What Makes a Concrete Life: Legacy, Balance, and Craft with Joren Smith

"True success in decorative concrete comes not from the number of projects, but from the depth and quality of each creation."

What if the road to success wasn’t about chasing more—but about creating better? This week on the show, Brandon and Jon sit down with Joren Smith of Elements Concrete, a craftsman rooted in Maine and inspired by an extraordinary neighbor from Cape Cod—Hiram Ball, a pioneering force in GFRC and a sculptor with soul.

In this introspective and inspiring conversation, Joren walks us through the early days of learning the craft next door to greatness and how that shaped not only his skills—but his values. We explore the tension between ambition and peace, the pursuit of quality over quantity, and why a “successful” concrete career might look a lot more human than you’d expect.

If you’re in the decorative concrete world—or simply someone trying to build a meaningful life through your work—this episode is your invitation to slow down, realign, and remember what you’re really building.

#ConcreteCraftsmanship #DecorativeConcrete #CreativeEntrepreneurs #SelfDevelopmentPodcast #ArtisanLife #GrowthMindset #PurposeDrivenWork #CraftsmanshipMatters #LegacyBuilders #concretefireplace

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

How's it going, bud?

Dude, I've been on antibiotics, two pills now, I feel way better.

I got something, man.

You and I have been talking about it for like six weeks, eight weeks.

Yeah, you've been dragging, buddy.

Fighting it, fighting it, fighting it.

I got kids that go to school, they come home, they cough in my face.

Daddy, can I have a bite of your food?

You don't have kids, you got Petri dishes.

Yeah, they're eating my food, drinking out of my drink, and their immune systems, they kick it in two days, and I get it in the last for five, six, seven, eight days, and by the time I'm just getting over it, they come back with something new, some new bug.

And anyways, so it's just been carrying on, and I taught a class this weekend, I taught a Ramcrete class, a lot of fun, that made a really, really cool table, and cool sample wall sections, but fun class.

But I taught Saturday, Sunday, and man, I was feeling rough at the end of it, like rough, so under the weather, and then my buddy, Case, hit me up.

We were supposed to weld.

I was gonna teach him how to weld on Tuesday.

I was gonna take Monday off.

I was gonna teach him how to weld on Tuesday, but he hit me up Monday morning, and he's like, hey man, it turns out I got the day off.

You wanna weld today?

I was like, yeah, let's do it, bro.

So I was like, yeah, I'll meet you down there.

So 10 a.m., we met at my shop, and I taught him how to weld.

I was here from 10 to seven.

Dude, I just burned the candle too hard, and when I left here at 7 p.m., I literally felt like death.

I haven't felt that bad in a long, long time.

So I went to a doctor yesterday, got some antibiotics, and I feel way better today, so that's a good thing.

So anyways, that's where I'm at.

Yeah, RammCrete.

I actually did a little live stream of the RammCrete class during the class.

Did you really?

I didn't see that.

Yeah, I posted it on Facebook.

Yeah, I didn't say what it was.

You had to just watch it, so all the people were like, oh, I'll watch it later.

It's not there anymore.

You should have watched it when we did it.

But yeah, it was a really good class, and you need to open up like an Onlyfan account.

And then I should go watch your videos.

Yeah.

Spread my butt cheeks.

Mike Honcho.

This is how I pour.

That's a Talladega Nights quote.

Man, he was in Playgirl.

He's like, I spread my butt cheeks, man.

Under the name Mike Honcho.

Anyways, I love that movie.

It's really nice.

It's fantastic, yeah.

But anyways, so that happened.

We talked about already last week with Joe about the switch of the upcoming Heroes Quest to Sealer.

Here's something that...

Yeah, we'll see how it goes.

Yeah, we'll see how it goes.

But here's something I want to say to people.

Listen, if this is something you have struggled with, and we get a ton of calls from people that have questions, questions, questions, they've been doing it for years, they still have questions.

This is the class.

I would highly encourage you, highly encourage you to register for this workshop, because if you think, I'll catch the next one, no, you won't.

We probably won't do another one.

Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to do a next one.

Yeah, this isn't going to be in a regular rotation.

This isn't a regular thing.

So if you want to register, register today, because if you miss it, you missed it.

It is what it is.

Well, I'm going to add to that.

I mean, I had a couple people call me and like, well, Jon, what do we plan on, you know, like, I think I shouldn't say I think, you know, one of the things is always, I think with any workshop, I haven't been to many other people's workshops per se, but, you know, I think sealer typically gets, you know, put in on the last day of some sort, and it's kind of walkthrough.

And I know when we do them, sometimes they get bounced around and, you know, it is what it is.

And this was going to be an idea that two days, very in-depth, hands-on, every step of the approach, what you're looking for, why you're looking for it.

This isn't just watching me seal something.

This is actually like, like as I was talking to one, he's like, well, I think I need like a, I need like a Patrick Swayze in the ghost, kind of, kind of, I feel like.

Brother, you're in luck, that's Jon's specialty.

He'll saddle up right behind you, man.

I was twice my size, right?

I've got no issues with that, right?

I've seen it with my own eyes.

