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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
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Hello everybody. Welcome back. This is a Thursday episode. Usually I'm with you on Mondays, just me and me. But I haven't done a question answer in a while. So I thought I would ask ask for questions. I would answer them to break up everything Thursday related towards the end of the year. And then next week our guest episodes will be back as usual. Next year we're full bore, so don't you worry. We've got plenty of guests lined up well into 2026. And as always, thanks for listening. These questions were sent in by people on Instagram. Um, often a lot of these are questions I'm asked a lot. So that's why I chose them. Uh, I don't know if we're gonna make through, make it through this whole list. We'll see how time goes, we'll see how my energy level goes. Yesterday I was in New York City, day before that Vermont, Day before that Boston, before that Georgia. Just been a lot of running around, but let's get right into it. Q and a end of 2025. First up, what would you tell your 20 year old self about starting a business?
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I.
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Thinking about this, I don't know.
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If I would tell myself to do it.
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Any differently.
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I've learned a lot of lessons. Being in business in your 20s is quite interesting because you're still developing as a human being and you're developing as a business person. Business leader, leader in general. It's really weird. It makes for some really awkward moments, conversations, interactions, experiences. But I'm really grateful I did it in my 20s. I'm still doing it now, so still very much figuring out business today. But I'm really glad I made the mistakes I did when I did. Because in your 20s everything is not nearly as expensive as it is later in life. We've made really expensive mistakes. There are plenty of things I would definitely do differently going forward. But I don't spend a lot of time on any sort of regret. I haven't tried. I've tried to stay away from beating myself up. I haven't always succeeded at that.
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But in business the biggest hang up I see people run into is that they just don't get going. And that's the whole game is to get going and then to stay going to survive. That's it. So all these people are thinking about this, they're thinking about that, they're talking themselves up about this, that they're coming up with this plan. None of that matters. All that matters is just getting going and then once you get going, all that matters is that it's constant forward motion, one step at a time, no matter what happens, that's it. And if you're one of those people that can last 10, 20, 30 years doing it, then maybe you'll see something pretty significant. I've been in it now over eight years, which is enough time to kind of get your bearings. But I still have a long ways to go, a long ways to go. So I would tell my 20 year old self, listen bub, you're doing great. Keep it up, just get going. And as long as you do your best, everything will take care of itself from there. So it's kind of a non answer, but that's how I've always viewed it. If I went and started to regret certain decisions, things that have happened in the past, if I thought about it too much, it would drive me insane. It would really drive me insane. And I'm hoping, my bet is that if I just keep going, the mistakes I've made will be very cheap in the grand scheme of things. We've made very expensive mistakes still. That's still true today, but I think future state. I'll look back on the mistakes I've made and be like, wow, I'm very thankful for those lessons. And while they were expensive at the time, they are wildly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. All my job is right now is to keep one foot in front of the other and just keep on moving. So that's at least how I personally approach business, especially while being a young individual.
- [05:26]
The top question I'm asked is what does Bill Wit do? Our purpose is to build the dirt world's next generation. The dirt world is the companies and people building the critical infrastructure and supporting those who build our critical infrastructure that we need to live the lives that we do. Our business is much bigger than me. I run around the world building our brand. But the business itself does two things. One, we help develop the next generation through our product called billwhit Improve. It's a daily training and development platform that about 300 civil construction companies are using to not just make their people better workers, but better people. And of course we have the 2026 ARIAT dirtworld summit. The best opportunity to develop yourself and your teams as leaders. So check us out. Billwhit.com, book a meeting with us and we'll talk to you soon.
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Second question, how do you build and monetize your brand? Well.
