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I am Nathan Piper, and this is Keith Mills, my great co-host. And, we’re going to be diving into some backgrounds. We’re going to be diving into you. Today is what we’re going to be finding out something about you and how you got to this point. and I think that’s what everybody’s looking for is, you know, how did how did you create the success?
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And with multiple businesses, I mean, that’s the fun thing of it. So it’s not just one construction company. I mean, you’ve got multiple different companies. So and you started out I’m want to let you get into how you started out, of how this all happened, because it literally does go ahead and paint a big picture for people about what’s possible.
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So, I mean, whenever you get started, never all of us start. And that’s one of the great things that you’ll find out. There’s so many different stories. That’s what you’re going to hear in this podcast a lot. So there’s so many different stories of how people got to where they got to and realized that that can be you.
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So I whenever you’re going ahead and looking at this, I was just finding that that industry finding the way. So finding the person to work with. And let’s find out a little bit about Nate. how did you get how did you get started in this crazy industry? Well, it’s, it’s a big drawn out story. So we’ll start back in some, some of the beginning pieces.
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But ultimately, I was a, a rebel without a cause. That kind of just kind of kept going. But I was at that feral kid where I was too hyperactive as, like, a little child that my mom had to kick me out of the house, and I had to go run around in the backyard. I wasn’t allowed inside.
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you know, a lot of the younger generation to have those memes off of. Like, I survived drinking out of a water hose. Well, I yeah, yeah, literally. We did. Literally. That’s what we did. and so I was outside and I was always playing and engaging and, and so it gave my me a chance to kind of like, build forts and, you know, stack chairs and jump off things and build ramps and, and so I always kind of had all the dangerous stuff that we did back then.
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Yeah. We didn’t have helmets and knee pads and elbow pads and all those things. We had bad Monday Night Football right now, this this was our helmet. So. So, I’ve always been kind of like that rebel guy that was that kind of doing those things. But I think my, my first real, interaction that I liked was when I was about seven and motivate me a little bit, but we had a VCR and the VCR had gotten the tape stuck in it, and, and, and it was just, you know, back then it was like, oh, well, the VCR is broken, you know?
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And so I went to the kitchen, I got out a butter knife, and I went to work in the infamous butter knife, screwdriver. The butter knife. I was like, oh, there’s a this is a tool. It’s like. It’s like the chimpanzee in a stick. Right? We’re going to figure something out here. I don’t know what it is. This happened.
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I’m diving into it. And, and so I worked on it, I and the, the casing and I, I pulled the thing out. I did the stuff. I’m looking at all these wires like, oh, this is crazy. I don’t know what to do here. I’m poking at it. And finally I was able to hit something and the tape came out.
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I was like, oh, yeah, I know, I know how to fix the. And this was back when the VCR was an expensive item and not everybody had one in the house. And and it was like fresh and new. And my dad comes home and, and he was like, what did you do? And and there’s screws everywhere and pieces are missing.
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And I’m like, I got the tape. And my back then actually meant something. If you had rented that from blockbuster, you need to get back the block. We just made a bug buster. My mom was so proud. She’s like, oh, you did it all. You and my dad was like, what did you do to my VCR? And, but that that’s kind of the moment that I realized that, you know what?
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I like taking things apart. I like building with them. I like having a tool in my hand that gave me some kind of power. Right. And, I was over that night. Did you put it? Did you put it back together or. No, I left it for my dad. I left it for my dad. I was like, I, I did my job.
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You were just the demo guy. Got it. All right, I started off, I was like, I did my job. I got it out, you know? You fix it, put it back, put it back. Good luck. I don’t know how that came apart. So I don’t know a good demo guy. Yeah, exactly. You know, I should have. You know, I started off early.
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I understood that, it’s, that’s kind of how I got into it. I, you know, growing up, I, we kind of had a bunch of different construction project people in my family. Right? I had an uncle that had, you know, different jobs, and they did different pieces like flooring and painting and roofing and, and so I was always kind of part of that.
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And, and, my dad, worked out in the oil field or not, I did later on, like, but we’d always kind of like go by and check on him, maybe work on jobsite. So I was always kind of familiar with it. It was always kind of like, that’s the part of life, right? It’s like, oh, Saturdays was built for, oh, you go play your sports and then you go out onto the jobsite and then you clean up this or throw rocks here, or pick that up or move this or so.
