American Mining w/ Keaton Turner of Turner Mining Group – DT 300

Summary

Podcast Summary: Dirt Talk by BuildWitt Episode: American Mining with Keaton Turner of Turner Mining Group – DT 300
Release Date: January 2, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of "Dirt Talk by BuildWitt," host Aaron (A) engages in a candid conversation with Keaton Turner (B) of Turner Mining Group. The discussion delves deep into the intricacies of running a mining business, the challenges of family-owned enterprises, the pivotal role of social media in modern business, and the pressing issues facing the mining industry today.

2. Business Leadership and Humility

A: Aaron opens the conversation by addressing the common misconception about company ownership, highlighting the importance of humility in leadership.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Ego and Company Naming: Aaron shares his struggle with having his name in the company, often being called to meetings where he feels he adds no value.
  • Humility in Leadership: Keaton contrasts his approach, emphasizing that he doesn't let his position overshadow the expertise of his team.

• Notable Quote:

  "I have a big ego, I put my name in the company name... I'm not the best person for the meeting. My being there adds no value." — Aaron [01:10]

3. Managing Operations and Trust in Employees

A: The conversation shifts to operational management and trust within the workforce.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Direct Communication: Keaton explains his strategy of cutting through management layers by directly addressing field concerns sent via text.
  • Contextual Understanding: He underscores the complexity behind operational decisions that frontline employees might not grasp.

• Notable Quote:

  "We have really good people that this is what they specialize in. They should be the ones talking." — Keaton [02:16]

4. Family Businesses – Challenges and Dynamics

A & B: Both speakers delve into the nuanced challenges of running a family-owned business.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Financial Struggles: The emotional toll of financial difficulties on family dynamics.
  • Success and Internal Conflicts: How success can breed internal issues like perceived fairness and workload distribution.
  • Generational Differences: Aaron reflects on his differences with his uncle's vision for the company, emphasizing the clash between traditional and modern business approaches.

• Notable Quotes:

  "Family is hard. Business is hard. Family business is near impossible." — Keaton [15:29]
  "The company owns you, essentially." — Aaron [14:58]

5. The Role of Social Media and Transparency in Mining

A & B: A significant portion of the discussion centers on leveraging social media, particularly LinkedIn, to grow business and attract talent.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Personal vs. Company Presence: Aaron and Keaton debate the effectiveness of personal profiles over company pages for engagement and recruitment.
  • Building Brand Through Transparency: Emphasizing authentic and relatable content to connect with both employees and customers.
  • Impact of Consistent Engagement: Sharing personal experiences on LinkedIn has led to substantial business growth and networking opportunities.

• Notable Quotes:

  "We built this business on the back of LinkedIn." — Keaton [32:29]
  "Transparency wins. Because I think that's the easiest way you can stand out." — Aaron [44:50]

6. Balancing Personal Life and Business

A & B: The speakers explore the delicate balance between personal life and the demands of running a business.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Sacrifices Made: Aaron discusses how his intense focus on business has led to personal sacrifices, such as limited social engagements.
  • Sustainable Practices: Keaton shares his approach to maintaining personal well-being through fitness and discipline to handle business stress without relying on unhealthy coping mechanisms.
  • Impact of Relationships on Business: The importance of supportive relationships and how being part of a family business can strain personal connections.

• Notable Quotes:

  "I'm just going to do what I do. And I feel like those people that have made it in this world, they've just done it." — Keaton [25:21]
  "I have to be locked in right now, and I don't have those three days." — Aaron [63:28]

7. Challenges Facing the Mining Industry

A & B: The core of the episode addresses the current challenges in the mining industry, including workforce shortages, public perception, and regulatory hurdles.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Workforce Decline: Highlighting the impending brain drain as seasoned professionals retire and fewer young individuals enter the industry.
  • Public Perception and Environmental Concerns: The struggle to balance mining operations with environmental sustainability and combating negative stereotypes.
  • Regulatory Barriers: Frustration over slow permitting processes that deter investment and hinder operational efficiency.

• Notable Quotes:

  "Workforce hasn't come up. They're not all saying, you know what you know is really going to change the game right now." — Aaron [87:41]
  "The mining industry is its own worst enemy because we're not doing anything." — Keaton [99:06]

8. Future of Mining and Workforce Development

A & B: Looking ahead, the speakers discuss strategies to revitalize the mining workforce and improve industry practices.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Educational Outreach: Advocating for more engagement with high schools to attract young talent and make mining careers appealing.
  • Enhanced Transparency: Encouraging mining companies to showcase their operations authentically to educate the public and potential employees.
  • Embracing Technology: The importance of adopting modern technologies to improve efficiency and sustainability in mining practices.

• Notable Quotes:

  "We need to be louder about it. We got to be proud. We got to make mining sexy, relatable." — Keaton [84:55]
  "We've posted thousands of images, probably hundreds of videos. We've never had Imsha say one thing about an Imsha citation." — Keaton [88:18]

9. Closing Thoughts

As the episode concludes, Aaron and Keaton reflect on their personal journeys, the importance of persistence in business, and the potential for positive change within the mining industry.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Personal Growth: Sharing how their experiences have shaped their approaches to business and life.
  • Industry Optimism: Both express optimism about the future of mining in America, contingent on increased transparency and proactive workforce development.
  • Call to Action: Encouraging industry leaders to take ownership of public perception and actively participate in educational initiatives.

• Notable Quotes:

  "If we really focus the whole industry on that, what we can do is incredible." — Keaton [108:33]
  "Transparency wins, and that's why we have the value. Transparency wins." — Aaron [44:50]

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Key Takeaways:

• Leadership with Humility: Successful business leadership involves recognizing the strengths of your team and leading without ego.
• Importance of Transparency: Authentic engagement on platforms like LinkedIn can significantly boost business growth and workforce recruitment.
• Balancing Act: Finding a balance between personal life and business is crucial for long-term sustainability and personal well-being.
• Addressing Industry Challenges: The mining industry must proactively tackle workforce shortages, improve public perception, and streamline regulatory processes to thrive.
• Future Focus: Embracing educational outreach and technological advancements are vital for attracting the next generation of mining professionals and ensuring industry advancement.

This episode offers valuable insights for anyone involved in the mining industry, business leadership, or those interested in the dynamics of family-owned enterprises and modern workforce management.

Transcript

[A]

As you know, Ariat is the official Dirt Talk podcast sponsor. And at this point we've talked plenty about their footwear, their workwear. But now it is winter and boy, is it cold. It was 17 degrees this morning. I had to warm the truck up. But just because it's cold does not mean the work stops. So to get the job done, you need the best, warmest workwear possible. And Ariat has a long list of outerwear, amazing jackets, pants and other goods available now. You can shop at their website, ariat.com Dirttalk that is ariat.com Dirtt Talk do you have this? So I, because I have a big ego, I put my name in the, in the company name. And sometimes people will want me in meetings because I, because I have the name in the company. But I'm not, I'm not, I'm not the best person for the meeting. Like, I'm not me being there adds no value to anything we're discussing. And I'm not real. I'm really not trying to brush them off and say, hey, this person's way better. Like, it's no nonsense. Do you ever run into that?

[B]

No, No, I don't A. I don't have an ego and I would never name a company after myself.

[A]

Nevermind.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Like, it's the weirdest thing. And I say this all the time. People like, oh, he's trying to be humble or humble brag, which is a thing. I am not that smart. Like, I swear to you, almost any single person in this office, but even outside of this office is better suited to go do the meeting, whatever this meeting is. Right. If it's a safety thing, I'm like, this is going to get broadcast. I'm like a safety second guy. Let's have fun and look cool. And then safety second. I've had to retrain myself over the years because mining is obviously dangerous safety before anything else. So that doesn't come naturally. I don't know finance and accounting to the extent that I should be talking about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, I'm not a mining guy. So to sit in these mining meetings, whether it's mine planning or means and methods or safety, whatever, like we have really good people that this is what they specialize in. They should be the ones talking. But what I've learned is, you know, as I've hired people to come, like, work on my house, whatever, if the company owner shows up, even though he may not be the master painter or the master drywaller or the master roofer.

[A]

It has more weight.

[B]

He has a lot more weight. Because you feel like you're getting the attention as a customer that you deserve. Like, I've got the ear of the guy that can pull the levers and make my problems go away. And so all I really do, as I've started to learn, that is I'll show up to meetings, I'll say my five minute, like, intro, here's. Here's, you know, we're here to solve your problems and be a custom, you know, be a partner and so on and so forth. But then it's everyone else talk, and we'll debrief half of the meeting.

[A]

You know, but that's the funny thing, too, is they. I think that's. I guess a lot of organizations run like this, but people will say, you know, I'm judge, jury, and executioner. And, like, technically speaking, yes, could I pull rank? Whenever I want to pull rank, I could. But does that. Doesn't actually work that way. Not at all. Like, there's some stuff with Summit right now. People are asking me for this information. It's like, hey, I can't give you that information. And this is not a battle that I'm gonna win. Here's the workaround. And don't tell anybody I did this. It's like I'm sneaking around at, quote unquote, my company.

[B]

What I mean, it's a real thing where I have to do that is with our own employees. So I'll have someone text me from the field. He'll be driving a haul truck or a dozer, whatever. He'll get my number. Oh, and he'll text me and say, hey, boss, I don't think we should be doing this on the site. And the guy. Usually the guy's right. I'm like, wait a second, we're doing this. It would be very easy for me to pick up the phone, call the guy and say, yeah, that's stupid. Don't do that. I've now cut out five layers of management. And generally what happens is there's context missing, right? The haul truck driver, the dozer guy, Maybe it's even a foreman. There are layers of context in our commercial agreement with the customer and our strategy with the customer. Maybe it's a strategy on site that that person doesn't understand. They don't see. And so they're seeing their little two or three lanes or rows of trees, if you will. They don't see the whole forest that we're trying to work in. And so when I go to the Next level manager and say, hey, employee texted me we're doing something stupid. The response usually is, yes, you're right, we are doing something stupid. Let me educate you on why, but here's why. And then after five minutes like, oh, totally understand that employee's never gonna, they're never gonna understand that though.

[A]

Well, that's like 10 out of 10 times. Somebody criticizing the operation on the Internet is a dummy. Because I've learned, I would say nine out of 10 times, if something looks off, I ask why, why are you doing it this way? They give me a very educated answer. But everybody on the Internet's like, well, that's stupid. I would never do it that way. Yeah, you are showing how stupid you are by making this comment. Because anybody that's done this before probably can assume there's a reason. Like, yeah, by them saying they don't know what they're doing shows that they don't know what they're doing, which I love.

[B]

Well, I mean, you hear it all the time in these big companies, right? I hear this comment all the time. Big company, tons of waste. There's a lot of low hanging fruit. They're throwing money away left and right. What generally is happening is, yes, that comment's true, right? Yes. They might on the Internet look like they're doing it the wrong way. What a room of educated people have decided is it cost the company less money to do it this way in the grand scheme. Right. Maybe they have assets that are underutilized. Maybe it's a cash flow thing, whatever. Generally speaking, if the company is of any size to have sophistication, there's enough math and thinking done behind closed doors somewhere.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That average Joes on the Internet can't see.

[A]

Well, like the Rio Tinto video, for example. People are making these just dumb comments. And every single time I'm like, you know what, Joe, you're right. The, the multi, multi, multi, multibillion dollar mining conglomerate didn't run that basic math. They didn't pull their calculator out, run those numbers and realize what you have uncovered here. So thank, thank God you're here. Thank God. You, you, you did it. You solved the problem. It's like you don't think that they've like asked those questions, those very basic questions, but they're also playing a different game too. I think everybody, like, it's so easy for me to go criticize these big companies. Like, oh, they don't, they don't know anything.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Think I know what I'm doing, but it's like, I also don't have $1 billion on my balance sheet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So sometimes they can just do stuff that doesn't make sense because they can and they're paying.