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I started building a brand in 2017. April of 2017, I believe it was because I heard Andy Frisella talk for years about the importance of brand in the future in the modern world. He talked about all the benefits of having a personal brand. And I was applying it to my life at the time, which was I wanted to be a contractor. To be a contractor, I needed experience at great companies. And so with a brand I could get better jobs potentially and move my career along faster to then get to being a contractor faster. Now I don't know if that was solid logic, but that was my logic at the time. So I started posting online. I start building a brand under the build with brand from day one. That's how I made it. I didn't do it personally, I did it under buildwit and it started to grow. The brand then became more significant when I quit my job in early 2018 to focus on the company full time. And the benefit of the brand in the early days was exposure. So I would go out, I would take pictures, I would record videos, etc. I'd post them on the Internet. And because my brand started to grow and scale, various leaders in the industry would see it, they would think it's pretty cool. They'd call me up and they say, hey, could you do this for me? And I said, absolutely, since I didn't have a whole lot going on at the time. And I then built paid works as a result. And so the way I monetized it in the early days and over then the coming years, even as we built a team, was that I used it to promote our work, to promote the industry to then decision makers who could benefit from our work, who then paid us for our work, our photography work, video work, design work, brand work, website work, et cetera. So the way I monetized it always was by building a business. I didn't do the traditional influencer thing. I'm not that interested in it. I don't like having to talk about products I don't use, I don't have feelings towards because they're paying me money. I've never done that. A lot of people think I have this deal with Caterpillar people. Caterpillar hasn't given me a dime for anything. They don't even acknowledge that I exist. The dealers have been great. We have five dealers as investors in our company. We haven't done any sponsored deals with them though or anything like that. And so that's how I monetize the brand in the early days. And I would, as I did paid work, would then publish that paid work online, creating more paid work. So see how that Works now. It started to then grow more substantially when we raised investment money as I just talked about, we started to grow into a software business. We started to grow as well into the events space with Dirt World. And so now My brand, the BuildWit brand even, is the moat around the business. What our brand does is that it builds trust with the construction industry, with not just the decision makers, but middle management, down to field management, down to those in the field, down to those coming into the industry over the coming years. It gives us a degree of trust outsiders don't have, which then allows us to grow our software business, which is build with improve daily training and development for the field primarily and for leadership. And then our Ariat Dirt World Summit every year, our leadership conference for the dirt world. That's how we pay the bills, that's how we generate money, is through recurring revenue through our software product bill would improve. We have almost 300 civil contractors on board. And then as I'm recording this, our area Dirt World summit is next week with about 1400 industry leaders representing.
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150, 200,000 people within the construction industry, which is really, really cool. So I don't necessarily do paid work anymore. Where I go is based on what's cool and what I'm interested in and what I think our followers, our audience will be interested in as well. We go out, we capture YouTube videos, we capture photos, we publish that online. We do generate some revenue with YouTube. Over the past year, that's fluctuated anywhere between 5 and $20,000 a month, which is great because it helps pay for.
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What we do from a travel standpoint. We also will then license the photo and video assets we create on a shoot to each company if they they desire that, which then helps cover travel. And then I do a lot of speaking now as well to companies across the industry and associations, which helps pay the bills too. So that's how the money works is the primary business is software and that is the future for Build Whip. It's really exciting today the product is built with improve and boy, we're just getting going. Everything I do is to expand our brand and to build trust with the industry, which then generates more money for the primary business, which is far more valuable to the company than your more traditional brand deals. And even if I wanted to do brand deals, the market just not is not there. The biggest companies in the industry, their deals are not good compared to other industries. There's not really like a traditional influencer type market within the dirt world.
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There is a little bit to be made. But to me that's just peanuts compared to the big picture, which is working with every heavy civil company in the industry from a software standpoint, that that's how we create far more value for the industry and ourselves and our team, et cetera. But that's how we monetize things. Building the brand is a different beast.
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B
So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text, but which you do you listen to, is it, we could buy a house in Tulum.
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Get optioning those options.
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We could lose everything.
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Or let's do a little research, get your head in the trade and make the investment decision that's right for you. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart.
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A
But it's not that hard.
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It's just about doing the work every day. I've built a brand that's very well known now.
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I haven't been to a job site in years where people don't know who we are even around the world.
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Because I've just done the work every day. I'm not smart, I'm not all that capable.
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But what I do have that most people don't, where I'm strongest is consistency. I can be maddeningly consistent. So I committed to posting every day back in 2017, and I have posted every day since 2017. Now that's part of it. Just doing the work and doing it every day, that's key. But every time I've posted over the now thousands, maybe even, I mean, including posts I used to do for companies on social media as well. I mean, probably 10,000 times now.
