Construction Company Owner Runs Million-Dollar Projects Without Contracts

Dave Helland [00:00:00] Everything that is of value that is around you, somebody's work produced, right? And to think that your highest aspiration in life is to not have to do that, I think is pretty sad. Hi everyone. I am Oliver Crow, a second grade student and an aspiring YouTuber, and you're listening to the Van Twi podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:21] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we sit down with Dave Helen. Dave is a, the owner of a very high-end construction company, and he's also a mountain climber. We started talking via email after he'd listened to a few podcasts and one time I offhandedly said, if you're willing to make the drive down here, I'd love to have you on. So Dave took a six hour trip and arrived here at the studios and we had a fantastic conversation. Not only did we talk about the whole process of managing people and keeping employees for many, many years, but we also talked about work ethic and overcoming challenges in your mind that keep you from doing the things that you know you should do. I really enjoyed this conversation and I find many of the things that Dave said during this conversation rattling around in my brain. We're gonna get to that interview in just a moment, but first I wanted to tell you about an email I received the other day. I've been doing Legacy Interviews for a couple of years now, and unfortunately, sometimes guests that I've interviewed pass away. Sometimes it is expected and sometimes it comes outta nowhere. The email I received talked about being able to set the legacy interview up during the visitation so that hundreds of people that knew this loved one could see and hear their voice. At the end of the email, the person that had hired me to record the conversation with their grandparents said, thank you so much. Now no matter what happens, I can always see my grandfather laugh and tell stories, and it's almost like he's here with me.

Vance Crowe [00:01:58] I share this with you because if you've been thinking about doing a legacy interview, it is one of those things that you can't go back in time and get again. If you're interested in having me sit down with one of your loved ones so that they can tell you about their stories, about the life that they led and the history that they experienced, so that that way future generations can hear their laugh and know them in a totally wonderful and caring way, then go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. All right, without further ado, let's head to the interview with Dave Heand.

Dave Helland [00:02:33] Dave Heand, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. So how did you get into the construction industry? Well, it's, I guess in college I went to Iowa State University. So back in like 94, I think it was 94, I started working at a lumberyard and it was Lital Lumber in Ames, Iowa. And just doing all the things that you do at a lumberyard. And one day I talked to a contractor, Jim Fagan, who came into the counter who I really liked and just asked if he needed any help and he said, sure. So I started working with him like on nights and weekends and then he had two other guys that he shared work with. And so there was three contractors and they bounced me around and that's how I finished out my college years. And they, they really were good at what they did and they enjoyed it.

Vance Crowe [00:03:22] And when you were in college, were you imagining that you would become a

Dave Helland [00:03:26] Construction worker? No, it's kind of a funny story. 'cause you know, when they give you, in high school, they give you those tests that are supposed to like figure out what you're gonna do for a living. So I took it and it said something like a woodworker, and I just thought that was so ridiculous. I just, you know, that was dumb. I laughed about it, said these things are garbage. They don't, you know, 'cause totally didn't want to do it. And my dad, so my dad was an appliance salesman at Sears and you know, he, we didn't have a lot of money and his belief was, get an education to be able to get a job and then hold onto it with both hands and don't do anything stupid to get fired. So I majored in accounting. So I went through two years of accounting and then thought like, you know, I don't want to be an accountant. What the hell am I gonna do now? Changed majors to environmental planning, was gonna like work for the forest Service or something like that. And then just stumbled into construction by working at that lumberyard. And then my last year of college, I, I started my own deal and it's what I've done ever since.

Vance Crowe [00:04:23] Oh, you started it right outta college?

Dave Helland [00:04:25] Yeah, right. In college my last year I went part-time so I could do these little small jobs on my own. And so I joked that I've never had a real job. And it's true,

Vance Crowe [00:04:34] It's so funny because if, if some kid were to say, ah, I'm not gonna go to college, I'm gonna go work construction, the automatic cultural reaction would be, oh, this kid's like a screw up or he is not gonna make very much of himself. Yeah. Why, why, why is that in our culture that way?

Dave Helland [00:04:49] You know, I I think it's the natural evolution, right? Like working with your hands was hard and, and life got easier for the world and the country in general and people sought ways to earn a living that weren't, wasn't so physically hard. It all made perfect sense. But then somewhere in the last generation, I just think we've lost that. The value, I mean the, the the respect I guess I I should say for people who do that kind of work and, and I think we're seeing it now like in the central Iowa area, you know, it used to be that there's so many guys like me fighting for work and there wasn't enough work. Well now there's so much work and there's not enough skilled people to do it. And now maybe that won't last forever, but we need lots of people to be able to do that. But we've got to be able to give a better reason for 'em to do that. I mean, we've gotta treat people with respect and we gotta pay them more and that means everything's gotta cost more. And so it's very complex to solve. Most of the guys that worked for me, you know, started college and didn't finish. So it's just that kind of progression and I'm hoping that we can get construction to be a more intentional destination for people in the future.

Vance Crowe [00:06:01] I think it's funny because if you go read the book, like any book about the way the weymar republic inflation just ran totally wild. The people that were actually okay in the wildly inflationary environments were plumbers, construction workers, people that were doing things Yeah. That you needed to be done. Because it doesn't matter how much the the wages get inflated, they're just gonna keep demanding more and more higher prices.

Dave Helland [00:06:24] Yeah. You need your, your roof goes bad, you need a roofer. And so, and that's, as globalization is doing its thing too and is, is has, has changed the markets, you start to see like, you know what, it might be better to be a really good contractor than kind of just a industry standard computer guy, right? Because you can't, at least yet can't do what we do through some other complex system that doesn't involve boots on the ground.

Vance Crowe [00:06:54] Yeah. And there's definitely this like concept about scaling your time. I know when I first started doing these Legacy Interviews and people would be like, oh, are you gonna hire somebody else to do the interviews? I'm like, no, I wanna do the interviews. And they're like, well you can't scale that way. Right? But there's something to being like a truly great craftsman at something where maybe you don't have to scale and have the like, leverage of capitalism and instead you're able to use your skills.

Dave Helland [00:07:18] That's the, that's the epic struggle. Well, epic might be too strong a word, but that's the struggle in in my business because ever since the beginning, you know, first of all I started doing all the work myself, you know, just me doing the labor. Then you hire a guy, then you hire another guy. Well then there does become a point where it's, so, I mean the, the billing and the bidding, it becomes so burdensome. Your life is kind of terrible 'cause you're trying to do the work on site, but you're constantly pulled in so many directions and your work is actually not as good then. So the solution is you get a few guys and then I manage them and I, I'm the customer contact, that system works. But everybody since the beginning is trying to tell me to get bigger, you gotta get bigger. You gotta hire people, you gotta anything that you can hire somebody to do, you should, you should do that. And I've just seen it fail too many times in other companies and, and my definition of failure is the product they're putting out and the service they provide to their customers diminishes in quality. And you know, I've dealt closely with owners of, of companies that are subcontractors and it's great. Well then they got the guy then, and then I'm talking to the guy instead of the owner and that guy doesn't care like the owner does. And eventually by the time the problems get to the owner, they're just bigger problems. And I don't see how anybody's life got better. So I have fought against that maybe, maybe too stubbornly. And I just don't see any way that I can take me out of the system and have it be what I want it to be.

Dave Helland [00:08:53] And I guess it's my company. So that's the choice I've made.

Vance Crowe [00:08:57] Yeah, there's truly like a tension there, right? Where it's something akin to like, you need to be able to trust other people to do stuff. You need to be able to lead them to wanting to do the same quality that you can. But at the end of the day, you are only, you are the one that is going to care about that the most. Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:09:13] And, and so I've had a lot of people tell me, oh, you gotta be able to let go. It's like, well I did let go of my trade that I loved. I love being a carpenter. I mean, I just love the work. I mean, and every now and then when I get a taste of it again and the old skills that are rusty, they come back. It's like, oh, it's glorious. But I've got guys, one guy's worked for me, Ben is, he's amazing. Worked for me for 22 years now. I think maybe 23 I lose track. And you know, trained him from when he was young and, and he does incredible work. So the guys that work for me, all of them do amazing work. So I entrust them with that. But dealing with the emotions of clients and all the complexity of the relationships and then obviously the end product that ties all that together. I maybe I'm shortsighted, but I don't see a way to farm that out to somebody else. And I just don't, I guess I don't want to try.

Vance Crowe [00:10:10] What is the secret to being able to keep somebody for 20 some odd years?

