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- [00:05]
A
Here we go.
- [00:22]
B
How many of you want to build a more profitable business without sacrificing the life the business was supposed to build? When I talk to lawn care businesses, whether it's in my inner circle or social media or events, and I ask them what are their biggest challenges in business right now, they all say the same three things. They're not charging enough, they can't find or keep employees, or they want better work life balance. So, Cornell, I wanted to talk to you about this and, like, really break this down. One of them at a time, one challenge at a time. Welcome back to this show and thanks for joining the Live here. But I want to just jump right into it. And what do you have to say about that? I know you talk to a lot of, a lot of businesses in the community, of course, and through events and everything you have going on, very similar to me. What, what, what are some of the feedback that you get? Do you, first and foremost, do you hear any of those, any of those three challenges when people are struggling?
- [01:27]
A
I wouldn't say that. People come to me and say they're struggling with it, but they talk about it. So, you know, they're struggling with it. You know, I mean, the guys who are telling me about working seven days a week, or they can't go to this because of they gotta work and, or they can't do this because they gotta work, or they had to miss this because they gotta work or they don't know how to get customers. It's a whole lot of different things. But the work life balance thing, I feel like, is for more of our demographic. The men and women who have families and they want to go to events. That's where I was. And so I kind of adjusted my business and made it towards that rather than trying to keep up. Because another thing I feel like a lot of people do is they try to keep up with what they see on the Internet and what they see other people doing because they want to live that dream or what they think that dream is instead of figuring out what they actually want to do for themselves. And when you're worried about what other people are doing, you're trying to compete with ghosts, honestly, when you only really need to compete with yourself. I feel like that's when the work life balance thing and the struggles actually start to emerge.
- [02:43]
B
Yeah. Well, let's talk about ourselves then for a little bit, because I know you kind of went straight into the work life balance aspect of it, essentially. Like, I, I, we're kind of going in reverse order but that's very important to me as well. And the reason why I put them in, in that order is because if you think about it, work life balance, in order to have more time, quote, unquote, or work life balance, you, you have, you need to have employees if you want to get more work done, to have enough money for your family to support them financially, to maybe not have to work so much. Like, if you're all by yourself and you make a certain amount of money and you're working like all day, every day, working all the weekends there, it's almost impossible to have work life imbalance unless you work life balance, unless you reduce your workload, which is going to reduce your revenue. So the only way to offset that, right, is to have employees hire employees, which has its own set of challenges, of course. And you're going to kind of have a dip in your profitability and whatnot when you first start that process. Until you get, you know, okay, I fill out this crew and then we rinse and repeat. Another crew, another crew. And know the profitability, you know, fluctuates throughout that. But you always have your, your target goals that you want to hit. But ultimately you need to have employees in order to get more work done without it, without you doing it all yourself. So that, that frees up a little bit of your time because you have people helping you or doing the work for you, right? So that's why that was before work life balance. But the number one thing is you can't have him. You can't have good employees and keep good employees or the right employees if you're not charging enough. Because now you don't have enough money to pay for the right employees. Because unfortunately, what myself and a lot of others have done in the industry, when we first were starting out, we didn't know. What we didn't know is when you don't pay the right amount, you don't get the right people. And you also don't have enough money to maintain your equipment, have the best equipment. When your truck breaks down, what are you going to do now? You're renting stuff or you're this, you're doing that. And all of that is discouraging to your employees. And if you don't think it is, you're kidding yourself. Like, I've heard all kinds of stories from my employees back in the day that, I mean, things that I thought was, it was unheard of, but, you know, like, oh yeah, you know, my last boss man, you know, we had a zero turn. We had to jump it every morning. And then we couldn't ever shut it off because, you know, we didn't have jumper cables with us, so we couldn't, you know, we'd have to jump it every time. So we just leave it running. And then we have these big properties, these, like, huge acres, and we'd have to put the gas can on the deck so that when we'd be halfway through mowing, we'd have to jump out and dump gas in there before it stalls out. And I'm like, what kind of world are we living in here? Wow. Like, come on now. Like, that's. That's discouraging. You know, you have trimmers. I mean, I know we could all relate to this. You have trimmers that just don't want to start because they're just absolute trash. And you refuse to invest in brand new ones. You just keep fixing them and duct taping them up. And it's 90 to 100 degrees out, and guys are yanking and yanking and yanking on these cords, and the cord rips off, and now they're like, ah. And they're all. I mean, that. That is the number one way to not keep good employees or any employees. And it's because you're trying to, you know, be cost conscious, if that's what you want to call it. I'll put it nicely. And. But really, you're just not charging enough. If you charge enough, you'd have enough money. If you're charging enough. And you were had some sort of framework, some sort of system to, like, put some money aside from repairs and maintenance. Don't just spend it all on who knows what and give it all to yourself and your employees potentially. Like, you have to have some put aside also for repairs and. And new equipment, because that's the number one thing. So if you want to attract the right employees, you have to be attractive to the right employees. And that's not what you look like necessarily. But if you are driving around in a truck billowing out smoke and, you know, unfortunately, you know, the news gets around type of equipment that you have, like, it's. It's rough. Like, I don't know. You know what? I don't know if I want to work for that guy. But when you. When you have that perception of professionalism, word gets around and people really want to work with you, and if you pay well, they want. It's that too. So it's not just about the pay. It's about the work environment as well. So. So anyway, that's why I put these in those, that, that order because I feel like the goal for a lot of people is they want work life balance, but you kind of have to go backwards from there and like, okay,
- [07:17]
A
well let's start at the beginning then.
