Hey guys, welcome back to the Homework Assignment Podcast.
I'm your host, RJ Patino.
Today we have a great show lined up for you guys.
We are going to be doing a Q&A.
We have pulled some questions from different social media platforms.
We are trying to pull up some questions that we are really wondering what you guys are
thinking and what questions you guys may have.
Obviously there's a ton of topics we can dive deeper into.
Other topics we haven't even discussed yet.
So we have a great show lined up and we are really excited to get an open discussion going.
Question number one.
Alright, so question number one is, as you restructure your business from home remodeling
and additions and gear towards custom home building, what are some fundamental changes
or obstacles you need to overcome?
So for those of you guys that do not know, the last or I guess the first part of Elders
Life we have been doing a lot of home remodels and additions.
So renovations and additions and stuff and commercial as well.
But residential has been kind of our main focus.
And as we have grown and have gained more experience and whatnot, we have been able
to kind of see where exactly we want to go.
When I first started Elder, the vision for me was simply freedom.
I wanted to, I loved business.
I loved, my father had a business growing up.
And so for me, I mainly just want to be an entrepreneur because I was able to see the
freedom that came with that if you did it successfully.
And also all the other benefits.
Money is a good benefit to have.
I think for me mostly, I just wanted to be able to, I used to watch movies.
I still watch movies a lot.
Big movie goers.
But in some movies growing up, I recall seeing these fathers that were super busy, whether
it was a low income job, high income job, didn't really matter.
But a lot of times there's these moments in these movies where the daughter had a, I guess
I can put it on Jingle all the way for those of you that have seen that movie with Arnold
Schwarzenegger and he was a corporate or he had a mattress business or something like
that.
His son had a karate thing and he was just so busy and he couldn't make it to that.
And that may, I mean, I think it comes in different forms for him.
I think he ran his own business.
So he had the opportunity to set his priorities straight and did it.
And then there's the other form of people who have a job that they have to report to
at a certain time.
And so if there's a dance recital or something that comes up for one of their children, they're
not able to go because their boss won't let them have that time off.
I did not want to be there on any of those sides.
So for me, I really just wanted to dive into business and that kind of took off where I
started landscaping, went to construction and I already had a background in construction.
So the love for construction didn't really begin to, well, it started to grow once I
got into it.
But now at this point, my passion is in construction.
I love everything about it.
The design, the build, dealing with the clients, the systems that we have to have in the background.
And so to kind of get back on track, what happened is as we grew, you get more employees
and more your team grows, you get bigger jobs as you go on, your reputation grows.
So it leads to the point of becoming you know a company that hits the custom home building or the
luxury part.
I mean, there's only so you have to go and grow and grow, grow, and then you get to a
point where that's the next step.
And that's kind of where we are, or at least where we want to go.
I guess we could have, we could stay specialized in where we're at, but I'm not trying to
be, we're not trying to be a company that is just on volume.
We want to be able to leave a legacy, build a name for ourselves, reputation and do some
amazing projects, things that you don't see typically every day.
And that's driven by that passion that we have.
So as we have grown, made it to a mid tier company, as far as revenue goes and the type
of projects we've been in, the next step that we're taking is we're going into that high
end luxury, custom building, custom home remodeling, development part.
So it's been an interesting transition and it's still going on.
And with this transition comes all new systems, procedures, even new softwares.
We're doing something that is different.
Now we have a 3D LiDAR scanning camera that goes in and scans the entire property and
there's a lot more marketing involved.
And a lot of our clientele isn't these people on Facebook anymore that are you know looking for recommendation
on a bathroom remodel.
Now we still get those and we still do them if we can vet the customer and the lead well
enough to know that they can afford us.
Because obviously with a lot more overhead, we can't just do jobs where there's no money
or not enough money involved.
So with all of that, it's been a little chaotic, but it's been an organized chaos.
There's been a vision, there's been steps that have been taken.
