I did not want to become a tradesman. But my father owned a plumbing company, and I was in my early twenties without any idea what I was doing, so I kind of just fell into it.

As a plumber, I learned that it’s easy to get clients. It’s easy to get jobs. It’s easy to “do the work”.

But when I branched out to run my own business, I had no idea what I was doing.

I left my dad's business with my eyes completely closed.

I left thinking, “ How hard could it be to run a business? ”

I was completely blind-sighted by what it actually took to run a successful, profitable business. One where all my time wasn't sucked up by pricing projects, hiring employees, satisfying clients and filling in paperwork.

I remember getting a call from my accountant. I was in shopping in Walmart.

He was calling to tell me how much I owed in taxes. And I panicked. I remember literally taking things out of my basket and putting them back on the shelf, and almost starting to cry.

I thought, “Are you kidding me? Nobody told me about this.”

I felt defeated and embarrassed. And then reality sunk in. “I have to pay HOW MUCH back? I realized in that moment that what that really meant was, if I do better this year, I’m going to owe
even more… How am I going to live?”

I was horrified.

So I did what contractors do best. I put my head down and worked harder. I put in more hours. I started charging more. I did everything I could to make more money.

My accountant had never advised me to put some money away for taxes.

No one had really given me any advice at all.