Latest / Mostly Middle Tennessee Business Podcast / Will AI Make the Trades More Valuable? | Esteban Legarrea :: Ep 297 Mostly Middle Tennessee Business Podcast

Transcript

Will AI Make the Trades More Valuable? | Esteban Legarrea :: Ep 297 Mostly Middle Tennessee Business Podcast · Mostly Middle Tennessee Business Podcast

• 0:00
  Unknown: So record, record. Here we go. Off we go.
• 0:06
  This is the mostly Middle Tennessee Business Podcast, a
• 0:09
  podcast about Middle Tennessee business owners and
• 0:12
  professionals, mostly. So
• 0:15
  I got to say that the the trades, and I've been saying
• 0:19
  this over the past couple of episodes, they're going to be
• 0:23
  ripe with a lot of talent, like good talent. Like instead of it
• 0:28
  being a 12 to one ratio where you have to go through 12 people
• 0:32
  to find
• 0:33
  the one
• 0:33
  in the trades, I think it's going to get down to like six or
• 0:35
  five. You know why?
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  AI.
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  AI. Because I think a lot of these white collar guys gonna
• 0:43
  start looking. They're gonna they're gonna be replaced.
• 0:47
  Oh man!
• 0:47
  And they're probably you know good quality people that are
• 0:49
  gonna get into the trades. What do you think?
• 0:51
  Oh man, that's that that's a big one to open up with, Jim. Wow.
• 0:56
  Well, I've I've done a seminar. They called it Blue Collar AI,
• 1:01
  and basically this guy was great. I mean, he's been a he's
• 1:04
  he's been a general contractor for years, and he talked about
• 1:07
  it being you know one of the safest industries to be in.
• 1:11
  Yeah,
• 1:12
  I mean I think and I agree. Like I think people are always going
• 1:15
  to need their estimators. They're always going to need
• 1:17
  their people installing whether it's plumbing, electrical,
• 1:22
  eight. all those things, garage doors, yeah, all those. Yeah,
• 1:26
  I don't see any. I don't see Skynet taking that anytime soon.
• 1:31
  But I mean, who knows?
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  You're going to have to have a lot of trust for robots to come
• 1:35
  in your house and get work done, man. We're a long ways off from
• 1:38
  that. Could a generation or two?
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  You know, yeah. I think we'll eat for some time now. I mean, I
• 1:45
  think we had a good run too.
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  But that's what I've been saying. You know, all the the
• 1:52
  trades have been kind of relegated to people that just,
• 1:56
  well, hey, it's a job. I guess I'll show up and do it. Those
• 1:59
  types of attitudes, and it's unfortunate because it's similar
• 2:02
  to the even even like the car business. You have a lot of the
• 2:05
  majority of the workforce that's in like the sales positions.
• 2:09
  They do it because they need a job. It's not a career. Trades
• 2:12
  are the same way. And you know, when I went to high school in
• 2:16
  the late 80s, early 90s, the kids who went to the trade
• 2:20
  school were kind of like looked down upon because you know they
• 2:25
  couldn't hack you know college and you know we we were so much
• 2:29
  better than they were because they had to go to Henry Abbott
• 2:31
  Tech, but the funny thing is that the laugh was on us because
• 2:35
  as I went and worked in the electrical trade after college
• 2:38
  didn't work out,
• 2:40
  one
• 2:41
  of the guys that I worked with, he was a great guy. Oh gosh, his
• 2:45
  name was Tony Cordero. I know his last name was Cordero, but
• 2:51
  I'm not sure if his name first name was Tony. But anyway,
• 2:53
  sorry, guy. He talked about. He's like, look, I didn't spend
• 2:57
  a dime for my education, and I am I am outperforming monetarily
• 3:02
  and financially all of my peers that I went to high school with.
• 3:06
  He says, you know, because back then he was making like 40 or 50
• 3:08
  grand a year, and he was like, you know, a three-year I want to
• 3:12
  say journeyman. So at that point,
• 3:15
  I think that they are
• 3:17
  get on that mic. Let's hear.
• 3:18
  Sorry, sorry. Yeah, I mean, I think that there are people, and
• 3:23
  even when I was in high school, like, I mean, I didn't really,
• 3:25
  I, I didn't see it back then, but um, yeah, I mean, they were
• 3:28
  definitely ahead of the game. I mean, uh, you know, how many of
• 3:31
  us are debt free these days? Right. And I mean, if it only
• 3:34
  takes you two years and with a minimum college fund, um, and
• 3:39
  you can get in some sort of trades. I mean, it doesn't just
• 3:41
  stop there. You can open up your own business. There's always
• 3:46
  going to be a need for it, and I think right now we we could be
• 3:51
  just going in reverse here. I mean, like yeah, like it's a
• 3:54
  shame that like it was like you said that the trades were looked
• 3:57
  down upon as far as getting in a career. I mean, like who wants
• 4:01
  to who wants to date a plumber? You know who wants to date like
• 4:04
  these these guys are you know they're I feel like that they're
• 4:07
  ahead of the game and we're seeing the results of it now.
• 4:10
  Especially I mean you brought up college.
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  Well, you have kids.
• 4:16
  Yeah,
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  you want your kids to go to college. Is that like you know,
• 4:20
  a I hang my own pride and ego on the fact that I could put a
• 4:24
  sticker on the back of my car. My child goes to you know that
• 4:27
  kind of thing because I think a lot of college these days is to
• 4:29
  satisfy and placate the parents' ego.
• 4:33
  If my son wants to open up someone's body for surgery, yes,
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  I want him to go to school for that. But as far as getting a
• 4:41
  marketing degree or going into some sort of like I don't know,
• 4:49
  I would probably encourage. I'll I'll get an idea of what he
• 4:52
  wants to do in life and see if he can just do it without
• 4:57
  college because it's just a. I mean, Quentin. Santino didn't go
• 5:00
  to. Did he go to film school? He kind of just did everything is
• 5:04
  on his own, right?
• 5:04
  Well, it's funny because you and I talked about you know self
• 5:07
  training, you know, especially when it comes to musical
• 5:09
  instruments. There's there's an element to where you you put
• 5:13
  yourself through the you you have the discipline to learn on
• 5:16
  your own and pull from different mentors and influences in
• 5:21
  various capacities, whether it's music, guitar, drums,
• 5:24
  electrical, hell, even you know the legal profession. You can
• 5:30
  you can hang out in a law firm. Just put me in the law library.
• 5:35
  What do you need? I'll pull the case law. Let's do all these
• 5:37
  different things. Show me how the courtroom works, all the
• 5:40
  different processes and the order of operations of how
• 5:43
  things operate. If you immerse yourself long enough in
• 5:46
  something in a situation like that, yeah, go ahead and take
• 5:49
  the bar. You know what I mean? It's if you pass the bar, you're
• 5:51
  an attorney. I mean, there's some states that actually I
• 5:55
  think it's Louisiana that does that, but why not? You're
• 5:58
  getting real world, you know, learn by doing type of approach.
• 6:03
  It's not classroom, and you're not spending a fortune to
• 6:06
  acquire the knowledge.
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  And not even in your lifetime are you going to be paying that
• 6:10
  debt back,
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  right?
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  And I
• 6:12
  know people that are over 100 grand in student debt. They're
• 6:15
  never getting out from underneath it. See, I got never.
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  I
• 6:18
  got lucky. I was a bad student, so like I I went to community
• 6:22
  college and I didn't pay as much as the average person, but I
• 6:24
  just oh geez only a few years ago I paid that off yeah wow and
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  the funny thing is with what you do and for those of you
• 6:31
  listening I know we're kind of we we have this new format where
• 6:35
  I don't introduce the guest until we're about 10 minutes in
• 6:39
  but Esteban Legarea
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  ooh nice
• 6:42
  Legarea I got you. Got the rolling arm.
• 6:45
  Yeah, that's right.
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  And you got. We met a couple years ago when we were selling a
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  lot more lighting and stuff like that. We were looking for
• 6:52
  distributors, and that's what you do. You sell. You sell
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  electrical parts.
• 6:56
  Yes.
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  You know that's that's not a typical course of life that is
• 7:02
  talked about much, like you don't think that these parts
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  have to be sold. You know what I mean. And by the way, this is
• 7:11
  the mostly Middle Tennessee business podcast from the It's
• 7:13
  Your show.co studios, powered by Muletown Bikes, right there on
• 7:17
  the square. Yeah, we got to do the e bike. I'm looking over
• 7:20
  your shoulder at the camera. Yeah, that's what I do. So,
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  yeah. Well, wow, it's it's crazy. I I don't think anybody
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  in this industry, unless they had like parents or people that
• 7:30
  were that were in the industry already. Yeah, I think people
• 7:34
  just kind of accidentally stumble upon it. That's what
• 7:37
  happened to me. I spent majority of my career, not I'm sorry, not
• 7:42
  career. I mean, I was waiting tables after high school and
• 7:46
  just trying to figure my life out. I thought I wanted to do
• 7:49
  music. I thought I wanted to do all these other things, and then
• 7:53
  I got tired of waiting tables. And somebody, an old friend of
• 7:57
  mine, said, "Hey, I'm actually moving away. I had this position
• 8:00
  opening up. You know, if you want to take my spot, I'll tell
• 8:02
  them you're good people, and started there. I started in the
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  warehouse, answering the phones from the counter, just seeing
• 8:11
  people walking in, getting parts every day, and I did not know
• 8:15
  that this was such a great business to be in. I mean,
• 8:19
  people need these this stuff. I mean, I thought people just went
• 8:22
  to Lowe's and Home Depot to get their things. Didn't think this
• 8:25
  was going to be a somebody could just make a good living off of
• 8:30
  it. I met a few salesmen, and one you and I both know him. I
• 8:36
  don't think. I mean, I guess should I can I mention his name?
• 8:38
  Sure, Mike Harris. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he
• 8:42
  good guy.
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  Oh, great! Yeah, I mean, this was about 10 years ago, I think.
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  Yeah, he's he told me how much he made in a year, and I'm like,
• 8:51
  wow. I'm like, yeah. I maybe if I stick with this, I can one
• 8:56
  day.
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  And a lot of that, it's all. It's not really a long sales
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  cycle. I would say probably a short to medium sales cycle
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  because if they need the parts and they like you, it's more
• 9:04
  about the relationship and the likability. Can are you
• 9:08
  dependable? Are you going to get it to me when I need it? I would
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  imagine those are the factors that you have to kind of satisfy
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  in this type of role.
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  I mean, there's there's many factors to it. I think getting a
• 9:20
  meeting and getting a client is-it's hard, but it's also just
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  as just as hard, if not harder, keeping them.
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  Right.
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  I mean, because people, you know, it's business, and it's us
• 9:34
  being in Nashville. It's-I mean-it's growing, and it's such
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  a-it's such a slip-through industry too. So you just got to
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  be on top of
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  it.
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  Yeah, you got to be almost a jealous girlfriend. You got to
• 9:44
  every opportunity that comes your way. You got to like ask
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  questions and ask for feedback. If there's this big lighting or
• 9:51
  gear project, you got to ask like, "Hey, who got this? If I
• 9:55
  didn't get it, who got it? And how how off how how much was I
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  off?" So it's the only way you'll survive in this business.
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  I mean,
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  what's the what's the process like? Because I mean, a lot of
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  it these things go out to bid. They're probably getting a lot
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  better of a deal going through the distribute distribution
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  houses than going directly to Home Depot or Lowe's. Home Depot
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  or Lowe's are kind of like last minute. Hey, we need a couple of
• 10:18
  outlets. We just need to go grab something, and we upcharge a
• 10:21
  client, and we're paying retail on top of retail. You know that
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  kind of happens, but in even in Home Depot, you're not dealing
• 10:29
  typically with people that have actually done the work. You
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  know, does that make sense? That
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  does make sense. Yeah, those are typically not the partners I'd
• 10:42
  go after. Yeah, yeah. The people who can get their stuff, and
• 10:47
  sometimes when I'm cold calling, and then they say, "Well, well,
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  you know, we usually just swing by Home Depot, Lowe's, or a city
• 10:54
  electric around the corner. Like, you know, they just just
• 10:56
  get parts around the corner. Then I'm like, "Okay, that's
• 10:58
  fine. That gives me an idea that they're not really looking for
• 11:01
  partners, right? What I my job is to go after people who are
• 11:08
  already involved in the bidding process. They know that they're
• 11:11
  going to need X amount of wire for this big multifamily unit
• 11:15
  that they're starting, and I give them the budgetary numbers.
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  And after they win the project, they come back to me. He says,
• 11:23
  "Hestaban, can you put some money back in my pocket? I say,
• 11:26
  "Yes.
• 11:27
  No, it's it's it's whale hunting.
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  Yeah, is what you're
• 11:30
  doing.
• 11:32
  Yeah, it's yeah, yeah, it is. I didn't really, honestly, I
• 11:39
  didn't think I could do it. I've been doing it for going on four
• 11:44
  and a half years now. Out like well, account manager. I don't
• 11:47
  like outside salesman title. It seems kind of sleazy, but yeah,
• 11:54
  like a used car salesman. I don't know. I don't. I never
• 11:57
  like that type. There, there are
• 11:58
  good used car salespeople. Just used car salespeople that give
• 12:01
  other salespeople a bad name. I sold used cars, man. I mean, I
• 12:04
  guess really. Oh yeah, I just worked for Mercedes. What have
• 12:07
  we sold? We sold used cars. You know
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  what have you not done, Jim? Like I am so impressive. Like
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  podcaster, drummer, car salesman,
• 12:18
  business owner,
• 12:19
  business business owner, entrepreneur.
• 12:21
  Was in the phone business for when I first when I got out of
• 12:24
  college. It was a family business. I was an electrician.
• 12:27
  I was a I was an apprentice. I never made it to journeyman or
• 12:31
  got formally trained. But I also knew it wasn't what I wanted to
• 12:34
  do with my life at that time. And then from there, I went into
• 12:37
  radio. So I know I was in radio for 17 years. What was that
• 12:40
  experience like with you being an electrician? At the time, it
• 12:44
  was again. I looked at it as a job, not a career. It was great
• 12:49
  money. The company I worked for treated us very well. You didn't
• 12:52
  have to go to them for raises. They would just come to you
• 12:54
  after, hey, you've been here for three months. Here's a raise.
• 12:57
  Okay, really decent company. They were the non-union shop of
• 13:03
  a a family-owned business that was a union business. They were
• 13:07
  like the Lee Company of Connecticut. Oh, Rizzo Electric,
• 13:12
  they handled all the state jobs, the highways, lighting, all that
• 13:15
  stuff. And then they had Nikon, which was their non-union shop,
• 13:19
  which I worked for. That did you know whatever came down that
• 13:22
  didn't want to use union work, so they had best of both worlds.
• 13:26
  They, it was cool. I mean, it was at the time it was kind of a
• 13:30
  dirge because I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do. I knew that
• 13:34
  I was I had an itch to scratch, and I was still kind of coming
• 13:39
  to terms of well, if it's going to be radio or television, radio
• 13:42
  I know doesn't pay as well as television, and I do want to
• 13:45
  make a good living. And eventually, I just kind of
• 13:47
  relented and went into radio because as soon as I got my
• 13:53
  palate wetted, it was like, oh, this
• 13:57
  is me.
• 13:58
  I just knew it. This is I am in my element. I worked for the
• 14:01
  radio station, and for the first one that I worked for, I swore
• 14:04
  I'd never work for. But as soon as I stepped in the broadcasting
• 14:07
  school, this is me. I totally get this. So that's you know,
• 14:12
  but
• 14:14
  I don't want to jump. I don't want to jump ahead, but I am
• 14:16
  very. I would like to know your experience of being. Would you
• 14:20
  call it? Would you and with magnitude was it
• 14:24
  consider yourself an OEM? Correct.
• 14:26
  Yeah, yeah.
• 14:27
  What was that experience like? Because I mean, sounds like you
• 14:32
  were busy. Sounds like you're. I mean, obviously you're you're
• 14:34
  putting a lot of work into it. Yeah. But do you think the
• 14:39
  rewards were great? Because I mean, Nashville, you're dealing
• 14:42
  with a lot of big lighting companies, and that was-I mean,
• 14:47
  I would imagine that was very
• 14:50
  the differentiator was the fact that we were one of the early
• 14:52
  adopters in the colored lighting space with the DMX technology,
• 14:56
  like what you see around here in the studios. Is. Was our
• 15:00
  lighting, and in the space even more niche was the car wash
• 15:06
  business and that industry. So, making them harsh environment
• 15:11
  proof and able to stand up to chemicals and things of that
• 15:14
  nature, as well as water and all this different you know these
• 15:17
  different elements that could penetrate you know electric
• 15:20
  electricity. You don't want that to happen. So, working with our
• 15:24
  manufacturing partners in China, because I don't care what you
• 15:28
  say, every LED chip comes from in China. No matter as much as
• 15:33
  you want to say it's made in the USA, it's not. And we were at
• 15:36
  least honest about it, but that's a whole nother story.
