My Story (The Short Version)
I started my business 6 years ago at the age of 24 and for the decade before that I was a boilermaker/welder turned structural engineer.
The places I worked were terrible, and I was miserable.
It seemed no one was interested in creating a work environment their employees enjoyed. So I decided to do it myself. I had never ran my own business or had any experience managing one, I read hundreds of books and watched thousands of Youtube videos but somehow only felt more confused....
I didn't have access to someone who could help me, so I decided I would just have to teach myself.
I was stupid and business was complicated so I started the simplest business I could possibly think of - Waste Removal
I worked that business every second of every day, accepting I was the stupidest man in the room, exposing my weaknesses and carefully documenting and learning from them. Within six months I had a crew of 4 trucks and an operator for each.
Most people laughed at me when I gave up being an engineer to be a garbage man but these lessons I learned would build the foundation of the 6 business and the 50 staff that operate them today.
As we expanded there we more lessons to learn and mistakes to be made, as there still are now and I presume forever will be.
I had worked hands on at every level of each of my businesses and used that experience to teach my replacement, I worked 100 hour weeks both on the tools and managing the business and somewhere in the middle of year 2 it became more than my body could bare.
I herniated my L4 and sequestered my L5 disc in my lower back damaging my root nerve and I lost all feeling and function from my ribs down. Caused by a condition called Cauda Equina Syndrome I also lost the use and control of my bladder.
At the time this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Ever.
But as I write this now I look back at these events with gratitude, they give me the opportunity to be the person I wish I had when I started out for myself.
They are the reason I do what I do here at The Sequoia Project, and if the lessons I learned can prevent these kinds of hardships for the next wave of people embarking on their business journey, then the world will be a little bit better and a little bit easier for all the pain I went through to learn them.
Everything I will teach you I have done with my own two hands.
You will have to learn these lessons one way or another to be successful in business.
My job is to help you get there as quickly and as safely as possible.
If you'd like to avoid making as many mistakes as I have. If you'd like your business to be simple,
Let's have a chat
All the best out there,
Dale Meyer