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Every time I've done it. I've also asked, does this create value? You have to entertain, inspire, educate. I've talked a lot about that. I didn't create that. That's what Andy Frisella taught me and that's the plan I've run with since you have to create value. So every post I put out, I am creating value for the people that follow me in some way. Way. It's not about me. Where the stagehands, not the stars is a bill with value for a reason. If it was about me, I wouldn't be here right now. I would have given up a long time ago. I'm glad I've been in it now for eight plus years because I at least have somewhat of a track record. So people can be like, well, he's been consistent. It's like, yeah, you can't be this consistent without being serious and without being committed to the cause. I'm committed to the Cause so how do you build a brand? You create value for people in a unique way every day. I haven't seen another way of doing it. I don't know another way of doing it personally. That's the plan I've run. A lot of people don't like to hear it because it requires work every day. Yes. And then two, I've monetized it by building a software and events business. There's a little bit created from the media side. It's been cost neutral this year, which is great. I want to be a profit center next year. I think that'll mostly come from speaking.
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But the software business long term is by a long shot, how we create value in the industry. That's a little bit of a drawn out explanation, but that is how I build and monetize my brand. And honestly, we've only done one brand deal. That's with Ariat. We did it on the podcast last year. Their sponsorship for the podcast, which was great. Now they're the sponsor for the vlog, they're the sponsor for the summit. They've been great to us, but I only engaged with them because I've worn their boots since I worked in construction, since I was a laborer and I believe in their products. But a lot of other stuff I just haven't, I haven't been interested in. And maybe it's a dumb way of doing it, but to me it just doesn't at all get me excited. And I. The further I go, the more I've learned to trust myself. If I have a feeling about something, especially an icky feeling, stay away from it. Brand deals I try to stay away from.
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Next question. A totally different way of going here. Do you think all mines will go autonomous in the future?
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I have been. I have visited.
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A few different autonomous mines in three different commodities. 1. Iron ore. 2. Coal. 3.
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Oil sands. It's an incredible technology. Unbelievable. And instead of passing judgment without really understanding it, every operation I've been to, I've always asked the people that work with the autonomous operations what they think about it. I haven't heard anything negative and I've asked a lot of people because they're really good and they don't really eliminate workforce. The workforce needs to go elsewhere and the industry can't keep up with hiring needs as well. But it, it enables a more production efficient operation by a mile once it's actually spun up. And if it's spun up right, it needs to be designed right. But if it's designed right, it's incredible. So it lowers cost of operation, which is key to the sustainability of any mining operation. Because the, the, you know, what people don't understand is it's not just corporate greed. It's commodities are tough. When you're, when they're up, you're making a lot of money. When they're down, you can be running at an enormous deficit. So the more efficient you can be, the more sustainable an operation can be, which is good for everybody. So they don't have to be shutting down when the economy's bad and laying a bunch of people off. And then for operators, it's great because it gets people out of trucks and trucks. That's a grind. That's a grind 12 hours a day, especially nights, hauling back and forth all day every day. If the road conditions are great, great. But if they're not, it's a really long day. It's tough. And so it gets those people out of those positions and it puts them in dozers, in blades, loaders, rollers, drills, excavators, shovels, all types of other equipment, which is also, I think, a very positive thing.
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So based on what I've seen, I think autonomous haulage in mining is quite positive. That said, will it be everywhere? Which is the question? Absolutely not. I do not at all believe it will even be close to 50% of the material hauled within the world.
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In a very long time.
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It doesn't work everywhere. It doesn't work in a lot of places. It requires a huge amount of capital. It requires a very long mine life.
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It requires a lot, and it requires oftentimes a mine to be designed with ahs involved to begin with. So for the applications that it works at, great. But they've been working on it for 20 years, and it is a fraction of a percent of, I think, total material hauled in the world in the mining industry after 20 years of work. So I think, yes, it will be more prevalent. Yes, it's a great technology, but it's a tool. It will not apply everywhere. And if I was looking to get into the mining industry, if I was an operator already in the mining industry, I would be focused on how I become better at what I do, more productive, and learn how to lead and communicate more effectively, because then you will be more and more valuable. And if I was getting into the industry, I would be doing those same things. I'd be working as hard as possible, I would be spending as much time as possible to get better, and then I would be developing myself as a leader and as a communicator. Because that will set my, set me apart no matter what my position well into the future. That's the bet. I'm at least based on what I've seen, I don't know what's coming in the future. If anybody does, they're lying. They don't know either. But that based on the real world data, based on the mining operations I've seen, based on the autonomous operations I've seen and I haven't seen a ton of them, just a few, but enough. And I've talked to a lot of people that have worked at a lot of other ones. Great technology, but will not be the majority anytime in the future, if ever.
