Listen to This If You’re Ready to Change Your Life | Ep 189

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If you’ve ever felt stuck, ashamed, or on the edge of giving up, you’re not alone. 

 Steve opens up with his raw and uncut transformation story—from growing up broke, hitting rock bottom with bad habits and toxic relationships, to rebuilding his life and business with clarity, strategy, and purpose.

This episode is about more than business. It’s about what happens when you take ownership, connect the pieces of your life, and commit to becoming better, day by day.

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Disclaimer:
The views expressed here are those of the individual Coltivar Group, LLC (“Coltivar”) personnel quoted and are not the views of Coltivar or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, Coltivar has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.

This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendations. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. Please see https://www.coltivar.com/privacy-policy-and-terms-of-use for additional important information. 

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Transcript

If you're struggling or you're feeling stuck right now, and I'm not just talking about in business, I'm talking about in life, and as a result, you feel shame, guilt, or you're simply depressed, let me assure you, you're not alone. And you're not the only one who's going through this. I've been there before in your shoes.

And today I'm going to share with you my transformation story because it's my hope that perhaps one small idea will transform your life as well. And if I could shift your trajectory, that makes it all worth it.

Now, look, I've been hesitant to share my story because it's vulnerable. It's emotional. And in order to do so effectively, I have to be raw and uncut. And I've shared bits and pieces here and there, but never the full story.

So today, I just want to give it to you because like I said, if it can make a small impact in your life, it makes all of this worth it.

So I grew up poor and I'm talking about flat out broke. We were so broke. I remember multiple times driving in our Pinto in California and we would run out of gas like on the way to the gas station. I mean, it was crazy. We never went out to eat. We had clothes, but we didn't have all the name brands like everybody else.

So from a financial perspective, there was never enough, but I was rich in a lot of ways because I have an amazing mom. Now, of course, I'm super biased, but she instilled in me this incredible work ethic. She was a single mom for the majority of my upbringing because my dad left when I was three years old.

And keep in mind that I have six other siblings. So you can imagine how expensive life is when you're raising a big family like that. So my mom, she's like, you know what, I'm not going to be a victim. I'm going to get out there and I'm going to work multiple jobs. And that's what she did.

She wasn't around a lot. So it made me have kind of this bad relationship with money because I thought, ah, if we only had money, then I'd have more time with my mom. And here I was a boy that needed his mom, but my mom's a champion. And she did, like I said, what it took to raise her family.

But that's how I started out in life. And she would meet some guys here and there, and she remarried and she met this guy. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is it. My life's going to change. Finally, stability. We could move out of an apartment and into a house with a yard.

And so time went on and I moved from California to Colorado and I was about 10 years old at the time. And a couple of years went by and then my mom ended up getting a divorce because some things came out, right, about this stepdad. And almost suddenly we had a downsize from this five bedroom house in a nice neighborhood to a two bedroom house.

And at the time it was me and my brother sharing a room, my two younger brothers sharing a room, and my mom and my sister sharing an unfinished basement. The only thing separating them was a bookshelf, but concrete floors, they just had a rug, it was terrible.

And even though we were super poor and living was really tight, we didn't have a lot of space, as you can imagine, we grew really, really close.

So fast forward a few years, I'm 16 years old. My mom meets another guy and he comes across as this wonderful guy until they got married. And then all of a sudden his real personality came out. Isn't that funny how that happens?

So when I was 16 years old, he said to me, Steve, it's my way or the highway. And I said, you're a punk. So I'll take the highway.

So I left home and I moved in with my sister. Now my sister is starting her family on her own and she had young little kids, but luckily she let me live in her basement.

So here I was in this basement, no windows. I don't even know if it is up to code, but nonetheless, it was a place for me to put a bed and my stuff. And I was working at Dairy Queen making $4 and 25 cents an hour.

So imagine that after taxes is like barely anything. And that's when I realized I have to go out there and make things happen because I have no safety net.

So I started doing landscaping, specifically sprinklers. And after doing that for a couple of summers, the business that I was working with, they disappeared. They just packed up shop and left. And then when I went to go get my summer job, they were out of business.

