In this episode of Growth Mavericks, Cal Arnold shares his journey from growing up in a remote area of Minnesota to building a successful business in log home restoration. He discusses the importance of overcoming adversity and the lessons learned from his experiences, including a life-changing plane crash that led to the amputation of his left leg. Cal emphasizes the importance and value of discomfort in personal growth and the necessity of resilience in entrepreneurship.

‍Takeaways
‍Growing up in a unique environment shaped my perspective.
Work ethic was instilled in me from a young age.
Entrepreneurship requires resilience and adaptability.
Embracing discomfort leads to personal growth.
Overcoming adversity can fuel motivation and strength.
Building a business involves navigating challenges and leadership.
It's essential to develop processes and empower your team.
Busy is often mistaken for productive; focus on quality work.
Adversity can lead to significant life changes and growth.
Surround yourself with the right people to succeed.

‍Chapters
‍00:00 Cal's Unique Upbringing and Early Work Ethic
04:44 The Evolution of BTI: From Struggles to Success
10:15 Taking Control: Transforming the Business
14:46 Lessons Learned: Hiring and Company Values
19:25 The Importance of Reflection and Space
21:18 Busy vs. Productive: A Mindset Shift
23:22 Embracing Discomfort for Growth
27:16 Overcoming Adversity: The Plane Crash Story
38:15 Lessons from Adversity and the Path to Resilience

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript
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‍Cal Arnold (00:00)I grew up in the second poorest county in Minnesota, which you could take that a couple different ways, but it's magical in a way that it's just I mean, it's the center of 10,000 like the lake chain of lakes goes up and through there. And, know, it's a frozen tundra in the winter, but it's a tropical paradise in the summer. I was fortunate enough to grow up on the lake, you know, out there.out in the middle of towns. The closest town was 20 miles, 18 miles. But my dad and mom raised us there on the lake. And it was kind of a Hawkfin Tom Sawyer lifestyle. We had pet raccoons. We had a pet bobcatSo it was a unique environment to grow up. I'd never wanted to go into school sports or never wanted to go into go play baseball with the kids. I didn't want to put my socks on. You know, I was kayaking around with my raccoonBut it was an incredible life to grow up that way. We didn't have a lot of money, but I didn't know that.It was just such a rich lifestyle.Adam Callinan (01:04)when did you start or buy BTI?Cal Arnold (01:07)So 2003 BTI, well, it wasn't BTI. It was called Bozeman's soda blasting at that time.This guy blasting, a compressor and a pod that held baking soda. And it was basically granular baking soda and you'd use it to strip cars. We were stripping whatever we could, like anything that we could get a job, you know, the job doing. But I think it did 50 to $60,000 in gross revenue for the year.He was like, Hey, we'll buy this from you. We had to buy a $5,000 truck. And I think the first job we did was a burn remediation or a house like partially burns and we get smoke damage and you go in and you blast off the char. We were there till midnight working. And I think we made 1800 bucks out there and said, we're going to be rich. Well, turned out that didn't happen every day.So we just had to work three jobs and keep doing it. We were too stubborn and too dumb to quit.Adam Callinan (02:07)there was an inflection point there somewhere where it went from a sixty thousand dollar per year company to I mean obviously we're now probably a decade past that at BTICal Arnold (02:15)Well, fifth year was kind of a turning point where it probably did, you know, grew by five times. Reputation caught up. We had a job that paid down the bank and we camped on it for five days. And we said, well, let's go all in. And we had this compressor bill that was a tandem compressor that could do more than just one medium.and we eventually bought out anyone that was by buying out, it sounds more extravagant, but it was like bought their equipment and we would pick up their leads and in that fifth year we were about ready to give up and then we got the call on that big job and before we got that job done, there was another job. So just kept, the work kept coming in and we built this compressor with went into massive debt on it.But it did its job because it got a lot of attention. And so we had more work. we realized that we were doing a lot of, especially in our area, log homes. We were stripping them. And the people were going, what's, can you recommend a painter? No, I can't. And what's the best process for, how do I take care of it now that you got this old failing finish up?So I started to see a, were leaving five things