Hey guys, welcome back to the homework assignment podcast.
We're really glad to be back after a week hiatus.
I believe in two weeks.
We'll have this one out.
We're recording on Thursday.
We'll have it out tomorrow.
A lot of things have transpired.
We have our podcast plan when we're going to record and stuff.
Sometimes that gets adjusted with the crazy business that's growing.
As unfortunate as that may be from time to time, I think that's one of the important
things to be able to make this podcast so real is because we are just this established
nine, 10-figure company.
We're a company that's growing and succeeding and growing at a fast rate.
You guys get to see the development and all the struggles that we go through, all the
different things that are happening, all the life lessons that are going on, which we've
shared so many of them from time to time.
Today, I had three or a few topics that I just feel like are hitting home right now that
I wanted to talk about that I feel like a lot of people don't discuss.
One of those things are just a show that entrepreneurs tend to put on.
Have you guys ever met those people that they're a business owner or maybe they're in sales?
I see this a lot with salespeople.
It's like just this almost an ego, maybe a dramatic self-confidence or a pride that they're
just putting on or letting you know where they're at.
They're on social media, they're showing you their cars or houses.
It's like that Instagram lifestyle where everything seems so perfect.
When you actually go behind the scenes, you start to see the facade fall apart and be
able to actually see, hey, you looked good from the outside, but now looking in, things
aren't perfect.
You don't have a car.
Hopefully it's not that dramatic where you're pretending you have something you actually
don't.
My point being is I feel like as entrepreneurs, people that are on this road to success and
whatever they're doing, whether it's trying to become a doctor, build a business, do real
estate, whatever the case is, there's so much pressure from the outside world because we
always deal with all these, maybe they're haters, maybe they're doubters, just even
family members like, hey, are you really going to be able to do that?
We've talked a lot about that in some past podcasts.
That drives a feeling of inadequacy in us.
Sometimes due to that feeling of inadequacy, we put on a show because we want to prove
people wrong.
Maybe it's not so much proving them wrong.
Maybe it's to make yourself feel better because you don't want to fail.
You don't want to prove yourself wrong.
You want to be right.
You try to put on this face, this poker face of how things are, how you want them to be
going, but they're actually not really going that way.
I don't think many people understand how dangerous that can be.
There's that phrase, fake it to you, make it.
I love that phrase because I do think that pertains to a lot of different scenarios,
case by case.
Another thing about it is that when you are putting out this lie in essence of where you
are and you're making yourself believe this lie because you've got to live it every day.
You've got to remember it and you have to show every single day what you're doing.
There's so much energy that goes into that.
Like I said, I think a lot of it comes from the people I've seen.
A lot of it comes from just not wanting to, they don't want to feel like they're failing
so they're trying to trick themselves or they have all these outers and haters that are
just throwing so many things at them and so they want to prove them wrong.
They want to show them that they're going to succeed and sometimes they get caught up
in this.
When you get caught up in that, you end up spending so much energy, so much time and
it robs you of all the successes and the wins that you could be spending time to get in
your business instead you're putting it over there.
Not only that but you probably feel like a fraud.
There's that, what's it called?
It's a certain phrase.
It's not fraud syndrome.
It's a different phrase.
I know, I'm trying to remember it.
Dang it.
I say this all the time.
No, something's interesting.
Impossed, thank you.
Gosh, dang.
Isn't there a game imposter or whatever?
Yeah.
Gosh.
Anyways, imposter syndrome.
People always talk about fighting against that.
Well, here's the deal.
If you're honest and you're true and you're confident enough in yourself to portray the
truth, you don't have to worry about imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome, it may come from, for example, this week I had a week to where I was like,
do I even know what I'm doing?
It's not so much that I don't know what I'm doing.
I know I know what I'm doing but things are so tough and I'm making these hard decisions
and I'm taking risks and there's that doubt, that voice in my head like, dude, do you even
know what you're doing or are you even making the right decision?
I think some of that's that imposter syndrome.
I think that's a health, not so much healthy imposter syndrome but that's the imposter
syndrome that you should have as an entrepreneur.
