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Welcome back Monday Dirt Talk podcast. I've titled this one the dog versus the hydrant. This is Bill Wit update number 15. If you've been listening this far, I'm sorry to hear that. Good for you. I hope you're enjoying these. For those that haven't listened, these are brief episodes every Monday talking about the company BuildWit. Everybody always asks me what does build with do? Which is a great question because I've done a terrible job explaining that. It's usually just they see you see me running around the world with Jack and tj, typically checking out construction operations, mining operations, which is a lot of fun. That is a lot of what I do. However, there is a company back home with I think now maybe 50 full time people. Hey, we are focused primarily on software. We sold the marketing company in January to focus on training and development software, which is our software product called Build it improve. Have about 250 civil construction companies in the United States on that platform. We are working desperately to improve it. No pun intended. And then we have our annual Ariat Dirt World Summit. That'll be November 5th through the 7th in Dallas, Texas. The third year we are doing it all focused on leadership for the dirt world. The dirt world is not just dirt. It's concrete, it's pipe, it's any kind of critical infrastructure, natural resources, power lines, landfills, mining, aggregate, all kinds of fun stuff. It's those that keep the world moving and those that support those keeping the world moving, like other technology providers or equipment dealers, OEMs, Etc. We'll have about 1500 industry leaders attend our third year. It's quickly becoming, become, I believe the top leadership conference in the industry. And we are not resting on our laurels. We're here to make it better and better. So that is your profile of the business. Originally it was marketing. Like I said, we don't do that anymore. So primarily just two buckets. The bigger of the buckets is the software company and we are growing that as time goes on. That's where we're putting a majority of our energy. And then we have the event side and then we have the brand side and that's me. But there's a lot going on back at the business. So you see all the fun stuff out the field, which is great. That's what we do. Spend a lot of my time. But the business is, is what makes the whole thing go. It's, it's really important. That's why I started this podcast series, weekly series. It's a newsletter as well. Email newsletter Just explaining what the heck's going on behind the scenes. Good stuff, bad stuff, average stuff this week. It's not the typical list. It's not, you know, my typical 5, 6 topics highlights as far as what the heck happened over the past week. It's instead somewhat of a general topic. And like I said, I titled this one the Dog versus the Hydrant. And now that I've been in business for almost a decade, I started in the construction industry in 2013, which is hard to believe. Been around a while now. Started when I was 18, which is sometimes it's. It's the youngest you can start in the construction industry legally. But I know a lot of people have been in the industry for longer than that. Good for you. That's great. I wish I had been, but I was not in that position. My dad was a lawyer, so didn't grow up on construction sites. First time I could go on a site was when I legally could at 18 years old. So started in the construction industry. 2013, started in business. I graduated college engineering school in 2017. And then I started build with somewhat unexpectedly in 2018. I did expect to work for other businesses for quite a few years. Post graduation, I went to work in construction right after school in road building in Texas. Then the software company, great software company HCSS found me. So I went to work for them for a few months and then said, you know what, I just want to go tell stories on my own. And so that was February 2018. It's 2025 right now, so I'm rounding up. I'm saying almost a decade. But I've been in business long enough to recognize that most, most business communication is complete dog shit. I just don't have a better word, a term for it. It's dog shit. It's horrible. It's just amazing to me watching all of these leaders say all this stuff without saying anything. They don't say anything. It's just crazy. So when somebody that is a great communicator comes along, it's like a breath of fresh air, boy. They're just talking like a normal person. It's something in business. People go into business and they just forget their humans in a way. They start to communicate in like this weird, weird speak. It's like, why are you, why are you talking like that? If, if, if they read aloud some of the stuff they write on LinkedIn or in emails or in these press releases, it's like, what's, what's wrong with you? You just look at them like, who is It. Does somebody have a gun in your head right now? Like, are you okay? Are you? Are you? Are you? What's going on? What's going on? And I've spent a lot of my time in business fighting against that and trying to develop a voice, which I believe I have and I am working on to this day. So a lot of business communication, complete dog AI is making this way worse. You go on LinkedIn and almost every post now is written by AI. And if you're writing your post with AI, it's pretty obvious. So just so you know, you're not getting away with anything because AI makes what you would write even worse. In my opinion, it just adds more and more is not a good thing when it comes to communication. A lot of times, as I've learned, I've tried a lot of the more thing doesn't work out always. And I say business communication is, is terrible because it's, it's all about how great everybody is. You know, if they're talking safety, oh, we're, we're always safe. We're just so safe. We're, we're, we're always 100% of the time safe. Look at our new fancy award. We won this, we won this award because we're so great. And here it is. I'm really smart and this is why I'm smart. Here's some great novel idea. I'm going to use AI to write it for me to demonstrate I'm not all that smart, but I'm smart. Here's how it is. Great. We have the best culture ever. We are the best company, we've got the best people ever. There's 8 billion people in