About This Episode - 

As an 18-year-old, Peter launched a stone paving company called Sta-Built Construction which has grown into a multi-million dollar enterprise employing over 50 people. Ten years later, Peter is a husband, father, and leader in his community, and is excited to share some of the lessons and insights he has learned in his journey so far!

Warren Mainard is the National Director of IMPACT Players, an author, speaker, and connector. He has 30 years of ministry experience as a pastor, nonprofit leader, and church planter. You can connect with Warren on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Warren is also available to speak on your podcast or at your event! Email him at [email protected].

Peter Stadeli is a young entrepreneur and the CEO of Sta-Built Construction - a company that designs outdoor living spaces in the Pacific Northwest. If you would like to connect with Peter, reach out via LinkedIn.

To find out more about IMPACT Players, visit www.impactplayers.org.

Listen: Apple | Spotify

Transcript

Warren Mainard: Hello guys, and welcome back to another edition of the IMPACT Players Podcast. My name is Warren Mainard. I am the host of the podcast and the National Director for IMPACT Players, an organization focused on inspiring men to be great husbands, fathers, and leaders by equipping them to thrive in the relationships that matter most. Today we are in for a treat as we have Peter Stadeli of Sta-Built Pavers who will be joining us. Peter is a dynamic young man, who has an incredible story as a young entrepreneur turned successful businessman, and you are absolutely going to love hearing his story and his sights as a 28-year-old navigating a successful business, marriage, and family, the highs, the lows, the ups and the downs, and everything in between. But again, thank you for joining us. And Peter, thank you for being a part of this show with us.

Peter Stadeli: Hey, Warren, thanks so much for having me on the IMPACT Podcast. I'm happy to be here.

Warren Mainard: Well, just as a little background, you and I met through LinkedIn and got connected, had a phone call. I ended up watching a video of another podcast, television show that featured you and your business and your story. And after I watched that, I thought, man, I absolutely need to get to know this guy and hear his story a little bit more clearly. And one thing that stood out to me about the, your story was just the way that you were so intentional along the way. You really worked very hard, but you also worked smart. And in your story, you shared how as a Christian, that helped guide you as a businessman as well. And so I'm excited to hear a little bit about that. But let's back up and again, based on what I know about your story, as a 16, 17-year-old, you got started working, doing some hands-on outdoor work that ended up becoming the first step in a long line of steps towards building this successful business that you've created. Now, tell us a little bit about what happened and how you ended up launching Sta-Built Pavers.

Peter Stadeli: Yeah. Well, it's probably not everyone that, they do, what they started when you're 16 to 17 as a summer job turns into a business. But for me, that's really what it was. I needed money. The simple solution is I needed money as a 16-year-old. I had things I wanted to do, things I wanted to buy. And so I got a job working for a friend of mine at 16 years old, and he did outdoor, you know, pavers, landscaping, a lot of mowing and stuff like that. So I worked for him for, as a summer job. And I really fell in love with it as something that I, you know, so hard and just seeing the transformation of what we were able to do. By the time I turned 18 years old, he was, wanted to move into something else, into a different career. And so that kind of then opened the opportunity, now what am I gonna do, right? So, I incorporated, with the help of my dad and my mom, started my own business. And from there, just, you know, one block at a time, grew this business, to where I am now, 10 years later, almost 10 years later, and running a successful, but also I'd say a very normal business where there's the ups and the downs. It's not all, what a video can stitch together and make it sound like, there's a very real side to every business.

Warren Mainard: Yeah, yeah. So let's go back to that 18-year-old moment where you went from being an employee, just a hardworking young man, moving stones from one place to another, to now saying: I want to start a business. I wanna become a business owner at 18 years old. That's not a normal jump for a lot of guys. Most young men would say, okay, I'm gonna go and look for another job or I'm gonna, you know, hit the books and, and go to school and get a real job and work my way up in a company. So what was it about you and the way that you were wired, maybe anything that was happening in your life personally or spiritually I have no idea, but like, why on earth did you think the next step for you was to start a paver company as an 18 year old?

Peter Stadeli: Yeah. Well, I think maybe I could back up a little bit and, say that there's a couple things that my personality that probably lend to that being a decision of mine, or decision that I really pushed hard for. One of them, I was 18 years old, I was young and naive. I didn't realize what owning a business was really like and what it all involved. And so I think not knowing what was in store for me made me think, oversimplify it and make it sound a lot easier than it probably really, really was. I would say secondly, I was born to be dyslexic, and in doing so, I guess I feel like maybe, growing up, looking back, I felt like I had a chip on my shoulder or something I needed a prove. I need to show that I can do just as good or better than any other 17 or 18-year-old person like myself. And then I guess the opportunity of my friend, I probably didn't have any thoughts of actually owning my own business and until he decided to move out and I wanted to keep doing the exact same thing. And so kind of the combination of all those pieces said, yes, I can do this. I want to do this and I love what I do. I guess, you know, having a passion for what I do, having a passion for that that job and combining those together made me really, really want to want to do this. Yeah.

