[00:00:00.250] - Chris
All right, welcome back to the head of Hardened Boots podcast. This is Chris. I'm solo for this one. I don't know where Brandon was for this studio recording, but he missed out. This was a solo interview I did with Alex Duda, the CEO and founder of Albiware, a newish job management software startup backed by the big Silicon Valley venture capitalists and whatnot. He's trying to take that thing to the moon, but he also has a really interesting background. Leading up to that, he grew and scaled and sold his family's restoration company, and so he's got that background as well. He's a very interesting guy. He's been on a lot of podcasts and so I really tried to take this more personal with him. There's going to be a part two, by the way, so if you enjoy this interview, watch out for that. I've got plenty more that I want to talk to him about, and so that's coming. But we really focused on his personal leadership journey. We talk about optimizing for travel. He's doing a lot of it these days. Like many of you listening to this do, we talked about a relationship to alcohol, personal growth.
[00:00:58.120] - Chris
We even talked about spirituality, which I want to dig in more in part two, but it's a great interview. Feel free to share it around. But before we do that, let's thank our sponsors. First of all, liftify.com. You guys know how much we love these guys. Look, Google reviews are essential to our business. They're only going to increase in value and priority as time goes by. We all know the importance of them. We all have some kind of function or process in our business to collect Google reviews. But are you converting 20% to 25% of your jobs into Google reviews? Because that's what liftify's benchmark is. So if you're doing 1000 jobs a year and you're not converting 200 to 250 of them into Google reviews, then you owe it to yourself to get a free demo from liftify. They're good at what they do. They're one of those vendors that we've recommended to literally all of our clients around the United States. And every single time we do, our clients thank us for it. So that's a pretty good track record. Yeah, I think that's bloodlight, CNR magazine. CNR is the watering cooler of our industry.
[00:02:00.890] - Chris
So if you've been just kind of dragging your feet, pull out your phone or pick up your phone. Go to LinkedIn, follow Michelle Blevins. Go to cnrmagazine.com. That's where you spell out. And cndrmagazine.com and make sure you subscribe so you get the weekly newsletters that they send. It's good stuff, right? You want to stay up on what's happening in the industry. All the latest things, mergers and acquisitions, emerging technologies, interviews with key leaders in our industry. They bring all of that to us. So check that out. Answerforce.com, another partner that we enjoy and appreciate. Look, call intake is incredibly important in our business. It's true of every single service business. But for some reason, I think we don't give it the same priority and attention that we do some of the other roles in our business, like estimators and project management and salespeople and so forth. But how valuable are those calls that are coming through your front desk phone and the after hour calls? Of course, it just amazes me how we forget to create redundancy in our business. Right? What do I mean by that? Well, what happens when your receptionist takes lunch?
[00:03:10.410] - Chris
What do you do? Are you just forwarding the phones to whatever random person picks it up? Well, you shouldn't. Right? Answer force prides themselves on imitating your own internal call intake process. So they're going to ask the customer the same questions. They're going to approach that conversation with the same intentionality and thoughtfulness and voice inflection and all the things that we train our receptionists to do. Well, they're going to deploy that when they're answering the phone on your behalf. And it's inexpensive. Like their packages start less than $370. They corrected me actually, because I mentioned the $370 price level and they said, oh, we actually have a starter level that's even lower than that. But you can flex up and flex down based on storm activity, based on, like I mentioned, your receptionist maybe being out on vacation or having to step away, you can turn on answer force, you can forward to them and then turn them back off. It's incredibly flexible. There's no reason why a restoration company today shouldn't have a redundant call intake partner like Answerforce. It's inexpensive and it makes sure that we're handling those intake calls with the importance that they require.
[00:04:20.200] - Chris
And our last but not least, actionable insights, our brand new sponsor. We love these guys, Seth and Watley, the whole crew there. Cole, I'm talking to you too, man. Actionable Insights is a 501 educational nonprofit. You can look into it more. It's a very interesting organization. They're an incredible resource to our industry. And now this past year they launched their new xactimate profile that provides live estimating guidance while you write your scopes. Look, we all need great estimatics, people on our team, and sometimes our best estimators come from outside the industry. They don't have experience with xactimate and the new exactimate profile can help level them up to somebody that's been in the industry for some time and allow them to start at that level of competency. Right. No more estimating mistakes, no more missed line items. It's a no brainer for anyone looking to upgrade their exactimate estimating workflow. These dudes are awesome. They're also a great option for xactimate training, advanced training, integration of matterport and exactimate. They're just an incredible resource to the industry, so you got to check them out. Getinsights.org forward slash Ludlight. You'll thank us. Welcome back to the head, heart and Boots podcast.
