Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Business of Machining - Epsiode 86
173 Plays7 years ago
Get Well Soon, Grimsmo! He might be under the weather but shop life waits for no one...
--BURNOUT-- When you enjoy working, you have to be more conscious of that sneaky little thing called burnout. You might not notice until it's too late!
Pride and Humility: The Balance William breaks a toy at school.
Tony Robbins Total Immersion Grimsmo and Meg attend a Tony Robbins event and return revitalized! Love him or hate him the "I'm Not Your Guru" guru has ways to break limiting thinking patterns and bestow clarity. Using a different framework makes critical decision-making easier.
NEGATIVE NANCIES As Saunders releases the first of many Johnny 5 videos, the negative nancies get their panties in a twist because of an estimated 2-year timeline. Rome wasn't built in a day...right?
Hesitation Parallels Saunders has found THE microscope and a jib-crane solution but suffers a case of Paralysis by Analysis while actively fighting lifestyle creep. From Grimsmo's last video (BACK FROM IMTS 2018!) he's STILL gotta order titanium round bar BUT this order entails more than clicking a button...
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Personal Updates
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 86. My name is John Grimsmo. My name is John Saunders. Good morning. Good morning. Like I'm in a super great mood, but I'm sick. My voice is dead. And if I go into a coughing fit, please forgive me.
00:00:18
Speaker
I was going to ask, you've mentioned you've lost your voice. Is that because of your thing yesterday or just you're actually just sick? Both. Mostly because I think I'm actually just sick. Like, Leif had it and then Meg had it and then Clara had it and I'm the last one. Got it. Turn down your, yeah, perfect. Well, I'd ask how it's going, but you're sick.
00:00:44
Speaker
Drake, we seem to have it going around here, so not fun. Not fun. Are you sticking around in the shop and doing work or are you going to nurture? Okay. Yeah. I should be fine. I just got to be careful. Yeah, right. We've had the
Balancing Work and Family
00:01:04
Speaker
conversation, I don't know if it's because of IMTS, but people will come up about
00:01:08
Speaker
It's very nice when people are saying like, hey, you should take it easy, you know, in various different forms that don't burn out and make sure you enjoy the kids. And it's honestly really good advice. And I don't know that I did actually took a lot more. We talked about this a lot more relaxing summer in terms of hanging out with the kids and doing other stuff and basically not working weekends. But it's funny because it's just different when
00:01:35
Speaker
When you love, you know, when you love what you do and you love coming in here and you love this stuff, like you want to have it all. So I want to get up early, come do work and then go hang out with the kids. And I don't, I don't mind grinding. I'm conscious of getting burned out, but I love working just who I am, just who I am in.
00:01:58
Speaker
I totally, totally agree with that completely. I love working. I love what I do. I get to come in and play all the time. And I still feel like I spend a good amount of time with my family. I don't think that's suffering.
00:02:10
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's funny because it's, it's actually, um, I think people think you're working as a, I don't know what you want to say, like, uh, not suffering, but like working out of the pressure to work. Like a martyr kind of thing. Yeah. No, it's actually selfish. If anything, I'm working because, um, that's what I want to do. And so
Involving Kids in Work
00:02:31
Speaker
I need, you know, it's, it's like going to the amusement park or something. Like I, I, I just wanted to it. So, um, I'm, uh,
00:02:39
Speaker
It is awesome to the kid, you know, the kids are more for me, more and more fun. You're a little, you're a little ahead of me. So maybe you hit this wave like a year or two ago where like more interaction and hanging out, but they also, you know, more and more coming to the shop now, which it started to occur to me that in some relatively short period of time, I'm going to have a sort of quote unquote shop helper. Yeah.
00:03:00
Speaker
Well, like I put up videos when life or Clara come and kind of help out and we do little projects together and you know, I want to do more of that as they get older, but it is, it is immensely fun and satisfying. And then at home or at school or whatever, and then the kids are like, my dad could make that. Or why don't we just cut that in half? Like they just, they just know how these things work now. Right.
00:03:22
Speaker
We had William broke a toy at school and he just casually looked at his teacher and was like, my dad can just fix this. Nice. It was a little puzzle game that had two acrylic covers on it and the acrylic got cracked, which makes it not fun to use the toy. I kind of shrugged my shoulders and I'm like, we can probably fix this. Don't worry about it. We disassembled it, laser cut the same thickness piece of acrylic, put it back in.
00:03:51
Speaker
And the teacher was like blown away. And I enjoy it for sure. But then it's also kind of like, William, you don't need to tell everybody that we can, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Fix all their toys. Right. But no, no. I mean, I love being the hero there. Don't get me wrong. I just more like you balanced pride with humility. That's the phrase, I guess.
