Blue Hawk Construction: One on one with Jeff Mercier

Step into the world of Jeff, a dynamic individual who wears many hats with finesse. As a project manager in the commercial construction industry, Jeff brings his expertise to the table, orchestrating intricate projects with precision and dedication. But that's not all—Jeff is also a captivating public speaker, captivating audiences with his insights and passion for personal development.

Join us as we sit down with Jeff to uncover the secrets to his success. From navigating the challenges of the construction industry to honing his craft as a speaker, Jeff shares valuable lessons learned along his journey. Dive into his experiences as he juggles the demands of his professional life while nurturing his personal passions, including his dedication to fitness as a gym aficionado.

But wait, there's more! Jeff is also the host of "Sauna Sessions," a podcast that offers a unique blend of inspiration and entertainment, found on TikTok and Facebook. Discover the inspiration behind the podcast, the stories that have shaped its content, and the impact it has had on its listeners.

Whether you're interested in project management, public speaking, fitness, or podcasting, this episode offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of Jeff—an individual who embodies the spirit of perseverance, passion, and purpose. Tune in for insights, inspiration, and a dose of motivation as we explore the multifaceted world of Jeff.

Transcript

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What's up guys? Chris Bowen here with the Level Up the podcast. I'm here with my guest today, Jeff Mercer. He is here to talk about commercial construction, his construction business. We're gonna talk about working out as it relates to business. Jeff, why don't you introduce yourself, man? Yeah, hey man, welcome. I appreciate you having me on. My name is Jeffrey Mercer. I am a project manager for Blue Hawk Construction. I also deal in sales. I love working out, work out a few times, a few hours, about six days a week. You know, and so I, you know, I just, I enjoy it, man. So I don't know. I don't know what else we wanted to talk about. It's a little weird being on this. Yeah, it's a little different when you got somebody else asking you the questions, but that's how it goes sometimes. Man, why don't you walk us through, as a project manager, how do you relate that? Because you used to own a construction business as well. How do you take that experience in owning your own business and then take it into a new business, somebody else's business? Jeff, I think we lost you again, man. He's back! Yeah, so sorry about that. No, it's all good. We'll edit that clip out real fast. So how do you relate being a project manager? When it comes to you to run your own construction business, how do you relate that to being a project manager for somebody else? And how do you take that experience and implement it now? Well, you know, when I was working for myself, I really was the whole business. And so I was really good working with clients. I was really good at working with the subs. And that is what I really excelled in. Now, whenever you're talking about sometimes when it came to bids, when it came to dealing with the financials, a lot of this stuff, I was never taught. And because I was hard headed, I never really was actually good in those areas. So I've actually been able to take. what I excel that best, what I enjoy doing the most, dealing with people, dealing with subs, being able to watch the quality of the job go on and really push that forward, not just to help, really to help this business grow as well as myself and because I'm able to focus on the areas that I excel in anyways. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, you know, such a key part of business itself, even when you run your own business is making sure you have those people in your life and in your business that excel in the things that you don't excel at because there's so many things that go on in the business. And, you know, if we're being honest here, none of us are good at everything. That's just the way that it is. I wish that we were, I wish I could claim, Hey, I'm good at everything. right. Maybe when you get that Neuralink in, you know, you have that Elon Musk Neuralink, you won't have to worry about it as much. That's exactly right. Yeah, exactly. So my other question for you, man, working out. So you're huge into fitness. How would you relate that to kind of business and how do you relate that to the drive to work out and to want to be better in the gym to the want and the need to be better in your business? Did we disconnect again? All right, so when you're in your business, or I guess when you're working out, how do you relate that to business? So how do you relate that drive and that desire to be fit to business? Well, you know, in life, we have breaking points. And in the gym, I get to test and push where my boundaries are. And I relate that a lot to when we're in business, when we're in life, you know, we have different breaking points of how far can I push myself? You know, how much more weight can I add on? And I like to tie it into the gym because it gives me a chance to see how far I can push myself. the time, the dedication, waking up early, all of these habits tie into what do you end up doing in other areas of your life. Yeah, I fully agree with you there, man. I think it also relates when it comes to just mindset and the ability to deal with stress. I think that's a big part of it as well. I think that going to the gym every morning or every afternoon, whatever your schedule is, that it really helps that mindset when it comes to your abilities to kind of handle that. Oh, we lost our Jeff over here, but that's okay. Oh, he's back, he's back, we're good. So I was just kind of talking and just kind of spitting a little bit, but I was talking about how I think, one of the big benefits of going to the gym is that it really helps your mindset. You're able to work out some of that stress, you're able to work out some of those. you know, those feelings that you get every day, whether you're working out in the morning or you're working out at the end of the day. Personally, I like working out at the end of the day because I get to work out all of the stress from the day and just be a better version of myself when I go home because I'm not having to deal with all the stress from the day. But everybody's a little different. They are, man. And I don't know if I'll ever be one of those end of day workout guys. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the fact that I like my pre-workout too much. You know, that I'm not trying to be up. Yeah, yeah. See, I'm not trying to be up until like one in the morning because I'm so hyped and jacked on what I like. See, I'm one of those guys, man, I could drink something at 5pm and go to bed at 9pm and be just fine. I'm just one of those guys. Ha ha ha! I'll be up for the next few days. So, and then now you've got your own kind of short form podcast. You're doing Sana Sessions, man. Tell us a little bit about it. So, sauna sessions are kind of the brainchild. So, what I figured is a lot of men struggle with vulnerability and a lot of us tend to not understand where we all come from. And we tend to think that we're alone in a lot of the fights and a lot of the things that we've done in life. And so, my goal with sauna sessions was to give men the ability to explain where they've come from. And a lot of the men that I like talking to are men that have been through something, they're successful in their lives, and they don't flaunt the success. You would never know that they're successful, but you get a chance to talk to them and see where they grew up and see what have they been through in their lives, what kind of traumas, what kind of maybe single parent family. Alright, we lost Jeff again, but that's okay. He keeps breaking up with us for whatever reason. There he is, he's back again, alright. Yeah, so maybe they went to jail, maybe they knew some people that went to jail. And, you know, we've all been through things. We've all, we've all done something and we all have these issues in our lives. And one of the biggest things with vulnerability is it helps us get rid of the shame in our lives. And shame is one of the biggest things that will stop men from being who they really are. When you are able to face shame, you're able to be vulnerable. And when you're able to be vulnerable, you can be authentic. You can be authentically who you are. And you're OK with standing out around the crowd of people that you're in because you're being who you are. It's easier to find the passions that you have in life. It's easier to find the path that you have in life. And it's easier to find the partner that you're looking for in life because you're finding somebody who actually wants to be with the person of who you are. and not the avatar of who you want to be because you think that's gonna make everybody happy. Yeah, I think that's huge, man. I think that in a lot in life and a lot just in general, people build up these walls around them. Um, that's, you know, they have for a reason it's designed to, it's a defense mechanism. Um, but I think that the more that people break those walls down, you're absolutely right. They get to be that kind of their authentic self. And I really think that in business that's needed because that's a big driving factor in how you present yourself and how you present your business and the actions that you take within your business. 100% yeah absolutely man. I couldn't agree more of it and and do these interviews, do they take place in the sauna then? I love it. a little bit of layer of not just trying to figure out how to use the camera correctly because you know It ends up overheating after about 10 minutes So trying to figure out how to get the format correct and you know how to keep my phone from frying But yeah, but they do man after a workout hit the sauna, you know and Let it air out Yeah, and that's a good way to kind of clear your mind of everything as well. I mean, the sauna is a very relaxing place already. And so I could definitely see that, you know, when you get kind of, you've just worked through the stress of, you know, the day before that morning, and then you're relaxing a little bit. And yeah, you just kind of let it all out, man. And it really goes to try to, you know, let it all out. And so tell me what was, you're big in Toastmasters. And has that really been a kind of a driving factor in sauna sessions and in business? Yeah, absolutely man. It's been huge. You know, I thought that I knew how to interact with people and I was wrong so Hi It's funny man. So I got into Toastmasters when I started getting sober and so maybe about six months, maybe a few months after getting sober in 2022. That's whenever I decided to get into Toastmasters because a friend of mine brought it up. And being able to and learning how to interact with people without having a liquid barrier was huge because that was my whole courage, right? That's the only reason I was able to go out on dates. It was the only reason I was able to really hang out with a lot of people that I knew at the time. was because I had liquid courage, right? I could be who I wanted to be. And again, I still wasn't being who I wanted to be. And not only was it really healing because I was able to learn how to talk, but I was able to talk about a lot of things that had been going on in my life in a place that was really safe. And it was huge, it was huge. So not only has it helped in being able to talk to people, it's helped in my impromptu speaking. So whenever we're doing something like this. I'm able to come up with answers a lot quicker. It's helped in not being able to use ahs and ums, which it doesn't sound like a big thing, but being able to sit with uncomfortable silence, instead of saying ah, um, this and that, you really are able to have a better conversation with somebody. Well, it can take someone like us who don't really have, you know, that college education and you sound way more educated when you know how to speak correctly and you know how to present yourself to others. I mean, it's huge. I mean, so little background on me. I ran for school board a few years ago. So you kind of got thrown to the wolves in terms of public speaking. Um, you know, go into these debates and forums and whatnot. And it is not for the faint of heart, man. It really is not. I mean, you throw somebody into a room of hundreds of people who's, you know, barely taken a high school public speaking class and tell them, you know, tell everybody your grand ideas for what you want to do. It's not easy. It is not easy. Trying to make sure that all your ideas come out is sounding correctly without sounding like a crazy person. Yeah, 100%. Ha ha ha. Well, my first one, my wife told me she's like, yeah, we're gonna have to get a little bit better. I was like, yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right. So, but I think it's one of those things that's so underutilized in life and business is the ability for public speaking. Not only does it open up more opportunities in terms of when you go to events. You know, such when you go to events such as like, um, toast masters events, you go to chamber events, you know, chamber of commerce stuff, you go to, you know, different networking stuff. Maybe you decide that you want to go host courses and whatnot. I mean, it really opens up a lot of opportunities when you know how to public speak. It really does. And yeah, and I was actually able to give a, it was a 35 minute speech with like about a 10 minute Q and a basically from memory. I didn't have to use notes a little bit at the end, but I gave it on vulnerability. I gave it on vulnerability at one of the toast master conferences. And. Being able to do that, man, it would not have ever been possible without it. Yeah, I truly believe that. I think that unless you have somebody, and I've got a good buddy, Philip Sessions with Speaking Sessions, when it comes to doing public speaking courses and stuff like that, it's just not possible to go out there and just do it. You have the rare people that are just so confident in themselves that can do it, but those people are few and far between, I feel like, a lot of times. yeah. And you think you can do it. So funny story. Yeah, so I was the best man at a wedding and I was supposed to give the best man speech. It was 30 seconds. Yeah, it probably felt like 10 minutes. I had no idea what to say like me and me and my buddy. I mean we knew each other whenever he was You know a bit of a heathen. So I'm supposed to be over here You know talking them up and I had I was like I didn't practice. I was like I got this This will be really easy and it's real easy until you get up there and I didn't know what to say and I was like Uh, uh, Salou and they all come to me like Salou What what just happened I have never sat down quicker That is so funny, but it's so true though. So I just gave the best man speech at my brother's wedding back in New Year's Eve. And you know, it's one of those things he got on to me because I'm not a big speech writer. I don't like to write speeches personally. I do really well kind of off the cuff when it comes to speaking. And he's like, no, you can't do that. And I was like, don't worry, I got this, I got this. Yeah, yeah. But it was still hard. I mean, even with the, you know, the public speaking that I've done, I don't know that I'll ever say that public speaking comes easy for me, but I'm confident in it 90% of the time. Right. Yeah. She's got butterflies sometimes. That's good, man. Keeps you on edge. You know, it's like looking at an amusement park ride. You're going to get butterflies sometimes, even if you've done them a million times. You know, it'll get a little bit. And finally, when you're upside down, you're like, OK, I'm going to make it out alive. Ha ha ha. So tell me a little bit about the construction business. So what's, you said it's company's Bluehawk. What do they kind of specialize in? So I know that I've been to one of your job sites before. It was a restaurant remodel that you guys did, but what type of construction are you guys typically doing? Well, we typically do residential, we do commercial, we do civic. You know, we really have pretty much a wide range of things that we do. You know, we're, we're going into. Oh no affordable housing. is really big. Especially with as many people that are moving to Texas. So right now we're working on the Metropolitan out in downtown Dallas. We got a few condos out here that we're working on. I got some more people that are wanting me to bid on them out here as well. We are doing a restaurant out in North Richland Hills. We are... I'm trying to think of some of the other places that we're doing. You know, we got an entire house we model out in Fort Worth that we're working on. I got a few jobs I got to go look at tomorrow. And so it's, I mean, we really, you know, when you think that you can do with construction, you know, we're involved. And I want to say one of the interesting things about the company is it's actually two prong. So the owner of the company actually has another company where he invests in oil. He has an oil and gas energy company. And so that's really the beginning. That was the starting. Yeah, because what do you do when you make a bunch of money, you have to invest it somewhere else that's going to make you more money. So that makes total sense. Just start back where you were. Then they got into construction. Alright, here we go. Man, what fun is it if you don't have a few, you know, bugs? Okay. So the company is Two Prong. They actually have an independent energy company where they go, they find oil wells, they look to drill. So if anyone... is any of your listeners wanting to invest in oil and gas. It's actually a tax free investment. And you know, just have them reach out to you, have them reach out to me. I can get them in contact with the owner of the company and he's the, he's a master salesman man. He knows the business front, back, left, or right. So that's my next question is, how can people get a hold of you or Blue Hawk Construction? What's the best way? reach out to me at Jeff at Blue We have a website that we're finishing building out with some of the stuff, one of the jobs, a lot of the jobs that we've been doing. You can find me on Instagram at orator of divinity, all one word. You can, and that's where, TikTok as well, orator of divinity. And, or find me on Facebook at Jeffrey R. Mercier. And that's where I'm at. You can find me, ask me anything you need to. I don't have anything separate yet for sauna sessions, but eventually I'm sure I will. Well, awesome, brother. Well, I really appreciate your time today. And I, you know, thank you for taking time out of your day to talk to us and, you know, tell us about yourself and, you know, how that relates to business and how it relates to, you know, everything you've done in life from getting sober to learning to persevere, man, we really appreciate it. absolutely man. I appreciate you having me on man. I love to see what you're doing with the podcast I think it's a great idea man. I'm excited to see how that works out for you, man All right, brother, I appreciate it. You have a great rest of your day. Hey, you do the same, brother. Talk to you later.