The Secret Formula For Winning (Building BuildWitt 64) DT 466

Summary

Dirt Talk Podcast Episode #64: The Secret Formula For Winning

Date: August 3, 2026
Host: Aaron Witt (A), BuildWitt
Co-Host: Adam (B)
Episode Theme: Unpacking the “secret formula” for winning in life and business, from the host’s personal upbringing to lessons from BuildWitt’s internal challenges.

---

Episode Overview

In this candid episode, Aaron Witt and new co-host Adam reflect on the real “secret formula” for success—both personally and organizationally. Using stories from Aaron’s childhood among high-achieving families, the hosts debunk myths of shortcuts to success and discuss recent hurdles faced by BuildWitt. The conversation explores habits, company culture, goal-setting, and the power of disciplined effort, mixing humor and hard-earned wisdom.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Growing Up Around Builders: Lessons from Role Models

• Aaron’s Early Environment: Aaron shares his experiences in a privileged educational setting, surrounded by self-made, hard-working parents—many of whom built significant businesses from the ground up ([03:26–05:54]).

• Habits Over Wealth: Although surrounded by wealth, it was their routines and character (“all these guys are getting up before 7 o’clock in the morning”; [06:51]) that left a lasting impression.

  “You didn’t see the work that they put in. You just got to see the life that they lived. And to a kid it’s just normal.” —Aaron [04:48]

• Success Isn’t a Cheat Code: Aaron contrasts value-creators (builders) with those who climb without making a tangible impact, emphasizing his disdain for shortcut or “parasitic” paths ([05:32–05:54]).

2. The Secret Formula: There Is No Secret

• Effort In, Results Out: The fundamental takeaway is clear: output is directly proportional to input. The more you want, the more you must work ([08:01]).

  “What you put in is what you get out. So the more you want out, the more you have to put in.” —Aaron [08:01]

• Modern Misconceptions: They discuss how social media and viral culture have made younger generations believe success is instant and easy. Adam highlights how his son idolizes YouTubers, missing the behind-the-scenes grind ([08:50–09:08]).

• No Shortcuts: Even figures like Steve Jobs or Steve Irwin, often idolized for their passion or genius, achieved success through relentless work ([09:55–10:33]).

  “The secret is there is no secret. I just…maybe there is a secret somewhere. I just haven’t seen it.” —Aaron [09:41]

3. Applying Lessons to BuildWitt: Facing & Overcoming Challenges

• The Sales Struggle: Aaron transitions to BuildWitt’s recent sales troubles, explaining how admitting shortcomings and embracing hard work led to a recovery ([10:33–12:58]).

• Hard AND Smart: Effort alone isn’t enough—constant evaluation and willingness to change direction are critical ([11:31]).

  “You can work all day. If your plan sucks, it doesn’t matter. It’s only going to do so much for you.” —Aaron [11:42]

• Company-Wide Buy-In: Emphasizes collective effort and leadership’s proactive response, resulting in the best month yet in June—but with the reminder that “we were coming from behind” ([12:58–13:54]).

4. Sustaining Effort & Measurement: Culture and Operations

• Continuous Momentum: An up-month now doesn’t ensure future success—continuous work is needed as business cycles change ([13:54–14:06]).

• Structured Accountability: Adam notes BuildWitt’s unusually clear goal-setting and feedback culture as a differentiator, enabling employees to know where they stand and how to improve ([14:18–15:52]).

  “Usually it’s like you just go to work and you leave work…Then it’s one to three years down the line, your boss is like, you suck. You’re fired.” —Adam [14:43]

• Transparent Performance Conversations: Aaron admits prior mistakes where lack of communication led to poor outcomes, now replaced by clearer guidelines ([15:06–16:10]).

5. The Power of Routines & Reducing Friction

• Decision-Making & Energy Conservation: Drawing parallels from the Blue Angels, Aaron explains how removing small daily decisions preserves mental energy for important work ([16:49–17:34]).