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It was always part of the my upbringing in my life. And right, especially as you get into kind of like middle school and things of that nature. And, and then I was my mother was a, was an entrepreneur and, and my dad ended up becoming a psychologist. So that’s a, that’s two different head trips in, in the same household anyway.
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And so I, I ended up becoming an early entrepreneur. I was always into that. I was that kid that would sell candy at school and and try to do that. Did your mom encouraging or you just pick that up from her? Well, my mom, my mom was a, you know, she is an encourager, but she’s also kind of like, you hear her the the the eagles that that have nest.
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They teach their young how to fly. You know, they basically the night that thing flop around. Yeah. I mean they put them real high up in the in the trees or on the side of a cliff. Yeah. And then you know just feeding them and being all loving. And then next thing you know, they just kick them out and and the baby, the baby just flops around.
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What’s happening. Well, that’s that’s my mother and and she’s she’s done this to a lot of people, not just me. I was just the first employee. and so she she’s she’s notorious for doing this. But it was a challenge for me to find success, right? She never gave it to me. It was always earned. Right. And so there’s a lot of life lessons in that that we can dive into later.
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But one of the main ones, it’s like, go out there and try it. Good, better and different. Put a best foot forward, fail forward, and we’ll pick up the pieces and move over. So, like that part that you said right there, Nate, is the thing that one of the biggest challenges with the education industry. Yeah. So is the fact that they teach you that you’ve got to be right in everything.
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And one of the biggest things that you’ll find out when you start adulting. So or when you get out into if you ever decide to become an entrepreneur. So a business owner is that you will fail a lot more than you will ever succeed. And the quicker you can come to terms with that, the more successful you’ll actually be.
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Because is faster processes. Yeah, the faster you get comfortable with failing the the, the faster you’re going to succeed. You know, it’s it’s just there. Each hand come together, you know. And and that’s one of the blessings that I had for my mother. I remember when I was like five, six, seven years old, she had a, a wedding cake business.
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She had a day care that she was running. She was also, a member of blockbuster. Right. So she was selling Blockbuster Video tapes and blockbuster, organizations, like, she had like, 4 or 5, like, a wedding cake designer plays, like, she had all kinds of entrepreneurial business pieces. And she was doing this to put my dad through, through college and take care of the household and, and all these different things.
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So it’s like, I remember those years, right? Like I was her. I was her biggest helper, you know? And so it’s like, that’s kind of like launched me in to be able to do my thing. What’s that? So what do you think is and that’s, it’s an interesting beginning to be able to see that because not everybody gets the opportunity to see that.
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What do you feel you learned. So from that process that you took away, that’s the been one of the most impactful things to help you grow where you’re at now. What are the there’s quite a few. But I mean, I think some of the biggest ones, like don’t Be Afraid, always Strive forward, it’s never going to be perfect, but, you know, put your best foot forward, accept things as they are.
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you know, like, there’s all these, like, life lessons that kind of like you just you just push through, like, whatever it is, you just push through. You just never quit. Never give up. You just. Just keep driving. And. And it’s not going to be beautiful, but it’s going to work. And so take it as it comes, right and right.
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You get there. And she had a unique upbringing, right? She didn’t have, a rosy colored silver spoon. Right. So she had to, you know, worry about how she got to school and worry about herself. And then she became an entrepreneur. My grandparents were entrepreneurs and and my great grandparents were entrepreneurs. Right. So it’s like 3 or 4 generations down, you know, it’s like, great great grandparents had a had a grocery store, right?
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It and some of them were farmers and, and all this kind of stuff and, and so whenever, like with all these different levels of entrepreneurs through your family name. Yeah. So has anyone ever done, you want to work in the other person’s business? I mean, I know you said you joke around with your mom when you were, you know, one of the first employees and things like.
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Yeah. Did any of those, like, did your mom work in your grandparents business? Did your grandparents work in your great grandparents business? Did they all start their own thing and ran their own route? It’s interesting. They all started their own thing. Right? Okay. It’s like they all work inside of the other one. But then they got to a point and they started their own thing.
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They branched away. So it’s like her, her mom and dad, her dad was, you know, he did a lot of different things. Number one, he was he was an insurance salesman, and then he was a car salesman, but he was also a gambler, and he was also a farmer. And he was also like, he did all these different things to make money in a non traditional way.