• 15:40
  That was an experience because we we were in like an electrical
• 15:44
  business that the market told us where to go. We were selling
• 15:49
  white lighting, LEDs, and stuff like that, and doing conversions
• 15:53
  back in the late teens. Yeah, because the wave had yet to come
• 15:57
  to shore. You had the TVA that was incentivizing all the
• 15:59
  different switchovers and stuff like that. Never thought that my
• 16:03
  electrical experience would be relevant in my life ever again,
• 16:06
  but here we were. We were putting lights in. If the owners
• 16:09
  got to put a tool belt on, that so be it. You know, get up on
• 16:12
  the lift and start changing out lights. It's what we did. But
• 16:15
  you know, and it's funny because the the staff we have now, dare
• 16:19
  I say, loves working with me if I get out in the field because I
• 16:24
  was taught well. You know the company when I was working as an
• 16:27
  electrician, they they were very big on training and doing it the
• 16:30
  right way and taking pride in how the job was done. I mean
• 16:35
  they had to go and look at a circuit that I had worked on for
• 16:38
  a string of lights in a project we did up in Ohio, and you know,
• 16:44
  just to kind of trace a circuit, nothing that I did was wrong. It
• 16:47
  was just something with the circuit where it originated was
• 16:50
  wonky, and just undoing everything that I had put in
• 16:54
  there, like, oh my gosh, like what do you put? Are your hands
• 16:57
  tired? I'm like, no. You you use your alignment and you tighten
• 17:00
  the wire nut, and that's how I was taught. You twist the wires
• 17:02
  together, and you,
• 17:04
  yeah,
• 17:04
  you know, and you make sure it fits in the box well, and you
• 17:06
  make it look neat. Like we need you to come out on more jobs.
• 17:10
  I'm like, no, this is kind of like every now and then. I like
• 17:13
  this is how I like it, but if I need to, that's fine. You got
• 17:15
  to make it look clean.
• 17:16
  Yeah, yeah. You got to make it look. You got to take pride in
• 17:19
  your work.
• 17:20
  You know, it's interesting. I I took a break from electrical
• 17:23
  distribution to work for a a wired cable OEM, and it's kind
• 17:28
  of fascinating. We were considered an OEM because we
• 17:35
  twisted the cables and then, or sorry, twisted the wires, which
• 17:38
  turns into a cable, and then put the jacket on there, so we were
• 17:41
  considered the manufacturer, American manufacturer. Yeah,
• 17:45
  even though those parts came from I don't know Mexico. Yeah,
• 17:48
  there's
• 17:48
  elements of made in the USA that if you check the boxes, you can
• 17:51
  claim it.
• 17:52
  Yeah, that's weird. That's kind of when you think about
• 17:54
  it. Yeah, sourcing the materials is a like if we made our own
• 17:58
  lighting shells and maybe sourced our PCBs here. If we had
• 18:05
  our drivers, I mean, most of the driver companies are out in
• 18:08
  China as well. Meanwell being one of the big ones out there,
• 18:14
  and you know the the software, the DMX software that we we came
• 18:18
  up with our own controller software. So that was made in
• 18:21
  the USA for sure. Yeah, but I mean, all the different rare
• 18:24
  earth elements that make an LED are coming from China. There's
• 18:26
  no ifs, ands, or buts. There's no getting around it. They have
• 18:30
  the market cornered. Okay, when it comes to LED technology, so
• 18:34
  you know we've had competitors. Oh, we're made in the USA. No,
• 18:37
  you're not. Stop.
• 18:39
  Yeah,
• 18:39
  stop. Okay, what was
• 18:41
  your? I guess what was your pitch when you wanted to push
• 18:47
  this material? I mean, like we obviously we had we had a
• 18:49
  meeting with distribution, yeah. But like, how often would you
• 18:53
  actually go out there and meet the contractors? I mean, like,
• 18:55
  and how would you?
• 18:56
  We were we're selling directly to the customer.
• 18:58
  Sure.
• 18:58
  Yeah. So a lot of the you know, they would see us at a trade
• 19:01
  show. The competitor that we had was a lot higher price. They
• 19:05
  also had a lot more longevity in the business. They were
• 19:09
  considered to be one of the first in the mine in terms of
• 19:11
  that kind of technology. But I think they started getting into
• 19:14
  other verticals and still are that are outside of the car wash
• 19:18
  realm. So we ended up just by outlasting all the other
• 19:23
  competitors became one of the you know I think that's what
• 19:27
  attracted our buyer to the table is the fact that we lasted long
• 19:32
  and like hey you're still around obviously you're doing something
• 19:34
  right you you kind of passed the five year threshold yeah and
• 19:37
  eventually that you know one thing led to another and you
• 19:40
  know they they wanted to buy us and so so on and so forth, but
• 19:45
  you know when we got in front of different people, it was mainly
• 19:48
  hey we have a simpler system. It's scalable. It's made with
• 19:53
  you in mind, so you don't have to figure stuff out. You could
• 19:56
  teach your staff on it if you want or not. It was mainly.
• 20:00
  Around the controller software and the the lights, just they
• 20:03
  just you know the less headache you gave them, the better off
• 20:06
  you were. So these they're not going to give you headaches if
• 20:09
  they do go out, which inevitably, invariably, they do.
• 20:13
  Sometimes water just gets through.
• 20:15
  Yeah,
• 20:16
  we're going to replace it. Okay, we're going to be the hero. We
• 20:18
  even have stickers printed up. That Was hold it up to the
• 20:23
  camera. Be the hero, and that was that goes back to when I
• 20:28
  worked with my dad. He says, you know, because I always being in
• 20:32
  a in a white collar environment, growing up in Westchester
• 20:36
  County, Danbury, Connecticut, Fairfield County, in that part
• 20:38
  of the country in the 90s and 80s. If you're a blue collar
• 20:42
  man, I mean, you were just looked down upon. You know, at
• 20:46
  least that's how I saw it. Yeah. You know. So going in and fixing
• 20:49
  telephone systems in a doctor's office or a lawyer's office. I
• 20:53
  mean, you were like just. You might as well be scraping us off
• 20:56
  the bottom of your shoe, kind of feeling.
• 20:58
  Did you ever watch that South Park episode? The the
• 21:03
  Panderverse. Oh, just I love it. It's basically a quick just a
• 21:12
  yeah. The episode was basically talking about how the tradesmen
• 21:14
  or the new Elon Musks. They own everything because they're the
• 21:18
  richest people. Because no one we're in a society where no one
• 21:20
  knows how to do anything anymore, right? And they lean on
• 21:23
  them, and they are just outbidding everybody, and then
• 21:26
  they have all this money, and then they're just buying
• 21:28
  rockets, and they just become the yeah, they become like the
• 21:31
  new Elon Musk. And I just thought it was so hilarious, but
• 21:34
  it's true. It is true. Amazing how things have turned a little
• 21:38
  bit.
• 21:39
  Yeah.
• 21:39
  Oh yeah. Going back to the AI conversation. Well, the
• 21:42
  AI it's going to be a it's going to be an issue for people in
• 21:46
  white collar jobs. But again, my father, you know, he says when
• 21:50
  you go in there, you can't have that mindset of being less than
• 21:54
  less than and go in there acting like you're their hero. Yeah,
• 21:59
  you're there to fix a problem that they can't fix. You know
• 22:01
  how to fix it. You're the hero, and I never forgot that. Did I
• 22:08
  embody it at the time? No, I was too young to fully appreciate
• 22:13
  what he was talking about. Did you
• 22:14
  tell me what your father did? I'm sorry.
• 22:15
  He was in the phone business. The phone business with the
• 22:17
  digital phone systems, PBX, all that stuff. I mean, I've hung
• 22:21
  and installed many a phone system. Probably still could.
• 22:24
  Yeah,
• 22:24
  I still remember the code to get into programming a Toshiba phone
• 22:27
  system, so I could actually initialize an entire system if I
• 22:31
  wanted to,
• 22:32
  which
• 22:32
  I might have done back when I when somebody pissed me off. Oh
• 22:39
  wow! And I'll just leave it at that. Oh, but I find with your
• 22:45
  with your positions very interesting because, man, it is
• 22:50
  one of those things that you do need to know what you're talking
• 22:53
  about. You need to know the parts, how they work together,
• 22:58
  what's the best solution for the customer, things of that nature.
• 23:01
  Do you need to know like the intricacies of the calculations
• 23:05
  and the math that goes involved with these types of things?
• 23:07
  I mean, when I was when I was working the counter in the
• 23:10
  warehouse, I screwed up so many times where I was forced to like
• 23:13
  know not to screw up again. So, with yeah, when you send a
• 23:16
  customer the wrong part, it's even if it's like 20 cents, that
• 23:21
  little part, you know, that's 20 cents. It's costing them 1000s
• 23:24
  of dollars every single time. They every single hour they
• 23:26
  don't have it. So I had to really like, I guess, put that
• 23:32
  in my. I had to be aware of that from a contractor's perspective.
• 23:37
  Like, okay, well, big deal. They like I messed up. So anyway, no,
• 23:43
  I messed up so many times that I can know how to not mess up and
• 23:47
  how to know how to the how to ask the right questions as far
• 23:50
  as like every element to the lock nut to the washer, asking
• 23:54
  the right questions to you know okay quarter inch half inch
• 23:57
  size. Okay, what's this going on to? What's the application? Does
• 24:01
  got to be weather resistant, like explosion
• 24:03
  proof?
• 24:04
  Explosion proof, yeah. Like that that went with time, but I'm I'm
• 24:08
  very fortunate enough now that I get to focus more on the
• 24:11
  relationship. But it does help that I've had that experience.
• 24:14
  Well, I mean, you you seem like one of these people that once
• 24:16
  you it only takes you one or two times to learn from a mistake.
• 24:20
  You know, like you're going to be so cognizant of it that
• 24:22
  you're going to, you're like, oh, you're going to, you're
• 24:25
  going to, it's going to be so personalized. You're going to be
• 24:27
  so, ah, I don't want that to happen ever again. Is that
• 24:31
  something that's like you?
• 24:32
  That's that's uh, that's that's very accurate. And um, you know,
• 24:38
  my my father was in construction too, so I grew up when I was a
• 24:44
  kid being the go-getter, picking up the trash around the job
• 24:46
  sites, and yeah, he was one of those. I'm you share, you know,
• 24:50
  I'm sure you feel this way about your father, man. Like there's
• 24:52
  just nothing, you never see anything he couldn't do.
• 24:56
  Yeah, he was. Yeah, my dad was like that. Yeah, wait a minute,
• 24:59
  you're gonna build a. What on the like? He literally, my mom
• 25:02
  had her hips replaced. One of her hips were replaced, and
• 25:06
  instead of like you know, most people would be like, "Well, we
• 25:08
  needed to figure out a way to get her downstairs, so we got to
• 25:10
  come up with this. You know, they make these things you sit
• 25:12
  in a chair and it goes down the stairs. Yeah. No, he made it,
• 25:16
  and it would actually. It was a platform with a boat winch at
• 25:19
  the top of the stairs that she could roll the wheelchair on and
• 25:21
  it would get her down, and he built like a platform that can,
• 25:24
  dude. For us growing up, it was like, oh, we're just doing this.
• 25:27
  Now I look back on it and go, holy crap, who does that? Nobody
• 25:32
  anymore.
• 25:33
  Yeah, it's it's dad engineering. Yeah, while it's it's
• 25:38
  incredible. They just figure it out.
• 25:41
  They were big RV people. Like I grew up RVing and camping and
• 25:44
  stuff like that, glamping, if you will, because he was a huge
• 25:47
  fisherman and loved taking the boat to Lake Ontario, the ocean,
• 25:51
  whatever. But they would get an RV, brand new, beautiful RV, and
• 25:56
  pick it up on a Friday, bring it home. You know, I remember was a
• 25:59
  kid see the lights pulling in a driveway, and you wanted to go
• 26:02
  in there and smell it and everything. And then you'd eat
• 26:04
  breakfast the next morning, and you'd go into the new RV, and
• 26:08
  he'd have the entire dashboard ripped apart. And it was like,
• 26:13
  oh my gosh, are you going to be able to put this back? I mean,
• 26:17
  why are like just a rat's nest? Because he's making all his
• 26:20
  modifications for CB radios and all that crap, and yeah, with
• 26:24
  him by the end of the day, it was all back together. There was
• 26:26
  always something to do.
• 26:27
  I bet he did. He wake you up in the middle, like 4o'clock in the
• 26:29
  morning, later on summers. She's like, "Hey, something to do, or
• 26:33
  "Hey, we're going to go to work. We're going to build something.
• 26:35
  We're going to do something. We're not just going to sit in
• 26:36
  the house all day.
• 26:37
  I wasn't as ambitious as he was. I think he kind of, you know,
• 26:42
  when his secretary or his receptionist would have a
• 26:45
  vacation during the summer, well, who are we going to get to
• 26:48
  cover phones? I guess we can get Jimmy down there. Then I
• 26:53
  literally he'd be like, "Hey, next week I need you down there.
• 26:55
  I'm like, "But it's my summer vacation, you know, and he'd be
• 26:59
  like, "And you know, my brother was working for him. You know,
• 27:02
  he had my older brother, and my father would.
• 27:04
  Man,
• 27:04
  I need you on the phones. All right, it was like the most,
• 27:10
  like the the metaphor I used when he came in here. I'd rather
• 27:15
  go down a water slide full of razor blades into a pool of
• 27:18
  alcohol than answer phones all day. Oh my god!
• 27:20
  That's a lot happening around that scenario.
• 27:23
  Look, it was awful. Yeah, you know someone, but you know what
• 27:26
  I did? I'd read drum catalogs, and I didn't just imagine myself
• 27:31
  playing these amazing drum kits that I'd seen in these catalogs.
• 27:35
  Yeah, couldn't wait till 5o'clock came around. We
• 27:38
  go back to our topic about the how blue collar was kind of
• 27:40
  looked down upon. Yeah, I mean, my my dad made a living on
• 27:44
  construction. I mean, he was super on the field, and he would
• 27:48
  always bring us out on the job sites. You know, we we weren't
• 27:50
  just going to sit in the house and do nothing. He would we
• 27:51
  would take take us out there, and you know, I was I was really
• 27:55
  rebellious against it, like being under the hot sun carrying
• 27:58
  lumber. I'm like, oh, not fun. No way. I'm not doing this. I'm
• 28:02
  gonna go work at Arby's. You know, I'll work at Arby's for
• 28:05
  it, and I'll show them. And I guess I just didn't see it too
• 28:08
  long because now my brothers and my whole family-they're in
• 28:12
  construction now and they're doing really well. So I didn't
• 28:14
  see it back then. I was just like, I'd rather just go work at
• 28:17
  Arby's, and I won't be bossed around and sit under the hot sun
• 28:20
  all day. I'll show them, and yeah. So getting into this
• 28:24
  industry, I'm glad that I get to work with people and get to be
• 28:28
  in part of their project. So I feel like that was like that
• 28:31
  little gap that I was rebellious in. I just I missed out on so
• 28:34
  much during that time. But yeah, it's just just an interesting
• 28:39
  experience, man. Fathers are great, and it's great that you,
• 28:42
  you know, privileged to have those experiences too. To you
• 28:45
  know, because I still say to this day, I will never be up to
• 28:47
  my dad's ankles as far as like you know the things he can do.
• 28:51
  And
• 28:52
  is your dad still around?
• 28:54
  Oh yeah, yeah, he's definitely around, and I'll still make
• 28:57
  those phone calls too. Like my crawlspace flooded. What do I
• 29:00
  do? What's happening? I don't want to get screwed on pricing
• 29:04
  here. I
• 29:05
  don't have that luxury. My dad will be gone 20 years next
• 29:08
  month, and I miss him every day. I appreciate that, but he's he's
• 29:14
  he was definitely like if he wanted to be a good dad, that's
• 29:17
  that was his desire. He we he got to be our dad. That was his,
• 29:22
  I think, his disposition towards us. Not like, hey, you made me a
• 29:27
  dad. It was I get to be your dad. It was an outward thing,
• 29:31
  and you know, he did everything with us. He built model rockets
• 29:36
  with my brother. We built model, you know, remote control cars.
• 29:39
  One of the first big projects we did, I'll never forget it. You
• 29:42
  know, we're always using hand tools. I still have his tools at
• 29:46
  my toolbox in my house. You know, stuff that's probably 60
• 29:49
  years old at this point. But the first big project we did
• 29:53
  together was building a remote control car called the Monster
• 29:56
  Beetle back in 1986 or 87 on Memorial. Day weekend, or never
• 30:01
  forget it. Big old rainy Saturday. We sat at the kitchen
• 30:04
  table, just putting transmission together and linkage and all the
• 30:08
  stuff. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. Do you mean
• 30:12
  it's it's just amazing? Like that's that bonding is so
• 30:14
  important. Yeah, it really is. I mean, yeah. I mean, something
• 30:18
  just just depends. But I feel like deep down we really crave
• 30:21
  that. You know, you'd be like, "Oh, I don't want to get up. I
• 30:23
  don't want to do all this. Ah, I don't want. But like, I think we
• 30:27
  appreciate that as we're older now. Yeah. Well, I
• 30:30
  mean, again, going back to the job we did up in Parma, Ohio,
• 30:32
  when we started j2, it was we were gone for eight days because
• 30:37
  it was a 550 fixture replacement job. So, and we had a full, full
• 30:43
  all hands on deck scenario up there, probably seven people.
