The Joy of Takt and Life with Spencer Easton

I will because the industry to change by making it so that CPM is not the industry standard and have the AGC that AIA and everybody except other systems and dethrone CPM by the time I die so that, so that families can be together because we actually have. That can help us plan and schedule.

That is Mr. Spencer Easton. know if you can tell, but he got some passion going on. He came to a slime. He was out in the parking lot at home Depot. So there's going to be a little bit, uh, of real life audio going on in the background and we also got a little surprise for you. Mr. Renee caterpillar dude own has returned after making all that extra cash on overtime. He's back in effect, super happy to have him here, a missed them deeply and really missed the, you know, he just has a real innocent way of asking really, really important questions and, and there for him, like he's trying to learn, but I think the knowledge he draws from our guests are really going to serve a lot of people out there in Spencer. Easton comes with tremendous amount of experience, uh, expertise and just straight up love for life and love for people. I'm hoping that Spencer's message has the same impact on you that it did on me because it's pretty damn profound. Um, he's challenged me to, to, to try to be a better dude. Of course, we got to shout out our patrons that have been supporting us. And you may have seen some of those snippets that we're putting out there. You'll be seeing some of it on YouTube here in the near future. Um, we've definitely upgraded and that was, that's not me. That is not my editing skills. That is, uh, because our patrons have helped us, uh, finance and, and shop out the editors. And enhance the images and some other really cool stuff. So thank you to our patrons and anyone else who wants to sign on up baby, come on. patrion.com/learnings and missteps. Any level that you sign up for. We'll get you access to that. Fans only content baby, the L and M backstage pass. So I'm going to stop jabbing my jaw. And here we go with Mr. Spencer east stone. What's going on L and M family. Here we are with Mr. Spencer Easton and we've got the man with no name. That's been absent for several months. We got Renee back. What's going on, Renee?

What's up. LNM I'm still alive, still

alive, still alive. And we got Spencer man super dedicated out there at the home Depot in the parking lot, sharing a beautiful skyline with us. Look at that Spencer. So Matt, it's been a while and I'm glad that you've been patient with us finally, getting you on the show. I mean, we've done some of the, the live streams with Philipa and the rest of the crew. It was super eager to get you here. How you doing, man?

You know, an amazing, you know, you've had some pretty big, heavy hitters on your show recently. So I've, I've, I've been waiting my turn and, and actually enjoying a lot of the. You know, having Joe Donnarummo and, and Philippe and Jennifer Lacy. I mean, these, these guys are phenomenal and it's, it's been great to hear all the great content that you guys have been producing. And I want to say, you know, from everybody out there, congratulations on the one-year anniversary, I'm doing the class, there's a lot of people out there talking to, so congratulations, what you guys are doing is making a difference. So I'm excited to be here and be part of the element L and M

movement. Right, sir. So, so Spencer it's especial special. Yes. We have wrapped up our first full year. And you mentioned that we've had some pretty big players up on this podcast and, and for me, Spencer, you're absolutely one of them. And so to be able to kick off. The first episode for our second year out of the gate is with Spencer Eastern baby. We're going to jump on that tack train and kill

it. Yep. For sure.

I'm going to ask you a question. Spencer Easton, what should the LNM family know about

you? I'm, I'm a, I'm a typical guy in construction. You know, got into it when I was really young. My dad was in construction and so he, obviously I was the hired help from the time I can remember you know, do what we did. We did side jobs so that we could do things in life. Right. We went to Disneyland because we did three or four little side construction jobs with my dad where he was. Yeah, general contractor neighbor, the hired help. Right. So

