Transcript generated via AI - Not 100% accurate

Justin: 0:00

Today on amplified whole health.

Joey: 0:02

If you are an entrepreneur, I think work had better be your hobby because you don't have time for work into a house. You just got to like to work. You just got like to work. I do like to work and it gets on a lot of people's nerves. My wife and kids, probably more, but my kids have learned to appreciate a work as a hobby, just because you can do things that are fun. That produce,

Justin: 0:40

welcome to the amplified whole health podcast. We're personal and organizational health meat. I'm your host, Justin Collier. And my goal is to bring you insightful interviews with business owners and leaders from a variety of different industries. We'll be talking about employee development, leadership, company, culture, and quality products and services and how they drive success in business. Thanks for joining me and let's get started. Well, thanks for listening. I appreciate everyone joining. I would like to remind people to go ahead and like follow subscribe, et cetera, to amplified whole health. Uh, and today I'm joined in studio by Joey Marone and Joey, you are an entrepreneur. I can't think of any other way to describe you. That's like that's who you are at your heart. I mean, every time I've ever run into you, you're. You're thinking and you're moving forward on stuff. So is that

Joey: 1:36

right? Yeah. Today's term entrepreneurial a lot. I think from the younger generation perspective, they think of, uh, the webmaster who makes it big. Cause he sells something online. I'm more of the dirt in my fingernails. Uh hands-on entrepreneurs. Okay.

Justin: 1:52

Yeah. And you've been hands-on entrepreneur guy for how

Joey: 1:56

long. Construction, uh, since I was a teenager. Okay. So quite awhile. So

Justin: 2:03

you got into the construction business as a team. Did you always work for yourself

Joey: 2:07

for. I started with my dad. And my first time I was on payroll, I was making three 15 an hour. All right. Eight me, maybe a little when I was, when I turned 16, I got my big raise to $5 an hour. Huh. And then, um, worked for my dad and our family construction business until I ended that relationship through. Some bad decisions. I ran away. Yeah. But I took my experience. Thankfully, my dad taught me a lot about work. So I took that. On the road at 17.

Justin: 2:45

Okay. You went on the road and you ended up where,

Joey: 2:48

uh, from outside of Philadelphia, we took off and went to, we were going to California cause isn't that what everybody does when they run away. Yeah. And we didn't make it, my car broke down in Kentucky, so we limped it to Dallas, Texas, which is where I spent about a year framing houses. Okay. So that was my, that was my, my. Uh, love in construction. I was a helper for all my dad's guys, whatever trade, but I loved carpentry and framing specific. So that's where I zeroed in as a young man. So you got,

Justin: 3:17

I started doing carpentry work and then you ended up in Fort Smith area. How'd you get to Fort

Joey: 3:25

Smith, uh, bounced around. So it's seven. Uh, this is going to take me some thought as I coincide decisions and dates. But when I got back to Pennsylvania, then I went to, went around with some friends, living in different places. Ocean city, Maryland was a great spot, have a lot of history there. Framing houses, roofing houses in ocean city. And. As a young kid, I went to a church camp called spruce Lake wilderness camp and candidates has Pennsylvania by the Poconos. And I got saved. I found the Lord in ocean city, Maryland. The guy that I was working for was a seventh day Adventist. And, uh, he reignited a hunger in me with the Holy spirit and I found the Lord and changed my life. He changed my life and, um, Went to camp for two summers. So I quit construction, went to camp as a counselor for two summers, and then my dad invited me to Arkansas. So I came to Arkansas before I was married in there's no, I can't do the math. Let me think what year? Um, 91, I think. Yeah, we'll call it 91 or two. All right.

