Breaking Dreams

There's only a couple speakers that I get nervous about introducing. One's Derek, because I work for the guy. But the other is Jim Johnson. He's not old enough to be my dad, but I kind of look at him like an older brother. And Jim is one of those guys that just so passionate about helping other people succeed and making sure they're doing the right thing. And he's also really concerned with doing the right thing for himself and his company's doing the right thing. He's a great coach. He's a great business mentor.

Man.

The list goes on and on and on. I mean, I could probably stand up here and brag on Jim for a while. I'm really excited to hear what he has to talk about today. Talking about people and dreams. And I am so honored to introduce to you one of my friends, a keynote in the industry, an expert. He probably wouldn't call himself an expert, but he is an expert at what he does, and he's very, very talented at empowering others around him. Please stand and join me in welcoming to the stage head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, my friend, Jim Johnson.

All right, all right. So we're still trying to drag people in from lunch, it looks like. And so I'm going to talk really loud, draw some attention, because the thing you want to hear is going to happen for the next 45 minutes. So if you're standing out there and wondering, hey, should I listen to this guy or not? It might be worth your time, it might be worth your effort, because I want to share something that has had more impact on me, and I believe it'll have more impact on you than anything you might come across while you're at this event. And that's a big statement because there's a lot of great stuff that you've come across. Now, this is my team right here. This is my team that breaks dreams. That's what we do. And I don't mean like, we break them in a way that. That you have a dream and we just destroy it. We break it into pieces so it's achievable. And we break it into a way that seems digestible, a way that is believable in a way that's aligned, and that's really the key. How many of you out there have dreams for your businesses? Just raise your hand. I know there's not a lot of people here, but raise your hand. You got dreams for your businesses? Yeah, I've had lots of dreams for my businesses over time, and I've had many Businesses, many opportunities that I was into that I dreamed about being a manager, general manager, top sales guy, class a painter. You name it, done it. And most of those things last anywhere from three to five years before I get bored and I need a new challenge, and things are not feeling right anymore. And I think I figured out why. And I want to share that with you today. So I want to tell you a story. Where do I point it? Over here? There we go. Oh, one, two, four. There we go. I want to tell you a story about this man. This man is the greatest mentor I could ever come across, and none of you know who he is. To me, that's a true legacy. This is a man that cared enough about a kid, his grandchild, to get involved in his life when he needed it. He knew that he needed somebody to give him direction, pathway, and a little bit of guidance because I didn't have it. Lifetime military retired master sergeant, taught every one of us how to shoot guns. It was important to learn how to shoot a gun. You might need it at some point in life. And he also told us, Never pull a gun unless you intend to use it. He was always a little bit wiser than everybody else I came across. And can we go back to that slide again? I know you guys went off on me. I want to talk about. Oh, you guys. Here we go. One more. Don't move it. All right, perfect. See the picture in the top right? That's his wife, my grandmother. He always introduced her as his first wife to me. That was amazing. We all thought it was funny. Everybody would giggle. But as I sat back after getting a little bit older, I was like, you know, I was actually telling every single person he came in contact with something, something that was extremely valuable, something that should maybe hit home with all of us. So he taught me how to fly fish. He taught me how to set up a tent, taught me how to shoot a gun, taught me how to keep my word, knew that I wouldn't. And he taught me how to treat a woman. I thank him for all those things because I got her back there. Raise your hand. That's my wife. Without him, she does not exist in my life. We can learn from these people that have wisdom. And he shared some amazing wisdom with me that I want to share with you because I believe it applies to your business. Because this is how I remember my grandfather. You see that sheepish little clever grin. He was always up to something, and he was always just a step or two ahead of anybody else in the room. And the thing I think that's the most amazing stat about my grandfather, is he never made more than $24,000 a year in his life. But his impact was something completely different. And it's completely led to me being able to achieve things financially that he could never comprehend. And he wanted me to do it the right way. And so he let me fumble and learn and beat my head against the wall and watch me make mistake after mistake. And eight years ago, I resigned from a software company called acculinx. And most of you in here, if you know me, you didn't recognize me because I don't have a hat on. This is the first time I've ever spoken without a hat on. I walk past people today that I know know me and didn't even acknowledge me. And it was to prove a point. Regardless of that hat, my coaching pants, this really uncomfortable, weird blazer that I'm wearing, sport coat. I am who I am, and that's how I want you to know me. Not by the hat, the brand, anything else. I want you to know me for who I am, and I want to talk about that, because this man taught me something about that that I want to share with you today. He broke my dreams. When I resigned from that software company, I flew home to find out that my grandfather was headed to the hospital. Excuse me if I'm