[00:05:41.330] - Chris
I'm Chris.
[00:05:42.150] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead.
[00:05:48.910] - Chris
Man, I love this industry. Alex, good morning, man. Welcome to the show.
[00:05:54.560] - Alex
Good morning, Chris. Thanks so much for having me. Super excited to be on the Head hard and Boots podcast.
[00:05:59.390] - Chris
Yeah, man, I've been wanting to have you on for a while. You've been on our list. Let's see, we're going on almost three years and you've been one of those people that I watch and observe and kind of follow what you're doing with your various companies and stuff. And Brandon and I, I think we've always kind of been inspired by your hustle and vision and everything else you bring to the industry. So it's fun. I think we're going to have a good chat. So here's kind of the pathway where I was going to take us. And I did give you a little bit of a heads up, but I want to focus more on Alex as the person. You've got this business journey that's taken a number of different forms. You're one of those people, perhaps a bit Muskian. You got a lot of. What do you mean by always? And I think one of the things I appreciate about you, man, just watching mostly from afar. We don't know each other personally that closely yet, but I appreciate how missional you seem to be. Just like there's this bigger, I don't know, you're always looking for ways to add value and so I'm attracted to people like that.
[00:06:57.340] - Chris
And I think the success that you're showing with some of your businesses. I think it's just reflective of you like to get in the mix and find ways to connect people and add value and all that kind of stuff. But I also appreciate how you've been bringing kind of more attention to the whole person. And most recently, I think what stands out in my mind is you went through 75 hard. I think the first time, but a year or more ago. And then I think, did you go through around two here recently about that program? What inspired you, and how has that looked for you, man? Because I know a lot of people have heard about it and are thinking about it and all that stuff.
[00:07:32.220] - Alex
Absolutely. I think that 75 hard is a game changer, and I think everybody should go and do it just because of there's a couple of benefits, but the main one is the mental toughness and the getting outside of your comfort zone and doing something that's actually, like, it seems easy, but it's actually super hard. So the whole challenge, Andy Priscilla kind of put it together, and it's basically do two workouts per day. You follow a diet, drink a gallon of water, read ten pages per day, and I don't know if I missed something. I'm trying to think about it. But anyway, all these different tasks that you have to do for 75 days straight, and then once you're done with the 75 days, there's phase one, phase two, and there's a couple of other phases where you basically go dive in deeper. And for me, 75 hard was the kickstart of my health journey. And during that time, I went from, like, 225 pounds to 195, so lost about 30 or so pounds. And really, it was that kickstart that turned my entire health around. And I got very interested into 75 hard after having a personal experience that wasn't as great.
[00:08:33.380] - Alex
I actually got really sick from COVID and ended up spending about four weeks in the hospital. Didn't know if I was going to make it or not. And that was kind of a turning point in my life, where I realized that health is important and there's no point to build wealth, to have a beautiful family, to absolutely crush it in business and in personal life if you're just out of shape. So I decided, okay, let's focus on health. What's the best way to kind of kick started it right into the 75 heart challenge, and then I just kind of dove right into that.
[00:09:01.450] - Chris
I think a lot of people get really intimidated by it because one of the, now, of course, you can modulate the rules any way you want. I mean, the whole point is to get healthier and really push yourself, I think. But one of the things, if I recall, is that it's two workouts a day. One of them has to be outdoors. Now, for some of us, like my friends in San Diego and Florida and whatnot, that's a pretty easy assignment. Our friends down in Austin, perhaps, maybe not this week, but what was the hardest feature of that for you? Because going from what you said, almost 30 pounds in weight loss over the course, I mean, holy cow. So you went from zero or very little fitness, I would guess, to holy cow twice a day. One of them being outside the water thing, which is a discipline, no doubt, to get that amount of water in. What do you think was the most challenging feature for you?
[00:09:47.900] - Alex
The hardest part was when I traveled. So I travel a ton, and it's very easy to get into the rhythms when you're at home. Right. Do a workout in the morning, go for a walk at night. But when you're traveling, and specifically, I had once where we went over to Europe to visit my family in Romania, and literally we were flying for, like, 14 hours. And one of the workouts had to be walking around or slightly jogging in Frankfurt airport. And then right when we landed, even though we were tired and jet lagged and stuff, I had to go get another workout done. So I think, yeah, the hardest part by far was when I was traveling. But the epiphany was I was still able to do it even while traveling. And the biggest thing that 75 hard teaches people is all the excuses that you kind of come up with. And ultimately, I wouldn't call them excuses. I'd call them self limiting beliefs like, oh, it's too cold outside, so I can't do a workout outside. And then when you bundle up properly and you go for a walk outside, you realize it wasn't the end of the world and it wasn't that bad.
