moving so fast that, you know, like you said, like you You were so busy, you had so much going on, you're on the brink of burnout. And it's, how do you
regain control? And it is, it's just like, lift your foot off the gas, regain control, reassess the situation, and you can always get back up to that speed, yep, right now, like, if, if shit is off, if you're, if you're, if you're spiraling like, you have to regain control. You have to find out why you're spiraling like, instead of just slow down. Yeah, yeah. And I think you know, to your point, like, the hustle culture has always been like, do more. Do
more. Do more. You know, sleep when you're dead. It's like, yeah, all that. All that works when, when you have a mission and a vision and understand, like, what you're going for, but you start, you go into a corner at 80 miles an hour and try to take that, that turn, like, you got a pretty good chance of wiping out. It's also the, I think you have to really dig into the why of it.
And yeah, you want, you want to work that much, and you want to create and, like, have this impact on your family and your lifestyle, but really deep down, why, you know, is this for you?
Is this because money makes you happy? Is this because you think it's going to create freedom down the road, like we're working so hard to create freedom in complicating things, where maybe if you just worked a little bit less and a little bit more intelligently, you might have some of the freedom that you're looking for? Yeah. So this came up earlier. So question was, why do I work so hard and and exactly what you just said, it's like, Well, it's
because I want to build a life for my family. I want, I want money to live a life of yeses I like and, you know, okay, well, it's also selfish. I want to be known for building this stuff. And, you know, I at one point, it was like, Well, what about the whole walk before you crawl mentality? I'm like, screw that.
Like, I don't know how long I'm on this planet. Like, I'm gonna go and build the craziest shit right now, when I have the opportunity, because, because I don't want to just do boring stuff and then eventually die and never have said I tried and but on the flip but on the flip side, it's like, sure, but you what if you never get to reap the benefit of doing anything, because you're constantly just chasing your tail, and you don't actually ever get to slow down and enjoy life? So what you
think you're doing this for? I mean, we're getting deep in this conversation, but what you're doing that, what you think, what you're saying, or what I'm saying I'm doing this for, and the opportunities I'm going after, and I'm comparing it to the fact that, like, I don't know how long I'm on this planet for, I should be applying to the fact that, okay, well, if you don't know how long you're gonna be on this planet for, like,
maybe you shouldn't be. Maybe you should consider, like, shifting down a gear for a minute and enjoying some of the the risks that you've taken. I don't know. I think that so many people are like that, and I'm sure it's so much of our audience, and so much of our audience is self employed and entrepreneurial, and they want
more for themselves. And I just, I see it so often, and it's like, what also the other thing that you sent me on Instagram where it's like, you have one person who's going to teach six people, who's going to teach 12 people, and it's like, I think that we can impact people differently, like we don't have to do it the same way that everyone else is. And I think that there's a lot of lessons that we've learned, that there's people in our same boat, where it's like, you don't necessarily
have to do more. And yeah, like, I have, I know a lot of people who are doing or have done the same thing as us, and they're 75 years old now, and they still, like, they've never, they just always thought they were gonna have more time. And it's getting to the point where it's like, they still can't slow down because they haven't structured it correctly, and they always just assumed they'd have more time. And at some point, this thing was going to run itself, and it was going to create the
lifestyle that I needed. And it's like, well, you just spent 75 years chasing this lifestyle that you were never actually able to obtain because of your mentality. And I think that if you were to have just slowed down at some point and focused less on feeding the machine and what actually makes you successful and makes you happy and brings those like merges those two roads that you were talking about earlier together.
