Beyond the Toolbox: Fixing Your World with Larry Weingarten | #TGV702

People that were really talking about killing themselves and gave them a different point

of view.

And they were able to listen to me because I actually lost more than they then they did.

But with a different perspective, I was able to give them hope and hope is what they needed

so that suicide was no longer something they felt they had no choice for.

I got, basically, I got to save four lives.

Talk to us about the biggest methanol energy, whether it is thermal or electrical that

you wish more people understood about it.

People say they're concerned about this energy leakage and they do something.

They cut down their energy use by 25% and they think, I've done this.

I don't need to look at it anymore.

I think that's the myth.

And how do you balance the pursuit of efficiency with the need for comfort and also simplicity

in daily life?

Really easy.

When you make a home more efficient, automatically, it's a more comfortable home.

You don't have cold drafts.

You don't have walls getting cooled down.

Your bodies are like.

So folks, you have tuned into TGV and how to welcome to the guiding voice podcast series,

the world's only quadrilingual podcast at this moment of recording and we are trying

to embark into multiple languages as we speak and here we embark on transformative

conversations for a better future.

And we want to simplify and amplify your journey to success and your host Nevin Samala,

dedicated to making the world a better place by bringing you wisdom through valuable discussions

with experts designed to simplify and amplify your success and thank you so much for tuning

in.

So folks, welcome back to yet another episode of the guiding voice podcast series and today

we are joined by Larry Weingott.

He's a renowned building contractor, author and educator with expertise in hot water systems

and also energy efficient construction.

For over 50 years, he has solved mechanical and personal challenges, teaching thousands

how creativity, heart and the right tools lead not only to comfort and savings but also

to confidence and inner richness.

Larry's compassionate approach helps others tap into their own toolbox whether it is

physical and emotional to fix problems and also uplift lives.

So Larry, hearty welcome to the guiding voice podcast series, how are you doing today?

I'm doing great, thank you for having me on.

All right, so Larry first things first, why should somebody tune into our episode and

spend their valuable time with us today?

Well, I'm hoping that we can share tools and I'll call it a reinterpretation of tools

so that people see how they can use the wide range of tools more effectively in their own

life, how they can benefit.

Amazing.

So folks, today we are going to delve into our conversation on the topic at hand, tools

and beyond the toolbox, fixing your world with the Larry Weingott.

And before we get started, here is an exciting twist as always, let us tickle our guest brain

first.

So Larry, get ready for a rapid fire round of random words and I'll mention a few and

I would love to hear the first thing that comes to your mind in response without thinking

much and if you're ready, let's get started.

Okay.

All right.

So my first word is curiosity.

It's a gift.

Invention.

Invention.

Other ways of looking at a problem.

Other ways of looking at a problem.

Well, future, it's just something that we live in now.

It's a creation universe, something we're very well connected to, all of it.

Leadership.

Leadership is your heart being led by your heart.

Success.

What feels good?

What feels good?

Doing good and feeling good at the same time.

Aliens.

There's no chance that there aren't any, so I just accept that they're here and they're

watching us.

Okay.

The universe is too big.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Say it enough.

Electricity.

Flowing electrons, a river, like water, life.

Something to never, ever waste.

Use every moment.

Okay.

It comes the last one, energy.

My specialty in a way, I like conserving it and using it in a focused way.

So Larry, thank you so much for participating in the first rapid-fire round.

There is one more rapid-fire round toward the end of the episode, so stay tuned.

And thank you once again for being part of our journey in shaping the careers and lives

of millions across the globe and let's get started with the mainstream questions.

So Larry, first of all, talk to us about who is your guiding voice.

My mom, she lives through me.

Her body is gone, has been for some years, but she was well-known.

She always took care of people.

She always helped.

She always tried to be of service.

And I thought she said a wonderful example, which I try to follow.

I'm sorry to hear that.

And Larry, now talk to us about your success mantra as in top three things that have contributed

to your success so far.

Things that are important to me that help me to be successful are curiosity, persistence,

and working with others, collaboration.

