Breaking Dreams and Making It Click

Foreign. Everybody, welcome to another Contractor Radio episode. And this episode is a big one for us. This is our hundredth episode. It is the day that we started this two years ago, and it's pretty cool to be doing the hundredth episode on that day. And I've got somebody here today that I want to talk with because I think he's going to bring the most value to this conversation. We have been really working hard on making sure that what we do is extremely valuable to the contractors we work with. We know what contractors aspire to. They aspire to getting control of their business with systems and processes and the way they need to operate, their foundational stuff, which gives them the ability to grow, which then helps them achieve the big thing they're after, which is personal and financial freedom. And today we want to talk about something very special, something that might be a little bit new to you, something you may not have heard before. You hear a lot of things going on out there that we're going to talk about that are what a lot of people coach and consult about and lead us to believe that this is what needs to happen. And we're going to fly in the face of that a little bit today. We want to share with you a little bit of what happens behind the scenes here at Contractor Coach Pro with our clients that we don't always share out there in the real world and maybe a little bit of that secret sauce that makes us us and makes the contractors, we work with them and really the human beings that are behind those businesses and what makes them so impactful. So before we do that, we got to keep the lights on around here. We got to pay the bills. We're going to hear from one of our sponsors this morning, Atlas Roofing.

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Hey, welcome back guys. I chose Atlas for a reason. They're a really good example of some of the things we're going to talk about today. If you are a roofer out there and you haven't checked out Atlas, I suggest you give them an opportunity, get into their pro contractor program and close a few more deals than you might be doing today. Now, I started this off with this is our hundredth episode and there's a reason that I'm, I'm in this vein of what I do. Eight years ago, I resigned from a job that I love very much. I was extremely passionate about and had a lot of purpose behind and all of that. And I don't know why really. It was just one of those things that I had to do and I know now then I did not know why. And the reason that I resigned is there was a lack of alignment for me between who I was and what I did and the purpose behind that. And I didn't realize it at the time. After I resigned that next day, my grandfather went into the hospital and I got to spend the last three months of his life with him. And he is one of the most special people on the planet to me. He has had the biggest impact on me as a human being. And he is what I call country smart. He never had a job that he made more than 24,000 doll thousand dollars a year, but he still ended up with quite a bit to share with his kids whenever he did pass away. And we were sitting there in his hospital room and instead of him being concerned about himself and everything that he was going through, he was concerned about me. And he asked me a question. The question is, what are you going to do now? And I said, you know, really, I don't know. I think I'm just going to go golf and fish. He's like, that's not you. You might do that for a little while, but you're not done yet. What do you, what are you going to do? What do you, what do you really want to be? Or who do you want to really be? And I remember thinking about that for a moment and that's about how long it took. And I went, hey, what do I like? And what do I like? Hey, I got, I got world my oyster. I want to be a college basketball coach. He started laughing. He's like, you're 42 years old. I don't know if too many 42 year old people that start their coaching careers at that point unless they have some major connections. And he asked me something that really stuck with me and made me stop for a second. He asked me, he's like, hey, is it the basketball or is it the coaching that you like? And what that told me is he knew me better than I knew me. And I told him I had to think about that. And I came back to him the next day and I said, hey, I thought about it and it's not the basketball, it's the coaching. I've coached sports, I've coached businesses, I've coached sales teams, all kinds of different things, and I get the same level of enjoyment out of it. He goes, okay, what are you great at? Question number two. And that didn't take me long to really think about. And I said, hey, I'm pretty darn good at this contracting thing. And he came to the conclusion, like, you should go do that. Go coach contractors. Show them how to do what they need to do to do this right and be successful. And it was his idea behind all of this coaching stuff. And little did I realize then, what I know now is those questions are questions that we have kind of embedded into what we do here at Contractor Coach Pro. So today is going to be a little bit of a different format. For this episode, I am going to bring in my best friend, my right hand man here at Contractor Coach Pro, the guy that I like to have these conversations with. And I want to give you guys a little shot behind the scenes of how we really go through these tough questions and figuring out, you know, what we can actually get behind and believe in. And so I want to welcome to the show the other head coach, Nathan Thibodeau. Nathan, welcome aboard, man.

Hello, best friend. I don't know if I've heard that yet.

I told you I was going to surprise you. Oh, man.

Wow. Now I'm blushing. And.

Well, you are. Whenever I am working on something, noodling something out, really kind of thinking things through, I don't go to those guys that are like my buddies from High school and stuff that I hang out with because they're going to be them. But I go to you and you go to me and we have some pretty intense conversations and I think a lot of wake up moments where we click to something like, oh man, now that we've talked that through, I kind of see it today. I want to talk through something with you. We're going to go back and forth in a conversational approach and I want to, I want to ask if people are starting in the right place. I mean, there's a book out there about this. There's a book about you're an entrepreneur, you're going to build some kind of crazy, amazing, awesome, high achieving business. So you got to start with.

