6 Habits Holding You Back from a RICH Life | S2E33

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You want that ecosystem around you to be loaded with fertilizer and not the bullshit kind. You want it loaded with good, healthy fertilizer. Rich, rich fertilizer. There we go, back to our thing. You want it loaded with rich fertilizer so that you can grow and at the same time soak in everybody else in your ecosphere. Right? No one's sucking up all the sun, and you're actually, you're watering each other along the way. Real time, sharing resources, and then you all grow together. Welcome to AIDS Rodney talks for the superstars tonight. [00:00:39] Speaker B: Tonight, welcome to the Love and Business podcast. I am Brit Arnold, president of Tigler Construction and supply. [00:00:46] Speaker A: And I'm Mick Arnold, president of Arnold Packaging and Arnold Automation. What did you say? [00:00:52] Speaker B: These are the habits that will keep you from getting rich. Oh, would you like to hear more? [00:00:57] Speaker A: I would like to hear many more. And I even have some thoughts on this. I don't know what they are yet, but I hope to form some between here and then. [00:01:03] Speaker B: We have some thoughts on this. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:01:05] Speaker B: I'm going to start with number one habit that I believe keep people from getting rich. Keeps people from getting rich, in other words, keeps people broke in action. And I am going to expand on this. Inaction, procrastination, indecision. I believe a lot of people have great ideas, and they are paralyzed by two different things, fear and or perfectionism. And I think that keeps a lot of people from executing on their ideas. Somebody else, and I've heard this, and I believe it to be true, less qualified, often ends up doing the thing because they simply took action, even if it was messy. And that's why we always talk about that philosophy, which I think I'll speak on behalf for both of us. The ready, fire, aim philosophy that I do believe in. A lot of times you have to take action, and then as you're going, maneuver, change, pivot to hit that target. And just a couple of thoughts that come to mind. As you know, I always listen to podcast, and a few really resonated on this topic that I was listening to this week. So one of them was Cal Newport was on rich roll and Andrew Schuberman's podcast, and he talked about, and for anybody that doesn't know Cal Newport, he is the author of deep work, slow productivity. So good they can't ignore you. He's an author. He's also a professor. And he talked about the ship the work. Just ship the work, which means just get it out there. And next one mentality. And his thing was, while he's writing books, the method or technique he uses as not to get caught up in the perfectionism of the book and never actually get it out to the public is he always thinks, well, this book will be good. He obsesses. Well, I wouldn't say obsesses. Certainly he looks at making sure the book is quality, and that's a big part of what he's doing. But in his head, he says, well, the next one will be like the perfect book. So he keeps that next one mentality, and that helps him from getting stuck in that perfectionism cycle, which is interesting. I thought that was interesting. And another podcast I was listening to, the Iced Coffee podcast, which I've really liked. I just started listening to that. They have some great guests on there. And this one guy who's, I can't remember his name, forgive me, but he sold a ton of companies, and he talks about this very premise of, how did you start so many companies? He's like, I had the idea, and I took action immediately before I totally had it formulated. And he says, all inspiration is fleeting. He said, and if you don't take immediate action, a lot of times you are no longer gonna have that same inspiration. So just. Just a couple of my thoughts on this habit of tendency to not act and execute. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Yeah, those are interesting. [00:04:13] Speaker B: I just threw a lot at you. [00:04:15] Speaker A: No, no, no. And that's what you do, and that's why I show up. I think one of the things that crossed my mind, and, look, I want to be very clear and honest with our audience. I do not think it's okay to throw you in here, get it perfect or right all the time. I mean, I don't want anyone to think that we just sit here and we just execute flawlessly, without hesitation in this continuum that never stops. That's not true or accurate. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Can I just say one thing, just one thing to add to that? While that is true, and I agree with the fact that we don't get it right a lot, I do think both of us are very good at taking action and not sitting on things. Typically, if we say we're gonna do something, we go do it. [00:05:02] Speaker A: No, I agree. And I think what, you know, as we discuss a lot, I would probably tend to be hard on myself, where if I explain to somebody what I considered inaction or inactivity, they would laugh and say, are you kidding? That's still breakneck speed, but it's not for me. So what I was reflecting on, as you were talking about this idea of fear and or perfection slowing you down, either being afraid to launch or waiting for what you would consider to be the perfect time to launch. The other thing that I will tell you, that gets to me, because a lot of times when I look at these, I think, all right, well, what tools? If I have this problem or if I'm trying to help somebody that I care about, what tools do I have or what do I do to get past this? And certainly, as of late, have been feeling some overwhelmed moments in different spots. We're living in a hotel at the moment while we do some work and any number of other competing priorities in addition to the workload and any number of things we work on. It's what do I do in those moments? You actually brought this topic up in a moment where I'm catching myself struggling in spots. And when I. When, for me, when it's that overwhelmed feeling which would have me not acting, it look, it looks all looks the same. I think that's the thing that's challenging about it. It all looks the same. If you're not acting, you're not acting, but there's a reason for it underneath. So I always think, all right, well, what is the reason for that? And what tool have I developed or what tool do I have in my toolbox to get me past it? And what I have been having to really rely on most recently? Because I think the complexity of what you're working on does matter. It would be easy to just, you know, ready, fire, aim all the time. I get it. But there are certainly nuances and the complexity of what you're working on at any time. And what I have been having to find myself do a lot lately, more than I recall recently, is eating the elephant one bite at a time, you know, and it is completely aligned with what you said up, just start, or next one up and just get it in motion. But, God, lately I feel like I have been bogged down in spots, and I haven't necessarily been following my own teachings all that well. And I'll recognize that I let a day go by, you know, that was absolutely on the list to the task list, whatever I had put together, and it didn't get done that day. And I have caught myself a number of times lately, and it's almost like, think, what are you doing? Like, what? I know you're up for 20 hours a day, so what the hell did you actually do with that time? And it could have that look, right. I'm doing a real time self assessment here, and I think part of that is, is having to be able to break it down, right. And actually get something that you can. If you're carrying stuff up the mountain, you'd only want to pick so much you could carry at one time, right. Because if you pick too much chance, you come tumbling back down and kill yourself in the process. But I think fear, perfection, totally agree with those. And then just the methodology. All right. You know, if fear is what's happening or if perfection is what's happening, could you. Let's stay on perfection. Could you grab a piece of it, right. That is, may not be perfect, but it's good enough. And it is a segment or a bite sized morsel that you'd get after on the way to it, which has a little bit of a sound, like the book approach. Right? Like, you know, I'm just taking on this book, which is actually just building into this amazing book that could be book number ten, but this one is digestible at this size. And this is what I'm going to attempt to digest right now. So that's all the stuff that was going through my head while you were talking. [00:08:35] Speaker B: And so what I'm hearing is a bit of procrastination from overwhelm. And one thing that I always keep in mind doesn't always work, but I procrastinating, never. So the anxiety only gets worse. So when you've got a lot of overwhelm and you have anxiety, you're just going to compound that anxiety the more you procrastinate. So I'm like, I'd rather just get into it because the fear of this is less than the anxiety of the procrastination. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'll tell you, these light bulb or renaissance moments I have when I finally figure out the way. And this, this is a very now thing. Like, I have not struggled with this in quite some time. And I think it's. I think it's just the amount of bandwidth that I have going in other places at the moment and working on a lot of different things, both professionally and personally. And I haven't had this for a while. It's so uncomfortable. And that just means that I haven't dealt with it a while is a very unfamiliar feel, but I still have the, the good old feeling of when I figure it out, when I actually get the morsels and, and, uh, like, I'm like, oh, my gosh, that was so easy. Why didn't I see that? When I finally get to whatever that approach is, and you're exactly right. I mean, on something where this anxiety begets anxiety, and I'm not feeling it to that level, but I definitely have talked to people that do or, I mean, it almost becomes paralyzing at some point if you're not careful. But it still does have that feeling of, oh, my gosh. Of course that was the answer. Why did this take me an extra day? I'm talking like an extra day or sometimes it's an extra few hours, man. It's hitting me hard at this moment. So when I saw this topic and what you put together, I thought, oh, boy. I need an hour of self reflection that I can share with the audience because I'm getting crushed over here right now. [00:10:30] Speaker B: That's great. That's just called being relatable. Two last comments on this. Quick ones, I think, another reason I tend to find to just get started and get in there and if it's getting, oftentimes it's getting the ball in someone else's core to keep it moving. If you don't do that, a lot of times, once you finally get into it, realize that you need seven questions answered from other people. And because you didn't have it to, like, look into it two days ago and just get in there, now you're two days delayed from getting the questions that you needed and it's just this whole domino effect. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. [00:11:03] Speaker B: And then secondly. Excuse me. Is you get better the more you do, the more you do it. So, you know, just starting this new business with DC, did it so quickly, had a thought, knew it would work, was willing to take the risk. We are bleeding cash right now, all these things. But I know, I know. I know how this looks. I've done it before. I'm not fearful even in this moment of, we're not making any money. In fact, we're spending all the money. So just like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get. And the same is for just simply taking action. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I think, you know, saying that I have a lot, you know, when my, when my teammates are kidding me, for example, about how many emails they got on a weekend. And we been very intentional about resetting expectations because, you know, when you get an email from Arnold of Arnold's and it's on Saturday at whatever time, that could be a stressor. Right. So I have been very intentional, more so than at any time in my career, to say, listen, Monday's fine. Like, I didn't send that to you. If something was on fire and you had the only hose, I would have called you or texted you and said, I really, really need you right now. And this can't wait. I've been very intentional to say, my job is to never get caught with the ball, right? And my job is to give the ball back. And I think in these moments when I get stuck, it's that I am trying to give the ball back with some level of perfection instead of just giving it back. Right. And so many times, by giving the ball back, someone will actually give it back to you with two of the things you were stuck on. Figure it out. Just by virtue. And I think you have to be careful, right, where you're not just throwing things at a teammate or a customer, right. And it's clear, or it's obvious that you haven't put any time or effort in, and you're just doing that. You're just giving them the ball. Not anything that looks like a great handoff that will allow them to run the next five or ten or 15 yards. But when I get stuck, it's like, my gosh, why didn't I do that? Why didn't I invite somebody? And like you said, a teammate or whomever that next person would be? Because rarely. Rarely, which is code for never am I in it by myself, right? I mean, if someone's waiting for at least one person's waiting for the ball, they're in it, too. So those are just some of the mistakes that I think that I get stuck and having, despite being in business for a long time, still get stuck, you know, and still take on or bite off more than I can chew. Like, it looks doable, but in the moment, you're like, oh, wow, this is a lot. And where you can't outthink it or even outrun it, there's just simply not enough hours in the day or can't create enough additional bandwidth, and that has you backlogged where you're trying to dig out of it. So I think those are some of the thoughts that I have as it relates to how I would prefer to execute in spots. And this whole thing. Did I say execute? Execute with a t. Execute in spots. And this whole thing is, you know, the habits that prevent you from being rich, right? And one of those is getting stuck. And, man, I do get stuck at times. There's no question, and not majority or anything relatively close to majority, but world needs to know that that is absolutely a condition, and it's normal to get stuck like that. The question, the real thing is, how do you recognize it? And then what tools do you rally to those moments so that you can get out of it? [00:14:47] Speaker B: Yes. Agree. All right. Let's move on to bad habit number two. Prior, can you say this word? [00:14:55] Speaker A: It is prioritization. [00:14:57] Speaker B: Prioritization. Thank you. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Yes, indeed. [00:14:59] Speaker B: It's a challenging one. So it would be prioritizing the wrong things or lack thereof. [00:15:07] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So back to the bandwidth comment, right. You only have so much bandwidth. So the magic is in. How do you put this over that? And I think, you know, when you get into that, there's two sides, right? You have your professional life, you have your personal life, and how do you, how do you truly prioritize that? And I'm going to separate those for a second, not because I'm talking about this work life balance thing. I'm not. What I'm saying is that I think the approach. [00:15:33] Speaker B: So do you not believe in separate buckets in your life? In having those separate buckets in this moment? [00:15:39] Speaker A: In this moment? I think I do, yeah. If I'm, if I'm, if I am, if I have a list of tasks that are professional in nature and I have a list of tasks that are personal in nature, I'm not going to assign the same types of onus on them. They're going to have a different look. And by the way, they could end up intertwined. It could be that number one and two are personal. Let's go that way. It's a rarity. Number one and two are personal and number three is business. But in arriving at that, I probably would stand up different things. What a dumbass word that is. I'd stand it up differently looking at my personal priorities than I would my work priorities. And I think that's an important thing to understand too, is learning what is important and or of priority is difficult in itself. I mean, it takes a certain amount of experience to be able to assess that and then also on top of that, assessing the speeds at which they can be done. Because part of that might be the prioritization, right? You might be like, you know what, I'm going to pick all the low hanging fruit here. But to be able to know what low hanging fruit is, you have to have done it or you have to understand the speed at which you can execute because prioritization could be, you know what this looks like, it could be number ten. But I can do this in such a short period of time that I'm going to move it to number one and get it off the list completely. So I think the prioritization pieces can be challenging unto itself. And getting back to tools, what tools do I use when I'm trying to get the priority, right? I mean some are obvious, right? I mean there are some that are, that are important versus urgent versus whatever. But man, that whole middle section that aren't as obvious. There's some thought that goes and experience that goes into that part. What do you think? [00:17:33] Speaker B: I think that you mentioned getting the 10th thing off your list. And I think I tend to do that too much. And I don't really agree with