Salty Eyes

Why Your 30 Years of Experience Might Be Worthless (And How Salted Eyes Prevent Industry Progress)

Let me start by saying this isn’t a victim story. I have a great life great wife, great kids, great everything. I’m down from 248 pounds to 222, running every day, eating better, getting my health in line. We just sold-out Super PM Boot Camp with 76 attendees. We got a request to do a 136-attendee boot camp soon. The Elevate team is growing. Life is good. But I need to talk about something that’s destroying our industry from the inside: salted eyes. And before you think this is about me complaining about criticism, stay with me. This is about the toxic perspective that’s preventing construction from becoming what it could be and why your attitude might be the single biggest threat to your survival in this industry.

Here’s the data point that matters. Roughly 95% of people on LinkedIn and other platforms are incredibly kind. They see the Elevate team and me sharing content, giving our time, dedicating resources, paying money to help the industry, and they respond with appreciation, support, and collaboration. They engage with ideas. They implement systems. They report back on results. These are the people who are building the future of construction. But there’s about 5% who are completely nasty. And I actually don’t blame them too much, which is what I want to explain.

When Salt Ruins Everything It Touches

The other day, a guy responded to something I shared with incoherent notes and called me the C-word in an email. I think he was having a hard time or maybe he was wasted I’m not making fun of him, I’m just saying it was that incoherent. Then later he said he wants to challenge me to a debate on my experience. Which is kind of okay with me for three reasons. Number one, I’m more of a process builder and I may not have as much experience as somebody else, but I do have some pretty solid experiences. And every story I share is truly mine. Number two, experience doesn’t matter as much as process. Number three, I don’t know why a debate would matter anyway when we could be collaborating on solutions.

I got another comment responding to my zone control post that said it “sounds like a bunch of guys jerking each other off.” That’s such an inappropriate thing to say in the first place, but it’s also revealing. Wait really? Punching as you go, supporting trade partners, clearing the way for people to succeed sounds like that to you? I can keep going with examples. Some of these folks have what I would call salted eyes.

If somebody says “they’re one of those salty superintendents,” think about what that means. Salt tastes good when you use it in the right proportions. It enhances flavor. It brings out the best in food. But if you put too much salt, it’s nasty. It ruins the food. And it will ruin you. You become spicy and toxic. Your perspective becomes so contaminated with negativity, cynicism, and bitterness that you can’t see clearly anymore. You’ve salted your eyes ruined your ability to perceive reality accurately.

The Most Critical Survival Skill in Any Setting

Here’s my point with this, and it’s not just philosophical. The single biggest key to survival in any survival setting is your attitude. If you have a crappy attitude, you’re going to have a crappy outcome. If you have a positive attitude, you can pretty much do anything. Humans are resourceful. And remember: your brain will give up a hundred times before your body actually will. Your attitude really matters.

So here’s the question: are you going to lightly salt your eyes season your perspective with a little bit of reality but keep a positive outlook? Or are you going to dump the whole container of salt on your eyes until you can’t see anything except negativity, problems, and reasons why nothing will work?

The Hard Truth About Construction Training

Now let me tell you something uncomfortable. The bottom line is nobody in the industry knows what the hell they’re doing. And before you get mad at me, I’m just telling you that’s not taught. I can’t go anywhere and find people who are proficient at procurement. I can’t go anywhere and find people who know CPM, Takt, and Last Planner in and out. I can’t go anywhere and find somebody who truly knows how to be a field engineer at a high level. We’re not training. We’re throwing people into roles and hoping they figure it out. And so it’s not a people problem. It’s a process and system problem. We have to fix it.

But the point is this: when people aren’t trained properly, they start doing dumb things. And there are not dumb people per se, inherently they might lack some intelligence from genetics, but I’m not going to call somebody dumb. People do dumb things. Just like saying “dumb” the way I just said that. What I mean by dumb things is this pattern: rush, push, and panic. Add more labor and it will make things go better. Throw all the materials out at once in large batches. Work overtime. Push and disrespect people. Toxically compete. Be negative. Yell at trade partners. Blame the younger generation.

These are dumb things that untrained people do because they don’t know better. So, you take somebody who hasn’t been trained properly, who has too much salt contaminating their perspective, and now they’re becoming salty. They do more dumb things with more dumb results. They get triggered more easily. They accumulate trauma from bad experiences. And now you have somebody like me coming out here saying “there’s a better way,” and they just double down on the dumbness. They say “all that crap doesn’t work” when they’ve never actually tried it or gave it a fair implementation.