- [22:02]
C
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A
Next question. What are your bucket list places to visit?
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Get some water here.
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Bucket list places. The first one that comes to mind right away.
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Is Antarctica.
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Now what are they doing in Antarctica? Are they building giant space lasers, alien installations? Well, perhaps, perhaps I've never been there. Could be, but no, the work down there is for research, at least the known work down there. So the United States has research stations. Australia, Britain, China, Russia. A lot of countries from around the world have various research stations into Antarctica. How you get to these research stations is by plane, but it's all ice. And so in different seasons they will build and maintain runways on the ice with dozers, with excavators, with tractors. They will also move things around with tractors, with dozers, with excavators. So there's a lot of heavy equipment actually in Antarctica and I don't know all that much about it. That's about the extent of my knowledge, but it's just cool and I want to see it. So hopefully one day I will be able to get involved there. I think I will. It's just a matter of time. Another thing that comes to mind is getting involved with the US military. The equipment that they run, the stuff that they do, pretty wild dodge and if the DoD so that would be something I would love to get involved with. Future State and then just anything big anywhere I want to continue going to weird Places. So Africa is very high up on the list. Hopefully next year. Southeast Asia was great. I would love to go back. I would love to go to China again. I would love to go to Russia. I know that's very difficult as an American currently, but, boy, would that be a cool place to visit. Europe, there's still a lot of places I haven't seen there. South America, boy, I haven't seen plenty of operations. Brazil in Peru. I want to get back to Chile for Ana Fagosta and up in the Andes for copper. That is the cool thing about this world, about the dirt world, about what I do, is that there is infrastructure, there is mining everywhere. There's people and there's people everywhere. So there is what I love, everywhere. And the list does not get any shorter. It only gets longer as I see more. And even stuff we've covered already, we're just getting better and better at how we put stories together, how we put videos together. So stuff we did two years ago, it's like, ah, man, I want to go back to do it a whole lot better. It's really cool. Sure, the video's all right, but we could make it so much better. And so that's part of it as well, is just returning to some of the places I've already been, like Saudi Arabia, you know, going out to Neom. I would love to go out there. I think we could do a lot of good for the messaging for that project. But.
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The reality of all of this is the money side of things is not that hard to figure out. As I said earlier, I'm kind of a dummy. I've been able to figure it out so far. I'll continue to figure it out going forward. The money's not that hard. It's the.
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It's the politics. The politics.
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Is really tough to navigate.
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Not just geopolitics, not just cultures, but even within different companies.
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It's really hard. It's really different everywhere. So this year alone, we went to Japan, and.
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It'S totally different there compared to the US.
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In. In all different ways. You know, we went to Indonesia. Totally different. Australia was my seventh time. And even now we're running into some issues. Like the other day, someone was in a video we put together. We published the video, or we send it to them for approval, and they say, well, sorry, he's no longer at the company. And then it's like.
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Well, then what? Or we put together a video earlier this year.
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It was building something.
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A group involved in building it got involved because they have something Proprietary going on. Is it all that proprietary? I don't know. I found a lot of it on the Internet already. But, you know, legal departments, so on and so forth, they're very, very serious. Um, and so they just said, no, we don't want to show any of that. And it was like, most, most important part of the video. So that got shelved.
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Another thing just came up. The PR department of a big company just said, we don't actually want to show what's in the video. And then it's like, well, what the. The point of even going around the world to capture you. You. You sent us there and now you don't want to talk about it.
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The environmental stuff is tough. When projects don't go well, it's tough. The, again, difference in cultures is tough. The lawyers. Lawyers have spiked multiple things this year. It's very frustrating.
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It's really hard to navigate, and it is exhausting to navigate and it is maddening to navigate, but that is the game we play. So no matter the list, the bucket list of places I want to go, it will always be dictated by politics. And the only thing I can do to combat that is to become bigger and bigger, build the brand bigger and bigger so that we wield more influence. There's more of an advantage to having us.
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And it's only going in one direction. So that is a little bit on my bucket list. Places to visit. It's a very long list.
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Next question. I love the variety. These are all over the place. What is the most common struggle you see earth moving companies face?
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This one's going to come at no surprise. And it is going to be people.
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Yes, yes, yes, yes.
