Stories (129)

The calls I made on the work, and why. One story per page, told by me.

High-stakes save Insider truth Mistake and repair Origin Pivot Redemption Standing on principle Story Strong opinion Teaching moment The honest call The small detail Unlikely relationship Walked away Wrong about a person

High-stakes save (7)

Betting the schedule on one architect's authorityThe fast path depended on one architect's self-certification, so I named that architect in writing and settled the base file first.2026-05 Contract only the trades that keep workingWhen COVID hit in the middle of a concrete custom home build, I signed only trades I expected to keep showing up.2019 to 2021 Keeping an NBA team's building open while we rebuilt itTellus renovated an NBA team's practice facility over sixteen months while the team kept training inside it. Nine months of cold calls for a town with no budgetGreensburg could not afford high-performance materials, so I spent nine months asking manufacturers to donate them.2007 to 2008 Running the comps before answering the cell tower offerSymphony Towers offered to buy out the rooftop easement at 301 W Osborn; I priced it myself and collected three rival bids first.2026 Sixty days to the car showCarroll Shelby International wanted its Gardena store open for the annual car show, about four months out.about 2013 to 2014 The Greensburg rebuildAfter a tornado destroyed Greensburg, Kansas, I led the construction teams and brought in donated materials from national suppliers.

Insider truth (27)

A Nevada build, trade-direct, without a Nevada contractor licenseTellus had no Nevada contractor license, so I structured the move as owner-side management.October 2014 to March 2015 Answer the money question on the first callLA forced small landlords into retrofits they could not finance, so we arrived with financing already in hand.about 2015 to 2017 Bringing design in house to own the scheduleI turned Tellus into a design-build firm because the drawings decide when a project starts and what is in it.about 2012 to 2014 Building the pricing model instead of trusting the gutLIEF was pricing bid by bid on judgment, so I had the team build a model from every bid we had actually run.2026 Building the product I needed, at a lossTellus could not forecast city permitting, so I built design and expediting in house and absorbed the loss.around 2012 Choice beef, and the cut nobody noticesAt Greensleeves and Mike Fields BBQ, meat drove the cost, and moving to corn-fed choice beef raised margins.2016 to 2026 Choosing which grinders to bet onWe could have signed 100 golfers in a month; we signed 8, chosen for story, camera comfort and willingness to self-record.2023 to 2024 Design the outreach for the adult who refersAs volunteer president of H.E.E.A.L., I learned who actually decides when a family needs help.2010 to 2015 Every reporter's call is a backlinkTo own search for Tellus in Los Angeles, I answered every reporter who called, and the placements stacked up.2013 to 2017 Everyone called it collections. It was maintenance.A dermatology group's missing revenue looked like weak collections. It was out-of-date billing codes and a broken paper trail.2015 Hearing the bigger business hiding behind the pitchA mattress topper owner pitched my partner and me, and we heard the real opportunity in his second product.2026 Holding the bid back to control how it landsI delivered a shell bid and asked the broker to wait so I could reach the client first.2026 I sent the bid flawed on purposeAn analysis read my flawed takeoff to another bidder as a lapse. It was a deliberate test.2026 Map the process before automating it, seven states wideThe same method cut my estimating time and standardized a cannabis operator's procedures across seven states.2026 Naming the credibility gap out loudCommon Ground had no search history behind it, so I told the team I had a credibility problem and we built around that. Nobody was really buying greenMy first Tellus client taught me what people were actually paying for. Origin: Sublime MedicalMy first fractional seat: a back office that could not turn full schedules into cash.2015 Permitting a category that did not exist yetThere was no permit path for axe throwing in Costa Mesa, so I built the case myself.2018 to 2020 Reading the competitor's bid before writing your ownBefore pricing a big office campus bid, I had the team reverse-engineer a rival's structure to set a realistic labor range.2026 Six cents a clickI claimed the green building search term early and cheap, and kept claiming it for years.2005 to 2018 Starting with the golfer nobody else would signI built an athlete representation platform from the bottom of the market up.2025 to present The long way around the guestOn a small patio job at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Beach, we worked overnight on service paths so guests never met a crew.Tellus era The speed camera at the stoplightClients asked why they needed an owner-side representative, and I settled on one image that became my standing answer.2004 to 2023 Turning three days of trade-show questions into search authorityI turned what prospects asked at a convention into a website FAQ and ranked one-pagers.2026 Two brands, two speedsWe ran a fast automated lead-gen product and a trust-built advisory practice, and I split how each one goes to market.2026-03 Two versions of the same bidA trucking company needed a bid for its lender while our internal estimate was still being reviewed, so I planned two documents.2026 You see a good practitioner in retention, not reviewsWe scored practitioner effectiveness by who stays, because reviews and conversion hide it.2026

Mistake and repair (17)

Catching my own five-times overcountTo prove the rebuilt estimating engine, I re-ran a project we had already priced the old way and found our own error.2026 Correcting my own bad news the same dayOur analysis flagged a garage as a top structural risk. Within hours we found it had already been repaired and corrected the record.2026 Graduated trust after a real mistakeI wanted AI help with LinkedIn comments, and built the system around an earlier failure.2026 Greensburg: what went wrongThe Greensburg rebuild ran on donated materials and cameras, and it showed me what that cannot replace.2007 to 2008 Moving the CRM twice in three weeksWe put Common Ground's contacts into HubSpot, saw it asked the wrong questions, and moved again within the month.April to May 2026 Narrowing the bid on purpose, then catching my own math errorA Filiberto's bid built off three sheets got cut to shell labor, and then I caught two mistakes of my own.2026 Rebuilding a tower off the wrong building's blueprintsThe 301 W Osborn model kept coming out wrong because it had been built against a different building's drawings.2026 Sending an unverified bid to a competitor, and owning the mistakeI sent a bid to a competing contractor before reviewing it, and the comparison exposed my own error.2026-09 The bug I built the gate forA markup error slipped into an early estimating-engine bid, and we used it to design the checks the engine still runs.2026 The domain was burned, and nobody had said it out loudOutbound email bounced and drafts vanished while the team rewrote copy. I stopped sending to examine the domain.2026-04 The formula underpricing framing by six and a half timesAn audit of our estimating engine found a framing formula far below real cost, and we refused to patch it with a guess.2026 The machine I thought was idle was the one on fireAn audit showed my picture of which subscription plan carried which machine was backwards.2026 The markup stack that broke in MayA May 2026 restaurant bid shipped with a broken markup stack because I trusted the engine over my own review. The overnight blitz that corrupted its own proofA fast run of real certifications was followed by a sync that added false ones to my public profile. The pipeline was lying to usOur trackers showed stale statuses, so I fixed it with a daily habit and a standing briefing instead of a new tool.2026-05 The wrong buildingOur Revit model of 301 West Osborn had been built from the wrong building's drawings, so I called everything made before that date suspect. Trusting a model because it looked finishedBefore the blind second pass was a rule, I accepted a design set that read complete and was built on another address's plans.

Origin (7)

A record in ninety daysSelling auto policies at AAA with no network and no name, I chose to treat the first quarter as a tryout.2000 to 2001 Branding as a business model at TellusTellus began as a positioning decision, and the substance had to catch up to the claim. Building the bench instead of doing it aloneAfter nineteen years running Tellus largely solo, I built Common Ground as a group of principals.2023 to present Building the estimating algorithm a decade before AI could do itAround 2014 I encoded trade pricing by hand so the firm stopped waiting on other people's bids.about 2014 The contract I grew up insideI took over a 446-unit property management contract in 2015, held it through a board vote, and ran it for seven years.about 2015 to 2022 The nine-month methodI dropped out of college on purpose and designed my own curriculum of nine-month jobs, each aimed at a weakness.1998 to 2001 The steakhouse's parent company became Common GroundI let Three Trails grow into Common Ground in place so the company kept its real age.2019 to 2024

Pivot (8)

Origin: AXT / Axe HausAn idle Costa Mesa warehouse became a permitted axe-throwing venue, and a sale that COVID cut short.October 2018 to 2020 Pivoting the format when the money said something differentThe competitive golf docuseries was not earning, so I moved the venture to sponsorship while keeping partners and story.2023 to present Rebuilding a technologist's pitch around the buyerA brilliant technical leader could not close deals, so I rebuilt the story for the people who actually buy.2026 Taking Tellus design at a loss to control the timelineI gave away design early because permitting was the bottleneck I could not predict. The job posting that caught usWe applied to a posting that was really a lead funnel, then ran the same play for Common Ground.2026-07 Turning a free trial into skin in the gameAfter Xtrata's three-project takeoff trial, we drafted a paid pitch with a success fee so Kyle would not have to take our word.2026 Two words and four months of noticeA phrase from a green interior design course changed my path, and I built the runway before I jumped. Vertically integrating so nobody could point fingers but meI started Tellus as a green builder and brought architecture, design and labor in house so the accountability sat with one person.2002 to 2024

Redemption (4)

A dead restaurant, rebuilt, and the one person who carried itAt Greensleeves the building was the small part; the standard lived in one general manager, and I built the place to run without me.2016 to January 2022 Origin: Greensleeves SteakhouseI bought a shuttered 1892 landmark in Redlands with a partner and ran it until January 2022.November 2016 to January 2022 Origin: LÏEF DevelopmentLÏEF came out of the wreck of Aycre Capital, built so I never again depend on a partner I have not vetted. What 2008 actually taught meThe downturn showed me that a firm's real asset is the relationships that outlast its backlog.

Standing on principle (14)

A vote is an opinion; a review is an analysisWhen an FDA committee voted on six peptides, we moved the access rating and held the safety and science grades where they were.July 2026 Banning round numbers from the bidA residential bid's price per square foot would not hold up until I fixed the denominator and made every line show its basis.2026-05 Cutting The Fleet Down To What Actually Earns Its KeepBy mid-2026 I had built a wide fleet of scheduled AI routines, and I ordered a hard review of every one of them.2026 Cutting the cheap number even though it sounded goodA draft site claimed the principals had 100-plus years of combined experience. I struck it before launch.2026-09 Let the partner with the track record answer for himselfWhen investors asked about HUD experience, I put the partner who owned that record in front of them.2026 Nothing ships on one passEstimates and takeoffs are what I sell, so every number gets a blind second pass before it goes out. Origin: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)LACMA is the most prestigious name on my civic record, and I got there as a volunteer. Selling the safe product, gating the risky oneI sold estimating immediately and held architecture back until my own building proved it.2026 Taking over a shuttered 1892 landmark and bringing back its peopleAt Greensleeves in 2016 I rehired the crew from before the closure instead of starting fresh.November 2016 The Fourteen-Day RuleWhile building a responsibilities chart for the three Common Ground principals, I set a hard limit on how long any to-do can live.2026-05 The change order that was not a changeA contractor billed a museum for site protection its own bid should have covered, and the contract showed it.2015 to 2017 Walking a negotiation back to zero over a landowner's paperA landowner offered me shares in a company he controlled as pay. I refused and required the conflict in writing.2026 Whose Number Is It, ReallyAs Common Ground's public pages multiplied, I set a rule for which number conflicts are real and which are honest differences in framing.2026 Zero red lines, never our own stampI set the quality bar for our virtual architecture bench by the stamping engineers' red pen, and kept a licensed human on every seal.

Story (1)

The keyholeAsked how much of my history was ready to use, the system said about twenty engagements; I said the search was wrong, and 129 turned up.2026

Strong opinion (13)

Assume the buyer has a model openA verification standard written around one picture: a corporate buyer with an AI auditing every page.2026 Building it ourselves so we could try to break itMy infrastructure partner handed me a blueprint, and I built it in house first so he could attack it. Choosing the architect who draws over the one who watchesInvestors wanted a full architectural set, and I paid for output instead of oversight.2026 Deciding to broker my own building's saleWhen a buyer surfaced for a LÏEF project, I took the sale process into my own hands.2026-04 I was the clientHard-won expertise I had filed as personal turned out to be work I could name and offer.2001-2026 Is that the problem or the solution?A plan to make me findable by AI treated my many affiliations as a flaw; I stopped it with one question.2026 Nothing until you winMy advisory contracts at Common Ground rest on an agreed result with no retainer, so my pay rides with the client's outcome.2026 Our record should not be shy about our workThe partners' copy of the wins ledger had every acquisition row stripped out, so I put them back and drew the confidentiality line where it belongs.2026 Style is countable: measuring my own voiceAgent-written copy was reading like a machine under the partners' names, so I counted my own writing and tested it blind.2026 Telling prospects the email was written by an AII tested cold outreach that opens by disclosing the AI behind it.2026-03 The VP who asked, 'Can we buy this from you?'A materials manufacturer ran three blind takeoffs against Kanopi, and we caught our own errors before he did.2026-07-06 to 07-09 The macro numbers goAfter a week spent reconciling career totals, I dropped the whole class of aggregate numbers and told the team why.2026 Trust the trend, not the pointWhen two devices disagree on a reading, the direction of the trend is what counts.2026

Teaching moment (12)

A good answer to scope that quietly grewAn architect hired for investor floor plans delivered far more, and I had to decide how to answer it.2026 A little better each dayA line from my high school basketball coach became the thesis behind every venture I have run.high school through present Building a scoreboard to solve a people problemOne shared tracker fixed a visibility problem and a quiet performance problem together.2026-04 From one mural to a four-year relationshipA single wall mural for a performance car brand's California hub became a store build-out and then a VIP lounge, one job at a time.about 2012 to 2017 I Already Paid For These Mistakes, You Don't Have ToI migrated first onto a partner's new stack, then wrote my mistakes into a playbook for the other two partners.2026 Let the client argue with a live modelWe showed a client group a working analysis before their data arrived, and it became a signed audit in 18 days.2026 Make the check repeatable before the contentA prospect data room that worked once could not be rebuilt, so we made the verification step standard first.2026 Origin: H.E.E.A.L. Santa BarbaraI served as president of a small Santa Barbara nonprofit for five years, unpaid, helping people through grief and loss with exercise and the arts. Phasing a build so an NBA team kept trainingAn NBA practice facility had to stay in daily use through a sixteen-month rebuild, so I phased the work around the team's schedule.June 2017 to October 2018 Sound pods first, soundproofing when they askedFor a Keller Williams office near LAX, we offered soundproofing early, they said no, and they came back two months later.2016 Teaching the system to catch its own mistakeRunning architecture in house meant we had to build our own second opinion, so I added an adversarial review layer.2026 The 2 a.m. tellWeighing a major career opportunity, I skipped the pros and cons list and watched what woke me up at night.2026-07

The honest call (7)

Correcting your own number out loudOn the Canyon Corporate Center bid I kept the estimate on square footage and named my own labeling error openly.2026 Naming the gap instead of hiding itOn a Santa Cruz County bid I put our one real weakness in the proposal and showed a working tool.2026 Pricing the tradeoff of being fast, with my eyes openFast, detailed estimates can be shopped to a competitor. I kept delivering them anyway.2014 to present Reading the fine print on a deferred payment that never endedI would not sign an architect's deferred-fee contract once my own math showed a revenue share with no end.2026 Refusing to sell a negotiating budget as an engineered certaintyA landowner expected my road budget to answer engineering questions, so I named what the number was and what real certainty would cost.2026 Sending a bid you can't sign yetA roughly 32,000 square foot structural bid had no engineering behind it, so I sent it as a probe and verified the takeoff myself.2026-05 Telling a friend his dream house outran the market by millionsA friend asked me to review his contractor's budget on a custom mountain home, and I gave him the real figure.2026

The small detail (7)

A sealed wall, not a sheet of plasticBuilding the Shelby store next to a garage of valuable cars, I chose a real wall over plastic sheeting.about 2013 to 2014 Appealing a fire code rule instead of touching the buildingA 1971 garage ran past the fire-access limit, so we appealed the rule instead of altering the structure.2025-2026 Building it in house instead of paying for it twiceOutside architects quoted a large fee for the Midtown tower; I split out the one piece that needed their license and did the rest ourselves.2026 Cut the hole before the plan is approvedI opened the ceilings of the Snake Pit lounge before approval and found what the design had been missing.2016 to 2017 Selling the easement, keeping the buildingAfter signing an LOI to sell a rooftop easement at 301 W Osborn, I personally drafted the carve-outs our conversion required.2026 The mural we painted without askingThe Shelby relationship began with a wall painting done before anyone gave permission.about 2012 to 2017 The nine and a half foot error the agents caught themselvesOn the Midtown Phoenix tower, review agents caught a bay error and a wrong setback that would have cost about $250,000 to fix had either reached a permit set.

Unlikely relationship (1)

Origin: Save the World Air, Inc.Around 2011 I consulted for a small public company and helped raise about three million dollars.

Walked away (3)

Passing on a bid that penciledI proved a Texas hotel shell could hit Xtrata's price target and still turned it down to protect home-market focus.2026 Walking away from a deal that kept changing its own numbersA funding request for a cannabis build-out shrank in cost and nearly doubled in revenue within four days.2026 We are not a free salespersonNuWay wanted a new US market opened on commission alone with no paid diligence, and I would not put real resources behind that.2026

Wrong about a person (1)

Restructuring a live deal after diligence found a fake fundA sponsor's technology fund did not exist and the lender's letter had lapsed, so I restructured the terms and kept the relationship.2026