You've done it before.

Damn right.

Big smile on my face.

Dude, personal space means nothing to Jon.

He'll come right up behind you.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

So I just, the other thing I want to put out there that a lot of people think this is ICT, we're like, well, I'm not having any trouble with ICT.

Well, it doesn't have to be a trouble.

This isn't just about ICT.

I would say sealers in general.

We're not going to cover all sealers.

But in general, I know for me, and based on phone calls that go around all over, and watching various posts on various forums, sealers still continue to be a struggle.

I have my own, anybody who's been around long enough to listen to Jon Schuler with Concrete and its relationship to sealers.

So I mean, there's a lot of these things that we're going to walk through.

And, you know, the ultimately isn't even about selling materials, man.

It's about success.

And if coming out and spending a couple days and walking through the process, we're going to seal pieces.

We are instantly going to start using those pieces.

We're, I'm going to show how to set expectation, why you can put mustard on, 20 minutes when you're done sealing.

I mean, move through steps for ultimate success that no other sealing technology is going to put out there for you.

And it's not just about the sealer.

It's about understanding the steps and why you're looking for them, so that you use it to maximize its ability.

To do that, I don't think it takes two days, but what I want to do is one a day, we start to finish, we test some stuff, we walk through it, we show up the next day, and we do it again.

You know, so it's really, so when you go home, when you go back to your shop, there is absolute confidence in what you're doing and why you're doing it.

These couple phone calls was literally guys to say, you know, I avoid these kind of jobs and I avoid that kind of job.

They've had issues with other sealers and this one's scratch.

I was just reading a forum here the other day where I think it was UK.

Someone installed something and the client was trying to ask, I mean, this thing was already scarred and scratched and destroyed within a few days after install.

Is that acceptable?

Well, again, I can only imagine both sides of this conversation.

We've all been there, a potentially unhappily client.

And how you feel, I thought I did everything.

I followed all the instructions.

Well, listen, we've all been there.

So no excuses, cut through it, come out, hang out.

We're going to have plenty of oversized and small samples.

Hell, if you're close enough, bring something of yours.

We will seal it.

We will do your concrete.

And when you leave, we're going to go through tooling, the torches, why we recommend, why I recommend.

Rollers, I mean, every point in the process for extreme confidence and success.

That's what I'm looking for.

So hopefully it resonates with everybody and takes, let's say, nine out of ten of the problems off the table.

One only problem left is whoever doesn't show up because they don't think they need it.

Yeah.

Or they think, it's not in so much that they don't think they need it.

I think they think, I'll just go to the next one.

And I'm saying there's not going to be next one.

No.

So this one was fortunate enough to fit in just because of what was going on.

But yeah, I don't see doing this again.

Yeah.

Yep.

So there's that.

We're going to have Joren Smith on today, Elements Concrete.

Anything you want to talk about before we get Joren on?

No, man, I'm good.

Let's get him.

I haven't talked to Joren.

I like Joren.

I've never talked to Joren.

No, just text and social media.

So I'm looking forward to talking to him.

It's going to be my first...

I don't even know what his voice sounds like.

So this is going to be my first time talking to him.

Yeah, see, again, I've been on his OnlyFans page, so I know quite...

I probably know too much about Joren.

You probably do.

Let's give him a call.

Let's give him a call.

Hello, Joren Smith.

What's going on, guys?

How are you doing, man?

So, your company, your Elements Concrete, you're up in Newburgh, Maine.

Yeah, well, let's just get this podcast going.

What do you want to talk about?

Yeah, so originally, I was actually, until recently, I was on Cape Cod in a little jet of land that sticks out from Massachusetts into the ocean.

And I was born there, and that's actually where I got my start, I don't know, about 2012, when I met Hiram Ball.

And I know, you guys obviously know who Hiram is.

Yeah, Hiram was, it's funny, and I'm not going to hijack your story here, but the whole reason I got into GFRC was in 2004-ish, a person mentioned to me GFRC, and I looked it up, couldn't find anything on the internet back then about GFRC, but GRC was coming up, which was over in Europe.

That's what they call it, they leave the F out, Europeans got to be different.

And so I reached out to a company there, I think it was PowerSprays, or one of the companies that makes equipment, they're like, hey, hit up Ball Consulting, in the United States, they sell polymer.

So I hit up Ball, I found Ball Consulting, they're in Pennsylvania, I think, at the time, like their office, and I reached out to them, and the lady's like, yeah, we can send you some polymer, and basic mix design, what's your email address?

Great, great, great, what's your mailing address?

And I gave it to her.

And she's like, Tempe, we only have one other office, and it's in Tempe, Arizona.

Really?

And it turned out it was like a mile away from my shop.

Ball Consulting was like a mile away.

That's wild.

Yeah, and so she said, Hiram, the owner, is out there every few weeks, he goes out there for a few days, I'll just have him come by your shop.

And so that was around 2005 that I...

So I got the materials, and I started playing with it, but back then, like 2004, 2005, it was way heavier polymer loadings.

I mean, it literally was Corian.

We were making Corian back then with GFRC, and nobody liked it.

