The Huddle - Episode 199. The Mental Load No One Talks About: Ownership in the Trades
The Mental Load No One Talks About: Ownership in the Trades | The Huddle Podcast
Being an owner in the trades isn’t just about the work you do, it’s about everything you carry.
This week on The Huddle, Paul, Daniel, and Jose dive into the mental load of ownership. From the constant decision-making, pressure, and responsibility, to the stress that comes with running a business in the flooring industry. It’s the side of the job most people don’t see… but every owner feels.
In This Episode:
The hidden pressures that come with running a business
How the mental load impacts performance, leadership, and decision-making
Why ownership can feel isolating — and how to navigate it
Ways to manage stress without burning out
What it really means to carry the responsibility of a team and a business
If you’ve ever felt the weight of being “the one responsible,” this episode will hit home.
Why This Episode Matters: At The Huddle Podcast, we keep it real — because understanding the mental side of the trades is just as important as mastering the physical side.
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What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Huddle, the number one podcast in flooring. We're here every week to help
you guys gain forward progress in your careers. Simply put, we're here to help you win. For all our new viewers,
welcome to the team. Welcome everyone. We have
on the podcast as always Paul Stewart, Daniel Gonzalez, and Jose Gonzalez of
Preferred Flooring out of uh Grand Rapids, Michigan. And we got bus arrives.
Uh yeah, Jose, dude, you look awesome. So, out here on location.
What's up, fellas? Uh what's going on, brother? I know this dude has a run because his his son has a
game. It's the middle game. Yeah, today we have the early game. We haven't had I think this is the first early game as a matter of fact. So
So you get going here pretty quick. So start I'm gonna give the floor to you, dude.
We are gonna Let me jump in here just super quick and bust this thing open. Today's topic is the
mental load no one talks about. And I want Jose to uh chime in here before he
goes. And the rest of that topic is ownership in the trades. We're
specifically talking kind of about you know not $100 million flooring companies.
We're talking about the companies that uh you know get started, get dirty,
install floors, uh have crew members. uh where we all where you where I know I
started and you guys started. So, Jose, take it away about the mental load.
So, the mental load, you know, and you talk about we get started, right? And and you know, and you I think it's one of those things where you're you're
always still there, right? You're always still um at the starting point of of
there's always a mental load, right? Always a mental load. And um you know the the things that that go um
that are behind the scenes and this is obviously my perspective right the things that are behind the scenes is
um you're learning every day the mental load like for me it's I know that
there's families that that um rely on on what I do to put food on their table.
Right. Let me ask you a quick question. Yeah. Did did you have that same feeling when you first got going when you you
and your brother kind of Yes. first launched out on your own, maybe brought a couple teammates with you?
Um well, we did a whole year with just Daniel and I. Um and and yes, I did because when when I put my two weeks in
and then I was immediately let go. Um and I talked with Daniel, I kind of like
said, "Hey, dude, do not quit, right? if I start finding some work, are you willing to come along? And he was like,
"Yeah, of course." I said, "All right, but don't quit, dude. I do I don't I don't need that stress." He's about to
have a baby, right? I don't need that stress. You know, that was a Monday for me. And Wednesday, he's like, "Well,
guess what, dude? I don't work there anymore. I'm out." I'm like, "Right,
I said I said not to quit." I said not to. Wait, wait. I said don't quit.
They put him in a corner. you know, they just and he can probably elaborate on it better than I can, but you know, it's
just the the the amount of of I don't want to say stress, right? Because it wasn't
stressful. It's like exciting stress is different than uh the stress that you can't control, right? So, it's uh I was
very I was concerned because now I felt my
little brother, you know, and he's he's my only brother, my baby brother was put in this situation like it wasn't
supposed to go like that. He was supposed to be safe. Um and and that was the the the stress that was put
on me and I've learned to deal with it. just and and I appreciate, you know, I
thankful for everyone who trusts me and who has trusted me to to to keep
um a workload and put food on their table. It's been it's always going to continue to be one
of those journeys that I will always worry about, right? Like I always think about that how Yeah. It just gets bigger, doesn't it?
Yeah, it does. It just grows grows, right? the the the the what used to stress me out doesn't even come close to
uh uh stressing me out anymore. That's just for all you newbies out there, that's a drop in the bucket. I'm going
to be honest, right? But new stress is still stress. Um it doesn't matter uh
how big or how small, it's still new and it's something to worry about. And are you going to do
just to point out the key difference is you know I worked by the hour as as a
employee installer. Did you guys do that or were you Yes, we did. Okay.
You're going from by the hour to like,
you know, a a kind of a guaranteed four 40hour week to hunting and only it's
like going from grocery store is how you get your food to hunter
gather. Yeah, like it is a big difference in your mental load and the mental uh
weight that's on your shoulders. So, I just want to point that out that the big difference. It's like going from just
going and grabbing some food at the grocery store to only eating what you are.
That's a great way to put it, dude. Or we ate a lot of spaghetti and
noodles and dude, you know what to to say. Look,
I'll just I'll be straight up honest. Daniel and I were were broke. I mean, we didn't have any money, dude. We had to
rely on our family to feed us, we would live in our family's house. Rollins says, "But man, you're the owner. You're making all the money."
