How I got started as a farm kid with zero money to running multiple businesses

[Music] it does not take money to make money it takes something a lot more valuable a lot more scarce but a lot more available to anybody that wants it and that's dry determination dedication a willingness to do the goal above and beyond what the average person will stop at so we're the average guy or gal and saying now it's too hard for me I can't do it you barrel right on past them and when you're willing to do that when you're willing to take it to that extreme I promise you I absolutely promise you that without an education without money without any of the things that other people seem to be getting by with you can pass them so what are we waiting for today I'm going to take you step-by-step through my journey where I started out as a farm kid with no money but a desire to better myself and by the time I'm done I want you guys to be able to go holy this is how I can do it so what are we waiting for it let's do this thing so the fact is the average hyper successful person has seven different income streams now before we go jumping on this boat of all I need multiple income streams doing different things I want you to take the time to become hyper successful in your very first income stream get that established before you walk away from that and attempt to start a second third fourth or fifth income stream and we're gonna actually I'm gonna actually tell you today exactly how I started down this entire journey so one of the questions that I get asked a lot of times is I see you everywhere I see the jobs you're doing how do you do it and I'm going to tell you how I did it starting with just one of the businesses that I've run and you guys are gonna see what it takes to do it and then we're gonna talk about how we took I call it the graduation process okay so let's be very clear what the graduation process means it means that I started out as a little teeny tiny kid working as a laborer I didn't know I didn't get started being a manager in a company my daddy didn't build something for me and hand it down to me none of that existed I started out laboring oh just busting my butt you have to walk before you run you have to master every single step of the process and that means starting out on the very bottom but when you're on the very bottom what you need to understand is this is a learning opportunity it's not a ceiling you're not stuck there you were going to figure out every nuance of that bottom run because once you've dominated once you've mastered the very bottom there's nowhere you can go but up because you're gonna feel it here and that's going to drive you onward and upward to the next step and every time you step up you are literally going to become the absolute best you possibly can at that area wherever you are at but here's here's the big but do not let yourself and do not let somebody else limit you or stick you in that area because this is your only passing through your only passing through your only going to stay there as long as you need to stay there to master that area that is not your final destination that's just one part of the trip and here's part of the thing you guys are going to know when you're done in an area and you may not have somebody standing right there ready to reach down grab your hand and lift you onward and upward to the next level what that means though is that you've got to forge your own path you've got to figure out how and what you've got to do to take it to the next level and sometimes when you're trying to figure it out on your own you're gonna take two steps forward and you may take three steps backwards but don't let that stop you that's just part of the learning curve in fact the worst mistakes that you make in your life are some of the best things that you can possibly learn from and the only bad thing that ever happens to you is when you fail to learn from something that happens along the destination I literally would drive up to new developments knock on the door and say can I grade your yard can I do landscaping for you what can I do that's how I got started but it wasn't until I had labored for year after year after year did I then buy my first piece of equipment I bought a dump truck not knowing how to drive it and I would hop up onto the window sills of other people's dump trucks and ask him what the knobs and bells meant in their dump trucks that is how I learned how to operate my own dump truck so my very first company was an excavating company but to build an excavating company from the ground up meant I needed a dump truck which was a key component to that kind of business a dump truck is an expensive asset to have so I saved up all of my money over the years and I put a sizable down payment on a dump truck problem is I'd never driven a dump truck before in my life in fact I'd never actually even been inside of a dump truck before and so when I bought a dump truck I went down to a diesel repair shop and I started to question the mechanics and what all of the different knobs did inside of the truck they looked at me like I was kind of crazy but then they started to answer my questions which gave me enough knowledge to go into the truck to go take a test so that I could actually pass it and be able to drive it legally on the roads then what I did was I hired myself out as a dump truck driver for almost two years just driving that dump truck so I could pay it off so I can own it outright so that I could then move on and buy the next piece of equipment that I needed to build my excavating company and so that's how I got started with one of my very first pieces of equipment truck then I bought a ski I bought a tractor loader backhoe then I bought a skid loader having zero prior experience to operating any of this and having theirs there were no videos there were no tutorials there was nothing out there that let a guy get a feeling for what it took what to look for when you were buying something so you would I would go in blindly buying something and then teaching myself how to operate it I didn't have operators school so I did the best I could figuring it out all on my own which is a lot of the ways that you guys are going to be doing it on your on your own but now you guys there's resources for you guys to use that you don't have to figure it out all by yourself and these resources you guys are gonna put you light years ahead of where I was when I was your age when I was at your stage of the game when I was getting started and I wish I only wish that those resources existed way back then so I started out as a laborer and I graduated this is the graduation