Disaster-Proof Tunnels and Buildings: Kayhan Zirhlioglu, the World’s #1 GeoForming Expert | EP#142

The magic is not the product itself.

Yep.

The magic is which material to use, when and how to manipulate that material in such a way that it doesn't harm the environment, it doesn't also harm the surrounding structures. And do the work at the most efficient and most effective way possible.

Right. Imagine that Hoover Dam suddenly had a leak in it, or any, any dam. And that's bad. And it turns real bad, real fast. And this can affect the water supply. Like a lot of people die. And as you said earlier, if a giant highway that's connecting two countries together stops a whole economy can shatter.

Yeah, yeah. Look at it. From asbestos to so many things you can count that the cheaper solutions turn out to be much more expensive. Yep.

Comes down to reputations, time, money, and human lives. Yeah, for sure. Yep, for sure.

Everyone, welcome to another episode of Capability Amplifier. This is Kyan. And this is going to be a lot of fun. Super interesting. So, on June 24, 2021, a condominium collapsed in Miam, Florida, killing 98 people. This disaster was caused by water getting into concrete and rebar rusted, weakening the structure. On February 6, 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in southeast Turkey, where my guest actually is from Turkey. It destroyed thousands of buildings and over 50,000 people perished. This disaster could have been prevented by understanding soil principles, something called geoforming. Now, a tunnel collapse outside of Tokyo, Japan in December 2012 killed nine people when a 360 foot section of concrete fell, dropping pieces that were 160 to 200ft long and 8 inches thick. Most tunnel catastrophes are caused by the disruption of existing ground during or after construction. So what do these disasters have in common? Fighting with Mother Nature and put simply, water and ground conditions. Water is the ultimate solvent. And throughout all of human history, since building structures above or below ground, water can enter soil or structure and weaken buildings and tunnels. The solution is something called geoforming. Geoforming is preparing ground. Think of it like a cake for building and tunneling. It has to be stable, have a proper crust, be able to slice properly and last as long as possible. And if you don't prepare the ground cake properly, you're put into the unfortunate situation of preventing a disaster, which means quickly stopping water from getting in, preventing it from ever getting around. And that's what my next guest is the best in the world at. Cayenne and his company, Geoform, are the fastest, most efficient in the world at stabilizing soil while stopping and preventing water disasters before, during and after construction, above and below the ground. So the Best part of my job is the exposure I get to people and ideas I didn't even know existed. So Kyan is an example of this. And if anyone can make dirt interesting, it's him, because what he does affects all of us. So welcome Kyan. Nice to have you here today, my friend.

Thank you. And thanks for inviting me.

You got it. Now, it's been you and I have had now three days together and we originally met through our mutual friend John Assaraf, one of my favorite people on the planet. And when I met you, you lit up because we got exposed to each other. Basically because I was talking about AI.

Yeah.

And you have this huge vision for what you want to do, how you want to affect really humanity. And what you do affects everyone who lives in a civilized society. So I think the best place to begin before we get into your background is what exactly is geoforming and what do you do every day?

Well, in very simple terms, geoforming plugs, leaks and keeps water away. So every day we solve complex water disasters caused by improper geoforming faster than anyone in the world. Okay.

And so at the end of the day, and because I've gotten exposure to what you guys do, you have these really cool systems and processes. In some cases.

The soil or earth is all messed up in a certain way and you either have to tunnel or build something on top of it, or when you're moving stuff around, you've got these really cool earth friendly tools and chemicals that like basically turn earth into jello so you can scoop it out really easily. And ultimately this is all broken down into some really cool products. But for the layperson, and maybe the way I'll frame this for you right now is I want you to imagine that you get a call by cnn, Fox, MSNBC, or Congress for that matter, and a major disasters happened and either a building fell down, tunnel collapsed, lots of people perished. For you, what's the biggest or worst disaster that you've ever had to fix?

Well, actually the reason I got into the geoforming business and I explained you this is a new business for me, we've been now doing what we are doing for four years and expanding. Now, the biggest disaster we fixed are not the huge disasters yet because we are getting our act together and we are getting what I mean by we are getting our act together as we are getting prepared so that such disasters don't happen. Every day we solve problems in tunnels. Every day we solve problems in oil and gas pipeline lines, infrastructure construction, and we will be perhaps going after mines, too, Wherever the human beings live, there is water. And wherever human beings live, we are close to lakes or rivers. And a lot of time in the past, I was even myself, I was thinking that a lake is like a bathtub or a river is like a bathtub. But unfortunately, or fortunately, it is not. What we see is just what we see in front of us. But actually, wherever the river is, or see the water is everywhere.

Yep.

