Contractor Radio Summer Series Introduction

Hey, everybody, it is Jim Johnson here, your host with Contractor Radio and the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, where we help contractors get control of their business so they can grow their business and find that personal and financial freedom that they were chasing in their business. And so I wanted to do something special for the summer. And so this summer what I'm doing is I'm putting together a series of podcasts from the contractor contractors that are out there doing special things, doing something unique, different, that I believe would be helpful to you, either from a business perspective or from a human perspective, or maybe even both. My guest today is an amazing human being. I've gotten to know him over the last few years. They are one of our clients. But more than that, he's in a. In a small group with me. He's been a strong influence on me. I've liked to, I like helping him do what he does and I cannot wait to bring him in. But before we do that, we gotta keep the lights on around here and all that good, fun stuff. Here's a little word from our amazing Premier Atlas.

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Hey, everybody, welcome back. A little word from Atlas there. If you guys are in the roofing industry out there and you haven't checked out Atlas Atlas yet, get with your local rep. They have brought some new innovation to the game this year that will give you a proprietary advantage out there in the field. Worth you checking them out for sure. Now, today we're going to be talking, like I said, with a contractor that means a lot to me. One of those guys that is just more than a client. He's a great human being. And welcome to the show. Dos Russo. How are you, man?

Thank you, Jim. I'm doing well. It's my honor to be with you.

Yeah. You are the founder of Clean Cut Roofing there in Tyler, Texas, Longview, Texas, right Like, that's all kind of one city. Tyler, Longview, Kilgore, all that. Like, the. If people don't know that are outside of Texas, that's where oil was a big thing. Like, it was originally discovered, I believe, in southeast Texas. But Kilgore was, like the central mecca for it. And so there's a lot of oil guys around there. Still a heavy influence on the. On the area, right, Das?

Very much so, yeah. When oil prices are high, we tend.

To do better around here. Everybody needs a new roof. It's perfect. So, Das, can you do us a favor? Just give us a little background. You've been running businesses here in the States for quite a while. But, like, tell us the story. Like, how did you get here to the States in the first place? And then why Texas?

Yeah. So I was born and lived my first 20 years of life in South Africa. My parents still live there. My siblings still live there. But after I finished high school and then finished my service in the military, we were. It was mandatory at that time. Two years. I came to the US for an adventure, and I was 20 years old. And believe it or not, I'm still on that adventure today.

Yeah, you're only supposed to be there a year, right?

Yeah, one year. And turned into 35 later. But, yeah, the U.S. has been. This country has been extremely good to me, and I. I had no idea that, you know, I would be where I'm at today in Texas, nor in my family life and my business life and. And the many friends and associations that I've been afforded. So, yeah, I'm full of gratitude, and I always look forward to the future. I've been in roofing probably 30 years now and did my phone. Was that me? I'm gonna put mine on airplane mode. I think that'll help.

But for whatever reason, my watch decided to start vibrating, which. I'm gonna take that thing off, and we're just gonna throw it across the room like that.

You're out of here. So, yeah, I lived in Connecticut my first 10 years, which is like a whole nother country, really. You know, if any of you ever lived in the north or northeast, more specifically, it's a very different culture. And for me, when I moved to Texas ten years later in 1997, it was. It was like, yes, I was still in the US but it was coming to a different country altogether, really. And from then on, I always told my friends or anybody that would ask me, you know, do you like Connecticut or Texas better? I said, man, there's no comparison. Just come south. Don't venture up to the north unless you're like growing hair on your teeth or something. You know, it's a rough place to start out, you know, but I guess.

It'S all my Connecticut listeners. Sorry.

If you live up there and you're doing well, more power to you. But man, it was rough coming from Africa to, you know, New York, Connecticut. That was difficult. But yeah, it caused me to have to grow up fast. And then, yeah, I'm thankful I'm in Texas and thankful for, you know, the business that we have, the businesses we have and the family and the friends. And this last year has been especially great because, you know, I was introduced to you and your work probably three, four, five years ago. But I'm thankful you guys have added a lot to my perception and my vision and moving forward. I treasure that relationship. So, yeah, here we are, both of us in Texas. Are you allowed to tell people you live in Texas?

Yes, I am. I'm born and raised here. I grew up in north side of Houston, Texas. Then I met a girl from Wisconsin who tricked me into moving to Wisconsin. She took me up there in July and said, hey, this is Wisconsin. It's green, beautiful, rolling hills, rivers everywhere. I'm like, what kind of fish you got in the rivers? And there's trout, which is my favorite thing in the world, fly fishing. I'm like, I could live here. This is beautiful. I love the pace and everything. I love the people. It was awesome. And so we decided to move. We moved up on December 1, her birthday. It was six degrees outside. I had never ever been anywhere where it was a single digit temperature in my life up until that point. They lowered. Lowest I had ever seen was 19 degrees. And I was like, this is not a temperature. This is a score in a baseball game. This is not good. I don't know if I want to do this. Three weeks later it was 44 degrees below zero. Actual temperature. Not wind chill or any of that kind of stuff. Actual temperature. I can remember coming downstairs because we were staying with my in laws and I go, oh, it's cold outside. He goes, yeah, it's pretty cold. I said, what's temperature? He goes, negative 44. I go, that's no, that, that's wrong. Why does anybody live here? This is terrible. How do you do? I freeze to death if I just walk outside? Am I like a statue? He's like, no, no, it doesn't work like that because hasn't been this cold in 50 years. You got it out in the very first year. Like, you're good. You're gold from this point forward. So two years later, it's wintertime again. I walk down the stairs at my house now, and I look at the thermometer that has the, like, indoor outdoor thing, because you don't want to be outside actually looking at a thermometer.

Yeah.

And it was negative 55, 30 in the morning. I called him and I said, you're a damn liar. Again, that thing happened. And so that's my story about being in Wisconsin. I was there 18 years. The I can remember being out in March and shoveling snow over my head off of the driveway. And I walked inside and went, honey, I'm done. I did 18 years. I can't do this anymore. I gotta get back where there's sun, grass, you know, songbirds and stuff like that. We can come visit the snow, but we gotta get out of there. So moved back to Texas 10 years ago, back to Houston, went, holy cow, I forgot how hot and sweaty it is here. I don't like that either. And so we were going to move to Colorado and we went, wait, that's too far from the kids. There's going to be grandkids. So we will stay close. We'll just go west, See a cactus. And we found that in New Braunfels, Texas, Much drier, much better. And then my oldest daughter decides to up and move to Colorado and take my grandkid there. So now we go to Colorado all the time. So I know they had nothing to do about rooting, but good story about our Texas experience, Sam.