Then there's the other imposter syndrome, the feelings that you get from pretending to be
somewhere you're not actually or pretending to be progressive, a point that you're really
not progressed to or pretending to have stuff that you really don't have.
There's a lot of that on social media.
I know there's memes about people posting pictures on their cars sitting on the hood
and then the guy unlocking the car like, dude, get off my car.
What are you doing acting like it's yours?
The imposter syndrome there, the feelings that come from that, that's the negative part of
it.
It's not natural part of this imposter syndrome that you're going to hear a lot of people
talk about.
It's important to recognize that because some of us, and I say this because I've been there
before, it's easy to not know you're doing something and actually be doing it.
You're subconscious.
You maybe got a new business truck and you're posting a business truck, hey, just got a new
rig, but behind the scenes, you don't know if you can afford the payment, all that kind
of stuff and you're trying to show people you're succeeding, but you're not even sure.
I think you guys get the point and it's important to understand the difference between those
imposter syndromes and it's important to be honest with yourself and be comfortable being
able to show people where you are.
If you just started a business, it's okay to show people that you don't have any money,
but you're not making any money, that you're okay to show that you're driving a piece of
crap car because in five years, you're not going to be there.
Don't rob yourself of the sensation of success, that feeling you get that you actually made
it because what's going to happen is you're going to put on this show, you're actually
going to make it and you're not going to be able to really celebrate it because you've
been faking that you were there the whole time.
What is there to celebrate?
You already thought you were there rather than being honest, putting out your true face and
showing people that you're at zero right now and when you get to a hundred, people are
going to notice everything else is a byproduct and you're going to be able to actually really
feel like you accomplished something.
I think for me, I'm just so sick of people showing like, oh, just got this Lamborghini.
I'm in real estate, just bought the Lamborghini, but I know and they know that I know that
they're renting that thing for like $2,000 a month.
Like cool, bro, you're renting a $2,000 car, fantastic.
You know what I mean?
So like be honest because when you're honest, here's what happens.
You succeed more, you get more sales, you set an aura around yourself that people can
trust because I can tell you one thing.
I don't care how successful somebody is.
I can tell when they're faking it.
I can tell when they're trying to compensate and confidence by posting pictures or talking
about this one big win when they're losing behind the scenes, but they got this one win
and it was this big win and it sounds so cool, but it really isn't.
And so do like, I don't want to work around or be around those people.
I don't want to work with those people because I'm like, dude, you're faking it.
Like be real, be honest.
If you're doing that right now, how can I trust you in a business transaction?
How can I trust you in a business decision if you're faking it now?
Like, you know what I mean?
It just creates all that doubt.
So there's also power in just being able to accept where you are and own it.
Just own it.
Don't fake it.
Own it.
If you guys are driving a crappy car, drive a crappy car.
Post on social media.
Whatever the case is, don't be posting a picture of a Lambo when you don't own a Lambo.
Anyways, I think you get the point.
You know, a big part into all this is, you know, it does something to the mind when you're
accepting where you are, right?
When you are, when you, for example, if you're going to need to do something that you know
you're not capable of doing, how do you get that done if you have to do it?
You try, right?
You do some research.
You start finding what you need, the resources you need to accomplish what you need, right?
You may even go ask for help.
Asking for help is really important.
Being able to have enough confidence in yourself to understand that it's okay to ask for help.
And this goes beyond business.
This goes into personal, mental health, all kinds of different areas.
But in the business, I can tell you something.
I know people that do not, they take the long road rather than the short road because they're
pride in wanting to say, I did this by myself without any help.
And they get stuck.
They prolong the journey.
Maybe they still get there.
I know some people that still got there, but they got there in 10 years rather than five,
all because they couldn't let that ego aside and ask for help.
I can confidently say that everything that my company is, is because of me, although I
did get some help.
I had an uncle who saw an opportunity to get a loan from the government to give me my company
a kickstart.
And if it wasn't for him realizing that, that would have never happened.
Who knows where I would have been without that 125 grand to start my company.
And I can tell you, I lost all that money.
I didn't make anything with it.
