Your Shop Might Need Marriage Counseling: Fixing Communication in Auto Repair [RR 1087]

0:00This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hi, everybody. Carm Capriato with Vision 2026. God, Matt, I don't know. This could be our 8th year here. We're just so, so, so happy to be here. Matt Fonzlow is with me from Riverside up in the great state of Minnesota. Was it cold up there this year? We had some pretty good weeks of cold. Subzero, sub— like negative 20.

0:29It's, it's one of the coldest. I think it's one of the coldest states in the whole US, isn't it? I think, yeah, I think it's recognized as the coldest state in the United States. Go further north, I think like Maine's further north, but it's surrounded by the ocean, which is a big heat capacitor, so it just doesn't get as cold. Yeah, there was a bunch of years that I, uh, working for corporate America that I had to go to, uh, Minneapolis Even though there wasn't a whole lot of snow compared to— I've been leaving Buffalo with, you know, 30-degree weather, and I'm going to your place with all kinds of snow, and then there's no

1:01snow there. But I was never colder in my whole life. Yeah, we don't quite get the same lake effect you guys get. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, enough with the weather. It's becoming spring. We're here in Kansas City. I am impressed with what I see. I know you're teaching a couple of classes here, aren't you? What are you doing? I mean, that's using the word teaching.

1:22Very loosely. Okay. All right. Yeah. Uh, you're sharing your knowledge. I mean, there's not a lot to share, but yeah, you're inspiring. Definitely sharing. You're, you're dragging people over the line. What is it? What is it screaming? I, I mean, by now everyone should know I have no idea what I'm doing, but, uh, I am. Yeah. Scott Schotten and I are presenting an all-day hands-on PicoScope class at Johnson County Community College all day Friday, and then Saturday morning with Andrew Sexton, I'm doing kind of an Introduction to Key Cutting and Programming.

1:56And then Saturday afternoon is the— I guess I would like to say popular. It seems to have a lot of popularity. Tech Talks. You invented this. I mean, I stole it, but yeah, we, we talked about this in an episode I think we did at ASTA. And, and I have to tell you, you're on to something so big here for people wanting to come up and says, I think I can be a trainer, give me a shot.

2:19And that's what it is. Yeah. And also Uh, I think this year in particular, one of the presenters— I'm probably gonna mess up his last name, so I apologize— but Mike Biancare, I think that's how you pronounce it. I think he's recognized by quite a few as being very smart, which he is, but he is, um, a proponent of a tool called the MT Pro, which is an 8-channel lab scope.

2:41He would like, I think, to start delving into a little bit more of presenting. However, It's daunting if, you know, Vision's putting out the emails or the word that they are now looking for presenters, submit classes now for review. He's looking at that going, I would like to share my knowledge about this tool or whatever, my, how I approach a vehicle diagnostics or something like that.

3:09But the class times are 3 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours. That's daunting. Like, I know, I think I know this tool pretty well, but do I have 3 hours of material? I don't, how many slides would I need? Or what am I going to talk about? That's really daunting. What's the stopgap? How can I take somebody that maybe has a passion for it and maybe ends up being brilliant at it, which I think he will be, but how do we get him into the fold a little bit?

3:35How do we give him a path to go, I don't know about 3 hours and I don't want to be the sole I'm solely responsible for this entire class. Can I share it with somebody or somebodies? And now I have to come up with 45 minutes or an hour or an hour and a half or 15 minutes, whatever it may be. How do I do that?

3:56There's, there's no means to do that. And then that's TechTalks. Now I'm going to get however many people I need, be it 2 or 6 or whatever for the 3 or 4 hours that we're in there. And they bring up something. It may be a case study on a car. Hey, I ran into this really cool thing and this is how I found it.

4:15Or this is a tool I really like to use. I don't think it gets used the right way. Or I re— you know, I read a lot of stuff online, social media, professional forums that people go about this, I think, the wrong way. Here's, you know, my take on that, or whatever it may be. So, you know, a couple years ago we have somebody talking about HP Tuners, not how to tune the car, but how to use it as a diagnostic tool.

4:39I learned so much in that class about a tool that I already had. Yeah, I find it's a, a good way to bring in new people into the fold. And if you're in the lobby here at Vision 2026, you'll hear some of the older presenters, educators, whatever. I— and I don't mean that like taking digs at them. Nobody gets to choose when they're born, but they're on the way out.

