Building a Community of Intentional Leaders with a Construction Mind Shifter

This is it is straight straight straight out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of straight out of Crumpton I'm Gabby Bar, and I am joined by mister Greg Crumpton. Greg, how are you today? I feel like I'm kinda getting a new life. I've been under the weather for two freaking weeks. I don't know if I had the Vid or what, but, man, feels good to be breathing, sun's out. It's, beautiful, just loving life. Very glad to be here. We have a guest today that, I'm really looking forward to chatting with. I've been following and communicating with him for a while now, but we've never been able to to pin him down, but we've got him today. We're gonna wrestling to him that. Fantastic. Well, I am happy to introduce construction communities very own Jesse Hernandez. Jesse, how are you today? I am fantabulous. That's how I am. I just got to drive through the hill country down here and from Kerrville back to San Antonio this morning and got to hang out with an amazing construction team, which is one of those interesting things. Right? No one ever said construction was full of so many really just real caring, committed people. But everywhere I go, I seem to find them. Well, Jesse, I don't even know how to jump in after that heading that Gabby gave you. The the construction community is very on. I feel like I'm speaking to Roy to y'all most. So I'll I'll be guarded. I'll be guarded at my work today. You know, whenever I get to go out with our teams and meet people or on job sites, is always refreshing to come away and know that our brother and and sister and are just solid people, good people. Up early doing the right thing, trying to keep our country moving forward and providing for them for their families and for themselves and just BSing and cutting up and having a good time all before daylight. So good stuff. Jesse, before we get it going too much, we always like to just kind of break the eyes a little bit and let you tell us a little bit about you and how you and I came to be on a podcast today. And it's kind of a little bit of the backstory of, what Jesse's all about. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Well, I'll start with when I entered the construction industry. So ninety five, got a summer job, to save money to pay for room and board at Tyler Junior College. I figured out, like, I love, like, the job site was where I belong. It was the only place that I wasn't getting in trouble for what was natural to me, like my energy and all the weird all my tics, all the stuff I have my dad's a plumber. Got me I got that summer job and decided I wanna do this. Got myself in an apprenticeship program, completed the apprenticeship ship. And along the way, I found an appetite for leadership. Mostly at first, it was complaining about the leadership I was working with Eventually, I got I, you know, I complained enough. It was kinda like the water jug problem. Right? When I the guy that complains about the water being warm, they become responsible for bringing the damn ice. So that was my situation. I complained about them, and they said, alright. Well, let's see what you got. Luckily, I I was fortunate to work with an amazing organization time. They really did have a leadership development program in place, and they nurtured whatever gripes and and talent I had at time, then led to lean construction specifically the last planner system, which actually helped me discover potential and talent that I didn't even know I had, because I stopped getting in my way after applying the stuff. Then, you know, having been a installer, then form in than a superintendent, I lived through the pain of, like, just get better. But nobody's telling you how to get better. They're just telling you that you're going over budget and you're running out scheduled. I put together some Jesse style training transitional training to get people from installation to foreman and transition from foreman to superintendent because It was better for the human beings for my friends. And it was also better for our pockets. Luckily, the organization was a employee owned organization and we had a a deal where, you know, any money we saved over estimated margin, a percentage of that got distributed amongst the team, the project team. Yeah. And so I'm not bad at math. Like, just figured some things out. That led to an opportune like speaking within local organizations here Antonio Industry organizations, which put me in front of the person, my Cayman, who recruited me away from from TD, took me over to work for Turner, general contractor, doing the lean thing, regional lean manager for three plus years. And that was really expensive experience. And I not like, like, it cost me more like it broaden my awareness. Again, that I had that maybe wasn't I didn't have a total command or awareness of COVID hit or the the lockdown hit, and so I had to work from home. That's where I started a podcast, learning to missteps podcast because I needed an outlet and I didn't have I couldn't go to schools anymore to talk to kids, parents, and educators about careers in the industry. And so I said, well, I could cry about it. Or I could talk about it on a podcast. So that's what we started doing. That led to me connecting with Adam Hoots. And I think Adam Hoots is who connected me with you and your pod cast. Who he's