Episode 51 - Addition and Recovery: The Sanding to CEO Journey of Randy Jonell
Episode #51 | Randy Jonell | Addiction and Recovery
In this eye-opening episode of The Curious Builder, we dive into Randy Jonell's transformative journey from battling addiction to helming Minnesota Custom Drywall with a focus on craftsmanship, relationships, and growth. We tackle everything from the nitty-gritty of drywall perfection to the importance of balance in business and family life, all while sharing a laugh over Randy's marathon-running feats and crypto adventures. Don't miss this inspiring blend of personal growth tales and pro tips for your business!
Listen to the full episode:
About Randy Jonell
Minnesota Custom Drywall, LLC has been providing exceptional service for over 19 years dating back to its inception in 2005. Lead by Randy Jonell the company’s CEO, a sander by trade with a hands-on approach to business, the organization has successfully transitioned into the premier turnkey drywall and paint partner in the twin cities and provides a 360-degree solution for all your drywall and paint needs.
Our approach for developing solutions is driven by a team of extensively experienced and skilled tradesman and business professionals with unsurpassed expertise in drywall and paint along with an integrated methodology offering well-established project management and technology systems.
Minnesota Custom Drywall provides the following benefits to our partners:
• Employs full time staff vs all sub-contractors
• Service work started within 24 hours of notice
• Bids/proposals responded to within 48 hours
• Constant communication and updates throughout project
• Runs a different taping system that takes an extra day but ensures a superior product
• Guarantees job site cleanliness that will exceed your expectations
• Provides 100% on time performance on all projects
Our entire team strives to provide “FANATICAL” service to our most important asset --- our customer. We commit to always be there and ready to help with our deep expertise, flexibility and responsiveness with no scripted answers and no “one size fits all solutions” and we clearly understand and recognize that without you we would not exist.
Minnesota Custom Drywall, LLC is extremely fortunate to have such a renowned customer base. For your reference here are but a few of our current partners: We are confident in our ability to provide our customers with the best-in-class solution to all their drywall and paint requirements and welcome the opportunity to develop long-term mutually beneficial partnerships.
Resources
-
Mark D. Williams
Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm joined with Randy Jenelle from Minnesota custom drywall. Welcome, Randy.
Unknown Speaker 0:06
Thanks for having me, Mark.
Mark D. Williams<br> 0:07
I’m excited to have you in we, we got to spend some time on the trail last year because I am an avid runner. And I didn't realize how regular runner you are. And so we got to spend some time chat and business crypto and running. And then I said, Well, now you have to come on the podcast. And here I am today. Here you are. Well, we'll talk about all those things. Why don't we introduce you to the audience. Tell us a little bit about your backstory and how you became the owner of Minnesota custom drywall kind of your journey through entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 0:36
Well, probably like a lot of us, I wasn't the most well behaved child.
Mark D. Williams<br> 0:41
And it's almost like a prerequisite to being an owner, by the way. Yeah, or
Speaker 1 0:45
I'd like to be falling into the construction industry. But about 1819, my parents said, I could either get out, move out or get a job. And the easier option was obviously to get a job. So I had a neighbor that worked for a local drywall and painting company. And he got me an interview and I ended up getting hired as the general laborer. So I went around and I scraped and swept floors after drywall production. And super glamorous, very glamorous, but you know, I was making consistent money. I was happy about that. And after about a year or so I had this little thought this is going nowhere. So I remember going to my boss at that time and asking how do I move into learning the actual skill set. And at that time, they employed hangers and drywall Sanders, but they subbed all the taping out. So I ended up chatting with the hangers, and they got 40 hours a week, $1 an hour raise er. And in talking with the Sanders, they got as many hours as they wanted raises based on production, how quick they can move through things. So I ended up jumping into the sanding realm, and got trained in there and I lasted about two years, I hit the top of the pay scale at that company. I didn't realize at that time that I had something that was called a work ethic. And when it came to break, it was basically I ate a sandwich as quick as I could and I ran back into the job site
Mark D. Williams<br> 2:24
to be motivated by money drive. Like what if you could go back now look at it, what do you think that drives you from?
Speaker 1 2:29
I don't like sitting around. So I always joke, you couldn't give me $50 an hour to stand on the street and hold a sign that says slow and says stop. There's not enough action to it. And I'm a guy that tends to want to race from one spot to the next for whatever reason. So then I put in my two week notice and I said I'm going off on my own. And I didn't really know what that entailed. I'm not what many people might call a thinker, I'm more of a doer, I just make decisions and then figure it out as I go. He dangle the carrot that said if I trained in my replacement, he would give me all of his extra work. And so I actually hire on for about seven additional months trained in my replacement and January 1 2006 was the first official day I was working for myself,
Mark D. Williams<br> 3:18
and was the name of the company Minnesota custom drywall. It was
Speaker 1 3:21
not it was Minnesota sanding LLC. And I because I just sanded sheet rock as a subcontractor. And at that time, the phone books were still relevant today they're not. But I remember column through like four pages of the phonebook. And one person gave me a job out of probably
Mark D. Williams<br> 3:40
60 to 80 phone calls in with these builders who were calling homeowners who are other drywall
Speaker 1 3:45
contractors. So I ended up getting the extra work from the company that I had left. And I remember my first while to say my first job I did on my own took me 12 hours down in Lakeville. It was a townhome and I remember getting that first check. It was like $496. And I was like, wow. And that was a lot of money that I just made in one day. I don't think I was realized the tax implications and stuff that you know, when you're 21 you don't realize maybe a lot of the mechanics of running a business. And I always joke in this world that I'm an uneducated alcoholic, because I never went to college. And we can get into that. But recovery is a big part of my life today. But I don't know what I don't know. And I've never really been one of a researcher I just go and do it. So what ended up happening is that first year on my own I just basically was a sole proprietor did my own work. And eventually word of mouth started to percolate because I'm joyful. I talked to other people on job sites and next thing you know, I picked up another drywall contractor and I picked up another one So I ended up hiring a guy. And then it was just him and I for a number of years. And then I tried scaling past that we'd ended up with three, four guys. And we were just sitting sanding sheetrock, and ended up getting to the point where I was sanding about 800 to 1200 sheets of sheetrock a day, which is one of your homes is on average 400 sheets, so we're doing about three of those homes a day. Wow. And so had a pretty good operation there. always accompany yes individual, not as an individual, yes, as a company. And then in 2009, things kind of skidded to a halt. I have a highly addictive personality. And I had to go away to camp for a month. And then when I got back out, I wasn't as motivated in business. And what I mean by that is my focus at that time was on sobriety and recovery. But as a addictive personality, I got a little bit of time under my belt. And all of a sudden my attention and focus went directly back into the business. And I was interested in continuing to grow it, I was very motivated by money at that time. I thought that was really important. I also thought that that was how I defined my own self worth due to low self esteem. Today is it's a lot better. But that was kind of the motivating drive back then. And so by 2012 2013, I got eight nine guys, I'm trying to scale past that. But all of a sudden, my business model needed to change. I didn't recognize that at that time. All I knew is I was working 16 1718 hours every single day. I was the guy been in jobs, scheduling them running, I'm following up delivering equipment. I mean, I was doing everything. So you know, I get to recognize
Mark D. Williams<br> 6:53
burnout at that time. Are we not really burned out? I wasn't
Speaker 1 6:57
burned out. And part of that was the drive to succeed. Based on my own definition of success at that time you
Mark D. Williams<br> 7:05
would you say you were energized by it. I mean, it was a Yeah. So I assume it's probably exciting times. It's
Speaker 1 7:09
addicting. Like, if you end up getting burnt out, you're not as engrossed or thrilled about what you're doing. Not that there wasn't multiple events that were challenging. But you don't know what you don't know, which I've already addressed. So like, I don't know how to structure a business. I know how to follow up, I know how to work, and I know how to get things done. I'm creative in problem solving. So eventually, my best friend offered to come on board and help structure the business for growth. And at that time, it was probably eight years ago. So 2014 2015 Right in there. All of a sudden, we start to experience hockey stick growth. It was my best friend Paul Kozlowski. The other thing that I want to just quickly touch base back on, is when you're growing a business. And again, you don't know what you don't know, you don't realize the cash that's required to fund that growth. And one of the kind of the funnier stories, I remember, my wife was working for a land developer at the time. And I'm doing payroll, I'm using those printed sheets with a ruler for doing payroll checks for withholdings, and all of that stuff. And I'm like, you need to you need to quit. You got to come help me. And she's like, Randy, your credit card bill came today. I'm like, yeah, she's like, Do you know how much it is? Like? Yeah, 32 grand, you know, like, all proud, because I'm like, we're doing stuff, you know, we're growing. And her she's like, What do you know how much is in your business account? And I'm like, 20, she's like, how much is payroll next week? And I'm like, around 15. And she just kind of looked at me. And I'm like, don't worry about it. So like, where's the money gonna come from now? Like, it'll just be there when when we need it. She's like, Where's it coming from? I'm like the mailbox. And I tell that story, because it really relates to how I operated in business. I just went for it. I needed people behind me to help structure and plan it. And I don't have that component. So it was a good match. Eventually, she came on board, help the business and then Paul helped structure it also, for the growth from call it 10 People to today between subcontractors and employees. We're probably at about 80 people in the field a day.
