Ep 170: Why We Should Reject Mediocrity with Andrew Klement

0:00We don't, we don't tolerate the kinds of things that are traditional in an automotive repair shop. I think that complacency breeds mediocrity. What it says right here is your past does not define you. And like, I literally wrote that out 3 times because that, that line for me, that was the biggest piece of it. You're listening to the Limitless Leadership Podcast, the podcast designed to help automotive repair shops, learn how to lead, coach, train, and manage their team better by sharing proven techniques and thought-provoking interviews from industry leaders.

0:37Are you ready to transform your leadership skills by tapping into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results? Let's get ready for liftoff. It's time to go from great to greater. Here's today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Limitless Leadership Podcast. Before we get started, don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, do all the things you need to on social media to help this podcast impact people and build leaders just like the one who's meeting with me today.

1:09My friend, someone who I've been following on social media for a while, and thankfully the feeling is mutual. I haven't been stalking this guy without it being reciprocated, but he's also a new shop owner, uh, former Christian Brothers, uh, uh, team member, which means a lot to me cuz that's where I came from. But he is the owner of Finley River Auto and Diesel.

1:25Our guest today is my friend Andrew Clement. Andrew, thanks for being here, man. It's an honor to be here, my friend. It's like the feeling is mutual because I follow you, I listen to your podcast. It's like I feel like we're already friends because, you know, I've talked to you so much, and I feel like I'm out of place here because I don't have the glorious beard.

1:40That's okay. That's okay, my friend, have— but, but, uh, you know, um, the, the, the good thing is we are friends, and so we, we're getting to know each other on this episode. But you're absolutely right, you You and I have both been following each other for a while, and man, I really admire and respect the jump that you made. And we're gonna talk about what that means here in a moment.

1:57But, um, it, it is, um, anyone who has ever taken a leap of faith, I like to just say it's a step of faith because at the end of the day, um, you are truly just taking a step in the direction that God is calling you into and maybe even calling you out of depending on where you're coming from, but calling you into something great and you're making an impact, you're making a tremendous difference.

2:17And For you being a fairly new shop owner, everyone in the industry knows who you are because you already have a presence across social media. Yeah. Um, you're already— because they like talking— promoting things. Well, but, and, and that's why you're here, Andrew. So I'm, man, I'm glad, I'm glad you're here. Go ahead and share with the audience who you are, what you do, and how you do it.

2:37Promotive is tackling one of the toughest challenges in the automotive industry, finding and hiring great technicians. Their team is built from people who know the aftermarket. Understand technician roles, and recognize what actually makes someone a strong long-term fit. Promotive builds recruiting pipelines for the shops they support. They uncover talent you won't find on job boards, run intentional and structured screenings, and guide candidates through interview prep and communication so shops can make confident decisions.

3:03Shops choose Promotive because their process creates consistency, momentum instead of waiting, clarity instead of guesswork, and a partnership instead of a transaction. If your shop is hiring or preparing for growth, head to gopromotive.com. You can schedule a discovery call, submit your openings, and see how Promotive supports shops nationwide. All right, folks, as you know, great leadership isn't about doing everything the best.

3:27It's actually about having the right partners in your corner to build your shop's success. It's about putting the right team in place. It's about choosing the right vendors to make you a pro, making pro moves. And when I think about the pros, I think about Shop Marketing Pros. The know, like, and trust factor, that's a real thing, and Shop Marketing Pros understands that.

3:47That's why I wanna recommend Shop Marketing Pros to become your marketing partner in your shop. They get to know, like, and trust you and your business to then help your audience get to know, like, and trust you too, and bring your shop to the next level. So when I talk about making pro moves, this is the kind of move I'm talking about.

4:05This is the kind of standard-setting partnership that's going to elevate your shop. So if you're ready to become a pro in your shop, visit shopmarketingpros.com and partner with the best. Wow. Um, I see, like, I've heard you ask that question to so many guests and I'm like, oh, I have the perfect answer. So we're gonna, we're gonna fumble through this and bear with me if it's a little unpolished.

4:26But my name is Andrew. I'm a rookie shop owner. We're about a little over 6 months in. To shop ownership came out of an incredibly, uh, safe, comfortable, reliable, high-paying technician career with Christian Brothers, the Christian Brothers organization. And I decided that stability and comfort was not the thing for me and that I wanted something that was a little more. No, but in all seriousness, I have wanted to be a shop owner.

4:55I've wanted to own my own business for a very long time, and I've kicked around various different ideas of what that would look like. And it just kind of made sense that after about 10 years in the industry, this is the industry that I know. And so this is where I decided we'd make a go of it. So I have the privilege of leading a team right now of— I've got 3 guys working for me right now, and we are a small 4-bay shop in Ozark, Missouri, and we are striving for excellence at every level and in everything.

