America 250: The Entrepreneur's Choice

Is the American Dream still alive?

As America approaches its 250th birthday, that question matters more than ever.

Manufacturing is growing. Investment is returning. The World Cup was bigger and better than ever. Opportunity is everywhere for those willing to build.

In Episode 10 of the Built on Solid Rock Podcast, Shaun and John tackle a bigger conversation than recruiting. We discuss entrepreneurship, relationships, opportunity, and why America still rewards people who solve problems.

America wasn't built by people looking for guarantees.

It was built by builders.

If you're a business owner, entrepreneur, leader, or someone who believes the next great opportunity is still ahead, this episode is for you.

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John Chisham

Shaun Boen

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome again, and we're back after a long break to the Built on Solid Rock podcast. I'm John Chisholm and new daddy, Sean Bowen. Yep, number four.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I don't know what's causing it. It just keeps happening.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Well, I don't know. Here at Solid Rock Recruiting, we're having a baby boom. I don't know. People start working here, and all of a sudden we've got what? How how many?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

So, with me included, there's like five or six uh people in our company who are expecting. So we did just get a new coffee machine. So I'm kind of thinking there's something in the coffee or in the water.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I think it could be the chai.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah, the chai.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

You know, I mean, you know, I I I've never been into chai, so I think that's why I'm not having a baby, but I did have a grandbaby.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

There we go. So yeah, though they might then there might be something in the bourbon, too. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Could be. It could be it could be the bourbon. Wow. Okay. Well, hey, today I want to talk about. I mean, it's been a while, like I said. Um, you know, we're coming up on the 250th birthday in America. It's great, right? Amen. We've got the we've got the World Cup going on here. We've got people going crazy all over the United States. They love it. We got we got people, you know, the Scottish people in Boston drank up all the beer. I mean, with all the Irish people in Boston, how does that happen? I mean, I mean, you got a plan at least, right? But all the beer got all the beer got drank up. It's just like people are excited. People are getting arrested or stopped at the TSA lines with ranch dressing. Don't they know that you can get it in a powder form and mix it with mayonnaise and you'll be and you'll be fine?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yeah, it's kind of interesting, like um, you know, celebrating the 250th anniversary of our of the founding of our country. Um, so I've been finding myself at night, I've got a phone app and I've been listening to like a lot of George Washington stuff and really getting a good understanding of like the history. You know, I went to public school and that's fine and great, but I was like, man, I really, I'm one of those guys, you know, you hear about guys like me, especially us younger folks, where it's like, these people know nothing about the founding of our country. And I'm like, you're right, like I don't know a lot. And so it's really cool to just see the energy, these small towns in Hartford here. Um, we're uh uh there's all of these small towns across America are kind of joining this. Um, I don't know, it's a group, it's the 250th group, right? And so like we've got flags up downtown. Uh we're uh Main Street business. I you probably saw the flag there. Like I love seeing like this, this like rejuvenation, right? Like this rejuvenation for that American spirit where people are like, hey, I'm proud to be American. And I want to utilize this time for me and my family and our community to like let's carry this forth, right? Let's not just celebrate this just every 250 years. Like, this should be a daily thing going on. And I was listening to the radio about two weeks ago, because one of the well, the World Cup started about a week ago, right? Week or two ago. No, just about three weeks ago. Three weeks ago. And it's incredible because there's these people coming over from all over the world, other countries, and they go to a Bucky's, they go to a Bass Pro fishing shop, they go, they're like, and they're just like mind blown. Like they're mind blown. They're like, this is amazing. America is awesome, right? And I'm like, you're right, it is. It's so freaking great. Like you can go to Bass Pro shop and go buy, you know, if you're I can go buy as many guns as I want, you know, like it's amazing, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So well, and and and and the funny thing is, is that it's caught it's kind of causing a revival kind of of happiness here in the United States of America. There's two things that we find out. Number one, the media around the world lies because a lot of people are scared about coming here.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

I don't want ice to get me. It's like, dude, you're coming here legally. You're you're gonna be fine. I was in Mexico in November, literally, dude. I was talking to people from Canada, some people from the UK, and they're like scared to come to America. I'm like, like you come here legally, like when you travel, like you're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

