0:55

It's a great question. Sometimes I'm not sure.

0:59

I think you're built for the hammer.

1:01

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the truth.

1:03

I know I'm built for the grind.

1:05

Let's talk about it. I mean, what is, what is this grind stuff you speak of?

1:09

Well, listen, I, I mean, it's a little bit of a trendy word. And everyone's like, oh, I'm going to grind it out and get this done. I really want to talk about three specific things, you know, because this could probably go really sideways and we could talk for like an eight hour seminar. Right. I want to kind of narrow it down a little bit because I want to talk about, is it teachable? Because sometimes you think people, they just don't have it. They just don't have what it takes. And other people, I feel like you can teach them. So what's your take on, on is this teachable or not?

1:38

So. This kind of lines up with, there's a book called Grit. I don't know if you've read that book or not.

1:46

I've read a lot of books on grit and grits in my notes right here because I think we didn't really describe what the grind is. Let's just take a second there and just back this up a little bit before we go to teachability. You know, grinding is just like, you know, getting it done at all costs, you know, getting it done, whether you're faced with challenges, you're going to have wins, you're going to have losses, there's going to be adversity. And when you wake up and just, you got to still get after it. And that's, you know, that there's a lot of grit to making that happen. So I feel like I've, you know, in growing my business and in getting employees, it's like, I feel like I'm always grinding. And so it might be overused in some cases, but to me, it won't be overused because you just gotta, we're always grinding.

2:32

Yeah. I mean, that's. At the heart of it, that's what it is. It's basically doing the things that you necessarily don't want to do in order to grow your business. True. Or grow yourself or grow your family.

2:46

Well, I don't want to talk about growing family. I don't know how you grow family, but I know how I did. I think that's a different podcast, bro. Jeez. Can we just keep

2:55

it to business?

2:56

Come on, man. Listen, grinding to me, I feel like... I don't even know how to, I don't even know how to bring it home to you. But I mean, I, all I know is like, I feel like I really had to go through it to get more, to get more out of life. I'm just constantly pushing. It's like, it's about pushing, you know, it's, you always got to push the levels. You always got to push the limitations. That's what the grind is to me, pushing limitations, whether it's exactly how you just said. And so I think not everyone gets it. Sometimes it's in your DNA and sometimes it's in your parents or kind of, you know, teach it to you. And sometimes it's a mentor that teaches you or a coach that makes you understand the grit and the grind. Does that make sense?

3:39

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. But to your question, are you built for it? And my answer is, I don't think everyone is. You know, not everyone is built for entrepreneurship, talent and business. And so I think it can be learned. I think you can learn to love the grind. But I don't think people are inherently or not everyone is inherently built for the grind.

4:03

Now, here's the interesting point, because I was lost there for a second trying to figure out where I wanted to land. And then I remembered where we're going here. To me, it's easy to grind. It's easy to push through when you're doing something you love. And that's really important to me. So my business, I love my business. I love every aspect of it. I love the fish. I love the ponds, the waterfalls, all that stuff. It's really part of my passion. And so to me, I believe if you don't love what you're doing, if you don't love your business, then you might be built for the grind, but not in that business. So it doesn't show up. You don't show up for the grind and the grit if you don't love it. That's a big deal for me.

4:43

I would disagree a little bit on that. Oh God, here we go. I think sometimes you... Shocker, right? No, I think sometimes I think that... We do things because we have to. And so the grind is out of necessity, not out of passion.

5:04

But to me, the end game is still there. So sometimes I have to go through those things I don't like to do to get to my end game. And so it does tie for me. My end is the ponds, is the fish. And so for me, it's very easy. So I might have to pay taxes. I might have to... be in a legal battle over something, or I might have to, whatever the case is, I know at the end of the tunnel, there's, there's ponds for me. I mean, that's, I'm doing something that I'm passionate about and I can withstand way more of adversity, way more losses. You know, I can get up and knock the dust off because I know, I know where I'm going. And that's what I mean by that. I just, I believe like if, if I was washing windows for a living, like it really wouldn't be that exciting for me. Like I couldn't take as many losses. I couldn't face as many challenges and go through the adversities because I wash windows. And like maybe there's someone who's a window washer listening to the show and they love washing windows. That's good. As long as they're passionate about it, they can handle it. For me, it's ponds.