Dave Helland [00:10:15] Well, you know, it's something that, that's a good question. At the, you know, a few years you can coast with anybody, right? Until, because the guy's just comfortable and inertia keeps it together. Well I started to realize what Ben and Lee and Mark and Travis, what the guys really want. I is autonomy on their work so I don't micromanage. But then the biggest thing, like for the first 10 years, I, I was sensitive about giving other people credit. Like I wanted, it was mine, it was my company. You know, like somebody would say, oh, those guys do a really good job. And I, you know, I'm like, yeah, I do a good job because I, 'cause I show how to do it, you know, and just sensitive like that for maybe the last, I'd say maybe it's even the last 10 years, I'm kind of a slow learner. I realized that just, no, those guys are the reason, they are the, I mean, I'm not, I really don't have much without them. So in front of customers and I say, yeah, these guys, how good they are and how just, I mean, you can set your watch by 'em. They're, they're, they full of integrity. They're hard work, they're skilled, they care about what they do. I mean, these guys are incredible. And I tell 'em that. And so I think that matters. That and really good pay.

Vance Crowe [00:11:33] What is really good pay in the construction industry right now,

Dave Helland [00:11:36] You're pushing 50 bucks, 50

Vance Crowe [00:11:37] Bucks an hour. Wow. Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:11:40] Yeah. Now that's at the highest level of, of, of work. And still, you know, you think about it like that's a lot of money when you're paying somebody to do construction. It's not a lot. They're not getting rich on, on it working hard every day. Right? But it's good living and you know, these guys, they start early, they, you know, like starting at six 30 or seven and they can be done at three 30 and you know, it's a pretty solid life and they just, they go home feeling good every day, take a shower and they got the rest of their evening. And so that's what they like about that life.

Vance Crowe [00:12:16] What is the construction industry state of the union right now?

Dave Helland [00:12:20] Well, central Iowa is all I know and it's, it's changing right now. I mean new construction, the, the, well, so I guess I should tell you, first of all, I'm kind of in a weird little niche. Like I, I'm, I don't hardly even know what's going on in new developments or anything. I would do a lot of remodeling and do a handful of custom homes. Normally one or two custom homes a year. Just, and it's the kind of house where it's somebody's last home, you know, just really high quality.

Vance Crowe [00:12:51] Yeah. The details is what I noticed. So I watched a few videos of yours and it's like, oh man, somebody walks into this house and you realize like this is not an accident. That they did that to their shower. That the fireplace is set up this way that the, the porch leads off in this exact way.

Dave Helland [00:13:06] It's very personalized. And that's the thing, the, the people that hire me are, are, are people that they value their homes and they value that environment. They want it to be, they want it to be just right. And that's what I talk to people about. You know, if, if you, how important is it to walk in your house and just feel good to have everything just right, just the way you want it. If it's not important and this is a ridiculous financial expenditure, that's not worth it. If it's important, then we work together to create to everything to be exactly the way they want it. Now that takes years. I mean, we're talking like a couple years of planning normally before we get started on a project. And then these days it's like a year to do these big houses. So what I'm getting at is I don't do very much, but I do very personalized things. So my side of the world's kind of the same as it's always been, but new construction, otherwise, like spec homes and all that, it's pretty much shut down right now

Vance Crowe [00:14:07] Really?

Dave Helland [00:14:08] Because you, you know, these guys on construction loans paying 8% interest now or it was, you know, three and a half or four and they just, anyone that was sitting on houses is trying to dump 'em. So there's some weird times coming, but it's weird times that I've never experienced. 'cause like the 2008, 2009 crash was a whole different animal. You know, it was vicious had the same effect, but with low rates it was more just a, you know, it was a excessive inventory crash because people losing their jobs couldn't make their payments with the adjustable rate mortgages. So all this stuff hit the market. Foreclosures, short sales, put pressure on spec, you know, spec homes that were under construction. 'cause all the prices were going down. Well now it's just guys can't afford to build them. So what does that mean? We really don't know. You know, my dad experienced, you know, the eighties and that took a few years to work out that, you know, debacle. So answer the, that's a long answer to your question, but we're strong. Lots of demand, but it's changing and don't quite know where it's gonna go.

Vance Crowe [00:15:21] Yeah. It's such a wild time because we've spent so many years where if you were willing to take risk, a bank would happily write you that loan and you could be buying a house, you could be upgrading. And I think a lot of the world spent like, Hey, I've been in this house for three years now. I'm gonna, you know, sell this, take that money and roll it up into another house and upgrade and all of that stuff is just frozen. 'cause who's gonna give up their 3% interest for 8%? Well,

Dave Helland [00:15:47] Yeah, and I'm trying to process that too. And, and then, so I had a thought about that the other day and I thought, well, yeah, who'd do that? And I thought, well, okay, did all of a sudden everybody in the world get highly disciplined and they're not gonna make poor financial choices? You know, I think there's gonna be probably, I think it's an adjustment period. Like for instance, my first house that I bought in 2000 had a 7% interest rate. And I remember my dad was like, wow, what a great rate that is. 'cause you know, he was used to 16 and 13%. And so, you know, when you're taking on a mortgage now it's like, you know, I think it's in the sixes now, so it's not what it was. But eventually I think people just get going again and just like, this is what we got and they figure out how to make it work.

Vance Crowe [00:16:32] Well, all I know is, so I do all these Legacy Interviews and I sit with people that went through the eighties and like the indelible mark that that left on this where they said, you know, I went to bed one night and we were not under the thumb of our bank and we woke up the next day and all of a sudden the bank is calling our note. They were, you know, the pressure. And this is a pressure that like, I have not seen as an adult. Right. And I think most of our culture has no idea how they will react when that pressure starts building.

Dave Helland [00:17:01] Yeah, it's, that's the thing, it's like in my career I've seen these, seen these crashes. You know, we had the 2000 tech crash, we had the nine 11 scare and we had 2008, 2009, and these were all, you know, genuine catastrophes. But this one's different. So my, my hope is that I, I guess I've built my business on doing lots of different things in lots of different towns, you know, just kind of never too dumb to turn down anything really over the years. And it was part strategy, part desperation in the early years. And I think I just, I hope that we're insulated from, from running outta work. And I'm optimistic that we're gonna get through this one too. So,

Vance Crowe [00:17:46] I mean, I think you're in a position, I mean, I don't know what, what your working world is like, but when I look at what you're doing, like if somebody wants like high-end quality work, you can't just go out and find someone that like does what you do. There's very, very few out there.

Dave Helland [00:18:00] It's pretty tough. The challenge is in construction, I, I talk to c clients about this a lot. You know, there's, you get a young guy who's got a strong back, he goes out and there's just low barriers to entry. So all of a sudden you can just be, you can be a contractor, you know, in the state of Iowa we don't have any strict licensing requirements or anything. So if you've got a person with a lot of charisma sitting across the table from you, telling you the things you want to hear, it's, people fall prey to that a lot. And they think they're getting what, what they want, but they're not. Now the more sophisticated clients that have gone through different experiences over the years see that coming. So as I'm getting older, my clients are getting older too. And so that's changed everything too. But you know, there's just a lot of, you know, there's just a lot. There's actually, honestly, there's just a lot of fraud and bad players in construction and I have to compete directly with them. And that's been hard over the years. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:19:01] I think that there could be people that, you know, I worked in construction for a while and people, it's very easy to get over your skis, right? To start making promises, ohs you can't keep. And then all of a sudden, two people are in a tent spot and when you're in the middle of doing a renovation, your kitchen is torn up, the homeowner feels like they're being held over a barrel. The the guy that's doing the contract and is like, Hey, things changed or we opened this thing up and it didn't look like we thought. And you can see how two people would have interests in

Dave Helland [00:19:27] Getting

Vance Crowe [00:19:28] Their way to work out.

Dave Helland [00:19:29] It's really, you know, the whole construction process, especially remodeling, but even new it, it's just emotionally fraught because, you know, this is one of the biggest things at the time. It's normally the biggest thing anyone has taken on and throughout your whole life, it's gonna be one of the biggest things. And you know, there's so in residential construction to, it's, it's so personal and it's so emotional and people are so scared and it's always so much money. I mean it's, it's, you know, you go into it, whatever people go into it with their bad numbers, like a house that whatever you wanted a house to cost five years ago is the number that sticks in your head. And we're all, you know, we're twice that and it's hard. And then to go through that process and have something go wrong, which it does all the time, it causes a lot of conflict. But I I, I try to communicate that to clients ahead of time. There's these emotional trajectories and you know, you're gonna be super excited and then someday you're gonna walk in and you're gonna see something and you're gonna be like, what the hell? That's not what I wanted. And I just try to tell 'em like, you don't need to yell at me, you don't need to be upset. All you need to do is point out that that's not exactly what you wanted and I'm gonna get on and we're gonna make it what you want. But, you know, people are people and it's just the stresses of people's personal lives also, you know, take such a toll. 'cause when we're working with somebody for years, things happen. I mean, there's deaths in the family, there's job losses, there's sicknesses, there's just all kinds of trouble in life.