payment was payment was the ticket to,

so that's, that's how I that's how I made my childhood memories is, is working in construction and having fun with family. So I I started working high school and, and, you know, throughout college I was, I was working in construction and labor concrete form setter operator, just general, whatever Oop, general without. So I'm sitting there in California, in Roseville, California in a portajohn super hot and I'm just sitting there. I'm like 20, some odd years old and I'm just like, Sitting there I'm like, there has to be more to life than this. I am not going to rack my body for the rest of my life. I'm done. Like, And because I didn't like the environment, I didn't like being treated like an animal. Like I was like, this is just like, I feel like there's more to life, you know? So I started going back to school. I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I ended up going into construction, you know, throughout my, my schooling and career, I various jobs. I was a project engineer. I was a draftsman. I was, you know, I did estimating, I, I was out of logistics and dispatch for a large crane company, you know, all these different. And then I landed at a large general contractor because they needed help in their scheduling department. And I was like, I didn't even know that was a thing. So just like Renee, I was like, what the heck is? You know what I mean? I learned a little bit about CPM in my, in my CMT bachelor's degree. And so I was like, okay, so let's go try this out. And I, I started I started off on some smaller projects and, and this was for Oakland construction. They do about 2 billion a year. And I started to notice that my job didn't mean anything because I would go to the, I would go to that different projects and the teams would work with me to build this schedule, right? Th you know, these are the things that has to happen on the project. You know, this is how we're going to manage it. And I kept hearing these little comments back and forth of. Oh, thanks for coming. But you know, no, one's going to read this schedule anyway and I'm like, why, why are we doing, why are we doing it? Right? And, and then I started listening to what the, what the actual trade contractors were saying. You know, you know, I don't understand how to read this. And so I, you know, you know, I wanted to help them understand it. So I was like, okay, well, let me, let me show it to you. And I would start like talking to them about it once I kind of learned how the system work and everyone just kind of glazed over. And I was like, you know what? These guys are focused on their craft and their work. They didn't want to have to learn this other thing. That is like my, my skill set. I was like, huh. So I, I started like searching for how can we make this better? Because no one. No one knows how to read or use this thing. And it's the tool that's like standard out there. So that's what kind of led me to lean and all these different things. I worked my way up at, at Oakland. And I ended up being a scheduling department manager. So all the different schedulers by the time I left, there was 18 of us. When I started, there was three and about six months in, I had 33% of all schedules at Conklin construction. And that, that that's a bad place for Oakland to be. So by the end, when I left, the reason why I left is because it doesn't work and I couldn't continue supporting that career. And that's the one thing that I want to do. Tell the audience learning and missteps audience, are you doing the things that you really believe in, in life? And I couldn't continue down a path and I was set up to be, you know in a very cush job, I was going to be scheduling director, all this stuff. And I, you know, I left that because I believe in what y'all are doing. I believe in what elevate construction, you know, all this lean stuff that is happening. It is the way it is the path forward, because it helps you to do better and look at what are the, what are the processes that we're doing and how can we improve them? Right. And create more of. So I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. I love it. And honest to God, it's, it's been a blessing jumping ship and coming to the dark side and, and live in the dream. And, and so we're having fun. I now work with Jason Trotter at elevate construction week. He and him started a company called lean tact. And tact is a scheduling system that is in my opinion, 50 times, better than, than CPM. So we're, we're, we're trying to help spread the word about what tact is and what TAC does. And, and there you go. So that's, there's the answer to your question.

I love it. Beautiful answer. And, you know, you said come into the dark side, which is this lean collaborative visual just got different way of functioning, right? This new, the, the lifestyles of the lien and famous to quote Ms. Jennifer Lacy. But I saw Renee kind of his brain got a little twisted. When you said CMT and CPM. Am I, am I speaking out of turn Renee?

No. No. So that glazed over look that you were talking about, when you explain that to me right now, I'm like, so explain to me if you can, how you would explain to that construction contractor about CPM or this scheduling and all that stuff.

I don't know what you're talking about. CPM stands for critical path method or critical path management. And what a critical path is when you schedule out on say a project or a set of tasks, right? The idea is that you list the things that need to be done. Poor con or let's say slab on grade. Concrete walls steel roof, like you go through and you say, these are the activities, right? You link those together. I E meaning you sequence this thing first, then this thing second, and it does math to figure out what the longest or most important path of things to complete are so that you don't you don't extend the duration of all of those things happening correctly in time. Meaning if it's 10 days for concrete, 10 days for steel and 10 days to finish everything else out, that's a 30 day schedule and that's your critical path, right? But if any, one of those things extends longer, the duration of your overall project is going to be longer. So it was a method to try to understand a complex project. And it's not just construction. A complex project that has activities linking them together. And then it does this calculation to figure out what the overall duration is, so that you can track those things and complete on time. The thing is it's, it's very, it's very convoluted. It does, the software programs are hard to use and when it prints like lines of data. And so it's hard to visualize anything. So when I, when I would I manage the schedule for a religious temple in Washington, DC, and it was a 250 page schedule. It was 11 by 17 patients, 250 pages of just data. And it basically has like the information and then it has like a little bar chart, but it's just a bar representing the duration of that activity. So. You have this huge list of stuff. And then you flip a page, just this huge list of stuff. It's like a task list. If you were to create a to-do list for every single activity that needed to happen to build a building, that's what it looks like. And so it's like, okay, it's just like, it washes over folks. So for me to try to explain that it's like, okay, this activity right here, this, this you know, installed grade wastes invents, Mr. Plumber, this is your, this is your activity. So here's the day it starts as the day it finishes. And he just looked at me, okay, what does that mean to me? You know? And so it, it was just too much information. And so that, that, that's what I see as the problem with it is like, like what Jesse was saying, it's not visual and you can't understand it in in construction, we look at all the line items of you know, What money we're we're spending. Right. You know, we bought, we bought this pipe we're we rented this ordeal, right? If you go through and look at the whole expense report of just line data and give that to the owner and say, these are all the things that we're spending, it doesn't mean a lot, but if you put together Mar charts or, you know, pie charts, or, you know, different things to try to help explain what it is, all the data is saying. That is the quantum leap that we're trying to take CPM to attack that schedule. So initially I was trying to take CPM and compile it into something that was more visual for folks, and it never seemed to help.

