Episode 21 - Growth, Culture & Hiring with Vitaly Aspidov

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, it is Libby with Fearlessness. What is fearlessness? It's that underlying grit

[00:00:05] that we have as entrepreneurs that help us forge ahead. Even when hope seems distant,

[00:00:11] it's the courage to walk through those fires of hell knowing that we'll come out stronger on the

[00:00:16] other side. Stay tuned and learn how to get the fearlessness. I'm your host, Libby DeLucien,

[00:00:22] and we have a special guest today. Vitaliy, would you like to introduce yourself?

[00:00:27] Yeah, Vitaliy with Simple Lawns and Landscape Design. We're located out here in Vancouver,

[00:00:34] Washington. We work both Vancouver, Washington, Portland, Oregon. We are about a three and a

[00:00:41] half million dollar company focused on getting up to five million this year. So that's our goal

[00:00:49] this year. Wow, that's a pretty big stretch goal for growth. It's increased by two. Is that one

[00:00:57] and a half or two million? That's going to be by pretty much a little bit more than one and a

[00:01:02] half million. A little bit more than one and a half. So I have a great question when it comes

[00:01:08] to like that much growth. What would you say like one of your probably your most powerful

[00:01:15] lesson in growing and scaling with that large of a goal I'm sure you've done in the past

[00:01:22] or what you're currently going through right now because we're what three months into the year?

[00:01:28] What's your most powerful lesson you've learned when you want to grow or scale

[00:01:34] that large? Well, you know, we did have to take a few steps back. We always

[00:01:42] hired for experience, hired for experience, you know, trying to find the guy with the most

[00:01:45] amount of years of experience. And that has bit us in the butt so many times. And so

[00:01:52] I just went towards hiring for culture and it's worked out way better for us.

[00:01:59] You know, it does take a little bit more time, I guess, you know, setting things up and

[00:02:04] stuff like that and training and teaching. But it's the better way to grow the company.

[00:02:10] You know, they're going to be around, you know, you're going to want to work around them.

[00:02:13] They're not going to ruin the culture of the company. So that's something that's been a huge

[00:02:18] life lesson for me is hiring a lot of employees with just experience and then knowing

[00:02:24] they would not fit the culture and then keeping them on for way too long. Yes,

[00:02:31] and we've all been there. So saying that you don't hire necessarily necessarily for

[00:02:38] experience. Yeah. What do you think about like resumes or references?

[00:02:44] It's good. References are really good regardless, but they have to be professional

[00:02:49] references because I get way too many references. They're like, oh, here's my brother, here's my

[00:02:53] sister, here's my aunt. She can say something good about me and those are not good references.

[00:02:59] You have to make sure they're legitimate references. What I noticed works also is

[00:03:05] you ask all these questions and then you tell them like, okay, you know, they give their answers

[00:03:10] and they're like, would your boss say the same things that you just told me? And then you kind

[00:03:14] of listen to what they say. You don't you like, okay, and then they'll kind of start

[00:03:18] to stutter and you know, and then you know everything they were saying is probably a lie.

[00:03:24] Also, what I look for like during the interview process, if they have a problem with

[00:03:28] every single company they work for, they're going to have a problem with you as well,

[00:03:32] no matter what, because if they made problems with that boss and that boss fired him for that

[00:03:36] reason and you know, that boss was cheating on them or cheating their pay whatever and then

[00:03:41] this boss did this to them, they're going to have that same energy and that same negativity

[00:03:47] against you. So we try to make sure, you know, people that are honest is a very big

[00:03:54] thing for me. Also, people that are positive, you know, people that I could see here and

[00:04:01] you know, I could go out to lunch with and know how to have a good time with them. And

[00:04:05] you know, it's been definitely a journey and you know, learning this as I go because I started

[00:04:12] the company pretty young and you know, as we're growing making a lot of mistakes down

[00:04:16] the road and learning from them. So let's talk about that. What do you think is the

[00:04:22] most significant mistake you've made as an entrepreneur? Like which one's the top of mine?

