Episode 13 -The Obstacle is the Way : Embracing Stoic Wisdom in Real Estate and Innovation

Have you ever considered that the roadblock in your path may just be the stepping stone you need? Join Wayne and me as we tap into the wisdom of Ryan Holiday's "The Obstacle is the Way" and the time-tested Stoic principles of Marcus Aurelius to unearth how our perceptions not only shape our responses to life's hurdles but can transform them into opportunities for unrivaled growth. Our discussion traverses my journey as a resilient real estate developer who, faced with innumerable challenges, learned to harness optimism to forge ahead where others might retreat.

We take you through a personal odyssey of growth and persistence, from a novice in the real estate world to building a robust portfolio, all while seizing upon the Stoic belief that adversity is not an impediment but a catalyst for creativity and success. I recount the birth of Valley Forge Innovation Park in Fillmore, Utah: a venture that whispers the promise of revolutionizing sustainable construction with American Spec Modular's manufacturing prowess and American Spec ESG's waste-to-lumber breakthroughs — all despite the echoes of skepticism that often greet pioneers.

Rounding out our conversation, we share how relentless pursuit of personal growth and gratitude not only enriches our lives but can also be a powerful force in overcoming and reframing the obstacles we encounter. Whether it's a lighting project tangled in bureaucratic red tape or the grander scale of innovation in material sustainability, we're eager to show you that the questions we ask in the face of doubt can lead us down paths filled with success and transformative solutions. So, come along as we delve into these compelling stories and inspire you to question your perspective on the very obstacles that stand before you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Hey guys, welcome back to the show Wayne Aston. Here with Aston Incorporated, joining me is my co-host, dallin Aston, and we are going to be covering some fantastic content, starting with the book the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Halliday, one of my all-time favorite books ever written, and I did a refresher on it recently. I actually do a refresher on this book almost every year. It's one of those books that you reread and you absorb and you apply, and the reason I wanted to cover this one today, dallin, is because I know you've read it and I'm interested to see and pull out some of the nuggets that you are implementing out of the book. But this inspires me to one of the universal principles we're going to be talking about, so we've introduced our universal principle series. This is one of them, and the universal principle that we're going to be covering in part of this show today is perspective determines action.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:36

OK, and I love this because if my perspective is X, then it absolutely influences the output. And if you have a totally different perspective when you're in the exact same circumstance, it's going to be a totally different output. So, perspective, you could think of this as maybe the lens through which everything passes in a human, and so now that's an interesting concept, because everyone's got a different perspective.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Everyone's perspective is a combination of life experiences, programming who you hang out with, education, religion, politics, all of these things, and so unique perspectives drive unique outcomes and unique behaviors.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Well, it's interesting you say that because it's something that I have noticed a lot over the past year. I think you and I have had this conversation a lot, whether it's in the car or just on the phone or whatever, talking about this perspective determines behavior concept. And it's so interesting when you acknowledge that this is a thing. Then you start to notice, oh man, I do this in this scenario. But then someone else does something and you're like well, why on earth would you? Oh, and I feel like for me it's helped me be more loving in a sense, because then it says OK, well, perspective determines behavior, their perspective is this, so they're going to behave that way.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Well, yeah, and it causes you to pause sometimes. Like in the moment pause and consider that their perspective could be influencing what this output looks like.

Speaker 2: 3:24

And so now you can't put judgment on that because you can't see.

Speaker 1: 3:28

You can only see the tip of that iceberg. There's all of that iceberg under the surface.

Speaker 2: 3:31

You have no idea what's going on, that's right, really really right. And, like you said, all these different things factor into religion, political views, their current scenario in life, relationships, financial, I mean. All this stuff contributes to your perspective and also how you feed your mind right.

Speaker 1: 3:51

That is a major influence on perspective what you consume, what you feed your brain, and that's a choice, oh man.

Speaker 2: 4:00

But that will also determine your behavior, because it influences your perspective.

Speaker 1: 4:04

So I think it's really powerful principle. Absolutely Considering this whole principle here, I've developed this thing that you know. I like to joke around with people and meetings and I always say that I'm the king of silver linings, that's one of my superpowers, because you can chop my right arm off and I'll tell you why this is good for me.

