Transcription
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How do I manage and balance my life with a well-paying job and then my personal life and being a husband? Well, number one, don't ever use the word "balance" again because it's not a word. It's, it's a myth, it's fake, it's not real enough. I want you anytime somebody says the word like, "I need to find balance," I want you to insert the words, "I want to ride a dragon." Like, it's not a thing. It's not a thing.
Uh, how old are you? Okay, I am 27.
27. All right, tell me what you're wrestling with.
So, I've been working in the construction industry for a long time, um, here in Nashville. Yeah, yeah, bro, that's like scratching a lottery ticket at 21 years old. The last six years here have been bananas, dude. Oh, tell me about it. It's been insane.
Um, and so I've kind of climbed the ladder, and I've gotten to a position where I feel financially sound, but I'm starting to feel like I'm spending too much time, too much energy, where I'm missing out on the rest of life. I recently got married, she moved in, we're trying to do the whole thing. And then, like, from a Christian standpoint, I'm trying to understand like, when do I keep staying in the battle, and then when do I start looking for something new?
You, you keep, you keep, you keep cornering yourself with an either/or. Yeah, like if you can learn at 27 to fight like hell to avoid either/ors at all costs, okay? Because either/ors force you to fight something or to run from something. Yeah, and those are never—those are trauma responses. They're never good platforms to make sound decisions from, right?
So, if, if, if, if, if you don't owe anybody any money, right? Let's say you don't owe anybody any money, then it's not a matter of either I have to stay at this job and be unethical, or I have to quit and be homeless, because I've given myself a third option. I worked really hard to give a third option, be like, "Yeah, I'm just gonna walk out. I'm not doing that," right? And so I always want to create a world where I don't have to find myself in an either/or.
Okay, that's why politics is so, so it, it's, it messes people up psychologically because it is a this or a that. In this particular, like, election that we're having now, is has been, has been dubbed, um, or when this comes out, it will hopefully be over, but, um, it's a either we die or we die, right? That's the two options, basically. And so I always want to avoid that.
So, at 27, you have a new wife. You have any kids?
Nope, no kids.
Okay, you're making a great living in the construction world. Is, are you on call 24/7? Tell me about your job.
Um, no, so I, I work more on the front end now. So I, I work with developers and building deals and writing contracts. So I feel like, uh, overwhelmed at times where I'm, you know, helping manage hundreds of millions of dollars, and I go home and I'm thinking about it. And I, on the weekend, I can't decompress because I'm imagining what's going to happen during the rest of the week and the amount of money that like my signatur holds right now. Like, it just, it feels like I am suffocating myself.
When you, when have you screwed something up bad, Harvey?
I haven't yet. No, no, no.
When you're a kid, did you screw something up bad?
Um, not that I can think of.
Was it your responsibility to make sure Mom didn't get mad growing up?
Um, partially, yeah. I'm the oldest of four, so I was responsible for, you know, being the leader to my brothers and sister.
Was your dad around?
Yeah.
Did he practice dadding on you?
Uh, yeah, probably.
Is he a different dad with your youngest than he was with you?
Yes.
All dads are, right? Yeah.
Here's the thing, you're 27. You're, I'll tell you this story. So, um, there's a, when I worked at the universities, it's, universities are technically nonprofits. We all laugh at that because we know that they are very much in the profit-making business, but they're all nonprofit.
Um, there's a website you can go to where you can find out all the 990 tax returns of all nonprofits in the United States. And so I could find out all 990s list the top five to 20 highest paid people at, um, the particular nonprofits. You can find out what your preacher makes, you can find out what people who lead these things. So I got on there one time when I was working really hard, 24/7, 365. I just want to see what people made, and I found out what my boss made. Dude, I got so mad because I think it was double or maybe triple what I was making, and I was working 365 days a year, 24/7. Yeah, yeah.
And then out of the blue, he calls me and he's like, "Hey, I see something special in you. I want you to start coming to meetings with me because you need to learn how these meetings work. You need to learn how to speak CFO, how to speak president, how to start speak Board of Trustee member. I want you to see this stuff in live, but you got to sit in the back of the room. You're not going to say anything." And it was about three to four weeks in of doing this. I just started going to meetings with him, and I'd be quiet and not say anything. And I remember thinking on the way home one day, "Oh God, he earns this money," because I was doing, I was busy 24/7 doing tasks. He was under the squat rack. The whole thing rested on his shoulders. Yeah, and he got paid for that weight. Yeah, right?