on the table. There's, you know, this place still needed to be sanded down. It'd be stained, it needed to be chained, it needed to be caulked. So I just went at first studying as much as I could, went to the best products, best companies, figured it out. we started restoring log homes in addition to blasting everything from bridges to cars to, and we did that for a few years, 2008 happened.We just fought through that, made it happen. We got on the other side of it. And then about 2010, I said, we got to start a log home specific log home restoration specific company. And we needed to license a name. needed to, so lack of creativity, that company that we had started that 50, it was called blasting technologies incorporated. So we just took that and BTI.and then added Log Home Care at the end. everybody knew they were kind of, that this reputation could lend to this new company. And it worked, you know, in that first year, it did more than the existing blasting technologies. And then since then, it's been on a pretty good trajectory.Adam Callinan (04:43)if we look back, you and I met in 2020 and we met days after you had a pretty significant surgery, but let's come back to that. At that time, that company from my understanding wasLargely running you right? I mean you got it to a point then you left the country because it was humming you went and hunted and skied all over the world and then it I'm Paraphrasing here. So by all means correct and then came back and took it back over and you you were grinding for a while and and then something in there interesting happened Which is how you got to where you are todayCal Arnold (05:28)Yeah, I was traveling around doing a lot and I was leaving it to people and trying to incentivize them with money. it was slowly crumbling. We didn't build it in a day. It didn't crumble in a day. It just kind of slowly kept doing less and less and less until I hit a point where I'm like, okay, I'm coming back and I came back with a vengeance.Adam Callinan (05:42)Yeah.Cal Arnold (05:52)And I was just, we went in and I immediately hired an old friend, but she was just so good when she was going to college at anything fine in finance. And that was where her degree was in. And I was like, Hey, are you happy where you're at? She was like, no, so, okay, let's come back and I'm going for it. And she came back and worked with me. it was essentially the two of us and we.and then all the service providers.I was wearing so many hats. was, you know, selling operations on project if I needed to be putting out fires. And it was, it felt like I couldn't, yeah, I just couldn't stop. I couldn't stop to step back and look at the company and work on the company in this stage. And I did it, you know, kind ofbefore I went and traveled around, I thought I had figured it out. And I was like, you know, I, the company works for me. I don't need to check my emails. I don't need to. So I went too far the other way and I let it crumble. Well, then I came back and I'm like, okay, everything's in my control. And I reacted to the way I stepped out of the company. So I came back and really just ramrodded everything through.But what I didn't do is I didn't allow other people to be. Autonomous in their positions. And I over-complicated sales. That's something that we worked on when I met you. It was like, Hey, where's most of your time? Well, it's in sales right here. It's well, nobody knows as much as I do as my response. There's no, can't teach a salesperson. It's like, we have to develop a process. So we do have started developing processes.processes to follow paths and was like, wow, this actually worked. I started recording some of my phone calls and I would share them with point of contact at the front desk and other people started contributing to the sales and we were all saying the same thing. And it was kind of like this, holy crap, it worked. It's like, well, let's do that again. So develop another process.And you can't just bring anyone into these positions. You know, that's probably the biggest thing I've learned now is it's all about the who, if something doesn't work, it's not necessarily your process that it could be your process, but it may not be that as well. Maybe you just have the wrong person. They're in the wrong position. But, it was hundreds of hours of just going for it. And now I've.Adam Callinan (08:23)Yeah.Cal Arnold (08:29)stepped back into this turning the business into an asset. Me, the business not controlling my day, me not being a slave to my own company. And it wasn't like I just decided to do that. And it happened, you know, it's taken years now since then, but little incremental, you know, add ons is what II've done different than the last time. The first time I was like, okay, I'm done. You guys are running the company now. I'll give you this money if you make it this much