Stephen Steric went from knowing nothing about trucking to driving an 18-wheeler on day one — and that same fearless, jump-in-headfirst attitude is exactly what took his construction business to the next level. In this episode, he breaks down why the people you surround yourself with matter more than any business plan, and how buying back your time is the ultimate key to growth.
Episode 3: Relationship Capital Matters Most with Stephen Steric
What if the fastest way to grow your business isn’t a new strategy, but a better room? That’s what we’re talking about with our guest, Stephen Steric, a Southern California contractor who’s built his success around one thing: relationships. And he’s not shy about what works.
Stephen shares how he started a trucking company during COVID-19, learning the hard way what “uncomfortable growth” really feels like, and then made a clean pivot when the markets shifted. Along the way, he breaks down why the owner has to be the face of the business early on, because, as he says, “nobody sells it better than the person with the most skin in the game.”
You’ll also hear why masterminds and proximity to high performers can change your mindset and income, why specializing beats trying to do everything, and how “saving money” can quietly steal your life if you’re not careful. From paying for TSA PreCheck to outsourcing laundry, Stephen makes the simple point that time is the real currency, and smart business owners protect it.
“Nobody sells it better than the owner of the company. The owner of the company has the most skin in the game, and so, you, as the owner, the face of the company, are going to be creating relationships with whoever your customers are. Nobody’s going to do it better than you.”
“When you specialize in everything, you don’t specialize in anything.”
“I was stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.”
“Proximity is power. Proximity of being around other people who are big thinkers, who are big action takers–not just idea people. … Take action. Literally pick up the phone and go get it.”
“Don’t be scared. Just do it.”
Stephen owns a construction company, has a real estate investment background, and extensive experience across multiple industries. He has a passion for helping people however he can, sharing knowledge with those around him, and helping them succeed. He enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters on the water in Ventura, CA.
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[00:00.2]
For people who are on the fence about what they're going to do with their future, if they want to join a group or level up their life or anything like that, or save to zero. I think proximity is power. Proximity of being around other people who are big thinkers, who are big action takers.
[00:21.2]
Not just idea people, but people who actually do stuff. They take an idea and they cultivate that idea by asking other people, gentlemen like yourselves, and then they go execute on that plan. And it doesn't have to be a perfect plan. Don't build a huge website and get a CRM and do all this stuff. Literally.
[00:39.9]
If you're gonna try and start a business, pick up the phone and make some sales. Pick up the phone and see if people actually wanna buy the crap that you're peddling. Most people think saving money is the answer, but the truth is saving only gets you to zero. Join Mike and Zach as they flip the script from saving from zero to unlimited potential.
[01:02.6]
Welcome to Save to Zero. Welcome to episode number three of the Save to Zero podcast. We've got, Zach, my partner, here on with me, and our guest is Stephen Steric from Southern California, a roofing contractor buddy of mine.
[01:19.4]
And, we're going to dive into his business and what his focus is on growth in his business and in his personal life. And, we'll kind of just jump right into it. Stephen, how you doing today, buddy? I'm great. Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate it and I love being part of the, inaugural episodes of this podcast.
[01:39.9]
It's really exciting that, that you guys have started this and I'm really happy to be here and helping you guys grow it as well. Yeah, I know that you're focused on growth. I've known, I know that we've, we've been connected for a couple years now, and I've seen you grow.
[01:55.6]
And, so from my recollection, when I met you, you were starting, you had, a trucking company. So let's kind of just dive right into it. Tell us about the trucking company and that slight pivot that you took. I seem to recall being on a, Mastermind call with you and, it was brought to your attention that wasn't the best, use of your time.
[02:20.2]
Yeah, it definitely wasn't the best use of my. It was using my time, that's for sure. And so we had this trucking company. I'd been in construction a really long time. I've been in Construction for 2526 years. And during COVID I had seen all these different businesses that were thriving, right?
[02:38.9]
And like, there were. Medical was thriving, of course, food, because everybody was out there eating alcohol, right? Everybody was drinking. And then trucking was the thing that was the glue that was holding it all together and shipping the stuff all over the country. So I was like, well, I like trucks.
[02:54.6]
I know how to drive trucks. Why don't I just go start a trucking company? Okay. I wish I would have bounced the idea off a couple people first. I wish I would have had, you know, friends like you guys at the time, where I could call up and be like, hey, I got this silly idea.
[03:10.3]
What do you think? But I didn't. I asked a couple people and they were like, yeah, that sounds great. And I'm, you know, it's like my mom thinks I'm special. So, you know, it was like, why don't you go ahead? So then started this trucking company.
[03:25.6]
I bought the first truck at auction, and I didn't know how to drive an 18 wheeler yet. And I went out and I got my license, and my wife took me down to the auction house after I purchased it online. And I got in the truck and I learned how to drive a truck on the way home from the auction.
[03:42.0]
Wow, wait a minute. You were driving the cab of a semi on the way home from the auction? That's how you learned. That's how I learned how to shift through the manual transmission on those. It's like, you don't really clutch. It's like a whole thing and down shifting and all this stuff. So.
[03:57.6]
So that's how I learned. I jumped in the truck and I drove like 3 1/2 hours home from the auction house, in this. In the cab of a semi. And, I mean, you know, you talk about being uncomfortable and, like, growing. It's like I was super uncomfortable and trying to figure out how to shift this thing on the way home.
[04:15.2]
And I'm in LA traffic the whole entire time. So it's stop and go and all this stuff. And so anyway, I get the truck home and I start cleaning it up. And I realized, like, man, this thing's kind of a pile of junk. Like, why did I buy this particular truck? And so I really learned a lot about trucks, how to repair them.
[04:33.1]
And then I started getting jobs. And so the first job I got was from a guy in the yard where I shared where I stored the truck. He's like, hey, I got two trailers. I need you to move them like from 40 miles away. And so I went and I hooked up this 53 foot trailer for the first time ever.