It goes sometimes 1 meter below, sometimes it is only feet below, sometimes 5 meters below. Sometimes we are really actually standing on top of lakes. So I can tell you some stories where we were called for a very small problem. But we have seen that after the digging, the contractor had a problem of digging. After three feet, he got into water, and then he was trying to stop that water. But we have seen that 30ft below, there was nothing. Yeah. Just after he digged, he actually got into a lake. Oh, yeah. So we have solutions that we create a barrier there and solid standing so that he can build. And it was going to be a pump station. And that pump station had to be there for certain reasons. And when they understood what the problem is, they had no other choice, but we could fix that. So this is one of the problems we fixed. I mean, it was like a small problem, turned out to be a major problem for the other.

Right.

And then we were called for some very small problem. Okay, I have a leak here. Can you fix. Help us fix this. We found out that the construction piles, you know, when you are making a large construction under the ground, or even for the large buildings, high rise buildings, you have to dig deep. And when you dig deep, you have concrete columns. You have to. You create a area that is safe for people to work and for your building to build. And if those piles are not properly done, if the water is coming in between, you cannot build your construction. So we went into, for example, one tunnel, one metro station, subway station construction. We spent three months there, because whole area, wherever they were excavating, they were finding that those concrete piles were not really the concrete.

Oh, man.

Yeah. They were not holding the earth or the water away. So we had to stabilize the whole area so that they could continue excavation. Okay, so another big area was, for us, a big disaster could have been.

A lot of times. I can tell you this. The biggest issue is we underestimate. We are human beings and we underestimate what can go wrong under the ground. I have a motto. Expect the unexpected underground. And this is a reality. Wherever we go, this is the same problem again. And Again, we face the same issue.

Yep, tons and tons of unpredictable things for sure. So I want you to imagine for a moment you got called up by CNN or Fox or MSNBC or Congress for an interview because a major disaster happened from a building collapse or it could be a tunnel collapse. So I want to know what the biggest or worst disaster you've ever had to fix is. You get called in, something horrible happens. What'd you do?

Well, luckily we were not called for such a matter, but we've been called to a lot of other disasters that could have turned into a major disaster. I'll give you two examp examples. One, think about the subways. Subway construction about 10 miles and in the middle there is a station. And if that station is not able to be built, the complete subway cannot work. Yep. And this station was stuck. When they came to excavation, they were not able to proceed. And they had a lot of people coming, even from Europe, from the US to fix it. They couldn't fix it. So we went in and we solved that problem. Think about the. I can just tell you that if we were not there, perhaps that could have been taken them another year to fix or two years, we don't know. But that was a major issue that we fixed. And when we fixed it, we fixed it in such a way that we also provided them the opportunity for future collapses. But because the problem was much, much bigger than just the problem that they were not able to excavate, it was a much bigger problem. If we did not do what we did, it could have collapsed and killed a lot of people. Okay, that was one. Got it. Another issue, another project that there had to be a tunnel, a short tunnel perhaps, but so important tunnel. But it had to go under the most congested highway intersection in North America, under 21 lanes. And the problem was if that highway stopped, Canada would stop. Oh yeah, yeah. So it was such a lives in danger, but it's also the economy in danger. Yeah. So we made sure that the area has turned into a cake. Like you really explained it well so that the construction proceeded on time and within the budget and perfectly completed.

Got it. So I know we're going to tear into some specifics here, but I at least wanted to begin there. That again, over the past three days I've had a chance to really sink into your work and see all the things you do. And one of the things that we did prepare for everyone is a master class. It goes into the real details. But the bottom line is what you're really good at is Predicting disasters and knowing that, you know, just by being able to look at the ground, you can predict either what's going on that's not visible or what's going to happen and predict it. And being able to deal with that with some really, really fascinating tools and systems. And I want to zoom in on one thing that we looked at and on this. If you're watching the video, I'm going to have this playing in the background while you describe it. But it's this video of you and your team at a trade show, and it's this tube filled with gravel, and there's water going through it. And the way the illustration looks, you can see the water passing through, and there's no resistance 100%. And one of your guys goes up and connects this hose with a substance in it. And within it looks like a minute, minute and a half, it seems to solidify, and then water stops going through it. Which is a pretty good illustrative example of. Imagine that Hoover Dam suddenly had a leak in it, or any. Any dam. And that's bad. And it turns real bad, real fast. And this can affect the water supply. Like, a lot of people die. And as you said earlier, if a giant highway that's connecting two countries together stops, a whole economy can shatter.

Yeah.

So this is an example of that. And you guys are able to plug temporarily or permanently, but also prevent that kind of thing from happening. So why don't you describe what's going on in that video and what this stuff is? Because it's Earth friendly. Also. That's another big aspect of what you do.

Well, you got a wide arsenal of products and tools and methodologies. So basically what we do there is showing to everyone how fast we can stop the flow of water. So the material is not. It's our magic, I can tell you. Yeah, but the. This is not the magic. The magic is not the products itself.

