Matthew Mak 0:05

You ever notice the people doing the most aren't asking for advice? This is built without permission. I'm Matthew Mak. Before I ever drew a blueprint or signed a business deal, I was folding suits, hauling snow, and washing glasses until 2 a.m. Then came architecture, tow trucks, and a built business from the ground up with my partner. No blueprint, no safety net, no approval. Just real stories, hard pivots, and what it actually takes to build something from nothing. Let's get to work. Yeah, dude, none of that shit on the phone call, you know. Yeah, it is pretty much like a phone call. So we're gonna start again. Let's get the party started with Dalton at Ironworks. What's up, dude? What's going on? So we got Dalton here from Ironworks Excavating joining us on Built Without Permission. Other than on here, we talk frequently, I think almost every day. Well, two or three times a day. Yeah, fuck. I think we gotta start uh sending billable psych psychiatric hours to each other.

Dalton Sykes 1:25

Therapy sessions, dude. I think we've talked a few times about invoicing each other for them.

Matthew Mak 1:30

Yeah, absolutely, right? All right. So uh we're going to get down to the the down and dirty talk of Dalton and how you came to be and where you are today. Um again, thank you for joining me here on Built Without Permission. Uh so one of the first things I would like to ask, and for our viewers, is what's the one moment that made you realize you were done waiting for permission to start?

Dalton Sykes 2:03

Oh man. I feel like I remember the exact moment where like I okay, I always knew I would be on my own at some point. Yeah. But I remember probably when 2017, 2018. Okay, I like came home. I still lived with my mom at this point, and I came home and was just like, man, like I'm coming home and like playing video games every day. And there's people who are still working even after a 10-hour shift, and I just decided to do more from that point.

Matthew Mak 2:40

Yeah.

Dalton Sykes 2:40

Like, you know, six hours of sleep is enough, and I should be working all the other hours to get to where I want to be. And I'll try at that time in life where you can afford to lose. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Matthew Mak 2:52

And then, like, uh, what um what age do you think you do you do you remember you were at when that kind of hit you?

Dalton Sykes 2:59

Oh man, we're 26 right now. That probably would have been around 17, 18. So fuck 21, 22, and I was doing nothing to actually help. Like, dude, during COVID, I was like selling concrete dumbbells, you know. Really? But like, yeah, but like back then I just started buying, like, the first thing I started doing was buying and selling pickup trucks and just like fixing them and flipping them and like not making great money, but at least I had some money to play around with, you know.

Matthew Mak 3:32

Nice. That's actually something I didn't know.

Dalton Sykes 3:36

Yeah, I don't I don't really, I don't know. I mean me and you have a lot to talk about still.

Matthew Mak 3:40

So well, for sure. So I'm actually really curious though, but the the you mentioned about the concrete dumbbells, because that's actually pretty cool, that's very creative. So, did you actually get to the point where you were like even personalizing them or something, or no?

Dalton Sykes 3:52

No, dude. I did them so ghetto. So I to be honest, man, I built them for myself during COVID. Yeah. And one of my buddies thought it was funny and sent a picture to one of his buddies. And they wanted to buy it. Yeah, dude. And the way like I literally just took like a piece of metal like this long and filled it, filled a little like planter pot with concrete and jammed the bar in, and then poured the other one and flipped it and jammed. So they weren't even like straight or anything, yeah, but they were still dumbbells that worked, and during COVID, weights were like four bucks a pound or something. Nice. So I was he texted me back the next day. He's like, dude, my buddy wants to buy a pair. And I was like, he can just have them, you know. And then the next day, three more people wanted them. And I was like, What the hell, man? You know, that's awesome. And that's awesome. So I posted them on Marketplace, and the first night we had like $1,400 in orders. It was very strange.

Matthew Mak 4:52

I think you should bring it back if you have some.

Dalton Sykes 4:56

Dude, I still have a concrete dumbbell in my garage, the first one that I ever made.

Matthew Mak 5:00

That's awesome. That's awesome. So I know they last. Yeah, so that's cool though, because like you know, just something as let's say simple as that, but yet it's a very creative idea, and then you made something out of that without even like really thinking about it, right? And yeah, it's yeah, continue. Sorry.

Dalton Sykes 5:21

I was just gonna say it goes back into what we talked about yesterday with just solving people's problems.

Matthew Mak 5:26

Yeah, no, absolutely, which is and it's kind of retro. Yeah, okay, which is that's the cool thing about it, right? It's it's like, but that's awesome. That's awesome, dude.

Dalton Sykes 5:37

It was cool. I met, I honestly still talked to a couple of people that I sold the dumbbells to, and like it, yeah, it was a very weird little thing. It made didn't make crazy money, but it was something to do, like everybody's locked in their houses doing nothing all the time. So yeah, it gave me something to do and keep busy, and yeah.

Matthew Mak 5:56

Yeah, and then in a way you kind of networked with people, like you're saying, you still talk to some of them, right?

Dalton Sykes 6:00

So yeah, I still talk to a few of them.

Matthew Mak 6:02

Yeah, no, that's that's cool, man. Damn, I think I'm gonna have to put in a special request.

Dalton Sykes 6:08

Yeah, I'll give you a pair for free dollars.

Matthew Mak 6:12

Yeah, uh shh, we don't like that four-letter word, you know. Others will take advantage. I don't know. We don't, yeah, we don't. Yeah. So um cool, man. That's uh that's awesome. And then like now, um from from that point on, and then when you um, I know we kind of we kind of talked a little bit about it, but before ironworks, you were doing something before that, like building you can fast forward through that, like what it is that you got into and where you are now and what you're doing.

Dalton Sykes 6:42

Yeah, so the other business basically was just liquidation. I was just buying and selling. So I would buy bulk and then sell on marketplace again. Okay, but Facebook marketplace seemed to be the I don't know, you just easy to make money on.

Matthew Mak 6:56

Yeah, yeah.

Dalton Sykes 6:57

I don't know. I took advantage of it as much as I could, and I still do to this day. Yeah, um, so yeah, just started selling things. Like I just at that time really wanted my rating up, so I would like deliver five dollar items from liquidation to someone's house 20 minutes away, and I was in a diesel pickup truck, so I was losing money, but I would get a good review in return. Yeah, and so that went from like, man, I put $400 into that, and within a couple of years, I had a warehouse and two employees. We were selling full truckloads, three, three to five of them a week, and I knew it was a volatile like business, I guess. Um so I started putting money away for ironworks because my whole background has always been construction.

Matthew Mak 7:48

Yeah.

Dalton Sykes 7:48

So that that built a solid foundation to dump a lot of money into this business. Yeah.

Matthew Mak 7:56

And then like uh so you do that for a couple years, and then you just um when it was you felt like it was timing and ready, and you had your plan set in place, then you let go of that and you started up uh ironworks.

Dalton Sykes 8:06

Yeah, we did full pot commitment. Like we completely dumped the other business. I gave it to a friend, the warehouse, the employees. I gave him everything, didn't charge him nothing for it. And uh he's still running to this day, not as busy as we were. So it still makes some money, but not as busy. So I'm happy to hear that the timing was right for me. I'm happy he's making some money at least. Yeah, um, but yeah, man, we fully dumped the other business before we I think even had our first job signed. Nice. Like just full commitment, yeah.

Matthew Mak 8:41

Yeah, and then even before your first job signed, it but you just had it in you and you knew and you had that confidence that you knew that that wasn't gonna stop you taking that jump, anyways, right? Because you just you had it in you.

Dalton Sykes 8:53

There was not a single part of me that thought it wouldn't work, which is weird because I always think of the worst.

Matthew Mak 9:01

Yeah.

Dalton Sykes 9:01

Right? Like it hope for the best and expect the worst. That's how I've always lived my life. And that one situation, I just didn't there was not a single part of you. Yeah that yeah, I don't know, it just didn't exist.

Matthew Mak 9:14

Yeah, and then now um in terms of what you're and what you're building for yourself, which is which is great, phenomenal, and always uh love love chatting and working together side by side as we grow together too. Um, and you're doing a lot of like big projects, right? Like development stuff and and whatnot.

Dalton Sykes 9:32

Yeah, we I honestly thought we would be in residential a lot longer than we were. Um really and honestly, we've done like three residential projects, and everything else has been municipal, commercial. Like now we're getting more into the civil world, um, which is great. So we're we're now becoming like a full package. We could tear down a building, get the get the ground ready for the new building, and also put in all the site servicing, yeah, which is ideal for when you're on these bigger projects, right?

Matthew Mak 10:08

Yeah, cool.

Dalton Sykes 10:10

So yeah, now we do kind of everything. We'll still do residential if it comes up, it just doesn't seem to come up as often as these other jobs.

Matthew Mak 10:17

Yeah. And uh just to throw it out there to the audience, um, by the way, this is Dalton Ironworks, where you found me in the background with chopsticks, who's been hopping with the backup on his big excavator in the background there. So just saying, if you forgot or haven't seen it yet, this guy and this guy teamwork is a dream work, one grain of dirt at a time, yeah. One grain of dirt at a time, absolutely, man. Professional. Yeah. Oh man. So, okay, now um you kind of mentioned a little bit something close to this uh next question. Um, but uh, and maybe there's some other things you can touch upon where what are like some sacrifices that you made that most people never see or talk about that people can relate to, you know? Yeah.

Dalton Sykes 11:11

Dude, I'd uh that's a tough one. I've definitely never had party years. Like I like I've had parties, but not like like I feel like everyone went through like their college partying years and stuff like that, which I never went through. Um dude, those 18-hour days catch up to you pretty good. So the you just kind of skip your 20s, to be honest. Like that that's just the the easiest way to explain it. You skip your 20s, you lose a lot of uh connections and friends for sure, because you're always busy. Um yeah. Man, you sacrifice like a good good portion of your life, and you're you know you're working towards a more stable future.

Matthew Mak 11:58

Of course.

Dalton Sykes 11:59

And that's the only thing that you can think about while you're doing that. Because if you focus on, oh, this friend's gone, or that friend's gone, or you know, this family member thinks you're an asshole now, or whatever the case is, there's no way you can make it. You just won't. So so I've definitely sacrificed a lot of a lot of time that could have been enjoyable, and I've definitely sacrificed a lot of relationships, family and friends that uh, you know, not intentionally, but just naturally, it's the way it goes, it seems like.

Matthew Mak 12:30

Yeah. And you know, like that's pretty much what you're what you're saying is like something that I think a lot of us do go through, and really what you manage to do where a lot of let's say people have not been able to do it until a later date or not even re realize it yet, but at an earlier stage, which is your early 20s, you manage to um how do you say this? Um stop all the noise, right? So you were managed to focus on your signal, and this is something that um Kevin O'Leary talks about, right? About how um going to uh talk about Apple or Steve Jobs uh not sorry, not Steve Jobs. Um well he learned a lot from him, but then he was saying that also from Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Elon Musk is a hundred percent signal, right? Steve Jobs taught him about noise and signal. If you can focus on your signal and bleed out the noise, that's what's gonna make you very successful. And now that is something that you discovered at a young age, which yeah, I know uh subconsciously you feel like yeah, you miss it on the party stages, you miss all that, but you jumped that much farther ahead than the rest of the world because you know where your end goal is gonna be.

Dalton Sykes 13:43

Yeah, well when I say all those things, I definitely will very honestly say that I don't regret missing out on those days. Yeah, and there's a lot of things I get to enjoy about life right now that are so much more valuable than drinking and you know, like shit like that. And even saying that, like, dude, you were at my house a couple like two weeks ago, we were having a party then. Absolutely, and so it's not like I like I would just never regret the way that I did it. So yeah, I don't know. It's definitely a big sacrifice at the time, and and focusing on on what you're saying is the signal of like just you know, this is the way this has to go almost. Um I don't regret it. It's like it's hard to even really call it a sacrifice, to be honest.

Matthew Mak 14:34

Yeah, yeah, you know. Oh that listen, you just keep doing what you're doing because you're you're gonna get there, right? And just keep that focused, put the visors on, right? Just like the racehorse, you just gotta go like this, you know, and just pretty much it, man. Right. And the and the target is we're gonna be parting it up on the yachts, the jet planes, the uh mansions, uh the place down, you know, wherever we want, you know, and just out of the blue, let's say, guys, we're gonna go shopping. Where? New York, hell's yeah, what day is it? Oh fuck, it's only Monday, man. Uh 10 a.m.

Dalton Sykes 15:07

Yeah, but it's gonna happen, right? Dude, we're listening I I give it, you know, we've talked, I give it five, six years, something around that mark, and and I think we'll we'll all be, you know, at that point, right? Yeah, I mean, we'll always be answering our phones, that'll never go away, but at least we'll be answering our phones on a boat or a jet or in another country.

Matthew Mak 15:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, right? Yeah. Well, that's and and that's and that's the thing where there's this really great, great um uh speech from uh Snoop, right? Snoop Dog, where he says, you know, when you're when when any of us are leveling up, right? Let's say this is whoever, and you have your friends, and when you're leveling yourself up, you you can't go back, right? No. And you it's not that you don't want to be with those friends, but they have to close the gap. Right? And and I feel that like a lot of times that you know the people around you, whether friends, family, and all, and if they're not closing that gap, it's not that you don't want to share your time with them, it's just you don't have that time with them because you have other people at that same level as you that you're all you know reaching that higher level each and every time, right?

Dalton Sykes 16:14

Yeah, and it dude, that's a really hard thing to explain to people who aren't trying to grow themselves 100% because it dude, like you said, it's not that you don't want to hang out with them or that you don't have the time, and it's definitely not an egotistical thing saying, Well, I'm I'm here on the ladder and you're still only here. Yeah, it has nothing to do with that. It's just at the end of the day, like when when you're at the barbecue, you and Dave came over for the barbecue. We spent 30 30 minutes to an hour talking about business. Dave wants to grab another machine, he's asking me about that. Like, it's not like we even when we're drinking and having a good time, it's it's business. Yeah, right. And I don't know, maybe some people see that as unhealthy. I personally don't, but I I don't know how to say this without sounding like an asshole. I and I by the way, I do still have friends from my childhood that aren't they don't have their own business, they don't, and I still like they're my brothers, dude. I talk to them every day, we hang out every weekend. Um, so it's not like I'll leave them behind, but different conversations, different feels, different vibes, different like I would just rather spend my time working on something, and even if it's a conversation that might put a thought into my head of oh, maybe we should do this instead. Dude, that could that one conversation could be worth a million bucks, you know?

Matthew Mak 17:33

Of course, absolutely, right? And that's yeah, yeah. And that and then that's where I see it too, right? Like it's like I have this vision already, and knowing where I'm gonna be, uh and I'm sure I like on our conversations, same thing for you. Like, we have that vision, we know let's say where we're gonna be five years, ten years from now, right? And like, you know, I thought about like exactly this topic here that you know there's people that I wish they would be with me and you and whoever else at that at that end goal, like because you want to spend that time with them, but you're just hoping that they're gonna push themselves just to catch up to that point, right? Because I would feel bad because it's not like they're bad people, they're great people, but they're just not there yet, you know. Yeah, or I don't know if they they'll even get there.

Dalton Sykes 18:21

Yeah, and that's what I was gonna say. Like, dude, I've always said this I envy the people who can do a nine to five and they're happy. No, and and some of them are just those people, right? And they don't want the stress, and even dude, like honestly, me and you deter a lot of people from starting their own business because we run around like idiots.

Matthew Mak 18:40

Yeah, and they say, How can you do that?

Dalton Sykes 18:42

Yeah, yeah, how can you do that? Or like, dude, like you like I don't know. Last year, you know, everything that happened with uh with Kristen and everything, like that's not it's not healthy in a situation like that for me to be working 16, 18 hours a day, yeah, and you have to deal with that, right?

Matthew Mak 19:00

Of course, and that's and that and that's also another challenge too, throwing the mix of things is not just growing your business and scaling, it's what's going on the personal side, right? And then and and that's where no one sees it unless you're actually in it. You can't take advice from people that have no idea even what it feels like or similar to what you're experiencing, yeah, right, even though they think that they're trying to help, but they're not because they don't have that experience, nor are they in it to know.

Dalton Sykes 19:27

No, and like, dude, one of the biggest things I got before is like, well, why don't you just like take time off and like and and help? Like it's easy said than done. That'd be great if I didn't lose my house in a month of no work, you know what I mean? Like, absolutely, man. I think it's more important for her to have a bed to to recover in than you know, me to be by her side in the cardboard box, right?

Matthew Mak 19:52

Yeah, oh absolutely, absolutely. I don't know if you gotta pick and choose your time, right?

Dalton Sykes 19:57

Yeah, so for those reasons, like I I think we really truthfully deter a lot of people from wanting to do their own thing. Yeah, because when they're close to you, they see, right?

Matthew Mak 20:06

Oh, yeah, they see they see I would say 60% of it, and even that's too much for a lot of people to give if right, like and and and that's where um uh this and this goes to about like now let's say here this question for you, right? On okay, so uh what does success actually look like in the trenches versus what's posted online, right? Posted online, people see the success in the wins. Now, yeah, here's your take. What is it on your side that you see that there are the successes of actually what happens in the trenches versus what's posted online?

Dalton Sykes 20:42

Oh man. Here's the thing. Me and you can't. Well, that's what I was just gonna say. Me and you can make our Instagrams look like we're fucking living live.

Matthew Mak 20:52

Rock stars?

Dalton Sykes 20:52

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, dude. Like, you know, I don't know. I've had a fair amount of toys. We, you know, you can call that success if you want, and there's a lot of people that do refer to me as successful, I guess. What I think success is, and I'm still fighting this battle of trying to figure out if this is actually what I think it is, but it's it's just peace, really. Um I don't know what your head's like at night, but mine just a hundred miles an hour, 24-7.

Matthew Mak 21:24

Doesn't stop, man.

Dalton Sykes 21:25

And I don't I don't know if it ever will, but I think if it did, that would be successful, yeah. Right. Um and when I say that, it means you're not thinking about money, you're not thinking about bills, everything's happening in the background on its own, and you can step in when you want and step out when you want. And I think that's what success is. It doesn't like, I don't know, dude. It's not really that hard to go get a Lamborghini and pretend like you have all the money. Like that just doesn't mean anything these days.

Matthew Mak 21:52

I don't think you can just rent one, yeah. And that's what a lot of people actually do on the face of things, they just show. Like one day they're like driving uh Ferrari, Lamborghini, but then the next day it's not there because they're probably just renting it, you know?

Dalton Sykes 22:07

Yeah, and even if you see like some of those guys online, like, dude, there's that Wes Watson guy who was like a former, I don't know, whatever, he was in jail, he was in a gang. Then he came out, he started making all this money from like life coaching or some shit. Yep, and that dude's back in jail, but he had like he had everything, right? Yeah from the outside, yeah. But then as his wife leaves, and this happens, that happens, like whatever ends up happening. Like, what was going on? What was going on in that guy's head? Like, would it have been better to just maybe instead of living in Miami with all this stuff, to maybe live in the country with your family and keep quiet? Like, yeah, you know what I mean? Like, that is where the definition of success I feel like is different in everybody's opinion. Oh, of course, of course, because it just that dude, I just don't think was truly happy with his life, and he was so focused on showing off to everybody what he did as opposed to enjoying the things he created for himself, right?

Matthew Mak 23:03

Yeah. And you know, there's there's something that I really liked, and and I know you know I've been on this journey with uh coaching uh through uh Dan Martell, and there was one thing that I love that he he shared, and it makes so much sense where it's yeah, like reaching that financial freedom, let's call it, where you don't have to stress or think about it, right? Yeah, but the the the one thing he brought up, which it really hits you in your mindset and your heart, is that God forbid ever, you know, uh as expensive can be for certain types of surgeries or operations needed, uh, could run you a huge cost that's not even even covered, let's say, by OHIP or down in the States it's expensive, right? Yeah, you don't want to regret the day, God forbid ever, that someone like close to us, you know, needs that million-dollar operation and you don't have that million dollars just to just to pay for it, right? You would kick yourself for not like having that. And then like when that hit me, like I'm thinking about my wife, think about my kids, god forbid, like and people around too. It's like you don't want to ever be in that situation.

Dalton Sykes 24:07

Well, dude, we I think me and you have talked about this part, like when we got the the diagnosis, I guess, with Kristen. Yeah, the first thing we did was because I don't know, I don't know who listens to this, if there is somewhere in the states, somewhere in Canada, but if you're in Canada, you know how absolutely garbage our healthcare is right now. Yep. Um, and if you're in the states, you know it costs a lot of money. So you mix those two things together, and the first thing we did was call down to, I think it was Arizona, has in, I think the number one cancer uh facility in North America. Yeah. So we called down to there. And like you just said, man, I wasn't worried about whatever the bill was gonna be. Yeah, right. Now, fortunately, we didn't have to go there and we still got a great surgeon, and everything went well. Um, but the option was there, right? Yeah. And that, dude, there's nothing, nothing more valuable than that. Of course.

Matthew Mak 25:07

Of course, man. Because it's it's it's our time, it's our health. Like that's that's what our that's what our true wealth is, right? It's like this, it's like that feeling. Um, the this um this has been floating around, um, this exercise where it's like, okay, if I give you $10 million right now, I direct deposit into your bank account, you're gonna feel like wow, like I got $10 million, I feel amazing. Yeah, the twist is okay, but it's either you keep the 10 million because die tomorrow. Yeah, and everything says give it back. Yeah, yeah, they said they'll give it back because we are the $10 million, we are that value. Like you got another opportunity, another chance, another day to figure things out, right?

Dalton Sykes 25:51

Yeah, and and dude, like I've I heard that a long time ago for the first time, and then like growing up in my situation and now being in the situation I'm in now, if dude, if somebody was like, I'll give you $10 million, even if they were like, I get to control your time for the next five years, definitely not absolutely not, you know what I mean? For sure. For that one, I think is a better question because I think a lot of people would say yes for five years, they you know they sacrifice it and then they get it. I don't know. But I think honestly, you could make more in 10 in in five years than uh oh easily, you just gotta build yeah, yeah. If you're smart enough and you're hardworking enough, I think you could make more than 10 mil in five years very easily.

Matthew Mak 26:33

Of course. It's just it's how you build yourself to understand the the right niche, the right way of doing it. And it's like we said, you gotta solve people's problems, right?

Dalton Sykes 26:43

Yeah, that's the easiest way to make money then.

Matthew Mak 26:46

Right.

Dalton Sykes 26:47

Okay, and then now um what uh what's something you know now that would have saved you years of pain earlier on?

Matthew Mak 27:06

No, no, you're good. Oh, you can sit on the side now. Yeah, sorry, someone's calling me.

Dalton Sykes 27:13

Um man. Something I know now that would have saved me pain. Honestly, this years of pain. Years of pain. Yeah. It's not a recent lesson, but it I think it's the most important. It's just accountability, self-accountability. Nice because when I realized how lazy I was, uh everything changed, right? And then and even I use that now to this day, everything I do, I go, how can I make this my fault so that way I can fix it?

Matthew Mak 27:51

Yeah, right.

Dalton Sykes 27:52

So if an employee messes up on site, I go, well, what did I do wrong that led to this mistake? And how can I prevent this from happening in the future? Um, dude, the more you can blame on yourself, the the more you can fix in your life, right?

Matthew Mak 28:06

Yeah, and that's actually really powerful, right? Accountability, like you're saying. It's it's really powerful, and you know, it's it's it's amazing that you're saying that you something you figured out, let's say quite some time ago. Yeah, that's actually something that you know I myself started to learn and realize, right? Where it's like just um to kind of get really quickly into it where you know I realized that let's say the proper leader will give the proper instructions, the proper guidance, and everything, right? I did kind of a little bit different where um we just kind of like Dave and I just threw people in the fire saying, guys, here you go, figure it out. But then I learned very quickly that that never works, that does not work, and that and that and that doesn't work for any business model, right? No, so and then the the the challenges that we had with that was because we were stuck as the drivers, you know, like what I mean. So we weren't available at the time to teach them the way we needed to teach them, but now we're working on that this year, which has been going so far so good.

Dalton Sykes 29:11

Yeah, and uh, you know, we're working on the same for sure, like trying to give the the right, and I'm not also not the greatest teacher in the field or in the or anywhere, to be honest. Um, no way.

Matthew Mak 29:24

I just messed, I'm just messing, yeah.

Dalton Sykes 29:26

I'm just messing with that, you know. So uh now we have guys who are a lot better at teaching, and yeah, I think the other thing that I've realized recently too is when the boss is teaching you, there's a there's a certain level of nerves that are in there, and it it makes employees typically make mistakes.

Matthew Mak 29:43

Yeah, because they feel like they're thinking, uh sorry to cut you off, they're thinking like what am I gonna do wrong? How am I gonna mess this up in front of them? Like they're they're negatively thinking, right?

Dalton Sykes 29:51

Yeah, they think if they fuck that up, they're gonna lose their job. Yeah. Where that's not the case, it's actually the opposite, etc. You mess this up now.

Matthew Mak 30:00

Might be.

Dalton Sykes 30:01

It depends on how badly, I guess. Um, but I think it's definitely a lot healthier for the the overall company for me to have somebody else who's not the owner and who feels like more of a friend to new employees to be teaching than me. Yeah.

Matthew Mak 30:19

Yeah.

Dalton Sykes 30:19

And we have that now, so that's good.

Matthew Mak 30:22

And I I think you you also mentioned that there was um a few times before where let's say you just showed up on the job site and like some of your guys didn't even know that you're the boss, right? Where you just kind of like an imposter employee or working for the boss.

Dalton Sykes 30:39

Well, like not okay, not my guys, okay, other guys on the site. So, like you said, our jobs sometimes our job sites are a little bit bigger, so we're in like the commercial and civil and okay, in that world. So there are there at times there's like 10 trades on the site at once. And we don't know who you are. Nobody knows who I am, dude. And and then we did we did have an undercover cop last year. Yeah. And he he wouldn't purposely pose as a friend. He just that's how people he everyone knew he was my right hand man, but I guess they just trusted him with secrets, and yeah, we fired a lot of people for telling him secrets that they shouldn't have been telling, right? Yes, so dude, we had we had a couple of guys admit to my right-hand man that they like doing cocaine on their lunch breaks. Oh my god. We fired them, we let them work the rest of the day because he was on lunch break with them, so he knew they didn't do it. But after that, it's too much liability, man. You're you're done.

Matthew Mak 31:36

Absolutely, man. 100%. Any any type of influence is is not good under any kind of influence because you're you're you're talking about um heavy machinery around you, even if you're not an operator, you're talking about safety of other people's lives, one mistake attention, right? Like it's everyone wants to go home safely, everyone wants to go home to their family, right? Like it's it's crazy, yeah. Yeah, you know.

Dalton Sykes 32:01

But going back to to I think the point you were getting at is yeah, when when we're on site, if you don't know everyone by name and everyone's position, if you weren't told that, I don't think anyone would guess that I'm the boss. Usually when they ask who the owner is, and I say me, they're they take a step back and are confused about it.

Matthew Mak 32:19

Yeah, and what do you do? Smile. I think it's funny. Yeah, yeah. You you gotta get yourself one of those um uh those Ray Ban uh um cameras, yeah. The meta glasses, and then have some fun with that, put some uh bits together on that just to catch the reaction of people when those moments happen.

Dalton Sykes 32:38

Well, I think the thing that gets them the most is they'll see my crew, and like last year our crew was like this year, we obviously downsized the crew and kind of filtered out a whole bunch of guys, yeah. Um, but last year we had like, dude, we had like a 60-year-old and we had another 50-year-old and a couple of older guys, and then I'm just like the kid who's dressed out in like just dirty old work clothes, you know what I mean? And they go, Who's the owner? And I go, Oh, yeah, it's me. And they go, and nobody, I don't know. I guess maybe it they just think I'm too young or something. I don't know what it is. You know what? Maybe it's just the fact that I'm in the hole. It could be that like I half the time I'm not even in the machine anymore, right? I go in the hole and do the hard work.

Matthew Mak 33:22

Yeah, that's what she said. I'm sorry I had to do that, bro. You just you set me, you set me up, man. Wouldn't that be what you said? Yeah, well, uh how you want to take it. Oh man, yeah, no, but that's cool, man. Well, you know what? I think that kind of stuff, like um it it just builds more like of the fire in a good way. Like for me, it's just like you know, you're doing something that someone and again, you can start anything at different ages, but it's you know, when you have that feeling that there's a lot of let's say people that have uh been working at their job for 20 odd years, right? Yeah, uh, whatever it may be, and then when they uh see someone, let's say like yourself, and they're just blown away by it and they can't comprehend it because they're like they they themselves didn't do it, they themselves didn't take that leap. They themselves are wondering like what they could have, but never did. And they'll always have that thought, right? Because the difference is um that's where most of us get where we are uh in in our entrepreneurship, is that you're taking action, you're doing it, yeah, right? Nor do you even have to explain yourself, anyways, your time wasting on that.

Dalton Sykes 34:34

Oh, I don't care too. Yeah, but to be honest, man, anyone who's like because there's a lot of people who are jealous by it, there's a lot of people who second guess themselves by it, there's a lot of people who are happy about it, whatever the case is, in order to do this, and you know this as well, because you came from a good job as well as I did before you went out on your own, which that's a hard decision to make. Oh, super. Um the balls it takes to do that, man, is I just straight and simply put, most people don't have it.

Matthew Mak 35:04

Of course. Right. Well, you got big, I got dumprings. Oh man, yeah, I know. I gotta go, I gotta go with the fun, the fun stuff, bro. We gotta get some laughs and everything, right?

Dalton Sykes 35:20

Yeah, but I'm you're gonna get me canceled before I even have a social media.

Matthew Mak 35:25

No, no, no, no. I'm saying not you, bro. Don't worry, all day long. This guy got your back all day long, Dalton. The what is it? The Asian card? Yeah, the Asian card, the yellow card. The yellow card. Which is a band, everyone. Okay, there's a band called Yellow Card. That's who we're talking about. Great music. Uh, all right, so Dalton, um tell me, what is it that's next for you and what are you building right now for yourself and for Ironworks?

Dalton Sykes 36:02

Right now, what we're focused on is just building a better team who not only I can rely on, but other employees can rely on. Um to be honest, man, actually, right now I have one employee who's moving into his house, and I have another employee who it's a paid day, I just paid him to go help him. Um, but he's there helping the other employee get into his house. And the other, it's just a just an easy Friday for them. You know what I mean? Um, but I just would like a team where everybody cares about each other to the point where they'd be willing to help each other outside of work as well, which is crazy to say after I know how I was as an employee, and it it's really hard to build that team. Of course. Um, but we're getting there, man. Everyone see everyone this year seems to care a lot more, everyone's a lot more energetic. And I think what I'd like is, like I said, just a team where everybody can rely on each other. Um me for them to obviously make the company profits and show up and work and the other employees so their days aren't harder, right? Of course. Um so we're focused on building just the best team that we possibly can. Yeah, and then that's our current focus, and then our long term is really unclear, to be honest. I haven't made a decision if we want to girl a monster or if we want to kind of get to 15 or 20 guys and just stay there.

Matthew Mak 37:29

Stay there.

Dalton Sykes 37:30

Um because you're very profitable there, and it's a lot less volatile there. Yeah. And I don't really know what I want out of life when it comes to finances because I don't really think I care for that much. Um but I do think I would be excited for my kids to everywhere they go see dad's job sites.

Matthew Mak 37:52

Yeah, for sure. For sure. And um just to throw in a joke, because you know I love always throwing in jokes, uh is uh no, and that and that's awesome too. Um okay, I'll get to the joke in a second. But um I I like that because you know I I always had this thing in me. Um, so when I when I was pushing to get into architecture, was that I had it in my mind that um I always wanted my name to be remembered, kind of like similar similar idea as the Greeks, right? Like like the um the Romans, the Greeks, how the the leaders that's what it is. They want their names to be remembered through the ages, in which they succeeded that way, but unfortunately through war and death. Uh but that's where I thought of it for architecture was like, okay, designing something like um, you know, so great that somebody would know, right? And remember the name forever. But now I'm I gotta do that through what I'm doing now, right? And it's just that idea behind it's really cool. Um that you know you have something to show over for your future kids, right? And that's really cool.

Dalton Sykes 38:58

Yeah, and your and your grandkids and great grandkids, and and the I mean, it'd be great if you could be remembered by the world, but that'll never happen. Oh well, don't worry. Full for guys keep saying three war and death, dude. I'm down. Um, but I know one thing for certain is I'll be the one who changed the rest of my bloodline's uh well-being, I guess, right? So I'll always be that one over there, yeah. You know, 150 years ago there was that one who finally fucking stepped up to the plate, right?

Matthew Mak 39:35

Yeah, and that's that's how I see it too. Right? So that that's more than enough for me. For sure. Okay, now to the joke, all right. So Dalton, I know you were telling me that yeah, you love the camera so much and beyond the camera. So if I told you, as you can tell by my Instagram, yeah. So if I told you right now I did not record any of this and we got to retake it, how would you feel?

Dalton Sykes 40:02

Just because it's you, it wouldn't bother me. But I did get the recording thing at the beginning.

Matthew Mak 40:09

I love it, I love it, man. Well, uh Dalton, thank you so much for joining on Built Without Permission. Um if people want to uh connect and find uh find you, where are they reaching out to you?

Dalton Sykes 40:26

Uh Ironworks Excavating again.

Matthew Mak 40:30

So, as we were rudely interrupted by the end call of the Zoom, we were saying, Where do we find you, sir? Where are we reaching out to you?

Dalton Sykes 40:41

Okay, Instagram, we're just ironworks excavating. Our website, ironworkscavating.ca, and then email info at ironworks excavating. Pretty well. Anything with ironworks excavating, you'll find a way to reach out to us.

Matthew Mak 40:57

Awesome. Now, anyone that wants to find Dalton through me, I'll just directly send you his phone number. Yeah, that that's fine. That's just add to the list. You're gonna be surprised by the kind of phone calls you're really gonna be getting.

Dalton Sykes 41:13

Dude, I don't think I will be at this point. I would love for somebody to actually catch me off guard these days. I feel like of some of the calls I've gotten, man.

Matthew Mak 41:25

You're gonna hear the hey Dalton.

Dalton Sykes 41:28

Yeah, we've gotten those.

Matthew Mak 41:33

What are you wearing? Yeah, oh man, that's hilarious, dude. Well, awesome, dude. Well, again, thank you again so much for joining. Thanks for having me. Yeah, and we're gonna definitely do this again. Round two, and we're gonna be singing. Uh, you'll be singing. Awesome, awesome, bro. Well, you have yourself a good one, man. We'll touch base soon. Yeah, man, you too.

Dalton Sykes 41:58

Thanks again, and uh enjoy your weekend.

Matthew Mak 42:01

Yeah, likewise, brother. Ciao, man. Okay, bro. Bye. Yep, bye. If you're waiting for permission, you're already behind. The life you're building starts with the decisions you make today. So stop thinking and start moving. Subscribe, share this with someone still thinking about it, and start building something of your own. No blueprint, no approval, no excuses. I'm Matthew Mak. This is built without permission.