been on with us before? Has he? Good. I mean, his new liver. Oh, I know it. He he just got the oil change, and I talked to him this week sometime. He he's in good spirits, and he's back at it. He's threatening us with all kinds of goodness, and I know he's gonna bring it. More specifically starting the podcast, I was not happy because a lot of people, like, it wasn't getting a whole bunch of downloads. I expected, you know, a million the first week still haven't hit it. It's been over two years. And then somebody said, well, you need to market it. Like, how are people gonna listen to it if they don't know what's out there? I said, market, like, what does that mean? Simple terms for me was post about it. And so that got me down that path of of posting things on LinkedIn and social media, primarily LinkedIn And I think that's when you and I, mister Greg, started really kinda interacting and supporting each other's stuff. And that's opened up all kinds of other doors. And again, new awareness is of skills that maybe not maybe. I know I didn't have four years ago. I started my business about a year and eight months ago or so, and that's also been super expansive. You know, it's this interesting thing that I I kinda get to like look at in that I started my career in the trades against what everyone else suggested or thought was a pre decision. And along the way, I've continued to do that. Like, why are you gonna go over there? You've got it made over here. Why are you gonna quit a good job and start a company if you've never ran a company before. But what happens, I think, for me anyways, is if I just share my gifts and talents with others and take the next rightest step. The path reveals itself, and everything is amazing. And and here I am in front of you. Well, I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but we're glad to have you. You know, While you're telling that story, Jesse, what was coming to my mind was we don't know what we don't know until we're in the midst of it. And, you know, I I'm a lot like you. I started as a as a apprentice and I go through the apprenticeship school, and then I go through, you know, some early management issues, you know, me trying to figure out how to manage me and then other people, you just don't know what you know, don't know until you need to know it. And then you gotta dig in and figure it out. You know, to your point about why do you wanna leave this and go do something that looks really hard and you've never done before? Don't know that there's a good answer to that other than it's just innate and you can't not do it. The energy it takes to not do it is far more exhausting than the energy it takes for me to do it. I mean, that's my experience period. I get that. I do because I flash back. I've been doing a lot of stuff lately, like, working through some some chronological things that happened in my life. Just where I could kinda because I'm I'm I'm kinda putting some memoirs together as I get older. It's just amazing to your point. I mean, it it it really never really clicked until I heard you say it, but you get to that plateau. You know, everybody thinks like growth is this forty five degree angle. Yeah. I'm weird. You know, we all know it looks like a EKG instead. But you get to these little plateaus as brief or as long as they are until the next need is revealed and not. Okay. Now I need to start reading more or now I need to learn how to listen better, or now I need to whatever, but you don't know that until you get to that point. And that's pretty cool in the way you explained it and the way it just kinda clicked. So that's that's, I mean, it's been worthwhile already to have the podcast. I love that when when things like that kinda pop out, that kinda help you make sense of how how you got here and and why you got here. You mentioned lean a couple of times, and I I'm not a new construction guy. I'm a service maintenance repair guy. Lean has always been important to me or not always, but for the last thirty years because I started studying Kaizen and understanding g Edwards dimming and what he was trying to teach us way back when. You know, I'm kind of obsessed about it because I'll live like that now and it drives my wife crazy. Like, I'm trying to figure out the most efficient route to walk through the house because I gotta go to room a, b, and c. And what order should I go, you know, the typical OCD stuff But so I've always been fascinated. Like, I can just sit and watch a crane putting windows on the building which I did when I was at my office asking Charlotte, you know, you think about fifty eighty story skyscraper and how they're planning the outside skin of the building, and there's four dudes doing it. You know, we look at the building, and it's like, wow, here's a eighty story building. And four dudes hung all that skin. You know, one at the time, all of a sudden, one of the windows broke, which was kinda ugly. But it's just weird that methodically, it's like they just build and they build and they build. And and to your point, they're just solid people, man. They're just good people doing that. I don't know. It's just so rewarding to see that. When I first got introduced to it, I was completely on because I had also, you and I are kindred spirits. Right? I I track everything, I time everything. I've got is I gotta find a different way. Like, how can this be how can I do this