A 17 hour day-in-the-life

I don’t fancy myself interesting, or especially insightful. However, I do enjoy my life more than anyone I know.  Friday, February 27th, 2015 held this for me. I hope in sharing this there is something that inspires you to re-arrange things to be as fun and productive as you can be.

• 4AM, I woke up and planned out the day for the 3rd or 4th time. A great crew leader who has been with me for 8+ years called in sick, the forecast is super-cold. Pointing the 16 other guys on the front lines in the right direction means either creating $1000s of value, or devouring profits from an otherwise great month.
• I plan on making a 6AM yoga class, but by the time I am ready, it is too late, and I have 3 projects I have been meaning to plan/estimate/bid for 2 days now. So, I decided to stay home and keep working. I know I am better all day if I take that hour in the morning, but I’m in great shape already, and think the extra 90 minutes of planning this morning trumps yoga.
• I get to drop my 4th-grade daughter off at school. She makes me very happy.
• I arrive at the shop. The “Red Team” and “Yellow Team” are already on the road. Those 2 crew-leaders have 10+ years experience each, and understand their projects well. Surely jobs are better when there is no need to deal with your boss. 
• The lead for the "Brown Team" asks for the day off. It’s 30 degrees out, and likely won’t break 40 today. We can do what his team was to do Monday, so I give his him and his team the day off and re-adjust.
• The “Blue Team” rolls out to a re-finish job for an architect’s personal house in Austin. I personally line him out with all kinds of oddball materials, as we don’t fully know what we are going to be up against there.
• Today, I will be personally leading a project in Westlake. I am not on the front-lines too much anymore, but I usually come out for high-end placement projects. This one is a massive pair of fireplaces.
• A few months ago, I developed a new product that resurfaces old concrete with post-consumer crushed glass, and need to square up with the company that trucked that material in from Austin and bagged it (no glass recycling pickup in Marble Falls). I manage to get one load back to the shop and pick another up before running to the site we will be pouring today (concrete ordered for 1:30PM)
• Before we can leave the shop, the Blue Team calls with a serious challenge: the floor they were to re-finish was “stained” with some lame paint product. We can easily make it shiny, but the color comes off with a easy scrape, and we preach the gospel of concrete floors that are durable above all else. Cool thing is, after 100s of projects together, that crew leader and I almost form a nexus, and I can fully understand what is happening there in less than 2 minutes over the phone. I have revised our project worksheet template dozens of times over the last 5 years, and in 2 more minutes I can estimate the cost with a fair margin, and hand the deal off to Annie or Kathryn to write the paperwork to up the project from re-wax to complete re-finish. I have a 2 minute conversation with the owner/architect, and frankly admit that to strip off the paint, acid stain, chemically harden, diamond polish and finish out that floor costs more than I might want to invest in a home I was about sell. She is very bright and decisive and within 15 minutes of the first call from the Blue Team, we have a change order, a game plan, and another future fan.  I grab the material they will need to chemically remove paint and we race to pick up another load of up-cycled glass and meet the concrete truck on site.
• We get on site at 12:50, and hustle to use the glass as filler in the form. It only saves $20 or so (between the concrete omitted and my cost for the bagged glass on a trailer there), but it means 90 cubit feet less stuff in a landfill, and energy saved in making cement. Frankly, the “Green-Building” ethos is a bit lost on this $4M house project we are a part of on Lake Austin.
• Troy Lemon, the best straight-up artist in concrete I know is still down from Michigan and finishing the forms. He is very expensive as a hired-hand, but he is the only person I know that can do this job as good as I can (probably better).  I have paid him over $2,000 on this project alone, but it has freed me up 3 full days and the work is excellent. 

Here is a form with the glass, a floating form for the drop and Troy's head.

• The “mud” shows up, we get the integral color in, it looks perfect, and we get the truck poured out in about an hour. 

Here is the leftover bucket of color. The architect, Eric Barth of A Parallel Architecture requested "Grey but warmer and elevated", and then backpedaled a lot thinking that he was not communicating completely. I understood perfectly, made 3 mockups that were all gorgeous, and scaled the lightest one from 1 cu. ft. to 4 yards. for this project.