Dave Helland [00:21:03] And that gets brought to the table sometimes too, as we all do. So I really just try hard to make this connection with people and stay hope, help them stay hopeful that the end will come and you're gonna love it when we're done. But until then, it's kind of a grind and it's not a whole lot of fun. Most of the time in remodeling, I always tell people like, there's two different views. Like, you try to live in your house when you're remodeling it, you know, well let's say you move out, you'll come and you'll be like, oh wow, look at everything they, they did. This is looking great. But if you're living there, you'll come home and see the same work. You're like, what? What did they even do today? I don't even see this. This is, and so it's just managing the psychology of it is a big part of what I do.

Vance Crowe [00:21:50] One of the hardest things in life I think is coming to the realization that things always break and like nothing goes right. Yeah. And I think like, I'm, I'm in my forties and I still had, you know, things, something went wrong this morning and I'm like, ah, how could this possibly be? How could this thing possibly break? And, and then you're like, because everything breaks all the time and it's hard not to become a cynic Yeah. In that, in that way. But everything does break. So

Dave Helland [00:22:17] I had an old banker I knew years ago, he, he said it best, there was a friend of mine that went to him and it was gonna get loan, you know, borrow money. And, and I said, Hey Phil, what do you think of, you know, so and so? He says, well he seems like a really nice young man that hasn't had his ass kicked yet. And I'm like, I get it and totally get it now. 'cause at, you know, at some point early in life, you think like just through sheer force of will, you can make everything go your way. Right. And we can't underestimate what effort can accomplish, but in the end, you, you know, you don't control enough to keep these things from happening and it's how you react to 'em. But man, why does it take so long to learn that?

Vance Crowe [00:22:58] Yeah, I mean the emotion of anger is such a wasted emotion and it has taken me years to learn that where you're like, I'm really frustrated and even I'm not the type of person that points my anger at someone, but I like, I'll call up my brother or I'll call somebody and be like, I'm so mad at this. But like, like you get a little bit away, away from anger and you're like, that anger didn't help me do a single thing. All it did was blind me to so destructive everything that was going on.

Dave Helland [00:23:26] So destructive. So this guy I climbed with who, whose dad was a psychologist, he, his dad used to tell him, you know, he said, you know Matt, how do you feel? He goes, angry. No, no, no. Anger's anger's not an emotion. Anger's a reaction. What do you feel? And he is teach him like anger is just a reaction to something else. I thought, wow, that's pretty powerful that I never thought of. And you know that when you have a, when you have a client that's quick to anger, you know, and there's lots of things that you can be angry about in a construction process. It's really hard to keep your cool. But then I always, I'm getting so much better at it, but I'm not as good as I want to be, you know? 'cause I take it personally. And I, I told this guy, you know, a few weeks ago I just said, I said, I'm, you know, when you're yelling at me like this, it just, I'm, it hits me hard. It cuts me deep. I, I really want you to be happy. And so when you're upset like this at me, it just, I'm telling you it affects me to the core so you don't need to go that far to get my attention. You know? And he listened, which was good. But I'm trying just to take a minute and explain how much I care. And that seems to work most of the time.

Vance Crowe [00:24:45] Yeah. I mean I think most of the time when people feel emotion, you're, or like anger, you're right. And most of the time the, the thing that's behind anger, it certainly was for me, like this morning when I think about how angry I was, it is actually worry. But I don't wanna be a worrier. Yeah. Like I don't wanna be the type of person that's like, I'm not sure how this is gonna handle all what's gonna happen. So it is so much easier to be angry than it is to be like, alright, if this thing goes this way, I'll have to deal with this. And if it goes that way, I'll have to deal with it this way. But that like, it, it feels so much easier to be angry.

Dave Helland [00:25:19] Having a tendency towards anger enables me to make one good sales pitch to clients. 'cause I, I tell them like basically when I'm going through their projects, I think of everything in life that angers me. And then I, I want to avoid that for them. So I'm like, well, I don't know. I'm thinking like walking in this, you know, going to bed at night and gotta walk over there to turn that light switch off and walk over there and turn that, that would make me angry at night. Would that make you angry? Yeah, maybe that would, okay, let's switch 'em over here. You know, so all these little funny things like that and just like, it's all about avoiding anger is what I tell 'em. And, and that seems to soften things up a lot.

Vance Crowe [00:25:57] So you have a tattoo on your arm and it's the, the branches that reach towards heaven require the roots that reach towards hell. Yeah. We were kind of talking about this before. Yep.

Dave Helland [00:26:07] Carl, the

Vance Crowe [00:26:07] Carl Jung idea. Why is that something you emblazoned on your arm?

Dave Helland [00:26:13] I, you know, well the tendency towards anger, where's that coming from? Right. And, and so I guess in the last 10 years, but certainly more focused in the last five years, I've just tried to understand myself better. And I, through some reading I mentioned Jordan Peterson and others, you know, these, these ideas aren't unique. They've been around forever to try to understand like, you know, shine a light on that. Like what is going on deep inside me that makes me do these things that are destructive to myself or people I love. You know, I mean, why would I want to lash out at my wife for something that is re look back retroactively? It's just ridiculous. Right? So it's digging deep and it seems to me like when you, if you can take the time and look in these dark places and try to understand what is deep inside and shine the light on it, it seems to negate the power of the negative impulses. To me, that's my approach. So that's why I put it there as a reminder just to, just to always be aware of what's driving me. And then the other one is the know thyself concept. You know, it's just like, if if you can't know why you're doing things, then you're just an outta control person. And I don't wanna be that.

Vance Crowe [00:27:45] What are those kind of easy reactions or the ones that are the, the dark ones that you're talking about?

Dave Helland [00:27:53] I have a, I I I have a deep like fear of poverty basically. That's one thing. Just, you know, growing up, we certainly weren't destitute or anything, but my, you know, my parents struggled for money and that like, there was enough stress about money in the family that, that that left its mark on myself and my brother and my sister. We all have the same thing. And so that's something, and I have to constantly keep that in check in business because if you're, if you let that fear seep into what is right and that's how you make a bad decision, that's how you become a dishonest person.

Vance Crowe [00:28:35] That's exactly right.

Dave Helland [00:28:36] You know, it's like I'm afraid that I'm gonna lose money on this thing. So now I'm gonna talk myself into how it's really not my fault. How I'm really not the wrong one. It's that person who's the wrong one. And I have been really good, really good at fighting that off over the years and stayed absolutely honest and, and I take my beating financially if it's my fault. And, you know, and fault is also a nebulous thing too because, you know, the in with informal conversations and all that in construction, you know, I'm responsible to make sure that they know what they're getting and if they don't, I did something wrong. So even though I always intended to do this, if they thought something else was coming, whose fault is, that's probably mine. So that's, that's one thing, you know, I have a deep, deep need to be right. That has been a curse in my life. And I just, like, I, it's just like take, gotta have, make a point. Like that's, you know, that's what I said or I was right or you see it coming and, and it's, it's toxic to do that. And people see that, you know, friends or family can see that. I remember my ex-wife always used to say, you know, you know, you always think you're right. Of course I think I'm right and that's why, you know, what happened? Does anybody think they're wrong? I mean, that's why I'd be crazy if I was. But the meaning behind that I was obviously willfully blind to, and it's that I wasn't open enough to the ideas of others to allow them to be expressed freely and think like, huh, well that's a good point.

Dave Helland [00:30:19] Tell me more about that. Instead I had to come back and make a counterpoint. And I'm a lot better about that now too. So, you know, those are two things I, I struggle with. You know, I'm very, very independent and so I make my plan. And when something, when somebody gets in there and messes with my plan, I get, I get angry. And so fighting off those impulses, and that's mostly a lot of this stuff is personal life stuff, you know, business, I, I just know the game and like you gotta control yourself. But then, you know, when you use all that up and you come home in your personal life and you're not as well disciplined as in business, then that is what turns life pretty sour. So all of these things are things I'm working on.