that philosophy. I think prioritization is all about getting the big things done and not getting lost in the smaller minutiae things. Now I'm not saying I'm right, but this is something that I struggle with. I'm trying to get better. Like I know what the big things are that need to get done. And a lot of times if I am procrastinating, it's because I simply don't like it. One of the ones that I pretty much, if it's a big. If it's a bigger contract, I am reviewing it for my company. And I hate reviewing contracts. Like all the legal language. Don't get me wrong, I work with lawyers too, but I do a lot of the redlining myself and I hate it. But ultimately, until that contract gets signed, we're not going to work and we're not getting paid and nothing's happening. So that's typically like a priority. And I find myself pushing those contract reviews back. Cause I dislike it so much where I know today I didn't do that. I started my day with getting two contracts done, big ones. So when I say big, I just mean in number of pages and legal. [00:18:46] Speaker A: Language because that's the thing too. These small dollar amount contracts can have the same amount of legal intensity as a large thing at all. [00:18:54] Speaker B: It's 56 pages. [00:18:55] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Doesn't mean you don't always get paid by the page, which sucks because you'd love to get paid by the page. [00:19:01] Speaker B: Exactly. So I really do believe in the ideas of just attacking the biggest thing and getting those done. First. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Let me barge in. What about time alone? Because there is a part of that where. So I hear you right. It's easy to push the things that you don't love or like that is for sure. But isn't there also a part of that, like you talk about some of these contracts and you look at it and say, I estimating this is going to take me two and a half hours to review this project, but I only have two because I've got a hard stop. And would that have you change your prioritization about or would you do the two, pack it up and pick up the half hour immediately following. How would you approach? [00:19:41] Speaker B: That's what I've been tending to do lately, because I mean, hell, you're almost through it. It's still 2 hours of work towards the goal. So yeah, I definitely tend towards that. [00:19:51] Speaker A: Or even at the risk of the disruption of the pack and unpack, depending on what that looks like. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. The other thing I think is worth talking about, and I think it's been coined toxic productivity. Right now, I could be wrong, but the idea is that there's so much hype around being super productive. You could listen to every podcast about productivity, you could read every book about productivity. I mean, there's thousands, maybe millions out there, and self development and people get in these cycles, especially now, about just listening to every podcast, reading every book, learning all of it, but then never actually doing anything with the learning. So it's this hyper focus on productivity and self development, but just consuming. [00:20:45] Speaker A: What is that term? Toxic. [00:20:47] Speaker B: Toxic productivity. I'm not sure if that's the definition that people, that's what I've heard. I'm sure that has various definitions to different people, but I do believe, and that is a thing now, that you can just over consume and never create or never actually execute or do anything with it. That's just something that I'm seeing more and more. And I think that does have to do something with prioritization, like great, consume, consume a small amount, but where your priorities are actually in the action, and just make sure you get that balance. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Right, right. I have a thousand things, and that. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Could be tied to the inaction piece too, right? It's like delay, delay, delay. Because reading's fun. Listening to podcasts are fun. The execution's the hard piece. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And I have two thoughts around that. One would be if you're, if you're in that, you know, if you are participating, participating in that, right, where it would look, it would look like the best thing in the world, that would be self development or self help or whatever. You would title all of that stuff. [00:21:45] Speaker B: You feel good about yourself, you do. [00:21:47] Speaker A: But the question then becomes, is for what? Right? That's what the question becomes, is for what? And I'm going to share two examples here in a second. But at some point if you said, well, I am investing in this, because I'm going to, when you say productivity to me, I go to the pure mathematical piece, right? Input versus output. And if you said, I'm working on my personal productivity, because if I get better at it, I can improve my disposable time, and with that time, I want to walk by the lake. Right. You have this goal in mind in creating, right. It would be, I need to get more efficient so that I can create disposable time, because I want to fill it with this wonderful thing that's very important to me. So I'll give you an example. So I have stayed on with my singing. Quick update, right? You update on your caffeine. I've stayed on with my singing, and that's just become part of my Saturday. And I very much equate it to my experience with golf. And my instructor, Matthew, from stages, by the way, shout out to stages. Great, great place. I liken the training a lot to golf and trying to move it towards something, to me, that's very familiar. Here's the thing that I struggle with going to the course, right? So when I played golf, I was, and this is back to your toxic productivity and this, you know, all of this work. At some point, you've got how to go to the course, right? I mean, that would like in the self help part and the books and the podcast and whatever, that would be like hitting range balls to me, hitting range balls or working on my short game or whatever that part was. But at some point, you've got to go to the course and test your skills. And that's where I struggle, too, with the singing thing. I mean, I love it. It's very relaxing. I enjoy the process. But I asked my instructor, who can sing his ass off. I mean, like, this guy will show me some notes. I mean, it reminded me, wouldn't the pro be like, hand me that driver for a second, you know, he'd hit one that was still going when it got to mine. I'm like, holy hell, you know, he'll blurt out some notes, and I'm like, jesus, I'll never get there. And my question to him was, well, God, you can really sing. When do you test your skills? Do you front a band? Are you in a play? You can't just sing in this room all the time. I mean, that would be like never leaving the range to me. And that's what that part sounds like. It would just be to do it endlessly and never actually go test your skills, whatever that means. [00:24:11] Speaker B: So I agree 100%. I could never, I love running. I could never continue to run without racing. But I'm gonna push back against both of, both of us and the way we feel. So again, listening to Iced coffee podcast with Chris Williamson, he was actually quoting somebody else. And it was this idea that anybody that works a lot, and it could be business owners, entrepreneurs, just people that work a lot in general, should have at least one thing that they just like to do. And his argument was, and not to get better. [00:24:43] Speaker A: Right? [00:24:43] Speaker B: So Graham, the host from Iced coffee pot, he started painting, and Chris said, are you training? Are you taking painting classes? And Graham said, no, I'm actually not. He said, well, there's this whole idea that, like, just paint to paint, don't paint to get better, because then you're just. It's not. It's not an escape. It's not helping you, you know, because he would argue. His argument, I think, is that get away from work for a little bit and refresh, and that's going to improve your work productivity. But if you're just going into another outlets, I'm doing quote for anybody that's just listening. Quotation outlet. But it's just to get better and then compete again. Like, you're actually not getting out of that work cycle. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker B: So it's like, that's interesting. I will never be able to do that. [00:25:27] Speaker A: I know. So I just wrote, what I just wrote down on my piece of paper was for the hell of it, right? [00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:32] Speaker A: What does that even mean? So I'm gonna share something funny I didn't get a chance to share with you. So I was driving home last night, and I was talking to Brooke. Brooke's our oldest daughter, 22, veterinary student. And I said, oh, my gosh, I think we're there. We might be able to move back into the house in the foreseeable future. [00:25:48] Speaker B: And she said, for anyone that missed it, I know we're. You said, we're staying in a hotel. Cause there's work getting done. You meant renovation work in the house. [00:25:55] Speaker A: We're doing some renovation work in the house, yes. So, thank you for tying all that together. And she said, what's the time? And I said, what time? She said, well, when you helped me move into college and you were done, you declared that you broke your record for moving someone into a house. [00:26:12] Speaker B: We ran. We sprinted, and I said to her, what was our record, 52 minutes? [00:26:18] Speaker A: I think it was 42 minutes, actually. Yeah, 42 minutes. [00:26:20] Speaker B: I mean, we were psycho. [00:26:21] Speaker A: It was. And she was laughing out loud when I didn't realize what she meant by what the time, but she had catalogued that in our ridiculous, stupid ass behavior. And I said, well, what else would you do, Brooke? I mean, why would you do anything without making it into a contest? And that's completely opposed to this idea of for the hell of it. And I'm gonna try. [00:26:39] Speaker B: Do you remember us moving, Brooke? And we were both sweating and running, and I was like, sling shit up the stairs to you. [00:26:46] Speaker A: I think we were trying to figure out if we were gonna have to break for lunch, and they were still serving breakfast when we were done. Yeah, that was great for the hell of it. [00:26:54] Speaker B: Last comment. This is a little segway off into another branch here. Prioritizing looking rich over actually being rich, which is comical to us, because that's just never been us. And even when we're talking about rich, the first thing I said was, we gotta make sure rich is not just meaning financial, because that feels really off brand to us. I mean, let's be honest, guys. It's a little clickbaity. But once we get in here, like, rich is so much more, you know, just rich in life, rich in everything. Not just financial relationships. Relationships, yeah. I mean, just name it. But there is. We are in a culture, and mostly with social media. And I'm not gonna belabor this point, but I personally know people that make themselves out to look so rich, and I can't even. I've showed you some of it before. Like, I can't even watch the content. Cause I know these people in real life, and I know what they actually make or what their real life actually looks like, and it is nothing. I don't even know. And it's not just social media. Like, whether you're just putting up a front or facade when you're talking to somebody. I don't even know how people can actually do that. [00:28:05] Speaker A: Imagine if you took that kind of effort and deployed it to something, actually getting rich. [00:28:11] Speaker B: If you care about getting rich that much. [00:28:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:13] Speaker A: If you took that kind of effort and deployed it over there, you would be. [00:28:17] Speaker B: Well, that's what we're talking about, prioritization, right? [00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:28:20] Speaker B: So just an observation. All right, how about moving on to number three? Habit number three. [00:28:24] Speaker A: Yeah. All about it. Oh, God. All about it. [00:28:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:27] Speaker A: So, incredibly sexy job. [00:28:29] Speaker B: So there again. And I think this is a bit of a cultural thing, but maybe it's always been this way. I do think there's a tendency, especially younger generations, that are just getting into the workforce to want to look for the sexiest job they can find in this day and age. It's. You know, I'll talk to my vice president, Jorby, who has young kids in elementary school, middle school, and he says he goes to these schools when they're talking about, what do you want to be when you grow up? And all of them say, social media influencer. That's what you get. You're not getting doctor and lawyer anymore. You're getting social media influencer, which is mind blowing. But it's that attraction towards the sexy job, regardless of what it is, how much you make, the value it brings to the world, the value, the fulfillment it brings to you. So I truly believe so many more people will be so fulfilled by unsexy jobs, and that could look like a boring. What is looked at as boring or unsexy or blue collar? A lot of that times, that's a blue collar job. And I've been listening. Cody Sanchez is the queen of buying and selling laundromats and all kinds. And I listened to a guy the other day, again, can't remember his name, but he has made a living off of buying laundromats, coin machines, vending machines, just. Just really interesting. [00:29:57] Speaker A: My dream is to own a driving range. I mean, I would love to own a driving range. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Well, I think people might even consider that sexy. I don't know. [00:30:04] Speaker A: Oh, if that's, then that's completely come full circle. Yeah. [00:30:08] Speaker B: But I don't. But, you know, we're in manufacturing and construction. [00:30:11] Speaker A: I sell cardboard boxes and bags of air, for Christ's sake. [00:30:14] Speaker B: I sell lumber. I sell two by fours. Right. Not sexy, but fulfilling. Wow. And, yeah, profitable. Like, very much so. [00:30:24] Speaker A: Two comments. So the influencer thing is frustrating to me, but at least I understand it. And I'm gonna pitch this in the reverse way in that. And you said not even doctors and lawyers, right? And the first thing I thought was, and definitely not someone making something. And that demonstration piece is so critical. You know, we spent a lot of time around. [00:30:46] Speaker B: I was gonna say doctor and lawyer because that was. What was the sexy. I was comparing it to, like, what the sexy job used to be. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Absolutely. And my point of that, too, is just the demonstration of it, right? You are around doctors, not lawyers as a kid, right? You go to the doctor, you go to this, you go to that. So at least you see, or you are interacting with people that are demonstrating this and that. I believe that has just shifted to what the kids now are associating with. And it's influencers, right? They're forever on their devices. And we're sitting here shooting a podcast. So we have to be careful about being hypocrites, but that's what they're exposed to. And then the unfortunate side of that, for me is what we're talking about, and definitely no one is. I love the fact that they could go onto YouTube and they could find manufacturing, they could find robotics, and they. And they could watch a show like how it's made, which is one of my favorite shows, and I'm amazing. I'm also amazed at the closet people that I find that watch it. I'm like, you watch how it's made? They're like, oh, yeah, are you kidding? That's the coolest show in the world. And so I'm not 100% surprised just by that is the demonstration. But it does call into fear for me what could happen to some of those other professions that are not clearly demonstrated. I'm going to share something with you, too. In our exec meeting the other day, Kevin came up with a great question. Was it Kevin? Let's assume it was Kevin. What is your favorite facet of your job now? I work in what one would consider a boring industry. Guess what? So do they. They're doing the same thing I'm doing, but they have a particular slice of the pie that they're responsible for delivery on, and it had nothing to do with the thing. Right. Your two by fours, my bags of air, whatever it was all about. You know, Kevin, our vp of automation, said, I love of solving problems with my teammates, and they could be what one would consider the most boring problem in the world. The one we're working on now is how to do a faster job filling shampoo bottles. That might seem mind numbing to someone, but the idea of going in to look at a process that's a little bit broken, it's not working as well or the way it needs to. And Kevin collecting that data and bringing it back to rally with his teammates around how to fill shampoo bottles. If you just said, I fill shampoo bottles, you're like, oh, my God, how boring? Kevin's takeaway from that is the problem solving of engineering and being able to interact with people and solve these problems, that would get him jobbed up. So I think, get him job? He got all him jobbed up. I don't even know what the hell that means. Tommy, what the hell does get jobbed up mean? I hope the girls hurt. I don't know. But he's getting all jobbed up, jacked up, jazzed up. I don't know. It's been a very long week today, so. Yeah, but I think my point, you gotta look under the hood a little bit. I mean, what is boring? I mean, okay, if I sat there and stared