Yeah, man. I just That right there. You know what? If if I didn't have that
mindset at some point in my life, right, I I'd be lying if I told you I didn't. But
I think we all did. That's why we you But that mindset is kind of what pushes you out to go out and be on your own.
And I think if I was to sit and choose, look, I know all the hardships that come
with being an owner that you got, but if I was to sit and choose whether I was be
an employee for somebody again or being be my own boss and and run my company, I
would still choose the same path. But it's that thought that made me like, "Oh, I can do because, you know, the
company I worked for was getting ready to get bought out for like the third or fourth time." And then I was like, "I'm
going to have another set of bosses. I can do this on my own." And so, and of course, I thought the
boss made all the money. And you know what? Some people that work for
us that have known us and been part of our growth, that still comes out of their mouth
sometimes. It's like, dude, like come on. Like, you're here. Like, we're transparent. You You know that that's
not factual. But if if that's what you got, well, we control the money. That's for sure. But a responsible owner for
everybody out there. And that's kind of what we're talking about is what you learn is that it's not all your money.
You have to pay your employees first. Especially in the early days, often the owner eats last.
And we we either that or you go under because you can't keep employees because
you make sure you're taken care of, but you don't pay your employees. That's actually what happened to me. I had five
checks at one time. Oh my goodness. That I could not cash at the company I worked for. And then every once in a
while they'd get a big deposit and everybody would race to the bank like we were Mario and Dreddy. Well, that was um
that was one of the things that that really um made us wait so long to hire
our first employee is is we did go over a list of the things that we didn't ever want to do to people. And uh that has
happened to me. It only happened to me when I worked for, you know, for a sub as a sub. That's the only time it ever
happened, right? And it's just and we were at a time when I could go to the corner store and cash my check,
you know, and and those are the people I grew up around and next thing you know, I'm cashing checks that bounce and now they no longer trust me. Um, we said
that we didn't ever want that to happen. We never ever wanted that to happen. Well, add that to the mental load,
right? Because now you have this whole set of of weights and balances that you
put on yourself as an ethical moral company. And if you work for or at a
ethical moral company, these are some of the things they have to to think about and balance especially in the early
days. Yeah. And and um you know and sometimes uh I will say sometimes the our our
financials uh falls behind. They have technical difficulties, too. And sometimes it's not in there at the same
time as it is every week. Sometimes a little delay at like 5:00 a.m. And sometimes like
I'll get text messages right in the morning. Hey, what's got my check? Bro, it's out of my account already. I
don't like Bro, I cannot tell you there. It's such a funny story. Uh but um the same exact
thing we most times like 95%
of the time our employees uh paychecks are in their account Thursday night. Now
we say that our payday is Friday by the end of the day Friday. And that's that's
how because that we used to hand write check or you know take it to the bank you would get paid
until after work on Friday. Anyways, technically. Yeah. And so, um, that's what we
promise. And man, I probably twice in the last
10, 15 years, we've had it where it didn't hit till noon or 1:00 on Friday
for whatever reason. And it is like Armageddon all of a sudden.
I'm getting not really, but like I'm getting emails and text messages from where's where's my check? I'm like,
"Calm down because we guarantee you will be paid by Friday before the end of
business." And if it's not there or we don't see it,
uh, you know, if you if you don't have it by then, then you can can call me or text me,
but already out of our account. So, I know that the money's moving in your direction. Why this week was different,
I can't tell you. But same exact thing. It's really kind of uh
I will say that's another added understand the the concern but you know
I also kind of say hey you just got to realize guys I you're you're not late on
payment. I don't owe you on Thursday at midnight or Friday morning at midnight.
I owe you Friday before the work day is over. And I've never I I haven't failed
to do that. So, we used to run into the situation where when we worked for for the sub as a sub.
And it's uh some guys like, "Hey, dude, can I get my check on Thursday night?" You know, and I've seen that happen
before. And then they don't come in Friday or Monday, right? Once they get their check. Yeah. We move subs to we moved our subs
to Monday pay a long time ago because they they would get their check on Friday and not show up on a weekend job
that they were scheduled for or something. And so we we quit paying our subs on Fridays and started paying them
on Monday. And it sucks to be like that, right? And now we still see, you know, some of the the partners doing that. It's they
they'll finish the job on a Wednesday and then Thursday morning they're like, "Hey, what's up? Can I get paid for that now?"
Yeah. We we pay once a week. Uh, in fact, I don't and for subs out there,
um, you know, if you work for a store that pays you every week, that is because they want to, not because
they're legally obligated to. Correct. They are legally obligated to pay you under the same conditions that the
contractor is obligated to pay them, which is 7 days after we receive the
money. So, if we're paying you every week, that's because we want to help you
keep your cash flow going and keep things going. Legally, they we're not required to pay you until 7 days after,
at least in Kansas, 7 days after we receive payment. So, that puts you
out like 45 50 days on every every invoice and sometimes more than that
and sometimes much more than that. But in general, most good companies pay
weekly or bi-weekly. Yeah, we do it on a net 15, but still try and get it in there, you know, um
sooner than that. We do it. We We're pretty good about it. I mean, we just process it is for consistency
reasons. It's more like every Tuesday by noon, all invoices are due in Trade Tap.
