Mike Riddle – Losing it All and Building it Back

The market just tanked, absolutely just tanked.

I had a client that just was was very unreasonable, ended up

suing me and I just I ran out of money and there was no jobs like

I couldn't build a doghouse for anybody.

But the advice of counsel. I had to shut my business down

and file for bankruptcy. I love what I do.

I feel like this is who I was called to be And and frankly,

it's really it's not necessarily building, although that's that's

how it's manifesting itself now. It's, it's just being the, the

type of person that I was called to be and it just happens to be

in this particular industry. Hey there and welcome to From

the Ground Up Show, the show where we inspire and encourage

free thinking leaders by telling the stories of those that have

been there, done that and are still getting it done.

People who have built a life that they love with their hands,

their heart and their hustle. I'm your host, Eric Loden, and

today I am joined by Mike Riddle.

Mike is a fellow graduate of Linfield College.

Go Wildcats. He began his career as an

elementary school teacher and now owns and runs Riddle

Construction, a custom home building company.

Mike is a husband and a father. So welcome, Mike.

Thank you for joining us on the show.

Thank you, Sir. Happy to be here.

Great. Well, we like to start off every

show just getting to know you a little bit.

And so we start clear at the beginning.

Can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up, how you

grew up? What was your childhood like?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Salem, We lived

out in the country and attended North Salem High School,

graduated from high school in 1993.

I played football and baseball there and had the opportunity to

continue my sports career into college.

And so I had, I really had kind of two choices to go to school

because my major was going to be athletic training and only two

schools in Oregon at the time, Oregon State and Lynnfield.

And I wasn't good enough to play baseball at or football at, at

Oregon State. So Lynnfield was was my easy

choice. So started there in 93 and

graduated in 97 with a degree in, in athletic training and as

well as all of my teaching credentials.

So as you mentioned, before I became an elementary school

teacher, I taught elementary PE. I did that for seven years.

And then I coached baseball at Mcminnville High School as well

as I was an athletic trainer there along with another,

another trainer friend. So great year, great, great

years of my life. I'd still be doing it if I could

afford to be a teacher, but had had a great time kind of working

with both levels of kids. You know, you have the young

kids in the morning and then the older kids in the afternoon.

And just really it was it was a love of mine to be able to give

back to to the kids of that community, just like people

poured into me when I was younger.

And, you know, getting started in the construction company was

not was never really part of my goal.

When I graduated from high school, I worked for a custom

home builder remodeler every summer and every break and

learned how to do, you know, foundations and framing and trim

carpentry and, you know, all hands on, not necessarily all

the thinking or ordering or anything like that, but it was I

learned how to do the work. And it was either the hottest

times of the year or the coldest times of the year.

So it wasn't something that I thought was I want to do this

the rest of my life, but it was good skills.

So when my wife, when my wife and I decided we want to have

kids, she said, Hey, I really want to stay home.

And she was a school teacher as well.

She taught 1st and 2nd grade and I said, OK, well, I better find

a second job. So what I decided was, Hey, I

know how to do physical labor and, and you know, fix things

like that on on a home. And So what I did is I started a

company back then. It was a different name of the

company and I started with my dad because he was retired and

you know, he had the start up funds for me and did a flip and

did another flip. And then finally, but I really

wanted to do new construction. That was my love.

And so I bought a lot, built the house.

I think the first house I built was like maybe in 2003 or

something like that. I started the company in 2002.

I finally built my first house in 2003.

And you know, here we are, gosh, almost 23 late years later and

have a completely different different business plan, a

different company, different life than I had ever thought

was, was even possible. Yeah, that's great.

I I can agree with you. We do not pay our teachers well

enough. I I think there's, there's two

types of teachers. There are great teachers that

don't get paid nearly well enough, and then there's crummy

teachers that get paid too much. Yeah, yeah, that's probably true

in every, every industry, but you know, it it is.

It is definitely a passion project.

The pay is okay. It's not great.

Certainly you're really not great for a you know to build a

family upon, but it is doable. Yeah, I know especially there in

Oregon, it's rough. We, we pay our teachers a little

bit better here in Wyoming and I, I still don't think it's

enough. But what was it that originally

LED you into teaching? What what got you on that career

path to start out with? Yeah, I think just the coaches

and the teachers that I had in high school really kind of

influenced me. I knew I always wanted to be a

coach of some some sort. A teacher wasn't necessarily

sure that's what I wanted because when I went into to

college, what I had went in for was effort of training, as I had

mentioned. And I, I soon realized that the

athletic training world, in order to make any kind of a, a

reasonable income, you had to kind of do it at the

professional level. So you had to work with a, you

know, a Blazers or the Dallas Cowboys or something like that,

where you're traveling all the time and, you know, hard to put

your roots down and raise a family.

And I quickly realized, you know, I just, that's not the

lifestyle that I was really looking for.

So I really enjoyed being coached and being taught when I

was, you know, in high school. Maybe I could do that.

So that's when I decided, I think my sophomore year, part

way through my sophomore year decided, well, I'm also going to

get all my teaching credentials alongside of my other degree.

And so it was kind of doing, you know, 2° at once.

But it, it, it gave me the ability to still do the athletic

training that I loved and be able to coach and teach.

And that that kind of came apparent to me in college when I

realized the lifestyle of being a professional, you know, being

on the road with a professional team was just not something I, I

desired. Yeah, awesome.

Was there a a particular teacher or coach that really inspired

you, really made a difference in your life?

Yeah, his name was Coach V as in Victor, but it stood for

Velutini, very Italian name and and Coach V was was an

inspiration to everybody at the high school.

He was the he was a football coach, but also the kind of the

weightlifting coach. And I would say it was probably

the summer of my 8th grade year, the head football coach came up

to me and said, you know, hey, Mike, how much do you weigh?

You know, how tall are you? And he said, Mike, your body is

going to really transform if you get yourself into the weight

room and you would just dedicate yourself to getting stronger.

I said, OK, no one ever said that before, but let's do it.

And coach B was the person who was actually in the weight room

teaching and he's, if you can kind of picture somebody who's

super intense, but can, can tell you that he loves you with

intensity unlike anybody else I've ever experienced in my

entire life. He was just, he was amazing.

And I always wanted to emulate the best parts of him.

I would never have the same personality or intensity that he

did, but he'll be able to take the the positive things that he

did and, and the love that he showed through discipline and

and and, you know, correction and, and use that in some other

form of, of, of a career. So yeah, coach value Tini would

be would be my inspiration. That's great.

I've always imagined maybe someday having a a second career

of being a part time teacher or a coach.

I think that would be fun, but I I don't know that that's going

to be in the cards for me so. Sure, sure.

Yeah. Well, tell me a little bit more

about starting your business. You said you really started out

with a vision to bring your wife home, allow her to stay home

with your kids instead of being in the workforce.

So how did that go? What steps did you take to get

your business off the ground and what did that look like?

Yeah, well, kind of a long road. And it was again, there was no

road map. No, nobody to say, hey, Mike,

you should try it this way. But when, when my wife told me

that she wanted that was her dreams to stay home, I was like,

OK, how are we going to figure this out?

Well, I need about this much money, which frankly at the time

was not that much money to be able to replace her salary.

I didn't need to do too much. But the concept would be is that

I would continue to work my, my full time job and then I would

do side projects, if you will, throughout the year.

And I knew that OK, well, I needed to, to make at least her

salary back to kind of keep us, to keep us even.

And so I started the business with my dad.

As I mentioned, it was called R-squared Properties back then.

So my last name is Riddle. So Riddle and Riddle made our

mate, mate. I did mate.

It made R-squared. And So what I would do is I

would teach all day and then I would drive to whatever job site

we were doing. So first, first job was in

Mcminnville, second job was in Mcminnville.

And then my third job, which was my new construction home was in

Lincoln City. So at the time I lived in

Perrydale, which is kind of out in the if, if anybody who knows

where we live, it's, it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere.

And it's like in between kind of Salem and Dallas and, and

Mcminnville. And then, so I would drive to

Newburg, which took me about 40 minutes or so.

