Against all Odds: All Nation Restoration

Summary

The Unshakeables: Against All Odds – All Nation Restoration

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Unshakeables
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Episode: Against All Odds: All Nation Restoration
• Release Date: April 29, 2025
• Hosts: Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business, and guest co-host Dr. Laurie Santos

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Introduction

In the April 29, 2025 episode of The Unshakeables, host Ben Walter delves into the remarkable journey of Benjamin Howe, the resilient founder of All Nation Restoration based in Austin, Texas. This episode, titled "Against All Odds: All Nation Restoration," explores themes of grit, resilience, and unwavering optimism amidst adversities. To provide deeper psychological insights into Benjamin’s mindset, Ben is joined by Dr. Laurie Santos, a renowned psychologist and host of The Happiness Lab podcast.

Benjamin Howe’s Upbringing and Early Struggles

The episode begins with Benjamin Howe recounting his challenging upbringing within a strict, non-denominational Christian group. [02:57] Benjamin describes the environment as highly controlling, lacking genuine education despite public claims of homeschooling. His departure from this group was marked by radical rebellion, leading to his first major confrontation with authority.

At 15, Benjamin's attempt to evade the consequences of a nighttime run from friends resulted in a three-month juvenile detention. [04:14] Contrary to his expectations of a short stay, Benjamin found himself in a prolonged standoff where his father refused to let him return home. This period became a turning point, exposing Benjamin to individuals who genuinely cared about his future.

A Lifeline in Round Rock

During his time in juvenile detention, Benjamin received unexpected support from a compassionate judge who recognized his potential. [04:18], [04:57] The judge offered Benjamin the chance to join a boys' program upon turning 16, with the promise of emancipation upon completion. However, Benjamin’s initial plan to relocate to Bryan College Station was thwarted by transportation issues, leading him to Austin instead.

Benjamin’s arrival in Austin was fraught with fear and uncertainty. [05:22] – [06:09] Armed with nothing but a bicycle, he embarked on a 22-mile journey to Round Rock, where he was ultimately sheltered by an empathetic hotel receptionist. The following morning, he bravely approached Shawn, a local pickup truck owner, seeking employment. [06:48] – [07:44] Shawn not only provided Benjamin with a job but also opened his home to him, marking the beginning of Benjamin’s introduction to the restoration business.

Entering the Restoration Business

Working for Shawn's company, Abest, Benjamin gained invaluable hands-on experience in water, fire, mold, and crime scene restoration. [09:03] – [09:19] Despite his lack of formal education, Benjamin excelled through his willingness to learn and relentless work ethic. His apprenticeship underscored a critical lesson: “How am I going to be successful without the tools of education?” [08:31]

Launching All Nation Restoration

At 18, with encouragement from former coworker Chris, Benjamin faced the daunting challenge of starting his own company. [10:10] – [10:52] Despite initial fears and financial constraints, Benjamin and Chris took a leap of faith, opting to live in a camper and minimize expenses. This period of sacrifice and hard work laid the foundation for All Nation Restoration.

The Critical Moment: Fleet Replacement and Crisis

In 2020, Benjamin decided to replace All Nation Restoration’s aging fleet with high-end Mercedes vans. [15:06] – [16:22] This decision, influenced by the 2020 car shortages, required a million-dollar investment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite financial strains and unforeseen challenges, Benjamin secured the new fleet with the support of his banker. However, disaster struck when all new vans were swept away into Walnut Creek, effectively crippling the business. [17:10] – [18:08]

Benjamin faced the potential collapse of his company but showcased remarkable resilience. Through meticulous recovery efforts and community support, including assistance from local businesses like Signco, Benjamin navigated the crisis. [19:21] – [20:49] He adapted by downsizing his fleet, renegotiating with insurance, and innovatively marketing by acquiring and branding a dumpster company.

Insights from Dr. Laurie Santos

Dr. Laurie Santos provides a psychological perspective on Benjamin’s extraordinary resilience:

1. Mindset and Optimism: Benjamin possessed a steadfast belief in his ability to overcome challenges. [02:19] – [13:03]

   • Benjamin Howe: “I definitely don’t think I’m going to be successful. Like, there’s no way I’m going to run this business as well as the person before me.” [12:48]

2. Social Support: Building and maintaining a robust support network was pivotal.

   • Dr. Santos: “You want to have a set of social supports around you that can really take care of you when times get tough.” [14:28]

3. Emotional Preparedness: Recognizing and managing negative emotions helps in navigating tough times.

   • Dr. Santos: “Negative emotions are like the dashboard light on your car. You have to notice that and pay attention to it.” [24:35]

Overcoming the Van Crisis

Despite the significant loss of his fleet, Benjamin's response exemplified resilience:

• Quick Recovery: He efficiently managed the aftermath by salvaging equipment, coordinating with towing agencies, and negotiating with insurance.
• Community Support: Local businesses like Signco provided temporary solutions, reinforcing the importance of community ties.
• Strategic Pivot: Transitioning to smaller, cash-based vehicles and enhancing marketing strategies through dumpster branding helped stabilize the business.