money. Well, that didn't. You got to train people. You got to put in the time.Adam Callinan (09:02)Yeah.looking backwards, what would you tell your, you know, five year ago self to, to fast track that? I mean, and let's be clear, nothing massive moves quickly. Nothing big comes easy. It all takes work. It all takes time. There are no shortcuts. There are no like quick flips and tricks for this stuff.But, know, let's maybe tweak that to what would you tell, you know, your friend Bill, who you can see is in a business that is absolutely running Bill's life. And he's working 100 hours a week. He's got a wife and a kid or three at home. What guidance would you give Bill?Cal Arnold (09:47)If Bill truly wants to have the company run as an asset with him, not necessarily hands off, but where it's not dependent upon him as a single point of failure, what I would want to know is you're going to get it wrong a lot. You're going to hire the wrong people a lot. Don't settle. Don't settle for the person that's...And sometimes that works itself out where they leave. But it took me a long time to build it because of the right people. I had to go through a lot of people and some of that might have been on me because I didn't have the tools to give them. Some of it might have been just where they did take the growth that I had set out seriously. I will say right now the team that I have.is rests on our values and through that we have so much trust that we're able to move quickly now. And that didn't happen until just last year and it's incredible. So I would say hold to your values. One, make sure you have values and two, then hold everything against those. And we hear this over and over and over in the entrepreneurial world, but actually doing it is another thing because you're going to have to get rid of somebody that's really good at their job.Adam Callinan (11:00)Yep.Cal Arnold (11:07)because there's a value that they're violating. And it doesn't, it's so counterintuitive, but once that opens up, the rest of the team is like, wow, you know, there's a sense of relief. That's what I would say. I would say it's, you're to go through people, you're going to get it wrong. You're going to be the wrong people. You're going to have to have hard conversations and you're going to have to you're going to take a couple of steps back to make the next 10, you know, next game.You have to accept that, I guess. But don't stop, don't settle till you're like, wow. Because I'm just recently getting to wow. parts of it always felt right. But yeah.Adam Callinan (11:48)Yeah.But the outcome from that is you now have freedom and flexibility.Cal Arnold (11:58)Absolutely. I was able to.What I've, I'm very high visionary. I can design an architect, company, company that I can't necessarily run even. I'm not equipped enough to run the, we'll say to pilot, be at the helm of the ship I design. But there's so many people out there that are so, so far better than I am. And that is, I think that's what, kind of that realization.Yeah.Adam Callinan (12:30)Yeah, it's a criticalrealization and self-realization is such an important skill. It's not a, you know, it's not a talent. is something that you build over time, but having that self-realization with the knowledge that you have to, you know, as Jim Collins would say, get the right people on the bus. And, and if you're in the wrong seat on the bus, you got to get up and move. That's so important.Cal Arnold (12:54)The self-awareness paired with the ego. Like if you could figure those two out, it's pretty incredible when you know what people can actually do. You got the right people in there. To speak to the freedom that you get, what also is a side product of that, which you would never think is, okay, now I have the time and the space to think and essentially do updates to my company, much like your phone has updates.Adam Callinan (12:56)Yeah.Cal Arnold (13:18)I can have a 30,000 foot view and look at something that I've created and how it's operating and either train people to find friction points and bring them to me. Cause those technically come to you in the form of a problem and having the right stance on a problem is like, great. We have a problem, something to fix on the other side of this update. Things are going to be smooth. That's just data rich information. Every time we hit a problem andYou can actually take that problem, step back, think about it, not be reactive and probably nail it in one or two tries. And your team's going to implement, implement it. So it's, that's a by-product that's very significant of actually having the space and time to think and look at your company as a.machine, I guess, for lack of a better description.Adam Callinan (14:09)Yeah.seems like maybe this is changing now and COVID may have played partly a role in this, although given the way we operate as