0:00
my dad. He stopped paying his taxes and he did that on principle and he only went to jail for it not once but twice.
0:06
I had adopted my father’s purpose for my life and he said, “Nathaniel, we need constitutional lawyers, you know, to
0:12
fight the taxes.” I had two of these guys that I was helping doing a bath remodel and I got a report from the
0:17
homeowner. I get a call. Your guys went into my other bathroom and stole some of my prescription medications. I’m just
0:23
like, I I apologize. I don’t know. There’s no way I can make this better. And she’s just like, Nathaniel, you’re right. And you know what? My brother
0:29
actually overdosed on that exact same drug and killed himself. I wasn’t poor. I never had a poverty mindset. We objectively did not have money. We
0:36
just didn’t know it because we had love. We had a stable family. We had purpose. We were united. And it’s John Hire here
0:43
interviewing interesting people. And so we brought Nathaniel, not Nathaniel,
0:49
Nathaniel Elely, uh who in spite of being born in Michigan improved his station in life by well moving
0:56
elsewhere. Idaho namely. uh we’ve known each other for a few years uh previously as a client and now we’re collaborating
1:03
on the Augusta rule which we’ll talk about but isn’t the really main point of the conversation. It’s because
1:08
Nathaniel’s had a very interesting journey and I think one that entrepreneurs can relate to but not just
1:13
entrepreneurs. One of the things I like about Nathaniel is he thinks. He’s uh very well educated, both through
1:20
schooling, but also self-educated, always looking for information, very thoughtful, and has accomplished a lot,
1:26
especially given his comparatively young age, at least next to the geyser on the call. And so, we’ll get into all of
1:32
that. Nathaniel, glad to have you here. Glad for, you know, thanks for showing up and talking to my people.
1:37
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the uh the characteristic higher introduction. Thank you. So yeah,
1:43
I mean look what what compliment is truly a compliment between men unless there’s some backhand to it.
1:50
Fair enough. Appreciate that. So you grew up in Northern Michigan.
1:56
I did. Trevor City. Yep. And you you had an interesting upbringing and some challenges in your
2:02
upbringing. Kind of what brought us together actually on the August rule. You want to tell us a little bit about that?
2:07
Um sure. Uh we I mean I grew up in a completely blueco collar family in northern Michigan. My dad uh was a
2:14
carpenter, is a carpenter. He’s still the same job full-time that he’s had for uh over 53 years now. Master carpenter.
2:21
And so we were raised with a dad who was the hardest working guy probably that I’ve still ever met. Just a fantastic um
2:29
role model in that way. Um loved us deeply and uh and yet still my my
2:35
parents got a divorce when I was about 10. they they were not able to see eye to eye on a lot of things and had some
2:40
some uh generational um you know issues that they weren’t able to sort out and uh that caused a lot of hardship for our
2:47
family. And then also part of that was that caused my dad to um really ratchet
2:52
up his detestation of taxation um in a rapid manner and to the point where he’d
2:58
stop paying his taxes and he did that uh you know on principle still holds those
3:03
principles and will not pay federal tax um and he subsequently went to jail for
3:09
it not once but twice uh for those principles. um you know principles which
3:14
I happen to agree with um tactics we don’t share. So that how long was he gone?
3:21
Uh each let’s see the first time was about um a year. I think the second time
3:26
was close to a year and a half. That must have been extremely disruptive. Yeah, it was it was definitely not fun
3:33
for for mostly for him. Um but also tough for us. Uh when he went to jail, I
3:38
was already out of the house. So it was much more disruptive for my siblings than for me. I was an exchange student
3:44
in Germany at the time who went to jail for the first time. And what took you away from Michigan?
3:51
What took you on the path of virtue to a non-M Michigan residence which would be really any of the other 49 states except
3:57
maybe California? I would have to say even compared to Michigan, California is a step down.
4:02
I I might agree with you if you were only considering southern Michigan, but I I’m from the northern part where it’s absolutely gorgeous. In fact, we took
4:09
our family back there this summer, took a month-long road trip and spent most of it in Traverse City. And uh it is
4:15
incredible. So, if anybody ever talks bad about Michigan, you just got to visit Traverse City. Otherwise, I I I
4:21
can’t have a conversation with you about how bad Michigan is. But so, we’ll just distinguish Michigan from Ann Arbor.
4:27
That’s right. Yes. That that whole thing you can have it, you know, from Grand Rapids, South, you know, whatever. But
4:34
that’s my kids my kids bad influence on I mean, I graduated OSU, but so did the three of them, and we were talking
4:40
before the call. I only watch football when my kids are around, and they’re they’re Buckeye fanatics, which
4:45
evidently is the only kind made. I’m one of those aberrations. So, what what took you to Idaho?
4:51
You asked me a question. Yeah. So, well, where where moved first was was Germany. So, I got a scholarship. I actually was
4:57
going to a a youth group at the time, a Christian youth group, and uh we were in
5:02
conversation after one of the gettogethers, and I had one of the guys I was talking with telling me how he was
5:07
an exchange student. And I thought I said, “Man, that would be so incredible. I’ve always wanted to visit another country and experience other cultures.
5:14
I’m just so curious. I don’t know what’s out there. I’ve just been born and raised right here locally. I don’t think I’d even been on an airplane till I was
5:20
16, you know, you know, one time.” And um he said, “Well, I got a scholarship.”
5:26
And I said, “Well, tell me about that. How’d you get that?” And long story long, I tracked it down. It was Germany
5:31
only, which wasn’t my intent or interest, but I called the high school he went to, and they gave me a number. I
5:36
called that number. They gave me a number. I just tracked it down. Turned out to be a congressional scholarship. So, it’s basically a junior
5:42
ambassadorship. 300 kids from the US and 300 kids from Germany would do an exchange every year, and the federal
5:49
government paid for it. So, um, I ended up winning the scholarship, uh, for Michigan, and went to Germany for a
5:55
year, all expenses paid. Um, lived with a family, um, learned how to speak German, uh, conversationally, which I
6:02
still retain. And they also paid for about a half dozen trips where we did things like meet with the German
6:07
Bundesog, and, you know, actually have a kegger on the federal government’s dime while underage at the embassy. So,
6:13
things like that. So, we have that in common. I went through Rotary um, almost 40 years ago.
6:19
It’ll be next year. It’ll be 40 years that I was an exchange student in Hamburg. So, it was still West Germany.
6:24
Yeah. And
6:37
Can’t believe it. Yeah, it’s you got to practice it. And the thing is with with AI, it’s becoming a luxury. I’d like to go back
6:44
to there’s a martial art I like a lot and there’s a big school for it in southern Germany. I’d love to go back for three months and
6:50
really pick it back up. The problem is is language learning. It’s good for you. It’s good for your brain,
6:55
anti-Alzheimer’s, all that kind of thing. But it’s a luxury increasingly with AI and Google Translate and even
7:02
these are the um the AirPods 3. They evidently translate on their own. In fact, my son was in Europe and he said
7:08
they work just fine. Wow. And so it’s becoming a luxury item. I’d love to do it, but it doesn’t really add
7:14
anything other than I want to do it. Yeah. But we we do have that in common. So
7:20
y you went to and I went for a different reason. I love history and I was always
7:25
curious from an early age, I’d say about 10 on, how such a little country raised so much
7:31
hell. Mhm. And so I was just very curious about what what sort of culture would be this capable which is horrifying to me
7:38
to to read about how bad their infrastructure is now and how they’ve lost some of their old
7:45
values part of the decadence of the west in general. We have our own version of course. Uh so it it’s I I look forward
7:53
to going back and hopefully you can go relearn that. So you were there then how
7:58
did you end up in Idaho? Yeah. Well, um I had adopted my father’s
Hearing an audible voice in a German courtroom that redirected his life
8:03
purpose for my life in terms of profession and he said, “Nathaniel, we need constitutional lawyers, you know,
8:09
to fight the taxes.” And uh I think he’s right. I think we do need good constitutional lawyers. And so I
8:14
thought, well, I could I think that’s something I could be interested in. And so I was thinking along those lines. And so while I was in Germany, my host mom,
8:21
who is just a wonderful uh lady, uh took me to the German court system where I
8:27
spent a day in the courts listening to court proceedings. And of course the language was so technical it was very
8:32
challenging to understand but I could pick up some things. And in Germany they don’t have a jury system they have a triumvirate. So she was actually one of
8:38
the lay judges. So you have the full-time professional judge and then you’ve got two others who are lay judges
8:44
in lie of what would be our our jury system. And so she’s there presiding. I’m sitting out in the you know behind
8:50
the dock and uh listening. And um out of the blue, out of nowhere, I literally
8:56
hear what was to me an audible voice saying, “You are not going to be a lawyer and you’re going to New St. Andrews.” And I was like, “What the heck
9:03
was that?” And so I had my charismatic moment and I thought that was the weirdest thing on the planet. Thought
9:08
maybe I just ate a weird vener schnitle or something, but I had total peace and I wrote it on a sticky note that that’s
9:15
what I was supposed to do. And I still have that sticky note. Um, and so I started making arrangements to move to
9:20
Idaho from Germany, even though I had no connection. How old were you? I was at that time 19.
9:27
Okay. I was there when I was 16, 17. And I also had my tax lawyer moment there, but it was it was a voice that came from
9:34
a body that was physically present. My guest father there, who was, it turns
9:40
out, very high up in German business. We didn’t know that at the time. He intentionally kept it from us. you know
9:46
how that culture is kind of at least at the time very modest very self- aacing don’t don’t rise above everyone else
9:52
openly and he said to me one day we were having a drink uh which was nice I mean at the time I think it was 14 the
9:59
drinking age and he said chun you know you want to be a lawyer I have a friend
10:04
in Asa and he has a house on the cliff on the elevator down to his lake and he
10:10
is a tax lawyer and speaks languages the way you do you should do that and I’m Okay.
