We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aaron Riddick a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Aaron, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I graduated high school, I was trying to establish a signature. I was practicing creating one and one of them was involved my initials. So, it was as if a light went off and I was like ahhhhh that sounds good. That’s how the name came forth.

Aaron, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a man who loves God and I’m a loving husband with 3 amazing children. I am a man who also loves life and impacting people. I happened to fall into this field through a disappointment after high school. I was in contact with this guy who was supposed to be helping me get a barbers license but it fell through. At that point of my life I had no idea of why direction I was going. I began to work with a deacon at our church as he was working on houses. That prompted me to go to Tidewater Builders Association and once I graduated, I got a full time job in maintenance at Kings Grant Landing Apartments. I was 19 years old and, since then, I have been in this field learning from experience and contractors.

What I do for a living accomplishes many things. I get to opportunity to problem solve by repairing things that are inoperable or damaged. The joy is to bring whatever that is back to the place of functionality. Another opportunity is build relationships. I have met a lot of people who have been an asset to my life. If there’s another thing that comes to mind it’s learning how to be diverse with different types of people and also knowing how to channel emotions through different situations.

If there’s something I can say I’m proud of, it’s the fact of having a business at all. I never saw this as being the career path I’d have. When I sit back some days and reflect, I began to be sort of amazed at all that has been accomplished thus far.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

My work and my character. I think I do pretty good work but if I give an opinion, it’s usually based off of what clients have said over the years. They have been pleased with the work that has been performed. When it comes to character, I’m honest. If I can’t meet the time I said, I let the person know. If something goes wrong and I had anything to do with it, I go and fix it and do not charge the person extra. If I have gotten to a job and got to working and find out the job is beyond my ability, I let the client know and am willing to take that hit for the inconvenience. I don’t dress up what’s happening. Give them details of what’s going on.These measures have kept trust within myself and the client.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn being afraid failure. Now, do I still hold myself to a high standard? Absolutely! But, I’ve learned that in reality we are going to mess up sometimes. When pride gets involved, we can tend to hinder our growth from those mess ups or areas where we may not be as good.

I don’t think I have a backstory per se but I do have a good example. I had very bad anxiety when it came to doing anything in front of people. I remember when I was trying out for the basketball team but because of my fear to mess up in front of people, I did unusual things on the basketball court, I could handle the ball well, do layups and shoot, but for some odd reason it didn’t transfer when I was in front of people. I remember being on a fast break and I was so nervous knowing this is a given to make this layup. Don’t miss was going through my head. When I attempted the layup it went over the backboard. All my friends were like what’s wrong with you.

Fast forward to my early 20s, I had to preach for the first time in my life. I was so nervous. I was tripping on my words early on but eventually I settled in and it appeared to go well. My bishop poured in to me and helped relieve the pressure of worrying about messing up by telling stories of times he messed up but realizing that as long as we are human beings, we are subject to mess up sometimes. It happens. From then on I’ve walked throughout all areas of life with that relief of pressure for the possibility of messing up.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/amrhs19