Americans, it's probably not gonna last very long. But it goes back to this adage that being busy is seen in America as a positive thing.which is so backwards and upside down and just flat wrong, having space in your day to do exactly what you just talked about, to just stop and think. mean, I have, you know, we have friends in the entrepreneurial world and one of them that comes to mind, And he doesn't have five minutes to meditate. AndLike that's fine if you don't want to meditate. That's not the point. The point is if you can't find five minutes in a day to set aside and just be quiet to yourself, you need 30.mean, it's crazy, but that's just the way that we operate. So yeah, speak to that.Cal Arnold (15:06)Yeah.I do want to speak to that because busy is a word that I've been really preoccupied with in a way that every time I find I bump into a friend, anyone in our especially at our age, how are doing? so busy. How you been? busy. How's your day? busy. What'd you do? I have no idea. All as you're telling me when you say that is I'm out of control. I I'm I'm it's chaotic. My day is chaotic. I'm reacting toAdam Callinan (15:22)Yeah, yeah, I know.Exactly, that is the point.Cal Arnold (15:38)my to-do list of the world, which is my email. I'm reacting to everyone else. And then, so I've been diving down this like, okay, what's the word that you want to say then? Like if Adam, you come to me and you go, hey, how was your day today? Productive. That feels a lot different than busy. And maybe I did a couple things, really quality things that were essential to moving the needle. But when you're busy, you're in a hamster room.You're just and you've accepted that and the more you're in that hamster wheel the more you accept it and that's going back to I guess to connect what you said in beginning is like I was in that hamster wheel that wheel it was impossible don't tell me what I can't what you don't know you have no idea what I'm in that's how it feels like when you're in that busy world it's like the wheels will fall off if I leave well there's no other way and you know going back to I think Virginia's star or what it says most preferthe certainty of misery over the misery of uncertainty. We're so scared to jump out of that busy hamster wheel. But for me, busy versus productive is a big thing. And I think I heard Farrah say it, but busy is lazy. If you're busy, that's a form of laziness. And you go, where's that laziness? Well, you never sat down. You never thought about what's the most productive.You never made that block in your schedule for the things that were important to take control of your own schedule.Adam Callinan (17:01)wholeheartedly agree in this, you know, we get deep into the rabbit hole of efficiency, which is not just a business term. mean, I think it'smission critical to create efficiency throughout your life so that you have the space and the time to, you know, in our case, we have kids. when I'm at the house, I want to be able to put my phone in a drawer and not worry about what's on it or what's ringing on it or what's in my email or whatnot and 100 % fully focus on that time with my young kids because they're only going to be young for so long. And I'm never going to regret looking back and wishing that I would have worked out more. And I take that very seriously. It's a it's aCal Arnold (17:35)I think.Adam Callinan (17:38)big part of my conscious when I'm at the house.Cal Arnold (17:41)think a lot of people attempt it. They stick their toes in the water when they hear one of the greats, know, some of the giants that tell us, hey, trust us, take this time, take this quiet time, and you dip your toes in it. It's so uncomfortable. The level of discomfort to sit there and try to do nothing but just think is we retreat. We retreat to the known. Like, I just gotta get something done. And that's...Adam Callinan (17:56)Yeah.Cal Arnold (18:08)Everybody has their own form of discomfort where they retreat to, but because when you say it, everybody's going to be like, well, yeah, that sounds great. The most productive thing I can do is take a couple, take, take 30 minutes and sit down and think. That's fantastic. But when you actually do that. And you haven't done it in years, decades, it's incredibly uncomfortable. Things are just like pinging at you and whether that's.Adam Callinan (18:30)Yeah.Cal Arnold (18:35)your phone or just in your mind.Adam Callinan (18:37)Yeah, we're going to go head first down the discomfort rabbit hole because I think it's so important. mean, to your to the point about being able to sit in the quiet for 30 minutes, if that's uncomfortable for you, I think it's important to note that anything you do with the, you know, with the exception of some, you know, don't poke yourself in the arm with a needle for fun pain, but if it hurts, you probably need to do more of it. It's