Episode 281 - Tackling Mental Health and Generational Challenges in Automotive Shops

0:00For years, the automotive industry has been plagued with the perception of shady business practices, greedy owners, and incompetent technicians. It's time we flip the script. Good clap, David. I'm very proud of you. I don't know if you know this, but this is not a standard podcast, David. We started this podcast in order to bring everyone together to have the tough conversations everyone's been avoiding.

0:31Instead of endless complaining and pointing out the problems, we seek to get everything out in the open and look for real solutions. To do that, we bring on industry experts, vendors that are changing the game, multi-million dollar shop owners, as well as those that are struggling every single day to pay the bills, and everything in between. We're not professional podcasters pretending to know how it is.

0:56We're in the trenches every single day trying to pay the bills and hopefully achieving some success. So if you're tired of overly polished scripted conversations, it's time to tune in to the Changing the Industry podcast. Lucas and I are proud to partner with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence as a means to help shops, whether they're getting off the ground, hiring their first technician, or looking to pass along their business to a new generation.

1:29So jump down to the show notes and check the link in the description, which will take you to their events page. The Institute is committed to bringing world-class training to shops all over the country, including their Leadership Intensive, their MARS Intensive, and the Service Advisor 3-Day Intensive. Some of these events take place all over the country. So jump down to the show notes, click the link, find an event near you, and experience world-class training unlike anything else you've seen.

2:03And now on to the episode. Vince in a jacket, and I think Mike Allen is in sweatpants. I'm actually gonna wear my sweatpants tomorrow. No, he, he's not in sweatpants, but he has a hoodie on and a blazer over top of the hoodie. Hey, that's class. That's, that's classic. A blazer over the hoodie, it's good stuff. I feel like we need to get Lucas a pair of sweatpants.

2:27All right, um, I don't know. Did you hear about them? What? Our sweatpants that we have for— that we bought for the boys. For us guys? Uh-uh. You know, the tech on the ass. You know the Juicy sweatpants? Like Juicy tracksuits? It's that, but it's— whose idea was this? Um, my sister. I could see that. Yeah, I'm surprised, um, my, my mom let it happen.

2:51I— did she let it happen or did she just— no, she did. No, she was all for it. She was like, yes, as long as you guys wear it. When you wear them, you have to wear them together and we need a picture of it. So hopefully you guys will wear them tomorrow and I can get a picture. I don't understand this.

3:04So my— when I was a, when I was a kid, if you wore sweatpants to school, you were berated with insults and probably beat up. But now— All people wear it. Kids show up to, like my daughter shows up to school in slippers and sweatpants and she's like, this is what kids wear. Some of the airports have said, if you show up in pajamas, we're sending you back.

3:27I mean, people at the airports are actually showing up in pajamas, full-blown. They roll out of bed and they go to the airport. Yeah, like robes. I see people in the airport with robes. They banned Crocs. That is true. I can't do that. I just can't do that. I can't either. But the, the sweatpants that she wears, I mean, they look like sweatpants, but I could see that they're, they're at least styled so they don't look like slob sweatpants.

3:58You know what I'm saying? There was a whole chat that was basically saying that, that there was a bet taken on whether you were going to start wearing spandex Spandex. Yeah, everybody thought you were gonna shift into spandex, like you were gonna change. Like when the fitness thing took off, like, is David gonna start coming to the next? And I might do the, uh, the— what's the guy's name?

4:20Nipples. What's his name? I might do the nipple thing. I might do that. He fell off the map, right? He's not involved in automotive anymore. You guys know who I'm talking about? He's a motivational speaker, sales trainer. He's jacked. I mean, ridiculously jacked. David really wants to trim. That's what he's working on, his physique. I mean, from this angle, you look jacked.

4:40Oh, I would take it. Are you kidding me? From this angle, sitting like that, you look jacked. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. This guy is ridiculous. And yeah, I'll take it. Harpy, you kidding me? He does have some insane— some flipping veins and stuff. Anyway, he has ridiculous man nipples. He wears all of his clothes where— do you know who I'm talking about?

5:03Yeah, so his shirts are like 2 sizes— his shirts and his pants are 2 sizes too small. And like all his videos, the nipples are at full salute and they look ridiculous. We're all judging you now. We're all judging you that you, you know who it is. It's— well, I knew who he was. Why aren't you judging me? Well, because you're, yeah, you're like hardcore about him.

5:30You're like, you're about this dude. Like, I only know him as nipples. I don't, I don't even know his name. Don't you lie to me. Don't you lie to me. I'm thinking, is it Andy Elliott? Is that his name? I think so. I'm gonna look it up. Anyway, introduce our guests here. We're already talking about nipples. That's who it is. Andy Elliott.

5:51See, nailed it. You boys introduce yourself. Boys and girls introduce yourself. Oh my goodness. You already screwed that up. You're being disrespectful. She's, she's kind of used to it at this point. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, you, you go first. Oh, I'm Paige Jarsik. We work at Expert Tech Auto Repair in Southwest Florida. Who's your mom? Oh, Kathleen Callahan. She's my mom. Yeah.

6:16Yeah. And so there was a whole podcast episode about her saying, I don't let my daughter come to Vegas. And then she sends me a message and she said, hey, I just need you to know If you have my daughter on your show, she's spicy and she might be a liability. She doesn't know David. She's like, you don't listen to the podcast, do you?

6:39We say some wild stuff. So were you— are you the, the assistant or virtual assistant? Because she didn't know what she was doing at Apex. She told us, I hired my daughter to be my virtual assistant or my assistant and schedule things out. That's my— that's right. That would be— yeah, my sister does— is always with her at all the events and does all the things.

6:59And I gotcha. I don't— I think my mom would lose her own head if my sister wasn't around. Yeah, she, um, she basically said that she would lock this daughter in the hotel room if she took her to Vegas and not let her out. Vegas is probably a good decision. Yeah. All right, and you? I'm Keaton Kramer. I've been also Kathleen's daughter.

7:18I'm gonna expert tech for about A year and 3 months now. Okay, I'm the apprentice tech. All right, cool. Not related? No, not at all. You just showed up? Yep. Okay. I, uh, me and my fiancée moved to Florida and walked into the shop in 10 minutes. How old are you? 21. Okay. Walked into the shop and 10 minutes later got a call from Kathleen coming in for an interview.

7:42So 9:05, fiancée's not like 27 or something ridiculous like that? All right, good. Kathleen literally hired me right then and there. There was really no interview. It's pretty much just her and Dean. I don't know why people expect interviews. They just assume, like, you didn't even interview me. Like, I hired somebody through text. Like, yeah, but you don't like talking to people.

