Why Mentorship Breeds Success | COO, Aslan Corporation, Peter Chapa

You're not as smart, cool, intelligent or badass as you think you are. 95 times out of 100, whoever is trying to speak into your life is going to have some value to add. And having the humility and the tenderness of spirit to actually receive that while not going too far the other way and being a total pushover. Right? You got to have, you got to have strength of character. Appreciate the wisdom and the experience of those older than you. Not just accept it, but seek it out.

Our guest today is COO alliance member and Azlan Corporation COO Peter Chapa. As coo, Peter oversees the operations for Azlan, a specialized general contracting firm in Denver, Colorado. Starting as a laborer for the company at age 17, he quickly rose through the ranks of the company to become the Chief Operating Officer and drive the rapid growth and expansion that the company enjoys. Today he met his CEO through the church and his father literally told him he was just going to work there. CEO seems to have been a business made in heaven. Peter has also really been focused on building the company from foundation of moral high ground and core values. He's a husband of eight years and a father to three daughters, and in his free time enjoys hunting, fishing and exploring the Rocky Mountains with his family. You'll also love watching this episode on our Second in Command podcast YouTube channel. We'll see you on the inside. So, Peter, welcome to the Second In Command podcast.

Thanks Cameron. Appreciate you having me on.

Yeah, looking forward to learning from you. You and I were just chatting in the background just now and I met your CEO yesterday on One of our COO alliance calls where we have CEOs join us once a year. The CEOs allowed to join in. I got to meet Aaron, your CEO, and talk to him a little bit. I got a bit of a perspective and a lens on the business from him. But why don't you tell us a little bit about Aslan Corporation, what you do as a company and then we'll talk about, you know, your role and then also you and Aaron and the relationship you guys have got.

Aaron started Aslan back in the early 2000s. He's a fourth generation contractor. You know, he tried really hard to not fall into contracting, but it kind of fell into his lap in a way and he was able to kind of pick up the mantle from his dad and started Aslan with a focus on building car washes, particularly here in the Colorado Front Range area. He took what he had, you know, learned from his father growing up and the other experiences he'd had in the construction industry and was able to plug in quickly with a car wash equipment distributor, where most of the business comes from in this sector of the construction industry. After building a few washes and developing a relationship and a reputation, it started to be a self feeding, self fulfilling pipeline of projects with this specific distributor. Throughout the years that expanded and grew primarily car washes, but other commercial projects as well. He ultimately built a few washes for himself and learned even more about the industry which further benefited the construction side of things. Solving problems that normal contractor wouldn't have because they didn't know what the operation side of the washes needed. After doing that for about nine or 10 years, he hired me on as a part time laborer. I was still in high school and we met at church and one Sunday after church he had talked to my father who was an elder at the church and came up to me afterwards and said, you work for me now. And that next thing I know I was on the job site working for him. That was my first, real, first real job that I had ever had. And over the subsequent last 12 or so years, I've worked through the paces and the various portions of the company and went from labor to learning the ropes of superintendents and moving through project management and ultimately into the role I'm in today and have been for the last couple of years of, of running operations for the company.

Love that you met in the church as well. It's almost like an arranged marriage, but it's an arranged job, which I've heard of arranged marriages. I've never heard of arranged jobs before. Was there any pushback on that or were you just like, okay, let's do.

This, you know, I think every teenage young man could benefit from an arranged job, so to speak. You know, I had a few ideas of what I thought I wanted to do with my life and my career. Like most 16, 17 year olds, not super driven, not super motivated. So when he came to me and said, hey, you have a job now, first off, couldn't really say no. But it was great for me to be able to plug into something that I had only loosely considered as a possible career path and land with somebody like Aaron, who had a real heart for mentorship and teaching and training young men in any area that he's strong and proficient in and coming alongside and you know, taking them from snot nosed kids to some, some level of professional proficiency. I think every young man could benefit from that kind of being forced into something to some extent. But it definitely worked for me at that Stage of my life especially. It was definitely what I needed.

I love it. I totally agree as well. It's interesting that you mentioned that your CEO Aaron did not want to get into the construction industry. Having grown up in a family that was in that. I've heard that consistently from, from everybody who's in construction. Why is that? Or is that just most people don't want to be in the same business their parents were in?