And so what you're figuring out at 27 years old is these guys are like, "You're going to be a leader someday," and you're like, "Yahoo!" And you're going to make this kind of money, and you're like, "Yeah!" And now you're learning, "Oh God, yeah, these people get paid for the weight they carry." Oh, yeah, right? And you're figuring out in real time why men die sooner than women do.
Oh, yeah, I've had that conversation with my wife. I'm like, "Man, I am sleeping like five hours a day, maybe, and I am, I am understanding, you know what, this is going to be for the rest of my life."
Okay, that's what I'm calling bull crap, though. From this point forward, it will be a choice you make. Yeah, you don't have to live this life. Yeah, on multiple fronts.
Here's front number one: you can just quit. You've made a whole bunch of money as a 27-year-old. You can go, quote unquote, "follow your passion," which I think is a terrible idea, but you can go do a thing that you want to do. Okay, yeah, go knock your lights out.
Um, the second thing is, you can do nothing. You can keep doing this, and it will, um, you're, you'll, you'll increasingly seek novelty from your wife, and it'll be tough to come by. You have a kid, try to solve it that way. You'll become one of those Little League dads, you goes on the phone yelling at construction deals while you're watching a Little League game. Like, you'll be that guy. Fine. And you'll have a humongous, jacked-up truck because you think that will bring you peace. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah.
Or, or you can become the what I'm considering like the greatest flex on Earth right now, and that is a, uh, leader. Let me put it this way: that same man who told me about the, "Hey, I want you to start coming in these meetings with me," you know what he did one time? It was amazing. We, we are having a, um, he had just started at this university, and we are having a big debate. There was five of us in a room, and we were fighting and fighting and fighting. "I think this," "I think you're wrong," "I think the president's going to say this," going around and around and around. It got to be 5:00. 5:00. I had never left work before 6:00 or 6:30 ever in my career, and he's still talking, he's engaged in the fight.
But he gets up and he goes over to his desk and he grabs his laptop and puts it in his bag. And he's still like, we're all kind of hot, it's kind of a, a testy meeting. And the other four of us are sitting in the chairs in his office, and he puts on his coat and he grabs his bag and he grabs a hat. He always had a hat. And he starts walking out in the room, kind of quiet, like, "Where you going?"
And he smiled and he caught, he's like, "Oh," and he had just started working at the university. He's like, "Y'all don't know me that well. I'm sorry." He goes, "I love you guys." And then he pointed out the door and he goes, "But I love them way more. Y'all knock the lights out when you come, and we'll finish this tomorrow." He walked out the door.
And here's what that gave me: that was not a sense of, "Oh, I guess he's not invested." That gave me as a young professional a picture of, "Oh, that's why he's so good at, at work, because he's that intentional about being good at home." Yeah, right? Yeah.
And so you make choices. "I am going to turn this off. I am going to go see a counselor because I'm 27. I've never carried this kind of weight before. I'm going to keep a journal. I'm going to have an exercise program. I'm going to meet with a group of men every at six o'clock over down the street at one of these rad breakfast places here in Nashville. I'm going to do that. I'm going to start it right now. I'm going to start leaning on a group of men. I'm going to be able to say, 'Hey, I'm scared. I'm nervous about interest rates. The stuff's slowing down. You guys having supply chain issues?'" Like, I have to have a group of men I can talk to, right? Because you don't have a lot of 27-year-olds you can talk to right now, do you?
I, I don't.
You're at that, you're at that weird spot where you have separated from your, your homeboy, but you, you aren't 42. Agreed? And you're, you're bloody lonely, aren't you?
Um, I would say, you know, with the work thing, yes. I, I've really tried to dive into church groups, and like, I have a, a group tonight and a group Wednesday with just men that get together, and we do talk about it.
But hold on, they have to be guys you can be honest with. Yeah, and it takes a special church group for that. Most guys go into church groups, and they're so lame, or they are wearing their performance pants, or they're just there because their wives want them to go. Yeah. You have to have a table where you sit and you go, "Mhm." And if you don't have that, you can go to 500 different groups, and you're going to be lonely at a crowded table surrounded by people that like you. Yeah.