• 30:47
  But there's only so many lights you can do in a day, you know.
• 30:50
  So you do the math on that, and that's kind of turned out to be
• 30:54
  where how we landed was about seven or eight days away. But
• 30:57
  even getting up in the morning in the hotel and just knowing
• 31:01
  the next 1012, hours is going to be a grind. Your feet are going
• 31:04
  to ache when you're done because you're not used to this. You
• 31:06
  haven't done it in a while, but here we are. Let's get it done.
• 31:09
  Seriously, like the
• 31:10
  electrician's hands. You know the ones that are. Oh yeah. Oh
• 31:13
  man, they're built differently, man. They, you know, twisting
• 31:16
  those wire nuts, installing that guy. There was a guy
• 31:20
  I worked with. He was a Hungarian guy at Nikon when I
• 31:23
  was, and he and I were buddies. He was a hard ass, but you know,
• 31:27
  I I matched his crazy matched mine, and being a good
• 31:32
  assistant, I could I got the gist of like I need to read what
• 31:36
  you're doing before you even get there to make sure you have what
• 31:39
  you have what you need before you even know you need it. So I
• 31:43
  was always good at be like, okay, he's going to need a, you
• 31:45
  know, an old work box and blah blah blah. And I mean, he's
• 31:48
  probably going to need an extra little bit of, you know, MC
• 31:51
  cable or whatever, and the clamps that go with it and the
• 31:53
  connectors, and he's going to need this tool. So I'd always
• 31:56
  just be right there. I just figured that out. You know, this
• 31:59
  my job is to serve you to make sure you have what you need.
• 32:02
  You're the lead guy, so we'd be up on ladders middle of winter,
• 32:06
  and he would have this like sometimes the thumb would split
• 32:08
  on the ridge next to the nail because you'd be twisting stuff,
• 32:11
  and the cold weather would do stuff to your skin. That dude
• 32:15
  had at least a quarter inch cut on his thumb. That you know
• 32:19
  after a while he couldn't because he had gloves on and
• 32:22
  band aids. He just ripped the whole thing off because he
• 32:24
  couldn't get a grip on the the wire nut, and you could just see
• 32:28
  he's just in pain, just pushing through. I'm like, that shit
• 32:32
  doesn't happen anymore, man. You just don't see that anymore.
• 32:35
  That kind of grit.
• 32:37
  Installing one. I mean, I've installed a few receptacles in
• 32:39
  my lifetime, but like I'm, I'm like, my hands get tired. I'm
• 32:43
  like, oh man, there's people out there. Oh yeah, install hundreds
• 32:46
  of these every single day. I'm like,
• 32:48
  man, now they have attachments for drills to do it. Really, you
• 32:53
  could put the little thing in the drill and screw the wire nut
• 32:56
  on. You talking
• 32:56
  about those little easy connects, this little putt, and
• 32:58
  then they just put it in there and the screwed on,
• 33:01
  yeah, you know, has like a little like a a bit you could
• 33:03
  put in your your screw gun, your drill, Makita, whatever you're
• 33:07
  using, yeah, and it's like it goes right on this the wire nut
• 33:10
  and twists it on the wire for you,
• 33:12
  little pigtails, whatever. That's a little easy, yeah. I
• 33:14
  guess so. We didn't have that when I was coming.
• 33:17
  Well, what I do is I've subscribed to like Electrical
• 33:19
  Today and these magazines, just little, little bedroom read, and
• 33:25
  somebody like gave me a device to do that, and now I've
• 33:27
  subscribed to it, and now I just like flip through it on my free
• 33:30
  time. It's like, oh man, there's a little little product that
• 33:32
  they're making right now, make a cuts the cost of labor, get you
• 33:35
  get the done job done faster. So it helps having those little,
• 33:38
  you know, when you're talking to a customer, just you
• 33:41
  know, you yeah.
• 33:42
  Everybody wants to save some money. If
• 33:43
  you ever actually get out and get on an electrical job, just
• 33:47
  to kind of see what these guys go through,
• 33:49
  all the time. In fact, when I was starting this out, I I was
• 33:55
  either sink or swim. They didn't give me. I wasn't given like a
• 34:00
  salary or anything like that. I was just like 100% commission.
• 34:02
  Like, hey, you can either do this or you can't. And I
• 34:05
  basically had no choice. I was like, okay, I'm gonna go out on
• 34:07
  job sites. I got myself a vest and a hard hat and boots and
• 34:13
  gave myself a little pen and paper. So just to give myself
• 34:16
  the perception that I was there to you know check some stuff
• 34:20
  off, some some sort of inspection, and then I go other
• 34:22
  Connexes. I ask the right questions. I say, "Oh, so what's
• 34:25
  the the the electrical contractor? Where's their Connex
• 34:29
  at? You know, I'll go out there and I hand out my business
• 34:31
  cards. So yes, I did a lot of that. I still do. I mean, it's
• 34:36
  amazing. Just I passed through a few job sites on the way over
• 34:39
  here, and then I see a pallet full of three-inch PVC. I'm
• 34:43
  like, oh, I get a little greedy. I don't know. I just oh no,
• 34:47
  that's that's that's a good position. Yeah, I'm just
• 34:50
  thinking like, ooh, you know that
• 34:52
  used to that
• 34:53
  taking food out of my kid's mouth.
• 34:54
  That's the same thing that used to happen to me when I used to
• 34:56
  see temp tags on cars. It would drive me nuts, especially in my
• 34:59
  own. Neighborhood, yeah. I'm like, I'm not doing a good
• 35:02
  enough job to let everybody know what I do.
• 35:04
  And it's funny that you pay attention to things a little
• 35:07
  differently. Like, how many times have you gone to a
• 35:09
  restaurant and you see just see the the light job that they do,
• 35:12
  or just think, oh, I see like the EMT ran through the the
• 35:15
  termination box. I'm like, huh.
• 35:17
  That's the thing is that next time you guys are out in a
• 35:19
  Costco or a Lowe's, Home Depot. Look up, and you see those
• 35:24
  raceways, those pipes that they're usually like in like you
• 35:26
  know just a bunch. There could be 10 of them running in the
• 35:30
  same direction, and it's almost you don't appreciate it. At
• 35:34
  least I didn't back when I learned how to do it.
• 35:36
  Yeah, the
• 35:37
  art form. It really truly is an art form when you have to bend
• 35:41
  pipe and make it look a certain way, look neat, and they all
• 35:44
  bend together. I mean, it is a flipping art form.
• 35:49
  It
• 35:49
  takes a talent. I mean,
• 35:52
  it's it is, and then yeah, again, you just kind of see
• 35:56
  things a little bit differently. Oh yeah, like now I I'm when I'm
• 35:59
  at a restaurant or at a table, I see a salt shaker, and this is
• 36:03
  kind of the beauty of sales in a way. I just look at that salt
• 36:07
  shaker, and I'm thinking, not only did somebody make money off
• 36:09
  that salt, but somebody made money off the container that's
• 36:12
  in.
• 36:13
  Yeah,
• 36:13
  you know, somebody made some money off of that. Everything we
• 36:16
  touch, something somebody made some money. Somebody had to sell
• 36:18
  it. Somebody had to sell it, and I just thought, yeah, this
• 36:22
  business is very fascinating.
• 36:24
  It really is.
• 36:25
  Yeah,
• 36:25
  I mean, I still, whenever I have to go shop for electrical
• 36:28
  components at Home Depot.
• 36:31
  Why don't you call me, Jim?
• 36:33
  Next time I will. But if I'm if I'm just browsing the aisle,
• 36:37
  there's just such a sense of possibility.
• 36:40
  Yeah,
• 36:41
  in just wandering around that aisle alone, I don't know why it
• 36:44
  is because there's so many different things you can do with
• 36:47
  electrical parts. You know, you can build mechanical things. You
• 36:51
  can you know things that you can hang from your ceiling and hang
• 36:54
  stuff off of. It's EMT. It's rigid. Whatever. It's it's so
• 36:57
  many different things that you could try and like a lot of
• 37:00
  solutions that weren't electrical derived from that
• 37:04
  aisle, as if that to make sense. You can't really do that in the
• 37:07
  plumbing aisle, you know, because you got PECs and you
• 37:10
  know things of that nature. Everything with the electrical
• 37:13
  aisle is so just ingenuitive, you know.
• 37:18
  Beauty of Ohm's law,
• 37:19
  yeah, yeah. It's really it's just something about it. Like
• 37:24
  even when I had to go do parts runs when I worked for Nikon,
• 37:29
  there was just I don't know, just a weird. It's hard to
• 37:32
  describe because it wasn't a bad time in my life. It was very
• 37:37
  fruitful. The customers we dealt with, you know, working with
• 37:40
  Alex Gratzel, the Hungarian guy, you know, I haven't talked to
• 37:43
  the guy in probably 30 years, or seen him if he's still even
• 37:47
  alive. But just good memories. Yeah, it was a good time in life
• 37:52
  to kind of be doing that kind of work, even though I knew it was
• 37:55
  for the short term.
• 37:57
  It's just amazing the type. Yeah, the people that you meet
• 37:59
  in this industry, like it's their different walks of life,
• 38:02
  and you just learn new things, and yeah, it's incredible. I'm
• 38:06
  pretty sure that your Hungarian friend they they did things a
• 38:09
  little differently in in Hungary, you know, as far as
• 38:12
  like applications go, and the way
• 38:14
  codes, codes, yeah, yeah,
• 38:17
  no, but yeah, selling is this very industry, and there's like
• 38:22
  really no there's no formula to it. It's just more of I've
• 38:27
  always just went the approach of just like understanding the
• 38:31
  contractor why they do what they do because everybody has a
• 38:34
  story, and who doesn't want to tell their story? I mean, I
• 38:36
  think that's always that's always been a good like in is
• 38:41
  just having those conversations and asking what is my
• 38:48
  competition doing better than me? Yeah, you know what's what's
• 38:52
  what are they doing? What are their wow factors? Is it rebates
• 38:55
  or is it the best price? You know, do they go to your church?
• 38:59
  What's what's the story here. Otherwise, yeah, I I'm not
• 39:02
  looking to just sell you things at the bottom dollar. I want a
• 39:05
  partnership. You tell me what it takes to make that partnership
• 39:09
  happen.
• 39:09
  Right.
• 39:11
  Yeah. What are what
• 39:12
  are typically the common threads that you know the boxes that you
• 39:15
  got to check? Are there
• 39:18
  well
• 39:18
  to run all together?
• 39:19
  I well, one thing I just want to throw this out there: I hate
• 39:24
  golf. I'll say it again: I hate golf. Everybody in this industry
• 39:31
  wants to golf, and I, I hate it. I hate talking about golf. Jeez,
• 39:39
  I'm gonna get canceled. No, I. But I just, I, it kind of just
• 39:46
  the nuances of like selling has always been golf. Talking about
• 39:52
  golf, and I just like, oh my gosh, can we do something
• 39:54
  different here? So I just kind of get creative. Like I want to
• 39:59
  talk about something else. That you know, and the last
• 40:02
  thing they probably want to talk about is their. Yeah,
• 40:05
  I mean, yeah, exactly. I mean, you got it. I mean, but that's
• 40:07
  the thing. I mean, a contractor or your customer can all they
• 40:10
  can like you all day long, you know. But doesn't mean you're
• 40:13
  going to get the business because you got to make the
• 40:15
  business make sense too. It's great if you have both sides if
• 40:19
  they like you and they want to buy from you, but sometimes it's
• 40:23
  either or. So crossing off the boxes is just understanding who
• 40:30
  they're selling to, because I have I have made it a point to
• 40:35
  treat general contractors like a customer as well, because I know
• 40:39
  that's who the electricians are selling. They they need they
• 40:42
  want to bid the jobs and they want to win the jobs. And if
• 40:44
  there's a strong relationship there, then I want to make sure
• 40:47
  that I know what they're doing on the back end because
• 40:50
  otherwise, I'm just going to go in there like an idiot. Like you
• 40:52
  want to buy some pipe for me?
• 40:53
  Yeah,
• 40:54
  some receptacles for me. Like what I'm saying is that you got
• 40:57
  to bring something to the table.
• 40:59
  Right.
• 40:59
  You got to do something different. Well, because you're
• 41:01
  a
• 41:01
  commodity,
• 41:02
  yeah,
• 41:02
  yeah, you're in a commoditized position. Your your role is not
• 41:07
  dissimilar from that of an insurance agent, a car salesman,
• 41:10
  someone who sells mortgages, a real estate agent.
• 41:13
  Yeah, it
• 41:13
  really does come down to branding and personal branding.
• 41:16
  You know,
• 41:17
  especially if you're somebody who I would imagine who can
• 41:20
  empathize with that GC or the electrical company? Yeah, you
• 41:25
  know what I mean. You know exactly what their pain points
• 41:27
  are. You know what it's like to live their life. That's why I'm
• 41:30
  like, like I would wonder if I had another life to do what you
• 41:34
  do, if my experience being an electrician at one point in my
• 41:38
  life would be helpful, because you could you could relate to
• 41:43
  them.
• 41:43
  Well, yeah. I wanted to talk about the lighting lighting game
• 41:50
  here, and if you've, I know we talked about your experience,
• 41:54
  but yeah, it's amazing how it's lighting is just it's such a
• 42:01
  game changer now. It's with these companies, these reps.
• 42:08
  It's I was told that back in the day, lighting people want to
• 42:17
  build relationships with distribution. It's not like that
• 42:20
  anymore. Lighting companies can just sell directly to the
• 42:24
  customer, and so we and distribution were forced to bend
• 42:29
  the knee. And you got to like take them out to lunch. You got
• 42:32
  to be got to be in their good graces because I mean they can
• 42:36
  just sell directly to your customer. They don't really need
• 42:37
  you anymore. But I think that I get it because it's amazing.
• 42:45
  These guys, they or and women, they can go in and before the
• 42:50
  specs are even written on paper on the blueprints, they're
• 42:53
  already involved. They have already secured the job at its
• 42:57
  infant stage,
• 42:58
  which
• 42:58
  is kind of fascinating. So by doing that, they hold the cards
• 43:04
  and they can know which general contractor is going to get it,
• 43:09
  and then from there they can decide who the electricians is
• 43:12
  going to install the package. So yeah, it's just very very
• 43:17
  fascinating and
• 43:19
  like how did that happen?
• 43:21
  Yeah, I mean, it's all politics at the end of the day. Like, I I
• 43:25
  kind of respect it in a way, but it's sometimes it's very
• 43:29
  difficult. But lighting people, man, they could be your best
• 43:32
  friends or your worst enemy because they are they're it's a
• 43:38
  little different for them. And my lighting friends will tell me
• 43:42
  this all the time. Like, they play for high keeps. I mean,
• 43:47
  they can win a million dollar job, but they have to win the
• 43:49
  whole job.
• 43:50
  Yeah.
• 43:50
  If I don't win a lighting project, at least I have pipe
• 43:53
  and wire to go back to. I can still make money off of that.
• 43:57
  Right.
• 43:57
  But if they don't sell the job as a package, then that's it.
• 44:03
  They either win it or lose it. So I think you have to be a
• 44:06
  little cutthroat and vicious if you if the stakes are that high,
• 44:09
  right?
• 44:10
  Oh yeah,
• 44:11
  yeah. Because
• 44:12
  I mean, if sometimes you're at least in our situation, because
• 44:14
  we could install our own stuff. When it came to the white
• 44:20
  lighting, you know, troffers, high bays, UFOs, things of that
• 44:24
  nature. We wanted the install, or we, you know, we were happy
• 44:28
  to sell it to whoever was handling the purchasing of it,
• 44:31
  you know. Yeah. But on those prints, they would already have
• 44:34
  the, you know, whoever whatever manufacturer they were looking
• 44:38
  for already laid out. Now, when it came to the colored lighting,
• 44:41
  there was a lot more flexibility because there wasn't really a
• 44:44
  front runner company out there like you know Lithonia or
• 44:50
  whoever that was you know directly supplying material to
• 44:53
  the end product or the end the end customer. We were for the
• 44:58
  colored side of things was a lot. Dare I say easier, but
• 45:01
  fewer and far between, because right now I think is probably a
• 45:05
  good time to be in the colored lighting business because
• 45:08
  everybody's moving in that direction, and eventually, you
• 45:11
  know, the hotels have already moved in that direction.