[B]

I mean think of how many dozens of consultants have advised on some of these things. Right. You don't think there's mining folks that know. I always love when, when you see someone from Australia over here in the States and they're used to bench loading. Right. And tons of excavators over there and you talk to a loader here and they're used to high wall mining, you know, 25 to 50 foot benches, you know, and they're mining, you know, either with a face shovel or a wheel loader.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The two trains of thought are so different on how these operations should look. But I mean the bottom line is I think you're right in that nine times out of 10 is probably more like 99 times out of 100. There's a reason why companies are doing something that looks stupid. Every once in a while you'll see a 9,600 lane on its side. Someone walked it off a bench and did something stupid or someone's loading trucks the wrong way or whatever. But that's 1 to 5% of the time.

[A]

I will say the Australians, they do think that's much better.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, I know they'll take that to the grave.

[B]

There's an article, you might remember this because it was your photo. It was the COVID of a magazine. I don't remember which one. It was when we were in Cupertino and it was about why Turner prefers excavators over wheel loaders.

[A]

Oh, I do remember that.

[B]

And I gave like five reasons. I don't remember which magazine it was. Maybe Pitt and Corey or something.

[A]

Now you're a wheel loader guy.

[B]

Now we have wheel loader. Yeah. So now people throw that back in my face. Like wait a second. When you were a genius, you said this. So I mean again, we're moving dirt, right. Like there are right ways to do it and wrong ways to do it. But for, for what their business is doing, you know, you, you also get stuck with one type of asset. It doesn't make sense to have a bunch of different operations in a geographical area and have a bunch of different types of assets that are not, you know, you don't have critical spare synergies, all these things. So maybe it may be too big of a machine or too small of a machine, but given the footprint in that geographic area, it might be a good Business decision for them. So.

[A]

But the crazy thing is I've seen it in all different of these applications. They just swear by the excavator. They don't. They run loaders too. They run a lot of big loaders, especially in wa. They just cannot understand rope shovels.

[B]

Well, let me tell you two couple reasons why I believe excavators, at least for our size of a company, makes a lot of sense. One, there's a lot less movement of the machine. Right. So you put someone in that's not a 30 year seasoned vet. In my opinion, it's easier to learn on an excavator how to operate productively than it is a wheel loader. Wheel loader. You're backing up and turning and lifting the bucket and tilting the bucket.

[A]

You can't see where the bucket is.

[B]

You can't see the material in it. The excavator, you're crowding it to you. You can see how much you fill the bucket. You can hold it over the bed. There's a lot of really good things about an excavator. The problem in some applications is excavators don't do well in tight corners like when your benches are coming together or your final wall design in pits. Excavators can be tough. Right. They don't, they don't work super well in corners. Rope shovels the same way. I mean to buy a rope shovel today, like 30, 40, 40 million. Yeah, you know, 40, 50 million depending on, depending on what you're looking for. Right. And there's there, you know, you're not breaking them down and moving them to the next pit. You're not walking them anywhere. Wheel loaders. Okay. I'm in this pit one month. You see this a lot with some of these operations in Nevada. I'm in this pit this month. The next month we may go five miles down the road to the next pit.

[A]

Yeah. To go get high grade or something for a little bit.

[B]

And sure there's tow hauls and stuff, but again, there are a lot of business decisions that happen among smart people that look suboptimal to the keyboard warriors online. And we do that a ton.

[A]

Right. How completely unrelated. How long were you at TCI before Turner Money Group?

[B]

So I started there, let's see, like right before college or maybe like my freshman year. Like 20, what would that be? 2008 or 9?

[A]

Something like that. Oh, wow.

[B]

And then I left in 2017, so almost 10 years.

[A]

Okay. That's longer than I was expecting.

[B]

I mean, I didn't Know anything? Yeah. And working through college, I'll never forget. Like, I would send. We were going through these college courses. Like I want. I thought I wanted to be a vertical building estimator. Like that was the thing I wanted to do. And so we would do some of these, like these classes, they would teach you how to bid and they would teach you how to like submit a proposal. I would send my uncle some of these proposals. I got to go back and find them now. They were laughable and my uncle put up with it. So I, I appreciate that. But yeah, I joined and in the summertimes during college, I would like drive a haul truck. If we got rained out, I'd be in the office trying to learn how to do estimates and so on and so forth.

[A]

Did you go to iu?

[B]

No. Indiana State.

[A]

Oh wow.

[B]

IU didn't have any trade, you know, they didn't have any construction classes.

[A]

So you went to a construction management program?

[B]

CM interesting construct. I got a construction management degree and business administration degree and you know, Indiana State was good for me. I needed to get away from mommy and daddy. You know, everyone that grows up in Bloomington, I'm a townie. Everyone that grows up here goes to iu.

[A]

Are you from here?

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. Went to high school here, born and raised here, but everyone goes to IU. And so you're with your same, you know, 40, 50 people, you know, and so Indiana State was really good for me. Um, it's much more of a blue collar, at least it used to be. It must much more of a blue collar school. They've got a technology school, Scott College of Technology. So I enjoyed it. I was awesome. I got a, I got a, an offer from Kiewit back in the day and McCarthy. Nice. I was going to go to the Phoenix airport job that McCarthy was doing years ago as an intern. But yeah, stayed working for the family.

[A]

McCarthy is a good company. I think they're employee owned.

[B]

Are they?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Maybe I should have done that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, you'd have more, have more money by now.

[B]

Seriously.

[A]

Okay, so. And you were just working at the family company because that was the, that was the opportunity at that time.

[B]

Yeah. So I mean, I didn't really want to pick up and move to Phoenix. My uncle, when I graduated, he's like, look, I'll pay you 50 grand. Which back then I was like, dude, that's kush job. Right? I'll give you a company truck, pay you 50 grand. And you know, we were, it was a small family company, but I had Full autonomy. Like, you know, nepotism. Wasn't super strong like he was. He didn't just hand me the keys to the castle. But anyway, yeah, I mean, it's, it was, I got, I got, you know, pretty much keys to the castle to kind of see and do a lot of different things. And it was the best decision I ever made because I would have been a cog in a wheel somewhere trying to climb the ladder. And I probably could climb the ladder somewhere, but as you know, it's a 25 year grind, you know, especially at those big companies.

[A]

Yeah. And then, yeah, you're, you're, you're. The company owns you, essentially.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So if they tell you, hey, you're going over, they'll ask, do you want to go to this project?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it's not a question.

[B]

No, it's not a question. It's like, no, we've already assigned you. We're just kind of letting you know. And I'm a huge believer in family businesses, you know, building them. Now, I will say this because I've talked a lot about this. Family is hard. Business is hard. Family business is near impossible.

[A]

I don't envy people in family businesses.

[B]

I mean, we just named some names earlier, people that are doing it. And, you know, when it's, you know, if my dad owned the company, it'd probably feel different. Right. Second generation. I got a good enough relationship with my dad that I can kind of tell him he's dumb and force him out over time. And he'd tell me I'm dumb when it's one step away from that, which in my case, it was my uncle. My version of telling him he's dumb. You don't tell my uncle he's dumb. Right. He's a guy, he built the company. Who am I to say he's dumb? I'm some kid that he didn't know anything. And so we just ultimately had a different difference of opinion of where the two wanted to go. He had built what he believed was the American dream for himself and got to farm, got to run dirt. He had had a bunch of long tenured employees. Like, he built the American dream. And what I wanted was to explode it, go focus 100% on mining, hire a bunch of young kids, do all Instagram, go all in on social media because they were earth moving. Earth moving, yeah, yeah, yeah. We would, we would do landfills. We would do like, we did some soccer fields, football fields. We did mining. You know, we had, we had some stripping crews and stuff. But we were you know, I mean, it was like the American dream. And I. There's a lot of times I've wished for myself, why could I have been a little less assertive and just been happy doing the family business? We would all probably still be together. You know, I'd go over there for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Life would be probably fine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But for some reason I'm built the way I am and I like, it's kind of throttle wide open. And so it screwed that whole situation up permanently.

[A]

Well, yeah, the family business thing is really fucking complex, I've learned. Yeah, there's like this romantic notion of being in business with your family. We're a family here. We're a family owned business. There's so much romance about it. But then you open the. That's at the face value. You open the curtains, though, and you're like, whoa, this is good for people that make it work. Because it can be a disaster. Oh, yeah. And just in so many different ways. Not even like in an explosive way sometimes. Just like the resentment that just eats people alive. It's hard. And I think the. Honestly, the odds of, like, your children, like you have young kids, the odds of them being as stoked as you about what you do, pretty damn slim.

[B]

Very low.

[A]

Pretty damn slim, I think.

[B]

Well, and not only that, it's. Do they have the right. Let's say they are 100% stoked. Do they have the right skills?

[A]

That's what I mean, too. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Sometimes they're just square peg, round hole. The round hole's not better. Square peg's not better.

[B]

It's just.

[A]

They shouldn't. It doesn't mesh. But then, yeah, if you have that, like, predetermined destiny, though, you. Man, it's just tough.

[B]

Well, so I think in family business there's kind of three. There's kind of three buckets that I would put family businesses in. And the first bucket's financially struggling. When a family business is financially struggling, it oozes into everything. Like the whole family feels it. The guy that's responsible for the business feels responsible for all the family challenges, and it just flows downhill. So that's a really tough bucket to live in. We lived in that. There's the financially successful, like, doing good. Right, where we're making money, everyone's happy. That's a great place to be. And we grew to that spot where the family business was making good money. Everyone's happy. We can buy the tractors, we can buy the pickup trucks, we can buy the nice equipment. And then there's another bucket where it's like the family's killing it. And what happens. And I've seen this happen. This is not just my situation. This is a lot of situations when the family's killing it and things are going so well. After a certain period of time, you start to create your own issues. Right. Is it fair for all the family members? Is every family member getting their fair piece of the pie? And, oh, this family member doesn't do any work, but they still get a paycheck. Why is that? And so you just start. There's this internal thing that happens when a family business starts to really kill it to where you build your own set of issue and you have this like, cancer that forms. Now, there's plenty of companies that don't. Right. We talked about some of them at lunch. There's plenty of companies that, you know, they're, they're, they're killing it. They're third or fourth generation. But what's really going on behind the scenes, you know, who knows?

[A]

The ones that have done consistently well, honestly, that are super impressive are the cat dealers. But it's because they have a system and everybody works on the same system.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's somebody on the outside managing that system accordingly. I think that's why it works so well. There's rules and this is how it works. But it's a private business. But we do things a certain way. And if you're gonna take the business over, you've gotta check these boxes. We've gotta make sure that you're not a junkie or whatever it is. And you're gonna take. You're worthy of this. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, there's a lot of governance in those. It's like a chick fil A. Right. Your dad might start a chick fil A and then he passes it down. Like there, there are, there are guidelines. There's, there's gutter guards, if you will. On a chick fil A, you can't really screw up a chick fil A.

[A]

Which in a lot of ways is very helpful.

[B]

I think it's super helpful.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But if you're building a business from scratch. Right. No one's building cat dealers from scratch.

[A]

No.

[B]

If anything, they're buying each other and consolidating. And so there's a ton of gutter guards on a cat dealer. Right. Peter Holt is not going to screw it up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He's, he's got, he's got the thing running. He's going to make sure the next generation runs it or Whoever. Yeah, but with, with starting a business from scratch or having a small family business where there are no gutter guards. Right. You're not too big to fail. You're. You're only as good as your last customer. You're only as good as your last job sort of mentality. There's just a. It's a pressure cooker.

[A]

Yeah, it is.

[B]

Even when you're making really good money, it's a pressure cooker because everyone's like, I remember the days we didn't have any money, couldn't make payroll. I now have a bunch of money. Everyone now wants the money. It's like shaking up a hornet's nest.

[A]

You know, completely unrelated as well. You said they're, they're not starting to cat dealers anymore. I met a guy. Oh, no, no, no.

[B]

If they are, sign me up.