Warren Mainard: I love that. Now, I didn't know that you had dyslexia in your background. I actually do too. So, automatically I'm relating to those feelings of, you know, hey, maybe I'm not the best at school, but I'm not an idiot. I know I have something that I can bring to the table and that desire to wanna prove that I think is a powerful one, especially for a young man. And a lot of times young men get a bad rap because they have a lot more confidence than they do sense, you know, a lot of times. But sometimes that bravado is exactly what is needed in a situation to get somebody off the couch and into the game to really get started. So you had that bravado, you had that chip on your shoulder, you had that hunger and passion. How did you transform the fire into something that actually could produce an income and be successful?

Peter Stadeli: Yeah. And if I maybe back up one second, and when you were talking there made me think of, I think a lot of people might look back and say, everybody comes from different backgrounds, and they might think that maybe I was at an advantage. And in many ways I was at an advantage, right. Foundationally, I grew up in a solid home. I had good parents. I grew up in a solid school. There's a lot of things that that help build you to where you have a solid foundation, but everybody has a starting point somewhere, and nobody's starting point is equal. It's a bunch of different levels and planes. And I think for myself, there's people that were more advantaged than me or less advantaged, but taking what we do have and building from there, that's something, I guess looking back, I think anybody listening, anybody watching should know that there's never gonna be where you can say that now, this is a spot, this is the perfect timing for me to launch out. Sometimes it is just going out there and doing. I guess to answer your question, you know, I started out very small. So the initial investment into what I was doing didn't cost a lot of money. It wasn't like I was needing to raise capital. I had a little bit of a savings account and so with that was able to buy some small equipment. My own pickup truck, an old truck as it was. And then I would rent, I would rent equipment, you know, as needed per job, and so it was really boots on the ground, getting one customer doing and making them so happy, surprising them in the way of seeing a young guy out there willing to do. I was definitely undercutting the market price to help get me these jobs, but that helped me get more jobs. They would tell me to their neighbors, you know. And where we are as a business now, we're very specialized, what we do, we're very much doing pavers, retaining walls, synthetic turf, outdoor living spaces, right. When I started, I was of the mindset I would do anything to keep my business going. I didn't wanna be being at home. It didn't look good. I'm sure my mom would ask me, what's up? You know, maybe you should go get a real job. So in turn, I just took on, I remember picking up dog poop for people. I remember pulling weeds in neighbor's yards, or just doing things that were nowhere near my ideal dream job, but I did it to get me to that, where I wanted to go. I knew where I wanted to be.

Warren Mainard: So you knew where you wanted to be, and as a result, you were willing to do what it takes to get to that space. So, let's go ahead and just fast forward to right now, 10 years later, you're 28 years old. Give us an update on the business first, and then I wanna circle back and talk a little bit about your family and your marriage. So where, where's the business at now 10 years later?

Peter Stadeli: Yeah. Well, I guess, yeah, 10 years later, we've definitely grown quite a bit since then. We still, 10 years later, we're still facing problems that we haven't faced before. You know, this year, think about it, it's a different economy than it was last year or the year prior. And I would say we have more people working for us. There's a, well, there's over 30 people that we have spread across three different locations and, we work with subcontractors. And so we probably have, anywhere from 60 to 70 additional subcontractor employees working on any given day. So there's a lot that's being managed, which means there's a lot of people problems, a lot of challenges that we face on a daily basis, and just the amount of customers we're dealing with. So, you know, some people from the outside might think, man, you're such a smooth oil run business. The inner workings of it are really dynamic from a day-to-day basis. And, it truly feels like there's always wind in our sails in regards to the challenges we're facing on a daily basis.

Warren Mainard: Yeah. So let's go back. You told me before we jumped on, you've been married for almost five years now. You got married in 2019. So, you know, walk through a little bit of what that has been like for you from a entrepreneurial standpoint to say, okay, in those early years of starting the business, it's like I would do whatever it takes for however long it takes, and I would outwork the competition. And then you get married, now there's a new layer of responsibility, there's a new necessity for communication. There's a new person that you're trying to care for emotionally in addition to yourself. So, you know, what has that been like to transition from single entrepreneur to married entrepreneur, over the last five years?