Justin: 4:44

So you moved to Arkansas and then when did you start your

Joey: 4:47

own thing? Well, I started it in Maryland, so I was working as an hourly, uh, framing hand, but I learned early that I had a fire for getting things done, and sometimes we have resentment built into us that we have to. Contend with. And sometimes the resentment for me was, uh, I was roofing with my, with my boss who was a good friend of mine to this day. And, uh, I had learned how much they make per quantity per square and roofing business. We call it a square and I could perform as a young kid. I could nail on some shingles of like fast. And, um, so I asked him for a race. I was like, Hey, I know what you're making. I know what I'm making by the hour. And I know I made you some money and he said, well, I know, but you work for me. And this is my business. I need to make the profit. And that was a good, humbling conversation that I needed to hear. But then he kindly, he offered me opportunity to work peace work. We called it. So it was, you know, performance driven payroll. So you got paid by the square instead of by the hour. So on every bundle of shingles at that time was a little UCP sticker and I'd nail on a square. And I tear that piece of paper and stuff at my tool belt. And at the end of the day, however many you has what you got paid, ha compensate you for. And, uh, and then framing was different. I was, uh, I could really nail on deck and quick, like I could shoot a house fast. And so they started paying me by the sheet. So I would just deck roofs. And they called me. We call ourselves a deck and dog. We were a deck and dogs, buddy. We could decorate roof today. So you get the appetite. The Bible says the appetite of the labor drives him on and I was hungry and I could eat, you know, so I work and that's how I got that. My appetite for, I guess, entrepreneurially. That's how you, you get an appetite for success is, Hey, I could bring home a, at that time was $10 an hour, which. Was, you know, $400 a week was a big paycheck for a single guy living at the beach, or I could, you know, do some of these side jobs and score. And then I ended up buying my own equipment, buying my own truck buying. And that's just how it, I mean, I think, I think that's how it's supposed to work. If you learn a trade. You know, so that, that's what started that appetite. And then moving here to Arkansas kind of brought that pace, not PayScale, but I had the, um, the value scale of production versus dollars came here to Arkansas and I, and they were telling me how much it costs, how much they paid for framing. And I, I was so disappointed. Ocean city, Maryland was paying three 25, a foot to frame a house. Arkansas was paying $2. So I went to my first job in Greenwood and, uh, the slab was poured. I thought. Well, that's cool. We didn't have slabs in Maryland. We did pier and beam. There was concrete pylons. We did wood floors and wood deck. And so I was like, well, that makes sense. Now I don't have to build the floor. So I was, I was no longer disappointed. Arkansas had a very fair pay scale. It was equal basically to what I was used to out East. Sure. So off I went

Justin: 8:21

and so you start framing and you start a business framing.

Joey: 8:26

Well, dad and I were building houses, but okay. Cashflow is subcontracting. Okay. Specialty, you know, that's how I, that's how I fed my family is framing. Sure.

Justin: 8:37

So you did that for years and then, and then like you've gotten into real estate, you've gotten into any number of other businesses along the way. Can you maybe share a little bit about

Joey: 8:48

those? I have been blessed to work for really generous people. You know, a lot of people. Have passed on to me, the joy in helping somebody find a place, you know, whether you help them develop a skill that they can take somewhere else. And I, I have some guys that have worked for me that I've, I tell them like, Justin, if you can work for me, I would say, Hey, listen, I love you to work for me, but I'm a dead end guy. I'm a dead end job. I will teach you a lot. But then you're just going to have to go off and be your own guy. You know, I'm not, I'm not a business that you can say you can hang your shingle at. You know, but I mean, I may used to be, and that's part of the story, but in today's world, I have some young men that come and work for me. I teach them hands-on every bit that I think I can, that I know. And I have one guy that now has his own business and I'm really proud of him. And he actually still helps me and we work together, but he's his own guy. Um, so I had some guys like that. Mark Ross was one Mark. Um, as I was framing houses for him, um, He encouraged me to, to multiply my crews, you know, get more and more crews going cause he had more and more work. And then he yeah. Introduced me to some of his lenders. So I could start building a spec house or two on the side. So we started building houses and then, uh, Stacy and I, uh, bought some commercial real estate and opened a business called main street market. That was a little, we rented little booths, you know, and, um, Um, golly, is that comes to memory. I can't believe she still loves me, but anyway, uh, worked and worked and worked. I mean, we just work. If you are an entrepreneur, I think work had better be your hobby because you don't have time for work and a hobby. You just gotta, you just got to like to work. And I do like to work and it gets on a lot of people's nerves, my wife and kids, probably more, but my kids have learned to appreciate. Uh, work as a hobby, just because you can do things that are fun, that produce. Sure. You know, so we have my boys and I have a lot of fun working and my girls, Chloe, especially now we have the wedding venue. So that was, um, man, I'm going to hop and skip around, I guess if we go there. That's all right. Cause that's more recent. That's 2016 and um, we acquired a piece of property. You know, nine that I was really, really excited to have. We still have it in SAR, farm located in Mulberry. And during that season I was building, I was doing some large scale commercial deals, building four-story hotels, and, and I thought I was really doing something. You know, I was a big shot, but really, I wasn't really, you can do $12 million a year in business and live off credit cards and realize you haven't made a penny. You simply had $12 million go through your account or in my case, 12.1, you know? Sure. And so a lot of the allure or that I got sweet talked into from my own ego and from, uh, guys that. Knew that we could get the work done, but lost track of, um, the business fundamentals of a profit and loss. Um, and in my prejudice now has become, I, I just can't stand the laziness. I just don't like to be around it because laziness eat me up when I was in large-scale business. I just get, eat up with laziness. You can, you, you overstaff for projects because of people's recommendations or what they say you need to have. For when the storm hits and in my world, you don't get paid. If you don't work. I mean, that's, I grew up in construction. Is it raining then? You're not getting paid. You know, you stub your toe and you want to take off the next day. Okay. But you ain't getting paid. How many UPC