But but now they love it. I mean, but it it just it just turns all the media's hype on its head. It also gets me thinking, though, it also makes me kind of like there. I was watching it last night, and they're like, you know, you know, in America, if you if you say, Hey, where should I go to eat? Someone's gonna actually engage in conversation with you. Everybody in America has a favorite place, right? They point you down this street, they point you down that street, and and they and they actually will, hey, why don't you come with me? You know, yeah, I'll show you. Yeah, I'll show you exactly here it is on the map. Type this in, like and and so Americans have been branded as kind of some nasty, you know, you know, whatever kind of people, what whatever kind of people, but the people are finding out that that we're really extremely friendly. That all being said, I wasn't didn't really want to talk that long about the World Cup, but it's pretty exciting though, and it's pretty exciting about America's 250. But um, you know, America was built by entrepreneurs. Let's think about it. Visionaries. Visionaries, right? I mean, America was not looking, it wasn't built by people looking for guarantees, looking for looking for a guarantee or a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It was built by hardworking people trying to build something that is lasting, trying to build a legacy and stuff like that. So I I want to I I I want to talk about that because America was built by entrepreneurs, but we also see right now kind of like a lot of fear. And and I think it's produced it's just produced by media, whether it be social media, whether it be the TV news, or what you know, there's so much fear-mongering going on out there. But in reality, let's think about it. Manufacturing is returning, investment is growing. The stock market has been at a record level for the past few weeks, literally. I mean, it's just it just keeps going up and up and up.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Construction is booming, and we know that because I can look at our revenue the last two months, and then you're like, okay, this is a small sample shot of solid rock recruiting, and then you look at that nationally. Yes, there's always parts of the country that are dead or that are stale, but things are happening, things are shaking and baking. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Well, and I think if we put it out there, in reality, a lot of the places that are not booming are the places that are really inundated with this negative hate America, you know, type of attitude that's just really counterproductive for for everybody. And it it it just it just you know kind of seizes up the kind of the means of production when you're not looking forward, you know, looking forward. But so the big question is is that if someone started with absolutely not in the United States of America, if someone started with absolutely nothing today, right now, could they still build something extraordinary?

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Absolutely, man. Absolutely. I mean, I think that um, and I know you've been a business owner of a few different businesses, I've ran two different businesses. Never, you know, I you or I never came from a significant amount of money, anything like that. And I think that people have this mis, I think that people have this misconception, at least in my world, people have this misconception that you have to be wealthy, or you have to come from wealth, or you have to have something given to you in order to build something, right? That is a I'm not saying everybody believes that, but I in my general sense, in this, in my small world of the people I'm connected with, whether it's at church, in the office, in the community, people think that you have to be given something. And um, it's not true. Like they get so angry about the guy behind you right here, our book, Elon Musk, right here, you know. Dude, how many people, how many people did he make millionaires after SpaceX went public? I mean, it was like thousands. All of his employees, it was thousands. Because everybody that invested in that got a no, but his employees have stock ownership. So that's what I'm saying. The people investing, you know, the stock is going to change, but I'm talking the employees, when that went public, they became millionaires.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

The people get so angry about it, they're like, uh, this this trillion dollars could do this for this many people and whatever. Well, if Elon Musk came here from South Africa from from and he came from, he didn't come from a great deal of wealth. He started with nothing and an idea. You know, he's like a he's like a project manager, you know, like he just he creates things in his mind and efficiencies about how to create it and and brings that to his companies and he makes millions and billions and trillion now a trillion dollars.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Right. And now think about that. You know, when he first landed that beautiful, what is it, that rocket or that landing gear or whatever, the the takeoff gear, and it just kind of like caught it. You know, think about that because in the past, right, every time they would launch a rocket, that thing would just drop and you can never use it again. Right. Okay. You know, in it in his mind, it's so logical. It's like, man, it costs us, I don't know, 50, 100, 300 million to build one of those. What happens if we could reuse that? Okay, so apply that at a smaller scale. Like I'll um I'll give you an example. I mean, we could give many examples within our own company. Like, hey, this process is broke, and if we just sat there and said, yeah, that's just the way it is, our our CRM, they can't fix it. This vendor can't fix it. Like, that's like, no, like entrepreneurs and people like Elon Musk, who embody that American that American entrepreneur spirit, I think has revived, has created this in a sense, this revival, rejuvenating uh to love our country, but more really important, not more importantly, but more so focused on entrepreneurship, being builders, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Being creators, doing something better. Yeah. I mean, even the genesis of solid rock recruiting. We thought that we could do recruiting better.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