The way the information is being hammered in and quickly, I might add, it's been taken
very well.
I think it's been organized in that matter and talking about some of the difficulties
that come into that is we've had habits.
When you build a company or when you do anything in life, we end up building habits.
And sometimes those habits, whether they're good and bad or bad, if you have to change
them, it can be hard.
And so having to go through and implement these new procedures and processes, we're
having to kick out all those other habits that we've had and adapt or adopt these new
ones.
And that's been a little bit of a struggle.
I think it's going to continue to be a struggle.
We've added more people to our team, more leadership.
We've rearranged how the teams operate.
And so I know for a fact, I'm extremely impressed with everybody here in our company, our entire
team and how they're taking this and how they're responding to it.
Obviously we're having little bumps here and there and hiccups, but everybody knows where
we're going.
We're all on the same page and we're all doing what we have to and need to be able to get
there.
But like with any transition, there's going to be lots of ups and lots of downs.
And I think for me, I know I'm kind of just like pushing this on and there wasn't, you
know, let's talk about transitions for a second.
Right?
I mean, when you know you need to make a change, I think there's a couple of ways you can go
about it.
You can go a very slow and planned route, which some people think that's the best way
or that'll work for them.
And then there's other people like me that I've been and I've operated a different way
my whole life and it's worked for me.
So I have no reason to not operate like this anymore.
And that is I just go and run into the fire.
I get into what I got to and then I figured out along the way sometimes.
And that's not to say I do not plan.
I definitely do plan.
But at the same time, there's never a good moment to do it.
Every moment you have is a good moment to do it.
We talked about this a little bit on the podcast, the last one we just on episode 10.
And that is, you know, sometimes people are like, oh, you know what?
I need to I probably need to wait to do this until I get here.
Or you know, I'm 100 steps away from being able to do what I want to do.
Or you know, we talk about home life like we talked about episode 10.
And you know, maybe I should wait to my career is a little bit more available for I have
kids or maybe I should wait till this happens before I get married.
And so what happens is that commit that commitment point takes forever to hit.
And then it gets further and further away, especially without a well organized plan.
Well for me and what's worked for me is I know what I want and I'm a little impulsive
and I've worked on that.
But also I don't think it's a bad thing to have a little bit of impulsivity.
And I, you know, I do that.
I'm like, hey, I want to do this now.
We're going to do it now.
Let's get it done.
And hey, what best what's the best idea we have right now?
How can we do this?
Or, you know, what can we do about it?
And we just kind of dive into it.
And so that's kind of how we've handled this transition as well as, you know, wake up one
morning.
I'm like, OK, this is where we need to go.
This is where we're already heading.
We're already getting the client that, you know, the clientele that we need for this.
We already have the resources.
We already have the experience.
And, you know, we're missing a software here.
We're missing a procedure here.
Well, let's go fill those in and let's dive into it.
There's no better time to start than now.
And if you wait too long, sometimes that kind of kills the vision, kills the dream, and
you never even end up getting there.
So I think for me, the transition is we all are aware that transitions come with many
forms of hiccups and variables.
But at the end of the day, those variables can can be fought back with solutions.
And, you know, like we talked about before is that you're always going to run into problems, okay.
You can run into the problem of not growing or you can run into the problems that come
with growing.
Which one's better?
Well, for us, we want to go somewhere.
We have a vision and we know what we want to do.
So we accept the problems that come with growing with transition and new processes and procedures.
And we're aware of them.
We don't fear them and we're ready for them.
So I think for me, that's kind of how that transition is going.
And we're super excited.
So for those of you guys, you know, didn't know before, we are now going into custom
home remodeling, renovations, commercial as well, as well as custom new builds.
I'm really excited to be part of the game and show the world and show our clients what
we're capable of.
And, yeah, we're super excited.
All right.
Ready for question two?
Yep.
All right.
How do you transmute negative events or setbacks into a positive experience?
