Episode 261 - Navigating Grief, Taxes, and Machine Shop Dreams in the Auto Repair Industry With David Veldman

0:02Hey folks, David here, and I'd like to thank you for joining us for the Changing the Industry podcast. Lucas and I started this podcast with the goal of capturing the frank and open conversations you typically have at industry events. Those conversations cover the challenges we face in our business and lives, as well as difficult repairs, new products and services, and everything in between.

0:26We hoped that these recordings would spur our listeners to enact the change they'd like to see in their own lives and businesses. That's also why we've partnered with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. My first management class was with Cecil Bullard, and his genuine passion for helping others in an honest and ethical manner permeates his entire organization. And if you need some of the Institute's help, they have a special offer for our listeners.

1:00Click the link in the show notes and get signed up for a free business analysis. They'll go over your current situation and give you advice on your next steps. And they have everything from free resources and online classes to peer groups, one-on-one coaching, and specific help for MSOs. So don't miss out on this great offer. Click the link in the show notes.

1:26And now on to the podcast. It's not that I don't trust my guy here. It's just I feel like after talking to Eric and getting to know him and like having a little bit of a friendship with him and talking about some issues and things, it's like, man, I don't think I'm getting the same quality of service and the same experience. It's like, here's your taxes, you're good to go.

1:48As opposed to he and I are talking about things like, hey, what about this and what about that? Well, they've never asked me that. Yeah, you know, and I, I don't know those things. I'm not like David. I've not spent half my life trying to figure out how to make sure the IRS does not get any of his money, right? Like, I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

2:06There's no way to get around other than showing losses, which trust me, I can show some losses. But, and, and because the, the biggest thing, and here's how I avoid completely all of it is my wife is a W-2 employee and she makes good money. So the, her, one of the things that I, because we file jointly, I ask her to pay, hey, pay extra into the government other than Kansas, because Kansas I'll just cut a check for, because usually $3,000 or $4,000, I'll just cut a check for the $3,000 or $4,000, it's whatever.

2:37But for the feds, just pay extra. Throughout the year, that'll then be her employer's responsibility, not mine. I don't have to pay jack squat. And then if I end up showing a loss in the repair business and the other business, or even in one business and a loss in the other business, there's no auditing, or like, they don't look at it sideways because my wife's a W-2 employee.

3:04She's bringing in a paycheck and she's paying whatever taxes need to be owed. Herself. And so that's how I get around all of it. And then we end up with a return because like, oh, I lost $9,000 last year. And they go, okay, well, here's a refund for all she paid into, not what I paid because I didn't pay anything anyway. Yeah.

3:26Veldman, um, you made a post— I, I— my like automated post that pops up, and you said something that was like Man, I feel that. Yeah. But it also kind of left me a little bit concerned about you because it's not— it wasn't like your standard response and what you would say. Yeah. So let's talk about— let's talk about what you said and let's talk about why.

3:48I'm real curious. And to be clear to everybody, I don't know any of the story. So, um, so my dad passed away December 12th last year. No, a month ago. Yeah, uh, my dad's been sick for a long time. I thought I was more prepared for it than I am, and it's kind of, kind of changed my perspective on things a little bit.

4:15And on the flip side of that, I haven't been super happy in the repair business anyways. So I grew up in a shop with my dad and have always wanted a shop and, you know, done that, and he's always supported me and helped me along the way. And, and, uh, losing him made me— I feel like a ship without a rudder so much.

4:41Like, I'm not so much spinning in circles, I'm just going nowhere, or going somewhere, but I don't know where. Uh, So I, uh, I came back to work. He, he passed on, on Friday night, and I was back at the shop Monday morning and haven't taken a day off besides for Christmas, uh, the whole time. And last week, I'm a, I'm the president of the local Chamber of Commerce here, so we had our annual planning meeting last week, and I told them I was going to take a leave of absence.

5:18And when I got back to the shop from the meeting, I told Nicole that I was taking this week off and that I just wasn't okay anymore because the reality has set in at this point. Like, I couldn't fool myself by being busy any, any longer. Yeah, normal shop struggles, you know, parts employees, you know, all that stuff. Taxes, yeah, that good fun stuff.

5:50But, uh, yeah, it just, just a big change. And like I said, I just, I don't know, uh, what I'm looking for or if I'm actually looking for anything at all. It's just been a, a different, different feeling. I like so resonate with this. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, so resonate with this. Um, I— my mom had been sick for a long time.

6:21We just talked about that. My mom had been sick for 7 years, probably longer than that, and they just didn't tell us, right? Yep. I was in California, and David and I were— I think we were at— was it ETI, David? I think it was Easter. I think so, yeah. And my mom calls it— we're, you know, we're in California, and she calls at like 1 AM, which would have been 3 AM for them.

6:46Yeah. And she leaves me this really weird voice message. She thought she was talking to my uncle and stuff. And like, dude, I came back and I realized like, hey, this is not good. Yeah, we didn't realize she was that sick. She'd got the flu or some sort of bug, right? And I walk in and I'm trying to talk to her and she's like, you take care of yourself.

7:05And I'm like, whoa, hold up now, we're not doing that. You know, that wrecked my world. I don't— like, I still can't get over that. I still struggle with that. And, you know, your parents are going to die. Like, that's— we know that. Yep. I look back now and I think there were a lot of questions I wanted answered that I didn't know.

7:29A lot of things I would have liked to have known that I didn't know. And some things I wish she had known that I don't think she knew. Yeah. And I think it made me say to myself, what's the point of all this? Yep. And I mean, like, I know it's coming for everybody. Yeah. And I know that everybody feels that way.

7:56And I know that everybody goes through this. And with what happened, I was, I was consumed with things that I had to clean up. But there's still like, I'll be laying in bed and something will come up, a memory will come up, something will come up, boom, just hits me. Yeah. You know, now it gets better, right? I'm not going to lie to you.

8:15It does get better. Yeah. But it's still there, you know? And being that you grew up with him in the repair shop, And now that's what you do. And I think that Lucas and I have been telling you about PartsTech for a while now and how it gives you access to unlimited parts and tire vendors and direct integration with over 35 shop management systems.

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9:05That's it, nothing else is needed. Your referrals can get you $100 just for using PartsTech, which by the way is absolutely free to get started with. So if you're using PartzTech already, start sharing that referral link. And if you haven't signed up for PartzTech yet, what are you waiting for? Click on the link in the description or go to partztech.com/podcast. That's partztech.com/podcast.

