The Profit Builder Unscripted

Why Some Builders Burn Out (and What to Do Instead)

• Vicki Suiter • Episode 45

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Do you ever feel like you're running on empty—even when you're hitting all the marks?

In this episode of The Profit Builder Unscripted, I talk with Casey O'Donnell, a skilled and successful fourth-generation builder who found himself questioning if he was on the right path. Casey shares the moment he realized he was pouring energy into a business that wasn’t giving enough back—and the shift he made that changed everything.

This conversation isn't about switching jobs—it’s about redefining success, finding the right culture, and stepping into leadership that lifts others up instead of wearing them down.

We talk about:

  • What burnout looked like behind the scenes
  • The turning point that sparked a personal and professional shift
  • How focusing on servant leadership changed his whole approach to management

This one’s for anyone who’s ever wondered, “Is this all there is?” Spoiler: there’s a better way. But you’ll have to listen to hear how Casey found his.

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Vicki Suiter (00:00)

if you find it challenging sometimes to lead people or to make change in your business or in your life, you're going to want to listen to this episode. Hi, I'm Vicki Suiter. Welcome to The Profit Builder Unscripted. Today, my guest, Casey O'Donnell, shares his personal journey and his courageous willingness to make a change in his life and how he did that and how he learned to lead with more ease and grace.

 

All right, let's jump in.

 

So my guest today, Casey O'Donnell, is somebody that I met kind of accidentally, and I'm very excited to have him as a guest and to share with you his story. So first of all, Casey, thank you. Thank you for being a guest on The Profit Builder Unscripted. how did we met? Like, this was so funny. I was on LinkedIn one day, and Casey had this post on there that popped up that talked about

 

Casey O’Donnell (00:46)

That's it.

 

Vicki Suiter (00:57)

this really cool story about how you made this transition in your life. And the thing that really struck me as I read it was, man, that's a that's a story of courage. And I loved how you describe that story. Your, you know, sort of your decision point about when you were going to, you know, take a different direction in your career. And I just thought, man, that's so relatable to a lot of people about how

 

we had some, there's those moments in our life that change us, right? Those moments when we make a decision or we do something that alters the trajectory of our experience of life. So thank you for being willing to be on here and to share that story. I'm excited to have our listeners be able to hear you as well. And before we kind of jump into that, would you just introduce yourself, tell people a little bit about you and then...

 

and then we'll kind of jump in.

 

Casey O’Donnell (01:55)

Yeah, absolutely. So Casey O'Donnell, Senior Pre-Constructor Manager for Breakin' Instructors. We work across the country. We do a lot of design build work, but big in the warehouse and multifamily as well. I am a father to a year and a half old wonderful, beautiful baby daughter. And my wife, Jennifer, who was a teacher and now spends a lot of time with MADS as they grow up. But yeah, appreciate being on the podcast. forward to

 

Vicki Suiter (02:20)

Awesome, awesome. Congratulations on a one and a half year old. I remember that a lot of years ago. Those were fun days. So your story, you would Casey, just share with us. know you've been in the industry for a lot of years. And like I said, I was really struck by the courage that it took to make the change that you made.

 

If you would just tell people about your journey and your story and what is it that happened and what had you make that change?

 

Casey O’Donnell (02:52)

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a fourth generation builder. So as I was growing up, I was on job sites as a kid. didn't ever think there was really another path for me that wasn't construction, which I'll say that negatively. I love construction. I love building. I love pointing out, you know, this is something that changed the skyline that we're doing. That is an immense level of pride for me. But so I'm a fourth generation builder. So I'm a motivated person, a competent person. So I got a lot of fire burning inside to go build and

 

So I graduated and I was going to go be the biggest, baddest builder that existed for the biggest, baddest builder that exists. And you can go a lot on just pure vinegar and you know, what you got inside. But I figured out all the motivation. It's great, but you got to have, you got to be reselling what you're taking out of. If you got a bank account, you're constantly taking withdrawals from it, but never putting any money back in. not going to take long to go negative.