• The Blue Team picks up the chemical stripper. I realize after they leave that I should give them the 2 apprentice/laborers I had with my and track them down on TX 360.
• I then hit up 3 stores in Austin to find more electric blankets for the fireplaces we poured. The temps are not forecasted to pass 40 in the next 48 hours, so keeping that concrete warm artificially is paramount. The challenge is that big retailers order x-amount of blankets and heaters/year and by late February in a rough winter Home Depot, Walmart, Target, etc. are all sold out. Chatting with my wife while driving I find out that Tuesday Morning had some on clearance. I’ve never been to a Tuesday Morning store, but it is like a Ross for Housewares, and there I find electric blankets marked down from $200 to $60 to $6.  I am stoked. I high-five everyone in the store I can and race back to the job site.
• The Project Manager where we are pouring is a chatty guy and we are both stuck in Austin Rush Hour Traffic.  We talk about the day, and I was lamenting about the re-wax turn re-finishing job the Blue Team wrestled with. In that conversation, I realize that I am the only contractor I know that cares about concrete flooring that wears like blue jeans. I look forward to the economy going South again so all the chumps trying to make quick money will go out of business again. 
• Once we are done troweling the concrete, we make our little hot-house around it with scrap lumber, plastic, and electric blankets.

Can you refer anyone near __________

Probably not. I have not met 6 other people in my industry that were truly driven to make the most durable, aesthetically timeless surfaces possible. There are better people than me in this game, but not many that care about the net impact of our work. Different ethos over time leads to wildly different practices.  So we have been intensely focused on the inside - working daily on The Way We Do Stuff - trying to make this thing scalable.  Still not there. Some days, I feel so far away it is almost hopeless.

If you feel the weight of the world, drive hard, and sometimes wonder about your drive you are not alone. You should not necessarily stop, though. There seems to be something in that striving. Maybe it is chasing after the wind. Maybe it is right as rain. For a minute I doubted, but I am back on my grind. I still push. I still drive. I still fight to make something that will make the built environment and the builders of it better. I hope you do the same.

I am so grateful for the insights I’ve gotten from the mavens of human performance. Not that I revel in my own awesomeness or whatever - it is just nice to be able to back up and see my own patterns with understanding of how brains and egos work in general.

One of my “secret weapons” is www.morningcoach.com I have seen JB Glossinger come a long way, and his daily 15 minute talks are better than ever. One thing I am not so sure about is the general idea of “Intelligent Life Design”. It seems to be one side of a coin that we ought to trade for a third alternative. 

At first blush, ILD seems naturally desirable. It is hard to argue with the idea of making more money with less effort. However, creating time and space to pursue hobbies (golf, MMA, languages, etc.) has an odor of frivolity that makes me want to burst outside to breathe. I have a hunch that strong men (and maybe women) are like diesel trucks: they function best when under a load.

The other side of that coin - work for work’s sake - is worse. When I read Aldous Huxley’s “People intoxicate themselves with work so they won't see how they really are” I thought of so many of my friends (and myself). So many of us are compulsive and need something to throw ourselves into. Work is a better alternative than drugs, etc. Side effects of “workaholism” (workahol is not actually a substance) include prosperity and respect. But again there is a third alternative. Something that is neither a cop-out nor frivolous.

It is Mission.  You know you are going to die, right? Can you imagine the deathbed realization that you spent your life frivolously or driving blindly? The third alternative is to find the biggest reason possible to give it all. Then give it your all. That’s what I have done, and I could not be happier. I bet that’s what JB is up to as well (the golf thing might partly be to motivate working stiffs that listen).

My mission is this: re-build the artisan class by building a business that makes of the most durable, aesthetically timeless floors on the planet. Everything other flooring material is future garbage. Most other jobs are pointless by comparison. Here are the results of this work:

• Less things in landfills (Americans throw away billions of pounds of carpet every year - it is not recyclable).
• Happy+productive men learning new skills and making things they feel great about.
• Customers getting meaningfully crafted things instead of more boxes of whatever.

Here is a case study:

Lily + Bobby Garst wanted the graphic of this pin enlarged and cut into their concrete:

Translating a 1/2" pin to a 7' medallion means either creating a vectorized computer file line-by-line that a plotter can read to cut a stencil or just printing it out and cutting through the image with grinders and engravers.  The first approach is easier on the body, the second is better on the soul.

