Episode Details

What happens when the identity you built your future around disappears overnight?

Rick Gardner was supposed to ride bulls for a living. Then an injury took that future away, a roofing business taught him that fast growth can look a lot like talent when luck is doing most of the work, and years later the same need to figure everything out followed him into engineering, startups, and leadership. 

In this episode, you’ll hear how Rick went from trying to be the smartest person in the room to realizing that his job was not to have every answer, but to build people who did not need him to.

What you’ll learn in this episode: 

(01:25) How Rick went from wondering whether he was smart enough for engineering to earning straight A’s while still waiting for someone to prove he did not belong.

(04:06) What happens when the only future you ever planned for disappears before you have thought about what comes next.

(05:49) Why a little early success can convince you that you are better than you are before failure gives you a more accurate answer.

(07:06) How one Colorado hailstorm turned Rick’s truck-and-hammer roofing business into rapid growth that was never going to last.

(09:33) Why Rick once believed the boss had to know more than everyone else in the room, and how that idea followed him into leadership.

(12:16) What brilliant engineers taught Rick about the danger of building an impressive solution before figuring out whether anyone actually wants it.

(14:31) How one mentor changed Rick’s definition of leadership by telling him that the team, not the work, was now his product.

(23:48) Why admitting that you are in over your head can be harder than working longer, learning more, or trying to solve the problem alone.

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This episode was produced by Story On Media: https://www.storyon.co/