I didn’t always think in terms of systems and scalability. Early on, I was the guy doing everything myself because I thought that was what hard work looked like. I was on every job site, handling every estimate, answering every call. It felt productive, but I was also completely stuck.
The turning point came when I started asking a different question: what if I treated my business like something that could grow beyond me? That meant documenting how we do things, training people to handle responsibilities I used to hoard, and accepting that mistakes were part of the learning process. It also meant changing how I saw my team. Instead of thinking of them as people who just execute tasks, I started seeing them as future leaders who needed coaching, feedback, and real responsibility.
Growth mindset isn’t just about me getting better. It’s about creating an environment where everyone is improving. When a painter on our crew learns how to manage a job site, that’s growth. When someone in the office figures out a better way to schedule jobs, that’s growth. When we take feedback from a customer and use it to improve our process, that’s growth.
I make it a point to celebrate progress, not just results. Someone might mess up an estimate, but if they learn from it and get the next three right, that’s a win. We talk openly about what’s working and what isn’t. Nobody gets thrown under the bus for trying something new. That culture of learning has made us faster, more adaptable, and way more fun to work for.
The alternative is staying stuck in the grind, where every problem is a crisis and every new challenge feels impossible. I refuse to operate that way, and I refuse to build a company that operates that way.