Why is that?

Yeah, start with why. And while there's a lot of value in that, I don't want to discount it. Right. Like there is a lot of value in knowing that. I want to challenge that concept a bit today with where I think you really need to start and what makes the why that actually works so powerful. We see so many people out there that they, they do this, they go through this whole process and they go, hey, this is why I'm doing this. I'm growing leaders or I'm putting water wells in Africa or I'm whatever, right? And, and they get all excited about it and it holds for a little while, but they keep not achieving it. And they still feel pressure, they still feel passionate about it, they're still going for it, but it's just not happening for them. And I wonder how many businesses are actually out there like that where I, I've got this big thing that I'm after and I want to solve the world's problems, but for whatever reason, it's not happening. Do you see much of that, Nathan?

Personally, I mean, I, I, I do. And I would say that. And you've seen this too, with our coaching. It's one of the most difficult exercises for business owners to go through. A very, very few. Now every once in a while I'll bump into somebody who just kind of knows this already about themselves. But it's, but it's rare when 1 or 2% down, we sit somebody down and we say, why are you doing this? Like, I'll be honest with you, you know, when you open a business, it's one of the riskiest possible things you could do, right? Such a high percentage of failure and it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be a construction company, it can be almost any type of business. But the rate of failure for opening a business is huge. This is an extraordinarily risky thing because you pour everything you have into it, and it might fail. So if the question's just money and security, opening your own business is a terrible decision. And then what's funny, too, is, like, if it's all about freedom, opening your own business is probably a terrible decision, too, because you can get a job where you have lots of freedom and time, and if you perform well, that's part of the things that you get. But when you open a business, that thing owns you, and it owns you for a significant amount of time until you're able to, you know, it's an extraordinary. In other words, what I'm saying is you could get to a respectable level of freedom in your life much quicker, probably working for someone else than starting your own business, because when you start your business, that thing owns you. So when we talk to these guys and we go, why are you doing this? I have found that to be one of the most difficult conversations and things for people to. To bring about. I'm. I'm sure you've had that experience.

Yeah, you know, it usually comes out as something like, well, I want to build a, you know, $100 million business, or, you know, I want to. I want to help people grow and become leaders. Like that was a little bit deeper, a little bit more insightful. Some of them can be very altruistic. You know, I want to go put water wells in Africa or build an animal shelter or whatever the thing may be. And even those, you know, we've seen through our experience that they come up with the ones that feel and sound good and is what they may believe the world wants of them, or whatever.

It takes to keep their coach from pestering them about it.

Yeah, it could be that too, Keith, or coach from pestering them, but it's not. It doesn't quite resonate. And I want to talk about that today of why it might not resonate. But before I do that, I want to ask you a question. When you were in middle school, high school, what were you dreaming about doing?

What's funny is, is when I was. When I was younger there, my. My dad was actually something of a thought leader and actually led something of a movement, actually, that ended up becoming kind of national. And he ended up going on TV and doing speaking events and things like that. And as a. And as a kid, I saw that and I saw other people. I was a little bit weird. Like, I saw other. Other speakers and presenters and thought Leaders. And as you say this, like, I remember being younger and thinking, that's cool. This person is. This person is helping other people. They're coming up with ideas. They're implementing systems and concepts, and they're changing people's lives. And I remember thinking to myself, I think that would be cool. Now, this was. This is like. Like middle school, early teenage years. As I got a little bit older, like my later teenage years, I started thinking, man, I can be my own. I can own my own business. I know I can do that. And so that kind of shifted. But what's funny is it kind of came back around full circle and. And I remember watching my dad speak, and I remember thinking that I love. That's really, really cool. I would love to be able to impact people's lives with my brain and solve problems and help people grow. And I was like, I don't know, probably 8, 10, 12 years old when I started to see that and started to recognize that concept.

So a couple, man, a couple observations about one of the things is, like, there's a reason you're here, right? Like, that's part of it is like, hey, this was maybe something that you aspire to. Spoke to you early on, and you see some opportunity maybe to do some of that kind of fills you a little bit, possibly. But then you reeled back off of it a bit and you went, okay, instead of that, I'm gonna just. I can go open a business, do it a small scale, right? Like a small scale of this big thing that I'm seeing out there. And we tend to. And. And you didn't own a business right away. You went to work for your dad's business, right?

Well, I started. I started as a subcontracted laborer, actually, at 15 years old. I. I've never. I. I wasn't. I wasn't technically an employee until I was in my mid-30s, I think was my first actual employment, which was actually when you and I started working together. But from. From when I started in the workforce at age 13 till the age of 31, 32, I was a 1099 for everybody I dealt with, whether it was my dad or with crews that I worked with or the company that we opened. Yeah, I.