- [07:19]
B
Yeah. And like, let's figure this out and break it down. So what, what, what were some of the, what were some of the things that you had to do personally, Cornell, to get your work life balance in check? Because I know when you first started this business, you're probably working like crazy. And I know you wanted to, you know, have a business that serves you and your family, not you just feeling like a slave to it.
- [07:43]
A
Yeah. Well, so when I first started my business, it was because I didn't have work life balance at my jobs. I was working two full time jobs and I've, I have a video I talk about all the time. But there's a video on YouTube. Go on my Mac Landscaping Law Care YouTube channel. Has like 180 some thousand views. Go watch that. But I didn't have work life balance working as an employee for two different companies. And it wasn't because they were overworking me, it was because I wasn't making enough money. So I had to get a second job. And I thought that, let me just get another job because that's what I witnessed my mom doing. I grew up in a single mother household and she was working two, three jobs to make ends meet. So I thought, if I'm going to make more money, let me go get another job. And so that's what I did. But then I started my family and my wife had just graduated college and she had a job now we had our daughter. And I realized, like, I'm going to work and my kid ain't even up yet. And when I get home, she sleep and my wife is tired and they're like, all right, like we're husband and wife, we ain't even seeing each other now. This is early on and you gotta make sacrifices at the beginning. So that's kind of the stage that we were in. But I did realize something. These two full time jobs had got me a house in a nice neighborhood. My wife was also working as well as, and she's a, she was a banker. And so we had, you know, come up with this plan. We're going to have our second kid, but we, before that, we want to get married, we want to buy, we want to go to Disney World, we want to buy a house. Then we want to have our second child. And that was the plan. And that wasn't going to happen. I looked at my life and I said, dang, Naylor, this is nice. I live on a cul de sac. My kids go to a nice public school district. There's food in the house, the lights are on. These are things that I didn't have whenever I was a kid. So I felt like marginally successful just by doing that. But I wasn't seeing anything. My wife was basically a single mom, you know, So I was like, I don't have work life balance, so I want to start a business because I seen a YouTube video. So then when I started the business, it was like, oh, this is cool. Now I'm working two full time jobs and running a business doing 8 to 11 yards. That's how it started. Just on Saturdays between 7 and 3, because I had to work my job from 3 to 11 on Saturdays. So I'm, I'm like, this is crazy. I. I can do this for the rest of my life. But I will miss everything. I will miss recitals, I will miss basketball games, I will miss weddings. I will miss spending time with my wife. And my kids might think, yeah, man, my dad was a hard worker, but he wasn't there. And I was like, nah, bro, I don't want that. That's not the life for me. So I've seen motivational videos and the story has been well documented. Now I've told it plenty of times. I've seen a video from my homie, Keith Kalfis, and I was like, I'm gonna start this business. And then when I started the business, it took me a while of working those jobs like that. And then we get to, all right, I got enough properties now. Let me quit my one job. And now I'll just work one full time job and do my business. And I did that for a while. And then two years after that, I was able to quit my other job and then work in my business. Now once I was doing that, it was like, I'm out here all the time and nothing changed. My wife said, is this why you started a business? So that you could not be hung? And I had to think about it. Cause I was like, I see the people on the Internet, there's people talking about, you gotta grow your business to a million or you ain't nothing. And I was like, shit, I don't feel like I'm nothing. I took my family to Disney World last year on this little thing I'm doing. And this was dope. I get to call my own shots now. And my wife made me think about something, and she said, you started a business so you could just do this. Nothing's changed. And I said, oh, okay. She's right. I do got to change something. This is more important to me to be with her and my family and my children and my nieces and my nephews and the people that come around us who are in our atmosphere, who are working around in our galaxy of the max, right? Do I want to be that, or do I want to be out here on a lawnmower or breaking my back in this, in the heat, or do I want to be dealing with 50 employees and all of their problems? Because you got that, too, when you