EXPERIENCE 2: Lance Cayko - F9 Productions - Principles of Success in Life & Business

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Alright, welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. My guest today is Lance Psycho from F9 Productions and Longmont, Colorado. Lance, why don't you just set the stage for everybody by sharing a little bit about your place in life right now? Yeah, well thank you for having me, Kurt. This is a pleasure, I believe. I think I'll be episode number two, which is exciting on your new podcast here. So yeah, my name is Lance Psycho, it is pronounced like that. That is my favorite icebreaker because everybody usually is taking back a little bit and then we get to make a joke and it's perfect for being a salesman. I am a, what I would consider a serial entrepreneur. My longest standing company right now is F9 Productions, it is an architecture design firm. We do forl service architecture out of Longmont, we serve all of Colorado, Idaho and North Dakota and we've been doing that for almost 11 years now, I actually looked, I was looking at my LinkedIn page other day just so I could kind of reflect back and see how long we've been doing this. Two years ago, we took the, three years ago, sorry, we took the development plunge and decided to be architects as developers. So we bought a third of an acre in Longmont. It's not a lot of land left to development Longmont, so it was kind of a nice gem of a fine and compact site, they say. Very compact site, urban, urban infill is what it technically ended up being. So we bought that three years ago, it takes that long to finally get permits and financing and get everything sold. We sold our last unit in March of 2020, so this year and then along with that then we launched a construction arm. We started a development, just wasn't kind of our thing, it's just a lot of risk for not a lot of reward right now, but contracting makes sense for us. And what really kicked us in the butt to do that, and now that contract confirm is F14 productions. And I could kind of unpeel that later about why we do all these F, F9, F10, F11, all that kind of stuff, but what kicked our contracting arm into full gear was COVID and just seeing everything tank like it did, I mean the stock market, everybody who follows it at least from even a cursory level saw the drop off and then the lockdowns and the scare and the economy kind of falling apart and you know, all the way down the restaurant industry, stuff like that. So we fully launched that arm and what it's helped us do is we're going to have another record revenue year, which is kind of unheard of I think from a business standpoint for a lot of companies right now in the United States. I saw you hit the Mercury 100s last year with a big resident rise and now you're going to do it again next year sounds like. Yeah, so Mercury, so Biz West for anybody who's heard of them before there, they compile a list of basically the top 100 private companies in Boulder County and they record your revenue over a two year period, right? So you independently reported and then they actually verify it with accountants and stuff with the IRS, you know, because you file your returns and everything. And so we had a record record revenue of we increased over the last two years, 368%. So I'm really proud of that because it's anybody who's a small business owner or has ever tried it, it's so much work, it becomes your life, it becomes your livelihood, it becomes just who you are every day. And for us to grow our firm literally out of nothing. I mean, we are the true garage story, except we didn't even have access to a garage. I made a post on LinkedIn about that today. There was a guy complaining on Twitter about Jeff Bezos and oh, Jeff Bezos got this loan from his family to start up Amazon and for only we could all have loans and access to a garage and like, dude, I didn't even have a garage. We had, I only had $1,000 in my pocket, I was $10,000 in debt, no clients, heart of the great recession. And then now here we are, you know, crushing it at the end of the day, it just all comes down to fundamentals and doing the right thing. We have train tracks here. Yeah. You can notice it. It's actually the first podcast episode with a train. That's right. It reminds me of home. Right. Perfect. So, how do you split the chores with regards and what's F 10, what's F 11, F 14? Is there some dead ones in there that you've got? There are some dead ones. Okay. And that's all part of being a serial entrepreneur. You become a serial killer of some like, yeah, dumb ideas, right? They don't all pan out. Just I think one of the beautiful things about America and being able to start businesses with very little capital, very little effort, very little bureaucracy still. And so, yeah, F 9 is obviously the pilot. It's been the bright training star. It's the one where, you know, we've proven ourselves, we're now 11 years old. Basically, as I mentioned earlier, we didn't have any clients when we started our company in 2009. Not so ever. And we were both laid off from firms. It was a high to the great recession. And we didn't even have any hardly any built work. So when you're an architect or a designer and you don't have any tangible things, you can show your clients, the only thing we had to follow on was renderings, architectural renderings. And so the software that we used to create those renderings in college and even a little bit after college to help convince clients, hey, hire us. Trust us with your biggest investment ever. We can do this was these photorealistic renderings in the software we would use. You just hit the F 9 key. So all we had was F 9 productions. And so then we just kept moving up the chain with that and F 10 productions is Alex's book. My business partner, Alex Gore, he wrote a book called The Creativity Code. You can pick it up on Amazon. And then F 11 was we built two tiny houses for Subaru back in 2015. And so, and then F 12 is the development I mentioned earlier. F 13 we skipped just for superstitious reasons. And then F 14 is our contract and firm and that's still up and going. We hope to grow we hope to grow that into a long term, you know, very viable construction company over the next decade or two. And then that's kind of where we're stopped right now, F 15. We have some ideas there, but that's our goal is just to keep rolling out and trying new ideas. Does somebody die? Yeah. No problem. So does the podcast not get its own F podcast doesn't get its own F. Thank you for that. Yeah. So our podcast we also started a podcast three years ago 2017. And it's called inside the firm podcast and we what we were disappointed in as budding architects and you from all the way from college until now even or when we started the podcast was nobody really teaches architects business. It is all design. It is. It is so much art compared to bread and butter, how do you get it done? You got to eat. You got you got profit is a good thing profit is lifeblood profit is that's how you maintain a staff when there is a downturn there like there is now and all those things. And then the other thing was Alex and I we just got so busy because we teach at CU as well that we were having trouble finding an hour every week to sit down as co owners and founders and bosses and principles managers and talking about the business. And so what we did is we actually went back in time metaphorically speaking and we started telling our story about how we started the firm from scratch in the Great Recession with no clients and hopefully those stories have helped other people build from the ground up and gives them encouragement and that's probably the most rewarding part about it. I think we're 220 episodes deep now well yeah thank you and we have some we actually have then we we did end up monetizing it. We have two great sponsors ARCAT and Dell Dell computers actually sponsors which is incredible and so we just tell every day we tell you know every every week we do two episodes one is a Friday show it's that's the pilot show and Alex and I just sit down and we talk about inside the firm what's going on inside the firm what are we experiencing we tell some really raw candid stories and I wanted it to be a way to document what we do because eventually I'd like to write a book to to to to elaborate a little bit more about just kind of my journey especially coming from a very poor place in North Dakota and then we do a Monday morning show and and Kurt has been on the show was a great interview I think maybe six weeks ago seven weeks ago yeah six or eight probably like that I wanted I want you to tell that story because it's one of the more interesting oh yeah I've ever met anybody and I'd like to hear it from your perspective well Kurt and I met on LinkedIn right sure I think something like that and I'm pretty sure it was and well actually I think I disclosed already but I had a junior staffer subcontractor actually like lead-genying for me looking for smart people and they were peppering you with probably the same message over and over about how cool you were or something yeah yeah so exactly so I love I have just like any social media platform I have a love and a hate relationship with it because you can reach a ton of people and at the same time a ton of people who can reach you and maybe don't want to be reached so LinkedIn you'll link in with somebody anymore today and then a message gets you know we just want to send this message and like my thing with the with the podcast is look our podcast I am a business coach in my opinion because I'm giving out this advice all the time for free on a podcast and we get all kinds of love mail we don't get any hate mail we get love mail well people are saying I that was such a great tip from last week's episode I used that and I one guy with a certain kind of marketing platform said he like increased his business by tenfold I mean those kind of stories were just like wow that I'm making a difference in the world but anyway Kurt is staffer it sounds like was messaging me you know and I was like I just finally cut down to the cut of the chase with Kurt or the staffer and I was like are you a business coach is that what this is about because I'm the business coach so if you want to come on my show let's do it yeah well I was I was flirt with you hoping you'd be a local think tank member and yeah oh there's a cost to this well I give free business coaching every month that I was like on my podcast and oh you should have me on your podcast yeah yeah it was great and Kurt and then and Kurt and I found we both agree a lot on that liberty and freedom and those kind of things we're we're Liberty boys and we had a great conversation and and let's let's shift it up a little bit I think we'll come back into business some but I want to lay the foundation a little bit with part of how we bonded was North Dakota roots yeah North Dakota State University alumni but I'd love to hear the story of like I heard one of your episodes recently where you said you grew up in Indian reservation in North Dakota and like just tell me that like tell me what your early years were like third grade third grade yeah I was always I think the earliest memories I had and a lot of architects was how the story but it was twofold number one my grandma raised me when I was little I didn't go to preschool I didn't go to pre-k I didn't go to daycare grandma raised raised me on a and I and the one grandma I two grandma's but they're all wonderful both still alive but the one grandma was she they owned 160 acres in northwest North Dakota which is a very it's like Russia in the sense of the landscape it's very bear right and the only trees maybe you'll see is like done by the river banks but mostly it's high plains very brutal as far as where I'm from in North Dakota were like well at least we don't live up there yeah that's how that's how a desolate it can get for sure and I don't take a fancy I actually it it it forms you into a very special breed of a of a person in an American um but back to grandma why she was so important to me is she always fostered my love of drawing and my love of building and specifically when it comes down