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Workforce.
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I don't think there's a single company not struggling with this. Some are doing better than others in their struggle, but everybody's struggling. And I think it's always a struggle.
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Or it's something that always requires effort. Not necessarily always a struggle. It doesn't have to be a struggle. I saw a company the other day advertising for effortless recruiting for the trades. And I thought, I see what you're doing here. It's not your fault for using that message. But I don't know a single great company that has effortless recruiting and people development. It just doesn't exist because again, those, those two things, they're opposites. They don't, they don't work together. That's not how the world works.
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The construction industry has operated on a set of principles when it comes to people for many decades. So the leadership within the industry has used this set of operating guidelines that have been laid out to them by the previous generation and the previous generation that are really built upon just getting the damn job done, working as many hours as necessary, working whenever the conditions are okay, which is potentially nights, weekends, in the cold, et cetera. It's just get the damn job done. Which I love. That's why I fell in love partially with the construction industry, was because everybody was so fixated on getting the damn job done. However, the world.
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The world has become further and further from reality as we've gotten more and more comfortable and globalized, which again, has only really happened over the past few decades. It's still a pretty new thing. So while each generation will complain about the previous generation, the amount of change that's happened within this change in generation has been so much greater than ever before, largely because of globalization. It's amazing how much globalization has changed the world and technology within just the past 20, 30 years. And that has created this disconnect with reality, but which has created this desire for a different kind of work out of most people. It's also put people in suburbia, it's taken people from farms, it's put them in cities, like how I grew up away from work. So you get that disconnect. The disconnect that society is seeing from reality is not necessarily their fault. It's a symptom of the world in which we now operate. That said, we still need to build things. We still live in the same world. We still live in the real world. We still need to abide by these common principles. And so there's this dramatic disconnect between the construction industry, which is still rooted in this very tangible reality, and then society. We can sit around and bitch about it all day. And a lot of people do that. That's a lot of association meetings after hours. That's a lot of conversations that I try not to be a part of anymore. It's. That's. That's honestly most of the conversation right now, I would say, just complaining about how people don't want to work or how everybody's going to college or how it's just not like it used to be. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.
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But that doesn't create any kind of change. And.
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Until companies.
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Acknowledge that.
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Their way of doing business might be outdated and antiquated and their way of approaching people and developing people might be outdated and antiquated, nothing's going to get better.
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Every company will say people are number one.
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I very rarely see it that way. Again, I'M not blaming anybody. It's not their fault. It's the system in which they've built a company within.
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People are very important, but they have not been treated as number one. People have not been developed historically within the construction industry we've not developed leaders in an intentional way and right now we're suffering for it. So I think the workforce woes we're facing.
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This has been very long winded. Are a symptom of the changing world which is outside of our control. It is what it is. That cat is out of the bag and a symptom.
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Of some of the things we can control, like how we train people, how we develop people, how we communicate with people, how we care for people, how we look after people off the job site when it comes to their health, their finances, their family.
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And that is the very fertile ground. I see the most successful companies, those that are not struggling with workforce tending to. They are pouring themselves into what they can control, which is they can tell their story, they can communicate more effectively, they can get out to job sites, more leadership can. They can challenge the status quo and understand what ideas no longer serve them. Throw them out the window and get new ideas to serve them better.
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They can chase continuous improvement in the form of technology, equipment, process. It's really simple stuff. But not many contractors are doing it. I'm focused on those that are and it's really exciting to see those that are. But we need everybody doing it. A rising tide lifts all ships. Everybody is only as good as the overall market. And I think instead of complaining, the construction industry.
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Can overcome this challenge. The industry has overcome far bigger challenges in the past and not that they can, but they have to overcome this challenge or else there's no future. There's no United States of America. There's no future for anybody's children if we don't figure out infrastructure and natural resources. So I think workforce is a symptom of how the world has changed and the outdated operating system that construction companies are on currently on average. And it will not change until each company acknowledges the world's changed. That's okay, that's not a bad thing. We will change with it and we will create an enormous opportunity out of this present day challenge.
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People. That is where everybody will win or lose. Future state doesn't matter how long balance, how big balance sheets are, how long portfolios are, how many years companies have been in business. This will be the great equalizer and I am here for it because it is in the industry's best interest. It's in the nation's best interest. It's in the future generations best interest.