[00:04:28] You're like, oh, I should have done that. Definitely managers, hiring managers that were,

[00:04:35] you know, very qualified for the job and them just ruining the culture of the entire company,

[00:04:42] them coming in stressing me out like crazy. You know, it's like that was probably my

[00:04:49] biggest mistakes is hiring the wrong managers. And I think now we have such a good, you know,

[00:04:56] group right now of people in our office like management level that the guys respect,

[00:05:02] the guys could, you know, they'll jump in front of a bus for them. You know, they'll,

[00:05:08] they actually look out for each other, you know, and that's like, we haven't had that

[00:05:13] for such a long time because we were just hiring for experience, hiring the experience

[00:05:16] managers and being like, okay, you know, they're going to be able to make us profitable.

[00:05:20] And it's like guys with 30 years of experience are making these stupid decisions. And I'm like,

[00:05:26] like, what the heck? You know, you have 30 years of experience. They're like,

[00:05:30] I'm expecting you not to make these bad calls and, you know, these bad decisions. And it's

[00:05:34] like, it wasn't the experience. It was just them in general and them not fitting what we

[00:05:40] were looking for. Well, I think we hold so much weight on experience. And in reality,

[00:05:47] I could have had five years experience at sales, but I could have sucked.

[00:05:52] Like, how do you know that I was good at it or I could lead a team or the caliber of team I led?

[00:05:59] So I think we hold too much weight and experience. And I love that you're hiring for culture.

[00:06:04] I think that's great. I just interviewed a company a couple of weeks ago, it's two or

[00:06:10] three companies, Maids and More, her name was Summer and they're in Houston and Austin,

[00:06:14] and they have 120 technicians. They're approaching 5 million.

[00:06:19] That's awesome.

[00:06:20] And I was so impressed by the fact that every hire, or not every hire, but every management

[00:06:27] level or leadership level was an internal hire. They moved up from a cleaning technician.

[00:06:32] That's awesome. That's our goal. You know, that's our goal for sure. When we were hiring,

[00:06:39] you know, for managers as we're growing, that was the first thing we did is like,

[00:06:42] do we see anyone here that could move up to that level first? And then if not, you know,

[00:06:48] let's start to outsource and figure out who we can bring in.

[00:06:52] And the people that I did bring in are people that I've already known before.

[00:06:57] So it wasn't like I went through, you know, Indeed or something. It was like people that I,

[00:07:03] you know, a friend of a friend and I've known him for, you know, five, six years.

[00:07:07] And I'm like, I know he would be a really good fit here because I've known him for so

[00:07:10] many years. And it's like, that's definitely some of the hires that we did. Like we know he would

[00:07:16] do good here. Let's try to get him over here and then. So do you have friends or family that

[00:07:21] work for you then? I do have some friends and family. Yes. So how do you navigate that

[00:07:27] challenge? So do I. And that's a huge topic. Yeah, yeah. It is challenging because, you know,

[00:07:35] outside of work, you know, you are, you know, friends and family with these people.

[00:07:38] At the end of the day, you have to understand that this is a business.

[00:07:43] And even though you're friends and family, but this is separate business and we have to make

[00:07:47] the best decisions for the business. And so not always it's going to be great and, you know,

[00:07:55] all fun and games. You know, you have to, you have to make decisions in the company.

[00:07:59] You have to make sure you keep people accountable. And a big thing for us was

[00:08:04] making a big three for each position and keeping them accountable for those big three.

[00:08:09] And if they're not. I love the big three, by the way, that we learned that. Well,

[00:08:14] I learned that in simple growth and Mike Callahan's simple growth.

[00:08:20] It's a great theory and explain what the big three is real fast so people know what they are.

[00:08:24] So pretty much they have their three biggest roles. How is it measured? You know, how does

[00:08:32] it match with the goals of the company? And then the measurable for that pretty much. So

[00:08:39] pretty much we have for like off of manager, we'll have one for project manager, for estimator,

[00:08:44] for designer, for our maintenance manager, for even our CSRs, our mechanic and kind of starts

[00:08:52] going down the line. I love that. I love the, it's so simple because it's just the three,

[00:08:57] but it's so impactful for the other side, for the person that isn't sure are they doing their

[00:09:02] job or am I doing a good job? Exactly. So that's great. I want to take it back to

[00:09:09] you said you started this company. Did you start it from the ground up? Like you.