5:29Let me ask you, Andrew, because I love that you just said we're striving for excellence. And I believe that the way we do anything is the way we do everything. And the way that we do everything is with a level of excellence. That means that there is a level of, um, it's a standard that you've created, that you're creating, that you've created that will not allow you to settle for anything less than excellent.

5:50It's not going to allow you to tolerate anything less than excellent. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. He says, beware the lollipop of mediocrity. Lick it once and you'll suck forever. Here at Finley River Auto and Diesel, we're not going to accept anything less than our best, and our best is a level of excellence.

6:09Let me ask you, what does excellence mean to you? If I'm a team member or prospective team member who's working for you and working with you, when you describe to me we operate with a level of excellence, define for me what excellence means. So excellence, excellence can mean a couple different things, and it kind of depends on the perspective that we're looking at.

6:28So excellence from, as the customer perceives it, is that it is a clean, professional environment where the customer feels safe and comfortable when they have issues with their vehicle. So that's like from the customer-facing, we want this shop, this experience to feel like a high-end dentist. Like that's kind of what the office feels like. That's kind of the, to use a kid, the term the kids are using, that's the vibe that we're going for.

6:55And then from a From more of the kind of the backside, like what does the actual like inner workings of the organization, what does excellence mean? That means that we are, we're consistent, we're thorough, we're constantly improving, and that we don't tolerate the kinds of things that are traditional in an automotive repair shop. If you go back 10, 15, 20 years, the front-end team gets along with the back-end team.

7:22It's not an us versus them. It's everybody working together as a team to accomplish an outcome in the most efficient and at the highest level of service possible. And that outcome is the customer is taken care of. So our goal is people first and service first. And our job is to serve people and we do that by fixing cars. And that's kind of the way that I've tried to frame the way my team thinks about it is, yes, we fix cars, but our job is to take care of people.

7:49Leading a shop can be isolating, especially when you're trying to grow and still take care of your people. The good news is you don't have to piece it together alone. TechMetric is the all-in-one platform built for shops and growing operators who want less chaos and more clarity. Shop management, integrated payments, and built-in marketing all working together in one place. No bouncing between tools, no syncing issues, no missed opportunities, just a cleaner operation, a stronger customer experience, and a business that's built to grow.

8:16See how it works at techmetric.com or use the link in the show notes. This episode is brought to you by Limitless Leadership because great teams don't happen by accident. They're led on purpose. If you're tired of wearing all the hats, putting out fires, and wondering why your team won't step up, Limitless Leadership is for you. They help leaders transition from player to coach who develop people and multiply impact through in-person or online leadership training like the Limitless Leadership Blueprint or their Roots to Results coaching method, their services are designed to help you tap into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results and help you create safety and trust in order to provide clarity and direction.

8:54So if you're ready to stop managing chaos and start leading with purpose, head to limitlessleadership.co to book a complimentary discovery call today. Man, Andrew, you already know, like our, our slogan with Limitless Leadership is people plus process equal profit, and people come first. We, I, I believe that we get to connect with people through authenticity, humility, and vulnerability. Connection creates engagement, engagement increases performance.

9:16So obviously wanna make a profit in order to stay in business. Uh, profit and, and, and revenue is important, but can we focus on the people first? And even from a guest perspective, you know, the, the, the guest experience starts with a relationship. I'm serving my guest, I'm loving my guest through the process. I'm taking my, taking care of my guest. And the natural byproduct of that is a transaction.

9:39Um, you said a few things that I think is really important. You mentioned we— excellence here means we're being consistent, we're being thorough, and we're constantly improving. I believe the concept of today's great is tomorrow's good if we choose to get complacent and if we choose to get comfortable. I believe in this concept of we want to, we want to be content but not comfortable.

10:00In other words, we want to be happy. I'm not saying it's— and not to be confused with satisfied, but I want to be happy with the progress that I'm making. I wanna be content with the job that I'm doing, but I'm not gonna be comfortable because growth and comfort can't coexist. How do you implement this culture of kaizen? Kaizen is, is the, is the Toyota's, uh, word for, uh, continuous improvement.

10:24You talked about constantly improving, uh, being thorough and consistent. How do you create and cultivate this culture of those 3 things? I'm still figuring that out. It is by no means a polished process. I'm still learning so much through this, and that's part of being a new shop owner and new to this particular type of leadership role. Yeah, the short answer is I'm still figuring out.

10:53The long answer is that I have surrounded myself with people that are much smarter than me and tried to— I hired a business coach from day one. I'm a happy Elite client and the team at Elite is fantastic. And what I've really seen from that, that I think implements the circular— in a circular fashion, answer your question. What I've seen from Elite is a taking care of people first mentality and how that in the long run is genuinely profitable.