I would teach all day. And then I would drive to

Lincoln City, which would take, you know, hour, 15 hour and 20

minutes, whatever. I'd work till, you know, however

long I needed to. I, I did a lot of self

performing, a lot of the pick up framing and trim carpentry and,

and painting and punch list and hanging stuff.

I'd work till, you know, late at night and I'd drive home and you

know, rinse and repeat. And so did that for a couple of

years. I built and sold that house.

I don't think I made any money, but I, I actually earned a lot

of educational credits on that one for sure.

So I, I probably made like 5 grand and everybody else made

money except for me, other than the education that, that I

earned. Then I bought two more lots and

built two more spec homes. And at that point I had sold

those and kind of the height of the market like 2004, 2005.

And I made more money on those two homes that I did like in

five years teaching salary. And it was just, it was a sign

like, gosh, I can, I can actually make a career out of

this. Like I don't have to do both the

rest of my life and just, you know, live on five or six hours

of sleep for forever. And so I made the decision that

I would, I would switch. However, I didn't make that

decision till June and I'd already signed my, my teaching

contract for the next year in, in March.

And I wanted to honor that, not leave on a bad foot.

So taught the whole another year.

And I had some other subdivisions in Dallas and

Mcminnville where I was building spec homes that went really well

for, for several years. And then, you know, made this,

made the transition, made the switch.

The last day of teaching was just heartbreaking for me 'cause

all the kids just love me. I love them.

It was just, it was, it was a really tough time 'cause it was

that that transition in life where you knew you were doing

some good things, but there was something better that was that

was taking your attention. So made that switch for a couple

years and then the market just tanked.

Absolutely just tanked. And it's not that I had a whole

lot of, you know, exposure didn't have a bunch of lots or

anything, but did have, did have one house.

And then I had a client that just was, was very unreasonable,

ended up suing me. And I, I just, I, I had ran out

of money and there was no jobs like I couldn't build a doghouse

for anybody. And so the advice of counsel, I

had to shut my business down and file for bankruptcy and I lost

everything. I lost 22 rental houses.

We lost our home. We got to keep our cars and my

guns and got. To keep the guns.

Got to keep the guns, we had to pay for our cars to keep the

cars and but we lost everything. We ended up living in rental

homes for several years. I ended up for about 3 years

worked with a group of guys out of Salem.

I was just having breakfast with my friend Rich Pansky at Green

Acres Landscaping and he said, hey, we're doing this work with

banks where we go in and you know, we cut grass and remove

trash and scoop poop out of toilets, pick up drug needles

and whatever on all the the homes throughout Oregon that the

banks are are foreclosing on. And do you want to do that?

I'm like, well, whatever it takes to feed my family.

So I did that for about 3 years and worked 6-7 days a week and

finally had the opportunity in in 2011 to restart my business

named it after myself, which I wouldn't do again, but but

anyways, that was the counsel I received as a kind of just name

it after yourself. That's easy.

Yeah, it is. So anyways, have the chance to

build a custom home in 2011 for some great people.

And then just things continued, You know, honestly, the Lord

just continued to to bless me with clients like I just, I just

couldn't believe it. So continued to grow from a team

of one, which was me and had another person to help me in the

office. And, and now we have, you know,

16 employees and, and we're covering a decent portion of, of

Oregon territory. Awesome.

Well, if you had the opportunity to rename your business, have

you put any thoughts into something other than Mike Riddle

Construction or Riddle Construction?

Yeah, I, I mean, gosh, hindsight's always 2020.

You know, I had, honestly, I had no, I had no dreams or ambitions

to create a, a, a bigger business with this many

employees and this much reach. It was more of just, I just

wanted to feed my family. And so I didn't even think about

the name as being really all that significant.

But as I, as I get older and I think about transition into

retirement, which is still a ways away, I'm only 50, but it

is something that you start to plan for, you know, 10-15 years

out that a a more transferable name or more benign name that

doesn't focus around me, it would have probably been easier

for that transition. So just recently added a brand

switch from Mike Riddle construction to just Riddle

construction, a little less emphasis on, on Mike and more

emphasis on the team and our process.

But you know, I could have come up with something like, you

know, Heritage or, you know, Nike or, you know, some other

kind of like name that doesn't have a person's name associated

with it. That would have been been pretty

cool. But I just wasn't thinking that

way because it was just like, I need to get business, I need to

start working. So this is easy.

Yeah, I, I own a commercial roofing company and we're called

Dave Loden Construction. My dad named it after himself.

And we still get calls everyday. People call in and want to talk

to Dave like, well, he, he's been retired for 11 years, so.

Yeah, yeah. And that's why I changed it to

to Riddle Construction because at some point, you know,

they'll, they'll, they won't, they don't know to call in and

talk to Mike, right. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, it sounds like things have

really blown up and grown in a big way.

You said when you started you didn't really have a, a vision

or an idea to grow it to the point that it is.

Was there a point where it really just kind of took off and

got some legs of the of its own or I mean, how has that growth

progressed over the last what, 13 years, 14 years?

Yeah, great question. It's been very interesting

because it's been somewhat steady probably from 2011 until

maybe like 2020 or so. Then COVID hit and which was

actually really scary at, at first.

It's like, man, what, what, what's going to happen?

But, but honestly, COVID was amazing for the construction

industry in, in a lot of different ways.

The one way in which it was, was beneficial to our business is

that we were not only doing custom homes, but we were doing

remodels. And so people had to live in

their homes more than they were used to living.

And they realized, gosh, this is too small, we're too cramped, or

I need a Home Office now because I have no office to go to.

And so there was lots of opportunities to, to remodel

homes for people because there there's just was no moving

around. Interest rates were high, there

wasn't as much inventory. That's still the case.

Thus remodeling is still great. But I would say one of the

biggest trajectories was about four years ago, I had the

opportunity to work with an architect and a client who I

knew, but not super well. We we went to the same church

together. We had kind of mutual friends.

We knew who each other were, but weren't really close.

And when they had met with this architect and wanted to build a

beach home on the Oregon Coast, the client had said, Hey, I, I

want Mike Griddle to at least have a shot at it.

They had already been talking to another contractor and the

architect was like, I don't think that's such a great idea.

He's from the valley. We should probably look at a

coastal builder. And so anyways, they, they

acquiesced and I put together a full presentation of how, of

costs and, and all those things and, and a binder and I met with

the architects and, and the clients and, and laid out

everything. And in the end they actually

chose the local contractor, even though I had construction

experience on the coast. I built three homes there.

They, they just liked his, He was more of a seasoned coastal

builder and they liked that as AI don't know safety blanket.

So I didn't get that job, but the architects were very

thankful for the amount of detail that I put in to the

estimate and the communication that I had with them during that

process. And when another job came up on

the Oregon coast, they said, Hey, we really think you should

talk to Mike. And so I met with those clients

and we were able to, to build them an amazing custom home on

the ocean. And it, it kind of just launched

just the, the, the, the coast. I don't know the division of our

company, I hadn't really planned on going to the coast, but Nesco

and Pacific City are like, you know, an hour, hour and 15

minutes away. So not not too far.

And you get the reception the whole way.

So anyways, and, and over there, it's pretty interesting because

a lot of the subdivisions we were, were working in were

higher end neighborhoods and they're pretty picky.

And if you, if you're able to just like answer the phone like

you're already in like it just that the bar was so low with a

lot of other people that they had tried to work with.

That I had a sign, I kept my job sites clean, I communicated well

with the, with the HOA and, and so that one person talked to

another person, talked to another person, and then

eventually it just continued to, to flourish in that neighborhood

as well as the relationship with that architect.

The architect was a coastal architect.

And so when they received another project, they came to

me. When I received another

opportunity, I, I took it to them.

So it was just mutual feeding each other type of a thing and

we're still very close and good friends today.

That's Capri Architecture and they're just a husband and wife

team that just amazing to work with.

That's interesting that I would not have expect expected there

to be so much difference between kind of the valley and the

coast. Like you said it, it's 40 miles

apart, but. Right.

Yeah, it and, and most of the homes that we're building are

maybe second or third homes. Occasionally we're building some

primary residences for people and they're usually on the

larger, more complicated luxury side, which is really fun 'cause

every project is unique. And every project it is unique

at the coast anyways because of topography and soil conditions.