• 45:13
  Somebody's providing those lights. You see them at the
• 45:15
  airport in the parking garage now. Not done very well. We
• 45:20
  could do it a lot better, but you know, you got to have a name
• 45:24
  to go along with it, and time and time, time and time in the
• 45:28
  trenches. Well, it
• 45:29
  gives you flexibility, like like the color selectables, right?
• 45:32
  They they just like you don't have you can install it once,
• 45:34
  and then you can you know change it however you want. Like if you
• 45:38
  wanted a different shade, then you have to pop pop open that
• 45:41
  door, rip it out, and then apply a different, a
• 45:44
  different bulb and a different driver. Yeah,
• 45:47
  yeah, yeah.
• 45:49
  But I mean, the the system that we came up with was called the
• 45:51
  Attitude Lighting System, and that was the software. So a lot
• 45:57
  of the control systems, like we would see at these car wash
• 46:00
  shows, the the controllers would take up like half a wall, and
• 46:06
  we're like, why? You know, our unit is literally that big. You
• 46:11
  plug a data wire into it, goes out to a switch. You power it
• 46:14
  up, and the signal goes out to the lights. We've actually made
• 46:18
  most of the lighting product at one point wireless when it came
• 46:21
  to the controllability, so you didn't need all you had to do
• 46:25
  was put up a transceiver, and then you know throughout the
• 46:28
  tunnel, the floodlights would listen to a wireless signal. You
• 46:33
  wanted to change, do a show, whatever, and just put it was so
• 46:36
  just plug and play after a while. It's crazy.
• 46:40
  Should have gotten some contracts with submarines, man.
• 46:42
  It sounds like a missed opportunity the way you're
• 46:45
  talking. You know, I never even thought
• 46:46
  about doing submarines, but you know, we can get government
• 46:49
  work. That would have been good. Oh, because hell knows they just
• 46:52
  freaking piss money away. Yeah,
• 46:54
  you can control your margins. All all they care about is if
• 46:57
  you're on the you're on the list. You got to be on the list
• 47:00
  in order for you, and then you can make your you can make your
• 47:03
  money. That's but I would
• 47:04
  have to imagine like somebody in your position. You just want the
• 47:07
  people that you're dealing with. I want to make sure I don't have
• 47:11
  to. I've got enough headaches to deal with
• 47:14
  as it is.
• 47:14
  I don't need another one. I need you to handle you know late
• 47:18
  shipments if they come up. I need you to figure out if it's
• 47:21
  going to be too late and what's the replacement. What are we
• 47:24
  looking at? That kind of stuff. You're just basically you're
• 47:26
  being a hero, essentially, right?
• 47:30
  Love it. Yeah, I mean, I think if you were an owner of a
• 47:33
  company, I mean, like, yeah, you're right. You you have so
• 47:37
  much on your plate, and if you can partner with someone that
• 47:40
  makes your life easy. They don't even care about the price.
• 47:43
  Right. It will make you just like just take care of me.
• 47:45
  To answer your question, that was kind of our approach when it
• 47:48
  came to car washes. That like one of the things I would teach
• 47:50
  people that were doing interfacing with the client and
• 47:53
  my business partner was excellent at this. Look, we get
• 47:56
  it. The last thing you need to be worrying about is whether or
• 47:59
  not your lights are working. That's where we come in. Okay,
• 48:03
  that's where we got to make sure that you're being taken care of,
• 48:06
  and we got to be the hero when it comes to making sure that
• 48:09
  your light shows are going off. Because that was that became a
• 48:13
  huge part of the industry. It became a customer experience
• 48:16
  rather than just washing a car. You know, kids wanted to go.
• 48:20
  Let's go where all the pretty lights are, and that's why they.
• 48:22
  That's why all these car washes have light shows. Keeping up
• 48:25
  with the Joneses. Now they're going to video walls. That's a
• 48:30
  new thing,
• 48:31
  Jim. I want to compliment you quickly. It's just you know you.
• 48:37
  It's you're pretty impressive. You you just do it. You talked
• 48:40
  about so many things that you've done, and you at least at least
• 48:43
  tried if it worked, if it or if it didn't. But you just have
• 48:46
  that experience, and man, what are what's what's the younger
• 48:50
  generation doing now? Let's
• 48:52
  well hopefully you know my kids coming up watch their dad work a
• 48:57
  lot. My youngest daughter is helping me out with a couple of
• 49:00
  things that I do for voiceover. She's doing a lot of editing for
• 49:04
  me, and she's she's loving it. She's eager, you know. My son
• 49:08
  did it for me for a while, but he kind of outgrew it, and now
• 49:10
  he's there's an element of like the prodigal that happens with
• 49:15
  kids. That you know, what do you know, mom and dad? We're too
• 49:19
  close to you, and we know how you guys are. Therefore, your
• 49:23
  opinions and thoughts don't carry as much weight as the
• 49:26
  world's do right now. Because you know, we all went through
• 49:29
  that. We all discounted our parents in terms of what they
• 49:32
  thought, and until we got to about our mid 20s and realized,
• 49:35
  you know, mom and dad kind of knew what they were talking
• 49:38
  about all along. And it's time to give them due credit for what
• 49:42
  they have been trying to impress upon us. Because early on in a
• 49:45
  child's life, you can shape them right from wrong. You can
• 49:49
  directly impact how they live, how what the decisions they
• 49:53
  make. You know, show them accountability. Show them the
• 49:57
  consequences of their decisions. They get into their. Teenage
• 50:00
  years, you could still have that that input, but you're kind of
• 50:03
  getting you're morphing and evolving into what I call a
• 50:06
  consultant mode. And once the kids get older, you know they're
• 50:09
  adults. You're a consultant at that point. Hey, you know I see,
• 50:15
  you know my son, he's kind of a late bloomer, and I think COVID
• 50:20
  had a lot to do with that. A lot of I think it set a lot of kids
• 50:23
  back. So you know, even though he's 18, I think he's really
• 50:27
  probably mentally 15 or 16. So that maturity has still yet to
• 50:31
  take hold. I have complete faith that it's going to happen. But a
• 50:36
  lot of the things that the next generation and might this might
• 50:40
  be the you know get off my lawn comment of the conversation.
• 50:44
  I got plenty of those. Yeah,
• 50:46
  I think a lot of them are enabled by excuses. Well, I've
• 50:51
  got this condition. Well, I'm this. I'm I'm labeled this. I've
• 50:53
  been prescribed this. Therefore, I have this. This is becomes my
• 50:57
  identity, and now I can lean on that, and that can be my excuse.
• 51:02
  But eventually, you know, when the rubber meets the road, man,
• 51:07
  it's that shit doesn't matter. It's it's about it. Always comes
• 51:11
  down to grit. It always comes down to ambition.
• 51:17
  Yeah, yeah. I oh jeez, I fear for my son all the time, and you
• 51:22
  just nailed it. It's just, I mean, the key word there is
• 51:24
  accountability. Accountability of life. I mean, not everyone is
• 51:28
  going to hold your hand. Not everyone is going to show you
• 51:31
  the way. And then you're, yeah, no, you've, you got to have.
• 51:38
  That's the fear of the dad of being a father. Is like my my
• 51:42
  son, he'll hear a cuss like it's there. You know, if he hears a
• 51:44
  cuss word and he said, "Oh, I learned it from a student, you
• 51:47
  know, one of the kids I went to school with, he said this word,
• 51:50
  and I had to say, "Hey, you you know you're not supposed to be
• 51:53
  saying that word, right?
• 51:54
  Right.
• 51:55
  But if they said, "No, no, no, no, no, you you shouldn't be
• 51:58
  saying it, and it doesn't matter if you heard it, accountability.
• 52:03
  Yeah, we went through that, but we weren't exactly the best
• 52:05
  models because somebody in the room might have a little bit of
• 52:12
  a propensity of not having patience when it comes to
• 52:15
  certain things. So it's you know, for example, we came home
• 52:20
  from dinner one night, and my my kids were I don't think our
• 52:23
  Hallie was born at that point, but oh yeah, she was because I
• 52:26
  was I was fixing her crib. But we got home from somewhere, and
• 52:30
  the kids were still really small, and my son's running
• 52:33
  around, and he tripped on something, and he's maybe I
• 52:37
  don't know six years old at the time, maybe five, and he goes,
• 52:41
  ah, my wife starts dying laughing, and like she like
• 52:50
  really, I'm I have to deal with this now because you're
• 52:52
  completely in hysterics. I got to be the fuck you learned that
• 52:55
  word, right? And like you know, and we're like, I'm like, you
• 52:59
  can't because it's this little voice, you know, and you're
• 53:05
  trying to be like you-you cannot say that word, and you know your
• 53:12
  wife is freaking cackling in the background, and your son's
• 53:16
  looking at you like I'm confused right now because I should be
• 53:20
  taking you seriously, but everybody's laughing, and we're
• 53:24
  getting him ready for bed. And I bring him upstairs, and all of a
• 53:27
  sudden he comes up to me. He's like, "Dad, why can't I say? I'm
• 53:31
  like, "Dude, you just did it again. She hears it downstairs
• 53:37
  and all over again starts laughing, and I'm like, in my
• 53:43
  mind, going, "This is absolutely hilarious right now. But I gotta
• 53:47
  be the adult, you know. And then, you know, the next night,
• 53:51
  because they had the baby monitor in the our youngest's
• 53:55
  room, and I was lowering the the crib, and the person who keeps
• 54:00
  on putting freaking hex wrenches and screws into freaking kits?
• 54:05
  There's a special place in hell for you because I cannot stand
• 54:10
  hex bolts. And you know, here's the cheap little freaking Allen
• 54:13
  wrench, and it's like, dude, those things suck. And
• 54:16
  especially when you got you're working with machine thread
• 54:19
  trying to get the thing started, and you got like a you know the
• 54:21
  weight of the mattress and you're trying to you know hand
• 54:24
  you're trying to spin like five different plates getting this
• 54:27
  little frickin screw in there and keeping this stupid thing oh
• 54:29
  dude don't get me started so naturally I would have a
• 54:33
  meltdown that came through the baby monitor for all to hear
• 54:38
  downstairs and you know my wife's like oh gee I wonder
• 54:41
  where they're hearing all these words from, Jim. You know, I'm
• 54:44
  like, "Dude, we're both guilty. But come on, yeah. I'm like, I
• 54:47
  never swear in front of the kids. Yeah, you do.
• 54:50
  It's, oh yeah. I mean, you're you're just protecting them from
• 54:55
  the outside world. I mean, there's not everybody's going to
• 54:57
  take kindly if you're just throwing the f bomb right
• 54:59
  everywhere and. Yeah, no. Childhood is that's very
• 55:04
  interesting. I um I do you ever reflect on like how you were
• 55:07
  parented, like and then you oh jeez, I was kind of an asshole.
• 55:12
  Yeah, kind of a a little yeah. See, we
• 55:15
  I don't think we were. I mean, that's my brother and I talk
• 55:18
  about it. Like you know, mom and dad had it pretty good with us,
• 55:21
  and this is how bold we are. You know, maybe we're missing a few
• 55:23
  things, but we don't have our parents to talk to anymore. In
• 55:25
  terms of maybe we're off, but yeah, I mean, we were there were
• 55:31
  dumb, boneheaded things that we've done, but nothing like you
• 55:36
  know police worthy. You know what I mean? I made some stupid
• 55:41
  decisions when I was a kid. We all do, but I don't think ever
• 55:44
  gave him a run for my for that was probably credit to how they
• 55:47
  brought us up. Yeah. So
• 55:50
  were there elements of your childhood that like I guess
• 55:54
  drove you to do what you do today? I mean, like he if he can
• 55:57
  really like go back. I mean, we talked about our fathers and how
• 56:00
  they were great examples, and just accomplishing-not not have
• 56:03
  any excuses. Just you know, like if you want something, you know,
• 56:07
  do it yourself or try to accomplish it, try to figure it
• 56:10
  out. But like you, if you can just take it away from, take it
• 56:16
  to its primal state. Like you know, Jim. Like what what made
• 56:19
  Jim who he is today? I mean, was this? I
• 56:24
  think my father.
• 56:25
  You know, I'm asking. Yeah,
• 56:26
  my father was very. He recognized he recognized a lot
• 56:31
  of himself in me.
• 56:33
  Okay,
• 56:34
  and my brother was a not not not like our our mom, but he was
• 56:42
  there first, and they wanted somebody to go to college
• 56:47
  because that was what they hung their pride on. You know, back
• 56:50
  in that generation, it was kids got to go to college. That's
• 56:54
  just there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You go to
• 56:56
  college, and we want you to be the first one to graduate with a
• 56:59
  degree, and this way, we can be proud of ourselves, and we know
• 57:01
  we did something right. So my brother was that for them. I, on
• 57:05
  the other hand, was the wild card, and I think my dad always
• 57:12
  knew that. You know, for Dan, we have to make sure that he does
• 57:16
  this because I know this is what the structure he needs. Jim, I'm
• 57:19
  not worried about because he's going to figure it out because
• 57:21
  he's like me. That's what I. That's what I found out later on
• 57:24
  in life. But a lot of what we saw, a lot of what was what
• 57:30
  raised us was what was caught versus taught. So seeing Dad
• 57:35
  work all the time, not all the time. He he had a good work life
• 57:38
  balance. He liked to play hard. He liked to work hard. You know,
• 57:43
  we had the toys, we had boats, and all these things. Growing
• 57:46
  up, we had a great childhood. I mean, my dad showed us a lot how
• 57:51
  to do things, and as much as it pains me to say it, my mom
• 57:55
  showed us how not to do things. There, there are people in life.
• 57:59
  There are people in life that I think that we come across that
• 58:02
  will show you, and you know this intrinsically with every fiber
• 58:05
  of your being when it happens to you. How when you're in a
• 58:08
  position like that, I know how to do it and I know how not to
• 58:10
  do it. So my mom was very like. Remember, I said before, my dad
• 58:16
  was like, "You, you, I got to be your dad. My mom had the
• 58:19
  attitude of, "You made me a mom. Everything was inward. Like this
• 58:23
  is what you did for me. You know, a lot of the language that
• 58:26
  she used because I was always the class clown, if you will. Go
• 58:32
  figure.
• 58:32
  I know, right?
• 58:33
  And I heard this one sentiment in the last couple years of her
• 58:40
  life, he was always my entertainment. She would say
• 58:44
  that to her friends, to her new husband. Your mother always says
• 58:47
  that you were her entertainment. Like this is what I did for you.
• 58:50
  Yeah,
• 58:50
  you were always my entertainment. So the language
• 58:53
  was inward. This is what you did for me. My father, on the other
• 58:57
  hand, was like, this is what I get to do for you. You see what
• 59:00
  I'm saying, so exactly
• 59:01
  what you're saying. My
• 59:02
  father was-he never told us. He would always tell us when we
• 59:05
  were growing up, "I'll never be afraid to hug and kiss you,
• 59:08
  boys, and tell you I love you. And so my brother and I were
• 59:11
  like, "Yeah, of course you're our dad, but that's because that
• 59:14
  was not told to him. He didn't get that experience from his
• 59:17
  father, and he decided to break the cycle with us. I'm getting
• 59:20
  freaking emotional talking about it, but that's that was his
• 59:23
  decision. That's that was the power he had, and that's what he
• 59:26
  did. And that's you know he showed us how to be good,
• 59:29
  productive adults with how he handled himself. He didn't
• 59:32
  always do it right. He wasn't perfect, you know.
• 59:36
  I don't think we're ever really doing it right. I mean, we can
• 59:38
  always criticize ourselves, you know. Right? It's amazing that
• 59:41
  we have that representation and example because we're always
• 59:45
  trying to do better, right? We're always trying to do
• 59:46
  better, and I think, I mean, well, if you're a good person,
• 59:49
  yeah, there's no
• 59:50
  such thing as a good person. I don't think they they exist. I
• 59:53
  believe
• 59:54
  I think you and my I I had four siblings. Well, me and my
• 59:58
  brother were the oldest. Sons and yeah, him and I are so night
• 1:00:04
  and day. I was, which is kind of like what I get fulfillment of
• 1:00:09
  my job today, is because I was not an extrovert. I was very
• 1:00:13
  afraid to talk to people. I didn't know how to do it. I was
• 1:00:18
  very awkward, and I didn't have a lot of friends either. Like I
• 1:00:24
  didn't really come out of my shell until I was like in junior
• 1:00:28
  high.
• 1:00:28
  Right.
• 1:00:29
  I started getting a little more confident because that's
• 1:00:31
  actually
• 1:00:31
  early.
