EXPERIENCE 240 | Building Success with Steven South of LSE Builders- Integrity, Transparency, & Growth

In this episode of the LOCO Experience Podcast, I welcome Stephen South, founder and president of LSE Builders. Stephen and I connected on LinkedIn, and found a lot of common cause in a Zoom, and I hope to add him to the ranks of LOCO Think Tank members in coming months. Stephen shares anecdotes about his early experiences in the construction industry, including the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on his fledgling contracting business, and the pivots he made to navigate, and the eventual evolution into a corporate role, which led to LSE. We also delved into the nuances of making connections on LinkedIn and elsewhere, and the importance of transparency and integrity in business dealings. Stephen elaborates on their core values at LSE and how they influenced the culture and growth of his company. And later in the conversation, he candidly talks about his struggles with alcohol, describing the night he hit rock bottom, and how it led him to sobriety through the help of AA meetings and a supportive sponsor. Stephen's story is one of resilience, adaptability, and personal growth, and it's one of my most enjoyable recording sessions this season. And I'm certain you'll enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Stephen South. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy, and through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint, and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. My guest today is Stephen South, and Stephen is the founder and president of LSE Builders, based in Love Longmont, about doing up, work up and down the front range. Welcome to the studio. Thank you for having me. Oh yeah, great to be here. You're one of a relatively few people that I actually meet first on LinkedIn and then meet. Right. People that I meet on LinkedIn are usually like in some far away place or whatever. Is that right? Yeah, I'll meet people in person a lot more, and then like, stalk them and connect with them on LinkedIn so I can see what they're up to more or whatever. You know what I think is funny about LinkedIn is you connect with somebody, and sometimes it says, hey, send a note with your invitation or not, you know. And, you know, whether you send a note or not, you connect with them, and then you'll say, something like, oh, hey, you know, what's up, we work in the same, whatever. Yeah. You know, be great to catch up sometime. And then you see where their face pops up so they read your message, and it's just crickets. You know, you never hear anything back from them. And I'm like, should I message them again? Or am I the weird creepy guy? I don't know, I guess my experience is probably in some ways the opposite where people are, because I'm kind of LinkedIn famous already. So people want to get on my connector list, I guess, or something. But then they want to sell me stuff. Yeah. And then they can be the automated emails, and yeah, I usually just ignore them. If I know it's automated, I just either write, unconnects sometimes. Sometimes it's really interesting, I'll connect, but almost always I just ignore it. Well, I don't want to give positive credence to those kind of things. Right. And I found that the messages that are going to sell you something that they're setting you up are really pretty obvious. Totally easy to see. So you can see that coming a mile away. And it's easy to make connections on LinkedIn. I feel like with, you know, there's a post and there's a story. And then, you know, people are commenting on it. Oftentimes it's someone that you know, which is why it's in your feed in the first place. Yeah. And then you comment yourself on it, you know. Now you're tied together to this person's algorithm for a little while at least. You see the rest of or whatever. Yeah. What was, like, did my comment, because I was criticizing, you were criticizing something. It was the, the, the, the Albertsons. The city of Fort Collins is going to purchase the Albertsons property on North Fort College. Yes. Which city, you know, development authority funding had kind of bankrolled this king supers. That's right. That ran the Albertsons out of business. And so it's like we're using our tax dollars to rescue the property that that's what I've blighted from with our tax dollars. That's what I read. Yeah. And when I saw it come up, I was like, why is this coming up? Well, it turns out that one of my friends who works in the construction industry is, is connected to the original poster. Okay. Sure. So then I saw your comment. Who I did meet with. Good. For the, for the record. That's right. You did. You told me, you know, you've learned all about tax increment financing and the twisted leases that Albertsons have done to raise capital to complete the merger of a safe way and all this stuff. It's a crazy. And so you know a lot more about it than I do now. And what's interesting about that is that we both have more context about the project. Sure. But when you just read it on LinkedIn, there's no context totally. So, so what happens is you go into immediate, I support this or I don't support this. Totally. And there's been a lot of that chatter around Martin's project in Greeley lately. Yes, they're. If you've noticed, is that Water Valley? Will the Cascadia thing? Yeah, right. Yeah, the next Water Valley, if you will, right? Okay. So we'll see if that how that goes. I haven't checked in for a while. So, you know, you read things like that. And if you're, you know, if you're anything like me. And I'll admit it. I start kind of going into a troll mode, you know, and I'm trying to fight it. And I'm like, I don't want to comment. I don't want to say what I'm thinking. And then I say, you comment. And you're basically saying exactly what I was thinking. And so, yeah, I liked it. And then the rest is, you know, the story we are now. Here we are. I like to say flattery will get you everywhere with me. That's right. But it turns out we were both wrong. I mean, yes. I mean, we just didn't have a lot of context. Okay. Overall, it's hard to say, like, would I, I don't know, there's a video of me out there, like supporting the mall redevelopment project thing, which was obviously a raging success also. So I'm not, you know, I'm not right about stuff always. No, of course. I mean, but for, but for context, what is it? It's a blighted property for the old Safeway. Yeah. And the owner of it is some hedge fund that bought the lease effectively, has no incentive to get anybody else in there because Safeway is on the lease. And they're paying it. Paying it. Yeah. So he has, he has very little maintenance too. Right. So the Jason property owners, they're even cock blocking them from putting a restaurant in there or something because just in case Safeway, the owners ever want to put a restaurant in that strip. Well, what's interesting? What I would think is that the entire shopping center would be suffering now because there's no angle. Totally. Yeah. 100%. And so that's kind of a blight on all those adjacent property owners is the argument. So the city's got to do something about it. Right. I don't know. So ginger shots. Okay. My neighbor referred me to these. She's like a cholera Latina voodoo witch doctor of sorts. Okay. Or natural medicine is probably sounds better than voodoo. There's some herbalist herbalist maybe. So and Jill had been like had this cold that she just couldn't shake to get a little better. And then get sucked back in. And so ginger shots is maybe a half a bulb of garlic, fresh garlic. Okay. Put this in your like ninja, a new to ninja thing. Yep. And then I've just been, I used to use fresh ginger, but it's such a pain in the nest to peel and stuff. I just been using ginger paste. Okay. Maybe a tablespoon and a half or two tablespoons of ginger paste. Um, tablespoon of honey. Mm-hmm. Two lemons peeled and quartered or cut into chunks. You don't have to take all the seeds out. Just throw them in there all the webbing and stuff like that. Yeah. Just get the peels off. And then I've been using coconut water. Just have a nice alkaline to carry all that stuff. Mm-hmm. Oh, and then quite a bit of turmeric or fresh turmeric. Okay. Kayam pepper. And you add a little salt and then just. And how much are you making? How many ounces? Probably 20 ounces, 24 ounces. But then just take it two ounces at a time, twice a day. Right. And then that fresh ginger and that fresh lemon juice and all that garlic will just chase all the kudis away faster than. No kidding. Yeah. I've been a big fan of kick ass immune support. I've heard of that. In the past. Yep. This seems to be more effective than that. Which, and that stuff's like 20 bucks for a little tiny bottle. Well, this sounds pretty cheap to make. Relatively. Yeah. None of the ingredients are super expensive. Right. And you get to watch your wife go. Yeah. Or your daughter. Or your daughter. Yeah. My kids would hate it. Yes. My ex-change didn't refuse at this morning because she took it last night because she knew it was good for her. But she didn't want to risk the garlic breath at school. Man, I will do. I will do anything to avoid. To not be sitting sick. Yes. I'm such a baby about it. I mean, basically for men being sick, I think it's equivalent to childbirth for women. It's, is that scientific? I think that's been proven. Yeah. I saw him even about it at least. Yeah. Yeah. And I've always belittled my wife's suffering in having children. So. I thought that. Well, you're fine. You're fine. Yeah. It's a funny story actually with my, with my, my daughter is my first born. And when, when she was born, of course, that was like a, you know, that was like an aha moment for me. Yeah. When I was born, I don't remember them doing stuff. Like, you know, it was really a thing. Like, my dad was kind of out in the hallway. Yeah. Or a day two or so. Or probably my dad was down in the parking lot, smoking a cigarette. Yeah. And he, he shows up at some point with flowers on a balloon. Or whatever it was there. But I was there. And now, you know, you're everybody's there. And, and so I watched the whole thing. And, um, the, I almost passed out. So that's true, true story. Um, she comes out and I'm like, oh, you know, wow, you know, it's a big moment. And, um, obviously, and there's several nurses in there. And you know, when a baby is born, um, they want it to cry. Like, you know, they, they want the baby to make a noise, take a deep breath, get it all going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I have been having oxygen of this way yet, get the whole lungs out there. Just stretch them out. Fire the engines up, right? Yeah. Yeah. Dust the carbon off the valves, whatever. And my daughter wasn't really doing that. Not the way they wanted her to. She was kind of huffing and puffing, but not really a big scream. And they wanted her to get pissed off and just scream. And, um, so the nurse has kind of grabbed the baby away. And take it over to this little station, which kind of like, I don't know, changes the mood. Right. From excited to nervous. Yeah. And I'm looking over there. And my wife's looking at me like, what's going on? And I'm like, I don't know. And, um, there's a nurse that looks at me. And she notices I'm kind of going pale. You know, and before anything, I started seeing the room kind of closing in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Been there. And, um, my wife was hungover in a class, but whatever. Okay. Well, different circumstances. Yes. But the same result. And, um, but you can feel it. It's like, you can feel it. It's, it's, it's literally a circle of black just closing in. And, um, before I went over, a nurse just, just basically rolls a chair into the back of my knees, knocks me down. Another nurse puts a juice box in my hand with the straw already in it. And I'm just, you're like, I still don't know what's going on, but at least I'm not on the floor. At least another floor. And as soon as I sat down and I took a sip, like, it's like, okay. And, you know, the color came back. And, and then, um, I don't know, seconds later, my daughter's like screaming in the corner. And I do know this. Like, were you waiting for that scream or you don't really know what's going on? You're just like, um, concerned. No, I had heard them talk about it. Like, we, we, like, like, as this was happening, I think one of the nurses said, like, you know, we just wanted to, we just wanted to let out a big scream and try. And, um, and so I was like, okay, you know, for, I do remember for a second, I was kind of hovering over, over the, the table where they were working on her. And, and then I kind of stepped back and that's when it all kind of started to get a little too much. It'll freak it out here. Yeah. Now, the next time when my son was born, this is two and a half years later, I'm a seasoned pro now. Right. And, um, I go in there, took a little bit longer to get in the labor. My wife is complaining about all the pain. She's, she wants, you know, the, the epidural guy. Right, right. Anastasia, anesthesiologist come in. And I recognize this guy from the last time, same date. Okay. And he comes in and, uh, and I said to him and I was joking. Um, but, but I'm told I do have a dry sense of humor at times. And so not everybody always knows when I'm joking. I'd say 90% of the time I'm talking I'm joking. Um, but, but I said to him as he's got, he, he wheels his little station in there. You know, and he's got all the equipment to stab and inject and monitor. Right, right. And he wheels all of his stuff in there. He's looking really pro. And so I say to him, I said, you know, Doc, I feel like I could do this job like no training needed. And he did not have the response I expected. He turns to me and he says, well, here, come over. I'll show you. And we both sit down and we give my wife and epidural together. Oh, no way. Oh, yeah, it was incredible. But he knew how much to give her. He did. Yeah, I wasn't like, I wasn't like real hands on. Well, epidural won't like kill you, right? Like it's a spot thing. It's not like the anesthesiologist word. Right. Literally will kill you if they don't do it. Yeah, they can, they can screw everything up. I think pretty quickly when they're gasping in terms of, yeah. But, but the epidural, I think the big part there is maybe, you know, the needle going in, the right spot and not tweaking your spine out. Right. Reducing your ability to push. Yeah, you would do that. That's like a big novocaine is how I imagine it. Well, I learned a lot that day. And chiefly, I learned that I cannot do epidural with no training. Do the first poke and you missed it? No. Okay, that's good. No, he was really just walking me through it, you know. So we should talk about LSE. Yeah, we should. At least a little bit. I mean, I mean, otherwise I can't write the. Well, it's just a stage for why you have, you know, the thoughts and experiences that we'll explore later probably. Yeah, for sure. So you're, you're a general contractor? Yes, which is a contractor of general things. Residential. No, sir. We are commercial. Yes, sir. No residential, no matter. No, we've done it. Yeah. In fact, we started out there in the residential. Oh, interesting. Yeah, and did it about for, I don't know, a year or two. No, I don't know. We had residential contracts, probably all the way up to, we started in 2015. Okay. I think we probably did the last residential contract in 2018. Okay. It's probably the last sign. So a commercial general contractor? Yes. Um, types of projects. Um, so one of the cool things about LSE builders group is like the wide variety of projects that we've done. Um, and, you know, there's, there's a lot of GCs that will really get very specific. Right. And, and I don't know. I mean, props to that. For a while, it like need an even, it seemed like was building schools with 65% of their time and other things with. Exactly. Right. And, and, and, you know, if there's enough schools to do that or hospitals or whatever somebody wants to really. Yeah. Um, and that's great. More power to them. Um, we have done less public work over the years. And so a lot of the, a lot of the municipal bids that will come through, um, through the channels of, you know, how schools select contractors or, or how jails or police stations or whatever. How they procure their contractors, we haven't been entirely involved with that heavily. Okay. Um, over the past decade, we have done some. But a lot of our clients have been private enterprise. Um, regular business wants a new building. A lot of them are just. Yeah. Or an addition onto their existing one. Do you do. Yeah. Stuff like that too. In fact, we so to give you a little more specific answer. You know, last year we built an addition onto, um, a church called Calvary Church in Grimfield. Oh. And, um, you know, big, they have a big metal building. It was a gymnasium really. They needed kind of a nicer, you know, timber structure for their congregation. Um, so we built an addition onto that building. Um, that was a fun one. We've also done a lot of interior remodels. Um, and I would say, gosh, lots of fitness centers. Um, okay. Lots of, we've done bars. We've done distilleries, breweries. We've done, um, again, the faith-based work. Yeah. A lot of wellness. So, yeah. Smaller enterprises tend to gravitate you to help you help them do their project. A lot of them are locally owned. Yeah. Some of them are first-time business owners just getting started. Well. Um, and, um, you know, then we also have, uh, capital improvement projects for some of the larger contract or some of the law larger clients that we have some own shopping centers. Okay. Multiple shopping centers. And at times they need, uh, refresh on this wing or whatever that kind of stuff. Yeah. And sometimes they just need it done correctly and quickly. So, when they could call, you know, uh, if there was vandalism, for example, they could call a painter, they could call a glacier, they could call a stucco guy. Um, but then they can just make one called us and it's done in a couple days. So, you're willing this to do a $15,000 project for an established client. Absolutely. Is part of what sets you apart because it's kind of almost the ongoing maintenance contract on the bigger projects or things like that. Kind of a more flexible model than. Yeah. What the biggies might be. Yeah. Well, for sure. I mean, um, there's, there's GCs out there that are that are so big, you know, yeah, no project under a million is even 10 million. 