to drawing she was one of the first people that when she was teaching me how to write I distinctly remember sitting at her countertop and her saying her her seeing me struggle trying to write with my right hand and then she goes maybe the left handed and I started and she go you are and she was the only one other family to encourage that because even even back then which was you know 30 years ago 30 seven years ago or whatever it was lefties were still a little kind of it was too much of an anomaly yeah exactly my business partner he's like I don't trust you it was part of the Satan there's something yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah so uh I don't really believe that yeah me neither but but yeah she that's that's that's what we leave yep absolutely and so Legos were a big thing and then any kind of building project I would want to do around the farm we would build you know different kinds of forts um little birdhouses all all of those kinds of things and then the trips you would take me on and then just encouraging me and taking me out to Idaho where the wealthy family lived and seeing that kind of success that the wealthy side of the family and being exposed to how did they become successful you know and I'm just understanding that it took a lot of hard work in business ethics good business got that ethics to get there um and then when I you know as I as I went work through school uh where is this most people won't know the town you mentioned but I don't plasma is one of the towns I know that's close yeah Willis in North Dakota if anybody's ever heard of that you might heard of that mine mine not North Dakota so but I grew up right outside of Willis in North Dakota Trenton North Dakota which is 13 miles east of the Montana border one hour south of the Canadian border okay that's probably the most yeah cardinal directions I could give you yeah listening listening direction I uh Sydney Montana must not be too far away yeah 30 miles away from us okay I had a super crush on a girl from college from Sydney oh really I don't remember her name anymore but if you listen to this uh hey give it to me yeah so uh then um in high school uh my first job I got was a job this I mean you could call it a job but was was working on the farm and working on the sugar beet farm and we grew up we were so grandma grew sugar beets and Durham Durham's wheat and uh I tried we we irrigated with you know like a really old school method where you put a tarp in the ditch and then you you manually take these irrigation tubes and get the the waters like funneling through them flood irrigation I tried that for I think maybe two weeks with my dad and I didn't really get along with my dad too much that was number one but number two the mosquitoes tried to just carry me away I mean people complain about mosquitoes in the high country in Colorado it's nothing compared to North Dakota absolutely night and day right even Minnesota I think doesn't hold a candle to it they're tougher in North Dakota yeah they can they can bite cows and stuff absolutely yep yep um 100 percent so um I was like I I hate this and my dad said well and but my dad's best friend his name is Bruce Falcon huge mentor in my life um as far as contracting and building goes and so I called him up after just kind of getting into an argument with my dad and I said hey I need a job I'll do whatever it takes what what are you doing this summer and he goes well we got this big contract we're we're doing roofing and I go no problem he goes 7 25 an hour and at that point at that time it was actually pretty good money um and he goes hard work I'm like no problem and so I went to work uh that next Monday with in I there was a friend who was working for him that picked me up every day and we would get up at five we would get on the roof at six right at sunlight and we would have the roof torn off by nine or 10 and then the roof put put it back on by two or three insanely hard work um hot and then rugged and but god I loved it I love seeing the progress and I just I loved actually even the culture just men out there being men and and doing hard dangerous construction work it was awesome so we did 80 roofs that summer and I just fell in love with construction one a day yeah that's really cool I fell in love with construction and then and then from there I went to uh I didn't get the best grades in high school I just barely got like lower honors why I didn't give a shit yeah that's kind of a lot of us yeah yeah well especially if you're especially if you're just a contrarian right and I think a lot I'm a I'm a contrarian of a contrarian like I will my friends are mostly contrarians and I will just be a contrarian to them sometimes because I have to be different um I don't know pride drives them nuts but it was I just hated being told what to do and I didn't and I went to such a small school I graduated with 20 people town of five hundred um there should be the class of five by the way oh seriously yours isn't even less than well you know what it's like then then there's no you don't you know how many how many um how many classes do you really get to pick right none so I hated it um but I did get good enough grades did I got a scholarship to North Dakota State School of Science and I thought I'm just going to go for building construction tech out in Wapeton up complete other side of the state uh flat cold uh no girls because there's all a tech school um but I loved it I loved it and I got really good grades and all of a sudden um I was like an honor student and I excelled at basically that that was you go to school to be a contractor um kind of like a lower level sure not you're not going to build skyscrapers right away but you could build a commercial building for sure um but towards the end of that two-year stint I started to I was like wow I really love school like it's because I can pick all the classes yeah oh and then I was so good at it that I've and as a Native American I uh you the amount of scholarships and opportunity it's almost unlimited and I figured out how to monetize myself so I was schools already free because of the scholarship and then I got all there's one scholarship this waiver and then I figured out how to get all the other scholarships and I was getting paid to go to school so there was all these good things going and then I go well I know how to build it but why did these guys like draw like this and I was like well I guess I mean so I was like well what about it being an architect like I could keep going to school I love school why not and so then North Dakota State University was four is about 70 miles north of Whopperton uh on the east side of the state again in North Dakota I have no girls there's actually I there was there's some there's more there yeah for sure uh but you know I don't know maybe not as many as you know I was there there was nothing was there really yeah we went to more head mostly oh okay oh yeah because that's the teaching school right that's where they go yeah and that's funny we we we hung out with all the more head girls too um because you're right I guess now I'm thinking about there weren't that many either way whatever you had to go cross river yeah yeah hey I want to jump back a step and so you uh psycho is the way your family pronounce their name but it was something longer but that sounded like a western name so that is that a surname that's family or is that a Native American name no not it's neither uh well it's it's not a Native American name for that's for sure it is actually a um it is a Yugoslavian name so uh my uh great grandpa when he they came over so I'm fourth generation American when I great-grandma came grandpa came over it was pronounced and spelled phonetically even to Chadico with a CH and then when they got over to Ellis Island he's like well I want to Americanize this yeah and so he changed it to C-A-Y-K-O and the pronunciation that's where the cycle comes from yeah I uh for a long time I assume that so my surname is bear like the animal and I assume that it was German but misspelled like B-E-H-R oh sure you know B-A-E-R is the German name but my dad corrected me just like seven years ago and said no it's an old English name that you're your family name or German then you are English but you have an old English name from 1750 years ago so our family's been around for many many generations yeah uh also uh you know they kept us in North Dakota because we couldn't really mix with the the other folks around so interesting okay well it's I mean North Dakota really is a melting pot in many ways like Fort Collins or Northern Colorado is a melting pot where people come from all over but because other parts of the nation as it was settled were kind of filled with chunks of people the the little stragglers and the clumps of Yugoslavs and Czechs and German Russians and Germans and Polish nor region nor regions and and then the Native American population which is which is there's a highly popular yeah there's a lot of Native Americans in North Dakota and South Dakota for sure yeah in Montana so anyway I was just curious about that and so there's obviously Native American in your family you're a quarter or half or I'm three quarters but but that that's a whole nother can of worms because like when I say my great great-great-grandpa it was um I actually I'm 37 now I found it was a long time coming but found out that oh my dad who raised me was not my real dad about four years ago and I found my real dad my mom held the secret for that many years and I I mean I could get into it if you really wanted to yeah but that is something good story this is the local experience you know this is a crazy experience podcast if you want to share I won't uh if you uh say something you don't want to share no it's all good I've told it a million times the people in other ways um long story short I'll try to keep it as short as I can uh when I was growing up my so I have I had up until 33 I thought I only had one brother and my brother if anybody looks at me I look like um I just look a little caramel I but but you I could pass for a Caucasian right I mean for sure good looking guy thank you yeah so uh but my brother is black I mean he is dark his his his hair is jet black mine if mine is curly um it's going gray is you know he doesn't we look night and day and people even my mom used to be like yeah this is my salt and pepper babies uh and then you know and then like my family would say that and stuff like that uh and but so I would I was the mean older brother and I would tell my brother just just to be a jerk like that's not your real dad you're too dark like that's my dad's my real dad and he is you could tell it he ate him alive well one day in eighth grade he finds um at least so he'd be in eighth grade I would have been actually in college and I come back from college and he's all excited and he's like look what I found that's not your real dad he opens up this uh yearbook and he finds a picture right next to my mom's picture of this man named Cesar Pedroza and this guy and I for the first time ever I look I look at if I look at a photo and I go like that looks like me oh I'm like that looks like me and he goes see mom look who says are Pedroza she gets pissed doesn't say a word rips up the whole thing and we were just like what just happened I kind of all forget about it I kind of all forget about it well jump ahead to about 32-33 um you know so this is you know five six years ago or whatever and I hosted my north Dakota family down here for Christmas at my my was my first house I'd had it for two years I just I just finished gutting it remodeling I was so proud of it and uh so hosted them and then my kid and it had an okay time we my dad were not getting along still sounds like that's yeah yeah it's kind of a recurring thing actually it was because we were still fighting about the first tiny house that we built because he came down and helped out and sort of that Alex's dad and then we got into this giant argument kind of ended up a little physical and he he just like went home that day so we were not getting along and then my kids usually go home for spring or for like Christmas break