Future Vision and Legacy

Looking ahead, Benjamin envisions All Nation Restoration maintaining its commitment to helping the less fortunate:

• Expansion with Purpose: “I want to give back to those type of kids that are getting out of those programs or young people that are struggling with addiction.” [28:23]
• Community Empowerment: Expanding to multiple cities to create employment opportunities for individuals facing similar struggles.

Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Benjamin’s poignant advice encapsulates the essence of resilience:

• “Don’t give up. Do not give up. Persevere all the time.” [29:12] His emphasis is on enduring through seemingly insurmountable challenges to emerge stronger.

Conclusion

Ben Walter and Dr. Laurie Santos conclude the episode by reflecting on the multifaceted nature of education and success. Benjamin Howe’s journey dismantles conventional notions, highlighting that diverse paths can lead to substantial achievements. The episode underscores the importance of mindset, social support, and emotional preparedness in overcoming adversity.

Key Takeaways:

• Resilience is built through a positive mindset and strong social networks.
• Adversity can be a powerful teacher, fostering growth and innovation.
• Small businesses play a crucial role in community support and empowerment.
• Personal stories, like Benjamin’s, challenge and expand our understanding of success and education.

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The Unshakeables continues to inspire by showcasing real stories of perseverance and triumph, reminding listeners that true strength lies in unwavering determination and the courage to face life's toughest moments head-on.

Transcript

[Ben Walter]

Ruby. We hear all kinds of stories here on the Unshakeables. We've heard about frozen fields and battery investors and wire fraudsters. But today we're talking about vans. And Benjamin Howe from Austin, Texas, has a favorite.

[Benjamin Howe]

My favorite work van for restoration is a Mercedes, specifically the 170 wheelbase, dually high top 3500 diesel. They're beautiful vans, absolutely beautiful. And they're the best for restoration work, in my opinion. Unfortunately, they're also the most expensive.

[Ben Walter]

Expensive to the tune of about $90,000 for Benjamin's purposes. A few years ago, Benjamin replaced his entire fleet with these dream vans.

[Benjamin Howe]

We got all the vans wrapped, we sold off most of the old ones and we parked them all in the parking lot. We went home. So the neighbor to the property calls me and it was probably about 10 o'clock at night, I was home, and he calls me just totally freaking out, and he's like, your vans are floating across my property. Every one of those brand new vans that washed off the creek, into the creek, they were gone. That was a panic moment for me because that was well over a million dollars.

[Ben Walter]

Welcome to the Unshakables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. On the Unshakeables, we are sharing the daring mom of small business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories of how they got through it. Today we have a story of overcoming overwhelming adversity and a guest who somehow stayed optimistic through it all. His mindset is fascinating. I wanted an expert's opinion to really dig into this, so I brought in a special co pilot for today's episode. She's a psychologist, the host of the hit podcast the Happiness Lab, and also the professor of psychology and the Good Life, which is the most popular class in Yale's history. I'm thrilled to welcome to the unshakeables today, Dr. Laurie Santos. Laurie, thank you for joining us today.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Thanks so much for having me on the show.

[Ben Walter]

Today's episode centers on themes of grit, resilience, and optimism in the face of obstacles. And Lori is the perfect person to help us explore that.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I think there's two big inputs you want to build up if you want to become more resilient in business and in life. I think the first one is your mindset. The second thing, though, is I think you want to build up social support.

[Ben Walter]

Both of which play a critical role in Benjamin's story. So let's get to it. On today's episode, All Nation Restoration From Austin, Texas. Today we're doing something a little bit different, which is to start with Benjamin Howe's upbringing. This is a business show, so we usually focus on business. But in this case, Benjamin's childhood is in many ways the foundation of his business.

[Benjamin Howe]

I was born into basically a conservative group. It was non denominational, Christ, super strict religious group. They would say if you were to ask them, they would talk about the education system being homeschooled. But the reality of the fact is those organizations, in my opinion, they operate by controlling the narrative. And so the real goal is no education. I didn't buy really the narrative and I saw too many conflicts of sort of interest in the belief system. Leaving was very difficult for anybody. It takes a lot of bravery to leave or it takes a method of sabotage. They had the systems that deal with the typical rebellion. And I took it definitely a step further where it was radical rebellion. It was, I don't care one bit if I'm dead or alive. I'm going to make your life hell no matter what. When they realized they couldn't take me anywhere, they couldn't do anything, I was out of control is when they said, yeah, we gotta ship him off.