10 million. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, um, I think that's probably, uh, you know, I know, I know a project manager to a company, it's fairly well known called pencil felps. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what their project minimum is, but I would imagine it's probably probably bigger than your biggest one. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And that's great. They found what they do. We found what we do. So talk about how, how your operation works. How many, how many staff do you have? And do you have painters and stuff on team or know it's more about the project management element. You bring in subs for these various functions. Right. What not? Great question. Um, so, you know, a general contractor operates in two ways, um, which could be, um, you know, true GC work, which is, you know, you're a project manager, you're a construction manager. Yeah. A professional service organization, basically. Right. Exactly. And that's a lot of what we do. And then the other part of that is self performance. Um, so GC's also can, you know, if they elect, you know, have a self performance team. Yep. Um, you know, what I, what I would say about that is you have to be careful. Right. Yeah. Um, self performance winds up. Um, for one thing, you have to have the right team. Right. You also have to have, um, the ability to keep that team working. And you have to accept the liability for all the work that that team does. Right. Well, I just think it's almost potentially a trap even because it's almost like, hey, we're funding all these. Six-figure jobs for homelessness alleviation. And it turns out all those people with those six-figure jobs for homelessness alleviation want to keep those jobs. So why would they alleviate anything? Yeah. You know, so if you've got a fulfillment team in house, it's like, sure. Shit, we don't have that much work to do. So we better slow down. Right. We're a few days. Right. Well, you know, what, what, what, what I say about self performance is, um, I, I feel really, I feel like we have done our job at LSE, um, very well. If we didn't have the need to do anything ourselves. Yeah. Right. The punch-listy kind of things, maybe, that, yeah, you could bust that subcontractor's balls for not quite finishing or you could just throw four hours at it and finish. Yeah. And that's happened. Right. But we, you know, we really want to strive to manage the quality of the work and, um, and doing that the first time, you know. Yeah. I'll often say after delivery punch-list, it's the pre-delivery punch-list. Okay. Yeah, 100%. And I, and I'm trying to operate on a zero punch-list. Right. Right. That's, that's my team's goal. Sure. And, you know, I mean, I'm not going to say we hit zero punch-list every single time. Um, but zero punch-list is certainly a goal. Well, but good management. Yeah. It could happen. It can happen. I mean, it has happened. We've done it. Yeah. And I don't think zero punch-list happens very often amongst the general contracting world. Sure. Now, my team, you asked, um, yeah, please, I have a, I have a small team. Um, but everybody kind of owns their own, their own part of it. Yeah. Um, so, you know, we've got an office in Longmont, uh, in a shop space. Okay. So we, we have me, I'm, I'm doing a lot of the, uh, business development on private enterprise. Okay. Um, primarily private enterprise clients. Yep. So that's your developers, your, uh, brokers, your bankers. So your kissing hands and shaking babies with those kind of folks? Exactly. I don't know that this is the kind of stuff that we can kick out for you if you need it. Yes. Yes. And trying to understand a little bit more about what their problems are. And, you know, I, my job is, I try to make problems go away. Um, and so, you know, yeah, even if they've got a shopping center listing that isn't moving, but really if somebody did a little bit of fresh, fresh, yeah, they could get it done. And if you've got the right property manager or, you know, the right team in place on, on the owners end, and they're going to recognize, hey, if we wide box this space, we can lease it. Right. It's been sitting vacant for three years. Yeah. These are the things we can do. Nobody wants the who hot style griddle in the middle of here. Or even if it's just a blank space, right? Yeah. I mean, um, sometimes they just look really rough. Yeah. Um, you know, so, so there's that, um, and, and I'll do all of the, uh, development on that. I'll usually take it all the way through the estimate too. I'll put the numbers together for it. Um, we have, uh, one admin in the office. Yeah. Um, she's also just an incredible person. She's, um, you can say her name if you want. Yeah. Her name is Cindy James. Hi, Cindy. Um, everybody who works with me knows her. Um, she does all like the billing and the this and that, whatever stuff. Yeah. Well, it's just so much. It's hard to, right. But, you know, I mean, she does the lean waiver. She does the project close out. She does, um, she helps us with POs. She helps us managing all the accounts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you got several of them at the same time. Exactly. Yeah. There's buckets of money and she makes sure that they're all lined up, right? Yeah. And, and, uh, where there's details she's keeping track of it. Exactly. Yeah. To the scent. And, um, and then you'll, you'll see her. She'll be working with the accountants. She'll, and then, you know, today she was doing marketing brochures, you know, updating all that stuff. And she's just all over the place and how long she been with you. Yeah. Since the beginning. Wow. Yeah. Uh, I started in 2015 and I think we brought her on in 2016 a year later. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty cool. A lot of institutional knowledge. Yes. Don't you get paid enough? No. But she knows this and she's patient. I think, I think the patient's part is very important with that, you know, because, uh, I mean, we're building. Yeah. You know, what, I mean, essentially a legacy, right? We, um, we're not fly by night contractors. We're not trying to make the most amount of profit on, on every single job. It's just we know we can lose money, but we can't lose reputation for what we're trying to build. Yeah. So Cindy and, yeah, so Cindy and Henry Ramos is, um, he's been with us for I think five years. Um, and he is the director of operations. Okay. Um, he manages all the supers, uh, a lot of the schedule, um, you know, it's taking so much off of my plate to be able to have him, you know, just solving problems. And it's not easy construction operations. It's not easy. Always not easy. It's the point. That's why people hire you. That's why people hire us. And, um, and then we have, uh, Juan Sanchez is a project superintendent. And then we have Jose Pena, who's also a product superintendent and then Kimberly Waibenga, who does all of our business development. Oh, um, okay. Through, you know, but she knows people that I don't, that are very important people that I would like to know. If you're listening, I'd like to know. You could look up. It refers to what you want to. Um, she's, she's come to us with, uh, like a decade long business development in the construction industry. Cool. Uh, experience and, and she's doing, um, did she choose you because she wanted a little smaller setting or something like that? Yeah. It's interesting. Well, it's cool. Or when I, when I looked over a resume, um, she worked at, you know, some gigantic company. Yeah. And I can't remember the name of it right now, but a really big construction company. And then she kind of went down in size to another company called Mark Young Construction. Okay. Mark Young's in Frederick. Okay. And they're, they're, I mean, yeah, for the name, actually, where, where I come from, where I'm at, I mean, we're, we're a 10 year old company. Right in the construction industry. You know, there's, there's companies that have been around for a hundred years. Sure. I mean, so there's some really big guys out there. And Mark Young is not a small company. Yeah. In my opinion. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, so she stepped down size there. And then, uh, when she came on board with us, I, I, I was one of the questions I asked her. I was like, yeah, this is a small, we're small. Right. And we're a boutique firm. Right. I mean, we're, we're young, relatively in the market. And, um, yeah, you got to earn your reputation in every project still. Every rep, yeah, every single project. And, you know, there's a benefit to, um, now, if you wanted to build a $70 million hotel, I'm not your guy. Yeah. But if you have a project between what, you know, $250,000 and $5 million, and you want, uh, connectivity to the field team all the way up through the executive level. Um, I mean, dude, I go to every single OAC meeting for my company, um, which is an OAC meeting is an owner, owner of that contractor. Oh, I see. So what we do when we set up, we building the thing that we intended to build. Right. How's the project going along? All the updates, all the status, the schedule check in, taking the pulse on everything, right? They can take 30 minutes, they can take an hour. Yeah. Um, but, but you know where things are at. But you know where things are at. And, and I'm on every single one of those calls. Yeah. Um, which, you know, if you've got, if you're, if you're running four or five projects at a time, you've got four or five OAC meetings every week. Yeah. Right. Um, now Henry and his guys are the ones who actually prepared the meeting minutes. I don't really do that. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm there. You're available. You're accountable, ultimately. I am accountable, ultimately. Yeah. That's right. Um, so, you know, that's my team. Um, I think there's a, and of course, I can't forget this. Um, Carla, my wife. Sure. Um, she's, uh, she does all of our social media, all of our community outreach. Okay. Um, engagement that are going to be charitable and things like that. Yep. So I'm not good at that. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Who does your books and such? Is that the admin too? Yes. Wow. That's Cindy. Yeah. Yeah. Cindy, if you're looking for a job someday. No, no, no, no, no. All right. So, so there's a couple, there's a couple of people here that are also owners. All right. Okay. So my wife is an owner. Sure. Um, and Henry and Cindy. Well, cool. I had to make some golden handcuffs a little bit or just let them share it on the upside. Well, yeah. I mean, um, I can't. Well, if you're, you know, if you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking like, you know, how to be a value add to your company or how to, you know, get steak in the company or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. These two people are a wealth of information for that. I mean, they, they have taken the initiative, they've taken the ambition. And they've said, this is the area of the company that I work in and I will own it. I will own it. Right. 100%. I own it. It's mine. Yeah. And if you schedule a meeting with that person to discuss that department's activities, then they're not just going to show up, right, to the meeting. Yeah. To take notes. They're going to show up to tell you to be able to answer your recap of all of the things. Yeah. Well, you're going to, you should have an answer to every question that you're asking and you should probably be able to learn more than you expected. Right. And that's what they provide. Yeah. Cool. What did you make them partners or in how, if you're willing to share, like, did you have a buy end? Did you gift in like a combination of the things? Well, there was, there was a, there was Cindy was the first one. Okay. And she was gifted in. I just gave her ownership in the company. Yeah. Because I, because I recognize that the value is twice as much as if I didn't have you almost. Right. I cannot do this without you. Yeah. Right. If she were to quit, I don't know what I would do. Right. It's kind of that situation. Right. And I don't want to find out. So I'm going to do this this way. All right. And so that was gifted. And Henry, I think he also was pretty, pretty quickly on the same track to do that. But in that moment, he recognized that I was a little bit cornered. And I hope he doesn't listen to his podcast because he'll find out that, you know, he would have got ownership at some point anyway. But he realized that I had kind of put myself in between a rock and a hard place. Yeah. I was buying a new building and selling an old one. And I was just. The bridge was a little too short. It was a little short. Gotcha. Yeah. But so he came in and he was like, well, I got a proposition for you. Yeah. Well, that's honoring too, though, right? Like that's him also saying, you're the kind of man that I would like to be business partners with. Oh, dude. It's ultimately humbling. Yeah. And you know, that's also a pressure and a responsibility that I didn't expect fully when I was starting the company. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to, you know, we all start companies for different reasons, I guess. Yeah. But at the end of the day, they have to be profitable. Right. And that's what makes all the employees happier over time too, not just the owner. 100%. Yeah. You don't want to be walked around the hallways of irritated companies. And when I'm working on this company, I'm thinking about, you know, how the decisions I make are going to take care of these people. I like to make money just like anybody else. But, you know, the real weight of the company is legacy. Yeah. And, you know, what's interesting, what we're able to do for our clients, our owners, and, you know, the people that work for the company. I, so my wife and I have been married for 22 years, but don't have children. We're hosting our 12th exchange student now, so that's been a bit of our legacy. Yeah. But otherwise, my legacy kind of is local think tank. Or perhaps the local experience podcast will be stuck on the airwaves long after I'm gone or whatever. But it's looking like that notion of legacy. Like what, what's so compelling to you about that in this setting in the setting of the business world? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, or just in general. Like, you've already mentioned, you've got a couple of kids. You've got some legacy already, you've got some trailers anyway, but it seems very important to you to have a company that maybe even outlives you. I mean, that's cool to think about, you know. And I guess it kind of boils down to a lot of industry. So let's say construction industry norms and fads. I mean, I've got a, I've got a buddy who's very, very wise about construction. Very smart, dude. And he said to me, in this business, there's professionals and there's jokers. And, you know, you will find a lot of the jokers out there. Eventually, their jok catches up to him. It does. Yeah. And then, you know, you see the companies that have endured through good times and bad times. And they've maintained their business. They've managed to leverage strongholds in different areas and retain their clients. And they're in their employees sometimes too. Exactly. Well, I mean, it doesn't always have to happen sometimes to get to the next level. Those first followers don't quite fit or whatever. But also, there's when I was a banker and people had 30 year old companies. And they had four people that have been with them for more than 20 years. Yeah. And it's like dang, this guy's probably got pretty good character. Yeah. Or the scale or whatever or that or somebody's stupid. Right. Right. Well, and there are some people that just have a tremendous loyalty as part of their wiring. That exists. They're natural. Yeah. There's people that don't like change. Right. And they're comfortable sometimes my wife's job is a pain in the ass. I'm like, I know you could make like 20% more and less pain in the ass job. Yeah. She's like, but I love my boss. You know, I love my team. And she likes it there. Yeah. And she does my change. Yeah. Well, I mean, culture is a huge part of it. Yeah. Right. And a lot of problems that I've learned, you know, just can't be solved with money alone. Sure. What would you say would be some of the characteristics that your team especially would say are different about working as part of LSE? That would probably be our core values. Okay. You know, integrity. It's difficult sometimes, but you want to pretend like somebody's always watching what you're doing. Right. And you want to be the same guy that you are in your house. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And somebody was saying something about Atticus Finch and that book and said, yeah, Atticus Finch is the same guy outside in his front yard as he is inside of his house. And that's integrity. Yeah. I can't say that about myself all the time. No. No. No. My wife has seen the worst in me. Same. And I'd be embarrassed if people saw me lose my temper in public, you know. But to operate, you know, to have that consistently in mind, the integrity factor. Transparency is another one with us. Yeah. With my construction firm and that was big for me when I started the business because. Look, even as far as showing your customers how much money you're making out with that stuff. Yeah. 100%. Man. That's transparency. Yeah. There's no sort of transparent or half transparent. You can see behind this side of the curtain. Yeah. I've always been the guy that shares his financials with my employees. You know, it's a small firm and I've never made that much money. Not embarrassed about. But, but, you know, and I also understand not sharing everything. You know, I get that too. You know, when it's just, here's our sales, you know, we're going to monitor this. And there's nothing about how the business actually works, what the expenses are, what the team does, you know. So I would say don't be careful about what you share. Be careful who you share it with. Yeah. Right. So if I'm interested in you and you're interested in using our service. And you say to me, I want to see how financially healthy this company is. Well, because you're asking me for a deposit on a million dollar job. Right. And I want to know that you're going to show up. Do you have a job? Yeah. That $50,000 deposit is just going to be part of what pays your past creditors off. Yes. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So that should be transparent. You should be willing to share that. Yeah. If you aren't hiding anything. Right. The other thing about it is I've always been, you know, aware of how how certain owners, buyers, clients of construction companies are like sitting there. Okay. I understand the drywall costs $40,000. And I understand the applying costs 38,000 or whatever the numbers are. Right. But they don't ever know what the GC's cut is. Right. Like how much is this guy really paying for the drywall? How much is really paying for the point? Right. So that is one thing I started out at the very beginning. I was like, I'm not going to play this game. I'm not going to play this game where I hire a guy for $5,000 less than I told them it was going to be. Because, you know, what happens is things change. People change their minds. They want different things. And there's just that there's also, you know, things that you, you know, seeable problematic issues that are going to create kind of a conflicting thing. Right. Well, it's a, it's a bringing ground for conflict. Yeah, you're, you're, you're trying to get it the first cheap as possible. And it gives as much margin on each thing, you know. Well, that's the motivation. Right. Right. Potentially. You know, it makes you want to just chip down all of your trade partners. You know, you could also see some contractors, whatever. But it makes you want to chip them down and beat them down to a nub. Yep. And you know what? Here's something people might not want to hear. People work better when they're being paid well. Yeah. So if you want to have a partner, a trade partner, not just a subcontract, man, I can go find electricians anywhere. I can find drywalls anywhere. They're, they're, they're all over the place. And for every single one that goes out of business, another five pop up. So you can find subcontractors wherever you want. But you want to have a trade partner. That's a different story. You know, that's a person that is riding with your company. Sure, he's riding with other companies too. But he, he or she, right, that company is invested in your success and you're invested in theirs. Yeah. That's different. That makes things different. In fact, I'll tell you a quick story about that. I just, I just, I'm not proud of this. But I, I like what a story started. Look, hey, look, I'm not proud of this. Okay. I, I was doing a, a bid for a job. And so frustrating too, because I was trying to be competitive. I knew they were going to, I knew they were going to really focus on price. You know, and I was trying to get in the door with this group. And so I'm, I'm being as competitive as I possibly can. I knew that I was up against two other bidders, you know. And I go in there and me and the frame are, frame of drywaller. You know, we have a conversation about this job. And I hardly remember it. I'm ashamed to say, hardly remember the conversation. He calls me up and he's like, hey, do you see this? Is this, is this framing up there in the ceiling already existing? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I think it is. I think it is. And I was, I had five other things in front of me and people, you know, on each side of me. You put in a lower bid than he would have. So I miss all the ceiling framing, right? Oh, I missed all of it. Oh, okay. And it's not, you know, a small number. It's not a small number, no. And here's the, here's when I said this is frustrating. Here's what, here's what I'm talking about. Turns out the other two bidders bailed. And I was the only bid. Oh shit. I could have, and they, and these guys are in a hurry on this project. Like they need to get going. And they are well funded. So like I, I didn't need to be that. So it should have been a 14% gross margin or whatever it is that you rock on. You were doing seven and a half because you wanted to get it. Yeah, I was, I was cutting it down, right? And you got stuck on your framing part. And it, well, and seven and a half percent goes pretty quick when you've got to pay for the ceiling. So, so, so when I'm like, I'm talking to them, you know, this comes up, right? It's, it's like everything comes to light when you're working on the project. Right. And realize, okay, my guys here's where I really screwed up. Yeah, my supers are coming back and they're like, hey, you know what? This guy, he doesn't have the ceiling, you know, in this project. And I'm like, that's not good. Well, actually what I first, I was what ceiling, you know, I'm just being honest with you here, man. We all make mistakes, right? Yeah. So I'm like, what ceiling? And they're like, this one, you know, and we walk through the job. We've got the plans. I'm like, ah, man. Okay. Well, I know this is going to sting. I call him up and say, hey, man, yeah, we missed all this framing. And he's like, you remember I called you about that. Right. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, you know, vaguely, I do vaguely. I do remember that. And I, and I think I remember kind of brushing the conversation off and saying a half-cocked answer because I was busy and I screwed up. So what I need you to do is put a price together for me. I got to deal with this. I got to pay for this. I got to get done. Yeah. I'm not going to get out of this. Right. There's no way for me to play dumb here. Man, he sends me back a quote for this ceiling framing for cost. With the sharpest pencil you could do for you. Oh, yeah. It's cool. That's a trade partner. That's a trade partner. That's a trade partner. Yes. I don't know how we got on this topic exactly, but. Oh, just about the motivations and transparency back to your core values. Yeah, transparency. And, you know, that's, that's an important piece. You know, I'm not trying to screw over my, my guys, my sculpted contractors, my partners. I know that at some point, man, if I ever get a thumb on top of them, you know, at some point, they're going to get three on top of me. Yeah. So they're, they're, they're your reliance. Yeah. You know, you met Pete, right? I think my facilitators. He's a great guy. And my facilitators are all contractors. I pay him to do stuff. And yet, the relationship is much more like very willing volunteers. You know, and if I start putting the screws to those guys, I'll be like, okay, biker, like I need this job, not that much. Right. I don't need to put up with this. Right. And so it's, it's kind of similar, even with your trade partners. They'd have to be like a mutually fulfilling relationship on both sides that are always. Yeah. Well, all contracts. Yeah. Or should be mutually beneficial. Totally. Yeah. All of them. Agreed. You know, once they become one sided, you know, you have to, you have to dig into that and figure out, hey, did I sign a contract that was heavily slanted against myself? Yeah. Or, you know, did I ride a contract that was heavily slanted against someone else? You know, neither one of those is good. They all need to be mutually beneficial. You know, it starts first with the handshake that's got most of the actual details figured out. Yeah. And then riding a contract that actually mirrors what the handshake wanted to have. Yeah. 100%. The paperwork in the industry's gotten crazy, but, you know, I don't know. Another, another, another core value is ownership. And, you know, we talked a little bit about that before, you know. Do the other employees all know whose owners are and stuff like that? They know who the owners are. And, you know, that has less to do with the ownership that I'm talking about. Sure. No, but I mean, that's kind of a communication of core values, you know. Yeah. Cindy and Henry. Henry. Henry. You know, exhibited ownership. Yes. And that's part of why they're owners. That's right. You know, they did it. They showed it right from the start or near the start and they did it for a long time. And then they got invited to be a part of the team, you know. And they did it with integrity and they did it with transparency. Right. We also have relentlessness in our core values because we started out with nothing, man. Like zero dollars. Right. Okay. I actually started this company. I've found a job. This guy needs some windows replaced in his house. Okay. He thought everybody was too expensive. I went out and did it for like 900 bucks and that's how we started the company. That's how I started it. And it cost you 750. Yeah. Yeah. There wasn't much left over. But it was a little bit. Do you want to like take me to the beginning of the company starter? Or is it better to build a bridge right way back to like first grade? Steven. However you want to do it. I don't know. Let's go to that. Let's go to this. What was the situation when you founded LSE? Okay. Good question. Yeah. Just set the stage. Yeah. If you will. So your circumstance were already married. I was. Okay. Yeah. I was married in 2010. Okay. So I was. I was kind of a grant laborer for a long time. Okay. You seem to smart for that. Not at all. You hit it well. You hit it well. Yeah. That's all you. It turns out that's all you need to do. No, I. I actually went to college. Okay. And which. Which shocks people, you know. I wasn't good at it. Yeah. And I didn't like it. I didn't really find any interest in what they were teaching me. But I did find out that if I. If I practiced, I could be pretty good at math. Oh. And then that kind of led me down into the science department. And I wound up doing a environmental science degree, which is certainly not what people think it is. Yeah. Environmental science is not saving the planet. It's actually probably the opposite. At least that was my experience. Okay. Like how to make. How to make money under the structure of the environment. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, think about, you know, people selling, like companies selling their pollution rights. Right. They're bigger companies that need them, right? Like it's a disaster. So we can dip into that. Yeah. Yeah. I got some oceanfront property and some climate credits. I didn't just sell you. And I don't pretend to know a whole lot about that stuff. Just kind of what I learned in school and a little bit from my first job. But I'm certainly not an expert on it. I haven't worked in that field in 20 years. Sure. So I didn't really care for it. And I moved on. Started doing. I went from an office job, you know, like manually plotting ground water wells on a CAD program to installing hardwood floors. Pretty much overnight. Well interesting. Yeah. I was just like, this is like, I'm over right now. Yeah. And some a little more tactical in my world. Yeah. I started installing hardwood floors. That's hard work. Yeah. Even when I was 24, you know, I was on the floors in our house when I was about 26 in Colorado Springs. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. And scraping the. Did you do the edge sander where you've been over on that thing all day? No. I didn't do that part. Well, that was my first job. Because when you show up to be a hardwood floor installer, you get the city job first. You get the shitty job, right? Eventually if there's somebody with less tenure than they get that job. Yes. Exactly. Somebody else comes along. You're like, I'm so glad to see you. Let me show you this. Let me show you this tool. And you got to wear the mask and the head fence to keep the dust and the noise out. Because they're loud. And you're just, it's just dusty man. Yeah. At least it used to be. I don't think it's, I think they've come a long way with the dust collection on those things. Probably. Yeah. I went around the edges of many houses, you know, sanding the stain off of them and then getting them all smooth and pretty. That's nice. Then kind of, you know, started working on the table saw when somebody else came to do that. And I would miter saw and I started installing and blah, blah, blah. The only thing was my boss, the guy who owned the company, he would make some money on a job. And then he would just kind of piece out to Costa Rica and go down there and do drugs and surf like for like two months. He's like, oh, we have business on. Yeah. Exactly. I'm like, wait a second. Yeah. You know, I'm making like 15 bucks an hour. Right. And, you know, you're in Longmont region. Yeah. Boulder. Boulder and Boulder at the time. And I was like, man, I'm getting my butt kicked, making 15 bucks an hour. And then this guy leaves and I don't have a job until he comes back. So I started kind of picking up, you know, and that's what trades do. Sure. A lot of times especially. Especially in the residential market, you know. Yep. You meet other guys. Found a sander. Yeah. It's okay. I can send this corner for you. But it becomes something where like, okay, well, I was on a job site. We just finished up and the plumber at that job site needs a hand. Yeah. And you don't have to be a, you know, apprentice or a journeyman. Yeah. To take care of Hopper. Right. Well, you're a pretty big, strong guy. Probably were even as a young guy. Yeah. And I could, and I could fake it, right? I mean, right. You just sometimes go the long ways. Sometimes you go home and you just pass out. But, you know, you don't get, don't ever get caught carrying one sheet of plywood. Right. So just lots of stuff like that. And kind of bouncing back and forth between people I've met in the trades. And, you know, eventually kind of end up more on the carpentry side of it. Framing a lot. Yeah. I decided, oh, this is great. I can just, you know, form my own company. What happens is you start seeing. This is the trap. You start seeing the checks that people are cutting to your bosses. Right. And this is two two thousand five two thousand. I'm actually know is two thousand seven eight. In back then, I mean, $15 an hour was decent wage. Yeah. And that's what I kind of was able to make. And until I got a little bit better at stuff. But I would see these guys, you know, getting checks for $20,000. I mean, that's just a fortune. Right. In my six months labor. Yeah. Where I was, I was like, I had $20,000. I could, I could retire for the rest of the year. Yeah. But it goes to record. It goes to record. And do drugs and serve. Right. So I would be working and I just figured, you know, I could, I could do this myself. And that was the first try. That was the first go. Okay. And I ended up doing a lot of stuff, you know, and, and, and not real glamour. Did you start an enterprise? Or you were. It did. Yeah. There was an LLC. And it was not LLC builders. I, I was like, you know, I'm a frame houses. That's going to be my thing. Yeah. You know, I'll, I'll, I'll do all of this. And