The System Said He’d Never Amount to Much...They Were Wrong

0:00What's going on everyone, it's Bluff here and we're driving through the states in the Bluffmobile and the best thing that we can do is play our favorite casino-style games on Spin Quest. They have over 1,000 games including live dealer blackjack and craps with tons of slots and unlimited options. You can get a $30 coin pack for just $10 for new users. Sign up today, go to spinquest.com right now.

0:23Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. This is the story of the one, the one who keeps multiple buildings running smoothly day after day. Plumbing that flows, HVAC that hums, cleaning supplies that keep surfaces sparkling. That's why she counts on Grainger. With easy reordering online and 24/7 support, Grainger helps her keep the products she needs on hand so shelves stay stocked and buildings stay ready.

0:52Call 1-800-GRANGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. Welcome to Repair Shop Reckoning: From Chaos to Control. Because too many shops today are running on chaos. Phones ringing, technicians frustrated, front counters overwhelmed, owners buried in problems with nobody to call. Kevin Brown has spent over 30 years in the trenches learning how to take that chaos and turn it into control.

1:19Shop owner, operator, consultant, leader through industry shifts, insurance games, bad hires, great hires, and lessons learned the hard way. This isn't theory. This isn't corporate training fluff. This is real shop experience, unfiltered. On this show, Kevin breaks down what actually works— running profitable shops, front counter control, training technicians, negotiating with insurance companies, building systems that make your shop run, instead of burn, and the mistakes that quietly bankrupt shop owners every single day.

1:52No corporate scripts, no sugarcoating. And yeah, somebody might get offended. That's okay, Disney's two doors down. But if you want the truth about this industry, buckle up. This is Repair Shop Reckoning: From Chaos to Control. Let's get started. ¡Hola! Hi, I'm Kevin Brown, host of Repair Shop Reckoning: The Race to Zero. This is our first episode. I have my mom and dad here.

2:39The reason I'm doing this, this is the beginning of my story from a childhood all the way up to where I am now. That way, kind of give the viewers an idea of the struggles I've had in my life being different and how different is better. Stop laughing, Dad. So that's kind of what we're doing with my mom and dad. Then next episode, I'm going to have my wife.

2:59She's going to talk about how lucky she is to have a trophy husband. So that's episode 2. So let's get started. I'd like to introduce my dad, Jim Brown. How are you? And my mom, Carol Brown. Hello. Hi, so they've known me my whole life, obviously, and, uh, we're just going to start talking about my childhood. Basically, I was a problem from birth, or before birth, right?

3:21So start with that story, Mom. Uh, you started— I was working and you started hemorrhaging, and they took me to the hospital and they said they didn't think that they could save the baby, but to go home and go to bed and lay in bed for 9 months— or actually it was 7 months because because it was early. And I got fat because I laid there and ate, just kept eating.

3:43You're welcome. And then they said, "You probably wouldn't be born normal." They were right there. Yeah, because at that time they didn't have the technology that they have now. They had no reason that I was hemorrhaging. They didn't know. But they told me that you probably wouldn't be born normal if you were even born at all. And you were. My birth was horrible, just horrible.

4:07At that time they did enemas, so I had contractions, enemas, throwing up. You were breech. You came out looking like Mr. Heckle and Jekyll. You had this pointy head. And I went down and Jim came up. I said, did you see him? He goes, yeah. I said, did you really see him? He said, yeah, he looked like Hekla and Jekyll. I said, yeah, he's ugly.

4:32Hence no baby picture. No, the reason you have no baby pictures at that time, they didn't do photographs like they now. I mean, they do big things now, but they didn't do them then. And we had the pictures of you as a baby, but I had them in a movie camera and somebody broke in the house and stole all the movie camera equipment with all your pictures in the camera, so I had very few pictures with you.

4:58But you did turn out to be a cute baby. Aunt Peggy said, "Oh, he is cute, Carol." And I said, "Oh yeah, he is." You didn't have a lot of hair, but you had a really nice round head. And you were an average baby. You didn't sleep at night, you slept at the daytime. My wife is being really nice because he was not a cute baby.

5:19I would— Because I went down and looked and I thought, oh my God. And I was trying to figure a way to switch. The little sign said, "Brown." I was trying to figure out where to— And I came back and I said, Carol, are you sure that's our baby? Because I had natural childbirth. So I knew it was you when you were born.

5:40But you just weren't an average— You didn't— I swear you were born talking. You climbed out of your crib when you were like 7 months old. I couldn't keep you in the bedroom at night. When I tell you to go to bed, you'd get out of crib and open the door. So I used to shut the door in the bathroom and shut the door in the bedroom and tie a string from the bathroom to the bedroom so you couldn't open the door.

6:06And many a night I go in there and find you asleep in the closet because that's where you fell asleep. But you turned out okay. All right, so when did we start realizing— I can remember going to like a lot of that, like that place on West Chicago with Brian and stuff, like the daycare type church thing. Yeah, it was a co-op where you would go because I needed help.

6:32So your nephew, my nephew, and you went to daycare and you didn't have much of a problem there. They didn't complain a lot about me. About you there. They did. Brian cried constantly. I had to take him because Barbara couldn't take him because he would cry all the time. But you had a decent pre, you know, and then we went to Our Lady of Grace, Miss Caputo.

6:56Yeah. Well, first grade, right? No, first you went to kindergarten. I don't remember that. Well, you repeated it twice. Not many people flunk kindergarten. He didn't flunk it. He wasn't ready to go to first grade. Okay, so they kept you in kindergarten. Which school is that? Was that— it was Our Lady of Grace. Okay. And then, um, I forget that one little kid's name that you liked, that you went along with him.

7:21I forget what his name was. But then you went to first grade, and they said you weren't really ready to go to first grade, so that's when they put you back into kindergarten. And then, and then after second time of kindergarten, you went to Miss Caputo's class. She was the best teacher. She knew right away that you had difficulty concentrating, difficulty sitting, not looking out the window, not fidgeting, just doing everything you're not supposed to do.

7:50So she suggested that I had you tested, but because it was a Catholic school, they didn't believe in the testing at that time. So somehow she worked some magic and she had it tested by the Board of Education. And you came back that you had a learning disability, that your hand and eyes didn't work together and you weren't coordinated that way, but that your IQ was over the top.

8:20So thank God, the whole thing you've been telling me I'm dumb here, so there's, there's a silver lining here, right? So Dr. Clifford— I hired a tutor, Mrs. Susio, I remember her. You hated going, but she was— yeah, but whole nother podcast. Yeah, but she— I think she helped you, but you still had trouble. And Miss Caputo, at the end of the first grade, he says, Carol, he's not ready to go to the second grade, so let's keep him another time in first grade.

8:48I said, okay. She says, meanwhile, yeah, I'm sitting there thinking to myself, so let's kind of figure out how I drive— drove here today, but let's go on. So then, um, I went to our family doctor, Dr. Stammel, and he says in the waiting room all the time, he says, "Bring that brat in here." I said, "There's something wrong with him as far as school."

9:12And he said, "Well," you know, he looked at all the records and everything, and he said, "I think maybe we should put him on Ritalin." I said, "I don't want to put him on anything." And he said, "Well, I think you really should because he needs to concentrate." And I said, "Okay, well, let's think about it." So meanwhile, I called Hawthorne Clinic.

9:30Yeah, and I have the paperwork here. It's actually quite interesting. And, uh, I said, I, I want him tested. And she says, well, there is a wait. And I said, well, I don't want to wait. He's having problems in school. It's not working. So she says, well, let me put him on a cancellation list. I said, okay. So I would call like every 2 days to find out if there was any cancellations.

9:50Meanwhile, I took you down to, I forget where, a doctor and— Oh, I have it right here actually, 'cause the Hawthorne one and then— Oh, it was on Telegraph and they did a bunch of testing. Glendale Neurological. Yeah, a bunch of testing. And they said that, you know, you had a lot of learning problems and that I should probably put you on some sort of medication.

10:18Still didn't want to do it. So meanwhile, Hawthorne called and they ran all these tests and everything and they suggested that I put you on Ritalin. So Miss Caputo, she confirmed that I should put you on it. They wanted you to do it 3 times a day, morning, noon, and night. And I said, after a couple months, I said, I'm not doing it at night.

10:40He's a zombie. I'm not keeping him on at night. If you can't make him do his schoolwork in school, By the time he comes home, he's not doing homework because I'm not giving that medication. So Miss Caputo really worked hard with you that way. She, she was a great teacher. And she had a husband who was a vet. Yep, we used to go there.

11:01Oh, all the time, because you always brought home stray animals. You were like, I don't know, you just liked animals. So I would— they would— you would pick them up and I'd take them to the vet to make sure that everything was all right with them, and then we'd keep them. And then they eventually would run away because at that time they just— they did.

11:20Right. And that's— that shows a lot about you guys because we didn't have a lot of money back then. No. So to go spend money at the vet to make me happy, to keep me engaged in something, I mean, that's saying something, what kind of— kind of parents you guys were, because money didn't grow on trees back then. You're right, it didn't.

11:35It didn't. Yeah, I have the Hawthorne thing. I mean, Marilyn had, uh, she just did a couple bullet points. In a psychoactive interview, Kevin presented as an attractive blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy of 12 years old who was cooperative but voiced his desire to go home for everyone just to leave him alone. His speech was somewhat immature but intact without articulation problems. Replies were rapid and terse.

12:05I'm like, wow, Kevin talked quite a bit. Good. I just wanted to kind of— Kevin became involved. Oh, talked about the horses and stuff like that, that I want to become a jockey. Marilyn could not stop laughing about that. I'm like, thanks there, hon. But there's a whole big thing about basically what you're saying, all this stuff says it, that I just want to be left alone.

12:33Everything you said is pretty much in these papers. It was just pretty good memory. I mean, you are 52. I mean, so— I'm 52, yeah. Yeah, so, but it's kind of interesting that you can remember all this stuff because you lived it. And I can remember a lot of these doctors. I remember having an argument. I don't know if it was here or which one it was, but I was trying to tell the guy that my left hand is my left hand.

12:55If I turn around, my left hand is still my left hand. I could not articulate that to him. It was pretty interesting. He was getting frustrated with me. And I remember making him mad. It might have been the place on Telegraph, 'cause I think the Hawthorne place was really good. But luckily, we had good insurance, so all of this was covered by the insurance, 'cause otherwise, we couldn't have afforded to do that.

13:17Right, and you were just— you were on a mission to figure out, like, what the hell is going on here. Well, your dad kept saying, "There's nothing wrong with him." I think he does. He just doesn't want to pay attention. And I said, "I understand that." But even when you were little, I mean, your older brother would sit down with G.I. Joe and he would ring strings up and things like that and play by himself with one toy.