[00:09:14] Yes and no, I guess. So we did buy out this company, even though it was nothing when we

[00:09:20] bought it out. Would I rebuy out this company? I don't know. Like it was realistically nothing

[00:09:27] when I bought it. You know, it's like one of those Craigslist deals where somebody's

[00:09:30] selling their company and they think it's worth something, but it was really not worth anything.

[00:09:36] So it was one of those deals. It would probably have been easier to just start from

[00:09:39] the ground up because you have to do so much to convert everyone over. That was a very

[00:09:46] difficult journey for me, you know, paying money for a business and then having everyone

[00:09:52] cancel because we bought it in the fall time. And, you know, usually when like a lot of

[00:10:00] companies out here in this area, we have contracts year round contracts. He didn't

[00:10:04] have a year round contracts, which, you know, I was definitely younger and not the,

[00:10:08] not the brightest, I guess at the time. So, um, a lot of people canceled. I still owed

[00:10:14] money on the company and it was definitely not easy getting through that time. But,

[00:10:21] you know, we kind of figured it out. You know, the company has been established since 2003

[00:10:27] originally. So it's been around for a while, but it was always like an owner operator.

[00:10:31] So, um, you know, we I've owned it for about almost 10 and a half years, 11 years.

[00:10:38] So it's, uh, it's getting there. It's we've, we've owned it for a while. We've grown it a ton.

[00:10:44] Um, we have big ambitions and continue growing it. And we have a really good team around us

[00:10:49] that will help us continue growing it. And that's the biggest thing is having a good team.

[00:10:54] Like that was a big thing for me is like, I always wanted to have a really good team

[00:10:57] around me. And I didn't have that for so many years until like these last couple of years

[00:11:03] where I'm like, wow, like I really see like my fruits of my labor coming together now.

[00:11:09] And it's like, I really enjoy coming to work. I love everyone around me

[00:11:13] and all my employees and everything. It's, it's awesome.

[00:11:17] So, you know, that being said, what would you tell the younger version of yourself?

[00:11:23] Or for any young entrepreneurs, you know, knowing what you know now,

[00:11:27] what would you tell yourself when you're just first starting out again?

[00:11:32] Like, like I wouldn't change anything. Um, I would say definitely like for myself, um,

[00:11:40] I think it definitely needed to be the way it was. It just, you know, I always try to make

[00:11:46] sure I learned from other people's mistakes and not make my own mistakes, but I made a

[00:11:50] lot of my own mistakes along the way. So sometimes it really does suck, but it builds

[00:11:55] character. It helps you down the road. Like we must have a lot of character then.

[00:12:01] Those rough, rough, rough beginnings really do help you a lot. Um, and you know, a lot of people

[00:12:07] I guess they're not a lot of people, but there are some people that, you know, hit it off and

[00:12:11] you know, find a great team right away. Um, my biggest thing is I wish I would have hired

[00:12:18] the right people around me earlier. I think we would have, uh, we would have,

[00:12:23] you know, excelled a lot further, a lot faster. I would say that'd probably be the

[00:12:27] biggest thing is really surrounding yourself with the right people and the things that you're weak at,

[00:12:34] try to hire those out first. So like, for instance, like, you know, I'm not good with

[00:12:39] bookkeeping and that kind of stuff. So hire out for those things first. And then I'm not,

[00:12:44] you know, I'm a good people person, but I'm not good at managing people. So hire out

[00:12:48] project manager first. You know, like I was always good at selling and, you know, and,

[00:12:52] and getting work. And that was always something I was good at in, in hiring for your weaknesses

[00:12:58] around you. And then kind of just, uh, continue building your team from there.

[00:13:03] Yeah, I suck at sales. So in my original home service company, sales was the first

[00:13:09] position I hired once I could afford any help. It was like, yeah, first it was a call

[00:13:14] service and then it was a sales person after I got a little bit. Um, I love that so many

[00:13:20] entrepreneurs struggle with, um, so they struggle with hiring or even attracting or knowing what

[00:13:27] they will even just knowing what they want. But you had said it and we started from the

[00:13:32] beginning and it's culture. It's your core values and so many of us, and I'm guilty of

[00:13:37] this dismissing those core values when we start because there's so much burning down around

[00:13:42] us. There's so many, so much chaos and the phone is ringing and, um, that we dismiss that.