All of our PMs go in and review them from Tuesday to to Thursday. And then
they go from needs reviewed to ready to pay. And I go in there every Thursday
afternoon 2:00. Pay every single sub that's in uh ready
to pay. And then that's that's that. It fires them a lean release. They sign it and they get paid.
So now they chose wagon here. I do.
Yeah, we got that to to relieve the stress and having to carry everything.
So, Hothead does say this right here. Replying to uh Rollin, he says, "What other people don't see is the overhead
with everything." And that's kind of where we started, right? It's everyone thinks that you're bringing in all this
money. And granted, they do you can probably see the that money coming in, but you don't see everything that's
going out. Yeah. the windy the windy part. So, what I'm gonna do is
I I'm gonna come off camera, but I will join in the comments. Okay, see you later, man. Good luck.
All right, brother. Thank you. But yeah, the um they don't they don't
get to see the finances where the money goes out, you know, and
everything cost like the lights that are on, the building we're in, the
camera that I'm or the laptop I'm on, the earbuds I have in, everything costs
money and that's all part of doing business. And so those costs have to be covered somehow. And you know, as subs,
these are the things that we want to teach our subs. We want them to understand and not just ours at Steuart
and Associates, my flooring company, but in that's why we do this huddle. We want you to understand those are the things
you want to pay attention to and make sure you're you're putting first.
There's if you do good work and you go out and if you're say you're working for shops, work for good shops and you know
they got good reputations and you will
most of the time if you're running your business well uh you're going to make money and then you have to decide where
that money goes and I always put employees and expenses and the the com
making sure the made it in the early days first. Yeah.
Then I would take whatever. And I tell the story often. I took $600 a week as a salary for the first five years of my
company. Says that he likes to work weekends nowadays that he's older so he doesn't
have that problem. And I think that's like if the kids don't have anything, um
I don't mind working weekends either, right? And uh sometimes I go and if we
do have a weekend project, I'll be the first one to be like, "All right, I'll be there. Who's coming with me?"
And that that's just to show the guys like I'm I'm not trying to to punish you
here, but sometimes things got to get done. Yeah. Well, and I don't know about you,
but I I very rarely myself don't work a weekend. there's I've got plenty bids or
catching up or collections or something. There's always something that needs to be done. And throughout the week in the
hustle and bustle of a week, sometimes some of those important things don't get done. And I use the weekend as usually a
Saturday. I'll take off one day almost every weekend. And then um but I'll work
a Saturday um or sometimes a Sunday afternoon after church or something and
come in and put in four, five, six hours on a s Sunday or a full day on a
Saturday to get caught back up kind of, you know, to feel like I can attack Monday with some confidence
where it's like um it's things that are that have to be done but they're not like
important enough to do it like this week. So, it's like I'm gonna have Yeah. I know I'm gonna have a few hours on
Saturday. I don't have the kids. Um any anything with the kids, so I'll just go. And sometimes, you know,
my daughter likes to go to She loves going to this restaurant um that's local
here, Maggie's Kitchen, on Saturdays cuz this girl loves Manudo, right? So, she's
like, "So, sometimes I'll wait till she gets up, we'll go get breakfast, drop
them back off, and then I'll come to work, right? So, at least I'm not spending all day. And I think that's an
important point to bring up is that you can um if you're one of them hardworking
guys that loves working weekends, I know plenty of these guys that work uh for us
have make sure you're prioritizing family because I've also seen a lot of businesses have problems because their
their their marriage or their family starts having issues and then it becomes an urgent
matter. your family is important. So, make sure to prioritize some of that
even in the hustle and bustle time. Um, I know that's kind of more of a personal
thing uh than but I think it's a business thing. I think that many of businessmen have lost their families and
then lost their business because they don't they don't,
you know, balance the two. And it depends on your spouse. like my wife is incredibly
uh understanding to to who I am and how I am from a working perspective. I enjoy
working. I work a lot more than 99% of people I know. Uh partially because I
like it. That's not a that's not a brag. It's just because um if for example right now I'm building
AI agents for almost every Manuk process in my business. I'm up to I've got a
working prototype. You know, I've been working on that. I probably got 50 to 75
hours on that. And uh you know, those weekends are clear, crisp, like focus
time on things like that. And that is incredibly important, but not always
urgent. Like I don't if I don't have it done tomorrow, I I don't lose business necessarily,
but long term it's the way we're going. We're going in are building our own
agentic operating system. Yeah. There was a video I seen the other day and there was this lady. She was
like, um, the best thing about being a business o owner is that there's always something
to do. The worst thing about being a business owner is that there's always something to do.
