Speaker 1: Pushkin Hey, Doctor Lorie Santos here with a special bonus
Speaker 1: episode and something a little different. I was recently invited
Speaker 1: on a podcast called The Unshakables to talk not about
Speaker 1: happiness but resilience. The Unshakables podcast is created by Chase
Speaker 1: for Business. It focuses on small business owners who face
Speaker 1: crisis points and show the heart, humility, and hustle needed
Speaker 1: to propel their companies forward. I joined Ben Walter, CEO
Speaker 1: of Chase for Business and host of The Unshakables, to
Speaker 1: explore the story of Benjamin Howe, who runs All Nation
Speaker 1: Restoration in Austin, Texas. Benjamin's story is pretty incredible. He
Speaker 1: not only bounced back from some serious business problems, he
Speaker 1: also started life facing some truly tough situations. Benjamin was
Speaker 1: born into a deeply repressive community, one in which he
Speaker 1: felt unloved and unappreciated. Benjamin hated how he was treated,
Speaker 1: and he rebelled against his family, which landed him in
Speaker 1: trouble with the law, and that turned out to be
Speaker 1: a blessing. Then, what I really loved in your story,
Speaker 1: especially during the hardest times, is you told this tale
Speaker 1: of how there was one person who really thought you
Speaker 1: were smart, and you'd never been called smart before. I
Speaker 1: just want you to reflect on that a little bit
Speaker 1: about how that really changed your perception of yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure, it came at a super impactful moment and from
Speaker 2: somebody with a lot of authority.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So, like when I ended up in the juvenile system,
Speaker 2: I was actually in front of a judge. And it
Speaker 2: was interesting because my dad was a bit of a
Speaker 2: tyrant and he was really the one that consistently had
Speaker 2: made me feel really insignificant, really stupid. But when I
Speaker 2: was in that courtroom, my dad was in submission to
Speaker 2: that judge. He could do nothing, he could say nothing,
Speaker 2: And that was really cool for me just to watch
Speaker 2: him have to sit down and be quiet and listen
Speaker 2: to a judge. And so when that judge turned around
Speaker 2: and said, hey, what's happened to Ben is not fair,
Speaker 2: what's happened here is not right, and we've done italuation,
Speaker 2: we've taken the time to actually get into his brain right.
Speaker 2: And I think up to that point, I thought I
Speaker 2: was not intelligent and that I was maybe dangerous or
Speaker 2: something was wrong with me psychologically in some way, Like
Speaker 2: those were the thoughts I had about myself my psychological
Speaker 2: evaluation took twelve and a half hours. Of course, for me,
Speaker 2: it was trying to prove that I was smart, right,
Speaker 2: I was trying to prove that I could answer the
Speaker 2: questions and solve the puzzles and all of those things.
Speaker 2: And when the judge heard that that's what the judge said,
Speaker 2: he like, it was like, what's happened to Benjamin is
Speaker 2: complete travesty. And so to have that judge that didn't
Speaker 2: know me to actually stand up for me and say, no, no, you.
Speaker 2: We're not looking at a hard and criminal that's made
Speaker 2: a decision to be a bad person. We're looking at
Speaker 2: a kid And because in my mind I wasn't a
Speaker 2: kid man, it changed my life.
Speaker 1: If that's what's your appetite, then here's a chance to
Speaker 1: listen to all of Benjamin's incredible story of resilience on
Speaker 1: the Unshakables.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Unshakables from Chase for Business and Ruby
Speaker 3: Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business.
Speaker 3: On the Unshakables, we're sharing the daring moments of small
Speaker 3: business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories
Speaker 3: of how they got through it. Today, we have a
Speaker 3: story of overcoming overwhelming adversity and a guest who somehow
Speaker 3: stayed optimistic through it all. His mindset is fascinating. I
Speaker 3: wanted an expert's opinion to really dig into this, so
Speaker 3: I brought in a special co pilot for today's episode.
Speaker 3: She's a psychologist, the host of the hit podcast The
Speaker 3: Happiness Lab, and also the professor of Psychology and the
Speaker 3: Good Life, which is the most popular class in Yale's history.
Speaker 3: I'm thrilled to welcome to the Unshakables today, doctor Laurie Santos. Laurie,
Speaker 3: thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 3: Today's episode centers on themes of grit, resilience, and optimism
Speaker 3: in the face of obstacles, and Laurie is the perfect
Speaker 3: person to help us explore that.
Speaker 1: I think there's two big inputs you want to build
Speaker 1: up if you want to become more resilient in business
Speaker 1: and in life. I think the first one is your mindset.
Speaker 1: The second thing, though, is I think you want to
Speaker 1: build up social support.
Speaker 3: Both of which play a critical role in Benjamin's story.
Speaker 3: So let's get to it. On today's episode, All Nation
Speaker 3: restoration from Austin, Texas. Today, we're doing something a little
Speaker 3: bit different, which is to start with Benjamin How's upbringing.
Speaker 3: This is a business show, so we usually focus on business,
Speaker 3: but in this case, Benjamin's childhood is in many ways
Speaker 3: the foundation of his business.
Speaker 2: I was born into basically a conservative group. It's not
Speaker 2: a nominational Christian, super strict religious group. They would say,
Speaker 2: if you're to asked, and they would talk about the
Speaker 2: education system and being homeschooled. The three fact is those organizations,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, they operate by controlling the narrative, and
Speaker 2: so the real goal is no educ I didn't buy
Speaker 2: really the narrative, and I saw too many conflicts of
Speaker 2: sort of interest in the belief system. Leaving was very
Speaker 2: difficult for anybody. It takes a lot of bravery to leave,
Speaker 2: or it takes a method of sabotage. They had the
Speaker 2: systems to deal with the typical rebellion, and I took
Speaker 2: it definitely a step further where it was radical rebellion.