Speaker 2: 4:30

OK.

Speaker 1: 4:31

Like that's extreme, but seriously, like as a real estate developer and as a serial entrepreneur, both of those things really require someone to have almost an ignorance to challenges or almost an agnostic attitude, Like it's, almost like this perpetual optimism.

Speaker 1: 5:02

And so our analysts out there listening our mathematicians, like our quantitative analysis. Those are the guys that build our models and spreadsheets. They don't necessarily have that. They are very logical and they're very you know one side of the brain and they view things completely differently than what I'm talking about, because, as a real estate developer, it never goes smooth. It just never goes smooth. So combining real estate development with entrepreneurship, that's a really good combination, because entrepreneurship is not smooth and we've talked about a lot of examples already. We're 13 episodes in. We've covered some of that. But I think the resilience that comes from me is this attitude that it's OK for me to get knocked down. Getting knocked down is part of being in the game and it's like I know I'm gonna get back up. How many times am I gonna get back up one more time? Well, how many times is that? Well, it's always one more. It might be a hundred times, it might be a thousand times.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Like there's no other default answer than I'm always going to get back up. And that right. There is a major differentiator between a successful entrepreneur and one who collapses in the apocalypse event right, that brings up the obstacles away.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Right, absolutely. So I mean that when you say one more time, hey, my arms chopped off. This is why that's a good thing.

Speaker 1: 6:45

That's obviously not a good thing right, yeah, yeah, it's like well, that's you know.

Speaker 1: 6:50

I hear that I'm like that's not a good thing at all, but one of my but to your point, one of the things that I love so much about the book is there's a lot of references to Marcus Aurelius, a lot of stoicism in this guy. So if you're not a tenant of stoicism, you should check it out, because stoicism is Marcus Aurelius guided the most powerful military force in the history of man. Okay, I mean, he conquered multiple continents. And you do the research on Marcus Aurelius and what the Roman Empire did. It was biblical, but I love his attitude and his philosophies on stoicism. He a lot of what this perspective determines you know, behavior determines action comes from as stoicism. Marcus Aurelius is saying look, if I choose to be hurt, then I'm hurt. If I choose not to be hurt, I'm not hurt. And so you know. You can apply that like oh, my arms chopped off. Well, that means I get to focus a lot on the other arm and my chest and my shoulders and all these other areas that my legs are gonna get really big.

Speaker 1: 7:58

My legs are gonna get beast mode legs right.

Speaker 1: 8:02

So, when you start to train your mind into the programming of. You know, and you can use this in a daily situation like it's, when you feel yourself feeling like a victim or a martyr, you feel that, oh, I've had a shit day, man. Well, at least I'm not in prison. Well, I bet that could be in boot camp. Right now I could be in the gas chamber in Sandy. You know Marine Corps recruit depot in San Diego sucking in hot gas you know, slobbering out of my mouth, nose and eyes Like it could be so much worse.

Speaker 1: 8:37

And so the stoic attitude of Marcus Aurelius really permeates this whole book and this whole attitude of being the king of silver linings. It's choosing how I feel about the circumstance around me, Right?

Speaker 2: 8:53

well, when I, you know, I saw a picture the other day, it's like look, neither of us have lost a limb. You know this analogy here, it's like man, that is something that is so I can only imagine. Right, and I saw a picture the other day of this guy that had lost his leg and it was a before and after picture and it was one of him in a wheelchair. And then the next picture over was him balancing on one of his legs, but he was shredded.

Speaker 1: 9:18

I was like what.

Speaker 2: 9:20

I mean how on earth like that just goes to show you right, you know you don't have to take it from me or you and that scenario. I mean we could talk about things that could be applicable, but that right there, you know people are doing it, you know. I mean that just was super inspiring to me and I think it goes along well with this. It's like, man, you know, you make, you know what doesn't really matter what happens to you. What matters is okay. What are you gonna do about that?

Speaker 1: 9:45

Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of examples out there. That's a very extreme one. I just use the extreme example of losing an arm because you hear about, you know, the gal that had her arm eaten off surfing by a shark. Oh yeah, holy cow, but what has she done? You know, she's turned it into a torch. What she's done is she's flipped that into a total advantage of her life. She's motivational speaker. There's a movie, there's all of these things that wouldn't have been there if it weren't for her losing an arm. And so how interesting is that?