up there um because they don't see their family a lot I'm like yeah I take them for two weeks I'll I'll I'll be a bachelor for a while no problem so they went up there they had a horrible time the kids call me crying like grandpa's yelling all this up and so I get I get pissed and I'm like all right I'm gonna get to the bottom of this Luke send me the picture he goes what what are you talking about out of the blue and like I don't I don't think this is my real dad like there's something inherently wrong like we're like magnets with the opposite with the polar ends pointing at each other we just keep pushing away felt like that and so Luke's like okay fine he finds so he finds another picture somehow I can't remember where he had an extra book yeah I don't know how he had the extra book takes a picture he finds it I type in the name and in Facebook I type in the name in Facebook and sure enough says our Pedro so pulls up and I'm like you got 100 mutual friends what so I message him and why we had all the military mutual friends is because I had all these friends from back home he was a foreign exchange student for five months up there oh yeah so I messaged him and said hey um do you know who do you know who uh busy is and he is my mom's nickname I don't I don't know no busy they go oh okay well and I said well I'm doing I'm doing a science project I'm doing a I pretended I was a grad student and I'm doing a research paper on here I'm wondering if I'm researching about her for my graduate studies I wasn't it was just it was some way to like take down the defense levels in case you know any guy gets approached I was I was trying to put myself in his shoes like what would I be saying I'm like are you my dad yeah yeah well like what would you say right so uh he he doesn't say that and I go all right so then I then I the next time I messaged I so I gave it like four or five hours then I go maybe he doesn't know her nickname so I gave him her real name and I go and then I then I then I in the meanwhile I was kind of going crazy because then I messaged a couple of friends that I had that were girlfriends previous girlfriends up there and I go hey do I look like this guy and they're like yeah but who is he and then one of them found up his picture and another and one of my in there they like photoshopped together and like this who like are you guys related so I sent that picture to him and told him my mom's real name and he goes and he goes when were you born I told him you know y'all blah blah and he goes and he starts doing the math and he's typing it out and everything and he goes oh and I go if you don't want anything to do with me I understand but I'm just going to give you tonight so just think about this and message me in the morning if you want to talk to me if you don't want to talk if you don't message me in the morning you never want to talk to me again I get it I wake up and he messages me and he goes let's make a test so we got a hold of a DNA company down here and one pack it was sent to his his place down in Brazil little middle of Brazil you know amazon and I took the swab test we both took it 30 days later we get the test back and it was like 100% match and then life was kind of just put into a different focus I think I don't even know how we got into that oh how much didn't Native American am I so then with that test then I went and got like the other tests I was like well who the hell am I like I want to know my makeup and then it turns out so I took the test and it's 66 66% North and South American Native American both of the you know like sure like South American Indian and North American Indian 10% actually African American and I was like well okay part black and then the other one was French interesting so I love it thanks for sharing that yeah there's so many questions I could go to just chase that squirrel longer and this is supposed to be a business podcast so tell me something like how's things with your mom and your what you thought was your dad and things like that well you know what it did is it really what what it is a couple things it did and not to get entirely spiritual about it but it kind of get reinforced like that there's the Wu Wu's reel that that there for me there is a god because I was like that the the the chances of this happening and me being even born are like I mean that it's so low and but the real reason why it kind of proved a lot of stuff for me in existence and purpose was I expected to be able to say aha gotcha like don't ever lie to me again mother or see I now now dad who raised me you know throw away why you were such a jerk on the yeah through in his face the anger the anger just went away well the truth so set you free exactly and that's that's what I live by that is exactly what I live by so and I we I now what now I kind of take that when I take that into so what it did for business wise this first of all took away all the anger and then it gave me this higher level of understanding just for people and mistakes and like everybody deserves deserves a second chance so we all give client second chances I'll give employees second chances and then also that the truth will set you free so if a bad business deal if something goes wrong in a bad business deal or if somebody's claiming something on a building that I built or designed and I know it's their line I'm just like you just gotta have patience it's all gonna come out and the truth will come out and justice will be served and that's just that is the world has a way of working itself out lies are never durable yeah that's the thing that it takes some people a long time to understand I think you know you can't sweep things under the rug the rug always piles up eventually so and so that those relationships I gather are way stronger way stronger way stronger mom did stop lying like you could tell it was a problem and because she held it for so long it was just so crazy to me my relationship with my dad who raised me is great it's just a understanding now and it's almost like we realize oh we were we were sort of forced into this and we don't have to if we don't want to and so now it's an easygoing relationship and then for me what it did with my dad who lives in Brazil goes come to find out the guys in multi-millionaire serial entrepreneur never stops moving never stop working I'm like exactly and I was like oh god it just makes sense so it just it just centered me in the universe that's like I had no idea that story would come up but I'm glad it did it's a wonderful thing to be able to share with with people from all kinds of places you know like if you're if things aren't feeling quite right it's probably because you're like fighting against what God is trying to do in your life yeah I agree I agree and you just got to look for those little fingerprints and like uh you know that that's one thing I'll tell my kids all the time is like they're going to that phase with their starting to question stuff and I I I really appreciate that they're skeptics because that is that like you need to be a skeptic in life just for almost everything right then it helps you just make better financial decisions for God's sake right at least that and so now then I reinforce them with this story like guys remember that remember the fingerprint and they're like okay how's the relationship with your brother comparably that got a little weird for a little bit okay because it made him do a little soul searching because he is he's like you know he's not as successful as you know that's not what it is it's that he's actually kind of he's kind of a I mean in his what he does so he's uh he works in the oilfield but he's his passion is hunting and his name is Lucas psycho everybody look you could just google Lucas psycho c a y k o you will find pages google pages I mean just like 10 pages deep with this kid so he's he's kind of a celebrity in the hunting world because he videos himself and he does all that stuff no what what I think it did for him is it made him go it made him uh double appreciate dad the dad who raised us yeah because I don't think I'm not sure he realizes like I don't know if I can I don't know if I have the luck to repeat the luck that Lance had finding his dad so I'm gonna appreciate this one and this one this one is my dad yeah well and I I imagine that the respect of you you had for who you thought was your dad actually increased because he was a guy that probably at new that you weren't his son but he raised you like his own anyway yeah it did it did it it reinforced that and then yeah and actually we had a really good bonding moment last um right before Thanksgiving so kind of back to our development is uh so our development was going okay at the end of last year and then we had one of our units flood because one of the plumbers didn't tighten a fitting as tight as it should have been on the third floor I go to the job site at five at before the sunlight sun came up that day I was ready to rock I was like I'm gonna today's gonna be a good day and I open up the door and it was just I mean I you talk about cutting a man do his knees that was like a reality check so I called him and I said I need you to help I need I need you like I need you to come down you're helping my dad's a carpenter jack of all trades that guy can do anything this is my real my dad who raised me Mitch and he without hesitation he comes down brings all his tools if he wouldn't it came down I don't think we would have finished in time to see oh meet our financial obligations and finish it out and for he's he saw me in such a vulnerable place yeah at the end of that development because it was so straining I mean at at one point I worked 80 days in a row very hard physical labor too and so you could tell I could hear in his voice y'all be down like I could just hear he wanted to hear that yeah and so he came back down and now and then he helped me finish and if it wasn't for him it wouldn't it wouldn't it wouldn't it wouldn't happen it's pretty huge being asked for help yeah you know and and that's a pretty bonding thing too uh as well I think we shared in our podcast that ask of your needs and share of your abundance uh thought and that was we've had a resonance over that so um let's jump to excuse me um feels like we'll get lost in in circles a little bit unless we get some timeline back so North Coast State architecture yes here we come you brought it back you bought it back smart I was paying attention he's only one whiskey deep too ladies yeah I think so um so so architecture school is a couple more years or maybe four more years because it's pretty hard yeah so so yeah so you know unless there's other things you want us you want to know no no no mom anything no they got their shout out every famous too yeah um yeah so so picking up from the when I was coming out of trade school so I was accepted to North Dakota State uh and then I got us another skull another tuition waiver because I was in an Native American and then I got all these scholarships and I was like all right here we go again and uh I've again I just fell in love with it I absolutely fell in love with it it was because I had choice and I could pick what I wanted to do and but I sucked at it I was so bad because I went to I did architecture school backwards in my opinion and I think everybody everybody I a lot of people would agree with it where you're the idea with architecture school is it's it's like the army in the sense that it's crawl walk run they're gonna beat you down they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna treat you like a piece of raw clay you don't know how to design and then how do you teach design well a lot of it is trial and error harsh critiques ripping up your project metaphorically during presentations until you finally put in literally like the 10,000 hours and get good at it so I had so much practical knowledge from building physical buildings for at that point once I got to North Dakota State it would have been seven years that's actually quite a bit right from 50 from like uh 13 to 20 right so the I was trying to be too practical and that's not architecture school right away it's we want the crazy ideas we