[00:13:48] But at the end of the day, if you focus on that first, you can skip so many other mistakes.

[00:13:56] They're so important. Yeah. And also, I guess another thing I would do is let go of people a

[00:14:03] lot sooner because I would keep on people because I'm always a guy that advocates and

[00:14:10] okay, you know, they screwed up, you know, let's give them another chance. And,

[00:14:13] and it'd be another chance, like 50 more chances, you know, and I'd give people too many chances.

[00:14:18] And then it's like, man, it's going to really hurt to let them go because, you know, we're

[00:14:22] going to really struggle to find a replacement. And it's, you don't realize how much it's

[00:14:28] hurting you until you finally actually let them go. And you're like, then everything

[00:14:32] opens up even more, you know, like for instance, when I fired my project manager

[00:14:38] and it was the worst, like probably a horror story, you know, firing ever like where he's

[00:14:44] like, I'm going to kill myself. You know, I, you know, I don't know, I'm going to have

[00:14:49] to be out in the streets now. Like I'm going through a divorce right now. This is, I thought

[00:14:53] you were my best friend. And like, you know, and it was just like blowing up my phone non-stop

[00:15:00] you know, really, really sucked. And then like it was a, it was horrible for about,

[00:15:06] and why I remember too, cause it was on my anniversary when I did it. I'm like,

[00:15:10] okay, I just need to get this over with, rip off the band-aid and just do it.

[00:15:14] And that was not a fun anniversary. That's for sure. And it lasted for about two weeks

[00:15:21] and then it pretty much kind of dindled down and, you know, stopped hearing from him. And

[00:15:27] then all the stuff started opening up. Employees started coming up, you know,

[00:15:33] thanking me for letting them go. And you're like, why didn't you tell me that sooner?

[00:15:37] Right. It's like, and then we'd hear from customers how like he would give them like

[00:15:43] a bunch of free work just so that they're happy with him because they weren't happy with

[00:15:47] him before. So he would like give out a bunch of free work, like thousands and thousands

[00:15:52] of dollars to customers just to keep them happy, even though we were already negative

[00:15:57] on a project and giving out even more money. And you know, and it just like,

[00:16:02] it was definitely painful to let him go, but I don't regret like any,

[00:16:08] anybody that had did let go, I never regret it.

[00:16:11] So what did you learn from that experience?

[00:16:16] There's never going to be anyone else that's harder to fire than him.

[00:16:20] Right. But just in general, like what did I learn is that I shouldn't hold on to employees

[00:16:27] longer than a, you know, and I actually heard this, I believe,

[00:16:30] was it, I don't remember if it was you or if it was Debbie Sirdon.

[00:16:37] The first time, the first time that you think about firing somebody is probably right.

[00:16:43] You're right. Yeah.

[00:16:45] Was that you or is that Debbie?

[00:16:46] It's probably me in the talk I did about recruiting and hiring and firing.

[00:16:51] And, and I'm like, man, that's, that's so right. Because there's always those employees where I'm

[00:16:55] like, oh, man, I should probably let him go. And I'm like, I'll just, you know, let it be.

[00:16:58] And then like six months later, I finally ended up firing him. Like I've been a

[00:17:03] fired him six months ago. And it was like such a raw moment. And I'm like, you're probably

[00:17:07] right. We have a new saying we were saying, we're going to promote them to a different

[00:17:12] company. Yeah, that's really good.

[00:17:16] Because firing is hard and you know, it's one of those things as a business owner,

[00:17:21] it can go okay, and it can go horrible, like you just said. And I think that it's

[00:17:26] one of those challenges that we face. And you'd be surprised at how many people I interview

[00:17:31] and they're just like, oh, letting go of people hiring for culture. There's a trend.

[00:17:36] If you listen to this podcast for our listeners, there is a trend of every

[00:17:39] successful business owner I have on here, they all talk about hiring for core values,

[00:17:44] firing fast and focusing on getting the right team. And these are not planned. I mean,

[00:17:52] my questions are planned, but the answers are not planned for our listeners.

