Finding A Competitive Advantage with Micah Boak

I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries manufacturer

Specialty Metal Roofing.

Welcome to Construction Disruption, the show that explores what's new,

what's next, and what's working in the worlds of construction and remodeling.

Today we're going to dig into some great topics as we visit with a

young man who is making his way in the world of metal roofing.

Our guest is Micah Boak.

Micah has over 10 years of industry experience.

He works with sales and marketing for Metallion Industries, a

metal roofing manufacturing supplier based in Este, Oregon.

Micah, welcome to Construction Disruption.

It's a pleasure to have you here with me today.

Thank you Todd, and your podcast disrupted my life this year.

It was listening to your podcast that inspired this whole gratitude

campaign, and that's why I do this mindset video every Monday morning.

So I'm humbled and honored to join you.

We're gonna encourage folks to check out what you you're doing

'cause it's some great stuff, Micah.

And, uh, we'll get your contact information later and we'll also

put that in the show notes and hopefully folks will check that out.

Well.

Kind of get us started.

Tell us a little bit about Metallion Industries, maybe the products you

produce, the areas, the customers you serve, um, what you guys are all

about out there on the West Coast.

Regional role, former small to midsize.

We covered the general typical panels for.

Ag commercial, residential, steep slope, low slope.

An interesting thing we did this year is we switched our 24 gauge,

uh, just the normal colors, the 24 gauge, not the the metallic ones.

We switched 'em to a true mat finish away with the glossing with the mat.

So we'll see how that goes.

But most of our businesses within a hundred miles of Portland and the

lion's share of that is contractors.

Very cool.

Well, that trend toward matte finishes has certainly been a growing thing

that we're seeing across the country.

No doubt about it.

Well, I'm kind of curious, I mean, you've been at this for a while.

Um, what do you like about metal roofing and, you know, what is it?

That makes you feel good when you go out and talk to customers

and prospects, uh, about the products offered by your company.

It simply lasts.

The paint's gonna fade right some decades down the road, but the roof is still gonna

perform and well beyond 50 years often.

So that that means you can have dependability, sustainability,

and longevity without having, because you see, I used to do

asphalt shingle sales for a bit.

And that really made me happy to go back to me metal again.

'cause it's frustrating.

You see those warranties touting 50 years when real world, world

performance does, does not not stand up.

So it's, it's about having something that you can represent

with confidence and deliver on the promises you make to your customers.

That's very cool and it, it just reminded me of something.

So just this.

Morning I had a home or ac actually as a contractor I was connecting with on

Facebook on one of the roofing groups.

And you know, she is looking at a metal shingle roof, uh,

from the Victorian era era.

So it's actually on a house that was built in the 1890s.

Uh, it's the original roof.

And the question she asked me was, how long is this thing gonna last?

Um, because you know, of course as a roofing contractor, I think she kind

of wants to be able to replace it.

And I'm like, well, you gotta look over how it's doing.

But you know, there are lots of those roofs from that late 18 hundreds, early

19 hundreds that I still see performing in, in functioning just fine these days.

Well, so you've spent your entire career in sales, like you said, some

metal, some asphalt, some other areas.

Um.

What do you really enjoy about being in sales as a career?

It's the challenge first off, and then the face-to-face interaction.

Sales for me didn't truly begin till I stepped into outside sales.

So in a sense, I've only been one year into this adventure and most of my time

was inside sales, which was great for learning the technical side of things.

But I love outside sales 'cause it pushes me outside of my

comfort zone, like right now.

Right?

So with that there's growth.

And just the other week I had a guest, uh.

Jonathan Metcalf, he was on my GRTs video.

And by the way, grats is short for gratitude driven people

like you and I, Todd, right?

So

Absolutely.

Jonathan said, struggle.

He's thankful for struggle.

That stuck with me.

Struggle produces strength.

So if you're not struggling, you're not growing, and it's as simple as that.

The mindset makes a big difference.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, it reminds me of, uh, I think it's in the first chapter of James,

I believe, uh, a little scripture there about how, uh, you know, those

struggles teach us perseverance.

And perseverance builds our faith, builds our strength.

Cool stuff.

My son did a, his valedictorian speech a couple years ago in high school

and was focused on that scriptural passage, and I was like, where in

the world did you get that from?