[00:10:46.480] - Alex
Or maybe it was better than laying in the hospital bed for four weeks with COVID Right. So it kind of opened up my perspective on the things that are possible.
[00:10:55.890] - Chris
Did you notice anything significant in terms of your mental health? I mean, you're a pretty positive, driven guy. As long as I've been observing you and been connected to you in some way, I see you as just a very driven, super energetic kind of person. Did you see any collateral benefit in terms of mental health, doing it by.
[00:11:13.510] - Alex
Mental health, are you asking related to, I guess, antidepressant or focus, clarity, et cetera?
[00:11:20.340] - Chris
Yeah. Any of it? Yes. All that stuff, the way I thought.
[00:11:24.570] - Alex
About going on 75 hard and doing this health journey was okay. It's time to let go of the business and let go of all these amazing things that I was doing. Basically, stop focusing on that and focus on health and get my health in shape. And I thought they were mutually exclusive. What I realized was the more I did 7500 and the healthier I became as an individual and the more I pushed myself out of my comfort zone in the physical world, it almost supercharged the amount of output that I can have in my relationships and in my business environment. So the number one thing that it gave me, I guess, mentally, was a lot more clarity, a lot more focused, a lot more mental toughness, mental grit, and also just energy in general. And it turned out to not be that it was mutually exclusive, it actually was the opposite. It's not like I gave up anything business wise, even though that was the intention at the beginning. I wasn't trading the hours of business with the hours of working out and doing the challenge. And it wasn't like the business was losing out.
[00:12:22.400] - Alex
In fact, the business was. And all the stuff that I was doing was ten xing because I was showing up differently. So when you are healthy, when your body is healthy, when your mind is clear, you actually show up differently. And imagine like if you were to spend 10 hours, I don't know, at work or 10 hours with your family and your mind isn't clear, you're just kind of in this lull and you're not showing up 100% versus showing up 5 hours 100%. So that was one of the biggest mental unblocks with 75 heart too, was the fact that the mental clarity and the way I showed up just changed 1000%.
[00:12:56.700] - Chris
Something I've been thinking a lot about, and I think you're speaking to it, is there's something really important about suffering. Like there's something really powerful about intentionally choosing suffering, because that, I mean, listen, if you're working out twice a day, you're minding some sort of nutrition regimen, you're introducing all these new disciplines, and even right now, I mean, shoot, you're like outside of Chicago, like you're in Illinois, you're in the midwest, it's super, super cold outside. It's very uncomfortable. No matter how much personal growth we've achieved. It's like, oh man, the wind chill, all the found. In the last year, I took on a habit of going in the sauna as often as, you know, when I travel, I don't usually have access to them, but there is something I've found a correlation between my ability to hang in the pocket with my work. It's like you get to that point where you're either sort of emotionally tired or frustrated or angry or just disappointed. Things happen in business, right, where you're just kind of emotionally drained and you still have important, urgent things that need to be done or worked on. And I found, as I've started to really develop my ability to suffer in ways like the sauna or every now and then, I like to do what I call a fitness test with my boys, where we go run a five k.
[00:14:16.200] - Chris
I hate running. I absolutely hate running. But I always want to be able to run 3.1 mile. I don't know what it is. For me, it's like, I figure if we ever experience the apocalypse or so, I need to be able to run for at least 3 miles, right, without stopping.
[00:14:31.010] - Alex
It just seems like a good thing.
[00:14:32.260] - Chris
To be able to do. But seriously, though, man, sometimes I find myself, and I'm just curious if you have kind of an analog for you that you've discovered, too. When I'm sitting in the sauna, and sometimes for me, if I'm in with a friend, I'll invite a buddy over for a soak. And if we're talking, especially my business buddies, we're just masterminding together. I can go 30 minutes or so without even thinking about it. But when I'm alone, by the time I hit, like, 16 minutes, I feel like the seconds are ticking by, and a lot of times my head is in my hand, sweats pouring off of me. I'm very uncomfortable. There's a huge part of me that just wants to get up and cut the court at 17 minutes, even though my target is a minimum of 20. So there's something there about exercising that muscle that then translates into staying in the pocket at work. Have you discovered that?