So negative experiences.
I last week, we went up to we had a summit out in Austin, Texas.
And so it was my birthday and I decided to me and my wife, decided to go to all go together.
So went up there, went with my father-in-law, Jed, who also is part of our team here, at Elder
and my mother-in-law and then my two daughters and my wife.
So I was thinking about flying from Phoenix to Austin, but then I was like, OK, it's going
to be about five thousand dollars for tickets.
It's kind of a waste, in my opinion.
And then, you know, obviously, I started looking for other, you know, see if there's cheaper
flights and stuff, because that's just how I am.
So I decided, hey, it would be a little fun to go on a little road trip, drive to Vegas,
hop on a flight there, which was literally a fifth of the price.
And then we get that road trip experience with our daughters.
We love traveling.
I love driving.
My wife loves driving.
So for us, it was like, that's perfect.
We didn't want to drive 15 hours with our three year old and two year old, but six hours
or five and a half hours to a family member's house who actually lives in Vegas would be
fun and then hopping on a flight early morning, six a.m. going from Vegas to Austin was going
to be pretty fun.
So that's what we did.
And everything went good.
Everything went to plan.
So we drove to Vegas and from Arizona, you go through a little town called Wickenburg,
had to do a little bathroom break there and ran into one of our workers because we have
a job going on there.
So that was kind of a cool little coincidence.
And from there, we get to Vegas at like nine, nine thirty, I believe.
And you know, we chat a little bit with our with our family that we have up there.
And from there, we went to sleep.
Now, before I continue the story, I want you guys to keep in mind that every morning my
alarm is set five, five thirty.
And if I don't wake up then to my alarm, I'm already up because I couldn't sleep for some
reason.
So I am an early bird.
I've been that way since I was a child.
I love waking up early.
I hate sleeping in.
If I sleep until eight o'clock, I feel like I wasted like hours of my life.
And I've hated naps, but my wife's kind of got me into a little bit of a nap mode on
Sundays when I'm home with the family.
And that's mostly because she takes a nap.
My daughter's taking a nap.
And so I'll go lay down with them.
But so, you know, I'm used to waking up.
I have a natural alarm clock in my body already and never have never have any issues.
I think I have woken up at the same time without missing a day or missing a beat for a couple
of years.
And so anyways, you know, how our alarm set, I double check the alarm because we had to
get up at a certain time, be at the airport a couple of hours early.
And as you can tell where I'm going with the story, neither my alarm or my wife's went
off.
So my father-in-law's knocking on the door and we didn't wake up to that either.
So whatever for whatever reason, I mean, at this point, we kind of feel like it was for
a good reason, but we didn't wake up for our flight.
So we get to the airport, we're going, we get there and we're trying to get our bags
aligned and stuff.
And they're like, yeah, I just don't think you're going to make it.
I think you're probably going to miss it, but like, let's try.
And then I realized I didn't have my wife's license on me.
I left her wallet in the car.
And so I'm asking a lady, I'm like, hey, are we going to make it?
We're going to make it.
And she's like, I don't think you're going to make it.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
I'm going to give it a shot.
So I ran sprinted all the way back to the parking lot to get this license, you know,
huffing and puffing along the way.
I don't think I've ran that fast since I was, you know, in high school playing football
and make it back only for her to tell me, yeah, you're not going to make it.
Sorry, you missed your flight.
So we booked a flight for the next morning and then we were stuck in Las Vegas, which
isn't the worst place to be stuck in.
But I was really disappointed because as you know, this transition that we've been talking
about that we're making, there's a lot of things that we're getting into, a lot of stuff
that we're trying, you know, networking and relationships we're trying to build to be
able to get into this this era of our company and this summit I was going to, you know,
where we were going to be surrounded by some of the top builders in the entire nation and
the knowledge that was going to be irreplaceable.
And the experience itself, I was going to miss half of that first day.
And so I was pretty bummed out.