Peter Stadeli: Yeah. And I guess, you know, God knows all things and he has that right path for every person to go. And I even think of the journey of me meeting my wife, my best friend, my wife, and that journey, very unlikely circumstance of how I met my wife. I actually met her in a, I'm from Washington, right. And I met, and she's from North Carolina. And we met in New York at a memorial for the World's Trade Center. It was over 9/11 at a kind of a Bible conference deal, and had only a couple days. And I talked to her a couple times and we made a connection. And here we are, almost five years later, we're married.

Warren Mainard: Wow.

Peter Stadeli: And that, the transition really from, me by myself, I guess, running my business, the shots were called myself. I didn't have to communicate to another person about we're gonna be buying this or we're doing that, or this happened. There was quite, I guess, an adjustment. I would, I'll just put it that way, because it wasn't something I was used to doing. And I guess that finding that right balance of communicating enough of the day-to-day stuff, but not over communicating to the point where the work she's to take care of, my wife is, she doesn't have a career. She works at home. She takes care of our family, and I don't want it to be a thing of where it overburdens her with the stresses of the day-to-day, but I also want her to know what I'm dealing with or what I'm going through. And so I guess that in some regards, took some adjustments, getting to where we, where that is a balance. And I expect that's probably for any business, whether it was started before or after the marriage. And then I guess another interesting thing that I guess I noticed about us as a family, when once, I guess I did a lot more rash moves before we got married where let's, let's go dump some money into this and experiment and see how this works. And sometimes those worked out to be big wins, and other times it was a complete failure and complete loss and, but it didn't really affect anybody except myself for the most part. After I got married, I guess I started thinking in slightly different terms and maybe didn't ever get some of those massive big wins, but we also didn't get a lot of those big losses with the stability that, I guess my wife brought into my life and helped me to think in a little more of those terms. Yeah.

Warren Mainard: That's an interesting insight that I hadn't really thought about, but like, yeah, the financial risk level for a businessman once he is caring for a family and thinking about the mortgage and college educations and things like that, you start going, Hmm...

Peter Stadeli: Yeah.

Warren Mainard: ...should I risk this?

Peter Stadeli: Yeah.

Warren Mainard: It could be a big payoff or it could be a big risk. And, you know, now I'm looking at my wife or my wife and children, and the process of decision making is a little different than it was before.

Peter Stadeli: Yeah. Probably one of the things that, I guess you talked about challenges, and I guess maybe this is real, right. And you have work that's very, pressing and very, it comes at you like it needs to be answered right now. And I guess it's trying to find the balance of taking care of everything that needs to be taken care of at work on work time to being available and being attentive to our home and our home life. And the, I guess as a spiritual, the spiritual leader of our home, being actually that person. And that's, I guess, balance is noun and a verb in my life. It seems like it's always a verb. I'm having to always find that balance.

Warren Mainard: Right. Yeah, that's so true. And I think that touches on something that I wanted to kinda ask you about in that is like so, you know, when you started out, I'm assuming that if you needed to work five, 16 hour days in a row, like you would do it because you're like, I'm single. I've got nothing else to do. I'm passionate about this business. I'm gonna do whatever it takes. I'm gonna get the job done. But when you get married, and then especially when you become a father, you used the word available. Part of the journey of a a young entrepreneur is learning how to really negotiate those tensions of what does it take to be successful at work versus what does it take to be successful as a husband and father. So like, were there some moments where that that really got tested or were, was there some sort of a way that you found yourself going, okay, I'm changing the way that I do things now because of the life stage that I'm in?

Peter Stadeli: Yeah one hundred percent, Warren. So I know before I was married, I would early to work, you know, and I come home late at night. I worked Mondays through Saturdays, and Sundays was my day off and I pretty much went to church and then after that crashed.

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Peter Stadeli: And that pretty much was my lifestyle. After I got married, one of the first moves was Saturdays are now a day I'm at home. That's just a non-negotiable unless there's, you know, I can probably think on a couple hands that I've had to go in and do something. But those were, for something we both talked about and understood. It wasn't a planned, yes, I'm gonna be gone working this day. The other piece of that is I tried, and I, you know, again we talk about balance. I try to be home for dinner with my wife or, if I'm not home for dinner with my wife, be around the next morning for breakfast then, and it's just spending time, you know, being there with my family. I don't ever wanna get to, I'm very passionate about what I do for work. I'm also very passionate about what I do in my home. And I don't wanna ever get to the point where I'm trading one for the other. And I guess they're, if you look at 'em, somebody use the term balls, you know, bouncy balls and figure out which of the bouncy balls you can drop because some of those bouncy balls, if you drop 'em, they will bounce back. Home, for example, is more like a glass ball. Your home life is like a glass ball. If you drop it, it's gonna shatter, it's not gonna bounce back. Whereas my work life, certain things, those are bouncy balls that I can drop every now and again. If you always drop 'em eventually they quit bouncing too, but kind of get the idea of where...