Speaker 2: 10:18

Like, take a second and really think about that. That just hit me like a ton of bricks and hopefully it hits listeners with that too. Like what you just said. I don't know. You know you gotta realize how powerful that is. None of that would have happened if that didn't happen.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Yeah, like that is wow so now you can step into this chaos and you can find gratitude. So, guys, here's the game. The game is when I'm getting my teeth kicked in, I'm finding a gift in it. What is the gift in this that God has intended for me? Cause there's always a gift in it. There's always a teacher inside of the chaos. Okay, so, instead of focusing on the feelings of being a victim or being screwed over by partners, or you know, screwed over by the government, right?

Speaker 1: 11:06

I mean there's a lot of popular hot buttons right now we could be complaining about politics all day long and we choose not to.

Speaker 1: 11:13

But plenty of people are Feeling victimized because they have to pay $6 a gallon for gas, for example. Yeah, lot, there's a lot of relevance to this today, right now, guys, and I'm just saying that the game here, finding that gift, that's where you really get, that's where you develop some Jedi skill into, because it's not just mindset, I'm not just talking about how I choose to look at the world. I'm talking about actually taking the obstacle and turning it over onto the flipside into an advantage that I can use and implement in my actual life, in my daily execution. That's the game right.

Speaker 1: 11:55

One of my favorite examples in the book you know the authors talking about World War Two and I'd love history I mean, I will make references to every one of the wars over these shows, but this one was in reference to the invasion of Normandy and talking about the German Blitzkrieg. You know Hitler had built up this incredible Blitzkrieg was the German word for lightning war and they had built up these incredible columns of Panzer tanks which were way, way superior to the American tanks that we had at the time, the Shermans. And what Germany was doing really effectively for quite some time against Allied forces is they were rushing into these cities all over Poland and you know wherever they were invading, and they were using these lightning fast columns of tanks to go in and overwhelm the target. And what would happen is the response was so, the response of whoever was being invaded inside of a city was so. There was so much chaos and so much fear that that inspired that it caused some real problems.

Speaker 1: 13:09

Well, eventually, general Dwight D Eisenhower got, got his his heads of you know, the authorities there all together in a conference room and he laid out a plan.

Speaker 1: 13:23

He had finally come up with a strategy to use against this Blitzkrieg, this Blitzkrieg that the strategy the Germans were using. And so he realized the that the demise was found within their own strategy. And what they ended up doing is they ended up realizing that if they could bend it without breaking and allow a column of tanks to penetrate a city deep enough, then they could surround their rear and flanks, and he referred to it as like a meat grinder. He's like we're going to let the column of tanks into a net or a meat grinder surround them from the back where they can do nothing about it. And that is how the war was one like World War Two, was literally one in that epiphany that the General Eisenhower had. So, guys, that's an example, another extreme one, but an extreme example of implementation, of using the obstacle as the way. And this comes from, again, marcus Aurelius' teachings of the impediment the impediment becomes the way.

Speaker 2: 14:34

Right, well, you can also take that to a more day to day scenario application. I mean, you absolutely can. But I mean I also go back to you know, let's take that principle and apply it to the guy with the one leg that got ripped right, that got shredded. It's like, okay, well, that's, that is first of all amazing. But, man, if he had his leg, there's still an obstacle there For all of us. There is still an obstacle there. Well, what is that? It's going and literally tearing down your muscles. It's eating the right things, it's doing the necessary things to become that way, leg or not, right, and that in of itself is an obstacle. You know, ryan Holiday talks about how it's like. You know, you plant your feet even, and again, I'm not quoting him directly, but I just recall through the book he talks about planting your feet and just taking the next step. Yeah, just continue inching closer until you build that impenetrable fortress that is you.

Speaker 2: 15:34

You know, until you become stoic. You become so clear that this obstacle will get me to where I want to go. The obstacle doesn't even phase you anymore. In fact, it doesn't even discourage you anymore. In fact, you view it as a necessary step. You embrace the chaos at some point.