Curiosity is important because it allows you to look at things in different ways.

Persistence matters, of course.

Keep pounding away at something eventually you're going to make progress and working with

others allows you to do so much more.

Got it.

And let's talk about the mainstream topic slowly, let's get into that.

So my first question is, in your experience, which home improvement offers the lowest

hanging fruit for saving energy, I'm also curious to know, why don't more people act on it?

Well, the low hanging fruit of energy in buildings, in housing is always error leakage.

We don't build our very snug.

So error leaks in and leaks out.

It takes all the heat or the cool with it.

It also tends to bring, you know, like if there's a crawl space, it brings dirty air from underneath

the house into it, making it a less healthy space.

So there are all kinds of reasons to start by sealing, by finding and fixing error, error

leaks in the house.

The only reason that I can think we don't pay more attention to it is because the building

trades haven't really changed.

The basic methods of house construction haven't changed in roughly 200 years.

We just do it the way we've always done it.

Some people know how to do better, but they're the outliers.

And talk to us about the biggest myth around energy, whether it is thermal or electrical

that you wish more people understood about it.

They both say they're concerned about this energy leakage, and they do something.

They cut down their energy use by 25% and they think, I've done this.

I don't need to look at it any more.

I think that's a myth.

I built my own home to use only 10% of the energy per square foot of the standard home.

And it's difficult, but possible for any home to use roughly 80% less, by being detail

or oriented and thorough, really paying attention.

So stopping at 25% is a myth.

We can make it to 80.

And how do you balance the pursuit of efficiency with the need for comfort and also simplicity

in daily life?

Really easy.

When you make a home more efficient, automatically, it's a more comfortable home.

You don't have cold drafts.

You don't have walls getting cooled down.

Our bodies are like heaters.

If there's a cold wall, our bodies give up heat to that cold wall quicker.

So if you do a good job of air sealing and insulating a home, all the internal temperatures

are the same.

And guess what, that's a much more comfortable place to be.

Just to elaborate, if you walk down at your market, free the freezer aisle, it's going

to feel awfully cold on where the freezers are.

But if you measure the air temperature, it's the same as in any other part of that store.

So what it boils down to is if we have a well insulated snug house, all the indoor town

temperatures become the same, and it's a more comfortable place to be.

And the nice thing, long term is insulation and air sealing, once you've done it, you

don't need to maintain it or fix it.

It's done.

It just works for the life of the house.

So it's simple.

Yeah, you're right.

And what is the easiest way anyone can use creativity and heart to solve a problem even

if they lack technical expertise?

I start with that.

Don't be pushed around by fear because fear or worry of lack, scarcity.

These things push us to be afraid of things, the decisions we make aren't going to be

as good as if we are comfortable with it and have some confidence.

My preferred approach is to educate myself, get better at it so I know what's going on.

Still, it's okay to hire somebody, but if they're doing something, I'm not understanding

or don't think is the best practice, I'll tell them, I want it done this way.

Sometimes they don't like me doing that.

Okay.

And how does one add a million dollars to their worth?

And then you're using principles you have refined from fixing homes as well as hearts.

I'm a general contractor, have been for a very long time, so I learned early on how to

fix things.

So let's go, let's learn about real estate and go find just a wrecked home full of graffiti,

full of trash, broken people just want to tear it down.

Get that home because you'll get it for a great deal.

And now fix it up, make it into a nice rental and fix it up, rent it, rent it out.

The neighbors will be thrilled that this house isn't a dump any more.

And hold on to it for roughly five years.

In that time, it's paying its way through rent and it increases in value faster than

the rate of inflation.

So at the end of say five years, you now have enough equity in that home so you can go

get two or three more homes and keep doing the same thing, fix those up, rent those out.

And you can do things like maybe you want to sell a house, you can sell it to your tenant

who may have thought they could never own their own home, then you become the bank and

you can get a good rate of return doing doing that.

So real real estate really is how most of the mill, the millionaires in the world got

that way.