We didn't think we knew.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

We for sure thought, and the thought became and the thought became I knew, I knew 100%. It wasn't hard. It's not a re it's not a we're not reinventing the wheel here. We're just we're just doing more efficiencies, more there's more efficiencies built in, there's more processes built in, more freedom, more freedom built in within the processes that make the process of recruiting more efficient, more personable, it's you know, etc. Um, you know, we talk about that, but I mean the people oftentimes they'll overlook the opportunities that are staring them right in the face. I mean, uh, you know, they they look at it and they in instead of seeing opportunity, they see roadblocks. And that's and and that's the anti-entrepreneurial entrepreneurial set, right? What if, you know, what if you're asking a bunch of questions, what if?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

What if I go broke? What if I, you know, and I think that one thing, and I think you and I have this in common, and we really haven't even talked about it, but I I've thought about it for sure, is like, you know, we look at what we're doing here, not me and you, look at what our team is doing, right? Right? We've we've created the the the we've created the the road, right? And now like there's not a lot of re there's not a lot more that we have to do. Uh we just have to maintain that. But like I would say you and I are very like, we we don't really have a sense of risk. You know what I mean? Like, like there's really like, and I get and that can be a double-edged sword, right? But like, and I'm not bragging this up, but I'm like, man, like we've done like a lot of crazy stuff when we couldn't afford it, when we didn't know what we're doing, we didn't know all anything, and there was just really no sense of risk. All we saw was we have to do this. And if we don't do this, like what is it gonna look like in three years if we don't do that? Like, that to me is the fear. Like, what does it look like if I don't do this?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

I'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, like shoot first, ask questions second, right? Lucas, you gotta jump in first and then tell them you don't know how to ready fire aim. Yeah, yeah. Ready, fire aim.

unknown 11:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Here's kind of a here's kind of an idea.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

This is a fun one.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

No, this is fun.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Sponsored by VLO now. Zinn is um out the door. Velo is really good. Uh, better quality product, cheaper, more in the pouch.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Here's a big question for you. Now, in our business, we know all the benefits of entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

We do.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah, I know all of the benefits and all of the like staying awake, staying awake at night, wondering if you're gonna, you know, when are you gonna make payroll? You know, um, you know, worried about worried about this, worried about that. I really don't worry about things, but I do have things that keep me up at night sometimes. If I didn't do a job, did I did I did I make that phone call? Did I, you know, did it, you know, but being a business owner, I'm I'm working more and harder than I ever have before. But it's fun. It's way more fun.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

It's way more fun, and and I'm making less money too. Yeah, but also want to like, yeah, well, that's the thing too. It's like, you know, like I think that there's, you know, um, you know, like being content with what the Lord has provided, though, right? Like, like that's one thing that I've had to rest on is like like the Lord has never, you know, left me hungry. He's never left me without clothing, without shelter. And it's like, why would he do that now? Right, you know what I mean? Now, some of those things, I might not be eating, you know, prime rib dinners every night. Not no, but if I have to eat a ramen noodle, I'm still being fed, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

That's right, amen.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Um, one thing though, to kind of curtail off of what you were saying there is like I I I also think, and I think we do a good job of this because our industry, and it's not just our industry, but like really more this the way that we specifically built our company is like entrepreneurs are welcome here.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Well, not only that, and that was the kind of the pivot question. So it's like, are we are we raising entrepreneurs or are we raising employees?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Exactly, dude.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Because there's two very, very different mindsets.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Exactly. Yes, there are. There are.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Okay. So we have we have we have employees, right? Yeah. They they clock in at eight, they clock out at five, and and they're and and if they're told to do a task, they do it because they're told to do it, but they don't really think about, you know, they're like robots. They don't really think about why they're doing it. We always talk about this though. We want to go, we want to have in our in our in our company here, we want to have an ownership mindset. We want we want everybody to own their own desk, to be the CEO of their own desk, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Within the boundaries, within the boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Within the boundaries of what we have here. But are we are we and how do we how do we raise entrepreneurs here?