I think that a lot of our a lot of our listeners, could definitely benefit, like when I look at impact and big picture, what I can do and what I want out of life and what I want out of business, like being able to help people merge those two roads quicker than I did, and I think that I have done a decent
job. Job, not that I have everything sorted out, but realizing that sooner than other people, I think that I would love to be able to do that more and just have people understand their value and their systems and their businesses and what they can do with their life that doesn't require 80 hours a week out of them, I think, you know, let's talk about actionable items here, right? So we've, we're talking about this. We talk about the fact that one
day, you know, one day it'll all pay off. One day I'll take that vacation, one day like but the reality is, is, I think, what if you're listening to this, and you know, something we can all take the time and do is define what is enough, whether that's financially, whether that's emotionally, you know, whether that's professionally, in the in the projects that you take on. But I think similar to the way you know you run a business, you know, you set these goals, right? You set the budget for
the year. You understand, like, what your your targets are for sales. Like, do that on the family side, how like, how many vacations Do you want to want to take? How like, how much time do
you want to spend with your kids? What time do you want to be home and set, set some of these things define what the like, what these goals are, and hold yourself accountable and, you know, and I think by doing that, like, there's been rituals that I've, you know, certainly implemented on the personal side, that I don't skip, like it's, you know, that's, I'm doing this, that's the time I have to be there. I'm I'm gonna
be there. And I think the more you balance the like all of these accountabilities that you put on the business, you balance the life side and create accountability on the life side, you're going to start realizing, you know what, what is important, but also what is enough. You know, how much, how much money do you really need? How much time with the family do you really need? How much time do you really need to spend on the business. That's something that, I mean, frankly, I think
can be audited. Huge, yeah, like, you know, you go to the you're sure you're working eight, eight o'clock, seven o'clock in the morning, six o'clock in the morning, till five, six o'clock at night. It's like, if you really audited the time that you spent working, like, is was all of that really necessary? Or how much were you doing just to eat up time for to finish the day, or not getting paid for? Well, that's even worse. Yeah, I mean like, and to provide you guys with
with some action items and somewhat of a critical path. I think that at the end of the day, most of us, when we look at like the business that we want to create, are trying to create a business that supports a lifestyle, and that they're working together and in unison. And I think creating that freedom, and for me, it's like, Nick, what you said, defining your your version of freedom, or your defining what your needs are. How many hours do you want to work a week? How involved do
you want to be with the business? How much income do you need? Like you said, vacations. Do you want a business that depends on you or doesn't. And then for me, this has been huge. For me, is building a lean, profitable model first. So don't look to scale your business from a numbers perspective.
Immediately understand how to charge and capture your time from the get go and make sure that once you're capturing all of your time and you're building those systems, whether it's estimating, project management, communicate, communication and correspondence, you're doing all of that with a super low overhead and and efficient operations that are maximizing your Profit. And I think that once you have a handle of that profitability before the volume, then you can start to grow your
model. And then the next step for me is to start documenting and delegating some of your low level tasks. What do you want to hand off to people right away as you start to grow and create
this business that's going to support your lifestyle. For me, it was like the admin tasks, whether it was accounting, bookkeeping, emails, tracking, receipts, any of that if you're if you're hiring somebody to do that, if you are investing in software, but what low level tasks can you delegate to start growing your business and then standardizing your process, whether SOPs, if you can productize part of your business, I think that that's where you'll start making money
on employees, where you know there's systems and processes that they can follow and they can duplicate and they. Can document, and they can start making you money. And then we've talked about this before, but hiring strategically based on roles and not a reaction to something. So don't hire because, like, you're so overwhelmed with your life that you're drowning higher because you're building a system, and
you need somebody specifically to fit within that machine. And I think that once you start hiring based on the needs that you have as a business, rather than, hey, I'm doing this to keep my head above water, you'll be in a much better place. And then working on your systems, but also the rhythm of those systems, and we're trying to create a business and freedom for ourselves where we don't need to be present 100% of the time. So what's the rhythm of your systems? Is it weekly check
ins with employees? Is it monthly financials? I mean, Nick, you and I for the podcast, we have weekly meetings, aside from sitting down a recording podcast, we also have monthly meetings with Tim on the financial aspect, aspect of it.