And, you know, Brad Levitt, who is one of the people who operate the conference we went
to, you know, he's like, hey, no worries, it's going to be cool.
You know, we'll have some one on one time.
And so I definitely, you know, ease my mind a little bit.
But still, it was hard.
I, you know, my birthday was the next day and this was like something I really wanted
to do for my birthday.
So I was kind of bummed out and really irritated.
Plus, it was chaotic that morning.
So like all these emotions are kind of floating around and we get in the car, load all the
bags back up and we're trying to figure out where we're going to go stay, trying to get
a hotel, which is hard to do because check-ins are at four typically for hotels and stuff
like that.
So it took me a minute, but we went to IHOP to eat breakfast and I just sat in the car
for a second.
I just had to calm myself down and realign my mind and understand or remind myself that
things happen for a reason.
And I was beginning to feel like, hey, it's a waste at this point.
I'm going to miss the first half of the day, miss all these relationship moments and meetings
and all this stuff.
But I was able to kind of calm myself down, realign myself, ended up getting a hotel,
pay a little bit more money to get in there, early check-in.
And then we decided to go to this Disney illumination thing where it's just an amazing room and
it's like the entire screen or all the walls are the entire screen.
And it was all these different songs from different popular Disney movies.
And so I had my daughters with me and it was just a fun interactive experience and it was
honestly a blast.
And then kind of going out to eat, being at the resort, we stayed at the circus, circus
for those of you who've been there.
So that was kind of cool too.
They have an amusement park, arcades, all kinds of stuff there.
So we made the best of it.
It was honestly a great experience.
And even though I was missing the first half of the first day of the conference, it didn't
matter.
We made the best of it.
It was important.
And that's a learning lesson for me.
I'm not always like that, but sometimes you can't do anything about the bad things that
are happening in life.
We live in what I call a fallen world, if you haven't heard that term before.
And that is no matter what positive force or faith you believe in, things happen in
this world because people have free will.
So if something bad happens and it's out of your control completely, I mean, there's nothing
you can do about it.
And sometimes it's hard to come to terms with that.
And so for this experience, which it wasn't anything great, obviously, but it was something
very important to me and something I was looking forward to for months and planning on and
whatnot.
And so being able to kind of take that moment real on myself and realize, hey, it doesn't
matter what obstacles I'm going to face because I'm going to have more.
And this is one of them and can't do anything about it right now.
So I'm going to make the best of what I got and I'll be ready for tomorrow.
And that's exactly what happened.
I woke up, got on the plane, you know, running late already.
We landed Houston or in Austin, Texas.
And then we can't unboard because someone decided to raise their hand to use the restroom
and the pilots like, hey, if you guys get up and go to the restroom right now, we're
not going to be able to dock.
They're going to take another plane.
And sure enough, that person couldn't hold it, not going to judge, a little irritating,
but almost an hour and a half, I think, on a tarmac just sitting there waiting to un-knock.
So not only did I miss the first half, I also missed an extra hour or two, I think, of that
first day.
So a little bit of a bummer.
But once I got there, once we got involved, it was worth every single penny moment, you
know, obstacle, whatever, you know, feelings of stress, anxiety was worth it all.
And it made a world of difference for our company and for myself as well.
So like I said, you can't do anything about the bad things that happen in life, whether
the personal or in business.
All you can do is look forward and get through it and not sit on it.
If you sit and you soak in, you know, in that, it's just going to bring you down further
and further and further.
So the quicker you can realign your mind with what's going on.
And even if you don't have a solution, understanding that, hey, right now may not be the time,
but I will have that moment where it's going to work.
You're going to be able to succeed a lot more often, a lot quicker.
And you're going to be able to also recognize those things before they even happen and be
able to avoid them.
Right.
So I think, yeah, the negative, it's all part of life and we just got to learn how to deal
with it.
We have to adapt and be ready for it as much as possible.
So yeah, question number three.