Yeah. Yeah. That that's a great uh great line, man, because it's true. There's there's
not And I think that kind of ties back to our topic, which is the mental load. Like because there's always something to
do. There's always something that could be on your mind. And controlling your thoughts. This is something that took me
decades to get figured out. I used to be the guy not so long ago that Sunday
night I I'll tell you honestly I almost have to I I don't drink anymore but I you I
would have to drink myself silly on a Sunday night because of the anxiety of a Monday and all these things are entering
my mind of what I got to do tomorrow and all this stuff. It took you know it was a really abusive and wrong way to deal
with that. I deal with it much differently today. Um, now I just kind of approach things knowing that it's
we're first off I always tell myself, look, we're not building uh cancer
reversing machinery or rockets that are going to increase humankind's footprint.
Like we are doing floors, okay? We're putting in floors. It's not we're not
saving the planet. We're not saving the world. It's an important job, but put it
in perspective first off. Secondly, it's probably going to be there tomorrow. The
spear, there's many of times I've I've not slept and I've gotten up at 1:00
a.m. or at midnight and just got on my computer and started working.
The fear that made me do that, looking back, I couldn't I can't name you very
many. maybe two or three instances where that fear actually became reality and
help I probably helped it become that because that was all that was on my mind was the worst case scenario you know so
controlling your emotions in business is important. Showing your employees that
you can be levelheaded and calm and that's all part of this mental load we're talking about. If you're a crew
leader and you have three or four guys working for you, again, you got three or four mouths to feed, if if you look at
um if you look at it that way, and I think most good bosses do. And then you also
have all this other stuff coming up, right? You get opportunity fears like an
opportunity to do a job bigger than maybe you've done in the past or a little more difficult than you've done
in the past. And you got to face those fears and keep trudging along or else you you're not going to grow, right?
That's that growth, man. It's you got to do something that you've never done, right? And that's kind of how we've been
well for a while now where you set your we we
set some limitations before and then you know we were following this these limitations and then at some point it
was like man we're hitting these same numbers so what's going to change and
you got to get out of your comfort zone right because you do you become real comfortable and it's like all right I'm
making this much money. We're doing okay. But then
how how long is just okay good enough for? Well, it's a this great lesson as
you're in business longer, you learn that if you're not growing, you're dying. And that is a saying, but to to
really hone in on that because it's not completely true. If you can maintain and
if you're a real operator that can maintain your overhead and your expenses
and grow at the pace of inflation at least there. That's really just kind
of keeping up. That's really what the saying's about. If you're not growing, you're dying because inflation is always
growing. and your dollar can't buy as much bread today as it used to in the
60s and well hell the 80s and 90s you know um so you have to grow at the pace
of inflation at least um but when you start talking about real
growth that's that's when you really have to step out there like you were talking
about really step out there and and take some bigger risks that you may not have taken in the past. But I encourage you
if you are starting out, I don't care if you're just like, I'm going to like we did, we're going to quit the company we
work for and go start our own subcontracting business and then maybe that'll grow into a full service
flooring company or whatever. When you go to do that, I encourage you
greatly to sit down and write down exactly what you want out of this. What
do you want out of your business? What do you want your business to look like in five years? What do you want your
business to look like in three years? This is for some reason so difficult to do, but it's the simplest thing to do.
It's so hard to do, but it is the simplest thing to do. Sit down and dream for a second and write down what you
want your business to look like in five years. And then write down what you want your business to look like in three
years. And then you just kind of distill that down to the current day and you can kind of get a game plan on where you
want it to be. That is a great exercise for anybody starting a business. I don't
care what field you are in is knowing what you want that business to look like
in five years. Uh doing that is why I'm doing what I'm doing right now. Right? I
I like in in five years I want to be able to really know the talent pool. I
in five years I really want to be able to bring in a bid and get it out the
door and do all this minutia uh very quickly and and not have to rely
so heavily on humans to do this work that is not reward all the repetitive work right
yeah not rewarding I want my employees to be happy and I know that in all of my
presentations to my employees They love that I'm taking away this this
part of it and they get to operate on the in the operational excellence and
building relationships whether that's with our vendors or our customers or the
community, but they're not sitting at their desk doing submitts or tracking,
you know, a delivery of submitt samples or tracking delivery of actual materials
for a job site like they're doing. They get the alert of when it's going to come and they get to get on the phone with
their customer and like, "Hey, that stuff's due in on was due on on the 19th. It's not going to be here till the
22nd." Well, if you can make that phone call like two weeks ahead of time,
not the day of or the that you're expecting it and it doesn't come in because your vendor didn't tell you that
it didn't get out of their warehouse in time to make the truck that goes to the transfer house that goes to your place.
Like, we just want to take all that mental stress away. And um that is
directly because I sat back and said what do I want my business to look like in 5 years
and then you reverse engineer right? Yeah. It's like what do I got to do to get there? And then like I always say many
small time make big time. You just got to take off little chunks every single day. And you know, with
this mental load thing, putting one foot in front of the other when I get stressed out, I'm like, I'm what's my ne
next task? It's something I'm really good at is dealing with stress because of that. I've learned the skill of
saying, what can I do right now? What's my task right now to get done? Because
worrying about all this other stuff is not going to get me moving forward. So, what is my next task that I can knock
off my to-do list?