Justin: 12:45

stickers did you put in your tool belt?

Joey: 12:47

That's exactly right. Yeah. That's I mean, that's your paycheck and that's a little bit old school, you know, if you. If you get hurt, you know, if you die on the job, we bare you where you landed. You know, I come from that off, uh, side of the track world and, uh, never thought anything about it, just because I just knew that, that it was an honest, day's work for an honest day's pay now. And I was proud to be part of it and more so if you kick up your performance a little bit, you get paid more based on a pay scale. That's based on performance and I've always not only loved it, but, uh, Uh, recommended it. There's a guy in Fort Smith that I think is one of the, uh, best managers and motivators, uh, in a more of a white collar industry world and his name's cliff cabanas. And that guy has really taught me, um, how to energize people to, to over-perform. Cause I never understood how to compensate somebody for ever performance outside the world of. Uh, you know, lifting boards and nailing boards and, you know, just kind of a SIM simple minded construction world that I'm from. But then when I yoked up with that guy on some things and he, he actually knew how to motivate management. And so I, I realized, wow, it's not just an ego-driven macho. How many boards can you carry? How much work can you get done in a day? But it's also. That skill set or that reward, um, mentality can transfer, transfer over to a white collar world too, because blue collar guys and white collar guys always kind of had a, you know, animosity one toward another, and you can make a living sitting at a desk. You know, we, we were pulling out splinters at nighttime, um, But even when I transitioned into management in construction, I mean, I'd go home more wore out. I that's why I'm glad to be out

Justin: 14:49

of it, but it sounds like one of the things that's helped you get to where you are today is finding someone to mentor you and to teach you and to help you to grow and mature in your particular field of interest.

Joey: 15:08

Lots of them. I can, uh, I thought of a guy on the way here who gave me a fundamental principle in teaching and preaching, actually the pastor, uh, Ben Colt, who has had a teaching fundamental that is not used today. And it's called a drill and mastery drill and mastery. K we, our kids are taught memorization. You know, YouTube, you, if you need to change your spark plugs, you can watch a YouTube memorize how they did it and do it. But a mechanic will change spark plugs over and over and over and over again in every different kind of vehicle and they'll drill and then master and in, even in education, our kids, if we really want them to Excel, we won't teach them to memorize an answer and do it once. We'll drill them until they've mastered it. If I won't show that I'm an insulted, but if somebody calls me a Jack of all trades, my feelings got hurt because I'm not, I can do just about anything, but it's not because I'm a Jack, you know, I have a master frame carpenter I've drilled for years and years and years and years. I'm really thinking that I did that. And I'm a master frame carpenter. I don't have a degree on the wall, but. My, my ego will tell Justin, put me up against any framework and I'll display my diploma. I'm a master frame rack. I can frame anything in the world of carpet is not really that big of a brag because I'm not a trim master. I'm not a furniture builder. I'm not a shipbuilder. I mean, there's guys that have higher levels of skill than me in carpentry, but I mastered it. And once you master something. There's a fundamental, um, platform or an experience that you can apply. So I don't just assume to be, uh, just cause I can pour your concrete in your patio. That doesn't make me a concrete finisher, but I can do it, but I can become a master because I've, I've mastered something and said, I think, I think once somebody masters a skill, they can take the. The skill of learning and apply it to the next thing they want to learn. I that's one reason I like to homeschool kids cause they're in business. When I hire, if I hire a kid in their homeschool, I judge them with a judgment that could be a false judgment, but I look at them and say, I think they were taught to learn. And that's, that's a big statement because if someone's just taught stuff, then all they have is stuff. But if they're taught to learn, then they bring a skill because learning is actually a skill. Yeah. So I'm a good learner.

