Moving is one of those experiences that tends to bring out the worst in people. The boxes never fit, the timeline is always tight, and everyone involved is usually stressed beyond reason. George Clements has built his career, and now a reality docuseries, around exactly that chaos. As the owner of Can’t Quit Moving and the star of the show by the same name, Clements has spent years figuring out how to lead a team through high-pressure moments while keeping customers calm along the way.
For Clements, the foundation of good leadership starts with a simple idea. “Lead with empathy; everyone is just trying to figure it out,” he says. That mindset gets tested constantly in his line of work, where plans have the potential to fall apart the moment a crew shows up on site.
The Job That Doubled Overnight
One job in particular stands out. Clements recalls a move to another state where the customer had sent over a detailed inventory list, boxes measured and weighed down to the last item. The estimate was 105 boxes. When the crew arrived, that number had somehow ballooned to 264. “They said I should always assume there would be more,” Clements explains. “Yes, I do honestly always assume there will be more boxes, but that was more than double.”
With the customer needing to be out that same night, there wasn’t time to panic. Clements told his crew to start loading anyway, and the team ended up renting a second truck on the fly, with his brother taking an Uber to go pick it up. Everything got loaded that day and delivered the next, right on schedule. Looking back, Clements says the experience taught him something that has stuck with him ever since. “It’s better to keep going as you figure everything out because time is against you. If you keep going, it will all work out. Maybe not how you planned, but it’s better than giving up and quitting.”
That instinct for staying steady under pressure didn’t come out of nowhere. Clements is a fourth-generation mover, and he traces a lot of his approach back to riding along on his father’s trucks as a kid. What stuck with him most wasn’t a pricing strategy or a sales trick. It was how his father treated people. “He always made each one of his customers feel at ease, even if everything else was going sideways,” Clements says. He believes that same quality carried down through his grandfather and now through him. The real principle passed through the generations, he says, is that “it’s okay to show compassion to your customers.”
Building a Team That Stays Calm Under Pressure
That philosophy extends to how Clements builds his team. He looks for each person’s individual strengths and then leans into them, the same way a coach would build a roster around what each player does best. From there, the focus shifts to confidence. “Training and building confidence leads to competence,” he says.
Customer service, in Clements’ view, is really about paying attention. His crews show up during some of the biggest transitions in a person’s life, from marriages and newborns to divorces and even deaths in the family. Reading the emotional tone of a job matters as much as loading a truck correctly. “If a client feels comfortable opening up to you, they trust you are there to help. Not just another job or number,” he says.
When it comes to hiring, Clements skips right past resumes packed with technical experience. He wants people he would trust “ringing our doorbell.” Honesty, loyalty, work ethic and a positive attitude top the list, because those traits are much harder to teach than the job itself.
What the Cameras Revealed
Filming a reality show ended up changing how Clements views his own company. Watching the footage back, he noticed his crew operating well without him standing over their shoulder, applying what he had taught them in their own way. It shifted his approach to training. “I understand they all aren’t going to do everything exactly like I would, but I trust them to do what’s right with what I taught them and interpret that for themselves,” he says.
Resilience, for Clements, isn’t some abstract virtue. It shows up daily in the form of closing delays, surprise inspections, and awkward pieces of furniture that won’t cooperate. He has even started calling the toughest jobs “fun” pieces, including a memorable Instagram video where his crew had to cut a refrigerator in half to get it out of a customer’s finished basement.
Advice for Founders Playing the Long Game
His advice for founders hoping to build something that lasts across generations is straightforward. Keep adapting, stay open to new opportunities, and don’t get stuck doing things the same way forever. As Clements puts it, that mindset is part of why a small family moving company ended up with its own reality show, and now this interview.