[00:15:21.960] - Alex
Yeah. One of my coaches and I, yesterday, we're actually talking about the topic of suffering. So it's kind of ironic that you brought it up. And I think what you're kind of hinting at is my belief that I think suffering equals the resistance to discomfort. So people can go through pain and discomfort and not suffer like we've seen that if you look at the Budhist monks and stuff, or if you look at people that are super calm and cold plunges and such, but the ultimate suffering is when you want to not be in pain or you want to not be in that discomfort. I think in your sauna analogy, when you're with somebody, your ego is distracted. Right. Your ego being you, the inside little birdie that basically takes care of you and cares only about you, right? And you're having these conversations. Time just absolutely flies by. You don't notice the discomfort and therefore you don't resist it. But when you're alone, it's you with your thoughts, you with yourself. There's nothing distracting that ego and that ego just wants to resist. Like, why am I in here? It's super hot, I'm sweating. The body's going to do XYZ.
[00:16:25.910] - Alex
So I think training the muscle as you're talking about is training your ability to, I would say, self control. You could do that through meditation. A few other things is what I've discovered. And just realizing how your ego shows up within your life and how it self limits you in certain things. So, yeah, that's what I think, at least.
[00:16:47.600] - Chris
Yeah, there's something powerful there. It's becoming a theme for my year is what are the different areas where I can practice that so that I tell my boys, it's really fun as your kids start to grow up where I think one simultaneously, hopefully we're also starting to get clear on what's important and what's real and what life is all about and all that kind of stuff. But one of the things I tell my boys about fear and being afraid is like, look, being courageous is not about being fearful. It's not about not being fearful. Right. It's not about just being cavalier and macho and tough. And that's not what courage is. Courage is advancing forward in spite of fear. And I find even kind of a tie in with my own boldness and my own willingness to engage in difficult conversations. I feel like I've felt a correlation with this suffering piece. We talked about exercise fitness, the stuff like the sauna. I've recently got into cold plunging. I want to give a caveat to that. I got up cold plunge and I've done it three or four times in the last couple of weeks.
[00:17:52.390] - Chris
For me, it's the pinnacle for right now in my life. Like, cold plunging is the thing that I have a really strong difficulty overcoming. I can go spend 20 minutes in the sauna now. I can get through. I'm on top of that hill. The cold plunging has introduced an entirely different level of anxiety for me, like trying to get myself to make the choice. I have a buddy. His name is Trevor. Shout out to Trevor if you're listening to this. He did this really kind thing. I borrowed a cold plunge from a buddy and it was a small one. And I'm a fairly tall guy. And he showed up on my doorstep, texted me, hey, I got something for you. Showed up on my door, pulled his pickup into my driveway and had a horse trough, one of those feeder, the metal plunges. And he just gave it to me. He's like, you know, I noticed you were borrowing one from a buddy and you're tall, you need a bigger one. And he just dropped it off, carried into my backyard, set it up on my patio, and it was really sweet, but have I used it yet?
[00:18:44.470] - Chris
I have not. That was a week and a half ago that Trevor came by anyway. Okay, well, I digress. I want to touch on one thing because we have a lot of people right now that are, you know, we have a cat event underway. It's the first cat event for a lot of people around the country in a while. And so everybody's like, I don't know. I'm sure amongst your circles of friends people are fired up. It's like, here's our opportunity. God, travel is so hard. It's so hard on the body. It's hard intellectually and emotionally. And when you're traveling for business, what are some of the things? Because we've been traveling, Brandon and I, a lot more lately. Gosh, I think we logged 26 trips last year and I've never experienced the jet lag and just the recovery required for that until this past year. It really hit us. What are some tactics that you use to stay at the top of your game because you're in good shape, man. I mean, I'm looking at you. I was seeing the profiles, you're sitting up, I'm like, you're all trim, right? You're working out, you're getting the muscles, all that stuff.
[00:19:42.010] - Chris
But how do you protect all those gains and some of the advances you've made while you're traveling? When you got crappy hotel gyms, in some cases, you got an erratic schedule of flights. Anything you can share? Best practices? Absolutely.
[00:19:53.550] - Alex
So a couple of things that I realized. One is the number one factor of travel that affects us negatively is actually dehydration. You're sitting in a plane for four to 5 hours. The plane's relative humidity here, we'll geek out because we're restorers, right, is very low, so it just sucks out all the humidity within your body and all the water in your body. So understanding how to properly stay hydrated is very important. And a big part of hydration is electrolytes. So whenever I travel, I double down on the electrolytes. So I use relight. It's basically like this salt that you put in water because just drinking water alone won't help you. The second thing that also is tied to dehydration, also tied to travel, is often when we travel, we want to go out and have drinks with people and socialize with different clients, prospects, stuff like that. It's very good and important to actually lay low on that. And I've actually post 75 hard. That was actually one of the things of 75 hard was no alcohol whatsoever. And post that, I kind of eliminated alcohol almost 100% from my life. And especially while traveling, it's huge, right?