6:05

Yeah. So, I mean, I like the fact that you're passionate about fish. We've had many conversations about your fish and I think it's awesome. But for me, I don't have that same level of passion for every aspect of my business. You know, we do remodeling and stuff like that. We get done with a nice bathroom and the customers are wild and they're just amazed. You know, there's joy there. Don't get me wrong. But it's not, I don't wake up every morning with this burning passion of, man, I love that I get to do this every day. And so I think it's more of a grind. I think if you don't have the passion, I think you're actually grinding harder than if you do have the passion.

6:49

I will agree with that. I'll tell you this. So here's the thing. Your why changes because, you know, now it's about raising the kids or the family or it's about, you know, setting up your home life in a certain way and, you know, living a certain lifestyle, getting a certain vehicle. I mean, so that that can be part of the passion. You know, it's just for me, I actually like the the physical trade of building waterfalls and stuff. And so but, you know, in my career. now that I've been doing it for 20 years, it's switching a little bit and shifting. And so now it's about, now it's for me training guys how to do what I've done. And like one of my favorite guys on my crew right now, he's totally passionate about fish. He's got like six fish tanks at home. And so it's fun to watch his passion for what we do. I think he can face a little bit more, put up with a lot. He drives farther than anyone to get to work. You see what I mean? And he deals with it because he loves what we do. The process. It's the journey.

7:49

Yeah, I mean, but what if he, I mean, could he get a job somewhere closer to home and do the same thing?

7:54

Not working for the pond digger, bro. Come on. Fair. I mean, so, I mean, that's a little funny there, but there's a little bit of culture there. I mean, I've tried to create some culture. So could he work for another pond guy closer to home? Probably. I'd like to think that he's not going to have the experience that he does working with me. You know, because I work really hard at culture. And so that's part of my passion now in every day is to grind it out for these guys. So, but let's get back to this being teachable or not. That's really what I want to go. I don't want to talk for 20 minutes about, you know, the grind and the passion. I do, I do, I do.

8:31

You do want to talk for 20 minutes.

8:33

Let's get to the teachability of it. Can you teach someone?

8:36

Can you teach someone grind? I think you can. Yeah. Give us some examples. I'm built for it, though. That's the question.

8:43

Well, that's in training. It's in teaching. In teaching, there's training. So you've got to train people how to do it.

8:49

Yeah, but listen, you and I both have been in groups together, learning groups, and we see people come in there with all the intentions of learning, but they don't put forth the effort. They don't put forth the grind, and they don't have successes. So the teaching is not necessarily the issue if they're not built for the grind.

9:08

Well, what if they're just not ready? Maybe they're built for it, but they're just not ready for it.

9:12

That's a fair statement.

9:13

You know, sometimes we talk about, you know, that the teacher shows up when the student's ready to go. Even though maybe they're surrounded by teachers. It's like that guy stranded at sea. And you know the whole story. He's praised to God. I have no idea what you're talking about. You know, the guy's stranded at sea in a boat and he prays to God like, okay, come and get me out of here. The guy shows up.

9:34

You're stuck on a roof, man.

9:35

No, in the middle of the ocean.

9:37

No, you've messed this whole story up. Come on, Eric. I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about.

9:44

Well, the listeners maybe not. What's they got to

9:46

do with the grind?

9:48

Because they could be surrounded by teachers to help them. But until that student is ready to grind, and maybe that could be, hey, I got my wife pregnant. I got to grow up. Hey, I'm getting evicted. I don't have a place to stay unless I start to wake my ass up and grind. And that's when they're ready. And that's when you can teach them. I do think it's teachable, but the student has to be ready to go. They have to have enough.

10:12

Yeah, but if there was grind, if everyone had the grind, we wouldn't have welfare. True. So I don't think everyone is, to answer your question, I don't think everyone is built for the grind.

10:24

I agree 100%. Did you think I disagreed there?

10:28

No, I'm just trying to get to the point of like, how do we know? How does someone know if they're built for the grind?

10:34

Listen, you know, I think, you know, that. This goes down into the political gutter here, but I think it's in everyone. I think it is in everyone. It's just they have to know how to tap into it. I do believe that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Are people going to take advantage and waste their whole life not grinding? Yes, absolutely. But it's in everyone. It's whether they want to tap into it or they have to at some point. That's the thing for me.