take on that stuff. So when it came to work, life, balance, I thought to myself, hey, how do I make enough money without having to have 15 employees? How do I make enough money that's good enough for me not to be content with your life, but to. To live a life that you want to live where you could put your foot on the gas pedal and go faster if you want to, or. I like to drive with cruise control on Naylor. Ask my wife. I get on that thing, and I see the speed limit 70, I'm gonna set that cruise control to 85. Don't tell the people on the. You know, But I'm in the fast lane, and I'm going. That's what I'm trying to do. But there's other times when it's like, all right, we'll pull it back to the speed limit, and as long as I'm hitting that speed limit, I'm cool. And what is the speed limit? The speed limit is making sure we got food on the table, in the refrigerator, and more in our. In our coffers so that if times get rough, we're good. Making sure I got enough money to pay our bills, making sure I'm in the stands, because I got daughters. I have a son, too. And boys are different to me. I'm an old Neanderthal type of dude. I treat my girls like princesses. And I know that they're going to choose who they spend their life with based off of what they perceive their father to be. And I want my daughters to see a king and a king that is a good king, not the mad king like on Game of Thrones, who burned everybody up, but the king that brings everybody up so that every person in the city or in my Mac Galaxy feels uplifted and like they can do what they need to do. And the only way to do that Is not to put your head down and just go full speed and keep ramming your head into the wall is to decide what you want to do in life. And this is why I never tell anybody what they're supposed to do. I don't know you and your life and what you brought up, how you were brought up, and the circumstances, situations, and things that are in your head. I only know mine. And I know how I grew up. And I decided I'm going to change that family tree from death and despair and blaming other people to raising up this other tree that has green, beautiful fruit and a father and a mother who are going after the things that make their life feel fulfilled. So work life balance to me is that my wife and my daughters are right down at that pool right now. My oldest daughter is keeping a scorebook at the basketball games because she's a hooper and a football player. She just won the championship. We got a ring and a trophy. Where's the trophy? Right? And I got to do that. I got to be the coach of my daughter's thing. Why? Because I got work life balance. That was on a Saturday. Boyz is out here putting in patios. Go ahead, man, put your patio in. But what happens when your daughter comes home with the dude and he's 6 foot 2, he ready to fight you? Because your daughter chose that because she didn't see in you the king that you were supposed to be. That's what I seen in me. I ain't saying that about nobody else, but that's why I live my life. So work life balance was that, bruh, Bringing my family together and working a business that works for me. Right? And I don't mean working for. When I say working for me, I work in the business. Cause this is what I like to do. I don't care what nobody else has to say about that. Me and Captain Jack till we die. Period, point blank, end of story. Work life balance. That's me.
- [16:01]
B
Yeah. No, I can totally relate because so much of what you said is very similar to me and why I started this business. But it just pains me that I see personally, locally, and on social media, there's so many people that I have heard and seen that are struggling in this business and in the ways that this business helped me. You know, like. Like they're struggling with work life balance. This business is just sucking their life away. They're just working all day, every day. And to your point, you know, their spouses are like, are you just gonna work all the time? You just start his business to work. Like, those are real conversations, not just with you, Cornell. Like, this is a lot of conversations that I've heard. I've unfortunately, know people that have, you know, had relationship issues that have ended poorly. They've shut down their businesses. Like, and I don't. I'm not saying I know why, but I just know that before that happened, they were struggling, and they were trying to find answers to, you know, how do I balance this out? Like, I need to make money. I need to work. And I think some of it is we get caught up in. We have a strong work ethic, so we just kind of naturally gravitate to the workaholism where we just want to work, work, work, work and provide for our family. And that's honorable to a point. You know, we. We. Because, like, something you said, too, Cornell. Like, at the end of the day, something you said inspired, reminded me of this. Like, at the end of the day, like, people like our.