4:59They're looking retirement. They're thinking retirement, and they're looking down the line. Where's the new people? Exactly. And we talked about that in Aspen, and I'd like to come back and talk about that, but Before we go, Matt has a podcast on the Automotive Repair Podcast Network, Diagnosing the Aftermarket A to Z. Tons of fans, great content. I want to talk about that when we come back.

5:19But thank you so much to NAPA Tracks for sponsoring us here at Vision. Talking to some people about their SMS systems, and one of the things that they have recognized so highly with NAPA is their perpetual daily training and in-field people to help them hold their hands and get some of these features set with their system and also some other really great sponsors here on the show.

5:45Hey, stay ahead of the curve with NAPA Autocare's newest auto tech initiatives: Fast Track Assessments, Accelerator Immersive Training, and Tech Assist Smart Support. The future of technician training is here. Connect with your local NAPA representative for more information. Hey, let's face it, your shop management system is the most critical tool in your shop, and NAPA Tracks will move your shop into the SMS fast lane.

6:10With on-site training, 6 days a week support, and local representation. Find Napa Tracs on the web at napatracs.com. Hey, welcome back, Matt. Let's go back just for a moment about Tech Talks. Anyone over the years that you've been doing this reach up into being a full-time or maybe a part-time trainer? That you know of? Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think some of them— starting out, it was hard to find just people with limited, uh, experience presenting.

6:46But I'd say over the years, we've seen them grow into it, or on their path to doing it. And maybe it's not actually teaching full-blown classes, but other means, other mediums. Okay. Uh, Zeb Beard comes to mind. I think we will see classes from Zeb Beard, both diagnostic and even management/ownership type. One way or another, he will be— He's so cool to listen to.

7:09The thing I like about— He's got that accent, you know, Antonio, it's like a fricking trump card. I think I mentioned it in an episode that we did last year with Zeb. I always tell him, I said, when I talk, an English accent, a Southern accent, I'm drawn into people that don't talk like a normal Yankee like me. Right. Well, it's kind of the, that Southern Arkansas accent and then the attitude behind it.

7:34And he is really no BS. Like, if he thinks it, he says it. If anything, say what you will about Zeb, and most of it is going to be very good. The one thing, he's like most people that are very likable, he's just genuine. What you see is what you get. That's right. He's a no-nonsense, very no-nonsense. So anyway, I invited Matt into the studio because I found out that he wrote this incredible article on "Your Shop Might Need Marriage Counseling."

8:04And after I read the title, I says, "I gotta read this thing." 2,000 words to come up to your particular point. And there will be a point, hopefully down the road here, that Matt's willing to share that entire article. We don't have time right here to justify it. The theme of this podcast for the last 11 years has been listen to learn just one thing and please implement what you may have learned.

8:31And the same concept being here at VISION. People are going to take a lot of notes. They're going to hear a lot of things. They're going to get a lot of things virtual. They're going to record some stuff. And if you let all this great networking and learning go to waste, shame on you. And the only way this industry is going to continue to improve the professionalism it so well deserves is we got to be doing stuff.

8:55We got to do things. You are so passionate about lifting this industry, your shop may need marriage counseling. Where the hell were you when you come up with that? Well, I was, uh, higher than a kite. No, uh, I don't— if knowing you, I just— that's the wrong word, right? Um, you're just high on life, I think. Yeah, high on something. I, I don't know, I guess I just correlate a lot of stuff, right?

9:23That watching stuff either in the shop, reading about it on social media, hearing about it, and, you know, hanging out with people— it wouldn't have to necessarily be at trade shows or expos or anything like that. But what I find that makes sense to me is that one, none of us were born with these communication tools. We're not. And then depending on how most of us were raised, the vast majority of us were never taught how to properly communicate, right?

9:52At least not constructively. And it's probably gotten worse over time as parents are both working and social media and screens are what's raising kids. So they're even less able to develop tools for communication. Zero soft skills. Because if you had an ounce of soft skills, you'd at least think before you spoke. Think before you spoke. And then, so trying to qualify all this, the one thing I see, like, at the front counter is you have a power dynamic.

10:23And you see that in relationships. And marriage is the easy one to pick on where there's a power dynamic where maybe more traditionally you have the man is the one that works, the breadwinner, the provider, and then the female mother, you know, talking like heteronormal, if you will. That they're raising the kids, they're the caregivers. That would be stereotypical. It's not so much the case anymore, but there's a power dynamic where he is the breadwinner, therefore he controls the finances, and therefore is almost like the boss of the relationship.

