Ty Cobb Backer: 0:00

And we're live. Welcome back everybody to Behind the Tool Belt. Today is episode 237. We have another special guest. Stay tuned. We will be back after a short intro from our sponsors. Tc Backer. Tc Backer. Loop inside and windows gutter solar Loop inside and windows gutter solar TC Backer. Tc Backer. My name's Ty Backer. The name of the podcast is called Behind a Tool Belt. Thank God, this isn't live, or is it? You assholes? Go live. We might be here for a while. So buckle down, welcome back. Everybody, sit back, relax, enjoy your lunch.

Ty Cobb Backer: 0:53

I got another great uh guest today, david gatto from future solutions fencing and outdoors. My friend know, david, for a couple of few years now and you were on the show back down at the other studio. Yes, down there back when we were still kind of figuring out we still are trying to figure this thing out and since then we've switched times around. We've kind of switched the studio up here to the new office, that way I can kind of. And Vic isn't held hostage on Wednesday nights anymore either, so it's kind of during normal business hours, so it's kind of like a part of the work day now. Yes, and so it's cool. Thank you for for coming on and carving out some time.

Ty Cobb Backer: 1:34

I know you're a busy guy. I know you're very successful with in life, with in, with family, with business, and and and from the looks of it, you're probably one of the most wealthiest people I know. And what I mean by wealthy is because I know you have a loving wife and loving children, and that's how we kind of measure our wealth, our success. Today it's kind of giving me goosebumps, because I know your story, I know where you come from and I know you haven't forgotten where you came from and the impact that you're trying to have on our local community, which is awesome, and we kind of feed off each other.

Ty Cobb Backer: 2:07

We don't talk all the time, but but like we both inspire each other, cause you'll shoot me a message every now and then like dude, you're crushing it and you know and thank you for that, and I'm guilty of not doing that as much as I probably should, but but I know that that you're inspired, but what? By what we do. And I know we're inspired by what it is that you do over there, whether it's Toys for Tots I know you do that Cold Plunge Challenge, man. Like you're in it, it's like you're having fun and it's cool to watch you and your team actually having fun even during normal business hours. You guys are just freaking, crushing it. So why don't you? You know we can talk about whatever we want to talk about, but if you just want to give our viewers and listeners maybe a little little brief, you know who David Gatto is, what you're doing today and and maybe what the goal is like. What is your, why?

David Gatto: 2:56

Yeah, absolutely.

Ty Cobb Backer: 2:58

Yeah.

David Gatto: 2:58

You know, yeah, I'm just going to. I'll talk about my background a little bit. It's a checkered past, Without getting into war story and stuff like that.

David Gatto: 3:10

I'm just going to say this. I like to put it out there for people. I like to show people who maybe have been in my position or who are in my position from the previous life, from how they used to be, that there's hope out of that. I did 11 years in prison. I was in various different rehabs, mental institutions, psych wards, halfway houses, three quarters house, three quarter houses so I was addicted to drugs and alcohol for a long time, and alcohol for a long time, and then one day that all stopped.

David Gatto: 3:48

In 2014,. I had gotten arrested for a retail theft. I went to prison and when I got out of jail, I was sleeping in a cemetery in York, pennsylvania, which is on top of the hill on George Street. Out there, and I happened to run into a guy who changed my life. That guy was Robert Allen, and so Bob Allen runs Life Speaking Foundation and he took me in with no money. I had nothing to offer the guy and you know he showed me true love, right when, when somebody helps you out when you don't have nothing to offer them. That's like my definition of love right there, and you know so.

David Gatto: 4:25

From there, from that recovery house, that's where Future Solutions Fence and Outdoor was born. That's where my recovery started in 2014. And I literally rebuilt my life. With no driver's license, no money, no vehicle, I walked around pushing a wheelbarrow filled with tools that was borrowed from Bob Allen and went and knocked doors and sold jobs and built what I have today. And you know, just to sum it up, you know I'm living my dream life. I have a wife, I have four beautiful children, I have three daughters and a son. You know I have a great, thriving business. We have a couple of locations, I have an excellent staff and my life's full. Like I was telling Ty earlier, you know, after after this, I'm setting up for my daughter's fifth birthday party, which I wouldn't miss for the world. So yeah, that's just a little bit about my background and where I'm at today.

Ty Cobb Backer: 5:28

Yeah, yeah, and you put it very nicely. You know you wrapped it up and packaged it nice and didn't go too far out in weeds. But you know, let's give Bob Allen a big shout out. It's kind of giving a good one.

Ty Cobb Backer: 5:41

You know that guy. That guy has helped so many people and has a very similar familiar path as you and I, and maybe worse, maybe better in some instances. But big shout out to Bob. But one thing and the reason why I want to shout him out was because you had mentioned, you know, open arms and love Right. And two things went through my head is is the heart that Bob's got right? Like that's a lot. I mean, the guy has devoted his entire life to helping men and and and a few women.

Ty Cobb Backer: 6:15

Um, over the years has been doing this long, long, long, long time, way before our time, and uh, so he's been kind of like one of the trailblazers and mentors, uh know of sorts for both of us, because he was there for me too. I never had to stay at his place, but he did. He helped me with I needed to do community service and things like that. But but I have referred a lot of people over to him. So he's impacted many people's lives.

Ty Cobb Backer: 6:41

But you had you touched on love. He's impacted many people's lives but you had you had touched on love. And I thought to myself, you know when, when you were staying in that that cemetery and stuff, and like you just needed that, you needed that break, you needed to catch a break. In there there appeared Bob Allen yeah Right With with that love, and it's like sometimes we need people to to love us, at least until we can start loving ourselves. Let's talk about that a little bit and dive into that where you had that paradigm shift and how, maybe that second chance and that love that you experienced at that moment, how, how do you think that impacted your trajectory to help get you where you're at today?