Experiences at Tony Robbins Conference
00:04:17
Speaker
You up for telling me about tomorrow?
00:04:22
Speaker
So a couple weeks ago, Meg found this event. I might have been through Instagram or whatever. And she's like, hey, do you want to go? And I'm like, is that even a question? Of course I want to go. Let's do it. So we went to a Tony Robbins conference yesterday, which is something I've always wanted to do. It was a short one. Normally, he's like a six-day event kind of thing. So it was an all-day event in Toronto. We got tickets for $97 each. So I'm like, of course, let's just do it.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yesterday you made it.
00:04:50
Speaker
The all-day events are you know thousands of dollars or that multiple day events. So It's like right in our backyard. I'm like, let's both do it together. Let's go. It's this is gonna be amazing So the first, you know, two-thirds of the day is other speakers so we had six or seven other speakers authors about all kinds of stuff from you know investing to memory improvement to Mental health kind of things and
00:05:14
Speaker
that was really good by itself. And then around 3 o'clock, 2.45, Tony Robbins cups on stage and everybody just goes nuts. The whole audience is like jumping around and music everywhere and the energy that he brings to the stage is so much different than anybody else. So then the next four hours was Tony Robbins total immersion. Four hours?
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, it was solid. I was very impressed. I'm a huge fan of Tony Robbins. I watch pretty much everything on YouTube that he puts out and other people put out of him. And it was amazing. What was the format, like the venue?
00:05:53
Speaker
What do you mean? You were sitting in an auditorium or a stadium? It was actually the convention center where CMTS is held, the Canadian manufacturing show. I'm thinking, last time I was in this room, it was full of plasma cutters and big lasers and presses and punches and stuff.
00:06:15
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it was like, uh, folding chairs seated 7,000 people were there. It was nuts. Um, super high energy. The whole room, like probably 75% were entrepreneurs and is just incredible. Yeah. It's funny. I, um, I, I've kind of like a love hate relationship with not just Tony Robbins, but people like him, um, where,
00:06:45
Speaker
It kind of reminds me of things, sensitive topics, like for instance, like religion, like maybe you disagree with some parts of it, but if it works for somebody else, then there's like zero harm freaking done. Are you kidding me? Totally. Now, there's something funny about like, he has done a very good job of making it a very financially lucrative career of scalable advice and charging big fees for, oh, we may have just lost groups.
00:07:15
Speaker
of getting people to come in for these conferences. You back? Yeah, absolutely. Cool. I had a really good friend, somebody I really look up to whose wife had him go to one of the longer multi-day events that was thousands of dollars and he was hot. He was like, I cannot believe I just got
00:07:41
Speaker
bilked out of that money for what a joke of it thing. He was furious. And so that ended up shaping my opinion. And then I was poking around Netflix a year or so ago and he's got, have you seen that Netflix thing? I am not your guru.
00:07:57
Speaker
Okay, so if you if anyone listening is I don't care whether you love Tony Robbins hate him or don't know who he is I actually would would stake my reputation on the line of go watch I am NOT your guru or at least watch part of it It's not for everybody, but I will tell you I
00:08:18
Speaker
I think that's something you should watch. Again, maybe you don't like it, but even if you don't like it, I think you'll learn, you'll have great takeaways and learnings from what you don't like about it. I'll tell you, I like it. It kind of feels weird. It got me fired up. And I like that he cuts through a lot of stuff and he's not, I thought he was more, I was frankly mistaken. I thought he was more, and I've listened to some podcast type stuff from him, but I've thought he was more,
00:08:44
Speaker
Touchy feet. Well, and just like fake energy, like you're going to do it. And he's like, he calls it like it is, man. Like he is very much calls it like it is. Wow. Which I feel like we almost need more of in this world.
00:09:00
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah. The documentary is a perfect example of not reading a book by its cover. You get the actual insight into who he wants to be portrayed as, who he wants people to understand him as. It's so easy to have the wrong impression of him like, oh yeah, he's just a pump up, rah rah, fake energy kind of motivator.
00:09:23
Speaker
make you happy kind of guy, make you spend money at his events. It's not. It's very practical, very strategic. That's some of the stuff I got yesterday. He's so engaging and interactive that he got everybody in the audience to do a lot of different kind of training exercises. He's like,
00:09:42
Speaker
He's like, let me show you the range of emotions that it takes to greet someone. Like everybody's heard in the first three to five seconds of meeting someone, you can form a first impression. And he's like, let's start at the bottom. Explain to me what a super depressed person looks like, feels like. Are their shoulders slumped or back? Is their head up or down? Do they talk loud or quiet? Do they breathe deep or shallow? Et cetera, et cetera. And he's like, greet the person next to you like you're the most shy person in the world.