And then of course, just the the wind and the rain and the salt

just corrodes everything. So there's just different

building practices. And so we've become an expert

and I've actually expanded our way up the coast.

So now we're, we're doing most of the Oregon coast right now

and, and able to, to service a lot of, a lot of clients up and

down the coast. Wow, that's great.

So in your process of building your business, when was the time

that you were most afraid? That's a great question.

I, I would say that I was most afraid to lose it when I had had

built, built up a little bit. What I thought was a successful

was paying the bills. My family was able to, I was

able to build ourselves a home. And I, I think I was most afraid

at the, the precipice of can you keep this company or not?

And whether or not this was something that I was really

meant to continue to do. Restarting the business was not

scary, you know, and 2011 when I restarted the very beginning, I

say I, I think was definitely scary because I was giving up a

very secure teaching job. I knew where my paycheck was

coming from every month. I'll be it not very much at

least knew that it was it was consistent.

Whereas now the money I was going to be receiving from the

construction side was going to be based on lots of different

factors, right? What what kind of project I

could do, how quick I could sell it, how quickly I could get

paid. And so that the cash flow game

was, was actually, you know, very scary.

And that's why I held on and was working stupid hours in order to

keep that comfort. So it wasn't as scary because I

knew I still had the comfort. And then whatever I made on top

of that was kind of gravy. So, but at the very, at the, at

the precipice of losing everything, I'd say was was the

scariest time. I know it's kind of maybe not

exactly answering that question, but that was the scariest part

of about running a business is like, wait, somebody can like be

mad at you and like just take your whole life away.

I was like, that's wow, OK, No one had ever said that before.

I may not. Maybe it wouldn't have signed up

for that had I known that. So that was probably the

scariest time. Yeah, yeah.

That is kind of terrifying when you realize how how fragile some

of those businesses are and and the situation you can get into.

So is there something really unique about your business or

your journey and building your business that you think sets you

apart from other home builders? You know, without, you know,

trying to sound conceited, it it, it really is.

I set up the business. It was around me, it was around

my my personality, it was around my work ethic, it was around my

integrity, it was around my values and core mission and all

of that. It wasn't necessarily around a

team because I didn't have a team.

And so the ability to communicate with people on a, a

very honest level and give them the information that they want

with full transparency, I think has been something that has set

me apart. I'm certainly not the only

builder who's transparent, but the, the honesty, the

transparency, the likability of, of my interactions with, with

clients has been, I think, something that has, has set me

apart. I, I feel like I'm very

personable and trustworthy. I, I give off that, that

impression and it's, it's genuine and true and, and most

people identify and can kind of smell a rat.

And it's been, it's been very difficult to try to replicate

that on into a scale. And so the creation of systems

and procedures of, of taking all of those things that I just

mentioned and teaching my team mates to be the same way.

And so hiring people that are as you know, as close to you as

possible, but with other skill sets that maybe you don't have.

Like certainly I can't do everything in the business and a

lot of my employees are younger and so they're very moldable and

shapeable. But, but to start off with, I

think it has been the willingness to go the distance

for the clients and knowing that giving a sense of security that

I have their back and then I'm going to do whatever it takes to

make it right and to do it right the first time.

But when things don't go well, which happens all the time in

construction, right, you own a roofing company, sometimes

things just don't go well. You're relying on people and

people are imperfect. You're relying on people to not

only make the materials that you're using that are imperfect,

but you're also relying on people to imperfect people to

install imperfect materials perfectly.

And that doesn't always, that doesn't always work well.

And so getting clients to fully trust that whatever it takes to

make it right, you will do that. That's not, that's not everybody

in the industry. I think people might talk that

way, but when you actually put your money where your mouth is,

that's something that I have have a, a strong reputation for

and will continue to for for the remainder of of, you know, my

involvement in the business anyways.

Yeah. Well, you, you kind of stepped

into my next question, but I'd like to expand on it a little

bit. I think a lot of construction

companies, probably companies in general, but I'm in the, the

construction world, you know, that initial company launch and

building it is very personality centric.

It's the, the owner is the touch point, you know, the crew runs

on their personality, their schedule, their work ethic, all

the things that you said. And so there's often kind of a a

delay or a the transition point in growing through a personality

centric business to a systems and a culture business.

So could you speak into maybe the the strategy, the approach

you mentioned, you know, the hiring people that are similar

to you hiring young people, training them well, is there

more to that strategy, that approach to help transition from

just your personality to a business where the whole culture

kind of exemplifies that personality that you built the

business on? Yeah, it's a great question.

All the things that you mentioned that I mentioned

before are are certainly true. But I think one of the hardest

things is that when you have built something that let's call

it your baby, you've built something that you're so proud

of and that you've worked so hard at, at creating a you've,

you've, you've built it from the ground up and it's super hard to

let go of. So I would say that humility and

and trust are essential to be able to, to, to grow and scale.

So in other words, having humility to say, hey, I am not

the only person in the world who can be good at this.

And I am also not the only person who can actually shepherd

this process to success. And I have to be able to trust,

but verify that that person who I am working with or a group of

people that I'm working with can follow the, the path and, and

still allowing for some, you know, uniqueness that, that they

have that they bring to the table.

So that, that trust and transparency is it is just

absolutely vital to do that. I tell you, it's been probably

one of the biggest struggles of my professional career is being

able to trust somebody else and then honestly pay for the

mistakes that other people make, right.

And so, you know, I, I kind of grew up where my dad would say,

if you want something done right, do it yourself, do it

yourself. And while that is true most of

the time, it's actually not true if you put the right people in

place and train them the way that you want them to be and

allow them to kind of grow and grow without the fear of

failure. So all of my employees have

known that if they make a mistake, I'm going to take care

of them. They may have to fix it, but I'm

going to pay the bill. It's not coming out of their

paycheck. And so that makes it, makes it,

it makes it more safe for them to grow and step out on a limb

and say, you know what, I'm going to make this call because

I, I've been trained. I, I feel like I know what the

right decision is. So I'm going to make the call.

And if it doesn't go right, I know that that Mike's going to

back me up and he's going to help me fix it versus, OK, if I

make a call and it's not right, I'm going to get fired.

And so therefore, I might, you know, hold my cards a little

closer. I might not make that call, I

might not grow. And so that has been a very

difficult decision, but an intentional decision to, to make

because it has cost me lots and lots of money as a business

owner. You know, it just people make

mistakes and it's, it's costly, but it also allows me to get to

levels that I would never be able to get to without myself or

by myself. I have a junior leader in our

organization that when he was relatively new with our company,

he made kind of a big mistake, was going to what was at the

time going to cost us quite a bit of money.

And he he very sheepishly came up to me after he made the

mistake to talk about it. And he goes, so am I fired?

Then I said, no, you just learned a valuable lesson and

you cost me a lot of money. I need you working here so you

can make that money back. And yeah, it's a good point.

And he has grown into one of our, like I said, kind of a

leader in our company. And that story's been told

across our company to almost everybody that's been hired, and

usually not by me. It's the other employees about

how we handle mistakes. And, you know, making mistakes

aren't a good thing, but Eric's going to take care of it and

we're going to, we're going to fix it and move on.

So I think that's a great thing. It is, it's a culture and it's a

choice. And, and there's some companies

that just choose not to have that culture and that's OK.

But I learned this when I was, you know, I learned it growing

up. This is just who I am.

You know, my, my faith teaches me that grace is important.

I have a lot of grace on my life.

So therefore I need to give grace to other people.

But I just a quick story. When I was working on a very

large custom home, this is during college when I was

working for that builder during the summer, I was cutting my

very first blue lamb bean and it was going to be a we, we hand

cut all of our roofs back then there was no trusses.

I mean there were, but we never used them and I cut completely

wrong. It was like going to be two

inches short. And you know, at the time I

thought that blue lamb bean might have cost 20,000 bucks.

I have no idea. You know, now that I know it was

probably a $500 bean, but the as soon as I cut it, my boss came

up to me and says, hey, Mike, you realize that you did this

and now we can't use this anymore.

I just felt awful. But he says, don't worry, we'll

get a new one. It'll be here tomorrow and we'll

cut it right And I'll show you how to do it.

And that, that level of grace just right without you, idiot,

or you this or you that just, I don't know, solidified in my

heart that that's how I wanted to be.