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And, and he did it in a way which he enjoyed his life. And so, but he was different than his parents that had a more structured form kind of component and built it in and went out and had the, the sign and where they sold stuff on the side of the road. And different than her mother’s parents who had a grocery store.
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Right. And, and they had a stable place. And then he had uncles and aunts. She had uncles and aunts that did, you know, different pieces. Right. And they it was all entrepreneur. It wasn’t like corporate business. And I think a lot of it has to do with this was the early 1900s. Right? So it wasn’t it wasn’t corporate America.
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This was America just becoming a corporation. Right. Which means everybody was on their own and they were all doing their own thing. And so it’s, you know, what that part of their innate, I think, is one of the biggest things that’s changed. So the United States, I mean, it’s like if you look back at it, I mean, so many people came to this country just for that opportunity so that your family lived experience.
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There’s what it comes down to. And that’s the part that I live for all of our all of our listeners or viewers. If you’re watching this on the video version of this, now is the piece that I put out there. That’s the part that’s been forgotten about. There’s so much training that’s gone into getting into, a job.
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So I’m working for someone else. And while if that’s your thing and that’s what you want to do, awesome. Realize there’s a whole nother path. And that’s like, your family’s the perfect example that everybody did something different and I like I highly encourage that, because I know one of the big things that I always look at is if you look at people who had really successful businesses and their kids get in the business, so what happens to the business when the kids are in the business?
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And then and then if their kids get into the business, then what happens? Yeah, well, well, there’s two things that happen. It it either goes up or it goes down. More likely than not, it goes down because they they did have to strive or struggle to kind of like learn. That’s that’s it right there. Yeah. They go through the same thing.
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They didn’t have to develop the same skills to be able to get to that level of success. Yeah. And it’s just kind of, you know, lost in that piece and, and and I think and so my mom was an entrepreneur. She’s on a, a bunch of companies. And then me and both of my sisters are entrepreneurs.
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Right. And so each one of us had different businesses, and we all do, you know, in different industries. And we kind of like it was just embedded into us as individuals, the like, hey, there’s other ways to make money. Let’s figure this thing out. And, and I figured it out and that’s in grade school. And that’s one of those I love that fact.
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That’s basically the culture of the family, the values. The family is to be able to go ahead and do this. And again, it’s another piece that I would say, you know, for people to pay attention because how people, what they grow up in is typically what they’ll start out in. That was what it comes down to. And if you have never seen this before, like I’m a first generation entrepreneur, so like all of my family’s always been, they’ve worked for and they’ve worked a job.
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They’ve always worked as an employee somewhere. And my parents, my great, my parents, my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents, all of them had worked for somebody else, which is all well and good. I mean, it’s how I got where I got right now. Exactly. The thing is that when you get to see that, you can be that person in your family, though.
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So if you decide to go that route to step up to be the entrepreneur, that changes the future literally of generations. So of people in your family, like literally what it did for Nate with all of the many people. So in his family, it just puts that entrepreneur. It pulls the blinders off right. And it and it pulls the reins down so that.
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The hardest thing, the hardest thing to do in entrepreneurship is to get someone to buy into your vision, right? That is the that is the hardest thing to do in entrepreneurship. And what ends up happening is that you have an idea or a goal or something that you want to try into, and the first people that you want to share this idea with is the people that are closest to you, right?
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Your family, your best friends, and all the rest of stuff. And if they come from a mentality of like, I’m just doing my part in this, in this function, they’ll never be able to understand where you’re coming from or what you want to create. And and luckily for me, I’ve been blessed that my mother was this way. she she married a guy that wasn’t that way, but he was at least open for me to be that way.
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Because he saw the success that she was having and the way that she handled things. And and so she encouraged me to, like, go out and do it, you know, get out of here, start a lemonade stand, sell popsicles. They have mow grass, picket fences. I remember I remember being like 12, 13 and I’ll be like, you know, and this was back, when Michael Jordan was getting really popular and, and he was coming out with the, with the Jays and, and, I was like, oh, I gotta have, I gotta have some of those Jays.
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I gotta, I gotta look good, you know, and I go with my mom. I was like, mom, can I, can I get some, can I get some of it? She was like, Well, it makes sense to me that if you go and mow four yards, you’ll have that money to go do that. I was like, okay, you’re not going to give me the money.