• Practical Routines: Daily disciplines—like setting clothes out before bed, meal prepping, and reading ten pages a day—are cited as ways to automate success ([17:35–19:46]).

  “If you can remove friction, it gives you more for other things.” —Aaron [19:39]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Building vs Consuming:

  “Most of the time you just…act as a parasite on society and go into finance or something like that.” —Aaron [05:32]

• On The Role of Structure:

  “People want to know how they’re doing…If you perform better, if you create more value, you get more money.” —Aaron [15:44–15:52]

• On Friction and Decision Fatigue:

  “If you’re making decisions, it’s friction. If you can remove friction, it gives you more for other things.” —Aaron [19:39]

• Simple Summary of the Formula:

  “More work you put in, the more work you get out. You have to work smart. But the foundation is effort. If you’re not putting in the effort, don’t expect the reward.” —Aaron [19:49]

---

Important Timestamps

• [03:26–05:54]: Aaron describes his early influences and the difference between value-creators and “parasites.”
• [08:01–08:50]: “The more you want out, the more you need to put in.” Discussion on proportionality of effort.
• [09:41]: “The secret is there is no secret.” Debunking quick-fix myths.
• [11:42]: “If your plan sucks…it’s only going to do so much for you.” On evaluating vs. brute-forcing effort.
• [12:58–13:54]: BuildWitt’s breakthrough month—and the ongoing need for effort.
• [16:49–17:34]: The Blue Angels, decision-making, and reducing daily friction.
• [19:39]: The economics of friction and efficiency in daily routines.

---

Conclusion

This episode strips away the hype around “secret formulas” for success, offering listeners a reality check anchored by personal stories, practical business strategies, and actionable advice. Aaron and Adam’s chemistry is engaging and honest, making it a valuable listen for anyone serious about long-term achievement—without illusions or shortcuts.

---

For questions or feedback, listeners are invited to reach out through Dirt Talk’s website, Spotify, Instagram, or YouTube.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

So this is the building bill wit episode 64 titled the Secret Formula for Winning.

[A]

All right, I'm excited to learn what that formula is.

[B]

I'm joined by my new co host here, Adam. This is our second time doing, doing this together.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Trying to provide a little bit more texture for the Monday episodes.

[A]

Yeah. My novice questions will come in.

[B]

That's okay. No, that's. It's good. I think it's. It's great. And I, I actually love when new people come into the business because one, you bring in a skill set that we don't have because that's why you're here. But then two, you don't know anything about the industry and we're able to teach you.

[A]

You're able to mold me. Yeah, Yeah, I like it.

[B]

It's. It's funny, the, the thing that people say first and foremost is always, wow, I didn't know there was this much construction around.

[A]

Really. No, it's funny because now that I drive around, I notice it like it was something that was never even on my radar. I'm like, oh, I know they're building the stadium, but like, other than that, I never paid much attention to it. But now I'm noticing it all over the place.

[B]

It's. I hear it from everybody that's not in the industry that starts here.

[A]

It's crazy.

[B]

It's funny.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This was a little longer of a newsletter. It was more story driven rather than just reporting. I'm trying to be a little bit better on telling stories.

[A]

You're great at telling stories.

[B]

I'm working on it. This story this week begins with me in the admissions office as fighting for my life, trying to identify how many cents a half dollar was. And it was not because I was in the admissions office trying to get into Harvard or admissions. Where were you at Stanford? I was at Phoenix Country Day School. I was trying to get into kindergarten, which is also known as PCs. So I was first born. My dad, he was in his 40s when he had me little older in life, he spent before I was born a few decades, as he'd say, a baby lawyer, getting the kicked out of him for lack of better term. And so by the time he had kids, me, my brother, and then eventually my sister, he had greater means. He had navigated the lawyer gauntlet. The misery of decades of working your way up the legal ladder.

[A]

More established at that point.

[B]

Yeah. And so you start to make a little bit more money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so step one, they moved to Scotland, Scottsdale, from Phoenix, because that's what you do? Yeah, of course, why not? And then step two was to get first me into the best private school in this, in the town.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Which was Phoenix Country Day School.

