Embarking on a career in the trade industry comes with its fair share of challenges and learning curves, something our guest, Josh Kernick, knows all too well. His story is not just about mastering the tools of the trade but also navigating the intricate world of construction with integrity and ambition. Stepping into our virtual workshop, Josh recounts the pivotal choices he made, including the tough decision to switch builders mid-apprenticeship—a move that ultimately steered his career toward a more fulfilling trajectory.
Throughout our candid discussion, we unravel the layers of craftsmanship that go beyond the woodwork. Josh's zeal for carpentry shines as he speaks to the heart of what it means to craft structures with precision and care, juxtaposed against the industry's harsh reality of cost-cutting and compromised quality. His journey is an eye-opening look at the business side of building, stressing the importance of a well-rounded skill set, and the delicate balance between maintaining high standards and the push for efficiency.
We delve into the nuts and bolts of effective mentorship, the significance of accountability, and the artful management of time that allows for growth without sacrificing personal well-being. So tune in, as we lay down the groundwork for success with our apprentice craftsman, Josh, guiding us through the framework of his developing journey.
We're on a mission to elevate the professionalism of the residential construction industry, and help everyone enjoy building and renovating homes.
Easy to use Quoting software for Builders. Produce professional and accurate proposals. Quickly and accurately measure and markup plans in minutes. Win more jobs and track costs. 21 Day Free Trial.
check out more podcasts here...
https://levelupwithduaynepearce.buzzsprout.com
Embarking on a career in the trade industry comes with its fair share of challenges and learning curves, something our guest, Josh Kernick, knows all too well. His story is not just about mastering the tools of the trade but also navigating the intricate world of construction with integrity and ambition. Stepping into our virtual workshop, Josh recounts the pivotal choices he made, including the tough decision to switch builders mid-apprenticeship—a move that ultimately steered his career toward a more fulfilling trajectory.
Throughout our candid discussion, we unravel the layers of craftsmanship that go beyond the woodwork. Josh's zeal for carpentry shines as he speaks to the heart of what it means to craft structures with precision and care, juxtaposed against the industry's harsh reality of cost-cutting and compromised quality. His journey is an eye-opening look at the business side of building, stressing the importance of a well-rounded skill set, and the delicate balance between maintaining high standards and the push for efficiency.
We delve into the nuts and bolts of effective mentorship, the significance of accountability, and the artful management of time that allows for growth without sacrificing personal well-being. So tune in, as we lay down the groundwork for success with our apprentice craftsman, Josh, guiding us through the framework of his developing journey.
We're on a mission to elevate the professionalism of the residential construction industry, and help everyone enjoy building and renovating homes.
Easy to use Quoting software for Builders. Produce professional and accurate proposals. Quickly and accurately measure and markup plans in minutes. Win more jobs and track costs. 21 Day Free Trial.
check out more podcasts here...
https://levelupwithduaynepearce.buzzsprout.com
Is it worth it?
Speaker 2:Is it worth being a builder? Yeah, 100%. G'day guys, welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are back in the shed this afternoon for another cracking episode. So something a little different this afternoon. So we've been reaching out and, I guess, putting the word out there to get a few young guys on Young guys or girls, whatever it may be. So because I'm really interested to hear their point of view about how they feel the industry works, how it operates, how they've been treated, all those types of things. So, look, if you are a young guy or go out there that's, in the building industry then make sure you shout out because we'd love to have you on. But today we've got Josh here. How are you, josh? Hey, mate, good, awesome. So Josh reached out to me a while ago now, like I don't know, perhaps four months, maybe.
Speaker 1:Five months yeah, two to three months ago sent an email, sent a text, sent a message.
Speaker 2:So Josh reached out to me and he's got ambitions to become a builder and reached out to me because he just wanted to have a chat and get some advice, learn more about the industry and all those types of things. And I said, mate, why don't you come on the podcast? Because these sorts of conversations can help thousands of people. So, yeah, he's here today to have a chat to us about his journey, where he's come from, what he's been doing. So, on and off, you've made about three and a half years through your carpentry apprenticeship. So, without going into huge amounts of detail, because it'll come out through the conversation, but you obviously love the industry.
Speaker 1:Love it Love carpentry. And so yeah, you started a carpentry apprenticeship, obviously roughly three and a half years ago, yeah, three and a half years ago, yeah, and I've worked for a few different builders good builders, bad builders. I've had a pretty good track record with them and about a month ago ended it with my previous builder and then I took a step back and decided to say, hey, let's take the next few months to find out what's out there.
Speaker 2:Find out what it means to be a builder. So what made you pull the pin on your previous builder, considering you're so close to finishing your time?
Speaker 1:It's a bit of an interesting one. They are a family friend first, before they were my boss and there was a conflict of I feel we had conflicting morals on a situation that happened and, instead of potentially ruining that friendship, decided to take a step back and move on and that was really amicable and they're amazing and I love them and still talk to them and still get advice from them and it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know the guys you're working for and they're great guys and they definitely do some good work. So what was your story previous to that? So before that, you'd work with a couple of different builders?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, so I started off as a removalist, picking up furniture and doing stuff. And one day I was moving a man and he said hey, I like your work ethic, I like how you move, you're a gun. I want you to come and work for me as an apprentice. Come make a career. Removals is not a career. And so I started on with him and he was great, we're doing some really awesome work, renovations and new builds, upper market stuff, great.
Speaker 2:And then I decided so up until that point, did you ever consider the building industry? Was it on your radar?
Speaker 1:To be honest, I did carpentry in school, or rather sorry, product design and technology and I loved it. Loved working with my hands, loved designing things. Obviously that's a little bit more cabinet making and a little bit more different from just being a carpenter in the construction industry. Went through school, did that and then spent six months after I finished school sitting around not knowing what I wanted to do in life. So I figured what better way to grow up than move out of home and move in a state I'm originally from Victoria?
Speaker 1:a little town called Ballarat and I wanted to kick start my adult life by kicking myself out of the nest and moving up here with not a lot of plans.
Speaker 2:So you moved up here. You got a job as a removalist that led to a carpentry apprentice and then, yeah, that first guy didn't work out, so you left him and moved on to another builder.
Speaker 2:So I'm very curious because I love to improve. I know there's definitely even in my own building business. There's always massive room for improvement. Like myself, my team members and especially with younger guys, I do feel for the younger guys sometimes, like the older guys tend to give them a hard time, and especially when it comes to I don't know look, I was the same for many, many years ago. I'd pull my team up on it now regularly, like you just expect people to know, and because you're under the pump on site, you're trying to get as much work as you can done for the boss and so you're putting more pressure on the younger guys and it can be like for different types of people. It can be a hard situation because they don't like being driven all the time. So I'm keen to hear from your point of view, from a younger guy that's been an apprentice for a few years now with multiple different builders. So what's the main drivers behind leaving the other two builders? Was it a personality thing? Was it a work quality thing? So, first builder left.
Speaker 1:So I was working for this first builder that started my apprenticeship and he was great for all I knew. I was very green, I was very naive, I didn't know much. So I was like I took a step back and I was like maybe I'm in a bubble, maybe I'm not, I don't know. So I had a friend, this family friend, that his father runs a carpentry, he's a builder, he runs a business, and I said, hey, can I come work with you for a day, for a week, just to gauge what else is out there and to make sure I'm not in this little bubble where I'm potentially working for a crappy builder.
Speaker 2:So, this is the first builder, because you've told us a bit of a story like is this first guy, the guy that you like? We're going back fixing things and you run like yes yes, so in the email I sent you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's quite a funny story. He was keen, he was ambitious, he was a bit older, he was like 30s, early 40s and yeah, he had a house that he bought. It was his house and then we an old Queenslander lifted it up, built it out. The block was only about 8 to 10 meters wide and then it went back a couple of hundred meters and, yeah, we built it up and it was cool, but in some areas he cut corners. In this deck he cut corners and yeah, that made me take a step back and think, oh, is he a good builder?
