Contractor Tip of the Month: It’s Hard to Beat the Person Who Never Gives Up

Words: Damian Lang

Persistence doesn’t always look like progress. It’s not a trophy or a headline. It’s the decision to keep showing up, especially when the numbers don’t break your way. For many contractors, that decision is personal rather than public. It’s made in the quiet moments, long before anyone else takes notice.

But sometimes, someone does notice. And when they finally put words to the doubts you’ve carried, it doesn’t hit because it’s right. It hits because it touches everything you’ve been wrestling with in your mind—the question you’ve refused to speak out loud for fear of what answering it might mean.

For me, it happened over a couple of drinks with a fellow contractor. He is someone I’ve called a friend for years, who knows the ins and outs of this business as well as anyone. He looked me dead in the eye and asked, with brutal clarity, “Why don’t you give up on your general contracting company? You’ve been in this peer group for years, and all we see are losses, year after year.”

It wasn’t an accusation, just a question that cut deeper than I expected. I told him the truth, or as much as I could muster with a little vodka courage. “I see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

He nodded, didn’t press, and after a while, he wandered off to talk with someone else. But the question didn’t walk away with him. It stayed with me the rest of the night, following me from one conversation to the next. The longer it sat with me, the harder it became to ignore. It had surfaced something I had managed to keep tamped down for a long time, and now it wouldn’t let go.

A couple of days later, back in my office, my eyes landed on the sign hanging above my desk. It’s a simple phrase I’ve leaned on more times than I can count: It’s hard to beat the person who never gives up.

I stared at it, and the old doubts crept in. Could it be that I’m just too dumb to give up? Maybe I have too much pride, or maybe I just don’t know any better. Or just maybe, I’ve finally learned that the only lesson that truly matters in this business, and in life is the one above my desk: It’s hard to beat the person who never gives up.

This sign encourages me to keep going when things are tough, but it also makes me reflect on my persistence and doubts. It constantly challenges me to consider why I keep pushing forward instead of giving up.

I wish I could say I had a simple, noble answer. But the truth is, this business, the business of building, of contracting, of putting yourself on the line with every project, doesn’t lend itself to easy answers.

A few days later, I found myself in the waiting room of the OSU Eye Institute beside a man in his sixties. He shared how he lived in a northern Ohio town that had been battered by addiction and poverty. He’d been robbed and beaten so badly one night he nearly lost his sight. Unable to see well enough to drive, he sold his logging truck to pay for eye doctor visits. “Costs me $300 for a round trip. My eyes are more important than that logging truck,” he said, resolute.

While smiling, the man told of living mostly off the land. He said that if he really gets in a bind, there is a covered bridge nearby. That’s where he cut holes into a five-gallon bucket and dropped it off the side of the bridge into a deep-water hole between a couple of big rocks. With any luck, he would catch some rock bass, put a stick in their mouths, and cook them over a campfire.

“They're good,” he explained.

Listening, I was struck not just by what he had endured, but how he had chosen to endure it—without rage, without self-pity, and even with a touch of humor. He reminded me that loss doesn't have to be grave. It can fill us with strange, unexpected forms of resilience.

His story got me thinking about my own struggles, like the years we operated at a loss, the projects that fell apart, and the people I felt I failed. Seven businesses and 800 employees might sound impressive to some, but some nights it feels like an anchor, not a badge.

I saw in his story a reflection of my own—battered but not broken, forced to invent new ways to survive and keep stringing together enough hope to make it to the next day. We weren’t so different.

There is a deeper truth that keeps me going when quitting feels easiest. The world doesn’t just need winners. It needs witnesses. Those who have lived through broken businesses and shattered dreams, yet they still refuse to walk away.

Giving up doesn’t just cost us what we might have achieved. It robs the world of the example of persistence itself.

And then there’s this: Every loss, every failed project, every sleepless night spent wondering if I will make payroll has become part of the cost of a hard-won experience. It is a brutal lesson, but a valuable one. I have learned that the scars of perseverance are the price of wisdom, the only kind that truly matters in the long run.

So, why don’t I give up my general contracting company? Because the light at the end of the tunnel tells me this business is still worthwhile. That light is faint at times, but it is there. It fuels a quiet defiance within me that refuses to yield to circumstance.

Perhaps I am too headstrong, or I simply do not know when to quit. But in that resolve lives hope, the belief that tomorrow might be different, that loss is not destiny, and that persistence itself is a kind of victory.

There is also the fact that someone is always watching—my children, my employees, the young contractor just starting out who thinks I have it all figured out. They learn far more from how I handle defeat than from how I celebrate victory. To quit would teach them that hardship is final and setbacks are fatal. That is a lesson I will never teach.

Sometimes I think about the stories we will tell when the dust settles, when the accounts are closed, and history is written by those who did not quit. The world loves a comeback, but it respects those who stay the course, who show up again and again, heads high, battle-worn, but unbroken.

So why is giving up not an option? Because the act of not giving up is a gift, not just to yourself, but to everyone who will one day face their own darkness. It’s an act of rebellion, of faith, of hope. And on the other side of failure, there's wisdom you can’t buy, a strength you can’t fake, and a story no one else can tell.

As long as I can see even the faintest glimmer at the end of the tunnel, I will keep moving forward. Because sometimes, the greatest victory is simply refusing to be beaten.

_____

Damian Lang is the CEO of Lang Masonry Contractors, Wolf Creek Construction, Buckeye Construction and Restoration, 3 Promise Labor Services, FlexCrew, Malta Dynamics Fall Protection and Safety Company, and EZG Manufacturing. To see the products and equipment his companies have developed to enhance job site safety and efficiency, visit his websites at ezgmfg.com or maltadynamics.com. To get his free e-newsletters or talk with Damian about his management systems or products, email dlang@watertownenterprises.com, or call 740-749-3512.

Contractor Tip of the Month: It’s Hard to Beat the Person Who Never Gives Up

About: Contractor Tip of the Month

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