13:38You would watch TV, have your cars, eat a snack. You were just never one thing. You did everything other than just concentrate. No, and yeah, I can— yeah, I still have that problem. I still watch TV. Have my phone go and listen to— yeah, you got— you're a lot like your father. He does the same thing. Well, you got to keep entertained, you know, you know, and one thing just doesn't keep you engaged, so you keep doing other things, right?

14:06I just feel the same way. Happy birthday, America! It's time to celebrate and play your favorite Las Vegas casino games by American-owned SpinQuest.com. What's better than fireworks and American Pie? Hitting a blackjack in the palm of your hand and you won't lose your fingers. Over 1,000 games including slots and live dealers, and $30 coin packs are on sale for $10. Spinquest.com. By American players for American players.

14:33Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Tired of overpaying with DirecTV? Dish offers a reliable low price every month without surprises. Get the TV you love and start watching live sports, news, and the latest movies plus your favorite streaming apps all in one place. Switch to Dish today and lock in the lowest price in satellite TV starting at $89.99 a month with our 2-year price guarantee.

15:05Call 888-ADD-DISH or visit dish.com today. Yeah, but it wasn't till we moved out to Novi that we found the answer, because you would always get in trouble in school. I was always going to school to listen to these teachers complain about you and sit there and cry. But when we took you out to the farm, we had a friend that rode out there, Tracy Bruce.

15:30Yeah, she, she rode and she worked to ride. So she said, well, let me take you out there. And Tommy, um, he helped you. And I, I think that's what saved you because you were so busy with the horses doing what you wanted to do and also learning what would help you later on in your life. I mean, I don't think you'd be where you are today if it wasn't for the farm.

15:51I would agree. And you know, all through high school or all through, like, we're still in the middle school. I actually just got into the middle school stage when I went to East Middle School, right? In Farmington. Yeah. You know, 'cause Centennial, basically they had it with me. They had no programs. They had no programs with me. Yep. So they moved me over to East Middle School.

16:10And I remember that they had that program. And I did pretty good for the most part, except for, I can get to them in a minute, my talking out inappropriate jokes, arguing with people. I could read some of them in a minute. But if you remember that, I was just, I think I was pretty much going to the farm. I was trying to figure out when I think I started going to the farm, probably right during middle school.

16:34'Cause I remember Tommy driving me to Centennial. Yeah, right, probably 13, right? Because you were driving the truck on the farm, you didn't have a license, you were learning to drive tractors, trucks, everything before your age of driving. Yeah, so that was way before that, right? And then I just started slowly working there, and I just— yeah, that was a good outlet for energy.

16:56Yep. And, you know, I learned how to fix stuff. Exactly. Um, I learned how to drive tractors, like you said, trucks and all that stuff, and I was kind of in my element because I could just you know, all the hyperactive as I was. So I remember the whole middle school thing. I hated going to school, and I said that in my other podcast on Jason Tracy's show.

17:13Um, it was boring. It was just really boring. The stuff they talked about, I really did not care. Um, I used to do it like— I used to sit there and think to myself, how is this going to help me in the real world? And you gotta remember, I'm in middle school and I'm sitting there looking, going, I really don't give a shit about history.

17:29I really don't Now, a lot of the stuff I've, I've looked into in my older years, like the structure of government and stuff like that, obviously, um, but for the most part, not really giving a shit, not really wanting to do the homework. And it says it right here. I'll read some of them. Mom, you— Dad, you could chime in because I want to hear some of it from Dad's perspective, because I drove everybody nuts, quite frankly.

17:52You weren't mean or out of control in younger ages. You just were bored, so you did stuff to entertain yourself. For example, if they would take you and say, here's a, you know, fish in an aquarium. I remember this story. Okay, and all the kids would get around it, look at the fish, say, oh. But the teacher found out at home that you stuck your arm in there and were trying to catch the fish, and everybody got upset.

18:17You know, just stuff like that, just stuff to entertain yourself because you're so bored. And It was hard to tell them that, you know, that he's going to do stuff out of the ordinary because he's bored to death. He just— he wants to be entertained, truthfully. Well, the doctor told me, when you do something, you do it to the extreme. To this day.

18:41To this day. You— if somebody's gonna drive a truck 50, you're gonna go 60. If somebody's gonna race a horse down the street, you're gonna race the course faster down the street. You have that, that's the way you were. But one thing I wanted to tell was about Sister Nolita. Oh, that was— she was in elementary, right? Yes, you were probably in the third grade.

19:02Well, Miss— I remember fourth grade I had Miss Kennedy, and she was like one of the non-nuns at that school. Miss Kennedy was fine. So, so about fifth grade, Sister Nolita. Sister Nolita. And I can remember I tried to watch your diet because they said if you eat certain things like chocolate and things that would make you hyper. So we would, at Easter, we'd go down and buy the white chocolate eggs.

19:21Yeah, Cindy Boggs, I know, everybody got brown, I got white. It's such bullshit. So one day you said, "I really wanna take a ho ho mom to lunch. Please can I take a ho ho?" I said, "All right, I'll let you." So I got a call from Sister Nolita and I came in there and she goes, "Your son is evil, evil, evil.

19:41No other word, evil." And she just wouldn't leave you alone. And I said, well, I'm sorry, but that's 'cause you wanted to eat that ho ho and it drove you crazy. Yeah, and I remember before she called you, they had their own in-house correction system. I remember her hitting me with a ruler when I was talking to somebody. And I remember the first time I took it, I went, man, that hurt.

20:02And second time, like, you're not hitting me with a ruler, lady. I'll hit you back with a ruler. And that's kind of where we went downhill. But back then they would whack you across the— I don't like— it hurt. Oh, it did. They used to— Oh, back in the day, that was the way they did things. They used to hit you to death.

20:15I used to get beat to death with sticks. See, you were a problem. They used to use dowel rods like this. Yeah. Miss Peltow, she hit right in the back of the head with one. Yeah, but you know what? Back then, the parents actually stood by the teachers. When the teacher called and said, hey, your kid was doing X, Y, and Z, the parents were like, well, you need to deal with it.

20:35Nowadays, it's the teacher's fault. So in a sense, I feel sorry for teachers, but So we're at the farm. You see, we did— went back to Sister Annalia. So basically, I'm at the farm and I'm learning how to do stuff. And then I went to— out of the middle school, East Middle School, I went to Farmington High School. And that's where I had Mr.

20:56Todorov and Miss Toforio. Mr. Todorov ended up being a customer at Hal's Auto Clinic when I worked there. Oh, wow. Well, he ended up being a dirtbag. I used to think he was a decent guy, but not really. But Ms. Tofforio, I got along with very well. She was great. And she's the one that told you that she had a son in a similar situation.

21:16She says, your son, Kevin, is just like my son. Don't ever give up on him because he will amount to something. Her son, I believe, was a lawyer. Yeah, I remember you telling me that. And so I just never gave up on you, just like I never gave up on your dad. There you go. This show's about my son, not me. Right.

21:34So here's the week of May 17th to the 23rd. This is a weekly evaluation from Ms. Case. And so this would have been in middle school. No, this would have been high school. Work performance has improved. Talking out inappropriate remarks are still a problem, but it is improving. I thought these are funny. Kevin puts in just enough effort in his schoolwork to get by.

21:59He refuses to take homework assignments home. He doesn't have time for that. Talking out and behavior is still a major problem. He's able to control it at times because he does, and other times he's loud. Besides that, he is improving. And you know, then this one is from '85. It says, Kevin's disruptive verbal behavior is a serious problem. He argues, asks inappropriate questions, and makes rude or mean comments to the students and staff.

22:26Behavior has not improved for the most part. He's become worse despite several efforts by our staff. A parent conference will be necessary. Well, you were in the special ed program, so you had special help from— you went to— were those your regular teachers? This is— this— no, this was actual— Cindy Cason was part of that program. Like, here's, uh, that was October.

22:49Here's, uh, December. Kevin's behavior has worsened. He's expressing a lot of anger and hostility. And I can remember— I'm going somewhere with this story— I can remember the turning point of all this was when I had Miss Merrick. I— so that would have been the year— I don't remember when I went to Novi High— back to Novi High School. I think it was like the 11th, 10th grade because they had the program.

23:14I was out of school in 10th grade, if you remember, because my foot. Well, you were homeschooled. Yeah, so 11th grade I think I went back to Novi. But I can remember when they let me go out of that program, I had a teacher named Miss Merrick, and this lady was such a bitch. She just was not nice. And I remember sitting there thinking, arguing with her and stuff and getting in trouble.

23:33I finally thought to myself, you know what I need to do? I need to keep my mouth shut. Just do what I got to do to get out of this damn program. But, you know, at one time they took you— we took you off of Ritalin. Yeah. So we haven't even had that conversation about Ritalin. Yeah. I didn't even want you on Ritalin.

23:46I wasn't on Ritalin. And I don't think when I was in Farmington Middle School or Farmington High School, I was not on Ritalin. I think Farmington Middle School you were. And then Farmington High School, I said, I don't want him on that anymore. You were a zombie. It was horrible. I can remember taking it and you're just sitting there and you're completely content just sitting there like a zombie.

24:05Yeah, like, and I wouldn't even pay attention to the— the thing was I didn't even pay attention to the schoolwork. And I looked at some of my scores, my scores really never changed. So it really didn't work for me. It might have gave everybody a break at school from me interrupting. I probably caused a lot of other kids problems that they couldn't have time 'cause they're always dealing with me.

24:24It was probably frustrating for the teachers, but I don't really see a big improvement in my schoolwork from the Ritalin. That's why I said I'm not gonna keep, and we didn't keep you on it in the summer. There's no way I'd keep you on it in the summer because I didn't, you were a zombie. So I think you were taking it off right before high school.

24:42Yeah. Before you got, well, when you got hurt, you weren't on it. No, I wasn't. So that would've been, yeah, right around there. I remember Dad was not a fan of it ever. No, he wasn't. He said, "There's nothing wrong with me." he just doesn't want to pay attention. And I kept saying, well, look at all these doctors, what they're telling me.

24:56I mean, there's 3 or 4 doctors that told me you needed to be on it, plus the teacher. That's why I put you on it. It was quiet around the house though. Yeah, right. No, after school it wasn't because I didn't give her like a zombie. But you know, if you stop and think about it, you know, there's memes out there, you know, well-behaved women never made history, well-behaved men never made history.

25:15And nowadays, if you're different and you have a personality, they don't like that at the school. They like you to fall in line. They need you to hold hands or whatever. And guys like me or kids like me were always a problem. They weren't ready for it. They didn't have a system to take care of it. They didn't. Right. And they didn't know what to do.

25:33And now there has to be a team. When we grew up, I'm only 53 and you guys are obviously older than me. Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on Spin Quest. And there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get $30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes.

25:57That's at spinquest.com. S-P-I-N-Q-U-E-S-T dot com. Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. With the Blue Cash Everyday card, it's easy to earn 3% cash back on groceries at U.S. supermarkets, U.S. online retail purchases, and U.S. gas stations. That's how we grow our family's little nest egg. Learn more at americanexpress.com/explore-bce. Terms and cashback cap apply.

