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Episode Transcription

Welcome to the show, Jamie and Rocco Montana.

So tell us a little bit about you guys. Like, how did you guys come to be? Like, what's your origin story? How'd you guys meet?

Jami & Rocco Montana (00:28.3)

We met at an office job, like at work in the old fashioned way. The old fashioned way. Yeah. It wasn't even the internet, although the internet played a role. Yes. I had broken up with a girlfriend and I had an extra Tom Petty ticket and I posted on Facebook. I have an extra Tom Petty ticket with love company. Don't care to sell it. Anybody interested in her and her assistant at the time both responded. I thought she was hotter. So I.

messaged her back and said, Hey, when can I pick you up for our date? She was like, it's not a date. I was like, well, can we get off of Facebook and you'd give me your phone number? And she was like, no, I was like, well, that's not gonna happen. Like, we're definitely either having a conversation over the phone or this isn't gonna work. And she was like, fine. I said, where do I pick you up for a date? Because I knew it was a rub for her now. And she goes, you can come to the Shell station on 93. I'll meet you there. Like, okay.

Meredith & Craig (01:19.954)

Ha

Jami & Rocco Montana (01:27.47)

So you tell the next part kind of better than I do. Well, I want to rewind rewind a little bit and tell it through my lens because as you will learn on this podcast, we do a lot of things together, but we look at life through different lenses, is crooked eyes, which is which is yes, you do, which is a which is a strength in our marriage and also our business. So Rocko, then known as just Montana because his last name.

Rocco, we worked in an office together. We worked for a startup. So he worked for a different business, same owner, and then I worked for a different business. He was kind of the office clown, really. And I thought he was cute, but I had met his girlfriend and no diss to her, but we were very different people, right? Like I was road biking into work like- 11 miles.

I was like, and then she was snowboarding on the weekends with her friend in Beaver Creek, which was one of my favorite resorts. was like, damn. And she was a stay-at-home girlfriend and I've not even ever been a stay-at-home wife. So it was, we were very different people. I thought it was super fun and really cool. then a lot about what I didn't want in a relationship during that time with my ex. As we all do through our natural progression of relationships.

Meredith & Craig (02:49.736)

For sure.

Jami & Rocco Montana (02:51.149)

But he posted that he had an extra ticket to Tom Petty. I love Tom Petty. I love Red Rocks. And I was like, heck yeah, I'll go to Tom Petty for free with this clown. so yeah, he asked me for my phone number, which now knowing him and having him, having watched him shop on Facebook Marketplace, he asks everybody to get off Facebook Messenger and go straight to the texting. So I don't feel real special in that regard. This is new. This is a new ad lid to the story I haven't heard yet.

Every time she buys something in Facebook Marketplace, she's like, I don't know, I haven't heard from you. I'm like, did you get a phone number? I'm not going to show up to somebody's house through a Facebook Messenger. Like, just like, let's have a conversation. Anyway, anyway, it's my turn. It's my turn. So, so yes, he asked me where he should pick me up for our date. And I was, I did not think it was a date. I really was not interested in him in that capacity.

Meredith & Craig (03:33.211)

Yes.

Jami & Rocco Montana (03:47.276)

So I made him pick me up at the gas station like 10 miles from my house on the way to Red Rocks. And we had a lovely time. We really did. was, six years older than Rocco and I come from a town of like 300 people in South Dakota. So being a 30 plus year old female, people were questioning my sexual orientation. Was I a spinster? You know, why wasn't she married and have four kids yet?

So I was definitely getting to the age where I wanted to be in a long-term relationship. I was killing it. And he was totally killing it on OKCupid as he tells the story. believe it or not, that first night at Red Rocks, I literally watched his goofiness like skip up the stairs to our seat and I stopped dead in my tracks and I looked up to this guy and I was like, really, God, this is the guy that I'm going to marry? And that was it.

I knew I was going to the rest of my life with him. It didn't take much convincing for me. It took him a couple more dates. I'm not super proud of it, but I was very forthcoming because I was in the process. For the first, I'm a serial monogamous. From 13 to 27, I had three and four year long relationships, primarily. I was not a show in your oats guy. And at this point in my life, I really did want a partner. I was super burned by the ex who...

I went to high school with and had memories and like looked at rings with her and was really glad we didn't go forward down that path. But I was like, you know what? I'm going to try to just sew some boats. And then it lasted like a whole month. It wasn't like years of me just being some womanizer. It was me dating. I was dating and forthcoming like, hey, I'm seeing a few women. I'm going out. And yeah, we dated. We had a great, great time at Red Rocks. And at the end of that night,

or morning. I was like, Hey, like, I got like two more days this week. And like, I'm interested, but like, I'm gonna I want to see what's going on here. And she was like, you do you boo. Like, that's fine. And I went on two more dates. And then we went out was the World Series before or after the airport story? I think it was before. Was it before? think so. Yeah. So okay, so not even our second date.

Jami & Rocco Montana (06:11.861)

She called me, she needed a ride to the airport. And I'm like, yeah, sure. So I get in her car, I drive her to the airport and she's like, all right, I gotta go, I gotta go, running late, I'm running late. So she gets to the ticket counter and I'm leaving, I drive off. She gets to the ticket counter and she goes, listen, I know I'm late. They know me here by now, I'm always late. I'll make it, just let me know. And the guy goes, ma'am, your flight was yesterday. True story. Yeah. In the midst of this, I was like.

Meredith & Craig (06:33.97)

Really, really late!

Jami & Rocco Montana (06:38.576)

okay see you she goes okay love you bye it's okay you can love me it was horrifying it was more fun and then i had to turn around and get her yeah it was terrible and we spent like two and a half hours at the airport they gave me a non-passenger security yes because i got a cocktail and i was like listen i'm very interested i'm just not quite there yet she's like yeah great yeah

It was actually really sweet and I think, you know, things played out exactly as they needed to, right? Rocco had been in very long-term serious relationships and he needed to kind of, he needed to be out there a little bit to see that I was the coolest thing since sliced bread. So I don't... Can confirm. And you know what? For me, I really was attracted to him after the fact because of his lightheartedness.

