Construction Trailblazers: Paving The Way to Excellence

Podcast Interview With Herb Sargent
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Samantha C Prestidge: Welcome to Construction Trailblazers Paving the Way to Excellence, the podcast where we cut through the noise to uncover what truly drives success in the building industry. I'm Samantha C. Prestige, your guide in simplifying operations and turning dynamic teams into industry leaders. We're all about embracing people focused tech forward, lean practices that reshape the trajectory of a company, boosting revenue while freeing owners and teams from daily firefighting.

So if you're ready to create a team that consistently delivers success, then you're in the right place. Explore our past episodes at construction trailblazers. com and start your journey to excellence. So today our guest is Herb Sargent, CEO of Sargent Corporation, a construction company based in central Maine with a nearly century long legacy.

With over 45 years of experience in the industry, he has enjoyed his role in helping to shape the company, moving it to [00:01:00] employee ownership, so an ESOP, in 2013, and continuing the work started by his grandfather, the company's founder. He credits the company's past and present leaders for expanding its impact across hundreds of communities.

They now have offices in four states, while focusing on building meaningful careers and ensuring a bright future for its employee owners. Alright, I'm so excited to have you with us here today. Just walk us through a little bit of this Sargent legacy and your journey to where you are now.

Herb Sargent: Well, that could take up the whole podcast.

It's been such a, such an incredible blessing to, uh, to have been, um, able to grow up in the business. I mean, I, I would say I was literally born in the business, you know, uh, when my dad was building the interstate back in the sixties, uh, they used to move around to wherever the jobs were. And so I was born like, uh, in a town, in the town that we were [00:02:00] building the interstate in.

That's kind of, so I mean, it's almost as literal as you can get. And for me, the business was always something I was drawn to our school that I walked to, uh, I had to cross our shop driveway to get to the school. And after school, I didn't go home. I just went down to the shop, you know, and I just, so I just.

Hung out with the guys and, and took in the sounds, you know, the hammers pounding steel, the smells of exhaust diesel exhaust and different oils and anybody who's never smelled it is going to wonder what the hell I'm talking about, but it's just something that, you know, and then the people that were there, uh, in, in that.

In that environment, that ecosystem, and it was just all, uh, moving forward, moving ahead and, uh, just, it was just such a great environment to, to be born into and to be raised in. Uh, so, you [00:03:00] know, thank my grandfather and my dad and my uncle for, for keeping that thing going long before I came here.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. You can't get more literal than like, if, unless you were actually born on the actual construction site in some heavy machinery, right. You can't get more literal than that. So that's awesome. And what's also fascinating is as so many kids that are, um, around their, their family in the industry, maybe go into it out of obligation or want nothing to do with it.

Um, and you. Really made quite a successful career in the industry. Was it that kind of fast paced nature that, that caught your eye when you were a kid, or is it just like how involved your family was?

Herb Sargent: I think for me, uh, I mean, it was that initial attraction as a, as a kid, I mean, a child to, to the sounds and the, and the smells and the noises and, and you could, I could see the camaraderie.

Kind of, but I wasn't really part of it, right? As a seven or eight year old, [00:04:00] we moved to Georgia when I was eight, so I was no longer around it as much as I had been before. But when I started working in the field as a laborer at 16, and I worked in the shop for a couple summers before that, but then went to work in the field laboring and just getting to that achievement, you know, like, We're we're achieving things.

We're we're putting, uh, pipes in the ground that weren't there before and people are going to be able to flush their toilets and it goes here and they're never going to know why. But we're just doing this work quietly. Maybe not so quietly at the time, but 20 years later, right? Nobody remembers that somebody came up through the street and put a new sewer line and they just know that when they flush the toilet, it goes away.

And so, but the camaraderie. That was developed. Uh, and a lot of it is pranks. You know, we're pranking on each other and everybody's giving each other a hard time. But at the end of the day. We all know we've [00:05:00] got, we're there to do a job and, you know, at the end of the day, we look back and go, okay, well, we got that done today and, you know, what's, what's tomorrow's plan and in that sense of, of kind of like intermittent achievement, it's, you know, we got this done today, but we still got a lot more to do.

And that kind of tells the story of a business, I think, you know, it's like no matter what you do, the hard work still starts tomorrow. And so that's, I just like the idea that that challenge renews every single day. It never disappears, it never dissipates. And there's, as you go along, I think there are successes you have.