[A]

Okay. And you're a. This is going into kindergarten.

[B]

This is going into kindergarten. Yep, yep, Yep. So yeah, five, six years old. And at this point, this was 2000-2000-2000-2001. Okay. If you go to PCs now, it's a little different. It's more of a status symbol. Like even between me and my sister's grade, it changed quite a bit.

[A]

Like educationally or.

[B]

No, just really, really rich people.

[A]

It's just all really, really rich people. Yeah.

[B]

And my grade had really rich people. But it was as I'll explain it, just a different, a different flavor, so to speak. Now. Yeah, it's more. So you want to tell people your kids go to PCs?

[A]

Yes, yes. Status, for sure.

[B]

Yeah. Whereas I think the parents within my grade, certainly my parents, it was, the goal was to get a great education. So it's like, let's go put our kids in the best school we can find. And this was at least they deemed it the best in town. So that's why I ended up there.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And, and that's why most kids ended up there was really for the academics. And that's not to say that my kindergarten tuition was not more than my engineering school.

[A]

All of engineering school. Okay.

[B]

So everybody's dad was. And everybody was pretty loaded.

[A]

Well enough.

[B]

Yeah, pretty, pretty loaded. But it was a really interesting, interesting group because most everybody, at least the ones I interacted with, was were, quote unquote, self made guys that had nothing, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and worked for 40, 50 years. Most of them were a little older. So they'd worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, and were enjoying the fruits of their

[A]

labor and had kids later in life.

[B]

Yeah. And you didn't see the work that they put in. You just got to see the life that they lived. And to a kid it's just normal. That's just life. You don't really think about it as a child. But one of them was Fortune 500 CEO. Another one was president of a world's largest car dealership. The other one was a. Still probably the businessman I've ever been around, and I've been around a lot of them at this point. But the point was they were all, they were all builders, they'd all built stuff. And that's how I thought all people got rich, was that you created value in the world and you built stuff I've learned that that's actually not the case. Yeah, most of the time you just,

[A]

you put a YouTube video does real well.

[B]

No, just if only. No and more. So you just act as a parasite on society and go into finance or something like that.

[A]

Yeah. Work for already built big company, work your way up the ladder.

[B]

Don't really create value in the world. Just take more. You consume, you don't really create. Whereas these guys, they created, they built stuff.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And I grew up around these guys and I didn't learn business. I wish I did. I wish I talked to them more about business growing up because it would have helped this whole thing. But I learned their habits coming up. I got to live with them. I'd stay over my friends houses all the time. And so you'd quite literally be living with these people and you'd get to unknowingly at the time. You got to see how they lived,

[A]

like their work ethic, like, like when, how they got up and how they

[B]

got routines, how they talk to people. Did they eat a lot? Did they drink a lot?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What words did they use? Did they get upset, emotional? Like all of those things you kind of saw with each one of these people and then you had enough data sets, you put them together and then you could kind of spot trends.

[A]

Yeah, sure. Like all these guys are getting up before 7 o' clock in the morning.

[B]

They're all up.

[A]

Yeah, they're doing this thing. Yeah, they're. Yeah, they're getting it going before everyone else is already up.

[B]

No, no. None of them were sleeping in.

[A]

Exactly. Right, right.

[B]

None of them were sleeping in. None of them were drunk on Sunday, watching football.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

None of them were ever. All of them were reading, all of them were having interesting conversations. And so I never subscribed to the way like I think I never subscribed to the nonsense in the world that is like there's an easy way to do things. I always just saw you just, you just work.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the more work you do, the bigger your. More you get, more money you have.

[A]

More you have. Sure.

[B]

And so it's interesting, a lot of people criticize this approach and oddly enough they're the ones doing nothing in life that are the ones criticizing most. But, and I didn't think about this as a time but. But as an adult I've applied this formula that I learned through these experiences. That is what I just said. What you put in is what you get out. So the more you want out, the more you have to put in.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

It's proportional.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And if you want more than other people in whatever way, whether it's your body, it's your house, it's your family, could be anything. If you want more, you have to then do more than the people around you.