And the only thing I got from that money was a huge life lesson on how to make money and
not lose money.
But I had that help.
I had people that were by my side mentors teaching me all that kind of stuff.
And so I don't know of anybody.
There's very few successful people.
And we've had some very successful people on this podcast.
There's very few, if any of them, that can say that they didn't receive some type of
guidance, some type of help as they began their journey.
And like I said, a mentor, someone guiding you that you can go to and ask questions about
whatever you're doing to know what the best decision is that is help.
And so like I said, I know people that are, you know, they're prolonged in their journey
because they don't want to ask for help.
And that is because they don't have that confidence, right?
They're trying to put on an image.
They care about the image, the image that, oh, look at that guy.
He did that from nothing, from scratch with no help.
If that's all that matters to you guys, you probably aren't going to succeed in business
very much.
There's a huge burst of drive and motivation, but that wears off because a motivation of
being better than somebody else is only going to get you in terrible positions.
It's going to give you a life with no friends, no loved ones, people who don't want to be
around you.
It may make you a ton of money, but what is money without people to share it with?
Right?
So again, being able to know that it's okay to ask for help, it's okay to come to terms
of where you're at.
You know, it's really interesting.
I think when I was first getting started, you know, I've told this story before on my
Tudgin.
You know, I went to South America, I served a mission for two years, and I got on a 13-hour
flight home, and I flew home, had this awesome person sitting next to me, shared their snacks
with me, and she was amazing.
I didn't prep for that flight, which was really dumb, I was really hungry.
So I'll never forget her.
Anyways, get back off the plane.
I see my family.
It's all emotional, it's fantastic.
We went to a restaurant.
I get home, everybody goes, and you know, my family was really big on like nap time,
midday for some reason.
Again, my family wasn't normal.
So like everybody went to the room, my mom went and took a nap, and I'm sitting there
in my living room with a suitcase full of some books.
A suit, like five button-up white t-shirts, like everything I wanted on the mission, and
a pair of gym clothes and gym shoes that I used to run, and that was it.
I had nothing else.
My mom had gone rid of all my other stuff before I had left.
I had no memorabilia from high school, trophies, nothing.
I was sitting there staring at a wall like, freaking crap, what's next?
Kind of had a plan.
If you don't know the story, I got my mom in rehab when I came home.
I had a feeling I needed to go home instead of going to a college out in Utah.
And so I drastically, like a month before I came home, switched my plans, and I flew
home and realized immediately after I got off the plane, I saw my mom that she was having
a hard time.
Again, there was a facade, right?
So like on all of our emails, every time I talked to my mom, I'd say, great, she was
telling me she was doing fantastic, she was overcoming, she had overcome all this stuff.
And the minute I got off the plane, one look in her eyes, I'm like, yeah, you're bad.
You're worse than when I left.
And so anyway, it's gone to rehab, but I remember sitting there and I'm like, dude, what am
I going to do?
Well, I started doing what I could.
I started doing what I could, which is a key component.
Looking back now, I printed out business cards.
I started knocking my neighborhood.
I didn't have a vehicle, so I went to, you know, I ordered cards on staples.
I had my stepfather take me there the next day, pick them up, and then I went door to
door and just started knocking.
Didn't get one door answer, by the way.
About hundreds of homes in my neighborhood left a card there.
And then faith thing for me, I went back, no doubt I prayed that I would get some business
from it.
My stepfather had a bunch of landscape tools, and so, you know, I was going to use those
to start, you know, doing what I could.
Landscape is not what I wanted to do.
I wanted to start a business.
I had the tools.
I had those resources.
I used what I had.
But then I also asked for help.
My stepfather, I want big jobs.
He would come help me.
He never took a dime for me.
I owe him for that.
Like he would help me on Saturdays after his job, and he would never accept money from
me.
He was just supporting me, trying to help me.
I was using his tools, his trailer.
He gave me, his dad was deteriorating sick at the time, and so he couldn't drive.
And so he let me borrow that Ford F-150 as a first truck that I technically had when
I came home, and I drove that every single day.