Mark D. Williams<br> 9:37
Wow. That's a lot of people. Yeah, I mentioned particular now, and we can Well, let's go back to the very beginning here. So Paul, you brought him on as a partner or how did you entice Paul and what was Paul doing? What was his expertise that he had, you know, other than he was your best friend to really help you, you know, scale the company. The
Speaker 1 9:56
elevator pitch I usually give on Paul is that he grabbed to read it as a lawyer worked for the steel industry, the Red Cross picked him off. And he was in charge after 911 of distributing blood throughout the entire country. But in that time, he found a loophole in the industry of tracking and tracing implants and human tissues in hospitals. So they wrote a software gotten patented, regulate it and set it up on on a SaaS model. What Paul did was structure a business where Hang on one sec, well, I'm not familiar with what does it SAS subscription as a service. So every user pays x per month to us. And he structured where nobody called him, he structured it so that he built a business that he wasn't an active component of he had become owner. He is much older than I am. So he's built businesses his whole life, and I became best friends with him through doing drywall repairs at his house. And I'd go over and chat with him about business and stuff. As you know, he was a mentor to me. And he came, when I was discussing all the challenges I was experiencing, he offered to come on board and help structure the growth and stuff for an equity stake after a certain number of years. So in that kind of, in a nutshell,
Mark D. Williams<br> 11:17
wow, that's amazing. And your wife now is a partner as well. Yep. Now, I mean, my is it more than she's obviously your wife? Partner, you may. I mean, I think my wife, now that come to think of it, it pretty much owns Marc Williams custom homes. But she got that partnership through marrying me. So obviously set us up, I assume directly through the company had her come work for you.
Speaker 1 11:43
Yeah, eventually, or, at first, she's working with me as my wife, right. But she has an accounting background is very good with numbers. And she's very black and white. And in a business that is growing. You need those rigid people that this is the rule or this is the law. And this is how it needs to be followed. We're kind of like, I guess I'll say it myself in the field, as you're growing, you're like, well, we'll deal with that later, we just need to get the guy on board in order to get through the work. So she was a pivotal, pivotal part of the growth without her it would not have happened. The other thing with working with your wife is it causes a lot of challenges, because you don't always see eye to eye, there's differences of opinion. And what I found is I do have an ability to shut things off. I think a lot of people struggle with that in the evenings. So if there's an issue during the day with your partner, it could carry over into the evening. And my I'd be like, what's, why are you still upset like that has to do with work? And she's like, well, I can't turn it off. And I had to learn that like, you know, people operate different than I do. And so without her yeah, it would not have gotten to where it got to.
Mark D. Williams<br> 13:03
Was there a point where she came in, obviously, I mean, this is more semantics really. But just kind of curious. We've had guests on the show husband and wives partners we've had brothers on and family members, things like this. And this scenario is a little bit different because it was your solo, then you brought on Paul, and then you brought on your wife, did you have to? I mean, once you have partners, you kind of have to run things by them or did was Paul's equity stake nonvoting, meaning you could bring on any other partners without really his say? So as long as it didn't, you know, you didn't exceed his equity share, meaning like, did you have to run by him that you were bringing your wife on?
Speaker 1 13:35
No, are the same time that we brought Paul on? I brought my wife, I'm not the same. Yeah, maybe I mean, both of those people were instrumental in to the formation of what Minnesota custom drywall came today, I jokingly will say I was the energy behind it, they were the brains behind it. And you need both you absolutely do. And in some regards, you need a guy that's going to leap and just take that chance and have other people kind of figure out how to put it together after you get the work. I mean, I have a great ability to get work, I didn't have a great ability to then handle the amount of work that was coming in. And that caused enough problems in and of itself when you're understaffed and have too much work. It's just it's it's kind of a nightmare at times.