it's funny, man, I'll never forget this. This is, this was a, this was a big moment in my life. I'm, I'm about to frame two houses. Okay. Side by side. Lot next to lot. Okay. It was a development. And the developer had, you know, started putting in all the asphalt and curb and gutter and, you know, all this stuff. And there was an investment banker. He had bought two lots from that developer. Okay. And he was going to build two spec houses. And he had the foundation board calling me. He's like, okay, ready. We have the lumber delivered. We're about to start framing this. And it was the day before I was supposed to really mobilize out there. You know, now I've got a van with the ladders on it. Right. And I got a couple of guys helping me. Right. And we're, we're going to head out there the next day. Lumber's on site, man. Like this is happening. And it's 2008. Boom. Like, and I start seeing in the news. Like, like, people with people in nice suits in New York. Like, you know, looking like this with their hand over their eyes. Like, like, like the sky had just fallen. It looked, I'm like, I'm like a construction contractor from West Texas, man. I don't know what those guys are upset about, but it didn't have anything to do with me, right? Wrong. He turns out the developer who he bought those lots from is like, no, can't do it. Can't do it. Can't do it. Yeah, we're done. He didn't even finish the curb and gutter. Or the asthma. Right over. So that means it didn't sell any houses. Yeah. And that job evaporated overnight. Yeah. And, um, you know, at that time, that was a big job for me. And, uh, totally wasn't due. So what I ended up doing was, um, you know, a smart person, um, would have, would have probably gotten a job somewhere. And what I ended up doing was a little different. Um, I started going to property management companies in Boulder that were doing residential leases. And a lot of college students. Right. And they would just have little things that would be like garbage disposal. Don't work, you know, faucets. Yeah. Drippy. Not even like replace the carpets or things like that. Yeah. Yeah, just like whatever. I mean, do you remember 2008? Oh, yeah. I was working at the bank and like we were getting applications from people that were, like senior directors at companies and stuff to be a teller. It's like, right. Can't trust that you're going to be here long term. Sorry. You just reminded me of that movie fun with Dick and Jane. It's Jim Carrey in it. Okay. And he's like, after, after that all happened, like he's, he goes, he's like, I got a job interview. And he goes to the dinner view. And there's like a line out the outdoor down the street. And everybody that he knows, everybody worked with. They're all there for this one job. Yes. And I just remember that being a very scary time. So you were doing whatever they needed. I was doing whatever they needed. And it mined you. Didn't know how to do a lot of this stuff. Right. Because I mean, yeah, I'd worked a lot with wood. Do you have a connection to this company or something or several of these? No, man. You're just like, didn't know him. Okay. I have a new business card now. I'm a property management. I'm like, do it all good. Ignore where that says Framer and just, you know, scratch that out. I can do whatever you need. Whatever you need, man. And I'm driving. And so what happened was it kind of like kind of mushroomed a little bit. I wasn't looking. I wasn't making a lot of money. Yeah. I was making enough. Yeah. But, uh, you know, some of these property management companies, you know, they have other arms in Denver. They're free. And so. And so that I'm driving to Denver to do stuff. And just crazy. I bet you that took 10 years off my life because. You're just hustling all over. Well, that and like, how many old buildings that I go into with that asbestos and start ripping drywall out, not even thinking about it, you know. I'm like, I could call for an asbestos test right now. Or I could get the job done, get paid. Right. Right. Right. I mean, fair. These are, these are lean times. Lean times. And, and so. And you have had a wife already? Yeah, I wasn't married just yet. But it was in the works, right? Yeah. So she didn't want to see you like. Not having a job, not bringing in any bacon or going to land her. That could have changed things. If I just set around drinking all the way. Yeah. Yeah. So you're hustling. You're growing. So I'm hustling. Well, I'm trying. You know, I'm doing a little bit. I'm not like super invested in it or passionate about it. But I mean, it's paying the bills. And dude, I got to where I could turn a garbage disposal out in like. 12 minutes. Wow. I was so fast. I actually needed one at my house. I used to carry badger garbage disposal with me in my. Like five or six. That's awesome. Yeah. Because. Yeah. Okay. Be there at 25 minutes. And I get paid tomorrow. Yeah. And again, it was, it was, it was, it was a peanuts. But I mean, I could do, I could do a lot of them quickly. But I, I mean, I would change out doors on these places. I would paint them. Yeah. I would hang mirrors. I would put light change light. Filter holes and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. And you know, it's funny because you look back on that stuff. You're like, man, you know, it wasn't all that bad. But it wasn't all that stressful, I guess. Yeah. Comparison probably. Not nearly as much responsibility. You were just popping around. Yeah. A lot of gas. Gas was cheap in those days. Gas was cheaper. Yeah. And so that came to an end when I met a guy at a bar. We were just having some beers. And we became friends. And started chatting off and about work and stuff. And I thought he was a pretty bright guy. He ended up getting me involved in a job like a contract for higher job with a really big, well, now it's a really big telecommunications company called ZEO group. And they were headquartered in Boulder. And they needed a guy. That could have that before actually. Yeah. And then they started buying up companies left and right. Okay. You remember level three. Yeah. Okay. Level three, same business model. Yeah. Yeah. They would, they started a little bit of a fiber optic network. And then they started buying up all the other smaller fiber optic networks and combining them. And just growing them in that way. In fact, kind of like that. Yeah. Billions and billions of dollars in purchasing other fiber optic. And buying all fiber companies. Yeah. And what they inherited with all of these acquisitions was real estate. And they didn't need all that real estate because as everybody knows, once you acquire a company, usually what you're going to do is slash it. That had quarter of a thousand. Two thirds of this. Yeah. And so what they were trying to do is take a lot of that real estate. And in the leases. On good terms. But that meant a lot of turnover. Right. And this is like, I mean, hundreds of offices and different, you know, portfolio. Yeah. A month, right? We're doing a lot. Okay. There's no way I could do this myself. Sure. I have to manage the construction of it. I have to manage the contractors. And this happens in Denver. It happens in Salt Lake. It happens in St. Louis and San Francisco and Chicago. So you're kind of a fulfillment guy. I'm a fulfillment guy. Yeah. And I'm contract a hire. And they just need it done. And here's why. If they don't make these deadlines, they end up having to pay another so and so termably. Sure. So the amount of money that I make per hour is negligible. Right. You charge them as much as you want as long as you get that shit done. Yeah. And it doesn't matter if you got to work 20-hour days, six days in a row with your team. Right. Exactly. And that's what people don't understand is, you know, a lot of times everybody wants to compete on price, price, price, price, price. Which, you know, which you need to compete on value. What is the value, right? Yeah. Because oftentimes it's not the price. Oftentimes the value is time itself or quality. How government contracts are like cost plus. Yeah. Any more just about all of them. It's like, well, yes, we can let the cost on that creep up a bunch. You know, the more it costs, the more we make. Well, it was, yeah. Not your case. I haven't been able to find those contracts. No. Feel free to forward me any government contract or cost plus whenever you feel like it. Well, they are like even for like the airplanes and stuff like that. The Boeing contract. Right. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. Highly specialized. Yeah. But they're like, we want these new features and, you know, we want our, the eye percentages to be right and stuff. So that's going to cost you. Yes. No, that's probably not talking to talk about that. Well, I mean, it's actually a great conversation to have for people who are interested in this particular, you know, segment that contract types. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. That's something I know a thing or two about. So what was your deal with Zio? Zio. Yeah. So I did the job. I was able to work as much as I want and bill for all of my time. Yeah. And other folks like you and other places, just how much can you kick out kind of? No. Or you were just kind of their fulfillment guy. It was me. Oh, damn. Yeah. And they had just acquired a company called above net. You're like hiring people in all these other cities to get it done and you're flying a Salt Lake and Rochester or whatever and doing all these visits to sites. So imagine me, right? Like I was just like changing toilets out in apartments. Right. You got finally got a really good at garbage disposal replacement. I was just on the cusp of my greatness. And I got plucked out of that. You know, I'm out of these disgusting dormitory style apartments. Yeah. I've got to go to Joseph a bank and get some clothes. I can't wear the jeans that have caulking stains all over. Right. So, you know, I can't wear my still toes in there. So, I mean, I get a whole new, I don't know, I got a few pants and shirts and I'm trying to. Was this a job or were you a contractor for them? I was a contractor for. But a pretty captive contractor. Yeah. And that gave me a spot to sit. And I ended up building out their headquarters office and Boulder. And then I actually became an employee. They offered me employment staff. And then that company went public. And then it sold and then it went private. And then now they're trying to take it. You guys suck now. Yeah. And then it starts something different. You guys sold out, man. You made an all corporate. Yeah. Exactly. So, I want to call a short break and we'll come back to the founding. Hi. This is Clint Jasperson, managing partner at Purpose Driven Wealth. We believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Our mission is to guide clients through the complexities of wealth management, retirement planning, and legacy, using a values driven, stewardship based approach, focused on provision, contentment, and enjoyment. With more than a century of expertise through thriving, we offer tailored strategies to help individuals and families achieve their goals and embrace generosity. Whether you're navigating a life or business transition or planning for the future, we're here to partner with you every step of the way. To learn more about Purpose Driven Wealth, call 970-330-7411. When did you start smoking? Oh, first time was like 16 years old or something, but I didn't really start smoking to college years. Okay. And then I did roll your own drums. I used to. I smoked like, I was always a non-traditional smoker kind of plus I like to put weed in there. Yeah. That was well, of course. Put your weed in there, man. I used to, well, I started kind of smoking a little bit when I was like skipping school in high school. I was always a good kid. No, man. I was a bad kid. Bad, bad. And I, you know, listened to Molly Crew and... Why did all that, too? Raged against the machine. That changed my life. I mean, I drove around drinking whiskey at 15 years old with my friends, but that was just... That was a pretty bad kid. No, but that was culturally appropriate. Appropriate. Okay. I don't know. That was a ride of passage. I'm with you though. I didn't really start smoking till it's probably 18 because I worked at a botanical garden center. And there was an old man who was a gardener there and he smoked these lucky strike filter lists, you know. Yeah. They had the white pack with the green and red bull's eye. Yep. And he used to smoke. And for some reason, those things were delicious. Interesting. I loved them. Yeah, I worked at a restaurant. It was really my contributing factor. And it was like, you could take a break if you need to go outside and smoke. But if you don't need to go outside and smoke, then you... To work then. Right. I was like, well, I guess I'm going outside to smoke then. A little backwards. Yeah. So it was. Yeah, that's what I did the same thing. So we jumped off. Yeah. Where did we jump off? We're right at almost the founding point. Yeah. You're doing all this stuff with Zaya Group. Zaya? Zaya. Yeah. And Zaya was going public. Yeah. Which meant, by the way... Harder and harder to want to work for. Yeah. And harder and harder to make a living, honestly. Because I was making tons of money when I was contract. So much that I didn't... I mean, not like I was just getting rich. But I mean, like, I had never... You quit thinking about money very much for a while. I quit thinking about money. I bought a house. You know, or I made a down payment on a house, I should say. Yep. And... For... Bank bought a house. The bank bought a house. Yeah. Yeah. They still own it. No. Actually they do, kind of. But they own a lot less of it now. But I put a down payment on a house. I got married. What was the... For the first time, really, I think... I had a tax return that I owed a substantial amount of money on. I was like, wait a second. This isn't how it works. You know? They're supposed to give me money back, right? So a lot of learning there, too. Yeah, yeah. But then as an employee, I was kind of put back down on the after-tax salary of, you know, a regular working stiff. And that's who I was. When there probably wasn't this extreme pace of acquisition anymore. Right. You know, the pressure was lower. And I had also, I mean, I guess to my credit, like I had completed that on time. And which is why they offered me a job in the first place. Right, right. But the reward kind of didn't really match up because I was making less money now. And there was no more heat. There was no more action. When I was closing, it sounds horrible to anybody who's ever been laid off. But I mean, when I was closing real estate and turning these buildings over, man, I would do whatever I had to do to make sure that we were out of that office before, you know, the following day at 8 a.m. Like whatever I had. Like examples required with a statement like that. That keeps it within legal boundaries, hopefully. Well, yeah, sure. I mean, so one time I knew that we weren't going to make it because this place out in this place out in Oakbrook, Illinois. We had this kind of a smaller office there. I'm moving completely out. I knew we weren't going to make it. It was a Thursday. And what was really left was, you know, I think we had to leave it in broom sweat condition. We had to, you know, paint over whatever kind of problem. Maybe do some touching walls, whatever. And the big problem was that we had a bunch of office equipment in there. Like we had the conference tables. We had the chairs. We had, you know, the, what is it called? The big copier, the Rincon coffee machine that costs like $18,000. And the maintenance on it is $2,000 a year or something. Office space kind of crap, you know what I mean? Cubicles and desks that bolt together. Yeah. Lots of different seams. So you can fit in between the cubicle doors to get them in there. Yeah. And the whips, the power on all the whole thing. So I, so I got a, I got a red eye and flew out there. And kind of in the process, got some dumpsters delivered to it. I threw that Rincon copier machine out of a third story window into that dumpster. That's pretty cool. I, I, all of that furniture, I hired day, I hired day labor. And I said, I don't care where it goes, it just can't be here. Right. In that place. Yeah. But I mean, like, yeah, I, I, I would, I would throw away $10,000, $20,000 worth of furniture and office equipment in a half a day. Well with that. And that's what had to be done. Right. It turns out, turns out that particular project came back as like a boomerang about three months later. Oh, really? Yeah. Somebody came out of the woodwork and they were like, hey, you know, there's somebody in charge of FF and, you know, and, and they're like, hey, is this one fully depreciated? Yeah. We had, we had all this stuff over there. And I'm like, it's gone, man. We're moving past here. We're leaving the past in the pasture here. But anyway, you know, that was heat. That was exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it sounds like it's a little bit even though the flavor of LSC builders. Like you're kind of more turned on by the projects that are