That is awesome.

Anyway, um, well, speaking of that, I know that faith, um,

is a big part of your life.

Can you tell us maybe a little bit about your faith journey and, um,

how, how does that impact your career?

What does that mean to you as you go out in, in the world of sales?

The best part about my job is that my boss founded the company 26.

Years ago on the motto, you see right behind me, live every day for Jesus.

And it's inspiring to have a leader who exemplifies that high standard.

And it personally, cha okay, first off, it's in the Pacific

Northwest, it's counter-cultural.

good

That's okay.

'cause it, it challenges me every day to take up my cross and follow my Lord.

What I mean, let's flesh that out.

What I mean is when there's painful things, when there's

struggles, when there's thorns or nails, I'm to embrace them.

And let's think about the example that Jesus gave because he, he

came with a distinct mission and he poured himself into serving, and

finally he gave his lifeblood so you and I can be redeemed from death.

I know that went really deep fast, but.

It's incredibly good news and I want everyone to consider the life changing

faith that's available through Jesus.

That's cool.

Hey, we will take sharing the gospel anytime.

Thank you very much.

Well, can I, uh, quick faith journey?

So I'll, I'll keep it quick.

Give the real quick version.

So I was in college and I was miserable in my hypocritical

Christianity freshman year.

I had biology and I learned about evolution.

And not that I had it, no, but I learned a little deeper and I just decided to

trade in my dead faith for no faith.

And at first it was a big relief 'cause I was no longer drugging

Christ's name through the mud.

But it six years just got worse and worse and worse.

And thankfully the Lord didn't give up on me.

In 2013, I started to search him out or first it was just something just.

Something solid, something trustworthy, and yeah, after months of looking

and searching, I decided, yeah, Jesus is king and I need to bow the knee.

Now everyone's journey's different and I, I wish mine was more like the possible

Pauls, but instead it's been pretty slow progress and sometimes backwards progress.

Thankfully, the Lord's been merciful.

I have patient.

Encouraging brothers and sisters at my local church, so it's just a

blessing that I can be where I am.

I think your story is common to a lot of Christians in their faith.

You know, you know, maybe they were raised in the church but they went away

to college and things kind of changed.

And, uh, you know, as I was coming out of college, I probably would've

called myself agnostic, to be honest.

Um, had someone ask me.

Um, but.

You know, I, I think God builds those stories into us and as he constantly

pursues us and brings us back to him, that just gives us the story

to go out and share with others.

Well, I think it's cool.

You and I have connected at some and, and I've been watching you with what

you're doing on your own social media.

Um, of course you go by metal Micah, which is cool.

Um.

But you talk a lot about gratitude.

Um, and to me gratitude is something that also really impacts our attitude.

Um, I'm curious, can you reflect a little bit on how attitude,

um, is more than just a mood.

But really it almost becomes a lever in order to accomplish those

preferred outcomes in life and business and faith and so forth.

So speak a little bit about that idea of, of gratitude and,

and, um, how that impacts us.

That's an interesting concept and I'm glad I had a few days to think

about that in advance because I think of a door and there's a lever on it.

You can open it that allows someone to trust us to solve their issue, right?

When it comes to business and how are we gonna get them to trust us

if our attitude is self-serving.

Most people are gonna sense that if our attitude is, we generally want what works

out the best for them, even if it means losing the deal, well, they're gonna sense

that too and where it's gonna get around.

So attitude is a lever.

That's cool.

And I know one of the things we talk a lot about here is our attitude needs

to be that we wanna help that customer accomplish what they want to accomplish.

Even if it turns out that doesn't.

Involve us down the road.

Um, our goal is still to help them accomplish what is best

for them and for their home.

Um, well, tell me a little bit about what your typical day looks like.

I know it's pretty early out your time right now when we're recording

this, but how do you set the stage for each day, um, to try to do your

best, to live with that sense of gratitude and, and a positive attitude?

2025 has been a year of groundbreaking, you know,

breaking up the fallow ground and, and starting new habits.

And it has been, it's funny you ask this 'cause it's been the beginning of the

day that I've been starting with, right?

You gotta start somewhere.

So five o'clock, wake up and then start prayer around five 30 and

hopefully read the Bible too.