[A]

Well, why am I. Yeah, me too. What was Dale Elphingstone? So this guy. Have you heard of Dale Elvingstone? He owns William Adams Cat in Australia.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The guy started for William Adams as a fitter, which is like a mechanic.

[B]

No way.

[A]

He starts as an apprentice at the cat dealer. His dream is to own a cat dealer. He owns the cat dealer.

[B]

That's insane. How long did it take him to do that?

[A]

Well, he's pretty old now. It's. It's to the next generation. So I think his, maybe his son's dealer principal now and he does some other stuff. I mean he's still like, I met him at mine expo, still very, very lively, still as. As clever as can be.

[B]

But I don't know how that path, like how someone makes that as sheer will that I.

[A]

That's the only time I've heard that story. And I'm sure it's happened elsewhere, but not within this generation, which is crazy.

[B]

Well, I mean it to me, that guy, no matter what he was doing, that guy's got some internal makeup. He was going to figure out a way to be successful.

[A]

Yeah, well, he told me, he's like, I would have moved anywhere in the world for a cat dealer, but I got the one in my backyard and it's like it was meant to be.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

That is how it should have played out.

[B]

That's crazy. Yeah, I mean it's, it's. There are people out there that are special. I mean, my uncle, you know, I don't know that he even finished high school. Maybe he got his GED or something and built a multimillion dollar successful thing from nothing.

[A]

American dream.

[B]

It's the American dream. But it's hard. And there's more bad days than good days. I talked to a guy yesterday who is a business owner and really struggling. Like Mike closes doors and has more resources than my uncle did on paper, has a better experience, better college degree, all these things. And it's hard to make it work.

[A]

I think it's. This is what I've learned about like a lot of the races. Is it like the real long races? It's really just about whoever endures.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like whoever just don't quit, puts up with it. That really is one of the bigger pieces. It's not everything. And I think there's also false narratives around never quitting. Because sometimes you should probably call it a day and figure things out and ask yourself, hey, is this really the direction you should be going? But like those a hundred mile races, there's a. You look at the people at the finish line. They're not, they're not the Olympic athletes that you have in your. Yeah, they're just like. It's like Nancy from accounting then she's 48 years old and she just did 100 mile race. Just because Nancy in accounting can just put up with shit. And she's probably really messed up her knees. Probably completely, completely screwed up. Blisters all over the place. But she's just like, that's just part of the game. I'm just going to do what I do. And I feel like those people that have made it in this world, they've just done it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they've just been like, you know what? Yeah, it's pretty fucked up right now, but I'm just going to do it again tomorrow. Well, and I'm going to do it again tomorrow.

[B]

It's funny you say that. I was. It had to been yesterday, the day before, I was watching something on Instagram. I think it was Sheryl Sandberg or somebody talking about marriage and they're with their significant other there. And it was like a podcast that they were talking through and they asked the question, how do you stay married for 30 years? And she's like, look, one of us had a drinking problem. One of us was attracted to someone else. For a period of our marriage, we've gone through so much stuff and the only advice I can give is we just didn't quit on each other. And, you know, I think there's so much alike between a marriage and business. If I'm going to stay married to my business, if Turner Mining Group is going to make it, the second things get hard, I can't be thinking about my plan B. You know, we have almost failed probably half a dozen times. We probably should have failed a dozen times. And we just. It was one more day. How are we going to keep this thing going for one more day? And who's the next customer? You know, we had tons of learning experience that was expensive and stupid. But that's just the way it goes when you're building it from scratch. Like you don't have any other option.

[A]

The interesting thing with you all, and I say this because I can very much relate is that you've all of that. All of that has happened in a public arena as well. And the amount of just sometimes oftentimes just ridiculous. I've heard about Turner Mining Group from somebody over here.

[B]

Just crazy.

[A]

Way in left field. No. No idea.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

It is.

[B]

You wouldn't even believe the inside. We had a van show up. This has been a long time ago. So I can tell this. We had a van show up. Turner Mining van plastered on the side. Big, huge Turner Mining logo. This was a company work van. And this has been a long time ago. So don't. Don't crucify me for this story. Shows up to the office. Jake goes out to get in it. All the seats are taken out of it. There's no seats in this van. There's a mattress and an inflatable doll.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

And that's what showed up from one of the projects that we just finished. That's what the employees were riding around. And I'm sure there's probably some old ex employees. And so you experience that and you're like okay, great. What rules do we put in place? What protocols? Right. You just. You learn through doing and you have these experiences where there is no handbook. There are no guidelines. Like there's not some magic pill that we can take. And they were automatically mature organization. You learn through trying screwing up, trying to fix it. Building again. And you do that and try to have fun doing it. Try to smile through the pain.

[A]

But I've learned to watch out for the people that act like they haven't been through that before. Because there's nobody. You can't that's done anything significant that hasn't been through that stuff before. Like even we were talking about Ames the AIM story. Like in the book. There's some wild stuff that happened back in the day.

[B]

I mean that stuff they said they couldn't put in there. There's some stuff they couldn't put in there.

[A]

I'm sure a lot in there. But what is in there is actually pretty incredible too. I'm like, thank God. This is in like one. I mean, I feel like they had a mechanic lose a finger to a frostbite, come back to work the next day.

[B]

Oh my gosh. It's like.

[A]

And this, I mean, this was like 50 years, like just way back in the day, North Dakota. They just built those guys differently. But it's like, wow, that's. You can't do that nowadays.

[B]

Well, and that's, I mean, I think some of that will be true. You know, 50 years from now we'll look back and like, how did we live? You know, how did we, how did we get through that with some of the people and of the stories and. But the only way is to just not quit one more day. There's, there's this Alcoholics Anonymous saying they've, they've asked a bunch of these guys, you know, how did you stay alcohol free for 15 years, 20 years? And, and a lot of them have coined this phrase. Well, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm never going to drink.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm just not drinking today.

[A]

Today, that's all you need.

[B]

And it's, and it's just. And that's kind of my philosophy with business is, especially if you're trying to build something in a really hard industry. Like mining's hard, it's big, it's old, it's scary. Capex is insane. You know, there's a lot of risk in mining. Just don't quit one more day, you know?

[A]

Yeah. Jimmy Starbuck the other day, I like that guy. Jimmy Starbucks. I'll be with him next week. He's coming, he's coming to Summit.

[B]

I've never met him, but I follow his stuff. I should come to some talk about transparency. That dude transparent.

[A]

He is, but he isn't like, I, I would tell this to.

[B]

He's more transparent than most people that I've seen.

[A]

He's remarkably transparent. But he's also talking like as like Mr. Professional businessman and he's not Mr. Professional businessman, which is cool. I love that. Like, I know exactly what he's doing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But he was like, and this is, this is. He's been posting on LinkedIn for a year. And he's like, I've been posting on LinkedIn for a year.

[B]

Do you see in the metrics?

[A]

And then he's like, but it hasn't done anything for my business. I'm like, fuck off, Jimmy.

[B]

Yeah. He said like, I've maybe made 100k.

[A]

Yeah, it's something, it's totally something he would say. He would totally understate. But and I was thinking about it, I was like, well and actually this past week I hit 100,000 followers in LinkedIn, which means, wow, I'm a big deal.

[B]

Oh, you are a big deal.

[A]

Because that's directly correlated to my self worth is the amount of followers I have on the Internet.

[B]

I mean that's how we measure ourselves.

[A]

But if you like that was one of the things that I picked up from you. Early on you were on LinkedIn and you're like, dude, you've got to, I don't know how the conversation was, but you've got to check this out. And I started, I started playing around in the LinkedIn pond.

[B]

I'm like, whoa, organic reach was insane back in the day.

[A]

It's, it's still, still good. But well, the quality of people I'm reaching and the quality of people you're reaching, like at the decision making level. There's nowhere else that you can even.

[B]

I think every truck driver should have a LinkedIn.

[A]

I think everybody should be on. It's like everybody's sleeping, it's sleeping on this crazy.

[B]

I swear.

[A]

And it's like, okay, Jimmy, can I show you the spreadsheet of how much money I've made because of LinkedIn? No, I can't. But I know that I'd, there'd be a small fraction of what we have going on without, without LinkedIn and not just my LinkedIn but Dan, Jason, Randy, our whole company being involved in it.

[B]

Completely agree. We would be, I've said this multiple times, we would be a three crew dirt contractor if LinkedIn did not exist. Yeah, we have built, I swear to you, I'll recount like when I left my uncle's company and started this one. Every night for basically a year while my wife was watching the Bachelorette or whatever she was watching, I'd poor glass of red wine. I would send 300 LinkedIn messages every night.

[A]

Well, you told, you told me that. And then I started doing it without the wine. But yeah, I would do the exact same thing.

[B]

The wine makes the messages a little more creative. But yeah, I mean it's, we built this business on the back of LinkedIn. Now we had to do some things right beyond that. But you know, I still think if I'm a, if I'm an 18 year old truck driver, like I should be on LinkedIn, I should be documenting my experience, I should be talking about what I like about my job What I hate about my job, you know why I think companies should do. I mean it is, it is what social. Like if you're a career oriented person, it's the social network you should be communicating in.

[A]

Yeah. Tomorrow I'm actually speaking to the Nevada Mining Association.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And that's the whole thing is like, if nothing else, just chat on LinkedIn.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Nothing else. You don't, you don't have to go get a Facebook. You know, you don't do that. You don't have to go get TikTok. None of that. Screw all of it. Just LinkedIn. If I had to choose one.

[B]

Oh, absolutely.

[A]

I would choose LinkedIn. Of anything else.

[B]

100% agree. And I think, you know, and I'm pretty passionate about this. I think more CEOs need to be active, need to be vocal.

[A]

They're leaving so much on the table.

[B]

There's a gal, I don't know her, but I'm a fan of her. Diane at Highcroft, Diane Garrett. And she does like these videos and she'll post them on their LinkedIn, on her personal LinkedIn and Hycroft's link. LinkedIn. And it's awesome. I feel like I know her. Right? Like, yeah. More people need to know the CEO of the company. More people need to know the coo.

[A]

I think, I think that though is why people, why you guys have been able to hire. I don't think it's been Turner Minor Group social presence. I think I based. We stopped posting on our company. Social media.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because we just, we asked ourselves, well, what's really driving, what's really driving things? The people, the people at the company. So we've just doubled down on my social presence. Dan's social presence. Jason.

[B]

Oh, I've seen it from Jason and Dan for sure.

[A]

Those two are. Those two are at it.

[B]

Dan is added a lot.

[A]

Dan's at it. Sometimes Dan will post stuff. I'm like, wow, I didn't know we were putting that on the Internet. But it's on the Internet.

[B]

What do you agree? I love it. I couldn't agree more. And you've looked at the metrics. Company pages don't do well. No personal pages kill it.

[A]

But. And I really think a large majority of people are coming to work for Keaton Turner. And then I started to ask myself, okay, what companies are the biggest brands in the industry right now that aren't Peter Kiewit, that haven't been around since the 1800s? You've got Sargent Corporation, C.W. matthews Hoopah, Turner Mining Group. You Know, you can go down the list, and then you ask, what's the common theme between these. Why is somebody in California talking to me about CW Matthews, who only does DOT work in the state of Georgia on the complete opposite side of the world?

[B]

It's because Dan Garcia know Dan. People know Herb is putting us up.

[A]

It's because Herb's putting himself out there. It's because Brandon Lindsay has. Has a podcast that he's been very religious about for years now. That's not. And that's not everything, but that's a big deal. I think that's a really big deal.

[B]

It's. To me, I think you're spot on. It's hard to. It's hard to do it. The first step, right. It's like, imagine if you're 100 pounds overweight, and it's like, man, I got this massive goal. I want to lose 100 pounds. It's going to take me four years.

[A]

Yeah. Run a marathon.

[B]

Run a marathon. Run 100 miles.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The first step is just taking the first step and putting yourself out there. Like, I am not an extrovert. Like, I don't love. I told you right before we turn this thing on. I don't love doing podcasts. I hate doing podcasts. I don't like posting on LinkedIn and Instagram. But if you put yourself out there, it's a muscle. And the more repetitions you give that muscle, like Herb I've watched over the years get a lot better at it.