[00:20:55.010] - Alex
You're tired, you are running around with your hair on fire. When you're traveling. The last thing I think you want is to be dehydrated and then the brain fogginess that comes with alcohol. As far as with working out, I think being consistent with your workouts while you travel is actually even more important because that's what gives you the energy to fuel you throughout your days. So, yeah, I mean, shitty hotel gyms. Okay, that sucks. I mean, you could do a burpees in your hotel room if you want, but doing something to move around is very important. It's very easy to let that go. And then your diet and how you eat and what you put in the inputs in your body is very important. So anytime I travel, my assistant basically instacarts protein and various things to my hotel room. And you just try to make it super easy. I mean, in today's day and age, it's not like you have to go walk to the store, you can instacart to your hotel.
[00:21:42.520] - Chris
It's a total Tim Ferriss move, by the way. Man, that's good. I like that. That's cool.
[00:21:46.900] - Alex
Yeah, I mean, there's so many things that you could do to just make it. Yeah, I mean, I think the recipe for traveling is stay hydrated, stay away from alcohol, eat right and move. Especially during those times. And yeah, it's stressful. Like when I travel, I try to optimize. I'm probably working 6 hours a day when I travel, which is probably more than when I don't travel just because I'm in a new city. And I typically go back to back, try to capitalize on the fact that I'm in a new city. And I bet most people when they travel, they feel the same way. But you can't negotiate away the basic inputs because if your cup is empty, you're not going to be able to give to anybody else, you're not going to be able to pour into anybody else.
[00:22:28.190] - Chris
All right, Headhart and Boots listeners wanted to stop here just a moment and thank our underwriting sponsor, bloodlight consulting group. As all of you, you know, Brandon and I, this is our passion project. Headhart and Boots is. But it's also a way more and more that our consulting clients find us and in effect, they interview us. Right? Those of you been listening to show for a while, you get to know who we are, right, what we're about. So if headheart and Boots is valuable to you, one of the best things you can do is share it with your friends. And it's been incredible to watch just the audience grow. And we still get text messages from many of you about shows that you really like and impacted you. So that's number one. And please keep doing that. Many of you have been huge advocates of the show. We also just want to remind you too, if you're a restoration company owner and you're interested in a partner in your growth, you want some help building out systems, developing your leadership teams, helping set up the infrastructure for you to scale and grow into the company that you're trying to build.
[00:23:27.460] - Chris
That's what we do. That's what we do is we come alongside restoration company leaders, we help equip them and we help support them in that growth trajectory. So if you're looking for that, go to floodlightgrp.com. Potentially we could be a great match for each other.
[00:23:41.640] - Brandon
Another way that we really do serve our client base and our sphere of influence is through our premier partners. We work really hard to vet those folks that we believe bring a level of value to the industry, that it can really be leveraged in a way to have a sincere positive impact on your business. We take that very seriously. The folks that we create, those kind of ongoing partnerships, that's not a check the box kind of scenario. We really see strategic alignment in the value that they bring. We see value in the way that their leadership teams and their partners are developed. And we've done very sincere work of ensuring that these folks that we introduce our clients and our sphere to can actually create vetted value. So go check out floodlightgrp.com premier partners and see if there's some folks on there that you can connect with and begin developing some other resources to support your growth and your business.
[00:24:33.190] - Chris
You have a new book out. Can you tell everybody the title of your new book?
[00:24:36.280] - Alex
Restoration Millionaire.
[00:24:37.360] - Chris
And admittedly I've not read it yet. I haven't checked it out, but I'll send you. That'd be awesome, dude. I'd love that.
[00:24:43.310] - Alex
Do you like audio or do you like the paper book?
[00:24:46.030] - Chris
Oh, you know what, dude? I'm one of those people that I bounce back and forth, so I'd love both. When I'm driving, it's audio, right? And then I love sitting out on my back deck when it's not 20 degrees and reading regular books. So, yeah, both. My understanding is, have I seen you sharing about it and then heard you talking about on some other podcasts and whatnot? This is your personal journey coming up. Family business. You really taking the helm at the family business, as I understand it, really being kind of the key leader, making that transition and then scaling it up and taking it to places and to levels of success that the family had not previously taken the business. And I'm just curious about knowing a little bit more about that journey, what that was like and more so for you as a man, what were some of the most difficult points in that journey? Because I think sometimes it's tempting, man, when we see somebody that's had the level of success that you have. I mean, just to be able to use the word millionaire right at your age, in conjunction with your career, I mean, it's just phenomenal.
