Transcript: Understanding the Building Industry Through Personal Freedom

Hello and happy Friday. I am Brittany Campbell Turner CEO and founder of Constructor and Constructor. Ooh, this is early for me. I'm not used to doing live streams this early. Let's do that again.

Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday. I'm Brittany Campbell Turner, CEO and founder of Constructor. Who is a constructor at all? It's not just constructors that build, not limited to real estate design or construction, not limited to workplace or facilities.

But a constructor being being part of this community is more than that. We care about doing the right thing. We serve people with the built environment. We create, maintain, impact quality spaces for people. We do this by building strong relationships.

We lead in data utilization and systematizing a way the way that people interact with these physical spaces. So join our community by going to Constructor. That's ConstructRR.com and follow me on social media. Find me at anywhere at BrittanyCT. All right.

So Felipe is our guest today. And he is not a new member of the Constructor community. He has been on the podcast a couple of times thus far. But we're bringing him back on today. And before we actually introduce him, I want to let you know that, first of all, you're in for a treat, but you may be watching or listening on a couple of different platforms.

And I want you to interact with us today. I want you to let me know you're enjoying the conversation. Go ahead and use the back channel on Clubhouse. If you if you have any comments, we also on Periscope, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitch, Facebook. Please let us know.

We will be interacting in the chat. Also, if you want to participate in the discussion, you can join us on Clubhouse. And I'll be putting the link in the chat. We'll be leaving a little time at the end so that you can ask Felipe any questions live through Clubhouse, like call in radio. So with that, I'll be introducing our guest and then saying a few words from our sponsor and then get into the interview.

So Felipe engineer Manriquez is an international speaker and business practitioner with decades of experience in process improvement, project planning, execution, change management and employee engagement in the construction industry. He works to help others implement easier, better and faster business strategies. He is a Jeff Sutherland certified scrum master and scrum trainer by Scrum, Inc. In addition to being a product owner by Scrum and certified Scrum skill practitioner. Now, a word from our sponsor.

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So with that. We're going to bring our guests up on the stage. Welcome, Felipe. Good morning, Brittany. Good afternoon, people overseas.

Good evening. Those that should be asleep and not watching this live. But I appreciate you being here. Oh, man, I'm just so happy that we're doing this. I know when you and I chatted about having this live stream, we we talked about a lot of things actually this week.

And, you know, one thing that I've recognized you from the day I I don't know if it's the day I met you, but the instance I met you at a lean at a lean construction in Congress. And we just connected immediately and almost like, well, this is cool. Like this guy, he knows what he's talking about. And like he he talks to you as a person, like you not about like work, not about like personal stuff. Like it's just he's he cares about you.

And I felt that. And you know what? I'm super, super happy that I've met people like Felipe and the lean construction community. He's become a dear friend. And, you know, we can we can riff about anything, honestly.

But what we're going to focus on today is his passion and why? Felipe, why do you do this? Yeah, I love that, Brittany. And the this is everybody doesn't know that this. So thank you for giving me the chance to share this.

So my story is one of trials and tribulations and many lessons hard earned and learned. And so what I like to do, Brittany, like you said, I like to connect with individuals, that's just something that must be done for me. That's one of my conditions of life is connecting with other people to learn all the great things that I do and have done has been a result of the magical people in my life and even the people that work against change, which is pretty common. Actually, when you think about it, Brittany, most human beings don't like a lot of change.

They're true. And so, yeah, but I've been lucky to have a good perspective on adversity and overcoming challenges. And construction is fraught with challenges and adversity. And from just how we we do things as an industry. And I've even been called by some as an outsider to the industry, even though it's pretty much the only place I've worked in.

But I've come at it from a unique perspective. I'm actually trained as an electrical engineer. Don't tell anybody, Brittany, it's kind of like a secret. You got to be like three cups of coffee down on my LinkedIn profile before you get to that part of what I learned. Well, if you want, if you want any bedtime reading, guys, if you have trouble falling asleep, there is a beautiful piece of content out there that will, you know, give you some soothing, you know, experience.

And that's Felipe's LinkedIn profile. So just make sure you check that out. Absolutely. It's too long as a bedtime story. Yeah, you'll be asleep before you get through my work experience.

That's for sure. But I am. Let me ask you really quick. Like I when I met you, I did not know you were from Chi town and you're more from Chicago than I am. Like I'm a suburbanite.

But like talking about coming up where it's not exactly like 100 percent, like great conditions. Like you told me about that. Do you want to share a little bit about your. Yeah, I'll I'll definitely share. So when I was a kid, my dad, we lived, we grew up in the suburbs, about 30 ish, 40 ish minutes south of the city.

But as a kid, we my dad worked in the city in which I guess would be called the Bronzeville district. And then we had some part time work working at a convention center on the weekends. And that was in the stockyards. If anyone knows where the stockyards are in Chicago, it's got some really interesting history. And we worked at a convention center there.

So from the time that I was eight years old until finishing college, I'd spent much of my time in the city. And as a young kid, my my dad actually told me, said, you have such a good disposition. He's like, as a little kid, you're working part time. And of course, my dad was sure paying me because there's no favoritism in my family. He was going to make sure that I had the right proper experience and that no one would see that I had an advantage.

So started disadvantaged by design. Some of the brilliance of my father. And I even was a little scrapper. I used to take leftover food and sell it. So imagine this like eight year old kid selling food to adults and then taking and making a profit.

