Episode 46 from The Grit Theory. 

Today I sit down with the indomitable Trent Urban. Trent is the president and owner of WireNut Home Services, a father of 3, a husband and community builder. We discuss the pressures of leadership and caring for those around you, transitioning from cold necessity to pursuing an ideal, and choosing the difficult option over the easy out. 

Highlights Include: 
-Surviving the recession.
-Brothers: conflict, am I an idiot, and restoration.               
-Intentional pause. 
-Dream Manager. 
-Despising drama and pursuing sustainability. 
-Continuing to grow in order to build a Living Legacy. 

WireNut Home Services mission is to Enrich Lives through Trust in the Trades (click me).

THANK YOU for listening! If you found value in today’s conversation, please help me by SUBSCRIBING and SHARING IT!  

Also, check out Be Relentless: If the obstacle is the way, then we must be waymakers HERE.

Do you want to learn more? Check out:

The Book: Be Relentless: If the obstacle is the way, then we must be WayMakers.

The Podcast: “Be Relentless Podcast”

The Fuel: Sisu Stamina, Performance Evolved

Linktree: Here.

---

Episode Transcript

00;00;09;22 – 00;00;33;04

Jon Mayo

Hello, everyone. Today, I sat down with Trent Urban, who is the president and owner of Wired and at Home Services, as well as a father and strong community member. We explore his business and the journey of its creation to where it is today, as well as to where it’s going to go in the future. And what makes this unique and not just in operations based.

00;00;33;10 – 00;00;55;19

Jon Mayo

How did you build it type of conversation? Is that we really focus in on the man behind the business, his motivations, his fears, his struggles and his hopes. And in doing so, we have one heck of a conversation. So as we dive in, please remember to share the show if you find value in it, to subscribe so you can stay tuned for more.

00;00;55;28 – 00;01;07;28

Jon Mayo

And to help spread Trent story, let us dive on in of course what he got there.

00;01;08;02 – 00;01;33;25

Trent Urban

So the road less stupid and which I have one of the questions in here if I can find it quickly enough. It says essentially how much have you paid in stupid tax? Oh, God, man, I love that. The dreaded dumb tax. It is not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid. It’s one phrase, and I just love the brutal ness of that idea.

00;01;35;08 – 00;01;55;25

Trent Urban

There are some a lot of different pieces in here already. I haven’t gotten that far into it, but in here they basically were talking about these decisions that you make in the moment and you you validated it through emotions, but there’s nothing that validates it otherwise. And then in the long run, you find out it was a massive mistake and you paid a lot of money for it.

00;01;56;28 – 00;02;02;26

Jon Mayo

I’m currently measuring if I’ve made one of those decisions in the last 60 days not being here.

00;02;03;04 – 00;02;07;07

Trent Urban

I was like, Wait, you haven’t been here 60 days? So it’s good. No, I figured you weren’t talking about that.

00;02;07;10 – 00;02;21;18

Jon Mayo

No, I wouldn’t be that coy. But I’ll know in the next 20 days I’ll make a decision before my clause runs out to do so. Okay. That’s why I made the clause. I learned it could be a little impulsive. So you said you’ve never been on a you’ve never had a polygraph test before?

00;02;22;03 – 00;02;22;25

Trent Urban

No. All right.

00;02;22;28 – 00;02;25;11

Jon Mayo

Well, just stare into my eyes and let me read your soul, then.

00;02;25;15 – 00;02;26;11

Trent Urban

Okay. Yeah. Do this.

00;02;27;18 – 00;02;43;18

Jon Mayo

You are an urban and you are the owner of the wire net. And that’s very important for your story and for what we want to accomplish here today, because we’re really looking at understanding what all that is and what does it mean and why are we here now so that we have a better understand moving forward? Okay. Is that fair?

00;02;43;19 – 00;02;45;01

Trent Urban

Fair enough. Yeah. Makes sense.

00;02;45;08 – 00;02;45;28

Jon Mayo

Is that what you wanted?

00;02;46;18 – 00;02;57;21

Trent Urban

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don’t have a lot of preconceived notions about it other than seeing what it fleshes out and the benefits for myself and others. And I think it’s at least interesting and helpful. Exploratory. Yeah.

00;02;58;01 – 00;03;22;21

Jon Mayo

And I’m also going to ask some questions, selfishly, that are kind of in line with these types of conversations and why I love doing it. Okay. So hopefully that adds further value. I think it will. But to start, why not just dive right in? We already had some fun pleasantries. You mentioned in a previous conversation that there is a very unsexy and idealistic reason to start a company, Right?

00;03;22;23 – 00;03;36;09

Jon Mayo

Is transactional, It’s called. And it was like the brass tacks and that’s how it was. And I think that people can relate to that more than pursuing the idea of, say, having a positive culture. So do you want to start there? And we’ll start exploring from the beginning.

00;03;36;14 – 00;03;57;05

Trent Urban

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All of it was a necessity. I got into the trades because my dad was in the trades, so even that I just fell into it was somewhat accidental. What is funny about that? Those in college I did one of the aptitude tests. I think it was an aptitude. Telling me the intent of it was to tell me what I would be good at.

00;03;57;12 – 00;04;19;29

Trent Urban

It told me I would be good at being a owner of a plumbing company. In those days, I thought it I took it literal and was like, Well, I don’t want to be a plumber. And so on and so on. But realistically, being an owner of a plumbing company has nothing to do with being a plumber. And then if you take away the plumber element of it, it’s a service company, or it’s a company where you’re dealing with tactile and, you know, communicative.

00;04;20;12 – 00;04;41;29

Trent Urban

And so that can correlate over to electrical heating and air. Hell, it can go into mobile phones, maybe, you know, things like that. So I fell into the industry from family when I did it. Literally, I went to my dad and asked, Hey, how much money can I make in this industry? And the reason I asked is because I was about to have a son.

00;04;41;29 – 00;04;58;18

Trent Urban

So all of the pleasantries, the things I wanted to do, which I wanted to be an engineer, all of those went away. And it was, what can I do to provide for my family? And so that’s exactly what I did. And when I went in to do it, I don’t do too many things half assed. And so I’m not going to pop in and do that.

00;04;58;19 – 00;05;28;12

Trent Urban

And so I was running, you know, after I learned the trades that much more got on beyond an apprenticeship. I was running crews of guys that were twice my age and quite a few of them as a as a high end apprentice. And I know there was an element of that of being trusted by my dad. He knew that I wasn’t going to quit on him on a given Wednesday or something, but also it was realistically because I was able to run those crews and do them efficiently and I’m pretty organized person, so I carried that organization into the into the job.

00;05;28;22 – 00;05;41;19

Trent Urban

So that would cause me in the evenings to go and lay out the the plans and say, this is exactly what we’re going to do tomorrow. Here’s where who’s going to do it, Here’s the things we need. And so I got to make sure I have all that prepped. And so I’d have the the jobs running pretty efficiently.

00;05;42;11 – 00;06;03;23

Trent Urban

So all of it was built around construction. And in 2001, it was at a boiling point of, hey, we need to stop running these service calls because we were just filling out a paper ticket for a customer that happened to call us and we had some spare time to serve. And so we had no systems, processes or anything for taking care of these customers.

00;06;03;23 – 00;06;21;19

Trent Urban

And so we needed to either do it right or quit doing it. So we fleshed out what doing it right would look like, and that took us over three years. We looked at a franchise down in Waco. We did a demo with, you know, an on site or whatever in Vegas at a convention center for a peer group.

00;06;21;27 – 00;06;42;25

Trent Urban

That’s the one we ended up signing up for. And it was mostly because of the trust that we had with the keynote. And so we did it. And that set in course what’s now known as wiring it, which, you know, one at home services, since we’re doing more than just electrical now. And good thing we did because we did we ran our first service calls in like January of oh five.

00;06;43;10 – 00;07;06;00

Trent Urban

And what happened three years later. Yeah. And that three years later killed our construction company. We could have kept suffering through it, but it wasn’t worth it anymore. And so I would have probably had to help my dad rebuild the company after the Great Recession if we didn’t have the service company to fall back on. So we put our eggs into the basket of what was really working and we had to give up on the other thing, and that was incredibly hard.

00;07;06;05 – 00;07;23;09

Trent Urban

So yeah, so when I came in the wiring at it’s not because I wanted to, I was actually bitter at the company because I was bitter at society. Like I just had my namesake strip from me. My dad had been doing it since the seventies and now here I am in this company that I didn’t know or like all that much about it.

00;07;23;19 – 00;07;24;28

Trent Urban

It wasn’t what I was familiar with.

00;07;26;06 – 00;07;37;09

Jon Mayo

All right. In in different things because one, it’s important context and it’s unique. I actually work with you now for, you know, here at Warren. And so that’s that’s an unusual flavor.

00;07;37;09 – 00;07;39;10

Trent Urban

And I think it makes it more fun.

00;07;39;14 – 00;07;56;00

Jon Mayo

It does make it more fun. You know, I’ve never been this invested in talking about someone else’s business. Yeah. So that’s neat. And then the second thing you just mentioned that I really want to pull on is you talked about being incredibly bitter because your namesake and everything you had been investing yourself in helping building your dad had been building since the seventies.

00;07;56;08 – 00;08;03;07

Jon Mayo

Yeah, since the seventies. Kind of was stripped away or not. Kind of was ruthlessly stripped away with the oh eight recession.

00;08;03;10 – 00;08;03;18

Trent Urban

Right.

00;08;04;01 – 00;08;09;03

Jon Mayo

And you had the services, thankfully, to sustain.

00;08;09;03 – 00;08;09;11

Trent Urban

Right.

00;08;09;11 – 00;08;23;12

Jon Mayo

But nothing was built when in the couple of years after that, what did bitterness drive you did anger was it a desire for revenge? What kept you going? Was it just called necessity at that point?

00;08;23;21 – 00;08;27;04

Trent Urban

Cold necessity. And I had a new target to focus on. So I did.

00;08;27;17 – 00;08;28;03

Jon Mayo

What was that.

00;08;28;13 – 00;08;48;27

Trent Urban

Wiring it on, not sucking there? Mm hmm. So I guess the part I skipped is the services company was run by my brother at the time, and he was he got past the beginning phases of, you know, you got to build out all the, all the stuff like the marketing database info and the accounting and all these things.

00;08;49;12 – 00;09;03;26

Trent Urban

And at that point, when I joined him, it was at the point where now we have to scale it and we have to get better revenue per head and, you know, per team we have to get better performance on the phones. We have to do all these things that that take people coaching. Mm hmm. And that’s where he was struggling.

00;09;03;26 – 00;09;22;22

Trent Urban

That’s not his strong suit. And so when I came over, I was like, All right, that’s a gap. I can do that part easily. I’ll take it and I’ll run with it. And but I’m also kind of a taskmaster. I like order and detail where I can get it. And then I also understand and when you have to let it go for a little time to start to slow boil it into the company, you can’t force it overnight.

00;09;23;05 – 00;09;43;26

Trent Urban

So that’s what I did is I worked on getting these things that were it was lacking, built into the company and as a result, not directly because of result of what I was doing, but I think because of a result of the two of us partnering up. My brother and I, we started doubling in size every year and we were finally at the point of being profitable, which the company had never been before.

