Ep. 72 - Build Better, Share Louder

Ever feel like the dirt world is being defined by people who’ve never set foot on a job site? We brought in Aaron Witt to flip that script with a clear, practical playbook for blue-collar storytelling, leadership development, and building a pipeline of talent who actually understands the work. Aaron walks through his journey from pipe crew laborer to scaling BuildWitt into training and events that put people first, then shows why the simplest moves, like posting on LinkedIn daily, beat expensive, complicated marketing plans.

We unpack how transparent project storytelling can turn public skepticism into support, and why the most effective recruiting content is the human side: the operator who solved a tricky grade, the foreman who coaches new hires, the team that delivered safe work under pressure. The conversation gets personal, too. We talk mental health with honesty, non-negotiable habits that compound (read ten pages, train, write), and the reminder that winning at home is the base for leading at work. If leaders don’t go first, with vulnerability, clarity, and consistency, no marketing agency can fix what’s missing.

Dirt World Summit comes up as more than an event; it’s a catalyst. The goal isn’t to be the biggest conference. It’s to feed the hungriest 1,250 leaders so they return to their crews with tools, focus, and a fire to raise standards. Expect insights on making projects visible to the public, practical outreach like school visits and job site tours, and a straightforward mandate: own your narrative or someone else will. One habit, one post, one conversation at a time, we can attract the next generation and build companies that are more than projects and paychecks.

If this resonates, follow, share with a teammate, and leave a review. Your voice helps more builders find the show, and helps the dirt world keep raising the bar.

Chapters

• 0:00 Raising The Bar And Why Storytelling
• 2:46 Aaron Witt’s Path Into The Dirt World
• 6:20 From Media To Training And The Summit
• 10:58 Making Projects Visible To The Public
• 15:30 Owning The Narrative Or Losing It
• 19:45 Small Shops, Imposter Syndrome, First Steps
• 24:10 One Kid At A Time: Real Outreach
• 29:40 Win At Home To Lead At Work
• 36:21 Building Dirt World Summit Into A Movement
• 43:06 Feed The Hungriest 1,250 Leaders
• 48:31 Mental Health, Vulnerability, And Real Talk
• 55:21 Habits That Compound: Read And Train Daily
• 1:01:16 The Simplest Marketing Plan: Post Daily

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue-collar business. I'm your host, Cy Kirby, and I want to help you what it took me, trial and error, and a whole lot of money to learn. The information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Whether you're under that shade tree or have your hard hat on, let's expand your toolbox. Guys, welcome back to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast. I told you this year uh we were raising the bar guest-wise. I am very passionate about this individual's share's passion with him. Um, he was an inspiration for me. And it is such a surreal moment to have him here sitting on the show with you guys. Uh, this is a marketing episode. This is the the the we want to learn how to tell a story and and understand why the importance and how easy it is to get started. Um, the other thing we're gonna be talking about a little bit today is the Dirt World Summit that you guys have heard me talk about. I think every episode since I've got back, it's had such a direct impact on me and my thought process for my team. And we have the original founder, the man that's started pioneering what we see media and equipment nowadays. There's always been guys filming this, but filming this or that equipment, hey, look at this, but telling the stories behind the individuals, the projects, the companies, and also building a tool to help further them. None other than my man Aaron Witt. Thank you, buddy. Thanks for having me. You must be uh raising the bar after this episode. I uh I had the pleasure. Um, Aaron invited me out last May and uh definitely put me under the gun. And if you guys haven't listened to that, this gentleman started podcasting before. It was cool to start podcasting and uh has over 350 episodes around the dirt world. And I met him through that, and he was super grateful enough to extend that invite. And I I encourage you guys to go to listen to it because it's a different angle. Aaron does a lot of these, and he pushed me in different angles that I've really I tell people all the time that I've never gone as personal as I did there. But uh man, if you wouldn't mind giving a quick little backstory for the folks that live under a rock and don't know what you are and what you guys are about. But if you uh, and then we'll kind of roll from there. Sweet.

SPEAKER_01: 2:46

Yeah, I um I didn't grow up blue-collar, but but fell into construction when I was 18, trying to figure out what to do with my life. Got a job as a laborer on a pipe crew, Phoenix, Arizona. Fell in love with um construction equipment, moving dirt, laying pipes, pouring concrete. So at that point, I knew that was it. I just needed to figure out where to go from there. Um, I asked the owner of the company for some career advice. He said, go to engineering school and while you do, go work as many places as you can to just figure out what's for you. That's exactly what I did. Um, worked for five different civil construction companies, ended up in road construction in Texas. I was gonna save up, buy a backhoe or finance a skid steer and become a contractor one day because how hard can it be? Um fortunately, I dodged that bullet. Yes. Um, only one of us has dodged that one. But uh I ended up then going to a software company unexpectedly to help start inspiring the next generation. And that's when I started to get into storytelling. Um, I saw at that point the opportunity that was storytelling in the dirt world, the opportunity to attract the next generation, develop the next generation. So started BuildWit in 2018 as a marketing company, creative business, telling the story of the dirt world to start. We have since sold that business and morphed into a training and development software called BuildWit Improve, and then a leadership development conference called the Ariad Dirt World Summit, which is the primary business. And then what I do specifically is I spend most of my time running around the world, um, running around the United States and then worldwide visiting construction mining sites, sharing what I see on the internet, on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube and doing the podcasts to get the word about out about the industry and to celebrate the industry and to to attract and develop that next generation, like I said.