thing with the least amount of energy or least amount of resources, least amount of time, whatever? Whatever it is I'm trying to kinda, like, gain or or get back. Lately when I say lately, I'm gonna say the last five years, what has become apparent, rather, what I can't ignore anymore is the social element of, like, lean in the way we interact with people. And so what I mean by that is, I guess, lean is about optimizing, minimizing waste, and all of however, you know, when I was doing lean to everybody, I didn't have a lot of friends. People are like, man, get, like, just give me a break. You're relentless, and I don't have a problem. Me me alone, to to now kinda I see lean as a philosophy in building problem solving capabilities within our people. One of those things having the eight waste as a reference and counting things and removing time is important I know for me for a long time, I ended up weaponizing lean because all I was doing was trying to improve efficiency and output. And I never invested time and effort in making the day better for the people doing the work. And and so now that I'm on this exploration of how can we start applying that knowledge to make people's day better. The men and women that are doing the work, how can we apply the knowledge such that it makes their day better, easier, and help them build the same lenses to to examine what's going on and redesign the work that that sucks. Like, I mean, you talked about they're throwing that skin up, and it's four, six people, and they're cranking away. And the work can be miserable. And they're gonna go do the dang work. And we just kinda say hurry up instead of saying, hey, well, let's examine what's making the work hard on the human body. Because we don't have enough human bodies to do the darn work. Let's figure out what's making it hard on them so we don't wear them out because We are exactly wearing people out every single day. And how do we redesign it and remove the burden, the pain, and the work first for the worker, then with the worker, and that's when the, like, the capability development starts coming into play, haven't figured it all out yet, Greg, but that's kind of the nut I've been chewing on here the last few years around lean specifically. I don't know that we ever have to figure it out as long as we're always attempting to. I was communicating with with a friend of mine who's a coworker over at Asheville, North Carolina. He's he's putting together a little presentation for some of his team, and we were just kicking around some words that he wanted to use, but he like he was using the words repetitively. So we're just kinda jazzing this presentation up a little bit. But the the meat of the story is he gave enough of the crap to try to make the job better rather than just to your point, just hurry because Right. You know, to your point. And and we talk about it a lot here, Jesse, about the skills gap and the, you know, the lack of people and you and me and, a bunch of other people are committed to spreading the word and creating more awareness, but your words were where the people out. To me, that means the rubber band just keeps getting tighter. You just keep lining the airplane propeller up. It's gotta fly fifty yards, and it's made out of Balsawood, and it's already tired. I just keep cranking that damn propeller until it flies another, you know, ten feet. That is a, that's not good for us as a populist. Because people, they'll burn out. You know, you know that. You've seen it. Oh, yeah. In order to do that, and and this is only from old age that I've come to realize this, there's a bunch of different ways to skin the cat as my dad would have said. You can outsmart it, you can outthink it, you can outmuscle it for a little while. That's gonna get tiring. So I think to your point, we're always going to be trying figure it out. What kind of different lift can we bring in? Can we rig it differently? Can we do whatever, you know, what whatever that happens to be for that task. But, you know, to my point to Cole this morning, you know, it's just like you're working on the problem and that's the important thing. Yeah. It's not that you're a leader and you're ignoring it and just throwing more gas on the fire. You're you're trying to put the kindle in there to keep it stoked. So yeah. That's kinda how I look at it. Ten four. I like that. Keep tinkering. We'll get there. You know, I mean and that's what Kaizen is. This incremental change, you you you do it, you you tweak it, you measure it, you look at it, you tweak it, you measure it, and and it's perpetual. And I think that probably more so with people than that than with processes, is that more effective? Because I think you can hit a limitation on perfection of a process. You can get ninety nine nine on the process, and you're pretty well. Okay. If we do anything else, it's gonna be detrimental. But I think with people, you can because we're always changing. The dynamic's always changing. The home life's always changing. You know, my my wife was gonna have a lady come over today and talk to her and the lady had a situation came over with somebody's stolen purse, you know. So you have all these things that happen to people that don't happen to machines and and processes. So and I I just I like the fact to being able to think about how can we keep making it better by adjusting what we're delivering. And some