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But she gave me the idea of like, okay, if I go take this lawnmower and I go mow four yards and I’ll have enough money to buy them, okay? And then that’s what gave me the opportunity to be like, okay, well, she’s not gonna get them for me, but she gave me an opportunity to go get it. And so grab the lawn mower, went out, knocked on some doors, signed up a customer, got in, got done, got what I wanted.
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And then I decided I wanted the jump to go along with it. So what? Not a more.
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You know anybody and it’s, you know, the one thing that I notice from that and it’s and that’s the part that I love. So about the the story there it is, the fact that it’s just a different mentality, a different way of thinking. That’s it. And there’s so many other people, you know, whenever you grow up in that the, the family who has always been an employee, which means that someone’s giving them a paycheck.
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So for most of those people, whenever they’re looking for something, the answer when they go to their parents is it’s either yes or no. They’re they’re going to give you the money or they’re not. And then so often there’s nothing painted as the next step. If you want to do this on your own, right. That to me is huge.
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Because what it did is it for you and for and for her, for whenever she was growing up and for, you know, her, her parents, what it did is it showed you that you can do whatever you want to do. So you’ve just got to put the effort into it. You’ve got to find a need that somebody else has a challenge and somebody else has that you can solve.
00:17:18:02 – 00:17:36:13
Well, and then you’ll get the opportunity to go ahead and get whatever you want. And it’s that the ability to identify opportunity and figure out a way to get there is huge. And I love that fact that, you know, it’s been huge in my entire life. Your family is is great. Oh, yeah. I mean, they you know, we have we all have our challenges.
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We’re not we’re not a perfect family. Right? We we are. You have I do all the things, but we at least had a solid about we had a solid foundation to kind of like build on. Right. And and it’s so true because I’ve had so many friends that either they come from, a wealthy family and it was just given to them and they never had to work for it, or they came from a non wealthy family where they said, no, you can’t have it.
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And then they stop. And both and in both scenarios there’s a, there’s a stop portion that happened. Right. Like they never took the next step. Right. They never like the family that had it. And they just gave it to the kid. He never went out and try. Right. He never excelled forward. He just stayed in his little position and that was it.
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And the other person, he decided, well, they said no, that’s it. And what my mom did for me, what I’m so blessed with is that, okay, this is maybe a no right now, but it’s just it’s not a it’s not a forever. No. It’s just I know from her, but hey, look, you have all these other things that you can do to be able to create that.
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And that’s where it started for me. It was like, okay, well, I want candy at school. Well, I got $5. Well, I want I want candy today. I want that kid in a candy next week. All right. Let me take my $5. Let me go buy some nylon. Laters. And some Skittles and some things like that. And I sell them off and I make $8.
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I’m like, okay, great. I’ll eat this a little bit. I’ll put this money bag, I stick this in the bag. And I started playing with this mentality. And that’s where I think a lot of kids need that, that are missing it. And, I try to instill it in my kids are not allowed to sell candy at school anymore.
00:19:17:15 – 00:19:39:07
That’s, that’s bad. It’s frowned upon. Like you’re doing it to raise money for the school. Oh, yeah. That’s okay. Yeah, that’s a whole lot of it. Oh, if the money comes to us, then it’s okay, right? Exactly. But I we call that a monopoly in the business world, because all that. But I have my kids set up, lemonade stands.
00:19:39:08 – 00:20:00:22
Right? And they go out there and they make a bunch of money, and it’s like, I’m. I’m trying to do the same thing for my kids that my mom did for me, which is like, let me empower you to go out there and make money, right? And you choose how you want to make that money, but go out there and figure out how you want to buy your own stuff and don’t have to, you know?
00:20:00:24 – 00:20:23:11
And if someone tells you no, great. But what’s the other opportunity? Don’t just stop there, right? Like those are just not now. They’re not forever, you know? And so what are you going to do that you said right. There’s the key. So it’s no it’s not, it’s just right now. So it’s not forever. So it’s not forever. You have to identify the opportunity to be able to find the how to get where you want to go, whatever that is.
00:20:23:17 – 00:20:45:12
Well, what I ended up doing was I, I changed I changed the question in my mind and the question in my mind became, how do I or how can I or how is this going to be possible? Not, not what is the problem? Not is, you know, what can I do? I don’t I don’t know, ask those questions.