[04:49.7]
And he's like, by the way, it doesn't have any brakes. And I was like, what do you mean it doesn't have brakes? You didn't think you should tell me that beforehand? And, he's like, well, no, no, it's fine. It's empty. It's lightweight. I was like, fine, let's look in the back. I, open it. It's packed with. Just packed. And so we hook it up.
[05:08.6]
And I was like, all right, well, you got to follow me because, like, I don't want, you know, cops, whatever if we got a problem. Like, he's like, well, you can't even hook the brake lines up to the truck because then it'll lock the brake. Like, you just can't. I'm like, so if a cop drives by and he looks over at the cables, I'm going to have no brake cables.
[05:23.9]
The airlines are not going to be connected. They'll know immediately to pull me over. He's like, it'll be fine. We're good. These are rural areas. I'm like, it's my ass on the Line, not yours. Anyway, so we take the two trailers and I get on the highway for the first time, and I'm like, what am I doing?
[05:43.8]
Why did I wait? Let me understand. You're driving a fully loaded 53 foot trailer with no brakes in traffic in California, your first time ever? Exactly. First time ever. So if we talk about growth and being uncomfortable, like, that's the, It was super uncomfortable.
[06:03.8]
I was like. I mean, I was scared, right? I had fear running through me. Like all these thoughts like, what's going to happen if this, this and this. And so anyway, over the course of some months, I drove the truck myself every single day. I got the jobs, I did all the invoicing.
[06:19.1]
I was the mule inside of that business. And for the first 90 days, I wanted to learn the business and create the relationships with the shippers, the brokers, the dock workers, everybody. So it was fun. It was exciting. I liked driving the truck.
[06:35.3]
I liked backing it up into tight spaces and the challenge of all that kind of stuff. And then I got the opportunity to, to get a contract with FedEx to haul containers from the port of, of, Wainimi. Over here. Can I throw you off for a second?
[06:50.7]
Can I stop you for a second? You said something that you brushed over and I think would be Important for people to. To hear, because I think many won't hear it, and they don't do it. You said that for the first 90 days, you're doing everything. I get it.
[07:07.1]
Michael Gerber's book, the E. Myth and the E. Myth Revisited, talk about how, as a business owner, when you're small and you're starting out, you should do everything at first, and then you grow your way out of it so that somebody takes that position. But you know how to do it so that you can train other people.
[07:24.6]
You have an understanding. Absolutely. So one of the things that you hit on, I know it's something that we've talked about, is, the relationships you want to build. Can you. Can you digress slightly from where you were going and talk about the importance of the relationship capital, what you think about it, and building the relationships?
[07:42.9]
Yeah, absolutely. So nobody's going to sell better than the owner of the company. The owner of the company's got the most skin in the game. Yes. And so you, as the owner, are going to be the one, the face of the company, creating the relationships with whoever your customers are, your clients are, or even friendships or other people that you want to network with.
[08:04.2]
But nobody's going to do it better than you. And so for me, the first 90 days was imperative to be able to be the face of the company and not have to train somebody else to try and do it the way that I thought it should be done. When I hired drivers, I trained them based on what I already did.
[08:25.4]
Right. And in order for them to thrive, me or us as the owners of the companies, we need to know those things. There's something that somebody told me a really long time ago, and it always stuck with me. If the owner's not willing to sweep the floors, he shouldn't be the owner.
[08:43.0]
Okay. Yeah. They got to be willing to get. It's funny you say that, because when I started my first business, we literally had no money. We started. We had an answering machine in my partner's mother's basement on her dryer. So that was our first office.
[08:59.3]
And we would take phone calls on another phone because that phone line was tied up, with the answering machine. And when we had our first office, we were so focused on some of the small stuff, and we both did everything. When we had to install our first.
[09:16.4]
Our first medical alert system in my first company, This was in the olden days when, dinosaurs were, roaming the earth back in 1987, and we had to hook up to an Actual phone line and it had four wires on it.
[09:36.0]
And we were unaware of how you had to hook up the four wires. So we were there for two hours. And this was an elderly gentleman and he actually took a nap while we were trying to figure it out and called my brother over to show us which wires you had to hook up to make it work. Oh my God.
[09:55.3]
While he slept. But you learned how to do it. Yeah, you learned how to do it and so then you could train the other people on how to do it. To this day, I remember hook up the red to the red and the green to the green. So the Christmas colors make a medical alert system work when you have to hardwire it. Got it.
[10:14.6]
So hopefully, ma', am, we're going to hook this up the right way, so hopefully you'll be around for Christmas. Okay. So sorry, digress. No, that's okay. Let's go. Anyway, so being in the field, being willing to sweep for the first, so that you've done all the jobs.
[10:33.9]
So now let's go back to where you're going with, along the lines of the trucking company and starting it out. And just to refresh, we were talking about your focus of, building the relationship capital. Yeah, so we're building the relationships.
[10:50.0]
I'm out there, I'm, meeting the shippers, I'm meeting the vendors, I'm meeting the people who we need to meet. And that ultimately landed me a contract, with FedEx as a sub hauler to move all of their brand new containers coming in from China into the port of Wainimi.
[11:05.3]
Port of Wainimi is, is north of LA, about 45 minutes. It's a smaller port and they have some strategic advantages. And it just so happens to be about 30 minutes from our yard. And so we made the relationships to get in there. And every time a vessel would come in, we, would rake it in.
[11:23.3]
Honestly, you know, we would rake it in because it was just nonstop. We would haul as many containers as possible, moving them from the port to the storage yard. And then from the storage yard we would take them to their final destination somewhere in Southern California, or the western region.
[11:39.5]
So we would do Arizona, Nevada as well. Was it just you at this point or did you have other people? So when we started that FedEx contract, it was just me. And I showed up on the first day and I only hauled those two sketchy ass trailers before this job.
[11:58.5]
And these are, I'm like, oh my God, look at these brand new trailers. Brand new chassis, brand new, containers. The airlines are, click, click, no problem. Oh, my God, it was great. I felt like I was, you know, it was a brand new Mercedes. And so, I hook them up and I start to tug on it, and I'm like, man, this thing feels really heavy.