Speaker 2: It was I don't care one bit if I'm dead
Speaker 2: or alive. I'm going to make your life hell no
Speaker 2: matter what. When they realized it couldn't take me anywhere.
Speaker 2: They couldn't do anything. I was out of control. Is
Speaker 2: when they said, yeah, we got to ship him off.
Speaker 3: One night, Benjamin was out with his friends when they
Speaker 3: got pulled over. He tried to run, He was caught, detained,
Speaker 3: and taken to juvenile detention. Benjamin was fifteen at the time.
Speaker 2: When I went too JUVI. You know, I probably would
Speaker 2: stayed there for a couple of days, Max, but I
Speaker 2: wouldn't go home.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't leave. His dad didn't want him to come home.
Speaker 3: It was a stalemate.
Speaker 2: We were in this stand off, which resulted in like
Speaker 2: a three month juvenile stay for me, which was not fun.
Speaker 2: Through that process of going to juvenile attention and stuff,
Speaker 2: I started to see people that actually really cared, just
Speaker 2: like the general public. And there was a judge involved
Speaker 2: in my case in the juvenile court, and he just
Speaker 2: really puts a neck out on the line and had
Speaker 2: my back. And the Judge's like, no, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to take him and put him in a prison where
Speaker 2: he learns to be a criminal. Right, he's smart. And
Speaker 2: it was the first time in my life somebody ever
Speaker 2: called me smart. He said, I'm goss send you this
Speaker 2: boys home. He's not going to be fun. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be hard. He said, you make a year commitment, you
Speaker 2: go there, and when you're out, I'll file the paperwork
Speaker 2: to emancipate you.
Speaker 3: How old are you at this point?
Speaker 2: I turned sixteen in the boys program in Houston.
Speaker 3: The program had a deal where once the boys matriculated,
Speaker 3: they would buy them a one way bus ticket to
Speaker 3: anywhere in Texas.
Speaker 2: I had told him I want to go to Brian
Speaker 2: College station, and they looked it up and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a bus that leaves here at like six in
Speaker 2: the evening headed to Brian. And I was like, no,
Speaker 2: because I'll get off the bus and it'll be dark,
Speaker 2: right and I don't know anybody there.
Speaker 3: But there was a bus leaving for Austin forty five
Speaker 3: minutes later. Benjamin got on.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a plan. I don't know if there's
Speaker 2: any way humanly possible to describe really the feeling and
Speaker 2: the fear and the excitement, the mix of adrenaline and emotion.
Speaker 2: But I haven't felt it since. We'll put it that way.
Speaker 2: I've had plenty of things happen in my life since
Speaker 2: have been very scary or very exciting, but nothing that
Speaker 2: really hits that point. I tried to calm down that
Speaker 2: it was starting to get towards the evening, I realized
Speaker 2: that I needed some form of transportation, and I found
Speaker 2: a bicycle that was not being intended to at the moment,
Speaker 2: and I took it because I needed it. And then
Speaker 2: I started realizing that I really needed is somebody I knew.
Speaker 2: I had to have connection, because if you don't know
Speaker 2: anybody right, you're kind of completely screwed.
Speaker 3: What happened next is a story for another day, but
Speaker 3: here's the gist. Benjamin needed to find someone, anyone to
Speaker 3: throw him a lifeline. Remember this is a six year
Speaker 3: old kid with no money and no family, so he
Speaker 3: biked around looking for anyone he knew, and finding no one,
Speaker 3: he rode twenty two miles to round Rock, Texas, mainly
Speaker 3: on the Highway access road. Unsurprisingly, the police pulled him
Speaker 3: over for biking on the highway and escorted him to
Speaker 3: a local hotel, where a young woman working reception took
Speaker 3: pity on him. She let him crash in an empty
Speaker 3: room for the night. We're going to pick our story
Speaker 3: back up the next morning, Benjamin was out of the
Speaker 3: room bright and early, and there were only a few
Speaker 3: other folks in the hotel parking lot, including one guy
Speaker 3: named Sean.
Speaker 2: A guy probably in his fifties or so. He was
Speaker 2: sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck. I finally
Speaker 2: got the courage to go up to him and I said, hey,
Speaker 2: quick questions, are chivity work I can do? He said, well,
Speaker 2: what do you know how to do? And I said,
Speaker 2: whatever you tell me to do. I need to work.
Speaker 2: And he'said, well, I got a couple errands, I got
Speaker 2: a run first thing in the morning here and I'll
Speaker 2: think about it and stuff. So he drove away about
Speaker 2: thirty minutes, maybe an hour later, he showed back up.
Speaker 2: He had a house in Round Rock. I went to
Speaker 2: the house and helped him out. I cleaned his shed
Speaker 2: and changed a tire on a vehicle and just the typical.
Speaker 2: And he's like, I need to know who you are
Speaker 2: and what's going on.
Speaker 3: And so he told him the whole story.
Speaker 2: Now you gotta been I told him the whole story.
Speaker 2: It's funny because I told him the whole story. He
Speaker 2: listened and he said, okay, I'll tell you what. Don't
Speaker 2: ever tell anybody that story again. He's like, well, I
Speaker 2: don't want to make you feel weird or wherever, but you're
Speaker 2: welcome to stay with me. He had a four voye
Speaker 2: and was married and stuff, and.
