Contractor Cuts

When the Dream Becomes a Grind

• ProStruct360

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We unpack how a contracting career slips from dream to grind and lay out the systems, boundaries, and mindset shifts that restore time, profit, and peace. We share mistakes, hard-won lessons, and practical steps you can apply this week.

• the trap of aimless growth and overwork
• one-man job versus freestanding company
• burnout, bad exits, and accountability gaps
• why home life health predicts work health
• boundaries that require advance planning
• finance basics for profit clarity and saying no
• hospitality mindset for client experience
• journaling as a fast pressure valve
• time audits, FaceTime, and fewer site trips
• first steps to rebuild processes and capacity

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SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome back to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner. I'm James. Thanks for joining us again this week. So today's topic is a really lighthearted, fun one. The title of this episode is When the Dream Becomes a Grind. Oh, you don't talk about grind, babe.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I grind harder than everybody. I grind the hardest. I'm like a mill. I'm like a grist mill, man. You're making flour. I'm making all sorts of flour.

SPEAKER_00:

The topic is coming from I think years and years of myself. And I think you would be lying if you talk to anyone who's been in this industry for 10 years or more who haven't had seasons of why am I doing this? Like this is just a grind. This is not fun. I don't enjoy this. I'm like, I'm I feel like I worked twice as hard this year than last year and made the same or less money. Like, what is like I'm just done.

SPEAKER_02:

Till this day, when I ask someone how work's going in in in our industry, and they're like, living the dream, baby. I'm like, you're a liar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's amazing. It's a grind. Yes, it is. Actually, it's more than it's it's a it can be a grueling career that amounts to nothing. Like that's how it feels, right? Like I've been working my butt off, and there is nothing to show for it. You laugh so you don't cry. You laugh so you don't cry. Uh you know, most guys don't dream of becoming a contractor, right? Like most of us have fallen backwards into what we've told these stories. You know, I I literally didn't swing a hammer, do a single bit of work. My dad was in marketing for Coca-Cola growing up. We were not doing home projects. We we hired that out. Uh, and I got into this because I had a buddy that was running a the expansion of a project management company, and I wanted to get Esther a ring. So I said yes to the first job that came along that paid me more than minimum wage. And 25 years later, here we are. Um it's not a career that people say, you know, I'm gonna get into construction. Now, some do. Some people love it, and you know, they grew up around it, like I can I can kill in that, and that's great. And and even those guys have those seasons though. So today we're talking about a couple different things. And and the reason I brought this topic up, uh, we've we've hit aspects of this before, but I had multiple times in the last month of uh coaching guys or really new guys coming in the coaching, um, that all like I've literally two different guys in the last month said to me, I feel like I'm on my third year of doing the exact same thing. And every year I've worked harder and harder and harder. And I went from 40 hours to 50 hours, and I'm putting 60 hours a week in right now, and I'm making less now than I did two years ago. And I just don't, like, I'm just I'm just out. And if I had any other skills anywhere else, I would be doing that. But like, this is where I've got it. I've got business, like, I can't quit. I got like all like there is this, this, this epidemic in construction because of most of the time the way the guys get into this is I get out of high school or college, I just need something. This is hiring. I my I I renovated houses with my dad as a kid, and this is just where I ended up. Right. And so because of that, it's not like I went to school for you know, aerospace engineering, and now I'm working at a doing my passion as a per full-time profession, working for SpaceX, doing like it's not usually a targeted career path. Yeah, it's normally a job that turns into your career. Uh, and so because of that, a lot of times it's aimless. And a lot of times there's zero foundation of building the company. It is, well, I started doing it this way, and then people liked how I did it. So I started doing it more for people and doing more for people and doing more for people. And so doubling down on an ill-built company only makes it worse. Uh, and you, it's so difficult. I mean, the the guys that come in that are just starting or have been in business for six months, I just salivate because I'm like, great, no bad habits, no bad processes. Let's get you built and let's build this foundation. And then we can build the house on top of that concrete. Guys that have been doing it for 10 years, I'm like, okay, we got some work. Let's let's break some bad habits and you're gonna keep falling back into those same old bad habits over the next year, I promise you. But just when you get into those, let's identify them, right? Because the way that you run things as a one-man show and as a job to make money is different than building a freestanding company that runs without you. And those are two totally different companies, two totally different structures, and they they they operate two totally different ways. And so the guy see, I want that freestanding dream that you can step back and do something else, but I built it this way. And there's no bridge between the two. And that's what ProStru does. I mean, that's that's the joy of what I do in terms of like, let's deconstruct a little bit, build a foundation that we can build this freestanding company on top of. Um, and when you see guys start getting it and start their eyes like, ah, uh, why don't I, well, like it's this isn't rocket science. It's just like, oh, I never thought of it that way. And though, that's I didn't realize doing it that way, I can't train someone on because that's just how I do it in my brain. So I can't train someone and bring them in and work for me until I change how we do that in our processes. That side of it is where I'm trying to push guys and trying to get them, get them to view it that way, see it that way, and start building those structures around that side of it. But to the guys in the middle, to the guys on the right, and even in that world, there's there's these deserts of whether I'm on an island and feel lonely and just like, am I doing this right? Or there's, I'm, you know, I remember we I did it, I worked or worked, I worked, I got a lawsuit. I'm back in the back square zero because all the money I'd built up, I'm having to spend to fix stuff because I hired someone that did it the wrong way. Right. And so how do we get past and get out of those seasons that it's like uh this is not a dream, this is a nightmare, I'm in the middle of this company and I hate my life. I'm just this is not fun. I don't want to go to work tomorrow. And how do we get beyond that? And really, how do you get into that spot, anyways? And then how do we move out of it? Um I think, I mean, we've all had seasons, you've had seasons of this, and I'm sure there will be seasons in the future for both of us of this. And I think there's been for me a few different ways, and I'd love to hear from you also on kind of breaking those or even not breaking them, but actions you take when you're in them.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, because I think like camaraderie, friendship, and people that are in it with you and have done it together are are for me kind of a uh the the horizon line of like, yeah, come on. I'm not this isn't today, isn't the end. We've got it, we've got an end. Let's let's keep going towards that. But what about you? I mean, what tell me your thoughts on that? Uh what's what's over the past 15 years of your construction career, what when you hit those, when you get in those, what how do you react? I mean, what's what's your reaction in a time of like this is not a dream?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I I do I think back on this a lot when I was 20 or 21 or whatever, I was still I was still living where I went to college in Milledgeville and I was working for this uh company S Construction and uh there was a guy that I worked with pretty closely and he had his own company and uh I was like so tell me about how you got into doing this, like how and he before I could even ask a question, he was like, Don't don't make this your don't make this your profession. And I was like, why? And he couldn't looking back now, I can see his face, and his face said you couldn't possibly understand like I'm not gonna waste my breath on explaining this to you. I just need you to hear me. Yeah. Don't do this. There's just so many things that like you it's hard to it's hard to juggle all the balls that you end up being in charge of. Yeah. And up until the point where it's too many balls to juggle, is the point where you are like, What was he talking about? This is great, we're making this progress, we're doing this, we're doing that, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, okay. There's there's too much to handle. Yeah. I haven't built the foundation like you're talking about. Aimless is a great point or a great way to put it. It's nobody, very few people are giving it a a roadmap to how to make this something to where when it comes time when you've burnt your candle out, and everybody has I don't think everybody has a thing for them that's like this is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. No. Some people do, and some people just decide that that's what they're gonna do. But for me, novelty is really important, like in my day-to-day. Like I need new things, I need things that excite me. But that doesn't always exist. Like you do need to go through the monotony, you do need to suffer boredom, and that's good for you. Um But I think when you're talking about when the dream becomes a grind, it's when those seasons turn into years, years long stretches. And and then it becomes difficult to be like, yeah, I just gotta grind, I just gotta grind. You can only tell yourself that so many times. It's like, yeah, just grind, just grind. Um but I I just know that one of the biggest parts of this industry are your relationships with people. And so um, and I don't even remember what the initial question you asked. Doesn't matter. Uh the first thing that I think of when I start feeling the pressure of I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this tomorrow, I don't want to do this next week. I need to figure out how I, you know, how do I get this set up quickly so I can move on to the next thing. Yeah. Because I try to reinvest in my relationships, whether it's calling that like even like a steel supplier that I always had like a good conversation with, just calling that guy to chat him up. Yeah, like having these connections, and those that's like the surface level type. Like, how can I start my day off with a good call? I'm gonna call that guy and just touch base. Um but even uh deeper than that is finding space in my week to connect with close friends, whether that's a phone call or even a Zoom or going getting coffee or go bowling or go throw the frisbee or the football, whatever that looks like. Making sure that you have connection points and touch points with things that bring you back into what reality is. Yeah. Because all of this bullshit can quickly become this is your only reality. Yeah. And phone calls are scary because it's always gonna be this crew drove their car onto the grass, and I have a sprinkler system. And even though that's not that big of a deal, the client's gonna remind you that every time something gets screwed up now. Like that's the mindset. Failures are constantly held in front of your face when it's like, ah, I'll just, you know what? Let don't pay me any more money. Just shut up. And I'll finish this for free. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I I think it's um there is when we're in those seasons. I I I had, you know, when I started ProStruct, this thing that I love doing that, you know, is I think what I will do for the rest of my life. Like no matter what, I I my goal is to partner with contractors, help them grow their companies. And I probably will hopefully kind of sink my teeth in in 10 years to a handful and just kind of double down on their board and kind of help them get there. And I'll probably downshift uh in new guys and let some of the other coaches bring on the new guys. But either way, like for me, I love I'm I'm good at thinking outside the box and troubleshooting and finding holes and what people think is is good. Like that side of it I love and I've found a passion for. And but I wouldn't have gotten here without making all the mistakes myself. Like I wouldn't have that knowledge without going through those seasons. Um, uh that being said, the beginning of ProStruct was my burned out phase of running a construction company. I was done. And I will admit to everybody, the way we built Atlanta was my learning, my playground of learning how to do it the wrong way. Um, from loans to how we hired to how I even stepped out to do ProStruct was all done wrong. Uh, and you know, hindsight's 2020 uh and expensive uh lessons that that I learned there, but we're able to start planning some of these other locations the right way, which has been great, and helping other guys and grow help them grow the right way and fixing Atlanta and doing some other things. Like it's all great. But I got to a spot where I burnt out and I was like the first exit door that I found, I dumped the company on you and a couple other guys. I'm like, all right, y'all take this and I run and I'm gonna go. And I think I exited very wrong. And it wasn't an exit, but like we were in the same office, but we were on different floors, and I would sneak in and sneak out so I wouldn't have to deal with the upstairs guys because it was like, I don't, I just don't want to hear from another homeowner. I don't, and the problem was because I was so burnt out and I let it go so far to where I was ready to just and unplug it and be done, and you guys handle it, and I'm not gonna give any sort of guidance or any sort of anything or my opinion or pass off how I do like because I did that so well, I did a disservice to everyone working in the company because it was like a I just flipped a switch on all right, I'm gonna chase this new thing and whatever happens over there. Good luck with that, guys. Uh, which was the absolute worst thing to do. I cost myself hundreds of thousands of dollars in that season from from doing that. Um, not to mention, did a disservice. I mean, you guys were pulling your hair out because it was like, help, like somebody, like this isn't like what's going on? I don't want to do this. And you put this on, like, there was we could probably do seven hours of diving deep into that stuff that we me and you could probably sit with a therapist and work through. Like, like we've we've had these conversations and talked through it. But like for me, I exited wrong because I was so burnt out and just did it the wrong way. And I wish I had a coach that was with me that was like what the I the irony is I I turned myself into that coach that I needed in building ProStruct because it was like, I just wish when I started I had this, and as I grew, I had this. And then I got to a spot where I was like, man, I exited wrong. Like, I wish I had a a ProStruct coach with me that'd be like, okay, let's exit you well. Like, let's do it this way. And like, I don't have any, like, the best part of coaching is like if I'm coaching, I've got no emotional tie to them. And I tell every single coaching uh client I have, I say in the beginning, like, I just want you to know I don't care about you. You're hiring me to protect your company. And if your company does well, you're gonna exit and you're gonna feel really good and taken care of. So any decision I make isn't because you want it, it's because it's best for best for the company. And I'm not making decisions, but the advice I'm giving is not because I want you to go on a fun vacation with your family. It's I don't care about your vacation. If this is healthy, you're gonna be healthy and you're gonna have a balanced life. And then bigger picture, your company and your life and your family is gonna work. Uh, and you know, if that mindset, I wish I had someone there for that. Because all I could see was Clark's, Clark's vision in that company and what I was dealing with and what I didn't want to deal with. I I didn't want to go into I didn't we when jobs started going south uh after I exited, not I mean it wasn't catastrophe, but there were there were some jobs and like some project managers that we should have never hired, and like guys that that were that were not trained well and not not doing what they should be doing. When that was happening, I I got to a spot where I was like, I don't want to wear my my company shirt out in public. What if I run into one of these homeowners that are not happy with our company? And like, that's not where you want to be, right? Like, that's not how you retire. That's not how you step out of a company. You would step out of a company where it's built better and and you pass it off and you have accountability to where you help get it to a better spot than it was even when I was running it. I I've replaced myself with people that have the passion and sit there and are trained for years to do it uh with me. So again, that's I'm diving deep into that one specific because that was for me like my deepest, hardest season. And I just was like, I'm gonna chase software and coaching. And I'm I'm I mean, I'm sure you and other guys were like, Where'd Clark go? What's going on? Like, this isn't okay, you're going, okay, that's all right, we got it, right? And and it wasn't smooth because I was so burnt down on it. And I think that's for me, like it was a grind to a spot where I was like, I would rather this crash than to spend one more minute upstairs dealing with this. And so I think that to me, it's like I went too far down the the grind trail that I'm trying to help guys avoid. Um, now I mean there's there's I'm making it sound like all doom and bad. Like I was still a part of it, we were still doing things and still run, but I think the the point of what I'm saying is that there was no outside voice that was caring for the company. It was all people looking out for themselves. And when you're in the grind, that's where you're at. And when you're doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over, and it's just like I can't do this one more day, it's because there was not a game plan for that growth to get out of that season. So I think one of the things, if I'm coaching someone who's in that season, one of the first things I start with is are you married, spouse, relationship, children? Like, I need to know what's going on there. That's I I don't care what your company can burn to the ground, you can you can file bankruptcy. I don't care like what's happening at home. Because when you grind for 60 hours in a week, I promise you your wife's being missed, right? And I and I promise you your kids don't know who their father is. And I promise you that your friends haven't seen you in two months, right? When when you get into that season of grind, you are missed, and then you're not missed anymore because people just don't see you and you're gone. Right. And so for for that season, it's like, if you're getting that spot, I want to pull you back. Like as a coach, like let's let's let's re-engage the important and disengage the unimportant. And you have proven to yourself you can't just run your way out of this, this, this, this storm that you're in. So, how do we re-engage the other stuff and have a game plan to exit the storm because you're not fast enough? You've been running, you're just not fast enough. So, that to me is you start that with the small changes that make things rewarding again in your life. And usually starts outside of work. It usually starts with those friends. With I I I joined a cigar club once a month. I uh you you start playing frisbee with you soccer league, right? Like stuff of like, I'm grounded as a human. I'm more than just this stupid company that is just doing