26:24There's not— a teacher didn't have to have a teacher's aide. Now they have to have teachers that help teachers and stuff like that. And things have just changed so much. Over the years it has. And a lot of the programs are funded. There was nothing like that before, ever. Well, look at Slovak. Slovak was another thing that saved you. Yeah, I haven't got to that yet.

26:42Yeah. So yeah, no, that was a hands-on, and I've always done better hands-on. I, I like, I could pick up a repair manual now and read it and stuff like that. Years ago, no way. I couldn't even concentrate enough to read 3 pages. I'd be like, this is boring. I, and I would just do it myself by hand. But nowadays you have to read repair manuals because there's different, there's all kinds of different nuances that are going to tell you that you're not going to know about, end up messing stuff up.

27:07So, you know, I was at the farm and, you know, That definitely kept me on the right track. And, you know, I met friends that I'm still friends with now over all the years, you know what I mean? The group of kids we grew up with and did the thing. But I worked pretty much more than anybody our childhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

27:23Which, that kept me out of trouble, cuz you're 100% right. God only knows where it would have went if I wouldn't have. But you were doing stuff you like to do, and you're learning stuff you like to learn, things you were interested in— horses, equipment, Driving, stuff like that. But even there, you scared the hell out of us, you know, some of the things you did at the farm.

27:41I mean, yeah, I can remember that there we had a semi-trailer parked there and we seen you coming across the field on this little pony. I mean, I mean, flying across the field going towards the trailer. We saw my guy's gonna kill himself and you and the horse went right underneath the trailer. You ducked down, laid down, you went right underneath the trailer sideways and went right under.

28:02And we all— we thought, ah, he's dead, he's dead. Yeah, he's gone. It was— it was so— things like that happen, you know. And you talk about getting hurt, you got hurt on the tractor, obviously, and you lost your toe, obviously. But there's another thing. The only things you couldn't do, they said, was swim. So you join a swim team, okay? So everything people say you couldn't do, you said, watch me, I'll show you I can do And to this day you do that.

28:28And that's great. Yeah, you're right. I still have a competitive edge, don't I? Yes, you do. That's great. That's what makes you successful. Yeah, it's definitely been interesting. I definitely have always thought different than everybody else. There's no doubt about that. And I always have something smartass to say about everybody too. All the time. Yeah, I remember you telling stories about me saying shit in the grocery store to people.

28:51Oh, God. You want that one day, pull up the cart and they always give you a sucker. Okay. She's, come on, come on. Cheap old store. Give me the one sucker. The lady took the whole bag, put a whole bunch of suckers in the basket. Or the time I couldn't find him because he decided to go and see if they would talk about him up at the counter.

29:09Yeah. So I went up and they couldn't— I couldn't find you. And I have a little lost blonde boy up front. He says his name is Kevin. So I had to go up and get you. You did it just to get attention. But you did that several times at the malls, every place. Kevin Brown's looking for his parents. Kevin Brown's looking for his parents.

29:26You thought it was fun. You were a trip. You were a trip. Or the time he was out in the backfield and we see this— he's riding around on a motorcycle. We see this great big cloud of smoke. You blew it up. You blew it up. Shane told that story the other day, I think on his podcast, or maybe he told me when we met for lunch that we were talking about the very first time we met and he said, I was getting on a motorcycle, I'm going for a ride.

29:50And he said, I'm watching. And he's like, all of a sudden I see the smoke and everybody's like, oh my God, I hope he's all right. Said, here he comes walking back, the motorcycle caught on fire and blew up. And he said, come on, Shane, we'll go out and get it on the tractor. I said, I picked it up with the tractor and dumped it into the dumpster all melted.

30:06He's like, this guy, this guy's gonna be fun to hang out with. So I went back to Novi in 11th grade, I ran track. Yeah, because you lost half of your toe. Yeah, I played football because they couldn't— I couldn't run, so they said. Yep. So I played— ran track, and I did get my letter and stuff like that in track. And I did football.

30:23I did not like football. Um, you didn't like baseball either? I sucked at baseball. I used to swear to God, when the ball— my dad was like the baseball star, all my brothers are good and stuff, I'm just watching that ball go by and going, please just walk me, I suck at this. I couldn't hit my way out of a wet paper bag with a baseball bat.

30:39In football, you had your wisdom teeth and you said, "Oh, I can go to practice. I'll play, I'll go." And you get out there and you go, "Oh, my tooth." And you went back and said, "I gotta sit on the bench." So you sat on the bench the whole football game 'cause you didn't wanna play. And I remember I did play in a game against Lakeland High School, which Tony, my cousin Tony was in there, remember?

30:59I remember everybody was there. I did that. So Novi High School was pretty unremarkable for me. I really didn't have a hard time. Your senior year when they called me in there. I was in the car and I mean, don't you remember sitting me and them talking to you and me crying? I don't know what you did, but you— they were probably wrong.

31:17I was, I was in tears because they kept saying you did all this stuff and it was so much I couldn't remember. But I do remember sitting there crying. I remember in Farmington High School, I got caught selling knives. I bought all that box of Pakistan knives at the high school or at the auction. I'm like, I could make some money. So I was selling knives and I had taking the divider out of the side of my locker.

31:40I would just take a screw, a wing nut that I brought in from home, and I would just hit the wing nut and the knives were in there. And Jimmy McCauley ratted me out. They freaking called the police on me. The police came and freaking got me. You had to come and get me from school. Oh yeah. Oh, I had to go to court.

31:55They pressed charges on me. Do you remember that? I got probation. I remember I used to dread teacher-parents night. We used to— we'd say, oh God, it's coming up next month. We used to be ready to get ready for it. It was never pleasant, was it? It was never, no, it was never a joy. I don't think I ever went to a parent-teacher conference and left there happy.

32:18No, nobody ever said, oh God, your son is such a fun person to be around. He does all his work. He comes to school. We waited for that. Well, sorry guys. Sorry to disappoint, but think of all the fun stories now. I mean, we made it through it and, uh, I didn't end up going to prison, so that's a good thing because of the farm.

32:35And then I remember going into 11th grade, I went to, um, it was Slovak, but now it's Oakland Technical Center. And, uh, my teacher was Roger Enyart, and that guy, he really changed things for me, um, the way he taught and stuff. I really didn't have a hard time in that. Um, I used to get low test scores at first, and I'm like, you know what, I really like this shit.

32:55So I started paying attention. I pulled— I still actually He would give you a folder when you got there, a 3-ring binder, and then everything you do, like if you're doing transmissions, he would give you the paperwork on transmission, clutches. And we started out with a thing called Shop Lab where they teach you how to weld, sharpen drill bits, use torches, how to set up torches, torque wrenches, drilling broken bolts, all stuff that I used all through my career, like stuff that really mattered.

33:21Um, then we got into the Detroit Diesel engines, working on all them. So I really liked that. If you remember correctly, I did well in my junior, senior year. Now, I will tell you, we would go take our state mechanics test after these sections of learning, and I would always flunk my mechanics test. Right. Now, I went— what, last— when I went to Hal's and stuff to work, I ended up getting my certification.

33:46I'll bring that up later, and testing and stuff like that. But I did have a hard time with tests. So I do have a learning disability as far as learning certain ways, but everybody learns different. There's videos about it. If you have a, try to have a teach a goldfish to climb a flagpole, he's gonna fail every time. So different people learn differently.

34:03Well, then you didn't have YouTube either. You didn't, I mean, now you could, if you didn't know how to do something, you could do YouTube, but then you didn't have anything to teach you how to do anything. You had to figure it out for yourself. No, and that's a fact. And back, like back when you guys were kids. Absolutely. You know, you would have to, but back then kids could be kids.

34:20There wasn't all this drama. You know, I don't know what they do with kids when you guys were in school that acted up. Beat the shit out of them with sticks, right? So the kids either basically kept their mouth shut, right? Yeah. And they kind of passed them through, or— well, parents backed up the teachers. I mean, parents, if the teacher said he was a problem, those parents worked with it.

34:39That's not what happens today. No, it's always the teacher's fault, you know, and it's a shame. So I had my problems in, um, Swoboda. Now I think about it, like, I sold the, uh, sold a lawnmower to the vice principal, and I brought it to him. And I remember selling to him for like $600. Back then, that was a lot of money.

34:58Well, the belt— that's what happened to our motorcycle. No, I didn't sell them Trail 70, um, but the belt popped off, and I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. Then I started having problems. They were pissed at me, so they started giving me a hard time, um, but you know, for the most part, I did have a few problems with Mr.

35:17Enyart, but I still have some friends, Gary and Bob, that I grew up with and hung around with. They're still my friends. We went through that all together. My senior year, I graduated with no problem there. And then after that, I went to work at the tractor dealership. I had no problems there. Remember at Bullion Tractor Sales after the farm? Because the farm was closing.

35:36And then I went on to Hales. But you were learning as you went. That's the difference. It's not book learning. It's not somebody trying to tell you something. You were actually doing the work and learning. Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips, and being that I'm going to be passenger princess, I love playing on spinquest.com.

36:00Spin Quest has all of my favorite slot games, live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to Spin Quest right now and get yourself a $30 coin pack for just $10. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. To me, on-the-job training is the best way to learn for most people. And for people who have problems testing and reading, it's a perfect way to learn.

36:27Perfect. I agree with you 100%. And you know, I am like— I've talked about this over and over again. These kids that go to college and they think they're just going to come out because they learned in college with this expensive degree and they're going to come and hit the workplace and they're going to do better with somebody that's been working in that particular field for, say, for 4 years.

36:43And you get a 4-year degree, are you going to be ahead of them people because you have a piece of paper that says so? Absolutely not. Them people have on-the-job training. They've dealt with stuff, real life situations that the book doesn't talk about. Absolutely. You know, you see, we talked about journeymen and stuff like that. I remember at one time you said if you have 8— was it 8 or 7 years?

37:008 years. 8 years experience as a mechanic out in the world, you get me a job at Detroit Diesel as a journeyman. But I had to go through the proper channels because you weren't going to give me anything for free. I had to go through the same channels as everybody else, right? Absolutely. But it's got to be— it's got to be at a place that's, you know, known.

37:16You can't just say, I worked at a gas station for 8 years, therefore I'm a mechanic. That didn't work. You had to have a place that was recognized as a place that did actual repairs, 8 years of training. Even to this day, I believe a person that goes through 8 years of training is gonna be farther ahead than a person that's a journeyman that's going through 4 years.

37:34Most people disagree with that. I just think it's the best way to learn. I agree. And you know, you see these guys that go to trade schools and they come out with a hands-on trade school and they pay $4,000 for a heating and cooling thing. These guys actually went through the hands-on stuff. So they actually have knowledge of how to use the check out this stuff.

