Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:03.245
You like the people you're working with, you enjoy what you do.
00:00:03.245 --> 00:00:09.425
I mean, that has a huge ripple effect when you get home at night, because you don't go home and kick the dog, you go home and pet your dog.
00:00:09.425 --> 00:00:18.143
You go home and you're a better coach or you're a better father or a better mother, and that has a ripple effect down to the next generation and the next generation.
00:00:18.143 --> 00:00:34.128
So, no matter where you are, how high you want to go in your responsibilities or the size of your business, I think that realizing that consistency at home and at work is a really important thing if you're going to spend the majority of your life there because you will.
00:00:34.209 --> 00:00:34.970
We do right.
00:00:34.970 --> 00:00:44.694
We spend most of our waking hours 50 to 60 hours a week right what is going on?
00:00:44.713 --> 00:00:45.835
l L&M family.
00:00:45.835 --> 00:01:02.871
I have a super awesome special guest, a person that's had tremendous impact in my life, personally and professionally, and if this is your first time, you're about to pick up on some cheat codes and real life experience on the less than straight way to success.
00:01:02.871 --> 00:01:05.507
So I'll tell you a little bit about who we're talking to.
00:01:05.507 --> 00:01:08.289
We are going to be talking to Mr Harold McDowell.
00:01:08.289 --> 00:01:21.183
As I mentioned, he played a huge role in my professional development and me as a human being, and something a lot of people don't know or couldn't know because they weren't there is.
00:01:21.183 --> 00:01:55.170
He played a huge role in me understanding, wrestling with and coming to terms with the concept of servant leadership, and he's also guilty like the number one accomplice in terms of me producing content, having the podcast out there, because he helped me buy my very first computer, which is really important moment in my life that I want to make sure we don't forget about that, and so, anyways, we're going to get to talk to Harold here in a minute, but I want to give a shout out to the L&M family member first, and this shout out goes to Ms Claudia Garcia.
00:01:55.170 --> 00:02:00.171
Ms Claudia, love you supporting and being a part of this experience.
00:02:00.459 --> 00:02:13.915
Claudia says, jesse, looking for perfection and feeling defeated when I'm pushed to sacrifice quality over quantity makes me feel like there is simply not enough of me to go around.
00:02:13.915 --> 00:02:20.419
And she goes on to say my post and the no BS tribe have helped her incredibly.
00:02:20.419 --> 00:02:22.703
And so, claudia, I appreciate you sharing that Incredibly.
00:02:22.703 --> 00:02:23.824
And so, claudia, I appreciate you sharing that.
00:02:23.824 --> 00:02:31.973
More importantly, I'm super happy that you're getting some kind of personal value out of the post and out of the no BS tribe and folks, y'all can find out.
00:02:31.973 --> 00:02:34.135
No BS with Jen and Jess will be live streaming.
00:02:34.135 --> 00:02:39.722
So enough of that, let's get to meet one of my heroes.
00:02:39.722 --> 00:02:46.370
This is almost surreal for me, because it's a little weird to be speaking to you one-on-one, harold, even though we've had one-on-one conversation.
00:02:46.370 --> 00:02:47.731
How are you doing today?
00:02:47.731 --> 00:02:47.912
Doing?
00:02:47.951 --> 00:02:48.532
good man.
00:02:48.532 --> 00:02:50.836
It's good to be with you, Looking forward to it.
00:02:51.780 --> 00:02:53.867
Yeah, so, so excited.
00:02:53.867 --> 00:02:59.092
So what are the secret juicy things that people need to know about you, Harold?
00:02:59.561 --> 00:03:01.709
You didn't save the softballs at all, did you?
00:03:01.709 --> 00:03:04.128
You throw the fastball in right away.
00:03:04.128 --> 00:03:07.562
So my story, just to give you a little background.
00:03:07.562 --> 00:03:09.426
I grew up small town Oklahoma.
00:03:09.426 --> 00:03:14.445
I'm an Hokie from Muskogee, went to high school in Arkansas, found my way down to Dallas.
00:03:14.445 --> 00:03:15.909
That's how I found the industry.