David Gatto: 7:20

Yeah, and you know so, touching on that, and also you know so, bob, the type of guy that he is, the type of person who he likes to help. He likes to help the people that nobody else will. Everybody's done with them. You know, you already ran all your games on them. You're out of the house, you're not even allowed on the couch, you're not allowed in the neighborhood helps that type of person out.

David Gatto: 7:41

And you know, um, when I had gotten released and I was walking around, I remember being freezing cold outside, right, and and I can remember, just you know, I couldn't even wear my clothes that I was arrested in because when I was arrested they were soaking wet, so they were covered in mold, right, and so I had on some orange shoes, the Bobos. I had on some, you know, like a commissary T-shirt, white V-necks, and I had, you know, the sweatpants on at the prison cells on commissary. And I remember just being freezing and, and, and I wanted to give up, right, and I'm like man because I had.

David Gatto: 8:19

I had two dollars in my pocket Right, and the thought came to me. I said, why don't I take this $2, go grab yourself a beer and just warm up, right, and then we could figure this thing out just like old times, right? And so I feel like a miracle had happened in my life there, because I remember looking to the left and seeing Third Base, which is the beer and chicken joint down there, and having that moment in there where I could have did it and I didn't do it, right, and I just kept pushing on and it was. You know, it's the kind of love.

David Gatto: 8:52

When I ran into Bob, you know, when I seen that somebody was willing to take a chance on me, you know, I decided it. In that moment I said, you know, I'm going to give it my all. Right, it's not like I'm gonna slip on a banana peel and use again, right, it's a conscious decision. Yeah, and you know, um, yeah, really, bob just took me under his wing you know what I mean, uh, and and uh mentored me and showed me how to live life again sober. So you know, it changed my life drastically and bob's still involved in my life. I talk to him on a regular basis. You know, and yeah, I help some people out from the beacon and whether it be with work or maybe mentorship or stuff like that, and you know, so it's it's had a big impact on my life.

Ty Cobb Backer: 9:36

No doubt, no doubt. And and why? Why would you say you still are in contact with Bob? And and why are? Why are you helping people today?

David Gatto: 9:43

You know, um, it's. It's one of those things, like you got to give it away to keep it Right. So like we have this obligation right To extend the hand out to other people, which you know, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not always the best at it, you know, I'm not going to sit here on camera and say that's how I live my life all the time, you know, because I get in bad spaces too. But we owe it out there to give somebody else the gift that was freely given to us, right? And I mean Bob's just a part of my life. He's been a part of my business. He's helped me grow my company. You know my building belongs to Allen Oil, you know, and I lease it off them and it's Bob's family and I've helped the the Beacon out over the years on different things and they've helped us out more than we've helped them out. But you know that we've got to be in that cycle of giving it back to get it. It's like an ecosystem If you don't give it, you don't get it back.

David Gatto: 10:41

It's like if it were to rain outside and the earth just held all the rain and didn't give it back, everything would die right, but it gives it back. You know rain some more, so it's like an ecosystem yeah, yeah, that's the way I see it.

Ty Cobb Backer: 10:51

Yeah, and you know that that's the thing, and I'm glad you said what you said, because you know I say that quite often. I was in an interview with uh, I don't know, uh, ed weinstock one time at the 21 turkey saluteute and he asked me why we did this and I said you got to give it away, to keep it. And he kind of like looked at me, you know, like he didn't understand like what give away the whole farm? And that's not what that means. You know that that is give even when I don't have enough. You know what I mean and that's that's what Bob has done, and that's the example, bob. And what I mean and that's that's what Bob has done and that's the example, bob. And at first I don't think I understood that either, but being in a person in recovery Right, and I think I think this goes for most human beings in general I think we're born selfish.

David Gatto: 11:35

Yes.

Ty Cobb Backer: 11:36

Okay, as a baby, as an infant, we're we're very selfish and self-centered, and if I don't get my way, I'm going to scream and and holler and and and and complain and do all those things until I get what I want.

Ty Cobb Backer: 11:48

So it's kind of like a selfish act and I think you know, and we're so used to being catered to and we feel like the world owes us something. And I'm sure you can relate to that, because it was like if, if you would have grew up the way that I would have grew up, you would drink and use drugs the way that I use drugs. You know what I mean. All these excuses, right? So we, we, we come in, we meet people like Bob and whether it's court order or whatever, however, we got here, right, you know, but we find people like him and we see them devoting their time, a good bit of their time, and we hear people say things like we got to give this thing a way to keep it. It's kind of like that helps us remove self from self Whenever we're going through something. Right, like we didn't have a toolbox before on how to deal with life on life's terms. Okay, and that's unfortunate for normal earthlings that they're not provided a toolbox that we've been provided with. Well, in this toolbox it tells when I open it up there, there's also a manual in there, right, and some people call it the big book, some call it the 12 and 12 or whatever other literature that we're reading at the time. But, but usually there's another, uh, unspoken manual in there and it says we, we must give this away if we want to keep it. So. Anytime I get in a jackpot, right, I need to pour into other people because it removes me from me, and then I come to find out that my problems aren't as big as that person. What they're going through. But what's cool about it is because of our experience, we have been in their shoes. We know that feeling, we know where they're at, and what's cool is is that somebody showed up for us. Now it's our moral obligation to show up for them. What has been so freely given to us. We need to reciprocate that to another individual, and that's how this paradox works. We need to step out of self, jump in, get on their level and say to them you know what? This is what has been said to me. I no longer have to feel the way that I'm feeling right now ever again, but I have to make that conscious decision, right. And they talk about like the, not to get too far out in the weeds on this, but like there's three steps, I can, he can, I think I'll let him All right. So I admitted I made a decision right and then all I have to or I believe and then all I have to do is make a decision. That's the first three steps make a decision to turn my life and my will over over to something right.