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Peter Stadeli: ...you've gotta prioritize.

Warren Mainard: That's so good. That's so good. So now as a dad, tell us a little bit about kind of your three kids, you know, what that journey has been like, and what are your kind of hopes for your family and for yourself as a dad? Like, how do you envision yourself as a dad of the kids that God's given you?

Peter Stadeli: Yeah, yeah. Well, our oldest girl is almost three years old. And she's, her name's Shiloh and she's a real live wire. She loves to hang out with me, whatever I do. We live on like 11 acres, and so we, you know, if I'm on the tractor doing something, she's always gonna run out there and spend time with me and she's really good that way. A daddy's girl, you might say.

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Peter Stadeli: And, and then we had a another, a girl. Her name was, we named her Selah Promise. She was a stillborn, and we named her Selah because Selah in the Bible means to reflect a pause and reflect. And we named her that because every time we think of her, we want to pause and reflect on God's promises, Selah Promise is her name. And then, July 4th, which is only, then a couple, a little while ago here, we had our first boy born, his name's Isaiah Courage. And obviously very excited, he's so small, right, but I'm always very excited. It's so special. But yeah, when it comes to our family, I guess, my wife and I are both very much passionate about people and helping others and being a part of something that gives us purpose, not just doing things for treating a monetary value or something that makes us just look good in the eyes of everyone else. And I guess I hope for our family that as we, we as a family can do that for our community, for our neighbors. And I think it's really amazing and special. Our neighbors, we moved recently to where we are now, and our neighbors have started to come organically. And just over time, more and more just stop in and visit us. And it's something we really love and appreciate. It takes an investment of time to build that up and we want our family, our children, to see that. Because I think at the end of our lives, we look back, and I look, if I look back, I don't want it to be I built this nest egg of x amount of dollars to pass on to my children. I wanna build up a nest egg of memories, a nest egg of values that, that we were able to pass along and that I learned from my parents, you know, and from my friends and people like yourself. And that's, those are the things I want to pass along, to my children and to the community people that we're, we relate to.

Warren Mainard: I love it. That's what we call being an IMPACT Player, for sure.

Peter Stadeli: Yeah.

Warren Mainard: And I think it's exciting to see a young man who has enough, you know, perspective at this point in his life, to see that, hey, chasing after the career dream as the greatest thing of all is, it's not a winning formula. If you win at work and lose at home, you end up losing. And so to know that you're striving to be a great husband, a great father, a great leader, and that all that we have is a gift from God, you know, that every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of Heavenly Lights. And so let me transition a little bit then to your faith, because you've mentioned it a few times. You've talked about God and church, growing up, and having certain values instilled in you. So share a little bit about your faith journey and how it's kind of informed much of what you're doing today.

Peter Stadeli: Yeah. Well, I guess, growing up in a Christian home with parents that were, were a dad and mom of faith, you know, I think we can take that, I can take that for granted in how I got to where I am. But I believe every person, regardless of if they were for myself, if born with Christian parents or not, you come to a point where you have to choose to accept that faith, embrace that faith, and move on. And I remember very vividly when I gave my heart to God, maybe at that time, I didn't understand everything when I made that choice, but it was baby steps on the way. And I spoke earlier, I said earlier where God, God puts everything in the person's life for a reason. And I think just as a young man, I dealt with pride in a very, very real way. And while I was dyslexic, I wanted to out prove everyone else because it was pride that I wanted to show everyone else that I was better, me thinking me better than other people, even though maybe I was less than anyone else, you know. And I think God has led many, many things into my life, even now. And he has many more things planned, I'm sure, or he is gonna allow to help guide that faith journey. And more importantly, I think I have come more recently to the realization of the purpose for my life is I wanna be able to help share anything that I have to other people to help them find purpose in their life and hopefully draw people to God. At work, one of the most important things is, we have all different types of people working for the company. And it's been such a joy to me to, multiple people have given their lives to Christ, since they've come to work for me. And I definitely will, you know, what does Paul say one man, watereth another man fertilizes next man, in God, but it's God that gives the increase. And I think maybe we were a little seed along that way, and I think that's brings so much happiness. And, recently I joined up with a group to help out with a billboard ministry. When people call in, they need people on the other end to be a mentor to some of these people that want to journey. And those are the things that really, really bring purpose to me personally. And everybody has those things that bring them purpose, but it has to be more than money. You know, the money stuff has to be taken care of it. That's, you gotta take care of your family financially. But when those things are taken care of, you can't always be pursuing those things for happiness. You will not be happy in the end if that's all you chase.