 

And I think ultimately I had four or five or six years started feeling, but kind of feeling that coming on. it's not a cloud or anything, but it was, I was stressed. was feeling unsupported. I was arguing with the same subs every day. Just not things that somebody that loves the industry wants to deal with. it's unfortunately a lot of the stuff that is just day to day for our industry, but being hard charging and feeling like I was out in front and then sometimes not feeling like I had that support.

 

Then I go look to the future of, know, hey, what is, what does another superintendent look like out here? There's a lot of, unfortunately in our industry, there are far too many superintendents, you let's just call it people that build buildings that have 12 ex-wives and 13 kids in 15 states. And that is not anything that's ever been acceptable for me. would never want anything like that.

 

As much as I'm a builder, I'm also a Christian. I'm also a man. I'm also all these other things that I have to excel just as much as being a builder because who cares if I'm a great builder, if I'm not a good person or not a good contributor or father or role model or all those things that are all it's a it's a milk and it's a three legged stool. You can't you kick one leg out and but

 

Vicki Suiter (04:56)

Before you go on, think I have a sense of this, but the term that you use that kind of jumps out at me is you can't keep, did you say taking out of the bucket?

 

Casey O’Donnell (05:05)

Yeah, or withdrawing pages.

 

Vicki Suiter (05:07)

That was making withdrawals, which I think when you and I talked, I had mentioned to you that that was a phrase that Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, used to use. And I think it's a great expression. for those people who don't, like even as I listen to you, I'm like, what does that mean to Casey? Like, how was it feeling like there was constantly more withdrawals than deposits? Can you just speak a little bit more to that?

 

Casey O’Donnell (05:32)

Yeah, absolutely. So this is kind of how my grandma used to talk about it. She used to talk about having a bucket of water and there's just holes that have been, you know, it's got a, it's not got a solid bottom to it. So there's holes that have been drilled in that bucket and that water level is just ever constantly going out at the same rate. Best case scenario, you don't get any more holes drilled into it you need to go shore up the holes that are there. But literally that's how, just envisioned, like I envisioned myself as that bucket.

 

and I knew how much water was going out, much water wasn't getting poured back in. And then how do I go?

 

Vicki Suiter (06:04)

What

 

is the water though? What was the thing that was getting poured out? What were you losing?

 

Casey O’Donnell (06:10)

So it just me, didn't have, so my thought of being I'm a fourth generation builder that I am, I had all these ideas of who I was or what I was, but it wasn't actually founded. It wasn't because I had gone through these huge, I didn't climb a mountain and then decide at the top of the mountain, this is who I am and what I've decided. And so I see a lot of struggle with some of the guys that I manage of people. don't wanna make it like belittle it and say, haven't found a mountain clock.

 

mountain top to climb, but I've certainly had a lot of strife and a lot of struggle and that had helped, but I had to figure out who I was as a man, as a person, as a person, like all of that. That is this holistic picture of who I was. And so the water, all of that, it was, it was a bucket that was set on top of, you know, something that wasn't sturdy. So it's sitting on top of precipice, then it's leaking water. And so my job was to go take that bucket, duct tape all the holes.

 

set it on the ground and then build it something that we can go raise that bucket up with. Because otherwise it's not on a firm foundation. Everything we do, and that's kind of how I view my guys that I lead is, let's not address what I need from you to do a project right. Let's address what is making it your life, what is stressing you out, what is not allowing you to do your job, what are the things that you come to work with that

 

we don't talk about that we need to talk about because they drive how you respond to everything in construction. Money's limited, time's limited, and patience isn't always in excess supply. So how do we stop the craziness that is the train we're all always on? And how do we make that a better train track to be on? How do we make it better for everybody? Because we all got to deal with each other. We're not going away. Let's not continue to beat our heads again into walls.

 

Vicki Suiter (07:58)

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying the whole thing of you felt like the bucket was, there were more withdrawals than deposits. that essentially like you were feeling like you were never able to be who you wanted to be and be like the man, the father, the husband, the Christian, the employee, like the manager, like...

 

you were feeling like you couldn't be all of those things.