a little emotional. This is the first time that I'm actually sharing this whole story with everybody in this manner. And every time I talk about my grandfather, it is emotional. He was important to me. So he's in the hospital, spent a lot of time with. I literally took, like three months off of my life to go and spend with him before he passed. And he asked me a question, and he said, hey, what are you going to do now? I had resigned, didn't know really what. It's the first time in my life I didn't know what I was going to do. Like, I always have the next thing, next best thing, next best thing. How many of you do something for three or four years, five years maybe, and you get bored with it? You got the next best thing. Anybody? Come on, be honest. I mean, there's a pattern to our world and who we are and what we do. We tend to do that. And I think there's a reason I want to share that reason with you today. Now, this guy that never made more than 24,000 retired military, no formal education other than the military, had what I call country wisdom. He paid attention. He was extremely observant, and I think he knew his time was up and that his dumb ass grandson hadn't figured it out yet. So he needed to make it a little clearer. So he goes, hey, what are you going to do now? You know, I don't know. You're not going to sit around and do nothing. I told him I was going to go fly fishing and golfing. That's what I wanted to do. So you're not going to sit around and do nothing. I go, well, I want to be a college basketball coach. He started laughing. He's like, you're 42 years old. I don't think people start at 42 years old to be a college basketball coach. What is it that you like about that? Is it the coaching or the basketball? And it stopped me in my tracks. I had to think about that because I love basketball. I love basketball. I had a 33 Larry Bird birthday party and you had to come dressed in green. Like, I love basketball, but I also love baseball. I also love football. Shoot, you give me a stick, a goal, a ball, let's go. It was the coaching. After I thought about it, I spent a whole night thinking about it. Like, what is it really? That was a much wiser question than I was expecting. I thought about. I'm like, hey, you know, that coaching thing is really what it is if I think about it. I like putting in the fundamentals. I like helping people improve their skills. I like putting together a game plan. I like putting together a strategy and winning. I like to freaking win. That's what I like to do. I like to win at all costs. I am a winner. It's what I do. I am competitive. I don't care who you are or who you think you are. So that can sell out there. I'm going to kick your butt or play basketball. I'm going to kick your butt. I may not do it, but I believe I can. It's just who I am. I am wired that way from being this big, and my grandfather knew it. Then he asked me another question. I think putting the two questions together was the kind of the key to it. He goes, what are you great at? And, boy, that kind of stopped me in my tracks too. I was like, yeah, I'm pretty good at this sales thing. I'm good at sales. I'm pretty good at this contracting thing. I ran $20 million plus roofing company. Like, I've had great things, I've done great things. So I came back to him and said, hey, I'm pretty great at this contracting thing. He goes, why don't you do that. And that's how Contractor Coach pro came to be. He is the reason those people on that very first slide break dreams. And he taught us how to do it. He taught us what we needed to do to help you figure out a very key thing for you to execute in your business. He taught me that there was a mind gap. Not mind, the gap. I switched the words around. He taught me there was a mind gap. There was a gap between why we do what we do and who we are. I believe that each and every person in this building was imbued with a talent that should be used each and every day to improve the lives of the people around them, and they should be in tune with that. My grandfather was in tune with who I was and I was not. He was in tune with the fact that I had a pretty good ability to inspire people to. To be on board with my vision and do some pretty amazing things on sales teams and businesses and things like that. He knew that about me. He knew that about my sports teams that I coached, that we went and kicked butt and won. I coached a basketball team at a school with 55 kids in a grade, and we went and kicked the crap out of a school in the city that had 1500 kids per grade. I don't like to lose, and I can get people to believe in not losing, and I can empower people to believe, and that's one of my talents. I believe God gave me that talent, and if I don't use it, it's a sin. Now, you can believe what you want to believe about faith and stuff like that, but that's where I'm at with it. And if I don't take that thing that was given to me as a talent and use it, listen to it, and hold on to it, I'm failing. That's how I feel. I don't know about you, but that created this gap. I was always after what everybody else thought I should be and should do and the world needs of me. I need the big houses, the cars, the boats, the trains, the whatever the heck is that you want to buy to prove to yourself that you're amazing. Listened to all of it, every bit of it, But that had nothing to do with who I was. Did any of that sound like who I was. He knew I was out of alignment, and he needed to bring it into alignment before he left his planet or he would let me down. And I don't want to let you guys down. So what was he talking about, this gap? This like he did not say it specifically. Hey, there's a gap between this and this. And you need to go tell people this on stage. He asked me those questions, and I realized something. He taught me something that I don't know if he intended to teach me, but he wanted me to learn. It was country wisdom. And so there's a gap between who we are and why we do what we do. And we have two forces at battle. There's our internal force of who we