Speaker 2:So you stood up to him on a certain occasion, didn't you? And so, even if he did it right the first time, he wouldn't have to do it again.
Speaker 1:It's a funny story. A bit of context needed for that one. So we had finished the job, we had moved on to the next job, and these pretty much what he, how he, did. The deck was concrete, concrete risers, concrete steps, and then he just laid bush batten or rough sawn down, screwed it into the concrete and then we just laid our decking on that, me being a first.
Speaker 2:So no, no sort of damp proof membrane underneath the batten.
Speaker 1:I think what we did was we put blackjack, or I forget what the actual technical name of it is.
Speaker 2:Bitumen paint.
Speaker 1:Yes, we put that down, which at the time I was like oh yeah, cool. But now I look back on that and I'm like, no, that's not how it's done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably not the best product for that scenario.
Speaker 1:No, 100% not. So we did that, put the decking boards down and this was during the floods back in and the heavy rain back in 2021, 2022, I forget which one and they were wider decking boards, 120s and they kept swelling and popping and kept popping the screws and we kept going back. This whole build was nine months and then we left, moved on to the next job and we were going back.
Speaker 2:So what hardwood deckings? What screwed into pine batten?
Speaker 1:Into? Yes, that was just screwed into the concrete floor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so the batten were popping off the concrete, were they?
Speaker 1:The. It was many reasons. The batten were popping off. The spacing for the decking boards was too close together so when the heavy rains came and they swelled, they were pushing against each other and pushing them up and off.
Speaker 2:It was just trash and we kept going on that.
Speaker 1:And so the story is that I was very green and naive. We were all there. This was the third time. We went back and the form was there, the builders there, and I was like, oh, if we had just done this properly from the start, wouldn't this have happened. Just said it not even thinking about it, and the look of pain on the builders face when I said that, coming from a first year, he knew he stuffed up. He would have been losing thousands of dollars on that. It's kind of funny but also kind of embarrassing. I was just green and I opened my big mouth around thinking about it, but he kept it on the chin and I think he recognised that he definitely cut some corners there.
Speaker 2:It's not not to make any excuses, but there's a lot of builders out there and trades that just they continue to do things the way that they've always been taught. They don't put any time into education. They, like so many trades and builders, don't even read the specification documents or product data sheets or any of that type of thing. So they just they're doing things without knowing if it's right or wrong, like they're just doing it because that's the way they've always been shown or taught or how they think it's done. So it's look, it's good that you've had I guess I don't know if you call it balls or whatever, but you've obviously made a call to move on to another builder after that to try and find someone who you thought was doing things the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and they were, and they were incredible. They didn't just do carpentry, they did everything. And I'm so. A lot of people don't like that. A lot of people don't like picking up a shovel, a lot of people don't like picking up a paint brush. They are so hyper-specialised that they oh, that's not my job, but I ate that up. I think it's a great skill to have to know how to concrete, to paint, to plaster, to, to do all this stuff on top of carpentry, to do cabinetry, to do all this stuff, and because of that, I was able to set up my little handyman gig that I do and it's been a huge asset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so don't don't take this the wrong way, but like so, if you haven't finished your apprenticeship or you're not qualified, how are you running a handyman business?
Speaker 1:So QBCC law is what is it? If you're not, if you don't have your cert 3 or you don't have a trade under your name, you can't do any works over the price of 3.3K 3,300, yeah. I don't go anywhere near that. I do handyman work so I wanted to do it properly. A lot of people like it's awesome, a lot of apprentices do cashies, but I wanted to do it properly from the start to gain that experience of being able to do it properly.
Speaker 2:So you made the calls, you looked into it, so you're doing it all about board.
Speaker 1:I kind of did a bit of a soft launch and it's still. You know, I'm doing handyman work here and there, but I'm not pushing into it as heavily as I could. It's more just for fun, for experience, for learning how to talk with clients, learning how to do quotes, learning how to do this stuff. And I did it properly. I set up an ABN, I have insurance, I have public liability, I have proper branding, I have contracts that I get clients to sign.
Speaker 2:Mate. We need to get you on my Quote Ease Quoting Programme please, mate. It'll sort you out. You'll smash out all your quotes for your handyman work in seconds.
Speaker 1:Definitely. It's actually quite funny. I just came across a limitation on the Quoting app that I'm using at the moment. That is not able to be bypassed in the app, so I'm actually currently looking for a new app Mate free trial.
Speaker 2:we'll hook you up, we'll train you, it's all. We'll get you on board. But well, look, I think that's awesome, that you've shown that ambition and you're doing that. So where's the aspiration come from? To be a builder? You've been doing it a few years now. You obviously have got to develop a bit of a passion for it. Is it the work that's driving you? Is it the possible financial outcome if you run a good business? What's driving you?
Speaker 1:For me, it's carpentry, building. It's not just a job, it's a lifestyle and it's a passion. I love working with beautiful building materials. I love the honour it is to work with clients and you are. It's awesome. You are building their dreams. You are making their dreams become reality. And what an awesome job that is. What an honour it is to do that and I want to do that for clients and I want to do it well, especially in an industry that's full of there's a lot of good builders and then there's a lot of not good builders. And the passion, the drive that Is what drives me to wanting to do this, to come on this podcast to reach out to about seven different builders that I've worked for over the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely a shame. Look how Our industry is full of incredible builders, incredible trades, but reality is a lot of them driven to do Below-par work because they have, like, if they've got to get in and out as quickly as possible to try and make a dollar out of it. No one. If only they put a little bit of time, energy and money into Developing their knowledge and their skills and their business and their mindset and all those types of things and Realize that it's not all about the bottom yeah line and the price, and the other big driver for our industry is it's driven by volume builders.
Speaker 2:So in the volume building Market it's not hey, here's a, we got this job coming up To go to their subbies. Can you give us some pricing on all this? It's like hey, here's 50 homes. We're paying you $16 a linear meter to throw out wall frames. We're paying you $16 square meter paint it like you. We're paying your $30 square meter lay tiles. They set the rate. So when it any Tileers, plumbers, concrease whoever it may be, that get tied up in that work. And don't get me wrong, there's plenty of trades out there making a shitload of money, yep, doing work for volume builders, but they are running around, like everyone that works for them is running around. It is all just get in, get out, and a lot of the time the next trades covering up shit work by the previous trade and the first time it becomes apparent is when the homeowner has moved in and there's an issue with something.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I had the opportunity to work for a volume builder, cory Cory from ideal awesome guy, contacted him, did a little bit of work. He's been on your podcast. He's great. What he's, what his crew dies, is amazing, and that was my first experience being on, he does a carpentry work.
Speaker 1:He's not a volume builder. So I worked with them for a week and it was awesome. It was again trying to gain as much experience of how the industry works, especially when you're in that little bubble, you're doing Renault's, you just tinker away on a little Queenslander. It was awesome being on that volume site but, yeah, definitely was sad seeing some of the other mobs and how they Just cut corners and it just broke my heart because this, this isn't a job, this is passion. I love doing thing, I love doing carpentry and I love doing it right. Yeah and yeah, there's a lot of corners cut because all they care about is money and I have a strong belief that you can run a successful business without having to cut corners and you can without having to Take advantage of the clients not knowing any better.
Speaker 2:Oh, mate, you don't have to cut to others. I ran a very, very successful subcontract carpentry business for years and years and there's a lot of bills that I work for that were paying me far more than they're paying other gangs that work for them. And that was because of they appreciated my skills, my organization, my leadership and and they just knew if I come on their sites and I we smashed out the work that it would be. It actually saved their money Because they're supervised enough to check our stuff. But they just knew that if DPS constructions was on the job, then yeah the supervision was spot-on.