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Next question.
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What is the first thing you do every day and how does it make you more successful?
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This one's pretty straightforward. Again, I'm very consistent. I have been developing a routine and what I do day to day since college, since I was 18 years old. So I've been building the habits I have now for 12 years. It's a brick by brick process. It's not something you do overnight at all. You just got to change one little thing at a time.
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But when I wake up.
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I get out of bed.
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When the alarm goes off and the alarm goes off pretty early this morning it was about 4:20 blaze up. I don't blaze up about 4:20. When the alarm goes off I get up.
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That's step one. Sounds pretty straightforward. A lot of people can't do that. I wake up early when the alarm goes off, I get up. Do I want to get up? No. I very rarely want to get up. But I know it's in my best interest when I get up. Then I have some water and then I go work out.
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Non negotiable every morning unless I have to get up at like maybe two when it's really early I'll prioritize, sleep over, exercise and I'll exercise later in the day. But out of 365 days a year that might be five. So the other 360 I'm doing some sort of exercise right away.
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After I exercise, I have.
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Some protein, I make my bed, I get ready for the day, I do my social media posts every day, first thing and then I'll eat a good healthy breakfast. That sets the rest of my day up for all sorts of success.
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Later in the day. Typically in the evenings. I also read the Bible every day. I read 10 pages of a book every day. I write one page in my notebook about what happened, how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking about, etc. Every day. I practice language every day. And then I practice or I do a video in build with improve to learn something about the industry, communication, etc. So those are my day to day habits. They've served me very well because no matter how rough the seas are, no matter where I'm at in life, it just keeps me headed in that positive direction. Constant forward motion, stacking win by win by win. And I like exercising first thing in the morning because it gets any angst out, it chills me out. I don't have to think about it. The rest of the day.
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And it's a huge win. It's a huge win. It does give me a much greater sense of confidence to know that while I'm out, you know, 7:00am with, with a crew, I've already gotten after it in the morning, I've already had a great breakfast, whatever it is, and I've already made my bed. I'm not as good when I travel about making my bed, but I do it every morning when I'm at home.
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And that is.
- [41:17]
It's hard to beat. You can't beat it. So that's what I do.
- [41:22]
I can't imagine how anybody is truly successful or satisfied in life if they are not using their bodies in some capacity every day and using their minds in some capacity every day. And most people are not using either, which is a big problem. So I control the controllables. I move my body, I use my mind every day. And it served me very well. I'm going to continue doing it. I am a big believer in doing work every single day.
- [42:06]
B
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- [42:36]
A
Next up.
- [42:38]
What'S been the scariest moment of your career?
- [42:44]
Well.
- [42:47]
To go back to the first question, the benefit of starting a business.
- [42:55]
Or going all in in your career early is that.
- [43:01]
You'Re kind of dumb. You're really dumb. You just don't know any better.
- [43:10]
And I think that's made it a lot less scary.
- [43:14]
The moments that come to mind though are when I've nearly run the company out of money multiple times.
- [43:23]
That's not been fun.
- [43:27]
Because it's way bigger than you. It's not you, it's not your reputation. It's other people in their livelihood that are counting on you. And that sucks.
- [43:43]
For me. It's been very anxiety inducing. It's brought about a lot of shame, like how negative self talk. I'll beat myself up about it. It's just never been all that productive of a place. I wouldn't wish it upon anybody. It sucks, man. And it's hard to focus on anything else in life when you're in that place because it's Just this storm cloud that's following you around everywhere, and it's really scary. But this year, I've talked about it a little bit. This year's been really good because.
- [44:24]
I've let go a lot more. I've realized.
- [44:29]
That it's not about me.
- [44:32]
That I will get what I deserve, and that I don't control outcomes. If I just do my best, if I do what I should be doing, and I know if I am doing what I should be doing or not, I know, you know.
- [44:49]
Things will take care of themselves.
- [44:52]
Things have always take care of themselves. And.
- [44:58]
To.
- [45:00]
Submit myself to the process.
- [45:04]
Has been very freeing and has brought me a huge degree of peace. So while this year has still been very up and down, very up and down, I haven't had nearly the fear or anxiety I probably should have had. And honestly, I've almost felt a little guilty about it. I'm like, should I be more afraid right now? Should I be more anxious? But that doesn't help me. That doesn't help anybody. So by submitting to the process, by just doing my best and then saying, listen, whatever happens past my best, out of my control.