the same with exercise.Like if you know running a mile on a treadmill hurts, you probably need to do more of it. If sitting, you know, by yourself in the silence for 10 minutes hurts, if it's uncomfortable, you need to do more of it. You don't need to necessarily do it for 10 minutes. You can increment your way up to it, but why don't you start with two and then make it three and then four and go from there. Magic things happen when you create the opportunity to find comfort in that discomfort.Cal Arnold (19:34)I have a lot to say on comfort and mediocrity and what's on the other side of effort and my opinions, but I think it's massively contributes to what's wrong with a lot of the mental illness and everything else that's going on in the world right now. comfort has just been the norm. Everybody wants to be comfortable and you recede back to the comfort when something's tough.I think we'd be a lot more happy as a society if people just lean into that effort. Pushed against it. Every time you push against something, you get stronger, you become better. The proof in the pudding is like, if you're having a tough day, go do 10 pull-ups, 50 push-ups and go sprint down the road and come back. And I guarantee you, you'll feel better. What's on the other side of that is you express some effort.Adam Callinan (20:12)Exactly.Cal Arnold (20:26)but we could sit in this surface level dopamine on our phones or on the TV or in what we call comfort now. And it just kind of slowly erodes us away. We become weak. We don't strengthen our, we'll call it discomfort muscle or effort muscle or that muscle where you could sit in an uncomfortable state.Adam Callinan (20:29)Yeah.It does.Cal Arnold (20:49)That's what real things are produced. When you're putting in effort. It's never been easier. I tell this to my employees, especially the ones that are in their young twenties. It's never been easier in the history of ever to stand out as exceptional. You just have to be consistent at staying in discomfort andcontinually work on things over and over, just consistent with discipline. I don't think there's any room for even motivation in there because motivation leaves you like, you know, in the dark all the time. That's when you have to tap into that, uncomfort that muscle of discomfort, that discipline.Adam Callinan (21:29)Yeah.So speaking of discomfort.seven years ago, you put a plane on the ground.Cal Arnold (21:39)not softly. It was six years ago. It would have been January 2nd, 2019. I caught a power line over a Missouri River and I was flying up the river into the sunset, doing everything wrong. It's back roots are in the background, know, horsing around probably.Adam Callinan (21:45)Six years ago, okay.Cal Arnold (22:06)We were landing. I know where I landed that day in some fields and some friends short supercub strips and I probably wanted one last pass to fly up the river at 15 feet or we have no idea what happened because I post romantic amnesia, but Yeah, I snapped about the first power line cut off power to a hundred and some homes out the middle of nowhere which then ultimately saved my life because I cut off Netflix and thenThe second one pulled through the vertical stabilizer of the plane, took all the airspeed, tried to get the plane down on the ground, which is you end up doing the opposite of what you think. Instead of pulling up, you dive to get air over the wings. And I was able to get it off the river, but I tried to grease it into this field is what everything from the FAA and upon investigation. And I fell short.hit a drainage ditch and yeah, absolutely crumpled this thing into a smashed, it looked like a smashed Coors cam. Probably hit it well over 120 miles an hour. My brother and I were both in the plane. We both miraculously survived. They didn't find us for two hours. I lost over half the blood in my body, or feet, head bones, things sticking out. was, luckily it was cold enough that night we didn't bleed out.Helicopter life flights to the turbine jets and I ended up in Salt Lake that night Yeah, so then I was intubated there breathing tubes feeding tubes all of it for a week And then I was there for 30 days in total and then seven surgeries following that for the next two yearsAdam Callinan (23:48)your final surgery was an elective one.Cal Arnold (23:52)My right foot had a lot of complications and I wanted to see the outcome of that. Ultimately what I was actually dealing with for a right foot and I found a surgeon that was incredible out of Seattle who went to a 16 hour surgery on that right foot and he was able to salvage it,and at that point I had accepted a life that was less physical and less extreme than the life I had been living. But I had talked to one particular surgeon who was on the Olympic board. wasthe best of the best. somehow got in touch with, somehow got his office on his