But there's never success. It never culminates and you've succeeded. It's no, you've succeeded today and you've got to keep going.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah, I mean, that's a really great point. Um, and I've, and I've never really heard construction [00:06:00] broken down in those terms, but I think that you describe that really well and what I'm What is coming to mind is a lot of people, they look for the certain thing in their careers, and you really see it in construction where there's this balance when done, right?

There's this balance between instant gratification. Cause you have that tangible thing that you're building and the longterm reward of, okay, what is next in this project or in the next project? So. It's like if you're searching for fulfillment, maybe check out some great companies in the construction industry.

Um, something else that I heard a lot of what you said was around camaraderie. And I do want to pay respect to the people that introduced you to the industry. But it also is kind of juxtaposed a little bit against one of your recent LinkedIn posts, where you're sharing your words for the year being dignity, dignity, and spirit, and kind of calling out a bit of the, the bad ass nature of the industry and the, the hard ego driven nature see in the industry.

And so I guess like, talk to [00:07:00] us about that juxtaposition, maybe what you saw as a kid growing up. Or what you tried to cultivate and what your grandfather cultivated in Sargent Corporation and what we're seeing in maybe some other companies that are really not doing too good with their people.

Herb Sargent: Yeah. So, you know, the, the, the dignity piece, you know, the respect piece, the love piece is something that I've really begun to focus on here lately.

And I just, uh, on this past Saturday. Uh, I was asked by the family of one of our employees that had been with the company for like 54 years, uh, I was asked to, you know, just say a few words and I didn't take long, maybe two minutes, but, um, you know, what I had to share about this guy is really what attracts me to this industry is.

I never really worked with him one on one. This guy, I mean, I knew him, we encountered each other, but never worked with him one on one. But with him, uh, you didn't have to necessarily work with him to know how he worked [00:08:00] because that, that, uh, preceded him everywhere he went. Everybody knew that when Roy showed up, it was going to be, you know, we're going to, Pull our sleeves up and get to work and for me, you know, I use those two words you mentioned dignity and spirit or the two words that I am kind of focused on and that's part of the reason the spirit piece of this thing is of this business, I think, can be so high, but it can also be so low and I also know firsthand that your dignity and your spirit can be Assaulted in just a few phrases.

And I've, I've, uh, suffered that myself. I probably have, have levied that on others at times. And what I want our folks to understand is that we're going to treat everybody with respect and, and not undermine their dignity. If, if [00:09:00] anything, we're going to try to try to keep people in situations. and treat them in a way that not just restores their dignity if they've lost them, but also just underpins their, their belief in themselves.

Uh, and, and then the spirit, you know, the spirit piece. And when I say spirit, I don't necessarily mean spiritual from a, in a religious sense. I just mean like teamsmanship and, uh, not that I'm against spirituality, but. Um, I'm thinking about, you know, the way people feel when they make an achievement and in the pride they can have, you know, the right kind of pride, the pride that to me is based in humility and group achievement versus the pride that is, you know, based in arrogance and and potty.

So, um, you know, I just want to celebrate those things in a way that I think, you know, I mentioned earlier. You know, we put in a [00:10:00] sewer line and people flush the toilet and they don't know where they just know it goes somewhere. So a lot gets taken for granted and we don't mind that, I don't think, as an industry.

We, in a way, we know we're blocking and tackling of society. We You know that nobody is going to stand up and when they drive down the road and they see us installing a sewer line and get out and clap that they were out there doing that, right? That's fine with us. Um, so we don't need to be celebrated, I don't think, but I think internally we need to celebrate each other and and the things that we can accomplish.

Because society doesn't get where it needs to go without us doing what we do.

Samantha C Prestidge: Absolutely. That's definitely something I have to remind myself. For instance, just, there's three blocks that are closed off, and they've been closed off for two weeks. And it's because Denver's doing, they're replacing all of the water lines across the city.

And so now, dropping my kids off to the nanny takes a whole 13 minutes instead of 8. Right. And it's like, okay, [00:11:00] this is an inconvenience, but it's also like, okay, this is, this is good work. There's probably a really great team behind this and I respect what they're doing. But in this moment with my kids screaming in my car, it's a little inconvenient.

Uh, but I, I, I liked how you differentiated pride there of there's this good type of pride where you can, you can feel good about what you've accomplished. And then there's that pride that is very ego driven. And that's a hard line for a lot of people to follow or to find. Especially when they're in a leadership role of where can I be confident?