Vance Crowe [00:31:09] Yeah. That bridge between the moment when you're working and the thing you're providing for is your family back home and then you like come home and you, you drag home the stress of things.

Dave Helland [00:31:20] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:31:20] It didn't really impact me until I had kids because when it was just me and my wife, it was like easy enough to be maybe not that kind or whatever, but to have the kids all around this, this like amplifies it by many orders of magnitude.

Dave Helland [00:31:34] And I never had kids in the house until 2020 when I, so I was married for 12 years, got divorced back in 2010, spent 10 years alone, lived alone for 10 years and then, then met Heather in 2018 and moved in with her and our boys now Drake and Brody, we got married in 2021. So yeah, I'm a new father. Drake is 16, Brody's 13. And so that's a whole new experience. So, but my ex-wife used to say that I use up all my niceness on my customers. Oh. And you know, she was right. And, and I'm, I'm better about that. And Heather's a businesswoman too there. She's a, she's a realtor, very successful realtor in the Des Moines area. So, you know, we both have big careers and we both help each other. Just keep perspective on that. And sometimes it's me helping her keep her head together and sometimes it's her dragging me back from the edge, edge of being a lunatic. And to me that's what being married is all about.

Vance Crowe [00:32:43] Yeah. You mentioned before about the challenge, like when in somebody's integrity gets challenged, right? It's like the opportunity is when there's actual tension, like this is gonna cost me money to have this thing. And as I was hearing you say this, I realized like I am not as much a money hoarder as I am a time hoarder.

Dave Helland [00:33:02] Oh.

Vance Crowe [00:33:03] And like, if somebody is infringing on my time, this is when I, I become like bitter and, and very upset. Yeah. And, but it strikes me as probably anything that people try and protect or they value is the thing that can also guide you towards making bad decisions.

Dave Helland [00:33:22] Yeah. And as far as time too, you know, my personal passions are important to me. 'cause I, I I do feel like I need them to keep my head together, to be who I want to be, to be a good person. I need to put efforts towards, towards these things. And so when they start getting squeezed, you know, I feel the same way that you just said. I just get, I get so upset about that and I feel I start feeling hopeless because it's like, if I can't just set this time in a and do that, then what? Then? So you know how you can expand outward with the, then whats, which is not necessarily a good strategy, but it's, I've seen friends just suffer this fate where they just slowly eroded all the things they love and the things they used to do for themselves. And it just gets eroded. It just gets nibbled away. All from good things too. Nothing bad, but little by little, but little by little. And then 10 years go by and now you don't have anything other than your responsibilities. Now their responsibilities are good and they give you meaning, but to me you need a break from that. I believe everybody does. And I think I can only speak for men in particular. Definitely do.

Vance Crowe [00:34:39] Yeah. So talk about some of your hobbies. You're a climber.

Dave Helland [00:34:42] I'm a climber, yeah. I'm a new, well somewhat new 20. Well, after I got divorced back in 2010, I started going on hikes by myself out to Colorado. It been several days and it just was extraordinary experiences. I went in through Rocky Mountain National National Park up into the never summer wilderness. And I was just all by myself, you know, for three days, four days you don't see another person. And it was just this incredible way to just fix my, my mind. And so I just go on more and I start climbing little mountains on my own out there. And then I got invited to go in 2016, got invited to go on a climb in Mexico and we did three peaks in Mexico. It's lache IXa, which is IX stack swaddle I think it is, and Pico de Orava, which is over 18,000 feet. And it was just this searing, mind blowing, life changing experience for me. And I was on fire for climbing ever since.

Vance Crowe [00:35:43] Searing is an interesting way to describe that.

Dave Helland [00:35:45] It was just, it was so hard because I was totally not prepared for that level. I mean, like, you know, typical newbie mountaineer where you expend every ounce of energy to get to the top and like there's nothing left when you're at the top. Well that's pretty, that's pretty dangerous. And coming down just a disastrous mess could barely even get down. And so, but I And

Vance Crowe [00:36:12] When you say rock climbing, you're talking like, I'm putting my fingers in the crevices and like holding myself on the wall face? Well,

Dave Helland [00:36:18] There's good question. So in the interim years I've done all of it. So there, you know, there's rock climbing, which is just actually glorious fun. It's just beautiful the whole time. It's just sheer joy. And then there's mountaineering, which is grinding yourself up high elevation through the snow. And that's kind of type two fun. Like it's horrible the whole time. And then you summit and you come down and it's amazing. And then I've done big wall climbing, you know, where you're up the sheer vertical faces, you know, I'm, I'm building skills on all of it. Ice climbing, done that. So just slowly building all these skills. I wouldn't say I'm really good at any of it, but having a lot of great experiences.

Vance Crowe [00:37:03] And what's the draw towards it?

Dave Helland [00:37:05] I'd, the only thing I've found, I mean it in 2016, it like, I, I feel like this overstate it feel like it kind of saved me because it's like the only thing I've ever found that took me clear out of everything in life. You, it was so hard and there was so much discomfort. All of the, all of the things that make us soft at home are not out on the mountain. You know, all comfort is gone. It's harsh conditions. It's just this indifferent surroundings. Like, it, it's just gonna be the same whether you're there or not, whether you're live or dead. And then once you just get in this rhythm of climbing and squeezing every bit of energy outta yourself, it's, and you, you get past the mental blocks and there's literally no thoughts. It's, and that's the only thing I've ever had to be able to do. That I was a crappy meditator. I tried that. I could, couldn't stay there very long, but I can do it for hours climbing a mountain. And then the moment, every time, the moment where I know I'm gonna make it to the top where I know there's no doubt anymore, I start crying. It's the craziest thing. And then you get to the top and it's glorious and then you gotta grind yourself down and it's terrible coming down. 'cause it's always hard. And then you got the beautiful experience once you're down.

Vance Crowe [00:38:27] And when you feel that overwhelming sense to cry, it's joy.

Dave Helland [00:38:33] It's, it's, it's something else. I don't know what it is. It's just like this release of just, I don't even know what the meaning is. It's like, it's a relief, it's a joy, it's a release of everything. Negative. I think it's just all at one. I've, I've never had that experience with anything else. So I seek it as often as I can.

Vance Crowe [00:38:56] And when you're climbing, have you ever had a point where if you didn't have the rope on, you'd have been fallen to your death?

Dave Helland [00:39:03] So I have never, I have never fallen. But I did have my partner fall. We were climbing Mount Blanc in France and I was, I mean, very new at it. It was, it was in 2017, went over to climb Mount Blanc and the Matterhorn and we were gonna do the Iger. And so Mount Blanc was the first one and we were climbing in a white out and there's this knife edge snow ridge. So you got, you know, about that much solid snow to walk on. But then it's kind of cornes where the snow kind of blows over. So it's, there's nothing underneath it, but you kind of, it's white out so you couldn't really tell where it was when we partner stepped through the cornes and fell. So we're tied together with a rope and we got ice ax or you know, mountain axes. And so he fell and I dropped down to the self-arrest position where you jammed the ax into the snow and then the rope caught and it held him and then he climbed back up. So that would've, that would've been a bad day for both of us if I hadn't have self arrested properly. So that was the only time it's actually been a near death experience.

Vance Crowe [00:40:09] And if you don't get the ax down there and stop, you're going over the side of a mountain.

Dave Helland [00:40:13] Yeah. Down, down the slope. End up in a crevasse somewhere and just disappear.

Vance Crowe [00:40:19] You probably have to really care about who your partner is then, eh? Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:40:22] There's so much trust involved. And, and I've always been, not always, but most of the time I'm the less experienced one because I'm going individually with guides or that particular partner was highly experienced. You know, he summited Everetts twice and he just made a mistake that day. But that's, I think the draw to the climbing and the mountaineering is just the responsibility of it too. You'd be just like, like if you do everything right, you're gonna be okay. Most of the time.

Vance Crowe [00:40:53] All,

Dave Helland [00:40:53] You know, there's the, there's some objective hazards that you don't control, but if you make good decisions, do everything right. It's not that unsafe. But if you do something wrong, it's terribly unsafe. And I guess I like that. I guess I just like that whole idea that, that you're responsible for your own existence.

Vance Crowe [00:41:12] The time hoarder in me like sits here and, and imagines like flying all the way there, getting ready, getting your gear going, like climbing it seems like such an enormous amount of time.