Mark D. Williams<br> 14:23
Well, growth, I'm not sure I've been a great growth mindset here. Just checking my mic here. One of the things that I've struggled with myself is exactly what you're talking about. I think you and I actually think that's what we bond over when we go running is you know, in some ways you and I have very similar personalities and many levels and I've benefited when those around me can help support it with a structure so I can be good at what I'm good at and you know, they can really excel at what they're good at. And I think as a team, you know, no one person is the best at everything. So when you realize that it seems like that your company really took off If after that,
Speaker 1 15:00
yeah, I think everybody has different skill sets. And the one thing that people need to do is learn to let go and trust the other people and have the humility to listen. I think that at times, I really struggled with getting advice, or someone might give you advice, but you wouldn't really listen. And what I found is that it took people that I really respected to give me opinions and advice, and then I would listen, if I didn't tend to respect you as much. I wasn't listening as well. And I'm also a guy that I get, you told me the stove is hot, but it's not going to burn me. And then I have to go and experience like, I wish we learned better through just listening, versus thinking that we're something special. And that since you couldn't figure it out, obviously I could. But we both got burned. So hot,
Mark D. Williams<br> 15:59
it seems to me. And I think there's a lot of benefit to stories and even this podcast listening, but I think it has more, there's more depth to what you listen to when you've experienced and you can relate to it. Right. That's an obvious statement. But that being said, I think about I have a brother in law who is considering to get his MBA, and he's about two years removed from school. And I said, you know, I think I would recommend you wait a little bit, you know, and, you know, to go right into the MBA track. I've just heard from those that have gone through it before and got it later, it was more meaningful, because they could apply their actual business. acumen, the things that they're just the things that they're experiencing every single day, to their education. And I related to recently, I had read a book and then heard someone talk about it. Well, man, my level of understanding was so much deeper about what they're shocking. And so it's so funny when you have gone through something and then you hear someone speaking about it, you're like, ah, it really just means different things. And you kind of wish you could go through life without some of these difficult experiences. But unfortunately, you really can't. I mean, to some level, how would you comment on that, because I don't think you have to burn your hand and everything in order to understand something's hot. But that being said, there's a lot of benefit to kind of losing a little bit in life and having difficult experiences, because you can't really grow without those losses. It
Speaker 1 17:17
you can't really grow without failure, and you can't really be afraid to fail. I think life is about experiences good and bad. They help define who we are, how we think and what our value systems are. I also think that that evolves over time, based on what our experience is, and what failures we have had. When you fail, there's nothing wrong with it, it's you got to get back up and try again, you only lose when you stop getting back up. You know, I jokingly also say, you know, I've been kicked in the nuts a lot. And he's lucky that I have been because I've learned a lot. And I figured out a good way through this. What I found even in my own team, and stuff is I'm driven a lot by efficiencies, I like to try and because I move quick, I like to try and find what's the fastest and best way to do things. And I've developed pretty good systems. What I found in training guys is they agree it, it's good. And you know, you spend a week with them out in the field going through it all. And then you come back two weeks later and half of it's different. You know, because they have to add their own flavor or their own flair to it. And part of that's just their personality and what people are. But it's it's fun, you know, watching people grow. It's fun being involved. And I mean a lot of people that have been with us for a long time. So that's been pretty rewarding as well.
Mark D. Williams<br> 18:50
I mean, that's kind of amazing. And I think this was definitely those listening that have experienced the drywall and you and I talked a little bit about this off hanging out because it's not meant to be an insult. But you know, people when you talk to homeowners and builders and let's say you're selling your home, you know people come in, you're like, Look how amazing my cabinets are. And look at my wood floor.
Unknown Speaker 19:08
tile, look at that tile,
Mark D. Williams<br> 19:10
It's exquisite. Look at the Craftsman look at my architecture in my 20 years of building and life. I have never had anybody ever say, Come here. Look at how awesome my drywall is. Look at how great is my drywall not the best ever. And yet, drywall is held to this crazy high standard. It's akin to paint but in some ways I'd say it's worse than paint because at least pink get some credit. It's almost like drywall is great if it's done perfectly. And if it's anything less than perfect. My drywall stinks. You know, speak to that in terms of Am I the only one that feels
Speaker 1 19:46
that way? I think a lot of people do or it's why
Mark D. Williams<br> 19:49
is there such animosity towards drywall? Why do we dislike it so much?
Speaker 1 19:53
I think people expect that it's going to be a perfect product. And it's not because there's a lot of it is finished by hand. You do The issue that you run into today that I don't think was as much of an issue in the past is the amount of natural light that's entering the home. Windows used to be two feet off the ceiling, we used to have knocked down or popcorn ceiling finishes. Nowadays, your windows are going all the way up to the ceiling, it facing west, and that sunlight is running right across that ceiling. And when you tape sheetrock, there is a recessed edge on what we call a flat the horizontal, you can bury the tape in the mud, and that you can make completely flat because of the recess. And anywhere where I got a horizontal joint I have its proud now as soon as I put joint tape on that, it's proud, and my mod is just going to float that out. But when the light catches it, you're gonna see shadow in because no matter what, it's not smooth, I've just floated that hump out over 36 inches or something I like to try to and I hate to put it this way, but it's a competition this industry, right? So what you are paying for, in a lot of sense is a 90% Perfect job, there's always gonna be something depending on the light, depending on how close you look, just, there's some time of day, all those things, right, the lighting in the house, I if you want to get to like that 99 You basically are doubling the 90% price, you're getting that much more touch up and time and lasering in things, you know, production guys are not grabbing a laser to set corner bead. They're not. So you got that aspect of it. Uh, you've also got, you know, the artists and home tours and stuff like that. I always like, you know, we get asked for credits from builders, you know, because they're paying to be in the show. And the whole philosophy is if we get more work, you get more work, that's how the wheels spin. You know, I, I don't like giving those credits on the front end. Because typically on an artisan home tour, we get called back more often than any other home. And then we get called back after everybody's walked through it. Same with the painting guy. So you know, we are looking at that on the back end type situation. But drywall is just not sexy. You know, I mean, we don't have a website, what, I'm just gonna post pictures of sanded walls. It's funny,
Mark D. Williams<br> 22:21
I'm really into branding and Mercury I guess I've never even thought to check. So Minnesota custom drywall does not have a website,
Speaker 1 22:25
you do not I I've been challenged by my partners to get one done. I have never seen the value and having a website for drywall. It's word of mouth industry mean, you're gonna go on the website and look at some sanded or painted walls that look good. Because obviously no one's going to put as your
Mark D. Williams<br> 22:44
as your marketing pitch, I think you have a two or three page really bright colored really great graphics, you've got good logo, just simple colors bright. But then you don't have to do just just that you've built gorgeous, multimillion dollar homes. And obviously, you have different tiers, right you do production and you do some production homes do. So why not have like, you know, like two tabs, you know, custom home and whatever. And you could show some of my homes on your website, you could show some of the other high end builders around header homes because you do them all. And then you could also have the track and you bet like two different platforms meet the people. I actually completely disagree with you most people.
Unknown Speaker 23:20
Most people do. But I mean, obviously,
Mark D. Williams<br> 23:22
it also depends, too. I mean, you've obviously grown a business way better than I have in terms of scale. All will not have a good website. So maybe you're onto something.
Speaker 1 23:30
I think our industry good news travels slow and bad news travels like a wildfire. You know, and we're like stuck. I mean, all of a sudden, this company, man, they are great for nine months, and then all of a sudden they have two jobs that go south. And everybody hears about it.