[12:17.9]
And we had to weigh them, before we left the storage yard. And I was literally like eight pounds under the limit. So I was at £80,000, fully loaded. And I'm like, this is. I mean, I've hauled trailers all my life, but they're like, smaller or like equipment or whatever.
[12:36.1]
But this is like, this is a major death machine. You know what I mean? Like, if I'm. If I'm, hauling this thing down the freeway and something goes sideways on me, like, people are dying, most likely. You know, this is. And so I got to be super responsible. And so there's a lot of weight on my shoulders. I'm pulling out of this place and I'm like, what did I get myself into? Right?
[12:54.3]
I thought the no brakes trailers was bad. This thing, this is crazy. And so, but. But I made it, right? And so all I had to do was just go slow, take it a little bit at a time. Don't get, like, overconfident.
[13:10.1]
And we have, a big grade coming out. We have a lot of mountains over here. And so we have big grade coming out of our area going into the LA Basin. And it's very, very steep. And by the time you get to the top of it, the truck is only doing like 25 miles an hour because it's so steep coming out.
[13:29.2]
And so that was one of the scariest moments for me in trucking. Cause I was like, oh, my God, I don't know what I'm doing. I can't screw this up. So building those relationships got me to that point. And after I hauled for about another month with the FedEx stuff, and then I hired my first driver to take my place because I was like, I really gotta focus on expanding this more and growing.
[13:52.3]
So I hired my first driver, and then the FedEx guys were like, hey, we've got more containers if you want to haul more. And I'm like, cool, let me buy another truck. So I found another truck and I bought it and I got another driver and I put him in that one. And now I had two trucks, trucks. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is going great.
[14:08.5]
And then I have a heavy duty truck that I was hauling smaller loads, like local equipment, forklifts, excavators things like that. So basically we had two and a half trucks. And then nobody, nobody, like, people stopped buying stuff from Target and Walmart and all these consumer items, right?
[14:32.9]
So during COVID everybody was just buying stuff as fast as they could because, like, it was like retail therapy. Therapy. They couldn't go anywhere. They're in their house, they're just hacking away on the Amazon site. And that's where we got all the surge of the trucking is because all of these products were coming in from overseas.
[14:50.0]
And then one day it was like, hey, that sailing from that vessel, it just got canceled. We were also on a contract with JB Hunt. That's. They're one of the largest, you know, around the country. And we got a cancellation from JB Hunt. Hey, that. That vessel's not sailing.
[15:06.2]
Well, we're going to double it up on the next one, so you're going to have to wait another six weeks for a vessel. And I saw the writing on the wall. And at that time, I just joined a mastermind group to become, like, be part of, like, other business owners and get around other business owners.
[15:22.1]
And, my first call, our mentor Mark, he was like, anybody, have any questions or what do they got going on their business? And I said, well, I'm in this trucking company, and it's kind of slowing down, and, here's the problems I'm dealing with. And, he just.
[15:38.5]
I said, well, what do you think about this business as a whole? And he's like, I would never be in trucking ever. And I'm like, well, I don't know how much this guy makes, but it's a shitload more than me. And I'm probably gonna listen to him. And so that day I put, in the plan to basically, like, liquidate the company and shut it down.
[15:57.2]
I'd already had a plan formulated in my mind, but that was the catalyst for me that day to turn it off. Okay, you, hit upon something I want to ask you about. And I know for me and for Zach, it's been a major part of our growth, because, as you know, I've built and sold two other companies, but I was never part of something that you brought up.
[16:18.6]
Talk about masterminds and how they helped your growth and why you think they're important for people. Six months prior to joining the group that I was just talking about, I joined, like, a real estate investing group, you know, thinking that I wanted to go out and buy apartment buildings and things like that, which I Still do.
[16:37.8]
But I didn't need to be in that. That group. But what it did for me is it showed me the power of community. It showed me, the power of proximity. Because in the group that I was in to begin with, I was like, man, this guy owns a thousand units and that guy owns 1500 units, and this guy's buying this commercial thing.
[16:55.2]
And I'm like, I would never meet these people ever. If I was just trying to go to my local, whatever watering hole or library or, I don't know, whatever place people go to hang out locally, I would never meet these people. And I've got, like, you know, connections all over the country now because of being involved in these groups.
[17:11.9]
And so then when I joined the group that I'm in now, it's. It was way more diverse and, people from all different backgrounds. And what it showed me was that these people are doing it and it's possible. And now I can ask them questions and they'll happily share their information with me.
[17:30.5]
Because we're here all together, like, on the same playing field, and we're all trying to help each other grow. We're all trying to get to a common goal. Not a common goal together, not like we're on this in the same company or anything like that, but this common goal of growth, right?
[17:46.4]
Where like, a rising tide floats all boats. Like, hey, I'm going to help you and we're going to share some information and you help me, and then all of us are going to get better together. And that has been absolutely instrumental, in my, in my path and my journey, in life.
[18:03.2]
And that's, for me, that's only, three years ago, now that I've joined that amazing group that we're in. What I find interesting is people think that their business is the most unique thing and it would be difficult or there are high barriers for anybody else to get into it.
[18:26.4]
Within the niche that you're in, that's where the learning comes in, the specific skill set for being a roofer. And we'll talk about your construction company in a few minutes. That's where the niche is. But everything else is an algebraic equation.
[18:43.6]
You need an accountant, you need a lawyer, you need hr. It's the same in every business. So the foundation that somebody has for business is the same with my first with my Medical Alert system company, and then with my construction company, Restoration.
[19:00.3]
It was the same thing as far as the foundation that you need. And then the niche of Medical Alert and the niche of, construction that's where the changes were. But the niche part is small, relatively speaking.
[19:17.1]
So are you in any other masterminds, or is it just that one? I'm in another mastermind for specifically for blue collar businesses that's called Blue Collar Millionaire. And they've got, they've got a great group called the Elite Group. And we get together once a week and then a couple of times a year and just, talk about blue collar stuff.