Meredith & Craig (07:21.48)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (07:32.949)

He loves life. Like there are not many people on planet Earth that love life as much as this guy. Sometimes it's exhausting to be his mate. It's also extremely motivating and he pushes me out of my comfort zone a lot. Listen, I think it made you tired yesterday when I was like, I'm going to get up at three, go to the gym so we don't have to rush and play this dance for the farmers market and I'll handle the farmers market. And we've got this podcast interview and we've got a dinner date and a haunted house tonight. And she was like, what?

I'm like, yeah, you rest. Like, you want the rest? I'm good. Like, just rest. Yeah. Set. Second.

Meredith & Craig (08:02.9)

you

Meredith & Craig (08:07.828)

What a good team. The way you tell that story. That's an awesome story. exactly why you're like my favorite people in the whole world. Actually, so I knew the airport story. I think I'd heard the premature I love you airport story. I hadn't actually heard the Red Rock story. I'm also a giant Tom Petty fan and I love that you two connected over Tom Petty. That is so cool. And just the way you tell that story is exactly why I love you guys so much. That was so much fun. Yeah. Appreciate that.

Jami & Rocco Montana (08:15.177)

Thank you. And see you in some new forms.

Jami & Rocco Montana (08:33.747)

Thank you. Well, we love you right back.

Meredith & Craig (08:37.66)

So you, mentioned earlier that you guys see life very different, like through different lenses. Talk to me a little bit about that. What is like, what are the big differences and like, how do you, how do you like balance that with each other?

Jami & Rocco Montana (08:52.553)

I mean, I can do it much easier for business than life, but I, in business, and maybe this can relate to life. In business, I'm a top line guy. I'm a revenue guy. Like next, more next deal, we can do it. We'll get there. It's all good. Okay. We fell in our face there. Get up and keep going now. Rocco is a visionary. He is, he is the top of our companies. Right. So

And our marriage, like he brings a lot of excitement and joy into our marriage, but he is the visionary and I am the implementer, right? So the way that I interpret it is, you know, here's a perfect example. So we got married, obviously, and we wanted to get married in the mountains. We didn't wanna get married where he's from or I'm from. We wanted to get married here in Colorado. So his...

This is what this man says to me. He's like, listen, you plan the wedding and I'll plan the honeymoon, right? So I'm planning the wedding and he's planning the honeymoon. And what was the plan for the honeymoon? Three weeks, we're going to get in the car and drive to the snowboarding. There was no plan. We were just getting in the car and we were just going by the seat of our pants, which was amazing. We had the best honeymoon ever. It's still to this day the best honeymoon we've had. We had a venue. We had a guest list. We had a...

We had an open bar, had a DJ, we had music sets. There was a lot more planning that went into the wedding than went into the honeymoon. And that is exactly how we operate. Rocco sees opportunities in business that I typically don't see because I'm a data person. And he pushes me to be more of a visionary, to be more of an entrepreneur.

Even just like becoming an entrepreneur, like I worked in corporate America our whole relationship until he literally tapped me on the shoulder and was like, dude, what you do for other companies, I need you to come into our company and do otherwise we're going to be screwed. And I was like, what? And I come from a family of entrepreneurs. There's I don't have a blood relative in my immediate family that doesn't own their own business. Like I don't. Everybody in my family owns my own business. But what

Jami & Rocco Montana (11:12.637)

What Rocco really does is I think he brings out that entrepreneurial spirit in me. And what I do is, you know, when Rocco's running to jump out of the plane and he doesn't even know if there's a parachute anywhere in proximity, I'm making sure he has a parachute on and I'm making sure that there's, we have a landing pad and things like that. So that's really the biggest difference in how we approach life and business.

Meredith & Craig (11:40.148)

So you guys really play to each other's strengths. Like the wedding example is a beautiful example of how you guys each play to each other's strengths. Like the wedding requires a little more detail oriented-ness and planning and logistics. And like Jamie's like, yeah, that's my jam. And Rocco's like, hey, I've got this great idea for a kick ass honeymoon with no planning required and it's gonna be amazing. And you guys went off for three weeks and had an amazing time. You play to each other's strengths. You give each other the space to

Jami & Rocco Montana (12:04.774)

Yeah.

Meredith & Craig (12:09.822)

to step into your greatness and do what you do best. Trust each other.

Jami & Rocco Montana (12:12.744)

It took practice. mean, definitely in business, it took a lot of practice for me to understand the necessity of like a certain level of planning and structure to be successful. And it's what's really turned our businesses around in the last two years, especially now for less than one year, which still blows my mind. It like it's been so long. You're less than one year of wholly owning our construction business and rebuilding our construction business and rebranding the most recent iteration of our construction company. And like,

we have never been so aligned. Yeah. And it feels like it really right now feels like it's been so long and like we literally dissolved the previous construction company in like February. It's October. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, obviously community plays a big part in that, right? Like we're all here because of the final percent and there's a lot of things that we learn through that community. relationship coaching through you guys. I mean, we've

We've called you a handful of times with some funny moments and some also like, huh, what did we do with this? But it takes a lot of practice. It doesn't happen overnight. I think the most important thing in mine and Rocco's relationship in life and business is we're not willing to give up. We're not quitters in any realm.

and we have the bruises and the broken bones and the setbacks in business to prove it. And we also don't quit on ourselves. And Rocco is a big one about that. I have a little bit of a temper compared to him. And there's moments where I physically just need space. Like, hey dude, just give me a minute. I want to sleep on the couch tonight. And he was like...

I'm just gonna sit in the chair next to you then because we have to be in the same room when we go to sleep. You know, it's a rule in our marriage.

