[00:00:00] When you look back at these five years and you see that we made a mission statement, that we sort of boldly went out there with, which was transforming spaces and being transformed in the process, I think the second half of that phrase is what had to happen. We had to be transformed in the process. So our mission at NovaCom is to transform the construction experience and to be transformed in the process.

We’re a general contractor. We build commercial spaces. They’re complex, they’re interesting and unique, and sometimes they’re simple, but it’s fun work. So Sherelle’s my younger sister. She’s two and a half years younger than me. Uh, Charelle has a real passion for people. I think our relationship really changed as we became adults.

We went from the typical brother sister, uh, relationship as kids to really becoming good friends and having a lot of the same interests. It started with a foundation of our dad starting the business and caring about people. I never thought I was going to be in business. It was something [00:01:00] we would talk about at the family dinner table.

Back in 2016, um, my dad, uh, retired. We had worked together for over 10 years and and he had stepped back and I had a real powerful sense that I didn’t want to be leading on my own. So we formed a leadership team and we decided that we were gonna really kind of find our mission. We had arrived at this vision of what we were, we were gonna transform people, we were gonna transform spaces, we had some clarity what we were about and two weeks after that retreat we got home and Brandon found out his wife was leaving him and I actually found out that I had lost a pregnancy, our first pregnancy.

We kind of got hit.

I came home and my wife told me that she was leaving. Um, and it really, it hit me really hard. Something that I didn’t see coming. That moment was really a huge turning point in my life. Shortly [00:02:00] after she told me I was feeling the weight of being alone. And so I just prayed and God really showed up for me in a really powerful way.

That was really the beginning of a long journey of growth. I wasn’t really sure that I actually wanted to have a child. So it was sort of a big journey to get up to that point, to have a child. And then, you know, you took the leap off that ledge and then ended up in a place that was pretty challenging on the other side.

And we worked through that. And then at 32, I had my daughter, Bronwyn. I didn’t even really know what postpartum depression was before that exactly. I knew it existed, but I didn’t really know what it looked like. And. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning. I didn’t want to, um, I didn’t want to live another day.

Some specific moments in that three year period, uh, one time in particular I was looking out of the ocean at a sort of sunset and God saying like, this light that you see is like a glimpse of what I have for you. I saw a deep shift [00:03:00] in Brandon through his divorce. He opened himself up to us. He made himself really vulnerable.

and shared what was going on and let us in, which was huge. There’s so much beauty born out of brokenness. I think we’ve crashed and burned in a lot of ways to learn that we need to open ourselves up to a better narrative. Even though that feels like a really big mission, the whole idea of transforming construction and people and how our faith connects with our work, that it’s not something that you’re going to see happen in any year or two.

It’s something that’s going to be a lifetime. And so seeing all those little milestones along the way, whether it’s someone sharing their story of how they’ve grown and how it’s impacted their family and their life at home and stuff, like those stories have become way more meaningful to me than just the results and the numbers.

Now when I walked into our building and I looked at our team members that were parents or team members who had been through mental health situations or [00:04:00] different things, I just saw it differently. My heart rose up with compassion and empathy. I went on a A six month paternity leave. I remember coming back to Um, retreat meeting that they had.

I saw my name up on the, the board as we were strategizing about the team and how we fit into it. I was like, I don’t know if that makes sense. I just, I think the things that I’m gifted in are, you know, listening to people and, Hearing what’s wrong and letting them know there’s a connection point. And I just like laid it all out there, basically like put out the potential to fire myself.

We talked about what that would mean. And Brandon was just like, well, don’t go anywhere. We’ll figure it out. And then, so anyways, I ended up coming back. We changed my name, my card to relationship manager. And my job became going out and living into my gifts of listening to people and connecting with people.

They not only want to, like, get to know you as, like, an employee, but they want to know, like, about your wife, or your [00:05:00] brothers and sisters, or your parents, your dogs, or whatever it is, right? They, like, want to know what makes you you. My dad passed away from cancer last year, so obviously I had to take some time away from Novacom.

I didn’t really even have to ask when I explained to Brandon, like, what the situation was. It was just like, just go, right? Let us know when you can come back. Novacom actually chipped in money for my mom to like, stay in a hotel and get restaurant gift cards because she was like eating out the whole time, so.

I’d only been here for like not even a year at that time. My mom was super blown away. She’s like, Novacom cares about not only you as an employee, but also like your extended family. Growth of a person is not constrained to one part of life. It’s really all of life, so our hope and mission is that this is a place where people are allowed to grow, where we facilitate that growth, where we pour into it.

I think the biggest way that that experience has changed the way I lead is coming from a place of humility. I think I have a greater willingness to [00:06:00] listen and actually understand where other people are coming from. I think the other way that it’s changed the way I’ve led is that I’m a pretty open, transparent person and so I think sharing my journey with the team as I went through it, you know, including the emotion, including the hard stuff, that gave me a lot more empathy for what other people are going through.

But I think it’s also changed the way people see me. I think people see me as a person, as a person who’s got flaws and who’s It’s been through challenges and who isn’t perfect. I think this work of, of what Brandon and I have both experienced in the last five years, where we’ve had a lot of places where we’ve been humbled, I think, where we’ve had to go into really difficult places and to, in terms of ourselves and our own weakness and places where our identity is being challenged by circumstances.

I think that was something God needed to shape in us in order for us to lead our [00:07:00] team