Speaker 3: He invited you into his home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did, and I accepted it.
Speaker 3: I want to pause a second here. This moment is extraordinary. Again.
Speaker 3: This is a sixteen year old kid with a bike
Speaker 3: and no education approaching a business owner just looking for
Speaker 3: a lifeline. The courage it takes to do that is staggering,
Speaker 3: and Sean was kind enough to hear him out and
Speaker 3: give him the bridge he needed to start this new life.
Speaker 3: This stuff doesn't just happen every day, but I've seen
Speaker 3: time and time again that small business owners show up
Speaker 3: for their communities, especially in time of need. If anything,
Speaker 3: I hope this inspires all of us to look around
Speaker 3: our own communities and take a chance on someone who
Speaker 3: may desperately need it. So you moved in with him,
Speaker 3: you went to work for him. Yes, so tell me
Speaker 3: about the business. What was his business?
Speaker 2: Water? Fire, mold and crimes and cleanup. Those were the
Speaker 2: main pieces of what he did.
Speaker 3: And you learn all about how to restore physical property. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's always this big question mark with education for me, like,
Speaker 2: how am I going to be successful without the tools
Speaker 2: of education, not being able to read and write, and like,
Speaker 2: how am I going to be a benefit to this company?
Speaker 2: And how am I going to be a benefit to
Speaker 2: this guy's taking his chance on me and so coming
Speaker 2: into his world and seeing that you could replace a
Speaker 2: lot of the standard education with your willingness to learn
Speaker 2: and your willingness to work.
Speaker 3: You got it on the job education.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, it was basically an apprenticeship. I got to
Speaker 2: see the good, the bad, the ugly. I got to
Speaker 2: see it in real time. He was a real support
Speaker 2: to me, and he taught me that industry inside and out.
Speaker 3: Shawn's restoration company was called a Best sounds like a
Speaker 3: Yellow Pages play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: I'm old enough to remember that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, that's exactly what it was. And when you
Speaker 2: could easily search stuff online on your phone, the Yellow
Speaker 2: Pages overnight dried up and blew away.
Speaker 3: Soon A Best went by the way of the Yellow Pages,
Speaker 3: and Benjamin found himself once again out in the world
Speaker 3: without a real plan. But this time he had connections,
Speaker 3: employment history, a little bit of cash saved up, and
Speaker 3: skills he could leverage. He went out looking for a job.
Speaker 3: He got lots of interviews, but every time he went
Speaker 3: in he was asked to fill out a job application.
Speaker 2: I can't felt the paperwork, but I'm really good at
Speaker 2: my job, Like, I will work really hard, I'll be
Speaker 2: on time. And a guy looked at me and he's like, man,
Speaker 2: if you can't fill out the paperwork, how are you
Speaker 2: going to do your job?
Speaker 3: Benjamin was stuck. Then Chris, an old coworker from a
Speaker 3: best reached out.
Speaker 2: He's like, hey, can I come work for you? And
Speaker 2: I just literally start laughing. I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was because I thought it was funnier because I was
Speaker 2: on a complete panic myself, but I just cracked it laughing.
Speaker 2: I think I was eighteen. And Chris is like, well, look, man,
Speaker 2: if there's anybody that I think can do this, it's you.
Speaker 3: So you decided to start the company or is that
Speaker 3: too much of a stretch.
Speaker 2: I would love this to be more of a hero story,
Speaker 2: but really it was a lot of fear. I truly
Speaker 2: did not believe I had what it took to run
Speaker 2: a company.
Speaker 3: You just needed income, so you gotta go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was pretty much it.
Speaker 3: Benjamin called Chris back. He still wasn't sure, but Chris was.
Speaker 3: Chris was so sure that he offered to work for free.
Speaker 2: I mean that was the offer. He's like, you can't
Speaker 2: pass that up then, and I was like, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: Benjamin quickly realized that starting a business takes capital, a
Speaker 3: lot of capital, and he had much less money coming
Speaker 3: in than he had before.
Speaker 2: One of the lessons for me was if I was
Speaker 2: going to start a company, I need to lower my expenses,
Speaker 2: like big time.
Speaker 3: How do you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, one my girlfriend didn't like the reduction in income.
Speaker 2: That problem resolved itself. She left.
Speaker 3: That took care of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, she left. And I realized that the idea
Speaker 2: of faking it until you make it it wasn't gonna
Speaker 2: work for me. Went on a mission to sell basically
Speaker 2: everything that I had. I bought a camper and I
Speaker 2: moved it too RV Park in East Austin, and Chris
Speaker 2: moved in with me. So we lived in this little camper.
Speaker 2: We split the rent in the camper, and we worked
Speaker 2: our butts off.
Speaker 3: Doctor Santos, what did you think of Benjamin's story?
Speaker 1: I mean, what an incredible human and what an incredible story. Right.
Speaker 1: It's amazing because it violates the intuitions that I think
Speaker 1: we usually have about what makes for a successful business person.
