Stumbling into Roofing

I stumbled into roofing on accident after eavesdropping on a conversation between two roofers and how a new hail storm was going to change their lives financially.  After overhearing this conversation I always wondered about the roofing industry and one day I coincidentally bumped into a friend who owned a roofing company in a yoga studio of all places, and after I asked him about roofing he offered me a sales job on the spot!

I worked as a door to door appointment setter, then roofing project manager, the sales manager, and after seven years I went out on my own and ran my own roofing company for five years. During this time I started working hard on marketing my roofing company and that led to me starting a video marketing agency from scratch during the pandemic. I began to discover a passion lurking deep inside me for creating content—working with professional cameras, video lights, building sets and studios, and spending time with my video editor crafting content.  However, the passion that was living and growing inside of me was being misplaced.  I was working hard on creating promotional videos for businesses which was fun for a while, but my true passion was in the art of filmmaking.  As I created these promo videos I always wanted more, I wanted more storytelling, more character development, a hero, a tragedy, a deep emotional connection with an audience with complex plot structure, and the business promo videos were just not doing it for me.  Dealing with difficult clients and business owners with unrealistic expectations about the content we could do on a small budget became uninspiring and I started to have thoughts of getting out of the video marketing business.

Discovering Colorado Film School

I had suspicions of this misplaced passion at times while operating the agency which was expressed through a curiosity of mine to learn about the local film school located near my home. At the time it was called Colorado Film School or CFS. I had seen this school located in the Lowry area on the border of Denver and Aurora ever since I moved to Colorado years ago and I always wondered about it but never had enough curiosity to contact them. This one particular morning in early 2021 I went online and made an appointment to do a virtual campus tour since they were operating on a remote basis at the time due to the pandemic.

My curiosity was also picquet because I had hired a recent graduate from the film school to help me create videos for my roofing company. He had worked for the company for about six months and when he gave me his notice he introduced me to a classmate of his who also attended the school. That classmate introduced me to another classmate who would eventually become the principal cinematographer for my video marketing agency. I began to feel a strange connection to CFS since it seemed to be inadvertently supplying me with media talent. After doing a virtual tour of CFS I started to get motivated about attending.

I consulted with my staff about the idea and they quickly talked me out of it and told me it was a waste of time and that they could teach me anything that I wanted to learn. They also told me that the most important part of video is being able to sell videos and at the time I was the only one doing sales. Looking back, I think they were worried that if I went off to film school then they wouldn’t have a job anymore. I still ignored their feedback and began the application process.

Living with Undiagnosed ADHD

At the time I had no idea that I was living with undiagnosed ADHD.  My wife would accuse me of having it for some time and people around me would joke about me having it, but I never took it seriously.  I thought it was normal to need an enormous amount of effort to do basic things in life.  When I started the application process and encountered the obstacle of having to submit all of my transcripts to the school I quickly shut down. Submitting the transcripts required that I contact my old schools and register for different accounts and make requests and emails and upload and download and save to my computer and upload again and I did not have the time or patience for all of that so I quit the application process and chalked up my ideas of attending film school to the never-ending pit of other goals that I had thrown away with the justification that it simply was not meant to be.

I continued with operating the video marketing agency and with operating my roofing company and after about a year, operating these two time consuming small businesses became too much and I decided to closed down the video marketing agency and stick with the business that was paying the bills.  This was a very difficult decision and it damn near broke my heart to shut down the video marketing business but it had to be done. I went through a mourning process and I alleviated this mourning by going out and buying a late model Toyota Tacoma. I always wanted a Toyota Tacoma and if I was going to quit on my creative dreams to sell roofs again then I was going to do it in style.

Soon after closing the agency and focusing on my roofing business, my wife had a very serious and fatal health problem. She had to be admitted into a treatment center and get treatment from 7am to 7pm daily for over three months. Even after the three months she had to do intensive outpatient treatment for another three months. Almost overnight I was responsible for making breakfast, getting our kids ready for school, taking them to school, picking them up, caring for them after school, preparing dinner, attending sports, and all of the other responsibilities that come with caring for children all the while still operating a multi-million dollar roofing company. I had two great employees at the time and a great crew leader who stepped up to the plate and they helped me keep the business going.  I had no idea that I was dealing with undiagnosed ADHD.