Meredith & Craig (14:12.532)

I love that. That's a great rule. I love that rule. No. there's too much good stuff that happened. Obvious good stuff.

Jami & Rocco Montana (14:14.468)

Yeah. Yeah, we're not sleeping in separate beds. No, no.

Jami & Rocco Montana (14:23.846)

Yes. Seven.

Meredith & Craig (14:28.148)

And just the emotional piece of being in the same room, that emotional closeness, that's a big piece that gets missing when you're in separate bedrooms.

Jami & Rocco Montana (14:32.39)

give up.

Jami & Rocco Montana (14:39.59)

Yeah, we actually have. want to add this before your next question, though. So we have a rule. We call it the snuggle snooze. So we get one snooze, regardless of what time we go to bed or wake up, we get one snooze, and that is a 15 minute snuggle snooze. Yeah. The alarm goes off. I roll over, give her a kiss, I say, love you, put my arms around her, and we wait till the alarm goes off again. That's our snuggle snooze.

Meredith & Craig (14:57.318)

that's good. Good. think we just-

Meredith & Craig (15:05.782)

I love that. I think we might've just found the title for this episode.

Meredith & Craig (15:58.967)

So talk to us a little bit about your business. Yeah, you mentioned construction. What else? What are you guys up to? Tell us about your businesses. Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (16:04.87)

Well, we're only down to three. Yes. You know, we were definitely like seven at one point. Yeah. Yeah. No, we're not. We're we're getting proficient and doubling down strength and getting more effective. Beautiful simplicity. Yeah. So I've been a realtor for coming up on 10 years. So September, we're less than one year off from the 10 year anniversary when I got my real estate license. We're less than one year out from 10 years ago. I quit my last

Meredith & Craig (16:09.62)

You guys are slacking.

Jami & Rocco Montana (16:33.958)

job working for somebody else. We gotta remember the date that you quit your job. Okay. We should figure that out. I'm sure if we call John Betty, no. Yeah, he's got good records. Yeah. But yeah, so we got into real estate, invested in a real estate investment mentoring program, did a deal. I found a wholesale deal on Facebook. It was, I mean, $16,000 for less than four hours of work.

Quit my job, we got married, threw a honeymoon, and didn't get a deal for a year.

And in that time I had a mentor tell me, do deals with somebody else. Like go, like go be a realtor. And I didn't want to be a realtor. I didn't want to unlock doors. Right. And I wanted to be an investor, which at the time, because we did get some family investment later, but like, we had, had no 401k, no, no career, no degree, no inheritance.

And Jamie was doing well at her job and she supported me for a good two or three years before I was like, you need to leave your job and like, I'm going to lose $2 million in borrowed money. So, um, so I became a realtor and I ended up really loving it. So we, lost a good amount of money halfway, you know, about five years ago, a couple hundred thousand dollars.

Didn't walk away from anybody, never filed bankruptcy, but we were flipping houses and two projects went really, really sideways. And, you know, at the end of the day, our name was on the line. It was our responsibility. At the time it was, the partner of this, oh, the GC that, et cetera, et cetera. So that was a very expensive lesson about extreme ownership. It wasn't anybody else's fault that our projects failed because they were our projects. Right. So we are, our bread and butter is, you know, I've been a realtor.

Meredith & Craig (18:27.124)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (18:33.093)

Jamie partnered with a general contractor about five years ago, turned a $60,000 tax burden, $30,000 in credit card debt. In 18 months, it turned into two free and clear vehicles, current taxes and six figures in the bank. That dissolved a few years ago. We partnered with the project manager. That lasted about a year. We took a really six month side visit into selling commercial laundry equipment.

those partners were like, we're going to keep laundry. You can have the construction company. We're like, well, hold on the construction company sideways because of literally your project management. Um, so we stepped away from that. And literally this past week, I got my general contractor's license. We fully own our real estate and our construction companies and, um, things are well, we, I mean, we've got three deals under contract in real estate. We've got a, just under a million dollar renovation that is going to

be closed in November to get started. So two, three weeks from that starting. And yeah, we are addition for our friends that we're looking at. It's going to be a thousand dollars. Yeah, we've just kind of. Rocko really pulled us into the real estate world and, you know, that love it. Yeah. Losses and tough market and et cetera, et cetera. It's a huge it's a huge purchase for anybody. Right. And we believe that.

Everybody deserves a high level of service, in the construction and real estate industry, really need to work with people who are operating from a place of integrity, who give a shit. That's our core. Our core value. Both companies. In all of our companies. We also own a direct to sales, a direct to consumer beef sales business, an online beef sales business. We support my family's 70 year old cattle ranch doing that. And it's really a passion project. It's a way for us to stay plugged into the ranch.

and be part of something that is very near and dear to both of our hearts. But yeah. Know where our food comes from? Yeah. But give a shit. That's our number one core value in all our companies. And so we've been able to service people at a higher level because we give a shit, right? Because we're not real estate agents to get a deal. We're not contractors to build cool stuff. While all of those things are fun, we do those things because we saw a gap in the industry.

Jami & Rocco Montana (20:57.815)

of where we could really elevate a level of service and serve at a higher level and feel really great about it. We love what we do.

Meredith & Craig (21:09.3)

And it comes through. obviously we are intimately familiar with you guys. We've traveled and... Intimately familiar makes it seem weird. Okay. It's not that kind of party though. guess we are. But we are very...

Jami & Rocco Montana (21:19.202)

Don't make it weird. We have shared a hotel room by supper feds.

Meredith & Craig (21:28.436)

well informed on integrity for you guys and how you show up and your give a shit level is super high. Your give a shit is unparalleled. I've never met two people who give more shits than you do, for sure. You give so much shit. Also, total sidebar, your beef is delicious. Yes. I've never had better beef. But I remember when you...

Jami & Rocco Montana (21:39.426)

That makes me feel really good. Thank you.

Jami & Rocco Montana (21:47.926)

Thank you. Thank you.