Ty Cobb Backer: 14:18

Where I was the poster child for self-will run riot Like literally my, it wasn't my mugshot either. If you looked up self-will run riot like literally my, it wasn't my mugshot either. If you looked up self-will in the dictionary, my mugshot would probably be in there. If they still had a webster, I don't know if you can still buy websters yeah, probably. We have google today, but anyhow, google, no, I'm just kidding. But but like, that's the thing, and that's just one, one very small aspect of what that means by giving this thing away in order to keep it.

Ty Cobb Backer: 14:45

And then they talk about practicing these principles in all of our affairs.

Ty Cobb Backer: 14:50

And, david, this is where I think you and I really jive on this, because we have carried what we've learned from people like Bob Allen and some other groups of circles of people that we run with in our personal life.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:03

We not only practice those in those circles.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:06

We're in the trenches where people need help.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:08

We tend to bring that into our home life.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:12

We tend to bring that stuff into our personal life.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:15

So it's kind of like the way that we run our organizations is is how we would want to be treated as individuals, and then we create a culture and, at least for us here, everybody under this roof, whether they know it or not, practices these in recovery or not in recovery and and now I think they've heard me say this long enough that they too practice these principles right in their lives as well.

Ty Cobb Backer: 15:39

Because that's kind of like our, our core values are kind of built around you know, the principles that we're talking about right now and again, you know I'm not trying to break anonymity, I'm not trying to be the depressed, the media and all this stuff, but but I think the point that we're trying to make and why why we talk, why we're talking about this topic right now is is that you know, if no one gets anything else out of this like if anyone's ever struggling with with mental issues drug addiction, alcoholism reach, please reach out to David, I can speak. I'm sure I can speak on David's behalf, or Vic, you know, please reach out to any one of us, and we just want people to know that there is hope and if you can go from a jail cell to to I don't even know what size your warehouse is down there now to you know, from a jail cell floor to to a five thousand, at least five thousand square foot way, that's 15, 15 yeah huge, it's huge.

Ty Cobb Backer: 16:32

It's like a block long. Yeah, size warehouse. You know the penthouse. If you can go from the jailhouse floor to the penthouse right, like anybody can, yeah, would you agree with that?

David Gatto: 16:42

a hundred percent. I mean, I don't have a college education. I think I made it to the eighth grade, you know I lived in the streets, I went to prison, so you know, if you're out there and you're trying to start your business, you know you got to think about it like that. You got to think about like, hey, you know, if somebody starting from the very bottom, with all those, all them things taken away, like literally living in a halfway house without even a vehicle, if they could get that going, if I could get that going, you can get it gone Right, cause you're not special.

David Gatto: 17:09

It's only I have a degree right, which you know I wish I did sometime but, I used to bash education a lot and I started realizing, man, I wish I would have took a few marketing courses or accounting courses, you know. But, man, if we do it, why can't?

Ty Cobb Backer: 17:27

anybody else, you know, and that's a good segue, you know, because, because, like we talked about, you know, you, you run a very successful organization over there and it's you know. That that's the thing I think, at least for me, and I know for you, cause we've had this conversation before and I think I've even seen you post stuff on social about surrounding us being humble enough and I think we touched on this even before the podcast was was being humble enough. You know, and this goes for any business, right. But you know, if we're done with the subject of recovery and stuff, any business organization, right, like, yeah, I can't go to school for everything, even if I went to school, yeah, okay, and and so that's general education, that would be, we would have to be accountants, business majors, all all the marketing majors uh, shit, cpa attorney, like we just don't have enough time, there's not enough time in the day or lifespan for us to educate ourselves in all these facets of life, to become this perfect business foundation, blah, blah, blah.

Ty Cobb Backer: 18:31

So what we have done is we've surrounded ourselves around smarter people than we are in certain aspects of our business, and I always use our website designer guy as an example. Could I build a website. You're right, there's not much I can't accomplish, and I've proven that to myself. Oh yeah, many times, over and over and over, usually the very hard way. That's why, okay, through trial, errors, mistakes, I've made more mistakes than anything. Yeah, and one of them would have been probably to try to create a website a thousand percent, okay.

Ty Cobb Backer: 19:02

So why would I take three to six months to try to educate myself and design, copy paste, whatever all these platforms are that that? That it takes wordpress, all this stuff, right, to create a website? Why would I do that when all I gotta do is hire a guy, right, it takes him 30 days, right, we do some approvals. Yep, love, it looks great, yeah, and then outside of that. So if I would have did it myself, now I got to figure out Google. We talked about that, right. So before we leave, let me introduce you to John, our Google guy. So, long story short, our website guy. We ended up hiring him. He came to work for us full time. Now he worked, operated our website. No, no, john Stouffer, okay, yeah, big big shout out to John Stouffer. I meant that you reach out to me before you leave, I'll introduce you to John yeah, absolutely.

Ty Cobb Backer: 19:53

He'll answer any questions you need. We call him Google John. Yeah, google Johnny is what my dad calls him.

David Gatto: 19:58

Well, you know there's a lot to it.

Ty Cobb Backer: 20:00

Yeah, yeah, it really is. So why would I inundate myself all day long working on the PPC, pay-per-clicks, google ads, the map, the pages, yeah, all this stuff? Not that I don't want to know how these things work, but I don't want to be doing that all day long. Why? Because why I have my back turned right over here, inundate myself with all this stuff that I don't understand, and we talked about this earlier. I don't understand. We talked about this earlier.