Yes.
Question three, how do you correlate faith into your business and home life?
All right.
So faith, I think this is a big thing.
Obviously this isn't a religious podcast by any means, but we do, we will and will continue,
or at least we have talked a little bit about faith before.
And I believe in our Savior Jesus Christ first and foremost and in our Heavenly Father.
And I served a mission in Chile, Santiago.
The mission was called Santiago East.
I went to South America and that was an absolutely amazing, insane and humbling experience all
the way around.
And I had a plan for my life.
And so my plan was to go to a college on Utah called LDS Business College and I wanted to
get a degree in business and management and didn't quite know where I wanted to go.
Like I said, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but didn't quite know what field I was going
to specialize in.
And so about three months before my mission ended, I was in an area called Las Condes
and it was one of the richer areas.
Just kind of give you guys a setting or background.
So I went from one of the most dangerous places in all of Chile and all of the country called
El Castillo, where I saw some really insane stuff.
I mean, anything you guys can think of from getting a gun pulled on me to watching horrible
acts of violence transpire in front of my eyes to other really crazy faith based stuff.
All these scary movies you guys go watch, but that could be another podcast for another
day.
And then I went to this very high end area where over here and in most parts of Chile,
our church sessions that we had, they're all in Spanish.
Over here was richer area.
I think it was the most developed city in all of South America.
And a lot of people from America that moved there, they start the businesses.
So there were sessions in English even, not just Spanish because there were so many people
and what they call gringos Americans there.
So when I got there, like I said, I had this plant, I was getting a room set up with someone
that I was going to, we were going to live together in a dorm or whatever as students
and stuff.
And I had this, what we call an impression, I had this impression that I needed to return
home.
I'm not going to dig into that story, but my mom, I had come to find out my mom was
really bad with drugs and stuff.
So that led to me getting a rehab and all that kind of stuff.
But anyways, so it was for a good reason that I had that impression.
But for this area that I was in, I was also for the first time training another missionary.
And so once you've been on the mission for a little while, you become a trainer and you
train a new guy who just started his mission.
The mission length is 24 months, it's two years.
The women, they serve for 18 months, a year and a half.
And so I had this kid from Peru and he was awesome and it was just a great experience.
But now that I decided that I was going home and again, I didn't know why at this moment,
but now that I decided to go home, I had to figure out what I was going to do for work.
So before I left, I wasn't in the best place in my life and I didn't have very much.
So I came home from my mission with literally nothing.
I had the shoes that I wore on my mission, which were almost worn through, an old ragged
suit and a few other gym clothes and whatnot.
I had nothing when I came home, but I'm kind of moving ahead there.
Anyway, so on my mission, every morning we would have time to exercise.
So I would go on a run around the park and it was fantastic.
And the seasons are opposite.
So when it's winter here, it's summer there.
So I spent two Christmases in the heat, 100 degree weather, it was really weird.
But the mornings that I would go, I would go, we'd run and we'd finally finish our
run in this amazing, enormous park, smack dab, pretty much in the center of the city.
And I would sit there while my companion would do some stretching and stuff like that.
And I'd walk into the kind of middle of this field, take my hoodie back and just stare
up at the sky and just talk to God.
And basically just telling him what I wanted to do and let him know that, hey, this is
my plan.
I wasn't asking for guidance necessarily.
I was letting him know this is what I want to do.
This is what I'm going to do about it.
And I want you to support me in it.
And I want to stop there because I do think I'm not a professional with religion or anything
like that.
All I have is my experience and what I've been taught in my religion.
But I know for a fact that going to God with a plan, letting him know what you're going
to do and having him basically bless that plan or approve of that plan or give you that,
his support in that plan is a very good way to go about it.
And I know that because of the experiences I've had with that.
There's been times where I'm like, hey, don't know what to do.
What should I do here?
And a lot of times trying to get those answers is a little hard.