00:10:09
Speaker
And it's like, okay, let's just go all in. It's like, hi, excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I'm John. And he's like, okay, let's step it up a little bit. Let's say that, you know, there were
Lessons from Tony Robbins
00:10:21
Speaker
a couple different stages, but he's like, imagine if the person you're meeting doesn't like you in the first five seconds, everybody you love dies.
00:10:29
Speaker
Like you have to make this person love you in three to five seconds. So it's like, hey buddy, how's it going? It's good to see you. And then the next one is like, okay, can you do better than that? Or was that your best? Because it had to be your best, otherwise everybody dies.
00:10:45
Speaker
And I was like, I could do better because I learned from it. I was like, okay, imagine, you know, go back and meet all those same people, but like they're the best friend you've ever had. You haven't seen them for 20 years. So I was like hugging the ladies behind me and everybody was like, I've been and the energy was insane. And it just goes to show the kind of energy you can bring to the table and that other people bring to the table of like when you meet somebody for the first time.
00:11:09
Speaker
just coming back from IMTS with you. I mean, we're pretty high energy in that kind of scenario. And I think we met everybody very well, but there's always ways to step up who you naturally are. Well, no, that's actually a great point. And I think one of the things that makes me nervous about the words burning out is that most people, part of the definition of getting burned out is that you don't really realize it's happening because you think
00:11:36
Speaker
Every day or every hour is normal right you don't actually really realize you're overdoing it let alone overdoing it for an extended period of time and right. I mean i want to tell you that i'm not getting burned out but the reality was i had started to feel whatever the last year sometimes i was like man i wish i didn't have to add these moments was like wow what if.
00:12:00
Speaker
not that I sold the company or that it was taken away from me, but what if somehow it just ceased to exist and like I just didn't have, like I could just, you know, I could go drive up to Toronto and hang out with Grimsmo and like there was nothing that I wasn't not doing because I did that. Like you had those little moments where you're like, wow, okay, so maybe I am feeling a lot of the obligations and that's okay. That's what comes with the turf.
00:12:21
Speaker
It's a responsibility. Yeah, but what it may kind of maybe click or realize, I don't know why it did, but it's a very, it's very something that you would probably get in a more efficient manner through something like you did yesterday. It's just this idea of like, be happy. I love what I do, but sometimes make sure when you meet somebody, when you smile, when you answer the phone, you're just like, and don't be fake, but if you want to be happy, let yourself be happy about it, right? I don't think I'm probably doing the best job explaining this, but
00:12:52
Speaker
But I do know what you mean. Exactly. Energy is completely contagious. And it's amazing how silly easy it is to bring energy to a room. Yet nobody tries to do it. Some people naturally do it. And you're like, wow, they're the life of the party. They're always happy. It's exciting to be around them.
00:13:11
Speaker
I want to be more like that. It's interesting because I was just going to say, I'm certainly not that person. I'm not the person who leads the social party or leads the storytelling or the life of the party. I don't mean to impose. I don't think you are either, but I don't think you need to be or want to be. You are who you are. That's okay, but I love the Grimsmo that is
00:13:35
Speaker
passionate and shares and it's just like, this is insane. You go down these rabbit holes. Like that's the person I'm friends with, right? Exactly. And I just want to be more comfortable expressing more of that of myself.
00:13:47
Speaker
It almost sounds like we're getting into a safe space kind of conversation right here. Yes, this is a safe place. Oh my God. But the other thing I give Tony Robbins a lot of credit for is like him or not or agree or disagree, there's a great lesson in life, which is you're always selling. We're selling our listeners on their time on the radio listening to this podcast. And I'm selling our customers for Saunders on our products or fixture plates or training classes, whatever. Like you're selling your customers on knives and your story.
00:14:17
Speaker
In life, it is all about that element. Tony Robbins does a great job of the campsite rules of somebody is better off or generally better off when they've left his seminar. They're feeling more comfortable, more confident, more self-confidence. They have either a better plan or a better plan on how to go about their making a plan.
00:14:42
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. He gives you not only confidence, but also the skills and the tactics to make it happen. And I mean, I left like completely fired up and I'm a typically happy guy, but I'm like, Oh my God, this is exactly what I wanted. It's, it's better than I expected it to be.
00:14:59
Speaker
And being a big fan of Tony Robbins, that's high praise. But something he said a lot. He's like, I really respect you guys' time. Thank you for coming out. I don't want to waste your time. It was never, I don't want to waste my time. It was always for everybody else. And he's like, I got to cram as much as I can into these four hours because normally an event is 50 hours.