00:20:45:12 – 00:21:08:20
Right. I live with it. It’s like, how can I, I want to have a, a future based question in my mind because then that’s what my mind’s looking for, not what has happened or what can happen with what can happen is and there’s a ton of things that can happen. how plan is a is a more specific, targeted question.
00:21:08:22 – 00:21:28:19
And we can get into like psychology pieces later. But that question just for me, that question is like so impactful. What started you down this path? Yeah. Well, this is how I got started. It’s like, okay, if you’re not going to buy me the JS, how can I and she gave me the answer. You know, it’s like, okay, that’s even better.
00:21:28:19 – 00:21:46:07
She she gave you the way to give an answer. She’s like, well you hit mo for yours and you don’t have the money. I’m like, oh, that’s right, the good okay. It takes a lot more to go out. I mean, there you go. So I mean, that’s kind of how I started. So when I saw as you went along, then knowing that background.
00:21:46:12 – 00:22:13:17
So as you went through school and everything, then was the encouragement to go start a business right out of either out of high school or was that encouragement to go to college, or was it kind of left out to you? And then what did you actually do? It was left up to me to make decisions. I mean, I was not I was not a good pupil from the from the standpoint of I thought I knew more than my teachers.
00:22:13:19 – 00:22:37:12
I thought, I thought my time was better, was better spent playing with my friends. I thought my, educators were or, you know, not very smart. I, I was a menace to society just from the standpoint of, I was going to do what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it. So let me preface this by saying, as a feral child, that role.
00:22:37:12 – 00:23:14:02
As I was able to have free rein, I took full advantage of my free rein. This and, challenged every authority figure I came across. So, and, and if you’re listening to this and you’re like, wow, that sounds like me, realize that, what that can a lot of times indicate is that, like, a lot of those qualities that they those attributes that Nate just described for himself are attributes for people who would be very good business owners in one way, shape or form, whether it’s in construction, whether it’s in something else, whatever the opportunity is, because that’s what determines their success.
00:23:14:02 – 00:23:29:03
They’ve got that. I’m going to go ahead and do this. I’ll find a solution to the challenge. I’ll find something I can go out and offer to somebody that’s going to be something that they want and they’re willing to pay for, and I’ll deliver it the way it needs to be delivered. all of those pieces come from exactly what Nate is saying.
00:23:29:05 – 00:23:44:19
So I didn’t realize that in school, when you’re struggling, you’re like, this just doesn’t connect. And I hate this. And why am I here and why I don’t get it? You may have a different path. So this could be a different path for you. Well, and then I didn’t realize this until after I read Robert Kiyosaki, his book.
00:23:44:21 – 00:24:07:08
you know, Rich dad, Poor Dad. That. And that didn’t happen. So later on in my 20s. Right. And, that that’s that’s the mentality that you have to have. And in order to kind of have the success, it was just bred into me early, you know, and and it just came in as pure natural, like, this is like the DNA of this, of this individual was me and that was it.
00:24:07:08 – 00:24:28:17
And I was path I was going to take. Yeah. And so I was, I was great in sports and, you know, tall kid, slender, slender and, and you know, played every sport there was. And I really wanted to focus on that. And so my parents gave me, you know, you do what you want to do. I only wanted to go to college to play sports.
00:24:28:17 – 00:24:45:14
I didn’t want to go to college to go to class. Right. And I didn’t want to go to college to be, you know, anything else other than a star athlete at a D1 school. Like, that’s what I wanted, right? And so that’s what I went to. So did you get it? Did you get a scholarship to go to school this.
00:24:45:14 – 00:25:06:18
Oh yeah. You know it’s kind of hard. That takes down a different a different path. I’ll get to that in a minute. But, in high school, I and my mom and I, we joke about it to this day, but I purposely try to figure out, you know, what I had to do to be able to play high school sports, right?
00:25:06:20 – 00:25:31:02
Meaning, back then you had to maintain a 70 average, right? You know, to be able to play. So I would figure out in my class for curriculum, how do I get to seven? Right, right. And and then that became the target and goal. So I would go out and I’d figure out, okay, how many assignments do I have to do and how many can I miss, and what do I do to get on the final exam?