nothing. I'm more than like, even if it's doing well, like even those companies that are doing well, but I'm stuck there and I'm grinding and it's not fun. Like, we've gotta find rewards in our life outside of that, right? And so that I think that's number one. It's how do we re-engage those friends, family, your kids who don't care about you being there anymore because it's just life. That James is gone, Clark is just not here, so we kind of moved on. Yeah, and and when that happens, friends then family, and it's happening with families, it's like, oh man, that's that's where things get really dark for guys. So I think I think that's that's number one for me is like find the small rewards outside of work. And then let's transfer to find some rewards inside the work, inside of work. And I think some of the the structure that we put provide and some of the the coaching of the processes will start uh let's start measuring what success looks like, right? Like when we we harp, I mean, the last three podcasts have been about finances and money. That's because that's our measurement of success. And sometimes you don't know if you're successful or not because you can't you're not managing that well. And you might be successful, you're just mismanaging your money. And then let's get that in place to where, hey, let's get budgets, let's get this in place, let's understand where your dollars are. That allows us to tighten the screws around that and make you profitable. And all of a sudden, that measurement of company success is going up, right? And now I'm starting to make more money. And I think the the biggest issue that guys are having with this is that their company success, measuring that is measuring them as their personal success and who they are as a person, right? And so when the success of my company defines how good of a man I am, how good of a father I am, how good of a husband I am, I think any healthy relationship, if I were to say, Hey, uh Meredith, James's wife, what why is James such an awesome guy? I think listing out him and how he works and the companies he's built and what he's doing would be seventh on her list, right? Not number one. Though us, the the men doing it, that's where we get the value oftentimes. Is that's our number one, how successful that company is. What am I bringing home? What have I killed and brought home? My my I'm failing as a husband because my wife has to work now. I'm failing as a husband because my kids can't go to that private school. I'm failing as a as or as a father because my kids can't go to that. Like, I don't know any kid that's like, man, my dad's a real real failure. I mean, he's here all the time and takes me out on dates and we hang out all the time. He's at every single one of my ball games, but I really wish I had a PlayStation 5. So my dad's a failure. Like, no, like we view it out of such a uh an ugly transactional. Yes. Yes. And what have you done for me lately? Or or what have I done for you lately? Nothing like financially, then I'm a failure here. Yeah. Right. And I think it's realigning that stuff in our brains and starting to get those small wins. Uh, even if it's not financial, even if it's not the company growing, it's I d uh not discrediting the wins because of the other losses happening, but stopping St. Paul's, hey, that does suck, and that does suck. But look, let's let's celebrate this right here. Like, killed it. Awesome. You ran that job start to finish. Those other four jobs that you're not running through our processes are going, are on fire right now. That's okay. We got new processes. How's this job going? Right. And so on the coaching side, I mean, like that that side of it is like if we can start identifying those, those are it's basically you got to crawl before you walk, walk before you run, right? And let's just start crawling. And most guys are in that stage saying, but all those guys over there are running. It's like, well, you don't know behind the scenes, you don't know what else is going on, like you can't compare yourself to them or how many loans they have.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Yeah one thing that I think there's a really common theme here. And I think anybody that's done any sort of self-reflection or counseling or even just listening to podcasts that kind of touch on that type of thing, the common theme is like relationships are your health outside of work informs your health inside of work. Yeah. So like the relationships that you're uh you're building it with your friends, with your spouse, with your kids, with you know, whatever those things are so life-giving. Like very I I I I never leave time with a friend being like, God, I wish I was just actually working. That was kind of a waste. I'll go into the time with a friend thinking, yeah. And then you leave lighter. You leave lighter because you're reminded of Yeah, my work is important. It it's what keeps food on the table. Uh doing someone's renovation, that's important. We need to get from A to Z. But the relationship with you and the client, that is like bringing it back to work. Like anybody can give them not anybody, but uh there's a plenty of guys that can give them the product that they're after.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And maybe five percent of those guys can give them the product and provide the experience. And the experience begins with understanding what do what do what do people need? And like a lot of our jobs in construction becomes how do I help this person understand why this went wrong and why it's okay? Yeah. And how they're not gonna be left holding the bag. We're not gonna abandon you. There's some things we need to do. It's gonna be okay. And maintaining that relationship and helping them get through that with you, like that could be something that is uh either a really uplifting thing as part of your job, but the harder, the the longer you go in those seasons of I'm just grinding, grinding, grinding, the worse you become at that part of it. And that just starts the what's the uh it's like compound interest in in the reverse fashion. Yeah. It's like you get worse and worse than at dealing with them because all the all the client is to you, all your project managers are to you, all your crews are to you, are trying to steal your freedom, steal your peace, and and and every moment your phone could ring and there's something that you need to deal with, and that puts you in this place of like what's the next shoe? That's it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I I I mean, you're hitting the nail on the head with with where guys hear this and do it wrong and get and trying to find the happiness, trying to find points, trying to find, you know, rewarding times is like, okay, you know what? I'm not gonna miss another soccer game. I'm gonna see my kid play every single soccer game. Well, that's not a decision to make Wednesday at 5 30, right before the game starts. That's a decision to make two weeks ago when you do your client engagement agreement and you plan out your job accordingly. So on Wednesday, my I check in with my client at three and and lay the groundwork from what we've talked about three weeks ago, how after 5 30, I'm not gonna be able to answer because I'm doing this, but because you've prepped your processes well to get there. And I think what what guys do wrong is they're like, like you just said, they get into this, like it's this downward spiral to where I'm not gonna answer the phone. No, I'm allowed to be at my kids' soccer match. You can't tell me not, and it's like, whoa, yeah, you you you gotta be an adult and plan so you can make it to your kid's soccer match. I'm not saying don't go to the soccer match. I'm saying it's your responsibility to plan and prep so you can make it there without dropping your work responsibilities, right? And I think that's like uh that is one of the biggest issues of why processes and procedures, the two things that I live my life by, which if you ask my parents when I was 20, they'd laugh at. Uh, but like that that causes the ability to get out of this. But you got you gotta have self-control to do those first. Like, like, like you were saying, with the uh you get to the spot where like I'm not gonna answer that, I'm not gonna do that, and all these people, and every single time the phone rings, it's because you haven't set up the processes to deal with proactively those clients. Because by then, it's a reaction.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And when you're reacting the wrong way, it's your fault. But if I proactively said, well, just so you know, you know, uh, I don't, I don't do phone calls after six, this, if you need anything from me, and you set those boundaries and you've ordered the materials. And we've talked about carpet selection in three weeks ahead instead of the night before we're actually going to be buying and installing the carpet. If you've prepped well and have some sort of self control and process to make sure that you can check out Wednesday night for your kids' soccer game. Then you got the green light to do it. And I think that's that's where the disconnect is for a lot of guys who are like, I'm trying to embrace. I like I'm saying no to work and I'm saying yes to my family. And it's like, cool, but you're you're you're not doing it what the right way.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not to forsake the other in the other direction.