Speaker 1: 15:52

Yeah, when you've programmed yourself to the extent I'm saying, you embrace the chaos when it comes, because you know, that you're on the path of the next level of expansion. Yeah, and you're like, and you're like. Oh my gosh, I can't imagine why this is happening to me, but I can't wait to find out what the gift is, because God's got something in mind for me and it is beyond my current comprehension.

Speaker 2: 16:16

Yeah, right, interesting.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Now I want to apply this to you and your situation. You know you talked about in our very first short episode of Origins just you know, you kind of deciding you wanted to step into the world of being a real estate investor and build a real estate portfolio. What was the number one obstacle for you in looking at that goal and what would either keep you from the goal or have you achieved the goal? Can you remember what the biggest obstacle was, boy?

Speaker 2: 16:52

I mean, I can think of a lot, but probably the number one, if I had to say, would be just the lack of knowledge. I just was sitting there looking at something. I was like this is something I want to do, but I literally know nothing about it. Yeah, and that was super daunting and you can. That honestly trickles down to all these other things. Right, If I don't know how to do it, then I don't know what questions to ask. If I don't know what questions to ask, I don't know what to get good at. If I don't you know what I mean, Like I don't know what I don't know, yeah, and that was a massive obstacle for me. Yeah, Right, and so you know. And again you can go back and say, well, I did, I had a shallow credit profile, I had, I had no income. I think all those things are side notes to the fact that I just I knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea how to get there.

Speaker 1: 17:43

So when you have no idea, you have no certainty and it's easy to say no. Yeah, oh, oh, it's easy for fear to say this is crazy yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:53

There's no way for me to see how to even start this, right? How am I supposed to buy two condos for roughly 400 grand each? Right, I have no money? Right, that seems like an obstacle. I think the listeners are like, like I'm trying to underscore here. For the listeners, that is an obstacle. Money is a big obstacle, right, and you can choose for that to be the obstacle that will keep you from the goal. Yeah, now you could have come to me and said hey, dad, can you lend me money or can you do this?

Speaker 2: 18:23

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:23

And I knew that if I removed that obstacle by giving you any money, even for earnest money, not even, not even if I gave you five or 10 grand for an earnest money deposit to get over the first pump it would have crippled you, it would have crippled you because you would have not. You would have not become resourceful enough to go find it yourself, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 18:47

And what you did is you turned that, that obstacle of no money, into the absolute path. Like it's remarkable how it turned. Like you, absolutely this. So, guys, this isn't. This actually happened. This is what is actually possible. And it turns out that, instead of you know down, I mean I, I, I give him some ideas. Hey, you should be talking to mortgage lenders, you should be talking to investment bankers, you should go out and talk to friends and family and see what comes of all of it. And I was thinking that he might be able to go and get, you know, some investment loans from the bank and maybe raise a few bucks to, you know, fill in the gaps. Well, what does Stalin do? He goes and he and raises all cash for the entire takedown of the entire and then structures it in a way that his investors come in and do the debt and the equity. That's phenomenal.

Speaker 1: 19:41

I mean, that's exactly what I'm talking about when an entrepreneur decides they're going to do it and then they remove, then they take the obstacle and they flip it into the advantage and it becomes the way. That's the. That's exactly what I'm trying to get across here.

Speaker 2: 19:55

Well, another thing too, is that obstacle is now the story, right? So when we're talking about, you know, the, the surfer, they got her arm bitten off. It's like that. That has become the story now. And then you know, and all these other things that are happening because of that happened because of that. Now, all these things in my life are happening now because of that obstacle.

Speaker 1: 20:16

There's credibility.

Speaker 2: 20:18

Oh yeah, there's self confidence.

Speaker 1: 20:19

Yeah, Like you, your fear is on a different it's a totally different plane.

Speaker 2: 20:25

Yeah, the perspective, my perspective, is completely changed. That's right. It's like oh, you know what? It's totally possible. And now, and and I'm so grateful for that obstacle too, because it taught me hey, look, you know, not only is this possible, but it's an incredible opportunity to learn and grow and become someone who can actually execute on this type of thing, the goals that we have, if they're good enough, if they're audacious enough. We will not be the person that can accomplish those goals today that we need to be to accomplish those goals. If we were that person, those goals would already be done. That's a huge that is huge.

Speaker 1: 21:05

That's gold.