[A]

He's kicking ass.

[B]

Lot better at it. Dan. Dan.

[A]

Really good.

[B]

I'm sure Dan, like, years ago in the HCSS days, was not like, I'm going to be a thought leader on LinkedIn someday.

[A]

I went to his LinkedIn the other day. He's got like, I made like 20,000 followers. I was like, yeah. Damn, dude, when did this happen?

[B]

But you're so right in that not only. In my opinion, employees and customers both eat with their eyes, and they want to eat up companies that they can relate to. They want to do business with people that they agree with. They want to link shields. As Michael Bowman says, they want to follow people who they believe in. I'm a huge fan of Dana White. I love everything Dana White does. He doesn't care about anything. He's building his thing. Thing. And if you're about that, like, those kind of people never met Dana White, but I feel like I would follow if Dana White was, like, had a call to action, like, follow me into battle. Yeah, I'm gonna follow this guy. Ed Mylet and for, you know, Annie Frisella. Some of these guys never met him, but you consume enough of their thoughts, you consume enough of their words, you watch their actions. Like, I believe in these guys.

[A]

They're ignorant. They're exactly the same. Like, or people are like, what's Jocko like? Exactly what you think. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's just who he is. It's. It's not, it's not a thing. You can't. But you can't keep up a thing for that long. You can't be consistent. That consistent for that long. I don't think so. Like you.

[B]

So what, what do you think? What I'm really curious to hear because you're someone that seems pretty consistent. Yeah, I'm not super consistent. How long is too long?

[A]

No, no, no. I mean, like, you can't be that consistent for that long and be faking it.

[B]

Oh, okay. Got what you're saying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But stay consistent.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna, Something's gonna poke out at some point if you're, if you're. That's why I really don't trust anybody. I don't trust people that don't do long form interviews anymore. Like if they're unwilling to sit down and have a two hour unscripted conversation. I don't know. I'm not bought in with what they've got going. And that's a lot of people. And just even set politicians, that's a lot of people in business. There's so many people that would not sit down for a long conversation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which again, it's just like you need.

[B]

To have self awareness. I was talking. I don't remember what. I was at an event, I was talking and I kind of address room and. Same concept. You are like the people want to hear from the CEO, coo, however, they need to be self aware enough to know if they don't have anything good to say or they're not relatable or people don't believe in them.

[A]

I do see that sometimes.

[B]

Get off of the microphone.

[A]

I've been guilty of that plenty of times too.

[B]

You think so? Because I think transparency wins. It's one of your values, right?

[A]

It does and it is. I, I guess what I've been guilty of is being a little fucking turd.

[B]

Like.

[A]

Yeah, but like a kid. Like, all right, like I. Or.

[B]

Yeah, but the stage you were in, you. You rubbed feathers.

[A]

That's what I wanted to do, which got me here. So I don't, I don't regret any of It. But I have, and you probably have too. I know you have gotten yourself in some messes with some of the things I put, like herbs. Herbs. One of those people. I had an argument with Herb on the Internet.

[B]

Oh, you did? I missed that.

[A]

But I didn't know it was Herb. It was. It was. I think he was with the company account or something like that. And I was fucking around. I wasn't even. I have never argued with somebody on the Internet. I have never fallen into that trap. I'm proud to say.

[B]

Oh, I do. I love it.

[A]

I can't. I stay. I stay out of it. But I was being. I was being an asshole. And on the Internet, there's no context, so you come off like a complete asshole. And now Herb and I are friends again. We're good, everything's fine. But it's even just stuff like that. You just sometimes step and shit.

[B]

I think if you are transparent enough.

[A]

I know Herb since the podcast, so. Hi, Herb.

[B]

Hey, Herb. If you are transparent enough and consistent enough, you're going to have a huge chunk of the audience that disagrees. Right. There's always gonna be haters. There's always gonna be people that are even educated people that just have a differing viewpoint. And I've gotten that more as I've been vocal and transparent on LinkedIn. Like, there's some really educated people that will challenge my thinking.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm like, okay, cool, great comment. You could have done it with a little bit nicer tone. And then what I will do is I'll do whatever homework's necessary and I will come back and publicly respond. Respond in the comments, like, here's why I think you're wrong. And a lot of this stuff's opinion based. People get so lost, and that's what the world we live in now is all opinion based. Very little fact checking done these days, but, you know, I'm all for it. I'll take every bit of hate, every bit of smoke. Like, I want to be who I am. I told you before we did this, I sound like a redneck on these podcasts. Okay. I'm okay with that. I want to be who I am. And if you follow me and our mission and what we're doing, I love it if you don't, no worries. But I think just being transparent long term is going to win.

[A]

Yeah, I lose sight of it too. But something like mine expo starts to remind me, like, oh, this is actually crazy. Like, we were at. I'm at like the Renaissance Hotel in Las Vegas next to the convention center. A bunch of Mine Expo people are there. I'm sitting with Dave from Tees.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

And this other guy sits down at the table next to us. And he looks over, he's like, that's. I forget his name, but he runs Escondida. And I'm like, he runs Escondida? Can you introduce me? He's like, yeah, sure. We get up, he looks over at us, he knows exactly who I am. Right away, right away. The mine manager for Escondida. And he's like, come on down anytime. I'm like, dude, I have been trying to get into this Damn operation for 3, 4 years. No luck anywhere. Little did I know, this guy's been following me on LinkedIn. Here I am meeting him. He already knows everything about me. I didn't have to say a word. It was, it was. It's just like little stuff like that. This is crazy. This is so wild. And three years before that, I was. And I'm still a nobody, but a total nobody. Just like a plastic bag in the wind. At Mine Expo, no one gave two shits about what I had going on. And here I am making all these amazing connections, seeing all these great people that I've seen all over the world, like, oh, wait, I met you in Germany, like, or, I know you. Oh, I know you. It was spectacular.

[B]

Well, attention is such a powerful tool and I think so many, so many companies, not even people, but companies undervalue attention. Like if you're not a marketing agency or you're not in a marketing department somewhere, like most CEOs are not sitting around thinking about attention both from an employer brand and the sales side of their company.

[A]

I'd argue most marketing departments aren't thinking about attention.

[B]

At least not the right way.

[A]

Not the right way, not the right way, not at all.

[B]

But it's a powerful thing and it takes years and years to get it. You can't just flip it on. We can't just pay a company, a PR firm, to go get us the kind of attention you're talking about.

[A]

No, it doesn't work.

[B]

It's a, you know, shoot, maybe we get a spike and a KPI on a dashboard one day. But like long term, real attention, where people feel like they know Keaton Turner, that takes years and years and that takes a lot of personal investment. Like, I love when I post something and some of my post is wrong or something spelled wrong or I sound like an idiot because then they know it's real.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Very few people ask Me anymore. Hey, is that really you posting your own stuff? They think there's like a team of people.

[A]

I get that.

[B]

Posting my stuff all the time.

[A]

Like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[B]

No, if I had a team of people, I wouldn't misspell words.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, they would catch that. So I just. You know, for me, that's how we. We've got this year. See, again, I'm speaking redneck. We have received this year almost 20,000 applications.

[A]

It's pretty wild.

[B]

I think the only reason is because we're willing to put ourselves out there, be transparent, have fun with it. Like, crack a beer open and talk about normal people things. We're not some big scary corporation. And I think people believe in what we're trying to do. And so I think it wins long term.

[A]

And that's why we have the value. Transparency wins. Because I think that's the easiest way you can stand out, no matter where you're at, is you can just talk like a human being. I don't know what it is, but people get into a business setting especially, and they just like every facet of human communication out the window, and they start talking like a. Like a. Like a. Like a HR attorney talking head. Yeah. What. What happened to you? Who, like. And you. I just want to grab them and shake them. Like, where, What? What? There's some. There's a human inside you still. Where are they? Like, what would you do with the. What did you do with Jeff? I know Jeff's in there. Jeff, can you hear me, please? It's just. And if you. You don't even have to put yourself out there that much. You just have to be kind of transparent.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's already beyond so much of the corporate stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you.

[B]

It gets easier, too.

[A]

It gets easier, but you can. I also notice you can see the CEOs and the executives on the Internet that don't do their stuff. You for sure know it's a PR department. And can I tell you who has the best stuff?

[B]

In my opinion, you're going to laugh because I know you've seen it. Peter Holt's LinkedIn.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

When he does the rap lyrics for, like 90s rap songs as his, it is hilarious.

[A]

I was.

[B]

I think I was like, he's quoting 50 Cent.

[A]

Well, I was. I think I was on the toilet the other day looking at LinkedIn, because of course that's what I would do. Why not? And I saw one of his posts again. Rap lyrics. But I sat there thinking about him.

[B]

Like, he's done this for years. Long time. That's not the marketing department.

[A]

This is not a marketing play. This is not a fad. This has been his LinkedIn presence for years.

[B]

Oh, absolutely.

[A]

And this guy is one of the owners of the San Antonio Spurs.

[B]

I know very well.

[A]

He's not. He's not a scrutiny. And this is what he's done for you. And it's like, I had the thought, like, I respect it. I really respect.

[B]

Well, you know, he's been this consistent. You know, what it does is there's two things that come to mind when I read one of his, like, rap lyric posts. The first thing is, okay, the marketing folks are probably rolling their eyes. They just think, oh, they hate it. They're like, wait a second, we've got a whole team of people. And that's what he chose to put out. Choose to put out. But the second thing it does is. Makes me realize, okay, that's a normal dude who likes 90s rap. I wanna buy a tractor from him. We don't even do much with Kat, but if I could sit in a room with that guy, I know we'd have a good time. We would talk about exactly what he's posting, which is like, oh, I love that Nelly song. He's relatable. He feels real. Otherwise, I would think of Peter Holt as some big shiny trophy up in an office somewhere.

[A]

He's got the Holt last name category pedigree.

[B]

I know nothing about the guy, and I've never met the guy. But I can tell you right now, if I had my choice, all things being equal, I want to buy from that guy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just for the simple fact that he seems relatable, he seems fun. He's not. He's not taking himself too seriously.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

So many people take themselves so seriously. Herb does the same thing. He doesn't take himself too seriously.

[A]

He's really good at his. His humility is really impressive because where he's at, he's kind of a big deal. And he's had a career. That's no joke. But he comes off just like this curious kid in a way. And I say that in the most endearing sense. Like, he's just so. Yeah. Just how. I don't know how he does it, but I really, really appreciate how he messages. He's speaking it next week, too.

[B]

Oh, is he?

[A]

Yeah. You're messing up, man.

[B]

I am?

[A]

Yeah, you are.

[B]

If I wasn't gone, I would be there.

[A]

Everybody we've talked about will be there.

[B]

These are legit guys. Though, too. And these are all guys that I respect from afar. I don't know any of them personally, but, you know, again, I think that they've all done a really good job of taking one step. There was one day, Herb said, you know what? I'm seeing this Aaron kid. I'm going to try this. I'm going to put myself out there. I'm going to post something on LinkedIn. And it's worked for him. And, you know, I commend them. But I think more CEOs, in whatever industry you're in, I think more CEOs, COOs, even just random people throughout the organization. Like, I love seeing. We had an office manager post something the other day that kind of went semi viral. Like, she'd never done that before.

[A]

Yeah, do that.

[B]

I'm all for it. She was nervous to even ask me if she should post it.

[A]

Yeah, well. And as an executive, I've learned you have to give people permission.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Like, we had a. A new developer recently. He posted on LinkedIn, and I was. I made sure to go over, say, hey, really nice job. And he responded, he's like, oh, I was so nervous. I didn't know if it was okay. But I'm really happy. It's like, you have to reassure people because they, I mean, Jason, he told the story on the podcast. He had some really negative experiences, social media, and it took him like a good year and a half to get over it.

[B]

Is that right?