[00:17:55] And it's such a common trend.

[00:17:57] Yeah. And a big thing that also with culture, I would say, and a big thing that made me open

[00:18:04] my eyes to culture was Simple Growth for sure. Like that helped me a ton is like,

[00:18:09] I was kind of lost when it comes to that because I'll just like why are all these

[00:18:13] guys leaving? You know, they're leaving for like 50 cents, a dollar more than another

[00:18:17] company's payment. Ever since I started really focusing on our culture and letting

[00:18:23] go the people that are not a good culture fit. We for the last year and a half,

[00:18:28] two years ever since I joined the Simple Growth Academy, I have not had a guy quit

[00:18:35] that I didn't want to quit first off. Like it was like, I almost, you know, like it was like

[00:18:40] the people that did end up quitting are like guys that I was already going to force out

[00:18:43] regardless or end up firing because they weren't a good culture fit and they already felt like

[00:18:48] they're not fitting in and they're already getting written up for certain things. Or like

[00:18:53] just in general, like we haven't had any good guys quit. And that's like a testament to that

[00:18:59] just culture in general. Like you keep good guys even though there's other companies that

[00:19:04] are willing to pay them more. They love working here because they like the culture here now.

[00:19:08] Like before I would just have to rehire and rehire and rehire, retrain, rehire. And it

[00:19:14] was like just this constant battle that like that was so difficult, you know, and that's

[00:19:20] so expensive for a company just trying to retrain and even find somebody. Like it's so hard. So

[00:19:26] you know that helped us so much just in general, just improving our culture.

[00:19:31] You know we didn't even have any core values before. Like literally like that was,

[00:19:35] that wasn't, we had nothing. So we created all that like a year and a half ago. Or I think

[00:19:40] it's actually been, yeah, a year and a half ago. So that was the first time ever having it.

[00:19:45] And that's crazy. I have a question for you when it comes to culture and core values. But

[00:19:51] one thing I've noticed, we've worked so hard in one of our companies on culture

[00:19:56] that it actually pushes out bad hires. Like they're so uncomfortable. They're like,

[00:20:02] you people are crazy. And they leave and you see the uncomfortability start to creep in

[00:20:09] because maybe they were good at interviewing. They looked good on a piece of paper.

[00:20:14] But that culture is so strong that they leave on their own. And it's a pretty good

[00:20:19] end. Like they're like, hey this is not for me. And you know that's a great place to be in.

[00:20:28] I'm trying to get both my companies in that spot right now. But I have a really

[00:20:33] good question for you on this one. What would you say to my long care guys?

[00:20:40] Right. I use SA, I'm an SA, I'm a certified advisor, love Mike Callahan. We do recruiting

[00:20:46] for like two or three hundred long care companies. So I'm not knocking my long

[00:20:52] care guys. I love the green industry. But what would you say to those who don't think culture's

[00:20:59] important? Because it's kind of like this in the green industry, like they're either

[00:21:09] great with culture and they understand it and they're all in. Or it's like this, I don't need it,

[00:21:13] just come to work. I'm paying you a good paycheck, just show up. Or they don't understand

[00:21:19] what culture is. Because I think that sometimes in the green industry or well in a lot of

[00:21:24] male dominant industries, they think that the guys don't want culture. They're like, oh my

[00:21:31] guys would never do that. Like, oh they don't want kumbaya and singing. But that's not

[00:21:36] necessarily what culture is. Like, oh sunshine and rainbows. So how would you go to describe

[00:21:42] to maybe some of the people that are resistant or think their guys in the field don't crave

[00:21:48] that? What would be your response to that? I call it crap. It's something I thought like

[00:21:54] it's like either you're a hard worker or you're not a hard worker. And of course

[00:21:59] that is part of culture as well. Having a hard work ethic and being able to be efficient,

[00:22:06] that's one of our core values is efficiency. Mine's hard working. One of my core values is

[00:22:11] hard working. Yeah, it's not like you have to give hugs and it's all our guys,

[00:22:19] every morning we give them fist pumps. It's like a family. Of course we're going to have