Wow. It was that was like my early days. My dad said like the word no never really affected you. He said you were just from the get very natural and negotiating with with us. And he's like, he even has admitted recently, Brittany, that sometimes I scare my mom and dad with the way that I negotiate with them even today.

That is crazy. So we yeah, we grew up in the city and my dad was like really big involved in soccer. And as part of my rebellion as a child, I am really a fan of no sports other than today, just baseball. So I'm still a Cubs fan. I'm married into a beautiful Cubs family.

My wife loves and we follow the game. She follows more than I do. I'm kind of like on the bandwagon, which I'm totally OK with. I'm running and gunning in other areas, as you know. But yeah, growing up in the city, we were in the city all the time, going to soccer meets on the weekends downtown.

And my brother and I would just get lost and roam around and have adventures out in the city. Love. I still Chicago is my home in my heart. Always love it. Love that part of the country where the Midwest Nice emanates from.

Yes, right. Absolutely. 100 percent. And we're still in the Midwest. You know, just just one state up.

But yes, nothing like Chi town. That's for sure. Well, thanks for sharing that, you know. Marcus, really quick, if you can, if you can post the clubhouse link in the in the chat, I do want to just give people the opportunity if they do want to hop in on clubhouse. Like I said, I will be asking for people to come up on stage if they have any questions for Felipe.

Felipe is a frequent clubhouse goer these days since I invited him. So you do have the opportunity to catch up with him after this, too. Not today, but at another time because we both have other commitments. But he is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to scrum, when it comes to lean, when it comes to personal growth. So I mean, you talked about going to engineering school, right?

I mean, I studied engineering, too. And, you know, somehow we both meander to this side of construction. Tell me, like, how did you get from engineering to to scrum because there was there is a path there. Could you share a little bit about that? Yeah, I yeah, thank you.

I got into a start. I actually got off as a computer engineer in school. I had built my first computer when I was 13 or 14. And I've been nerding out on stuff ever since I do a little even programming for fun, even to this day, Brittany, like I don't let it go. And and so got into construction by a friend that was working at our school.

And then I absolutely loved the idea that it would be hard for people to throw my stuff away. Whereas like in the in the engineering space, special electrical engineering, like components that we were designing and making in school only had a shelf life of that time two to three years. And then it was rapidly increasing. And I took I took all the six years to get out of school. Brittany, like I didn't I didn't glide through change majors to double E.

Anyway, I started working in construction for a long time. And Brittany, a lot of people don't know this about me, but I've actually been a workaholic. And my my lean journey started with overworking myself to the point where I got physically sick and I suffered from Bell's palsy. And the right side of my face became paralyzed. And the doctor said, no problem.

All you got to do is rest for two weeks and then go back to work. Your face will fully recover and you'll be like nothing ever happened to you. Three days later, I went back to work for in on day four. I went to shift work overnight and went from working 12 hours a day to 18, covering two shifts. And my face didn't heal even to this day.

I actually woke up this morning, Brittany, and just brushing my teeth. My right eye started to tear. And it's not because I was like having some moment of thinking like how magical this toothpaste was. It's because sometimes my tear duct activates without me having to be activated as part of the consequence. So that was a great lesson that put me on the path to this is not sustainable.

And you have to make an adjustment. And some years later, because I didn't learn my lesson right away, Brittany, did not learn my lesson. And I had a person intervene on me about 13 years ago, and they just asked me a couple of questions, which put me onto my lean journey. And I'll come back to those questions in a second. But I started reading books.

Oh, my God, I started learning again at work, Brittany. And Amazon and its infinite genius of the algorithm said, you've been reading all these lean books. Have you considered reading The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Dr. Jeff Sutherland and J.J. Sutherland?

And I said, it's got a red cover. I opened it up. I looked at the preview. It took a harsh tone on the current management system, bought it, downloaded it. I was all about it, Brittany.

Three days later in the index, I finished the book. It's got 11 steps to start using Scrum. I started it. And then two years later, I'm sitting in Palo Alto, California, in a classroom with 12 Scrum masters. And Jeff Sutherland is teaching me how to be a better Scrum master.

And Jeff says to me, Felipe, you're the first construction person I've ever seen. And I said, Jeff, I won't be the last. Two years after that, Brittany, Jeff's company, Scrum, gets in contact with me. And they said, everywhere we look around the world, when we talk to people in the construction industry that are dabbling with Scrum, your name is mentioned. And so how would you like to make it official and teach Scrum to construction for construction professionals?

And I said, Jeff, I don't even have to even think about it. I told you before, you just asked me, I'll make it happen. And so one of the things that Scrum did, Brittany, which is the title of what we're talking about today, personal freedom. Jeff, Jeff and I are completely aligned on how we should work. Work should serve us, not the other way around.

And personal freedom is something that we take very seriously. You remember that lesson that I didn't learn with my face? That's a beautiful reminder to me that fuels me. I have limitless, limitless energy to help people in my mission of giving people the option to build easier, better, faster for themselves so they can have more freedom to do more of what they want and shift the game so that work serves them and not the other way around. And that's where it's been incredibly transformational with Scrum.

And I've used it in designing construction, Brittany, ever since I read the Red Book, the art of doing twice the work and half the time. And I always tell Jeff, like, I don't get any money for, you know, helping him sell the book, and he doesn't even need the money. He doesn't even care about it. He said the reason he wrote that book, Brittany, is because in an effort to be more lean, it answers the question. Why did Jeff and Ben Scrum?

So that book's purpose for existence is just to answer the number one question that Jeff always gets. And I love that about him. So that's that's phenomenal. And honestly, it's really inspiring to hear your story, Felipe, of how you were a workaholic. It affected your health.

And lots of people have similar experiences, sometimes not as visually. Yeah. Right. Like, but but they have health problems as a result of overworking. And that's right.

You know, heart disease and just. I mean, the the multiple effects of stress alone. That's right. Brittany, you're nailing it. I talked to a doctor yesterday and he said that the number one thing that your body has to overcome is stress.

And you only have a certain load that you can handle before you start to become open to other things. And if you want to bring your best self to every day, Brittany, you've got to get your health in order. Yes. Right. Look at look at Brittany.

Those of you that can't see Brittany on Clubhouse. Hello, everybody on Clubhouse. We love you all. But Brittany is just like radiating like she is just the picture of health. And I'm working my way towards that.

Brittany, I'm still learning my lesson. So I appreciate you like my new skincare routine. I do. Today, I think this is really great. I you know, anybody who wants to know what it is on the live stream, you can hit me up.

I will definitely let you know what I'm using. There you go. Beauty secrets. I mean, beauty secrets, personal freedom. This show has everything.

Brittany. But, you know, to your point, though, like you do have to take a step back. And I mean, there was a moment I had I had burnout. And, you know, I've had a Brent Darnell on the show to talk about my burnout story. He talks about emotional intelligence and and being connected with those parts of you that you don't typically think about when you show up at work.

You think about getting the tasks done. You think about reputation. You think about like these these. Task oriented things that when it comes to. It's back to what you said, right, like work should service when it comes to the things that actually serve us as human beings.

Those things are neglected. And that's exactly what I was doing when I had my burnout. Like I had stomach issues. I've had digestive issues like over over the years. And so like I can speak to that like I have had stressful experiences.

So anybody who's listening to this, you let me know if you're stressed out. And guess what? You're going to hear some more about how you can overcome that by thinking about things through personal freedom. So continue listening to this conversation. OK, so yeah, back on the personal freedom, Brittany, like you just triggered me.

So people, I have a story to tell Brittany. So this week I went down and I visited with the team. It was the second time I went to visit them. And we've been having some interactions with this construction team for over the course of right before the pandemic, virtually during the pandemic once or twice. And then in person recently this year, and some of the young engineers were stressed.

They did a standup meeting and the project manager even recognized that his team is looking a little haggard as they're into the final stretch of getting done. And he said to people, he's like, cheer up, smile. We're going to celebrate in two weeks. We're going to celebrate our success. Like we're going to make it.

We're going to achieve certificate of occupancy and we're going to get over the final hump and then and then cruise in. And then we had a conversation after we're talking to some of the people and we found that even here where we're doing some things, we missed a couple of steps that are causing undue overburden on people. What is success? If people don't know what winning is on their project, they might spend a lot of energy doing things that just drain them down and don't add value to what they're trying to accomplish.

And so that little alignment step, people just jump right over that, Brittany. They jump right over like what is success? One of the things that we heard is that there are multiple parts of this project and the client doesn't need all parts for the victory in two weeks. And so right away, automatically with my scrum brain, prioritization is the number one problem that organizations have. Fortune 10 companies, Brittany, have this problem with prioritization.

Fortune 500 companies and every construction project I've ever been involved in in 20 years has this problem. Prioritization. How do you know one thing's more important than the other? So when the team should have realized if well, maybe they can't realize it because you don't know what you don't know. Oh, luckily, there was a scrum master to metal.

We talked about prioritization. We said, now that now that we know the cat's out of the bag, the owner doesn't need this part of the structure at this time. Let's de-prioritize, lock that down. Everybody focused on just the other parts that took a burden. I saw people, if you're watching me on club or on the live, people were like this with their shoulders hunched.

And we said that that that part of the structure can go back. People did this. Shoulders went back and down. The load that they were carrying voluntarily was removed and lifted with a sentence. You know what I have to say to that?

This is the way this is the way. Yeah. You give people an opportunity to like to think through things systematically by telling them about prioritization. And that's just one key component of thinking through things from scrum. I think that's brilliant.

But like, I've experienced that, like you just talking about it. I'm like, wait a minute. How am I feeling stressed right now? But but I think it's a it's a good gut check to say, OK, well, how do I reorganize myself? Right.

So please continue the story. Yeah. So then we yeah, we we held back. And everyone went from I don't have time to think. I don't have time to sit down and talk to you.

Once we had that moment, Brittany, where the shoulders went down, load was lifted overburden was reduced. People said I was talking to one person. One of the other PEs came into the room and said, I am so sorry to interrupt. I said, never be sorry. I'm here for you.

They said, I want to talk to you. And when you get done talking to this person, please come talk to me. I'm going to wait to make sure that we talk. And so I finished the and I was actually I was actually talking about personal freedom with the person when they interrupted. I mean, that was exactly the theme of our conversation.

This is a an up and coming engineer working their way towards being becoming an assistant manager. And we were talking about growth opportunities for them and what they needed to do. And so we wrapped that conversation. And I'm proud to say, Brittany, that a lot of the people that I work with do actually get promoted. And I tell people, like, I just help you all achieve your hopes and dreams.

Like I figure out that's one of my talents. And what I do is I can figure out what people need and then reflect it back to them so that we can dialogue and bring it to the surface and then they can quickly plan and achieve it. And I mean, I've lost track of how many people have gotten promoted in the last five years that we work with. So I go back and talk to this younger engineer and I found out he's from Indiana. Beautiful Indiana, beautiful Midwest.

And that was just a coincidence. And we get to talking about, are you working the job or the job working you? And he started and he realized that the job and work in him, like he'd been, you know, trial by fire, like comes into the project less than a year ago. And he and he's taking over for somebody that that left the project abruptly. He never had a chance to to get clear on what is the job.

And it just became like a constant, here's the things that are hot right now and never got to see big picture wise what this is. So for him, we talked, I said, let me let me give you what you couldn't get when you got here and let's see if it makes a difference. Because I always tell people that the principles and values that we use with lean thinking, such as respect for people, which I keep right here on my chest, Britney, all times. And respect for people look into it for the real definitions, people.

It has to do more with humanity and our attitudes towards each other than just giving people what they want. That's not it. It's not coddling in case you're wondering. I've had some very respect for people, conversations that were uncomfortable and difficult back to the kid, the young man. So the young man, we say, what is the main purpose of this job?

What is the owner trying to achieve by building this project? And he said, no one's ever asked me that. We've never talked about that. I was like, well, we're giving you your chance to reflect. And so we made some we paused and made a space, Britney.

And he had the right answer. He nailed it. He said, and I think it's probably because, you know, recently just got out of school himself in this building is for a school. So it's easy for him to cross that that gap. Close the close of himself, have that aha moment himself.

And then from there, I said, now, knowing what you know, what you've realized, looking at the work you have to do before we leave tonight, what are you going to do differently? And he said, oh, he's like, now I can see that this is not important. This is not important. This is more important. Like he instantly had like that prioritization automatically, which was my goal all along, help him prioritize, anchoring on the client's need, putting the project first.

And then then he can make decisions on where do I need to focus my energy? Because we have limited energy in a day. The poor little guy. You can't just like Red Bull your way through the world or rock star your way through the world. It's not sustainable.

I know firsthand, Britney, every time I look in the mirror, I know it's not sustainable. Oh, man. And so he made that shift. And then we started talking about what types of lean methods support putting these principles in the daily practice. And I and he said, like, we tried some things on this job and they they didn't they weren't taken on.

They weren't successful. I said, hold on a second. What do you mean by successful? So then we talked about what that means. Yeah, we had to define that.

And I said, OK, now I know that in your your version of success, does not allow for learning and failure. And I said, that's unfortunate. Let me share my definition of success and learning. And I talked about how critical it is to fail and even more important to fail safely without, you know, damaging the people around you or the organization. You can't have safe to fail experiments.

And we talked about some of those strategies, Britney. But at the end of that, he was relaxed in his chair. Smiling. And he said, I'm going to sit down tonight when I get home and I'm going to rethink the rest of this project. And I was like, that's that's a success.

That's victory right there. That's that was and he was one of four people that we did a deeper engagement with. And I didn't have any slideshow and have any PowerPoint. I didn't, you know, beat down people with tools. I didn't tell them, like I didn't shake my finger at them and say, you're not doing lean things, which people in our industry and our space do.

All of you finger waggers the second your hand goes up and starts wagging that finger, keep wagging it until it points back at your face and say, what am I doing? How am I showing up to help these people? Point it right back at yourself. And you either help and people are getting in their way. Simple.

And there are so many nuggets, Felipe, and Marcus and I have been putting a few of them up on the screen. You know, when you said to that young engineer, your version of success does not allow for learning and failure. And he was able to then pivot and say, oh, let me let me figure out how I can take those things into account when I'm thinking about success and restructure. That was huge, huge. And then you cannot have safe to fail experiments.

Like that's huge as well. I mean, if you if you don't expect the failure and you don't expect to learn from the failure throughout the steps in the process. You're missing out on these amazing opportunities to grow. Right. And that's what you're describing, which is which is epic.

I love it. It's epic. And now now I told him my first met him when he was interrupting all politely, Brittany. I said there's two ways, maybe three that we're going to dance here. One is I'm going to take this hand and hook it into your shoulder and I'm going to I'm going to pull you in.

The second way is I'm going to take the my palm, put it on the nape of your back and I'm going to push you into something. Or the third thing is I'm going to open my hand. You're going to open yours and you're going to pull me towards you. I said opening and pulling me in is going to be the most fun. That's so good.

That's so good. OK, so we've been talking about personal freedom. We've been talking about understanding the business industry through that lens of how do you how do you achieve personal freedom? How do you do the things that allow you to achieve your personal goals? But not only your personal goals, identify those priorities of what's important for you to achieve the most focused.

Achievement of the goal that you're you're meant to achieve as a result of the project that you're working on. Right. Those are some nuggets that we've hit on thus far. We've talked a little bit about your story already here. Type in the chat if you're enjoying this story, guys.

We have a few people here. We have a nice good list here on Clubhouse. Thank you so much for joining in and listening. If you're watching, please type something in chat. Let us know that you are enjoying this conversation.

I have. You know, we're just talking here, Felipe, but I did have like I did have just a a follow up question here to the story that you're sharing here. Like you have a driver that is. Stem from your experiences of being. Being smacked in the face almost literally, right?

By your own experience. And it it has fueled you and and it provides you with something deep in your belly that says you have to do this for people. That's what I'm hearing from you. It's something that must be done, Bernie. It's not an option.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's I mean. I even had.

We're lucky to have you, Felipe. Thank you, Brittany. I was like, so I told this P.E. I was like, some of my friends, I help with the helping hand. And some people, unfortunately, get the boot.

And my boot goes to different parts of their body to help motivate them and move when when they need it. And I only do things with folks that actually want it. It's all voluntary. I don't force and push things on the people. But I do have a very good sense and intuition about what people need and what they want.

And we make that happen for a lot of people. And for those of you that don't know, like if you contact me on LinkedIn, especially, you know, follow the show, give me comments and ask questions. Like I will answer questions forever. I've talked to people, Brittany, all over planet Earth on every continent so far, except Antarctica. But it's just a matter of time before we get to those scientists working on the South Pole.

We'll get there. I told Jeff, we're going to get scrummed down in Antarctica soon. And but the what people don't understand is like this. You can start these things and make these changes on your job at any time. At any time, you can gain more freedom today, right now.

And I don't just do this at work. Like I said, it should serve you. I use the experiences in my work to serve me on my personal growth and my development. And a lot of people, going back to what you said about goals, Brittany, a lot of people set their goals too small. And I want to encourage everybody to make stupid goals, make your goals so big and so stupid.

Yes. And so dumb that if you said it out loud to somebody, they'd laugh at you and mock you until you achieve it. They'll be clapping for you. And so that's what I've done, Brittany. I've shifted.

I used to think too small. I got luckily got a good mentor that taught me how to think bigger. And every time that I've set a goal, in hindsight, it's been too small because they've all been achieved. You've got to start thinking bigger and it works better when you know yourself better. And a lot of us just go through the motions.

And I've got news for you all. Sometimes the zombie apocalypse is it's already upon you. And if you're just going through the motions, stressing from one thing to the next and not making space for yourself, then you've got a massive opportunity. Take advantage of it. Get a little selfish.

And a lot of people look at selfishness, Brittany, as a negative. It's not actually a negative because we are a species that are independent and interconnected on each other. And the more you can take care of yourself, the more capacity you have to be useful to others. Those things are completely connected. Mm hmm.

Man, you I know you're not just speaking to me right now. Like these are Stephanie Brown in the chat. She put a note up here, great lessons from the site, but even more importantly, life lessons applicable beyond construction. So absolutely, Stephanie. Thank you for that comment.

Yeah, that's exactly it. These things, they cut to the core of living. Right. That's what we're talking about here. But you've been able to bring that to work.

Right. So you're also you're also the lean director. Right. My day job. Right.

Let's talk about that for a second. Talk about that. And I want to make sure we have time to talk about your show as well. And what your goals are there, because I think that ties right into this personal freedom. So please share.

Yeah. Thank you, Brittany. I've worked for a large, multi-billion dollar general contractor. And some years ago, I got involved, like I said, 13 years ago, got involved with lean construction principles at work thanks to some beautiful question asking and a disruption to my every day, how I do stuff. And I stayed with that group volunteering.

And as I gained more and more capacity, the organization said in 2014, we want to relaunch this lean thing and get more after it with intention. You've been with this group the longest, the most consistent. Would you like to start a lean pilot? And I said, oh, and do things like this. And I had like a list of like 12, 15.

We might even had 20 things we were already doing. And they're like, yeah, just like that. So we launched the pilot and then the company launched more pilots. And we learned from that, like how not to do stuff and how to do stuff. And then two years later, the job that I was on was a traditional hard bid, which surprise, I love hard bid.

A lot of people always think like, oh, Felipe is just going to like IFOA and IPD. And like, no, I love hard bid because it sparks so much creativity in the staff. Like if you want to learn how to build quickly, get yourself on a hard bid school job where kids have to start school in August or September, depending on where you are, you're going to learn. You're going to you're going to realize that your creativity is actually limitless. And so, yeah, so then and so two years later, they said, how would you like to do this full time?

And we would just want to do it as an experiment for a year because we're not sure it's going to work for you or for your career. And so I thought about it, I looked at what the job was and I said, yeah, let's do it. And when I was getting interviewed by the CEO at the time, he said, we made this position for you. We had you in mind when we set this up because you've been just a powerhouse in this and you're influencing beyond the four walls of your project trailer.

And like this is good for it's been good for your team and it can be good for more teams. So we scaled that out. I went national, left the building company, went to the corporate side of the organization, which is different company. And now we serve all five regions across coast to coast, Brittany. And then two years later, they made me the national director of lean construction, which is a mouthful title.

And I always tell people like we haven't applied lean to the title yet. Working on it. That's slim it down a little bit. But it's limited down. I don't even know how many words it is.

And I only want to count it because that's just waste. So I'm not going to count it. So what I do is I'm responsible for the tactics and strategy of our lean implementation, serving five thousand employees, including craft and full time salaried professional people. And we also get into the supply chain. McCarthy does lend me out if you're an owner, if you're an owner out there, you can benefit from Felipe services free of charge.

So contact me. We can see how we can mix you in and get you into the mix. We do that across the country and do some some consulting for clients directly with their lean transformation and efforts to make it better. Hello. It makes all this better.

Better owners, better construction projects, better people, happier people. It's a win, win, win, win, win. It's a no brainer. And then I also volunteer through my work with McCarthy with the Lean Construction Institute and the Construction Industry Institute. I've got several board positions where I'm serving companies, including those nonprofits, as well as some for profit software companies.

And yeah, and I manage all of that. My wife is happy. My son is happy. Family's good. I'm we got to hear from them, though, like I got to double check later.

Yeah. Felipe, everybody always needs your wife. Everybody always wants to know, like, what's Felipe's wife like? My wife is brilliant. She's brilliant.

She's I told my wife all the time, like as beautiful as you are. Your mind is even more beautiful. Oh, look at that. He's amazing out there. OK.

All right. So, yes, we do. We're going to take your word for it here, Felipe, that your wife and son are happy. But you do a lot of things by managing prioritization and focusing on what the end goal is. So, you know, I don't have a doubt on that.

I think that is true. I do. Oh, yeah, I got I got her. She's always amazed at how well, you know, I treat her and do things around, you know, the home. I tell her, it's like, oh, the bad boyfriend, but I'm an amazing husband.

Oh, that's so good. I know I see Marcus laughing in the background here. So that's great. Now, we'll get we'll get her on the phone one time so you guys can talk to her directly and you can see. Yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it. Let's put it in the plans. So, OK, so that's your journey to general contractor world. But you've also had you've had the opportunity to figure out how to put things in balance, right? Making it work for you once again.

That theme is coming up a couple of times. Oh, yeah. Well, let me tell you about balance, Brittany. So balance is a myth. People talk about work life balance all the time.

When you get clear on who you are and what you're going, what you want to do, what you need to do, what you must do, then you can reset the scales and put things out of balance on purpose. So I intentionally, if you think about balance, like imagine the teeter totter with two children on the teeter totter and, you know, put yourself as one kid and, you know, what your bestie is, the other kid, if you both weigh the same teeter, tottering is no fun. There's no movement.

You need movement for there to be something of interest. And even just the word emotion, when you break that word down, it's energy in motion. And in order to have motion, we have to have an unbalance, an imbalance so that we can move and have experiences. So I always tell people, like, I don't even distinguish between work life and home life. For me, there's no difference.

There's just life life. And if we if we let Plato pollute our mind and categorize everything, then we miss out on the wholeness and the interconnectedness of everything. There's not a me at work that's one way and then a me at home. That's another way. And I've even had my son comment on this.

And he said, I drag him around sometimes to different events and meet people. And he said to me of 2016, he's like, he's like, Dad, you're you're exactly the same at home as you are in public. He's like, how do you do it? I was like, because I'm not that good. I'm so dumb.

I can't I can't do it differently anywhere else. And I said, I'm blessed that way, son. That's so good, because you just show up as your authentic self. Imagine if people just chose to be themselves fully and show up, right? They don't have to think about the work that it takes to your point.

That's the work to change. And it takes a lot of energy. It actually it actually drains you. I've got some friends that don't show up the same way in different areas. And they don't have the energy level that I have.

And they're not even as old as I am. And so I tell people, set yourself free. Let the charade down. Show up and be yourself. The worst that could happen.

Is what? Say it out loud to yourself. I've I've done this with people, Brittany, where I said, OK, let's think about what's the worst that could happen. And then they'll say it out loud. And I was like, that's not the worst.

What's the worst? I like, what if this? What if this? And then when we say it all, they're like, man, it sounds so stupid. When you say it out loud.

I was like, yeah, right. You know, start a journal, write it down, say it out loud, record yourself. Answer that question, play it back. And if it sounds stupid to you, congratulations, you could do something about it. Now you're out of balance.

And now you've got information to make a shift. And you have the opportunity to to ask the alternate question. What's the best that could happen? Right. Like get all that dumb stuff out the way and then ask the question, what's the best that could happen?

Guess what? The best that could happen is. You could be amazing, like Felipe, doing all this stuff, being out of balance. But having an amazing, chaotic time. Right.

Like having a fun time, like on that teeter totter and be giving back to the world in a way that means something. That's that's key. I like it. Yeah. The best times of my life, Brittany, have always been when I've shifted from thinking about just me and instead just knowing me and then serving other people.

Always, always pays dividends. Serving other people, not because I'm going to get something. I will fill up myself when I serve others. It just happens. I can't even I can't even stop it.

It's like I tried. I've done. I've done things, you know, sometimes playing the political game in the organization to think like I need to achieve this thing. And that's never been successful. It's never worked.

And it just puts all this undue pressure on yourself. And I know that recognition and significance is important for people. It absolutely is. Like the ego is a thing that you have. Like it's a thing.

And it's got to it's got to be fed. But that's not the end. Think bigger, think longer and think like what skills and opportunities do I need now so I can start to develop myself and figure out my character and then bring the show up to work with that. So like in my work, Brittany, I've often been asked like, how is it that when you engage with trade partners or professional people, architects and engineers, you always connect? How is it that you don't get resistance from people?

How do you do that? I get asked that all the time. And it's how I show up to connect with the people. Like, it's not inauthentic when I say during pre-construction, during design, everything we do should be subordinate to helping the architect achieve a holistic design that's going to serve the client. And when I say everything, I mean, everything, everything should be subordinate to that person.

And we flip into construction mode. Everything we do should be subordinate to serving the superintendent who's guiding the flow with all of the trade partners of putting the work in place and looking at more than just what numbers on a page or blue, red and green things showing up on a Gantt chart are telling us. We should be focusing on the three types of flow in construction. And if we if we show up to serve those people to achieve for the project and applying just a little bit of principles, little tiny principles like focusing on flow, everyone will achieve beyond what they think is possible.

I've done this on a hard bid, Brittany. I love it. If I wanted to. And we can talk, we can interview people that I was on that job with. Every trade that I work with exceeded their margin.

Every single one. I never paid for lunch ever. And I didn't. I mean, I did get a little fat. I mean, that did that.

That actually happened. People, you shouldn't go out to eat every single day. Not every day. OK. And so, yeah, that that's possible, Brittany.

That's absolutely possible. So if you're if you're facing resistance, if you're out there and you know something like one of these tactics like five s or last planner system or the Daily Hollow or scrum and your team is resisting you. Check yourself. It's probably your attitude. And it's not it's not always obvious.

I see it all the time. And I'll tell you what, I'm not going to lie. And I'll just tell everybody, like, if you want to affect some real change, bring all of your enthusiasm and make it happen. If you're excited and enthusiastic about it, it's going to be infectious. It's going to catch.

And you're going to be unstoppable with that enthusiasm. And you get to play with all the people on your team. It's just going to be more fun. Brittany, that's one of the things that personal freedom at work. I want the construction industry.

It's not even that I want. It shall be done. I want the construction industry. It shall be a place that attracts people. We have like the most beautiful minds, creative human beings, amazing people that we're working with over decades.

I want to attract more people like that to the industry and make it a fun place to be, to make a career so that you can be the best you all of you every day. That's what I want. That's what I'm working towards. That's why I have infinite energy and effort for that. And nothing's going to slow me down.

Psychologically evaluated. My doctor said, Felipe, nothing motivates you. I was like, I know. So that motivation you also take to your podcast. And I'm going to do this for you.

The easier, better, faster for construction. Show I'm your host, Felipe, engineer, Manrique's. Did I get it? Did I get it? You got it.

You got it. You got it. You were like, you were like at a five. You need to come to like a 13. OK, all right.

Next time I got you. OK, I just I don't want I want to make sure people's ears don't blow. Yeah, you got to just make sure you don't redline the mic. I know I've gotten so excited that I've gotten. I jumped on the mic and like redlined it and people couldn't hear me.

Oh, my goodness. No, but your enthusiasm is so good. No, but your enthusiasm, it it it it motivates all of us. And you take that to the interviews that you conduct on your show. And and it's exactly where you're talking about.

Right. Like you want you literally want people to enjoy their career every day. Right. And and and you know what? For those of you who have not listened to Felipe's podcast, you need to go on Spotify, iTunes.

I think you're what I'm like. I don't know how I think we're like on 30 platforms now. 30 platforms, wherever you listen to podcasts, download it now. Find it now. The E.B.F.C.

show. And listen, like after this live stream, of course. But listen to his show. Obviously, obviously. So, yeah, I mean, I do want to give people the opportunity to ask you some questions.

So I know we have one person on stage, but if anybody in Clubhouse would like to hop up and ask Felipe any questions here before the half hour mark, please raise your hand. We'd like to hear from you. Anybody who has questions, who is watching, feel free to feel free to ask a question in the chat. We do have some really, really fun, fun, fun chats here and suggestions. I'll let you wag wrangle those questions, wrangle those questions up.

And I want to just recognize, you know, all the people that come up. It's the best when you engage and interact. So don't be shy. I own the monopoly on all the stupid questions. So ask your question, because I've already got the dumb question.

So don't worry about that. We have we have somebody who asks really great questions on the stage. So Alan just came up. Alan, welcome. Please ask your question or share a comment.

Thanks, Bernie. Always a pleasure coming up on stage and talking with you folks. I am currently recovering from my second shot of the vaccine, so I may not have an amazing question, but Felipe, I am deeply curious. What really helped drive the change from being a bad boyfriend to an amazing husband? I'd love to know.

Great question. That is a great question. So thank you for that, Alan. You've taken me down memory lane. So in my the drive for that was suffering all the times that I was acting as a bad boyfriend and being being selfish, thinking of only my needs and not.

And I had like started to lose that whole feeling of love and connection with my girlfriend, who's now my wife. And I made these like short term stupid decisions that cause pain and suffering. And I got hurt more every time than she did. When I acted stupidly as a boyfriend and we had we dated for about a decade. So that's a that's a long runway of like falling off the and getting better and making mistakes.

And I mean, little things like just not listening with curiosity to understand my partner. I mean, just something like that simple. After we got married, like I got better, my wife saw me. She told me, she said, I saw in you the you that you could be. And and she never tried to change who I am.

And she just enabled me to be the real me, the genuine me. And so I told my wife, I said, that's one of the things that really like hooked me on to you. And I had I had liked her for a long time, even before we started dating. But I just I didn't actually think I had a chance, Alan. So it's just case, you know, don't ask, don't get.

So just make sure, you know, if you're in that scene right now, like just ask, I mean, the worst they could say is no. Twenty times in a row. I think that might have happened to me, too. And and then when I flipped over to be in the husband, I took it really seriously. I said, OK, as a boyfriend, you know, I made mistakes and we we worked things out and and little things and just making some shifts as a husband.

I said, I want to I told my wife like, this is my goal. I want to be such a good husband that if I should die and you're young enough to remarry again, which she always will be. I said, I want you to be just completely ruined so that no other man could do and be what I am for you. And I said, completely ruined so that every time you compare me to somebody else, they'll fail. So I'm always competing with myself in order to make that real, Alan.

I have to live up to a higher standard. So I set higher standards as a husband. And I looked at we looked at our families, too, and I was looking at, you know, different people and learning from marriages in my in my personal life. And I said, whatever I can see out there, Alan, I raised the standard even higher. And that's been that's been magical for my wife, like she's completely ruined for any other man, so that's and that's an ongoing daily thing.

It's not a one time, Alan. So it's like every time I wake up, I tell my wife every day, I earn you staying with me for another day. How I act and show up today. That's such a cool response, Alan. Alan's clapping on Clubhouse.

Thank you so much. We do have another question here for you. Anthony has a question, Anthony, what's your question? Yeah, so this is more business related as a lean Six Sigma black belt and doing consulting. I thought this might be something that you could share your experiences with.

Sometimes clients think you could come in and wave a magic wand and solve all their problems. What are some strategies you use to gauge their expectations, especially when you know there needs to be a culture change to adopt some of these new technologies that you bring in, Felipe? That's a great question, Anthony. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Yeah. So the client and you're you're getting something, Anthony, that the vast majority of clients are coming from that perspective. They think if I hire somebody or I make this one change or I make a proclamation from the ivory tower that the whole organization will shift. And one of the things that I do with those type of clients, Anthony, is I well, in a dialogue where we're setting expectations, I'll say, if I could flip a switch or snap my fingers and we had to shift this organization, this process, this thing that you want to change, let's define what it is you want.

And I let them tire themselves out on answering what it is. What I'm doing is I'm building a vision to what they want. So now I know and they know their expectation. And as a bonus, Anthony, you should write that vision down as they're saying it. You as the consultant should reflect that vision back to them in writing so that the two of you or if there's a committee of them or more, can all turn your eyes towards what's just been illuminated and engage the reactions to it, craft it.

And it doesn't take it doesn't take even 20 minutes to do this, Anthony. This is very fast. This could be done in five minutes. Get clear on what their expectation is, their vision. Then you say, OK, now you as the consultant say, I understand this part of your vision.

These are some things that I can propose. What's the first thing that you want to do to step towards that vision? And see what I've just done, Anthony, I've just shifted it from what I'm going to do as the consultant to what's the first thing client you're going to do. You want to keep responsibility at all times with the client. Always consulting one on one, baby.

The client is going to change. When the client changes with your help, the organization will follow and the change will occur. This is true on project sites. This is true on large corporations, Fortune 10 companies. It's the same thing.

The organization can't sustainably do something outside of leadership's thinking and mindset and experience on some of these things. So that's what I would recommend. A quick visioning of what they want and then reflected back to them to make sure because it's going to change. Once they once you reflect it back, I guarantee you, the first thing that they say is not going to be what they stay with. It's going to shift.

And then we ask them, what's the first step you can take to get there? And it might be a training. It might be a Kaizen event. It might it might be one of those things that we do as consultants often. But it might be something else.

So stay open for it, Anthony. It's a good question. Thanks, Brittany. Excellent question. Yeah, you know, we are at the half hour mark.

Thank you so much, Anthony and Alan for asking your questions. I do want to just thank you, Felipe, for being on the show. Can you please share with everyone where they can find out more about you? Ladies and gentlemen, the best place to get Felipe is at www.theebfcshow.com There you will find all the ways to connect with me, including Clubhouse, TikTok, Twitter, the LinkedIn. All of my contact information is at the bottom of the page, as well as all the episodes for the podcast, which is there for you, ladies and gentlemen, so that you can get the nuggets from the geniuses across the construction industry.

The living legends are there for you to help inspire you. So check it out. All my contact information is there. Hit me up. And if you like the show, leave a comment.

Let me know your feedback drives the improvement for how the show is delivered. And it also gives me bragging points inside of my house. So thank you so much, Brittany, for giving me the chance to get here and talk about what I love to do the most. I appreciate you. It's always a riot.

Thank you again, Felipe. And with that, we're going to close up the show. And lastly, we want to just thank our sponsor once again. Yes, your exceptional space. They they have been sponsoring the show for the past couple of weeks, and we're just really appreciative of them.

For more information about, yes, your exceptional space, download their paper by clicking the get started button at yes dash spaces dot com. Also, I'm Brittany Campbell Turner, CEO and founder at Constructor. And follow me on social media at Brittany C.T. And if you want to participate in the discussions that we're having during the week, join our clubhouse rooms. You can go ahead to Constructor.

That's Construct double R dot com. And you can find out more about our conversations on Clubhouse. We have a prop tech club and smart city community clubs. And you can actually set notifications for the events that you'd like to participate in. So with that, you guys have an amazing weekend, an amazing Friday.

Thank you guys so much.