[Ben Walter]

One night Benjamin was out with his friends when they got pulled over. He tried to run. He was caught, detained and taken to juvenile detention. Benjamin was 15 at the time.

[Benjamin Howe]

When I went to juvie, you know, I probably would have stayed there for a couple of days max, but I wouldn't go home, he wouldn't leave.

[Ben Walter]

His dad didn't want him to come home. It was a stalemate.

[Benjamin Howe]

We were in this standoff which resulted in like a three month juvenile stay for me, which was not fun. Through that process of going to juvenile detention and stuff, I started to see people that actually really cared, just like the general public. And there was a judge involved in my case in the juvenile court and he just really put his neck out on the line and had my back. And the judge like, no, I'm not gonna take him and put him in a prison where he learns to be a criminal, right? He's smart. And it was the first time in my life somebody ever called me smart. He said, I'm sending you this boys home. He's not gonna be fun, it's gonna be hard. He said, you make a year commitment, you go there and when you're out, I'll file the paperwork to emancipate you.

[Ben Walter]

How old are you at this point?

[Benjamin Howe]

I turned 16 in the boys program in Houston.

[Ben Walter]

The program had a deal where Once the boys matriculated, they would buy them a one way bus ticket to anywhere in Texas.

[Benjamin Howe]

I had told them I wanted to go to Bryan College Station. And they looked it up and they're like, yeah, there's a bus that leaves here at like six in the evening. Head to Brian. And I was like, no, because I'll get off the bus and it'll be dark, right, And I don't know anybody there.

[Ben Walter]

But there was a bus leaving for Austin 45 minutes later. Benjamin got on.

[Benjamin Howe]

I didn't have a plan. I don't know if there's any way humanly possible to describe really the feeling and the fear and the excitement, the mix of adrenaline and emotion, but I haven't felt it since, we'll put it that way. I've had plenty of things happen in my life since have been very scary or very exciting, but nothing that really hits that point. I tried to calm down a bit. It was starting to get towards the evening. I realized that I needed some form of transportation and I found a bicycle that was not being attended to at the moment and I took it because I needed it. And then I started realizing that I really needed is somebody I knew I had to have connection because if you don't know anybody, right, you're kind of completely screwed.

[Ben Walter]

What happened next is a story for another day, but here's the gist. Benjamin needed to find someone, anyone to throw him a lifeline. Remember, this is a 16 year old kid with no money and no family. So he biked around looking for anyone he knew and finding no one. He rode 22 miles to round Rock, Texas, mainly on the highway access road. Unsurprisingly, the police pulled him over for biking on the highway and escorted him to a local hotel where a young woman working reception took pity on him. She let him crash in an empty room for the night. We're going to pick our story back up. The next morning Benjamin was out of the room bright and early and there were only a few other folks in the hotel parking lot, including one guy.

[Benjamin Howe]

Named Shawn, a guy probably in his 50s or so. He was sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck. I finally got the courage to go up to him and I said, hey, quick question, sir, do you have any work I can do? He said, well, what do you know how to do? And I said, whatever you tell me to do, I need to work. And he's like, well, I got a couple errands I gotta run first thing in the morning here and I'll think about it and stuff. So he drove away about 30 minutes, maybe an hour later, he showed back up. He had a house in Round Rock. I went to the house and helped him out. I cleaned his shed and changed the tire on a vehicle. Just the typical. And he's like, I need to know who you are and what's going on. And so he told him the whole story. You got it, Ben. I told him the whole story. It's funny because when I told him the whole story, he listened and he said, okay, I'll tell you what, don't ever tell anybody that story again. He's like, well, I don't want to make you feel weird or whatever, but you're welcome to stay with me. He had four boys and was married and stuff.

[Ben Walter]

And he invited you into his home?

[Benjamin Howe]

Yeah, he did, and I accepted it.

[Ben Walter]

I want to pause a second here. This moment is extraordinary. Again. This is a 16 year old kid with a bike and no education approaching a business owner, just looking for a lifeline. The courage it takes to do that is staggering. And Sean was kind enough to hear him out and give him the bridge he needed to start this new life. This stuff doesn't just happen every day, but I've seen time and time again that small business owners show up for their communities, especially in time of need. If anything, I hope this inspires all of us to look around our own communities and take a chance on someone who may desperately need it. So you moved in with him, you went to work for him?

[Benjamin Howe]

Yes.

[Ben Walter]

So tell me about the business. What was his business?

[Benjamin Howe]

Water, fire, mold and crimes and cleanup. Those were the main pieces of what he did.

[Ben Walter]

And you learn all about how to restore physical property, right?