last day of retirement, the most renowned in the U S foot and ankle surgeon I ended up in his desk because of a guy I met in the mountains elk hunting that followed my whole journey. But he had told me, he had just said, said, what would you do if I was your son? What would you tell me to do?They said, it would be my daughter in this case. And I've been doing this for my entire life and I would tell you to amputate. So I called off the surgery. I called my wife and I said, hey, change of plans. And cause he said, I'm signing up for a life of surgeries. So then yeah, January, I think 28th in 20, 20, 20, 21, I elected to amputate my left foot below the knee.And it turned out to be, it was the fastest recovery I had of any of the surgeries I've had in those two years. And that's right when you and I started. I think that the first meeting I couldn't meet you at our group was because I was in surgery. So yeah, I chose that for quality of life and performance and physical ability. It's proved to be the right choice.Adam Callinan (25:23)Yeah.Yep.So I can speak to having been out in the back country with you on multiple occasions chasing big critters around.I'm in pretty good shape and you crush me. Like where did that come from? And you're doing it with one leg. Have you always been had that type of drive and comfort with discomfort or did it change after your crash?Cal Arnold (25:59)Well...I've always been competitive in a sense and physically push the limits and like pushing against that red line back to that feeling on the other side of it. You, when you sit down and ask yourself at end of the day, where did I not give all my all, you know, now granted in the back country, there's times where you should back off of that, you know, just for safety, but,Adam Callinan (26:31)Yeah, sure.Cal Arnold (26:37)I did ratchet it up. When I elected to do this, I said, I'm going to come out on the other side of this and I'm going to make the old me look like a wussy. I don't know head to head if I could beat up my old self, but that was the note I carried forward andI was at, BSB and on the other side of it, we were going through the physical assessment they didn't know after a day of spending the day with me that I was an amputee. And then they found out because I was wearing shorts at the, at the room afterwards. And like, I would have never known. And one of the, one of the employees said, well, I just want to let you guys know that.Cal actually had the fastest rucksack run. And they baffled whatever. I said, well, it's not fair. And they said, what do mean it's not fair? I it's not fair. It's like, I had a level of adversity that you guys didn't have to tap into. And I think that's where I say Ratchet did it up. It's like, I don't mind blowing past people on the trail with one leg.Adam Callinan (27:19)Yeah.Yeah.Cal Arnold (27:39)I'd be lying if I didn't say it feels okay. But I just, it's more of just not letting it affect, you know, just, there's some adversity overcoming it. You might have to work out more. You might have to do more deadlifts. You might have to, you know, work harder at getting to the level you want to maintain.I'm at that age of 43 now where it's like, okay, we're, up against this. I'm not just going to settle. I'm not going down without a fight. You know, I, talked, I see guys that are in their mid sixties and they're incredible shape. And if I see him in the gym, I actually go up to him and I ask him, was like, what, what's your ritual? What's, what's something you struggled with between 40 and 50 and then 50 and 60. I try to get as much data as I can because.I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be BA in my 50s and 60s. That's so whether it be an amputation or aging or anything, any form of adversity. Like you can find some fuel in it.Adam Callinan (28:43)Yeah, yeah,that's really well said and from the standpoint of somebody that has not had to face massive personal adversity, me. I grew up in an exceptional middle class family in Flagstaff, Arizona. My parents are epic.You know, everybody's got a little bit of something, I never had, you know, I didn't have a plane crash. I didn't have, you know, accident that left me paralyzed. I think it's easy for people in my position to look at people in your position that have had some like massive event that creates this adversity and default to, they're like that because of that. And that, a way,I think absolves the person that didn't go through the adversity. It absolves them from actually learning and absorbing from that person. Because frankly, it's impossible for me to really put myself in your position. I know your story and I know you personally, and I mean, I learn a lot from you as a human.How I try to get as much of that as possible without having gone through that event is by going and doing really hard things and doing