Auto Care ON AIR

Brave Moves for a Bold Life

• Auto Care Association • Season 1 • Episode 30

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We've got a treat for you as we bring together our host, Jacki Lutz, and her guests Charles Sanville, the Humble Mechanic, and Frank Leutz from Wrench Nation to the mic, sharing an inspiring perspective from the AAPEX Show. 

The auto industry isn't just about nuts and bolts; it's about human stories and shifting priorities. As Millennials and Gen Z steer the workplace towards a new era of work-life balance, learn how an "open heart policy" in leadership can transform work culture for the better. Discover anecdotes of family-first priorities, empathetic leadership, and the ongoing challenge of stress in the industry. See how embracing authenticity and bold choices are key to leading with impact, even without a title change.

Failure is not the end—it's a pit stop on the road to success. Hear from our industry's biggest influencers about their resilient journeys and how humility and overcoming fear play a crucial role in achieving greatness. From humble beginnings and using social media to build a communities, to facing critiques with grace, there's a lot to glean for entrepreneurs and auto professionals alike. 

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To learn more about the Auto Care Association visit autocare.org.

To learn more about our show and suggest future topics and guests, visit autocare.org/podcast


Speaker 1:

We give him the weird auto news segment, which is first segment. Let him flow with that.

Speaker 3:

What does it take to get into weird automotive?

Speaker 1:

news Automoblogcom. You know, then we start promoting some of our….

Speaker 3:

I found a tiger in the backseat of a used car. It's crazy, yeah, like we just covered….

Speaker 1:

What was that? I think it's Rivian that came out. Oh no, it was Lucid, air, sapphire, bulletproof, $400,000 vehicle. So we just kind of play on it and it's all live. In fact, I bet Dazon, I don't want to know the story, so we can just keep it organic yeah organic.

Speaker 4:

Welcome to Auto Care On Air, a candid podcast for a curious industry. I'm Jackie Lutz, content director at the Auto Care Association, and this is Carpool Conversations, where we collaborate on today's most relevant power skills. We're all headed in the same direction, so let's get there together. This episode was just a beautiful accident. I met Charles Sandville, or you might know him better as the YouTube star, the Humble Mechanic, who is a very well-known and trusted resource for car enthusiasts and DIYers everywhere.

Speaker 4:

I met him quite a few years ago, I want to say about five years ago. We spoke on a panel together at the SEMA show and ever since then we have, have you know, exchanged waves and nods, you know, whenever we happen to be at the same event, but this year, at Apex, he happened to walk by while we were doing our open mic sessions, so he was gracious enough to join me on one of those and I just thought what a good opportunity to get him on a full episode, since we were both at that show together. He agreed to a time slot the next day, so I literally had about 24 hours to get a second guest and also to get some thoughts around the topic for the show and Frank Lutz no relation to me who is the host of Wrench Nation, a popular podcast and video series that spotlights the automotive repair world and really the auto care industry as a whole. Him and I did Northwood University's Leadership 2.0 class together about five or six years ago too, and I happened to run into him the same day and he agreed to come on the show and we really just all three of us sat down and had a great conversation around a few different subjects, but the biggest one and the biggest theme being around living boldly.

Speaker 4:

And what a perfect episode to end 2024 and really kick off 2025. So here's an inspirational talk from two of our industry's biggest influencers about living boldly and, as you listen to this episode, be thinking about what it could mean for you, about doing that thing that keeps you up at night, that you keep thinking about doing, but haven't stepped out and tried it yet because it's unknown territory or because you're afraid of what people might think. I hope this episode inspires you to make 2025 the year that you actually tried it. Thank you for being here. Let's ride.

Speaker 3:

But, frank, I thought kids didn't want to work hard today and do a real good job. I thought they were all lazy. You know what it is. What are we picking on Gen Z now? Is that the current? I don't believe. I think it's.

Speaker 1:

Madison Avenue schtick for us to sort of believe that we're all segmented. Yeah, there's some nuanced differences, but big time in the garage because we mentor. A lot of these kids come out of, whether it's EVIT or whatnot, and my gig is like Pam really well, which in my world is 22 to 25 an hour, full transparency. Yeah, starting.

Speaker 3:

Starting. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 1:

Good for you, man. Like we bring on and I'm careful how I bring out numbers and I'm not trying to brag but it all comes down to a labor rate that you can design, not profit. Profit's got to be their lifestyle. That's my gig, and so in talking to a lot of other shop owners, they're in their own heads about what competition is and how they got to design Really. What it is is the core rate, which is the labor rate, so we can afford to pay folks well, and the big thing with the kids we've been doing this for at least seven years is by design. Yes, attention to detail starts with housekeeping. Literally, if you can clean a floor really well and that's attention to detail that you can do then we pair you up with a master, so it's really side by side. We're talking about throwing them into flow charts. Yeah, and, and and their, their eyes are all, but they're getting acquainted and they may be a little blinded, but they're given some of that opportunity.

Speaker 4:

I think it's so unfair to say Gen Zs don't work hard, because I don't think it's a work hard thing. I don't think a lot of them not all of them, but a lot of them aren't inspired. Like, if you're inspired to do something, you wake up in the morning and you're excited to do it and you're excited to do your role and your job up in the morning and you're excited to do it and you're excited to do your role and your job. But I don't know if it kind of feels like there's not as much direction or something or not as much push to find it.

Speaker 3:

You're also thinking like are we really expecting? I'm old enough to call someone that's 20 years old a kid. I feel like Are we expecting these kids to just have their life figured out and give them some time to let them find their passion. You know I growing up.

Speaker 3:

There were a lot of things that I liked and I thought were cool, but I promise you none of them were interesting enough to me to actually like work real hard yeah, and I'm a pretty hard-working dude, so like when I find the thing I'm all in and, to you know, pick on a whole generation for they're lazy, like I worked with plenty of older folks, people older than me that were real lazy yeah, and complained a whole bunch. It's stupid like you, you find. Give. Give them time, give them, let them find their passion, let them find what they're excited about. They also have opportunities that, when we were growing up, not only did they not exist, they weren't even thought of yet.

Speaker 3:

So, like you know, why would I go work an office job for forty five thousand dollars a year when I can make tiktoks, you know, all morning, and make a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a? Month right, I don't make that much money, let me just make sure I'm clear on my tiktok.

Speaker 1:

I think, I made, I think I made four dollars last year on uh but since you're on that, that situation, one of the things that I learned is because I was doing the exact opposite.