But did you. But did you look at yourself as a business like a 1099, or do you look at yourself more as an employee of your dad's business?

Well, I always looked at myself as my own independent operating unit, and I did that even when I became an employee. Even when I became. And I just for whatever reason, the guys that I worked with were really. They were really clever in letting me know. Look, Nathan, you run your life. You can work when you want to, not work when you want to. You can participate. We know you're a hard worker, so we trust you. But you should know that from here on out, as you're in the labor force, you are in control of who you work for and when you work for them and for how much you work for them. And so I was very fortunate in some of the guys. Like, I didn't have these guys that just wanted to pull me in as an employee and then just micromanage. Everything I did most of my career was me going, okay, do I want to do this? I didn't care whether it was 1099 or W2. I just knew that I could be in charge of that. And so even when I went into employment negotiations, I always saw it as a negotiation. I never saw myself as walking into a situation with no power.

Now, you're a bit of a different bird, and I think you would admit that yourself.

Weirdo.

Do you think most kids in middle school and high school were thinking about speaking in public or owning their own business? Maybe some owning their own business, but I would think most were. I'm going to be a firefighter, I'm going to be an athlete, I'm going to be a doctor, I'm going to be a lawyer. Like this big high aspiration now.

It's like TikTok superstar.

YouTube influencer, like all that stuff, right?

I wasn't around when I was a kid, so those weren't options, which.

Which may very well be options. And so I want to talk about this from two sides today. There's the human individual side and then there's the business side. And I think there's some alignment between those two things. So what happened, right? Like, what happens to most of us? We have these big aspirations. I can remember, man, I dreamed of being a professional baseball player and that didn't work out. And I was like, I got to go get a job and I'm going to keep working that job to try and make that thing work out later. Like, I'm going to. I got to go do this. And still that dream is there. But everyday life, everyday work, everyday, everything led me on a different path. The question was, was the dream the right dream, being a professional baseball player or was it something else? And I just wasn't clicking to it yet. And so coming back to the business side of it for a second. Well, actually let's stay with the personal side. I go do events all the time and one of my favorite questions to ask people is, what's your purpose? But that's a secondary question. It's a secondary question to get to the real question I want to get figured out. But that first question I asked, that's really secondary to what I'm shooting for. The majority of the time I don't get an answer. And if I do, they've thought about it for a little bit and it tends to be like what I did with my grandfather. It tends to be a very shoot from the hip. I thought a couple things I like, I want to do that.

Right.

Have you experienced any of that with whenever you're coaching clients or talking with one of your buddies or just people in general?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, we get, we get preached at a lot about setting goals and breaking them down into smaller pieces, right? And then you got to get in the grind and the hustle and you got to work hard and all that stuff's great, you know. But if you think like, you remember either being a kid or having a kid or having like, I've got nieces and nephews and there's always that age or that, that point at which they get into that why? Right? And they go, why is that happening? Well, because of this. Why is that happening? Well, because of this. Why? Because of this. Why? Because of this. Right. And you can go down that path eventually. You can go down that path with your, I don't know, two, with probably your three, four, five year old. And then at some point you hit a stop and it's like, okay, that's just, that's, that's the way that it is.

It's just because, because it's blue. The sky is blue. Because it's blue. That's right.

You look at it, it's blue. And so what's interesting is it's such a curious component to a four or five year old. They want to understand what's going on and why a thing is the way that it is. And then I think sometimes we quit asking ourselves those questions. As we get older, we get old, we get crusty, we get set in our ways and we quit asking ourselves why. And as an example, like with the coaching entrepreneurs, almost all of them have these giant dreams. And I can't tell you the number of times I've asked somebody like, what's your dream? What are you trying to do with this business? And I hear something like, I want to have a 20 or 30 or 50. I've heard $100 million company and I love that, like, okay, cool. Why? So I get to be a five year old again. And it's so funny because it's such a simple question, but it stumps this very intelligent, very motivated, very hard working person. Stumps them. I've yet to ask somebody why do you want $100 million company? And have them go, well, because this is why. And it have be a legit reason. Because here's what I can tell you. If you and your wife or your husband or your family have these goals. Like, well, we'd like to have a really nice home. We want to be out of debt, we want to, we want a place on the lake, we want a boat, we want decent vacations, we want to be able to fly. But I tell you what, you don't need a hundred million dollar company to do that.

With.

You could do that with two or $3 million company. Like way less to provide all these things that you set forth for your family. So then the question, so when I, when you get down and you go, well, how much money do you need? If you're making 500 to a million dollars a year, you and your family probably have the resources to do pretty much anything and everything you want. Okay, great, so let's just say we get you to a million bucks a year or 500 grand. Okay, what? And you're going to hit that number. You're going to hit that number depending on how efficient you are at probably less than 10 million. So once you hit that number and you've kind of got these things that you guys were after, what's going to keep you attacking this hundred million dollar.

