High Performance Habits: How a Former Firefighter Built a Thriving Carpentry Business

What does it take to leave a secure, prestigious career to pursue entrepreneurial success? For Nick Svikesus, founder of Calgary Custom Concepts, the journey from firefighter to successful business owner required deep self-reflection, intentional habit transformation, and an unwavering commitment to personal growth.

In my recent podcast conversation with Nick, we explored how his background in biathlon competition shaped his definition of high performance, how meditation helped him make his pivotal career decision, and the specific habits he cultivated to build a thriving carpentry and millwork business. His story offers valuable insights for anyone looking to elevate their performance in business or transition from employee to entrepreneur.

Let's dive into the key strategies and mindset shifts that transformed Nick from a firefighter with a side hustle into a successful business owner focused on creating beautiful, custom millwork and accent walls.

Defining High Performance Through Olympic-Level Standards

Nick's understanding of high performance was shaped by training alongside Olympic biathletes—athletes who spend four years preparing for a single day of competition:

"When they've trained for four years for the Olympics and they have one day, they perform on one day. And for them, it doesn't matter how they wake up, how they feel that day. None of that matters. It's not up to their external circumstance. They make it happen."

This mindset—performing at your peak regardless of external circumstances—became foundational to Nick's approach to business. For Olympic athletes, excuses aren't an option. When you've invested years of preparation for a single performance opportunity, you develop the ability to deliver excellence on demand.

Nick brought this same mentality to his carpentry business, committing to consistent high-quality work regardless of challenges. This mindset served him particularly well during the transition period when he was balancing his firefighting career with his growing business.

From Forest Fires to Fine Carpentry

Nick's journey began with a unique background. Born to immigrant parents from Argentina (his father a robotics developer and his mother a physicist), Nick trained as a carpenter but found himself drawn to firefighting after working summer jobs as a forest firefighter.

The excitement of emergency response led him to join a volunteer fire department, and eventually, a full-time position with the city fire department. While the job offered security and camaraderie, Nick soon felt limited by the rigid, hierarchical structure:

"In this 200-year-old institution, which is the fire service, there's not much room for growth and improvement. It's very rigid, hierarchical, structured. In our city in particular, the only way to get promoted or to advance was for somebody to retire or somebody to die."

This realization created tension for Nick, who found himself caught between the security of firefighting and his entrepreneurial aspirations in carpentry.

The Meditation Breakthrough: Finding Clarity Through Stillness

The turning point in Nick's career came unexpectedly—through meditation. When asked about the moment he decided to leave firefighting for entrepreneurship, Nick shared:

"The best thing probably that ever happened to me, he gave me a prescription for meditation and he said, take 15 minutes every morning, every evening and sit down quietly. And then we'll talk about what comes up while you're trying to quiet your mind."

This practice of quiet reflection revealed deeper truths about his personality and aspirations:

"It was in those moments that I realized, yeah, the fire department isn't going to work long-term. Because I started basically listening to myself more deeply and the message I was getting back was, you know, this, this and this doesn't fit with your personality so it's not going to work in the long term."

Nick's experience highlights a powerful principle: sometimes the answers we need aren't found through more action or external advice, but through creating space to listen to ourselves. This practice of meditation—of intentional stillness—became the catalyst for his career transition.

Overcoming the Delegation Hurdle

Once Nick committed to his business full-time, he faced a common entrepreneurial challenge: delegating work to grow beyond his personal capacity. His first attempt at hiring fell flat when he brought on unvetted employees who underperformed and damaged client relationships.

This created a painful catch-22 situation:

"I was in this painful state and pictured myself as being in a catch-22 where I don't have enough money to hire and I need to hire someone to make more money."

A pivotal conversation with fellow entrepreneur Mike Jasper helped Nick break through this mental barrier. By analyzing the timeline to profitability for a new hire, Nick realized that even if he needed to borrow money to cover initial costs, the long-term benefits would far outweigh the risks.

This realization—that short-term investment in the right people would yield long-term returns—enabled Nick to successfully delegate the hands-on carpentry work and focus on growing the business:

"The guy I hired is great and he was making money from day one. So that was sort of the transition and that allowed me to step back and really be completely off the tools and just manage the projects, run the company."