Justin: 18:03

It sounds like, it sounds like you've learned a lot through the years. Well, let's come maybe back to your wedding venue. Uh, what did you learn kind of along the way to get you to the point where you were like, Hey, I'm going to start a wedding venue.

Joey: 18:16

Well, As you shake your head, wondering what the heck I'm doing in the wedding business, which is valid. Um, does it make it worse? I opened a restaurant years ago in Waldron, Arkansas, so my dad was terminally ill. Um, uh, 19 years ago, 18 years ago. It was a while ago, but our family's in the restaurant business in Philadelphia. Some Roni's pizza was opened in 1946 for my grandparents. And it's still open today. So that is a significant statement of Enderman. I mean, that pizza is pretty good. It has endured through the decades, um, 1946 and think about it. That's almost, that's going to be a century soon enough cause won't be long. Wow. I hadn't thought about that until now. So anyway, um, Grandma and grandpa started Maroney's pizza outside of Philly in, uh, in 1946. So I grew up not in that restaurant business because my dad, when he and my mom left to raise their kids, we got out of it. But I've always been the kid that when we went to the restaurant, my dad would say, hi, we're in a restaurant. He good from the restaurant business. You don't act a fool in a restaurant. That's a place of business that is somebody. Livelihood, you know, so I really, at a young age, I understood the hospitality industry from that respect perspective. And then I made pizzas and different shops as a bachelor. I'd always have a second job at a pizza shop so I could eat and loved it. Still love it. And then my dad, when we moved to Arkansas, he said, I want to open up a Italian restaurant. He was dying and. Uh, he had a little bit of money and, and, uh, it didn't take long for that little bit of money to disappear because a restaurant, if you want to become a millionaire in a restaurant business, start with 2 million, that's the true joke. Um, so we got a, that was an expensive hobby for awhile, but it's an industry that I at least comfortable in saying that I. Am qualified to do. Hospitality is different than service I'm in the service industry. As a contractor, I work myself out of a job. Justin needs a deck, I'll build it. And then I'm unemployed. You, you always find, you know, a service you can perform. And, and then, uh, that keeps your lights on, uh, the hospitality industry similar, except you want to treat somebody good enough that they keep coming back. Restaurant hotel. Wedding venue. So we had, uh, a barn, half built and some folks in our world that wanted a wedding venue, wanted me to build it because they liked the Stacey style and my construction abilities, but didn't have the land. And so we yoked up with them. Okay. And so that's how we started the kindred barn, uh, with Nick and SA, uh, Nick and, uh, Samantha Daniels. And, uh, 2015 opened the doors for our first wedding 2016. And that was really, um, at my joke was the only qualifications I have is I've been married for 20, some odd years today it's 26 years, but then it was less. And, um, but we did have, we did have that understanding that when people show up, it had better be spotless when they show up, they better feel welcome when they leave that better. Be glad they were there. You know, we weren't serving them food, but we're still serving them hospitality. And, uh, and Stacy, my wife is a shoe in for that. She's the sweetest Southern girl in the South. She's a pretty as any picture. And she was a server at restaurants. So she understood the restaurant business and she opened one with me. So she understood the nuts and bolts of it. And the, the welcoming smile. And she is a maniac clean freak. And so the place looks and smells immaculate. So everybody that comes there, whether they have drama or not generally, I think almost exclusively has a great experience. So I'm really, really thankful for that way to not just demonstrate our, that skill set and make a living off of it, but then teach that to our kids now, because that's been the. Having them be part of it.