Speaker 1: A successful business person you get to NBA, or they
Speaker 1: go to some fancy school, or they're the kind of
Speaker 1: person that has had a straight path to where they're going. Now,
Speaker 1: Benjamin's story really reminds us that, hey, there's so many
Speaker 1: different paths to being a successful business person, and you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to worry if you're kind of missing
Speaker 1: one of the things you think you need. Right you
Speaker 1: might not have that fancy college degree, you might not
Speaker 1: have that fancy experience, you might not necessarily even believe
Speaker 1: that you're able to do what you're doing. One of
Speaker 1: the things I found so compelling about Benjamin's story is
Speaker 1: that at one point, when he's handed the keys to
Speaker 1: this new business, he says, I definitely don't think I'm
Speaker 1: going to be successful, Like, there's no way I'm going
Speaker 1: to run this business as well as the person before me.
Speaker 1: And you know, look at the amazing things he's done.
Speaker 1: And so I think it really reminds us that a
Speaker 1: lot of the ideas we have about successful business people
Speaker 1: who can be a good leader. Some of those ideas
Speaker 1: are really mistaken, and we might really need to visit
Speaker 1: thinking about them differently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's clear from Benjamin's story that starting and running
Speaker 3: a business, whether you come from a background like his
Speaker 3: or not, if you list all our stories, takes a
Speaker 3: certain level of resilience. How do you develop resilience as
Speaker 3: an asset, as a tool in your life. What are
Speaker 3: the inputs that help people build that muscle.
Speaker 1: I think the first one is your mindset. He had
Speaker 1: a mindset that things were going to work out. It
Speaker 1: wasn't so much like a blindly hopeful but he just
Speaker 1: had faith in his own abilities to push through things
Speaker 1: when things were tough. And this is really a mindset
Speaker 1: of optimism, something that's really important for resilience. You realize, hey,
Speaker 1: it's not that tough stuff's not going to up. I'm
Speaker 1: not blindly hopeful that no problems will ever come up.
Speaker 1: I just if problems come up, I have faith in
Speaker 1: my ability to push through. And I think that was
Speaker 1: really inherent in benjamin story. But I think it's something
Speaker 1: that all resilient business leaders need to build in because
Speaker 1: we can't blindly think that no problems are going to
Speaker 1: come up. They're going to come up, right. This is
Speaker 1: what we hear on your show a lot. Right, the
Speaker 1: problems come up. But I think we need to have
Speaker 1: a mindset where we just have some faith in our
Speaker 1: ability to get through it. It turns out that that belief,
Speaker 1: believing that you can do it, is kind of half
Speaker 1: the battle for getting through things. And so I think
Speaker 1: that's resilience ingredient number one, the right mindset of resilience.
Speaker 1: The second thing, though, is I think you want to
Speaker 1: build up social support. You want to have people that
Speaker 1: you can ask for help, You want to have businesses
Speaker 1: that can help you out when things get really tricky.
Speaker 1: I think you want to build a set of social
Speaker 1: supports around you that can really take care of you
Speaker 1: when times get tough. And I see this in benjment
Speaker 1: story a little bit too right. He really made good
Speaker 1: use of the opportunities he had socially, of the people
Speaker 1: who did believe in him. He kind of locked on
Speaker 1: to that and really use those individuals to fuel his success.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I really want to hear what you think about
Speaker 3: the rest of Benjamin's story. Let's listen. At this point,
Speaker 3: Benjamin and Chris are living in the RV. They had
Speaker 3: lots of small residential projects and slowly built up their
Speaker 3: name and their reputation. Finally, they got a big break,
Speaker 3: a contract with a research and development lab in Austin.
Speaker 3: Not only did it help them financially, but it also
Speaker 3: gave Benjamin the nudge he needed.
Speaker 2: That's why I kind of realized that there was a
Speaker 2: good chance we could line up more of those and
Speaker 2: actually start to build a business.
Speaker 3: So once you really got it going, then there's a
Speaker 3: point at which you really started to invest. Right. You
Speaker 3: started to buy equipment, You started to buy everything you needed,
Speaker 3: and then you bought some vans. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: I started investing in the company from day one, buying
Speaker 2: restoration equipment, fans do you use, and the things we
Speaker 2: needed in box trucks and used vehicles.
Speaker 3: Their transportation inventory reached a critical moment in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: We realized that our fleet was just aging out. It
Speaker 2: was just one disaster of the.
Speaker 3: Other, one broken belt away from whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and turbos and being late to customers houses all stuff.
Speaker 3: This was Benjamin's chance to get his beloved eighty to
Speaker 3: ninety thousand dollars vans.
Speaker 2: I was going to kind of rip the bandaid off
Speaker 2: and replace the fleet with these vehicles. I told the
Speaker 2: sales guys, we want to replace our entire fleet of vans.
Speaker 2: It's about fifteen vans we're looking at. He's like, we're
Speaker 2: not going to get those allocated to us.
Speaker 3: If you remember anything about the car shortages during twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: then you know what Benjamin was facing. Unlike many Americans,
Speaker 3: the shortage actually worked out in his favor.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do it all at once. Let's
Speaker 2: put that in one at a time. When they come in,
Speaker 2: we'll trade it out for one of the vehicles that's
Speaker 2: in rough shape with the company. So he calls me
Speaker 2: about a month later, he's like, hey, good news. I
Speaker 2: was able to get all of those vans allocated and
Speaker 2: I started the order on all of them. And that
Speaker 2: was a panic moment for me because that was well
Speaker 2: over a million dollars.
Speaker 3: You didn't have a million in cash to just have
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 2: No, I did it okay, So it was a total panic.