00:03:15.909 --> 00:03:19.204
It was a long journey, had a lot of twists and turns in it.
00:03:19.204 --> 00:03:33.747
I mean even to this day, as I'm moving in my fourth quarter of life, having retired from TD this year, and I'm still trying to stay focused and true to my mission, which is helping other people grow and having a positive impact on those around me.
00:03:33.747 --> 00:03:35.670
So I'm having fun with that.
00:03:35.670 --> 00:03:45.068
But it's been an interesting transition to walk away from over 40 years of 50 to 60 hour a week work and think about doing what you want to do?
00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:51.701
Yeah, a hundred percent.
00:03:51.701 --> 00:03:53.645
So, Harold, you were the CEO of TD Industries and you've retired fourth quarter of life.
00:03:53.645 --> 00:03:53.947
I like that.
00:03:53.947 --> 00:03:57.502
I have a friend, Holly, who says she's in the third half of her life.
00:03:57.502 --> 00:04:02.480
I know that's not mathematically accurate, but I know exactly what you're talking about.
00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:04.366
But you started in Oklahoma.
00:04:04.366 --> 00:04:06.330
So high school, Oklahoma, I think.
00:04:06.330 --> 00:04:07.353
You went to SMU.
00:04:07.353 --> 00:04:14.969
Did you have a cheat sheet or the answer sheet that said do these things, Harold, and you'll be the CEO and retire and do amazing things.
00:04:15.050 --> 00:04:15.531
No way.
00:04:15.531 --> 00:04:20.110
No, I mean, I don't know that anybody has that much of a long view.
00:04:20.110 --> 00:04:35.790
I just, I mean, I did well in school and I worked hard, but you know, I thought I was pretty smart coming out of Arkansas high school and I got down to Dallas and everybody was smarter, so that was kind of one of the early wake up calls that I had.
00:04:35.790 --> 00:04:42.646
I mean, the only reason I got to come to SMU was because I got a scholarship that enabled me to come down here, but it was a, it was an eye opener.
00:04:42.646 --> 00:04:58.141
I thought I was top of my class and when I got here everybody was top of their class and so the game got, the bar got raised, and I think that happens to all of us in life at different points and you grow right, your peers and your competition changes.
00:04:58.141 --> 00:04:59.442
The bar keeps moving.
00:04:59.442 --> 00:05:02.903
So and that that's good, I that's a good thing.
00:05:03.305 --> 00:05:20.117
So when you like that first clash of being I imagine it was, or rather I'm envisioning like big fish, big guy on campus and showing up with that and then saying, oh my goodness, like this is, how did you cope with that?
00:05:20.117 --> 00:05:25.266
Because I imagine it's one of those experiences that replayed over and over that Cause I imagine it's one of those experiences that replayed over and over.
00:05:25.266 --> 00:05:26.687
So, like, first time, what was?
00:05:26.687 --> 00:05:29.290
How did you come to terms with that and reconcile?
00:05:29.290 --> 00:05:33.735
I got to elevate my game after being at the top of the game.
00:05:39.401 --> 00:05:46.074
Yeah, I think initially, you know, small town Oklahoma and Arkansas gets to the big city where the girls are all pretty and I had a lot of fun to flash all the way back, I mean I almost flunked out.
00:05:46.074 --> 00:05:48.627
I mean I had a very difficult freshman year.
00:05:48.627 --> 00:05:52.500
I had a whole lot of fun, but I lost my scholarship.
00:05:52.500 --> 00:05:56.449
And I remember going home and my dad telling me you know, you blew it.
00:05:56.449 --> 00:06:01.730
You know, maybe you can go up to university of Arkansas with all your high school buds, but you're not going back to Dallas.
00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:14.149
And then one morning we hadn't been talking for about 10 days and one morning at the breakfast table he was reading the paper and the paper came down and he said do you want to go back to Dallas?
00:06:14.149 --> 00:06:16.196
And I said sir, yes, sir.
00:06:16.196 --> 00:06:21.331
And he said well, then you need to meet me down at the first national bank this morning at nine o'clock.
00:06:21.331 --> 00:06:23.464
And the paper went back up.