meaningful. Maybe there's some pressure there. Maybe they fired the last contractor because he turned out to be a dipstick. That happens too. And I am, you know, at, at zeo, I got kind of moved into a facility's maintenance position, which is, yeah, fall asleep on me here, man. And I'm like, I'm like, okay, you know, I did that. I did the job. I committed to it. I stayed with it. I did it. But yeah, there was some exciting times, but not really. And I, I also... But you had young kids by now. You're probably married. I also had, yeah, I also had my first child, things were getting more expensive. We weren't getting raises because executives were, were pointing this company public, which means cost down value up. And so all of us are sitting around here waiting for our meager five or 10% annual raise. It hasn't happened in a long time. And finally, you know, I'm, I'm still working with contractors at my job. And I'm like, you know what? And like these guys, I can do with it what they do, you know? Yeah. And so that's when about 20... Yeah, in 2015, I started kind of lining up things and made my exit. Did you plan? You kind of... No. You plan the exit, not necessarily what was next. Yeah, I couldn't wait to get out the door at that point. But, you know, I was there for three and a half or years. And I gave them all the proper notice and all that kind of stuff. But when I left, you know, I also had some stuff lined up. Got you. Small stuff. Yeah. But what was that garbage disposal replacements and stuff? No. No. It's bigger than that. That was, I was a little more ambitious coming out of what I just experienced. You know, I'll always be thankful as they agree for that. That was a great experience. Yeah. Sounds like it. Well, I got you, you know, especially in those days after the financial crisis, without a nice W2 job, you don't get a mortgage anymore. Even if you're a self-employed person trying to get a house or whatever, it wouldn't have worked out. You know, probably not in those early years right after that. So, ultimately, a big blessing to this. And speaking of Zaeo, I think they're going to just trying to go public again. And they're building data centers. So, if anybody's listening on their procurement team, we do do this. I've built your, I have built your new centers. We do turn it up too. And I'm happy to build them again. Yeah. So then, you know, I started, I started the company. I didn't have much money when I started it. I had not enough money to last a couple months of mortgage even. Yeah. Was your wife working? Yeah. She was a teacher at the time. So. Kind of. Kind of. But it wasn't, it wasn't enough. I had to perform. Right. Right. Right. It's like the art of war, right? SunZoo says, when you're completely outnumbered and it seems like everything's hopeless, then just put all your men on death ground. Where they know they're going into a fight that they're probably going to die and they'll fight their hearts out. And that's what I did. You know, it was, it was like, I can't stay here and I have nowhere to go. So, you know, fight through it. My friend Mike said years ago, you know, I didn't really get super motivated until I was very broke either. It's true. That's true. And, you know, actually even the most successful business operators I know, those that have had businesses that make $500,000 and a million, $2,000,000 a year. One of their really good habits is get that money out of your company. Yeah. And keep that kind of back to the wall and kind of perform on every project kind of mentality. It's the comfort that kills you. Yeah. Comfortable comfort is against performance in some ways. Yeah. Throw that money into something that you can't see anymore. Yeah. And maybe it's doing what it needs to be doing. Whatever. I'm not a financial planner. My ability to put it into the savings account, buy a CD, whatever. Yeah. Get it out of the company where you see your company's got $500,000, $800,000 a cash later on. You don't need it. Make people fight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was the first contracts were kind of residential deals, you know, remodels and stuff like that. And they were all really nice. They all came out great. Yeah. I was learning some things about those types of contracts, the remodel contracts and being responsible for everything. Right, right. And this is a little bit different than being a hardware floor in the house department. Yeah. It starts to form up. It's like everything, you know, you're responsible for. And then you start to learn to like, you know, you start to size people up, I guess. One thing I've learned in the years doing this is, you have clients that know what they're doing and then clients that don't. Right. Yeah. And you've kind of got to be the gap between all that. You've got to feel the gap. Yeah. You know, all that. I feel like commercial because for one thing, you know, the commercial industry is bigger. Yeah. There is dollars that have to be spent. It's not a matter of will. It's a matter of this needs to be done. Yeah. In order for us to make our next move, it's strategic. This property needs to be fresh before it can be sold. It's not my wife's going to leave if I don't remodel the kitchen. Right. This has to happen. And they benefit from spending the money as well. Right. And a lot of times it's not even their money. And so, you know, we provide a service for those organizations that, you know, either they're entrepreneurs or their business owners, or they're, you know, corporate, you know, shopping center management companies or whatever they have. They have to have something done. They need it done quickly and they need it done properly. What they care about is what I care about. It's safety. It's the schedule. It's the quality of the work and the cost is last usually. Yeah. And the reason I say the cost is last is not because nobody cares about money. Yeah. And it's just grown on trees. But it's got to be done and you cannot manage your cost if you're not managing the three things before it. Yeah. If you're not managing your safety, look out. Yeah. Something's going to happen. Structure fire. Right. Or it gets hurt, falls off a lift. Those things are far more costly than any of those jobs are profitable. So, safety is number one, right? Schedule. If you're not managing your schedule, I ask people all the time. What do you think the most expensive thing on a construction project is? Vacant time. Vacant time. Yeah. Time. Just so much money. It's not just vacant. When you're vacant and you're sitting there, nothing is generating revenue. Yeah. You're paying a lease and triple nets or whatever on a building that's not generating revenue. Yeah. But you're also paying for the dumpster that's sitting there. You're paying for the horde of pilots. Superintendents, project managers. You know, the list goes on and on of all the people and all the ways they can take money from you. There's a notable project right on Mount Navini right now that I walk by or ride my bike by pretty regularly. Yeah. And it was making a lot of progress. And now the last two or three months, I haven't seen it progress much and I'm just wondering to myself, like, what's the sticking point here? Like, was there a permit? Not gotten? Was there a financing? Not quite secure? What's going on? Because this is expensive. Yeah. Having three months of not having anything happening. Agreed. Well, yeah, let's talk about that. I mean, it's a great thing to segue into, I think. I mean, you know, operational health and wellness, right? And, you know, there's going to be some things that you can't control. Sure. No contractor can control, you know, if you're going through a divorce and have to split all of your assets, with your wife right now, right? Like in the midst of your home remodel. In the midst of, yeah. Should I have done the remodel sooner or later? And she would have been so upset. Yeah. No contractor can control. There's really variables way out of real control. Right. But the things that really tear this, you know, from a standpoint of a contractor and what they can control, the things that really screw these jobs up. And make them take much longer than they should. And therefore make them much more expensive to somebody than they should. Maybe the owner, maybe you might get them to pay for it. Right. You might have to pay it yourself. Right. Who knows? But somebody's going to pay when it takes too long. Yeah. And so I've had that happen to me. Okay. I've learned that lesson. I know why jobs, I know what I can do or not do to have that problem. And so therefore I know what I can do to avoid it. And I'll say, you know, with a, with a guesstimate that over 80%. Maybe over 90% of it is in planning. You, you certainly have to have operational control of the job site. And if you're not willing to do that, then nobody can help you. But if, if, if you're presenting proposals to your client without a schedule, that's a pretty big indicator that that's not very important to you. Yeah. If you're presenting a proposal to your client that you don't have actual financial coverage of, meaning, yeah, meaning if you can't get the bond to build this thing or whatever. Right. That's a pretty good indication that you might run up against a brick wall somewhere. You know, a lot of people will say, hey, I'm really good at estimating. You know, I've been doing this a long time. I kind of know what things cost. It really doesn't matter if you know what things cost. Because the only thing that really matters is what you can put in paper. So if, if, if, if I have five tradesmen in the same trade, all telling me numbers from, you know, 30 to 80 or whatever thousand. Yeah. Well, I know now that somebody doesn't want the job at 80,000. Right. And somebody doesn't know what they're doing at 30,000. Right. I know probably 40, 50, 60. Those guys are probably pretty close to knowing what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I can, and I can back that up because if you hire me, I've already got their numbers. I can buy them. I can have that part done. And that should be every, for a general contractor. Yeah. That should be every single division. You've got real bids on your major divisions. You've got real bids and you've got people that are ready to join your team and deploy. Right. As soon as I have a permit or sometimes not. Well, pretty soon before the first inspection. I will before the inspection. You're my kind of style. I've done that, man. I've walked out of the city planning department with the permit in hand calling the first inspection. Ready to go. And I say that not to be a dirt bag. No. But what you have to, because time is money. And I need to get started. And I'm confident enough that I'm going to get this permit. That's right. Because we've crashed all the teams. We've done all the eyes. That's right. You don't have the right to keep me from this permit. Right. Even if your bureaucracy is trying to. They are. And my client needs something done by this time. And if I sit around here and I wait for eight weeks or 12 weeks or whatever for you guys to do your thing. For one thing, my guys are sitting around. Right. Right. And. And then I'm going to have to tell my client every week at the OAC. Yeah. We still have the permit. We're still not doing anything. So, I don't know why I'm thinking about this. But Martin Lidd made a. A quip recently about. Kind of the difference between working with Boulder County and Larma County. And he said in Boulder County. You'll go in there and show them your plans and all these different things you're going to do for parking and all these different things. And you'll. Wrap them up and throw them in your face and. Yeah. Tell them you'd never to come back. Right. But in Fort Collins, you'll bring the same kind of plans in there. And they'll be like, oh, that looks amazing. We can't wait to support that. And then you can't get a call back for three years. So we better if they just ripped them up and threw them in your face. Because at least you don't have the. Pretend we're going to actually help you do something. It's like the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Trust me on from the government. Stephen. Well, you know, it's a big. It's a big topic. Yeah. Yeah. Well, time is right now. And the amount of time that is sucked up by bureaucracy in a construction project of any level is. 20% of the man hours. On the project. You know, I used to think about the government officials time plus your time and dealing with it. I would say it's more than that. You know, the construction is actually. I mean, I don't want to structure is easy. Right? I mean, the construction part isn't that bad. It's estimatable. That's the big thing. It's estimatable. And you have a team of people who are depending on being paid to complete this. See, the problem with the bureaucracy and the problem with the employees at the city. You know, I'm from Texas. So I can say bless their hearts. Bless their heart. Is that they don't have any incentives and they don't have any penalties. Yeah, yeah. Nothing. Right. Like they're going to work every day. Only their annual review, which is mostly based on how much the boss likes them. I would agree with that. I mean, I'd love to have somebody argue that that that's not the case. Because I've said for a long time too that. That would be a fun. That would be wrong table. Yeah. City government reviews are mostly based on personality. Proof me wrong. When did they get fired? I've never heard about it. I've never heard about it either. I mean, like it has to be scandal. Right. When they get a DUI or something. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But that would have to be like a public facing. Right. Something that was already showing conservative tendencies. And there's something to be opposed. Like a city manager getting a DUI. Right. That could be grounds for termination. But if you're a plan reviewer and you get a DUI. I don't know. So we're at risk of having a three hour conversation. If we don't move on a little bit. I'm going to move us on a little bit. I want to talk to your West Texas cowboy type. Like, I'm going to. We're going to do two things. We're going to meet your wife along the journey. Because we haven't really figured out where it came along. Yeah. But first, we're going to have done the little fifth grade West Texas. Steven. Oh, boy. Give me this. Give me the setting. But maybe it was there. Maybe it was somewhere else. I don't know. No, it was. Like Lubbock. No, it was actually Amarillo. Amarillo. That's the one. Willie Nelson. Isn't that Willie Nelson? No, Don Williams. Don from. Oh, God. So I don't even know the song. Yeah, everything. No, is that right? No, it's George Strait. I don't think it was George Strait. George Strait is George Strait. Abel, you do a quick research on that. I'm pretty sure. But Willie Nelson covered it. Maybe. Amarillo by morning. Yeah. So. I don't find out. So anyway. Um, you're, you're over there. I am. Yeah, I'm there. I want to do their ones, actually. Yeah. Two highways intersect there. So there's a lot of traffic going through. A lot of drug traffic. Yeah, I was going to say miss. Probably. Yeah. Early adopters of the Beth culture down there. And. And my dad owned a, a transmission rebuild shop. Oh, cool. Yeah. A big one. Actually. Um, you know, I don't know if you know anything about, but rebuilding transmissions, but it's just miserable work. Really. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you put. So when I was in. No, tell me. Like, I know like Kennedy transmission and different things. They should do okay. But. Well, I mean, nowadays it's probably a lot different. But I mean, when I was fifth grade. Yeah. You know, everybody else goes to. Goes to play with their friends after school. I went to work at my dad shop. Everybody else. It seemed like they got off work at five. And we worked those guys until six, six, 30 every day. You know, eight to six. And those guys half dozen people are something like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's about right. And some of them are R and R, which is a removal replace transmission mechanics. So there are some lifts. You pull them down off. They're incredible. Cradles and. Yeah. And stuff like that. Send them over to the rebuild guy. The rebuild guy pulls them all apart. Overhauls them. Washes them up. And. Yeah. When you say overhauls them. Like where plates or things like that. So. So there's a. I should know more about transmissions than I do. Okay. But I got out of that business. The. There's an overhaul. Right. Where you just like kind of take it apart. You replace gaskets. And. You can't clean up the edges. You clean up everything. That. They used to put them in this big industrial heater heated washer. Get all the grinding crap off of them. They take the clutch out and they adjust a bunch of crap. Yeah. Back up the factory spec kind of. Yeah. And they test it and put it back in and test drive it. And, you know, but I mean, if it's transmissions like really slipping out of gear and stuff like that. And it's a rebuild. Yeah. And they take a whole thing down out of the case. And there's just the shell of the transmission left. They're replacing all these parts that are broke. I mean, sometimes they pull and stuff out of there. Basically exterior case is the only thing that's left. Yeah. And they take it all apart and springs are broken coming out of it. Right. It smells like death. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so I would go there and you know, first of like moving oil carts around. Yeah. When they do fluid and filter changes, they feel it's not like, I don't know how they do it anymore. But like, I think it's just like direct transfer to an underground storage tank and some truck comes by. Right. But back then it was, you got to get an oil cart underneath the car, drain all the oil out. Yeah. And then nobody. There's like a big oil storage tank outside. There it is. Yeah. And the guys, you know, that aren't our guys, the food and filter guys, they're like, well, we're not going to change. We're not going to dump these carts because the little fifth grade shit's going to come right into it. Right. So they're heavy. Oh, they're full. And you know, I'm like, what, this tall. And I would grab on these things. And the cart is up here, probably like four feet tall. Oh, the weight is all a pie. Yeah. And the legs are longer with, with casters on it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And there's floor drains, too, to go around and get caught on those. And I'm not a very big kid. You know, I'm, and I would, I would, I would get it moving. And when that happens, it's all it is. It's a great on top to keep bolts from going into the oil. Yeah, yeah. So like that thing would move. When you tip it over. Oil all over. Yeah. And you know, you got to wheel it all the way back. Crosspark a lot. There's like a drain. You know, you were accustomed to work from a very young age. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And, um, and siblings. Yeah. Three siblings. Okay. One that I still talk to. Oh, yeah. It's the other two are, you know, doing whatever they're doing. And, uh, yeah, which is cool. I worked with my dad shop. Um, and, uh, yeah, which is cool. I worked with my dad shop. Um, and, and I just kept doing that. Yeah. Until I was 18 really. Yeah. All the way through school. But you didn't do sports and stuff so much because you did that so much. I mean, um, yeah. Were you making money? Did you pay you or were you just slave labor kind of? I was paid. We're going to pay your college bills. No. No, I made 325 an hour. Okay. Yeah. And then, um, you know, I think I remember one time I was like helping one night. We stayed late to clean all the floors and put this up soap all over him. And, um, that night I was good help. My dad gave me a raise like five bucks an hour. Oh, wow. Um, but yeah, I kept doing it. And then me and my dad would get into a fight about something or I wouldn't want to go to work. And he'd fire me and I'd go get a job at Pet Smart. And then I, and then I'd quit working at Pet Smart. I'd come back to work with my dad for a while here to get to another fight. And then I'd go, you know, find some stupid job at an ice cream store or something. And I'm like, serve an ice cream one time that I'm like, man, I'd rather be in the transmission shop. I'm like, this isn't hard enough. This is too stupid. This is too stupid. Yeah. Um, so that was that. And then, um, you know, I, I, uh, I was also kind of a, uh, a little bit rebellious. Yeah, you mentioned the high school for smokes and stuff like that, whatever. Well, I would skip school and stuff. Like, like, like, we had, um, in high school. I went to high school of 50 in central North Dakota. So like, you didn't skip school without getting noticed. You noticed that we had 1200 people. Yeah, yeah. And, um, somehow or another, I had, I, I held a record my ninth grade year. I'm not proud of this. Um, I had like over 400 truancies. And you ask how is that possible? No, three a day. Right. This is 120 days. This is cool. So, so I had class, um, I had a math class before lunch. And how were your grades? Um, well, oddly enough, the classes I went to, my grades were okay. Yes. But I did fail the ninth grade because of this. But then I took Saturday. I took summer school. Okay. And I got caught up. My dad was pissed. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I mean, it was all just to go, like, sit at the Arby's, like across the street from the high school. And, you know, it just wrought there. Like with our kids with cool cars, you could hang out with or anything like that. You weren't doing math or anything. No, I didn't do drugs. Yeah. I didn't do drugs. And, you know, my older brother kind of convinced me not to do that with his drugs. So I was like, nah, I'm not going to get into drugs. Okay. But, um, I did kind of smoke cigarettes and like, you know, listen to music on a walkman or whatever it was. Yeah. And, you know, um, you were like a rebel without a cause a little bit. Yeah, it was stupid. So then did you smoke marijuana? Yeah. Do you mean out of a coat can? I think we've got a bunch of people. It's just so ghetto, man. Um, and then like, did you come straight to CSU? No. You didn't qualify by then. No. So I passed, I got, here's a cool story. I'll tell you, I'll tell you a nice story about my adolescence. Okay. So yes, I had a stumbling block in the ninth grade. That's true. A lot of stuff led up to that, right? I got moved into a private school in middle school. Didn't fit in very good. Okay. Um, and, uh, they were trying to do that to keep you from being a bad kid, kind of. No, they were trying to do that because, um, I was going to public school. We moved when I was in the fifth grade, um, to another house not far away. And I was going to be in a different school district at that time. They thought, well, this would be a good time to put it in Christian school. Okay. And that seems to be kind of like a moment. I don't know. Yeah. Kids that get put into Christian school, either embrace or they do this kind of rights. And I hated the letter a little more. I kind of did the ladder and, um, didn't get along. Started getting to fights, you know, and, and like a lot of the kids at that school. Their parents were pastors there or in other ways involved. I didn't even go to church there. And so nobody knew who I was. Right. Um, and, uh, yeah, I tried sports there. It just wasn't really a thing that worked out. I couldn't find a place to fit in. Yeah. You were all of a sudden in this fresh, new, different culture that's distinctly different than anything you'd experienced in the form. You know, and, and my hair was like, I had a, I had a mullet, you know, they made me cut my mullet, man. Oh, they made me cut my mullet. Fuck your. They, uh, sons of bitches. Uh, so, so then, uh, you know, I finally, finally figured out a way to get out of there. And, uh, which was true and see mostly, no, I didn't skip there. You can't skip there. Oh, right. I was like, like they had paddles, man. They, they hit us, dude. That's paddling. Yeah. We were, I didn't want a Catholic school. No, it was, it was right. It was, uh, I don't know. It was Christian school. You know, it's like non-denominational almost, you know, like, or whatever the big one there is. Yeah. Like flat irons. It'd be like, sure. Like the same kind of a deal, right? Yeah, yeah. Which I love. I love it. Yeah. But, but at that time, it was just such a culture shock from me. Yeah. And, and I was not ready. And, uh, I like to say. And they cut my mullet for me. Um, I'm a pretty agreeable person. Like, if you ask me to do something that seems reasonable and appropriate, I'm all on board. Yeah. If you tell me to do something, like you're the boss of me, then you go straight to where you go. Well, like, I just don't work that way. Like, I work a lot better with sugar than I do, or honey, than I do with vinegar. And it's a personality trait. For sure. Yeah, on the disc, I'm like bouncing off the bottom on the sea. Like, my compliance. Yes. I mean, probably in any gram eight, or something like that. I'm seven eight, seven eight. Yeah. For motor and challenger. Yeah. Right. Me too. Right. So, yeah. So, I'm the same way, right? They put me in there. I'm in a box. I'm a caged animal. And I'm just free to bite you. I'm going to let me out of this box. I'm just foaming at the mouth. And so, finally, I get out of there, you know, after numerous scrapes with the law. Thankfully, I would free rage my whole life, mostly. Thank God for that. Yeah. Yeah, kind of. Anyway. I wind up in the ninth grade, and I'm just hell on wheels, you know. And that's why. The public school winner there. In public school with free access to the exit. Right. Right. Like a patrol there. No, there's no pastors in any of the entrances. And what? You've got cigarettes and weed. And I'm like, okay, you know, never tried that. And then I'm just, you know, I just figured out. Like, I don't have to go if I don't want. And. Okay. So. So. So I failed English class, all right. Okay. And physical science. Okay. Which oddly enough, you know, where the words that you didn't show up for hardly ever. Coincidentally where the class is before and after lunch. So I just basically had an extended lunch every day. Yeah. Had to do summer school. Here's the good story. Here's the part I want to get. Okay. The summer school is, you know, you go in there and they give you the packet. And you're going to work on this stuff. And you've got to kind of move at a quick pace. Yeah, yeah. Everybody knows, right? Yeah, you're in trouble now. You're on probation. Right. You've got to work hard. You know, it's the whole thing. You know, you got to do it. You're going to graduate on time. You got to do a whole year's worth of work in three months. You know, always that kind of the way it is. That's the way it is. Yeah. You've got to do the whole year. And you only have, you know, two and a half or three months to do it. Not just the English and the physics. But I got to do both. Right. So, also, at the same time, my parents have a trip planned for us to go visit our extended family out of state. And so, I tell my teachers, I'm going to be gone for like a week and a half. It's a long trip. And like a 14 hour drive. And we're going to stay for a little while. So, I'm going to be gone for two weeks of this. And they're like, well, then, you know, you better work your butt off. Here's, here's your work for, you know, the time with the way I understood it. So, I get, so I'm like, I got these packets of work, school work to do. And it's like big packets. I'm like, holy shit. Now I'm not going to get through this, you know. And I'm just, even before we leave for the trip, I'm just jamming on this stuff. Right, because I do not want to fill the ninth grade because only bad kids feel great. You know? Or dumb ones. Actually, dumb ones. And I am just smoking through this, this homework. And we get in the car and we drive. And my dad's a Lincoln town car, right? And I'm late across the back with the books open and just smoke through stuff. And we get to their house, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, and I'm there. And I don't even do anything. I'm just working, right? So I'm not hanging out. I'm not going to the movies. I'm not doing anything. Because you did the whole summer's worth. I did the whole summer's worth in two weeks. And I come back and I turn it. I'm like, and I tell my teachers, I'm like, I don't think I can handle this. This is too heavy, man. Like I have been working non-stop. And I be back to the transmission shop. I do break. I was like, you know, I'll just do the ninth grade over again. Whatever. Hey, look at me. They're like, dude, you did the whole summer. You did the whole thing into it. And I'm like, great. Does that mean I'm done? You know, I'm like, my love's great. But yeah, so I caught up. Then I'm in sophomore year. And, you know, kind of, I straightened up a lot, sophomore year. I got a girlfriend. Yeah. Parents let me get a car. Nice. Kind of exhibited some more responsibility and cleaning my life up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And kind of like kept it carry in there from there, huh? Like, is that how you landed in Colorado? It was just, I came to CSU or did you come to CSU? No. You want to CSU? No. Where did you go? So I went to West Texas. Okay. Sorry. I don't know what you mentioned in college earlier. West Texas A&M is a lot of people land here from that. Yeah. From West Texas A&M. My sister, she says West Texas A&M is where stupid people go to college. She's not wrong. Okay. I mean, it's easy to get in. Yeah. You don't have to really, you know, show like real bright scores or anything. You know, but I mean, some of the most successful people I know have never shown bright scores on anything. Right. Or didn't go to college at all, you know. So I became, I became very inspired and encouraged when I found out that all of the A students turn out to work for C students in China. Yeah. Yeah. Unless it's like a Facebook situation. Yeah. I just worked a little bit. Like didn't, didn't Mark Zuckerberg drop out? I mean, probably. Yeah. And it's. How do you say it right? Like it's. The people that break stuff in some fashion are the ones that actually make stuff. I think it's also. It's also like, you know, big picture and, you know, more, more little picture. I guess. Yeah. What of the, what of the memes I saw recently was how so many moms are taking extra, pregnant, pregnant women are taking extra Tylenol now. So hoping for autistic children to start car companies and space companies and stuff. That's hilarious. It's like another step in development. Yeah. That's great. That's really great. I've never heard that before. So, so you go to West Texas A&M and you told me earlier where you met. Yeah. Well, well, so I leave college and. You're done with it with a degree. We probably don't have time to explore some of the adventures there. I, yeah. There was a lot. But I wound up in a, in Boulder because I got a job, you know, really with my degree. Yeah. But just like. That's one of the things I noticed when I moved to Fort Collins was like the people serving me drinks and food all had like. There were degrees with better grades than I did. But I came from North Dakota with a degree and got a job at this company. Right. And that's kind of your experience too a little bit. It is. Yeah. It is. Yeah. Atlanta job in Boulder as a kind of dumb kid from West Texas. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, but it expired quick. If it makes you feel better, environmental scientists think. Yeah. They were just short on environmental concern. There was, there wasn't somebody environmental science guys around, I guess, but. Yeah. What did you think? Had you been out to Colorado before? Yeah. I had. Yeah. Well, you said your sister lived up here too. I was, I was looking to come up here. Okay. You know, I kind of wanted to be around this area. And my wife, actually, of all the places I could have met her at that time in my life. She was working as a waitress in a cafe right next to my office. And I'd go in there for lunch. Okay. And I started creeping her a little bit. Yeah. And she's like 21 and still in college. And you're like this older guy. Not at all. Yeah. I wish here. No, I'm kidding. I don't wish that. She was older than me. She still is older than me. Yeah. So it goes. And, uh, yeah. She, she graduated college too, but I don't know why she was doing what she was doing. She was just living her life. Yeah. I wound up just waiting and watching for the right guy to come along and invest in. Night shining armor. I did. I did what. I did what any self-respecting young man would do. I insulted her. Oh, yeah. Because it works every time totally. It's single guys. If you're listening to this. Yeah, yeah. These ladies are, you know, they're attractive. They're so used to getting their asses kissed. That's right. Uh, I have a little sass. Yeah. So if you. So. So if you act like you don't. It was disagreeing. Just a little bit, I think. But I do say that one of my superpowers. Is that neglect? No. That beautiful women love me. Yeah. Um, I can see that. And it's partly because I just shoot the truth. I've been married for 27 years. I'm not flirting with you. I don't care. Yeah. You're cool or you're not cool. But I just tell you this. Unvarnished stuff. Women like that. Yeah. Especially pretty ones. I mean, if you're trying to be cast and over out there, it's the wrong move. If did you hear. Um, that video of Charlie Kirk describing his first date. I did with Erica. I did. It was awesome. Yeah. It was like interviewing her for a job at like 20 minutes and it was like, you know what? I'm sorry, but I'm not going to hire you for this job. You're going to be my girlfriend. But I would like to date you. Yeah. I don't think it would quite. No, we can go that far. But I would like to date you. He said, he said, I would like to date you. And she's like, can I think about this? And she's like, he said, yeah, you can think about this. You have until tomorrow night when I pick you up for the next date. Um, but I mean, yeah, you know, I can see that with Charlie Kirk because he was so incredibly brilliant. Oh my God. That I mean, I would imagine for him to be around someone as much as a partner needs to be around. He probably had to size up her intellect. Totally. So that he doesn't get just super aggravated. Right. But he was brilliant. I would say, I'm just thinking of myself about where his, like, he's probably the strongest example of an integrator of information that, like, it wasn't really a visionary, I would say in some ways. Like he was in terms of creating TPUSA out of cloth and stuff, but the way he functioned in society was really to take in so much information. He was in the cycle of so many conversations and read so many books that he just, he read a hundred books a year. New all this stuff. A hundred books a year. Yeah. Right. I'm lucky to read one. Yeah. Since I've done podcasting, I just get all my knowledge from dumbasses like you. Yeah. Right. Which is not advised, by the way. No. No, it's terrible system. I, uh, I, uh, a hundred books. Okay. So that's impressive on its own. A hundred books a year. But here's what really gets me is that he can recall this information. So at will. So, so I'm, I watch a video of him and he's debating college kids that he doesn't know. And he says, what's your major here? They can say anything. Right. And he knows a great deal of more than they do about their own major. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. Um, unless there was some way that he was cheating, which I don't see how that could possibly be. He was cheating. I mean, that's just a, but I, but he started just really good at it. He said, he said at what time? He said to, uh, he said, what's your major? And he said in the, in the guy said, it's economics. And this is one of his, uh, campus events where he's really trying to show that, um, the college, you know, system is, is, is demand may not be worth. May or may not be worth what juice might not be worth the squeeze. Right. You know, all this debt and you don't, you're not really learning what you need to learn or what you should maybe be learning. And guy says, economics is my major. And Charlie Kirk starts just rattling off like seven or eight different authors that were the great minds of economics, probably high, economics, economics, especially the, yeah. So, so that's a liberalism notions, all that. So, so guess what? Like, I don't even remember the seven names he listed right now. He read all their books and, you know, the poor kid that was the economics major standing on the other end of the microphone. Sure. I mean, well, that's why the left hates him. He's because he picked on all these dumb kids or hated him. So, you know, I think his dialogue was less, he wasn't picking on. I don't think he was picking on. I've watched a lot of it. I saw the video of him watching the South Park invitation of him, where he was like, oh, they got him. Look, I'll be setting down the microphone after the question just to make space for the person, you know, to say whatever they wanted to say. That's perfect. Yeah. Yeah, it was, I was really impressed. And I would see him often pop up on my reels, you know, before he was assassinated because, I guess, my algorithm has kind of set up for guys like that. Yeah. I actually wasn't a very active listener. I started listening to his podcast years ago, probably 2018, 2019. And then, like, it's fine. I like him, you know, and stuff, but it was never really significantly invested, but now retrospectivizing a little bit. And like his memorial service was like literally the most extreme apologistic event in the history of Christianity, probably. I mean, it was legit, man. Yeah. It was legit. And hundreds of millions of people receiving messages from world leaders. Six hours long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was incredible. Yeah. And his wife. Like, oh, she's a beast. I mean, I didn't even know her statement. Like, made me weep and her. Yeah. I didn't even know she existed. Right. Okay. I heard it mentioned her a couple of times. Right. We're in a clipper or whatever, but yeah. I mean, I guess she, I knew he was married and we had kids, but I didn't know who she was. She was very behind the scenes. Oh, yeah. And she just came out and just, okay, I'm comfortable talking in front of 50 million people now. And I'm going to just go ahead and forgive my husband's assassin while I'm here. Well, yeah. And that's what, you know, I had a conversation with Cindy at work. And we spoke a lot about this. We. Yeah. Because we're both fans. And we're both believers. And, you know, she, her and I are talking about this. And just, you know, when it first happened, it was so fresh. And I, you know, I don't like it. I don't like to hear about any loss of life at all. But I've never really taken it personally when a celebrity dies. Yeah. I'm like, oh, gosh, Hulk Hogan died or the ultimate. Yeah, he overdosed or whatever. Yeah. You know, back in the day, it's like when Michael Jackson died or when, you know, we'd lost somebody else. It's here. I can't even remember. Kobe, whatever. I mean, I'm like, man, that's, you know, the thought is like, oh, dang, that's crazy. You know, he died. But when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I, it felt like I almost couldn't believe it. Like, like, I've lost people in my life. And that kind of denial reaction is personal. And so, you know, I was talking to Cindy about that. And, you know, the pain, the grief, this family must be feeling like, if I didn't even know the guy, and I'm like, and I'm kind of, I took a gut punch over it. Yeah. And then I thought, I have another thought, which came to me. I don't think it was my thought. But it was like, and you can, and can you imagine the guy that did this horrible thing, like, Christ would forgive. He would. Right. And that's incredible to me. I mean, like that to me is. If he asks for it. Right. Like that's part of the deal. You got to. Well, believe. Yeah. I mean, and Charlie Kirk would forgive him. Sure. Totally. And Erica Kirk says she forget. Yeah, hard. That's got it. I mean, I would just want to go to war. Totally. Right. Well, that's our eight type. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I started a couple of years ago, really embracing a term of a surrender instead of obedience. Okay. Because it just sounds a lot better. Yeah. Surrender is like, well done. I'm totally outmatched. If I want to keep living, I should surrender to this greater strength. I know why you like this. Because surrender. It's implied that you were. You were part of the fight. Yeah. You were in the fight. Yeah. You were the reason I even get to choose whether or not I'm going to surrender. Right. You're going to choose. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. And obedience is just where you are. Yeah. How shall kneel? Did you even fight? No. Did you even put up a resistance? It kind of seems embarrassing a little bit. Like, I wish I was the kind of Christian that just came to faith and became obedient, just like that. It hasn't been that easy for me. But surrendering seems like a little bit more of an act of conscience, I suppose, in some ways. Yeah. Well, you know. I don't know. I struggle with this too, you know, because you're, you're, I've heard stories. Okay. They're incredible stories. One of my good friends, actually, and I can probably say his name, I won't, but he'd probably find with it. But he's done incredible. He used to be a heroin addict. His wife was too. And she was in prison. This is part of her testimony. Okay. When she was in prison, somehow she came to know Christ. And she was changed, okay? Yeah. Like, when people say they're born again or whatever, they were baptized and, you know, it's the same old joke coming in and out of the office every day, like, she was changed. Yeah. Different. He saw this when he picked her up from prison, he's like, what is with you? What's going on? Oh, dang. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You don't bore with me or don't, but you should. Yeah. Yeah. And she's joyful now. And she has, you know, that bitterness that she was trying to bury with heroin is gone. And the resentment. Yeah. These things are washed away. And she has joy and hope and her desires have changed. Like how do you, how do you do that? That's what Chad Wright says. The Chad Wrights, the Navy Seal, yeah, does a lot of reels and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He says, how do you change your desires? You can't do that, right? That's divine. Now he goes and tries to follow suit and he doesn't have the same experience. Yeah. He eventually attended something and he was like, oh, I get it now. Right. It looks like I understand this kind of or whatever. Yeah. I think that for a lot of us, you know, you, you don't get, you don't get the $200 for free. Yeah. Yeah. You've got a five or an intentional cultivation. You know, that's why there's so much written about how to be in community, how to stay in the word, how to, you know, arm yourself with scripture and knowledge in that way because for some people, there's like a, maybe a more profound spiritual indwelling at that moment. Hmm. Yeah. And for others, it takes a little more cultivation and I would love to have the pink cloud effect. Right. Have you heard that? The pink cloud effect where you just get the pink cloud is a endearing term founded or coined, I believe, by alcoholics anonymous. Okay. So people come into the doors, they're just worn out. They're just beat down. Yeah. They're building up rock bottom before they started this journey. That's right. Yeah. And now they're, and now they're here and they're doing what they're told because they know they're going to die if they don't. Right. And, and so they do that and, you know, weeks, months, whatever, all of a sudden they start feeling better. Mm-hmm. You know, they don't, they don't go to sleep, you know, not remembering going to sleep. They don't wake up sick every day. Yeah. They're starting to get some color. They're starting to get some nutrition. Yeah. And they have hope. That's the big one. They have hope. And they get on this pink cloud and the pink cloud effect is, man, you can stay sober forever. Right. Pink cloud. Easy. It's easy. Yeah. But it doesn't last forever. Don't, don't face one of those other past things you did. Yeah. It's stuff like that. You haven't done any of the work. Yeah. You haven't done any, you haven't read the scriptures, right? Yeah. If you're not reading the scripture, you know, if you're looking for that kind of a, of a destination, man, yeah, that kind of an experience in, in your walk spiritually, then, you know, you're not reading the scriptures, you're not doing the work. Yeah. And it's harder, it's hard to read scripture, but yeah, it's really hard. We do, my wife and I try to do first five. It's a little app on the phone and it just has like a scripture and a key verse and it's mostly made for ladies, their first five minutes of each day to be with the Lord, kind of nice. But it mostly is things to think about with regards to relationship with your person and with God. One thing that's helped me is, you know, when, and I haven't done this in a while, but it was going to men's groups with, with some guys, at least one or two guys that are pretty, pretty knowledgeable, you know, and, and they can kind of help you to take the scripture and maybe break it down and make it a little bit more culturally appropriate. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of a, I describe myself as one inch deep in a mile wide. And so I've got like the cliff notes on the whole world, kind of, it's just not very deep. And so I love that. Even within like Bible books and stuff like, oh yeah, that's the book that talks about this. And it basically points you to there, you know, but it's missing like 80% of the context and stuff. You know, it's just a pretty nice version, right? And you got to get a little bit thicker into it if you want to stay there. You've got to get thicker into it. Can we, time check? Yes. Able what's the time? We better. That's it. We're, yeah, we didn't do the ping pong ball challenge. The time just flies. Doesn't it? Yes. You're one of those guests that I could spend three hours with pretty easily telling stories. But what we could do it again, we can, but in the meantime, the final segment is the local experience. Okay. And that's the crazy experience that you're willing to share with our listeners, craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners. Yeah. The craziest experience. I don't know if this is my most crazy experience ever, but it's certainly a very life altering experience. Yeah. There's no. Okay. As you know, Kurt, I don't drink alcohol. Yeah. And there's a reason for that. I always, that's how I know about the pink cloud and things like that, right? I've done all the, all the steps. And I don't have to worry about alcohol anymore. I don't, I don't get tempted by it. No, I don't do anything other than, you know, I mean, my, my regular, you take communion sometimes. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think they do the wine and, you know, the, the Protestant churches anymore. Oh, we get whited ours. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. What do I know? Yeah. But we have juice available too. It's great juice for me. Yeah. And I don't think that a little, you know, fumble of wine would really send anybody over the edge. Anyway, maybe it would, not me, I don't have, people will say, oh, once you're an alcoholic or once you're a drug addict, you're one forever, right? And I, and I could not disagree with that more. And in fact, even the literature for the Alcoholics Anonymous book, which I call the big book, it's even written in the book. This is how we became recovered from alcoholism. Yeah. And I don't, I don't think that it's, um, and I don't know sort of recovering. Yeah. I don't want to say dangerous things to people who might be listening and have been struggling with this. But, um, I do want to say just stick with the grape juice. If you think it might be on the moon, in my, in my experience, it's not you or your willpower or your rules that are going to make you sober or, or not have this problem anymore. Maybe, um, it's going to be the help that you get from God, period. Okay. So, um, but before all this at the stage, but before all that, um, I, uh, I had my, uh, I was working my job and we often did happy hours after, after work. This is like in the college season, no, no, your job job, but it's all, yeah, that's right. Yep. I'm there. And was that a continuation like when you were installing garbage disposal and stuff where you're drinking too much too, and partying and just regular, but it got pretty good at it. I got pretty good at it. Um, I mean, you know, drinking is something that, you know, you, you, it's funny. Like if you have the genetic predisposition to be addicted to alcohol, it just kind of starts taking over your thoughts, right? And so, you know, the drinking gets heavier and heavier as you go and, and really, um, you know, you, you find yourself around people that are willing to, to, to, to push the boundaries further. Yeah. Um, and, and that be okay and not shameful. Yeah. Well, it's always shameful, but you, but you are around company that's more tolerance of it, right? It's fair. Yeah. So, um, I had been, at this point, this is like 2013, I had been around, um, drinking enough that I was pretty good at it. Um, and I was, I was, I was good enough at it that I knew, you know, I could go out to a public place and drink alcohol and call it. It's done. I might not be done drinking alcohol, but I'm not drinking alcohol in public. Right. Cause transportation is too insecure and I got a, you know, or, or wherever I'm going and whatever. Or, yeah. And, and just, you know, I don't want the wheels to come off in front of everybody, right? Right. Gotcha. Yeah. So, I mean, um, I could be, I could be fairly responsible at times with transportation in that. This is kind of before Uber, wouldn't it? No. Yeah. It was just coming around that time. Yeah. My wife and I live in Old Town, Fort Collins, in part because I couldn't risk getting another DUI. Right. I had two years and years and years ago, but it was just too risky. Right. So I'm, and I'm terrified of getting a DUI, right? Yeah. Like I did not want that to happen. Yeah. Um, and I certainly didn't want to have any experience that, you know, hurt someone else or whatever. Sure. But, but the problem is, is that you don't think about that when you're, when you're drunk. Yeah. I mean, you, you, you just have a lot more grease on the wheels. Yeah, yeah. You need to do things you wouldn't normally do. So we go out to a happy hour and we're all drinking. And I mean, you know, it, it, it, I'm staying later at this one because I'm around people I know that I work with and they're probably, I know them, they, they drink too much too, you know, right, right. That whole thing. You're already friends. It's a shame. It's an encouraging group. Yeah. Okay. Um, and I'm, uh, I'm, I'm getting pretty, pretty shady and, uh, too deep. We'll see. And, uh, you know, this is, this is awful. But my wife, we're married at this time, you know, since 2010, and she's like, when