[19:37.4]
We just geek out, right? It's just like being part of, like, a chess club or a math club or anything like that. Like, but we just. Our hobby is business, right? And so we just get together and geek out on business. Did you find that you had to make, like, I know everybody has had a big mind shift, mindset shift once they're in a mastermind.
[19:54.2]
But, like, for me, to join my first one, when I said, okay, am I going to actually pay this much a month to be in this group? That took me a little while to convince myself that it was worth it. Like, did you have to do the same thing to yourself, or was it pretty easy for you to make that jump?
[20:10.2]
At first it wasn't. So the first group that I joined was like, 400amonth. And I was like, man, 400 bucks, right? Yeah. You know, and I was like. And I went to my wife, of course, right? And I was like, babe, like, I. I'm gonna. I want to do this. Like, it's 400.
[20:26.1]
And she was like, 400. And I was like, every month?
[20:32.3]
Yeah. And I was like, you know, but, babe, listen, like, if it sucks, I can leave. It's not like I'm signing a contract or anything. Like, I just try it. Like, what if I just spend two months? That's 800 bucks. And if I get something out of it, great. If I don't, well, then it was a scam, right? And that's like, the number one masterminds are a scam or all that stuff, right? But.
[20:51.3]
And so, yeah, it was in the beginning, it was hard to kind of wrap my head around that. And then I joined another group, and that was a thousand dollars a month. And I was like, this is a lot, like, personally for me, you know, I saw some success with the real estate group that I was in, and I was like, okay, well, you know, that's like, niche to real estate.
[21:12.1]
And, you know, the players that were in that. In that room were good, but they weren't, like, super elevated. I wasn't around people doing, I don't know, how to describe it, but there was a feeling in that room that I was in that was just like, I'm not actually in the room that I want to be in.
[21:30.6]
So then I get in this other, you know, room paying 1,000amonth, and I'm like, oh, my God. Like, this is a lot. And I tell my wife about it. She's like, babe, a thousand what? And I'm like, I know it's a lot. What am I gonna do? And I was like, again, listen, there's no, like, commitment. Like, I'll just try it, and if it sucks, I bail.
[21:48.2]
And it didn't suck. And now I've made many, many friends. And I've, I mean, I've been in that group for three years, right? So if you think about it, I've spent $36,000 on that one particular group, and I've probably made $500,000, you know, from being in that group.
[22:06.9]
Not directly. Right. No. I mean, some of it was direct. Some. I. I helped out some people with some things, and then I got paid for it, which. Which is great. Things that I would have never even, been involved with or heard of had I not been, you know, in a circle with a bunch of business owners. But the most money that I've made, I haven't even made yet, right?
[22:26.8]
Yeah, because laying this down, that's because of the. The. Yeah, because of the men, the mindset shift, the growth mentality that I have now, I'm like, I don't even know a thousand percent different. I'm 10 times the person I was three years ago.
[22:45.2]
Let me ask you a question. This is something that I notice, and let me know if you notice the same thing in Zach. If you notice it. The more expensive the group is to get in, the higher the quality of the participants in it. So the way I look at it is I'm not paying to get into the group.
[23:07.7]
I'm paying for who is not in the group, because I want to be around the person who can answer my question without trying to sell me something. If there's a fit for us to work together, great. And I find that in the higher groups, they never try and sell you anything.
[23:24.3]
They talk to you, and they say, I do. That it's available. If it works, great. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Do you guys find that 100%? I mean, you ever go to a free local real estate meetup, for example, right? Like, 95% of the people there have never done a deal. And there's been some that I've gone to where you go to.
[23:40.9]
Then you go to the same meetup three, four years later and the same people that have never done a deal are still there and haven't done a deal. And it's. Yeah, one of the things that I like to do, I do this a lot at events. When you go to a mastermind, you're part of a mastermind.
[23:57.2]
You meet the people in the group and you find out who you're going to most connect with, who there's the most, synergy with. And I get all that. One of the tricks that I have found because I like to go to a lot of events, I travel a lot throughout the year and what I find is the person, not so much who's on stage, but nine times out of 10, the person who's in the back of the room quiet, not talking to anybody.
[24:23.0]
That's the person I want to talk to because they're generally the one who's doing the most. Now, I don't shoot 100% on it. Sometimes they're there because they're quiet because it's their first event and they're nervous and so on and so forth. But like I went to a master, to a group one time for real estate investors, BBCon BiggerPockets convention.
[24:44.8]
Yeah. And this guy is walking around and he's got, and I'm sure there's a term for it, there's a hat that someone would wear that I see the Japanese wear or like when someone's out in the field or something like that. And he's Japanese, part Japanese. Come to find out and he's got boots on, cowboy boots with shorts.
[25:04.5]
And his shorts are red and white, so candy stripe. And then he has a blue, blue shirt with white, white stars on it. So he looks like the flag. And he's got a handlebar mustache. And I'm like, okay, I gotta talk to this guy, I gotta talk to him.
[25:26.6]
And I go over and he comes out. I happen to be on the back deck with somebody that I know. He comes walking out and I'm like, you? And he's like, yeah. I said, I gotta talk to you, man. Anybody who would dress like that is somebody that I want to hang with. If for nothing else.
[25:42.6]
I gotta figure out why you dress like this. And we started to talk. The freaking kid is brilliant. Not only is he a, 30 year old millionaire, he owns a missile silo, a decommissioned missile silo in Kansas that he uses to have events At. Oh, my God.
[26:00.9]
I feel like I've seen that place for sale. He probably bought it. He owns his own flamethrower where he lives. Oh, my God. And you come over and he shoots stuff with it. God bless you. But my point is, now, he was the extreme. He was someone who was more, He drew attention to himself.
[26:20.2]
But I'm looking for the people that stand out. So I'm not looking for the guy that is doing all the talking. I'm looking for the guy that's quiet or is unique or gal. I don't care. And I find that those are the ones at the events that I want to talk to and that I learn the most from. I'm still in touch with this guy. We're friends now.
[26:37.2]
That's great. Oh, yeah, he has. He invited me to a silo one time, and then something happened and he ended up not having the event. But I definitely want to go to his missile silo. If nothing else, I'm a guy, of course I want to go to a missile silo. Right. Well, I mean. And you flew, you flew a fighter jet, a couple of years ago, didn't you?
