Part 2: From 8-Year Apprentice to Superintendent: Lessons on Leadership with Ben Rymers

You bleed with these people. You sweat with these people. You have them emotional experiences with the people that you work with in the field, you argue, you fight, you, you're with them 60 plus hours a week

Oh, yeah, we are back for part two with Mr. Ben Rymers and that little clip, man. I had to pick it and put it up front because. He got me fired up. Like Maybe not fired up. It's more like. Enthused and excited about. The future, the impact that he's going to have on the industry. And, um, I'm part two. He shares his like significant learning that resulted from a painful misstep. And it just totally reinforces the value of humbling yourself. And playing the long game. And what tell y'all like, you need to be sharing this episode with them. Youngsters, the young liens out there, middle schoolers, high schoolers. Even folks that just got out of school and they're kind of wandering around trying to figure it out. Ben's got some phenomenal advice that it, that it's valuable to me. And before we get into the conversation with Ben. I want to give a shout out to LnM Family member, Ms. Gloria glow. Joy. Yes, she is a previous guest. Uh, and she's taken some time to read, becoming the promise you are intended to be. And she was ever so gracious. And sending me this message. Gloria says, I finally picked up your book while sitting on a train from Connecticut to New York city. And you got me all tiered up. Doria first. Thank you for sharing that and folks LnM Family out there. You hope, you know, I love getting these messages. It It makes all the time and frustration and whining and complaining that I went through and producing the book. It makes it, it gives it all meaning. The intent behind the book is to inspire action. Uh, for you to introspect and think about your path and think about the path of your loved ones. And figure out how to become the promise you are intended to be. if you want to get a copy, there's a link in the show notes. There's audio. There's the print. You know, I'm working on a digital ebook. Who knows when that's going to come out. Anyhow enough of that. Here you go to Mr. Ben Rymers

oh, yeah. It's so much easier now to learn something through, via internet, via YouTube, via heck, via TikTok, exactly. It's so much easier now to get this, get that to learn stuff,

so speaking of YouTube, I heard that you have you're a YouTube celebrity with your fishing channel. Tell us about that.

No it's an aspiration is what I would say. I'm a huge fisherman. I love to fish. That's my biggest hobby. Any chance I get, I'm out on the water fishing, whether it's on the bank fishing at a lake, or on the jetties fishing at the coast. I'm there and I watch YouTube videos all the time on fishing and where to go. I can do that. I can definitely do that. One of a coworker of mine was like, you should just take the camera and just record yourself one day. It just so happens that the day I decided to do it, I was... Going in there thinking that I was just going to catch all the fish in the world. And I wound up not catching anything. I'd call it fishing for a reason. And the video was poor quality, but I had such a good time. I made one video. And it went up to the editing phase and it just stopped there. I didn't post it on YouTube, but still to come doesn't need to keep a lookout, right? It's going to be called big man fishing. That's going to be my channel eventually. I'll let you know when it comes out.

There it is. Announced here, Big Man Fishing. Man, that's awesome. So Castroville high school, what's the

mascot? The Panther Medina Valley

Panthers, Valley Panthers. You graduated, then you had to get to work 19 years old. Before that what did little Ben think or plan on doing when he grew up?

Little Ben planned on becoming a doctor. They always ask the question when you're little, what do you want to be when you grow up? I don't know why I was just always into the human body itself and how it worked and I just always wanted to be a doctor, right? And then I'll say this. I was not very bright in high school. I made a lot of stupid choices in high school. I know I'm an electrician by trade, but my math at that time was not up to par. Yeah, I actually had to go through some extra courses to catch up but yeah, I had wanted to be a doctor at that time and I'm personally glad I did not, right? I'm very happy with the route that I chose. 10

4? Okay. Any type of doctor or just doctor?

At that time, I didn't know. I heard doctors made a lot of money. And I was like, oh I enjoy the human body. I want to make a lot of money. I want to drive around in a Corvette. I can't even fit in a Corvette right now. It's super tight.