That was the culture I wanted to instill.

They never cussed at me. They never said bad words.

They never said, you know, you idiot.

And of course I made other mistakes.

That wasn't the only one. But.

That. Culture is just critical for

success. And actually probably about two

weeks ago, I got to talk to that man for the first time in

decades. And I told him how important

that was to the, to the, you know, the foundation of, of my

business and, and the culture that we have.

And he was just so honored and, and he should have been.

He he deserves all the honor for that.

That's great. I love that.

Yeah, we're all going to make mistakes and we're going to talk

about it. We're going to learn from it.

But you'd pick up the pieces and keep going.

That's right. Was there anything that

significantly delayed the growth of your company?

And if so, how would you have handled it differently?

That's a it's hard to necessarily pick one.

You know, most of the time the the lack of growth or the

stunting of growth is just due to pride or it's due to a lack

of vision. To be honest with you, I think

it's something to where I've always had the opinion and

philosophy that whatever is going to come my way, I'm going

to do the absolute very best I can with.

And I'm going to, I guess, receive the, the, the blessing

or the opportunity and then, you know, do what I can with it

versus saying, Hey, I'm going to still do that.

But I also want to be able to start thinking about, well,

what, what would it look like if we did this?

What would it look like if we had that?

And then through, as I mentioned, my faith, then

through prayer and listening and being being humbled to say, not,

you know, not my will, but yours.

I, I've had the opportunity and the thought process to say,

well, maybe we should do have a coastal division and a valley

division. Maybe we should be doing

remodels in both locations. Well, that means that I can't

stay the same size. So in order to to fulfill that

opportunity and to take advantage of those

opportunities, I was, I was forced to scale and I had felt

as if it was yesterday. The, the pain of not being able

to build a doghouse for anybody, like I mentioned before during

the Great Recession just was no construction work out there, at

least not on a huge, huge scale like like it had been for for so

many years. And so I'm saying no was like,

you just didn't do it. Like an opportunity came up, you

said yes. And so I've continued to have

that same hungry mentality, hungry for wanting to capture

opportunities, but but also being able to refine that to

where not everybody is a client and not every opportunity is a

good opportunity. And so it went from every

opportunity is an opportunity to where it's now every opportunity

is worth a a look over. And then we can decide which

one's going to be the best so that we can say yes to the

great. So we can say no to some good

ones. So we can say yes to the great

ones. Great.

So what in your business, what are the primary determining

factors between a great customer and an opportunity that you need

to pass on or a a great job? What what do you look for?

What is kind of your niche that makes a great project for you?

Yeah, it really all comes down to a relationship.

I don't care what the house looks like.

I don't care what your budget is.

It makes no difference to me. It it really matters about who

you are as people, how do you get how does the husband and

wife get along or the the spouses get along?

How do they fight? How do they get mad?

How do they communicate? And then how, how do I play?

How do I play into that? What are, what are my

personality traits and how do I like to communicate and, and

sharing those things openly and candidly with each other.

At the beginning of the process, they most of the time already

come to me with a knowledge that I am qualified.

OK, I'm qualified to build their home.

They've seen my Instagram page, Facebook, they've seen to my

socials, they've seen my website, they've talked to

friends, they've heard that what however they hear about me,

they're the qualification part is there.

They know that I can build their multi $1,000,000 home because

I've done it many, many, many times before.

What's really important is is that the person that I want to

be able to trust with my emotions, with my with my heart

and, and with my resources, and is that person going to protect

those things just as much as he was?

He would protect them for himself.

And so we talk about those things.

We talk about that just openly. It's kind of like, hey, let's,

can we just kind of like get over the first date?

We're just going to like speed date for this and we're just

going to get down to the just, you know, raw questions that

that we both really want to know.

And there's just no sense of beating around the Bush.

As I've matured in, in age and, and, and in business acumen, I

just realized that cut the fluff, right?

It's just don't just don't tell me anything that is just not

100% true because it's just not going to benefit you or me.

And so I'm just looking for clients who are who are open,

who are honest, who are forgiving, who are, who have

grace, who have that grace mentality, who want to be

involved in the process. But also be willing to trust me

and listen to my opinions because I've been doing it for

so long. You know, a lot of people are

building these, these, you know, large, expensive homes for the

first time in their life. Or maybe they've done some other

homes, but they may have not done one to this scale.

And so since I do this everyday, just like an attorney or ACPA or

whatever, we're going to them for their expertise.

And I, I, I want that mutual or that, that respect of them

understanding that I, I do have some, some knowledge to be able

to impart. But ultimately it's getting them

what they want and making sure that we're both on the same

page. And we, we have those

discussions upfront and sometimes.

What we typically do is we enter into a temporary agreement to

just work together to do feasibility.

So it's kind of like dating. And if the dating process

doesn't work, well, we're not going to get married.

And, and that's OK because it gives them the opportunity to

see if they like me and they like our our team and our

process. And it gives me the time to also

say that with just minimal commitment.

And then we know that when we're signing that final contract,

like, hey, man, we love each other.

We're going to do anything we can for each other.

And by the end of this thing, you know, you're going to be

calling me on holidays and you're going to be having me

come over for a drink or, you know, whatever.

Maybe not every week, but we're going to be friends.

We're going to be friends for a really long time.

And and when you need something again, or when your family needs

something, I'm I'm here. That is awesome.

I, I love hearing somebody that has that commitment to their

customers and the process. And I think, I guess I'm not in

the custom home building business, but in construction in

general, that's something I think is pretty rare.

Would you agree with that? I absolutely would agree with

it. It's been what I have built all

of the relationships on. Because if you remember back

when we were talking about teaching, well, I was teaching

all day, but I was, there were homes being built while I was

teaching. So every 5 minute break in

between, you know, Class 1 to Class 2, I would be on the

phone. OK, what do you need?

OK, OK, whatever it was, I'd be on the phone with the framer,

the plumber, the, the, you know, electrician or whatever.

It's like I've got to call you back.

I got kids coming in and I'd call them back, you know, 25

minutes later. And so it, it was the

opportunity where I had to, to rely on the expertise of, of the

trade professionals to help me and my goal.

And hopefully people don't, you know, cut this segment out and

use it inappropriately. But my goal is to make my trade

partners as much money as possible.

And that doesn't mean gouging. That means that they are making

a good living. So they will prioritize my

clients and therefore allow me to be able to provide not only

the best quality, but the best service and the best longevity

to whatever it is we're doing that, that, that is out there.

And that doesn't happen with me beating up my trade partners

for, you know, 5 bucks or 500 bucks.

It's like I need you to give me a fair price for you to be able

to make a good living and, and, and for you to prioritize my

clients, not your other clients, but my clients.

And so what's that price look like?

And my trade partners love me and I absolutely love them and I

can't do it without them and they can't do it without me.

So it's a very, you know, symbiotic relationship, I guess

might be the right word. But it's so critical that if

this is this business is not about sticks and bricks, it is

all about relationships, 100%. That is great.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I've, I've said for a long time

that the the best projects are good business for everybody.

The customer gets a great product, great service at a

reasonable price. Everybody involved makes a

reasonable profit, makes good money.

That's good business. Absolutely.

Win, win, win all around. That's that's what it has to be.

Yeah, perfect. What is something that you wish

you would have learned earlier? I think learning how to plan and

be more proactive versus reactive from the beginning.

I, you know, I entered the market, as I've mentioned, when

the market was very good and was very spoiled.

I, I just thought, gosh, you can, I mean, a dumb school

teacher builder, you know, can just can make, you know, $50,000

on a house. I didn't even hardly know what I

was doing. And so then this is easy and

it's always going to be this way.

So I think understanding the financial process of how the

construction industry works was something that I had no

experience in. I took zero classes of any

economics. The only partial economic class

I took in college and my master's was like intro to micro

econ and I had to beg the professor for his C minus.

I was just completely brain dead.

I didn't understand it. And, and now frankly, the the

finance portion of of the business and planning is, is

something that I really enjoy because it helps me make

decisions. And before it was just always

reactionary. It's like, OK, well, this

happens. OK, well, what's the best

decision I can make now? Well, I guess it's this.