want you to excel this is the time to explore things that maybe we'll never get built you don't know material science yet so absolutely assume that materials can do yeah it literally doesn't even come in material science until halfway through and and halfway through to the end right you don't start taking structures materials and all that kind of stuff so I sucked and um uh but it there was a there was this prize uh at North Dakota State and there still is it's called the McKinsey uh the Peter F McKinsey award and what it does is it awards the best thesis um for the graduating class that year right and I went to the I went to a presentation and went like to went to all the present all the thesis winners and everything and saw what they did and I was just like that's what I want I want that whatever it takes to get there that's that's it and I just became so focused and this was after two three years in a row of me just getting ripped apart by people because my design sucked like they were way too practical they were not beautiful and that's and then just a switch flipped and I just kind of threw out all the practical knowledge because one of my professors is Darryl Darryl Booker he said just throw that out for now like trust me when you get into practice even when you get into fifth year that's when it matters like it'll just let go of it so I did let go of it and uh you know started doing these these very I mean kind of impractical um but just a lot more beautiful and a lot more exploratory designs and work through and then I ended up winning the Peter F McKinsey award um and Alex and I my business partner who that's where we met in college we actually hated each other at first and I mean we were not like we did not like each other because you were too much like each other or two two opposite right two opposite so which is great in a business partner but not always it's perfect in a business partner that is exactly what you want I think um he was uh he didn't like me because I would talk to the girls in studio and and he couldn't he didn't know how to do that but I did but I didn't like him because I was like this kid is like naturally awesome at our at design he's just and and everybody likes him like why do they like him so uh we were in every single studio together and so but this for first studio we're together and then second studio we're together and the second studio I go I'm gonna sit across in this kid like I have to understand why people like him because I know is if you're gonna if and I want to be a business owner one day too right because the contracting side of things I saw it I saw like how you can make money right and growing up super poor like it's like Kanye says right not uh having money isn't everything but not having it is and it's true right does he get your vote by the way I saw he was on the color of valent I think he is on the we actually have a running bet in the office everybody bet how many votes he's gonna get in Colorado on it spans from like Alex was like 538 and I'm like at a 10,000 so we'll see I I'm tempted you know what about the libertarian I might vote Kanye just as a even higher level protest for a higher level protest yeah we better not get into politics just the election yeah um so so you made friends with him at that time or not yet so sat across with him and we slowly started to talk right and we still weren't friends after that studio but we at least would acknowledge each other's existence then in the next year um we both got split into two different teams if we're a design competition and I led my team and he led his team and what we realized at the end of watching and from kind of close to each other like you know like all the deaths were adjacent right now I was watching his team and he's watching watch him and what we realized at the end was oh he has exactly what I need and he has exactly what I need and if we ever joined forces I just think we'd be unstoppable and then we went on a trip together to New York um with me and my it was my former wife and two other best two of our friends we're kind of best friends in college and that's when we really started to bond yeah um and then we decided we're at our fourth year in order to go to state does the skyscraper competition just an internal one you fly to San Francisco pick a site it's like a it's one of the best trips ever in life because it's bunch of college kids you're you're going down you're drinking this is fun and uh and then we teamed up and we won that competition too and it was exactly what we thought it would be with the formation of us working together graduated uh I graduated you know I won that award but he won the Alpha Cairo which means people liked it more yes actually actually yes he so Alpha Cairo is he jokes that he took took first place because the Alpha Cairo is a comprehensive student award meaning he was the best student overall in different categories and he's like but you were just the best student in our picture so I'm overall better whatever but he so you know that's our running joke forever but when we both graduated then we we had this party at the top of a hotel down the hotel in Fargo and everybody was joking with us professors are up there and they were like you guys are the dream team and would you guys ever do you guys ever think you start a firm together and we were like yeah maybe in 10 years you know and then nope maybe one year later right because ever we all got laid off you had moved to Colorado yeah I had we both graduated um we both took jobs at about the same time which is the end of the summer and they were honestly this was 2008 so put for the time reference like the great recession is looming right like people know it's coming this is coming yeah you can feel it uh so he went to New York City and worked for world famous architects studio Daniel Leibzkin they did the Denver Art Museum yeah he did the World Trade Center the first one that didn't get built very very well known architect around the world I went and worked for uh two really well-known US architects they won the art or take the weird young architect the year in Boulder um and then we both got laid off yeah and Alex was like well I'm gonna what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back to North Dakota state for my master's construction and because this this recession is going to last a year and I was like yeah sure yeah we don't know we don't know how we can we're idiots at this point we don't know how long like downturns are did not last really a year clearly right there's one of the worst ones um so he graduated and then I got laid off and then uh we both but we knew I was gonna get laid off because he already did and we started looking for um computer modeling work it was not architecture really related right and I got it we got a foothold in there and then he moved back to his mom and dad's house it couldn't take it I mean honestly like a grown essentially a grown man moving back in he's just like so dejected yeah and I was like well it's different if you're from Portland or some place you know but in North Dakota if you move back in with your mom and dad's house I think it's a midwest thing nobody likes you yeah including yourself yeah yeah anyway I digress yeah sorry to all of those of you that are living in a parent's house right now it is tough times it is tough you'll get up you'll get through it yeah it's fine yeah Alex got through right yeah so uh we landed all this modeling work and then I go hey and then I got a house and I go I'm gonna get a clinic and we're team I'm literally gonna bring work back to the old firm that I brought and I go Alex which my he got he's like yeah I say I think about 4 grand so which is like not much I mean it was like basically he could make a couple months rent and food and I go well the apartment is above me is just like it's a vacant I was like come now let's try this let's try this he's like and we weren't even licensed at that point so we could only go after very select work like like houses yeah you can do houses in Colorado unlicensed all day long all day long um and then some small commercial work right and then if we ever did a commercial work we always went we went and got a license architect and brought it in there but he came down and we starved from 2000 uh he came down 2010 I had already started basically informed the LL are the S Corp in 2009 and started getting that work and we starved for three years and his uh dining room was our garage again we had no clients started from nothing was all that time productions and now you know you already heard the stats so we talked about earlier and we're up to eight people in our texture side three people on the construction side one of wards it's been awesome I a couple questions coming to mind one do you want me to get up after I get you talking good and refill our whiskies oh I'd love that okay and then second question is um uh tell me about that first employee and like the difference that that made to the firm and the development of like being more than just the two of you yeah I'll talk about two I would I would say that there was two first employees and the first uh the first employee name is Jacqueline uh she was a great great lady she actually she only worked for us man it was maybe only a month or two so I wouldn't count her as like a real employee from that standpoint it was kind of like 1099 work um but so our real very first employee where we're like here's a formal offer here's our salary here's how much we're going to pay you here's the benefits and all that we hired over our age and Alex's mom was like that's a smart move and the but I'm so glad we picked the I feel like a lot of the thing what we do is we pick the right mistakes at the right time is weird as that sounds and he was the right mistake at the wrong right time this first hire because what we did he was he's at least 15 years older than us and what we assumed was oh this will help us level up he already knows the software he already knows how to do all of these things it's autopilot what does bring the work in it was not it was actually a disaster and so what it made us do is it made us make a rule at the firm and all in all the companies was you you set aside two to three days and you train people they are unbillable for the first two to three days you walk them through here's the file structures and coupled with what we do at CU where we actually teach the design software that we use like you're going to sit down we we will tell employees you know let's say somebody comes in with an experience pretend like you don't know the software yeah just stop like you're actually professor right yep that helped you turn the corner exactly yeah exactly I didn't even think about that until now that's a great point um yeah so so we make treat them again like they're just clay and just say I want you to completely forget what you think you know about the software this is the way we do it and we tell them why you need to do it this way it's because we're a team it's because you might be sick for a week and somebody needs to take your file and pick up where you left off so the modeling strategies the way we detail way all that works the comments that you put in this software or things like that yeah I imagine anyway yep exactly okay yeah that's like that's huge like you might have paid that fellow that wasn't a fit 20 grand or whatever before the separation happened but that that brick that got laid while he was there was just part of the foundation of how you do things yeah and then and then it actually even further than that what it did is it made me go oh I actually like if don't if people don't have experience it's so hard to get your foot in the door in the architecture field um I don't know if it's a construction anymore but I love when people don't have any experience and people come in and they're nervous when they interview with us and they're like well I don't have any and I don't give a shit I mean I'll just tell them flat I don't care if you don't have any I'm here to build you up and here to give you an opportunity and that's why we're gonna start you at a real low rate it's tough out there