Meredith & Craig (21:53.512)

when we were in Colorado last time and we visited you, you picked us up and you took us to one of your projects and we got to see the project and how you manage it and all your people and how well respected you are with your trades and the people that were running kind of your job for you. And you don't always see that. Like you don't always see that relationship that you guys have. So it's really cool to watch.

guys build those relationships. Obviously your relationship with each other super strong, but the relationships that you're building with the people that you work with and your community is really cool to watch. Based on your integrity, based on your give-a-shit, based on the high, incredibly high level of ownership you talked about a few minutes ago, Rocco, like you guys do not pass things off. You guys step in and own everything you possibly can. And I think

those three things together from the outside looking in is a recipe for just going to the moon. For me, from the outside looking in, to me that seems like why everything is feeling so aligned and taking off for you guys right now.

Jami & Rocco Montana (23:02.905)

Yeah. Well, I don't know why I've been thinking about it so much this last, really this last month. It's been on my mind like we're less than a year out from the 10 year anniversary of JROC properties. Yeah. Like we incorporated in June, but I got licensed in September. I really like to September is like, like that would be the 10 year anniversary. And it's been, it's, it's been a, it's, it's been a ride. And it's just starting to click. Yeah. Overnight success. It's 10, 11 years. Like

It's really 11 years, 2026 is year 10, 2027 is going to be like, oh, we got it. That's 100 % accurate. That might be our overnight success here, which we're crossing our fingers for. But yeah, again, it just comes back to a lot of core values and not that our core values haven't been tested. This is why we

Meredith & Craig (23:43.057)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (23:57.698)

have had partners and we don't have the same partners anymore. It's why, you know, we've... We fired clients. We fired lenders that like they didn't understand that we were trying to help them and they wanted to do it their way. And we had the experience to say, hey, this is a recipe for disaster. I'll give you an example. At the time, it would have been the largest real estate deal I've ever done. It was a close friend of ours at the time, private lender of ours as well. It was funding some of our projects. We don't work with them anymore in any capacity. And they were like,

We want to do this way. And can you do this? And can you call in a favor? And I'm like, this is not the process. And I was like, no, no, no, let's shoot it this way. And we did it. And then I set a hard boundary for my birthday. We work a lot. We work a ton. Again, I said earlier, I was up at 3 a.m. to get in the gym today, to get to the farmers market, to get to this podcast, to get to our social night with our friends. And she, said, it's my birthday. I'm attached to my phone. I said, I'm turning my phone off at 9 p.m. for 24 hours for my birthday. At midnight.

that lady was still calling me and talking to me and I said you know what congratulations you're the first client I'm firing like this is not working I'm trying to help I'm bending the rules and I'm not having any boundaries which again we could probably do a whole episode on boundaries and communication relationship with your clients with your partners etc. She ended up in court with her next real estate agent for two years. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah I mean I do want to step back a little bit and

Meredith & Craig (25:18.206)

Don't snap bullet. Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (25:27.551)

maybe it would have come up, I think it's really important to know like when we first started, the reason we're in real estate and construction is because we tried to both do real estate together and we didn't get along. It was a detriment to our marriage. And that was more important than the business. And Jamie got the itch for construction, a curiosity around construction. And one of the guys we were working with expressed his concern. And Jamie has a master's degree. Jamie turned around a multimillion dollar

private university facility. Well, programs with that. Yeah, mean, but you know, $10 million budgets, 200 employees, turn something again there that wasn't profitable into a profitable enterprise. And I, and I'm going to own this. And it wasn't conscious, but in hindsight, it was very clear. I didn't respect her business acumen because I was the visionary and I was a real estate guy and I focused on the real estate work and it was, it was, it was my thing. Right. And I never said that.

And I never truly consciously felt that, but there was definitely something under the surface. Again, we could probably do a whole other episode on on slaying your demons and where you're born and your family and all that. But like, it took us a few years to like circle back around. mean, five years, solid five years for us to be like, OK, we can do this together. We can communicate effectively. Yes, you're right. But also, but also she can tell me when I'm right and I can.

Meredith & Craig (26:49.524)

Ha ha ha.

Jami & Rocco Montana (26:55.54)

give her critical feedback without hurting feelings. And more importantly, I can get critical feedback without thinking like, I'm a bad husband now. Right? Like that was not the case. It was just a business conversation.

Meredith & Craig (27:03.592)

Yeah.

Meredith & Craig (27:08.432)

What do you attribute that switch to? Like you obviously were kind of bumping heads and you weren't able to do it for a while. And then five years later, okay, we can do this. What was the trigger? What was the thing that made you realize like, yeah, no, we got this.

Jami & Rocco Montana (27:24.36)

awareness. There's nobody else I would want to do this with besides her. Yeah. And I think too, it's like, I mean, it was, it was, it was hostile, right? Like we were both working in real estate. We were butting heads. mean, there were, there were some, there were moments where we would leave new client meetings and be like, well, we're not there. They're never calling us again. Those people, mean, for real, we would talk over each other. We would correct one another.

Meredith & Craig (27:28.446)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (27:51.944)

Like we'd fact check one another. It was not good. We scoreboarded publicly. So bad. But we just, you know, we didn't quit, right? We kept going. We separated, right? I went into construction. He went into real estate. Now, mind you, we had been flipping houses this whole time. So we had been in construction in one capacity or another, but we just decided to divide and conquer for a little bit. We got our own experiences. I think we matured a lot.

And then it really came down to, and it still does, right? Because this is not, this isn't ever, this is something that you continue to learn throughout your entire relationship. Whatever that relationship is, we really, we listen to each other more, right? We hear each other more, we give each other space to think.

We've learned a lot more about each other being together for a decade. understand, know, you know, Rock, when I know, I know when Rock was upset, right? I can see it in his face. I can see it in the, you know, the height he holds his head. It's the conversation we had yesterday versus the conversation we had this morning. Exactly. So it took a lot of practice. It took a lot of trial and error. And, you know, we just didn't give up on each other.