I don't know if it's not wanting to do the same thing that your, that your parents do, but I think for him there was some level of not wanting to be blue collar, wanting to, you know, maybe sense a feeling of maybe, you know, I'm better than that or I can, I can do more than, than something in, you know, a blue collar industry. And he spent some time working in the tech industry and, and did, did that for a while and then basically ended up wanting to have a real estate based investment and decided on a car wash. Because he and his father have construction backgrounds. They decided to gc it themselves and then that's when started with the distributor and the rest is kind of history from there.

So it's interesting, if you, if you told anyone in Canada that you were going to build car washes, they would roll their eyes and wonder why you would bother. Because the car washes in Canada are all these super small, one car at a time, little things. And then when I moved to the U.S. oh gosh, 10, 12 years ago, I was blown away by the size of these things. Is this a regional thing that these car washes are all so big like I was in Arizona or is it pretty much a north, you know, a US thing?

You know, I think it's largely been a US thing. And you know, the car wash industry, like any industry goes through its phases. In the last five to 10 years, the huge express exterior tunnel car washes have really become in vogue and you have huge corporations like Mr. Car Wash and driven brands who have hundreds of locations spread out across the US and it's kind of driven that sector of the car wash industry forward. And you know there's a, a scramble to build as many as you can and sell, you know, sell out a package deal of 100 locations. Before that period of time, you know, five, 10 years ago, it was the in bay automatic and self service style that was very popular for a lot of years going way back in, you know, 70s and 80s and even to this day there are still several people who are very successfully building that style of wash. Funny, you Mentioned Canada. Some of the, some of the leading developers of car wash equipment are from Canada and they do a lot with the oil and natural gas companies up there. But it sounds like maybe the car wash craze is making its way north and you guys might start seeing some of that popping up in the Great White north in the near future.

That'd be great. I know it was my dad's very first business back in 1974, was running a car wash and a gas station. And I had to produce radio ads for my dad when I was 9 years old about mine. Daddy's new car wash. That's awesome. Yeah, I remember. I still remember practicing and doing them and having to go into the radio station and record these ads as a nine year old. It was hilarious. What do you think has made the relationship between you and Aaron work so well? I mean, you've been there for nine, 10 years, which is pretty unusual because you're younger. If somebody's not on our second in command YouTube channel watching this, you're how old are you? 30?

I'm 29. Yes, 29 this year.

So for someone younger, this has been all of your career, really working with this one company, but also working with one person. What do you think has made it work?

I think Aaron's heart for mentorship really was the only reason he was willing to put up with my shit for so long is the fact that he truly has a heart for mentorship. His willingness and ability to absorb my sometimes expensive learning curve and stick with me through the difficult times has really been why our relationship is what it is today as well as, you know, there's mutual loyalty. You know, the grass is always greener on the other side. And there have always been opportunities where I could have gone and chased a few more dollars an hour during my time as a laborer or while I was, you know, learning in, you know, the supervisory and management side of the business. So I stuck with him because I truly saw the vision he had for my life, which was beyond just a faithful employee who was able to do a good job. But he truly wanted more for me than a normal employer would. That being his stated goal and purpose from day one to in some extent or another was part of the reason that we were able to survive the ups and downs that come with any long term intimate relationship. He's in all of my business, I'm in all of his. You know, personally, we're, we're very close. His wife was actually my wife's doula for each of our three Children. So we're very intertwined on a personal level as well as professional. And for us, that's been a huge part of why it just works. It just is an extension of our day to day personal life. I love it.

It makes a lot of sense. It's interesting when you even said a faithful employee, and I kind of played on that for a second. Instead of faithful, like actually both coming out of the church. Do you think that played a part in it as well?

I think so. I think one, we talk about company culture all the time, right? As we're, as we're growing a business, we want to focus on, do the people coming into the business, do they actually meet with the culture of the company? And when there is a high level of agreement on the basic foundations of our moral compass. Right. We both draw our sense of ethics from the same religion, from the same belief structure. It allows us to have a much stronger union and bond running a company and actually having some objective standard that we build that culture around. So I think having that and having the same views and beliefs on accountability and, you know, we are able to call each other on things that we see as shortcomings in each other's lives. And I think it really, it really adds a foundation to our relationship and therefore to the whole business and the way that we operate. That I think is more rare and more unique than, you know, I wish it was for sure.