Ty Cobb Backer: 20:25

I don't pick things up as quickly as everybody else does all the time. Either. Hire a guy, that's all he does all the time. Guy or gal, let them do that, so then we can work on the business things that need to be worked on, opposed to working in the business on these things. We got people that account payable, receivables, financials, estimators, all these things, right, like we got people that that account payable, receivables, financials, estimators. You know, all these things that I did. I used to do it, oh yeah, used to all of it, but, like you said earlier, we've created this bottleneck. Yes, and I think where a lot of that came from at first, why I did everything, was pride. Nobody can do it as good as I can, right, right, well, how long were you stuck in that?

David Gatto: 21:05

You know I got stuck in that for probably a good six years. You know, if it was a technical job, you know I would delegate some work out to some crews. But if it was a technical job I had to do it right. I had to be there. If there was a new piece of equipment you know it was a $30,000, $40,000 machine machine I had to drive it.

David Gatto: 21:22

If anybody wrecks it it's gonna be me you know, and then I got to the point where it was like they just don't make sense, no more, like you can't do this, you can't go any further, you're, you're, you're. You stopped growing right. And then so I had the I. I can remember it clearly, uh, one day, when I just said you know what? I said the crew's out, I don't care what they do. I said I don't care if they wreck the trucks, break the machines. I said everything's insured. Of course I didn't want them to do that. But, I let them go.

Ty Cobb Backer: 21:46

And.

David Gatto: 21:46

I found out that those guys were skilled carpenters, that they were better than me, and you know so. So I had, you know, given up the tool belt per se for the show, and it created all kinds of freedom. But that's when my growth as a business owner really started to accelerate. Right, Because you know, I got the estimators out there. I got the administrators, the junior executives in the office. I got inside sales, outside sales, I got the production team Right, I got people working in business development and you know I'm generating ideas and so, like, my role had changed to where I was, like I'm like more of a individual coach to key members of my staff, where I meet with them and I keep a pulse on the company you know KPIs and stuff like that and see, like how everybody's doing it and are things progressing. And once I, you know I stay stuck at it for a bit. You know, like I said, I couldn't get past, you know, a million, 2 million. I'm like what's going on here? Yeah, Right, and I'm like how are people doing it?

Ty Cobb Backer: 22:49

Yeah, well, that's how they're doing it. I ask myself the same question, yeah, yeah.

David Gatto: 22:53

You don't see Sam Walton out there working. Well, of course he's dead now, but he went out there working a cash register, was he? No, he was out flying airplanes around looking for locations to drop Walmarts. Yeah, yeah, great book, by the way yeah.

Ty Cobb Backer: 23:05

No, I love that, I love that. So how long did it take you? So, once you started, when the pain was great enough, right, you started to release the pride, start to humble yourself a little bit and realize that, hey, I do have people in this building that are actually really good at what they do, ok, where now I'm just mediocre at everything. I can't excel anywhere because I'm wearing too many hats. Yes, right, and I stayed stuck in that for a minute too. So how long did it take for you? Ok, so there's, there's two things that at least happened for me. When I started to let things go, I found that I had more time on my hands, but I found myself like I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing anymore. Yeah, did you suffer from that at all?

David Gatto: 23:47

I did.

David Gatto: 23:48

I did because, you know, at first I started feeling guilty a little bit, because I'm like man, I'm out here at the beach, I'm riding my motorcycle around out here'm hanging out, going to the casinos, I'm, I'm doing this and my staff is in there working, right. So I felt guilty about that. And then, you know, because I'm like man, I don't want the guys to see this stuff, you know they're gonna think that this is what it is and that they're slaves and and all this other stuff I went through. And then then, you know, I really started thinking to myself like it was like too much of that started happening, where I'm like Whoa, like wait a second man.

David Gatto: 24:22

Like you're letting your competitors kick your ass, like you're asleep behind the wheel, bro, like do you want these people getting on top of you, getting out of there? Like no man. Like there's all balance that you got to keep in there. And even when I'm on vacation, you know I bring the laptop with me. I got the tablet just in case. I got to do something on the fly. I got to be an assistant to my sales team or something like that. But you have like, got especially.

David Gatto: 24:47

You got to realize like, ok, I could do that if I didn't want to grow at all. Right, once you start growing, stop growing, you start dying. Right, but once you start excelling and growing, opening new locations, making plans to open more, now you're involved more in your company. It's going to require more of your presence. Right, and you got to be okay with that. Right, because, listen, I'm never going to. I'm not the guy to go off on the island. You know I need to be in this. Like I love being in this. I love competing with the other fence companies out there. You know it makes us grow, makes us better. I love problem solving, you know. So, like I said, I mean I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing and, and thank god, I have a coach yeah who said well, wait a second, dave.

David Gatto: 25:27

You know that sounds fun, all that stuff. But here's what I've seen happen to people in the past, you know. So they really laid it down for me yeah, I went through a you know a couple years of that no doubt, okay, so you had to reel it in.

Ty Cobb Backer: 25:40

Yeah, you started to get a little taste of of the financial success. Yeah, right, and, and complacency that I think some of us and some people unfortunately stay in that, and I really think that's why you know 80, I think, and not just roofing contractors, but, but I think contractors in general 80% of us go out of business in four years and all businesses, 90% of them, go out of business in 10 years, and I think some of that has to do with complacency. Yes, right, and, and, and I've been there, um, but I've always been that guilty guy, okay, but most recently, I think, when we started to travel a couple of years ago and I really started taking my finger off the pulse, okay, and we were working. I mean, don't get me wrong, we were just working on something else. It was one of the golden eggs, right? This is the golden goose, and the golden goose has produced golden eggs for us in other avenues, whether it's, you know, investment properties, a landscaping business, how I had a motorcycle shop for several, several years.