 

Casey O’Donnell (08:23)

So I think the, needed personally to go decide what in my pyramid, those things, know, stack them up and what order those all needed to come in. I needed to decide for me what was going to be non-negotiables. You know, I kind of had to become an adult. We all have to do that, but you know, as somebody who graduates from a college, you figure out how we fit in life and everything else.

 

Vicki Suiter (08:49)

Okay. So if you could for me, tie back in the piece of what you felt was leaking out had you start to really assess your life, right? That's a part that I'm not quite getting. So if you can fill that in.

 

Casey O’Donnell (09:04)

Yeah, so our industry is a tough industry and it's hard to, it's not just to get something, process a report and send it on. I feel like construction is so much more of a task than it is than just generating a report. And so what was, it was just constantly withdrawing was not the knowledge in my brain that I didn't feel like I had the support. And so that made the things more grinding and taxing that needed to be done. And then to know that I didn't see a future.

 

that I thought was an acceptable future for myself with the current. So it's like we're on a train track. I don't love where the train is heading. I don't see anybody that's on a parallel path that I think is really got it figured out that I can go do it be as a mentor, find and seek as a mentor. And so then I needed to go decide, okay, it's not gonna come from work. How do I figure out what that is or?

 

And what are those things? And so that was a lot of soul searching for me for trying to decide what what are the important things. And through this process, it was like, OK, well, I'm not going to be a field guy. I don't want to go to another company to be a field guy just to change the logo because it's going to have the same problems. That's why I go back. We just have the same things and construction we got to deal with. What, though, that I never got as a field guy was I didn't feel like anybody was ever looking out for me. Nobody was ever, hey,

 

these details aren't going to work. Nobody did any kind of proactiveness that I felt. And so what I told myself was if I'm going to go be, if I'm going to leave being a superintendent, then I need to go help those guys out because they're not getting it. And so my, what I told myself was if I was going to leave, that I wanted to go be in pre-construction because then I can go ask the questions that nobody asked because they don't know to ask them. And then that's the value that I can bring is I can go.

 

approach a project, we can approach it better from the front end because we actually got a guide to build it when we start. So many times that doesn't happen. And so I had gone to interview a couple of different companies and I was frank with them. was like, you know, not leaving a burning ship. I've had a good company, but if I'm leaving, I want it to be for the right thing, for the right people and in the right environment. I had had a few different interviews and bring them the company that I'm at now was the first place that I

 

Vicki Suiter (11:12)

So what were you looking for? Like, what was, like, there was some, like, you didn't, felt like, as I heard you, and you were kind of burned out from the previous job, right? You were not feeling like it was giving you that level of filling you up with this sense of accomplishment and reward and success, right? That vision that you once had.

 

But so what was that when you started looking like what was the criteria that you were looking for that had you go, no, I'm not just jumping ship to go from one place to the next to a different job. What was that thing? What was important to you in that criteria that you chose? Yeah. And then I want you to tell us about the company you chose, but like, what's the

 

Casey O’Donnell (11:54)

Yeah, so hands down, would say 100 % of what I, or 95 % of what I was looking for was the culture of the company. So I think culture is something that people talk about. It's kind of like synergy. You know, it's a thing that gets bandied about now and people say it. And so it's obvious when companies say it, but then when you interview with a company and there actually is a culture to it. And so I knew two people that were at Brinkman at the time. And so I had...

 

kind of had some insider sight of how they operate, but they were also in Missouri as well. And so I was aware of them. And when I started talking to them, it was a very clear, very apparent how intelligent the people that I was engaging with were and the amount of opportunity that was there. they had multiple, they were at that point were four, three or four offices. I could see the opportunity there. I could see the pathway for a company and so they operate similar.

 

Tillwagging Turner, some of the other bigger GCs where we don't have an estimating department. So pre-construction, there's only a handful of us. I go support everybody. And so that is, think ultimately what I would say is the whole change of me is focusing on being a servant leader. And so I had started hearing those things when I interviewed at Brinkman and I was like, well, that's the first time I've ever heard about this. Then I got there and that's absolutely what we focus on. And I finally felt like I was at a place that people had enough in their buckets.