00;09;44;15 – 00;10;02;20

Trent Urban

And so that’s the route I took, is I knew that I needed to help. I also knew that the family is counting on it, but at the bottom of it all, I was never willing to be a clock watcher and go hang out. Personal perspective, any of them that work in the DMV. Sorry to hear this. Sorry you have to hear this.

00;10;02;20 – 00;10;32;15

Trent Urban

But for me, going somewhere that is dead inside like the DMV, I would rather slow death in that there’s no there’s no day to day unique things that you’ve got to help out with. You don’t have any power to go and make a change for the better. The environment is sterile and boring and all of that. So I just wanted to make sure that I left an impact where I could on not being any of those things, making it a dynamic place where people enjoyed what they were doing, engaging with them and all of that.

00;10;32;15 – 00;10;34;15

Trent Urban

And so that was one of the one of the goals.

00;10;35;04 – 00;10;59;17

Jon Mayo

Okay. So I think there were some important clarification there. So it happens you guys had the construction. You also had the services that your brother was running at the time. And with the death of the construction you jumped into were not the service company with your brother at that point. And with that transition, you had a fresh start, so to speak, in a sense, or a new game to play and figure out something entertaining.

00;11;01;07 – 00;11;18;02

Jon Mayo

And you also had the pressure of providing. Right. Which is quite a a reality for a lot of us. And you didn’t want to be bored. So that was also a driver that probably kept you from just being a vanilla. Let’s punch the clock and go. You’re like, I want to have something that’s dynamic and that I’m excited about.

00;11;18;04 – 00;11;18;15

Trent Urban

Yes.

00;11;18;25 – 00;11;23;25

Jon Mayo

And that seems like a one of the differentiating threads or the start of it in our conversation at least.

00;11;24;09 – 00;11;43;07

Trent Urban

Yeah, And expand on that. I’ve heard this from a couple of other friends who owned businesses, successful ones, you know, in their own in their own light, in their own communities, all that. So those things we have in common and there’s one that I learned that we have in common with that, and I’m thinking maybe this is what drove us to where we’re at.

00;11;44;00 – 00;12;00;04

Trent Urban

Each of us live in the future. I live very much in the future, and I have to temper that back sometimes. Like tomorrow’s always going to be better than today. It always will be. So the problem with that is if it’s not for an extended period of time than what’s going on, and it’s highly frustrating. You know, that’s where the questioning of that comes in.

00;12;00;15 – 00;12;06;21

Trent Urban

So if I’m going to have a better future than I have today, that means I got to work for it. And so that’s a big driver.

00;12;08;04 – 00;12;21;24

Jon Mayo

Yeah, fair enough. And in 2009, 2010, the driver was to have a better future. By what metrics? Because it seems like it’s still, if I’m following you correctly, largely based in necessity.

00;12;21;24 – 00;12;41;10

Trent Urban

Yes, it was a necessity. And if you, you know, anybody that worked through that time, if you were a kid, you probably didn’t feel it. You’d see it from your parents or something. But who worked in that time? I was raising two tiny kids, you know, Not tiny, I guess. Yeah, they’re a bit older or they were still kids are elementary school.

00;12;41;21 – 00;12;51;01

Trent Urban

So if I’m going to create a better future and if I’m going to be excited about it, I got to really get in there and buckle down because there’s not a whole lot to be excited about in that society at that moment. Everybody’s defaulting on their homes.

00;12;53;10 – 00;13;09;12

Trent Urban

People aren’t going out and doing anything extracurricular. They didn’t have the money for it. There was a lot of fear. Just like the COVID times, some people jump even more so into that fear. So you have to temper that against your own feelings of it. Yeah, that’s fair. Yeah. So to create a strong future, I better get to work.

00;13;09;23 – 00;13;16;25

Jon Mayo

It sounds like that strong feature started with one not wanting to be bored, which is a fair thing because boredom is its own death.

00;13;16;25 – 00;13;17;29

Trent Urban

Yeah, it is.

00;13;17;29 – 00;13;30;28

Jon Mayo

And then to having that future be something that your wife and kiddos, your family can benefit from. Right. And then three kind of the whole bring it together, have something that’s successful and feeding all those things right is the business okay.

00;13;31;03 – 00;13;31;28

Trent Urban

Yeah. Cool.

00;13;31;29 – 00;13;34;02

Jon Mayo

So there we are. And you start building it with your brother.

00;13;35;00 – 00;13;58;13

Trent Urban

Yes, Start building it with my brother. And in a lot of ways that was going well. We were in a peer group and we became one of the more recognized and, you know, recognized as successful companies in that group. And we were in there from the very beginning. So we knew all the founding members of the group. And so from all measures we were successful.

00;13;58;13 – 00;14;26;04

Trent Urban

But then what happened is my brother and I both are driven, but we were driven in different ways and we started having arguments and many, many things. So you’re on this podcast of least, at least you would hear my side. Only there’s always two sides, but from my side he was coming in and causing employees to leave and I would talk with him about it and say, Hey, these are the things I’d like you to work on because we’ve had enough indicators that this is a common thread that we’d got to do something about it.

00;14;26;21 – 00;14;46;00

Trent Urban

And so those moves just weren’t made quite the way I would have liked. And so there were also a lot of, you know, attacks on me of I didn’t know what I was talking about and my information was wrong and so forth. So I had to validate that and say, okay, not validated. At the time, I didn’t know if he was right or wrong.

00;14;46;14 – 00;15;09;06

Trent Urban

I had to go and get additional learning. So I took that as a challenge. So I mean, this podcast about grit, right? Mm hmm. I have my older brother telling me that essentially that I’m an idiot on these different realms. And as family, as we all know, family gets a little too close and personal at times. So I was like, All right, well, I’m either going to live in the world of I am an idiot, or I’m going to go and I’m going to find out whether or not I am.

00;15;09;16 – 00;15;27;27

Trent Urban

So I went out and I, I was at a different training session at least once a month every single year that year, filling those gaps that I was told that, you know, were being exploited. So I went out and got those. And in those sessions I started having other members there who were leaning on my response and they were asking me my opinion and all these things.

00;15;27;27 – 00;15;54;02

Trent Urban

And I started realizing, well, if I’m an idiot, why are they asking that? And so, you know, I went through and I came to terms with, well, wait, I know enough of what’s going on here. So when I’m presented facts by, you know, by him and I don’t want to make this too much about him, but when I was presented his facts, then I have to you know, I have to have a discussion around this and, you know, rebut those ones that I feel are wrong.

00;15;54;15 – 00;16;11;00

Trent Urban

And so I did a lot of that. And then that I think, exacerbated our arguments even more. So it turned it just not from just employees being attacked. Now I’m being attacked. And so at some point I finally decided, well, you know, because this was a blood decision, too, I didn’t want to turn on my own blood. And so I stuck it out.

00;16;11;22 – 00;16;34;02

Trent Urban

At some point I had to decide, well, the blood that I all my loyalties to now is the one in my household every night. And so that’s exactly what I did. So I got pre-approval for financing to buy out. The company went to him and said, I’ve got pre-approval. Here’s the price I’m looking for and I will, or that I’m looking to give based on this third party valuation of the company.

00;16;34;25 – 00;16;59;11

Trent Urban

And I’m willing to give you the exact same price if you want the whole company. So decisions, not mine, the decisions yours, but we can’t continue being partnered anymore. And after nine months of that hell, getting, you know, getting all the bells and whistles or, you know, details to that wrapped up, then it was finally complete and then since that time, I hadn’t really talked to my brother other than maybe once a year.

00;16;59;17 – 00;17;11;22

Trent Urban

And then we’re at the point now where we’ve come to terms and we’re better. We can actually finally even talk about the company. And that was an absolute no no. Neither of us wanted to go there for nine years. That’s a big yeah.

00;17;12;02 – 00;17;17;29

Jon Mayo

A big regrowth. So we just talked about a lot. Yeah. So let’s visit some of it.

00;17;18;01 – 00;17;21;04

Trent Urban

Yeah, there is a bit of a story there. Maybe I should have taken a pause.

00;17;21;05 – 00;17;40;19

Jon Mayo

No, I think it was good. I was. I was about to jump in. If we started a new story, but I think that was. That was solid. You know, it’s interesting kind of looking at things objectively. The I don’t want to betray my blood thing. I think I think that’s something that a lot of people struggle with as they go through life.

00;17;40;19 – 00;17;55;21

Jon Mayo

And most people don’t have a partner, like I think a lot that a lot of young men who haven’t learned how to leave their house when they’re starting their families. Right. And at some point you have to learn to tell dad, I’m doing this in whatever context makes sense and is appropriate.

00;17;55;21 – 00;17;59;22

Trent Urban

So I take it, as you’re saying, leave the house physically, but also more so mentally?

00;17;59;23 – 00;18;14;09

Jon Mayo

I think. Really? Yeah. What we’re talking about here is like the mental character maturity and developing of becoming something, right? And like in this instance, just your conversation with your brother, I found a strong correlation to it’s like, okay, here you have your older brother.

00;18;14;23 – 00;18;15;12

Trent Urban

Who.

00;18;16;14 – 00;18;44;01

Jon Mayo

You don’t want to betray your blood. But then you also realized over time that mixed into that or you didn’t want to even have to have conflict with your blood or whatever that look like, right? You wanted to be loyal to the family, but by being loyal, you’re under a shadow that’s unhealthy. As you continue to grow. And at one point, at some point you realize that in order for you to be a good steward and loyal to your family and that blood you had to step outside of so that health could have a chance.

00;18;44;09 – 00;18;44;15

Trent Urban

Yeah.

00;18;44;25 – 00;18;56;11

Jon Mayo

And I just really like that because I think in that story there’s also there’s an older story that’s probably true to a lot of people learning how to do that in their own situation.

00;18;56;11 – 00;19;14;15

Trent Urban

So I think so, yeah. I mean, you hit on something that’s pretty important. You look at it, it’s carried in so many different ways, but at what point do we as adults become autonomous beings on our own? Mm hmm. And some listeners might say, well, I don’t ever want to be fully autonomous. And I get that you want to have connection, but you want to be.

00;19;14;25 – 00;19;28;29

Trent Urban

And connection is different than autonomy. You want to be able to do what you need to do when you feel it’s necessary. Other than that, you’ll, you’ll lean on some peers for other feedback, but you still should be the one making your own moves for your own life. Yeah, no one has that right.

00;19;29;12 – 00;19;48;21

Jon Mayo

And that’s, I think, a definitive maturation process, a coming of age process, if you will. And I don’t think we talk about enough on like what does that look like for people? And I’m not saying that’s your definitive one. We’re just using this prototype, right from your story of like saying, you know, at some point you have to start making those decisions.

00;19;48;22 – 00;20;00;14

Jon Mayo

There’s a difference from taking counsel, taking advice, and then letting that advice make your decision and taking counsel and allowing it to inform your decision. And I think that’s part of this. So that’s fun.

00;20;00;24 – 00;20;18;21

Trent Urban

Yeah, you’ve seen that in the organization. Even we have a pretty strong management team. There’s times where their counsel and their decisions are what we go with and there’s times where we say, Sorry, we’re just we’re going to go this route and that’s that autonomy I’m speaking of. At the end of the day, I’m the one that has to pay for that consequence or benefit.