8:07I've done my fair share of interviews, let me tell you. Like, over 20-plus years, I've done probably 8,000 interviews. Like long. I fell asleep during an interview once. Really? The guy was just talking and talking. It was probably my— no, it was a bad interview. You know what he was doing for extra cash when it was hard up? He was managing websites.

8:31This is before OF, like those kind of websites. And I'm like, okay, that's great. You'll be a great fit here. Let me hire you. And he looked like the kind of guy that would run one of those websites. Like, you looked at him, you're like, yeah, you know what, I can see it. Keep doing that. No, he was there applying for a job.

8:53Obviously wasn't working out. I don't know what kind of websites it was, but it wasn't the right niche. They weren't great, or it had the whatever the trend hadn't hit yet. It was feet, but it was man Shopware is the modern cloud-based shop management system that keeps your repair shop organized, profitable, and calm even when you're slammed with work and the phones won't stop ringing.

9:16With built-in DVIs, real-time customer communication, and seamless parts ordering directly from your approved estimate, your team spends less time chasing paperwork and more time turning bays. Shopware also gives you powerful reporting and analytics showing you exactly where your shop is winning and where to improve, so every technician hour and every part sold counts. Now here's a special offer just for our listeners.

9:39For a limited time, you can get your first month of Shopware free plus a complimentary onboarding session when you sign up using the link in the show notes or mentioning this podcast. So quit procrastinating, listen, it's free, there's no risk to you, and get Shopware today, making this summer your most profitable summer yet. Oh, okay, that's where, that's where he makes half his money.

10:05Good for you. That's good. That's not where we make our money from at the shop. Oh no, that's a whole nother conversation. Okay, I got you. We, we've been— man, we've, uh, we've been shop owners for, for a while now, and at this point we are completely convinced that the very successful shops are doing something in the back rooms that they're not telling us about.

10:34They got to be because I am not very successful. The ones that are— the ones that are buying planes and boats and stuff, because I don't have boat money or plane money. You know, I mean, cash laundering is a real business. I'm just saying, if I knew how to sell weed or meth or whatever out of the back of the shop, I would do it in a heartbeat.

11:01Honey, can you not measure? I mean, this is not that complex. I gotta be able to source it. No, I like— I gotta know who the supplier is. I gotta know it's clean. Like, I don't want to kill anybody with fentanyl-laced whatever. Like, they bought— they came to me for meth. I just want to sell them nice pure meth. There's no such thing as nice pure meth.

11:21I've tried it all. There is no nice clean— hold on now, there's a chemical structure to meth. You just don't want it laced with a bunch of other junk. You don't want a laced cocaine brownie. You could make it. You could make it. Yeah, you can. Yeah, just become a cook. No, I don't want to get into all that. I just want to sell it.

11:38I just want the cash. And then just use the shop and be like, yeah, we had a really good cash day yesterday. $30,000 in one day. We did a lot of oil changes. I guarantee you that the next time somebody shows up at David's shop to interview him, it's not going to be about taxes. I'm gonna let them look at my bank account.

12:02They can look at my bank account and immediately know that obviously there's nothing going on here. I don't have a moral conundrum with it. I really don't, right? I mean, weed's not a problem. No, no, but it's legal now. You eat all the time. Listen, if it's weed, it might as well be meth or coke or whatever. Just go down the line.

12:21I don't see a difference. They have very different effects, honey. The fact that they have different effects doesn't make a bit of difference. Like, Coke comes from a plant too. It relaxes me or whatever, wakes me up. I need it. Caffeine doesn't hit anymore. I need Coke. No, that's not what you're gonna need for that. There's a meth. Yeah, yeah. Coke just makes your nose tingle.

12:45Is it really? Yeah, I don't know. It doesn't really do anything. I haven't even done weed. I like— I've done nothing. I drank some alcohol like a long time ago. That's it. Yeah, David's a good one. David's a good one. Sober. Yeah, I just don't see an appeal of like, I don't— I would— hey, I'm gonna do something and feel like shit 6 hours later.

13:06Yeah, that sounds like a great time. I'm with you. I don't understand the appeal. Uh, I, I think people do it because they think it makes it look cool. Yeah, it makes the image look cool. Yeah. Yeah, because if you do this thing that's like bad boy-esque or like whatever, people are like, oh, that person's cool. I don't know. Yeah, and then some people like see it like that they have money.

13:27Have you ever seen a meth head? Yes, that's not different. I mean, like, cool, like weed and coke. Toothless. Toothless. Yeah, yeah. And they smell like chemical and they're scratching and stuff. They're like fidgety. Yeah, yeah. I think you just need a trip to Inglewood. It gets a little rough down there sometimes. Employees is Florida. Yeah, no, there's plenty of meth heads here in Kansas, trust me.

13:54Yeah, yeah, there are. You know what there is more of though is weed heads. These people, is that a term? I don't know. I'm just saying I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the smell of weed. It is the nastiest, stankiest And these people, and here's what I don't understand is there's edibles, there's gummies. It's a different effect though, it doesn't feel the same.

14:17It is, yeah, they do different things. And then there's different strains of weed too that affect you differently. Does your mom know that you know this? Yeah. Okay. I am very close with my mom. She knows a lot of things about me that she probably wishes she didn't. But there's different things. Is that a mom thing? Must be. Yeah. I'm gonna want to not know a bunch of stuff about my kids.

14:38Like that. Yeah, I remember a couple times I tried to talk to my dad about things and he was just like, son, I don't give a damn. That's the extent of it. As a matter of fact, he still says that. Dad, I'm feeling down and out. So? Suck it up, buttercup. That's it. So you're— these people are Oh, what fell? I don't know, something fell.

15:04I think you're just flopping your mic up and down. Anyway, so these people are chasing specifically an effect that only comes through smoking it? Yeah. What about the vape things that smell like— it's completely like Lucky Charms. It's completely different. So there's, um, so you— I can't even get the same— there's the stank of ditchweed is a specific effect that I can't get with the Lucky Charms.

15:29You mean, you mean like swag? Like, I don't know, bad weed. It just smells terrible when it's bad weed though. No, it all smells terrible. Skunk weed is like khan bud and like really high-end stuff and doesn't have seeds in it. Okay. And then schwag is like this really like brown papery looking nasty shit full of seeds. I'm gonna have to put a warning at the beginning of this.

15:49Yeah. And so like they have very different effects and there's different like chemical compounds in them and there's 2 different kinds. There's indica and sativa. And so they make like— or sativa— they make like different effects on your body. And they— so what you have to understand is you have a cannabinoid, or whatever you call it, system inside your body. Sure. And it's all— it's only interacting with something that's already inside of you, whereas like cocaine and methamphetamine and crack and all the others, they, they impact your dopamine system, right?