37:51They didn't read it in a book. And you can't tell me that everybody who goes to college You know, every parent's dream— I don't know, I think it's changing a little bit now because I hear a lot of people saying I'm going to go and have my kids go into the trades because the trades are a way to make good money. Because how many years after years after years— you need to be an engineer, you need to be a computer programmer, you need to be— go get a business degree.

38:12Well, all them jobs are full. I mean, how many years did they tell everybody needs to get into computers? Well, I worked in it. I was— worked in the dental field. I did not know a thing about the dental Dr. Moroff trained me from day one. We hired a girl after— well, after I was in the field for about maybe 15 years, we hired a girl who was certified at the dental school, and when she came to work with us, she didn't know how to do half the things that she was supposed to do because— and she had 2 years of dental school training and couldn't even do it.

38:43She wasn't— she was certified, but she couldn't mix the stuff that you had to mix then. Back then it was a lot of different— now it's all pre-made and, but we had to mix it down and she couldn't do it. And she had wasted her money for 2 years. See, I don't think kids recognize today, and the schools don't offer what they used to offer.

39:00For example, mechanical training, you know, different types of training, hands-on training. You can make a tremendous living being a mechanic, a body shop tech, different trades. I mean, there's a lot of money out there to be made. I mean, these guys are making over $100,000 a year. Well, you know that, you have a business. And some kids just don't go to college, but they can make a tremendous living.

39:21Yeah. And, you know, that kind of goes to the trades in general. And that's kind of one of the reasons I wanted to start the show out with my story about the struggles I've had, because a lot of people that work on stuff are— we're just different. We're independent thinkers. We're rebels. Well, however you want to put it. But a lot of people that I know that have become mechanics, heating and cooling guys, they've always had— they had trouble in school.

39:45Reading a book, but they can go and fix a furnace, they can go and do plumbing, they could, you know, do electrical and stuff like that. A lot of these guys that have— I've hired over the years that have came out of these trade schools and stuff like that, number one, the technology is old by the time they get out. I mean, if you think about it, in the '80s, um, when I was— so it would have been like '86 and '87, we're at, um, Swoback, we're working on 471s, 8B71s and stuff like that.

40:09Dad, that motor was done in the '70s and we're still working on it in the '80s, right? Yep. That was two-stroke technology. So I remember when we got— there was no Series 60. I don't remember what motors that Detroit Diesel donated that were cutouts that ran on motors. 92s. Yeah, Silvertip 92s. Okay, so that motor was probably on its way out too, right?

40:28And they're teaching us how to run a rack on a 471. Well, I was a diesel mechanic and I had only seen one 8V71, and the motors we used to work on the most was the 8.2s, the fuel pinchers. They were in the medium trucks. They were in Ford, they were in Chevy. That was pretty much it. So my point is a lot of the technology in the trade schools were even old because the funding was weak and they didn't put their money there.

40:55They were kind of on their way out. Like you said, metal shop, wood shop. Think of all the stuff you learned. Basic, how to use a screwdriver. You give some of these kids a screwdriver nowadays, you think they're going to kill theirself with it. And that was all available back in the day. Always available. Yeah, and you were so proud that you got to make that dustpan your first semester in metal shop and learn how to spot weld and use riveters and— You talk about disabilities, okay?

41:20I can tell you that in a car dealership world, there's a lot of Asian mechanics. They can take a car apart, put it back together with their eyes closed. Cell phones too. Yeah, but take the test, okay, for certification. They have trouble. They have trouble with the language barrier. But that's a big deal too. But it shows you, yeah, certifications are a really big problem in our industry right now because you get a lot of young guys in here that they've now updated the test.

41:54I believe last year they updated tests. They kind of— they did it, they hybrid the test. So they had a lot of old technology, but some of the new technology in there too. Um, and that kind of brings me the thing, you know, my guys had to get some of the more of their certifications. We took my books from Swoback out and I said, okay, you guys were going to talk about brake systems.

42:11And I pulled out the basic systems of brakes I had in that book. We went through for, uh, 2 hours. I went through and we talked about metering valves, proportioning valves, you know, axle seal, like all this stuff. And they all went and took their tests and passed it. Okay, so think about this. Here I am 30 years later, well, I'm 53, so 40 years later, literally sitting down teaching guys out of a book that I couldn't even read or comprehend how to work on something because I knew I had done the actual hands-on.

42:38So then I could— I went backwards. Instead of reading the book and teaching these guys, I had to use it, my hands, to figure all this stuff out. Then I could sit there and articulate everything that's in the books. And I went and got all my tests. Now, these are tests that I had a lot of my state certifications through HALS. I was never a master mechanic.

42:56In automotive, and I had no truck. I went and took all my tests because I wasn't working on stuff. I was doing service writing at my shop and stuff like that, so I didn't just stay up on my things because they started— brakes, electrical, and I don't remember, they expire after 5 years, and they were expired. My brakes were expired, my electrical was expired, and I think there's another one.

43:16I don't really remember what it was. So I just said, well, there's 20 tests in the state that they say They have 20 certifications. So I'm like, well, I'll just sign up for 5, 5, 5. So I owned a body shop along with a mechanical shop. So I'm like, well, why the hell not take some body tests too? So I took all the body tests, passed them.

43:36I took all the car tests, passed them. Took all the truck tests, passed them. And I'm like, well, I might as well take the how to install the Bade machine, which is the alcohol testing machine. I took that test. That's the only test I missed by one question. And I didn't miss that test because I didn't know what I was doing. The way they worded the one question was just wrong altogether compared to the manual.

43:56I flunked it. I went and took it the second time and got it. So here's a guy that couldn't pass the test in high school, but 40 years later, 30 years later, I went and took the test. Now I'm Master Motorcycle, Master Collision, Master Truck, and Master Auto. Okay. If you would have told me that when I was 12 years old, I thought that that is such a mountain to climb.

44:14I don't think I could do it. But that's something you like and you want to move forward. You want to keep learning and learning and learning it better and better and better. And you have to the point where now you want to teach people, okay, that work for you because you want it done right, because your business is at stake if they don't.

44:28Right. And that's a big deal. You like what you're doing. It's not like going to work. I got up every day for 60 years before I retired, and I love going to work. If you don't like going to work, it's hard. If you don't like your job, it's hard. And the desire to succeed is in your blood, I believe, because I'm the same way.

44:48I want to succeed what I do. Yeah. And nowadays, like, I'm an information sponge. Like, if I— and the technology is different. Like, I could listen to a book driving down the road now. So I'm like, years ago, I thought to myself, right when I got my iPod in '07, so a couple of years after that, podcasts started to come out and they started to get really popular.

45:10And I'm like, okay, if I want to know about a topic, I would just listen to a book. And I have over 300 books in my library now that I've listened to just because I'm like, oh, if that interests me, I'm going to listen to that book and know all about it. It's kind of interesting that back in the day I wouldn't have gave a shit, but now it just seems to have changed.

45:27But some stuff you can't learn in a book. They're just out there. How to treat people, how to listen to advice. I'm a firm believer. I know you are too. I want to use my brain, but I also want to use your brain because I want to get the max information I can get. And that's what drives you forward. That makes you want to succeed.

45:46I just, I can't say enough about where you started, where you've become, where you're at today, and where you're going to be in the future because you're not going to stop. You know, you're the kind of person who wants to go to work, wants to succeed. Some people just work to live. A lot of people live to work. You know, and that's a big difference.

46:03If you just want this much, that's what you're gonna have when you get older, this much. Or the person that wants to just continually succeed, at the end, when they retire, they're gonna have a lot more than the person that just wants to get by. And that's a big deal. That's a big deal when you get older. Hey everybody, Lady Luck here, and we're celebrating America's 250th birthday.

46:25Now all summer long, I'm going to to be celebrating by playing on spinquest.com, which is an American-owned social casino. It obviously features over 1,000 slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com, get yourself a $30 coin pack for just $10. Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. No, and I agree with that, and I think to myself all the time, when is enough is enough?

46:54But I believe that I'm still trying to prove the people that told me I was going to have a problem my whole life wrong. And then people are probably— most of them dead and buried. Well, I'll tell you what, I brag so much about you and how far you've come in your life because my family knows how you struggle. And they're— they know how proud I am of you because you've come so far with so little when you began.

47:21Yeah, you know, you're starting to think too. I always tell my kids, I'm like, you know, your decisions are gonna— you're— they're gonna lead you to where you're at today. They're leading to where you're at today, like the things you've done, the roads you've taken. And, uh, I just— I'm a firm believer is if you're going to do something, you need to be all in.

47:39And I know they say there's no such thing as 110%. I say I'm 150% at everything I do. I try to just go, like, it was like when COVID started, I'm like, well, me and Lincoln were bored. I'm like, I'm gonna start buying Trail 70s. I liked Trail 70s when I was a kid. You guys bought one at that garage sale. I liked that little motorcycle.

47:57Then my daughter Jordan and me, when we were in commerce, we would buy 'em and fix 'em. And back then, once again, people always say, well, you know, you're rich. Well, no, no, I make a good living. And I wasn't always, I didn't wake up one day with $10 million in my bank account. I've worked for what I got, number one. Number 2, I was broke just like you guys when you're coming up, okay?

48:16So I remember selling one of them motorcycles and making $50 profit on it was a lot of money, okay? So fast forward to I wanted Lincoln to learn to start to make money, so we started buying these Trail 70s. Look what that morphed into. By the time I ended up doing, I ended up rebuilding motorcycles for people, painting them, doing the motors and stuff like that.

48:35I ended up with a collection of over 100 motorcycles. This was in like 2 years. Like, yeah, I just seem to have a problem. I definitely go all out. Yeah, you go all out. I wanna go back to your comment where you said, "When's enough enough?" I asked a billionaire, I'm not gonna ask no name, the answer you get names. I asked a billionaire, "When's enough enough?"

48:55He says, "It's not about the money. It's about going to work every day because people count on me to go to work every day to support their families. If I go to work and I'm successful, all the people that work for me around the world are successful too, and their families have a good life, which is a great answer. I agree with that 100%.

49:11You know, a lot of the things you've told me over the years, this gentleman has talked about that I've like mirrored my life over. Like, I pay my guys way more than everybody else pays their guys because I'm like, okay, I make good money, I have everything I want, why not share the wealth? I'm not going to be greedy and walk over a pile of dead bodies when I'm all done and be like, yeah, thanks guys for, you know, working for me your whole life and getting paid peanuts.

49:33No, I want them guys to all make a good living, have motorcycles, have nice houses and cars and stuff like that. Because at that point, you're all in it together versus, oh, I work for him. Look at his house. I think that's shitty. Well, I tell the story all the time. I'll say that when I refer to who I work for, I never refer to the company.

