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Christian Builders - Alec Epkes · Sacred Men

• 0:00
  What's up men? Welcome back to the Sacred Men
• 0:02
  YouTube channel. This is your host, Pastor Justin
• 0:04
  Dean, and I'm here with my friend Alec Ebkus.
• 0:08
  And this is the segment of this channel where where I get the
• 0:12
  pleasure of interviewing some men who are builders who are
• 0:17
  building great things for our world, building businesses,
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  families and such. You know, we've been talking
• 0:23
  about being builders rather than consumers or destroyers.
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  And so welcome back to the show and Alec, welcome on the
• 0:32
  channel. Thank you for being here.
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  Good to be here. So I'll give you a brief
• 0:36
  background on Alec, just very brief.
• 0:38
  Then I'm going to let him kind of tell a little bit of his
• 0:40
  story. But Alec is our Deacon of
• 0:43
  finance at the church. He's been a member of Sacred
• 0:47
  City Church since the very beginning, way back in the day,
• 0:53
  I think his senior year of high school, I came in and was one of
• 0:58
  his wrestling coaches. So that's how long I've known
• 1:01
  Alec and, and so we've got history together.
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  His wife was in my youth ministry way back then.
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  And so I've known him for a long time, seen Alec grow from high
• 1:11
  school to college to becoming a business owner and husband,
• 1:15
  father. And so he's the guy that I
• 1:17
  wanted to get before you. And we're going to pick his
• 1:20
  brain. We're going to hear his story,
• 1:21
  and hopefully it will inspire some of you.
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  So again, Alec, thanks for being on the show.
• 1:25
  Yeah, of course. So that was your brief
• 1:28
  interview. Give us a little bit more like,
• 1:31
  where'd you grew up? Where'd you come from?
• 1:32
  How'd you get here? Yeah.
• 1:35
  So obviously we're recording this in Bettendorf, IA I, I grew
• 1:39
  up, this area is called the Quad City.
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  So I, I grew up in the Quad Cities area.
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  I grew up in a home that did not love the Lord.
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  And so I, I grew up in an unchurched home and became a
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  Christian November 4th, 2006, about a month before my senior
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  wrestling season. And yeah.
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  And so Yep, an. FCA.
• 2:05
  Wasn't an FCA, Yeah. Fellowship of Christian
• 2:07
  Athletes. Yeah.
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  And so I was plugged into my first church through my
• 2:14
  wrestling program in high school through through your youth
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  group. So I mean, this year I will have
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  been a Christian for 20 years and 15 of them have taken place
• 2:28
  within the context of of our church.
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  So, you know, I've, I've gotten married within this church.
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  I've, we've had all of our children within this church and
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  it's, it's been instrumental in, in our lives.
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  So yeah, but on the on the professional front, so.
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  You went to school before that. Before that, you went off to
• 2:51
  school. Yep, Yep.
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  And where'd you go? I went to Northern Iowa, I went
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  to Northern Iowa for my for my undergrad.
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  And I would say that for me, there's always been an
• 3:02
  undercurrent of loving the, the building, always the curiosity
• 3:08
  and innovation and how to do things better and how things
• 3:12
  could be tweaked to be done well.
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  And, and I would say that started for me from a pretty
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  young age, you know, short attention spans, always curious
• 3:23
  about ways that I could do things a little bit differently.
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  And, and so I think that played into my, my professional life
• 3:32
  for sure. But early on in my in my
• 3:37
  relationship with the Lord, I wanted to be a church planter.
• 3:42
  And so that was really the 1st 47, I would say 7 years of of my
• 3:50
  time from the point I was in college to.
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  Well, I just remember in school, when you're in college and I was
• 3:55
  in Omaha doing my church planning residency, calling me,
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  texting me, asking for book recommendations.
• 4:01
  You got a bunch of dudes, you know, in your dorm or whatever,
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  and you're doing a Bible study or you're doing this and what
• 4:07
  are you listening to? Where you going?
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  You know, just constant, you were on fire and gathering
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  dudes. And yeah, I I thought maybe you
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  guys were going to plant a church in college.
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  Yeah, yeah. We.
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  So our freshman year in college, we found a campus ministry that
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  had about 150 to 180 students attending.
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  And we approached the leaders and just said, hey, how could we
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  help? How can we help make this
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  better? And we installed people that
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  basically had a beach head at every dorm on campus.
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  And then by the time we were seniors, we had seen so many
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  people come to know Christ. The ministry was probably 800
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  people. It was very big.
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  And that was our community and college, but it was, you know,
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  we went to churches where membership was not important and
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  it was all para church ministries that we were involved
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  with on campus. And so it was the insane taking
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  over the insane asylum. I mean, there were people coming
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  to Christ at A at a rate that there weren't mature believers
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  that could walk alongside of them.
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  So that was that was kind of the context.
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  So and then what was your undergrad in?
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  Nonprofit Administration. OK, so the same thing Ben had.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  So but you brought, when you graduated, you came back to the
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  Quad Cities and you brought a handful of dudes with you.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a handful of your brothers
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  came down, and how many of them was 56?
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  Yeah, 5 or 6, yeah. 5 or 6, I think all of them are still
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  here, Yeah. So 15 years later.
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  I mean that yeah, para church ministry, it's almost all
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  evangelism, very little discipleship, but you get those
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  guys plugged in to a church that does discipleship and it's
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  golden, right. So all, all of those dudes are,
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  well, yeah, all of those dudes are, are here at Sacred City
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  still and leading Pastor Sam of course over leading our Moline
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  congregation and then a couple of the other like Cole, Cole
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  Dyke ended up being. A planner in Des Moines.
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  Church planner in Des Moines. So that's exciting.
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  So you get back to the Quad Cities here, you're single guy
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  right out of right out of college.
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  What was your plan? Well, that's a great question.
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  I, I don't think I had much of 1.
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  I think I really. You had a.
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  Degree in, not get a. Degree in nonprofit leadership.
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  Originally I wanted to plan a church, but I think that I had a
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  lot of character growth and discipleship that I needed in my
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  life. And so I there was an extended
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  period of time where I was sitting underneath of
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  leadership. And while I was doing that, I
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  was in the workplace trying to begin to earn an income and
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  learn what how to do that well and had a couple different types
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  of jobs. And so those were the those were
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  the early years. And, and honestly, I met my wife
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  within what I would argue is the first missional community, maybe
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  the second. It was the second probably.
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  And then it was just a whole new learning curve of how to love my
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  wife well and care for her well and the new seasons of marriage.
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  And so yeah, it was. And then 18 months later, it was
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  preparing for kids. So yeah.
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  So you floated around different, some different jobs and then I
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  remember then you when was it that you decided to go back to
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  school? When we were, when we were
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  getting ready to have our first daughter.
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  Yeah, yeah. What made you decide that?
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  Well, I had, I was a property manager for Commercial, a
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  commercial real estate company. And when I had that role, I wore
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  many hats. I was doing advertising and
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  marketing. I was running the PNL for the
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  business units that I oversaw. I was customer service.
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  I was, you know, building remediation, anything like that.
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  I oversaw all of it and I really liked the business component of
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  what I did, but I just wasn't earning an income that would be
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  able to provide for our family. And you know, I pretty common
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  experience for young men is just submitting resumes that go off
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  into nowhere. And I, I definitely experienced
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  that for the better part of a year.
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  And when we found out we were having a daughter, that's where
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  that's when I felt like the Lord was calling me back to
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  potentially pursue another vocation.
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  And this degree was in what? I got my MBA, I got my MBA with
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  a concentration and accountancy. And so, you know, I, I came from
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  nonprofit administration, so I didn't come from the College of
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  Business. So I had to supplement my
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  coursework to be able to sit for the CPA exam and to be able to
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  sit for the CMA exam, which is for management accounting.
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  So it was an MBA program with 30 credits, but I actually had to
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  take 60 to 70 credits because you have to have a certain
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  amount of accounting courses and stuff to be able to sit for the
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  CPA exam. Sure.
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  So and you did all that while managing the property company or
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  property management company? Yep, Yep.
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  I, yeah. I mean, looking back, it's crazy
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  to think about, but yeah. So my my graduate work was at
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  Western Illinois and we, yeah, I was the provider for our home.
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  We had our first daughter and I was going to school basically in
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  the evenings. Yeah, but that's, you know, a, a
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  great picture of what I'm wanting to encourage men to do
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  is, you know, you, you got your degree, you came back, you're
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  doing jobs. And then you realize, you know,
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  I honestly, nonprofit management degree, probably not the highest
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  paid field, right, that you could be in.
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  And what I'm doing now, you know, I feel like I, I felt
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  called in the moment I felt called to do this.
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  It's a good field, but I can't support my family.
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  So I need to figure something out, right?
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  I need to figure something out. And for you, it was you, you
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  realized you like the management side of things, you like the
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  business side of things. OK, let's let's get an NBA, you
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  know, and you're going to be able to with an NBA, you're
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  going to be able to get a higher paying job, you know, if you're
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  competent. So you kind of sucked it up and
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  that's the that's the the wrestler mentality kind of
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  sucked it up four season. How long did it take you to do
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  that? I, I took between 18 to 21
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  credit hours per semester. I had summer semester, fall
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  semester, and winter I. So I did it year round and I did
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  18 to 21 credit hours per semester.
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  So it was fast and in the midst of that I sat for my CPA exams
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  which there's 4/3 hour exams each for that and then I sat for
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  my 2 CMA exams. So there was a lot happening in
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  the short time. Two years or three?
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  Or. It was, I believe it was.
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  It was 2/2 and 1/2. Yeah, and I know you won't say
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  this, but how'd you do on those exams?
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  I did well. I did well so.
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  You did really well, did you not?
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  Yeah. So on the CMA exam, which is the
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  Certified Management Accountant exam, I, I scored one of the top
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  scores in the world. So I think within that year
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  there was 23,000 students that took it and I scored in the top
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  five. Yeah.
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  So I was the only one in the United States.
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  Unbelievable. Some killed it.
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  So all right, you now you got your MBA.