Speaker 2: 21:05

That's kind of what I'm what I'm attributing this to is like, back then, that me was not the me that could have done it. Yeah, but you know, it took that obstacle to grow me into the person that could do it. Yep.

Speaker 1: 21:21

Yep, absolutely. This is a this will be an ongoing theme of. Maybe we might touch it on every episode of the show. Who must I become to do X? Who must I become to reach this target? Who must I become to make this impossible or improbable impact on humanity? Because the version of me today is capable of what I have today, right and so, even like a month from now, I've got to be bigger, faster, stronger, smarter in ways I can't, I don't even know, don't even know yet.

Speaker 2: 21:58

Yeah Well, and I would argue that, look, the version of ourselves today is by no means bad. It's it, you know, and we can, people can view it as that. Oh, if only I were this, if only.

Speaker 1: 22:09

I were that. That's very dangerous, in my opinion, right I?

Speaker 2: 22:12

agree, but but I guess what we're trying to say is like look, when we have a vision of what we want the future to look like, if that future is not current, it's like, well, okay, then we're not the person that can accomplish that future. But the the current, present moment is obviously the number one priority. That is the most important, because the only way we can become so in the future is if we choose to start becoming so now.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Right, this is why I use this term. You know serial entrepreneurs in the ruthless pursuit of personal expansion.

Speaker 2: 22:44

Yes.

Speaker 1: 22:44

Because, because you, I came to the, the awareness that this version of myself, that I want to be, that I'm chasing, the ambition like that, like that, that hero of mine, that's a version of me that's that's way out there, that's got all of this and doing all of that, and that that goal me.

Speaker 1: 23:06

There's a lot of learning, a lot of skill and a lot of perspective that still has to be increased, and so so that drives me to be taking continuing education to you know my fitness goals, to my. You know my spiritual ambition and my connectedness with God and my relationships, and, like all of these things we talk about and constantly expanding, we talked about expansion as an obligation. Well, that is my belief system. I think that God, I believe strongly that God wants me to find it. He wants me to realize and become that highest, most powerful version of myself I can possibly be, because he knows how much, he knows how good that will feel if I could ever reach it.

Speaker 2: 23:51

Right? Well, that makes now even more beautiful. Right, in my opinion, Absolutely Well, now, with that perspective, that's another perspective.

Speaker 1: 24:00

With that perspective.

Speaker 2: 24:02

now I can take a look at where I'm at now and say, man, I sure am grateful for now, I sure am grateful for the present. I'm sure I'm grateful for what I'm doing now, because that's going to lead me to there.

Speaker 1: 24:14

And that's a that's a really cool point to bring into this whole thing, because when we talk about being the king of silver linings, their gratitude is a must. So when we're trying to find God's gift in chaos, gratitude in all things is required.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Right.

Speaker 1: 24:33

Gratitude and you know what, guys? There are days candidly in recent days, but consistently over my life, where I feel like I have nothing to be grateful for and it's insane. It's like ego. It's like an ego cloud over my brain. That's a cloud of stupidity, like how can I sit down and not make a list of things I'm grateful for? But some days I just feel so beat down and so depressed. I'm having gratitude and I'm just having a prayer of gratitude to God for the fact that I'm on planet earth or the sun is shining, I'm grateful that I'm breathing and that's all I can muster up sometimes and that seems so weak. But it's critical to, on a daily basis, to find gratitude and feel gratitude, because gratitude for exactly what the present, like you said, the present right now, that's key for us to be mentally, emotionally, energetically in that space or on that plane, to be able to manifest something different. Right.

Speaker 2: 25:42

Well, not only that, but I think there's another element of this, where you're sitting here and you can, you know, if you practice continual gratitude right now, it will allow so that it becomes a habit when you make it. And I say make it in the terms of whatever your goal is. Part of this whole conversation, I think, is that there's no finish line. You're going to constantly be becoming that person, but, man, there's always going to be those days, even when you're, you know, even someday, hey, you're a billionaire, you're still going to have those days that that status does not take away the fact that you're a human being with real emotion yeah, you'll probably have more of those, right, the goal is not for things to get easier.