The architects, designers I was working with, nobody liked it, I'd take a sample.

But we started playing with reducing the polymer in the mix and kind of adjusting the cement and sand a little bit.

We got it to be a much more aesthetically pleasing material for my client, not for cladding the skyscrapers, which were Hiram's clients, that's who he was selling his product to.

But yeah, Hiram, awesome guy, awesome guy.

Oh yeah.

And I, it's funny though, the random people you meet in this industry, it's so small, you know, and the world's, the world's small, but the world is pretty big when you're a, you know, one, one little, just the chances are, are, are slim, you know?

Yeah.

So at the time I had, I had been busy crashing my, my high school landscaping company into the ground.

And this was just after high school.

And so I met Hiram.

He, he'd retired to the Cape with his wife and he had a studio in the group of bays that I was in.

So I'd like, you know, I walked into a studio one morning and it's like a 21 year old.

I, you know, there's just stuff everywhere.

There's sculptures everywhere.

There's like life castings everywhere.

And I'm like, what is this?

Yeah.

And he starts telling me about GFRC.

And obviously even back in, in 20, what 2020, where are we 2012?

Like there was still nothing about it.

So I'm like, GFR, what, you know?

So like, as time went on, like I kind of, I had a lot going on at the time and, and, and no money to really dig much into it.

But like, you know, I still see the stuff and I kind of would start to look into it.

And like even Instagram was still new back then.

And I think I had found like, I had found you and I had found like Josh Thiel and that kind of inspired me to be like, okay, I, I get what Hiram's talking about because he was wicked technical about everything.

And like I was cutting grass, you know, and making patios.

Wasn't rocket science.

But so I started to pick away at that.

And like I couldn't quite, it wasn't really a, like you didn't teach me how to, how to do it.

I had to start picking it up and just do it myself, because that's just what I've done.

You know, I got to learn stuff the hard way.

And I started messing around and I went on YouTube and I actually found Mark from Trinic's videos, Wicked Drive, an hour long, two hours long.

Dude, I miss the old school Mark videos where he had the headphones on with the antenna and he's like, listen to rock music and you hear like REO Speedwagon playing in the background.

Yeah, those are those are epic.

Yeah, like that's where I got my basics from.

And of course, like I at that time, like I didn't really know the connection.

I think like Hiram and then, you know, the Trinic guys had a little beef.

And I think something to do with Polytek.

I didn't ever pry into it too much.

Who knows?

Doesn't matter now.

Well, hold on.

That is a funny thing, though, is Hiram used to be Polytek's biggest distributor.

And Ball Consulting, I mean, that's what they did is they sold rubber.

And he was the main guy that sold rubber.

And he was like their technical support guy and all that kind of good stuff.

So Hiram Ball had Ball Consulting and Tempe.

I used to go there.

And he would tell me, 74-45, this is the workhorse rubber.

This is all you need.

You know, occasionally, you might need a softer rubber.

If it's like a deep undercut, but this will do 99%.

Great.

So then SmoothOn bought Ball Consulting.

And he had to switch over to SmoothOn products.

And so I'd go in there.

And now, instead of having Polytek on the shelf, they have SmoothOn products.

And I said, well, I've got a project.

I need to get some rubber.

What should I get?

And he just goes.

He's like, don't buy this stuff.

Call Polytek.

And so even then, you know, I mean, whatever.

He had to sell it because he was bought by them, but he still was a Polytek believer.

He still believed it was the best product out there.

And I heard, I don't know if it's true, but I heard he got paid to shut up and, you know, go away, essentially.

So they paid him a stipend to just go to Cape Cod and be quiet and stop telling people not to buy their stuff.

Yeah.

That sounds about right.

Yeah, that was just hearsay.

I don't know if it's true.

Who knows?

He was an interesting guy, for sure.

Yeah, he was like an Ernest Hemingway type character.

Absolutely.

Did he ever tell you he was like a, I think he was like a Spanish professor in his young days.

Was that right?

Really?

And he lived in Mexico.

Yeah, he lived in Mexico.

And I'm 99% sure that's correct, because we would go to dinner sometimes.

Go to lunch, he'd be in Tempe.

And he told me is how he got started.

And yeah, I think when he was like in his early 20s, he started teaching English or Spanish.

But he lived in Mexico, so it must have been English.

I don't know.

But he was living in Mexico when he was in his early 20s, and like traveling and just, yeah, like Hemingway slash Kerouac type character, you know?

Yeah, I think he was in a ballroom dancing too at one point.

I think you're right, yeah.

So, well anyways, you know, we got to do a couple little projects together, which was kind of cool.

We, there was one in particular where we, it was a god-awful like sculpture of a woman that this other artist made who I don't know, it was like a plaster and, you know, like a traditional plaster with the, what's it called, holding it together?

Polymer?

Having a ball.

No, no, no.

Fibers.

The flocking?

Jesus.

Whatever the traditional, traditional scrim, burlap, burlap, burlap.

And it was just hideous, but like he needed to make a copy of it and, you know, turn it into GFRC.

So we did that and that was pretty cool.