[A]

Yeah. At Billet now, he's well over it, of course, but it took him a long time to recover from the prior incidents that he had had because of. Because of social media stuff that he had never intended of happening. But.

[B]

Well, I mean, I think the consumer has a very short memory. Like, there's lists and lists of people that have screwed up, said something they regret, posted something they regret. People with short memory, they move on. Like cancel culture, I get it's a thing, but, like, people know my intentions. That's what's important to me. If I say something that's offensive or that's just flat out wrong. Okay, I understand cancel culture is a thing, but were my intentions right? Like, do I actually have any hate in my heart towards, you know, it's. I don't know. Well, I'm probably different than a lot of people on that. I think people forgive and forget and move on. If your intentions are true.

[A]

And I think you. You garner more respect for people, too, especially when they misstep and said, yeah, I missteps there.

[B]

It's funny Religion especially, you know, these days, we're a week away from an election, you know, politics, stuff like that. You can say the wrong thing and really isolate half of your followers, like, really quickly. And so I stay away from most of those topics. I've got some pretty strong beliefs, but, you know, I want to use my platform that I have to do a couple things. One, and I've never shied away from, like, you know, I'm a Christian. The reason I'm. I am where I am is because I think, you know, there's a. There's something bigger going on here. But two, I want people to relate to building something and doing business. And when I was. When I was trying to come up through business, there was no one talking about this in the dirt world. Yeah, like, no one was talking about building a business.

[A]

No.

[B]

You know, barely making payroll, having to fire some of your best friends. Like, no one was doing that. And so if I can talk about those things and someone else can relate to it, that's what's cool to me.

[A]

Well, that. That's what. That's what drew me in right away was when you were with tci, you were posting stuff like how you estimated these jobs, like how you broke it down financially. I'm just like, I've never seen this information anywhere.

[B]

Like, I wouldn't. Got me in trouble.

[A]

Well, but. But it was just so different because it was so, like, that's what got me in was. Whoa. I have not ever seen information like this before. Yeah, I really need to pee real quick.

[B]

Go for it. And then all the way down on the right.

[A]

I want to talk about messaging, but specifically mining.

[B]

Cool. When we do our podcast and I'm in here drinking beer or white claws or bourbon or whatever, I have to stop.

[A]

I. I meant to bring that, that bottle of Weller up here. I remember.

[B]

Yeah, you don't drink anymore.

[A]

I know. I remember half of that.

[B]

That's allocated stuff. Oh, no, that's all right. Yeah, that's all right. I win one every Friday playing golf with Thomas. So I got plenty of. I got plenty of bourbon. He didn't hear that.

[A]

I thought he. I do. I do love bourbon. Like, I really. Well, I. Yeah, I really enjoy it. Yeah. There's so, so can of worms.

[B]

I fully believe that if alcohol were invented today, it would never be legal. Yeah. And the, The. The. The difference in sleep quality and anxiety levels.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

With zero alcohol, like when I did 75 hard, I didn't really feel the effects until like, day 40, 50, 60, something like that of the no alcohol thing. It's real.

[A]

Yeah, that's like.

[B]

It's real.

[A]

That's why I don't. That's really. I mean, I grew up with alcoholism in the house, so that's one big thing. It's just not. It's just not been a positive thing. But it's really, from a health standpoint, it fucks with my sleep.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And if I. Right now, it's what, like 1:30 in the afternoon? If I had half a beer with you right now, I would be at like 78% tomorrow, all day tomorrow. Really? Yes. And I. Cause I notice it that that much now and that just takes all the fun out of it for me.

[B]

Oh, absolutely.

[A]

Because it just like the dimmer, I'm just. I just lowered the dimmer just a little bit, but it's enough where it's like, why, why would I just. It's take. It's totally taking the fun out.

[B]

And that's just beer or is it any. Any really alcohol in general?

[A]

Because I. I really like people. People are always like, I don't know how you do it. It's like, I know how I do it. I'm really fucking healthy. Like, that's how I travel around the world. And if I wasn't, there's no way I'd be able to keep the schedule I do. And so I've like, I've really started to get to get to know my body.

[B]

So what do you do? This is. This is what I'm struggling with. What do you do when. And I already know your answer and I'm going to hate it. But what do you do when you have a really stressful day? You leave the office. For most people that listen, it's like a 5:30. I leave the office, I go home. How do I unwind and take my mind off of how terrible my workday was and how much stress I have waiting on me tomorrow?

[A]

I just do drugs. No, that's not the answer.

[B]

I want you to know.

[A]

No, I. I don't have those days all that much because I really think it's because I'm working out every day and I work out really hard. So this morning I woke up a little later than I was supposed to. And so I only had 30 minutes. It was a hard 30 minutes. I just don't get wound up the rest of the day all that much. And so by the time bedtime rolls around, I'm just wiped out and I don't really struggle to sleep. At least that's how it's been for me.

[B]

Well, I mean, that's amazing because I think the thing that when you're early in business, it's like the thing to do is like, oh, let's go out for drinks, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that turns into. After years and years of it, it's like, okay, well, I'm stressed. Go home, have a glass of wine, right? And you see this with any. Anybody. It's not men or women. Have the same thing. And next thing you know, you wake up one day and you're like, oh, my goodness. I've either had a beer after work with the guys, a glass of wine at dinner with the Y, I've done this. I've done something like that for way too many days in a row. And you just find yourself feeling, like, foggy.

[A]

I don't think most people know they're foggy. I think that's just their state that they're in. They're so jacked up from all this other stuff.

[B]

I didn't know it until I did 75. I was like, I feel like I'm on some wild medication.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

That clear?

[A]

Yeah. You're just operating at a different level and you don't want to regress. I think I have missed out on some things in business because I don't go out.

[B]

I know.

[A]

And I can't stand dinners. I just, it's just not who I am as an individual. I just want to go to bed. I just want to go to bed and I go to bed like 8:00. So having. Having a dinner, like some of these dinners, they'll, they'll like, you know, you haven't even ordered by, like last week.

[B]

We were ordering like 9:00.

[A]

Dude, I. I'm out. I'm. I'm like, I'm. I'm not good for anybody. Jason, thank God, that's his department. He's really good at it. He loves it. I don't do it. Have I probably missed out, like, even mine expo, the business happens after mine expo.

[B]

Oh, absolutely.

[A]

Nothing happens during the show and con Expo. Same. Like, once I figured that out, it's like, oh, it's all going down after the fact. So I don't, I don't really do any of that. Not because I'm better. It's just not who I am as an individual. But I think being me as an individual is far more valuable. And that served me way more than playing the game.

[B]

It's so funny how different people are. Thomas is the exact opposite. Right. He can go Till three. We were, we were at a wedding. One of, one of the guys here in the office got married over the weekend. My wife and I are in bed at like, it's like 10 o'clock. We snuck out. We, I call it Houdini. We're there and then we're gone. Dude, that's, he texts me at 3:30 in the morning. He's like, oh, by the way, your jacket's in my truck. And I'm like. And then he's up the next day and like, it, like nothing ever happened.

[A]

I don't work like that.

[B]

Some people are just built different.

[A]

Yeah, he is.

[B]

He is built different.

[A]

So I've been like, just doing my thing has served me a lot better than.

[B]

Yeah, well, you, you learned what your thing was, and I don't, I'm still trying to figure out. Like, I asked you when you got here, Mike, have you done 75 hard in a while? And your answer was like, no, I'm just, I haven't drank all year. I work out every day. I read every day, drink plenty of water. Just do it like you ordered water at lunch. You know, like, that's, I'm still trying to figure that out because I felt amazing in those 75 days. But how do I make that sustainable? And it's probably just like what we just talked about. So do it.

[A]

But I, I, I view it like, for me, it's, I have to do it. Like, I view myself as an athlete in this weird fucking category that I've made up. That's like one of my competitive edges is like, you, dude, I'm, I'm never gonna say I work harder than a haul truck driver, than a guy laying pipe. I don't. But I would.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You say I don't work. Come, come with me for a week on one of these international trips.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we'll see how you're doing. Day two.

[B]

Well, you drove over here. Four hour drive. You're gonna hang out for a few hours. Four hours back, like, just. That's a day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. But, but probably on the phone the whole time.

[A]

But you just. But I have to run that hard and to operate at that level. I have.

[B]

How is that going to work when your personal life's in a different spot? Because I got three kids. My wife texted me today. She said, hey, Martini's in the hot tub. Or do you want to go out to dinner tonight after the kids go down? So that's late. That's probably drinking an awesome martini or glass of wine.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Like and if I say no, she's 100% supportive, but it's like, less. I'm doing air quotes. Like, less fun. Yeah, it's like, okay, that's boring. We're just going to go sit and eat her soup and go to bed at 9:00.

[A]

Well, I'm unmarried with no kids for a reason. That's not for a lack of trying, but I think I was talking with Nick Lavery about it not long ago. The guy's incredible, but what he was saying was like, you don't have to give up. Give up what you really love. You just have to give up other stuff. So it's like, what else are you doing that isn't okay? If family, work, if those are the two things, what else is happening beyond those two things? Check that stuff out before you start cutting out sleep. What other nonsense? Because that's a good way to put it. That's what I love. About 75 hard. You, you cut out the nonsense.

[B]

You don't have time for nonsense.

[A]

You don't have time for the nonsense. So you just. You get rid of stuff. And I think that's what it takes. It's just. All right, what do I need to get rid of? And it might. Like, I've said no to a lot of weddings this year because.

[B]

Just for the environment or like.

[A]

No, no, it's just like, I don't have a three. Like, I don't have three days right now to go fly over here for this. Like, I, I'm, I, I and I. And maybe that's the wrong way to look at it. Maybe I'm a prick. But that's okay, because it's like, I have to be locked in right now, man, and I don't have those three days.

[B]

So are you ever going to look back? I know you're building something amazing, and you have been for the last seven or eight years. Are you ever going to look back and think, man, I had some moments in time where I could have made different memories. This wedding example is what brings this question up? Like, I could have made different memories. I was focused on my grind. Like, are you ever going to want to look back and swap those memories? Or do you ever even think about that?

[A]

I don't know. It's hard to say. But I'm turning 30 in February, which has made me reflect upon a lot of stuff. Yeah, it's like a good life marker. All right, you take inventory.

[B]

A third of your life's over, bro.

[A]

No, but I'm not. I've Noticed a lot of people go into 30, and it's almost like someone's died. You can tell. They're just like, oh, no. I'm in my third. They're just dreading it. And I don't feel like that at all. Have I missed out on xyz? Yes. But have I traveled to the Middle east for business and had these remarkably rich experiences and been around these amazing people and helped build this company that we're building and gotten to know all the people like you and Herb and everybody else? And.

[B]

And.

[A]

And to me, it's like I've done exactly what I should be doing.

[B]

Well, you're. Like you said, you're trading it for something else.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You're taking whatever time that was where you would have gone to weddings or, you know, had a different personal life, and you're trading it for something that I think is really cool.

[A]

Well, and I'm. I'm not saying I can't go to your wedding because I. I've got to hang out with the boys this Sunday. Big game this Sunday. I'm not missing the big game. It's not like that. It's like. No, I'm. I'm. I'm in the office this Saturday and Sunday, and I'm trying to catch up on shit before I go on this trip Monday. Yeah. Like, I just. And I can't. I. I can't miss those days right now. And maybe I'm wildly out of control, but it's like, if I don't work Saturday and Sunday, I'm behind right now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I'm fine with that. Like, I'm. I'm. Okay.

[B]

Well, you're built different. I mean, a lot of people wouldn't be, you know, a lot of people wouldn't be, A, that committed, but, B, see that vision so clearly that they even get excited to do that.

[A]

Yeah. It's like saying I'm committed. I feel like gives me too much credit in a way, because it's like I'm just fucking obsessed. I've just. That's all I want to do. I just want to do this. That's it. I just want to work. I just want to do, like, I went to Savannah for a few days. I go to Savannah three times a year, and I just think so. I just. And I just write. I don't. And I walk. I just walk a lot. I don't think about. I don't listen to anything. I don't have any meetings. I don't have any people calling me.