- [45:46]
It'S been a great approach for me personally. So I would say scariest stuff is definitely financially related.
- [45:54]
But that's not. I. You know, I don't talk about it a lot, too, because it's like, every business owner's been there. That's just table stakes. That's just like. That's just what it takes to be in the room. That's just what it takes to be in the game. And there's a lot of people in business that talk about how hard it is or this and that. It's like, I'm all for it, because there's all sorts of bullshit in business. Oh, we're amazing. We won this trophy, so on and so forth. I've talked about it on this podcast a lot.
- [46:27]
But then there's also a group of people that's out there talking about how hard business is, and it's like, yes, it's supposed to be hard. That's the game, brother. And if you don't like it, you don't have to play it. And a lot of people playing it shouldn't be playing it. You can create a much better lifestyle outside of it. I'm telling you, you can. For a lot of people, I, for whatever reason, am wired to play this game, and it's fucked up. That's the one I play, though. And so I try to find that balance between being real and talking about the trials of it all, but not coming off like I'm complaining, because I'm never complaining. I am. No matter what the days look like, no matter what.
- [47:17]
What's happening. I am so grateful to be here. I am so grateful to be here along with our team. I am so grateful to employ people, to develop people, to offer people the opportunity to go change the world in their lane. It's really damn cool. So, sure, business scary, but that's how it should be and I wouldn't want it any other way.
- [47:44]
Next question.
- [47:47]
This is a little bit related to autonomous, but I'll cover it. Once again, are you seeing AI take jobs in the construction industry? Will AI take jobs in construction? Yes, I.
- [48:02]
Yes. I think it would be foolish to say it's not going to change anything.
- [48:09]
But again.
- [48:11]
I don't control AI. I have no control over where AI goes. I have no control over how the construction industry applies it. None of that.
- [48:27]
All I have control over is the value I am creating. And right now, I am focused on value more so than ever. And I am focused on the stuff that. That I can't do. I'm not focused on building my ability to process giant volumes of data. I am. I am crafting my ability to speak.
- [48:54]
I am doubling down on my ability to create a meaningful photograph, to tell a story, to write, to critically think, to debate somebody that doesn't believe in what I believe.
- [49:12]
To have a conversation, to understand how someone believes what they believe, how to ask questions.
- [49:20]
How to ask.
- [49:22]
That's all the stuff I'm focused on.
- [49:26]
And again, you know, maybe speaking and art and creativity and humanity goes out the window in the future, but I am very comfortable in making that bet. So will it disrupt some things? Absolutely. Would I be worrying about that anywhere? No, it's out of your control. What I would be worrying about, what I am worrying about is how do I create maximum value for the company I work for? The company I work for is build with. But how do you create the maximum value for your company? You will never lose. Even if the company that you're at does not acknowledge your value, you will then take those skills and apply it to somewhere that does. In the future, I promise you, maximize value for the company that I work for and those that I serve, our customers, etc.
- [50:20]
And then build my human skills in communication, leadership. I just said that is where every construction company is struggling. So I'm not going to worry about some of the other things. I am going to go listen to podcasts that I find enticing. I'm going to create time to think. I'm going to write, I'm going to speak to people, I'm going to read some leadership books. I'm going to build my human skill set that will then only become more and more valuable like writing and communication.
- [51:02]
It's more valuable than ever because everybody's using AI to write and think. It's amazing, it's spectacular. I am thrilled about it because I've spent all these years on this skill that, that's now only more valuable as time goes on. How good is that? Thank God that I've spent all the time I have on it. I'm really thankful I have these skills now and I'm only going harder on these skills. I only wanna be better at speaking, at communicating, at listening, at asking questions.
- [51:40]
And that's what I'm doing. So that's how I would approach AI in the construction industry.
- [51:49]
To wrap up here, the final question.
- [51:56]
What is your five year plan?
- [52:00]
Well.
- [52:06]
I live in two worlds.
- [52:10]
I live in.
- [52:14]
This big picture world.
- [52:17]
This world that does not exist yet that is really damn exciting and that I know will one day be. But it's big picture and living in this world is very frustrating to me because a lot of people, they just can't see what they don't see. They can't think big picture, they don't think big enough, they don't think big at all.
- [52:42]
I.