But you know, after a while, I think he got diagnosed with cancer in 2020.

And then like, you know, I spent a year watching him like wither into nothing.

And it was, it was terrible, you know.

And it finally got down to like, you know, we were cleaning his shop out.

You know, that was, that was, that was tough for, I'm sure it was tough for him.

But I finally had gotten to the point where like, we were able to have conversations about all this stuff.

And it's like, okay, well, well, selfishly this sucks.

But I have a few of his things here.

And there was one thing I have from him.

And it says, for when the one great score comes to write against your name, he writes not that you won or lost, but how you played the game.

And it says Ball Chemical Co on the bottom of it.

And it's a plaque.

And that hangs on my wall along with a big picture of him grilling me for when I'm screwing up or he always said, if you got to grind it the next day, you f****d up.

So like, you know, for that, that means like, I got to take my time, you know, do a better job and that's all that is.

So, you know, anyways, fast forwarding, that's kind of how I got my start into that.

And yeah, I didn't have a, I always wanted to take a class, but I never had the funds to do it.

I've always been kind of chasing my tail ever since high school.

I guess I wouldn't advise starting a business to a high schooler on their own without any kind of good advice.

But whatever, we climbed out of that.

And I was able to build this into something that can at least support my family.

We couldn't quite do it on the Cape though because it became too expensive to live there and I wanted to start a family.

So my wife and I randomly decided in 2023 that we were going to move.

And wherever we moved had to have a little bit of land and it had to have a shop so I could do this on it.

And we, the goal was to not have a mortgage.

So we found it practically the middle of nowhere, but that's okay.

The hardest part of it though was like, I had already been established on the Cape.

And we had to obviously kind of, it's like, it's just close enough to not be out of reach, but it's still far enough away where it's, you know, a five hour trip to and a five hour back.

Hauling whatever you're hauling.

And I know, you know, you don't do installs.

And I would actually have tried to get out of doing them for the most part.

I have gotten comfortable with shipping stuff, throwing on pallets and saying, see ya.

And it's actually a great, little, little nerve wracking at times.

But I guess so is, so is driving fireplace around through, through Boston.

Yeah.

So that's what I was going to say.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, if, if you're bulk of your work is still in the Cape area.

And just while you were talking, I pulled up realtor.com.

You know what I mean?

Just to see, because, you know, I, I'm one of those that live in California.

So when I hear like this is expensive or that's expensive to me, it's not saying it's not, but everything's relative.

You know what I mean?

And sure enough, man.

Yeah.

I'm pulling up basic homes or, you know, one point, whatever, two point, whatever.

Yeah.

So very interesting.

So if that's your market, not to skip all over.

I mean, what, where have you found yourself in a price point?

Well, this has been the trickiest part because at the beginning of this year, I'm like, okay, I'm settling into my new place, organizing a lot of my processes finally that like, you know, I've backburned for years.

And I really want to be able to, instead of just chasing my tail and Robin Peter to pay Paul for the next project and trying to just push stuff out, trying to spend my time on it.

So with that said, I'm listening to you guys, I'm like, I should be like 200, 250 square foot somewhere in there.

And obviously it's too soon to tell.

Cause I think I was at like 185.

And I'm not giving them directly the price.

Like we all know that.

Like it's just kind of building.

This is the price you get.

It's not getting itemized.

Take it or leave it.

And I wasn't having a ton of success with the higher price.

And I'm not sure.

It could just be because it was just those projects.

Like I started out the year thinking I was getting a $50,000 project where the landscape architect was like, oh yeah, that's probably doable.

I'll get back to you with what the client says.

And then so far, it literally shrank from 50 to five in like over the course of the last three months.

And I got a signed contract on the way for like five and change.

So it's like, okay, well, I mean, the client has a house on the water outside of Boston.

So we're just trying to still feel it out.

And then where I am, like they're never going to pay that much.

I mean, Bar Harbor is an hour from us.

And I was there yesterday actually for like the first install that I've actually had up here directly.

So I was kind of excited.

Of course, you know, it takes a year apparently to get established in a certain location, especially where it's very quiet.

I found that Maine, like everything starts in California and slowly trickles across the country.

Maine is literally the last place to get anything, I think.

So you talk to them about concrete countertops and GFRC, and they're like, what?

So I've got to like reeducate an entire potential customer basis again, which is what I had to do on Cape Cod.

So that was going to take time.

Sure.

Yeah.

But in the, in the meantime, I get to hang out with my kids, you know, we actually, I have two now.

We have our newest, she's a month old and the other one's.

Oh, congratulations.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And the other one's two and a half.

So I mean, he'll be out here before you know it in the shop with me.

Yeah.

My boy.

He's got to be pretty cool.

Yeah.

He's saying he's two and a half.

Well, he's about to be three, but he comes to my shop.

Yeah.

He comes to my shop.

He grabs the broom.

He wants to push the broom around.

He loves the floor scraper.

He scrapes concrete off the floor.

Yeah.

All we want to do is help.

Yeah.

Anything you can do like with tools, he jumps in the skid steer.

He knows how to get in the air, how to honk the horn.