Speaker 1:

It was like, okay, we're building this tribe, they need to conform and we're going to give that a timeline within 30 days, let's say, right, here's our policies and procedures, here's the 50-page book, this is where you're going to test drive. Check engine lights with no symptoms, check engine lights with, like we're really dialed in deep to processes when we forget that this is a human being in front of us which, in all reality, like you said, like we don't know what we want when we're young, right, I mean we show up, right. But the fact is I think as an industry, we're bringing a timeline when we should allow that individual to flourish and sort of guide that now you do have some rudiments, like for us and I think with a lot of the industry we're really big on do your best to show up on time. Like, just show up, even if you show up half baked, show up, because we'll get you baking right. Good mask.

Speaker 3:

That's not what I thought you meant by that. By the way, same I mean.

Speaker 1:

you know just show up Because I think I don't know. I may be stretching a little bit here, but I think the phenomenon of social media is sort of this attention in a screen, and I think the argument with some of the older generations is that all these kids don't want to do anything, but they're getting messages a different way.

Speaker 3:

They just don't want to do the way they did.

Speaker 2:

It right, the young kids don't want to do it the same way and they shouldn't, why should they?

Speaker 1:

Yeah they shouldn't.

Speaker 3:

If you had the opportunity to do something that you found way more interesting and make it a living, even if it's a temporary thing, right? If you said, hey, I'm going to go work for XYZ company so I can learn marketing, no one would bat an eye. They'd be like, hey, that's great, go put your time in, take something away, make some money to figure out what you want to do. But when we shift that to something that traditionally isn't normal, then it's all of a sudden this huge negative thing. And they don't, you know, they don't want to work hard, they don't want to. This it's so dumb like it's so absolute dumb because I guarantee you, when I was growing up, every teacher I had in high school said this guy's never going to do anything with his life, he's a loser, he's not going to make any. Oh, you're not going to college wow has potential.

Speaker 1:

Wow has potential. Yeah, meanwhile, potential like that always messed me up as a kid has potential. I'm like okay, I just worked hard.

Speaker 3:

What does that mean? It's silly so jackie, I gotta ask we've we just kind of jumped right in? Do you have a formula here that I usually do?

Speaker 4:

but I, I was just letting him so what I usually do if, like, the conversation just goes. I just pre I I just record the intro later.

Speaker 3:

Okay, I don't want to. I didn't want to continue to throw off. We veered hard left on that one.

Speaker 4:

No, it's okay. I actually thought maybe it's going to flow right into like a vulnerability or authenticity kind of conversation, because I think that the generation coming up is a little bit more comfortable with that actually than, um, you know, our generation or above. So it's kind of it'll be interesting to see what kind of leaders gen zers end up being. I think they said the same thing about millennials when they were coming up, and now they're leading and they are and it's.

Speaker 3:

You know, it's great because the millennial generation which I've I'm sort of like the top end of that or bottom end of gen X or whatever, just in my age group they're doing things very differently. Millennials kind of kick that off and then you start to see it in this Gen Z thing where it's not slave away for 50 years for the company, it's. I'm going to have a work life balance. I'm going to prioritize my family or my hobby over something that's just a job. Right, when I was growing up, your job was your whole personality. Whatever you did for your career.

Speaker 3:

It's this is so bad. Looking back on it now, whatever you did for your career, was everything for you right. So like I never learned how to play an instrument because I wasn't going to be a professional musician, so why would I bother learning that right? Like that was the mindset so wildly inappropriate, really. But millennials, like they, care about their family. They prioritize that in you know. So I have a daughter. She's nine and growing up. You never saw dads at anything. Yeah, mom did everything. Mom took you to practice. Mom, you know, unless it was baseball practice for your son, right, or whatever, dads were not existent. And now I go to these events with my daughter and like half the dads are there.

Speaker 3:

I was like man, that's so cool like I love that you know that generation of dad is so much more involved and so much more into like just the day to day stuff and it's so cool and I just think man like I would bend time and space to make sure that I was there for these important moments with her and it's cool. And I like to think that sort of translates into how millennials have sort of changed our work environment. And then Gen Z is just ratcheting that up to 100. And then the next generation, yo, they are wild.

Speaker 3:

So, it's going to be interesting to see what starts to happen when our Gen Alpha kids start entering the workforce and what their life's going to be like. It's funny.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned our L1 master we hired about a year and a half ago. He came from a big chain environment and full disclosure. Our location there's no commission, we just pay him really well. But at this location and at this point in my career I just wanted things to flow, give folks freedom to do what's right. And we got to, we got to respect the boundaries, we're on a mission and so on.

Speaker 1:

But so my L1, who's an avid shooter, like competitively goes out. I mean, it's like navy seal. They fly him into this area in the middle of nowhere and it means a lot to him. So he approached me like four months into the gig he says you know, I got a chance for sponsorship and I was wondering if I can get two four-day weekends in a row. And I I told them what are you waiting for? Go for it.

Speaker 1:

You know like we set up our operation to where, if we have a man or two or woman or two down, we can still survive. And I think we're under pressure, especially in these micro settings, and that's where things flip out. But it's getting better, because I don't know where I got this from, but I was on another podcast and I mentioned instead of open door policy, it's open heart policy that shifts mindset. So this guy shout out to patrick, he's an amazing technician, he deserves that. And and what am I going to say? He's, he's taking advantage of you know what we got? No, the guy works hard, give him that. So I think a lot of that is that way.

Speaker 1:

So if, if you do want to get into picking up an instrument like, go for it, like we want to promote that yeah, you know, I think it's I, I think it's, I think it's really more like, you know, without getting too spiritual, it's a sense of self-improvement and journey outside of what we did as as an ex or 80s rule, by the way last time was a great party.

Speaker 5:

Shout out to pronto.

Speaker 1:

They had a great party 80s thing, but my, my thing is like yes, for years I think generations were surrounded, as you said, charles, around you know you'd meet somebody. What do you do? Well, I'm uh, this, that and the other thing centered around that, instead of saying hey, well, for the most part, I'm, I'm the assistant coach on my kids. Lacrosse, yep deal you know, like so I?

Speaker 1:

I think it's a cool transition, but some of us are still stuck and it creates stress. In fact, uh, shout out to andy biza, he owns a few european auto shop. Uh, automotive shops they are starting to finally tap into our industry as being unhealthy. And you guys know my story hiking, swimming, I had quintuple heart bypass. What's up with that? Like, why is that? Was that stress? My father in Italy was like oh, that's DNA, it happened to me. But my point is like we got to keep a balance. It's DNA, it happened to me.

Speaker 1:

But my point is like we got to keep a balance and it's, I think it is up to not just leadership like it can start from the bottom up. Absolutely. There's no reason why a general service entry level tech can't influence a meeting.