Speaker 2:And look at, that's all reason we're doing this podcast. Like to level up the industry, like lift the game for everyone involved, but like, what's your plans moving forward? Like, how are you going to upskill yourself to become a builder?
Speaker 1:That's. That's what this is all about. I've taken my. I've taken Until the end of the year. I've set myself a goal, and the goal is I'm not a builder now, I'm an apprentice. I'm going to finish my apprenticeship, but what can I start doing now to set myself up to become an excellent builder?
Speaker 2:So what are you doing?
Speaker 1:A lot focusing on the business, learning how to talk with clients, learning how to do quoting because so pretty much I hear all these stories. I hear all these stories of these builders that were chippies and then they just become builders and the cert for and it doesn't teach you how to run a business. It doesn't teach you how to do all of that and and hearing all these mistakes, misquoting and and just Things that they've done wrong.
Speaker 2:But what are you doing to like? Are you doing programs?
Speaker 1:You're doing courses, you got mentors my search for and I'm trying to Took some time to decide whether I wanted to do the diploma or the cert, for I've now decided to do the cert for a little bit more easier and and practical practical for what I want to do.
Speaker 2:I I'm what's the differences in them? I haven't done that. I haven't done that sort of thing, mate, for 27 years.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why I came. I've been in contact with all these builders, people like you coming on this podcast. It's because there's no learning for online. I'm trying to discover that and and and I'm sure there's a lot of other blokes out there. They have a lot of questions. Pretty much the cert for is single story new builds and your diploma In this is so. This is the search for and building construction and the diploma in building and construction. The diploma allows you to go three stories up and Unlimited outwards, so you do townhouses that are connected, and it more focuses on the fire safety aspect. The diploma is pretty much the cert for. It has all the cert for units and then there's just a couple of other units on top of it but is this you're talking about?
Speaker 2:This is to get you builders license, or so I am, because builders license is you generally get Like in Queens on here.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you get low rise, medium rise and open yeah so so to get your low rise you have to do your cert for, and then if you want to go get your medium rise, you have to do your diploma To get the license the cert for doesn't give you the license it it meets the prerequisite to go and Try and obtain the license you have to do your cert for and then you have to have two years as Like a registered site supervisor, not just a head foreman. They've cracked down on that so I did all.
Speaker 2:I did all it was. It was called something different, but about Six or seven years ago I did Everything to get my open builders license and I passed everything like paid the money, did all the courses over about 18 months, two years and I was completely devastated at the end because I got to the end and they're like it's awesome, you've passed everything, well done, ticked all the boxes. Now you need to go and work for an open builder for two years, but you're not a builder. Yeah, fuck that. Why would I shut Great, profitable, successful building business down to go and work for another builder for two years? 100%. So like I don't. And look, I only did it to tick the box. Like just to from me.
Speaker 2:It was just another thing to say of Gain that knowledge. I've got that experience. I can tick a box to say I've got my open bills license, but I never had any intentions of building High-rises or buildings that required an open builders license. But yeah, but what about? Like actual skills? So you're doing that to get your? I was gonna say business side things, but it's not even really business side things but you're doing that to to grow your knowledge and get a certificate. What are you actually doing to further your skills and Become the builder that you seem so passionate about trying to?
Speaker 1:level up. I'm on the hunt for a good builder that can teach me and and grow me and actually wants to invest in me to then Make me a builder because I'm keen.
Speaker 2:I'm keen to deep dive, so don't think I'm Go for it, go for it because I think this sort of conversation will help a Lot of builders but also a lot of young people that are either thinking about getting in the industry or maybe having a hard time in their apprenticeship or whatever at the moment. But so You're sitting there saying you want to find a good builder, like what is a good builder to you?
Speaker 1:so I Initially started my goal as saying I'm trying to find the perfect builder, and then I quickly realized that's that's not realistic, that's not how it works. No one is perfect, but there's a very clear difference in the industry, because there's a lot of good builders and there's a lot of bad builders. I'm trying to find the right fit. I'm ambitious, I'm keen and I'm trying to find a builder that that does the work that I want to do and and and invest in his boys, cares more about Not just the business, but the boys.
Speaker 2:If you, if you have a happy crew, you're gonna have a happy business so how I Love this because it's very it's interesting here and different points of views about so. So, yeah, so you want to find a good builder. So I'm hearing you want a builder that has good culture in their team, has good values, that invest time and money into Helping you seem grow. Is that correct? Yeah, I'm assuming you want a builder that does things to code and quality work 100%, provides a good work environment. Yeah, because one of the hardest things for like and I'm sure a lot of business owners will agree me to out there one of the hardest things for me as a business owner is Keeping a team that gels. Yeah, it's hard, man.
Speaker 2:It's not like a game of football where, like your side-by-side and working with each other for 80 minutes, like literally day in, day out, your Over the top of each other. You're helping each other out like the way that I explained all the time. It's not like a. You can have a company that has 400 employees and they all sit in their little cubicles and they do little thing and they have a little chat at smoke a. Yeah, like Trades are physically working side by side. You're smelling each other. You're getting sweet, sweet lives. Yeah, dripped on you.
Speaker 1:So it is as a employee. It is.
Speaker 2:Keeping the team Motivate, motivated, working together, communicating Clearly together, getting on, because everyone's got different opinions, different beliefs, different cultures, like all that stuff. But like I hear we, I hear where you come from, the about finding a good builder. But like for me as an employee, what are you going like if let's say I was that good builder, so I tick all the boxes and you want to work for me? What are you gonna do for me?
Speaker 1:so that's the thing. I got a clarify to what. When I say all this, I'm looking for the best builder. I don't mean to come off as cocky and arrogant. No, yeah yeah, is it wrong for me to want to work for a good builder.
Speaker 2:No, it's yeah, 100%. I love it. Yeah, I'm super keen to hear what are you gonna do for that good builder. That's the thing if you want to build. That's gonna do all this for you. What are you gonna do for him or her?
Speaker 1:Bring value to the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, that's all it's about is it's the little things as an apprentice, it's just rocking up on time, showing interest, asking questions, not just being a robot that gets there's definitely a time and place to be a robot and just do what you told but but showing a keen interest and showing a willingness to learn, bringing what I have to the table, bringing the the, the few but varied skills that I I have. The fact that I came to I was working with one builder and they they were all chippies and we damaged an existing Part of the house, just the wall. We put a hole in the wall. He's like, oh, how are we gonna fix this? I'm gonna have to get the plaster in there. We've been in gone and I was like, oh, I know how to plaster, I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 1:I'm a handyman, I can do little jobs like that. So, personally for me, what I see is that, personally for me, what I see what I bring is Just the different skill sets that I have and trying to fit that into what the builder needs and wants, because it's not about me, it's about what the builder needs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard um. I heard this really explained really well in one of the audible books I've been listening to lately and it look it's never gonna happen. But it was a story about um, a very ambitious young person wanting to get into a job and he basically was putting himself out there and going to companies and saying, like I will work for you for free, like you're a great company, I love what you do, like I just want to work with you, I'll do it for nothing. And he thought by saying that and doing that that he was providing incredible value. But from an employee employers point of view, it it's not free because someone's got to put a shitload of time and effort into training you to become that Like to learn the skills that it takes to do that job. So, like this sort of stuff really does, um, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It interests me now because, like I said before, you get the tradies on site that just head down, bum up because the boss or whoever is above them is wanting so much work done so they feel they don't have the time to slow down and put the time into showing an apprentice how to do something, or even another tradie for that matter. So, yeah, it's finding that compromise between how do you work together, how do you add value, how do you, I guess, grow your knowledge and skills when the people on site aren't necessarily taking the time to probably train you as good as they should Like? I try and really drum it into my team now, like one of my favourite sayings at the moment is you have to slow down to go forward. So we can't just be head down, bum up all the time. So if we want to train younger guys better and get them to the level that we need them to be, yes, things are going to slow down and yes, things are going to cost me more money, but we've got to put the time into them.