[Benjamin Howe]

Yeah, there's always this big question mark with education for me, like, how am I going to be successful without the tools of education, not being able to read and write and like, how am I going to be a benefit to this company? And how am I going to be a benefit to this guy who's taking his chance on me? And so coming into his world and seeing that you could replace a lot of the standard education with your willingness to learn and your willingness to work.

[Ben Walter]

You got an on the job education?

[Benjamin Howe]

Absolutely, yeah. It was basically an apprenticeship. I got to see the good, the bad, the ugly. I got to see it in real time. He was a real support to me and he taught me that industry inside and out.

[Ben Walter]

Sean's restoration company was called Abest. Sounds like a Yellow Pages play.

[Benjamin Howe]

Yeah, it was 100%.

[Ben Walter]

I'm old enough to remember that okay.

[Benjamin Howe]

Yeah, that's exactly what it was. And when you could easily search stuff online on your phone, the Yellow pages overnight dried up and blew away.

[Ben Walter]

Soon a best went by the way of the Yellow Pages and Benjamin found himself once again out in the world without a real plan. But this time he had connections, employment history, a little bit of cash saved up and skills he could leverage. He went out looking for a job. He got lots of interviews, but every time he went in, he was asked to fill out a job application.

[Benjamin Howe]

I can't fill out the paperwork, but I'm really good at my job. Like, I will work really hard, I'll be on time. And the guy looked at me and was like, if you can't fill out the paperwork, how are you going to do your job?

[Ben Walter]

Benjamin was stuck. Then Chris, an old co worker from abest, reached out.

[Benjamin Howe]

He's like, hey, can I come work for you? And I just literally started laughing. I don't know if it was because I thought I was funny or because I was in a complete panic myself, but I just cracked up laughing. I think I was 18 and Chris is like, well, look, man, if there's anybody that I think can do this, it's you.

[Ben Walter]

So you decided to start the company, or is that too much of a stretch?

[Benjamin Howe]

I would love this to be more of a hero story, but really it was a lot of fear. I truly did not believe I had what it took to run a company.

[Ben Walter]

You just needed income, so you gotta go.

[Benjamin Howe]

Yeah. And that was pretty much it.

[Ben Walter]

Benjamin called Chris back. He still wasn't sure, but Chris was. Chris was so sure that he offered to work for free.

[Benjamin Howe]

I mean, that was the offer. He's like, you can't pass that up, Ben. And I was like, yeah, you're right.

[Ben Walter]

Benjamin quickly realized that starting a business takes capital, a lot of capital. And he had much less money coming in than he had before.

[Benjamin Howe]

One of the lessons for me was if I was going to start a company, I need to lower my expenses, like big time.

[Ben Walter]

How do you do that?

[Benjamin Howe]

Well, one, my girlfriend didn't like the reduction in income. That problem resolved itself. She left.

[Ben Walter]

That took care of itself.

[Benjamin Howe]

Yeah, she left. And I realized that the idea of faking it until you make it, it wasn't going to work for me. I went on a mission to sell basically everything that I had. I bought a camper and I moved it to an RV park in East Austin and Chris moved in with me. So we lived in this little camper. We split the rent in the camper and we worked our butts off.

[Ben Walter]

Dr. Santos, what did you think of Benjamin's story?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I mean, what an incredible human and what an incredible story, right? It's amazing because it violates the intuitions that I think we usually have about what makes for a successful business person. A successful business person, you know, gets an MBA or they go to some fancy school, or they're the kind of person that, like, has had a straight path to where they're going now. Benjamin's story really reminds us that, hey, there's so many different paths to being a successful business person. And you don't necessarily have to worry if you're kind of missing one of the things you think you need. Right? You might not have that fancy college degree. You might not have that fancy experience. You might not necessarily even believe that you're able to do what you're doing. One of the things I found so compelling about Benjamin's story is that at one point, when he's handed the keys to this new business, he says, I definitely don't think I'm going to be successful. Like, there's no way I'm going to run this business as well as the person before me. And, you know, look at the amazing things he's done. And so I think it really reminds us that a lot of the ideas we have about successful business people who can be a good leader, some of those ideas are really mistaken, and we might really need to visit thinking about them differently.

[Ben Walter]

Yeah. It's clear from Benjamin's story that starting and running a business, whether you come from a background like his or not, if you listen to all our stories, takes a certain level of resilience. How do you develop resilience as an asset, as a tool in your life? What are the inputs that help people build that muscle?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I think the first one is your mindset. He had a mindset that things were going to work out. It wasn't so much blindly hopeful, but he just had faith and his own abilities to push through things when things were tough. And this is really a mindset of optimism, something that's really important for resilience. You realize, hey, it's not that tough stuff's not going to come up. I'm not blindly hopeful that no problems will ever come up. I just. If problems come up, I have faith in my ability to push through. And I think that was really inherent in Benjamin's story. But I think it's something that all resilient business leaders need to build in, because we can't blindly think that no, problems are going to come up. They're going to come up. Right. This is what we hear on your show a lot. Right. The problems come up, but I think we need to have a mindset where we just have some faith in our ability to get through it. It turns out that that belief, believing that you can do it, is kind of half the battle for getting through things. And so I think that's resilience ingredient number one, the right mindset of resilience. The second thing, though, is I think you want to build up social support. You want to have people that you can ask for help. You want to have businesses that can help you out when things get really tricky. I think you want to build a set of social supports around you that can really take care of you when times get tough. And this in Benjamin's story a little bit too. Right. He really made good use of the opportunities he had socially, the people who did believe in him. He kind of locked onto that and really used those individuals to fuel his success.