Speaker 3:

Let him start it. They definitely do and they definitely should right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Like we have, this kind of overall vision of leadership is top down and and yes, in a lot of ways it is right, in a lot of ways it has to be, but there's nothing stopping you from hiring an all star employee and giving them the opportunity to lead a meeting or develop, help develop a process. So I I've told my dealership story 100 million times, but I started at a dealership with zero automotive experience. I went to tech school. I trained with Volkswagen for I don't know 11 weeks or so, but I had never been paid one cent to turn a wrench or do anything on a car and nobody in my family was technician mechanics. So, um, blue collar, so like I still had some other skill sets that applied. But, um, we packed up everything and moved to a state we had never been to to do a job I had never done in a place that I didn't know I would like. Is was my wife and I, but I was 23 or 24 or whatever. So it's the time to do it Right.

Speaker 3:

Very quickly, I found myself in a leadership role that, to be honest, I probably didn't have much business being in that role, but people were looking to me for guidance. Y'all been doing this way longer than me. Why are you looking to me? But anyway, I had. I had a great dealership experience and I had an amazing boss, an amazing group of mentors when I was coming up. But my boss now got moved to another store huge promotion, like three times the size of the shop we worked at, and he and I were always lockstep with what we needed for the shop.

Speaker 3:

Right, it used to be. We could contact the Volkswagen training program and hire technicians that already had all the training. They knew the scan tool, they knew the repair manual. They took that away. So we're sitting down, we're talking, we're like we have to develop something, something to get these young technicians just going. So we developed this really cool training program. The company as a whole completely ripped it off and took credit for it and which I don't care, that's not, that's fine, but I'm only a tiny bit salty about it but then squandered it like and just completely let it go in standard, like.

Speaker 1:

So they bastardize a program that was legit.

Speaker 3:

That you, you had influence and started.

Speaker 1:

I got to ask because you that's powerful right there why do you think that that took place? I mean, did you have leadership that wanted to take credit and they just took place?

Speaker 3:

I mean, did you have leadership that wanted to take credit and they just so. Yes, that's part of it. You also had leadership that existed outside of the buildings. So this is a dealer group with like 35 dealers and overall they're great. So I'm not trying to like trash on them or anything, but you have people in these roles that they're in the ivory tower so to say, um, so they're not there day to day. They're not in the trenches, nothing.

Speaker 3:

I would say that they probably hadn't spoken to a technician in a dealership maybe three times a year would be their role.

Speaker 3:

So I think they wanted to take credit for it. And that's only a small part of it. I think the actual thing is you can't have these programs be successful without genuine, true buy-in. And when you're handed a book and someone tells you do this, trust us, bro, getting that buy-in is really hard. Getting that buy-in is really hard.

Speaker 3:

And so for us, this was a passion project for my boss and I because, like one, we needed this for the building. But two, he and I are both of the mindset of like this is important. This is important beyond being successful in our building, this is creating upstanding young citizens, not only for our store, not only for our company, not only for our industry, but, like out in the world. Right, you want your employees to go on to do good things, but he now, you know, in this other role at a bigger shop, has started monthly meetings with his new technicians, and there's like 20 techs in this meeting, because it's like a 50 bay shop. It's enormous. I don't know how he manages it, um, but it's been really great. So I sort of invited myself into being um a part of these.

Speaker 3:

And our next one, which is in like a week or two. We're going to have one of the young guys lead the meeting. We had some of the senior technicians start to lead the meeting. We had some of the senior technicians start to lead the meeting. Now we're going to have just like a segment right Five minutes talk about something. What's it going to be? I don't know, we'll figure that out when it's time to figure out. But this is how we get the junior technicians and the junior people in our building up to those high-level leadership roles in steps. Right, you don't have to get a promotion to be a leader in anywhere, right? We all can lead in different ways, and it might be something really simple like I'm gonna make sure I do X, y, z job 10% better than I did yesterday and that influences the guy next to me, the girl next to me over here, and then that spreads out throughout the shop or it can be something like that's powerful.

Speaker 3:

Really, really genuine and big.

Speaker 1:

I started with my father-in-law back in 1990. So my story it's very similar. I was military, just a nut job musician. And I always say and I joke around, I think you heard this, jackie Charles, you probably heard this If it wasn't for my wife, I'd be a broke trombone player in Cuba.

Speaker 1:

But my point is, when I got out of the military, just sort of pissing in the wind, my wife's like my dad is going to open up. He had shops in California and then he left California, came out to Arizona. She's like we go to arizona and my, my dad's got an automotive shop and you can work, work for him. I'm like I don't want to get my nails dirty, but fast forward. I did make the connection, uh, to arizona. California was just way too expensive. But I worked for and, and they're no longer around, they were bought up by auto nation.

Speaker 1:

But lugrab, chevrolet, and lugrab, he was a working man's man. He would come down into the pit how you doing, he'd roll up his sleeves and that meant a lot to me and actually mentored me. I didn't even know it at the time. Isn't that funny how that works. Like later in life it comes back and say, wow, I took away so much from that and I think that's key. So, like you mentioned, the youngsters coming up or, you know, adults retraining we have a lot of that who are new to the industry. They need voice and even if that voice is a little awkward, you're giving them a position in the whole deal. Why don't we do that? Teams do it. You do need a coach, you do need leadership, you do need a playbook.

Speaker 4:

But involving people. We didn't have that in our generation. Like you hear this, like you want to follow and you choose to follow people who kind of have been there, who know what you're going through, who have, and it's more inspiring to be led by somebody who's been in the trenches to themselves and that you know has had to do hard things and conquer hard things, just like you're doing every single day, and it's almost like them showing you that it can be done. Yep, so you know. Just to get onto a topic, one thing that I do admire about both of you is something along the lines of authenticity. You both put yourselves out there quite a bit. I love how you guys, you know, can be yourselves so much and be able to protrude that and not not um put on a mask or anything to. You know when you push, when you push record, um, frank, I love when you bring out your trombone because it helps tell your story.

Speaker 1:

On that point, there's a phenomenon and, charles, you probably had this early on and it still can happen. This is why actors and actresses get paid buku money to portray a role that's sellable to their audience. We self-monitor. So when I talk to other shop owners, you know it's just sort of this general tell the story. Okay, great, you know, whatever the car is broken, the toilet needs to be fixed. John didn't come in because his cat gave birth to 12 kitties or whatever.

Speaker 3:

I mean to be fair. That's a good reason. That's a good reason. 12 kitties, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But the thing is, we know this, but there's a phenomenon and I would like to just tell everyone listening and watching, we self-monitor the minute we start doing this and we we kind of get out of this whole me thing, and I struggled with it and you know, in radio howard stern back in the day, and I think everybody's familiar with the story, it's goosing welcome to the show.