And so for me to sit here and say, I absolutely do this without any help by myself doesn't
mean that literally I didn't have any resources or anybody to give me those little, you know,
boosts or have those relationships to give me a truck, borrow a truck.
Of course, I had help 100%.
If I didn't have that help from like my stepfather, if I did, if he didn't already have landscape
tools, I probably wouldn't have started a landscape business because I didn't have anything to
do.
I had $3,000 to go buy every tool needed, right?
I didn't have money to go get a truck.
And you know, from that, I had a friend who was trying to get rid of a truck.
He let me take over the lease of that truck.
That was a good help.
Or else I wouldn't have had my first vehicle because of Ford, the motor blew in it.
So that was no good.
So I had to get another truck.
I couldn't, I had bad credit.
Due to my dad ruining my credit growing up because he had the same name as me.
So I couldn't go just get a vehicle, right?
So like looking back, all these little things were, you know, blessings, but those were the
things that helped me get to where I'm at.
So 100% understanding where I was and being humble enough.
Like when you have nothing, you're humble enough to get help, right?
And so even now, if I take that lesson and apply it to now like, Hey, well, how do I
get help now?
Well, now I want to expand my business.
I need to go get money.
So you ask people for money, you go get loans.
That's it's getting help.
Sure you have to qualify for stuff, but the word help people, I think fear it so much,
especially us men.
It's like, Oh, help.
I don't want to be an absolute just whoosh.
But in reality, that's not what that means.
Getting help isn't a negative thing.
And I think the world has just put a just over time has put a terrible thing on that
word, you know, therapy, getting help with your relationship or like there's there, some
things are bad, right?
There's not too much of anything's bad, but there's all these things out there that we
use on a daily basis that help us get to the next level that we don't realize it.
And so understanding where you're at and being able to accept yourself or who you are and
where you are at that time being and being able to understand that you can pull and get
help from all these different resources to make your vision come to life.
I know people that have skipped out on certain amazing opportunities for like just people
helping.
They didn't take those and they still got to where they're going.
But when you ask them and they look back, man, if I would have just done that, if I
would have just said yes to that, if I just would have accepted some of that help, I'd
be way further than where I am now.
And it's like, I don't know.
It's so annoying because, you know, you get it's like a mom.
Oh, I told you so.
You know, in 10 years from now, you're going to tell me, mom, you're right.
And it's like, my mom used to tell me all the time and there's certain things that I
do look back on.
I'm like, holy cow, she was right.
And it's so irritating because like you hear like me telling you now, like, you know, those
people that look back and like, oh, if I would have just accepted that help, people get those
stories and they still make the same mistake.
What does that tell you about humans is that it's almost like a seed of belief thing, lack
of faith.
We just have to find out for ourselves.
But what if you didn't?
Sure, there's a great lesson there.
But I would rather forfeit a lesson of being able to look back and be like, okay, now I
know to accept help and just do it from the get go and get to where I want it to be five
years quicker and be like, yeah, if I didn't take that help, I wouldn't be here.
So there's the lesson.
It's just you learn it one way or the other, right?
It's like, choose your heart.
Right.
So if I would have done road A, I would have looked back and been like, yeah, but I learned
a lesson and now never to get here again.
If I would have just done it, I still would have been able to look back and learn that
lesson the better way, the way where I actually did it, succeeded and learned that it works.
Right.
And I need to keep doing that because why would you stop doing something that is working?
You wouldn't.
You would put more effort into it.
You would grow that you do more of it because it's working.
Right.
So anyways, I over the last, I would say three to four months, I have reached out to a lot
of mentors, a lot of family members for helping many different areas and forms because right
now even growing, I know where I know where my weaknesses are.
I can tell you guys, I'll be straight up.
It looks like, you know, you look at our company, everybody can look at it and say, wow, your
company looks amazing.
Now we don't, you know, we post our work, you know, I'm not out there posting my truck,
posting my bank balance, any of that kind of stuff.
But you know, people can say like, Hey, you got, you know, 20 employees, you got a bunch
of vehicles that have your wrap, your logo on it, you have a great office space, like
you're doing so much work or Instagram looks great.