10:16
Yeah. And then it it worked with my politics. I don’t like the federal government. I don’t like what they do with the money.
10:22
I don’t like was I started to learn about the tax system. Plus, as you know, having been around me, what I liked
10:27
about it was the chess game, the ability to play a very complex game
10:32
and win and morally to keep money away from the government and with the people who created it. And so that kind of
10:38
helped set my direction. I didn’t realize it, but I kept thinking about it over the years. And when I went to law school, people like, “What are you going
10:44
to do?” I’m gonna be a tax lawyer because yeah, my guest father in Germany said something about elevators to lakes and
10:49
it sounded cool. Sounded good to me. Yeah. I never got the elevator to the lake, by the way. But, you know, we
10:55
we’ll get there. It’s it’s not over. You’re still a spring chicken, man. Come on. There you go. All right. So, you you
11:01
went to the school. Did you know about the school before you heard the name? Yeah. So, I’d actually heard about it
11:06
and rejected it as an option previously. I came I actually came and visited. A friend of the family gave me frequent
11:12
fly miles. I visited about a half dozen schools around the country. I knew I wanted to go to a Christian college and
11:17
be, you know, basically pursued education and become a lawyer. Um, and I went to all of these schools. Again,
11:24
somebody else gave me frequent fly miles very generously. I got to visit them. And this particular school I went to
11:29
went to one of their proceedings. The kids were giving these these uh basically like a dissertation uh you
11:34
know at their gathering each week and they’re wearing robes and they’re they’re like super heavy concepts like
11:40
way above above me. And I’m like, “This is I don’t this is not for me.” And then they got together afterwards and they
11:46
sang psalms on a Friday evening. I’m like, “This is I don’t this is not for me.” You know, Christian, not for me.
11:51
You know, I left, didn’t think anything else of it. And then this was the first time I thought about it uh in a year.
11:57
And I said, “Okay, great. I’m going out there.” And the problem is I was broke. I didn’t have anything, like nothing, no
12:03
money. My time in Germany, I think they tell you the parents you’re supposed to fund your kids like 500 bucks a month.
12:09
My parents, my mom generously gave me 50 bucks a month because that’s what they could afford. And uh at the end of the
12:15
year, my host parents were like, “Wait, wait, how come weren’t wait how did you pay for your time here?” I was like,
12:20
“Well, you know, the scholarship.” I know, but what about the rest? I was like, “Well, you guys paid for it, you know, like you guys took me everywhere
12:26
and like footed the bill. You wouldn’t even let me like pay for anything.” They’re like, “Oh, I guess that’s fair, you know.” And I was like, “But I
12:32
wouldn’t have been able to pay for anything otherwise.” And they were laughing because you’re supposed to have like a $500 a month stipend. And then I
12:38
go to college and I have no money to pay for college and my my German host parents gave me an interest free loan
12:44
for the first year of my college. Wow. Yeah. My my what what people. Yeah. Oh, they’re awesome. They I mean I
12:50
still in contact with them. Um you know and they’ve been they’ve been out here for my wedding, you know, when I got married and uh yeah, still in touch. We
12:58
plan to go visit them with the kids here in the next couple years, you know, spend a month over there, whatnot. Amazing people. So that’s how I found I
13:06
showed up in Moscow, Idaho with a backpack, a guitar I didn’t know how to play and um like a box or something like
13:13
that and uh and and a roommate I’d never met who was like a 29year-old freshman.
13:18
And then within months I found out he didn’t pay his bills and I’m sleeping on the floor on a sleeping bag and after
13:25
buying my books and eating Top Ramen and going balder at an accelerated rate and
13:30
uh picking up side work just to pay my bills. And then I had to move out because because I couldn’t pay both of our rent.
13:37
I had It’s funny. I had one of those in late undergrad, my senior year of undergrad. My roommate discovered Amway
13:46
and and he went whole hog. I mean, he was committed and he decided that paying
13:51
bills got in the way of his rising as a distributor. So, he just stopped paying him. He was very un and it was he’s
13:58
normally a really nice guy and just stopped paying utterly unapologetic. This is what I need to do for my career.
14:05
Uh and so I’m covering it and and I was a bit of a pushover. I was really nice about it initially because I’m like,
14:11
“Oh, okay.” But then my parents found out and they weren’t I was paying my own bills. Yeah. But you know, they got involved with me
14:18
about, you know, you can’t you can’t let people treat you that way. And so that that that just sounds
14:23
familiar. So okay, you understand then. experiences here. Yeah. Because I paid the bills for like a month or two and I
14:28
was like, “Dude, I literally can’t, you know, I’m broke.” Yeah. So, you understand tough times, some of
14:34
the stuff you went through as a kid, some of what you went through in college. Yeah. You you had to have some will and some
14:40
some willingness to push forward, you know? I mean, yes, you can say that. And at the time, you don’t think of it
14:45
as tough times. You’re just like, this is just what is this is. So, how do we navigate it? But yet, looking back, you
14:52
can see that that would be what others would define as tough times. you can see the hardship in it. Um, and and I know
14:58
that’s where a lot of growth has come from in my life. In fact, the majority that’s just, you know, you know, I I I
15:04
love Jesus and believe the Bible and the Bible tells us that that’s what happens. You know, um, you got to count it all
15:09
joy when you face trials of various kinds because, you know, that the testing of your faith will produce endurance or perseverance and that that
15:16
produces perfection and maturity. And so, that’s that’s the equation that is baked into reality. you know, regardless
15:22
of your belief, I think that that equation is there. You know, that the trials are what make us. Um, and so, and
15:28
at the same time, I didn’t necessarily think of them as trials. It’s kind of like some people might have said I was
15:33
poor growing up. I wasn’t poor. I never had a poverty mindset, right?
15:39
Yeah. We we objectively did not have money. Yeah. We just didn’t we just didn’t know it
15:44
because we had love. We had a stable family. Yeah. We had per we had purpose. We were united.
15:49
Yep. And we weren’t starving. I mean, yeah. that was handme-down or secondhand clothing a lot of the time or you know
15:54
shopping the sales and doing what you had to do but same thing at the time we didn’t realize that that was
16:01
yeah you’re just like this is and you’re like we were generally happy like I I’d actually had my mom uh you know was was
16:07
super tender and was trying to apologize for some things just over Thanksgiving here um again so sweet and I was like
16:14
mom no like we had such a great upbringing you know you loved us provided for us like
16:20
no If anything, the disease of our modern society is too much. People are so entitled and they
16:26
have so much and if some little thing that really isn’t important is missing, they get very bent out of shape. I’m
16:32
thankful, frankly, for the upbringing, including the the adversity. Correct. It was never a ter it was never terrible
16:38
adversity. Um, thankfully, we we were very fortunate in that, for example, none of us ever got that call from the
16:44
doctor or from the hospital of, “Hey, you got a problem. Something something bad is going on inside of you. you’re
16:50
not going to be around much longer or you’re going to be around and wish you weren’t. Yeah.
16:55
Yep. So, so you’re you’re you’re at this school and and talking to you. So, how far did you grow up from Hillsdale?
17:01
Where is that in Michigan? Yeah. No, I was So, I was So, Traverse City is in the northern part and Hillsdale is in the southern. I bet you
17:06
it’s like oh, I don’t know, a four and a half, five hour drive south, something like that. So, Oh, yeah. I mean, I knew
17:13
Hillsdale existed and I was like, “Yeah, that’s 25K a year back then. It’s probably double that now.” I’m like, “K?
17:19
Yep. I’m not even gonna like ask, you know. I’m I’m about 24,900
17:24
short. Exactly. That’s exactly right. It’s like not gonna happen.
17:30
But it sounds like the place you went to had a very similar from what you were telling me. Very classical style of
17:35
education. I did. It is still It’s It’s a phenomenal institution. I I mean, man, if you’re looking for a place for your
17:40
kids to be educated, check out New St. Andrew College. It is incredible. And at the time that I went, I literally went
17:46
there not knowing if I’d get a degree because I wasn’t going there for for credentials. I wanted to get educated. I
17:52
was just curious. There’s so many questions I didn’t have answered. Um, you know, like what’s the like what’s this thing with like the problem of
17:58
evil? Like why could a good God allow that? What’s like how what do I believe about this? What do I think about that?
18:03
You know, how does this apply to politics or family or money? I mean, there’s so many questions I had and I
18:09
wasn’t getting answers to them where I where I grew up. And uh after I was directed here because I didn’t think I’d
18:14
get answers here either. I just thought it was weirdo stuff, you know, and uh I came out and um that classical, you
18:23
know, general studies, liberal arts um curriculum just gave me a really really
18:28
rounded view of history and humanity and what’s going on in the world today and made me more curious and I think chiefly
18:35
equipped me to be able to teach myself. You know, it taught me how to learn essentially. So
18:41
why does God allow evil in the world? It’s a great question, right? Yeah. Um
18:46
basically from you know the bit that I know which you can take with a grain of
18:51
salt is that just that verse I quoted earlier which is James 1 2 um he allows
18:58
us to have free will and to choose. He didn’t want robots and automatons. He
19:04
wanted people who are actually able to choose. He didn’t want just dumb worship. He wanted us to choose to
19:09
worship him. And so that by definition requires that someone is allowed to choose wrongly. Right? You can choose
19:16
good or evil as it were. And so when evil is chosen by Adam in the garden, it
19:22
tainted our entire race. Um and so now we are evil by nature, a part of us, and
19:28
it needs to be redeemed. And so he allows evil because he allowed free will is the short.