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Well, and I think that's and that's a I've never you you know that's a good question. And I and I think like to me, I've never really like thought about how do I raise an entrepreneur? Um, I I I think of how do I how do I raise somebody to the point to where they can be self-sufficient and in in terms of not just in some things, but in all things, whether that's in surfacing candidates, negotiating contracts, putting a deal together? How can I get this person self-sufficient to where essentially they're just coming to me for, I don't know, hey Sean, can you get me a glass of water? I'm on the phone, right? Like how do we create, and and I think it's really the same mindset, right? But how do we how do we build people to become self-sufficient, productive individuals for themselves, their family, for the Lord, for the company? How do we, how do we get them to be self-sufficient? And and I think, you know, when you look at the entrepreneur spirit, like the actual spirit of that, right? Um, self-sufficiency is one of those. Like you cannot be a good entrepreneur and um fully depend on someone else to do your work.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Well, and I think you have to give them also, and I think the big thing is is giving them freedom to fail.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Oh, for sure, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

You have to give them freedom to fail, right? Um, we've talked about this before. When you're learning how to walk, you're falling down more than you're walking. Yeah. And you have to, you have to get those legs underneath you and understand about balance and all those other kind of things before you can really do it, do it really, really well. We can't hold you can't hold hands forever, right? You can't be um a helicopter boss, so to speak. But but there are but there are times when you know it's always good to have a second set of eyes or a second set of ears or a second set of whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Well, I'll just give you an example on that. Like, like, and I think that's a really good point because you know, um, one of our newer recruiters, and he's been grinding, he's been working hard, he embodies a solid rock spirit. And um we we had to we kind of switch him to a different industry because the industry he was in before just wasn't fruitful. And I went down to his desk yesterday in the afternoon and I knew he was working on this hot job. Just got a company signed up last Friday, found a guy on Monday by himself, found a guy, phone call on Tuesday, face to face, or is you know, it all happened fast. I didn't realize how fast it was moving. I was like, so hey, how's that going? He's like, Yeah, he's got an offer. And like, you know, new guys, like you are like, we'd like to be involved. And but dude, like he just embodied that spirit. And I just and I was there, like we closed the we officially closed the deal this morning at 8 a.m. But like he he had that wherewithal, didn't really know what the hell he was doing, but embodied that spirit of like I can do this and I'm and I'm like, I'm gonna let you like I let him make all the calls, but I was there, right? I was there in case like backup. But it was so cool seeing that. Now I told him, I said, hey bro, awesome job. Do that again and again and again. But anytime you get it to the finish line, just let me know so I can be there for some advice. And eventually you'll get off that, you'll get off that long leash. After about three or four more, you don't have to tell me, just send the invoice out, right? But it was so cool like seeing somebody who's never really been an entrepreneur, he's been in some sales to actually embody that spirit and just take hold of it. It was just incredible. And I'm gonna tell I'm gonna tell that story when we hang that deal this morning.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

That would be awesome. No, I mean, why, I mean, here's here's the thing though. Why what I mean, why do people see in your mind, why do see people see obstacles instead of opportunities? What what is it about the human psyche that just sees what what can possibly go wrong versus what could possibly go right?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah, well, I think a lot of this, I put a lot of thought into this, and I, you know, I've probably said this before in the podcast. Do you want to do you have a little more to add on to that?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

No, I'm no, I won't.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

So I, you know, I'm not one of those guys who reads all these leadership books. I probably should at some point in time. But one thing I've noticed within myself over doing this for 11 years now is is fear is uh fear is is crazy, right? Fear is, I think, at a lot of these things. And I always like to bring in, as you know, examples, okay? Examples. So we have a new guy who's marketing a candidate in Minnesota. We reach out to the same company six times in a row, email, text, voicemails, never really got anybody on the phone. And I'm not kidding you. This is two or three days, uh, two or three days ago. He came across that company again on his call plan. He's like, Well, should I call them? Because we've reached out to them so much. I'm like, yeah, until we hear a no or yes, like we're calling them. Not kidding you. And so I'm gonna articulate this. As he's on the phone, so he's calling, the HR manager picks up. She's like, hey, I just listened to, I was literally listening to Sean's voicemail. He sounds like a he sounds like a funny guy. We took a job order, sent out agreement, haven't got it signed. But here's the thing though. In that moment, he's thinking, man, we've reached out. I don't want to piss him off. I don't, I so to answer your question, I think fear is at the lot of this. I think like when you boil it down, there is fear associated, and fear is a natural thing. I think fear is a completely, I'm not saying it's a good thing, but fear is a natural, it's built into all of us, right? Like the Bible talks about that. You know, there's a like, like what's the verse? Uh I don't know the specific verse, but um, there's plenty of verses in the Bible where it says do not fear. Okay. Like, because the opposite of fear is trust is trust, trusting in the Lord. And um, so I think fear stops a lot of people. And this isn't like earth shattering, you know, human wisdom coming at you, but it is fear, man.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