Getting an ADHD Diagnosis

Around this time my son who was seven, was evaluated for dyslexia and it turned out he had dyslexia and ADHD. While visiting with the child psychologist and   listening to her describe the features of ADHD, my wife said that this sounded a lot like me. The evaluator found this slightly amusing as did my wife, but I got very defensive. I had almost no understanding of ADHD and it took another year or so before I would finally get evaluated and diagnosed with Adult ADHD. Once I got this diagnosis and learned about neurological diversity and the various treatment approaches to it, I put down my defenses and quickly embraced the medication and advice of mental health professionals.

The evaluator who was also a psychiatric nurse practitioner gave me different options for medication like natural supplements and prescription stimulants and once I did my own research which was basically going down the Youtube rabbit hole, I realized that stimulants are a good option for me. At the time my life also felt very out of control and I was feeling very burned out. Stimulants seem like a good way to move forward and help me take care of the serious responsibilities that I had like caring for my children, being there for my wife, and paying the bills.

From day one, the stimulants changed everything. The movie Limitless took on a whole new meaning and I did chores around the house that I had literally been putting off for years. One chore was fixing the toilet seat in the bathroom. I knew that seat was going to cause me problems because I knew that my wife would sit on it and one day fall off and get very upset with me for not fixing it earlier but I hated to do chores around the house and it would take her yelling at me and us getting into a fight for me to fix something around the house.  I didn’t realize how impactful my ADHD was on me and our marriage.  My wife and I used to have a running joke that I had not done the dishes for seven years. Now that I am on stimulants I do all kinds of stuff around the house I make it a regular practice of cleaning up the kitchen.

The first week that I was on stimulants I jumped into my video editing software and edited three videos that I had been stuck on editing for a year.  There were many real life adult responsibilities that I had been procrastinating like dealing with lawyers and accountants and that first month on stimulants I finally started to get that kind of overwhelming stuff done and it felt sort of effortless.  I also picked up my camera and learned how to operate the settings in a much more effective way. I could watch a video, look at the settings, make adjustments, watch the video, and concentrate on this task for an extended period of time which in the past was completely unheard of. I couldn’t concentrate on tedious tasks for more than five minutes until I would lose my patience and need a break.  I may come back to the task but usually I would give up and throw into the endless abyss of unfinished projects.

Going Back to School

With this newfound treatment plan, I started to have thoughts yet again of attending film school. I was diagnosed in October 2022 and with the winter approaching I started to have more time on my hands because things slow down in the roofing industry in the winter in Colorado.  With this newfound self-knowledge and the tangible experience of gaining the ability to focus and concentrate in a way I was never able to do before, I re-assessed my entire life.  I began to understand my recovery from alcoholism in a new way and started to have a new hope and optimism for the future. I always wanted to be a writer and I was always so confused why I couldn’t sit and write for more than ten minutes at a time before needing a break. I loved creating content but I was very discouraged because I attempted to learn videography and video editing but it felt so overwhelming that I just quit and had to pay others to do it for me. In a very short amount of time I got back to working on my book and developing my YouTube channel and I began to realize that I was wrong when I concluded that creative work was not in the cards for me.

I decided to apply to the Colorado Film School again and although it was still a hassle to get my transcripts, I simply did it.  Being on stimulants is strange, it still takes effort to do things that I don’t like or want to do, but the effort feels minimal and sometimes it feels effortless.  There’s no need to take numerous breaks and get the timing just right and have the right drink and the right headphones and all the crazy rituals I would perform to get a task done—nowadays I simply get it done.  I got the application done and in December of 2022 I was admitted to Colorado Film School and attended classes part-time in January 2023!

Conclusion

Over the years I’ve become an expert-level roofer and I will continue being a roofer for the foreseeable future, however, I’m beginning to move into a digital marketing role as well as consulting fellow roofing business owners.  Although I’m not passionate about roofing, it allows me to pay the bills while I take steps to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a writer and eventually a professional filmmaker. I'm now working on my first feature film script and after completing three semesters at Colorado Film School I decided to transfer to CU Denver and earn a second Bachelors degree; this time I will be getting a BFA in Film and Television. I love being a student and meeting all of the interesting young people full of idealism and optimism.  As a non-traditional student I bring a lot to the table as well and I enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience.  After getting a BFA I’m thinking of continuing on and earning an MFA in Film and maybe even teach after that.

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