We figured out a different path forward and it gave us the ability to come back together stronger, really, really strong. And then we surrounded ourselves with the right people. We are the poster child for the infinity model because we had every coach in the world.

And I'm sure there are a lot of your listeners out there who have done the same things, like we're not special. And there's great coaches. There's great singularly out there. There's great business coaches and there's great health coaches and there's great spiritual coaches and there's great relationship coaches. When you are seeking as much growth as we are seeking to achieve the huge vision and goals that we have, we have all these different coaches and the business coaches grind, grind, grind, grind, grind.

Jami & Rocco Montana (29:58.6)

And the relationship coaches spend more time on date nights and your fitness coaches, you know, do one more rep and, and do, and, but also get more rest and the business coaches will work to you at 11 o'clock and make a thousand phone calls. It was super fragmented. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I think if I may, I'm sorry, I hope I didn't cut you off there. It's just, I think it comes down to communication. I think like if I had to put it in one word, maybe two, cause I think this is also important communication and humility. Right.

Meredith & Craig (30:12.392)

Yeah. Yeah.

Meredith & Craig (30:27.06)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (30:28.071)

Humility and like, you know what? Cool. I have this grand vision, but I'm never going to execute it without my partner. And that doesn't just go for business. That goes for our house. That goes for our life. That goes for our day to day. Like she's my rock and she's my partner. And we made it really, I made it really clear. I wasn't looking for dinner on the table at five and a baby maker, right? Like, and early on in our relationship, like I wanted somebody arm in arm.

Meredith & Craig (30:34.77)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (30:55.152)

in trenches with me like and we're going to build something together. He said it exactly like this. I don't want you to paraphrase this is important. He literally said to me, hey, I really like you. I think we're vibing. But if you have a biological clock ticking, I'm out. That's how the conversation went. Yeah, she goes, can I think about it? And this is like, I think this was the same day I bought you a season pass. Probably. I think and you cried.

Meredith & Craig (31:01.649)

Yeah

Jami & Rocco Montana (31:22.854)

Yes, the nicest gift you get. was like, listen, I'm going to be snowboarding and I really enjoy coming with you. I enjoy your company and maybe edit that out coming with you. But I enjoyed going skiing with you and I'm going spend all the time in the mountain. And she was like, well, I can't afford a pass at the time. I'm like, cool, I'll buy you one. And she cried. yeah, communication and humility. All communication and humility. know, we've had to learn.

Meredith & Craig (31:32.628)

I'm out.

Meredith & Craig (31:48.883)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (31:50.033)

to be humble with one another, with ourselves, with our clients, with our other family, with our, you know, that's one of the things I love about what you guys do is relationships isn't just a marriage or a business relationship. Like, if you interact with other humans, you need relationship skills. Yeah, and you're not born with them.

Meredith & Craig (32:05.193)

Yeah.

Correct. Yes. No, you are not. We are not taught this shit. No, no. School of hard knocks. Yeah. Try and error. You learn as you go, just like you guys did. And it's really cool to hear. And it's one of it reminds me of one of the things we say a lot is like around your humility comment is you can be happier. You can be right. And your ego wants you to be right. Right. That's why you guys were scorekeeping and correcting each other and all those foolish things you did back in the day.

Because your ego wants you to be right. We all do. We all have that. But you can make a conscious choice. Choose to be happy or choose to be right. obviously early days, it was a battle. And right one once in a while. And then eventually it's like, OK, get over in the passenger seat, got to like this woman means the world to me. I want to do more things with her. I got to put my ego in check. And it's all about happiness. Love it.

Jami & Rocco Montana (32:55.548)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (33:01.754)

Yeah. And it, it, that's, that's a butterfly effect, right? So when you make that conscious decision, happiness or right, it impacts everything you do. Everything you do, every relationship you have, everything you do, it impacts and it gives you the ability to, to be very present.

and to live in the now and really start to enjoy what you're doing because entrepreneurship sucks. Like it's the hardest thing we've ever done in our life. And there are multiple screws missing in our brains that we have multiple companies, but we wouldn't change a thing. Well, the podcast we could listen to is interesting. We were talking about this morning. He's like,

Meredith & Craig (33:39.252)

It's hard.

Jami & Rocco Montana (33:58.205)

3 % of the population are entrepreneurs. 3 % have actual clinical diagnosed ADHD and 3 % are actually clinically considered on the spectrum. that was just kind of weird saying, yeah, was really interesting. Yeah, Greg will appreciate that. But that was on a podcast we listened to this morning with a couple of high level CEOs. And I was like, huh. And I really think the...

Meredith & Craig (34:12.764)

Interesting.

Jami & Rocco Montana (34:26.46)

And Greg Kimball, the founder of the Final % says it recently and I think we should lean into it. We do need to stop glorifying entrepreneurship. Listen, if you don't like your job, that's awesome. I get it. Go try something, but do a side hustle first. Don't put your job and not get a deal for a year. It's hard on your marriage.

Meredith & Craig (34:36.244)

Yes. I to finish it.

Meredith & Craig (34:44.852)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It takes long. Like we talk about all the time. It takes longer than you think. You're going to have more bruises. It's going to take more resources. Like it's just more of everything that you much harder than you don't necessarily want. It's going to take more of that. When we left more growth than you think. When we left our corporate jobs and started exploring this world, I thought like

Cool, we're gonna go to the events, we're gonna read the books, we're gonna listen to the podcast, we're gonna learn all the mistakes everybody else made, and we're gonna rock this shit and make no mistakes, and we're gonna hit the ground running and it's gonna be so successful from the beginning. Like clockwork, within a few weeks we'll be breaking in the dough. Like I don't know why more people don't just decide to quit and do this. Why is everyone an entrepreneur? This is gonna be easy.

Jami & Rocco Montana (35:13.276)

I'm gonna trash it.