Mark D. Williams<br> 23:48
This is probably I didn't I wasn't planning on speaking on this. But I think it's a good segue both for the audience. And for those obviously, think about drywall the way I phrased it. A lot of people think that way. You know, when I, I've worked early on my career, I had one drywaller for a long time kind of a solo operation. He had hangers he just did taping and it was it was great. We got too big for our operation for what he could handle. And we started bouncing around I actually don't even know how we first started using you or who we used in that interim and, and we've got to a certain point where it's like, you know, I'm listening to my project managers. And of course, I'm picky too, especially when we went to flat ceilings, level five finishes the natural light, I love what you shared about the bigger windows being a contributing factor, which is absolutely true. But I finally was just like, I'm so fed up with drywall. And I always appreciated your sales, you know, you and I get along. But that doesn't mean that like maybe in the field. I mean, Randy is not doing my drywall. You know, you could I'm not building your house, even though I also can't build your house. You at least could if you want it. And so I got to the point where I'm like because you'd get to a walkthrough and you would ask the painter and they said it was the drywall guy and the drywall guy would say no, it's the painter so I'm like you guys have a painting division really well. It's I'm like, fine, we're gonna have drywall and painting be the same, then I never have to worry about them painting questions or asking questions. Well, turns out, you still have two different crew, even though they're, they're separate companies within your company. And they still somewhat do that anyway. And so it didn't really solve my problem for me. So I'm like, You know what, I like Randy's a person, I've got to go see what else is out there. And you hear that really classically, you're like, I'm sorry to see you go. I wish you the best. And you know, hope you come back, basically. So I went and tried a few. And guess what I found out the drywall community, it just my level expectations, what I wanted, it just, it's kind of the same anywhere. And I would rather have a relationship with if I call you, I know you're gonna call me back. If I have an issue, I know you'll deal with it. We're not always going to see eye to eye on every single thing. But that's been that's life, I don't see eye to eye with my wife. And we're still married. And like, you know, anyway, I guess where I'm going with this is like to meet having a relationship where someone who responds and shows up and is willing to look you in the eye and say, you know, this works. That's this is reasonable. That's just basically a human relationship to work through it. That is what I built my company on. That's what I want to build my company on. And that is how I want to go through life. And so after that, I was like, Okay, well, I'm going back to Minnesota and drywall and Randy, specifically, because we have a relationship. And it just speaks again, it reaffirmed me again, even though I knew this, of how important relationships and I've had to do that a couple times in my career, I did that once with my excavator, and I was gone for a couple years, I came back, I'm like, Troy, I love you, buddy. We got to, we got to keep working together, you know. And so understand that people are in different growth cycles, including ourselves and being not only patient with those that you have a relationship with, but sometimes being patient with yourself as you're kind of going through this process. Like is it me? Is it him? Oh, it's the industry? Okay, well, then I'd rather just have this relationship that we were building a successful company around anyway, right?
Speaker 1 26:47
I think at the size that we're at a I'd call a mid level drywall and painting company, there's some bigger boys that do about doubled our revenue. And that's kind of pretty much the top there. And then you got your sole proprietors, the guys that they do the hanging, taping, spraying and sanding. And those guys in the sole proprietor industry are usually are pretty darn good at what they do. But you run into scheduling issues, and you run into time, you know, usually they can still do pretty good pricing, but you might earmark them for a house, but they need six weeks, we need two and a half. They can't start when you needed them to they need two weeks before they can even start. And so marks your bill and I was going I don't have eight weeks for drywall. You know? So there's some balance there in the construction in the building industry that, you know, we got to keep progress moving as well.
Mark D. Williams<br> 27:41
How would How do you? How do you differentiate yourself from the other drywallers? I know my experience, but I'm guessing I'm not the only one that has had that experience? What What are why do people as a business owner, why do people keep coming back to you individually? And at some point, if you sell the company? We'll talk about this maybe later. But what the what is the trend? You're young man? So you get go that far. But the point of it is is like if you take away the key person, like do you have the relationship that you and I have? Do you have that with most builders? Are you the main point of contact or not?
Speaker 1 28:16
With probably three quarters of them? So a lot? Yeah. So
Mark D. Williams<br> 28:21
if you were to leave, what do you think would happen to those relationships?
Speaker 1 28:26
Whoever would come in, I would have to help bridge those relationships, and hopefully that the new person would end up developing the same type of bonds that I currently have. I think that to what you kind of touched base on. I think that the reason that we were able to experience the growth that we did, and I didn't recognize again, at the time, I tend to always recognize things in hindsight, right? Because maybe I'm just not as perceptive as others. But I called you back. I showed up, I found a solution. I own my part of that problem. It people don't do that as often as I thought they did. you're submitting a bid Hey, Marco, I have to buy Friday. Well, if I submitted Monday, I can't even follow through on my own terms. You know, how am I going to follow through on what terms you set for the job completion? Those were things that I just thought were natural that people just did, but people don't, then the one thing I find fascinating is how much people are willing to try and say it's not their issue. You know, I think in every scenario, you have a part in it, and it might be small, but you got some ownership in the result or where we're at in this project, you know, and you could take it. You could have some humility. Take some time to look back on the course of events, what actions you took and didn't take, and try to ask yourself what could I do different And the next time that this comes around, in order to not have this outcome that I have had. And that's what I talked about when I say I've been kicked in the nuts, right? So I wanted to learn, so I didn't get kicked again. And I don't think people take the time to reflect. That's called the mistakes or the learning opportunities, because I like positive words.
Mark D. Williams<br> 30:23
learning opportunity, you
Speaker 1 30:24
know, you've I've shown up on a job site with you and one of your jobs, we got a big pile of I'm like, Nope, you have an opportunity,
Mark D. Williams<br> 30:32
right, you know, as a total a totally resets your frame of mind. It's great advice. Yeah. Because
Speaker 1 30:36
I think too, you know, people when they call you back for callbacks, touch ups or things like that they're expecting an argument. So if you can come in with a smile on your face, be positive, discuss what happened, what you can do about it be solution oriented. People don't expect that. And I think that's also been a key to our success is that we show up and usually we have a smile on her face. And how can we help?
Mark D. Williams<br> 31:02
I mean, it is kind of crazy. How just being likable. I don't know, do you think like being likable is a skill? Do you think it's a trait? Like, I think you're a likable person? How hard do you think you have to practice to be likable? I've never thought about this before. Because when we and again, just because you're likable, and you do crappy work, doesn't doesn't mean you're going to do their job, right? You have to be competent, but like, you know, I have a trade partner, where, you know, they are Mr. Grouchy pants, and they're just not enjoying the ride, because they're so grouchy. And like, you know, like someone else, maybe they don't even do, they still have to you still have to, you still have to do the work. You don't have to be competent. Yeah, man, all things being equal, you're gonna pick someone who's positive, or someone who's grouchy, positive,
Speaker 1 31:47
you're gonna do business with someone that you like, and that you trust. And I jokingly like to tell people, when I first meet them, I trust you, I just have no faith in you. And what I mean by that you get a sense of trust, usually when you meet somebody, but that faith or that that's built over time, it's built through experience. You know, I tell you, I'll be there a Tuesday at nine o'clock, I actually showed up, I'll tell you, we'll get this done before Monday morning, when you're paying to show up. I don't know how I'm gonna do it. But that's what I told you on Wednesday. But I found a solution. So Monday morning rolled up and it was
Mark D. Williams<br> 32:20
done. You're you're putting coins in the meter of faith. I like in this in this example, because I agree, I think even it starts with the sales process. You know, I'm sure builders myself probably guilty of this over the years, I really, I love communication. So I try to do a good job with it. In the terms of like, to your point, I'll call you Thursday with with whatever you call a month or just do what you say and say what you're going to do. And it's fine to say you know what, I'm sorry, the next two weeks, I can't actually fit this in. I could be there to it. I think it's okay to own our story. In in just sit but then whatever date you set to your point, make sure that you're abiding by your own rules. I've often used it with my own employees that I've stopped giving them deadlines, because my deadline doesn't seem to really work for them. And anyway, so I usually in a meeting will say when when when is it reasonable for you to be done with this task? And I'll wait for them to give me an answer.