[Ben Walter]

Yeah. I really want to hear what you think about the rest of Benjamin's story. Let's listen. At this point, Benjamin and Chris are living in the rv. They had lots of small residential projects and slowly built up their name and their reputation. Finally, they got a big break, a contract with a research and development lab in Austin. Not only did it help them financially, but it also gave Benjamin the nudge he needed.

[Benjamin Howe]

That's when I kind of realized that there was a good chance we could line up more of those and actually start to build a business.

[Ben Walter]

So once you really got it going, then there's a point at which you really started to invest. Right. You started to buy equipment, you started to buy everything you needed, and then you bought some vans. Tell me about that.

[Benjamin Howe]

I started investing in the company from day one, just buying restoration equipment, fans, DUs, and the things we needed in box trucks and used vehicles.

[Ben Walter]

Their transportation inventory reached a critical moment in 2020.

[Benjamin Howe]

We realized that our fleet was just aging out. It was just one disaster after the other.

[Ben Walter]

One broken belt away from whatever.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah.

[Benjamin Howe]

And turbos and being late to customers, houses, all that stuff.

[Ben Walter]

This was Benjamin's chance to get his beloved 80 to $90,000 vans.

[Benjamin Howe]

I was going to kind of rip the band aid off and replace the fleet with these vehicles. I told the sales guys, we want to replace our entire fleet of vans. It's about 15 vans we're looking at. He's like, we're not going to get those allocated to us.

[Ben Walter]

If you remember anything about the car shortages during 2020, then you know what Benjamin was facing. Unlike many Americans, the shortage actually worked out in his favor.

[Benjamin Howe]

I didn't want to do it all at once. Let's put that in one at a time. When they come in, we'll trade it out for one of the vehicles that's in rough shape with the company. So he calls me about a month later. He's like, hey, good news. I was able to get all of those vans allocated, and I started the order on all of them. And that was a panic moment for me because that was well over a million dollars.

[Ben Walter]

You didn't have a million in cash to just hop on it?

[Benjamin Howe]

No, I didn't.

[Ben Walter]

Okay.

[Benjamin Howe]

So it was a total panic. I got with my banker. We started looking at everything, financials, and he just helped me recast my financials. And he kept coming back to me, like, I don't know how we're going to make this happen, but we're going to make it happen. And I was like, okay. So sure enough, those vans start rolling in just one after the other every day. I was getting stretched to pretty much the limit. And then Covid had a huge impact on all businesses. We were no different. And so, like, from when the order went in to when the vans became available all at one time, the company was also not doing fantastic.

[Ben Walter]

Somehow Benjamin got all his vans. The van panic was almost over. Almost. Just after he got the final van wrapped and road ready, he got a call from the guy next door to his business property.

[Benjamin Howe]

He's in complete panic. He can't even get a straight word out. Ben, oh, my God. And I was like, no, dude, what's going on? He's like, all of your vans are floating away in the creek, and it wasn't even raining. And I was like, stop joking with me. It wasn't storming, and it hadn't even been raining. The ground wasn't saturated. And I was like, you have to be kidding me.

[Ben Walter]

What happened? Was it raining upstream? Like, what happened? Here's what happened. Benjamin and the all nation restoration facilities were near Walnut Creek in Austin. Surrounding the creek is a large natural area with miles of biking and walking trails. It also has a large floodplain. All Nation restoration was in that floodplain. And today was Benjamin's unlucky day.

[Benjamin Howe]

So it took all these vans off the creek, and it took them down the creek, some of them miles, and just obliterated them. And then it's also just embarrassing. Super embarrassing. Like, the restoration company that usually helps people with floods loses all their vans in the creek. Right.

[Ben Walter]

Did you think the business was going to survive at that point?

[Benjamin Howe]

No, I was pretty sure it wasn't. We bought in the middle of COVID so prices were elevated from all dealerships, so we were paying over what the vehicle was worth. On top of that, we didn't put gap insurance on stuff when we bought them. We were in such a hurry just to get this to happen. And then because of the cost increase on my insurance premium, which I really didn't fully take into consideration when I bought all these vans, yeah, I didn't really think about it. I had opted for a high deductible, $10,000 per vehicle, because in my mind there was no way that I would lose all of my vehicles.