Speaker 2: I got with my anchor. We started looking at everything
Speaker 2: financials and he helped me recast my financials and he
Speaker 2: kept coming back and be like, I don't know how
Speaker 2: we're going to make this happen. But we're going to
Speaker 2: make it happen. And I was like, okay, So sure enough,
Speaker 2: those vans are rolling in, just one after the other
Speaker 2: every day. I was getting stretched to pretty much the limit.
Speaker 2: And then COVID had a huge impact on all businesses.
Speaker 2: We were no different. And so like from when the
Speaker 2: order went in to when the vans became available, all
Speaker 2: at one time, the company was also not doing fantastic.
Speaker 3: Somehow, Benjamin got all his vans. The van panic was
Speaker 3: almost over. Almost just after he got the final van
Speaker 3: wrapped in road ready, he got a call from the
Speaker 3: guy next door to his business property.
Speaker 2: He's in a complete panic. He can't give it all,
Speaker 2: get a straight word out, ben Oh my god. And
Speaker 2: I was like, no, dude, what's going on. He's like,
Speaker 2: all of your vans are floating away in the creek
Speaker 2: and it wasn't even raining. And I was like, stop
Speaker 2: joking with me. It wasn't storming, and it hadn't even
Speaker 2: bend raining. The ground wasn't saturated. And I was like,
Speaker 2: you have to be kidding me.
Speaker 3: What happened? Was it raining upstream?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: What happened? Here's what happened? Benjamin and the All Nation
Speaker 3: Restoration facilities were near Walnut Creek in Austin. Surrounding the
Speaker 3: creek is a large natural area with miles of biking
Speaker 3: and walking trails. It also has a large floodplane. All
Speaker 3: Nation Restoration was in that floodplane, and today was Benjamin's
Speaker 3: unlucky day.
Speaker 2: So it took all these vans off the creek, and
Speaker 2: it took them down the creek, some of them miles
Speaker 2: and just obliterated them. And then it's also just embarrassing,
Speaker 2: super embarrassing, like the restoration company that usually helps people
Speaker 2: with floods loses all their vans in the creek.
Speaker 3: Right, Did you think the business was going to survive
Speaker 3: at that point.
Speaker 2: No, I was pretty sure it wasn't. We bought in
Speaker 2: the middle of COVID, so prices were elevated from all dealerships,
Speaker 2: so we're paying over what the vehicle was worth. On
Speaker 2: top of that, we didn't put gap insurance on stuff
Speaker 2: when we bought them. We were in such a hurry
Speaker 2: just to get this to happen. And then because of
Speaker 2: the costs increase on my insurance premium, which I really
Speaker 2: didn't fully take into consideration when I bought all these vans. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't really think about it. I had opted for
Speaker 2: a high deductible ten thousand dollars per vehicle because in
Speaker 2: my mind there was no way that I would lose
Speaker 2: all of my vehicles.
Speaker 3: So how did you resolve this? What'd you do? Well?
Speaker 2: It's interesting because I think things resolved themselves if you
Speaker 2: stick in there, if you persevere through them. We went
Speaker 2: through the normal things, getting all of the equipment that
Speaker 2: was in those vans out and back up onto the
Speaker 2: dry land, and then working with a towing agency to
Speaker 2: get all of the vehicles out of the creek, which
Speaker 2: was a huge effort, filing claims on all of it,
Speaker 2: and then try to negotiate with our insurance company on
Speaker 2: all the vehicles. We went to rental companies and re
Speaker 2: rented vehicles, and there's a company in town that does
Speaker 2: our lettering. They felt bad for us. They put temp
Speaker 2: lettering on all of our rented vehicles and then offered
Speaker 2: to take them off clean up when we were able
Speaker 2: to return them.
Speaker 3: Wow. I love when I hear stories like that, like
Speaker 3: small businesses supporting other small businesses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was super. Austin Seinco. Has been really good dusts,
Speaker 2: but then came the interesting thing, and I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: you don't deal with something like this for no reason.
Speaker 2: There has to be something that we can learn from
Speaker 2: this and some way we can grow in a positive
Speaker 2: direction through this. And so although I still believe that
Speaker 2: the Mercedes Sprinter van is the best for restoration, there
Speaker 2: is also negatives. And then some of the negatives are
Speaker 2: that they're high roof, which is good to work in,
Speaker 2: but they're not good for overhead damage. We had a
Speaker 2: lot of overhead damage claims that were coming in. Then
Speaker 2: just the weight of the vehicles on the road and
Speaker 2: the impact on the environment.
Speaker 3: Burned a lot of guess and yep, tires, more.
Speaker 2: Tires, tires for all of it, and then the insurance
Speaker 2: costing everything else. So I went back to the drawing
Speaker 2: board and I said, we're going to go way smaller
Speaker 2: on vehicles, and we're going to buy cash. So we're
Speaker 2: going to rent and then we're gonna start knocking out
Speaker 2: those rental vans, getting the returned back to the rental
Speaker 2: company by replacing as fast as we can, replacing these
Speaker 2: vans with cash vehicles.
Speaker 3: At that time, Benjamin was also spending a ton of
Speaker 3: money on marketing the company, trying to drum up business
Speaker 3: and replace what he lost during COVID.
Speaker 2: I ended up moving my marketing dollars out of promoting
Speaker 2: the company digitally, and instead I bought a dumpster company
Speaker 2: and I logoed out the twenty five dumpsters with full graphics.
Speaker 3: So they became a marketing vehicle for you because the
Speaker 3: dumster sits outside and everybody drives by it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was like, I can basically purchase this company
Speaker 2: out right with my budget.
Speaker 3: And it'll make money and do marketing at the same time.