Speaker 1:

It's like, okay, who is this guy or gal? But our, our authentic selves, really is the vulnerable side. It's tough. We talk like it's easy peasy, just in a comfortable setting, but it's not like we're living to do a video in a working environment. We're not thinking about that. It happens and so what I would say to people is just press the damn button. Like just do it and that's vulnerable. And here's another thing and I think you can identify for sure, Like there's this, another phenomenon we seek praise the likes, the volume.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that dopamine addiction is 100%, very, very real and real and it's, you know, kind of going back to talking about kids a little bit, it's something I'm actually genuinely concerned about for this generation alpha that they're even, you know, gen z or whatever, like chasing that it's dangerous, it's a dangerous, it's a dangerous game, but um we took my listen, my, my youngest.

Speaker 1:

We didn't have this opportunity with my oldest, who's a school teacher now master's degree in teaching. She came up with the blitzkrieg of social media and, like his parents, when this thing first came around, we like, ok, this seems pretty cool, she's with her friends and all this kind of stuff. My youngest, who's going to be 16 in january, we're going through therapy and the therapist said you can't take I wanted to take her off social media yeah, just really limited. It's a terrible place for teenage girls, honestly. And the therapist said oh no, you can't do that. She's gonna need this and that and medicine. And we did it and for like first 60 days she was, she was skitzing a little bit, but now she says dad, I don't know what to do. I'm at lunch and all the girls she's all girls school, all the girls are on snapchat. I said, honey, don't worry. Later on in life you reflect. But that's the gig. Like they're inundated. They're inundated with information and it is this injection and it's not all real too and it's so.

Speaker 1:

We're not even talking about the scandalous yeah, scumbag, excuse my my french, um that are praying nicer than any I'm serious, like any parent out there, um having a girl or boy. Um, it's a funky place, and so I don't know. I just read one of the countries in Europe I forget which country, oh wait, I think it's Australia. Mandated 16 and under no social Now we're a little different.

Speaker 1:

We have our freedoms and that we can handle that a little, but yeah, it's so I'm sure, on the journey going back to where we want to tell our stories and be as transparent and just as our authentic selves, you then start chasing the likes, then you start chasing algorithms, then you start chasing views and comments, and are we then segwaying from authentic self to kind of getting into what we're tailoring ourselves and what everyone's saying? And I know you're big, I mean, your channel is just awesome and thank you, you're doing real and raw Appreciate that, yeah, I mean for me a couple of things.

Speaker 3:

One, the just hit the record button, is something I really struggled with Right. So before I started doing videos, I didn't know how to work a video camera. I didn't know how to edit anything at all. Like it's hilarious, I learned how to edit YouTube videos by watching YouTube videos.

Speaker 4:

I learned how to edit YouTube videos. Is there another way? I? Don't know, maybe you could go to film school.

Speaker 3:

I guess, but I'm definitely not there. But it took me three years of like trying to figure out this content world before I ever felt brave enough to just hit record and talk to the little box. And it was no joke, it was one day. It's like, dude, you've been thinking about this a long time. You either need to do it or just park it and forget about it because this, maybe I'll do it, maybe I'll do it. It doesn't work. But the cool thing is this is why I try to also encourage everyone like, just do it here's.

Speaker 3:

Here's some facts that I know for ninety, nine and a half percent of people.

Speaker 3:

When you first do it, you're going to be terrible, you're going to be real bad and you know, so bad that you're going to look back one day, likely, and go, yeah, oh yeah, like I say this with my full chest and full experience of doing that exact thing.

Speaker 3:

But the really cool thing is is that when you start and you are really bad, no one's watching, no one cares, and if they do, it says more about them than it does about you, right? But for me, being my authentic self, it was easy because I didn't know what else to do, right, and I always felt like it was. I never wanted someone to meet me in person and go oh man, this dude's not at all who I thought he was right. Like maybe you would say, oh man, you're a lot shorter than I thought you would be. And like, you've seen 10 videos of me standing next to a car I don't know how that confused, but whatever, like that's cool. You know, one of one of the, in my opinion, nicest things someone can say to me is that, man, it was really cool to meet you.

Speaker 3:

You are exactly the person that you seem like in a in a video and it just seems it's like when you don't tell a lie you don't have to worry about like, did I tell the lie? Right the second time and if the authentic you isn't for someone else, that's okay.

Speaker 3:

You don't have to be the end all be all for everyone. You will have people, and I get it too Like some people just don't like me and I think that's great it's. Maybe I look stupid, maybe my voice is whiny and nasally, like that's all fine, if I'm not for you, that's cool.

Speaker 4:

I hope you find what you're looking for elsewhere then and like I'm not mad about I always tell people like it's exhaust, like if you can't, if you find it difficult to be yourself, and you start kind of like masking. You know, when you put things on, that's when it becomes exhausting, because you're constantly, you're trying harder let me ask you on that.

Speaker 1:

You think it's because sometimes, like I want to get in the weeds if we could, because we're talking to folks that are just getting on their journey and maybe they said you know, I'm putting this down, I've been at it for two weeks, based upon likes and views. That's a terrible thing, but because they're not getting it, it's a lonely place. In the beginning, what do you think charles would be? Like you're going back and it still happens today for sure. Well, we just don't like our stuff. Something happened. Like we're still confident. We want to get the message out because I think, at the root of it, you're an educator. You really are, and you're bringing color to that. But what would you say to somebody before they put it down and and and and I can and I can't do this. It's not for me. How did you overcome sort of those failures and moments? What made you come back?

Speaker 3:

I knew. I knew that I would find some level of. I knew that I could deliver it in a way that, again, not everybody would love but like would be somewhat interesting or entertaining to watch. And while there's been bad days or like, something happens and you're like, oh gosh, am I in the right path at all? Stopping doing it was never like on my radar, right so it wasn't work.

Speaker 1:

It was like you really just you enjoyed you it was. Doesn't it start that way? Like, oh, it was work.

Speaker 3:

Like when I was, when I first started dude, I was working like like 100 plus hours a week because I had my full time job. I had to hit the clock every day and go into the dealership and, you know, do a good job there, and then I would come home and hang out with my family for you know the three hours or whatever, you know five to eight or whatever and then go back to work in my second job, and so it just never crossed my mind to quit, because I knew that I would find success and I knew, probably more importantly, that the message that I was conveying whether it be in a DIY video or an industry related video or whatever, uh, was important. And that came to me very clearly when, so, so, like the second video I ever did, this was like 150 000 years ago. Um, it was before you could just jump on amazon and get a tripod adapter for a phone.

Speaker 3:

Um, so we had a 2005 passat wagon and the jack that comes in. Those vintage volkswagens, uh, that vintage, vintage of Volkswagen. Not, it's a vintage Volkswagen, it's real weird.

Speaker 1:

You said 05 vintage.

Speaker 3:

Well, that's 20 years ago, brother.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I hear you. That's a future classic right.