Speaker 2:So for you, as a young fella, how would you approach that on site? Or how would you like if you were in that situation? How would you approach the carpenters or the lead carpenters or supervisors or the boss of the company to say, hey, look, I'm not learning anything. Everything's too quick, no one's taking the time to actually show me stuff. How would you approach all that?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's the role of the carpenters to teach you. Definitely, but you have to take control of your own learning.
Speaker 2:Because a lot of people aren't. People are trades. They're not taught to be teachers. They're not taught to be teachers, yep, asking questions.
Speaker 1:Just, you can never ask too many questions. It's such a simple thing. Ask instead of just being the robot and just watching them and then doing it. Say, hey, why do you do it that way? Why have you done it that way? Have you done it differently in the past? What's the benefits of doing it like that? What are the disadvantages?
Speaker 2:So how would you handle someone that doesn't like a hundred questions?
Speaker 1:This is going to sound a bit obnoxious and controversial, but I wouldn't work for them. That's why I'm taking the time to find a builder that fits me. I've stressed it comes off as cocky, but it comes from a place where I want to find a company long term.
Speaker 2:So if someone's like I'm on my younger guys backs all the time, like even when I was an apprentice, my boss used to call them story books and then when I started my time, I called them story books and when I was doing my pressure I was going to say back in my day I'm not that happy made. Our nail bags were filled with story books and those story books were off cuts, a plier, a plasterboard, 70 by 35, whatever it was, but you had story books on you. Now, with my team, they have to have notebooks on them, yeah.
Speaker 1:I carry one on me all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're getting told to do something like you're taking notes, you're writing things down.
Speaker 1:I have notes for cut lists and then I have my to-do list on my phone At the start of the day when we're going through with the builder and the head chippy or the foreman. It's not just their job to plan out the day. It is their job. But take control, that's what I do. I'm there, they're taking their notes for the day and I'm there taking my notes as well, coming up with a list of things that I need to do for the day, what I can do for the carpenter, what I can get him. All of these things.
Speaker 2:I'm a big fan of having you need to have a target. So every morning having a toolbox meeting might be five, ten minutes, but just especially for younger people, every single morning, whatever carpenters are on that site, whether it's two, three, five, ten, doesn't matter. Have a quick chat, alright, guys, this is where we got to yesterday. By the end of today I want to be here and like planning the day so that, even as a young carpenter or apprentice that may not have all the skills to do what's getting done, you have focus for the day and I believe that by doing that, by the lead carpenters or tradesmen on site doing that, I hope that it gives younger guys like yourself, I guess, the skills to be asking like, alright, what do you want me to do next If you're finishing up one area? Like what can I set up something over there? Like what's coming up next, and I get some timber ready? Can I get? Can I move the scaffold? Can I move the saw bench?
Speaker 1:Well, when you go through with the to-do list at the start of the day, I don't have to then ask them what's on next? I can go and get it set up. I don't have to go up and say, hey, I've just finished nailing this off, like, what do you want me to do next? I go up and say, hey, I've just finished nailing this off, I'm about to go start doing this, is it okay?
Speaker 2:Is that?
Speaker 1:something else you'd rather me do?
Speaker 2:And that's brilliant, because a lot of guys out there are just going from one thing to the next like, alright, what do you want me to do now? Done that back again. Alright, what do you want me to do now?
Speaker 1:Yeah it's a bigger picture and you've got to take control of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I hope this conversation is opening up at Canterworms for people that are listening, because there's so much going on here.
Speaker 2:You literally have you have tradies or people that are living their own little lives.
Speaker 2:In there there's a particular type of person and, like I said before, like a lot of tradies just want to do their job. They don't want to hold people's hands and they're not taught how to be teachers and all that type of stuff. And then you've got younger generation coming through that are too busy thinking about the next opportunity they're going to get to look at social media on their phone. So they're getting told like and this is the biggest frustration for myself or for everybody in my team is okay. So you ask what to do next or what's happening or what's going on today. We take the time to explain it, you take your notes in your book, but it's gone straight in one ear and out the other and ten minutes after the meeting, you're still asking again alright, what are we doing now? So, like I know, like attention spans don't seem to be what they used to, or is it because of the way that it gets explained to you? Like, what do you think happens in those situations?
Speaker 1:I find for me what works best is when you I'm a bit better now, but when you're 19, 16, you can be an apprentice. It's scary having to do stuff, these big burly men telling you what to do, but it causes you to want to rush through it and do it and you've got to train yourself to be like take the time. Okay, look, I'm not doing it as quickly as the carpenters are, but what's better if I half ask it and rush through it and go and do it and then go up to them and say, hey, I've done this, but it's all wrong, or taking a step back and saying, okay, how do you want me to do this? Just a little bit of critical thinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you think the one percent is important?
Speaker 1:The one percent? Can you explain that to me, sorry?
Speaker 2:Mate, I'm just a massive fan. A lot of my teams are a big fan. Bye, yeah, sorry, like just, whatever you're told to do, you just you always go that extra one percent, that extra little bit, that extra little detail, a little bit of extra effort, like just impress. I do that Do it to the bare minimum. Do it to impress Every single thing you do. Do it to impress.
Speaker 1:I'm probably for a lot of the carpenters I've worked with and for. I'm almost annoying in that aspect. I'm constantly asking too many questions. There's a time and a place to put your head down and do your work. You definitely got to earn your stripes but I'm asking so many questions and I'm trying to find these little one percent that I can do better. What can I do for him now? What can I do better? Hey, last week, how did I go? What can I do better this week? All these little things I'm trying to just chip away at so that by the time I'm qualified, I'm a good carpenter.
Speaker 2:Like from an employee. Like every trade I know, every bill I know could employ more people tomorrow. But that's, that's just reality. That's not exaggerating. But trying to find the right apprentice, the right carpenter, the right laborer is super difficult because it's like everyone's wanting, like no one wants to like.
Speaker 2:When I did my apprenticeship and a lot of people my age, I'm sure, will agree like, like I knew what I wanted to be, so that part of it was easy. But like every single day I woke up and I rocked up to work. I was there to impress and I busted my balls to get everything done as quick as I probably possibly could, as good as I could for the skills that I had at the time. But just every single day and made I got screamed at, I got shit thrown at me. My boss used to call me young and like all I heard all day was fucking young. And where are you? Like I'm waiting. Like if I'm standing around, I'm losing money, like what the fuck are you doing? Like every day.
Speaker 2:And so I went through two bosses during my apprenticeship. I didn't finish, I only did three and a half years, but I haven't had enough skills and my my last boss was good enough to sign me off. Yeah, but so it look and so I don't. They're very few and far between. Like you know, like we've put, I couldn't even tell you off top of my head how many apprentices we put through now in the last 20 years, but we're 18 years it's definitely a lot, but they're few and far between, like the ones that just want to try hard and impress every single day.
Speaker 2:And I feel bad because, like I think back now, I think I'm sure a lot of the kids that we've put through that dropped off would have actually been really good trades, but is it the way that I've treated them? Is it the way my teams treated them? Could we have done things better? So that's why I'm really keen on these conversations now, because I do feel there's got to be a better way. Like it can't just be, we all just can't be out there saying that I just there's no good kids coming for anymore, like everyone's lazy, like no one, still everyone just wants the most money and doesn't want to do the work to get it and all that like.