11:04

That's fair. So everyone has the grind. Everyone's built for the grind, but it's at different levels and they have to be able to tap into it.

11:12

Yeah.

11:12

So if that's true, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. If that's true, then it is teachable.

11:19

Well, that's what I think it is. I mean, I've trained a lot of people in pond construction over the years. And again, not everybody makes it. You know, I bring on apprentices and sometimes they turn into amazing. amazing people in the trade and they build amazing ponds and waterfalls and all that. And sometimes they don't, they weren't ready. But I've seen people come in that don't know how to hold a shovel. And in six months, they're crushing it because they want to learn. They like the culture and they're open to learning. So, I mean, I think everyone can learn it. But, you know, it's funny because I started thinking like, am I teachable? Like, I don't like math that much. Can you teach me calculus? I bet you a math teacher could be like, I could teach that guy how to do calculus. I'd be like, I don't want to learn calculus. I might not ever want to learn it. So it's all relative to desire.

12:12

Yeah. I mean, I think we come to an agreement on something for once.

12:17

Okay. So the bottom line is I do think it's teachable. The person has to want it. That's just the bottom line. Let's talk about facing adversity. The grind is, are you built for it? A lot of it has to do with how you face adversity, right? So sometimes, you know, growing up, you face adversity and you just get beat up and, you know, you have to dust yourself off and go home and recover and figure out what you did wrong and start over. And I'm not saying beat up like in a fight, but like beat up in anything, you know, beat up on a job site. The rain could hold you back. The materials aren't there. Flat tire, like, you know. It seems like you get those days where everything could go wrong, can go wrong, will go wrong, right? And some people, they just want to hang their hat up. When others can face that adversity, if the passion's there and they're gritty enough and they have enough determination and discipline, that's when the grind comes out. Yeah.

13:16

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I mean, everybody has to face adversity at some point, you know, some more than others. Obviously, you look at some trades. You know, like roofing or concrete work or even pond digging for that matter. I mean, that's like outdoor in the sun, blazing hot. You know, sometimes it's hard. It's hard work. So that's why I like my indoor air conditioning jobs there. Right.

13:42

Well, I mean, so there's a thing. I remember working on a project in Palm Springs. It's 120 out,11 o 'clock. I'm doing waterproofing on black liner. And I remember standing up and like being dizzy, like, whoa. You know, I'm using some caulking in there, some waterproofing. And so you're getting those aromas from the RTV. And then you're standing on that black liner and you stand up and you're just like, wow, I'm done. And so I got my ass handed to me that day. Went home the next day. It's like, okay, we got shade canopies. We got, you know, a fan on there. We got a little mister going. We have waters everywhere. Safety meeting. Like, so got some Gatorade. So we got our ass kicked and we came back harder. Right. I didn't just throw in the towel. I'm never doing that again. I'm like, I go back tomorrow and get it done.

14:32

Well, I mean, isn't that like the definition of success? Honestly, is that you're doing the things that other people don't want to do? I mean, just constantly, to your point, the grind. I mean, it's every day waking up and grinding. And then one day you wake up and you have enormous success. An overnight success. A 20-year overnight success.

14:54

I want to talk about. sports and competition and being competitive and facing adversity. Because I think if you have that competitive mind, you have that competitive spirit. I think that when you face adversity, you know, you're going to take the loss. You want to come back and win. You know, I mean, no one likes to lose. And so for me, I was very competitive when I was younger. All sports, soccer, baseball, football, everything, super competitive. And so I think that's served me well in these crazy times of challenge and adversity in my business.

15:29

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Competition helps you in that aspect.

15:33

So you're a competitive shooter. Let's talk about that a little bit. I mean, do you feel like your competitive spirit helps make you grittier and have more grind in you or what?

15:43

So I'm a little bit of an anomaly here, Eric. I know this is going to be hard to believe. I am not inherently competitive. I don't wake up being competitive. I have, there's certain things that I'm extremely competitive in. And like, for example, which makes no sense whatsoever. I've never played volleyball at any, like any level other than like a rec league at church or something like that. But I get uber competitive when I play volleyball. I mean, like it's probably the most competitive I ever get.

16:20

It's because you're like six, three or four hour, like you're six,12. It's just five. Yeah. Get it right. You jump up and just smash people. So, of course. Pick on someone your own size, Brad. Come on.