Dave Helland [00:41:25] It's a lot. It's a lot. And you know, so if you're going on like a two week trip, the thing is a two week climbing trip is enough to like forget about work and everything, you know what I mean? So normally what I do when I travel is I, I'm working on the plane all the way. I spend a day in a hotel room when I get there, just getting the last of work rung outta me. And then I stay pretty focused on climbing when I do that. And you know, and I can pull that off once a year, which, which is a beautiful thing to be able to do that I, you know, it takes a lot of effort to be gone from a small company. 'cause the things that I do don't get done when I'm not there, you know? So it just takes a tremendous amount of collaboration between people and connecting everybody. You know, it takes a month of preparation, just communication wise for me to be gone for a couple of weeks. But man, I come back just a different person. So it's a, it's really important to me.

Vance Crowe [00:42:20] When you said before that you have a moment or some time with no thoughts, tell me about that.

Dave Helland [00:42:27] Yeah, it's, so I find that when I start to get really, and normally on a summit day start to get really fatigued and really, you know, just physical stress is extreme. My mind starts to attack me and you start to say like, this is stupid. What are you doing? Why do you think you need to be doing this? You should be working, you should be with your family, you should be, should be, should be just tries to tear you down. And if I can persevere through that, which I do and it's like I redirect my thoughts to just, I think about like my toes and my ankles and my calves and my knees and like all the way up, like the whole body, just think about my body working and then it just, like, there's literally no thoughts. It's just one foot in front of the other. Or if you're climbing with your hands or your ax too. I mean, that's it. There's no thinking about the future. There's no thinking about the past. There's just that moment and that's what makes it beautiful for me.

Vance Crowe [00:43:34] Do you wish you were able to think like that all the time? Like, hey, this is the only

Dave Helland [00:43:38] Yeah. You know, the mindfulness man, I try, I try, I really try to stay tuned into the moment and I, in particular, when I spend time with Heather, I really, really do my best to just, you know, let's, we're together. If we're, if we gotta the things that we gotta do, let's go do that and then let's get together and be just with us. But you know, the world we live, I mean, you know, geez, the watch is buzzing at you, the phone's in your pocket. It really takes a lot of effort to be able to have that mindfulness in the moment. And I will say that I don't take that effort or make that effort enough.

Vance Crowe [00:44:22] Yeah, I was just talking with a guy today who does like ultra high net worth individual, like wealth management and I was saying, you know, know the, the best part about making money, more money than what I was when I started and you, you keep growing and growing is that you have time and to me wealth is time.

Dave Helland [00:44:42] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:44:42] And, but he kind of corrected me and was like, well actually what wealth is is the ability to be present with whatever you're doing. It's not just your time, it's that you have to be able to be like sitting there and paying attention to the thing that you wanna be paying attention to and that you're able to embrace it.

Dave Helland [00:44:58] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:44:58] And I think about that and I think like the, the mother that has the screaming child that has just come home from working for 10 hours and just wants like a few minutes of time with that child where it's peaceful, like it's ripped away. Like real wealth is about being able to be present with the people or things that you wanna be present with.

Dave Helland [00:45:20] Yeah. And that's back to the control and that the the anger control and the emotions. Right? Because what, so what is that like? So, so the, we all want peace, but you can't get peace in, in daily life. It's really not an attainable.

Vance Crowe [00:45:37] 'cause everything breaks,

Dave Helland [00:45:37] Right? 'cause everything breaks and people are people and you're crazy. We're all nuts. I mean, you know, if somebody else, like for instance, driving in traffic, you know, it's like when somebody, eventually you're gonna be the idiot. You're gonna be the guy that pulls out in front of somebody and somebody's like honking and giving you the finger. And I'm like, oh, come on man. Like it was you yesterday. You know

Vance Crowe [00:45:56] What I mean? It's

Dave Helland [00:45:57] Like, but we're all, I don't know, I think we expect too much of other people. I think that's one thing. And maybe not enough of ourselves or maybe, but then I could make the argument that we expect too much of ourselves. I mean, see what's the right, what's the right balance? I, well,

Vance Crowe [00:46:16] And I think about that balance you were talking about on the rocks, right? Like you were saying, your brain starts saying, what are you doing out here? You, you are idiot. Like I know that, that self-talk. Exactly. Right. And why does your brain turn on you like that? I don't know. Why does it do these things where it's like, you know, hey you, you deserve this indulgence. You deserve to not have to work that hard or to, to have that extra bowl of ice cream.

Dave Helland [00:46:41] Well why is everything okay? This, this, why is everything good? The hardest thing? That's the real interesting question. Like, the right thing is the hardest thing. So like I always tell my guys like, I don't have to tell 'em this anymore 'cause they're so experienced. But years ago when they're faced the decision, should they do something this, this way or that way? I'm like, whichever way takes the most time and is the hardest. That's the right choice. You don't even need to ask me. It's always the right choice. 'cause the only reason you're thinking about it is because you don't wanna have to do that.

Vance Crowe [00:47:13] That's a good point. Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:47:14] So like, don't, I mean, so think about the options is like, okay, that seems easier, that seems harder. Just do the harder one. You're not gonna be wrong. You know? And so, but then that runs right up against the idea that, oh, life is short and you're supposed to enjoy yourself. And like, but then if all of life is just enjoying yourself, I mean you're gonna be eating garbage all the time. You're gonna be hanging around doing nothing. What is supposed to be enjoyment? Okay? So years ago I came after I got divorced, trying to get my head together, get my own habits in order. Like I could, I got two choices to make here. I could get weird and, and fall apart or I could get better. So I chose better, whatever that might be. And I start thinking about all the things that everybody thinks is a waste of time. So like cooking meals. Oh, cooking meals, what a waste of doing dishes, cleaning your house. Like, oh, I mean all these stupid things that you gotta do and work, work itself is a waste of time. 'cause you're supposed to be doing something else, wasting your life working. So I'm thinking about all this. I'm like, well, so work is bad and like cooking is bad. Like what are we aspiring to do? And for all I could decipher from that, in, in, in that calculus was that watching TV or drinking with people is like the highest aspirations of life, right? And then I'm thinking, well that doesn't seem right. So I embraced all these things I'm thinking like, I looked at, one time I was hunting, I was sitting at a tree stand and I looked at the animals just like going through their life doing what they do.

Dave Helland [00:48:51] And I'm thinking, well, like that's for us, that's all these things, you know, it's the daily tasks that make up life and that's what life is. So I thought, why am I gonna be mad about? So I started cooking, started taking pride in all of that. And, and that's been a really good outlook for me because I don't walk around angry at all. The little things there are to do in life now. So I guess I don't know how I got into that, but just the idea of, I guess that's in a way being present.

Vance Crowe [00:49:24] My, my dad had a really beautiful way of describing, you know, you'd ask my dad, Hey dad, how was work? And he was like, oh, just chopping wood and carrying water. And he'd say that over and over again. And, and like I now look back on that and realize that he didn't resent things like emptying the dishwasher, putting things away. He just viewed it like, Hey, we want to be warm. You gotta chop water, you wanna drink water, you gotta, you gotta carry it. Yeah. You know, like, you, you gotta do these things to live and if you hate them, you are the one that experiences that, that feeling of negativity.

Dave Helland [00:49:58] You're gonna be miserable all the time. I had a, a friend whose dad had a good saying about work too. And he'd say, you know what? Oh, you don't like your job. Well the next guy that has that job, it's going to be the best one he is ever had.

Vance Crowe [00:50:10] Yeah, that's true. Hmm. Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:50:12] And so, you know, all these things and that's the curse of moving, of, of the curse, of rising standards too, right? I mean, the things you have, I I, I try to get back to thinking like, okay, like think of me when I was 19, 20, 21, I remember vividly when I was 21 thinking like, I really wanted land. I wanted land so bad. And I thought, I'm never gonna have it. How will I ever have it? I don't have any money. I don't even know how to get money. And just was desperate. Well then, you know, now I have more than I ever more of everything than I ever thought I'd have. But still like, why isn't that enough? You know?

Vance Crowe [00:50:49] Isn't that amazing? I was just talking with my buddy Keaton about this and I, I pointed out to him, I was like, it feels weird to say I do. Like, I have more now than I literally ever thought that I would have. I like, we are not fabulously wealthy. I look around at the world and I say like, I still gotta struggle. I still gotta go to work every day. I've still gotta make money. Like, but like I have so much more than I ever thought I would have. And yet I don't feel any, not even one iota more secure than I did then. Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:51:21] So, and is that good or is that bad? Like, is the moment you feel secure, is that the moment that you just shut your brain off and you stop challenging yourself? Or is that the moment that you're free to live life in a more lighthearted way? I don't know. I mean, and I don't think there are answers to these questions. 'cause I think it, it's, it's as with everything, the answer is, it depends. But an interesting point about not, like I've talked to my friend about that, you know, when I was 21 I was so stressed out about it. He said, you know what, the difference between you and me at 21 is he said, I just always expected to have it. And I thought, well that's interesting. 'cause his upbringing was such that there was plenty and he just assumed he would always have enough. Mine was less plenty and I never thought I'd have it. So

Vance Crowe [00:52:15] Mine was that I screw everything up and I'm gonna screw this up too.