It's funny because I know in high school for me, it was engineer. I was going to go to school to be an engineer. I didn't know what the hell that was. But. I was good at math, I love math, and everybody told me you're good at math, you should be an engineer, I was like okay, bro, could you imagine me being an engineer? I get inspired, it's like, I got, like, no, that's no way, I think, I understand these are popular careers, right? And I get it, there's a lot of prestige that comes with those names and all that, but back to the point you made about sacrifice, like nobody tells you the amount of sacrifice you have to make to be a doctor. To be a lawyer, you're not going to four year university. And it's important to know that because. If that's not for you yeah, you're going to be making money. There's going to cost to the education. There's costs like in terms of the amount of life you're going to commit to be able to serve in that manner is the thing that we don't talk about. My little brother who's 18, Renee, he used to co host and then he chickened out. He retired he got too big on Instagram or something, but I had gotten him a job. He had just graduated high school. I was working for TD industries. And I got him a job. There is a sheet metal apprentice. You didn't get them into the apprenticeship program. Like the whole thing. He worked like a month, maybe two months and quit because. The guys were giving him a hard time and he felt like he was getting unfair treatment because of me because I was his brother that some people were like put up with him more than they would have or some people picked on them more because of me. Now he works for sauce and he's been there for I don't know, 10 years, yeah. And he's progressed. He's doing real good in his career. And I'm like, bro you're finally making this money. You could have been making that 10 years ago. Yeah. And he's yeah, Jess, but I didn't have a family back then. I didn't know I couldn't appreciate the work that I had now. I'm like, shit I got to start over. Similar to you.

Oh, man. I'll just say. A family will change your priorities like man, when I had my kids I know I was young, but I like I stopped playing basketball, football, any outdoor sports because I was scared to get hurt. I didn't want to get hurt and not be able to go to work.

Oh, yeah.

One thing I left out was the first three years of my apprenticeship with the union man, I bought a house cause the wife wants to, we needed to get out on our own. So at 22, I bought a house. But those first three years, I wound up working two jobs at one time during the day, I was working as an electrician. And at night I was working for pizza hut, but I needed to make sure that the kids ate, yeah.

Yeah, man, amazing. Amazing. So in all this time, because you put a lot of years on the field have you had a really big meaningful learning that came from a painful mistake?

Who hasn't?

I got a book full of them.

Yeah I have a story to tell about that. I mentioned I wound up I left the city to go work for as a QAQC regional manager for an electric company. In the Dallas Fort Worth area. A part of that conversation, when we started talking and everything, I was like, Hey, I've done this before. They said, No Ben you're the guy we need. You'll get the proper training. Don't worry we'll coach you along and help you to succeed. I was like, Oh, okay, great. All right, cool. I'm there. I'll do it. I always have that go get it type of attitude anyway. Yeah. When I got there, I felt like I was doing good. And I asked questions to certain people. I guess I wasn't asking questions to the right people. And then they had The company itself had a couple of visitors come down from a different unit from up north, and they were also involved with QAQC, and they just started asking questions as far as documents and contracts and what are the specs read what are all of this stuff? We providing to the general contractor and I thought, Oh yeah, this is what we're doing. This is the format we're doing. Cause no one ever told me different. No one ever told me different. It turns out there was a lot of stuff that's missed, a lot of stuff that we owed the GC. That wasn't being provided, but the GC wasn't asking either. And when it came down to we're getting closer and closer to the end here. Where's this information? Where's this documentation that we owe them? It all came down on me and my whole thing was, did y'all teach me that? What was the training? I told y'all at the beginning. That I've never done this before. I'm gonna need training on it. Y'all told me I would get the proper training. So I don't know that we owed that to them. I didn't know at the time where to read the contract from the GC to the trade partner. If I didn't have that information, how are y'all holding against me? They held it against me. It was a huge reprimand. I was. Really close to getting fired. The gentleman I told you about that was as mean as they come superintendent, he had my back 100% Oh yeah. He went in there and he just raised up a big old storm. Cause man, they had behind the door, closed meetings about this. And it was a huge deal. And I wound up telling them. Exactly what I said right now is I will own what I own cause that's the type of person I am, but y'all need to own your part too. Yes. They were not training me properly and giving me the information or tools that I needed to do this job. I'll give you one guess how much they really cared about what I had to say. Zero. Zero. They did not care about what I had to say. All they saw was. That I failed to do my job and that was it. I guess it was a demotion, right? So to speak. So what the superintendent did was he sent me over to this off site warehouse that we had. And it's look, I'm going to keep you here. I'm not going to fire you. I don't care what they say. They want to get rid of you. You're going to stay at this warehouse. You're going to help out with some cost stuff. You're going to help out with the warehouse stuff. I don't care what you do. You just stay there, right? Till time blows over. Yeah. And I told him, I was like, man, dude, like it got in my feelings. Like it was a huge hit to me as a man, to me as a electrician, as a worker. That hit my ego so hard. And like I still get a little bit emotional about it when I think about it sometimes, but I did it right. Most people would've said, oh, f you, I quit, right? Oh, f you quit. I really understood the value that I was getting from working there and the lessons that was leading to enhance my career. Like I understood that at that time. Yeah. And to me, I was like, look, Humble yourself. It's going to get better, right? It's going to get better. So I worked in the warehouse. I was wrapping material. I was doing whatever they told me to do. Yeah. And I'll say this it's real easy for a person. of leadership to walk around and think you're higher than everybody, above everybody, that they're all below you because you've reached this. You could start down at the bottom and you could reach this level of leadership and All of a sudden you knew where you were down here, but when you reach this new level, you're just better than everybody all of a sudden, since when, right? Not saying I had that attitude. I did not have that attitude, but I would say some of the leaders that were there that were supposed to train me and show me. I'll say that they did have that attitude but I took it as, okay, this is a humbling moment. I'm going to do this. So I stuck with it, right? I stuck with it and it actually helped out because on the GC side, I made good connections, right? I can communicate with pretty much anybody. For some reason, I had a buddy of mine tell me that Ben, You're just really easy to talk to you. Everybody likes you right off the bat. And it's not the first time I heard that. So it was real easy for me to just make friends with the GCs, make friends with the client. And one of them came up to me and they told me, Hey man sorry about what happened. I heard what's going on. And it was embarrassing. Yeah. It was embarrassing. But he said, Hey, there's this job opportunity in San Antonio that they want to offer me. I told them that you're the better person for the job, so they're going to reach out to you. Along with that humbling experience came this new venture in my life, right? Wow. And it grew from there. I couldn't appreciate it more, wow. I really couldn't. But that was it, man. That was the misstep I had. As soon as I got to my new job, I was like, oh, where's the contract? I wanna read the contract. I wanna read it now. I want to know everything that I owe what's going on here? But I did not make the same mistake.

