The Brad Weisman Show
Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! #TheBradWeisman #Show #RealEstateRealLife
The Brad Weisman Show
A Landscape of Culture with Brad Stephenson
Hi This is Brad Weisman - Click Here to Send Me a Text Message
A transformative conversation centered around the innovative leadership style of Brad Stephenson, CEO of New Castle Lawn and Landscape. Stephenson shares insights on building a supportive culture that values employee empowerment and personal growth, all while striving to improve the lives of 20,000 people.
• Emphasizing the importance of cultural leadership within the workplace
• Discussing the high turnover rate in landscaping and strategies to reduce it
• Using DISC assessments to enhance communication and connect with employees
• Focusing on personal growth through seeking discomfort and overcoming fear
• Setting the goal to impact 20,000 lives through positive change
• Experiencing vulnerability to foster deeper connections in leadership
• Creating an engaging work environment that motivates employees
• Recognizing the significance of personal stories and challenges in defining leadership
If you have any landscaping needs, call New Castle Lawn and Landscape today! 610-796-7818
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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife
Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.
from real estate to real life and everything in between the brad weisman show and now your host, brad weisman. All right, we're back. Whether you like it or not, we are back. Uh, yeah, we got a good guest here. This is gonna be fun, you know. The good thing about this guest is that he has the same name as mine, so I can't forget his name and his last name's easy, because a lot of times I mess those up too. But no, we have a guest that was on here before. He was on here about a year ago, year and a half ago, something like that and he is back.
Speaker 1:He is a mover and a shaker in you're not going to believe it in the landscaping business, but also in the leadership, in cultural leadership. I mean, he's just doing all kinds of stuff and his name is Brad Stevenson. He's the CEO of Newcastle Lawn and Landscape and he's also a certified behavioral analysis consultant. That's a tough one to say. How are you doing, brad? Doing really good. Thanks for having me. You're very welcome. This is an easy one. It's Brad and Brad, brad squared.
Speaker 2:Not much has changed around here.
Speaker 1:Not much, right, right. No, it's probably more dust on things, but otherwise it's pretty much the same. Pretty much the same Our hair is coming in in different places. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, thanks for noticing, but no, so you know.
Speaker 2:The first thing I'm going to say is that you know you started at the company you're at in a beginning like a laborer yeah, yeah, just pushing wheelbarrows and grew my way up through the company and brought a lot of people to the company too, so helped grow through people. How long ago was that? That was about 18 and a half years ago, 18 and a half years ago, wow, and I kind of remember that.
Speaker 1:Actually, I kind of remember when you came into the, into the, the company, uh, through social media and things like that.
Speaker 2:I did a show with you. Uh, we did. Uh, I forget what it was, oh that's right.
Speaker 1:We did this show from a BCTV. We did the real estate show that I had on there. Was that real estate and you? That might've been real estate and you also, I can't remember, but you're right, we did that over in green Valley. Yes, there was a house in green valley that you guys were doing, yeah, and the tree guy was there. Is he the same tree guy?
Speaker 2:no, that was different tree guy. Different is say they came at the same time. Okay, it's his partner. Yeah, nick moved on and he stayed. Okay, there we go those tree guys.
Speaker 1:You gotta watch. You just grow and grow and grow it's amazing, yeah, yeah he branched out to a different business right?
Speaker 2:yeah, just gonna say, he didn't leave.
Speaker 1:He didn't leave, he left checking. Oh boy, yeah, so so, no, so that's incredible. And now you're the CEO of the company. There's a story there Like how does that happen?
Speaker 2:I'm not so sure how it happened to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:It just I kept building myself, but building people around me, yeah, and the more you grow people, all of a sudden, before you know it, you're the ceo of the company and it was something it was a dream I always had, yeah, so I was always pushing towards it. But it's the about the people around me and helped me get to that point and really, you know the the partners, my partners at that time allowing me to come in and and do that and have ownership uh, again, it was a goal of mine before I started there, but allowing me to do that was super grateful. I'm super grateful, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's that story and you know. It just shows you that, I think also, you know you look at people when they come into a job or into an occupation for a company. You did more than what you were supposed to do, you. You didn't sit there and go. Oh well, I was supposed to get this and I should have gotten that. You just kept going forward, but you created probably leaders around you too.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's about building people up. But my dad always told me, you know, put 100% in, no matter what you get paid, it doesn't matter. I remember working at Orange Julius and I was like top, top, wait, I worked at Orange Julius.