- [17:31]
A
Our parents.
- [17:31]
B
I. I've said this a lot over the last year or so. Like, who. Who is suffering the most from you working all day, every day? And it's your family. Like, and they didn't ask for that. They didn't ask for you to work 24 7, 365 days a week. They didn't ask for that. They just want to spend time with you. Like, of course they want to be financially supportive. They don't want to be broken and living in the streets, but they want. They want you to figure out a balance so they can spend time with you. Like, your. Your spouse didn't marry you or get married to you, to never see you and your kids deserve you to be in their life. And again, to Cornell's point, I'm not. I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do. I just. I'm talking about the people that come to me and say that they're struggling with these things, and I'm just trying to help. I'm just trying to structure certain. Certain priorities that people should have in that scenario so that you're not stuck in that situation, you know? And back to what I said. Like, if you're pricing correctly, if you have some employees, if you're. You know, when you're doing it all by yourself, it's definitely a challenge. But you can still. You can structure it in such a way that you don't have to work all the. All the time. But again, it depends on what your revenue is or. Or what your. What your salary, what you. What your monthly income has to be to support your family, you know, financially. So of course that is a huge thing. So if you need to make, if you need to work, you know, by yourself, you need to work a lot, then that's just the way that, that you're gonna have to find a way to figure out how to balance that. And, and honestly, one of the only ways is to get employees. And if you're nervous about that, I get it. But you're always going to be. You're going to be stuck burning yourself out if you're all by yourself, working all day every day to make enough money to pay your bills. And then your family falls apart. You know, you never see them and then you 20 years down the road, you're all regretful. Whether you're scaling up or refreshing your fleet, LCR Media podcast sponsor Toro has your back. With Toro's fleet program, you can save up up to 24% on the industry's top performing mowers and turf equipment. And for a limited time, you can stack that 24% savings with special financing offers to give you even more for your money. Click the link in the episode description or visit your local Toro dealer to start saving today.
- [19:54]
C
Twelve years ago when I started my lawn care business I had no idea what I was doing. But I quickly learned route efficiency with all of my mowing accounts along with the money management system so that I had money in all the accounts so I needed it to pay the bills and run my my business as well as my personal life. But eventually over the years I learned time management system to help me not be working all day every day and build a business that serves me instead of me serving it and not taking all of my time away from me just to the business. Over the years I've been sharing all of this with my peers and some mentors as well as teaching my inner circle members this but this June 26th and 27th in Richmond, Virginia, I'm going to be teaching you as well as John Pajak from the Profits with PayJack podcast who's going to be breaking down all the numbers in your business, how to be more profitable, how to price properly. Air trip with the Pond Digger who is an expert at closing high ticket sales, attracting those premium customers and closing those sales for for those customers. The landscaping bookkeeper and Joey Koberly from the Lawn Care Launch team will be joining us as well. And we're all dedicating those two days to teaching you how to increase the profits in your business fast. You leave with a plan in hand so that you finish the second half of the year stronger than you started, and your spouse gets to come for free. When you get two tickets to buy one, get one. So come join us for the weekend in Richmond, Virginia. Network learn and take your business to the next level. Click the link and I'll see you there. Yeah.