And that, and then at six 30, it's the why.

And this goes back to Sean Foyer podcast that was instrumental.

He talks about meditating on why, and he talks about gratitude.

So I do that for about 10 minutes and then go into my workday.

Yeah.

Thinking about that.

Why?

It's funny, I was just, I was sitting yesterday with a group of our, um,

sort of, you know, newer folks to.

Leadership here at the company.

And, uh, I reviewed with them a Simon Sinek, uh, video that's

all about attitude and mindset.

And, you know, for Simon Sinek, it's always about, you

gotta start with that why.

And that why probably doesn't have anything to do with what

you're actually gonna do that day.

Um, it's actually a much bigger, bigger picture thing.

Well.

Let's just say that you're having a crappy day.

We all have them, you know, and, and maybe the kids aren't behaving.

Um, maybe you didn't get that big deal.

You were hoping to get, maybe, maybe you didn't just have one flat tire, you

had two flat tires on your way to work.

I've had that happen before.

How do you keep those situations from patients, from spiraling

you downward into a bad place?

Mentally and really sometimes even spiritually is where

I can end up in a bad spot.

I'll just tell a story.

It was about a month ago.

I was on my way and I had an appointment, but I wanted to fit in

a haircut, so I stopped and somehow, some way I still don't understand.

I locked myself out and I was tempted.

Okay.

But no, I remind myself, gotta be grateful, and I was grateful

for Locksmiths right there.

I was like, yep, I can be grateful for locksmiths.

I called one.

He answered so happy, thanked him immensely.

Got my haircut.

His employee showed up promptly thereafter.

But this young man was the sweetest 20-year-old I'd ever, ever met,

and he didn't.

Know the scriptures, but some reason he started asking me questions.

Uh, it was just, it just, it was so organic.

It was amazing.

He just started asking me all these questions, deep questions.

Normally he can pick locks very fast.

He's been doing it for years, but he couldn't pick it.

It just kept trying and trying.

So he kept asking more questions.

And anyway, our 15, 20 minute interchange ended up being a huge blessing.

So it's, those wrenches are blessings in disguise, but.

God wants us to first embrace them and appreciate them.

I'm curious, was it your house or your car you were locked out of?

I didn't quite catch that.

Sorry, it was my vehicle.

Yeah.

Your vehicle.

Okay.

So, so that happened to me a while back and same thing, I'm like, oh my gosh.

Well this was cool.

So I realized that my car had OnStar, even though I didn't pay for an OnStar

subscription, I just called OnStar.

They unlocked my car somehow from the cloud.

That was pretty amazing.

Uh, yeah, that was pretty cool.

So I didn't have to do the whole locksmith thing.

Um, well, I'm curious where.

Have you seen, you know, having that positive attitude, um, lead most, or or

most directly lead to a positive outcome?

I mean, do you see it helpful in sales, relationship building, family life?

I mean, other areas where, where do you see it really

leading, uh, to, to good things?

We have to define a positive outcome, and

that would be responding in a good way.

So if the positive outcome is responding with kindness or love, then it's a

win-win no matter how the outcome is.

And.

If it's personal gain as we were talking about earlier, then yeah, it's gonna be a

win or lose and we're gonna have all these failures 'cause you can't win every deal.

And genuine kindness is something that is pervasive and people, okay.

For instance, Joe Talman have you hat on, what was it, a

few months ago in September,

Yeah.

A while back.

he talks about integrity selling.

So I'll just shut up and, and let him talk.

It's way better.

Well, that's a, that's a good answer.

You know, Joe actually has an amazing story himself in that, uh, he had a

severe heart attack at a pretty young age.

I think he was still in his fifties, and, um, he wasn't supposed to make it.

And I'll tell you going through that experience, 'cause I knew Joe before

the heart attack and I knew him after.

And uh, it really changed him.

So, you know, as you said that you gotta define what positive outcome is.

I really like that Mike.

And you're so wise because, uh, you do because so often those

things that, um, we may think.

Define a positive outcome here on, uh, this earth.

That doesn't define a positive outcome to God at all.

Um, and if we're living our life for Jesus, we gotta look for those positive

outcomes in terms of what he's trying to accomplish, uh, in the world, in our souls

and our spirit, whatever that might be.