Goal.

When you, when you still have 95 million to go?

Yeah, that, that's the thing. And we see it over and over again, especially when people are about a number. And we tend to really and truthfully, like if we were going to get down to brass tacks, we really like break people's dreams apart. They come in thinking one thing and we're like, all right, so the. Why, why not 95 or 105 million? Why is it 100 million? And then they'll kind of pause for a second. A lot of times you'll get back, it's like some kind of achievement or they've accomplished something, you know, like they, that gets them in the top 10. Why, why is that important? Why is it important to be in the top 10? Do you feel like you need to prove something to somebody? Is that really what's going on. And we're digging is what we're digging doing, and we're trying to break that dream down to better serve the human.

Well, you've experienced that, right? So you, I mean, I don't think you, your company didn't get like 100 million or whatever, but you built one of those top 3% sized companies, you know, between 20 and 30 plus whatever, million a year. And you did that over some consecutive years, right? So you actually went through that experience of having a company that you kind of got to like a couple million and you got to a few more million and, and they were like, whew, here we go, right? You kind of did this thing that a lot of people want coaching to learn how to do. And you had some of those things. You were able to probably get some of the vehicles you wanted and the house you wanted and some of that stuff, right? Like, you, you got. What was that experience like for you when some of the goals that you and Michelle had got met and you had some of the toys, you had a beautiful place to live and you were hitting some of those big numbers. Like, what was that like for you? Were you like, oh, great, well, now it's time to push to 50 or it's time to push to 70, time to push to 100. What was that like for you?

I have told the story before. It was kind of a breakdown moment for me because I was sitting there, like, literally looking out at, I mean, we have a very nice long home on a lot of property in Wisconsin with all the toys and everything you could imagine, and none of them being used all that much. I had a boat there. There's like a $80,000 boat that we didn't use for three years. Like, it didn't touch the water. And I can remember asking myself, what more do I have to get? What more do I have to get to say I made it to prove everybody wrong, to whatever was actually really driving me at that point. And it wasn't any of that. I really had, I don't know if you want to call it a nervous breakdown, mental breakdown. I really think it was, it was existential crisis. Existential crisis, Yes. I really think it was God pounding on me. And I had a prayerful moment because what I realized that day, and you just heard me say it multiple times, everything was about me. I, I, I, I.

Did you recognize that, though? I mean, I know at this moment, right, but what I'm saying was that prior to that, was your mind thinking. Was your mind thinking my Purpose is to fulfill what I want through all my stuff.

No, what I was thinking about is that all the haters didn't think I could do it. So I was going to prove them wrong. That was my purpose. And there's that word, I again, right? I was going to prove them wrong. And so everything was a tool to me. And I was aware of that. I was mindful of it. But what, what I realized that day, the thing that changed in my life is it was not who I was. Who I was has always been the same thing, from the day one till today. And inside of me, I care. I care about people. I care about my fellow human being. Even though my actions may not show that at certain points in my life, that was where the disconnect was or the friction, this friction was happening between what I thought my purpose was and who I was. And I think that's where we need to start. I think we need to start with who. Because once I realized that I cared about people, that I could inspire people to achieve things that they didn't think was possible, that they didn't think they had the potential to do, and that I could do that through serving instead of taking, the whole world shifted for me and it became a lot less about gathering things, and it became much more about being generous with something that I had as a talent that I could freely give. And I could give it at work, I could give it at church, I could give it to the guy I passed on the street all the time, every day, all day long.

So this is, and this is what I'm hearing, because I'm going to give you a little bit of pushback on that.

Good.

It sounds to me like that was actually a shift in purpose. Like you had, you had a purpose in mind that you were going to prove the haters wrong. You were going to, you were going to prove the people who didn't believe in you wrong. You were going to achieve more than people thought you could achieve. You were gonna beat your chest a little bit and be like, aha, I am Jim Johnson. Hear me roar. Right? And then it sounds like there was a shift because it doesn't sound like your, your initial desire was to serve per se. You could, you can care about people and still be, still be pretty self centered. But it sounded like, like that initial purpose was probably to prove to yourself, I'm guessing, a little bit, as well as to prove to the haters that you can, you can do it. And then all of a sudden, for whatever reason, you realized, I mean, I did do it. Like, here I am looking at all this stuff. I mean, I don't get to use it, and I don't get to use it or do anything with it, but I got this beautiful property, this beautiful house, and then something clicked that shifted your. Your purpose. It sounds like a desire change because you had this desire to prove everybody wrong, and then all of a sudden, that desire took a bit of a. A pivot.

Okay, so I get to challenge back. Was it truly my desire? The original. It served me well. Don't get me wrong. That drive and the haters and all the other stuff served me very well from an outside perspective. From people looking at Jim Johnson and Michelle Johnson, they would see us and go, wow, those two really have it together. They got this amazing business. They've got all this stuff. I wish that I could be like them, but they didn't know how much friction there was on the inside with who I was versus what was after. And so while, yes, the pivot happened, from being after proving everybody wrong to being after serving everybody, the who was still there and that who is what.