- [21:25]
A
Or you could raise your price because you don't necessarily have to get employees. Figure out what it is. How much do you need to live your life? That's it. And then work your way backward, just like Naylor we're doing now because I did his thing out of order. But just figure out what that is and then raise your price. It's a lot easier and a lot less stressful and a lot more of a happy experience. When your minimum price is 50, 60, $70 versus when it's 25, 30. 35, 40. Yeah. To do $1,000 a day at 50 bucks, it takes 20 houses a day. If you raise it to 60, you need 16 houses a day. If you raise it to a hundred, you only need 10. So you just got to figure out what it is that you need and then build your stuff towards going after that. And if you gotta travel a little bit, so be it. Right? This is the game that we're playing. You gotta go get the customers. I'm not saying I don't care. I told I don't care about getting another employee. I care about enriching Captain Jack. And me and Captain Jack gonna go as far as we can go. Because I know what it takes for me to make what I need to make within my business, to do what I need to do. Then after I'm taken care of, now I can go figure out other ways to make income. I started doing podcasts. I started doing YouTube videos. Now my channel is monetized. I make a couple dollars, like four to a hundred bucks or something a month from the views on YouTube. So that's one stream. And we can just keep adding these different streams so that we can win in life doing the things that we enjoy doing. Because do I like cutting grass? Sure I do. I would rather stay home and make some YouTube videos or go play golf like my homeboy Paul. Right. So how do you structure the stuff that you. You structure it for your life. If you're charging 30, raise your your thing to $60. And if half of them fire you, make the same amount of money doing half the amount of work, which gives you more time to go out and get more of the same work, which would then double the income because now, you realize that I was charging 30. This is what I realized. I was charging 30. And when I raised it to 60, I made the same amount of money and I lost half the people. Actually, that wasn't my story. I lost two of the 18 people or something when I did this. Only two. And then I replaced that with, like, 11. And we were up to 30 properties all paying this when I was like, yo, oh, let's go get the grandstand, baby. Oh, let's go get that new backpack blower. Here, Captain Jack, here's a good bonus for you. Hey, let's go to Disney World this year, right? You ain't gotta necessarily go get the employees. You might just need to go raise your standards and stop not believing in yourself because you doing something that they don't want to do. Zach says, how do you stand out in a community when there are 20 people doing what you're doing? In a town with 10,000 people, who cares what the mother people are doing? That's how I handle it. I do not care. I almost cuss right there neither, but I didn't. I don't care what those other people are doing. It doesn't matter. I need to stand out to me, and as long as I'm good. How do you stand out? Clean uniform, clean truck, nice equipment. Like, wash your equipment off, do good work, talk to the people, have good customer service. Make yourself so they're happy when you come there. Yeah, they got to hear the loud noises. Not for me so much. I got the gas mowers, but now we got the battery power. We sound like some fans out there. That's it. It ain't very loud, right? But maybe you're loud. And when you get there, they're going to still be happy to see you, Zach, because you're you. And you don't need to stand out because you already stand out. So just be you. You ain't got to worry about standing out. Sorry, I just seen that. I wanted to make sure Zach is someone who supports a lot of the things that I do. He's always sharing the podcast. You know, he does it for Naylor and all of the other green industry people who are out there sharing content to help other people. So, Zach, we appreciate you, bro, and I hope that answered your question. You ain't got to stand out. You're already standing out, as you can see.
- [25:51]
B
Yeah, I was gonna. Yeah, Zach is. He's. He's definitely a friend of the community. I see him everywhere, commenting and. And sharing and. Thank you, Zach, for For all of the. The showing the love there and the support. I was gonna show his comment on there, but I didn't want to cut. Cut you off. You were on a roll, so. But you just went right, right into it. You, like, didn't even finish what you were saying. You went right into his question. I was like, dang, I don't even know.
- [26:15]
A
Because it matters. There's so many. I'm sorry, Naylor. You know, me and Naylor been rocking now for the last couple years.
- [26:23]
B
But I'm just saying, I wasn't forgetting. I saw Zach's comment. I wasn't forgetting about him. I was just waiting. Waiting for you to finish. But you just went straight into it. It's like, all right.
- [26:33]
A
Yeah. No, there's just so many people who are worried about, like, what everybody else is doing, and it don't matter. They're in my own specific neighborhood. There's two guys. I love these guys. My man, John Doyle, and there's another guy named Brad. Dang. What is Brad's last name? Who cares? Bwb. Brad Bodner. So Brad and John Doyle, they do phenomenal work. Brad cuts a yard on my street, like, that's how cool we are. There's another person on my street across the street from the one he does. They came out and was like, yo, can. Can you give us an estimate? He hit me up like, yo, there's a. There's a house on your street across the house across from the house that I've been doing. Cause he been doing that house so long before I was even in the game. So he like, I'm doing my yard, but they. You might want to get this. And. And then he let me know who it was, and I was like, nah, bruh, you don't even want them either. I know they on. On my street, but trust, you don't want that. And these are dudes who are doing great work. And John does lawn treatments and stuff, so he even has a leg up on whatever. What I do. I don't even do lawn treatments. But they're in my neighborhood. I ain't got to worry about standing out from them. I live in a neighborhood, too, just like you, and there's 10,000 opportunities out there. 20 people can't cut 10,000 yards, Zach. Think about it. They can't. So there ain't no competition for you. Don't worry about standing out. Just worry about being dope. Sorry.