[A]

Sure. Yeah.

[B]

Because if you do do what everybody else is doing, you are average.

[A]

You'll be just like everyone else.

[B]

Exactly. You get the same thing. But I've never, I'm very fortunate that I had these experiences because I've never subscribed to the fact that maybe there's a cheat code out there, maybe there's a different way to do it. And I've always thought that it was possible too because I got to see them do, do it from nothing. And so it's like, well, I've seen it done enough. I know that it's possible. It just takes work. So I need to. If I want something, you gotta work for it.

[A]

Well, that's funny because like that's how like I have a 10 year old son and he will see these guys on YouTube that have millions, he's like, all they do is just put this video and there's millions of plays and millions of dollars and it's like, well, you don't see how much work and the team they have behind, they're not just luckily getting viral on YouTube and then having a career with it.

[B]

Yeah, I haven't talked to me about that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, yeah, yeah. He hasn't been back since I've started working here to be like, no, you want to see a YouTube channel that makes it look at the team and all the meetings and all the stuff that goes along with it. But they just, I think a lot of kids see with TikTok and stuff nowadays that it's just you, you can make a video on the line and throw it up there and then everyone's just going to come to you and give you everything you want and it's

[B]

quick and, and what's the secret?

[A]

Right?

[B]

What's the secret?

[A]

The secrets all the hard work they put in behind us.

[B]

The secret is there is no secret. I just, I haven't. Maybe there is a secret somewhere. I just haven't seen it. And so the foundation was me growing up with these, with these guys. But it's everywhere. I mean, I just read the Steve Jobs biography for the second time.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

There's. It's no secret. It's like, oh, so this is what it took. It just took a whole lifetime of work, A lot of work. Oh, got it. Or or even you go to another childhood hero is Ste. Irwin. The guy was out there grinding.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All day, every day. Like he was having fun because he loved what he was doing. But he was getting. He was getting after it.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

All over. And I. I appreciate even just the travel he did, just moving to different continents as much as he did that alone.

[A]

Wildlife, he's just picking up, doesn't care. Like, oh, yeah.

[B]

But even getting pick up the stuff is a lot of.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's. It's everybody. And that's how I've learned to approach problems. Is cool. If I want a better result, I need to put in more work. So I say all of this to then tee up. We had our sales problems that we started to recognize in March, certainly started to accept in April. We wish that we did it a little faster, but we realized we weren't good enough. What we're doing was not working. So what was our answer to us not getting the result we needed? Well, we needed to work. We needed to do more. And that's what we've done since. And it's not just work more. There's a lot of people that work really hard and don't necessarily get further. You can still go beat your head against the wall. You have to work hard and smart. You have to evaluate the work along the way. You have to do both things.

[A]

That's what I was gonna. Yeah. You have to critique what you're doing and change directions if you need to. You can't.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you're just doing the same thing over and over and you're like, well, I'm still working hard, but then I'm still losing money every month. It's like, well, maybe change your exact plan.

[B]

You can work all day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If your plan sucks.

[A]

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

[B]

It's only going to do so much for you. But work, work is the foundation. And so that's what we've done. That's the play we've run. We adjusted a lot. Some of the stuff we found out is right. Some of the stuff we found out is wrong. Even recently, we're learning every day right now. And it sometimes makes me want to beat my head against the wall because it's so frustrating. But we, we all put in the effort. I put in the effort, Dan put in the effort, Randy put in the effort. Jason was involved, Cara was involved. So at the leadership level, all of us were involved in this problem. And then down there, you know, further throughout the organization, everybody else was involved in some capacity and so we put in the work, and for June, we had our best. Best month to date, which is amazing. It's really exciting. Yeah. And so we didn't. We didn't get there in April. We didn't get there in May. We knew, though, we were putting in the work in May, so we were like, we should see it in June. And it was still. Fingers crossed, but we saw it in June. Now, that's not to say we're all that excited. At least I'm not. And I tried to stress this with the team when I sent a message about how we did in June is because we were coming from behind. So we had a big month, but we were making up losing for months.