days, that means saying a lot and some days, I mean saying nothing. Not just, like, if I think about the individual and you know this, individuals show up because life happens, and they show up a kind of certain kind of way. And that's true for every single individual that we're interacting with. The Kaizen is kinda like, how do I apply that to my thinking such that I can be nimble in my approach so that I can connect deeply rapidly with everybody that I come into contact with. And like you said, Greg, I'm I'm just tinkering around and learning what works. I repeat it. What doesn't? I try not to and keep on going. I applaud you for trying us the key. You know, the company I work for service logic, we acquire companies. You know, that's what we do. We're private equity backed. And we buy really high performing bad ass companies. And when you acquire these companies, it so fun to look at the culture that you're acquiring. You know, we have fifty some odd companies and we had fifty some odd cultures. Some are are similar. Some are way different. And, like, this week, I'm going to two different companies. I'm going up to Minnesota and then I'm going to PA. And those two companies are so different at not only what they do within the HVAC vertical, but just a personality of the company and and that's a direct mark upon the leadership. They're both really cool, really tight companies. I love both of them, but they're different. And I think that's what makes it so much fun when we get to meet our new coworkers when we buy them. Is that it's just cool because, like, you get another laboratory to learn and understand. Of what made that company special. We tend to buy really good, high performing money making companies. We're not buying, you know, fix their uppers You know what they're doing is working. You can see the math on the on the financial shoot. You can see the math work. But what makes it work from the human side What made it work? Is it, you know, maybe this guy needed a Dodge truck and this guy wanted a, ZIP code fitting or whatever? But all those little bitty nuances are what makes that company tick, what makes companies tick or people. And I just love that part of it. Figuring or or not even trying to figure it out, just absorbing it. It's just I I love the human thought of it watching it and trying to just take it in and, you know, analyze it a little bit and let it kinda soak in my my hard head to see what can I learn from this company that they did well you know, instead of always trying to feel like something has to be fixed because we've proven there's fifty some odd ways to do it well? You mentioned the human side, of it all. I'm sure, actually, that you've seen Jennifer Lacey once or twice online and maybe out in real life. She and I started a live stream. Been a couple of years now, I think. And it was a it was a crazy idea. Had these letters that were written to me They were, like, dear John letters in the relationship. And I said, Hey, let and it was about applying five s, the five s lean system to our personal relation ship. And when I say hour, I'm telling me and my ex. And I told Jennifer, I said, hey, what if you have a conversation about these and how like, what it would look like applying it to our personal lives and professional. Okay. Cool. So at first, it's like, you know, ain't nobody gonna care about this And what we found is we started having the conversations and people showed a Saturday morning, eight AM, people were showing up. And after the first one, were like, hey, are is there gonna be another one? Like, yeah. We got five planned. And people were sharing things that they hadn't shared in a long time. On the chat, on the internet. And and so it was well, we interpreted that to mean he's like, man, there's this human side of things, for whatever reason, and I know I was there. Like, I convinced myself that I just need to show up and do my job and follow the directions and, you know, sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing. Leave your problems at home. That's not real. We are human beings all the time. And so that five series conversation has turned into now two years. We got no BS with Jen and Jess, and it's that. It's like just just a imperfect conversation about the human side of business. Right? Because we're human beings. What are we dealing with? Growth, fear, failure? All the same things. The most important part is we are accounting for the humanness of it. And when I say humanness, I mean, how did I feel? What was I thinking? What did I learn? And, we can all relate there, but for for some odd reason, we try to dismiss that. And and suppress it to fill the job description. So I don't know. What do you think of that? Well, I I think it has a lot to do with the my o b s. It goes with construction and just, you know, I I think historically most construction has been mail based. And we, as our dumb selves, have never thought we should share our emotions. So we walk around with all this crap bottled up inside, then we blow off and we get drunk and we beat up a door, you know, all that, all that intelligence stuff. Yes. So I think a lot of it Now what's funny? I've been on, you know, on those Saturday mornings. I've been on there. People that won't tell their coworkers something will get on the internet on Saturday morning and type it for the world to read, but they won't tell him about a toolbox