[26:54.8]
Yeah, that was on target. It got canceled because of the weather. Yeah, we're going to fly. It was due to fly in la, and it got canceled because the pilot called. I was on the way to the airport, and he called my buddy who's a pilot for Delta, and said, yeah, we can't do it.
[27:11.0]
The cloud cover is too low. I can't fly today. Not what we're going to do. So that's still on the list. We're going to do it. All right, let me know when that happens, because, I, mean, it's not too far from where I am, and I would love to do that with you. That'd be great. Oh, absolutely. Well, what I've decided when I go is I'm going to bring a barf bag and an adult Kuiper, and I'm going to tell the guy that if I don't use both, I'm not paying.
[27:39.4]
Oh, God. Well, he'll make sure you have a good time, that's for sure. Well, he is actually a, retired Russian fighter pilot. And it's a Russian jet that you're using? Yeah. That's amazing. All right, sorry. Back on target here.
[27:54.8]
So I know from the trucking company you switched to roofing and that hits on something for me is that if it doesn't work, you pivot. What was the transaction that happened in your head that made you pivot and how difficult was it for you to pivot?
[28:16.5]
The transaction in my head had a lot to do with many really crappy times in trucking. So, I mean, lots of mechanical breakdowns, lots of issues with drivers getting, calls at 11 o' clock at night.
[28:35.3]
Hey, I just got sideswiped. Somebody T boned the trailer. It's 11 o', clock, by the way, their bumper is hanging off the back of our trailer. So I got their license plate, but they ran, you know, calls like that. Calls like that was just like, it's a no brainer for me to stop trucking.
[28:51.1]
Like, you know, the decision is easy, but what I needed was a little bit of push from somebody who knew a lot more than I did in order to tell me, like, hey, that's probably not a great industry. And so then I rolled it up and I sold everything.
[29:07.1]
And it was right around that time that, we were waiting on a construct. We still had the construction company, but I was kind of like doing a lot less construction and a lot more trucking. And then we had a contract that we had out for a while and those owners were finally ready to move forward on their contract.
[29:24.0]
So for me, the pivot was pretty easy because it was like, hey, I've already got a construction contract and we're ready to build a thing for these people. I'm just going to go do that. And so I closed the trucking company and about six weeks later, we started this new construction project, for these homeowners.
[29:43.3]
But the pivot, the mindset pivot is like not getting stuck emotionally, thinking that you have to attach your identity to one thing the rest of your life. A lot of people, especially in the W2 world, right, where they just have like a job that they go to every day, they associate themselves with that job.
[30:01.6]
They say, I am a insert job title, I am an engineer, I am a hairdresser, I am a whatever. Instead of saying like, I'm a human being who loves experiencing life, enjoying other people and trying new things.
[30:23.1]
And I happen to be in construction. That's my industry. Right. I am a business owner, I am an investor, I am not a contractor. Right, gotcha. So the first job that you took in the construction industry, was it remodel or was it what you're doing now with the roofing?
[30:42.2]
So when we. That contract that I'm talking about, that was a, it was a major remodel. It was building an adu, which is additional dwelling unit it's like a guest house and you can get an address for it. And so we converted somebody's garage into an adu, did the whole driveway.
[31:00.1]
We did their entire backyard for them, built a pool, all the hardscape and all this stuff. So it was, in the remodeling space. It'd be a sizable, you know, type of project. And so that kind of relit my fire for construction. Prior to that, our largest project was quite large.
[31:18.1]
We built a ground up home, that was 8,000 square feet. 8,200 square feet. So it was like a full estate home. We actually tore down a 5,500 square foot home first and then rebuilt them at 8,200 square feet. And it was like three stories with an elevator.
[31:35.5]
Full, of state grounds. Half an Olympic swimming pool. Like, it was a huge thing. And that was, that's my favorite project to date. Favorite. It was very challenging and all that, but. And it was like four years long. It was very long project. That was before trucking. So I've been in construction since, the late 90s, 1996.
[31:54.4]
I started with my stepdad, who was an electrician, and I was the helper. In the summertime, he. Child labor. Right. Child labor in the summertime. And I would crawl under the houses and he would put me in the overalls and I'd crawl under the houses and I was the crawl boy.
[32:11.6]
And we had a big roasting pan. People, Thanksgiving is coming up, right? This might even come out around the same time as Thanksgiving. We had a big turkey roasting pan and we had a rope tied to each end of it. And he would put the parts in the roasting pan and I would pull the roasting from under the house and I would take the parts out and then he would pull it back because he.
[32:33.9]
He's not crawling into the house. I'm crawling. He's on the outside of the house, you know, by the driveway, pulling through the crawl space. He's mad. Yeah, that's how we operated. And then he'd be like, all right, I'm. You got the parts? I'm going to go top side and, and I'm gonna hook up the things. Okay.
[32:50.1]
And you make sure that you're wearing your safety glasses. Okay. Because you're under the house. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. And so I'd go over and then, you know, he would crawl over the place and. Okay, you ready? Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. I'm holding the part. All right, I'm gonna Tighten it down. Okay. And then he would stomp on the floor as hard as he could, and all the dust would fall straight into my face.
[33:10.1]
But you had to say, it shouldn't have mattered, right? Right. And he's like, oh, sorry about that. You got your goggles on, right? Yeah, I got my goggles on now, you know, and so. But that was the way that he taught me, right? And he was. And I say that he taught me with a lot of love. Okay.
[33:26.3]
I know it doesn't sound like it, but he was, you know, we talk about, role models, mentors, all that kind of stuff. He was my stepdad, but he was also my father. I believe that we have many fathers in life, and he was one of my fathers in this life.
[33:41.8]
And, he taught me about life. He taught me about love, how to treat women the right way. He also taught me about business, and how to keep out of my eyes. And so all important things. All important things.