9:34Hey, one more thing. If you find out that your shop management system doesn't integrate with PartzTech, it's time to upgrade. David and I use what we believe to be the very best system on the market. Shopware. With unmatched features like Parts GP Optimizer and DVX, which is their digital vehicle experience, Shopware really is way more than just a shop management software. With it, you'll be able to create an immersive and interactive experience for your client, setting you apart from everyone else using run-of-the-mill software.

10:00Are you ready to upgrade? Click the link in the show notes to get started. Man, I, I, I see exactly what you've done. You've buried yourself in work to try and make all that go away, and you've never processed it and you've never gone through it. Yep. I watched this video the other day. There's this guy, he's, um, he's like a grief specialist.

10:21He's a psychologist or something like that. Yeah. And he says, what you run from pursues you, and what you face, um, how does he say it? Says, what you run from pursues you, and what you face transforms you. Yeah. And so it sounds like maybe you're kind of to that phase or that part where it's like, hey, let's, let's face this. Yeah.

10:44So what's up? What— where do we go from here? What's, what's the strategy? Um, I haven't found it yet. So my uncle moved down here a year and a half ago to— because like I said, my dad's been sick. We, we're, we're well aware of this. Um, he's had emphysema since the late '90s and has, COPD terribly, terribly bad, and, and amongst other issues along the way.

11:13So he moved down here to be with us, and he was working with me at the shop, came to work for us part-time. And then so after my dad passed, I was over there a week or so ago talking to him And I told him, like, man, I just don't want to be at the shop. Like, I don't want to be there.

11:35I don't know what I want to do. And he's like, well, what have you ever thought about? And I was like, the only thing I've ever thought about is, uh, I love building engines, but I don't have a machine shop. I was like, man, if I hit the lottery, I'd just go buy equipment, open a machine shop so I could build motors.

11:55And a— so we moved here from Omaha, Nebraska, and a family friend of ours had a machine shop in Nebraska. His dad passed away last June and they shut the machine shop down as of January 1st. Well, my uncle was talking to him last week and he's like, hey, we're, we're, we're closed. We're going to sell out. So part, part of my Nebraska trip to see family was to go see him about all of his equipment., and see if I could just buy that out, you know, haul it back down here and put it— because I still own my old shop location, it's just sitting there dormant.

12:34So I was like, well, I'll just open a machine shop, figure it out. This— the repair shop has become semi-self-sufficient, um, so we're, uh, I don't need to be there all the time. Obviously I'm not there now, so Uh, but if that doesn't pan out, I don't, I don't really have a direction besides that. Uh, and maybe I'll get back to where I want to go back to the shop.

13:01I, I just, I'm right now, I don't. Dude, this is, this is like, so, I mean, I know it sounds silly, but it's so impactful for me because I, I mean, I've like walked through these exact steps, right? Like it, it just seems like I'm, I'm hearing myself talk and it's it's not that I don't care about the shop or I don't want the shop to do well.

13:23It's that, that like when my mom was sick and we were going through all that, it was like that was an aim, right? It was like that was the thing that we were all working towards, getting her better and, you know, dealing with the issues that came up because of that. And, you know, David and I were traveling and doing the podcast stuff, and so I had some aim there.

13:43And, and, you know, now that I'm now that I'm through this, and right like that, I, I think big man upstairs must had a plan or something because all this stuff that happened, people say like, oh my gosh, that's terrible. And I'm like, I'm gonna tell you, if it wasn't for all the things that happened, we wouldn't still have my dad because it gave him something to fight for.

14:01I probably would have struggled harder not having something to like focus that energy on and clean up and fix. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And so I think that that's Like I said, it's almost like I'm talking to myself and working through that pathway of now what? Because Scott that works for us, he lost Shelly to breast cancer. Yeah. And his wife.

14:26And when he lost her, I remember seeing him lose his aim. We had created an environment where he got paid. It didn't matter if he was here or not. And I said, go take care of your wife. I don't— like, whatever, the money's paper. I don't give a crap. Go take care of her. She needed constant care at that time. Yep. And so for 6 to 8 months, that's all he did.

14:51Yeah. And I watched him feel like a wandering soul when she wasn't here anymore. Yeah. And so I think about people who go through that, right? They lose that focus, and it's so much of who they are when it happens. Do you think that played a part in what happened with you? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've not just, you know, growing up in, in his shops and being around him, but I mean, I, the, the want to do well with our shop, to not only make myself proud and, and do a good service, but to make him proud too.

15:30Like, you know, hey, that's, that's my son's place. Like, he, he did that, you know, they're, they're doing that. That's awesome. And not that I don't think we should continue it, but I like, like you said, I, it's a loss of aim. Like, I don't have a direction anymore because I didn't, I haven't, you know, the arrow gets pulled back to go forward and I don't have anything pulling me back right now.

15:57To shoot me forward because I don't have a target with it anymore, right? I obviously want it to be successful. Um, I actually got a text a little while ago about another tech, and, and we're working right now to hire a service writer, um, to take Nicole off the counter and, and put her in more of a marketing management role. Uh, That way she can control a few things a little better and, and remove me out of it a little more.

16:33Because— and I told her this before I left last, last week— I said, you guys do really good without me, but you want me here because you think I'm this safety net. Like, when I'm there, everybody asks me questions, but when I'm not there they figure those questions out themselves, right? And I've been trying to get better about just asking them, what would you do?

16:58You know, what would you do if I'm not here? Trying to kick it back to them, and that way even if I am there, they're not relying on me to it. But yeah, I just, man, I, like I said, he's been sick a long time. I really thought I was more prepared for it. But yeah, man, you— I don't— you can't be prepared for it, right?

17:22Like, well, you know, I know David is cold-hearted and says it's not going to bother him, and he may be right, but I don't think that when it happens— like, and David had— I think David had a very different experience as a child than what I had. I had very loving parents, right? Yeah, that really cared and invested in us heavily and did things to make our lives better.

17:44And worked very hard to accomplish things for us. Yeah. And, and like we were talking before we started, like, a lot of my drive now is because they did work so hard, and I can't let that fail, right? I, I couldn't be okay with that. Yeah. What— let me ask you this though. What if this had happened 5 years ago? What, what if you were in the same place 5 years ago?

18:07Because wasn't the shop in a very different place 5 years ago? Uh, I would have just closed the door and went and got a job. Yeah, like without a doubt. Because yeah, we had 5 years ago, we were— I mean, I was barely, barely, barely making it. Yeah. And that was when I was by myself. I may have had one tech at the time, but yeah, we were we were scraping at that point, right?

18:39What was the catalyst for changing that? What, what brought the business to a different spot when you went, uh, so hiring the tech was, was pretty good. Um, I hired Trevor, who you met, uh, came, came with me, uh, and then him and I worked together as a pair for I think about a year before Nicole came in and then Nicole took over the office and the, and the front end stuff and lightened my load so I could go back to working.