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  Right now you got your MBA. Money's just going to start
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  falling from the sky. Yeah.
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  No, no, I so with that CMA exam and how I performed on it, it
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  opened a lot of doors that allowed me to choose.
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  But I was going into accounting and within the accounting
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  profession, there is a pretty traditional cadence to beginning
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  a career if you want to move up. And so that was public
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  accounting is, is that traditional path?
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  And so I worked at Deloitte and touché for the first two years
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  coming out of school. And it's interesting because
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  the, you know, that that firm model is that they, they're,
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  they recruit from colleges. You know, students will then
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  transition into a role. It's about a sick, you know, 40
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  to 45% attrition rate year over year because it's really
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  intensive work. So during busy season, you know,
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  there were days where I would go into work at 7:00 AM and we'd
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  get done at 11:00 PM because we're preparing to issue the
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  annual report for a publicly traded company.
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  So I think there was a lot of excitement coming out of school
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  and it really just prepared me for a new a new struggle.
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  I was a father that at this point now had two children and a
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  stay at home mom, a stay at home wife.
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  And I was with a bunch of colleagues that were just coming
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  out of college, you know, 2223 years old, really no
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  attachments, not not a big deal for them to work really intense
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  hours. And so, yeah, but I grew a ton
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  from that experience, ways that I couldn't have if if I didn't
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  go through it. And so really grateful for it,
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  looking back, yeah. How long were you in that
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  season? About two years, Yep.
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  So, I mean, we did an audit for a large retailer that's about
• 14:47
  two hours away from here in, in Wisconsin.
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  And during the period of time leading up to the issuing of
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  their annual financials, we'd have to be there Monday to
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  Friday. And it was, it was basically,
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  you know, 7:00 AM to 10:11 PM. Food would just be delivered to
• 15:06
  the room that we were in, maybe one meal, we would go out.
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  But it was, it was intense. That's the grind.
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  Yeah, Yeah. Just as an aside here, like for
• 15:18
  you, it sucks, you know, because you're already, you're a little
• 15:21
  bit older and you've got the family and that's not, I mean,
• 15:24
  you could do that for short seasons, right?
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  Like in tense moments, you need to, but obviously it's not
• 15:29
  healthy for the for the long term.
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  But there are, there are some young men that I meet that are
• 15:36
  concerned. Well, on one hand, they want to
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  make more money, they want to be successful, they want to be
• 15:41
  business owners. They want all this.
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  But on the other hand, they asked me questions about how do
• 15:48
  you handle work life balance? And they asked me questions
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  about Sabbath. And they asked me questions
• 15:53
  about, you know, downtime and rest and all this kind of stuff.
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  And I get where they're coming from because there are clear
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  biblical principles on those things.
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  But for a young man, you do not need to be worried about rest
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  and work life balance and these things like you have those years
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  of freedom or those years of, you know, availability and
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  you're meant to maximize them. So for a young man that really
• 16:21
  wants to succeed, he should be working 50-60 hours a week and
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  doesn't have to be the same job. You know, you could have a, a
• 16:28
  thing on the side that you're doing, but like 50-60 hours a
• 16:31
  week should be normal if you're wanting to get ahead, like if
• 16:34
  you're wanting to actually push your boundaries and get ahead of
• 16:38
  your peers and maximize opportunities, Like that's the
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  kind of work ethic that you need to have, right?
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  And these companies know it and they know these people are
• 16:49
  probably really wanting big checks and they're really
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  wanting to move up in the organization.
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  So they're just like our life. You know, your life is ours now
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  for this matter of years. And most young people are
• 16:59
  willing to pay it, right, Right. So Christians, if you were
• 17:03
  sitting there going well, but you know, I need, I need work
• 17:06
  better work life balance. And I need to, you know, think
• 17:09
  about my mental health and I need to do all this stuff.
• 17:11
  Well, then you're going to be outperformed by pagans who are
• 17:15
  doing it just for the paycheck, Right, Right, right.
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  So that's just something I've heard lately.
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  But you know, once you're, once you have the family, then you,
• 17:24
  you do have to say, OK, you know, I need to be home at I
• 17:28
  need to be home at night. I got to be able to disciple my
• 17:30
  kids and be there for dinner and I, I need those things, right,
• 17:33
  Right. So what?
• 17:35
  And I would say that that's, that's, you know, looking back,
• 17:39
  I, I see that job as a, it was, it was a role that helped
• 17:43
  broaden my shoulders. I learned to carry different
• 17:47
  kinds of weights and more weight.
• 17:49
  So different types of weight and more weight.
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  But, but yeah, I mean, I needed to begin to be cognizant of a,
• 17:58
  of a, of a culture at home. And you know, within that
• 18:02
  vocation, I think that that's where I really learned that I
• 18:07
  thought like an entrepreneur because I had a hard time just
• 18:12
  staying in the track that I was in and just doing my time for
• 18:16
  two years and then moving to the next role and then doing that
• 18:19
  for three years and then moving to the next role.
• 18:21
  I just I wanted to get a bit out more outside of the box.
• 18:25
  Yeah. What was it that like, what in
• 18:27
  that role started to feel make you feel uncomfortable in that?
• 18:32
  Like what? What was it that started to make
• 18:34
  you feel like this isn't it? Maybe I need to look for
• 18:38
  something else? Yeah, that's, that's a good
• 18:42
  question. I would say looking at the
• 18:45
  partners in the firm, so the leaders, how they spent their
• 18:50
  time, you know, they were partners that would be staying
• 18:55
  late just as long as us. Some passed us, some would stay
• 19:02
  through the early morning hours to do to do work.
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  And that is just seeing those types of things.
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  You know, I didn't want to continue.
• 19:13
  I didn't want to be molded into that, that type of accountant,
• 19:18
  basically. Yeah.
• 19:20
  Yeah. I mean, that's the guy you see
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  on TV that you know his whole life is work and his kids grow
• 19:27
  up hating him and his wife doesn't like him.
• 19:30
  And work is everything, right? And then he has a heart attack
• 19:34
  and work. Work finds a new I got to
• 19:36
  replace him like this, you know? So then what'd you do after
• 19:39
  that? You were there for two years,
• 19:41
  then what'd you do? I, I was a financial controller
• 19:47
  for what I would say is a, a middle market foundry.
• 19:51
  So here in our area an aluminum foundry.
• 19:57
  So they would poor castings for. Equipment or parts that would be
• 20:04
  then sold to larger, larger companies.
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  So I, I, that was, that was my, you know, that was my first time
• 20:12
  overseeing a team of accountants.
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  So I had five accountants underneath of me.
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  So just learning how to oversee other personnel and cast vision
• 20:24
  and hold them accountable and develop routines as a team so
• 20:28
  that we were effective. That's really where I began to
• 20:30
  learn that. But I, I also, it was a family
• 20:33
  owned business. It was a, a third generation
• 20:36
  family owned business. And you there's, you know, it's,
• 20:41
  it's a little, I say third generation because it's a little
• 20:43
  bit more mature than like a grassroots first generation
• 20:46
  business, but that's, it was entrepreneurial, you know, even
• 20:51
  then. And so I definitely enjoyed that
• 20:54
  job a lot more. Yeah, so again, I just love
• 20:58
  hearing how, you know, God through his Providence just
• 21:04
  leads you through different careers and different
• 21:08
  experiences and you pick up different tools at different
• 21:12
  places. You know, you pick up a a few
• 21:13
  tools here and you're like, oh, I like this.
• 21:15
  I you know what? I think I, I think I should do
• 21:17
  an MBA and then you could do your MBA and you're like, I
• 21:19
  think it's more like an accounting stuff.
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  And then, OK, I'm an accountant. And then you're like, whoa, you
• 21:24
  know, you're working with Fortune 500 companies and all
• 21:26
  this kind of stuff and you're like, yeah, this is cool, but I
• 21:28
  don't like that. And then I think maybe more
• 21:32
  entrepreneur. And then you find this third
• 21:34
  generation thing and then now you're leading A-Team because
• 21:39
  that's a totally different ball game.
• 21:41
  Like being an accountant and just looking at numbers and it's
• 21:44
  just you and you're doing your thing.
• 21:46
  It's you're, you're the only one you have to control.
• 21:50
  And now when you're over a team, there's just a whole new skill
• 21:54
  set, right that's needed. Right, right.
• 21:58
  What was it that I mean, what do you think you picked up from
• 22:01
  that entrepreneur that that job? Well, I was, you know, in my
• 22:11
  previous, I would say professionally, I, it was the
• 22:15
  first time that I was responsible for a large
• 22:17
  company's entire set of financials.
• 22:20
  And it was a bit more complicated.
• 22:23
  And so I would have monthly meetings with, you know, 12
• 22:28
  other people and I would present the financials, we'd talk about
• 22:32
  details, what went well, what didn't go well.
• 22:36
  And so that's where I, you know, up to that point, accounting was
• 22:41
  crossing TS and dotting IS. And within this role, that's
• 22:46
  where, you know, you learned to tell a narrative, a story to
• 22:50
  financials. And that's where that's, I
• 22:51
  really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed that.
• 22:55
  So I would say professionally that was one thing, but then I
• 23:00
  just learned that I really enjoyed working collaboratively
• 23:03
  with teams. You know, I was given a lot of
• 23:07
  discretion and freedom within that role, which I really
• 23:09
  enjoyed to kind of call my own shots and, and, and make my own
• 23:12
  decisions and I enjoyed that as well, yeah.
• 23:17
  How long were you there? I was there for four years.
• 23:21
  Yeah. What led you to do something
• 23:24
  different? Yeah, well, while I had that
• 23:29
  job, I, you know, really I, I began a a side business out of
• 23:36
  the kindness of friends, really. I mean, I, there were, within
• 23:39
  our church, there were a group of gentlemen that ran businesses
• 23:43
  and I would talk to them about their taxes and they'd say, Hey,
• 23:46
  can you just do it for us? And I said sure, You know, I,
• 23:51
  and so I, I started to take some work on with while I was in that
• 23:55
  role. And really, once I got to the
• 23:59
  point where I was at, you know, $40,000 in annual revenue, I
• 24:04
  went and talked to the owners of the company and said, hey, this
• 24:08
  little side thing got fired up. And it's a good thing.