19:33
Okay. So that makes sense to me. I mean, you can’t have if if you have free will, you have the ability to choose bad
19:39
things. If we take away that ability to choose, we can cle we can make it so you’re only good. But now you by
19:46
definition, you don’t have free will. Your will is highly limited. Correct. Yep. And so then the other ditch of that is determinism where it’s
19:52
like, well, you have no choice. And so now everything you do is written before you and there’s no choice. And that’s a
19:58
that’s also a a a certain belief. I suppose some people might believe that. It’s pretty pretty shallow in my
20:03
opinion, but it’s mostly just a straw man. People like to beat on it. They they they point to certain theological
20:10
trains of thought and they say, “Well, that just means that you have no free will or no choice. God’s ordained it all.” It’s like, well, the Bible
20:15
actually describes both to us. The reality is that we have both free will and that God knows every choice we’ll
20:21
ever make. How those how that calculus works together is for him to understand.
20:26
And that’s the part we take on that’s the part I take on faith. Well, that’s part of the mystery because we are limited. We can’t know
20:32
everything. So there are things that are entirely possible or there not just possible there are things we observe and
20:38
we just don’t understand. I’ll give you a very mundane example. I use the word advisedly.
20:43
AI fairly recently created a drug. We instructed it to create a drug in a
20:48
laboratory. It created a drug as instructed. And even though it created it, we still can’t figure out how it did
20:55
it. So we know the drug works. We test the drug. It does exactly what we wanted it to do. We try to reverse engineer how
21:03
did the AI do this because we want to imitate it. We want to do the same thing and we can’t figure it out. We are
21:10
limited and sometime sometimes we just have to that’s you know faith. I read a great
21:16
book. I was just reading an article the guy wrote the other day. He’s an atheist Jew which should be a contradiction but
21:22
isn’t fair. And he it’s um Jonathan height
21:28
wrote many good books including the happiness hypothesis and I think he does one of the best jobs of trying to
21:33
intellectually probe what is happiness but he’s so intellectually honest this is old-fashioned liberal that I can
21:40
respect. I won’t agree with him on everything, but I can respect that he’s an atheist, but he said, “I I researched
21:46
and people who have faith are happier and live longer,
21:51
and it’s consistent, and I can’t ignore that.” And so, he started to try and explore faith, which is a pretty darn
21:59
open-minded thing to do for an atheist. And he really took a good shot at it. There’s a whole chapter
22:05
in the book on on how he views it and how he tries to wrap his arms around it to understand belief without believing.
22:12
And he eventually defines belief like which because if you don’t know something,
22:17
you have no choice but to either you can shrug your shoulders and say I just don’t know. But that’s a bit of a copout. That’s kind of easy.
22:23
Yeah. Because if you don’t know with a capital K, you still have a sense.
22:29
You still have a feeling. you still have a sense of presuppositions and and what’s dangerous is what’s scary is
22:36
we don’t know when that feeling is right or wrong. That’s hard because sometimes we have feelings and that’s just wrong.
22:41
You find out later and so that’s the hard part. But then you start looking at
22:46
what feelings humans have in common and now we get into our CS Lewis and so
22:51
on. Just an interesting I think it’s a book you would enjoy in terms of the meaning and how he tries to come at it
22:56
and get his arms around the whole concept of faith without being faithful. Yes.
23:03
He’s at least intellectually consistent is what it sounds like which is Yeah. Just old school. Yeah.
23:08
Old very old school. Um so he’s written some very good uh things recently on social media and how it affects
23:14
children. And I know you’re very traditional on how you raise your kids. Five. Correct. Yes. Yep.
23:20
I count Good. I counted right when I was there then because there’s such a hive of activity. I could have easily missed
23:25
one. Especially with the dangerous blondes running around doing dangerous blonde stuff.
23:30
Yep. Oh, you got you have a beautiful family. You’ve done a great job.
23:36
It’s So, you get out of school and and this is the part that threw me. So, you get out of school. It was
23:42
classic liberal arts. Not what to think, but how to think. Yep. And instead of going and being a pipe
23:49
smoking philosophy professor, you decided to be useful and did what?
23:56
That is the conundrum of the liberal arts, isn’t it? Uh yeah. No, I I mean because I had such a a you know, use
24:04
your hand like put your hands to work, put your body to work upbringing, you know. Um you’ve got to go out and be a
24:10
value creator essentially. Um that there was nothing else I I ever thought I I I
24:15
could do. I I have to go out and and build things. Um that was baked into to
24:20
our DNA, I think, from a young young age. And what I discovered was that I like building teams. I like building
24:27
what end up being companies. Um but that was a journey. So what that looked like first off was me just experimenting.
24:34
Well, I graduated a semester early and by the time I I walked with the rest of my class, I was debtree because I used
24:40
that extra semester to pay off that first year’s loan and I had been able to pay for things along the way because I
24:46
should back up because one of the details we we didn’t say is when I went to this this college um it wasn’t even
24:52
accredited. So, when I signed up, I wasn’t going to get a degree, but then they got accredited halfway through my
24:57
my tenure there. And so, I gradu So, you really were in it for the learning. Oh, 100%. There was no degree coming my
25:03
way when I signed up. Yeah. Um but uh but then I got a degree when I graduated and I was able to then become debtree by
25:10
the time I walked with the rest of my class at the actual four-year mark. But that semester that I had extra, I just
25:15
tried to do things I’d always wanted to do. I always wanted to learn how to weld. So I walked into a welding shop and asked him to teach me how to weld. I didn’t want to go to a year-long course
25:21
where I paid money and and took a year to kind of just like really slowly chip away. I wanted to get thrown in from the
25:27
deep end. And so I found a guy who had put me to work and after two weeks he started paying me. And guess what?
25:32
Within six weeks I learned how to weld at a level that was proficient enough for my goals and got paid to do so. And
25:39
then I just kept doing things like that. Um I ended up doing odd jobs here and there for skills that I wanted to
25:44
acquire, things I was interested in. I also did some traveling, traveled all over Europe, did some snowboarding uh for a month with family and friends and
25:50
my host family. Um and then came back and was like, “All right, I guess I need to get a job now.” and was one of the
25:56
few times in my life when I didn’t have a total plan. And uh somebody found out
26:01
I had construction experience. It was a boom construction time. This is 2005.
26:06
And so I got snatched right up and put to work and uh became a crew foreman within a matter of months. Um and made
26:14
that jump from just individual performer to you know leading a small team which is always a totally different job
26:19
regardless of industry. And then um it was my second to last day in the field.
26:24
So, I got head-hunted again by a guy who wanted me to launch a brand new construction company for him. Um, and he
26:31
had land. We were He was designing a 77 lot development. How How did this guy know you? Why, why did
26:36
he pick you? How did he know you? Yeah. Um, he met me at church. Um, so he met me at church and knew of me and knew
26:43
of, you know, what I was doing and my reputation. Probably asked a bunch of people about me. So, you know,
26:48
relationships. And he just took me out to lunch and asked me a bunch of questions. And most of the questions revolved around, “Yeah, but why aren’t
26:54
you already working on your own? Why don’t you already have your own company?” Because he just couldn’t figure it out. And in my mind, that was
First business at 24: Designing 77 homes with zero business training
27:00
never a paradigm, right? I didn’t come from an entrepreneurial family. My dad was a a carpenter and uh you know,
27:06
amazing at what he did, but not business-minded. And I didn’t have any training or or thoughts along those
27:11
lines. I was just, you know, wanting to work in whatever form and create value. And so, he exhausted his questions and
27:18
finally was just like, “Well, I’m hiring you then.” You know, Excuse me. And so
27:23
he engaged me. Um, and instead of uh getting a regular paycheck though, I said, “Hey, look, I’ll work for you, but
27:29
I want equity.” And to this day, I don’t know where that thought came from, but I wanted to own what I was working on.
27:36
Excuse me, I got a tickle.
27:41
And uh, so I’m launching a company for him. I wrote a business plan and I worked with an architect, designed four
27:47
super cutesy, hyperefficient homes where we designed them down to the point where we knew every 2×4 in the house. Like
27:54
each of the walls was laid out, every detail. And then uh business plan, same
27:59
thing. um he uh sent me to meet with a a you know hundred millionaire business
28:04
guy to like review my business plan and get input and I I got exposure to all kinds of cool
28:09
And so to be clear none of your education let’s change the word none of your schooling taught you how to do a
28:16
business plan or how to design a house? No. None. So you just figured it out.
28:22
Yes. I mean I had already had seven years carpentry experience so I could speak the language of carpentry for sure. business. I had zero.
28:29
Got it. Yep. Okay. So, seven years of carpentry experience. So, this guy discovered you. How old were you? I was 22.
28:38
Okay. Okay. So, you’ve been helping out with carpentry since you were a teenager. I’ve been working with my dad. I mean, I
28:44
got my first pay for actually doing useful work at 10 years old. And so, when I say seven years
28:49
experience, that’s like summers all the way growing up and then, you know, extra work in between as I got older.
28:55
Okay. So, you’re discovered. You’re finishing off. How How was your last day
29:01
of work as a 1099 contractor before you went in with your with this guy that discovered you?