[Ben Walter]

So how did you resolve this? What'd you do?

[Benjamin Howe]

Well, it's interesting because I think things resolve themselves if you stick in there, if you persevere through them. We went through the normal things, getting all of the equipment that was in those vans out and back up onto dry land, and then working with a towing agency to get all of the vehicles out of the creek, which is a huge effort, filing claims on all of it, and then tried to negotiate with our insurance company on all the vehicles. We went to rental companies and we rented vehicles. And there's a company in town that does our lettering. They felt bad for us. They put temp lettering on all of our rented vehicles and then offered to take them off, clean them up and we were able to return them.

[Ben Walter]

Wow. I love when I hear stories like that, like small businesses supporting other small businesses.

[Benjamin Howe]

Yeah, it was super Austin. Signco has been really good to us. But then came the interesting thing and I thought to myself, you don't deal with something like this for no reason. There has to be something that we can learn from this in some way. We can grow in a positive direction through this. And so although I still believe that the Mercedes Sprinter van is the best for restoration, there's also negatives. And then some of the negatives are that they're high roof, which is good to work in, but they're not good for overhead damage. We had a lot of overhead damage claims that were coming in, then just the weight of the vehicles on the road and the impact on the environment.

[Ben Walter]

Burn a lot of gas and.

[Benjamin Howe]

Yep, tires, more tires, more tires, for sure. All of it. And then the insurance costs and everything else. So I went back to the drawing board and I said, we're going to go way smaller on vehicles and we're going to buy cash. So we're going to rent and then we're going to start knocking out those rental vans, getting them returned back to the rental company by replacing as fast as we can, replacing these vans with cash vehicles.

[Ben Walter]

At that time, Benjamin was also spending a ton of money on marketing the company, trying to drum up business and replace what he lost during COVID I.

[Benjamin Howe]

Ended up moving my marketing dollars out of promoting the company digitally, and instead I bought a dumpster company and I logoed out the 25 dumpsters with full graphics.

[Ben Walter]

So they became a marketing vehicle for you because the dumpster sits outside and everybody drives by it.

[Benjamin Howe]

Yeah. So I was like, I can basically purchase this company outright with my budget.

[Ben Walter]

And it'll make money and do marketing at the same time.

[Benjamin Howe]

That's right. And then it allowed us to buy smaller vehicles.

[Ben Walter]

It's a good ninja move.

[Benjamin Howe]

Well, I look back and I was like, I need to pat myself on the back. I figured something out, you know, and then I bought all these little transit vans. I used the insurance company to get out of the debt with the van as best as possible. And then the debt that was remaining, we went to the banks and we were just like, look, this is the situation. Here's the pictures. Can we consolidate? So we actually came back from this whole thing a lot stronger. So at first I was like, man, nobody's going to believe how stupid I am parking all my vans in a floodplain. And then once we solved all these problems, I started thinking, oh man, I hope nobody thinks this is insurance fraud. Like I intentionally dumped my fleet to switch gears to do something better. So I feel like really blessed that it actually happened, which is really weird because I think we came back so much better and on a different trajectory. A much more sustainable trajectory, a much easier trajectory to grow.

[Chase Business Representative]

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[Ben Walter]

We Talk a lot about mindset on this show, but I gotta say, Benjamin's mindset is next level. Even when he's panicking or he's in a really tough spot, he's able to keep showing up. It would be so much easier to quit, but he doesn't can you give us a little insight into what it takes to have a mindset where you can keep going?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

You'd be surprised how becoming a little bit more other oriented and purpose driven can give you the resilience to push through when times are tough for yourself. That's providing a foundation that's boosting your happiness, that's boosting your sense of self worth. That can kind of help you out when things get tough. So I think becoming other oriented in an odd way is a way of sort of selfishly protecting yourself. That said, I think you also need strategies when the tough times come up to help yourself. And a big one is really mindfully noticing how things are going. Mindfully noticing like, oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed right now. I'm feeling really stressed out. I'm feeling a little lonely, like I haven't had a chance to see my family in a long time. I often tell my students that negative emotions are like the dashboard light on your car. You know, if your tire light goes on or your engine light, you have to notice that and pay attention to it. Not necessarily immediately, but at some point you've got to rectify the situation and fix things. I think our own negative emotions and mindfully noticing those negative emotions work like that. If you want to be a resilient business leader, you have to take time to notice when you're feeling a little overwhelmed, you're feeling a little stressed, you're feeling a little down, maybe feeling a little angry or anxious. Right? These are all emotions that push us towards some behavior that we can use to resolve things and feel better. That sort of mindset, research shows, can really be good for getting through tough times, but also making sure you're motivating yourself in a healthy way.