But yeah, dude, work-life balance, I get it a thousand percent.

You're kind of making a sacrifice.

It's like, well, you've got this drive to do art or make things and your own image of what you want your life to be professionally.

But then at the same time, it's like you don't want to miss your kids growing up because you don't get to do that again.

This is the youngest they're going to be today, ever.

I think about that all the time.

You got to make the sacrifice.

I don't know what it's like after that.

Once they turn into teenagers, probably don't want to hang out with you.

I think Jon could probably give insight into that better than.

Yeah, I already got rid of mine.

Yeah, you know, what?

Yeah, it was like a work and just cut them off.

And you find out when you quit feeding them, they leave pretty quickly.

And I'm just kidding.

Actually, see, I got to tell you the whole story.

No, I mean, it's as long as you stick with it, and as long as you spend the time, it gets better and better.

I mean, my son and I, which probably could be a bad thing.

We're in lots of ways, best friends.

You know, he's got practice today, shooting trap.

We work out together.

We're actually, him and I have been doing this intermittent fasting stuff together.

So, I mean, I'm already setting up for summer.

You know, jobs now for me, it's funny we're talking about this instead of concrete.

I have long since, since we had kids, most people know I shut my whole shop down during winter.

I'm not in there at all.

I mean, if I am, I'm, you know, working on something chemistry-wise, but most of that I do over here in my lab.

But yeah, and I do that specifically, man, because their breaks are my breaks, which actually this week is his spring break.

And boom, that's, that's what we're doing.

What are we doing this week?

And it's great.

So no, if you guys stick with it, keep on top of it, and then find that balance between, you know, paying bills and doing everything you can, not to miss any moment, whatever that means.

It could certainly be done.

And this is something, steering it off a little bit, where I have personally found dramatic differences in, you know, not just, hey, we're talking concrete, but this is where, in my opinion or my experience, that materials has made dramatic difference in where I've been able to balance things.

I don't know how you feel about it, Joren, but I have definitely found over the years, and I've certainly used plenty of them and designed plenty of them.

That balance goes hand in hand.

Oh, for sure.

For sure.

I mean, the more confidence in the materials too, like the less chances you're going to have to redo things.

Correct.

Or something's going to call you back and you're going to have to get taken away from whatever you wanted to do or whatever you should have been doing to go handle that.

You know.

You said something.

Of course, we said something that was interesting.

You said it was a sacrifice because you I'm trying to remember how you phrase it.

Something along the lines of how you wish your career would go or what you envision your career to be.

What do you envision the perfect career being in your mind?

That's tricky because like it's always changing.

It's always changed.

It changes maybe even day by day.

Wicked ADD.

I don't know if you can tell by this phone conversation.

That's all of us, man.

But I think that's all of us.

And I work a lot.

I work alone in the shop now.

I used to have employees.

And obviously with employees, you're at their mercy.

You got to keep them busy.

Oh yeah, man.

You got to feed them.

Feed it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you got to show up every day regardless.

And so lately like without that, I've had a year to kind of like sit and think to myself and argue with myself and talk to myself out in the shop, you know, weird hours in the day.

And I found that like, as long as I'm happy, right?

It's kind of like living in the moment.

As long as I'm happy and things are going upwards we'll say, then I think just keep on, keep on keeping on and seeing what happens with it.

Because that I can't predict what's going to happen.

I can kind of steer in the direction.

But right now, like again, it circles around having the kids.

And trying to balance my own personal ideas.

Like I have books of ideas I want to do.

I have projects half finished everywhere that I may never even get to, because I might not have time, or at least I don't have time right now.

So where do you see your trend going?

I mean, is this something you've worked on?

I mean, like for me, I'm just going to say, when I went to be in a one man show, I walked away from kitchens.

Now, I will do a kitchen if it's cast in place, but that's only if I can balance with a couple of the guys I know to come help me with it.

Otherwise, I've walked away and I even, I just got a message here two days ago about for a kitchen and I turned it down.

So I moved to all vanities.

And I found for me, initially, even after being doing this for so long, butterflies in my stomach, like, oh crap, did I just put a nail in the coffin, even if it was the first one, and I'm not gonna be able to pay the lease on the shop, and God, am I gonna work doing vanities and so forth.

And then it turns out, yeah, yeah, not only did it work out well, my price point without discussing square foot prices and stuff, yeah, because to me, what I'm doing a whatever, say a 35, $3,600 vanity for, comparatively speaking, to get into that price point would be somewhere around a $20,000, $30,000 kitchen.

You know what I mean?

And in that balance, I found pretty quickly that not everybody wants, they're not looking at whatever I'm doing for however I'm doing it, whatever I'm offering there, 20 grand, 25, $30,000 in their kitchen is not something they're interested in.

But that $3,000 to $4,000 vanity, oh, that's beautiful.

It's funny you should bring that up because I normally am not one to say no to doing any project.

Like I'll take on whatever, like send it my way, I'll figure out how to do it.

Consider it done.

But there was one fairly recently where it was a referral from a friend of mine, her sister's building a house, in I think either Rhode Island or Connecticut.