And you know, it's still not a very good decision, but it's the

best one I can make. Whereas now we work as hard as

we can to make the decision ahead of time so that when the

situation comes up, we already know what to do.

We can get through it, get past it and move forward so that

we're looking out the windshield and not the rearview mirror.

That's a that's a good sound, boy sound bite right there

looking out the windshield. Is there an opinion you have

that has changed significantly as a result of your journey

building your business? Is there something that you

thought or maybe a group of people or an idea that you

judged unfairly early on and you've changed how you look at

that with more experience? Yeah, I, I think and it's, it's

changed, it changed quickly. You know, I grew up in, in an

era in which the blue collar trades were kind of like what

you did if you just weren't smart enough to go to college,

right. So if you didn't go to college,

you're kind of like a loser, right?

You're going to work at 711 or work at a gas station or, you

know, whatever it is you're going to do.

And the trades were looked at as, you know, a plan BC or D,

right? If you just couldn't get a get a

a great career job and I didn't know what I didn't know.

I was just a dumb kid and and as I as I got into the industry and

I actually spent more time and understood the craft that these

people do. They are far from being dumb.

They're frankly a lot smarter and more useful than any of the

degrees that I have. To be honest, if you ever were

to come to some of the homes that I build and look at the

geometry and the math that it takes to build the homes that we

do, it'll blow your mind, Absolutely blow your mind.

So I would say at the very beginning, I think that our, our

environment, our, our society taught people to not respect the

trades, not respect the blue collar.

And now it's like those are the most respect.

That's the most respect I have is somebody who can, can do

something with their mind and their hands at the same time.

And frankly, that's something AI is never going to be able to

replicate, no matter how smart it is.

I don't, I don't see, I don't see AI, you know, installing,

you know, a drain underneath my sink or, you know, framing a

shed in my backyard. Then they're just not going to

be able to do those kinds of things.

And so that's what I would say is probably the the biggest

thing is the the respect I have for people in the industry.

That's great. Sorry to go a little bit off

topic. I I saw a meme or a reel or

something online combining 2 of your stories here and it said oh

AI is coming for my job let's see AI drive 2 hours to a remote

job site just to cut a beam 1 foot short.

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Hey, listen, I mean, when I was

teaching and, and like I was telling you, in between classes,

I had one of those old, you know, Motorola flip phones and

then I and then I got a BlackBerry and I was like, Oh my

gosh, my world has changed. I don't have to push, you know,

the number 3 twice to get BI. Just it's just so much easier to

to type a text message. And you know, here we are.

Technology is amazing. When I my very first year in

college, we learned about this thing called.

E-mail in my e-mail. What's that?

And computers I'd heard of, but we've never really had one.

We just did typewriters. I'm really dating myself.

But but anyways, it was like I learned all about the Internet

and and of course, there's so much good in technology that

that is out there to be used. And of course there's a lot of

bad things that can be used for too.

But hey, listen, I use, I use ChatGPT for quite a few things.

It certainly is not going to replace any part of my business,

but it has allowed me to to be a little bit more efficient where

when I'm trying to research something, I'm not having to go

to 5 or 10 different places. I'm able to kind of use more of

a rifle approach worse than the shotgun approach.

Absolutely. But there's no question there's

good things about it. And I don't think anybody in the

trade industry is going to have anything to worry about.

I'm sure it'll take over a few things, but at some point.

But there's nothing like the, you know, the human hand and the

human brain. In your circle or maybe in

culture as a whole, do you see that shift happening widespread?

Because I'm with you. The generation I grew up in, it

was all go to college, go to college, go to college, you got

to get an education. And if you don't, those are the

kind of the second tier citizens.

Do you see that opinion shifting and culture as a whole or in

your circle anyway? Absolutely.

I think a shift to more, you know, trade specific or trade

centric learning or career technical education is what it

might be more of a, you know, common term has been a focus for

over a decade now. However, it it had been the

other way for so many decades. Let's let's consider that as

like the Titanic, you know, you don't turn the Titanic around

like a canoe. You know, it takes a long time

to turn that boat around. And so, you know, I've been

involved with a non profit for over a decade now where we work

with a high school kids and we work with a program that has

high school kids that where we build a house every year.

And we get people in the community to come together and

help donate, you know, as much as we can or whatever proceeds

we make when we sell that house, buys the lot, builds the house

for the next year. And so we're working on house

number 11 or 12 now. And that school that they go to

has 10 different programs. There's police, there's

filmmaking, there's auto body, there's there's manufacturing

and welding, there's like psychology behavior.

There's a whole bunch of different programs.

And to be honest with you, the graduation rate, it is

embarrassing compared to the rest of the graduation rate of

all of the other schools in Oregon.

So graduation rate at, at that particular school is like 94% or

something like that. And the average of on Oregon

high schools is like 70 something.

It's it's abysmal. But when kids can understand how

to apply that let's quote UN quote, stupid things that

they're learning in school, but they understand there's an

application for it and how that application can make my life

better or how it can make me money or how it can do this or

do that. It's like the light bulb goes

off and adults are realizing, and they have been realizing

that, hey, the people coming out of school don't have very many

skills, at least the skills that I need to, to, to make the, to

meet the demand that that we have.

And so boy, if we don't do something different, we're still

going to have the same problem. So yes, there is a big push.

There has been a push for a while.

There's going to continue to be a push.

I personally would, would love to see more of a, you know,

probably what a lot of schools in, you know, Europe and those

kinds do, where you have your, your education up to a certain

time and then you kind of help steer kids towards a career

path. And of course they can change,

you know, that that career within that school, but you

know, they're in high school, they're going to come out with

being able to then go right into becoming an electrician or being

a framer or being a architect or an engineer or whatever it might

be. I think that's the future of

education. I, I really do.

And I think there's, there's a, a, an employee employed.

There's, there's a company wide nationwide need by companies to

employ these types of, of critical thinkers and that's

kind of what they, you know, almost require now they're,

they're going to have the the leg up versus somebody who just

has a, a degree in philosophy or archaeology or whatever it might

be. That's great to hear.

I see similar things in our area.

And yeah, I've been preaching that for a long time, probably

20 years almost. I've been talking about the the

opportunity in the trade. I want to talk down on education

because there's there's a role for all of that too.

But this culture we had built of one track to success and that's

where everybody goes just isn't true.

There's a lot of opportunity out there and there's a lot of

people that are not built for higher education.

And, and some of the career tracks that that go towards that

are incredibly brilliant, talented, capable people.

And they would way rather be out on a job site than sitting in a

classroom. Absolutely.

And and to me, I don't see either.

One of them as being brighter than the other.

It's just it's, it's being used for, you know, they're using

their gifts for something that's really good.

And sometimes that's both and sometimes it's one and the

other. But you know, we all have a role

to play. And finding out that role as

young as possible is, is I think what we what we really should be

doing as society is helping people understand what they're

calling is and then supporting them to get there.

That's great. I can't agree.

More so, have you ever made a beneficial.

Mistake. Sometime when you really screwed

up, it hurt you at the time, but in the long run it led to a

valuable lesson or really ended up helping you grow.

Yeah, absolutely, I think. As I mentioned before, I I

wanted to be upfront with clients that hey, I'm going to

do whatever it takes to to make things right.

Well, that's easy to say, OK. But when something happens that

is has a lot of dollar signs behind it, then it's going to

test. Whether or not you really

believe. What you're saying and you're

willing to put your money where your mouth is.

So I've had multiple opportunities where, you know,

I've had to make things right. I've had to eat it, if you will.

And, and frankly, we, we have a, a large amount of that every

year because we want to make sure that we do the, the, the

right thing every time. And sometimes things in

construction just happen. That's really nobody's fault.

But ultimately I'm the general, I am the person in charge.

And so if something happens, I'm the one who's going to be able

to, to, to take the, the heat for it.

And so I believe that wholeheartedly.

I've had opportunities where I've had to go and, and take a

$50,000 bath where I had to say, Hey, listen, we screwed up.

And here's what I want. I want to be able to, to lighten

this load because I want us to be friends.

I still want to be able to do projects for you in the past and

would, would, would reducing this amount allow you to feel

good about this relationship for so that we can move forward?

And he said yes. And there's been other times

where I haven't even had to have that conversation.