[00:25:46.810] - Chris
And I think a lot of people might look at your success and be like, God, this guy was just born with all the talent and probably born into a really good, solid family and just had it all and just really had this incredible run with very little resistance. One could kind of make that assumption because you're so young, relatively speaking to many of us in the industry, what have been some of the hardest points that have been the most gut wrenching or the most transformative for you?
[00:26:12.250] - Alex
Man, that's an interesting question. So, yeah, I'd like to start off with the fact that I was born into an awesome family, but not from what people would think as an awesome family. My parents came from communist Romania. We moved here when I was about two, went back and forth between Romania and the states until I was about ten, and then settled into the states. And my dad had come from a village with no running water. No, well, they had electricity, but they didn't have any running water. My mom came from entire family living in like a 300 square foot little studio in a city, and came from a lot of poverty, if you can think about eastern Europe during communist regime. And I consider ourselves lucky that we came from that, because I'm a firm believer that tough times create tough men and tough men create good times. And there's that famous quote out there. Growing up, I witnessed my parents moving from Romania to the states and all the sacrifice that they had made, and they had built themselves up multiple times and lost everything multiple times. So my parents built themselves up in Romania.
[00:27:09.600] - Alex
First they had a bunch of different businesses, and then they decided to move to the states. So they gave up everything there. So they went from zero to decent middle class to back to zero here in the states where didn't know the language. My mom worked very od jobs, my dad worked very od jobs. They eventually built themselves up and by 2008, 2009, they had quite a bit of real estate and had done some amazing moves within the real estate market. And as we know, in eight, nine real estate decided to take a tank. So they were back to square one again in their lives. So I'm lucky in the fact that I witnessed my parents go through tough times and go from zero to middle class to back to zero to middle class multiple times. And that's shaped me a lot as an entrepreneur. So as far as family business wise.
[00:27:57.310] - Chris
Do you mind if I pause real quick? I just have a really interesting question. It shaped you in many ways. Do you think that that experience of watching boom and bust and the resilience of that obviously is big part of it, but in seeing the errors, maybe the errors in judgment or one can only imagine real estate, right? Did they get out over their skis like you've seen the good stuff that they did and the best? Did it make you more bold or did it make you exercise more caution? What was the fundamental thing that, that taught you or grew inside you?
[00:28:29.780] - Alex
I think I was too young to understand their moves at the time and whether they were good or not good, or what going over your was or not, because a lot of these things happen till high school, for example, and a lot of high schoolers do not really understand property investing and such. But I think there was a couple of things. I noticed that the stress that going from zero to 100 to zero put on our family, specifically the emotional stress. I noticed the disconnect that I had with my parents growing up due to the fact that they were very busy putting food on the table. And I noticed some peers and the relationships they had with their parents versus mine. And the one thing that it kind of instilled in me, well, the two things was, one, okay, the way to build yourself back up is hard work. So hard work and grit was instilled within me from my parents. And then two I kind of made a promise to myself that I will never have money problems ever again. And that was, like, my promise that I made to myself in high school, because I saw that the yoyoing and the up and down and the losing everything creates these emotional.
[00:29:33.480] - Alex
And I can't say it was horrible, right? I can't say it was abusive or anything like that, but emotional tension within the family. So I was like, look, no matter what, I'm going to be rich. I'm going to have all the money in the world. So that way, I don't have to put my family through these things. I want my kids to be able to play on the hockey teams and do all the after school activities and do all these things. And I want the fishing trips with my kids, and I want all these things, right? So those are kind of the two things that it brought in. It's hard work and grit. And the second thing was, no matter what, I need to make sure I check the box off of financial independence. And from a very young age, I started. I mean, when I was 14 and a half, I started working at this car wash. That was my first job, Delta Sonic, here in Downers Grove, Illinois. When I was junior and senior in high school, I was doing snow removal at night with a bunch of friends, well, a few friends from high school, so we know, would plow driveways or snowblow driveways at the beginning days.
[00:30:25.820] - Alex
So I was always very motivated on how can I put in the extra work to make sure that I never have to worry about this ever again for when I do have a family.
[00:30:34.680] - Chris
Man, you're really hitting on so many things there. What I hear you describing with your parents, and I, too, kind of tapped into a version of that in my own upbringing. I think our parents, they felt like they had to. There was no other. And maybe there was. There was no other option but to sacrifice some of the family closeness and connection in order to provide. Right.
[00:30:57.590] - Alex
I think that was.