Speaker 3:

But it's really a weird style of jack and a lot of people really hate it and I'd used it a bunch of times and I'd never had a problem with it. But I'd also witnessed cars coming off of that jack in a very scary, dangerous way and like crushing the rocker was the least problem you know potential problem. So I did this video on how to use it and it was my wife holding my iPhone sitting on top of a tripod iPhone 3GS sitting on top of a tripod iPhone three GS sitting on top of a tripod, no microphone, yelling, trying to get this video done it by any modern standard of video. It's horrible and I I made it.

Speaker 3:

I didn't know how to edit, so I just posted it on YouTube and man, it was, I don't know. A month, a week, two weeks, two months later I get an email and it's like thank you, because without that video I would not have been able to change my tire on the side of the road. You really bailed me out, wow, you saved the day, and I was like, well, I like that feeling a lot Give me more of that, please.

Speaker 3:

Right, that was always like my driving force at the dealership and why I would work so hard and try to do such a good job for customers because I wanted to be that hero, right? Super selfish ego stroke on my part. It always worked out really good that someone else benefited too, but it was really selfish on my part.

Speaker 4:

How did you come up with the name Humble Mechanic?

Speaker 3:

Oh, it's not as nearly as exciting as I wish it was. So I had mentioned before I had a really great dealership experience and some really great mentors. Um, on my journey as a technician, and, uh, my first team leader and mentor his name was Robert, really smart guy like way smart guy, kind of a grumpy old man at the time, but he and I like we got along like I worked really hard and he did what he could to help me. So we're just chit chatting one day and he's like look man, I don't know, six months in or so as a tech, he's like you're going to grow up to be a good technician one day and and that comes along with some things it's like OK, he's like it's going to come along with a lot of people looking at you and feeling a certain way about you.

Speaker 3:

Some of that might be jealousy, some of that might be anger, but they're going to look and see what you're doing and be upset about it. Right, for one reason or another I'm sure jealousy was probably the word he used and he's like you're going to have to figure out how to manage that. I'm like well, I've kind of been in that situation so I think I can handle that it's like. The other thing is you're going to be a really good tech and you're going to get a big ego about your skills as a technician and all about that time where your full big head walking in the room ego is at its height. You're going to get a car and it's going to serve you the biggest piece of humble pie you could ever possibly imagine and was like yeah, whatever old man, say more nice things about me. And so, as if it were prophesied by the gods, two weeks later torag gets towed in.

Speaker 3:

This was 2005, uh, maybe four, 2004 or five. Uh, torag gets towed in with a dead battery at the time. Super common, slap a battery in it, ship it. Two days later gets towed in with a dead battery at the time. Super common, slap a battery in it, ship it. Two days later gets towed in with the battery dead again. I worked on that, tori, for two weeks before I finally figured out what was wrong with it, because it was you know, intermittent can bus failure of bring the bus down.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes you could drive it with the alarm going off, which everyone told me was impossible to do, and I'm like I'm doing it right now, I don't know, uh, not supposed to happen? Yes, impossible, no, Um, and not only do I remember that car as if it were like last week, but I just remember him telling me that, like the time you're, you're most confident is the time where you are going to get the biggest tests, and that really will humble you. And so you are going to get the biggest tests, and that really will humble you. And so, um, yeah, that's pretty much the long.

Speaker 4:

I wish it was a cool story. No, I think it's a. I think it's a great story, yeah, and I think that's something that I lean into. You know, when I do content on social medias, you know, even doing, doing this podcast I'm I like the idea of people being on this journey with me and I like people knowing that I didn't know anything about podcasts when we started, you know, and that I'm actually learning how to do all this stuff and really build the plane while we fly, and it's kind of a fun story.

Speaker 4:

It's fun to watch and I think it gives you a little bit more um freedom to like when you make mistakes, people are like they're with you through it it's not like oh yeah, she totally thought you she was the shit and didn't make any mistakes, and then she did. You know, it's just not a big deal when Jackie makes mistakes, because I try to be pretty honest about that.

Speaker 5:

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Speaker 3:

I wish that people didn't have this fear and dread about making mistakes, like as a technician, you know it's so, so funny, like how much of my life has kind of reverted back to that world. Maybe I sort of was meant for that world, all you know, growing up or whatever. But you're going to make mistakes, right, it's going to happen. And I've just seen like the fear and dread and the paralysis that the fear of making a mistake gives to people.

Speaker 3:

Now look we got to, we got to calibrate our mistakes right. Like leaving a wheel loose and risking someone's life is not an acceptable mistake. But we would see it a lot in in me trying to help guys diagnose a car right. So they would be working on the car, you know, in a 10 bay shop. You, you see what's happening. You see when a car's been in a bay for two days and it's like why is that car still there? So you see these guys working on these cars and going through the motions of trying to diagnose it and I would walk over and try and get the gist of what was happening and I'd be like, well, did you I don't know like remove the fender liner and look? And it would you know. The answer would be no. I'm like, well, why not? Well, what if it's not that problem? What if there's nothing there? And in my mind I'm like, cool, I, I checked off something. That's not a problem. But they were so scared to do three minutes of work because it might not give them the answer right, and and I I would just see it all the time they would be so scared to make a mistake or get something wrong that they ended up costing themselves days of work Meanwhile. For me, I'm like I don't know, I might be right, I might be wrong, but in seven minutes I can have the answer of it's that or it's something else. Why wouldn't I take that path Right? And so to be bold and to just go out there with caution, but also some level of fear fearlessness is such a valuable trait, like I equate it to working on cars, but it's also things that I've always done in my life. Right Before I went to tech school, I sold everything I owned, minus like some clothes on my back.

Speaker 3:

Right, I didn't have a car for six months or so. Sold everything because I didn't have any money to go to tech school. Did I know tech school was going to be the right move for me? Nope, but you know how I figured out. I signed up and I paid a bunch of money and I went.

Speaker 3:

And it turned out to be great. I signed up and I paid a bunch of money and I went yeah, and it turned out to be great. The same thing happened when we up and moved to North Carolina. Never, never been to the state before I first time I was in the state of North Carolina is when I flew down for my job interview. And so it was just this bold, semi fearless like stressful in that, but semi fearless choice to move somewhere I'd never been to do a job, I'd never done on a complete gamble. But what I also always knew is that, no matter what happened, I'd figure it out. If working on cars wasn't for me there's other roles in the industry and there's other stuff to do I would find a job.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, you kind of think about what's the worst that can happen. I say that a lot because people stop me all the time and say they want to do more on social or something like that, but they're just very timid to do so specifically on LinkedIn.

Speaker 3:

LinkedIn is such a unique thing that seems the wildest one.