Jami & Rocco Montana (35:26.0)

Yeah, listen.

Jami & Rocco Montana (35:31.612)

I tell a lot of people this, it doesn't sting as much as the first time we came to this realization, but I had to pay $15,000 to a business coach in the first year of business coaching. They told me everything my wife had been telling me for the previous year.

Meredith & Craig (35:44.244)

No one trusts a prophet.

Jami & Rocco Montana (35:47.003)

Like that's that's really be laughing. I appreciate it. We laugh about it now. like that humility and communication, like I had to share that with my wife to heal the two years of bullshit I put her through of like, I got this. I'm the visionary. It's me. I'm going to do it. I'm going to support you. This is different. It was always like, no, this is different. This is different. He gets it. I'm like, hold on. Balance sheets or balance sheets and PNLs or PNLs.

She's like, no, accountability is accountability. Consistency is consistency. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tip notes, track shit.

Meredith & Craig (36:17.426)

Yeah. You guys are so you guys are so growth oriented. Like you have a growth mindset. Like where does it come from? Like how are you guys so like, okay, I need coaching. I know like where did that come from for you guys?

Jami & Rocco Montana (36:35.355)

I signed up for Tom Frey coaching, which is a real estate coaching. I'm not still in it, but it was a great program. really enjoyed it. But it's the largest real estate, like realtor coaching program internationally. And I met a guy selling again at the time would have been the largest deal at the time. I think it was a million and a half. the selling agent was awesome. He was super cool. He was a veteran. We had great conversation. And

He was, I don't know how he got there, but he was making like a half a million dollars a month between his real estate team in two states and his rentals and his two other businesses. And he was telling me how he was going to another coaching event and he's been a coaching student for years. And I'm like, I'm not making 500,000 dollars a year and this guy's paying for coaching. I was like, so for me, that was the first light bulb for me.

And then, know, readers are leaders. That was something that was really big on one of the podcasts we listened to earlier today. It's just like, the more I read, the more I was...

I know how to say it. I feel like there's a saying that I'm going to butcher, but it's like the more I learn, the less I know. Right? You know, I don't know if that's the right saying. It's something, it's a long thing, but you get the point. Like, don't know what you don't know. And then I read something and I didn't know I knew that. But now I know that. But I also know that there's more stuff around that I don't know and I want to know it. Yeah. For me, it was, I have to give a lot of credit to my grandfather.

So my grandfather is 98 years old. He's gonna be 99 in January. He literally just finished combining beans last week. he has an eighth grade education. He was in World War II and he was the county commissioner for like a decade. And this man has such a curiosity for knowledge. Like ever since I was a little, little kid.

Jami & Rocco Montana (38:39.416)

He was always asking us questions or showing us stuff or telling us what that plant was used for. I mean, he farmed with horses and tractors. So I give him a lot of the credit about just keeping me curious my whole life. Even today, like when COVID hit, I called him because he was the oldest guy I knew. He'd been through everything.

And he was like, listen, Jamie, just keep your head down and keep working. Do what you can. Don't stop. It'll blow over. Like those was literally his advice to me in the biggest crisis of my lifetime. I mean, we didn't know if we were going to be able to work and earn money. We owned our own companies. My ego wants to be like, who else said that? Yeah. That's fine. He can have that.

she says. Very humble of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I give a lot of my growth mindset to my grandfather. You know, again, he grew up in the dirty 30s. Like he's seen so many things and he just he's he's not. He's not a really charismatic man. He doesn't say a whole lot. He just is a steady Eddie and he's always been an advocate for learning. And one of the coolest stories about him was he never graduated high school.

Meredith & Craig (39:36.008)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (40:02.881)

And when our oldest nephew was graduating high school, the state of South Dakota put out this program where veterans of World War II and Vietnam and things like that, these guys who didn't finish high school, could graduate. So he actually at like, I don't know, he was probably 90, 92 years old. He got an honorary high school diploma with our nephew Lincoln.

So cool. mom did all this. 21 by the Yeah, my mom did all the paperwork. It was really, really cool. And we had a graduation party for him. It was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Meredith & Craig (40:36.116)

That is the coolest. wow. That's interesting that your growth mindsets come from very different places. Like yours instilled more from your grandfather growing up from a curiosity perspective. You, Rocco, seeing like, hey, I see that guy. That guy, I want to be more like that guy. I'm going to do what that guy does and get more coach. And obviously then you get in there, you get the benefits of it. But it's just interesting to me that it comes from two totally different places.

but it comes together so beautifully and works so well. Because you both are coming at it from the place of thirst for knowledge.

Jami & Rocco Montana (41:10.482)

And I think, you know, back to that lens, Rocco and I definitely, we see life through a very different lens, but we have such tremendous love and respect for one another that we are always considering and curious about the other person's lens. And that wasn't always true in our relationship, right? Like we tested each other a lot and.

Yeah, we come from very different worlds. know, Rocco grew up in New York and I'm from a town of 300 people. You know, we come from very different worlds. But what is really cool is we've always had this curiosity about each other's worlds. And why does he think that way? Why does she think that way? And I think that has really helped us again come together and become a really dynamic force. Well, I've only done it a handful of times in this podcast, but it's

Meredith & Craig (41:57.972)

for sure.

Jami & Rocco Montana (42:02.334)

I used to jump in mid-sentence. Yeah, always interrupting me. Like this. Yes. For sure. But where I came from, and Jamie has witnessed this, hanging out with old friends and my family, is like the conversation flows very differently in the environment in the Northeast than it does at the ranch. At the ranch, grandpa speaks, finishes, stops, everybody ponders.

Meredith & Craig (42:04.905)

Yeah.

Meredith & Craig (42:08.702)

Yes.

Jami & Rocco Montana (42:32.022)

and responds. In New York and New Jersey, the conversation goes from here to that to this to that. yeah, I'm in. Remember that I was there. That's awesome. Let's go. And like when I moved to Colorado, for example, I had to slow down my rate of speech. Not that it was not articulate. It was I spoke so fast that people in Colorado, town of 100,000 coming from New York and New Jersey, where there was millions.