- [28:06]
B
No, it's all good. I'll add one more thing to that and just say, because you Know we are. Lawn mowing is becoming more of a commoditized service where everyone's kind of looking for the cheapest person to cut their lawn. And, you know, you can easily get sucked into that. Zach and I get all that, and there's a lot. There's a lot of other businesses out there offering similar services. But again, you know, they're not technically your competition. You're only in competition with yourself. But I get the whole line to stand out a little bit, or aside from. From the other people that are cutting grass and to want to add on to everything Cornell said, like, making sure that you do everything, you know, the best you can, but the highest level of service, quality, everything, all of that. Because, you know, a lot of those people are not showing up when they're supposed to or when they say they're not returning calls or even, you know, their communication might be lacking, their customer service might be lacking, their detail work. Like, they're missing stuff. Like, you know, how it is, or maybe you don't, but that's how it is. Like, every business has their challenges, and sometimes it's. It changes those challenges, you know, like, throughout. Like, growth creates challenges. You know, I went from being a solo owner operator, and then as soon as I started hiring employees, a bunch of people started complaining, and, oh, you missed this, you missed that. I'm like, no, we didn't. Like, it's almost like they just, you know, they're used to your high quality of detail and work. And then you have employees, and all sudden they think maybe you're not doing a good enough job or you're, you know, you're. Because you're so, so much faster now. They're like, oh, they had to miss something. They're out there kicking over grass and looking for some blades that you didn't cut and just a bunch of nonsense. So that. That. That is real. That that's. That's real. But I think one add on to how to maybe make yourself, instead of saying how to stand out, say, how do I. This is what I've said before. How to be irreplaceable. How to make yourself the irreplaceable lawn care service provider, not the lawn guy or the mowing guy. How do you separate yourself? There, of course, all the things Cornell said and professionalism and all that's great. But here's a few little things that maybe, maybe some people don't think about. I used to do this all the time. Grab the newspaper when you're blown off the driveway. It's up at the top, grab it, blow off the driveway on your way down, put it on the doorstep. Oh, no, they always go in the side door, put it right by the side door. So when they park, they get out, and there's a nice clean newspaper in the little bag ready to go. Not covered in grass that you just slammed all up in it and left it jammed up against the edge of their driveway. Lawn. I mean, I'm just saying.
- [30:47]
A
Or exploded on the lawn because you ran over.
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B
Exactly. Don't ask us how we know.
- [30:53]
A
Right?
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B
Yeah, right. I mean, or. Or how about this? How about you. You notice that their trash cans are empty, you're gonna be walking down the driveway blowing it off anyway. Grab a trash can and bring it with you and put it over there. So it's one less thing. Because, you know, every single homeowner, they drive, they have to go park, walk all the way to the driveway, grab the garbage can, walk it back. You actually can multitask for them. You are actually already walking down their driveway when you're blowing it off. So just grab a garbage can and bring it and drop it. I will tell you, all of you listening and watching this now or in the future, just those little. Just those little tasks will separate you from everyone else. It takes you to. It doesn't take you any extra time because you're already walking down the driveway. So grab the. Grab the paper, put it all on the side by the side door or on the. On the front step, grab the garbage can and wheel it back and set it over by the garage. Like, those are two little simple examples of how it takes no extra time for you, and it separates you as more than just a lawn guy. Wow. You're a professional lawn care service. Wow, that's very nice of them. They appreciate little things like that, especially the elderly folks. And everyone just got a lot going on, and you'll be surprised how much that's noticed. And then there's all kinds of other stuff, like, you know, that making sure the gates closed and playing with the dog when it's a nice dog. And I mean that people eat that
- [32:24]
A
up stickers for the kids.
- [32:25]
B
Their dogs. Yeah, all these little things, talk to the kids, say hi. I mean, these things just take an extra few seconds, 30 seconds, a minute. You know, of course, some people are talkative, and you gotta be like, all right, well, we gotta get at it, Mrs. Jones. And then try to politely, you know, pivot. But at the end of the day, you don't want to ignore people. You don't want to be. I've gotten. I've had that issue myself. I get super overwhelmed, you know, that whether I was by myself or with crews, and we're just hustling and bustling, and I'm like, hey. And, you know, like, I feel bad, like, they want to talk or say something, and I'm kind of, like, agitated. So. But then I got to look at myself, like, why do I feel that way? You know? Like, I got to make sure that I'm getting. Getting, you know, are we running behind? Well, why is that? You know? Like, you just. You work backwards, and It's. It's not Mrs. Jones's fault, necessarily. And even if it is, you don't take it out on her. You just have a professional conversation if there's an issue. So, like, you haven't paid me in a month, you know, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna treat you like garbage. It just means you need to pay me, you know, like, or we maybe need to part ways. So there's just things that. Like that. That will really separate you that go unseen and unspoken, but they're definitely valuable. So I wanted to add that on there. So hopefully that's helpful. Zach and anyone else that's listening. But, Cornell, I wanted to just wrap things up here, but I wanted to end it with kind of tying this. This bow together or closing this whole loop back to winning life. And I know that's something that you. You do so well, and you. And you promote it and have events, and that's.
