Why You Need an Ace in the Hole | Kevin Taylor | 223

0:00Stoke to have you in person. I know this is the second time on the pod. First time looked a lot different years ago. Please go on. It's grown a little bit. It's awesome to see, man. It's a cool perspective seeing it in person. Yeah. It's been such a work in progress. And honestly, I don't know, it's a pretty cool thing for our industry. And I honestly wish the industry not not not for my own sake at all. Like that's not what I'm getting. But I wish the industry would take more advantage of like the value that this can bring, honestly. I don't think they understand that what comes out of the studio is the guys' opinions and the guys' thoughts that are on the ground. You're sitting here talking to guys that are doing the work. You're talking to the backbone of corporations that are making the money for everybody.

1:01And that's a very valuable asset to have. Because you get to, you know, and you were in the trade and you were in your work tools so you understand. But you're getting a point of view that nobody else is going to get. And that's what sets this thing apart from everyone else is you're getting the point of view from the guy that's in the bucket 10 hours a day. Yeah. Not the guy signing paychecks or telling you how linework should go. You're literally getting first-hand perspective, which is awesome because not a lot of people get that. Nobody in a safety meeting will say stuff. Nobody in a board meeting will say stuff. But you're sitting here. We're talking like two old buddies that used to barbecue on the weekends. And you get to hear exactly how things go. Some good, some bad. But it's a point of view that I think a lot of people and a lot of the higher ups that don't have that point of view, it's valuable if they take time to actually listen to it and acknowledge it and learn from it. I just, I wish. I honestly just,

2:09what we were talking about before, like you started your podcast and we're going to get into that. But you said, if I could just help one person. And I know I'm helping one person every time, but I just, I want to help more. Like that's the thing. And it's like, you got to play this shitty game. Now it is of trying to figure out algorithms and trying to throw some sneaky little freaking dumb hook in there that makes and grab somebody's attention. It's like, I, I just wish it didn't have to be that way because like, what we really want to do is get to the meat and potatoes. And that's what I try to do with all these things. It's just like, bring some sort of value. And it's in there. You just got to like, release that attention span for five freaking minutes and listen to it. Yeah. And I think, you know, social media has with the algorithms and the way that they let things spread and they've throught all other things. It's, it's like a guessing game. Nobody knows what

3:09it's going to take until you hit it off. Yeah. Because you see line, man, Mike, freaking. Now that's what the world thinks alignment is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I don't know. There's, there's bad apples in every trade and every walk alive. You know, it's trying to weed through the bad ones. Yeah. Because your episode was so long, really first one, I encourage anybody to go back and listen to it. But give us some, give us some history. Set the stage for us a little bit. Where'd you come from? From right here from Houston, Texas. Man, I grew up the day I've got a driver's license, got a job. I kind of knew college wasn't for me. Didn't know what I wanted to do yet. I've done a little bit of everything gotten to the oil field back in the early 2000s. And man, right, right when it busted, I think I was breaking down our last rig in South Texas, driving home didn't know what I was going to do. I just knew I didn't have a job. And they,

4:14like a normal contractor, they let you go at the end of the day. That way they get your day out of you. So we broke down a whole rig and it was driving on driving home down 59 and saw this guy climbing a wood pole on the side of 59. Look at him. I was like, Oh, that's kind of cool. No, nothing about it. But that's kind of cool. Drove all the way home. And the first thing we did just like every other seven day hitch is we're going to go home, shower, clean up and go to the bar. So we did. And ran into a buddy of mine who I met through my ex wife and he turned out to be a real good buddy of mine. And he ended up saying, man, you've come work for us, you know, it's like, what do you do? He's like, Oh, and I work in the transmission department at center point energy. And I was like, what do you do? He's like, I don't know, climb towers, work on electricity. I'm like, Oh, cool. Yeah, I'm in, new nothing about it. And I'm going through the interview process and the skills training and all this and it turned out to be a pretty good fit. And I spent over the better part of 12 years with

5:17them. And I mean, uh, oh, center point a lot because they had a great training setup. They had a great safety protocol like they were on their game. And I learned a lot from them. And from there, I went outside and decided to tram down the road for a little bit and a little bit turned into seven or eight years. And I'm still doing it. So it's a wearing a different hat these days. I've got out of my tools about two years ago and made the decision that it probably for the best after my wreck. So yeah, yeah. When you say school wasn't for you, how did you know that? Like college university wasn't for you. How did you know? I knew I knew anything further than high school wasn't for me because I graduated high school with my two foreign language credits by a rebuild in alternator. Uh, the Spanish teacher was having car problems. I was in auto tech for half a day.

6:18And I played hookie for the other half of the day. And she needed an alternator. I needed an A. I settled for a B, but it was still passing. But that's, that's how I got through the school system. So I realized, man, I could do it in high school. I probably couldn't do that in college. I better find something a little more worthwhile for my time. I think that that's important. Like just because I'm always constantly trying to help because a large portion of the audience is like people trying to find the trade, right? So they always have those questions. Well, how do I know that a trade is for me versus what everyone's been telling me to do? Go to college university. So I try to like ask people that have done it. You know, how do they know how do they know how to do that? I think I just, I knew early on from racing motor cross with my dad being probably 12, 13 years old that working with my hands was something that I was interested in. You know, we would get home from every race weekend. And by the end of that first night, both the bikes were clean. Motors were out.

7:20Heads were tore down. We're going to rebuild. Like I just like working with my hands. And it went from motorcycles and motor cross to street racing and high horsepower cars and nitrous kits and always tinkering on something to street bikes to the oil field. I never was a book guy. I look at books and it's a foreign language to me. Yeah. I look at a blueprint and I can tell you exactly what size bolt goes where? Like I just the way my brain interpreted was different. That's interesting to hear too. Are you, do you have like dyslexia or ADHD or? No, I've been told I have worse, but no, I mean, my grades in school weren't great, but I never struggled. I just, I guess for lack of a better term, I didn't care. It's not interesting. Yeah, just wasn't interested. I'd sit in an English class wondering how much premix we had.

8:21And if we had enough gas to go race that weekend, like I was worried about different things in life because I think like I said early on, I kind of knew I didn't want to go to college. I didn't, I spent 12 years doing this. I didn't want another four. 12 was all like an handle. This is what I hate about school is I did just don't help you identify these things. I think some schools, especially a lot of the bigger a lot of the bigger ISDs now, the school districts, they have full full on trade schools now. Like right here in town, a parallel land school district has a school called Turner and it is a trade and further education school. It's a high school. You get your high school credits, but they also have your ag, your welding, your shop, your nursing for the people that want to go in and be an RN or be stuff like that. So you're getting dual credits while you're still in high school. So when you graduate high school, you could already be

9:21on your way. Their big, their first trade that they offered was plumbing. Plumbing in HVAC is huge in Texas being 100 degrees for half the year. And I've got some buddies that, I mean, they're journeyman plumbers by their early 20s because they started doing it in high school. So at what age do you have to make that decision to split that? Like, I don't know if there's an actual age for the high school, I assume by ninth grade, they didn't offer that stuff when I was a kid. Like, because then it's probably parents making the decision that mainly. I'm sure the parents have a pretty, pretty big push on it. Yeah. Because the kids are still in their house. They're still under their roof. They're still children. You know, I just didn't have that choice, even with my kids, because my son Hudson's 19. I had two sons and a daughter. My oldest son is 22. Hudson's 19 and Hudson was, Hudson's the blue collar kid. He's in the trade now. He's nice.

10:24Pre-apprentice with a corner company, all tech up in BC. Okay. Awesome. So happy. He chose that route. School just like was not for him. But like, that was clearly identifiable. Grade one. He's the kid that outside. Like, I'd go outside. Outside the house and he's Austin's age. And I'd go looking to be like, what is this? It looks like a Harley. And he's built a Harley, like a street bike out of chopped wood and bark and branches and he's sitting on it. And it's literally like, there's no nails in this thing. There's nothing. He's just, he did it. He did it from here from here. And it's like, I wish I had photos of it. Because I get a look like a, that's why I step out. I'm like, I built yourself a Harley of the day. He's like, yeah. I don't have one. So I needed to build one. I'm a laugh about 20 times with a A today. Yeah. Sorry. I know. But that was, I mean, with him growing up, that was the same thing. Because I had a ridiculous four wheeler that was sitting on 44s. But every time I was out there

11:28working on it, he's got a Milwaukee tool in his hand. Yeah. Screwing the screw I needed into a piece of wood somewhere that I can't find now. But he was always working with something. He's just sitting there. He's got a 63 forward that he changes the oil on. He does all this. And that's what I told him. If we're going to have something, you're going to have to work on it. Nice. Because we're not rich. We're not buying brand new cars. You're going to buy something that's got character that you're going to learn something from when you build it. That's what they want to do, too. I don't know. I don't know. Awesome. But it seems like he's not kind of kid. But that's what that Hudson's like. He's constantly sending me. He's sending me TikToks that are like, they're, they're TikToks of like vehicles that your dad used to own. It says like, vehicles your dad used to own that he sold to buy the mini van. He was bastard. It wasn't my choice. The side chooses. Now we look for, we look for his truck for probably a good six to nine months. We're looking for it because I wanted something to tinker on back here in Texas. And I'd send him

12:31trucks. That's okay. Like square bodies and just old Chevy's or whatever. Because I've got a soft spot for like to see tin trucks like mine and Callie. Yeah. I had to have one because I wanted one. That's a whole another beast. Yeah. But I sent him this picture of a 63 Ford out of a barn in Florida. The only thing he said is, oh, yeah, dad. That's the one. That's got the perfect amount of rust. That's like, all right. Cool. Appreciate that. Yeah. The rust hasn't made entire holes in it. It's just giving it a sense. We've we've patched up a couple spots and we did a nice patina clear on it. The motor's strong. The turbos too big. It's too loud. But it's all the things we like. So yeah. That's cool. It's a cool. It's a cool way to bond as well. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Because at that point, there's no phones. There's no TV. You're on your back in a garage sitting there side by side teaching life lessons without even knowing it. Yeah. You don't know your teaching. He's watching