talk. Yes. I find find it fascinating. I find it realistic. And I find it probably true to be guilty guilty as a charge. Got it. I feel you. But I I really think a lot of it has to do with the historical my on this or manliness of the trade, trades oral. I think that we're becoming much more adept being able to say, you know what? I am having a bad day or my I got a my wife got a bad medical report. I'm not gonna hang a hundred and twenty five feet of duct today. I might get a hundred because I'm struggling. Whatever. Whatever is it happens. Your wife's purse gets stolen or whatever. Crap happens. Yes. But but the Evan flow is the next week that same person may come in and hang three hundred feet. Yes. Because they're blazing because you bought them a new ladder that they could move easier or whatever was the offset to the problem. If you throw all that together, and you're trying together. They're trying to do as best they can. We are trying to do the best we can as leaders. And his coaches and his big set of ears to tell me what's wrong today. If you care, it usually works out. You know, nothing lasts forever. Good or bad. There's always the ebb and flow of it. You you ask me what I think. That's what I think. We're we're learning how to be less twenty eight year old macho boys and learning how to grow up a little bit. And maybe the women in our lives in our work lives that are coming into the trades or helping that to a jury as well. How about you, doctor Gabby? What do you think about this? There is definitely. And I, obviously, I haven't worked in a skilled trades position, but I could definitely see how with just historically it being more male would also really kind of lean towards that macho. Like, I'm putting my personal life aside, we're going to work. I also think the US in general compared to other countries as well is very, very work focused. You wake up, you work, you go to bed, and you rinse and repeat. And so I think there is kind of a level of that as well where it's like, okay. Well, like, my job is to work. Therefore, like, if my personal life is somehow getting in the way of my work, I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm not achieving what I'm supposed to be achieving where, you know, the mindset should be different where it should be kind of a balance between the two and it should be you know what? Like, I'm having a really bad day because whatever is going on in my personal life is just really affecting where I am today. And there should be, you know, for yourself as well as for those that you work with and around, there should be a balance and a level of like understanding that comes with that where someone can say, okay, totally get that. And when it comes to kind of coworkers too, and this does not always happen for sure, you, Jesse were talking about relationships and applying them, you know, to also work relationships. And, you know, you say in a relationship, okay, well, like, I've got sixty percent to give today. Can you give the other forty percent? You know, it's it's a balance. You're not always going to be fifty fifty, you're not always gonna be at a hundred percent. And so it's one of those things where you have to recognize that on a daily basis in a work place as well in a work environment because if you can't always give a hundred percent in your relationship based on what's going on in your work life, why would you be able to give a hundred percent every day in your work life based on what's going on in your personal life? And so it's kind of like there there's a balance between the two and I think you're definitely both right where it is kind of coming to ahead a little bit and there's more people that are that are kind of taking to that and realizing to that. A little bit, but I still think there's definitely there's a lot of people who don't realize that or who don't maybe follow that because they still are kind of holding on to that belief that they need to come into work and be macho and give it all they've got every single day. Otherwise, they're not providing the worth that they're meant to provide to the company, and that's just not that's just not true. I wonder how much of that we've induced upon ourselves by living on a credit based society where people financially obligated because they're they don't have a reserve for the most part to fall back on. They've gotta have their forty hour, their full paycheck. However, you equate that So they can't be vulnerable at work because they don't wanna get penalized because they gotta have that full check. You know, wonder how much we earn that to ourselves. I'll speak for me because I know when I there was a time where because of my debt, I was in a situation that I had to do work that was sucking the life out of me, like, straight up, that's what was happened. Happening. Now, so what led to that? Right? I bought a pile of shiny things because I needed to have them. So, Gabby, you mentioned achievement. Right? And that was my focus. At that point in time, and I shouldn't say point in time. It was like a decade and a half of my life. I was focused on a achieving, meaning what kind of glamorous things awards, promotions, cars, vacations, houses, blah, blah, blah, can I get to say, look at me, look at what I've achieved? And what that did was I created a trap for myself, which was this debt that I had to pay monthly in order to pay that