00:06:23.464 --> 00:06:30.701
He folded it up and he just walked out and I remember running in there to talk to my mother and I said she said well, what was your answer?
00:06:30.701 --> 00:06:32.447
I said sir, yes, sir.
00:06:32.447 --> 00:06:42.324
She said, well, you better get your ass in the shower and get moving because you don't have much time, and so when I thought I mean I was at the bottom right, I mean I thought I'd lost everything.
00:06:42.324 --> 00:06:46.310
Life didn't look good from where I sat as a young person.
00:06:46.310 --> 00:06:57.281
But I walked in the bank and he made me sign student loans for about two times what I lost and my grades shot straight up, because now you were carrying the bag, huh yeah.
00:06:57.401 --> 00:06:59.267
Yeah, so I hope it's a.
00:06:59.267 --> 00:07:07.730
I mean, everybody has challenges and transitions in life, but it was one of my first big ones, where you kind of turn lemons into lemonade, right, and get after it.
00:07:07.730 --> 00:07:10.194
And how do we recoil from this setback?
00:07:10.194 --> 00:07:11.642
My grades shot straight up.
00:07:11.642 --> 00:07:24.728
That's how I started working part-time while I was going to school and holding my grades up and that's how I found the industry and I started working for one of TD's competitors while I was at SMU and that's how I found the mechanical contracting business.
00:07:25.067 --> 00:07:28.514
And so what was it about this business that?
00:07:28.913 --> 00:07:29.754
drew you in.
00:07:29.754 --> 00:07:32.286
I think it's the same thing that draws a lot of people in.
00:07:32.286 --> 00:07:33.610
Right, we're builders at heart.
00:07:33.610 --> 00:07:44.810
We like constructing things and I always liked playing Legos and building tree houses and building things right Box cars, anything that had a build component to it.
00:07:44.810 --> 00:07:50.134
So I fell in love with that and got to work on some neat projects, just like you have right.
00:07:50.134 --> 00:07:58.084
I mean, it's fun to be able to drive around town and point and say we helped build that and they're everywhere in all the cities that we've worked in.
00:07:58.084 --> 00:08:21.615
Being a part of that and being a part of the built environment and creating schools, hospitals, laboratories, data center, stadiums Having an opportunity to work on that type of stuff is exciting and I fell in love with the business and that's why I stayed and I was lucky enough to find a company where I could keep growing and 39 years at TD, 19 years as a CEO it was a wild ride.
00:08:22.017 --> 00:08:22.819
A wild ride.
00:08:22.819 --> 00:08:35.941
So 20 years of your tenure with TD were pre-CEO years and like official job, when you were like started getting the paycheck because they did paychecks back then, right Was it?
00:08:35.941 --> 00:08:37.346
Project manager.
00:08:37.908 --> 00:08:38.629
No, is that how?
00:08:38.629 --> 00:08:40.267
I was an almost project manager.
00:08:40.267 --> 00:08:42.195
I was an assistant project manager.
00:08:42.638 --> 00:08:51.673
Okay, or as they call an ass PM, right, yeah, and I just latched on to the guys and gals that understood the business and started asking tons of questions.
00:08:51.673 --> 00:09:04.769
I was lucky enough to be at a job site with some really experienced foremen and superintendents and I spent a lot of time in the field asking them to show me how do you do this, because they were the masters and I knew nothing.
00:09:04.769 --> 00:09:10.441
I could keep track of the money, right, I could keep track of the budgets, but that's not where the sauce is made.
00:09:10.441 --> 00:09:16.221
The sauce is made and making real work, building things and doing it on time and on budget.
00:09:16.924 --> 00:09:23.149
Yeah, that's the thing, like you can build it, but if it's over budgeted and over schedule, that's not a whole lot to celebrate.
00:09:23.149 --> 00:09:28.546
When people ask me if I've been a project manager, I'm like, how dare you?
00:09:28.546 --> 00:09:29.589
I don't have.
00:09:29.589 --> 00:09:49.460
I'll say the role that title of project managers is not high on my list in terms of roles that I appreciate, and it's because the majority of the people that I've interacted with in those roles demonstrated very little appreciation for what it took to get the work done.