Yep.

The magic is which material to use when and how to manipulate that material in such a way that it doesn't harm the environment, it doesn't also harm the surrounding. Build structures and do the work at the most efficient and most effective way possible.

Right, right. And it's pretty amazing because again, stopping water is one thing, and then moving porous muck, you know, like if you're digging and you got to build something on top of it, and then there's a bunch of weather things going on. Weather's temporary, but what's below, like you said, a meter or two below, can affect so many things. So I'm Going to ask you another question because something I'm really, really interested in and fascinated by are first principles. Elon Musk has first principles, Socrates has first principles. And the basic premise is these are fundamental building blocks of thought. And if you operate with first principles in mind, you make good decisions quickly and you're very much a first principles logical Gu. So why don't you share the geoforming first principles? And there's only three, but you also have ten commandments which we'll get into in a little while because this again, this is this world where I think like biology. You know, you don't understand biology. If you're a young kid until you look through a microscope and you're like, oh, there's this massive universe that I can't see. It's this invisible universe. You geoforming is just like that. There's this universe you don't see, but then when you get exposed to it, you can't unsee, you can't unthink it.

Yeah.

So what are the first principles?

Well, just before that I'll mention something very simple. For me, I like to see what is complex in the world and see how, what are the fundamental major small things. If you do them right, then the rest will take care of itself.

Yes.

And when you come to geoforming, whenever, when you come to building anything, you have to understand two things. One thing is the ground has to be stable, you have to keep it stable. And the second thing is you have to keep the water away. And the third thing is whatever you are doing, you should not be causing any damage to the environment, which means that you have to avoid swelling at the same time. Settlement. So one is you make something and by swelling you hurt or settlement you do something, but it collapses. Other, other.

Other buildings, other structures or the same building. The fastest way to 10x to build a project, if I may say it, to fix it right at the beginning.

Right, right.

The rest is all band aids. And we are seeing this all around us. And this is mainly the reason I got into this business too, because I like to see what is complex. I have a God given gift. Gift has two meanings, you know it. The gift is I can see the forest and the smallest stone in it and all the interrelations between the stones and the trees. Yes, that's my God given gift. And then from there I come to okay, what are the small things that we do? Right, What I told you are not small things though these are major things. Yes, but people usually unfortunately do not always see how they are related.

Yeah. And they don't understand. Like for example, when we were talking about, I use that example of the pipe, for example, with all the rocks in it and you guys injected this material and suddenly the water stops. That could save a lot of lives and save a fortune. But that in itself is a band aid. Now what's important is that's a band aid that could be semi permanent because like if you had concrete and, and you couldn't just pour concrete into something that's wet and is going to stay wet, right? You've got to have this special material you have. But also.

It doesn't swell. So if you put that in a normal pipe, concrete for example, can swell. Or if the, if there's steel rebar in it and it's rusty, that can disintegrate and it's just a matter of years before the whole building can come down or whatever happens. Again, that's a temporary band aid fix like you. So the variables here are what matters most. So I think one of the best ways that we can move forward so folks can understand what you do and how you think is by using some real life case studies. And you've got a massive client, you can't mention names. One of the things that you have to do, I understand the nature of it is when you're dealing with these high risk situations, other people's brands are at stake and no one's going to want to talk about a disaster that they like. The kind of calls you get are we have something horrible happening and no one can hear about this. Okay. You know, it's like terror. It's sort of like aliens could land. You're better off not talking about the aliens, you know, sometimes keeping it secret. Well, I understand that point of view, actually.

Whether our clients speak about that or not, we keep it quiet when it is disaster recovery, you don't want to talk about it, right?

So, so let's frame this up with a really, really, really big company.

And you get a call and you got a challenge. And again, so often you're, you guys get called like an emergency room visit and then you have to explain, okay, I, I, I, I don't want to fix and apply another band aid because you're going to be calling me up a year from now or three years from now or someone's going to die or you're going to run out of money or you're going to see a budget increase of 10x, then you do it, right? Unless someone's worked with you and then they're like, now you're the first one they call because they need a partner who's going to make sure it's done right in the first place. But you get these calls and because you have a system and a process, you figure out the right. It's like the right Lego to use at the right time.

Yes.

To fix a challenge. So why don't we deconstruct one of the challenges with one of your biggest partners in the world?

Well, actually, you were bang on when you said that when somebody calls for a Band Aid, we are not the Band Aid guys.

Yeah.