Justin: 22:40

So how many folks are employed as part of the

Joey: 22:43

Kendrick barn? Uh, not many. Um, it's kinda like contracting. I can contract without a lot of employees, but you bring in vendors, you bring in subcontractors and provide them an opportunity to make a living. So at any given wedding, there may only be three of us. But there's multiple photographers. Sometimes there's, uh, coordinators there's caters so that the wedding industry converges on the kindred barn every weekend. Uh, they're not my employees, but we Stacy and I have learned that their screw ups look bad on us. So we've actually helped many caterers. We've helped many coordinators, you know, because you can just see things. Oh man. It's, it's almost sad. I'm glad I don't know their names. Cause I didn't want to throw anybody under the bus, but it's so embarrassing when you see something going South. And, uh, it was neat. This one young lady was coordinating a wedding and she had just lost control and Stacy stepped in and, you know, took some responsibilities off of her that she didn't even. Remember we're hers type of thing, because she can see the mother of the bride get frustrated, you know, and just turn that thing right. Side up. Yeah. Because it it's, I mean that we weren't just doing it in a kindness. We're selfish too. We wanted to make sure our reputation is tainted. So, um, But kindred barn right now has my family, uh, depending on what's needed, uh, we have a full-time manager, um, uh, Gabby and then a full-time I say full-time, uh, part-time uh, cleaning lady who helps clean Amber. So, uh, there's six or seven of us that get to draw a check. Yeah. Uh, actually five cause station. I don't, you know, it's just the way it is when you own the business. Yeah.

Justin: 24:40

So with, you mentioned all of these subcontractors and folks that are coming in, you mentioned the folks that are of course employed by you as part of that. How do you keep the communication structure flowing effectively?

Joey: 24:54

Well, you gotta remember, man. I, I started in business before there was actually a cell phone. My first phone was years after I started business. And it was the bag phone that I had to go to Alltel in Fort Smith that they wired into my Mitsubishi, you know, and, uh, actually missed that thing. That was, it was pretty simple. Click cord, you know, it was kind of cool, but anyway, so communication gets easier and easier through this age of communication we live in, but I do seem to lose track sometimes of certain lines of communication. I wish I was more of a part of whether it's an email. Thread or, or, um, or just me not getting the call. Cause I'm probably a control freak. Um, more than I wished I was, but I've been broken. I've had businesses go like all the way broke, like court broke. And so you just, that's an experience that you don't wish upon your enemy and that you want to be careful. Never happens again. And so I don't know that I'm overly protective of the dollar, but I'm definitely overly protective of the job. And so I'm being careful and, you know, on construction being careful and, and, um, I can make a lot of money if I don't make mistakes in construction, but when you make mistakes, my dad taught me when you make a mistake, it costs you five times. What you think it costs you because it costs you the time to make the mistake wrong the first time, then it costs you that amount of time to undo that mistake. Then it costs you that amount of time to redo that mistake. And then it costs you those two sections of time that you could've been doing other things. So that's five units. Of cost for one mistake. And that's a tough lesson for a 14 year old to hear from his dad. You know, you make a mistake. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Many, many mistakes. Uh, and he was, uh, he wasn't necessarily a soft-spoken guy, but he was a lovable guy.

Justin: 26:58

So you've, you've, you've had some things that didn't go well. So as an entrepreneur, you've started things and they didn't always turn out. All right.

Joey: 27:08

Yeah. You, you could bring any entrepreneur in America, sit him in this chair and ask them that question. Yes, Justin, that is part of being an entrepreneur. You had better have a, uh, you better have some iron in your jaw cause you're going to get punched. Hmm. Yeah. Glass jaw, folks do not last in an entrepreneurial business or industry. You

Justin: 27:27

see those times where it didn't work out well as failure or as

Joey: 27:31

learning opportunities. Always learning always. I mean, yeah. I I'm a high school dropout. So I spent zero money. I got my GED, cause my grandmother would not let me go on living without it, uh, as if that was the only way into heaven, but I spent not a penny on college. So I, I feel like I have paid quite a bit of money for my education, literally. And so if I take a beating on a job or if I do something wrong and it costs me, um, I, I do lie to myself and say, that's just like, stay college, man. You're good. Just go home and figure it out. But, uh, there was. There was a, a business venture that I had embarked on that took me to a level of risk that I did not have a big enough parachute for and building multi-million dollar hotels and building some government subsidized housing projects that were micromanaged by all kinds of bureaucracy. I've learned. That are not for me. Hmm.

Justin: 28:44

You, you mentioned the need for you didn't you said I didn't have a parachute big enough. How important do you think it is to have a parachute going into a business venture?