00;20;18;21 – 00;20;37;21

Jon Mayo

What I love about that is you just add another dynamic. So it’s not just the stepping out from the family shadow, if you will, but it’s also the stepping into when you’re caring for a team, an organization, a family. At what point do you take in all the different opinions and allow them to inform decision versus need to make a decision that’s hard both in the home and at work?

00;20;37;24 – 00;20;41;08

Trent Urban

Yeah, especially to find the middle ground balance to the healthy balance.

00;20;41;18 – 00;20;59;00

Jon Mayo

Yeah, that’s a good two sided coin. Yeah. So that was fun. The other thing that really stood out to me in that was you mentioned well and we kind of just walked past it because it’s nonchalant for you, but I don’t think it’s for most people, you know, Well, here’s my older brother telling me I’m an idiot so I can make the decision to allow that to be my truth.

00;20;59;03 – 00;21;13;01

Jon Mayo

Right. And live in that. Or I can well, I don’t know if I was or not. I can go and find out. Right. What in the world inspired you to or made you want to say, You know what, I’m going to challenge this proclamation over myself as potentially not true.

00;21;14;01 – 00;21;33;17

Trent Urban

The fight in me is the thing that comes to mind. Probably the thing because I’ve never really thought about it of what caused it to happen. But I think could be that it was. I guess it’s. I like a good challenge. Mm hmm. And that was a challenge. That’s one where I’m going to define myself by one thing or another, and I better be right.

00;21;33;17 – 00;21;39;17

Trent Urban

And so I’m going to go out and get as much information to be right. So. So that was a challenge in exploring the truth of that.

00;21;40;15 – 00;21;49;19

Jon Mayo

Because what I liked about is you did not say, my brother’s wrong, I’m not an idiot. You said, Oh, I don’t know, but I’m not going to just accept this. I’m going to challenge it by learning.

00;21;49;29 – 00;22;13;13

Trent Urban

And in context of that. Part of it also is he is an incredibly smart guy, like he looks at things in ways I’ve never seen anybody look at. He takes something and sees some simple answer within it, and then in other ways he is clueless to the environment around him. And I think that’s that’s just his nature of he’s really, really focused on one area and the other areas he’s blind to because of that.

00;22;13;13 – 00;22;30;24

Trent Urban

And so when I’m being told this, I’m like, well, he is pretty intelligent, so maybe I am, you know, or maybe I’m just not at his level, which I’m not intellectually, I’m not at his level, but then there’s other areas where he’s not at mine. So that’s where I’m seeing that correlation, that give and take.

00;22;31;15 – 00;22;47;11

Jon Mayo

When I love it, because, you know, there is that underlying fight that just makes it like, Well, I’m not going to accept this. One can test it, but it’s devoid of the arrogance of saying you’re wrong without me testing it and I think that’s encouraging and fun.

00;22;47;22 – 00;22;57;20

Trent Urban

Yeah, I’m a I’m a relatively fact based person. You give me the information if I know it’s not influenced politically or otherwise, then I’ll I’ll be like, okay, that’s our truth. Now what do we do with it?

00;22;58;09 – 00;23;14;26

Jon Mayo

Yeah, no, you’re not to shamelessly plug the term grit in there, but it takes a bit of scrappiness to say, you know what, I’m going to test this and not have it be driven by arrogance, but instead that inquisitive, let’s figure this out because I don’t want to live like I am. If I’m not and if I am, then I want to know it so that I can accept my fate type of thing.

00;23;14;26 – 00;23;17;13

Jon Mayo

Potentially, yeah. Or get somewhere. I’m happy being what I am.

00;23;17;19 – 00;23;18;24

Trent Urban

Yeah. Cool.

00;23;19;05 – 00;23;35;11

Jon Mayo

So two fun little nuggets we pulled out of that portion of the story or of your story. So here you are. You mentioned nine months of agonizing legalese and red tape to get everything separated. So what that nine months was?

00;23;35;20 – 00;23;36;16

Trent Urban

It was. Yeah.

00;23;36;23 – 00;23;39;19

Jon Mayo

And when and where does that put us in the timeline of years now.

00;23;41;05 – 00;23;48;11

Trent Urban

Oh. What was that, 2011. Okay. No, no, no, no. 12 2012.

00;23;48;18 – 00;23;49;11

Jon Mayo

Okay, so now what we.

00;23;49;11 – 00;23;53;22

Trent Urban

Closed on it to do at the end in December of 12.

00;23;53;22 – 00;23;55;09

Jon Mayo

Okay. So of tail end of 12.

00;23;55;15 – 00;23;55;22

Trent Urban

Yeah.

00;23;55;24 – 00;24;01;05

Jon Mayo

So your New Year’s resolution was here I am with wiring up by myself.

00;24;01;14 – 00;24;23;28

Trent Urban

Yeah. Mid December, he left and never came back, which is really strange to even say. But it’s true. It’s. It’s strange that that happened. But there’s a day when it was the last day he ever stepped foot in our building and that was in middle of December. Part of it. I think the reason for middle December is he wanted to see if it all fell apart a week or two or whatever without him around.

00;24;24;20 – 00;24;51;28

Trent Urban

Also, though, we had to have our separation and create that health. You know, I guess if we were even looking for health, but just create that separation. So yeah, one of the things why it took so long is I was asked by the bank in order to get this SBA funding, I was asked for things like aging on our payables, aging on our receivables, income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements.

00;24;52;16 – 00;25;11;17

Trent Urban

And I only knew really one of them, the income statement. The other one’s like, I don’t know, I haven’t looked at those much. So then when I started looking into them, I found out a lot of them were gibberish, not because I didn’t understand them, which I was still learning. So there was an element of that for sure, but some of them was like, This number is incorrect.

00;25;11;17 – 00;25;40;02

Trent Urban

I know different. Like for example, our assets, it didn’t even reflect some of our vehicles. So what were those that those should be on the balance sheet? From what I’ve Googled and what I’ve gone through these studies over the last 12 months on and all this stuff. So where that. Hmm. So I had to go in and clean it up and learn it and men, if there’s one thing from all of these pain points, struggles, learning sessions, whatever you want to call them, whatever label, it’s that holy crap, you get a lot of training out of it.

00;25;40;03 – 00;26;01;15

Trent Urban

It’s an amazing apprenticeship in business or life or adversity or whatever you call it. So I had to go and figure those out, clean that up, and I wouldn’t take that back for anything because as a result of it now, I’ve seen that information and known how to get in and fix it and seen the power of it and why you need it.

00;26;01;15 – 00;26;18;07

Trent Urban

And and we’re just talking financial at the moment, but there’s so many other things that are all you know, you talk about reports and it sounds sterile sometimes, but a report is to feed into a brain. That brain is to make action off of that report. It’s way more than some stupid piece of paper or TV screen. And so that’s what I went through.

00;26;18;07 – 00;26;34;25

Trent Urban

That’s why it took so long in going through all of that. I got, you know, that knowledge. And then I eventually got funding finally, and it took a long time. I even had to ask things. I was like, Well, I’m getting resistance from you bankers on this and on that. What is it you’re looking for? I finally flushed out the answer.

00;26;34;25 – 00;26;54;13

Trent Urban

They’re looking for debt to service ratio. Okay, so I Google what’s a debt service ratio. I find out what it is. I’m like, okay, let me go and look that up and see where we’re at on it and how close we are to the ratio they’re looking for. Now, I know now I know a debt service ratio. So if I’m going to go, for example, right now, you know this, we’re getting ready to build a new building.

00;26;54;24 – 00;27;14;27

Trent Urban

I asked them flat out, Hey, what that service ratio you looking for? They tell me. I go and I compare it to our financials. I’m like, Oh, it’s this is no big deal whatsoever asking them for that money. In fact, maybe I should ask them for more. Yeah, that assumes I want more debt, which I don’t. Yeah, but yeah, those are the things now it’s like, okay, now I can keep the company safe.

00;27;15;16 – 00;27;31;17

Trent Urban

Everything flowing smoothly to avoid catastrophes because, you know, nobody like. Well, some people like drama. I don’t know And just that knowledge I don’t know how you know I’ve got my son in the business now. I don’t know how I’m going to get him to learn those things without the hardships of it.

00;27;32;24 – 00;27;55;05

Jon Mayo

That is the goodness. That one question alone. Holy crud, I have four boys, which we’ve talked about, but how I plan on building a good life for them and continuing to do so now. And I spend a lot of time thinking about how I’m going to put them in their own health so that they can gain the skill sets they need to survive in the world and how we can cultivate that.

00;27;55;05 – 00;27;59;24

Trent Urban

And then they just think you’re putting them through hell just because you’re mean or something. But now there’s so much more to it.

00;28;00;05 – 00;28;04;15

Jon Mayo

There is. And and who knows? Time will be a judge on how well that goes.

00;28;04;15 – 00;28;06;00

Trent Urban

But the man.

00;28;06;05 – 00;28;19;03

Jon Mayo

That that question right there, the the whole do you want to make the the road easy for them or do you want to make them strong enough for the road and. Wow. Yeah. That is a question to spend a lot of time on.

00;28;19;23 – 00;28;26;19

Trent Urban

So let’s we’ll never know the answer of how we did with that. Well it’s all perspective. And if they’re functional, you know, human beings.

00;28;26;27 – 00;28;31;05

Jon Mayo

You know, 20 years after they’ve left the house, I’m sure you can make some judgment calls on potentially. How did it.

00;28;31;05 – 00;28;32;04

Trent Urban

Go? Yeah.

00;28;33;07 – 00;28;34;26

Jon Mayo

That’s a bit of a delayed response.

00;28;34;26 – 00;29;00;27

Trent Urban

So they should be using my achievements as their platform. Yeah, that’s been one of my goals. Now with that though, that means that their life is easier. So I struggle with that, but I should be able to count on them taking that and moving it further forward. Archie Manning He taught the Manning family that becoming a quarterback and joining the NFL, that both of those things are perfectly possible.

00;29;01;15 – 00;29;19;15

Trent Urban

So what did the two boys do actually, all three of them, I think, tried. They have an older brother, too. They went in and they were NFL quarterbacks and they went to Super Bowls and they did all these things. And so it’s no longer unattainable that they used Archie’s platform as or Archie successes as their platform. That’s what I want for my kids.

00;29;19;27 – 00;29;37;22

Jon Mayo

Correct. And then maybe it’s like looking at the question wrong because me or differently, right? Maybe it’s not recreating the same struggles, but creating a resilient, thoughtful enough, strong enough individual to take the advantage of standing on your shoulders to then go further, right?

00;29;39;05 – 00;29;39;13

Trent Urban

Yeah.

00;29;39;14 – 00;29;53;11

Jon Mayo

As far as you could have gone or further, given the opportunity you’re giving them. And that’s the goal because they’ll face new challenges with the new growth and without things. But if you can equip them well and not let them be whining little snot sandals.

