In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Colin Lake, president of Trutelic. Colin shares a vivid story about completing his first ultra‑marathon in Vermont, emphasizing the lesson of daring to exceed personal limits while preparing for inevitable setbacks. He then outlines his core business philosophy: prioritize client value above all else, which drives employee satisfaction and profitability. Colin advises aspiring entrepreneurs to pursue their passion, even if early compensation is modest, and explains that his own passion lies in helping people manage time efficiently through software solutions. Reflecting on his younger self, he regrets not engaging with competitors, suggesting that collaboration could have amplified success. He identifies "balance"—among faith, family, work, and personal pursuits—as the key to happiness. The book Lone Survivor is highlighted for its message that a clear "why" fuels perseverance. Colin also shares a favorite quote about avoiding pointless arguments, likening them to wrestling a pig in the mud. Finally, he directs listeners to his online presence at trutelic.com for blogs on time efficiency and sustainability.
Chapters
All right everyone, welcome back to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner, and today I have Colin Lake with us. He's the president of TruTelek. So welcome Colin, I'm excited to have you.
I'm happy to be here to talk to you.
Awesome. The first question I have for you, man, is what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
It's a hard one because there's so many good ones I could talk about, but the one I think would probably stand out to me and then hopefully to the listeners as well is I did a couple of years ago my first ultra marathon and it was up in Pittsfield, Vermont on the Bloodroot. It's called the Peak Ultra and the idea is to get out there and race 52 miles over lots of hills and nasty, gnarly terrain up in Vermont and people say if you're going to do an ultra, that shouldn't be your first one. That should be like one you aspire to after doing lots of them. So I did it and I had a plan to try and get that thing done in 10.5 hours and place in the top 10. And that was what I ultimately wanted to get out of that thing when I walked into the race. So after 17.5 hours on the course, I finally found my way to civilization, got myself back to the hotel room, took a shower, called 911, and headed to the hospital for hyponatremia. So I had low sodium content. So I guess the underlying valuable message was, you know, I'm here still, so that's a pretty good thing, but it's good to bite off a little bit more than you can chew from time to time. I think that's a really important lesson for all of us. But you want to do that, you ought to, you ought to prepare for not only what you want to get out of it, but, you know, the disasters that are inevitably going to arise from time to time.
So, yeah, totally. And the next question is, is what's the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Well, the one thing I'd say above all is this ability to focus on client value in everything you do, with everything you think about. So I'm in the software development industry, and, you know, if we keep thinking about ways to build this business in terms of creating more value for us or generating more revenue for us, it tends to get ourselves in a bad place. So if we continually work on the things that drive success for our clients, everything else falls in line. You know, things really don't feel like work for any of our employees. We have clients who are really happy. So the business is in fact successful and we are making a lot of money, but it's only because of that exclusive focus on that client value in everything we do and everything we think about.
And it might tie in with this next question, but what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not like industry-specific necessarily.
Yeah, you're right, it does. I mean, certainly would tie into that. And, you know, this probably would be one that would resonate with most and definitely something that people have heard about in the past is find something you're passionate about and do it. Figure out how to get yourself involved with that, even if it's not paying you what you want it to pay you at the beginning. Like, if you can just do that, you know, that no matter what it is, no matter where it is, if you can figure out how to get that accomplished, business is going to kind of feel like a pretty comfortable word and things, you know, not necessarily work but fun.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. So to dive a little deeper in that, I always— I'm curious. So like, you know, when people say like find something they're passionate about, like I feel like, like for myself to give an example, like how I found that I love doing podcasts and like helping people with books is just by like true like trial and error, just like trying So many things, there's so much action, and then I finally find myself in a place where I love what I do. So for yourself, how did you find that? Like software development or any other things, how did you find your passion?
Yeah, I'm glad you just went there because software development isn't necessarily in my ballywick. It's not necessarily what I'm great at, but what I am great at, what I am passionate about, the thing I do care about is helping people manage their time better. I've always been an individual who manages his time really well, and I've been able to help others do the same. And so like, there's ways to do it. You can consult with people, you can, you know, be a coach to people, but those things have, I think, you know, a chance to not have sustainable value. So if you can consult with people and coach people and then build a system for people that supports those ideas, that ultimately creates that lasting or sustainable value for Client. Yeah.
So, and if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
This is an easy one. I'm a really competitive person, and back when I was young— I'm 46 now, so it was a little while ago— if I talk about myself when I was 25 to 35, I never really engaged the competition much. In fact, I thought it was a really bad idea to talk with them. I thought my clients would think that I'm saying it's okay to be friends with these people, or these people are okay, and that wasn't the right thing to do. I wish I knew them better. I wish I helped them more. You know, I think if I did that, I probably would have been a whole lot more successful. I know they would have been. I know my clients would have been. So it's pretty good advice.
And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
Well, I'll give you one word is balance. And this is the way I think about it is balance. If you have the ability to create balance in your life, I ultimately think it's easier to find that happiness. So, you know, we've talked about before gratefulness, you know, being grateful for things. And, you know, if you have a balance between faith faith and family and business and your training, you know, whatever you're training for in life in terms of working out and things like that, and your friends, and then you find which one of those is more important and prioritize them that way, and you keep all of those in line, I think it really creates this easy path toward a happy life and a truly sustainable happy life.
And what's the best book you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from it?
So I've read— I'm a voracious reader. I can't get enough. And I only read non-fiction. I like things that have actually happened, and I like to learn more about history and those type things. So the best book I've ever read is Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. I don't know if you've ever read that. Uh, oh man, it's awesome. It's just so good. It's one of those books I got like about halfway through it and I didn't want to read it anymore because I was reading so many pages that I'm like, if I pick it up again, I'm going to be almost finished the book, and I don't want to finish it. Oh, so good. But anyway, um, you know, the, the whole idea is perseverance. And no matter what the situation is, no matter how dire the situation is, to just persevere through it, because ultimately you can succeed. Um, this, this isn't necessarily from the book, but this would be the thing that I took from it. Um, Nietzsche said, um, if, if a man has a why, he can endure any how. So if you have a why, like if you truly understand why you're doing something, you can endure any like dreaded events that go on. And that would be the thing that I took away from this, from Lone Survivor. Awesome book.
And so I'm going to have to read that. It might tie in with the next question then. But what's your favorite quote and why?
Favorite quote. This comes from a book that you and I worked on together. It's the chapter that I wrote. It says, if you wrestle with a pig in the mud, You both get dirty, but only one of you likes it. The idea is, you know, there's lots of people who want to tell you lots of worthless pieces of information, and they may be things that you disagree with. And when we tend to argue with those people, we find ourselves in conversations that are probably useless wastes of breath. And, you know, I think about that often when I'm talking with a person. Does this create any value for the person I'm talking to or any value in my life? And if it doesn't, I'm not going to argue too long. I'm going to shake hands and get out of that conversation as quick as possible and find a better conversation to have.
Well, thanks for coming on, Colin. And the last question I have for you is, where can people best connect with you online, like your socials or your website?
TruTalent.com is the easiest way to find me. We do a good amount of blogging. I do a good amount of blogging on there about creating time efficiency and sustainability of that. So it's Tru T-E-L-I-C, trutelic.com.
Perfect, man. Thanks again for coming on. We appreciate it.
All right, you're the man, Tyler. Great to catch up, buddy.
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