Joey: 28:53

Very, very, very capitalist capitalizing your risk, you know, CA capitalizing the risk is so important. Uh, the term learning curve, you know, no banker wants to hear learning curve. You know, they want to hear experience. They want to hear confidence. Bankers want to know that, um, not only do you know what you're doing, but that you know how to do it right? Because mistakes cost real money. Um, and parachute is in business. Unfortunately. I mean, I, I'm a man of faith, but parachute and businesses, cash. Or, or, or lines of credit, you know, but, uh, cash being the best one because, um, sometimes they'll turn that line of credit off if they know that it's going for the wrong reason. So you want to be careful for sure.

Justin: 29:41

How, what would you tell someone that is trying to get going and is trying to navigate that parachute structure and, and have those communications with a bank as an example, they may not know all of the pieces. What do they do?

Joey: 29:59

I would go back to what pastor Ben taught me. First of all, drilling mastery is what you're doing. What you're really good at, not what you're woke up in the middle of night. You had a dream and you really fell in love with, uh, raising white roses. You know, I want to be a white Rose garden or whatever it is you think you want to do. Um, cause how many? Um, I, I'm going to sound like an older, an old man now, but how many young people will come to you with a business plan? As if you're the banker and here's a beautiful business plan. Have you done this before? Well, no, but it's a great plan. Isn't it? So I would say, listen, put your time in drill and mastery. My grandpa said, if you want to climb a ladder, start at the bottom rung, cause you ever jump to the second or third rung of a ladder. Yeah. Jackie , you know, you and I, we may end up with a broken shin. Um, So drill a mastery, make sure you're excellent. Excellent at what you want to do. And then start small, you know, the patient business, my brother and I, I'm not a paving expert. I know concrete very well and I know dirt road, uh, relatively well and, uh, uh, I actually got into it because I needed a stretch of road paved for a project that I was doing for a guy. And the quotes were just crazy. And I went to a friend of mine who had a small paving company and he said, why don't you use the let-down machine? Pave it yourself. And if you like it, buy it. And, uh, I didn't have, uh, I'm making myself sound like a guy who could just write a check for a paving business. That's not me, but regardless, um, I thought, yeah, I'll I will, I will try that. And so he brought his experience and I, I brought my, um, uh, ego and we paved a road. Why not just that? Some it really, um, so you hear that you just need a Rose, just go. So I I'm being a hypocrite and telling the story because I just said drill a mastery, but, uh, The next, uh, project was filling potholes. You know, that was a really go backwards project for me. I spent more money moving equipment to the job than the job was worth, but I learned so much about compaction and pothole filling. And then, uh, my brother and I own a commercial property in, in Oklahoma. And, and we thought, heck our parking lot needs seal coated. So, you know, we brought the guy over that and we seal, so we're starting, you know, starting small and doing our own projects. And then I showed you the picture of a striping job that we did today. It's small. And, uh, and that is fundamentally, the key to success is don't get ahead of yourself, build, build slowly. And, um, and it's. It's really a lot of fun, but you're taking

Justin: 33:05

calculated risks with these things, right? I mean, it's not like you got into the paving thing and you've never been around it before. It's not like you came from being a Rose garden or