It was a huge kitchen island, like it was seven by like 16.

That's pretty big.

That's huge.

And I don't really do cast in place.

I have done it before, but it's not my go-to.

And I just don't like really working in people's houses.

So I would have just tried to do it precast.

I probably could have done it precast, but I still wasn't, I wasn't really settled into the shop yet and life up here.

So I sent it to someone else.

And he's been doing fireplace surrounds for and Vanity's, a large kitchen island.

And I'm like, oh, my project just got shrunk into just a fire pit for a client.

You know?

Did I, did I make a mistake there?

Like I'm glad he has it.

I'm glad, you know, it's working out well for both of them, but I'm kicking myself.

Dude.

Oh, for passing it along?

I passed up, I passed up a project in Arizona that probably cost me millions over time.

This, this builder there, Construction Zone, they're horrible.

I mean, they build the most awesome homes, but the owner is a supreme.

Like you've never met a guy that's bigger than the owner of that company.

Anyways, I was, I was meeting with a customer and this lady had hit me up.

She wanted me to make concrete counterparts for her house.

She said, I'm going to send my builder down to talk to you and bring plants.

Great.

And the builder was Construction Zone.

So I'm in the middle of meeting with a customer, like in my shop.

And the customer, I was like 25 or 26 at the time, and the customer is probably like 50, 60.

So this guy comes walking in, he was a superintendent for Construction Zone, comes walking in with like an intern, and he comes up, he's like, I need to speak to the owner, like right in the middle of my meeting, right?

And I said, hi, I'm Brandon Gore, how can I help you?

And he like looks at me, I'm like 25, and he looks at the client, he's like 60, and he like turns to the client and says, I need to talk to you about a project.

And the client's like, you need to talk to him, you know?

And he looks back at me, I'm like, I'm the owner, what can I, what do you need?

And he tells me, he's like, oh, I'm here for, I don't know her name, Susie Q, whatever her name was back then, but he's like, I'm here for Susie Q's project.

I'm like, well, I'm in the middle of a meeting, so let me finish this and then I'll talk to you.

So while I'm in the meeting, this guy's walking around my little showroom in Tempe, and he's hitting the concrete like a baboon, like a gorilla, just like, slap, slap.

And he's like, just walking around, like literally like a gorilla, right?

And I'm like, what the hell is going on with this?

So I tell the customer, dude, I'm sorry, man.

Like, I'm gonna have to wrap this up, you know, I'll call you.

He's like, yeah, yeah, so he leaves.

I'm like, what do you need, dude?

He's like, well, you know, Susie sent me down here.

She wants you to make, I guess, concrete countertops.

I don't know why she'd want concrete, but that's what she wants, you know?

He's like, is this what it is?

I'm like, yeah, this is what it is.

And he's like, slapping it again and then like, grab it.

He's like, well, I guess this will do.

I was like, okay.

He's like, you know, so and so, the intern, like college kid, so and so will give you the details.

I'm going to go back outside.

I have a call to make or whatever, he goes outside.

And the intern's like, oh, you know, hi, sir.

You know, we need to get a quote on this and this.

And he left.

And I just, I was so angry in the way this guy was so disrespectful to me, to my customer that was there when he walked in.

The whole thing.

I just, I was like, you know, there's not a lot of benefits to being a business owner.

A lot of stress.

But one benefit is you can say no to people.

So I emailed Suzy and I just said, hey, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to pass on your project.

The superintendent was so incredibly disrespectful.

I cannot do this project with that builder.

But let me refer you to somebody else.

And I referred her to a company in Phoenix, Arizona.

And so she ended up going with, you know, construction zone, ended up going to that guy.

And that guy ended up getting every single project after that for years.

Huge projects, massive amounts of concrete for years.

And I look back, but, you know, the same thing.

They reached out.

Well, they reached back out to me again, not long before I moved from Phoenix to Arkansas.

And the owner was like, Hey man, how's it going?

Yeah, we want to get some concrete tile.

Can you come down and see me?

So I go down there and their office has like a glass, you have to take an elevator to the third floor and you walk across a glass floor and they just want to like shock you and freak you out.

I mean, it's all part of a shtick and so I've been there before.

So I walk in, his name is Andy, I'm like, is Andy here?

And she's like, oh, he's in a meeting right now.

Well, the way it's set up, his office is right around the corner and I can hear him just carrying on.

They're not in the meeting.

He's just in there talking about like the last night he was out partying, whatever.

And so she makes me sit in the lobby for like 30 minutes and I can hear him talking.

He's not in the meeting at all.

He's just shooting the sh** with like some other guy there.

And then finally he walks around and he asked me to bring samples of Tile.

He walks around the corner.

He's like, Oh, hey, Brandon, how's it going, buddy?

You ready to talk about Tile?

I'm like, yeah.

He's like, is that your little box of samples you brought?

Your little box of samples.

And I just go, yeah, bro, it's my little box of samples.

Yeah, let's talk about it.

So I walk back there.

I take out samples and he's like, so what's this going to run me?

I'm like 35 square foot unsealed.

And if you want it sealed, then, you know, that's going to be probably five bucks a square foot.