[B]

No agenda.

[A]

Yeah. No agenda. No agenda. So I was there for four days, and it's one of my favorite places in the world. And I loved my four or five days, I think four nights, five days. Loved it. But then when I was flying home before, it's kind of been like, oh, it's a bummer, it's over. Like, I wish it was more. I was kind of, like, dreading the ending of it. I'm. I'm like, stoked to get back to office, get back to business. Like, I just want to be back. I just want to be in it. It's just we're having. Because I think, I don't know, maybe you're here too. I got the shit kicked out of me for a few years, and I was drowning, and I didn't really realize how, like, I was nearly under the water or under the water at times. But you don't. You're just in survival mode. And then you get out of that survival mode and you're looking back on it like, whoa, I was buried. And it's like, I'm having fun again. And it is just. It's like all I want to do now. I just want to have fun.

[B]

I mean, something definitely happens. I think when you're building something from scratch, where you work so hard to build something, whether it's a brand or a customer base or an employee set, whatever, or career. Career? Yeah. Like, you work really hard and then you get to this. I don't know. For us, it was maybe like an aha moment where, like, where you make the right hire or you land the right customer and it all starts to click. You're like, wait a second.

[A]

You love the people you're working with?

[B]

Yeah, I've been doing this. We're five, six, seven. We're gonna turn eight years old as a company in March. And it's like, I am more excited now than I was when we started. I really feel that way. You know, I'm in a different spot in life. I got three young kids, and so I've told people around here, I'm like, man, if I were a single guy, I feel like I'd be a billionaire because I would live at the office. I could do this. I eat this up. I could do this every hour of the day. I leave here today to go coach my fourth grade son in basketball. So you have to pick and choose. I'm super in tune with how short life is. And the one thing I don't want to do is get to the end of whatever this is and this is where you and I are a little different. I don't want to get to the end of whatever we're building and look back and be like, okay, this is awesome. I've built a ton of wealth. I've got a bunch of equipment. I've got a really cool group of employees. I've built something. But I could have done XYZ with my time. And that's the only thing I don't want to regret, is you don't get time back. Did I do the right things with my time? Did I take too many business dinners and not enough dinners around the campfire with my kids? Just some of that. But you're trading every decision for something.

[A]

You know, the counseling I'm always given by people older is like, do it while you're young. I have taken that to heart, man. I don't have a family. I don't have kids. If I was supposed to have kids, I think I'd have kids. I don't have kids, so I better fucking send it. That's how I view it. It's like, I'm just gonna be wildly unbalanced right now because I can be. And that's going to give me so many more opportunities. Future state, I think.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And I viewed my 20s, like, how do I really make myself into the best version of me possible? Because then I'm going to be much better for other people in my life as I go further into my life. And maybe I'm just lying to myself.

[B]

Well, I can tell you one thing I know for certain is I would never recommend starting a business and having kids.

[A]

Yeah, well, how old were your kids when you started? Did you have any?

[B]

We had a one. Andrew was like, just over, like one and a half. And we just had a newborn when I started, and then we had another kid, 20, 19. So two years after. So I had three, basically under the age of five in the first couple years. And, you know, I'm one of these guys. I'm like, you. Like, I want everything. I want it all. Like, I want everything. I want the house, I want the family. I want the business. I want the friend group. I want to play golf on Fridays but still get the billion dollar bid in. I want to do it all. And what ultimately ends up happening is I don't really do any of it. Well, like, the bids are going on Friday. I probably could have had more of a say. I'm not enjoying golf on Friday the way I should because I'm worried about bids. I'm at A business dinner. So I'm missing the family stuff. I'm at the family thing, so I'm missing the business thing. Right. But you just do the best you can. And, you know, you. You try to make it all work. You spin all the plates. You feel like you're in the circus spinning all the plates. But I can tell you I would not try to start a business and have kids. That's really. It's really difficult.

[A]

It's. Yeah. And not having kids has allowed me, like, financially, it's been big because I haven't paid myself really anything. I live above somebody's garage still.

[B]

Yeah. It's hard to have kids when you're not paying yourself.

[A]

I don't have a door in my little garage apartment. It's just all one room. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm never really there. And I was living in this really fancy place, and I'm like, what the hell am I doing? Why would I do this? And. But it's allowed me to live that lifestyle and get away with things. But I know that's not the forever state, so I'm trying not to take it for granted.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I just think you gotta be throttle wide open on whatever your thing is, whether that's climbing the corporate ladder, building the business, building the family, making friends. It's hard to just pick one thing. At least from where I sit, it's hard to pick one thing because if I devote everything to my business and my family, that means I'm not doing anything with my friends.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

You know, and I. You know, I've got some really cool friends. And so. And the opposite is true. If I'm devoting everything to my family and my friends, I'm not spending the time I should in my business. So when I was in C12, they've got this illustration. It's called this balance wheel. And there's everything on there, like fitness, personal finances, friendship. C12. It's a Christian group. It's like YPO. There's 12 guys in a group. There's chapters all over the country. And so These are Christian CEOs, and these are legit people. You're pulled together, and Thomas is still in it, and you're pulled together on the foundation of being biblically focused organizations. And so they have this balance wheel where you check in and it's like, how are my finances going? My personal fitness, my friends, my family? And you got all these categories. And the concept is if you're doing well in all of them, the wheel is pretty balanced. And spinning. When you fall in family time or when you fall in personal finances or physical fitness or whatever. The thing is, your wheel becomes unbalanced. It's hard to live the lifestyle you want to live.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You seem like you are living a very balanced. Although you don't have the personal thing right now that you're focused on. You're physically fit. You're investing a ton of time in your business. The things that are important to you, you're spending time on. You're not spending. It doesn't sound like you're spending any time on things that aren't important to you.

[A]

Well, yeah, I'm trying to figure out the relationship thing right now. So that's a working day. That's a work in progress. But there. But there's a reason why it hasn't worked out up until this point as well. It's because it. Like, I'm starting to accept responsibility. It hasn't been a priority.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I thought it was a priority, but it wasn't a priority, which is why I got the results. I did. I'm glad I got the results. I did. Because the stuff that hasn't worked out in the past, I'm like, you know. Yeah, but that wasn't my thing.

[B]

Do you tell them going into it, like, hey, you're going to be number two to my business? No, you can't really say that.

[A]

I haven't had that conversation. Yeah. Which is. But then they know people are smart. And so I feel like it's always been really exciting, the whole business thing, because I am doing cool shit. I live a cool life. It is exciting. I have a lot to talk about. And then the reality of it sets in. You're like, oh, wait, so that's what this means? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I also think people live in small worlds. Their neighborhood is the world, and that's just not how it works. Or maybe that works for you, but it's like, I don't know. I think I can. Everybody thinks they have the same wheel. I don't think so. I don't think so at all. I think I can make that thing go a lot faster than yours. And maybe I'm wrong, but I'm going to at least give it a shot. And like, I just watched a video with, like, it was Trump's, you know, day and day in the life of Trump.

[B]

Oh, yeah. It's insane.

[A]

Love him or hate him.

[B]

Yeah. It's insane.

[A]

Crazy.

[B]

It's like east coast to west coast schedule.

[A]

That guy keeps In a day. It's insane. And it made me like, man, this guy's late 70s.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

At this pace, I'm sitting here thinking, I'm tired.

[B]

Yeah. Gary V is another one. Same thing all day, sun up to sundown.

[A]

Crazy.

[B]

It's insane.

[A]

And. And you.

[B]

And.

[A]

And I realized this years ago. You look at, like, a picture of MLK Jr or Abraham Lincoln or Churchill or whoever, you know, go back in the Rolodex of people that have changed the world. They all look fucking exhausted.

[B]

Yeah, they are.

[A]

They're not sitting there all stoked. They're just tired. They're so tired because they've given every little bit of themselves to something, and they've changed the world as a result.

[B]

Well, I think you also have to be. And this is the one thing I love my wife for. There's a lot of things I love her for, but you have to be selfish. And, you know, marriage is all about being selfless. But I think she's got her things. She knows this is my thing. And there's gonna be times when this takes precedent. There's gonna be other times when whatever the thing is she wants me to do takes precedent. We're getting ready to go on a trip together. You have to be. In order for TMG to work here, in order for us to build something cool, I need a life partner that understands it's going to be late nights, it's going to be early mornings, it's going to be trips, and if they don't. And I'll never forget when we started the company, I looked at her and I'm like, look, I think we can do this. I think we can make it happen again. Two little kids. We had a mortgage, we had a dog and the whole thing. And she looked at me and she's like, no, I fully support you if we go broke, if you're gone. Because the first few years I traveled, I was gone every week, all the time. And you just have to find someone that's aligned with those things and bought into what it's going to take. I think that's so important, because if Aaron Witt's looking for someone that wants him home every night, wants to cook dinners together, and go on long walks at the park with your golden retriever, that person's gonna be very disappointed in the relationship, is what it sounds like.

[A]

I think a core mistake I've made is I haven't made them a part of it, though. It's just been my thing. It hasn't been our thing. And it's like, it's scary to make it our thing because that's. You have to be vulnerable. Yeah. And commit. Go figure. But it doesn't work. It's not. And I think people can. They, like. Like your wife, she's able to endure you gone for a long time because it's. It's your collective.

[B]

Yeah. She feels bought into it.

[A]

Yeah. She's bought into the big picture. Yeah.

[B]

That's a good. That's a good way to say it.

[A]

And that's one of, like, the critical mistakes I've made. I haven't. It's always been my thing, which is why it just has.

[B]

So is this, like a pitch if there are any women out there that want to be in the building?

[A]

No, no, no, no. There's, there's, there's. There's a woman that I'm. I'm very much focused on.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I'm. I'm trying to make your thing. There are many transgressions that I'm trying to make up for right now.

[B]

Well, I, I would. Gant and I talk about this all the time. And Thomas and I. And now Jeff and I, Tucker. Like, it's hard. Business, relationships, marriage, it's hard. Like, business and family is hard. Business and marriage is hard. Especially when it's you. When I come home from work, I do not sit down and talk about work ever. My wife doesn't know what's going on. Early in our marriage, it was like, hey, you don't ever tell me anything. What's going on in business? Why don't you talk about it? And we kind of figured out our own communication styles over the years. And it's like, no, I lived through it all day for eight or 10, 10 hours. I'm not going to come home and relive it for an hour. I'm not going to tell you all these things. You just need to know you're taken care of. I got business taken care of. Let's talk about other things. And so. But it's hard. We've been married now almost 12, 13 years. And so you have to figure out what those communication styles are, because in the early years, men and women don't communicate very well together. It's really hard.

[A]

And it's just, yeah. Wild how different men and women are very different. Anybody that says they're all the same, like, no, no.

[B]

And you can read the book Five Love Languages.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It helps for like, two weeks. And then you forget what the love languages are, and then we get busy in business so.

[A]

And life changes.

[B]

Life changes. Yeah.

[A]

Having little kids is different than having a fourth grader with basketball practice or whatever it is. Is it basketball practice?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Basketball, yeah. And then they get into the middle school, high school realm and that's a whole different can of worms. And yeah. I was not. This was not the tangent I had intended upon but I'm glad we covered it to go all the way back to where we were before I had to pee mining. I am. And this is where I don't want to put my foot in my mouth but kind of have to in a way. And you're doing a good job with this. I was disappointed with the mining industry after mine expo.

[B]

Say more.