• 1:00:32
  Well, I guess. Well, I started playing music and I started like
• 1:00:35
  learning how to play guitar and then I got a new, you know,
• 1:00:38
  group of friends that were shared my interests. But yeah,
• 1:00:42
  like my brother, um, he was just gosh, you can make anybody
• 1:00:45
  laugh. He was just yeah, like a clown. Like he just knew how to
• 1:00:48
  like
• 1:00:49
  new timing, comedic timing. Yeah,
• 1:00:51
  people hated. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. But
• 1:00:53
  like, he was just a clown, and I just felt like, ah, man, if only
• 1:00:57
  if I had that. I never had that, and I never understood it. But
• 1:01:00
  that was a talent that he had.
• 1:01:01
  Yeah,
• 1:01:01
  he was a great. He was just a just so yeah. He knew
• 1:01:06
  how to pay, how to check that box. Yeah, he was an
• 1:01:08
  entertainer.
• 1:01:09
  And when you measure yourself against that, I did the same
• 1:01:11
  thing. My brother was a piano player, and because that was his
• 1:01:14
  identity for a majority of his youth. You know, from elementary
• 1:01:18
  school, middle school, high school, he was always the the
• 1:01:21
  keyboard player guy, synthesizers, piano. Yeah, I was
• 1:01:25
  always envious of that because I always knew I wanted to be a
• 1:01:27
  drummer since I was probably six years old. And my mom, hey, what
• 1:01:31
  do you want to play? You want to play an instrument like your
• 1:01:33
  brother? Yes, I know exactly the instrument. What is it? The
• 1:01:36
  drums. Oh, they're too loud. And again, inward language being
• 1:01:41
  deployed on me, I always enjoyed the saxophone. You should play
• 1:01:45
  the saxophone. I kid you not. I mean, this is this is a
• 1:01:49
  revelation about the inward language concept I'm talking to
• 1:01:52
  you about. This was revealed to me in the last couple of years
• 1:01:54
  at what we were doing with her decline. That a lot of I'm like,
• 1:01:58
  you know, holy crap! I've I never realized this before, but
• 1:02:01
  listen to the language she uses. Everything is inward. This is
• 1:02:04
  what you did for me. I want I want you to play a saxophone
• 1:02:06
  because I always liked
• 1:02:08
  it.
• 1:02:08
  You know what I mean? So yeah, I played the saxophone from I
• 1:02:13
  don't know fourth grade. That was it.
• 1:02:15
  Well, I have to I have to admit that I think I am like your
• 1:02:19
  mother in a lot of ways when it comes to parenting my child,
• 1:02:21
  because there are things that we bond over, we bond over, we bond
• 1:02:24
  over music and bond over things. I mean, I'm a musician, and I've
• 1:02:28
  thought about getting him into like you know, try the drums,
• 1:02:31
  try the guitar. You know, like it'll, I'll enjoy it because
• 1:02:34
  it's the a bond, a new bond I'll have with you. So I have to
• 1:02:37
  check myself every now and then because I do. I I
• 1:02:40
  as long as you don't force it on,
• 1:02:42
  yeah. If there's
• 1:02:43
  if there's an intrinsic, my son was always musical, and because
• 1:02:48
  dad played the drums, he wanted to play the drums, and then at
• 1:02:51
  some point he got it in his head that well, you just want me to
• 1:02:54
  play the drums because you play the drums, yeah. And I said,
• 1:02:57
  nobody, that's not it at all. I'm telling you right now, I'm
• 1:02:59
  not forcing you to do it. I'm making you do it through middle
• 1:03:02
  school and be part of band because you are fantastic at
• 1:03:05
  this. I see this talent in you. Your mother sees it. Your uncle
• 1:03:09
  sees it. Your your siblings see it. You're the only one who
• 1:03:13
  doesn't. You're the only one in the band that's dancing. You're
• 1:03:16
  the only one in the band that takes that. That's on the drum
• 1:03:19
  set. You're the one driving the band, buddy. That's all right.
• 1:03:24
  You, he could have gone into high school, been part of the
• 1:03:26
  drum line without an audition. That was offered to him, and he
• 1:03:30
  was like, "Nope, because you want me to do it, right? Okay. I
• 1:03:35
  mean, literally, I'm not going to force you to do it.
• 1:03:37
  Yeah.
• 1:03:38
  Our agreement was through middle school. I figured by the end of
• 1:03:40
  middle school, you'd be you'd kind of have a knack for it, but
• 1:03:42
  if you want to be that stubborn about it, fine. That's not my
• 1:03:46
  cross to bear; that's yours, and you're gonna have to learn that
• 1:03:49
  at some point. And I hope that you know it'll never be too late
• 1:03:52
  for you to pick it up again. But imagine all the time that was
• 1:03:56
  lost. How much further you could be if you just stuck with it?
• 1:03:58
  You know, he he tried piano, dude. We got him a piano for for
• 1:04:02
  Christmas, and my my brother is a piano player. Christmas Day,
• 1:04:07
  he was playing it like somebody's been playing it for
• 1:04:09
  nine months.
• 1:04:10
  Yeah,
• 1:04:11
  just instant gravitation towards it. I film it, send it to my
• 1:04:15
  brother. I'm like, check this out. He's never played before.
• 1:04:18
  Look at him. My brother's like, oh my gosh, he needs to keep. He
• 1:04:21
  says, "Don't force it on him. I said, "No, I'm not going to
• 1:04:22
  force it. Yeah. But every time we told him, "My gosh, buddy,
• 1:04:25
  you're really good at yeah, you think so? Yeah, you're amazing.
• 1:04:27
  Okay, I'm going to stop. Okay, don't do it because I'm telling
• 1:04:31
  you, dude. That's so. That was like the frustrating thing that
• 1:04:34
  as a parent, you got to realize that. All right.
• 1:04:37
  Do things become? I mean, in your experience, I mean, do
• 1:04:39
  things become calloused or
• 1:04:42
  no
• 1:04:43
  mundane.
• 1:04:43
  You have that choice to make. So again, my kids. I am also hyper
• 1:04:50
  aware of what my kids see. I know they see me lose my
• 1:04:53
  patience and my temper. I completely get that. But guess
• 1:04:56
  what? Also, they get to see. They get I. They have seen me
• 1:05:01
  apologize more than I care to admit. I apologize. I'm sorry.
• 1:05:08
  You shouldn't. You shouldn't have to see your dad do that.
• 1:05:10
  That's not fair to you. No, Dad. It's okay. No, it's not. I need
• 1:05:15
  to be better.
• 1:05:15
  Being reactive. Yeah.
• 1:05:17
  I need to be better about this, and I'm working on it. I thank
• 1:05:20
  you for your patience, and I thank you for your
• 1:05:21
  understanding. But I want you to know that I'm apologizing to
• 1:05:24
  you. They need to see that.
• 1:05:27
  Yeah,
• 1:05:27
  you know.
• 1:05:28
  Yeah,
• 1:05:29
  that's a big thing because a lot of parents are like, "Well, this
• 1:05:32
  is my way, and this is how it's done, and blah blah. Okay, good
• 1:05:36
  luck.
• 1:05:38
  Oh,
• 1:05:38
  you got to read the room sometimes.
• 1:05:40
  Yeah, I mean, you're the you're you're the only person that can
• 1:05:44
  really show them how to do that too. If you don't show them,
• 1:05:47
  somebody else will, and they probably won't like it.
• 1:05:49
  They're gonna see their father. I know three things right off
• 1:05:52
  the top of my head that they're gonna see their dad do. Yeah,
• 1:05:54
  see him work really hard for the family. They're gonna see him
• 1:05:57
  love their mom, and they're gonna see him own up to when he
• 1:06:01
  makes a mistake, and he'll be there to teach you if you're
• 1:06:04
  willing to learn. Because I mean, you know, when the student
• 1:06:07
  is ready, the teacher shall appear. That's a big thing that
• 1:06:10
  you got to keep in mind as a parent. It could be frustrating,
• 1:06:13
  but eventually, you know, we're all going to have that day where
• 1:06:16
  our kids come to us. I need help.
• 1:06:20
  Yeah,
• 1:06:20
  I need your help. We've all done it. We've all realized our
• 1:06:23
  parents might actually have some value. That's a natural order of
• 1:06:29
  things.
• 1:06:31
  Jim, I don't want to call this like imposter syndrome, but like
• 1:06:33
  I'm gonna. Oh, sorry, I went a whole different direction there.
• 1:06:36
  That's good. No, I mean, I don't know if you ever feel this way?
• 1:06:40
  But like, there are times where I'm just like, oh my, I can't
• 1:06:43
  believe I'm doing this. I didn't think that this was even
• 1:06:46
  possible for me. I really set my expectations low because I was
• 1:06:52
  not the smartest. I was not the social. I was. I wasn't really
• 1:06:56
  that social. Didn't have a lot of friends. I struggled
• 1:06:59
  academically. I struggled a lot, and I I gave up on myself a long
• 1:07:07
  time ago. I get it. Yeah, I thought, okay, well, if I don't
• 1:07:10
  make it in music, if I don't become a you know rock star,
• 1:07:13
  then I'm screwed. I'm gonna have to find a gonna gonna flip
• 1:07:17
  burgers probably. Well,
• 1:07:20
  there's a there's a notion out there that I've heard from a lot
• 1:07:23
  of different gurus. No offense to anybody who flips
• 1:07:25
  burgers for a little sorry,
• 1:07:26
  you know thought leaders and stuff like that that use this.
• 1:07:29
  You are the best person for who you were. So the people that are
• 1:07:35
  listening to this, or people you come across that are that it's a
• 1:07:38
  common thing to have imposter syndrome or feeling like you're
• 1:07:42
  not doing enough, or you should be in a certain place.
• 1:07:46
  Comparison is a thief of joy, and also, I like
• 1:07:52
  that. Comparison is a thief of joy.
• 1:07:54
  It
• 1:07:54
  is. I've never heard that before.
• 1:07:55
  I would compare my my my spot in life to where my dad, like what
• 1:08:01
  came at 50 years old, dad was here. I'm 50 years old. My not
• 1:08:05
  my age right now. When he was 51, he was back in the trenches.
• 1:08:10
  He was back in a truck. We had a big recession that hit our part
• 1:08:16
  of the country pretty hard in the early 90s. It was it was
• 1:08:20
  very devastating. I mean, we we went from probably a 1516,
• 1:08:23
  employee business down to just my dad within a matter of
• 1:08:27
  months. Because I mean, money just got the flow of money got
• 1:08:31
  turned off. And being in the phone business, we're not a
• 1:08:35
  we're in need, but we don't we don't we don't need to upgrade
• 1:08:38
  the phone system now.
• 1:08:40
  We don't have
• 1:08:41
  the money. We could make these work, so we had maintenance
• 1:08:44
  contracts and things of that nature that would help feed. But
• 1:08:47
  the new portion and the new system sales were off, just
• 1:08:50
  non-existent. So my my dad had to get back in a truck and climb
• 1:08:55
  ladders again after you know building a business that was
• 1:08:58
  kind of running itself, which is the dream of all business
• 1:09:00
  owners, yeah, and you know, for a majority of the early '90s, he
• 1:09:05
  was back to doing grunt work, and I'm not there, so I look at
• 1:09:13
  that and I knock on wood. Am I willing to do it? Of course, but
• 1:09:16
  I used to compare. Well, Dad, at his late 40s, was at least doing
• 1:09:20
  this, they were taking vacations, and I I can't even
• 1:09:22
  afford that, so I would do that a lot to myself. But confidence
• 1:09:26
  is a memory of success, and a lot of what you're talking
• 1:09:29
  about, your brother being funny,
• 1:09:31
  yeah, it
• 1:09:32
  was an identity. You being a guitar player, bass player,
• 1:09:35
  musician was an identity, and if you don't have identity early
• 1:09:39
  on, that's tough,
• 1:09:40
  yeah,
• 1:09:40
  because my identity was wrapped up in you know before I played
• 1:09:45
  the drums it was RC cars and not exactly a hit with girls, but as
• 1:09:51
  soon as I started playing the drums, I knew I was the fricking
• 1:09:54
  man because it was so it was such a natural thing for me. I
• 1:10:00
  just knew how to play, and as soon as I put myself out there
• 1:10:04
  and playing with other people and getting into those
• 1:10:06
  communities, and then doing it in school, and then all of a
• 1:10:08
  sudden, these people that never talked to you before see what
• 1:10:11
  you can do, and they're like, "Oh, wow, you're really
• 1:10:14
  talented. And I became the drummer in high school, the one
• 1:10:18
  guy
• 1:10:19
  became your hyper focus.
• 1:10:20
  It became my focus. It became my identity. It was a great
• 1:10:23
  identity to have until it played out, and then I, you know, got
• 1:10:26
  out of high school, went to college, lost my identity
• 1:10:29
  because I wasn't having any successes, and eventually, you
• 1:10:33
  know, my father brought me into his business, and he ended up
• 1:10:37
  retiring. I learned it, learned the electrical trade, learn, you
• 1:10:40
  know, wasn't me, but again, identity revealed itself once I
• 1:10:44
  got in the radio because this is me. I knew I'm in my element,
• 1:10:49
  and a lot of life is that. A lot of people go through feeling
• 1:10:52
  less than because they're not doing what they're meant to do.
• 1:10:56
  I think a lot of white collar people that took the beaten path
• 1:11:00
  to college. Well, this is what you're supposed to do.
• 1:11:03
  This is what you
• 1:11:03
  want to do. No, that's why a lot of people around the age of 40
• 1:11:07
  have these crises moments. You'll find. How old are you? If
• 1:11:11
  you don't mind me asking.
• 1:11:12
  How? Whoa, turning 35.
• 1:11:14
  Okay.
• 1:11:14
  Yeah.
• 1:11:15
  So you're entering the age. You, but I think you're satisfied.
• 1:11:18
  I'm too young
• 1:11:19
  to not remember my age.
• 1:11:21
  I think you're satisfied in knowing this. You feel like
• 1:11:24
  you're in your element doing what you're doing.
• 1:11:25
  Yeah,
• 1:11:26
  you feel like this satisfies me. I've got to. I'm confident about
• 1:11:29
  it because I've been successful at it. That that ties into all
• 1:11:32
  these different things. But a lot of people who got out of
• 1:11:35
  college in their early 20s, don't forget, dude. 20 to 40
• 1:11:39
  sucks. It's the summer of your life. You've got. I've got to
• 1:11:43
  find a career. I've got to find a spouse. I've got to meet all
• 1:11:47
  these expectations. I've got peer pressure. I got to make
• 1:11:50
  sure I'm making financial decisions. I got to buy a house.
• 1:11:53
  I got to have kids. I got to figure out how to be a dad. I
• 1:11:56
  got to figure out my kids. I got to figure out how to be a dude.
• 1:11:59
  Oh my gosh, we never realize that we never freaking put two
• 1:12:05
  and two together and realize 20 to 40 can really suck. Okay,
• 1:12:12
  until somebody like me comes along and points out it's okay,
• 1:12:16
  it's gonna suck. But as long as you're aware of it, it'll
• 1:12:19
  probably suck less.
• 1:12:20
  Yeah,
• 1:12:20
  you know what I mean. Oh yeah, and then eventually you just
• 1:12:22
  kind of-that's why a lot of people get to like 37 to 43, and
• 1:12:26
  they have a big shift in revel. This is not what I want to do. I
• 1:12:30
  don't want to be a CPA. What the hell am I doing? I'd rather do
• 1:12:33
  woodwork. I'm going to go work with my hands. That's why you
• 1:12:37
  see a lot of people doing that point in their life. They switch
• 1:12:40
  seasons. I see it all the time. Happened to me.
• 1:12:45
  I think it still. I think it still happens. Yeah. There are
• 1:12:48
  days where I feel like, oh god, I don't want to do this anymore.
• 1:12:50
  But then I get a phone call, and then I'm like, oh my god, I I
• 1:12:53
  just bailed that guy out. I I provided a solution for that
• 1:12:56
  guy. Right. My spirits are right back up. I mean, it's just it's
• 1:12:59
  such a roller coaster, and that's sales too. I mean, it's
• 1:13:02
  just like ups and downs. It's like a toxic girlfriend. It
• 1:13:05
  really is. I mean, it can be, and you're still
• 1:13:07
  early in the game. You're only four years into doing this.
• 1:13:10
  Yeah, well, in the industry for like 10 years, but this is my
• 1:13:13
  like four years in like outside sales, and people have told me
• 1:13:18
  that oh man, this is it's not it's not wining and dining. It's
• 1:13:21
  not going out to football games or doing dinners, happy hour.
• 1:13:26
  Like that's not what it is. Because people, in my
• 1:13:29
  experience, they'll gladly take a free lunch.
• 1:13:31
  They'll
• 1:13:31
  they'll take a free dinner. They'll they'll take a free
• 1:13:35
  whatever. But that does not guarantee you a sale. You have
• 1:13:37
  to make sure that you're persistent on that.
• 1:13:40
  Right. You
• 1:13:41
  have to you you have to justify that money that's being put
• 1:13:45
  towards, yeah. Oh yeah, whatever schmoozing you you you're what
• 1:13:50
  you do.
• 1:13:50
  It's got to be cost justified. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:13:53
  And
• 1:13:54
  it's got to turn into some sort of business at the end of the
• 1:13:56
  day.