49:53I refer to the person because nobody works harder than the person I work for. And so it's easy for me to work hard. Work hard. So if your people know you work hard, they're going to work hard because they can't say no. They can't say, hey, my boss works hard as I do. So there, there's a good topic we could believe. Let's talk about this because you are like on the front line of the revolution of people learning how not to work.

50:15So when you started back at— it was GM, right? Yeah. And then it morphed into Detroit Diesel. Yeah. So the people that work there, their work habits were guys like you where we would go to work we would do our job and we'd go home, right? How did that change over the years? Were people, the younger generations coming and changing it? Well, there was two, there's two thoughts there, okay?

50:35The people in a plant would always get an hourly wage. They, that was fair. And then at the end of the year, you get these big bonuses come out for people at the top. And then other people on the plant would say they were underpaid because nothing was being shared. The only way people are going to be happy working for you today is if they feel they're being heard, okay, listened to, their ideas are put in play, and it's shared profits.

51:02That's a big deal. And you said it perfectly. If you make money and you give your people part of that money, they feel like they're part of your business. You know, I was told one time that, you know, if I want you to come to decision that I made, I got to give you all the information I had. To make that decision.

51:19That's the same thing if Kevin Brown says, hey, I made this much money this way, let's sit down and talk as a group. What do you think is fair? What do you think I should give you as my worker because I made this kind of money? Would be fair to say I give you 2%, 1%, 3%, but zero doesn't work with people.

51:39They want to be part of the profits, they want to be a part of the business, and they want to be part of decision-making. That's the big thing. If you don't listen to people because you think you know everything, you're going to fail. You're going to fail for sure. Because people sit back and wait for you to fail. And they say, if you listen to me, we could have avoided that.

51:56And the best example of that is politics. People talk about politics. We told John to do it. You did it. Guess what happened? So, you know. No, I agree with that. And you know, the other thing, what you just said, I listened to the J.D. Vance Joe Rogan Show, and he said something about President Trump that I thought was funny. He was talking about he really never got the nomination.

52:21He would call J.D. Vance up and be like, so what do you think of Jim Brown as, you know, to be my VP? And he's like, he was almost baiting me to do it. He said, so we go to Mar-a-Lago, and he said he actually asked the gardener who he thinks that he should be because he said the guy— everybody has a different perspective on stuff.

52:37Pretty much what you just said. It's pretty interesting. It's different. It's different. It's just people want to be a part of something, but they also want to be heard. I mean, I can give you example, best example. Quality was a big problem throughout the Big Three for years and years and years. We started a program was called Quality Action Program. I remember that QAP.

53:00I remember all the stuff you got. Yep. I remember all that. And the reason for this program was We had people on assembly line that said they seen bad parts coming down assembly line being put on engine, but nobody would listen to them when they told them that. Just kept going down the line. So we formed this committee, okay, that it would be like a union representative almost.

53:20If you called me and said, hey, we put some parts on this engine, was bad, this— I had the right to stop that line, have them parts pulled off. So the quality got better and better and better because We were part of the decision-making, what went down that line, what went in that truck. Okay. Made a big difference because if you're not listening to me, why should I point anything out to you?

53:41If I say something bad, let's let it go. Right. Because it's not going to change my paycheck. No, I'm getting paid so much an hour. Okay. And we made a big difference in quality because of that. And that's why people have to listen to people. You know, the people on the line, you know, it's been anybody. You're a mechanic for years. Now you're the boss.

53:58How many years did you see stuff that you thought was wrong, was engineered wrong, stuff like that? It's all the time. There's things out there all the time can be changed, but nobody has a right or authority to make decisions except the people at the top. No, you're right. It all comes down to the almighty dollar. Absolutely. You know, like all these different cars nowadays that one-time use parts, they did that for one reason, so they could sell more parts.

54:23And truthfully, the foreign car makers had made American car makers better because the quality got so good that American car makers had to improve theirs. And now, you know, cars are— they're all pretty much the same quality-wise. There's a few out there that, you know, use more— has more problems than others, but on a whole, I think most cars are pretty quality-driven.

54:45I really believe that. No, I agree with that. And, you know, There's a lot of things that go through my mind about a lot of, a lot of stuff in this. This is really good dialogue here for us. You know, you remembered a lot of stuff, Mom. So yeah, my memory was good then. So let's think about now. Let's go back to where we were.

55:03We were basically Slovak graduating from high school. I graduated from high school, which that was a miracle. A miracle. That was the undertaking for sure. A miracle. Yeah. So then after high school, I went and, uh, I worked at the farm for a little bit, and then I ended up going to work at, uh, at Bullion's. I worked a bunch of different jobs.

55:22I worked security. I went to college. Oh, at night? Yeah, that's when I was at Hales. I went to Henry Ford Community College, and I remember going to all the automotive technology classes and finishing them all. Then they said, well, you're gonna have to take English and math. And I said, yeah, I'm out of here. And I didn't, didn't end up doing it.

55:40So I did have about a year and a half, 2 years of automotive technology in college, which I was already doing that stuff that they were trying to teach me. I was already doing it at Hal's. Yeah. So don't forget, as soon as you turn 18 and graduated, you moved out, you moved into a small house on the farm. You want to be on your own, like, now, correct?

55:57Yeah. Oh yeah, that's a good plan. I forgot about that. We didn't. You're like, damn, the house is quiet. Yeah, about the other ones. Yeah, well, yeah, what about taking your brothers? Yeah, that was— so then, you know, I did that, and then I went to Hal's Auto Clinic, which I'm hoping he's going to be on the podcast one of these times because it was a typical thing.

56:16I thought I knew about everything when I went there and I didn't know shit. And I was pretty much, for the grace of God, he didn't get rid of me because I was more of a problem. And I remember I started there for $400 a week salary. I used to work 56 hours a week. I used to take home $297.17 a week.

56:34And back then I was making a truck payment. I had rent. I rented a room downstairs at Mary's house on Duck Lake Road. Um, and I just kind of stayed with it. I remember when I— my second year at Hal's, I think I made like $24,000. And back then that was what, '90s? So it was decent, decent money. And then I worked at Hal's, um, you know, and I stayed there.

57:00But, um, one of the mechanics there named Jeff ended up wanting me to come over to work at Sterling Performance on the race boats. I remember I started, I was on commission at Hal's and it got to the point, honestly, like commission's hard on your brain. 'Cause back then, you know, I should stop. What's going on everyone? It's Bluff here and we're driving through the states in the Bluffmobile.

57:21And the best thing that we can do is play our favorite casino-style games on Spin Quest. They have over 1,000 games including live dealer blackjack and craps with tons of slots and unlimited options. You can get a $30 coin pack for just $10 for new users. Sign up today. Go to spinquest.com right now. Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited.

57:43Visit spinquest.com for more details. I was on salary for a long time. Then I got put on 40% of labor. So my pay changed and I was on commission. And some weeks you would do really good and other weeks you're like, you're broke. So it kind of all evened out. So Me being young, I'm like, okay, all of a sudden I make $800 take home a week.

58:03I'm buying shit. And all of a sudden next week your paycheck's $150. There's a problem. And that's when you helped me with my money and all that stuff, if you remember correctly, because I had a spending problem. I would just buy cool shit. I'd go to the bar with Gary and Bob. We'd go drink and I'd always go to work, but I would go out drinking at night, stuff like that.

58:22And then— Chip off the old block. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we talked about that. You haven't drank in 50 years, you said? Yeah, about 45. 45 years. Just one day you just said, screw it, I'm done drinking and smoking. And smoking. Yeah, I had a bout with that. The whole drinking thing got really out of hand after Steve, and I just one day said, you know what, I need to quit.

58:43And I quit. I drink a couple beers now here and there, but nothing whatever, um, like I was, that's for sure. But, you know, I went to Hal's and I worked with him for, I think, 4 years. And then I went to Sterling and I was there for 2 years, and I just didn't like that. I made $11.50 an hour, and I think I got up to like $13.50 an hour.

59:05And I had an apartment in Novi. And then I went, got a job at Garrett's, and that was in 1995, March of 1995. I did an interview there, and I think he hired me for I could look, I should have brought my original records. I would get a raise every other week. I was the first mechanic he really hired that had any skills.

59:27He would hire a bunch of people that really, and not pay them much just to kind of get by. And he would like help, you know, help them. But I had been a commission mechanic at Hal's, so I was doing heavy engines and stuff like that. I remember my first week there, he said, can you do an engine on this van? And I'm like, yeah.

59:42So he got the engine, was sitting there and I took it apart and put it back together. And Back then, book time, we'll just say, was 14 hours on this engine. 7 hours later, I have this thing done and in the van. I'm like, hey, where's the oil at? What do you need oil for? I remember Steve saying— I said, well, start the van.

59:57You don't want to put new oil? Yeah, there's no way that could be back together. OK, look. Wow, holy shit. My other guy used to take 3 weeks. Well, the other guy was hourly. I was commission. So if I did 1 engine a week at Hal's, guess what? I was eating rice and beans. I worked my way up the ladder there at Garrett's, and, uh, I had my problems there too.

1:00:19And Steve kind of— I think he kind of outweighed me being a real pain in the ass versus me getting work done. Because if you get somebody— you get a bunch of mechanics there, they're really not finishing work, you're really not making money, you're having a hard time paying your bills. Versus a guy that comes in, all of a sudden these guys doing 2— 2 engines a week and stuff in between, getting all this work done.

1:00:36So I ran into a problem with the other mechanics there that I was way up more skilled than them, but I was doing more of the work than them. So I would be taking up the whole shop. I'd have like 6 bays with stuff taken apart, but I was doing 90% of the work. So they started to dislike me. Oh, the more you do and the faster you get it done, the more you can do, the more money you're making.

1:00:57And while he's making more money— and the funny thing is, I was hourly, and I still worked just as hard hourly as I would have commissioned, which is can be a real issue in, in a, in our field, right? An automobile field, that's— it could be an issue. If I do 10 oil changes, I do one oil change, at the end of the day I make the same amount of money.

1:01:15Yes. And that's, that's, that doesn't sit well with me. No. And I would agree, like, with that too. And that's kind of like the union mentality, like we talked about, everybody makes the same thing. Well, you got different guys and skills. I just interviewed a guy last week that said, you know, the union came in and unionized him, and I don't know how true this is, I'm just going to say it.

1:01:32He said, we get picked up by this union, all of a sudden everybody makes the same thing. The guys that are sitting out in the parking lot being yard hands are making the same thing I'm making, trying to paint trucks and cars and stuff like that. He's like, that pissed me off. I'm like, well, I don't know what to tell you. But some of the stuff we talked about earlier, and I don't want to get too involved in this, is that the way you treat your people, the way that people get traded, treated, and the way people get shared, That's what brings a union in or not.

1:01:58If you treat your people badly, they're going to go for a third party for help. Absolutely. So, and nowadays I think that's not even a problem. I think there's like, toodaloo, I'm going down the street because this guy right now is dying to hire somebody like me, and I can so go down there and make more money. Absolutely. You know, it's, it's right now skilled people, you can name your price if you're a skilled person.