- [33:55]
A
That.
- [33:55]
B
That is your. Your mission and your mantra, you know, when it. Winning in life. And I just. I just. It's hard for me to. To think that the business owners out there that have their head down, they're grinding out and they're miserable are not winning in life. So it doesn't matter what we say or don't say as what we think is winning in life. I think ultimately we can all admit, even you listening, if this is you, if you have your head down and you're grinding way more than you want to and you're miserable and you're thinking to yourself, what am I doing this for? My spouse is upset with me. I never see my kids. If that's your story, then I'm telling you that is not winning in life, because you are not feeling like you're winning in life. I'm not telling you. I'm not looking down on you. I'm saying, if you feel that way, you tell me, are you. If you feel that way. Do you think that's winning in life? To me, winning in life is feeling like you're not miserable, right? Feeling like you're accomplishing something, feeling happy and joyful in some form or another, feeling a sense of purpose, feeling like you're not scared how you're going to pay your next bill, you know, not fearing that your spouse is going to leave you, like not seeing your kids cry, like having your kids come home and jump on you. Daddy, Mommy, I'm so happy to see you. And you have time and energy to play with them for a little while before dinner, all right? Wash up for dinner. Like, to me, that's winning in life. And I don't know who would disagree with that. But my ultimate point is, if you are struggling and you are grinding and you do not feel happy, that, to me, I don't think that's winning in life. And listen to what we're saying and others say and. And, you know, get together with communities because it can be a lonely place when you're all by yourself. I remember I talked to a local business owner just a week ago, and he was going through some tough stuff, and he was just talking about it, and I tried to give him some little tips here and there, but ultimately I just listened to him, you know, and he was like, man, I feel a lot. I feel a little bit better just talking to you, you know, after talking to you. So thank you. So sometimes just having someone else to talk to is helpful, and that's not always going be your spouse or your friend or your neighbor, because they're not you and they're not a business owner. So you kind of have to talk to other business owners. So that's why social media is such a big deal. And our community and our events and everything about it is a huge deal because we can connect with each other and learn from each other, vent a little bit with each other to get some of the. The stuff out of our system so we can recover and heal and get back to winning in life. Follow the right roadmap to winning in life.
- [36:47]
A
Yeah, no doubt, bro. I mean, almost cussed again right there. But winning in life, to me is you're on a path to what your heart desires. That is positive for me. I grew up in a broken home. Father was in prison. I was like, that's not gonna be me. I'm not going to prison. You know, a single mom. We're not going to have. Have that for. For my girls, right? We're. We're moved around. I was in 11 schools before I got to high school. And not because you move up from first grade and you go to a different school. It was. We moved. So, man, I was in seventh grade. I was in three schools in just seventh grade. My kids been in one school the whole. Their whole entire life. My older daughter, my younger daughter's going to the same school and had the same teachers as my older daughter. Stability, winning in life. Now my wife and I decided what we wanted to do, and then we went and did it and we formulated a plan and we sacrificed to get to where we were trying to go. Winning in life don't mean you have a million dollars necessarily. Do we all want to live in that type of abundance? Of course. But if you have your family, if you have your health, if you are in the right standings with God, if you are living your life to help other people, because that's what we were put here to do, is to help others, not just yourself. Because if you help other people, you will get what you want. That is the. That's the prerequisite to getting the things that you want, is that you give to other people. And that's what this stuff is all about. Winning in life is something that I created. A mantra, so to speak, but it ain't mine. There's a lot of people who are out here who are winning in life, and I seen what they were doing, and I was like, I want to win like that, too. But I want to win on my terms because this is special to me. This was special to them. And they were an example of when something is special to you and you really, really want it and you really go after it, the universe sort of works in your favor to help you get that thing. As long as you put in the work and you stay positive. If you're negative and you blame other people and you lack the action taking steps, you deserve to be where you are. And that was me. I deserved to be in that folly that I felt I deserved it because I wasn't doing anything about it. And the second that I realized it was somebody else, that I get to be the example, too. Jim Rohn said, one of life's greatest experiences is being part of someone