SPEAKER_00: 4:52

And hopefully, eventually, we create some change in our industry that is so desperately needed. And uh, as you guys know, I I ventured to the Dirk World Summit, and there was two gentlemen, two speaker the first night. We had the one and only Jesse Cole from Savannah Bananas. That was too cool, dude. What a standing up there in a yellow tuxedo in front of 1800 dirt contractors. Could you imagine how he felt? And man, he owned the room and taught me so much, fans first, just the perspective that guy from absolute nothing and the power of marketing and caring about your customer first. And there's so much to be learning through that. And then honestly, man, I've I bragged about your speech, not only to yourself, but a couple of people like you came out there and you really challenged us. And you were, you know, there was a couple of things that really stuck out to me, especially as a pipe guy. Um, number one is that the visibility of the projects that you see around the world, that these I believe it was the Netherlands, that you could walk up and they had a touring facility, a basically a media projection of what this project is. Here's the stages. And that's just totally different here on in the concept of what we've got kind of going at home. We're faced a little bit with this stigma, you more than myself. But at the same time, that kind of stuck out to me. I was like, you know what? That's kind of crazy that our public projects aren't being more displayed to the public. And so that really resonated. And of course, the other thing that you're so freaking good at, dude, is storytelling. And you you guys hammered that home. And when I come home, me and Will had like a three-hour meeting just about storytelling. Like you're it's so right. Like, it's how you can tie a public infrastructure project to the public. How do you do it? Just tell the dead gun story about the guys that are there. And I really appreciate the challenge, man. It challenged me. Well, now uh and I'm I'm glad I'm I'm I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01: 6:58

I like one of the common complaints in construction is oh, they just they don't understand what we do. And it's like, yeah, whose whose job is it to tell them? I don't know. Like apparently like no one else has, so are you gonna tell them? Because if you don't, who who is? Well, we've seen that best case scenario, nobody does, but worst case scenario, which is more common, other people just take the narrative and run with it and skew it into all kinds of different things that it's not, but that's the only story being told. So that's I think if nothing else, like the major benefit of storytelling for for contractors and and for people in general. Like the example I always use is you know, you before we ever met, you had listened to podcasts and you had to see you, you had seen what I had done on the internet, so on and so forth. And so if someone were to come up to you and be like, that guy sucks, you'd be like, I mean, maybe, maybe, but I don't know. I've I've listened to enough, I've seen enough videos. Like, I don't know if that's necessarily true. But we had never met before that. It was just because you you had you had seen me telling telling the story for for long enough so that you could make your own conclusion. But when people don't have two sides of the story, it's whatever side is there is reality, regardless of what reality really is.

SPEAKER_00: 8:25

Dude, it's so spot on. And I think a lot of people, of course, the consumers of this the side of it, and they just think, oh, I could never create content that anybody would watch. And that's like the first thought. And literally, I started diving off into it a little bit of myself. And honestly, I walked into that room said to anybody that is a smaller outfit compared to these, some of these companies are very, very large companies. You have the privilege of working with some of the best in the country, in the world, even. And so I walked in there a little bit feeling like an imposter syndrome. And by the time you know you guys got through night one, I kind of felt decent because you were punching me in the face about storytelling. And I kind of scratched my head. Yeah, I can definitely work on pieces and of the storytelling, but we're really trying to tell the story not just about our company, but the people that are actually developing the infrastructure that's going in the ground that these families are going to use. But also, too, it's an overall perspective of impact of I'm learning while you're learning and bringing education around something that we're all going to need in five to 10 years very drastically if we don't start freaking telling the story more. And so you, I do believe we're going to see more of it in our industry this year because of that conference and because of what was said there, because it kind of makes you think like, and you probably can preface on this more than I can dealing with these certain companies. You have a older demographic and a younger demographic, you know, at the heads of these tables. Normally, it's either vice versa. There's not really, sometimes there's conflicting father and sons, whatever it may be, but it's really hard to get both sides to buy in. It's either they're all the way in and they're spending egregious amounts of money on a marketing program where they could basically build it themselves from a cell phone, or people that just hate us, like think we're podcasters and we should be content creators and we shouldn't have any type of marketing out there. Oh, you're giving away our secrets. No, man, it's education. And if we don't start telling the struggles and mistakes, especially from my angle, from the actual business contractor side of things, and help these guys be better freaking tradesmen, I'm screwed. And if there's not resources out there, video content marketplaces like BuildWit, where from border body etiquette to how we deal with a certain scenario, is all the way there to encompass for any company. But the the buy-in is what I think we're struggling with. You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:16