• 1:13:57
  Yeah, that's somebody told me that, which is I've I've worked
• 1:14:01
  for so many distributors, and yeah, I mean, I I heard a lot of
• 1:14:05
  stories, a lot of uh, yeah, I mean, they said that yeah, this
• 1:14:08
  it's this is not the reality, and I am, yeah, I can see it
• 1:14:13
  now. I I definitely see it because yeah, you can go after
• 1:14:19
  that big fish, and you can eat for a long time, but man, when
• 1:14:23
  they that fish is done, then it's like you have to start all
• 1:14:26
  over. Oh yeah,
• 1:14:27
  00 to zero. Car business was the same way. Yeah, I mean, you
• 1:14:31
  always try to get 15 to 20 cars sold a month, which is probably
• 1:14:34
  at this point low. But at the Mercedes dealer, that was a good
• 1:14:37
  paycheck. That was a great paycheck.
• 1:14:41
  It's kind of like a hunter and a gatherer. I mean, like where I
• 1:14:45
  still don't know where I am in that spectrum, but I mean, like,
• 1:14:47
  yeah. Do you want to gather and then you know just live
• 1:14:51
  comfortable, or do you want to hunt? And
• 1:14:54
  have you run across people that are in their 40s and 50s that
• 1:14:57
  you know constantly have business coming their way? And
• 1:15:00
  it's like, man, how do you get to that position where they're
• 1:15:03
  constant? Not until I
• 1:15:04
  came around.
• 1:15:05
  But I mean, that's a lot of that, you know. Because in the
• 1:15:08
  car business, I ran into people that had committed to it like it
• 1:15:11
  was a career. And every business owner I've had on this podcast,
• 1:15:16
  there's about a five year runway time of when you realize you've
• 1:15:20
  got some, okay, am I getting traction in this, or is it time
• 1:15:24
  to bail? You're four years into doing essentially what amounts
• 1:15:29
  to starting your own business. When you're in sales, you're in
• 1:15:31
  your own business,
• 1:15:31
  100%
• 1:15:33
  right, 100% You're the face of it. People need to trust you
• 1:15:37
  that you're gonna, you know, not only with your like working for
• 1:15:40
  Mercedes the way I did, I knew I had I could have confidence in
• 1:15:44
  our in our shop that no matter what car went through our shop,
• 1:15:48
  that it would be a really good car for our pre-owned offerings,
• 1:15:52
  certified or otherwise, because our shop was just they took it
• 1:15:58
  seriously. The guys in that in the in the in the bays were just
• 1:16:04
  there was just like lightning in a bottle until it wasn't. But as
• 1:16:10
  a salesperson, I had confidence in everything I sold. Not so
• 1:16:13
  much at the Honda dealer there where I started because like
• 1:16:15
  yeah, let's just put it out. Yeah, but did you change the
• 1:16:19
  oil? No, no, not yeah. We gotta. I gotta deal with the freaking
• 1:16:23
  headache of this if it blows up. Okay, you know what do we do
• 1:16:29
  here? Do we make sure we make sure it's safe? Okay, what does
• 1:16:31
  that mean? Well, the turn signals work, the brake lights
• 1:16:34
  work, you know, the brakes work. What else you need? That the
• 1:16:37
  engine's not gonna fricking catch on fire. Yeah, you know
• 1:16:40
  what I mean? At Mercedes, it was a different. You felt confident
• 1:16:44
  as a salesperson. That that's a huge part of it. You know,
• 1:16:47
  because that your integrity and your reputation is only as good
• 1:16:51
  as what's backing you up.
• 1:16:53
  Yep.
• 1:16:54
  You know what I mean?
• 1:16:54
  Oh yeah. Would you encourage the younger generation to sell cars
• 1:16:58
  these days? Oh, absolutely. Really? I
• 1:17:00
  told my kids that I said if if all else fails and you need
• 1:17:03
  something to do, go wait tables, go oh yeah sell cars, go go sell
• 1:17:07
  something. Okay, go my my daughter. You know again,
• 1:17:12
  confidence being the memory of success. She had a rough go of
• 1:17:15
  it the first two years of college. Came home this past
• 1:17:18
  summer, got herself a job at a new restaurant in Cool Springs,
• 1:17:22
  and they love her, absolutely adore her, and she's always the
• 1:17:28
  front person taking the orders. She always got a big old smile
• 1:17:31
  on her face. I'm like, Kim, hate to tell you this, but you're a
• 1:17:37
  salesperson because you're good at this,
• 1:17:41
  yeah. I still just can't. I can't get over that word. Well,
• 1:17:46
  I guess we. It's okay. I just don't like the word sales. Like
• 1:17:50
  it's just embrace it. I know. I guess I could
• 1:17:55
  embrace it. You might as well. That's what it is.
• 1:17:58
  Sounds villainish.
• 1:18:00
  No, it's just you know, as long if you're you're getting people
• 1:18:02
  to buy things that they don't need or want. Yeah, yeah, okay,
• 1:18:06
  yeah, that's a good point. If you're helping them, you know,
• 1:18:09
  somebody coming to a car lot and and wanting to buy a car, look,
• 1:18:12
  you're here for a reason. Okay, my job is to try and figure out
• 1:18:16
  what's the best option for you and explain all the things to
• 1:18:18
  the best of my ability, and make sure that everything looks good
• 1:18:21
  and it's copacetic for your finances, and that's it. But
• 1:18:25
  again, you know, it depends on the institution you're working
• 1:18:28
  for. When I worked for Mercedes at that particular point in time
• 1:18:31
  in Cool Springs, it was a we didn't dare I say we had a term
• 1:18:38
  in the in the business called jicky jacking, and that was
• 1:18:40
  basically, you know, jicky jacking. So basically, trying to
• 1:18:45
  finagle the customer into something that you know, and
• 1:18:47
  tell them whatever they needed to hear in order to get the
• 1:18:49
  sale. Well, that's not what we did.
• 1:18:50
  Okay,
• 1:18:51
  we were a gentleman's floor. We honored and respected each
• 1:18:54
  other. We didn't try to snake deals from one another. We
• 1:18:57
  always tried to go above and beyond to help each other out if
• 1:18:59
  we needed something. It was a good culture for a minute,
• 1:19:02
  and
• 1:19:02
  then all of a sudden it just kind of went the crap. But
• 1:19:04
  that's a whole nother story. But when we sold cars, it was I
• 1:19:09
  wasn't going to tell you everything. I learned my own
• 1:19:11
  voice in that situation that I could put my head on a pillow at
• 1:19:15
  night and be and be good. That's what that's what mattered to me
• 1:19:18
  because I've heard some doozies from other salespeople. Oh yeah,
• 1:19:21
  you could totally get the incentivized rate, and I'd be
• 1:19:23
  like, dude, I even know that you shouldn't be telling them that.
• 1:19:27
  Did you pull damn credit yet? Well, we want the incentivized
• 1:19:31
  rate. Okay, do you want to go ahead and start a credit app
• 1:19:33
  right now? This way, we can see where you you you you size up,
• 1:19:37
  and I can tell you it's a possibility. I'm not going to
• 1:19:39
  tell you you're going to get the incentivized rate, because
• 1:19:41
  that's up to the bank. That's up not up to me.
• 1:19:44
  Yeah.
• 1:19:45
  So those were the different word tracks I would use. That I'd be
• 1:19:47
  like, that was honest. You know,
• 1:19:49
  integrity.
• 1:19:50
  Integrity. That I was being honest. That's how it how it
• 1:19:53
  works, and that's what earned me a lot of sales. Is because I
• 1:19:56
  would just simply shoot from the hip, say things that they
• 1:19:58
  weren't expecting. Well, you know, you add points to the
• 1:20:01
  financing, and yeah, do we do?
• 1:20:04
  Yeah,
• 1:20:04
  we do. Well, can why can't I? You can you can go to the bank
• 1:20:08
  and get a buy rate yourself, but dude, this is a profit center
• 1:20:11
  for us. This is how we how part of how we make money.
• 1:20:14
  Yeah,
• 1:20:14
  and they'd be like, oh, yeah, we're a business. We're not a
• 1:20:17
  nonprofit. You know,
• 1:20:20
  you you bring up a really good point. I mean, like um, yeah,
• 1:20:22
  maybe that's why I get the ick from the word sales is because
• 1:20:25
  yeah, it seems like I'm selling some people a product or
• 1:20:29
  something that they don't need. Right. But and I think in a way
• 1:20:33
  I feel like it's a it's a and it's a disservice to what I do
• 1:20:38
  on a daily basis. Like I'm not just selling product. I'm
• 1:20:41
  managing. I'm managing, managing emotions, finding the right
• 1:20:47
  solutions, whether it's rebates or bottom dollar partnerships of
• 1:20:53
  products that make sense for their job applications. I mean,
• 1:20:56
  like the list goes on, and it just it's a big thing. And then
• 1:20:59
  you got to chase money. You got to chase money. Sometimes people
• 1:21:02
  are not. They can. It could be smoke and mirrors. Oh yeah. In
• 1:21:08
  my experience, I've seen customers or clients that are
• 1:21:12
  just look like they hung the moon, and then you put all your
• 1:21:17
  eggs in one basket, and you're just you're left. I'm speaking
• 1:21:21
  from experience. Yeah, you got this kind of just start all
• 1:21:23
  over. But it was good. It's good. I mean, and guess who did
• 1:21:25
  the
• 1:21:25
  selling in that situation? Ever think about it that way?
• 1:21:29
  Who did the selling in the situation?
• 1:21:30
  Yeah, somebody they think hung the moon and they look great on
• 1:21:33
  paper, and all of a sudden they can't pay the bill. You got
• 1:21:35
  sold. We're in a world of you're a seller be sold. This is the
• 1:21:40
  world in which we live-it's a sell or be sold world. You're
• 1:21:43
  either doing the selling or you're being sold. Yeah, that's
• 1:21:45
  true. To try and apply other terminology to what it is that
• 1:21:50
  you do is being intellectually honest. Think about it that way.
• 1:21:54
  You're a salesperson, man. That's what it is. You're either
• 1:21:56
  a good one or an intellectual, honest one. Yeah, one that you
• 1:22:00
  know people will send other. The biggest thing, if you know
• 1:22:04
  you're a good salespeople, salesperson, is if your
• 1:22:06
  customers send other people. You know, you're doing it right when
• 1:22:09
  that happens. They give you referrals because they trust
• 1:22:13
  you.
• 1:22:13
  I love that.
• 1:22:14
  No, that's a win.
• 1:22:16
  Yeah,
• 1:22:17
  and if that's not happening, you got to figure out what you're
• 1:22:19
  doing.
• 1:22:22
  Well, I still love it. I love the industry, and I think the
• 1:22:25
  goal for me-and I'm just going to put this out in the
• 1:22:27
  universe-I would like to be a coach of some sort. I mean, I
• 1:22:31
  would like to just share my experience of like what worked
• 1:22:34
  and what didn't work. Yeah,
• 1:22:37
  earn that. Earn that. Yeah, you need to earn that. Yeah. Okay,
• 1:22:40
  because there's so many people out there that are trying to be
• 1:22:42
  gurus, thought leaders, coaches. Well, you know, I've had two
• 1:22:45
  years of life. I'm going to be a life coach, dear.
• 1:22:48
  No, no, no, no, no, not life. No, you need
• 1:22:50
  good. You wait till you're in your mid 40s, then start
• 1:22:53
  coaching, because you got to get beat up. You got to get some
• 1:22:55
  black eyes. You got to get some bruises, guts and scars, and all
• 1:22:58
  the different things. You get your life has got to look like
• 1:23:01
  they got to get they. Your life has to look like electricians'
• 1:23:04
  hands. Okay, time in the trenches, that you know, gritty,
• 1:23:09
  rough, sandpapery feel, scar. I call them trade tattoos. I got
• 1:23:13
  them all over my hands when I worked in the in the business.
• 1:23:16
  Even when I I cut my thumb open a couple weeks ago, opening up a
• 1:23:23
  a package of XLR cables, and I called that you know adventures
• 1:23:27
  in podcasting. I didn't go to the I didn't go to the ER and
• 1:23:30
  get it. I wanted it to grow back as a scar because I'm proud of
• 1:23:34
  it.
• 1:23:35
  You know what I mean?
• 1:23:36
  Yeah, I would have the I would tell the
• 1:23:38
  story.
• 1:23:38
  I know. Well, I would have done. You should have seen the other
• 1:23:40
  guy trade
• 1:23:41
  tattoos is what I call them. It's a big thing,
• 1:23:43
  you know.
• 1:23:44
  So,
• 1:23:45
  well, anyway, I um again for viewers what what I what I do.
• 1:23:50
  I'm an account manager for electrical distribution. Um,
• 1:23:54
  yeah, when I tell people that, they they like, what what is
• 1:23:57
  that? How do you? That's corporate gobbledygook. Yeah,
• 1:24:00
  yeah, yeah. I sell
• 1:24:01
  electrical parts with integrity, and I solve my customers'
• 1:24:05
  problems to the best of my ability. I believe that
• 1:24:08
  everybody needs a good supplier on their side that's got their
• 1:24:13
  back that's going to try and reduce the amount of headaches
• 1:24:15
  that they're already dealing with. That's a great way to
• 1:24:18
  approach what you do. Well, if somebody asks you what you do,
• 1:24:21
  tell them what you believe.
• 1:24:23
  Okay,
• 1:24:24
  I believe that every single GC out there, an electrical
• 1:24:27
  company, needs somebody on their side that's looking out not only
• 1:24:31
  for their bottom line, but also getting them the best parts, the
• 1:24:34
  best service, the you know, the the best marketable products
• 1:24:41
  that we can get in their hands as quickly as possible, so they
• 1:24:44
  can get the job done for their clients. That's what I do.
• 1:24:47
  What do you say to someone that's like? I mean, I know I'm.
• 1:24:50
  I'm still. I guess I'm kind of young, but from somewhere
• 1:24:53
  between their 20s and 30s, they're just still trying to
• 1:24:56
  figure life out. I guess there's. So many different
• 1:25:01
  variables to this. I mean, like I would say, if you don't like
• 1:25:06
  your job, but you're good at it and you don't, it's not
• 1:25:10
  something you feel like you want to do. Find another avenue that
• 1:25:13
  you could still do this field, but not have to do the everyday
• 1:25:18
  grunt work that you're doing. Like try to find different
• 1:25:20
  avenues where you can sort of develop a core, and then just
• 1:25:24
  sort of see where it takes you from there. Instead of just
• 1:25:27
  dropping what you're doing just to try something different.
• 1:25:29
  Like, does that make sense? And not asking it in a form of
• 1:25:31
  question. You got
• 1:25:32
  to have a little bit of overlap.
• 1:25:33
  Yeah,
• 1:25:34
  you know, hey, I want to evolve where that's always a natural
• 1:25:37
  desire, the human of us to want to evolve what we're doing, we
• 1:25:40
  want to feel like we're moving forward. To be stagnant is not
• 1:25:45
  not a good feeling. If you're in a position that you know you're
• 1:25:49
  not, like we know it intrinsically. Like when I was
• 1:25:52
  working as an electrician, I, as much as I enjoyed the work, I
• 1:25:55
  knew it wasn't me then. I knew I had something else to do. I had
• 1:25:59
  an itch to scratch, and I knew it had to do with broadcasting
• 1:26:03
  or music or whatever music. I wasn't going to pursue because I
• 1:26:06
  had no idea where to begin. Now that I see people in that
• 1:26:09
  industry living the life, it's not a life I would have wanted.
• 1:26:14
  But going into broadcasting and radio ultimately was my element,
• 1:26:19
  and I was lucky enough to know that and be aware of it at the
• 1:26:22
  time. A lot of people didn't understand it. My parents didn't
• 1:26:24
  understand it until I moved here, and they saw the awards
• 1:26:27
  I've won and how people just we had such you know respect for
• 1:26:31
  one another inside the building, and like they literally said,
• 1:26:35
  "Wow, you were you really are good at this. I'm like, "Yeah,
• 1:26:37
  I've only been doing it for 10 years, but glad to finally see
• 1:26:40
  that I've got your nod of approval. So that was a thing.
• 1:26:45
  But when you what to to your point, there's got to be stages
• 1:26:49
  if you want to move. If you're not, you know you're good at
• 1:26:51
  what you do, but you can't stand it. Then it's incumbent upon you
• 1:26:54
  to make the choice that I'm going to find the one thing that
• 1:26:57
  I like about
• 1:26:59
  it.