are. And I want to give a lot of credit here. I literally could not be on this stage talking about this without his influence, without my wife's influence, without Reggie Block's influence, without Nathan Thibodeau's influence, Matt Grassmeyer's influence. I have walked this path with so many people to try and dig into this, to actually understand what the heck is going on. Why are we blowing it? Why are we messing up? Why are we constantly after our why when we don't know who we are? Now, don't get me wrong, knowing our why and our passion, our purpose, unbelievably valuable. There's actually a book written about it that is one of my favorite books I've ever read in my entire life. I think it's one of the most valuable books you can ever read. And it's called Start with why by Simon Sinek. It's just titled Wrong. Because I believe who comes before why. If you know who you are, aligning that with why you're doing, what you're doing will make all the difference in you actually achieving it. Because if it's not aligned with who you are, your character, your values, what you believe in, what you really want, want to do, that fulfills you. When the challenges and obstacles and even the success happens, you will feel unfulfilled. I know. I've been there. Been there on the front porch of my house in tears, trying to figure out what else did I have to do to prove to this world that I made. It had nothing to do with me. My grandfather understood I was pretty good at helping people do things well, and I wasn't doing that. So I got this internal force pushing me after this why, And I've got this y, the external force pushing in the other direction. And the why is all the things that everybody tells you you're supposed to be doing and you're listening to and you're being bombarded with. On a daily basis, we are asked to make 30,000 decisions on average, each and every day. Six years ago, that was only 6,000. So what does that do. When you have that much information hitting you in your head every single day, it causes the depth of what you know and understand to get thin. And when it gets thin, it cracks. You have no depth. You don't think deep enough, you don't think strong enough, you don't think strategically enough about what you're really designed to do while you're here. And you don't have the persistence to finish what you've been asked to do. And so what that does, when you have two opposing forces going in the opposite direction, what is that called? Anybody know? Anybody know what that is? It's called friction. I think I heard somebody say it. Quiet. Very good. Thank you very much. It's called friction. And there's a right amount of friction that's healthy. We need pushes us, it drives us, we're passionate about it. It's the thing, right, that energizes you too. Little friction, nothing happens. You're in stasis, you're complacent, you're not moving. Too much friction and you're breaking, you're stopping, you're leaving, you're quitting. Because it's not truly the thing. So I believe that by sharing with you that, yes, your why is uber important. Why are you doing what you're doing? But even more important is who you are. Because if you can have a true understanding of who you are, your why is easy. It becomes a no doubter. How many years did I say that I usually did a job or a thing? Three to five. Right. I'm eight years into this coaching thing and I absolutely love each and every day that I go. Don't get me wrong, I have doubts, I have all those. But I don't let them set in. You know why? Because I know who I am and why I'm doing what I'm doing. They're aligned 100% perfectly. And nothing can beat me. Nothing can beat me in getting there, and nothing can beat you when you align the two. And that's a big, deep concept. I know I was kind of a little bit like, man, this is going to be a hard thing. This is going to be a hard thing for people to listen to. They're going to struggle with this. But I want to give a little bit of recognition to my team because they took this concept of the questions that my grandfather asked me that brought me to these conclusions and put them in a format in a way in which we start with every one of our coaching clients. And I want to share with you today because I Think it'll help you to achieve those dreams that you're after. We as entrepreneurs are truthfully, after three things. We want to get control of our business through great leadership. We want to grow that business, and we want to achieve personal and financial freedom in whatever fashion that looks like for you. That doesn't mean you need a hundred million dollars. Some of you it might. Others of you it might not. My wife would kill me if we settled for mine, because I'd be in a tent somewhere in the woods, somewhere at the fly fishing rod, and that's about it. And she's out there going, no way. Because he would buy all this stuff and he wants all the cool stuff, right? I could see her over there talking. No, she makes me stay in one place, so I got to go get the cool stuff. If I could move around and be nomadic, I don't need the cool stuff. We'll tone it down, but that's a lot of who I am. I like that stuff. I'm aware of that. I also love serving other people. I love helping you guys do amazing things in your businesses. I love seeing the businesses that we've coached start coaching. That's super cool. Like, they were all scared to tell me, like, doing a thing. I'm like, good. That's amazing. Because too many of us operate from this place of scarcity. Like, we think that the next job is not out there, but when your who is aligned with your why, it'll always be there. There's no doubt. So I want to give you four questions because I like to make every speech, presentation, whatever you call this, practical. So grab a pen, shoot a picture, whatever you got to do of this. But I want you, if you do nothing else from this conference, I want you to go answer these four questions. Who were you made to be? Now, I know from a spiritual, religious, and all that standpoint, everybody's got different beliefs there, but I hope