So like 40 bucks.

He's like, $40?

I could get gold tile for that much.

I'm like, then do it.

What are we talking about?

He's like, well, I'm just $40 a square foot.

I'm like, dude, I will sell you the mix and you can make the tile yourself.

He's like, well, I don't want to do that.

I was like, I don't want to do it.

But for me to do it, it's going to be 40 bucks.

So it is what it is.

And anyways, long story short is, I ended up passing in a project.

He sent me his contract.

Contract was all this crap.

I redlined it all out.

He's like, well, essentially, saying like I'm responsible for everything.

And I told him, no, I'm not.

I make a product, you buy the product.

End of story.

So anyways, we ended up saying this isn't a good fit.

But point is, yeah, sometimes you walk in a project, ends up costing you a lot of money.

But what's your peace of mind worth?

I mean, I guess it doesn't technically cost you a lot, because you didn't spend a lot for it.

I think somebody gawked at a price on a sink once I gave them.

And I was like, well, it cost me nothing to not do it.

Yeah, I can stay home.

Yeah, I can watch more and find out who the dad is.

I'd rather do that than to do this for free or lose money on it.

If I had a nickel for every project I probably underbid, oh my God, you'd think you'd like to find the third one or the fourth one.

But well, not one of those projects stepped up and go here, Joren, here's another $3,000, man.

I definitely think you underbid this one.

And they walk around, they walk away with a smile.

And it's like the old adage when any of us go out going.

Yeah, right.

You meet somebody like, oh, you give me a good deal.

And we've all heard this one.

Man, if you give me a good deal on this, you know, I'll, you know, I know lots of people.

And there's a called Greenhorn Creek down here.

And at the time, it was all new construction, but around a golf course.

So a bit of an uppity, uppity crowd that was coming in.

I'll never forget that one, man.

And like, you know, and I got sucker punched by it.

Like, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Geez, look, there's something like a hundred somewhat homes supposed to be built in here.

And these are all not quite McMansion kind of stuff, but these are going to be nice custom homes.

This is fantastic.

And no, man, you learn pretty quick.

No, the best story on at whatever cocktail party was, well, let me tell you the deal I got, you know?

Oh yeah.

And no, no, no, everybody, every project from that point on treats you like the sucker.

Well, this brings me back.

We started this on what do you envision as being the perfect career, right?

And this goes back to the work life balance.

I think as it stands right now, you know, I like working in here by myself.

I like producing, you know, having one or two projects going out of time.

And that's been consistent lately.

And that's great.

And being able to have the money from that to like, you know, support my family and for them to do what they want to do and not have to worry about it.

And I think for me, that's successful.

I always went back and forth with, oh, I'm gonna grow, I'm gonna get bigger, I gotta find more employees, you know, I gotta mass produce stuff and sell on a line.

And I come from a line of artists.

So it's kinda, it's in my blood.

I have some, there are painters mostly.

And like my mom is and my grandfather was an architect and a builder.

And my great grandfather was a painter who was I think friends with Hemingway actually.

And you know, my dad is a, he's a carpenter and a problem solver.

So I kinda have all those characteristics.

So I enjoy, I'm not good at running a business, clearly.

I'm better at making the product and I find joy in that.

So as long as I have that, I think that's successful.

And I think that's where I wanna be, you know?

And is it, is there a lot of longevity in that?

I don't know.

I mean, it's, you know, this takes a beating on the body.

So I'm kinda holding out, like maybe we'll get the golden years of AI and robotics, you know, we're like, like maybe that could, yeah, I could have my own personal robot in the shop, help me, or, you know, by then, my son will be old enough to like start lifting slabs and, you know, we can, we can use him, you know.

But for right now, like I don't really have any aspirations to be some bigger company.

And I think this is actually like the first year where I've kind of settled on that, you know, cause like I think I said before, like I'm never gonna be rich from this.

But as long as I'm happy, that's okay.

Yeah.

Have you ever heard the parable about the businessmen and the fishermen?

Maybe.

You know, I just taught a class this weekend, and I brought it up with these guys, as we're talking about kind of the same topic.

What is success?

What do you want to do?

Like, why do you want to do it?

You know, it came up in conversation, and it's the story about this businessman.

He's super successful.

He's super ambitious.

He's on vacation in Mexico, and he's on the beach, and he sees a fisherman pull up and starts taking his fish off his boat, and the businessman asks him something like, you know, how long did it take you to catch that?

He's like, oh, a couple hours.

And the businessman says, well, why don't you stay out longer and catch more fish?

And he's like, well, I catch enough to feed my family and enjoy my life.

And the guy says, well, if you stay out longer, you catch more fish, and if you catch more fish, you can sell more, and if you sell more, you can buy more boats, and if you buy more boats, you can build a fleet, and then maybe have a cannery and distribute globally, you know?

And the guy says, okay, great.

But then what?

So that's what you can tie a rich, you can move to a small village like this, you can spend your days fishing, napping, and enjoying life, right?

And the fisherman smiled and said, that's what I'm doing now.

Yeah, right.