Being liable for any and all problems there. That's a mental load. I'm glad you brought that up, Nate. That's like,
you know, particularly when you send I don't know if there's a bigger mental
load than growing and having to use new new subs that you've never used. That is
stressful. It's one of the reasons literally guys like one of the reasons I created
originally go Carrera Trade Tap VTI all that is the
stress of having a new crew on a job and all my customers I I considered like
gold and it is such a stressor that I'd
either be out in the field with them on the first day or I'd schedule one of our hourly crews to be with them on the
first week or something and it just it's a stressor and because of that because
of what Nate said you're liable if that thing falls apart those guys just can yeah
with no account with no accountability which is you know another reason I wanted to build all
this is have some accountability if you're going to walk off a job and leave you should be you know held accountable
for those things and the company should be too if we're not doing our job right. Making sure your materials are correct
and your materials are, you know, available and ready for the job and the job sites at least somewhat ready. You
got to give us some leeway on that because we have, you want to talk about a mental load trying to make sure job
sites are ready for flooring is half of our It seems like half the time we spend
is out teach continuously educating our clients that the specs call for this.
Yeah. I mean, they have the same specs, but we have to continuously uh educate certain.
We're the ones that have to take those specs and be able to spit it out in a form that they will understand.
Your brother writes, "Creating a physical to-do list has helped me with balance. Even with all our tech, I still
like to write things down." I'm with him on that. I still have manual to-do lists. I mean, I I have some lists in
Google as well, but they're just emails that come through that go on my Google
task list. Um, because, you know, they're already in a
digital format, but when I get a phone call or or if an email is super important, I
will write it down. Like, I'll write down the information. It's right there in my email. But h something about
writing it down and having it right there, Jose, I agree with you, man. It's it's like cuz you can carry something
with you all the time, right? And once you have it with you and all you got to do is open it up and you can It's not
like an app where it's like, "Oh, what app was that?" Or have to open it up, it's like, "I got it right here. Let me
just I got it bookmarked on the page already." Well, you just remember writing it, too. There's something about writing it down
that it's like, "Oh, yeah. I wrote I know I did something. Let me flip back a couple sheets, you know, and see what I
wrote down." I I mean there's more efficient ways to do it for sure, but I
still enjoy writing stuff down. Yeah. And it's just learning these new software systems and stuff too and what
works and what doesn't because it's just like AI. Everything that comes out of a box isn't going to work for you
exactly how you want it to. So if writing it down is the way to go, that's how that's how you got to do it. Because
I mean with us, we use the Microsoft suite, right? So it's like things can go from
uh a task list that is shared with everyone over to just yours, but then
it's a totally different system at that point where it's like, all right, now how do I get it from point A to point B?
And then once it's done, how do I let everyone know now over here that it's done or do you have to duplicate
everything and keep track of two sets of things? So, it's like, man, it's
mental load. Yeah, it's it's one of those things where it's just like I'd I'd rather just like even like I'm with
you guys. I I'd rather just write it down, cross it off as it goes, and then if I have something over here, I can
just boom, check it off over here. Well, and there's something incredibly rewarding about checking it
off your list. And I know that the apps will do that, too. Uh but I I just you
know as a creator of an app I can you know I can understand both sides but man
I I still prefer to write things down. Um but you know talking about all the
the software and all that there's just more mental load as you grow but I would
say stay curious in software but adopt as you need and then you you you when
you're ready to adopt you kind of already know certain things you know what I mean like
like when you went to Microsoft it wasn't like and you decided you were going to go Microsoft suite and teams
and and all the management pieces that Microsoft offers. You didn't do that.
Start using We still don't use probably a quarter of what they offer. Yeah.
Well, and it's the same like you kind of get into I hired a new estimator at our
Kansas City office. Actually, our manager up there did. And I was talking with her this last Friday and she's
like, "Why don't you guys just produce your whole uh bid out of Measure Square?
Why why are you why do you use different softwares? And I'm like because we use different software
because you know we we don't want there to be one source of failure as part of
it and there's all these other reasons that I you can double check everything too, right? It's like okay it goes from this
one to this one and if you miss anything you you catch things. Yeah. That's why our agentic operating
system has what's called gates and the gates are all where humans like it stops
at a human. It it can't because I want enough checks and balances that uh at the end of the
day this is not just AI running a muck. It is someone's got to check things are right
but it gets there's a gate there's a gate and the gatekeeper on each item.
Um, but yeah, all that a little off topic, but still it it's part of what
you what you think about a lot as a business owner. Says writing things down
really sets it. That way you can crush it later. That's the way he treated goals. Uh, he used to think that it was
silly until he started doing it and then they start coming true, right? It's like you're manifesting it by writing it
down. That's when he learned the power of writing stuff down. And then Rollins
says he has his wife write it down because he can't read his own writing. And I'm in that boat, too. Um, I don't
have my wife write it down, but I write it down. But I have to use all caps. So that way if I write in lowercase,
no one will be able to read it. It's like doctors.
So knowing there someone else, what's he say there? struggles with this mental load knowing that someone else's 100% is
not not the same as his. So, uh probably more so on the installation
side maybe, right? Where it's like people are just like that's good enough
when um it's not good enough, right? Because
it's still not what it Yeah. One of the one of the things I
hate hearing is leave it for the punch list. That I've heard that like I'll I'll send you home for the day on that
one. Like don't say that. No, we don't leave things for punch list first off.