10:55That's 20 years ago, right? But we still have a dynamic, and we can roll that however you want. It might be now the woman's the breadwinner. It may have nothing to do with the breadwinning. It might have to do with other power dynamics, and those shift— those may shift where And I'm not saying that's wildly unhealthy, but we have a power dynamic and therefore that changes how you communicate.

11:14And now you're leveraging that power depending on how you want to do that. Because of that, we'd never really learned to validate. And that's a word that gets, I don't know if we say it enough. And when we do, I don't know that we say it with intention, but you can validate somebody's feelings without agreeing with them. And I think that's the issue is we very rarely talk to people about how we feel or how something made us feel.

11:38And for men, talking about feelings is, that might as well be a third language. It's probably easier for all of us to go learn Latin than to talk about our feelings. So we never learned to do that. And then most of us, especially in this profession, we're fixers, right? We analyze, we fix. There's a cause and effect. So, you know, you come to me and say, hey Matt, you know, the other day when you said something, it really kind of made me feel bad about myself or it hurt my feelings or made me feel really sad.

12:09My knee-jerk reaction is to go, "Well, that's not what I meant. And how you got there, I don't know how you got there, but this is what I meant." And I'm breaking apart the conversation that led to your feeling rather than saying like, because I care about you and we're friends and all that, saying, "I'm really sorry about that. I wouldn't wanna hurt your feelings.

12:30Can you tell me more about that? How did that happen? What did I say? Was it a—" Sometimes it's not even what you say, it's how you say it. Which I am very guilty of. It's not even what I say a lot of times, it's how I say it is what really hurts or, or causes certain feelings. Yeah, your tone, man, that could just ruin— either the monotone or the no sell or whatever it is they do, or the way your eyes look, or the rolled up mouth, the rolled eyes.

12:56That usually makes people feel pretty bad about themselves. There's a nice way to say this, and then there's the other way, and I go with the other If only for personal entertainment. And so on. But we don't learn to do that, and we're never taught that. And it feels wildly uncomfortable, and it's weird for us to— as a man, it is very hard to go to somebody and say, hey, you know what, when you said that, that made me feel a certain way.

13:22And then that person to go, I'm really sorry that made you feel that way, can you tell me more about that? And then maybe Next day or an hour later or 2 hours later, like, hey, could we revisit that a little bit? Because when I said this, it had nothing to do with that. And we can do that later when everyone's more in a calm state, if you will.

13:43But we're not taught any of this. This is not taught in schools. It's certainly not taught at home. And you see this happen at the front counter where the customer is saying, my car is doing this. And I think women in particular, even if it's not true, that the, the shop, whoever, the service advisor, the customer service rep, the mechanic, the owner, whoever's talking to them, already there's the stigma of, I'm a woman, I don't know anything about cars.

14:08Don't kid yourself, most men don't know anything about cars either. But that's already a feeling. They're already— there's already fear. Now there's a power dynamic that even the person sitting at the counter doesn't know exists. And I'm asking you to do this. Now the response of however that is, even if it's a question for clarification, doesn't come off that way. It comes off condescending, and now they're on the defense.

14:34The customer is being very defensive because they've perceived, uh, or interpreted your clarifying question as being condescending to them, right? Because they're already scared they don't know anything about cars, you're going to take advantage of them. And if everyone in the conversation, but namely the customer service rep or the service advisor is aware of these things, they can back that up quick and apologize, validate their feelings of fear, validate their feelings that they felt I was condescending even though I wasn't.

15:03But we don't have that kind of training at our counter. I've never seen it. I have never seen it or heard about it. The only time I've heard about is what conversations we've had on this podcast and on mine with Margaret Light. Listen, there's so many service advisor training courses coaches are offering it. There's so many independents that are starting up to get ourselves, if you will, up to speed as an industry in this higher level of sophistication, self-awareness, confidence, all that stuff.

15:31And I think this is an apropos time for you to have this and bring this up because it has everything to do with relationships and communications and how it could be applied to our counters. I love that part. It's at the counter. It's in the shop. It's in the business. The dynamic between the front and the back and the front of house and the back of house and the office, if we don't work on that, the business is failing unless we work on it.

15:57How about that? I can't speak for you specifically. You're not so terribly much older than I am, but the way you were raised, the communication was probably minimal. There was expectations of you, and when you failed those expectations, you might be of the generation where the leather strap or the switch was used. You heard? No, I don't. I'm guessing. I'm guessing generation-wise.