I, I think so. I would, I would say that I do have the opportunity to meet with men that we pretty honest, and we, we dropped some pretty heavy stuff together. Good. Um, I think what I struggle with now too is like, "Man, I'm trying to talk to these people about," or, "laying it all on the table," like, "I'm scared. I don't know if this is something that I can handle. I don't know if this is something that I can do forever," and I'm hoping that the feeling goes away, but it hasn't.
You probably haven't blown something up yet.
It's true. Yeah, it's only after you blow something up and you realize the world doesn't end.
That's probably true. You're still trying not to make a mistake. That's probably definitely part of it.
And so I want you, rest, I want you to rest assured, you will make a mistake, a big one. And you'll be embarrassed, and you'll get called on the carpet, and people will yell at you, and you'll cost people a whole bunch of money. And if you put the time in right now, you'll go home and your wife will be a safe place for you to go home to. Your kids will still be happy that Dad's home.
You can't add the additional pressure of all the stuff you're carrying, and you're carrying a lot, carrying a lot. And by the way, "signatur," all that, that's just drama. Don't do that to yourself. "You know what my signatur is worth right now?" That's like me walking around being like, "You know, I could send a message out to millions right now. I could like, yeah, I'm not going to." I just, that just becomes me making drama in my own head. It's overinflating myself. I don't need any overin, you get, you get what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, yeah.
So walk, be like, "Do you know what my signatur is worth?" Not very much if that's the way I see the world. Like, it's gonna go away. Yeah, yeah. But if you try to add the additional, um, like, "I, I gotta be perfect at this thing," man, that's what's going to bury you.
I think that's definitely where I'm struggling right now. Like, I, I haven't even thought of it that way, but I mean, up until this point in my career, like, I haven't had one of those detrimental things happen yet. Um, and so I'm trying to be a good Steward to a company that trusts me, and I don't want to screw up, so I think that is part of what's burying me.
Would that company have hired you if they didn't think you were capable of it?
No.
Okay, so in the moments that you doubt yourself, at least trust them that they would not have put somebody in charge of all of this money and resource and time if they didn't believe in that guy. Yeah, yeah.
All of us have seasons of doubt. I have them all the time too. But I want you to really focus on who you are outside of this job. And I tell people all the time, like my personal friends, they know this: this job would have buried me had I got it when I was 30 because I would have got so caught up in it. And I got to a point where I, I was actively working every day of my life to not be a part of this thing, and only then did it happen, which allowed me to hold it really, really loosely, which allowed me to say that extra thing and be fully myself, and that allowed me to actually help people.
And so what your company hired is you. And if you can show up and tell the truth at work, "I don't think this is a good deal, guys," yeah, or, "I, I'll go along with it and I'll sign away this thing, but I think the winds of construction slowdown is coming," or whatever things you wrestle with. Yeah, yeah. "I think so. I'll sign it, but I'm, I'm relying on you for, guys, because I don't..." That's you just being honest and you being you, you being you, you being authentic. And I, I know that word gets beat up all the time, but I'm just going to tell the truth. Yeah, and it relieves that pressure.
And on the backside, do you and your wife owe anybody anything, um, outside of the home and cars?
No.
Okay, number one, don't be an idiot. Don't take out loans on depreciating assets. You're too smart for that. Pay off your cars today. Can you do, afford to do that?
Um, I can't afford to do it today.
Okay, make that number one priority: pay off your depreciating assets. They're losing money every second they're around, and you're still paying the same. Okay, that's number one.
Number two, I want you and your wife to sit down and strongly consider, and this is going to go against all the bro wisdom, okay? All the TikTok bro wisdom and all the big truck, like, "Yeah, dude!" It's going to go against all that. There is something deep and profound when you go to work every day and you know they cannot take my house. Yeah.
And so you can invest money, you can like, "Dude, I'm going to put some stocks. I heard that Apple's..." You can do all that crap. You can speculate on, like, you can do all, all that stupid stuff. It's fine. Yeah. If you want to be able to get under the squat rack that is senior executive leadership and hold, get under that weight of running the company, of being a senior leader, and know if something goes completely belly up, they can't take my house because it's mine. I go get a job at a supermarket and pay the taxes on. I'm gonna be fine. Yeah, yeah.
And it gives you, like, right now your brain would be failing you if it let you sleep all night. Yeah, 'cause it knows one wrong step and maybe they're gonna take our house, maybe they're, maybe I'm married now, they're gonna take my wife's.' Like, right? You see what I'm saying? Like, your nervous system knows.