this world, but we've got the 50 best on this planet somehow, because we're just that good. So it's all about, it's all about how good everybody is. Everything's positive. It's like, look at me, look at me. Look at us. We're great. We're so good. We're so good. And this brings me to the title of what I originally wrote and the title of this podcast, which is a phrase I really have come to enjoy. That is some days you're the dog, others you're the hydrant. If you're looking for another industry event that is a snooze fest, this is definitely not for you. But if you're a leader looking to elevate yourself, your team, looking for like minded individuals that are hungry, then look no further than the ariat DirtWorld Summit November 5th through the 7th. In Dallas, Texas in our third year, we'll have about 1500 hungry industry leaders from about 500 companies looking to learn, grow, teach. It's going to be fantastic. We also have a world class lineup. We've got Jesse Cole from the Savannah Bananas, James Clear Atomic Habits, Kim Scott, Radical Candor, Mark Miller, Chick Fil a leadership, Tim Grover who is Michael Jordan's trainer. You will not hear from a lineup like this anywhere else. So check out details now. Dirtworld.com you can use code AARON10 for 10% off any registrations and we'll see you November 5th through the 7th in Dallas, Texas. And what this means really is it's pretty self explanatory, but what it means is some days you win, some days you lose. And I've, I've found in business that there's a lot more losing days than winning days. And yet everybody's always talking about the winning. And so it makes somebody like me and especially younger business owners, younger people in business, younger leaders, younger anybody looking to just get ahead in their career. Hungry people, they're looking around, they're like, am I the only one screwing everything up? Am I the only one not getting all of the awards? I've never gotten an award. I've never gotten an award. Am I the only one? Are we the only business that's made hiring mistakes? Are we the only business that's struggled to make payroll? Are we the only business that's stepped on landmine after landmine slogging in this tar pit that's seemingly endless for years? We're the only ones. What? Really? So it makes you feel a little crazy. I bring this up now because the, the last week was definitely a, a hydrant week. We were, we were the hydrant on the busiest street corner in town. The, the most dog walking traffic in the whole city. That street corner, that hydrant, that was us just getting pissed on. Left or right, that was us. That was us. And you know, without getting too far into the weeds, we have problems like any other business. While most people don't talk about it, we have our problems like, like everybody else. And we thought we were getting to the root of them. But last week we really got to the root of them. We put them all on the table and said, listen, until we acknowledge this reality, reality is reality. It doesn't matter what we think, what we feel, reality is reality. So until we acknowledge that, until we acknowledge the reality of the situation, call our baby ugly for lack of better term, we can't get better. We can't fix this. So let's put it all on the table. And we put it all on the table. And while, you know, previously, or at least I would have thought that would have given me additional angst, it actually, for whatever reason, maybe I've been doing this long enough now, or maybe it's just because it's reality. It brought me a pretty significant sense of peace and understanding now that, you know, we didn't solve everything, but we've at least said, well, here it is, it's on the table. We know what we're dealing with now, which means then we can deal with it. Which is why I think that sense of peace was, was, was upon me and upon others. And I think it was also because we have such a great team to attack it. You know, these aren't just my problems. I'm not. I'm not putting all of these problems on my shoulders anymore. I did that for a long time. It was very unproductive. It's very unrealistic. I don't do that anymore. I'm going to do my best to tackle these challenges, and I've got people alongside me on other side. They're gonna do their best, too. And if we all do our part, we'll figure this out. We've figured out a bunch of stuff up until now. We didn't come this far to just come this far. We're gonna figure this out, but it's not until you acknowledge that reality that you can get to that solution, whatever it is. So instead of again, getting on this podcast and talking about the good stuff we're doing, we're doing a lot of good stuff. A lot of stuff. Great stuff happened last week. I wanted to at least say, hey, you know, some days you're the dog, other days you're the hydrant. We. I was certainly the hydrant last week, and I would say that's a majority of the weeks is you're the hydrant. But that's the game of business. It's a twisted game. It is a twisted game, but that is the game. And it makes those weeks in which you're the dog so much sweeter. So if you are another hydrant out there, maybe I'm the only one. According to LinkedIn, I am the only hydrant in town. However, if there's other hydrants out there, if you're getting pissed on left or right too, just know that you're not the only one. I don't have wisdom for you. I don't have solutions for you. I don't have a breathing exercise for you. I've got nothing for you other than, hey, I'm right there, too. I understand. You're not the only one. This is going on behind the scenes at every company, every team, every country, every organization, everywhere. Even if they hide it, this is reality. This is how the game works. And if you are the hydrant, a lot of weeks, it's probably an indicator that you're on the right path. I think we're on the right path. Even though a lot of weeks, it doesn't feel like it. I know we are. I'm sure you are, too. So what's important is just keeping on no matter how many times you get pissed on. So that's this week, the dog versus the hydrant. Buildwit update 15. If you have questions, comments about anything, please send them to me. Aaron A A r o n at buildwit b-I l--W-I-T dash.com Would love to hear from you. I love hearing from you. As always, thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one. Stay dirty, everybody.