Where can I be, you know, build up the confidence in my team and individual confidence versus like, okay, what's getting out of control. Can you, have you had any missteps with that, that you'd be willing to share or just really, how do you find that balance?

Herb Sargent: Um, yeah, I mean, I probably, if I want to take some time and go back through my career.

Uh, I could find more than I want. Um, I can remember when I was in my twenties and I was a young foreman and I was [00:12:00] all about getting work done. And, and, um, you know, people showed up late. I didn't tolerate that very well. Uh, and in 1 situation, this guy showed up late and he, I mean, we started off butting heads immediately and.

I could tell something was off with him, but I was probably too arrogant to really read that, right? And so I just said, you know what, if you don't want to work here, go home. And he got off his bulldozer and he went home. And so, I think You know, 40 years later, Herb would would get him off the machine and let's have a conversation and talk and not that I would have much advice for him.

And I don't think I think we often get caught up in the idea that we need to know enough to give advice to people that seem to be hurting. I think really what they want is to be heard and not necessarily [00:13:00] be told and, you know, I go back to, I'm reading Job right now in the Bible and, and, uh, you know, there's, there's a lot of lessons in that, but, um, another example in a group, uh, you know, we were with, uh, strategic planning group and, and one of our guys who I know really well, and we've spent a lot, a lot of time together and, you know, pranking on each other, whatever, giving each other a hard time.

And he came up with this idea and I said, Doug, that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. And he and I knew that it was, you know, just me being a little bit dramatic. But, uh, our CFO pulled me aside at the break and she said, you know, what you just said to him is going to keep everybody else from saying a word

Samantha C Prestidge: because

Herb Sargent: they don't want to, they're not going to be vulnerable.

In front of you and, and risk you responding that way. And I went, wow. I'm so grateful that, you know, she's got my blind spot. And so when we, when we regrouped, I just said, [00:14:00] listen, I've , I wanna be clear. Uh, that was me just having fun with Doug. And I want ideas. And it, it, it beca what we rely on is creativity.

And if you can't step out with an idea, without the risk of having your hand slapped. Then you're going to lose initiative. And so that's, I guess that's another example. I just think we need to, we need to celebrate initiative. And if it's, if it's initiative almost always has, you know, a good motivation, right?

It's, it's the best intentions. Um, but sometimes it's misguided. So we've, we've got to deal with, we've got to deal with those. Initiatives that people take. We've got to deal with them about right. So that they don't feel like I can never take initiative again.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah. I mean, there's, there's definitely the responsibility on your side of like, okay, how can I give constructive feedback, um, [00:15:00] in a way that, you know, this person can receive it in the best way possible, but then there's also responsibility on their end.

To, you know, not take everything personally. So first off amazing relationship that you have with Doug. I think we all, we all need those types of relationships where you can kind of just like shoot the shit with someone and like, okay, get back to work. No, no hard feelings. And also shout out to your CFO on like knowing how to manage up that, that conversation.

But I, what I also hear is, is a lot of this is coming back to, we've got to just have conversations with people. So we have. An episode that that's coming out this week, but the time that this episode is released, it'll be last week, um, on the topic of, um, people saying, come to me with solutions and not problems.

And you want your team to show initiative and come up with solutions and be creative, but they're not going to do that unless that vulnerability is there. And that can't be, unless you've had conversations with them. So I remember from. When we first talked that you, your ESOP was, um, you, you did your ESOP in 2013, but it wasn't [00:16:00] until two years later in 2015 that you kind of had this epiphany around, Oh, I need to pay attention to my people a little bit more.

Um, so walk us, walk us through that epiphany and kind of how that journey of now 10 years later has formed these relationships.

Herb Sargent: So I would say, um, paying attention to the people wasn't as much the problem as. Not, uh, not intentionally investing in people and recruiting people. So through the recession, um, Not to get too carried away here, but I bought my family's business back in 2005 and I had to take a lot of debt to do that.

And then three years later, we get a recession that comes through like the most crushing recession we've had since a great depression. And so I, I. I tend to think about business in terms of aviation altitude, and, you know, we were flying at a pretty good [00:17:00] altitude, but all of a sudden the recession comes and we're down lower and my focus is on flying the next mile, not the Gaining more altitude or what's going to happen in five or 10 years.