19:13And that was really the catalyst to, to that was, you know, once we had somebody that could keep us rolling, we just took off because we could turn out so much more work and and had a lot more success at that point. Yeah. What do you think your dad would want? Um, I mean, my dad was always a big proponent of, you know, do what makes you happy.

19:43Like, if, if you're miserable, don't go do something else. Yeah, like, we, we had arguments over that. You know, we'd be working on something together and I'd be in a bad mood from something else going on and he'd just run me off, you know, like, you know, I don't need you around right now, you're, you're in terrible, you know, terrible mindset, you know, terrible mood, stuff like that.

20:03I'm not going to deal with it. There's no reason for you to be here like that, you know, not, not in anger, just, hey, you're, you're not useful like this. Yeah, for sure. Uh, but, uh, my dad did a lot of different things besides the auto repair stuff. Um, so he was in and out of it. He was always in it, but, uh, like when we moved from Nebraska to Missouri, he got a job, uh, running a private water system, water and sewer system.

20:33Went and got his, his freshwater and his, uh, wastewater licenses and learned how to run, uh, equipment. And he did that for 7 or 8 years. Uh, you know, took, took care of the sewer plant and wells, and if the water line's busted, he had to dig them up and fix them and, and all that stuff. And, and he did that for, for that time.

20:56But during that time, I mean, he was still doing car stuff too. So, and then when he quit that, he opened shop up at home, uh, because we have a big, big garage here. And, uh, and then from that, that's how about the time that I was 16, really getting into it. And then we worked together from then out. All right, other David, what do you— what are your takeaways?

21:23Because you've got a very different perspective of this. No, no, you don't want input from me, man. None of this makes any sense to me. No, I mean, I think it's— I think it's valid. I think your, your input's valid because you had a very different life than he and I did. I just, I'm just telling you, like, it doesn't make any sense to me.

21:42I can see, I can see wanting to make your dad proud. That makes sense. But at some point, like, it's your business. You have a family, right? You've got kids and yeah, like your focus stops being about your parents. Like, well, yeah, like I take care of my mom. Like she lives in my basement. I spent six figures redoing our basement in order for her to be able to live down there.

22:05Um, And we were taking care of my wife's father before that. So like, we take care of our parents. They never take care of us. They don't take care of us. They never have. And I remind my mom all the time. I'm like, yeah, you should walk home at this age. But she was like, at 8? I'm like, yeah, at 8. And she's like, no, I never did.

22:30It's like she built this whole reality in her head that she was a great mom. Anyway, so. We, uh, you know, we're taking care of our parents now. Like, so at some point, like, the shift is like, yeah, it has to be towards the next generation. Like, I need to do this for my kids. I need to do this for my family.

22:49I need to do this for, for them to make sure that they're set up properly, that they then want to aspire to make me proud, which is a great motivator. But it like, it has— I, we're finally getting into a good roll and here comes Lucas interrupting the episode. Folks, now you know exactly why I hire Shop Marketing Pros to do my shop marketing.

23:14It's that I am spastic and all over the place and I lack consistency. But here's the thing, that doesn't work in marketing. You see, marketing takes 30, 60, sometimes 90 days to be effective. And I was all over the place with my marketing. There was no consistency at all. Caused these waves in my business because I was so inconsistent. And that's why I am so happy to refer Shop Marketing Pros.

23:41They bring consistency. They are true professionals. I'm going to encourage you, go down to the link below and get your free digital marketing inspection. Just like we do digital vehicle evaluations for automobiles, they're doing the same thing about your marketing, and they will help you get your business turned around. I could see if you were single and you were like 22 and you just lost your dad and you got nothing, like, like that.

24:08And I'm just talking from, uh, from an intellectual standpoint, you see what I'm saying? Yeah. And I know this is fresh, so I'm trying to be mean to you or anything like that, or no, I'm sympathetic. I appreciate the an unemotional standpoint from it. Because like you said, it is fresh and I am emotional about it. But on the flip side, like, there's an unemotional answer to it.

24:34Like you said, yeah, they need to keep going. And dude, I, I'm gonna tell you, he, he was a huge help to me when Mom died because he was kind of like a voice of reason. And, and like, for me I know I've said this a million times, but like having a situation at hand that was like, dude, you live in family property, your business has to go through family property to stay in business.

25:00It's not about Mommy. Yeah, it's about saving your own ass and ain't nobody here to save you. Right. And there's a local radio guy and I'll never forget this. Like, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. And he said, He said, I'm gonna tell you something. He said, we lost my dad. And he said, right after that, I lost my mom.

25:23And he said, I have no extended family. I don't have cousins. I don't have brothers. I don't have sisters. I've got my kids. I don't have a wife. And I feel like an orphan. I feel alone. I feel like I'm wandering through the world alone. And I'm like, oh. And so I'm like kind of taking a step back saying, hey, maybe this is not as bad as I thought it was.

25:43You know, like it could be a lot worse. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't understand why people frame it like it does make the holidays a little lonely, but, you know, other than that, you just go to the bar or the casino. Yeah. No, no, no. See, I avoid all that. I'm saying, like, I told my wife eventually, it was because we didn't— I didn't have this growing up.

26:09Like, I want to have a big holiday at my house. So I want everybody to come over and I want the house full. Of just loudness and chaos, at least for a few days. Just, you want the Griswold family Christmas? Yeah, I want, I want that whole scene in my house because we never had it. Like, I have no idea. I have no idea.

26:26And I'd like to get that set up. And even as my kids get older, you know, and they have their kids and stuff, like, just everybody comes over and we just fill up the whole house. And that, that always appealed to me. But again, I don't look backwards and go, I never had that. It's like, I didn't. So what do I need to do?

26:43Like, I need to create it. Does that make sense? Like, I need to build it or make it happen if I want to see it fulfilled. And I never look back and go like, I feel like an orphan. Like, no cousins. I've got like 1,000 cousins. I don't think I've ever seen them, I think, past maybe like when I was 11 or 12 years old.

27:02That was the last time I saw any of them. They live in New York or Puerto Rico or Guatemala. Like, they're all over the place. Like, I've never seen them. I don't know any of my nieces and nephews. None of them. Like, I don't know anybody at all. We're so distant. I don't talk to any of them. Like, we're just separated entirely.

27:19So it's just, it's literally just me and my wife. That's it. And her crazy mom now. That may be something to do with, that may be something to do with you, David. You might be the one common thing that everybody's trying to get away from. I don't know. We just, we never prioritized it. Growing up, like, hey, you gotta be close to your family, or you gotta do this for your family.