Dave Helland [00:52:19] Yeah. Yeah. That's, well, at least you knew yourself at the time, right?

Vance Crowe [00:52:23] Yeah. That, I mean, I, my, my, my Ben Anderson, the guy's, the executive producer of this podcast, he always talks about, you know, I look at the problems I have today and I think back if, if I had known two years ago that these would be the, the quality, the level of problems that I would have, I would be elated that that was coming. Yeah. And I think about that and I'm like, you know what? That's totally right. My problems today are way better problems than the problems I had before.

Dave Helland [00:52:49] One of those contractors that I started with, bill Dirks is his name, and he's just still a formative guy in my life. He's, I'm still close to him. And I remember, I mean, I was, you know, in my early twenties and we were in some neighborhood where people, big houses and people, you know, weren't working as hard as I as we were working. So I automatically thought their life was super easy, you know? And I made some comment about, oh, these people with their money and that their things they're worried about. And Bill said, you know what I mean, no matter who you are, how much money you have, your biggest problem is your biggest problem. And at the time, that didn't land on me, man. Over the years I've thought about that. You know, it's like, yeah, one day you're trying to, you know, figure out how to keep the lights on, and all of a sudden you're, you know, mad at the guy 'cause he cut the grass an inch too long. You know what I mean?

Vance Crowe [00:53:35] Yeah. I think that, and, and I think going back to the wealth conversation, one of my friends pointed out like, everyone is poor at their own level, right? Because you get to a new level. Yeah.

Dave Helland [00:53:46] And

Vance Crowe [00:53:46] You, you now can see what's the level above you and suddenly the level that you work so hard to get to. And it makes it very easy to get caught up in that, in that cycle of like, what is it that I actually desire? And to your point about like thinking about like, if I had all the time in the world, what would I be doing with it? Would I be watching more Netflix? Oh. Like, you know, I think of Netflix as the old country buffet of, of your attention, right? Like, you know, like they are gonna give you the lowest quality thing that you would be willing to plunk down, you know, $12 for. You

Dave Helland [00:54:19] Know. And that's another crazy thing. Like I, I, so I stop watching tv, stop watching movies, you know, I don't, don't have any of that in my life. And I'm like in the, but I remember these shows that I loved and I'm thinking, so am I missing out on something that could actually bring genuine pleasure or have I cleared up space for doing other things and more value? And I think probably the answer, like everything is both. But you know, just the, I, the entertainment driven life, I guess is something that I just have not taken to, you know, my interests are just, they're hard. I mean, like my farm, I got a farm that, you know, got a lot of work to maintain, I hunt and that takes work all year long. Getting ready for it and climbing, you know, it's like misery until you're have success. And somebody just made this point the other day, I was talking about construction. It's like, it's a hard business and every, everybody's work is hard. It's complex. You don't control a lot of it. The mistakes that you made is something real and concrete that has to be torn out. And it's very stressful. And I call it retroactively satisfying. So like, you know, you have a year long project that's really pretty terrible and stressful, and then at the end, and people are happy and it's exactly what they want. And it's there and you can see it. It's gonna be there for decades. And you're like, ah, you know, we did something here and then you're happy. And somebody said to me, well that kind of sounds like mountain climbing.

Dave Helland [00:55:52] I'm like, oh my God, am I seeking this in everywhere in my life where it's just like my head down and I'm like a, it's like a trench mentality. That's what my dad always used to say. Where like, you're just slogging through the trenches and then you get to the end and you peek up and look around, and then you go back the other way.

Vance Crowe [00:56:10] Well, and the thing that's become so apparent to me is like, you, you must enjoy that work because work

Dave Helland [00:56:16] Is most

Vance Crowe [00:56:17] Of what you do. And so if you spend, you know, most of your time being like, I hate this. I want this to be done so that that way I can finally get to the business of living, then you will look back on your life and it, and it won't be, it, it will have been spent in a, in a time of misery.

Dave Helland [00:56:33] Well, and so that's the value, you know, we're trying to teach our boys, you know, fighting against the culture, but that work is, work is good. It's not just work to make money. And this is back to the dignity of work that we were talking about, like with guys in construction. It's like everything that is of value that is around you, somebody's work produced, right? And to think that your highest aspiration in life is to not have to do that, I think is pretty sad. And like, especially people start focusing on retirement, you know? Now I, I know that it's good to have set your sights on not being so overwhelmed or stressed and working towards that, but the idea that there's this goal and like, oh, can't wait. I got five years. I got seven years, I got 10 years. I can't wait to be done. And I'm like, so you're telling me like, so you're just gonna, the next 10 years, you're just gonna look past. 'cause that's when you're gonna be happy. But I, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen people get, especially men quit working and, and something happens isn't as, it's not good for him. It's like a slow ea and off of work maybe over to have a little bit of meaningful work versus a lot is, is a great aspiration. But being done OI don't think I want it.

Vance Crowe [00:57:53] I was talking to a, a different guy that does wealth management the other day, and he said, we have a niche and our niche is people that work their whole lives and they retired. And then the dad decides he doesn't wanna be retired, he wants to go back and work. And now you have all these weird tax implications because you're making money and you're drawing money outta your 401k. That's,

Dave Helland [00:58:12] And

Vance Crowe [00:58:12] I was like, is it, is it big enough for a niche? He's like, this is so big that I think a lot of people will get into this realm. And it's because all these baby boomers were convinced that they, their highest aspiration was retiring and there was nothing there for them when they got there.

Dave Helland [00:58:27] Yeah. That's, that's the, that the entertainment driven life idea where you know that if you're not doing that, you know, with your family or with yourself pursuing a personal interest, that it's a waste of time. So I think that for our culture to write itself, I think that we really gotta change that whole paradigm. And maybe it's maybe, well, everything can be changed, right? All problems that are caused by people can be solved by people, but it'll take a lot of time. And just that valuing, just getting up in the morning, like, the guys that work for me, I mean, these guys to, they do hard work every day and they get up and they go there every day. And you can, like I said before, you can set your watch by 'em. I mean, these are honorable people that should be elevated. They should be like, ah, and I've told my boys like, these guys, like these are who you want to be. Like, I mean, you know, they're doing hard work every day, taking pride in it. Like they're an example for you. Now, I'm not saying you wanna do that work, but take that mindset to anything you, you do. And I think, man, you can be, at least, you're not gonna be miserable, miserable about working if you have that mindset, right, I'm doing something of value and this is the mark I'm leaving on the world and I'm gonna do it. Well,

Vance Crowe [00:59:45] When I was working construction and then later when I was a deckhand and I was in the, I worked for paving crews, I did all of this. One of the things that I observed was that a lot of people, even if they're craftsmen, they get sucked into the world of alcohol. 'cause work is hard and they need a break. And I remember vividly like being on the ship and realizing there were people that they may be really high up in the, in the ship pecking order, but they are stuck there because they developed an alcohol habit or they developed like different problems in their lives. And it, it was like one of those things where I was like, what do I have to do to make it so I don't get stuck in, in, in this world?

Dave Helland [01:00:30] Yeah. And that the, the alcohol abuse situation I think is, you know, I don't know what the statistics are, but maybe I'm just getting old enough to pay more attention, but like, it seems to be rampant to me. And in construction, I've seen a lot of guys succumb to that over the years. And now succumb can also mean just living with that addiction for your whole life.

Vance Crowe [01:00:54] Yeah. They just come to work with a hangover and they make it work and they're functional, but it's miserable.