And then like um Oh, that should that'll pass. Well, if you're saying that you
you need to address the the deal. He said his son struck out swinging, but he was swinging for the fences.
Yeah, I'm I'm the same way. It's like we you have to have that no punch list mentality
because especially as a business owner, right? It's like
all right, a punch list means more money that's getting spent on something that should have been done right to begin
with. Yeah. Well, and hearkening back to your brother, I the 100% makes me think he's
also talking about maybe he can chime in at some point to clarify if I'm off base
here, but like giving 100%. What does that mean? And for him it means like what a 100 you
you you don't have anything left to give on a certain situation or a project or a
a day or whatever. Um and someone else says they're giving 100% but it's that
they're not lining up. They're 100% is not his 100%. and he it's hard to really
understand people like that uh when you are like a higher performer. But what
I've always told myself is continue to set a good example no matter
what. What if nothing else, you're setting the example that hard work is is
that a you're willing to do it and b that it's it's part of what it takes to
um you know to be successful uh and to achieve those goals and dreams that I'm
telling you to write down. And I'm glad that that Jorge brought that up like he
he finds the power of that. And I I've been reading a lot about the future self
from Benjamin uh Dr. Benjamin I think it's Benjamin Hardy and he's got a book
uh he's got several books but one of them 10x is easier than 2x and uh be
your future self now I think is the the exact title I believe. But it's all
about like thinking like your future self and you know taking a little bit of
your day to consider like what would my the 55year-old Paul that has this
business that he's dreamed of how would he treat this scenario? And so a lot of
that has to do with with what even what your brother was talking about, but
particularly what Jorge brought up was writing stuff down and putting them goals on uh on paper and it can help
relieve this mental load we're talking about is getting it down.
I just went and watched the Michael Jackson biopic, right? And even you look
at someone that was one of the best at what he did.
There was nobody more successful than Michael. You look at his mirror, right? And they they showed it his mirror and he goes to
it and it's like and he does it every single day and he tells himself that he's the best, right? So it's really is
manifesting things and making sure that if if you're reading it, you're you're more apt to to
actually do it. Yeah. I mean
people who like the way you talk about these things or the way that you treat
those your thoughts and your approach to business is the way your business will turn out.
like call it manifesting, call it just the fact that you know one of my mentors
is really big on the uh RA in our brains
called the reticular activating system. Ed Mlet's been talking about this for
[ __ ] a decade. I mean he long before it was anybody even knew what the reticular
activating system was. But essentially, we don't notice like 90% of what goes on
out in the world. Your your mind condenses down what you take in by what
you need to take in and what's in your purview. And if you're always thinking
negative thoughts, that's what your brain is looking for is negative things. If your brain is producing goals and
thinking those positive thoughts, then that's what your brain starts looking for. And that's when opportunity, that's
why it seems almost like magic all of a sudden. It's not that it wasn't there in
the first place. It's just that opportunity you are able to see now. It's kind of like taking scales off your
eyes and now you can see it and recognize it as an opportunity. It was
probably already always there. It's not that kind of magic. It's your mind
recognizing and noticing and understanding it as an opportunity, understanding it as something that you
can accomplish. And um you know, so that's where writing this stuff down is
important. We went off on a tangent just from your brother saying, "I like to write stuff down." Well, I mean, Nate's even chiming in.
I'll believe it when I see it is actually backwards. You will not see it until you believe it. Uh man, I want
that is my new quote. That is awesome.
Uh lead by example. We all have 70% days though. On those days, that's when your
team needs to pick you up. And that doesn't go for the the guys that work by
themselves though, right? You got to be 100% all the time. You got no one to
back you up. So suck it up, man. Well, sometimes if you operate at 100%
all the time and you have a 70% day, 70%'s good enough.
Yeah. I mean, because most people in reality, and this is just straight up what I believe. Most
people are operating at about 60%, thinking it's 100% then they have what they think is a 70% day and it's
actually a 30%. That was a mouthful, but it's true. If
you're used to operating at a high level and you have one of those days that you didn't quite knock it out the park,
usually you can you can live with that and it was probably still a pretty decent day because it's you're comparing
yourself to yourself and that's the best place to be anyway. You know, comparing yourself to others never get you
anywhere. It's comparing yourself to your the best version of you that can
help, right? And so, now I want to go back to you were talking about like opportunities, right?
and just seeing these opportunities. And I think one of the biggest things for me was um
you talk to some people and it's like you really want to work with them and it's like you're not winning anything
and it's like man just give me a project and and switching that mindset from that
to you know what at least I'm getting invited. Thanks for the opportunity.
We'll catch it on the next one. you know, we're we'll get it on one of these. It's not going to be right now,
and it's probably not going to be tomorrow, but eventually we'll end up
getting one of them. And that's all everything is is just another opportunity.
Yeah. When I know exactly how how that feels, you know, you're like, "Come on, man."