Speaker 1 33:10
You just hit the nail on the head there that I think a lot of people don't do is bring the customer or the person with the experience or the person doing it into the conversation. And I think too many times that someone who will overcommit Yeah, that will be done. But they haven't talked to the guy that's actually doing the work and he's like, I can't be there. And all sudden you because you didn't bring all the parties into the conversation. You know, I got a mess on your hands. I try and tell job or my job soups and job managers bring the job soups into those conversations. Tell him that look, I got a good taping crew, can you let it sit for three days? Where's your schedule out here? I got a good squad to I could put in there. But the guys I want are three days out, you know, have them help make those decisions. And I think we get anxiety over trying to keep our customer happy. And there's a balance there with just communication and an honesty and you know if I if I got a really good crew that can interact great with your job, stupid. I don't even need to check up on him because he hit him. That's the crew. I want to I mean, think
Mark D. Williams<br> 34:15
about think about who what this line, you're like having your dinner, you'd be like, I can bring your steak it's still bloody and not cooked. Or you can wait four minutes and I'll bring you up just like you like a cooked okay, I can wait for Mormon, right? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1 34:26
I mean, sure. There's occasion where you're like, No, I need it. Now maybe you know, you close it or something. But yeah, usually there's That's great advice, balance there.
Mark D. Williams<br> 34:34
I think. And obviously, it has to be honest too. But like the whole point is like, sometimes they don't need to know everything, but just understand like, who's who's gonna argue like, Hey, I have like a relief pitcher, you know, and you want the best closer? Well, he needs an extra day of rest. And so if you want him then didn't have to bring him in one day later. Or we can try the rookie who's never thrown a baseball before. Which one do you want? Well,
Speaker 1 34:56
the thing that we just ran into here this fall again is no builders like that. Heat in their house. And so also in the box out. And what I found through experience is that wood from your framing is still wet. So we come in sheet rocket, you put the heat on, and then I come tape two days later, right? I bet the humidity is outstanding. The house looks pretty nice once it's primed, but come about this time of the year, six weeks later, all sudden, the start studs have started to shrink back and they're pulling the screws in with another screw pops all over the place. And the builders like what's going on? Like I told you, we needed to let it sit or the manager didn't say anything. Right. And that's, again, where that communication comes in. You need proper site conditions as well, in order to get a proper outcome.
Mark D. Williams<br> 35:38
So interesting, what from just from the business standpoint, what do you see is kind of the next, what does the next 510 years look like, you know, for the drywall company, what excites you?
Speaker 1 35:49
What excites me, if I'm honest, is finding a guy to help take over my role, I am looking to find a sales guy, an estimator, my current estimator is looking to retire on August 1. So that kind of puts that wheel in motion. I'm also excited, you know, some of the guys that have been with us for so long to continue to watch them grow. And to move up in the company. Our greatest success with managers has been from promoting from within, and taking the time to educate and train them. And I defined my honest, I didn't recognize that earlier on. You know, we'd hire guys from the outside that had management experience. And it generally didn't work out it was the guys that have been around a long time that do
Mark D. Williams<br> 36:36
was it. I love this topic, are you able to walk me through how you incentivize them, because one of the next hires that I think I would like is to find someone out of school or not even in school, just someone that's got the drive, I mean, I would love to find a young Randy now, you know, in his young 20s and him come work with me at some point because I don't want to build forever. You know, and I love what I do. And I love my clients, I love our craft and you know, I love the podcast and all the things that that does. But you know, growing that people I was always kind of hired, you know, a player's if you brought them in, but there always ended up being shorter. You know, it's one year, four years, five years, but it's not like multi decade. Well, how have you been able to maintain? How have you been able to find? And how have you been able to maintain kind of this girl structure? Is it different for every person? Or do you have kind of a prescriptive path, you know, called the golden handcuffs, right? Where it's like, once they're in, you have this trajectory, or
Speaker 1 37:30
that golden handcuffs. And you give me too much credit to that I thought it all the way through here.
Mark D. Williams<br> 37:38
What Janelle And Randy are and Paul come up with that has been able to keep these people around.
Speaker 1 37:43
I think one of the things is treating them with respect. One of the things that and I still do to this day, I say this is my partner, or Joey, who's coming into your service work, you know, it's not a master slave relationship with me. It's a partnership. And I think that not all people, all employers treat their employees as well as they should, you wouldn't be where you're at, without the employees that you have. And I think some people might take that for granted. I know I have at times. But it's also like I said, treating them with respect, giving them a congratulations or an Attaboy. You know, how often we don't get validation for things that we do. And, you know, I'm a guy, but I still like validation. So like to be told, hey, thanks a lot for pulling through, I get more phone calls on stuff gone wrong. It's so rare to get a phone call and something that went well. And that means so much to me when that happens, because they went out of their way to recognize or
Mark D. Williams<br> 38:48
even if someone is a comment about one of your people, right, right. And you because like it's almost paternal in that sense, right? Like someone says, Hey, you know, so and so did an amazing job. I just want to tell you as another owner to another owner, like yeah, you went above usually
Speaker 1 39:01
Mark, you're not calling me and saying Randy, you did an awesome job when this bid I really liked the font you use? Yeah, yes, it's using their con about it. I had an employee that you had and some service work they did or the extra mile they went for a homeowner, yeah, you know, and then you got to give them attaboys to to your guys. And the other thing I think that we have done a very good job on is flexibility with time off. A lot of our guys like hunting season, and that causes scheduling issues on our end that we need to work through, but we give them the time off. You know, if that's what their passion is, you need to allow time for that. You can't drop the hammer and say, We really need you this project is gotta get done because, quite frankly, that product still gonna be there when they get back done from deer hunting.
Mark D. Williams<br> 39:47
You know, piggybacking a little bit about that earlier question about how, in general and again, it's not meant to be a downer on the drywall industry, but it seems like a fairly prevalent thing and since that no one is bragging about how cratered drywall is how do you how do you foster craftsmanship and pride in your work because one of the things that is strongest in the building trades regardless of you know, builder designer architect wood floor installer, tile installer drywall. That seems like the people that are attracted to the industry love seeing progress, they like it mean, there's very few entertainment, like a one or two days, you can have an entire house like it went from frame you can see right to the outside or when not the outside to shooting. You can see you know, two studs to I've just she rocked this entire house and like some of your crews come in, it's amazing how fast they can go. I guess where I'm going with this. How, how do you instill that sense of pride in their work? When, as a general rule, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, but drywall is not seen as like isn't doesn't seem like it's esteem very highly among the other traits. Is that accurate?
