Where has Elevate Been?

The Story You Don’t Know: How I Helped Destroy My Father-In-Law’s Company

Jason was flying back from Nashville, Tennessee to Phoenix thinking about what podcasts he could do, what he could record to really add some value. He was going through all of his lists and there’s so many different topics to talk about, but tonight he’s not feeling passionate about speaking about a specific topic. So he figured he’ll find a heart connection. Let’s talk about Elevate and business and things like that. Just to give you a little bit of context, Jason is really working to get out of flying so stinking much. And he doesn’t need anybody to feel sorry for him, he’s just telling you, he flies in so much and he’s not home very much and he’s going to fix that.

He found himself downloading, his wife Katie called him and she’s like “Why did you put on our family plan the Game Center or the arcade on an Apple phone?” Jason was like “Katie, my mind is so fried. I’ve gone through and made so many outlines and read so many things and prepared so many speeches. I’m just fried. I downloaded Angry Birds on my phone and I haven’t done that in a long time, but I’m just feeling myself exhausted.” Jason was thinking about that and the fact that he wasn’t feeling passionate about a specific topic and he was like “You know what, let’s talk about why. Why am I flying home on a plane on a Tuesday night when I should be home with family? What are we working for?”

He figured he would talk to you about where Elevate has been and how he started this business from a standpoint of how can he help other people. Hopefully the story is helpful. Maybe it’s helpful from just a business perspective. But then, where are they going? And why is all of this worth it? Even if it’s really impossibly hard. Even if it’s just hard but for a small moment. Let Jason take you through that little journey and kind of take you through the mindset he’s had in starting this business and why it’s important to him.

How I Helped Put My Father-In-Law Out of Business

Jason helped put his father-in-law’s company out of business. He thinks he’s told you this story before. But he was working for a large general contractor and he was documenting the things that he perceived his wife’s father’s company was doing wrong. The things that he perceived there. It may or may not have been true. In a prison, which is where they were working, every security electronics device, the critical ones, have a home run back to the security electronics room in the core of a prison from the wings, from the prison cells.

They were in charge of installing the conduit, the pathways for the security electronics. Whether the concrete was rushed or vibrators hit the conduit or the conduit glue wasn’t properly fastened or whatever went wrong, there were a lot of these conduits that went bad and got filled with concrete in the walls, which took massive chipping to fix it and to finish it. Jason blamed everything on them. So they got charged. They supplemented their work. It was really a nightmare.

Jason remembers he started to ask this man’s daughter out. And they eventually, he proposed to her and they ended up getting married. He remembers on the way back from California to Texas, as they’re closing the doors of the business and going back, not with their tail between their legs but in a really bad mood, Jason’s father-in-law came by to say congratulations for getting married at their reception. Jason remembers him showing up at the door, not very happy and excited. He just married his daughter.

Here’s the most, and this is before Jason found religion in his life, here’s one of the most dishonest persons he’s ever met in his entire life, marrying his daughter. Just kind of being sad, out of business, feeling like a failure and heading back home. Jason remembers the look on his face.

Then Jason moved to Texas as well, Austin, and got to help build the Whole Foods World Headquarters. After a couple of years of that, he was on the Round Rock facility for Texas State’s campus. He prayed about it and decided to go live where Katie grew up in Seymour, Texas. So he was there with her family. He ended up joining her church with them and working with his father-in-law. Jason was his clerk. He was the administrative arm of what he did at church. That was his calling. That was his responsibility.

Over the years, he warmed up to Jason, taught him about religious things, mentored him kind of like a second father. And they really got close. Jason thought to himself over those years, he really had the opportunity to reflect on how he treats people and how he treats subcontractors, which he now calls trade partners.

When somebody wonders why Jason does podcasts, that’s a defining moment in his life of why he takes care of trade partners so much. Because he was a part of putting a contractor out of business. He was a part of being dishonest and unethical. He was a part of not taking care of other people. He was a part of watching that happen and seeing the looks on their faces. So he vowed that he would never allow that to happen or do that to anybody ever again. To know Jason, you have to know that story and know that he takes care of trade partners.

The Books That Saved Me From Getting Fired

The second one is when Jason was in Texas building the Whole Foods World Headquarters, or at least being on the team, he almost got fired. He’s told you this story before. Bear with him. He was so bad at his job, made so many mistakes, offended so many people, was so stubborn that he was about to get fired. He got scriptures in his life from a religious standpoint. And then the other thing is the Field Engineering Methods Manual.

It was literally a matter of months from the time that he was about to get fired to then when Hensel Phelps started to pay him to travel throughout the country and pay for plane flights and hotels and cars and all the things to train other field ops roles. It was quite remarkable to him.