Speaker 1: 26:29

The thing is the goal is to become more capable of handling more chaos. Right With gratitude with gratitude, with love and grace yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:40

Absolutely, and as you expand you'll be more and more conditioned for those things to continue growing and happening to you yeah Right. And saying, oh, I'll be grateful when I have this. That is a, that's a dangerous, because you won't be. If that's your opinion, then you're going to get the million dollars and you're not going to be grateful.

Speaker 1: 27:01

Yeah, yeah, you wish it was 10 million at that point.

Speaker 2: 27:03

Yeah, it's the same thing with giving you know you're going to say, oh man, I would, I would give if I only had money. Well, no, you wouldn't, yeah Right, no, no, you wouldn't, you have to be you have to be very present, focused very focused on right now.

Speaker 1: 27:16

Yeah, Because right now is all you can really impact right like your choice in this moment.

Speaker 1: 27:22

You know I'm thinking of some of the some of the real life kind of narrative for the listeners here on where I've implemented perspective determines action or the obstacle is the way mentality, and you know we talk about Sage Creek a lot. We had. There's a lot of examples. One that's coming to mind was we were working with Grand County officials on the lighting design and you know I'm neck deep and designing this whole pool complex, this resort area, and it's in my mind it's the most amazing place, right? Well, as we submit all the plans and the lighting plans and the construction plan set, the building inspectors push back and they say, well, the lighting code for the pool area has to, it has to provide 50, no, excuse me, five foot candles of light per square foot.

Speaker 1: 28:15

Well, if you guys know, if you guys know what that measurement is. That means it's like daylight, it's sport court lighting at night, and most of the hotels in Moab have this sport court lighting at night. It's ridiculous, it's uncomfortable, and we hired spectrum engineering here in Salt Lake phenomenal lighting engineering firm, who take lighting very seriously, who really were the only company that I could find that could that could help me help the county see things clearly. And so we conducted some studies. We did light studies. We actually had someone down there, you know, measuring light. And here's the interesting thing, guys, is that Grand County's got this dark skies initiative and you know, moab was ranked the number one place on earth to view the stars in 2019 in National Geographic Magazine. So the dark sky, the dark skies initiative, was a big deal down in Moab, right, but all the hotels don't comply with dark skies initiative. So there's this because of this 50 year old antiquated archaic code right in

Speaker 1: 29:19

their building code. And so we're we're kind of having a collision with the building department. We're saying, guys, you want sport court lighting daylight for safety reasons on the pool deck at night, but you also want to celebrate the fact that you can see the stars better than anywhere else on earth. These are in direct kind of you know antagonist positions here. So what we were able to do is we were able to put a report together that proved that a certain Kelvin rating 2700 Kelvin rating on the lighting scheme is what's required in order for the body to start producing melatonin and to be able to start relaxing.

Speaker 1: 30:04

And 2700 Kelvin is a lot lower light and it's a lot warmer. It's a more yellow, orange, hue, okay, and so now we're measuring warmth, we're measuring the light capacity, we're measuring how much light, and we were able to articulate in a full write up a case that we were able to get Grand County to make an exception. So the obstacle turned in the way we were able to use the dark sky initiative and say, okay, we can accomplish both guys. Here's how we do it. What the resolution ended up being was building inspectors allowed us to install the lighting scheme that we designed, which was really only producing about 20% of what the code required much lower lighting than required. But we had emergency switches so if we had a casualty in the pool or a problem in the pool, we could flip on the emergency lighting. When it would turn up to that five foot candles of light per square foot and we could meet that code.

Speaker 1: 31:05

But that was a great compromise because it did a lot of. It was a lot of firsts in Grand County. It's the first resort to have true resort level lighting, ambient lighting, relaxing lighting. It's the first commercial, might even be first residential pool to have colored lighting in the swimming pool itself, Cause that was another piece of the code was they wanted to have bright white lighting in the pool. If you've been to Sage Creek, like you have, you know that pool changes colors.

Speaker 1: 31:34

It's a mystical thing, it's a total experience but, it's the same. The building inspectors gave us the same leeway to say, okay, if you have emergency switches, you can kick it on the bright, light, white, and that's how we resolve that. So, instead of us just looking at code and having a collision with the building department saying no, no, no, we were able to get clever and resourceful and just help educate and help them understand a better solution.