But honestly, I don't care anymore. Um and I made a mistake. I I you know, um turning 30 was probably the most impactful birthday I've had to date. It was like the first time where you're bookending a decade, and like when you're turning 20, you're like, ah, who cares? I'm not 21 yet, so I still can't have a beer. This sucks. I can't wait till next year. And then when you're 21, you're not really starting a decade, you know, so on and so forth. So 30 was was interesting because it was like the first time I bookended a decade of my life. And uh, you know, a mistake I made uh for a long time was assuming that I knew the one answer and assuming and preaching that there's this one solution that's storytelling online. It's not the one solution. I on an annual basis will generate about a billion views online, which is extraordinary. It's it's crazy. It's I never intended it this way. I still forget about it all the time. And then I look at the numbers, I'm like, wow. But and and and it is impactful. It it the stuff we're doing online, it does really matter. Like even yesterday, I got a drawing from some six-year-old from a dad that sent it in. But hey, my son loves your videos, and here's the truck with you that he drew, and it's now on the wall of our office. So there's real impact. And I hear from all the time people, yeah, I got into the industry after seeing some of your stuff, or I was about to leave the industry and then got a job with this company instead, and now I love it again, or wow, I didn't know what my dad or mom does. This is great. So the online stuff is great because it does create a lot of broad exposure, but it's not, it's not the only thing. And I uh maybe two months ago, I spoke in North Dakota, and there's a guy, Glenn Barranco. I talked about him in my talk at the Area Dirt World Summit. He actually was on stage for a little bit as well. Um he, you know, pretty good-sized civil construction business. And and I I have a lot of respect for him because just a few years ago, he was another civil construction company, and he's been on this extraordinary uh journey for the past three years that is uh focused on getting better as a business and doing things better. And and he and he took responsibility. So he found out that I was coming to speak, and he said, Hey, there's this local uh Bismarck State College, and they have this heavy equipment program. Could you could you stop by before you speak and talk to the kids? And I said, Absolutely. I I un yes. And I I assumed he was just gonna pass me off, and and that was that. But he texted me that morning, he says, Hey, I'm gonna meet you there. And I was like, Wow. And and and Bismarck's not close to Dickinson. Like this is this is hours away from from where he's at. And we we show up at this this this yard, and and there's some like used equipment there that that these kids are learning on. They're you, they're they're they're borrowing this piece of land, there's dirt piles, this and that, and there's like a dump truck and a skid steer and a backhoe and a blade, you know, one of everything. And we walk into this temporary office building, and it ends up being like four or five kids. You know, it's not this giant classroom, it's like four or five kids, and they're all between probably like 18 and 25, maybe. Uh, so they're not kids, like they're not that much younger than me. And we were there for an hour talking to these kids, just about every everything. And I walked out of that building, and I was just so impressed with Glenn because he wasn't there to recruit them, he wasn't there to serve his business, he was just there to preach the gospel that is the dirt world. And I really respected that, and you would think that I would leave that being like, well, that was kind of a waste of time. I'm over here generating a billion views a year. That's much that's a much better use of my time. But I left instead thinking like that's how we build the next generation. It's just one kid at a time, it's just one handshake at a time, it's just one question at a time. And so until everybody is doing that, until everybody is telling the story, we're not gonna create meaningful change. And there's not one right way to tell the damn story. You can do it on social media. Good for you. Congratulations. You can do it within your business, you can do it by becoming a better speaker within your company, better communicator. You can do it at the dinner table, you can do it by going to a local school. There's a bunch of different ways to do it, but just do it. We need everybody to do it. So that's now the tune I'm singing is like, I don't care how you tell the story of the dirt world. And there isn't one right way. This is the way I've chosen, this is the path that I've been put on. I am serving in the way that I should be. You don't have to go dance on TikTok to tell the story of the dirt world. You just have to talk about the dirt world every chance you get and tell that story. Starting, again, first at the dinner table. Like, does your family really understand what you do? Does your family really understand the importance of infrastructure? Does your family really understand how a road's built? And maybe they don't care, but do they understand? Um and so that's that's what I've been thinking a lot about is sure, there's some great digital tools out there. Like a LinkedIn, for example, is just a weapon. But if you don't want to do that, great, don't do that. But you better talk about it in some capacity consistently, because we need everybody doing that if we're gonna, if we're gonna make this this next generation the best yet.

SPEAKER_00: 17:17

Literally, dude. Thank you, Glenn, very much, brother, for pouring into those four or five or however many kids. I uh just recently myself had 45 high schoolers. There's a program I've actually had uh locally here, workforce program. They got a motor grader, 308, dozer, handful of stuff through CAT with Trimble on it. Went down, uh, spent some time with them, but I actually brought them to my job site. And he said one thing best, one question at a time. And these kids were so curious. We literally, uh, it's it's on the YouTube page, it's icon, but you could walk around and look down in a storm box, or look at how a fire hydrant is sitting there, or ask a question about where your poop goes after it leaves the house. And we looked in manholes, and they were so curious just about how it got there. Hey, my dad does this. Is this what he does? That's exactly what he does. And they have time seat time, but there's a gentleman, Chad Burkett, he's an older gentleman, and he pours into those kids like I've never seen in my life. Cares, doesn't want for anything, doesn't ask for your money. All he asks for is your time and investment into those kids. And I'm not there to quote unquote recruit them. I just need them to understand that this is a viable opportunity when they walk out of that high school and they're graduating out of this program with CDL, uh, OSHA 30, time and equipment, like 18, 19-year-olds with that kind of resume, you know, a hundred different guys that would go, hey, I want you right now. Well, then it's on us to be able to train, learn. As you know, it's super expensive for contractors to train. That's why you've helped build what you've built that speed up that process to get them out there. Um, but the other thing you said, man, great answer, by the way, is at the dinner table, and I want to share probably my favorite speaker from Dirt World. It was Randy by far. I've got three little babies at home. Uh Caroline just turned one over the break. And Randy said some things, and I encourage you guys, I don't push many books. Winning at home, I gave it out uh yesterday at our core value kickoff meeting. I sat there for four hours and discussed all that. I would have never done that a couple of years ago. I've been really working on a path of correction myself, but handed out Randy and Mark's books, lead every day, uh, to a couple of guys that needed them, pass it around, encourage sharpening. But Randy's methodology of winning at home doesn't matter if you're winning at work, whether you're right you're an entrepreneur or you're just a guy that's A superintendent on a pipe crew or labor or whatever the case may be. Like you have to win at home. And to go to a conference like that and to hear somebody talk about that and sharpen, and so many people, I watch it all the time with guys in my own company, people I meet online. Man, I'm just, you know, I'm I'm gonna work till 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, midnight. And I did that a lot of years too. And I missed moments. And Randy solidified, hey, man, it's okay to take the two hours, have dinner, concentrate fully on what they are seeing across the table from you. Don't be off in a bid, don't be off over here on a project. And it really, that's the important things is obviously getting our younger generation. There's so many statistics that you share, I share about what are we going to do in five to 10 years. But also along the way, we're developing companies, we're developing leaders, but also to we're delivering them from just the projects and paychecks type of company. I used that on my own people yesterday, and I just hate that term, and I want to be something more. But the when when Randy came up and and solidified, gave me almost reassurance, but there's not another conference out there, dude, that you can go to, especially in the dirt world, and hear somebody challenge you from a personal level to make you a better leader. And I I just wanted to give Randy a shout out. And I'm I'm I'm looking forward to uh November 9th through the 11th in Phoenix this year, correct? And um I I can't wait to go back. But uh thank you. Number one is where I was going with that. And the other thing was there was a devotion every single day, guys. I was there every morning. I thought that was also another big, big deal. If there's something you're gonna go to in the year, I literally told my team yesterday, hey, we're we're just me and Will going out to Con Expo. I'm gonna take a team to Dirt World. We've made that decision. Uh I made the decision I told Aaron before I left. But long story short, man, thank you for not just sitting here talking about it, truly sharpening dirt leaders into better people. Now, whether they use it or not, that's one thing. But talk, if you wouldn't mind, a little bit about, you know, how dirt world shaped you probably the first year. I have a feeling you're probably getting these emails all the time. Man, thank you so much. But um, and talk a little bit about 26 and what's coming.