11:25And so trying to implement that, I want to lead my team by example, but I also don't want to fall into the trap of being the person that everybody relies on for a decision. There was a presentation that I had listened to a couple months ago. It was called Leadership on a Submarine. I'm forgetting who it's by, but kind of talk about this idea of in a lot of organizations, there's a bottleneck of everybody wants, needs the boss's approval to make a decision.

11:52And that bottleneck is not sustainable for growth. And so trying to give my employees the vision of what, what we want to deliver to the, to the customer and get everybody on board with the idea of the mission and where we're going so that then they're more engaged with following that process. That's so good. Shout out to Elite, by the way, friends of the podcast, friends of the company of Limitless Leadership.

12:14Uh, a lot of our clients, uh, are also clients of other shop coaches in the industry, uh, Elite being one of them. And by the way, we always advocate for that. We, we, we say, look, like, don't rely on us to, to, to do your shop coaching. We're here to help you become better leaders, but partner with another coaching company and we can work in tandem.

12:32And, and it's about, about collaboration, not competition. Um, let me ask you, so remind us again, how, how long ago did you start Finley, uh, River Auto and Diesel? 6 months. 6 months. December 1st, 2025. Okay. So it's December 1st, 2025, and you already have 3 other guys working with you? Yes. Yes. How? I mean, because here's the, by the way, so hiring a coach from day one.

12:54Yeah. And not relying only on my own knowledge and understanding is, is a big piece of that. I, so I, my background, my background is technician. So I've like production, like that's, that's my background. I spent some time in my early career as a mobile mechanic, which there are good mobile mechanics out there. Most of them are not good. So I was one of the not good ones and I will own that.

13:17But I had done, I had done the whole like where I was like service advisor and parts guy. And so like I had a little bit of experience there, but I hired a service advisor that started with me on day one. So I had— I hired my father-in-law, which is a fun— okay, makes for an interesting relationship dynamic there. But we've, we've worked together, um, in the last 10 years that I've been married, uh, we've worked together for like 6 of those years at various shops around the country.

13:45So we, we work together, I would say, fairly well as from like technician service advisor. Now that it's like service advisor owner, we're navigating through some fun— I shouldn't say challenges. It's just, it adds a different layer of dynamic to be aware of. I mean, but really, it makes the dinner table conversations great at Thanksgiving. And, you know, hey, are we talking about work here?

14:06Are we talking about family or both? Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, you ask a question in a group of, hey, how do I get some training for this service advisor? Because I want to coach him and help him grow into this thing that I'm not, you know, we're not doing what I want to do. And everybody in the group was like, oh, you just got to fire him.

14:20And it's like, dude, I, like, I gotta— I'm having him over for Christmas. Like, yeah, uh, you know, this is one of those— my wife won't let me fire him even if I wanted to, but I don't want to fire him. Like, that's the thing is like, I'm not— there was a, there was a— I had, I had— there was a season where I was like, uh, I just need somebody else.

14:39But then like, I, I, I sent him to some training in, in North Carolina with Elite. Yeah. And, um, and I got to do his job for 3 and a half days, and I have a much, much deeper appreciation for all the work that he does and what he brings to the team. Well, you just, you just, uh, subtly hinted at one of the most important things any new entrepreneur, or any entrepreneur for that matter, can do, and that is get a coach.

15:07Um, you know, one of the, one of the first things I did, uh, even prior to leaving Christian Brothers was hiring my own coach. Uh, years ago I hired a a counselor, and it was such an incredible, um, positive change for me that immediately I'm like, I need to get a coach as well. So now, even to this day, I still work with a counselor and, and a coach.

15:26Um, so that's the first thing is hire a coach, go find a coach, interview a multitude of coaches to determine which one is the right fit because connection, um, is often one of the most important things. The second thing though that you're alluding to that you haven't said, and I'm, I'm gonna ask you to elaborate on this for me, When you're bringing your father-in-law on board as your service advisor, what you're also doing is you are creating so much more time for yourself and time for anybody, especially a new business owner, is invaluable.

15:55Can you speak to the impact that his presence there has made on you just from a time perspective? Yeah. So, I mean, it's absolutely huge because I can, I can just, I can put my head down and work. And when someone comes in the door, he's there to talk to them. When the phone rings, he's there to answer the phone. If I've got to go take a test drive, I don't have to lock the building up and set the alarm before I leave.

16:20You know, like those, those pieces, like it was our first, the first couple months were a little rough from a, from a financial standpoint, right? So the first, the first month we were pretty deep into the red. The second month we actually Like month 2, we were actually in the black, not by a lot, but like, that's a win. We were net positive.