Meredith & Craig (42:43.54)

the

Jami & Rocco Montana (43:01.708)

in the area, metropolitan statistical area. It's kind of the same thing. That's just how I spoke. It wasn't rude. I wasn't interrupting you. I was contributing to the conversation at the same rate with the same level of enthusiasm that you were. Yeah. As opposed to... And you know the coolest thing about it, to interrupt you intentionally, the coolest thing about it is Rocco and I can offer different levels of service to different clients. Right?

Meredith & Craig (43:21.404)

Thank

Jami & Rocco Montana (43:30.806)

we may switch a client off and be like, no, you gotta be point on this person because you're gonna be able to get through a little bit more. And one of the things that I'm always excited about being in construction is there's not a lot of women in construction. But there's a lot of female homeowners that wanna redesign their house. There's more and more female business owners that are doing tenant improvement projects. And so it's really fun for me to be able to step in. Like when I show up,

on a job site to do a pre-walk or something like that and a woman's there, she's like, are you a decision maker here? And so we get to have that relationship and Rocco is super respectful of that. Like we have an amazing female client right now, she's a business owner and she has taken her company to the next level and we're doing the build out of her new space and it's really wonderful to be able to work with her and Rocco contributes for sure.

but I am her primary point of contact.

Meredith & Craig (44:32.884)

I love that you guys are feeding off each other's strengths and looking at the best interest of the client of like, no, no, you're definitely going to be someone that is going to resonate for this person and get them what they need and what they want. I love that. And the other thing, go ahead. And also what's best for the team, right? Like you two as a team, you're looking to give your clients the best level of service based on the team. So in this situation, Jamie's going to relate better and she's the best one.

ensure the team wins to get her the client the best results she can get. And the other thing I want to go back to was the thing that you guys talked about, about curiosity. Yeah, me too. Because it's such a superpower in a relationship when you can get curious about the other person's world. And I just love that you guys are like just keen, you've keyed in on that and that you're honing in on getting into each other's worlds because we go through life shoulder to shoulder. Like we spend a

Jami & Rocco Montana (45:03.863)

Yep.

Jami & Rocco Montana (45:15.892)

Yeah.

Meredith & Craig (45:28.724)

an amazing amount of time together. And you guys spend a lot of time together too. And the thing is, like, we think like, because we see the world a certain way, we just assume that like, oh, well, you were there, you, you, you experienced it like I did, but, that's not the truth. We experienced it completely differently. And I just

Jami & Rocco Montana (45:44.31)

No, no, didn't happen to my yeah

Meredith & Craig (45:50.982)

A lot of people take for granted that, no, you were there, you saw it the same way I did, but that's just not the way it is. And I just love that you guys have leaned into that curiosity. Most of the time we all default to assumptions and judgment. Like, I assume you saw it the same way I did. I'm making a judgment on your behalf. When you lean into curiosity, you learn more about the other person, how their mind works, which allows you to build empathy, which helps you meet them where they are and really coming full circle fully.

undermines the whole assumption and judgment piece because you now understand better how their mind works, so you're more willing to lean into curiosity again next time. It's such a superpower in your marriage especially, but in literally every interaction you have with another human being on the planet. A lot of people don't.

Jami & Rocco Montana (46:24.343)

Thank

Jami & Rocco Montana (46:31.606)

And to be able to do that with another human being, to really be curious about them, is a grand gesture of affection and love, right? I grew up in a way that's not really common, right? You I grew up in a agricultural ranching community. No divorces. No divorces in my family.

Meredith & Craig (46:43.198)

Yes, totally.

Jami & Rocco Montana (46:59.958)

three generations live within like, what else is each other? It's very Mayberry-ish, if you will. But Rocco, the first time he came out, he was like, well, like, he was like a child. I mean, we kind of let him loose on the ranch and he wanted to see and touch everything. And can I ride the horse? Can I drive that tractor? And it was just like, I'm still the same way. He truly, truly is. And my father has yet to let him drive a tractor and I don't blame him. But it was, I remember watching him do that.

and thinking, gosh, he really cares about me. He has to care about me to be this curious about something I truly love.

Meredith & Craig (47:37.586)

Yeah. And it goes back to what you said at the very beginning about one of the things you love about Rocco is his, his, I'm going say his fun-ness. Childlike wonder. Yeah. His willingness to always lean in and make everything fun, which is another huge strength in a relationship. Cause I think as we all grow up and become adults and go out into the real world and eventually become entrepreneurs and bang your head against the wall a bunch of times, you feel like fun falls way down, if not off the priority list. And when things start being fun, you stop wanting to do them.

Jami & Rocco Montana (47:47.562)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (48:04.373)

like no fun. We are not having fun. We're working. We're gonna work work work. have bills. We have debt. So we can afford. We cannot have pizza. I'm like, what's happening? Honey, I'm gonna take after your birthday. No, because we have bills to pay. I wouldn't have made it this far without this guy, right? Like hands down, I wouldn't have because I am the type of person that's like

Meredith & Craig (48:17.52)

Laughter

Jami & Rocco Montana (48:34.933)

If it doesn't hurt, it's not worth it. No pain, no gain. say that all the time. Yeah. And he was like, what if it wasn't? What if we could have fun and do these things? could be more efficient? Or what if we could hire them out? Yeah. Yeah. So it's again, it took me a minute to get there. I was definitely right for a good half of our of our relationship. So grateful that I got out of my own way and like listen to somebody who I'd love and trust.

Meredith & Craig (49:00.98)

Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (49:04.401)

And the feeling mutual, We would never be unburdened by our debt or our losses if there was not a structure and a plan. Our businesses would never grow the way they're growing right now. If you weren't there to be like, hey, like, okay, I totally get it. We should totally have some fun. Like, can we just go for a hike this weekend because it is really tight? Like, let's compromise a little. We don't have to go to the $300 dinner this weekend. Totally. And I respect that.