Speaker 1:Oh, in the. Yeah but I think I'm older than you. You are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks, boy, I'm losing my hair and I'm older than you. Oh, I don't know. I'm full of compliments. You're full of compliments today? No, but seriously, I did. I worked at Orange Julius. I don't think I've ever hurt anybody in my life. Orange Julius and DJing oh my God. See, yeah, you're too young, all right, so keep going with the landscaping thing. So no, so you. You basically kept doing what you're supposed to do, but more than you're supposed to do. Always do more.
Speaker 2:Always do more. It's amazing. It's not about the paycheck, it's about changing people's lives, doing what, what you're supposed to do, which is everything you can, no matter what. Yeah, and that's why I I mean it's hard to like understand that, but our people at Newcastle, I mean we have over a hundred, a hundred employees now and they're all really, really good people, hugo being one of them, but there's really good people. I just want to want to make a difference.
Speaker 1:You have over a hundred employees. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, it's grown. That's big. Yeah, that's big.
Speaker 2:We can still consider ourselves small. Yeah Well, it's. It's amazing, unbelievable. So going've been working with the DISC assessments probably for about six years now. I just love reading people and understand what makes people do what they do, and it just lined up with me. So I'm like you know what? I'm going to get the certification and now all of our employees get the DISC assessments. And it's all about communicating. It's understanding how people receive communication If they're a detailed person. I'm not going to blow them up with a bunch of stories. I'm going to talk about details and it's just really understanding who you're talking to and what your audience is.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say it's knowing your audience. You know, if there's one thing that I can say to people that are in the sales you know a sales industry of some sort is knowing your audience. Don't talk like an engineer in front of the artist. You know what I mean. They're going to sit there like glassy. They're going to be like are you out of your mind? Like what are you even talking about? You know? And the other way around. Don't be like oh, this is awesome, this is cool to the engineer. You know you got to talk in more detailed terms. It's, it's. It's amazing how it's a being a chameleon, really and not being fake, it's just going where they
Speaker 1:are? Yes, meet them where they're at. Yes, exactly, and that's how you communicate better. That's how you connect. Yeah, we talked about that. Most people can communicate, but they can't connect. John Maxwell Good stuff, man, my boys, all right. So let's get. Yeah, exactly Same here. I listen to him all the time. So let's get a little deeper here. So how does it come about that a landscaping company becomes a cultural heritage company, a company that is there, really caring about the employees and caring about the team that's there? You know you could go through this business and landscaping business and not do that, not really care about the people that are on your team, but so, but I think obviously it makes a difference.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean, our turnover rate in the last five years is 5%, so it's, I think in the industry is 30%. So but it's not just to keep your turnover.
Speaker 2:It's really to to lead people. So even where I used to work before Newcastle, I was leading people and I always wanted to build people up and and just give them an opportunity that maybe they didn't have somewhere else. And it's about giving somebody a chance. And you know, the more good people you bring in and the more you give them a chance, they start flourishing you back away. Let them grow and then they'll multiply. And it's like gremlins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was amazing yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you, you bring good people in, they attract other good people and before you know it, you're surrounded by a hundred great people and that's what. That's what it is at Newcastle. If you, if you hire us, you'll, you'll, you'll see the difference. I mean, they're just really good people. We've had people, we've had an HOA, that let us go because we were too expensive. Two years ago, or actually three years ago, the residents were going to pick it, uh, to get us back, because they were. They just wanted our guy and it was all about our guys. It wasn't like, listen, we're selling the projects and the product and everything, but it's not our, it's about our people. Like, it's just different and I'll put our people up against anybody in any industry, not putting anybody down, but they're just good people. And, man, when you love to come to work because you're around good people, there's nothing better than that.