So what are the rhythms of your systems? And then use, use your growth and the systems that you're creating to buy back the time that's going to create the lifestyle for you, whether it's to be able to work more, whether it's to have hobbies, whether it's to go on vacation, to spend more time on developing your team, whatever that is, I think that you should be working towards growing your business to be able to buy some of that time back, so that you're not having to spend 6080, hours A week on
the business just to keep it afloat. So for me, that's like the critical path forward as you're growing to try and keep those two the you know, you're like Nick said, you're heading down this road, and it splits. Make sure that that split doesn't continue to widen. It comes back together. It merges. And possibly that life and that business are on the same road moving forward. Yeah, it's, I mean, to summarize what you said, it's like, again,
defining the why, like, why, what are you doing? Write that. Write it down, and then understand like, what is like in every aspect, why, you're doing it and what the goals are. Like you said, you know, the accountability of weekly meetings. You know, it's funny. You said that because this morning I text you like, hey, we still meeting. We didn't have anything to go over. We still up on the phone. We chat through a handful of things, talk about what or what our goals are, and
like, what we're trying to accomplish. And then, you know, who's doing what. And great. Five minute call, we're good, yeah, but without understanding, like, the why, like the why, you know, we would waste a tremendous amount of time and and frankly, just have no idea if we're actually moving towards, you know, a better podcast. Yeah. And like I said, I think that it's, it's the systems, it's the processes, but then again, it's the cadence and the rhythm of
them that's equally as important, right? Where it's like, you put all this stuff into place, but if there's not a standard cadence to that, where it's like, yeah, our weekly meeting is at Tuesday, at 8:30am every week, whether we need to hop on or not, that's what we're going to do. And I think that that's really important, you know, as you're trying to structure your business and just create create some freedom and some autonomy within your life and within your business,
I got one last question. I'm going to change the tone here, because I want to ask you first, but then I want to ask anyone that's listening the same question, so we can talk about it in a future episode, because feel like it keeps coming up. But Tyler, you know, when you think about AI and and what it's doing or not doing, or you wish it did for your business, what?
What is your take on it? And before you answer, you know, it is something that comes up constantly in my DMs, anytime I mention it's like, I want to understand how you're using it. And for me, all of my free time, like my hobby that we talk about, that I don't have, yeah, right now, right now, is learning everything I can about AI and how to leverage it, not even just in my business, but in everything, and in a future episode, that will tell you how AI helped me figure out how to
get my daughter to go to sleep. But we'll come back to that for me, my entire model and my entire business is is it revolves around two things. It revolves around offering a higher level product and service, and then creating efficiencies within that, right? I I can only put so much work in place, so how do I ensure that I'm maximizing my profitability? And that's done, you know, it's it's leveraging product and experience to charge a higher rate so I don't have to do as
much work, and then creating efficient. Fees within that again, so I don't have to do as much work. So it's not necessarily about increasing top line revenue as much as maintaining top line revenue and then increasing bottom line revenue through efficiencies. So for me, so much of AI is is used just to create a more like create economy within all of my systems, right? Whatever I'm doing for a project, whatever
ideas I have, I'm I'm hashing all of them out quickly. And then my process in in years past and in life past was I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna I'm gonna hash out my ideas, and then I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna revise that three, four or five times, and I'm gonna continue to go through that, and it's like every time I continue to go through that, I have to go back to the beginning, and then I'm on revision two, and then I'm going all the way back to the
beginning, and then I'm on Revision Three. And so much of AI right now is just helping me go and circle back on my entire process, while not having to do five, six revisions in between. So for me, even like my midweeks, whether it's an email to clients, whether it is a process for what I need to submit for something right? I'm hashing something quickly out on paper, and then what I would normally do is I would spend all
of this time refining that and making it perfect. I can now dump that into AI and come out with a more consistent, concise and comprehensive outline of what I need that's all based on my thoughts. So I'm not prompting AI to generate ideas for me, but more so here are my ideas. Now, refine these and