I had to figure out what actually fulfilled. Yeah, Johnson. Right. Like, you thought this thing was gonna fulfill you, and then all sudden you realized, okay, that actually doesn't fulfill me. So there's even a deeper why. Right. Like.

Like, if I would have known who I was before that moment, I would have never gone through those things.

Do you think you still would have built what you did?

I think I would have built something better.

Hmm.

I think I would have built something better. More powerful, more impactful, and I likely would still be doing it today because.

It would continue to be fulfilling. See, it's an interesting thing because when I coach some of my folks, too, like, I tell people about the stuff that I've learned prior to coaching and the stuff that I know in coaching and the resources that we provide. And I tell people all the time, like, man, if I had this stuff, if I'd have had this. These resources stuff, like, when I was 16, 17, 18, my life would look radically different. Probably from a freedom and financial standpoint. However, I'm not convinced I wouldn't still be doing what I'm doing now.

Exactly. Because first off, we said it earlier, you're a little bit weird. Different bird. And so Nathan is. Nathan's what I call old soul. Like you. You.

You.

You think you take time, and that's really what I want to get across to a lot of people today, is to take some time, get into a quiet place, get all the distractions and all the other BS that goes on in our world that we're just constantly hearing noise and do like my friend Reggie Brock says, and just get quiet. Listen to that inner voice. A lot of us are avoiding it. We're avoiding that inner voice because we don't want to hear what it has to say. But if you will. If you'll take the time to get thinking in that vein, whether you're a spiritual person or not, you're going to hear some things. You're going to hear some things that might be friction, and you need to do something about them. You might hear some things that are, hey, I'm really more in line with this than that. Lean into that. That's the thing. Like, lean into that. And once. Once you kind of get there, I don't care what you do. If you're a roofer, a sprinkler guy, a lawyer, a cpa, when you know the who, like, what really gets you going, it's going to go very, very well, because you're going to imbue that into everything in your business. Because I strongly believe that everybody on this planet has drive. I think everybody on this planet has drive. And they're sitting there a lot of the time going, I don't know what to be driven to. I don't know what I'm about. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know my reason for being here. I don't know my meaning, my purp and all of those things. And a lot of that has to do with. Because they don't know who they are. But if they would take some time to. To think about that, to. To meditate on it, to reflect on it, to really think about what gives them joy.

Well, and you know, and honestly, like you mentioned Reggie earlier, he literally started a podcast around this, around this topic. Now his is a bit more intense. So I definitely recommend people go. Go check out Live Exposed podcast. I'm gonna pump that right now. Like, no sponsorship there. Just, hey, go check out our man Reggie Brock and his. And his podcast, because it's amazing and he really delves into this concept. And, you know, I think a little bit of what we're talking about here, though, is that, like, that is probably what. What Reggie's talking about is, is more step one to figuring out your why. I read the Simon Sinek book, and I thought it was a good book. It was well written. Okay. One of the things about this concept, and so for you business owners, as you're listening to this and Jim, you can help me out with this too a little bit. Is one of the major components of the things that he says in this book is. And if Simon Sinek listens to this, sorry buddy, but you DM me which I doubt this. He says people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. That's what he says inside the book. Problem is, I don't agree with that. Now I think it is true in general. I'll give you a couple quick examples, okay? And you guys can, you can tell me, Jim, where you fall on this. There's a company out there that builds like fishing apparel and it was a brother sister couple and they were their own models for their own clothing. And I don't know how I randomly bumped into who these people are. It was probably a Facebook ad or something that they were cleverly putting out there, but they had a product on there. And I was like, oh, this is cool. And as I looked in, it was like brother sister just starting an apparel company specifically for like water sports. And I was, I was out in, hanging out at my in laws lake place a lot at the time. And I was like, that looks like a cool thing that I would like reading their story. I'm like, that's super cool. That makes me want to buy their product even more. So I buy their product.

Products.

Great. Bought some products for my wife. Okay. I dug their story and I like what they were about. Okay. So I kind of bought their why. Certainly because I liked what they were all about. Juxtaposition. Apple, the technology company. Okay. Apple builds all these different products and all these different tools. And Apple, Apple is kind of. A lot of people hold Apple up as the pinnacle of, of establishing their why and having a story and a brand that they continually reinforce over and over again. Here's what I can tell you. It doesn't jive with me at all. For whatever reason, I don't click with Apple now. I'm not doing the Apple Android bs. Like, I just, just admit now I don't mind their problem. I mean their products are good, they're solid. But like, I don't buy their why. This just not doesn't click for me. Okay. What's interesting is that back in the day they did that commercial where they were trying to mimic 1984 where everybody was standing in line, you know, like a bunch of drones. And then they had a guy with an iPhone wandering around. What I think is funny, just as a joke is like whenever somebody releases the New iPhone. Guess what the iPhone people do. They all stand in one big giant line waiting for their iPhone. Anyway, I'm not trying to hate on Apple, but here's what I will say, right? Don't click with their why I have an iPad. I love this thing. I don't buy their why at all. I truly, in my opinion, the iPad is the best friggin tablet tablet on the market. I buy their what.

