Business is Like Sports—You Must Pivot and Shift to Keep Winning with Ace Lane

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidel and let's get started. I'm here with Ace Lane and we're talking about the major focus of his business career. I would imagine right now you said you had like three or four focuses going, but the development and, and so when you got this right from the beginning, when you left your competitive sports career, you immediately kind of. It sounded like you started the business when you got the land all at the same time. Is that about right?

I started a little bit before that because I knew I was going to be transitioning and I was really freaked out about what the next steps were going to look like because I'd been training so hard for so many years and I wasn't sure where I was going to go. And I had done a lot of other jobs during that time working for other people, which I of course learned a lot. Carpentry and sales and things of that nature.

Yeah, you wind up when you're there is an off season and in ski racing and you know you're talking about coming off the nine year pro ski racing career. Not everybody's making a fortune on those things. So you have to do a little bit of everything to survive, I guess.

No, you're right. So I was a carpenter for a number of summers. I also did. I was also logging earlier and I was trying it but. And I was also in sales and I was also was a cook in a restaurant in Snowmass.

You know, it's interesting how all of those things along with those sports, all those skill sets come into play now because opens the door for you to do a project like this because you're going to build it but you have to, you know, sell it. So you're going to have to have some hand in the marketing and all. Where did you. How did the vision of this thing started? Because you said it took 10 years for you to get up to. What is that, 130 employees or. My mind is.

I, I think our Max was 148 and I had an office here and an office in Santa Barbara and it just seemed like a natural place for us to be in both. Sorry.

Yeah. So you expanded and took the architectural landscape design thing and figured we'll take a stab at California.

Yeah. Which worked out great. We got to do some fun work out there and. And then I started getting involved in energy startups and things of that nature around 05. And it was very fun. I really enjoyed it. And so I ratcheted back huge we had a good run in landscape design, build art, the whole thing. So I decided that I wanted to just focused on building, designing and building green communities and at that. So I ratcheted way back down to probably like 35 employees and just focused on a couple of outside jobs and.

Yeah, what took it from. One thing I'd like you to talk about the idea of, you know, you have to constantly shift and adapt in life if you're going to excel. Because not every idea we have is going to be the greatest and not every opportunity is going to last forever. And what looks good on the front end, it might actually be great the way you imagine it for a while, but then things kind of fall apart, you know, because life changes. We are on a spinning planet. And to a large extent, it's like your sports career in soccer, the great coaches are great game managers. They're situational managers. They, you know, you got a game going, you got a team on the thing. You can't say, oh, we need to go draft some more players. I mean, you gotta, you gotta make it happen with who you've got. You know, you might have some kids injured, you might have. Your star player, might be having a bad day and whatever, but somehow you gotta call a shot if you're going to win that game. And in life you have a lot of the same kind of things. And so what I've heard so far as you make it, adjustments, you know, you came out of the, the ski racing, you got this piece of land, you got it going on architectural, landscape and design and growing trees, things that pursued you, but you had to make adjustments along the way, right? I mean, there's something you have to learn. You learn and you realize when you're up to 148 employees that you could never imagine when you, it was just you starting out that, that informed you, making some of these other, other adjustments. Is that right?

Oh, it's constantly shifting. It's like, to me, it feels a lot like sports. You have to be able to pivot and shift right away and not stay. At least for me, if I sometimes when I did stay stuck is when I, you know, failings. So like sport. I did have to shift a lot and I did coach soccer for quite a while during, during this time. And I, I had a lot of success not because I was a. Had this wide knowledge of soccer. I think a lot of it came from. Because the players knew I was in it with them. They knew that I loved them and I cared about them and I believed in Them and I was in the trenches with them, but I don't necessarily think I was the best tactical coach, but, but I do. We did have a good, you know, connection, which was great.

And all your careers in coaching, did you notice coaches that you could tell did not have that same commitment that you're talking about here? You'd seem like it would seem like that would be a given at higher level, more serious levels of sport, that which is where you were competing at and spending your time. But was that, is that something that a missing ingredient that a lot of coaches don't seem to understand or be able to convey to their team?

Well, you know, in my lifetime I've seen a big shift in coaching and it seems like they're really great coaches. And when I was coaching, I was always watching other coaches and what they were doing and I would learn a lot from them, you know, tactically and just drills and how they talked. And I studied it quite a bit. But I did find that the way you communicated and if they felt like you were with them sincerely, that was a game changer. And when I watch sports now, the best coaches seem to know how to inspire each player and have them work together. And that's amazing. So I admire that quality of being able to get people to be inspired and work together and bring out their absolute best. When things are rugged or when things are great.