• 24:13
  I enjoy it. But I don't want there to be any
• 24:15
  conflict of interest. If you don't like, if you don't
• 24:17
  like the fact that I've pursued this, it's early enough that I
• 24:20
  could shut it down. But if you're OK with it, then
• 24:25
  would you be open to me continuing to pursue it?
• 24:27
  And they said that it was fine. And so that began my journey of
• 24:33
  starting my my own business. And really it grew through
• 24:40
  referrals and those referrals began to branch outside of our
• 24:45
  geography. And so then I started to get a
• 24:48
  lot of clients in other areas. And, you know, I needed to start
• 24:55
  hiring employees. And so it got to a point where I
• 25:00
  was a financial controller of a foundry that had five employees.
• 25:05
  And then I ran a business and I had four employees underneath of
• 25:09
  that business. And it reached an inflection
• 25:12
  point where I had to jump and I had, I had to make a decision.
• 25:17
  And it was, you know, it was a challenging one, just making the
• 25:24
  leap from AW2 job where you've got certain types of benefits
• 25:29
  and privileges to going completely on your own, just
• 25:37
  relying upon the clients that you've developed a relationship
• 25:40
  with. So that was definitely a big
• 25:42
  moment for me. I remember.
• 25:45
  What did it feel like? It was, it was incredible.
• 25:52
  It was exciting. It was very exciting because,
• 25:58
  you know, I would say it probably I went to school
• 26:02
  wanting to do, feeling like the Lord had called me to do
• 26:05
  accounting work. I, I had a gifting and ability
• 26:09
  there. But kind of like what you said,
• 26:10
  it took 10 years of iterations to really begin to settle in and
• 26:13
  learn what I liked. And I, I felt like the Lord was
• 26:17
  calling me to start my own business and it aligned with
• 26:21
  what I was passionate about. So it was exciting.
• 26:26
  Just glad there's people like you in the world that get
• 26:28
  excited about taxes. Yeah, but so it's.
• 26:32
  Spreadsheets. It's like, no, that ain't me,
• 26:34
  man. So when I when I was when I
• 26:40
  began my own business, I at that time I began to develop a
• 26:45
  relationship with another gentleman in Baton Rouge, LA and
• 26:51
  we, we started a business together shortly after me
• 26:57
  leaving that previous role. So lot going on in those couple
• 27:02
  years. So your company and then you
• 27:04
  brought him on, you guys merged or what?
• 27:06
  Well, how did that work? We had kind of a affiliate
• 27:12
  relationship for about 16 months, just getting to know
• 27:16
  each other. He was a financial advisor, I
• 27:19
  was a tax accountant. So there was a lot of synergy
• 27:21
  between his clients and and mine.
• 27:24
  And so we spent 16 months just building a relationship, getting
• 27:28
  to know one another. He was sent me business.
• 27:30
  I sent him business. And we just realized that there
• 27:36
  was a lot of synergy in the relationship.
• 27:39
  And ultimately it seemed like we could accomplish goals quicker
• 27:46
  if we were together. And, you know, he was a, a
• 27:50
  Christian man. I met his family, met his
• 27:54
  parents, his, his dad was a pastor and he was, he was a high
• 27:58
  character dude. And so, yeah, so we, we, so then
• 28:03
  I, I, I folded my business into a new business and he, he folded
• 28:08
  his into a new business and we began one together.
• 28:12
  OK. Yeah.
• 28:14
  And how did that go and were you so then it was, it was kind of
• 28:20
  it was more than just tax accounting then it what all did
• 28:23
  you guys do? Boy, yeah.
• 28:27
  So we, the way that we thought about it, I brought accounting
• 28:33
  and tax to the table and he brought investments and
• 28:37
  insurance to the table and we had a couple revenue streams or
• 28:42
  business segments that we were toying around with that we later
• 28:45
  than stood up. So one was tax credits.
• 28:49
  So like the child tax credit is a tax credit the individuals are
• 28:53
  very familiar with, but there's a lot of business level tax
• 28:56
  credits that create incentives that a lot of people don't know
• 28:59
  about. And so that was one revenue
• 29:03
  stream that we eventually had. And then we had another one
• 29:05
  where we implemented software solutions for middle market
• 29:09
  companies. But the idea was that we wanted
• 29:13
  to focus on working with first generation bootstrapped
• 29:17
  entrepreneurs. So first generation, they're
• 29:21
  doing it themselves for the first time, bootstrapped meaning
• 29:24
  by their own financing. They don't have a complicated
• 29:28
  cap table, they're not, they don't have a bunch of investors.
• 29:31
  It's that they're swinging their own cash around.
• 29:36
  We wanted to focus on 1st generation bootstrapped
• 29:38
  entrepreneurs that were in the lower middle market.
• 29:40
  So they were already doing between 2 to 50 million in top
• 29:44
  line revenue and we wanted to have a kind of like a, a service
• 29:49
  ecosystem to insulate them from different risks that they could
• 29:52
  experience along their progressions of, of growing
• 29:55
  their business. So that's how we saw, you know,
• 29:59
  in, in insurance investments, accounting, tax, how it all
• 30:02
  worked together to create value for that end customer.
• 30:07
  So it, it grew very quick, the business grew very quickly.
• 30:16
  It happened at the same time that I bought another business
• 30:24
  with some other gentlemen in the construction industry.
• 30:30
  And so I, I began this partnership with this gentleman
• 30:33
  in Baton Rouge and this concrete business within the same month
• 30:38
  of the same year. So it was, it was, it was busy,
• 30:43
  but we came out of the gate with I think we had eight employees
• 30:47
  at first, so. And how did that go?
• 30:55
  Well, you know, it was, there were, there were a lot of really
• 31:09
  exciting things that I learned what to do and what not to do
• 31:14
  within that business. We you know in the three years
• 31:21
  that that we ran that business, we were in three or four
• 31:25
  different locations because we constantly hired out of the
• 31:29
  space that we were in. Ultimately between those two
• 31:36
  businesses, between employees and contractors, we arrived, we
• 31:42
  got up to having 35 personnel contractors that we basically
• 31:47
  paid as either full time employees or functioned, you
• 31:50
  know, from an hourly basis as employees.
• 31:53
  So we had a lot of folks. Many of them from the church.
• 31:56
  Yes, yes. And so that that was that was a
• 32:01
  conviction that my partner and I had.
• 32:03
  We wanted to build a Christian ecosystem within our our firm's
• 32:08
  business model. It was in your business model to
• 32:10
  steal my assistant too, wasn't it?
• 32:12
  Yeah. Not at first.
• 32:15
  Not until we really needed them. Yeah, I raised up.
• 32:18
  I raised up one of the best assistants in the country and
• 32:20
  you sniped him. So that's.
• 32:22
  Yeah, Yeah. No, I think within our, within
• 32:26
  our industry, there was something very transactional
• 32:29
  about virtually based professional services firms.
• 32:32
  And we wanted to hire people that created a unique impact
• 32:38
  right out of the gate in a client service relationship.
• 32:41
  And we wanted there to be a, a sense of a measure of, I don't
• 32:49
  know, grit or resiliency in our relationship with a client that
• 32:54
  was unique. And so there were some
• 32:56
  intangibles that we were looking for within our firm's culture
• 33:00
  that could only be accomplished by hiring Christians, you know,
• 33:04
  So yes, we, we had a group of, of employees that I think 8 or
• 33:10
  9, I, I'm, I'm not sure about that, that went to our church as
• 33:14
  well. Some of those were individuals
• 33:18
  that came from other careers and they were ground up retrains.
• 33:23
  Some of them transitioned from, you know, similar types of, of
• 33:27
  roles. But within that firm, that's
• 33:30
  where we definitely learned to lead leaders that led staff and
• 33:36
  personnel. And so that was certainly very
• 33:40
  unique. You know, I, I went from
• 33:44
  operating, you know, being the quarterback and calling my own
• 33:47
  shots to within that firm, my schedule was created daily for
• 33:51
  me. I just walked in and I did it.
• 33:52
  And I, you know, so, yeah. But within that firm, yeah.
• 33:58
  I mean, worked with a lot of people that really loved working
• 34:02
  with. We, we had daily Bible studies
• 34:07
  in the morning, prayer time in the morning, and just the
• 34:12
  discipleship conversations that would happen naturally
• 34:15
  throughout the day. It was, it was really neat.
• 34:17
  That's what I really enjoyed about it.
• 34:20
  But you know, as the business grew, we, we you know, we grew
• 34:24
  fast and we had a conviction that we wanted to hire locally
• 34:30
  based W2 personnel and it translated into after about 2
• 34:38
  1/2 years, our fixed costs were about 70% of our total cost
• 34:44
  structure. So we weren't, we weren't very
• 34:46
  nimble if we needed to pull levers on the cost side, we
• 34:51
  didn't have as many options. And then on the revenue side, we
• 34:56
  were about 70% project based. So hunt and kill type of type of
• 35:02
  revenue and things were going incredibly well.
• 35:07
  We had some inside sales gentlemen that took leads.
• 35:12
  It was a three call sales cycle and then our service teams would
• 35:16
  fulfill and and deliver on the on the promise of the sales
• 35:19
  process. And so it went really well.
• 35:21
  But honestly what changed was, you know, we, we had a couple
• 35:29
  revenue streams that were complicated by Internal Revenue
• 35:33
  Code guidance that came out and we chose to not pursue those
• 35:37
  things anymore. And as a result, our revenue
• 35:41
  began to dry up and we were then faced with a lot of challenging
• 35:46
  decisions, difficult business decisions.
• 35:49
  Yeah, I, I can remember having a conversation with you during
• 35:52
  this time and you were pretty stressed out and it was, you
• 35:56
  were, you were carrying the weight because it's a different,
• 36:00
  like you said, it's a different weight. 1 If you're by yourself,
• 36:06
  you're hunting, you know, you got to go hunt and kill, you got
• 36:08
  to go find your, find your revenue and you got to take care
• 36:10
  of your family, that's one thing.