[00:30:58.230] - Chris
It was like this either or proposition for our parents, grandparents, and maybe it was just the state of the world. I don't know. I think maybe we are growing up and building businesses in a different time where we have technology. And I think, too, man, I think there's this generation that I feel, and I think what you described, where we've watched our loved ones, many of them grind and grind and grind with the goal of giving something to their children and. Or having that RV or that vacation home in Florida when they finally retire and not get there and die or have some illness or disability to where there's never the payoff, and they sacrifice some of the closeness and connectedness with their family on top of that. And so there's the heartache of what they gave up for it, and then they ended up never being able to cash in on all the hard work. And so I think guys like you and I, we've watched that. How have you learned, man? This is the key question, right? How have you learned to modulate your strategy and approach as an executive and entrepreneur to try to do both?
[00:32:02.760] - Chris
Because I think I'm part of this generation. Because I'll be 44 in March and you're 20 something young is right. Still in the 20 something category. Yeah. Okay. So for me, I was in that first layer after the boomers, where I'm like, man, this is crazy. There has to be a better way to build a life where you're not giving everything up. But how have you learned to manage that? Because you're a high achieving person. How do you stay connected with all the travel, the 16 hours days when you're traveling? Because I can empathize with that. I mean, I'm familiar with that kind of grind. How in the world do you balance connection with your wife and your children and being establishing a different legacy, maybe, than what your parents were able to hand you? How do you do that, man? What's that balancing act looked like?
[00:32:45.460] - Alex
Yeah. It took me a while to realize, and I think I hadn't realized it until, like, three years ago, that there's more to life than just the wealth aspect of it. Right. Like I said, in high school, it was like, get rich no matter what. That'll solve everything. And then fast forward to me almost dying from COVID It's like, oh, you've got all the money and the success and whatever in the world, but your daughter may never meet you. My wife was pregnant at the time. The holidays were going around. There's a lot of different things that were going on at the time. And I kind of realized that there's more to life than just wealth. And I kind of formulated four different pillars of life that I believed in, and I kind of sat in and reflected, and I thought of, okay, well, what's important to me, I distilled it down to four pillars, which is wealth, health, love, and spirituality. Wealth, I think, is pretty self explanatory. Call your net worth, call your free flowing cash flow health. Very important. It's basically, how healthy are you mentally, physically, emotionally? Love has to deal with the relationships.
[00:33:43.830] - Alex
It has to deal with, first and foremost, my relationship with my daughter, my relationship with my wife and my family, and then also relationships in general, friendships, and then everything else as imagined, like the nucleus of relationships. And then spirituality was my relationship with something greater than myself. Most people would consider that God. And depending on what your definition of God is, and if you want to dive down that rabbit hole, we can. But basically, your relationship with God and the greater good. And I realized that anytime you have an imbalance, it leads to something bad in life, right? If you look at the Wolf of Wall street example and why it ended up burning out, even though other people, like maybe Mark Zuckerberg, have had accumulated way more wealth than the wolf of Wall street but didn't burn out, it's because there was an imbalance. And I think if there is an imbalance where you're going all in on wealth and you're not going all in on health and you're not focusing on love and spirituality, you will eventually burn yourself out. So, for me, it's all about intentionality and going 110% in those four pillars of life.
[00:34:45.660] - Alex
And I think the setting intention behind everything you do and seeing where it fits is very important. And then if you want to dive in, very tactically, I've got this thing called the perfect week. I use a couple of different frameworks, but one of them is the perfect week, where there are certain ingredients that must fit in every single week, and they all fit within health, wealth, love, spirituality. So there's a morning routine that has to happen every single morning. That checks off most of that. I have date night every single week with my wife. That is very important. I have Sophia time on the calendar with Sophia is my daughter, and that is time set aside specifically for her. And then I have certain rules in place. Like, if I travel for more than three nights, the family comes with me. So even though I'm working like crazy, I can come the night at the hotel room, and the family is there, and we actually spend time together. And even though I had to trade some capital resources to fly three other people with me, it was important. So I think just being intentional about whatever the core pillars of your life are and then establishing guidelines or rhythms to make sure that they happen is the way to do it.
[00:35:48.820] - Alex
And understanding that life isn't just about one of them. Life isn't just about your family, because if you can't put food on the table and financial troubles typically lead to families breaking up. Right. Life isn't just about wealth, because you can have all the wealth in the world. But if you don't feel loved and you're sick and about to die, aka Steve Jobs, right, you won't be a very happy camper. So, yeah, I don't know if you have any questions about that. And that's kind of how I look at know.
[00:36:16.810] - Chris
I mean, that's in a lot of ways that's classic leadership, right? It's taking a proactive and intentional approach to making time for whatever priorities you have when it comes to spiritual, like your spiritual orientation. What spiritual practices or disciplines hold significance or meaning for you?