Ty Cobb Backer: 26:39

I ended up selling to my, my cousin or my, my partner and some other things. Right, that, that just our portfolio companies that we've invested in and stuff like that. So I, I, what happened was I had to reel myself back in because I felt like nothing. Thank God, I don't. I don't think we were suffering, I was. I, mentally, was suffering because I felt like you know what, was I asleep at the wheel?

David Gatto: 27:05

Yeah.

Ty Cobb Backer: 27:06

Do you know what I mean With anxiety? Yeah, that anxiety. You know what I mean. Like I would the further and further, and like we're implementing new processes, sops, and like I'm not a part of this, I'm not helping design this, I'm not helping build this thing anymore. Not that we didn't have great people, and the great thing that I did realize from that, though was was is because this was for a good almost two seasons. We traveled for two roofing seasons, meaning, or off-season conference seasons, you know. So I don't know if that's officially two years or maybe 12 months total, but there's you're speaking about recently.

Ty Cobb Backer: 27:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah you, you're all over the place we were all over the place and working probably living on the road yeah, yeah, right, and being insecure the whole time about like what's going on back here at work and trying to keep a clear mind going live, interviewing people, trying to come up with questions, and it was. I saw the toll that it was taking on the team because we had an entire team media crew. We, we created a media company beyond the tool. Well, media group. Yeah, today, you know they were at the um best of the best last night out there filming stuff congratulations, congratulations on everything.

Ty Cobb Backer: 28:14

Thank you, thank you, but okay, so I too, okay, so I had this. I always refer back to the big black filing cabinet that I used to have in my office. Okay, and this we were still. We were digital, but I was still kind of paper.

David Gatto: 28:28

Yeah.

Ty Cobb Backer: 28:28

Okay when I'd get the paper purchase orders and I'd print them out and I'd have the girls put them in the folder. I actually would let somebody else put them in the folders for me and stuff. And we're going back a couple of years now and so I w I was ordering all the materials, that scheduling the job. I mean everything to estimating, takeoffs, blueprints, the whole nine yards. Right, we'd get the job. Purchase orders would come in, mostly new construction stuff, and we had chris baker, who's still here, brandon tyler, who's all still here, so there's three or four people that I turned this filing cabinet over to. That, just to give you an example, that it literally created three to four jobs, just this one. What I thought was just a job was to receive the purchase order, put it on the calendar order, the material schedule, the crew yeah yeah, that's not one job.

David Gatto: 29:24

No, no to you.

Ty Cobb Backer: 29:24

It might have been yeah, to me it might have been, it's a thousand miles an hour right right and I'm, yeah, and that's a.

Ty Cobb Backer: 29:31

That almost killed me. I mean, it really did my health and everything was suffering mental right. So like I let the. Finally, they took the filing cabinet out of my office. There's the. That almost killed me. I mean, it really did my health and everything was suffering Mental Right. So, like I let the filing, they took the filing cabinet out of my office. There's the scratches still on the floor over at the old office. Yeah, so, but what happened was okay.

Ty Cobb Backer: 29:49

A lot of things happened there, a lot of good things, and one the company started to grow exponentially, yes, but then it also started to create more opportunities for other people to come into our organization too, which was cool thing. But then I find myself sitting at my desk like this, like I felt obsolete. Now they don't need me. What am I supposed to be doing? Like all these crazy thoughts were going through my head. What am I supposed to be doing? Like all these crazy thoughts were going through my head and unless you've experienced this, you wouldn't know right the feeling that I felt at that point down, because I was so used to driving hard boom, boom, boom, like every day and all these things that were stressing me out that I thought that I should be working on none of them.

Ty Cobb Backer: 30:29

I couldn't think of what they were anymore. It was. It was so crazy for me, so it so it took a while for me to realize what it was I was supposed to be doing. And it's crazy because, fast forward to today, I read this book by John Gordon. It's called the Energy Bus. I have it. It's a great book. I bought all his books. I got the box. It's got all his books. I just gave Lauren three of them. She's going to the Outer Banks for a week and most of them are small reads Anyhow.

Ty Cobb Backer: 30:56

In that book he talks about CEO. Most people think of a CEO as a chief executive officer. Now, our job today is to create other CEOs, not chief executive officers. But we are chief energy officers. We bring the heat, we bring the energy, we bring the heat, we bring the energy, we bring the flow. You know, and that helped put that into perspective, not just recently, but like when I read that I thought that just solidified and galvanized what my job is supposed to be today, because it goes back to even when you go home at night, like when daddy goes home, he sets the tone right. We're the tone setters here. Oh yeah, I don't know how many times I've turned the tides here where somebody could be having a good day, until I walked in the building oh, yeah, yeah you know, energy that emanates yes, then we're.

Ty Cobb Backer: 31:47

We're the ones that are supposed to bring the energy to the vision, the mission and the goal. Like I'm on this vision mission goal. Like here's the vision guys, here's the mission we got to go on. And if we do that, here's the goal. Like I'm on this vision mission goal. Like here's the vision guys, here's the mission we got to go on. And if we do that, here's the goal that we're going to reach. Yeah, absolutely, you know what I mean. Like that's again. It took me a while. There was a weird transition and then ad going on the road, you know, traveling around, right when I thought everything I got. I know my job now, okay, as as owner, ceo founder, all those stupid tags I was putting on everything that just to make me feel a little better.

Ty Cobb Backer: 32:20

Right, yeah, I'm still trying to figure it out. And I'm still trying to figure it out. You know what I mean.

David Gatto: 32:25

I really am, honestly we don't all have it together.

Ty Cobb Backer: 32:28

No.

David Gatto: 32:29

From the outside looking in like man, this guy, yeah, what do I think about it? What do I? How much do you think? I really know, I've been in great education. Right, I just go by my gut, by my instinct, yeah, you know and Intuition. Yeah, and like you were saying, like you know, sometimes if you're positive you can turn a whole entire building around. You can turn any bad scene typically into a good scene, you know, and it's like if I'm having one, one of those days.