16:21And so they create a massive release of dopamine and epinephrine in your bloodstream. Yeah. Whereas, uh, cannabis only affects something that's already inside of you and changes that system. Did you know there is a medical condition— mainly stoners who have been smoking for many, many, many, many years, eventually their body will change and they will get a chronic vomiting syndrome, CVS, that is from smoking too much pot, and they like can't stop throwing up?

16:52That's actually my biggest fear. That would be my biggest Yeah, that would be bad. There's also studies that— I would like to know why you know all this. Yeah. What do you know? I was not a good person. He was into some stuff back in the day. Yeah. I was bad. There's also studies that show that it causes psychosis in a certain percentage of people.

17:07Like one-time use and they go, they lose their minds. No, no, no, no. It's not one-time use. It's in children and what it causes, there's a young children, if they consume it or are subjected to it. Listen, these are children to me. I have no idea. How old are you? 20. See, children. And she's like, oh yeah, you got to get this kind and you got to call my plug over here and he knows what— No, I learned all these things from my, from my sister.

17:31She informed you on all this? I understand why she doesn't go to Vegas. There you go. Yeah, this makes sense. My point is it smells terrible. It does smell terrible. And it, it infects everything inside the car. And so Even they, they smoke it in the car, which is the stupidest thing. I'm like, do it at home and then like wash your clothes and take a shower and then get in your car.

17:55But instead they smoke in the car and then they bring the car to me and then I gotta smell it and it then permeates through the entire shop. And so as soon as like I walk into the garage, the one time I do, I know that they say you're never at the shop. I, I know that a car, oh, this weed car had been there.

18:14Because it just, it smells terrible. One time we've got a fair share of them. I got in a car to check it in and I, in this like center area, the center console area, there's like kief, which is the stuff that goes when you grind it up. It's at the bottom of the grinder. People like it. I didn't know if you knew what kief was.

18:32It was just on the center console. It was just on the center console and I was like, hey, by the way, there's like kief on the center console in this car. I just want you to know this is not mine. And just, you know, I was driving a client's car one time and got pulled over because it didn't have tail lights. And as I stopped, the dude's crack pipe rolled out from under the seat.

18:49I was like, I swear to God, that's not mine. And he just laughed and went and got back in his car. And I was like, that was bad. It's super illegal in Kansas. It's not illegal in Missouri. Missouri, like, they let them do whatever the hell they want in Missouri. Delta-9 is not illegal in Kansas, is it? I don't know what that is.

19:08So is it also like ground up and smoked or whatever? Our really brilliant politicians voted to allow hemp sales through the farm bill. And they said that as long as it didn't contain over a certain percentage of THCA, it could be sold. And what they did not understand was, is that no cannabis had over a certain percentage of THCA until it was carbonized, which meant that you smoked it or heated it.

19:38It up. And so all cannabis is now legal according to the Farm Bill until they change it. They got played again. I have no problem, put like— put it in a brownie and then eat it. Like, go nuts. It's the smell, but also it doesn't taste good. Yeah, in a brownie? No, no, it like— it's like you made a brownie and then you put like too much oil in it and it's like grassy.

20:03It's like a grassy, oily Yeah, chocolate fudge. Again, I don't understand the appeal. At no point as a kid did I go, you know what I really want to do? I want to get fucked up. I cannot wait to get fucked up. It shows. I just don't understand the appeal. You're a little high-strung now. Maybe if you got stoned, it would like help bring things back a touch.

20:27You think? Like, I know some people, like, they smoke because they like actually go insane in their own minds and need a little break sometimes. And it calms them, centers them, grounds them, because it's natural. It's a plant. It grounds you to the earth. They need Jesus in their life. That's what they need. A little religious in there, a little religion in their life might fix some of the crazy or whatever the hell they're worried about.

20:50Well, there's also been studies that it helps with like arthritis and like old people and their pain, and it like— listen, alleviates their pain and you want to get high to like— I can understand that. Well, I understand the situations. Or just like as is, like just existing. Like there's been people in some of my classes that just are— Perfectly healthy 21-year-old male that's engaged and just started a new career probably shouldn't be smoking weed.

21:13I'm just saying it's not a good path to go down. I'm not talking about you. I did it way before I got in this industry. That is so much worse than what you're talking about. Like, yeah, my brain wasn't fully developed. So I decided it was a good idea to flood it with chemicals. I wonder what Kathleen's gonna say to me when she hears this episode.

21:34What's that? I wonder what Kathleen's gonna say when she hears this episode. No, no, she'll be fine. No, she will be fine. She's fine. Very professional episode. She talks to me about weird stuff all the time. Hey, this is a serious, like they deal with weed cards. I hate the weed cards. It's a problem. Yeah, it is sometimes. I could see that.

21:52Yeah. Keaton, what do you want to talk about? After that conversation, I don't really know. Well, throw it out there. I mean, you might as well say something. I mean, um, I guess the main reason Kathleen kind of got us introduced to each other was to talk about mental health with technicians. Yeah. And I, I mean, there's really nothing out there for it.

22:16No. And You know, it's sad to see. But the first step in fixing that is telling them not to smoke weed. Step one, get off of the illegal substances. Hey, look, I'm not even being facetious. Like, smoking weed is not healthy. Hey, some of them are legal substances. If they're dealing with issues, right, there's usually something unresolved in their lives that they're not dealing with.

22:43Maybe it's parental, maybe it's like other family, maybe it's friends, it's whatever. Everybody has issues. It's just how you deal with issues that either sends you down a bad path or a healthier path. And I'm just telling you, like, I'm going to drink alcohol. Hey y'all, Lucas here. It's story time. Over the past 6 months to a year, I've actually been working more and more in the family business.

23:07Now, the family business is not an automotive business. It's a tourist attraction. And one of the things that was happening in that family business is we were doing all of the marketing internally, be it social media ads, be it Google, all of it. We were handling all of it— website building, the whole nine yards. And here's the deal: it became very clear our marketing efforts were ineffective.

23:27Now, we could see that we weren't getting return on investment. We could see that we weren't getting good conversions. And that's when we stepped in and hired someone. We hired a professional that knew what they were doing. And for the first time in years, our parking lot's full when it's typically empty. And that's why I'm going to recommend you pick up the phone today and call Shop Marketing Pros, or click the link down in the comments below, because you shouldn't be learning how to do marketing.