So you said that some of it was his patience and ability to work kind of with you. When you were going through some of your shit, what was some of your shit that you were going through in management and in the business?

I mean, I've got, you know, a laundry list of times where I made a miscalculation or an error or a mistake professionally throughout a project. And it ended up costing the company money. Right. There's one example in particular where I forgot to process a change order when it was my first project that I was supervising from start to finish myself. And it was about at least seven years, eight years ago now. Because of that, contractually the client was able to get out of paying for the change order. It was a legitimate change order. The city mandated a change in the thickness of the. The paving section for the project, and it ended up costing over $10,000. And one simple miscalculation, completely unforced error. His response to that could have gone any number of ways. He would have been justified in terminating me. He would have been justified in making me figure out a way to pay it back or make it up or even just coming down on me so hard that I wanted to crawl under a rock for the. And die. Right. Instead, he chose the. The tact of this is how we learn, this is how we improve. And I can guarantee you that that hasn't happened again. Right. So his tact that he took in situations like that and there were plenty others, right? Being being a, a teenager and a young 20 something with no family background or personal background in the industry, having him extend that grace and that, that, that mercy to me in these situations made me better for it. Right. Failure is progress, but only if you choose to make it. So at this point in time, you know, we have a different relationship. I'm running operations and there's a. Things have shifted and changed, but to this day, nobody's perfect. Myself least of all. Having that relationship has really bolstered our connection and our ability to work together.

So you've obviously learned from him as a leader over the years. I mean being able to kind of role model and mentor what he's doing in leadership that you've certainly pulled from it sounds like you've gotten all those insights and you, do you carry those and do you actually, do you roll the same way as a leader today? Do you think?

That's a really good question. I was thinking about this last week actually. I had an employee who had a shortcoming and similar situation, ended up costing the company money, not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. And my knee jerk reaction was to come down hard on that employee. And it took me back to that story seven, eight years ago where I had made a much larger miscalculation and error and the grace I received. In the Bible, there's the story of the king who has a servant who owes him. It's some equivalent of some hundred trillion dollars, some ridiculous amount of money and he forgives him, but then he goes and somebody owes him 50 bucks and he throws him in jail. Right. That story comes to mind often because that is very. It resonates with me in my experience with Aaron and the way that he, he trained and mentored and brought me up through the business. And it's a constant reminder to me as I deal with new employees who aren't perfect.

Surprisingly, you joined the CEO alliance this year. What do you think you've learned so far as being a CEO alliance member and why did you join? What was it that kind of prompted you to join? I'm curious where that was in your learning.

I don't remember how he had learned about your Book Second in Command, but he recommended it to me, I bought it, read it in one sitting, and I was like, man, this, this guy's got something that I think I could really benefit and learn from. And he said, fine, let's sign you up. Let's, let's, let's plug you in. And so within, I think a month of learning about your whole COO alliance and who you are and what you're about, got my membership going and I got into the group. I think the biggest takeaway I've had so far is one, just the complete, complete willingness of everyone in the group to share and to not be stingy with their experiences and with their strengths and weaknesses and the, the openness in that community. The number of conversations I've had, both, you know, the official one on one connections that we get every month, but also just offline sending somebody a private message after hearing their episode of the podcast with you or, you know, seeing them post something in the Slack channel. And then also the fact that I'm not even the youngest person in the group and all of us suffer from the same level of imposter syndrome, it seems, which really took me by surprise because the first time I came in there, I was like, oh man, I don't belong here. Find out that's what everyone thinks once in a while or constantly. It's really been a great, great experience being a part of that group.

It's really interesting seeing how it literally has been. Every single COO alliance member walks in feeling like a little bit of an imposter. And I think in the first year of membership you start to shed that and you gain the confidence that you do fit, you are just like everybody else. And then you do get all the connections from the one on ones and the accountability groups and the breakouts, the monthly events, the in person events, you do start to build all those connections and then I think the learning really starts to kick in in year two and year three. Where else were you learning over the years? I mean, it sounds like you do certainly devour books pretty quickly. Were books part of your learning and growth? Were you in other Mastermind communities? Were you getting coached? Where were you learning and growing?

