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Episode 224. The Key To Finding New Career Opportunities as a Technician · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  You want to get better at it. You got to do it. Lots of people say, Oh, no good at electrical. And I'll ask them how many hours this week did you spend on learning electrical? Zero. Well, how are you going to get better at it? You can keep complaining that you're no good at it, but if you're spending zero hours to learn that skill that you want to go, you're not Welcome to the Refrigeration Mentor Podcast.
• 0:01
  This podcast is for busy refrigeration professionals who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your refrigeration coach, Trevor Matthews. Here we cover everything from technical skills and industry trends to personal development. That is key to your success. And why do we talk about personal development?
• 0:02
  Because being a great refrigeration professional isn't Isn't just about your technical skills. It's also about your emotional intelligence, your communication skills, your leadership skills, and lifelong learning. Each episode helps refrigeration professionals enhance their skills, boost their resilience, and achieve a better work life.
• 0:03
  Whether you're a seasoned pro or you're just starting out, this podcast is your guide to being the best version of yourself and unlock your full potential. Thanks for tuning in. Let's grow together. Let's learn together. Now let's get a conversation going. Today, I really want to dive into something that I'm really been focusing on in my training programs in helping professionals and coaching and mentoring, all this stuff, confidence.
• 0:04
  And I really believe. As you build your confidence up more, you're going to start to see more successes in the things that you do and building confidence can be as easy as like to write down a habit and a goal saying I'm going to put water beside my bed for 30 days and go and I'm going to drink it the first thing I do when I get up.
• 0:05
  And you do that over 30 days, you're going to be proud of yourself. You're like, holy crap. And right now you're thinking, that's not her glass of water beside my bed before I go to bed and then drink in the morning. Well, it is hard. It sounds easy, but I challenge you all to all to do it. That's the first step to those changes.
• 0:06
  And then if you get through that, it's going to be that one step up on that confidence level. And this goes on even in your career. So if you do refrigeration and you want to be better at it, Say controls, or you want to be better at troubleshooting compressor, or you better want to be better at install.
• 0:07
  Your first step is setting yourself up for success. And that could be the next 30 days. I'm going to read at least one to two pages on a specific control. Could be a Dan Foss could be a micro thermal, could be an E2. It doesn't matter who it is. It's you set yourself up for a goal and put yourself in a situation where you can do it.
• 0:08
  And for example, this is easier for a refrigeration technician versus someone trying to set up a, um, a goal in a, or a goal. You're trying to set up a goal for a different profession or something different because you're in refrigeration day in, day out. So you could actually, during your break, when you eat, if you stop for lunch, you could have a manual on your phone and you could read that and you could be doing during your workout because it's part of your work as well.
• 0:09
  And you're getting paid for it. It's even better when you can do it outside when you're not getting paid for it. I have someone, somebody in my course that said, Well, because one of the things to go do field assignments. It's up to you to go out and do it. All my programs are online with professionals and people who want to learn.
• 0:10
  It's their job to go and implement in the field. A lot of people say, well, Trevor, I would love you to come to my boardroom and do a training with Lloyd Tex. Why, why do I need to be in the boardroom? At the end of the day, they need to go out in the field and do it. Well, we can go out in the field and then you will go to a store and then you can show them that.
• 0:11
  Why? That doesn't build their confidence. That's me going out there and almost doing it for them. That's like you having a, someone working on your team and you're saying, okay, this is how you pop down or act. They get down and they do all the work and you're just sitting there watching them or you're setting up a controller or whatever it is.
• 0:12
  They do all the work for you. You're not getting that hands on experience. And so getting out into the field and this one person was like in the program. It was like, well, Can you get out and do this assignment? They're like, well, if my company pays for it, I'm like, you're up. You're really in the wrong program, realistically, because this here is for you to develop yourself.
• 0:13
  It's not about company paying for you. Cause I have lots of companies who pay for their tax commit, but I can see the difference in the tax. Some of them are just there because they're there. They get paid. They're there. They, they learn a little, they will learn. Everybody learns that they come in my room, they'll learn something.
• 0:14
  Even if it's a personal development stuff, they say, Oh, well, I didn't, it wasn't really for me. I didn't, I don't learn online, blah, blah, blah. And that's fair, but they're not out there doing the assignments. They're not out there putting the work in. They're not doing the quizzes. They're not doing all the extra work, the resources, the.
• 0:15
  Pile of piles of options that I have. And I actually cut down on my programs because it's, it can be overwhelming. There's so much stuff that I could share, but I can see some people, I will share extra stuff that's not in the program. So they get, they get a little fast track. But the big thing is I could tell that person's in the mindset of that.
• 0:16
  My company needs to pay for everything that I learned. And at the end of the day, if you're in that mindset, it's going to take you 10 times longer to get where you want to be, where you have someone who's in the mindset, like, I want to spend an hour a day working on me, even if it's, I'm not getting paid for it.