23:49Your marketing machine should working for you right here, right now, making sure your bays are full. So go into the link in the comments and click on the Shop Marketing Pros link for your free marketing analysis today. Present. It's, I'm depressed. Well, I wonder why. Like, why are you drinking so much? And, and it's normalized in society and it's the stupidest thing in the world.

24:11It's completely unhealthy. But I don't, I don't know. There are, I don't know of a lot of technicians that aren't pounding back constantly. Like every night, just beer, beer, beer, whatever, whatever, whatever. Yeah, like, you know, I made my shop manager go get a bunch of blood work. Um, I paid for it and I said, hey, go get a bunch of blood work, because he wasn't feeling well.

24:34I like— I made him even— he had to send in a stool sample. Like, that's how bad it was. He was having stomach issues and I'm like, we'll send a stool sample in. And they found some weird bacteria in his stool and it was causing all sorts of issues. Anyway, he comes back, he's got fatty liver disease. He's like 32 years old.

24:52Now, what did he do all through his teens and 20s? He was just pounding back beer like crazy. In his mind, perfectly healthy. I haven't had any issues. No, you got full-blown fatty liver disease. This isn't good. And I told him, like, the only thing you can do here is like, you're gonna have to fix your diet, you're gonna take some supplements, but Like, you have to stop drinking.

25:14Yeah, like, this is what's causing the issue is the alcohol. And he's like, like, once in a while? Like, no, right? No. Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, I, I think David does have a point. I don't know if it's the stress of the job or the frustration of the job, but we do see it. They need to go be owners. They want some stress.

25:35Like, the car didn't get fixed? Oh well, you still got your paycheck. How about I can't pay your bills? Like, I can't pay you. Where's that money gonna come from? The car didn't get fixed, but you need your paycheck or you'll quit. And then what? I'm screwed. No, I gotta find that money. I'm just saying, there's a reason why guys are showing their pee holes on the internet.

25:58They gotta make that cash. Yeah, it could have something to do with the fact that they won't pay for it. Listen, there's a market for it somewhere, okay? You just gotta go a little worldwide. Maybe not in America, but somewhere in the Middle East. I don't know, they might be into it. I don't think they have internet right now. Well, maybe not there, but there are other parts of the Middle East.

26:26Oh my gosh, it's very suppressed over there. I'm just saying, they can't be out in the open and flamboyant about it. So they might be into it. They might be getting it through the internet. I don't know. She was really worried that she would not fit in and that she would not feel like she could communicate as part of this podcast. Why's that?

26:48She thought it would be too formal and too serious. Kathleen thought that? Oh, you thought that? Oh, she was freaking out about it. I was afraid to introduce myself. Tim wants that. Oh, now she's afraid that she introduced herself on the show and people don't know who she is. People already know who I am. Yeah, but now you're connected to us in some weird way, and that's probably a bad thing.

27:15No, it's okay. I don't mind. Keaton, I think you're right. Um, and I think specifically in young men— I'm not saying not in young women, So don't take it that way. I do think that in young men specifically, it was not normalized to talk to somebody about those things. No, not at all. I mean, as a male, your brain's just wired to keep your emotions and your feelings to yourself.

27:41Yeah. And I think that's one of the biggest things is, you know, you might have stuff going on in your personal life that's interfering with the job, and then you've got the stress from the job and life. All combined into one. Yeah. Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on. I reject all that. I reject entirely all that. How'd like, how'd great-grandpa do it?

28:02Smoke some Marlboro Reds. You think the 21-year-old— okay, yeah, he was probably pounding back some cigarettes, but I'm saying like, you don't think the 21-year-old that was stuck on the plane barreling down at— on the Battle of Midway, like freaking things are blowing up around them and they're like Oh, my job fixing cars is so much more stressful than what that guy had to deal with.

28:23The Japanese are coming after me, and if I don't blow them all away, they're going to shank me. I'm going to get cut up and die. Okay, I need to clear— And if I go that way, the alligators are going to get me, or crocodiles. I just need to clear up a couple things. They're going to eat me. That's actual stress, is what I'm saying.

28:39Okay, well, what I'm saying is— They weren't talking about their feelings. They pushed it way down. Okay, and that creates very angry men, very angry people that at some point it bottles up and it— listen, they were called the Greatest Generation for a reason. You can say they were angry, but they were also the Greatest Generation. A lot of them beat their wives because they were so angry.

28:59She does have a valid point. A lot of them maybe did. I don't know, I'd have to see the statistics on that. I just need to point out that you are off just a little bit because you said grandpa. Um, I'm trying. I don't know, at this point it's great-grandpa or great-great-grandpa. Okay. You need to square this up here. Um, I'm off a few years.

29:21Yeah, just a little bit. No, I— look, I, I do think that David is— I blame the boomers. That's whose fault it is entirely. Dutch. It's Dutch's fault. Not, not Dutch in particular. I, I push him a little bit. He was— he's a little old school for the boomers. Yeah, the freaking weed-smoking hippie boomers that were all peace and love growing up, and then they sprout a bunch of kids and mess them up.

29:49I'm just telling you. Yeah, well, the incidence of mental health concerns has increased dramatically within that generation that you speak of. The boomers? No, no, the generation after the boomers. Millennials? Yeah, that's, that's where the increase started. And I think you're probably right. And I, you know, the, the, the vets that came back they did come back scarred and damaged, but they also came back and realized that the world could be a much worse place.

30:14They saw something really terrible. Yeah, and they learned contentment. Yeah, like, hey, I'm not getting shot at today. This is fantastic. This is the best day ever. I didn't get shot at today. Well, so he brings up a really valid point. I have food. I went around for a long time and I'm not sitting in a ditch. I started asking people, you know, hey, what is happy to And there were a lot of different versions of it, but Rick White walked in one time and I said, hey, what is happy to you?

30:42And he said, I got up this morning. Right? And so David said, Rick walked out and David said, you know, he's fucking right. Right there's the answer. That's the answer to the question you've been asking everybody. Contentment. Like, dude got up this morning. And like, you can realize if you have the breadth of mind to understand how terrible the world can actually be, and see just how awful it could be, like, life is pretty good.

31:06But the problem is, is nobody's talking to these people about this. They're retaining it within themselves. So yeah, it's not even that nobody's talking to them. So like, let's hash out your feelings. I reject that. I really do. Like, push that sucker down, way down. Nobody cares. You don't want to talk about your feelings? We can talk about my feelings. Trust me, you don't want to hear them.

31:26It might scar you. It might scar you. And we might get canceled. I'm just saying, it's, it's not that. It's like, hey, let's talk about this. I understand how you're feeling. Everybody has those feelings, right? But let's, let's put it in perspective. Yes. Yeah, let's put it in perspective. Like, you grow— you just woke up in the greatest country in the whole wide world, in the best time to live in the whole wide world.