Warren Mainard: Yeah. Wow. I love that, that passion for purpose and for mission. Being on mission with God, even as you work. I think a lot of times, you know, you talked about the money, a lot of times Christian business owners feel like the only thing that they can do with their business success is to give money. And certainly there's great value in that, but to create a culture within your business where people might feel led to come to Christ, I mean, that's a mission field right there. That's a ministry right there. And then to think about how can I create, a life and a business that allows the Kingdom, you know, the, the things of God to move forward in other people's lives in a relational way. I think that's absolutely what every business leader needs to be thinking about is, yeah, we want, we wanna seed our finances in God's fields. But, you know, I love what Paul says when he says, not only did I give you the Gospel, but we gave our very lives with you as well.

Peter Stadeli: Yeah.

Warren Mainard: And so when people can see your life and they can see the way that you lead your family, and they can see the way that you invest in your church and those kind of things. It can transform everything else that you do. So I'm wondering maybe kind of, we'll wrap this up, but share a little bit of, if you could put your arm around the shoulders of a young man or a group of young men and just kinda say, hey, here's some things that I've learned in this first decade of business leadership and family and marriage. What are some takeaways, we like to call them in IMPACT Players 'nuggets'. What are some nuggets that you would say, hold on these truths 'cause they can really change things for you?

Peter Stadeli: Well, that's setting the bar pretty high there, Warren. But, I will, I guess if there were be a couple things, I maybe have three that come to my mind that I could maybe share, that maybe they more relate to my life. And so it's not that I have everything figured out, but maybe three things that come to, that happened in my life that maybe someone could relate to. And, the first one I would say is for me, I thought success was what really would make me happy in the end, you know, being successful. If I achieve this level, we got to this point, then that's what I'm really searching for. What I think I found out was having purpose and knowing where that purpose comes from in my own life is what makes me genuinely happy. So that's maybe something more for me. The other piece that I, I've tried to live in my family life, our family life and in business is never being willing, never risking more than I truly have. And sometimes I guess to illustrate that, you feel like there's such a big win here, maybe it's to open up this or to start, and you dump everything into that. But if it goes, you lose a lot more than just what you put into it. And so I guess for myself being, more the entrepreneur type, reminding myself never to be risking more than I, I'm willing to lose. And I guess the last one is, and it definitely relates to me is, I have a habit of making decisions too fast. And so I have this quote that I heard, "Slow down the big decisions, speed up the small." And the reason why that's important to me is I can overanalyze something that should take a minute or two to figure out, but then when it goes to buying a big purchase item, making a spontaneous purchase or, and that can relate to home, family, whatever. And so those are maybe three things that I would give as way of saying, here's your nugget.

Warren Mainard: I love it. The, I, so with IMPACT Players, we have what we call a ' guarantee' that if you come to one of our IMPACT breakfasts and you don't walk away with at least one nugget, that will give you a year's worth of bacon. So we have gotten more than enough nuggets today to cover that guarantee. Peter, this has been so great. How can people follow you or get in touch with you if they want to learn more about you, your business, and what you're doing?

Peter Stadeli: Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn and so if you wanna reach out to me, find me on LinkedIn, Peter Stadeli, on LinkedIn. And my name is spelled S-T-A-D-E-L-I, that's my last name. And connect with me on LinkedIn and we will, we'll find a way to work together or at least talk and chat. And I love working with people so.

Warren Mainard: Well, I hope that for whoever's listening to this podcast, that they are encouraged today. If there are young men, and I've got some young men that I'm gonna, you know, specifically send this podcast to, if there are a young men listening to this, I hope that you'll learn some things from Peter's story that might, you know, give you a picture of what you wanna do as you move forward in your life. If you're an older guy like me or even older than that, I hope that today is encouraging to you to know that, that there are young men like Peter that are out there, doing this thing the right way, trying to fight the right fight, run the right race, and to be IMPACT Players for their families. But wherever you are, thank you for being a part of the Impact Players community. You can always find out more about Impact Players by visiting us impactplayers.org. And if you are inspired and encouraged by today's podcast, please share it with others, like, subscribe and rate and review. We would appreciate that to help us get our word out to more and more guys. And for all of our guys out there, thank you for joining us. Peter, thank you for being a part of this podcast and, we hope we'll get a chance to see you again soon.

Peter Stadeli: Alright. Blessings to you.