That's awesome. Real life,

real life. When you're at the home Depot, when you're at the home Depot, I mean, this is what we do it, isn't just like out of the job site you hear and stuff all around. Yeah. That's great. So. Renee. When, when, when you, when you ask, you know, how do, how do you, how, or Jesse, I forget who asked, how would you explain it to a trade contractor currently? I wouldn't try to, because I think that the system is just super flawed and I, you know, to me, it's dead. I actually tell people when, when we get on trainings and different things, that I'm a recovering CPM addict. So if you ever, if you ever hear me say CPM, it's just traditional scheduling tools that happened to be the standard across our industry, mostly because it's in contracts, but

there you go. Yeah. It's like a client driven. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's less than simple. And we're out on a job site, we got a lot of complexities to deal with. And when we add complexity, it takes away from the mission, which is to build the damn buildings. Yeah. Yes,

yes. One thing that I like that you, you just talked about it was on your collabo session with the lean builder folks. You guys were actually talking about CPM and I really had a lot of respect for the answer that I forget if it was Joe or

it was

probably Keon maybe. Yeah. It might've been Keon. So or maybe it was you, I forget who it was, but you guys were talking and it's like, well, I don't like having the CPM, like a valuable tool conversation because we have a respect issue in our industry. And I was like, damn, that is, that is the most important problem. Right? I just have a hard-on for getting rid of CPM because I was, I was like, I was in the, I was in the club and all the CPM gurus out there. They've, they've taken a hold of the industry and hot damn it makes me so mad because when you work with, when you work with these folks, that they're great folks, but they, they, they make it sound like it's this magical thing that, you know, it's really hard and you would have to really become an expert to understand it. Right. And once I got into the system and kind of like, figured it out, I was like, this isn't really hard. It's just really complex, like anything, right? Like, like anything like the trades or anything else. And so I was like, no, I act. And so I started teaching people CPM. I was like, no, it's really simple. And there were a few people that got mad at me because I was. Getting superintendents can take the schedule over and be like, I shouldn't be running it. Like superintendent should be running the schedule. And that's when I interviewed at Oakland, I wanted to be either a project engineer or a field engineer. I want, you know, what's your background. We think you could do scheduling. I didn't even know that was a, that was a career path. What, and so I happened to fall into this, into this into this, into this role and, and learn this, the system and these tools. And it just, it was, it was really interesting to see how, how the people that have the hold on, on this tool in the industry. That's kind of holding everybody at bay. They, they, they're not willing to, to share with folks and, and, and, and improve it. And they find a lot of self-worth in the role that they're fulfilling. I think we still need these folks just not doing that. Because that thing is not adding value in our industry. So that's where I'm at.

Agreed. And, and you're right. We did Kion Joe, myself and Lipa on that collaborative call. We were talking about CPM and last planner system. And I don't remember who said it, but we all agreed. We absolutely have a respect problem in our industry. And if we're going to exert it, if I'm going to exert any energy on anything, it's going to be that like we need to, we need to correct that. And that's part of the reason for these for the, the learnings and missteps podcasts, right. It's to enhance the image of careers in the. By interviewing amazing people like you like Spencer, your energy. And you're just genuine and real, like, come on baby. Like, this is, this is what it's about from the epiphany, from the port-a-potty epiphany to, to where you're at now. It's amazing. So if reflecting back before the port-a-potty epiphany what were your earliest career aspirations?

Hmm, I, I, I've been such a, such a mess with this is going to be the hardest questions that'll have to answer on, on this, on this podcast. My I, the youngest that I can remember, I wanted to be a chiropractor. I don't remember why I want it to be a chiropractor. And then when I w when I was a teenager, I wanted to be a musician. I played in a rock band. I had long black hair.

What instrument did you play?