SPEAKER_01: 22:43

We it's been a really weird since 2018, been a really weird path. I think a lot of people have this misconception that um I mean, just even just in life, it's like, well, you have everything planned out and then you go execute the plan. And it's like, no, that's that's not how it works. Like, I at least it hasn't worked for me, and I haven't seen anybody that's like, yeah, here's my plan, one, two, three, and then just we just ran the play. Like, no, that's no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, you you you start to pull it a thread if you're trying to do something new. Like the problem uh I guess even in business, like people think it's like, well, this is just how to do business, you know, you do it X, Y, Z. It's like, no, there's different kinds of business, there's different tiers, and there's it's it's this, it's this huge, it's like you you shot bird shot at a wall, and each one of those is a different business on the different different part of the spectrum, and it depends what you're doing and where you're at. We're we're in the realm of trying to do something that's not been done, which you can't plan it because you don't know what it is. You have to find it by doing, um, which is maddening at times, which wastes a lot of money at times, which hurts people at times, which um means a lot of egg on the face and failure. But that's the process. That's and that's why most people don't do it, because it sucks. Uh, you're walking around in a dark room just trying to feel for monsters, and they know where you are. You're the only one with your damn eyes closed. Um, and so that's where we've been. We started with storytelling, we've we've grown into software, but there was just this gaping hole in the industry that was an event dedicated to the number one problem, which is developing leaders and people. Everybody was saying people are number one, but there wasn't an event 100% dedicated to that. And when it came up in conversation years ago, I was actually the one that was like, no, dude, because we just come off a few years of getting our asses whooped. I'm like, we don't need to do another thing, we don't need to pull another rabbit out the hat. Like, I'm I'm good, I'm tired, man. Fortunately, I was outvoted. Thank, thank God. We have much smarter leaders than me. And we put the first year together within maybe nine months. It was really quick. But fortunately, we got lucky because venues were easy to come by post-COVID, which was awesome. Uh, speakers were easy to come by post-COVID. Everybody wanted to go to an event post-COVID. So there we were. We just kind of walked into the first year. But the whole thesis was we're gonna make this 100% about how to make every individual, every leader here better because that's how we make the dirt world better. That's how we build the next generation. It starts with these individual leaders. And we've just we've iterated upon that every year. So this year will be the fourth time we've done it. And we have demonstrated that we can host and facilitate a world-class event over the course of a few days with a world-class lineup, with world-class value, with a world-class audience, with world-class sponsors. Like we've we've we've proven that we can do the basics. And now this year is really exciting because we're starting to get into like the details. And the problem that we're running into is the competition isn't other industry events, and it never was supposed to be. I don't care about any other event in the industry. The competition is the last event we just had, the last dirt world, dirt world 2025. That's the that's the that's the competition. And we've got to get better and better and better and better and better because that's the benchmark. And this year will be extraordinary. It'll be um, you know, another lineup of world-class speakers that are covering all different types of topics, primarily leadership, personal development type topics. Um, there will be world-class individuals from the industry speaking as well, which I'm really excited about. And those individuals have proven to be some of the best we've had over the years, which is really exciting. And then we're gonna have, we're dialing it back a little bit this year, making it a little bit smaller, but we're gonna have 1250 leaders from the industry that are world-class, that are the best in the business. It's it's my favorite group of people anywhere, period. And I tell people, it's like, yeah, you're gonna get a lot from the stage. Yeah, you're gonna get a lot from from the people, you know, on the agenda, but you're gonna get the most from the people at your table. You're gonna get the most from the people you're walking into and running into during the breaks and in the morning at the prayer breakfast, and in the evening at the at the bar or the dinner or whatever it is, that's the magic because it's a new event and it's attracted all of the early adopters, all of those that are striving, that are already striving to become better and to build that next generation. That's who we're drawing in. And so when people ask, like, well, do you just have to make it bigger and bigger? If you're if your goal is to really impact the industry, you just have to keep making it bigger. Like, no, we don't actually. We just need to feed the hungriest, and they're gonna go out and they're gonna become so much better that they're gonna whoop everybody else and they're gonna force the rest of the market to catch up with them. And that's how you change the overall marketplace. We only need the best 1,250, and we've already sold 80% of those tickets in six weeks for this upcoming event. And most, most of those companies are companies that have been at the previous events. Like, again, like I said, I don't care. I'm not spending time with the companies that haven't come anymore. I don't need to. We already know we got a target. If you don't get it at this point, I don't care. I don't care. I'm just gonna go feed those that are hungriest, those that have been along the ride since since year one, year two, year three. And funny enough, I've only focused on those individuals. And again, we've sold 80% of the tickets in six weeks. Go figure. We're gonna sell 100% by Q1, and the event's not until November. So if that's not, if that doesn't illustrate the value we're creating, I don't know what does. But it's it's it's been like anything else. It it's been a lot of work, it's been a great team. Um, I everybody gives me the credits like, dude, I don't deserve an ounce of the credit because I'm not the one executing here. We've got a brilliant team making it happen. Uh, we've got a brilliant team interfacing with the industry on a daily basis, building our brand. And after a few years, it's I think it's started to really pay off.