SPEAKER_00:

It's I'm not asking you to say no to work. I'm asking you to do work differently, so work doesn't demand that of you because you've prepped, you've planned, you've set you've set boundaries.

SPEAKER_02:

Because guess what? If you if the 530 game that you're trying to make, it's like, well, I'm I can't make that game because I have to work late. You're gonna work late anyway. I promise you. If that's where you're at right now, you're gonna end up working late. Why don't you hit the game?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And then work late after the kids go down. That's okay. I bet your wife could understand that. She sh you showed up for the game, you were dad, you were uh happy, you were making sure every like you were doing the thing. Yeah. And then you know what, I have to I have to work tonight. And that's not a thing that you want to live on. But if you have to make those decisions, if there's a bunch of work that needs to be done, and we are a seasonal type of industry, there's gonna be seasons that are more heavy than others. But like making those decisions and figuring out how to fit life, and that's a bad way to say it, but sometimes you gotta fit life inside of the nooks and crannies. And really the idea is to set yourself up and to set your processes up so that work fits inside of your life because you there's no substitute. Yeah. And if and if life is hell, work's gonna be hell. It's just how it is. And then the guys that get like you lose your family, you you you lose your wife because life work became so much hell that I had to just dive into that hard. Then family fell by the wayside, and it just I didn't have space for both.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Like that's that's a pretty common story. And it doesn't it doesn't get better. Like you're not just gonna catch a big break because like you need to like you need to manufacture that yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, and I I think guys point their fingers at themselves for the wrong things and don't for the right things. Because I uh you know if you have again processes in place, but the the processes of how do we say yes to jobs and more importantly, how do we say no to jobs? If I if I've if I've got that three weeks ago, I'm like, let me look at my projections for the next six months. Oh, I can't say yes to this job until December. I can't say yes to this job until January. And I tell the client that. Guys get mad for not showing up to the soccer game. I'm mad because three weeks ago you said yes to a job, but you don't realize that because you don't have a process in place to identify how full your schedule is. And if you do, we can look and be like, hey, you can say no to every job for the next six months and your pipeline's full. Feel good. You got the money paid. Let's put some stuff in place. Let's work on a new hire. Let's get you going, but let's get you down to 40 hours a week because it's okay to say no because we don't need to just squirrel money right now. What we're doing is building a company, right? And if we can see the longer-term picture, and uh I say this to guys when they start with me. Worst sales pitch I have is that I'm not gonna make you more money for the next 12 months. We're gonna be building a foundation and I'm gonna steal as much time away from your company that makes you money as possible to do that because then next year we duplicate and we build on it and we hire someone in that's also another project manager, and that's when you start making money. But it's this I got to say yes to everything, I gotta do everything now, I've got to react to everything. And by doing that, I'm setting 28 fires a day because I haven't, I haven't thought through this stuff. I'm just reacting to what's happening. Yeah, you're not making a soccer on Wednesday. It's not gonna happen. But it's not because you had to go to a job site, it's because you didn't plan ahead. Right. And so it's this it's the job isn't the problem on Wednesday night. You three weeks ago was the problem. So I think that's that's my my main point that I try to drive in of like, we don't get out of these seasons reactionary. We don't get out of this like grind season by just doing something different. It's it's it's a long, slow burn to say, okay, I'm gonna set these processes up now. I'm gonna do intakes this way. I'm gonna do my client engagement agreement. This is how I I'm gonna do a it takes extra time to do a subcontractor onboarding, how we like to do it with the paperwork and the meetings and all. That takes a lot of time. But do you know what that's saving? That Wednesday night when you want to go to the soccer game and the crew is trying to do something and screw you because they didn't know it's not screwing you, but they're not abiding by how you want it to run and they're and the client's pissed off because the client that's because you didn't do the prep work last month on onboarding them well, right? And so it's like this is it you have to have self-control and a bigger vision of why we're doing this stuff to be able to eventually get there. You're not gonna change how things are acting today, but you can change how next month looks for your company. And that's by having the processes on the new jobs coming in. It's a it's setting up on the small stuff. I'm not gonna do this, I am gonna do this. Client, you're not allowed to do this. Crew, you're not allowed to talk with my clients. Clients are not allowed to talk with my crews, all communication goes through me on our job sites. All of the stuff that we set up and prep before starting a job then allows you to have two fires a day instead of 27 fires a day while you're operating the company.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so it's it's a it's an entire ecosystem that we're building one step at a time. It's not just, I'm it's not just as simple as an outsider views you running, you know. I I talked with one company that has a coach and he's like, well, we got to hire someone for this. We got to hire an accountant, you need to hire an estimator, you need to hire that. And I was like, Does this coach know anything about construction? He's like, No, he comes from the business world, but he's really good at business. I was like, Where, where? And he came from the software development side. And I'm like, their margins are 70%. They can hire eight people and still be making a ton of money. Our margins are five percent. Like our the the residential remodelers of America did a study. The average profit for remodeling companies are four percent. He's dealing with 70 plus percent profits, two different companies. Don't hire everybody, don't do it that way. Let's get with construction business coaching.