00:15:21
Speaker
Yeah. I got to skip around a little bit, but huge respect for him and what he does. I think I will be attending one of his bigger events. He's got a business mastery event that I've been learning a lot about over the past couple of years that's pretty darn tempting. Oh, yeah? I know he travels around the world, so you would go to it or it could be in Toronto if you're lucky. Exactly. That's awesome.
00:15:47
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. So that's a six day event. Whoa. Yeah, exactly. Holy cow. Um, but some of the things, um, like he had us write down these things and I didn't bring paper, even though I brought a pen, silly, but there was a, um, what do you call it? A, uh, survey. Like, like how was the event doing, uh, that they passed out? So I wrote on the back of that instead. Yeah.
00:16:15
Speaker
But anyway, one of the things was like, what are some of your big audacious goals that you want in the next six to 12 months? I wrote down a bunch of stuff. I want to be more confident. I want to grow the business. I want to be a better leader, things like that, blah, blah, blah. And then the next phase was like, what's stopping you from doing all those things? Well, fear and resources and time and all that blah. And then what can you do immediately? What can you shift instantly to start doing those things better?
00:16:40
Speaker
So to go through these processes and then you've got to talk it over with your neighbor and explain it to them and hear their feedback. It forces you to act and think about yourself in ways that most people don't tend to naturally think about themselves.
Decision-Making and Clarity
00:16:55
Speaker
is it's actually, I think, shockingly easy to make critical decisions that are outside of your normal day-to-day abilities or what you think you're capable of by simply explaining
00:17:12
Speaker
a situation in your head as if you're talking to somebody else and then anticipating what they are going to respond or say. And then all of a sudden you get these, it's almost like these moments of clarity of like, okay, well, if I can't do this because of this, well, why is that? It's because of this. Well, that doesn't really matter or that does matter. So, you know, like in this all of a sudden, like, gosh, this isn't as hard as I was thinking it seemed to be.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I do have those fake conversations with my wife, Meg, or with somebody else. You talk about your little tribe of seven or 10 people, probably have fake conversations with them, people that you look up to and respect. I will caution that fake conversations tend to get away from me sometimes, especially with the wrong type of people. It turns into a fake argument in your head that never actually existed.
00:18:03
Speaker
I've got to be careful with that. It's kind of funny. I actually added somebody to my, I've never thought of it as a tribe by list of people. Everyone on it has usually been somebody that is to me stand out. It's this extreme
00:18:16
Speaker
good judgment or success or entrepreneur, kind of leader type characteristics if you saw their profiles. And I just added somebody who's, I don't know how to describe it, but a very, very normal person who doesn't have a particularly outstanding career. It kind of has a blue collar day job that is
00:18:40
Speaker
been sort of static for twenty thirty years not a particularly charismatic very nice but not not doesn't have exceptional extraordinary qualities but i was hanging out with him and he he expressed this characteristic i don't even think he realizes of his just his
00:18:59
Speaker
he did not need to pursue additional things to impress himself, to impress other people, to consume additional stuff. He was genuinely happy with his normal life. And I think that's something that very few people in this world are able to recognize. First of all, we all have a great, we were all born in a great
00:19:23
Speaker
part of the world, the best time in human history with these amazing technologies and capabilities and resources and quality of life and safety and healthcare and blah, blah, blah. He's the kind of guy who's like, yeah, I'm really happy just on a Saturday mowing my lawn or hanging out with my family or playing volleyball or a sport or watching something genuinely sufficient.
Choosing Positive Influences
00:19:44
Speaker
couldn't have cared less if you had thrown a Corvette in his driveway. He's like, I like my car. I don't know, it just really resonated with me as somebody who was very comfortable with what they had. And I thought, hey, that's something that I think to me resonated as admirable. Yes, that's perfect.
00:19:59
Speaker
Which is actually good with segue into what I had just forgotten, which is I am, I'll just say I'm sick of these people who are negative about life or negative about business or machining. And it comes in the form of people who don't like, I guess, your story or my story. They think we're not skilled or talented machinists or they want to just point out the things we don't know.
00:20:25
Speaker
I mean, I don't trust me. I don't lose any sleep over this anymore. But nevertheless, I've always kind of been more reserved about not retorting to them. And I won't feed the trolls. But when it comes to capabilities and skills, darn it, what you've done, what I've done is phenomenal. And I love it. And I'm always learning
00:20:46
Speaker
but no one was born with perfect knowledge. And we all learned from mentors and other folks along the way. And then the same thing with machine tools or tools in your shop. I mean, there's always going to be a better machine. So whether you're starting with a freaking inventables, carves thing, whatever they're called, a little $250 router, or whether you're starting with a Makino, there's probably always going to be a machine that has better functionality than the one that you have. And so it's about doing what you,
00:21:16
Speaker
can with it and learning and pushing yourself that makes me fired up. It goes back into the Tony Robbins thing of, I think Tony would say, you want to be around the people that are realistic but positive and push you in good ways. Not the people who want to say, oh, you need to get rid of that machine as soon as you can because there's better machines out there.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. That's why I surround myself with you and with our friends and our group of people. And my wife is amazing and my kids are amazing. And the friends that I have locally are amazing because I choose to spend my time with those people because I know the energy that comes around good people and bad people. And like the event last night, 7,000 people all literally jumping up and down like crazy people. It is insane.