Meredith & Craig (49:30.898)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jami & Rocco Montana (49:32.935)

And she respects that it's important to not just sit in this office every day, all day for the rest of our lives until we can pay off the losses from a business risk we took that didn't work out. Life goes on. That's part of entrepreneurship again, that you have to embrace the suck. You really have to embrace the suck. Whether it's going out and making sure you see the world largest whatever on your journeys, which I think is so cool.

Meredith & Craig (49:42.706)

Now, in.

Meredith & Craig (49:50.438)

You do. You do.

Jami & Rocco Montana (50:02.772)

Or it's something, know, Rocco and I, we find a lot of joy in nature. You know, we want to be outside, we want to be on our snowboards, you know, we want to be up in the mountains and we have to, we've had to carve time out to make that, make it that a priority.

Meredith & Craig (50:18.514)

Yeah, I love you guys are such a beautiful example of one of we have five rules to be an unstoppable team. It'll be in our book quick plug. I actually feel like I know you just finished the editing today, but maybe you want to add something to it. We have a rule called everyone's contribution matters and you to the premise is you're to play different positions on your team like you both can't be quarterbacks, obviously, but.

Everyone's contribution moves the team forward and you guys so clearly see how each other's contributions are moving the team forward. You have so much respect for each other's contributions to the team's goals. It's really beautiful. And yeah, but as we're going to wrap up, feeding off of that question.

Jami & Rocco Montana (50:57.113)

But it wasn't always that way.

Meredith & Craig (51:06.272)

Where do you guys see yourselves in the future, like three to five years? Where do you guys build What are the big J-Rock What's J-Rock going to be? When are we going to see the name on the crane?

Jami & Rocco Montana (51:15.956)

It's common. They want to create, and you know the other thing that we've been talking a lot about lately is changing horizons, right? Changing the skyline. I want to change the skyline that the cities be operating in. So one of my goals, I believe Jamie's on board, is I want to build 100 units. Whether it's 100 unit apartment building or 100 homes in a subdivision, like I want to be a part of a 100 unit project. Yeah. And we want to change the skylines of the people we work with, right? So

We want to contribute to the community that we operate in, whether it's a zip code or the people who work with us, the people who are in our mastermind groups. We don't just want to change the horizons of cities. We want to change the horizons of the people that we get to interact with. We have a big goal. We've got a $5 million charitable donation goal in the next 10 years. Five million. We're saying it out loud.

It's scary, but we want to donate $5 million to charities that we're passionate about that make an impact in the community. And that's something that we're committed to doing.

Meredith & Craig (52:23.314)

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, not only changing the horizon for the cities and the towns and the environments that you're working in, but you literally are changing the horizons of the people that you interact with every day. Can confirm that because we are some of those people and we see it every time we're around you, every time we're at an event, we see the impact that you have on the community. So you're already changing the horizon of all the people you come in contact with. But I love that $5 million goal. It's a big, hairy, it just won't

Jami & Rocco Montana (52:50.897)

Yeah. That's the first time I've said it out loud. In writing, we have it in our our VTOs, but we we've never publicly said it. So let's do it.

Meredith & Craig (52:53.94)

It's scary.

Meredith & Craig (52:58.182)

I love it. Well, we're honored that we're honored that this was the place that you chose to say it out loud and we anything we can do to support you on that goal. are there.

Jami & Rocco Montana (53:09.619)

It was a million like six months ago. The five million just popped up here recently. Yeah, and it should because we can do it.

Meredith & Craig (53:14.238)

Let's Let's do it. Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can. Where can people find you?

Jami & Rocco Montana (53:23.761)

JROC properties on Instagram, JROC underscore builds on Instagram. Colorado Construction, is it? JROC Colorado Construction is our construction website. properties. JROC properties we have like YouTube, Instagram, jroc.com. So jroc, www.jrocgroup.com will get you to all the companies. The Beat Businesses, Ranch to Table. We deliver 14 day dry age certified inng as beef nationwide.

Meredith & Craig (53:53.702)

It's

Jami & Rocco Montana (53:53.807)

On dry ice, two day express mail. Sorry Canada! Sorry Canada, we can't ship to you yet. Yeah, what are the rules? We can't ship to Canada yet. we'll figure it out. I know, we'll figure it out. If there's a will, there's a way.

Meredith & Craig (53:59.795)

Not yet.

Meredith & Craig (54:03.796)

Yeah, well, we'll just get some of them. Yeah, but if you have Yeah, you want to try the wrench to tape? It's delicious. Yeah, get on it. And we'll put all of that in the show notes. We'll put all the links.

Jami & Rocco Montana (54:12.381)

Thank you. They work really hard.

Jami & Rocco Montana (54:18.067)

Great. Cool.

Meredith & Craig (54:20.424)

Well, thank you guys. This was so much fun. We miss you. It was so nice to have you on as our first episode of season three, our first episode with guests. We're super excited it got to be you guys.

Jami & Rocco Montana (54:30.566)

Well, we are very grateful to be here as well. Again, we cannot say enough to the type of human beings that you guys are and what you're doing for your communities. So like I said, when Rocco and I have our moments, you guys are the first people we call. We are actually, hoping, I don't know how this whole mastermind thing works, if it's an annual thing, but we're ready to jump on board with the relationship mastermind. So when the next enrollment is open,

Let us know because we're coming for you.

Meredith & Craig (55:00.126)

Let's go. We'll do. Sounds good. Let's go. Thanks, guys. We appreciate you so much.

Meredith & Craig

What an amazing episode. So what's one action you're going to take, one change you're going to make based on this little chit chat you heard with us and Jamie and Rocco? And if you're interested in joining the Mastermind like Jamie and Rocco, then click the link below in the show notes. We would love to have you. We will see you there and we'll see you next week.