Speaker 2:So there's got to be a lot of conversations had around these topics, because I'm sure there's a lot of young people out there that will become great tradies and great builders if they're given the right opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it takes two. It takes an apprentice that's keen and willing to put in and a builder that's also willing to put in as well, and if you have those two combinations right, you'll. You'll grow this young apprentice to becoming a great chippy and potentially, one day, a great builder well, it's way more than that.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, you can't just be keen. Yeah, you've like something that I've learnt now, like you've, you've got a it's. You've got to have the right attitude, you've got to have the right mindset. You've got to. You've got to be calm. You've got to. You've got to understand that, yes, there's going to be things that are going to be done yeah multiple times is going to be mistakes. It's going to cost a bit of money along the way you can teach skills, but you can't teach character.
Speaker 2:You can't teach ambition so I make characters the biggest thing now, like I, I can teach someone or my team can teach someone skills, but we can't. Attitude is the most important thing 100% and yeah, that's. I don't know that's we were going all day. We could definitely open a can of worms on that. I'm pretty old school when it comes to that sort of things. Like I do believe the world's very privileged now. Everyone wants everything straight away and doesn't want to do the hard yards, yeah, so long game.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of people are just looking at the short game we still haven't figured out how you're getting from where you are now to being a builder. So, like with questions, what do you got?
Speaker 1:I'm still figuring it out. So pretty much some questions I have for you is and these are earnest questions I want your advice for me personally and for other people that might be on this journey as well. What are some of the avenues I can, I can take? I'm doing my search for, I'm going to, I'm I'm contacting all these different builders, getting different bits of advice and tips from them. Coaching programs I'm an apprentice. I can't afford to to join HIA with the however many thousands of dollars it is a year to join them. What are the avenues that that someone like me, who is keen and ambitious, can, can do to become a better chippy for a builder?
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't. I don't think there's any excuses these days, like there is so much free information out there and look, there is plenty of incredible trades on Instagram, for example, that are sharing incredible content. The same YouTube mate. There is some incredible trades and builds on there that are putting amazing knowledge and skills out there for you to watch and learn from something often that you've said, though, in the past, is you have to pay your to pay to put into yourself, to you've got to spend money on yourself that's it yeah, so the quicker you can learn to spend like I wish I had a start at spending time, money and energy on myself in my early 20s, not in my mid 30s.
Speaker 2:And so there's all levels. Mate, like, honestly, there is no excuses. I I do lots of online stuff now with mentors, europe, states. I generally like these days I pay for the higher level ones, but mate a lot of the online stuff with billionaires or experts in marketing or experts in business, experts in finances. Mate, you can get a ticket to most online events for $99. Yeah, so there is no excuses. But if you can't come up with $99 to spend on yourself to boost your knowledge and your yeah like just your, the information that you can get put in front of you.
Speaker 2:Like to me, like I said, like to me these days it's all excuses, like there is always a way to get and books and podcasts.
Speaker 2:There's so much information about it's a podcast of well more. So, audible books have changed my life. I've learnt just as much from listening. So, mate, audible books. What is it? 1495 a month or something? I've learnt just as much, if not more, from audible books over the last five or six years than the hundreds of thousands of dollars that I've spent with coaches, mentors and programs in the last probably four or five years. So no, yes, it's definitely worth paying the bigger money when you get to that level that you can with these programs, because for me, like the program itself, like whether you pay $99 or $12,000, you're getting the exact same information. The difference is that generally, after the event, it's the connections and it's the networking. That's again, you pay the bigger money because the knowledge and the relationships and the networking that you get out of that is worth every single cent. But, like I said, the $99 jump in, get the recording of the Zoom, like get to join it on Zoom or whatever man, just jump on board. Definitely yes.
Speaker 1:I've bought a lot of books, I've listened to a lot of podcasts, I've signed up to go to a couple of the master builder sessions, and there's plenty out there 100%.
Speaker 2:My biggest thing now, mate, if I could go back. If someone asked me what advice I would give to a 20-year-old Duane mate, I can tell you straight away it's going to be putting that extra 1% Every single day. So I'll list the day out for you. You get up early. You get energised. You show up early. Don't show up on times late.
Speaker 1:Especially when it comes to tradies 100%, you should be on site before the tradies.
Speaker 2:If you're working with other tradies, with other builders, and you're an apprentice, you're a labourer, you're a young guy that's wanting to learn, you should be on site before anybody else.
Speaker 1:You're there with your tools out already to then help the tradies take their tools out. That's what I've always tried to do.
Speaker 2:You should be turning up, showing that shows your keen, it shows your enthusiasm, it shows your motivated. You should be there unlocking the gate so that when the tradies turn up, they back their trailer in or back their u-din. Before my boss had even turned his engine off, I was unloading gear out of the back of the u-din. I wasn't waiting for him to tell me every day oh, we're doing this today, we need that, we need that. You should know.
Speaker 1:It's again that touch on that being a robot versus having a little bit of critical thinking.
Speaker 2:So wake up early, show up before everybody else. If there's nothing to get ready, grab a fucking broom and start sweeping the job out of cleaning the site.
Speaker 1:There's always something. Well, there's not nothing to do, there's always something to do.
Speaker 2:There's always something to do. And then when it comes to the actual work mate, like just communication, like I said, I feel for a lot of younger guys that I've put through their time because I was going down the track like I was taught, I'd yell and scream and kick people in the ass and it's not the right way. So, and look, I've still got a lot of room to improve on it. But I'm really big on communication and if I think back now, that would be my advice to the 20-year-old me don't just yell and scream at people. Take the time to figure out the type of person they are, the personality. Figure out what type of person, how they learn. Like, do I need to draw them pictures or point things out to them more? Because I know for me the way I learn is by writing things down, taking notes, scribbling things on pieces of paper.
Speaker 1:So Everyone's different and you've got to adjust the way that you approach people differently to how they are and who they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my biggest mistake mate with not just younger guys but anyone that worked in my business for a long time was I was trying to make them me Like I could smash it out, I could do this, I could do that, and I was always angry because I was like why the fuck can't you do that Like.
Speaker 1:How can?
Speaker 2:I do it in this amount of time and it's taking you that amount of time, like everybody's different. So, yeah, figuring that out, but, yeah, show up early, put in the effort, show your keen, ask questions. The 1%, like honestly, it's that 1% and that 1% needs to flow through not just younger people but the entire industry and look, this will definitely stir things up. But what's it been? Now? Running my own business 20 odd years, I've only had a couple of dozen times where people that work for me have given me a Christmas gift. Like people think this doesn't mean much, but to me this is super important. I don't believe employees should give Christmas gifts. We always do it. We do it most of the time.
Speaker 2:We give bonuses and things but I don't believe we should. It should be the other way around. People should appreciate that they, like someone, is employed, they've got a job, they're getting paid every week.
Speaker 1:Especially if they're good and they're feeding into you, so doesn't have to be huge.
Speaker 2:Give your boss a $10 scratchy at Christmas time. Give the boss a scratchy on his birthday. Show the company you work for that you appreciate having a job.
Speaker 1:I've done that with my previous boss. He was doing a little job on his house where you had another job going on and I said, hey, like you're doing the sheeting, Like I will come in on the weekend and I'll help you sheet. Thanks for the job that you've given me, Thank you for the opportunities you've given me, the skills that you've taught me 100% like.
Speaker 2:It's a very different world, mate. And look, I'm not saying it to be a dick. My boss was renovating his house, like I used to same as you just said, like I would literally go. All right, mate, what's going on over the weekend working on your house? Oh, yeah, sweet, what time tomorrow. I got nothing on. I'll come and help you.
Speaker 1:It's just DSC.
Speaker 2:For me it was just I was furthering my skills, I was getting more knowledge, like because it was more time on the tools. It was more time doing work.