that's for sure I don't I don't mean people paying low but I mean some of these kids are really good and when kids I mean you know 25 I mean I think you are in that category of you're not you're still you're just getting to adulthood you're just starting to understand how to pay bills and all that well and honestly that's if I have a criticism of the millennial generation if you will the the 25 year olds of the world is that they think they should have everything now the really big salary the big big responsibility in this and that but a lot of them you know they haven't seen much yeah and some of them are amazing and including my my staffer in case she's listening to this she's 30 but are 31 now maybe I don't know but like she's got a lot of skills and a lot of capabilities but if she's got growing experience now she's 30 not 25 right but the difference between that is is a lot I think one of the biggest reasons that nobody's and that one of the biggest things that nobody's talking about when it comes to that is I think there's an unfair comparison of a lot of these folks are comparing themselves to like why am I not making what my friend is making a Google why am I not making what my friend is making a Facebook and it's like that tech industry is totally different as we got to do last time they're the rubber bearings of the world yes you know they don't really want to add any value one fifth of the economy right now oh god you know and they don't actually build anything or grow anything they just help us connect and fight more fight more fight more yeah all of that I wanted to ask also from that I gathered from the from your tone I guess certainly that the at times at least the development was like oh should we have even done this 100% but I wanted to ask about like how galvanizing has that been for your partnership like to both have to like you know it reinforce the word brothers yeah I'm it reinforced that we're brothers without being blood I mean that was that was like I said that that morning that was one of the most devastating mornings of my life and I have been divorced I have had a child who was born with club feet you know there I have experiences oh yeah but when you when when I walked up to that door and opened it and saw just disaster and like I mean just I'm not joking cut to in these called Alex Alex comes and then Alex was there all you know every day on the job site sacrificing equally it just reinforced the brotherhood yeah and and then and then it did give us again that perspective of like right now when I was driving up to your office today I thought what was I doing last year oh working non-stop barely seeing the kids and I'm like I'm gonna go have a I'm gonna go do a podcast and drink a couple glasses of whiskey with my friend this like just enjoy it Lance enjoy this calmer time you know even though it's 2020 and everything's not some like I don't still way better yeah right so are you are you gonna do more development soon or just push a pencil to it harder next time or what was the I think all of that yeah yes I think I think you brought up a good point about pushing the pencil harder to it I think I think we learned our lesson about you know one of the biggest lessons we learned was we thought we could be a lot of these developers down in Denver got lucky and they got lucky and the new developers they got lucky in that the sense that the event Devin Denver has has seen such an increase in poppia in population and growth and people wanting to be here it's still cheaper to live cheaper to live than San Francisco or New York they got lucky in the sense that like they could put up anything you can crappy projects absorbed and it would make a play would they would they were place makers so we thought we can place make we can make this into something desirable and we can force the market to be there right new per square foot value yes capture all the cost we're gonna have to occur to do that and we did after it was all sold and built obviously it's a sweet development thank you it really attractive to the eye and when I saw it pulling up the first time I was like oh that's a sweet thanks man yeah yeah yeah no I appreciate that um but that that's that's our biggest lesson it's like okay the age old location location location yeah it matters sure because my you know and my wife was a realtor and she tried to beat it into us and eventually I had to you know break down and I mean literally break down and tell her like you were right I'm sorry you're right like I'll just listen to it makes that right I try to limit that to once or twice a month with my wife but you know what you know but you know what she's what she ended up doing on the back side is then she now she tells me she's like okay you're right about politics I'm like yeah right yeah well everybody's right about politics yeah right at the real mind at least um but we would do it again but not right now I think what again what it is reinforced uh all those things I talked about previously and then also that like oh there's a hand here pushing us to beat builders as well and let's get really good at building let's become master builders we're already good architects let's become master builders while we become great architects and then we can become good and then eventually great developers so um I'm sure you're familiar with needed company here in Fort Collins needed an architecture they call it yeah and one of the interesting things that you probably don't know because it is kind of an isolated market comparably to you is that there's another 15 or 10 or 8 or something construction companies around the communities that have had been started by key employees leading lead is got such a great culture and training and ethic and they just spawn other companies uh I think break ones and need and spawn I know Delta was and there's just I there's so many that I've met along the way somewhere somewhere contractors and etc so talk to me about like what's your vision for like are you keeping those separate that artist architecture and the construction element like will people hire another architect to design a building and then hire your F-14 productions construction company to build it we so we keep a very fundamental role and that is for for now anyway we'll only build what we design okay and what's really nice about that is we're not very picky when it comes to our clients for architecture like yes we will say no to some people but we aren't these high pollutant boulder architects with the thick rim glasses that say like I need 10 percent and it's got yeah and you have to come to me and and and uh pretend like I'm gonna be the next frank Lloyd Wright like that's not it we're I would say we're commodity architects in the sense that like I believe architecture should be accessible for everybody through the market and so I'm gonna I'm gonna make my business model so that like even somebody whose middle class lower middle class even we can we can help you um but what it's allowed us to do with making that rule with construction is we only pick the ones we want to build we only pick the ones where the fees make sense they make a lot of sense uh the clients we know they're gonna it's gonna be fun and that are guys or gals who are physically on site then building it with us like it makes sense for them logistically well to me you can know that your customer's gonna be satisfied or if they aren't it's because you screwed up yep you know the feedback loop is closed on a percent it's just a circle perfect circle yeah and so you can at least make it right yeah you know if a construction company overruns by 50 grand or 70 grand on your architecture because it was too hard you know or whatever well that's still kind of partly your problem but you couldn't fix it yeah and like I had one of those close feedback loop meetings today with my architects I redlined we're gonna build this uh I hope we end up building it's DOG is the franchise we're pulling them out of Montana it's like this cool boutique take your dog there you can groom it yourself or you can have them groom it and buy all cool fancy food food dog stuff um I redlined the set last night putting my GC hat on putting my contractor hat on pretending I wasn't the architect really pretending I wasn't the architect and I made it a point on this project to not review to not really review the drawings through all throughout the process I was I was giving more leadership role to one of our leads Ross in the firm and I opened up for the first time and it allowed me to do that and I had all these questions that we I've never asked our employees before because I had the contractor had on and then we had an hour and a half meeting today about this is what I want as the contractor now and what does that mean for you guys and so that we've never had that kind of feedback loop and for our general architecture work that other contractors are gonna build this might be what they want to exactly that's exactly what I said I mean I verbatim I said guys I'm not the only one who's gonna want this stuff this is what other builders are going to want these are the questions are going to ask um so that you know that's what we're trying to do is just is really have both people talk to each other and keep your ears open through various means yeah so talk to me about um team team growth and things like that you and and Ally assume are 50 50 50 and things like a lot of times architecture firms have other principal architects move up into roles and they want to have that upper mobility you guys have some ideas of of giving that opportunity or is it not necessarily what's going to be the Alan Lance show forever yeah don't talk about it right now no no talk about it right now yeah talk about it right now for sure because this is that's another thing that kind of emerged after the development you know what the development really did for us is it every I've I have designed to build my own house uh almost a unit you if you will ask an architect you find an architect belt if you you ask them what isn't one of their number one dreams to design and build my own house yeah like I want it I've done that the next one which the it was a rare breed but everybody wants to do it is I want to be a developer architect is a developer we did that we wanted to design our office exactly like we want it and it is exactly like we want it right so you hit this plateau and I mean we really did hit a plateau and there was a lot there's been a lot of reflection over the last couple of months and one of the eggs that has been born laid because of that is Alex and I had a we had called we call embossed lunches if we can if we can somehow have a lunch too in between episodes and stuff we'll have a lunch and one of the things he brought up and I was like I can't believe you're on the same page he's like well you know have you thought about like maybe 10 years from now how do we make it so we sell or we we're still partners in the sense that we were shareholders but like we can we can do whatever we want and you can just get a dividend right because we're in stocks we understand how that works and it's the same way it's an escorp you can sell shares so that discussion has been in play about how do we make this a legacy firm and multiply ourselves that's always one of the best pieces of business advice I've ever gotten was by our very first client where we got the three three D modeling work Robert Wigant sum X is his design is his company and he told me what you want to do is you want to multiply and you want to you want to replicate yourself that's in a service-based industry that's the only way you ever start to make any money it's the only way you ever start to grow it's just like a product but instead it's service-based so that's always been our goal is it's been to multiply what we do and do it well and we've done that so far with our staff growing but now how do you do that with the firm so we there's two folks there's two guys at the firm that we've identified they've been with us almost the longest one is going to be licensed very soon he just finished his last test and they both live closer to Denver and we have planted