 

that they weren't worried about how much water was in those buckets. And so they were actually worried about helping others. And the second that I recognize that paradigm shift, I will never go back, can never go back, never want to go back. The servant leadership mentality is, and I struggled, tell you, the kind of being selfless is thinking about yourself less. Like having my first thought not be, how does that impact Casey? But rather, how does that impact whoever else it may be?

 

or what is like, my goal is to remove myself from the decision making. I'm confident enough in what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, that that will get me where I want to be. I need to worry about everybody else who doesn't have that because I didn't have that. If I've got some now that can go help with others, that's what I want to do. And that's who I want to work for. And I don't know really another way that gets you. I see it the other way. I think it's pretty black and white for me.

 

Vicki Suiter (14:04)

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. And I love those words, servant leadership, because I think that that is when we get into a leadership role that is, mean, like our greatest job is to empower and support and lift up the people underneath us. And I don't mean lift them up like a crutch. mean, like empower them to be the greatest version of themselves that they can be, which means our focus is on

 

teaching, mentoring, training, coaching, as opposed to treating people like tools or helpers, right? I, and would you, is it, those are my words, but is that part of the distinction that you've seen in working for Brinkman now different from where you were before?

 

Casey O’Donnell (14:45)

Yeah, so I'll say what I tell what I've used the term probably seven times in the past month for performance reviews is I am not managing people that are bar rags. I don't need to ring out every ounce of benefit that they have and then go get another bar rag when I need to ring that out. Their benefit is the people that they are, what they bring to the table, their experiences, they're all of that. And so how do I get more out of them from that? ⁓

 

Vicki Suiter (15:13)

Yeah,

 

that's distinction. How do you like, how do you take what you got and then support them in how to take that whatever that is at the next level as opposed to yeah, I like that analogy, like kind of ringing people. It's kind of that thing of like using people up.

 

Casey O’Donnell (15:29)

Right, yeah, because then there's...

 

Vicki Suiter (15:30)

Yeah, I mean, let me ask you this question because, well, first of all, I just want to acknowledge you for having the courage to like look up one day and go, is this the life that I want? Like, is this the path that I want to be on? It's, you know, it takes courage to not just change jobs because it wasn't about that. You know, as I listen to you, Casey, right? It's that whole thing of you choosing for you.

 

What's the life that I want? What's important to me as a human being, as a man, as a husband, a Christian, you know, put somebody in a community, as a team member. What's important to me in terms of the contribution that you wanted to make and was that available there? And then being very intentional about who you chose to go hang out with, you know, and spend your days with. So nice job, I that's awesome. And...

 

kudos to Brickman for creating that kind of a culture within their organization. So I love that. So as a leader and a manager, when you think about what is it that you do in terms of mentoring your team or coaching your team or empowering them to be their next greatest version of themselves, what is that?

 

What does that look like? Because I heard a little bit of it from a general perspective, like that you think of them rather than what's best for me, what's best for them. I love that. But I mean, for people who are listening, who are managers, like, here's the truth. Most leaders and business owners, and I can count myself into this when I started leading people and even when I started my own business, I was a horrible manager because I'd never been trained about how to lead and manage people.

 

I thought it was about coercion and manipulation because that's how I was managed. you know, we don't have a lot of experience a lot of times when we end up being in that position of having to lead other people. And so I think that, you know, I would like to hear from you from a practical perspective. What does that look like?

 

Casey O’Donnell (17:26)

Yeah, so I think there's a couple things. So being a hard charger, definitely don't do things perfect all the time. And I definitely am probably going to knock some corners off of squares that would have made me prefer not to have those corners knocked off of them. everything I do, I think kind of be simple, everything back to a couple of different parts. I'm honest, I'm open, and I'm totally transparent with everything I do. And then everything I do, I want to do to the best of my capability. So that's like what I come to the table with.

 

And I think that there is a respect that is given and granted when we do that together. If everybody comes to the table willing and ready to work, then there are a lot of problems that just go away. Now the problems that don't go away because we have things. So there's like learning gaps. So we aggressively attack those problems. And that means we may sit down for six hours and go build out a fraction of an estimate together. So a lot of times that I do with them.