16:39And then month 3, we went back deep into the red. Uh, so, you know, it's 2 steps forward, one step back. But we, but just having that extra, having another person to take some of the weight of the just like office administrative tasks, answering the phone, interacting with clients was absolutely vital to the ability to continue to grow this thing. So I see how it is so difficult for a technician to get from that one-man shop to hiring that first employee.

17:20I was fortunate enough to have good enough credit that a bank loaned me a bunch of money and We're still working through that. We are currently, the loan from the bank is like $65,000, which for a new business loan, we got, I've got a 4-bay shop. I don't own the building. I'm leasing the building. But for a 4-bay shop, 6 months in, we're in the black and growing and we only owe the bank 65 grand.

17:45That's pretty remarkable. Sure. I mean, just on its face. Yeah. So yeah, having a coach was huge. And the biggest thing, the biggest concept that I think I learned from that coach, shout out to Matt Lofton from Elite. I love you, man. Was his, he gave me this bit of advice and this was probably 2 months before I actually like launched the company.

18:11And he said, there are 2 things that you spend money on. And the first thing is, do you spend money on bringing new business in? And you spend money on people and you don't spend money on, like, if it doesn't bring in more business or bring in the best people to your organization, you shouldn't be spending money on it. And that for me was really big.

18:32So it was like I hired an advisor that was way, even to this day is still overqualified and is more advisor than I really need. But I have a great, I have a great solid team member there that can work that front counter that I don't have to babysit. Mm-hmm. That can just do the job and do it well. Connects well with customers.

18:56I mean, it's, it's a fantastic, he's a really great guy for it. And if you look at a new business and you go, oh, we're gonna pay this guy more than any other shop in the area is paying him and we're still in the red, like that's a scary thing to do. But investing in people is how we got outta the red and into the black so quickly.

19:13I love that. So you, you answered a question I was about to ask you, which is what is some of the early advice that you got as a new entrepreneur? Let me, let me flip it around and say, I'll ask you to share what is the best advice that you can give to somebody who is considering taking that step of faith or that leap of faith to launch their own business in regardless of what the industry is.

19:35So that's, that's hard. That's hard because it's like, what, what piece of advice could I give that would be like, it's like, I know, I know this industry really well. I, well, I'm, I'm learning, right? But I feel like I know this industry really well. But I think the biggest piece of advice that I would give to anybody looking to start in any kind of entrepreneurial role, whatever that is, whatever industry that is, is that no matter how much you think you know, you don't know it all.

20:02And investing in a coach or a trainer or just a mentor, like find somebody that has done this before, Because they can look into your life and see problems way farther than you can see the problems coming. And that was huge for me. And I advocate that for everybody is go get a coach. And to your point, talk to more than one.

20:28Don't just hire the first one you talk to. Now, I did talk to more than one. I talked to 2 and I hired the first one I went with. Okay. Well, at least you talked to more than one. But I talked to more than one. I talked to more than one. And the second one told me, you don't need a coach yet.

20:42Like, oh, really? You're too early. Just go listen to a, you know, like between podcasts and all the information that's out there on YouTube. Like you, at this point, you don't need a coach and a coach is going to be more, you're going to spend more money on coaching than the benefit you're going to get. And so it's not a good, I don't think it's a good fit for you.

20:59Well, you know, to be fair, what Matt Lofton said, the 2 things that you spend money on, bringing new business in and people, and hiring him was not one of them. So I'm just, just throwing it out there. But, um, but anyway, but, but spending money on people, I mean, I, I pay money for access to Matt. But the crazy, the crazy thing is how much, how much Matt and, and Elite as a company really poured into me as a shop owner before I was a client.

21:28And it wasn't, it wasn't just like Look, man, you can go check out our Facebook page and watch those videos. And if you want anything else, like, you got to sign up for coaching and it's money. It was just, I mean, it was just incredible the amount I felt. I felt like I wasn't just a number on a spreadsheet. Yeah. You know, I felt like I was a real person to them.

21:46That is not surprising at all. That organization led by a great man, Darren Barney. Shout out to you, Darren. Oh, Darren's amazing. This organization is phenomenal because of the people. And when you when you serve people the way that they did for you prior to even you becoming a client of theirs, that, that says a lot. And so, uh, shout out to Elite again, great organization.

22:07Um, let me ask you, Andrew, you know, one of the questions I ask every guest on every episode is, what does leadership mean to you? How would you answer that question? That is a great question. And I, and I was coming to, and I knew, I know, I know. And I, and I was like, I should be thinking about that. We should make a plan.