29:06
So, the sec my literally I had 24 hours to go in construction and I am a idea guy like super quick
29:15
start on a zero to 10 scale of quick start. I’m a 10. And so, I get distracted easily. And one of those
29:21
distractions was a girl, not my wife, because I hadn’t met her yet, in the parking lot of a vet clinic. We were
29:26
finishing out. Um, I I think it’s a girl because I actually don’t remember because the punch line is that I cut off
29:31
two fingers on a table saw with 24 hours to go in the field. So, I had one day
29:36
left in the field and decided to lop two fingers off on a table saw. That’s its own story. We don’t have time for that
29:42
here, but it was actually pretty funny. And I’ve had an endless jokes from it in retrospect. So, if you meet me
29:47
somewhere, don’t be afraid to make a joke. It’s great. So there are easier ways to lose weight. There
29:52
are easier ways to lose weight. Yes. It was horrible in that regard. Yeah. But
29:58
you know, in all other respects, I just laugh at it. And anyway, after those healed up because this was basically I
30:04
think it was December 15th, 200 2005. And uh so 20 years ago almost to the
30:11
day, you know, coming up here in a couple weeks and uh after going through
30:16
the healing up and Christmas break, I just started for this guy immediately, you know, with these big beehive bandages, like two little mini turbons
30:22
on these nubs and launched this company and did the business plan. Um worked
30:28
with the city to design the 77 lot layout so that they could actually accommodate that many lots with parking.
30:33
Um worked with the architect to design the homes. um started talking to potential buyers um you know and and oh
30:41
yeah and remodeled a uh main street uh office space to be the new sales room
30:47
after hours. So I was working 12 hours a day and loving it and learning a ton and
30:52
it all went to my head and I got super prideful and I got fired for being prideful and I deserved it.
30:59
Did you think you deserve that at the time? How long did it take you to figure out you had that coming? Um well I always share the side of the
31:07
story that I’m responsible for. Um there’s a whole other side of the story for you know other factors. I mean I can
31:13
I mean mention some you know roughly but you’d have to talk to the other guy to get those. You always want two sides of a story to understand the truth right.
31:19
Um so I’m owning my side which is I was prideful. Um you know his side uh you
31:25
know he could own some things himself. Um I think the writing was going to be on the wall anyway. Uh there was a
31:31
recession on the already on the horizon. Right. This is 2007, so we’re already hearing stuff from um you know, down in
31:37
California. You know, the the the end of the story is the development never got built. The company never got formed. It
31:43
got mothballled with me. Um but I got fired and I deserved it.
31:48
Yep. And and so then what? Yeah. Um so then uh I had great
31:54
relationships in town still. I’ve always made a point of being curious, talking to people, asking questions. um you know
32:01
and so um I was getting counsel as I was getting fired because it was a process and uh because of that counsel and and
32:08
shared relationships um and really some arbitration that went through our church
32:14
um because he attended as well um I ended up getting at least a paycheck uh kind of I got $16,000
32:21
so that was enough to buy some tools and outfit a truck that my grandpa had given me and uh do carpentry and construction
32:28
on my own and because of the relationships I had. I I literally my first job was like a $300,000 historic
32:34
remodel. Um because one of the guys that was counseling me was like, “Well, hey, I hear you’re out of a job. You know,
32:40
come come remodel my house.” So, that got me launched and within six
32:45
months I had five team members because I knew a bunch of other guys who needed jobs and um you know, it was all 1099,
32:53
no employees. Where were you at then? Where were you at then in terms of humans? Because one of the things I like about you, and this
32:59
is now where we’re different, I’m a great loner. I’m very good at being a loner. And then I periodically interact with
Hiring disasters: “I hired a guy whose wife was on trial for manslaughter”
33:05
people and I’m reminded why that is. And I’ve gotten better, but it’s been a much slower evolution.
33:11
So you’re out of this job. How old are you now? So that was what, a year after college,
33:17
so I’m I’m 23 going on 24. Yeah. Okay. So you start this new company.
33:23
You’ve got this new remodeling job. 24 when I started my own thing. Yeah. How did you know how to build a team?
33:29
Because now this for me is mystery because I’m still figuring it out. That’s just not something that comes naturally to me. So, so where did that
33:35
come from? Yeah. So, I didn’t know how to build a team. I didn’t know the first thing. I hired guys who um wanted a job who could
33:43
work. And that that that definition of who could work is also loose
33:49
as the next decade uh would would show. Um, so basically I just screwed things
33:55
up, you know, left, right, up and down for the next decade. John, I hired I
34:01
have hired people who don’t have a driver’s license and found out later that they have a driver’s they don’t have one. I hired one of my the apex of
34:09
my hiring was hiring somebody whose wife was actively on trial for voluntary
34:14
manslaughter um and did not know it. And then uh and then what else? I’ve hired drug addicts,
34:21
alcoholics. I’ve hired I mean, you name it, over well over a hundred guys, probably 200. Um, and did most of it
34:28
wrong and just wouldn’t quit and basically had a glorified. So, if I fast
34:34
forward the story, I had those five guys and then I think I had eight or nine guys when 2009 came. And 2009 is when
34:42
the Great Recession finally arrived at my little college town. Even though you could see it like miles off for 18 to 24
34:47
months, I didn’t. And I was abdicating my responsibilities at that point. I was
34:53
like, “Oh, I hate this construction thing or I hate the carpentry. I like construction. I like the industry. I
34:59
hate carpentry.” I just hold up in my office, read these business books, which I found fascinating, but didn’t really
35:05
apply a lot of. I would just read them and think, “Huh, that’s interesting. Well, we’re not going to do it that way.”
35:11
again, very prideful, also very foolish. And uh ran that into the ground. By
35:17
2009, when the when the recession hit, I had to lay off all my guys because we actually did had finally made them
35:23
employees, which cost more money. We weren’t charging anywhere near enough. I
35:28
mean, it was a joke. My my my bids would be like whatever the job cost plus 10%. You know, and I had like a slight margin
35:34
on the guys when they were 1099 and no margin when they’re employees. Yeah. Now we’re coming back into familiar territory where you know I said
35:40
you you and I are different what you’re saying I’m like all right we got more in common than I thought because
35:47
you know some of the stuff I did y my f especially my first decade first 15 years
35:52
in terms of hiring decisions and you know it just feels right and yeah and it wasn’t but
35:58
no totally wrong people not and I’m ter I’m terrible at hiring to this day because I’m always like this is the best place to work on the planet this is the
36:04
best company we have so many prospects it’s growing why I want to work here. I’m a salesman, you know, and salesmen
36:10
are terrible at hiring. So, basically what happened fast forward is I I lost
36:15
the whole team, laid them all off, got married that same year. My brother-in-law is turning to my now wife
36:20
and saying, “Can this loser provide for you?” And and you know, having to shovel some a teeny little inheritance she got
36:27
into the debt hole and work off the rest and kind of launch our life together. um in a little $550 a month apartment with
36:34
a car that her brother gave us, you know, and um kind of build from there.
36:40
And then for three more years thinking, I hate carpentry. I got to get out of this. Um and just kind of stumbling
36:47
along and doing whatever work came my way with my belt on while the country tried to heal up from the great recession. And finally after three years
36:54
I was just like at the end of my rope and I was had a mentor who was giving me counsel incredible guy and he was just
37:02
so patient would listen to me and encourage me and did that for like three years and finally I was just like all
37:07
right God if you want me to be a carpenter the rest of my life I’ll do it.
37:14
Just felt so crushed. But I just said I have fought this for three years. I’ve had multiple job offers at least five
37:20
job offers. I went like multiple interviews and like you we want you would like chase me down and I just wouldn’t have peace and I wouldn’t take
37:26
the job and and I just was waiting for for that that peace to go somewhere else
37:32
and I never got it. And then after saying okay I will I will not resist that for three years. I s I I just
37:40
started doing the carpentry and just saying thank you for carpentry. Thank you for carpentry even though I didn’t like it. And then realized that I had
37:46
all this background reading these business books I didn’t apply. I loved that. Why can’t I just love that in the
37:52
context of carpentry? And then I started thinking in terms of business, actually trying to build a team, still screwing
37:58
it up every every way because I tried to reinvent the wheel. Always. I always tried to reinvent the wheel. John, is
2009 collapse: Laying off his entire team as a newlywed
38:04
one of my biggest failures which which is what you’re call what you call pride. In other words, there are these people who know and you’re not
38:09
listening. Yep. And so how how long did it again? So we
38:15
still have a lot in common because I clearly have pride issues. the the
38:21
what what what changed? What happened? When when did this happen and what happened? Yeah. What changed is I had two of these
38:26
guys that I was helping. So, one of the the paradigms I also had is that I I had a bunch of what I call head trash. There
38:32
are lies that I believed. I’ve actually I actually have a whole talk I give on this. I’ve got, you know, spoken to the regional contractors association on
38:38
this. The lies that you believe that hold you back. And so, one of the lies I believed is that I always needed to help
38:44
some people in my business. And what that looked like, the example I had growing up is we always had a guy who is
38:49
an alcoholic or drug addict on the team. There at least one and we were always helping that person growing up.
38:54
Sometimes they’d show up to work, sometimes they wouldn’t show up to work. Sometimes they’d show up drunk or high. Sometimes they would be sober. But that
39:00
was the paradigm I had. So I repeated that. So I didn’t try to reinvent the wheel there. I adopted that one. Of all
39:05
the things I wanted to keep, that was one I kept. And so I had two of these guys that I was helping doing a bath
39:11
remodel for a sweet couple here in town. And I got a report from the homeowner. I get a call and she says, “Nathaniel, um,
39:18
your guys went into my other bathroom and stole some of my prescription medications. They were like oxycottton
39:24
or hydrocodones or something like that, an opioid.” And I said, “No way. It just made me feel sick.” And then and she
39:30
said, “I want you to come over and and, you know, address it.” And I said, “Absolutely.” So I drove over there and uh met with the guys, interviewed them.
39:37
They lied their faces off. I couldn’t even tell they’re lying. I mean, they’re such good liars. But I went and got drug
39:42
P tests, made everybody P tests, even subcontractors that had worked with me for a decade that I totally trusted.