I just do it. The clients find out about it

and they're just like, Mike, thank you for doing that.

I'm like, are you kidding? That's, that's just what we do.

That that's I, I wouldn't even think about it any other way.

So we do the right thing every time.

Now, sometimes we get it wrong, right.

It's not intentional, but what we're always going to get to the

to the right way every time. And I think that's just

something that is something that's part of our DNA.

It's part of our part of our culture.

All of my guys know that that we do that and, and gals, of

course, this is this is who we are and this is how we do it.

Now, obviously we try to do as little as possible, but

ultimately that's the the money part is, is further on down the

line of importance versus the, you know, the honesty and

integrity that that we we gain from doing the right thing.

Yeah, I've found that. The.

Customers on some of my projects that went the most sideways had

the most problems, or like you said, that ended up eating a

mistake on the largest amounts. Often those have come back to

be. My.

Best customers. They're my my rating reviews.

They're the ones that go out and tell all their friends.

Have you found that to be true as well?

Absolutely. Maybe not every.

In every case. But yeah, absolutely.

And the reason this is because they, they respect somebody who

is willing to do whatever it takes to do the right thing,

right? Regardless.

And this is the definition of integrity, right?

Regardless of, of, of who's watching or how it looks or how

it hurts. That's, I think a lot of people

really appreciate that. They want to, to, to be around

people like that. They want to do business with

people like that. And it it's definitely something

I've experienced that's great. So if you could go back to the

beginning. 2011 launching Riddle Construction.

Would you choose to do it all over again?

Absolutely. I would in a heartbeat.

You know, people have asked me that.

I've thought about other, other things that I would want to do.

And, you know, there's maybe a few things that I think would be

kind of fun. I would, I, I would love to own

a restaurant or be a bartender because I like people and I, and

I like being with people in fun situations, you know, where

they're happy and enjoying themselves.

And, but they clearly, but neither one of those things are,

are really part of my skill set nor from what I understand, are,

you know, financially wise to just start it and go, unless

you're willing to take some, some, some big hits.

But no, I really wouldn't. I, I love what I do.

I feel like this is who I was called to be.

And, and frankly, it's really, it's not necessarily building,

although that's, that's how it's manifesting itself now.

It's, it's just being the, the type of person that I was called

to be and it just happens to be in this particular industry.

But if I was pulled out of this industry and moved to a

different industry, I, I would do things the very similar,

obviously with just some different nuances.

But but no, I love what I do. I love being creative, I love

being social. I love communicating.

I love building teams, I love building people.

I I love helping people spend an.

Enormous amount of money. And have fun doing it right.

And I love, I love doing that because that's, that is

something that they, most people don't get to do very often.

And then who wants to spend, you know, 2 to $10 million with this

$20 million and not have fun doing it?

And that's crazy. No one would, would ever like

sign up for that. And so I I love being a part of

experience with with people where I get to to use my and my

team's specialty to help make dreams come true.

Man, you've got me all. Jealous I've I've.

Said for a long time if I ever end up with a second career, I

want to sell something that people are excited to buy as as

a roofer, maybe I need to take some lessons from you maybe I'm

just not good at it enough but it's very rare that I have a

customer that's excited to write me a check yeah, I I hear it and

that's, you know to be honest if that's.

Probably any singular trade other than maybe somebody who

creates A vase or some, you know, some kind of a cool

product. But but boy, without the roof, I

mean, what? What good is anything else,

right? So yeah, well, but that's The

thing is especially. We do mostly commercials, so

it's not even a big visual appeal.

Like most of our roofs are flat out of sight.

You can't see them and the customer hires us because they

have to, never because they want to.

And, you know, we take good care of them, we give them good

service, but writing that check is like pulling teeth.

So I've always said in my next career, I want to sell something

fun. I want to sell 4 Wheelers or

speed boats or something. There you go.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

You know. I think honestly knowing,

knowing your strengths are are really important and you know

frankly it could be roofing, it could be plumbing supplies, it

could be 4 Wheelers, it could be whatever.

And I think finding your purpose, yeah.

And whatever it is, it's selling 4 Wheelers or roofing is no more

or less glamorous. It's just, you know, where are

you, where you're supposed to be right now.

That's good advice, yeah. What has been your?

Biggest win? As a leader or as a business

owner? I think one of the biggest wins.

That I have is when I can watch my team come together as a team

and solve problems using the experience and the tools that

they've been given to do the right thing, make a situation

right or, or or do whatever. And I'm, and it's not always

retroactive where there was a mistake, but it's also making

plans to be successful ahead of time.

And one of the things I, I find most rewarding if I'm answering

your question, question right, is being able to see the fruit

of what I have worked, you know, very hard to create actually,

you know, come to fruition. And I'm just so proud of, of

the, of the team that I have. They're just solid humans, every

single one of them. And we continue to receive

opportunities to, to hire, you know, and partner with, with new

people. And, and a lot of the times,

Eric, I don't even look for them.

They just, they find me. And it's just like, I had one

guy just come into the office and said, how do I come to work

for you? I'm like, what, who does that?

And we get to, to know him. And we're just like, how do we

hire you? It's, it's, it's just so cool to

be able to, to be a part of, of something to where you, you get

to put something in place. You get to see the fruit.

Not always do you get to do that.

Sometimes it's sometimes you're the person cultivating the soil.

Sometimes you're the person planting.

Sometimes you're the person watering.

Sometimes you're the harvester. And so it is fun to be able to,

to have multiple opportunities to see, to see growth.

I think the. The best leaders that I've

interviewed When? I asked that question, none of

them ever talk about their success or financial success.

They talk about their team and their people.

And I, I can tell you have a real passion for the people that

work for you and, and your team. What has been a secret to, I

guess now you kind of have a culture that, like you said,

just attracts those people. But do you have a secret for how

you started out? How do you find people that fit

your culture and help you build that business that you're

excited about your people? Yeah, great question.

I I think. First you have to know what

you're looking for. So what type of person am I

looking for? What are the skill sets?

What are the personality traits, both positive and negative?

So knowing what I'm looking for, it is is really critical because

it's kind of like my bumpers. It's my guy rails.

It's whatever. So that I'm not, you know,

looking up over here, it's like I was a really nice gal or

really nice guy. You know, their resume is great,

but you know, they just didn't mark three or four of these

other boxes like, you know, being personable or being humble

or being thoughtful or being a good speller, you know, things

like that, You know, being being a teacher.

I, I, I razz my team all the time when I see spelling

mistakes. I, I make sure that they know it

and, and they're very embarrassed.

So they, they, they make very few spelling mistakes.

But I think in addition, it's creating a, a sense of, of unity

amongst the, the teammates so that when you are looking for

somebody else, you're looking for somebody else who wants to

be able to come into an environment that's like that.

So it's creating an environment that you want and then looking

for people who not only have the skills, but have the desire to

enter in that to that type of community.

Because there could be some, some people with skills that

that could definitely do the job, but they might not have

the, the temperament, They might not have the personality to be

able to, to fit into the culture.

And that's really critical. So knowing what you want is, is

the first thing. And then to be honest, it's

really just getting the word out through your inner circle,

whether that be, you know, social media, it might be, you

know, your church, or it could be, you know, I don't want to

say like Craigslist or anything, but, you know, just just getting

stuff out there, you know, doing stuff like Indeed and things

like that. Whereas the big corporate stuff,

I've just found that to be have a lack of fruit.

I'm looking for personal recommendations of people who

know our business and feel like that person would be a good fit.

OK. Thank you.

Yeah. What has been your best?

Resource. To grow as a leader.

Do you have an an author, a book, a podcast, something that

has really helped you grow? Yeah, I I mean, I tell you what.

Helps me to grow the most. Is, you know, is my faith so

leaning into it, leaning into the word.

But if I had to use, you know, two other kinds is, is

definitely people. There are people mentors in in

my life. They've been different stages of

my life that have been able to, you know, there's been some a

person who could help me to grow into this stage of my life.

And then another person came into my life that helped me grow

through this stage and so on and so forth, those relationships.

Are are critical because you're getting.

To see eyeball to eyeball to another person.

And that person typically has kind of been there, done that.

