Making money is great but doing something you love despite the money, is greater.

I’ve shared many times “how” I got into the dirt industry but never explained “why.”

I learned an important lesson at nearly 20 years old.

When I was 19, I left the restaurant business and got into construction. I was living the perfect Maui lifestyle.

Surfing all day, working five hours a night, and making enough to pay for my living expenses.

I never thought much about money or my future. I just needed enough for the day, week and ultimately, the end of the month when rent was due.

Once I got tired of the restaurants, I changed careers and got into construction.

I started landscaping for cash jobs, which was under the table work. I then moved on to my first official—on the books—construction job at Pitzer Built.

Pitz was a GC that had a framing background and did everything in house.

I started as a laborer. I basically just cleaned up around the job sites, then moved lumber by hand, and little by little learned how to frame houses.

The work was actually pretty hard and backbreaking but I was getting a taste of what it meant to be in the construction field. It also let me see the process of building a house from the ground up.

That would include the dirt phase, then underground utilities, then concrete, then framing, roofing, rough in electric and plumbing, interior finish and finally landscaping.

It was really cool to get that basic building principle and be able to understand how it all works.

But something cooler happened.

I realized that there is money to be made in construction.

When you come from humble beginnings, and you are young, you are easily swayed by the lure of money.

I can’t remember exactly what I was making at Pitzer Built but it wasn’t more than $15/hr.

One day my good friend, Mike Williams, called me up. He had a connection to a prevailing wage job on Oahu and said they were looking for guys.

First of all, I had no idea what prevailing wage meant and I was pretty happy learning about construction and framing… until Mike explained that I can make a crapload of money for not having any experience.

I had dollar signs in my eye balls. $15/hr to $40-$50/hr without any skills (besides amateur surfing) was a no brainer to me.

I told my boss the deal and he said, “go for it.”

I didn’t know what I signed up for but it was not like anything I did on Maui. We had to have PPE. What the hell is that? I never even wore pants on a job site before.

This was something I had to get used to because I didn’t like it. But it was worth the big bucks.

The job was on Oahu at the Pearl Harbor Navy Base. We had to have special badges and permission to get in.

We were repairing a dry dock by removing old concrete patches and pouring new ones.

The dry dock was massive. It was for the big ships. We were in giant lifts up to 70 feet high. There were cranes, forklifts, backhoes, and all kinds of action all day long.

It was really cool to see and experience a big project like that.

My main job was to manually chip old concrete on vertical walls with a 90 pound pneumatic gun.

The guns were really heavy. It was extremely hot. I was covered head to toe with PPE.

Hard hat, face shield, respirator, ear plugs, safety glasses, layers of long sleeves and safety vests, padded gloves, pants and steel toe boots.

I weighed 150 pounds. The chipping gun would vibrate the soul right out of my body.

We worked a 4-10 schedule which was a long day chipping vertical walls.

But I knew how to grind. I could out work older men 100 pounds heavier than me. They would keep bringing in new guys that couldn’t even make it through the week.

Mike and I were the two smallest guys on the crew that didn’t quit. It started to become a game to see the body count of these weak grown men who just couldn’t handle the work.

The money was great. I was barely 20 years old pulling $90-$100k in salary. As the year went on, I started noticing some things that were not so great.

My body was taking a beating. My hands hurt all the time (and still do) from the constant hammer of that 90 pound gun slamming my body three times a second.

I also noticed the politics of working for a big company.

I had 8 bosses. I never really felt like they cared about me. They loved me for getting the job done but I was just a battery.

Replaceable in one way or another.

I’ve witnessed all kinds of unfairness. Like guys faking injuries to get light duty work. Which meant that they’d get paid the same amount for doing super easy jobs. Such as counting rebar.

I saw people do drugs on site and not get in trouble while the company knew about it.

I saw people getting hired for their ethnicity or gender but not for their skills.

I saw people get promoted because of how they could smooth talk a boss to make them look better.

All these things nipped away at my consciousness. I just kept telling myself “it’s all good, I’m making so much money, I’m not gonna say anything to disrupt the system.”

So much money.

After a year, that job was completed. I had a chance to go to Philadelphia and work on another project.

Eager to get out of Hawaii, I accepted the job and worked for the same company.

With a few years of construction under my belt I thought it was a good move even though I still had no official skills besides being a laborer.

As I settled in to working in the snow and big city living, I couldn’t help but notice that the same problems were consistent all the way on the east coast.

I started to really hate my job. I didn’t want to go to work. I didn’t want to deal with the politics. I was tired of being in an unhealthy work environment that was sucking me under.

Not being a quitter, I rode it out till the job was finished. I was completely over it.

When it was time to leave, I parked my Toyota Corolla on the side of the road and left it there.

I brought a suitcase and a backpack with all my belongings back to Maui.

I didn’t sign up for the next job. I ended up trying different trades like electrical, roofing and some concrete, then eventually went back to work for Pitzer Built.

Then one day there was a job opening for the most amazing trade ever: heavy equipment.

Well, not exactly. There wasn’t a job opening. My boss, Doug, told (strong armed) the owner of excavation company to hire me.

And that was it. I started the job at $12.50 an hour. I had to work a second full time job at night, bussing tables, to make enough to live.

I didn’t even care. I found something that I absolutely loved. The money was a non issue.

I knew one day I would make enough to quit my second job, but I was content as ever.

I told myself that I would never do work just for the money. My peace of mind is worth more than all the money in the world.

Here I am now, 20 years later. Through all the ups and downs, from wanting to sell my company, then almost losing it, to bringing it back bigger and better than ever.

The one thing I still never compromised is taking a job just for the money. For a challenge, yes. But never just for money… my soul couldn’t afford it anyway.

#staytrue