Speaker 1 40:49
I don't think it is, I think we get I was gonna say shat on. I don't know if I can say that. But here we get squeezed for time. And then if stuff goes wrong, it's like the quality. The industry as a whole has become a subcontractor industry. And the way that it's really gone is there's a couple of what we call brokers. One by the name of Alex, he controls about 22 Vans and tapers. So you can hire, you can be working with drywall company A and switch to drywall Company B, and you get the same subs on all your jobs. So we've tried to do and unfortunately, I got a little bit of a bad rap for it. But if we found a really good crew, I try to get them to go exclusive. I like to know who's gonna be on the job site, I like to know that what they're going to do. And when you're using this broker, and that is the industry more
Mark D. Williams<br> 41:44
or less as a whole is that true painting to Yes,
Speaker 1 41:47
but what I found more in painting is that there seems to be more allegiance to one company. So they might have six contractor crews, but they've always worked for the same guy. You know, we're in the drywall, you know, another guy named Brian, and he controls 120 hangers or something that's a lot of hanging power, you know. So he moves through a lot of sheets a day, when we if you build that exclusive relationship with that subcontractor they work for you day in and day out. And what we've kind of done to help make sure that that happens is not only take care of them, but we pay them a little bit more. We pay them every single Friday. And at least with the tapers, I bring all the taping product on site, so they're not stopping to pick it up every morning. And holiday. I
Mark D. Williams<br> 42:34
like this, this is customer service to your own trade partners.
Unknown Speaker 42:38
Right? Yeah, you
Mark D. Williams<br> 42:40
could look at it that way. That's what you're doing. You're doing customer service. It's like you're and I can see why they'd be loyal there because you're making their job easier. Yep, you care about them enough to take care of some of these things. And even if it sounds somewhat self serving, I mean, you're still doing it for the overall ease of the project. You're also I mean, I'm fine with that, right? Like, you know, it'd be no different than one of our site managers having the house clean before the treat, that's always a common complaint, right like that, you know, they'll come in to do you know, your roof ends, and is the house clean, or maybe one roof and isn't clean. And so anyway, one thing we can do as a builder, and we all fail at this, I don't know, a single builder. That's amazing at this, some are better than others. But you know, I love going to a job site when it's really clean, guess what, so to all the people. However, in the priority list of all the things, that's usually one of the lowest priorities, unfortunately, but it has a big impact. So anyway, I love what you're doing here, you know, to sort of foster this relationship with it. Again,
Speaker 1 43:35
it just breaks down to taking care of the guys that are taking care of you because at the end of the day, you're nothing without them. And it's a record you recognizing that. And it also at least on the taping side, part of the reason I originally started doing that was to ensure that the right mud products were being used. The found with subcontractors, they were just by the one type of mod, and apply all the join tapes and corner beads and that is the coding mod because they didn't want to buy the other box of mod that's heavier and a little bit more expensive. And then they had to carry two products. So by me having that on the jobsite, I ensured that the mod with a ton of glue is used for all the join tapes and corner beads. I'm going to the guys are like we love having all the material here. And it's like well yeah, I can do that on every job then. So that's good.
Mark D. Williams<br> 44:19
I like that. Well you mentioned to it earlier and in only if you're comfortable speaking about it, you've mentioned that you recovery story has a large part to do with your business and just your story. Can you speak a little bit about that journey or what that's what how that impacts your your your life even today? Yeah.
Speaker 1 44:37
I was the kid that was always picked on in school. I was the kid that never fit in. I was a kid that had low self esteem. And I ended up finding that instead of people laughing at me, people were started laughing with me. And I started with pot and whatnot at about 16 and it ended up progressing through pretty much the all the realm of the drugs and by the eight At 21, it was booze. And by 25, I was drinking a liter of vodka a day. And things were not going well. relationship wise, business wise, self worth wise. And I finally kind of had a, I broke down, I broke, right. And so I went off to camp for 30 days. And what I didn't realize was how much my life would start to change that day. I'm about 14 and a half years into recovery. Things my perspective on life generally is joyful. Things aren't necessarily problems, they're opportunities. I'm responsible for work with the outcomes in God's hands, not mine. And the acceptance to that is really helped me in my business and personal relationship. I remember I had crew leave a sliding glass door, open rainstorm came in all the hardwood floors got, you know, swelled up. And I remember my wife going, how are you so calm. And I'm like, well, it's eight o'clock at night. It's out an Ashton, I can't do anything about it. Like, I'll go out there tomorrow, and we'll see what we can do. And that's that, like, acceptance, like, I can get all mad, hot and heavy, right, but it doesn't change where we're at. And it's not that that doesn't happen occasionally. But you know, I got a good support group that helps, probably helps analyze my thoughts. If I could put it that way. I still attend meetings, I still have a sponsor. And I talk through what's going on. And then they give me honest feedback. I remember once I was complaining about builders, I was complaining about the finance guys complain about the insurance companies, wherever there's a very good friend of mine looked at me and goes, there's a there's a common thread here. And a light bulb came on the common thread was me my acceptance, you know, and it's like, it's it's a wonderful thing. Now that I'm in it. I'll put it that way.
Mark D. Williams<br> 47:04
I mean, that's pretty amazing. First of all, thank you for sharing that. I mean, I think there's a lot of people that can benefit from that. And I like the era that we're in meaning, I feel like it's so much more not only encouraged or not acceptable, but encouraged for people to share their story, because so many people experienced different levels of of that awakening and that change in their life. And I guess one of the questions I'd have for you did that. So you went into, you know, your 30 day camper. spender I spend, at what point did you kind of wake up? Was it kind of evolution was kind of like an aha moment? Or like how, like you said, kind of at the end, you kind of like, wow, and when did you have this? When did you start seeing the light open up where you no longer felt like this heavy burden? And yeah, I just love to hear about how that process switched for you.
Speaker 1 47:53
It's a process, right? Like, is no burning bush, it's, it's experience, right, day after day. At least for myself, it came on slow. And what I ended up recognizing is my problem was me, I was my solution was alcohol and drugs. That makes sense. So we removed the the solution, alcohol and drugs, I still have the problem. And with Abra, McDonald's to going through a book with a sponsor and working the 12 steps of their AAA recovery program. And if you make it through those 12 steps, you don't come out the same person that you went. And as your view on life changes dramatically. And I sponsor guys, I see it with them. It's a pretty powerful thing to watch someone's entire psyche, their value systems change. And for some people, it's six months. For some guys, it's three, four or five years, right? Some guys, they keep slipping, and they keep coming back. It's you when you truly surrender, and you keep working at it, that's when you can get the reward. But going through those 12 steps, at least from my experience is one of the hardest things that you will do in your life, that self appraisal, and the honest and raw self look at who you are, which is not who you want to be, at least in my case. And then to start making those decisions and choices to change. And what I mean by that, like an action item would be like, you know, some people get road rage. And it's like, they cut me off and you know, and so maybe I got road rage, but an action item would be to think, Okay, pull it or anger back think what if they're on their way to the hospital because their kid or wife got into an accident.
Mark D. Williams<br> 49:40
That is a great trick of mine or frameset there. So but
Speaker 1 49:44
that requires work. So you got to pull the thought back and then redirect it. And if you do that enough time your actual thought process starts to change. You start to look at things in a more positive light. I'm generally described as a pretty positive person that I did through the program. And God's help. Like, I wasn't you're not positive before I was. I wasn't very angry first really? Yeah.
Mark D. Williams<br> 50:07
Not even see a glimmer of that. Yeah, yeah. Wow. That's a That's amazing. How was it changed? Because at this time, were you married at the time that you went through all of this?