16:34

Yeah, but my point is that I've never played it at high school or anything. I have no idea why, but when I get out there and start playing, I get super competitive. So to people listening, I do competitive pistol shooting, and I've been doing it for about four and a half years. And the reason why I love this sport is because it's an individual sport. It is a direct one for one. The amount of effort I put into it and the amount of effort I get out of it. Right. So if I go up there and I screw up, I can't blame anyone but myself. So to me, it's the ultimate test of self mastery. Right. Yeah. Because I have to master every aspect of it. And when I win or lose matches. It comes down a lot of times to tenths of seconds, sometimes hundreds of seconds. Yeah. So it's a lot of fun, but I love the discipline and the self-mastery aspect of it. But, I mean, it's a grind. Just before our podcast here, I was doing some dry fire practice, but I don't enjoy that. I don't enjoy dry fire practice, but it's a necessary evil if I want to be at my best.

17:45

Well, that's the competitive spirit. That's why I wanted you to bring it up because like you literally are trying to shave off a tenth of a second, a hundredth of a second to get better. And so that competitive part of you is one of those things that gives you the grind when you're facing that adversity, you're facing, you know, facing those challenges. So that's the competitive part.

18:08

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. When I go to a match and I, you know, I travel for these matches and I go all over the Midwest. And, you know, sometimes it's two, three, four, six hours away if it's a big match. And, you know, you get done and you get second place in your division and you lose by two seconds. And the whole way home for four hours, you're just thinking, man, on that one stage, when I did that one thing, I screwed up. You know, if I would have just took a millisecond longer to see my sights on this target. I mean, you're just analyzing and ripping yourself apart the whole time. Because, you know, again, you want to win. I want to win. Don't get me wrong. But it's just that I'm not competitive like that in everything. I'm actually not that competitive in my business.

18:54

Interesting. Well, yeah, it's funny because this, I mean, let's, this segues into the other part I wanted to talk about is winning and losing in the journey. Because that is part of it. You have to be able to, you have to be able to take the losses and strive for the wins. So, I mean, facing the adversity, I think the competitive spirit of me, you know, when I was younger and, and you, maybe you're not competitive across the board, but you're competitive when you step on the volleyball court and you can see over the top of the net and then you're competitive against yourself. I mean, it's really cool because you're competing against yourself. Like again, and, and plus, you know, oftentimes when you're on a team and you're super competitive and you work your butt off and maybe there's someone else on the team that doesn't work as hard as you. And you lose, like it's easy to point a finger.

19:42

Drives me nuts. Yeah.

19:43

Now you can't point a finger at anyone except yourself in the mirror.

19:47

No, now I just point a finger at myself and I get pissed off myself.

19:50

Yeah, I point my finger at you all the time too.

19:54

I know.

19:55

Well, let's segue into wins and losses because you're going to face them on the journey to self-mastery. And that's what this podcast is about. And look at, you know, I don't... I never let my kids win. I always wanted to beat them. I don't care. Foosball, Monopoly, I don't care. No, I mean, sometimes I'll take an L to see a smile on my kids because I always make them cry when we're playing games.

20:21

Listen, let me tell a story here real quick. I think this fits right in perfectly. When I was growing up, my grandfather had a pool table in their basement. And, you know, I always wanted to play. And when I went over to my grandparents' house, I always wanted to play with my grandpa. And so he would come down and, you know, and play. And I was, I mean, this was like when I was eight years old when I started playing. Right. So I was terrible at it. And he would just wipe my butt. I mean, he would come down there and run every ball off the table. And I still had knocked one in and he would leave. He's like, you got to keep practicing. And this, I'm not joking. Like this went on for years, like four or five years. Every time I go over there, grandpa, let's go play. He'd come down and keep my butt and leave. You got to keep practicing. And then finally, I don't remember how old I was, but I would say maybe 14 or something like that,12. I may have, it might've been a little bit younger. I finally beat him. And of course, you know, I was like a sore winter. I'm screaming, jumping up and down. Yeah. And, and he just, you know, I don't remember what he said, but basically he, you know, he went upstairs again and he would never play me again after that.

21:35

Are you kidding me? I'm not.

21:38

Because I finally beat him. But that's not what's important. What's important is that the lesson of me trying to beat him and him not letting me win forced me to keep practicing and practicing and practicing and practicing until I could finally beat him. Yeah. So that's a memory I have of him. I mean, it sounds kind of like, wow, what a turd. He didn't play you again. But it built me. It made me a better person.