So I was faced with a decision to start my own company. And that's when I launched my business out of my sister's garage. So here I was 16 years old, had this piece of junk Subaru that I bought for a thousand dollars is army green.

I even had a compressor in the back. One day I went around a corner too fast. It fell through the window and I don't even think the thing went into reverse over time. It was just, it's a piece of junk, but nonetheless, I launched my landscape business.

So I was growing my business out of my sister's garage and then I outgrew it. So we got an office space and we started doing more and more projects, but we were just bouncing around and we were super flat it after we passed the million dollar mark, we got stuck and I just could not break free from this gap.

So here I was just grinding. I wasn't making a lot of money. I didn't understand how to read financial statements. I had no strategy for my business. I was just relying on sheer work ethic that my mom gave me and just heroics to make my business work.

Looking back on my business, I think I was a little resentful during this time because here were all my friends living in these fancy neighborhoods with pools and basketball courts and intact families had a mom, they had a dad and on the flip side, I didn't have that.

So I didn't have the dad to go to and I think that was a huge void in my life because think about a father figure or even think about a mother figure. Thank goodness I had a good mom. A lot of people aren't fortunate enough to have either, right? But I didn't have a dad to go to.

So when I was running my business, I didn't have a role model. So I looked to other people in the surrounding area or in my community who were successful, but I didn't have that dad to go to, to ask questions and say, Hey, this is happening in my life. How do I deal with it? And I'm not just talking about business stuff.

I'm talking about life stuff with my girlfriend, with changes with my body, which is being a man. I had nobody to talk to. I had no role model.

So I just took on this rugged individualistic type mentality, whereas it's all me. I have to go out there and make it happen because if not, like I said, I couldn't go back to my mom and say, Hey, can I have some money? Things didn't work out. She was broke too.

So if I didn't make it work and if I didn't do it, guess what? I would fail. At least that was my mindset at the time.

So then things started to reach a climax and I found myself in a cycle of bad habits. I had a toxic relationship at the time. So I had this girlfriend, she was bad news for me and I was drinking a lot.

I was drinking during the week and I was smoking. I wasn't eating well. I wasn't exercising. I wasn't sleeping.

I looked terrible. I was super overweight. I had bags under my eyes. I still bald, right? So still bald. So that didn't help my appearance.

But nonetheless, I remember going to work and I would be completely hungover and I probably reeked of alcohol. And here I was showing up to an appointment, going to a customer's house and I'm sure they could tell that I had a rough night before. They could probably smell alcohol on my breath, but this is how I was representing my company.

I was sure with my employees, I'd snap at them. I didn't feel good. So of course I wasn't treating them well because it's really hard to love other people when you don't love yourself. And guess what? I didn't love myself at the time.

And so that was the storm that was brewing inside. And all that, like I said, was reaching this climax and I was about to break.

Then one day everything changed and it was not what I expected. I remember getting a call from a prospective customer, and this is when I had my landscape business. And he lived in the foothills of Denver in this town called Genesee.

Anyways, I drive up to the guy's house and when I reached his property, he had this massive gate and I thought, oh my gosh, this gate is worth more than all the assets that I own. And I thought, this is going to put me on the map. This is the moneymaker. This is it.

I go to his front door. We walk around his property. He's telling me of all the things he wants. A fire pit, a water feature, boulders, flowers, this patio, lighting, all this stuff.

I'm thinking in my head, oh my gosh, this is going to be such a big job and I'm going to make all this money. And up to this point, I was doing a bunch of small jobs, like backyard renovations, like $20,000 projects on average. And this is going to be at least six figures or more.

So I remember going into his house and sitting down at his dining room table and I had this portfolio and I gave it to him and it had all the pictures of the jobs that I had done up to that point. And he opened it up and he started flipping through the pages and he was shaking his head and his body language changed.

He looked like he was getting kind of irritated. I was like, what the heck's going on with this guy? And then all of a sudden he looked at me and said, are you serious? And I thought, yeah, I'm serious. What do you mean?

And he said, this is pathetic. These jobs are terrible. This is something a production builder would do. And he literally stood up and he walked me to his front door and he shut the door behind me and my heart just sunk.

I was broken. I was just devastated. It's like a sucker punch to the gut.