 

is we'll get in a room together, we'll work, we'll order lunch, we'll be in there for the multiple hours on time, and it's just working together. And it's whatever questions, me guiding them through a process in the very beginning, and then hopefully a year passes, and then it's them leading the process. But it doesn't happen accidentally, it doesn't happen because we stumbled into it. Everything requires that effort, and it's going to be good if you give it the effort, and you're open, and you're willing to

 

It also, we have to be willing to take the criticism and the critiques and whether we agree with something, we have to at least acknowledge how the other feels. It is a relationship at the end of the day. it's give, it's take, and how do we make sure we're trying to be cognizant of all the requests that we're asking out of somebody and making sure that we're also getting back similar to that, know, the paychecks coming in and out of the bank.

 

Vicki Suiter (19:10)

Yeah, yeah. So open, honest, transparent is sort of the fundamental, if I heard you correctly, like the place that you come from as a starting point as you engage with people. that the other thing I heard is that you invest in training and developing people and helping them to see how you see, think how you think in terms of process, but also being open to

 

hey, this is the way I do it. It's not necessarily always the perfect way, but I'm gonna give you the best of what I have to give you to show you, to teach you, to train you, to mentor you so that you can learn and grow. Yeah.

 

Casey O’Donnell (19:49)

Absolutely. And I want, I want nothing more than to be blown away by the performance and quality of work that everyone is associated with me. I want to be the least effective person here. I want everyone to blow me away. It's like there would be nothing to make me happier or my job easier. And so, but I think that's where the selflessness and the servant leadership, you have to be in a place that truly values that. I'm not worried that if everybody does that good, that my position will no longer be here. the only reason I'm here is to go help people.

 

So.

 

Vicki Suiter (20:18)

Let me ask you a question about that because I think that that's really interesting. I work with a lot of contractors that have kind of grown up through the trades or that grew their business from like it was one or two guys to now they got 25 people working for them. And there's this background conversation that I noticed shows up that goes something like this. I even had this conversation this morning with someone.

 

If I am not in sort of in the trenches doing it with them, if I'm not showing that I'm carrying my weight, if I'm not working as hard as they do, I will, then where is my value? Where's my contribution? And this is part of the, know, as I'm listening to you, this is a shift that I talk with people about, like, how do you shift that mindset from one of

 

Really, your greatest job as a leader is to empower the people who work for you to be the best versions of themselves. That's where your ultimate contribution value is. But it's hard for people. It's hard for people to make that transition from being the technician to being a leader. Thoughts about that? how did you at some point have to like shift your

 

mindset about that and how you approached leading people.

 

Casey O’Donnell (21:36)

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm at first a producer and a producer measures what they produce. And it's very easy to go measure units of work, but in place, it's a whole lot harder to measure. How are you guiding and nurturing those people underneath you? And so I think, A, it's difficult to measure B, it's emotional intelligence, which we don't all possess great abundances of in our industry. It's a lot of things that are difficult. And so then you add on

 

the things that just, it's just easy to put that box in the corner and ignore it and then go worry about the other stuff. And so it's with the intentionality, like acknowledging whatever it is, nothing's going to go away. Everything needs to be addressed. And then so to be a leader, it's not being no longer being a doer. I'm not measured on being a doer. I'm measured on do I set those people up for success if needed. And I think that paradigm shift has to be what we think about it.

 

Vicki Suiter (22:26)

So was that built into the culture of where you are now and that that made that shift for you or was there something else that had you make that shift?

 

Casey O’Donnell (22:37)

So yes, it's in the culture. came to, you got to come to the table with a little bit of it. You can't just train this. You have to have a natural inclination to want to support the group, the community. And like I'm a natural born leader, but it doesn't mean I forsake everybody else. I want to lead that group that I'm hopefully naturally inclined to lead to the best possible position and place for everybody's ultimate good. And so I think everything, everything you're trying to do is for all.