I was, I was a drummer. I, I could pick up any instrument and play it, but I, everyone played guitar and I didn't want to be a sellout. So I was like, I'm going to be a drummer. I play ukulele really good. But a bass guitar, like, like you name it, I picked up the trumpet and started like, I loved music. So I barely graduated high school, but I graduated with enhance diploma in music. Wow. So that's, that's something I don't tell everybody. So I wanted to be a musician. Then I figured out you can't really make money unless you don't have a family. And that wasn't, that wasn't a thing for me. So, because I wanted a family, it's like, Nope, that's gone. So I sold everything and, and that's actually how I bought my wife's wedding ring. I had an electronic drum set and another drum set and I sold all that and bought my wife's wedding ring. So that's how I live my life. Right. It's like, if, if this doesn't serve me, screw it. I'm not going to have it in my life. And that that, I guess that's been my problem with trying to find what career I wanted to go into, because I was like, I like a lot of things in life. I love life. And so it was hard for me to, to pick something and go with it. So I, you know, I've got kind of gone down different career paths. Do I want to do this? Nope. It's dead to me now. Do I want to do this? Nope, it's dead to me now, so

nice. But you know, here's, here's what I want are the L and M family to, to latch on to Renee. Can you tell how joyful and energized Spencer is? Oh yeah, definitely. Like you're living life with glee and it's not the result of committing to one damn career path and going down the line and going up the ladder, it's finding what serves you to use your words, what serves you and pursuing that until the finish line. And then whatever's next is next. Like that's a powerful message. Spencer and, and I I'm I'm, I don't even know if the word impressed even covers what I'm experiencing. Like that's, that's not easily. Like you went, you were scheduling you now. You're you're, you've got the, your tax company with, with Mr. Jason Schroeder. Like these are big leaps. These aren't like, you know, I'm going to start something on the side. You're like, I'm doing this done. I'm selling the drums, doing this done next. Like, that's pretty damn courageous, my

friend. So Jason in his bootcamps, he, he has a quote by Helen Keller and she said I'm going to botch this cause I don't have it like down, but life is a daring adventure. There's there's no what is it? Security or certainty is a, is a. Is a misconception or something. Life is either a daring adventure or it's nothing like it's like this like crazy. It's like this crazy, like Mike drop. I wish I had it. If one of you has a computer, you should look it up and actually say the quote. But that, that's what hit me super hard. When I started going to Jason's bootcamps is his life. You know, we, we all think that what we're doing, you know, gives us the security. But when we, when we stepped out of our comfort zone, that's when we can grow recently, we went to Germany, we met so many amazing people and it's because we got out of our shells and we said, you know, what is out there that can teach us and expand our knowledge. And, and when you do that, you can make these quantum leaps. If you ask questions, if you're willing to walk outside of your comfort zone. And that, that to me has been how I always kind of lived my life with. Kind of bonded me and me and Jason together, and other folks like you and others that are willing to try new things and do hard things in life that help us elevate to our next levels. If, if, if we can, if we can't do that, I can't imagine life just, you know, looking through the TV channels and, and just sitting on the couch and just live in life. So you can just die like that. What a, what a, I get depressed thinking about that type of stuff. I love listening, learning improving like that, that to me is having on earth is, is continuous improvement. So even before lean, I was always looking for like processes and how they work and well, what can we do to tweak it right. And lean gave me actual framework to actually do that, that I was like, yeah.

So the quote. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Woo. I get chills just reading that son of a gun. So these, these boot camps I've heard are pretty darn transformative for, for folks when they attend Adam hoots is, has spoken well of them and Spencer U2. I have yet to partake in one or actually what I've got on my board is to jump in y'all's did your tact masterclass or I'm not sure. I'm probably, what's the name of the one that the two day

deal y'all got. So we just finished one yesterday. It was, it was the first one where Jason and I didn't do it together. So I was flying solo and it's called a tact fundamentals course. It's an online course. And by the end, if you go through and participate, if you go implement it out in the field and actually. Try to act out in the field and use the system. You can get what we call the tact master certification. So it's kind of like scrum master, but your master, right. we've been offering that for three months now and we've, we've trained just over a hundred people in those, in those trainings. So it's going really well, getting lots of real good, positive feedback and the good thing, the good thing that we, that we'd like to talk about this is every time people try it, it always works. So anyone out there that wants to come try a real scheduling system, come, come try it because it works

And also if you do, rather, when you start researching it and looking at it, Sign up and sign up fast because the classes fill up super fast. I mean, from mine,

they actually do.

Yeah. They fill up quick. I'm like son of a gun. Okay. Well, let me see what I can, you know, some someday, someday I'll