31:52And here's the thing, I just want to put, like, for you being 21 years old I was— when I was 18, I think it was 18, maybe it was 17, like I had dropped out of high school because I did not want to go to high school. It was like the worst thing ever. Like getting up and going to school was the worst thing ever.

32:10But I wanted to learn how to fix cars. Now if you wanted to learn how to fix cars, what would you do now? Like you don't know anything, what would you do? Be honest. Probably the same thing that I did. What did you do? I just walked into a shop and— okay, don't do that. Don't do that. Like, the first thing you do is you open up your flipping phone or your computer and you look something up on YouTube.

32:36Like, I need to do this on my car, I need to learn how to do it. Or like, how do you start learning how to work on cars? You just type it into YouTube and you— and there's flipping 8 billion videos on how to do absolutely anything you could ever want to know. About any car ever on the internet is available for you.

32:53All of the world's information at your fingertips at any moment's notice. Like you just want to know something. And for me, my ADHD brain, it's like, it's terrible because I go down these rabbit holes like, well, I want to learn about this. And I type it in. I want to learn about this. I type it in. And I just, I go down these paths, right?

33:12But when I was 17, no high school diploma, I want to learn how to fix cars. That wasn't available. So I had to look up a course, mail-order course, that I sent a letter to with a check, and they sent back books that you then would open and you would read the information, take the test, and then mail the test back. That's how you learned any of my car— because like Dad wasn't around, I didn't have any money, Mom didn't have any money.

33:42Like we were broke broke. I didn't have any money for tools or anything like that. Like, I didn't have anybody to go to and be like, can you show me how to work on cars? Going into shops or whatever, can you teach me how to— they would have laughed at me. That wasn't even a thing. Like, I wanted to walk in with some information, and I had a car that I needed to fix that I didn't know anything about.

34:04I need to learn how to fix this because I don't have any money to give it to somebody to fix. The difference now, 40-something, 30-something years later, to be able to just type something in— and I wish I knew how to— yeah, okay, learn. It takes 2 seconds. Yeah, watch 3 or 4 videos on it and you'll know more than most people do just watching a few videos on it.

34:30And then start going down the path. You might find that you hate it. You might find that like, I, I can't even like grasp the concepts that they're talking about here. And maybe you don't chase that, but the fact that you've got that information, you know, like, I mean, how can you not be happy about that and be like grateful that all of the world's information is available to me at a moment's notice?

34:52I think, I think the current generations have been trained to be ungrateful. Well, they don't have perspective. That's what I'm saying. Like, you, what you talk about is I'm gonna put the feelings into perspective for you so that you wake up with some contentment and some appreciation that not only do you work, live in the greatest country ever to exist, but you live at the most opportunistic time ever.

35:16You, I mean, you can get blackpilled very easily and go like, the economy and the opportunities and the gender wars, and then, or you could look at it and go, man, I can do whatever the hell I could. Like, all I have to do is put my mind and some effort into it, and I can learn absolutely anything I want for free if I just put a little effort in.

35:37I think that's why Jordan Peterson took off like he did, is because he was calling that to be. In other words, he was saying, hey, listen, you've got it pretty good. And I understand you feel this kind of way, but like the only person who will ever fix this for you is you. Yeah, but we're not talking about that because current society says like, oh, well, we should give you some type of medication and you should go talk to somebody about it in this way.

36:01Yeah, it's probably messing up more people than— Right. And so I think that that mentality or that mindset's caused a lot of this. And, you know, there's quite a few of his videos where if you go and look, the comments are just young men one right after another saying, this changed my life, this changed me forever, this gave me a new perspective.

36:18Right. Because he didn't sugarcoat it. And dude got canceled because he wouldn't sugarcoat it. Exactly. Told it like it was. And people didn't like what he had to say. But, and, you know, in particular, the one that got him canceled, he's talking about all of these people who claim to be oppressed. And he's like, of course you're oppressed. We're all oppressed. The meaning of life is suffering.

36:38It's going to suck. But if you pick yourself up and do something to make it a little bit better, at least you can make change in your own life and make your own life better. But you have to take ownership of that. And now I will say there are some people who have genuine mental illnesses. Now he's even released this statistic. He came out and he said the statistic is 70% of the people that you see in clinical psychology, those people are just in a life that got so complex they can't see a pathway to navigate through it.

37:09The others have a genuine mental illness. There's something really wrong. And so the 70% are, hey, we have to retrain your thoughts through cognitive behavior therapy or whatever it may be. But then you have the 30% who really do have a chemical imbalance. They've got something miswired, something is wrong. Yeah, right. The problem becomes in young men when we begin to hear things and we begin to believe things, we begin to tell ourselves things and we begin to believe those things, that you can actually rewire your brain and you have a new neural pathway in your brain, and our brain begins to follow that pathway and believe that and feel that way.

37:43But it may not be true. Yeah, right. And so you end up making it true about yourself. For sure. I've got a mental illness, I'm depressed, I'm this, I'm this. So it's Well, if you believe it about yourself, then yeah, it's true. If you tell yourself over and over again something, over and over again, that's who it's going to be. That's what you're going to be.

38:00But I mean, I don't think that there's been any mentors teaching that. And I think in our career specifically, or in this industry, it's boomers' fault. I don't disagree with you, but I'm just saying specifically in this industry, the old techs didn't ever nurture and care for the young techs. They didn't talk about it. They didn't say, hey dude, like, I get that this sucks and I get that this is hard, but you're going to be all right.

38:21Pick your shit up and go on, right? It was always— we're always picking. And, and that's one of the things— we, we are, um, vicious in our shop. The jokes we make would make even the most hardened human being cry. David would cry in my shop. Um, and I'm just saying, you're just mean. At least I'm funny when I make the jokes.

38:42You're mean. There's a difference. There's a lot— there's a line. I'm not That mean? You're very mean. He crosses the line. Like, there is a line. It gets cringy. You're like, oh, you shouldn't have said that. There's days where it's, you know, I'll work with our master tech, and I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this podcast or not, but absolutely.

39:03Um, honey, I don't know if you've noticed, but if he doesn't call me a fucking retard at least once a day, I'm not doing something right. That's good for you. I, I mean I mean, if he were telling me, yeah, you're doing a great job, good job on this, yeah, I'd be a little concerned something's wrong. Yeah, I'd be worried he was getting ready to fire me.