David Gatto: 32:53

You know those days man, you wake up and you suddenly rip people's heads off or you know, you feel some kind of way and in those days I stay out of the office yeah, I'm like don't go in there yeah, yeah, you're gonna like give somebody a bad day so don't even go in there, you know, and and like setting the tone too. Like you know, some days are difficult, you know what I'm saying. Like you might have had all different types of stuff, maybe some irate customers, maybe some guys broke some stuff over here, maybe somebody's car got hit over here you know, and all these things going on at once.

David Gatto: 33:21

But when you walk in through the door with your family, you got to set your tone, so you don't want to come in there complaining about how bad your day was, cause like, what type of examples are you sending for your kids? Oh, why would I want?

Ty Cobb Backer: 33:41

to be in business. Look at the way that's affecting that. Right, you know what I mean. I think about that, so I'm not, I'm not good. Good with it a thousand percent, yeah, but like I'm conscious of it, yes, you know, and we're trying to get better, yeah, and letting go right of that. So when you go home, you can kind of turn things on. The other thing is, too I'm glad you brought that up, because I don't want my house in chaos.

Ty Cobb Backer: 33:53

No, when I go home, that needs to be my peace and surrender yes, you know and I play the part in that because when I get home the family's just family right they're doing their family yeah, they're doing their thing, man, you know like, and being all happy, giddy and joy because of what we do, right, they get to live that life and it's like okay. Well then I want to come home and piss on everybody's parade. Yeah, ungrateful little mess. Yeah.

David Gatto: 34:17

You know, with their dinner in the garbage, eating it to the dog.

Ty Cobb Backer: 34:19

Yeah, you know but it's like, you know, this is the thing and, like you said, we have to lead by example. So do I want to complain in front of my family and my kids, my children? No, because then they're going to be complainers. And this goes into, you know, we talk about like we are the sum of right. Right, we were influenced by our environment. You know, whether we know that or not, from the time we were hanging out with the guys on the street corner. Those were our influence. Our school teachers were our influence.

Ty Cobb Backer: 34:42

How we thought, how we think you know is is is because of our environment that we were in, or put ourselves in regardless. And it's like I'm very aware and conscious of that and I I've actually been kind of like trying to study that, because you hear people say, where are the sum of? Yes, but let's dig a little deeper into that. Like today, I do have a choice. I have a choice to like what media outlets I'm listening to, what podcasts I'm listening to, what books, what, what, what specific things I need to study to become a better parent, a better entrepreneur, a better leader. Right, because you were talking about like we could go to school for all these things. It's like that's great, that's general stuff. But today we have a choice to divulge ourselves in whatever and then surround ourselves around risk takers, people that have been successful, people who have seen nine figures, people who have you know what I'm saying Like those are the people who would not be intimidated or insecure or fearful.

Ty Cobb Backer: 35:40

Because they were where you were at yes At one point in time and ask questions yes, yes, you know what I mean. So it's like, yes, we are the sum of Right, even going way back. So it's like why do I want to go home and be all these things that I don't want my kids to grow up to be? Yes, I want them successful. Yes, I want them wealthy. And I'm talking wealth and health and spirituality and physical fitness. And that's what I mean by wealth and success, first and foremost. And what that is is if we can work on ourselves right. That's the input. The output is the financial success. Absolutely. That's where financial security, where that lack of insecurity goes away. Even if we're broke, it doesn't matter, because we're okay with us, because we're taking care of ourselves mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, all these things, as long as you're in a good spot, because it is, at the end of the day, it's our perspective. It's our perspective, it's that paradigm, always a perspective. Paradigm is how we see things, perceive things.

David Gatto: 36:42

Yep yeah, no, I agree 100, you know. And it goes back to like somebody asked me this the other day. You know about my past and you know they asked me, like what I would do different and honestly, like nothing, like I wouldn't want to touch. I wouldn't want to go back in my past and even have the risk of touching something like the butterfly, exactly because that all led to this right. So, like my tolerance to pain, all that stuff that I went through in the street because you know, you got to have a high tolerance for pain yeah to be in business, in to grow your business.

David Gatto: 37:14

All that stuff led to this. It was fortifying me, forging me for something different. Why I had to go through them experiences I don't know a thousand percent. Am I happy that I did? Yes, they were very rough, but listen, I wouldn't even want to go back and even disturb anything. The wind, nothing. It's just when you were saying all that, I was thinking that I'm like I wouldn't want to change a dang thing. Prison, nothing. The rehabs, the living in the, in the abandoned building, sleeping on the sidewalk none of it. Yeah, I wouldn't have.

Ty Cobb Backer: 37:48

There wouldn't be a future solutions, there wouldn't be an emma, there wouldn't be a zoa, they wouldn't be a wife, there wouldn't be that beautiful house I live in yeah, I wouldn't have it no yeah, so we got to keep that in perspective yeah, and I'm glad you brought the, the tolerance of pain up, because you know, and we, I think, especially the three of us sitting in this room right now we are tolerance, the threshold for pain. For us, the tolerance, I think, is a little bit more than normal people. Yeah and I'm going to not categorize us in the normal bucket, because I like to think, or think that I don't think we're quite normal. Okay, and that goes for just about any entrepreneur.

David Gatto: 38:22

I concur. You know, what I mean.

Ty Cobb Backer: 38:24

It takes a special breed, the 1% of us that can endure that pain, that gamble, that that, that the fear of the unknown, we can handle. Don't get me wrong, I might act out a little time, but that doesn't mean I'm not going through it Right and drive in and getting there and Janet tells me all the time she's like dude, I don't know how you just made that phone call. It's like somebody had to make it. I mean, we're just going to ignore it, like now. I had to deal with that. I had to kiss their ass a little bit. Ok, we had to retear the roof off three times. I don't know what to tell you. We had to do it. I couldn't run from it.