39:47
Super embarrassing. Everyone was clean except for these two guys who were lying to me so well I still couldn’t tell. I
39:53
get rid of these guys. I turn to the to the homeowner. I’m just like, I I apologize. I don’t know how there’s no
39:58
way I can make this better. And she’s just like, Nathaniel, you know, you’re right. And you know what? My brother
40:05
actually overdosed on that exact same drug and killed himself. And it was just like that was the end of
40:11
this of the of the conversation. And and I wanted to vomit, John. I was like, “This will never happen again. I don’t
40:18
whatever we’re doing, this is wrong.” And I’ve been doing this for a decade. I I I can’t keep doing this. This has been
40:24
a nice hobby job that, you know, I’m working hard enough that it’s paying me, you know, good good income. you know,
40:30
probably like 150k a year at the time just because I was working my tail off, getting phone calls all the time on
40:35
vacation, you know, never be able to get away from it and and trapped in my paradigm. And I just said, “This is it.”
40:41
And we paid a consultant an exorbitant sum of money basically to review everything we were doing and tell us to
40:47
do all the things I had learned in the business books that I wasn’t doing. And so it was basically just a
40:53
self-discipline tax. Pain teaches. You know, one of the things I told my kids, especially my
40:58
son, because he challenged me as as only a young man could,
The prescription theft incident that finally killed his lies
41:03
and there’s happy endings, you know, you you’ve met him and so on, but he uh boy did he push us. And I told him, I wish
41:09
you a lot of pain and no harm. And I I even made that up on my own. I
41:15
just was because after watching my own life of, you know, I learned by bashing my
41:21
head in the wall until it’s bloody and then all of a sudden it’s like, why am I feeling dizzy? Why am I why is everything getting dark?
41:27
And he he challenged us, but he still remembers it. He didn’t make the
41:33
distinction. You know, pain teaches and I don’t wish you the harm, although you’re probably going to have to have some of that as well. So for you, it was
41:40
having to test all these good people, having to face this woman that this was a very personal thing to her.
41:46
Yeah. And finally paying for what you’d already been hearing. It’s just you had
41:52
to pay more. It’s like a It’s like having a a gym coach, right? You won’t do it yourself. You got to have a gym coach that you pay a whole bunch more to
41:59
get you to show up, which is it’s very much human nature. Totally. It’s the same self-discipline tax. I literally when I signed up for
42:04
the gym locally, I literally went and said, “Pat, this gym membership is my self-discipline tax verbatim.”
42:11
Yeah. It’s 100%. It’s self-discipline tax. I can either have self-discipline or I can pay the tax for not having it.
42:17
Totally. And and there are I actually think it’s it’s a tool we actually need to wield. We should pay a self-discipline tax a lot of times
42:23
because uh you know we put we you know you put your money where your mouth is but you also put your mouth where your money is.
42:30
Oh you know so sometimes you got to lay the money down and that’s a lesson that I’ve
42:36
learned you know among many but at that point I just said this is it. We paid these those consultants and they like I
42:41
said told us to do the things we already knew to do and weren’t doing. We did them and that was 2017. 2017 is when we
42:47
turned the ship around and we actually launched a business instead of a hobby job.
42:53
So, so what was different? What were some of the things that were different? Because the thing I’ve noticed about you, one of the reasons I wanted you to speak to my
42:59
audience because everybody struggles with this and and much more besides, you are one of the best impleers I’ve
43:05
ever seen, especially when it comes to building a team, but just getting things done and getting
43:11
results. Uh I mean for the longest time I I was just amazed. I didn’t think this could
43:17
be done. This is where you’ve now surpassed me. I am very good at what I do technically.
43:22
Very good in in terms of leading a team. Not my thing. And maybe one day it will be and
43:29
the it’s there. I just the way you organized things and made it so you could actually not be in your business.
43:35
The classic, right? Work on your business, not in your business. And correct me if I’m mistaken, and I know
43:42
you don’t like to be prideful, but let’s be let’s also be truthful. I think you accomplished it.
43:48
Um, yes, by many metrics, we did. We’ve had a self-managing company since about 2021. 22. Yes, let’s say 2022. Yep.
43:58
Almost four years now. Okay. So, there was some time where it wasn’t self-managing, but you were making it so it could be
44:04
five years to get essentially. Yep. What are some of the keys to that? Yeah. What changed? What did you learn?
44:11
Number one is you have to identify the lies you’re believing and kill them systematically. So literally like like
44:17
okay well what is helping? Well in my definition loving these guys was hating my clients. And I had to I had to face
44:24
that and tell the truth about it. I thought well I don’t need to market because I have plenty of work. I generally had the work I needed, but
44:29
because I wasn’t marketing, I wasn’t getting the ideal clients that would allow my business to grow, that would allow me to charge the amount of money I
44:36
needed to charge to attract A-list talent, right? So, I had limiting beliefs around what I could charge. I
44:41
had limiting beliefs around what I that that I needed to market or not market about what helping was. And there a number of other ones. And I think every
44:48
business owner needs to identify those and slay them. And they can do that um by reading. They can do that by, you
44:54
know, paying a self-discipline tax. And they can do that by just screwing up. until they’re fed up with what they’re doing. Um, and I recommend the former
45:01
more than the latter. I had my eyes opened as you know, fairly recently and it was working in that
45:07
direction. You’re always trying to do the work. Um, in a week or two we’re going to have Larry the Seal
45:13
on here and I told you about him. I went up into the hills of Utah with three other very high performing people. And
45:19
it’s funny how you put it because he talks about our untruths, what our subconscious believes and our
45:25
subconscious is there to protect us. but not to make us happy or successful. It’s
45:30
designed to keep us safe, but it has a very odd definition of safe. For example, if you do nothing, you’re quite
45:36
safe. You’re just doing nothing. Yep. And so having him in his relentless
45:43
fashion dig into everyone’s head and it was really better in a group because everybody was open and vulnerable. It
45:50
was actually weirdly easier in a group of a small group of high performers. and he got into our untruths, what you call
45:56
the lies we tell ourselves that you don’t always realize you’re doing it until you do.
46:02
And then he started digging into what are your truths. That’s been life-changing for me. And
46:07
that’s still a fairly recent event. Uh that’s that that event is less than a year ago for me
46:13
and it should be life-changing because you those they’re basically cages you’re building for yourself. You know, I had
46:18
built a cage. What are some of the what’s some of the reading and some of
46:24
the people that you would recommend that people actually listen to and listen to whether they’re reading it in their head
46:30
or verbally or face to face? What have been some of the best sources for discovering? Yeah. What are your lies and what are the
46:37
truths? Yep. Um, it’s really going to be industry specific, I think, for the
46:42
things that are going to be most pointed for people, but just general ones. I
46:48
mean, you got to start with the Bible in my my world. I mean, number one, you gota, you know, whether you believe it or not, it is the number one book in
46:55
Western culture, and there’s so much there. Um, and then from there, I mean,
Books that rewired his brain (and the lies entrepreneurs believe)
47:00
in terms of some general books, oh man, I would probably read um, Thou Shalt Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lapen. So,
47:07
Jewish guy, not not a Christian, but oh my goodness, his ten commandments of making money are so good. Um, that’s a
47:14
phenomenal book. um you gota you got to stop believing that uh earning money is a bad thing if you want to actually make
47:20
money. Let’s let’s put it that way, you know. And he’s really helpful at just waving the the the fart stink of
47:26
socialism out of any room. So fantastic book. Um and then um some other ones if
47:33
you want to launch something I’d say 0ero to1 by Peter Teal is a seminal work that is just such a fantastic book. Um
47:40
so I I mean I could name a bunch of others but I would say those are two that are great. Also, if you’re getting into business for the first time,
47:46
Michael Gerber’s uh book, The E-Myth Revisited, or just the E-Myth, just fantastic.
47:53
So, any other classics that come to mind? Keep going because I mean, look, a bibliography, a source of wisdom. I mean,
48:00
yeah. How much did you pay to learn that the these are the way?
48:05
I Yeah, I couldn’t even quantify at this point. I mean, I mean, my mistakes have cost me millions for sure. Yeah. Many
48:10
many times over. Um but uh uh let’s see some other books that are just like
48:17
absolutely fantastic read. Um I would say if you’re scaling an organization again like what what are you doing?
48:22
Where are you at? Where are you going? But if you’re scaling an organization, there’s a book called I believe it’s called The Outsiders. It’s like eight
48:29
CEOs and their unconventional way of doing business. And I’m probably murdering the title. Um but it was I
48:34
think it came out in like 2012ish or something like that. It is a phenomenal
48:40
book about eight, you know, industry titans who just destroyed the returns
48:45
that were occurring within their industry within a 20-year time frame or so and how they did that and how they
48:51
were different than the the traditional narrative than what you know PE was telling people or what you know the
48:58
talking heads were saying. It it is just fantastic. Um they talk about decentralized leadership. They talk
49:04
about, you know, being frugal within the business, but also uh growing through acquisition. I mean, it it’s fantastic
49:10
book. So, what biblical lessons had you ignored in hindsight, thinking about what you
49:16
already knew and what you were brought up on? What what did you as part of your untruths ignore?
49:23
Yeah. Well, it’s the kind of the classic thing of what I’ve mentioned already. I was too prideful. And so, I was
49:28
ignoring, you know, killing my own pride. And I was also, you know, reinventing the wheel, which is another
49:34
form of pride. And another, you know, a counsel that the Bible gives us repeatedly, especially in Proverbs, is
49:40
to seek wise counsel. And while I was seeking some counsel, I was ignoring the majority. So I would say those are
49:46
that’s the big big picture. Like in any anything else I do now going forward, I
49:52
try to achieve best practice metrics before I reinvent anything. So I want to
49:58
see that I can actually hit what others are saying are benchmarks the way that they say to hit them and then reinvent
50:05
that. Okay. And that’s where it’s going to be industry specific. Specific. Yep. Yep. Come have somebody that already knows
50:12
the benchmarks. Got it. Totally. And if I’m seeking counsel,
50:18
there’s two metrics for that. It’s what I want to do, but it’s also how I want to do it. So, if I want to learn from
50:24
someone, I want to find somebody who’s going to teach me what I want to do, how I want it done, because there’s all
50:30
kinds of ways you can approach things. And some of those are not going to align with my core values or my philosophy of
50:36
life. And I don’t want to learn from that person. And I don’t think that’s prideful. I think that’s actually in keeping with the mission of success
50:43
because we all have our own definition of success. And we need to be super clear about that. Otherwise, we will certainly miss it.
