Robert (00:02.954)
Hi, welcome back to another episode of the I am landscape growth podcast. have a awesome guest with a unique story we’re about to hear, for you sharing it. Adam Neilson from peak and landscapes. Thanks for doing this, man.

You’re welcome. Good to be here, Rob.

All right, the format’s pretty clear. We’re talking about the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry. You’re in a really cool marketplace and have a unique story. So give the audience a quick little Coles notes of who they’re listening to, how you got into the space and what you’re up to now.

Okay, so I will aim to condense the story, but touch on the highlights, because it’s a long one. I got a degree in landscape architecture because I wanted to design golf courses. And that was my dream as a young man. And so I did that. I actually came to Guelph Robb. That’s why I was there for five years doing a landscape architecture degree and worked for a golf course architect in the summers when I was in university. And by the time I was done, I’m like, I don’t want to do that. The world doesn’t need more golf courses.

I don’t want to invest the next few decades of my life, you know, greening over areas for rich white guys. I don’t so much think that way anymore because I love to play golf, I, you know, in my young sort of ideals, I kind of just, scratched it off the list. And then, and then I also concluded that the other parts of landscape architecture that I had learned in school weren’t phenomenally interesting to me. And I didn’t want to be a landscape architect by the time I finished school. So.

Adam (01:36.662)
Long story short, spent the next 20 plus years in tech and marketing and sort of the digital space. I had a graphic design business that I started with a partner, had an e-commerce business I started with a partner. I was an executive with a tech startup and with a national ad agency. And I was an executive desk design.

computer tech guy. learned how to code, learned how to design, I learned how to manage software engineers and product engineers. And some of those were my…

the heck happen yeah yeah I know it’s okay I’m just listening it’s like yeah I know you will

So, and I also had a young family and so there was all sorts of like dynamics going on there that sort of had a very big impact on my risk tolerance over those decades. In my 20s, I was like, bring it on. In my 30s, I was like, I just want a job that pays enough. And then kind of got into my 40s and I’m like, I am really clear at this point that I don’t like working for other people. And I like being in charge. And I’m kind of tired of producing digital artifacts that don’t feel real anymore.

So, you know, I was making email campaigns and websites and mobile applications and all these things that were at times extremely creative and fulfilling, but they’re very temporary. And so there was then a family decision. My wife and I decided that through a series of things that we wanted to move out of Vancouver and go live in a ski resort. And so we made a lifestyle move to Whistler and

Adam (03:20.526)
At the time I was still able to run my product department with a tech startup in the city, mostly remotely. But once I kind of got into that, was like, don’t want to put down roots in this new town that I think I’m really going to like, but have all of my work not touch this place. And so that experience, as well as the clarity that I…

want my own business again after having some in my 20s and early 30s led me to a, well, I’d like to look for a business to buy in Whistler. I haven’t bought a business before, but I think I could figure it out with my network of smart people around and reading books and being resourceful. And so I did. So long story short, I looked at a few businesses, kicks and tires, certainly was not looking for a landscape business, mostly because of my very clear vision that I didn’t want to be a landscape architect.

25 years previous. But then one kind of came across my desk. I’m like, I don’t want that. But I talked to the guy and I’m like, okay, takes the winter off and can kind of ski when he wants. Doesn’t seem like he’s terribly at this point in his career invested in really pushing the needle on his business. Meaning he’s running a good business, but he’s not really driving it. And he makes a decent living, a living that would be sufficient for me to support my family.

And I thought, sounds pretty good. So I looked into it and I ended up buying his business in March, you know, with a meter and half of snow on his trucks and lawnmowers and really like due diligence is tricky on a business in winter when everything’s outside. So I did that. I remember meeting with him in March before the snow had melted and we started the first season before I sent any invoice or produced any work coming home that night after just talking through with him a lot of things and

calling a few prospects about some business opportunities and the transition. I came home that night and I just said to my wife, said, Sarah, we’re fucked. can’t, I can’t learn enough fast enough to make this work. I’m really sorry. I made a big mistake. We need to sell the house and pay the bank back. All this stuff, you know, just like absolute fear. And she just, her, you know, her jaw just dropped. And I’m like, yeah, like, you know, but we still got each other and kids are fine and not losing any friends. And like, so, you know, it’s not that bad.