00:25:31:04 – 00:25:48:21
They hit a 78. And and there’s so many times that I would come in and, and I would be right there at the six weeks and, and I needed to make it 98 on the test to be able to hit 78 on the dot. Right. And I come in, pull out of 98 or 99. And I didn’t open up a book, I didn’t.
00:25:48:21 – 00:26:07:23
And then, you know, I was kind of one of those the power of goals and motivation that was it. And, and I and I would proudly come home from school and I’d throw my report card on the, table and be like 70 across the board. Guess who’s playing this week? Well, who you know now. And and that was just my mentality.
00:26:07:23 – 00:26:30:12
I was like, look, here’s, here’s the bottom threshold that I have to hit. Right? And I maintained that. But then on my, on my Excel or my, my collegiate level of sports that I was playing there, I wanted to be able to excel that. So I would put all my time, effort, energy, focus, studying everything right into that.
00:26:30:14 – 00:26:48:14
And I didn’t put any of my time into the education. My I was just like, I’m going to do the bare minimum of what I have to over here so that I can excel over here. And and that was just my mind. That’s where I was that, you know, 14, 15, 16 years old. And it worked for me.
00:26:48:14 – 00:27:10:00
And I did that. And, long story short, I, I had gotten a ton of scholarship offers and even signed a letter. I was going to go D1 and the whole shebang. But then, you know, spring break happened and a car accident happened, and, and I lost a couple of friends and, and I just I lost it as a, as an individual.
00:27:10:00 – 00:27:27:06
And I went down a different path. And I didn’t go to school for a few weeks. And I ended up not walking the stage with my class. And I ended up having to go to summer school to get my diploma. And, you know, life happens, you know, it’s how you respond to life. Exactly. And I had a challenge there.
00:27:27:06 – 00:27:52:07
And my challenge was, do I give up and just go get my D? You know, because of the challenge of not being able to graduate my class and walk the stage with them and the whole shebang, or do I, you know, pull my, my pant legs up and put on my big boy pants and go to summer school from 8 a.m. in the morning till 7:00 at night, every day for the entire summer, and, and get my high school diploma.
00:27:52:09 – 00:28:17:16
And so I did that. And then I found me a junior college, and I and I went out to the junior college and got enrolled and then walked on for the football team. And, you know, and it was a struggle for me because I was I was a highly rated, you know, athlete here in Texas. And, I went from being sought after to having no opportunity.
00:28:17:18 – 00:28:38:05
And then I had to create opportunity, and I had to create the opportunity that I wanted. And it wasn’t it wasn’t a great opportunity. I had a fight. I had a struggle. I had to, you know, get deep into it. And, and so all those challenges kind of came out of it and it’s just perseverance. It’s the, the big thing, the challenge.
00:28:38:07 – 00:29:07:02
Anybody that you talk to who has been successful has faced the challenges, like what Nate’s talking about right now. And that’s part of the key because it actually it creates who you are. It tests your resilience and your resolve. So to go ahead and do whatever you you say you’re committed to doing, and it’s part of the key because that’s as an entrepreneur and as a business owner, a lot of times it can be one of the loneliest journeys you can be on, because very few people understand what you go through on a consistent basis to create what you want to create.
00:29:07:08 – 00:29:27:12
And that’s even whether it’s entrepreneur, a business owner. Well, that’s anybody’s job that they’ve got. So if you’re working in one of the trades, that can be the same piece. Realize we all know that, and that ability in the skills that you gain by moving forward and by reaching out. So for those of you who need to reach out to be able to talk, that’s what we always encourage as one of the reasons I’ll, Nate and I ended up finding each other.
00:29:27:18 – 00:29:43:18
So is that reaching out process that we do so to go and find others that are doing the same types of things to continue moving on. But that piece right there to be able to develop the skills, those skills that Nate was just talking about are the pieces that anyone, no matter what you want to do, an employee or a business owner.
00:29:43:20 – 00:29:59:22
Now, those are the things that you do develop over time to excel. and that’s where the, the key piece on that is, though, is looking for those opportunities. Every time there’s a challenge or an opportunity to go ahead and develop a new skill set. the piece that I was like, I know Nate and I are both very, very religious.
00:30:00:03 – 00:30:11:00
So as far as those pieces go and that one of the things I always look at when the challenge comes up is the question I always ask is, what less am I supposed to learn from this? God, that’s it. I know there’s always a lesson there always a lesson.