00:09:49.539 --> 00:09:51.368
Those are bad project managers, right?
00:09:51.368 --> 00:09:59.687
I mean those are project managers that don't understand and appreciate their field partners that's how I grew.
00:09:59.687 --> 00:10:01.866
Right Is creating successful projects.
00:10:01.866 --> 00:10:03.326
You've got a team with your partner.
00:10:03.326 --> 00:10:07.827
You've got to lock arms and make it happen in order to make these things come together.
00:10:07.827 --> 00:10:10.368
So I'm sorry you had some difficult ones.
00:10:10.368 --> 00:10:11.645
We've all been there, right?
00:10:12.221 --> 00:10:15.971
Well, but you gained that understanding and appreciation.
00:10:15.971 --> 00:10:29.390
I know that some of the L&M family members almost PM or APMs or PMs and may be struggling and feeling or dealing with somebody like me that would take any opportunity I could to jab them in the ribs.
00:10:29.390 --> 00:10:44.269
But in terms of gaining, developing that appreciation for the relationships and the people doing the installation with their hands, what kind of guidance would you offer them to like get off center and build those relationships?
00:10:44.830 --> 00:10:58.147
Ask questions, ask tons of questions right, show some appreciation for working in a hundred degree environment right and trying to make this stuff happen, collaborate and, I think, just work hard.
00:10:58.147 --> 00:11:00.219
I was never the first person to leave the job.
00:11:00.219 --> 00:11:06.610
I was always one of the last persons to leave the site and I think when they see you working hard, they see you asking questions.
00:11:06.610 --> 00:11:09.365
That's when the magic begins and that's how you learn.
00:11:09.365 --> 00:11:12.610
You got to put in the time and you've got to be a sponge.
00:11:13.701 --> 00:11:16.671
So you got into the industry.
00:11:16.671 --> 00:11:17.865
I'm imagining.
00:11:17.865 --> 00:11:20.008
Well, I don't, I'm not, I don't have to imagine.
00:11:20.008 --> 00:11:26.282
I know iPads weren't a thing, iphones weren't a thing, right, email was email a thing?
00:11:26.282 --> 00:11:27.243
Well, it wasn't a thing.
00:11:27.263 --> 00:11:34.988
Yet no, we had paper drawings and we had mylar vellum and then we had just paper out the wazoo yeah.
00:11:35.008 --> 00:11:36.448
There was no digital model.
00:11:37.009 --> 00:11:37.690
Oh my God.
00:11:37.690 --> 00:11:48.135
Yeah, I remember we used to build a box with the light in it and do overlay with plans on top of that to say, oh okay, there might be a conflict here.
00:11:48.135 --> 00:12:19.494
Yeah, we're short of rain For sure Now, but through the arch of your career, there's been some tremendous, like gigantic shifts in terms of thinking and also technology, and so I'm wondering would you say that you were like on the leading edge of those things, or you were kind of the frozen middle, or maybe I don't know, let me see if it works how would you rate yourself in terms of championing and adopting change and technology?
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.989
One of the first people to have a computer, a laptop, a TD.
00:12:23.989 --> 00:12:43.207
We had them in Dallas at Special Project and I think we're also one of the first teams to have a bag phone right To carry these phones around on like a backpack, almost right, and it looked like a briefcase, a soft-sided briefcase, and that was the phone in it and we used it to send somebody.
00:12:43.207 --> 00:12:54.371
If it was a hard bid, like a public job, right, they would go down to the site and they would wait there while we calculated the numbers and then you would phone the number in and they would write it on the piece of paper and turn it in an envelope.
00:12:54.371 --> 00:12:57.480
So it was before fax machines and before email.
00:12:57.860 --> 00:13:02.053
But I think I think TD has done a good job of trying to stay on the technology curve.
00:13:02.053 --> 00:13:09.827
It has risks, yeah, oh yeah, it has a lot of risks and it doesn't all work out and some of it can be very painful when you're first putting it in place.
00:13:09.827 --> 00:13:13.559
But we'd have to keep embracing that 100%.
00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:15.740
I'm playing around, probably just like you are right.