[A]

Because I just think it's like the industry just can't get out of its way. It's like enemy number one in the grand scheme of things. It's all so. Everybody's so focused on these people out there. These people out there, these people out there. It's like don't. Don't you all see what the hell's happening here? Until you all stand up for what the heck is going on here, nothing's going to change. If you're looking to me to do it, you are misplacing your. And it's not possible for me to do it. It's like everybody. To me it was just. This is a celebration. This is the biggest stage in mining in the world and we're not going to talk about the number one problem in the industry right now. Workforce. We're not going to talk about it. It's like excuse. What? I haven't been on a single mine site where workforce hasn't come up. They're not all saying, you know what you know is really going to change the game right now. Batteries. That's gonna. That's gonna change everything. And I understand. I get it. We've gotta do it to qualify for our financing. So on and so forth. Understood. I get it. I'm not that naive. Pretty naive. Not that naive. But it's just. It's as a young person really disappointing because it's like the whole industry is just looking for somebody to come save the day. And it's like there is no one. There's no one. And we're not, we're not messing with the future of like mining company X or Z or Y. We're messing with like the future.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. This is, this is big. And it's not to be dramatic but it kind of is.

[B]

Yeah. It's. It's so you know, it's it's an insane to think how many companies at Mine Expo spent several hundred thousand to a few million bucks to tens of millions, tens of millions for the big ones. I'm not going to take any shots at OEMs because those shots always ricochet back and hit me. I'll take the shots. And on your stage. I'm not doing that.

[A]

I'll take the shots.

[B]

I don't need any emails or hate mail from anybody. But tons of companies spent well into the six figures and some of them seven figures on their layouts, their teams, they brought, their media and not one booth that I go by, not one conversation that I hear was shifted away from technology, away from batteries, away from autonomy and to towards people like none of them. And I'm sure there's some people like we had some folks from Turner staffing group there. I'm sure there's some people out in the weeds that are like, oh, we're a recruiting firm, whatever. I'm talking about solving the existential problem for mining, which is there is no awareness around mining. We're not bringing people. What I'd love to see is someone spends six, seven figures and have a real solution. And you know three or four high schools at their booth. Yeah, like three or four high schools worth of kids that want to learn about mining walking the floor. We talked about it. There's no kids under 18 there. Crazy. I saw one kid sneak his 5 year old in that I got to talk to.

[A]

I counseled somebody and said just hey, kids aren't allowed. They said kids are on. I told, sneak them in. Hey, if they, if this security guard doesn't let you in, just, just, just say like your wife died just last week and give this. Or, or go to the next, go to the next one. Go to the next security guard. Like someone's going to let you in with your little kid. And the little kid loved it.

[B]

Think of the irony, okay? The average age of the minor, depending on what data you look at, 52 to 55 years old.

[A]

Yeah, it's not a rosy picture.

[B]

I've even seen some stats that say 57 years old. The average age of the minor in the US is in the mid to late 50s. Okay. The number one event for mining on the planet doesn't allow kids younger than 18. Like think of the irony, right? And so we have these big organizations. Whether you're focused on autonomy or mineral extraction or land deals, whatever, your people are retiring. There is a brain drain happening over the next 10 years. Does anyone know who your company is? Do they know who your CEO is? Do they know why they should at the high school and college level, get excited about your company? Like, it blows my mind that we are not, as an entire industry focused on the problem. And I say this all the time, right? Old white dudes walking into high schools, giving a lecture is not going to fix it. No, it's not going to fix it.

[A]

No.

[B]

Most of these kids spend. And again, this is a data point. Anywhere from six to nine hours a day on the phone. If you're in high school or older, you're spending on average six to nine hours looking at your phone. What are these companies doing to get attention from these kids? Like, what are they doing when they have their attention? What are they doing to get them on site? What kind of career developments do they have? And so it's super alarming. But where there is threats and where there are risks, there are also opportunities. There's a ton of opportunity for kids, whether you're 16 or 25, 30, like, there's tons of opportunity for young people in our industry. We just got to be louder about it. We got to be proud. We got to make mining sexy, relatable.

[A]

But that's what's. What's frustrating to me again, as a young person. It's like I get autonomy batteries. I get all that. I get it, I get it. But it doesn't get me excited. What gets me excited is like the mining. Yeah, that's what gets me excited. Just show me what you do. And even that is hard to find. Like, go find mining media. Go find, Go find imagery of the mining industry.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It doesn't really exist.

[B]

They're not your pictures or our pictures or your pictures.

[A]

We have like the biggest, collectively, the biggest mining.

[B]

Nobody was doing it. You could not find any pictures. And I'm talking like, of how the action is happening. You cannot find any Pictures of videos 7, 8 years ago of mining. You really couldn't.

[A]

Yeah, but it's like when we're getting bullied right now, when are we going to punch the bully? Are we just going to keep hiding? Oh, oh, here's my lunch money. Here's my. That's what we're doing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We're as, as an industry. Oh. Environmental groups. Oh, here's, here's, here's our. Here's our. And, and it doesn't seem like that, but by inaction, that's what we're doing. We're just. And then we're complaining about it. We've forfeited the entire narrative. And then the narrative has been mutated in all different directions to suit all different kinds of groups. And then we're sitting here like upset about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like it's just unfair. We're being treated unfairly. It's like, I agree. We are. What are you going to do about it? What are we going to do about it? Can, can you let me on your site to at least tell your story? No. Okay then, then, then just please.

[B]

Well, when they let you on site, how long does it take to get media released?

[A]

The, the companies we work with are actually quite helpful and I, I get it. Like again, we just did a series with Rio Tinto and the Pilbara. A lot of cooks in the kitchen. I appreciate. I get it, I get it. I'm not a multinational mining company producing hundreds of millions of tons of iron ore per year. I don't if it's going to take six weeks to get approved, I will wait as long as I will do all that. But when I'm told just no. Why no, we don't do that. Okay, that's fine. You don't do that. Get it. That's, that's your, you can, you can say you don't do it then just don't complain about not finding a workforce. Just don't complain about the environmentalists. Don't complain about the negative perception mining industry. Then just don't complain about it. And then I, I, you can make your decision either way.

[B]

But. Well, a lot of these decision makers of these companies and again this is a good problem for us. We, we capitalize on this problem every day. Right. We get 18 year to date, almost 20,000 applications, you know, because of how forward thinking and transparent and out there we are with our stuff. But so many of these companies, the decision makers from really the C suite to mid level management don't understand the decisions they're making by not allowing optics into their operations. Like I get the intellectual property piece. I get there's some trade secrets but moving dirt's moving dirt. Dirt.

[A]

How many trade secrets are there moving rocks?

[B]

Moving rock. 4100. Is a. 4100 like a 797. You know, it's.

[A]

And your deposit, your deposit, like yeah, I can't go set up shop next door.

[B]

Yeah, we're not, we're not asking steal your deposit. Yeah. We're not asking to throw content out there that you know, takes any competitive advantage away. But so many folks and we hear it all the time. Well, there could be an imsha Violation. Okay, I'm gonna say this right now. We've posted thousands of images, probably hundreds of videos. We've never had Imsha say one thing about an Imsha citation.

[A]

Okay, that's pretty good.

[B]

I have had more examples of Imsha coming on our site, commending us for being vocal and showing things. But even if there were a citation, right, there's a missing fire extinguisher, there's a broken window, whatever. I will gladly take the citation, A, because we now know what to go address from a safety standpoint. But B, it also shows that we're real. We're transparent. We're showing you. I posted a picture of a haul truck that we burned down several years ago.

[A]

Yeah, that was one of your more popular posts.

[B]

That sucked. Right. But guess what? That happens. That's the industry. And there's a story behind why it happened. There's learnings behind it. Right. I think kids can understand and relate to people that are real and show what's happening. Like, there are so many folks, like I said, that are afraid of the negatives and not focused on the positives when they're showing these operations, like, there's so much positive.

[A]

I wish MSHA was, like, remotely accessible. And I get it. They've got a lot going on.

[B]

Drive over to Beckley.

[A]

Yeah, I don't know that you're going to talk to anybody, but I don't even know if they could cite somebody off a photograph. I've never even heard of it. I've never once heard it. And I don't even know if they actually could.

[B]

I don't know. I mean, we never had the chance to try to battle that. I mean, we fight a lot of citations, things that we don't think are ours or belong to somebody else or what have you. Like, I don't know, like, me seeing a Nimsha citation in a video or an image. Like, I want us putting content out that the industry is challenging. Like, I want to put something out and someone say, well, that guy's not wearing safety glasses. Like, okay, cool, let's tag the guy. Maybe next time if he gets made fun of publicly, he'll wear safety glasses. Right. I'm making up an example. But again, these big companies, who's going to dethrone some of these companies, right? If they post something that's a little bit edgy and gets younger people seeing it paying attention, like, who's going to call them out and say, oh, well, the way you're backing that truck in or the way that person is just. It blows my mind. It blows my mind that we don't have leaders of these organizations being more vocal, more transparent, putting themselves out there, putting their organizations out there. The.

[A]

Have you. You've been pretty vocal, especially with better in our backyard.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which I'm a huge fan of. Yeah.

[B]

Brian's a cool guy.

[A]

Brian's a cool guy. What they're doing, I want to blow it up a hundred times over. I see some. They'll make some posts. You're on there all the time. One of the more vocal, outspoken people.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Saying some pretty. Pretty bold stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Have you gotten much pushback about some of the stuff you've said on there? No.

[B]

I mean, not as much as I would about a haul truck being loaded incorrectly. I get a lot more pushback. When you used to come on site and load trucks, we get pushback from people like, oh, he's loading wrong. Right. I don't get hardly any pushback now when I'm talking about corporate things, lawmaking, permit reform, those sorts of things. The people that push back, honestly, are just so uneducated.

[A]

That's what I mean. Like meaningful pushback.

[B]

Yeah, they're just, they're not educated. So it's like, you know, I'll give you an example. It's like, oh, well, you. You guys are destroying the earth. I can't believe you'd want this mine. I'm not going to name any names, but there's several mines in permit process right now that people are opposed to for the sage grouse or whatever. Right. The geckos. There's a bunch of examples. I'm not going to. I'm going to get myself in trouble just saying this.

[A]

There's a. There's a. There's. Yeah, there's a grass.

[B]

Well, let's use Thackerpass. That's probably the best example right now. It's. It's close, but there's. So they pebble like there's been a bunch of them that aren't online and could be domestic production of base metals, copper, gold, silver, whatever. And these folks that are opposing it aren't quite educated enough to even have a valid opinion in my perspective. So if you're opposing mining just as a blanket statement, you haven't done enough homework to understand why Thacker Pass is important. Okay, you want electric vehicles, you want charging stations, you want your Tesla to be road trip worthy where you can stop at any spot on the trip like you can a gas station. What does that take? Well, that takes copper, that takes lithium. Right now do you want to get it from third world countries with no mining regulation, no environmental regulation, no water regulation? Like no, you want mining to be done safely, you want it to be done environmentally friendly or just benefit your economy? Yeah, I mean you can, you can go the fiscal argument like yeah, sure, just let's keep jobs here in America. That's, that's one side of it. But. And again I'm going to get myself in trouble with the Aussies. There is nowhere in the world you can mine more safely than America. There is nowhere in the world.

[A]

I don't know about that.

[B]

I know I've had some Aussies push me.

[A]

I would argue that, yeah, there is.

[B]

Nowhere in the world you can mine more environmentally sustainably than here in America.

[A]

I would also argue, I know, yeah.

[B]

I know some of the reclamation, bonding and again they have this other places but, but they definitely don't have it in the third world countries where we're buying some of our cobalt, some of our nickel, you know, even copper. We only produce 43% of our copper consumption here in America. 43%.

[A]

And then, and you look at refining.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I am super bullish on mining here in America. I'm super bullish on mine permitting reform. But I, you know the hate that I catch for, for people that are anti mining or opposed to mining or environmentalists. I love the environment, I'm all for it.

[A]

But I just at this point don't think the mining industry can be all poopy pants about people not understanding how valuable mining is because it's the mining industry's fault.

[B]

The mining industry is its own worst enemy.

[A]

And it's like until we come to terms with that, it's just going to get worse in the United States. Is it improving?

[B]

No. There are very few companies spending money to educate non mining people on why mining is important.