• 36:12
  But then when you've got these employees and you love them and
• 36:16
  you care about them and you see their kids and their family and
• 36:18
  they, and it's just a different weight, man.
• 36:22
  It's a different weight to carry.
• 36:24
  And I remember I I could be wrong.
• 36:26
  Employing providers, yeah, that, that is a unique weight, yes.
• 36:31
  Well, and you kind of, you kind of build them up to be
• 36:37
  providers, right, more than just the more than just AW2 employee
• 36:40
  that shows up and just you've built them up and they're
• 36:43
  growing into it and they're doing a good job.
• 36:46
  But now I, I remember, and I could be wrong, but I meant
• 36:48
  might be not remembering this right.
• 36:49
  But it was something along the lines of the way that you got
• 36:52
  your leads kind of dried up. Like you used to be getting all
• 36:55
  these leads and then all of a sudden and you're, you know,
• 36:58
  paying for it, this process. And now all of a sudden it's
• 37:02
  just not those, those leaders not coming.
• 37:05
  So it wasn't like you weren't doing the product or you weren't
• 37:07
  doing a good job. It was just the people weren't
• 37:10
  there. Yeah, I mean, Warren Buffett,
• 37:14
  he, he's got a quote that can be helpful sometimes in business
• 37:17
  contacts. He says doesn't matter how hard
• 37:19
  you row, sometimes it matters what boat you're in.
• 37:22
  And you know, looking back, we were in the wrong boat.
• 37:27
  So we were being diligent and taking very seriously the moment
• 37:34
  that we were in. We were trying to be faithful
• 37:36
  with, you know, the the steps and business decisions that we
• 37:40
  needed to take. We were, we probably put 1/4 of
• 37:43
  $1,000,000 into apps and systems that helped us with lead
• 37:49
  nurturing and marketing initiatives.
• 37:52
  But on a monthly basis, we spent about 35 to $40,000 a month on
• 37:56
  different ad campaigns, digital ad campaigns.
• 37:59
  And you know, the economics of that made sense if our cost per
• 38:04
  appointment was $230. But you know, it started to
• 38:11
  within a six month period, it started to creep up to about
• 38:15
  $980 per appointment. And the the cost benefit
• 38:21
  relationship just, it didn't make sense anymore.
• 38:25
  Yeah. And so when that kind of stuff
• 38:27
  start starts happening, now you got to make very hard decisions.
• 38:31
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, you know, there was a six
• 38:39
  month period where we were daily monitoring leads and what was
• 38:44
  going on in the sales side. And I think during that time
• 38:52
  there was a lot of conversation with our team members that run
• 38:56
  the sales side because they could start to see that things
• 39:00
  were maturing in an unfavorable way, maturing within the our
• 39:03
  funnels, the sales funnels. And and then we started to run
• 39:09
  90 day forecasts of of different cash position scenarios and P&L
• 39:14
  scenarios. And we basically built out a
• 39:17
  favorable, a standard and an unfavorable.
• 39:21
  And we said if we hit this unfavorable mark by this date,
• 39:26
  we're going to need to make some difficult decisions.
• 39:29
  And so I, you know, it was 60 or 90 days later that we reconvened
• 39:35
  and we looked at the financials and they were in that
• 39:36
  unfavorable position. And so we, the way that we
• 39:43
  thought about it is we were going to have a, you know, a
• 39:50
  tranche of personnel that we would let go, see how things
• 39:56
  would take shape after some time.
• 39:59
  And then if we had to revisit it and make some additional
• 40:02
  difficult decisions, we, we would.
• 40:05
  And so we, we let some people go initially very difficult.
• 40:10
  You know, like I said, we, we hired a lot of people that go to
• 40:13
  our church and people that I personally care about a lot.
• 40:18
  And then? I think it was 30 or 45 days
• 40:23
  later or so we we let go another group of of personnel.
• 40:30
  How'd that feel? Boy, that was that was
• 40:35
  difficult. I think that.
• 40:39
  So from my perspective. Yeah.
• 40:42
  You're a successful wrestler in high school.
• 40:44
  You're a good student. You've done all your jobs well.
• 40:48
  You've been continuing to, you know, add things to your resume
• 40:53
  and to succeed every place you go, you're right.
• 40:57
  And and start the business, it takes off like this is just like
• 41:02
  dream come true. Yeah.
• 41:04
  And then all of a sudden, bam. Yeah.
• 41:07
  You hit a, You hit a, a season that probably felt like failure.
• 41:11
  Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that what was
• 41:17
  front and center in my mind was that, you know, I, I would say
• 41:23
  that I for at a high level, I had good theology at a high
• 41:30
  level, I knew that God was sovereign.
• 41:33
  I knew that everything occurs underneath the movement of his
• 41:38
  right hand. I knew that everything was, you
• 41:41
  know, perfectly inside of his will and that all things work
• 41:46
  together for those who love him and who are called according to
• 41:49
  his purposes, you know, but I would say on the undercurrent, I
• 41:54
  didn't know what to do with the moment that I was in.
• 41:58
  There was, there wasn't a undercurrent in my spirit of
• 42:01
  rest or, or peace. It was, I would say and, and in
• 42:06
  the moment, there's a degree of hustle.
• 42:09
  Yeah, yeah. But there was an anxiety, I
• 42:12
  would say that I didn't know what to do with.
• 42:15
  And so that was, that was, that was difficult.
• 42:19
  I I would say that that was difficult for my for my home.
• 42:22
  You know, that's the next question I was going to ask.
• 42:24
  How did, how did you, did you bring that home?
• 42:28
  What'd your wife say about that? I, you know, I have coming home
• 42:38
  from work where I was just going full speed all day.
• 42:45
  I would come home and I don't think that I would have a lot to
• 42:48
  say or, or give, you know, you know, I, I, I, I expended the
• 42:58
  energy reservoir that I had each day within the, the, within my
• 43:04
  profession, especially during that season.
• 43:08
  And so I don't think I was present.
• 43:12
  I think I was busy spirited and I was a busy body.
• 43:15
  I just found things to keep myself busy, keep myself moving
• 43:21
  and you know, and so. You, you were definitely, you
• 43:26
  know the shark that if it, if it stops swimming, it dies.
• 43:31
  Yeah. They're in that season.
• 43:33
  You were definitely. I mean, you, you, you talk fast
• 43:37
  typically, but you were, you were just like Mike, if you, if
• 43:40
  you remember those commercials of the micro machine guy, just
• 43:44
  you were just your whole, your brain was 100 miles an hour.
• 43:49
  You talk fast ideas out the wazoo and anxious like that's
• 43:55
  just, I mean, and you were trying to keep the thing afloat,
• 44:00
  right? You're trying to keep the but
• 44:01
  then you would come home and crash basically.
• 44:06
  Yep, Yep, Yep, yeah, absolutely. So I think that you know, during
• 44:15
  that season my wife's mother had cancer during that season the
• 44:22
  concrete business was that was souring at the same time.
• 44:27
  And so there was a lot of decisions that needed to be made
• 44:29
  there. And really within a 10 month
• 44:33
  corridor, we went from call it 35 personnel, employees and
• 44:40
  contractors, we went to 5 or 6, I mean in that in that short
• 44:46
  period of time. So yeah, we.
• 44:50
  How did so this is kind of personal question here, how did
• 44:56
  it affect so having to let those people go that are also some of
• 45:00
  them are part of the church, how did that affect your
• 45:03
  relationships? I would say that all of those
• 45:10
  relationships, they are very good.
• 45:13
  Very, you know that they're, they're good.
• 45:16
  I I some of those. Well, that's not what they told
• 45:18
  me. Oh no.
• 45:19
  Just. No, some of those folks I still
• 45:22
  do business with today in different, in different
• 45:25
  fashions. I mean some of those I, I, you
• 45:28
  know, some of those folks have went and started businesses, but
• 45:31
  which is encouraging. It's awesome.
• 45:34
  But in the moment, walking through that process with a
• 45:38
  brother or sister in Christ, it was different.
• 45:43
  You know, with, with, I mean, frankly, this is just how it
• 45:47
  played out with with other employees.
• 45:50
  It was a pretty brief conversation with a severance
• 45:53
  package and you know, it was 15 minute conversation, but with
• 45:59
  Brothers and Sisters of Christ, you know, it, it might have been
• 46:02
  22 conversations, three. I mean, some of those folks were
• 46:05
  in my missional community. So, you know, and, and really
• 46:11
  those conversations were just walking through just
• 46:15
  conversations that brothers and sisters of Christ would have as
• 46:18
  an employee employer relationship, you know.
• 46:21
  Yeah. And some people you know, you
• 46:22
  don't you, you don't mix friendship and business or you
• 46:26
  don't mix mix church and business.
• 46:29
  And that's not our philosophy. And yes, it does complicate some
• 46:34
  things, as you just said, but it also it holds you both to a
• 46:38
  higher standard, right where you actually do have that.
• 46:42
  And you need to have a conversation here and feel the
• 46:43
  weight on both sides. But it's it's an evidence of
• 46:48
  grace that you, you handled it the best you could.
• 46:52
  I doubt you would say now you handle it perfectly, but
• 46:54
  everybody's but you guys are still in community, still on
• 46:57
  mission. And that's that's very rare.
• 47:02
  Yeah. Yeah, it is.
• 47:04
  It is. So all right, you whittle her
• 47:08
  down to 5, five employees. Now what?
• 47:12
  Well, you know, I there was about an 8 month process.
• 47:20
  We had some really neat things that were developing, but we
• 47:25
  needed time, you know, really great affiliate networking
• 47:31
  relationships and we just, we needed time for that to grow.
• 47:35
  And I think that over time, my partner and I, we just began to
• 47:40
  have differing opinions on what growth looked like.