00:13:15.740 --> 00:13:24.009
I'm playing around with AI and I'm trying to see you know what is this artificial intelligence stuff and how could it maybe make my life a little simpler.
00:13:24.009 --> 00:13:28.663
It's very interesting, it's yes, it's a huge.
00:13:29.524 --> 00:13:37.799
I'm sure I'm under utilizing the capacity that AI has, but the little bit that I'm using huge time saver.
00:13:37.799 --> 00:13:51.986
I just think of all the application that I could have used the thing over my career and save myself hours, or not just save myself hours but deliver a better value service.
00:13:51.986 --> 00:13:55.134
So, example I don't like doing meeting minutes.
00:13:55.134 --> 00:14:06.150
I'm not going to send out paragraphs and sentences, but there's AI that'll record the conversation, summarize it and produce meeting notes.
00:14:06.150 --> 00:14:07.280
Exactly Like.
00:14:07.280 --> 00:14:08.441
Come on, like.
00:14:08.441 --> 00:14:11.279
Who wants to be tracking meeting minutes and sending them out?
00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:18.313
If I can press a button and hit send and my clients think I'm smarter, I'm winning, exactly.
00:14:19.684 --> 00:14:21.511
I can create documents for you too, right?
00:14:21.511 --> 00:14:28.950
I mean, you know, create me a Word doc that does this, and then you can get a this, and then you get a draft that then you can play with and edit oh, my goodness.
00:14:29.731 --> 00:14:39.904
And so, through your carissa, assistant pm project manager, what were the signals that you could see when it was like, okay, it's time for me to make another jump in my you?
00:14:39.924 --> 00:14:53.399
know, I think some of them are kind of slap you in the face and I think in the late 80s I had been, I'd been working at TD for a couple of years and we'd built a big project in Dallas called the Crescent and it was one of the biggest jobs TD had ever worked on.
00:14:53.399 --> 00:14:57.572
I was like third fiddle on the project management team, learning and growing.
00:14:57.572 --> 00:15:04.374
But anyway, when the savings and loan crisis came and the banking crisis came, the cranes came down and new construction was stopping.
00:15:04.374 --> 00:15:11.481
I mean, there was not new construction work and not enough for everybody, but we had started doing existing buildings.
00:15:11.481 --> 00:15:16.341
We had started doing more tenant finish and more renovations and more things like that.
00:15:16.341 --> 00:15:22.609
And so everybody that was doing new construction nobody wanted to do special projects as we call it now.
00:15:22.609 --> 00:15:24.335
Back then we call it tenant finish.
00:15:24.576 --> 00:15:28.768
I went out at whole hog and we started getting better margins and we started making money.
00:15:28.768 --> 00:15:37.043
And then we renamed it right, we renamed it special projects and next thing you knew we were making more money than the new construction guys in Dallas.
00:15:37.043 --> 00:15:39.208
And then we had everybody's attention.
00:15:39.208 --> 00:15:46.732
So what everybody thought was a crap market or crap business into something that looked really good, especially in difficult times.
00:15:46.732 --> 00:15:52.631
So be careful where you know that you lock yourself in too hard in this industry to just big work.
00:15:52.631 --> 00:15:53.092
Right.
00:15:53.092 --> 00:15:58.567
There's a whole virus industry that is about existing buildings and renovations and replacements.
00:15:58.567 --> 00:16:02.955
That, I think, is really exciting work and breathing new life into old structures.
00:16:02.955 --> 00:16:11.744
Work and breathing new life into old structures I find really energizing, especially when you look at some of these things people are working on today, like the Alamo and some of the old buildings around San Antonio.
00:16:12.505 --> 00:16:14.871
Texas is not that old, but we're starting to get there.
00:16:15.500 --> 00:16:17.164
Yeah, well, you mentioned San Antonio.
00:16:17.164 --> 00:16:23.543
So I got to meet you in person in San Antonio at job reviews.
00:16:23.543 --> 00:16:32.572
So I was still working for TD at the time and would do these job reviews, which for me and it changed over the cause I was there for 17 years with TD.