[A]

Sure. Now you got to continue the momentum to get back to where you wanted to be originally.

[B]

It's not that exciting to come back from losing. It's like, all right, cool. The score is almost even now.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

But that doesn't. That's a new month. It's July, and then it's August, and that's September. Then it's October. And the goals from here only get bigger. We need bigger months. Every year is how the budget is structured for this year, especially as construction slows down through the end of the year. That's when it gets really busy for us, and we have to keep our foots. Our feet to the floor. So I would say we're working harder now than we were working before, because without that effort and the effort we're putting in today, we won't see in July. We'll see it in August. We'll probably more so see it in September. So all of the effort we're putting in now is for the future. If we take our foot off, we might still have a good July, but then we're gonna pay for it in August.

[A]

Yeah. So it's like the work you guys are doing in May, that worked for this month before then. You know, you're seeing it now. But if you're not continually working towards it, it's gonna just go back to where you were before.

[B]

Yeah. And this is all really simple stuff. But here we are. Here we are, eight years into business, learning the same lessons in different ways.

[A]

But at least you're going about it where you're assessing these things. Like, that's just one thing. I. I've never worked for a company like this where you have, like, a scorecard or you have a goal. Excuse me. A goal that you're trying to obtain, and you're like, look, you're framing your job title and what you're doing in that way. Like, am I reaching these goals? Like, usually it's like you just go to work and you leave work and you go to work and you're doing the same thing, and it's just kind of tedious. And then it's.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One three years down the line, your boss is like, you suck. You're fired. And you're like, what?

[B]

Why?

[A]

And it was like, well, you didn't do what you were supposed to do, but there was really no plan to get better or plan to grow. I feel like here, at least in our department, it's very structured where it's like, okay, this is what this looks like. What does it look like at the end of the quarter? What does it look like at the end of the year?

[B]

Yeah. And that. I mean, we've learned that by doing what you just said. You know, years will go by and then we fire somebody and they're like, well, what did I do right? Well, we didn't really tell them, so that wasn't the best way of doing that. It's unfortunate. That's how you learn those lessons.

[A]

Yeah, you learn the lessons that way,

[B]

we learn those lessons that way.

[A]

And you're a newer. I mean, eight years is. I mean, that's what you've accomplished in eight years is incredible. But it's also like, that's not very long to be a company. You know what I mean?

[B]

It's still not. No. And especially a software company. We've only been doing it for a few years. We pressed the reset button years ago. Go. Yeah, but it's. It's. It's. People want to know how they're doing.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You don't just want to, like, am I doing well? Or it's like, if you want to make more money, how do I make more money? Well, here's what you can do to make more money.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Like, if you do xyz, this is how you perform better. And if you perform better, if you create more value, you get more money. Like, I think those are the most helpful conversations you can have within an organization. But oftentimes they're just not. They're not at.

[A]

At all. Never. I mean, at least the companies I work for.

[B]

Yeah, I get money this year.

[A]

Or. Fingers crossed. Like, every time you get a message from, like, your boss or hr, you're like, am I going to get fired? It's like, but if you talk to that person every week and checked in with them, you'd know where you kind of stand in that position where it's, you're not just going in blind. And they're like, you're fired because of all these reasons. It's like, well, you. We know because we've been watching.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I've been talking to my boss, everybody week, and we meet up and we talk about what we need to work towards for the next week or the next month or whatever. And then you kind of have like a map to where you want to essentially be.

[B]

But that, that's, it's helpful because then you have those, you have those guardrails.

[A]

100%. Yeah.

[B]

You know, you know, you know what you need to be doing.

[A]

There's no surprises. Yeah.