[Ben Walter]

I mean, those are really forms of Emotional preparedness. Right. I spend a lot of time with clients and guests on the show talking about financial preparedness, risk preparedness, thinking through what could happen. What I hear you saying is you have to do the same for your own mental health and emotions.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Exactly. And I think that sadly this is something that we don't teach people very well. I mean, I think Benjamin's school of hard knocks has really taught him to develop that emotional preparedness. Just as we have lots of courses on financial literacy, we actually need equivalent business courses on emotional regulation literacy. Right. How do I regulate my emotions, notice them and tackle them in tough times?

[Ben Walter]

Yeah. And I think that's become a lot less taboo is the good news. Right. Mental health in general has become less taboo, but it's also the hard one because I can't put it on a spreadsheet like a lot of the things that I do.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. But it is going to be the kind of thing that business leaders take into account because I think more and more you recognize that mental fitness and by that the ability to regulate your emotions, having a resilient mindset and so on, mental fitness winds up mattering for your business performance. We want teams that can regulate their emotions. We want teams that have a positive mindset that are going to keep pushing and persevering when times get tough. And so I think more and more we're going to be seeing businesses paying attention to all these so called squishy psychological topics more.

[Ben Walter]

It's squishy when it's everyone else's, but it doesn't feel squishy when it's yours, right?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Definitely, definitely.

[Ben Walter]

Does the research suggest that there are any conditions or tools or anything else that can help us when we go through tough experience growth as opposed to trauma?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. Well, one tool really is the right kind of mindset. And I think Benjamin exemplifies this really well. He seems to have this really lovely ability to look for a silver lining in the midst of all these things, to be grateful in the face of really bad times. Research has shown that having a grateful mindset, noticing the blessings, can be one path to having a mindset that can help you through resilient times. And that's in part because our natural instinct is to focus on the negative, to notice only the bad stuff. When we train our mind to focus on the blessings, that means that even in the midst of terrible things, we can notice stuff that we can be grateful for. And that can give us a kind of motivation to sort of push through. So I think that's One thing, he really has this mindset of noticing the blessings. Even though he went through such a terrible childhood, he was able to make great use of the social support that he did have. From the judge who gave him a little bit of a benefit of the doubt, to the hotel owner who helped him out a little bit, to business owners who gave him a chance. Right. I just want a job. I just want to jump in. I'll do anything. He was able to make good use of these moments of social support. And one of the things we do know is that if you're going through a tough time, whether that's in your personal life or in a business, having that social support, noticing that it's there, asking for help, these kinds of things can matter a lot, too.

[Ben Walter]

I mean, that's even correlated with a longer life, right? Having healthy social connections.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Exactly. And there's study after study really showing that if you look at longevity, people who have and maintain their healthy social connections wind up living longer and living longer, more healthfully. So you don't just, like, live for a long time, but you avoid things like heart attacks and so on. Social support support winds up helping us out a lot, and it's a great stress buffer. Right. And I think we see this a little bit in Benjamin's story as well. Times that would normally hit us really hard didn't hit Benjamin as hard, I think, because he was relying on his team. He was relying on the social support that he'd grown to love. And I think that that's a lesson for a lot of us, too. Right. It's not just having these social supports. It's really maintaining them, putting time in and being willing to go to them when times are tough.

[Ben Walter]

Thank you for those insights, Laurie. Now, we've heard about all nations, past and present, but I wanted to ask Benjamin about the future. We've been talking a lot about succession planning on the show recently, so much so that we dedicated a bonus segment to it. So please go take a listen. You can find it in the show's feed in 20 years. What's your wish for All Nation?

[Benjamin Howe]

As the company grows and expands, I want its focus to remain on helping people that are less fortunate. I think a lot of times companies start selling out to, like, shareholders and people that are really interested in that profit, which I understand that path, but as we grow as a company, I want to give back to those type of kids that are getting out of those programs or young people that are struggling with addiction. And I would like to do it in more than One city, we're doing it in Austin. But if we can grow into multiple cities and give people an opportunity for employment, I think for me the biggest struggle wasn't just changing my life in the boys home. It was what to do once I got out. And I think that path to a career that can support yourself is a key piece I think that's missing in so many places.

[Ben Walter]

And my final question, I ask every guest on the show, if you had one piece of advice for a business owner or aspiring entrepreneur, what would that one piece of advice be?

[Benjamin Howe]

Don't give up. Do not give up. Persevere all the time. I see people that have the answers, they have the solutions to grow. They have it. They just run into a problem, they run into a moment in their life when it's impossible and they throw in the towel. And if they persevere through that, a lot of times they come out so much stronger.

[Ben Walter]

Thank you very much. Benjamin Howe, it's been a pleasure having you on the Unshakables. Thank you for sharing your story.