But going about it the other way where it's like, hey, this is what I want to do.
Is this a great idea?
Are you cool with this?
Are you going to help me with this?
Being able to receive those answers are a lot easier for me at least.
And I think everybody's different obviously.
But I told him I said, hey, I'm going to go home.
My mom was married at the time to someone she's not now.
So her ex-husband, Chris, who was a great mentor and role model for me, he had all these
landscape equipment that anything you can think of.
And he's like, hey, when you come home, what I can do for you is I can let you borrow a
truck and I can lend you all my landscape tools.
And I have a little trailer that you can use.
And so I said, OK, here's my plan.
I'm going to go home.
I'm going to start here.
And I want to build something.
And I did that every single day for like three full months.
Go in that park, talk to him and just repetitively ask him the same thing, tell him about the
same thing and just beg for that support and that help in this plan that I wanted to execute.
So when I came home from my mission, the homecoming was not what I imagined, but it was great.
And came home from the airport.
We went off to the rooms to go take their evening nap or whatever.
I think I got home on a Wednesday.
So I'm like, I don't know why everybody's napping.
But so I was there, left there with my suitcases and I was kind of sorting through stuff and
I said, OK, well, what am I going to do now?
So hopped online and ordered some cards with my name, say I'm a landscaper.
So for the next week and a half, I went to every single house in my neighborhood, put
a card in the door, knocked on the door, try to try to get some business right.
And I'd come home, get on my knees and I asked my father to bless my efforts because I think
this is a known lesson in the Christian faith.
And that is you have to do your part.
You can't expect God to come in and just all of a sudden have all these miracles happen
just because he loves you.
You need to show him that you're doing your part.
You need to do your part and then he'll do the rest.
And so that's what I did.
I had that faith.
I knew that that was going to work.
Oddly enough, I built a landscape company with some good clientele and I feel like I
was pretty successful for an amateur with what I had built that went on for about a
year.
But what's funny to kind of look back is to know that out of the thousands and I don't
know how many people were in the neighborhood, but out of the hundreds or thousands of houses
that I put this card into, not one person ever called.
I never got one job in the neighborhood, but what I did get was jobs in all kinds of different
neighborhoods.
And so it was kind of interesting for me to see like, okay, you know, this is where this
is the area that I was attacking, but not one person called.
But my business started to build in all these other areas that weren't that neighborhood.
And it's just kind of funny how like, you know, you may have a plan, but it doesn't
right.
It doesn't always go as planned.
And even though it didn't go as planned, it still worked out and it worked out even better.
And so built a landscape company.
And you know, from there, I'm still relying on this faith that I have to presenting this
plan and when my plan would change or add stuff to it, I'd always keep presenting that,
keep presenting that and keep presenting that.
And so everything's completely worked out.
It hasn't worked out exactly how I thought it was going to and or planned on it going,
but it worked out and it's always worked out for the better.
So I went from landscaping, met a partner, started hardscape being learned a ton of lessons
there and then decided to start and do a bathroom remodel for a friend.
And then I was like, okay, like this.
And then started doing bathroom remodels for my wife's grandpa, doing stuff for him up
in places that are kind of the middle of nowhere, which was a great experience.
Met some other subs that I still use now through all that.
And then finally ended up getting my license.
And the rest is kind of history brought us all to where we are now.
And it's interesting.
And actually, this is a great question for today because there is a now I receive what
we call revelation.
I feel like every every child of God has a different way of receiving their answers from
God or the revelation, whether they hear a voice or they focus on the way they feel.
So for me, it's always been through scriptures.
And so I always kind of communicate through scriptures.
And so some of the ways that work for me is I'm able to ask for some guidance or ask a
question and not all the time.
I want to be very clear.
It's not like it works every single time because sometimes the answer is no or Heavenly Father
has a different plan for us.
But for the most part, I always focus on trying to envision or have a certain scripture come
to my mind.