get well. And, and both of you I'll give you a plug, not necessarily for tact, but I'll give you all, I'll give you a plug for, for something else. This is a very shameless plug because I work at elevate, but this is honestly very important and almost spiritual to me. When I was at Oakland, before me and Jason met, he hired on to Oakland and he started doing something called field engineer boot camp. And I was like, I always wanted to be a field engineer. I want to look. But, you know, I want to learn the skills. So I signed up at Oakland and they're like, you want to come? I was like, yeah, I'm a get, I got to know these things, right. If, if I'm, if I'm going to help teams, I should know what everybody does. So through going to college, I served a two year mission down in mix religious two-year mission down in Mexico. You know, I I've, I've been on, you know, different boards and different things and, and of all the accomplishments that I've done or things that I've been through that has been the most impactful thing I've ever done in my life. The five days that I, that I went through field engineer, boot camp changed me as a man, as a hundred. As a father, as a leader, as a manager, as a, as a construction worker, it was more than just a technical training. I've never, ever been to a training like that in my life before or since well, field engineer bootcamp is the, I believe the best training on the planet. Jason's been doing it for like 10 years, but he started doing it when he was Hensel Phelps. You guys know this, you interviewed him. And honestly, anybody out there it is the most transformative training I've ever been to. And really. The decision that led me to, to leave Oakland and helped me get courage, because it's one thing to like, sell your drum set and buy your wife's wedding ring. It's one thing to like go to different classes in college and be like, I want to do this. I want to do that. Right. But it's another thing. When you have a wife and a kid and kids and a home to leave your career into the unknown, into a startup, that's less than a hundred days old. That's courage that courage came from field engineer, boots,

son of a gun. Well, there it is. People Mike drop. Check it out. You signing up Renee? Yeah. Sign me

up right now.

Yeah. When he says sign me up, he means I signed him up and I pay for it.

That's what he nailed it. Nailed it. Oh yeah. Jason, Jason's doing one the beginning of December. So we already have a list of people. It it's it's it. It's it's going to be awesome. So

good. Well, I'm hoping to L and M family, not hoping. I trust that some of the L and M family members are going to hear it, and they're going to jump on the website and check it out and get, get some of that darn courage and inspiration, because you know, there's just not enough of that out there. I mean, that's another thing. I see your posts. I see Jay, like the whole crew, right? The construction Changemakers crew. I don't see anybody posting negative detractive stuff. Everybody's posting positive, reinforcing forward thinking motivation. Like real stuff. And, and we, we got to keep doing that and spend some telling you, man, they energy that's coming through. I'm surprised the internet hasn't shut down because you're digging. So, and all of that was just to butter you up Spencer. Cause I'm going to ask you the tough question. Yes. The fans only content. You know, the title of the podcast is learnings in missteps and folks, some folks who are like Jesse, that's a weird, that's a weird name. Like, it doesn't even make sense. Like, yeah, well, you know, in my life and Renee actually, Renee's been a witness to it and also the catalyst to me getting my stuff together. And so I have the opportunity to serve my community in a pretty deep and meaningful way, but that's a result of a lot of missteps, a lot of poor short-sighted decisions that I took tons of learning from. And that's gotten us to this point here. And so what I'd like to know is what is a learning that you've had in your life that resulted from a pretty painful misstep.

So. My my biggest my biggest misstep and at well learning because of a misstep has been kind of twofold and it's, it's kind of a misstep of me and a misstep of my father. Oh, yeah, I'm back. Crashing that party, baby. This little cutout is going to be fans only content. You can get it by signing up at patrion.com/learnings and missteps. Any level gets you that backstage pass and the higher level you go, the sweeter, the bennies are. I so appreciate y'all hanging in there and here we go with the rest. Of this show.

That's amazing, Spencer, I appreciate you being so transparent and vulnerable with us and, and the way you're celebrating celebrating life. And Renee is a young father with two little babies. So I wonder, do you have any pointers for him?

Yeah, let me ask. I have so many questions right now, so thank you for sharing that because I feel like that speaks to me personally, like you mentioned, oh man, I've been totally guilty of being bitter and, you know, I guess maybe not being the most present and happiest father that I could be at times when the work calls me to be there more than the 40 hours a week, you know? So what would you say? And, and, and in my company I would present Antonio water system. I loved my time here. I, I love it. I'm super blessed to have this job but there is that other side of the coin where the work is demanding and we deal with a lot of emergency calls. W we deal with water and people have to have water to survive. So sometimes you gotta go when you got to go. And what would you say to the young fathers? Trying maybe they, they feel stuck in the hamster wheel. Trying to really bust ass and really kind of be Johnny on the spot to get to that next level in their company and sacrificing their relationship with their family.