So we. I call myself. People call myself sometimes Brutally Honest. Because whatever is the reality we speak of. And of course, we need to first understand what the customer needs. So our first step always starts with the diagnosis. We need to really understand what is the outcome the customer needs. Because sometimes, a lot of times they call us for a seemingly insignificant problem for them. But it is a hurdle that they cannot overcome in many ways. So this case that they, that you called, they had some water coming into a pit that they need to work in and that pit had to be dry. A shaft or a pit. But we have found out that it was only possible by stabilizing the all area around it because they were like very close to water. So water table, we call it water table in our industry, which means the groundwater, the height of the water, it's very high. Was very high. So in that case, for example, we had to close the, the any area that the water can come around y so that they could make sure that the area is dry. And we did this. Okay. In a week. It takes it. It took a longer than they thought perhaps. But in the end they were like, okay, we were.

Struggling here for months. Yeah. And the week was nothing.

Yeah, right. But in that period of time, they'd probably lost. I mean, you can just imagine this is one of those complicated hockey stick problems where it costs a certain amount for a couple of days and then it turns into after weeks and months because of the slowdown. I'm sure there's penalties and I mean, it has a huge cascading effect. So keep on going.

This is a lot of times the, the outsizers when they don't. What they don't understand about the construction is the overhead costs of construction. When you are stuck, your costs are continuing the piling up.

Right.

And you have a budget. You thought that I'm going to do this project in certain time. And this is going to bring us another topic. We will be Discussing and this is why we are focusing on the infrastructure construction. We will have a conversation on that. I know, but main, main issue here. But after we diagnose the problem, the next step comes what is the assessment? That means we evaluate first what needs to be done and then we go into our planning stage. We plan it. A lot of times this is the people when they, when they see the work site. We worked perhaps one week, but perhaps we planned to do that work for a month. That's the people that they don't see or we have spent years to learn because when we go perhaps in a job site, we spend a day or five days. But this is an accumulation of years of experience.

Right, understood. Well, I think the, the way I think about that is if you work with an amateur, something's gonna.

Cost a lot more, it's going to take a lot more time, and you're going to be paying for it years from now, right?

Yes.

Because it won't be done the right way versus if you're working with an experienced expert, you're compressing time into the solution so that 40 years of experience compressed into time can equate into.

A.

Week and it's done. Right. So I'll equate it in another way. We've been developing a property in Mexico and our developer told us something that really, really changed my perspective. And I, and I see that exact same thing in you. And he said the way you make money in developing in Mexico is the longer you plan, the more money you make and the shorter it takes and it's into the impatient. That's difficult. But otherwise a development, a failed development could take you 18 months and never finish versus planning for nine can mean you can get the whole thing developed and built in five months and it'll be done right, it'll be worth a lot more money and you won't have any problems later on. And I see that exact same thing in all the examples that you've given me. And I think one of the things that you've done very intelligently is like when you think about your materials and your solutions, when you come in, your solutions package is based upon what the client needs. So in this particular case, I know you've got.

Your branding works around basically bringing in, again, think of it like the right Lego block at the right time. So for this kind of thing, what did you have to do and what was the delivery? So they kind of hear again the mechanism you use.

Well, we have preventative methods. And then when it is another preventative as problem is there, we are going there to solve it. Then we call this package the complete package Geoform to the rescue. So this is called the GS rescue package, where we don't only go with the plant, but we also go with all the contingencies. This problem that we solved, we use the GS Block, GeoForm Block, GS stabilize and GS safe field methodologies with the solutions, with the products. But we had many other on the contingencies. This is why we call the rescue is always there. Because when you go to a disrupted area, sometimes the disrupted area has changed. You don't know. Yeah. So we have other contingencies with us.

Right. And the specifics that I've observed is like one of these might be if you've got a whole bunch of water getting in, like the example I talked about earlier, you gotta stop or block the flow of water. Another one will be.

Where if everything is wiggling around, that's where your stabilize comes in. Or a fill strategy is you can't build on top of mud. You gotta make sure that something is stable and it's gonna remain that way for the long term. Which again goes back to. You have to keep out the water. That's the most important thing. And you also build using the local material so you don't disrupt the earth around it. Which again is something I never would have thought of any of this stuff. It's. It's very new to my thinking. So anything you want to add to that before we move on to the next example?

Yes. But at the same time, you have to also look at the conditions, requirements and the. A lot of times people over oversee or overlook the environment. Yep. And for me as a person, number one thing in my life had been environment and the people. So all products that we use needs to be also not harming that environment.

Yep.

And the pro. The solution that we use, for example, in that example was very close to farming areas. So all the products we used were environment and groundwater friendly. Even drink water friendly. Wow. Yep.

Which isn't the norm in your industry in the past. You know, and I know again the tendency is what's the cheapest solution so we can get this thing done, make the most money. And no one really historically has paid attention to the future.

Well, yes. But it turned out to be the most expensive one. Yes. Yeah. Look at it. From asbestos to so many things you can count. Mm. That the cheaper solutions turn out to be much more expensive. Yep.