13:35just because it's you. So whatever you do, kids are it's almost like they're they're pre-wired to replicate what they see growing up. So if and you know, you can take that a couple of different ways as a dad, but I mean, if you're teaching positive goals and positive actions, they pick up on them. They won't ever tell you they pick up on them. But you can I can see it in him just the way he does stuff now. It's either something that we did together and he learned and he took a little took a little bit of that and kept it with them. But kids are they're like sponges. Yeah. They pick up way more than we know they pick up. I think as well that as a dad, you have to pay attention to what their interests are as well. And then even if it's something that you might not know something about or like get interested in what they're interested in. So the example for me is like both my kids like cars and work on cars and love love that. I had no idea because

14:41you know, going through separation all that kind of stuff. Sometimes it takes a long time. It's been like years for me and I kind of like missed eight years of being able to just go down to the garage and do this with them. So anyway, now they're 20s. They're both got cars and trucks now and they bring them over all the time and they're working on them. But Nolan, my oldest was like really into Formula One. And I'm not like a big sports guy. I just took a time for it. I don't pay attention to stats and stuff like that. I just always been doing other things. I don't have time for sports. Played sports but never watched. I thought it was the waste time. But I'd look at Nolan and he's like he's right into F1. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to take some time try to get invested in something he's interested in. And dude, I was the best. Like I sat down with him one day and I'm like, okay, explain this to me because you know, like you walk into a sport like that. It's just so many little nuances. You know, he was tickled. Oh, he's getting to explain to Dad how much he's into. Yeah. And it's my favorite now. It's something we do together all the time. I

15:44took him to Spain to the race in Barcelona. And like there is nothing like going to Europe, the birthplace of one of one and going to you take us a little like for anyone that gives a shit, you take a little train out of Barcelona to Montmelos up in the mountains. This is tiny little village. And you you exit and like the biggest deal up in this area is F1 every year, right? And so the town is just vibing and you walk from the train station all the way up. It's like three four miles to the track and you get to the track. And it's literally like it's families sitting on grassy hillsides, breaking bread and sausage and just like watching Formula One in in native like country like where it comes from. And it's like there's nothing like it. It's so cool. But like that never would have happened. I never got what I got to experience that with my kids. If I hadn't have like sat down on the couch one day and went no one, okay, explain this to me.

16:46And I forget. Give me an loop. Yeah. Tell me what's going on. Yeah. Because I had to pay attention to what he was thinking. We're still a gen almost not a generation younger, but we're still 10 years younger. So I'm learning about Pokemon cards. Yeah. Uh-huh. Did you know? Did you know they have $1,000 Pokemon cards? I did know that actually. Yeah. Unfortunately, I know that. So now there's not a trip to target without trying to find a Pokemon card. Go for the cards. Yeah. What's the what's the best card you guys have pulled? I don't know because as of two weeks ago, they went in the washer on accident. So without the package. I can't look over there. He's going to glare at me. He is glaring at you. Oh, you had a whole binder full cards that were like first generation, like a lot of a lot of nice cards. And we learned not to wash them. They're not dirty. They don't need to be clean. So oh, it's fun. It's something to do. The point is those like paying attention.

17:55Yeah. Yeah. His paying attention. What other ways have you bonded with Austin? We've tried to. Man, just being on the road for most of his coherent life, I went on the road in 2019. So he was three and a half maybe. But even before then, I mean, I worked a lot. So working a lot has been something that he's seen and he's grown up with. And I don't condone a lot of the road work, but sometimes that's how life goes. Right? But every time we do get a chance, especially when he flies out to California, we'll go check the cruise out. We'll go do this. We'll go do that. And one of the things that we've really gotten into is just adventures. Like the last time our adventure, his last trip was going to Lake Tauve. Cool. And hiking to a place that you could only get to off of a trail. And we packed a paddleboard and our hiking boots and we're like, all right, let's go.

18:56Parked the car on the side of the freeway. We hiked to this little deserted spot in Nevada. And put them on a paddleboard and fell in love with it. So it's like, cool. Next day, I'm over there at Google and we'll paddleboard. Do I need for me? So I bought one for the house and we just we try to make the best situation we can. You know, you can't really choose a lot of the cards you're dealt in life, especially being a kid. You don't have any choice. You just kind of got to run with it. So it's up to the parents to make sure that it's the best you can make it. Like I had, you know, there's a lot of reasons why it shows this profession. There's a lot of reasons why it shows the location I'm in. And a lot of them, you know, they're not reasons that a kid would understand. The reasons adult reasons. But you do what you can to make it the best of both worlds, you know. My time here is hot rods, car shows, green goes. We make sure that we every aspect of this is

19:59second day of fifth grade and he's playing hooky because I told him you'll learn something here. Yeah. You're not going to do anything. You're going to sit in the chair and you're going to hear two normal average guys talking, listen to what you hear because it's real talk. It's just it's life, you know. And I would much rather him sit here playing hooky from fifth grade and kind of understanding the back part of dad's work and the guys that he works around and the guys that are in the trade the way they talk the way that they think. So to me, this life experience coming in the studio today is worth his entire week at school. He'll learn more in three or four hours than he would have the entire week at school. And he's going to take that much further than the fifth grade curriculum right now in Texas. Yeah. My uh, and Austin, this is for years as well. My son, like I said, Hudson's 19 now and same sort of thing. He had a lot of questions growing up.

21:05Like when he was Austin's. How old are you now? Austin? 10. Yeah. When he was 10. A lot of questions. I remember we was working a 500 KV bare hand job rolled through the 500 KV line transmission line rolled through my hometown. So my ex would bring Hudson and Nolan out to see like right out to the right away because the right away is like right off the highway. So they could roll out to the right away and they could stand less than the span away and watch dad change from insulators. Yeah. And he got to do that a few times or whenever I was working a district job in town or something like they'd roll down the street and there they are set up and you got to see kind of what dad did a little bit. But still understand, right? They don't understand like why when you come home, you're just absolutely thundered like exhausted because you worked the last seven days straight at a copper and gold mine on the top of the mountain and it's winter time and it's like brutal. It's brutal. You're walking on rocks all day. You're doing the most brutal labor intensive work

22:08that you can do. They don't understand that and you come home and you're exhausted and they don't understand why you can't invest time into them and why you're so tired. They just don't get it. Well fast forward just a few years like it's nine years, you know, he's in the trade now. I went over to his house just a few days ago him and his brother share an apartment together. Go over to the house and it's 530. He just got home from work and he is laid out on the couch blanket on top of him. AC cranked. It was scorching hot all days. He was less like he's thundered. He was wasted. I'm like how's it going, Huds? Yeah. I'm like you want to go, you don't want to go do some stuff? I just I am so tired. He gets it though. He gets it now. He gets nine years ago. Huds dad so tired. Nine years later. He's like shit. Yeah, that's why. That's why. And I took him last year. When he came to me after high school and he said he got a job with an arborist. Randomly got a job with an arborist after high school.

23:12And he is like he comes up to me. He's like two months after this job started. He's like dad. It's pretty cool. He's like they're letting me go up in the bucket. You know, set the bucket up and they'll let me fly up in the air and down. I'm learning how to run a chain saw. I'm doing some like basic rigging and tie and some knots and things. It's pretty cool. I think I like this. He's like I think I want to do something like this. But arborists don't make shit for money. I'm like no sir. They don't. He's like I think I want to be alignment. I was like all right. I never pushed this kid into this at all. But he came to me and said that. I was like okay, here we go. So I took him to the international line in rodeo. I said we're going to go the rodeo. I know a few people. I'm going to introduce you to everybody I can and then you're going to ask questions to everybody to figure this out. And he got to do it. He got to go there and see it and dude again every corner I turned Ryan like a sick man like you he's like dad. I have to leave you here and go out on my own because like I can't stand here and watch you talk to absolutely

24:17everybody. But he but again back to like he got it. He got what I've been doing. What I've been doing with this. Like why are you going to Texas every a couple months instead of being here with us. He didn't know because he wasn't in it. Now he got to like see it firsthand. Yeah see that's awesome. Yeah because he's Austin's I mean 10 years old you want to be a million things but never once have I asked him what he wants to be and say I want to be a baseball player. I want to be a football player. So I think line work would be cool. I'm going to be a line man. I mean it might change a hundred times and I'm good with every one of those. I'm good with every one of those scenarios. I don't know that line work would be my first choice of trade for any kid because there's some there's so many things you can do. No one the career that I've had and what I've had to go through and put up with man is tough. I got told I was still at center point and one year they were looking for guest trainers for their skills department just basically teaching

25:21the climate class given kids the basics on how to climb how to tie knots how to hang across arm and they invited me to be a guest instructor so it's like okay cool. We ended up meeting one of my real good buddies to this day who was a journeyman for center point who went outside with me. We ended up being guest instructors at the same time and the guy leading the class who's still with the utility. I'll never forget on Mike Davis one of the coolest guys I've met in the trade. The dude is very just he's a great dude all around guy family guy work guy boss mentor somebody that's going to get in there and get dirty with you. We're on top of the pole trying to do a exercise showing them how to pull across arm up stab it. This is back with they didn't have Milwaukee's in the class you were using Embracing Bit. There's Milwaukee's on the ground that I could use but they're using Bracing Bits. So for the for the exercise got Mike up there using Embracing Bit and Mike's he's holding gray and crusty and I'm just gonna say all that so he gets

26:26mad when he watches this but he's powering through this pole with the Bracing Bit until the bit pokes out the other side and he stops. And all of a sudden I just hear this wheeze. It's like damn Mike we get an old. It's job ain't for everybody. But that one that one saying God I had to say a million times after I heard him say it because that was the first time anybody worded it like that. The job ain't for everybody. Yeah which is in the most raw honest form out there. It's not it's not for everybody. It's not for the guys that are scared of heights. It's not for the guys who are timid when it comes to high pressure environments. You have to be able to handle that. Under outage deadlines and under heavy traffic and heavy wire bundled 2300 where you're out there with nine tons jacking on a dead end that a helicopter. Oh yeah. When the when the when the hoist start popping when you got bundled 500 under you.