Maybe not even the same exact situations, but they have such

an objective piece about them that they could just truly just

talk into your life without having to, you know, feel

anything else per SE. Have anything else weight them

down and have to feel obligated to say this because they're your

cousin or because they, they're financially, you know, a

fiduciary to you or something? Some, some books that I love.

I'm there's so many good books and I get into every single one

of them. But one of the books that I make

every single one of my employees read, it's it's mandatory.

It's called the Ideal Player and it's by the guys.

Guys last name is Lincione, or I think that's how you pronounce

it. Pat Yeah, Patrick.

So the premise of the of the three.

Things about the book that I love the most, and this is

something that we talk about at all of our team meetings, we

talk about on some of our trade partner meetings is being

hungry, humble and smart. And so it's it's hungry to

always learn. It's hungry to get better.

It's hungry to be the best that you can.

It's humble knowing that you can't do it yourself.

You don't know, you don't know everything.

You need other people, you need mentors, you need instruction.

And then smart is not book smart.

It's not that it couldn't be part of it.

It's really about people smart. It's being able to read the

room. It's being able to understand

when you need to, to give bad news, bad news fast and when you

need to maybe ratchet it back a little bit and wait for a better

opportunity when you know this or that might might need to

occur. So those, that book is really so

critical and those are the types of people that I'm looking for.

And if, if those, if, if you, you don't have those three

things, or at least it's not something that you're striving

for that you don't, you don't ever arrive.

Nobody arrives that they're, they're perfectly humble,

they're perfectly hungry and smart.

But if that, if that resonates with them, I think that's huge.

So that's that, that that book is really helped transform.

It's, it's at least one thing that I can say, you know, of

course, how to win friends and influence people.

It's an amazing book. There's, there's so many good

ones. The EOS, you know, what the heck

is EOS? There's somebody really good

books that I like for not only self help but organization

because these are things that I just didn't learn in school or

if I did, they just went right over my head because I saw no

application like my soccer year in high school taking geometry

and like man, what a waste of time.

And now I build houses with geometry every day.

And as soon as I realized that, it's like, man, I love geometry.

How come I didn't like that more?

So we had a guest on a couple weeks ago.

He. Was a former MARSOC Marine, and

he said that he hated math in high school.

And then he joined the Marines and they taught him that you can

weaponize math. It's artillery, long distance

shooting, it's all math. And he got excited about math

once he found out you can use it for war.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and I I love math.

Now, it was one of my hardest subjects, but I realized what

math does is it helps me to make good decisions that then help

with other parts of my life, not necessarily just financial, but

they can help in, in many other ways.

And so math has become real and there's a real application to

it. I'm trying to teach that to my

kids too. And, you know, try to get them

to pay the bill and do the do the appropriate amount of tip

and get them to understand that you can make good decisions,

which will help make you be more successful in so many different

ways. So good stuff.

Well, I know. You've been through some hard

stuff. You started a business from

scratch twice, transitioned from a white collar teaching career

to blue collar construction, and even experienced bankruptcy and

a failed business. What gives you the motivation to

keep going when things get hard that's so good?

It's. Again, it comes back to to #1 my

faith. I.

I just know that that no matter what, I'm loved, I'm saved and,

you know, I'm protected in in a certain way.

You know, one of my favorite sayings is, you know,

considerate, pure joy, my brothers, when you experience,

you know, pain and affliction because it it creates

perseverance and perseverance creates other other good things.

I mean, it's obviously a paraphrase, but I, I, I, I

wouldn't say that I relish challenge and pain and, and, and

conflict and those kinds of things.

But as I have matured not only in life but, but through

business, I've realized that those are the opportunities in

which I grow the most. Those are the opportunities in

which I have actually gained the most traction.

I've gained the most knowledge, I've gained the most insight,

I've gained the most, you know, experience of, of whatever the

feelings were. And, you know, the, the going

through some of those afflictions that you mentioned,

you know, losing my home. It is the most embarrassing

thing. Eric, you can.

You know, I had to go to the bankruptcy court and it's like

the client was there saying how much they hated me.

And the judge was, you know, saying, OK, you've lost

everything. Just so you know, I had four

kids to support and a wife. And it was just so like the low,

it was a very big low. And I can tell you to this day,

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I am the man, the husband, the, the father, the, the business

owner and the person I am today because of the, the hardships

that I've gone through. And while I certainly don't want

to do that again, I do know that that hardships create things of

beauty in my life. And so I, I wouldn't say that I

ask for them everyday, but I certainly know that I, I know

who's going to help me through it and that that is very

comforting to know. That's great.

That's something I. Struggle with a.

Lot is I look at my own life and the times that I grew the most,

the the times that I matured the most, the times that I was

closest to my Savior were the most difficult times in life.

And so I think about as I, as I pray for my kids and think about

what I hope for them in their future, Man, I, I don't ever

want to hope hardship on my kids or pray for hardship, but I also

don't want to them to live a life without the opportunity to

experience the peace that you can have during hardship, the

the maturity, the growth, the development that comes with

that. And so it's kind of this, yeah,

I'm with you. I I don't ever hope for

hardship, but there's a part of me that kind of longs for that

development, that growth that comes through it.

Yeah. And I think that takes that

takes maturity over. Time because when it when it

happens for the first time, you're just like, what the heck,

just hit me. It just got hit with a head with

a hammer. But as, as time progresses and

you mature in, in your, your walk in life and walk in faith

is that you just start to know that you know that you know that

you know, and and it becomes where it's like, OK, I recognize

that here we go, we're in a season here we go.

It's a render attack. But you know what, Lord, you got

this. And so I'm here.

Tell me what you need me to do. And I'm and I'm willing to do

it. But yeah, praying for, praying

over our kids every day is, is so, is so huge.

And getting them to understand that not giving them a cheat

code, you know, to get out of it 'cause there's that, that

doesn't work. But letting you know it will

happen. And when it does, here's some

things that you can do that to help get you through it.

But I understand that the end goal is always this.

Yeah. And it's grow through it.

I. Know I have AI, have a friend I

meet with weekly to pray together and we were sharing

some stuff a couple weeks ago and I said you know right now I

have 5 problems in front of me that five years ago any one of

those problems would have been almost debilitating and now I

call it Tuesday like Amen brother, Amen and and you.

Know, Eric, people, just people that that haven't been, you

know, through a lot of the things or don't own a business

or or haven't owed to something I or been a part of something to

where you you have this exposure all the time.

You just you, you, you can't get it and you would never expect

them to get it. But boy, I calling it I say that

all the time. It's like, yeah, it's just like

every other day. It's you know, it's not always

that that dramatic, but but you're right.

And I think that that that part is so fun when you can actually

retrospectively go, man, two years ago, like I would have

been, you know, so scared. I've been on my knees.

I would have been, you know, just like scared in a corner and

running and doing anything I can do to kind of get away from it.

And now it's just like I've come a long ways.

And thank you, Lord, for that. That's great.

Well, that. Is a great segue.

Into my favorite question, it's apparent talking with you,

you're a Jesus follower. Can you tell us a little bit

about that and how that has shaped your journey, building

your business and shaped your growth as a leader?

Yeah, I. I would say that I grew up in a

Christian household. You know, I was, I was saved as

a young person in the you know, I don't mid 80s.

I was like 12 or something like that.

And, you know, I always went to church and, and I just, I knew

that was kind of my foundation. My parents just did, we went to

church every Sunday. It's just what we did.

And I didn't necessarily always, you know, have a have a deep

love for the Lord and, you know, follow, follow him in every

single aspect of my life from the time I was little till till

till now. But I, I can tell you that as

my, as my life progressed from one thing to the other, that

that foundation, that solid rock, I always felt it as a

presence in my life. I have a tattoo on my arm and

it's, it's a cross. And at the bottom of the crosses

is roots. And those roots is entangled in

those roots. Is, is, is a verse of Proverbs

where, where it basically talks about teach a child in the way

that they would go and when they're and when they're old,

they will never waver. And, and that is something to

where as a parent, it has been so critical for me to help my

kids understand that no matter what you do, where you go, how

you perform, how you win, how you fail, God will never leave

you. He will never forsake you.