I have literally purposely tried to buy other tablets because I don't jive of their why. And every time I come back to the iPad because it's the best version, it is the what that I'm buying.

So that whole concept, as I read that book, that concept put me into a little bit of a tailspin because as a somewhat philosophical thinker, I tend to think that real value tends to come from the inside out, not the outside in. But that one, it just threw me for a loop because like, I don't really click with Apple, but I love my iPad. So I'm like, is what he's saying in this book right or wrong? I.

So I think the title of the book should have been different. I think the title of the book should have been Know your why, not necessarily start with your why. Because I think Steve Jobs knew who he was. I think he was very in touch with who he was. And because of who he was, Apple achieved some great things. And this is how I know this is a fact. It's not because of their why, it was because of his who. Because when you took him out of the equation, what happened to Apple?

They had problems.

They had problems. So he was very in touch with who he was. And because of that, who he was able to make the why happen because it was aligned with him.

How do you think, how do you think that translates to? How do you think these, these concepts were kicking around? How do you think that translates to an entrepreneur?

It's funny that you say that because the only thing that I can really use as, as a current example for that, because I'm not in the businesses like I would be if I owned it with the people that we coach. I can watch them. Okay, so we watch them, we stay up to date with them, we hold them accountable and we're engaged with them because there are, there are people, they're our community. And I can see the ones that connected with the who that I've coached. Like I've, I've gone to that level in that depth and peeled that onion all the way back, broke all of the dreams that they thought they had down to, hey, is that really what you're after? How does that make you feel if you do that? Like, really, in truth, what's that going to give you whenever you get done and we get down to it? And one of the best examples would be Avco with Heath Hicks. He's very aligned with his who, which is why his company has done what it's done, following the purpose thereafter, because that purpose is who he is inside. And because of who he is inside, he attracts people much like that that get aligned with that purpose, and they're all charging towards the same thing. I think it is literally in our business, like, infused in Contractor Coach Pro, because I just talked about how, like my who, what. Who I am is a person that inspires others to achieve their potential. I inspire them to believe in themselves. Our purpose that I did not come up with, but did as a team with you guys is empowering people to believe. If you don't think my who has a lot to do with our why, I would argue that till the cows come home, because my who attracted people that are much like me. And we're all about that. We're all about empowering people to believe, believe in themselves, believe in their business, and hopefully through all of that and seeing our actions and how we handle ourselves, our behaviors and our core values, believing that there's a higher power out there that's got our best interest at heart.

What's interesting, too is that that was. That empowering people to believe was a pivot from our previous kind of purpose statement, which was coaching contractors to win. And so what I think is interesting is that, like, that previous purpose statement was, I think, much more clear about our how. Like, this is. This is how. This is how we do things. We coach contractors to win. This is what we're all about, about this is what we do. And I think people would hear that and they go, oh, okay, I get it. So they're. They're. They're contractor coaches and they, they want to help us win. Whatever it is, we're. We're chasing great purpose statement for the purposes of marketing. So now we have this purpose name, empowering people to believe. That's less clear. I think if somebody hears that, they go, what do you mean? Like, you're going to have to explain that to me. And, and I think one of the tricks, though, is that I think that that that purpose statement that we have now, I think speaks more to us internally. And it's not necessarily a marketing tool because there's no clear marketing message or brand story in empowering people to believe. It's more of an internal inspiration about who we are and what we're about. And we can come up with all kinds of other cool sayings that we can put out there into the world that help to explain who we are and what we do. Right. Like growth, control, freedom. That's kind of a part of what we're after and our brand story of what we provide our clients. Empowering people to believe is the thing that comes to my mind when I get out of bed in the morning. I actually don't think control, growth, freedom. I get out of bed and I go in one way or another, I need to empower my team, I got to empower my clients. I want to empower our industry. I want to empower my community and the people around me to believe. Right. And that's the thing that's in my mind though our brand story is a little bit different.