22:22And I'm like, I'm kind of a, I'm kind of a seat-of-my-pants guy. Okay. So I, I, And I process things verbally. So if I have to like talk through this answer, bear with me. Go for it. Although it's a podcast, that's what we do here. That's right. What does leadership mean to me? So I think the best way to answer that would be to kind of look back at my life and look at some of the leaders that I've worked with and seen what that leadership looked like.

22:48And I think that leadership to me means Yeah, there's so much to it. There's so many different ways to answer this question, and I'm trying to not sound like a complete idiot when I answer this, but leadership is getting everybody not just on board with the same idea, but getting everybody's goals and efforts aligned in one direction and then giving them the opportunity to be a part of that Uh, organization or that movement that's going somewhere.

23:23Yeah. And, and helping to guide that, that group. And it's not about, it's not about being the boss, but it's about bringing people together to work towards a common goal. So, man, if, if you're looking for one of the best answers I've gotten on the podcast, folks, you heard it right now. Like that, like, I know, Andrew, you're, you're searching. I'm, I'm here to tell you that was a phenomenal answer.

23:43I love that you mentioned that. I, I'm a big believer in the owner, um, casting the vision. Like, you're responsible for casting the vision. I believe that your team is the one who gets to drive the mission towards your vision. So whenever I talk with training attendees or if, if I'm working with coaching clients of ours, we, we always talk about getting your team involved for the creation of their mission statement.

24:06Some organizations don't even have a mission statement. Some organizations have a mission statement, but nobody knows what the mission statement is, including the owner. And so when we say, hey, look, that's okay. You know, we're gonna give everyone grace here. Um, maybe you created a mission statement a decade ago. It, it, like, it's okay if, if you're not living it out and if you're not regularly, uh, talking about it, then I'm, I'm gonna expect you to, to forget it.

24:29But we don't wanna forget it. The mission statement is there for a reason, and it's helpful when we know who we are, who we are. So core values, core is Latin for heart. Our core values help make up who this organization is. Our why, why we do things the way we do, is our mission statement that's driving towards the vision. So what does it look like to create core values?

24:51What does it look like to create a mission statement? To me, if I'm you, Andrew, and if you haven't done this, here's an exercise. I'm coaching you. You didn't even ask for it. All right. But here's the, here's the unsolicited advice. You've got a team right now of you plus 3 others. So there's a team of 4 of you, correct? Yep. Okay.

25:06So you've got a team of 4. And we know that's gonna grow. We know that's gonna grow into more team members. But right now, what if you got the entire team together and created the mission statement as a team? You, you are the one who is casting a vision with clarity and direction, but your team determines the actual mission statement. And for anyone listening, if you're interested in how this works, I'm happy to share with you my mission statement creation exercise.

25:32I can email this to you. Uh, reach out to me at Josh at limitlessleadership.co. I'm happy to share this mission statement creation exercise with you and, and the instructions that go along with it. What I provide is resources that allow you to lead your team in a mission statement creation exercise. Why is this important? Because mission-driven team members are 54% more likely to stay at their job for 5 years and 30% more likely to turn into high performers than those who are there for simply just a paycheck.

26:01The moment you can get buy-in, and everyone knows buy-in can be challenging, the moment you can get buy-in, your team believes in something and they're a part of something greater than themself, incredible engagement occurs. And when I say that 77% of team members are disengaged, this is an easy way to create engagement. And the last thing I'll share is this: engaged team members perform better.

26:23So if you're not getting your team involved with something like this, this is a massive opportunity to capture. Yeah. And it's— and the, the crazy thing, and then talking about, you know, engagement with, with team members is really cool because I've brought one person to the organization that I had to let go, that had to remove from the bus. And that was the— it was a hard conversation.

26:48And I think for anybody that has not ever had to fire someone, it's a difficult conversation. But that was the piece. That was the piece of engagement that was— I was doing everything I could to try to drive engagement. And get that buy-in. And it just wasn't happening for this guy. And he's a nice guy. I like the guy as a person and all of that.

27:10And it wasn't that he did anything necessarily wrong, but like his heart wasn't in it. He didn't see the vision. He didn't catch that vision for what could be. And I think that complacency breeds mediocrity. Hang on, hang on, hang on, everyone. Hang— hold the phone, everyone. Say that again. Complacency breeds mediocrity. So good. Dude, put that on a t-shirt. I'd wear that for sure.

27:41Elaborate on that. Complacency breeds mediocrity. Can you elaborate on that for us? So when we're okay with just the status quo, and this is how we've always done it, and we're just going to keep going, what we're doing is working and we're fine. You end up becoming complacent, comfortable, and the idea of, well, it's good enough becomes how we operate instead of we want to strive for more.