Speaker 1: 32:08

And it became the way, the dark, the actual fact, the dark skies initiative. And so we actually, in all of that, we got to write the new dark skies initiative. It was a two page deal and we got to work with Spectrum Engineering to co-author an 18 page dark skies initiative. So now all the hotels condos down in Grand County are gonna be forced to get up to that you know that standard here within the next few years, so that's really cool Very cool.

Speaker 2: 32:38

Yeah, that's very cool.

Speaker 1: 32:41

You know there was another. There was another for the listeners edification. If you haven't read the obstacles the way, you've got to go get it. But I'm also recalling this story about Amelia Earhart and you guys, everyone knows Amelia Earhart. She was the first female pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean and her goal was to do that solo. But back in those days being a female pilot wasn't a very cool thing right, it was like and all of the people that were in authority to actually authorize that weren't having it.

Speaker 1: 33:18

They didn't want to see that, and so there was a really great lesson for any entrepreneur that comes from Amelia Earhart situation. What happened was she gets a phone call one day and she receives this just basically offensive offer and they basically say, hey, good news, you're gonna get to do your Atlantic flight, but we're gonna have two male pilots, they're gonna chaperone you. We're gonna pay them a ton of money. We're not gonna pay you any money. Are you interested?

Speaker 1: 33:52

And you know, I mean what are most people gonna do? Most people are gonna say pah, pah, no, they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna say are you kidding me? Yeah, the default is gonna be to the negative reaction. The ego is gonna say go pound sand. But Amelia Earhart was enlightened and she said yes.

Speaker 2: 34:11

Wow.

Speaker 1: 34:12

And she did it. And what it did was it changed everyone's perspectives. It proved that she was capable. It gave her credibility and track record and within very short period of time she did end up doing her own thing. And one of the lessons here for anyone listening, is that if nothing is beneath us and we're willing to be humble and we're willing to just take action if we're not getting paid, but if it's maybe just for the possibility of getting some credibility or some track, record under our belt then take action.

Speaker 1: 34:52

That's better than sitting waiting for the perfect conditions, Right, Okay, I'm gonna say that again. We cannot wait for the perfect conditions. They will almost it's almost never going to happen that the perfect conditions exist for us to start our new business or launch our new app or launch our new product. So, as a serial entrepreneur, you've got to say you've got to put a stake in the ground today and say I'm going today.

Speaker 1: 35:21

It doesn't matter what it is Now I'm gonna remind you today. Today is actually we're in the middle of July and gas prices are creeping up on $6 a gallon. Inflation is over 9% and many people are saying should I buy a real estate investment?

Speaker 2: 35:41

today. I was just thinking about this Because the interest rates are really out of control. And.

Speaker 1: 35:45

I mean, I don't know, you know, and they'll go on and on and on about should I do something right now Because the political environment is such and I've heard, you know, I'm listening to CNN and they're saying that there's a bubble, there's a real estate bubble coming Fucking, kidding me, come on.

Speaker 1: 36:06

Like stop listening to the news, guys, stop. Okay, if you watch CNN, do not listen to the show anymore. Just turn our show off right now. Okay, the news is poisoned and you cannot go listen to all of what the media wants you to hear, because that's a propaganda machine, it's a fear machine.

Speaker 2: 36:28

Okay, sorry to cut you off, but on that note, excuse me for laughing here, but I saw a video the other day of this news reporter and she was talking and she was like she was. She was saying how someone was trying to control the media and she was like under her breath. But it was caught on the mic and this video went viral and she says that's our role or that's our job.

Speaker 2: 36:58

And I was like whoa shoot, yeah, like you think about that. How do they want you to feel and react? Right, they want you to be paranoid. They want you to be afraid, because that sells right so anyway, back to your point. I just had to throw that in there. It's interesting.

Speaker 1: 37:18

All right, guys. I mean you're gonna hear a lot about Fillmore Utah, okay, as we get going, as we get into episodes and episodes as the show goes on here. But we're working on a big project in Fillmore Utah. We're calling it the Valley Forge Innovation Park. Awesome, okay.

Speaker 2: 37:39

Valley.