How do you balance that? That's a really good question. It's easier said than done for sure. That the most important thing to me is family period and case in point. So if I have to, if I have to compromise on something, it's going to be work for me. Because family is most important. You talk about what, what do you do in those situations? You know, I feel like there can be good fathers in, in emergency type roles. I believe the hardest thing to do is have open, honest, transparent conversations with the management of those types of services saying that I don't feel like I'm a good father because I feel like I have to be here and I want to do a good job for, you know, for this, for this water, sir, you know, whatever it is. I mean, think about all the electricians out there. Like people have to have power. Like there's a lot, there's a lot of, and even I think all people in construction feel that way. Right. And I think you're, you're kind of an exception, Renee, like without water, we all die. Right. So for sure, and thank you for your service, by the way. We all appreciate it. So I'm not saying quicker. But have the open hard conversation with your employer saying I'm not a good, I feel like I'm not a good father because of this schedule. Is there anything that we can do and come with with some options, because any good person would be willing to listen and try to help in that type of situation. Trying to have those hard conversations would be number one, number two, I'm actually going to do, I'm actually going to do a a a little visual or deal every time that I get in a vehicle. Now, I think of one thing because of a person that you guys should meet Brendan Montero, Brandon Montero, every time he gets in a vehicle, he looks at himself in the mirror and you could see my reflection and he looks at himself and he says, are you giving a hundred percent? And every time he looks in the mirror, he looks at that mugshot and he says, are you giving a hundred percent? And he talks about how with his with his girl. When he goes and he picks her up and he, he opens up the door for her and then he shuts it as he shuts it. The, the door closes and the window is sitting right there and he thinks to himself, am I giving a hundred percent? Meaning, am I, am I prep? Like you said, Renee, am I present in this moment giving her my attention? Because I'm here her with, with her, am I on my phone doing LinkedIn? And am I, you know, am I doing these other things? Or am I there for her living our lives, showing her what she means to me, it's the same thing with, with our children. When you, when you get home and you go to open up that front door, if there, if there's a window or something that, or when you get out of your, your vehicle and you look at yourself in that rear view, view, mirror, ask yourself every single time am I about to am I about to walk in that door and grab these little kids that need a dad that picks them up, rolls around with them on the ground has fun. And they just love their daddy. Right? Are you about to show up and give a hundred percent. Or not because your kids know when you don't show up and give a hundred percent. And if we show up as fathers and give a hundred percent, they're going to have amazing childhoods, they're going to grow up to be better than we are. They probably will anyway, but you will, memories to cherish and they will too for the rest of our lives. And that's, what's the most important, you know, sitting here I'm in, I'm in Utah helping fix my dad's house. That is kind of in a little bit of disarray. Cause you know, he's a construction, so there's a bathroom that's ripped apart. So I'm putting that back together and, and patching walls and different things and I'm going through his garage and he just has all this junk. Right. And I don't remember any of this junk right. Sheds and all these things going through tools and just years of accumulation, none of that means anything all the different times that he actually came home, was there and was. Those are the memories and those live on. And I remember them, I'm going to tell my children and that's what meant a lot to him throughout his life, to all the other stuff. Doesn't matter. It's those times that we show up and we give a hundred percent that matter. Mike drop. Wow. That's so good. That's all I got.

I got some more questions for you. Go for it. Okay. So earlier you mentioned security, right? Some people will stay in a job because of this sense of security. So what would you say to somebody who maybe I'm talking about like foremans and superintendents that feel like they pigeonholed themselves into this foreman job or into this superintendent job for security. And they feel like they can't leave or they're afraid to leave because this is what they do. What would you say to them that, but they do feel like something's missing that they can do more.

You can do more and it's up here. There's nothing but yourself holding you back from achieving any amount of greatness in life. I don't know what else to say that it is, it always comes from a place of fear, not from a place of something that's helpful, but there are certain things in life. You know, we, we, we need certainty because you know, there's food and things that we have to have to survive. Right. That's that survival thing. And that's what causes us to be fearful to start doing that, like scabbard, scavenging, hunting, whatever, right. That's that mindset that that's, you know, internal in all humans. Right. And when we focus on giving that's when it's selfless and you know, when you, when you focus on the giving aspect of it, Not what can I receive? You know, what, what can I take? That's where your mindset shift a mind set shifts into. There is more that I can provide because I can give more. Right. And think about it at work, these foreman, superintendents, and anyone out there that's listening in your roles. You've been able to show that you can give a good quality product that you can show up on time. These are all giving things, right? If you're going to lead a crew, that's a very giving, that's a giving role and position because you have to make sure others are being efficient and others have the things that they need. It is a gifting role and take it one step further. There is always more that we can do. Life always has more that we can learn or provide or give. And if you can give a little bit more value, you're a little bit more valuable. And so all of us, wherever. We have not met potential. We, we have way more potential in us than we even understand, and that that's coming from my, my religious beliefs, but there is way more than our brains can take in and give to others. There's way more that our hearts can take in and accept and give from others. So be willing to look for more and expect more out of life because if we keep operating in, in a place of fear, we will stay in the same place at not advance at all. There you go. The

problem is between your ears,

a hundred percent, 100%.

Thank you for sharing that. I know like a ton of people personally just from the people I work with I have a really good relationship with a foreman and a super-intense. I know when they hear this, this is going to like change their lives. So hopefully they can really take this to heart. I hope so.