27:26Mm-hmm. It's a nerve wracking especially when you can hear the pops over the helicopter that's still above you. It's like well if something does go south I'll never see it but there's there's just a lot of intense moments that some people are built for some people aren't and there's there's no shame if you're not. You're probably better off finding a different trade before you hurt yourself or even worse off you hurt your pull buddy your bucket buddy because you're unsure yourself don't put yourself in a situation where it's not for you. There's no shame in saying hey this is the same for me you know I got to find something different to do. A lot of people do it all the time a lot of people that never even make it through your climbing school your apprenticeship. You know you got to do what's best for you. I think a lot of people I think a lot of people need to identify that and actually make that decision like I think that's one of the biggest problems is people just push through that and then they try to like hide throughout the trade in different

28:30ways where they don't have to get into that pressure situation they don't make decisions they don't like to make decisions they they screw you around you know any of that stuff. You can spot them from a mile away especially as journeyman that have kind of skirted their way through the apprenticeship made it and got good enough grades to make it but they're still nervous they're still scared and now they're scared and have to take an apprentice up that's not what anybody wants. You made it this far but now what are you gonna do and nervousness scared is like okay but it's like the management of that I think that's you got to be able to control it yeah I mean I would be ridiculous to say that I wouldn't scare here in a chain hoist with probably 15 and a half to maybe 16,000 pounds under it pop like that what was I gonna do you know anything we do though this is what this is the crazy thing like anything we do like think about like I just think I think still

29:33about like hooking myself up to a long line on on a helicopter how many times do you double check yourself flying a thousand feet in the air five miles into the mountains getting dropped on energized 500 KV that's all of that's crazy and then spending the day riding a buggy I got a space for both of you. 100 feet in the air like all of that is crazy all of it's so it's so unnatural but you have people like like me and you that see those things and like oh dude that's awesome I can't wait to do that I want to do that give me the stuff that should scare me because that's gonna build me so does I do it for the first time like it's not scary. Do you think that makes you more aware of those those pops and creeks or do you think it makes you kind of numb to that stuff too and like should people be paying more attention to some of those other sort of things like that or driving like it's a big initiative right now in this organization

30:39oh yeah like they're saying the top leadership because of the stats they're getting because of implementing litix into vehicles and all of this but but the actual statistics are showing that the most dangerous thing we do is drive hands down far above anything else that we do is driving the only reason I can say this is because I know it from myself and my driving habits lineman or shitty drivers we suck at it you could in the mountains yeah right away we suck at it you can park it wherever it needs to be but what's the hardware should never be and it'll actually set up and level out and work but it's I mean when you come down to the root of that the only word that works is complacency you've been driving for 30 years 40 years you don't even have to think about it so you're not gonna think about it doesn't mean you've been driving you know a digger truck with a 70 foot pole behind you for 40 years that takes a little different

31:42driving style than it does in your Tacoma or whatever you drive your rolls Royce whatever it is but I mean that's people get behind the wheel of a car and they just think a car is a car is a car I can drive anything with four wheels and some with two some with none because I've done it and I've learned that everything operates a little different the bucket truck's not going to do anybody any good if it gets to the job site and that tree limb around the last corner just took the bucket with it yeah now you got a bucket that isn't a yard ornament in your climate because you weren't worried about that tree limb because you've never hit it in your truck well now you're in a bucket that's 13 six it's a little different yeah but people get complacent they drive so many hours a day especially depending on terrain and all this sometimes it takes you two hours to get to a job site from the show up and it's just straight drive time every morning every afternoon your 10 hour day might only be six hours of work because you got two hours each way to get

32:44to and from and you do that for so long and nothing happens you start to get complacent and that's Lidux everybody's kind of against the oh that's you know kind of invasion or privacy this that and the other but it's a it's a tool you know it's it's it's another tool for the trade yeah nobody likes it but it gives back a lot of good information and it's from what I've heard and all the the safety briefs that I've read on all of it it's saved probably more people than it's gotten fired if if you guys could just see what it does and how effective it is I get to see I'm privileged enough to see the video footage that comes back from every incident and we have 85,000 employees now like third largest fleet in North America under like Coke and FedEx like it's insane

33:47um and you should see how it's protecting people not just like the incidents that are our own fault fall in sleep things like that but the ones that aren't our fault and it's helping prove your innocence to the point where like you'd be you'd be like everything points to it was your fault Kevin except for that footage oh yeah and it saved your ass and if the footage is saved people I know where this a somebody cut me off and I think they saw the sign on the side of the door and they nailed the brakes trying to get rear-ended yep and the video shows they show somebody cutting right in front of you and all of a sudden you see brake lights but yet he ran into me well the video footage shows different and that video footage is all you need you show up to court with that that ladies can be like oh well there's a bee in my car you know I mean so I get that the younger guys who aren't used to it and or don't like it because now there's

34:52a whole generation of people addicted to their phones I mean I'm one of them I'm sure you're one of them everybody phone is just the extension of our hands these days yep and when you're in the trucks yeah it's gonna ding at you because it's got the AI camera to where when it sees your phone pop up ding distracted driving ding distracted driving but the guys have put the tape over the camera the tape over the microphone the tape over the speaker if you can't hear it and it's not doing anything it's not helping you yep so nothing's gonna change the I mean that's the lifelong saying nothing changes if nothing changes right the the kind of the facts are too is like nothing's private these days like the sooner you realize this like the better off you're gonna be in life you just it's not the old world it's there's CCTV everywhere there's like the second you walk out the front door you're home you're being recorded something like at some point in your day there's something

35:54capturing your entire day like you just have to what wasn't that just uh I think it was just last year that ring the ring camera company they got in a bunch of hot shit oh yeah for the starting that new neighborhood program or whatever they called it yeah basically just using video off of everybody's cameras it's wild right and somehow or another they're still trucking because I can see in certain instances how that would be helpful if your doorbell cameras going down a numbered road and they look at each one of them trying to get find the guy that is running from the cops or stole a car or hit somebody and didn't know it yeah sure it's helpful invasion of privacy I think everything's so public these days there is no privacy yeah that's that ship has sailed 100% so now do the right thing you won't have any problems how can you learn from it how can you get better that's the question you should be asking yeah how can this just make me better make me safer well

36:54it's gonna make you a better driver instantly because you don't want to get fired yeah you know where you're seatbelt otherwise it's gonna ding at you the whole time you're gonna not tailgate people because you don't want to get in a wreck but also you don't want to get fired so I mean there's the the ways it can motivate you or few and far between but they're there you just have to look for had a foreman lineman named Ross on the show yesterday and we're we got talking about the subject of leadership and and leaders any leaders especially leaders of organizations need to be seeing around corners always like it that was one of like Steve Jobs's gifts was the ability to see way in the distance but not just in the distance but like around the corner to the point where this is what these guys will need 10 years from now like yeah they can't fathom a phone a computer in your pocket but hey you know this is what you need I promise and 10 years later it's like

37:55people can't live without it right that's what you need to be thinking with all of these things is like so if you're trying to be a better lineman just then like let's break it down to your career if you're trying to be a better lineman what does a lineman look like in 10 years like let's forget about right now and worrying about critics in your like yeah you know what I mean for us it's small just get over it you guys like it's not you're not going backwards it's only going forwards so what does it look like yeah you know fight against the wrong things sure like things are bad things aren't right you need to stand up against those I get it all but like when you get through all that noise and BS what does it look like in 10 years or 20 years especially if you have 10 or 20 or 30 years left in the trade why not try to make yourself that person and the best at that person so like vehicles example you're you're all whining about cameras in your vehicles but 10 years from now those trucks are driving themselves to the job site I Duke just made a public the other day

38:59and and set it in front of a room full of people that he said he'd take the first thousand vehicles autonomous buckets and diggers off the line the first thousand done so like that's that's what's coming is like oh it's in the pipeline if it's going to make us safer because driving is the number one thing that's hurting us and killing us and causing problems these things are going to drive themselves to the job site so what does that look for you you're no longer going to drive so like be a better lineman then yeah you know focus on that quick focus in on this other stuff I mean and that's kind of with all the power tool stuff 10 years ago yeah they weren't here we didn't have Milwaukee's yeah you remember gas drills and hydraulic drills that remember ratchets yeah we tightened RM 90 ratchets our RM 90 towers with a ratchet oh man you talk about yeah every transmission lineman in America having blown out shoulders and elbows and knees because that's how they did them d6 remember pressing pressing multiple three-way banks again you know we're getting the old

40:04wood handles out for no reason yeah when now we got Milwaukee's and we got more money and Milwaukee batteries than we do in half of our household items yeah but that you know the the worst thing that I was growing up I was always told us oh well that's how we've always done it I didn't make it right I didn't make it the best way to do it I didn't make it the safest way to do it that's just all you had so now you're trying to punish a future generation of doing it like y'all did which is it's caveman style when there is much better safer and easier ways to do it and easier is not always better but there are cases where it is tighten in a tower instead of using a 80 pound air gun a hundred foot in the air I could just use a Milwaukee gun just pop pop pop instead of using a ratchet I've got another gun for that like there's so many different advancements that you can do as a lineman that make your job easier more streamlined because I don't want to say

41:06quicker because quick fast time are three things that I don't this shouldn't be in the mix of your job because that's where shortcuts come in that's where people die is when you're trying to make it a quicker job because you want it to go home sooner on that point why are so many linemen dying right now they're not looking at the big picture the big picture is whether it be you know a family a life that you want to live something you want to build they're looking at it by the hour not by the year what I mean by that is they might get to a job and they get there in the morning if we do it this way we could be done by lunch and if we do it this way it might take one o'clock it might take a little longer but you take an extra 20 30 minutes to set up to get