Something like 80% it's it's a well-worn path.

Interesting.

I think those are great tips for someone to follow.

And moving to the next one, how to get hot water fast while saving water and energy.

The basic approach is there's a pipe running between the water heater and the faucet.

You want as little volume of water in that pipe as you can get the less the better, which

means shorter runs and smaller diameter piping if you can do it because you always need

to flush, say to get hot water, you need to flush one and a half to two times the volume

of the water that's in the pipe out before you get true hot water.

So if you cut the water volume down to a tenth of what it was, you're going to get hot

water a lot quicker.

I just was involved in building a house that used quarter inch tubing, ice maker size

tubing as the plumbing in the house.

It takes as long as six seconds to get hot water.

Most taps get it in three.

So it's very quick.

It saves energy and water and time.

And describe it time you used empathy as your primary tool to solve someone's problem

and what happened as a result.

I was involved, I was an investor in a real estate scheme.

I thought I knew what the guy was doing.

It turned be a Ponzi scheme and a lot of investors lost a whole lot of money I did too,

but others were they had lost their re retirement and were even suicidal.

So I went around to these four people that were really talking about killing themselves

and gave them a different point of view.

And they were able to listen to me because I actually lost more than they then they did.

But with a different perspective, I was able to give them hope and hope is what they

needed so that suicide was no longer something they felt they had no choice for.

I got basically I got to save four lives with the powerful tool called tools called perspective

and hope.

That is really great and Larry, this has been an incredible conversation, very crisp and

insightful and it's time for us to add some more spies and some more excitement to the

episode which means it brings us to the second rapid-fire round.

So shall we get started?

Okay.

All right.

So it comes the first bullet.

If you could have one gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say?

Easy.

You can fix anything with the right tools, exclamation point.

Can you describe yourself in just one word?

Optimistic.

And what is the weirdest gadget found in your toolbox right now?

I have in my toolbox an adjustable alligator wrench.

Now that may sound, it looks like an alligator, it has teeth, it has draws that open and

closed like that and you can, and it's made around 1890, it's made a better steel than

most modern tools and you can do things with it that modern tools cannot do.

So I all, I always, all right and if you could do humanity, only one tool, right?

What would it be?

If I had, if I was limited to one tool, it would just be perspective.

Perspective is such a power, powerful tool.

You can look at anything from so many different perspectives, heat transfer, time, corrosion

processes, your lifespan, you know, so many different ways of seeing something always

let you get through any, any, any trouble.

Right.

And what household item do you secretly think is useless?

I'll make it public.

The standard carbon monoxide detectors that we put in our, in our homes.

And that may sound strange, but when they first came out, they alarmed too often.

So they raised the threshold at which they alarm basically by the time a standard carbon

monoxide detector makes noise, you're already in trouble.

Right.

So we need what below level carbon monoxide alarm, not the standard things you, you get

it at the, at the store because they make you feel safe, but they're letting you get

sick first.

So I'm really not a, not a fan of, of your standard COD detector, got it.

Let it finish the sentence, the world needs more dash internal quiet.

We need, there's so much noise outside of us, we can't do much about that.

But inside we're living in the past, we've got the future going on with what, you know,

we're arguing with how I should have said this or there's all this noise.

If we can quiet that noise, it really helps.

And what is the strangest energy saving hack you have discovered?

One of the things I did in my own house is I didn't want to turn all the lights on so

much.

So I cut holes in the wall, internal walls, put plastic glazing or not.

And this allowed light to flow through the, the house, but, and then painting the, see

rings bright, bright, bright white with these holes means that I can easily walk around

my house in the middle of the night.

If there's half of a moon out, I don't need, you know, it light flows easily.

Through, through the house, by, by cutting holes in the internal walls.

Interesting.

If you could have a superpower for fixing problems, what would it be?

If I could wave my magic wand and have people not have any fear, that, that would be it.

I love it.

Okay.

Name one thing, you have fixed that surprise to everyone including yourselves.