1:02:19The company I worked for, when I left 2 or 3 years ago, We needed 156 mechanics. We were short. Yeah, couldn't hire them. And think about me, I've had, you know, my best guys are guys we grew in-house. Jason Spencer's number one guy, he's part owner of Garrett Auto and Truck now. He started as a training mechanic, had trouble in school and all that.

1:02:38Now he's number one. He's like, literally runs the shop when I'm not there. And he— me, I trained him coming up. And we were talking stories the other day, and he'd be like, I'd yell at him, I'd go out there, and if I hear this hoist go up and down one more time Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, lady luck?

1:02:56Britski, I got you. I've had so much luck on spinquest.com. They have all of my favorite games— slot games, live blackjack, craps, and bubble craps. You can even get a $30 coin pack for just $10. $10 for $30? I'm headed over to spinquest.com right now. Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit finquest.com for more details. You're going home.

1:03:22You're like, what do you want me to do? Number 1, you need to stop being a bitch and stop whining. Number 2, think about what you're doing. If you're on commission and you're doing an oil change, think about it. If you go up with the hoist, while the hoist is up, grease the truck, change the oil filters, dump the oil, look over everything, lower it down, then fill it up.

1:03:38You don't drain the oil, lower it down, fill with oil, raise it back up, grease it, lower it back down, raise it back up to look at the brakes. I go, that was just a time thing. Well, he now does 70, 80 hours a week when he's there 40 hours because he's— it's been ingrained in him, right? Um, the other young guy that hired me, he's another guy that didn't do wonderful in school.

1:03:58He's a great guy. He does not— he has no problem. My other guy had a hard time in school too. It's like all these guys have had a hard time in school or had some kind of learning disability or some kind of problem. They all do just fine with structure and being independent thinkers. It's kind of interesting. It's because they're learning on the job, they're making a good living, and, and they like what they're doing.

1:04:18Yeah. And you know, I hear all the time that— I'm not going to lie to you, it took me a long time not to be a control freak. And I let these guys— now I tell them, if I'm not here, Jason's in charge. You talk to Jason. If Jason thinks it needs to make it up to my level, have them call me.

1:04:36Otherwise, I don't want to hear from you. And that goes part and parcel with what I'm going through right now, where the stress is so high I start to have health problems because the stress is so high. So now today I decide, you know what, I'm not taking— I'm not working Fridays. Anything can go on for one day. If I'm not here on a Friday, I don't know what to tell you.

1:04:50Let Jason handle it. Jason's not here. Well, Phil, you better handle it. I don't know, but you guys can handle it. And I think that's a work-life balance is something that I have never had, because when you own your own business, you know as well as I do Even what you did, Dad, you thought about it 24/7. When you're at home, you're thinking about it.

1:05:09I do. Nobody watches your money like you watch your money when you own your own business. That's right. Even if you don't own your own business, but you have the confidence in yourself to do what you want to do. And that's what he did. He had the confidence in himself to do what he wanted to do the right way. Yeah. And how were you in school?

1:05:26Now that we think about that, how did you do? Average. I had more trouble with fighting and stuff like that, truthfully. I just, not so much learning as being cocky. You know, sports, sports play sports, and thought I was better than everybody else to a degree. But you really were. Yeah, nah, not really. There's a lot of good people out there. But you talk to work-life balance, that is so important.

1:05:52You know, I used to think it was really goofy because you go to Europe, shuts down. It shuts down certain months for the August, I think it is. They shut down a whole month across the whole— everything shipped into this country stops because they take vacation for 30 days. That is important. When I worked for— when I hired into my last job, my boss sat down and told me, says, one thing I demand, no matter how much time vacation you have, you take it all.

1:06:18Because a lot of people don't take vacations. Because they get that little extra check at the end of the year. But I'll tell you what, it works on you. Work balance is so, so important. No, and I would, I would agree. And, uh, I'm different, like, from the way Steve was. He would always, like, we would always work, work, work, work Saturdays, work, you know, day after Thanksgiving.

1:06:39You know, we have to work, we have to make that money. Me, I always say, well, we can't make enough money in 40 hours to pay everybody what they want to make so we all can go home and live our life, and I'm doing something wrong as the owner here. So we work 7 AM to 4:00 PM. And any day that I could take off after the holiday, we do.

1:06:55Or we take the Fridays off before Memorial and Labor Day. The reason I did that is, number one, I think different. But I remember that we had a company called Nabisco. These people ran us ragged, right, for a year. Guess what? One day they changed management, and guess what? We were out. And looking at it, these guys work— paid— we paid so much overtime, we didn't make any more money than when we didn't have them.

1:07:17But we ended up losing all our other customers because we were so focused on this big company, you know. And it's just, it's just not worth it. And, you know, it's no secret I think different. I still, I still think different than everybody else. Usually my answer is completely 100% opposite everybody else. You know that. I drive you guys nuts because you're like, Jesus, I don't even know what's going to come out of your mouth next.

1:07:38That's a fact. We never have your whole life, but It's starting to be harder and harder in this world to actually speak your mind. Well, yeah, but that's never stopped you anyway. But, uh, but you know what, a lot of stuff you say makes sense. A lot of things you say is what people think but are scared to say, okay? Um, we don't really have a problem with it, you know.

1:08:01We know that you're going to be successful whatever you do because you've proven that time and time again, okay? You got to business, you bought this, you buy this. You know, we always say, you know, if you had a dollar, you'll find a way to make it $3. You know, we know you know how to make money, and your son is the same way.

1:08:17He's learning from you and he knows how to make a dollar. And that's important. That's so important, how to make things work for you and to do things you like to do and you want to keep doing them. You know, people laughed at me. You retire when you're 77, 79 years old? That's ridiculous. I probably would've worked a little bit longer, but I had to think, I had to quit because I love what I do just like you do.

1:08:41They've written books about that. You love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And that's a fact. I sometimes go to bed, I try to go to bed at 10 o'clock now. And sometimes I think to myself, man, I can't wait for tomorrow morning so I can get up and go to work. I got to do this, this, and this.

1:08:52I don't even want to go to sleep. And I'm always trying to innovate and think of different ways to do stuff. But you're making a difference. You're making a difference. You don't think you make a difference, but Everybody work for you, you're making a difference in their life. Because by you coming to work and being successful makes them successful, makes their life better, makes their kids' lives better.

1:09:09Everything's better. But you have to stop and take care of yourself. Yeah, I know. Because when you go to bed at night, you should be going to sleep not thinking about what you have to do. Look who's talking. That's the mother. Look who's talking though, because you know I have your mindset. Because Dad, we talked about this this the other day. Dad could be like, yep, time to go to bed, I'm shutting this all off, I don't give a shit, I can't change it when I'm in bed.

1:09:31No, me, I sit there and think, I think— and Mark Twain basically said it best, he said 90% of the things we think about happening never even happen. So we wasted all this energy thinking about it. Exactly right. But you have to make that up in your mind when you go to bed. You have to stop thinking about all the stuff that you have to do the next day, and you need to sleep and take care yourself.

1:09:52Yeah, you know, and I always try to be— I always try to be— help people, you know, customers. You know, we do this, we do that, and I always try to do the right thing. And sometimes it weighs on you. It does. Yeah, it affects your health. And people are not fair anymore. You can't look at a guy, go, yeah, I did this, this, and this, I'm really sorry, I'll take care of— they want to flame you, they want to do this.

1:10:12And you know, if they would just keep their mouth shut, it'd probably go a lot better and you'd help them out. But it just doesn't go that way. So there's added stress on a lot of things, you know. And nowadays, you know, there's— you have to understand something, there's outside forces that you have no control over. Nope. You know, everything slowed down because of the election right now.

1:10:31Well, we're in a fine place, it's not a big deal, but what about the people that are not in a fine place? You know, that, that's a big thing. But, you know, my whole thing to do this first part of this podcast was just to literally talk about how different I was and how different I still am, how I think different, and where it's gotten me.

1:10:48Because there's somebody out there needs to hear this story. Because if you read these— if I sat down and read these papers, they're boring. But they're basically saying, you know, this guy is going nowhere quick. And I know a lot of guys that are a lot smarter than me that have never applied theirself, that are still struggling in life and gotten into— some of the people you thought in high school that would do very well in life, Did just the opposite.

1:11:12Flame out. It's funny you said that because yesterday we were at my wife's, uh, your mother's father's house, who's 103. Yeah. And, you know, he had trouble getting from his walker to his chair, so I helped him. I was helping him. I said, I don't know why I should help you. You tried to get me, your wife, not to— your daughter not to marry me by buying her a horse.

1:11:29So why should I help you just getting around with them? Because that's a true fact. Yeah. Her mother, her father both said, we'll buy you a horse if you don't marry that jerk. Because they said he wasn't going to go anywhere because he didn't do well in school. He relied on sports. So then he went in the Army. They kept saying, he's not going to do anything.

1:11:48He's— you got to get rid of him. He's not going to amount to anything. I'll buy you a horse. I'll buy— let you buy the Corvette you want if you don't marry him. Yeah, it really did. That would have been tempting to me. Yeah, right? Yes. And I said, you could have married Alanita. Yeah. Yeah, right. You know, it's funny you talk about what you made.

1:12:06When I went in the Army, I made $39 a month, and I got $105 of it because we got married after he was in the Army for a year. But, you know, uh, hey, we come a long ways by using what we know and what we can do. And you're going to keep growing, you know. You're gonna— it's obvious that you're going to keep growing.

1:12:24I want to, but on the other hand, you know, I learned something here. And Steve Jobs you know, said this, you know, what is the one thing you cannot buy? Time. That's right. And your health. You can't buy your health. All the money in the world. Yeah, he's the richest, one of the richest guys in the world. He couldn't— he had pancreatic cancer.

1:12:40He couldn't get away. It killed him. I agree with that. And that's kind of like me. Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, Lady Luck? Britsky, I got you. I've had so much luck on spinquest.com. They have all of my favorite games slot games, live blackjack, craps, and bubble craps. You can even get a $30 coin pack for just $10. $10 for 30?

1:13:04I'm headed over to spinquest.com right now. Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. I'm okay. Like, I'd rather, you know, go up north, like, to the house and do stuff up there and hang out and chill out and do— have you got— you know what I mean? Like, Working is not everything. And that's why one of the reasons I have these guys— we don't work some of the days before the holidays and stuff like that, because like, okay, how much more money am I going to make if these guys work that Friday and I work with them versus we just shut it down and then go have

1:13:38fun for 4 days? Because 4 days is almost a full extra week vacation. Right. And them guys are going to come in Monday or Tuesday all fresh as a daisy, rested up, had a great weekend when everybody else is working. 'Cause it's unheard of, the hours I have in my business. People do, in our business, you know, the dealer businesses and stuff like that, they would work you 6 in the morning until midnight if they could.