monthly and sustain that lifestyle, I had to have a certain level of income. That level of income, I could only get it by doing this job that that was I was done. I was exhausted sick and tired of. Luckily along that path, I said, okay. I don't wanna live this life anymore. Gonna focus on getting out of all this darn debt because I bought a bunch of crap, and I'm still not happy. Like, I'm feel what was this what it was supposed to be because I'm not digging this. Anyways, paying down all the debt, all of a sudden, there was this opportunity, had a a a mother point to me and say something to the effect that she heard me speak about my experience with my baby brother who's eighteen years younger than me. And that influenced her to change the way she was going to move forward with her child. And in that moment, I'm like, what? Like, I'm just I'm a plumber. Like, what are you I'm not a parent. You're a parent. I'm a brother. I've impacted someone's life. And I also knew I was not going to be impacting other people's lives if I continued doing that job. It isn't this a story? What's that a story? You re you recanted this story in the book. Right? Are you told the story? Yes. Yes. That's the miss Dorris story. Yes. Yeah. That's I remember it. Thank you. Thank you for reading it. So I shortly thereafter, paid off all my debt. And then I got to choose what work am I going to do? And it took me probably three or four months to actually, like, oh, I don't need that money, but leaving that job I had to find myself because all I was was my job at that point. So back to your question, Greg, we contribute. Right? We I contribute to every success and every failure that I experience. And so the pressure, the self imposed pressure of having to maintain a certain income to learn to live a certain lifestyle, that was all me. Nobody made me do that. Why? Because I didn't wanna wait. I wanted it on credit. I wanted it right now, and I wanted to show my neighbors. And all my middle school friends, how awesome I am now. Look at me now. I I think that societal pressure does add to people coupled with, you wanna show people the middle finger maybe for what happened early in your life. What whatever your reasoning Gabby's generation doesn't think as much that way as older generations do. There's more there there's more grace given to driving a Honda, you know, Accord versus whatever Corvette, you know, whatever. The other thing is this housing cost has gotten so out of hand. I read over the weekend last maybe weekend before last There were sixty some odd percent of twenty twenty one college graduates who were living with their parents. Or parents, plural. Strictly because of the cost of housing not wanting to pay rent because there's you're not building equity, you know. That's a problem. You know? So you you have these societal issues. You have financial policy issues that that dictate, you know, cost of money or whatever, having the ability to to borrow money at a reasonable rate There's just a lot of different factors that push people to do stuff as a team leader as a whatever not even an official leader just as a, you know, a tribe leader. There's a whole lot of stuff that you have to take in in order to help your team grow while you're still getting that four inch cast iron hung. That's the price of admission. You gotta hang cast iron pipe. Yes. How we do it and how much of it is how we interact with our people, which I think is a beautiful thing. Without Cassstein five TV in a world of poop. Literally. Yeah. Ten four. I know we could we could go for hours and talk about this, but I wanna know what's next for Jesse. What's on the horizon? You've been doing your own gig now for a year and a half or a little bit more to year and a half. What's next? What what's on the launch pad? So there's maybe three things. One has to do with the book, meaning and, like, I don't so the answer to that is, like, I don't know. I'm designing my situation so that I can be prepared for opportunities that the book may create. I just, you know, the feedback that I've gotten from folks that have read the book is that it has impacted them in a deep way. And in some cases, help them think about things differently or change make a life changing decision, you know, actions are a little bit harder, but or maybe take more time to, like, actualize. Since it's impacted people that way, and that's what I wanted it to do. I I just I feel like I need to be prepared and have some space for whatever opportunities and doors that that's going to open. So that's one thing that's on the launch pad. Alright. So before you go any further, tell people about the book, where can we get it, the name of it, just a little bit of of Oh, sure. So the name of the book is becoming the promise you are intended to be. It's available on Amazon. The book is it's twenty stories, real stories of what I experience all the way back to elementary school and even as recent as a year or two ago. It the purpose of the book was I discovered through the live streams with Jen, while noobias with Jen and Jess, I'm I'm really comfortable sharing my garbage. I I I I do because I've learned a lot from it. And so people were responding to my bone. They like, you're so vulnerable. I'm like, what is that? Like, well, You just share the stuff that you've been through, and it's, like, not a big deal. Like, oh, and it was helping people. Right? It