42:08things right your chances of going home are way better just like the the kid that just happened this weekend Houston there are some shortcuts here there and nobody really knows the full story and a lot of the things with OSHA is we won't know the full story but shortcuts were taken and now he didn't go home he didn't get to be with his family over a trivial amount of time time that's not worth it who cares we got to stay in extra 30 minutes if you get to go home because if you if you proposed a job to alignment like that in the morning hey man we can get off by at 10 a.m. and be done for the day but you might not go home or we can be done by noon and you'll be completely safe who's going to pick the two hours they just weren't thinking about it what is that what is being in the moment and making that decision look like to you you got to stop and

43:14look outside of your field of vision you got to stop and don't look right in front of you look down the line how's that going to affect you or affect your family or affect whoever you have with you two years three years down the line if you mess up today that you're one mistake or you're one short cut if it turns into a mistake it's a ripple effect it affects you sure and in the most morbid way that doesn't matter anymore because you're dead and I know it's kind of a it's kind of a harsh way to say that but a catastrophic failure or a catastrophic mistake won't affect you because you're not here to see it it affects your wife it affects your kids it affects your family I've been to I've been to funerals where I have to watch a journeyman give a hard hat to a mom

44:15and those are those are enough for me to say you know it's it's not worth it it's not worth what and this is I'm not talking strictly work this is outside this is what you do on your time off I mean people get hurt it work a lot because of taking short cuts doing this more people get hurt outside of work and that's just as I mean it's you're not working with 34,000 35,000 bulls but you're doing some dangerous shit driving home from the bar after being there for four or five hours nobody thinks about it right it's like I just got to get home we got to go to bed got to work in the morning and it's the small stuff that it's going to get you one day it might not be today you might live the next five years doing that but then again when it does happen it's a ripple effect still whether work play fun side jobs and that would be my takeaway from all

45:21this is slow down and don't look at yourself don't think oh how's this going to affect me you you really want something to hit you hard every time you want to do something look at a picture of your kid say how's this going to affect him who's going to have to explain to him the dad didn't come home because he wanted to take a shortcut because he wanted to be foolish he wanted to go out with the guys when he should have gone home got some sleep you can't explain that to a 10-year-old there's no way to grasp that so if you want to do better don't do better for yourself do better for your kids do better for the people in your life that will have no explanation because you're not there to explain it to him and I mean I know that's a that's a tough pill to swallow sometimes especially as a lineman oh that'll never happen to me bullshit it happened to me and I'm here to somehow under God's grace I'm here to talk about it I'm here to tell people about it but it does it the it can't

46:24happen to me is a false mentality mm-hmm mm-hmm uh for asking about that too I just want to add to this whole thing like when I came up I was taught by somebody who respected the craft and actually was trying to be better at the craft like linework is a craft it's it's called a craft skilled labor like it's craft skilled labor it's it's a trade it's a trade craft like however you want to explain but it means they took pride to in what they actually did and cutting corners cutting corners isn't getting better at the craft cutting corners isn't but getting more productive is like learning

47:25how to do it better is getting learning how to do it faster is part of the craft oh yeah not by cutting fucking corners leaving your rubber gloves and sleeves in the truck when you're supposed to wear them isn't part of getting better in the craft putting your rubber gloves and sleeves on and trying to figure out a better way of doing it with those things on is part of the craft yeah and that's how I was taught and I just I don't think enough people are fucking like representing that anymore or maybe they are maybe they aren't I don't know maybe that's part of part of the whole thing but every time you get to make a decision it should be based on that as well you know big picture I want to go home to my my family all right 100% I want to live like does wearing my rubber gloves and sleeves help me live yes like am I going to wear them yes because that's written in blood

48:31that's there for a reason like what do you do what are you thinking okay like okay let's let's put the safety gear on that's required let's try to follow the process that's required let's try to figure out how to do it a little better a little smarter a little faster whatever that is well you nailed it right there though every safety book I've ever written or ever excuse me every safety book I've ever read was written in blood correct they didn't just make these rules about a nowhere for no reason every safety manual at every utility out there is written in somebody's blood that went through an accident that didn't have that safety protocol set up in place that's why over the years when I started the trade there were no sleeves it was just straight class twos class fours you know and now sleeves yeah they suck yeah they're hot now instead of just having sweat from your elbows down you got sweat from your shoulders down you got to empty your gloves a couple more

49:31on hot days but you go home you get good at it and like when you bring the craft into it that's exactly what this trade is it's a craft it's a skilled a skilled trade that you have to learn and you got to learn right yeah because if you learn it wrong or you take the short cuts or you do shitty work that doesn't benefit anybody chances are there's guys that know their craft so well in and out they can do it safely productively and to a higher quality than some guy who just wants to get off early so he's gonna take shortcuts can do because if he's taking shortcuts with just his safety gears pp you know that what else is he shortcutting you know I can remember where and this was still back in the center point days so this is 10 years ago clip and races were a thing

50:34oh yeah oh we loved the shit out of them yeah if we're racing with a guy in a bucket next to us and we're clipping and we're just flip flopping you take every advantage you can like on your way the next structure and you're rolling by the other guy you stop by his bucket turn the keys off throw in the field because a win is a win yeah but that's what I mean that's craftsmanship is you know I've still got pictures somewhere on some phone or maybe even back then it was Polaroids or printed pictures of lines on rods when's the last time you've seen a straight line on rod yeah because they don't teach it yeah I teach I'll just put your rods on oh teach them those rods have color in the middle for a reason a lot of them see how straight you can get them see how quick you can get them straight yeah that is learning your craft when you are fast and dangerous at what you can do because you were good at your job that's a craftsman that's not somebody who

51:35studied for a test that's somebody who learned in a real world environment and they're good at what they do and that's why you know lineman get the they get a bad rep you know oh y'all are cocky y'all are arrogant y'all are this that and the other it's not cocky or arrogant we understand that you know some of us are very good at what we do and why wouldn't you be proud of something like that thousand percent why wouldn't you be proud of the the work you do and again that goes to the life as well as the job you know be proud of what the the trade that you are in be proud of what that's afforded you be proud that your kid has a new bicycle every year because he's growing like a weed be proud that you drive a nice truck some of them are over the top but that was money that you traded blood sweat and tears for because you wanted that truck so when you get that truck be

52:37proud of it i think some of those guys that are over the top are they don't get to be included in this conversation because they're probably the ones that are cutting all the corners and they just decide to include themselves and the ones that you know are doing everything right and and really good at what they do and they just like to get in with that crowd like I'm on the lineman it's like well if you're making decisions that to not use safety equipment properly if you're making decisions to cut corners if you're putting your life in other lives at risk every day knowingly doing it you don't get to include yourself in that group just because you have a cool truck at that point that means nothing because you're not just do what you're do what you're supposed to do yeah it's not like we don't know what to do yeah there's yeah guys that have been in this trade for a longer than me and i'll watch them on my man you just do what you're supposed to do it's easy yeah i like all the nice fancy stuff too i like the trucks the watches the houses

53:41you good none of that none of that makes a hill of beans if you're not safe at work and you don't come home to those things one day yeah because of shortcuts because of i'll as stupid as too hot to wear those we don't need those we're far enough away i think another thing that guys could tighten i know i'm harping on you guys too but it's not the hard is to like help you realize that we can all get better in anything you can you can tighten anything up and i think a lot of corners are cut because it's uncomfortable out there right wearing gloves and sleeves is uncomfortable because you sweat a lot it's hot but but is it is it just that it's hot or is it that you're packing an extra 80 pounds that you don't need to pack and it's really uncomfortable like honestly i'm gonna call you out on it like is it uncomfortable because of that or because i don't know if you can move well and you're hydrated and you're healthy

54:48the heat is what it is like you're probably going to find another way to look after that like get cooling vest like whatever drink a lot more ice water like i don't know you can deal with the heat if you're fit i just i just watched i just been into running lately so i'm all kinds of running content on instagram now and youtube and there's this guy that just they called the king of moe app and max and he just ran bad what the bad water 120 or whatever it is besides 120 miles or whatever through bad water and the desert and it's like 120 friggin degrees and he just crushed it he just he just absolutely killed it because he did heat training oh yeah to run that and he beat the world record in it by slaughtered the world record by like 20 minutes or something and it's a phenomenal like so are you just lying and complaining because you're out of shape you're like you're not fit you're

55:51not hydrated you're drinking too much you're eating wrong you know you're doing all these other things now you're cutting now it's found your way to work to what you do for a living and you're cutting corners because it's easier yeah it's easier because you're not gonna get as winded they're not gonna get as hot they're not gonna sweat as much you're not putting your hooks on because it hurts there's there's a remedy for all that if you're tired of work and you want to do it quicker so you can go home and take an app hey how about going to bed the night before correct if you're out of shape and it's too hot and you don't want to do this hey um maybe hydrate the night before instead of going to the bar maybe have a breakfast maybe put some food in your stomach before you go climb there's a million things you do if you don't like the way it feels at 280 pounds hey try it at 240 pounds see if that feels any better I promise you it will just this in the last two years I went down from 260 to 210 to 15 and that's for you that's

56:56a different world yes it is 40 50 pounds man I can do all kinds of cool tricks I've done that in the last couple of years too it's amazing well it's funny because we do it and there was nothing wrong with the way we were before right we still can do all our tasks we still could take care of our business we could act up a little bit here and there but to me it was like you act up one time man the next day of sucked I don't want to do that again and it got to the point where I was like why do I do it why do I keep doing it and so I start to eat and a little better start to working out more and then everybody wants to scream Chinese peptides or whatever but the the end result was I felt better you lose 40 50 pounds holy shit I can go run around now I can go do all kinds of things I couldn't before it gets expensive you got to buy new clothes that part sucks for sure never in my life it's all smacking down in a larger and extra large I was like dude this