Speaker 1:It's not that hard. There's so many like just put a little bit of effort in. There's so many people that just put in 90%. Just put some blimmin' effort in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, getting ahead in life, getting the job you want, having the financial situation you want, is really not that difficult, it's not. It's just people aren't prepared to put in that extra 1%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to have integrity and to work hard and it's not that hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what else you got for me, mate? What other you come here for advice. What do you want?
Speaker 1:One thing I wanted to touch on was obviously I'm doing my handyman work. I'm doing weekend work with block layers, I'm doing weekend work with all these other different trades, trying to pick up little bits of the different skills. So you're doing that for free, no, so I've no. So Well, I've told a few of the other trades I've met on site. I said, hey, let me know If you ever need an extra set of hands on the weekend. Here's my number. Please call me. I'd love to learn how to lay blocks, had love to learn how to do polished concrete, how to do all of this and what. The question I had was what's your take on? Everyone's specialized these days. Everyone's so hyper-specialized in doing different aspects of carpentry. Some carpentry mods only do cliting and some only do this and some only do that, and that's great and there's definitely a market for that.
Speaker 2:But Again, that's driven by the volume. Builders mate. They get a carpenter gang into the frame. They get a gang into the windows and suites and cladding. They get a gang into do the internal fit-off.
Speaker 1:People are so afraid to just go out of their bubble to pick up a shovel or to do this. Like we had some concrete bags delivered the other week and the truck driver was like, yeah, you guys need to take them off the truck. We don't Company policy, we don't take them off the truck. What? Just put some work in, Put some effort in. Everyone just wants to do their own little thing and they don't want to broaden their skill set, they don't want to pick up a shovel, they don't want to do a little bit of painting, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Speaker 2:Look, I think it depends on Well, it depends on who you're working for. Yeah, I'm not making excuse for that truck driver, but that sort of thing is driven by laws and people suing and all that type of rubbish, 100%, and I don't realize that.
Speaker 1:I understand that it's multifaceted in that way.
Speaker 2:But yeah, look, I'm definitely a fan of the more skills you can have, the better. Like in my business, our boys have a crack at everything. We do concreting, do roofing yeah, awesome. We've never really done much tiling. Over the years we've done a little bit of plastering, but again, you've got to look at it both sides Like I think that's fantastic and I love that. I've got an incredibly skillful team. I love that myself and my supervisor and my lead carpenters have a lot of experience. But there's people out there that don't want to do all that. There's people out there that just want to go and work for a builder and turn up every single day and do all the carpentry.
Speaker 1:Just get paid.
Speaker 2:And look, there's definitely a lot of people out there. So these days you've got, so carpentry, these days you can do a full apprenticeship doing frames, cladding, fit outs, and you get a carpentry license and, like I believe, you're not a carpenter. And we've employed carpenters that have come to me for a carpentry job and haven't told me like I've asked them all the questions, they've told me they can do everything, put them on a fit out, and they're 30 years old and they can't hang a door.
Speaker 1:They're quicker putting up frames, they're quicker cutting and doing all that, but then you also got plastering Like plastering.
Speaker 2:These days you can get a sheeting team, a setting team, a corners team, a sanding team. So you've got plasters out there that aren't fully qualified as a plasterer that can do everything. So it's just the way the industry is going, because and again, it's a lot of it's driven by volume builders with tight schedules and just get in and get out and everyone's in a rush. But I think it's very important to be skilled or at least have a little bit of knowledge about everything, especially if you want to become a builder.
Speaker 1:I feel exactly the same and that's why I'm doing the handyman business and trying to pick up a little bit of everything. As a builder, you need to know how blocks work. You need to know how tiling works not to the full extent that the trades do, but you need to have a clue and these chippies that just come through and work for framing mobs, and then you can go and become a builder after that, after you do set four Like they shouldn't be builders, you need to have an idea about all the other trades and how it works.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, and you need to make sure you employ trades that are as passionate about what they do as what you are about, as you do, whereas we've employed carpenter gangs over the years, mate, that have like I've done I've tried to do my homework, I've asked all the questions. They've fit the bills, so we've given them work to do. They've, like one guy in particular, had quite a large team come in through a frame up. It was rough as guts and then cracked the shits because I wouldn't pay him. His last draw, that he put in and argued for a week or two, gave him plenty of opportunity to come back and get it.
Speaker 2:This wasn't even to my standard. This was to pass the engineers inspection and he didn't want to do it. So that particular job ended up taking nine of my carpenters two weeks to get that frame up to our standard but also to pass frame inspection. And that particular person out there now on social media has run a massive carpenter gangs doing his own spec is like all types of stuff. So look, hopefully, since he did that that was, I don't know, maybe nine years ago Hopefully he's up to his skills and he's running a better business than he was back then.
Speaker 1:But is it scary, like as a builder, having to like obviously you've been building for many years, have you got your trades? Pretty fine tune. You have your guys that you go to, that you can trust.
Speaker 2:Oh look, definitely we've got fantastic trades, but the reality is mate well, especially now, the building code is having the biggest changes it's had in I forget what it is 20 or even 30 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it was like 20 years.
Speaker 2:So, unless you're out there, unless my trades and I know it's few of them are, but unless my waterproofer or my Tyler or my window company or my the designers and architects that I work with, the certifiers I work with, unless they're all out there going to these seminars and reading all the emails that we're getting sent from our licensing bodies and upskilling themselves to like, I need to be over this shit. I can't just rely on trades, like I can't rely on a building designer. Well, the ones we work with I can, but I still like to have my knowledge around it. But, yeah, I think builders are bad for that. They they rely too much on the people they're employing to do the work and then crack the shits when something's wrong or not right.
Speaker 2:Supervision, to me, is the number one most important thing to having a successful building business. Yeah, and it's probably another thing that gets overlooked by clients. Again, volume builders, I believe, have nowhere near enough supervision because they might have one supervisor looking after 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 jobs. Yeah, it is impossible for one supervisor when you take the driving time in between, Like for us, like myself and my supervisor, like we only have last year we got up to a point where I think we had nine jobs on it once at all different stages and sizes and, like mate, that was hard for the two of us to stay on top of everything. Like supervision, like as a builder, I think it's definitely something that a lot of builders overlook and don't allow enough time and a lot of builders sort of get to a point where they just think, oh yeah, I can sit back in the office and run everything from here, but supervision is the absolute key to having a business that provides your clients the quality that they deserve to be getting.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like there should be more accountability for the other trades? 100%, because it always comes back to the builder.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Which doesn't seem fair.
Speaker 2:Yep, no trades, 100%, mate, but our last-seeing bodies. They tried that for a little while and then they went back to the way it is now, because it's too many people to try and change, the waterproofing fails.
Speaker 1:It's not the waterproof, it's the builder's fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but again, look, I don't mind it the way it is. Like, if I want to be a builder and I want to charge what I need to charge to run a sustainable, successful, profitable building business, then it is my responsibility to make sure that every single material is fit for purpose, that every trade does what they're meant to do, that my sites are safe and secure, like for me. It's simple as that. I am the builder, I am the principal contractor. Everything is my responsibility. I don't point the finger at anybody.
Speaker 1:That's good. I think a lot of builders need to hear that and actually do that. There's a lot of builders that don't take responsibility.
Speaker 2:Well, look, I've learned a lot of expensive lessons, mate. It hasn't always been that way, but these days it's black and white. Contract says that me myself, as a principal contractor, is responsible for every single thing that happens on a job site. Even if the owner's supplied something or the owner's engaged in another contractor, it is my responsibility to make sure that that contractor does things as per building code or as per specifications.
Speaker 2:A builder just can't throw his hands in there and say, oh look, that's not my problem. The client engaged that contractor. It's black and white. The builder, as a principal contractor, is responsible for everything that happens on a building site. It's black and white, 100%. Do you still want to be a builder?