And it is easy. It is easier said than done, but honestly, try it in a little, like in something that you can control, test it out and try it, try to give more, try, try to do something and see what the outcome is. Like, test it and try it. But if you can look for maybe, maybe look for it. If, if you, if you feel stuck, look for a different company that might be operating a little bit, a little bit better opportunities and go for it, then you're not, then you're not jumping into the unknown, but you're making that change and you will learn more things if you go to different companies, right? If you stay in the same job in the same position in the same, you know, you're only gonna know what you know, and that. Versus if we continue to look for, you know, what else is out there and continuing to learn and grow and give that's when we can achieve higher, higher echelons. Right. And then be able to give more, I mean, it's, it's a continual path and that's, that's what I love about life. And I hope others out there can join the bandwagon because life is all about continuous improvement and growth, baby,

that's it. And it's a purpose has a perpetual effect. Like I swear the, every amazing relationship and experience that I've had can be tracked back to me, volunteering or giving my time for a cause or a specific for every single one of them. So it, and it just grows and grows and grows. And I mean, hell, we got a podcast now, right. And we're talking to homeboy Spencer in, in Utah, like a year ago. A year ago, I would have been looking at my computer, going through spreadsheets and stuff. You know, like this is a, that it's where it all comes from. So beautiful. Well, Spencer, I think now we're going to come with the super, super simple question. What footprint do you intend to leave on the world

going forward? I will because the industry to change by making it so that CPM is not the industry standard and have the AGC that AIA and everybody except other systems and dethrone CPM by the time I die so that, so that families can be together because we actually have. That can help us plan and schedule. And I support folks like you and Jason and Philippe that are so hyper-focused on the respect for people side so that we attack from the north and from the south. And we just, we just kill this thing right here. And right now I will do that by the time I die. Damn, I got choose again.

He ain't playing dead serious focus in the

it's war and I'm going to win. We are going to win.

Yes. And you know, I can get behind you because of your purpose. Right. The purpose is to get people home to their families, to give them their life back. Yep. I mean, come on. Is there any other reason?

I guess that kind of the plan or the details of how to get there goes way over my head, but I definitely will raise my hand to be the guy that would appreciate that. You know, you guys, if I can help in any way, I would love to. But I would be one of those people that would directly benefit from your, your plan to I'm the guy that has the family and the kids, you know, that once they get back to them

well, so do I, and so do I, and th the more, and all of us, all of us are in this train trying to, to help the industry change. And I still work late nights here and there, because I feel that this drive to make sure that we are making that change. And I'm I'm and Jesse, too, right? We're, we're, we're in this, and we're, we're supporting the teams that are trying their hardest to make sure that. That, that the projects out there and construction are efficient. They have the time and the tools and the things that they need. And so one thing, one thing I'll say about, well, what, what can we do? We were recently on the the lean blogs lean in the field conference. And me and Jason were able to share a time slot. And our topic was you can't optimize what isn't stable. So you have first have to stabilize and then you can optimize. And that's, I believe exactly what we've been talking about. The stabilizes that respect for people. Like we have to have stable environments. We have to bring respect back for the, for the workers. Like I am like really baffled on like, what happened because you look back at history and like blue collar workers, it was like this, it was this thing that you would aspire to. You would spend all this time learning the craft. Of these, of these craftsmen and these workers that could just build beautiful, amazing things with their hands. And now it seems to be like this, like this grunt worker, like it's like, honestly, everything around us was built by like the hands of the industry. Right. And so it's like, I don't get why, like the most prevalent thing building is is, is something that has lost respect. And, and so it's all about the stabilization. So anything that we can do to stabilize the industry and bring this respect back for, for this work is utmost important. And then we need to start optimizing and that's kind of where I'm at, I'm in that optimization because the tools that we have to actually have enough time or working. So I'm focused there, Jesse's focused on respect for people and together we will change this industry and Renee, we need. We need you to keep doing this podcast. We need you to show all the other fathers out there. How to be a good dad. What if, what if you started doing sharing little videos about, Hey, this is how it was a good dads day. I would watch that every single day. What have you shared that with your kids, with your coworkers, with your coworkers or with people out there in the industry? They'd start feeling, oh my gosh, I need to be a better father. You would make a ripple in the industry. Renee. I'm actually going to challenge you. What will you do between now and Monday to be a better father? That's really good. What will you do between now and Monday to be a better father? You have all day, Saturday, all day Sunday, you will have no, I don't believe unless there's water emergencies, you shouldn't have any excuses. What will you do? I'm not saying you're a bad father. We all can be better. So what will you do? It's definitely going to have to deal with being. How are you? What will you do? I will, I will turn off the phone and stop taking business calls that are not emergencies. I love it. I love it. Done. You will be a better father this weekend because you have your phone off. I love that. What a beautiful thing.