27:42Like, and it was— wasn't a thing. And so I don't know, like, and at least now, now moving forward, like, yeah, you still have to go through your stages. Like, you're just gonna have to go through the stages. And but eventually, when you come out the other end, which will— everybody has to. Yeah. Yeah, you're gonna have to look up and go, yeah, I'm gonna do this, but now I need to do this for my kids and make my kids proud.

28:10I need to do this to make my family proud and make them successful. Um, and it's not necessarily switching jobs because I don't know that a machine shop is anymore. It's a nice, um, it's nice to tinker, but I don't know how many millionaires are being made doing machine work. They're all closing. All of them are closing, and that has to be for a reason.

28:35There can't be any money in it. Well, the biggest thing— and, uh, so the one that I went and toured the other Monday, and then like the ones that have closed down here, there's no succession plan. It was— oh yeah, it was somebody my dad's age or older that, you know, is broken, frail. Do it. And they knew how to do it.

28:57So the guy I met Monday. He's 64, and his dad was, uh, almost 90 when he passed last year, and he was still doing heads in the machine shop last year. Like, yeah, and, and he's 64, he's been doing it since he was 20. He's been in the machine shop 44 years, and he's like, man, I'm just, I'm tired of it. Like, it's all I've done, you know, the property and the equipment and in my own retirement is enough that I can get out and live comfortably.

29:31And, and that's what I'm going to do. But there's— they never hired anybody, you know, my age to teach them. Yeah. Along the way. And that's what I've seen down here too. There's, there's a local machine shop and they build tons and tons of stuff for the race community and they build stock stuff and everything. But it's a dad and a son.

29:52The son is close to my age. But if you go in there, all the other employees are 50, 60 years old. And, you know, it's kind of one of those dying trades, so to speak. Yeah. The other issue though is that you, like, you've got competitors, at least here in Kansas City. Like, we have a local machine shop. The problem is the machinist is the supervisor.

30:20And so he supervises kids doing the machine work and like they teach them, hey, we're going to show you how to run the whatever, the cylinder head resurfacing machine. So you like bolt this thing down and then you run it back and forth or whatever, right? Yep. And so the kid knows how to work that machine and do that thing, essentially turning it into a factory job.

30:41Makes perfect sense. Yes. But eventually like they started ramping up their pricing.. And now for me to drop off a cylinder head, I've got to wait 3 to 4 weeks for the cylinder head to come back. And the price, and they're running at scale now, they're fully staffed. They've got every piece of equipment under the sun. They can do whatever on modern engines, right?

31:05Modern cylinder heads. They, and they will do a good job as in that, like they will, uh, stake the valve seats. In the cylinder head to make sure that they don't come out or move or whatever. They'll do new valve guides, they'll put new valves in, they'll machine the valves to the cylinder head so there's a good seal. They'll resurface the head, they'll align bore the camshafts if necessary, whatever, right?

31:30Like, it is a proper reconditioning of the cylinder head back to near factory condition. The problem though is 3 to 4 week lead time. And then the cost ends up being the same or slightly higher than just buying a flip-in remanufactured head. Yeah. So now, and you're trying to explain this to like the extended warranty companies because they don't flip and know.

31:55Yeah. And so they're like, well, why don't you take it to the machine shop? It's like, okay, it's a month for the machine shop and then the cost is going to be the same as me just slapping in a head that I can order from the warehouse, the Napa warehouse, they have them in stock. I can get a reconditioned head this afternoon and get back on this car and have this car out the door tomorrow.

32:14Why would I wait 3 or 4 weeks and not— it used to be, used to be able to, used to be able to save the customer money. That's not the case anymore. And not that I begrudge them. I absolutely, but it's going to get to the point where they're not doing 2019 cylinder heads. They're going to be doing 1999 cylinder heads because those engines are gone.

32:37There are no more, you know, B16A cylinder heads for Honda. You know what I'm talking about? Hell yeah. There are none left. And so you can't go to the junkyard and get another one. So the one that you have on that car is the only one you're ever going to get. That sucker needs to go back to the machine shop and I don't care what you got to do, make this head right because I need to reuse it.

32:57Those are the only ones that they're going to be working on. So you got to look like 5 to 10 years down the road. Yeah. Unless you are, unless you find some way to make this so significantly cheaper and faster than just getting it from the Napa warehouse, it's going to be really difficult for you to be able to raise your prices, make it profitable, and have enough people to be able to turn the work fast enough on modern vehicles.

33:25Versus, you know, just getting the remand head. And I mean, you think that finding help in auto repair is hard. Well, the only difference though is that like you can teach somebody how to work that machine. You see what I'm saying? Like the only thing I need you to do is to bolt this block onto this slab of metal, bolt this thing down to this spec.

33:49Here's the book, look up the spec. Torque it down, and then run this machine up and down in the bore to line bore this block. And then that's it. That's all you need to do. And so I, I had intentions at one point of buying a machine shop. Okay, I think that's every, every like gearhead wants. I want a machine shop. Like, yeah, everybody wants a machine shop.

34:13What fixed me was, is this old man came in one time, and he must have been in his 70s, and he was a vet. And he was saying that he could not pay his taxes, and I offered to help him pay his taxes, and he said, "Nope, I don't take handouts. I don't do it." And I said, "Well, I wanna help you."

34:30And he came in and he brought a truckload of stuff, and in that truckload of stuff that he wanted to sell me was this wooden box, and it had these metal latches on the side, two little metal pins that pushed through these brass inserts that locked a front panel on it. I've still got the box. And then you opened it,, and it had on the side of the box, it had yellow numbers.

34:53And then when you opened it, it was a machinist toolbox and it had all these drawers and this little thing that folded down on the front, really beautiful box. And it had all of his great uncle's stuff in it. Now that box had been given to him by Caterpillar in like 1921, 1922, somewhere in there, like some of the very early Caterpillar stuff that came out.

35:16And he was a machinist for Caterpillar. And at the time, every component on a Caterpillar piece of equipment was handmade, right? Like, because there were no CNC machines, you had to learn how to run a mill and a lathe and all of this stuff. And so there's a— in there, there's like the second revision of the machinist handbook is in that box in here somewhere, and I'll take a picture and send it to you at some point.

35:37But he had a notebook, and inside that notebook was every piece that he had ever made and ever built, and he wrote down the measurements on each one of them. And I go through that, and I thought, I do not want to get into machine work. I just don't have the capacity. That's a different kind of machine work. Like, you know, the only thing I can think of— well, yeah, no, no, no.

36:00Like, to get to be a really good machinist, that takes like a level of detail and accuracy. By the time you're ready to retire, you know enough to be able to consider a machinist, you know. But, you know, it's like anything. It's like practice, practice, practice. But The only thing I can see that there's like, that you cannot, you cannot replicate at scale at a factory.

36:23You can do the machine work, all the machine work, like they can just go ahead and do the same thing. Every single Solenoid comes through, slap, slap, slap, out the door it goes. The only thing you can't do is a balance and blueprint. If you, if you push, like we balance a blueprint, all our engines. Yep. Nobody else does that. A balanced and blueprinted engine, blueprinted meaning like every spec is lined out.

36:46Like when you hand them a sheet and it's every spec because you measured everything and everything is weighed to be balanced as it should be. That is a different level of detail that I know, I know the OCD people will 100% pay for because like, Everybody that wants like, not only is my engine built, custom built, but it's balanced and blueprinted. Boom, here's my sheet.

37:15Yeah, now the price went up and now you can charge whatever the F you want because nobody's doing that. Nobody. Yeah, but again, that's again, at this point it's like commissioned art, commissioned artists per piece. It's not, it's not, you know, that's very true. That's how it's going to have to be. It's a small, you know, niche market. Yeah, it's niche, but it's not small.

37:39I don't think it's that small. Every, every gearhead— I thought we were talking about something else. We've, we've got a— I'm actually finishing, it's one of the things I'm going to do this week while I'm off. I've got an engine that I'm— it's on the run stand right now. I need to finish that. We just built, and that's— we did all that stuff.

37:58I mean, it's we had the machine work, we had machine work done at, at the place. And that's one of the things here is like the closest machine shop to me is an hour and 20 minutes away. Yeah, there's not one here. Yeah, we're in the same boat. Yeah. And so that's the, the nice thing is, is buying this other shop out is it's not a huge investment.

38:24Like I'm not talking about them, it's not a million dollar investment. And I already own a piece of property that I can just put everything in. Yeah, obviously I don't want to spend— I don't want to spend a bunch of money for everything just to sit around. But I also, if I get it in, get it set up, and you know, it's just not taking off, it's all liquidable asset as well, you know.

38:47Well, this didn't work, time to sell it, you know. Yeah, yeah. So they'll have to be in service though, like at least have your marketing plan laid out. You you've got an A-service that's your bread and butter, whatever happens to be, even if it's like if you've got a flywheel machine and you machine flywheels all day, like it takes 15 minutes to machine a flywheel and you can charge $100, $150 because flywheels are wildly expensive.

39:10They're getting crazy. Yeah. And you, you can like, hey, whatever, $90 and we'll machine your flywheel. Yep. And we'll write down the spec on the flywheel and then hand it back to you. Same day turnaround, like then all day long, you know, 15 minutes at a time, you're doing 2 or 3 an hour, uh, people dropping off. You can make at least a living.

39:34Yeah, and that's something you can teach other people to do really easily. Yeah, as well. And that's the thing, you know, like you're saying, you— it's almost factory work, you know. Yeah. Oh yeah, you bring, you bring a head in, you straight edge it, you figure out how much you need to mill it, take it off, tear it down, you know, tear it down, mill it, get it cleaned, put it back together, you know, all that stuff.

39:59Instead of, you know, you've got one module out of 20 on the network that's shorted. And yeah, it's not as like— yeah, hiring for a machine shop is not the same as hiring for a shop. Like, you need a technician that can diagnose this, that, and the other. You can— it's like it's so free-flowing and there's so many variables. And that— not machine work is— I'm not saying it's easier, it is a skill, but I can teach somebody how to run that machine.

40:27It's, it's, it's clear-cut. Like, yeah, this needs, this needs 3 thousandths shaved off of it. That head needs, you know, we need to bore that block 10 thousandths over, you know. Yeah, everything's— and it's something that one person can do a lot of the dedicated stuff and have a shop hand that, you know, is helping with the setup and the teardown and stuff like that.

40:48So, you know, you don't have to have 3 skilled machinists there, whereas you could have 1 or 2 and then a couple of helpers. And but we'll see, you know, like I said, here's the big thing for me, right? And I, I think this is because you've been involved with helping other shops, right? And so the big thing for me is like, think about all of the shops that you and I have talked to over the years and David's talked to over the years.

41:14Like, we've all worked with helping other shops. Like, hey dude, this is not sustainable. This isn't going to work. There's some basics you can implement. I've implemented them. I've learned how to do this. Let me show you how. Yeah. Um, it makes me really nervous for those who could find themselves in this position without getting help first, because this is a life-changing event right now.

41:39For David Roman, it may be very different if he loses a parent, but there's a lot of people who— a major life disruption like that. And maybe it's not losing somebody. Maybe it's you have a health struggle. Maybe something happens. I mean, think about where, just like you said, I would have just shut down. I wouldn't have even tried to work my way through this.

41:58I wouldn't have been able to go through it. Right? When life happens to you, if the business is not in such a way that it can just operate without you, you don't have a business, you got a fucking job. Yeah, right. And you've got— and I worry about a lot of these guys we talk to because of that. Yep. I don't know, the— it's turned into like people saying, advocating for like, maybe I just want a job.

42:22It's like, do you really? With no safety net? Like, yeah, who's paying out your FMLA if you got a, if you got a problem? You know what I'm saying? Like, what happens? You're the only person generating revenue. That, that can't be the case. Yeah. And that's— I talked to a guy recently and that's what he said. He's like, well, I don't want to have employees and, and all this stuff.

42:44And I'm like, then why don't you just go work somewhere? Like, yeah, absolutely. You especially where it's, you know, it's getting to now where, you know, a lot of places are paying health benefits and all that stuff. I'm like, man, you don't have to worry about any of that. You show up, you do your job, you go home. Yeah, yeah. You're not worried about— seems stupid.

43:05Yeah. I mean, you know, if you're not going to grow to the point that you have employees and that that thing can do its thing on its own, right? I, I just— and, and look, there are challenges associated with that, and, and a lot of times I don't think that they think about what those challenges are. Yeah, right. Watching what my family business has been through, like how all that played out and like, can you trust the person that's working for you?

43:28Yeah. You know, what happens when things go sideways? How do you, you know, and that's the things I think about my dad and my mom. They were good old country folk. Nobody like they weren't afforded the opportunities that we were to be able to get on the internet and search and find a friend like the Davids and find these people who know how to do this thing.

43:51And be able to assist and give you some information about process, policy, procedure. They didn't have that opportunity. They did the best they had with what they had. And I see what the effects of not having that knowledge were when something did go sideways. Yeah, but I see all these business owners, man, they're out here doing the same thing and it's like, dude, you don't have to fight that battle like that because the data, the knowledge, the information, the processes, the policies— hey, you can go find half of it and just download it and put it into action.

44:25Yeah, but, but I mean, dude, I'm telling you, if, if I had not had a team that knew how to run the shop when all this happened, I would have literally been up the creek, man. Yeah, I'd have a much bigger mess right now. And I think, you know, I think about you, like, you wouldn't have been afforded the opportunity to say, dude, it does not matter whether the shop's open or not, I can't keep going, I have to stop for a few minutes.

44:51I have to stop for a few days. I have to catch my breath here. Yeah, yeah. And I just, you know, as far as, you know, building it to be self-sustained, that's probably the backside of that struggle right now, because the last year we've, you know, it has been a struggle to hire and find someone capable, and now looking for a service writer, uh, of some sort.

45:18It's just, you know, I laugh about it sometimes about like, yeah, I'm just closing up and cooking a job because, you know, these new problems come along as you grow. But once you figure it out, even if you lose an employee, you, you have gained the knowledge of how to fill that role again in the future. Not that it'll be easier, but, uh, you know, you'll, you'll know Well, we hired somebody early last year for the service writer CSR position, and we only employed them for less than 70 days.

45:57Oh wow. And they were an acquaintance, I would call a friend actually, beforehand, and drug us through unemployment. Stuff and then filed harassment through the state. Holy cow. Uh, yeah, we're still fighting it, but what it did do is help us write policies in a handbook and a whole bunch of stuff to prevent it from happening again. Yeah, it won't happen this year when we hire somebody again, but just, you never know people until you know, working with them and money's involved.

46:39Yeah. Oh dude, I'm telling you, I'm absolutely telling you, I've seen it firsthand more than I want to. Oh yeah, I mean, it's terrible. We got the notification that they'd filed for unemployment, so we just reached out and we're like, hey, what's this? Oh, I didn't file for that. And I'm like, well, somebody did, like Oh my goodness. And then, um, protested it all the way to where we had to have a, a hearing for it with the state.

47:14Now, did they quit? Were they terminated? Uh, I fired them. Okay. Which, which Missouri is an at-will state, so, um, oh, and the best, the best part about all of it was, which we submitted all this to the state, but they had actually emailed us later the week after we let them go and were like, hey, you were right, um, I wasn't a good fit and this wasn't working and I appreciate it and I hope we can still be friends.

47:42They emailed us that and, and then filed unemployment and then contested unemployment and contested it again. And then, and all you have to do is show them that, like, here's the email from them. Yeah, they sent Yeah, and then we, we had timestamps from clock-ins, you know, they were habitually late, and, you know, it was just— it was a slam dunk for us, but it was just dragging it out as a— it was just— just to cause frustration.

48:13And that's the same with the harassment thing. It's, it's absolutely the same thing, like just dragging it out. We, you know, one of the things that happened here is the particular person that, that's likely to blame for a lot of the, the stuff that happened with the family business, right? In North Carolina, they did this weird thing where it's like, hey, you don't even have a chance to contest it, we're just going to pay it.

48:40And it may not impact your rates, it may impact your rates, but at least through COVID and then through Helene and all that, they didn't even look at them, they just gave them money. And it's like, hold up, this person was still getting a paycheck. Oh, and by the way, then they did it again after they were terminated for stealing money. Wow.

49:04What? Like, hold up, how are we going to hold people accountable if like it's not even a discussion? If you're not even asking us like, hey, is it okay if we give them unemployment? No, they stole money from us. The reason they don't have a job is because they did bad things. Yeah, that's not okay. No, but listen, listen, everybody needs to be taken care of.

49:27No, hold up, I guess we have different definitions of taking care of people in this instance. Maybe we should talk about that, you know. I don't care if they're living under a bridge at this point. So yeah, but I mean, like, how many of these folks have we talked to And, and they don't even have any of that, right? They don't even understand unemployment's a thing.

49:49Yeah. And they're just shop owners and they go through the motions and they think their job is fixing cars. Well, I mean, I'll tell— when, when Nicole came on, because when it was just me and Trevor, uh, I wasn't getting paid at all. Um, I was just living off of what little money I could siphon out of the shop here and there to go eat with.

50:09And, uh, the— and I was 1099ing Trevor at the time. Holy cow. Yeah, because I mean, I didn't know. Yeah, I, I didn't know. So she came on and she, uh, started W-2ing all of us. And it's like a month in or so, it may have been the first quarter, but I was looking at the bank account and I'm like, why are all these IRS payments going out?

50:35I didn't know the employer paid payroll tax. Like, blew me away. I was like, no, 99.9% of technicians do not. I was like, what do you mean we have to pay pay? No, you take it out of their check. You— why are we paying it too? Like, there was so much I didn't know. Like, and I'd been in business for 5 years at that time, but it had just been me.

50:59I mean, it was just me. So I— it hadn't been a bridge we'd crossed yet, but when we crossed it, I'm like This is dumb. Why are we doing this, man? I hate the IRS. I released a video from, uh, from like months ago where I talk about that, and I'm like, hey, listen, shop owner, especially if you're a small one-man band, I highly recommend you pay yourself like you are a normal employee and you go ahead and pay the taxes and the whole nine yards, because it is a fucking wake-up call when you have to pay those bad boys and you ain't been paying them.

51:31Yeah, right. And you, you don't understand how much money that is. And, and I'm trying to tell technicians all the time, they're like, we used to get 50%, and I'm like, you still get 50%, it's just Uncle Sam's taking most of it. Talk to him, don't look at me. Yeah, right. Like, tell him you don't want to pay it. Great. You know, and I, I, man, I don't think people understand it, and they're not teaching them that.

51:53And I mean, like, hey, if you don't know that somebody else is also paying on your behalf as well It makes it a lot easier to be mad at your employer instead of the government, I guess. This is how we stop another revolution. David Roman is doing his very best to fire one up every single day of the week. Hey, you want to see blood in the streets?

52:14I'm just— I'm not kidding. Like, make everybody have to pay taxes out of their paycheck themselves. Like, completely take the employer out of it. I'm not kidding. When all of a sudden they're like, what do you mean I owe $7,000? Like, yeah, you owe $7,000. That's what the employer was paying for you on your behalf and you were just getting the net.

52:32Now you have to pay for it out of pocket. Like people would go nuts. You kidding me? Yeah. Yeah. The Boston Tea Party would be nothing. Yeah. These stupid ICE protests, it'd be nothing. Yep. Everybody'd be getting run over. Every IRS agent just— No, we're going to get like— Honda Pilots just flying down the street banging into people. Oh yeah, pilots and Subarus mowing everybody.

53:03Pilots and Subarus. Yeah, that's rough, dude. That's rough. Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's something. But the taxes thing, I, uh, I, I fell to that because I wasn't paying myself for years, but the business was incurring taxes. So when Nicole got hired She, uh, got one of those urgent IRS statements in the mail. Oh no. And she, she goes, what's this for?

53:29You know, she's opening all the shop mail. And, uh, I said, oh, just put that in the box over there. And she goes, what do you mean? Well, I have a box sitting there. I have a box, it's called the shredder. Just shred that mother effort. Just me. And she goes, uh, well, you're paying your taxes, right? And I said, I don't have any money.

53:50What are you talking about? Oh my. Yeah. She goes, when's the last time you filed taxes? I said, uh, I think it was 2007. And she goes, you're not kid— you're not kidding. And I was like, no, that's the last time I had a job that paid taxes in, so that's the last time I did. And God bless her soul, so I, I'm, I'm— I did really good.

54:15I kept all of those notices and I kept records and all that stuff, and she spent the first— proof that you didn't do it. Oh yeah, I'm not hiding it. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, bless her soul, she, uh, she spent most of the first year going through that and sorting it all out. And dude, you give that woman a raise and like a big hug and like give her all the skids.

54:42We're all, we're all current again. Everything is good. But I mean, besides that, we're paying taxes. That's not good. Yeah, I don't much care for it. But dude, I'm going to tell you what, at least it's not like this other mess because it's been 8-hour meetings with them and them saying we need— the problem with your situation is that it was the state.

55:02The state and the IRS are two different entities. Now the IRS has got a bigger stick. They will send you to jail. The state will just shut you down. Yeah, don't worry, we got both. Okay. Yeah, we're playing with both of those at the same time. And, and like, they, they do not— I hate to tell you this thing that— now I will say this, because of the situation, the state and IRS have both been very, very accommodating and they've been very understanding.

55:34But now here's the weird thing about where we're at, because COVID happened and then they extended things and then Helene happened, so everybody in this area got extensions. And so our accountant's calling her and saying, hey, we would like to pay something. And she's like, I'm sorry, we can't do any enforcement action until this period's over. I'm trying to give you money.

55:54We can't take it. Yeah, because we don't know how much you owe us. It's a government for you. Oh my God, you people are crazy, right? Like, it's just nuts. Instead of sending a money, I'm just gonna ask Trump, hey Trump, apply my Trump tariff money to whatever I owe. Wait, go collect them from China. I'm just gonna tell you, that guy's a little bit nervous right now.

56:20I saw the little post he made the other day that at the very bottom says, we're screwed, right? Like, I didn't see that. I didn't— yeah. Oh no, he said, he said America is screwed because they're telling him he's gonna have to give the tariff money back, and he's like, but I already spent it, I can't give it back. Like, I don't have it.

56:40I want to look that up. Yeah, I couldn't find your pre-workout, by the way, that you said that was— you couldn't find it? Yeah, causing psychosis. Yeah, I couldn't find it. Uh, hang on, I'll find it for you. I'll tell you. That sounds like some good stuff. Where do we get that? That's what I said. I'm like, I probably have some. What's the name?

56:57You've already been— David's already been taking it. Yeah, I know. Well, that, that explains everything. Uh, Modern Warrior Ready dietary supplement was marketed for mental clarity and energy. Uh, the reason it was recalled is because it was— had ingredients not approved for use in dietary supplements in the U.S. and pose life-threatening health risk. Tianapatine can cause adverse events including confusion, seizures, drowsiness, shortness of breath, and lead to psychological issues such as suicidal ideation or behavior.

57:38And it had 1,4-DMAA, which raises blood pressure, and then another word that— it's a nootropic drug not approved for use in the US. So I don't know what— I can't pronounce all the things that it just said, but I just looked it up, by the way. Both of those ingredients Anyway, if you want some stuff that may or may not have that was in there, oh, hit me up.

58:07The not approved to the website, the not approved in the US is actually a plus for most things. Yes, because yeah, I think probably it's probably better than everything they're already poisoning us with. So yeah, man. Yeah, this is that. Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't buy I mean, I understand that they had to take it down. They got on somebody's radar. But when I'm telling you, because I was telling you, I was taking some bathtub pre, and I say it's bathtub pre because it looks like it was mixed in somebody's bathtub and then just thrown into some random tub.

58:39And on the back it says— I've actually used that in my younger life, okay. On the back, it just, it has a label, but the label doesn't match what's in it. And you lit, you open the container and you look and you shake it. And if it's got the, like the big crystals, you know, it's the good stuff. You're like, if it smells a little bit chemically and it's got the good crystals in there, you're like, ooh, this one has lots of crystals.

59:03And then you take a picture and share it with everybody that's also into this stuff. You're like, I got the tub with the good crystals. And everybody goes nuts. They're like, oh, they will look, when I say these people are crazy. I saw a guy pay $400 for a tub. So DMAA used to be in pre-workout. They took it off the market, but there were European companies that were still putting it in their pre-workout all the way up to like 2016.

59:31And then the FDA came in and raided them and shut them down. And then they reopened back up. Yeah. They opened because they didn't hide it. They put it on the label, like 120 milligrams of DMAA, like chemical or, uh, factory-made good stuff, like the good DMAA. None of this like natural supplement or derived extract garbage, the good stuff. Anyway, tubs, unsealed tubs are $400 plus.

59:58Unsealed tubs, um, or so, and there you can't find sealed tubs, but I'm like, unsealed tubs are $400 plus on eBay right now of 120mg DMAA. Like old school. I just need to like ask the question. Have you ever watched Breaking Bad? I'm just curious. Have you ever watched that show? There's nothing wrong. Look, it was, it was originally designed to be, I think, a, uh, like a cold medicine.

1:00:25And they're like, hey, this gives people crazy energy. Let's put it in pre-workout, which they did. They did for years. And then some 16-year-old like boofed it. Like he boofed 3 scoops right up the rectum. And then he had a heart attack and died. And then all of a sudden they're like, this is dangerous. Get it off the market. And it's like, some of those are stupid 16-year-old, like don't try scoop 3 of these in one sitting and also drink 3 cups of coffee and then go work out.

1:00:54Like, what do you think is going to happen? Your heart's going to hit 250. It'll explode. And then you'll drop dead. Blood will come gushing out of your nose. That's what happens. Like, don't do that. So if you're smart about it, it's perfectly safe to take and it enhances the caffeine. It doesn't do anything to me. What it does is it makes me calm and sometimes sleepy.

1:01:15It's really weird. Just so we're clear, we're supposed to be taking our pre-workout rectally? That's what David does. Because it's always late in the morning. Listen, if you want access to recordings. If you want. If you want direct access to the bloodstream, it's straight up the pooper. Like, oh my God, right up the pooper, right into the— this isn't a me thing.

1:01:40This episode started on a very sad note, ended on a really weird note. There's this movie, it's called The Salton Sea, right? And it, it talks about a lot of what I experienced in my early years of life, like right in the very beginning. And did you know that meth was, was believed to have been formulated by the Japanese so they could keep their like kamikaze Nazi pilots and people up for hours and hours.

1:02:05And they pointed out that that's probably why it took two nuclear weapons to end the war, because a nuclear blast is just a minor nuisance to a determined tweaker. It explains a lot about you, David. It really does. I'm just saying. Well, I was listening to a podcast on the road Monday, and they were talking about the little, like, uh, Zen pouches and stuff.

1:02:29Yeah, that people take those rectally too. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing that the nicotine is immediately in that bloodstream. If you— why though? Right up the pooper. Right. The other thing— I can't get over that terminology. You don't have to just for the audience. Okay. Well, one, don't try that at home. And two, and two, like you can do sublingual and it's almost as effective.

1:02:57It's like 99% effective sublingual. The only thing is you need a transporting agent. So ethanol works. So like alcohol, right? Food-grade alcohol under the tongue with whatever it is you're trying to get into your bloodstream. It will, there's such a small membrane there. It like in the bloodstream immediately. So take that nicotine patch, douse it in some Everclear, and then under the tongue it goes.

1:03:23Just don't go drive after. People, please, please, please, please do not take medical advice from David Roman. Okay, 12-milligram nicotine patch. That is not a good idea. I mean, you could take business advice from him and probably be okay, but tax advice and medical advice, you don't want that advice. Okay, I promise it's not gonna go well. There you go. Um, well, Feldman, um, you know, a couple things.

1:03:52I'm really sorry about your dad, and I know how that feels. And, and I don't— I can't say I know what you're going through because I'm not you, but I do know what it feels like to kind of encounter those things, and I'm sorry you're going through that. And I'm sorry that, that, like, it's a struggle. And I'm glad that if nothing else, we had a chance to sit down and laugh and have a minute to kind of like get your mind off of it.

1:04:15Um, I know whatever you do, you're gonna be all right, you know what I'm saying? Because at the end of the day, that, that's, you know, I, I think about my dad all the time. He always told me I'd get upset about something, and, and I tell the story about where he lost all that money because of that preacher at that time, and I'd freak out and I'd be like, Dad, what in the world?

1:04:32I can't believe you're doing this. He'd say, son, it's all going to be all right. Doesn't matter. And I'm like, it's not. And he's like, it is. And I'm like, why? And he said, son, there's no other way it can turn out. You live and you die. You might as well enjoy your time here. I'm like, well, he's kind of got a point.

1:04:51So like, I know that this is tough and I know that like sometimes you can lose your aim and lose your focus. And I've worked really hard this past year. Yeah, past year and a half to refine my focus and find what's important to me and find out where I need to be going. And, and I'm gonna— I just want to say thank you in this to you guys, my friends who have supported me, and, and to my team who have like held it together when I wasn't holding it together.

1:05:15So, you know, man, it's all gonna be all right, brother. Oh yeah, no matter what you choose, it's gonna be all right. We're gonna figure it out. And, and my dad was the same way. Like, I— not to say he was emotionless, but like, never saw him, you know, panic about, you know, things going wrong, you know, anything like that. So I had a, had a good teacher for it, and, and, and that's why, you know, I've been kind of centered about it.

1:05:46It's just, you know, figure it out, move forward. We'll keep keep figuring it out and, and, uh, figure out what we want to do from here out. But yeah, it's, it's good. Well, man, I've seen you journey from the word go. Um, you know, we've been friends for a while now, and I saw where you were. See where you are now. So I'm confident if anybody can get through it and figure it out and make it better than it was when you started out, it's gonna be you.

1:06:13Oh yeah, yeah. I got a good— like you said, I got, I got a good team. I got, I got people. My mom's You know, she's happy and healthy and— well, she's not happy, but she's healthy and, uh, she's figuring it out. And, uh, I got a good team at the shop, so we'll keep growing and keep cruising as we go. Yes, sir.

1:06:32Awesome. I'd love to come back and say a year or something and talk more about it, talk through it, see how you feel. Absolutely. Where you end up. I think always a conversation to have. I always love the conversation and then the derailments, so Yeah, yeah. Um, again, nothing in this show can be used for medical advice. No one here is a medical practitioner.

1:06:53Um, did I— hey, I'll close with this. My wife comes in last night laughing and she shows me this video, and it's the Chelsea Handler lady from like whatever show. I don't even know who she is. Yeah, and she was talking about the fact that she, she has this house on this really nice lake, and she said this couple that she walked past them on her evening walk and they're explaining that it's their like 60th wedding anniversary.

1:07:16And she says like, um, being a medical practitioner, I asked them some medical questions before I made the next decision. She said, I'm not a medical practitioner. Um, she said, I offered them my kayaks and said, you know, hey, if you guys would love to go out on the lake and have a nice evening for your wedding anniversary. And she said, oh, did either of you have like history of strokes or heart attacks or anything like that?

1:07:40And I look at her sort of funny and she's like, no. She's like, you don't have to, but I do have some microdose LSD that you could take. And she said, so the next morning at 9:30, she's like, I'm sitting on my porch. She's like, this was 6:30 the night before. She's like, I'm sitting on my porch and my kayaks come up the pond.

1:07:57And she said, this man comes up and he's so sweet, and he says, we sat in this alcove and talked about all the memories of our marriage, and we renewed our vows and all this stuff. And she said, the woman came up and put her hands on the side of my face and said, Thank you so much. Do you have any more LSD?

1:08:14Um, so you can find out, like, you know which one of those is David in this picture? Yeah, I'm thinking that if David microdosed LSD, we'd really find out the root cause of what's wrong with humanity today. I, I don't— I wouldn't do LSD, but I would try some of those mushrooms that Aaron Rodgers is on. Yeah. Oh no. I would 100% try them just to see.

1:08:40There's some performance benefits from it. Just try that. Um, honey, I don't know if you watched that game. I did not see any performance benefits at all. He's just kidding. I think he was on too many of them and he's probably high on marijuana too. So he probably overdosed. Yeah, exactly. He was throwing to somebody something. It's like, "That's a duck over there."

1:09:03Yeah, that's— yeah, purple elephant over in the sidelines. Did you see that elephant catch that football? That was impressive. Very nice. Thanks, guys. Thank you for listening to the Changing the Industry podcast. If you enjoy the show, do us a favor and leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. And don't forget to set it to automatically download the latest episode.

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