The other thing that you have to understand about Jason is that he really believes in education. Those books saved him. Those books saved him from a lot of pain. Those books started him on a lifelong love of learning and attempting to be better. To understand Jason, you have to understand that he believes in learning and training at the core of everything that he is and everything that he does.

Over the years, he’s always liked distilling and putting material into a more consumable format, understanding concepts, sharing concepts. He remembers when he was working with Hensel Phelps, he would spend weeks upon weeks creating video after video after video, watching himself and then correcting the speech and then saying ums and ahs and things like that and then having to rerecord the video and creating websites. He actually designed software and things like that. Over the years, being in the field, that’s always been in his blood.

My Flesh Was Weak, My Blood Ran Chill, But My Free Spirit Cried I Will

Katie once bought Jason a book called EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey. He read that book and then another book. Unbeatable Mind by Mark Devine. He read that at a scout camp up in the woods when he had some free time and the kids were doing merit badges. He was thinking about the question: when you are deceased, what would you want to look back upon in your life and say was your legacy.

At that time, he realized he wanted to start a business and really scale good things throughout the industry. He didn’t know exactly what it was. A man named Kevin Rice, a really good friend of his over the years who’s really good at business and helps actually Elevate with business consulting and lean business, coached him on how to create the clarity of what he wanted to do over a number of years. It was about 10 years.

Jason knows sometimes he gets on these podcasts and he’s all bold and brave and like “Hey, go live your dream.” But it took him about 10 years to decide to do this. It got to the point where he really had to be willing to give everything up and let go of the fear. He’s going to read you some words to one of his favorite hymns. He thinks it’s really special. This is the point that he got to. It’s called A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. It’s hymn 29 in their hymn books.

The verse that really struck him says: “In prison I saw him next condemned to meet a traitor’s doom at morn. The tide of lying tongues I stemmed and honored him mid shame and scorn. My friendship’s utmost zeal to try, he asked if I for him would die. The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill, but my free spirit cried, I will.”

The real important thing in this hymn for Jason was when it says “The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill, but my free spirit cried, I will.” That’s always been really impactful to him because literally that’s how it felt to him to start a business. He’s got 11 kids. He doesn’t have the money. The security freaks him out. He’s super scared. His flesh was weak, his blood ran chill. But his free spirit cried “If this is something that’s inspired that I’m supposed to do, I will.” He relates to that really well. That’s the feeling that he had. Maybe you’ve had that same feeling when making a hard decision or having to make a hard life decision or get married or quit a job or whatever the case may be. We all have those moments.

But for Jason, starting a business was like that. When he got to that point where he was willing to give everything up and get past the fact that there wasn’t any security and get past the fact that he was super scared and get past the fact that he had no idea how he was going to make it and get past all those things and say “You know what? My purpose is more important than the concern. And I’m just going to let it go.”

Then his flesh is weak and his blood is running chill and he’s freaked out. But his free spirit, the human, the person, the leader that he is will cry out and say “I will do this for other people.” That’s where we all have to get with whatever our mission is in life. Jason hears, and don’t get me wrong it took him 10 years so he’s no example to follow, but he hears a lot of people all the time say “I can’t do this” or “I could never do that” or “It’s too hard” or this or that or whatever. The answer is we just have to get to that point. We have to get to that leverage.

The Third Week of February: When the Money Started Coming

An interesting thing is once Jason had made that decision, the plan for how to execute the business really kind of came into view. He feels like it was inspiration. But literally the information, the feelings that he had was that he would start a podcast and that was something he knew he should have been doing for a couple of years. Start a podcast, start marketing and building and get the business and start researching about it.

Then the timeline kind of unfolded itself really nicely. In the first part of December, he would give notice. First of January, he would leave. And he knew, he believes again through divine sources, that the third week of February they would start making money. And then he wouldn’t have to worry after that. That they would always be able to make money.

Literally that’s what happened. He gave his notice the first part of December. January 1st he left normal employment. Then literally he looked back at the books and he should have saved whatever check or whatever would have put them over the top. But they started making money and getting above the line, what they call being in the black, the third week of February.

When he cashed out his retirement, which some people wouldn’t consider wise, but if you listen to Garrett Gunderson, he says it might be worth it when you consider the opportunity costs. He basically took all of their savings to start the business. It got to a point where they didn’t get super low. They still had $45,000 in the bank. But they stopped paying to start a business. They stopped that the third week of February.

It was really good that he had that focus of helping people and what the mission was, because sometimes you just have to hold on to things like that. When Jason does these podcasts, he thinks about you. He thinks about the workers. He thinks about your families. He thinks about how much good we can do together as we learn from each other. And it keeps all of us going.

The Brutal Truth About Year One

Fast forward a little bit. Hard times work. By the way, Jason’s never worked harder in his life than this year. So somebody’s thinking about starting a business, absolutely go do it. Just be prepared that for the first year you’re going to work so hard you won’t even know how you survive.