And this is kind of a personal, I guess, subject right now on this whole faith basing and how
it's affecting my business.
But I feel very blessed.
I feel like we're a very blessed company.
I feel like everybody involved is very blessed.
I think we all have this similar faith backgrounds and beliefs and we're able to put that into
our company and really rely on that as well to help us build what we're trying to build.
But as things have gone busier, as the business has grown outstandingly, I mean, we've grown
so much in these last two and a half years that I mean, it's absolutely kind of insane.
I don't know if it's a normal thing because I haven't seen it, but we've grown really
incredibly fast and consider that a blessing, obviously.
But with that, as that's happened, as I've had my first child, then my second child,
then a miscarriage, now my wife's pregnant again.
And then I'm going through the whole adoption process or guardianship process with my younger
teenage siblings.
And the business has grown, we've grown, more people are.
I mean, it's just been absolutely chaotic and insane.
And in that, some of my good habits with my faith have kind of died down.
And so just the other day, I was at my wife, I was asking for some guidance and stuff.
And I felt like I wasn't as in tune with my faith and stuff, which always bugs me.
I always hate that.
Like, you know, I was saying my prayers daily when I first got back from a mission for the
first couple of years.
And then as life got busy, now it's like sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't.
I've always it's always just bug me because I know everything we have is because of our
faith.
Anyway, so going back to what I asked and the scripture came up to my head.
And it's a weird chapter that I really it's one of my least favorite chapters.
I think we all may have those, some of them that are hard to read or that just kind of
like are about a subject you don't really like that much.
But it was one of those chapters.
I was like, what the heck is in here?
Like I've read this book multiple times and I'm like, I know what's in these chapters.
Like what is in here?
That's going to really I was like, maybe I am not listening right.
So open this scripture and I read the scripture and it's talking about how Heavenly Father
blesses his children to prosper and they help them build all these great things, help them
along the way and give them answers to their prayers and stuff.
And when things are going good, the children of men forget to forget their father in heaven.
And for God, he loves us so much that he rather if we're doing too good and that's when we're
doing good, we're not remembering him.
He wants to bring us back down and humble us so that we can continue to build our relationship
with him because him giving us what we want is not worth him losing us.
And so he sometimes due to our decisions, we may go through good times and bad times
because of that concept.
And that's what I believe.
And so for me, it was just like I'd already been feeling like I wasn't doing my part of
my faith again.
And to read that scripture, it was like, OK, yeah, you're right.
I need to remember that even when things are going good to make sure that I'm still keeping
my faith and make sure that I'm doing the things that I'm supposed to do that make me
feel like I'm close with my Heavenly Father because at the end of the day, where I started
and the landscape and that whole experience I just explained, that was all due to a consistent
relationship that I had with my faith and my father in heaven.
And then as things kind of got really good in our business, it seemed like I was only
really remembering that when things went wrong rather than remembering it even when things
are going right.
And so me and my wife, we talked about it and now we're really trying to realign our
faith again and trying to make sure that we're doing what we want to do and know we should
do to be able to have that great relationship with our faith.
And I think things are going to work out even better.
It's not necessarily why I'm doing it, but for sure I think that's how faith really correlates
is that I'm faith driven and it goes into every single thing and everything that we
have to do with our business is we want to be honest in the dealings with our fellow
men.
We want to be the best that we can be.
We want to be Christ-like and love everybody and give and just be in all around a shining
light where people can look and come and be part of something absolutely amazing.
So I don't know if that answers the question.
I think it definitely gets the question answered there.
You ready for the last one?
Yep.
Okay.
So this is more of a bonus question.
You don't have to answer it if you don't want to.
It's a little personal and deep, but this is from James Buchanan.
So we got a question in from our Instagram.
Are you able to balance your work and home life better by working the saddle mustache?
I don't know.
Is it working?
Looks great to me.
I think it's funny because I'm Mexican.
My wife loves Mexican.
She always has.