39:21He's trying to back this up a little bit. Or that he's gonna die. Like, he's gonna point out, like, my master tech is gonna die. I'm in the car with my, uh, with my— yeah, I'm in the car with my daughter and, and she says something and, and I, I'm, I'm trying to explain to her. I'm like, listen, I'm just— I just want to let you know You're, you're 12.

39:42Uh, I think you're all retarded, like every single one of you. And she's like, what? I'm like, yeah, you like all your friends, like all of you in your class, they're all retarded. You're just less retarded because you're my kid. And she's like, look, I wish I could tell you he's joking. I'm not. I don't think my dad has ever said that to me.

40:04I was trying to explain to her that, uh, I think all our friends are stupid and, uh, you're just less stupid because you're my kid, but you still do stupid things because you're 12. Why do you do stupid things? Some, some of us don't grow out of it. I'm just telling you, like, I wish my parents had told me I was retarded.

40:24I'm pretty sure they did. I wish I— and here's, here's the only thing that— this is what is sobering. This is what's sobering. If you ever get to the point where you look at your parents and you're like, my parents are actually retarded, like they're stupid, that's not good for a kid. Like when you're like 16 and you look up and you're like, parents stupid, like I don't think they can understand what it is I'm trying to tell them.

40:47Like not that I'm 16 and they don't get me, no, no, I think they just don't— it's not there. It is so depressing. It is the most depressing thing. Are you saying that your mom and dad, when you were 16, you looked at them and said, hey, you guys are stupid? Yes. Like, they're both like— they're— I think they're mentally challenged. Like, both of them.

41:13That explains a lot. I mean, like, you get this mix of genes. I don't think you can be self-aware retarded. You can be, maybe. No, no, no, that— like, you know, calling yourself retarded and like, like, I'm like, I think that it automatically makes you not retarded. I'm just telling you. So it heightens your, your knowledge, your IQ, your knowledge that you are— no, no, it doesn't heighten you.

41:40If you're retarded, like legit, at no point can you get to the, to this level of self-awareness where you can recognize your own retardation. Okay, because you're just too stupid. You're just too retarded. Like, you cannot understand it. There's no self-awareness. There's no self-awareness ever. Like, it becomes— she's uncomfortable. She's like shifting in her chair and she's like, holy— it's almost every day that I hear shop owners talk about credit card processing and credit card processing fees.

42:06And I'm gonna tell you right now, if you're that worried, you're stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. What do I mean by that? When it comes to credit card processing, It's all about the service. It's all about the support and the great rates at the same time. And that is exactly why I use 360 Payments for all of my payment processing needs.

42:29They are the best payment processor in the automotive space. So don't wait, go to the link in the show notes and get set up with 360 Payments. They're integrated with all of your favorite shop management softwares, and it makes your life so much easier. Oh, but it's true. I'm just telling you, like, you get to it, right? I'm just telling you, you get into it.

42:52There's some people that are just too dumb to realize that they're dumb, and they'll never understand, you know, their level of stupidity. But if you go like, oof, what I did was really stupid. I'm just trying to figure this out. No, I just— I've spent a lot of time around mechanics. Hey. I went to college for a year. Listen, I dropped out of high school.

43:16Okay. Yeah, I didn't go to college. I was homeschooled and graduated when I was 16 because I figured out how to get into the backside of the homeschooling program. Really? See, it wasn't that hard, was it? We got this. Once you have the answers, these questions are easy. Yeah, exactly. Kind of makes sense now. Homeschool. Yeah. All right, Paige. All right, Paige.

43:46That's all right. That's all right. I know your mom, Paige. I know your mom. Glad she didn't homeschool me. I might be more fucked up than I am. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's possible. I don't know why. Why is that? Why do people think that? I'm trying to get my wife to homeschool my kids. It's the social interaction. Yeah. I mean, you still hang out with your friends, but you just don't see them every single day.

44:07Constantly around your friends. I'm not living like— I don't know her. She could have lived on a commune or something like that. Basically, we're living out in the mountains with nobody around us. Like, yeah, like that one. Like, I mean, yeah, okay. But I'm saying like if you live in a big city or whatever. Well, I mean, no. Oh, I've met people who were homeschooled in like larger areas and like groups of homeschooled.

44:28They're just weird people because their parents are weird. It's always the ones that— this goes right back to him saying, well, if your parents are retarded, yeah, you're gonna be retarded. And retarded. Like, I'm okay with weird, like quirky weird. But, and honestly, like, sometimes they're just doing it because they see the whole of society and they're like, I don't want this for my kids.

44:51Like, I need to— and that, that's what freaks me out. Like, there are some sociopaths in my kids' school. Like, I see these little kids and I'm like, that kid is a sociopath. There's something wrong with that kid. Yeah, their parents don't see it. I don't know why. I, I can recognize it immediately, and just in the way they talk and interact with other With other kids, you're like, that kid is messed up, that kid is messed up.

45:13And so like sometimes you just don't want your kids around that. And I get that they need to be able to interact with them, deal with it and stuff like that. But sociopath— and so that's— no, you're not a sociopath. I was the aggressive one. You can be aggressive but not a sociopath. Like, well, I didn't get homeschooled and I was a little aggressive when I was little.

45:32So yeah, she's got a story about beating a kid with Lunchbox. So like, how old were you? Preschool. Oh, thank you. You're giving me 3. That's normal. Yeah, I mean, bludgeoning a kid with a lunchbox, especially like a little girl. Like, I would encourage my little girl, like, what'd he say to you? Go beat him with a lunchbox. No, no, she just like wouldn't get up off the floor.

45:56Really? Did you hit her with my lunchbox? I don't remember. I was like 4. I punched another girl in the face. Well, because she wouldn't share the kitchen playset and she needed to share. And my defense was, at least I didn't bite her. There you go. I mean, you are your mother's daughter. I am. So, I mean, sometimes I wish I still had a little bit of that.

46:18They kind of trained that out of me, like second grade. I know, sometimes I feel like I need to punch people in the face and, you know, I have— listen, I might start. I have gotten really good about it. I don't punch people in the face. Have you seen me get aggressive with anybody? No. See, you can, you can suppress it. I haven't punched anybody in the face since I was— I mean, that has to be learned out of you because when you get older you go, well, if I do punch that person in the face, I'm gonna go to jail.

46:49I could go to jail or they could shoot me. They could have a gun. Yeah, those are the options. And then they might be really good at fighting. You have no idea. Yeah. I mean, you look at them and you're like, I could take that guy, but you never know. So that's my point. There's some people I look at that I'm like, oh, I could definitely take that guy.

47:06Yeah. I'm not a bully, but I could definitely take that guy. I'm just telling you right now, that is never going to be true. I don't care how small a guy is. I am— Do not hit guys. Actually, You can probably hit guys. Don't hit other girls. The guys never, almost never even hit back. What if they deserve it? That was what I'm saying.