Well, so, so the metal roofing industry.

I've been at it a really long time.

I got a few years on you, Micah.

But anyway, uh, it can be pretty competitive.

Um.

Do.

Do you think your customers really notice that, hey, there's

something different about this guy.

I mean, maybe it's your faith, maybe it's just that positive attitude

that you put forth, but do you think your customers notice that?

And do they like that?

I mean, is that something they they kind of like or, or is it more that

they notice, okay, this guy not only has a positive attitude, he actually.

Does things for me, um, because that can be real lacking in

today's marketplace as well.

I, I'm just gonna say that.

It does give you competitive edge, having a positive attitude.

And if we look at some studies, for instance, um, on gratitude, let's

say that that aspect of a positive attitude, uh, one was Wharton School,

business school there in Pennsylvania.

They did a, they were doing a fundraiser calling and they

had one group had a manager.

Express appreciation for the, you know, the people that were doing the cold

calling or whatever, and the other group didn't, the, the group that had the

appreciation had 50% more cold calls made.

they they were hammering away 50.

So, so it, it creates a it joy.

If you have a joy in peace in you, if you have that, then people are

comfortable with you and that's what gives you the competitive edge.

And you know, I've always sensed that from you in

terms of, you know, this guy is just, stays pretty even keeled.

He has that constant peace about him and joy.

Yeah.

You're kind of laughing, but you, you really seem to, but, um.

Well, let me ask that.

Lemme dig at that a little bit.

I mean, how do you model this sense of composure for your team

at work and even your family?

I, I think we've all seen that if stress enters in and one of the

leaders or one of the people starts to really show that stress, the

things can really spiral badly.

Um, where do you find that ability to maintain your composure?

Well, no, it's, if you were to talk to my wife and yeah, there's been

change, there's been evolution in my.

Life over the last 10 years and, and it's looking to Jesus.

He's the example.

And humility is, is, a key aspect.

If it, if it's a triage, right?

Like you have gratitude, you have humility, you have faith.

I don't know so many triage you could make, but, but humility is gonna be

the, the big one and, and selflessness.

And there's a song that.

We sing at home quite a bit.

It's a children's song.

J-O-Y-J-O-Y-J-O-Y must mean Jesus first, yourself last, and others in between.

Have you ever heard that one,

Sure.

Sure.

Okay.

Beautiful.

So that, that's the, that.

No, that's a great way to live and great thing

to model and be teaching your children, um, no doubt about it.

Well, I, I'm curious.

We all have those times in our, uh, life when we have what I call stubbed our toe.

Um, where we, we didn't do, didn't model what we wanted to.

Can you ever think of a time where that happened to you and

it really taught you a lesson?

I mean, it taught you, Hey, I'm not gonna do that again.

Powerful lessons come through struggles and falling on our face.

And the biggest one, I'm gonna get a bit personal here.

The biggest one was early on right when I got married.

I instead when, when we had differences, I would argue my point.

And this, yeah, it led to some pretty serious heartache and it wasn't till

three years later, finally, when the Lord humbled me back to earlier,

the humility aspect humbled me in realizing that my role is to love

her, not pound her with logic, that that was the transforming power.

I like that and I appreciate your vulnerability and as

you've said it, you brought to mind two instances in the early years

of my wife and i's relationship.

Uh, one before we were married and one where after where, you

know, I just really blew it.

Um, and you know, you go back and you ask for, uh.

Ask for forgiveness and you apologize for it.

But, you know, both of those instances have forever stuck with me

that I'm not gonna go there again.

Um, that was just, uh, really bad.

So interesting.

One other thought on that is I think the reason is fear.

Hmm.

that's the, the motive and, and not, I mean, we talk about

that a lot, but, but the antidote is the perfect love, which is

mauled by Christ that casts it out.

Oh, cool.

Well, let's say there's somebody out there in our audience who knows that

they struggle with mindset and attitude.

Um, any bit of a top advice for them to try to overcome that.

I, I love how you start your day.

I think that's a great thing, but curious what your advice would be.

Opposite of gratitude.

We could think of probably many things, but one thing that

comes to mind is entitlement.

You deserve it.

And if we're demanding comforts, if we're demanding safe.