57:59dude I'm putting mediums on now wrong like what is going on oh I went we went somewhere dumb the other day shopping I say the other day is a couple months ago my girl was like oh yeah you should try this shirt on and she hands me a large I'm like you must be your other boyfriend because me personally I've never been in a large since I was in high school she's like um have you seen your clothes you look like you're wearing grandma's moomoo around the house it's like what yeah and there's oversized and there's I just I just I entertained the the wild thought that I'm about to put a large on so I go to the dress room whatever I put this shirt on and I look in the mirror and I was like what the hell is going on walk out so I just like I told you I'm like okay so apparently I wear large or extra large or something and it's just a it's a weird you don't get used to that no because I it's a and you know maybe that comes down to a lot of the the mental the mental side of me is body dysmorphia is a wild thing because you don't even know you have it until you're

59:05looking at yourself still thinking you're 300 pounds 304 pounds is what I started at damn do you good for you I was I still remember me and my buddy Rob went on a wild spur of the moment 230 in the morning trip to New Orleans jumped in the car and go we're at paddle brines by 9 a.m. having hurricanes at paddle brines at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday or something random and there's a picture and I think I posted half of that picture the other day or I posted a side by side picture but I was wearing a t-shirt and we're sitting there high five and and there's like a tout or a waterfall or water fountain in the background my belly is so far out that I look at it and I I still think I look like that and I look at other pictures and you know I used to get shit for taking gym photos you're just yourself center you're you're just out here thirst trapping this and the other else like no I see changes in me now which I haven't seen in myself for the

1:00:06last five 10 years because I still see that 300 pound kid that wanted a piece of chocolate cake and wanted to go drink rumplements till the sun came up mentally I still see that kid even though I'm leaps and bounds more I used to be I say I got a lot I got a lot of work to do I still have a it's a ever evolving craft yeah right as a craft I will never master but on my tune until the cake comes out and then I'll send them back to that but people look at it and they're like oh well he's just again with the cocky he's cocky he thinks he looks good like no I do look good compared to where I was 10 years ago I look great I look great I can go out and run I have no nobody's like nobody's in nobody that is in better shape than you is telling you you look bad or to stop doing that so that's the thing no matter what the thing is not a single fucking one of them exactly it's always

1:01:08the ones that are now jealous of where you're at you don't like what I'm doing you do it let's see it you can't do it you won't do it you're two you're too complacent you're too comfortable sitting on the couch being a being a couch quarterback telling me what I'm doing wrong tell me you shouldn't do that you need to eat more you need to eat less you should drink more you should drink less the only person that tells me that is me and that's through trial and fire or trial and error and running to the fire with it a 33 days ago now I quit drinking good for you not for any particular reason not forever just because I wanted to because I didn't like you can't try it it doesn't control you yeah that's yeah I put her on the shelf and I'm like okay yeah my pick it up one day or next summer we might go do something I don't know whenever I want to sure I can yeah I don't even have a a craving or an urge I had one day where I wanted a shower beer last week yeah it's like man

1:02:10after the day a shower beer really would come in clutch but I look at my decision-making skills which are already semi semi decent to pour alcohol does nothing but just add fuel to the fire for what I just have one of those personalities where I can't have a beer I can't just go I hate men's go catch a beer and catch up I don't I don't catch a beer and catch up we can do that without beer I can do that with a monster in my hand and it was one of those the stupid blue collar energy drinks that are tick-tock famous now you're good but I don't I don't need a beer I don't need whiskey yeah yeah I can I can do everything I want to do without a lot of stuff in life I said it yesterday too the formula is fucking really simple actually if you if you just like if you're at that point where you're not trying to fine tune your body like you're not trying to be you know get in a bodybuilding competition and you're trying to do fine tuning if you're just trying to like start this the starting formula was really simple when I just put it together

1:03:16like this is what I'm gonna do it's like four or five things it's like drastically limit alcohol if you can't get rid of it right away just limit it like not every day I was every day and I go down to like okay only when I go out with the girl and we're having a nice night out and it's for that reason like we're going out we're going for dinner we're gonna have some drinks we're gonna have a nice evening it's that or like special occasions sure what you can differentiate the difference in a dinner with a glass of wine or you sit on the couch with an 18 pack of beer 100,000 the problem is the people that can't differentiate that they can't they can't see the difference oh well no you're just drinking or not just cut cut it cut it like do what you can get yourself into a program if it's that bad and you can't do that limit alcohol that was number one limit or cut it number two was stop eating like an asshole do whatever you can and don't

1:04:17listen to the rest of the world talking about GLP ones like what if that's what it takes for you to drop the 80 pounds that you're carrying I promise you it's better to do that then didn't to keep packing 80 pounds yeah just go do it get on get on a special program go to your doctor whatever just figure that out because I promise you there's enough studies that show packing the extra weight is worse for you then that peptide so do what you got to do to get rid of the weight so stop eating like an asshole that's number two 10,000 plus steps a day go for a walk walk while you're on the phone change your lifestyle just walking walk more you do those three things and it'll just fall off especially you do those three things and you haven't lifted a muscle yet yeah you're not even talking about working out doing stuff that's hard there's no talking about the three easiest things you could do because you can do them all

1:05:20in the exact house you have right now the only difference is maybe don't pick up the beer maybe put the beer in the garage in case your buddies wanted or if you want one on a rare occasion on the food yeah just that's the best way to put is don't be a fat ass like to stop eating like an ass just like you just you don't need like grab the small like I did I did stupid hacks or I just grabbed the small plate in the cupboard okay versus the big plate and I would fill the small plate fill it because it's still smaller than what you'll take on the big plate fill it go sit down and eat that and then give yourself five minutes before deciding to go for for seconds that's a good one and nine times out of 10 I took enough food on the small plate I was satiated I was full enough after I ate that and I gave it five minutes just if you can do that one small thing like that's that'll drop freaking 50% of the calories you eat yeah far yeah no and just like you said walk in

1:06:25it's not even I don't consider that working out no it's easy to do you just walk around the blog go check the mail lock down to the corner make it like make it part of a routine where anytime you're doing something it's like if you've ever read atomic habits atomic habits look amazing right love that what does James clear say in order to make something a habit you have to make it part of your world like you've to set up your environment to support the thing you're trying to do I took that I took that real hard to heart when I got out of the camper had a TV in the bedroom had the problem where I'd get binge watching shows and all of a sudden it's midnight so when I got into the house that was my number one real hey no TV in the bedroom why trust me yeah no TV in the bedroom is for sleeping it is for laying down lay your head down on the bed and go to bed don't sit there and binge watch four hours five hours of TV because with me it was like it was a slippery slope you

1:07:28start watching shows and then oh let me get something to drink real quick go to the kitchen oh hell me here let me get bag of chips or something so now you're binge watching binge eating binge drinking you're doing all of this stuff it was told to me one time everything you do is in excess everything building trucks drinking going out with people like everything you do is in excess and I was like damn it's pretty good pretty good saying just don't do it in excess keep everything do it moderation you know if you want to have a beer have a beer if you don't have some M&M's have a handful of M&M's don't have three or four of the share size packs out of the freezer as you watch these shows in your head and the camper yeah not saying I would but you know what I mean you're just you're just doing everything in excess and yeah those 80 pounds are never going to go anywhere because it nothing changes if nothing changes simple is that if you want something to change

1:08:33if you're not happy with anything about you anything about your job your relationship your family nothing changes if nothing changes make one small movement go to a small plate from a big plate give that four weeks watch what changes don't do anything else maybe walk around the block change your food get rid of it like you're saying those three alcohol food exercise haven't even gone to the gym yet and if you just want to go one step further you're like okay I want to take this a little bit more serious accountability is massive and you can you can go to any AI and it can spit out a fitness program and whatever but the what AI doesn't have is accountability so go hire a coach find it there's billions of them out there find one hire them for a little while and they'll build you a meal plan they'll build you a program if you want to start going to the gym running whatever they can do

1:09:38that but what they're really good at is holding you account that's what you're paying for that's what you're paying for the meal plan they probably they can tweak the ones they've already got set up they can tweak the ones that are already on their computer yeah the biggest assets you get from hiring a personal trainer coach gym partner whatever you want to call them is they're going to keep you accountable yeah they're gonna talk shit to you if you miss the gym yeah and it's all tired you don't want to go to the gym well yeah it lost the day and then you're gonna like shit I feel like shit I need to go there's been times where I've gone to the gym two in the morning before work because I knew we're gonna work late and I wouldn't be able to go after and as crazy as that seems you're gonna feel better about yourself even if it's all fruiting and off timed yep you still got your gym in yep you still got your little time on the treadmill you still made time that night to make meals that's the thing that kills everybody especially in this trade like half the guys meal prep half the guys have wives that make something but then you got the guys who stop at McDonald's every

1:10:43morning because easy quick and easy I don't have anything to eat if you don't have anything to eat go to Safeway and they actually have a whole section of refrigerator foods that are already pre-packed with the macros on them so in the weights yeah and what are you gonna spend it don't give me start on Chick-fil-A if you want to go to Chick-fil-A it's gonna be $26 those meals are $8 yeah eight bucks for a meal when you're gonna spend more than that at any fast food restaurant for zero quality zero actual nutrition where in this other one and some of the meals I'm sure every grocery store does it the Safeway just happens to be what's right next to us at the show up but if I'm short of meal or two I'll stop in there on the way out and go for it there's a guy I'm just gonna I'm gonna look it up right now because I fall on my I'm forgetting his last name um alignment Halbert and Jordan Halbert

1:11:44anybody go follow Jordan what's that name sound familiar he's he's big he makes a lot of you this 25,000 followers now on Instagram let's go and any of you out there alignment you're like hey how does alignment actually do this go follow Jordan he is fit AF and he teaches you practical ways he's he's alignment he's on the road he does this he'll he'll teach you how to meal perhaps he makes that's all simple shit yeah and he's a guy that's actually doing it I need to get him on the show actually I need to reach out to him get him on the show because that would be killer he's like scroll through him for like a second looks some of stuff like the guys obviously fit he's doing the thing he makes real uh real videos you can tell it's him he's not AI and stuff he'll show you how he's meal prepping he'll show you how to do different things even when you're out on the road and you're like uh stop it chick filet or okay well let's just go into