at a unit of two by fours, that would be boring. But then if I just went one little thing away, what's it making? Who are the people that are making it, man? I mean, this whole idea of a boring job is, I don't know. Silly. [00:33:59] Speaker B: Well, I'm gonna add to that surface level. How's that perfect segue? So, again, in listening to Cal Newport and I, I'm regurgitating what he's saying, but I trust that he's done the studies because he's a trustworthy source. And he was talking about this idea that passion. It's been proven in studies that passion is not necessarily tied to job satisfaction and that what people are actually fulfilled by is getting better and the mastery over craftsmanship. So, and then you get on this role where you get better at the thing, and then you want to do it more, and then you get less interested in, like, the busy work that. The trivial minutia stuff that doesn't matter, and then you just continue to get better at the craft. So, actually, people really love. Maybe Kevin is, like, this master problem solver and engineer, and he's honing his craft. You don't have to. If you love golf, like, you don't have to make golf your career. You can find something that's not necessarily. I don't know if you can necessarily dislike it or hate what you're doing at work, but something that you're like, okay, this is great. But it's the mastery and the getting better over time, which is really fulfills people and keeps them coming back for more, which I thought was very interesting. [00:35:15] Speaker A: Yep. And I agree with that 100%. [00:35:17] Speaker B: I agree with that. And then the last thing is, we haven't really touched on, okay, so I'm looking at it. I'm looking for an un sexy job. I'm a female, and I'm going to be. I'm looking at doing what you're doing, Brittany. That's being construction. But just because it's unsexy, like, what does that mean? And the reason is because, a, there's more opportunity because less people are interested. And I also think, at least I can speak for manufacturing, I think. And construction. There's not a lot of times that we're not as tech savvy or at least in construction. We're a little obsolete or antiquated. And there's so much opportunity for people to come in. I mean, think of all the construction content creators, you know, or whatever. I mean, there are just so many things that we're lagging in that I think opportunity is the word that sticks out for me. For instance, another reason that you could find more opportunity in these unsexy jobs quotations is that because the younger generation's not as interested, you have less getting into it. So therefore you have a lot of older owners that don't have succession plans or don't have younger folk working for them that just want to sell or like. So those are different opportunities that I think are very real. [00:36:32] Speaker A: Right. Well, I think it goes back to a lot of our conversations about that. Supply versus demand, right? I mean, you, observations of your ascent to where you are now would be. You like construction. Yes. But it wasn't the two by fours and the buildings you liked, the people that were drawn to construction. You like their worth, their work ethic. You love the conversations around it. And what we spent a lot of time talking about recently was you identified this imbalance of supply and demand, and you kept saying, no, no, no. And as it related to MBE and some of those other things that were just absent, and you thought, holy hell, I love all of this. And there seems to be this incredible amount of demand with limited supply. And you walked right into it and all of the excitement around the business, but not necessarily the two by fours. Right? I mean, and that's what a great segue and entry to younger people, all of our younger audience members is, man, get out there and try it. Gosh. To just none of them, let's just say, let's assume that none of them or a very small percentage of those classmates are going to be to influencers. They're going to have to go find something to do that's not influencing. Which, by the way, everybody's an influencer. You can be one inside your own company even though you're not sitting on camera. But yeah, I mean, how do we get that message out that there's so many great jobs that would look boring, as you say, on the surface, holy bags of air. How the heck can you make any money doing that? And you talk to someone and they say, your salespeople make what? That's what I keep saying, right? I mean, the best of the best are very few and far between. And when you get that supply demand imbalance, it pays well, period. Like, that's the way it works. [00:38:21] Speaker B: And just to wrap up on this habit, I think that's a great point you made about me not initially being, and probably not even now in love with construction. I like it. I like the industry a lot. But what I became obsessed with was business and how to build a business, and then how to lead everything inside of business, how to build a business, how to grow a team and the mastery of business. And growing a business, just like you have become obsessed with the mastery or craftsmanship of innovation. And so that is what I really love and keeps me coming back for more. [00:39:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And one step further, too, how you built an incredible value proposition without exactly being a subject matter expert. Right. That is a really interesting idea in that, like, well, no, she must know how to lay bricks. She sells bricks. Well, there's a lot of problems to be solved around supply and value prop, even though you were never a bricklayer. And that's. And that's an interesting point we can go to in another episode when we talk about all the things that go on around these industries. You might not be making the widget, but all the things that go on around producing the widget that are every bit is important or maybe more important at times. Or it could at least be something that would keep you from being successful if you missed all of the work that goes on around the widget. [00:39:48] Speaker B: Yes. [00:39:49] Speaker A: Something to be done with that around the widget, work around the widget thing. There is, and for the hell of it. And I wrote that one down, too. I still can't get my head around the idea that I would do something for the hell of it, but I'm gonna try. [00:40:01] Speaker B: Okay. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:03] Speaker B: All right. Habit number four. This is a big one. [00:40:06] Speaker A: Oh, gotcha. [00:40:07] Speaker B: Who you surround yourself with, if you're not surrounded yourself by people that motivate you are better than you, or pushing you to be better, you're just not gonna be the best that you can be. And I have. Obviously, everyone knows that. Right? I like to get into more specific or anecdotal data when we talk about these habits. Cause a lot of them are like, duh. But let's get deeper. And the one thing I always refer to it is as the amoeba, and it's the person that changes and transforms like an amoeba would, based on the environment and the people they're with. So they're with this group, and all of a sudden, they become an amoeba, and they form, and they're just like that group a, and then they're around group b, and all of a sudden, they're just like the people in group b. And to me, that says you respect or value the opinions of others or maybe the judgment than just being confident in who you are and what you bring to the table. And I think a lot of people fall victim to this. And certainly when you're young and you haven't developed the confidence in yourself, this is a very common thing. I mean, one friend I had that I absolutely adored growing up, haven't seen her in years. This was her. I mean, like to crazy degrees, would hang out with these groups that were so dynamically different, opposite end of the spectrums, and she would literally become that group immediately. And it was the most. I just would watch this in just disbelief. [00:41:38] Speaker A: Lily Poulter today and black fingernails tomorrow. [00:41:40] Speaker B: 100%. [00:41:42] Speaker A: There's a visual for you. [00:41:43] Speaker B: Yes. So, you know, it's avoiding that. And it's this expectation that when you do that or you do things that a lot of other people are doing, but then you expect to be brilliant or create something that's in, like the 1% that's never going to happen. If you're doing the same thing that everybody else is doing, you're never going to be part of the 1%. And this also comes into, I'm tying another part that we've already talked about is that overconsumption that you're always taking in. You're always taking into the point where you're just regurgitating everything you hear. I realize most new ideas are not new, they're recycled in some kind of way. But still, there has to be a part of your life where you're just not consuming, you're creating and you're differentiating. And that's the only way to be part of this 1%, which is what most of us aspire to be in. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And unfortunately, I'll say we set our kids up for failure. And it's not really we, but I used to speak to a fifth grade class every year at a school in Anne Arundel county. And I would generally start, it was a business type conversation we have, and I always start with, who are your favorite companies? And they would yell out, the typical ones, Apple and under Armour, obviously local, and a few others. Nike, where I was always leading them with that conversation, was the idea that they love those companies because they are so incredibly differentiated, yet they spend all of their time trying to act like each other. There's nothing that's valued about being different. Actually, it is the enemy. When you are in middle school and elementary school, you do everything you can not to be different, because that is not only celebrated, it's not celebrated, it's ostracized. If you are different, that has you outside looking in, in spots. So that culture gets created very early and embedded very early. So you have these kids that are going through elementary school and middle school and high school terrified of being different. And the whole group, someone brings in a new idea or they borrow it. No one has a new idea when you're 15, but they borrow it from whomever, whatever influencer likely they sold doing it or TikTok or whatever all of their influences are, and they bring it into the group. And then everybody melds around that idea. But then we expect them to somehow become this differentiated thing at 21 or 22 or 23. It's hard. And not only that, is it hard? It doesn't make any sense. You've been conditioned for 20 years or 22 years of your life where being different is not only not celebrated, it's ostracized. And then you have to go through this entire reinvention, if you will, which, by the way, I'm guilty of every single thing I'm talking about. And then you have to go through this reinvention if you're going to go out and be different and you're going to compete for a job or you're going to do whatever you want to do. You're going to build a company. We talk about differentiation and value prop all the time. And now you're trying to create your personal differentiation and value prop when you spent the last 22 years of your life being like you're, you know, I say you're dumb friends. I mean that in a nice way. You're immature friends that are all in the same echo chamber trying to do and be the exact same thing. That's really, it's, it's, it's virtually impossible, right? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. [00:45:12] Speaker B: That's a good point. [00:45:13] Speaker A: But that's how we do it. [00:45:14] Speaker B: It is. And it's interesting. I hadn't really thought much about this. It really, and this goes back to, you know, surrounding yourself with people or who you're surrounded with, but by default and. Cause I, as a kid, I was not afraid to be different. And I think that's really unusual. Like, I actually love just as much as I like it now, I love to them. And I definitely, I mean, it had to be a lot of that coming from my parents. Like the support of being comfortable to be different, them allowing me to, that's celebrating it, encouraging it. And so many kids aren't going to have that in the household, but as we get older, I mean, we're probably not talking to kids that are under their parents roofs. So making this relatable. Now you can choose. You can choose your friends you can choose your spouse and your partner, and the same thing goes to the house you were raised and the parents you were raised under. How important is the partner that you pick in? Just everything. Every impact on your life, like being able to achieve and be the person you want to be that significant other, is everything. It's the person you are going to spend the most time with, probably the duration of your entire life. And I just think a lot of. [00:46:30] Speaker A: Times or not, if you miss or. [00:46:32] Speaker B: Not if you miss, which is painful. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's a reason. Well, and there's a reason that I think the statistic, I believe, has not changed. I think that 50% of marriages miss. Right? Yeah. And unfortunately, of the 50% that don't statistically miss, meaning they don't get divorced. There's a percentage of those that should miss. Right. That are missing, but they make a decision, either out loud or made up story, unspoken truth, not to end the contractual obligation that is the marriage and. Yeah. And to not surround yourself with people that make you better. And when I say like minded, I'm not saying be like them. Right? I'm not saying that. I'm not saying go back to high school or middle school and be like everybody around. I mean, that they push you, they challenge you, they bring ideas to the table that are exactly different than yours. Right? So that perspective is so important and so different. And, you know, you can jive and gel and build on top of that if you create the right room. I mean, some of the people that we adore the most, they're not. They're nothing. That's exactly like us, right? I mean, there are some rally points, or they prioritize certain things at a level that we do, and we can connect on that. Right? Or they're just great humans or whatever it is. But so much of that is building that ecosystem around you that is built to blossom. You want that ecosystem around you to be loaded with fertilizer and not the bullshit kind. You want it loaded with good, healthy fertilizer, rich fertilizer. There we go back to our thing. You want it loaded with rich fertilizer so that you can grow and at the same time, so can everybody else in your ecosphere, right? No one's sucking up all the sun, and you're actually. You're watering each other along the way, real time, sharing resources, and then you all grow together, and you don't ever do it. You don't ever create separation by pushing someone down right back to the candle. You know, the candle comparison that we make. [00:48:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And I was listening to, I love that word ecosphere, and I was listening to, as it relates to this, some of the top podcasters were talking about, and they didn't call it ecosphere, but people were asking them, well, how did you break in and how did you become a top podcaster? And one of the things they said was, well, once you get into the community or you get into the group of people and a lot of them are in Austin now, or, you know, in these little pockets, it's not that hard because we're not competing with each other. We're all helping each other, we're all having each other on each other's shows. We're sharing ideas. It's community, and it just gets a lot easier. So it's like if you're in the right, if you break into that group or that right ecosphere, all of a sudden it gets easier for everybody because you are all watering each other. [00:49:23] Speaker A: Yeah. What a cool idea. [00:49:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the last one I have is just, I have written down in front of me is just, just taking advice from the wrong people. And this could be who you're surrounding yourself with. And when I say the wrong people, a lot of times it's a someone that wants to give advice who hasn't done it before, which is our biggest problem with a lot of the business coaches. And that's why the idea of a business coach drives us insane. Yes, there are exceptions. I shouldn't have to say that. Everybody knows that. But there are a ton that are trying to be our business coach who have never ran a business before. Why in the hell would I ever take advice from you? I wouldn't. Two is taking advice from somebody that has done it. So let's say I want a business coach and they have built businesses, but they did it so long ago that it's just no longer relevant or there's so many steps ahead of me that the advice they're going to give me is all in retrospect and it's, they're giving me advice of what they're doing now as opposed to what they did at step one through ten. [00:50:24] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. It's going to be, be an accumulation of their experience without the granularity that. [00:50:28] Speaker B: You need to be successful or even just the memory of what it was. [00:50:32] Speaker A: Right? That's it. Yeah, that's what I meant by accumulation. This overarching, backward looking thing that it was good, you know, overall it was good. Well, wait a minute. I need to know, like you just told me about the book. I need to know about chapter two. And I really need to know about page six of chapter two. That's the level that I need. And you're telling me the book was good? I need