[00:22:26] discussions and disagreements on things. But before when I would have disagreements,

[00:22:32] guys would walk out the front door. Now it's like we have disagreements. They're like, hey,

[00:22:36] you know, like we do have our disagreements. We'll figure it out type of deal. We'll just move

[00:22:40] forward from this and we'll get it figured out. Not we have our disagreements and we're

[00:22:44] walking out the front door because we don't respect you. We don't really like working here

[00:22:48] anyways. There was a podcast that I was watching and they were saying that it was like,

[00:22:56] man, don't quote me on this, but I think it was like 90 or 85% of people that quit

[00:23:04] don't feel valued in the company. That's a big thing with culture is making sure that

[00:23:11] people feel valued. A lot of people are not quitting for more money. A lot of times they're

[00:23:16] quitting because they don't feel valued. Money of course is appreciation from a business owner

[00:23:24] to an employee showing them that, hey, thank you for doing this work and stuff like that.

[00:23:29] But we pay for performance so we're a little bit different than some companies and we just

[00:23:32] switch that over and that's a whole separate thing. Oh, we do pay for performance as well

[00:23:36] in my cleaning and organizing company. But just in general, I didn't think culture was

[00:23:42] a big thing and two people from the side, let's say that don't even own a company,

[00:23:47] they're like, well okay, culture, come on, you guys focus on culture, that's stupid.

[00:23:52] But if you look at all the biggest companies, that's the biggest thing that they preach is

[00:23:58] culture, culture, culture. And of course, you could have a super good culture fit into your

[00:24:05] company but he doesn't have that hard work ethic and stuff like that. That means they're

[00:24:11] not fitting the culture as well. It doesn't have to always just mean, because we've had

[00:24:15] really good guys here. It's actually a guy that I recently let go, great culture fit,

[00:24:22] he gets along with all the guys, he fits with all the guys but he's just not able to keep up

[00:24:27] to the efficiency and we've had multiple talks with him. And when we let him go,

[00:24:33] it wasn't like he was pissed off, he understood. He walked out the front door,

[00:24:39] we shook hands, we wished each other the best and we went on along our ways. It wasn't like

[00:24:44] a verbal bashing at each other. It was just like, hey Vitaly, I wish you the best and

[00:24:49] I'm like, hey, I wish you the best. And we just went along our ways. It wasn't anything

[00:24:55] horrible. That's the thing. At the end of the day, it is a business. You're here to make money

[00:25:01] but at the same time, you're here to make a team and have a great team built around you

[00:25:06] and make a good culture where people want to work. And when you have a good culture,

[00:25:11] that's another thing is you start getting a lot more employees coming in the front door that

[00:25:16] you're not even looking to hire. They're just coming in because they hear about how good it is

[00:25:20] to work about your company. That's something that's been working really well for us and

[00:25:27] we're having lots of guys talk really good about our company and we're having friends

[00:25:32] and family of our employees coming in and wanting interviews because they want to work here.

[00:25:38] That's awesome. And that's like the greatest place to be in.

[00:25:42] Yeah, for sure. So my last question is, you have three kids, right? Three kids.

[00:25:48] Yeah, fourth one on the way. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.

[00:25:52] Yeah, it's kind of new but yes. Wife trying to get from two and a half to

[00:26:01] or was it three to five. So what keeps you motivated?

[00:26:08] Well, I've always wanted to own a company my whole life. So it's something I've always

[00:26:13] wanted to do but it was very difficult and it is very awesome having a very understanding

[00:26:20] loving wife at home. Of course not every single day is sunshine and you know when

[00:26:25] the kids get difficult at home and stuff like that but you know being able to

[00:26:30] disconnect from work when you get home is a big deal for me. It's not like I'm talking

[00:26:36] like I do it perfectly and it's things I need to get better at and I know I need to

[00:26:40] get better at because sometimes it's hard to do that disconnect when you get home

[00:26:44] but being able to disconnect from your phone and really just spend the time with your

[00:26:50] family, spend the time with your wife is a really big deal for her especially.