[33:57.1]
So anyway, I started in construction, you know, back then in like 1996, somewhere in that range. And so I've done a range of stuff over the years in construction, and I had other businesses, over time. I did motorcycle stuff for a while. I had a couple motorcycle shops for a little while.
[34:13.4]
And so. But anyway, if we fast forward to the time where I got around people doing bigger things than me, which was the end of 2022, and I got out of trucking and I got back into construction, I started working with my father in law, right, My wife's dad. And, I had actually worked for him also in high school, way back when, because we knew each other back then.
[34:34.2]
And so after, after we had done this big project, he invited me to kind of to be a partner in the company. And, and it was a great. It's been a great experience. So we're still partners to this day. And we started doing a lot more commercial work. And he was like, you know what?
[34:50.5]
I am getting to the age where I'm retiring and I don't really want to do much commercial work, so why don't you just go ahead and, take this whole thing full on. And so that's exactly what we did. And so here we are now, almost at the end of 2025, and we're doing a ton of commercial work.
[35:09.0]
We do a lot of roofing in the commercial space, but we also do residential roofing as. But we're not only a roofing company. We do all the exteriors on a building, so siding, stucco, Paint, concrete. In Southern California, obviously, we have a lot of wildfires that come up.
[35:26.4]
And so we do a lot of high fire zone upgrades. So using like a cement fiber type, of siding instead of wood siding, and putting, you know, screens in places where embers can't go in, changing out roof vents so embers can't fly into a roof and all that kind of stuff.
[35:42.6]
And so for me, we talked about niches earlier. Have you ever heard of In N Out Burger? Oh, yeah, of course. Okay. All right. In N Out Burger does only a couple things very well. They make burgers, they make fries, and they make shakes. They happen to serve soda because people like to drink it.
[36:01.1]
But all they do, they don't make chicken, they don't make chicken nuggets, they don't make salads, they make burgers. And they have this super rad, off the menu, you know, like hidden secret menu, which is cool, like animal style and a flying Dutchman. All these fancy things, which is great, but they stick to a handful of things.
[36:19.4]
Same thing with Chick Fil A. They make chicken. Yep. You know what? The, the only exception to a place that has a massive menu that does things well. Yep. Is a Jewish deli. I don't know how they do it.
[36:36.4]
They have a menu that's 14 pages long and everything is so good. And, and in la, we have a lot of Jewish delis here. And they're, they're amazing. However, in the business of construction, when you specialize in everything, you don't specialize in anything. Right? Right.
[36:52.2]
And so for me, it was, we used to do ground up construction, major remodels, kitchen, bathroom, all this stuff. And you get to the point where you just get so tied down in the, in the details, in the minutiae of the day to day, and you can't really be, quote, unquote, perfect at, what it is that you should be doing.
[37:15.8]
And so we just narrowed our focus, we narrowed our offerings, and now we specialize in high quality roofing and exterior products. All right. If you're okay with that, I want to switch gears just a little bit. Sure.
[37:31.1]
As a business owner, you understand that you have to get a return on investment or an ROI on your time. And you have to focus and, let me know if you agree. You have to focus on the highest revenue generating tasks. Am I correct? I know. That's what I do. 100%. Okay, I agree.
[37:49.4]
How much time do you spend? Because that's what the name of the podcast is. Save to Zero. How much time do you spend shopping price versus the value that you get? And, how many different choices, like, how much research will you do to save time?
[38:09.3]
Save money vs looking for the next job? Where do you make your most roi? I used to spend a lot of time price shopping the dumbest stuff. Me too. We all did. We all did.
[38:24.9]
And I don't know why. Tires for your truck is one of those things where it's like hours and hours spending. Like, why am I. You know, and so it would be like trying to shave $12 off of a set of tires is asinine to me. And for the longest time, I spent way too many hours stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.
[38:49.1]
And so I shifted my mindset years ago to buying value. It's like, what's going to save me the most time? I don't care if it cost me an extra 10% or 15% or whatever, but I want the most quality and the least amount of headaches possible. Absolutely. People don't. I think that's one of the things that people don't recognize.
[39:08.4]
It's kind of like, if somebody has a broken leg, we understand that. We can see that. But if they're having a bad day, mentally, people just say, suck it up. And they don't process that. And it's the same thing when it comes to work.
[39:25.6]
You can hammer so many nails in a day. You can, if it's a residential. You can carry so many shingles up a ladder and get them on there, assuming you don't have the conveyor belt and so on. But you can only do so much physical work in a day. You also can only do so much mental work in a day because it is a physical thing.
[39:45.5]
It works out, it gets tired. And that's one of the things that I try and focus on is. And let me know if you do as well, is try and stay away from the brain damage. Don't waste time. My mind on things that I shouldn't be wasting time on, like looking for another phone number so that I can save $12 on a $400 tire.
[40:06.0]
So I'm going to pay 412 instead of 400. So I saved $12, and it took me two hours. Yeah. You know, my favorite place to save, to spend extra money to save time is at the airport. Oh, big time. Explain. So you buy the Global Entry Pass or the TSA PreCheck or the whatever. Right.
[40:27.1]
Spend the $68 a year, you cheap bastard, and save yourself an hour on every right yes, But I used to be the guy who was like, no, I'll wait in the line, I'll take my shoes off, I'll get annoyed, and this guy's gonna pat me down in the back room. And then I'm gonna have a complex because this guy touched me for six for $68. I mean, come on.
[40:46.5]
Right? And so that's my favorite, one of the favorite places. And then also I've been. I'm sorry, I was gonna say this. Some people get paid to touch. You pay not to get touched. I pay not to touch. I paid not to touch. Yeah. And first class tickets recently, when it makes sense, when it's not egregious, I'll spend money on a first class ticket because I get on the plane first, I get off the plane first, and I'm to my destination.
[41:13.9]
And these days, the most important thing for me, if I'm leaving, my town to go to an event, let's say, and meet up with a bunch of friends and hang out and geek out on business stuff, when I'm done with that event, I want to get home to my kids as fast as possible.
[41:30.8]
Yes, as fast as possible. And, so when I can get off the plane first and get to my car from the gate in six minutes and be home in 35 minutes after that, versus sitting in row 77E and it takes you 35 minutes just to get off the plane.