some real inside stuff here. [00:50:54] Speaker B: Yeah, or it's like, okay, so, Mister Smith, you've built a million businesses. I need to know what your morning routine looks like. Well, I work out. I get in the sauna, I do cold plunge, I meditate, I journal. It's a four hour freaking routine that he does now. He forgets that when he was building a business, he just went to work. The whole morning routine didn't happen. So it's like, right, the morning Matt. [00:51:18] Speaker A: Was eating out of a bag while driving with your knee while making up. [00:51:22] Speaker B: To get to work. Yeah. It's like those inconsistencies, incongruencies. [00:51:25] Speaker A: That was actually my day. I just explained to you. [00:51:28] Speaker B: And not that anyone's being intentionally omitting anything. It's just like, that's their memory. That's what they do now. They don't remember what they did then. [00:51:37] Speaker A: Sure. Well, become selective over time, too. [00:51:39] Speaker B: Sure, sure. [00:51:39] Speaker A: Of course. And usually it's draped in success and failure. Right? The traumas. You know, your brain catalogs trauma and your brain catalogs extreme happiness. That middle stuff, which. There's a lot of that middle stuff, which I don't mean mundane in a bad way. We talked about mundane. It just doesn't stick out. And therefore, that's not something you'd stop and tell as part of the story, right? [00:52:00] Speaker B: Absolutely. All right. Bad habit number five. Dabbling in everything instead of relentless pursuit of one thing or very limited things. And probably one thing is the right number. [00:52:13] Speaker A: Oh, I hate this. I mean, we've identified any number of people along the way that are just. I think I described someone we came in contact with along the way. I'm like, they have more sides than a stop sign. It's like, what do you actually do? Like, how are you a salesperson but you have a business, but you're a golf club fitter on the weekends? I didn't make any of those up, by the way. And you're a golf club fitter. And then you. It was like there was so many things that were going on. None of them, none of them really related. It was. It was just. It almost had this hunting, searching feel like. I don't know. But, God, I hope one of these eight things, I hit really hard and then I can leave the other seven. But my experience of that individual was if they left one, it was because they inserted another and physically didn't have enough bandwidth to, to take on number nine. They, you know, eight, they had at least they got one benefit out of it. They realized that eight things was their bandwidth. But the dabbling thing makes me somewhat crazy. [00:53:17] Speaker B: And listen, that's fine. If that's what you want to do, that's fine, but don't expect to be the best at anything. And I mean, it is proven the more you do the same thing and put in the hours over and over and over, the better you are going to get. And eventually you can't compete with that person who is only doing one thing. If you've watched Michael Jordan's the last dance like he did one thing, he did not worry about anything else, nothing. And if you become so good at something so good, they can't deny you. That's a real thing. And a lot of times that takes complete focus and obsession on one singular thing. [00:54:00] Speaker A: Yeah, we talk about this a lot, too. Just the idea that we celebrate in certain parts of, certain parts of things around us, we celebrate the hell out of that. Right? I mean, I love Patrick Mahomes, and I said this before, he won the Super bowl again, but there's a guy that just goes at it in an incredibly relentless fashion. And we love to watch athletes do it and shower them with praise over how they do it. But if you were to do, if you were to have that same look, just to say in the business world, you would be unbalanced, right. There would be a lot of negative connotations that would come out of that. But we cherish athletes who approach that way. The number of foul shots they shoot, the number of three pointers they shoot, the time they're at the gym. For football players, the hours of film, that's another big deal in the football world, outside of just the physicality of the business, the mental piece of it, we celebrate that like crazy, but we don't do it here. And I would say, you know, if you want to dabble in something that's great, that should be called a hobby, right? And you should dabble over there and you should be doing things. I'll never get it for the hell of it, right? And dabbling. And if that is a mental break or that's how you sharpen your saw, that's great, then I'm a huge fan of that. But, man, to try to be a pro, I mean, we. So, by the way, we watch what happened when Michael Jordan tried to play baseball, right? Not so good and then he went out as the best basketball player probably in the history of basketball players and tried to compete with the best baseball players, trying to move over as a world class athlete in somebody else's craft, got his ass handed to him. And of course he did. What else would you do, right? I mean that would be really hard. And a guy that carries a zero handle handicap at the country club would get beaten to death on the professional tour. Right. I mean, it just, that's not the level that we're talking about. When you. The separation at the highest part of the pyramid is fractions of fractions of fractions. So the idea that you would dilute your bandwidth with dabbling in lots of things that you're going to try to call a career, that will certainly keep you poor. [00:56:17] Speaker B: Yes. And there are so many people that have this tendency to do something and then quit after a month or two and pick something else up and quit after a month or two. And the one thing as we can attest to, I mean, when you continue to do something day after day after day, what you build is this resiliency muscle that's so important. And if you continually just start things and stop them, you never really build that. And I'm not sure if you don't learn how to deal with resiliency and failure and challenge you're ever going to be successful in the first place. So it's being able to endure and push through in the times that you don't really want to. [00:56:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I find mammals are hard coded to survive. Right. So the idea that you wouldn't go at something like that and right up to the point that, that you'd be willing to do it towards a level of survival, which I find just opposed to the animal side of us where we are hard coded to survive and that you'd bounce around. Imagine if in the jungle you decided to bounce around. Guess what you'd end up eating. That strategy would not last very long in the wild, but it can in our part of the wild. We are so domesticated that that actually works for a minute now. [00:57:38] Speaker B: Well, that's what, you know, Michael Easter, he talks about the comfort crisis and just that we're so comfortable now that we tolerate. Like we don't want to push ourselves to just comfort. Cause we simply don't have to. And he made a really funny point that made me laugh is to the point where we have created gyms so you can go and pick heavy things up and put them down, pick a steel plate up, put them down, like, we had to create a facility to do that a long time ago. Shit was just hard. You were hunting. You were picking heavy things up. Like, you didn't a gym. Like, you were just getting that daily activity to live machines. [00:58:19] Speaker A: Machines were doing all of the work. So we then had to create a. [00:58:22] Speaker B: Room that we went into, pick up that hysterical steel jump on that box. Like, wow, that's so true. [00:58:29] Speaker A: Yep. Well, that's. That's. That's special. That's. That's specialization, babe. You know, somebody. So while I was over here doing this, somebody had to create a room that had big chunks of steel. [00:58:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Just so funny and so true. [00:58:42] Speaker A: You just get a job picking up chunks of steel. I get paid for it. [00:58:44] Speaker B: And so obvious. But when he said it just like. [00:58:46] Speaker A: That, that's pretty funny. We could sit around for a while laughing our ass off about a bunch of those. [00:58:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:58:52] Speaker A: Oh, I love the last one. [00:58:53] Speaker B: Last, last one. [00:58:55] Speaker A: I love it. [00:58:55] Speaker B: Last habit that will keep you from getting rich. Number six, ego. And I mean ego in the sense that you know best. You don't want to look to outside help. And I don't. I don't know if maybe. I guess some of it was ego, but I never. Especially when I first started Tagler construction and supply seven, eight years ago, I had this tendency to just want to figure it out myself. And I'm not sure it was all ego, but