Here is a shot of the printed image on an interior floor (flattening out while we stain and seal the front porch where it would later be installed):

Cutting all that out is a ton of work, but there is no good way to translate the depth of a grey-scale image from a pin to concrete art without the depth you get with a grinder.  Here is a shot after a hard day of work:

The Greek key started to take shape:

At some point taking the paper off makes sense. The final shading comes from the artisan looking at the image and just translating it to the concrete:

Inspiration is not optional when you are working like a tattoo artist - except the vibration is 3X, the work is 3X the size, and you are on your knees all day cutting it in.

Finally the engraving is done:

Staining it black and sealing it makes it more subtle and keeps it from darkening from dirt over time:

The artisan behind this work has been with me for over 8 years now. He could not be happier with his job, and he and the other crew leaders can now afford to buy homes, feed their families single handedly (moms are home). Also, the Garst Family got a remarkable entry to their home that will never wear out, pop off, or go out of style. Our margins are very low, but over $1M has gone into the local economy in 2014 alone. To Garsts, the builders, architects, and the 100s of others we were able to serve this year, a big fat THANK YOU.

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Why you stay connected with nerds like us.

I should say me: I am a materials nerd, but the rest of my team is largely cool-guys. I am known for reading technical data sheets like some guys look at pornography. It borders on addiction for me, but instead of making me a pervert or whatever, it can make the world better.

Here's what I found:

The ultimate garage floor.

It is like exposed aggregate concrete on steroids. More that 14,000 PSI, the ability to flex, gaps in the rocks that prevent puddling, all kinds of characteristics that allow us to put a 20 year warranty on it.  Shiny, slip-resistant, stain resistant, crack-proof, concrete of sorts that we can do tremendous things with.

This stuff would be terrific for garages, pool decks, walkways; anywhere you could clean with a hose rather than a mop. 

We call it the 14K Overlay, and we are all in:  Tuesday we purchased a special trailer-able mixer just for this material, and 4 pallets of it for mockups. Wednesday 10/22, we took all 15 people out of the field and had the manufacturer come down and train us properly.

 On Tuesday the 23rd, we installed this in the garage for a $1,000,000+ spec house built by Brother Sun Builders in Kingsland.  

I'm not saying our polished concrete floor inside or the stained porches or this new garage coating did it, but that house sold on Saturday the 25th. 

Builders / architects / designers that work with us have always had an edge. Now they have something new to offer as well.

Like Walter White, we make it, but we don’t take it.

Not methamphetamine. Market share.  Recently element7concrete started placing concrete, and it has made some of our friends uncomfortable.  Here’s why these kinds of things are good in general [that means in your world as much as ours]

There are two mindsets in the market: abundance and scarcity.  As a gawky 14 year old at Watertown High School in South Dakota I was told that “The basic economic problem is scarcity: unlimited wants vs. limited resources”. With all due respect, the real economic problem is having your ideas around money shaped by a government employee that makes around $30,000/year.  

Click here for Ricky Bobby's 8 second explanation of "With all due respect".

Scarcity is a myth.  Man's creative work is what brings forth "Resources", and the limits of human resourcefulness is nowhere near known. It is bigger than you can imagine right now. 

In reality, the universe is expanding on all levels: planets, bio-mass, human population, human knowledge, and of course the markets. Remember the smartphone market before the iPhone?  How about the tablet market before the iPad? Anyone still seriously worried about us running out of sources of energy?

Back to concrete. For the better part of a decade, many local concrete contractors have recommended element7concrete to their customers because we break ourselves to make them look good. Before element7concrete flooring, plans specifying stained concrete flooring was bad news.  It meant their work would be scrutinized. Now it means their work would will be celebrated. Our customers learn to appreciate concrete for what it is, and everybody wins.