Speaker 1:That's the thing. I have the ambition and the drive to want to be a builder. But then I look at all these builders and I'm like no, it seems too stressful. That's why I'm taking the time now to try and set myself up, so I can hopefully bypass some of those mistakes that a lot of builders make.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, we Look. You might live like Bill Benes. We have so many members now signing up to that that can see what we're doing and they've worked for builders that are running a shit show and they've just seen for their whole apprenticeship that they've Builders being pulled in their hair and winging about everyone and having all these issues. So we've got so many. We've got guys that are supervising for builders that are trying to get their builder's license. We've got guys that are carpenters that want to become builders. We've even got guys that haven't even finished their apprenticeship yet and so actually going back to you saying that they're $1000, you can't afford things. We've got guys that are apprentices that are fourth year apprentices, know that they want to.
Speaker 1:A part of live life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they know they want to become a builder. They've heard all the shit stories, they've worked for people that have been running terrible businesses and they want to put themselves on the front for it and just hit the ground running.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why I came here to ask you about, like, how they're investing. What can you do? Yeah, as an apprentice, set yourself up. Yeah, so they're investing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and look, it's a lot of money they're investing in themselves. But look for me, look, it's easy for me to sit here and say it's easy For me. I would. Me personally, and I've done this through a lot of time in my life I would rather drive a $2000 shit box car and put all the money into the tools that I need to do my trade, the courses I need to do to get to where I want to get to, rather than and look, you hear this story all the time. So I'm quite happy to not go on holidays or not be out three times a week with my friends eating out or going to the movies, or, yeah, like you can still have a good life for not a lot of money.
Speaker 1:But you're career. You might as well invest in it if you're going to be doing it for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:Invest in yourself and invest in.
Speaker 1:And don't even get me started on the cars that some of these apprentices are driving, when they're throwing all their money at those. Well, this is a thing everybody.
Speaker 2:There's two things that people tell me all the time now because they see what I'm doing, they see all these businesses I got and that I'm teaching other builders how to do things, and two things that I get told constantly. Number one is I don't have enough time. Number two is I can't afford it. I use those same two excuses for a long, long time and I'm quite happy to sit in there and tell everybody that that's all there are.
Speaker 1:They're excuses If you want something, you make the time.
Speaker 2:If you want something, you find the money. Sell something Like don't drive around Some of these people that are telling me this I drive around in a, the V8 Land Cruiser. Well, a V8 Land Cruiser or some sort of new dual cab, yeah, yeah, they got a trailer full of all the Milwaukee or McKee or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:They got the $30,000 trailer, yeah.
Speaker 2:So and I actually only said this to someone the other day that called me, because I get lots of people reaching out wanting to advice and shit and I was giving this person advice and everything I said they had to come back for, and I ended up saying to them you can give me all the excuses you want, you're never going to change my mind because I've done that all worse, Like I've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars. I've nearly been broke a couple of times. I've been fined by work coverings, had to pay super back. I've had terrible situations I've lost money on. I've done everything that people give me excuses. And the way that I look at it now is if I can turn like going from the person that I was to the person I am now. Anybody can do it. Because I was Mate, I had the shitest mindset, I thought I knew everything. I lost heaps of money. There is no excuse someone can give me.
Speaker 1:That you haven't made.
Speaker 2:That I haven't made. So you've got to put in the time and the effort. If you want something bad enough, you will make it happen 100%. So what else you got for me, mate? I want you to leave this podcast today on fire.
Speaker 1:You've given me a lot to think about. Honestly, I'm almost lost in my own head about it, but I want you to walk out of here today and go.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be a builder. I'm going to do this shit. I'm going to find out, I'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to be the best builder I can.
Speaker 1:Is it worth it?
Speaker 2:Is it worth being a builder?
Speaker 2:Yeah 100%, if Anyone that's followed me for a while, like I've talked about my story a lot Like being a builder is the only thing that I ever wanted. To be One of those lucky people, that, just that's it. That's all I wanted to be from as young as I can remember, and so I became a builder. I dropped out of school when I was 15. Like, I actually got suspended from school about two weeks before the end of year 10. So I really didn't even finish year 10. But I yeah, like I just I couldn't get an apprenticeship.
Speaker 2:I went and worked in a trust and fame factory. Like I just I took small steps. Like I worked there for two and a half years. So I was 15 years old and I loved it, mate, and I was working as hard as the guys that have been there for 20 years. I worked my ass off and I bulked up. I used to walk around the yard. I used to be able to go out in the timber yard because I ended up being on the cutting benches with a huge saws, and I used to be able to go out in the timber yard, grab six, six meter, 90 by 35s, throw them on the shoulder, carry them back to the saw bench. I loved it, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:And then my old man's in the industry and he found out he got a. One of his mates was looking for an apprenticeship so he launched it for a short. Got that didn't finish my apprenticeship. Started contracting Actually didn't finish my apprenticeship. I went and worked for my old boy for about 18 months painting and then developer. He was working for wanted carpenters, went and worked for him. Well, he said to me one afternoon. He said hey, dwayne, you're a carpenter, aren't you? Why don't you get off the brush and come and swing a hammer again? So that long story short, that led to me starting my contracting career grew up a massive contract carpentry business did that until I had enough experience to get my bills licensed, went and did my bills license course. So I had my bills licensed by the time I was 25, I think.
Speaker 2:And then literally 25, 26, I think I was actually, and literally by the time I was 32, mate, I was out, I was ready to go and clean toilets and hated it, hated the industry, hated everything about it. I'd lost hundreds and hundreds, if not millions, of dollars, just everything I'd worked for in my car. I'd built up such a at a young age investment portfolio of properties, all this stuff and literally within six years of getting my bills licensed, just had lost it and the passion was gone. So going from a point where losing it all, starting again and then getting to where I am now, it is 150% worth it.
Speaker 2:So the biggest change in the last 10 years has been the amount of time, money and energy I put in myself. That is my number one thing now. I'll invest, whatever it takes, time, money, energy in myself and then that has flown in. Come back to developing systems and processes in my building business that are like nothing else in the industry, combined with joining up with my business partner, merely Lee, and creating Live Like Build, and then taking everything that we were using in our building business with her knowledge from home owners and just taking that to the next level and now just the passion that I have now is just insane. So absolutely it is worth it. But I think most people get they get so caught up in thinking that as soon as they become a builder, everything's going to be fine, they're going to earn lots of money. It doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:You don't make money on some jobs, don't?
Speaker 2:you and they lose the passion very quickly. So that is why, like those types of stories is why, like I said, we've got people in Live, Like Build, that aren't even finished their apprenticeship yet, haven't even got their bills licensed yet. But this story mate is ripe in our industry. So these people are getting on the front foot. They're putting in the dollars, they're putting in the time, they're putting in the effort. So by the time they start their building business, they've got all the documents in place, they understand all the contracts, they've got all the systems and processes ready to go, they've got all the knowledge and experience they need to know how to build a team, they know how to do their marketing and they just hit the ground running.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's so good to hear that, because that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to set myself up, and that's awesome to hear that there's other people out there that are ambitious and want to grow and learn and set themselves up well to become great builders.
Speaker 2:You'll only ever get so far, mate, talking to people. You've got to spend time and money to get yourself to the next level.
Speaker 1:How do you juggle? Because I'm a young man, I have a partner. I love spending time with her. How do you juggle? Because it's addictive, the self-improvement and the wanting to grow the business and to do all these things how do you juggle it?
Speaker 2:Do you do personal scheduling?
Speaker 1:I do no.