And then at the end of the day though, you could be like, well, we're, you know, unless you're just really getting
used and you know it, then you need to make a a decision on whether or not you're going to continue to send that
person bids. But if it's a good relationship and you just hadn't landed anything yet, it's one of those deals
where it's like you they want you can entice them to want to work for you or
with you just by the way you respond to them, right? So, if you're like, "We'll catch you on the next one." Then you'll
get to really, you know, see what we're made of. That kind of an attitude
versus, man, I'm this is the third bid I've sent you and we're not winning nothing. I'm What's the deal? Like that
kind of a deal. People want to do business with confident people. And if you're like, "Didn't didn't win this
one, but we put a good number to it is our best number. Hopefully, our next best number wins." And that's that.
Yeah. Yeah. And then you'll you'll when you build these relationships, you'll end up catching them on
the other end of things too, right? Because you you don't just be like, "Oh, I didn't win. That's it for you." You
keep on talking to them. You keep on showing up. And I was just at a a pre-bid where they were like, "Yeah, you
guys lost this one by it was like 20 grand on a three quarter of a million
dollar bid, right?" Which is pretty close on something that big.
Really? That's a good close number for sure. And they they were like, you know, but they like as soon as the other companies
stepped foot on the job site, it was change order, change order, change order. And now they're way more than you
guys would have been. Well, and the other uh the other piece
to that is, are you getting the professional service? Somebody who
really knows how that floor is supposed to go down that's going to give you a long lasting floor. There's plenty of
times where you'll get the opportunity, and I do call this an opportunity, to go and
fix one of your competitors floors, uh, repair it, do whatever because, you
know, you they're they're trusting you. That's a moment for you to shine. Uh we
don't like to do it that often either, but sometimes it h you know you take that that turns into an opportunity
where you know they they maybe relook at your number a little clo a little tighter when it's as close as the number
you were just talking about and like man these guys really know what they're doing. It's probably worth the extra.
And because a lot of times guys during business during like the bid time they
have no choice than to they feel like they have no choice than to plug the
higher number or the lowest number. That doesn't mean that they won't come
out of pocket to get you if you've displayed the ability to go and knock it
out of the park. And plenty of times that's happened to us and I know plenty
of times that's happened to you guys. Look, I I have to
Yes, Rin. This is my office. Yes, I know. I have to clean it. We just moved in.
I say we just moved in. It's been what? Two months since we moved in.
Almost, but I was gone for what? Almost three weeks of that.
So, yes. Well, and moving a business is no joke. I've done it I think three or four time. Well, one,
two, three, four times. It is a
mess of a thing to do to to move a whole company, a flooring company, the whole
thing. And he says, "A clean office is the sign of a sick mind." I think the saying is a a clean desk is
the sign of a of something. Uh, what is it? It may be sick mind, but it's
something similar to it's similar to to what uh Nate just said. Then my brother also says that our mom
told him when he was about 14 and it stuck. If you don't have a job, then your full-time job is finding one. He
just replaces job with projects. Yeah. Well, that's that's valuable if
you're out there hunting. And that is the probably the biggest mental load for a new new guy just starting out as a sub
is you go from getting fed to having to hunt and kill
and gather to to eat. And when I say eat, obviously I'm not talking about actual eating. I'm talking about like
the way you make your money. And you go from 40 hours a week kind of
thing or 50 whatever your com you know if you're working at a a busy only psychos have clean desk.
Well I'm glad to say my desk is a mess. So um but
you're going from this mentality that I show up to work and I get paid and I do
my job and I get paid regardless of whether the job is profitable. by the way, right? If you're a W2 employee,
that is not of your concern. And then you go from that kind of comfort to
if this job doesn't make money, I don't make anything like I don't get any
money. That's that's that's where that mindset of, oh, you're the owner, so you're making a bunch of money, where
they'll have that mindset and then we see the market where it's like, man, I'm having to go in at like ridiculously
tight numbers to the point where Yeah. if something goes wrong, that's all
there's not much room. Yeah. Yeah. And it comes right out of the bottom line, right out of your pocket at the
end of the day. If you're not making, you know, if if a good significant part
of your projects are not making money, then you know, you're not making money.
So, you got to be uh it's a little bit different mindset and that adds the
stress because you're not just showing up on Monday, putting in your 40, 50 hours, and then gathering your check on
Friday. And if the job made money, great. If it didn't, it's fine, too. I
got paid. And that's that's that that is the uh W2 kind of employee stance. And
that is I mean it's understandable and I'm glad to have guys that you know are
on our W2 staff um
because it's not very often in in flooring that that somebody has you know
W2 employee installers but they they are
they add a new load when if you're going when you do that and I encourage every
sub to do to hire W2 employee installers. Learn how to run a business.
The employees are part of running a business and then you can build them up.
And I'm proud to say that a lot of our good really good subs, they were hourly employees for us. And when they said
they wanted to go be subcontractor, we if we thought they were, you know, kind
of ready, we have an exit interview with them and make sure that they're checking
all these boxes. Hey, do you have an accountant yet? You got to have one right away. How are you going to
structure your business? I would suggest you get with a attorney and an accountant to talk about the pros and
cons. Here's the pros and cons of each one as I know them. and and we'll walk through each item to
try to make them as successful as possible when they when they launch. Yeah. Because we don't want them to have those
problems cuz they have this right here, too. And it's like, "Oh, hey boss, I fixed all that damage plank for them. Now we need
more plank because we're short." Yeah.