[Benjamin Howe]

Thank you, Ben.

[Ben Walter]

Laurie. The thought that kept going through my head is that I think we have this, this one dimensional definition of education. But I'm sitting across from this guy who's incredibly articulate. I was lucky enough to meet his wife and daughter. He has this great family. And so I think, you know, we have this one dimensional education means I graduated from this and I can do X and Y. And he just kept making me think, do I have that definition wrong in my head? Is that too limited?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

He really shows the power of the school of hard knocks, for lack of a better term. Right. He's learned a lot from running his business, but he's also learned a lot from the kind of failures and the difficulties that have come up. And I think this is something that we get wrong about success. We think success is about figuring something out the first time, right? Getting it right all the time. We forget that our biggest teachers can be the awful times, the traumas when things don't go well, when all your vehicles are flooded and like you have to figure out how to get the right insurance and what your business does after that. And that means that sometimes as business leaders, we avoid those risks. Right? If there are possibilities that might seem risky, we don't go for that because we're worried, worried about the failure. But what we forget is that if we mess up, we might not necessarily mess up, but if we mess up, that mess up might be our biggest teacher. It might be the thing that allows our business to grow in ways that we couldn't have expected. And so Benjamin's story can really remind us avoiding risk completely or worrying that if you hit a hard time or something comes up, you won't be able to handle it. That's just not what research really shows. What research shows is that trauma can sometimes make us grow. And that's trauma in life, as we've seen with Benjamin, with his upbringing and so on. But it's also kind in the context of business, when things go just as bad as you could possibly imagine, sometimes that comes with some good, too.

[Ben Walter]

Laurie, can you talk to us a little bit about more modern psychological frames for advantage, disadvantage, how we approach others? A lot of people in society would judge because he can't read and write. Now, that's not his fault. He grew up in an environment where that wasn't taught to him. And if I'm honest with myself, I was on some level surprised that he has been able to be as successful as he has been when he can't fill out. And I sort of feel bad about feeling that way, but I'm being honest about it. How does stigma and other things play into societal expectations around these types of things?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, well, I think they play in a lot in two ways that are really important. First, these kind of cultural notions of like, well, who's educated, who belongs here, right? Who can fit into business world, who has the skills to do it? I think those expectations affect the opportunities that we give to the people that come our way as business leaders. You know, if someone can't fill out a form, you might not give them the benefit of the doubt to become one of your team members. But just like Benjamin, it might be an amazing individual. And so I think it reminds us that we need to give folks grace, that the normal stereotypes we have about the kind of person who belongs in our organization might be wrong and that we might want to rethink some of those. But I think Benjamin's story also shows a second way in which some of these beliefs can really affect productivity, which is the beliefs that an individual has about themselves. If you're disadvantaged, if you have something that is stigmatizing, like the fact that you can't read, or the lack of sort of formal education or something like that, that can affect the extent to which you yourself believe in yourself. I was really taken by Benjamin's story of kind of what switched, where the judge was like, a smart guy like you. You should have had these opportunities, X, Y and Z. He was really changed by the fact that there was somebody else out there that believed in him. And I think this is something that we neglect as business leaders. Right. A quick one off compliment about you did such a great job or you're actually really good at this or you're a really hard worker. Those quick kind of one offs can actually change a person's beliefs about themselves. It can make someone more resilient over time. And I think it just reminds us as leaders that like sometimes we think those kind of compliments in our head, but we don't often share them. And I think that's especially true for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds who might have a stereotype against them that causes them to have a threatened belief about themselves. Just these small kind of things, especially to individuals in disadvantaged groups, can mean the world of difference. Like literally can change someone's life. Life.

[Ben Walter]

Yeah. We spend a lot of time at the bank thinking about how to serve all different types of people. And it's pretty resource intensive. You can imagine we have language barriers, obviously we do have people who can't read and write and we have to be able to serve them as well. We have people with physical disabilities and that's not a small investment. I'm incredibly proud that we're able to do it, but it takes work and you have to do it intentionally.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I mean, I think what the research really shows is that work is probably paying off, allowing individuals to get through the door, kind of democratizing access to these opportunities really changes the face of what's possible in business.

[Ben Walter]

Dr. Laurie Santos, thank you so much for being on the show. This was really insightful and I appreciate the time you've spent with us.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Ben Walter]

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Unshakeables. If you liked this episode, please rate and review it. On the next episode, we'll hear the story of a man whose childhood trip to Pakistan quietly set the course for his future. Years later, he's using some of the most advanced technology to take on complex challenges and healthcare care. The kind of work that feels a little bit like science fiction. Real Star Trek stuff, which, you know, I love. I'm Ben Walter and this is the Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you back here soon. Real customer compensated.