1:12:48safe way here he'll say this is what you can you you can go in you can get a Greek yogurt you can get some berries you can get a little thing honey boom you've got big protein meal satiated and it didn't take you any extra effort or time and it was healthy things like that and yeah man he just shows you how to do it and I think it's freaking awesome we need more people like that like it'd be a game changer yeah because you know if you came up in the trade as a you know as a ground man or an apprentice or whatever and the crummy you drove your lime in around in y'all stop every day at water burger or chick filet or whatever and you do that for the first couple years that's ingrained in your brain now yeah like oh well yeah first time for breakfast y'all get a chicken sandwich or two chicken sandwiches or two cookies whatever chick filet is the worst because they have those chocolate chip cookies at 6 a.m. it's bad man yeah and they're good yeah yeah yeah I think this leads right into um perfect segue why are so many men and so many align men struggling

1:13:55with mental health these days I think there's a there's a stigma that men have to be they got to be okay they can't have mental health issues they can't have problems nobody wants to hear it so the guys that do which are more than more guys and will admit it the guys that do have the mental health problems they bury them I can't tell anybody about it I think I'm crazy they don't think I'm dumb they're gonna call me names so they just bury it burying it doesn't fix it you know that's something that I've had to work on for the last four years and that kind of is where I started my little adventure at I was trying to figure out how to not bury it how to make it socially acceptable to talk about the issues talk about the problems there's guys that I

1:15:01still know guys that refuse to even say the word therapist I'm not gonna sit down and sit on some stupid couch and tell people my problems like why go to a therapist they'll never judge you they don't know you they'll never sit here and talk shit to you you're paying a money so they can't this they're not your buddies at work yeah they're not you know your family who's gonna worry endlessly about you because you are messed up and if you have mental health problems and I can preach on it because I know I do and I'm okay with that because I work on if you have mental health problems people see that before you say it people will see the struggle whether it be in your eyes in your demeanor and your actions if you were a you know calm nice carefree guy for a lot of years and all the sudden you're the guy that goes to the bar every night and yells at people every morning

1:16:05and then just has a shitty attitude 24 hours a day if you see that guy and you know that guy just go up to him say man how are you you good if you stop and look a guy and I and give him five seconds of eye contact and you say you good and you just stop he'll tell you he might not want to but if you just sit there and let him linger on that for a second he'll tell you I've got a good buddy of mine Aaron Lee he's a journeyman lineman I think he's actually he's back in Texas now but he was one of my journeyman when I was pushing a crew for par this is back in 22 21 and man I was just going through some stuff you know I'm just trying to figure out this life on the road it was one of my first trips to California was by myself didn't have any friends really in my area and Aaron and his family put their camper a couple spots down for me at the camp spot at the campground

1:17:07and just going through a rough weekend I'd been sitting there drinking we had the day off for a change and he came by one night and we're just sitting there and he stops he's like man talk to me so about what but just talk to me you're obviously dealing with something what's going on and I was like oh man you know I'm just a brach had brushed it off but he wouldn't let me he's like now I'm leaving I'm right here we'll talk and so we get to talking and it was a guy it was it was strong you know just opening up to somebody about some of the things that you've never opened up to anybody about and I still remember he walked out we'll walk it back in he's like where's your Bible at so I to this day I still carry my mom who passed away I carry her Bible it's got all her handwritten notes in it and that thing I won't go anywhere without it so it's like on the counter over there he grabs it and he sits down with me I'm sitting on the

1:18:09camper steps going up to living room we sat down right across from him put his arm on mine and we prayed and I was the first time I had probably prayed and a lot of years I don't know how many a lot I just I grew out of faith and just grew into a person that I just thought that I could do everything myself and it all came to a head that night with him and I realized shit I do need help you know I do need someone that I can vent to I don't necessarily need him to say anything yeah let me clear my head get me into a better mental spot that I can start healing myself you know and I've gone through a couple therapists just probably in the last four years that I hell I've been fired by therapists she's like hey man I got a two check you I was like well shit okay it just wouldn't arrive fit but then I've you know I've got had a therapist it was so

1:19:14awesome and I saw things from a total different perspective just because he happened to word something different he was probably saying the same stuff they all did yeah he worded it different he worded it's where it resonated with me I'm like oh shit that's what he meant okay cool but man we just especially especially in the trade with the hours we work and the amount of time that we spend in those trucks with our guys I don't think there is a normal line man out there especially traveling there's none that I've met this spend more time with their families than they do with their crews especially if you're a traveler because you probably live in a camper your crew probably that's pretty close to you but if you're working 10 12 hour days then you're gonna catch trouble calls at night and you're gonna have overnight outages and you got all these things that pile up into 70 80 hour work weeks you spend 70 or 80 hours with the same six guys kind of how many hours you even if you live at home there's not many hours left in the week how many hours are you

1:20:18awake with your family yeah I promise you're with your crew more and that sucks but that's a reality of the straight that's that's where we're at yeah so why wouldn't you just talk to somebody no one's gonna turn you down but I don't want to hear that shit yeah love him to death my brother Jason Sil he was my crutch for the last couple years we would sit in the truck and we would talk we would have prayer together love him to death and he was one of the first people that made me understand maybe it's not so scary to talk to somebody maybe it's not so scary to talk about all the shit that I have going on in my head still get our jobs done we'll just be a little happier when we do it you know just talk to somebody so that's tough so who should who should be the one that reaches out because like your buddy made the effort to break through with you and I know we sit here and say

1:21:24reach out to somebody but like if you go back to that moment like how how isolated and alone did you feel oh yeah you're right if you're at that point there's no way that I would have reached out unless somebody saw it so as an outsider looking in you know I check I check on a lot of my buddies a lot of times throughout the throughout the days because I know they're struggling now I maybe it's because I have an entire inside perspective on it and I can see it but if you have somebody you even just think you're struggling talk to them you'll be able to you'll be able to call it out you'll be able to see it real quick yeah you know because there's a lot of things that oh yeah I'm good I'm fine that you can say that just won't come out right that's particular day when someone's checking on you because they're worried about you and they're not just shooting the breeze and wasting time and passing it's not like a hey how you doing as you're walking out the door it's somebody sitting there give it five seconds of contact and be like hey

1:22:30are you okay yeah like what's going on you can talk to me we can talk about it it doesn't have to be a big drawn out thing you don't have to do it in a tailboard every morning catch the guy on the way to the truck that afternoon hey man we're doing after this you want to go catch a gym catch workout break him out of his mold but then there's also guys it will want to talk about it I've you know I've approached buddy say man I got five minutes come in you're on something real quick and those guys don't turn them down you might be the one thing that that guy reaches out to before he makes a very different approach at his problems if you would have said now I'm too busy and he goes home still need to get it off his chest and he can't people make decisions when they're distressed that under distressed that they shouldn't make and their decisions that are lifelong

1:23:32for not them but is that ripple effect again whether at work or out of work that ripple effect doesn't affect them anymore they they made their decision now we're left to deal with it do you think you if you go back to that that person who you were before somebody reached out and made a difference do you think if you would have known there was people around that were capable willing able to help that you would have like I'm only saying this because okay give you example there's I'm gonna have some people on the show in the next couple of days a couple different scenarios next week I'm having this some representatives from an organization called mates North America it started mates and construction out of Australia so this program's been around for 20 years in Australia and there's three levels to I'll get the full story so anyone who's interested in this pay attention

1:24:33for the next couple weeks after this episode comes out I'm gonna have this these reps from from mates talk about they train people on the job site to three different levels of of ability to help I guess the first one is like just some basic knowledge about suicide prevention suicide awareness mental health and it gives them some understanding of how to recognize if somebody struggling and and they've basically put their hands up to say I'm a safe place for people to come to me and there's a sticker that goes on your hard hat that that designates that that kind of level of person and the plan is to get these out on the job sites and then the next one is a level is a level deeper in understanding on how to get somebody that is struggling to like immediate help and and and full safe and then the next so there's a I think they call that a connector and again

1:25:39I'm gonna have them on the show to explain this all so level two is a connector and then level three is someone that can really hands on the help in a scenario and and that's all designated with stickers on hard hats and identified in pre jobs and all of that as that's a person that if anybody's struggling you can go to I just think like stuff like that is it's they're running the pilot program here in America they just started it with quantum support there's five organizations five subsidiary companies that they're running this pilot program through within quantum the plan is just just spread right and it's not just like for quantum companies this is to benefit like everybody you know job sales anybody another thing that's really cool I'm having a guy named Christopher Thomas on from Patelco tomorrow and again Christopher's gonna give his whole story I just got an initial conversation I had with him but he had an incident where I think he was diagnosed with cancer something like that sent him into you know I'm a mental spiral of sorts and ended up reaching out

1:26:45to 988 I believe you know called the 988 number and wasn't getting anywhere with that wasn't getting the help he needed with that even and had his own battle to get himself from a really bad scenario to better sure so he got invited to speak about this at a Foreman meeting where there was a hundred or 200 people around Foreman lineman all that in the trade and he decided to share his story and put his phone number up on the board and said I didn't get help here but if any of you guys are struggling anybody needs help here's my number please I just like to I'll help you through that moment turned into now him directly either on the phone or in person helping 400 people in our trade deal with all levels that's awesome of mental so I say this to say like if you're somebody that's like you're stable you're good like I've got a good background I've been relatively

1:27:49I've been able fortunate enough to keep stable mental health I've helped a lot of people as well because I decided to say here's my number reach out yeah so if you're somebody like that let people know you know let them know on the job site let them know in tailboards let them know in pre jobs if you're showing up to a job site like hey everybody I just want you to know like anybody struggling with anything I'm I'm open I'm safe place coming to me here's my phone number come up to me on a job site I keep it private like whatever I just I want to help and as much as especially on a job site and a tailboard and all that as much as you might catch flak in the moment when you do that the one guy that needs it will be the quiet guy that's the guy not making fun of you yeah so pay attention yeah pay attention to that because he might now he understands oh man I got somebody I can talk to you and it's not gonna judge me maybe let me just rabble a couple sentences to him real quick but opening that door opening that line of communication