• 1:26:59
  I'm going to find the one thing that gives me joy about
• 1:27:01
  it-that's that's my responsibility because I've got
• 1:27:05
  my backs in the corner. Okay, I've got a house payment, I've
• 1:27:08
  got kids, I've got a wife, I've got the insurances, the car
• 1:27:11
  payments. It's bigger than you at that point. Now you can
• 1:27:14
  either choose to be grumpy about it, or you can choose to get
• 1:27:18
  great at what you hate and turn it into something that you like,
• 1:27:22
  and then figure out what the next step is. Like you're
• 1:27:24
  talking about, if it's not selling this, then what are the
• 1:27:27
  selling? You're good at selling. You could sell something. What's
• 1:27:30
  something I'm passionate about selling? Is it guitars? Is
• 1:27:34
  it
• 1:27:34
  musical instruments? Is it working for GC Pro and making a
• 1:27:38
  ton? Because those those guys make good money. Not the guys in
• 1:27:41
  Guitar Center, but the guys who are doing the commercial jobs,
• 1:27:43
  selling studio equipment to studios. That's something I
• 1:27:47
  would excel at.
• 1:27:48
  Yeah,
• 1:27:48
  but this is my this is my element. This is my superpower.
• 1:27:51
  Doing what I do here, and I know that, and I'm good at
• 1:27:55
  it. I second that.
• 1:27:56
  Yeah, thank you.
• 1:27:57
  Yeah,
• 1:27:58
  but that's the key to a lot of things. Is just if you're aware
• 1:28:00
  that you're not happy, or it's incumbent upon you again,
• 1:28:06
  reiterating, find out what the joy is, find out what it is that
• 1:28:11
  you're you're good at, and and find if you can. I tell my kids
• 1:28:15
  this: find the one joy, and you know if that one joy is the
• 1:28:20
  lampstand in the dark dark room. Then great, cling to it. Maybe
• 1:28:25
  the other things will light up, and it's not just like throwing
• 1:28:29
  a towel. And oh, this is what I'm doing. Oh, there's other
• 1:28:31
  things that you can do. Watch out for opportunity when it
• 1:28:34
  comes along, and if it's congruent with what you do, go
• 1:28:38
  for it. So, that's my take on it.
• 1:28:42
  Thank you, because
• 1:28:43
  I've been there.
• 1:28:44
  Yeah,
• 1:28:44
  you know, I got out of the electrical business because my
• 1:28:48
  foreman came up to me, and I admittedly I was a little bit of
• 1:28:53
  a cancer, probably in the organization because I had one
• 1:28:56
  foot out the door, and he basically said, "Look, you know,
• 1:29:00
  I need you to kind of be better at not expressing your disdain
• 1:29:07
  for the industry and what you're doing, or leave. And I said, I
• 1:29:12
  appreciate that. I think I think I'm going to leave, and I left.
• 1:29:18
  Well, okay, so I was hesitating in bringing that up, but um, and
• 1:29:24
  so this was back in 2014, I
• 1:29:27
  believe,
• 1:29:28
  2014 15. When I was a, I was a counter guy for a small
• 1:29:33
  independent supply house, and this was around the time that we
• 1:29:41
  got this new person in office, and I was in a different
• 1:29:47
  direction. And man, it was just so discouraging. I mean, I don't
• 1:29:52
  want to turn this into a political conversation, but it
• 1:29:56
  was hard for me. And I would consider myself young and naive
• 1:29:58
  back then, like just. Hearing every day people that would come
• 1:30:04
  in and get their coffee, and they-it was tough. It was
• 1:30:09
  really, really tough. And then I, it affected my work a lot too
• 1:30:13
  because I would have to hear it. And when they, when he said this
• 1:30:19
  thing about Mexicans, and I was just like, ah, being Latino that
• 1:30:24
  was kind of hard. And but maybe I just took that way too.
• 1:30:27
  Looking back, I think I just took that way too personally,
• 1:30:29
  and it was a part of something that I held too much as an
• 1:30:34
  identity. But anyway, what I'm saying is that that really,
• 1:30:38
  really affected me, and I that's kind of where it got me
• 1:30:41
  discouraged. I don't want to do this anymore if I'm going to be
• 1:30:43
  surrounded by people like that. And I mean, over time, I think
• 1:30:49
  it shifted a little bit. Like it's it's as far as like how I
• 1:30:52
  handle myself and how I present myself. I don't have to agree
• 1:30:55
  with everything you say, but like I mean, I I can't. I do
• 1:30:57
  have control of how I present myself and how I contain myself,
• 1:31:02
  and so yeah, I mean that is I almost left the electrical
• 1:31:06
  distribution the industry because of that. No,
• 1:31:09
  there was one thing like the car business was the college for me,
• 1:31:14
  and I learned so much in that business. One of the things was
• 1:31:17
  you know exactly what you were talking about. You said the key
• 1:31:19
  word, guy. I concentrate on what I can control. You know, you
• 1:31:24
  can't. I had a podcast client that was politically opposed to
• 1:31:30
  what I believe, but I still love her. I still talk to her today.
• 1:31:35
  Yeah, I don't agree with her politically. You know, at the
• 1:31:37
  time that you know Trump was elected again in 2024, she came
• 1:31:42
  in. The first thing she said was, "I hope you know what
• 1:31:45
  you're getting into. I'm like, "You don't even know who I voted
• 1:31:48
  for. Yeah, this is how vague I've been. Okay, but yes, it's
• 1:31:54
  obvious that you and I are politically opposed. I said,
• 1:31:56
  "But that doesn't mean we can't get along. We need to start
• 1:31:59
  having empathy for each other. This is where the country needs
• 1:32:01
  to go, and I have control to embrace you. Yeah, I said, but
• 1:32:05
  you know, at the same time, I will say, what happened to all
• 1:32:07
  your voters? But that's a whole other
• 1:32:09
  point. I mean, isn't that kind of what separates us from from
• 1:32:13
  animals? You know, like we were actually able to sit down and
• 1:32:16
  have a conversation. Yeah, I think that's what makes this
• 1:32:18
  country so great too. And I'm just, you know, I learned that a
• 1:32:21
  little bit later because I was just so bitter. Like I don't
• 1:32:25
  want to. I didn't want to have a conversation with somebody who
• 1:32:28
  who had different different point of view that I had. But we
• 1:32:32
  mentioned Mike. Mike Harris. I he he had a great perspective on
• 1:32:39
  life, and he and I were at that time. I was a dumb liberal kid,
• 1:32:44
  but he was a very conservative Republican. Yeah. But he said a
• 1:32:48
  lot of things that make a lot of sense to me, and I was able to
• 1:32:51
  sort of shape my views from him. I mean, I do give him a lot of
• 1:32:55
  credit. I would listen a lot of things. I'm like, well, I at the
• 1:32:58
  end of the day never looked at it that way. Right, and then
• 1:33:04
  yeah, I guess I from that point I kind of stopped surrounding
• 1:33:06
  myself with people that are just like super negative or very
• 1:33:09
  one-sided and are not willing to have a conversation. And amazing
• 1:33:13
  when
• 1:33:13
  that happens. It's amazing
• 1:33:14
  what you can accomplish. Yeah, I wish we can go back to that as a
• 1:33:18
  society.
• 1:33:19
  We're we're getting back to it. The book, the book over my
• 1:33:22
  shoulder. I always point to Pendulum. It it actually
• 1:33:25
  outlines everything that we're going through with eerie timing,
• 1:33:29
  like where we're we're supposed to be right where we are right
• 1:33:32
  now.
• 1:33:32
  Is it Pendulum or Pendulum?
• 1:33:34
  Pendulum.
• 1:33:35
  This one, right? This this
• 1:33:36
  book right here.
• 1:33:37
  Okay,
• 1:33:38
  and it basically talks about everything we're going through.
• 1:33:40
  It goes back 3000 years with patterns of societal attitudes
• 1:33:44
  and things of that nature. We're right on schedule with how
• 1:33:49
  things are, and it's actually the darkest swing point of the
• 1:33:52
  pendulum that we just went through. So every 80 years, we
• 1:33:56
  go through something that's really dark, and typically ends
• 1:34:00
  up in a bloody reset. So, 80 years ago was World War II.
• 1:34:03
  Before that was the Civil War. Before that was Revolutionary
• 1:34:06
  War. At least here in the you know Western side of things. But
• 1:34:10
  it's almost like clockwork because generations dictate how
• 1:34:15
  we kind of look at life. You know, Vietnam went the way it
• 1:34:18
  did because of the juxtaposition of the attitudes of the
• 1:34:21
  generations. You had a lot of people who served in World War
• 1:34:24
  II who had national pride and honor, and and we we defeated
• 1:34:28
  the bad guys and the Nazis and the Japanese and blah blah blah.
• 1:34:33
  That turned into cynicism in 20 years because, well, why are we
• 1:34:39
  getting involved with Vietnam, we didn't know why. It's like
• 1:34:42
  the Ukraines and the Russians. I think a lot of the Russians had
• 1:34:47
  a run for their money in these recent skirmishes that they've
• 1:34:50
  had, battles and war and stuff like that. Because a lot of the
• 1:34:54
  Russians are going, why are we doing this again? I honestly
• 1:34:57
  think that's a big part of it. Like we're Putin. Wants this? I
• 1:35:01
  don't get why we're doing this. Why are we going after our
• 1:35:03
  neighbors? I'll do it because that's what I'm told to do.
• 1:35:07
  World War II, we knew why.
• 1:35:09
  Yeah,
• 1:35:10
  that's what united the entire thing. Vietnam guys were going
• 1:35:13
  over there, is going, why are we doing this again? Why are we
• 1:35:17
  losing 55,000 people, and then coming home to get you know
• 1:35:21
  being called baby killers and having fruit thrown at us as
• 1:35:23
  we're walking off the plane, why am I doing this? Because you
• 1:35:27
  were drafted, you know, people had to be drafted into it,
• 1:35:30
  forced to do it. So there was you know a lot of these things
• 1:35:33
  kind of flip flop throughout history, and typically around
• 1:35:36
  that 80 year mark where we are, we have a calamity. So sort of
• 1:35:40
  you know everyone's talking about civil war and you've got
• 1:35:43
  all these nuances, all these concepts, left versus right, men
• 1:35:48
  versus female. You know what is a woman? You know trans men in
• 1:35:52
  sport. Every which way they can divide is happening right now,
• 1:35:57
  man.
• 1:35:58
  But the one thing they're not talking about, they're kind of
• 1:36:00
  talking about it, and I love the fact that the property tax
• 1:36:03
  argument's gaining traction in Florida because that could
• 1:36:05
  spread like wildfire like that. The next conversation to have is
• 1:36:09
  the IRS and federal income taxes, and I want that to happen
• 1:36:12
  because they got it. Stop them! That's one thing we can all
• 1:36:16
  unite around. That is something that we can all get behind and
• 1:36:21
  unite and and just be like shut down the flipping IRS and end
• 1:36:26
  the federal income tax permanently. Nobody ever wants
• 1:36:29
  to do it because they don't know how. They don't know how to
• 1:36:31
  rally. Well, how are we going to fund the government? I don't
• 1:36:34
  care. When we have enough money to send billions of dollars to
• 1:36:38
  come to other countries, we're being taxed too much. I think
• 1:36:43
  that's my rant.
• 1:36:46
  I think at this point, jeez, I'm actually having a
• 1:36:49
  vein pop out in my head. My gosh,
• 1:36:51
  I see it now. You have two. I think I don't know. I think
• 1:36:56
  we're just so desensitized now, and
• 1:36:58
  well, we got to reverse that because we're okay with too much
• 1:37:01
  bullshit. We are okay with being taxed to the hilt. There's, you
• 1:37:06
  know, what my income is government noneya. It's none of
• 1:37:09
  your business. None of your business is how much how much I
• 1:37:13
  make. That's the way it should be. That's the way the
• 1:37:15
  forefathers wanted it, and that's where we need to get back
• 1:37:18
  get back to. But nobody talks about that because that's a
• 1:37:21
  uniting thing. We can all agree on that, for the most part.
• 1:37:26
  Yeah, I mean, isn't that the goal? I mean, do we want to be
• 1:37:28
  united or do we not, or do we want to have a purpose by
• 1:37:33
  dividing because it feeds our ego or feeds our our identity?
• 1:37:38
  The more you divide, the more controllable you are.
• 1:37:40
  And once you agree, you see that on both sides. It's just yeah,
• 1:37:43
  they don't want peace. I mean, because it's like everything
• 1:37:45
  that they've built their character on. Like you know, I
• 1:37:48
  this is me. I voted red, and this is me. I voted blue. I I
• 1:37:53
  had different pronouns, so I use this as my shield. And I don't
• 1:37:58
  know, like what's the
• 1:37:59
  they're inconsequential tertiary concepts that really have no
• 1:38:04
  bearing. That was a
• 1:38:05
  big word, Jim.
• 1:38:07
  They have no bearing on what really happens and how it
• 1:38:11
  affects us. But yet, nobody ever makes the equation that for
• 1:38:16
  three months to six months out of the year, you work for the
• 1:38:20
  government, ever think about it that way? That really pisses
• 1:38:26
  people off. Oh, I never thought about it that way. How much of
• 1:38:29
  every dollar you make has to go to their freaking pockets? Oh,
• 1:38:32
  by the way, you have to prove it to them, and you're guilty until
• 1:38:38
  proven innocent. Because if they come to your door, what happens?
• 1:38:43
  You get a letter from the IRS. Your heart jumps into your
• 1:38:46
  throat. What the crap? Why am I? Why are they sending me a
• 1:38:49
  letter? It's never for anything good.
• 1:38:52
  Yeah.
• 1:38:54
  Am I right or wrong? Nobody gets pissed off enough about that.
• 1:38:57
  No. Because
• 1:38:58
  they're all afraid. That's how we're controlled. How do we get
• 1:39:02
  on this tangent?
• 1:39:03
  I don't know, Jim. I was. I mean, you can either choose
• 1:39:07
  leave it in or cut it out. I don't care. I always leave it
• 1:39:09
  on.
• 1:39:10
  Well, I mean, as
• 1:39:10
  far as like composure goes, you know, it's about how you react.
• 1:39:22
  I'm just gonna yeah say this right now I'm kind of going
• 1:39:24
  through that with my son like with a
• 1:39:27
  how old is
• 1:39:28
  he? He's he's nine he's nine years old, and one day he told
• 1:39:32
  me, "Daddy, I'm a they them. I'm like, I know what it meant, but
• 1:39:39
  like he's like, well, what does that mean? I'm like, oh well,
• 1:39:41
  like I don't. I'm not a boy or a girl. I'm a, I, I'm, I'm either
• 1:39:46
  or. I'm like, well, son, why do you? Why did you say that? Why,
• 1:39:51
  what makes? I mean, again, like, what makes you think that? I
• 1:39:53
  mean, well, I like to, I like to wear nightgowns. I like to paint
• 1:39:57
  my nails, and like. Well, your son, you're just experimenting.
• 1:40:02
  That's fine, you know. I mean, I used to grab my mom's makeup and
• 1:40:06
  make Kiss paint my face look like Kiss. You know what I mean?
• 1:40:10
  Like, you know, I was experimenting. You know, like
• 1:40:12
  that's nothing wrong with that. You doesn't have to. You don't
• 1:40:15
  have to put a label on it. And I just think that this just, I
• 1:40:18
  don't know. We just seek too too much comfort in labels.
• 1:40:21
  Well, I think a lot of it's it's the world. The world's going to
• 1:40:28
  speak into your kids' lives, whether you like it or not.
• 1:40:31
  Yeah,
• 1:40:32
  they're going to find a way. If you tell them not to do
• 1:40:33
  something, they're going to find a way to do it anyway. So our
• 1:40:36
  biggest thing with our kids is communication, open lines of
• 1:40:39
  communication, knowing that they could talk to one or both of us
• 1:40:43
  without any repercussions, that it's going to be a conversation.
• 1:40:48
  Look, we get it, your kids, you're going to mess up. Doesn't
• 1:40:50
  mean you're not going to be without consequence or
• 1:40:52
  accountability. Yeah, but we could talk through these things
• 1:40:56
  for your son who's nine and be like, I think identifying what
• 1:40:59
  you're hearing from the world versus what you're hearing from
• 1:41:03
  us, a big thing, and I learned this from a friend of mine who
• 1:41:06
  he's got a nonprofit called Stronger Than My Father, and
• 1:41:09
  when his kids kind of go and echo things that they hear from
• 1:41:12
  it, he uses, "Hey, well, you didn't learn that from us, and
• 1:41:16
  he really, you know, especially as they get older in the teenage
• 1:41:19
  years and they're more susceptible for influence and
• 1:41:21
  stuff like that. Audit where you're marinating your mind, and
• 1:41:26
  that's one of the things that my kids have heard me say as a
• 1:41:29
  concept: marinating your mind and good stuff. Since I was
• 1:41:31
  self-employed, essentially, and they used to make fun of me for
• 1:41:34
  it. Oh, marinating my mind! I said, well, you know. And
• 1:41:37
  Courtney, my wife, would point out, she's like, but they're
• 1:41:39
  repeating it. They're the concept is there. The seeds are
• 1:41:42
  planted. They're going to understand what it means to
• 1:41:44
  marinate their mind. You can choose to marinate your mind in
• 1:41:47
  what the world's telling you, or listen to your inner voice, Holy
• 1:41:53
  Spirit, if you will, or however you're. There's there's
• 1:41:57
  something in our gut feelings that there's something wrong
• 1:41:59
  with this. Okay, the world tells us one thing, but intrinsically
• 1:42:06
  we know there's something off. So, son, you can either listen
• 1:42:09
  to the world; you have that choice, or you can listen to
• 1:42:12
  what your gut's telling you, or you can learn from what your mom
• 1:42:15
  and dad are telling you because you're still nine years old and
• 1:42:18
  still, dare I say, programmable at that point, that's the world
• 1:42:23
  getting past the defenses.