• 47:44
  And, you know, I, I wanted a bit more simplicity and you know, I
• 47:57
  ultimately it was my sentiment about the business that began to
• 48:00
  change. And, and, and, and so then that
• 48:04
  resulted in me eventually communicating with my partner
• 48:08
  that I, I wanted to exit the, the firm and the, the business
• 48:12
  relationship. So we had bought a building
• 48:17
  together. You know that there were certain
• 48:19
  complexities to that, that it was probably a 60 day corridor
• 48:23
  up to my exit and there are, you know, it's two years now since
• 48:28
  that has happened and there are still things that I'm having to
• 48:32
  do on a weekly, monthly basis relating to that business wind
• 48:36
  down. It's just it's in process.
• 48:40
  How'd that feel, You know, did you just step aside?
• 48:47
  Did you sell off your share? Did you just, did you close it?
• 48:51
  What did what did you do there? And how'd that feel?
• 48:56
  Yeah. So I, I, I negotiated the exit.
• 49:02
  There was buy a buyout component and then there was a client
• 49:07
  component. So I, I basically negotiated
• 49:14
  that I would take a certain pool of clients with me to start my
• 49:19
  new firm and, and, and then we would split certain future cash
• 49:26
  flow from accounts receivable. We would split, split building
• 49:29
  proceeds. When the building sold, we
• 49:32
  worked out all those details and then we had an attorney sign off
• 49:35
  on it. And how'd you feel about so when
• 49:38
  once that's done and that business is now past what how
• 49:44
  did you feel about that? I don't think you know, I say
• 49:52
  that question again. So once you get once you exit.
• 49:59
  Yeah. Like how do you, how do you feel
• 50:01
  about that? I'm, what I'm trying to get at
• 50:03
  is did you feel like that thing failed?
• 50:07
  Did you feel like, well, that was fun and I learned a lot.
• 50:10
  Did you feel, you know, did you feel like though that you know,
• 50:13
  that was a win? Like how did you feel about
• 50:15
  that? You know, I would say there was
• 50:24
  a dynamic of once I gave my partner notice, I needed to, you
• 50:28
  know, holy crud, I needed to start figuring out what was next
• 50:32
  and I need to communicate with clients and sometimes they would
• 50:34
  have two or three call meetings with questions.
• 50:38
  You're re signing clients again to move with you to a new firm.
• 50:42
  So you're getting your EIN number, you're getting, you're
• 50:46
  organizing a company, you're figuring out workflows and
• 50:50
  client load and staffing that you need.
• 50:53
  I mean, you're, you're starting a new business up in a 4560 day
• 50:56
  corridor. So it was a busy time.
• 51:00
  And I don't think in that time I had a lot of, you know, I, I, I,
• 51:03
  I didn't reflect a lot on it. I think that if anything, I was
• 51:08
  in a period of just grieving what, what it was because at the
• 51:12
  time I've, I've, you know, it seemed like I was in the middle
• 51:17
  of exactly what God had called me to, you know, working with
• 51:19
  people that I cared about, brothers and sisters in Christ,
• 51:23
  leading and leading a large organization that has a
• 51:26
  Christian influence and impact. It was great, you know, and so
• 51:32
  I, I, I grieved that for, for a season for sure.
• 51:37
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 51:38
  But I think as I as I came further out of it, I began to
• 51:42
  see that the the pace at which we grew resulted in sometimes
• 51:48
  despite our best of intentions, not serving clients as best as
• 51:52
  we could and not equipping employees with the amount of
• 51:56
  training that that they needed. And so there were circumstances
• 52:00
  where an employee would be thrown into a meeting with a
• 52:03
  client under trained, you know, they're somebody that's got 10
• 52:08
  months worth of training talking to an entrepreneur, that's doing
• 52:11
  $10 million top line in the advertising industry and has 140
• 52:14
  employees. And that client just wipes the
• 52:17
  floor with our employee, you know, from a technical
• 52:20
  standpoint. And so I began to see that, you
• 52:25
  know, we within that firm, we wanted to do things with
• 52:27
  excellence because we wanted to honor God.
• 52:30
  But as I as I became further removed from it, I began to see
• 52:34
  that maybe we weren't doing things with excellence the way
• 52:39
  that we desired because of how the business developed.
• 52:43
  Right, right. And the scale.
• 52:44
  So that was a big, big learning thing for me.
• 52:48
  But man, again, you learned a lot and there wasn't really time
• 52:57
  to feel sorry for yourself and mope around, right?
• 53:02
  So you just started building again?
• 53:05
  Yep. Yep, you took your hammer and
• 53:07
  you, you started building again. So what?
• 53:11
  All right, what did you learn from that?
• 53:13
  Right. And now you're, you're building
• 53:15
  something new. What it what's the new thing?
• 53:19
  And what did you learn from the last thing?
• 53:22
  Yeah. So our current firm is called
• 53:24
  Protego. I am the owner of it.
• 53:29
  We have, we got 7 employees and we're a tax advisory firm.
• 53:34
  So I think coming out of that previous experience, a
• 53:37
  conviction that I had was that I wanted, we wanted to do one
• 53:40
  thing and do it really, really well.
• 53:43
  And, you know, leveraging the experience that I had developed
• 53:48
  in my different roles that I had had, tax was just a it was just
• 53:53
  a strong area and it's. Your wheelhouse.
• 53:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we wanted to do something
• 54:00
  different. We wanted to do something
• 54:02
  different. And I think that that was, you
• 54:05
  know, the impetus that really caused us to be really
• 54:10
  exploratory about our business model in the first year that
• 54:14
  that we started. But I mean, that's, yeah, that's
• 54:19
  a short end of it. So you learned to simplify, to
• 54:25
  focus, right? Most people can only be, you
• 54:30
  know, really, really good at a very small percentage of things,
• 54:35
  right? One or two things.
• 54:36
  And you knew what you were really, really good at and you
• 54:39
  decided that's what we're going to do.
• 54:41
  We're just going to be, we're going to try to be the best, you
• 54:45
  know, I don't know, best in the world, best in the Quad Cities,
• 54:46
  whatever at this thing. And we're going to and we're
• 54:49
  going to serve our customers to the best of our ability in this
• 54:54
  one thing. So I mean, early on the, the we
• 54:59
  inherited this pool of clients from the previous business and
• 55:02
  we just wanted to serve these clients to the gills.
• 55:05
  We wanted to have, we wanted them to be taken care of up and
• 55:10
  down, left and right. We wanted to have a stable base
• 55:13
  before we began to add more clients and think through other,
• 55:19
  other elements of the of the business model.
• 55:23
  Yeah, within the first four months because of relationships
• 55:28
  that I had in my previous firm, I built a relationship with the
• 55:33
  Department of Justice and, and, and, and that was a big part of
• 55:39
  our early months as a firm. We and, and still now we, we
• 55:45
  work with the Department of Justice.
• 55:47
  So within our firm probably the way that I would describe it to
• 55:51
  a client is about 20% of what we do is government facing and 80%
• 55:54
  of it is client facing. The the government facing side
• 55:58
  as we work with trial attorneys right outside of Washington and
• 56:03
  represent their interests in collecting on that's north of 30
• 56:08
  million. So if somebody owes more than
• 56:11
  $30 million in taxes and certain and certain geographies, our
• 56:16
  firm will. Be my name's not on that list.
• 56:18
  No. Well, that's good.
• 56:20
  That's good. Yeah, wow.
• 56:23
  OK. So that you know that that's one
• 56:26
  part of what we do. And then on the client facing
• 56:29
  side, we service clients with tax advisory work.
• 56:33
  So within our industry, technology and artificial
• 56:38
  intelligence is eroding, you know, the, the traditional CPA
• 56:43
  firm model from the inside out. There used to be this huge
• 56:47
  pyramid of a partner and then senior managers and then
• 56:50
  managers and then senior associates and then associates
• 56:53
  and you had 12 of of the lower levels and you know, and then a
• 56:57
  partner. And what's happening is that
• 57:00
  those pyramids are getting smaller and they're getting
• 57:02
  squeezed in because the value proposition of ACPA used to be
• 57:08
  20 years ago. We'll, we'll prepare and file
• 57:11
  your returns really, really well.
• 57:13
  And that's not a value proposition that people are
• 57:16
  really it's, it's not a value that somebody's going to pay a
• 57:19
  premium for anymore. Because AI can do it.
• 57:21
  Because TurboTax can do it and AI can do it and a lot of the
• 57:25
  guidance that they would go to their CPA for, they can just go
• 57:28
  to ChatGPT. And so on the client facing
• 57:33
  side, we, we really deal with clients for the most part in the
• 57:39
  37% tax bracket. We take care of folks in our
• 57:44
  church and you know, friends and, and things like that for
• 57:48
  sure. But our client profile is, is
• 57:50
  clients that are in that 37% federal tax bracket.
• 57:55
  So the way that we talk about it is we want to work with clients
• 57:59
  that are concerned about their legacy impact.
• 58:03
  And a component of that legacy impact is financial stewardship.
• 58:08
  And for the clients that we work with, you know, that financial
• 58:14
  component is a function of assets and income.
• 58:17
  And the biggest expense on income is tax.
• 58:20
  And so, you know, in our state, if you stack your federal and
• 58:24
  state tax brackets, that's 4040.8% for for folks in that
• 58:29
  tax bracket. So for every dollar that they
• 58:31
  earn, almost half of it is going out to taxes.
• 58:34
  And we want to use really creative strategies to help them
• 58:39
  minimize those taxes. Yeah.
• 58:44
  And so you've been doing that for, you've been in this company
• 58:47
  for how long? Two years.
• 58:50
  Two years and how's it going? It's going really well.
• 58:56
  It's going really well. You know, I it's going, it's
• 59:02
  going really well. You know, and I say that from
• 59:04
  the inside out. You know, I would say that I
• 59:09
  went from a previous role where my schedule owned me a bit and
• 59:17
  we were overwhelmed by how quickly it grew.
• 59:20
  I had little energy to afford to the things of first importance,
• 59:26
  you know, like my family. And now, you know, we're, we're
• 59:31
  just super thankful the Lord has us in a in a wonderful spot, you
• 59:35
  know, starting from the home up to the business.
• 59:38
  So, yeah, the business is, is going really well.