Speaker 1: 37:39

Forge special place in my heart, harkening back to George Washington 1777, winter encampment, and so just the Patriot in me is always kind of leveraging details and names and things like that. So Valley Forge Innovation Park it's starting with 151 acres that we own in Fillmore, utah, and I can't tell you how many lenders I've talked to to do the second round of financing on this who are like and they're all saying Fillmore, utah.

Speaker 2: 38:16

I mean there's only 2,500 people that live in Fillmore what's in?

Speaker 1: 38:19

Fillmore. Fillmore hasn't expanded in 50 years, right. But now, perspective determines behavior, right. And none of these lenders know what I know. None of the lenders know what went into the site selection and why I bought the property, and they don't know why we're developing what we're developing in Fillmore and this is a great example of the obstacle is the way, because when the general population is saying you're crazy, this is a stupid idea, why would you go to Fillmore, utah? I know, if I get enough people saying I'm crazy and this is stupid, that I'm doing the right thing.

Speaker 1: 39:04

Right, so this is an ongoing thing, guys, and I'm emboldened and I know I'm the unorthodox, I'm the outlier, and my certainty comes from myself, not validation from lenders.

Speaker 2: 39:17

Right.

Speaker 1: 39:18

Like and if I can't educate lenders to come around and see the vision, then I don't want to be working with that lender anyways, yeah. And now when the right lender sees the vision and says, oh yeah, my God, that is amazing, boom. Then it gets done. And that's what's happening here. And so we're in the early stages in Fillmore and this second round of capitals is coming around. But what we're developing down there includes 1.2 million square foot manufacturing facility for American Spec Modular and a 600,000 square foot production facility for American Spec ESG.

Speaker 1: 39:58

American Spec ESG we've mentioned is a produce. What we do is we will accept and process landfill waste and turn it into superior lumber products. Okay. And our leading product is railroad ties. It's a fantastic product. The cool thing about it is is 91.5% of rail ties right now in America are made of oak soaked in creosote and they're I mean they're cheap. I mean they're like 75, 80 bucks a piece. But the problem is they have to be replaced every five to eight years at great and ongoing costs to the state of Utah or any state or Union Pacific or whoever the authority is that's paying for their rail lines. What we're producing here with American Spec ESG is a rail tie made of trash that has the tin sial and spanning strength of steel, fireproof, waterproof, mold proof, termite proof, doesn't expand and contract in a freeze thought condition, holds a spike better than wood and we can guarantee the tie for 50 years without replacement. Geez, okay, that's a home run.

Speaker 2: 41:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:17

That's a home run in innovation and in technology. It's an industrial technology, but we have contracts lining up with some major states to buy these ties and actually start a campaign of replacing the old ties. One of the cool side benefits is the fact that the old oak ties are an environmental problem. They're soaked in toxic creosote Interesting and that leaches into the ground, creating an environmental issue wherever the rail line is. So it doesn't suck that these new ties don't leach into the ground. They're actually carbon negative footprint.

Speaker 1: 41:54

And so we're cleaning up an environmental issue and saving these states hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Okay, so one really cool spin to that whole thing is we're the only company on earth that can take that old, toxic oak tie. Suck the creosote out of it.

Speaker 1: 42:17

Split it chip it, dry it and reduce it down into an aggregate that we can then mix in with all of the garbage and we can reuse all of the old ties we collect to make a new tie Again. The obstacle is the way. So there's just innovation and action. We're implementing Now Fillmore. There's gonna be a thousand examples of why Fillmore is obstacle is the way.

Speaker 2: 42:41

But I wanna.

Speaker 1: 42:41

Just I'm introducing Fillmore into this equation now because it's relevant.

Speaker 2: 42:47

Yeah, and I mean, as we wrap up here, I also wanna kind of touch on that in the sense that, man, I'm facing that as well. The obstacle is the way because, like you mentioned, interest rates, all this stuff going crazy, I mean, let's call it what it is, that's a real obstacle. But if you lean into that and you say, well, okay, instead of saying this can't work, saying how can this work, yeah, better question, right, better questions Right, yeah, it makes all the difference.

Speaker 1: 43:19

Yep, well, I'm excited to continue on, guys. Thank you for chiming in today. We'll wrap this episode. Hope you'll join us on the next one.