Well, I was about 15 years old and I got my first car and it was a Ford Model A, you

know, one of these sport coupe things, except it was in pieces.

It couldn't, it didn't run at all.

It hadn't run for years.

It was, it was in boxes and, you know, engine parts and all just, I had to figure out

how to put it all back together and, and make it work and I didn't, you know, this was

a challenge at 15.

Sounds amazing.

All right.

So here comes the last one for the second rapid fire.

What is one electronic gadget or a fantasy gadget that you like to see or invent yourself?

I would like to see an anxiety meter, something that could measure anxiety and, you know,

sort of like a biofeedback thing so you know when you're getting tense.

You know when things aren't balanced.

I think it could be so useful to understand that.

I had a lot of tension in my life growing up.

I wasn't even aware of I was so used to it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Got it.

I think it's okay.

Life is.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That's a good tool to have.

That amazing second rapid fire, let's look back to the main scene and Larry.

If you had to pick one pattern that people overlook, which if notice would instantly improve

their lives or hopes, what would that be?

I think it's being truly present right here, right now, not distracted by the noise in

your head or anything else.

Just how do we forego the internal dialogue, any of that?

Just being fully present, that I think would, that's something to, to drive for.

Good one.

I thoroughly enjoyed the connozation and it is quite ten-sightful.

Thank you so much and how is your experience being hosted on the Grading Voice Podcast?

You do a really good job.

You're very thorough.

You ask really good questions.

My experience has been great here.

Thank you so much.

Easily so.

That's easy for me to say.

And you do it with a smile.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for all the kind words and looking forward to hosting you again in future

and I wish you all the very best in everything that you do, Larry.

Thank you.

Right.

Yes.

So friends, that was our episode with the Larry Weingarten and before we get into the

fun trivia section, we have a quick request if you have enjoyed the connozation.

And for all we do soon, we request you to share with at least three of your friends

or colleagues or family members, whoever you think would like the Guiding Voice TGV,

so spread the knowledge and help others grow just like you.

Now it's time for us to cruise into the trivia segment.

So today I wanted to present to you a few less known facts about two countries which

are leading the world in electricity conservation and energy efficiency.

And those countries are Denmark and Norway.

First fact is about Denmark, which is the smart grid pioneer.

The world's largest remote control heat pump test project is being conducted by Denmark

and this project is on intelligent remote control of heat pumps involving over 300 units

and these heat pumps automatically adjust operation based on electricity prices, weather

forecast and renewable energy availability.

And also they stop when power lines are overloaded or shifting consumption to balance fluctuating

wind power.

Second fact about Denmark is that LED retail revolution is initiated by the government and

the Danish government deployed mobile LED consultants who physically visit retail stores

nationwide to count light bulbs and calculate potential savings.

And retailing accounts for 11% of electricity consumption in Danish companies with lighting

itself representing 50% of that portfolio figure.

And small stores with 25 halogen bulbs can reduce electricity consumption by up to 80%

by switching to LED and this message was clear.

One is about Norway and the first fact about Norway it is the first fossil free heating

nation and it has become the first country in Europe and possibly the world to introduce

a complete ban on fossil fuel heating in building starting in 2020 and the ban covers oil

and paraffin heating in new and old buildings, private homes, businesses and publicly owned

facilities.

Also they use 98% renewable in electricity already is achieved.

So 98% of the renewable electricity is already achieved by Norway and which means the electricity

systems in Norwegian buildings primarily from more than 1500 hydroelectric power stations

and at this low cost renewable base enable aggressive heating electrification.

So these are the things which I wanted to present from the trigger perspective likewise

if you have any interesting prepared related to electricity consumption measures taken by

different countries do let me know if you are watching this episode on YouTube you can

come in there or if you found it on social media platforms or audio platforms you can

come in there as well.

So folks that's it for today.

Thank you so much for tuning in and also for being part of our awesome TGB family.

Until next time take care.

Stay inspired and remember the best is that you come good by for now.

See you all in the next episode with another amazing guest take care.

Have you all bye bye.