1:28:51I mean I know it sounds drastic but it saves lives I've you know and I've watched a very good high school buddy of mine decide that was the only way he could go that's what he needed to do all because he had no one to talk to yeah and then we had yeah it's one of those things you know you kind of look back you know like man if I'd just done something different you know because I hadn't talked to him in a couple years after I got I got into the trade and I got out of my old line of work where I worked with him so I saw him every day and everything was great and he got a new girlfriend and that just kind of things just weren't going his way I guess but that was the only way that he saw fit to handle it and I just wish that you know he would have reached out or I would have reached out or somebody would have reached out but man are you good like let's talk about what's going on it'll be all right she gets better as bad as she is and as darkest things are

1:29:57one of the few guarantees in life as a son is gonna rise in the morning there'll be a pretty sudden rise go check it out you know go look at it go see it just make it through the night and I'm big on I know I've said it on my project as well when you're a traveler those camper walls they close in quick it gets real small in those campers when you're there by yourself and the sun starts setting and then you add on possibly having a couple little mental things that you need to iron out either you iron them out quick or you change your situation because I promise those mental issues will probably be better sitting on a dock watching the sunset than it would sitting in a little camper by yourself 12 years deep nothing gets solved with that you can bury it for a little bit it's gonna come back up with more force and more vengeance it's gonna be uglier it's gonna be harder there's no reason to do it by yourself there's so many different avenues like

1:31:01you're saying the these Australian guys that that's what they do there's somebody on your crew that I found somebody on my crew that did that for me he saved my life two different people at two different times got me to a point where I'm whole enough now where I realize man I need to tell someone my story because some of my story might help somebody one person that's all it takes that's all I care about give me one person that is gonna see another day that didn't know if he was gonna do that a week ago a month ago just one yeah that's it yeah uh I've like fortunately and unfortunately I've had friends brothers lineman in the trade that decided to end it and I've had quite a few just through doing this pro this podcast um share their stories and decided not to

1:32:06decided to keep living good um and it's it's it's always worked out if you can just make that decision to let somebody know about it and to get some help yeah it works it works out yeah there's there's more help out there than you know yeah you'll you'll find help in people you never thought we're gonna help you people that you never thought would even come close to understanding where you're at come to find out maybe they suffered with the same thing five years ago and they had to make the same call they had to reach out to in the exact same way and be scared that man this isn't gonna go very well they're gonna think I'm crazy but instead somebody's like hey let's sit down and pray about it or tell me what you're going through how can I help yeah all it takes isn't ears sometimes yeah all all people want to do is be heard you know and if all it takes is just sitting in a truck for five minutes after work talking to somebody not even getting a response

1:33:08from them but just being able to verbally get it out there yeah verbally getting it out there that got it off your chest that's step one step two is what are you gonna do to change to keep it off your chest so it doesn't come back whether it is change a little bit of your lifestyle get yourself in a better spot maybe the you know maybe the crew you're working on just doesn't vibe with you it doesn't work with you things are hard and not helping you go go sign the books go do something that's gonna better yourself there's the thousand different ways and a thousand different systems to to get but the first step is identifying and like just stopping this process that you want to go through with because you think there's no other way of dealing with it just let's get that stopped and let's get you thinking a little different which is very possible very possible it's been proven

1:34:10billion times you can get help so like and you're not like you're not different than everyone else that's almost gone through with it and had a complete life change and I use I've shared the story of Noah Edmunds a thousand times and it's a classic example like he was ready to do it and decided not to and he's got a wife and four kids and a beautiful life and a purpose and all of these things now because he just made that choice and we're strong enough to make that choice not to and found a different path found people to talk to you found people that have it take some time you know yeah talk about your project a little bit man it started on a whim just sitting at the house one day obviously since not quite day one but real early on in your journey I was like

1:35:10shit this is cool to sell you know getting to sit down with you years back when we were bare handed in New Mexico and my camper seeing the very the very first generation primitive setup that you put together and you made work for you and all I believe back then it was all over phones all over majority web chat type deals yeah so I started thinking about I was like well man I I want to start vlogging just some of my personal chronicles with the shit that I go through that nobody over if it'll die like that nobody will ever see any of it but then I was like well what good is that well good is it if nobody ever sees it and it you know what if somebody else needed to see that particular little 30 second video that could have helped him that day so I was like okay well I'm gonna start something I don't know what I don't know how so I start going back and thinking about things and I couldn't figure out a name that I remembered back

1:36:13my grandfather was a big spades player him and my grandmother both all the family reunions all of the big gatherings whatever there was always a spades game going so I would always try to jump into that game and when I was learning it I couldn't have even been a teenager I had to be Austin's age and I remember him telling me if you're gonna be anything be a sys base all right he's like being a sys base trumps everything and I didn't you know I got it in the card since I was like okay cool top of the top of the pack you know best of the best that's a sys base so well I started thinking about it and I was going to get a tattoo a couple years ago and I wanted to just completely black out money I wanted to get just something big right on my knee that's like what do you want there's a buddy of mine that I'd gone to for a couple of my tattoos which

1:37:19he's like what do you want to get I was like I don't know I said man you know what I want yeah I want a big I want a big spade right over my knee he's like all right and we start tattooing he's like what's the spade for and how it came back to me like that I don't know but I told that story he's like dude that's a freaking awesome story I was like yeah it kind of is it's kind of cool now to think that I got a tattoo from my grandfather without him even knowing I got one and I'll he'll never see it you know they passed away but I look at it now and every time I look at that spade I'm like damn asa spades so as soon as I got that tattoo I had the name in my head for probably three years before anything happened and it's still completely ground level but I want to I kind of look at it and I want to focus on that always have an asa spade in your pocket with your mental health if you're struggling pull out the asa spades and that asa spades might not be

1:38:23anything physical it might just be a buddy that you know you can call to talk to at that point in time he's your ace in the hole like he's the guy that you're gonna rely on because you know it's gonna be there and that's kind of I guess the end of it all is I want to be that guy for the guys that don't have anybody for the people that have struggles because I promise I have the same struggles I have the same struggles where if I didn't have people around me that I call him my boardroom I've got a group of about five guys love that and they're they're my boardroom little trigonementors yeah I've got a guy or two and I think I have two guys in the trade I got one this huge in the gym and working out I got one this into trucks and I got the most family family orientated devout Christian that I've ever met in my life and those five guys can

1:39:24solve any problem that I could ever come up with that's awesome that's a really good idea that's that's cool I think it's important yeah you gotta have people right you can't do no one's gonna make it do his life a little to build it that way like build your life that way and source out those people that can help you in the five major aspects of life like and I can call my buddy Danny I can call him it anytime of any day but I'm 38 seconds from her house about to turn on his street you got a second he's like I'm already outside let's go he'll be ready Danny uh his uh he's got twins and his boys are the same age as Austin they we grew up next door to each other for the first I don't know how many years five six years of his life so they're best friends they still have sleepovers they still go fishing they do all kinds of stuff together so every time I come to Houston I'll make it a point where we might not do anything but sit in the driveway and have a quick 10 minute talk he could be in the middle of mowing grass running around a daylight he'll finish his yard

1:40:27with a headlamp on because he's that kind of guy he's gonna drop whatever he has to take care of people and that's having a servant a servant's heart you know he's just one of those jammed guys so having him at my table is important it means a lot and I mean that none of these guys even probably know they're on a table they're at a table but they are that boardroom is it's stacked with five good guys yeah it's also can take you anywhere you want to go that's such a like that's such a cool idea I've the reason I said tribe of mentors is I think Tim Ferris was a guy wrote a book called tribe of mentors and it was literally like I think you wrote the book compiling all of the people that have been like mentors in his life and wrote little something about that but that's that's a cool way to put it like build your own little boardroom you know like they don't have to know that that's the thing but that's just for you they all have a

1:41:30place they could just be five of your best friends it all specializes in something different fitness work family whatever it is yeah yeah I love that that's cool that's a really cool idea um so Aces a podcast now it's uh right now it's just uh I call it a project because that's what it is it's a it's a working progress I don't know what it's gonna do yet cool I don't know if I'm gonna go to a full-out podcast I've recorded just learning how to talk on camera and with people I've recorded I think four episodes full length somewhere between 45 to 60 minutes that every now and then I'll go through when I'm looking for just all I'm posting are on as TikTok just because there's no point in getting a YouTube if you have no following everybody says start on TikTok that's what Chad GPT told me I don't know so we can help you out there yeah I can there you can give you some guide all right you know a guy that knows you let me sit on your boardroom table let's go let's go social media let's go but now I just I don't know where it's gonna go um the the goal today is the

1:42:37same goal that I had before I even had a name for it is I just want to help somebody out of a spot that I know I've been in and I didn't have anybody two three years before I had my boardroom two three years before I knew I needed a therapist I remember getting in my wreck and after the wreck being so mentally messed up I thought a clump of grapes was an apple I talked with the wreck I had a stutter it was the wreck what was the wreck and uh oh man yeah in 2022 I was uh I was a foreman on a parker and I had my whole pretty much all my journey been living in the same RV park as me because there's not much out there in that area and uh we

1:43:40liked a snowboard which can't snowboard in the summertime so what one guy did and he was the only one the had one he had a one wheel and I thought it was the wildest thing ever when I was bare-handed in albacricky in 2019 there was a bare-hander that had one I tried it and I ate shit hard and I was like okay that's not for me learned it got it thanks so I picked it up again a couple years later just trying to get better at snowboards so I and I'd had it for months you know and it was great it was fun like we would ride around on them and we'd get the on these levy roads right there by the RV park get off work at four o'clock load your cargo shorts full of beers and let's go ride around on one wheels with no helmets so we did that and uh the day of the wreck we were already heading back it was Taco Tuesday I had to go get tacos at night so we had to get back early and one of the guys