So that kind of plays into kind of my path to this position that I'm in currently. As I went through the various parts of the company, you know, I'm learning from Aaron and his strengths and weaknesses were a big part of that. Right. So everywhere that he is strong, I was able to develop those skills and where he was weak. But Maybe I was inherently strong. He couldn't necessarily fill in those gaps. So I would read books when I'm in, When I'm in the reading mood or have the time or the bandwidth. You know, I have three young girls and they take a lot of the free time up, but I plow through books when I have the opportunity. And so that was a big part of it. And as I got closer and closer to this operational role in the company, I took on more and more responsibility. Aaron and I started to kind of see where maybe my giftings and my strengths were more systematic, more operational. And his was very standard CEO COO kind of match. And so, you know, we, we read Traction by Gino and his book Rocket Fuel. And, and I read that book, same thing read. I read it in like an hour and a half, and then I sent it to him. I said, you have to read this because this sums up exactly what we've been trying to say, but in a way that actually makes sense. And actually pencils. And he, he read the book very quickly and got back to me and was like, this answers a lot of questions. And then second in command. And we read several other books about the CEO COO and realized that really that was who we each were is. He's very stereotypical serial entrepreneur CEO type. And I'm more of the operations and systematic mind. And so understanding that about myself and for him to understand that about me and then how that relationship together works gave us like the. A little bit of direction and okay, I need to seek assistance and guidance and counsel from others who are more like me in order for us really to take this thing to the next level, because we were both kind of operating at, you know, that GSD mentality, because that's what I learned from him. But then I started getting into systemization and, and realizing that I have some, some inkling for that. And that's what really. That's when we kind of kicked it into high gear. And that's when I joined the alliance and, and really started moving more aggressively in that direction.

It's been interesting seeing a lot of our members of the COO Alliance. Their CEOs are members of lots of mastermind communities, whether It's YPO or EO or Genius Network. Strategic Coach, is Aaron as the CEO, is he a member of other mastermind communities for CEOs at all?

He's looked into a few of them and I think he's had some conversations with some other groups. He's very well connected with a bunch of other successful CEOs from other businesses. So I don't believe he's currently a part of any official Mastermind. But he has so many connections and spend so much of his time now that he is not having to white knuckle the operations as much as he used to. He's been able to connect with people all over the world and really develop those relationships and kind of have the same, same effect as, you know, Mastermind Group.

Yeah, he's definitely connecting and learning, which is key. Curious. How many locations have you guys built?

Somewhere around 100 in the Denver, Colorado Springs area On your only.

You've only done them in Denver. Like you haven't even gone outside of the state.

Like we're only local and regional. So. And that was a big part of it is, you know, Aaron's track record with businesses is he has a harebrained idea. He makes it work, he starts a business, becomes successful and once it starts to get to that point of operations, he sells it or he moves on or he in some way shape or form, you know, that's the end of the life cycle for him. Aslan is the one exception to that. It's the one company he's had for a very extended period of time and has been a key part of his life. But with his, the, the way his mind works as a typical, sometimes harebrained CEO, he spends. The company reached a point where his GSD mindset, while extremely effective to a point kind of was the ceiling and going outside of this region fell into that. That category of there was not really a way that he was going to be able to do that outside of the region until, you know, he was able to either bring somebody in for operations or he was, he was very content to leave the business where it was and it, it met his and his family needs.

And it sounds like now you're operationalizing it where you could expand if you wanted to. You've mentioned the kind of hairbrained CEO a couple times. I know you say that with admiration as well. I think, I think often most entrepreneurial CEOs are kind of the harebrained, you know, execute now, plan later. Like GSD getting done. Like they're, they're getting done. It might not even be the right shit, but they're getting it done. And they have, they're almost like perpetual motion machines where they have like an idea of the week or an idea of the hour that they're dumping on your lap. How do you work with that kind of a culture? How do you say no to or not now? To some of the projects. How do you get to understand the projects before you deploy them? Can you walk us through some of that? The CEO. CEO kind of communication protocols.