And that comes from both sub and and early we had a a job where just not too
long ago, pretty recently that um we ran short and we were like how in the
world is that? And we did all this math and we're trying to like you want to talk about mental load trying to figure
out why you're short when you know you have enough material. You went out and field measured, you know, the buildings,
the size that they they drew it up to be, and you're short three, four, five,
600 feet of a product, and you're like, it's impossible, dude. It's impossible. Unless you missed a a couple rooms on
the print or something, right? And you go and you check and you don't and you're like, I didn't miss anything.
I've got XYZ% of overage and waste. And
how in the world? We've had it thrown in the dumpster. We've had it stolen off job sites, like all these things.
We've also just had it where the guys replaced plank because the
superintendent said, "Hey, we need those scratch planks uh replaced and they go
do it." And then we're short and we can't even go back and get a change order a lot of times because we did the
work ahead of time and we didn't have proof of the all that stuff.
Scratch blank, especially on LVT is a thing. Oh yeah. on especially like these bigger projects
where you're already on the other side of the building and then they're like, "Hey, by the way, come back over here." And it's like, "No,
that's the kind of stuff I will let hit a punch list." Because I'm like, "Look, man,
you got to be real with yourself and know that that is not a punch list item." Mhm.
For real. Hey, Jorge uh has a good thing we need to bring up next week.
We did we do that at the exact same time? Uh so next week, Cinco Deio uh is our
Spanish episode and uh he's got a couple of NTCA rock stars coming on the
podcast. So make sure to join him next week. It's also, I believe, Jorge's birthday.
Yeah. Which he didn't mention, but uh happy b happy happy early birthday. I'll be on
the the podcast next week as well. um just to hang out and just sing him happy birthday.
Sing him happy birthday. And uh yeah, so make sure to join us next week. Jorge's
got a a heck of a show set up for the Spanish speakers of our audience. So
yeah, check that out. That's going to be a fun episode. A lot of stuff going on. Oh, also it's our 200th episode next
week. 200 folks. We've been on this screen with you for 200 times next week.
uh in some capacity between us. It's our 200th episode. So that's I want to
celebrate that for a moment. Thank thank you to all of our uh you know day in
dayout commenters and our new commenters and the people who are who join us. It
is absolutely a 200 episodes is a lot of episodes. There's a lot of podcasts that
go under. We decided long ago we were going to be consistent, keep it simple,
have good sponsors, good people, and the guys have knocked it out of the park,
and I'm happy to be a part of uh of a podcast that's got 200 episodes under
its belt. Yeah, it's awesome, man. I It doesn't even feel like it. And some sometimes
people ask, "How long have you guys been doing it?" And it's like I mean, look, it says right here, 2022. It for sure
does not feel like we've been doing it for that long. I know. Isn't it nuts? It's pretty freaking cool and I've had a blast doing
it. Um like it's just been a great uh a great
thing. I've learned a lot. I've got to know so many people through the podcast and it's been just uh you know sometimes
I get on here and I get to vent on what's bugging me. Um, but it has been
uh an honor to to get to be on here every week with you guys. We appreciate you guys joining us every week. That's
the only way we can do it. So, with that said, and we are coming up on the end of the podcast, obviously, I want to say go
like and subscribe to our channels. Everything that you, however you consume this, make sure you are subscribed, you
like it, comment on our stuff. that really helps us to, you know, we all
know these algorithms that the social media sites and the YouTubes of the world have. And if you like and
subscribe, it greatly helps us get this message out to the people who need it. And frankly, there's, you know, by some
estimations 200,000 flooring installers. uh some estimations larger, some a
little smaller, but that's a big number and a lot of people uh that are in that number can use some of the uh lessons
that we had to learn the hard way. And and and you guys the comment bring
great stuff. Yeah. It's not it's not just us talking like that's that's the what people say
is what attracts them to us is that we we're not just we're talking about this stuff. It's we're bringing everyone on,
man. This is not just our podcast, it's your podcast, too. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. And we we appreciate
all the comments and we appreciate the engagement. Keep it up, guys. This is uh
again an hour's past. Yeah. 200th episode is next week. So, make sure check that out.
They they did announce last call for this training that we have in uh Calhoun
on May 11th through the 14th, I believe. 15 something like
Yeah. Scan the QR code right now and go get your uh you know your hands on some
heat wasting and learning. I had no idea. Like the last time we
talked to him, I talked to him last week and it was already like almost at capacity. So if there is any more spots
left, it might be one or two. So better get on it while you can. Yep.
All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for joining us this week. I've said all the the like and subscribes. Uh make
sure to do that. We appreciate you guys. And um Scott says episode 2011 will be
live from Calhoun. I think that is correct. And uh what a great what a great place to have
it there at a training in to have uh well he's going to be working
nights so we can do it. All right guys, appreciate you guys. We
will see you guys next week.