It was just like we got to keep this plane in the air and anything that's slowing this plane down has got to go off the plane. So, you know, it was really just lightening the load of the plane and So through 2013, that was kind of the way, but you mentioned in 2015, I kind of was like, okay, now we've got some, you know, the economy's coming back.

We've got some more opportunities coming. But when I look at my, when I sit down and look at our demographics, uh, we had like 10 percent of our people were under 25 years old and about 34 percent were under 40. So that means 66 percent or over 40 years old. And I was like, okay, so we've, we've got to now start thinking about the future.[00:18:00]

Uh, so we started investing heavily in 2016, kind of 2015, the plan attached started investing heavily. And that's one thing, if I had to go back in my career and say the biggest mistake I made was that, let's call it four or five year period between 2008, nine and 2013 or so, when we did not invest and it's like, if you're a football team and you say, well, we're just going to skip the draft this year.

You might be okay the next year. Skip it two years. You might still be a fair team. Skip it four or five years and you're going to be in the bottom of the, in the bottom of the league. So that's, we weren't ready when the economy came back. It's my point. We didn't have the players on the team to really come in.

So we started to recruit heavily and train heavily. And for a couple of years, we had a lot of people, I use a lot of sports analogies, you know, we had a lot of people that were triple A [00:19:00] players that we had playing in the big leagues and it wasn't fair to them and it wasn't fair to us. And so we really put.

An intentional focus on developing people over the last few years. I mean, it's it started out as a business journey. What has turned into is really a purpose journey, and it's more more. It's more than just focusing on people for what they can do for the company. It's focusing on people for what they can do for themselves, for their family and for their communities.

And there's really been, it's been quite a journey. The last 10 years to focus on that.

Samantha C Prestidge: Well, that's where now we get that spirit, right? That day to day culture and lifting people up, um, what I'm also thinking of on the, on the risk of becoming sports talk radio, not that I know enough staff and analytics to compete with them, but I'm also, I'm kind of thinking of my favorite sports team.

I'm a little bit more into basketball than football, but I'm thinking of the Denver [00:20:00] Nuggets. And, uh, right now I'm thinking of Jokic. Uh, have you, do you watch much basketball? Are you more football? I don't

Herb Sargent: watch much, but I'm aware.

Samantha C Prestidge: Okay. Well, Jokic, MVP multiple times. Um, right now though, struggling because he's one of the better players on the team, but he doesn't, doesn't have a lot of great players that are always, that are also playing up to his level at every game, right?

So there's a lot of times where he's really. Carrying a lot of the points in the game. Um, and so I'm, I am kind of hearing that a little bit in what, what happened in your team where you had some very experienced people, maybe operating at a level, but then you also had some people that just were not up to snuff and in a lot of ways and having to really turn that ship around.

Um, and I think now from the last time we chatted, you also mentioned that a huge part of your. staff now are under 25, right? So we've really shifted the demographic. Yeah, so

Herb Sargent: we're, so our, our under 25, which was 10 percent in [00:21:00] 2012 or 13 is now 25%, uh, of our people are under 25. And that's a growing workforce.

That's not like we just laid off all the old guys, right? It's, it's a growing workforce. Uh, so we've gone from about 325 people in 2017 to a little over 500 now. And so a growing component of younger people in our are under 40 workforces. Now this is field workforce we're talking about is now about 56 percent as opposed to 34%.

So we've been able to really recruit and retain a lot of younger people, uh, and really train them. You know, we've got some people that We have our Sergeant Construction Academy, we call it, and we hire these guys directly out of high school. They come in and take six weeks of training with us. We teach them everything from how to cook a piece of chicken to how to get 50 worth of groceries [00:22:00] that will feed them breakfast and lunch for the week.

They literally go to the grocery store and make those purchases. And, uh, we talk about retirement planning. We talk about, um, health insurances, and we're really just trying to, to, to make them much rounder human beings. When we look at all the components that we, you know, we look at relationships, we look at, um, at the.

Professions. If we look at their health, we look at their wealth. Um, and we look at their mental health and we're just trying to give them opportunities to build some, uh, margins of safety in all those areas so that they're not always up against the bone on on all of them. And I think historically. Our industry has, has looked just at what you can do for me as the big piece, right, the professional piece and all the other ones are like little mini moons behind it.