Quotas.

If we're demanding things, then we're bound to be frustrated.

And when we have the mindset shift that everything's a gift.

I think it's James also that says every gift, uh, there's, every good

and perfect gift is from above and comes from the father of lights.

So, train our mind.

We can train our mind, we can, our minds can be renewed with or without

the Holy Spirit, quite frankly.

Uh, you know, obviously I would hope it would be the, the latter, but, but we can.

God gives us the ability to train our minds and we can literally pick

those entitlement thoughts out and replace 'em with gratitude thoughts.

That's cool stuff.

Well, kind of taking off of that, if you were to give someone a seven day

attitude challenge, one behavior that if they just start doing it every day,

you think it's gonna make a difference, um, by the end of the week, what,

what would that behavior change be?

First thing in the morning, get out a pen and paper.

Just start rapid fire writing down for five minutes.

Write down as many things you can think of as what you're grateful for.

And then at the end of the five minutes, just brief, briefly

review it and repeat that.

And I've heard 'cause of our brains and the neuroplasticity, and I don't, I don't

haven't researched it, but I've heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit.

So

I'm gonna just flip the script a little bit and do it 21 days and then be amazed.

Good stuff.

Well, I'm curious, what do you read?

I know you said start with the Bible or some sort of a devotional reading every

day, but um, you know, who do you follow?

What are you watching out there to find, you know, your light and

your inspiration in, in your life?

A number of years ago, maybe five years ago, I got one

of those daily Bibles that breaks up the Bible into one, uh, 365

Oh, yeah.

So in the morning, I, I try to get the New Testament in Solomon, and

then in the evening, the Old Testament and a couple proverbs, that is basically

the lion share of my reading because I'm just family, man and work and everything.

It's just like, I would love to read more, but that's just, yeah,

that's just ends up being sad to say what, but it's, it's, it's going to,

it's, it's the baseline for me and.

There was one book I read in the spring that was powerful, and it's called The

Reason For Existence by David Alama.

You can get the Kindle book version even on Amazon either

way, but this book is deep.

It starts out with, you might say, apologetics, meaning it goes into the

reason for existence and comparing it to maybe, uh, evolution and, but, but

it, it's very deep thinking, right?

It's not like just.

And then it goes the, the best part though is it goes into chapters

and chapters on the atonement and why that is the central part of our

faith in how it's transformative.

The reason for existence, I have not run across

that, so I wanna check that out.

Thank you.

Mike, it's been a real pleasure and privilege to have you with us here today.

I always enjoy talking with you.

You're a wise young man and, uh, love the way you're willing to

share and the way that you stand boldly, uh, for, for the gospel.

Um, love that as well.

But is there anything we haven't covered here that you'd sure

like to share with our audience?

Our creator the Almighty, he is at work and.

I don't have to tell a lot of you that, but some of you might not be seeing it.

But here's an example.

I have a friend we've been praying for for years and his life took a turn this year.

It got really hard, you know, you lose loved ones in your life, things happen.

Responsibility shift.

It got really hard and, and we started praying more and more, and last Sunday.

He gave his heart to the Lord.

And this is years, okay, years in the making.

And on Monday I, now, I didn't find out till like a few days ago,

Tuesday, but on Monday I released this gratitude video on new beginnings, new

life, and being grateful for the new birth being born again spiritually.

And I just this morning.

Or during the night I was just woke up in the middle.

I was just like crying, just feeling so blessed.

Like, like, 'cause I got to talk to him yesterday, um, for the

first time after this happened and embrace him and pray with him.

And it was just there.

This is way more exciting than construction sales.

The,

the work of the kingdom.

Absolutely.

Praise Jesus.

Glad to hear that story and I'm glad you shared that.

Thank you.

Um, yeah.

Reminder for all of us.

Keep on praying, keep on planting the seed and, uh, let God do the rest.

It'll, he'll do it in his time.

Well, Micah, this has been a great, valuable time together.

Um, before we close out, I'm gonna ask if you're willing to participate in something

we call our rapid fire questions.

Um, these are just five questions, a couple serious, couple more silly ones.

All you have to do is give top of your head response.

Are you up to the challenge of rapid fire?

Great.

Question number one, what is a product or service you have acquired recently

that was a real game changer for you?