He will always be there for you, but he is a gentleman and he

will not force that upon you. You have to be able to connect

to him in this world. He created you for relationship,

not only with him, but he created you for relationship

with each other. And so if you, if you're not

having good relationships with others, it might mean that

you're not having a good relationship with him.

If you're having a great relationship with him, you, you

probably are having good relationships with others.

And so it's always being connected and, and rooted in, in

the word and rooted in, in your faith and fellowship with others

who, who think the same. Not always because of course you

want to evangelize and, and be with as many people as we can.

But those are things that I would say are, are so critical

is, is teach a child the way they should go in.

And when they're old, they will never waver.

And doesn't mean that the roads perfect, smooth and always

escalating up. There's going to be hills and

valleys and low times and high times and lots of bumps and

potholes. But ultimately it it is it is

part of the journey. And with a a for sure

destination, Yeah, Jesus says pick up.

Your cross and follow. Me not hop on the escalator.

That's right. Amen.

Amen. All right.

Well, you mentioned. Earlier that.

You've kind of gone through a name change recently.

You're starting to think 10-15 years down.

The road towards. Retirement.

So what is next for you and what's in your mind as far as an

exit plan? Yeah, it's a good question,

obviously. You know, man picks his or

chooses his way, but the Lord directs his paths.

I I think if I am planning out my future.

What I am really? Working on right now in this

part of my my career is working more on the business than I am

in the business. So it's creating, you know,

higher level teams that can be doing some of the things that I

used to do. It's creating processes and

systems and metrics that we can that we can follow and incentive

programs based on those metrics. So it's creating a, a system of,

of, of how we do business at our culture.

And then of course, there's all, all the nuts and bolts about

how, you know, what do we do when we do a standard soffit?

What, what is the, what is the Riddle construction way?

How do we do that? So we have that kind of a

document to where if I had you come over and be one of my

superintendents, I could give you that document.

You would know that. OK, well, we don't, we don't

put, you know, 2 joints together of soffit and just caulk it and

smear it. We always use a metal, a metal

connection piece so that it's clean and crisp and you know,

stuff like that, right? Or we, we always insulate all of

our interior walls no matter what it's, we do, it's just what

we do. It's a standard.

So it's creating things like that where it's so hard to, to,

to think about the business from a, from a 50,000 foot view when

you're the one swinging the hammer.

Are you 'cause I used to do that.

I used to pouch up and gosh, I'd set up a foundation wall.

I'd put up one board, I'd be on a phone call for 10 minutes and

I'd set up the other board and I'd be on the phone call and

then, oh, shoot, I did that wrong.

I forgot where I was. I missed the measurement.

And so it, it is, it's critical for not critical, but it's,

it's, it's what I'm trying to. Do now is.

Look at how I want to lead my team for the future so that it

means less of me and more of how the system works so that I can

actually focus on things that I'm really good at.

But I haven't necessarily had as much freedom to do because I've

always been busy doing all the rest of the things.

And that is just develop relationships amongst my own

team, but then develop relationships in the community.

It's networking. It's, it's really being the

person of the, the face of the company when, when you go out

and I actually can meet with the clients and instill in them who

we are as a company. And then when my team comes in

behind me, they're just like, who was Mike again?

Because it's, it's just so seamless, right?

It's, it's just a seamless transition from me to them.

And then eventually that person who does what I said I was going

to do is somebody else or a multitude of people who can

actually do that. And it doesn't have to be me.

And I never wanted to be about me.

So in the future, I see myself doing more of, of becoming an

advisory role at some point. I've also started another

business where we do kind of maintenance and concierge for a

lot of our clients. So if they, you know, need their

fridge stocked or their windows washed or their furniture out or

the BBQ cleaned or whatever, just just for our clients that

that sign up for this concierge service.

And that might be something that I decided to kind of keep in the

future. It's it's also a CRM tool to

kind of retain our clients. And then if there's other

clients that we get that we didn't build their house, then

if there's issues that we need to fix, fix something, then it,

it's going right back to rental construction for a remodel.

So maybe I'd do something like that.

I've also thought about becoming a, an owner's Rep to where I

know how to put together teams. And I am very involved in the

Home Builders Association. I'm the actual, the state

president of the Oregon Home Builders Association and I'm on

the leadership council and some committees for the National

Association of Home Builders. And so have a, just a, a broad

network of executive officers throughout the country where

hey, you know, such and such in, in Wyoming, who is, who's the

best roofer, who's the best builder actually in, in this

area for this type of home? And then I would network with

that builder and we would bring in architects and interior

designers. And then I would be the person

that would be kind of the, the glue that holds everybody

together so that the homeowner doesn't have to talk and do all

that work themselves. They can, they can just trust

that one person to look out for them and to make sure they have

their back and who they're not necessarily, you know, in

contract with to build the house they're in the contract with to,

to look after their, their needs.

So that would involve some travelling, which we can take my

wife, we've been married 27 years now as of last week.

And you know, we can do some travelling.

Yeah, thank you. We can do some.

Travelling and you know. Get to see different parts of

the country, get to meet new people, put together teams and

just celebrate. What's so awesome about what we

do? It's I'm not the only person in

this, in this country who can build a custom home.

I'm just one of many and wouldn't even consider myself

the best by any means. But I, I love what I do and

would love to, to help, you know, other people in the future

kind of navigate that process when they don't know anybody in

Austin or the Hamptons or Vale or McCall or, you know,

whatever. So who knows, we'll see where

the Lord leads me. I'm excited, whatever it looks

like, you know, I have 4 kids and, and eventually we'll have

grandkids, God willing. And obviously they're going to

be, you know, spread out all over the country based on what

they do. And so that will be kind of fun

to travel and see them. And I don't know, it's, it's a

ways out. So I can only kind of dream and

start to somewhat plan that way. OK.

Are any of your kids? Currently involved in your

business or do they have any ambition to join?

No, they don't. I.

They, they are part of the social media team.

So they do, they do help with that.

But you know, one of them is a senior in college, one of them

is a sophomore in college. They're doing completely

different. Has nothing to do with my

business, my senior in high school, nothing, not necessarily

I think anything to do with with the business, maybe marketing,

photography type stuff. So who knows, maybe there's a

Segway there. And my son is, you know, an

eighth grader He has, he has no idea about anything, right?

He's just, he's just living the dream and he's had three sisters

to do and his mom to do most things for him.

So he's not thinking too far out ahead on what he might want to

do, but hasn't shown any kind of desire to be part of the

industry, which which is totally fine.

I, I don't have any ego or if they want to be, of course I

would welcome them, but it's not it's not a requirement by any

means. It's just a lot of the, the

lessons that this business would, would, would they would

learn, I would want them to know.

And that doesn't mean they have to work here to do that.

Yeah, that can always change too.

I. Know I I started working for my

dad and my business wow. I mean, when I was born,

basically, but I came on the team full time on payroll, doing

a full time real job during the summer when I was 16.

And from the time I was 16 till I was a junior in college, this

was the last thing I was going to do.

Yeah, as an adult career. And.

When my senior year of college came around and I had to

actually start figuring out what I was going to do, I figured out

maybe there was a difference between somebody that ran a

roofing company and just high school or college kid working on

a roofing crew. And the the job I was doing was

maybe not the job I wanted to do, but I could still do it in

the same organization. So sure.

That's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. Is there anybody that you would?

Like to see on. The show somebody you know that

has a really cool story, maybe has a unique business or is it

in a unique industry that you'd like to learn more about?

Yeah, I think that's that's an interesting question.

I would need to probably get back to you and there's so many

people that I know that would would be great, you know, on

this, on this type of show. Probably have to get back to you

on that one, Eric. OK, well I will follow up

because. We're always looking for unique

and cool stories to tell on the show.

OK, all right, we're getting close to the end.

My last question to either settle or fuel the debate, if

you have a job to do, which cordless tool brand do you

prefer? I would say DeWalt.

It's just something that I've used.

You know, forever I've had experience with with Milwaukee

and they're fine too, but Dewalt's kind of always been my

go to. All right, well, chalk one more

up for. DeWalt so.

Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us.

It has been a pleasure getting to know you and chatting with

you, having you on the show. I appreciate you taking the time

and joining us. And for all of you listeners out

there, thank you for joining us here on From the Ground Up Show.

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