SPEAKER_00: 30:39

Yeah, I think your competition is last year. There's no doubt about it. There's nothing else. I've been at this 10 years. I've been to a lot of different types of events and conferences and conventions and all the things. Nothing has personally sharpened or excited me leaving it. And uh everything you just said is true and more. The other big thing you said, yeah, you are gonna get a lot out of the speakers that I'm talking about, and if you pay attention and and and and hone in. But the amount of people that I met uh networking at the event was mind-blowing. And they knew of me, and that was kind of freaking crazy for me because I'd never been at an event where people, oh dude, you've got that podcast, you got that YouTube, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know exactly, you know, and I'm like, really? Okay, you know who okay, cool. And what's your name, sir? Oh, I've got 250 employees up here. And I'm like, we're starting our YouTube channel as well. And I'm like, dude, these are my freaking people. Like, I'm not crazy to anybody when I'm like, yeah, I I put on YouTube about commercial construction and uh talk about pipe and and infrastructure and how it feeds families. And they're like, dude, we have been wanting to start for so long. We've been following Aaron stuff. That's why we're here, trying to learn more about that, of course. But you do that, man. What is it? And they were just so eager and hungry for information, and myself included, standing there listening to somebody that I was wanting information out of, I was just like, man, you're just two tables away from me. You you got all my answers. And yeah, you'll to whatever I was talking about. But just the some of the breaks and the handshake, handshake, coffee cup conversations in between the tables, there was so much value from people all over the world, country, et cetera. But uh, I am for sure excited to be out there and just to watch it grow even more and watch the people, not just grow, the right people. I completely agree. I'm actually doing a little bit of that myself, as you know. Um, Tim Grover, I've got to say, I've said it probably on every episode, but you know, he talked to us dirt contractors and he said, hey, first thing you guys do is you grub. You got to take the bat out. If you want to build an actual foundation to something that's going to be solid and last for a lifetime, in our brains, they were like, oh, well, yeah, that's the first thing you do. But the the metaphor of it is if you don't get every ounce of it out, you always have a soft place before your foundation can get built. Sometimes you got to cut a little extra, and sometimes you got to eat that cost, but sometimes it worked enough, just sometimes it all the time works. If you remove all the bad, bring in the good. But the the last thing he said, dude, was removal always causes disruption. And I think a lot of people, another thing you said earlier is a lot of people don't want to deal with the hard. It sucks. And going through those moments are a little bit shameful, especially as you're the owner and you're putting yourself there for your teens to, hey, I don't think we need to do this anymore. And they're looking at you like, why? We've been doing it for 10, five years, whatever. Well, yeah, but it's not profitable. Look here, and honestly, it's just a big pain and a waste of time for estimation to keep this thing busy. And and so I've gone through a little bit of that over the last year, but man, he gave me such reassurance. And every single time you remove something, there's always a disruption, and that's just so elementary sounding. But if you brace and you prepare and you plan for it, man, 60 days from there, you're already further along than you thought you'd be, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 34:33

Yeah, but and you have to kind of rewire yourself to like look for the disruption and almost like savor the disruption. Everybody's trying to avoid it because it's painful, but and everybody's wired, well, I avoid pain, but it's like, no, I I again anybody doing anything significant actually goes headfirst into the pain because they know that's where it's all happening. Like I I've thought a lot about this. Um mental health, for example. It's now starting to be talked about, which is which is good. Not a lot of change has actually happened, unfortunately. Um and I think that's because you know, there's there's kind of two approaches. I, as an executive of a construction company, can issue some kind of statement along the lines of, and I'm making this up, but uh it's pretty similar to probably most of the statements you'll see in like, you know, mental health week or suicide awareness week, whatever it is, along the lines of like, you know, we uh mental health is number one, or people are our are our most important asset. And um, you know, you have to seek out the resources uh to help you, and and and we've got to talk about it. We've got to talk about it, and that's approach number one. So I I would have this canned answer, or I've seen a lot of like bigger executives read off teleprompter, this and that, of something like that. It's like, okay, uh at least they're doing something, I guess. I don't know. Second, though, me getting up in front of our people and saying, you know, in 2019, uh, early 20, uh late 2018, early 2019, my girlfriend broke up with me, which, you know, it's that's a story as old as time, of course. And it really wasn't that big of a deal. Um, but it triggered this horrendous anxiety. And it was the first time I'd actually had anxiety. I before this, I thought anxiety was like take a deep breath, take a chill pill, just dude, just do some breathing exercises, and you're gonna be good to go. And then I get walloped by this anxiety. That's like somebody sitting on my chest 24 hours a day. I couldn't do anything about it. I wake up, I'm feeling it. I I exercise, I'm still like, I, I, I, I, I couldn't get away from it. And fortunately, fortunately, thank God, I it I was I was still though in a place to be like, well, I'm not gonna go medicate my way out of this. I'm gonna go figure this out. I think this is uh an indication of some work I need to do. I've got to go dig into some of this pain here. And at that point, I started to to go through therapy and to read some of these books I wouldn't have otherwise. And it's taken me years and years and years to to actually figure it out. And and and it's not it's not gone completely, but I can at least digest it in a more productive manner. And a lot of it in this in this moment was because um I triggered this very deep-rooted fear of abandonment. It's probably the greatest fear that I have wired into me by previous generations. And it was triggered, and there I was on the floor as a result. Um and so in telling this story, it it's it's it's not that I have anything, everything figured out. It's not that my mental state is all good to go. I've done the work, I'm I'm good, I'm happy now, no more anxiety. It's that I I can understand at least in a small way somebody struggling. I've been there in a small way myself. And when I was there in this instance, I leaned in and I developed new habits, I built new skills, I I learned a lot more about myself so that now when it happens, I can I can more productively handle it. No, dude. I think uh go ahead. But to to summarize, which of those two approaches is most effective when it comes to inspiring change in people's well-being within our business or team, et cetera?