• 59:42
  We've basically we work with financial advisors, you know,
• 59:50
  we, we, we build a relationship with them and when they have
• 59:53
  certain clients that come into certain situations or are
• 1:00:00
  earning a certain amount of income, we're in the tool belt.
• 1:00:04
  Of that financial advisor so they can pull it out and refer
• 1:00:08
  that end client to us. It helps create a win win for
• 1:00:11
  the financial advisor and and that's how we get new.
• 1:00:13
  Clients, yeah. More money you can save them.
• 1:00:15
  More money you can invest. Whatever.
• 1:00:17
  Yeah. So, yeah.
• 1:00:20
  And how old are you right now? 36. 36 OK, so again, this is
• 1:00:28
  I've just heard so many stories like this, that this is just how
• 1:00:31
  God builds men, right? Whether it's a degree, whether
• 1:00:36
  it's going into the trades, but it's just from position, do your
• 1:00:41
  best, work hard, learn it, learn as much as you can, get as many
• 1:00:45
  tools in the tool belt as you possibly can.
• 1:00:47
  And then once you start stretching, you look for that
• 1:00:50
  next opportunity. Take that next opportunity, grab
• 1:00:53
  the tools, learn everything you possibly can.
• 1:00:55
  He's doing something in you. He's preparing you for something
• 1:00:58
  in the future. You don't even know what it's
• 1:01:00
  going to be. Boom, next job, same deal.
• 1:01:02
  Next job, same deal. Each one usually gets a little
• 1:01:05
  more difficult, a little more complicated, a little more
• 1:01:07
  heavy, a little more weight to carry right?
• 1:01:09
  And he's testing you, but he's also strengthening you.
• 1:01:14
  He's literally, you said building your shoulders,
• 1:01:16
  building your spine, right, so you can building your frame so
• 1:01:21
  that you can carry more weight in the future.
• 1:01:24
  And some of the things you're going to find.
• 1:01:25
  Oh, I hate this. You know, this sucks.
• 1:01:26
  I made a mistake. Learn from it, overcome, adapt.
• 1:01:31
  Right. Right, Yeah, I would say a
• 1:01:34
  builder, a leader, an entrepreneur, more times than
• 1:01:38
  not, they're going to find themselves feeling around in a
• 1:01:40
  dark room. It's just common.
• 1:01:43
  It's it's a common experience. And many times entrepreneurs
• 1:01:49
  that I see or have worked with in the past that aren't
• 1:01:52
  Christians, they navigate that dark room with an undercurrent
• 1:01:57
  of anxiety. And that anxiety is what makes
• 1:01:58
  them in some respects successful.
• 1:02:01
  But a Christian navigates that environment very differently
• 1:02:05
  with with the undercurrent of a trust in the Lord.
• 1:02:09
  And so that is, that is something that I, God has taught
• 1:02:14
  me over the past couple. Years.
• 1:02:16
  I think it's good because that anxiety can wake you up in the
• 1:02:19
  morning. That anxiety can push you to
• 1:02:22
  work crazy hours and intensity, but that anxiety and in one
• 1:02:30
  sense it can help you overcome adversity.
• 1:02:33
  In the sense of you, you just have to suck it up and just keep
• 1:02:37
  going. It can help you, but it also
• 1:02:41
  does makes you a. Very fragile.
• 1:02:42
  Person makes you a very fragile person.
• 1:02:45
  It shrinks your soul, it shrinks your emotions because you're in
• 1:02:49
  a reactionary state all the time.
• 1:02:52
  You know, you can't really be contempt, you know, like
• 1:02:58
  contemplative and think and respond.
• 1:03:02
  You're just reacting, right? You're just reacting because you
• 1:03:05
  feel like if you stop swimming, you die.
• 1:03:08
  And and of course that's not good for your soul.
• 1:03:12
  And then you just can't shut that anxiety off.
• 1:03:15
  That's the problem. You can't like pull in the
• 1:03:18
  driveway and go OK, off switch anxiety because that's what
• 1:03:22
  you're running on. So if you do hit off switch to
• 1:03:24
  anxiety, you just lose everything and you're worthless
• 1:03:29
  at home. So you've got to you've got to
• 1:03:33
  learn how to tap into the Spirit of God, to tap into the
• 1:03:39
  motivation of grace that God has made us builders that were, that
• 1:03:44
  our vocation is a gift of God. We told us, you know, told Adam
• 1:03:48
  in the garden, he gave him the garden to work it and keep it
• 1:03:50
  before the curse happened that this was work is a good thing
• 1:03:53
  and it's a gift of God and it's meant to be done in a humane
• 1:03:58
  way, like a way that works with human flourishing, right?
• 1:04:03
  And anxiety is good for certain circumstances.
• 1:04:07
  But if it's just, that's the. That's the only thing.
• 1:04:10
  Yeah, the natural, the the, the inclination of the soul.
• 1:04:14
  Yeah. Yeah, if it's just your only
• 1:04:16
  energy source is anxiety, it's a recipe for catastrophe down the
• 1:04:23
  road, right. How how has so all you've got
• 1:04:29
  all this going on? We haven't even mentioned this.
• 1:04:31
  I mean, well, we have mentioned that you've got a family.
• 1:04:33
  So I want to ask you about like, what does it look like at home
• 1:04:37
  for you to be a builder? And then you're also a missional
• 1:04:40
  community leader, right? And you serve in the church as
• 1:04:42
  they're taking a finance. So let's do the family stuff
• 1:04:44
  first. What?
• 1:04:45
  What does it look like you for you to be a builder at home?
• 1:04:49
  Yeah, I mean, I would say the way that we talk about it is we
• 1:04:57
  have 4-4 pillars to our family worship at at home.
• 1:05:02
  The first one is scripture memorization.
• 1:05:05
  The second one is, you know, I'm, I'm going through a
• 1:05:09
  curriculum with our kids about worldviews, religions, character
• 1:05:15
  and virtue. It's, we call it teaching at the
• 1:05:19
  table. So we'll we'll go through that.
• 1:05:23
  You do that dinner time or yeah. OK, yeah, just promoting
• 1:05:29
  spiritual disciplines in the lives of our children and and
• 1:05:32
  you know, as they're reading, as they're learning to read God's
• 1:05:35
  word, we're unpacking it and teaching out of it with them.
• 1:05:40
  So, so that, that, that's one, that's one component.
• 1:05:43
  And then, you know, the, the, the second one is I, I, I guess
• 1:05:54
  if, if this falls into the category of building, we were in
• 1:05:57
  the process of trying to start a family, family business.
• 1:06:02
  Really, you know, my idea is that I would love to, I'm kind
• 1:06:07
  of trailing my family and the skills and abilities that are
• 1:06:11
  represented by my family and seeing opportunity that I can
• 1:06:16
  seize and, and go for. And you know, our oldest
• 1:06:20
  daughter's 11 years old, you know, we would love to begin to
• 1:06:23
  have a business that's monetizing by the time she's 15.
• 1:06:27
  And it can be a partnership structure between the three of
• 1:06:29
  them so that they can begin to have some type of income
• 1:06:32
  producing endeavour. For this guy, this guy who
• 1:06:35
  challenges me every time I talk to him, OK, this is crazy to.
• 1:06:39
  Me so I've got 3 girls. Though hold.
• 1:06:41
  On SO and it's harder. I just love how your brain works
• 1:06:44
  dude. OK, So what are you thinking?
• 1:06:47
  So you're she's 11. By the time she's 15, you've got
• 1:06:49
  you're going to have this thing, you got partnership structures
• 1:06:53
  and all kind of stuff. What are you thinking?
• 1:06:55
  I love it. I love it, but what are you
• 1:06:57
  thinking? Well, I don't know.
• 1:07:00
  And that's that's part of the fun part of it right now is that
• 1:07:04
  I'll continue to drip it to the family.
• 1:07:05
  Yep, Yep. We've had, you know, I've gone
• 1:07:08
  to the whiteboard, I've thrown out ideas and nothing has
• 1:07:14
  nothing has stuck yet. But it's important that whatever
• 1:07:18
  we do aligns with, you know, abilities and giftings and also
• 1:07:23
  passions and what what God has called us to.
• 1:07:25
  Yeah, so, so much it takes. Time.
• 1:07:28
  So much stuff there though, so obviously give me a so you, you,
• 1:07:33
  First off, you, you talked about your, your family rhythms and
• 1:07:37
  your, let's just call it family worship at home.
• 1:07:41
  What does that table time look like?
• 1:07:43
  Like how long is it? What?
• 1:07:44
  What? What do you actually do there?
• 1:07:46
  Yeah, oh, the 4th pillar is singing hymns.
• 1:07:49
  I knew that was coming. I was literally, I was like, I'm
• 1:07:51
  going to ask him about singing because I know his wife loves to
• 1:07:55
  sing. So.
• 1:07:55
  So I knew that was coming. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:57
  Go ahead. No, I, I mean, we will.
• 1:08:01
  It's, it's not every, it's not every.
• 1:08:04
  It's very, it's seasonal, you know, but when we're nailing it
• 1:08:08
  and we're having family meals together consistently, it
• 1:08:13
  includes song and some type of teaching.
• 1:08:16
  I'll either do teaching right out of the Bible or we will
• 1:08:22
  we'll we'll we'll go through something more topically based
• 1:08:25
  again. World used religion.
• 1:08:27
  Do you do it before you eat or after you eat?
• 1:08:29
  I normally do it while they're eating and then I'll I'll eat
• 1:08:34
  afterwards or I'll scar. I'll scround it down beforehand,
• 1:08:37
  yeah. Yeah.
• 1:08:38
  Yeah. And then we'll go through a book
• 1:08:40
  together in in the evenings, you know, we'll read a book.
• 1:08:43
  OK. Yeah, so we're going through
• 1:08:47
  Chronicles of Narnia right now. Sweet.
• 1:08:49
  Yeah. OK, so now on this other side
• 1:08:55
  where you know you're building your family up in the faith and
• 1:09:00
  now, but you're also dripping in.