1:44:41started edge and pass me to get I was in the leading spot and he started edge and pass me and my competitive nature kicks in I was like why that's not gonna happen what's next so I start and those boards are they're driven by gyros so if you lean towards the front it's gonna accelerate a little bit lean towards the back it'll start slowing down so I started leaning to the front and I can't seem to make up any ground and he's I don't know maybe five people in five you know heads in front of me so I just can't make up ground so I keep leaning keep leaning and I get to that point where those boards are set up with a safety mechanism where you'll hit a certain degree or a certain level to where it'll vibrate through it'll vibrate pretty strongly so you'll feel it through the foot pads and that feeling is the board saying hey you're going too far you're you're pretty you're

1:45:41you're at the edge you're about to you're about to cross over and about the same time where I passed him I felt the vibrate and I was riding left front forward so I looked back this way behind my bag and I saw that I was past him so I said okay cool we can slow down a little bit and I went to try to ease off of it and from what I'm told it looked like the board just completely took a shit and nose dived straight into the front and none of this is from my point of view because I don't remember a single thing but my buddies told me I went probably six foot in there and then kind of did a half ass roll but I landed on the backside of my left hip going backwards so when I landed backwards the hip caught me and the entire spine and head just did a whiplash straight to the concrete

1:46:49to bounce me it was hard enough to bounce me back up off of the concrete and let me go down the road a little more and I don't know I don't think I'll ever know the full story I know I woke up at some point and I told him I was fine and I was going to go get x-rays and I tried to walk off or limp off they sat me down they'd already called an ambulance I remember waking up in the ambulance at some point and calling my boss and telling him hey I'm fine I'm just going to run and get some extra usual quick I'll be working the morning and hanging up with him and then calling my girlfriend at the time and telling her hey it's in a little wreck I think they're gonna take me to Lodi I'm gonna get some x-rays I'm just spouting shit off I've talked my head I hadn't talked to anybody I don't even know where I'm at and from what I was told that's right when I blacked out or crashed as they

1:47:50called it he took my phone said he's not going Lodi he's got a surgical team waiting for him at Sutter he's going to Sutter like emergency surgery he's going straight to the OR they have it prepped and she ended up catching flipping a loop on the freeway because she's in season ambulance going the other way right from where I live so put two and two together and the only thing I was told is when they opened the doors at the ER I looked at they'd already stripped my shirt off me they already had wires and paddles and shit running everywhere it was like a 13 to 16 hour surgery something like that I was an ICU for nine nine days after that I think it's the point where I tried I guess I tried taking the tubes out so they had me handcuffed when I woke up stop right I don't know I guess I tried too hard they had me handcuffed but I had to I had to redo a

1:48:57lot of things man I had to relearn a lot they she went to my work truck and grabbed a tailboard out of there and gave it to the doctor said he won't listen to me ask him questions about this sheet of paper he knows that sheet of paper he can fill one of those out in the dark he knows it like the front of the front bag like the bag of his head so the doctor's asking me all kinds of stuff you know like hey where would you say you sign on this piece paper probably on the back sure enough that's where signatures are it's like okay cool what kind of information do you have on this piece paper I've been filling out tail wards for the last four or five years of my career every single day 350 out of 365 days of the year I'm writing a new tailboard and I don't even know what kind of information goes on he's like what what do you call what did he say he said who is

1:49:57your first call if something happens on the job site and me I'm like I guess it just depends on who's on the job site I don't know he's like oh okay so it's not 911 I was like oh yeah that worked too the simplest everyday tasks the grapes and the apple yeah that was a real highlight for me but yet it's it's it's stuck with me for a while I had a stutter the guys at work they all knew what I went through so nobody made fun of me but tail wards got a little longer because I couldn't get words out for a little bit I got all the staples out of my head and I I met a the doctor they came in younger guy probably in his thirties and he's like man I'm glad to see you doing good I look at him like the hell of you you know I'd never seen you in my life he goes you know you

1:50:58don't recognize me do you like no he goes I have my head my hands in your brain I was like oh appreciate that good work because you had to go a little longer than we thought I'm just glad you're up and moving for a while there was a point where I had to come outside and talk to the people that were here and tell them hey it ain't looking like we don't know what it's gonna look like we don't know what the quality of life is gonna be like after call who you need to call and get your affairs and order type stuff and just thinking back on it now all of that happened because I'm wanting to make a couple shitty decisions I could have just stayed at home and been looking forward to go getting tacos at night and having dinner I could have gone out and not had six millilights in my pockets like I could have done a lot of things different and it's again with the small choices right just have a beer don't have a whole 12 bag have a beer that might have

1:52:03helped me wear your PPE helmet sure it should could help me I still have a scar that goes from my forehead all the way back to my ear every time I get a haircut I'm reminded of it and it will never it'll never not be there so I'd say visual reminder for the rest of my life that the decisions I made impacted a lot of people they impacted my dad enough who doesn't travel to fly to California to my ICU room thought I saw ghosts were open eyes I said what the hell are you doing here where am I because the word the doctor said is we don't know how this is going to look when he comes out of it so you might want to call some family because I didn't have anything I didn't have I had one person here I didn't have any family she had to call people she didn't want to talk to she didn't want to talk to my ex-wife she had to call my sister she came out here who called my dad who came

1:53:04I called my aunt who is here that whole room full of people I didn't know where I was there were things that I lost short-term memory on stuff I had done two weeks ago but I could tell you what color shirt I wore for a picture day as a junior yeah just weird occurrences is with mental stuff there's no X-Men it's almost like the electrical theory it's a theory yeah you know there's no set and stone reason it's a theory it's fresh with the brain and it's people don't understand how much you actually have to take care of that brain it's the only one he got right I didn't take care of it in 22 and just two months ago I guess it was now maybe a month ago I bumped my head on the little a pillar on the side of the truck just bumped it nothing that I was even like I that hurt I knew I bumped it I was already pissed off so I had a cost about bumping it and four hours later

1:54:08I start hearing ringing in my right ear it's a kind of weird another two hours later I don't have any hearing out of my right ear gone completely I could snap right here not hear anything I don't know where just because I hit right on the same area where my scar was and I was like maybe that did it because the doctor told me if you bump it wrong one way you might not wake up so I went to I went to the ER that day I said hey here's what's going on went to Sutter so they had all my records they're like oh shit okay that was a pretty big deal yeah and they gave me some steroids and I think that maybe the bumping it just happened to jostle things enough toward inflamed one of the nerves which left side of the brain goes to the right extremities here I corner them out with all that yeah and it just goes to show you what you do matters don't just look at it when you're at home

1:55:14when you're in the car when you're or just keep it on your mind mentally take care yourself so where you don't get in those shitty situations if you don't put yourself in that predicament at all the outcome would be different and that's how I have to think about it every day of my life so I mean I takes me a while to think these days I'm not as quick on my feet as I used to be but I think a whole lot more about doing stuff before I do it yeah we take advantage and take for granted oh you take it for granted a lot of for sure because you're good you're healthy you're fine I'm invincible yeah like in that that incident was off work but like that's there's guys every day making decisions like that and just getting away with it for years it's the same decisions not where my heart hot didn't where my PPE didn't where life it was only gonna take the long seconds whatever yeah and that's but I mean that goes back to that was one of the I was strong when you said it's about building a craft you know it's about being a craftsman be good at

1:56:20what you do don't be faster what you do and be the quickest and whatever have some craftsmanship build a quality product at a super intended every time you'd come out it would say hey we work for the IBW we're building a quality product be safe take your time do what you have to do don't do shortcuts don't take shortcuts there's no it's no reason for it there's nothing good that's gonna come out of it you can take shortcuts and you might going back to the clip and thing we always used to do and just having you know clip and competitions you might end up 10 seconds ahead but when somebody goes and check your rods in rod ends and they're all out of whack or they look up there and you're wrapping a chain hoist around the steel instead of using a actual rigging chain or a binder or something like that and you're just taking shortcuts it's gonna catch up it's not if it's win it's gonna catch up yeah it's like

1:57:27you might have got the pull change done quicker but how many times of you've been called back to fix work yeah yeah you beat your body down the road you took a little longer but that guy's never got call back yeah you know you never had to go back and fix anything do it right the first time you're not gonna be going back yeah winning doesn't matter if all of a sudden the next morning you got four gobacks on that pole so you're not done yet yeah but damn he finished that pole in four and a half hours it take you two days who won yeah it's crazy man um well okay I've had you for a couple hours now Austin looks like he's getting squirrely over there anything else you want to say where do people find you to find your project find you talk to you um you put your man you can find me on tiktok uh ace of spades project that's really all we're we I've got a youtube channel there's nothing on it just yet same thing ace of spades project um there's gonna be an adventure it's gonna

1:58:31be right it's gonna be slow but it's fun I like having and there's a lot of hands on there that talks shit and have fun with it so I you know I enjoy having new people there come out check it out maybe and like I said all it all it comes down to is all it will do is help people you don't care if it's one person I don't don't care if it's some million people you know later this year I'm gonna be speaking a little bit uh got an invitation to one of the the safety summits for center point so I'm coming down here later this year to hang out with some buddies and talk about the same stuff we talked about pretty much just mentally stay healthy I guess as a leaving quote I mean if you can't find anybody to talk to you can't find anybody that'll help you and you just need to vent call me being on the phone for me is nothing yeah if it means that you're gonna make it to see another sunrise I'll stay on the phone as long as you want my promise yeah

1:59:31call me all that well thanks I appreciate you having me this content is completely free all right the only thing I'm asking you for is to hit that subscribe button and I know it's cheesy I know it's corny I know every youtuber asks you to hit that button and you're probably sick and tired of it but if you like the show and you want to see the show grow this is the way I proved the people in charge that it's worth investing in so it's pretty simple and it's the price you can pay for me it's no money it's just a subscribe please hit the subscribe and I appreciate the equity for it