22:05

I actually love the story and I love the fact that, you know, you said you were a sore winner, but that's not a sore winner. It's a celebration. You know, it's like, I mean, were you like talking shit to grandpa? Like, yeah, bitch, I told you I was going to get you. I mean, that'd be a sore winner. I'm sure you didn't do that.

22:22

You didn't do that. I mean, I went and told everyone in the house. I went up and told everybody that was in the house that beat grandpa.

22:27

Well, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. That's like a celebration. That's like seven years of practice. And grit and grind to try and figure it out. So I wouldn't consider that, you know, I wouldn't consider that a sore loser. I mean, sore winner. But yeah, I mean, playing my kids, I always want to smash them. And so I think they're pretty competitive. And I think the people that I know that are successful in business, they have that mentality. I'm not saying you can't. I know a lot of successful people that don't care about games or things like that. But I think that competitive spirit to win is... is key to this. If it's in you, it's part of your DNA.

23:08

Well, listen, there's definitely, I think winning comes easy, right? I mean, who doesn't like winning? It's the losing is where you actually learn the most. And it's the, when you do get up and you grind all day and you still lose, like that's whenever you build character. That's whenever you learn the most. That's whenever you're at the lowest point, maybe where you're like, Something's got to give. Something's got to break. And you grow in that aspect. You grind all day and you lose and you're like, I can't do this anymore. I can't work 12 hours a day every day or I'm not going to survive. I got to figure out a way to make this better. And then you hire a helper or whatever it is, or you figure out a better way of doing it and you grow in that instance. But if you don't have that adversity, then I don't think you would ever get better. If you just won easily, I don't think you'd ever get better.

24:05

Yeah. And I like that you say that because I think it's, I don't know. I don't know. I don't even know how to follow that up because.

24:11

That was so good. It was speechless.

24:14

No, you made me speechless. No, I really liked that you said that. It's those moments of adversity that really, that really the passion for what you're doing is the thing that carries me through. That's what it is. And my passions have changed and it's really rewarding for me because if I have, if I had my passion for the fish and now my. My passion is to grow my hobbies, which means I need more money. So I want to win more in business so I can spend more with my hobbies. And now I'm trying to transition to teaching and training my crew to develop and become better people and better craftsmen. So it's almost like this trifecta for me. So it makes me think about that.

24:57

Yeah, absolutely. It's all cyclic. It's like one big circle. It just keeps coming back. I think we nailed it, man. I think we hit all the topics. Is there anything else you want to add before we head out?

25:09

I don't think so, man. The grind means a lot to me. And because for the longest time, I thought, I'm just going to get up and grind it out. I'm going to grind it out. And when you have that drive, and it really comes down to drive. If you have that drive and you can work hard and then you lose it at the end of the day. But if you just tick that needle forward just a little bit, because sometimes I'll work really hard, even to this day, I feel like I take an L at the end of the night. Like I didn't do as much as I could. I think I left a little bit on the table today. I feel like that sometimes. But if I look back and that needle towards my goal, that statistic, that stat is kind of climbing just a little bit. If the needle ticks forward, you know, it's good for me. It's good. Even though emotionally, I take that L. And that's the adversity that makes you want to get up and push hard again the next day. So I don't know. I think I exhausted all of my emotion on that.

26:03

Yeah, I just want to leave the listeners with, if you haven't read the book, I would highly recommend reading the book called Grit. It's by Angela Duckworth. And it kind of talks about all of this that we talked about today, but it's a really good book.

26:19

I'm going to have to get a picture of that. I'll put it up on the Instagram page. So if you're not following us on Instagram yet, you want to run on over to Hammer and Grind Podcast on Instagram and on Facebook as well. We have Hammer and Grind Podcast over on Instagram. So I mean on Facebook. So check us out over there. So thank you so much for spending time with us on the podcast today. If you're finding value, share the podcast with a contractor friend that you know and love and hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on up and coming drops. Smash the five star to show us some love. And even Brad gets a smile on his grumpy old face when we read your reviews. So drop us in and show us some love, man. Thank you so much. We'll catch you on the next down.

EP3: Are You Built For The Grind?

Transcript

EP3: Are You Built For The Grind?

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