[41:48.1]
Of course I'm going to spend the extra hundred or two hundred or whatever it is is to buy my time back and get home to my kids sometimes too. That's the difference between them being asleep when I get home or being awake where I can actually hang out with them for a few years.
[42:04.8]
That's a great point. So my kids are younger, they're eight and they're five. Right. So they're about this high right now. And so they go to sleep a little bit earlier. So once they're older, I'm not going to have as much time to spend with them because they're going to be wanting to be out with their friends or wherever, not with mom and dad because we're annoying old people.
[42:24.7]
And so right now I'm, I'm spending extra money to buy the time with my kids. And I think that that's something that people also forget to do is that, you know, this time is, is finite. We are playing, we are playing a limited game, you know, like any kind of sale that you hear.
[42:43.7]
It's like limited time only. Yeah. Yeah, well, this is actually limited time only. And we got to spend the money the right way to get, get, get our time back. Sure, man. That is an excellent point. Yeah, I won't. I haven't mowed my lawn in 25 years. Yeah. I can use my time more productively.
[42:59.1]
And if that time is spending time with Lois, I'm, willing to pay whatever it costs. I don't even know what we pay per month to mow the lawn. I don't, I don't pay attention to what it comes across on the credit card bill. I pay the credit card bill and I have absolutely no idea what we paid to mow the lawn.
[43:16.3]
Hey, let me. Okay, let me ask you something very interesting. Right? We're in the age of AI that's very prolific, and robots and humanoid robots are coming. Yes. Last night I almost hit the button on a pre order for this 20 grand humanoid robot.
[43:33.9]
I'm going to. Okay, I'm going to. It might not be today, might not be tomorrow, but I for sure envision in my future that I'm going to be purchasing a humanoid robot to come into our house and, and fold the damn laundry because I'm so sick of doing that. And my wife especially, I mean, she does about three quarters of the laundry.
[43:51.2]
I do my quarter of the laundry, and help folding and hanging and it's awful. It takes up so much of our time on every Sunday that, you know, we're like, how much does it cost for somebody to come into our house to save us this time so we can go spend it with our kids and take them out to whatever, do something with them instead of folding?
[44:12.5]
So how do you think humanoid robots are going to, change the world? And do you want one in your house? I think the change is going to be tremendous. I think people that don't have a high skill set are going to be hurt tremendously from robots.
[44:31.4]
But I also think that the highly educated are going to be hurt with AI, with ChatGPT and perplexity and so on. So I think that that's gonna, that's gonna be an issue. I'm curious as to where it's all gonna all, gonna fold out or drop out or sorry, what's all gonna land.
[44:50.7]
But I absolutely will buy a robot to save time. Yeah, I think, yeah, 100%. It's like cleaning the house. We don't clean the house. Yeah. A young lady comes once a week with her, with her, employee and they clean the house and I don't know what they charge, Lois pays them and that's it.
[45:07.6]
Because she hates cleaning. I don't have time to clean. So we're paying for our time and that's it. So I'm with you. Yeah. It's funny you hit on something, with the laundry. If I can be so humble to make a suggestion.
[45:23.3]
We don't do laundry either. We don't do it at all. We drop it off and we come back the next day and it's done. For me, it's the hanging in my closet. Honestly, it's the. It's the time spent hanging clothing. I know it sounds silly. No, I got you. Yeah. Doing it.
[45:40.0]
I can put it in the washer, transfer to the dryer, no problem. That's like four minutes. Yep. But taking it out, shaking the fluffing, the hanging and all that, like, it's just. It's an abomination of a task for me, unfortunately. And I don't want to sound like it's like, above me or anything, but I would so much rather spend the time taking my kids for a bike ride or, I mean, honestly, anything other than laundry, I would rather do. I think.
[46:04.8]
AI, you're either going to be somebody that figures it out and uses it, or you're going to be left behind. I think you'll be one of two groups. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When it comes to saving time, what I do is, even if it's a small amount of time, I try and multiply it for, the week, the month in the year, and that's how I focus on it.
[46:28.6]
For example, I have two checking accounts, one that I call front facing and one that I leave my money in. And I know when the bills are going to come out because they all come out about the same time. And I drop that money into the front facing account and everything is auto debited from the account.
[46:47.8]
I don't sit there and pay bills every month. And then what I will do is I will skim my Visa statement and say, yep, those look reasonable, and that's it. So I probably spend 15 minutes a month paying all the bills for the house, and that's it.
[47:05.8]
And if, it saves me, I used to say, nope, I'm afraid they're going to steal from it, so on and so forth. Nope, let them steal 50 bucks from me. Because that 50 bucks doesn't matter to me because I get to spend extra time with Lois as opposed to spending an hour and a half or two hours a month doing that.
[47:22.3]
So that could be 24 hours a year? Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah, so, and that's an interesting way of looking at things too. Like when you're talking about, you know, saving to zero and upgrading your mindset and spending more to have more time is, take that task that you do daily, weekly, monthly, and then multiply it and see how much time you're actually spending on something like that in the next 12 months.
[47:48.3]
And then how much is it worth to buy back that time by delegating it or whatever, or just eliminating it? You know, Elon Musk is famous for taking out components in a process. He's like, why are there 10 steps in this?
[48:04.6]
Let's just take out step three and six and see what happens. Yeah, right, right. And then it still works. Well, it's even like, people find efficiencies when it comes to traveling. Now I have taken the time to teach my executive assistant where I like to sit on a plane.
[48:23.5]
So she knows that when I travel solo, I sit on the aisle seat. Okay? When I travel with Lois, I sit against the window. The reason I sit on the aisle seat is because I'm always working on the plane because I'm not going to sit there and watch a movie that I've seen 15 times if I, I took the time to do that.
[48:42.9]
And it's all old movies. And I don't watch movies 15 times, except for the Godfather. I watch that every Christmas. One and two. That's another story. But I can use my mouse on the right hand side between me and the person sitting on the side of me. Lois doesn't want to sit against the window, but I can still use my mouse.