00:16:32.572 --> 00:16:37.731
Sometimes the job reviews were like I looked forward to them and I got a lot out of them.
00:16:37.731 --> 00:16:48.211
Sometimes it felt like it was time for me to go and take my beating right, like that's just what it felt like and it just it kind of depended on the job and the people in the room.
00:16:48.211 --> 00:16:51.107
But early on I think I was still a foreman.
00:16:51.107 --> 00:16:53.888
Yeah, oh, I was absolutely a foreman.
00:16:54.019 --> 00:16:56.548
Ut Health Science Center Hot place to work.
00:16:56.548 --> 00:17:02.605
You were in in the job review and it was like, oh, my goodness, what is going on?
00:17:02.605 --> 00:17:05.809
I think you weren't in the CEO role yet and so it was.
00:17:05.809 --> 00:17:11.496
My point is I didn't know what to expect because we had Harold from Dallas coming right.
00:17:11.496 --> 00:17:20.593
It was a big deal, and so I'm just expecting to get yelled at and berated about how poorly I'm performing.
00:17:20.593 --> 00:17:23.051
And that was it why you thought I was there.
00:17:23.051 --> 00:17:23.859
What's that?
00:17:23.859 --> 00:17:25.063
That's why you thought I was there.
00:17:25.063 --> 00:17:26.567
What's that that's why you thought I was there.
00:17:26.567 --> 00:17:30.367
Yes, right, but that's kind of the point here is the way you led.
00:17:30.779 --> 00:17:39.458
The way I experienced your leadership shifted something in me like, oh, it can be done differently because you did it differently.
00:17:39.458 --> 00:17:42.672
The project was a pain, but we were looking at problems.
00:17:42.672 --> 00:17:47.049
What I remember is okay, there's some things, the decisions that we need to make.
00:17:47.049 --> 00:17:50.837
There's some problems we need to have plans to address.
00:17:50.837 --> 00:17:53.631
Where are we today and how are we going to get there?
00:17:54.392 --> 00:18:00.107
Which was dramatically different than not just what I experienced, but what a lot of people experience in the industry.
00:18:00.107 --> 00:18:05.326
Where the check-ins are, you failed, do better, scream and shout yeah.
00:18:05.326 --> 00:18:07.273
And that wasn't your approach and all of it.
00:18:07.273 --> 00:18:09.785
I was like this is this dude's awesome?
00:18:09.785 --> 00:18:11.789
Like what is, what is this thing?
00:18:11.789 --> 00:18:19.016
It was the servant leadership I think that I saw you demonstrating, but it was a totally different thing for me.
00:18:19.016 --> 00:18:31.872
Anyways, and consistently over years, you operated that way, and so I know you've had to deal at every level like underperformance, financial failures and these sorts of things.
00:18:31.872 --> 00:18:43.240
What I'm curious to know is like how did you build the skillset to stay focused, be hard on the process and support and nurture the people?
00:18:43.240 --> 00:18:48.839
Right, because I'm guessing that you may have had like a nuclear meltdown or two in your career, at least once.
00:18:49.121 --> 00:19:00.347
Oh yeah, I mean, we've had some horrible projects along the way, we've had some horrible business results at different times, but I've never found that screaming and shouting makes it any better.
00:19:00.347 --> 00:19:03.916
All I does is energize everybody's emotions where nobody stops.
00:19:03.916 --> 00:19:09.438
Everybody stops listening, and then you can't get clarity around, kind of where are we?
00:19:09.438 --> 00:19:13.733
What can we do in order to begin to improve the situation?
00:19:13.733 --> 00:19:15.518
What are the next actions we can take?
00:19:15.518 --> 00:19:19.296
So we all have to get on the same page, for where are we?
00:19:19.296 --> 00:19:20.247
How do we get here?
00:19:20.247 --> 00:19:25.125
But screaming and shouting is not going to give us any clarity about where we go next.
00:19:25.125 --> 00:19:27.550
And that's all the most important question.
00:19:27.550 --> 00:19:28.894
Right, okay, here we are.
00:19:28.894 --> 00:19:33.376
We may be up to our ass and you know what, but how are we going to get out of it.