So like, yeah, it's, you know, we're never showing the bad stuff because people to get,
you know, people want to see the good stuff to hire us, right?
So we're posting all the awesome stuff and all of the team events we do and showing them
why it's such a great place to work, work here.
But we have, we have pains, we have things that are wrong, right?
You know, we have issues all the time with cash flow, we have issues where, you know,
some we can't please every client.
So we have upset clients and, you know, as we grow, you know, do bigger jobs, there's
more liability, more legality that goes into everything.
I mean, mistakes, I've, you know, we've been sued, like all these things, it's like in
those moments, what do I do?
I go get help.
I understand we're at, I need help to grow, right?
Whether it's money or guidance or, you know, somebody's help that can help us build something,
sharing a job rather than taking it myself.
You know what I mean?
So it's like, I guess a good, a good thing, a good example is like we just, we have six
commercial jobs that I had to get done and I didn't have time to do them.
We didn't have the right person with the right qualifications to do them.
So I asked my brother a lot of do them and he wanted, you know, a hefty percentage of
the profits to do it.
And I needed help and I get that.
But to me, it was like, okay, well, either I could be prideful and say, you know what,
no, I want the money.
I want to do it.
And, you know, I'm going to do it, but I could tell you two things again from experience.
If I went that route, I would be in a horrible position right now because I didn't have the
manpower.
I'm sure I'm making less money, sure I wanted to be able to say like, Hey, we know that
we did this is our job, blah, blah, blah.
But now I have him got off a zoom call this morning with the realtor or the property manager
and, and this guy, my brother-in-law who's running the jobs and she was like, I'm extremely
happy with how fast everything's going, how quick it is.
Like this is just an awesome experience.
And it's like, that could have been the exact opposite.
Have I been, had I been prideful?
Had I been, no, I don't want to share that much money with you.
And I would have lost more money.
I would have burnt a relationship and it would have hurt me for a year to come, right?
So understanding when you need help and being able to accept that help and sometimes it's
going to cost you, whether it's a coaching program, therapy, or in this example, me hiring
my brother-in-law who was more expensive than a project manager that I could have just outsourced.
But, you know, I was okay with where I was at, right?
And so you win, you win, you win.
And your win may not be a grand win, but you still win rather than trying to get, you
know, go the hell Mary and then losing, right?
So on all guys, I think one of the biggest things, and I always feel like I say that,
I always feel like everything's so big, but it's true because these lessons that I'm sharing
with you guys, this isn't just stuff that I, you know, you can hear, right?
I do a lot of, I'm in a lot of coaching programs.
I listen to a lot of podcasts, read a lot of books.
These aren't things like I'm not just regurgitating this information.
I'm living this, I'm experiencing it, and I'm sharing this wisdom with you guys so you
can try and avoid the mistakes that I've made because if I would have just listened, like
if I was in your guys' positions right now, and I was hearing all this stuff, and I was
at square one, or I was, you know, in these business situations, if I would have just
made these decisions at these points that I'm telling you now, like I would be, you
know, five years more progressed, right?
So my, what I do now is when I get coached and I hear these stories and I hear these
experience, now I really listen, now I really pay attention, now I really apply what these
people are saying because they've been through it, they've done it, they know what's going
on, and I don't want to miss that opportunity, right?
So I guess a quick recap is, you know, understanding and being okay where you are, not putting
on this poker face, not pretending to be somewhere where you're not, someone, be somebody who
you're not, and being able to accept where you are and be able to ask for help.
If you can do those two things on a daily basis, you guys are going to one, stay humble,
you're going to hustle, and you're going to succeed far more because you're going to
use resources and relationships around you to help you progress, you're going to leverage
time, money, people in a healthy way, in a good way, to get where you're going, you're
going to get there 10 times quicker and you're going to have so much more fun doing it rather
than trying to pretend to be something you're not.
Pretending is exhausting, it's exhausting to pretend to be this amazing successful person
and then go home and realize, man, I'm lying, I'm losing right now, but it's okay because
my friends and family think I'm winning, and in your head you're sitting there like, well
the day come when everybody's going to find out I failed, and it hits even harder, avoid
all that, avoid all that.