else's testimony. And I've said this plenty of times, but to have someone come up to you and say, hey, I seen your video, or I seen this, or I seen you working this business, or I seen you cutting this yard, and now I'm gonna do it, too. I heard about how you quit your job. Now I'M gonna quit my job, too. The right way. Not just arbitrarily saying, I seen a video that Naylor did or that Mac did or someone else, and that looks so fun. He's on grass. He calls him grass cutting. Go karts. This is awesome. I don't like my job. I'm just gonna quit today, and tomorrow I'm gonna have 55 customers. That's not gonna happen. So you have to quit the right way by learning the game. And if someone is out here and they have inspired you, it's because it was already within you. God just seemed fit to put this vessel in front of you to give you the message that you needed so that you could go out there and win in life. And so that's what I'm living my whole life for. I say it's for a long funeral procession, and people say to me, man, that's a crazy thing to say. And it might sound morbid, but at the end of your life, what do you want to be remembered for? And how many people will come see you when you're no longer here because you did something good for them and they want to make sure that they're there to pay their respects? Or how many people will be at that same funeral procession? Probably not many. If you didn't do something to help other people in the world by doing the thing that's going to help you cultivate your talent, that's winning in life. I figured out that I had some talents, Naylor, and I'm all over the place right now. But for the person who's watching this, and you're going to start a business, it's going to open your brain to all of these other possibilities, and you're going to start to find other talents that you didn't know that you had, or the talent that you do have was always being worked on by the circumstances and the situations that you had to go through. So now I could talk like this because I went through some stuff that I didn't like, and it hurt and it was the fire, but it made a damn champion. And how do I know? Because I got a trophy right here that says, so I'm a champion. And you are, too, because you were born. And so now it's time for you to win in life. And I'm going to keep telling people until my breath is gone that you were put here to win. And no one will know about you unless you do win. And I don't mean the world got to know about you. Your family won't even know. And maybe somebody in your own family was supposed to be the next whatever great thing that's out here, and they're going to be that because you did what you were supposed to do so that they could be who they're supposed to be. Now, I'm not here to tell you how to live your life, but I will say this. If you're out here just killing yourself with your head down and you ain't focused on the people, then you might be that type of person that has that small funeral procession that didn't really affect nobody. So I would say go out there and go after your dreams and your goals. Because winning in life is like, when I wake up in the morning, I'm excited because I'm going to do something that I know is going to help. Not me right now, me in the future and all of the other people that will be affected by that thing that I do right now. So Plum Creek Lawn Care, he just entered the thing. He literally made a video about the day that he quit his job because he heard me talking about that thing on that video that I told you about. That video is powerful. I suggest you go watch it.
- [43:26]
B
Nice. All right, Cornell, well, where can everyone find you and follow your journey after. After this stream is over?
- [43:36]
A
Well, if you want to see videos and all of that stuff, we do videos, podcasts on my YouTube channel, Mac Landscaping and Lawn Care. I go live every Monday and most Wednesday nights at 9pm Eastern, also on Instagram. I'm very active in the DM, so come over there. Mac underscore landscaping 412 on all the platforms, but my most active are YouTube and definitely Instagram on the DMS. And then I have a meetup down at Equip Expo called the Winning Life Meetup. It will be on October 21st, I believe. Is that Wednesday down there? From 6 to 10pm Be there, be square. 425 tickets available. If you don't get a ticket, you will not be in there. So I hope to see you there down there at equip Expo 2026. Oh, and make sure you come to Pot Row, all right? Because that's where we gonna be, Pot Row, down there all week. Let's go.
- [44:34]
B
Yes, sir. And we'll put some links in the episode description for those of you listening and watching later. And until so with that being said, I hope you all got value. I had a great time talking to Cornell and hearing what he had to say. And I know he is definitely winning in life and he's an inspiration for sure. So let's keep up the good work, all of us, and let's keep finishing the first half of the season so that we can start the second half of the season even stronger. Get through the summer burnout, and we'll see you guys in October for sure. We don't see you before then. So thank you guys for listening and watching and we will catch you on the next episode. So this is Nail Artaglia Ferro and Cornell Mack signing off. This has been an lcr media and Mr. Producer production.