The Reality of Who’s Actually Resisting Progress

Let me give you a perspective shift. Have you ever seen those little videos on YouTube where it’s like “if the world was reduced to 100 people” and it shows statistics like “80 of the 100 are in poverty, 60 can read and write,” that kind of thing? If you take the whole construction industry and reduce it to 100 people, here’s what you’d see: roughly 80 people are actually willing to take this industry to the next level. They’re open to better methods. They want to improve. They care about respecting people. There’s maybe 20 who are being resistant or really stubborn but might come around eventually.

And then there are about 2 people out of the 100 who are actively criticizing advancement, progress, kindness, and respect for people. Just 2 out of 100. And they look dumb. I don’t want them to look dumb. But they look dumb because they’re fighting against improvement while the other 98 are moving forward.

What “Seasoned” Really Means

So, when people say “the old salty superintendents” or “the seasoned superintendents,” I want to ask: what are they seasoned with? Are they seasoned with too much salt until they’ve become toxic? Or are they seasoned with good things that actually make life taste good? What do you mean by seasoned?

Here’s the critical point that’s going to make some people angry: having experience doesn’t count for anything by itself. If somebody says “I’ve been in construction for 30 years,” that doesn’t automatically mean anything. You could have been messing it up the whole time. You could have been hurting people the whole time. You could have been a complete asshole the whole time. Seasoned, if you’re talking about time duration, doesn’t mean anything.

Thirty years of doing it wrong is not better than three years of doing it right. Thirty years of toxic leadership is not more valuable than three years of respectful, system-based leadership. Thirty years of CPM chaos is not superior to three years of Takt flow. Time served does not equal wisdom gained. It just means you’ve been there longer and if you were doing it wrong, you’ve been causing damage longer.

The Difference Between Properly Seasoned and Over-Salted

So, if we’re talking about being “seasoned” in a different regard, how is it measured? Is the person lightly seasoned using their experience to enhance their work and help others? Are they properly seasoned balancing realism with optimism, bringing wisdom without cynicism? Or are they over-salted to where they’ve become toxic and are now doing more harm to the industry than good?

The over-salted superintendent sees every new idea and says “we tried that 20 years ago and it didn’t work.” The properly seasoned superintendent says “we tried something similar 20 years ago and here’s what we learned that might help now.” The over-salted project manager resists all change because “this is how we’ve always done it.” The properly seasoned project manager adapts methods while maintaining principles. The difference isn’t experience it’s perspective. It’s whether you’ve salted your eyes until you’re blind to possibility.

The Best Thing for Survival Is Optimism

My point is the best thing for survival in this industry is optimism. And we can’t keep incentivizing ignorance. Let me give you a closing story that illustrates this perfectly. There’s a project team that asked us for help. We got somebody there full-time to support their lean implementation. And here’s what we heard: “Oh, we can’t plan yet.” “No, I’m not going to share my plans.” “No, we can’t adjust the meeting cycle because this is how we’ve always done it.” “No, I can’t do that.” “I can’t do this.” “I won’t do that.”

Toxic classical management BS. Unwillingness to change. Fixed mindset. Not knowing how construction fundamentally works. Just running everything from push and panic, trying your best, and putting yourself in the victim’s spot where nothing can improve because you’re helpless. We can’t do that. We can’t keep protecting and rewarding people who refuse to learn, refuse to adapt, refuse to try better methods.

Moving From Salted Eyes to Optimistic Eyes

We’ve got to change from having salted eyes to optimistic eyes. We’ve got to understand that “seasoned” means properly seasoned with optimism and having good experience not just having experience. There’s a massive difference between:

Salted Eyes vs. Optimistic Eyes

• Salted: “That will never work here.” Optimistic: “How can we adapt that to work here?”
• Salted: “We tried something like that before and it failed.” Optimistic: “What did we learn that time that helps us succeed this time?”
• Salted: “The younger generation doesn’t want to work.” Optimistic: “How do we create systems that enable the younger generation to succeed?”
• Salted: “Owners just don’t understand construction.” Optimistic: “How do we communicate better so owners see the value in better methods?”
• Salted: “Trade partners are the problem.” Optimistic: “How do we support trade partners so the system works for everyone?”
• Salted: “This industry will never change.” Optimistic: “This industry is changing and I’m going to be part of that change.”

Why Attitude Determines Everything

Your brain will give up a hundred times before your body will. This is survival science. When people are lost in the wilderness, the ones who survive aren’t necessarily the strongest or most skilled they’re the ones with the best attitude. They maintain hope. They problem-solve instead of panic. They adapt to reality while refusing to give up. Construction is no different.