00:22:02
Speaker
intense, and it made me so happy to be there. You can't help but not. I mean, if you're the one guy, like, prude sitting down in your chair, you're the outlier. You're the 0.1%. That's, you know, that's not... I mean, it's kind of drinking the Kool-Aid, but man, it makes you feel good. It's all for good reasons. So drink the Kool-Aid a little. I mean, like, all the... Yeah, it's kind of like my wife and I went to a concert
00:22:29
Speaker
two nights ago and it's kind of like, I don't know, I can dance. I don't really care if I look like an idiot. I'm not exactly a good dancer, but like, who cares if you're not able to like, just, yeah, good grief. Well, it's funny. He had one lady stand up and write down, you know, or say out loud some of the fears that are preventing her from, you know, she wants to start a business and like help women become entrepreneurs and all that stuff.
00:22:54
Speaker
And he's like, okay, what's, what's stopping you? Well, you know, fear of, uh, fear of judgment, um, time, not sure how to grow my business. And he's like, okay, who else raised your hands? Who else wrote that down as your fears? I raised my hand and like 90% of the room raised their hand too. And he's like, it's not you. This is like biological. This is like, these are habits that can be broken. It's everybody's the same. Right. Do they let you film in there?
00:23:22
Speaker
little bits. They say no, but I filmed like 12 seconds of footage that I'm going to throw into a video. I'll talk about it today. I assumed, or I'm not surprised that they would be like, you can't set up a GoPro and record the whole event. Yeah, exactly. Got it. Can we switch topics? Yes, please. Mostly because I half want your opinion or I'm half just telling you, but
Deciding on New Equipment
00:23:49
Speaker
I came away from IMTS pretty fired up about having found a microscope. And then did I tell you about the like jib crane solution I found? No, I don't think so. I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, but I'm for no good reason. In fact, I will tell you right now, I'm just now doing paralysis by analysis, which is the fact that it is the freaking perfect solution. It's called a sky hook and they make these kind of
00:24:13
Speaker
different sizes and styles of miniature jib cranes or like you could put one on your truck or a garage or shop. They're less
00:24:23
Speaker
They're less capable than a proper 6,000 pound capable industrial jib crane, but they're less expensive and I don't need thousands of pounds of lifting capacity to do things like loading a fourth axis or loading a fixture plate or doing things like we were aligning our lathe turret the other day and you want to have something to support the lathe turret while you loosen the bolts. Anyway, microscope and jib crane, I found them both. I like them both.
00:24:49
Speaker
and I find myself unwilling to purchase them. Which is just that we have a microscope, and I want the new one. I like the new one, but it's the bootstrapper in me who's like, hey, if I can identify why that lets us make more money or makes me happier, or in some cases is safer, then you should make that purchase. If not, delay it a week and see where you're at. Which is kind of where you're at right now.
00:25:16
Speaker
paralysis by analysis. You're delaying it a little bit. You're missing it. You're wishing it was here. It's probably not going to get any stronger unless you're just thinking about it more like, man, it'd be nice to have a jib crane right now or like be nice right now. Well, and I think I'm going to buy that one because the safety element is real there and that's real and we'll use it. And that's fortunately less expensive. But the microscope, it's the one I want is I think, well, not I think, I know the one I want is $7,000 and I got kind of
00:25:45
Speaker
I loved their $4,000 one until I saw the $7,000 one, I loved it. Now I saw the $10,000 one and I was able to completely, comfortably conclude that that's not needed or the right fit. It's like, okay, I'm ignoring price and making the decision on what I want, but then you bring back price and you're like, okay,
00:26:03
Speaker
That's a lot of money. So let's hold off. I mean, just, I don't know. I still want it, but it's money that we can use for other things or we can hold off and buy it next year.
Value of High-Quality Tools
00:26:16
Speaker
I don't know. It's not easy to make these decisions. Yeah, it is tough. Hmm.
00:26:24
Speaker
It's especially something like a microscope does not make you money. It's, you know, you can almost justify, well, you could look at the insert and see if it's dead and still use it and save money, blah, blah, blah. But you know, my stance, like I love our microscope. I want to buy another one. I use it 10 times a day. And I went from a $5 Amazon loop
00:26:46
Speaker
to that. And I still use the loop every now and then if I need a more handheld solution or if it's closer. But our microscope is just incredible, especially because we make such fine tune detailed like tiny little parts.