Yeah, man, dude, there's so much there in zone one. I saw a repeat and I wonder where you got this from a repeat of playing the freaking long game, humbling yourself and playing the long game. You did it with your apprenticeship. And you did it in this situation. Where does that endurance, that presence of mind come from, Ben? Where do you think that came from?

I would say personally it comes from my dad, right? My dad was always a hard worker. He was actually a city inspector for the city of San Antonio himself for the mechanical side. But he was always working hard and then he retired, he started his own business, and even though his business didn't take off, it didn't take off the way we all thought it was going to. When I was starting my early career, I had asked him one time and it's dad what's going on? You're wasting your time here. And he's no. It doesn't matter, right? I was like what do you mean it doesn't matter? He's look, I'm doing what I love to do, right? I worked all these wonderful years with the city. I own my own business just because it isn't where I want it to be. Does it mean that I failed it means that I am just still trying to better myself better the career that I have. And he's as long as you're continuing to better yourself, then you shouldn't be missing out on much. But when you stop trying to better yourself then you might not like the direction that's going to go. And it's stuck with me. I appreciate him for all that.

Yeah, yes, everybody wants to be a celebrity. The reality of it is, am I growing? Am I contributing? Am I learning that's

that's life. Yes. Always trying to succeed and. I'll say this. I was involved with mentoring kids that wanted to get into the construction industry and the whole reason I got into that mentorship. It was because these kids, if they're in this program in high school, they obviously want to go into the construction industry, right? All of them want to be architects, engineers go to college and do all that. My comment to them. When I first started that mentorship was I didn't go to college. And the comment I made was, look, you want to do these things after high school? I'll tell you, man, you get hit real hard with life, and life happens. You don't know what's gonna happen. But it may divert your path a little bit, but if you want to continue this path in construction, there's other ways to go about it, and it doesn't have to be through college. And I told them, look at me. I'm a project superintendent working with a great company. And I didn't go to college, right? Yeah. And a lot of these kids where I mentor, let's just be honest. A lot of their families don't have enough money to put them through college. They're in this program so that they could try to get a scholarship. Yep. But. There's other ways, there's other ways to succeed in this career,

Absolutely. Ben, that is a super important message. Your path was not the traditional path. Everybody knows my path ain't nowhere near traditional. Yeah. But, I think the thing that you and I share, is even though life hit us the way life does... We kept moving forward, right? We kept learning. I went to apprenticeship, but I finished mine in four years, Ben. Oh,

we're bragging now, huh?