So for me, being Mexican, I think that's one of the things that attracted her.
She loves the culture and everything and I obviously love it too.
I'm half Mexican, so I don't feel like...
I think I've been at a couple of quinceaneras, but I'm not going to do it for my daughter.
But I do love a lot of the other culture things that are in that.
But one of the things was, I always kind of wanted a mustache.
One day I remember shaving my beard and I decided just to shave the beard and I shaved
the stash and I walked in my bedroom like, hey, babe, take a look.
She was like, she's laughing about it first.
I think I like that.
I was like, oh no, does she like it?
I think I've had a mustache ever since.
I think I shaved it off on accident once because I went too high.
But other than that, I've had a mustache for a long time and I think it works.
I think I look more professional.
I think when my mustache is gone, I look more like a kid.
So I think clients don't trust me as much maybe, or they're like, hey, who's this young
guy?
Why am I going to give this guy hundreds of thousands of dollars?
My mustache kind of brings that in.
Like, hey, I know what I'm talking about.
I have the experience.
So I think I'm going to keep it, James, but thanks.
Thanks for the mustache.
Yeah.
Plus my wife loves it.
Number three, probably due to the stash.
I'm not going to lie.
So I got to roll out of here.
Love you too.
All that for the gram, huh?
All right.
So all in all, great questions.
Fantastic.
And I want to hear more questions from you guys.
We have, like I said, we have a lot of topics we can dig into, but what are you guys dealing
with?
What do you guys have questions on?
It doesn't have to necessarily be about construction, obviously, or even business could just be
about the home life or the balance, or it could be another question in general.
Let us know where your questions are.
Okay.
You can go on YouTube, drop them in the comments.
We pull from there.
And we also, if you want to comment on our pictures on our social media or our posts,
you can ask a question there.
We're always on social media.
We have someone who runs it.
So they're going to be taking those questions, putting them in this folder that we have.
And we want to do a Q&A once or twice a month, because I think it's really important to hear
the real life experiences that people are having and dive into those questions and really
just brainstorm as a team, all of us around us, including you guys on how to solve that
or how to tackle that if it's a problem or just a good discussion.
So down, if you guys look at the link in the bio, whether you're on Apple, Spotify, or
on YouTube, there's our link in the bio.
You'll find all of our social media content on there as well as the social media content
for elder.
Please guys, if you can follow our content.
We definitely want to show everybody what we're doing.
Really proud of what we're doing and how we're operating.
And we want to share that.
We just want to share everything we got going on.
And so if you guys could please like and also share this show, tell your friends about it,
send it, just give it a shot.
Send it to somebody you know that may or may not like it.
It doesn't matter.
Just please share our show because I 100% know that the things that we're talking about
can really help.
And I know the podcast I listened to, I just thanked one of the podcast listen to the other
day because I don't think, I know I don't even understand, I don't think our podcast
does anything, but I've had people say, hey, thanks for what you're sharing, which is great
because you know, I'm at, I'm, we're all in this to help each other.
Right.
And this other podcast is listening to, I was like, Hey, thank you for doing this because
the amount of content and the amount of knowledge and just the discussions and like it's helped
me through a lot.
This one podcast and, and that is the AFT podcast, which is why I got involved with
Brad and bombarded him at the gym and said, Hey, I want, I want to learn from you.
I want to know what you guys are doing.
I know.
And that led to me going to the summit.
I mean, his podcast is amazing.
It's helped me in some tough times, helped me in great times, it's helped guide me.
I mean, it's fantastic.
So I'm hoping that our podcasts and our discussions, what we're talking about can help you guys
just like they're helping me and you know, other podcasts have helped me as well.
So please like and share the show, follow our content, reach out if you guys have any
questions, drop your questions in the comment on social media posts.
And you know, we'll pull from that.
Otherwise, thanks for tuning in to the homework assignment podcast and we'll, we'll see you
guys next time.