When people tell me, this is my way of doing it, and I don't know, people might see this
as a way of being ungrateful or being just like, I don't know what the word is for it,
but when people are like, hey man, you're doing so great, fantastic, so awesome, like
dude, you're building such a great company, I'm like, yeah, but man, it's stressful, it's
hard, not making mistakes, we're going through growing pains, and they always tell me, oh
that's just part of it, but being able to say that out loud, that's me being able to
come to terms with where I'm at and make sure that, yeah, it looks good, but I am still
struggling and I'll tell you, dude, I will tell you what that did for me, I have a great
experience.
One of the things that's bugged me, I'm going to be very upfront with you guys, you know,
we're on track to do a ton of money this year, more than we've ever done, meaning we're
hitting our goals, which is fantastic, right, hey, it sounds good, I just bought a new truck,
GMC, fantastic, right?
And the one thing that bugs me is because of my credit, I haven't been able to buy a
house, and so that's been a bummer, right, do all this money, all this revenue, you know,
all this business year and I can't even get a house, well, I finally came across an opportunity
that bypassed my credit to be able to get a home, and actually I'm closing this week
on my new house, which is phenomenal, I'm very grateful, I'm very blessed, but I needed
to come up with a higher down payment than I would have normally needed to because I
was getting a favor or having a deal made between another homeowner.
And so if I, you know, one of the things I was looking at is like I put everything back
into the business and we've had so many growing pains, I like, hey, a lot of the money that
we have is either out on projects that like our actual capital or we've lost a lot of
money because we're continually growing or I've invested and spent it, right, so I was
getting frustrated, I'm like, man, I don't, I should have this money just sitting in my
check, my personal checking account based on how much business I've done over the last
five years and I don't, it was very frustrating.
And so, you know, I went to lunch with our architect and we were having lunch, you know,
we go to lunch all the time, I like to go to Bucking ride or awesome seafood and I do,
I go to lunch because I, when I enjoy the people we work with and I'm all about the
relationship, I want to learn about people and know about people and I want to know how
we can benefit each other, how I can help people outside of just business because life
isn't just about business.
But anyways, we're having lunch and you know, we're talking and you know, we're talking
about our businesses and stuff and how everything's succeeding, blah, blah, blah, but then I
got real.
I'm like, yeah, man, you know, things are great.
I just, you know, it's been difficult here to some of the difficulties I'm going through,
you know, it's really irritating.
I'm trying to buy a house.
I can't pull the money out of my cash flow because it'll hurt and I'm trying to get a
loan but my, you know, I'm still working on some of my credit stuff, blah, blah, blah,
you know, I've been looking anyways.
And so I'm just, I'm venting, right?
I'm telling them, yeah, it looks great, but here I still have issues and he goes, oh,
you're looking for a loan for what?
Told him he's like, oh, he's like, dude, I'll, I'll loan you some money.
What would the terms be?
Boom, boom, boom.
Yeah, do you all loan you the money?
Boom.
Got my deposit without hurting my company, without stressing myself out, all because I
was honest.
Like I just, I just remember that, that situation because I talked about it for like a week
to so many people like that is the result of being true about where you're at, what's
going on, who you are and not trying to pretend.
I could have been like, yeah, dude, things are great.
Yeah.
You know, I'm buying a house, you know, I'm putting 75K down on it, whatever.
Just an example, right?
Just I'm putting all this cash down, like, yeah, I'm just rolling right now.
I could have, and he would have been like, oh, that's great because he makes money off
of me and I make money off of him.
So that would have been a beneficial conversation, but instead I was true.
And that truth and that honesty brought me a blessing that I was so stressed out about
because I could have taken out my business and maybe it would have been fine, but I didn't
want to because the business is everything.
So anyways, long story short, guys, be true to who you are, be willing to take help, be
willing to ask for help and seek help, be willing to apply these things that we're talking
in this podcast because all I want to do is watch people not make the mistakes I made
and watch them succeed 100% because life is great when you succeed.
This is the homework assignment podcast.
We'll see you guys next week.