Oh, yeah, yeah, that's definitely, that's definitely what keeps me up.
Okay, yeah, so I want to begin to solve for peace, okay? Not for financial gain and not for maximum profit. I'm going to do the, be the one weirdo dude that solves for people P. Yeah, just solve for people P.
And in your, in your industry, you know who I want building my buildings? The construction dude that is not walking around flexing with, with jeans so tight that like it's kind of uncomfortable. You know the guy I'm talking about? Oh, yeah, yeah. He's got real tight jeans and boots, and his truck is $130,000. I'm not impressed by that at all when it comes to a construction project. Yeah, I'm not.
And so I would tell you, get out of that world. Stay in the world you make a real difference in my community. I'm grateful you're here. Yeah, but I want you to have peace in your house and talk to your wife and say, "What if in three years we didn't owe anybody anything? We paid off our house, and it was small. We lived over in Creeve Hall instead of in Oak Hills," or whatever. Like, "We just decided to pay off our house." Yeah. "And, uh, we're going to just drive regular cars." Mhm. "And then nobody can take anything." That's just solving for people P. That's non-anxious. Yeah.
Here's what I want you to do. I'm going to hook you up with something, okay? It's going to sound kind of weird, but I'm going to hook you up. I don't think anything's wrong with you. In fact, I think you are, you are exactly where you need to be. But I also think you've got a bunch of voices, is that fair, speaking at you?
Yes, yeah.
You got your old buddies, your college buddies, they're still like, "Yeah, bro, dude!" And you got all the news and all the bank speculators, and you got all the old dogs in the construction industry. You got everybody yapping at you. You got your church friends, yada, yada, yada.
Okay, here's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, I'm going to hook you up, but I want you to use it, okay? All right. I want to hook you up with three months for free with BetterHelp. Okay? Okay. All right. And I want you to get online and tell them the exact same thing you told me: "I'm 27 years old. I worked really hard. I'm pretty smart, and nobody outworks, outworks me. And now, suddenly, I found myself at the head of a pretty large Construction Company in Nashville, Tennessee, where there's Gang Busters construction going on, um, and suddenly I can't breathe." Yeah. Okay. And I want you to commit to it. And I would tell you to go get a counselor, go find somebody you can talk to.
Um, I, I asked Kelly to pull the data. It's about a 48-day wait period right now. All right, that'd be hard. So I'm gonna hook you up, and you don't have to like sneak into a counselor's office in Nashville. You can do it, you can do it from your phone, you can do it from your laptop, wherever you happen to be. And you got hot spots, all you guys have hot spots in your trucks. You can do it from your truck. Okay? Yeah. Is that fair?
Yep.
All right, hang on the line. I'm going to hook you up with the BetterHelp guys, and I want you to actually use it, okay? And I'm here in Nashville. Come by and see me anytime, dude. Uh, I'd love to hang out with you and grab a cup of coffee here in the lobby. That'd be awesome.
Um, for everybody listening, here's what I'm seeing with Harvey. Um, the guys like Harvey, who are amazing young talents, they're quitting. They're quitting under the guise of, "I got to follow my passion," or they're quitting, "I don't love my work." They're quitting under the guise of, "I'm trying, I can't find balance." All of those things are myths. They're all bull crap. They're all like 10 years old. There aren't real things.
When you're in your late 20s and you are building something—a career, trust, um, a skill set—you just work a lot. I want everybody in their 20s work like bananas, work like crazy. You like, you will, you will draft off that in your 30s and 40s and 50s. Work really, really, really hard, and it comes with a lot of grief and a lot of weight and a lot of heaviness and a lot of, "I don't know how to do this," and, "What if I mess this all up?"
It is awesome to have somebody to talk to. Call my friends at BetterHelp. Go see somebody. Get a group of men that you trust, that you can be honest with, and not just say it out loud, but will give you some skills to practice. And then ask your wife, "What kind of life do we want to build together? What kind of world do we want to create?" And don't box yourself into, into either/or conversations. Give yourself three or four or five options.
You're the man, Harvey. I'm proud of you. You're building the neighborhoods and the community that my kids are going to grow up in, and I'm grateful for you, my man. I want you to do the work that you need to do right now in your late 20s so that you can be well, weather the storms, and be a builder, a construction guy, of integrity. We need more, more, more of men and women like you.