 

ultimately to just to do more good. And so the effort that you put toward that will be the biggest return on investment because ultimately you may not be able to measure it on a day by day, week by week. But if we're to work together for five years, I ought to surely notice that huge difference in that individual over the course of five years, three to two years. Maybe they go somewhere else. It doesn't matter because it's not them as the individual ringing out of our rack. It's helping our industry and it's making better people in our industry.

 

If they say it, bring them great. If they leave, then let's talk about, know.

 

Vicki Suiter (23:33)

So as I hear you, it's a mind shift, right? It's just really embracing that difference of realizing, and I might be taking a little bit of liberty here, but my suspicion is that there was a way that you wanted to contribute in the way that you wanted to bring value and realizing that being an individual superstar performer wasn't

 

really the pathway to being able to make the greatest contribution.

 

Casey O’Donnell (24:03)

Yes, me personally pricing $3 billion worth of work gets us nowhere. It is a number that could help and will help and will make us go somewhere, but it is not detail. It is the tail on the dog. so focusing on that because I'm a doer, because it's an easy thing to measure. It's the wrong answer. It's not what benefits us as a company or the people I'm with or around. so, yeah, I absolutely struggle. I'm a doer. I want to focus on doing, and you can measure that and I can go do this, but great.

 

What about when I'm gone? What if I get hit by a bus?

 

Vicki Suiter (24:33)

So how do you, like, do you have some, like, tip or trick that you would have for people who are listening, who struggle with that too, right? Because I think that's real. Like, I think that we do that. I think that we kind of get caught up in that, I want to be able to see the results and I don't see them as directly when I'm managing other people. There's a longer runway for that.

 

Any thoughts, any tips on that?

 

Casey O’Donnell (24:56)

So it definitely is not easy, but I think the personal investment in people and if you are a people person, hopefully that is, I don't know that that pay off enough in and of itself, but like we go out of the office every two weeks and we take a walk outside somewhere just to get, so the younger guys, that's something that gets their mind out of what we're doing. I think I had mentioned we do performance review very frequently, infrequently, are we talking about actual performance? We're talking about what's going on outside of

 

or what they're dealing with. Or so there's just so much more to work. Everything's way more nuanced now than it ever has been. And so we need to acknowledge that. And how do we change what we do to so, you know, we need to be more nimble and more nuanced. And so that's kind of how I view my position as a leader is to just continue to be agile and look for what they need. And then how do we fill that role? Why do I do that? Because I care about them as people.

 

wherever their shifting needs are, then that's what should be filled. And if it's not benefiting the company, can talk about that, but that's not been an issue. And I've been here for a minute.

 

Vicki Suiter (26:01)

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for, yeah, for just being willing to spend the time here and to, again, I just acknowledge you for having the courage for being willing to recognize what was important in your life and making that choice because I think that that, you whenever we're going to embark on

 

change as leaders, wanting to grow ourselves as human beings, wanting to grow our businesses, wanting to have a greater impact. That is a question that we first have to ask ourselves is what do we value? What's important to ourselves? What's important in terms of who we want to be, what we want to contribute? And then asking a bigger question, which is how can I do that?

 

is what I'm doing going to get me where I want to go. I always think of it kind of like building a project. You you start with whatever the current existing condition is, or even, you know, there's nothing there, right? And then before you ever start building, you always look at, all right, what do I want it to look like? What's the blueprint, the schematic, the detail of what the end result is? And it is the, in whenever

 

were embarking on change, which is exactly what you did. You looked at, what do I want my life to look like? Wait a minute, like I'm off track to having the life that I desire, the contribution I wanna make, the experience I wanna have, who I wanna be as a human being. You assessed what that was first and then looked back and went, all right, how do I get from where I am to where I wanna be? You realized that culture that you were in was not supportive of being that person.

 

And you realize that as you started to look at who do I want to be, where do I want to be, what do I want to be doing, how can I make a greater contribution even in your role of shifting to pre-construction, really, you decided that first and then you made those changes. And I think that's such an easier path, really. When you think about it from a construction perspective, you would never start doing demolition before you knew what you were

 

Well, sometimes people do, but generally, like you're not going to start building without some schematic or blueprint about where you're headed. And I think that's true about our lives. And I think it's true about our businesses. And I think it's true about how we set people up to win in our businesses too, is by being super clear about what does that look like? What is the criteria for success, right?