you believe that you were created to be something. Because if you don't believe that, it means you are made to be nothing. And I don't believe that. I believe every person in this room is something more than they even understand right now. So who were you made to be? What are you doing when you feel fulfilled, joy, energized the most? You. That one right there is literally Nathan Thibodeau talking. Our lead coach. It's the way he thinks, the way he took. What are you gonna do now, why and what are you great at? And turn that into something that's truly practical and valuable for our Clients. And I want you to think about that. What are you doing when you feel joy, fulfilled, energized, and the most you, regardless of the money? What is that thing? Because that thing will be the thing that has more to do with why you're doing what you're doing than anything else on the planet. What does your life need to look like to be and live as the who you were intended to be? I didn't really know what this coaching thing was going to be, to be honest with you. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go coach a couple of contractors. I got a bunch of phone calls when I resigned. They all wanted to be partner, owner, general manager, whatever. I don't want to do that, but maybe I can help them. So I made a few calls back, got a couple of clients and helped them. And it went really, really well. They excelled. It was amazing. It was awesome. And then it was 4, then it was 8, 16, 22. And I couldn't handle it anymore. And I had to get Nathan to give me a hand. And I thank him for it every day. Without him, this doesn't happen. But what does your life need to look like to be and live as the who you were intended to be? My life has to be like this right now to be who I am. Sometimes it's chaotic, sometimes it's hard, sometimes I have to sacrifice. But I believe, man, do I believe that we're going to change the way all home services contractors do business. Not just roofers, but everybody. And who knows, maybe even entrepreneurs in general. So my life needs to look like this because I don't. In all honesty, I don't do much of the coaching anymore. It's pretty rare because I have a team that does it. But I have to do that to do who I am. Because if I don't, I'm failing everybody else and myself. And you are just the same, every single one of you. So, last question. What does your company need to look like to allow your life to be what it needs to be? And that's the key question. What does your business need to look like to allow your life to be what it needs to be? Is it a hundred million dollar business? Number one dream we hear whenever somebody comes to us as a company, we want to be a hundred million dollar business. Okay, can you explain to me why? What does that get you? What are you truly after? Are you capable? Do you have the skills, talent, resources, all that stuff? No. That's what we're coming to you for. No. Okay. We can help with that side. The skill and all that good stuff and the processes and all that. But why the hundred million? What difference is that going to make in your life that you need to do? And every once in a while we get a very good answer. Every once in a while we get a very good answer. But once you really think about it and you dig into who you are, you go, man, $100 million. I don't know if I need that to be who I'm going to be. I kind of want to spend some time with my grandkids. I kind of want to spend a little bit of time with the community and serving them. I kind of want to be with my friends. You can have both. When you get in alignment, when you truly picture what that business is going to look like, super easy to work it backwards. So I want to challenge each and every one of you within the next 24 hours to figure out who you are and see if that's aligned with why you're doing what you're doing. And if you don't know how to do that, find me. I'll help you. It's the number one thing I want to do. I want to help you figure out who you are because it has such life changing power over what you're going to do for the rest of your life. If you need to contact me, I believe it's on screen. There we go. If you need to contact me to ask me that question, to figure out who you are, why you're doing what you're doing, that's all of our information up there. Infoontractorcoachpro is a good place to start. You can go to our website, Contractor Coach Pro and fill out the contractor assessment and one of our guys will help you. No charge. We don't charge for this. We actually want to see it. Start from the right place. Now, if you want to follow us and catch more content and all that other good stuff, there's our page and our group and Contractor. Actually, that's not our group. I edited that, but the old one came up. The group is Contractor Community. Great group, lots of interaction, lots of help back and forth between each other. And if you want to listen to our podcast, it's Contractor Radio. I want to leave you with something that I hope changes the way that you look at what I just shared with you. If we are all able to take the talent that we're imbued with inside of us, that we feel fulfillment and joy and energy and align that with why we're doing what we're doing. We can change the world. We can change the world in a way that the division goes away, the political garbage goes away. And we can get together because we're helping and serving each other. You want to get a shot? You don't want to get a shot? I don't care. I love you, man. You like Trump? You like Biden? I don't care. I love you, man. It's okay. You have a different opinion. So what? You know what they say, opinions are like when we align who we are and fulfill internally who we are, that why will change and it will change this planet. And this is. Thank you. Thank you. And this isn't just me. I see it happening. How many of you know Eric Oberimt? You follow him on Facebook. Completely different style than me. How many of you know Eric Oberimt? You follow him on Facebook. Completely different style than me. Yes.