Ty Cobb Backer: 38:55

I'm taught today that not, yeah, I'm, I'm here to face everything and and ride, not not fear everything and run Right. You know what I mean. Yes, I'm scared sometimes, but I'm not letting that hold me back Like average. You know what I mean and that's the difference. Not normal or maybe slightly crazy, because I think there's a. There's a fine line between genius and and it's a mix insane. Yeah, you, you know what I mean.

Ty Cobb Backer: 39:21

And being a visionary, yeah right, I've read something the other day, I think it was by simon sinek that it's like guys like us okay, especially us. You know, we just have to have a great imagination but be humble enough to find those that can actually do it. You understand what I'm saying when I say that I don't have to be the smartest guy in the room, nor do I want to be. What's cool about this today is you know what? We don't have to make all the decisions all the time anymore. No, we don't. My wife can make decisions for us. Chris Baker can make, glenn Stacy, kim dude. I ran the business where they were all outside the door waiting for me to tell them what to do every minute of the day.

Ty Cobb Backer: 40:03

Yeah, yeah, and the culture was good, but that was just the culture that we had built. Yeah, and it's like you know what Like. And then I'd get pissed off about them knocking on the door all the time. Why won't you leave me alone? Well, because I thought I didn't tell them, I didn't teach them how to think on their own or empower them to be able to do that. You know what I mean. Not to get off track here a little bit, but it's like what has happened is that I'm okay with everybody else making decisions too, yes, but I also need to be okay with them making mistakes.

David Gatto: 40:28

Oh yeah, well, that's what I learned, that's what we learned. Right, the mistakes are necessary. It's funny you were saying that because you know, just today I was in the gym and I was working out and we're going to be implementing a, a railing and a decking side to our company and I've been doing all this stuff on my own. I've been writing this business plan out with all these time frames and budgets and how we're going to roll it out and how we've got to penetrate the market with it.

David Gatto: 40:50

Yeah, and I was thinking to myself, I said, dave, give this to your production manager and your inside sales guys to work on this, right, because I'm empowering them to do that. I mean, my production manager, trevor Seiler way smarter than me, right? Kid's never been in trouble in his life, he's got a great education. He's responsible. Trevor Roy, too Fantastic salesman, fantastic at videos Give this stuff to them, right. Like, take some of this off your plate. Like you hired people that are a lot smarter. I just think differently than them. I think in a different perspective, right, I could be a million dollars in debt, you know, and my perspective on it's no big deal. This is, this is normal right yeah, this is what happens.

David Gatto: 41:33

This is money for inventory. This is yeah, if you were to give like, if my wife were to see that, oh my, god, what's happening? What's all?

Ty Cobb Backer: 41:42

I can't worry about. Yeah, that's why we don't bring that shit home and talk about that.

David Gatto: 41:48

Yeah yeah, I mean yeah, but uh, yeah, great stuff, man, that's a great point yeah, yeah, it was good.

Ty Cobb Backer: 41:54

How far are we into this here? Because I know you're busy, david okay, 44 minutes, okay, I, I know you're busy. We got about 15 minutes left before we get off here, man. If it just if there was one thing that you wanted to leave with our viewers right now, man, what would that be?

David Gatto: 42:09

whether it's professional or personal, or or all the above encompass you know, um, obviously, the thing about turn your life around, uh, it doesn't matter where you're at, you could start, uh, wherever you're at and you can move ahead, right. But I really want to talk about this, and I've talked to a lot of successful entrepreneurs and people that were successful in their trades too, and I always like to ask them one question, you know, and I always say this like, hey, if, if you were to do one thing differently, what would that one thing have been? Through your success, through your growing this company? You know, keys are eight, nine figure companies, you know, and they all tell me the same thing. They all say, like, hey, I wish I was present for my kids and for my wife, right, and I could always see it choking them up, right, and so that's what I kind of want to end with, that, and I want to talk about like, okay, so some of that stuff might get pushed to the side, but there's two sides to every coin, right? So if you do this thing right, if you do this entrepreneurship right, and you build this stuff out right, and you create the uh, you know systems and processes, procedures, you delegate, automate, you eliminate things, you create that space for that freedom to not have to miss anything with your family because you know people might say, oh my god, as an entrepreneur you go from working, you know, 40 hours a week to work 24 7. That's not true, right, because we have created a lot of freedom.

David Gatto: 43:43

Obviously I'm here in an afternoon, it's what is it Wednesday? Yeah, right, I was at the gym before this, right? So obviously I'm there, I'm present. I just want to leave that with everybody. Like, don't be like, as my pastor said it. He said man, he said I wish I could do a do over there. I wasn't there. I was impressed that I would come home. I would see my son's baseball glove and his baseball by the garage and I knew what that meant. But I thought it was more important what I was doing. And now I look back and I find out it wasn't that important because, listen, I could go out of business right now and I'm telling you, I could rebuild another business, probably another trade, and make a million my first year. I built those muscles up, right, I'm not bragging or anything like that, I just know a lot about business now where I could do that, but I cannot do that with my family, right?

David Gatto: 44:35

I cannot break that down and rebuild that. I cannot lose somebody from there, so as long as I got them, I can always rebuild. So I just want to leave that Focus on your family and let go to grow yeah, you know what I mean and create that freedom that we all want.

Ty Cobb Backer: 44:55

Yeah.

David Gatto: 44:55

Yeah.

Ty Cobb Backer: 44:56

I love that. I love that you brought that up because right in we we brought somebody on this weekend and I had a good conversation with him on Monday and he's like he shared something with his wife and in our, our manual company manual that they they get a copy of the manual when they start and they have to sign it and basically it states in their family first and this guy's worked for fortune 500 companies and stuff. We're we're blessed, blessed to have this guy and he's like I've never worked for a company like this. He's like I can't even believe you have that in there. Yeah, do you know what I mean?