16:21The belt buckle jingle? Yep. Scared the crap out of me. Right. My parents, that's how they were raised. The belt was used often and for infractions we'd probably never consider. I deserved it, actually. But that's how they perceived it, right? But we learned so much about communications by observing. I mean, they didn't sit down and teach us. We observed. There was a level of integrity and honesty and ethics that just through assimilation, and it I'm not saying that we're not doing it today, but there's that dynamic, I think, of you saying of social media, it says, "No, don't worry about that."

16:57Well, I think what happens is it gets worse. Like, not that the corporal punishment was so good. It has its own set of repercussions. Then my parents raising kids make a conscious decision of we're not going to corporal punish, or at least not to that level. But then they unwittingly use shame. And that my generation, I think, carries a lot of shame.

17:18Well, okay, that makes it where we have pretty thick skin when the owner, the manager comes over and berates us because we interpret that as like, I screwed up, I deserve that, I had that coming, right? And that's generally accepted as good. That's a positive thing. The next generation, they don't have that either, right? So they're labeled snowflakes. Don't get me wrong, there are cases where I buy into that a little bit or a lot of it.

17:43There's also cases where they were never given the tools to deal with that and shame wasn't such a great way to learn how to deal with it anyways. Like, just feeling really bad about yourself isn't so great either. So now we have to have ways to communicate with them and get what we need without them silently quitting, silently killing their relationship with the shop, silently quitting.

18:05We, we don't— we can't have that. And that's what's happening because they're, they're not equipped with that. You can't go over and just say, light them up about some mistake they made, even if it's a legitimate mistake and it was a bad mistake and could have had severe, severe repercussions to the shop. Going over there and just lighting them up doesn't work.

18:24They shut down, they probably just go home sick. They need a mental day, something we've never heard of. You have almost destroyed them. So now there's a different way to go about it and it's been around for a long time. Like it's been around for decades and most of us don't learn it until we're sitting on a couch next to our significant others trying to learn how to better communicate, because that's why our relationships are falling apart, is we never learned how to ask for our desires, our needs.

18:53You know, we— needs and desires get kind of used, unfortunately, interchangeably. Needs are Maslow's hierarchy, right? And then maybe a few others. And then there's the 'I greatly desire this,' and then your partner can say, 'I can do that,' or 'I don't want to do that,' and Right, and that's how it starts. And then you learn from the, the Gottmans. They're, they're the science— kind of the scientific, uh, contribution to relationships, mainly intimate relationships, where they have come up with over time of observing couples and getting to the point where they can predict with an insane, uh, accuracy who's going to be divorced in the next 2 years, 5 years, 10 years.

19:36It's amazing. It is amazing. And it's Because of that, you would think we would slowly migrate to learning more about these facts, if you will, or theories and skills, learning these skills. But, you know— Is marriage counseling big today? I have no idea, honestly. It's got to be bigger than when I grew up or when I first got married. Yeah, I think it's more acceptable than ever before.

20:00And I think some people are doing it. They're already in counseling earlier on in life. For their own things. Like, we have a very anxious generation, the generation before this generation, and I know that's speaking somewhat vaguely, but people in there, I don't know, 40 and younger, are, are more anxious than the, uh, generation before that. So they've already been in counseling to learn to deal with social anxieties or just life anxieties, stuff like that.

20:29So I think people going to counseling is far more acceptable than ever before. I think before you went to counseling because you were broken You're messed up. You need to go to counseling. Where now it's, I'm going to counseling because I either need someone to help point out my blind spots or I need this toolkit. Social anxiety, outside pressures telling me I'm not worthy or I'll never be like them.

20:53So I get depressed. Is that what this is all about? That I think a lot of people feel like they're in a lake or a river swimming with or against the current. They don't even know. They're floundering, feel like they're drowning. It's everything they can do to keep their head above water. And they almost need somebody to pull them aside and say like, well, one, you're not alone.

21:13Two, you're probably doing better than you think you are. Like, you think you're drowning, but you're not drowning. It's the water's 3 feet deep and you're choosing to be on your knees. And somebody needs to tell them that. And somehow the significant other family, very close friends aren't any help, it seems. Right. And sometimes they contribute to it negatively, like parents being critical.

21:37And sometimes it's unwittingly critical. Sometimes it's, I'm asking you these things, or I'm telling you these things because I love you and I want to see you succeed. But the way I'm structuring it makes you actually feel worse about yourself. Therefore, down on your knees in the 3 feet of water, feeling like you're, it's everything you can do to keep your head above.