• 1:09:03
  I just love this idea of you bringing your little girls up
• 1:09:05
  before this whiteboard family meeting.
• 1:09:09
  Let's go. All right, let's talk about
• 1:09:10
  synergy. We need some synergy going here.
• 1:09:13
  And but you're dripping this idea.
• 1:09:15
  Well, it's really just the theology of vocation that God's
• 1:09:19
  put you on this earth to build, right?
• 1:09:22
  To create, to build. And so let's start trying to
• 1:09:28
  decipher what gifts God's put in each of my children, 'cause
• 1:09:33
  we're, we want to be a productive household, right?
• 1:09:37
  We want to teach our whole household to be productive, not
• 1:09:40
  just individuals, but collectively as a family, right?
• 1:09:47
  And yeah, that's so I think, I just think that's, that's
• 1:09:51
  awesome. I, I think, you know, when I was
• 1:09:54
  with my previous firm, we were a collection of individuals within
• 1:09:59
  our home and it was a bit of a, more of a noisy environment.
• 1:10:04
  And now we're organized around the mission that Team Epicus has
• 1:10:10
  been called to. And what's unique is, you know,
• 1:10:14
  I work from home. That's, that's where I work on a
• 1:10:17
  daily basis and my, my wife homeschools.
• 1:10:19
  And so there's just an incredible amount of opportunity
• 1:10:22
  to create a structure within our home rhythms and liturgies that
• 1:10:27
  dictate what we do and how we do it from the moment, how we wake
• 1:10:31
  up in the, you know, the first things that we, each of us
• 1:10:34
  individually commit ourselves to through the end of the end of
• 1:10:38
  the evening. So, yeah, we've and, and so the
• 1:10:44
  having a joyful and productive home has been something that
• 1:10:48
  we've just been consistently talking about over certainly the
• 1:10:51
  past couple years. Did your girls do anything with
• 1:10:54
  the craft fair or whatever we had here?
• 1:10:56
  Yeah, they did. Yeah, what'd they do for that?
• 1:10:59
  Paintings, necklaces, I those, those were the those were the
• 1:11:04
  products. Yeah, mine did.
• 1:11:07
  I don't even know. I can't remember.
• 1:11:08
  Well, yeah, my my oldest or my second oldest daughter is
• 1:11:12
  phenomenal at nails. She just like gravitated to it.
• 1:11:17
  I mean, dude, like here's here's a sad reality.
• 1:11:22
  One of my daughter's we let we let her.
• 1:11:24
  We don't let any of our kids do like YouTube channels or
• 1:11:27
  anything, but we let her because she doesn't show her face.
• 1:11:30
  It's nothing like that. It's just like the nails that
• 1:11:32
  she does. And her last video has over
• 1:11:35
  20,000 views. Wow.
• 1:11:37
  And I'm like. Wow, that's crazy.
• 1:11:39
  None of my videos, no. So I just the, the closest I got
• 1:11:44
  is we were joking and my daughter that challenged me, my
• 1:11:48
  gymnast daughter challenged me that I couldn't do a backflip.
• 1:11:50
  And so she got out of her mat or whatever and I got up out of my
• 1:11:53
  chair and I did a backflip and Amanda recorded it.
• 1:11:56
  So then I posted on Instagram that thing got like 15,000
• 1:11:58
  views. My sermon videos, nothing close
• 1:12:02
  podcast videos, nothing close. But my daughter's phenomenal at
• 1:12:05
  nails. So I think my daughter does
• 1:12:07
  nails and then my other daughter some they do jewelry and my wife
• 1:12:10
  does art and that kind of stuff. So that's what I was thinking
• 1:12:14
  was if your daughters are very crafty and artistic and right
• 1:12:19
  and that kind of thing. So is that the lane you think?
• 1:12:22
  I think so. And you know, I have a lot of
• 1:12:26
  just unique client relationships that are in different industry
• 1:12:31
  verticals where, you know, once I find something that we want to
• 1:12:35
  do. We can.
• 1:12:39
  Mobilize it. We can mobilize it, you know,
• 1:12:41
  and so. Top tax bracket, all these
• 1:12:44
  clients that you've got. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:12:46
  I love the idea of it. Yeah.
• 1:12:49
  All right. Yeah.
• 1:12:51
  That's cool, man. Yeah.
• 1:12:57
  Yeah. So I mean, you're working at
• 1:13:00
  home, your wife's home schooling.
• 1:13:06
  What is, is this the long term plan?
• 1:13:11
  So I hate, I hate to do this because I don't want to like put
• 1:13:13
  any discontentment in you, you know, but is this like, are you
• 1:13:21
  riding this baby out? Is this going to be do we have
• 1:13:25
  plans to take it higher and eventually be out of the house
• 1:13:29
  and have it, you know, your own building and all this kind of
• 1:13:32
  stuff like or is there, you know, a different Ave. that you
• 1:13:36
  think the Lord might might take you on?
• 1:13:40
  It's an interesting question and I don't, I don't really have an
• 1:13:42
  answer to it. In it within our previous firm,
• 1:13:48
  I mean we bought companies, we were constantly scaling, we were
• 1:13:52
  constantly looking for what was next.
• 1:13:55
  And with, with where I'm at right now, you know, my
• 1:14:02
  contentment kind of outpaces my ambition.
• 1:14:05
  I, I don't, you know, I'm the Lord has provided in a mighty
• 1:14:08
  way within, within my current firm.
• 1:14:12
  And I'm, I'm really excited about what family routines and
• 1:14:18
  rhythms look like. And I know for this year, I, I
• 1:14:23
  think that for me coming out of my previous experience, I want
• 1:14:28
  to make sure that our, you know, our firm is really, really
• 1:14:32
  mature before we begin to make certain types of decisions.
• 1:14:36
  And so really for 2026, I've just said, I'm not going to hire
• 1:14:41
  this year. I'm not going to make certain
• 1:14:43
  decisions and then I'll revisit it next year.
• 1:14:47
  How important do you think ambition is for a Christian and
• 1:14:54
  an entrepreneur? Incredibly important.
• 1:15:02
  Incredibly important. OK.
• 1:15:04
  You know, I, I, it's fundamental.
• 1:15:09
  Fundamental. Yeah, but.
• 1:15:11
  Do you think it's do you think it is intrinsic to a person or
• 1:15:16
  do you think it can be cultivated?
• 1:15:20
  I I think, I think there are certain wirings that give people
• 1:15:25
  an inclination to be ambitious. And then for some it's some,
• 1:15:29
  it's, it's something that can be nurtured.
• 1:15:32
  But I would say that the Imago day is a president to go build,
• 1:15:38
  create in, in whatever context that that means.
• 1:15:42
  And so in that, that implies ambition, yeah.
• 1:15:49
  Yeah, and of course ambition. So the, the scriptures
• 1:15:57
  differentiate between selfish ambition and God.
• 1:16:01
  The ambition, right? Selfish ambition is I want to
• 1:16:06
  make a name for myself, right? And it's, it's self focused,
• 1:16:11
  it's self, it's selfish and you want to build your own Kingdom
• 1:16:16
  for your own glory, right? And the, but the reality is
• 1:16:22
  ambition is such a power that you can actually do that.
• 1:16:28
  You know, I, you know, our President, Donald Trump, he, he
• 1:16:34
  is a man of ambition. And I would probably say most of
• 1:16:38
  his life, if not all of his life, it's been primarily
• 1:16:40
  selfish, you know, ambition. And he's built something, right?
• 1:16:45
  He's built something and it's been good for his family, right?
• 1:16:50
  So it, ambition actually gets stuff done.
• 1:16:54
  And but the the problem is, you know that selfish ambition and
• 1:16:59
  it can, it can lead you to hell. You build something great, get a
• 1:17:02
  lot of stuff, lead you to hell. But the Scripture talks about
• 1:17:07
  godly ambition and what many Christians, they think I can't
• 1:17:14
  be content and ambitious at the same time.
• 1:17:21
  And the Scriptures tells us to have godly ambition and, and to
• 1:17:25
  be content. So but that's a how.
• 1:17:29
  How would you describe that? How?
• 1:17:30
  How can a person have godly ambition and still be content?
• 1:17:36
  Because I think most Christians would be like, I'm either
• 1:17:38
  content or I'm ambitious. I can't be both.
• 1:17:41
  Yeah, well, you know, I said my contentment is outpacing my
• 1:17:46
  ambition right now, which, you know, I'm an incredibly
• 1:17:50
  ambitious dude within my job, within, within my, within my
• 1:17:55
  business, within my home life. And, and so I think that I can
• 1:18:04
  apply myself diligently to my take my, my working arena.
• 1:18:11
  I can apply myself diligently. I can work hard and serve the
• 1:18:14
  Lord enthusiastically. I can be, you know, I can try to
• 1:18:19
  open new doors and explore new ways to create value for
• 1:18:22
  clients. And at the end of the day, just
• 1:18:24
  be content with where the Lord has me and you know, not there
• 1:18:31
  not being a spirit of frustration that drives my
• 1:18:36
  ambition because I'm not where I want to be does.
• 1:18:38
  That make sense? Yeah.
• 1:18:39
  Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:18:41
  A spirit of frustration, discontentment that drives your
• 1:18:47
  ambition. I think that's.
• 1:18:48
  Yeah, that's what you don't want, right?
• 1:18:50
  That's to not be content. We're talking about content in
• 1:18:56
  the Lord and and what and the station and place that he has.
• 1:19:02
  He has us in this moment, the season that he has us in this
• 1:19:04
  moment. And there are, I guarantee you
• 1:19:08
  there's things in your life that you would say, I don't like
• 1:19:09
  this, I don't like this part. But he's called us to be content
• 1:19:14
  in it, to find our identity in Christ, our security in Christ,
• 1:19:18
  because he has, it's like, and sometimes the worst of our
• 1:19:21
  seasons, it's like Joseph in jail.
• 1:19:25
  You know, the story of Joseph, He's in jail and God has him
• 1:19:29
  there for a very specific reason.