- [52:45]
Think alongside, you know, only with the help of our team, our customers, those building the world, the dirt world.
- [52:56]
I think we can change the world. And I am to the place now where it's either I am going to change the world for the better and to set up the future generations better than my generation, to set up our country better than it is now or I will die trying. That's it. It's pretty, it's, it's binary. There's, there's only two outcomes here.
- [53:24]
And that's the big picture world I live in. Is that possible? In five years? Some of it will be. I think we'll be in a totally different financial place and influential place as a, as a business in five years. Because the way software works, because the effort we've put in, the foundation we've laid, I think we're going to grow the value of our company and the ability for us to reach people substantially. Now we have a lot of influence today. We, our brand is very recognizable. But.
- [54:01]
To change things you have to convince or challenge. We're not going to convince the overall industry to change we're going to have to challenge. Now, part of that is through trust and influence, but the other part of that is through being a very big business that impacts a lot of people directly, that creates a lot of money that you can then reinvest in other things that don't necessarily skill for the greater good. That's the kind of stuff I think we can do future state. So that we can in some ways say to the industry, listen, here's where we're going. Here's where the industry has to go. And we're not saying that it has to go there because we're smarter. We're just saying it because we're the beneficiary of being in the middle of everybody. And this is clearly from our perspective, we, which is unique, where we've got to go. So let's go there. It's in everybody's best interest to go there. We'll be better for it. We'll build better, we'll make more money, we'll have a better workforce, a happier workforce, we'll have better infrastructure. We'll be stronger as a country, as a future generation if we go there.
- [55:16]
But there's a lot of people that are resisting. And it's gonna get to the point where it's gonna be.
- [55:25]
I'm not suggesting anymore. I'm saying this is where we're going. I wanna help you get there. But if you don't wanna get there.
- [55:35]
Sorry.
- [55:39]
So that's the big picture.
- [55:42]
Now. The other world I live in is the today.
- [55:48]
Is the Wednesday.
- [55:50]
Is the maybe, tomorrow is the maybe next week. But it's not a whole lot more than that.
- [56:02]
The future will not happen if we don't tend to the fundamentals of the business. If I don't do my job, if I don't create the value necessary today, if I don't care for our team, if I don't care for our customers, if I don't ensure we have the best product possible, if I don't ensure that we can pay everybody. Now, I'm not the only one playing that role. I gave the CEO role to Randy for a reason, because he's better at most of that than I am. And then we've got Dan, we've got Kara, we've got Jason. From an executive standpoint, we've got a whole team of leaders beneath them. But I have to play my part in that today. So the today matters. We have to create a sustainable business. This is what Bob Chapman speaks a lot about. Everybody Matters. A great book. If you haven't read it. To care for people, you have to create a great business model. And so my job today, while yes, I do spend a lot of time in the future and I'm excited about that, I have to spend a majority of my time in the today building a great business and great business model because that is what will enable our ability to create the future.
- [57:21]
So I hope that makes sense because I've had to.
- [57:27]
I've learned that distinction through some of the mistakes I've made that I spoke about early in this podcast and I'm grateful for that distinction now and I'm grateful for serving in both of those positions because they're both really exciting. I love the day to day of business. It is the most fun, most fucked up game possible. And I love thinking big because why not? Why not?
- [57:52]
Because when you think big, when you think these crazy things could happen, funny enough, they usually do happen. And I think they will for us.
- [58:04]
That's a little bit about five Year Plan World Domination. Become a great software business. Serving the frontline, the field, the craft. Every day by making them better, by improving them. Which is why our product is called Built Improve. Go figure.
- [58:26]
So that is our Q and A episode. If you have further questions, if you want to hear anything else, feel free to email me anytime. Aaron aaronildwit.com check it out. By the time this episode is going live, our 2026 Ariat Dirt World Summit registration will be up. We are going to sell the event out well before the event for next year. If you are interested in developing yourself and your team as leaders, well beyond any other event you've attended within the industry, check it out, buy your tickets, highly recommend it. And then also from a training and development standpoint, if you need a better way to communicate with your team, to elevate your team's leadership to give people new to the construction industry, new to your business, a means to develop themselves faster as contributing members of your team. Build, Improve is the product for you. Look us up, give us a shout. We're happy to run you through it and see what you think. Thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one. Stay Dirty.