That's that's what it is. It's all that's what it's all about. But I mean, great businesses, great recruiters, great entrepreneurs, just great people, period. They don't wait for opportunity. They go out and they grab it. And they really do prepare for it to happen. They're they're they're doing things right now to prepare when the opportunity presents itself to them and they're going out and they're grabbing it, right? We don't wait for we don't wait for job applications, we don't wait for resumes to come in, we don't do any of those things. We go out and we find the right, the right candidate, we grab that candidate, we talk to the candidate. And we know that what we do works.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

We know what we do works, and we trust in it, and we're gonna go after it. And right now we're we're building, right? We're always going to be building. Yeah, we're we're we're we're gonna, you know, but like it's like, man, I've reached out to that company, or I don't think, oh, I don't think this person's gonna be interested. I looked at them on LinkedIn, they've been at the same company for 20 years, they're a VP, they're probably happy. I'm not gonna call them.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

That's fear. No, call them, dude. Have a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Yeah, fear, fear can destroy, absolutely destroy businesses, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Well, even the culture, you know, we came from a place where it it appeared to me where the fear trickled down from the top. Yeah, and it was just all driven by fear. Everything was fear-based. And it's like, how's that working out?

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Might be good for the people at the top, the people at the bottom not working out very well.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Right. So I want to go back to kind of the theme that also separates us. We always talk about how this is a capitalistic company. I mean, that's we create opportunities for people. I mean, we create opportunities for people. We we are builders. We are builders, we are creators, we are visionaries. Right. So, what separates people who build businesses from people who are just simply consumers? People that just simply say, Well, I should take from that trillionaire and I should go educate um all the children out there in the country that need education or food or whatever. I should take that trillion dollars from someone that's earned it. I mean, what is that? What's the separation there from people that build those businesses from people that just want to grab and take and consume?

SPEAKER_00 22:07

You know, I would love to hear you answer your own question on this.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

I think it's what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I mean, I really do think it's what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

I mean, you don't have to be politically correct, just go at it. We have no fear.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

I mean, the bottom line is, I mean, we look at these, we we we look at we look at what's happening in some of the cities around the cities around the country where we're having literal democratic socialists say that we are going to we are going to um uh control the means of production, we're gonna control the where you live, we're gonna control what you eat, how you eat, how you get transported around the city, all these things. We're gonna we're gonna control those things, right? And the only people that get rich out of that situation is the people that are in government.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Bureaucrats, elected people, yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

They get rich out of the situation. That's why I love living in America. That's why I love a capitalistic society, because I can go out and I can make for myself and create for myself um the opportunities that I have. Now, I say myself, all glory goes to God, right? Number one, first and foremost. What separates me is that I have the belief that I, under God, can do better than what somebody else can do for me. And I and I believe that I love my family, I love my friends.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

No one's gonna, no one's gonna love your family like you, no one's gonna go out there and produce for them like you, no one's gonna uh, you know, do it in the way, right? No one's gonna do it in the way that you would.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Right. No, there's it, there's just no way. So I that's then and that's my mental what what separates me from a lot of other people is that I'm gonna I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna build something that I believe is really, really good for everybody in the world.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Well, and we're building a product here, aren't we? Are we not? We're building a product. We are, we're building a brand, we're building a product. And you know, like we just got one of the top recruiters from from a company in Sioux Falls, and multiple people have reached out to me, multiple people have reached out to them. They're like, wow, like what's going on over there? It's like because we are building the best product in our industry that I'm aware of. And if there's something better, I want to know about, I want to meet the owner because I want to learn. But we're building the best product out there right here in Hartford, South Dakota.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Right. I mean, and that's and that's awesome. So at the end of the day, maybe the greatest thing at America 250 that we can celebrate isn't our history, it's the opportunity that's still in front of us.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

And uh so with that, episode number 10 wraps. And I've to I'm told that we're in the top 1% of all podcast episodes in the whole world that ever happened by the producer here.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Wow, it must be true then.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

It must be true because I think he got it off of Google. Anyway, come back next time for this built on solid rock podcast. I'm John. This is Sean. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Peace.