21:56So the fact is, is I could come in with a little bit different— it could be tone, it could be structure, all the things— and next thing you know, they're standing on their feet in 3 feet of water. The automotive world is changing fast, and customers are expecting speed, accuracy, and confidence in every repair. To keep your shop competitive, your technicians need training that's smarter, Faster and future-focused.

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24:45And unlike the other guys, we'll be there for you after installation with the best training and support in the business. Yes, a learning management system tailored to each role in your company. Simply put, Trax was designed and built for shop owners just like you. Visit us on the web at napatrax.com. That's N-A-P-A-T-R-A-X dot com. The beauty of what I'm hearing is not only on a personal basis, but Matt rarely does an episode, thinks, writes if it can't relate to the shop and life in the shop.

25:24You, in your article, you talked about how this applies to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I never heard of that until I read it in your article. School me. Running with the biblical nature of it, but the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse of a marriage, the failure of a relationship involves— let's see if I can rattle them off. I have them written here.

25:48But we have condescension, and we have stonewalling. There's criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. How people display them and how often they display them is a really good indicator of how the relationship is going to fail. And when because of that. And those are the kind of the pillars, uh, maybe not the pillars, the constructs. Yeah, those are, those are really the constructs of most relationships.

26:14Let's pick on stonewalling. Men, that's usually the male territory and a lot of shame. So I would say that is my number one default. So if my wife comes to me, uh, maybe not so much anymore, but you're even not even terribly long ago, but years ago, if she had something to say that wasn't necessarily critical, I would interpret it that way.

26:36And she could come to me with a feeling like, hey, you know, when you forgot to pick up whatever after I asked you, that made me feel whatever, sad. Just would speak vaguely. I wouldn't hear that. I wouldn't validate the feeling right away. It's like, geez, I made a mistake. I'm sorry, I fricking forgot. You know, it's 5:30. I want to be home.

26:55I got to cook dinner. I got to do all these things. So yeah, I saw my watch, I saw my phone, it's 5:30, I gotta get home, I gotta start dinner, I totally spaced doing it. It's just super defensive. She might say like, hey, hey, hey, I'm not getting on your case about it, I'm just telling you this is how it made me feel.

27:11And then I would just boom, throw up the walls and she might as well not exist for me. You felt bad that you couldn't reach your personal goals. She recognized the point that you were late and all of a sudden there's a clash, even though you were both you know, you were doing the right thing, and she was just trying to help you through the fact that we got stuff to do, right?

27:31And, and actuality, the interpretation should be me of her is she is better trying to help me love her the way she needs me to love her and not jumping on your— not jumping on your back, right? And even though what I messed up and something I did hurt her feelings, rather than me trying to feel those feelings of It sucks to hurt people you love's feelings.

27:53It just sucks. I got to do more of that for Anne because she's always trying to correct me. Right? Yeah. And I never can do anything right. Sometimes it feels that way. That's why she's saying Anne. But there is the reality of sometimes, and that example probably doesn't qualify, but there's times where you may say something and it hurts their feelings. And you can say like, I'm sorry, I would 'Never want to hurt your feelings.

28:21Tell me more.' But then you have to come back to it at some point. We have to revisit this because you're interpreting in that way sucks for me because I had zero intentions. This is what I meant by that. That has to be talked about. In the moment is probably— is absolutely not the time to do that, right? And when somebody comes to you with their feelings is exactly not the time to start talking about yours.

28:48If you have feelings, fine, write it down, come back to it. Don't talk about it at that point. But with those, those four horsemen, with the condescension and the criticism and the stonewalling, the defensiveness, you can watch this in the shop all day, every day, right? And it happens at the front counter, it happens in the office, it happens in the back.

29:08So, so it's just like, take your shop for an example, and you see this stuff going on. Oh, we're all so well adjusted Justice doesn't qualify. Of course, I'm sorry, you're perfect. Pick another shop. Shop B. ASE has Tech A, Tech B. We have Shop A, Shop B. Okay, let's go to Shop B. Shop B, always shop the imaginary Riverside. How do we— or you, uh, in recognizing this, you, you realize it's going on and you see some of this percolating Have you gotten involved?

29:42Yeah, yeah. And I don't want to make it sound like it's so strategic because it wasn't. It's more just trying to be very subtle with it. And a lot of it was just through my own, like, getting better about it at home translates to getting better at work. Ah, I like that. I like that. Honestly, that's it. If it's working at home, you know you could bring it to— at home, bring it to work.