Robert (05:35.694)
Adam (05:47.67)
But then I slept on it got up the next morning. I’m like, well, I’ve got a choice either like I give it a try or I throw in the towel before you and so gave it a try worked harder than I ever have in my life because you know, everything took me ten times longer than it should because I right I Didn’t know what a yard of topsoil cost So, you know like doing an estimate one that I can do in 15 minutes now would take me 10 hours, right? So just just hard hard work and desperation. I was desperate

You didn’t know.

Adam (06:14.166)
And I really didn’t have a choice but other than to make it work. And then I think by August that year, I’m like, you know, I actually really like this. I think I can be good at it and this year is gonna work. And then fast forward, that business was called The Gardener’s Yard. I ended up rebranding that business over that first winter, cause I didn’t like the name. And then spring number two, another landscape business in town called and said, we’re thinking of selling.

Are you interested? And I’m like, no, I’ve taken on too much already.

look at it and I bought it too, affected first of season two and then I ran two separate landscape businesses in year two different.

I this was a Netflix show that we could watch seasons.

And that second year was really hard. The cultures of the two businesses did not gel. And that business was called Out on a Limb. After a year two, I amalgamated the companies into the one and only landscapes. And then that was five years ago. So that’s how got here. I bought two landscape businesses, having never done it before. Awesome. And now know what I’m doing, for the most part.

Robert (07:22.927)
So what’s the core focus of the business today?

So we have a decent maintenance, a decent, substantial maintenance portfolio that is mostly high-end residential. We do some commercial, but for us that’s like hotels and high-end condominium townhouses. And then we have a trucking division. So we have a tandem dump truck and we also have a roll-off bin truck. we’re material deliveries. They also support our crews. And then we’re also doing a lot of dumpster disposal and material, like delivering gravel.

Soilacrone around the valley and then we have a design build install division, which is where I spend most of my time.

Cool, making the cool stuff.

Yeah, making the cool stuff. That’s where I, yeah, the design part of me has come back and it turns out I really like making beautiful things that are real in addition to.

Robert (08:15.51)
And last, I mean, for a long, long time.

Totally. you know, where I find I really get jazzed is like, is on the softscape side. So what we do a lot of stone masonry, high-end kind of hardscape projects, I get jazzed when it’s like 2000 plants come in a truck and I’m doing the layout and just creating with it and visualizing all the stages. And like that’s, I love those days. And I get in the field and I work on those days cause it’s fun.

Cause that’s your magic spot. know, like your prompt. Yeah. That’s cool. All right. Sweet. So this is an interesting question then, because if you look at the stages of growth, you know, you went from zero to running and then you went from running to disrupting and culture fits. And I think this is then like a really cool perspective that you get to bring to this conversation around. What do you see as the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry?

Adam (09:13.196)
Yeah, well, I can only speak for myself. So I can talk to what I think holds Adam and Pika landscapes back.

Yeah, like maybe some of the feelings you hit and how you broke through them.

Yeah, okay. So that’s helpful. So I think I would say that, well, it’s not true today. Every year before this year, housing has been a constraint because well, I can, there’s lots of people interested in working for us. There’s been really nowhere that they could live in our area in the sea to sky or like, like actually nothing. Right. So, I’ve just been limited by my ability to add people to produce the work. I think I can solve that is shifting.

And I would say this year, that is not a real constraint. So I’ll discard that one based on that. I certainly hit a ceiling around a million and a half in revenue where it was me and then field staff. I had no, I had no management or office staff to just help. And I think about a million and a half was the point where it’s like, okay, this

You know, I can’t go to every meeting. can’t meet with every client. I can’t write every quote. I can’t send every invoice, but I had been. And, and so at that point, I, my first significant hire was a construction manager and their job was then to, you know, set up the crews, remove obstacles for the crews, brief the crews. And really that was a natural thing for me because I don’t come from the landscape construction world. So while I’ve learned a lot and I’m capable,

Adam (10:49.154)
I’m not an on the tools landscaper that’s been doing this for a long time that can go in and show the guys how to do highly technical things.

Right. Yeah. It’s like business design sales. It’s kind of like your thing.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And, and like, have a lot of operational experience with small businesses. And so I’m, I’m fairly comfortable in that space in the sense that, I feel like I can do a lot of those things or have done a lot of those things that can sort of win relative to competitors who are sort of trying to figure that stuff out after being very, yeah. So that was a key hire. and then we, you we learned pretty quickly that

Yeah, they’re like the opposite in a lot of cases.

Adam (11:30.474)
about somewhere in the neighborhood of three to five jobs at a time is about the max for what that person can handle depending on the complexity of the jobs. I then once we got up to five maintenance crews, I hired a full-time maintenance account manager and she’s been with me for years now and her job is you know is mostly to manage our clients happiness with regards to the service we’re delivering but she’s very much like hands-on with the crews as well and at times in her role has been

training and getting crews out of the yard in the morning and all that stuff. So once those two people were in place, we were able to get to about four million. And then I think my next ceiling was, okay, there’s still too much on me. And our construction side is feeling very strained because that one guy who’s managing three or four crews always is stretched thin and my foremen in the field are frustrated because they’re not getting answers quick enough or they’re not getting enough time to work through problems.

So this year we hired a logistics manager to handle all of our yard and trucking stuff and we had

that it was off of this guy and he could focus just on the foreman.

Cause it’s like almost dispatch, lot of phone calls, a lot of interaction.

Robert (12:39.347)
There’s so many things moving everywhere, literally.

And that business has been growing. it’s just, and that’s the one part of our business, which is like, we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Like there’s no planning in that business. Like someone calls. Yeah, really. It’s like someone’s got a bin. It’s full. I want to pick that this afternoon. So you have to be reactive and just be available. And then, and then we hired a project manager on the construction side to sort of work in between myself and my construction manager. So now I have sort of, I have a leadership team that is managing parts of the operations of the business.

And while I’m not fully abstracted from that, that’s, you know, I hang on to those things part of tightly, and that’s one of the things that holds me back, I don’t know what’s going on on every job all the time. And that’s significant progress for Adam.

That’s a big deal. But so there’s a lot that you just unpacked there. Um, so I want to just make sure I get this last one here. not. Okay. When you talked about the second company that you weren’t going to buy that you pod. Yes. And the two teams just didn’t, you know, from a cultural perspective come together well. Like a.

what did that look like in terms of their behaviors and then like result that you experienced and then B, how did you go about improving it?

Adam (14:05.528)
Well, it’s interesting, you know, what I concluded happened there, because it was hard in the moment to know what was going on. But we had separate yards, even though they about a seven iron apart. So and those weren’t merged. We had separate facilities. And the previous owner of the second business I bought, and it was all maintenance. So they had three maintenance crews, almost all females, both the previous ownership as well as all the leadership over there.

And the previous owner was a master gardener and she was phenomenally knowledgeable and, and was very much in the trenches with her crews every day teaching, showing, directing. come along, she’s gone. I’m a business guy and I’m like, Hey, I hired you because you guys know a lot more than I do about these things. And you do a phenomenal job and your reputation is really good. So if there’s things you need from me that I can help with awesome, but

I don’t know.

Adam (15:04.834)
I don’t have time to be out pulling weeds with you. And they, my sense is they really didn’t like that. That’s not the kind, that’s not the kind of leadership they were used to. And it was not the kind of leadership that I think they craved or they thought they wanted. And so when I started talking more about, you know, billable hours and stuff versus identifying weeds and like, I know a lot about plants, but I wasn’t out there. I think it was just,

It was a miss for them. So really what happened is that year finished and some of those people I didn’t invite back because I run a business for eight months. Everybody stayed off in the fall. I didn’t invite back and some of them that I didn’t want back didn’t want to come back. And so there was a percent turnover on that business. I lost everyone and I built around the people that I had. Some of the key people that I had at Pica that that first year.

Yeah, and then you maintain the customers.

Yeah, yeah, like we lost a few, but it wasn’t it wasn’t abnormal. wasn’t. Yeah, maybe it was 10 or 15 % of those customers did not stick with us.

Shocking or anything.

Robert (16:12.404)
And that’s amazing, especially on acquisition.

Yeah, you buy a business and that’s like, that’s the biggest risk. It’s like, well, that’s essentially what I’m buying. Cause in my case, really wasn’t buying the people and the trucks weren’t worth much. Right. And if those customers choose not to renew because there’s no way to contractually oblige that then, you know, it’s it’s a, it’s a painful investment.

Yeah, no question. Okay, so essentially they redid themselves out. Sorry, no, go ahead. I just wanted to finish the butt-gaver.

it’s just interesting reflecting back on that and how I probably could have had more preemptive conversations to, you I was trying to win them over. I wanted to be liked. But I, you know, I was working many hours and I just didn’t have the time and nor did they really understand what they wanted from me. But I think what they wanted from me was not something I could give them. And so there was just a, there was a mismatch there. And then, you know, I

I start doing strategic planning over the winter and I invite some of them into it. And there was more of a reaction of this guy’s all about business. And I’m like, well, yeah, it’s like, it is. And that’s not like, have no hard feelings against that, but that’s, so I’m wired. I’m like every winter I’m going to use my four months to try and be a little bit better next spring. And I find that winter sabbatical, like people say, you must ski all the time. And I think you and I have talked about this and I’m like, well, I ski when there’s really good snow, but I’m picky.

Adam (17:42.764)
Yeah, I’m not skiing there’s like

Pardon me here. Excuse me. got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I’m spoiled that way and I actually I find skiing less interesting than I once did. So like I really find the winters energizing to get some coaching and read books and work on little initiatives and recruits. Like there’s a laundry list of things that I can do at my own pace that I think will give me just a little you know just a little bit better. Yeah. Come March or April the next year and I actually quite love the winters for that reason.

That’s awesome, man. And so if you were, if the audience listening is thinking about buying a company, cause this is a pretty like topical conversation right now, people looking at growth through acquisition based on your experience, what would you do differently next time from like a due diligence point of view or like an interview? Like would you have changed anything the way you had bought it to try to understand the dynamic differently?

I don’t think I would have handled the buy necessarily any differently.

Robert (18:41.518)
Like you’re kind of set, doing that.

And buying the second one was so much easier, right? Because now I knew the market. Now I knew what a yard of topsoil costs. I could just evaluate it through a lens of knowledge rather than total ignorance. I spent maybe 20 hours on that second deal. The first one I probably spent 500 hours on, because I didn’t know anything. But I think I would have really invested more time and effort into the relationships with the leadership that I assumed with that second business.

to with them better on a human level and to try and align who I am, what I want and what I think I can do for them better. And hopefully give them a safe place to tell me what they want from me. Cause I think I skipped over that part and I think I can do that in my career. Like I’m pretty introverted. like, I’m head down. I’m focused on the next task. I can very much willfully

Well, not willfully, but I can very much ignore the investment of time and effort into the human side of the business and that that sure was pain for me or it can cause pain for the business and it’s yeah.

I think that’s really well said. And I think a lot of people, whether they know it or not, fall into that bucket a little bit. cause it’s like, I don’t have time to build this relationship right now. And it’s like, well,

Robert (20:08.108)
And so then if you’re listening, the person listening to this and saying, okay, I am looking at buying this thing. And let’s say it’s a, they say it’s a million dollar business. They’re looking to buy, you know, so a solopreneur run, they got a couple of staff, maybe it’s like, you know, five, six people on a crew or two crews, whatever. and they’re making the buy from a planning perspective. Is there like a tangible kind of nugget of like, Hey, it’s going to take longer than you think. And like, you know, you’re going to want to spend a day a week at least talking and interviewing with people, or is there just something that like.

Now that you look back at it, you’re like, is there bit of a thing, just to give people some idea of what the expectation would be to start building those relationships in a new place.

I don’t really know. think the only way know how to answer that is probably I should have just been more visible in the field more often that first year. And it wasn’t realistic. And I’m not sure what I would have had to cut off my list to do that. Maybe there was stuff I was doing that was less important than that and I just didn’t see it or didn’t want to do it. I’m not naturally inclined to the people side of the business. I think I’m…

pretty good at communicating and managing people and I’ve done a lot of it but I don’t love it and I don’t seek it out. I don’t put that kind of work at the top of my list.

Yeah, it’s not like the thousand flowers that are coming in or plants are coming in that you’re about to like create this like whole new physical outdoor space that gets you like jazzed up. Yes. Well, and so that was leading to this next thing about like, okay, it seems like you’ve surrounded yourself with a pretty solid leadership team. They’ve complimented a lot of what you do. You don’t have involvement in all the projects, which is like a good sign because like you are actually empowering these people to go do these things. But then you kind of mentioned this idea of like, well, I hang on to a couple of things because it’s just like.

Robert (21:54.348)
what I love and you kind of said that’s kind of what’s holding me back. And then I was just curious because

What’s your take on this idea of hanging on to the thing that you love is kind of like the dream. Whereas in some people it could be like, well, I want to create a fully autonomous business. So if I hang on, I’m in the way. And I feel like this dichotomy is a part of the conversation that comes up a lot in these interviews of like, there’s actually a thing in the business I love to do and I don’t want to let go of it. So I’m just curious what your take is on that.

Yeah, so I think about that quite a bit because I have certainly been involved in peer groups where many of the business leaders, that is their primary goal, is to be so abstracted from the day-to-day that they don’t really need to be there. And awesome, right? And ultimately the business is worth more if it’s highly profitable and you can do that because it’s more sellable. I’m not building a business to sell. I love it.

Adam (23:01.486)
Okay, can I keep going or do want to interrupt? No, no.

For sure, no, no, no, no, please, please, please, please, please. You’re you’re.

Maybe some of my kids want to get involved at some point and that’s a succession plan, but I can see myself doing this for another 25 years and I’m not that young anymore. So like I’m not looking for a way out. If I can play golf maybe twice a week in the summertime, sometimes I’m happy with that. So I think I recognize that I need to abstract myself from the day to day so that I provide my key people with opportunities to grow in the business.

So it’s less about me trying to not be there and be unimportant in the business so it can run without me. It’s more about like, I don’t want to disempower them from being able to grow and therefore for me to be able to retain them and pay them better and all those things that, you know, if I was in their shoes, it’d be important to me. And I’ve realized that what’s important to me is quite different than what’s important to a lot of my employees. And that’s hard for me at times, because like I’m just, I’m ambitious and I’m hungry and I’m very restless.

And if things aren’t always changing or we’re challenging things, I get bored. And that has been a bit of a trajectory in my career. like every kind of five years I get an itch and I do something different. I kind of blow it up and do something different. Sometimes that’s worked. It’s never sunk me. And I’m now seven years into this and I’m nowhere near that because I’m like, let’s try this next year. And I don’t think I’m like, flippant or careless about those things. Like I’m fairly strategic, but I’m, I’m

Adam (24:31.948)
I can very easily make big financial decisions to try something that’s new with the expectation that, you know, as long as we’re investing in something that’s not going to put us out of business, that could work. I’m game to do it.

Yeah, that’s cool.

And so I think I kind of answered your question there.

Yes, you did. And I think actually quite well. because I, I’ve had this conversation and in my own mind a lot about this idea of like, and I’ve seen it happen. through EO and, and, and just peer group and network watching people that sell a business. So they actually get to the spot they exit. And then there’s this weird period where there’s like, it’s almost like depression.

It might even be a form of, don’t know, because there’s this beauty in the struggle that’s our choice of entrepreneurship. And I actually think it’s one of the most beautiful things in terms of a pursuit, because you get to build an environment for other humans. You get to put yourself through something that’s really difficult, but you’re doing it on kind of like your own terms for the most part. And so there was this, I don’t know what the heck made me read this thing. I don’t know if you’ve read Freud’s Civilization and its discontents.

Robert (25:47.246)
Anyway, a little bit difficult to get used to. Freud writes from like the thirties. So like, it’s a little bit different, but kind of get into it. But long story short, it’s like the human condition is suffering, or it’s the attempt to create a lack of suffering. And most attempts to create a lack of suffering end up in isolation, which in itself is suffering. And so it’s like this dichotomy of like, well, what kind of suffering do you really want to have? And if you acknowledge that suffering is a thing, but it can be enjoyable.

and hard work and a professional like approach or pursuit was essentially the, the essence of this thing that like, that’s the, there’s beauty that lies in that.

Absolutely. Yeah, very well paraphrased. I think the lowest, most challenging times in my professional career have resulted in the most personal reward and excitement and adventure over a broader time horizon. And so I’m quite comfortable with discomfort and I’m quite comfortable with things not being easy. And in fact, I get restless when they are. I feel like something’s wrong. So I think I actually create a little bit of

chaos and certainly earlier in my career I think I actually sabotaged things just to create little bit of adventure. I know I did at least once.

Yeah, way back. And I’ve heard this from so many entrepreneurs. Like there’s this idea of the wartime CEO. They’re like, if it’s peace times, I’m going to go start another business. Yeah. Then when this thing goes to hell, I’ll come back and help. But like, I don’t want to be sitting around when it’s boring. Hey, I just think that’s, that’s super cool. okay. So then what, what, what kind of, you, is there a bet that you’re making soon? Is there, is there something or do you already make it from the winter and now like what kind of something new that you’re looking at? And then I got a follow up question.

Adam (27:12.098)
Yeah.

Adam (27:30.382)
Well, I guess the somewhat modest bet I made this year was to invest in a full-size dump truck, which isn’t a huge swing, but it took a fair bit of money and we’ve had to find a driver and kind of work that into our ways. And last year we just could not find a truck at times because everyone was so busy and it really caused some inefficiencies on our job sites. Like let’s just get our own.

It’ll always be available for our crews when they need it. And if we’re struggling so much to get one, there’s others out there are too, and we can probably keep it busy. Now that hasn’t totally turned out to be true because the market’s just gotten a little bit softer. Right. And the truck has been a bit of a money pit in many ways so far. So it’s not going to put us out of business. And so therefore I’m not super concerned about it, but it might be something that we pull the shoot on after a couple of years, if that’s still the case.

Yeah, that’s cool. Well, it’s a lot of people think that decisions are like one way doors, right? It’s like once they go through the door, they’re not allowed to go back.

I’m, no, I’m very comfortable with like, you know what guys, we’ve run this for two years. It’s not working. Here’s the numbers to back it up. Let’s sell the truck, cut our losses and move on. And that’s okay. We’ve learned a bunch.

Yeah, that’s big. That’s a big deal.

Adam (28:45.634)
very comfortable if that’s where we get to.

So coming back to this kind of full circle, you’re in technology, you’re in marketing, design, you know, you’re running computer engineers, software engineers, whatever. Tech and landscape, like what do you see coming? I was at the NALP Leaders Forum, so National Association of Landscape Professionals Leaders Forum in Costa Rica, and Jim Collins, actually a Guelph guy, not Jim Collins, sorry, what was his name? my God.

I looked this up before I bastardize it. He’s a futurist. Hold on. What’s his name? Collins. Tom? No, it’s not Tom Collins. That’s a drink. Jim? No, that’s the author. Good to great. Anyway, this guy was awesome and he’s talking all about AI and the amount of people that were just like, what? I’m not even like.

It’s like, this is ridiculous. This is insane. Like I can’t even keep up with like Google and my email, let alone, you know, AI. so what do you see? Like, do see something coming? Are you using it? Like what, what’s that look like for you?

Well, like, yes and yes. I’m extremely confident on experimenting with tools and automation and software in my business because I’ve had to learn new applications throughout my career all the time and become very competent, highly competent with very technical software. So I think for me, I’m most interested in just

Adam (30:27.656)
using AI agents to automate more and more and more of the back-office part of our business. think, you I had a, I hired a virtual assistant last year in the Philippines and that was, you know, in the end it was 30 grand for the year. And I think I can do what she did for a thousand bucks by this time next year. Once I just spend some time this winter, like I just think that I’m already running a fairly lean operation. Yeah.

as as what we’re able to do with software and a very small office staff. I think it can get even leaner. I’m also curious about how we can use autonomous mowers. I haven’t gotten my head around how it looks in our world with a lot of small properties that don’t have much lawn and it’s mostly garden care. But I think

I think we should be able to do as much revenue, if not more with fewer people as the years go by between actually robotics, as well as just leaning out and leaning out the overhead side of our business on the back office side. that’s it for me. I think it’s, I’m very comfortable driving that change. And like what you said, it’s like, yeah, I’ve been in the room with landscape business peers and they’re like,

know, they’re just like, who’s the kid in my office, I can ask to do this. They don’t they don’t they’re so overwhelmed and intimidated by all of it that like nothing’s probably going to happen in their businesses. And I think, I think it’s a huge opportunity and that and that I’m well positioned to kind of to win. And I like winning.

Huge opportunity.

Robert (32:08.846)
Jim Carroll. It was Jim Carroll. a guy. Yeah, that speaker guy. I’ll send you his LinkedIn profile after the case and leave it in the bio here. Okay. Last one. Resource, author, speaker, something that kind of gave you a ha maybe one or two that you think would be worth the audience checking out.

Yeah, I don’t know that.

Adam (32:31.214)
Yeah, I’ve got a bit of a list. I sort of did two things, Rob. I wrote kind of the three books that have been the most influential on the business side for me in the last, let’s call it five years. So one is a great game of business. So good. The other has never split the difference. And then the third one is the Crucial Conversation series. So those of all most businesses I read, there’s business books I read, I think are shit. And I don’t take much away from them. But all those three have, they’re still on my bookshelf. And I’ve referenced them multiple times.

Well, not to mention the fact that Never Split the Differences remarkably entertaining and could be like a Netflix movie in itself.

Yeah, it’s good. I would say anything by Jordan Peterson. think he’s one of the most lucid, smart and refreshing voices in the world right now. I can see a lot there. And then just kind of back to our like, I’m listening to a fair number of like, just AI daily brief podcasts, like, what’s happening out there? you know, this man has tools been dropped, it can do this and this and they’re not landscape specific at all. It’s more just about this whole idea of what AI agents can do.

And that the truth is.

Adam (33:34.126)
as far as tasks and all that kind of stuff. So I’m actively consuming that stuff as well as some health stuff and tour de France and all that stuff too that’s happening right now.

Very cool, man. Well, I very much appreciate you doing this. It was a gem of an episode. And you’re right, it was a completely unique start of a career in landscape business and in entrepreneurship. Adam, thank you so much for doing this, man.

You’re welcome. See you,