We don't even see that. And so what, what [00:23:00] I'm trying to do is look at it. Like we're looking at the individual straight on with those five components and we're trying to deal with them, with them all.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah, I mean that's that's amazing. What I'm also wondering is, I think there's a lot of the for the, I think, often, companies can really fall into two spots with with culture when they're when they're not doing it well and one spot is where they're just kind of ignoring it they don't they really.

It sounds abstract to them. They don't know where to start and they really just can't get a feel for their people. And on the other side is like, Oh yeah, we're people driven. Awesome. But it's very surface level culture. And so if we focused on that, that first group of people where they, it just feels abstract.

If you can help to ground this idea for us a little bit. So how has this academy and the training that you're giving to this younger generation, how has that changed? Maybe some of the. field dynamics or performance or some of those basic business numbers.

Herb Sargent: So [00:24:00] it's an interesting thing that you not only have to train the younger people, you have to train the older, more senior people how to deal with the younger people.

And that's taken a lot of one on one conversations over the years between me and some of those more senior people, most of them operators, frankly. And, um, trying to put them in more of a welcoming and gracious point of view with these younger people than, you know, than they typically had been. So I think that's been a piece.

So just as one example, I spoke with one guy and we had a superintendent's meeting and our superintendents are saying, this guy is like the best operator we have, but he's killing these young guys. He's killing him. And so I went to see him. He just retired a couple weeks ago after 38 years, and I went to see him in 2018.

I think it was something like that. And I said, you know, [00:25:00] I'd like for you to think of things in terms of what your legacy is. Because when you retire, your legacy can be, okay, I worked 38 years and I retired and I pulled a lot of levers in those 38 years and I moved a lot of dirt. Your legacy can last for decades and decades in this company if you just are more intentional about pouring into these younger people instead of beating them up all the time and telling them how ignorant they are and they need to learn to listen to us older guys.

So if you can just change your, just change your thought process around that. I think that will really make everybody grow together and within two years, one of the things, one of the best things I think I've done in my career is try to make those connections, make it meaningful in a way that this guy understands he's got a legacy.

And within a couple years, uh, I was talking to one of the young foremen and he was telling me after work, he's going fishing with this [00:26:00] guy, you know, and that was, that was such a win for me. And if we can replicate those kind of connections, that kind of mentorship up and down the line and across, you know, so these guys are, you know, like in equal stations and operating or forming in the company.

So if we, if we can get those connections horizontally in our company, as well as vertically in the company, it just, that's the spirit that we're looking for. So everyone looks at the other guy in the morning and they say, Well, I guess I'm here to bring value to you.

Samantha C Prestidge: And I

Herb Sargent: want to, I want you to reciprocate that with bringing value to me.

And if we can just get together and do that together, it's a cultural win and, and usually a financial win too.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah. I think definitely for the people that are struggling with, or the people you see on your team that are struggling to just kind of that basic communication and really trying to rally their team, phrasing things in a selfish way first.

Could usually help them understand, right? Like, Hey, if [00:27:00] you communicate this way, you can build your legacy, or if you can show compassion at first, then you might be able to nip this problem in the bud and it won't happen again. Something else that I'm picking up on here, though, it's going to go way back to the beginning of our conversation around team achievement and that humble pride.

Where you went down to talk to this person, you didn't just tell your superintendent. Oh, well, this is, you know, what you should tell the operator. You recognized, okay, I am the CEO or president. I don't need to be in every fire and every weed, but this is a weed that deserves my attention. And I'm going to go talk to this person.

And

Herb Sargent: I felt that it was important enough for me. Uh, and you know, right or wrong, sometimes the superintendents don't carry the same sway, right? As, as. The president CEO owner, and you know, I had I had earned some credibility with with these older guys. I mean, I'm their age basically, and I had [00:28:00] earned some credibility with them.

And I, to me, if we've got some political capital or some credibility capital, where we use that is pretty important and use it intentionally in a way that hopefully can. Can get everybody on the same direction. So I thought that was an important thing for me to do at the time. I don't always want it to be that way, but sometimes you don't like it until you're introduced to a notion.

Sometimes it's, I mean, it's just alien. You don't even know that my legacy depends on the way I act. Right. So, um, I don't think that's something that most people come out of school thinking. You come out of high school thinking about and so I just think it's important that way. And one of the ways I've tried to think about legacy in a way that a guy named Peter Scropple, who I don't know for any reason, except that this is his [00:29:00] quote is legacy is not what you leave for people.