00:27:00
Speaker
So let's have that conversation. I'm going to pretend that you're my wife. So what does this new microscope do that your old one doesn't? So it provides better quality image. That's what I would consider a functional improvement of value, but not a critical factor. It's better, but not multiples better. What is multitudes better is the fact that this new one
00:27:26
Speaker
has almost no fickleness when it comes to the adjustment area. So I could basically move my hands underneath it. I'm immediately seeing my part without having to really, really difficult position to hold the part of the exact right spot because it has such a short focal range. So that ties into fun and ease of use, low stress, better decisions on being able to see what you want to see quickly. And it's just one of those tools where you're happy to walk up to it and use it versus being
00:27:55
Speaker
frustrated to walk up and use it. Much better light so you don't have to worry as much about super bright lights that also cause other parts of it to be washed out and the fact that lots of us are going to use it, not just me. I think like you said, it shockingly would become one of the most used tools in the shop. Bottom line, you are not going to regret it. Exactly. Assuming it does what you want, assuming it accomplishes the task exactly like you just said, which I think it will.
00:28:25
Speaker
You're never going to think back. You're never going to look back. I don't want to buy the $2,000 or $3,000 option if I still ultimately want to get to this one. This is the, I think, the 10, 20-year option.
00:28:37
Speaker
Well, the funny thing with that, which I'm realizing now, is sometimes I'll buy something to buy the one thing so that I don't need two of them. If I'm debating two years ago, I was like, how do I get a Swiss lathe or do I get the Nakamura? Well, if I get the Nakamura, then I'm good forever. It's the only lathe I'll ever need. Well, now I'm looking at a Swiss lathe. So I ended up getting both in the end.
00:29:00
Speaker
same like a microscope like you might end up getting a one of the like a $2,000 microscopes in a year after you love that one so much and want one on the other side of the shop and that's okay. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. That's that's a growth of a company. Yeah, that's fair. But point is like, like get the amazing one first. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, right. Well, I think I think the other thing that's probably giving me some heartburn and I didn't realize it until
00:29:29
Speaker
It was subconscious, but now it's conscious thought is that there's probably no resale. It would be very difficult to resale this thing for anything more. Yeah, I mean, I could resale for 50% of what I buy it for. And so that's not a deal breaker. But what it's telling me is, OK, you're buying something that's either very specialized or is very difficult to recoup your money from. And does that matter? Not really. But it's a big part of a conversation that I think about is like, how are you
00:29:58
Speaker
It goes back to one of the life lessons i learned from a friend in college which is the way you become wealthy is stop quit buying stuff that depreciates.
00:30:08
Speaker
You know, lots of things depreciate cars, machine tools and so forth. Now machine tools, you and I can buy a machine tool and make it out earn its depreciation. It's a good thing so long as you're making money with it. But yeah, the microscope will depreciate and it lives in that weird zone of not directly associated with profitability, but darn it, I want the thing.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So it's for you, and that's fine. Yeah, if you think it will lead to a higher quality of life, better quality product, better quality inspection, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, it ticks all the boxes. I mean, yes, it's kind of a lot of money for what it is, but I don't think you're going to regret it. I think you're going to move on. You're going to love it every day, and you're not going to think about it again. And you're just going to smile every time you use it. This is true. I don't think you're right. I don't think I'll be salty about it. It's not one of those things where you'll be like,
00:31:02
Speaker
gosh darn, I can't believe I had to spend that much money. You know what I mean? You're going to justify it to people going, it was a lot of money and I love it. Yeah, it's freaking amazing. I think it's also the kind of thing that makes me happy and proud to hustle. I will literally, I will work some nights and weekends doing some job shop work again or doing some other stuff again to bring in some extra cash. It's not that we can write the check today for it, but it's more just like,
00:31:31
Speaker
I'm I like continuing to say approval. It needs to. Yeah, and it's a kind of pay for itself or you need to do something that, you know, further justifies. This is me actively fighting lifestyle creep. Yes. Super exciting on our end. We just yesterday launched the first video of making a part for our short circuit Johnny five robot build. Oh, cool. Yeah, it was awesome. We
00:31:59
Speaker
filmed it actually was one of the last parts that we made on our Haas trunnion before we sold it but um
00:32:04
Speaker
Absolutely freaking love the five axis, but then also just the whole build series. It's going to take us a while. Somebody in the comments was like, how are you? This is two years. That's ridiculous. It's literally hundreds if not thousands of parts and we want to film a lot of it so it'll take time. Two years to me is actually still a pretty active, good pace. It's the journey, not the destination. I'm excited. That's awesome. I'm looking forward to following along.