[00:36:34.910] - Alex
Yeah, so I am very green in that area. I've recently hired a spiritual coach that I've been working with. But as far as daily practices, meditation is one of those daily practices that I use every single day. I also journal and practice a lot of gratitude. So I always focus on what am I grateful for? And those are basically the two main practices that I've implemented within my life to boil them down very simply.
[00:36:59.500] - Chris
Right on. Okay, going back to this question about your kind of come up in the industry, right, and building your restoration company, when you look back at that entire leadership journey which now spans you've got a technology startup, I mean, you just did this extraordinary pivot, right, from successfully earning out of personal business, selling it, successfully making the money, doing that whole transition, and then reinvesting in a completely different vertical. I have just a sliver's worth of shared experience there of being during my transition from insurance to disaster restoration, I did some consulting and that consulting led me into working with some technology companies. And I thought for a minute, man, this is the place to be. I'm going to be a technology guy. And I had a budy I met in New York at a Seth godin conference and we had this idea for an app for iPhones. And this was way back, early days, back when you were still in junior high. And I thought, man, this is where I want to be. It's so sexy and exciting and there's a super cool factor to being a technology entrepreneur and app. Have an app startup at the time.
[00:38:12.110] - Chris
Boy, I'll tell you what, dude, there was just three of us in that little startup team. That was one of the hardest and most awkward and frustrating things I've ever done in business. Frankly, I have trauma around having a software startup and working with software engineers. But I think for me, I'm just curious, man, in that whole leadership journey, because there's a lot there that probably most restorers can't even relate to in some ways. But in that come up. What have you learned about yourself and what has been the most difficult kind of growing edge for you? Where do you struggle in your leadership? What's the area that requires a lot of constant reflection for you and or input from others? Maybe a recurring blind spot for you. What's that been?
[00:38:57.210] - Alex
Absolutely. Yeah, I'll start with the blind spot. I've always been involved in very rapidly growing businesses. Remixtera, the restoration company. Very rapidly growing. I mean, we're talking about eight figures within six years. And Albiware is venture backed. Like investors are giving us money to burn, to rapidly grow. And I've always been a very fast moving, need a lot of irons in the fire, need a lot of speed and agility, just that's how my brain functions. But recognizing the fact that different people operate at different paces and understanding how to motivate different people and what different people want from life has been a challenge that I've been working on as a leader. And I've got a lot of wonderful managers that I've worked with that personally. They inspire me a lot. They're able to work with. I'm very dependent on finding superstars in order to have great outcomes. They don't depend on that. They can find a way to motivate anybody, get them aligned to the vision from day one. And what I joke with them is I think that they have this magical ability to deliver extraordinary results from ordinary people, whereas my weaknesses, I depend on extraordinary people to deliver those extraordinary results, if that makes sense.
[00:40:12.710] - Alex
No.
[00:40:12.950] - Chris
Why is that? Dig into that. What is that difference? I think it has to do with.
[00:40:16.650] - Alex
A couple of things. One is the patience that I may have as an entrepreneur. Right, go, go. Don't want to repeat things twice, three times. I always want to run. I never want to start walking. So I think that's one of the reasons. And then the second one, and I've realized, and I've changed a lot over the years, but empathy. Most people that have met me three to four or five years ago would say that I was the most abrasive person in the world that didn't really care about people, didn't care about people's feelings and stuff. And it wasn't that I didn't care about people. It's just I didn't have the ability to be empathetic with certain people. And maybe that ties back to the suck it up, be tough upbringing that I had. But, yeah, those are definitely, I would say, two areas of improvement. And I've come a long way, but I still every single day. Try to work on it better. In fact, tomorrow I'm leaving for Vegas to a personal development leadership retreat called rapport. I don't know if you heard of it, it's super ambiguous. But again, always dedicated to working on those weak spots and becoming the best version I can of myself and the best leader I can.
[00:41:25.160] - Chris
All right, so like I said, this was just part one, little bit of abrupt ending. So to be truthful, what happened was our Wi Fi just completely cut out our studio and it was irreparable. So anyways, stay tuned for part two. I hope you enjoyed this first part of the discussion with Alex. Thanks for listening, and as always, please subscribe. Follow the podcast, share it with your friends. We'll see you next time. All right, everybody.
[00:41:54.920] - Brandon
Heath, thanks for joining us for another.
[00:41:56.680] - Chris
Episode of head, heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show or you love this episode, please hit follow. Formerly known as subscribe right us a review or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.