And so I think a lot of us work harder with the vision of working less, which is the total, you know, I went through that phase.

I'm like, I'm going to do this and this and this and this, and then I'm going to have free time.

And then when the market crashed in 08, I was forced to have free time.

And that was the epiphany I needed, that if I wanted to work less, I had to work less.

So I'd say, you know, you guys, you moved out to middle of nowhere Maine, which to me sounds like a dream.

That sounds amazing.

I love that.

It is.

You got your kids.

We're not supposed to tell anybody from Massachusetts that because we don't want them coming up here, but.

Yeah, you got your kids, you got a shop.

And if you make enough to pay the bills and you spend time with your family, that's ultimately what all the guys that are working 60 hours a week are trying to do.

I like a joke that at 30, 35, I'm already kind of retired.

I can wander out to the shop after I've made the family breakfast at 9.30, 10 o'clock and do a couple projects, work on a couple of things for a few hours, and then I'll take a walk with my kid or go down to the creek and sit there and look at that, or whatever we want to do, or some house projects by the end of the day, and I'll putz around out here at night after they all go to bed.

Yeah, that's the life, man.

It is the life, and if I could keep doing that, I'm going to keep doing it as long as I can do it.

I think for me, that's success.

Yeah, 100 percent.

It doesn't always be monetary success.

Well, I think money, you're trying to buy your freedom with money.

You're always trying to chase it.

Yeah, you're trying to get enough money that you can do what you want to do when you want to do it.

And that's what you're doing now.

Yeah.

Well, I for one, you guys, I'm a little bit ahead of you guys.

I'm not trying to, you know...

I'm ten years beyond Joren, and you're ten years beyond me.

Exactly.

There's a lot of wisdom going on here.

Well, yeah, I'm just going to tell you guys, if this is the choice you make, this is the one that we made, my wife and I.

I mean, she's a schoolteacher, she splits a contract, so she works two to three days a week.

Yeah, I mean, her biggest joke, when we do go to dinner parties, well, previously, one of the only dads that kept showing up to birthday parties or whatever the case may be, and that was one of her jokes, is that, I am retired.

And it's the balance.

It's about finding that balance, you know, do...

And whatever that means to you, so you're putting a little aside for retirement, and if anything, and we're off on a different...

That's the only thing I think I would...

I wish we had started earlier.

But in that all being said, no, this is the light we've led, and it's been fantastic.

It's been a great ride.

I think you guys will continue to enjoy it, find that balance, you know, keep doing what you're doing, set your prices accordingly, set your space accordingly, don't grow faster than you have to, because your kids are definitely going to grow faster than you want them to.

Yeah.

And you know what?

Don't compare your own goals to everyone else's.

Yeah.

You know, and don't compare everyone else's success to what you, you know, your success looks like or what you think it should look like.

Well, what's that saying?

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't care what somebody else's, because I've been on that side of the coin where I had a lot of employees and I had a lot of production, and I had a lot of work and I hated my life.

It was the worst time in my life.

So I don't envy when I see somebody, I think of like, what's his name?

True form, Gretsch.

You know, Gretsch.

Oh, Dave.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dude.

I mean, Dave finally got to the point where he had to pull the ripcord and sell the company because you just can't sustain that level of stress.

And I don't want to do this for stress.

I don't, money doesn't do anything.

So when I, I'm not trying to brag because it only lasted for like a minute.

But when I sold my property in Arkansas, we sold it for like 1.1 million.

Right.

And there was a moment where I had like a little over a million in my account, my banking account.

And I went to the ATM and I pulled out 20 bucks and it spits out the receipt of your balance.

It's like 1 point whatever million.

Right.

And I thought I was going to feel a certain kind of way.

And I felt nothing.

It could have said $50 and it would have been the same feeling.

There was no change.

What I thought I was going to feel, I did not feel.

Now, that money, the second we moved to Wichita and bought a house and blah, blah, essentially, all that money went away.

And now I'm back in the same boat that I've always been, you know?

Yep.

But that's amazing how fast you can go.

Yeah.

But I didn't feel like I had made it.

I didn't feel accomplished.

I didn't feel secure.

I didn't feel any things I thought I was going to feel.

I felt the same.

So yeah, it doesn't make any difference.

Really, you just be missing out.

Yeah.

You know, I stress it over.

And I think that's the whole premise of this podcast.

We're talking about work-life balance and, I don't know, setting your own goals.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Running your own race and doing what's important to you.

Living like Hiram a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hemingway life.

Well, yeah, because that being said, I don't think Hiram saw the exit button quite where it ended up, so.

Well, that's a good life lesson too.

I don't think any of us can.

Yeah.

Well, guys, we got to wrap this up.

Yeah, good talking to you guys.

Joren, dude, this is the first time we've spoken.

I've never spoken to you on the phone.

Yeah, it is.

I know.

But it's been a pleasure talking to you and I wish you success and congrats on the baby.

Thank you.

Yeah, very much so.

I'll come out there someday and find you.

When I finally make a little bit of cash and get on a plane.

Well, I'd love to meet you.

Until next time, adios amigo.

Adios Joren.