Finding Purpose Through Mentorship and Faith in the Construction Industry
When loss becomes legacy
Most of us know what it feels like to lose someone who changed our trajectory. For Wyatt Lowery, Director of Business Development at Blue Sage Services, that person was Jim Hilton, founder, mentor, and father figure, who saw potential in a young man scrolling through job sites at a restaurant. Jim didn’t have a position open. He didn’t have a clear role. He just had a burning feeling in his gut that their paths were meant to cross. That conversation turned into a road trip to Midland, Texas, and eventually into one of the most transformative relationships of Wyatt’s life. Years later, after Jim’s passing left a massive hole in his world, Wyatt found himself reconnecting with Jim’s son Dillon – and ultimately joining the family business at Blue Sage, where he now works to carry forward the legacy of grit, faith, and unwavering dedication that Jim embodied.
Your setbacks might be setting you up
At 17, Wyatt was a competitive motorcycle racer with big dreams. One night in July, he ran out of talent at the wrong moment and landed in a wheelchair with everything below his kneecaps broken. Doctors weren’t sure if he’d walk again. But that devastating setback became the training ground for everything that makes Wyatt exceptional today. He learned to overcome barriers from a chair. He learned to thrive despite difficulty. Now he actively seeks out hard situations because behind every challenge lies the potential for great results. That same resilience now drives his work at Blue Sage, where he connects people to resources, coaches team members through discomfort, and helps build a culture where failure is a learning tool rather than an execution. His natural gift for connection – once just something that felt different – now makes perfect sense as the blueprint God designed him with.
The construction industry needs what you have
The construction world faces massive challenges. The industry needs 500,000 workers right now. A huge portion of the workforce is retiring in the next 15 years. Suicide and drug overdose numbers are sobering. Yet this is an industry with incredible opportunity – one that literally builds the future from the ground up. Wyatt sees the potential for transformation. Not just through better training programs or competitive pay, but through investment in people. Through coaching that helps workers discover their God-given design. Through mentorship that mirrors what Jim did for him. The lowest hanging fruit right now is development – pouring energy into people so they can get better and stronger. What if the next generation of 20-somethings entering this field found environments where they could fail safely, grow intentionally, and discover that they make sense? What if thousands of Jims were raised up to mentor the next wave? That’s the vision being built at Blue Sage and through partnerships with Rogue Collective – creating spaces where the construction industry becomes ground zero for life change.
Episode Summary:
Get ready for an inspiring conversation about overcoming impossible obstacles, divine connections, and transforming an entire industry through faith-driven leadership. Wyatt Lowery shares how a devastating motorcycle accident became the foundation for discovering his God-given design as a connector. This conversation with Blue Sage Services’ Director of Business Development reveals the power of legacy, the importance of investment in people, and how God orchestrates connections that transform lives and industries.
This episode was recorded live at the Dirt World Summit, where construction professionals, heavy equipment operators, and industry leaders gather to build more than roads.
Key Takeaways:
- Your darkest moments often become your greatest preparation
- Divine connections aren’t random—they’re an orchestrated design
- Rising tides raise all ships when you invest in people
- Legacy isn’t just what you build—it’s who you raise up
Episode Resources:
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Links to the Daron Earlewine Podcast
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Daron: Created on purpose and for purpose. Good. All right. Hey, welcome back to the Daron Earlewine podcast. Still live on the set here at the Dirt World Third Annual Dirt World Summit in Dallas, Texas, and sit down with folks from all over the dirt world. And that’s where a lot of the work we’re doing with Rogue Collective and eventually with Blackbird Mission. And we’re sitting down right now with Wyatt Lowry. Wyatt, welcome to the podcast.
Wyatt: Thanks, Daron.
Daron: So, Wyatt, you are with Blue Sage Services. We’ve done an episode with Dillon, the founder, CEO of Blue Sage. He’s the man.
Wyatt: The man. The man of Blue man with the plan. Literally.
Daron: We’re the chaos. Chaos. Chaos. What was the chaos choreographer?
Wyatt: I call him the choreographer of chaos.
Daron: I like that. I like that a lot. So you are responsible, really. Dillon was too, but really the spark that connected us from you’ll be able to do some work with Blue Sage over the past year. So we’ll get into that a little bit, but intro yourself a little bit. What do you do at Blue Sage? Just kind of give us a fly over there.
Wyatt: Sure. So my role at Blue Sage, I’m the director of business development. I say all the time that my primary goal is to make tomorrow better than yesterday, whatever that might be, holistically throughout the business, top to bottom, inside and out. Dillon and his wife Jordan have entrusted me with their faith and confidence to act and take action in any topic or any area that I find an opportunity to make better. And so I get up each day with the mission and the goal of finding ways to improve. Sometimes that’s on a sales aspect and it’s finding new clients, new business, new projects to bring into the house. Other times it’s team development, might be resource development. A lot of coaching, a lot of time spent with our existing team, finding ways to improve their skill sets, maybe their comfort in something that they might be tasked with, but they’re slightly uncomfortable to take care of. And so I’ll coach, I’ll work, I’ll share experience, knowledge, encouragement. Sometimes it’s the blind leading the blind, but that’s okay because when you’re digging in the dirt, sometimes you can’t see what you’re digging at either. So it works out pretty well.
Daron: And how long have you known Blue Sage? Just in about…
Wyatt: Two weeks, I will hit my two year mark. Getting very, very close to that 24 month mark. Very grateful to be part of the team. I’ve known Dillon and his family a lot of years. Used to work for his mom and dad and got an opportunity to get to know Dillon through that relationship before coming to join Blue Sage. So when I finally did come to work two years ago, a lot of times that first day at a new company feels special and new and different. For me, it felt like coming. It felt like rejoining somewhere that felt very familiar and felt like I belonged.
Daron: Yeah. And let’s talk about that a little bit. I think it’s a really cool, unique part of your journey is, I mean, Dillon’s dad was a really influential mentor in your life. Talk about that little bit.
Wyatt: So Jim was Dillon’s dad’s name. Jim and his wife, Debbie, I knew through a former role I worked at AT&T and became connected them, were customers that we had some pretty wild moments. They were the first multi-unit iPad order for a business that was processed by AT&T and it was a 50-unit order that got rejected by the fraud department. They didn’t tell anybody, they just canceled the order. So Debbie called me the next day when the delivery was supposed to show up and said, our 50-unit iPad order never arrived. And so come to find out fraud got involved and it made a mess. Another crazy adventure, their office got hit by a tornado and complete, I mean, line of sight straight through the center of the building and took the whole property and destroyed everything in the property. That was a wild adventure that I got to be a part of with Jim and Debbie.
Through those stories like that, we built a connection, built a relationship. And then once upon a time on a Thanksgiving, I just sat down for lunch with my family. My wife and I were hosting Thanksgiving for the very first time at our home. Big generational transition of event. And my Blackberry is ringing in the bedroom. I can hear it over and over and over. And it was Debbie. It was Dillon’s mom. And she was calling in a panic because all of their units were turned off because of a billing discrepancy that had occurred on their account. And they waited until Thanksgiving morning. The service was interrupted and she was in a bind. So she was calling me because nobody else, you know, thanks. No one was answering the phone. We got it back on. I nearly lost my job. It was a whole big fiasco that ended up with Jim and Debbie, actually Jim on stage at an AT&T event with the president of the company being interviewed about how AT&T can do things better for businesses. And Jim took over. The show, like he took over life, he was a larger than life character.
And so we had all these crazy adventures together. And then one day I ran into him. I was sitting at a restaurant, I was on a tablet on monster.com looking for a job. And he walked in the door and we got to talking. He had a meeting to go to, he left, he asked if I would stick around until he got done. He came back, he took me to dinner. We had a conversation that turned into he took me on a road trip to Midland, Texas the next week. Said, hey, why don’t you go down here? I’ll pay you cash money for the week. Hang out with me, drive me around, spend time with me because I don’t want to do it on board. A long road trip. On the way home, we were talking and he looked at me and he said, you know, I can’t explain it. I don’t have a purpose for you. I don’t have a spot for you, but I just have this burning feeling in my gut that we’re meant to do something together. There’s some reason that our lives have crossed paths over and over. And I’m gonna give you a job. And that’s how I went to work for his dad. And then his dad took me on a wing and Jim became a mentor, incredible friend, incredible confidant. I could talk to him about anything.
He got very close, not just with me, my wife, my family, just became a really special person. And even years later, after we sold that organization, it went to another group. I went with it, no longer worked for Jim and Debbie. I got to where I was talking to Jim two, three times a day, every day. Usually him calling me. I found out years later, his family knew that is, it’s three o’clock, I gotta talk to Wyatt. There was a big running joke about what that actually meant. I still to this day don’t exactly know the detail. I think I was the scapegoat for like getting off the phone or something. But Jim was really special, really changed my life, really changed the trajectory of my family. Taught me about an industry and taught me about business that I knew nothing about prior to that. So I was really, really blessed and really, really honored to have Jim in my life. We lost Jim a few years ago and it left a gigantic hole in my world. Something I never even dreamed or believed there would be an answer to.
Daron: So losing Jim obviously left a massive hole in my world, my family. It made a change where I’d pick up the phone to want to call somebody to talk about something and it wasn’t available anymore. And obviously through life, through that experience of working for Jim and Debbie, I met Dillon, I got to know Dillon. He was this wild, out of control guy that I looked up to in a lot of ways, both physically and emotionally, spiritually, mentally. He was a great representation of somebody that I aspired to be. And after we lost his dad, Dillon and I started to talk more and more. We got to be closer and closer and got to be friends. And then one afternoon he called me up and we started talking and that conversation led to another conversation and it just kept kind of evolving and he said, hey, are you looking for a new spot? And I, I am, I’m looking for a new role. I’m not happy where I’m at. I’m not real thrilled with the organization I’m a part of. I don’t agree with their morals and some of their decision-making. I want to get away from that. I want to get back to somewhere that I can belong and feel proud of what we’re doing.
Wyatt: One thing led to the next and I joined Blue Sage in December two years ago. Went and took my pre-employment drug screening on my birthday. Had a wild experience. It’s one of the only times I’ve ever gone through that type of a process and turns out I might be the only employee that had an observed drug test if you could follow that. That was memorable. We’ve had some laughs around that. So yeah, it was, it was definitely an adventure. And the adventures haven’t stopped.
Daron: Well, one thing that I think is that has struck me Wyatt is like got to know you, you know, talking a little, spending a little more time before I did Dillon. And then now over the past, you know, five months or so, I’ve gotten to know a lot of the Blue Sage team. But one thing that really struck me is when you told me a lot of stories. Sorry, I talk a lot. They’re great stories. You told me a lot of stories about Jim and his impact on the state, his legacy of the family. And I get it that I think for all of us, it feels a little more awkward to tell our own story than someone else tell it, of course. But we’ve talked a lot about, you know, and in business, the conversation about culture is so huge. You know what I mean? That you want to build a culture that people want to be a part of, they want to buy into, have an impact. Absolutely. And it’s been interesting to me that I feel like there’s a part of because you spent so much time with Jim and he had such an impact. I feel like there’s a unique role that you play with Blue Sage of almost, you know, and we’ve talked about it even last week when I was on site with you guys about how do we start telling the story of really not just this company that’s been around for 15 years now, but it carrying on the legacy of what this family has meant to this area of the country. Like, I feel like that’s a unique role that you play and are gonna play in seeing how Blue Sage evolves. But is that something that’s just kind of organically happened or do you, have you sensed that and felt like, that’s something that I’m supposed to do?
Wyatt: There’s definitely an overwhelming sense of pride when you know the story of how the family has evolved over time. How that story has unfolded, if you know it, it’s impossible not to want to tell it. It’s this legacy and this American dream success story, if you will, you’re inevitably proud of the people that are involved in it. And you’re proud to say, hey, I know those people. I break bread with these people. I sit down and pray with these people. I have a real connection that isn’t just superficial. It’s life, it’s memories. It’s a small piece of that overall legacy that I can look back and I can point fingers at. And I can say, I remember the time when Jim and I were in the pickup and we were driving down this trail across the ranch and he was telling me the story about the building foundation or the home foundation that you can still see the stone in the ground showing the footprint of the home that once stood there, the family that lived there and what happened to it ultimately. Just to be able to say that I got to be exposed to that, it’s remarkable.
And you’ve seen it, you’ve been there. You know what I mean when I say that the history and the richness that is on that ranch, the magic of that ranch, it’s special. And Dillon says it all the time, he shrugs his shoulders and kind of laughs and says, I don’t know any differences where I grew up. This is all I know. What’s special about it? He’s overly humble. And for those of us that don’t have that in our reality and we just get to experience it from time to time and we see the uniqueness of it. Yeah. We know how special it really is.
Daron: I remember when I first got there, I was like, I feel like I’m in like the freaking Yellowstone of Oklahoma. You know what I mean? It’s like that kind of vibe. But how important you think it is for the future of Blue Sage, but for every company, how important do you think it is that you do the work to tell the story that maybe no one knows or people need to know?
Wyatt: So the correlation to me, obviously Blue Sage is we’re not a ranch. We’re not an agriculture business. We’re a dirt company. We dig in the dirt, we build with the dirt, we put things in the dirt. And we ideally are making careers for our team to do exactly that. So to me, the association of the story, it’s not the fact of the ranch, it’s the grit, it’s the determination, and it’s the unwavering faith that these people get up, they give it everything they’ve got, day in and day out, full of heart, full of dedication for their objective, their goal, for their team, for their resources, for the people, the partners that they work with, they give it their everything. And then they give the rest to Christ and they say, we’re going to do everything we can and we’re going to let the Lord take it from there. And they’re going to trust that it’s going to get where it needs to go. And just like that ranch evolved and developed and grew and has succeeded through generations, that’s what Blue Sage is built off of, is that grit and that determination and that drive, that motivation to always improve and always grow and never back down from whatever challenge may lay out in front of them.
Daron: I love it. And I know we talked, as I was out there, you guys are starting to get innovative and dream about, how do we, what kind of training and onboarding and development can we do? Where we kind of meld those two. And I can’t wait to see what you guys create with that and where that takes you guys. It’s gonna be really, really, really special. I want to get a time machine. I would do off to time here on the podcast. I want go back to like 17 year old Wyatt, right? Oh, yikes. Was he sitting around dreaming about someday, I’m going to work at a company like Blue Sage on a ranch in Beaver, Oklahoma, even though you live in Stillwater. I mean, take us back. What was the dream back in the day?
Wyatt: Absolutely not. So depending on where you go at 17, I was in a wheelchair, broke everything below my kneecaps in a motorcycle racing accident. And that was probably where my first dream, which was I want to race motorcycles. You did it for a while. It kind of came to a very abrupt halt.
Daron: How long had you been racing?
Wyatt: I started racing when I was 13, I think. I raced off and on for a few years and then got real competitive and really tried to be serious. But if you could imagine a blind man trying to be like a, I don’t know, competitive archer. Yeah. I was lost, I was shooting in the dark. I was just going in whatever direction felt right in the moment because I had very little help. I was fortunate to have a couple of sponsors that got behind me and just supported me for being a good person. But I didn’t have any coaching, didn’t have anybody telling me what right or wrong looked like. I was just trying my best. And one fateful night in July, I ran out of talent. Were at just the wrong moment and landed in a wheelchair. And racing sort of stopped being an idea at that point.
Daron: Racing stopped, but walking was not even happening. That’s true.
Wyatt: Yeah, for a minute, they weren’t sure if I would walk again. I remember the surgeon telling me one time that as we were going into the operating room, he said, I’m not sure what we’re going to find when we get in there. I hope to not amputate anything in the surgery. Well, obviously, if at all possible, wake you up and have different conversations before we go that route. But I was very lucky, I was very blessed. I think I told the surgeon something like, if you go in there and do what God gave you the talent, your team, the talent to do to take care of me, I’m gonna wake up and I’m gonna recover. I’m gonna go use the talents God gave me and I’m gonna rehab and I’m gonna get stronger and I’m gonna build myself back up and I’m not gonna let this slow me down. And I think I did. I think I accomplished that. It took a little while. It was a lot of ups and downs. Went snow skiing before I was actually released from my walking boots. Turns out snow ski boots are quite similar to lock down ankle boots. They’re very supportive. I had great leg muscle development still, but I just had nothing in my ankles. So the boots worked out well. Took a fun little trip with some friends. And I think that was kind of the moment where I realized, hey, this is going to be okay. I’m going to put this behind me.
And then focus changed a little bit. I didn’t really know what I was headed for, but growing up, I always loved Legos. I always built Legos and Rector sets and anything that I could get my hands on that helped create things. And with that, I loved cars. I loved racing. My path into college said, I’m going to go be an engineer and I’m going to build race cars. I’m going to design and build cars. Very quickly I realized that was not for me. It seemed really fun until I learned what that whole project really looked like. And I decided that that wasn’t the income that I wanted. I didn’t want to have a full-time engineering job and a part-time job at McDonald’s or something trying to make ends meet. And the pay on that just wasn’t going to connect the dots. So made a pivot. I took my technical skills, my ability to explain and understand systems and how things work. And I got into technical sales. Technical sales led me to AT&T, AT&T led me to Jim and Debbie. The Hilton family brought me back together and brought me to Blue Sage years later. And I don’t know how else to explain that, we call it fate. That was a path, that was a design, that was a plan. I believe that.
Daron: One thing I’ve noticed, I mean, we went through the four core questions and talked about your leadership voice and your connector. And man, if I wanted somebody to look up, you know, in Wikipedia or in psychopedia of like, what does a connector look like? It’d be like, looks like Wyatt. Like, I mean, somebody who connects people to people and people to resources, like it just oozes out of you. And there’s like, I just noticed that in the time we’ve hung out, the time we’ve talked, like so many of your stories, they just orbit around that. Drawing connections between people or places or resources. I just, I don’t even mean to a lot of the times, but it happens. That’s the beauty of it. It’s like when you start stepping into and getting close to that, that’s that true north of this is who God created you to be. Like you can’t help but do it. It’s just, it’s natural. That’s right. You know what I mean? That’s
Wyatt: It’s been really fun for me. This journey that we’ve taken together with you has been really fun for me to recognize that some of these things that have always felt different, where I realized it felt natural to me, but I can tell. You know, I’d be in a room full of people and I was the only one usually that had that same comfort or that same feeling. I realize now I see why it comes naturally to me and it doesn’t tell the person. And it’s just, it’s because those are the blueprints that he built me on. So I’m grateful for that. I’m trying to embrace that run with that.
Daron: Yeah. Well, we got connected in a kind of a cool way, not random, definitely divine, but you happened to sit in a session I did. You thought it was good, told Dillon, you guys came to the fellowship breakfast and all of a sudden it’s like, listen, I you guys saw something I posted on LinkedIn or something. Like, you reached out to me right away. Like, dude, we got to get you out to Beaver. And in the past four months, we can talk about it here in a minute. It’s been phenomenal. Some of my favorite experiences over the past year. But we definitely saw, I think, God at work bringing together a plan there in the past year. But fill me in a little bit. Let’s go back again to that kid in the wheelchair and that place. Man, where did faith factor into that? How has that been a part of your journey? Has it been, you know, main stage, back burner? Kind what’s that journey look like?
Wyatt: Faith in that time is definitely back burner. Faith in that point in my life was very private, very personal. It was prayers at night asking for knowledge and direction and expressing a whole lot of gratitude for the things that I was blessed with. But it was, that was it. It was just me in my own head and my own conversations with God. It was not public. It was not in a church. It was not very vocal outside of the voice in my head. And looking back, I realize and I see a lot of the reasons that led to that. A lot of the questions and the doubts and the self struggles that were taking place, right? I was a 17 year old kid that wanted to race motorcycles. And in an instant, I was a 17 year old kid that couldn’t stand on my own two feet and might not ever do that again. That makes you question a lot. You should really, really ask a lot of hard questions about what’s real and what’s not. And sometimes you don’t have people that can give you, can’t handle the questions or help you find good answers to it.
And I never questioned the Lord. I never questioned if I was a faithful Christian. I questioned what was intentional or what was meant to me or where was I truly meant to belong. And there was a lot of dark years of trying to understand why me, why did this happen to me? And in retrospect, I think a lot of the things I learned during that process, that process was an education and it was teaching me to overcome obstacle and to overcome barrier, breakdown barriers, even if I’m doing it from a chair. It was giving me an education on how to survive despite difficulty. And now I thrive in that. Now I seek barriers. I look for hard situations because behind hard situations, you should come great results and great accomplishments. And so those barriers are what lead me and motivate me to succeed now.
Daron: Well, I think one of the challenges and barriers right now, if we, if we pull out and talk about the industry you guys are in, right, is massive need for workforce numbers, massive need for workforce development. You got a big part of the workforce retiring in the next 15 years and there’s already need for 500,000 basically laborers right now. And then we shared a little bit in Dillon’s episode, some of the sobering facts that they shared this year and last year, I mean, I think all three years at the Dirt World Summit is the suicide numbers in the construction industry, the drug overdose numbers. So it’s this industry with massive opportunity, absolutely essential and crucial to the future of the country, into the world. Like, you build everything, right? But an industry where humans aren’t doing real well in it mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, right? You guys at Blue Sage and I’m not the answer to this, Jesus is, but the stuff we’re trying to do in this, you guys have seen, we have to start making some changes. We’ve got to start moving into that. So this is a massive challenge. I’m just for you guys at Blue Sage, industry wise. What are some of your thoughts on kind of what motivated you to reach out to invite road collective to come in and just delete me from the equation. Just what you’re seeing, was what you think needs to happen, needs to be invested in and grown. You’re right, man. You’re a massive connector and researcher, but you’re not afraid of a challenge. You’re gonna go headlong into it. What are you starting to see from your chair?
Wyatt: So we recognize and have for a while the need for team development. We have fantastic people on our team. I’m very blessed to say that I work with some of the greatest humans that I’ve ever met. And I can have an honest, real conversation with every single person in our group. Some of them may get political, some of them may get cultural, some of them may get ethical, some of them may just simply boil down to, I work more hours than you, or vice versa. But they’re honest, they’re genuine, they’re heartfelt. And they’re full of respect. And as long as two adults can have a conversation founded in respect, you can build on that. And so we have these fantastic people that we want to show investment in and we want to receive result from. And when we see the opportunity to develop, we want to jump all over it. Anything that we can do that’s going to improve our people is going to improve our company. Rising tides raise all shapes. And we live by that. We believe in that.
And so when I saw your post earlier this year about some coaching that you had been providing, I called Dillon. He answered the phone. So did you see this post from that Daron Earlewine guy that we met at dirt world? Did you see that he does coaching? What do we know about this? And I said, that’s what I was calling was to see if you saw this post. We need to find out about this. If you’re not opposed to it, I’m going to reach out and see what I can learn. And I reached out. You responded immediately. I think we were on the phone within a couple of hours talking about it, which was incredible because you’re a celebrity in our eyes. So to have the ability to reach out to you and get a response from just this good dude that turns out, now I call a friend. That was game changing for us. But the opportunity to develop and pour coaching into to receive growth out of our team is a no brainer. It was an obvious fit.
Daron: And you think that’s something that’s maybe missing, has not been invested in as much as needed to be, not just from you guys, industry-wide.
Wyatt: Across the industry, absolutely. And I don’t think it’s limited even to just the construction. Sure, you’re right. I would venture to guess, and I don’t know, because I’m not in these industries anymore, but I bet if you go to the oil and gas world, you go to telecom, you go to technology, you go to software, you go to most major industries across the globe, you probably find a reoccurring pattern that unless it’s a nursing field or an engineering field, there’s a lack of talent. And it’s because our generation grew up and went through a society where we were told go to nursing school or go to engineering school. Nearly everybody that I know was given that advice in high school. And most of us listened and took those paths and not to have any, I’m not saying anything against those industries, of course, but I think it’s a universal problem where we are seeing the need for better talent and better skill sets and better people everywhere.
In our space, in the construction world, in civil construction, we’ve got to have folks in the field doing the labor and running the equipment and leading the teams and driving the safety and doing these critical tasks that make these projects happen. And I think what we’re seeing widespread, not just ourselves, but as an industry. I think what we’re running into is there’s a fundamentally, there is a lack of skill set in the workforce and there is a massive lack of interest in the workforce to do hard things. And so what we run into over and over is when things turn tough, the workforce walks away. And we’re trying to overcome that through training, through culture, through incentivizing our team. But the absolute lowest hanging fruit that we can reach right now is development and it’s pouring energy into people so that they can learn to get better and get stronger.
Daron: Yeah, I love that. What do you think, I guess for you, we’ve had some phenomenal conversations over the past five months and it’s been just awesome to watch the impact in this, the investment, I think you’ve, I feel like you’ve made in yourself and, and, uh, just seeing you come alive in a lot of things. It’s been, it’s been one of my greatest joys to be a part of. Like what, I guess maybe when we could talk about some of what you’re seeing with the team, but like, what, what do you feel like is coming alive and developing in, in you, you know, in this process?
Wyatt: Recognizing my abilities of connecting was a big asset. Seeing my strengths that we discovered through some of your coaching, recognizing why my response to situations looks different than some of my peers. Dillon, we use as an example, he and I have obviously different strengths, different results, different talents. And as a result of that, when we are faced with situation X, we have a different reaction to it sometimes. It’s not that one is better than the other, one is bad and one is right. It’s not that at all. It’s just we’re looking at it as leaders from two different skill sets, two different toolkits. And he might recognize it and say, we need to address it from this angle. I might see it and say, let’s address it from a different angle. And that’s where communication becomes critical and being able to discuss that and brainstorm that. Okay, here’s the situation and here are the ideas on the table. What do we think’s the best fit? And then taking action and addressing that situation based on the decision.
I think for me, recognizing these talents has been affirming because I may have felt them or I may have believed that there was something different, but without somebody showing me and teaching me why those feelings were the way they were, it’s hard to know what’s actually happening. That’s what you brought. You brought clarity. You brought an explanation to those feelings and those gut responses to a situation. And now I can look at it and say, well, I’m a creative connecting problem solver. And I’m going to take those talents and I’m going to attack that situation and I’m going to find solutions through my network and through my connections that I can bring to the table. We’re going to solve problems.
Daron: Well, we talked about it. I say this a lot to people, but it’s because it came out of my journey of like, I think everybody needs to have that, like, I make sense moment. Right? Like we’re all trying to figure it out. Life’s hard. We have setbacks. We have deaths and dreams and all kinds of things. And it’s like we’re figuring it out and then we’re finding things. I guess this kind of works. I guess this kind of works. But then you’re like, so you’re like, well, I don’t, I don’t really know. And I think you add the God part in that. It’s like, does he care? Is he part like, and that’s what I, you know, our three tenants of the podcast, every episode, God’s for you, against you. He’s near you, not far away. And he’s created you on purpose, for purpose. And like, when you start going like, okay, wait a second. This all makes sense. Like the way my brain thinks and the way this and this like, and I didn’t create any of this, you know, and you start realizing I’ve been naturally talented in these things since I was a little kid. Like this has always been in me. Like, wait a second here. Like these are literally gifts that God has given me, you know, and he’s for me in this.
And so I think that’s a part that I’m excited to, I’ve always been excited about how people connect. Cause I think I’ve said it on the podcast before, but somebody said this to me recently, that the idea of like that wrong beliefs about God, wrong beliefs about myself, wrong beliefs about others leads to wrong behavior in my life. Right. It’s wrong path. Yeah, it’s the wrong path. And when I start realizing, OK, wait a second, I I’m starting to understand some correct views about who God is, about maybe then who He’s created me to be. And then, oh, wait a second, what that what that means for every single person I work with, every person I lead with, there’s a design, there’s a genius in them too, you know, when you start seeing them for that value. I just get excited, Wyatt. Because I think about, you know, we talked about this, you know, I think we were out there in the butcher house. Yes.
I told PJ, we got to do an on site visit, you know, episode out in Beaver just to follow these places to become like site for everyone. Create a presence to these words. Yes. Otherwise your audience is hearing those names. What is that? Yes. But like, there is such a need and I there’s going to be such a an infusion of the next generation, 20 somethings into this field. And we talked about it, you know, that there is this seems to be this spiritual hunger and awakening happening in the younger generation. I for your vision for what you see in the industry, do you feel like that the dirt world could be a place where the development, the opportunity of an environment, of a culture that would be akin to what you experienced being mentored by Jim? Like, what if we could see thousands of Jims created out there, raised up and then begin to pour in and develop the next generation.
Wyatt: I think it would be amazing. To your point, I think about my own children. I’ve got two boys and I think about what their future looks like, their possible lives might look like. I think naturally as parents, I know you’ve got children, you’ve got boys, you probably have these similar thoughts. Like I don’t want my kids to be terrible people. I don’t want them to grow up to be scum of the earth. I don’t want them to be criminals. I don’t want them to be lost in faith. I don’t want them to turn out in a negative way, whatever your definition of negative might be. That’s obvious. His parents were, I think, ingrained in those beliefs. But as an optimistic leader, I also look the other direction. And I think, well, what if my children go a certain way. What if they’re doctors or lawyers, right? That’s what society has programmed us to think. And I find myself as an alternative thinking, why is this industry not right for them? Why can they not grow up to be leaders in the construction world? Why can they not grow up to run earth moving organizations and lead teams of people that build the future of our society from the ground up? Because that’s what we do. And there’s not a good reason why they can’t because it’s a great place to be.
But they need the right direction. They need the right leading. They need to be coached correctly. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned. Obviously there’s a lot of pitfalls and dangers and threats that come along the process of that. So they’re going to have to have the opportunity to learn and they’ve got to be able to learn in a safe space where they are allowed to fail and it doesn’t execute their career. They can’t be chopped off the block because they make a mistake. They have to have that environment where failure is a learning tool rather than an execution. And I think it’s possible. And I think with development and with coaching and with direction, I think this industry has the ability to change millions of people’s lives for the better.
Daron: I absolutely agree, Wyatt. And I think, you know, in Dillon’s conversation, you know, I had the same express the same gratitude and I will do you is, when we spent, you know, those late nights and we were talking about, just dreaming about, and what could this be? And you guys saying, hey, we want to be a part of the ground floor on this. You know what I mean? What does that mean? I don’t exactly know. You don’t exactly know. But knowing like it’s sent, it’s, it’s a feeling like, I think, think God’s inviting us into something. And for me, I’m just saying yes to it. Knowing, I don’t know how I’m just barely figuring out the dirt road. You guys have lived it. You’ve been at, you know, oh, I mean, and how do we begin to say, okay, God, give us your ideas for what this could look like, because this is an environment right for life change. You know what I mean? I know that Jesus loves to work from the fringes with the misfits, with the forgotten. And I mean, I’m just so excited. Thank you for inviting me into the process with you guys. And I’m so excited for the dreaming, the ideas, the investment that you guys made both in rogue and in a Blackbird mission. And I’m just excited to see like, hey, God, what does it look like?
And one thing I love is about getting the right shotgun with you is like, you’re going to go after the big challenge and you’re going to think innovatively and you’re going to be, I think a big key part of us, of the connector and the biblical term, the evangelist. Like you’re going to be a big part of bringing good news and connecting people to it. People like mentors to mentees, people to people, resources to it. Like, it’s just awesome. I just hope that within this journey we walk together is it’s just the next iteration of you discovering like, wow, God’s been at work inviting me into some pretty amazing relationships, some pretty amazing environments. And I think I’m gonna guess that if you got to the end of your days and somebody would speak your name with the kind of honor and respect they speak about gyms, you would feel like, I think I did it pretty well.
Wyatt: I would consider that a victory for sure.
Daron: I think it’s coming, Wyatt. Man, I’m glad to call you my friend. I’m excited to walk this journey with you. My only complaint against you is through the years of my different ministry, you know, forays into different things. When I stepped into the whole pub theology thing, I had a friend of mine who was a radio host. He wanted to call me the beer pastor. And I knew that wouldn’t work as well in the Christian community. So I said, just start calling me the pub pastor. And then, you know, Jason Richmond, as a part of what’s going on here with dirt world, he wanted to start to call me, you know, the dirt world pastor, which I wasn’t real sure about that. I don’t really love the pastor term per se, but when we were in Beaver last week, you and Dillon came together with what you feel is maybe the next iteration of what I need to be known as. And so I just want to thank you for that. Maybe we should just debut it here on the podcast of my new ministry title.
Wyatt: And so I just want to thank you for that. Maybe we should just debut it here on the podcast of my new ministry title. The Dirty Beer Pastor. The Dirty Beer Pastor. You’ve heard it here first. It’s unavoidable.
Daron: A DBP in the house. Oh, you know what? It might work. It might work. The dirty beer password. You could just run the acronym. Yeah. This DDP. Omit the explanation. Yeah. No one.
Wyatt: And it’s an icebreaker. People are going to ask, why are you known as DDP? We could get away with it for a while, I’m sure. It will create conversation and it will open the opportunity to give somebody a background.
Daron: Your take on this is only one that a great connector could bring. I’m going to find the opportunity to create conversation. It’s going to happen. Oh, I love it. Hey, listen, thanks for being on the podcast. I can’t wait to see where this takes us. And this is me, the DDP, the Dirty Beer Pastor, let you know, saying thank you for listening or downloading this episode of the podcast. You have questions, concerns, no concerns about my new title. I don’t need all those, but Daron at DaronEarlewine.com. And until we talk again, remember these three things, God’s for you, he’s not against you, he’s near you, not far away. He just created you on purpose and for purpose.