the seed that we want a Denver franchise and so what does that look like for them so what we're doing behind the scenes now is two a couple things and we just have franchise maybe just a Denver location just a Denver location yeah Denver location and they become principals main principal to that one so what we're trying to do is figure out what are those financial incentives look like when you have you've made another nucleus down here and what does that mean for when they go out and sell when they bring a project in how do you track the time how do you track the profitability so we're starting to get those manuals and just systems in place I'm a big believer in systems you need a framework to operate right and so then on top of that like some of the other things we're thinking about is like I would love to do sales is so difficult it's like an art it's like I just there's a way to talk to people there's a there's interaction that has to happen here the people have to like you you should have to like them I mean it's just like a whole different there's a way to sell there's a way not to sell and I would love to make one of our construction workers actually our lead guy he is a videographer um he he worked on like some some fairly decent movies like one of the batmans and stuff yeah and so he's got what I want to do is I want to make these internal commercials basically or like how two videos yeah and I want to do like one with my wife and she pretends like we met at this bare piece of property and I'm the architect and she's the owner and like here's how you sell guys like this is how a sales meeting goes yeah um because it's a we've tried shadowing it just gets a little awkward yeah but for them to just kind of see it and take notes so I'm what we want to do is we want to work towards that framework I I love giving people opportunity and letting go um a lot of people think I'm a control freak but like I'm like only up to the point where I can let go right and then I let go all the way yes I like that I like that well good luck with that conversation it's an important uh kind of thing and I can just I don't know it's I sensed from I guess you're just your approach that giving other people a chance to have that that I probably be part of the thing right well you brought up a really good point about the other construction firm and that they if you if you don't have that kind of uh I wouldn't call them exit strategy maybe it's a growth strategy is the right word give them a place to go yeah so that they don't want to leave honestly yeah I didn't even think about it in that respect when I was when I brought up needed and and honestly I I don't think that's necessarily a case but definitely that is perhaps part of it is is people ran into a glass ceiling of some sort and said well I guess I'm gonna go start my own thing yeah I want other people to make money I want other people to have that kind of responsibility I want them to be happy and I want them to feel the same way I do when I wake up every day and that is a powerful entrepreneur not because I have power people because I'm like I'm making my destiny every single day every single minute every single second and I'm affecting people in a positive way that's how I want those guys to do and then I want them to repeat it yeah and we just keep going I love it I love it um gosh I've got how long we've been talking hour and a half yeah you got to pee or anything no I'm good all right I'm good too whiskey doesn't make a pee that fast that's why it's one of the beer one of the reasons um let's talk about uh I always like to try to cover politics and religion and family so we can talk about family first if you want to sure um you're remarried I think yeah happily um ecstatically remarried yeah I think she's amazing I can tell from the way you mentioned her and her name is Maryland Maryland yeah and uh you have kids together we are the Brady bunch okay and I mean two at T because if you remember Greg Brady was uh was an architect sure right so I'm the architect uh the wife wasn't a realtor but my wife has a realtor um and then she has two kids I have two kids okay and so we join forces so does week oh I thought the Brady bunch was three and three three and three yeah well we're the Brady bunch you got some work to do yeah anyway well that's awesome and she's been in real estate a long time yeah Maryland actually saw me my first house oh but we that's not how we met um we met through our kids uh so we again the way this universe works man it's like if you aren't looking for the clues I don't think you're looking like they're everywhere you just got to look for them for proof and so uh she got divorced within a month when I got divorced and then her ex-husband moved kitty corner up to Alex right after he moved in and her kids were having trouble making friends and because of the divorce it it just threw it just threw them off in a weird way and so um my kids when my kids were at my kids were at my house a full time because I had them full time and then her kids would go to her husbands or ex-husband every once in a while our kids would play together but we didn't know each other right and then all of a sudden her kids were asking for my kids and then um Alex's girlfriend now his wife uh brought my kids over to the playground we live pretty close together by the school the local little elementary school and she was like oh well do you have are there at least daddy yeah do you have their dad's number and and he was like yeah sure she gave her the number and uh then she and Marilyn called me and I was like and I was so protective at this point because I was going she's a nasty custody battle and I had the kids all full time though the ex-wife she left she basically abandoned abandoned for three years when I did Montana so it was a single dad uh yeah that's a whole that's all another thing yeah anyway I want to hear the love story more so she she calls me and I'm so protective because of the battle it was just like I'm these kids are like I'm not letting them go because they could get ripped away from me go to these yes these bad people up in Montana um so she can't so she calls me and I'm like I like I got to meet you I got to meet you to like and know they can't come over to your house now they're gonna see him all this thing she opens the door and she oh hey and she yeah and I was like oh I've I've seen you walking around the neighborhood I mean I didn't tell her that I could you know I can't remember what she said but she goes but I she will tell you to the day she goes as soon as you start talking I was just like I got to know more and so uh but nothing happened right so she's Gen X I'm millennial I'm a later I'm gonna like uh the millennial right so like right on the edge of Gen X she's 10 years older than me and she goes uh and so we would see each other at like school events and I fate I I like a millennial I I message her on Facebook right that's my approach right and she's she and because like the way Facebook works like if if you're not friends and goes with an other folder she so she never saw them the message or whatever and I was just like ah I guess you know whatever she's blowing me up she wasn't at all she was just that she's that's not her generation yeah yeah it's not what operates like you just call me buddy right what are you doing call me so eventually I did and then uh and then we started dating and then we it was just like as you know pretty loose just fun adult dating we were both came out of um both came out of some pretty nasty uh marriages and everything um but then it then of them and then it's then it's then and then because of that we were both commiserating so much about our exes and being single parents and doing it all on our own I mean the bond was just like it just got so strong it's hard like uh it's an interesting world we live in where there's so many split families and stuff now one of my blog post notions you probably don't know this but it was from a couple months ago a draft horse can pull 8,000 pounds but two draft horses together can pull 24,000 pounds oh seriously yeah if they're side by side it's exponential yeah yeah and it's and I think that life is a little bit like that yeah it is like that absolutely no I mean we I've told her this many times I would there's no way I would have been and she she reciprocates it there's no way I would have been able to do that development working that many hours in a row and then she's like there's no way I would have made the income I did without you doing that right yeah no I think that's really so give me a uh a one-to-five word description of each of the four kids oh so I'll start I'll start from the the youngest one which is the only girl one-to-five word huh sat her name first of course kaya is sassy sassy kaya sassy kaya yep kaya the contrarian okay and I just such a concern he is mine yeah the so the first two are mine yep yep luke the likable oh everybody loves it sales for f 27 or f 45 productions maybe something this kid if he wanted to be a pro and NBA player he could be pro you pro whatever athletic so many kids so many friends um I can't believe he doesn't have a girlfriend yet because the kid is just like this he's one 15 or something uh 13 well he doesn't need a girlfriend yet he doesn't but like I'm just like oh he everybody loves you everybody looks like he's like some 16-year-old girl uh because he's got the mom's jeans going there tastes for the other men yeah probably yeah and the last uh Brett the jokester okay that he it's just the way his mind thinks I think is one of the most he's one of the most creative he's also contrarian which I love like he has to be contrary to the norm and I just I'd like on this like oh perfect right two of them the oldest two are like that that's what that just makes you feel good inside because you guys are thinkers then right you guys analyze and think you know I think that's there's too much going along with the wave I think sometimes some people that haven't actually looked into uh the world as we know it so talk to me about um talk to me about faith your faith journey like did you grow up just in a church loved it grew up do it grew up strict Catholic okay strict Catholic if you're an Native American you're gentle you're probably gonna grow Catholic it's a lot right a lot like the Latino community I didn't know that yep yep very I mean because of the missions right the mission missions would come in and establish all of that group Catholic grew up so Catholic that I had the Catholic guilt definitely oh yeah the ash ash Wednesday all of that went through catechism fully confirmed when I was probably before the age of 12 I was seriously like I could be a priest there's not a lot of opportunities up in that area right yeah there's a heck of a good job right yeah job security right right you're set for life you never see him get fired in the list even then right even then it takes years sometimes so grew up super strict Catholic uh was was a believer but then definitely fell into you get into college especially being architecture school it's a lot more liberal a lot a lot more secular think kind of thinking especially when you couple that with the environmentalism hmm that was really an eye opener and more in hindsight so what I did what I did is I sort of traded faith for getting steep into sustainability like humanism human ability yeah humanism sustainability I did three thesis on literally sustainability right like how do you build they build what's what's a what's the most low low carbon house you can build a straw bill or whatever you know stuff like that and did all that um so kind of fell into like this agnostic area and then when I came down and then I specifically actually brought a Portland I specifically targeted parts of the country where I'd thought that you could you would be doing the most green slash sustainable work so that's why I targeted Boulder and Colorado and I asked Ben I interviewed up there Denver even Portland uh which in hindsight now I'm like thank god I love Portland it's amazing it's beautiful it is so it's Boulder sure that's the thing like yeah they just not that many thinkers