Speaker 1:And we're not perfect. There is no perfect but that's actually good, because then you're constantly striving to be better, to make people's lives better, to really care about the people. We're a big culture company Also. Keller Williams is known for that nationally and also here locally, it's a big part of our business is culture, and it is amazing that we have a low turnover. Here too. It's good for real estate companies. We have a very low turnover. We have great people that work here. We have great leadership team in place and it means a lot. You know, and and we care about their kids, we care about their families, we care about what's going on behind the scenes. You know, because it's important you know to, to care about people.
Speaker 2:And it is way more than just the employee it to care about people. And it is way more than just the employee. It's their family. Oh, absolutely, definitely and really so, brian, my partner. The reason why he wants to be the owner of the business is just he wants to create a place that is that people love coming to work, which is what we're doing, and I want to just change people's lives, not just the employees, also other families as well.
Speaker 1:And that trickles down to the customer, to the, to your clients. Your customer, because here's the thing If you're treating them in a certain way and and, and the respect that you treat them with and and also giving them the right to make choices, to make their own choices and not always have to be micromanaged, it's amazing how they can flourish and also how they'll treat your clients. Yeah, because that comes. That's what happens If you've been around companies where the owners are idiots and you and then the employees treat the customers like, like idiots.
Speaker 2:you know it's terrible. We're grading IQ here. I don't know, I don't know if I want to be here.
Speaker 1:I didn't say anything about that, I mean, but it's just. It's funny, though, but you find that that it's a trickle down from the top. If you, if you don't treating them right, they're going to treat your customers crappy too.
Speaker 2:And one thing you said too is, you know, not being fake like you got to live court. The core value.
Speaker 2:So our leadership team they have, like everybody that's in leadership, has to live our core values. If they don't, they're not going to be in leadership. Yeah, because if you're just faking it when you're at work and then you leave and go do something else, man, nobody's going to believe you. So wherever I'm at, where I'm at, if I'm at work, if I'm at home with my wife, if I'm with my kids, I'm the same person wherever I'm at, and it's just caring about people. Do I make mistakes? Yes, I do. Nobody's perfect.
Speaker 2:And it's good to make mistakes, because then you can pick yourself back up and you you can meet people where they're at when they make mistakes, absolutely, and it's one of the things that um it's in that book.
Speaker 1:The new um John Maxwell book talks about. Leadership is one of the most important things you could ever do is tell people what your faults are. Yeah, let them know what your weaknesses are, because then they realize that, that, that that you know, and then they're okay with picking up on those things and saying you know what? What's okay, I can help you on that. You know, if you don't admit to it, they think you know everything and it doesn't. Nobody wants that. Yeah, I sure don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's. Simon Sinek says it too. It's about being the idiot in the room. Yeah, ask those dumb questions that always like here's, here's a story. I was at a cause, I'm on some boards and stuff and I had no clue like how it actually worked. So you know, when they say, uh, they go around and talk about Robert's rules.
Speaker 1:I don't know what. I don't even know what it's called.
Speaker 2:Do I have somebody? Do I have a yes or whatever? Okay, hold on. So I had to stop the meeting. I was like guys, I really don't understand what's going on here. I said can I raise my my hand and say you know, I'll give the first? Year I just didn't know how it worked. I could have Googled it, but you know. But then it it.
Speaker 2:It loosened everybody up and I and I can feel that tension wherever I'm at. It's usually board meetings. I'll, I'll just flip in something just to loosen up the group to, for everybody to to. I did it at Vistage the other week and blew up the meeting a little bit.
Speaker 1:But that's good, it's being honest and open, and also it does loosen things up. Humor always works. Humor always works, that's one of your nine keys of leadership was incorporate humor or humor incorporated.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know which way.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure which way that goes there, but incorporate humor is a big one, and you had nine keys of leadership and growth, which was on a blog that you did or something that you wrote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was my first article that was published that I wrote for Lawn and Landscape magazine. Awesome, very cool. I have another one coming out in December about drug addiction in our industry.
Speaker 1:Wow, Wow, that's a big thing. Huh yeah, wow, incredible. Well, you are in the weeds a lot, so I just you know, but you're not supposed to smoke that stuff. I don't think. I'm pretty much sure that you're not supposed to.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, sometimes I say things that are just just not good and we and we don't edit, so it's good, it's all good.
Speaker 1:So let's into those nine keys of leadership and growth. There was some really good stuff in here. Be vulnerable, tell the truth about yourself, and that was kind of about what we just talked about. Is you know? We just talked about is you know? Don't be afraid to admit your fault.
Speaker 2:No, like if you and I do some speaking as well and I always go in because nobody if you go to a speaking event or an event to watch a speaker and they're just telling you how great they are like you can see right through it.
Speaker 1:They're full of crap.
Speaker 2:So if you can get that out of the way first and lower everybody's guards and then you can start building them up from there, because it's about your failures, not your wins. It's how many times have you failed?
Speaker 1:it's exactly what have you done to get past it? You're so, so right about that. And then, uh, don't care about what people think, I, you know, I, I'm definitely onto that one. I mean, you can't look at my green shirt. Yeah, I'm surprised that hugo doesn't have his on. Hugo, you're like camouflage today.
Speaker 2:Well see, he always tells me that my shirt has a little dimmer in it.
Speaker 1:I said there should be a dimmer on the back of that damn shirt. It's so bright, I'm going to start wearing sunglasses. I'm going to wear sunglasses one of these times. Holy mackerel, I'm not sure if you're doing landscaping or where you work for PennDOT.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what was going on. Somebody told me that and I was a little offended by that.
Speaker 1:But I'm good, I'm sorry, no, no, I don't really care. I hope you got over that.
Speaker 2:I really don't care what you think. No.
Speaker 1:I like the shirts. To be honest, I love them. You know why. It was an accident, actually.
Speaker 2:It was an accident?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they wasn't mean, it's like well, your shirt, I'm like oh, come on so everybody picks on the shirt, but that's good Cause. You know what it means. They're talking about it, it's marketing, that's you got that right.
Speaker 2:You can't miss it.
Speaker 1:So true, so uh. Well, the other one here is seek uncomfortable situations. I love that. Um, I mean even back in when I started doing Facebook videos.
Speaker 2:I hated it, like absolutely hate it. It was uncomfortable, but through being uncomfortable you're going to learn about yourself, you're going to put yourself up against the wall, you're going to stretch yourself and then you start gaining confidence. And I mean, heck, back in the day I was scared. I would be scared to death doing this back in the day. Uh, and I just started talking at Christmas parties, doing the speeches at Christmas parties. I used to have a couple of drinks before I did those speeches, but just to get past that, because Brian and Brian didn't really want to talk in front of everybody at that point and we were just a small company. But I always wanted to do it because I want to inspire.
Speaker 1:I want to help people, and if you to help people, and if you can't speak, if you can't talk to people, it doesn't work. Yeah, uh, it's pretty hard to do the sign well, unless you did sign language or something, but I don't know otherwise it's there are quiet.
Speaker 2:There are quiet leaders, though oh, this is true, there's true, that's very true. But yeah, being uncomfortable and and seek those uncomfortable, it doesn't mean take risks that you're you're not gonna live.
Speaker 1:Don't jump out of a plane without the parachute. That's not gonna work so well. You're not gonna work well. Yeah, that's really dumb.
Speaker 2:That's way outside your comfort zone, yeah, I I did hear in your, in your, and read in your article that it's meaningful, yes, meaningful, discomfort right, yes, explain that difference. But yeah, I think you know you don't want to just be uncomfortable like drinking 15 beers. You know that's uncomfortable, you know run into walls, fall over, throw up. You know beers. You know that's uncomfortable, you know run into walls, fall over, throw up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's not very uncomfortable. That's not what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:I talk about meanings. That's a different podcast. It's going to build you up, uh, those, that's the type of of uncomfortable situations that you should be in and and what are you scared of and how can you do a little bit more of that? I was just talking to one of our employees that left. I went out to breakfast with him and he has a. He had a hard time like talking to clients and stuff because he's shy. But just talking to him, like, what are you doing to improve yourself? And, and that's the thing, like our employees are family. So if we have to let somebody go or if they, they move on. There's no hard feelings. Yeah, like I'm not. We don't have people working for us and holding them down and saying you got to make money for us or we don't like you. No, they're people. So I had a person I had a fire years ago. I still have breakfast with Um, so like they are part of the family. So sometimes it doesn't work out, it's all right and maybe it's actually good for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a lot of times we look at. We look at when we're we're letting somebody go, that it's that we're we're ruining their life. No, maybe you're making their life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe this is the maybe you're in the way for them to be great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and sometimes people have to hit rock bottom, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:And I think challenging people too and I don't know if I have that in the article or not, but challenging people to want more for themselves. And I actually was asked this you know, how do you know if it's enough or not, whatever. And I'm like you have to, you have to keep pushing even though somebody says, okay, I don't, I don't want any more. They really don't know. Like, how do you know if it's enough? And I always, I always say is it is it.
Speaker 1:my wife tells me too much breath yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife does too. Okay, enough. Yeah, enough, I know you wanted I told you I wanted you to open up about work, but now it's been an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:It's enough now. Yeah, let's, let's stop. Yeah, no, that's the only one that says it's enough, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, but they don't, people don't know. So if you can read them and understand who they are and then see something better for them and try to push them a little bit, pull them, whatever you can do, but it's all about them, it's in kindness, it's it's you want to be, you want to be good to them. You don't want to care for them. You have to challenge them. If they're not challenged, they're just going to go down. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing, the key thing there is it's all about them, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think, I think when you and it's the another quote is people won't care what you know until they know that you care. And, um, you know. That's so true. Once people know that it's about them and it's not about your bottom line, they're much more open to the suggestions or to the guidance or the to coaching from from you. Yeah, because I think a lot of times people think right away well, it's going to, it's what's benefiting you, that's exactly you know, and that's a and then, and then it's a complete shutdown.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's tough because the more people you you bring on, you have to retell that story and they don't know you, and it's just well, you're their experiences from some other boss. Now they're going to put that on you and that's not us.
Speaker 1:So, and the good thing is, though, I think this cultural leadership, it's becoming contagious. I'm definitely seeing it more and more on Facebook when you see people talking about their companies or whatever. I think that we definitely have turned a page a little bit. In companies as a whole, I think it used to be I'm the owner, you're the employee, and that was it Kind of like. You know, I'm the dad, you're the kid, that's it, you know it. It was. It was more like that, whereas now it's like wait a minute, if I can instill leadership qualities into everyone, it makes everything better, yeah.
Speaker 2:Instead of leaders.
Speaker 1:Exactly, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree with that and I think I think a lot of it changed with the whole mental wellness thing when that became okay. Yeah, that's when this started. This started flipping about. I I did this years. I mean, heck. I started when I was three years old with my mom. She was by still is but bipolar manic depressive three years old up to 14. I was the only one that was able to talk her off the ledge of just going don't go nuts. So I thank her now because she helped me train for what I'm doing now. But it really is a trained skill Like it's not. You're not born with it. You have to learn how to deal with people and how to want more for them, and it just it started with my mom. It was. I was actually thinking about it on the way over. I started getting a little emotional. I'm like, oh gosh if I start crying.
Speaker 1:I'm Brad White. This is not the show to cry on. I saw a Christmas speech where you actually cried online somewhere it's all right, crying's all right.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love crying. I cry every night.
Speaker 1:Good, that's good, that's good. He cries every night.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh emotion.
Speaker 1:I love emotion. There's nothing wrong with them. You gotta you just gotta bring it on and do it, and that's the way it is. The other one on here was um, I think this is what the obstacle is the way. I liked that the obstacle is the way, so we should be looking. I mean, when you see an obstacle, that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that means you're, you're pushing forward, exactly. Yeah, I mean you're standing still. Yeah, that's not good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Not good at all. So there was, like I said, there was some in there that I wanted to touch on. This is one that you did recently. It says turn your failures into fuel. Can you, can you?
Speaker 2:expand on that a little bit. Well, it comes back to the obstacles too, because failures can be obstacles. But where are you learning? What are you learning from that failure? You know, I, I always say I don't lose. I don't because I'm going to learn something through any failure, so I'm not going to lose, I'll make sure I do not lose, I will find a way. But if you turn that into fuel, into fire in your belly, to push through and, just you know, break through those barriers, that's I mean, that's what drove me like in my twenties I mean it's the failures and and and just the, the, the fire in my gut to just go out and push and do whatever, whatever I need to do. There's so many naysayers out there. Uh, it'll go back to the Facebook videos. When I started doing Facebook videos, I people were coming up to me saying oh, what are you trying to do? You're trying to be a coach, and this. Yeah, yeah, yeah I am, and this was my thanks for noticing.