00;29;53;11 – 00;30;10;03

Trent Urban

Yeah. And they, and they need to expect more from themselves. And that’s what that’s all about. That’s one of the things that I like the most about our company is those success stories that have happened, and there’s numerous ones of them that I can get behind because otherwise, why shouldn’t I just ride off into the sunset? And yeah, you know, those are those are pretty cool.

00;30;10;03 – 00;30;22;19

Trent Urban

That means that family, if they continue to take those opportunities, they’re moving forward. That Dad is teaching his daughters and sons how to be more successful and less dysfunctional people. And in society.

00;30;23;05 – 00;30;37;28

Jon Mayo

I promise I’ll bring it back to the business in a second. But that is one of the beautiful things when you when you’re focusing on yourself. Right. And I hear that in those 12 months of I’m going to go and learn before you made the decision to go to the bank, and then you’re focusing on your your close community, your family.

00;30;37;28 – 00;30;59;18

Jon Mayo

Right. And those decisions, it frees you up as you continue to get better in the small circles. It allows you to have more to pour out into the bigger circles, you know, self, family, community, etc.. And one of the things closing out the thought on developing our children and what that looks like something I have in my dialog with my kids a lot and we’ll see.

00;30;59;18 – 00;31;22;04

Jon Mayo

It’s very early to tell how this will go or not, but is is I’m very clear that the expectation is for them to use this as a starting place and to go far beyond in a kind of requires a demystifying of the self help in their eyes to demonstrate, Hey, see, I’m failing here. You can’t. And I don’t know, maybe those conversations will be fruitful, maybe not.

00;31;23;01 – 00;31;36;06

Trent Urban

But there’s so much you learn about yourself through life. I think you’re speaking to that to like your kids don’t even really know who they are yet. Yeah. And they’re going to be figuring that out. And honestly, you never truly know. You just get closer and closer, hopefully if you’re pursuing that answer.

00;31;36;23 – 00;31;49;09

Jon Mayo

Yeah, and I think the idea is to maybe model that by demonstrating those changes in yourself, you know, because to a child like Dad is a God, you know, turn away that, that lie in saying, but hey, we can do powerful things still.

00;31;49;15 – 00;32;06;20

Trent Urban

You know Yeah that’s a humbling one. When I found out my first kid was going to be a boy, I actually was more scared because when I thought it was going to be a girl because we were doing the what are those Chinese calendar things, all all these things that every single one of them said, he’s going to be a girl.

00;32;07;07 – 00;32;19;22

Trent Urban

So like, okay, cool, have a daughter, daddy’s girl, all this stuff, and then find out he’s a boy. I’m like, Oh yeah, I have to now be a role model. Yeah, he’s going to emulate more of me than her. Like, Oh, crap.

00;32;20;05 – 00;32;24;04

Jon Mayo

Anon calls you on your crap more than your son’s. Yeah.

00;32;24;15 – 00;32;25;05

Trent Urban

That’s the truth.

00;32;25;05 – 00;32;39;20

Jon Mayo

Oh, my goodness. Well, this is fun. So. And it also brings us back beautifully. So here you are. Nine months is done. It’s the new year. I think that’s we jumped back into some of the learnings, but we’re back at the new year of 2015.

00;32;40;25 – 00;32;41;04

Trent Urban

Right?

00;32;41;18 – 00;32;43;10

Jon Mayo

December 2014 was when it closed.

00;32;43;11 – 00;32;44;00

Trent Urban

No 12th.

00;32;44;09 – 00;32;49;08

Jon Mayo

Time. So. Yeah. All right. December 12. So now we’re in January 2013. Okay. Thank you.

00;32;49;25 – 00;33;13;29

Trent Urban

So so we’re in January of 2013. The reality is. Okay, so we put it on. I’m going to fast forward actually to April because we put it on paper, had it all done and then had all the all the final, final little details wrapped up by April. And so it kind of left me in a limbo also for another few months where I couldn’t make any drastic moves because if I did, they’re also half his and that’s not fair.

00;33;13;29 – 00;33;36;09

Trent Urban

So you fast forward to April when all the final little pieces are done and now I’ve got a team that I can take forward and they know that it’s just me and them and, and we do all that. And so one of the goals was to stabilize the company more, to build in a good culture. I had read a book called The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelley back in those days, and that’s what I wanted to model it off of.

00;33;37;01 – 00;33;57;28

Trent Urban

So I was working towards getting there. I had totally skipped over the fact that I did have a backup plan and it was in creating an HPC company. So at the time we were just electrical. So I created an HBC company at that exact same time. It wasn’t intentional, but I thought, Well, I’ve got an A or B option in doing this, so I’ll go ahead and do it.

00;33;58;12 – 00;34;18;05

Trent Urban

And it was it. A friend of mine since ten years old, he and I, he’s in the fashion industry and he said, Hey, now’s the time where I want to do it. I want to, you know, create a company with you and are you willing to do it? And I said, Man, could have picked a worse time. I’m basically working for the bank right now trying to buy out the company I’m in, and I don’t want to over leverage myself.

00;34;18;05 – 00;34;35;09

Trent Urban

But when I got to thinking about it was like, Yeah, if this deal doesn’t go through, then I can go over and work just in my other company. And if it does go through, then I can use economies of scale. I can use a shared call center or a shared office, you know, those kind of things. So in April now, I was free to finally do that.

00;34;36;04 – 00;34;54;22

Trent Urban

So we moved in this fledgling age of that company into the office, and we had them working together. One of the goals at that time then is take these two teams that have different names on their shirts and make them work as one. So we had to do all these creative things like co-branding our shirts, tons of stuff, getting team work to be more consolidated and everything else.

00;34;55;21 – 00;35;09;23

Trent Urban

And then I had this new business partner. I’ve known him since ten years old, but we had to figure out how to work on a business level together, you know, as partners. So we had all of that going on. Pretty exciting stuff, really a lot of fun and we had a lot of fun. So we work hard and play hard.

00;35;09;23 – 00;35;36;19

Trent Urban

So I know like we’d go to these peer groups. One of them I think of is in Phenix and we’re all out there learning a lot of stuff and then we’re all jumping in the pool at midnight and having a lot of fun in the warm Phenix area. And so that was kind of our vibe, you know, for the company, if you go through was it 13 to 15, all of that, We had done a couple of our kids acquisitions.

00;35;36;19 – 00;36;01;14

Trent Urban

Big difference. Yeah, Yeah. Some acquisitions bought up a competitor. By this time we had merged the companies into one because I was doing a lot of testing of marketing and I learned through that marketing. Since now the electrical company is fully mine. Then I ran ads in the fake sections of advertising to see how well is my electrical company going to be accepted as an HPC company?

00;36;01;25 – 00;36;24;24

Trent Urban

And it was being accepted more than the other company, which was a new startup. And so we ran through a lot of that reporting and just discovery and decided finally, well, it’s worth just putting these into one and the benefit for the people of the team was there’s no more two names, there’s no more I’m on that team and I’m on that team because they already create it within the industries and it just makes it even easier if you have two different company names.

00;36;25;06 – 00;36;45;02

Trent Urban

So we put them all together and then the two of us were partners. I had the majority of the company because I had the electrical and half of the HVAC. And then so he had a smaller portion of the whole. Through all of this, though, the part I guess I skipped over the mental part was that it was exciting.

00;36;45;02 – 00;37;03;19

Trent Urban

I had the h-back and the electrical go on new team members, new things, all this freedom. But at the same time I’m then making payments every month to the bank on this debt that I had taken out and I had in 2010. I skipped over this as well, but in 2010 my brother and I had bought out my parents.

00;37;03;19 – 00;37;26;13

Trent Urban

So I’m serving now the debt of my mom and my dad because my brother and I each had one parent. Now I have both parents and then I have the debt to buy from buying him out. And so I literally, without exaggeration, had every single person on my family that I was covering financially, not because they’re lazy or anything, but I owed them money on in debt.

00;37;26;13 – 00;37;48;02

Trent Urban

So it was my responsibility. So if I screwed up, defaulted, was whimsical with it, anything like that, then my entire company has every right to be upset. But also then I took my parent’s retirement away from them, stole it, and so I had to go through all of that for the longest time that I did not know at the time.

00;37;48;02 – 00;38;07;02

Trent Urban

But that carried a lot of burden because just the burden of, you know, you know, what you got on your back, but also I couldn’t do nimble moves because if I did nimble moves and they didn’t work out, I’m going to deplete cash and I didn’t have a lot of it. And and so, you know, I just had to push through that and make sure that I did it right.

00;38;07;16 – 00;38;23;01

Trent Urban

And what’s awesome is last spring, my mom and dad were paid off fully and then three now for something like that four months ago. So my brother’s been paid off fully, so. Wow. And I’ve already noticed a difference.

00;38;23;01 – 00;38;28;10

Jon Mayo

Congratulations to the amount of cortisol leaving your body. Know. You know the stress hormone.

00;38;28;13 – 00;38;28;22

Trent Urban

Yeah.

00;38;29;00 – 00;38;29;21

Jon Mayo

Insane.

00;38;30;06 – 00;38;53;16

Trent Urban

Yeah, but you work with me now, and I know it’s been shorter, but you’ve seen where I’ve traveled more, I’ve done all these things. Some of that is a decompression of that. And I’ve started realizing that more and some of it is also okay, my future doesn’t include slavery. So I’m taking some of that freedom. At the same time, though, I have the obligation responsibility, which is a big one, and I appreciate it of making sure that the wheels on the bus don’t fall off.

00;38;53;16 – 00;39;14;07

Trent Urban

And because of our strong team, I’m needed less than ever, but I’m still needed for for it. You know, of course, corrections, whatever that may be. A good friend of mine in a session I just saw last week, he was saying basically he’s the bumpers on a bowling alley. They’re going bowling. And every once in a while he has to pop that bumper up and just make sure it stays in the lane.

00;39;14;10 – 00;39;23;11

Trent Urban

And so the burden isn’t huge, but the thoughts are more impactful. So that’s the burden. Making sure that it’s the right thought.

00;39;23;11 – 00;39;26;18

Jon Mayo

Not am not something that just creates.

00;39;26;18 – 00;39;34;26

Trent Urban

Chaos. So making sure where we’re going next, which isn’t something on everybody’s radar, it’s it needs to be on mine.

00;39;35;07 – 00;39;55;25

Jon Mayo

Yeah, correct. All right. We’re at a fork in the road. So real quick before we lose it, because I think it’s we’re not too far past it. You mentioned the intentional persistence, pretty short from that January to April. So that was essentially to allow the legal stuff to play out so that you weren’t paying on changes that weren’t unfair to pay towards.

00;39;55;25 – 00;40;02;09

Jon Mayo

Right. So it was like a clean anything you made at that point was no longer going into the equation, is that correct? Yes. And that’s why you waited?

00;40;02;09 – 00;40;20;01

Trent Urban

Yes. And my brother still owned half of it. So if I did any database marketing, for example, or, you know, if I contacted any customers on the electrical database with an H back offer, then it could be said that I’m taking half of that. You know, I’m taking that database which is half owned by him, and I’m exploiting it.

00;40;20;12 – 00;40;27;29

Trent Urban

So I didn’t have any right to do that at that time. So it was a yeah, it was a pause period where it caused a lot of just float in and wait.

00;40;28;05 – 00;40;29;12

Jon Mayo

Just do your best to maintain.