30:04Correct. And maybe at work it isn't so much, uh, defensiveness, but it could be stonewalling, it could be criticism. Like, criticism is really hard. You feel like you're in a somewhat no-nonsense environment, so therefore I'm trying to be no-nonsense, but it is actually quite critical. And it's not even criticism by itself is bad, it's criticism with condescension. That's the damaging stuff. Like, at some point we're gonna have to be critical, we're gonna have to call people out on their stuff.

30:30That's double bad, right? But if you're doing it from a place of superiority, now you got a problem. You're creating a problem. And people don't generally respond well to that. Marriage counseling for a business. Think about it. Really? It translates. Can you imagine getting together with the entire team and have a Margaret Light sit in front and said, listen, I've hung out for 2 days.

30:56I felt, I saw. Let's talk about how we can sit by the campfire and sing Kumbaya. Now I know that sounds a little tongue-in-cheek-ish, but how much better can the company be in its communication skills, in serving the customer, the level of professionalism by getting rid of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling? If you can fix it at work, maybe you could take it home.

31:22You know, instead of saying, I did it at home, I could bring it to work. It doesn't matter where you start fixing it. Yeah. And maybe not to this degree, but I'm going to compare it a little bit. And I don't want it to be like apples to apples. It's not, it can't be. But one mantra is good therapists have good therapists, right?

31:42That's one. And two, oftentimes we're in conversations about certain entities, certain professions like law enforcement. They should all have regular counseling. You cannot deny that that job, oftentimes you see the worst of people. You see people at their worst and it starts to affect you. They need a way to go and have those blind spots checked, toolkits given to be able to recenter.

32:09That should happen, right? But why doesn't that translate to the shop? Why, why wouldn't we ever consider on retainer a therapist of some sort, a counselor of some sort, and maybe it isn't every week. I don't know what— maybe it starts out every week, but everybody has access. All right, stop. It's not a sign of weakness. No. To want to have this done.

32:31And in fact, just watch police shows on TV. Pick one, because there's a million of them out there. How often after 2 or 3 episodes in a row somebody needs to go to speak to someone because they shot somebody? Something happened. The older generation is, "No, no, no, I don't need this stuff." And the younger generation seems to be more pliable, and they want it.

32:50They want talk to someone. I think it's a brilliant idea of being able to talk out your feelings, especially if you don't know how to verbalize them with anyone. Yeah, verbalize them, communicate them. You know, it gets abused, the "I feel" statements, but it's true. And you don't have to say those verbatim, but it's really coming in with a feeling, not saying, "Hey, you did this."

33:16Or maybe you say, "This happened. Let's talk about it." "You were mean when you said that." That doesn't work. Right. No, I wasn't. What are you talking about? You hurt my feelings. I can't argue that. Right. And I shouldn't. I shouldn't want to. The other thing is, like you said, you brought up weakness. That's interesting. We should know this by now. I think generations ago, toughing it out, that was viewed with respect.

33:40Like that person, they went through hell. I mean, oh, whatever it is. And they came out the other side whole. How do you know? You never heard them complain. Yeah. How do you know they came out whole? Right. They're so frickin destroyed inside, but they put up a really good facade. Asking for help is not a lot of times, most of the time is not a sign of weakness.

34:00That's a sign of strength because now I've had to check my ego. I can do this all by myself, but I can't. How could I? How could I possibly be my best counselor? I'm the worst. I'm the easiest person to lie to, and I'm really good at lying to myself. Asking for help is often a massive sign of strength. It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks.

34:22They don't, they can't know, but you have to know. Sometimes asking for help is a massive sign of strength. It doesn't matter if it's this for communication. It could be for a substance use disorder, finally admitting, I, this, I can't control this anymore. I never could. Nobody could. I have to ask for help. And that is a massive, huge sign of strength.

34:45Like, I've had to accept my lack of ability in this, my lack of skill, my lack of knowledge. I can't do this alone. The level of professionalism in our industry that we have to all work toward can't get done without the ego being dropped and for people recognizing, listen, I started my business. I never, I never went to, I never read a business book.

35:11I've never gone to a conference, but it's time that I learn how to be a better businessman. There's all kinds of ways to learn that. The podcast network, perfect place for it. I know coaches that have coaches. And in fact, what I think you're doing and we're saying in this podcast episode to owners If you have a coach, that's great. But you may— this person may be driving numbers and KPIs and processes and systems and finance, but not necessarily will they always help you with the people side of you or the emotional bank account that could be weak and lacking as you're trying to build, you know, the business over here.