them consistently. Because going and doing a really hard thing one time gives you this little blip, but going and doing hard things, little hard things every day and a big hard thing at least a couple of times a year creates consistency in that. that that's the closest that I can get.to the change that you had from that, I mean, horrific event.Cal Arnold (30:23)Quit making, I'm not telling you this, but for anyone listening, quit making anyone exceptional. Whether if it's a level of adversity they went through, whether if it's they're the top of the podium in, they're just working harder. That's it. They don't have any God gift except, there's a little bit of that, but there's, by saying,Adam Callinan (30:26)You can tell me it is fineCal Arnold (30:50)you know, Michael Jordan's he's an anomaly. you're denying the fact that he outworked everybody.Adam Callinan (30:55)100%.Cal Arnold (30:57)And every time you say that, you protect yourself and you shelter yourself from the actuality that you're not even on the podium because you're not trying. That's, and I think we do this a lot in the business world, like, oh man, that person made a billion dollars or this person, you know, they run a, they're a CEO of this.Adam Callinan (31:18)Yeah, yeah, you haveno idea what that person did or had to do to accomplish that.Cal Arnold (31:23)And all we ever see is the highlights. We're like, wow, that person, that person's just incredible. They're like, you know, gifts from God. Why don't we start showing all, you know, the hardships and the fact that they didn't, they didn't get beat down. They didn't stop. They kept getting up, kept getting up. That doesn't make, I mean, it makes a good story in a little bit, but it's kind of brutal. Like people don't want to see.Adam Callinan (31:25)Yep, exactly.Yeah.Cal Arnold (31:47)You don't want to see that, but that's the truth. It's like, if you have a business you've eaten glass for a while. You've got beat down. You have worked harder than other people. That's why I love wrestling as a high school sport for middle school and elementary kids.Adam Callinan (31:48)Yeah, you see the hard stuff. Yeah.Cal Arnold (32:07)because they can look at the podium and look at the top three kids if they're number two, if they're number three or they're number four, it's only because that kid worked harder than that. They're better than you you can't blame it on a teammate. You can't blame it on anyone else. It's individually you and that kid's better. That's why I think individual sports are really important for young kids. But that might've contributed a little bit to the way I guess I'll say where I am. But being in.I think that's really important. think a lot of people to tie comfort into this is they would rather just say, it's easier if we just say Adam Callinan he is a genius. is, you know, they put you up on a pedestal, they make you exceptional and they make you out of reach. Anything you're doing is out of reach for them. Now I can sit, I've justified me sitting back and not working as hard as Adam, but you're not going to frame it as that.Adam Callinan (33:03)Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I think it is.absolutely paramount to share the hard and the mistakes and not just talk about the highlights. I mean, I'm going through a lot of that right now with, you know, within Pentane and the launch and the product, everybody wants to point at the experience at Bottlekeeper. And frankly, it is an important part of the process. I Pentane came from the experience of Bottlekeeper and the highlight reel at Bottlekeeper, the three sentence long likeyou know, zero to eight million, no employees, tens of millions, private equity transaction, no investors like blah, blah. That does not remotely detail how difficult that was for nine years. It was unbelievably difficult. And the things that I had to put in place to keep myself mentally on the rails through that difficulty, I think it's important to share. In fact, I literally just started doing a post on LinkedIn, that first one on awent up yesterday and the title of the post is dumb shit I've done. The whole point of it is literally is just to detail a story about some ridiculous thing that we massively screwed up that almost burned the company to the ground. And I think I just think it's so critically important for entrepreneurs to talk with other entrepreneurs at various levels of air quoting success here because it's such a subjective concept.I just think it's so important to talk about the things that, you where the struggles are and that, and what you're doing and have put in place in your life to get to the other side of them. Cause companies fail when founders quit. So how do you stay in the game for as long as possible? And you do that by creating durability. You do that by becoming anti-fragile.Cal Arnold (34:49)If