Speaker 4:

To me it's the least judgmental, yeah well yeah, it is because people try to be professional somewhat, but I always just say, like what is the worst that can happen? Somebody's gonna you know you're not, your life is not in danger. No, you're not gonna put anything out there that's gonna ruin your job you could take it down if yeah, you can take it down and, and, and, frankly, the worst that can happen is is somebody won't like it and they'll, you know, make fun of you for trying yeah, something new, and that also says more about them exactly yeah, so yeah, I totally agree with that.

Speaker 4:

I also think picking, like starting over and selling everything you own at least once in your life, is such a a good experience. I did the same thing once um sold everything I owned and uh moved to the uk no kidding, yeah, and um, it was wild coming back and having to live with my parents again. It was not fun, but you having those bold, the practice of being bold, it's almost like a habit that is a good one to form good experiences.

Speaker 3:

Totally agree. And the same thing happened when I left the dealership. You know you tell someone the story of how you had this really great dealership job and you made a lot of money. And I was the shop foreman. So I wasn't working flat rate. I could essentially come and go as I pleased If I wasn't in the building as long as it wasn't on fire then reason anyway, things were great. So I had that made. I had three weeks paid vacation. I had options with 401k, I got all the training I could ever ask for. I had a one-year-old daughter at the time, my wife's stay-at-home mom.

Speaker 3:

So like when you tell people that was your life and then you tell them the follow-up thing is I'm gonna leave that to go screw off on the internet all day, like it can't compute for people. And meanwhile I'm thinking like there's there's fear to have there and like the first week was a little unnerving, but the flip side of it is one. What's the worst that could happen? Right, the worst that could happen was I can go back to fixing cars again, no problem, uh, but actually the way I thought about it was, the worst that actually could happen is I don't do anything and I use these things as excuses as to why I have a really cool job that I like. Why would I give that up? I have a one-year-old daughter. Why would I risk everything with a one-year-old kid and it? But to me it's like how can you look at your kid and say I'm going to blame you for me being scared? Yeah, like, what a terrible message.

Speaker 3:

Like you know, you're probably never going to tell the kid that, but it's in your head.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so to me there was no choice. To me there was like we're going to do this, we're going to figure it out, and if you fail there, there's a billion opportunities in this universe that you can capitalize on and go be successful somewhere else.

Speaker 1:

You think, as we get older, we take less risk because we know too much.

Speaker 3:

I think a lot of people do, but I also think a lot of those people weren't going to take the risk anyway, regardless of age.

Speaker 1:

Personality.

Speaker 3:

I think it's a lot of who you are Now. Look, I'm very risk averse in a lot of other places, a lot of other places. Right, I'm not getting on my roof and cleaning my gutters.

Speaker 1:

You're not day trading.

Speaker 3:

I'm not day trading, you're not doing currencies at night no, no night. No, no, no, no, no. So I'm I'm very risk averse in a lot of other ways, but to me, there's situations that come up in your life that you need to make a choice, and for me those choices are snap. That's the amount of time to think about it. Right, the planning around it and and the strategy around it is a little bit different, but the choice to pack up and move to another state was literally not a choice. It was just this is what we're going to do that amount of time behind thinking about it, leaving the dealership. I knew it was going to happen at some point, but it was.

Speaker 3:

I was waiting to get our tax return. That day I saw our tax return I didn't know a bunch of more money to the government, and so I text my wife. I was like, hey, I'm putting my notice in today. She's like, okay, I went and talked to my boss. Hey, I'm putting in. I gave like six weeks just so I could make sure the handoff was good. Talked to my boss that day and then that was it. I was just waiting for that one thing to happen and boom, I'm done. Um it was cool.

Speaker 3:

I recommend just gosh, just do it, just quit talking about it, just do it, just hit the record button I feel like, I don't know, like I don't like.

Speaker 4:

Do you feel like, as you've gotten older, you take less risk? No, because I don't feel like that. That screams out of your personality tone it down like I.

Speaker 1:

I can't speak for everyone else, although I do want to go back somewhat related to what you said in the beginning. You, you do take those steps because there's something in you that says this is just naturally. A lot of times we don't know, we just our gut, which I'm a firm believer in gut, is huge. Um, analysis, paralysis is huge. But for me, as an entertainer like I just stumbled on this automotive thing right when you talk about the beginning, when I left the dealership it was taken over a big auto group. I told my wife this as well. I'm done.

Speaker 1:

It was five years as a wrench, you know, learning and stuff in the dealership gave me a lot of like rudiments on the way to journeyman and things like that, with some really good technical training. And I'm like man, this is not meant to be, if it wasn't for my wife, who's a peddler, when I say peddler, bloodline of small business and just peddling, sell flowers, whatever it is, sell it, make a profit, have fun doing it. Kudos to my wife. She's Lebanese and I'm not just pigeoning one culture, but man, they peddle. Going back to the ancient bazaars and she said you know, we got about $6,000. She did. I didn't have a pot to piss in. She said let's do this on our own.

Speaker 1:

And what I would say to a lot of those that are like we hear a lot of technicians, they want to go out on their own. Don't sacrifice your family. I did. I missed the first five years of my daughter's life. I'm this shop owner little two bay operation, lots of cars going broke, no procedures, no business mindset, no marketability, no brand, no understanding of cashflow. A lot of things. Couldn't afford to hire the right people because your business model is they're 75.

Speaker 5:

Let's check, they're 85.

Speaker 1:

I'll be 65 because that sounds good.

Speaker 1:

An hour. You can't even afford to show up for that, let alone so going back to like in the journey of why we start what we start, we don't have to bleed and sacrifice. I did the hundred-hour weeks and I promised myself as a father, like when I was, I can speak for myself. When I was in my 20s I was like no, I got to be a provider. A provider is a man. That means I'm bringing home whatever little bread I can do, but I don't need to show up to all the things that really matter to my child. I get teary-eyed a little bit on it and I promised myself I would do that to my youngest. My oldest, she's forgiving my youngest. We're spending a lot of that time.

Speaker 1:

I fear for many that want to go out and whatever solopreneur entrepreneur that they bleed too much in whatever solopreneur entrepreneur that they they bleed too much and then you end up chasing maybe a likes, maybe a views, maybe an injection the money we equate to what our life is about based upon what's in our bank account. Yeah, I did that. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I just for me the messaging. Like we do a Ranch Nation show, it's a lifestyle show, it's not a how-to. Once in a while we'll cover it, but I just want to be able to pass on not just my experience but many other great operators that have went through the same. There's really no playbook. Like coaching is a big deal, like you need some rudiments.

Speaker 1:

When I found out standard automotive accounting is different than, or automotive accounting is different on a P and L than a standard, or cost of goods are a little bit different right now we, how we allocate that and learning you know these budget lines to, to really get into the rudiments of a good playbook so that we can survive. Think you, you get into business because we're gonna make money or, in your case, I'm gonna get lots of views and I'm gonna get some good paychecks. No, man, we're doing it because we individually want to help people at the rudiment. That's what it's about. And and that to me is the vulnerability, because a lot of times, man, that video, it didn't help anybody, it seemed.