35:55How hard is it to find a therapist? You pick up the phone, you talk to people. Hey, do you have a therapist? Are you kidding me? What are you kidding? And how do we— let's talk about how would we start as a shop owner, as a lead specialist in the bays. How do we start? My knee-jerk is we all start writing letters to Margaret Light to start some network, like BetterHelp for auto repair shops, that they can find therapists.

36:22But it's like looking for anything, right? You're going to start out probably on Google, Google reviews, referrals, stuff like that. And then you're going to try to find somebody that you vibe with, I guess, for lack of a better word. Or maybe vibe isn't a good word, because you can— you could be with a therapist that you get along with and you feel like a friend, but they never push you.

36:44And they need to push you. They need to forge a relationship with you of some degree that you care about. And then they got to start pushing you. They, they have to start giving you some toolkits and demand of you that you use them. And put them into practice. Because otherwise you're just spending an hour, however many times a month or whatnot, shooting the breeze with a friend that pats you on the back and you feel better, but you're not getting— it's a disinterested party that has nothing at stake in family and/or in business that allows you to at least get something off of your chest.

37:21That's not valuable. It's valuable to a degree, but it's not going to help you It'll make you feel better in the moment. But it's not going to make you better. It's a momentary good feel. Ah, I got— I released. It's like going to confession. But you never figured out what led to it or what's your contribution to it. It's like going to confession.

37:43Bless me, Father. I've used the Lord's name in vain 10 times. You go back in 2 weeks and you say, I've used the Lord's name in vain 10 times. You just keep doing it. Yeah, say 10 Hail Marys. At some point, when does he pull you aside and say, hey, you know what, come to my office? Yeah, so why are you— tell me about your day.

38:03This was a strange analogy, but not really. I mean, it's kind of what it is. You, you call up a friend, it's like, man, today sucked at work. You know, one of my employees left lug nuts loose and that wheel could have came flying off. Could you even imagine? And yeah. Stuff like that. And then they're just like, you know, coaching you through it a little bit and you feel better in the moment.

38:24Okay, I probably won't fire them now. But you don't go back and do the process of what led to the loose lug nuts from a, you know, a process type standpoint. And then also, do you ever address the part where you went and screamed at the top of your lungs to this technician or technical specialist? It'd be mechanical specialist technically, right? You never address how you screamed at the top of your lungs to this mechanical specialist in front of everybody about how they could have killed somebody and ruined the reputation of the shop and nobody leaves lug nuts loose and how dare you, all these things.

39:02Like of all the things to forget, that's what you're gonna forget? You're gonna maybe look at the process of we gotta stop taking this person off cars to go do something else, give people rides, go pick up parts, whatever it may be. But you never addressed the part where you made a fool of them in front of everyone, or you made an example of them or whatever, took out your fears on them, made them feel extremely small and horrible and shameful and all the things.

39:29You never addressed that. And also, how could you have handled that better? Like, do you really think they left them loose on purpose? You can take them back to your office and explain to them the gravity of that mistake. Without doing it in front of everybody, without making them feel shameful, especially if it's somebody that just rarely makes mistakes. Like you can't remember the last time they had a comeback or something was done wrong.

39:55You could come to them with support. Like, you know, I'm glad that didn't go out the door, good catch. Or it's a good thing so-and-so caught that. And then don't worry about it. Like, I'm glad you feel bad about it because you care, but I don't feel bad about it because I know you wouldn't try that on purpose. And you're a good tech, you're a good mechanic, you're a good mechanical specialist, you do good work here.

40:19I'm not worried this is ever going to happen again. Just take it easy, right? And I'm not saying like kid glove things, I'm just saying you can come in with a— from an angle of support in front of everybody and then pull them off to the side in private and just the gravity of that. Like, you know, this could have been bad.

40:37And I know, I know. Okay, well, I don't, I don't need you to feel bad then. Exactly right. Now ask them, like, what part of the process do you think led to that? And it could be— now, now we're going to go down the rabbit hole of common cause, special cause. But how did it break down? I mean, there's— where do you think— what do you think happened?

40:53And honestly, boss, I, I just spaced it. I, I can't tell you why. Matt, can we do this stuff in the real world? Yeah, absolutely. So please use this episode to look deep inside and do some of the things that Matt's suggesting. His 2,000-word article, and hopefully, Matt, we can make that available in some way to get it downloaded and online because we're not doing it justice because you just hammered a lot of great stuff in that article, the who, the what, whens, wheres, and hows in it.