We meet every single week. I mean, we talk pretty much daily, but we meet every single week. And, you know, he has been able to take a step back from the company so that he's not burning himself out and constantly pushing as hard as he can. And so he's had a little bit of an ability to kind of take a. Take a step back, take a beat, which has cooled off the million ideas a day, sending them over, you know, adding to the list of things that has to get done. So lately it's been really good to see him have the time to prioritize his family and his personal interests. He's got other businesses and he has other things going on, but he's been able to install people in other. In his other businesses that kind of take over most of the operational load. And so he's been in a really great season for himself. You know, from a mental and health perspective of really taking a beat, not killing himself, trying to, you know, squeeze every drop of water out of the rock that he can doesn't mean he doesn't have, you know, ideas and inspirations. And we discuss those and we see where they fit in, but, you know, we're so in tune with one another that he knows where that line is. And I also know what is or isn't something that I think is a good idea to take on.

What do you say to him when it's not a good idea?

Usually he sweeps me along with the current of this is the best idea that's ever been thought of. The days of Fire Ready, Aim have. Have largely passed. And so when he comes up with an idea and our inspiration, we talk about it at our weekly meeting, we chew on it, we bounce the ideas off, and then more often than not conclude that, hey, it might be a good idea, but maybe not now, or it's something that he ends up spinning off into another business idea or something if it doesn't play indirectly to our core competency or this specific company vision.

What about conflict? Have you guys had to work through any conflict issues at all? I mean, it can't have been like a total perfect nine years.

Well, it's construction, so if there wasn't a good amount of cussing and screaming involved, then we would be, you know, out of business or something. There's definitely been conflict. It all goes back to the fundamental relationship that we have, if the conflict is, you know, a disagreement over something, we might have some, some tense interactions. And usually we're able to get through that pretty quickly. One or the other, or both of us come back and revisit the conversation and okay, I was in the wrong or not or whatever the situation was, and we're able to resolve it. And again, that, that having the same sense of where our moral compass comes from makes it a lot easier for us to, maybe not at first, but to acknowledge the failings of ourselves. So if he's coming at me because I've made a mistake or I've done something that he doesn't see as being the right decision, or if it's a decision that he disagrees with or has some moral dilemma or ethical dilemma with, my initial reaction is never, oh, no, you're completely right. I'm so sorry. Right. That usually comes, but not right off the bat, but we're able to call each other back to that moral standard, right? To, you know, hey, this, this was not just a bad idea, but it was wrong. And we're able to, to have that in a, again, not usually the first conversation, but shortly thereafter we're able to resolve it in a relatively peaceful way.

I love the whole moral compass and the moral kind of foundation that you build off of. I remember my parents were building a home back in the early late 70s, 79, and my mom and dad walked onto the construction site and as my mom walked in the front door, a hammer went flying through the room and like stuck into a wall. And she's like, what? And one of the contractors got mad and threw the hammer at somebody. She's like, I think that was the last time she went onto the job site. She was terrified. All right, I want you to lean back a little bit as well. I just leaned back too many years. But I want you to lean back to maybe the 20 year old Peter and give yourself some advice. What advice do you wish you'd known nine years ago that, you know, to be true today?

I think the biggest thing and you know, I have this really cool opportunity to kind of get to do this. So Aaron's oldest son is interested in the business. He's coming up on, 18 years old, he's finishing up school soon and I'm going to bring him in to the business and we're going to be able to, I'm going to be able to kind of pay back a little bit, right what he, what Aaron's done for me. And so I kind of have the Opportunity to tell, you know, 18, 20 year old Peter, right? It's not me, but I can, I can dig back like okay, what information, what piece of advice did I need that I can actually give to somebody who's in the same position that I was in? You know, one thing I tell any young man who will listen when they're especially that late teenage is you're not as smart, cool, intelligent or badass as you think you are. 95 times out of 100, whoever is trying to speak into your life is going to have some value to add and having the humility and the tenderness of spirit to actually receive that while not going too far the other way and being a total pushover, right? You got to have, you got to have strength of character. I would say that, you know, for myself at least, you know, going through my high school years in my early 20s, most young men, I was as arrogant as they come. I knew everything. Nobody else had ever been as good of a human as I was is something I preach to anyone. Any young man who's willing to listen is appreciate the wisdom and the experience of those older than you. Not just accept it, but seek it out.

Peter Chapa, the COO for Aslan Corporation. Thanks so much for sharing with us today on the Second Command podcast. Really appreciate the time and the wisdom you shared. Don't be so focused on making good decisions about your career, but rather make the decisions that you took good ones.

By your effort and your application of.

Your disciplines and your excellence and just make it happen.

Leave everything that you approached bit better than when you found it.