And I remember getting in my truck and keep in mind, I'm not a guy who cries a lot and that's no badge of honor. I'm actually becoming more vulnerable and more emotional as I get older. But at the time I didn't cry a lot.

I was like this tough, rugged guy. I got in my truck that day and it was like a torrential downpour. I was ugly, crying, sobbing, snot coming down my nose.

I was like, Oh, you know, I couldn't even like catch my breath. It's terrible. And I'm surprised I didn't like drive my truck off the road on the way back to Denver.

But I remember that was the longest drive. And I remember being just like broken, crushed. My whole world stopped that day.

Now outside of work, that storm was brewing. Like all that drinking and smoking and not eating well and not sleeping and being with this toxic person, it was just reaching ahead. And I was literally like breaking.

I hit rock bottom in my life. When I got home, because I took the rest of the day off, I remember sitting there having this pity party with myself and I was the victim, right? I cannot believe this.

At first I was like, I'm going to punch this guy in the face. I can't believe this guy would say this to me. He humiliated me and he just made me feel so small. And I was really angry at first.

And then that night I vowed to myself, never again would I ever put myself in this position. And I realized that in order to not put myself in that position, in order not to feel broken, to feel the shame and all this guilt, all this darkness, this deep depression that I was talking about at the beginning of all this, I had to change my entire life. My entire life would have to change.

Now think about that. If maybe you're in a situation and you know, things need to change because I've been there before multiple times. I still go through this, but it requires a massive shift in our life.

And oftentimes it's massive disruption. And to be truthful, it's massive destruction because in order to change my life, I had to get out of that toxic relationship. So I had to break up with this person. That's terrible, right?

And other things had to change. But I remember getting to the point where I was so dark and it's right around this time. I was so dark. I was so depressed.

I remember going into my closet where I lived, shut the door. I don't know why I did that because nobody else was in the place. It was just me, but I had to go to a smaller space.

And I remember the light was off and I was just broken. And I got down on my knees and I pleaded to God. And I just said, take my life. Like, let me die or let me live. That's what I said.

Let me die or let me live. And I remember there was no glowing light from heaven coming down saying, Hey, here's the answer to your problems. It was like silent.

And I just, I just left the closet, went to bed, woke up the next day and I was like, okay, I just gotta hang on. And I gotta be persistent. Things are going to get better.

Right? And guess what? Things got worse. So I found out some terrible things about my girlfriend. We ended up breaking up.

My grandma who I adored was killed in a car accident unexpectedly. Okay. So somebody crossed over the double white line head on collision in a, in a fog type setting.

It's terrible. I love my grandma that crushed me. My cat ran away. My business was stuck as struggling. I mean, it's like a country song.

And I just remember feeling crushed in life. I just, I didn't want to go on. I didn't want to keep living like this. Have you ever felt like this? Am I the only one who feels like this? I'd imagine you've gone through something like this in your life, or maybe I'm just a weirdo, but that was me at that time.

I was completely broken and I had no hope. And I always like to say, your future is as bright as your hope. I could tell you my future is dark because I had no hope.

I had no faith at the time and everything was going terribly. Then all of a sudden my life started to change. I think my grandma being killed in that car accident was the catalyst for everything that would follow.

And I truly believe that God took her to the other side because he knew that she would have more influence from up above on my life than living in Idaho in some distant state where I'd never see her. And I got divine help. And it's when I stopped living for myself.

It's when I stopped having that mindset that I have to do everything myself in order for things to work. That rugged individualistic mindset, that had to go away. And when that went away and when I started trusting in a higher power, it started aligning my will with his.

And trust me, I'm not perfect at this. Sometimes God feels very quiet to me. Even when I pray, I'm like, hello, I know you're there, but it'd be nice. Send me a sign or speak to me. Answer the prayer in a way that I want it answered. I know that's not the right way to do it, but sometimes it feels quiet even to this day.

And I know some of you feel the same way. You might feel the same exact way in your life. Maybe you're not religious. Maybe you don't believe in God. Maybe you believe in some higher power, but it's not a God. Whatever your beliefs are.