• 1:42:26
  Yeah. Well, thank you for listening, Jim. That was kind of
• 1:42:29
  like a yeah. That's something I'm kind of struggling with
• 1:42:31
  right now. That's you're not alone. It's it's not just that
• 1:42:35
  the pronouns. It's not just that. I mean, it's just it's
• 1:42:39
  just the fact that it's forced, and I just want my son to have
• 1:42:46
  accountability.
• 1:42:47
  Just probably want your son to have a good, fun childhood.
• 1:42:49
  Be just be a normal boy. No, I mean I don't know. I think I
• 1:42:53
  don't want to use the word normal, but like just like you
• 1:42:55
  know,
• 1:42:55
  just be a just be a kid. Be
• 1:42:57
  a kid. This is too heavy of a concept for you to consider
• 1:43:00
  right now.
• 1:43:00
  And
• 1:43:01
  and even telling them, look, dude, you're nine. You have no
• 1:43:03
  idea what's freaking up and down right now. You have no idea.
• 1:43:07
  These concepts are completely way out of your purview. You
• 1:43:11
  know what you think you know versus what is reality are two
• 1:43:14
  entirely different things. Okay, if anybody else is in your
• 1:43:17
  school telling you this, I want to know about it.
• 1:43:20
  Yeah,
• 1:43:20
  you know, there's a lot of, and you know, I'm probably showing
• 1:43:24
  my hand, but just by having this conversation, but I don't really
• 1:43:26
  care because it needs to be said, my kids are at the point,
• 1:43:29
  like again, per the pendulum. What started out 20 some odd
• 1:43:33
  years ago in the tipping point of a pendulum seems like a good
• 1:43:35
  idea, but when we come to the zeniths of the swing and the
• 1:43:38
  pendulum swings, a good idea gone too far, and that's where
• 1:43:42
  we are right now. Doesn't everything seem like
• 1:43:44
  everything's gone too far? Right?
• 1:43:48
  It feels like a fight fire with fire society.
• 1:43:51
  Yeah.
• 1:43:52
  Ah, I am
• 1:43:53
  like the concepts of what we're talking about. Well, I'm you
• 1:43:56
  know I'm a man and I want to be playing women's sports. Okay.
• 1:43:59
  What? Wait, what? You know what I mean? That's that's the kind
• 1:44:02
  of thing. Like that's taking a concept too far. Like, well, you
• 1:44:05
  just got to be okay with it. No, I don't. No, I. You know, and
• 1:44:09
  that this the the when you have these types of conversations in
• 1:44:13
  the world, my even my own kids are starting to see the
• 1:44:20
  ludicrousness of what we're dealing with in the world.
• 1:44:23
  So you have hope that it'll sort. It'll come back around the
• 1:44:26
  pendulum.
• 1:44:26
  The pendulum. The
• 1:44:27
  pendulum. You know, even they're starting to see. You know, my
• 1:44:32
  dare I say, liberally minded college attending daughter had a
• 1:44:39
  recent Interaction with her quote friends of the same
• 1:44:45
  political bent that was unsavoring, and her one
• 1:44:49
  conservative friend, who's like a cherished friend, is like you
• 1:44:53
  know she's starting to realize oh I'm starting to get it, and
• 1:44:58
  it just. Sometimes just got to let it play out and have faith.
• 1:45:03
  Yeah, I used to use the saying all. I mean, I was really
• 1:45:05
  liberal until liberals ruined it for me. I'm sure people who are
• 1:45:09
  conservative too say the same thing. I was conservative. Well,
• 1:45:14
  I mean, with what I do, I depend on a good. You got to have a
• 1:45:18
  good economy to like survive in what I do because people got to
• 1:45:20
  build, people have to. We anyway.
• 1:45:25
  I know.
• 1:45:26
  Yeah, I mean, I'm not a. I am. I have not. I. I don't know what's
• 1:45:31
  going on, Jim. I'm. I'm not going to speak on politics. Like
• 1:45:33
  I don't know what's going on. I chose to, like, find peace in my
• 1:45:37
  life in other ways. But I think this will kind of come back
• 1:45:41
  around. What I do understand is behavior. Yeah, I can understand
• 1:45:46
  that. That makes sense to me. I think you know anyone can do
• 1:45:52
  that. There's nothing significant, but like, and I
• 1:45:55
  think kind of kind of goes back to the home, you know, in your
• 1:45:58
  childhood. Like, I mean, I remember we were poor. We didn't
• 1:46:02
  have a lot. We, but we we didn't know that though. We were just
• 1:46:05
  having fun. I mean, like, oh, you know, mom was making a
• 1:46:09
  hamburger helper. Yeah, I love hamburger helper. You know,
• 1:46:12
  yeah, we had a good child. We got we got fed, and we we didn't
• 1:46:16
  know what was going on because I think you know our parents. They
• 1:46:23
  they've they didn't throw it at you. They they didn't they
• 1:46:25
  didn't unleash their stresses of every day. I mean, like it's
• 1:46:28
  your job to make your kids feel safe. Right. And then all of a
• 1:46:32
  sudden, we started you know a quality of life has changed a
• 1:46:35
  little bit. We started having things. We started doing little
• 1:46:38
  things, and you just appreciate it. And just So, yeah, I'm.
• 1:46:45
  There was something to that, and I'm. I think I just got lost on
• 1:46:49
  that, Jim. I apologize. Are you
• 1:46:50
  good?
• 1:46:51
  Yeah,
• 1:46:52
  I think what you're trying to say is the fact that not not
• 1:46:56
  blissful ignorance, but you just were happy with your situation
• 1:47:00
  growing up, and then more exposure to the world can be
• 1:47:04
  typically a tough adjustment if you don't have good foundation.
• 1:47:10
  Yeah,
• 1:47:12
  you know, biblical to say, you know, I'm on this on this rock.
• 1:47:15
  I shall build my church.
• 1:47:17
  He
• 1:47:17
  built it on a rock for a reason, okay? Because it's got stable
• 1:47:20
  foundation. You build your house on sand. What's going to happen?
• 1:47:22
  It's going to fall down. So, having those foundations, having
• 1:47:28
  harbors to kind of be able to go to, and having an anchor that
• 1:47:33
  holds you tight in the storm when storms happen is important.
• 1:47:37
  And a lot of people, I think, are lacking that these days. And
• 1:47:42
  a lot of it to me comes down to faith. You know, I'm a believer,
• 1:47:46
  not a perfect one by any stretch of the imagination, but I know
• 1:47:49
  what the truth is, if that makes sense. And that's that's my
• 1:47:56
  anchor. You know, at the end of the, you know, at the end of all
• 1:47:59
  this,
• 1:48:00
  yeah,
• 1:48:01
  I know who wins and who loses. Okay, and a lot of these things
• 1:48:04
  are starting to come to light. You know, I'll control what I
• 1:48:08
  can control. If I can convince somebody to not pay their taxes
• 1:48:11
  or fricking not file or or claim as many dependents as possible
• 1:48:15
  and flip off the government, then great. I think that should
• 1:48:18
  happen. All right, Institute a national sales tax. I'm good
• 1:48:22
  with that. Fair tax, beautiful. I don't want to have to be, you
• 1:48:25
  know, reconciling to the some alphabet agency. Tangent.
• 1:48:31
  Yeah. I tell everybody it's your world. I'm just passing through.
• 1:48:35
  You're right. Yeah. Well, anything else you want to talk
• 1:48:39
  about or bring up? We've had a multitude of topics. Yeah,
• 1:48:44
  I mean, I'm nice and relaxed now. Yeah. Anything else we want
• 1:48:49
  to talk about? I would say,
• 1:48:54
  hmm,
• 1:48:58
  no to college if it makes sense, if it makes sense, yeah, I
• 1:49:03
  think. But I would never.
• 1:49:06
  If some, if somebody else is paying for it, yeah, and you
• 1:49:09
  know why you're going, great.
• 1:49:11
  Well, Ivy, my stepson, for an example, he is in Missouri to. I
• 1:49:17
  know he's gonna hate me for saying this, but like, yeah,
• 1:49:19
  well, he's studying acting, and he's a good kid. I think he's
• 1:49:22
  got his he's got things figured out. But I remember telling him
• 1:49:26
  like, well, instead of going into debt for college to be a
• 1:49:31
  Broadway actor, why don't you just
• 1:49:34
  go to Broadway?
• 1:49:36
  Go to Broadway. No, well, no. Now I was gonna say, like, why
• 1:49:38
  don't you just invest maybe $5,000.06, $6,000 on camera
• 1:49:42
  equipment, lighting. Start making your own films. Like,
• 1:49:45
  start making, start doing things like that. I mean, I think
• 1:49:47
  that's a lot cheaper than going into hundreds of 1000s of
• 1:49:50
  dollars in debt. But anyway, I could be off on that. But I
• 1:49:53
  mean,
• 1:49:53
  there are a lot of people that are like the next generation
• 1:49:57
  crop of actors and creatives. They're all on Tik. You know
• 1:50:01
  Instagram, self
• 1:50:02
  monetize,
• 1:50:02
  right? There's a there's a woman named Manon Matthews. I think I
• 1:50:06
  hope I'm saying Manan, but she started out making vines back in
• 1:50:11
  the day that were comedic. She had a natural talent, and then
• 1:50:14
  it's kind of evolved into what it is now, and she's making a
• 1:50:17
  living at it. And a lot of people, you need to get the
• 1:50:19
  Saturday Night Live, you you'd be perfect for Saturday Night
• 1:50:22
  Live, and she says I'd love to be on it, but I don't need
• 1:50:25
  it. So
• 1:50:25
  she's got the leverage, you know. I've already created this
• 1:50:27
  thing for myself. It's paying my bills. I don't need to be a
• 1:50:30
  struggling actor. If they if they'll have me, great, I'll do
• 1:50:33
  it.
• 1:50:33
  You know,
• 1:50:34
  what doesn't mean I'm going to stop everything else I'm doing.
• 1:50:36
  What's one thing on your fee that you just like? Oh my God,
• 1:50:38
  that's just that's incredible, and that required literally no
• 1:50:41
  money to do, and it's just interesting. Mine is is cooking,
• 1:50:46
  is cooking meals. That is is a reference to a movie scene, like
• 1:50:52
  a Pulp Fiction, the burger scene. Right. Then you got
• 1:50:55
  somebody flipping a burger, creating that big Kahuna burger.
• 1:50:59
  Yeah.
• 1:51:00
  While it's like I guess like a dual screen, and then you have
• 1:51:02
  that scene, and then you're making the burger at the same
• 1:51:04
  time. I love those, and you just you just cook a recipe, and you
• 1:51:09
  can just monetize on that. Like those are fun. Those are just so
• 1:51:12
  fun to watch. I have
• 1:51:13
  a podcast that's been sitting on a shelf for the past several
• 1:51:15
  years now called Capes and Hammers, and it's us just
• 1:51:17
  talking about you know the DC Marvel universe stuff and you
• 1:51:21
  know, Avengers and stuff that I you know kind of got into late
• 1:51:25
  in life. That all of a sudden it overtook like that was like a
• 1:51:28
  hobby, and it was so much fun to talk about all the different
• 1:51:32
  nuanced plot lines and all the detail work that went into these
• 1:51:35
  movies, and how everybody in the country in the world seemed to
• 1:51:38
  fall in love with these characters all over again
• 1:51:41
  because of one little movie, Iron Man, that started all the
• 1:51:44
  whole thing, and it's like even the the bobbing and weaving and
• 1:51:49
  improvising that you know Kevin Feige and all these guys that
• 1:51:52
  were in charge had to figure out in order to make you know a 23
• 1:51:56
  movie saga that of of awesomeness. You know, if you're
• 1:52:02
  really into that, I I was never in the comics growing up, but I
• 1:52:05
  started a podcast talking about it, dude. It's we haven't put
• 1:52:08
  out an episode in years. It still gets downloads. That's
• 1:52:11
  something I should, you know, we really need to revisit and
• 1:52:13
  revive. But you're not wrong. I mean, there's there's people on
• 1:52:18
  the electricians on Instagram.
• 1:52:20
  Yes,
• 1:52:21
  right. Oh
• 1:52:21
  yeah.
• 1:52:22
  They'll set up a camera up at a tripod and do like a time lapse
• 1:52:24
  of somebody dressing out a freaking panel. That's
• 1:52:27
  fascinating to watch. It's really cool.
• 1:52:31
  Yeah.
• 1:52:31
  You know, especially all the women that are getting into it.
• 1:52:34
  Awesome. I love it. I love the fact that you know women are
• 1:52:38
  getting into playing the drums because thank you, Annika from
• 1:52:41
  Rush, and you know they're getting into the trades.
• 1:52:45
  Come
• 1:52:46
  on, let's let's make it work. I think it's great.
• 1:52:49
  I love
• 1:52:49
  it. And you know, women are seeing that. Like, hey, I can do
• 1:52:52
  this. Absolutely, you don't have to go to college. Go to learn a
• 1:52:56
  trade. Yeah, learn how to run wire. Get dirty like the rest of
• 1:53:01
  us,
• 1:53:02
  you know, yeah, yeah, Jim. I think that's all I had. Yeah, I
• 1:53:07
  think why I why I love doing what I do, it it's allowed me to
• 1:53:17
  fill in the holes that I felt like I was lacking in my in in
• 1:53:21
  me growing up, I was able to become a problem solver. I was
• 1:53:24
  able to build relationships. I was able to understand urgency,
• 1:53:31
  and at the same time, learning about a trade. Yeah, till this
• 1:53:38
  till this day, I still love what I do. I love I love the
• 1:53:41
  connections I make, and I just being able to bail somebody out
• 1:53:45
  from a phone, like just a phone call away,
• 1:53:47
  buddy.
• 1:53:48
  Yeah,
• 1:53:48
  I'll leave you with this. My brother once told me, he says,
• 1:53:50
  if you're getting out of bed every morning wondering why you
• 1:53:53
  have to go do what you're going to do again, and you're finding
• 1:53:56
  it really tough to put two feet on the floor from your bed,
• 1:53:59
  that's not a good place to be. Yeah, if you find yourself in a
• 1:54:01
  situation like that, it is incumbent upon you to figure
• 1:54:03
  something out. You got to figure something else out. That's no
• 1:54:06
  way to go through life. So, if you're getting out of bed with a
• 1:54:10
  spring in your step, eager to get to work, you're in a good
• 1:54:13
  position. It's a balance, pros and cons. As long as there's
• 1:54:18
  more pros,
• 1:54:21
  677.
• 1:54:24
  With that being said, if you got any value out of this particular
• 1:54:27
  episode, as always, share it out. mmtbp.com is a website to
• 1:54:32
  go to. You can apply to be on the show. You can do all sorts
• 1:54:34
  of stuff. Download latest episodes. Watch the episodes if
• 1:54:37
  you want to watch these things. Clips are there. All those fun
• 1:54:40
  things. How can people find and follow you, mr. Esteban? Are you
• 1:54:44
  on social media doing anything?
• 1:54:46
  Um, you
• 1:54:47
  should be.
• 1:54:47
  I am on LinkedIn, and I will share that that name with Jim
• 1:54:51
  after the after the episode.
• 1:54:53
  The other aspect of this is like, dude, you know how many
• 1:54:56
  products can you can you review? You can make a whole channel out
• 1:54:59
  of.
• 1:55:00
  You know what, Jim? I did. I attempted that, and I made one
• 1:55:04
  episode, and I never got back into it. This is what I got out
• 1:55:08
  of this. Is I'm going to start doing that. I got to do more of
• 1:55:10
  that.
• 1:55:11
  You might you might be overcomplicating it. We could
• 1:55:12
  talk about that. Yeah,
• 1:55:13
  yeah, yeah.
• 1:55:14
  We'll unpack that after we're done here. Anyway, guys, thanks
• 1:55:17
  for listening. MMTBP.com. That is the website where you can go
• 1:55:20
  to mostlymiddletennesseebusinesspodcast.com,
• 1:55:23
  which is a lot longer to type. It's up to you.
• 1:55:25
  mmtbp.dmmtbp.com. I am Jim McCarthy, your host. Esteban,
• 1:55:30
  thanks for coming out, brothers. is long overdue. Thank you so
• 1:55:33
  much, Jim. I appreciate you.