50:50
So, yeah. Anyway, what was your what was the the question you were asking that I don’t think I
50:56
answered entirely before the book recommendations? Bugger me if I I don’t recommend I don’t
51:02
I got so engrossed in where you went. Okay, great. Keep going then. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you have a successful
51:09
construction business. You’ve had your challenges. Yep. Then you got into um short-term rentals,
51:16
regular rentals, short-term rentals. Yeah. So, we had gotten into short-term rentals actually all the way back in
51:22
2008. So, we had gotten into those while we were still screwing things up in construction. Um, so I’ve I don’t know,
51:27
flipped or something. I don’t know, maybe 15 or so houses. So, not a ton, but enough to know what to do. Um, and
51:34
part of that is because I can walk into a house and estimate what the repairs will take and what they’ll cost within 10% of the value within a 15-minute
51:41
walkthrough. And so, we made money on every single flip. And we had some
51:46
investors for some of them, most of them. And we always paid them back on time every time what we promised are better. And so that made it easy for us
51:53
to have cheap capital within 24 hours unsecured just because of trusted relationships. And uh so we had some
51:59
success on those. But we kept the halfozen rentals that um made sense for us to keep long-term that would be low
How he built a truly self-managing company (2017-2022)
52:06
maintenance and have the right margins. So we have a half dozen long-term rental properties and um we flipped the ones
52:12
that didn’t make sense for that um starting from 2008. I stopped doing that a few years ago. it just didn’t make
52:18
sense for me to put the effort in in my market anymore. Prices are so inflated. You know, the lending costs are so so
52:24
high comparatively. Um, so my in real estate investing track record looks incredible because I started investing
52:30
in 2008 and I, you know, basically stopped investing in 2022. So it looked like a good run.
52:36
Yeah, that that timing matters. Yeah, there’s timing. Yeah.
52:41
Thoughts about family? Cuz again, observing you when I went up to visit you and we’ll talk about why I went up to visit you and I was just paying
52:48
attention and I was struck by how much time you’re able to spend with your family and and
52:53
how intentional you are about parenting. So, but now some of it’s making sense to me because you’re a parent, but you’ve
53:01
had some experience with people. You finally started paying attention to the experience with people and what others had to teach you about it. That’s why
53:08
you were able to build a business that largely ran itself, which gave you the time
53:13
now because this was all making sense to me now. And you’d been observing people and figuring out how to build teams. And
53:18
the most important team is at home. Yes. I mean, I I I love your family. I was
53:24
just so impressed by what really good kids you’re raising. What a marvelous wife. I I figured this guy
53:31
must be all right if if he married up the way he did. Yep. Totally. My wife is incredible.
53:36
She’s been the lion share of God’s grace to me since I met her. So, um, yeah. No, we we you’re right though that the the
53:43
primary team is the one at home. If if things aren’t aren’t uh restful at home,
53:48
how can you possibly be maximally productive at work? I mean, it’s incredible the handicap so many people
53:54
are are operating under because of the chaos that they have at home. And the irony is if they applied their unique
54:00
ability that they’re applying at work at home, they’d probably be able to address a large share of the dysfunction. Now,
54:07
will that happen overnight? Probably not. Almost certainly not. But think about how you think about business and
54:12
how you invest in business and the returns that you’re hoping for down the road. And what if you had that same mindset at home?
54:20
So besides the obvious, the Bible, because I know you live a very biblical
54:26
life at home, any other reading you would suggest in that genre because you
54:31
mentioned how you build the teams, how you set the metrics vary based on industry and I don’t know that home we
54:38
would call a different industry, but it’s c certainly a different thing and I can’t imagine that you haven’t studied it. So what have you studied?
54:44
Yeah. Um I mean certainly we’ve read other books. Um,
54:50
but I honestly don’t have the same list that I would for business. I would say we’ve received most of our teaching when
54:55
it on on home and family life from our local church. Um, now there are some
55:01
books our pastor is a a prolific author. Um, so you know, a lot of his books
55:06
would be great. Um, his name is Doug Wilson. Um, so you can Google him, you’ll find all kinds of controversy and
55:13
interesting tidbits because he does stand up for what he believes, which we love about him. um and he represents us
55:19
quite well. Uh but so he has a number of books on um um marriage, family, child
55:25
rearing that we’ve greatly been blessed by. And then we’ve combined that with how we think about business and teams
55:30
and organizations. So let’s let’s talk about a concrete example. Um, we have a giant touchscreen uh kind of TV in our
55:38
pantry and all the kids uh each have a column and they all have their tasks on those columns and they have to go and
55:44
and touch them off that they’re complete each day. And uh so we’ve we’ve scheduled out what’s expected of them.
55:51
We’ve trained them on what’s expected of them. We’ve given them a a means of a cadence of accountability and a means
55:57
to, you know, check off if it’s done or not. And there are attendant uh blessings and curses, shall we say, for
56:04
doing so. So reward, you know, carrot and stick, reward or punishment. And so the kids, you know, have clarity in what
56:10
to do. And because we took the time to to put that down and put it into a system, we no longer have to be there
56:16
constantly hounding them to the same degree. I’m not saying that we don’t have to be there shephering them because we do. But that’s one element. Or
56:23
another example is my oldest just turned 13. And so my I spent about four months preceding that birthday planning uh
56:30
because uh one of our definitions of success is that our children will be able to live on their own at 16. I’m not
56:37
saying they will, but that they’ll be equipped if they needed to and and by definition to live on their own at 16.
56:44
And so we reverse engineered what would need to be true up until that point and uh wrote it out. And so we put them in
56:51
categories, you know, spiritual, financial, you know, work, uh, relationships, etc. And and then gave
56:58
her a year’s worth of of basically homework and experiences,
57:04
um, that she needs to do while she’s 13 and what success will look like and what
57:09
failure will look like and what the attendant carrot and stick will look like for either either of those. And we built in rewards along the way. And so
57:16
now we’re just rolling that out. And it’s always imperfect when you start. It’s our first one that we’re doing this. You know, it’s the first system. I
57:22
was just going over this with her yesterday and, you know, there’s some things that we’re missing. So, we’re we’re course correcting, but there’s a
57:27
cadence where I’m meeting with her. I’m checking in with her and we’re saying, “How do we make this better? How do we course correct? How do we, you know,
57:33
change things and make them better?” And it’s a conversation and it’s ongoing. And there’s a tension that is carved out
57:40
on my calendar to put towards that because that’s part of our success.
57:46
Bill, from what I’ve seen, it’s it’s working. And again, I don’t I don’t want to help you be prideful, but you take a
57:52
little bit of satisfaction. Look, you’re clearly putting in the time, the thought, the thoughtfulness,
57:58
the effort. It’s It was really a pleasure to see. It struck me. It was one of the reasons I wanted to invite
58:03
you and just have you talk about that. Yeah, my pleasure. No, I’m happy to talk about it more. I mean, the irony is is
58:09
that a lot of us in business, we might be, you know, crushing it dollar-wise and have have been crushed, you know,
58:16
relationally. And I mean, that’s not my definition of success. And I I doubt it’s most people’s. I mean, really, uh,
58:23
you know, Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach does a great job defining uh, you know, in very very broad terms success
58:29
for entrepreneurs. And that’s essentially four freedoms. It’s freedom of money, it’s freedom of time, it’s
58:34
freedom of relationship, and freedom of purpose. So we all want those four freedoms if we have entrepreneurial
58:40
leanings. And so those aren’t success for everybody, but that’s a very very basic definition of success for most of
58:46
the entrepreneurs out there. Yeah. Let’s let’s start winding it up. You
58:51
know, the way we’ve gotten to know each other is we’re working on a project together. Uh your passion, we both share
58:57
a passion for taxes based on our backgrounds. We have reasons to want to see the feds get less,
59:03
lawfully, legally get less. and we’ve been working together on that. For for
59:09
those of you who follow me, you know I’ve talked about an app I’m involved with and all I do is the tax brain part,
59:16
which is what I’m good at. Everything else Nathaniel does and everything else is quite a long list. And so the app is
59:23
out it the object is. So with the Augusta rule,
59:28
it seems so simple. It’s all over the internet, which of course means there’s so much that’s wrong. Uh bottom line is
59:34
you rent your home to your business. You can rent it to certain businesses, not
59:39
others. You the business gets a tax deduction if you do it right. And the rent you receive is not taxable. So it’s
59:45
a net savings. The biggest problem with it, and we saw it in a fairly recent case, it was the second Augusta rule
59:52
case. By the way, Nathaniel, until recently, I thought it was the uh the first Augusta rule case. And there’s
59:58
actually another one, but it was much more brief. So, it wasn’t really noticed and there was a bunch of other stuff in it. I was out on the internet the other
1:00:05
day and I was researching uh figuring out just putting the final touches. Yes, finally on
1:00:12
partnerships um tax partnerships, limited partnerships, LLC’s. What are the rules? Because I’ve got it down. Uh
1:00:19
who’s a you have to have a separate person in order to have your business lease from you. Your business has to be
1:00:26
viewed as a separate person. There’s clear law which took a while to find that says you it’s common sense but you
1:00:32
still have to find law that says you can’t lease from yourself. It has to be under tax law different person but it’s
1:00:38
not always clear which entities are different people or not. That actually took me a lot more time to figure out
1:00:44
than I thought it was going to. So I was out searching for the last piece of the puzzle. LLC’s partnerships LPs. Somebody
1:00:51
posted a list that someone else sent me and I first thing I did was check the list because here’s what I look for. for
1:00:57
what I’ve learned with AI, it hallucinates, especially on case law. I don’t know why it’s so I I have a sense
1:01:03
of its reasoning, its logic of why it hallucinates on case law, but I’ve learned to check any case I get, I
1:01:09
check. And so I went and looked them up. There were nine of them. Every single one was wrong. Wow. So I put a So I put I I went and tracked
1:01:16
the original post. I did a search and found who made the post. It was a CPA. and I put on his LinkedIn,
1:01:23
um, you have to be very careful with AI and and you’re mistaken on these cases. And I thought you would want to know that and here’s how to check for it and
1:01:31
discover. Yeah. And and then I sent him a PM and said, “Hey, I hope I’m not being a jerk. I
1:01:36
don’t mean to come on your site. It’s just I would want to know.” I I don’t mind being wrong as long as
1:01:42
I’m wrong briefly. Yeah, I want people to tell me. I want to know
1:01:47
when I’m wrong because then I can change it and be right and I don’t I don’t want to give people
1:01:52
false information. And he was very gracious. He actually thanked me and said, “No, you could have roasted me and you didn’t.” And we got to chatting.