Just as he comes back off of a flight, and now he’s recording a podcast on the way, he paused to go to In-N-Out real quick to get something to eat. And then literally in 57 minutes, not to complain, but it’s eight o’clock and in 57 minutes he gets to go on to another international call, business call, to make sure they’re advancing efforts on their online learning platforms. It just never ends. The requirements to run a business and to stay with it and to do the right thing and to do a podcast and to show up and to fly places, it just never ends.

One of the hardest things for Jason has been keeping positive cash flow. They do a lot of work. They have great customers. They have people that pay them. They have raving fans. They’re doing a lot of great things. But man, when they told him when he was younger about cash flow, he should have paid a lot closer attention. Because cash flow is just a big deal.

He may have like outstanding invoices to the tune of, and this sounds like a lot of money but it’s not a lot of money, to the tune of like 60 or 70, $80,000 of accounts receivable. But payroll has got to go out every week. Expenses have to go out every week. All these things have to happen.

It takes about $100,000 to have at least $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 in the bank to stay out ahead. So it’s not like anybody’s getting rich, although paying for consultants and training sometimes seems a little bit expensive. That’s like a little peek under the curtain.

One of these days, if they create a software or do something, get an online learning series and sell it to like 5 million people, maybe that’s when they’ll get rich. But up until now, it’s pretty much just paying the bills. Jason thought that was pretty interesting.

But he can say that it’s really rewarding. The recent information he’s been given, at least from the universe, from God, intuition, whatever you want, is to pivot a lot of what they do onto online learning platforms that are really engaging. So that anytime he flies around or he’s with somebody one on one or they’re coaching or they’re doing in person events, it’s special. It’s focused. And there isn’t a lot of burnout with that.

His summary: it took him 10 years, had a lot of coaching up into that point, had to be willing to just give everything up and just let it all go to be literally like “Hey, if we get to the point where we can’t eat, I’ll move into my parents.” Scary stuff.

And then to just say that the timeline has unfolded in a beautiful way. He remembers when they hired Spencer in August, the end of July. They didn’t know how they were going to sustain him. That’s expensive to have somebody that high caliber on payroll. But it all worked out. He’s been able to add so much value to people and to the company of what they’re doing.

Jason just has to say that if there’s a purpose, when there’s a will there’s a way. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: Why does Jason care so much about trade partners?

Because he was a part of putting a contractor out of business. He was working for a large general contractor documenting things he perceived his wife’s father’s company was doing wrong on a prison project. They got charged, work was supplemented, it was a nightmare. They closed the doors of the business. Jason remembers the look on his father-in-law’s face: sad, out of business, feeling like a failure. He was a part of being dishonest and unethical, not taking care of other people, watching that happen and seeing the looks on their faces. He vowed he would never allow that to happen or do that to anybody ever again.

Q: How long did it take Jason to start Elevate Construction?

It took him 10 years to decide to do it. Katie bought him EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey and he read Unbeatable Mind by Mark Devine. He was thinking about his legacy. He realized he wanted to start a business and scale good things throughout the industry but didn’t know exactly what. Kevin Rice coached him on creating clarity over those 10 years. Sometimes Jason gets bold and brave saying “go live your dream” but it took him a decade. He had to get to the point where he was willing to give everything up and let go of the fear.

Q: What was the timeline from quitting to making money?

Once Jason made the decision, the plan came into view. He felt inspired to start a podcast, start marketing and building. The timeline unfolded: first part of December give notice, January 1st leave employment, third week of February start making money. That’s exactly what happened. He cashed out retirement, took all their savings to start the business. They still had $45,000 in the bank but stopped draining it the third week of February. He knew through divine sources they would always be able to make money after that point.

Q: How hard is the first year of starting a business?

Jason has never worked harder in his life than this year. If you’re thinking about starting a business, absolutely do it. Just be prepared that for the first year you’re going to work so hard you won’t even know how you survive. He comes back off a flight, records a podcast on the way, pauses for In-N-Out, then in 57 minutes at 8 PM gets on another international call for online learning platforms. It never ends. The requirements to run a business, stay with it, do the right thing, do podcasts, show up, fly places, it just never ends.

Q: What’s the reality of cash flow in year one?

When they told Jason about cash flow when he was younger, he should have paid closer attention. It’s a big deal. He has outstanding invoices of $60,000 to $80,000 accounts receivable. But payroll goes out every week, expenses go out every week. It takes about $100,000 to have $20,000 to $40,000 in the bank to stay ahead. It’s not like anybody’s getting rich. Paying for consultants and training seems expensive but it’s pretty much just paying the bills. One day if they create software or sell online learning to 5 million people, maybe that’s when they’ll get rich.

On we go.