there yeah it's just it's just yeah exactly yeah even Aspen so uh and then and then Mizzula say I mean that those areas you know the do you know Mizzula Mizzula's like that yeah interesting I had no idea it is I thought it was like all cobweighs up there no bozeman even bozeman I like I like bozeman a lot of other husky bozeman yeah yeah so uh so yeah tell me so it's kind of a lot of agnostic sure until I found my dad and it was such a reinforcement for me oh because and it was because of the anger that got taken away I distinctly remember one of the one of the people that I had to here's kind of back to that story so I had found out I already told you how I found out right we did the DNA test what I what I forgot to tell you was I forgot um I had found out that my dad who raised me wasn't my real dad and I had of a crew are not a crews but a trip to Mexico and the trip to Mexico was my cousin my first cousin on my dad's side who didn't raise me had us come down my grandma was there this is the same grandma who is not my is not my yeah is not my blood grandma but she is my grandmother sure sure and the whole is so my my Maryland came down with a came with me we weren't married at that point I don't think no no it was right before our wedding so we go down there we have a awesome time my where my wife has not a drinker like almost whatsoever she'll have a little bit glass of wine every Saturday night with me that's it okay um and she wasn't drinking well North Dakota if you've been in North if you're not drinking you're standing out yes thank you I didn't even have to yeah I didn't have to say it you are standing out and that's exactly what they said is they go well why is it Maryland drinking are you are you guys expecting and I go I don't know no that's that's that's not why she's like there's not well well something's going on and this is my cousin pulling me over my cousin who got married she's like something is off with you guys and I'm not here's the other thank you the whole time my aunt my grandma they're pinching me pinch of my butt pinch of my back of my legs touching my hair and they're like I just don't know where you get this stuff from and I knew the whole time and I couldn't say anything I could not say anything that I knew Maryland couldn't say anything that she knew but everybody could feel it in the air right and they thought it was because she wasn't drinking because we were pregnant we're not and I said you like chanting I can't say anything right now just trust me leave me alone just leave me alone I gotta so we're about ready to leave Mexico I get a call from my mom I get a call from my brother or a text message rather my breath my brothers my brothers like um my brother already knew because he helped me find right and my sister-in-law knew uh dad who raised me didn't know mom who we're gonna mom who didn't know that whole side of the family nobody knew but me me my future wife my brother and and sister-in-law and so he's texting me on the plane as we're leaving Mexico and he's like he's like uh um that's it I'm telling dad uh I'm not holding the secret anymore mom just left him I was like what is going on he's like yeah she just took all of her clothes she didn't even say goodbye to my effing kids I'm telling dad I don't give a I don't give a shit anymore and I go I go uh okay and then service is gone right oh yeah there's no Wi-Fi on this plane is like a little frontier plane or some nonsense so I'm like whatever so you know a couple whiskey's we've land I open up my phone explosion just explosion 27 texts just a million yeah and so and and so I'm probably a whole bunch of Facebook messages too because you're a millennial yeah oh yeah totally yeah and what you know Twitter whatever yeah and so uh my mom is one of the text messages a couple of them she goes find me a job I'm coming to live with you and she still isn't no right she still isn't know at this point okay so she stays somewhere in Wyoming I don't I still I don't don't mad you know I'm not I still don't ask you yeah go to bed wake up the afternoon comes around the next day and she says I'm she's like I'm in uh four Collins and I'm like okay she's like I'll be in 45 I'm like all right Al I'm like everybody at the office um see you later be back later you know uh tomorrow so I go there and wait for her she comes she gets out of her car it's packed it's packed full of clothes and just stuff and uh she's all distraught it looks like shit and comes in the house and remember I'm not angry right that's the thing I'm not angry and she goes I said she said she goes what's go I go what's going on and I go I go just just you need to just sit down and I hand it to the paperwork and I go I know and I need you to not lie to us anymore and here's where the faith comes in so I left her with the paperwork I leave I walk out of my house and I go I got a call gram of Beth because I have to call gram of Beth so I called my grandma the way just she's everything right this is the grandma that kind of really did all the stuff with the sketching and the legos and everything and I called her and I I told her I you know yeah I said I got to tell you something and I just need you and you just sit down too right don't just follow it so she sits and I say um and I tell her and I go but you know what gram I'm not angry and do you know why I'm not I know I'm not angry as I said because God knows me better than I know me and he took all that anger away I didn't know that I wouldn't I thought I would be angry but I'm so content with being I'm so content right now I only he could know that he knows me better than me and that proved it I was just and then and then on top of that then when I met actually my real dad oh he's an evangelical preacher okay and and a multimeter and a multi-millionaire oh yeah right like you're thinking of what you're thinking yeah what the heck is his name Joel Olstein right yeah yeah he's the South American Joel Olstein now he made his money first but yeah yeah I know but actually a lot of the best preachers did they do well a lot of the best politicians used to be that way like they they'd get wealthy they didn't use politics as a way to get wealthy they had a successful thing and they said I want to give back I want to get back I want to serve and that doesn't seem like the culture do you want do you want are you comfortable with where we left it on the religion conversation yeah we can we can switch to politics yeah yeah Roy's gonna hate me for taking every episode into politics and religions that's why I want people want to hear it they do and it doesn't mean that you're terrible you know so I was I think the Monday morning coffee after spike going yeah who's the vice presidential candidate for the libertarian candidate party and so we talked about that a little bit in your podcast but for me I was a libertarian before I knew that those existed yeah tell me about and frankly I'm not a strict libertarian I vote for lots of Republicans the Democrats because they're not that many but but tell me about your just notions of just party life like big picture overviews of party life maybe a political party life for the last 10 years you seem like a pretty observational guy and and why do you mean just about like the parties in general yeah like what's going on like why do we why why would you and I vote for the libertarian we have no chance that that person is going to get elected yeah you know my my latest perspective maybe the best I don't know right no no well I actually think so I did have spike Cohen on spike Cohen is phenomenal at front as a speaker and he is a very successful business person yeah I love the interview he I mean I was just blooming away I was like oh you are basically but wealth you are what you just what you just explain Kurt about like you get wealthy and successful and then and then and then and then give back and he wants to make a bunch of money he wants to he wants to he wants to free free people he wants to make people free again right free or free or we're the freest people in the world but we're slowly losing it yeah and something needs to change the tide yeah so he he was really good I could not get Joe Jorgensen on and that that's maybe a really good point so you're gonna go for well so I run I co-run one of the biggest social media one of the biggest independent libertarian media pages media conglomerates on the planet and it's being libertarian right so you go to being libertarian.com you can find articles I've written and then our Facebook pages probably our biggest one yeah we've got a most I think I'm actually a fan yeah we've got a million fault we've got almost a million followers on there I'm actually on a ban right now because I think they targeted me Facebook I'm not joking yeah I don't I don't think yeah and how I know that is like Adam the creator if anybody follows you can go to that page just type in Adam the creator if you're on Facebook there's a video that he made it's a parody of Donald Trump and it's it's the one where it's dreams by Fleetwood Mac except he's drinking chlorox well I ripped that video one minute after he posted it because I was like this is awesome content and I downloaded it and then I posted it I have a public page it's called Lance for Liberty it's got about 20,000 followers wow you're way more famous to be I'm bad and then I got and then I got I'm on a weird 30-day ban and for that video just until after the election and exactly you're influencing anybody it was on October 7th and and they won't tell me how long it is yeah I think it's 30 days and I can't post in any public page and anyway we don't need to criticize either of the major parties plenty of people have been doing that in the Philippines for a long time yeah but why Liberty why do you think that's important oh I just the government has gotten so big it's just you know one of the things that I hate if people say right now I think it's so silly I think it was I think it was okay to say in 2008 it 2012 especially 2012 I mean you look at the talking points between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama there was like one or two things they differed on other than that it's the same stuff we're gonna grow government right you know in it but in our different our own ways yeah more war over here more social programs over there the government has gotten so big now in my my opinion from top to bottom I mean even down to the city level because as a developer I'm telling you it takes too long to get stuff off the ground there's too much red tape it's not for safety anymore it's just four it's just four yeah and so one of the things I hate that people say is that they they mock that this is the most important election of our lifetime or imagine thinking that one if we had one person elected if there's one person gets elected where they get unelected or whatever or defeated that you're gonna make a huge change it will that's the problem that's the problem it's not the solution to keep electing your guy or your girl the solution is to to reduce the thing it's too big so so what do you say to those that would say like we all these corporations the the the Amazon's the Facebook's the not Yahoo anymore but like these big tech companies that are a 50 economy like who keeps them in check if it isn't the government it doesn't the government have to be big and powerful to keep those companies in check yeah I used to say it's such a good question because I used to say the market can solve all of our problems I really thought that the market was the solution but I just talked about a ban I just if you if you go look at those companies are too powerful for the market to fix them if you go to there's a famous New York a New York Times editor that is being shadow banned today on Twitter because of this Hunter Biden stuff that's coming out right the market like I'm like what the market is not gonna solve the problem anymore right so I honestly don't have a good answer for you Kurt yeah it's where I always stumble too like I used to say the market was all all the problems but now I'm like there has to be a reasonable there just has to be a reasonable solution and an approach I mean