Speaker 1 50:16
Yeah, I just gotten married in November. And by July the following year I was at camp. So
Mark D. Williams<br> 50:22
no children at that point, no
Unknown Speaker 50:24
children,
Mark D. Williams<br> 50:25
how has how has now you're a dad of two boys, eight and 10 year old eight and 10 year old? How is that kind of now where you're at? Now? They never saw, you know, the Randy one point now they've never experienced 2.0? How does that change your outlook? Or how do you think about things as you're raising your kids? Now?
Speaker 1 50:44
I would love to tell you that my kids never get yelled at because I have so much patience with them. But yeah, the reality is, is nobody can get out of your skin like your kids, man. I mean, you don't control them, you know, and they they have their own mind their own thought process. And your job is to help guide them. I guess. I had my son the other day, tell me that, you know that you just need to stop talking. I don't see how you're helping here. Like, what was the 10 year old? I think what you just try and do is what all parents do you just try and imprint a value system on your children and and try to raise them the best that you can. I think at least in this area, where we live in, they're somewhat spoiled. They don't what they see as normal other kids with sport courts, nice cars, always food on the table. My kids have a favorite airline company, their aim 10 They shouldn't anyway, you know, I mean, I wasn't on a plane to like I was 12 of this hilarious.
Mark D. Williams<br> 51:47
So which is that? What is their favorite? Delta?
Speaker 1 51:51
Yeah, yeah, they don't like some country. But
Mark D. Williams<br> 51:54
it's usually going to Mexico somewhere warm at least. Right. But
Speaker 1 51:57
that's my point. Like, it's, and that's that's us as a parents, but it's also we want to enjoy our lives and give our children good lives as well. But it's just it's kind of interesting. Like, they just don't know, the other side, and then eight and 10, they're not going to do you
Mark D. Williams<br> 52:12
involve them at all with the family business stuff? Like as they get older, you know, do you ever bring them to the work? Or how much do you guys talk about work at home? How have you navigated sort of, you know, kind of sharing what you do, from a business owner, also with your family.
Speaker 1 52:30
Our children, they were brought on job sites a lot more probably when they were a little bit younger. I'm grateful. And then the last year, year and a half, I've developed a really good work life balance by giving up responsibilities and stuff. But when you're growing a business, and you're excited about it, stuffs got to get done. And it gives you an example, we went out to dinner, my children are probably like one and three or two and four, and we had a babysitter and the babysitter, put the kids to bed. And I remember my for my older son, he looked at the babysitter and goes now are you going to the office now. Because when we put our kids to bed, we instantly went back down to the office and we worked all night. I mean, you just you're worked. And so they saw probably the extreme early on, where you weren't around, and that that's a sacrifice, again, talking about growing a business that I didn't recognize, like I didn't recognize the toll that we're taking on a marriage, and the relationship with my kids, the amount of hours I worked. And the I'm gonna say the delusion of me say, and I'm doing this for us. While I am doing it for us. I also recognized later on, I had an insatiable appetite to succeed. And it wouldn't matter where people sat or dead. I wasn't stopping. Eventually, I hit a point of content that allowed me to pull back a little bit. But during those years of explosive growth, I wasn't stopping. And that takes a huge toll on your personal relationships.
Mark D. Williams<br> 54:05
I mean, you've you've experienced a number of careers within a careers. I mean, from your path, you're, you know, and I'd like to ask this question, because, you know, none of us can actually go back but you know, if you could go back, I mean, other key points that you would change are you recognize that that is your story, and all of those things, really, you couldn't be who you are without how they happen when you just nothing really you could do because you kind of alluded to it earlier in the conversation about you know, you know, you're not supposed to touch a hot pan, but yet you sort of have to touch it anyway. Do you think there's I mean, is there anything a randy now could tell a younger Randy that would have had any effect or that was just kind of your path.
Speaker 1 54:46
years ago, my ego would have told you that that's my path, and I'm glad that I took it as I've gotten a little older, maybe a little bit of wiser I would tell my younger self that you don't have to do it that fast. You could have slowed down you could have been well were present at home and with your kids, you didn't have to do it in five years, you kind of taken 10. But at the time, you would have told me that I wouldn't have listened. I know that much. But they're the right move would have been to have struck a much better balance. Because, again, what it took out of the personal relationship has taken a long time to get back. So how,
Mark D. Williams<br> 55:23
in others, other business owners, I mean, networking groups within drywallers? You know, there's been a lot and we're involved a lot with getting a lot of builders together. And networking groups that way I have you collaborate a lot with other business owners in your career in terms of trying to understand what other people have done, or if you kept it pretty tight with, you know, your wife and with Paul, you know, kind of as you've kind of just stuck it on your own accord, if you will,
Speaker 1 55:51
for people that know me, I'm not exactly closed and tight. If that makes sense. I'm pretty open. So yes, Paul and d'alene were I would jokingly say, the brains behind everything. But I talked to everybody. And I would tell them what's going on in our business, and they would tell me what's going on in their business. And through that collaboration of other people's experiences and stuff you can take away like, you know, if you're gonna hire a guy, what exactly are you hiring him for? Where's let this was more of a managerial hire. But what roles and responsibilities are he taking from you? How many hours a week? Is that saving us with the hours that he's saving you? Where are you then going to apply those hours? Those are things that like Randy doesn't think of, you know, he needed advice in order to think those things through for the growth that we then experience. So you
Mark D. Williams<br> 56:44
were always sort of out there asking those questions. Yeah, probing other people what worked for you what doesn't work for you? I
Speaker 1 56:51
was trolling him and how it was going it out. And I think, since I'm usually pretty open, people end up being pretty open with me, if that makes sense. I mean,
Mark D. Williams<br> 56:59
it's a little bit like being vulnerable, right? When you are willing to open yourself up and say, even like, you mentioned, going onto a job site and saying, you know, how can we help? Or I used to always say, you know, A soft answer turneth away wrath, say you're sorry, you know, when you lead with softness, you're usually going to de escalate the situation. I mean, very rarely does it work out. Well, when both people start punching each other. Very rarely does it end that well. Anyway, it seems like that was kind of your just by being open minded and open mouths, open
Speaker 1 57:27
mouth would be a great way to explain it. I mean, I just, I talk to everybody, you know, and I would say, as I've gotten older, I've become more reserved than I was as the younger Randy. I become more introverted, I think, versus the extroverted.
Mark D. Williams<br> 57:43
Why, what do you think, led to that? I?
Speaker 1 57:47
I hadn't found exactly sure. You know, part of it might be that, you know, I'm I honestly, I don't know, I was going to try and come up with something. But I've just, I'm feeling like I'm getting more recharged when I'm at home, or when it's quiet, than I'm getting recharged by the interactions with everybody else. But there is really nothing that really can charge you like a good site meeting or a good walk through. I mean, I have fun at those usually. So yeah, those those can be quite fun too, though.
Mark D. Williams<br> 58:23
Well, as we kind of wind down the your time here on the podcast, I just want to touch briefly because you're my you're my crypto crypto guy. So you have a huge more than a hobby and you're very into, you know, the crypto blockchain, all of that. What, we won't have enough time to kind of go into all your knowledge. But I mean, I think you speak on it. So you've been on Have you been in podcasts of talking about crypto as well? I have not no, no. I feel like every time I talk to you, you're like reading something or you're very, very in the pulse. What led you to crypto and I guess what is your level of interest now and kind of going forward?