47:25You can hit the guy, he won't hit back. That's been completely trained out of guys. They won't hit back. They'll hit your guy friend or your boyfriend if he's there. He'll just attack him. Yeah, my friends told me I'm not allowed to hit people. So if you want to get your boyfriend beat up, hit the guy and your boyfriend will get beat up.

47:42Well, I hang out with firefighters, so they're kind of afraid of them. Firefighters? Yeah. They're also kind of stupid. Okay. They're great at what they do. So basically mechanics and firefighters are stupid is what you're saying? They're kind of in the same field of brain. There's just 2 different pathways. They talk about dicks a lot. We talk about buttholes a lot. Oh, so it's like every conversation every day somehow, some way it goes right back to the butthole.

48:14A butthole gets into the conversation once a day. Once a day. Yeah. We have a weekly call. This is not a joke. No, it's not. I think this does a lot for the mental health of those listening. We do laugh. We laugh a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's very strange too. My dad's the master tech. So when I'm sitting in the office and I hear my dad say something about this at home, his favorite thing to talk about is trains.

48:39I need to take a minute to collect myself. Oh yeah, no. Why are you just sitting there laughing? Because it's true. She knows. He calls it taint, not gooch. I call it a gooch. I call it a gooch, but he calls it a taint. It depends. What do you call it? A taint. Really? Yeah. It's a gooch. I mean, it's scientific. I think taint is the technical word.

49:04I think gooch is just a lot funnier. Yeah, gooch is funny. You know, I'll just say, I'm impressed that we got to this level of mess before the last episode. Really? Typically we get here on the last episode. We're tired, we're exhausted. Oh, that's good. I think they brought it out in us. We're just messing around. Is that what that means? We are the youngest people at our shop, so.

49:31Yeah. And kid, I've known my mom a long time. Your kid. A whole 20 years. A whole 20 years. And she raised me, so I really only have one way to be, and it is— So she made me promise that we would have a serious conversation about technician mental health. We did. We hashed it out. Quit being ungrateful. That's your problem. That's your problem.

49:58You're being ungrateful. Really? Yeah, I mean, unless you're the 30% that there's actually something wrong with you, in which case go get some help. There's medication for that. But they don't know how to get help. They're usually on the streets though. They don't know how to get help. That's the thing. Because they're not functioning. If they're actually part of the 30%, they're not functioning.

50:18I'm just telling you, they're on the streets. Do you know the effect that social media has on people today? Like young people, why young men have such worse mental health. Yeah, because they're comparing. That's true of everybody though. They're just going through the comparison all through, and then it just makes it worse because that's what I'm saying, pressure and work pressure. If you're not grateful for what you have in the situation that you're in and the opportunities in front of you, it— like, you can get sucked into social media and go, I don't have this, I don't have this, I don't have this.

50:49I'm just like, okay. Or you could look at it and go Yeah, that's funny. And then move on with your life and go, I appreciate what I have. Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest thing is, I mean, guys my age, you're trying to compare your life to somebody that has worked their ass off to get to get further than you. Or they got ridiculously lucky.

51:10And it's— trust me, sometimes it's just dumb luck. I don't disagree with that. And I think that we do look at the highlight reels of other people. That's all social media. That's all social media is, highlight reels. And you just don't have the perspective to see that they have the same struggles, right? Exactly. And, and I think that as business owners, we have to create that awareness in like, hey, here's the struggles associated with business.

51:31We try to filter that out and cover that up and make it look like everything's well, great, and good. Yeah, because you don't want your techs to leave. You don't want people to like— but, but the thing is, is if they don't understand everybody is fighting the same fight, and I, I think that I don't sugarcoat anything. My technicians know. Oh yes, your technicians.

51:51You don't even have to say anything and your technicians know, to be honest with you. But I think that if we don't create a world where it's normal for those technicians to say something or ask something or say, hey, I'm feeling some kind of way. Yeah, right. I think that the generation before, that was just what that generation was. You don't say anything.

52:16You don't talk about it. Somebody's going to pick on you and laugh at you if you do say something, right? But I think that there needs to be some normalization of, hey man, I'm not feeling so hot about things, right? And somebody to be there to mentor and walk them through that and give them some perspective or give them some guidance to help them get where they're going.

52:32George that works for me was never, you know, we've had these really deep conversations and you know George really well. George went to prison for a long time. And George lost his kids. And George was the sweetest guy. Yeah, was a drug addict and was selling drugs and the whole nine yards. And, um, I guess 2 years ago, uh, George basically found out that his wife had been running around for a long time and that the reason they never had any money was because of her decision-making.

53:01And she turned their life upside down. He became a single dad overnight, right? And so he has to care for a child, and he, he'd always been in their lives but had not been caring for them as father, he had been going out and trying to earn money. And so I'll never forget George had this situation years ago. He had saved up a bunch of money and had been paying off on this credit card because he wanted to get his wife a nice gift for Christmas and they never had any money, right?

53:26And so George came in really upset, crying one morning, and he said, she found out that that credit card had been paid off and she ran it all the way back up and I wasn't able to get her a Christmas gift, right? When he came back to work for me, he came to me and he said, hey man, can I borrow $20?

53:41And I'm like, yeah dude, what's up? And he's like, well, I've had the same pair of underwear for 3 years and I don't have any other underwear and I need some money to be able to buy underwear. And I'm like, holy shit, like this is bad, right? Yeah. And he was in really rough shape. And, um, we started talking more and more and we have weekly meetings where we go out and talk about George's life and the struggles that he's going through and the things he's got going on.

54:06One of the things that I learned about that was is that his parents were never taught to like talk about these things. And his parents were never taught how to give him financial advice. They were never taught how to give him emotional advice, parenting advice, any of that, right? And so he didn't get taught that. And so his kids didn't get taught that.

54:26And the problem is, is there's a lot of families and a lot of households that don't have, like this dude's really smart. Right? Like, I know he bullshits and the whole nine yards, but he has a lot of awareness. He's done a lot of research on a lot of different things. And so he's got the ability to speak to his kids about that and provide an impact for them and guide them and give them direction, which a lot of families don't have that.

54:47Yeah. And so I think that that means if we want to change that, not just in our industry, but with every person we run into, we have to be able to provide them resources and say, hey, man, I don't understand what you're going through and I'm not going to pretend that I do, but like, hey, go check out this video. Hey, go watch this.