SPEAKER_00: 38:49

Being a friction fighter, as Jesse Cole would say, and literally heading dive heading towards the problems. And no, dude, I've I'm literally been living it for the last 18, 24 months, my dude. And I've had to sit there in front of my teams and go, man, this is a problem. And they're all looking at me. Well, you're the freaking problem. You keep letting it happen. And I'm like, oh, that is me. Oh, oh, okay. Well, let's do something about it. Give me some suggestions, let's figure this out. But a lot of people, man, I have through the media stuff, I've met some of these companies that have been in business for 20 and 30 years and still don't operate off an Excel sheet, like some crazy mind-blowing things. And I'm sitting here, you know, in 10 years harping on myself for every little small thing about you don't have right, you don't have this right, you don't have that right. But um heading to the problems, and it's funny. Again, in my meeting yesterday, I stressed about this meeting. That's why it's so on the forefront of my mind. But it was important. It's my people, it's the most important thing I can be doing. But the I I explained to them processes and procedures. You guys have felt this so hard. I've talked about it on this show plenty this year. But how do we know when we need one? It's a repeatable patterned issue. If we hit this issue twice within a month, within six months, within a week, within a day, talk about it. Because yeah, one time could be an oddball situation, but twice, no, there's something going on. And I let them know from my standpoint of hey, look, I'm working on this. If I can have you guys working on this as well, it's only going to make everything better. But sitting there talking about all the problems sucks when you're sitting there putting yourself on full freaking display for them to take shots at. But you know what? You learn so much in those moments. I was on the phone just Before this podcast, I swear to God, I've learned more in two years than I've learned in 35. And it was just a fire hose of my own mistakes and failures. But man, I'm so glad I'm getting, and I'm not all the way there. It's not like, ooh, anxiety left. And to your anxiety comment, my dude, I never had anxiety either until I became an entrepreneur and became a dad. And then I was one of those guys that was like, well, dude, just take a deep breath. You'll be all right. Like I've never experienced that. Now I walk around with fit, you know, a pile of bricks on my chest most days. But you learn how to operate with it, uh, and you you learn how to discharge it. But literally, the abandonment triggers, I feel that, dude. Thanks for sharing that because for I am in the same boat. And man, when somebody leaves at work, I have had, especially somebody that I've poured and invested in time in, it fires this abandonment trigger. And it has maybe nothing to do with me, or maybe it has everything to do with me. But either one, that that anxiety central stress is everything. Everybody deals with stress, but to have that pure anxiety rocking through you because of something that maybe you could have or couldn't control is unbelievably hard to deal with and navigate as you're trying to lead this business in whatever capacity. Sorry, that was a little bit all over the place, but being a friction fighter, listening not just to your own problems, but when you see it with somebody else in your team, don't just walk away from, I don't have time for that. The most valuable thing you can be doing within your team, and I hope you can agree, Aaron, is hey man, y'all right? It's like the third day you've been staring at the floor. There's something all right. I care. I want, I'll take five minutes, I'll take five hours. I don't care. You're important and what's going on. Something has shifted. You're not the same person, but it's our duty as an indication, as you said earlier. Great word for it. We need to pick up on those indication indicators telling us, hey, this is going on. Whether it's their problem or our company's problem, it doesn't matter. It's your problem to actually ask how they're doing and work on that mental health train, man.

SPEAKER_01: 43:11

But the you you you pick up on that by first, again, handling your shit. Yep. Then then then you can start to recognize wait a minute, they're probably and they're probably not all right. But and and and I have some tools to potentially engage in this conversation because I've been there. And I don't need to sit here and pass judgment, but I can sit here and say, Yeah, man, you don't even have to tell me what you're going through. I think you're going through something. And if you are, maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but if you are, just I've been there too. I've been there too. And it's it's amazing when you go first, what you get, it's amazing. Like I uh I had a newsletter today. It was a good one too, by the way. Thank you. It was about what I learned last year, some lessons learned. And I I try to be vulnerable in my writing and podcasts, etc. LinkedIn as well. Um, yeah, yeah. I try to be, I try to be vulnerable. And um but it's not that hard, honestly, because again, I I'm doing the work. Like, like everybody's like, man, that must be hard. It's like, no, it's actually not. Um, because I've because by the time I'm talking about it, I've I'm so I'm I'm so far past it. Like I've I've processed it so much at that point. But somebody calls me that I haven't talked to in years, dude. And he just tells me all about this situation in his world. I just let him talk, and I appreciated him telling me really genuinely. And it was just this like moment of human connection I wouldn't have had otherwise if it weren't for me going first. And it it's really cool. Like it's it's really cool. And those are the calls and and the conversations that I have that remind me like, wait a minute, we're all in this together, we're all just trying to figure this out, man. None, oh wait, none of us have it, none of us has it figured out. Go figure. And it just reminds you, yeah, it's just like we're we're all just people here, and this is pretty cool. But again, it it all stems back to, and this is why I just threw out my presentation that I gave at Dirtworld and started over. I have a totally different presentation now, speech, hour long, because I was focused on companies. And it's like, oh that's wrong. I was trying to use companies to protect people's feelings, so on and so forth. It's like, nah, man, it's it's it's whoever's in the mirror. That's where it starts, and that's where it ends. And we, if we want the industry to be better, we have to be better. And if we want the future to be better, we have to be better. So it that's where that's where it begins and ends. And this isn't a novel concept. I I am not the first person to figure this one out. And I've read like a thousand books on this that have said exactly that, and it's taken me this long to figure it out. So go go figure, but that's where it begins and ends.

SPEAKER_00: 46:06

No, I agree. And uh, if you don't follow Aaron on LinkedIn, again, you're probably under a rock. He's got I believe he's got a few hundred thousand followers, but you are extremely vulnerable, challenges me. Um, I use LinkedIn for the same tool, and you're you said it earlier in the in the show, it is a freaking weapon uh if you use it correctly, and especially from the storytelling writing app apparatus, and you do such a great job. But there was a photo of all the books uh that you had read last year, and I don't have a stack yet, but man, I was a horrible reader. And I mean, I didn't care. I just don't, I don't want to read something. It's like, well, you're just screwing yourself, and to the point of if we're not gonna get better as individuals, as leaders, how are we expecting anybody else to? And I picked up my first book. Uh, I did one and a half books last year. Okay, I'm halfway through. I was trying to get to two. I did not meet my goal. Um, but this year I will. And I'm I'm I did uh winning it, winning at home. I got halfway through. So uh shout out to Mr. Randy. But you're right, dude. Iron sharpens iron. And if you can't sharpen anybody if you're not sharp yourself, and that's emotionally, that's mentally, that's you know, of course, physically. But you have to be willing to take upon or set aside and discipline yourself differently if you want change. Nothing changes if nothing changes. That's not a new concept either. But reading those books, man, uh, you gave a great list the other day. That has changed me in more ways than I could possibly describe to people. And I am not a reader. You would, and I don't believe you started out being a reader either, correct?