00;40;29;13 – 00;40;30;05

Trent Urban

Yeah. Okay.

00;40;30;18 – 00;40;41;19

Jon Mayo

And then the second thing excuse me that we kind of strolled past, we now have to spend a lot of time. I’m just curious, you mentioned the dream manager, which is an interesting book. I forgot the guy you mentioned who wrote it.

00;40;42;09 – 00;40;43;02

Trent Urban

Matthew Kelley.

00;40;43;02 – 00;41;04;17

Jon Mayo

Yeah. Matthew Kelley And the premises around culture, right? Developing a culture that creates high retention. People want to be a part of their bettering themselves. They’re moving upward with their lives. You know, they win, the company wins, everyone wins. There’s a community that’s built out of it. So it creates this like three win scenario. And in that, just for those who’ve not read it, it is an interesting read.

00;41;06;00 – 00;41;10;28

Jon Mayo

What attracted you about it the most or why was it attractive to you at that time?

00;41;10;28 – 00;41;31;02

Trent Urban

Because we were essentially opposite of that book. Okay. And so I had this grand idea that in order to get us better, then that’s a pretty good roadmap of what it should look like. What I didn’t have was the steps to get us there, and that’s what took me many years to start putting together way longer than I would have liked.

00;41;31;02 – 00;41;44;25

Trent Urban

I feel like I wasted three years. So that was figuring all that out, putting it together kind of big picture. You try to move a lot of people in the same direction and it’s not as easy as it may sound.

00;41;45;02 – 00;41;51;25

Jon Mayo

No, not through the whole Overton Window of change comes in and all sorts of patience. Inspiring ventures.

00;41;51;27 – 00;42;01;12

Trent Urban

Yeah, and sometimes just letting them have their time to process it, but then not letting it just sit idle and die a slow death. There’s a difference. And it’s a very hard difference to find.

00;42;01;17 – 00;42;20;08

Jon Mayo

Yes, it is. There’s a fine line. You’re dancing the tightrope the entire way along. So the core thing then, if I heard you correctly, was you were attracted by a healthy like a healthy joy, life inspiring culture. Yeah. And you felt that that was not the case, right? And you wanted to build that.

00;42;20;21 – 00;42;21;18

Trent Urban

Yeah, exactly.

00;42;22;05 – 00;42;31;28

Jon Mayo

And then that kind of brings us up to here. So now. Well, in the last year, 18 months, two years total, you’re completely you don’t know any funds to family.

00;42;33;21 – 00;42;34;21

Trent Urban

What time did you state.

00;42;35;02 – 00;42;50;05

Jon Mayo

I said last year. Yes but I think we’re jumping a little bit ahead. So you saw the book. You said you wasted three years. When did you start winning on the culture front? And then we’ll get to the more recent time.

00;42;50;05 – 00;43;14;20

Trent Urban

I would say I see all these years are blurred together now. It’s like the last year of COVID. It feels like, yeah, 2019 started coming around 2020. It just put it on an even better ground, as weird as that sounds, because what happened is we were going the right direction and had been for a while, but it didn’t have any big impetus to push it further.

00;43;14;20 – 00;43;34;22

Trent Urban

And I think I didn’t want to step in and be like, All right, guys, this Monday, it’s different than last Monday and that kind of stuff. It’s I don’t know, maybe I should have put more shock factor in there. What happened, though, is the the overall of society changed. And so we had to stick together. And I also saw a very high likelihood that everything could fall apart.

00;43;34;22 – 00;43;56;08

Trent Urban

And I was like, I’m going to fight for this. I’m not letting it. And so you’ve got the news on every day trying their best to scare people. They would say reporting, I would say scary and there’s facts in there, but they’re not all facts. Some of it’s speculation and just overblown. I’ve seen it. I’ve witnessed it. I’ve gone to a town where there was an earthquake and they acted like the whole place was on fire.

00;43;56;08 – 00;44;17;25

Trent Urban

I go in there and there’s people in the Carls Jr Drive, sir. I go into Walmart business as usual. So that’s just that’s their job. Get good views. So while that’s happening, I’m listening to the real pieces or what I disseminate is the real and I report back to the team with, Hey, here’s where, here’s how we’re doing, Here’s call volume wise what we’re up to.

00;44;17;25 – 00;44;36;04

Trent Urban

Here’s how many people are relying on us and we’re relying on each other. And we started doing a lot of really cool things just to keep all of our progress together and not let it be squandered. By that. You’re down to the level where we had people playing video games online together more than they ever had, or maybe they never had.

00;44;36;16 – 00;44;55;02

Trent Urban

We had virtual happy hours together and they were a lot of fun. They weren’t just like this. Oh crap, I got to get on with my coworkers. They were a lot of fun. We had a lot of open. What would that be? Open expressions of how much they love the company and all that stuff. And so that helped me also.

00;44;55;02 – 00;45;12;20

Trent Urban

I mean, it helped re-energize me like, all right, we are all relying on each other and we all do like each other. And there’s a reason we chose to work together for all these years, and some of which were maybe lesser, even the newer ones. And so then we just kept growing that and pushing it even more. And so in a lot of ways, COVID helped.

00;45;12;20 – 00;45;21;02

Trent Urban

We were already on the right path, but COVID definitely drove it after that. And then the goal since then has been to maintain it and to keep it going.

00;45;21;14 – 00;45;22;13

Jon Mayo

It being the culture.

00;45;22;19 – 00;45;39;17

Trent Urban

It being the culture. Yep. And I’ve observed lately one of those things. So we’ve already got it boiled in. So it takes away less work than it did. But I’ve already observed lately we haven’t been doing as many things together. Some of that goes with seasons, you know, it’s been colder. You can’t go to the lake, you can’t go do all these things that we otherwise would do.

00;45;39;29 – 00;45;57;12

Trent Urban

But there are things we can do. And so that’s one of those big weights on me, like, what are we doing and are we doing enough? And is the management team fully is open on this? Because if there’s a little bit of sleepiness in there, we could let this slip and and it’s going to be hard to get it back at that point.

00;45;57;12 – 00;46;10;17

Trent Urban

Then it’s a lie. We care. But we didn’t care until it was taken from us. And now we care again. That, to me feels like a lie. And so seeing cognizant of that, keeping it going, that’s one of those big things.

00;46;10;27 – 00;46;15;07

Jon Mayo

One, shifting cultures hard because what the heck’s culture, cultures, Everything.

00;46;15;07 – 00;46;16;00

Trent Urban

Yeah, it’s.

00;46;16;00 – 00;46;16;22

Jon Mayo

It’s everything.

00;46;16;22 – 00;46;22;06

Trent Urban

It’s a personality. Yeah. A business personality. That’s to me, culture is kind of a played out word even.

00;46;22;06 – 00;46;27;09

Jon Mayo

It is. Yeah. So let’s take personality. What’s personality. It’s all of the attributes together. Yeah.

00;46;27;11 – 00;46;40;03

Trent Urban

So it’s what are the goofy things you say. What are the things you do in a day? What is it that we just adore when we’re talking about somebody, you know, at their funeral? What would we say that I just like, Man, this was awesome when this happened. And they did it.

00;46;40;15 – 00;47;00;02

Jon Mayo

Yeah. And one of the reasons to highlight the broadness, the breadth of what this culture personality thing is, is like you said, it’s it’s an incredibly difficult thing to steer. It’s not something that can happen overnight. The decisions you make today will affect six months from now, right and onward. And so it’s one of those things you have to be incredibly intentional on this.

00;47;00;03 – 00;47;01;08

Jon Mayo

So going back, you.

00;47;01;26 – 00;47;02;02

Trent Urban

And.

00;47;02;21 – 00;47;04;28

Jon Mayo

I feel like we’re close but haven’t quite uncovered.

00;47;05;17 – 00;47;05;26

Trent Urban

Sure.

00;47;05;26 – 00;47;18;19

Jon Mayo

I think a nugget that’s sitting in there that we can pull out of here. But why did you care about wanting to create this personality, this culture that made you happy? If the business was providing more.

00;47;19;00 – 00;47;20;18

Trent Urban

For a selfish reason, why did I care?

00;47;21;09 – 00;47;37;14

Jon Mayo

Just what made you care to change, selfish or not? Right? Because up until that point you wanted to provide X, Y, and Z and you didn’t want to be bored. Was it just the boredom piece? Or like, what made you want to start to say, I want to build a vibrant personality that’s a happy place to work, that’s good culture.

00;47;37;25 – 00;47;39;16

Jon Mayo

Like, when did you know that you’re imagining.

00;47;39;16 – 00;48;00;27

Trent Urban

The world sustainable? That’s one reason I care for a selfish reason. I despise drama. If somebody is in somewhere crying, throwing a tantrum, doing any of that, I’m like, okay, how quickly can we get you out of here? Not to say people don’t have hardships, but we need to go address those in the right functional manner. Not throwing a tantrum.

00;48;00;27 – 00;48;23;13

Trent Urban

So if you have a culture or a personality or a shared group personality that is one that enjoys life. It’s not fake, but it enjoys it and it goes through adversity without freaking out and burning everything down, then you’ve got something that’s that’s healthy. Anything short of that, you’ve got what neighbors out on the streets fighting in the street.

00;48;23;27 – 00;48;42;19

Trent Urban

That that’s what I’m talking about, where I’m like, No, I won’t have the business version of that. In my business. If you want to go fight in the streets all the time and stuff, I’m probably moving neighborhoods. Yeah. Or we’re going to ask you to move. Yeah, You know, nobody likes that. And we’ve all seen it. It’s the person that at midnight they’re squealing their tires down the road and burning out.

00;48;42;19 – 00;49;12;22

Trent Urban

And it’s like, Well, good thing a kid ain’t out here, but they’re so selfish with their own needs and their own temper tantrum. They don’t care about any of that. So that’s the selfish reason, but it needs to be sustainable. I’ve seen a lot of companies in our industry that they’re a flash in the pan. You see them grow, you hear of the success stories and then a year or two later, it’s like now or even six months later, no where they go, Oh, I don’t think they closed down or they got bought out or they did whatever, and they’ve burned all all the way, the good stuff.

00;49;13;07 – 00;49;43;12

Trent Urban

And I believe a lot of that comes from the clientele that we’re hiring. So to sum that up, we’re dealing with tradesmen who may or may not have had the best upbringing, not because they chose it, but because maybe their dad wasn’t even there, or maybe their family made bad choices and all of that. And unfortunately the trade has been diminished so much in society that it doesn’t always draw in the people that didn’t have that dynamic.

00;49;44;08 – 00;49;58;27

Trent Urban

And so if we’re getting people that have had that dynamic, how do we break them of that vicious cycle? And that’s one of the things that I like the most. So in order to help them with that, which I truly do want to help and we’ve done a lot of it, you have to first be honest and say, Well, what’s going on here?

00;49;58;27 – 00;50;19;04

Trent Urban

Well, it’s that they had this they were they never had any money in their family. Their dad wasn’t there. Their mom did her best or maybe the mom was a drug addict. Maybe they were a drug addict. There’s a lot of that in the trades. And I think that’s why the trades has been looked down on. And so we’re not trying to continue that cycle within the company because if you do, that has no stability.