00:32:34
Speaker
Um, what are you up to today? Today. I said in a video, a YouTube video that I filmed last Friday and I was like, man, I really got to order round titanium. Oh yeah, it's all that.
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah, I still got to do
Challenges in Operations and Planning
00:32:48
Speaker
that. Why is it so hard? I'm making it a bigger deal in my head, but there's a bunch of different diameters I need. I'm actually working with a new supplier, so that's a new weirdness. Whereas some of the other suppliers, I can just either email them or order it directly from their website, but this new is more direct from the factory.
00:33:10
Speaker
So it's cheaper considerably, but it just takes more planning. I'm kind of hesitating and there's a lot of parts that we make and I'm like, well, how much, you know, how many parts and how many bars do we need and how many will make that? And I'm just making it a big deal and I'm not sitting down and spending an hour and getting it done. Although I have worked towards it. Um, so I'm about halfway there now, which is good. I, I completely understand.
00:33:34
Speaker
this feeling, and we were ordering Mod Vice material yesterday, and some of it's a certain variety of 41.40, some of it's a different variety of 41.40, and it's saw cut, and there's tolerances, and we have specific requirements when we order it that we request about the condition, and it's packaging, and it is how much quantity? All that is
00:33:58
Speaker
It's stressful. It's decision making. And you know, for us ordering saw cut material, it's much harder to send it back if there's a, if there's a mistake on your end, you basically own it. Right. Whereas if you ordered.
00:34:10
Speaker
full length bars and there was a mistake, you usually can kind of work it out with them. And I did this yesterday, you have to get in a place where for us, we're just copying, pasting the PO stuff out of our bill of materials, Excel files, or for you, I would think this is a pro shops thing. Yes. And I'm starting to use pro shop. That's the other hesitation is
00:34:29
Speaker
because I have not all of my parts, but most of my knife parts and pen parts defined in ProShop with the part length, the cutoff, the remnant. So I know how many parts I get per bar. So I should be able to create a work order for 100 pens and 200 knives and how much round bar do I need to make all those parts? So part of it is the learning process. I want to sit down and understand how to do that in ProShop.
00:34:58
Speaker
because knowing it now is going to help me in the future. I'm picking away at that and it's not working the way I'm expecting it to. That's part of the hesitation as well. I would push, I think you're already doing this, but I would push you to not cut corners because now if you cut corners on this PO, you're just going to have to do the pro shops work next time, right? Yeah, that's where my head's at too. I want to get it right. I want to know how to do it. I want to make it easier for the next time.
00:35:23
Speaker
I totally understand now how a large machine shop operates. There's a purchasing department and there's an accounting department and a shipping department and a manufacturing cell and a finishing department. I'm like, holy cow, it's all starting to make sense. It used to be just me or just me and Eric for years. I'm like, whoa.
00:35:44
Speaker
So, you know, you, in your head, you extrapolate you 10 times your business and you're like, well, where do we need people? Where do we need departments? Where do we need dedicated, like super smart people that are just killer at their job? And then how do you define that task? And how do you, how do you outline it so that, you know, new kid off the street can come in and at least function in that task, um, et cetera, et cetera. So that's, that's a lot of stuff's going on. Ton of stuff. I mean, I can vividly remember not understanding why
00:36:14
Speaker
a company would have procurement it's like why doesn't why don't i do the stuff they need it's like you know this is why.
00:36:22
Speaker
And it's frustrating as a consumer sometimes when you're dealing with siloed companies that don't always do a great job of answering questions or customer service type stuff where you're like, why are you telling me it's another department? That's such a cold answer. But the reality is it's kind of how the business world works. Well, you and I, the DIY solopreneur guy doing it all ourselves,
00:36:46
Speaker
to be pushed around from department to department, it's almost offensive. It's like, no, just answer my question. Well, that person doesn't physically know the answer. It's not their job. The business is so big that the jobs need to be spread out among multiple people. Now, I don't think that's a good excuse. And I dealt with this, we had a pretty major problem with zero to the point where I got more upset with zero as our accounting solution provider than I had with any company over the last year. I mean, I was hot.