It's what you leave in people. And, and it's, it's changed my thought process around, around people, you know, trying to leave beliefs and operating styles in them that, that work for the greater good of the whole team.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah, that's such a good, a great philosophy that has such an impact in a personal and professional spheres.

Now, I think for some of the listeners who are hearing your story, or maybe you're looking at your LinkedIn content, the immediate reaction. It was one of my first thoughts was like, Oh, this person's at the top of their game. They're doing awesome. Right. And I think for a lot of people that can sometimes feel very unattainable or just, okay, that's great advice, but like, I can't apply that.

So if we were to go back to the concept of humility, this is one of my curve ball questions for you. Is there a, either a lesson that you learned recently? Or maybe a lesson that you were [00:30:00] reminded of recently that can also just remind us of like, hey, learning is a lifelong journey. No matter if you're going for altitude or you're just going for the next mile on your plane, there's always something to learn.

So is there anything that sparked for you recently? I

Herb Sargent: guess I would say I'm reminded internally myself of those kind of weaknesses I had when I was a young leader, you know, in my 20s. And, you know, I mentioned earlier that like people weren't allowed to be late. If they were late, I'd give them two chances.

And, and then what was, what, all of a sudden one day I was late and, and one of my guys said, well, time out, you're human. And that knocked me down a few notches, frankly. And, uh, and I'm glad that that happened to me early in my career, that I was reminded I was human, um, because apparently I was a little bit more arrogant about things than I should have been.

And, um, so I was glad I was [00:31:00] reminded of that when I was, when I was young and I mean, I can think about the mistakes I made, you know, the big career mistake I made that I mentioned about not investing in people and that costs my employees money.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah,

Herb Sargent: as an employee owned company, when we couldn't take advantage of all the opportunities are out there that cost my employees money and I take that pretty seriously.

So it's, you know, it's not like I can't sleep at night because of that. It's just one of those things I have to own and I have to own it really in perpetuity. I can't just like say that didn't happen. So So certainly made mistakes and, and learn from those mistakes. You know, I'm, I'm aware I can also be a little bit bullheaded too.

And, and so understanding where I need to, to kind of understand that leadership doesn't always have to be [00:32:00] swinging in on a rope with a sword in between my teeth, right. It's, it can, it can just be. You know, one of the examples that I love so much is during COVID, when COVID first hit, I went down to one of our projects in Portland, Maine, and which Portland was kind of Maine's epicenter of COVID.

And I got the team around, the crew around, and I said, you know, look, I just want to thank you guys so much for being willing to come to work. And one of the guys stepped ahead and he said, I want to thank you for keeping us working. That's leadership. You know that it doesn't have to be a swashbuckling thing.

It's that to me that is leadership when this guy stepped up and I've still like that was five years ago and I still on occasion text him and thank him for that and for showing that leadership. Um, so. Watching all these people in my career that have done well, and I've learned from [00:33:00] some people that haven't done so well, uh, in terms of the leadership front and trying to apply those lessons to myself.

But I think, you know, if it's how can I start tomorrow, um. I think you got to go on a personal journey about what's what's important to you and what your values are. And if you know,

that doesn't sound like something you can start tomorrow. I don't know. I mean, for me, I'll pick I got my remarkable tablet here. I'll pick up my remarkable tablet and I'll start writing in it. Just right. stream of consciousness, what consciousness, whatever I'm thinking, I can't stop writing. And, and then underline a few things that are important here to me that I think are what reflect what I value the most in my life.

And I think that's a place to start.

Samantha C Prestidge: I think journaling is is an excellent [00:34:00] thing that we hear a lot when people are maybe in a leadership role, like, Oh, yeah, now you're gonna start journaling, but that's something you can do as an employee as a first time manager, just start journaling and really figure out, you know, what's in your head, what's in your heart, what feels heavy today?

And simple question you can start with here is just how can I support it? Someone else tomorrow. What can I do for someone else? Um, and that's a simple way. It is like, like Herb said here, it doesn't have to be some heroic coming in on a rope swing moment. It could be something small of just encouragement or just helping out with something.

So, wow. Thank you for all of those drops of wisdom today. This has been absolutely a wonderful conversation. For all of our listeners. If you love what Herb said, we will link his LinkedIn in the show notes, as well as the company website. So you can go cyber stock him and learn all the things and continue to learn his wisdom.

Um, if you want to catch up on other episodes or you want to be a guest on a future episode, please email us at hello [00:35:00] at construction trailblazers. com and we'll see you next time.