so that's what kind of bring a small government could bring a cudgel to monopoly power though right yeah and let's talk about maybe that maybe they should maybe the argument and discussion should be should be focused that okay why do these why do why does Facebook Twitter all these mega tech corporations have such a monopoly it is because of the government protection so if you look up if you look up a section 230 if you just Google section 230 you'll find all kinds of articles about it about how the problem with these platforms with the social media or the media platforms is that they're able under section 230 to act as publishers with without having the liability of publishers with pretending that their platforms right and that's that is where I would go okay well when they become the choosers and the deciders of who gets banned who doesn't get banned all that kind of stuff that's where dangerous territory yeah and so now I'm kind of I used to be how about this there's two different kinds of libertarians everybody should know if they don't know one is a big L and one is a little out right and the big L is I think we could live without government entirely period period and you're you're on the right of center or anarchism right that's not to be confused with what we're seeing in the cities where this left of center anarchism is incurring in their burning down buildings right libertarians would never do that because you can't harm other people's property and yeah and you believe in private property right you even believe in public property to a point sure I be I'm kind of a small L libertarian now at this point and I and it's because I've seen this happen over 10 years and and I'm telling you from a person who is being silenced on social media because of political views that we've got to fix that problem so it kind of goes down to like then you know I used to say tear down the whole system now I'm saying now I'm looking at Congress and I'm looking at the House in the Senate I'm going how about term limits good grief there's just so many little tweaks I think we could actually make that would make a much better representation you know when all these frankly all these people saying that but the national popular vote should take over the whole thing or whatever well Hillary won one out of six counties yeah you know and so if you look at a county by county map of the whole country you're like okay so like I get it that one vote one impact or whatever but like a whole bunch of people on a county by county basis like all these places didn't want her to be a president you know it's really only the cities that did and that's just going to carry forward into you know potentially this election likely this election I think probably you have a you on a forecast for us we're about a month out oh I think Trump wins by I think he gets at least 330 electoral votes you're predicting Trump's landslide wow that is I think like 15 points ahead was what the last poll said I don't believe the polls yeah I don't believe the polls because I watched the polls last time I will never forget I literally have on my calendar to post if they'll let me out of jail the Huffington Post tweet where it was Hillary Clinton 98% Donald Trump too like I never forget that tweet they still they have then deleted it they kept it up right yeah fair no I and I think it's even money right now I'm not quite as fair that's fair I the problem is is that is that the the my in my opinion the corporate press is in cahoots with one certain party and the way I can tell that that's happening is because my wife got readpilled over this whole thing over the covid stuff all right where she was just like she was watching all the news and everything and she goes finally she turns to me she goes they won't give Donald Trump any credit for anything will they and I go no he could there isn't they can't admit one thing he's done good and then she also watched like all you know Cuomo or whatever politicians come up and just say one thing and then like oh that never happened oh yeah here's the kicker the kicker was did you know at the Denver um not the tech center the Denver uh convention center sure yeah they were building a temporary hospital okay and her ex-husband we're still we're friends with them we talked to them sir we're good they were building this emergency temporary hospital just waiting for these crazy numbers and all this stuff are are are actually the the Eagles event center there the Eliza event center is still I think being leased for a million dollars a month or something just in case we have just a case just in case and it never happened right and it never happened and she I've never seen her this was the only time in her life that I've I know for a fact because one of the churches that we used to go to and watch was unity church in in Boulder and one of the best things that they said was is they're an all-inclusive so they believe you know every religion is accepted basically yep um but one of the best messages that uh yeah at least they acknowledge that something is moving yeah one of the best messages they had is that they said like the phrase that they use over and over again is the insane media and I'm like oh I love that because they are insane and so she because she heard that over and over again you know in her life growing up she just said like yeah I don't watch the media like you do lens but because one of our sons has a respiratory issue during COVID she finally turned it on every day and she saw the panic porn and then she saw the panic porn not pan out for whatever reasons you want to argue why it didn't right right and she she's like okay I I'm with you they are just liars it was supposed to be two million people dead unless we did this and this and this and now our president is attacked for having a you know a couple hundred thousand dead was like well apparently did a good job according to what we were told earlier yeah I want to make it clear to him I'm not I'm not a Trump supporter I'm just calling it like it is I wouldn't be my sister to move along with it yeah as an independent as an literally a guy from independent liberty freedom media just watching this panel I didn't vote for him in 2016 I didn't vote for anybody as far as president 2016 but what but I what I did do is just like with Obama I said oh he was elected great I'm gonna give him a shot I'm gonna I'm gonna give him a shot in my mind and I've watched the media for the past four years never give the guy a shot now he's got like three Nobel Peace prizes he cut my taxes my you know there's all this thing 56% of people are better off than last four years ago whatever stuff like that stuff like that I digress stuff like that I'm a very anti-war person yeah and I yeah and I agree that you just tear down the world like we build the world with our buildings and our architecture and our theories and ideas and connections but when you bomb something it just breaks it all day and it's been so needless too because that was another thing you know like you know you talk about like what transpired at for 9.11 I mean there were so many people that would have read pilled after that and saw the lies again from the media coaxing us into this stuff change swayed public opinion and then so if if you're of that generation and you've seen this then you're that's maybe why we're anti war so much and then I'm watching I'm watching him going like well he hasn't gotten this end to us into he's been lured many times because he hasn't gotten us into another major conflict like isn't that a win can we give some credit right and no credit known yeah anyway so yeah I still I'm I'm split between Joe Jorgensen and Kanye West still on my vote I hear you um we got we're right coming close to five o'clock now I want to honor your time and so anything last let's go back to business for a second but there's one like what you'd look for in somebody that you're going to add to your team because I know that it is a competitive environment out there in architecture and construction and stuff like that there's a lot of people coming out of college you know wondering if they could get a job for f9 productions or f14 production someday what what is is there are maybe three things I don't know it's one of the things we try to identify right away as loyalty and that's hard right like how do you identify loyalty right away because there's again this this um notion that loyalty is dead you have people jumping from job to job and for in a lot of ways it's it's true you know I'd agree with that I think the the dot com boom the tech rise has uh changed that um so identifying how where the loyalty it can be and one of the questions we'll ask you is we'll ask we'll ask you where do you see yourself from one year or five year ten years and some people have came back and they have they have huge cajones and they say I want your job and I'm like ah don't do that right I can't believe they I mean I'm like half of me goes like that's pretty bulky I appreciate that but the other half of me goes yeah not gonna hire you so identifying loyalty is one good thing and then the second thing at this point like I already mentioned is like if you have do you don't have any experience good that's good I like that cool and then and then the third one is um how do you feel and this is we female and male candidates will ask him this how do you feel about getting your hands dirty getting in the field and and pounding nails yeah and that's it's that's got to be a yes if you don't feel comfortable with that then you're just not going to fit with what we're doing is that because you do that on a regular basis yeah your architects go out there for field days once more so they can see it yep yeah cool I love that yeah not only see it but do it yeah I mean we'll pull them out we'll kind of you know one of the ideas is eventually once we get enough construction projects going and we're busy right now but if we get a little bit busy I would like to do rotation where like okay every Friday you know every Monday you go out every Tuesday you go out and then you rotate in and out feels like a field trip for them feels like a field trip breaks up their week yeah all of that stuff so yeah so that's what that's what I'm looking for at this point contrary to propositive belief I don't care if you came from Harvard at all I don't care if you went to Harvard I don't care if you went to Montana State I don't care where you went to school like yes the grades matter yes the portfolio matters but a lot of it comes down to the personality and the interview and that loyalty willing to get dirty and honestly maybe you don't have experience and that's okay yeah yeah I love it um I think that's enough to close uh let's it's been really an enjoyable conversation I think we got into some topics that you probably were surprised that we would have entered into and I think that's what we like to do with the local experience um say how to Maryland Maryland Maryland I love you say Maryland I love you they're perfect that's a good type of close thanks lads uh thanks for being on today and uh thanks for listening to the local experience thank you for listening to today's episode of the local experience podcast this is Kurt bear founder of the local think tank and hosted the local experience and I'm here with Rory Sharr local business developer and hosted the local shorts episodes we hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode our mission and all that we do including this podcast is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community subscribe and follow us where you listen to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released curious about local you can learn more about us at localthinktank.com where you'll find more information about our chapters business resources and events for business owners and key leaders if you're looking for perspective accountability and encouragement along your business journey why not apply for a chapter near you today why not why not why not we'll catch you next time on in-depth local experience podcast with me Kurt and with me Rory for bite size business lessons in the local shorts bye