00:37:15
Speaker
And it was partly because of the problems they had with the glitch that they were acknowledging, but just not willing to fix or give us a timeline on the fix. But then it was also just horrible customer service of they were proudly using the silos to defend not sharing information instead of what I think companies need to do a better job of, which is putting in these kind of like
00:37:41
Speaker
whatever you want to call them, capable teams of customer facing people that are able to make decisions and kind of break down walls to get information and not just say, well, I'm going to have to transfer you over to this apartment and you get it and just mind blowing. Yeah, anyway, it's a good thing to keep in mind as you and I grow, especially if you're
00:38:08
Speaker
Especially if you start doing stuff that deals with customer facing communication. People,
Scaling Communication and Training
00:38:15
Speaker
yes. That's part of the big thing is currently I handle every single email. I look at every single order. I answer every question from everybody and that's not scalable whatsoever. We're starting to migrate. Aaron's starting to manage my inbox.
00:38:32
Speaker
and start to reply to those things. I'm trying to train her like, well, you got to say it like this and this is how I would say it and got to do the best for the customer, yada, yada. It's related to policies. Sorry, it is tricky but it's also critical. That's why
00:38:49
Speaker
I am still happy that we are doing what we're doing, a pre-ERP organization of combines and processes so that once you do, it would be every day it gets easier for me to be in a position where I could hand off procurement to somebody else. I'm not, but I could. It's tough. Jared handed me a new combine card and
00:39:12
Speaker
I mean, good grief. A year ago, we didn't have any. Now, he's making them on his own. And I saw it and I was like, hey, I don't like the formatting of it. It sounds silly, but I just was like, I don't like how this is shown. Let's change it. And that means reprinting it, relaminating it, recutting it out. But if you don't do it now,
00:39:30
Speaker
It's not going to get fixed. Yeah, just do it. Good stuff. Yeah. What are you up to next couple of days? We are running a Fixturing class today, which has become very popular, which is great. So we got eight people here for that. And I am working on some of our new project stuff. I'm dealing with procurement as well.
00:39:56
Speaker
unordering stuff and I got to do some inventory counting and editing a widget. And that's about it. Normal day, I guess. Yeah. Are you doing anything other than ordering titanium? We are going to hire another person.
Hiring and Production Support
00:40:21
Speaker
So we've got this idea to put together this sweet hiring video. So we're going to work on that this morning. And so it'll basically be a person for Eric, a direct finishing technician with Eric and to help him scale and help him basically finish knives. It's a huge bottleneck right now. Well, there's a lot of bottlenecks around.
00:40:49
Speaker
that'll be hugely helpful for the business. So we're super excited. Is his stuff all still up on the mezzanine or is it next door now? Yeah, all his stuff is still up on the mezzanine the same as before. The tumbler and the heat treat is basically what's next door.
00:41:09
Speaker
Oh yeah, so actually we just got some edits back from the folks at Camplete.
Upcoming Shop Tour Video
00:41:13
Speaker
I'm waiting to release the shop tour video we filmed at your shop because I mentioned the Camplete video and I wanted to release them both basically at the same time. But I think their edits last night were relatively simple. So maybe as soon as today we'll release a new Grimsmo shop tour video, which I'm excited for. It's good. Nice. Yeah.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah, the complete guys did have to edit our video a little bit, which was fine. Do you remember walking around your shop with me on camera? Yeah, I felt like it was like a 12 minute tour. It's like 42 minutes long or something. Yeah, it's kind of funny.
00:41:52
Speaker
Dude, I just realized we're going to be in Vegas in six weeks. Like that hit me last night and I'm like, I just got back from MTS. I just did that huge Tony Robbins event, like huge conference kind of thing. And then in six weeks we're going to another huge conference. Like holy cow. I'm literally looking to my left. I have on my laser printer taped my 2018 list. And you know how like when you start a year, you think about the year and I still feel like this is a new year.
00:42:20
Speaker
Right. Like I still feel like this is, yeah, it's, it's not though. No, man. We're like, it's good though. We just got a, um, actually, uh, Jared's idea. One of the guys, um, you know, we have a,
00:42:34
Speaker
We've had people, this is crazy, all over the world come take these training classes and including this class, there's somebody from South America. Next class, there's somebody from, I think Europe or Asia coming. And so they were like, you guys, you got to get a world map. And so, yeah, you're right. So it came in last night as sitting here next to my desk, I got to go put it up and people can mark where they've come in from in the world to put it, which is kind of cool, right? It's awesome. So it's just fun.
00:43:03
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, if you want to backtrack and just quick shoot an email to all your previous customers, you could, if you want more pins on the board or just start a fresh email. I mean, I like that because it's, I feel like we've had some really cool people come in from the past, but then I'm like, I don't know. Does that feel like you're forcing it? Um, we'll see. We've had some crazy news, Zealand, um, Kuwait, uh, lost from England and Denmark. It was crazy, right?
00:43:29
Speaker
Dude, dude. Yeah, that's amazing. Good. Awesome. Anyways, I got to run cause we're starting class or getting something on the way right now. Take care of ourselves. Awesome. Have fun. Okay. Take care. Bye.