was giving people comfort and and whatever. So I said, okay. I wanna write this book. What do I write it about? Well, I'll just write it about the goal was to get the idea from achievement to contribution. What ended up happening was well, just tell me these these stories of what I learned and how they can help people. You know, in there, there's a lot of stories connected to my struggle with addiction. Seven years over, seven and counting. It there was some major life shifts that I had to experience, but in order to experience them, I had to make some shifts in my thinking. And that's the purpose of the book is for folks that are stuck, you don't have to be struggling with addiction to get value out of the book. But if you're stuck, with anything, you're gonna find something in the book to help you get unstuck. So that's Well, you know, I read the thing over it's a hundred fifty one pages. So Yep. It's a a good couple of night read for me. You know, I do about fifty, seventy five pages a day. But it's just interesting as hell because you kept wanting to go to the next story because you left enough Hansel and Gruttle bread crumbs that I wanted to keep going. I encourage everybody to buy it, buy two tier one because it it it really is a good book. Well done, so congrats on that. Alright. So one thing is to leave room for for whatever comes down the pipe. You wanna be ready. Give yourself some more. So that's one. The other two is I've started the this community of we call it emotional bungee jumpers. Jen and I have been doing that for over a year The idea behind emotional bungee jumpers is helping don't tell anybody because in the, like, if the name doesn't terrify you, I'm gonna terrify you more. A lot of feedback about the name. They're like Jess. Like, that name just I like, I don't even wanna know. Emotional bungee jumpers It's a community, and we are working to help people get closer to themselves. Right? Like, it's an exercise. Immediately drives and amplifies your self awareness in terms of how we listen, and I don't use the word communicate because when people here communicate, they think talk. We get to learn real quick how how big a gap we have in our listening capabilities and how our behaviors are natural inclination to attack and solve problems, forces disconnection from the human being in front of us. We do that through simple exercise. Problem owner, coach, and observer. Problem owner shares a problem. Coach, you're just supposed to ask questions. No advice. No solution. Izing, no solution shaking, and and there's some violations, right? No closed ended questions, no leading questions. Their people are like, oh my That's all I ever do. Exactly. Exactly. The observer is watching the coach and writing down their violations, and then they gotta give them feedback. And that's what we do. What's happening is when the person shares their problem, that's a rep in vulnerability, saying I have a problem, whether it's a walking the park problem or a real life serious problem doesn't matter. It is an act of vulnerability. My experience was I was horrible at vulnerability because I didn't have a problem. Then that's kind of a joke. Right? And I never raised my hand and said, my name's Jess. I'm an alcoholic. My name's Jesse. I'm an addict. I wouldn't do it. Finally, I did. And guess what happened. Nothing. Like, the sky didn't fall down. Nobody judged me I started feeling better. And so I got reps and reps of reps of saying, hi. I have a problem or hi. This is what's happening. This is what I'm dealing with. And I think that's where the whole vulnerability thing people point to came from because I had so many reps. The communication piece in asking questions we become aware of, I'm not connected to you, Greg, or you, Gabby, I'm only interested in the problems and and the things that I can go fix. And so we don't really get to connect with one other because I'm not connected to you. I'm connected to the problem, the value I can provide. Anyway, which sounds like super advocated. It's not, but that's what happens when we do this thing. And I feel I believe a hundred percent and several people have said that this exercise and this community is what can mend the the broken people that we have in in the construction industry and it's not just for the construction industry. This is a universal thing, but most of us are construction folks. So that's one big thing that I wanna see, like, glowed and and grow. The other is sweat equity improvement, and I I was kinda it's my understanding and preferred way of applying the lean stuff. And it's really about how how many people can I introduce to this thinking and way of studying work and redesigning it to better serve the men and women doing the work? Both so those, you know, emotional bungee jumpers and sweat equity improvement they're probably both of them are less than a year old, and they're not things that I invented. Right? These are things that I mixed, smashed different deals and observations that I had and said, oh, it's not the process. Like you said, Rick, the process is the process. There's a point of diminishing return if you wanna make the process better. Well, what about the social piece? What about the human piece? And so that's kinda where I'm maybe putting my flavor to it. And just like my story has been, I can't say where I'm going to be, except that I know if I continue sharing