55:03This is something that helped me. Go talk to somebody. Right. I think if we don't do that, it's only going to get worse. Exactly. I mean, my personal experience, I got, I mean, I walked into this industry with no knowledge on it. I'd done, you know, oil changes on my own vehicle, but that was it. Yeah. Walked into it, no experience. Got thrown in after one of our techs left.

55:29Mm-hmm. And I was just kind of headless horseman trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing. Yeah. And it got to the point where I was just stressed out as all hell trying to make sure that I was doing the best of my ability. Yeah. I mean, there was days where I'd go home and I— all I thought about was, was committing.

55:50Yeah. And then finally I got to the point where I said something to my fiancée and I just broke down in front of her. Yeah. I've never cried in front of her. And that night I just, I let it all out. And yeah, after that I woke up every single morning, didn't care how I felt, got my ass out of bed and knew that the only way that I'm going to fix this is to talk to somebody about it and to go to work and actually just wake up that next morning.

56:17Yeah. I mean, there's a reason that God made this earth and there's a reason that you wake up every morning to do whatever you are doing. A purpose of something. Well, and you know, a couple of things like, I don't think as shop owners, we often think about the stress that technicians will put on themselves to try and get it right. We don't think about kind of what they're going through and what they're engaging with.

56:41We get frustrated because it's like, hey, this car is really important. Getting this car fixed is really important. And young men specifically tend to be more apt to say, no, I'm all right. I've got this. And I'm going to figure this out. And they don't want to say, I don't know. Right. And so there's that transition phase of like, you know, we talk about shop owners all the time and the arrogance that comes with ego, arrogance, whatever you want to call it, that comes with a lot of shop owners.

57:08And what you find is, is they're unwilling to say, I don't know. And I don't know how to do this and I need help. They will not do it. They refuse to do it. They have to present as they're big, tough, and strong. We sat in here yesterday. Dude was talking to us and he said, yeah, he's like, I was working 7 days a week and I was working until midnight and 1 o'clock every single morning.

57:29He's like, then they told me something was wrong with my heart and I got to 350 pounds and my stress level was super high. And he's like, that woke me up. Well, why should we have to get to the point where we're about to die to wake up and say, hey, I need help with this. I don't understand this. I can't navigate this on my own.

57:45And it's a pride thing, right? And I don't think there's anything wrong with being prideful, but there is something wrong, like, if you're feeling that kind of way, you need to reach out and ask for help. And if it's in a technical aspect, right? Like, I used to try and make vehicles perfect and I'd spend hours and fucking hours and fucking hours.

58:03On one vehicle trying to make sure it was like absolutely right. Well, the damn thing wasn't perfect when it was built. Oh yeah. And I'm spending hundreds of hours on this stupid shit, can't make any money, not feed my family. That's a miserable feeling. Yeah. You know, like break it down to like the, the simplest level though. Like what, what did you need?

58:22You needed some perspective. Yeah. Like dude, the customer isn't expecting this. Like, so why are you putting this on yourself? Yeah. Like at the end of the day, that's all it ends up being. Somebody's just gotta put a little perspective around what it is that you're in, whatever situation or whatever you're feeling. It's probably way better than what you think it is.

58:43It's not anywhere— you're essentially building this narrative in your head. A lot of it is you against you. Yeah, it's you against you, and then you go down this— you spiral down from there, and it can get worse and worse and worse. And sometimes people can't get out of it, but at the same time, if you can just reshape your thinking and stopping, like, let me put this into some perspective here.

59:06Sometimes it's just, I mean, for me, it's just introspection. Like, I just have to stop and reframe what it is. And that usually handles it for me. And like, I don't need anything more than that. But yeah, I mean, some people just need to hash it out and just have a conversation with someone. You know, but it doesn't need to be anything woo-woo or anything like that.

59:29No, sometimes it's just like, hey, let me hash something out with you. Yeah, yeah, talk through it and just walk through it. Yeah, and but just take the advice too, because I, I've— I don't know how many guys I've talked to that end up spiraling down and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, like you can fix this and this and this with this one thing and then the rest of this is just contrived BS that you are just making up.

59:51And they're like, no, but, no, but, no, but. It's like, okay, do you want to fix any of this or just want to bitch? Yeah, because if you want to bitch, like, we can listen to it, but at the same time, it's like not gonna help anything. I will never forget Rick White saying to me, some people are in love with their problems.

1:00:07Yeah. And there, there's a level of people that will never ever overcome this stuff because they are so in love with having— and, and I, I think that if you could ever convince them to go past that for a minute and see it. Um, it becomes their identity is what it is, and then they can't get out of it. There's a shop owner here that we've talked about that.

1:00:25Yeah. And I've talked to him, I've said that to him, like, dude, you are your own worst enemy. You're doing this. Like, there is a solution. You're just— you want to go around from person to person and person and talk about all the things that are wrong, but you're not doing a fucking thing to fix it. Like, at some point, it— it— you own that shit, right?

1:00:42Like, you got to get off your own ass and do something. You can't blame everybody else in the situation and circumstance. Circumstances, circumstance. Like, you're going to put up with that the rest of your life. You might as well fucking do something about it. Yeah, right. Like you talked about the greatest generation of all time. It's like everybody around me is shooting at me.

1:00:59Everyone in this country wants me dead. There is no fucking choice. I have no choice. I have to figure this out. It's not an option. And so it's like when you become a father, Right? It's not about you anymore. It's about them. I will drive to do whatever I've got to do to make sure they're successful. I don't give a fuck about me.

1:01:17Like burn it to the goddamn ground. I don't give a fuck. But it's about them. It's about their success. It's about their well-being and giving them the best foot forward and teaching them this is how you live your life. Right? And so I, you know, I don't think like you look at Georgia's situation. I don't think that his parents meant harm. I don't think they intended for George not to have those tools and those resources.

1:01:40They didn't have them, right? His dad went to prison and sometimes we become our parents, but if nobody's there to teach us, nobody's there to show us and guide us and call us on our bullshit. That's the other thing is I think we've gotten to a society where we're unwilling to call people on their bullshit. We're too afraid. Yeah. And it's like, well, I might get canceled or I might this or I might that.

1:02:03But the reality is, if we're not willing to call a spade a spade or whatever it may be, like, you will absolutely find yourself in a worse society tomorrow because you didn't call it for what it was. Absolutely. You know, and if we're going to go down that pathway, I refuse to be in that camp. I'm not going to be that person.

1:02:21Yeah. You know, me too. Okay. Good job. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having us on. Of course. Was that enough yelling for you guys? Yeah. Okay. I'm ready to go to my next class. Thank you for listening to the Changing the Industry podcast. If you enjoyed the show, do us a favor and leave us a review on your favorite podcast player.

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