[A]

Yeah. Well now even worse now these big companies like A Resolution Copper, bhp, Rio Tinto come in, two of the biggest mining companies in the world. A lot of investment develop this. It takes billions and billions and billions of dollars to bring some of these operations online and to make them viable. They go invest all this money. Government just says we don't know when we're going to give you your permit. Actually that signals to then every other company, those companies and every other company that is uncertain investment. Why would we go invest billions of dollars into the United States when we can go invest elsewhere? We know we're going to be producing in five years, we're going to go invest there. So now we're, we're driving investment as well out of the United States actively. Right now the investment dollars going into South America, Australia, Africa, even Canada are way beyond what we have in the States.

[B]

Well, I mean when you look at some of the shovel ready operations that we have here in the States that could go online at any time, like Resolution, they're held up for regulatory reasons, permitting reasons. Right. Elon recently said we can build a rocket faster than we can get regulatory approval to launch a rocket. That shouldn't happen. Right. How can you build a mill, build mine plans, get all the gear assembled on site and be ready to mine faster than it takes to get all these approvals?

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

It makes no sense. And meanwhile we're spending money overseas. We're not working here in America on these shovel ready operations. You know, there we could spend all day talking about this problem. What I'm passionate about is educating. So we're starting a brand called Mind in America. There's a little bit of a plug here. We want to educate all the folks on why we should be mining here in America, why it's safe, cheaper, why it's cleaner, creating jobs, environmental sustainability, you know, all these things we believe. And you see, you see this all the time in some of these videos, these massive failures. There was one in like China somewhere, I forget exactly where. There was like a hundred people die. You see the whole. Oh, that, yeah, that coal mine. Yeah.

[A]

I don't even know what that was.

[B]

There's a coal mine. Yeah. There are several videos that go viral every single year of these places where there's, there's no Imsha, there's no water quality, there's no air quality, you know, and yet we send money over there to buy their materials, bring it over here and use it over here.

[A]

I just, I, I look at it like first and foremost, it's just, it's like national security. It's just silly. All of these things that we need to live. We're depending, friendly, unfriendly, I don't even care who they are. We're depending on others to provide that for us. That to me is silly. It doesn't make sense. But again, it's like until the industry really messages that it's not going to change. It's always funny to me how Americans are so quick to criticize some of these other countries that are very nationalistic, like a China, like Saudi Arabia. But I don't know, I look at it like, yeah, are there things that I don't necessarily agree with Perhaps. But they're at least putting their country first.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So. So how can I fault them for that? Like, how can I. How can I criticize that? Yeah. And they're. And their people. Like, have you ever been there? Oh, no, you haven't. So, one, shut the fuck up. Two, their people are very proud.

[B]

They're proud. Yeah.

[A]

Very proud.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Across the board.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I think if there were a groundswell movement in our industry.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like, if there were real voices, and I know some of these, you know, there's lobbyists, Some of these voices matter. But if there was a real grassroots groundswell of people that were proud to mine in America, you know, you used to see when you were kids growing up, and I'm sure if you look under any toy now, you still see it. The made in China sticker, the little gold sticker. Every toy is made in China.

[A]

Right.

[B]

China's proud of that.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like, they are legit proud of that. Otherwise, why spend the money to put the sticker on there?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

We should be proud to mine in America. We should. Teslas should sell more cars because they're producing copper and lithium here.

[A]

American steel. Yeah.

[B]

American steel here. Right. Like, I could name all these materials. Right. People should be proud. The problem is, people don't even know, let alone think about it. If. If they first were educated and knew where these base metals and materials are coming from and that we're importing them. If they knew that, then they might start to have an opinion, then they might care a little bit. And it's like, well, wait a second. Elon wants to build more Teslas. That's just a common theme, right. Elon wants to build more Teslas. The military wants to build more ammunition. Stockpiles are depleted. Okay, what materials do we need for that? Do we have the reserves here in America? If the answer is yes, we should fast track permitting, obviously. Not killing a bunch of sage grouse. I don't want to do that. I don't want to. I don't want to be responsible for the extinction of the sage grouse. But guess what? Some of these mines that are held up for the sage grouse, there are hunting seasons for the sage grouse on where these mines are permitted.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, you can hunt a sage grouse.

[A]

I also. I. I also feel like people are unwilling to just say, hey, maybe some of these sage grouses are not as important as all of these people over here that need the resources.

[B]

Oh, that is a hot take. You got shots coming your way like.

[A]

Or like the pebble mine. Guys, Alaska is a big place. I know it's going to be disruptive to this one fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of a part of the world that no one ever goes to. Isn't that more like there's a trade off here? I'm not going to act like there isn't a trade off. There is a clear trade off. There is an environmental impact. Are we going to, are we going to do our best to mitigate it? Yes. Are we going to reclaim? Yes. But in between those, there is an impact, but that is far less of, of a, of a cost than the benefit it provides to our society. And I like, why is that a controversial thing to say? But when have you, when has anybody said that? Well, I think everybody would say it behind closed doors. Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. It's logic. And the problem is logic falls on deaf ears to the people that just don't understand. Right. The question should be asked is, do we care more about the evolution of human civilization? Or in your case with the sage grouse argument, which sage grouse grow all over the Great Plains? It's not just on this one mine site. Do we care more about the evolution of human civilization or this gecko, this grouse, this whatever. Right. The dodo bird went extinct. It's not because we built mines and the dodo bird went extinct. Sometimes animals just go extinct. And I think your point is a valid one. Do we care more about evolving our civilization and bringing more electric vehicles online and therefore the green energy transition is actually able to be achieved? Or do we care much more about this very one specific species of bird that's going to now slow down or in some cases prohibit this green energy transition in the U.S. it's crazy to think about, but you have people that are opposed and know nothing about it. Never. Couldn't even picture, couldn't even point a sage grouse out on the picture.

[A]

Yeah, they couldn't even tell you a sage grouse was a thing. My favorite example is the same environmental groups that are against fossil fuel for power production are against dams.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Because that is like. Can you guys not see the irony here? Can you guys not see the irony?

[B]

And the weird thing is, I mean, so we're right across the street from a little co op. This guy rides his bicycle, one of the guys that owns runs it, rides his bicycle everywhere. Never owned a vehicle. I respect the heck out of that guy. Right. He's got an opinion about vehicles, electric vehicles, internal combustion, whatever. I respect it. He's Living what he preaches. If you're driving a Tesla or a Prius or any vehicle that's on the road and you oppose the thing that you're using, or better yet, if you got a cell phone with silica glass, the sand was mined somewhere. Like if you're.

[A]

The whole phone.

[B]

Was the whole phone copper, everything, lithium. Like, if you're opposing some of these things, yet you're one of these people that's entitled to use the thing you're opposing. The irony there is deafening, but the mining industry is its own worst enemy because we're not doing anything. We're not doing any grassroots groundswell to say you people are wrong, you're misinformed, or you're uneducated on where this stuff comes from and how it's made and why it's important for the advancement of human civilization. Like, the phone is needed. Electric charging stations for EVs are needed.

[A]

That's where. And this is one of the. To go back to LinkedIn. You probably have to leave at some point to go back to LinkedIn, though. That's what's frustrating to me about LinkedIn in a lot of ways is people will say stuff like this, that people just don't understand how important mining is. And everybody's like, yeah, and it doesn't make any kind of difference whatsoever.

[B]

Well, those are the people that, when you ask, can we come document your process and how you're doing it, show people. They're the ones that say no.

[A]

Yeah, and I haven't forgotten the list. You know what I mean?

[B]

They say they want change. They say they want to be loud and proud. They want to make mining sexy. They want to be advocates. We want to mine in America. Right. They would rather pay a lobbyist than to show what they're doing, why they're important, the jobs they're creating, the people's lives they're changing.

[A]

Or we donate to this school program and we donate X dollars a year and we're doing our part.

[B]

Yeah, they outsource it and yeah, I don't know.

[A]

You need to. You would really enjoy not. Okay. I did think American mining was best in class and then I went elsewhere. I just don't think it's true. I think the Australians are far better at it than we are.

[B]

Yeah, I've been corrected.

[A]

I think the Chileans are far better at it than we are. And I'm going to South Africa next year. And the South African guy I'm working with, he said, hey, I thought America was best in class. You Guys aren't, man, we do it better out here. Europe is quite amazing. I think we're like 7.5 out of 10, I would say.

[B]

Yeah. Well, here's why my comment is true to me and why I think we're the best. Because I've been, I've thrown this over the bow and I've had mineral rights. I've had people shoot this shot at me like hey, go to Australia. We'll show you how the big boys do it. Right. I've got friends that say this same thing with South America. There's some pretty awesome places down there. I'm so proud of America and what we are and the freedoms and the people and the American miner. I believe wholeheartedly in what we're doing in the future. What we're doing. And I think there is a massive shift in our industry, specifically here in the States. That's about to happen over my lifetime, ideally in my prime years of my career. I think you and I are getting very lucky here. I don't know that you would have had this opportunity to start what you did and get the traction you got in South America, in Australia. And so if what you have accomplished is true here in America and what I'm trying to accomplish and have accomplished is true here in America. Think of what we can do if we really focus the whole industry on that. That's why I think we do it best. I think of the environmental can do it best.

[A]

I think a brighter future is very possible. But I also, I say that not to be a prick, but to be realistic. Like hey, we. And we have all the tools to be best in class. We were best in class. We can be best in class. We're not best in class right now. We can do better.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think you understand that and you. I think we're saying the same thing. Where you're in an environment that allows you to do better. I mean even how mineral rights work in America, that's not how it works in most other countries in the world. The minerals under the ground, that's the government property.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not your copper. That's our copper.

[B]

And yeah, I mean, you know, we live in a very unique position here in the States where this should be a mining friendly jurisdiction. Right. Should be Nevada, Arizona, Idaho. There's ton that. Montana. I could name a ton of states. Right. Minnesota. This should be the most mining friendly place in the world with how we treat safety, how we treat the environment, water quality, air quality, so on and so Forth how we can get awesome machines in here that are tier four final, that aren't rolling coal everywhere. Like, this should be the place. This should be the poster child for mining on the planet Earth.

[A]

100% should be and can be.

[B]

And if we aren't loud and proud about it, and I know you are, I'm kind of preaching here. But if we. If Turner Mining Group and all of our affiliates and the industry at large is not loud and proud about it, and we're not showing how sexy mining is and showing the opportunities that are out there, the good, the bad and the ugly. Like, if we're not transparent, I think we're missing a massive opportunity.

[A]

I agree. I just. If you're able to. Queensland, Australia. Go see Barry at Pembroke.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Spend a day with Barry. Seriously, if you're able to get out there, that of all of the mining operations I've seen, that's the future of mining.

[B]

Barry's already got a mining contractor. So I.

[A]

All of downs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's other. There's other stuff. There's other reasons to go there, but all of downs complex. Like, that's the future of mining. I think it's. I just can't say enough good things about what the heck they're doing.

[B]

Well, commodity types are important to me too. I obviously love coal. I've got family roots in coal. My wife's family. My wife's grandfather ran Big Muskie, believe it or not, a long, long time ago. I am so super, super charged up about copper. Supercharged up. Same thing with phosphates. As population grows, we have to grow food and we have to grow sustainably phosphorus. I'm super charged up about phosphates. I think there's a ton of really cool mining that happens even at a small scale, like graphite, nickel, all these little things. Some clay, you know, some clay mines. This stuff is really cool. Big coal is awesome. Right? The Crest trucks are cool. Like, big shovels are cool. Big drag lines are cool. But you know, even here in America, there's some small stuff that is very important. Rare earth elements. Like, this stuff is important. And it doesn't happen with big drag lines, you know, and trucks. Rocks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, I. I'm gonna go to Australia someday. I've not got the invite officially.

[A]

I could set it up. I'm gonna speak for speaker for Pembroke. They'd love to have you. And it's. Yeah. Anyway, I need to pee again.

[B]

That's twice. And you're well hydrated?

[A]

Yep, I'm well hydrated. And we're gonna get on the road back to Nashville. But thanks for having us.

[B]

I'm enjoying it.

[A]

Yeah, it's always a pleasure.