Comes down to reputations, time, money and human lives. Yeah. For sure. Yep. For sure. Hey, this is Mike Koenigs. Sorry to interrupt the podcast, but if you're an action taker and ready to transform and reinvent yourself and your business, go to Connect2Mike.com to learn more and book a conversation with me right now. All right, back to the episode. Let's go on tunnels. Huge business for you. Again, incredibly complex. I think most of us take it for granted when we're driving through tunnels, especially in California. Here we have a lot of big, big tunnels, especially up in the San Francisco area. And then when you're going through there and you see little trickles of water, I mean, mountains, drilling through mountains and building something that lasts for decades, hopefully hundreds of years, is incredibly complex. So why don't you talk a little bit about one of the big tunnel projects that you've been involved in and what kind of complexity showed up and what'd you have to deal with and how do you have to think?

Well, let me give you a very complex example from a tunnel. In the sanitary tunnels, you know, you have to somehow, in each city, big city, you have collectors of sewage and then you treat the sewage and then you have to discharge them. And they are usually discharged to water bodies, but they have to be far away from the shore. So think about this, that you are under a lake two, two and a half kilometers away and you have to dig a hole under the lake so that you can put your pipes to discharge your collected water, treated water back to the lake, let's say. And suddenly the water rushes in and then you got a sudden big load, unexpected load, suddenly coming on top of your freshly built segments and breaking them and water is coming, rushing in. Yeah, so we were called to solve that problem. It took us a few weeks, but we solved the problem. We stopped the water and we stabilized the broken concrete segments by anchoring them to the rocks. But this type of problems, for example, are can be avoided and can be completely prevented with our geoforming methodology. So in our geoforming methodology, we have a lot of different tools and a lot of different solutions either to prevent or unfortunately, when that happens, we go in. Some of our solutions are temporary fixes and some of them are permanent. But of course, when you go after a disaster is done 99.99 times, it is much more expensive than the preventative measures, of course.

Yep, makes a ton of sense. And one of the things, I'm just going to take a little break here and let you know, listener, viewer, one of the things that we put together, if you want to go deeper on this you want to understand it or you're in the industry, in the tunneling industry, the building industry. You want to learn more about Kion and his team, you can go to geoforming.com free and we have a master class for you. We have some diagnostic tools and you can really go deep in this beyond what we're doing here. So I just wanted to tell you that now. And we'll tell you again at the end of the show, which is@geoforming.com free. So talk a little bit about.

You can pick either another tunnel. I know we've got one that's in.

Canada. I won't say specifically where, just in case. Another one that's in a, a European country.

Yeah.

Again, I want to be very, very careful about what gets said here. But you've also got another, I believe it's a subway station as an example. So why don't you pick another one as an illustration here that you think is representative. And again, the important idea here is the thinking behind this. That's and packing all this history, understanding the architectural, material sciences, earth sciences, water, how it moves, but also to prevent it and stop it. And then these days it's chemistry as well that you have to understand. So tear into it. Give me another example.

Well, I'll give you an example of a successful project that our partners accomplished in Germany. By the way, I'm also a German citizen and I spent 30 of 30 years of my life in Germany. And when we brought geoforming technology to North America, actually the idea was initially to promote and sell products. Then we have seen the need that this is not enough, but we have to bring it and united with the North American engineering because the German engineering would not be sufficient to do it in North America. And the North American know how was not sufficient to use the German technology. So I give this, I go back to the Germany example of the tunnel. That was a very challenging project in Germany. So they think about the city and under that city a tunnel had to be built. And it was another very long one. Think about it like.

2,000Ft tunnel. Yep. But the channel challenge was this, this had to be only about 20ft. The tunnel had to be about 20ft under the city. Yep. And you had a big challenge that the buildings could collapse.

Right.

Because this, the soil was mostly sand and sand, if you just think about it, you are on the beach. Yeah. And you have a sand castle and try to dig under your sandcastle. What's going to happen?

It's going to go collapse.

Collapse. So we were called in that project and we stabilized the ground in such a way that nothing settled, nothing collapsed and the project was completed on time and within the budget. So the same thing we did also in Toronto initially we mentioned about that project under 21 lanes highway. That project also proven that our methods work and when our methods are included in the project from the planning stage.

99.9% I can say we can guarantee that project will be on time within the budget.

Right, right.

Because our approach, overall approach is little bit different than the common approach in the construction industry.

Common industrial approach is you look at the soil conditions, every project.

Starts with good intentions. Don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing anybody of doing anything wrong. So.