Speaker 2:I didn't tell him that at that time, but I had the plan of what I wanted to do. I wanted to speak, I want to be, get out there and just influence more people. It started off with just helping my employees and just through covid, but I just kept doing it and any people mocking me, whatever, yeah it's fine, yeah I put fuel in my belly.
Speaker 1:But you're exactly and also you're breaking through a barrier which makes you stronger. And they always say you know, discomfort who you are after. Discomfort is a different person. Yeah, you grow in those moments. So whenever there's a pain point where there's something that that you're really like, oh, the last thing I want to do is this or whatever it is, or there's something you hate doing or whatever it is, on the other side of that, you're no longer the same person you were before. That and that, to me, is just amazing. So that's why and like you said, these were all positive things we're talking about I'm going to talk about doing stupid, crazy things. You know, I have down here company, uh, company, company. Comfort is the enemy of progress. That was another quote. That, uh, that that I've heard, and it's true, because that's what happens A lot of times. We become very comfortable and you, you become comfortable. What happens? Nothing. You know you live in this little box and you stay there. So you know that's the enemy of progress Progress. You can't be comfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and comfort. You know, sometimes it's the they call it the upper limit problem. So you get to a certain point you feel you feel a little uncomfortable, so you get back down, so you self-sabotage and now you start doing things that you're comfortable with and sometimes those aren't good things and it's like climbing Everest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what they do. They go up, yeah, they come back down. Yep, they go up a little bit more and then they come back. That's that's how they climb, because they acclimate that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's crazy, yeah it's interesting forward.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, always, always. I'm trying to think if there's anything else we want to cover here. Is there anything else that you wanted to cover?
Speaker 2:I had you know. You said in your website that your goal is to change 20,000 lives.
Speaker 1:I have it on my list here.
Speaker 2:Yes, tell us about that. Yeah, I kind of pulled that number out. Do you wish you would have picked a lower number? No, no actually I don't, but I'm at 86 right now. I have it in my phone.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was 65 before. Yeah, look at that, you're moving up.
Speaker 2:It's funny. I was talking to my wife the other night and we were looking at the list and she's like I'm not even on the list. I'm like whoops. So I fast tracked her up to the number one.
Speaker 2:She's fast tracked, she had the fast pass I forget who was number one, but they got pushed down. No, it's a goal for our company. It's 100,000 lives we want to change and it's impacting lives and really shattering the stereotypes of the landscape industry as well is our goal and our vision. And you know, again, it's about giving people opportunities. I'm in a stage in my life and I've said this for for years that it's about giving back. Now it's not about it's not about me, it's about how much can I give. Whatever I learned, whatever I went through, how can I give back? And you know, just doing coaching as well, like I, you know, we start talking about the father, son and I'm.
Speaker 2:I get involved with with companies that you have the founder and then the son, and the founder is more of the micromanager and and the son is just with these companies and more like you know the details and and and and process and that sort of thing where the dad's like, well, you just, you know, grab a shovel and go dig something, don't sit in the office, and they don't understand that. That. That, that mentality is so old school and it's not going to bring anybody else home. But I see these young kids it's not even the ones I consult. There's other ones.
Speaker 2:But I see these young kids that are super great people and they're just not given the chance and I'm just hoping that they hang on long enough and that we can mend the fence a little bit to to grow, because we have some really good entrepreneurs out there in the landscape industry. It's just a matter Are they going to stick around? And that's that's part of my goals as well. But you know, again, I it comes back to my mom back in the day but also just with me in high school and stuff just not really given a chance. I wasn't, I wasn't great in school.
Speaker 1:I mean, heck if I go with the name Brad.
Speaker 2:I. I wasn't great in school. I mean heck if I let's go with the name Brad. Well, I failed the seventh grade, so the second year of seventh grade I failed first grade, Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, look at that. I could not color inside the lines, it was so tough.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure what to say. Not a good color.
Speaker 1:It just wasn't a good color. No, I'm kidding, I couldn't read oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Oh well.
Speaker 1:I failed summer school too, oh wow. No, I failed first grade, went back and did it again and did well. It was the best thing that ever happened. It taught me how to make friends at a young age. Yeah, yeah, because I had to watch everybody leave. Yeah, all my first grade friends went bye-bye. They went to second grade and I had to stay there and do it again. Didn't you remember the trauma of Now? You were older, I was younger.
Speaker 2:I was, you know, seventh grade. I remember, you know, summer school.
Speaker 1:Did you like seventh grade?
Speaker 2:I did. That's what I did twice. You liked it a lot. Yeah, that's what I thought. But no, I was a little bit of a hellion. So I remember my mom coming in. It was summer school, but I remember my mom coming in after she got the mail and she's crying. She's like you failed summer school. I'm like, oh, my God, oh well you know?
Speaker 1:Oh, because if you would have passed summer school, you wouldn't have had to do seventh grade again.
Speaker 2:This is how stupid I was, because, listen, I try to be a problem solver wherever I'm at. But I had the grades mixed up. So, history I was supposed to get a C and I forgot the other one I was supposed to get a D and I flipped them. So I got d in history and so I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't pass and I thought I did just enough to get by and yeah, that was yeah, I learned through it, but you learned well, look at that, because you didn't do just enough when you started at newcastle now, or you wouldn't be where you are right, but you know, back I have adhd.
Speaker 2:I wasn't medicated. Yeah, they tried getting me on medication and I I felt like they were calling me stupid. It was just just a lot of stuff that was going on in seventh grade. So, yeah, and it's funny because my friends moved to eighth grade and then that next year they failed to be back with me.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go. That was nice, that's very nice, very kind yeah, that's very nice, very kind, yeah. But one question I have about that changing people's lives. How do you qualify change? I know that's a tough question because that's a, that's a subjective. You know it's an opinion, but when you say change people's lives, how do you qualify that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have to tell me that I changed their life. So I can't just put them on the list. They have to say something to me that, hey, what you did. It was funny, it was a um. There's a podcast I was on a few years ago.
Speaker 1:Not near as good as this one.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. There's a podcast. I was on a couple of years ago and I watched the podcast before and I saw that this person was in rough shape, but I could see something wasn't, wasn't right. I went on the podcast and and after the podcast, um, I talked to the host and he said nobody knew that I was going through any of the problems I was going through. But you and you know, just to have that that's life changing right, I could do. If it was one, if that was the only person that was able to change, uh, I'd be fine.
Speaker 2:So 20,000 is a lot, but again, it's just that push to try to do more. Doing tours for kids, it's, it's a purpose thing. Like why do I get out of bed? Yeah, getting out of bed for net profit, not going to do it, I'm not going to do it, it's not, it doesn't mean anything to me. But if I can use the net profit to help other people all day long, you know, and and that's that's when you know if you live purpose and you live your vision, you want to get out of bed, you want to push to the next level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, 100%. Good stuff, man, good stuff, that's really good. Hugo, do you have anything else?
Speaker 2:I'm going to wrap this up. No, no, that's good. I feel inspired. Now I know I'm going to go build something. Do something, right, holy mackerel, Gotta do something now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't want to see me do landscaping though it's pretty ugly. I'm not a good landscaper. You know what it is. The soil around here just sucks. It does you shale. It's just terrible. Did you get a lot?
Speaker 2:of grubs. This year I didn't see a whole lot, but our lawn treatments take care of grubs. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1:So much for my lawn treatment, I guess.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Guess I'm not doing a good job, that's right. All right, I need to call Newcastle, so I got to end this podcast. So thanks a lot, brad, for coming out. I really do appreciate it If you have any landscaping things that you need to do. Call Newcastle Lawn and Landscape.
Speaker 2:You can ask for, brad, if you want to.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure that he would take Exactly All right, there you go. Oh my God, what a great show, brad Stevenson here from Newcastle Lawn and Landscape, and we hope to see you every Thursday at seven o'clock. We're having a good time here, so please come back. All right, thanks?