I. I'm sure with some of that. And now, truly, my first instinct or reaction is, who do I know that knows this better than me? And I really do look to that. I'm not saying I look to outsource everything in a manner that's lazy. Like, if I can dig in and figure it out, I will, if it makes sense. But now I am so happy to outsource and say, I don't know this at all, and just kick it to somebody else and try to get that advice. But that ego, man, it will keep you from doing that, which will really diminish or just slow your learning curve. [01:00:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think I'm glad that you framed the definition of the word ego here. Excuse me? Versus that ego could take you down the road of narcissism. Not that one. But ego here, I think, would be certainly the opposite of vulnerability. Right. And that is going to destroy your ability to learn. Right. That is the biggest problem with that word in this context, is it will destroy your ability to learn. [01:00:36] Speaker B: Now, I also think, in addition, not just vulnerability, probably just realism, too. Like, it doesn't always have to be that side of vulnerability, it could just be like, listen, like, be real with yourself. That guy that's been in there or that girl that's been in the industry for 30 years, she knows more than you, he knows more than you. Like, just, just reality. Logical, too. [01:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah, but, gosh, I mean, yeah, I agree, but my step. How did you get there? I mean, how did you ever think for 1 second, I mean, that ego would keep you from approaching somebody? Because you would have to admit that you didn't know. And, boy, I mean, the faster that you want to be rich, figure out how to get your hat, put it in your hand and go to somebody that's an expert and pray, pray that they will give you time and share with you the information that they have learned the hardest of hard ways that they didn't read in a book or they didn't know that they know what they know because they have the will wounds and the scars and the blisters and calluses to show for it. So that's the opposite of that. Right? And yeah, I would say of all of these, these are all great, but, man, number six is an absolute beauty coming from someone who, with customers even. Right? Imagine that you're showing up as a salesperson and you're talking to your customers, and you don't have a few more questions than answers. You have exponentially more questions than answers. A guy named Dinesh Amin, who was considered one of the godfathers of solar, that guy taught me about solar energy before it was, you know, he was one of the ones who put it on the space shuttle at Westinghouse to go, you know, to go on space missions. Do you have any questions I had for that guy? I mean, I was like, oh, yeah, by the way, I think I'm supposed to sell some packaging or something, but we'll get to that. Tell me more about photovoltaic cells. What the hell is that even mean? And how does this work? And what do you do with the energy? So that's the opposite approach to anything would have you showing up as if you had to be a know it all. What a. What a crappy term that is. I hate that term. [01:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And I can say the same thing. I mean, so many people in the beginning, when I was just getting into the construction industry, sat down with me, and these were, these were guys in their eighties that had been in it for so long. They would just sit with me for hours talking about their stories and their calluses and their wounds and their wins, and I would just soak it all in. But the difference was, and this differentiates anybody, is that I seriously wanted to learn. I was a sponge. I was genuinely curious. And that's all the difference in the world. When you come to people, you will be amazed. People will help, but they. We can tell when somebody's really in it for the right reasons, when somebody truly wants to learn. And that will, if you do and you ask for help, that will garner that. [01:03:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And in general, people want to help you. That's something that I think is not enough of a no. And my father did teach me that at a very young age, people want. They generally and genuinely both want to help you. And doubling back on the question, right. My answer to what was my favorite part of my job, it was being able to go out and talk to 800 customers. I don't get to talk to all of them, right. But being able to talk to customers and listen to them talk about their business. And one of the examples I gave is we have a customer that converts vans into work vehicles and now customer vans, because I didn't know that Ford stopped making the transit. So everybody's scrambling around using Chrysler Pacificas for what are purely work events. And he just went on to tell me how it happens and what they've done to pivot when the greatest work vehicle of all time, the transit connect van, is no longer being made. And I just sat, there was nothing about packaging involved, and I walked away with a completely different understanding about how that industry executes and the triggers and pressures being financial and whatever those different things are. Nothing about cardboard boxes and bags of air, right? I mean, back to the one about sexy jobs or non sexy jobs. That is the beautiful, intriguing part of this, despite actually getting paid by selling boxes and bags of air. [01:05:06] Speaker B: Yes. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this last point of this has so much to do. Just taking responsibility and accountability. It's in the same sphere, pointing to self first instead of externally blaming anything. You could have been dealt all the injustices in the world, had a terrible childhood, experienced just terrible things. But it's taking that accountability, that responsibility, looking inside yourself and saying, but I have the power to do this. I can change this. Or on the other end of the spectrum, saying, yeah, I ran into this problem, or I created this problem like it was nobody else's fault, even if you feel like that's not the truth, there's so much power from just taking it internally and saying, like, this is on me, because you know what that does? It also gives you the power to fix it. [01:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:57] Speaker B: So. And there is something that will differentiate winners from losers. [01:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And point to our listeners. Got a treat with the, the Doug Bobst interview that we did that they've, they've now seen and what, that's that exact story. Right. And he was very honest and very vulnerable about the victim piece. Right. Whatever his family life was and reaching out to narcotics to numb some of that pain and then the self reflection. And you guys have all heard the story on your own because you've listened to him telling him and is saturating his cellmate, giving him a lift up. [01:06:37] Speaker B: Don't be a bitch. Don't be a bitch. [01:06:40] Speaker A: Literally said that to him. Right, right. [01:06:42] Speaker B: So we just need to all look at ourselves and say, don't be a bitch. And then we will be in the 1%. [01:06:47] Speaker A: You got that, Tommy? Tommy's takeaway for the day. I expect to hear you muttering that to yourself as I stroll past later on today. [01:06:54] Speaker B: I mean, what, we have to end on that? [01:06:56] Speaker A: Don't be a bitch. Yeah, I think so, too. And is that the opposite for the hell of it? I think that is the opposite of. For the hell of it. Two approaches, for sure. Well, that was fun, as usual. You do such a great job of prepping for this, and you and Tommy are the muscle behind this thing. I just get to show up and hang out and listen and learn. [01:07:19] Speaker B: Well, these are the habits that will keep you from getting rich. So do the opposite. That's the moral of the story. [01:07:25] Speaker A: And check in with us, too. Heck, drop a note on the board and let us know a takeaway that you got and tell us that you used to do this and you heard and you started doing that and you're on your way to being rich. And I don't mean financially. I mean, it could be financial. Yeah, don't sleep on that. But in all the other ways, too, because one isn't enough to be fulfilled, that's for sure. [01:07:46] Speaker B: Cheers. [01:07:46] Speaker A: Cheers. [01:07:47] Speaker B: As always. Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. [01:07:51] Speaker A: And we brought it today. The six habits that will keep you from being rich. And if you like those, we have a ton more coming, so please subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. So you know when we're dropping it and you can come and take a watch and a listen. Welcome to eight surround me talks for the superstars tonight. Tonight.