Yes. And I'm headed over to play with my nephew and niece. If they let me, cause I'm a little rough and I'm going to check the damn phone, make sure it's off. How

So everyone out there, the LNM family, we got to hold Renee responsible. The next podcast, we should be great. Renee. How, how did you, how did you do with your, with your commitment? Where are you able to keep the phone off and share with us? How. Did it, did it make an impact? We want to know. I actually feel guilty because you stand out like, dang, I need to do that. Right. So you're doing it. You sharing, like, what you're going to do is helping others be a better, be better fathers. So thank you so much. Oh, man,

this is amazing Spencer. Holy moly. Like I, I knew this was going to be fire, but you brought it today. Committed. You made a commitment. You followed through you're at home Depot. You've got significant life changes going on and you're still walking the walk. My man. I mean, if there's any, any example out there for, for the young, the youngsters in the L and M family I think you're a fabulous example. Great representation of, of what the type of people, the heart and the passion that is in our industry. They're not all a bunch of grunts. Some of them are magical like Spencer here. So did anything, we miss any important point that you wanted to get across and put out there in the airways Spencer?

No, I think we we had some great conversations about some really hard topics and had some fun. And I I'll, I'll end by saying on we go, because that's what we always say at at elevate construction. But thank you guys so much for having me on and taking the time. I'm honored to be on, on the podcast and, and be part of this. And I, I love, and I support you guys. Anyone that's listening hit subscribe, hit the like buttons. Watch the little videos every Monday. I love getting a hug from Jesse favorite thing to get a hug from Jesse. So jump on board, subscribe, get on YouTube. If and, and if you're, if you're smart, you'll start supporting him by jumping on his page. W is there a link or something Jesse, that they can then they can get on to?

Yeah. patrion.com/learnings and missteps. Thank you for that, man. Talk about,

it'll be a huge return on investment. I promise you these guys, these guys are bringing amazing value. You need to listen to this podcast.

Damn it. I'm cutting that out and running that separately. Are you fired

up?

All right. My brother, Spencer love you, man. And I appreciate your time. And if you get stuck working up doing any of that plumbing repairs, you're doing give me a shout. Yeah. I'm, I'm happy to offer whatever direction I might be able to. So we just talked to Mr. Spencer, Eastern Renee, what did, what did you get out of the conversation?

I got some, some guilt for not being as enthusiastic. I got, I got motivation. I feel exhausted after that, you know, I feel like, there's, I feel like there's more that I can be doing. And I feel like I can be more present with my family and, get my head back in the game of what really matters

What does exhorted mean? That's a fancy word.

So I feel like corrected, like, like corrected with the, uh, the, the word, um, exhort is exhortation from, from the Bible. Uh, and. In the Bible, it says to exhort with love and patience. So a lot of the, the verses speak to you in such a way that corrects you and makes you aware of maybe your shortcomings, uh, but with love and patience, it's not a harsh criticism. And I feel like this conversation with Spencer was. An exhortation on myself, like not, it was a correction, but he does it in such a gentle influential way. and, uh, I think it's going to be the start of a good positive change for me and my fatherhood.

Wow. That's a hell of a shout outs as you're given to our buddy Spencer east.

Yeah. I mean, hear

that. Well, in, in line with shout outs, I want to shout out one of the LNM faithful, Mr. Steve Turner, who is the rocket fuel the energy, the rock behind, bring back the trades. He's got a non-profit out there that raises money that offers scholarships to men and women that are seeking to educate themselves towards beginning a career in the trades. Is that like sweet or what? Right.

That's dope.

That's really cool. I had a conversation. He's going to be on the show. I got a commitment from him. We're going to get him so he had given us feedback early on. And he said, I've actually been listening to them. And I love them. I love that it's real trades people. You are interviewing. I'm working really hard to get the younger individuals energized about the trades and letting them know that college isn't their only choice. And so he sells that, bring back the trades, they sell all kinds of sweat. To raise funds for this scholarship program. And I got my bring back trades plumber ball cap right here. Uh, he's a phenomenal dude. He's going to be running, uh, the 200 plus mile run in the desert here in a couple of weeks. Like he's straight up gangster. Oh, G so shout out, Steve love what you're doing out there and love that. We're, there's another kindred spirit out there making changes for, for our industry and introducing men and women to the amazing place that this can be. Um, also Spencer, thank you for lighting a fire and shining a light and in such a gracious way on our shortcomings and to the rest of the L and M family love y'all. This year, too, baby year two. We're still alive. We're going to keep it coming. So we'll talk at you next time.

Peace. Man you are one dedicated listener, sticking with us all the way through to the very, very end. Please know that this podcast dies without you. And we invite you to share how the episodes is impacting you along with your thoughts, questions, and suggestions. You've been gracious with your time. So we added social media links in the show notes to make it super easy for you to connect with us because to yourself. And we'll talk at you next time.