SPEAKER_02:

And and not only that, but their product is uh basically a program. Yeah. And part of your product as a construction company is your brain. And just humans executing a program that you've created that the the issues still exist in the program like it does in software, then you gotta fix the bugs and tweak and tweak and tweak. Yep. But then you add in all the variable of the human experience and what happened the night before or what happened the previous week, that the guy's mom died. Like there's a baj, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's it's the product is customer service, not selling an actual product. And it it's it's honestly like if you're gonna get a coach from outside of the construction world, get someone who does hospitality and hotels because that is the customer service side. Yeah, that's all they coach on there. They clean places, friendly faces. Yes, thinking through what people want before they even know they want it, right? And that's what we're doing. We're just selling a different product than a hotel room. We're selling a new kitchen.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I think it's again, going back to all of this, it's that process of preset. If someone walked into Ritz-Carlton and the person standing up front had no clue what they're supposed to do next or what the game plan is, could you that experience is like, yeah, you're not going home tonight until you figure out what room they're gonna sleep in, until you get their bags and put them somewhere, until you get like there's a hundred fires that just got set because you said yes to someone staying at your hotel because you didn't have a game plan that was prepped for the last two weeks on it. So, again, all this being said, I think let's talk about if you're in that season now or if you find yourself in this season, what are the things you can be doing today to start working your way out of it? I think number one, I want you to write down why you started and why you're doing this. I think it's journaling is such a cuss word for men. But even just did you write that down? Yeah. In your journal? In my journal. Yeah. I I think number one, you don't need to, you're not sitting down and saying, Dear diary, today, James, hurt my feelings. We're not doing that. That's what you think about when you're doing journaling. James, tell me, like, when you journal, what are you doing? Like what does it look like? What would you suggest if someone was never journaling and they're gonna get started? Where do you start? Where do you get get and grow into just some sort of mental space that isn't on the gas? Give us a uh 10 30,000 foot view of starting with journaling and why and where.

SPEAKER_02:

Just you you get yourself all you do, just get yourself a nice journal that looks like something that you want to write in. Or come on the retreat because you'll get on the um I like this one because it has it's like kind of like graph paper, it's just dots. So I can write notes, but I can also do drawings in here. So the rule that I gave myself when I started these journals specifically, there's only one rule, and it's that I can use it for anything. Like instead of the mindset of oh, this is where my feelings go, I write a lot of oh, I just had this idea. I'm gonna jot this real quick scribble of an idea. And maybe while I'm on the phone, literally for me, if I'm on the phone with somebody, if I'm taking notes, I need to be doodling when they're talking.

SPEAKER_00:

I was gonna say, I only know that James is tracking with me when he's drawing that little face of that dude with his nose. I bet we can find it if we flip to the pages. Probably when when we're talking a meeting, if he's doodling, I'm like, cool, he's tracking. I'm listening.

SPEAKER_02:

And if I take notes and I keep writing notes while you're talking, I'm expounding on the notes I've already taken, and that's not good if I'm listening.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But if I'm doodling, then I'm listening. I'm actively listening, and you say something that perks up like that's important. I write that down. So I've I'm like when I'm talking to someone, this is all available for me to write down anything that I need to write down. Part of it's gonna be gibberish and doodles. I might even write, oh, this would be a good song lyric, or this is a funny joke, I just thought of. But something to just get the noise out and onto something so that I can just do that quickly and not ruminate on something when I'm I'm not ready to ruminate on it. Writing and then going back through it over the week or over the day, like I took a lot of notes today. I need to go back through and circle some stuff and expound on some stuff. Like I'm constantly journaling. Constantly. It's like my my just dumping my brain onto paper, and then I can go back and look through those things. There's things that I go back and look at from like a year or two ago that I'm like, I'll go back and look at my journals and like, oh, I had this thought a couple years ago, and that actually makes sense for where we are now, but not then. And it it just opens up this uh it opens up a new world for you because you're tracking there's there's so many random things in here that I can go back and relive those experiences and think through them because I've journaled them out.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

There's also just uh you know, being able to draw a quick sketch of something instead of spending all this time trying to figure out how am I gonna uh I want to give a client a drawing of something like you can just get something done really quickly and then spend some time on it later instead of letting it monopolize your time, right?

SPEAKER_00:

I've seen on a desk estimate with James over on a Zoom, and he's like flipping through with his finger, he's like this. And he holds it up to the camera because it's like this is what I was thinking about your kitchen layout.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And that might seem like like I think for it might seem a little like uh quirky or shoddy. Yeah, no, you're quirky for sure. Definitely quirky. But I'm thinking about it. Like I'm spending more time. I guarantee you, I'm spending more time thinking about how you are going to use this renovation in your day-to-day life than the anybody else that you're working with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It means something to me to be able to like before this call, I spent 30 minutes earlier today just thinking through it, even though I didn't have to.

