The Reluctant CEO: How Caring Saved a Company on the Brink with Trevor Muir

I become the CEO 10 weeks after, 10 weeks after we get put into forbearance.

And I didn't know what forbearance was and so, but it was bad, as in a meeting with a client.

And I came out, we had this email and basically while the bank had swept, had swept $400,000 out of our account and froze our line of credit, and so at that moment, we couldn't make payroll that week.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more.

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Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 368 of the Business Development Podcast.

And today it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Trevor Muir.

Trevor is a transformational leader who rose from journeyman, instrument, Mechanic to scaling SharePoint Group from a small Alberta operation into a 100 million plus dollar organization.

Proving along the way that authenticity, vulnerability and genuine care are not weaknesses in leadership, but the ultimate competitive advantage.

His journey through forbearance, near collapse, cultural rebuilding and unprecedented growth shaped him into a rare kind of leader.

One who tells the truth not just when it's easy, but when it's exceptionally hard.

One who stands tall when others would run.

And one that builds organizations where people feel seen, supported and inspired to give their best.

Today, Trevor is a keynote speaker, a leadership coach, and the founder of Someday to Today initiative.

Helping leaders reconnect to their purpose and lead with heart.

His message is grounded in lived experience, decades of hard earned lessons, personal transformation and a belief that meaningful impact begins with radical honesty.

Trevor doesn't just teach leadership, he embodies it.

Because at the end of the day, the world doesn't need more bosses.

It needs leaders brave enough to care.

Trevor, what an honor and a privilege to have you grace our stage today.

Well, thank you so much.

And that.

Wow.

I'm, I'm humbled by what you just said about me, to be honest with you.

And it's been an amazing journey and you know, I'm so grateful that I got connected with you and thank you.

For having me on oh, man, the privilege is absolutely mine.

You know, we.

It's funny, we actually haven't known each other for very long.

I would say at this point, maybe four or five months.

But, man, like, from our very first interaction to today, I've truly enjoyed every single conversation that we've had.

And, you know, your story is just so powerful.

I can't wait to share it with our listeners today.

There's just so many lessons that come out of a Trevor Muir.

And I'm.

You know, it's also a privilege to say that you've joined our Catalyst Club community.

And, dude, you have been absolutely exceptional in there.

Obviously, a true leader, standing out, showing people the way, leading with heart and empathy.

And, you know, I wasn't just saying that in the introduction.

That truly is how you approach life, and I appreciate you greatly, and I know our community does, too.

Yeah, that's been a lot of fun.

And honestly, I've been a part of a few different forums and some stuff, and I've got some value from it and met some amazing people.

I'm in all of them.

But as I told you, you know, a week or so ago, there's something different about what you're building, Kel, and you can tell just by the interaction and how quickly people respond to each other and how willing they are to help.

So I'm proud to be a part of it.

And, you know, it's really.

It really helps me on my journey.

I been transitioning out of SharePoint.

I think I told you that I made a decision last December that as I was leaving my.

My position with SharePoint, the company that I co founded that I want, I had a new mission or new goal to help positively impact 100 million lives by December 31, 2030.

And I'm like, I have no idea how I'm going to do it exactly, or I'm starting to figure it out or how to measure it, but it was just something I was like, hey, that would be a really cool, cool goal.

And, you know, you fall short by 50%.

You still have some pretty good impact,.

You know, and maybe we can talk about that briefly.

But the power of setting big goals, right?

Like, you could have been like, I want to impact, like, 100,000 people.

And that still would have been pretty commendable.

But you're like, no, a hundred million.

You know what?

Maybe a billion.

There you go.

Let's go for it.

I love it.

Let's do a billion.

I don't know, man.

I think maybe that's the power of A big thinking CEO.

And I can't wait to kind of get into that with you today.

But before we do, Trevor, dude, your story is incredible.

And I want you to not just tell the story of what's happened over the past 15, 20 years, but I want you to tell the Trevor Muir story all the way back to being a kid.

Where did this entrepreneurial drive come from?

And I'm not even going to like, say anything because I want to hear the story from start to finish.

So take us all the way back to the very beginning.

Who is Trevor Muir?

What shaped you?

Yeah, so a lot of it is, is my upbringing for sure.

I grew up in a shout out to the little community that I grew up in.

You know, the people there, from the teachers to the community members and parents and friends, everybody, you know, they were a big part of, of who I am today.

And the place I grew up was called Elmworth, and it was a small farming community in northern Alberta, about an hour out of Grand Prairie.

And you know, I, I've shared with you, grew up on the farm, cattle farm.

We had the cows, the pigs, chickens.

We had some farmland and different stuff.

And I learned a lot, obviously from, from that, as we do from our parents.

And I learned a lot about hard work and responsibility and it didn't matter if you weren't feeling good.

The cows had to be fed and.

And I think a whole bunch of that, you know, is what I brought forward into my career.

I also learned about community.

You know, it was really important to my mom and dad to show up in community.

If somebody needed help, you just showed up and you help.

I've also shared, you know, that my dad, you know, he's a type a farmer, electrician, toughest.

Like he is so tough and.

Yes.

And hard as nails and, and I didn't learn a lot about emotion, emotional control or how to deal with it.

Like, it was like, you know, you get up in the morning and get your ass to work.

And that was, that was really, really it.

But that was my foundation.

And I believe, you know, that part of community and just how my parents showed up for others, that was really bred into me.

And then work hard and like I said, it didn't matter how you felt.

The cows had to be fed and you get up and, and you go and do the work.

And I brought that certainly into my, you know, into the, my entrepreneurial part of me came from that for sure.

Did you know, like, way back then that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Like, you know, I think I also grew up in Alberta, Spruce Grove, Stony Plane boy, myself.

Small towns.

You know, Spruce Grove when I grew up in it had I think 19,000 people.

Stony Plain, probably way less than that.

Ultimately growing up in a small town, I think the ambition was simply to go and get a job in the oil patch.

When I was a kid, I didn't want that though.

I went a different path.

But I know many, many, many of my friends have gone that route and have had exceptional careers to date.

You know, working as journeyman electricians, working as pipe fitters, you know, working in the oil and gas space here in Alberta.

For me, I started working on a car lot at 16 and saw sales and saw that world kind of up front and got to know the people.

And I think for me that ended up being, at least as a young guy, more of a driver than going and working on the oil patch.

But I did kind of find like once I turned 18, did the sales thing, it was 2008.

2008 Was a nightmare in Canada.

Nobody could afford to buy a car and if they could, they probably still shouldn't.

It was just crazy.

So my, my, my car sales career was very short lived, but it did lead me into like part sales and a whole bunch of other, you know, small sales gigs after that before I went to college.

Ultimately running from sales thinking like, I think I just want an operations job.

Just give me an job somewhere.

Not knowing anything obviously about what operations meant.

I probably should have been running from that too.

But yeah, it really led me down the path that took me on this journey today.

So it's funny, I, I ended up kind of a, a leader in the BD space, running as fast as I could away from sales.

But growing up in Alberta, I know so many people took the oil field route because it really is just such a, an exceptional paying job here in Alberta.

Yeah, without a doubt.

Actually, you know something, I don't talk about lots, I, when I graduated I was going to go be a teacher.

That was actually sort of the path I was going down.

And I decided that I didn't want to go to college right out of high school.

And so I was going to take, take some time off and my dad was like, if you're going to take some time off, then you know, get started working on something that you know, can turn into something, get a trade, start working on a trade at least and then see.

And then really it was, it was the money that had drawn me into it to start with, to be honest with you.

Of course.

So I took the year off and went to work and got an exceptional opportunity to start as an instrumentation.

And I started off in electrical.

And my.

That was my dad's.

He'd been an electrician since he was 18, I think.

So I started off in that and then switched to instrumentation, and.

And the money was exceptional at that time.

I. I thought as a young guy, and that's kind of what got me hooked.

But, you know, when I was 14 years old and.

And I wasn't somebody who set goals or thought about the future lots.

My one grandfather was very entrepreneurial and had hotel chains and residential and commercial properties and stuff, and he.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table.

I was 14 or 15 years old.

I can still remember this old house that we were renting and.

And they were talking about, you know, life and stuff.

And I remember just saying, I'm gonna.

I said, I'm gonna have my own business one day, and I'm gonna pay off my mortgage by 45.

And I hadn't thought about a mortgage.

I hadn't thought about a house.

I hadn't thought about a business.

And I didn't think of that till years later.

And I don't even know why I said it, to be honest with you.

Cause I had no idea what I was gonna do.

I was a pretty insecure kid, to be honest with you, in lots of ways, and I said it.

And then in my 20s, I started a business.

I've done multiple businesses over the years, and.

And some failed miserably, you know, as far as financially.

And, you know, I. I tell people, when I was in my mid-20s, I lost $70,000 on a business venture that I started, and I borrowed that money, so I had to pay $70,000 off.

But I learned right away.

You know, I kind of woke up one day and I was like, now I have to do this again because I have to make 70 more thousand dollars.

And I kind of.

You became quite resilient with that.

Like, I. I used it as actually motivation when I would kind of have those big moments that felt like massive failures.

And I'm like, well, now I have to do it again.

And I tell people I wasn't smart enough to go to Harvard, but I paid for a Harvard education, so.

That's right.

That's right.

So many entrepreneurs are in the same boat.

And you know what?

Here's the thing.

Even those Harvard people, they still make mistakes, too.

Nobody gets out.

Nobody gets out unscathed.

There's something about.

There's something about really doing something that kind of reveals all of the challenges about really doing something.

It does.

And I've come to learn this, that setting a big goal, the universe is going to.

It's going to pound you down to help you become the person you need to be to achieve it.

So when you set a goal that's big for you, I often use a marathon, actually as an example because I say if you want to run a marathon in one year from now at the fastest pace you can, turns out it's pretty hard.

And you have to stay dedicated and disciplined and you have to do all this stuff.

And it's like setting a big goal.

You have to become that person that can do it.

And if you do all the training, you do everything and you show up one day to actually run the marathon and you're at the start line and before they shoot the gun, they're like, oh, crap, we have to cancel the marathon.

There is no doubt you're going to be disappointed because you didn't accomplish the goal.

But now you are somebody that can run a marathon.

And I started to look years ago at my life that way.

Like, instead of feeling like a failure or feeling like, you know, I wasn't good enough when I made a mistake or feeling like it's too hard, it's like, well, I set this huge goal.

Of course it's going to be hard because when I became the CEO of SharePoint, I was a tradesperson and we were a $90 million business that was in financial collapse.

And I could not read a balance sheet.

Like, the universe pounded me, you know, until I learned the stuff I needed to learn.

And all of those things that happened, you know, during that time, as we'll get into, really helped prepare me for the next thing I was going to have to face on our, you know, on our journey to over a hundred million.

Yeah, yeah.

It's so funny.

I had, I had a universe moment on Friday.

Let me talk to you about it.

So Friday, three days ago, for those of you, it's now Monday.

Friday.

I was geared up for two very, very large back to back interviews.

Honestly, I wish I could say that, like, I knew what I leading up to.

I did probably about a week ahead, but like, I hadn't planned it, but I had two massive back to back interviews on Friday.

One was Jake Gold, who, who works with the tragically hip.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah.

The other one is Douglas Conant, who, who has been a multiple CEO.

He's been, he's been a leader of like, Avon Products, Campbell's Soup Nabisco, I think is the name of the company.

All big gigantic food conglomerates, right?

And I was just like, holy crap.

Like, this is a really busy day.

8:30 In the morning.

I was supposed to start my first interview at like 9:30, 8:30 in the morning.

I got a text from one of my clients and like, hey, like, you know, we're, we're struggling a little bit.

I think we need to discuss the contract.

And I was like, oh.

So going into those two big interviews with like a. Oh.

Moment, right?

I was like, you got to be kidding.

The universe.

Come on.

Yeah, come on.

Yeah.

Literally, like, right.

Got through both those interviews.

Absolutely crushed it, Trevor.

They were both exceptional shows came out of that thing and oh man, like now I still got to deal with this thing.

Had an email in my inbox from a proposal I'd sent out like three weeks ago that was like, you know what?

Yeah, we're ready.

Let's move forward.

So I literally had like an already proposal ready to go.

I called that client and had like an hour long conversation with them.

We're going to be continuing the contract to its completion.

Yeah.

And then on top of that, I ended up getting a call with, with one of the larger organizations here in Edmonton, Regional Innovation, who wants to talk about collaboration into 20, 26 and beyond.

Yeah.

So it was like, it was like one of those universe days, right?

Where you're like, okay, I got kicked in the nuts heading into the day, but by the end of the day it's like, holy crap.

Thank you, God.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Oh, man.

So much of my business life and life has gone that way.

It's like whenever it's really shitty, you know something good's coming because you know it's not going to stay like that.

You made the comment earlier on saying that you committed to yourself before you were anybody that you are going to pay off your mortgage at 45.

Sometimes I wonder how much is that, how much of that is you tuning into your future self and it's really your future self and the universe saying, hey, Trevor, you're going to be somebody.

You're going to be somebody.

Yeah.

And that's definitely possible and could be right.

And so here's the, here's the kind of funny thing I hadn't thought about it at all.

And, and two months or three months after I turned 45, like, my wife takes care of all the kind of important stuff in our life and, and she says, hey, we're like, we're, we've only got two payments left on.

On our mortgage at that time.

And I remember thinking back and was like, holy crap.

Like, when we sold SharePoint, we could have, you know, we could have paid it off.

We just.

We chose not to for a number of reasons.

But here it was at 45, no plan, no, like, you know, I wrote this down.

Here's the goal.

I make 10 extra payments.

Oftentimes, I remortgage the.

Put back into the business.

And yet here it was a few months after 45.

And as I've learned more and more about manifesting and about setting goals and about throwing it out to the universe and some of the techniques that you can use, I realized I was doing it.

I just didn't know it.

And I mean, we always are.

Like, I believe with certainty that.

That we, you know, our futures are.

Are inevitably outcomes of the way we think.

And.

But I think back to that moment where I told my grandpa that, and I've thought about it often, and I'm like, I don't even know why I said it.

Like, I wasn't.

I wasn't thinking about a business or buying a house at 14 years old, but it just must have felt like the right thing to say at the time.

And so I said it, and it put in motion some, and the universe.

Is like, okay, Trevor, here we go.

You asked for it, buddy.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

All right, dude.

Well, I'm sorry, I. I kind of took us on a tangent.

Let's bring it back.

Let's bring it back to the story.

So you're working in oil and gas?

Yeah, so I.

So I started off as an.

As an instrument mechanic and went through, you know, the trades program and became a journeyman and.

And worked for some amazing companies.

And early on, I started a small company, just, you know, sole proprietor, and was working for some other companies.

And in.

In 2003, I had the opportunity to buy into SharePoint and create this entity with nine.

Nine of my friends.

And there was one person who had founded it and brought us all together.

And the concept was, you know, 9, 10 of us, 10% each, equal ownership, which we were told, you know, was a disaster and, you know, recipe for failure.

And we did it anyway, and we came together and quickly our business kind of exploded.

And we started with 15 people, 10 owners and five people in 2003.

And I remember the first year we did our.

We had a good year.

I think we ended up 4 million bucks or something.

And we all got together with some beers and quads.

We went for our kind of strategic planning weekend and we sat around a fire having a few and eating some hot dogs and, and we're just like, hey, let's just, you know, we did 4 million and we did well, let's just double it next year.

And that was pretty much the conversation.

So let's do 8 million.

And then the next year we got together and we said, well, that worked.

We did over eight.

Let's double it again.

We did 16 and then we did 32.

And by year five, so from 2003 to 2008, we went from 4 million to 50.

Some 50.

Some million.

I always get this around 55, maybe.

Wow.

I mean, we grew from 15 people to 250 people.

Wow.

And, and got started, got a lot of attention.

Just before the crash, to be honest with you, like late 2007, early 2008, there's a lot of money in the markets and we started to get pinged to see if we were willing to sell.

And we ended up selling in March of 2008 to a private equity group out of the U.S. and so, you know, bad timing.

And they, the way that private equity works is they often leverage your business.

So all of a sudden we have some debt we didn't have, but we, so was some challenges that we had never faced before.

But our company continued to grow and they brought in a CEO from the outside and, and we went from, from 55 million ish to.

In 2012, we were at $92 million.

Wow.

And, and but the company was collapsing, like financially.

We were in trouble for a lot of reasons.

I look back now, we could, we didn't.

As leaders and as the owners, we weren't growing at the speed.

The company was nowhere near it.

We didn't have good systems, processes.

A lot of the things, you know, that a CEO and the executive had brought in to the, into the company were things that were necessary.

We just, we just weren't there yet.

And so in 2013, culturally, we had disintegrated.

Things were terrible in a lot of ways.

And I got a call from one of the board members from the private equity group.

And I was in Australia at the time.

We'd opened a branch over there and I was over there and it was, it was going to be my last trip there because I was, I had actually given notice to leave.

I was going to go and do something else.

And private equity fellow phoned me and said, hey, we feel like we need to make a change to the CEO position.

And I was like, I think so too.

And then he said, we'd like you to take it.

And I was like, hell, no.

Like, I'm done in four weeks.

I'm leaving.

It's kind of shitty, culturally.

It's collapsed.

And I ended up coming home a few days later and said to my wife, hey, they offered me the CEO role.

And she said right away, do not take it.

I don't want you to.

I know what this means.

I'll never see you again, and all this stuff.

And I said, well, I turned it down.

And a few days later, they called and asked me again if I'd reconsider.

And I came home and told my wife, you know, they asked me again, and.

But I turned it down.

And she said, you know, she's happy.

I did.

But that night, she said something to me that changed everything.

She said, I don't want you to take it, but how will you feel if you don't?

And I was like, well, that's what I'm struggling with.

In 2008, after we sold, I was grateful because it changed our life financially, but I didn't feel good about it, and I didn't even really celebrate it.

I had the opportunity to either.

The day that we sold was the same day that my friend was in Mexico getting married, and I was standing up with him.

And so I had to make a decision.

I'm either with my partners or I'm with my friend.

And so I went with my friend, and I signed a power of attorney over to our CEO so that he could sign the papers for me.

And I went to be with my friend, and I woke up the next day and went to take 20 bucks out of the bank and was like, oh, my God, Like, I can't believe it.

Right?

Yeah.

But I came back, and my wife said, you don't seem excited.

And I said, I'm very grateful.

And.

But I said, 10 of our lives changed, and 240 other people woke up the day after the sale, and nothing, nothing was different for them.

The only thing they could hope for is that the new owners and us continue to treat them as good as we had.

And so here we are, five years later, culturally collapsed, and I have an opportunity to take the role.

And I said to her, I will always wonder.

A lot of people quit really good jobs to come here, and many did, because I told them we were different and that we were better, and we were.

And now, arguably, we're worse.

And I'll always wonder if I could have.

Could have made a difference.

And so I ended up taking the role.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, and here's the other thing, too, that, you know, I've heard come up on the show over and over and over again.

I want to ask you about it, how when you sold the company, you mentioned that, like, you didn't feel good about it.

That's actually not an uncommon feeling.

I've seen that come up over.

I heard, you know, we had a guy in the show sell his company for, like, $400 million.

Yeah.

Some other things happened to him at that same time that were all horrible, but he went into a deep depression.

Yeah, it's not uncommon because I think it's your baby.

Right.

Like, you built that thing from nothing.

Even if you make a ton of money, you're still losing a piece of yourself, I think.

Yeah.

So I. I met a guy on an airplane flying back from Sweden who had started a company, a comedian.

He'd started a company in his basement, and they sold it.

Years later, very famous company sold it for $6 billion, like eight or ten years later.

And so obviously he, you know, he didn't have to worry about a mortgage payment anymore or buying groceries.

But I asked him how he felt, and he said.

He said about four weeks or eight weeks, I don't know.

Three months after, say he had taken his kids.

They were very young.

He'd taken them out of school, going to homeschool, and they're traveling around the world.

They're going to take a year.

He said he's standing in at Surfers paradise in Australia.

And I've been there, and he's standing there.

He said he's standing in the water, waves kind of crashing up, making his shorts wet.

And he turns around, he sees his two kids and his wife on the beach building sandcastles or doing whatever.

And he's checking his phone, his BlackBerry at the time, and he said, not a single phone call, not a text, not anything.

And he thought, what did I just do?

What did I do?

And I was like, oh, man.

And he said that he went into quite a depression for almost a year.

And I'm like, oh, I get it.

Because that's what had.

Had sort of happened to me as well.

Well, it's so funny, right, because I think, like, as.

As a young entrepreneur, anybody starting a startup, like, that's the outcome they're hoping for, right?

Like, they want.

They want to be able to sail off into the sunset.

And it's so funny because literally our last week's show was a guy who literally sailed off into the sunset with his money and then found himself bored as heck.

Like, had no idea.

He's.

He was like 30.

What am I going to do with the rest of my life?

Like, I think it's so not about the money yet.

That's the thing we make it about in the beginning.

How do I build this great company that can make me financially set for life?

And then people get there and then they're surprised when they're not happy.

Yeah, well, that, that was my story, as you know.

So 2013, I be.

I become the CEO 10 weeks after.

10 Weeks after we get put into forbearance.

And.

Wow.

And I didn't know what forbearance was.

And so.

But it was bad, as in a meeting with a client.

And I came out, we had this email and basically, well, the bank had Swept.

Had swept $400,000 out of our account and froze our line of credit.

And so at that moment, we couldn't make payroll that week.

We were able to work it out with the bank so we could get a bump up to make payroll.

But that's what I'm facing.

Ten weeks.

And as a CEO who.

Who is way over my anyways and doesn't know how to read a balance sheet, not that good with the P and L, doesn't understand working capital.

And we broke some covenants, which I didn't know what covenants were.

So, you know, I.

To say I'm over my head is an understatement at that time.

And I ended up.

I ended up using that as a catalyst to actually rebuild the entire company.

But the reason that I did, and I'm kind of going backwards on this one this time, but the reason I did is because after we sold the company and I went into that bit of depression.

Well, not bit of depression, I went into a depression.

And from 2008 to 2011, my life spiraled out of control.

And this was at a time I had absolutely everything that I believed I ever wanted or needed or anybody ever wanted or needed to.

To be so happy.

I had a beautiful wife and kid.

I'm close to my parents and sisters, great friend network, love my nephews and nieces and this incredible business and money.

And I had a fancy acreage and all the toys, a sports car in the garage, and everything was circling down the drain.

And a couple years after that, three years after that, I was all alone.

My wife and I had separated.

I'm living downtown on White, having this fancy condo and everything that I love and everything that I believe would make me happy.

Here I am, depressed and sad.

I'm showing up every day as if everything is fine.

And the reality is, when I got back to that condo at night, I'd lock every door in that place and I'd lay in the fetal position in the dark almost all night.

Sometimes I'd take food in there and I'd wake up in the morning and go, you know, pretend everything's good.

I was always pretty honest.

If somebody asked me how I was doing it, I'd be like, I'm good.

My wife, you know, my wife kicked me out.

My son's not talking to me.

The, the company I co founded, I might get fired from it.

Other than that, everything's actually pretty good.

And, and, and one day, the day was up.

I woke up on a bathroom floor in that condo with an overwhelming desire to end my life.

And here I was.

I had everything.

And that was a life changing moment.

Now, when we talked earlier about how the universe prepares you for the next thing, it was because of that moment on the bathroom floor that I was able to take that experience and what I did with it and the help that I got into the.

When we were in forbearance.

Like it was an exact parallel that I didn't realize until after because I got up off that bathroom floor and I was starting to cry.

And men don't cry.

So I'm choking back tears.

I'm trying to think of the ways I could end my life.

I tell people it was my hell on earth.

I was equally afraid to live and afraid to die.

I was so afraid I might wake up feeling the way I was feeling.

And I was so afraid I might take my own life.

And so I went to wash my face and my eyes caught my eyes, I think for the first time maybe ever in my life that I could remember.

And a thought occurred to me.

What would I tell a friend if they told me, you know, they have all the stuff, including the wife, kid, family, and the toys and the money.

But they felt this way and I thought I would say, oh my God, I get it, you know, please go get help.

Please get help.

Both are true.

So I ended up reaching out to this lady online randomly and just said, I need.

I'd like to come and see you tomorrow if you.

Or sometime.

You know, here's the thing.

She got back to me within 30 minutes and she said, I have a cancellation for tomorrow if you want it again.

The universe, right?

So I ended up going to her the next day.

And that was a catalyst, Cal to change my life.

Like walking into her office changed everything.

Everything for my life.

Wow.

Wow.

Let me just start by saying I love you, and I appreciate you so much.

I appreciate your honesty, your vulnerability, the man you are today.

And the world is a better place that you are still here, so.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for.

Thank you for choosing to stay with us because we need you.

Well, I. I super appreciate that.

And so I learned so much from that experience.

So I went in to see this lady, and she asked me how I'm doing, like, I'm good.

Told her all the things.

Wife's kicked me out, might get kicked out of my company.

Other than that, things are fine.

Obviously, she didn't think they were.

And back and forth a bit.

And then she says, you're not okay, and I'm worried about you.

And then she said something that changed my life.

It was, I can't help you.

I'm worried about you, but I can't help you.

Please do not leave this office.

I. I need to go get somebody who can help you.

And so I said I would stay.

And she came back moments later with this big man who put out his hand and took my hand and said, Hi, I'm.

I'm Dr. Gonz, and it's nice to meet you.

I heard you're going through some stuff.

I'm like, I'm a bit freaked out right now, but I'm fine.

And he said, I'm sure you are.

And he took me into another room for about 10 minutes, and he booked me in the next day.

And I found out that he had pulled him out of a session.

Cause that's how worried she was about me.

And I left her feeling a little bit different.

And so I started seeing this man for a couple times a week, for months.

One time, I walked into his office, and I sat down, and he said to me, out of the blue, nothing else.

I sat down and he said, trev, how are you feeling?

And I blurted this out.

I said, how am I feeling?

I said I felt insecure and inferior and less than my entire life.

I'm afraid of absolutely everything.

Success and failure.

I said, I'm sad a lot.

And when I'm not sad, I'm numb, which is maybe worse.

And I said, I'm lonely all the time.

I'm lonely when I'm all alone.

I'm lonelier when I'm with my friends.

And I'm loneliest when I'm with my family.

And I don't know what the hell is wrong with me.

And I thought, oh, my God, why did I say this?

And my mind was racing, and I was sure he was going to say, you know, look at your life and how good you've got it, and.

And you gotta be more positive.

And instead, he looked me in the eye and he said, oh, man, I get it.

I get it.

He said, thank you for being honest with me.

Thank you for being vulnerable.

It hit me after that nobody had ever asked me how I was feeling in my life unless I was sick or in the hospital.

And I had never asked another human being that.

I left there feeling different than I had felt ever in my life.

And I can remember there's.

There's, like, moments in my life where I can remember exactly every detail of it.

And one of it was that.

And that was 15 years ago.

About 15 years ago, that man said that to me, and it changed my life.

Wow.

Wow.

Oh, my gosh, dude, you got me.

You got me tearing up.

Like, it's just.

That's it, man.

Like, that's so powerful, that statement that you expect people.

And I think this is the.

A paradigm challenge of leadership.

And really, I think when I look back at it, the main reason that Catalyst Club has become so successful in such a short period of time is because so many leaders are in that exact same space where.

And I think the more successful you are, the more in that space you end up becoming.

Because you're almost afraid to tell people that you're struggling because, you know, you don't want to be judged.

You want people to look at you and be like, dude, you got a frigging sports car, a hot wife, you know, a sweet acreage, a company that does, you know, $100 million a year.

Like, shut up.

And it's like, no, like, that's not it.

Because that isn't the thing that makes you happy in life.

Right?

Like, you have to feel good about who you are and what's going on in your world.

And.

And I think for so many leaders, we just need that space to be able to be like, I'm not okay.

Like, I know it looks okay, but it's not true.

And.

And you also mentioned something, and I think it's.

I don't know if it's a Canadian thing, an Alberta thing, or a worldwide thing.

Listeners let me know.

But there, at least, I'm a millennial.

You're what?

Gen x, Trev.

I'm 54.

I don't know what that is.

Yeah, I think Gen X. I think at the end of the day, we were.

We were taught to be tough, especially growing up in Alberta, I will say that you're a farm boy.

My mom grew up on a farm, man.

Like, she whooped my ass.

She made sure I was tough.

I love you, mom.

My mom's awesome.

She didn't really whoop my ass, but you know what I'm saying?

Point is, is that, like, we were both raised to be pretty tough and.

And I didn't wear my heart on my sleeve.

I kept it all in.

I, you know, I didn't cry.

I looked tough all the time.

And we just were from that generation.

And so.

And so, you know, it took work for me to get to a point where I went to, you know, a counselor and got some help and had some conversations like, I'm actually.

I'm actually struggling.

I need some help here.

But that took a lot, a lot of life for me to get to a point where I was comfortable doing that.

And for you, it sounds like the same thing.

Yeah, I was 30, I was 39 years old.

And I tell people the universe pushed me to my knees.

This was not something that came easy for me or that I was even willing to do.

It was.

It was that or I was going to die.

And thankfully, you know, there was a plan for me.

And I ended up with Dr. Ganz.

He did something else that changed my life.

So I. I kept going to him for a while after.

And he asked me one time to come in to with a list of priorities.

And he said he wanted me to number them from 1 to 20.

And this analogy has helped me and a lot of other people.

So I came in with this list and my wife and I had reconciled.

And so I had my wife and my son, my mom, my dad, my sisters and nephews and nieces and in laws and work and stuff.

Under work, believe it or not, like, my priorities, work was probably number 8 or 10 or something.

And I came in and I handed him the list and I thought I did a really good job on this list.

And so I hand it to him and.

And I expect him to say, you're awesome.

And he said, well, good list.

I'm like, yeah, thanks.

Then he said, where are you on it?

And I was like, well, it's my list.

I'm.

I, like, I'm everywhere on it.

And he said, well, humor me.

And he handed me a pen.

He said, I want you to insert your name somewhere in the list.

So I put myself just above work.

And the only reason I did.

And I talk about this lots, the only reason I did is because I knew he would call me out on it.

But my head was going, work is my thing that I can.

Like, I can.

I can support everybody other.

Every other priority if I continue to work hard.

So I hand it back to him just above work, and he says to me, that's interesting.

Why didn't you put yourself first?

And I said, well, because I'm not a narcissist.

Like, who would put themselves first?

And he said, that's the problem with most human beings.

He said, very few put themselves on the list, and even fewer put themselves first.

And I said, I totally get it.

And then he said this to me.

He said, have you ever saw a champagne glass pyramid, like at a wedding, where they stack the champagne glasses and they pour it in the top and it evenly overflows to every level?

I said, yeah.

He said, have you ever saw them fill it from the bottom up?

I was like, no.

He said, I want you to visualize that.

Close your eyes and tell me what you see.

So I close my eyes and I say, well, it's going to be inefficient.

You're going to need more champagne because it's going to spill all over.

It's going to make the glasses sticky, and it's going to make a hell of a mess on the table.

And he said, exactly.

And that's how you're living your life.

He said, your priority list is your champagne glass pyramid.

And you have yours and your wife has hers and your son and your mom and your dad.

Everybody has one.

He said, the problem with most human beings, you're in here telling me how you want to be more kind and patient and tolerant and confident and courageous and strong, all this stuff.

And he said, you want to do this for the people that you love, but you're trying to fill your pyramid from the bottom up.

He said, what?

You're full of overflows.

And he said, you keep running out of champagne.

And he said, and you're making a mess of your life.

And he gave me permission to be selfishly selfless.

He said, go and do things that are healthy for you so that you fill yourself up with those things, because that's what's going to overflow.

And it became an obligation of mine and a responsibility to actually go.

And instead of being the martyr and the one who worked all the time, and when I wasn't at work, I was doing things, you know, with my family and trying to put everybody first, which I. I think is.

I don't think you should be selfishly selfish.

Selfish.

But I. I had not Taken time to go hiking and walking and be in nature and hang out with my friends and do this stuff that was healthy for me.

And that one thing, I started to hike again.

I started to go back in the mountains, I started to do stuff that one thing changed, changed my life and my wife's life and my family's life.

And so often, especially as entrepreneurs, we go and do these things to make the money, but we go do these things and build the thing, but we often do it for other people.

And what happens is we just run out of champagne.

And so that one thing, selfishly selfless became, it became a foundation for me.

And that's why I do all the things that I end up doing.

I travel around, I hike the mountains, I do things my wife hates, but she wants me to go and do them.

And I want her to go and do things she loves.

Because when we come together to do things for each other, I'm a lot more patient and tolerant when I go shopping with her now because I get to go hiking than I was prior to.

I'll tell you that I'm not acting like a five year old child in the mall very often anymore.

Yes, yes.

My gosh, man.

Like, I feel, I feel that so much like as an entrepreneur you just, you give everything to it, literally everything, I think, including your soul a little bit.

And you don't have to, here's the thing, like, and I thought that it was just the thing.

You just go to work and you work hard and you just sacrifice and you show up and no matter how you feel and when you have a day off, it's, it has to be with your, with your, you know, your wife or your kid or your parent.

Like, it just has to be.

And I realized you don't have to take a whole bunch of time.

And I always caveat, especially to guys like, it's healthy things like, you know, take the time to do healthy stuff.

There was a time where, you know, I took time, but it was to go drinking with my buddies and way, way, way over drink, which didn't help anything I was going through at the time.

But if you go and do things that you love to do that fill you up and your wife does and you know, mothers and fathers do this, you actually show your children, you teach your children a different way to live, but you show up differently.

And I want to show up as the best version of myself in the relationships that matter most.

And so that's why I'm selfishly selfless.

That is why I do the things that I love to do that fill me up, because I am a way better human being, especially to the ones closest to me, because they're the ones that wear the shit if I'm frustrated and stressed and, like, it's.

I'm a happy, smiley guy in public, and then I'm whiny and pouty and bitchy at home, like.

So it's like, where do I want to show up as the best version of me, and how do I do that consistently?

Okay, so you've essentially turned your life around.

You got some help.

You're looking after yourself now.

You took this back to SharePoint two.

Years after the bathroom floor.

Almost like within a month, I think of waking up on the bathroom floor.

That's when I became the.

Got the CEO position.

And as I was saying earlier, 10 weeks after we get put in forbearance, I wake up, you know, every night for about a week with a stomachache thinking I wasn't even gonna take this damn position.

Now I took the role.

I'm gonna be the guy who.

Who bankrupts SharePoint.

So my ego was flaring, and I woke up on a Tuesday night in the middle of night or a Wednesday, about a week after we got that letter forbearance.

And I.

And instead of being full of fear like I had been the whole week before and sick to my stomach, I was actually inspired.

I had an idea.

I thought there was one thing I didn't know a lot about.

I had very low business acumen, but I knew when we were successful in the very beginning, we had this amazing culture.

We didn't call it culture, but we just cared about each other and.

And the people.

The people cared about us.

Like, we were just had this thing that was magical.

And we were able to grow from 4 million to 55 million, made a lot of money and did a lot of fun stuff with our team.

And I was like, I knew we needed to rally.

We need to bring our culture back.

We needed to come back together.

And it hit me that morning in the middle of the night that it was like, wait a minute, Forbearance.

This is exactly what I've been praying for.

I knew that we rallied around crisis better than any company in the world.

And I thought of it more around if somebody's kid was sick, like we.

That I remember that I think it was.

Took one day to raise $8,000 for a family because they had a child in the salary and they needed to be there.

And we raised money and did things for you Know, someone's grandma whose house burnt out out west, out east, and all of these different things.

And I was like, there is no bigger crisis than SharePoint may not be around.

Because what the bank had done when they put us in forbearance, they had said, basically gave us four months that when the term debt was up, if we hadn't injected about $3 million or found a new bank, they were going to foreclose.

Both seemingly impossible tasks given that we were losing money.

It just seemed impossible.

So I said, I coined forbearance as I coined the gift of forbearance.

I'm like, this is a gift.

And I literally got up that next morning after having the thought and went to all of the branches and got in front of our tax, got in front of people in their houses, in their towns, had them and their spouses come.

And I told everybody basically the same thing.

I said, I'm Trav, and I'm way over my head.

I'm the new CEO.

I'm going to need a lot of help.

And then I said, I'm really sorry that we screwed this thing up.

Like, we didn't mean to.

I know it.

It sucks pretty bad at times here, and that we let the culture go, and I apologize, and I'm gonna do everything I can to fix it.

And I said, and I want you all to know one other thing.

Last week, we got a letter forbearance from the bank.

I don't know how to explain it very well other than it's bad.

And if we don't do a lot of things right in the next four, four and a half months, there may not be a SharePoint.

And I want you all to go and make the decision that's best for you and your family, because it's going to get worse before it gets better.

But I hope you stay.

And if you stay, I'm going to stay now.

And if you stay, I have no idea how we'll get through it.

I just know with certainty, 100% we will.

And I promise you, on the other side, we'll build a better culture than we ever had.

And almost everybody stayed.

And they.

We started to rally around this, and then I went to our vendors and I brought them into the boardroom one at a time and said, here's our situation.

The reason we're not paying you is because our line's been reduced.

And the bank did this, and we're in forbearance and all this stuff.

And we.

And I was.

I was strongly advised by A lot of smart people not to do this, by the way, but I didn't.

I didn't know any other way.

And I reflected back to my moment on the bathroom floor when I tried to figure everything out on my own up to the age of 39.

I almost killed myself.

I'm not good at making decisions on my own.

And when I reached out for help, it wasn't there.

I wasn't judged.

There was help.

And so I just did the same thing.

You know, let people know the truth and ask them for help and give them a choice.

And most of our vendors stepped up and helped and extended credit and worked with us through some tough times.

And then I went to our vendors and some of our key vendors quick paid us on invoices and gave us more work.

And I found out, you know, that if you give people permission to do the right thing, they will always do the right thing.

And I, I wanted to prove something.

I started to get my head around this and I wanted to prove that caring was a competitive advantage in life, in business, and certainly in our industry.

And we went all in on that.

We decided to rebuild SharePoint on the core value of caring.

We care became our guiding principle, became our.

Our purpose was to empower people and improve lives.

That is the reason why SharePoint was built to exist, not to do electrical and instrumentation.

I'm very proud of the fact we do and mechanical services, we do it extremely well.

But our purpose was to empower people and improve lives.

And so 2013, we get through the forbearance and we get stabilized again.

2015, The industry drops.

We come through that okay.

We were prepared well for it because of 2013 actually, and the changes we had to make.

And in 2018, the private equity group called me and said that they were going to West SharePoint at the end of the fund and they needed to sell it.

And I was like, oh, thank God.

I'm going to go do something else.

I had a really nice exit clause in my contract.

Is going to put some money in my jeans and go and do some stuff.

And I literally called them the next day and said, don't do a sim, don't list it.

I said, let me talk to the team and see if, if they want to buy it back.

And so I went to 15 people on the team and said, there's a chance to buy SharePoint back.

Do you want to do it?

They all said yes.

And I said, okay, I'll go in one more time.

But there's one caveat.

You have to be open to us becoming an employee owned organization.

And everyone said yes.

So December 2018, we bought the company back.

And December 2019, pretty good year.

We got some help from a small private equity group out of Alberta and a private investor and they came in and really helped us and put a board together.

Things are going okay and we end the year pretty good.

But then 2020 hits and April 2020.

April 2020 was supposed to be the biggest month we had ever had.

With the backlog we had in March 2020, the wheels came off and there we were.

There I am again, like sick to my stomach thinking I just got 15 people, 15 of the people I love and friends of mine who are believe in this company to remortgage their houses to buy this thing back.

What the hell did I do?

And then we did the most amazing, remarkable thing during the pandemic.

It will be the proudest moment.

What we did during the pandemic will be the proudest moment of my career for sure.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay,.

Well, lead us into it, man.

Like, you know, you, it's an employee owned company, but you're going into, you know, I would say arguably probably the scariest moment that any business has been in since the Great Depression.

What happened to you guys?

So I had a bit of an advantage.

I ended up having a very sore throat.

And this is before they were really testing and yeah, wasn't feeling good, was sick and so I had to isolate.

And so my mother in law had just actually had surgery and she was coming to her house, so I had to leave.

And we had an apartment up in Grand Prairie.

So I went, went and spent the better part of a month alone in this apartment and turned out that I learned I'm not that good a company actually.

So I understand why my wife gets frustrated, but no, I was there and I'm spending some time and like I had the advantage of being a part of a lot of virtual networking and peer groups and everybody's trying to figure out how they get through this.

And talking with our team daily and our executive team, trying to figure out how we manage and navigate through this.

And there was one thing consistent with every, every conversation I was having.

It was reduce cost, reduce cost, conserve capital, which absolutely makes sense in our case and in most business cases that meant people.

And so there, there was, there was the, you know, the benefits from the, from the government CERB I think it was called, you get 2,000 bucks a month.

And so we were agonizing about what we should do because we had built our foundation on caring, and we care.

And all of a sudden, we're facing this pandemic, not sure what to do.

So we did, like everyone else, made a list of people that we were going to let go, and we finalized it on a Friday.

It took a couple weeks, and Friday night, we were going to start letting people go.

On Monday and Friday night, I got a hold of our VP1VP and our CFO and said, don't let anyone go.

Not yet.

And they were both like, what?

I said, we, we can't.

Hey, we don't have enough information to make a good decision.

We don't know if this thing's going to last two weeks, two months, or two years.

We don't know if half the people are going to die or no one is going to die.

What we do know is this.

Everybody is being told to go home and stay in their house.

Nobody has any normal coping mechanism at all.

They can't go on dates.

They can't go for supper with their spouses.

They can't go to work.

Kids can't swipe on Tinder.

Nothing is normal for anybody.

And I said, we say we care.

We are never going to get a better opportunity to prove it than now.

And I said, so in 2013, when we were screwed, we went to the team and asked them for help, and that's why we survived.

And so Monday, we're going to do something different.

We're just going to tell everyone the truth.

We're going to have a town hall, and we're going to hold weekly town halls, you know, for as long as we need to.

And we're just going to tell everyone exactly the truth.

Hey, we had a list of people we were going to let go.

You know, we decided not to yet.

And we're going to do everything we can to run, run it to the edge of the cliff without going over.

And we're trying to get everybody through this.

We'll give everybody as much Runway as possible with it.

If we believe we're not going to make it, we'll have a town hall.

Everyone will know ahead of time that we're going to have to make cuts.

So we're pretty proud of that.

We're keeping our entire team.

But a lot of our folks weren't getting paid, which we hadn't thought about because they're hourly employees.

They're tradespeople.

And the work dropped by 40 to 60%.

And so some of our folks are asking for layoffs so that they can get the government money and Then we found out about the wage subsidy program and found out that we qualified for it as an organization.

And I was literally at home by then.

And I'm in.

In my office, and I wrote on a napkin this plan.

What if we guaranteed everybody a paycheck?

What if we did something we'd never done and nobody has ever done, none of our competitors or everyone has ever done in the history of the trades that I know of during a pandemic?

What if we guarantee every first year apprentice $2,500, every second year 3,000 and every journeyman five grand, so it'd be staggered.

Wow.

And I called our cfo and he said, that's awesome.

I love it, but we can't afford it.

And I said, but what if we can?

I said, I literally think we can.

Like, I've got it on my napkin.

And I said, my napkin says so.

Yeah.

I said.

I said, all I need to know right now is that if we can do it, that you support it, because I want to go to the board with this and they're going to call you right away.

And he said, yeah, if we can do it.

If we can afford it, I support it.

So I call all the board members and have a conversation.

They all say the same thing.

Really nice job, but you can't afford it.

And I said, will you support it if we can?

And they said, yes.

So I got about 25 people together on a call after a few days of negotiating this with the board and our cfo, and I said to them, hey, how do you feel?

Not only about us keeping our whole team, because we were proud of that, right.

And we're rallying around it, but also that we guarantee Everybody a paycheck.

2500 For a first year and 5 grand for a journeyman.

And they're all like, oh, that's awesome.

Yes, yes, yes.

And I said, well, I appreciate that, but there's one problem.

We can't afford it.

And what I'm about to ask might be the most meaningful thing you ever do in your careers.

And also what I'm about to ask is not going to be fair.

I said, everyone is going to have to sacrifice, some more than others.

And if anybody in the room says no to this, it's a safe place.

We will leave here.

We'll never talk about it again for any reason, and we'll find a different way through this.

But I'm proposing this.

I'm willing to give up 50% of my paycheck for the duration of the wage subsidy program.

If I have to.

And everybody knew what I made.

And I said, so.

So that's the new.

That's the new number.

If you're a dollar over that or $30,000 over that, you have to come down to that number.

And it took less than 30 minutes for everybody.

Like lots of talking and lots of.

And of course 30 minutes or about 30 minutes for everybody to agree to that.

And the significance of this was that our managers, in general managers gave up 15 to 20% of their pay.

Our two VPs and our CFOs, all these people are under 40.

All of them with mortgages and SUVs and kids.

They have way too many, many toys and too much expense, but they have it.

They gave up our TVPs and CFO gave up 35% of their pay and I gave up 50% of my pay.

And then the rest, the organization gave up 10% of their pay for seven and a half months and in cabinet or CFO did for nine months.

But I learned that again, people will sacrifice for a greater good.

And we were able to keep our team through there.

What I didn't understand or didn't actually really, you know, I couldn't fathom was what would come from that.

On the other side of the pandemic.

We came out of the pandemic as a team.

We went all in on We Care.

We started showing up and we're paying our people.

We started showing up in the community.

We kicked off We Care days, We kicked off Sunday Today campaign.

We were there for each other.

We talked about emotions in our meetings.

We were having feeling check ins instead of just talking about business.

And we created MasterChef cooking night where once a week for 42 weeks, every Wednesday for 42 weeks, Marty held this thing with the team.

And at the end of the 42 weeks, we professionally published a cookbook and sold all the coffees and gave the money to Santa yg.

We were showing up and making soup and sandwiches and taking them out to folks on the street that were less privileged.

And we were doing all of these amazing things.

Plus it was starting to get out that what we had done during the pandemic.

And at that time we hadn't rolled out the employee share ownership model yet.

We still only had the 15 employees who had bought in.

Coming out of the pandemic, this started to get out.

We bought a small company.

We were able to.

Our revenue had dropped down to 30 million.

Kelly.

And so, wow, that's significant.

Tanked and yeah, and we burn in cash and we didn't have much profit.

Like we were in tough shape.

We got the support of the board to buy a little company and tuck it in.

So we ended that year, that next year at $46 million.

But when it got out, what we had done and we care and the fact we were going to be employee owned, it was lightning in a bottle.

And our company went from 46 million after we did the acquisition to $98 million organically and then to 125 million in 2022.

We rolled out the employee share ownership program and we had great participation and we have 137 employee owners now in SharePoint.

I resigned from SharePoint last year in December as the president.

I resigned the year before as the CEO.

And I think SharePoint initial well over 130 million.

Wow.

And so, you know, I proved without a doubt that carrying is a competitive advantage and that you can scale a company by giving a shit about people.

Yes.

My gosh, I love this story.

Every time I hear is just one of the most inspiring stories out there.

On multiple occasions you ran into hardship, but you just always put people first.

And I actually do want to potentially call you out a little bit and actually for a good thing, I think ultimately there's a solid chance that you were able to do all of this because you didn't have a formal training in becoming a CEO or becoming an executive.

Right.

You're not living from an MBA and I'm not, I'm not hard knocking MBAs.

You guys are incredible.

You know, my big tech companies changing the world.

You guys are incredible.

All I'm saying is that Trevor came to this from a completely different place from the place of an employee, from the place of a hard working person in the field.

They weren't just sat into an executive seat not knowing what the job was.

They'd worked the job their whole life, knew exactly what every person was feeling and put them first and did probably one of the most remarkable turnarounds, definitely a top five remarkable turnaround that we've heard on this show so far.

And I, I appreciate that.

And I jokingly and I love to say to my educated friends that I had a, I had a major advantage.

I, I wasn't smart enough to go and get an mba.

And so, and honestly, I do believe I was talking about this last week with somebody and I said, I believe at the time it was an advantage because I didn't really know in 2013, I didn't know how bad it was like.

And so I just believed no matter what it was.

And I always had this inherent belief that no matter what we faced, we would always get through it.

Like I actually, and, and it was not easy to tell.

Like we, you know, I skimmed through this stuff and I talk about how awesome it is and how it turned out.

I mean, even after I'd gone through the bathroom floor and had this awareness and all this self help and growth and all the things and the support, there were times I'd lay in the fetal position, you know, in the basement.

During this and during the pandemic, I was scared.

I was absolutely scared and wondering every day if we made the right decision.

And I, I don't think I was alone in that.

And coming out of the pandemic when we, our revenue dropped so much and we're out of money again, I thought, oh my God, I made the biggest mistake.

I just, now for sure I'm going to bankrupt everybody.

But the universe, you know, kept supporting and had good, strong people in our organization.

And, and I also learned one of the reasons that I was my, you know, that I was getting out of the way is because the organization needed structure and that wasn't my strength and really needed systems, processes and organization that, that I didn't know how to do it.

And that's where people who, you know, when you come in with a, with an education, an mba, so I used to feel like, oh man, it's awesome.

Like we're kind of cowboys and we're going to be out there and we're just shooting from the hip and we're figuring this out.

And we were able to grow a really, really impressive organization that way.

But it did become very, very important that we had systems and structure put into it.

And that was a skill set I just didn't have.

And that's okay.

I believe I was the right person at the right time to lead the organization.

And as I'm leaving, you know, it's been hard, but I've been pretty excited about, you know, some of the opportunities that are presenting themselves and coaching and mentoring and I'm really pushing the Someday to Today campaign again because that's near and dear to my heart.

And I believe I've said this to you and I say it lots.

The only thing I know with 100% certainty is that we all have one less second of life to live than we did a second ago.

And it doesn't matter if you were born one second ago or you're 90 years old.

And what do you want to do with those moments?

Because building these companies and Going out and working hard and making money and looking after your family and buying stuff and going on trips, that's phenomenal.

And I say go for it.

But the only thing that's happening is we're.

Is we're burning time every day.

And so make sure that what you're doing with most of your time fills you up.

And it's going to be hard.

And, you know, the greater the challenge, the harder it's supposed to be.

But I'm a big believer.

If there are things that you want to do, don't put it off, because we're not guaranteed another day in this life.

And I've had too many people I love die way too early.

Yeah, my gosh.

I feel like we talked about that.

On Authentic Hustle the other day, where I kind of made the same statement where, like, you don't know how much time you have left, like, period.

You just don't.

And so we have to make every second count.

We have to make every hour count.

Right.

Don't waste your time.

And I was, at the time, I was making the comment that, you know, I was using the Pareto principle.

I was talking about how 80% of the things we do are mostly a waste of time, and 20% really make a massive difference on our businesses, our personal lives, whatever.

And I was kind of making the argument that, like, if that's all you got, we need to be spending as many hours on that 20% as we can.

But, you know, you just kind of make the point that at the end of the day, nobody's living forever, nobody's getting out of this alive.

What do you want from your life?

And I think a lot of entrepreneurs and leaders find themselves so deep in their entrepreneurship, so deep in their leadership, that it.

It becomes all consuming.

It becomes, that is my life.

That is who I am.

But it's not.

It's not.

You were a person before all of that.

You had hobbies, you had loves, you had things you like to do.

You like to go hiking.

For me, I like to fly model airplanes.

I'm a nerd like that.

I liked camping and hiking, too.

But the point is, is that we all have those things that we were before we were leaders, before we were entrepreneurs, before we were on this big vision journey.

And I'm not saying cancel the big vision journey, but what I am saying is.

And what Trevor's saying is, find a time to fly your model plane.

Find a time to go on that hike.

Find a time to go fishing, to go camping, to have a good experience with your kid because you don't know how much time you got left.

Well, that's, that's the reality.

And I, I'm an entrepreneur and I'm a capitalist and I love building businesses and I love all of that stuff.

I also recognize that there's so many people out there that die young and.

Yes, and it hit me at 48 years old that I was over halfway through my life and that, that the chance of Me Living to 96 weren't impossible, but pretty slim.

And I had never really thought about life, you know, much at all, to be honest with you.

And anytime I thought about my death, it usually scared me.

And instead I realized, instead I realized, you know, it's in, it's inevitable.

Inevitable.

And I, I had, I started, I used that moment too as a catalyst to change everything.

I'd already had a someday to today list that I was, you know, I was checking off some of the things for sure.

But it became more important for me too.

And sometimes it's, sometimes it's sending a text to somebody I'm thinking about, sometimes it's saying, hey, I'm thinking about you.

I told you the other day.

One of the things that I committed to personally was to talk to my parents.

They're both still alive and I'm so fortunate to talk to them every single week.

And so I talked to them, if my dad wants to go fishing, I'm going to go fishing with him as long as he can.

Those were the things.

Because in the pursuit of growing this incredible business and making the money and doing all this stuff, I sacrificed a lot of those things.

And yeah, and sacrifice is necessary.

I'm not like, hey, willy nilly, go out there and you have to.

But really, if you're not taking the time for those things.

And I talk to so many people who are someday going to take the trip.

Someday they're going to buy the house, someday they're going to get the car, someday they're going to get the boat.

I'm like, start checking that shit off because we don't know how long we have left.

And I had one of my best friends collapse in front of me in Princess island park at, in his 30s.

He's alive.

I gave him CPR for three and a half minutes and thankfully he's got an amazing life.

And they came and 911 responder showed up and intubated him and brought him back to life.

But that was a life changing moment and that was actually the someday to today.

What really kind of kicked it off.

And then my, a mentor mine, the guy who got me into the trade actually into instrumentation.

I got a call from his son about eight weeks, four to eight weeks after my friend collapsed in front of me at Princess island park and Kelly.

I watched him take his last breath and that wow.

I watched him breathe in, breathe out.

I was standing right beside him when he collapsed and I realized he didn't have time to tell me to go and call his mom and say that he loved her or ask mark for the 20 bucks he owed him.

Like none of the stuff that was important.

And four to eight weeks later I got a call from a friend who said it was it.

The guy got me in the trades as Brian and his son called me and said hey, dad's in the hospital and ICU and as soon as his brother gets here we're going to unplug him.

And the, the reality was Brian was.

Brian had retired in January of that year.

He could have retired years earlier.

He decided to work till then for a reason.

He was buying a fancy car and he died in I think it was May that he passed away.

And I went to his service and his brother in law was given the eulogy and he said and both of them very well off.

He said Brian and I were going to go and do these, all these things someday.

We were going to go travel around the world with, on cruises with our wives.

We were going to go to all these golf courses in North America and go to NHL games.

So we're going to all do all these things and now we don't get to.

I hope if you learn anything from this, leave here and change your Sunday to today.

And I wrote the Someday today poem the next day and shared it with SharePoint.

They blew it into the Someday Today campaign and then during the pandemic we took it across Canada.

Basically we just challenged organizations to get their people to change their someday to today.

And so you.

It's not, it's not an either or.

It's not I'm going to go and build a business or I'm just going to be a beach bum and travel around with a backpack and live on nothing.

It's.

They're not mutually exclusive.

Both can happen at the same time.

Yeah, yeah.

It's this and not this or it's.

Just like you can have people and profit.

It's not either or as well.

You can, you can put people, you know, you can make people a priority and be profitable.

You can build an empire and you can change your some days to Today, you can build an amazing business and you can go out and you can smash it and you can hit your goals and you can do all this stuff, and it's.

There's no such thing as a perfect balance.

I don't even like that.

That term, you know, balanced life.

It's like sometimes you're going to work way too much, and sometimes you should not work way too much.

Like.

Yeah, yeah.

I. I recently interviewed Douglas Conant.

He was one of those two big interviews that I had last week.

Like I said, former Fortune 500 CEO of Campbell Soup went through a very big turnaround.

Not.

Not unlike yours, actually, where he got thrown into a gigantic mess and had to change the whole culture, and he took the same steps as you.

So I want you to realize you were taking the same steps turning SharePoint around.

As, you know, the Fortune 500 CEO of Campbell Soup was.

That's incredible.

Thank you for showing people first, looking after them, and realizing that if you put people in culture first, you're actually putting everybody first, including the shareholders.

Yeah.

But anyways, you know, I digress.

In his book, he.

He wrote this incredible book called the Blueprint.

Highly recommend it.

But one of the key things that he talks about in the Blueprint, Trevor, is that whenever you're making a decision on behalf of yourself or your company, start with, I'm going to do that.

And it doesn't mean that and works.

In every situation, there are going to be situations where or has to be the choice because there's some reason it just can't happen.

But if you always start with, I'm going to do this, and you're going to make better decisions, and the decisions that you make, you're going to find that 90 to 95% of the time and works, and you end up with a much better outcome.

Really?

That is so.

That is so interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My goodness.

Man.

Well, this has been absolutely incredible.

So, you know, for now, at least, you're.

You're still doing a little bit of stuff with SharePoint.

I know.

But you're.

You're kind of back on your way to doing your own thing again.

What does the future look like for Trevor Muir?

Obviously, I see that you're doing keynotes.

You know, you're up inspiring people inside Catalyst Club.

You're talking about someday to today.

And we actually have an event happening in Catalyst Club A someday to today.

It'll be in the past, so you'll have to come and watch it.

You'll have to join us and watch it.

It'll be in the replays.

But the point is, it's happening inside Catalyst Club to inspire a bunch of people, but bring us into what's next for Trevor Amir.

So right now, I've been focusing a lot on, I would call it coaching and a lot of advisement, probably more than actual even, even coaching.

But I'm working with a number of different companies, kind of 5 million to $25 million range, with the leadership.

And when I, when I had thought about this, this initiative or this goal or this big mission to go positively impact 100 million lives, I was going to do some personal coaching.

And I thought, what are all the ways that I could have the most impact?

And so speaking is one podcast.

Thank you for having me on.

It's another way.

But I realized that if I went into organizations and I could help the leadership to really.

To really get centered again and to really get healthy as human beings and help their organizations get healthy, healthy leaders develop other healthy leaders, and those healthy leaders help develop healthy people in an organization.

And I learned this because when things were shitty, people were stressed, and when things were good, they were less stressed.

And those people then go home different.

I don't care who you are, you show up at your house, you don't drop your stress at the door.

You just.

It's impossible.

You might be able to mask it.

Yeah.

And I was like, so this is how you affect houses to households and homes and healthy families.

You get healthy families from healthy businesses and healthy families to get things in their community and help build healthy communities.

And so that was the direction that I decided I was going to go.

And so I'm doing a bit of consulting, I'm doing coaching.

I'm, you know, I'm having some fun right now.

And that was really important to me.

I said my new goal leaving SharePoint was to have a lot of fun and make a lot of money and, and to help inspire and motivate and encourage people and empower people to go and live their best lives.

And that's.

That's near and dear to my heart.

And, yeah, you've helped me.

Thank you.

It's.

Oh, it's my pleasure, man.

And obviously, we have a lot of leaders listening right now.

Leaders who might be running five to $25 million companies looking for that next stage or are planning their next big event here around the world, and might need an incredibly inspiring speaker such as yourself.

What is the best way for them to get ahold of you?

Trevor?

So really, the, the easiest way to reach me in the place that I'm most active is on Instagram or on LinkedIn.

And so my LinkedIn profile is.

And it's how I found the best way to communicate, to be honest with you.

My email is Trevor Meir2016mail.com right now.

I haven't got my Matrix one set up yet, but I don't check it often.

So if you want to get a hold of me, LinkedIn is a really, really good way.

Or you can, you can reach me through that, through that email or Kelly knows how to get a hold of me too.

Yeah, you can harass me.

I'll, I'll, I'll secretly give away your contact info.

Not so secret.

No.

Trevor, this has been absolutely incredible.

I appreciate, appreciate you.

I love your story.

I love that you're still here.

I love what you did with SharePoint and honestly, I think I'm most excited to see what comes next from you.

Yeah, I appreciate that it was scary.

I still is at times and exciting and I really believe, and I, I have for most of my life that the next thing is the, is the right thing and I just have to believe and keep showing up every day.

And I'm not sure what the future holds exactly, but I am going to continue to go out and, and do my best to really share the message and to help those folks out there who are struggling, especially in business, and to help them avoid some of the landmines that I stepped on.

You're an inspiration to leaders everywhere, Trevor.

Until next time, you've been listening to the Business Development Podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.