As a technical team, your team and a lot of times the big projects are managed by multiple technical teams and there's a project management from the owner's side, there's a project management from the contractor side. Everybody looks at the ground conditions and what can go wrong and try to take precautions as much as possible as they can. But my way of approaching to the underground is expect unexpected. I'm repeating again, you will hear perhaps again and again this from me because whatever bore sample, we call it the borehole sample, bore sample you take from the ground, the ground is not the same a few meters away or a few feet away, it can be different. And the second thing is when you disrupt the environment under the ground or above the ground, but especially under the ground, when you disrupt what I mean by disrupting, when you make any structure, you have to take the existing soil away and put something new. So when you are disrupting it, you don't know what's changing underneath. So the previous conditions that before you disrupted the environment and the surrounding environment are not the same. So in my life I was telling you like that before it says, it seems perhaps silly that I keep on telling the same thing that very simple. If you think about it like a cake. If you turn the whole area into a cake, so the environment, the surrounding environment doesn't doesn't have any more memory that something has changed or is changing. Yeah.

Yes.

You turn the environment into a cake and then you excavate what you need to excavate among from inside that cake, then the environment is still stable.

Right.

This is my approach. Yeah.

And it's to me it's honestly it's non obvious. I never would have thought of that. And my suspicion is even people who've been building for a long time are not aware of that because.

At least my observation and this could be my untrained observation. It seems like so much of the construction industry is very brute force. Don't think about how can I use the environment around me. It's like just get it done and use whatever means possible. And I only say that because I grew up around a lot of construction and in the small town I grew up in, it was rapidly being grown. I used to watch the backhoes, I'd watch the digging. But living in Minnesota, I watched what the environment would do to a job site anytime there was a storm and the ensuing work or the time it took to dry out and the waiting, that went on. And at the time there was a lot of primitive methodologies. And of course I know it's evolved a lot, but you know, I still poke my head in. I stop at job sites and I watch what's happening. Not at a tunnel site, but it doesn't look too different. It seems like not a lot of real progress has taken place.

Fundamentally, when you really look into fundamentally, it's almost the same. But it's 100 years ago and today this is one of the industries that did not see much change. Yeah. And I'm not going to blame anybody for this because this is an industry where the liabilities are huge. Yeah. Nobody wants to do something different and then have a problem and then be accused. Why did you do this?

Yeah. Being first is. Is very costly to reputation, lives, money, time, etc. It makes sense.

Yes. This is one issue. The second issue is I should also.

Not accuse our.

Partners. Most of them are partners. We see them as our partners for trying to save on the cost. Because the complete structure of the especially on the infrastructure construction is based on who is going to be the cheapest is going to get the job done. Yeah. Unfortunately this is pushing everyone to save costs on everywhere. And whenever there is a problem, they also try to solve the lowest possible way. And the result, 80% of the infrastructure projects are double the budget and almost double the schedule. Sure. And I think anybody in the world can really, if they really think about this, can really say that I'm a witness that the infrastructure project in my city took much longer. And still we have issues. And the main thing is coming from little bit from the construction bidding process. Yep, Yep. But overall I can say that our solutions perhaps are not so easy to implement. That's also another part because when you have the normal way of doing construction, you excavate or you drill a hole, you pour concrete and you put your steel structure and then you excavate and that's all. And then you build either a steel structure or you build a concrete structure or wooden structure. It's almost around the world the same. But when you are doing with our methodology, initially it looks seemingly more expensive, but. And at the same time what we do is also environmentally, also hazardous in a way. If it is not done properly.

Your method is not hazardous compared to the current way. Yes.

Yeah. No, what I mean also the products that we use can be hazardous if they are not properly handled. Yes. And if they are not properly applied, that is also a big danger. Why a lot of people are not able to use our method.

Yes.

Because if you look at the product or the product says it's hazardous.

How can it be groundwater friendly, drink water friendly? So this is a complete package. This is why we say we are the first one that can implement this in wide scale. Because we are not just a product company, we are a solutions company and we are providing a solution as a turnkey. Complete process, methodology and technology, including the product, including all the exactly matching equipment, tools and specific. The and specially trained workforce and an engineering team completely and devoted to every day. How can we get it better?

Right, Right.

So what we do is seemingly simple but inherently very complex.

Right? Yeah. Hopefully everyone got the idea that behind this. And again, I wanted to make sure we didn't go too far into the weeds. I think the best way to get into the weeds is to go to geoforming.com free shameless plug for you to get the master class because there you're going to deconstruct and get into some more of the details and then also some of the diagnostic tools that you're providing and your slide deck, for example, when you start seeing each of the products and how they fit in, they fit in a logical order. But this is one of those again, big ideas that once you go down the rabbit hole, it's like you can't unsee what you've just seen. You can't unthink what you just start thinking. But you do see the infinite complexity. It's very fractal in nature. You know, it's like when you start looking either through the telescope or the microscope. So with that, I think one of the things that I thought would be interesting as we come close to wrapping up here, could you go through your ten commandments of geoforming? I think that's again, in the mindset of first principles. You've got some core ways of thinking that I think will be valuable for any listener, any viewer and who knows Even if you never touch this industry, it might change the way you think and think. And that's really what Capability Amplifier is all about. This podcast is adding your capabilities, multiplying how you think and see the world. So why don't you go through each one of these and I'll ask you some questions if there's something that doesn't make sense.