• 1:19:31
  He's going to be elevated, you know, but he hasn't become the
• 1:19:35
  man he needs to become yet to be elevated and to be content and
• 1:19:41
  ambitious, right? So he has to learn something in
• 1:19:46
  this awful season in jail. And God's got to do something in
• 1:19:50
  him. And so he needs to be content in
• 1:19:53
  jail, even though he doesn't want to be there.
• 1:19:56
  And he won't be there forever, but he would be there forever if
• 1:20:01
  he's discontent in jail. You know, it's like the
• 1:20:04
  Israelites in the desert. All right, one more lap.
• 1:20:07
  Here we go. Until you get rid of this
• 1:20:09
  grumbling and complaining. You're not going in right?
• 1:20:12
  And then everybody under under the age of 20, just under the
• 1:20:16
  under the age of 20 gets to go in.
• 1:20:17
  But everybody else didn't learn the lesson and died in the
• 1:20:21
  wilderness. So there's this principle that a
• 1:20:25
  contentment is not, I'm totally OK with everything in my life
• 1:20:31
  where it is right now. That's.
• 1:20:33
  Cruise control. Yeah, that's not contentment,
• 1:20:35
  right? Right.
• 1:20:36
  I'm not content with the areas of sin in my life, the areas of
• 1:20:39
  immaturity, the areas of bad communication between my wife,
• 1:20:43
  the areas that I'm struggling to discipleship with my kids, the
• 1:20:46
  areas where our business isn't doing great.
• 1:20:47
  I'm not content with those. Like I'm not content with the
• 1:20:50
  failures, but I'm content with God.
• 1:20:53
  I'm content with where God has me.
• 1:20:55
  And I understand I'm here to be a certain type of man, to grow
• 1:21:01
  into a certain type of man and to have character, virtue and
• 1:21:06
  learn my lesson. And if he, if my business stays
• 1:21:09
  right here for a while, I, I'll be OK with it, right?
• 1:21:15
  I'll be OK with it. But I still want to grow.
• 1:21:20
  I want to develop. I want to be better in all of
• 1:21:22
  these areas of life. So I still have an ambition that
• 1:21:26
  wakes me up in the morning. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:28
  How would you clarify? Like what is your ambition?
• 1:21:36
  Within what context? Just just what wakes you up in
• 1:21:39
  the morning? I I want to be a man that honors
• 1:21:48
  Jesus in the different spheres that he has me in in my life.
• 1:21:54
  So I wear a lot of hats. I am a husband, a father, a
• 1:22:00
  disciple, A disciple or an employer, a colleague.
• 1:22:05
  You know, I, I wear a lot of different hats and I, I want to
• 1:22:11
  model Christ out of the treasure that Christ is in my life.
• 1:22:18
  That's how I would characterize it.
• 1:22:22
  Yeah. And from my perspective and
• 1:22:24
  you're, you're doing well at it, right?
• 1:22:26
  You're doing well at it. How do you deal with so you're
• 1:22:31
  talking about these different spheres and the sphere of
• 1:22:37
  business and the sphere of family life, church life.
• 1:22:45
  They, they are often they, they're, they're in battle with
• 1:22:50
  one another, right? So there's, if you, if you were
• 1:22:55
  focused solely on career, you'd be like those Deloitte
• 1:23:00
  employees, right? How do you balance?
• 1:23:05
  Yeah, your work, family, church life balance.
• 1:23:09
  Yeah. How do you do that?
• 1:23:11
  I they they they, they naturally interact with each other often
• 1:23:18
  those those fears, you know, we, we homeschool, I work from home,
• 1:23:26
  we host MC at our house. And so our, our house is often a
• 1:23:32
  place of ministry, discipleship, community, things like that.
• 1:23:39
  So, you know, I think that to the extent that it is, it is
• 1:23:49
  possible, it is a responsibility that I have to maintain a degree
• 1:23:55
  of stability within my business and life so that I have margin
• 1:24:03
  and the, the, the freedom throughout my day to serve, to
• 1:24:08
  lead in, in other arenas outside of just my, my job.
• 1:24:13
  And so you know, that that can, that can take the form of
• 1:24:18
  helping people within our missional community that can be
• 1:24:21
  having difficult discipleship conversations.
• 1:24:25
  You know, that can be helping someone out within our church
• 1:24:29
  from a financial standpoint if they need help, or helping a, a
• 1:24:35
  member of our church from a, a tax perspective with, with a tax
• 1:24:38
  issue or, you know, whatever they're, whatever they have
• 1:24:40
  going on. So.
• 1:24:41
  So what do you use? So my perspective would be
• 1:24:46
  you're dealing with not all, but like you said, like a lot of top
• 1:24:50
  earners and these these top earners, they're on the go all
• 1:24:55
  the time. They're, they expect you to
• 1:24:59
  answer phone calls, they expect you to answer text messages when
• 1:25:03
  they call or when they text. I would imagine that, you know,
• 1:25:07
  that maybe they want travel. I, I don't know if they, if
• 1:25:11
  they, I just feel like those kind of relationships can really
• 1:25:14
  pull on you and, and you know, they're, they're big clients
• 1:25:21
  and, you know, so how do you keep that from taking up your
• 1:25:27
  nights and weekends? Well, fortunately I'm in the tax
• 1:25:31
  business and people don't want to talk about taxes more than
• 1:25:35
  they need to. So it's not, you know, people
• 1:25:38
  aren't calling me up, you know, up and down, left and right
• 1:25:41
  about everything. I mean, at at the beginning of
• 1:25:44
  the year, a way that we can kind of set the tone in our client
• 1:25:47
  relationship is the beginning of the year we schedule all of our
• 1:25:50
  meetings for the entire year. So my schedule of client
• 1:25:53
  meetings for the entire year is already booked.
• 1:25:55
  You know. So then clients aren't asking
• 1:25:57
  when we're going to be meeting. What's you know, what, what's
• 1:26:00
  coming down the pipeline. We've got scheduled meetings.
• 1:26:03
  So we kind of systematize what client service looks like if
• 1:26:08
  calls come up. Great.
• 1:26:10
  I, I don't, I don't have a ton of them that that come up.
• 1:26:15
  We we tackle a lot of conversations within the
• 1:26:18
  meetings that we have scheduled. Sure.
• 1:26:20
  So yeah. OK, yeah.
• 1:26:23
  And then obviously, you know I. Guess to, to to the other point
• 1:26:26
  of, you know, there can be, especially for business owners,
• 1:26:31
  there can be, yeah, like the big clients, a scurry to please
• 1:26:36
  them, to take care of them. And that can influence your
• 1:26:44
  rhythms. You know, I want to have enough
• 1:26:48
  clients where I'm not dependent upon one or two or a group, you
• 1:26:53
  know, so that if it's resulting in me needing to do something
• 1:26:57
  that I don't want to do, or we're servicing somebody well,
• 1:27:01
  but for some reason they're demanding and just needing more,
• 1:27:05
  we can go our separate ways and they can find someone that will
• 1:27:08
  take care of them how they want, you know?
• 1:27:10
  Gotcha. So that's.
• 1:27:12
  What I mean by setting up the structure of our, you know, so
• 1:27:15
  that it allows for consistency in other areas.
• 1:27:19
  Yeah, and I, no, since, you know, you're, you're here every
• 1:27:22
  Sunday with your family and you, you have missional community in
• 1:27:24
  your home every single week. And so I think you're doing a
• 1:27:29
  good job at it. But I, I just know the, the
• 1:27:31
  temptation is there and I wanted to know how you manage it.
• 1:27:36
  Yeah, well, we are coming up. I think we've been rolling for
• 1:27:40
  about an hour and a half here. So it's probably about time that
• 1:27:42
  we bring her in for landing. If you're speaking to men your
• 1:27:47
  age or younger who are wanting to be a builder, like what piece
• 1:27:55
  of advice would you give them? Specifically Christian men who
• 1:27:59
  want to be a builder. I know it's it's very broad, but
• 1:28:03
  what what piece of advice would you want to leave with them?
• 1:28:08
  I, you know, I would say a lot of it's a common experience for
• 1:28:16
  me when I talk to younger Christian men that get an
• 1:28:21
  interview for a job and they choose to not even show up for
• 1:28:26
  the interview because they're intimidated or they just don't
• 1:28:29
  think it would be a good fit. Part of being exploratory is
• 1:28:34
  just go into the interview and seeing what happens, seeing how
• 1:28:37
  it how it goes, having a degree of curiosity and willing to take
• 1:28:41
  risks and willing to put yourself in uncomfortable
• 1:28:45
  positions because that's what my entire, at least from a
• 1:28:50
  professional standpoint, that's what my journey has been.
• 1:28:52
  It's just been a string of uncomfortable scenarios where
• 1:28:55
  looking back, I can see how God used it to broad my shoulders
• 1:29:00
  and teach me things that he wouldn't have been able to teach
• 1:29:02
  me in any other any other context.
• 1:29:05
  So a lot of a lot of folks rule out what they should or
• 1:29:10
  shouldn't do before they even show up for the interview or the
• 1:29:14
  sales pitch or whatever it is. Lean into those types of
• 1:29:19
  experiences because it's through that that you get more clarity
• 1:29:23
  on what God is calling you to and how He's wired you and
• 1:29:27
  gifted you, I would say. Awesome.
• 1:29:30
  Think it's great. All right, guys.
• 1:29:31
  Well, man, I hope you enjoyed this interview, Alec.
• 1:29:35
  Thank you so much for being on the show, guys.
• 1:29:39
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• 1:29:41
  everybody says it, but it does go a long way.
• 1:29:43
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• 1:29:46
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• 1:29:49
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• 1:29:52
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• 1:29:53
  Write, rate, review, do all the things.
• 1:29:56
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• 1:29:58
  We're still not getting picked up by like the algorithms yet.
• 1:30:01
  So most people just find us by Yeah, directly come and they
• 1:30:04
  tell me. Just keep being faithful.
• 1:30:06
  Keep doing it week in and week out.
• 1:30:07
  That's what we're trying to do. But guys, thank you for
• 1:30:10
  listening. Go out there and act like men.
• 1:30:14
  God bless guys later.