polish these, so it's still all of my ideas. It's just instead of being like, scrambled within the brain, yeah, like I can just dump everything out and say, refine this, outline this, create it, I guess, polish this, or make this like a more cohesive document for me, and then I can go through and I can do one edit on that where I'm not going back and forth. But like when I used to write midweeks, it's like, I would write the midweek I'd review it. I'd review it, like five, six
times. And now it's like I can just go on and everything that I want to talk about. I just I type, I type, I type, I type, and then I'm like, I dump it into chat, and I'm like, Hey, polish this for me. And then it'll kick something out, and then I go back through and I'll only have to revise it once or twice more to make sure that everything's in line with my my voice, my vision, and it's actually taking the angle that I
need. So for me, that's the biggest thing right now, is just maintaining and creating more efficiencies within the back end of my business, which I think most people, that's the the most difficult aspect of their business to capture time anyway. So for for a lot of people, it's like, if you're bleeding time and money on that aspect of your business, it's a really good
opportunity to reduce the liability there. So I definitely want to get into the future episode, guys, if you're interested in how we utilize AI and just a larger conversation about AI in construction, comment on Instagram, on on one of our videos, and let us know, just type in AI. I just, I just want to see the interest around it. I'm sure it's, it's big, but I will, I will support what Tyler
saying. I think the single greatest use, especially for, like, an elementary level, you know, for any that anyone can do is exactly what Tyler said is, brain dump your thoughts and have it kind of repeat back to you. One of the I'll call it a hack that I use is when I get in my truck, I just my phone sits in my console, and I just turn it on the voice and it will just, I just sit there and talk to it. And yesterday, someone was like, hey, I really would we were talking about AI in
construction. They were like, We I'd really love your thoughts on the top four things that you think AI could help with construction. I was like, no problem. I'll have it to you in an hour. And I had an hour drive, a half hour drive, and I just turned it on. I'm sitting there. I'm like, Hey, someone needs a summary. I'd love for you to just listen to me for like, 20 minutes. I'm gonna riff on this massive topic and then clean it up and send it to me. Yeah, and I literally didn't
stop talking for 20 full minutes. And I'm like, the fact that this is just capturing literally everything I said for 20 minutes. And then it was like, Yep, got it. So here are the four things I'm gonna summarize it, blah, blah, blah, printed it out. I copied it. I looked at it. Same exact thing. Made a few tweaks. It's like, yeah, that's not exactly what I was trying to get at. But here add to it. Submitted it over done. So like, the brain dump and, like, you know, clear,
clarifying and making stuff. More concise and also organized, like, you know, chronologically sometimes where it's, like, I have all these ideas, but now put them in chronological order of like, how they should be represented, yeah, sequencing, like, to me, like you said, it just it takes out 234, revisions of what's, you know, to get what's in my head down onto paper or a system I don't the dangerous part, I think, is where you start prompting it to come up with,
like, Gen Yeah, or generate ideas that aren't unique to you. So I'm typically, you know, these are ideas that I have or conversations that I want to have, that I'm going to brain dump, and then I just want them structured or formatted in a way that makes the most amount of sense, and then I can go and make sure that it maintains my voice, which is a huge help, you know, just the organizational aspect of it. Yeah, guys, we'll talk about this in a future episode. We
appreciate you hanging around. Make sure you head over to moderncrossman.co sign up for our free newsletter that goes out a couple times a week at this point, all good all a bunch of good information that we're sharing and stuff that is only exclusive to the people that are on the newsletter, so be sure you sign up also, contractor coalition Summit is coming up in Omaha. Would love to see you guys there. If you guys are interested, head over to contractor coalition summit.com
it's June 19 through the 23rd in Omaha. And if you guys want a discount, shoot us a DM on Mona craftsman's Instagram page, and we'll get you a discount code and hopefully see you in Omaha. I hear that Ben's getting bigger and bigger. Sorry to interrupt, Nick. If you are an alumni, I'm pretty sure that they were offering free access for the first 50 alumni. I don't know where that number stands, so reach out sooner than later. Yeah, so, and if you're unable to make Omaha, we got one coming
up in Chicago in the fall. But if you are able to join us again June 19 through the 23rd contact the coalition summit.com, listen to your favorite I Trust my mama. You're no match for my bad karma.