That's because it's who we are. I think people get some insight into who we are and why we do what we do. From empowering people to believe. I think they knew how we did it with coaching contractors to win and a little bit of the what. So the what and how kind of go together. It sounds like the who and the why go together. And they don't necessarily have to be front facing. Like our front facing stuff right now really are marketing stuff. Like the way to like hopefully get them a bit of engagement from the community out there is you're sitting there as a contractor and you're looking for control in your business. You're wearing all the hats. It's chaos, there's drama, systems are broken, everybody's doing it different ways, which is just causing it to be worse and worse and worse. You want to solve that problem, you want control. And then once you get that control, you want to do what it was you set out to do with your business in the first place and grow that thing. And then it's various different reasons for why you want to grow it. It could be that you have some personal aspirations that you want to retire or you want to sell it, or it could be very outward inspiration, which is to help people grow to solve a world's problem, whatever it may be. But then in the very end, it's like this hat. You're looking for freedom. You're looking for the freedom to be who you are with who you want to be, where you want to be, when you want to do it. That's really what we're all kind of chasing. But if we don't figure out who we are, even if we achieve everything we thought we were going to achieve and set out to do and set as a goal and all that other good stuff, it just doesn't feel right.

Do you think it's, it's. It's apparent to me that figuring out kind of who you are as a process. I mean, I'm. I'm 41. Wouldn't call myself a spring chicken. I'm also not particularly old yet, but it's. I had. I have a better understanding of what I am now than. Than I did when I was like 22, 25. So I've got a clear understanding. Do you think. Why? Well, first of all, do you see that yourself? And then second of all, why do you think we don't just know automatically?

I don't. First off, I don't think we're challenged to know. I don't think we're asked to know. I don't think it's something that. Is something that's talked about very much now. I have. I'm observant. And whenever I'm starting to think about something, it's just like when you buy a car. You know, you buy a car and you drive the car down the road and you start to see all the other cars out there. Kind of like you, right? Oh, that same car I got. Never saw them before, man. There's a billion of them now. Well, we've been doing this for a while now, and I didn't notice the cars. I didn't see others really doing what we were doing. But now all of a sudden, there's. There's a few other cars out there. Reggie, with what he's doing, I'm. I could not be happier for that, man. I'll tell you another one. Eric Ober. Talk about being authentic to who you are. I mean, that's the title of his deal. Well, I can't say the title of his deal on our podcast, but his, his is authentic, let's just put it that way. And there are others talking about this. We're not the only people talking about this. And I'm starting to see more. I interviewed a guy, Ryan Kettering, that had some of this on his mind. We had a guy in our contractor fellowship deal. Like, it was shocked to me because I'm like, this is the stuff we're talking about. And it's kind of like spring is just coming out of winter, and that little wildflower just popped up. There's a little wildflower. And like, oh, there's a wildflower. That's pretty neat. That's cool. Spring is on its way. And then there was another wildflower and another one. And I'm hoping. I'm hoping that we see a field full of wildflowers going, hey, we gotta figure this out. We gotta figure out this who. Because I think when we get to our who, the selfish goes to selfless. I think really inside most human beings, we're not about ourselves, not as much as we think. What do you think about that? And if that's true, which I'm not 100% certain of just yet, but if that's true, that if we're listening to what's happening inside of us and who we are internally, and internally, we. We really do want to serve, bring joy, inspire whatever your talent may be, that's truly what we are wired to do. How much could that change what's going on in our world today? The division, the angst, the, you're over there and I'm over here. I think that's outside. I think the outside world has crept into our inside being and caused this division. I think we're chasing a lot of things that don't align with our who. They're all aligned with what.

My take's a little different on that. I think that. I think that people act in accordance with what they truly believe. I don't. I don't. I think that people will. They'll tell you something different, but their actions are. I think most people, their actions are very much aligned with what they actually believe in. Now, what you believe may shift and change over time, but I don't. I don't believe that we truly act against our own self interest. Now, like, somebody might say, well, you do things you don't want to do. And I'm like, not necessarily. Like, I don't enjoy brushing my teeth. I'm not like, oh, this is just the greatest thing on the planet. This is amazing. Right? No, I don't want my teeth to fall out of my head. So there's another thing behind why I brush my teeth. I like my teeth and I like to keep them there. So we will, like, we don't like going to work. We don't. But we do like paying our bills, and we like having a couple bucks in our pocket. Okay. And I think that. I think that what people generally will act in accordance with their beliefs. Now, sometimes their beliefs get challenged, and I think the best way for somebody's beliefs to get challenged quite frankly, is in this type of a format, I don't think jumping on Twitter or Facebook is a, is a great way to do it. You just, you would, you would say something to somebody that you might get punched for, but you'll do it online, but you wouldn't do it face to face. And so that, I think, has this weird effect on human beings. And so I think people should get their beliefs challenged. They should be open to those things. And I think the power of your own thinking should come. Like if you, if you postulate an idea, can you argue against your own idea with your own mind? Can you act like somebody who doesn't believe in your idea and break it down that, that power? Like, like if somebody came to me and said, well, Nathan believes this, and if I could argue against myself as strong as somebody else, now I have the ability to do some really powerful self reflection and I can even challenge my own beliefs. But often, very often, I hear somebody say something, I'm like, that's interesting. I don't know if I agree with that, but now I got to sit and think about it. But I don't, I don't think that if people just start peeling the onion of themselves, they're going to find this beautiful little gold nugget at the center.