Speaker 2: That's right, And then it allowed us to buy smaller vehicles.
Speaker 3: The good Ninja move.
Speaker 2: Well, I look back and I was like, I need
Speaker 2: to pat myself on the back. I figured out, you know,
Speaker 2: and then I bought all these little transit vans and
Speaker 2: I used the insurance company to get out of the
Speaker 2: debt with the van as best as possible. And then
Speaker 2: the debt that was remaining, we went to the banks
Speaker 2: and we were like, look, this is the situation, here's
Speaker 2: the pictures. Can we consolidate? So we actually came back
Speaker 2: from this whole thing a lot stronger. So at first
Speaker 2: I was like, man, nobody's going to believe how stupid
Speaker 2: I am parking all my vans at a floodplant. And
Speaker 2: then once we solved all these problems, I started thinking, Oh, man,
Speaker 2: I hope nobody thinks this is insurance fraud. Like I
Speaker 2: intentionally dumped my fleet to switch gears to do something better.
Speaker 2: So I feel like really blessed that it actually happened,
Speaker 2: which is really weird because I think we came back
Speaker 2: so much better and on a different trajectory, a much
Speaker 2: more sustainable trajectory, a much easier trajectory to grow.
Speaker 3: Laurie, we talk a lot about mindset on the show,
Speaker 3: but I gotta say Benjamin's mindset is next level. Even
Speaker 3: when he's panicking or he's in a really tough spot,
Speaker 3: he's able to keep showing up. It would be so
Speaker 3: much easier to quit, but he doesn't. Can you give
Speaker 3: us a little insight into what it takes to have
Speaker 3: a mindset where you can keep going.
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised how becoming a little bit more other
Speaker 1: oriented and purpose driven can give you the resilience to
Speaker 1: push through when times are tough for yourself. That's providing
Speaker 1: a foundation, that's boosting your happiness. That's boosting your sense
Speaker 1: of self worth. That can kind of help you out
Speaker 1: when things get tough. So I think becoming other oriented
Speaker 1: in an odd way is a way of sort of
Speaker 1: selfishly protecting yourself. That said, I think you also need
Speaker 1: strategies when the tough times come up to help yourself,
Speaker 1: and a big one is really mindfully noticing how things
Speaker 1: are going, mindfully noticing like, oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed
Speaker 1: right now, I'm feeling really stressed out, I'm feeling a
Speaker 1: little lonely, like I haven't had a chance to see
Speaker 1: my family in a long time. I often tell my
Speaker 1: students that negative emotions are like the dashboard light on
Speaker 1: your car. You know, if your tire light goes on
Speaker 1: or your engine light. You have to notice that and
Speaker 1: pay attention to it, not necessarily immediately, but at some
Speaker 1: point you've got to rectify the situation and fix things.
Speaker 1: I think our own negative emotions and mindfully noticing those
Speaker 1: negative emotions work like that. If you want to be
Speaker 1: a resilient business leader, you have to take time to
Speaker 1: notice when you're feeling a little overwhelmed, You're feeling a
Speaker 1: little stressed, you're feeling a little down. Maybe feeling a
Speaker 1: little angry, you're anxious, Right, These are all emotions that
Speaker 1: push us towards some behavior that we can use to
Speaker 1: resolve things and feel better. That sort of mindset research
Speaker 1: shows can really be good for getting through tough times,
Speaker 1: but also making sure you're motivating yourself in a healthy way.
Speaker 3: I mean, those are really forms of emotional preparedness. I
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time with clients and guests on
Speaker 3: the show talking about financial preparedness, risk preparedness, thinking through
Speaker 3: what could happen. What I hear you saying is you
Speaker 3: have to do the same for your own mental health
Speaker 3: and emotions exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think that sadly, this is something that we
Speaker 1: don't teach people very well. I mean, I think Benjamin's
Speaker 1: School of Hard Knocks has really taught him to develop
Speaker 1: that emotional preparedness. I think just as we have lots
Speaker 1: of courses on financial literacy, we actually need equivalent business
Speaker 1: courses on emotional regulation literacy. Right, How do I regulate
Speaker 1: my emotions, notice them and tackle them in tough times?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And I think that's become a lot less taboo,
Speaker 3: is the good news?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Mental health in general has become less taboo. But it's
Speaker 3: also the hard one because I can't put it on
Speaker 3: a spreadsheet like a lot of the things that I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is going to be the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that business leaders take into account because I think
Speaker 1: more and more you recognize that mental fitness and by
Speaker 1: that the ability to regulate your emotions, having a resilient
Speaker 1: mindset and so on. Mental fitness winds up mattering for
Speaker 1: your business performance. We want teams that can regulate their emotions.
Speaker 1: We want teams that have a positive mindset that are
Speaker 1: going to keep pushing and persevering when times get tough.
Speaker 1: And so I think more and more we're going to
Speaker 1: be seeing businesses paying attention to all these so called
Speaker 1: squishy psychological topics. More.
Speaker 3: It's squishy when it's everyone else's, but it doesn't feel
Speaker 3: squishy when it's yours.
Speaker 1: Right, Definitely, definitely does.