[49:01.4]
I still have the arm piece for my mouse. And, she knows that when I fly alone, I sit on, if I'm facing the front of the plane, I sit on the right hand side. And if I'm with Lois, I sit on the left. She knows what type of hotels we like.
[49:17.5]
I love boutique hotels. She'll find a boutique hotel and she knows what I like to do. So when I'm gonna go somewhere, I just say, eunice, I'm going here, go. She knows I like to leave early in the morning, because I don't sleep well.
[49:33.9]
And she just sets everything up. She'll say, okay, these are the three things I've picked out. Does that work? Two minutes. Yep. That's good. Let's go. And she books everything and pays for everything. That's amazing. Yeah. And so there's all these little tricks that people can do, to buy back their time, but also. Right.
[49:50.2]
Training somebody else to delegate a task like that. I mean, I don't know how many hours I've spent over the years like searching for just the right flight or just the right whatever. And it's arduous. It's tasking or taxing.
[50:06.0]
And then it also takes your brain power away from your highest level tasks that you can perform. Absolutely does. Absolutely. I think it's very important to try and delegate and try and use, your time to your highest ability and what gives you energy, not, what takes your energy.
[50:22.7]
That's awesome. Oh yeah, Go ahead, Mike. If I need, if I get bogged down. It's funny. Zach and I were talking about this yesterday because we had a really good day in the company yesterday that we run together. And yesterday was big move stuff.
[50:38.7]
And I think Zach, you told me that you were at your desk at 6 in the morning. You were away, for about one hour. And I think I talked to you at about 7 o' clock your time last night. So you were at your desk for 10, 11 hours. And we were both talking about how energized we were because I wasn't bogged down in the minutiae today.
[51:02.9]
Zach had to show me something on the computer, some data entry stuff. And I'm like, yeah, ok, I'm done. I just can't do this anymore. I'm out. Yeah. Yeah. Because, well, we've got to understand how to do it. That's fine. I'll power through it, but let's go. I won't ask any more questions. Great.
[51:18.5]
I got it recorded. Now I'm going to teach here. Eunice, here's the video. You need to do this now. I'm not doing this ever again. And that's actually a time saver. To buy back time is if you take a, like loom or some type of screen recorder and then you take scribe and you explain exactly what needs to be done.
[51:40.5]
You've got a video recording. Scribe will make, a step by step sop. And you do it once and that's it. And you hand it off to somebody and create a library and you buy back so much time. Yeah. It is earth shattering. Yeah. Yeah. You know something else that, that really, I think accelerates people in their relationships is being, being around other high achievers and high, high performers.
[52:05.2]
You pick up little tips and tricks and things from other people that they've perfected over the years. They might have spent five years, you know, fixing A problem in their business or in their life or whatever. And all you have to have is a 15 minute conversation with them, and the proximity to those people.
[52:21.5]
They share that information freely with you. And you literally just saved yourself five years of testing and tuning and they give you the framework of what's. Like what, like what we were talking about. You pay a thousand bucks a month to have access to somebody that's been doing something for 15 years and they help solve your problem in a 30 second phone call. What's.
[52:38.9]
What's that worth? Right, right. And that's part of that, the un. The unaccounted for. The un, Whatever. The unquantifiable amount of money that I will make in the future in our business because of the people that I've been around and because of the information that we can share with each other.
[53:01.9]
I don't even know. I can't count how much I will make because of the time that they've compressed by sharing their knowledge of all the years that they've spent learning those things. Things. So let me ask the two masterminds that you're in. If I'm not mistaken, you're paying about $2,000 a month.
[53:18.1]
So 24 grand a year? Yeah. Are you crazy? You're paying $24,000 a year to be in the room and just talk to people. You can just talk to the bar and talk to the guys at the bar, because everybody at the bar knows how to do roofing.
[53:33.2]
I guarantee if you meet somebody there, they're going to tell you what you're doing wrong. Yeah. And they will. They will solve the world's problems at the bottom of every. That's great. We're almost out of time here. So, Stephen, do you got any last wisdom you want to share?
[53:50.4]
I know you've shared a lot of great, great stuff with us so far, but I think that, for people who are, you know, on the fence about, you know, what they're going to do with, with their future, if they want to join a group or level up their life or anything like that, or, or save to zero, I think proximity is power.
[54:15.1]
Proximity of being around other people who are big thinkers, who are big action takers, not just idea people, but people who actually do stuff. They think they come up with an idea or they take an idea and they cultivate that idea by asking other people, gentlemen like yourselves, and then they go execute on that plan.
[54:38.2]
And it doesn't have to be a perfect plan. Don't build a Huge website and get a CRM and do all this stuff. Literally. If you're going to try and start a business, pick up the phone and make some sales. Pick up the phone and see if people actually want to buy the crap that you're pedaling.
[54:54.3]
Just take action. Just literally take action. Pick up the phone and go get. Go get it. It. I love it. And anybody who's in a W2 position out there who is thinking, like, well, I don't know, it's scary. What do I do? Do I just quit?
[55:09.3]
Do I go to jump in? Listen, don't jeopardize, like, you know, your financial future with your family and all that stuff. Like, don't just quit and be like, I don't have a plan, but just start somewhere. Just start doing something. I know many guys who still work a full time W2 and then run a business on the side until the point where they're like, man, my business is really crank and I need to quit my regular job to focus on my business because I can see the road ahead and I can see how far this business is going to take me.
[55:42.2]
But I have to cut the dead weight of my W2 job to be able to fully put my energy into that business. And so I think that, anybody who wants to transition into a W2 position, don't be scared, just do it.
[55:57.7]
I love it. All right, man. Thank you. Thanks for taking time out of your day. Spend some energy you got. Honestly, guys, this gave me energy. I love this because, you know, we've. We've been really cranking in our business and we've been super busy and it's great. At times, though, with the busyness comes the stress, and I welcome a respite like this hanging out with my buddies.
[56:19.9]
So I really appreciate you guys. Thank you. Thanks, man. Sam,