41:27And as you're talking about criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, and there isn't anyone listening to this episode that can't relate, that they continue to do this stuff over and over again. Or maybe when you were a younger person and now you've kind of matured and you've, you've grown and you've seen different parts of life, which is allowing you to make yourself a better, more compassionate person.

41:52And if you're the leader of the operation, you do it for the sake of all your peoples. You do it for the sake of the client. You do it for the sake of— you'll never hire really good people who find out that there's an unrest inside the business because we can't seem to come to terms with this, the loosey-goosey stuff that we need marriage counseling for.

42:17Business counseling, maybe that's the right words. Maybe you need business counseling. No, it's not coaching. It's all to do with emotions and how people feel and how we make them feel. And we'd like to talk a lot of crap about culture. Oh, our shop culture. Oh, you got to improve your culture. Well, there it is. There's a really big freeway to a better culture.

42:45Exactly right. Exactly right. Maybe that's part of the title of this episode: Improving Your Culture with Marriage Counseling. It's a good start. But you know what? I'm almost to the point where— and we talk a lot about culture on the podcast. We did tons of episodes. And I'm wondering if it's just— well, yeah, it's— I don't want to listen. I don't want to hear it.

43:11And part of my concern is, and maybe we should have led with this, is you could take this I mean, I love sarcasm, probably more than I should. You know what, I really do. You're the king of it. I wish. No, you are. I don't know if that's good, but, uh, we're voting. I'm worried that listeners, if they don't make it to this point, go to a little bit of an extreme— and it's not a little bit, it's a lot of bit of an extreme— that somehow the shop will have to get a sharing stick or a sharing wrench that we hand around in little sharing circle.

43:44No, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about these little interactions, and some of them big, but a lot of them are just little interactions. And it's just changing your delivery a little bit. It's changing your responses a little bit. You could do this as a leader, manager, owner, whatever, shop foreman. You could do little things nobody would probably even know, except they just know they feel better about work and being at work.

44:11And they feel better about coming to you with more and more things. All of a sudden, you're kind of thinking to yourself, like, the open-door policy— nobody ever used to come into the open door unless they were just steaming mad. And, "Hey, you haven't reviewed me in 2 years. I haven't had a raise." They come in after they've carpet-bagged for how long, and they just explode into your office.

44:33Now you realize those explosions are almost nonexistent. And they're coming in more often. That's what you would recognize as a leader. And the other things you just notice at the front counter— there's not that shops have it happen a lot, but minimal if any meltdowns from customers, or just really tense. Like, maybe we don't see the dramatic, you know, reality TV meltdowns at the front counter ever, but there's definitely tense moments.

45:00There's definitely times where now that customer isn't our customer anymore. They just kind of silently left. Well, that doesn't happen so much anymore. Our customers kind of are our customers because they feel safe. They're— they come to the shop feeling safe. They're talking to whoever is behind the counter, male or female. You know, typically we associate females behind the counter as being a little bit better, or a lot bit better, um, a lot better at it than men.

45:28But now it doesn't matter because they've taken tools from marriage counseling and applied it at the front counter. And now it doesn't matter who it is coming in with their vehicle and their problems and their fears. Maybe they brought their car to you and it's a comeback, like, hey, ever since you— but now because you have these tools, the shop takes it, interprets it differently, and that customer feels safe telling you about it, that they're not gonna get the defensive owner going like, wow, that's That has nothing to do with that.

45:59We didn't do that. How could you possibly think us doing a brake job on your car would cause your radio to stop working? We don't— it just doesn't happen. You wouldn't notice it in these great big moments. You would notice it over time in these little interactions. And those— that's real world stuff too. But it is real world. It is real world.

46:15Ever since you did this, now this. I know. And don't say if you're listening that has never happened to you, if you've never heard it. Oh, you're not paying attention. Yeah, you're not. Man, thank you so much for your perspectives on everything your wisdom and all that you do for our industry. And of course, the podcast here on the Automotive Repair Podcast Network, Diagnosing the Aftermarket A to Z.

46:35We just diagnosed you today. And the doctor— here, here's the prescription. Go, go find— go get a counselor. Hey, thanks so much for this. We got to figure out how to get that 2,000-page article out there for people to listen to. Maybe, just maybe, we can put a link to it in the show notes of this episode because it's brilliant. Appreciate you doing that.

46:57Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive repair business podcast, Remarkable Results Radio. Get your episodic education on the ARPN listing app at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com. Also enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriato YouTube channel. Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry. Until next time.