Speaker 5:

because I'm not getting that response.

Speaker 1:

But your gut says yeah, this is my journey, to do it for that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we try to make sure we're calibrated on the video note. We're calibrated in the right way, right, like you put a video out and it's a home run. 200,000 views in the first day Great, this is a successful video. And then you just slowly watch the views trickle down Cool for the first day, not great long-term. But then you put out a video and and this is hard it's a hard thing to do when you're kind of chasing that that world right.

Speaker 3:

You put out a video and you know in your heart's a good video that's helpful and that it will help a group of people and it, in numbers terms, is a flop. I've become really okay with that because I know that video wasn't meant to do that. I knew that In my heart. I knew it would never be a million view video or whatever. Sometimes you get a surprise and that's always fun. View video or whatever. Sometimes you get a surprise and that's always fun. But what I? I knew it wouldn't be a super successful video at scale. But I know that the people that watch that video, the people that that content was meant for, will take something away from that and to me that's just as valuable, if not more. It doesn't pay as well, so maybe not more.

Speaker 1:

But but there's still value in that a jack that's going to kill somebody on an 05 VW. You're just putting it out there. Like I guess for you as a, as a business, you probably are studying what works every day and like that first video that gets whatever soft views, but then all of a sudden it picks up steam and you're like how did that happen? Like you do have to study some of that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and sometimes you can point to that and sometimes you can't. We had a video, I don't know, it was like four or five months ago and it was a series that we had done January of 23, february 23, something like that, and for some reason I started getting comments on this video. It's a video on a Mustang, of all things, so way outside of my normal, you know european auto orbit, but then for like two months, this was my most viewed video on the channel and I I never could find out why or where. You know it probably got shared somebody making fun of me because I don't know how to work on a mustang, which is fine. I will gladly wear that t-shirt all day long. Um, so, yes, sometimes you can find out, and then you get a curveball every once in a while. I was like where the hell did this come from? Uh, but I'm thankful either way.

Speaker 4:

Like I love that. It's cool to see the video. I just love the topic of living boldly and I'm wondering, like when you guys in your life, in your careers because you're both very successful doing something that a lot of people would be very intimidated by you know, um, so how do you handle, you know, people who like criticize you, criticize your work?

Speaker 3:

That's a that's a good thing and that's the thing a lot of people do worry about. I think understanding that when someone says something negative about something you did and it's not accurate, right, like a good comment that would be negative that I would actually take to heart is hey, the audio in this section of your video is terrible, right, that's a tangible thing that I know. Oh, I made a mistake where, like, we missed three frames of an edit and there's a black flash midway through the video, right, all things that have happened, and so I like comments like that because it's meant in a way to help.

Speaker 3:

And they're right, they're 100% right, so easy. That's kind of a mechanical thing. Then there's comments that is like you suck, you don't know what you're talking about. It's like I do suck at a lot of things, so fair.

Speaker 3:

But I try to really understand that the person that is saying that one is seeing a snapshot of you in a moment of time, not you. So that snapshot in that moment of time is part of you, but that's not you, and so it makes it really easy to shed that negativity. The other thing is is like what is the mindset and the state of mind of someone that is so out there to make that comment right? And the more negative the comment is, or the derogatory the comment is, the easier it is for me to be like I don't know what's wrong with this person, but man, they are, they're in a bad spot, and so I try to be really empathetic to that, like maybe this person's having a bad day and you know what Firing that comment off to me is is the thing they needed to do to make themselves feel better.

Speaker 3:

I don't mind, like I surely don't want to be everybody's punching bag, but it's just like when somebody is driving dumb in traffic like I get. I'm really bad about this. So take this with a grain of salt. You know someone's driving like a lunatic in traffic and you're like what's wrong with this idiot? Well, maybe their kids in the hospital and they're trying to get there. Maybe their wife served them with divorce papers this morning and they got fired from their job last week. And if we could just like take a step back and understand like people are going through it and just like you're having, you have your bad days. Everybody else does too. It makes dealing with that kind of stuff really easy, and every once in a while I'll challenge someone on something and usually they don't reply, but sometimes I'll get a response of like you know what? Man, I'm sorry, that really was a terrible thing to write and I was just having a bad day and it's like it's cool with me. Dude, I'm glad you're feeling better. Like I didn't really want to be your.

Speaker 1:

You know it's funny how you bag, but you get this whole ecosystem, especially like probably the older videos like man. I'm seeing an uptick in comments and it's just sort of this whole ecosystem of you. Didn't plan on that but for me, whether it is automotive, you know, service provider or wrench nation, like the last last 10 years is if you can be vulnerable and make your audience the hero, it makes it easier, for me at least, even in those hero moments where someone is just fractured in life and they decide at that time something you did didn't agree with them.

Speaker 1:

That's how I feel Like I think there should be a sense of your audience is the hero and we're just funneling, we're singing in the shower. Charles, you can't tell me. There's days where you're like man, I'm feeling flat on content, but I'm going to sing this song anyway, because it is what it is, even at your level, I think that stays with you and forget about the digital realm or producing up, tell a story, that sort of thing.

Speaker 1:

But I think in a workplace environment it's the same thing, like how can we allow the function of our team and everyone in it to all be heroes? I think that's the start of vulnerability, because we're not. Yeah, we need rudiments. Is you know this? This individual's got 20 years mastered with whatever multipoint injection probably a bad example or can can's a big deal. A lot of technicians can't hang with networks and such and there has to be some rudiments. But if you can allow your audience, the people that work on your team, to be the hero and not just pound chest, for me that helps because I get a lot of hate and I don't pay mind to it. Now we just add to that every day is a new day. Like we have to be able to flush what happened yesterday. It's not easy, especially when it gets personal, you know.

Speaker 4:

I have like in my career. I mean, I'm trying to think of like how this is applicable when people don't have dreams of doing content. It's kind of stuff. But I know like I can think of a moment in my career when I wanted to do I had kind of a bold idea for a company that I was working for and I knew it would be accepted by 50% of the people and the other 50% of the people were immediately going to say no and they probably weren't going to listen to my explanation at all, and I really tried to bring people along on the journey before I even pitched this idea right.

Speaker 1:

So like I went to alliances, yeah, kind of like it's almost natural.