process you guys I graduated from a laborer to an equipment operator and then I taught myself how to operate all sorts of equipment tractors out in the field loaders pay loaders excavators mini excavators dump trucks a self-taught 100% everything was self-taught or me asking somebody to show what they were what I well how to operate a piece of equipment and getting minimal instruction at the very best that's how I learned so I'm not a perfect equipment operator and some of these other YouTube channels out there like to go oh yeah blah blah blah and I don't care about them okay so here's a fact you guys don't let anybody stop you and you need to understand they're going to try they're not going to want to see you pass them even when you're you can you can pass them making mistakes and that's what's going to really piss them off you will pass them even when you're doing it wrong because you're willing to work harder you're willing to give it more you're willing to do the things they're not willing to do they're gonna look like they're coasting while you're cruising and even if you're cruising screwing up you're still gonna go further farther and faster and that's when you're gonna get the most haters coming out of the woodwork going after you and just understand it's part of the process don't let it slow you down let it help you build up speed to leave him even further behind their business I learned how to become an equipment operator and then I graduated from being an equipment operator to running a job to judge to being a job site operator so that meant I was still in a labor then I was also running the equipment but now I was running a job site big difference you guys okay so then I went from running single job sites just one job site at a time to running multiple job sites at the same time now what I taught myself of course nobody taught me how to run a job site what I taught myself from running that single job site everything was learned the hard way but now this graduation process from one to the net to the next goal is pretty fast you guys I was 21 years old sitting on the end of my bed holding my head like this because I landed a $4,000 job and then a day later I landed a $4,500 job and I was insanely excited I could not believe 21 years old I've got eighty five hundred dollars worth of hardscaping jobs that I'm going to go out and do but then a few years later I was sitting on the same end of the bed with a $45,000 job a hundred thousand dollar job and multiple hundred fifty plus thousand dollar projects coming in thinking do I really want that forty five thousand dollar project I don't even know if I want that it's only forty five thousand dollars do you see how you quickly you can graduate up but here's the most important thing you guys it's baby steps you're not going to move from a $4,500 job instantly to a forty five thousand or a hundred and forty five thousand dollar job you're not that process took years anywhere from three to five years before I was really starting to do the big multiple projects and then it wasn't until I started to do YouTube it wasn't until I started to successfully run multiple businesses where I needed to pull myself further away I needed to graduate another time okay so let's go through this graduation process be on the same page I graduated I started as a laborer I graduated to being an equipment operator I ran every piece of equipment I owned and graduated away from running equipment I could no longer afford to run equipment and run a jobsite but then I graduated from running a single jobs link to run multiple job sites when we were doing two million dollars a year at excavating we were digging a Minard superstore at the same time that were we're digging a Firestone two station the same time that we were putting 30,000 square foot retaining wall in and I was running five crews simultaneously so now I'm running I graduated from single job sites to multiple job sites and then I graduated from running multiple projects to just running my business and then now ultimately because of my desire to help you guys my passion for shearing this journey I then graduated away from running my businesses at all now this is this concepts going to kind of blow your mind because you guys will see me at events if you guys follow along in Instagram you'll see me at one time might be in one city and then two days later I'll be on the other coast entirely and you guys come up and go how do you do that well I had to teach myself how to let go of the businesses and put strategic people in place that could run the business for me now it's to the point you guys where I don't even know what jobs we're working on where the crews are working or who's doing what but there is no way shape or form when I was 21 years old sitting on the end of my bed holding my head with excitement because I just landed a $4,000 job and a $4,500 job could I even fathom that at one point I wouldn't even know what projects we were working on or even be concerned about them because I graduated my through my entire process and now I'm on to different things different passions and that's how you can run multiple businesses with having multiple streams of income it goes back to a few key words that I want to share with you and those key words are key key people let me put this to you very bluntly my construction business would not exist without Frankie you guys know Frankie I know every component of the construction business so the construction industry was a different journey in it's different education process I started out by buying houses and flipping them but I would focus on buying houses that needed no structural changes in them because I didn't know how to do structural changes but eventually I would graduated by buying more difficult houses and more difficult houses and then my wife challenged me to the most difficult project ever we found our dream location but the house was horrible literally the only bathroom in the house was a hole in the basement floor that was the toilet and she wanted it and she told me that I could build our dream house I was scared but because she told me I could do it I did it and then I taught myself how to pour a basement I taught myself how to do footings I taught myself how to do the framing and I taught myself using my own equipment how to even build a log house when I had no clue you guys you guys can do it too I know how to build a house from start to finish but Frankie does it all and he doesn't need me Frankie does not need me my lawn care division and my heart scaping business run because of Timmy Tim who's been with me for 20 plus years runs both of