Before element7concrete placement, concrete was a commodity. Now it will become commissioned craftwork. We are detail guys. We will not squeeze out old concrete companies on parking lots and house slabs. We will attract customer they don't want - customers that want [and will pay for] attention to detail. We will create massive value in good work. Remember coffee before Starbucks? It sucked compared to coffee now. Howard Schultz was inspired by how good coffee could be. We are inspired with how good concrete can be. By the Grace of God, we will elevate concrete like they elevated coffee. Thank you so much for reading this. Please spread the word.

Adventure!

Last week, two future rockstars and I went to Padre Island for a decorative concrete adventure.  These "Young Guns" will be 1st class crew leaders in 2015, and I wanted to pour into them personally on an out-of-town job.  The 4 guys leading crews back in the Hill Country had things on lock, and frankly these guys are the only ones on the team without kids to raise, so it was all right-on.

This project was an unlikely recipient of the element7concrete experience. We don't normally go out of town to work, but the owner on this one was a childhood friend of my wife, and her and her husband are two of the coolest people I've met.  Remodel work is much harder than new construction, and we decline a lot of these projects when we are as busy as we are.  But, this beach house had great bones and bad surfaces. I guess I am a bit of a sucker for a chance to really contribute to a great space.

The builder warned us that the slab got tore up when they hammered the tile out. If he would have used phrases like "surface of the moon", it would have been more clear. Here's a shot of what we started with:

The 10 bags of Mapei M-20 we brought for patching covered maybe 10%.  The $150 of patching material covered another 10% of the deepest holes.  So, I dropped about $1000 on a floor leveler from Lowes and we spent 2-3 days patching, grinding, and cleaning before we ever dropped our first coat of EliteCrete ThinFinish.  Here is a quick video of the madness:

Our HTC 500 was priceless in grinding the floor flat before the ThinFinish.  That material is great, but it is so thin it does not hide much.  Here is the first coat being applied:

We started integrally coloring the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th coats of material (not counting the 2 coats of patching).  Here's what that looked like:

Kelly (the owner), collaborated well with us on this scoring design, and after sanding, scoring, sealing it looked like this:

Once the sealer cures out, the house is trimmed, painted, and cleaned, and the matte floor finish is applied, I would love to post some pictures of the finished work.  This is designed to be a mellow backdrop for the young family's furniture, art and life.  I am grateful for the chance to serve, and proud of how my team delivered.  Thank you for reading.

Frankly Threadbare.

I struggle with arrogance.  I used to struggle with lust, and it made it weird for me to be friends with hot women [also probably made life miserable for my wife]. I’m over that.  But I still struggle with pride enough that I overcompensate, and destroy myself for the builders I love and their clients.

What does that have to do with concrete, you, design, or anything else worth caring about?  Maybe nothing. Maybe this is the opposite of everything we value. No. It is not. Here’s what’s up:  I hope by openly sharing my most embarrassing struggle you feel more inspired and less alone.

Here’s the deal:  if you ever commissioned us to make something for you or your clients, it humbles me. I am so grateful for you and your business. I would really, really, really rather not let you down.  Problem is you are not alone.  Lots of people know about element7concrete now, and I was overcompensating for my ego when I stacked the schedule full of people I couldn’t say “no” to. 

My ego would love to work 6 killer hours a day, use our reputation to charge 3X what we do, and make you wait if I’m not ready. A good part of me wants my ego to get murdered.  So, I work 18 hours a day, charge the same prices we did in 2006, and have to re-schedule 3 projects a day. This is clearly off the mark.  

I wasn’t prescient enough to have a good story ready when you called.  I didn’t come with an “aw, shucks I wish we could schedule your project within a month, but we are already jammed up”. I though somehow, someway, we would pull a rabbit out of a hat and do stuff that didn’t add up, and everyone would feel good about it.  Problem is this is the real world, and it’s like 95 degrees out there, and my guys have young, growing families and our clients have CC cameras and feel short-changed if 4 guys know out their $1,500 project in 3 hours flat…blah blah blah…we come up short. I hate it. I wake up earlier, train harder, eat cleaner, think better, and work harder and it still doesn’t all get done. I hate it. I am sorry and sick of being sorry. I just want to be better. I hate my imperfections. I hate my shortcomings. I just want everyone to stay stoked. I want to stay stoked myself. That striving is hopeless, though. Balance is the point, not just “more”. 

Hope this somehow helps. I love you very much.