1:01:59
Here’s what I found. I haven’t talked to you about this, by the way. What’s accelerating things greatly for me is
1:02:04
the reason it hallucinates is it goes out and it doesn’t predict the next word
1:02:11
correctly. Because right now all large language models do is predict the next word. doesn’t actually think. Yeah.
1:02:16
And in some contexts, it’s very good. For example, it’s really good with contracts. You still have to know some
1:02:22
things. You can’t rely 100% on it. But in terms of predicting the next word in a contract, it’s good. And there’s a
1:02:28
large sample size. Predicting the next word in a case or a case description,
1:02:34
especially if the case has a common name, Smith, Jones, etc. But even in the weird cases, it doesn’t
1:02:40
predict the next word in the summary. H. So, I just went out and found um Lexus
1:02:47
has an AI. I was paying 200 for the fancy version of chat and I’m going to get the uh Lexus AI which is only 300.
1:02:54
So, it’s only a hundred more. Mhm. And it doesn’t hallucinate because it’s trained on only actual cases. It doesn’t
1:03:01
go out and pick up cases from everywhere, including publications that are poorly written. Because one of the things I I
1:03:07
when I prompt AI, I tell it don’t listen to IRS sources. partly because they’re biased, but actually the larger reason
1:03:14
is they’re very poorly written and it confuses the AI and it comes to false conclusions based on poor writing.
1:03:21
Second, I found that a lot of the good information is behind a payw wall and AI cannot see it. Yep.
1:03:26
And so now I’ve got Lexus, which by definition is a big payw wall but already has a corral of cases that are
1:03:33
actually correct. Mhm. So, the time it’s going to save me because I’ve spent hours,
1:03:39
you have to look at the case, you have to see if it’s real manually, and then you have to see if what it says and what the AI says are the same. That
1:03:46
takes hours. Yeah. And this this I wish I would have known about this a few. So, do you
1:03:52
uh I wish I would have known about this earlier, but now I know. Yeah. And so, I haven’t tested it yet. I’m
1:03:57
going to test it in the next few days, but all the reviews I’m reading online because I did have AI go get into the
1:04:02
Reddit sites and tell me how can I have less hallucination. And by the way, the intermediate step
1:04:08
was I started having another AI check the AI. So I would use, for example, chat, get the cases, have Grock check it, and
1:04:16
it would pick up most, but I still had to check it myself, but the check was faster because I because the second AI could
1:04:22
also hallucinate on its check. Yeah. So the the speed at which it’s learning, but what we have managed to do for those
1:04:29
of you out there and and I’ll let Nathaniel you say your piece on it as well. The compliance is where it’s at in
1:04:35
in both Augusta rule cases. The problem was not the rule. It’s legal
1:04:42
to rent your home tax-free, no income to you if you rent correctly to your
1:04:47
business if it’s the right kind of business, if it’s structured the right way. For example, C corpse and S corps are a no-brainer.
1:04:54
But you have to document it. And the documentation becomes so cumbersome
The Augusta Rule: Why documentation beats everything
1:05:00
that and that’s how the IRS gets you 97% of the time. I just interviewed last week an IRS attorney. Every one of them
1:05:06
I talked to agrees. It’s 96 97 98% of the time. The way the IRS tags you is
1:05:12
not that you didn’t deserve the deduction. It’s in the code. It’s there to be earned. It’s that you couldn’t
1:05:18
prove it. M and what Nathaniel’s idea was to be clear where the idea started
1:05:23
he started an app and the idea of if we
1:05:28
can systematize it and make it so that it it documents what you’re doing so that it just literally transmits the
1:05:36
information to your CPA so they can do the return explains to them why it’s legal and legit because CPAs get a
1:05:42
little squirly and nervous around such things and also has a file built in that if there’s an audit we hit print. Here’s
1:05:49
my goal, Nathaniel, with this. The first time we get audited, first time one of our people gets audited, I had an
1:05:55
engineer back in Columbus who used to do uh assignments for for those of you who
1:06:00
aren’t into real estate. He used to go get a contract on a property and instead of closing on the contract and buying
1:06:06
the property, he would sell the rights to the contract, in other words, assign the contract to someone else and take
1:06:13
the spread. Mhm. He got audited by the IRS as an engineer. This was glorious. He got the
1:06:18
letter at 300 p.m. or so on one day. By that evening, it was around 11:30 or so
1:06:24
that he had texted me and he said, “I’ve got the full everything, all receipts, all bank statements. I’ve got a
1:06:30
spreadsheet that goes through every single thing they ask and I’m missing 1.74%
1:06:35
of the documentation. Uh, but I know that I’m entitled to over 98% of my
1:06:40
deductions.” And so what I did, and this is what I’m looking forward to doing with with the app that that you’re
1:06:47
mostly responsible for, like as in 90% plus, is to take that what I did with this
1:06:53
engineer is I took the sheath of paper to the IRS auditor’s office and I had to wait. I actually had to get let in
1:06:59
because of all the security protocols. And I I just called her and texted her and and not texted, I called and faxed
1:07:06
because that’s the IRS is that primitive. And I was in the front office and I just waited until they let me in.
1:07:11
And I said, “Here’s the stack. I gave the whole stack of what the engineer had done.” And it was funny. She just looked
1:07:16
at it. It was like a phone book. And she just leafed through it like and just dropped it on the desk. We then flirted
1:07:23
for two hours. She did not want to she because no, she had I talked to IRS agents who are retired and they said,
1:07:29
um, yeah, she she had a certain amount amount of time allocated to the case. You blew that out of the water. Like she
1:07:35
had another 20 hours set aside. That’s just done. So, she figured she was going to have two hours of relaxing and be 17
1:07:42
hours ahead. And so, and so we got to BSing and flirting. And I build the
1:07:48
client to flirt. Uh, and I told him if it would have been a dude, I still would have flirted because you’re my client, but I would have c it would have cost
1:07:54
you extra. There’s a premium for that. Uh, that’s what I want to do. the
1:07:59
the way that you’ve set this app up, we should be able to print whatever we
1:08:06
need and have it to that agent within 24 hours. And the psychological impact on
1:08:12
the agent when you come up with they’re they’re counting on you not having the
1:08:18
proof. It’s not that you don’t deserve the write-offs, it’s that you can’t prove it. And here you click a button.
1:08:24
That and the efficiency. I think the first time you go through from the feedback I’ve been getting, it’s just like anything else. The first time
1:08:30
someone goes through the app and puts things in, there’s a learning curve, but it’s a very quick learning curve.
1:08:37
Again, kudos to you and the developers who who’ve made it easier and easier. And the second time through is really
1:08:44
easy because everything’s in there. And so, just so everyone knows, the way we we really have gotten to know each
1:08:49
other is working on this together. and I look very forward to to seeing it
1:08:56
broadcast out there as I finish. I’m working for the CPAs listening in. And by the way, they got excited when I
1:09:01
posted on that LinkedIn group the other day. I put I’m working on a CPE. I’m
1:09:07
going to put the draft out. By the way, I didn’t tell you about this, so I hope you’re good with it. Yeah. But I’m going to I’m going to put a
1:09:12
draft out before it even gets or as it gets submitted for certification because there’s that whole bureaucratic process.
1:09:19
Yeah. I’m going to put it out there and I want to ask the CPAs to ruthlessly take it apart. Did I miss something? I want you to go
1:09:25
at it and show me where I’m wrong because I will be wrong for a minute. Yeah. Until I’m not.
1:09:30
And and of course it’ll spread. That’s that’s of course, you know, priceless in and of itself that it’ll get out there and spread. But
1:09:37
there there was great interest in it. It’s one of those rules that people underestimate because there’s so much
1:09:42
Tik Tok garbage which you and I have managed to work through and around and
1:09:47
there’s so much work if you’re doing it manually and so that’s what we’re looking to get around. So if you’re interested the
1:09:54
austrole.com and if you have a lot of clients if you’re a CPA or a financial planner or
1:10:00
someone like that that this would help people you know please get a hold of us.