Speaker 3: The research suggest that there are any conditions or tools
Speaker 3: or anything else that can help us when we go
Speaker 3: through tough times experience growth as opposed to trauma.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, one tool really is the right kind of mindset,
Speaker 1: And I think Benjamin exemplifies this really well. He seems
Speaker 1: to have this really lovely ability to look for a
Speaker 1: silver lining in the midst of all these things, to
Speaker 1: be grateful in the face of really bad times. Research
Speaker 1: has shown that having a grateful mindset noticing the blessings
Speaker 1: can be one path to having a mindset that can
Speaker 1: help you through bad times. And that's important because our
Speaker 1: natural instinct is to focus on the negative, to notice
Speaker 1: only the bad stuff. When we train our mind to
Speaker 1: focus on the blessings, that means that even in the
Speaker 1: midst of terrible things, we can notice stuff that we
Speaker 1: can be grateful for, and that can give us a
Speaker 1: kind of motivation to sort of push through. So I
Speaker 1: think that's one thing. He really has, this mindset of
Speaker 1: noticing the blessings. Even though he went through such a
Speaker 1: terrible childhood, he was able to make great use of
Speaker 1: the social support that he did have, from the judge
Speaker 1: who gave him a little bit of a benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt, to the hotel owner who helped him out
Speaker 1: a little bit, to business owners who gave him a chance. Right,
Speaker 1: I just want a job, I just want to jump in.
Speaker 1: I'll do anything. He was able to make good use
Speaker 1: of these moments of social support. And one of the
Speaker 1: things we do know is that if you're going through
Speaker 1: a tough time, whether that's in your personal life or
Speaker 1: in a business, having that social support, noticing that it's there,
Speaker 1: asking for help, These kinds of things can matter a
Speaker 1: lot too.
Speaker 3: I mean that's even correlated with the longer life, right,
Speaker 3: having healthy social connections exactly.
Speaker 1: And there's study after study really showing that if you
Speaker 1: look at longevity, people who have and maintain their healthy
Speaker 1: social connections wind up living longer and living longer more healthfily.
Speaker 1: So you don't just like live for a long time,
Speaker 1: but you avoid things like heart attacks and so on.
Speaker 1: Social support winds up helping us out a lot, and
Speaker 1: it's a great stress buffer, right, And I think we
Speaker 1: see this a little bit in Benjamin story as well.
Speaker 1: Times that would normally hit us really hard didn't hit
Speaker 1: Benjamin as hard. I think because he was relying on
Speaker 1: his team, he was relying on the social support that
Speaker 1: he'd grown to love. And I think that that's a
Speaker 1: lesson for a lot of us too, Right. It's not
Speaker 1: just having these social supports, it's really maintaining them, putting
Speaker 1: time in and being willing to go to them when
Speaker 1: times are tough.
Speaker 3: Thank you for those insights, Lori now, we've heard about
Speaker 3: All Nations past and present, but I wanted to ask
Speaker 3: Benjamin about the future. We've been talking a lot about
Speaker 3: succession planning on the show recently, so much so that
Speaker 3: we dedicated a bonus segment to it. So please go
Speaker 3: take a listen. You can find it in the show's feed.
Speaker 3: In twenty years, what's your wish for All.
Speaker 2: Nation As the company grows and expands, I want its
Speaker 2: focus to remain on helping people that are less fortunate.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of times companies start selling out
Speaker 2: to shareholders and people that are really interested in that profit,
Speaker 2: which I understand that path, but as we grow as
Speaker 2: a company, I want to give back to those type
Speaker 2: of kids out of those programs or young people that
Speaker 2: are struggling with addiction. And I would like to do
Speaker 2: it in more than one city. We're doing it in Austin,
Speaker 2: but if we can grow into multiple cities and give
Speaker 2: people an opportunity for employment. I think for me, the
Speaker 2: biggest struggle wasn't changing my life in the boy's home.
Speaker 2: It was what to do once I got out, and
Speaker 2: I think that path to a career that can support
Speaker 2: yourself is a key piece. I think that's missing in
Speaker 2: so many places.
Speaker 3: And my final question, I ask every guest on the show,
Speaker 3: if you had one piece of advice for a business
Speaker 3: owner or aspiring entrepreneur, what would that one piece of
Speaker 3: advice be.
Speaker 2: Don't give up, do not give up. Persevere. All the
Speaker 2: time I see people that have the answers, they have
Speaker 2: the solutions to grow, they have it. They just run
Speaker 2: into a problem. They run into a moment in their
Speaker 2: life when it's impossible and they throw in the towel.
Speaker 2: And if they persevere through that, a lot of times
Speaker 2: they come out so much stronger.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Benjamin how It's been a pleasure
Speaker 3: having you on The un Chackables. Thank you for sharing
Speaker 3: your story.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ben.
Speaker 3: Laurie. The thought that kept going through my head is
Speaker 3: that I think we have this one dimensional definition of education.
Speaker 3: But I'm sitting across from this guy who's incredibly articulate.
Speaker 3: I was lucky enough to meet his wife and daughter.
Speaker 3: He has this great family, and so I think, you know,
Speaker 3: we have this one dimensional education means I graduated from
Speaker 3: this and I can do X and Y, And he
Speaker 3: just kept making me think, do I have that definition wrong?
Speaker 3: In my head? Is that too limited.