I'm sure you've felt stuck like this before if you're a human being, but that was me. And I realized that I had to change things. Like I said, my grandma was the catalyst and that's when everything combined together to transform my life.

So since I didn't have a dad, this father figure to guide me through life and through this difficult time, I had my mom and she was a huge support, but I would say that God was and is my guide even to this day. But at that time, I know for a fact, even though I didn't feel it every single day, I know he was guiding my life. He was putting things in place.

He was giving me new thoughts. I was getting inspiration and I had the energy and the motivation to just take action. And like I said, that's where everything changed.

And I can't take credit for myself. That's what I'm saying. I'm not some super great guy, the smart business leader with these extraordinary powers. I just think I started taking the baby steps day by day, the small little steps and those transformed into big things.

So I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking. I changed my diet. I started running. And the funny thing is the first time I went running, I remember going like a half a mile in my neighborhood and seriously, I thought I was going to die.

I could barely breathe. I was like, oh, my shin splints. It was like the worst experience ever. I remember laying on the couch after that, just thinking like, I'm dead. My body's going to be so sore tomorrow after a half a mile. I chuckle about that because now I'll go out on a five mile run and it's no big deal.

So whatever it is for you, it doesn't mean you have to be some runner or you have to go lift weights or work out. You have to do any of that. But for me, that was my therapy.

I started hitting the trails and I would run and I'd have this alone time and I'd be alone with my thoughts. And that allowed me to process a lot of things in life. And it gave me the confidence to know I could do hard things because I'd get up at five in the morning and go run in the pitch black in the middle of the winter.

And then that translated over to business because I thought if I could get up and do this when it's freezing cold outside, I can go to my business and I could start making the big bold moves. And that's what I did.

So beyond changing my personal life, side note, if you don't change your personal life and it's chaos, that chaos is going to bleed over to your business like it did for me in the past. When I started changing my personal life, I started changing my business too.

So here's what I did. Let me get very tactical with you. So the guy, I remember in Genesee who was making fun of my portfolio. I said, I'm getting rid of this portfolio book for now on. I'm only going to include professionally beautiful photos of my jobs.

And if they don't meet that standard, I'm not going to put them in the book. So I didn't have that many professional photos. I had like zero at the time, but I did hire a professional photographer.

And I think I started out with like three photos and I thought, great photos are better than 50 terrible ones that are taken on a little disposable camera. So my portfolio changed, my website changed, my branding changed, my tonality changed, the words that I use changed, the stories that I told myself and other people changed. And all of this gave me the go forward strategy to start reaching out to builders, architects, interior designers, remodelers, anybody working in that high end space.

I would go to their office. I would knock on doors. I would drop off packets. I would cold call them. I think the fax machine was kind of a thing too. Maybe I sent a few faxes. I don't know. Kind of old fashioned.

But nonetheless, I reached out to these people and I could tell you it's tough. I'd knock on a door, they'd open it. They'd be like, what do you want? No solicitation here. They slammed the door on me.

I went to one job site. This builder got so pissed at me. He's like, what are you doing on my job site? Can't you read the sign? And I was like, ugh, you know, but I left, but I kept doing this.

I started getting connected with high end builders. After all this grind, my average job size went from 20,000 to over a hundred thousand. We did several high end jobs. The jobs were beautiful. We started winning awards and all of this occurred because we had a really strong go-to-market strategy.

I also made some key hires and even my brother came on as a partner in the business and he was incredible. He did so much for me. He was my support. He had great ideas. He ran operations. He is a rock star.

So this is the foundation that I established for what Coltivar is today. But here's what I learned in the process. You can't go out there and do a bunch of things in your business if they're not all connected, because eventually your business will fail.

You have to have a solid strategy because you have to know where's your business even competing and how are you planning on competing with everything that's going on out there in the world. And here's the thing with strategy. Don't make it overly complicated. Strategy gives you the framework so you know what to say yes to and what to say no to in a world of a million choices and a million distractions.

So you have to have a strategy in your business. Then you have to have sales and marketing. And I told you the story how I changed my entire approach to my business and how we took off.

We broke through that $1 million ceiling. We started doing several million dollars a year. Like I said, we were winning awards. We were doing the jobs that we wanted to do. We were profitable finally, and it made all the difference in the world.