00;50;19;22 – 00;50;47;05

Trent Urban

We’re we’re picking people that can move their lives forward and picking people that have already shown some elements of moving their lives forward and picking people that have been highly successful, all of the above. But they’ve got to have those core values, those pieces that they want, progress. And so those that don’t want progress and they will never admit it, but perhaps, you know, they just didn’t want to move past those horrible decisions that kept them, you know, held down.

00;50;47;21 – 00;51;12;10

Trent Urban

Those aren’t the people we’re going to hire and those are the people that in another company they’re going to cause that that fall apart, that drift self-defeating. Yep. Drama and self-defeating. There’s a lot of self defeat out there. I’ve witnessed it. Every one of us has it at some level. I’m so I’m not being judgey about it. I’m saying the element that causes them to not even be able to move their life into any realm of success.

00;51;12;10 – 00;51;39;26

Trent Urban

Those are the ones that’s like this just in good work. So culture helps keep that away. Yeah, it does. So maybe that’s a selfish reason. But also our mission statement is enriching lives. One home at a time. You guys just talked me into adding a little bit more to that, but if you’re enriching lives, then we didn’t say whose life.

00;51;39;26 – 00;51;50;16

Trent Urban

We said. We somewhat said everybody’s life. And so if we’re going to enrich their life, they got to be willing and able to let us enrich it and they got to contribute to that. And so that’s something that’s pretty cool.

00;51;50;16 – 00;52;10;12

Jon Mayo

And I think what ties into what you just shared about the trade specifically and the in the change with enriching lives through trust in the trades. Yeah, it it brings together think what started it all right or what helped to start it all to say well like you know if you’re in a home you may have difficulty with trust because of all the things you just described on tradesmen, women.

00;52;10;12 – 00;52;26;04

Jon Mayo

And one of the antidotes to that is by removing the drama and by pursuing excellence in those crafts. And by doing that, it creates something for our team and it creates something for those we serve. And that holistic thing enriches lives.

00;52;26;13 – 00;52;26;21

Trent Urban

Right?

00;52;26;26 – 00;52;32;05

Jon Mayo

So it’s kind of fun bringing together the concepts that have always been there. It’s not new.

00;52;32;26 – 00;53;00;17

Trent Urban

And yeah, and to unpack this a bit more, we never know what we have until we lose it or until we get a glimpse of it not being there. And so I’ve had that from the realm of were we going to make it financially? There’s probably at least two times where I was thinking, we’re maybe 30 days away from bankruptcy.

00;53;00;17 – 00;53;01;18

Jon Mayo

And I love the laugh.

00;53;02;18 – 00;53;21;06

Trent Urban

Yeah, I mean, think about that. In our personal life, you’re like, Oh crap, yeah, I’m about to go bankrupt. And in this case, I’m about to go bankrupt. And there’s many dozens people. You know, at the time it was probably 50 people like, So what are they going to do? Yeah. And so I had to be, you know, able to get past that and not let it happen.

00;53;21;06 – 00;53;42;16

Trent Urban

And so I’ve done that. But that causes you to really want to fight for it and realize, hey, this is something worth keeping. And then I also in this industry right now, there is a lot of money being thrown around buying up companies. Private equity is who’s doing it. So I get contacted still at least three times a week from private equity.

00;53;42;16 – 00;54;02;08

Trent Urban

I don’t even respond or anything anymore. Just it’s now at this point it’s entertaining. But in the beginning I did just to see what the answers were. I wanted to get a taste of what was going on in the industry for, you know, curiosity. I got pretty far down the road with one group and, had that option of doing, and then I ended up not doing it.

00;54;02;08 – 00;54;22;29

Trent Urban

I backed off and it came from, What am I going to do to actually produce, to, you know, have a purpose after this? And so I can’t have all my purpose be tied up in the business. But if I can have a purpose and help contribute and do something worthwhile instead of sitting around watching Jerry Springer, then maybe I should continue doing that.

00;54;23;10 – 00;54;38;23

Trent Urban

And then if you take it and you fact check it again, you say, okay, if these companies growing and it’s profitable, is it performing better than what I’ll be able to do after I have all this cash in the bank? Because believe it or not, that can be a burden to. So what are you going to do with that cash to make sure it works for you?

00;54;39;01 – 00;55;04;23

Trent Urban

If you do nothing, then it’s getting eroded away by inflation. Inflation automatically strips away from you. So where am I going to invest it? That’s not as risky or, you know, anything. And with a good return stock market, sure. But then we always have these cycles. And are you going to time the cycles? This one, I can directly I can have a, you know, a part in making sure that we hedge off any of our external risks, but not even that.

00;55;04;25 – 00;55;25;18

Trent Urban

That was just one of the things after the fact. It was when you’re finally asked to run, you realize you have something worthwhile and you don’t want to just give it away freely and you say, No, this is a pretty cool thing and let’s honor it in particular me, I need to honor it. And so it’s a great business, great people.

00;55;26;16 – 00;55;45;07

Trent Urban

There’s there’s no trap. I’m not stuck. If I wanted out, I could get out. And that’s a big thing is when you know that you have that freedom, then do you really want the freedom? And I don’t want the freedom. I want the freedom, but not that freedom. Well, so now I’m just creating the freedom I need. I can contribute.

00;55;45;07 – 00;55;58;24

Trent Urban

I can come in and help out. I can do all these things. I can watch people reinvent their lives and have that all as something to help do, because otherwise all those people, I don’t know who they’d be working with.

00;56;00;03 – 00;56;23;22

Jon Mayo

So before we continue and come back to the this transitionary period, right, because you’re in another one, you mentioned that one of the things that made you want to focus on cultivating the personality of Warren it to be something that was sustainable and enjoyable and as free of trauma as is humanly possible and all those things. Right? The first word he said and you said it multiple times, not sustainable.

00;56;24;25 – 00;56;29;07

Jon Mayo

What drove that?

00;56;29;07 – 00;56;48;06

Trent Urban

I would say mostly that I saw it not as sustainable before. So it was a challenge of can you make one of these sustainable and can you do it the right way? And I mean, in these companies I know you know, from our peer group, I know hundreds of companies around the country and some of them have drama and some of them don’t.

00;56;48;20 – 00;57;07;27

Trent Urban

There’s some of them that every single year they grow and they’re functional and they’re healthy. And then you check in with the owner and he’s like, Oh, yeah, well, we had, you know, eight people leave because the other company gave him an offer. We couldn’t we couldn’t compete against and, and in the same breath he’ll say, But you know what?

00;57;07;27 – 00;57;25;22

Trent Urban

It’s okay, because we have so many other great people that not a big deal. We didn’t even skip a beat. Plus, half of those eight are going to want to come back. So you have the decision of do you really want them back? But what I’m saying is those those eight that left, he’s seeing it as they’re going out and they’re doing a decision that’s best for their family.

00;57;26;07 – 00;57;44;26

Trent Urban

I don’t harbor any ill will. It’s okay. And it didn’t leave us a huge conflict anyway, because the rest of us still don’t doubt what we’ve got because we have something that’s good. And so I think I went a little long winded on that one. But some companies what I’m saying is some companies just continuously move their lives forward.

00;57;44;26 – 00;58;04;21

Trent Urban

Some of them did a short burst of it and then fell apart. And that fall apart is something you see a lot of. And so I was like, you know, I put in an awful lot of work to this. I don’t want to have everything fall apart. I will I personally will put in more hours, more detail, more of everything, blood, sweat and tears into something.

00;58;04;21 – 00;58;27;26

Trent Urban

If I know it’s sustainable, if it’s something where it’s just a once off, I don’t care that much about it. So for perspective, we sell a big job. Yeah, it’s exciting. I don’t focus on it too much because it’s a once off. It’s kind of an expectation not to diminish it, but it’s an expectation. But if we build something that then carries us for years and creates so many successes that right there I’m excited by.

00;58;29;02 – 00;58;48;29

Jon Mayo

And that’s fair. And you’ve mentioned quite a few times not wanting to be a flash in the pan, so I can see that. I was curious if there was a you said what I can feel this is not sustainable so I can make it. I was wondering if there is a point also where the chaos subsided enough that you could begin to see down the road more because because there’s some level of.

00;58;48;29 – 00;58;51;26

Trent Urban

Foresight is a distraction. Yeah, chaos is here.

00;58;52;07 – 00;59;08;24

Jon Mayo

Because what you’re talking at the beginning was like necessity. I had a kid I had to provide, right? And then at this point there’s some sort of transition. I just wanted to see if it was possible to, to get that. Yeah. To nail down. Where did that transition happen or was it over the course of those those years that the desire welled up and you pursued it?

00;59;09;09 – 00;59;28;11

Trent Urban

I’d say it’s over the course of the years of I had a pain period that I had to get through where these goals that I wanted to do through the dream manager idea, all these things I was just thinking, Well, I want it, and they all seem to want it. So we’re just going to get there because we all want it.

00;59;28;27 – 00;59;44;05

Trent Urban

And then it wasn’t quite that way. And so it took a lot longer. There were a lot of bumpy roads. There’s this chart they show Here’s your business goals, and it pretty much is an uphill slope. And then here’s reality and it’s like a roller coaster and then it does whirly loop and then all these things are like, What the hell?

00;59;44;09 – 00;59;56;03

Trent Urban

Yeah, that part wore me out for a while and drove my desire sustainability, probably. Mostly I was going to say additionally, but actually I think that was probably most of it.

00;59;58;03 – 01;00;15;16

Trent Urban

I feel like I mentioned three years wasted a feel like I just sat there in kind of limbo. I was working on stuff, but I wasn’t mentally in it for about three years. I was just like, Whatever, it’ll happen if it happens and if it doesn’t, I’m not sure what to do about it anymore because there’s so many people fighting against it or just not getting in line.

01;00;15;16 – 01;00;39;02

Trent Urban

And I hated meetings because they felt dysfunctional. There’s so many things that had to get put together that was like, This is above me, how do I get this to happen? And so I made more intention on this and making it sustainable. And part of that period was my anger towards the company that wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do.

01;00;39;03 – 01;00;59;29

Trent Urban

It kept putting me through through hell and back. It wasn’t giving me the rewards, I mean the rewards to me or a sub subset you just put in the work and then the rewards should just be there. That’s not why I’m doing it. And so to not have those rewards then over that three year period is like, you know what?

01;01;00;13 – 01;01;17;02

Trent Urban

I don’t know. This company’s taken so damn much from me. I’m not sure I should give it anymore. It took my brotherhood, it took my a lot of time. I’ve put in a lot of time to this where I’m like, Well, am I given that equal amount of time to my family, my wife in particular, those kind of things.

01;01;17;02 – 01;01;38;18

Trent Urban

Now two of my three are out of the house, so kind of time’s up on that. Now I get to see them, but not, you know, have them there every night. So the company was being built during all those years, those definitive years with them. So I hope I didn’t screw it up. And so that’s where I had the question, Am I really willing to give this company that much more?

01;01;38;18 – 01;01;47;14

Trent Urban

And I decided I am, but only for the things that I don’t have to keep rebooting and not even on me, but primarily.