But so I went to apprenticeship. May not have gone to university, but that did take time and sacrifice. After I finished I got the knowledge I needed to get my med gas endorsement. I got the knowledge I needed to get my master's license. And then I started diving into leadership. Then I started diving into all this lean stuff and I have never stopped learning and now I want to be clear, I'm not one of those guys that reads four books a month and tells everybody how many books I read I'm reading a book, I'm going to be experimenting with the ideas and concepts that are in that book. Sometimes I'll read fiction because it helps me relax, but most of the time when I'm reading something, it's because I want to apply it and make it part of my day, my normal routine. And, And I think that's critical for anybody. If you're not on the straight line path that it's probably that straight line path is right next to that big giant bass. You didn't catch that time you went fishing. I don't know anybody that has taken a straight line of graduate high school, go to university by the car, by the kids, have the founder to make six figures. Everybody's been a windy road. And for me it seems like the windier roads, the windier paths, the people that have been down that route are living a more fulfilled life. But you have to appreciate it more, right? Yeah. And they invested in themselves and they learned to appreciate people. I think at the end of the day, we need to be sharing our gifts and talents with the world, period. And when we do that, it opens up beautiful and amazing opportunities for us to serve. I think you're a perfect example of that, man. Thank you. So you talked about the influencers in your life and I'm going to say this this is not a prediction. This I'm 100% sure there's going to be multiple people throughout the years that are going to say Ben Reimers. Invested in me and helped me do X. There's no doubt. I've seen the way you treat people on the job side. I know the way you treat me. I see the way you interact with people under extreme pressure in contentious situations, like you're class act, my friend, and so you've had influencers in your life. I know that you're an influencer in others lives. You've influenced me. And so what footprint does Ben Reimers want to leave on this world?

It goes along with what you're saying right now, right? I want to make things easier for the next generation coming up, right? Easier because I've been through the hard times and I know it can get better. I see it getting better. To me in ten years or so cause not everyone's going to get to Project Superint there's still older gentlemen. That are working in the field. They're going to be working in the field till they retire. They're going to be working with back conditions with busted knees with neck problems, but they're going to be doing it because they have to do it. I want to make their lives easier. I personally want to make their lives easier. Any way I can. Because I care because those people out in the field, they're my brothers. They're my sisters in the construction industry. Again, because I've been in the trenches with them. I've been in the trenches with them. So if I can do a little bit that helps them out, then I'm going to call that a win I may seem like I'm preaching, but man. It's a family out there. You bleed with these people. You sweat with these people. You have them emotional experiences with the people that you work with in the field, you argue, you fight you're with them 60 plus hours a week because nobody works 40 hours anymore for some reason in the trade, but you're there with them more than with your family. You come across people that you really care for. You come across apprentices that you really care for. You come across leadership that you hope cares about you. And you want to make their life easier. At least I do. I want to make their life easier in a way I can

do. That's amazing, man. And you have, and you will no doubt. I know like you and I have been locked up in a room for a few days already. And there's no doubt in my mind that's what you're doing already and you'll continue to do. So any folks you want to give a shout out to,

Sean Moran, what's up, man. Love you. And I don't know any listeners out there, but like I said if you worked with me in the past and I was your apprentice I appreciate you and thank you for all you've taught me.

Mic drop.

Can't you just feel the care and compassion and Mr. Ben's voice like that, man is all heart. The standard of care that he abides by. And that the people on his project are the people that are like directly within his influence. They get to swim in that every day. And don't, you know, don't, don't take it the wrong way. He's not some big softy pushover, like he means business. Uh, but he does business in a pretty damn humane way. I want to be like Ben, when I grow up, one of the things that really moved me in the conversation is where you was talking about. Making things better for all the craft workers out there. You. They're close to retirement or earlier in their career and everything in between. Does it really matter? A lot of the work that, that the folks out there are doing is it's hard on the body. It steals life from us. and Ben and I have been able to hang out and we're doing some sweat equity improvement. So when he talks about making the work better for the men and women that are doing the work, he ain't playing, like he knows the system. so shout out to Ben. Hope y'all enjoyed it. I also need to give y'all a heads up or maybe a warning. The next episode that we're going to be airing is going to be a solo cast. Just me. Uh, I'm not sure if I explained it very well, but we're kind of transitioning a little bit. Uh, if you have any craft workers out there that are still putting their hands on work that have any interest of being on a podcast, I'd love to interview them. Uh, and in the meantime, while we're trying to scrounge up some awesome craft professionals, Uh, I'm going to be airing some, some solo casts. Uh, share my thinking on some things, talk about the space between idea to action and how that has transformed my life. Be kind to yourself. Be cool. And we'll talk at you next time.