• 0:17
  And we're in a, you're in an opportunity where you potentially can get paid for it during your workout. You're waiting for someone to sign off your paper and you know, that manager walks around, but you have to sit there and call, they paged up, you could sit there 20 minutes and learn something. It could be learning something on communication.
• 0:18
  It could be learning something on control. It could be learning something on refrigeration, it doesn't really matter, but that will start to build your confidence up because I've had lots of people say, well, I would like to be a bit more better at writing on my service tickets unless you practice and change the way you're doing it.
• 0:19
  How are you going to get better? If you ask somebody else, how do you, can you show me how you write your service? I know for sure if you go into the office, they will help show you other people's service ticket. Good technicians will say, this is how I do it. The manager will walk, walk you through and give you an example.
• 0:20
  Most of them will, there's some that won't, but most of them will walk you through and say, here's a compressor replacement. This is how I used to do it. And this is what you want to look for. Do you want the contact? Do you want the filter dry? You need to put Silphos on there. You need to put sand cloth on there or miscellaneous.
• 0:21
  You need to put electrical, you need to put a vac pump, recovery and bang, bang, bang, bang, all these different things. And that is important. How do you get better? You gotta, you gotta learn, you gotta grow and you gotta ask other people and find people to do it. And there's some people that are not going to be helpful for you, but you take that in and understand, okay, this wasn't very helpful.
• 0:22
  Let's make sure I don't do that. So you can learn from people who. You don't do it right either, but you've got to take that and not go in that direction. Find somebody else to help you to build that confidence. And the more you do that, the better you're going to get. At the end of the day, it's for your betterment, so you grow.
• 0:23
  And this is one of the things that I see more and more people breaking out of their shell where they think, well, the company should be paying for it after the program, like this was, this was well worth it. They would have, they would have paid it in their own pocket by the end of it. And that's the day.
• 0:24
  And then there's some that are in a fixed mindset where, well, it doesn't really matter. They're not caught, they're caught, they may be confident in what they do, but I bet you if they're confident just working on that specific unit, specific rack, and we throw them on a different one, they're going to be flustered.
• 0:25
  It's going to take them a lot longer. They might get frustrated, throw their hands up, call someone, make it 10 or 15 phone calls instead of just figuring out because they know the behind process it and they invest at themselves. And when you invest yourself to build your confidence, that is because it is continuing education.
• 0:26
  It's a partnership. When you're, you get confidence from doing it, that hands on experience, and you get confidence from learning as well. So to build your confidence is to take different courses on the things that you need and want to learn. And sometimes it's down the road. Sometimes it's not right away.
• 0:27
  Maybe you're taking. A communication course or personal development course or a management course. So two years down the road, when you want to make that shift off the tools into the office or into a, uh, field service role where you're, you're supporting a team or a form and role or a management role or a director role that you're prepared.
• 0:28
  You might not have that hands on experience at that point, but if you, I'll give you a tip right now, if you want to start building your confidence to move into a service manager role, ask them one day a week, I want to shout to you. Uh, or even one day a month at this point, and listen, I'll do it for free.
• 0:29
  I don't have to get paid. I just need to learn how to do this role because I know in two years, I want to move up, up into the, in the management. What's the big deal one day. So if one day you don't get paid and this is, and I know I was in a different mindset before I would, I would not have been saying this, honestly, 15 years ago.
• 0:30
  I would not be saying this. I'm going to be honest with you now, but now I understand the value of your knowledge. And where that can take you. So one day, think about this. You take one day off, it's a 10 hour a day. You get paid 50 an hour. It's 500, 500. How quickly as a refrigeration burst, especially hitting the supermarket.
• 0:31
  How quickly could you make 500? One on call ship, one day on on call could be that 500. You know what I mean? So now you spent eight hours shadowing someone on a role that you want to get into. It's like learning all the tips and tricks and getting to understand what they, they feel like it. They go through during a day.
• 0:32
  Cause you may look at it like, I don't want to do this and I don't want, that's not where I want to go. Or it's like, man, okay, I'm learning. I just learned. Okay. So you got to talk, you know, this way and you know, he's has to understand this and that office dynamics and the technician's dynamics and how he's trying to make everybody happy.
• 0:33
  Work together. So they're not the dispatch, not arguing with the technicians and, and you know what I mean, suppliers and so on. It's, it's, it's key to you invest in yourself. And that's really what I'm trying to say. Other things, you know, really to build. That confidence is you're going to dive in. We're professional skill, highly skilled trade.
• 0:34
  It is getting into the technical side, right? Getting in and learning the electrical wiring diagram. Everyone, lots of people. I was terrible, not terrible. Yes. I'll say I was terrible, but over time I got better at reading the wiring diagram, putting to work it. If you want to get good at it. Every day, read a wiring diagram every day, go and use your meter and put it, match it up to the wiring diagram.
• 0:35
  You want to get better at it. You got to do it. Lots of people say, Oh, I'm no good at electrical. And I'll ask them how many hours this week that you spend on learning electrical zero. Well, how are you going to get better at it? You can keep complaining that you're no good at it. But if you're spending zero hours to learn that skill that you want to go, you're not going to get better at it.
• 0:36
  You'll just keep saying, well, I'm no good at this. And then you keep telling your mind, you're no good at it. And then you're no good at it. But if you say, listen, I'm going to learn this, I'm getting better at it. You're going to see where six months or a year, all of a sudden, man, I'm way better this year than I was last year, but that's putting the work in.
• 0:37
  That's building your confidence, getting you to that right, that right place that you want to be. But once again, it goes back to you to put in the work. And this is not easy. The stuff that I'm talking about is not easy because I didn't do it 10 or 50 years ago, because I didn't know about it. I didn't have the right mindset.
• 0:38
  I didn't have the right coaches. And now I'm in a place where I'm doing it. And I am moving forward and I am progressing just like all of you. This is why you're here this morning, this early, and those of you listening, it's because you want to grow. You want to get better and you got to work on both things.
• 0:39
  Not only the technical things, it's that, that personal development that some people, a lot of people in our industry go through the soft skills. That, that is more important than the technical stuff. Because if you want to learn the technical stuff, it's all the information out there. You go and you read it and then you go to the hands on portion, you read it, go out and every day, cause you get that hands on section every day, even if you're going out and you're, uh, flipping belts, cause I've seen this and I've been said it before.
• 0:40
  Like how do you grow if you're flipping, uh, filters and belts and people say, well, how do I, how do I learn? All they do is send me out to jobs, do maintenances on air handling units. You got tools. Go up and open a panel so you know how your timeline, well it's a tight timeline. You all, you all, you're a refrigeration, you get taught.
• 0:41
  Maybe not that specific day. But I bet you over a week, you can find 15, 20, 30 minutes every week. I don't care what you do in HVAC refrigeration. You can find 15 to 30 minutes. Even if it's on your break. Oh, I need my breaks. Okay, perfect. On your break, when you're up there, while all the filters are in the boxes and you pulled out all the other ones, take out your meter.
• 0:42
  Go to the, the wiring diagram, go to the panel, take your meter out. What should I have? Oh, I should have 230. Or do I get 230? Do I get 24? Well, how do I do it across the contact? Let's shock across the contacts. Do I get any voltage drop? This is how you learn. But you got to put yourself in that situation.
• 0:43
  If you just keep saying, well, all they do is give me filters and belts. Well, that's, you're in the mindset, that's all you're going to do. And I've seen this, I've seen technicians go through their whole apprenticeship and the only thing that they did, and they said it every time I would see them back at school, I was like, all I've been doing is belts and filters because they're not pushing to be better.
• 0:44
  And you've got to ask for this, you've got to get the confidence to go to your service and say, I need a little bit more. I, over the last year, I've been doing a lot of maintenance, belts and filters, and you've got to do those right. Actually, most people do belts wrong, by the way. They crack the belts by rolling them on and things like that.
• 0:45
  But you can go, Over the last year I was spending time on my breaks and on my lunch on these units. And I was learning how to troubleshoot. I was watching videos. I was reading the manuals and I really believe it's my opportunity to start going out and doing some service on these and you know what, I'm willing to train the next person to come in and I can show them all the sites on how to do the belts of the filters and, and the greasing and whatever it is, step by step.
• 0:46
  Will you give me a shot to get into the service? Cause if you don't ask, they're going to, especially it's a larger company, that's going to be your role and you're going to stay there and then you're going to want to move or you get your full license. And you're not prepared. You're not ready for service.
• 0:47
  Not even close. You spent four years in the industry cleaning condensers and flipping belts and filters, and you've never done any of the service. And then there's a lot of blame on the company. There's no blame on the company. You didn't push yourself. You didn't build the confidence enough to get you out to doing that service.
• 0:48
  Because you can be, dude, you got to look out for you in your career, because at the end of the day, if you work with a large company and say there's a hundred technicians or even 30 technicians, that service manager is trying to, to deal with all the different technicians out there. And then if you're good at your role, why would they try to move you from there?
• 0:49
  Why would they push you from there? You know what I mean? You got to think about that. So at the end of the day, you need to look at you and how to get you to where. You want to be in your career, and that's like, like, how do you get from where you're at to where you want to be in that part of your journey, because it's going to continue on and grow.
• 0:50
  If you feel stuck, what do you need to do differently? I want to thank you so much for hanging out with me and the Refrigeration Mentor podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a comment. Let me know what were your key highlights, what you took away from myself, from my guests. As well as if you have not subscribed yet, head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and subscribe.
• 0:51
  And if you enjoyed this episode, please share with a friend, let your friends know that there are people who care, who want to share the refrigeration information to help them get to the next level in their career. If you have not been to the refrigeration mentor website at refrigeration mentor. com, go check it out.
• 0:52
  There's a ton more guest podcasts I've been on as well as the event page. Check out the events page because there's a lot more free trainings. Well, it's paid training to really help you grow your knowledge base. Super excited. Can't wait to see it. The next refrigeration mentor podcast. Let's get a conversation going.