Ty Cobb Backer: 45:30

it's like if you got to leave early, you know if you got to come in late, come in late when you're here, but I need you here yeah right and and what's crazy about that is it's taken me a long time to come up with that because I I'm not, yeah, and I still, I'm still on the fence with this whole work-life balance thing and stuff like that.

Ty Cobb Backer: 45:46

It's kind of like, you know, when it's time to get shit done, it's time to get shit done, right. You know, I call it more like work, work-life blend. And when I talked about a lot of the traveling, my family comes with me to these other locations and stuff like that and that, and she knows like, hey, this is what she signed up for having the right significant other to be patient and tolerant, because there are nights that we got to burn the oil you know the midnight oil and stuff like that. You know, um, but they see the dream, they see the goals, they, they see the vision, the mission board, yep and and and. The goal there so that I think is key too is having the right significant other, and I think the three of us sitting in this room have been blessed with those.

David Gatto: 46:24

Oh, that's not. I hit the jack.

Ty Cobb Backer: 46:26

That stuck with us through a lot of this stuff, but I love that you brought that up. Like your family, yes, and that's the thing that I think as individuals I don't want to sum it up as men or women but I think work, I think we think that's what we need to be doing to be providing for our families is just killing ourselves. Working, putting the hours in trying to bring that paycheck home and, yes, it is. We need them to have shoes and clothes and food and refrigerator and lights and internet and the iPads and all those things that we think our family needs. Right, they do need those things, right.

Ty Cobb Backer: 47:00

But there's also that time that we carve out and it's like you know, we got to be intentional with that time. If we see the glove there, you got to think to yourself how important that mission that I was on when I was going to ignore that glove sitting there. Can that wait till tomorrow? Or can I delegate that to somebody else to spend probably only 10 minutes to throw the ball back and forth until they get distracted with a buddy that just drove, rode his bike?

Ty Cobb Backer: 47:25

down the street and now all of a sudden they don't want me anymore. But it was just taking that time out and giving him that 10 minutes and being consistent, Right and being conscious.

David Gatto: 47:37

Yeah.

Ty Cobb Backer: 47:38

This past year yeah, this past school year, cause I was like I always had to be the first one here in the last one lead.

David Gatto: 47:43

Did it for years.

Ty Cobb Backer: 47:44

You did that too okay, this past school year, rocket, I was intentional about when I left for work, because I would used to leave two hours before, two and a half, three hours before he'd even get up to go to school. Well, this past year he started votac and not to hold everybody hostage here. I know we're running out, but I like to share this because that's such a great topic that you brought up, because there is a time and a place to bust your ass. You know what I'm saying. It's so much easier for us now, being in the position that we are, to talk about the work-life balance and things like that, because I don't want people to think, you know, I only have to work 40 hours a week my first year in business. I don't think that's the case. You know what I mean.

Ty Cobb Backer: 48:26

Now, if you're trying to, you probably won't last very long, okay. So it's easy for us to sit here today and talk about that work-life balance or blend. Okay, cause it won't happen. You got, you're going to have to kill yourself literally, almost get to the brink of suicide or homicide or some. You know, at least for me, I w I don't think we'd be here and Jen and I laugh about that all the time, but that intentional time with your family, whether it's 10 minutes or not. You know date nights every Tuesday, come hell or high water, I don't care if we're in town, out of town, tuesday night, date night. Jana, I know I need to leave here. I work out in the afternoons. I know I got to leave an extra hour early. If I want to work out, she, I know I need to be ready. Front center Present Ready yes, 5 PM.

David Gatto: 49:16

And most important part, present.

Ty Cobb Backer: 49:17

Yeah, yes, present. That doesn't mean why we're at Outback. I'm like this yeah, yeah put the phone away.

David Gatto: 49:33

Yeah, gotta put the phone down, it's not that important. Yep, I'm still guilty, and non-chance of 10, I'm just scrolling facebook anyhow. Oh yeah, we're all guilty of it. You know it's a habit and, and you know I just wanted that. Somebody who taught me about that um, he probably doesn't even know it, um, but he influenced me a lot on that was eric obrant yeah, is that how you say his name?

Ty Cobb Backer: 49:44

yeah, yeah, I don't I call him er.

David Gatto: 49:46

I'm telling every time I see the post with him, with this kid and the ice cream and be intentional with your time. You've got that theme going and it's almost like he branded that somehow. And it's in my head.

Ty Cobb Backer: 49:58

Good.

David Gatto: 49:58

Yeah, yeah.

Ty Cobb Backer: 49:59

I'll let him know that yeah, yeah. Yeah, not every other Tuesday actually, but no good, good, great episode, brother, thank you so much for covering up some time to come out here. I know it's a big day, it's a national holiday, it's a birthday at your house.

David Gatto: 50:16

Emma's birthday. Yeah, pool party, pool party there you go.

Ty Cobb Backer: 50:19

So, but thank you and thank you everybody for for tuning in again. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did. Um, on your lunch break today. Until then, next week, we have another great guest coming on next week. He comes from the uh, the insurance side of things. Yeah, it's gonna be good. Doug quinn oh, quinn, yeah, doug, yeah, guy that I met on the road. Got to speak with him on a panel at when the storm this past year. He's got great stories and og in the in the roofing insurance industry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, old school guy and yeah, a lot of value there, a lot of stuff we're going to learn for sure, yeah, for sure, by by listening to him. Hopefully I can shut up long enough to listen to what he's got to say. So, anyhow, thank you guys. Thank you, david, and you guys have a great day and we'll see you next week at 12 PM.