Joey: 33:18

like you mentioned, no, I can't, you know, trouble with that with equipment yellow equipment. And I mean, we have, do we have equipment skid-steers or dozers and all kinds of Tonka toys in it. And so you get comfortable with that and, and, um, No, but mobilization, I mean, is it, this, isn't something that you get to do overnight. This is something that you, it takes years. You said, if you do it overnight, you'll bear yourself up in debt. Yeah. And then you'll be a slave to the payment and that is stressful. Um, I know that it's stressful, so it's no way to run a business. Uh, and then you gotta love it. If you don't love it. You're. You're, um, you're going to work the rest of your life. Me, I'm not going to work the rest of my life. It really is my hobby. I really do enjoy the other day. Uh, I was, uh, one of my clients has a lot of rental property and he asked me to go build two decks and tear down a shed. And, uh, there's certain clients that I will just do anything for some guys. I have some clients I just build duplexes for, uh, and, and some. Really, I don't work for the public generally. I only do referral work now. Thank the Lord. And I have a few clients that I know will keep me busy and we treat each other real fair. And, uh, so he said, build these two decks and tear down the shed. And I always, I never do anything without sending them a quote first. I don't surprise anybody with a, with a bill after the fact, you know, so send them a quote. I go out there, we build one of the decks and I look at that shed and I thought. That's a pretty nice little shed. I sent Stacy a picture. I said that would make a nice little chicken coop. So instead of tearing it down, I drug my sky drag out there in my tracks wheel trailer. And I loaded that dude up and I set it on the trailer. And, um, you, you don't understand how much fun that is. I mean, you probably, Justin probably does. You probably get it. Most people don't understand how fun it is to lift a little shed and load it on a trailer. It's a blast. And so I, I did it and, uh, I was tired. It was work. And then it sat on that trailer for two days. Cause I was scared to drag it home cause it was oversized. And uh, and my boss, my client called me and he said, Hey, you better get that thing out of there. Everybody's wanting to buy it from me because it's sitting on the trailer front yard and it's ready to go. Yeah, it's free shit for them, you know, or whatever they can give. I said, I'll get it out tomorrow. So I drove that thing home last night. And, uh, and then I had it on this. My trailer is 30 inches off the ground and I'm by myself and I'm a little bit of an egomaniac I'm like, I can do this, you know, but the question is, can you do it without, uh, falling to pieces when it hits the ground? You know? So I put my runners underneath it and I put my on my pulling points and I slide slid it backwards and it teetered and, you know, started doing this and. And, uh, and I got to that break over point and, uh, my tractor wouldn't pull it anymore. I thought, I guess I'm going to pull out from under it. So then I pulled out from under it real slow and it went down the ramp. Bam, you know, Stacy come up, what are you doing? That's not where I wanted it. Oh. So I dragged her around the house. You know, I just have fun. It's I I'm so spoiled. It's not even fair. Really. I have more fun than human being should be allowed to have that's the rush Limbaugh says, I don't know if you hear anyway, I have a lot of fun, so I don't go to work every day. I go play with responsibility. Yeah. It sounds like it. I do. It's it's a blast. I'll tell you. You asked me what mentors fundamentally taught me some things, pastor Ben. I'll never forget how many things he's taught me, but the drill and mastery, but there's another one. There's a movie called the edge. With Anthony Hopkins and, uh, Alec Baldwin. Have you ever seen it? I don't know that I have. So the airplane crashes, the little single engine, plane crashes in Alaska, and there's three passengers and a pilot pilot dies and, uh, three passengers. I won't spoil it for you, but they get chased by a Kodiak bear. As they're trying to find their way down this mountain. So they're in survival mode, you know, they have a Snickers bar and a lighter and a knife. So Anthony Hopkins, he's a really kind of neat elderly actor and he's got all the wisdom and he's walking around the campfire and this Kodiak bears stalking him. And he said, you know, he told the story about the, uh, Eskimo Indian boys, how their, their passage, their passage, right to manhood, was to kill a bear with a knife. So he's telling this story and his line that stuck with me is what one man can do another can do. And, uh, I'm a child of God. I'm a, I'm a guy. I see guys do crazy stuff. And maybe some of it I don't want to do. I'm not a rollercoaster guy. I don't need to go to a roller coaster to have fun. Uh, but I see some guys do things and I thank God they can do it. Well, one man can do another can do you know? So that's been, uh, that's kind of kept me a little bit crazy doing things that maybe I shouldn't have tried, but so far I haven't regretted too many of them, but you've taken some risks. Oh yeah. Yeah. Entrepreneurs do that for sure.

Justin: 38:45

And you've learned a lot along the way.

Joey: 38:48

I remember framing houses in Texas. And I was a runaway 17 years old with this Texas framing crew. I mean, they were brutal, um, lifestyle and I wouldn't walk the walls. You know, these eight foot walls you had to get up there and walk around the top plate so they could nail the top braces and string line them and run Joyce. And they had me in tears, just scared, just my knees wobbling. And, uh, they drove me and shamed me and challenged me. And, uh, I think that was my passage demand who cause I went from crying in front of these guys, you know that, um, but they didn't give up on me. They drove me and I became, uh, not only a wall Walker, but I was the cause I only weighed 140 pounds. So when they build the scaffolding outside the. Second story windows for the Cornish. I was the first one on the scaffold because they want to know if it's going to hold, you know, so, but I, you know, so I lost my fear of Heights and, uh, but I was driven, you know? Yeah. I guess I, you know, you had to, yeah, I just had to do it.

