The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – From Addiction to Resilience: Kelly Killingsworth’s Journey to Success

Starting point is 00:00:00 You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oaks Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.

Starting point is 00:00:41 There it is, ladies and gentlemen. The Iron Lady from the Bugs Bunny cartoon sings it. Can I say Bugs Bunny? I don't know. When she sings it, that makes it official. Welcome to the big show, people. For 15 years, we've been bringing you the smartest people in the world, the CEOs, the billionaires, the White House presidential advisors,

Starting point is 00:00:55 astronauts, you name it. People who write these amazing books and have these amazing stories, their life, their journeys, everything they learned. And they bring them on the show and they teach you because as we always say on the show, stories are the owner's manual to life. And what better way to learn from other people's lessons than from their mistakes, which is the story of my life. It's just, it's just a horrendous lifelong error, a code of, I don't know, I'm just making

Starting point is 00:01:20 up shit as I go along now. So we have an amazing gentleman on the show. He's going to be telling you his stories of his life, which are much more interesting than mine. And anybody knows that at this point, we have Kelly King. We have Kelly Killingsworth on the show with us today. He's the dynamic owner of Kelly and Company or Kelco Construction LLC. And he's going to be talking to us about his journey through life. Some of the things that he's done, different lessons he's learned, different things he's overcome, and some of his reflections of resilience, as it were. Welcome to the show, Kelly. How are you?

Starting point is 00:01:52 I'm doing great. Thank you for having me here. There you go. It's wonderful to have you as well. Strength through struggle is a motto of yours. Give us a.com. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? www.digkelco.com

Starting point is 00:02:07 there you go that's that's where you find me do you want any other any other places on the internet you want people to find you that's the main source i have i do have facebook and instagram kelco construction you could look me up there there you you go. So give us a 30,000 overview of what you do today and the message we want to talk about. Yeah. So Kelly and Company became licensed at the end of 2022 as a licensed contractor in Northern California. Now before this, where it all began is a story of kind of darkness and what I had to fight through as a child and through high school. Then I was in the military from 2007 to 2012. I've battled addiction, suicidal thoughts, severe depression, and I fought through it. And so by doing so, I've gained that resilience that I need that to keep moving forward.

Starting point is 00:03:07 And so I'm here now, I own my company and I have a three bedroom, two bed, two bath house and a happy family. And, and, and mindset has been key for that transition. A great mindset to do. Now this is, is this your first company that you've started? No, I have failed twice. I want to say failed. I have attempted twice. I've learned a lot and now I'm at where I'm at. There you go. There you go. So, you know, this is the great thing. I mean, my first company was a pretty good little company. It didn't work so well in winter when you're in the stucco construction business, but I was 18. What the hell?

Starting point is 00:03:50 And then I had a few different, I don't know, you call them more play toys than real businesses, but they were attempt runs. And then finally, after a few years, I went for the big smack. So sometimes you got to do the little, they're not really failures. You're just kind of, I call them test runs, you know. Yeah, test runs, definitely. You're testing and running. You're trying to figure out the right dial in for being an entrepreneur and you get it.

Starting point is 00:04:14 So let's go through your journey and get to know you a little bit better. How do you grow up? What happens with your journey through life and how you're raised, the effect that maybe your home life had on you, et cetera, et cetera? Growing up, I had a pretty troubled childhood. My whole family's been addicts and alcoholics.

Starting point is 00:04:34 So my parents, they would fight a lot. They split at a young age. I was with my mother a lot of this portion of this time until my father gained full custody. He became sober when I was about eight years old or so, maybe. And he changed the stars for me and my sister, I like to say. But before that, we would have food boxes from the state and food stamps. We'd live in a trailer. It leaked. There was mice rats so i'm the first one in my family to um actually buy a home and get through everything and and

Starting point is 00:05:14 and i blame i blame i i thank my father for changing the stars that he did because if he didn't and also i went down the same path that they did and i don't know why i think it's because maybe that's all i knew yeah it's all you know you grow up with that yeah that's your blueprint so i went down that same path for a while and it took me a while to pull my head out but i finally did there you go there you go that's that's the one thing i you know parents don't realize i guess i mean what i've seen is they don't realize that and maybe they're just caught up in their drama their their unhealed trauma their lives but they don't realize that the imprint you give to your children having a father in the home having a mother in the home, having a mother in the home,

Starting point is 00:06:09 having the two combined, even if they don't get along, is an imprint. It's a blueprint. And how you handle that relationship, your relationship with your kids, your kids take that and go, oh, well, this is the way we're all supposed to act. And even if you try telling your kids, don't be like this they're around you all the time so they it just becomes imprinted in them and it makes all the difference in the world so tell us where you go from there i know you did some tours of duty with the military are you still you know when when did you wake up from the you know hey hey maybe living my parents imprint was isn't the best idea? I was in the trenches, deep, dark trenches.

Starting point is 00:06:49 I didn't see a way out. The only way I seen at the time was when I was 23, and my life was going nowhere. I knew I wanted something, so I joined the Army. And I was in the Army from 2012 to, sorry, 2007 to 2012. I went to Iraq in 08, 09. I went to Afghanistan in 2012 and that was great. It taught me a lot of integrity, resilience, strength. Again, though, the transition coming out of the military was extremely tough.

Starting point is 00:07:23 In the military, you have a set of goals that'll get you to the mission to complete the mission in the civilian world you have an any number of of goals you can take a roads paths you can take to get to the mission to get it done. And so that leads to a lot of failure and I failed a lot up till now. There you go. And it sounds like you've taken the status, the stance that you're going to learn from your mistakes and you're going to, you're going to, you know, you're, instead of just getting wallowed down and, and, and, and being, you know, locked down by, Oh, wow, I'm a failure or whatever the case is, you're going to learn from your mistakes and how to do it. Did you struggle with addiction?

Starting point is 00:08:12 And then when did you decide to become clean? Yeah, I struggled with addiction pretty bad. And I was addicted to alcohol for a very long time. And I started drinking actually when I was at the age of 15. Oh, wow. Yeah. So after the military, that really escalated and then escalated into using substance. And then I just was a downward spiral.

Starting point is 00:08:43 It came to a moment about three years ago, I was going to lose my house, my two kids, and everything that I had. So I had to come to the realization where I had to look myself in the mirror and tell myself, I need to change. I have to change absolutely everything that I'm doing. And that was very hard to do, but I did it. And, and even now, even now, even recently, cause it's like the slow time of year right now I'm in the construction world. So it's man, I'm not working like I think I should be. And I, my, in my back of my mind, it comes in, Hey, let's go have a drink or let's go you know kill time and i'm like man that's i can't do it i've already done it so many times that i know

Starting point is 00:09:32 what not to do now like you were saying earlier there you go you'll you'll learn let me ask you this just does did you go to a 12-step program at all or anything like that? I did for a little bit and that did help. It helped me find like a higher power, something to be grateful for. But now I just have a why. My why is my children and who I want to be. And so every decision that I make now, I try to look at myself in the future 10 years and say, is this going to make me, help me become who I want to be? And if it doesn't, then I do my best not to do that. There you go. It's good to stay on the path. I've got a lot of friends that, you know, they're in the AA, 12-step programs, drugs, you know, they just every

Starting point is 00:10:25 day is a battle for them sometimes depending upon the level of their addiction to stay on the path. And the beauty of it is just so much better. I mean, I never had an addiction problem to alcohol, but I kind of abused it. I was abusing my body with it, let's put it that way. And, you know, it used to be fuel. And then I would, you know, it's i'm like hey i can stay up later and do this work i need to do for my business and you know the sugar was like it's mainly just sugar you know crack cocaine sugar basically injecting your system for me and it made me relax too and as an entrepreneur i was stressed out so i'm like oh i'm relaxing but man the more i tuned into my health and i became vegan, lost weight and, you know, really started listening to my body and stuff, the more I just was like, this isn't helping me.

Starting point is 00:11:11 This is, this is, I mean, you literally are poisoning yourself. That's why you get drunk is because you're, you, you poisoned yourself. That's literally what it is. And I, you know, I had this con job. I would tell myself that, oh, I sleep better. You know, it helps me go to sleep and you don't sleep better. No, you don't. The whole thing's bullshit. And I just reached a point of age where my body says, we're not doing this with you anymore. You want to, you want to have some fun on Friday night for an hour or two and light one up. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:11:42 Okay. Well, here's three days of dehydration and bloating and feeling like shit you know and then it got to the point when you get to your 50s you know it's two beers and you're hungover and you're just like are you serious it's not worth it it's just it's just not and so now i'm free of it and i've been free of it since 2020. And I got to tell you, man, I'm so much more productive than I ever in my life. I don't miss it. I drink a lot of coffee and every now and then really high caffeine coffee. So I do have one addiction left. And so every now and then I'll get my coffee consumption off wrong and I'll get like the same feeling of a hangover with it, with the caffeine withdrawal hangover.

Starting point is 00:12:24 And I'm just sitting there going, this fucking sucks. How did I everover with it with the caffeine withdrawal hangover and i'm just sitting there going this fucking sucks how did i ever deal with this with booze drink more yeah yeah so so yeah now i just you know you just keep that coffee balance and you're okay but you then you know too much caffeine kids stay out of that so you you've come through this thing you've got your focus on your why you've broken the stigma of of dealing with how you were raised and everything. And then how do you balance now family, recovery, and entrepreneurship? Because it's a busy pressure cooker running a business, especially in the trade you're in. Not everyone's friendly and huggable, I think, in your business.

Starting point is 00:13:04 Are they? No no not at all you're uh you hit that business i've been in it it is it is tough it's hard to balance i don't even call it a balance i just i call it managing there you go being able to manage it and what has helped me is time blocking and i time block my schedule and actually color code my schedule. So, and I do it week by week and that helps me keep on track. And sometimes, I mean,

Starting point is 00:13:35 it's, I don't daunting. It's, it's man. It just takes a lot out of a person. And like we said before, it's not for the faint of heart, but if i find myself

Starting point is 00:13:47 losing track i have to just go back to my time blocking and that's that set in stone for me there you go i always resisted time blocking and and and just keeping a schedule because i'm kind of a free freewheeling person but my schedule keeps me in line, and I schedule stuff. One of the things I schedule that's important is every Sunday I do Gratitude Day, and that's on my calendar. And so on Sunday, that's kind of my self-care day, my time where I try and do some self-reflection and ponder. I'd be grateful for what I have. I kind of spend time with my little dog family my two dogs and and i try and kind of do things for the week and then i prepare

Starting point is 00:14:31 the schedule for the upcoming week i try and you know get get get laid into what the next week is going to be and having that self-care day really helps and then i have a i have a stoicism journal that i use let me see if i can grab this here if i can it's kind of under some stuff one thing that really helps me is this is a ryan holidays i'm not sure how well you'll be able to see it it's a daily stoic journal for stoicism and while i don't write it in every day you can it's a great way to reflect and stuff is that kind of that kind of helps me that or i I'll read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. That's really good as a man to read.

Starting point is 00:15:09 Yeah, definitely. That stuff is awesome. That's what I've been writing down a lot in just journaling. Yeah, there you go. It seems to help. Seems to feel like sometimes it's like manifesting what you want to be. Definitely. And who you want to become.

Starting point is 00:15:25 Definitely. And you'll go back and read what you put in your journal, and you maybe weren't thinking about what you put in there, and you go back and read it. When I was doing my book, I read my journals from when I was 18 and 20 and stuff. They weren't like journals. They were like goal sheets or something I'd filled out and stuff. And I'd read through some of them.

Starting point is 00:15:44 I'd just be like, holy crap, this guy was pretty damn smart. What happened to him? And, you know, I'm like, hey, I want to make $100,000 a year. Hey, I want to have this level of success. And, man, I achieved it all. And I really wasn't thinking about it, but I'd written it down years and years earlier. So somewhere it was in the back of my subconscious to be successful. And how about, you know, how have things been being a veteran and coming back to the civilian success? You talk about battlefields and coming back home.

Starting point is 00:16:14 Tell us what that transition was. That was a really tough transition. Getting out of the military and coming back home, I was like a free bird. And I didn't have a direction. I didn't know where I wanted to go for a very long time. The best thing that helped me when I got out of the military was finding a mentor. And that doesn't have to have the status of mentor as their job. It just had to be somebody that living a life that I wanted to live. That doesn't have to have the status of mentor as their job.

Starting point is 00:16:49 It just had to be somebody that living a life that I wanted to live. And I kind of took after my dad for a while. And then I recently just, I call it leveling up my inner circle. So I did that. And I was lonely. That was another lonely period. and I don't have a lot of close friends around in my local area but I did level up my inner circle and now I have a group with me that is very successful and whenever I have problems I get to go to them and talk to them and and see what they're doing and see them moving forward it makes me want to move forward as well

Starting point is 00:17:24 there you know i keep a circle like that myself i have a facebook group of people that are like-minded we call ourselves a little dent in the universe group although you know we're not elon musk or anything but you know it's kind of it's kind of i have some friends in the group that are you know they go to davos and they're putting their dent in the universe so they they kind of help stretch me like you say they they i see what they're doing successful and in the universe. So they, they kind of help stretch me. Like you say, they, they,

Starting point is 00:17:46 I see what they're doing successful and I'm like, I need to work a little harder around this place. Yeah. And so you kind of need that because I mean, what's that old line? You, you, you're the sum of the five people you keep around you.

Starting point is 00:17:58 Correct. And, and it's really important. It really helps your business too. One of the things I wrote about in my book was I had my best friend who was a partner for 13 years. And then he went off to do other things. We basically got Yoko Ono'd by his girlfriend. And when he left, I didn't have a board.

Starting point is 00:18:19 I didn't have a partner. It was just me running our companies. And I was alone for the first time in all of my years of business. And so I was like, what do I need to do? And I'm like, well, I could hire a board, but I really don't want to pay a board because I'm cheap. I don't want to pay an attorney and a board and all this crap and I don't have to deal with their issues. What can I do? And so I came up with this concept of what I called the virtual board for entrepreneurs. And basically, I went around a bunch of my entrepreneur friends and I said, hey, you know how you sometimes have ideas and you need help with maybe innovations or something you're doing or maybe you need to bounce some stuff off. We'll usually kick the can around a bunch of ideas or something.

Starting point is 00:19:06 I'll do this for you. If you do this for me, we'll make a deal that, hey, you can call me as long as I've got the time, but I'll make time for you somehow, weekends or something. But if you need help with something, an idea or concept or business and whatever, you can call me. And then let's make a deal that i can call you and we can help each other and because we're you know entrepreneurs an entrepreneur thing it's all

Starting point is 00:19:30 widgets right yeah right for the most part and you know it's learning to sell or you know trying to trying to clean out your scotomas like your blind spots of where you're like why am i missing here like why where's this problem that I got to solve? Why can't I see it? And, you know, the great thing about an outer source is it actually, you know, it's kind of like, hey, the glasses are on your face that you're looking for, you know, that sort of thing. So I love that you've adapted that concept of having a circle of friends.

Starting point is 00:20:01 A lot of men really struggle with that. There's data out now that a lot of men don struggle with that. There's, there's data out now that a lot of men don't have friend groups and they don't have friends. See, like, you know, like they used to, when I grew up, you know, men did stuff together. They would go fishing and camping and, you know, they'd be like, Hey honey, we're going to the bar. That's it. That's it. But now, now men don't have those things. And with the high divorce rate, men come out of marriages just with nothing, with no friends. And so I think it's really great what you're doing. You've got those people that are lifting up and inspiring you to go to the next level.

Starting point is 00:20:36 Yeah, yeah. If I didn't have that, I would still be lost, definitely. I actually joined a men's group. Really? It's a group of highly successful men. And that helps me keep me on track, just like what you were saying. There you go. You know, we've had a lot of military folks on the show.

Starting point is 00:20:55 We've talked about PTSD and different issues that military people face. You know, our military people get some of the most greatest leadership training and experience of all time. You know, we talk about this, you know, we, we, you look at the comparisons of how the Russians have fought their war with their, their hierarchy of really awful hierarchy of, of leadership and training and, and the kind of the way they run their military. And you really see the glaring difference between our military in the world and how it's just top notch. And I'm just really surprised that we don't do more to pick up people who come out of the military

Starting point is 00:21:36 and put them in positions of leadership because, you know, whether it's, you know, the be no do of the army, all the branches have just an extraordinary. And they teach our military people that, you know, if they lose contact or they lose their leadership tier and they're in the heat of the battle, you know, they can step up and make decisions. You see in Russia and Ukraine, you know, once you cut off a level, they don't know what they're doing. They're just wandering around getting bombed by drones. And so what advice would you have for other veterans who might be struggling to reintegrate into civilian life?

Starting point is 00:22:16 The biggest thing is to, I would say, is to drop. What happened for me is I had to drop my pride, and I had to look for a mentor. Because in the military, there's always somebody above you that is a leader. And so when you get out of the military, it's hard to find that person because it's not presented to you. You have to go look for him versus in the military him or her versus in the military the person directly above you is appointed to you

Starting point is 00:22:53 well not in the civilian world and you need to go what happened with me is i had to go find that person and and and it takes it takes time it takes time. It's not easy. You know, it's, you got to find a handful of people and then pick a couple out that you really, and you want to emulate and then go from there. And I think that, that has to be the biggest thing. There's so many people coming out of the military that are, are just lost. And I get it. I was lost for years. And they don't set you up coming out of the military. They don't say, here's a group of peers that can help guide you so you can continue on doing great things.

Starting point is 00:23:37 It's, well, here you go back to your home life. And if you don't have a plan, then what i found is it's easy to get down and go through that rabbit hole again yeah you know i had a i remember i had a friend who was a sniper who's he was heading out to his fourth duty in iraq during the iraq war and i remember i remember he he said to me hey you want to try on my rucksack? And I was like, no, man, that thing is heavy as hell. And he goes, I'll hold it for you so it don't fall over. I won't drop the full weight on you, but you can kind of get a feel.

Starting point is 00:24:15 Man, I got a feel of that rucksack. I mean, he didn't give me the full weight because I probably would have crumpled nothing. I was like, holy shit, dude. This is why people do this when they're young. But he was so lost. He was just isolated. He was so lost without being home. And he's like, dude, I don't have my brothers.

Starting point is 00:24:31 I don't have my people on my back. When you come here, like all that's gone. And, you know, cause I was like, God, are you sure you want to go do a fourth tour of duty in Iraq? You, you know, you did three duties and you got nothing's happened to you. You know, you got a clean bill. Sure. You want to go back, you know, tempt fate a little bit is, Oh man, back there. At least I know my purpose. I know my thing. And I think, you know, what we've talked about today, I think a lot of that whole thing, not only in the military, but you know, like what you've said, finding your purpose, what's your why, your family, your kids and all that stuff is, is really important for people to get nailed down.

Starting point is 00:25:10 And then from there you can build, you can build your life around your purpose. You think? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um, yeah. Finding your why is huge for me, it was staying sober was huge. Because when I wasn't sober, I couldn't find my why. So that's what helped me out a lot. There you go. With your family dynamics and stuff, how have you tried to change? I imagine you've tried to change the dynamic of how you're raised with your parents and the blueprint they tried using. It was probably not intentional.

Starting point is 00:25:47 But how have you tried to change your relationship with your family in a different way that maybe you were raised in what you saw? So a little bit about my kids now. So about three years ago, I split with my ex-girlfriend and we have two kids together and that ensued a three-year custody battle. And so that was part of the reason why I'm sober today also. So I have them every other week and my son, my most recent son, he's about a year old. So I just took what I learned as a kid and pretty much I know what not to do. And I don't know everything right to do.

Starting point is 00:26:35 That would be insane, right? I know what not to do. And I know that being sober, I can have a level head and I can take my thoughts through and I can project onto my kids what I'm learning myself with what I'm going through and let them know that it's okay to fail. It's okay because I've been there. I've failed. But you can always pick yourself up and move to a better place. There you go you know a lot of a lot of parents don't realize that the example they're the example they're sending for the kids whether they are intentional about it or not you know or sometimes you know parents lie to kids like don't

Starting point is 00:27:17 be a liar cheater and a bad non-integral person and then they go do it and you're just like mom i saw that you you know i still tease my mom to this day if she swears around me you know she'll get after me swearing and then i'll catch her swearing and i'm like hey hey you're full of shit and i love my mom but you know it's it's people don't realize that you know that impression you make that example you give is so important and so i'm glad you're teaching them that. What are the things that you talk to and help people with? Do you want to have, have we not touched on today?

Starting point is 00:27:51 I just want to let people know, I want to give people the hope that they can come resilient in their transformation as well. I mean, I've been in the deep, dark trenches. And when I was there, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I thought that was just my life and that's what it was going to be. I couldn't visualize anything beyond that. And it took me possibly losing my kids and just having a very unhealthy lifestyle that made me look at myself in the mirror. And by doing that, that's what made the light at the end of the tunnel shine just a little bit.

Starting point is 00:28:34 And I had to keep looking at myself in the mirror and that light got bigger. And so now I have a direction. And what I've done now is I've written out my goals, my yearly goals, my monthly goals, five years down the road, 10 years down the road. And it gives me a roadmap of what I need to do to become who I want to become. And so by doing that, if you do that, if somebody, if some of these listeners do the same thing and you know you can be who you want to become and you can change your stars anybody can do it there you go such an inspiring message and somebody asked how old is kelly kind of curious on your journey there yeah so i'm i'm

Starting point is 00:29:19 38 years old there you go 38 years young yeah you are young i'm 56 i'd trade you any day be that young again i've had a hell of a life up till now but yeah yeah 30s are your best years of your life i think especially when you get it all down that's what i've heard i'm getting it all down now there you go and then when you're 40 it's all over no i'm just kidding i don't want to depress you it's 50 when it's all over but enjoy the ride'm just kidding. It's 51. It's all over, but enjoy the ride. Take care of your health. I mean, that's the other thing I wish I'd done is quit drinking, you know, back when I was your age. Cause you know, I probably did some damage to my body, probably did some things that, that I feel now it's harder to lose weight, you know, insulin resistance. It's, you know,

Starting point is 00:30:00 I don't know. I'm still looking for one of my kidneys. So, but, you know, it's just you start to feel like when you get to be my age, you feel like everything you did to yourself for the past 50 years. You're like, I think I can taste that martini that I fucking shouldn't have been drinking or whatever, you know, and you're just like, wow, man, it's a lot of, you know, that's a lot of bottles that they're hitting the old back there. But it's so it's good that you're getting cleaned up now and you're dealing with it and you're getting your focus. You know, we've had a lot of blue collar, blue collar, they call themselves blue collar millionaires on the show. In fact, somebody, I think wrote a book of that title. We just had another gentleman on who is, who his focus is to take blue collar businesses and help people build them into multi-million dollar companies and stuff what is some of the vision you have for what you're doing want to do with your company that's a pretty big vision this year

Starting point is 00:30:57 actually so we became licensed in the state of california at the end of 2022. So last year we went from zero to 250 K gross. This year we have a goal of getting to a million. And what we've done is reverse, reverse did our numbers. So now what we do is we bid about seven to 10 projects per week. And by doing so, hopefully we can get around seven projects ranging around $150,000 a piece. And that'll get us to our million dollar mark. So that's our goal right now. We actually just put a bid in for $600,000, which would have got us halfway there, which is awesome. We didn't get awarded that project, but we're making the relationships needed to be able to move forward. And that's another thing I wanted to say is relationship building. I never thought that it was that big of a deal. And if you make relationships with the

Starting point is 00:31:59 right people, it is a big deal. Definitely. Relationships are everything. And the great thing about relationships is when you make them, the payoff continues for them for years to come. Like when I started my first really big company, Silver Street Express, we set up relationships with people. We didn't have contracts. They weren't bound to us. But we just delivered really great service and innovative stuff. And people liked us

Starting point is 00:32:25 for some reason i don't know people always like me i don't know why they really shouldn't i'm not that interesting a person but and most of those original clients stayed with us for 13 years and they would you know people try and steal away and they go we we like chris voss and and i hadn't seen him in years so i started other our other companies and but they loved our service they loved how we did things and they stayed with us through the time i finally closed down the company because it was just too much liability with the cars and delivery services and stuff and we had other things we were doing but i looked back on it and i'm like holy crap like the the money that i made just from the work I did in the first few six months,

Starting point is 00:33:09 you know, you look back on it, you're just like, holy crap. And it was all about those relationships. So the payoff is huge as you build that out and you build your book of business. Definitely, definitely. I, all at the end of last year majority of last year i was creating relationships and now i get to see some of this coming to fruitation there you go so give us a final call out on what people can do to reach out to you learn more and work with you etc etc maybe check out you know some of the visions and things you're talking about and inspire other people. Yeah. I got www.digkelko.com. We got Instagram at Kelko

Starting point is 00:33:54 Construction, same with Facebook. And I post a lot of stuff other than dirt moving and whatnot on my socials. It's about building my brand. A couple values that we like to instill are integrity and resilience and strength. And we like to do the right things for the right reasons with honesty. And we learned a lot of resilience going through what we have, like being a clock in a windstorm, steady ticking, always forward. And and then strength strength is a big one and if you ever heard the story of the the buffalo versus the cow no what is that story you can google it but i'll share a short story about it so if a storm's coming over the horizon what the cow does the cow sees it turns and runs from the storm well eventually the storm will catch up to the cow does is the cow sees it, turns, and runs from the storm. Well, eventually the storm will catch up to the cow, and the cow keeps running to get away from the storm.

Starting point is 00:34:50 Well, the cow never really essentially gets out of the storm. He may be there working very, very hard, but he doesn't get out of the storm. What the buffalo does is he sees the storm. They run to the storm. They run through the storm, and they get to the other side and so that's a big metaphor for me that's what this picture is behind me is the buffalo in the storm and that's what got me through a lot yeah there you go i like that a lot i i use that analogy closing the distance from hunt for on october sometimes if you've got the missiles coming at

Starting point is 00:35:24 you sometimes it's better to close the distance to figure out how october sometimes if you've got the missiles coming at you sometimes it's better to close the distance to figure out how you disable them someone has a great question they really like your speech does kelly regret anything in his life currently do you live with any regrets or do you mostly focus on you know what you can learn from them as opposed to living in the you know regret when i first this transition, I had a lot of regrets, a shit ton. And I was really unhappy. And I would look at myself in the mirror and I would just be so upset about the decisions that I made in my past. And through continually looking at myself in the mirror, I came to learn those regrets as learning opportunities and taught me what not to do. So now when I look at it, now I don't live a life of regrets.

Starting point is 00:36:15 I faced a lot of my fears that I thought were fears. And by doing so, now I don't live a life of regret. And I don't regret my past and my past decisions because it made me who I am today. Yeah. That's a great question. And I learned a lot of lessons and I could teach my kids and hopefully other people those lessons too. Definitely. You know, when you live in regret, you're renting that space out in your head where you're living in the past and you can't change the past you know and the most important thing is to learn from it and go okay well it's okay that i

Starting point is 00:36:50 recognize that i made mistakes how to learn from them okay well i've got that so you can go away with your little rip thing there and and then you can use that space to focus on changing your life and make it better there you go god bless you bless you, Kelly. God bless you, too. There you go. So, Kelly, give us the.com one last time as we go out. Yeah, www.digkelco.com. There you go. There you go.

Starting point is 00:37:14 Thank you very much, Kelly, for coming on and sharing your message. It inspires everyone here. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, and thanks for listening. There you go. Thanks, my honest us for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Crispus, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Crispus, Crispus1, the TikTokity, and CrispusFacebook.com. Thanks for tuning in.

Starting point is 00:37:33 Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.

The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – From Addiction to Resilience: Kelly Killingsworth’s Journey to Success

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