01;01;49;07 – 01;02;06;18

Jon Mayo

On an incredibly unfair comparison scale because they don’t compare in magnitude At the beginning, before, I think before we hit record, you brought up a quote because you were talking about killing things that don’t make sense, built in reference to like the great there. And you asked me if I enjoyed it and it’s been buzzing around the back of my head.

01;02;07;09 – 01;02;18;25

Jon Mayo

I almost killed this thing three times and it’s on the chopping block again. But what keeps coming back is I cut off the things that aren’t sustainable in life, inspiring to only do the things that are. Yeah, and we’ll see what happens here.

01;02;19;12 – 01;02;20;28

Trent Urban

But it’s starting to get this clarified.

01;02;21;10 – 01;02;42;27

Jon Mayo

It is what they are. Yeah, it’s it’s becoming much more clear. And you know, one of the things I think is beautiful in your story that I’m fighting for and praying for and working towards is you’ve had a unified pursuit, you know, you’ve had the wire net and that empire to build and invest yourself in and then care for your family.

01;02;42;27 – 01;02;45;18

Jon Mayo

And that’s gorgeous. And I envy.

01;02;45;18 – 01;02;45;27

Trent Urban

That.

01;02;46;12 – 01;03;05;07

Jon Mayo

Frankly, because I have a feeling of conviction to do certain things. And right now they’re not fully unified or I’m not or I’m I’m starting to feel like they’re more unified than I’ve ever realized, but it’s not there yet. So I feel a little bit passed out and I’m evaluating what it could offer to endure in. That’s a bit of an aside, but I think.

01;03;05;07 – 01;03;06;26

Trent Urban

You know, I think it’s powerful, though.

01;03;08;03 – 01;03;19;00

Jon Mayo

The hope of the value added is that the wrestling that you did there in the wrestling that I’m doing now, I think are common but never talked about because they’re so incredibly uncomfortable.

01;03;19;05 – 01;03;20;18

Trent Urban

Yeah, I think so. I think you’re right.

01;03;21;04 – 01;03;22;09

Jon Mayo

And that’s the point of this.

01;03;22;14 – 01;03;46;26

Trent Urban

You know, like down to a simple element if you wanted to, which most parents would want to at some level, could you have been a coach on their baseball, soccer, whatever team? And if the answer is you couldn’t, then why is it and maybe it’s because the company you’re at doesn’t give you any freedoms to do that stuff, Or maybe the company you own doesn’t give you the freedoms to do that stuff.

01;03;46;26 – 01;04;06;18

Trent Urban

So is it realistic to be able to expect to do that kind of thing? I don’t know. But it’s a question of where. What are you getting for freedoms of time? What are you getting for value, contribution to your kids, time with your kids? I mean, being the coach of their team to, Me, my dad did that for a little while and I was like, Oh, this is so cool.

01;04;06;18 – 01;04;21;06

Trent Urban

My dad’s one of the coaches here, and so I get to see him at every practice and all that kind of stuff. And I have friends who’ve done that. I never felt like I could. I went from working in the field hundreds of miles away on construction sites because the ones we used to do were not in everybody’s backyard.

01;04;21;06 – 01;04;40;22

Trent Urban

So you have to travel to them to then getting this company almost off of the ground. It was already off the ground, but keeping it off the ground, which sometimes harder and being doing something like that was never even really an option. While I would watch friends and stuff, they they’d be able to do things like that. And they were employees at a place it’s.

01;04;40;22 – 01;05;01;17

Jon Mayo

Hard to because I imagine you I’ll see if this is similar for you, but I don’t feel the same freedom to enjoy the pleasantries of life in the in the moment all the time. Right? There’s a certain level of drive and conviction to like I have to discipline those things into existence.

01;05;01;20 – 01;05;22;04

Trent Urban

I do too. Yeah, maybe part of it’s living in the future. Maybe part of it’s You can’t stay still. My wife says that when we were out in California a couple whatever, weeks ago, helping with their house, my in-laws felt guilty about all the things I just kept picking on and fixing that I’d observe. And Amy’s, he’s like, No, he.

01;05;22;04 – 01;05;24;24

Trent Urban

He doesn’t want to sit here anyway. He’s happier doing that.

01;05;24;24 – 01;05;28;26

Jon Mayo

Correct. And that balance is very difficult.

01;05;28;26 – 01;05;29;25

Trent Urban

Yeah. You know.

01;05;30;05 – 01;05;49;10

Jon Mayo

I started with the family Jujitsu a few months ago, and I’ve not I’ve not been too interested in competing, but even just this conversation’s pushing me towards having us compete because the boys are doing it, I’m doing it. And if they compete, that gives us a family focused outing on the weekends to go and do. Yeah, which would be fun.

01;05;49;10 – 01;05;56;03

Jon Mayo

And selfishly, then they’re not doing ten sports and we’re trucking them all over this place. We’re all doing the same thing on.

01;05;56;04 – 01;05;57;14

Trent Urban

Here, which is true. That’s true.

01;05;57;22 – 01;06;09;07

Jon Mayo

But it’s a good lesson. Even just thinking about, Yeah, how could I apply that to myself? Even now it’s like, well, there’s an opportunity. Let’s plug it right. I’m just taking things active, actively in applying them.

01;06;09;10 – 01;06;28;17

Trent Urban

I think it’s like anything, if you’re aware of it, then either tortures you because you’re aware of it and you didn’t fix it, or hopefully you’re aware of it and you do some version of it somehow For me, one of them that I’m going to do now because my kids don’t need me as much, so I’m going to go get my pilot’s license sign, something I’ve always wanted to do, all.

01;06;28;22 – 01;06;30;25

Jon Mayo

I’ve always want to go skydiving. So jump in a plane with.

01;06;30;25 – 01;06;35;27

Trent Urban

You just in case. I used to want to do that. Now I find myself like, Oh, man, something went wrong.

01;06;36;11 – 01;07;00;16

Jon Mayo

To be fair, I really don’t want to have a lot of friends who’ve jumped a lot who I think are going to force me to. Yeah, so we’ll see on that. But give me a second. That was fun. So that okay, that’s where the sustainability came in. That’s right. And we were talking about that and that fed into this conversation of freedom, which actually beautifully brings us to kind of the current trends, transitionary period and why not?

01;07;00;27 – 01;07;23;12

Jon Mayo

So right now I’m going to give a stab at saying what I think it is and that you can rip it apart, which we fund. But right now we have this fairly mature organization that’s looking at growth growing quickly. We just came out of a season of I’m not going to call it the pinnacle, but a definite high point in the journey to create that culture personality that’s more desired.

01;07;23;20 – 01;07;46;22

Jon Mayo

Yeah, aided even by the common enemy of fear and COVID and everything that happened there. And now we have that strength and we have a lot of growth that we can do. There’s a lot of brightness on the horizon. You’re beginning to be able to detox the second most toxic period, right? The first I’m saying that because I see the first being when you separate with your brother, there’s this three years of pain.

01;07;47;00 – 01;08;00;06

Jon Mayo

Yeah. Kind of working through that. And then now you’re realizing, okay, I’m enjoying some of the freedoms and detoxing the stress of carrying not only the company and everyone I’m responsible for, but my parents, my brother, whom if I screw this up, I’ve hurt everyone.

01;08;00;10 – 01;08;00;17

Trent Urban

Yeah.

01;08;00;29 – 01;08;15;23

Jon Mayo

That freedoms there. You’ve built something that’s in Congratulations, by the way. To be able to not be needed every day is something a lot of people don’t allow to happen. But it’s. It’s something to be congratulated on. Celebrate.

01;08;16;00 – 01;08;36;08

Trent Urban

I think it’s necessary to, though. Oh, absolutely. Otherwise, the team knows that there’s somebody that’s always going to get in their way. And so if I’m not in their way and if they go off and they do things and it’s more of a ask for forgiveness, not permission, by all means do it. And if you’re using your brain doing so, I’d be like, Well, why did you do this?

01;08;36;08 – 01;08;46;05

Trent Urban

And they’d say this and I’d say, okay, well, yeah, I mean, I might have done it differently, but I appreciate it happening. It’s better than it not happening. There’s nothing happening. It’s better than that.

01;08;46;19 – 01;08;48;07

Jon Mayo

And and we’re even active and it.

01;08;48;07 – 01;08;50;14

Trent Urban

Allows you to do that. Yeah, that we are.

01;08;50;24 – 01;09;22;04

Jon Mayo

Right. And we’ll get to define what that looks like and how much it hurts and doesn’t. Yeah, but so here you are and we’ve done so well. I think that was the first time we really stepped on each other. So. Ouch. But here we are. And you’re in this period where and the reason I said all that, you know, fluffy stuff for the last few minutes and it’s genuine is because now you’re in the position where you have the ability to exercise the freedoms while also safeguarding and growing and having fun growing the organization, the team.

01;09;22;09 – 01;09;29;03

Jon Mayo

Yeah, and that’s a pretty cool balance to learn to strike out. And I’d say we’re in that learning phase if we are.

01;09;29;29 – 01;09;49;28

Trent Urban

One of the things that’s currently concerning me stressed me out or whatever is we set such a lofty goal for this year, and then I had a friend challenging it when I was just with him last week and it got me thinking that, you know, we got this goal and we’ve been going so well with them that that doesn’t mean we’re going to continue to and we need to safeguard that.

01;09;50;12 – 01;10;09;16

Trent Urban

And so really though, for me it’s less about what I can do to influence it and it’s more about what can I do to get the team to be aware of and secondary also or moreso influence it. Otherwise it’s going to suck. When you get further down the road, you’re like, Well, we’re falling off kilter on our budget and it’s going to feel defeating.

01;10;09;16 – 01;10;21;22

Trent Urban

So that’s one of those things that I don’t have as much control over, but it needs to happen and it will be a massive win if it does and when it does. So yeah, yeah.

01;10;21;29 – 01;10;49;00

Jon Mayo

And on that right, everything. I think I’ve seen a lot of positive changes even in the incredibly short time I’ve here. Changes is probably not the right word but deliberate readjustments in the pursuit of what is desired for tomorrow, right in future. Like for example, even changing the goal to the mission statement is specifically bring back into the central focus enriching lives.

01;10;49;00 – 01;11;12;04

Jon Mayo

As always here. But how that always started was from me. You know, like even said, you live kind of the cultural warfare on how people perceive the trades versus how they could be, right? Which is another piece of society. Right. Bring that back into like bringing that front and center by doing that. Like it’s pretty you can’t do that and then not perform.

01;11;12;13 – 01;11;13;07

Jon Mayo

Right. Right.

01;11;13;07 – 01;11;41;02

Trent Urban

So and you can’t have one year of success and then the rest you kind of fall off or whatever. That’s not sustainability. Yeah. At the same time, you can’t go gangbusters every year without a breather. So it’s got to be an adjustment based on what the capability, the current focus of the team is. And I feel like this year the focus was still as exuded by all the managers, that same focus we had last year, which is go gangbusters because of all the back end work we put in.

01;11;41;13 – 01;11;59;23

Trent Urban

And now we’ve, you know, as you know, you’re brought on, you know, with a big emphasis of 8020 rule. We got the 80% knocked out to 20% gaps. You’re in there, you’re identifying, working on and helping close them out. But we’ve got so much as a base is already built out that we can scale off of it. And so that’s the exciting part and that’s the part I want to see everybody succeed with.