Speaker 4:

It's almost politics, you know just like you know, you know, getting people to like you know one-on-one and being like I'm thinking about this idea, what do you think about this idea, and make them feel like they're part of the answer in my head that I feel like is right, um, so that they're kind of have buy-in at that point and I think it. Um, that's what helped me get that idea across to people, because after I was done pitching that idea, you know people leave and then they kind of talk to each other and whatever. And I already had people that understood what we wanted to do, understood why they were kind of part of it. So when I was up there, they're kind of like they saw some of the advice that they gave me and you know, I let them be a part of this. And you know, in, you know, even in your guys' sense, you bring on, you bring your audience in on the journey with you. They feel like they're a part of it. It's more of an emotional connection versus just, you know, something more surface level.

Speaker 1:

So I believe risk managing creative and sort of content building. I hate those content building. Just being and also having to risk manage is almost this. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think it's human nature that we want buy-in confirmation, but we can be biased. I think at the end of the day there's still going to be a lonely road. If it's gut, there has to be some strategy. But you just lean into it and I get it. I'm not from the corporate realm and I get it so damn independent, unicorn-like in many ways. But I think you as well if you're pushing boundaries, I guess in a corporate structure you'd have to have that buy-in because there's leadership and so on.

Speaker 1:

I don't know what that world looks like and I think for me personally, I think some of that comes as a musician. I went from Hebrew school, the arts, sight singing theory, fame school, branford, marcellus, tito, puente, disney, gillespie, carnegie hall, avery, fisher, alice tully, playing with all these musicians. And one thing that was common is, especially in the jazz realm, outside of classical, classical you play what's written, do not deny the composer. To me that could be a bit of the corporate world where that improv, improvisational mindset. I studied with a guy by the name of steve toure.

Speaker 1:

Um, his gig was he was on sat night live. That was his main gig and then he taught a lot manhattan school of music and on. But he taught me to forget that and improvise and so as a young musician it was important and when I floundered on this, remember classically trained says follow the notes, this is what you got to honor. That just gave me a whole level of independence and I can't even even explain it, but I think as creatives you go there. There's a certain level of like improvisation and freedom to just get it out.

Speaker 4:

So basically you look at rules as suggestions.

Speaker 1:

Maybe so it has to it has to be honored, but it's not. It's not the color, it's not the color of an individual. Um, and again, I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about in a corporate setting, because officially I've not been my life has always been independent, earning food every day, starting from zero.

Speaker 1:

It's a it's, and many listening and catching this can identify, but how do you do that in a corporate world but still maintain the mission at hand? I don't know. I just know what I know and I equate it to classically trained yeah. So back to you, though. Did you sell that?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I did, and everybody loved it.

Speaker 1:

What did you do about those naysayers?

Speaker 4:

They didn't. I didn't really have a lot of naysayers.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

I mean, there was people that were questioning, so what I'm?

Speaker 3:

hearing, though, is that a lot of that negativity that you were expecting was all in your head Possibly, so you, you built that negativity. Yeah that's possible. And it wasn't really there, and I think that's a good lesson for people Like a lot of the negativity that we think might happen Maybe.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's the anxiety of future, anxiety of future, anxiety of future um, that's the other thing, like with digital social, getting all this information. We just put a video up on on linkedin about it, primarily trying to address my younger, a live audience, students and, of course, the parents about how we got to keep a balance in that digital world. I mean, you've heard it before. I just said it in my way to keep a balance, because there are a lot of kids right now that are imbalanced because of it and they're suffering in relationships and they think the relationship suffering is because of that individual. When they're really overloaded they're not getting those dopamine hits in that relationship.

Speaker 1:

And you mentioned earlier you can sort of have a worry about a legitimate worry about what's that future look like for youngsters that are coming up to blossom and bloom. But I think what you were saying is it's all in our head half the time. So that to me is like how do we get into that and overcome that without being asses or breaking out of what would be a corporate structure? There are things to abide by. That's actually I don't even have an answer. I have an answer, yeah.

Speaker 3:

There's an easy answer for it you just do it.

Speaker 1:

Just do you. That's all you can do Like that's. But can you in a?

Speaker 3:

corporate setting. Let's get into it. Well, it's sort of in the same vein of everything that happens in my life. It might not be my fault, I might not have directly done it, but you know what it is. It's my problem, and when you take ownership of things in that way, at least for me, it gives you this sense of like whatever happens, I'll be able to figure it out. So I'm not scared about things that either are actually real but I have no control over, or things that I have curated in my head that only exist there and aren't actually real, and it just makes all these things so much easier.

Speaker 3:

You can solve your own problems, because you're not waiting for your boss to do it for you, or waiting for your state senator to solve this problem for you. You have ownership of it because it's your problem, and that means you're free to actually do something about it.

Speaker 4:

I feel like what we really hit on today was, you know, living boldly. I love that, I love that topic. So if the audience, you know, really were to take one thing away today, what do you hope that is?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I would say don't be scared. Don't be scared to make mistakes, Don't be scared to make decisions that other people might look at as wildly inappropriate or unprofessional or whatever, obviously within reason. Right, you don't want to cancel yourself or anything, but most of the time these decisions that seem really bold to you and you're really, really scared of are not nearly as wild and crazy. And if there's minimal downside and a whole lot of potential upside, it's disappointing to, I think, not give yourself enough credit to be able to figure it out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm feeling like just trust your journey. I think we get on our heads too much Analysis, paralysis, which may be hard for some, that may come from a rigid numbers environment. You know, that's kind of where the head is at, but I think everyone has the potential to share their story. I mean, it's your life, do you? As far as like haters and not getting buy-in and and likes and views, I think that's all secondary, although it's not easy because we all want to pat on the back, but I think you should just believe in your song and do you? Um?

Speaker 3:

and not hitting record gets you zero likes. So yeah, it's definitely the start.

Speaker 1:

So that that's what I would say to them.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a good start. So that's what I would say to them.

Speaker 4:

Yeah that's a great one. What about for you? I'd say, to kind of like what you guys are saying, like live boldly. I think it's a shame when I know a lot of people that are really driven and they really want to do things and do big things, and they always, you know, there's just people that feel like they could do more than they're doing and the things that are stopping them, because you guys will relate to this, but because those things were going to stop me at one point and I got past it and I just know what's on the other side.

Speaker 4:

you know, I just I love seeing people do scary things yeah it almost makes it better if it didn't scare you, then a little less exciting.

Speaker 3:

What do they say? If it was easy, everyone would do.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, exactly you can do hard things, it just hard Quit making excuses and just get to work. Well, thank you guys for doing this, so last minute. Thank you so impromptu?

Speaker 3:

Love it.

Speaker 4:

Thank you, thank you Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care On Air. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode, and don't forget to leave us a rating and review. It helps others discover our show. Autocare OnAir is proud to be a production of the AutoCare Association, dedicated to advancing the auto care industry and supporting professionals like you. To learn more about the association and its initiatives, visit autocareorg.

People on this episode

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Behzad Rassuli

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Jacki Lutz

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Michael Chung

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Stacey Miller

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