[00:26:58] Also for me and my kids, we have definitely been through a lot with starting this

[00:27:06] company and having a lot of very lows and I've always, for me like I've always

[00:27:13] paid my employees first and then I pay myself and there's been times where I'm like crap

[00:27:19] I don't have enough for this and this what are we going to do? At the end

[00:27:24] of the day you always figure it out and always that fear and all that stuff makes

[00:27:31] it a lot worse in your head than it actually is and you always find a way to get through it.

[00:27:36] I've been in days that I'm like man I don't know if I can do it and next day comes around

[00:27:42] and you figure out a way so yeah there's been definitely ups and downs but we're always

[00:27:50] working on the upward trend. Yeah there's this saying that it's all entrepreneurs,

[00:27:59] we go to sleep at night and I got this because I looked at my watch one morning when I woke up

[00:28:04] and we'll go to sleep at night, it's the fear, we're in our own heads, you could call it

[00:28:08] imposter syndrome whatever you want to call it. You go to sleep and you wake up and it's like

[00:28:15] you reset to zero. It's almost like and the reason I looked at it was I had looked at my

[00:28:22] watch when I got up to exercise and everything was at zero zero zero zero zero and I thought

[00:28:27] to myself we just restart to zero every day. It doesn't matter what we're facing,

[00:28:33] what the challenge is whether it's business or financial or even exercise or goals or eating,

[00:28:40] it's okay who cares about what happened yesterday because we restart to zero today

[00:28:46] and you can take that challenge and face it and head on and just know that like

[00:28:51] every day I get to start to zero and don't judge myself off what I did yesterday.

[00:29:00] So before we wrap up, you've told us your goals for the five million and a baby on the way but

[00:29:08] is there anything that you have in the works? Anything that we can expect to see from you?

[00:29:13] Anything kind of exciting that you want our listeners to know?

[00:29:21] I guess we have a bright future. We have a young ambitious team and that's the cool part is

[00:29:28] having a young ambitious team knowing just in our area there's not a lot of younger

[00:29:34] companies on the uprise and it's a really good feeling. It's a really good feeling having a

[00:29:41] lot of people that can support you, help you and kind of get through the journey.

[00:29:48] I hope the best for every company and have them be successful. There's going to be some lows

[00:29:54] but it's all mental. You got to be mentally strong, get through those low times and

[00:30:00] always find a way. We pray every single morning, make sure that we put our

[00:30:07] as God for protection over our company, over our guys and the kind of injuries, accidents.

[00:30:12] So we are religious and we try to make sure that we're not doing this alone.

[00:30:21] We have each other's backs. If somebody's struggling with something,

[00:30:25] we're going to help you out. It's a good feeling being in this place where we're at

[00:30:30] right now and knowing when I was by myself for so long and feeling like I have so much

[00:30:38] weight on my shoulders and having where I can kind of take things off my chest, take weight

[00:30:44] off my shoulders and have other people that can support me through these decisions and

[00:30:49] help me through that. I really hope whoever's watching this podcast I guess

[00:30:56] can build a great team around them and expand and be in a better place where they can spend

[00:31:02] time with their families and loved ones and not have to stress out and work 120 hours,

[00:31:10] 24 hours a day.

[00:31:13] So that is so true. So many entrepreneurs struggle. We've all been there.

[00:31:19] And just watching the people that we interview and interacting, I always tell people that there

[00:31:25] is light at the end of the tunnel. You have to go through this journey. You have to fear these

[00:31:30] challenges. You have to face these fears because if not, it's not going to condition you

[00:31:36] to deal with what's on the other side. So I want to thank you, Matali, for being a guest

[00:31:42] on Fearlessness podcast. And for our listeners, if you guys want to catch any of our other

[00:31:48] episodes, you can find them on LibbyD.com or thefearlessness.com. And I also want to thank my

[00:31:53] sponsor Woot Recruit who supports the podcast as well. And guys, so that's a wrap for

[00:32:02] a look into the heart of fearlessness. Remember, every step we take is a move towards

[00:32:07] our own strengths and our courage. Keep walking through those fires because on the other

[00:32:12] side lies a version of ourselves that's unstoppable. I'm Libby reminding you to

[00:32:16] embrace your fearlessness until next time, stay brave, stay bold and keep pushing forward.