Justin: 40:02

I don't think that would have been me up there. I would have been also crying. I think if I was

Joey: 40:06

up there trying to block you get past the tears, you know, it gets hard walk on a

Justin: 40:10

wall when you can't see, because you're

Joey: 40:11

crying. Oh, well, I can't remember how that was down, but I became the wall walking dude, for sure. Wow. Not today. I mean, I can walk an eight foot wall, but it's so funny. You get up on a 12 foot plate. And I get what they call Lockney. I can take a step out there and go, huh. You know, and just go down to the plate and inch myself back, Dale climb back down the ladder. I used to, I I've got, I've fallen a number of times, um, killed on the job in Fort Smith. Uh, framing a house. And I had a rafter slip off Ridge and hit me in the chest and begin to knock me off the scaffolding big house in, uh, Raleigh farms. And, uh, barely caught myself. It was. I got down and kissed the ground prayed, thanked the Lord type of moment. Search my soul. What did I do? Oh, man, I better go get right. You know, it was killing me over it. You know? No regrets though. I love it. Still do well, maybe

Justin: 41:07

we'll, we'll get ready to wrap up and I'll just ask the question about your. In business with your wife

Joey: 41:18

and have been, since we've been married.

Justin: 41:19

And since the beginning, if you have, she has been involved in some form or fashion in this entrepreneurial lifestyle,

Joey: 41:29

which is so glamorous. I mean that poor girl, when we were building houses, uh, during the recession, we had five houses for sale and they weren't selling back in Oh eight Oh nine. I'm bad with years, but anyway, she's got young kids nursing the kid and uh, she's she went and bought her own tilt trailer and took our lawn mower and weed-eater and was mowing five yards. You know, two days a week with all these kids keeping it pretty. So we could sell, uh, doing the books and homeschooling our kids and waitressing at Cracker barrel when things got tough. Um, she's all in, she's a rockstar for sure.

Justin: 42:13

How important has that been and keeping things moving for you throughout the years?

Joey: 42:21

Um, Can't really put it in a sentence, but I'll tell you biblically what it, what it is because I'll, I'll never forget. Uh, the lesson that was taught me about the power of a woman in Proverbs 31, it talks about the virtuous woman. And so we always go to certain scriptures about how the virtuous woman can mend the, you know, she knits and mens and, and that's all cute, but there's one scripture that says that a woman has the power to bring down Kings. Just half of verse, you know, all these Proverbs and Psalms, they're always two sentences versus a woman has the power to bring down Kings. And, uh, you and I, we think of ourselves as the King of our home, where the priest of our home or the man of our man of the house, we wear the pants. So in certain terms, you and I could call herself the King of our home. Our wife could be the queen. Sure. Right. In certain terms, because God gave men the authority in the home. That's just biblical. Well, what good is authority without power? Because he gave us authority, but he gave the woman the power. So I, I have the same, uh, thankfulness and responsibility to my wife. As you do an amen. Does she has the power to ruin you or the power to make you and I have the authority to make sure I'm worth making. And, uh, not, and she's more powerful than I am authoritative in that regard. I mean, I, my response I've been, I mean, I'm halfway glad she's not here to tell you all the bad parts of our story because of who I really am, because she knows, you know, I can, I can tell you all the neat, uh, highlights and, uh, but Stacy knows the dirt and, uh, and if she wanted to unleash her power on me, she could ruin me. Right. Where's she, she won't, she hasn't and I'm thankful she's chosen to use her power to make me. Hm

Justin: 44:19

that's great. I think that's, I don't know how to, to follow that. I think that's a really great story and really, really great way to show encouragement and love and respect for your wife and how she's helped to get you

Joey: 44:31

to where you are today. She really has. From main street market to Kendra bar and she's, she's run just about every business that I've been a part of. That was great.

Justin: 44:41

Well, I just want to say thank you for coming on the show and telling your stories and, and telling us about your history and how you got to where you're at and the things that you've learned along the way. And I really hope that folks learned something from it today and take a. Take a bit of wisdom

Joey: 44:55

away from it. Well, it's been an honor. It's neat rehearsing it. Cause I need reminded of how good my life is, how good it's been, uh, through it all and how good God is to me and Stacy. But yeah. Thanks. Justin has been really fun. I'm

Justin: 45:09

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