1:10:05
Uh, Nathaniel, what’s a good way to reach you? Yeah, I mean the the website’s still the best, the august.com. We got all our
1:10:12
contact information there. You can sign up for, you know, free strategy calls for clients. Uh, we actually have a route for tax professionals to contact
1:10:19
us on the website as well and set them up as as a a referral partner um in the
1:10:25
August rule as well. And you know, we love working with tax professionals because the goal is to put a billion dollars back in the pockets of business
1:10:31
owners, which includes tax professionals, uh, by 2030. So, um, yeah, the things that you mentioned,
1:10:37
John, you know, on the the app, I want to emphasize that it’s a it’s actually a
1:10:42
service company, um, is what we ended up discovering. So, we built an app thinking, oh, great, an app will solve
1:10:48
this, but it won’t it still won’t solve the the problems. So, it is a softwarebacked service company. Um, so
1:10:56
we actually go out and build comparables, you know, the the um the data that allows us to justify a
The audit defense guarantee: Why we’re willing to fight the IRS
1:11:02
specific rent. uh inside the August rule still has to be done largely manually. We’ve tried to the best of our abilities
1:11:09
to use various AIs and it still doesn’t achieve the results that we do which we’re seeing typically 50 to 100% uh
1:11:16
larger deductions than any other uh person doing the August rule that we’ve ever encountered um through our our
1:11:23
process and uh we we it’s because of the process we’ve built that complies with the systems that you advise us on. And
1:11:30
so still to this day it’s people doing the work but we have a software that makes it uh automated and um we you know
1:11:38
hopefully at some point software can do it all but for now it’s a softwarebacked service company and really the unlock is
1:11:43
that it’s a done for you product because when I learned the August rule it took me uh I mean something like a hundred
1:11:50
hours of research to get comfortable with it which was ridiculous and nobody should have to go through that that pain
1:11:55
if they’re not a tax professional. And so that’s what we have. You can literally sign up and it’s done for you
1:12:01
and it’s done for you in a way that’s compliant because John is if not the
1:12:07
country’s leading expert on the August rule. I don’t know who is. Um and we want that to be that defensible for
1:12:12
people like you said John. So we’re doing that. Uh we charge 8% of deductions if you’re wondering. So it
1:12:18
just scales with the result we produce for people and we charge a $1,000 uh deposit upfront because we want to work
1:12:24
with people who are serious about putting money back in their pocket. And then it’s just build based on results. So, um, we’re signing people up, uh,
1:12:31
like crazy right now and we want to keep doing that. And the goal again is those four freedoms. We want more, uh, people,
1:12:38
you know, showing up and creating value and the people that are creating value to keep more of what they’ve made so that they can recycle that and make more
1:12:43
value. I mean, that’s what uh, makes this country great. And, uh, that’s what gets us excited to get up in the morning and just keep building teams.
1:12:51
And I I have been I I can’t find any more source material. I’ve looked. Yeah. I even pulled on on the most recent
1:12:59
case, the most famous one. I pulled hundreds of pages of IRS
1:13:05
cross-examination, the whole court file transcript of when they ask the taxpayer questions and then the taxpayers’s
1:13:11
lawyer gets up and asks, that’s the cross-examination. Uh, I got the IRS briefs. I got their
1:13:18
pre-trial memoranda, went through it, and figured out what do they target, and
1:13:23
I’ve never heard of anyone going to that extent. So, it’s been painfully slow, but I think I’ve got it. I don’t I don’t
1:13:30
know what else I can go find. That’s great. That’s the beauty of such a niche, right? It’s such a narrow uh point of
1:13:37
the tax code, but yet all these other areas intersect onto it. And I think that’s where, you know, your brilliance
1:13:42
shines is you’re able to understand, you know, how all the threads attach to the sweater as it were.
1:13:47
So, and that’s why we’re willing to offer the audit guarantee. Um, we will protection guarantee.
1:13:54
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what we promise to do, I mean, we’re not an insurance company. Yep. So, we’re not going to guarantee a
1:14:01
specific result, but if you do certain things, if you follow best practices, which we outlined very clearly,
1:14:07
if you follow best practices, we are willing to defend it. Mhm. At our expense.
1:14:13
Yep. And you guys that have been around me know what that means because I’ve don’t
1:14:18
ever offer that. That’s that’s always just a Yeah, if you get audited, come along. I’ll bill you happily
1:14:25
and represent you well uh or tell you if you have a terrible case and you should really settle.
1:14:30
And our goal here is to make sure you have a great case. In fact, my goal uh Nathaniel I told you once about there’s
1:14:36
this software that determines salaries although there is again just like with
1:14:41
the Augusta rule there are humans behind the scene for the same reason by the way there are some subjective factors that
1:14:47
really AI is just not there yet and maybe one day it will be but it’s not there yet. Um, but RC reports,
1:14:55
they do salary studies for S corporations, and it’s come to my attention just talking to auditors and
1:15:01
other tax professionals that when you show up in an audit with RC Reports, the
1:15:06
audits close to done when it comes to that particular subject. In other words, is the salary reasonable or not? I I I’m
1:15:14
actually sort of wishing for audits because I think we will find ourselves in the position that it’ll get known
1:15:20
that our comps are good and they’re documented and everything else. There’s more than just the comps. But that’s one
1:15:26
of the harder parts to do and that that after a while it’s just
1:15:31
known inside the service that when they see this, okay, we’re good. Yep.
1:15:37
So So knock on wood. Nathaniel, do you is there anything else you want to close on? I there’s always so much more. I
1:15:42
know I miss things. I mean, I know you like boom boomsticks and you’re you’re disciplined about working out and we
1:15:49
have a common vice. Granted, I think I take it a little further. You are much more moderate. Probably goes back to
1:15:56
some of your philosophy and your your biblical teachings, but in that vein, I have to ask presently, what is your
1:16:02
favorite bourbon at this moment? Yeah. No, you introduced me to really to bourbon. I mean, it’s not that I hadn’t had it before, but in terms of, you
1:16:09
know, the the nicer ones and uh my my favorite bourbon is probably gonna sound like a trope right now, but it’s it’s
1:16:15
Papy 23. So, my wife was fortunate enough to win a bottle on lottery here in Idaho, which means you can actually
1:16:21
buy it at uh at retail, which is, you know, a fraction of what it sells for on the market. So, we we fortunate enough
1:16:27
to have one of those, and I really enjoy that. Um, but uh I haven’t really found any rare picks lately. I think I I think
1:16:34
I showed you a Remis repeal Reserve 25 and that was not super rare, but it’s it’s uh you know hard to find out here
1:16:41
and I got a bottle of that that was pretty good. Um but I’m actually been more on a mezzcal and tequila kick. So I
1:16:48
I need some exposure to mecal and tequila that’s of the of the level that you’ve brought me with bourbon. That’s where that’s what I’m currently looking
1:16:54
for. Got it. You’re not a lush man. You enjoy it and I enjoy it too and that’s the point. So
1:17:00
yeah, my 2 ounces at 400 p.m. Although that’s been every other day. I used to do it every day, but I’m measuring sleep
1:17:07
to see what happens when I skip a day. And when I skip a full day, I sleep even better.
1:17:12
And so I’m just experimenting on myself because other people get really upset when I do it to them.
1:17:22
That’s great. No, I think I mean we didn’t really say I mean we basically talked about all the ways I screwed up, but I probably should
1:17:28
mention and you know and it’s not prideful to say things that are true that edify others. And so um you know we
1:17:36
have a self-managing construction company that has something like 10 regional and national awards. It’s incredible. And that’s that’s that’s
1:17:43
speaking about that team. They are so good. So what are your awards? What awards? What awards would you?
1:17:49
Yeah, these are national design awards. So for how good of a design it is or they’re awards based a group of other
1:17:55
contractors like eight or 12 other contractors will look at all these projects that are submitted and say by our standard in terms of execution, you
1:18:02
know, budget, timeliness, beauty, this is the top. So we’ve got 10 of those.
1:18:08
And then we acquired a window and door company and we own and operate that as well. And then I’ve sold built and sold
1:18:13
a roofing company. Um and and and now we’re working on the August rule and we’re also working on launching a
1:18:19
company that we want to uh have a big part in turning the trades around in the country that we’re calling a polic. So
1:18:26
I’m saying all that because we talked about building teams. I actually have built more than one team and we’ve done
1:18:31
it successfully and we’re doing it on repeat and the common theme is that we
1:18:36
want to be you know a hero to uh business owners and entrepreneurs in one way or another in all those teams. And
1:18:43
so that’s that’s what gets me excited and I love to connect with and talk with other entrepreneurs and I love working
1:18:48
with you John because you’re an expert in your area and the skills that I lack you have and it sounds like the the
1:18:54
skills that you lack I have and that’s what makes you know the best collaborations is you have complimentary skills. So um happy to meet other
1:19:00
entrepreneurs, happy to bless people through our businesses and happy to help people put more money back in their pockets.
1:19:07
Yeah. And if you see Nathaniel at one of um my events, he was at the last one. and I’m sure he’ll be at others. He’ll
1:19:12
have a big banner there. Uh, but if you pull him aside, as you gathered, you know, it’s it’s how do I say this? It’s
1:19:19
it’s not to minimize everything you just said. You’re a great entrepreneur and that’s a great thing to talk about, but
1:19:25
what I love is you’re a good deal more besides. And so, if you guys want to have some fun with them and have a we talk and
1:19:31
maybe a we sip of something, he’s a fascinating guy to talk with. He really is. I got to say, my kids really enjoyed
1:19:39
being around you. Johnny in particular with of course he’s in construction as well. Yeah. Uh and you have a very similar belief
1:19:45
system. So it it was something he enjoyed. So if you guys see him at one of the events, pull him aside. You’ll
1:19:51
find he’s extraordinarily sociable. And there we are. Nathaniel, any final any
1:19:57
any final words? Just Oh, thanks for taking the time to uh you know, have a conversation and I hope
1:20:03
this blesses the listeners. Merry Christmas. Yeah. Merry Christmas. Take care. See
1:20:08
you.