[B]

Execute. That's, that's what I like is, is the more. I was just, I sent a message the other day about the Blue Angels and how because it's so dangerous what they do, they're flying their jets inches from one another. And decision making, you have limited bandwidth to make decisions in a given day. You, you only have so much energy. And so if you're consuming that energy by making decisions that don't really need to be there, you have less energy for the decisions that, that do need to be. That, that do require processing.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Power. And so the way around that problem for them is they automate as much as possible to remove the decision making, to give them a clear lane to run so that they can just run. Just.

[A]

Yeah. Do what they need to do.

[B]

And that's what I, that's how I've, at least how I've tried to structure my life is like, I know reading is good for me. I don't want to then try to. I'm going to read 12 books this year. I don't know what that means. I don't know how to do that. But I do know how to read 10 pages every day. And if I read 10 pages a day, it ends up being more than 12 books at the end by a fair margin. And it's simple things like that. Right now I'm really, really careful with diet.

[A]

Yeah, you're very disciplined.

[B]

But it's nice to be because it gives you clear bounds. Like today I'm going to dinner. So I know I'm not going to have my usual dinner at home, which is great because then I get to eat a little bit more during the day. So I had an extra piece of toast today because I'm like, yeah, let's go. I know, but, but it's exciting because it's, it's. I'm, I'm within these bounds, I know exactly what I have to do. And if I'm within the bounds, I know I'm good. I know I'm. I know I'm going in the direction I need to be going 100%.

[A]

It's so much less stressful. Like, I think we talked about this last time. It's just knowing what to prepare for. Like, you don't have to prepare dinner because you've already kind of have. Well, not. Tonight's not a very good example, but, like, you. You have your plan already set in place, and you're like, okay, I know this, that, and this is all coming up. You can see ahead what's coming up. And you're not like, get home. And you're like, I got to go figure out what I'm going to make. I got to cook something. Like.

[B]

Or exercise is another great one in the morning. I set my stuff out the night before. So when I wake up, I know what I'm eating. I know what exercise I'm doing. I know what I'm wearing. It's all right there. I'm not guessing, just doing it.

[A]

Yeah, it's already. You've already prepared yourself.

[B]

I don't have to make. Yes. I don't have to make any decisions in the morning. Yeah. I just have to go do it, which is so much easier that I

[A]

never thought of the decision part of it, but that's totally it. Like, I always thought of just like, okay, if it's there, I know what to anticipate. But it's really just taking out those decisions that you have to make. Like, okay, what am I going to wear today? Like, now I got to go through all my stuff. Or, like, you know, it's already there. It's already there. You know, it's friction.

[B]

It's friction. And yeah, if you're making decisions, it's friction. If you can remove friction, it gives you more for other things.

[A]

I love that. Yeah, that's crazy.

[B]

But anyway, that's my story about the more work you put in, the more work you get out. You have to work smart. But the foundation is effort. If you're not putting in the effort, don't expect the reward. And you don't have to have this giant life. You don't have to be a billionaire. That's unreal. Unreasonable for a lot of people because there's. There's cost to that, too. Like, there's. If you. If you. If you put more effort in over here now, you have less for everything else. But anything significant takes effort. I am under. No, I am not fooled by a lot of the nonsense online. And this was just another great lesson learned within the company. We did not have the outcome we wanted. We changed how we were going about things. We put in more work and we got the result.

[A]

Love it.

[B]

Cool. So that's this episode, this Monday episode of the Dirt Talk podcast. If you have questions, comments, anything for us to discuss, send it to Dirt Talk with dot com.

[A]

Yep. Or comment in. Yeah, on. On the Spotify, you can comment. So comments in there. We'll take all that stuff.

[B]

Or on the Instagram.

[A]

Yeah, on your Instagram. Or on our Instagram.

[B]

Yeah, we're talk Instagram.

[A]

Oh, yeah, Dirt Talk Instagram. And we're posting up onto The Dirt Talk YouTube channel again, too, so.

[B]

And the YouTube channel. Right?

[A]

That's cool. Got some revamping going on, so a

[B]

lot of exciting stuff. Thanks for listening, everybody, and we'll see you on the next one. Stay dirty.