Okay, I'm going to challenge that back. You, when you first said it, you said what they truly believe is what they act on. And I would agree with that. That at that time and in that place, they truly believe in this thing. So they take these actions. But when it, when it all comes to the end, or the fruition or the achievement or whatever you want to call, or even sometimes during that journey, there's doubt, depression, fear, just. You don't think it's right. You're uncomfortable in a bad way, not a good way. What you believe in isn't aligned with who you are. You said it yourself, our beliefs change over time. We challenge ourselves and we think about it. We take some time, we spend some time on ourselves and we challenge this belief that I believe that I'm supposed to prove to everybody that they were wrong and I'm going to show them. I challenged that belief and my belief became something else. It was time to start serving. And as soon as that pivot was made, the who and me really came out. The who and me was having friction. Now it was no longer having friction. I wake up every day excited as heck to get out there and do some amazing things. What we're working on right now, the things that are going on in our business. I have not been this excited in a long time just to be talking about this today. It brings me amazing amounts of joy to have a conversation like this that kind of pulls the veil back a little bit on what happens here inside of our building. And these conversations that we have that are not only focused on us internally and our contractors externally, but the human being in general. Everybody, we want to, we want to have impact above and beyond just our coaching thing. Like, it's great. Don't get me wrong, man, we want you contractors, be successful, generate income, grow as much as you want to grow and achieve some amazing things.

But we don't want you, we don't want you to hit some of those big giant mile markers and still find yourself sitting on the side of your bed with a bottle and a gun.

And you say it that way and we, we almost kind of joke about it, but it's the reality of it. I've had that phone call, I mean, literally had that phone call that I'm done, I can't do this anymore. And I'm like, you're calling the wrong guy. First off, let's start there. But if you're going to talk with me, put the gun down. Those are the moments that we do this for because that impact on that human being, to help him find out who he really is, versus the things he's trying to gain and achieve because he thinks that's what the outside world wants him to do. Those are the things that just. And I, I jump out of bed every morning. I'm getting up even earlier every day because I'm like, hey, we got things to do. We got people to help find themselves. We got people to break their dreams. We want to make it click, right? Like, hey. And I don't think that's a one time moment in our lives. I don't think it's a moment where you go, I got it all figured out. I know who I am and I know why I'm going to do what I'm going to do and I'm going to go do it. I think as we grow. Because you talked about being younger, right? Like, why don't we know when we're younger? I think that subconsciously we know who we are, but it hasn't come out yet. And I think, funny enough, I think if more parents would really be observant of their kids. Like, I know who my kids are because this is something I'm aware of, I'm mindful of, and I know who they are and I. And I can see them actually fulfilling all those things I thought they were going to be and who they are. And I can also see all the things where it's not lining up with who they really are because they're making the same mistakes and chasing the same things that I chased. But I can't go to them and tell them that. I can be there to listen and when that thing happens and bring in some insight. But kids and parents, they tend to do the opposite of whatever you say.

So I tend to think that discovery, though, requires experience. I don't know that. I don't know that. Even. Even if you put a bunch of focus on trying to discover who you are at the age of 15. Like, I just. I don't know that it's possible. Like, if they'd be, like, me trying. It's like, so I like to run. It's just a thing. And there is this concept of a runner's high. And when you explain that to somebody, it's like once you push past your initial energy level and once your. Once your cardio rate starts to settle down a little bit and your heart rate becomes more even and your body is kind of like, oh, okay, we're doing this now, and we're going to do this for a while. And, like, we're going to run for an hour, two hours. And your brain and your body start to get that figured out. Like, it settles into this place. And then oftentimes you'll get this endorphin kick. And it's almost like. It's almost like you can't even feel yourself running right. So I'm explaining this. Somebody who's never done that has. Does not know what I'm talking about. I can tell you, man, it's there, it's there, it's there, it's there. I gotta tell you, Tom, blue in the face. And you do not understand what it is I'm talking about till you've experienced it. And what's funny is, like, once you've experienced it, you kind of start chasing that dragon a little bit because it's a. It's, it's. It's nice, but. But, like, somebody can't hear me say that and go, oh, okay, I get it. I understand why runners run.

Like, so are you. So are you saying it's. It's not valuable to have that conversation without gaining some experience first?

No, I think the conversation should be had. Right. But here's the thing. Like, I can identify things happening in my life that my dad was like, hey, this is a thing. This is a thing. This is a thing. And I'm like. And I was not a disrespectful kid. I was like, okay, like, I believe you, Dad. I believe you, right? And as I got older, I was just like, dad says these things, and then eventually things are happening. I'm like, oh.