SPEAKER_01: 47:52

Not really. I mean, I I was like uh, yeah, I'm not really a bookworm. I love reading now, love it. But in school I hated it because I was reading the nonsense that was that was assigned, like most people. But I I I reading is one of those things as a leader. It's like you have to. Yeah, yeah, like there, there there's not a single very impressive person that I know that doesn't read and doesn't think and doesn't know how to communicate effectively. It's just not there. And I mean, my mind would just be a pile of mush if I didn't read every day. And my point with those with those posts once a year, it's I don't set out January 1, I'm gonna read these 15 books. I think that's silly. I don't think that works. My system is I read 10 pages every day. That's it. And then at the end of the year, you have this pile of books that's like, wow, look at that. All it is is 10 pages a day. It's really simple. Anybody can do that. That James James Clear habit forming book. That uh he he has a whole book on it called Atomic Habits. Yeah, that that building habits. I built it through Andy Frasella and the the Live Hard program that he put together years ago now. And I that that was when I was reading, but I wasn't consistent. And that was when I just started to get just 10 pages non-negotiable. It's just again, I and doing stuff every day is so much easier, is so much easier. Like I talk about working out as well. Working out every day is so much easier than five days a week. Because I don't have to decide if I'm gonna work out today. There's no decision, there's no wrestling with it. It's just I have to read today. When am I going to read? When am I going to write? When am I going to read the Bible now? Is I did that every day last year. We'll continue to do it probably every day for the rest of my life now. When am I gonna exercise today? Like, that's a much simpler program than trying to figure out, like, oh man, you know, Tuesday's pretty busy or this and that, or like, ah, it's raining today. I don't really want to work out. And then you get busy, and then it like starts to slip this and that. No, when when it's non-negotiable, it's incredible how you'll just shift your life and the world around what needs to happen. And and I, again, if I'm not squared away, I can't help anyone else get squared away. I can't lead a business effectively, I can't communicate effectively, I can't do what I need to do in this, in this world. And so I better prioritize me. And if that's selfish, I don't care. Like that's what I have to do. And um, it's for me, it's just it's once it becomes non-negotiable, it it's honestly easy. Like people are like, man, that must be tough. It's like, it's not tough. It's it's really simple. It's how do you work out every day? You just work out every day. Like it, it, it's and and I I don't know. Like, I don't know how how else to explain it. Like it once it just becomes normal, uh again, your whole world starts to just move around it.

SPEAKER_00: 51:31

Yeah. And disciplines and time managements, and there's so many books on that as well. But I uh I want to throw you up a little softball for all the small blue-collar guys out here, and I have a feeling it'll probably stay along the same lines as uh the previous answer, but what's one simple but super powerful piece of advice you'd give for improving their marketing and storytelling today? Without an agency or spending like big money through marketing, what can they be working on themselves?

SPEAKER_01: 52:05

Like the single best thing? And I didn't I didn't figure this out. Actually, Keaton Turner, he was the one doing it before I was with Turner Mining Group. But before it was before Turner Mining Group, he was doing it with TCI before he had started his his company. Um it's just share on LinkedIn every day. Again, that's it. And and people are like, well, what do I share about? And it's like, that's the point. It's a skill. And so if I'm gonna go start playing piano right now, I'm gonna be terrible. Uh, how do I get any better? By being terrible and by practicing every day. Storytelling and communication is is is the exact same thing. There's no like maybe some people are naturally better at communicating, sure, but not really. I haven't seen that all that much. Every great communicator has had a lot of opportunities to practice communication and storytelling. And what better way to practice than every day via something like LinkedIn to tell stories? And it's like, well, I I don't want to talk about me. Then don't talk about you. Like, okay, you have a business with 20 people. Well, there's 20 different people you can talk about. How many projects are you doing? Well, there's all those projects you could talk about. Well, what are you doing on each one of those projects? 10 different things, 20 different things. Well, that all those are things you could talk about. How many suppliers do you have? All those people, all of those things are things you can talk about. Don't talk about you. Like, if you scroll my LinkedIn, how many selfies do you see? Not that many. Because I don't have to. I mean, sometimes I talk about me. Like again, the lessons I learned in 2025, of course. Yeah, that's me. And that has a lot of value talking about yourself in certain contexts. It's sure. Context. But uh it's just like I don't, I honestly don't think you need to spend a lot of money nowadays. If you just post every day on LinkedIn, dude, like that's kind of all you need to do. Sure, there's there's there's more to do than that, but if that's all you do, you're gonna be good. Like it there's not a lot left on the table if that's what you're doing. And it starts at the top. So if your solution is to go find a kid to do it for you, it's not gonna work. Um and and every well-known civil construction company in America, that's not uh a Kiwit. You know, there's there's some that are just the the titans that have been around since the 1800s. Okay, yeah, they have they have a lot of brand awareness, good for them. Though the the contractors, the civil contractors that aren't, if you think about them, like who do you think about? Name a well-known contractor that's not like a Peter Kiwit. That's not in your area.

SPEAKER_00: 55:13

Not in my area. I gotta pull this one out, probably. Um, yeah, ES ESS is kind of a Titan, I guess you would say.

SPEAKER_01: 55:26

ESS is a great one. Any any any any others that come to mind?

SPEAKER_00: 55:30

Um directly.

SPEAKER_01: 55:32

I would give, I would give all well, they're in my market, but Garrett X. Okay. All right, they're in your market. But ESS, for example. It starts at the top. It starts with Tim Paulson. He's out telling the story of ESS nonstop. Now they have a great, brilliant marketing team, but it starts with Tim Paulson. It starts at the top. He's 100% bought in. And and that's the point, is if you think about there's all the time now, people talk to me about these civil contractors. I'll be in California and they'll be talking to me about a civil contractor on the East Coast. That's not like a giant, they're like a local contractor, 150 people. It's like, why are you talking to me about this? How do you know? Every one of those contractors, you can go down the list Sgt. Corporation, Stutzman, Vite, Rosso, Turner Mining Group. Just keep it, keep it going, right? Every one of those quality enterprises, they all have leadership bought in. And they all have leadership telling the story. First and foremost. Go figure.