Sort of a where have you been?

All my life moment.

Okay, well, if I were to say chat GBT, I'd be way redundant,

so I'm not gonna say that, but I'm gonna go on to another one, which

is a sales role, play AI thing.

Oh.

You practice with an avatar talking to 'em.

The, the bad part is, is I don't do it every day, but when I do it, I'm never

disappointed because it's so helpful to, uh, instead of burning your leads practice

and of course practicing with another person's ideal, but sometimes you can't.

Yeah.

What's the name of that?

Is there, is it an app or something or,

Oh, there's lots of

versions.

This is pitch monster.

I never even heard of it.

Oh, cool.

I'm gonna check that out.

Question number two, what is your favorite meal?

Ooh.

I just, we had all these meals when we had our baby, 'cause Marcus is like three

weeks old and one was a, someone from our church brought this big, it was a

half thing or of white, just white rice.

And then it was like this maybe, I don't know what you call it, Japanese

maybe, or, or Korean style ground beef.

It was so simple and amazing and it was of course, four times

as much as it should have been.

It took us days to eat it all.

So yeah, that was a, a real blessing.

Oh, that's cool.

Very neat.

Okay, I'm gonna stick with the eating theme.

Uh, this is a question we used to ask a lot here on the show,

and we kind of got away from it, so I'm gonna subject you to it.

If you had to eat a crayon, what color of crayon would you choose to eat?

Green's always been my favorite color, and you'll probably

notice if I ate the green crayon and I can maybe convince you that I really did it.

Good deal.

Question number four, do you have a bucket list vacation, and if so, what is that?

It's probably, I, I don't, but just offhand it's

gonna be national parks, right.

Oh, wow.

beautiful places to camp and all those places like my, my

dad and just went down to Yosemite and, and things and it's like, wow.

Where, where am I?

Why, why haven't I haven't been, I haven't been to the Grand Canyon even.

Anyway, so yeah, there's definitely just a lot of places right here in the us.

Cool.

I love that.

And we, uh, we were blessed.

We had a project in Yosemite a couple years ago.

I'm, uh, working with some architects now on a project in

the Grand Canyon National Park.

And, uh, uh, love it when we get those types of pro projects going.

Um, well last question.

What would you like way in the future?

'cause you're a young guy, what would you like to be remembered

for at the end of your days?

That's easy.

Just someone who was killed for the faith.

Someone, if I wasn't killed for the faith, I was boldly promoting the faith.

And yeah, it's just, it's just been one of those years, you know, with

Charlie Kirk being, being killed.

It's just, it's just the, the quote from the early church

father, his name was maybe, um.

Tertullian, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church and however I go,

I just want to burn out for the Lord.

Love it.

Great answer.

Well, Mike, I love, um, your attitude.

I love the impact you've had on me, the impact you have on others.

Things you're doing with your own, uh, gratitude videos and things,

but, um, for those who may wanna connect with you or connect with

Metallion industries, um, what are the best ways for them to do that?

LinkedIn's a great way.

My number is 5 0 3 6 3 0 7 5 1 3.

My email.

It's my first name, M-I-C-A-H at metallion.

That's metal lion industries.com.

And my last name, by the way, is B as in boy, O-A-K.

Cool.

Thank you.

And of course, battalion industries.com is the website

and I never made that connection.

That was metal lion before.

That is so embarrassing.

I love it.

I never, never made that connection.

Oh no.

Uh, good stuff.

Well, thank you again.

It's been a pleasure to visit with you, Micah.

Oh, the pleasure's all mine.

I really appreciate it.

Todd.

I look up to you and look forward to watching the next podcast You have.

Sounds good.

Cool.

Well, thank you to our audience for tuning into this very special episode

of Construction Disruption, uh, with our friend Micah Boak of Metallion Industries.

Um, please watch for future episodes of our podcast.

We always have great guests.

Don't forget to leave us a positive review or give us that thumbs up.

Um.

Keep on disrupting, keep on challenging, keep on looking for new ways of doing

things, but most importantly, have a positive impact on everyone you encounter.

Make them smile, encourage them.

Uh, such simple yet powerful things we can do to truly change the world.

So God bless and take care.

This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode

of Construction Disruption.