Next Level Pros - Did Junk Teens Solve the Labor Shortage?

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Everyone says, “No one wants to work anymore.”But while most business owners were complaining, two teenagers built JunkTeens — and turned the labor shortage into their advantage.In this episode, we break down how they built a culture where young people show up, work hard, and stay — and how you can do the same inside your company.Partner Spotlight: 1SEO Digital Agency: At Next Level Pros, we teach you the best ways HOW to market your business. If you want additional hands-on help executing, we trust 1SEO, our marketing partner. They implement SEO, PPC, Google Local Services Ads, and high-performance websites that turn stronger operations into booked jobs. Learn more or book a consult: https://1seo.com/next-level-pros/

You keep hearing it everywhere. Nobody wants to work hard anymore. But what if the problem isn't Gen Z? It's you. Gen Z isn't lazy. They're just not inspired by your leadership. And that's what these two teens figured out. They learned how to turn your weakness into their greatest strength.

At 17 years old, Kirk and his younger brother started a junk removal company and turned the labor shortage into their competitive advantage. They proved that young people will still show up, work hard, and build something incredible when you give them purpose, build a culture that inspires, and a vision that they can get behind. We're sharing exactly how they built a multi-million dollar business by making work feel more like a mission, not a job, and how you can do the exact same thing inside of your company. So, Kirk, you have solved one of the toughest things that most trades and home service business owners are dealing with right now, like the lack of labor.

we know that the younger generation, according to every 40 to 70 year old right now in the United States, a younger generation is lazy. They want to be on their phones every single day, right? So it's hard to find good people to show up to work every single day. And because of this, we know that like the average tradesperson is like 56 years old right now, the average plumber, electrician or whatnot. And so that is an issue that we're all trying to solve. And it, And it seems like at 22 years old, like you have figured out a solution that not only gets these kids to work, but is also creating a brand of people that want to employ these people, right?

Like, want to participate in your guys' service just because of that cool brand. So, like, tell us about that culture, man. Like, what have you done to create that culture by design? Yeah, I can keep it simple. It's like getting paid to work with your. friends and have fun while doing it like who doesn't want to do that and that's that's what our culture is in a very simple way but it all started with us just like hiring our friends and then friends of friends and friends of friends um so really like keeping it in the network yeah like it's like

hey bro i i like doing this you should do it too mm-hmm but as of recently we've had two people move from other states to come work for us. So we had a kid move all the way from North Carolina, like he left his family and everything to like come work with us full time. And as of like a couple weeks ago, we had a kid move from Texas now. He's taken a gap year to work with us. And that's like a newer thing. So it was it was always our local friends. And now we have like friends and connections through our friends from other states that are now starting to move over here because of what we're doing. I love that. I think one of the greatest signs of a great culture is once, somebody's willing to relocate to come work for you. And two, they're willing to take less pay

to be a part of your organization, right? Because they understand that it's not just about the pay. It's the opportunity. It's being a part of a program. It's being a part of something that like just energizes. And, you know, historically, that's one of the things that we have been famous for. And like just seeing you guys create it on the, on the East Coast is so cool. Like, you know, some of our first employees with SoulGen, we'd get them to relocate from Texas, right? One phone call, they're relocating. You know, I had a guy that was literally making $300,000 a year over on the East Coast in North Carolina that was willing to come and start at a $15 an hour setting job where because I told

him, hey, look, this is the path that you have to take in order to get to the management level that you want. And he left everything, a $300,000 a year job to make $15 an hour. Did he end up making over that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he ended up, you know, running, running one of our call floors down in Utah and whatnot. But it was just really cool to see, like, when a guy's willing to make sacrifice for culture be a part of a program, like the buy-in is just so much greater. And so the fact that you have guys like relocating to come and be a part of junk teens, great indication of that you're building the right thing.

Yeah, and it's not always about the money today. And that's a part of our culture is like we don't have our guys always thinking about how much we're going to. to make today but it's like where are we headed as a team what are our goals where could you be if you do x y and z so it's you're not the guys aren't always thinking about you know the their paycheck at the end of the week but it's like the team and and where could we be by going above and beyond and some of our best guys our best paid guys have had that mindset and now they're at the top and then the other guys see that that they they weren't always focused about the dollars in front of them today and that's what got them in the position where they're at now. So having that be a part of

our like culture and our actual like team members that keeps the other guys bought into that vision too. I love it. Speaking of dollars, junk removal is like one of the coolest businesses because there's not like a super high cost of goods sold, right? It's direct labor, it's trucks, it's dumping fees. But outside of that, are there really any additional costs? Um, I mean, we have our warehouse The trucks, insurance. I mean, your basic business expenses that you're going to have in any business. Tools are minimal, too. We have sazzles, batteries.

We always pay for the best. We have Milwaukee. Like, we're not, we don't have fast with tools either. But yeah, there's not really any other crazy expenses. I love that. And so, I mean, speaking of the numbers, right now to date, we're filming this thing in the beginning of October, 2025. You guys have already done about two and a half million this year. in junk removal. And for anybody that's watching this, like, two and a half million in junk removal

is completely different than like two and a half million in HVAC, right? Because like two and a half million in HVAC is like, man, we have a lot of equipment costs, a lot of costs, a good sold and everything like that. I mean, two and a half million in junk removal is almost purely service based, right? Like just labor. And so like you're running a highly profitable model. You're pacing to hit, you know, close to $3.5 million. And you're 22 years old. Yeah. Dude, so cool. So where did you, where'd you come up with a name?

Junk teens. I mean, that's, that's, it's pretty simple. Like, we were teenagers doing junk removal, and I realized why are people hiring us because we're young? Like, there's a good amount of our customers that only wanted to hire us because we were the young kids starting a business. Yep. So it's like, all right, junk removal teenagers, junk teens.

Yeah. Boom. And then I love it. It just clicked. I remember running into my brother's bedroom. I was like, Jake, I got the name. It's junk teens. work and he was like oh that's cool he didn't really get it but like so two two things i want to go

from there is like one what you guys have done with the brand which i think is phenomenal but two is like how do you stick to that brand when you were no longer a teen yeah talk talk to me about that right you're 22 years old like how do you plan on keeping that like alive and no longer just being like junk middle-aged men right yeah i mean there's there's a few things that go into that i know a lot of people don't want to be picking up junk their whole life uh because it like eventually your back starts to get like sore and you know it's not the kind of thing everyone wants to do their whole life so there's that part of it and then it's also like people just want to have a younger person show up at their door they don't care if they're you know 23 or if they're a

teenager like 18 years old as long as there's a young clean well-kept like guy showing up at their door they're fine with that so that's another thing and that so that's kind of like part of the the external brand or culture that you've created right with your customers is like look this generation not considered hardworking is going to show up on your door and we are going to blow your mind with just hard work we're going to we're going to show up we're going to be young, vibrant, energetic, be able to do it. And so is the, the plan long term to keep that labor force always between the ages of like 17, 18 to 22, 23? Like, we have plans to grow big and quick as quick as we can in a healthy way. And with that, there's always new positions where

guys can, you know, step out of the truck and take management positions. And we can't, like, only only have, you know, like younger people at all times. But like that's pretty much the culture that exists. You know, like we don't, yeah, that is the plan is to have it always be like young people, teenagers. So give me the vision. Give me the vision. What number are we hitting in this thing? I could see junk teens nationwide and a hundred million.

And that's the vision that I see. Let's go, baby. Why not a bill? A billion. Why not a billion? The whole junk removal market isn't worth that many billions, but I could see it. But let me tell you, it may not be worth that today, but we live in the consumer generation. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. You know, one thing I realized with this industry is like everyone and everything in the world is moving tech minimalism. And there's so much junk, especially from like the 50s and these other generations where stuff keeping up with the Joneses was such a part of American culture. and now it's like people just want to stay as minimal as possible, and that's going to keep junk. It's going to keep flowing junk into the economy, and we're going to pick it up and get paid for that. I love it.

I love it. How much of your guys' work is actually going and cleaning out somebody's storage unit? Storage units is, I would say that that's maybe like 5% of... So very low. Yeah, I mean, 5% out of all the jobs we do is a decent amount, but that's a huge market too. And if we targeted that market, we could definitely get a lot. lot more jobs. Hey guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and

like and subscribe. That way people just like you can find this content for free here on YouTube. Now let's stop back in the show. You know, it's interesting. I mean, I think the storage union industry is the greatest indication of how great junk removal will be, right? Just because like the, that's the leading indicator. The lagging indicator is junk removal. The leading indicator is the storage of junk. And so we live in a day and age where literally people will pay a hundred bucks a month to guard their junk that they maybe touch once a year, right? Like they might go get their Christmas ornaments or something out of the storage unit, but they got something from grandma that's sitting in there that they think is worth some money or, you know,

maybe they're just a hoarder and they just can't get rid of the newspapers from the 60s or the 70s or whatever it is. And man, you see these storage units popping up everywhere. And they feel fast. I mean, quick. And the way that we build homes now, like a new development, four feet depart, right? The barely any garage or any storage space, right? Like there's no basements. It's only like three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen and a garage big enough to put your car in. And so now everybody's got to move their junk over here. Right. And, and there, you, guys are like ready rocking and ready ready to hit a billy and then people look at their bills and they see that it's cheaper to hire us and come clear out their junk from their storage unit

then continuing to pay that bill so it's also like kind of a no brain or sell in a lot of those situations to get those jobs so storage unit jobs are definitely really common and yeah like you said with the way houses are even culture minimalism is really pushing people to get rid of their junk more these days. So you started this thing where you're 17 years old. What was the initial vision? Because I'm pretty sure it wasn't 100 million. Yeah, that's a great question. We never had any idea that it would be as big as it is today. My first goal, my first dream was to own my dream car, a Hellcat. And that's why we started this thing. Like, I was just looking at every opportunity in front of me and thinking, what can I do to make six figures this year? How much was a

hellcat um between like 50 and 100k depending on like how i got it yep i ended up getting mine for a good really good price at 47k um but it's it's used and it's like it's fine it's 707 horsepower it's like a beast so sidebar when you got the hell cat was it everything you dreamed of i i would say that like i still appreciate it to this day and i drive it and enjoy it so much like just as much as the day i bought it because I worked hard for it. But I realized that that wasn't the only thing in life that I wanted to chase and I wanted to go bigger than that. And we actually didn't even get the dream car on our first year.

I looked at the situation and I was like, am I going to really take all the profit that I just made right now and throw that into my dream car and reset for next year and have to do all this again? Or should I take that and invest in a dump truck so next year I can make four times? So how much money did you guys generate the first year and how much did you net? Yeah, the numbers are pretty crazy

because it was my brother and I and we did everything. It was us too and the pickup truck, some U-Haul rentals and dumpster rentals to get by. And buy a pickup truck, I mean, literally, what kind of pickup truck we're talking about? It was a shit box Ford F-150 that we bought for $4,000.

It had a cracked frame and we didn't realize. Yeah. I love it. Where did you get the $4,000 to get it going? I actually, like, saved up from selling junk that I would collect from the dump. old speakers. I would find TVs and order like a replacement board on eBay and fix them up. Bicycles around the time of COVID, bicycles were high in demand and same with lifting weights.

So I would sell bicycles and lifting weights. And I would make like thousands of dollars just selling junk. I love it. So you were super creative from a young age trying to figure it out. You got your four grand. You go and buy this crappy whole pickup truck and you start going removing junk. How much junk did you remove that first year? It was dollars a amount. So we did about 120k in sales in that first year. And I think our profit was probably between 90 and 100K on that because we literally did everything. We saved every penny that we could with our dump fees. We're selling junk on marketplace that we would pick up from houses.

And yeah, so our profit was like high, like 70, 80% on that. So with that, we literally took everything and we reinvested that into our first. dump truck on our second year. And I really did want to buy my dream car in our first year, but I realized that the investment of that first truck would make it possible for me to have my dream car and be way more comfortable and also have this business that could grow, that we could grow with it instead of taking all that money and throwing it into the car on the first year. That's one of the most key principles in building a business. Most people, They want to rob the profits from the business to be able to shout on the rooftops.

Look at me. I'm successful, right? And I'm assuming at the age of 17, had you been driving around a Hellcat, it would have felt pretty cool to the boys, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. It would have been like, look at my ego, me, champion 17, 18 year old here, driving a hellcat or whatnot. But the fact that you chose to really swallow your pride, get rid of the ego, and

reinvest just shows wisdom way beyond your years, right? Like most guys aren't figuring this out until they're in their 40s. They're like, oh, I got to stop robbing the business to try proving my self-worth to other people and I got to go all in on what I'm doing. So you went, you invested, you got some legit dump trucks. How many of these legit dump trucks are you running now? Now we have five. One of them is a box truck, but they're all the same, same model, the Isuzu NPR or and our trucks, they go for like 95 to 100 now. When we got our first one, it was actually only like 75. And after COVID, they just skyrocketed in price.

So we got it. We got in at a lucky time. They increased like $10,000 a year after we bought our first one. That's incredible. Yeah, I mean, literally you got two Hellcats in one of those things is essentially the price of it. But just a way greater indication of success than like the external flex, right? like, which most people are going for. Now, one of the things that you do is one thing I preach inside of our community is building

a personal brand and really just like as a CEO, you have two main things. One is the brand and the brand. And the brand is both internal and external. Internal, we call it culture. External, we call it branding, right? And when you do that, right, you create a story that people want to be a part of, right? Right. The other one is recruiting high-level talent. But just focusing on this branding, you've been one of the best in class at this.

You know, 22 years old. I know your Instagram, you have like 186,000 followers. How many on TikTok? 182 or something. So, I mean, very similar. So, like, I mean, across the boards. You have a YouTube channel as well? Yeah.

What do you guys crank in there? Like maybe 55,000 subs or something. Only. Just, that's it. I'm just joking, dude. 55,000 on YouTube is legit. Yeah. I mean, dude, good for you.

And so, like across platforms, you guys are sitting on a half a million people. What was it that made you think, I need to focus on this? And at what time did you start focus on this? Was it early on? Was it at, like, year one, year two? Where was it? You asked earlier about the idea of keeping, like, the brand true to what it is and teenagers and how is that even going to be possible.

Well, I realized, like, on our first year, I think, I think 10 steps ahead, 10 years ahead. That's what my dad always taught me is, Kirk, you want to think 10 steps ahead. So I'm thinking, all right, so this is the name of our company, but we're not going to be teenagers forever. How can I have teenagers want to be a part of this when I'm not a teen anymore? And then that's when I realized that the brand was going to be one of our biggest tools to having junk teens be able to continue to grow and have that aspect of the youth and the teenagers and the exciting new energy. would be through our social media and our branding, which is why we've had to invest so much into this indirect value that doesn't give us returning investment. It doesn't have a direct ROI and put us have dollars in the bank. But what it does do is create a mission that's

bigger than the money where people feel like they're a part of something more than just their job. And that is what not only elevated our current culture, but I know in the future it's going allow us to continue to attract the younger generation where they feel like they can be a part of this mission too. And I know that it will continue to be even more of a valuable tool as I get older. And I saw that from the very beginning, which is why we have this crazy brand for just a junk removal company, you would never think. But that's the reason why. Yeah, I think that's probably the coolest part. In the home service space, like we all have a pretty bland product, right? AC, bland. Junk removal, bland. Pest control, bland, solar, roof, whatever. These are all bland. And very

few things can actually set us apart from a product standpoint or what we actually do. And so like the fact that you realize that and focused on the brand, like that is the greatest separator there is. Because at the end of the day, like you said, you know, these 50 and 60 year olds like that typically wouldn't even want to have junk removed are willing to help out. a younger generation because they see what's going on and how you're literally like changing the world through junk. Yeah, the other thing is too, like we started off with our pickup truck doing everything, landscaping, moving. So it wasn't just junk removal when we started then. It was like pure hustle doing everything we could to make every dollar. And then we stuck with junk removal

on our second year. And that's when we actually created the brand. It used to be K&J removal and disposal. We did a little bit of everything. I would say junk teens is a cooler, a cooler name. Yeah, definitely. But we also stuck with junk removal for a couple of reasons because I knew. And in the trades, it's really hard to find people to want to do this kind of work. And junk removal is a really simple job. It's like picking up junk, putting it in the truck. There's not too much that you have to really teach someone to do that.

But then also, like, the younger generation, I would realize that when I would bring my friends in on the jobs, they would hate doing moving jobs. Landscaping was also tough because, like, these guys don't want. want to, you know, come back at the end of the day with grass and crap all over them. Like, junk removal, half the time you're in someone's air-conditioned house and you're not like outside doing crap all day. So like that's a, I specifically chose junk removal with this vision in mind too, knowing that it would have a much higher ceiling and allow me to kind of like incentivize people to want to do

this kind of work too. Yeah. I mean, you've literally taken probably the worst image type service. and created like an Apple-type following, right? Where it's cult following. People want to be a part of it. They see the energy. I know you've got distracted with a few things

that have kind of been fun with like, you know, the rage room. Yeah. No, that's great. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about like kind of the behind-the-scenes culture aspect of what you've created like with your warehouse that like gets these teenagers excited about removing junk.

Yeah, so I grew up watching, like, Whistling Diesel, Danny Duncan, like, these guys on YouTube that were just, like, doing all these side quests and, like, cool stuff. And I always wanted to have something like that for myself. And that's where, like, when we got our warehouse, I was like, I'm going to start to kind of live my childhood dreams through what we're doing now. And the guys get a taste of that in what they do. so we have the warehouse but i hired graffiti artists to come in and paint up everything we've invested like so many thousands of dollars into just random upgrades we get all this cool junk from our jobs and we have like a whole like kind of man cave full of street signs pinball machine just like this cool stuff where the guys can come and hang out after work and then i love playing music myself i play

the drums as a as a hobby so i'll have like my music friends over and we'll just jam in the warehouse on like a random Friday. Have you ever seen, it was the 1990s film of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was the reality one. It wasn't a cartoon. It was when they, like the first time that they did it in like a real person vibe. Have you ever seen that video? That movie?

I think I've seen clips of it. I haven't seen the actual thing. So it's interesting in that, in that they have like this spot and they're like a gang, right? Like the bad guys that are working for splinter. They're kind of like working for this gang. And they get together and they have like a warehouse that sounds exactly like what you build right they got they got freaking pinball they got like all this stuff going on it's just a vibe it's a place to hang out and so it actually attracted people to be a part of a gang which i

would say is similar to you because like gang kind of has a negative connotation so does junk right so like to be able to get people behind doing something that they maybe not love every single day like the vibe that you're creating the other thing that you i want to point out that you said is like you took your childhood dreams right like things now you're you're not much older than a child right now but but i think this goes to show for like anybody that's watching this that's 30 40 50 60 years old right it's not too late to be a child right like and and i would argue that there's no such thing as adults only tall kids right and deep down there's a connection that each one of us have to like our childhood where we really just want to be a kid every single day. And the fact that

you're creating it, that's been the same thing for me. Like I would argue like one of the reasons why my culture has always thrived is because I'm constantly looking at what my childhood dreams were. Like little poor Chris sitting in Connell. I got a nice, I got a little yard. You know, I can play baseball every day. But like, man, I'm dreaming about, you know, video games. or I'm dreaming about having a sauna and a cold plunger, a gym in my office. I'm dreaming about having a slide, which, by the way, we have it framed out in the second level. That's awesome. That was one of my ideas.

To be able to put a slide down to the back area. Oh, dude. Like, it's still there, and that's still a part of, like, the dream line of, like, man, we are going to freaking one day. We're going to put a slide in here. Because, again, like, people, normal work culture is not that way, right? Normal work culture is I show up, I clock in, I got a boss sitting in a tie in a dress shirt in the corner, right? Like he's watching over me, making sure I hit my KPI's, right? I got to wear a freaking at least a polo to work and casual Fridays allow me to wear jeans, but I still got to wear a button up, right?

And it's like I get free coffee in the in the break room and maybe some crackers. and, like, there is nothing inspiring about a normal work environment. Yeah. And so, like, the fact that you are creating this childhood dream for these kids. Yeah. And doing it while removing junk, dude, I've heard the song, like, Teenage Wasteland. Yeah, yeah. Dude, I know the song, but I don't know the lyrics.

Teenage Wasteland, but what does it say? Give me some of the lyrics. I don't even know what it talks about. I don't even know the lyrics, but it's just like the feeling behind it. like if you walk into our warehouse like that's the feeling that i that you would get in what we're doing and also based based on what you were saying like i feel that energy when i when i got the tour of your space and it was inspiring for me like i see certain things here we're in the big picture of junk teens i'm like i would want to incorporate this or that like it was sick

when i saw all the nerf guns and i was like wait you guys have nerf gun fights like in the office that's awesome so like there's certain things where i feel that here and i can tell with your success having that a part of your culture is one of the things that has got you where you want to be and we've been talking about how it is hard to find people in the trades to like do this kind of work and when you're so serious and everything's always about the money and just getting the job done it's harder to attract those people that want to build something more than just showing up for the work so like part of attracting and it doesn't even have to be like teenagers but even just like guys in general that want to like, you know, work hard and they're not going to, you know,

bust your balls about like every little nickel and diamond. They want to actually be a part of the mission with you. It's kind of giving them a little bit something more than just the money that they're going to take home at the end of the day. And then they're going to do so much for you and the company. And I think that's something that people could also take away. Yeah, I mean, and there's so many ways to recreate this. And I think the best way is to always look at your childhood or the childhood of others. Maybe you didn't like your

childhood. Maybe it sucked, right, for whatever reason. But you saw other people in the way that they were living their childhood. Use that for inspiration. Because again, there's just tall kids. That's all we're working with. 40 year old is just a tall kid. Like one of the things that we have implemented, we

always said like, look, the only reason we started a company is to dominate at intramural sports. We want to have the best local softball team. We want to have the best local flag football team or whatnot. And it just so happens that we run a company to be able to recruit that team. And so the reason I bring that up, it's like many of our childhoods were involved with sports, right? And many people as adults don't get to do that or aren't a part of a movement that they really believe in.

they'd be that actually says hey do this and so like us involving intermural sports into our culture absolutely just changes like the reason like like now when i'm connecting and i'm pitching a softball and hitting a home run with the boys right it's completely different than when we have to show up and we have to get work done and make real money right and so it just gives a whole new meaning behind it and then and then when you add in a layer of like hey look not only do i want to make sure you have a great time here. Not only do I want to get you a paycheck, but I actually care about you, your family. I'm going to help you be better spiritually, connect with God. I'm going to help take care of your fitness. I'm like literally, I'm going to make sure that you're going to live

a good 90, 100 year life. And on top of that, I'm going to teach you how to invest your dollars so that no matter what income you're making here, we can help teach you how to be wealthy even when you're not a business owner. And like when you show that full thing, we call it the P's framework P-E-A-S physical economic association and spirituality all of a sudden people are bought in right and and it doesn't matter what they're getting paid because their compensation is coming on so many different levels. Yeah you're not just being compensated financially but like you mentioned all those other things and I feel like there's even parts of those where we can do better at also I work with my brother so my brother is my business partner

We're 50-50 owners. Dude, that's got to be tough. It is very tough. It's like, but we fight this battle with the love that we have for each other. It's really hard and we will get into these arguments and everything. But at the end of the day, like those arguments are rooted and how much we want to make this work. And it's not like we just hate each other in the moment. It's like we are, we care so much about making our dreams come true that we're like seeing

that maybe there's something here that's not great. And that's like part of the dynamic that's like taking me a long time to. Do you know what principle that's based off of? Have you heard of the five dysfunctions of a team? No. Okay. So five dysfunction of the team, one of my favorite books. And we talk about this all the time.

Right. Dysfunction number one of a poor team is lack of trust. Okay. And so the functional foundation of a functional team is, is trust, right? Established trust. And you create trust through a bunch of different things, outside activities, culture, all that stuff, right? The next one is what you're talking about, which I love. In a dysfunctional team, it's a lack of fear of conflict. When there's a lack of trust, there's a fear of conflict. And the reason why you don't conflict with people that you

don't trust is because, is because you don't think that your opinion is going to matter, right? Like, you don't see this, you don't have the same alignment. You don't have the same goals, everything like that. So in a good, healthy relationship, conflict is actually a great thing, right? Because you know, you both have a, and the trust is said like, hey, we both want the same thing. Me, my brother, we both want the same thing. We're going for the same goal. We have different viewpoints on this subject and we're going to battle it out and we're going to, you know, we're going to conflict. And so it's actually a healthy thing to have conflict. In fact, it's part of our culture and our language is that we say, hey, is it right if I conflict for a second? And so then

it's like immediate trigger like, oh yeah, we have trust. We're going to see things a little bit different here, but we both want the same thing. And so like, and I think you've kind of come to that conclusion of like, hey, this conflict is actually healthy. It's because we both want the same thing. So tell me about, like, what, what are the hardest, like, what's been the hardest thing about working with your brother? Yeah, with my brother specifically, I think he's two years younger than me. And while we're young, we're both growing so quickly. We're, like, two years is a big difference. Like, who I was two years ago is so much different than who I am today.

And my brother being two years younger, I can see, like, his mind isn't developed, like, two years as far. as mine is and I can feel that. Literally, you've lived 10% longer than him, you know, which is crazy, you know, at your age, right, two years is a, is a huge deal versus when you're like 50 or 60 when it's like, you know, 1% difference. Yeah. So, I mean, I've been through a lot of things personally, um, just through life experience, you know, I'm about to graduate college. I'm actually thinking about what my life is going to be like, you know, I'm saving up to buy a house, all this stuff that is like coming on me at this point of my life it's maturing me much quicker than where my brother is at and the problems he's thinking about in life so that

difference is it's harder for certain goals to align because he values things a little bit differently than where i'm at in life so i would say that that's one of the biggest challenges that i'm looking at right now but i also understand the situation and i'm i understand that he's not in the same shoes as me, but all I can do is just try to paint that picture for him and just watch to see how we both mature. So I'd say the maturity thing is one. And then just we're both different people as well. It's a good and a bad thing because sometimes like I think through maturing, it's realizing that differences are not bad, but they can be complimentary and they can be gifts to have those differences and being young and starting and growing this business together it's like we have to

discover those differences and how they're complementary and how they're good instead of seeing each other as this this guy's better this guy's better it's like we're both better at these different things and that's why we're so good together i think you're pointing out something that's very interesting that that most people go through in life right when we're teenagers our goal is to be like everyone else right like that's that is a driven like we want to be a part of the tribe. We want to be accepted. We want to be popular. Right. But commonality is more important to us as teenagers versus where as you get older, you realize that commonality actually is a downfall. Right. Like when everything is the same, like if I work with somebody or my spouse

and I think the exact same way, then we run blind. Right. And so like the fact that you are coming to this realization at 22 years old, like phenomenal. Good for you because it took me until I was in my 30s to be able to figure out like, oh, I don't want to hire other people just like me or I don't want to be married to a woman just like me or, you know, and that I actually need to hire for my weaknesses, right, rather than people that I want to hang around only. And the fact that my wife is really strong in this area and I'm weak in that area is actually a positive thing, not a negative thing. And so, yeah, it's just, it's an interesting evolution. I think that each one of us, as humans have to go through that, right, like commonality isn't necessarily the, the most important

thing. There's also a relationship coach. Her name's JFF and she goes through these three stages of all opportunities, relationships, and everything. And I, and I really love it. And she says like every opportunity relationship starts off with love without knowledge. And basically it's like, hey, I love you, you love me. Let's let's go and do this cool thing, right? Like everyone's excited. You and your brother when you started off. It was love without knowledge, right?

You didn't know exactly how each other operated or whatnot. Even though you'd grown up together, you didn't know what it would be like to be business partners. That's what happened. Yep. And then you go through this stage, which is knowledge without love. and essentially what it is is now I know everything about you. I know all your weaknesses. I know all your strengths.

And I mainly focus on your weaknesses because they're blaring, right? Like they're in my face. And I don't love you for it. Right. It's just like, dude, this sucks. Right. Like, I don't know if I can make this work. Like, I don't know if this opportunity is good.

Right. Like you probably went through this in just not only your relationship with your brother, but also just in the business. You're like, yeah, let's go take over the junk world. And then there's probably been times. and you're just like, this sucks. Knowledge without love, right? Like, you know exactly what it takes to go and be successful,

to go and get $100 million, and you're like, I don't love it. Yeah, I don't love it. And maturity and success always comes in level three. And a lot of people never hit this. They never hit this in their relationships. They never hit in their business, and they never hit in their opportunities.

And what it is is love with knowledge. And essentially is that you choose to love someone, something, some opportunity, understanding the whole spectrum of weaknesses and strengths, right? And once you can learn to accept somebody for that, now you have a powerful relationship. Now you have a powerful opportunity. And when I heard that, I was, man, that is such a simple freaking framework. And I just got to always remind myself, what stage am I at? Right? Am I, am I in that early honeymoon stage of love without knowledge? Am I in the freaking sucky stage of like, dude, this sucks and I love you? Or have I chosen to accept this sucks and I love you? And

we're going to go and we're going to go and crush it together. So yeah, we're at that stage where it's like discovering each other's weaknesses. I actually love what you said. I'm going to take this and like play back the clip to show my brother because I think like both of us being aware of this like you have to be aware of a problem in order to know how to solve it. And we're at that stage where we're becoming aware of this right now and that this will help my brother and I both work together to spot our weaknesses and work towards that. Yeah. One of the things I share with my team is like one of the greatest strengths or indications of a great leader is a willingness to be wrong. That's so important for even self-improvement. If you can't accept like and take

accountability for the times that you are wrong, how are you ever going to improve? And now I'm saying you should lose your conviction right like you should be a hundred percent sold on wherever you're at whatever your idea is whatever your mission your direction like hey i am sold on this and i'm all in but i'm also willing to be wrong but i'm also willing that like hey look if you point out that i got the blinders on and that's the hardest thing for the ego you're right like it's like because the ego doesn't want to be wrong the ego wants to be right 100% of the time always wants to know what's going on or whatnot the ego's not willing to ask for help and so setting aside the ego, being willing to be wrong. And it's one of the greatest downfalls I've seen with organizations

and one of the greatest strengths of organizations that are built in the right way. Yeah, I think it's a part of becoming a good man, good young man, is being able to build up that, the balance of like having your own self-direction, but also being willing to take that constructive feedback to grow and learn as a person. So you're not stuck where you are at your young mindset. So I've I especially take that advice from people that I know are in better positions than me. Like if someone is more successful than me at whatever it is, like fitness or certain relationships or business, I like to like kind of take that feedback even stronger from those type of people to and accept that I'm wrong.

But yeah, being proven wrong is really important part of self-development. Yeah. Kirk, I just want to say this, man. like you are a big inspiration for guys that are in their 40s, their 50s and whatnot. I think it's a, it's a great indication of one, it's never too late, two, like, like we're all on different paths, right? And like, it's, it's cool. Like, one of the reasons why you're sitting here today is I saw your brand, right? I saw one of your viral videos.

I know you have several videos that have hit the millions, and I'm sure that's one of the ones I saw, right? And I'm like, man, look at these boys out here freaking hustling. like that that is that is so cool it's and so just speaking from my millennial generation i would just say like bravo like what what you're doing what you're doing for your generation what you're doing out there in massachusetts and just like the overall goal it's inspiring i know it's changing lives um and dude yeah it's just uh it's an exciting thing that you have going on how uh how do guys go about being a part of this mission join in be like because look not every single person is meant to be an entrepreneur lots most people

are meant to either be employees or what i call intrapreneurs which is guys that can kind of build their own empire within somebody else's empire and i'm imagining there's a lot of opportunity for that inside the junk teens world yeah definitely i mean especially like we want to go nationwide in the next two years like like i said i'm in college right now i'm about to graduate in may Which is wild. This is a man running a three and a half million dollar business and attending college full time. What the freak. Yeah. Good for you, man. Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of people always ask like, why are you even in college? I get that every single time I say it. Yeah, why are you even in college? It's for my parents. It's like their only wish of me and I'm able to make it work. So I see why, why not make it work for my parents? Like they really, really want me to graduate and it's something that they value a lot. And I value my- And what's the counter. argument to that counter argument to doing it for your parents just just wondering you know just playing devil's advocate here are you saying like like why why so if i hear that i hear hey i'm doing this just for my parents what's the counter argument it's because i can make it work i can do

what i love have my own path and you know i trust my parents too and their guidance because i am who i am today because of how my parents raised me um not not a hundred percent but i put I give them credit for who I am, and I see they really care about me being in college. So I just trust, even though I don't fully understand it, I trust their guidance for me. So mad respect for trusting and love in your parents. I would say we'd probably graduate to like, I would need to conflict on this one, but that we won't do it here. No, I can be honest, though, like, it's probably like the hardest thing I've ever done in my life is sticking through these four years. I've wanted to drop out so many.

many times. Like, it's, it's so crazy. I don't even know how I've made it this far, especially running the business, like the kind of problems that come up where it's like, I'm in a class and I'm getting this phone call that are trucks broken down on fire on the side of the road. It's like, what am I supposed to do? Like, sit in this class and learn about this thing. Speaking of which, it is Friday. Are you supposed to be in class right now? No, but I was yesterday and the other days, but I actually skipped school to be here. Let's go. Hey, if they ain't dropping out, at least they skip and let's go. That's the thing. like I've kind of just figured out like how to sales sales is such an important part of everything in

life like you're never going to fully be able to get to where you want to be if you don't understand some level of sales and it's the same thing in class it's like what does my professor really want of me in that class what do they want me to take out of it do they want me to learn that specific topic or do they want me to learn whatever specific thing it is so I have conversations with them and I figure out what does that professor really want to of me. And I can show them that outside of their class, I can achieve that same thing, which is their goal for me as their student. You're also hanging at a pretty prestigious business school, right? What was the name of it? Babson College. Babs in college. And so like the network

that you're being exposed to is pretty phenomenal from a worldwide standpoint. Yeah. And it is a business school. So my professors also see, all right, this kid's running a legit business. Am I going to like fail him for like working on his business in the class? So I do have a little bit of flexibility there. So you're very open with your professors of like, hey, this is what I got going on. I have to be. And also, like, I've had the school write in a couple articles about our business. I can use that as leverage. It is sales at the end of the day, too, being able to sell myself to the professor so that they know that I'm not just some, like, kid that's like skipping school because I'm lazy. It's because I'm actually doing something real. And I have to show them that and tell the story. Well, dude, absolutely phenomenal. Where's the best spot for guys to be able to find you?

online. Yeah, that's a great question. So my personal Instagram, you can just search Kirk McKinney on Instagram and find that, but it's just like looking at any of the junk teens content, YouTube, Instagram. Junk.T.s, right, on Instagram? Yeah, and then pretty much just searching junk teens or Kirk McKinney. The brand is strong enough. You'll find them, baby. Yeah, yeah. I love it. Kirk, dude, thank you so much for being on the show, sharing with us your wisdom, your young energy, everything that you're doing to change the world through junk removal, which is freaking phenomenal. And I always say like that, that is this sign of a great culture, great passion when you can use something so basic as a platform to be able to go change the world. So thanks for coming out, my man. Thank you.