28:09We want to strive for excellence. We want to be excellent. And this idea of constant improvement, and this is something that was shared with me by, I think it was Matt, is that the gap between a bad shop or a bad leader and a good leader is huge. Like, there's a lot of things between a bad and a good, but the difference between a good leader and a great leader or a good shop and a great shop is a fairly small gap and it's made up of all the little details.

28:40And that's the thing is like, we're in the good, we're definitely in a good shop, but it's like, I'm not okay staying there. I want to be a great shop. I want to be a great shop for my team members. Like I just poached a guy from the dealership that's, you know, a block down the road because they were, they just didn't, they were not treating him well at all.

29:03You know, it started with jacking his pay and treating him poorly. And I mean, both of the guys that I have, techs in the back working, I have 2 absolute rockstar technicians working for me right now, working with me. I don't like working for. Working with me. And both of these guys walked in my front door with a resume. Well, one guy had a resume, one guy didn't.

29:23He was just frustrated with his job and walked in, but just like walked in and said, hey, you know, I'm getting ready to quit my job and I'm looking for somewhere to park my toolbox. And, you know, one of them was ready to leave the industry entirely and, you know, was at a young age starting to have, uh, some serious like health complications related to stress.

29:43And since starting here, hasn't had a single episode. Like the lack of stress that the environment that we have here is substantial. And there's like physical changes in these people that you can see and measure between previous jobs and coming to work here. And that's not to like sit here and toot my own horn about like, man, I'm such a great shop owner.

30:09But like, the bar is low. The bar is really low. Andrew, you're right. And look, you don't need to toot your horn. I'll toot it for you because I want to highlight and honor you for a second and say this, man. What you just described is a testament to your leadership. Um, think about how important this is. Like, I, and, and, and a lot of us are not paying attention to this, this being a stress level and an emotional, um, uh, status of the team members that we're serving, that we're leading, that we're coaching, that we're training, that we're managing, that we're working with every single day.

30:44One of the questions that we ask, um, every client of our— every— we call them leaders of ours, um, not, not on every call but on a lot of calls is, hey, how are you, how are you doing up here and how you doing in here? I'm pointing to my head and pointing to my heart for a reason. How's your stress level?

31:00How's your workload? I want to know How are they doing internally? Because those internal effects can have the outward, uh, it can, can turn into outward results. And when people are, um, becoming physically ill because of the workplace that they are currently working under, that gives you the opportunity as a leader to create a safe space, place, and platform and give your— like, what I'm hearing is you're, you're likely giving your team permission to be wrong, Andrew.

31:28And that's important because Because they know, hey, if I fail here, it doesn't make me a failure. Just like if I lose, doesn't make me a loser. I have permission to be wrong. Andrew gives me the flexibility to try something and be creative and be innovative. And maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. But if it doesn't, guess what? I learned something. I can pivot.

31:49And Andrew's gonna give me that safe space, place, and platform to do it all over again. That, that kind of work environment for people who are Look, you guys, and I say you guys as tech— like, Andrew, as a technician, you are like— you're a doctor. Like, you are truly a doctor for vehicles. You are a borderline genius. I shouldn't even say borderline.

32:05I'm probably discrediting you, like, by saying borderline. Andrew, you are a genius, okay? You don't need to inflate my ego anymore than it already is, dude. I, I don't know, man. Like, yeah, I don't wanna— I don't wanna, um, just glaze over this. Like, technicians, mechanical specialists, you guys are geniuses because you are car doctors. And it, it pains me to see the amount of people who are struggling, who are feeling challenged, who are obstacle after obstacle.

32:34You know, Jeff Compton and I are— we're, we're, we're good friends, and I love the name of his podcast, The Jaded Mechanic Podcast. How perfect of a name is that? It, it, it pains me to see how many people are jaded, frustrated, angry, upset because time after time after time, they've been, they've been given empty promises. They've been getting, giving threats. Uh, I mean, like the, the, the type of, the type of work environment that a lot of technicians in our industry who are phenomenal people, salt of the earth people have had to endure.

33:03It's really frustrating. It is. It is. Yeah. And that's, and that's, I think that's the, the thing for me is that, and I'm, I'm in a number of shop owner groups, including I'm a member of our local autocare trade association. And so we've got a group of shop owners that meets every other month and we call it an SOS group, which stands for Shop Owner Support.

33:25It's a fun little play on words, but like, it's cool to like sit down with other shop owners. But the interesting thing is that there are some really good operators in that group. And then I, but there's still some that are like, I mean, they're again, Good shop, but I, in my, by my definition, I wouldn't say great. Mm-hmm. And that's the, you know, but I got to, I had the opportunity to go to Elite's Ignite conference in January, and that was like, I'm in a room with, you know, 150 other shop owners that are just as passionate about excellence as I am.