Speaker 1: He really shows the power of the school of hard
Speaker 1: knocks for lack of a better term. Right, he's learned
Speaker 1: a lot from running his business, but he's also learned
Speaker 1: a lot from the kind of failures and the difficulties
Speaker 1: that have come up. And I think this is something
Speaker 1: that we get wrong about success. We think success is
Speaker 1: about figuring something out the first time right, getting it
Speaker 1: right all the time. We forget that our biggest teachers
Speaker 1: can be the awful times, the traumas when things don't
Speaker 1: go well, when all your vehicles are flooded, and like
Speaker 1: you have to figure out how to get the right
Speaker 1: insurance and what your business does after that. And that
Speaker 1: means that sometimes as business leaders, we avoid those risks
Speaker 1: right possibilities that might seem risky. We don't go for
Speaker 1: that because we're worried about the failure. But what we
Speaker 1: forget is that if we mess up, we might not
Speaker 1: necessarily mess up, but if we mess up, that mess
Speaker 1: up might be our biggest teacher. It might be the
Speaker 1: thing that allows our business to grow in ways that
Speaker 1: we couldn't have expected. And so Benjamin's story can really
Speaker 1: remind us avoiding risks completely or worrying that if you
Speaker 1: hit a hard time or something comes up, you won't
Speaker 1: be able to handle it. That's just not what research
Speaker 1: really shows. What research shows is that trauma can sometimes
Speaker 1: make us grow. And that's trauma in life, as we've
Speaker 1: seen with Benjamin with his upbringing and so on. But
Speaker 1: it's also kind of trauma in the context of business
Speaker 1: when things go just as bad as you could possibly imagine.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that comes with some good too.
Speaker 3: Laurie, can you talk to us a little bit about
Speaker 3: more modern psychological frames for advantage disadvantage, how we approach others.
Speaker 3: A lot of people in society would judge because he
Speaker 3: can't read and write. Now, that's not his fault. He
Speaker 3: grew up in an environment where that wasn't taught to him.
Speaker 3: And if I'm honest with myself, I was on some
Speaker 3: level surprised that he has been able to be as
Speaker 3: successful as he has been when he can't fill out
Speaker 3: a form. And I sort of feel bad about feeling
Speaker 3: that way, but I'm being honest about it. How does
Speaker 3: stigma and other things play into societal expectations around these
Speaker 3: types of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think they play in a lot in
Speaker 1: two ways that are really important. First, these kind of
Speaker 1: cultural notions of like, well, who's educated, who belongs here right?
Speaker 1: Who can fit into business world? Who has the skills
Speaker 1: to do it? I think those expectations affect the opportunities
Speaker 1: that we give to the people that come our way
Speaker 1: as business leaders. You know, if someone can't fill out
Speaker 1: a form, you might not give them the benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt to become one of your team members. But
Speaker 1: just like Benjamin, it might be an amazing individual. And
Speaker 1: so I think it reminds us that we need to
Speaker 1: give folks grace that the normal stereotypes we have about
Speaker 1: the kind of person who belongs in our organization might
Speaker 1: be wrong, and that we might want to rethink some
Speaker 1: of those But I think Benjamin's story also shows a
Speaker 1: second way in which some of these beliefs can really
Speaker 1: affect productivity, which is the beliefs that an individual has
Speaker 1: about themselves. If you're a disadvantaged, if you have something
Speaker 1: that is stigmatizing, like the fact that you can't read,
Speaker 1: or the lack of formal education or something like that,
Speaker 1: that can affect the extent to which you yourself believe in yourself.
Speaker 1: I was really taken by Benjamin's story of kind of
Speaker 1: what switched where the judge was like, a smart guy
Speaker 1: like you, you should have had these opportunities X, Y,
Speaker 1: and Z. He was really changed by the fact that
Speaker 1: there was somebody else out there that believed in him.
Speaker 1: And I think this is something that we neglect as
Speaker 1: business leaders. Right, A quick one off compliment about you
Speaker 1: did such a great job, or you're actually really good
Speaker 1: at this, or you're a really hard worker. Those quick
Speaker 1: kind of one offs can actually change a person's beliefs
Speaker 1: about themselves. It can make someone more resilient over time.
Speaker 1: And I think it just reminds us as leaders that
Speaker 1: like sometimes we think those kind of compliments in our head,
Speaker 1: but we don't often share them. And I think that's
Speaker 1: especially true for individuals from disadvantage backgrounds who might have
Speaker 1: a stereotype against them that causes them to have a
Speaker 1: threatened belief about them. Just these small kind of things,
Speaker 1: especially to individuals in disadvantage groups, can mean the world
Speaker 1: of difference, Like literally can change someone's life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we spend a lot of time at the bank
Speaker 3: thinking about how to serve all different types of people
Speaker 3: and it's pretty resource intensive. You can imagine we have
Speaker 3: language barriers. Obviously, we do have people who can't read
Speaker 3: and write, and we have to be able to serve
Speaker 3: them as well. We have people with physical disabilities, and
Speaker 3: that's not a small investment. I'm incredibly proud that we're
Speaker 3: able to do it, but it takes work and you
Speaker 3: have to do it intentionally.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what the research really shows is
Speaker 1: that work is probably paying off. Allowing individuals to get
Speaker 1: through the door. Kind of democratizing access to these opportunities
Speaker 1: really changes the face of what's possible in business.
Speaker 3: Doctor Lori Santos, thank you so much for being on
Speaker 3: the show that this was really insightful and I appreciate
Speaker 3: the time you've spent with us.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: that deep dive into resilience building. Benjamin How's story offers
Speaker 1: such valuable insights on how to meet like many ops
Speaker 1: and come through them stronger, healthier, and happier. The Unshakables
Speaker 1: podcast is full of such wisdom, so check out more
Speaker 1: episodes from Ben Walter and the folks at Chase for
Speaker 1: Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your shows.
Speaker 3: Real Customer Compensated