Dave Helland [01:00:58] Right. And, you know, my family didn't drink at all growing up, so I can't blame it on my parents. But, you know, get into college, the culture is just driving you towards it. It's almost the natural thing. Like, this is what you do. Right? Okay, I'm in college, I'm gonna drink a lot now and then. And then I think the stress of business as a young man, I, I took to drinking whiskey a lot and I loved it. And then that was what was fun as it was associated with. And my friends were all the same. And you know, you get all these get togethers and these patterns of behavior, these activities all connected to alcohol. And it was a few years ago, I started just thinking, oh, I'm gonna ease back and ease back. And I made valiant efforts to do so, but I was never able to control it enough to really trust myself, like in a social situation. And I don't mean like burnout drunk, I just mean like having too many and feeling crappy the next day. If you can go into it time after time, say, I'm not gonna drink too much. I'm, you know, I'm just gonna have one, just gonna have two and then fail. Like, what does that mean? Right? And so here I'm thinking to myself like, okay, I'm this guy that's likes values, discipline and self-control and trying to be my best. And like, I'm gonna show this to my boys. That's not cool. You know? So I quit drinking totally August 8th of last year, which co coincidentally, then about a week later, my, my wife Heather got diagnosed with breast cancer and then we just did research on, on breast cancer risk and alcohol use.

Dave Helland [01:02:34] So she quit drinking like two weeks after that, which she was never the drinker that I was anyway. But, so anyway, the two of us, there's no alcohol in the house and it's changed a lot. It creates some, you know, I, what I found was like all the social gatherings that I thought I loved, I mean, I just loved them. Ate 'em up, couldn't, couldn't wait to go meet people. You find that you take out the alcohol and, I mean, it's good for about an hour, hour and a half. And then that's about it. Right? And so it's changed a lot in my life, but I feel good about it though. I'm still a little, I'm still missing it. Let's put it that way. What

Vance Crowe [01:03:11] Does it feel like to miss alcohol?

Dave Helland [01:03:14] Man? You know, the, you know about the, our minds playing the tricks on us. You know, I love, I like cooking and I'm cooking dinner and I just love drinking wine when I was doing that. And so what does your mind take? Well, it's a glass of wine. What's a big deal? Just have a glass of wine. And it's true, it's not a big deal, but I've proven myself of like a thousand previous times that I'm gonna end up, you know, six months from now having too many drinks at a social gathering and regretting it. So I just, I miss, it was just a ritual. One of those things that you do, I miss that. I miss sitting around a cabin hunting with my friends, having drinks and just that relaxation it brings. But my, my hope is that I can eventually reach the point where I could get to that relaxation and that without it, that's the, that's the goal. 'cause how beautiful would that be? Right? If you can just feel that good without alcohol. So that's my goal. Whether I'll get there or not, I don't know, but I'm committed to not having any, because you just see the, just the destructive effects and so many people.

Vance Crowe [01:04:30] Is that the commitment you made? Like never again. Never

Dave Helland [01:04:32] Again.

Vance Crowe [01:04:33] Wow.

Dave Helland [01:04:33] Never again. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:04:34] And was this a solitary conversation you had? Yeah. Where you were like,

Dave Helland [01:04:38] I just woke up one day and I just, and it wasn't like this scathing event or anything. It was just like, yeah, I always got anxious the next day. You know, I had too many drinks.

Vance Crowe [01:04:48] Did I say anything wrong?

Dave Helland [01:04:49] Oh yeah. And the answer is yes, you said something wrong. 'cause I'm always saying something and, and like, yeah. And I just, I spent so many years like that. And then you do damage control. You know, you talk to people, Hey, you know, we sure had fun last night, how was it? And I thought, this is stupid, man. I'm like, so I'm 50, I just turned 50 in April. I'm like, you gonna be 60 and do that? You gonna be, I mean, you gonna be 70, you're gonna be having too many drinks. I mean, at some point this is just who you are then. Right. And I didn't want to be that guy. So, so yeah, totally. And, and Heather, Heather's great with it. She, she, like I said, she never liked it as much as I did. And so she doesn't miss it like I do. And, but we've, it's changed what we do. It's changed our patterns of behavior and it's for the better. And you know, the boys will have to make their own decisions as they get older, right. They'll have to go through it. 'cause I think the whole culture is just pushing people towards alcohol use. But maybe it's my own little view of the world, but it seems like maybe there's a building movement to stop

Vance Crowe [01:05:58] Driving. I think there's definitely a movement right now in the, in the US or in the west to, to slow down alcohol. Yeah. I think, like, I hear people talk about it more and more and I, I think that you can't do it in the way you did tobacco where you shamed everybody. Right. 'cause people will reject that.

Dave Helland [01:06:14] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:06:15] But, but I think that there's like, at least among the people that listen to podcasts and are trying to figure out, you know, their huberman or Lex Friedman or whatever, they're hearing these like ideas that like, hey, remember that study that you heard that resveratrol that's in red wine that's gonna make you better. Like, that's bullshit garbage. And the comparison between, you know, drinking alcohol and, and you know, one or two nights a week is way worse for you than you've ever been told to believe. Right. And I think people are finally like, op have opened their eyes to this idea. And I wonder how much this correlates with cannabis becoming more popular and people making that trade off. Because I'm a firm believer, at least in myself, like if I give up one vice, I just grab another one to keep me afloat.

Dave Helland [01:07:00] Yeah. And you know, and that's an interesting question too. And, and this is getting out of the realm of my, of any like deep experience for me. But it seems to me anecdotally that like pot isn't the same as it used to be. Right. It's stronger. So, you know, back in, I remember in college making that argument, oh, what's the difference between, you know, pot and, and alcohol and alcohol's more harmful? And maybe it was, is it now, is it, is it become, is cannabis becoming more troublesome? You know, I don't know.

Vance Crowe [01:07:31] Well, there's some interesting things. Like I, I've heard it said that alcohol, like didn't use to have as much alcohol in it. Beer for example, or wine like we have. So bread yeast to be able to create so much higher alcohol content. And then when you think about cannabis, like everybody is, is doing weed that's now pharmaceutical grade, right? Like,

Dave Helland [01:07:51] These

Vance Crowe [01:07:52] Guys are not joking around. They know if I can get that thing to have as much THC as possible, then when people enjoy it, they're gonna remember it. And I want them to have such a psychoactive experience that they're gonna remember the exact breed that I, that I had. And I think like these are way more powerful Yeah. Than, than people understood.

Dave Helland [01:08:11] And so in, in my outlook on like, everything I guess that I'm trying to get to is, is is like that the idea of austerity, like, do you need all of these things? Do you need all of this? Do you need the alcohol? Do you need the drugs? Do you need the, the, you know, do you need to watch TV so much? Do you need to have this particular food? Like be, why exactly am I seeking these things out? Right? And that's the whole like digging deep and looking at the inner self also. Like, why can't you get to the point where you feel good without it? And so that's my own personal focus now, is just looking at everything that I do and trying to figure out like, yeah, is that adding value really or is it just a dumb habit that I developed years ago that I'm clinging to as part of my identity? You know? And so, and you know, some people I guess that kind of makes life, I don't know, it makes life complex and it make, you know, but I like that. I like thinking about all these things and writing 'em down and just, to me that helps me keep the wheels be on the road. Maybe other people just don't wanna think about it that much. And maybe they'll be happier than I am and not as troubled by all of these things and good for them then. But this seems to be the right way for me to just feel like I am at least always taking a step in the right direction. I just wanna feel that way.

Vance Crowe [01:09:39] And when you say you're writing things down, you journal?

Dave Helland [01:09:41] I yeah, I do. Yeah. I like writing things down and, and you get enough years of it, you can look back and just see like, oh wow, yeah, I had some weird ideas back then. You know what I mean?

Vance Crowe [01:09:52] Do you like going back and reading what you wrote?

Dave Helland [01:09:54] I, I do. Every now and then I go back and I just kind of, to me it's like seeing growth is what I want to see. Now. I'm, it's not like I'm grading myself, but every now and then I, you know, I've got some moments I go back and say, oh man, that was a tough time. You know, I feel kind of bad for that guy right there. You know what I mean?

Vance Crowe [01:10:14] Yeah. That I don't, I really understand that like, it is so much easier to treat myself kindly when I look back on like, whoa, look at what, like, like I was experiencing. Look at the thing that I was focused on. Look at the pressures that were all around and, and trying to write those down. You know, one of the things that I've picked up in journaling over the years is I don't feel very good about myself when I write, like I'm the victim. I try and write down things as though I are an, I am an outside observer of my own life and saying like, this is what's going on. And, and the act of writing that down I think is cathartic. And then going back and rereading it makes me not wince. 'cause I have a few years of journaling where I like, it's like, oh, wo is me. And you're like, Ooh, that does not feel good. Like, I like, but like, hey, these are, these are the things I'm facing, these are the problems I'm trying to overcome. And that makes me much more, much better able to feel like empathy for, for the person that I was.