Well, you know, you find a business ace that people are usually either like really good solo performers or they're really good coaches. And what you've done is gone in your life. You've gone to where you were the guy like you saying, winning the, that season in the pro skiing tour, you know, you're the guy, everybody caters to you and you're the star. And then you go to where you know you're trying to, you're the support role. You know, it's a total flip over. And you got to do that in business, you know, that's the way businesses, you know, launch a business. You got to do everything yourself because you're the, you know, you're the one man band, you're, there's no one else to call. You got to do it. But as you settle into a successful pattern of using your day, your week, your month, your year, you start to have success and you run out hours in the day. So you start gradually adding people to your team and you go through a gradual transformation. Like in your case, you said you went from 1 to 148 over about a 10 year period of time. Most People are not good at making that change. And were the things that you had to have talks with yourself or the things that you maybe learned that made it easier for you to do that because you had observed your coaches and learned from coaches and learned to look at situations through your coach's eyes rather than just being the star of the team?

Yeah, I've learned a lot from my coaches. They. They were so supportive of. Of me. And I learned. I mean, and in business, I mean, it all. It. I mean, it all applies to life and business, and I mean, it all feels like the same thing to me. But I also found that I'm. I'm not. I'm a good. I'm a great manager of people that don't need to be managed. So I try to hire people.

There you go. There you go.

Try to hire people that are much better at me in a lot of areas and want freedom and that. If I can find that right. Mixture. Wow. It's a lot of harmony.

I don't think this has ever come out on my podcast. One of the great fears of doing these things. Aces. Is you feel like you're just repeating yourself and telling the same stories. But I don't know if this has come out before, but I found in business, if I ever had a manager who was doing whatever he was doing, it was so infuriating that I had to address it. And I got to the point where I had to ball him out. I found out the only thing that happened from that was I felt better. But he never changed. It was all right to ball him out. But just what I learned was I just don't think this is going to accomplish anything. Good. Because what he has shown you is he has got to go. Because if you got someone in there that you've got to constantly explode at or check up right behind them all the time, they just don't need to be. They need to be somewhere else. And I like that phrase. And I'm a great coach of people that don't need a lot of coaching.

Yeah, no, I. I'm not good at the other. I'm not a good micromanager or watching people or. It just, like, this is what we got to do. Let's go. Get it done. This is your part. I'm not going to watch you that much, but I have high expectations and sometimes it works great. And sometimes, you know, I'm like, okay, this isn't working. I gotta. I gotta shift.

Yeah. And talk about that. You know, we've got so much good content Here, I feel like I need to wrap it up, but I do want to get, get your comments on being willing to shift and recognize reality. Like you said, you know, you had the business going successfully in Colorado, but you saw an opportunity to get into what, Santa Barbara, which is beautiful place, and probably all of your work has been burned up now due to the fires. I hate to tell you.

Some of it has, which is unfortunate.

Unfortunate. But it'll grow back eventually. The thing is that, you know, you shifted. You learn things from going from 0 to 148 employees, then you're looking at the next 10 years and you're saying, hmm, I think I want to do this, I think I want to do that. I want to reposition my assets and, and where I spend my time, I allocate my time. You know, I don't need this. You know, we're doing this, but it's really not, not very satisfying and not very rewarding in any kind of way. So we're not going to do that anymore. But we've got an opportunity here. We're going to throw our energy behind. You have to make those kind of adjustments, otherwise you get stale, don't you?

Yeah, no, I agree. In the, I mean, in every part of life, it feels like that. And all the startups I worked with, and I'm still working with a number of them, the ones that succeed, there's obviously a variety of great ingredients, but the one really great quality of the ones that succeed are the ones that when they come across obstacles, they will shift, they'll pivot. The ones that get stuck have less likely chance of surviving. All the obstacles that are going to come up that you have no idea they're going to come, come up. So I've learned a lot from them. And I mean, I've learned, I've had so many mentors and so many people I watched and have worked with, and so many people much brighter, more talented. And I, you know, I, I applaud them. I think it's great to, to do that. And the tree farm project itself is, the ideas are there to be successful and, and to take it to another level, but I also, I want to take it to another level wherever I go next. And I want other people to build projects that are way better than mine. I want to keep upping it, making it better for everybody. So that's part of the idea.

Yeah. Fantastic. Well, thanks for sharing and we're going to wrap this up and soon. I want to get back in touch with you and let's talk about successful startups because everything, you know, life, you can look at life as a series of one project after another, whether it's in your personal or your business life, things you want to accomplish and other than just eating, sleeping and breathing is like, now what are you going to do with, you know, with your life? And you got to have some accomplishments and you got to have projects that make those things happen. And so when you get going, you got to start it up. And so startups is something where we're always doing and I want to get your insights, what you've learned from being involved in so many startups, if you're open to that. So thanks so much, Ace.

Thank you. I hope I didn't talk too much. I appreciate you having me on. I'd be happy to talk about my experience with startups anytime.

Okay. That was fantastic. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wydell. If I've helped you in any way, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. For more information like this, listen to our other Million Dollar Mastermind episodes and check out my Wydell Academy YouTube channel and visit us on widelawnwinning. Com. I'm the Million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time, go, go, go.