So you have to have a strong go-to-market strategy. But having a strategy and a go-to-market strategy and being really good at sales and marketing isn't enough because you have to know your numbers. Otherwise, you're going to be going after the wrong jobs or you're going to be pricing yourself incorrectly. You're not going to understand your cost.

So you have to understand finance. Finance will help you to have clarity in your business. You'll know the numbers. You'll know the story behind the numbers. You'll know what to pay attention to, how to change your behavior, what activities to focus on, all that stuff. That's a part of finance.

And then you have to bring together a high-performing team. And that is what solidifies this entire system. So like I said, too many businesses are out there. They're doing a bunch of things that aren't connected. It's a bunch of random stuff. And when they're not connected, you're not driving value.

Because you have somebody doing SEO. You have somebody creating the website. You have somebody watching the numbers. You have somebody managing the people. You have somebody sending out contracts. You have people buying equipment and making purchases on behalf of the business.

But if they're not connected, if they're not interrelated, you're going to waste so much more money, so much more time, and so much more energy. So you have to be very mindful of this.

Also, I'm not just talking about in business. I'm talking about being connected on a personal side. So in life, as I get older, I'm realizing how important it is to connect everything.

So let me give you an example. I recently started doing jujitsu. So as a white belt, I get my butt kicked more than I like to admit. But it's a great workout and it's something to do outside of work.

And I committed to 10 years. When I signed up for jujitsu, I wasn't going in there signing a monthly membership. I said, I'm committing to 10 years. I'm committing to a black belt.

And I think in business, oftentimes, we start companies, but we don't commit to the long journey, the 10 years, right? The 10 year mark. You're not going to be successful in anything by just doing it for a year.

But so many people, they start a YouTube channel. They're like, I'm going to do it for six months. If I don't go viral, I'm going to stop doing it. You have to commit.

So I committed to 10 years in jujitsu, but I also want to be a wrestling coach because I wrestled back in high school and that's always been my dream. So jujitsu will allow me to be a better wrestling coach.

Now being a wrestling coach allows me to work with the youth. And I like working with the youth because I think the youth have so much potential. And if I can connect to the youth in the future generation of leaders, then guess what? Businesses are going to be better.

And I believe that business is one of the best vehicles to bless the lives of people. And that is my life purpose. So now you can start seeing how it all connects together and how it ties back to this plan that I believe God has in store for me.

So it's about connection, connecting things in your life, but also connecting with people. I've come across incredible people in my life. I am so grateful for you tuning into this content.

It means the world to me. I love your DMs. When you reach out on LinkedIn, I love it when you connect with me, when you leave your comments, when you give me feedback, when you tell me about your life, I love all of that. That just provides so much more meaning in my life.

So I wanted to share this story with you. Like I said, it's pretty vulnerable to put this out there to the world. And there's so much more I could get into. My life is pretty jacked up when I look at it, but here's the thing I want to leave you with.

It doesn't matter your circumstances. It doesn't matter where you start out. It doesn't matter where you are today. All that matters is that you start taking ownership for your life.

I've talked about this before in other posts, but I've gone to the mountains before and I've seen a giant rock and in a sliver of a crack, a massive pine tree is growing out of it. It's not being fertilized. It's not being watered. It's not being nurtured.

And then you have a tree in suburbia. It's planted in the sod. It's being irrigated. It's being fertilized. It's being pruned. It's being loved. And it doesn't thrive like the tree that's growing out of the rock.

So it doesn't matter where you're planted in life. It matters what you're committing to, what you're taking responsibility for right now and how you decide to move forward.

I'm not perfect. I'm not anything great. I'm not even that special. I'm just like you. I'm just a normal human being that gets up and takes action every day. I make a ton of mistakes, but I try to right the wrongs every single day to move forward, to grow and to become.

Hopefully this story helped you in some way and maybe it gave you a little bit of encouragement or perhaps this is a story you feel like you can share with somebody else and it'll impact their life. But whatever the purpose, I just felt inspired to share my story with you to help influence your story as you move forward.

Thanks for being a loyal fan. I'll see you in the next episode. Cheers.