33:57Yeah. And that was, that was just absolutely incredible for me. I read a book when I was, was, you know, in the, in the transition, want, or wanting to transition to this. Uh, it was Simon Sinek's book, Leaders Eat Last. Yeah. And that was, that was a really, that was a, I think that was a really good book that really helped kind of shape my, uh, my style of leadership and what and how, and how I think that, that, that leadership role should look.

34:22And we had a, we had a really, I wanna say a really cool moment, but it was also like a stressful moment in the shop. Um, this ended up being the, the technician that I had to let go, but had a, a vehicle. It was a, a 2018 Ram diesel dually, big, nice, clean truck in a limited edition color, like gorgeous truck, but it's a dually.

34:44And if you've been around trucks at all, you know that means the back is wider and our bay doors aren't super wide. And at like the final after repair, like test drive, and we're pulling it into the building and he clips the door with the dually fender, but because it's an aluminum bedside, it turns into a It's like a $7,000 body repair to like just replace the whole side of the bed.

35:04And it was a whole, it was a whole thing. And after like the initial, like it crunched it, I said, hey, back it up, pull it in this other bay. Like, let's look at it and see what's happened. He parks it, he walks up, he's got his head down and he goes, man, am I packing my tools up? And I looked at him and I said, no, I don't fire people for mistakes like that.

35:22We have insurance, mistakes happen. How can we build a process so this doesn't happen again? And I didn't raise my voice at this guy. I was, I mean, I was like, I was irritated, you know, a little bit. I was like, come on, dude. Like, you know, but I didn't let that frustration out. And it was, okay, what are the pieces of our process that led to this?

35:46Like, okay, well, we folded the driver's mirror in coming in and then we didn't fold it out. Okay. So like simple policy change. We don't fold mirrors. That's easy. Like now we can, now we can see that. 'Cause like you would've seen it had the mirror been folded out. Yeah. There was, it was, it's the last bay at the end of our building.

36:02We had some trash cans there, so he was kind of like leaning to one side. Hey, let's move that obstacle so it doesn't feel like you have to lean to one side. It's like, let's, let's put in, let's do a real, what, what can we do in like process or policy to change something so that we don't have this accident happen again and we learn from this mistake and we move on.

36:21And like, it was an expensive thing and ended up, you know, $5,000 in insurance deductible. But the amount of, I think, buy-in and loyalty that I got from my team, and it wasn't just, I mean, again, I didn't really get that from him because he never really got the buy-in, but it was everybody in the shop saw what happened and everybody in the shop saw how I responded to it.

36:43And that was like, that's buy-in that like, that's worth way more than what I spent in insurance deductible. It's so powerful, and it's, it's a lesson learned, but it's also, um, I mean, look, you never know what could have happened or what, what would happen if you, if you didn't make these adjustments. For all we know, um, you prevented way more costly mistakes from happening in, in, in the future just by implementing changes that you did, but also handling the situation the way that you did.

37:11When emotions are high, logic tends to be low. But emotional maturity is having feelings, but not letting our feelings have us. And this, and I wanna, I wanna highlight you for a second, Andrew. Like the, the fact that you were like, I know you had feelings about this. I mean, everyone did. Like everyone who was there was like, oh man, like this is like, you're probably a little irritated.

37:29But again, yeah, emotional maturity is having feelings, but not letting our feelings have us. The second thing is this, you just described an example of how you and your team exercise continuous improvement. Earlier when you talked about continuous improvement, being thorough and being consistent, those are things that defined excellence at Finley River Auto and, and Diesel. That's, that's a good example of what continuous improvement looks like because we know that knowledge without action is just information.

37:59So you are, you are now knowledgeable of the opportunities that you could change. You are one of the few people who actually do take action and make the changes. Too many of us say, oh, you know, we need to do this, we need to do that. We like, we know, we, we know what has to happen, but we don't take action. And then guess what?

38:20Same or a similar situation happens again later on or something like basically long story short is this mistakes continue to get made because nothing changes. If nothing changes, let me ask you this. One of the, uh, one of the questions I ask every guest on the podcast is what is the best advice you've ever received from a coach or a mentor? By the way, I'm just gonna say, Matt Lofton, if you're listening or watching, I'm gonna have you on next.

38:43I think I've already said that in a past episode and I just haven't reached out to you. Matt, this is, this is your sign. I'm call— I'm reaching out to you now. I need, I need Matt to jump on, jump on the show. Um, but whether it's Matt or somebody else, what is the best advice you've ever received from a coach or a mentor?