 

Casey O’Donnell (28:31)

Because either do we not know or do we not set up a plan to manage towards it? It's like defining the plan, making a plan. Failure to plan is going to guarantee subpar results. We're not going to be happy with it.

 

Vicki Suiter (28:42)

Yep, yep. I could talk to you for hours about the topic of pre-construction, but maybe another day. Love that topic. Also a topic that seemed to have come up a couple times earlier today with other people about the whole, man, like if you spend more time at the front end, it takes much less time at the back end. Yeah. ⁓

 

Casey O’Donnell (29:03)

The

 

80-20 rule. Spend 80 % of your time there.

 

Vicki Suiter (29:07)

Yep. All right. So are you ready for rapid fire questions? All right. So rapid fire questions. What is your favorite personal book or podcast?

 

Casey O’Donnell (29:11)

Let's do it.

 

So by Ten Fallet, it's Pillars of Fire. It's like 1,300 pages long. I don't read super long books. I love to read, but I don't love to read 1,300 page long books. It's about a builder in England. It is absolutely incredibly fascinating. Changed my life. So it was the first book I realized could be that long in still interest.

 

Vicki Suiter (29:35)

So what's your favorite business book or podcast?

 

Casey O’Donnell (29:38)

Mistakes were made, but not by me. So at the book I probably read 15 years ago on cognitive dissonance. And it's just super interesting about why people make bad decisions and then justify those bad decisions. And a lot of bad decisions are industry. And so even back then I had thought, can we learn from those in front of us?

 

Vicki Suiter (29:58)

I'm gonna have to check that book out. All right, cool, great. Boy, that would be like so helpful in leading people, right? ⁓ Yeah, yeah. The thing I always say, it's like nobody wakes up in the morning and goes, how can I mess up today? Right? So like if we can have more awareness or intelligence about what goes on for people. So I'm gonna check out that book, that's cool. That's great.

 

Casey O’Donnell (30:06)

Because all you see is cognitive.

 

Vicki Suiter (30:23)

What is your favorite food or meal?

 

Casey O’Donnell (30:25)

so love barbecue, Kansas city native, and I love to barbecue as well.

 

Vicki Suiter (30:29)

Okay. Yeah, that was the other funny thing about us is I reached out to you. I had no idea where you were in the United States and it turns out we're like 20 minutes from each other. So that's pretty funny. What are you grateful for right now?

 

Casey O’Donnell (30:42)

So I am so I think part of this whole process of me changing part of it was wanting to be a dad and then my wife and I had a two year process of trying to get pregnant and finally had her daughter October of last year and so she's going on a year and a half old and she is an incredible blessing and being a father and a parent has made me grow in ways I never would have thought possible and I'm glad

 

I could be the dad I am now and I wasn't that bad at 24 because I wasn't selfless enough that I needed to be. So I think every every you know, everything worked out how it should. God has a plan and I'm incredibly grateful for it.

 

Vicki Suiter (31:19)

Nice, nice. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, being a parent is awesome. Casey, thank you. I've so enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for taking the time and for sharing your experience. And yeah, so just thank you.

 

Casey O’Donnell (31:35)

Absolutely appreciate you making.

 

Vicki Suiter (31:36)

If you're looking to make changes in your business and you're looking to grow your team and have them take more accountability and give you more free time, increase the profitability of your business and really enjoy what you do again,

 

I encourage you to set up a time to talk with me so that we can explore if my group, The Contractors Collective, is a right fit for you. It includes both peer group input as well as one-on-one coaching with me and tons of tools and resources that can help you grow your contracting business. Feel free to check out the link below where you can set up an inquiry call with me and find out more information and see if it's a right fit. All right. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being a...

 

Member of this community, I appreciate you and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Profit Builder Unscripted.

 

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Vicki Suiter

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