Dave Helland [01:11:23] You know, another thing that I do, so I have these, I'm a big list guy and every day I got a to-do list and then I, at the end of the day, I date it and I put it in a file just for that. That's to protect myself from, oh, there was a phone number I wrote, you know, two, two weeks ago that I forgot to transfer over. And I go get it. Well, I put these all in a file and each year's business gets filed away. And then every few years I take these boxes out and I go and I pull out these papers and I, I look at like, what consumed my life and this, and it's like, you know, I can see these people's names. I'm like, God, I remember, I remember the stress. But like, well, isn't that weird? It's all okay now. And they, and I, and I have nothing to do with them now. And not in a bad way, but just like, it just, it's so weird. And then I burn 'em. I I put it in a burn pile and just like burn 'em and, and like, it's cathartic man. It's like this amazing thing. I'm looking all these things and these stressful jobs and all this and like, this was my life in 2000, you know, 13 and

Vance Crowe [01:12:33] Yeah. Wow. I, I accidentally go through my to-do list 'cause I keep 'em all, but like, it is a weird thing to go back and look at like, oh, look at how I wrote that name down that I needed to call them for like three weeks straight. Why didn't I just do that right here? Right. Like, I did it. I I avoided it because I was scared of it. Right? Yeah. And like, I think my to-do lists are actually like s right? Yeah. They're like, what is the thing, if you see something go on there more than one time or more than two times, it's because I didn't know how to solve that problem. And so I put it off. And I think if I could take that medicine, even now, I could go look on that to-do list and be like, most of these are, because I haven't sat down and been like, the thing I I, I started doing this with my 2-year-old almost three is like, when she's like, daddy, I need help. And I'm like, no, you don't. You, you can do this. And she'll be like, I don't know how. And they'd be like, what would be the very first thing you would do? Right? Yeah, that's great. And that's the thing, you have to do your to-do list, right? Like, I don't know what to do, but what would be the first thing I would do if I, if I were gonna get through this?

Dave Helland [01:13:36] My dad had a beautiful way for that. So he, he, so he sold appliances at Sears. He lost his job, you know, when he was in his fifties and got into the insurance and investment business. And, and so just a whole new realm where he found himself putting things off and putting things off and putting things off. So he would denote tomorrow is a day of pain and he would just, he'd go to bed thinking tomorrow was pain, all day is pain. He'd get up in the morning, today is pain. And he would go to every single person that he'd been put every bad task and he's, this is what I'm doing today. And like, that's effective. I've done that some days. Like, no more weakness, I'm taking charge, tomorrow's gonna suck and I'm ready for it. You know what I mean?

Vance Crowe [01:14:17] So you're a person that your life is really based on, like, how do people feel about the thing that you built for them? Yeah. How good are you at facing the music? Like the, like, Hey, how did you like that thing we built for you? Is it easy for you?

Dave Helland [01:14:32] Well, it's, it's, it's not easy along the way, but I like, my deal is for people, like, I insist like we will redo it until they absolutely are 100% satisfied and love it. I said, I can't have you like go through all this and then be like, you know, somebody say, Hey, how do you like your house? Well, yeah, we really like it. Well, there was this thing, I can't, you know, we can't have that. I mean, so like, if you're, if there's any small thing that you aren't satisfied, we gotta talk about it and we gotta deal with the pain it takes to get it right. So I'm, I'm, because I go through all that trouble throughout the process, in the end, everybody's happy.

Vance Crowe [01:15:14] That's beautiful,

Dave Helland [01:15:14] Right? A hundred percent of the time.

Vance Crowe [01:15:15] Yeah,

Dave Helland [01:15:16] A hundred percent of the time. But in the process, oh, I get sensitive. You know, it's like when, what I, what a trigger for me is when there, there's like a insinuation that I, that I didn't do what I was supposed to do when I firmly believe that I did everything I was instructed to do. I get super sensitive. I wanna, I wanna fight about it, but I had an old guy tell me years ago that ego costs money. And I'm like, oh yeah, don't, there's no value in it. You're gonna end up in the same, you're gonna do what they want. That's where we're going with this thing. So I just float on the stream in that direction.

Vance Crowe [01:15:56] I mean, it sounds like you have the, the wealthy mindset in the terms of like, if we get this solved correctly over time, this pays off. But it's like, in the short term, it's like so painful.

Dave Helland [01:16:08] It's painful and, and, but you know, our, my business relationships are, are based entirely in trust. Like, I haven't signed a contract. This is crazy. And people gonna think I'm nuts. I haven't signed a contract in, I mean, years, many, many years. So, you know, you build a million and a half dollar house for somebody and it's, I mean, I have a detailed estimate with all the specs so that we all know what we're doing, but it's just a handshake deal. And you know, people will ask like, should we sign a contract? If you want a contract, absolutely happy to sign it. You have your, you can draw it up, I can draw it up. But I said, you know, the whole thing only works if we like absolutely trust each other because there's that, we're gonna rotate back and forth. Like, I could screw you at some point. You could screw me at some point. We're bound together through this process and to me, trust is the only way it's gonna work, but I'm happy to sign whatever you want to. And most of the time everybody's like, yeah, no, we're okay with that. And it's worked. So what that means is, you know, as these things come up and there are problems that will come up, you know, sometimes we talk about money to fix something. Sometimes I just think, you know, talking about money right now is gonna make somebody angry or uncomfortable. We're just gonna do it and then we're gonna get far enough down the road and then we just say, okay, here's all the things that we've talked about and that are different than when we started and let's just work out what's reasonable.

Dave Helland [01:17:41] And that seems to work for me.

Vance Crowe [01:17:43] Wow. I mean that's the, like you have to be, the stronger you are positioned, the more faith you can have in others. And it sounds like you're able to have faith in others.

Dave Helland [01:17:53] Yeah. I just don't know any other way. I guess I did maybe, maybe someday I'll get burned bad. But you know, the process too is long enough. Like for instance, when people come to me like, Hey, I want to get a bid for a project. I'm like, okay, well talk to me about what, what that means. Well I just want to get a price. Are you talking to other people getting other prices? Point is like, hey, I understand that what it costs matters and that you want to know that you're getting value with the price that I give you. But if we're boiled down to numbers, then that's really not my, that's not my niche, right? So let's spend some time, you spend, you pay a third party designer who I bring in, you get the plans drawn. I don't make any money on any of that process, but I'm just gonna work with you for the next two years getting this, shepherding this through to the point where we could get to a final estimate and start a project. And normally if people are willing to do that with you, there's trust and you get the job. You know what I mean? But back then, when you start, you can't do that when you start, you're out there just hammering out prices to whoever's gonna let you, let you give 'em a piece of paper. But that's not the way to survive forever unless you wanna play the volume game. And that's the thing. And you can't win in the volume game. The big players will chew you up.

Vance Crowe [01:19:22] Yeah. If you become a commodity, then you will go down to the price of production, right? It will be as close to the exact amount that the materials cost and whatever you have to directly pay labor.

Dave Helland [01:19:32] Oh, it's terrible. And

Vance Crowe [01:19:33] That's true of everything, right? That's true of cattle construction, Legacy Interviews, right? If you are down to like, we are just trying to do volume, you will eventually get eaten up in that way.

Dave Helland [01:19:44] And it, and it, and it chews up. What's it, it kind of darkens their souls to some degree too. Like I see these, I've seen these contractors over the years. Lots of times when I say lots, I'm talking dozens. They start out good, they're really good and you know, they build their business same as I did. Then they get a little bigger, then they get a little bigger. And then at some point, market forces do what they do. And then this guy can no longer treat people with respect that's working for him. He's gotta say, Hey, this guy can frame it for 50 cents a square foot less, can you match him? And they do that to the framer and the drywall and the electrician. And now even these subcontractors that used to do it, used to care, now they're like, they're not being paid to care. So no, nobody cares through the whole process. And like, and they can go that way for years, but then eventually they crash and burn. You know, these guys and the next, the 2008, 2009, you know, they, all the big builders like that, they just disappeared in central Iowa. And so, I don't know, I just, it's like there's two, there's two paths. You're either going that way or you're going this way. And I chose trying to be individualize myself to have to bring value to people. And that's gonna cost more money. But I don't know any other better way to do it.

Vance Crowe [01:21:13] Well Dave, Helen, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thanks for coming all the way down here. If people wanted to learn more about you or your company, where would they go to do that?

Dave Helland [01:21:22] I've got a website, helen construction.com.

Vance Crowe [01:21:25] Alright, I'll put that in the share notes. Thanks so much for coming down.

Dave Helland [01:21:28] Thank you. Appreciate it.