38:59That's, oh man, there's, there's so, there's so much. There's, there's so many. So many things. There's like the role of coach or mentor. There's like, there's people that like I would say are like my bit, my co— like Matt's my coach, right? Yeah. But then there's other people that have said things that had like a huge impact on me that were not like, didn't have the official title of coach.

39:23That's okay. We can do those as well. And I think we're going to take that. So I mentioned earlier that we were at, or we, me, myself, and I were at the Ignite 2026 conference. You and all of your personalities. Yes. Yes. Which is, it's a lot, my guy. But, and we were talking about this pre-show, Damon West, and I happened to have my notebook because I like, I'm, I feverishly take notes at these things and it's ridiculous.

39:54So, and I had put a, put a post on Facebook. I just, I took a picture of this page, but I've got it for everyone to see again. And not that anybody can read this, but if you can look at the squiggly lines here, what it says right here is your past does not define you. And like, I literally wrote that out 3 times because that line for me, that was the biggest piece of advice I think that I've ever received was that my past does not define me.

40:26And there's a lot more weight to that than we have time for on a podcast like this. But for those of you that know me or those of you that will eventually hear the story, I should never be where I'm at. Like, I've had, I faced some incredibly challenging, incredibly challenging things in my life to get to where I am. And choosing to let go of that past and choosing to just move forward and strive for excellence was the biggest shift that really changed my perspective, I think, on life.

41:08And not that it wasn't like I'm going down a hill and we made a complete U-turn, but it was a substantial shift from I don't deserve this. I'm just struggling to try to like survive to we're going to make this happen. We're going to be excellent. We're going to chase this and we're going to fight for this every single day. The rearview mirror is smaller than our windshield for a reason.

41:28And I'll say this, Andrew, I know you and I are still getting to know each other, but I do consider you a friend. I'm proud of you. I don't know all of what you've been through, but I know that you are doing something that requires a fine line of craziness and courageousness, if that's a word. And, um, and I'm proud of you for that, man.

41:46It's, it's, it's, um, you, you have— you're truly taking the road less traveled. And, uh, a lot of people want to do what you're doing but, um, are not yet ready to exercise faith over fear that you have. Um, the similarity between faith and fear is that they both believe in a future that hasn't happened yet. And the way that you have exercised faith over fear, um, a lot should be said about that.

42:09A lot should be celebrated about that. And I just want to say, man, keep being the coffee bean. That's a, that's a subtle hint to, uh, subtle nod to, to Damon West and, uh, and, and the work he does, dude. And, um, man, keep, keep making an impact. This is your current assignment, and your, your current assignment may not be your final assignment, but it's your current assignment.

42:27And you cannot let the size of your assignment dictate the significance of your impact. From afar, from someone who is connected with you on social media and has known you for you know, a little bit from afar for maybe a year or so, I see the impact you're making and everyone else does as well. So people in this industry already know who Andrew Clement is.

42:43People know what you're doing and how you're doing it. Keep going and keep growing, man. I'm proud of you and this is exciting to watch. Thank you. Thank you. It's, it's been a, a wild, it's been a wild journey. It's, yeah, I, this is harder. This is, this is harder than, than I ever expected that it would be, but it's also, it's also more rewarding than I, than I had hoped it would be.

43:06Yeah, like that. I love it. I love it. It's a challenge or something. There's something new and hard every single day and, and I love it. And as a subtle nod, just because I want to point this out, is I don't know if you can see on the video, but like this eyebrow here is white or is turning white. Yeah, that one's fine.

43:25And this one's like mostly white. And I'm going to chalk that one up to the stress of the job. That's, uh, that has, that did not exist before I started the shop and starting in about January. This white just like migrated through my eyebrow. So I've got one white eyebrow. We're just gonna say it's the stress of the job. This job is not for everyone.

43:44Every technician that thinks that shop owners have a money tree out back that we just go pick a couple Benjamins from when we need some cash, um, still looking for that. If you guys find it, please let me know. But it's, it's hard. It's rewarding. But the, the journey is incredible. The journey is incredible and the people that I've, I've been able to meet and connect with along the way have just been absolutely incredible.

44:06And I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here if not for the support of those, of those around me. Well, if it was easy, everybody would do it. But man, you have been called to do what you're doing. So again, um, remember that. Don't forget where you came from, but also don't forget where you're going. And you've been called to do some incredible things and you're, you're already doing it.

44:24So kudos to you again, uh, Andrew Clement. Thank you for being on the Limitless Leaders Podcast, my friend. It's been an honor to be here, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the podcast. As you know, we look to transform our leadership skills by tapping into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results. So thanks again, everyone. Have a great day.

44:42Don't forget to smile today. Tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. I'm Josh Parnell reminding you to keep leading well.