Okay, let's. Do you want to first go with the Ten Commandments?

Yeah, let's do the Ten Commandments.

Well, you will again hear from me. The same again. Expect the unexpected underground. Yep.

And what that means is because even.

Even today, with the climate change under. Over. On the ground. Over the ground, sometimes we also have unexpected weather conditions under the ground. We. We have no idea what's going on. And because there's water, there's. There are a lot of different pressures going on under the ground, and the ground is never stable. Yeah. We are like, we are living on a living mechanism or organism. The earth crust is a live organism, and it's not uniform. This is the Earth. We just think that it is the same everywhere. It's not.

And especially when you are digging, really expect the unexpected. And.

I have to go a little bit to my childhood.

Okay.

Yeah. I was born as a child of an architect and a builder. So my father was one of the crazy ones. He was building. He was drawing the building and then building the building in a way that is all his buildings are still standing and in earthquake zones and not even, like, with a crack. So my whole childhood passed, every summer of my life passed on construction sites. And I was on his lap when he was drawing. And then I was in the construction sites every day. He was carrying me like a bag because he was wanting me to really learn what the intrinsics of the construction. And I learned from him one thing, because he really suffered in a big shopping center construction. Yeah. And it was a deep excavation, deep foundation. It was about, I think about 40 or 50ft deep. And they had a lot of issues with water and ground instability. I remember those days, and I remember that he had a lot of sleepless nights to protect his men. Also because he didn't have, unfortunately, the technologies that I know of today. Yeah, yeah. He didn't have them, but I remember from him because he always wanted me to get into construction. In the end, I got it. Got it. I was running away for a long time, but finally I got in. What I learned from him, son, expect unexpected. Keep the ground stable. Yep. Yeah. The ground has to be stable somehow. And keep the Water away. So basically the first principle or first commandment is always expect unexpected and whatever material or solution. The second one is whatever material solution you are planning to implement has to be compatible with the soil and all the other conditions that your project requires. And the third commandment, these are all intertwined. You might say, hey, they are almost like the same. This is like good ethics. The ten commandments in the end come together to say it's good ethics in a way. So you have to stabilize the ground as suitable as your project's requirement. And the fourth issue, this is something that I keep on hearing from people and I'm smiling it because I've seen this again and again in my life. People think that if you build a building, if your concrete is good quality and if the water, it's next to water, nothing is going to happen. They forget that the concrete is not black. You know, here you don't see the porosity on this table too. Yeah. This is actually porous.

Yes.

If you pour water, keep this underwater, after some time, even your table, you will see that.

No, it's at the end of the day, it's particle board. It's mushy.

Yeah. Yes. And concrete it is too.

Totally. Yes.

Because concrete is not whatever. The fine concrete you do is not. And the water is, believe me, the ultimate solvent. Never forget. And I've had experienced in very bad ways and lost a lot of money because even we forget sometimes, even in far away areas, even from the cities. Yeah. The effect of hydrocarbon mixing with water. In my past life I was in renewable energies and we were at a lot of solar farms and we were supplying cables for solar farms.

Yes.

And the cables were designed for all kinds of issues. But these farms were out of city, so they were not protected against hydrocarbons.

Yes.

So guess what? The clouds brought somehow the hydrocarbons and they accumulated in time. And it's not only us. The solar energy industry as a whole lost billions of dollars due to cable failures. Cables were damaged in time from hydrocarbons.

Yes.

So. And even the standard institutions oversee this issue.

Yep. Couldn't. Couldn't have predicted.

Couldn't I predict it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is a reality, right? It's a reality of the water is not water also.

Yeah.

Which means that it gets faster as a solvent.

Yes.

So state and speed of water are also critical.

So the faster it moves, the more it's going to erode and the pressure develops and builds, I presume.

Yes, exactly. And the sixth one is as much as you keep the Water away from your structures. You need to also keep it away from your equipment.

Right.

And the seventh is the ground conditions alter during the construction. This is a reality because if you just look at any excavation, you will see that the earth is not like a cake.

Yeah.

Normally it's not like a cake because we didn't do it. It falls down. Yep. And when, wherever there is water, believe me, there are voids.

Yeah. So big old holes are just popping up here and there. Unless it's packed and sealed properly and.

Yep. And the ninth one, this is something that. That comes a little bit from me. Live the world better than you found it. And the tenth commandment is proper geoforming requires systemized expertise. Yeah. I again repeat this systemized expertise. So you can be an expert, but if you don't systemize your methodology, your technology, the next time you may overlook something. We are all human beings.