I took everything you said and put it into a little box and tied a bow on it, that would be the best mentor in the world. Like mentors aren't people that did everything right. They're the ones that have been exposed to all of the things they've done wrong. And that's free to us. All we've got to do is read and study the information that's not just boasting about everything right. You know, have to dig that up a little bit. I agree. I think not getting derailed.every time something goes wrong because it's like, this is creating the story, my story. Is this a story that people would read? If it went right the entire time, nobody would read it. And this is kind of your hero's journey. Are there dragons to slay? Are there issues to come over? Are there times where you're just derailed and you got to bring yourself back in the game? Like grab yourself by the face mask, the helmet, like, come on buddy, get back in the game. Like, does that actually happen?And then learning to love that, not in like a masochistic way, but like in a, okay, there's something good coming out of this. I've learned a lesson that I touched the stove, the stove was hot. I'm not going to touch the stove again. And now I'm going to write a process for the rest of my team to not touch the stove because it's hot. Andthe more people you surround yourself. I think that's probably why we gravitate towards each other. It's like, I don't mind talking about all the things I've messed up. Like I think of things in a way of like, how would I present this to a mentor? what do I want to ask a mentor? Who would be a good mentor? One, you would. But it's, tell me something that I don't know about. Like what is something that I believe to be true that just ain't so? You know, these kinds of questions.Adam Callinan (36:33)Mm-hmm.Cal Arnold (36:34)is what I want to know from a mentor. don't want to hear their success stories. mean, yes, you have a bit fuel, but it's like, I want to know where you zigged when you should have said.Adam Callinan (36:43)Yeah.Cal Arnold (36:45)But how do you keep getting back up, I guess would be another way to say that. Yeah.Adam Callinan (36:51)Yeah, that's the resilience part,right? Like how do you survive?Cal Arnold (36:56)we make a lot of wrong decisions, but I think I also think you have to make fast decisions. think quick decisions decisions are important. And I think think about them. Take that time we talked about in beginning and think through them, but collect as much data you can. But you need to not get hung up on making decisions because it might be the wrong decision. You can always correct it. No decision is a decision. Doing the wrong things doesn't mean you failed. You're justcontinually collecting data and making choices. We stand on a mountain of our decisions and youYou just can't argue that people that have achieved that are sitting on a mountain of success, not perceived success, but like actual success fulfilled. want to know what decisions that they make. when it was hard.Adam Callinan (37:46)no I love it I completely agree very eloquently said so where can people find you where are you doing socials anymore I'm not really I spent a time on LinkedIn that's about itCal Arnold (37:56)Yeah, yeah.So I'm a quick little thing on socials if I have time, if I have a minute. I'm about to start again because I reframed it. When I came out of the crash, I came out of the crash with this, I call superpower, which I didn't realize it was a superpower. I thought it was from head trauma. I didn't like screens. I didn't like social media. I felt like every time if I'd look at Instagram or something, it was like I ate a bag of M &Ms. So I avoided it.Adam Callinan (38:02)Yeah, of course.Cal Arnold (38:22)And I like, well, I just don't like screens anymore because something visually my eye through the trauma, whatever happened. Well, then I would catch myself for five hours, stand straight eight hours and I'd be working doing something productive on the screen that didn't affect them. So it was just kind of this like, what's the, what's the data I'm taking or putting out? Am I being a consumer? Am I being a producer? One, am I taking in garbage? Am I, and I got very picky with my diet.of whatever came in. I moved far away from social I just didn't give social media any attention for a while. And now it's a thing where...I framed it a little bit differently. Now you can use lot of positive things I could use it for much like networking. I think we're gonna get left behind if we don't tap into this a little bit. But it will be TheCalArnold on most of the from LinkedIn, Instagram, probably Facebook for the immediate time cal@btiloghomecare.com.Adam Callinan (39:24)very cool I deeply appreciate you taking the time while you're relaxing in Hawaiithanks for coming dudeCal Arnold (39:30)Perfect.Thank you. Appreciate it.