The projects that succeed aren’t always the ones with the most experience or the biggest budgets. They’re the ones where leaders maintain optimism while building better systems. They’re the teams who lightly season their perspective with realism but refuse to over-salt their eyes with cynicism. They’re the people who know humans are resourceful and that attitude creates outcomes.

The Choice Every Construction Professional Faces

You have a choice right now. You can keep your salted eyes and be part of the 2% who resist progress while complaining about everything. Or you can clean off your perspective, properly season your experience with optimism, and join the 80% who are building a better construction industry.

If you’re a “seasoned” professional with 30 years of experience, ask yourself honestly: what are you seasoned with? Have you been properly training people or just criticizing them? Have you been building systems or just pushing people harder? Have you been respecting people or just demanding they respect you because of your time served? Are you enhancing the industry or making it more toxic? Time doesn’t answer these questions. Your impact does.

Resources for Getting Unsalted

If you’ve realized you’ve been over-salted, there’s hope. Start by examining your assumptions. Question whether the ways you’ve always done things are actually working. Look at the data: are your projects finishing on time? Are workers happy and returning? Are trade partners calling you for the next job? Is quality high without heroic effort? If not, maybe the old ways need updating.

Get proper training. Join boot camps. Read books like Takt Planning, Pull Planning for Builders, and 2 Second Lean. Implement Last Planner System. Learn Takt Production System. Study lean principles. Not because these are magic bullets, but because they’re properly documented systems that replace guessing with process.

If your team is struggling with salted eyes and toxic perspectives preventing progress, if you’re tired of fighting people who claim “we’ve always done it this way” while projects keep failing, if you want to shift culture from cynicism to optimism while implementing systems that actually work, Elevate Construction can help your teams clean their perspective and build capability through proper training and system implementation.

The Industry Needs Properly Seasoned Leaders

This connects to everything we teach at Elevate Construction about respect for people as foundation. You cannot respect people while over-salting your perspective until you’re toxic. You cannot build people up while tearing down every new idea. You cannot develop the next generation while blaming them for not knowing things they were never taught. The industry needs properly seasoned leaders who use their experience to enhance work, not contaminate it.

Optimism isn’t naivety. It’s the discipline to maintain hope while solving real problems. It’s the skill of seeing what’s broken and believing it can be fixed. It’s the wisdom to know your brain will give up a hundred times before your body will so you train your brain to keep going. Salted eyes prevent all of this by ruining your ability to see clearly, think constructively, and lead effectively.

A Challenge for the Over-Salted

Here’s the challenge. If you find yourself immediately resistant to every new idea, if you default to “that won’t work” before even trying, if you take pride in being salty or crusty or tough in ways that hurt people, if your first instinct is to criticize rather than collaborate you might have salted eyes. And you can fix it.

Start by acknowledging that having 30 years of experience means nothing if it was 30 years of doing it wrong. Recognize that experience is valuable only when it’s good experience that builds people and systems. Choose to properly season your perspective with realism balanced by optimism. Stop incentivizing ignorance by protecting methods that don’t work just because “we’ve always done it this way.”

The single biggest key to survival in this industry is your attitude. Construction is hard enough without leaders who’ve ruined their perspective with too much salt. We need builders who are properly seasoned wise from experience but hopeful about possibilities, realistic about challenges but optimistic about solutions, experienced in what works and willing to learn better methods when they appear.

Clean your eyes. Check your seasoning. Choose optimism. The 80% who are moving construction forward will welcome you. The 2% who stay salty will keep looking dumb while the industry improves around them. Which group do you want to be in?

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “salted eyes” mean in construction?

A ruined perspective from too much negativity and cynicism. Like over-salting food, it destroys your ability to see clearly or perceive possibilities. Common in people who’ve had bad experiences without proper systems to learn from them.

Why doesn’t 30 years of experience automatically mean anything?

Because you could have spent 30 years doing it wrong, hurting people, or using broken systems. Time served doesn’t equal wisdom gained. Good experience with proper methods matters duration alone doesn’t.

What’s the difference between being “seasoned” and “salty”?

Properly seasoned means using experience to enhance work and help others, balancing realism with optimism. Over-salted/salty means toxic perspective that resists all change and damages culture while claiming experience justifies the toxicity.

Why is attitude the most critical survival skill?

Your brain gives up 100 times before your body will. In survival situations and construction projects, people with positive attitudes problem-solve, adapt, and persist. People with negative attitudes quit mentally long before circumstances force them to.

How do you fix salted eyes?

Acknowledge bad experiences don’t justify bad perspective. Get proper training in documented systems. Question whether “how we’ve always done it” is actually working. Choose optimism while solving real problems. Stop protecting broken methods.