1:13:59Yeah, but the thing we didn't talk about that you do that's really good is you also work with your employees to open 401s and stuff like that because working is okay, but if you're not putting some aside for later, you're in trouble down the road. And I know because I've seen some of the things you do. You have 401 programs and stuff like that for your employees, which is a great thing.

1:14:22Yeah, we do all that because once again, health insurance and all that, I don't want them to worry about stuff like that. Well, I'm going to tell you, you get our age and you look for Social Security check and you think you're going to live on that, that ain't going to happen. No. That is nothing compared to what you need to live.

1:14:38No, I would agree. And I can remember, and I brought this up in the other podcast, I remember Uncle Freddie, saying that he wanted to get me a job at Chrysler to be an injection mold engine, or do the injection molding and stuff like that. And I remember him saying, you know, it was at his house at one of the holidays, well, you know, he can make $50,000 a year.

1:14:56And I thought to myself, man, who's this guy going to sit here and tell me what he thinks I need to live on or what I'm going to do? Obviously, I never did it, never followed up. I thought, you know, so I just have stayed the course. And, you know, um, I've been put in positions that I've taken advantage of, you know, going back to Garrett's, you know, I was a mechanic And as it kind of progressed, we just kept growing and growing.

1:15:16And then Steve bought the place from his dad in '97. And what was '90? 2002, I finally became partners with him, which I didn't have no money. I mean, think about it. I'm making $60,000 a year. So, I end up working and we end up going to Management Success. And that's when I really realized that I could learn if I was interested in something.

1:15:36We went to Management Success. And they pulled out a P&L sheet and they started showing us how to do the numbers. I just jived with the math. Like, the numbers were not a problem. I remember them saying, "Listen, if you have your numbers, your percentages here, here, and here, always, you're going to make money and you're going to make a lot of money."

1:15:53So, I learned, I'm like, "Okay, well, that interests me." And I started really focusing on the numbers. And still to this day, once a week, I sit down and I pull out everything and I look. It's getting a little bit harder now because Things have changed where you buy a lot of stuff on the credit cards and sometimes it doesn't get booked.

1:16:10So I'm like, okay, how do I figure this out? Well, my shop management program, now I could push this stuff into QuickBooks. So I, you know, there's a lot of different stuff that I learned, but the bottom line was I took it to an extreme, you know, with my personality, you know, I'm extreme. My numbers are very important to me and obviously so it's made us healthy and have good businesses and you could pay people more.

1:16:31If you're making a lot more money, you could pay people more. Going back to, you know, my childhood, I guess when you look at all this stuff and if I was to sit down and read it, this is quite depressing. I know we laugh about it now. Like me and Marilyn are reading it. I'm like, Jesus, it is, is sad. It's sad the way you brought— were brought up.

1:16:49Yeah. But you know, you guys as parents stood by me and understood and always tried to do the right thing. Obviously we argued quite a bit till we all got to understand. You need a support system for anything you do. Your employees need support, your kids need support, everyone needs support. That's a big thing. Right. And yeah, you know, you probably took 10 years off my life, but it was worth it long term.

1:17:12Well, here's actually, Mom, your memory is crazy. Here's a letter from the Archdiocese of Detroit. Kevin was referred by his parents because he experienced a difficulty in school. General complaints are lack of attentiveness and poor academic achievement. So that was when I was 9. Um, it's just, it's sad when you read this stuff. We could laugh about it now because it's over, but you guys have to live that.

1:17:40I mean, tell me about Mom. Tell me about like what you used to think. It was heartbreaking because I knew what kind of person you are, what kind of kid you were. You drove me crazy. You drove us all crazy. But I knew that you had the potential to go somewhere in life, and these people weren't helping you the way I wanted them to help you to get where you needed to be.

1:18:02And that's why I put you on Ritalin, because I figured it's the only way I can get you to get the help you needed. Some of the stuff you did, that was crazy. I mean, I think back, I laugh, you know. I, I can remember the garbage man pulling up front And we had a, at the time, was it? Giant Schnauzer, Cheyenne.

1:18:20We had a Giant Schnauzer, about pretty good-sized dog. And one of the guardsmen said, that dog's a sissy. You said, oh, oh yeah? Opened the gate and shot him, went flying on after him. Sick 'em, Cheyenne, sick 'em. That dog, when you used to run, because you always ran, you never stopped walking. You ran and you fall when you would run, because you were only like 2.

1:18:40And every time you would start to run, he would grab your diaper. And pull you down so you wouldn't fall. We had a great barbwire up the side of the house and you were crawling up with a dog grabbing your— pulling your dog. Pulling you down because he didn't want you to fall. That dog was— he loved you. Yeah, I can remember a lot, some of the stuff like, you know, the pool parties at the house and I just never really had a lot of friends.

1:19:03Never really got along with a lot of people. I had Michael Klukla down the street. 'Cause you're always doing things that you felt were important to you but not to somebody else. Like Grandpa Frank used to take you in the garage because Grandma Nora couldn't stand to have you around. You drove her crazy. So she would— he would take you in the garage and he taught you how to use a screwdriver, how to use a hammer to keep you busy and focused because you wouldn't— you couldn't stay focused on anything.

1:19:30That was just— that's the biggest thing, to make sure that you had something to keep you busy. I mean, it wasn't the TV, it had to be something. To do with your hands. That's why we bought the one game because they said we needed to teach you hand and eye coordination. And this game, I forget what it was, and it was expensive, but we bought it so that you would learn to use— On TV or whatever it was?

1:19:50No, it was some kind of— No, it was some kind of a game. I don't know what it was. Maybe like, what was that one you used to play the quarter? You'd get the Pac-Man and it would teach you hand and eye coordination because that's what they felt you were lacking was that kind of— That's why I took him to the bar.

1:20:08Yeah, see, that's exactly Eddie Jockman. Yeah, see, Dad was way ahead of his time. A stack of quarters and he would sit there and he would play this game with this Defender. Yeah, he just— because he, he couldn't sit still. Yeah, you know, I had similar problems. Obviously my son Bo, um, getting in trouble in school, and it was frustrating, but I really never I never got mad.

1:20:34I would ground him because I just got sick of the phone calls. But like, I kind of understood where he's coming from in a lot of things. And his thing was he was smart too, and he just didn't want to deal with the bullshit. But if you remember, I never really grounded you a long time because I'd say, okay, go sit in that chair for a half hour.

1:20:49If you're good for that half hour, I'll let you up in 10. So then if you sat there for at least 15, you were good. But you couldn't pin you down. You just wouldn't sit still. No, I remember riding my bike around and stuff like that. Like, I remember I'm always on the go now. Like, I can't get out of the house fast enough to go do my thing.

1:21:09And which you've got to stop doing. You've got to slow down and protect your health. But I'm the same way. I can't— she drives me crazy. I cannot sit home. I was kind of wondering about that. Like, you know, Marilyn, since she's retired, seems like she's 10 times busier. She's never home. She's always doing something. You get busier as you retire. Of course, if you live with your father because he's always wanting to go and do.

1:21:29He never stays home. Well, it's like crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what are you gonna do, sit home and just wait to die? Yeah, but you got to have some purpose. Well, now he's got golf, which is nice, but now it's winter's coming. I don't know what he's going to do. Yeah, that kind of goes back to you. She says, when I first retired, you're gonna play golf once a week?

1:21:46Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. And she says, you know, you should probably play twice a week. Now she's up, she wants me to play 3 times a week because it drives me crazy. I just don't like to sit still like you. I, I just don't like it. I have different interests, different things to keep us busy. I could actually now have no problem sitting on the back deck and just like scrolling on like Twitter or TikTok and stuff like that.

1:22:09Before, there's no way I could do it. Now I have no problem being by myself. Like, I can go up north for a couple days by myself, be completely peaceful and play around and do my thing and not have a problem. After about the second day, I get bored. I'm like, okay, I need to go home and have some interaction with people.

1:22:23But a lot of my behaviors have been— you have to really sit there and think about it, because you're right, you're just kind of— I go and go and go and go. But that's a drive you had when you were young. I mean, it wasn't constructive drive at the time, but it was drive, and you just continued that drive. But you made it constructive and made it better and better, which made your life better and better.

1:22:44Yeah. And I'm always looking. I remember Steve Garrett looking at me and going, when is enough is enough? I'm like, never. I'm going to keep moving the goalposts because, like, you know, you listen to like— I remember Grant Cardone talking about one time in a book, he's like, okay, my goal this year is $10 million. He's like, that's almost an unobtainable goal.

1:22:59But what if you hit 5 or what if you hit 3? Are you still going to be sad? Aim it high. And if you go a little bit under or a lot under, at least you made it. And I hit goals every year, sales goals, and we usually beat them, which is saying something in today's market to grow. It's hard because there's stores that are closing and stuff like that and they can't find help and they can't do this.

1:23:26And a good indicator, sometimes you hear people say they're jealous of this person, jealous of that person. But you know what? The person should look how many people are behind them, not how many people are ahead of them. If you say, where am I today? Am I a lot of people behind me or is a lot of people ahead of me? You want to get to a point where, hey, I'm very, very satisfied what I'm doing.

1:23:47I'm going to try to better myself every year, but I'm never going to be jealous of a person in front of me. Because I'll tell you what, we used to laugh when people copied you. Says, why are they copying us? But that's a compliment. If people like what you're doing and they do the same thing, that's not a putdown. That's actually saying, hey, I really respect that person, what they're doing, and I want to do the same thing.

1:24:08So, you know, you're in a position right now that you can influence a lot of people's lives, people that work for you, people that know you, children, your grandchildren. Now that you have grandchildren. So there's a lot of people you can have a big influence on where their future is going. Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on SpinQuest, and there's never been a better time to sign up than right now.

1:24:30New users get $30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes. That's at spinquest.com. S-P-I-N-Q-U-E-S-T.com. Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Because I'll tell you what, a lot of people in today's world just want to get do enough work to get by.

1:24:58They want more time off, more time off, more time off. I noticed, yeah, everybody wants to make a million dollars an hour. You know, I mean, when this started, working from home started, there was people that quit our company and went to jobs with less money just because they could work from home. That is not the way to get ahead. You know, you have to be in the workplace, be recognized, see what you're available, what your availability is.

1:25:23How you perform, how you interact. At home, nobody knows what you're doing. They don't see you, they just hear you. And that's not it. That's not how to be successful. No, I would agree with that. So back, you know, Mom, you're sitting here dealing with this stuff. You know, you have a hard time. I remember having a hard time finding babysitters. That's the whole thing I haven't touched on.

1:25:40I can remember you guys having a conversation where like Dad, when Dad took over the Stit Post, remember, I think he became the bartender, head bartender or something. You wanted Mom to go. Mom didn't like the drinking, but she would still wanna go out. To the ball games and stuff like that. And I remember you guys talking and you said, Jim, nobody wants to watch the damn kids because of Kevin.