are you coming home? And I'm like, ah, I'm not coming when I want to. And, you know, that's good. Tell her what to do. I'm, I'm going to any of you. Yeah. I'm not coming over. I don't want to go home. Um, and, uh, it's getting later, it's getting darker and everybody's starting to leave. And I knew a group very loosely that was at the same, uh, bar. And one of them said to me, hey, yeah, we're going over to this house for a party afterwards. And I'm just, you know, at this point, I've got enough alcohol in me to make very poor decisions. Yeah. It was time to go home for sure. The fat joint they passed around when you got over there, tipped you into a different place. Yes. Sorry. I don't need to flash ahead. But excuse like where we're going here. Is this party? Yeah. It is. Um, there's, there's another piece of this party, which is, which is terrifying, a piece of this story where I forgot to mention. And that is that, um, I, this is going to sound gangster. It's not. Uh, but I had a gun, okay, and it was, it was in my truck, right, which is, which is perfectly legal. Sure. You know, if you're not drunk, I guess. Right. You can have a pistol, whatever in your truck. You can't carry it around and see old, if you don't have a license for that and you can't really open carry it. I don't think, but, especially, but you can, but a lot of places, probably not in a bar. Right. Yep. So it was in my truck. Well, as I'm leaving, I'm thinking, hey, you know, I shouldn't drive and let's be responsible about this. Maybe I'll just get a, get a cab or whatever it was. But I'm going to have them take me to the party, not home. And I was thinking enough at that point, it was like, well, I don't want to leave my gun in my truck, okay, because what if my truck gets broken into and they steal my gun and then it could be, oh my gosh, then it could be in the hands of any responsible person. Right. They could kill somebody if I get the blame or something. Right. Right. So what I do is I take the gun and I put it in backpack and I, and off I go into this car to this party that I was really not invited to. It was mentioned too, as mentioned. So I get over there and I hear people in the backyard and knock on the door and nobody's coming. And so what do I do? I do what any of us climb over the fence. Of course I did. It was only a five foot fence. It's easy. And alcohol in there. And besides, I was invited sort of, and so I jump over the fence. This dog freaks out and charges me and I'm like, this is it, you know, this is it. I'm done. And it gets right up to my, you know, my balls basically, it's like foaming at the mouth and then one of the guys comes over and he's like, what are you doing? He looks at me and he's like, who are you? And he's about to attack me too. And he realizes that he kind of knows me. Yeah. But not really. He's from the virus. Yeah, he's like, oh, Steve, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so he calls the dog off. Well, thankfully, I was, I was imagining you like whipping the gun out and shooting this guy's dog. Thankfully, that didn't happen. I would never admit that on this show. And so he walks me up the deck and I go in and it's just awkward, you know, like I'm not supposed to be here. It's a closed party. You're not really the one demographic. One person mentioned it to me and now I'm here and, you know, it's just, just weird. But they did, you know, hand me a beer, which is really all I wanted. Yeah. My phone's dead. My cell phone is dead at this point. Which is why you didn't get the four extra texts from your wife since then. Right. Or the calls, right? Yes. And everything's kind of going haywire on that end. I don't even know what's happening. I'm blissfully unaware of this, you know, extremely awkward event. Yeah. And I'm drinking their beer and just being an obnoxious asshole, right? This, one of the guys that lives there comes to haven't seen him comes out and he's like, he's probably honestly a decent guy. But he was in his mode on a Friday night and I was in mine and he was like, why are you here? Yeah. Now, the next pieces of this, like I'm not really fully. Before of a slideshow in my, in my head, but I remember him and I fighting, like physically, right? Like we're, we're, you got to get the fuck out of here. Yeah. I don't have to. I got a beer. You need to get out of my house. I'm like, I'm not going anywhere, right? And then the next slideshow in my house, in my head is him and I standing on the back of his deck with our arms around each other, singing some stupid song, smoking and drinking. All right. And the next one is, I'm faced down in the grass in the backyard. Look up and he's running at me and I don't know why, but he looks pretty pissed. Okay. Then we're wrestling around again. Then everybody else is gone from the party and it's just me and him sitting in his kitchen talking about like starting a business together. And he's got like the frozen peas on his eye. And then the last thing I remember is really just being forcibly pushed out the front door by him, by him. Yeah. Yeah. I go down the stairs. The neighbor comes out telling us to keep it down and I'm like, I'm leaving. You know, it was bad. It was probably three o'clock in the morning by this point. I'd forgotten entirely about the gun entirely and I was just out of my head and nowhere to go. Well while you're talking to your new friends here, you were probably drinking pretty heavily too. We were drinking the whole time. Yeah. It was shit-faced before we started talking and drinking and fighting. The memories go down hill, right? Like fighting and drinking and singing and fighting. Yeah. So, I mean at one point I had my shirt off, dude. So you roll it out with this backpack? I'm rolling out with the backpack. I did get the backpack. Thank God. I don't know how I managed to recover things in those days. Yeah. I don't know what happened there, but I either had the backpack on or it was thrown at me or something. Yeah. And, but I had completely forgotten that I had any firearm in it. Because it just wasn't like a part of my life that much, right? Yeah. It was just in the glove box. Yeah, it was just an ever thought. I think it was out of my car before I leave my car here. Right. Which is horribly responsible and no one should ever have firearms when they're drinking like that. Probably shouldn't drink like that either, but whatever. Which is why you're here. Not my choice to make for other people, just my choice to make for myself. I have no phone. It's dead. And I forget about the gun and I start walking. Right? It's what it's going to do. After payphones are really a thing much. Yeah. There's no payphones. There's no Uber. There's only 14 miles from home. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like new to the area and I'm just walking and walking and walking and walking. And I just, I eventually, so it turns out I was walking down Nelson. Okay. And I just walked and walked and walked until I finally got to the gas stations over there and I was like, okay, I really need to call my wife. Yeah. This is going to be a bad conversation. I'm beat up. My clothes are ripped. Right. You probably bled in lip, but there is no, is it all this kind of stuff, too? See, it looks horrible, like less good than a homeless person on average. Okay. And I smell less good than a homeless person on average, yeah. With booze coming off me just out of my pores everywhere. And I'm like, okay, and I've been walking for a long time, too, so I'm just severely dehydrated. I mean, I actually like to take a look at my blood work at that time, right? Like, you're peeking out because there's no water in there and a lot of booze. Oh, yeah. And I'm walking in the gas station, I'm like, I just got to walk in here and I got to say in the most unslurged speech possible, hello, sir, may I use your phone. And it was this really nice, upstanding, looking young man in there and I walked in and I said, oh, he looks at me like I'm about to rob the place and my eyes get this big around and I turn around and walk out and I go to the next gas station and I'm like, okay, this has got to be better. And I walk into this one as a hippie dude working in there. And I kind of said the same thing, like I just, and he's like, you having a bad ride, man. And I'm like, yes, I have a bad ride and he slides the phone over to me. I call my wife and she is pissed, but I missed a part of the story. After that first interaction, sorry, after the first gas station, I walk out and I'm like, that guy's calling the cops. Okay. I know it. So you're motivated. Like, I walk out. Well, well, no, I mean, you never had one of those. You kind of implied it like this guy hasn't helped me. He's in fact an enemy. This guy's a threat and he's going to turn me in because he does not look like he's rolling the same crowds as me, but with the hippie at the next gas station, he's like, oh, I'm in a safe spot now. Yeah, this guy does. But I hadn't, so what I missed was I walk in, I'm mumbled to this guy. He looks at me, freaked out, scared and I'm like, okay, I got to go. I turn and I walk out of the building and I know he's calling the cops and they're coming to get me for public in talks at best, right? At that time, have you ever had, have you ever had a moment curve in your life where you know you're about to go to jail and there's nothing you can do about it? I think of this as well. I remember the gun. Yes. So, so I'm like, I'm going to jail. Everybody knows it. There's nothing I can do to stop, right? I just don't have the mental faculties to get myself out of this pickle right now. Right. I'm screwed. But what I can do is avoid felony firearm possession of drunk, which I don't know if that's true. But I mean, like, I know, I know it can't be a good look. I knew at this point that being this drunk, this beat up and having a firearm is bad. That makes it worse totally. So I take the firearm and I chuck it into a into a big row of juniper bushes. Okay. And I'm like, I'll come back for that. Yeah. But it's hidden. It's gone. And then I sit down on the curb and I wait for the cops to show. Right by the gun. Yeah. Pretty much. But it was dark. I would have been fine. I'm confident of that, but I sit there and I wait and I wait and I wait and the cops never show up. Oh. And that's what I realized like, man, I must have dodged a bullet here. I'm not going to jail. So then I have to get the gun back, get to the next gas station and call somebody to help my wife. And I'm, I'm like, I'm sure I know where I threw it. Dude, if I wasn't beat up before that with those juniper bushes. Juniper bush finished the job, dude, those things are terrible. Finished the most evil plan I've ever encountered. I had, I had scratches deep all the way up my arms, dude, all over my face on my neck. I looked, I looked like I had been attacked by a jellyfish, like a, like a man of war, you know, with, with the, the previous fight on a plus of the bruising from the actual fight. Yeah. And the blood and just so you're, so then I walked to the next gas station, the hippies in there. I've had a little time to maybe calm down, get the heart rate down. Maybe a little bit of content is down from 0.32 to 0.27 or something. Two years ago. Right. And I'm, and I'm able to form a better sentence like, hey, can I use a phone and the guy's like, okay, you know, you're, I get you, man. Yeah, yeah. I get you. Sure. And I call my wife, and she's like, where the, are you? Yeah. You know, I've been calling the hospitals, I've been, I've been calling this a chance. I haven't played this segment for my wife though, and tell her like, look how worse it could have been. That's, she's like, I've been up all night. I've talked to my mother. I'm like, oh, great. Yeah. She's like, I was sure you were in the hospital, you were in jail or dead in a ditch. What did, what happened? And I'm like, I don't talk about it, but I need you to give me your ride. She comes and gets me, not cool. And actually, she just kind of let me pass out. Oh, so you, but you never found the gun? I did find the gun. Oh, you did eventually. Yeah. No, I found it that night. Okay. I would not leave without it. I thought this story was going to end with a felony firearm, so you know, thankfully, your wife picked you up. And then you were like, on the way home, you're like, okay, babe, I'll quit drinking. Yeah. Well, I mean, no. No. I, I, no, it didn't take a couple more years. That was the last night I drank. It was, but I didn't wake up and say like, okay, I'm done, you know, I woke up and like punched the wall because of the shame and the guilt that I felt. And I'd been, I'd been severely hungover before in the past, and I'd had rock bottom moments before in the past, you know, the grace of God, I'd never heard anybody, right? But I just did some stupid stuff. And that morning, I woke up just pissed off at myself and really embarrassed and ashamed. I mowed the yard, which was the worst. And then, you know, my wife came home and she put me in the car and drove me to a meeting. Oh. Which I'd been to alcoholics and non-muslimedies before, but, you know, it's time to talk. This time, it's, yeah, and not because of anything I did, right, again, I mean, I, that was that actual bending moment that your, your friend's wife had experienced in prison or whatever. Right. Well, it was for me, like that was a really dark day in the meeting and everything. I just didn't, you know, know where to go from there, but, you know, I kept going every day. They were telling me, you know, just go to 90 meetings and 90 days. By the way, it doesn't say anything about attending that many meetings in that time frame in the book. Yeah. But, but I think it's good to go a lot, especially at first. Yeah, I'm sure. Well, every day, there's going to be a challenge. I'm sure. Yeah. Right. And you get habitual thinking that's not favorable for a condition, right? You're, I can't say you, you can't really focus on ending bad habits. You have to really focus on starting new habits. And if this new habit is going to A meetings, it really countervails that old habit a little bit. Well, and you, you know, you, you always find a reason to drink if you're a drinker. I mean, if it's a, if it's a congratulations, if it's a, if it's a, I'm sorry for you. I agree. It's a sorrowful. Yeah. Everything. There's always a reason. And there's always an event. I mean, how many times do you want to quit drinking or slow down on drinking? And there's a football game you got to take us to, right? Or there's a concert you're going to, there's always, there's a holiday coming up. How am I going to make it through New Year's about drinking? I mean, there's always a reason to drink after full wall season. Yeah. Right. Whatever. And, and you never do it. And so, you never follow your own rules. Yeah. Going to those meetings is good because eventually, I like to say, like, you know, if you, if you keep trying at something, eventually you're going to have some success with it. And, and, and eventually, in my case, you know, God's going to put something in your path that allows you to recover. In this case, it was the guy who ended up sponsoring me. I was going to meetings for a couple of weeks and not really saying much, just kind of, just kind of sitting there, checking the box. Yeah. If you're way faster, if you went to a meeting, you could say yes. I could say yes. Did you drink today? You want to shout out to this person? Oh, yeah. His name's Steve Engler. He's two. He's the greatest. Yeah. He wanted to impact on this one. He, he walked into a meeting where I was. And I remember I, I hadn't walked in to find a seat yet. I was just sitting out kind of in the lobby. And he walked into this place. He used to be around third and lashley. And he was like looking at something. He was looking down at something. He opened the door. He looked. He saw me right in the eye. Just looked me dead in the eye and made a b-line for me. And that was it. And I was, he was like, you're coming to my house tomorrow. We're doing this. We're doing that. And he made me do all 12 steps. Which I had never done before. Yeah. And, you know, I attribute a lot of that discipline and that, you know, forceful thinking to, to probably the only reason I ever made it through that first year, you know. Cool. Because, you know, it's like you were saying earlier, you know, if you, you got to do the work. Yeah. You know, what was the reason? You got to get into the scriptures. So, yeah. Kind of a, kind of a crazy story, but how did, how did you need it? I like that. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. I really enjoyed the conversation. I look forward to maybe part two. I'd love it. Okay. Steven. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Logo Experience Podcast. Proudly produced and sponsored by Logo Think Tank. Colorado's premier peer advisory organization. This is your producer, Ava Menus. To find all of our episodes or nominate a future guest, check out our website at thelogoexperience.com. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X.com, and LinkedIn at the Logo Experience. To support the show, be sure to follow, subscribe, and share. Until next time, stay Logo.