Speaker 2:You've got to schedule things, mate. So everyone quite I get told by a lot of people actually had a guy pull me up on it the other day, telling me that he didn't think that I appreciated sleep and had I done enough homework and do I realise how important sleep is. So I had to tell him this whole story. I've never been a big sleeper and I've had sleep apnea since my late 20s and all this type of stuff. But I schedule. I'm super big on scheduling now.
Speaker 1:Can you clarify what you mean by that, because I have a calendar and I put my stuff in there and I have some to-do lists. What's scheduling for you?
Speaker 2:So I'd always get this story wrong, but I'll tell my version of it. So there's a story about a glass jar and filling it up. So if you have a glass jar and someone says, hey, fill that glass jar up, and they give you some rocks, so you put the rocks in there and you fill it up as much as you can and the person says, well, is it full? Yep, can't get any more rocks in there. So they give you pebbles. You put the pebbles in the pebbles, fill the gaps and go all around the rocks. Is it full? Yep, can't fit any more in. Then they give you sand. You pour the sand in. The sand fills all the little crevices and it fills it jam packed and it's full. Yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker 2:So then they give you water and you take the water in the water seeps into the sand and then you've got a full jar. So our lives are exactly the same and it's all about being organized. So I do far more now than most people. I do more now in probably one day than a lot of people do in a week, and yet I've got more free time than what most people have. So so many people say to me you work too hard, like, and you'll get a lot of this from family and friends the more that you start to improve. But family and friends constantly tell me oh, you work too hard, duane, you're always working. That's because that's all they see. They don't see that I'm like this weekend I'm heading off right at Saturday morning, man, I'm going on a farm. For three days I'm building my driveway. I love the shit.
Speaker 2:I spend a lot of time with my kids and my wife Like. We sit down every night. We like do shit with the kids, whether it's playing games, watching TV or documentaries or whatever. So the only reason we can do that is because we schedule everything, and this started in LiveLock Bill. We do what we call Sunday planning sessions and that's in there, because the first thing my wife and I did have to be six or eight years ago.
Speaker 2:Everything was shit. We never had any time, always run around putting out fires, picking kids up, dropping kids off. Never seen each other racing around all day, cooking dinner, washing the dishes, cleaning up Kids, go to bed, sit down for 10 minutes, go to bed, wake up, do it all again. And it was shit and we're like we can't keep doing this. So my wife wanted to do some exercise. I wanted to do some exercise. She put in Pilates in the calendar. I put in. I started going bush walking with some mates on a Tuesday morning and mate, it was only a couple of weeks and we're like, holy shit, like our conversations are changing, like you're actually she's getting time to do a couple of exercise sessions. People are asking me hey, need to meet you on site tomorrow. I'm like I know it's Tuesday, I've got something booked in. I can't meet you. I'll meet you at nine o'clock or I'll meet you on Wednesday, and so we just kept adding to it.
Speaker 2:So I'm a massive fan that you have to fill your calendar with all your personal stuff first, and you can do this whether you're an employee or an employer. You just got to juggle it around to make it work. So if you want to do your exercise, put that in Like. So in my calendar.
Speaker 2:Family holidays, long weekends, take the kids to school, pick the kids up, date nights, like all the personal stuff goes in first and then the business fits around it. Like I'm the business owner, so it's a bit more flexible, but like I might go out for breakfast with mates or go out for a work lunch or something, but then I'll sit in the, I'll put the kids to bed and I'll sit in the office two hours. So I do far more hours in a week than what my guys do on site. But I'm just more flexible with the way I move my hours around With my team.
Speaker 2:I encourage them to do all this stuff as well and tell me, like, if you want to drop kids at school, like let us know, let's work it into our job schedules. If your kid's got a school event on or they got a sports event on, like, let's get it in the schedule. Like I want my team doing the personal stuff just as much as I'm doing the personal stuff. So yeah, our calendar is a fill with personal stuff and the business stuff fits around it. But man, I'm the type of person if I don't have shit listed out, I call it white noise, like I will sit on Instagram for an hour and flick through shit.
Speaker 2:I will jump on YouTube or you've got to fill up your time or else you waste it and that's the biggest problem, Like that's one of the biggest things is people are spending their time just doing shit that they don't need to be doing, Stuff that's not adding value to them, to their family, to their business. So I get it You're young, you've got a partner, you want to spend time together, but just have a schedule.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Yeah, because I was thinking and this is what a lot of people think, I guess, is not needing to cut back on stuff. I guess there's a time and a place to do that, but maybe not just cut back, but let's reorganize, and then you're going to have to cut back.
Speaker 2:That's cool. My biggest thing to people now, when they tell me they don't have time to do things and can't fit everything in, is to go to your phone and see how much time you spend on social media. So if anyone sits in front of me or tries to tell me on the phone now that I can't fit it in, I can't. I don't have an hour to spend on LiveLockBuild working on my business.
Speaker 1:You've been three hours on the Facebook.
Speaker 2:Go to your phone, go through all your apps. Tell me right now what's it saying. You've spent on social media today yeah, 20 minutes. All right, so 20 minutes. Let's say that's what you're doing every day. 20 minutes is seven days in a week, builds up, it adds up, so that's just over two hours. So if you're spending 20 minutes a day on social media, that's two hours and 20 minutes. Don't tell me you got no time.
Speaker 1:Especially when you're spending hours on social media. That builds up real quick then.
Speaker 2:There is nobody on this planet that has spent in 20 minutes. Most people spend in two hours a day, so I don't have any time where I can't fit shit in is not an excuse because you have the time, you're just wasting it.
Speaker 1:No, that's cool. No, you definitely. It's a lot to take in. You've given me a lot to think about. That's awesome, it's. Yeah, I'm keen to take what you said and go home and actually have a sit down and think about it and actually take the time to kind of mull over it. Finish it.
Speaker 2:My advice to you, mate, is finish your apprenticeship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's definitely going to happen, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I didn't finish my apprenticeship so I was lucky enough, my boss signed me off. I'd finished all my TAFE stuff. But look, I learnt more being thrown in the deep end. And this is what I say to my team Like, don't worry about the young guys stuff and up Like everything. As long as I don't stuff up the same thing 20 times, everyone is going to make a few mistakes. But I learnt so much by just jumping in the deep end and my like I used to tell people, yeah, I can do that, no worries at all.
Speaker 2:I remember, like literally a couple of months after I started contracting, I had to do this big deck and this like octagon gazebo thing. I'd never done anything like it in my life. And, mate, I remember I jumped online, I bought a roofing book that showed you like how all the angles and the seat cuts and the birds mouth and everything I needed. And yes, it cost me a bit of money because I had to buy a few extra pieces to do it because I cut a few wrong. But I jumped in the deep end, mate. I rang some chippies, I know. I talked to people and I built an octagon gazebo and it was perfect.
Speaker 2:I made a few mistakes, but I just kept improving, just going to give it a shot.
Speaker 1:I've done that a few times. I've said yes to clients without actually having any knowledge of what I'm doing, and then I jumped back in the car and the first thing I've done is called a builder that I know. Hey, how do I do this? Or I go home and spend all this time studying and researching how you do it. Just give things a crack.
Speaker 2:You've got to give things a crack, you've got to believe in yourself. Like I said, it's at 1%. If you never try, you're never going to know 100%. Well, mate, look, thanks very much for coming along today. Hope I haven't been too hard on you.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's good to hear, it's good to hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, stay in touch and I look forward to seeing where things go, mate.
Speaker 1:Awesome Thanks, Dwayne. Are you ready to build smarter, live better and enjoy life?
Speaker 2:Then head on to livelikebuildcom forward, slash, elevate to get started. Everything discussed during the level up podcast with me, dwayne Pierce, is based solely on my own personal experiences and those experiences of my guests. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. I recommend that you attain your own professional advice in respect to the topics discussed during this podcast.