1:26:00Phyllis Cholak, he drives her crazy, our neighbor across the street. Donna Kluckla didn't seem to have a problem with me because Michael was kind of a pain in the ass too. So I would stay down there with that. But just go into that, like people watching me or me going to my aunt's houses and stuff like that. How'd all that go? You drove them crazy.

1:26:21Nobody really wanted to see you come over because you'd always cause a disturbance, no matter— I don't remember what you've done, but you did so many different things that people just didn't want you over there. I remember the fish hook to the head. Yeah, yeah. How was Kevin today? Well, he terrorized the dog for 3 hours. I mean, other than that, he was okay.

1:26:40Yeah, he's just— nobody just— whatever you could Aunt Peggy said one time, "I'm gonna take 'em fishing." I thought, "You're gonna take 'em fishing?" She goes, "Yeah, I'm gonna take 'em. Tony's going, I'm gonna take you fishing and Michael." I said, "Okay." So then she called me a little while, "Carol, Kevin's got a fish hook in his head." I remember sitting in the back of the boat and Michael went, and it went, I remember going smack.

1:27:03But the time I told you, "Kevin, watch that knife. You're gonna cut yourself." "Oh no, Mom, I'm careful." 5 minutes later, Mom, can you take me up to the corner? I cut my finger. You had a standing, um, at the hospital up there in the corner because every week you'd hurt yourself somehow. I remember that Providence. Come on in here. My file was like— yeah, it was thick.

1:27:24You didn't even need a card anymore to get you in there. You just walked in. I remember that. Yeah, that, that place is now— was, well, it's right behind the old Jaguar dealer at 10th and Hagerty. You made a lasting impression on a lot of people in your childhood. Yeah, yeah, I would— to this day, I would bet somebody says, I wonder what happened to Kevin Brown.

1:27:44Is he still around? Yeah, I was definitely different. You know, it was about 3 years ago when I decided, like, okay, it's— it's— when you're different, you're different. You know what you think? Different than everybody else. People, the stuff they care about, you don't care about. Like, I could care less about sports. Other people, like, take it to the nth degree where they'll get Detroit Lions, and my wife's into sports.

1:28:05I'm like, what about this? I don't give I really don't care about sports, but you know, you didn't care about much when you were young. All you wanted to do was pots, do different things. You didn't want to sit and watch. I can't remember you sitting watching TV by just one thing, doing one thing. You would do everything. But you excelled at that farm though, riding horses, stuff like that.

1:28:26You really found your, found your niche out there, really helped you a lot out there. But you didn't have a lot of friends because you wanted to do things by yourself to explain, you know, not just to experiment, like to take things apart. Nobody wanted to sit and watch you fix something. They wanted to do their own thing. Yeah, I remember when I got into the Honda Trail 70 thing with Lincoln, I'm like, man, these engine rebuilds are a pain in the ass, you know, to send out and stuff like that.

1:28:54I'm like, well, how hard can it be? So I bought an engine kit, put it together on one of my bikes. I'm like, that one worked. After about 4 or 5, I'm like, well, this is boring. So I started sending them out to a guy to get built. Number one, he did a better job making them look prettier, painting them and sandblast or water honing them and stuff like that.

1:29:08I mean, whenever I really put my mind to something, no matter how I could do it, it's just a matter of— you just put your mind to it and get to it. And I think a lot of times when you end up being more and more successful, it helps you mentally. I mean, I would be in a completely different mental state right now if I was broke and I was working for for somebody and having nothing to do with the person you were, you know.

1:29:29And I give Steve Garrett a lot of, uh, kudos. He kind of let me do what I wanted, and I kind of grew up kind of on my own doing whatever I wanted at that shop. And it got to the point where I would make decisions at that shop. I didn't even own it. People would think I owned it because I would just make all the decisions, and 9 times out of 10 they worked, you know what I mean?

1:29:47So I don't know, your father— I said he's not going to stay this job. He's not going to stay at this job. He's not. And you always went better and better and better. Just goes to show you, no matter how you start, it's how you finish that counts. And if you put your mind to something and you really, really work at it, you'll be successful.

1:30:07And you're proof of that. Yeah. And I do persuade people or people use me as an example or they follow what I do. I know several people that just have been kind of not really wanting to speak out. Now they speak out, and it's— it sometimes, like, people like it. Well, your mother is one of those. Your mother never spoke out on anything.

1:30:30She would just let people walk all over. Yeah. And then I married him, and then having you— well, you act like he's over here being all Mr. Nice Guy. He yells at people at traffic too, all the time. He drives me crazy. It's always It was their fault, never his. Well, she said I made her where she is today. You did. You made me the way— I used to be quiet and dress a certain way.

1:30:54See, some things you do don't turn out good. Now, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to think of something that I like crashed and burned on. I don't have nothing that comes to mind, but I've screwed up plenty, a lot of shit, and I'm just like, well, it doesn't define you. Oh, your drinking. The night you came home, that one night you came knocking on our door And I opened it and you were all bloody.

1:31:16I said, "Jim, your son's here." I know, I thought that was pretty cold, by the way. Well, you got drunk, you got in a fight. I didn't get in a fight. I got hit with a beer bottle 'cause the guy was a jerk. Well, you must've been running your mouth. No, actually for once I wasn't. That's the shocking part about it. The one time I was not running my mouth, I get hit.

1:31:32Ain't that a bitch? Well, you know, think about it. You go back to the bathroom, I mean the closet, you used to hide in the closet. Then when you used to get drunk, you use it as your urinal. You used to come in the house, open, close the door, go to the bathroom. Yeah, I can remember that night. Yeah, Dad's like, come on, I know how you feel.

1:31:51And I have always told you kids, if you get in trouble with the law, don't call me to bail you out. No, I called Dad. He was just fine. Yeah, I know. I'm not, I'm not. Bender done it. Yeah, your brother took me the next day because that was the day before of Thanksgiving. That was the first time that me and Marilyn— she had met at— we were at, uh, Frickett's.

1:32:08That was the first time she— the second time she had met up with me. Your wife is a saint. Yes, she is. She is. She's going to be on the next— she is a saint. I couldn't pick a better person for you than— you know, the funny thing is, I think she's like really hard on me. She argues with me all the time.

1:32:27She just don't let you walk all over her. That's it. That pisses me off to no end. She— I said, man, you argue with Nobody but me. I laughed my ass off the other day when you guys were sitting on the couch, you talked about sex. I laughed so hard. Oh, but she said, she said, you said to her, you know, we should be having sex at our age 3 times a week.

1:32:44She says, I am. I know, she's, she's a sweetheart. Yeah, she's, uh, she puts up a lot of stuff, but you know, she's never really hindered me when I'm like, hey, I think I'm gonna start my own podcast. Like, you should, you'll do really good. Yeah. She's stuck with you. So she doesn't have a problem backing me on that stuff. She pretty much lets me do what I want.

1:33:05And I find that very funny with some of my friends or people I know, they have to ask their wife permission. I'm like, who the hell lives like that? Yeah. Well, I think that's a lot too, because we never, I never asked you permission. You just did what you want and I did what I want. So that's good. Or you can have a discussion.

1:33:24Hey, I'm going to buy a new truck. Yeah. Yeah, but not you. You just go buy the new truck and tell Marilyn, I bought a truck. Well, I remember last one I went and bought, I couldn't get a hold of her and I came home with it. She's like, whose truck? I said, that's mine. She's like, why were you gonna tell me?

1:33:38I said, ta-da. It's like, you're such an asshole. Yeah, he's done that. Yeah, several times. Yeah. But you know what, as you get more and more successful, that's not that big of a deal. But when we got married, if you remember correctly, you guys helped us out a lot with Bowen Cooper buying school clothes and stuff like that. We did not have the money.

1:33:54I remember saving up for a hose and God, it sounds like a cliché of an old, you know, had to walk school both ways uphill, but my bare feet. But you think about it, you didn't, you just did not have the money. Even when we were married, we never had the money. We were always struggling. We'd charge everything. And then at the end of the year, he'd get his vacation pay.

1:34:14So we'd pay all the bills. Credit cards, you could deduct interest on it. So we had all this interest to deduct. That's the only way we survived from year to year when we were younger. We were broke. And he worked hard and I worked, but. Yeah, it's definitely, you know, and I'm really happy that none of my guys have to come and borrow $20 from me for gas.

1:34:34Everybody that works in both of my companies are financially stable to the point where they buy each other lunch. We take turns at the shops. One day at Garrett's, Jason will buy, next day Nick will buy. Jacob Eye, Alby, and Philby. There's 5 of them, right? You gotta think about it. That's $50 apiece. Some guys, nobody has a problem. We just do it.

1:34:52See, that's a team. That's a team. Work together. That's important. Yeah, there's no arguing, no fighting. Everybody helps everybody. And I always tell 'em, I go, if we hire some guy and he comes in and he's an asshole, we're getting rid of him. I don't care how good of a mechanic he is. We're not gonna have a guy that's an asshole and does not get along with everybody.

1:35:07We're just not doing it. Life's too short. That's for sure. Anyway, well, thanks a lot for coming on the show. This was actually quite entertaining. This would be a good podcast for people to listen to. We hope so, because, you know, you come a long ways, and, uh, we're proud of you. Thanks. Very, very— yeah, because we know you're in a good position now.

1:35:25You know, if I get broke, I always come to you. Well, that is— it's always nice to have a trophy son. Yeah, right, right. A trophy daughter-in-law, right? And grandkids. Yes, a lot of good grandkids. So yeah, I mean, you're, you're where you need to be. You're doing what you need to do, and, uh, you'll continue doing it. So I'm excited to do this show because every week— and I'm going to have you back, Dad, when we talk about environmental stuff like that, because obviously you've done that for a long time— but I'm gonna do every aspect of the auto repair or truck repair business and, um, the collision business that I could think of.

1:35:59Everything. Like, have my insurance guy come here because people Knowledge is key. If these people don't have the knowledge, they don't have no way to help them or navigate through. I'm sure there's shop owners that are way above me and way below me. There's a perfect example of Kevin Brown, environmental. He knows how I am environmental, but he sends me videos, him washing his hands with brake cleaner.

1:36:22Okay, don't worry. Your governor went ahead and outlawed brake cleaner, changed all the active chemicals in the shit. Don't work. Now, so I won't wash my hands with it. I remember him telling me, you know, a bad brake cleaner, sir. I said, I don't know, I wash my hands with it. No, you don't. Next day I sent him a video. He's like, DJ, what's wrong with you?

1:36:42All right, that's going to do it for this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning. If this helped you, please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. We drop real conversations, real systems, and real solutions every week. We'll see you back here next time on Repair Shop Parish App Reckoning. Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time.

1:37:04Drink in one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spin Quest. Over 1,000 games including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at spinquest.com. Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.