those he does not need me he likes to have me around he's the guy that likes to double check technical tim loves to double check his stuff against me and i want to be there for him but i don't need to be there for him another key player my real estate business in Costa Rica I have another partner and that he runs that without me entirely without me I don't even speak Spanish he speaks fluent Spanish he handles all the legal components of it we buy and sell land we divide it up we create developments and he handles all of that dirt monkey university without phil without cali it would not exist it simply would not be there key people you your next step the most important thing that you guys need to do is find key people and the first thing you guys are going to ask me is how do I find those people you develop them yourself you look for character not skill you don't look for people that already know it all you don't want those people the people that come into my business claiming to know everything are usually the most worthless pieces that I've ever had come into the business because you know what they don't know everything they know what they know but they're too stuck in their own ruts they're too stuck in their own ways to become flexible to understand that maybe just maybe their way is awesome but maybe some parts of their way is not so awesome so this goes down that line of you can't teach an old dog new tricks kind of mentality and a lot of times when a highly skilled person comes into a business they're not flexible or open to different ways of thinking and I'm gonna tell you guys right now there's always a different way to skin a cat there's always different opportunities that are available out there so whatever you do make sure that you keep your mind open to opportunities that may be right there okay so develop your people from within based on the content of their character I sound a little bit like Martin Luther King when I say this but it is the most important element that you will ever have you guys are going to meet people for the very very first time and you are going to be impressed by their character and maybe they have zero skills in your industry but remember your character is going to carry you further than your skills will ever get you you can't develop character you can develop skills okay so find amazing people people you trust Tim had zero experience 20 years ago taught him everything he knew now I could not operate without him franki amazing character he had all the skills one of the sub students to the rule I can't teach Frankie anything I don't want to teach Frankie anything but again I get Phil and Callie amazing character all of these people have the things that you need to team up with and they're over and over and over again Gregg aquascape Academy runs a 30-plus million dollar company I've met every single person of his team he knows and they know that that business that thirty million dollar aquascape Academy would not exist would not operate if they worked there fundamentally key the most important thing you can do is bring on amazing people into your team it's more important than your equipment it's more important than anything else you can do and those people you're going to go through the same graduation process that you did you guys here they're going to start off maybe as a laborer and they're going to stick with it they're going to work longer they're going to work harder they're going to have your best interests at heart they're going to come to you and say hey boss I noticed that you know this happened on this jobsite and I think we can improve that and your ears are going to perk up your radar is going to go up and go this guy or gal is trying to do the very best that he or she can for this business and those are the people that you have a responsibility to yourself to your business and to them to develop look for those amazing people because that team you guys is going to take your business further than anything else your left and your right hand man or woman is really where the backbone of your business is going to be developed and that's how I was able to develop multiple businesses multiple streams of income and yet still traipse all over this the United States filming YouTube videos trying to bring you guys education trying to bring you good content trying to do the best I can to start to all to continue the legacy that my father left to me and if you guys some of you guys have asked me why I do this it's not everybody knows this story I'll share that with you right now is I started working when I was four years old four and four I was four years old and I remember getting up at 4 a.m. with my dad who brought me to work and he made me pull the he was a crop duster he would make me pull the airplane out and every time as a little kid I was able to pull the airplane out of the hanger here's the thing you guys it had a slight downward angle so I really wasn't pulling much and he might have been on the back side pushing he's like ah I'm so proud of you son you did it I can't believe it I remember that as a 47 year old man okay and that that work ethic that ability for a person to take me under his wing is what I couldn't be here if somebody hadn't taught me that I would not be here I would be an employee I honestly guys I would probably be in an employee at a 7-eleven and there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you do there's nothing wrong with that but if you're not happy you don't have to stay there that's probably where I would have been and when my dad when my old man passed away I said I'm going to continue his legacy and I'm going to give away everything everything that I possibly can to help anybody that wants to help themselves do it now I want to address another thing why do I if I want to give everything away why do I sell why do I charge for dirt monkey University it's because you get out of something what you put into it and now dirt monkey University is the way I attempt if you guys like my YouTube videos that's awesome but they're not meant to be educational they're meant to be entertainment ninety percent entertainment 10% education dirt monkey university is the flip side of that it's hardcore education and this is what separates the wheat from the chaff this is where the guys that really want to invest back into themselves go to get real training real education because it's 90% education 10% entertainment there's no no jokes no fun it's all raw work and that's why dirt monkey University may not be for you it may not be and I don't care if you agree or disagree 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