Yeah, yeah. You don't want to have a junior architect working on something that the intention is to keep it around for 100 years. It might look pretty. They might be able to make something that looks pretty, but it doesn't mean it's going to last. Use the right materials. I mean, again, there's an infinite number of details, especially when you're dealing with nature like you are. So that makes a ton of sense. So maybe what we could do then is just bring this home and why don't you talk a little bit about who your right fit clients are? Like, who do you want to attract? Who are going to be right fit people and what it's like to work together. What's. What's that experience like?

Well, I can say that.

Let me first say, talk about the guys who are not going to be our part.

That's a good, good way to go to be. This is the polarizing part of the show, which is it's not necessarily. If you're. Yes. If you think. I mean, it's really, it's. But being values compatible and being straight up is good. And you want to attract right fit people. Understand, they want to play for the long haul. They want to be around. They don't want to get sued. They don't want to be responsible for deaths, decay and destruction, but also be profitable in the long run instead of playing the short game. Right.

Well, actually, we are not the partner for those who would like to have the band aid that they can just stop the problem of the. Stop the bleeding for now and then just run away afterwards.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop the bleeding now and get an infection later. Right. Yes.

So basically I can say that those who think that they can do it all, they just need to learn a little bit from us. We are also not partners for them because what we do, unfortunately, is dangerous inherently if it is not done properly. Because we've seen this again and again. Because people look at what we do. Oh, they think we can buy some of these products, buy those pumps, and we just do it ourselves. Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of times it doesn't work. And by the time they understand, this becomes more expensive. We've been through this many times. Yeah.

Yeah.

They spend much more because in the end, most of the time they even have to call us so that we remedy the situation. Yeah. So the. If you really look for the people who we really partner, who we really like to partner with, who are thinking long term.

Yes.

Yeah. Who are thinking fix it right the first time and who are after their repetition. They're after repetition. Because your reputation follows you.

Yes.

You can have a. You can just manage to finish your project today, but sooner or later, whatever is not done right is gonna catch you.

Right.

People die because of this.

Yeah.

That's the last thing you want for sure.

Yeah.

So the. In a way, the right fits are the opposite of that. But also they're the ones who.

You know, I. It seems to me, you know, money, everyone wants to save money, everyone wants to save time and make the most of that. But when your reputation's at stake and you want to build something that lasts a long time and you don't want to deal with the regrets of taking shortcuts or.

It all falls into the same category as if you're coachable. If you're the kind of person who's a collaborative learner and you want to work with the very best in the world, why not work with the best in the world who think the right way and have the right tools and also are on the cutting edge of technology without taking the worst risks. In other words, I'm sure there's more advanced things, but they are not as proven. There might not be enough as much history behind them as well.

Well, this is a general approach to life. For example, there are people who has a car and like to use some not real materials to fix them. And there are guys who always take it to the dealer to fix their car. Yeah, yeah. Not even to a neighborhood service place, but even to the dealer to fix it.

Yeah.

So we all have a different approach to life. I respect a company who have created a product, and when I'm servicing, for example, I take my car to the original service of the original dealer. Yeah. Because they know the best. This is my way of looking at it. And I know that I've seen people who killed Mercedes Benzes in one year because they thought these guys have taken too much precaution and I can service it later than normal. I've seen this. And in Germany I've seen it.

Yes.

Even within Germany, I've seen this. Yeah. So there is a reason for everybody.

Every successful company has a formula, and that formula is work with the experts.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I believe in this. And I like to partner with those who would really like to have their promises fulfilled at the time that they think that they. They promise themselves. Because what we do is in the end is helping our clients to. To realize their own promises. Yeah. Because everybody got a contract or work for some reason and nobody is expecting them to fail.

Right?

Nope.

That makes a ton of sense.

Yeah. We are success partners.

That's very good. Okay, so I think the most important thing at this point is for you, dear listener and viewer, dig in deeper. If you want to get the master classes we talked about, get some of the diagnostic tools that we promised, head on over to geoforming.com free. You not only get the tools, the resources, the extended education, but you can also, if you're a right fit who's either in the process of building tunneling, you can get a discovery call with Kyan and his team or someone on his team to learn more. And they can help either solve an immediate challenge you have or help you plan with success in mind. So like he said, if you want to work with the best, they're the ones to talk to. So with that, thank you, my friend. It's been a pleasure spending time with you.

Same.

Okay, thanks. We'll wave goodbye and I will, I will wrap this up and just simply say if you've enjoyed this or if you know anyone who could benefit from this message, please share it. And of course, like comment, upvote and subscribe. So without further ado, you can head on or the end, the opposite of ado. Go to geoforming.com free. Learn more. Spend some time digging into Kyan's world and thank you again for listening. Thank you so much for watching. And this is another episode of Capability Amplifier.

So long and thank you, Mike.

You got it.