SPEAKER_02:

It's like the the first couple questions I'm asking people are about like why are you doing it? Like, what's the reason for the renovation? That's gonna inform almost every suggestion I'm gonna give you. It's gonna inform the way that we need to map this out. What kind of benchmark walks do we need? Are you gonna be living there? Then there's a whole nother list of things that we need to cover and I need to think through before we execute this project. And there's not like um renovations are so variable from every person to person that there's really not a good way to capture a process when it comes down to that level of minutiae. Yep. And so journaling really helps kind of build that out. And that's just for work. And then you go to the personal side of it and you can do the same thing. Like just thinking about self-pity. It's a huge thing when people are stuck in the grind versus wanting to live the dream. You uh self-pity is huge. Everybody is like everyone's trying to take my peace, everybody's trying to take my freedom, and then you start resenting uh everybody that is needing something from you, whereas before you felt the grind, it was nice when somebody needed something from you. Oh, I have something to offer that makes me feel valuable. Well, as soon as that becomes an obligation versus something that is like I can't wait to give you my opinion on that. It self-pity. So just journaling about self-pity. I'm feeling like this. Here's like a couple of the things, and then you can look at that and just decide then you can even journal about that. Here's why that that doesn't mean anything. Here's why they don't owe me anything.

SPEAKER_00:

So baby baby steps into a little sneak peek into the retreat. The in the back of the the the 2026 planner you're gonna get is we have a section for journaling, and I have kind of sectioned off for different things like marketing journaling and brand journaling and big picture journaling, and then I've got one section that's called vent then praise. Like, I want you like if you're pissed off about something, just take the page. No one's gonna see this. Write why you hate it so much and everything that's stupid that you feel, and then all I need you to do is the set the the opposing page, praise it. Why? Why is it good though? But at least this client, you know what? I'm gonna be done by next week and I'll be out of there and I'll be 100% done. So I gotta let me just get this done. You know what? The the profit I made wasn't great on this, but I made 15 grand and we're gonna take the kids to Disney World for spring break. You know what else is great? You know, this lady, you know, she's had a rough life. Like, give me a big vent and then give me a praise about it. And it sounds so childish, it sounds so touchy-feely, but it's like I have never written vent and praise and walked away pissed off.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and you know what? Sometimes it's gonna look like a big bowl of spinach. And if you like spinach, then forget I said spinach. Yep. But um, spinach leaves like this dry patch on the back of your teeth. You notice that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I don't like about spinach. It's not the flavor.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But you look at that, you look at your vent, then you look at your praise, and then you just look at it, and you just eat that whole bowl of spinach. Yeah. Because even though you might not walk away feeling like, okay, no, I don't have any attention left over. But like looking at that, and like you'll laugh.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a reason. You'll laugh. I'm like, what a baby. All right, I'm over this. Like it's like, yeah, yes. Yeah. So uh uh you don't need to start a journal to be dear diary, and every day, today is the first day of October, and I'm gonna be like, what uh that's not what this is about. This is about what's bouncing in your brain that you've thought about seven times over the last three days. Throw it on a paper and get over it. And it's not just swallowing it, it's understanding why. Like, why am I like that? If you can answer why does this piss me off so much? And the answer isn't that because that client's a jerk, but instead it's like, oh, maybe because I'm I feel really out of control right now, and they're adding to that chaos. Yeah. Right? Great, put that down. So what yeah, give it a like put one positive thing at the end of it. Give me something positive that's coming out of this.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Because there is. There, there you can find it. And and just writing it down, laughing about it sometimes, putting something positive, and then closing the book, and you might never look at that again.

SPEAKER_02:

Or it might be you're complaining about a uh a crew or a project manager or a partner, and like you do your whole vent and then you write your positive, and you've gotten that, you got the venom out, and now you can look at it and say, this actually needs to be a conversation. Yeah. But I need to go into that conversation having consumed my bowl of spinach, and now I can actually have a conversation without just like because when you get into that conversation and you still have all that venom built up, it's not the way you want the conversation to go, but it's going that way. Yeah. Turn to the Clark page. Or is that a whole section? It's just like a dagger with blood kind of thing.

unknown:

There you go.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. So journaling, I think, is a great place to start. And it, and I think it feels so weird as a guy if you've never done it. Um, and I probably don't do it as much as I should and need to, but it's something that just try it this way. Like, just literally the next time you're angry, get a piece of paper, write, you know, vent, write a praise, throw it away. I don't care. Just try it and see what it's like. And maybe, just maybe you get a little bit of peace out of it. Maybe, just maybe you get a little bit of like, oh, okay, that's legit. I need to talk to that person about that. Um, we're not asking you to go to therapy. If you want to go to therapy, please go to therapy. But I think this is like baby steps of like, you know what, I may at least not shove it into the back of my brain so it comes out tomorrow. Um, that's number one. Number two, I want you to identify one part of work that you actually enjoy and make sure you're doing that. But at the same time, identify one part of work that you do not like. And you don't like it, most likely because you're bad at it. So, what we need to do is I want you to like, you know, if you love writing an estimate, I really love getting into the weeds with an estimate and can and hunting it down. Great. When you, when it's time to do that, find two hours instead of one hour to do it and get and just get that enjoyment out of it. Or if you're someone that's like, my least favorite thing is to write the estimate that's too much detail, I'm not good at it. Great. Let's find two hours and you're gonna do it really well. And you're gonna pretend that you're one of those guys that are really good at it, and you're just gonna do it. And you're get you're going to at the end of those two hours, you're gonna be done with it, and you're gonna have that estimate that you've been putting off for three weeks finally written. Like, I want to lean into the really stuff that you love to get that dopamine and the stuff that you hate to start processing. I'm going to have some self-control around the stuff I hate because I guarantee you it's back burner stuff and it all piles up, and that's the most stressful stuff. The stuff you don't like, let's backburn it. So, one thing you love, one thing you hate every single week. I'm gonna try to circle those. If you can do that, great. You're you're you're getting the dopamine and you're starting to work dig yourself out of that hole. Um, also, uh, one thing that I do with guys starting coaching, if they're kind of chaotic, is I'm gonna have them write down, I'm gonna I want a paper journal of like a calendar for two weeks, and I want everything single thing that you do for two weeks, day in and day out. My number one place I start with guys that are out of control in terms of just everywhere and chaos is I want to try and start finding more time in their week, which is stop visiting so many job sites, is usually the number one answer. It's guys, it feels good to jump in the truck and go talk to Juan, your buddy at the job site, and we have the best time and we're gonna talk about this and we're gonna talk about our favorite restaurant. That's great. You don't have time for that. That's that's the problem with your company is that you are spending 17 hours a week on the job site when you only need to spend seven hours a week. And so we just found 10 hours of your week that we can start organizing and getting some progress going. So I want to cut out one thing this week that you don't have to do, but you kind of do it and it wastes your time. Um, and so, like I said, look at when you go to job job sites. Can one guy probably listens to the that's gonna laugh at this because I say it to him weekly. Can that job site meeting be a FaceTime? Can that be a FaceTime? Can it be a FaceTime? Oh well, he had a question about the the transition. Can that be a FaceTime? Yeah, yeah. I guess we can just FaceTime and he can show me on the video and we can make that decision. I just saved you two hours, three hours of your day.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Guys are guys are reluctant, old heads are reluctant to because it seems like it's a uh a lesser version. Yeah. And maybe it is, but there's plenty of things that you can identify on FaceTime.

SPEAKER_00:

It's not lesser, it's lesser in your ego. You're not the man walking into the job site that everyone's waiting to make the final decision, and oh, I got Clark's eyes on it, and now we can ah, great. Uh like there's this ego about walking onto the job site to make the final call that guys just feed and they love.

SPEAKER_02:

But there is also like you get pictures that lie to you. Sure. Of like finish and this, that's it. So you do need to figure out what things you actually can't do on FaceTime. But that is totally like there are so many instances where it's like you it doesn't even need to be a FaceTime. You don't need to show up there. Call the guy on the phone and get the information you need.

SPEAKER_00:

There's no reason. And I'm not saying don't visit the job sites. I'm saying I was there yesterday. You have a question of where we should stack the wood that was. I was there earlier today. And you want to know where we stacked the two by fours that were just delivered. Let's walk around on FaceTime and figure out where those are gonna go. Like, I don't need to drive out there to be like, oh, let's put it in that corner of the garage. Yeah. You just like you just like to make trips. You like hop in your truck and go because then then you're useful. So let's start identifying stuff we can say no to and cancel out, and let's let's cancel one thing that you hate. It might be delegating it, it might be eliminating altogether, it might be, hey, I'm I'm terrible at this. You know, uh my wife started doing some of the bills, maybe, right? Like I'm gonna try and start getting finding the free time back in my weeks so I can start then taking that free time and working on the processes to to grow this and to duplicate myself. Um the last thing I have that you can do to do literally right now while you're while you're listening to this to take one step in this direction is go to contractorcuts.com and set up a free coaching session with me. We've got three free coaching sessions when you come on the retreat. It's if you go to the website, you get it, you sign up. My calendar's on the website where you can sign up for 30 minutes with me. We're gonna have a conversation. If you don't come to the web the the retreat, that's fine. Uh it's it's to talk about the retreat and hear about your company, see if it's a good fit. If you're coming on the retreat, I'm doing free coaching with you. So we've got uh, you know, depending on what month you're listening to this, if you're listening to this day one that it releases, you got three sessions. If you wait a couple weeks, you're gonna go down to two sessions because I've kind of got monthly sessions leading up to the retreat where we're doing some financial planning and some understanding of your company. So when you hit the retreat, I've got some personalized stuff for you when you get there. That being said, all of this, if you're in a funk, set up a 30-minute call. Even if you're not coming, I will give you 30 minutes for free just to chat, chat with you. Have an outsider's voice tell you you're not crazy or man, you're acting crazy. Like, what's going on? Right. Like, I will be very honest with you. I think one of my strengths could be a weakness if you ask my wife, but my strength is I am all cards on the table, very honest, straight shooter. Um, don't hold anything back when I see stuff. So that's a great place to start of set up a free meeting. Let's chat with with uh where you're at. And if you're in the middle of the grind and it's not a dream anymore, let's talk about taking steps to get out of that. Thanks for talking. Any final final words? We need to have like a Jerry Springer like final words that you need to have at the end of these. I think that'd be great. Like just has nothing to do with what we're talking about, but just like Jerry Springer final words. Is that a thing? Yeah. Didn't you ever watch Jerry Springer as a kid? No. Yeah, I guess my age is showing. Anyways.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean it was on. It was okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You were just healthy. I didn't watch um, I've definitely seen episodes, but I never like stayed to the end and like I don't know what the Jerry Springer. Like, give me an example.

SPEAKER_00:

I I I can't. It's just like some sort of like like you see all this trash for 30 minutes, and then at the end it's like this like words of wisdom from like Proverbs. Okay. And it's like, what? Like final words.

SPEAKER_01:

Like family's important.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes, yes. So, anyways, all right, thanks for listening, and we will see you guys next week.

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Clark Turner

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