my gifts and talents and service to others, the path ahead of me is far greater than I can even imagine right now. And I know that because that's that has been my experience for the past let's just say ten years. Well, I think that that's awesome that you're able to be at peace not knowing what you're gonna be doing. You know, I think that you know, speaking of vulnerability, that's pretty vulnerable to be able to be upping it with that. It really is because of, you know, our lives are supposed to be so damn scripted and we're supposed to have this figured out and we're supposed to do this and go there and have this and to be able to be comfortable with who knows is pretty cool. You know, a life that I was talking this morning about we we've had several people this year that have been in our life that have been diagnosed with cancer have had cancer treatments or what have you, some of these folks that have been going through these struggles to see the piece that they're at and being at peace with not knowing is remarkable to me. And I I just, I put so much I don't know what the right word is. It's just so cool to see how at peace these folks are not knowing what the outcome is, but being secure where they're at. While they're going through a hard time, it it's just remarkable. So congratulations for you for being able to to do that. First of all, we look forward to watching and seeing where it winds up, and maybe, you can come back later and give us an update on what's going on in the crazy world of emotional bungee jumping. I love the name, you know, because it sounds just wacky enough for me to wanna be in it. This is good. Good stuff. As we as we begin to wrap this thing up, I do wanna just take a moment say thank you again for coming on and sharing your story with us. I hope people will go out and buy your book. I'm not getting any spiff people. Don't think I'm making money on this. I've got some friends who will heckle me on messaging with me. It is just a great book. I think it helps people really come to terms with some things they might be thinking through in their life through your struggles and through your victories both. So thank you for that. It Jesse, what's the best way people can get in touch with you? Is there a website you like for people to land on or what what's the best way to Yeah. The two best ways is website depth builder dot com. And you can get all the stuff there. The other is LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn at Jesse something or other. You're you're Hey, Zeus. That's right. That's right. Thank you. Jesus. Jesse Hernandez junior because Jesus is my real name. Actually, I gotta say that because my mom will be mad at me if I don't. I mostly go by Jesse, but my name is Jesus Hernandez. And I'm on LinkedIn all the time. I mean, I'm po I think I post every day for, like, six months now. And they haven't cut me off. So I'm a keep doing it. We have to pay it up on your prime subscription. Your premium premium subscription. Well, Jesse, thank you again. Appreciate it. Gabby, I know that, this has been certainly rewarding for me I've been watching your face through this, and it looks like your your happy meter has been going off in a positive way. So I think you've been soaking this up pretty well today. Yeah. Absolutely. I have really appreciated listening to Jesse your point of view on things and also just kind of all the work that you've been doing coming from all the different places that you've you've been and all the things you've experienced in your life and kind of taking that and putting a positive spin on it and saying, hey, this is this is what happened to me. This is what I learned. Maybe you might find something valuable from this. And if so, I'd love to hear from you. Let's work together. And then taking those experiences and building things like emotional bungee jumping and things like that. It's just really cool to hear about, you know, especially as someone my age who I'm only twenty three. And the world is She always throws that in, Jesse. Oh, she had you had to let us know. I love it. Yeah. When I just I I feel like I'm still entering the world honestly. It doesn't really feel like I found my place in it yet. So to kind of hear your attitude towards life and hear about your experiences, it's really nice to kind of have that positive on it where you're like, I'm not worried about what's next. Like, it's gonna be good. As long as I just do the next right thing, I've got it. And so I think a really positive mindset. And so I feel like that really resonated with me. So That was awesome. Yes. Make that big red check mark on that one. Well, thank you again. Gabby, if you could, please lead us to the barn door and we'll we'll put a bow on this puppy. Absolutely. Well, Jesse, thank you again for joining us. It has been great meeting you and talking with you and hearing about your book, hearing about your experiences, and we hope that you'll come back and share what ends up happening in the future and where it where it leads you to. As for everyone else, thank you for joining us for another episode of straight out of Crumpton. For more episodes like this, be sure to subscribe through Apple or Spotify podcasts, and don't forget to check out greg crumpton dot com for all of your greg crumpton content. This is it is straight. Freate out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton.