This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Ryan Hawk, host of The Learning Leader Show, keynote speaker, leadership coach, and author of the new book The Price of Becoming. Ryan has spent nearly twelve years and more than seven hundred episodes interviewing the best leaders on the planet, from Jim Collins to Navy SEALs, then turning what he learns into a coaching business that serves teams all over the world.

A former college and arena football player turned corporate sales leader, Ryan walked away from a VP seat to bet on himself. In this conversation he breaks down what actually separates great leaders from lazy ones, and the daily habit that compounds into an extraordinary life.

In this episode:

The one sentence definition of leadership Ryan learned from Jim Collins What Jim Collins empties out of his pockets before every conversation, and why it matters Why outsourcing your thinking to AI quietly makes you a weaker leader The three end of day questions that compound into your best work

Ryan's trade secret is deceptively simple, and it starts with three questions you ask yourself before bed. Whether you are leading a crew of fifteen or a company of a thousand, chasing a big goal, or just trying to close the gap between who you are and who you could be, this one will change how you show up tomorrow.

Ryan invited listeners to send him their own end of day prompts. Email him at Ryan@learningleader.com, and grab The Price of Becoming wherever you get your books.

JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo Ryan Hawk / The Learning Leader Show: https://learningleader.com/ K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

In a special live panel of Trades Talk, Justin White brings together three of the sharpest minds in landscape robotics: Joe Langton of Automated Outdoor Solutions, Tyler Reiter of MoTec, and Todd Zimmerman of Kress. The topic is robotics as a service, the model quietly rewriting how the trades mow.

For years, mowing has been the industry's loss leader. This conversation lays out how autonomous mowing flips it into a profit center, with the exact math to prove it.

In this episode:

The live math that takes mowing from about $47 an acre down to under $9 Why knowing your cost per acre matters more than asking when robots pay off When to use a Voyager versus a leave-on-property mower How to reallocate your crews to higher-value work instead of cutting them

The panel digs into financing, contracts that actually protect you, and why the labor crunch makes this shift inevitable heading into 2027. Joe, Tyler, and Todd share what is working in the field right now, not theory.

If you run a mowing operation and you want to move on robotics without betting the whole company, this is your roadmap.

FOOTER

JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

On this Weekly Update of Trades Talk, Justin White gets personal after what he calls the most rewarding, stressful, and change-filled two weeks of his career. Coming back from a three month sabbatical, he saw K&D with fresh eyes and realized how far the company had drifted from its vision.

So he made a drastic call: he abolished the leadership team that had been in place since 2015.

In this update:

Why Justin dissolved the leadership team K&D has run since 2015 The broken trust behind the reset, and the warning he gives before you try it The perspective exercise that reframes your final 70 days of 2026 A first look at Monday's emergency robotics as a service live stream

Justin breaks down why decentralizing decisions can speed a company up and where it can quietly go wrong, plus the Brad Jacobs lessons on systems, pivots, and building a company brain that are shaping K&D's 2027.

If you are heading into the end of the year carrying both pride and frustration, this reflective update will help you take back control and finish the year strong.

FOOTER

Weekly Updates are powered by Kress! https://www.jwhitegroup.com/kress

JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Peter Murphy Lewis, founder of Strategic Pete and one of the most creative storytellers working in marketing today. Peter went from Kansas to Boston, then to Chile on a diplomatic scholarship, built a travel company that hosted Beyonce and Paul McCartney, and eventually landed his own Chilean version of Dirty Jobs where he worked 100 different jobs on camera (including boxing a 120 pound national champion who beat him in three rounds).

He now runs Strategic Pete, coaches 200-plus CEOs on storytelling, and does documentaries for private equity turnarounds, misunderstood industries, and companies preparing for exit. Justin brings him inside the K&D story to build a real content playbook live on air.

In this episode:

• You do not have a content problem, you have a proof problem: why authenticity beats polish, and why the documentary format outperforms every other content type at changing minds
• The Elephant in the Room framework: find the biggest gap between what people think about your industry and what is actually true, then confront it head on
• Who should tell your story, and why it usually is not the CEO: raving fans, frontline crew, and kids/elderly as unexpected content vehicles
• The Landscape Ninjas concept: how K&D's all electric fleet became a story about noise, peace, and quiet homes, and Peter's exact experiment design for turning that into a viral series
• Storytelling as a PE tool: how the right video asset added a third bidder in a healthcare SaaS exit and materially increased the multiple

Peter's trade secret is one you can start using today. Everyone is good at telling stories, but they struggle to tell their own. Start with a person who impacted your life. Tell their story. You will learn how to tell yours in the process.

If you are a trades operator sitting on a K&D-sized content opportunity you have never unlocked, a founder preparing for an exit and wondering what actually moves the multiple, or a CEO who has been publishing content without a clear goal, this one is the wake up call and the playbook in the same hour.

JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo Peter LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petermurphylewis/ Strategic Pete: https://strategicpete.com/ K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

On this Weekly Update of Trades Talk, Justin White is back solo with the podcast board loading up fast. Fresh off interviews with David Meltzer, Ryan Hawk, Ellen Rohr, Al Levi, Robert Underwood of AAA Landscape, and Nathan Dirksen of 7Ds, Justin digs into a pattern he keeps seeing: incredible companies built by founders and by second, third, and fourth generation leaders who started at the bottom and climbed their way up. Then he gets into what is really on his mind this week, the AI S-curve, the reason The Disruptors is going contractor only, and what four weeks away from K&D has taught him.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why Justin believes we are hitting the top of the AI S-curve, and why the real value is shifting from vibe coded apps to skills, including his new CEO Coach built on Bill Campbell and The Trillion Dollar Coach.
• The first gear problem: most people are driving a Ferrari in first gear and blaming the car. Second gear is automated workflows, third is agents, fourth is agents overseeing agents. Come learn to shift at the contractor only AI Roundtable on Monday, August 10 at 11 AM PST.
• The decision to make The Disruptors a contractor only community, moving from about 105 members to 95, and the philosophy behind it: traditional values, new ideas, and massive action.
• Four weeks into stepping back as CEO, and what it taught Justin about identity, purpose, and finding fuel outside the work, plus why consistency beats intensity when you look at your KPIs.
• What is next at K&D: a new Innovation Specialist role to deploy more AI and robotics, the goal to reinvest 25 percent of profits into innovation, and fall events including NALP Elevate November 8 to 12 and an AI experience for landscape executives on November 8 with Justin and Sean.

Justin's core message this week is simple. Most operators are stuck in first gear with AI and deciding the technology is overrated, when the real problem is that no one ever showed them how to shift. The owners who win will treat AI as a tool to master, not a fad to dismiss.

Trade secret: stop obsessing over outcomes and constantly changing your inputs. Nail the right activities, then give them enough time to work. Consistency beats intensity every single time.

If you are a trades owner, an operator making the jump from doing the work to leading the team, or a leader trying to actually put AI to work, this one is the playbook.

Weekly Updates are powered by Kress! https://www.jwhitegroup.com/kress

JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Al Levi, founder of The 7-Power Contractor and one of the most respected voices in trades operations. Al ran his family's third generation plumbing, heating, and cooling business in Queens (serving all of Long Island), scaled it to 70 team members and 25 techs across one main hub and three satellite shops, then walked away in September 2001 to help other contractors do the same thing without the 50 extra pounds and the stress.

Twenty five years and thousands of contractors later, Al still teaches the same seven power framework that turned his own family business from chaos into a systematized operator's dream. In this conversation he unpacks the whole playbook.

In this episode:

• Planning Power in practice: how to take 150 projects down to a top 30, then down to the top 5 you actually work on every week, and why a physical whiteboard in the break room is still non-negotiable
• The Box Org Chart, a flat structure Al invented after a screaming match with his brother, and the four reasons every team member needs to see it
• "Do what's in the book, you're off the hook", the line that sold Al's operating manuals to a New York City union and unlocked the whole system
• Willing apprentices beat pirated techs every time, the qualify, compete, train pipeline that lets you move people up (and back down) without losing them
• Inspire AND implement, the two owner skills that separate the trades operators making money from the ones going broke, straight from Al's mentor Jack Tester

Al's trade secret is Jack Tester's line, and it lands the same way it did the first time Al heard it in a school bus in Oklahoma. It is always the owner. Inspire people, then implement the systems that let them win. Skip either one and you are done.

If you are a trades operator drowning in day to day chaos, a founder who feels like a hostage to your own team, or anyone who has ever wondered why the manuals you tried to write ended up sounding like a law book, this one is a masterclass from the guy who wrote the actual playbook.

JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo Al Levi / The 7-Power Contractor: https://7powercontractor.com/ K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

On this Weekly Update of Trades Talk, Justin White is joined again by Sean Laux, K&D's leader of innovation and technology, fresh off Sean's headline talk at the Lawn and Landscape Technology Conference in Phoenix that Andrew Kraft (Site Landscape) publicly called "worth the trip on its own."

The two unpack real-world AI implementation inside a working landscape company, live-demo an AI-powered job description build for the brand new Innovation Specialist role K&D just posted, and give the deepest public look yet at the K&D Operating System (Justin's words: "we brought out the steering wheel, wait until you see the car").

In this episode, we cover:

• Sean's LLTC talk in detail: how he prepped with AI (Genspark for slides, Claude for the outline and timer artifact), and the core thesis that got the industry talking, which is that technology has to meet people where the messy work actually happens, not the other way around
• The new Innovation Specialist role at K&D: live-built job description using Sean's goal, problem, structure prompt framework, a real look at how a Claude project follows a hire from before they exist all the way through their career
• Why direct Claude to QuickBooks integrations hallucinate, what's actually needed for AI to query trades data reliably, and why Anthropic and QuickBooks probably will not open the full kimono for security reasons
• The centralized "command center" model: pulling QuickBooks, Aspire, Predictive Index, Team Engine, ANOVA, Company Cam, CAPSA, and every other login into one normalized database with an AI-agnostic interface on top
• The physical AI reminder: multiple K&D clients spent K&D's 40th anniversary event raving about the electric fleet's quiet operation. Do not chase the shiny AI object and forget the electric equipment story that is quietly winning contracts

Big framing from Justin: the technology tsunami is visible from shore and moving slowly, but it is coming. There will be carnage (failed rollouts, mis-onboarded tools, marketing hype that does not match reality), and this show exists to build the bridge between Silicon Valley and the truck cab.

Also, first time ever: Weekly Updates now end with a trade secret closer. Sean's this week: leverage AI, find the inefficiencies, and make sure your data and structure is clean before you build anything on top. Good data, good systems, good companies.

If you are a trades operator trying to build a real AI stack (not a demo), a leader hiring for technology roles for the first time, or a CEO who wants to see the K&D Operating System's actual steering wheel, this one is the playbook.

Weekly Updates are powered by Kress!

JW Group Website / Justin LinkedIn / Justin Instagram / Justins Youtube K&D Website / K&D Instagram Disruptors Community Disruptors Advantage Newsletter

This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Josh McMillan, CEO of Roebuck Landscaping out of upstate South Carolina. Josh joined the company as employee number five back in 1995, worked his way up to COO, survived a two year private equity due diligence process (including a deal that fell apart on funding day), and stepped into the CEO seat in December 2024.

Since closing, Roebuck has built its first ever company budget, drafted a three year vision, acquired The Great House Company in Nashville, and is running 12 to 15 percent organic growth on top of it. Josh walks through the whole arc, and the lessons that came with it.

In this episode:

• The full PE transaction story: two years of due diligence, a deal falling apart on funding day, and the founder ultimately taking a bigger check the second time around
• The three year vision that got nearly finished in 18 months, and the new one aiming for $175M across 5-6 southern states, 17-20 locations, and 1,400-1,500 employees by 2029
• Why labor hours (not labor dollars) is Roebuck's number one operational KPI, and how they use overtime as a retention tool instead of a red flag
• The Law of the Lid in practice: how Josh is delegating the operational side he has personally run for 30 years, and why "the strength of the CEO is the weakness of the company"
• The people-first framing that made a PE partnership work, and why "if they're not talking about their people in the first few minutes, it's not the right table"

Josh's trade secret is simple. You are owed nothing. Show up every day like you have to earn it, bring value, and the outcomes will find you. That mindset carried him from 5th employee to CEO of a nine figure Southeast platform.

If you are a founder thinking about an exit, a COO stepping up to the top seat, or an operator trying to build a vision your team can see themselves inside of, this one is a masterclass.

JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo Roebuck Landscaping: https://www.roebucklandscaping.com/ K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/