Transforming Habits: The Key to Sustainable Growth

A central theme throughout Nick's journey is intentional habit transformation. After a pivotal experience at age 18—finding himself in a sketchy temporary housing situation while on a work trip—Nick committed to pursuing his potential rather than settling for mediocrity.

This pursuit led him to immerse himself in personal development, attending Tony Robbins events and consuming self-improvement content. However, he initially struggled to make progress:

"I struggled with that at first with the personal development because I was just trying to pile on this new knowledge, these new techniques or habits onto what I was already doing, which I had bad habits."

The breakthrough came when Nick realized he needed to eliminate negative habits before installing positive ones:

"What I really realized was you have to get rid of the old habits in order to install the new ones. You got to basically uninstall those old ones because otherwise if you're just trying to pile on top of the negative habits, those are going to crush any progress that you make."

This process of uninstallation involved quitting smoking, drinking, and other behaviors that didn't align with his vision. He then established new routines:

"Now those look like, you know, waking up at five every morning, working out every day, making sure to read every day, you know, nutrition, supplements, everything to optimize your health and your mental state and clarity so you can go through your day and do what you got to do."

The "Garbage In, Garbage Out" Principle

Nick takes a particularly disciplined approach to information consumption, based on a programming principle:

"If you're consuming garbage, you know, if I'm going home and watching Family Guy and The Simpsons, that's the information that's rolling around in my brain. It's getting into my subconscious."

This vigilance extends to all forms of media consumption. Nick hasn't watched a movie in over a year and doesn't follow popular shows—not because these activities are inherently negative, but because they don't align with his specific goals:

"If my goal was to be a movie reviewer, then yeah, no problem. I'll be watching movies, but that's not in line with my vision, with the long-term focus."

His decision-making is guided by a belief that roughly 80% of our decisions are influenced by what we've consumed in the previous 24 hours. This perspective has led him to be extremely selective about his information diet:

"If I want to make higher quality decisions, I have to have higher quality inputs into my mind so that information is available."

Maintaining Balance: The Seven Buckets Approach

While Nick is clearly driven to achieve business success, he recognizes the importance of maintaining balance across all life areas. He uses a "seven buckets" framework to ensure he isn't neglecting critical aspects of his life:

1. Family
2. Home
3. Vocation
4. Finances
5. Relationships
6. Mental well-being
7. Physical and spiritual health

"Make sure that you're not neglecting one of them, that you're pouring into each bucket, and if one of them is getting low, then you need to go and put some focus on there. If your relationships are getting neglected, then go and focus and pour into that because if any of those gets unbalanced, then it's gonna drag problems into the rest of your life."

This holistic approach to high performance acknowledges that true success isn't just about business growth, but about thriving across all dimensions of life. It's particularly relevant now as Nick and his wife prepare for their first child, adding another layer to his life balance equation.

Conclusion: The Formula for High Performance Success

Nick's journey from firefighter to successful entrepreneur illustrates several key principles for high performance:

1. Define excellence on your own terms - Nick's Olympic-level standard of performing regardless of circumstances set a foundation for consistent business success.
2. Create space for self-reflection - Through meditation, Nick gained clarity about his career path that intellectual analysis couldn't provide.
3. Eliminate before you add - By removing negative habits first, Nick created space for positive routines to take root and flourish.
4. Be intentional about your inputs - By carefully curating the information he consumes, Nick maintains mental clarity and makes better decisions.
5. Maintain balance across life areas - The seven buckets approach ensures that business success doesn't come at the expense of other important life dimensions.

These principles aren't just theoretical—they've enabled Nick to build a successful carpentry business focused on custom millwork and accent walls, publish a book on optimism, and create space for a growing family. His experience demonstrates that with the right mindset and habits, it's possible to leave the security of traditional employment and build a thriving business aligned with your passions and strengths.

As Nick prepares for fatherhood while continuing to grow his business, his story reminds us that high performance isn't just about achieving business goals—it's about creating a life where all areas thrive in harmony.