00:19:33.396 --> 00:19:40.438
How are we going to make this customer happy or how are we going to get this building delivered on time or this floor finished on time?
00:19:40.438 --> 00:19:51.010
And it happens every day, every week, on thousands of sites across the US, hundreds of sites across TV, and there are no perfect companies and there are no perfect people.
00:19:51.010 --> 00:19:56.616
I mean, I'm sure somebody is going to listen to this podcast and say, well, harold screamed and shouted at me once.
00:19:56.616 --> 00:19:59.811
I hope those are not the ones that people remember the most.
00:20:00.232 --> 00:20:00.954
Yeah, definitely.
00:20:00.954 --> 00:20:06.494
Well, you know I mentioned it at the top of this conversation that you helped me buy my first computer.
00:20:06.494 --> 00:20:19.237
It's a huge thing that I think any human being needs to be aware of, and the thing I'm talking about is the impact you can have on somebody's life with a small decision.
00:20:19.237 --> 00:20:36.176
You have no, we really don't have any idea, because, harold, I'm pretty sure you didn't say I'm going to get this little troublemaker, help him get a computer so that he can start his own business and have a podcast and produce all kinds of content, right?
00:20:36.396 --> 00:20:38.852
Like no, but I'm sure it turned out that way.
00:20:39.365 --> 00:20:40.490
Yeah, I'm glad it did.
00:20:40.490 --> 00:20:43.393
Thank you, I mean, it was really a situation.
00:20:43.393 --> 00:20:46.611
I think it was Derek, oh, I keep forgetting his name.
00:20:46.765 --> 00:20:48.211
Anyways, Derek was an electrician.
00:20:49.787 --> 00:20:52.691
He had the laptop on site, he started showing me Excel.
00:20:52.691 --> 00:20:59.066
I think I was taking night classes at the time and I learned that you could do formulas on this thing that was called Excel.
00:20:59.066 --> 00:21:00.553
I was like, oh my God, this is magic.
00:21:00.553 --> 00:21:06.913
And so I asked Derek, can I use your computer in the morning and in the evening, like when the guys were gone?
00:21:06.913 --> 00:21:10.332
And he's like, yeah, sure, and somehow that made it.
00:21:10.392 --> 00:21:14.086
We were talking about it and you heard you're like, why are you doing that late or early?
00:21:14.086 --> 00:21:16.192
I'm like because I don't have a computer.
00:21:16.192 --> 00:21:22.348
And she said well, if you go get a computer, I'll give you X amount of dollars back.
00:21:22.348 --> 00:21:26.316
I was like done and that, like that.
00:21:26.316 --> 00:21:41.150
That there alone shifted my trajectory of what I thought my career was going to be, cause at that point in time I just wanted to be the awesomest foreman in San Antonio and be and that's it Like I was happy to accomplish that.
00:21:41.150 --> 00:21:52.209
You entered, your action, introduced me to access a tool, to access new learning and serve in a different manner, which again totally opened a new landscape.
00:21:52.249 --> 00:21:53.252
Go back for just a second.
00:21:53.252 --> 00:21:57.527
The reason I think you got that break is because you were focused on learning.
00:21:57.527 --> 00:22:05.352
You were putting in the time in the evenings and in the mornings on your time to learn, and that was what caught my attention.
00:22:05.545 --> 00:22:13.913
Here's a foreman in the field that is eager to learn how to use a computer, learn how to use new software tools right At the time it was rare.
00:22:13.913 --> 00:22:19.458
Your own actions is what made me want to help you get a leg up and keep going Right.
00:22:19.458 --> 00:22:28.640
So I think it's back to this concept of lifelong learning and showing people that you want to keep learning, asking lots of questions, not being afraid to ask dumb questions.
00:22:28.640 --> 00:22:33.777
You mean you can't ask the same question three times, right, that probably won't work.
00:22:33.777 --> 00:22:39.334
But lifelong learners find people that want to help and I think you're a great example of that.
00:22:39.714 --> 00:22:40.477
Thank you, Harold.
00:22:40.477 --> 00:22:43.314
So I mean, I think that's a key point, right?