01;12;00;25 – 01;12;22;11

Jon Mayo

And that’s perfect. And that really is where we are as we’re walking through these transitions of your new freedoms, investing in growing out, the leadership team and the supporting functions for this, for this team. We’re not right for everything that we are this family. And there’s growth pains with that. There’s exciting pains at that. There’s the going going gangbusters still.

01;12;22;15 – 01;12;40;27

Jon Mayo

There’s all this stuff. There’s also the doubling down of trust in the trades mattering of enriching lives mattering, of not letting that go for the excitement of the shiny new goals, which I think is important and it’s true to the sustainability piece. And they’re not letting go of the things have been earned in spite of having earned them.

01;12;41;02 – 01;13;08;21

Jon Mayo

Right. So with all of that being the case, if anyone in the organization was to listen to this in, was curious about like, okay, that was cool to understand your brain and heart on how we got here, but what should, how will it affect me and kind of what does the future look like for us holistically, aside from just, you know, growth in, aside from solving problems, what is your hope in this as you continue to build it sustainably?

01;13;10;20 – 01;13;36;15

Trent Urban

That’s what I’ve had to question. You know, be big, hairy, audacious goal. What does our be had? For me, it doesn’t resonate as, hey, we need to grow and we need to be this big, massive company that, you know, unless there’s a purpose in that, then why are you doing it? Just growing for the sake of growing. I wouldn’t say it’s our beachhead, perhaps, but along that route, doing things that are better than today.

01;13;37;01 – 01;14;01;28

Trent Urban

The reason doing that would be that we can influence impact positively more families and you know, in those families be internal and external. So customers and you know, our whole team. The other thing is it’s kind of cool to see a brand that just exudes good things and that everybody knows. And so building that and doing that continually, that’s pretty cool.

01;14;01;28 – 01;14;20;27

Trent Urban

Just from a visual standpoint or a thinking of men, that’s a that’s a new company. I’m sure you have various ones that pop in your mind that kind of feel that way. And then other ones are like, No, I don’t want anything to do with that. So there’s that. And then other was, I mean, down to the little levels.

01;14;20;27 – 01;14;42;22

Trent Urban

I want to get properties such as mountain town properties and beach properties. And when people do cool stuff, just because it’s exciting to be able to do this for them, we say, Hey, go haul your butt down to the beach for, you know, half a week or whatever. Stay in that place. So we could do that even by just throwing money at it and just saying, Hey, go get an Airbnb and we’ll pay for it.

01;14;43;01 – 01;14;59;20

Trent Urban

But I think it’ll be fun to have a home away from home like a family type feel for everybody on the team. So if they feel like they’re part of this family than part of that family or as part of that, there’s a family property out there, we’re going to go send you. But we also have to share the love on that.

01;14;59;27 – 01;15;15;07

Trent Urban

And I can see, though, done right or wrong, however you want to look at it, it might be too, or nobody’s ever in that other than our own team. So I had in mind that yeah, we’ll just Airbnb it when we’re not, you know, filling it, but we may fill it all the time. And I would love nothing more than that that’d be exciting.

01;15;15;20 – 01;15;31;09

Trent Urban

Somebody comes back re-energized from, you know, hard week at work, hard or at work, whatever. And they’re like, Man, I just spent this amazing time on the beach. My family had so much fun. It created so many memories that these kids of mine are going to carry for another 40 years and they’re going to reproduce on their own.

01;15;31;24 – 01;15;47;18

Trent Urban

They’re going to do something similar to that. Maybe it’s not on a beach, maybe it’s not at the same place, but it’s a positive feel, a positive sharing that that family had. I mean, my parents, they used to take us out for a couple of weeks every summer and we’d go to all these places. And our our thing was, you know, do a camper.

01;15;47;18 – 01;16;08;02

Trent Urban

They didn’t I never flew to I was 18, so we never took flights did any of that. But we’d take a camper, go check out various places. And even though some of them were Kentucky, Tennessee, whatever, they weren’t beachfront or any of that. I just had a great time with that. And so for able to do that in the company for some weird reason.

01;16;08;05 – 01;16;14;29

Trent Urban

That’s one of those big things to me, and it’s not even a bag. So I still know what the bag is.

01;16;16;07 – 01;16;31;02

Jon Mayo

I don’t I’m not going to take a stab at the back. But that big, hairy, audacious goal, in case you’re not familiar. Yeah, but the the thing I’m hearing and it’s an interesting shift is like we have all these other metrics and drivers that help to inspire growth.

01;16;31;15 – 01;16;31;20

Trent Urban

Hmm.

01;16;32;05 – 01;16;34;29

Jon Mayo

Yeah. Yeah. If you want to grab something, go for it.

01;16;35;28 – 01;16;36;06

Trent Urban

Okay.

01;16;37;14 – 01;16;59;23

Jon Mayo

Oh, is it right there? Okay, cool. I wasn’t sure if you’re going out to, like, under the mix, but a lot of the things you’re talking about, they’re little, you know, they’re not on the hard, tangible side. But the the term that came to mind is a living legacy. It sounds like you’re trying to build a living legacy in which the effects of what is happening here outlives the moment in which they’re experienced.

01;17;01;01 – 01;17;11;08

Trent Urban

Yes. Okay. I’m glad you defined it, because when you made that statement, I love that the problem was like, okay, how do I quantify that for somebody that’s then going to pick it apart?

01;17;11;22 – 01;17;16;28

Jon Mayo

Yeah So if we that was a12 on it.

01;17;16;28 – 01;17;20;09

Trent Urban

Yes, I would say it is. Can you say that one again.

01;17;20;11 – 01;17;32;19

Jon Mayo

Yeah. So what I heard is you’re working to build a living legacy in which the moments that are experienced outlive the time that they’re experienced in something to that good thing. This is recorded so we can hear it a set the first time.

01;17;32;22 – 01;17;36;03

Trent Urban

Yep.

01;17;36;03 – 01;17;57;27

Jon Mayo

But that affects both. It works on a couple of levels, right? Because of the enriching lives for both our team and our like our community. It works there. It works by taking on the cultural battle of restoring honor to being a trades man or woman, Right? That’s what trust in the trades mean. It’s something to be proud of and for damn good reason.

01;17;58;11 – 01;18;03;11

Jon Mayo

To to work to that end is legacy as well something that outlives the work we did today?

01;18;03;21 – 01;18;04;12

Trent Urban

Mm hmm.

01;18;04;12 – 01;18;07;05

Jon Mayo

We’re planting trees. You’re wanting to plant trees here?

01;18;08;06 – 01;18;28;12

Trent Urban

Yes, absolutely. And what’s, what’s one of the common things that people feel at a work environment, they don’t want to hang out with their boss. The boss doesn’t want to hang out with them. I have friends that they acknowledge that they’re like, yeah, they don’t really need me there and I’m not sure I want to be there. Well, there’s cases of that, yes, but I can’t do every one of those moments without me there.

01;18;28;12 – 01;18;46;18

Trent Urban

And so one of the things I look forward to every year is we go to the lake and as many people as want to show up do and usually it’s a lot of them and we all just have fun on the beach, you know, at the lake, we cook, we drink with music, do all these things are out there messing around on inflatable thing, toys, all that kind of stuff.

01;18;47;14 – 01;19;07;29

Trent Urban

And then once, once I know that I’m good with being gone from the beach the rest of the day because that’s exactly what happens. Then I’ll go grab my boat, put it in the water, or it’s in the water. I pull it around and have tubes and stuff up to it. And we last year, for example, I switched out boats, so I was taking them everything from surfing on the boat to skiing to tubing for the kids.

01;19;08;22 – 01;19;35;13

Trent Urban

And it’s that I think the reason I think you helped me identify the reason I liked it so much is it took those legacy moments. I found out in particular, there’s at least two people on the team who their kids had never been on the tube, and they were, I think, 12 or so. So that’s the perfect age to get them on a tube where they’re like, Oh, I just love the craziness of this and it’s so fun and all that.

01;19;35;13 – 01;19;53;04

Trent Urban

Yeah, those are pretty cool things. Yeah. So when you when you retire or you pass away, what is it that you did to help others? And I don’t know, but I think that’s an easier one. At least there’s going to be some girl. She’s like, Hey, yeah. I went to being my dad’s work when I was 12 and that was the first time.

01;19;53;04 – 01;20;11;22

Trent Urban

And because of that, I’ve always loved it or because of that, later in my life I got into water sports and whatever. I remember one of them, for me, my first time skiing was know ski. Cooper and my mom’s work took us all up there. I don’t know if they paid or not, but I was on the bunny hill all day and I thought, this is amazing.

01;20;11;22 – 01;20;28;03

Trent Urban

And then when I looked at the map later, I was like, Wait, there’s more. It’s like ten times bigger than this little bunny hill. This is crazy. So it drew me in and I took on skiing, which then converted to snowboarding so much in my life that now I have season and I don’t know when or if that would have happened, if I wouldn’t have been out there with them.

01;20;29;04 – 01;20;30;22

Jon Mayo

So this definitely struck a chord.

01;20;30;22 – 01;20;34;07

Trent Urban

That yeah, and they mean they don’t even know that. So that’s cool Yeah.

01;20;34;26 – 01;20;46;17

Jon Mayo

And what’s interesting is if that’s accurate, right? This living legacy thing, creating these moments that outlive themselves. I think that’s what I said the first time, creating them to outlive themselves. That sounds better than whatever we said a minute ago.

01;20;46;17 – 01;20;48;09

Trent Urban

Yeah, yeah, that was a good one.

01;20;48;16 – 01;21;05;06

Jon Mayo

So but with that, what’s encouraging about it is ties in why growing matters, right? Because like, why does grow is this is the best quote I’ve heard on this ever it’s growing to grow is like eating to get fat.

01;21;06;00 – 01;21;06;08

Trent Urban

Yeah.

01;21;06;26 – 01;21;25;28

Jon Mayo

So why are we doing it? Well, because we want to create a living legacy that affects lives and enriches them. That creates trust and honor and pride in the trades, and that allows people to experience things that far out lives, those experiences inside of themselves. That’s we’re doing this, you know, because it creates the fuel for freedom to do so.

01;21;26;12 – 01;21;43;27

Trent Urban

Right. Right. And at some point when we get so many people around that I just can’t take them behind my boat or something like that or whatever will define what that looks like at that time. But still, their memories, their moments. For me, I love being able to pull them around and do that and just witness it right there from the captain’s chair.

01;21;44;11 – 01;21;48;29

Trent Urban

But that isn’t the answer. That isn’t the only thing. Mm hmm. Good.

01;21;50;05 – 01;21;52;18

Jon Mayo

Well, I don’t know about you, but I think that this was fun.

01;21;52;24 – 01;21;59;26

Trent Urban

Mm hmm. I enjoyed it. Good. Good things that I got out there and clarified for myself, too.

01;22;00;22 – 01;22;04;19

Jon Mayo

Well, that was the hope. So. Yeah. I’ll kill the recording then.

01;22;04;26 – 01;22;13;01

Trent Urban

Okay.