SPEAKER_00: 56:49

Blue collar performance marketing's passion is to bring attention to the honest work done in blue-collar industries through effective results-driven marketing tactics. They specialize in comprehensive digital marketing services from paid advertising on Google and Facebook to website development and content strategy. I started working with Ike and the team earlier this year, and they've had a huge impact on our specific marketing campaign and trajectory of our overall company. Their expertise in digital ad management, website development, social media, and overall marketing strategy has been an absolute game changer for our sales and marketing at SciCon. If you're looking to work with a marketing team who does what they say, does it well, and is always looking for ways to help your company grow, book a discovery call with Ike by going to bcperformancemarketing.com backslash BCB podcast, or click the link in the show notes slash description below. Thanks, guys. Yep. Really? And uh, I I actually screwed up. I said it a couple episodes ago. We were with integration of the IAI on everything, you know. You you want to be, you're more worried about quantity, right? You're everybody gets so caught up. Oh, I got to be every day, or whatever the case may be. But it's it's also just a quality human response or a quality human question about what you're doing or what your company's doing, just to bring awareness. But I agree with that, man. It has to come from the top. The people that have done it, the people that have lived that are living it every single day, they have to buy into this and understand the importance of not just for their team, but the next teams coming in or the next companies coming in and not just sit there and go, well, this is how I figured it out. So you guys can figure it out, and we'll just fight against each other the whole way. That's just not the way the industry needs to go from here on out. We need to come together. We need to understand what bottom line standards that we are not going to accept as an industry anymore. But it's it's bringing visibility to what we do as civil contractors in general and all those guys uh from different angles, from Keaton on LinkedIn, Quality Enterprises, and their Mona Lisa video art. Like there's there's so many you just named, you know, Herb and uh from Sgt. And his unbelievable storytelling skills from his life experience of being a utility contractor is invaluable. And uh I'm not quite to that status yet, but I am sharing what I've gone through and what I've done. And I encourage every single person listening. The reason you're listening today is because I told Will, yes, let's do a podcast and let's let's do this. And here I am with a guy that inspired me from the get-go, talking about key points today to help you guys. And I huge believer in a lot of the things that Aaron shares on every platform. It's so key, it's so spot on from the standpoint of, yeah, we're pushing dirt and we're putting pipe in the ground, but we can be more than projects and freaking paychecks, guys. And leadership that starts with you guys. That's not just from a tell your story standpoint, but that's uh, hey, let's update our company core values because our people freaking deserve it. Hey, that's uh take them out to eat on a lunch on a hot August day because they freaking deserve it and they've been on production. Just be willing to do different and just be different, don't just take the exception of, oh, well, this is how my dad did it or this is how so-and-so does it. We want to be like them. No, dude, different. I get it. Different is being different, but different is cool. Uh it is. And those 1,250 people that you were talking about, I am all in because those are the people that are going to be industry leaders that are going to in drive. Change in an industry that is already freaking living in archaic times. And if we want to attract this new generation that we keep speaking about every week, we've got to change. We've got to work on ourselves. And uh, but no, I I encourage you guys to go check out the Dirt World Summit because this is really not obviously was on a very strong focused path. But when I went to that, I drove away from five hours from Dallas just with clarity, thinking about this and what Tim said and what Randy said, and with my not just for at work guys, but at home too. And so, number one, man, I always ask everybody on this show, and I'll get you wrapped up here, boss man, but uh, what's the takeaway for the blue-collar worker who's just sick and tired of being stuck in the mud? Could be mentally, could be emotionally, could be physically. And you've named a few today, um, but most specifically, I I struggle a little bit with this.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:58

I I'm not a blue-collar worker. I spent I spent time in the field, but uh I I I never want to be the guy sitting here on the internet telling blue-collar workers how to how to do what they do better. Um but but for anybody, it's just like what's one thing you can start to improve upon. It today. Like, I'm not a big believer in New Year's resolutions. I don't believe in waiting. If you know you need to do something, like, you know, I I I do need to be a little bit healthier, or I do need to spend a little bit more time at home. Or when I am at home, I can I can put my phone away. Or, you know, uh reading, yeah, I could do some reading. Or man, I I I'm not telling my story. I could do that. Or, you know, I haven't really been telling the story uh in our in my community. I can do that. Like it's just just what what's one thing you can focus on to do better, make yourself better. If we if we all do, I I always say this when I'm speaking, if we all do just one thing to get better, to make ourselves better, how much change do you create in the world? It's it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. So that's that's where I would start. That's where I've started, and it's it's served me really well.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:11

Can't thank you enough, buddy, truly, for jumping on here for a podcast with me. It's been a long time coming. I think uh we're 70 episodes in. I'm trying to catch you on one day I might, but uh, you know, just trying to keep it going one week at a time. And uh it was amazing to have you on to start and kick off 2026. I have a feeling we'll see each other multiple times this year throughout the year. But uh I can't thank you enough for your time, your inspiration, your valued input, different perspective that you bring to our industry and willing to push the box in any parameter, man. I think we all can say thank you. And uh seriously, guys, go check out BuildWit. Uh, you want to drop some links, actually? Sorry.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:00

Yeah, I call our company is BuildWit, B-U-I-L-D, W-I-T-T. Um, event is dirtworld, dirtworld um.com. And then I'm just Aaron Witt on any social platform. Pretty easy to find.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:14

Yeah, encourage you guys to go read his his daily LinkedIn stuff. It's uh it will help you in more ways than one. And he's edgy, so I appreciate that. All right, brother. Till next time, you guys be safe out there. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like, share it with the fellas, check out our website to send us any questions and comments about your experience in the blue collar business. Who do you want to hear from? Send them our way, and we'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Till next time, guys.