Speaker 1 58:58
What led me to crypto was the news stories on Bitcoin back in late 2020s. Started in 2021. Did you know 20 3040. Randy invested perfectly started right about 50. And then if she takes in the course of two years down to 16. So it worked out really well. But the other component is I ended up getting into what they called decentralized finance defi. And a lot of people have heard of companies like FTX, Sam being one that went bankrupt or coin base, and those are centralized trading facilities. And so most, let's call you a Normie. Mark, yield trade on a centralized exchange because if there's a problem, there's a phone number for you to call, but d phi in the crypto world is where you take that money and you bring it into an unregulated, anonymous world of trade where there is nobody to call there's an issue and we trade Shit coins is what they're called, coins that it might be the MD Williams coin that launches, we need a curious builder coin, why not, we can do a curious builder coin launch, it provides some liquidity to it, have people trade it. And usually a lot of those are dead within about 24 to 72 hours to be honest with you, but ended up doing very well in beginning part of 2021. And when you moved on made a good chunk of money quickly, you're like, Well, what, what else is here and you just ended up, I go down a rabbit hole in the thing and 2021 Nobody knew what this stuff was. You didn't know where to go. I mean, it'd be literally like trying to I described it as trying to learn another language. Because the terminology the acronyms, it's it's completely foreign and you had to self teach yourself. And if I wasn't at MCD at that time, unfortunately, I was doing and learning crypto
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:01:01
hot. You had mentioned earlier on that you have addictive personality? Yes. well established. What knowing your past and knowing yourself at this point, you're, you know yourself much better than you did 20 years ago? How what kind of safeguards or what kind of parameters have you put in place to sort of question that your your wife being the accountant is probably got to be thinking like, oh, boy, this is replacing drugs. This is replacing correct whatever addiction how do you how do you regulate that knowing that you're also have a good talent for it as well.
Speaker 1 1:01:31
As far as from the financial aspect. With crypto, you can make a ton of money fast, and you can lose a ton of money fast. And he spoke to my I'm older now, what I've learned is that the ability to be honest with yourself, protect yourself. So if I have some good wins in the crypto world, I tend to take that money and I send it back to the bank account. Because I tend to just keep losing or gambling, let's say and then you get away and so you send some back. I've been fortunate and I've never had to replace my initial investment. I've always been playing what we call house money at this point. But it's the addictive personality is certainly a concern. And I hope at some point I can find a good balance I if I'm honest, I haven't found it today. I mean it in a nutshell when alcohol to cigars to building a business to crypto, and now it's fitness sounds running. Yeah. Now it's running and working out. So it's I don't know. Yeah, you're
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:02:31
making good healthy life decisions. I might die on a mountain while you're I'm getting you to push. Well, let's end on that a little bit. Tell us a little bit about running. I mean, I kind of my own journey. I've talked a little bit about it. But you know, anyway, I got I did my first ultra marathon last year and I called you to come I had to do a long what do we do it? I think I had to do like a 21 mile day Island. And I think you said well, I'll come join you for two. And you loved it. I'm like, Dude, you gotta get off the road and get on the trail. And now this summer, I know you're doing grandma's marathon. Is that right?
Speaker 1 1:02:59
Yeah, I have a sign up for my first official marathon. I ran to last August on my own just for fun. By
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:03:06
the way to the audience. This is my favorite story. So after we went Ronald, like I was the reason because you're on regularly anyway, just for, you know, on your own. But then after we ran, you're like, hey, I can just keep running. I don't have to go fast. And you like a week later and be like, Hey, Mark, so I did yesterday. And it is four days later. You're like, I just decided to go run a marathon on my own. And I was like, yes. That
Speaker 1 1:03:24
was though, believe it or not was an accident. So I typically was only running an hour every other day. And then I went running with you. Mark ended up running 14.2 14.3 miles. And that was a Saturday morning. I remember thinking later on on Saturday. My body doesn't hurt because we were on trail. Yeah, yeah. But my legs don't hurt. They're not sore. If you've seen the movie Inception, there's nothing more powerful than a thought. And all sudden, Randy got this thought. He's like, Well, maybe I could run a marathon. Because like, you know, this was the second time this whole year I've ran past 10 miles. Like, let's just go for it. Right. And so on Wednesday, I went for what I call the proof of concept run, which is like 1618 miles, you know, let's just see how far we can go. Well, I got to about the 80 mile mark. And I ended up in Carson's bay there in Deephaven. And it should have gone home. But my brain said, Well, if you're under Excelsior, first the McDonald's and back, because that's seven miles from McDonald's to my house. You'll hit him you'll hit the marathon marks. How am I cool? Let's do it. And so I ended up backing out, which about two miles from home and in boxing out is is where you completely depleted all the glucose in your body. I knew nothing about this because again, I didn't remember this
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:04:45
is amazing. This is so much better than the fact that you did it and didn't know what's gonna happen is way cool.
Speaker 1 1:04:50
Yeah. So I describe it as like you can't rotate your legs anymore. So I wanted
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:04:56
to just walk home or you call your wife or did you recover and then run so
Speaker 1 1:04:59
I Did the recovered run so you'd walk for a couple minutes and then you'd run as far as you could. And I assume that that's like my body peeling off the carb fat from me and putting the carver the glucose back in my bloodstream. And then
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:05:11
I depleted I've no body fat by the way, where are you getting this from? But
Speaker 1 1:05:16
so I succeeded in that, but my phone died. And I wanted the little trophy that showed the map. So I made a decision. 10 days later, I would run around Lake Mintaka again, and I ended up doing it and that was my first official 26.2 miles and three hours and 52 minutes. So
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:05:37
I was pretty stoked when he called me I was like that is now I know, I mean, you're hooked anyway, but now you're really hooked. How are you going to do any trail races.
Speaker 1 1:05:43
So you have given me a link to some. The first one I believe is in the early part of April and I will be on spring break in Costa Rica. Then the second one is July and I of course at a house cabin. So I can sign up for the Fall ones that you have submitted but I do plan to still run with you at Highland or any other trails because I mean, on average doing 10 Miles plus every other day right now good for you.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:06:12
That's awesome man. Whilst you bet my wife's running grandmas so if you have to turn me on as well, I will obviously get some trail that's my offseason. So playing basketball and tennis right now but okay, trail running soon enough. Well, where can our listeners can find you on your website? Because you don't have one? So if people are trying to get a hold of you, is it LinkedIn? How are people getting ahold of
Speaker 1 1:06:29
you LinkedIn you can also my contact information I'm sure it'll be on the web page feel free to reach out and ask any questions are on our webpage? Well I'm assuming the curious building well
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:06:41
I like how that the way to get a hold of you as a government. Isn't
Speaker 1 1:06:45
that perfect? I mean, I can plug my phone number but yeah,
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:06:49
you can call me if you want to get a hold of Minnesota custom drive as referral only make it very Yeah, this exclusive club. I like it. Well, let's work on your website. And we'll get into what that when we go running. Thanks again for coming on. It was a pleasure talking with you.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:00
Thanks for having me, Mark.
This episode is sponsored by:
