134 | Lessons Learned from Losing 2 Businesses in the 2008 Crash W/ Tyler Pratt

Feb 2

[00:01:18] Chaz Wolfe: All right. What's up everybody? I'm Chaz Wolf. I'm your host gathering the King's podcast today. I mean, all my guests are special, but today is a, a little bit of a unique situation because I've gotten to know this guy ahead of time.

Pretty good a little bit here now. his name is Tyler Pratt and, I've, he's got a story that, we're gonna get to here, but I just love the depth of the entrepreneurial. Thickness that comes with this story. So I'm, I'm super excited. Tyler, welcome to the King Stage. I'm so glad that you're here.

[00:01:46] Tyler Pratt: Thanks for having me. I'm really, truly humbled and grateful for the opportunity.

[00:01:51] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Well, tell us what kind of business or in this case business is that you

[00:01:54] Tyler Pratt: got brother. I, have a power line construction business. We contract out to utility companies. We do all sorts of new construction rebuilds, maintenance maintenance, on high voltage power systems.

Also have a drilling company. We, we do some drilling for foundations, on, heavy highway construction, large commercial construction, and also vertically integrate those drilling services into our power line projects.

[00:02:22] Chaz Wolfe: Right, exactly. I love that. you know, the, the, The guy that's up there high working on crazy stuff, you know, high voltage and up high in the air, like you got multiple, like high factors.

high, high intensity factors, you know, happening all at once, right? Is this how you would describe yourself? Like high intensity in multiple areas? Is this how it all started ?

[00:02:44] Tyler Pratt: you know, honestly, not really. I'm, I'm Okay. Fairly reserved individual, I feel like, but I have a lot of motivation. Okay. To succeed and to win and yeah.

The trade of being a lineman is, Speaks to my soul. I love doing line work. I love being in the air. I love building power lines. I like building all sorts of things. Yeah. Whether it's residential and houses or, or, anything that can be built from scratch, from raw materials into something of substance. I, I enjoy doing.

Power lines may be at a higher level than the rest, and that's why I've stuck with this and been involved at the level I am. But I, I really enjoy seeing it go from a conceptual drawing to a full built power line of varying scope and size to complete energization of the of the system. Yeah, it's really,

[00:03:38] Chaz Wolfe: really cool.

Yeah. You have this unique ability, and, and a lot of entrepreneurs have a, a degree of this where you can literally see the end result before anything comes to fruition like that raw material. And, but, but before it ever happens, you got to see it. Would you say that over the course of time, and we're gonna get some of your story here, but that I'm just fascinated by some of this.

Some of this vision type thing that, some entrepreneurs have it. Have you grown in this area or has that, has that a skillset, this architect, kind of, I can see it before it happens. Is that always been in you or have you grown in that?

[00:04:16] Tyler Pratt: I think it's grown incrementally. I think there was a spark of that initially, you know, but it's definitely.

Started with a little bit of nature. Right. But it's been nurtured into Yeah. Yeah. Where I'm at today, for sure. Yeah. Your visions expand your, your, your depth of your understanding expand. Yeah. That's right.

[00:04:36] Chaz Wolfe: That's right. And, and as the listener should be encouraged as well. It doesn't have to, you don't have to see it all, up front.

I even think I'm 24 years old, I'm about to purchase my first, franchise, you know, and it felt like, a huge thing. You know, I'm spending, putting 70, 80 grand down, buying a $500,000 business at 24 years old, and I had no idea that I would have seven of them four years later. I, I, I wasn't even thinking like that.

But to your point. , it, it, it happens. Or even, snowballs quickly when you, when you, focus on growth or when you focus on maybe that next achievement, kinda going back to winning that obsession with winning that, you were just mentioning. I wanna know, before we get into too much more at this level in the game, you've obviously been successful.

The, the listeners don't know, some of the ups and downs you've been through yet, but I know that at this level in the game you've been. Why do you keep going? Why? What's the, what's the drive? What's the motivation that's still in you after all that you've been through and all the success that you've gotten to now?

[00:05:28] Tyler Pratt: Honestly, if I try to tie it back to one philosophy, For one motivation, it would be something. My father-in-law told me a long time ago, he, he passed away 10 or 11 years ago now actually from injuries resulting from a horse accident. Wow. And so he, he passed away young. He was 49. Wow. yeah, it was really a horrible, tragic event for the whole family.

But he was a successful businessman. And I remember him telling me one time, It's okay to be happy with what you have, but never with who you are and ooh, that's not from a self-confidence perspective. You know, you, you can be happy with who you are as a person internally. Sure. But, and you should be happy with what you have because it's not about things.

It's not about more and more stuff. Yeah. But with who you are as a person from a development standpoint. Yeah. That's where you shouldn't rest. Like you should work hard to improve yourself. For yourself, for your family members, for your colleagues, for your friends, to become the best, best version of you that you can.

Yeah, so I think that is probably what keeps me going is not the dollar bills, not the new equipment. You know, I, we'd love purchasing new equipment that we can put to work. We love seeing the power lines go. We love seeing satisfied customers, but at the end of the day, for me, it's really just, I still got gas in the tank.

I, I want to be better. I want to use that fuel to move forward. .

[00:07:08] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. You know, there's, I, I wanna point this out for the listener because it, it's such a simple point, but you, and then, you know, one gentleman inside of the, the mastermind group, who you haven't met yet, I've connected you to him, Justin, but you guys both have this, this very similar thing that I, I've tried to exude myself, but I look up to both of you in this way, and I wanna just point it out for the listener.

You, you guys don't know yet, Tyler's revenue or the size of his companies, but let's just say he does pretty well, right? He's obviously on the show here. he's at a certain level, but even in comparison to some of the, mastermind, clients that I have, I would say Tyler's on the, on the bigger end, it's not the biggest, but on the bigger end of revenue.

But I'll tell you what, the mindset perspective that you. To us with, it's very similar to Justin, who has, by far the biggest revenue. Like, we could put all of us together and we're not even gonna come close to him. And it's like, it's this learning spirit. It's this, this is ability to say, you know what, that doesn't really matter.

The things, the revenue num, like, none of that matters. To your point, I need to get better. And when you can run with guys like that where the, the, the output or the result is like, okay, cool, but like what's. and when you have a guy like you who's maybe, further on than maybe another guy who, but still kind of puts that to the side and says, no, like, what can I learn from you?

That is just an incredible ability that not only you have, but I, I've seen it in Justin as well, where again, you know, it, it's more of almost a like a. A a a mature king perspective. You're not new to this king thing, but you, you renew this in your mind like over and over and over again, which I think is actually the spirit of the king.

It's like, man, it's like, no, no. I don't wanna rest on laurels by at all, you know, by any means at all. So what would you say to that? kind of, I'm kind of putting something new in your, in your, your quiver here as far as, I didn't prepare you for this, but, but what are your thoughts on that?

[00:09:01] Tyler Pratt: Well, I think that comes as you go through the refiner's fire of, of being tempered and, and heated and beat and, and you come out the other side, which none of us are fully out the other side, but there's cycles, there's evolutions of that.

Yeah. And yeah, we've been through a lot of shit over the years. Yeah. But it makes you stronger That's right. You can't get stronger muscles if you don't break 'em down first. And yeah, your life in general or your, your business life is absolutely follows that same analogy of you are gonna go through things that test you, that try you, that break you, and it's how you rebuild yourself and reinvent yourself and move forward.

Yeah, that's important. . So yes, you, you come out through these different cycles of growth with a different perspective, a different mindset. Yeah.

[00:09:58] Chaz Wolfe: I just, I, I mean, we could do the whole show, I think on this topic, this, this humility versus ego versus this obsession with winning and well, how do I, how do I obsess over winning but not have this kind of like, Arrogance ego.

this whole topic is very, I think relevant for the entrepreneur and even in today's world where things, or the next achievement seems to be the, you know, the, the, the flashy thing to do or to talk about. But, one last little dig here before we move on from this topic. I wanna know like, fr from that perspective of like arrogance or like the obsession of winning.

but like you've been through the fire as you just said, so Okay. You've been through the fire, meaning like you've been kind of knocked down. Are you, are you insinuating that you thought differently before? Like maybe a little bit more arrogant, a little, maybe a little bit more confident, and then when you got kind of smacked in the face that, that, that's given you the different perspective?

Or what should the listener pull away from what we're talking?

about

[00:10:50] Tyler Pratt: Yeah, you're right. We probably could go on about this for all day, but at, at the end of the day, I tell my kids all the time as they're pursuing different athletic goals. Yeah. to get to it, you have to go through it and love that. That's all there is. That's the only secret. If you have something in mind that you want to get to, you've got to go through the myriad.

of Obstacles of trials, whatever is in your way. Yeah. You can't go around it. You're not gonna go over it or under it. You literally have to go through it, and that process is what puts you in the right mindset to escalate your success.

[00:11:34] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah, so good man. I feel like we could just hit the stop button.

We've got all the nuggets that we need. , you've got the, the, the wisdom man. I just really appreciate that. I feel the same way, even, even though my journey in entrepreneurialism has maybe been shorter than yours. it's those moments where my, I, my teeth, I had no teeth. I had been kicked. Fully straight in the face.

I had no teeth. And it was like, whoa. we need to, we need to rethink this. And I needed to rethink maybe some confidence or some arrogance as probably more so was, than confidence. And so, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna take it back a little bit. I want you to tell us kind of how you got started. I know that, this isn't your first, start at business, but just give us a little bit of your journey, from like when you guys started in business to, to now.

[00:12:17] Tyler Pratt: Well, If I go back far enough, I, I started mowing lawns before I could even drive, and so it was a huge pain for my parents to have to load a lawnmower and drive all over town so I could get out, unload the lawnmower and make $5 to mow somebody's. And, and, and my mom actually made me do that. She would make me find yards I could mow and I love know, she probably spent more in gas and time and hassle than the, you know, $15 I could make a day, a few times a week.

But yeah, that was really my first taste of making money. Outside of a job because I always had summer jobs as well through parks and rec or coaching, T-ball and IPI games and up until I could drive, and then the, the work became a little bit more labor intensive and Right. And I learned pretty early on if I wanted to do the things I'd like to do outdoors, hunting, fishing, camping trips, whatever it might be.

Like those things take money. Yeah. as I entered the workforce after high school, I did a whole array of different oil field related jobs and pipelining and RA about work and just general labor. And I ended up, meeting a gentleman that worked at the local utility company. He, was a lineman and we hunted and fished together.

I didn't even know what a lineman was prior to him meeting him, and I thought, well, here's something I can do and not have to. In the oil field, right? I have to work in the coal mine as the little town I grew up in Northwest Colorado. Those were really the options. Yeah. So I elected to look into be an alignment, and from there I, I did a little vocational program in Grand Junction, Colorado at Mesa State.

And long story short, I guess I've ended up owning my own power line business and there's been a lot of. You know, in between since 1998 when I went to line school at the VO-tech to 2023. Yeah, that's right. I dunno how much in depth you want to go in that. Yeah.

[00:14:29] Chaz Wolfe: Well you've, you've hinted at it, I mean, you've built homes, you've do, you've been in residential construction.

I mean, you've, you've, you've got a lot of experience. to your point, there's been a lot of touchpoints and so, what, what do you think drew you back to. You know, or, or what drew you away from being a lineman, working for someone to, to entrepreneurship? Let me ask you that question first. What, what, what drew you out of the job?

[00:14:53] Tyler Pratt: Sure. So I'll elaborate. As I, graduated out of the bot tech program, which was a nine month program. I hit the road basically contracting, chasing power lines. All over the country. I did that for several years and then eventually moved back home to the, to Rangeley, Colorado where I was able to, get a job at the local uti local utility as a lineman.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I thought that's what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to go back to home and settle down and, and, and work there, but, I didn't really fit in. I didn't enjoy it that much. The work pace was completely different. The mindset was completely different. I was used to just. Work, work, work. Hours, hours, hours, and had the utility that was pretty structured.

You know, you put in your 40 hours a week and, and so even the money that I was used to making from working all those hours was significantly reduced. Right. But I ended up meeting a girl who was at the local community college and we dated and then ended up getting married. So I, I've stuck with the, utility company there for a couple years.

So sh Yeah. She could get her her degree and then, left and moved, to southern Utah where her family was from. Okay. And that's when I started doing some general construction. Yeah. And, started a trucking company to haul trailers that were manufactured in the area to. The dealer network. Yeah.

And, we rent both of those, from like 2000 5, 6 7. And then in end of 2007, 2008, when that economy crashed, I was leveraged pretty heavy into building, into the building business which fell flat on their face and completely wiped me out to less than zero. Ended up filing a bankruptcy, lost everything except for my wife's vehicle through the bankruptcy.

We basically could keep that, but lost a home. Lost ATVs. Lost camper. Lost trucks. Like all of it. Everything. It was, it was gone. It was horrible. Also lost any type of retire. Account that I had for my previous years working for contractors. And then the utility, soaked up all that money just trying to meet obligations from being over leveraged on the businesses I was trying to grow when the revenue stopped.

Right. So literally hit rock bottom or maybe just a little bit lower than that. Yeah. And it was about a year after. Yeah. Yeah, about a year after. my oldest daughter was, Wow. I had one, one kid, and roughly during that same timeframe, another one on the way. So I had a lot of motivation to figure it out and find a house, rebuild my life.

Start over. Financially. I was 30. Exactly. And it was a complete reset. Only this time, I mean, as you start as a teenager, you don't have anything anyway, so not really a reset, but I'm hitting a complete reset now with a wife and a kid and another one on the way. And I needed to dig down deep and figure out what I was gonna do.

I didn't necessarily always love the residential building and the trucking company ended up. More of a pain than it was probably worth, but I learned a lot. Yeah. That actually became value in my power line in my drilling business because they're so d o t compliance related. that's right. But going back to trying to figure out which direction I'm going, I wanted to get back to Linework.

Yeah. I didn't necessarily want to just go back to work for utility and I really, with a wife and kids, I didn't necessarily want to just hit the road and be gone all the. Yeah, so I started High Voltage Deink in 2008 with nothing. I had my climbing gear that's in my bag and some of my tools and a truck I basically borrowed from my dad.

printed some stupid business cards that smeared every time you touched 'em. Wrong , and just try to get out there and do little projects. Yeah. I remember it would've been somewhere, maybe a year or so after I started High Voltage. I was out on a little project and, away from home about six or seven hours and my wife called me just crying and crying from the store.

And I was like, well, what's going on? And I'd ignored her call a couple times cause I was busy and yeah. And, but I knew it was important. She kept calling. And she's crying. And I asked her what's going on? And she's like, I'm at Albertson's trying to buy some groceries and the debit card won't clear. And at this point we didn't have credit cards.

They were all gone . And I'm like, well, how much is the charge? And she's like, it's $11. She's like, I'm buying milk and some eggs and Yeah. The basics. Yeah, like very basic. It was $11. Yeah. And I got that call call that we didn't have enough money to. An $11 charge. And I, I mean I was working I, but things hadn't really came together.

Yeah. And money was always tight, cuz I was still, actually that was prior to actually filing bankruptcy after everything collapsed. I didn't wanna file bankruptcy. I tried to meet those obligations for as long as I possibly could, but it soaked up every, everything available dye I had. Yeah. So for me that was an insanely powerful catalyst.

I had never felt so completely worthless as a man, as a husband, as when my wife couldn't buy like a gallon of milk and some eggs for 11 bucks. Yeah. And that was a significant turning point in my journey with High Voltage Inc. Yeah. From that point on, from 2009 was probably when that happened. Moving forward.

I've had a pretty big fire lit underneath me , and it really hasn't diminished a whole lot. Yeah. There's been some level of comfort here and there and things have right changed to where I don't have to be on the road a hundred percent of the time chasing work. Right. But that comes with the larger burdens of management of.

You know, teams, companies, and contracts and or, and employees and everything. So, yeah. wow. From there we just continued to grow. And like, like you mentioned earlier with your franchise, you know, you, I didn't have that vision that you pointed to when you first started. I, I started out with myself with some temporary help on a weekend when I could get some of my lineman buddies that worked at other power companies to take a day off or on a Saturday to come help me.

Yeah. And run with that up until the point. I could have a week job, you know, a week long job to right, to a month long job. And those were jobs. Just tried to stitch them closer and closer together and to the point where I could eventually afford to buy. You know, some line equipment, like a bucket truck and a digger truck.

The things that we commonly used to build power lines. Yeah. And then finally got to where I had one full-time crew, and the customers liked it. They reacted well. We wanted to provide a good service at a fair price and do a good job. Kind of our tagline for our business is line work done right. It's not complicated, right?

Like that's what we want to do. Yeah. And we've grown off of that model. You know, we've been all the way to 135 employees and we're back down to, in that 75 to 80 range, currently with some growth projected this year to be in that 85 to 90 range. And that's, we've been everywhere in. Multiple times through those growth and, and cycles from, started with, with me to one crew to, you know, 20 something crews or 30 crews all the way back down in 2000, 17 to just a couple crews due to some bad , some bad luck or bad decisions.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:22:45] Chaz Wolfe: The, the, vulnerability that you have to be able to share those moments, I think is incredible. but I don't wanna pass over just the, the weight of two things. Number one, the moment obviously with your wife, like, whoa. . I mean, I, I, every first off, I know every man listening was like, came to grips with themselves as you were talking that like, whew.

But any, any human, you don't have to be a, a, a male to, to feel that moment. I I, wow. Then the fire that that put in you is obviously like something that has not gone out at to your. I guess my, my, that's the, the, the perspective I wanted to, to, to have for the listener. But then the question is how have you kept that?

Right? So you just described that was, you know, years ago, and even since then you've been up and down and up again. So , how have you kept that specific maybe moment or that burn through great times, lean times, or even now, like you're projecting more growth again. Like how do you hold that.

[00:23:51] Tyler Pratt: Just the result to never go back to that.

Yeah, I don't want to ever have that phone call again. I don't want to ever go through nonstop creditors calling and talking with attorneys, like maybe it's just from a good memory, but , it's imprinted in there pretty well. And yeah, I learned a long time ago. The School of Hard Knox is a great place to learn, but only a full continues to attend.

Whoa. Don't do things that are gonna put you back in that situation. Yes, they were valuable learning experiences. Yeah. You dig deep, you find yourself, you figure out just how you know strong, your internal metal really is. Yeah. But you don't necessarily wanna spend a lot of time there. Yeah.

[00:24:37] Chaz Wolfe: I again, simple but so profound.

The great place to learn, but only the idiot keeps, keeps attending. Right. , how have you been able to, as you've grown and, and even like, like you said, we've been up and down several times since then. Employee range is what you were giving. Obviously that means that, that just, there's cyclical nature to business up and down in growth and, and teams, and you build them and you lose some people and there's, there's a cyclical nature.

Right. how do you, how do you keep that, knowing that those things are gonna happen just over the course of time? ideally we're on an upward trajectory, but we still go through these, these flows. How do you keep. perspective through those things. The, the perspective of, I don't wanna go back to the hard knocks, but knowing that there's gonna be maybe lean times or, or difficult times still yet to come, but it's not necessarily going to the hard knocks.

Like I wanna keep maybe habits or certain things that you said, like, I don't wanna go back to those things, so I want to do things differently now. What are some of those things? Maybe, maybe it's a habit, maybe it's a certain way of thinking about money, or growth. Like anything that you can deposit for us.

[00:25:41] Tyler Pratt: . When it comes to money, I remember a quote from Zig Ziegler a long time ago, and I love it. And he says, money isn't everything, but it definitely ranks right up there with oxygen . And that is true. to prove the point, if you don't think it's true, just try living without either.

Like, you can hold your breath for a while. Sure. But it ain't very fun. You might live without money for a little while, but it really ain't very fun either. Yeah. So, not quantity of money is my motivator, but money in general so that I don't have to go back to not clearing the $11 debit card charge.

Right, right, right. other habits are just going to include, a lot of discipline, self discipl. Like, there's been times that we've done well financially and the money's rolled in and it's easy to maybe let up off the throttle a little bit, but you don't, you buckle down, you get smarter. You use all those hard knock lessons that you've learned in the past to course correct and, and move forward.

Yeah. I think, throughout anybody's journey, there's all these small. Failures sometimes on a daily basis, right? Those don't need to be complete losses. Those are simply, opportunities to course correct and come back into the center of your path to success. You have to continually reset those parameters on that, on that path or on that internal compass to not deviate down any of those paths too far.

[00:27:15] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. And that compass is designed or like literally created or built at sea. Going through those, those moments that, you are, experiencing at the school. Hard knocks to your point. Right. Right. That's so incredible. I think that the listener, I mean, I hope that they're as engaged with this story as I am because I've even heard most of this once before and I'm still like, gimme more, gimme more

I think they should go back and listen again because I think just if every, if any entrepreneur is, is just a aware of the cyclical nature of business, there's this, I think healthy fear really of like, man, it might all come crashing down tomorrow. . Ideally, we, we build systems and teams and things in place where it doesn't just crash tomorrow.

That there would be indicators and we could, we could catch it or of course, correct to your point. But there, there is this balance that I think that we have of like this ego and driven and money and like, let's go. But then there's this like, but like. You know, , it could all, it could all be taken away. And so it, that sometimes that pushes us further into the driven and gotta make sure it happens.

Even if we have a bunch, it keeps us focused on, you know, maybe the activity as opposed to the result. Cuz to your point, sometimes you can have a, a fat time and, and if you enjoy the, the fat time too much, then yay. Don't have any leftover for the lean time. Would you add anything there before I move on?

[00:28:34] Tyler Pratt: I, I think, I think the risk reward spectrum can shift and.

When I started, I had nothing to lose. Like , literally. Yeah. So my risk factor was high. I mean, I would do anything and everything, and take on anything I could. And yeah, I, I didn't ever overpromise and underdeliver. Right. I would just overpromise then figure out a way to deliver. Right. so I. As the business has grown or as anybody's business grows, your risk reward spectrum can shift slightly.

You know, I take less, less risks today or more managed risks today than I did all, you know, back then when I had nothing to lose. I do have some things to lose, so I'm more managed, in my approach for what we want to take on and I can contribute our one biggest downfall. In the almost 15 years of, of Highball, deink was taking on a project in South Florida in 2016 and 17 where we didn't get paid for almost 80% of the work we performed.

Wow. And it was significant amount, amount of money. We subsequently, Two years later won the lawsuit, but that was 2019. To this day, we've still never seen a dime. Wow. So yeah, we, we've, that was, and

[00:30:00] Chaz Wolfe: you, and you had to pay your guys, and you had to pay for all this. I mean, you, you fronted

[00:30:04] Tyler Pratt: you. Yes. Yeah. In fact, what we were actually paid for the work that we, we did, bill w what we received was less than half of my payroll.

And I had massive operating costs, massive payroll tax liabilities, long-term leases on facilities in Miami, in Fort Myers and Bradenton, Florida. End up having three offices down there. Wow. And the issue wasn't the amount of work, the work was there. The issue was we were working through a, a broker of a contract that simp.

Refused to pay us. And yeah, we weren't the only one. We were, there were six or seven other subcontractors like us that also didn't get paid. But that's one of those lessons that, that's the, actually the biggest, the only significant interruption to our upward growth, trajectory from the day we started.

Yeah.

[00:30:58] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, but you wanna talk about, I mean, , it all comes down at some, like, what, what goes up must come down and, and you just happen to have a really big down, I mean, I don't know if the listener really just heard you, but you know, for, for, for a long period of time you paid out a lot of money and, and then didn't get paid.

And so there, there a lot of reason to be frustrated. A lot of reasons to quit, a lot of reasons to roll over. A lot of reasons to probably. Say, you know what? Forget this whole thing. I'm gonna go work a job again. Right? Like so many reasons. But you didn't.

[00:31:29] Tyler Pratt: Why? Well, I remember it would've been in 2009. I had the opportunity, it was after I started high voltage jk, but I was having a hard time attracting work and customers and even having the appropriate, I.

And Right. And I, I had a job offer from a major oil company to be kind of their lineman on staff, specialist, yeah. For some power system that they owned. And it was a lot of money. Like they were offering me a lot of money. And I ended up turning it down because I had this vision of wanting to just go to back to work for somebody.

I. To start, I'd already started High Voltage Inc. I wanted to pursue that and grow it into what it was, but for, it took me 3, 4, 5 years of growing that business before I could replace that income from that job offer that I turned down. But through that whole process, I remember coming across, Teddy Roosevelt's quote, the Man in the Arena, and I probably can't say it verbatim anymore, but it's basically, I would rather.

Be out there fighting the good fight and and be the man in the arena than somebody watching it from the stands. Yeah. And I felt like I was in the arena trying to grow and develop High Voltage Inc. And even if I failed, it was gonna be a better path for me than taking the ease way out and just going and getting the.

[00:33:01] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think most entrepreneurs, you know, agree with you that old saying of, I'd rather work a hundred hours for myself than 40 for somebody else. I think it fits along that line, but we have this, we have this, you know, like you said, you're, you're either in the game or you're not. And the, the game for us is, you know, where you have your name on your jersey.

I, I, I think about many times in the past, I've had lots of friends over the years. When I, when I, when I had a job or, or when I was a business owner, both. cuz before that it was just sales and it was the same mindset. I felt like even though I was working for somebody, they, you know, Hey, did you catch the game Sunday?

Or, Hey, the chiefs are in the Super Bowl or what, you know, whatever. Right? I'm like, nah man, I didn't, I didn't like how, how, how did you miss it? I'm like, you know, the last time I checked

there was nobody with the last name

Wolf on the, on the jersey. I, I like, I like, I like wearing the jersey with Wolf on the back, you know, and that doesn't say chiefs on the front, I can tell you that much.

It says, gathering the Kings, or, you know, for a long time it was edible arrangements only, or maybe it says real estate or whatever jersey I'm wearing. But on the back it says Wolf and I'm building, I'm building this thing. I'm in the game, like you just said. So I just think that there's a, there's just a, a deep appreciation that not only I have for you in saying that, but I think the listener hopefully, Can appreciate, and maybe they've even had those moments too, where they've been offered that, that easy way out or that like safety net.

Like let me throw you, let me throw you a bone here. And man, it's so tempting, to be able to just say, you know what, it would be so much easier. Yes.

[00:34:28] Tyler Pratt: But I wouldn't be wearing a, the reason, I think some of the reason I made that choice was after my whole world collapsed and had to start over in 2008.

Yeah. I was digging deep to find. Inspiration to find knowledge. Yeah. I truly believe that self-education trump's formal education any day of the week. Oh yeah. If it's applied with a good work ethic. Yeah. But I had a subscription to Success Magazine at the time, I couldn't afford it, but every month that that came, there was a CD in it.

I would put those in and I would listen to those,recordings and read, read those magazines. Very, I mean, consistently I was searching out that type of information and I feel like that gave me the foundation or the base or the understanding to want to move forward and be successful. again, even though I'd had a couple businesses that had previously.

Yeah, I, I didn't wanna give up. So I think that was one of my key, motivators back, back then there, to my knowledge, there wasn't podcasts, there wasn't Right. Any much information on the internet, you know, in, in 2008. In, in, in this regard. So, yeah. Right. Today there's so much social media, there's so many influencers.

There's so many, Ways to, to get that similar information. But, but back then, and I still have a lot of those success magazines with those CDs. Yeah. I love 'em. They're valuable to me.

[00:36:03] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. I, there, it's a, it's the, it's a, the treasure box, right? The right, the items that you'll hold onto forever. I have a couple of CDs.

I even have a couple of tapes. believe it or not, I'm, I'm definitely not old enough to be able to say that, but, You know, I, I had some tapes given to me when I was a little bit younger and, and I don't know how to play 'em now, but , but I've listened to 'em before. ,

[00:36:23] Tyler Pratt: I do have Jim Roone and Zig Ziegler tapes, and I really love too.

I, I haven't listened to 'em for a long time because There you go. I don't even have a cassette player either, but I have Exactly,

[00:36:33] Chaz Wolfe: exactly. Yeah. We'll hold on 'em for our, for our, our kids and grandkids and they'll go, what is this? And you go, you know what? Let me tell you a story. ,

[00:36:41] Tyler Pratt: maybe some museum will want 'em, some.

[00:36:44] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. I'm gonna go to our speed round here. you've given us already so much, I'm, I'm curious to hear your thoughts here. in your business, I actually, in your businesses, I'm curious to see if it would be the same. What KPI p i is the most important, or if you only had to pick one or only could pick one, what would you dial in on

[00:37:01] Tyler Pratt: Profit. Again, I'll go back to that quote by Zig Ziegler. You know, money isn't everything, but it ranks right up there with oxygen. You simply can't breathe without it, and you can't survive in business without money. It, yeah, plain and simple. Yeah, and it's great if you want to do great big numbers and revenue, but if it costs you every dime of that and more to run it, you're not gonna be around very long.

That's why there's such a high failure rate. In small businesses. So I would say profitability.

Yeah.

[00:37:34] Chaz Wolfe: Make sure you're making money and make sure you're okay with making money. It sounds like that's part of what you were just saying. You didn't really say it like that, but just the okayness of like, it's okay that I make a profit.

Right, right. Yeah. That come from you digging in and out, finding who you were, your value, if you will, or is that just numbers and

[00:37:52] Tyler Pratt: business? Well, I'll, I'll be honest, when I first started, in business for myself, I did have a really hard time charging. Whether it was, when we were doing general construction type work or, or, you know, eventually on the power line.

I mean, I knew I had to charge people something, but I hated that side of it. I hated the fact that I had to. Do something I love to do and go charge somebody to do it. I didn't like that part of it, so it did take me a while to come to terms with that. And then obviously as your business grows, that amount that you have to charge increases, but also your knowledge and your resources that you can provide have, have also increased.

So I don't have as hard of time, my mindset has now changed to like, no, we provide a lot of value and solutions for the customers we work for. Yep. And this is what it takes to get that.

[00:38:45] Chaz Wolfe: Exactly. So yeah, they're buying, they're buying all of your ups and downs, right? They don't. Yes. They don't have to experience 'em.

They get, they get you. You, you have the knowledge and experience

[00:38:55] Tyler Pratt: of both of those. Yes. And collectively our team and our managers and our, our employees and our linemen. Like Yeah. You know, I have some linemen that have been in the trade for over 40 years. Wow. There is a lot of value and knowledge there.

Yeah. And that had took a while to attract those type of guys because Sure. For the first l, you know, Several years I was the most knowledgeable lineman and I was the lead guy in the field and in the office. In fact, I think 2014 was the first year I personally actually took a paycheck every pay period.

That was a big step for me. Wow. So it was, roughly five or six years into the business when I myself got a paycheck every pay period of the month and didn't have to carve any out to make sure the other guys got paid. And, but I was wearing all those hats of everything for everybody all the time. And eventually as we stabilized and grew, And had a good reputation.

All of a sudden now we're getting some more of those experienced people, which guess what? Our rates went up. But like you said, now the customer is getting a lot more effective and efficient,product, so to speak, which is our labor.

[00:40:05] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I just, the value the, the, that's the word value and you said it best, being okay.

Even though we love to do this, even though we were experts at this, the value that's being brought is what's being purchased. so I, I love that. What book would you recommend, or I know that you're a big,eater of all things of, of, self-development, so what maybe resource would you

[00:40:26] Tyler Pratt: recommend?

Well, it may surprise you, but it's not really self-development, it's more system based and it's, profit First by Mike Malowitz. Yeah. Great book. I don't know if you've heard of that, but, yeah, that for me, I, coming out of our Florida disaster when we were shorted, An insane amount of money and I was having to find ways once again to rebuild.

And similar to 2008 when I dove into the success magazines and, and CDs and information, in 2017, 18, I did the same thing and started over and I remember reading. You know, traction, by Gino, I can't re remember his name. Yeah, Gino Wickman. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. and then, profit First by Mike Malowitz.

And that really opened my eyes to the fact that profit is first, because if you don't have profit, there's no long-term company. Yeah. There's no opportunity for growth. And that shifted my mindset potentially then into where I am now with the value. Added perspective of of your rate structure. Yeah, so I would recommend anybody, I wish I'd found the book sooner.

I would recommend for anybody that's just starting or looking for some growth, read profit first and implement that system. It's made all the difference in the world for me and the way I handle the money.

[00:41:46] Chaz Wolfe: Love it. Love it. Money is a big deal. How you handle it, is it even a bigger deal? And you put those two things together, it can be disastrous or it can be very, very, a well-oiled machine to your point, as far as systems go.

So I appreciate that. What are your thoughts on intentionally networking or masterminding? Obviously I'm a, I'm gonna, I'm gonna nudge you a little bit here. I know you're new to Gathering the Kings, but there was a reason why you wanted to join us. I'm curious to know, networking in your past, masterminding in your past, even now with being new to, gathering the Kings Mastermind.

[00:42:13] Tyler Pratt: Well, I think why I am joined together in the Kings and being part of this group is I've never done any networking of any significance, ever. So for me, the next path on my journey or the next step, I wanted to be able to get involved with that networking mastermind type venue and, and see what one I can offer, but two, what they can offer me.

Yeah. And in some ways, you know, maybe. I think a lot of us, we always hit a, a ceiling in, in our growth, in our development, whether that's an actual ceiling or a perceived ceiling, but I think these networking groups and can help break through that ceiling.

[00:42:56] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah. One little mindset nugget from some guy.

He just spit it out like normal and it just rocks your brain. Right. He doesn't even know, you walk away. A whole new perspective and, and nobody ever even knows it's, it's, it's actually pretty incredible . cuz I've had many of those moments, even myself. So , I've got a question for you around family and then, and then we will, we'll bring it to a close here.

But this is a new question that I'm asking this year. You, know that, I, I've got a little bit of a, of an angle here this year. I'm, I'm the business of course the Mastermind, yes. Like it, I'm all about strategy and growth and personal development. Family is just as important. Marriage, and then obviously, our kiddos and, and the parenting of those kiddos.

And so my question to you is all throughout these

years,

your, your successes, your downs, your ups, you know, even that moment when your wife called and there wasn't even 11 bucks in the account, how have you been able to, be obsessed about both? I don't like the word balance. What I like. Going after hard because that's, that's what we do when we actually want something that that dialed in winning spirit that you talked about earlier.

So how have you gone after your business, hard winning, and your marriage and

[00:44:03] Tyler Pratt: your kids? I agree with you. I don't like the word balanced because balancing creates the opportunity for you to tip one way or the. At the drop of a hat. That's true. It doesn't take very much. I mean, balance to me is you're standing on this little peak and the wind blows a little bit.

You're gonna fall off one way or the other, . So I don't like that term either. And again, that's been a. Changing concept or reality for me early on. Remember as I started high voltage in 2008, I had a one-year-old daughter. My son was born in 2009. I had a, another daughter that was born in 2012, and then my, my last, son was born in 2014.

Wow. But I pretty much hit the road. And was away from them and away from home from 2000, 11 through 2016, like 75, 80, 90% of the time. Yeah. So, there wasn't a lot of balance there. Yeah. My balance or my perspective on that, and this maybe not be for everybody, and I had the conversation with my wife a lot, but I knew that I needed to do.

What I had to do to set the foundation for this business. Yeah. At the time, even if it meant missing their first steps and I missed their preschool graduation, and I missed this and I missed that cuz I did, I missed all that. I missed birthdays, I missed holidays. Yeah. But I had a bigger purpose. And I knew that as they got older and involved in sports and involved in high school, I mean, that's when I really, really wanted to have some more flexibility to be part of their lives.

Right. And I think. If it comes down to U term balance, I looked at it more that way of I would rather miss this part of their life than this part of their life. And I chose to do a lot of the hard things as early on in their lives as I could. Yeah. To, to, be able to do the things back then that. I didn't necessarily want to do so that today I could do the things I wanted to do.

Yeah. And it, you know, I'm still out of town a fair amount, but I am more flexible in, in, in my scheduling and, and I can work around some of these baseball games and basketball games and volleyball games and dance competitions and cuz they do it all and it's busy. . Yeah. There's a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah.

And as far as my wife goes, you know, it, it caused a lot of struggles and issues, especially early, early on as she's, you know, wanting to, had a couple of little kids and wanting to have more kids. I'm like, are you, are you crazy? Like, I'm gone all the time. Are you, you really want to handle this? Like, you, you want to take this on?

And she's like, yeah, I, I do. And after kid number three, I was sure that we were done. And she like an hour after delivering kid number three and she's like, we're not done. I. I, I'm done. I'm like, she's like, no, we're not done. I'm like, okay. So that's funny. First couple years later, there's kid number four.

Yeah. But she was able to take that on and was able to support me. I mean, we had our differences and we had our issues, and sure. When you missed a birthday and you missed the preschool graduation, there's probably a conversation. But overall, she was very supportive because, Trusted me. She didn't see the bigger picture.

Not at all. Yeah. She trusted. I saw the bigger picture. Right. And that was important.

[00:47:30] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah. And that's so difficult sometimes cuz we see the bigger picture, but we don't necessarily know all the steps. Right. So we're trusting and believing ourselves. And then you have this other person that we deeply care for, obviously is our wife or spouse, and.

you know, just for them to be able to, like you said, I guess take the leap of faith even more so to, to, to be able to support is a, is a big deal. So thank you for sharing those things. I think that like all of our stories are a little different, as far as, you know, how we apply those things, but, it's important for me this year to really start pulling that out of, successful entrepreneurs because I think, I think it's important and, and there's no right.

But I think that, it has to be something that we talk about. And I, and I love to have what you said. It was a conversation that you had repeatedly with your wife and, I think that a lot. High achievers are gonna gonna lean towards that delayed gratification and say, Hey, look, if I just spent a little bit of time doing the right things, then it's gonna set us up.

And so, I just like talking to guys like you that have actually gone and done 'em because there's a difference between saying, let me go do these things and it'll set us up. And then you're always in that mode, right? Like, I'm just, we're we're, we're going to, like, I'm just, I'm still setting it up. I'm still doing it.

I'm still, I'm still there. Like there's just a bunch of talk, not a whole bunch of action. So just super excited for. For not only like personally to, for me to get to know you better, but just to watch you continue to operate in that because it's, it's inspiring. last question here for you, Tyler. I wanna know if you whispered in the young Tyler's ear, what would you say?

[00:49:00] Tyler Pratt: Don't give up. Maybe it sounds cliche, but that philosophy, that principle right there is absolutely true. It's simple. It's true, and you just, you have to keep working. I remember, if you have time for one more little story, would love it. Just came to mind. I haven't thought about this for, I don't know. I'm 44.

I probably haven't thought about this for 30 plus years, right. So I remember as a, a kid, I would stay pretty much all summer long with my grandparents on the farm. Okay. They had a nice place and, they had, all these roads between their house and the out buildings and the chicken coop and the tractor shed and the green res, and, and there was an old gravel pit on the hill up of their home that had been abandoned a long time ago.

Well, my grandpa was adamant about keeping a nice sand. Like base on all his roads, so they weren't muddy. Well, at this old crushing pit, there was all this reject sand leftover and that there was no tractors or, I mean he had his agricultural tractors for the field, but nothing to move sand with. So he would have us kids drive as little kids.

8, 9, 10, 12 even. That's my, I was a teenager. I remember doing it every spring and summer. . We would go with shovels and we would hand load sand into the back of a pickup. We'd drive it back down off the hill, and we would hand spread sand back out on his road and maybe use a rake a little bit. And I remember my first recollection of doing that, I couldn't have been very big.

And I remember complaining that I was tired of shoveling sand into the truck. And my grandpa has a tremendous work ethic. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he's 90. Two, almost 93. He's, wow. Steel is incredibly active and would outwork most people. Most. But yeah, he, he, he told me, he said, if you're tired, don't quit. He's like, just change the way you're doing it.

I'm like, it's shoveling. Like how do you do it different? And he's like, well, you can shovel. , you know, with your left hand you can shovel with your right hand and you can do it like this and you can step on and shovel with your foot and dig deep and throw it in front of you. He's like, and then when you get tired of one of those,methods, then go back to the first one.

He's like, there's no need to quit. Just change the way you're doing it. And I think that that's been ingrained in me all along, cuz there's times I get tired of the grind and, oh yeah, that doesn't mean you stop. You don't quit. So, you know, just change directions a little bit, change focus for a minute. Do whatever you have to do to keep going and ignore some of the negative, ignore, ignore the, the burn in the left shoulder and focus on the right shoulder for a little bit.

So,

[00:51:40] Chaz Wolfe: so profound. Tyler, in all seriousness, how could you not tell that story? what wisdom and, and I'm, I'm just thankful man, that, you would share that, that you would remember that after all these years. I that just got deposited into, into, a part of my brain that, I'm gonna try to use and even for my own children.

So, the legacy of of grandpa lives on, I promise you, at least, at least with me and my kids, it'll, it'll be So, Tyler, you've been incredible. How can the listener connect with you? maybe, maybe they, are connected somehow to power lines or drilling and, and they need your services. or they're just an entrepreneur and they wanna pick your brain.

How can they.

[00:52:16] Tyler Pratt: email or phone? My, my email is t pratt hvi power.com. and my phone number's (435) 632-4298. So there you go. You're welcome to call me, text me, and I'm love to help, love to talk with you, whatever we can do to

[00:52:36] Chaz Wolfe: work together. Awesome man. You, truly embody, what it means to be a king in many, many,ways.

And so thankful, selfishly thankful to know you. but it's also, awesome to be able to share you today. With, all the entrepreneurs listening. So again, thank you for being here. Blessings upon blessings on your family, your kiddos, your wife, of course, your team, your business. looking forward to running hard with you in 2023.

thank you for being here, brother.

[00:52:59] Tyler Pratt: Hey, thanks for the opportunity, Chaz. Take care. Yeah.

Host Chaz Wolfe sits down with business owner Tyler Pratt. Tyler is the founder and CEO of power line construction company, High Voltage Inc., a drilling company and also owns a rental company. He has been in the industry for over 15 years. During the show, Chaz and Tyler discuss the theme of resilience as a business owner, and Tyler shares his personal story of overcoming the challenges he faced during the 2008 market crash, losing everything and starting again with no resources. They also talk about the importance of determination and never giving up, even in the face of adversity. They also explore the theme of diversification and the importance of having multiple streams of income. Tune in to this episode of Gathering The Kings Podcast to gain insights and inspiration from Tyler's story.

Tyler Pratt:

Website: https://www.hvipower.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsJ1Vda-jGGeCNd5vH3fc0Q

Business Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hvipower/

Personal Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tyler.pratt.9041

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-pratt-6829a2b2/

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