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Business of Machining - Episode 104
252 Plays7 years ago
It's cold. It's winter. Who cares? Moving on.
This episode is a hodgepodge of entrepreneurial and philosophical gold nuggets. From Maslow's Hierarchy to epoxy floors, the Johns cover it all.
Even IF we are in a simulation...it doesn't matter!
Machinist's Philosophies After watching the Joe Rogan podcast episode featuring David Goggins, Saunders is particularly fired up!
Joe Rogan + David Goggins Podcast Episodes
#1212 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvWB7B8tXK8 #1080 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tSTk1083VY
Rollercoaster of Entrepreneurial Love It's normal to get down but maybe you have to get down to get back up. Without overcoming struggle, you can't get a sense of accomplishment.
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Transcript
Greetings and Weather Talk
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining, episode 104. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. Good morning. Good morning, my friend. How are you? I am fantastic.
Shifting Focus to Work
00:00:14
Speaker
Everyone here is talking about the weather and complaining, and it's cold. And you know what? We're not going to talk about the weather, because life goes on, and we're going to do work. Go do work. I live in Canada. I'm not surprised it's cold. Good. Good. Next subject. Yeah. How you been?
00:00:29
Speaker
Super good. Busy. Like, like I was telling you just a minute ago, I'm super behind on our giant WhatsApp chat. Just because I'm busy, like things are good, things are flowing. I don't want to spend, you know, an hour trying to catch up on that WhatsApp chat and just maintain it all the time. But it's like when you don't check Instagram for a couple days and you're like, I'm good with that. You know, I miss some stuff, but that's fine. Right. Right.
Influences and Inspirations
00:00:54
Speaker
I actually have a bunch to process, digest, share about a podcast I'd heard about and then ended up listening to which is Joe Rogan.
00:01:07
Speaker
Do you listen to him? I've listened to a few episodes, and Eric has probably listened to every episode. Got it. Sweet. Yeah, I suspect I'm probably way behind, because it sounds like he's pretty prolific in that world. Probably the prolific, but yeah. Yeah, OK, so fair enough. So sorry, but it's always funny when you're like, I just heard about this guy, and he's the most prolific. But no, I can't put my finger on what happened maybe two or three weeks ago.
00:01:36
Speaker
I had this sort of feeling of just focus and discipline that has come back to me throughout various points of my adult life. To clarify the extremes, you'll kind of go on this roller coaster of like,
00:01:51
Speaker
for lack of a better description, pity parties. You'll get beat up on yourself and you'll get frustrated or sad or self-confidence or just all these sort of negative things. And then you can kind of flip around and you can have these sort of highs.
00:02:07
Speaker
But what I've enjoyed is the stability and focus of a little bit more of a get, you know, kind of a, and I, um, did we talk about this? I can't remember. Cause I've been thinking about a lot in my head, which is confusing it, but I don't know where you're going with this.
00:02:24
Speaker
Well, so the best thing for me is thinking about it from a military standpoint, and I never served, was never in the military.
Mindset and Discipline
00:02:32
Speaker
I did actually go to military camp as a kid for two summers, so some slightly tangential involvement. Shout out to Culver if anybody else ever went to Culver.
00:02:43
Speaker
Just kind of the you know, get over yourself drill sergeant like go do work like quit quit looking for happiness quit quit You know what it you know, tell me what your passion is. Tell me how you're doing it be focused be disciplined and We had a forum post from a guy in the NYC
00:02:59
Speaker
CNC forum who was kind of having a down moment and I ended up sending him back a screencast and sort of saying, Hey, look, I don't know you don't take this the wrong way, but there's a lot to be said for this attitude of like, get over yourself, get over this pity party. No one cares. Go do work. What's your focus? What's your plan? How are you executing on that plan? I'm not here to coddle you and so forth. And I was, I was, I was kind of ironically gentle about saying that because I, again, I don't know him and you don't, uh, it's different in that sense, but, uh,
00:03:28
Speaker
it ended up having this great feedback and conversation and exactly what I needed. And then bringing that all back to Joe Rogan was listening to his interview with David Goggins.
00:03:39
Speaker
Okay, who's that? He is a former Navy SEAL who's just this guy who's broken down pretty solid amount of barriers in terms of his pretty rough childhood, a lot of strife, a lot of struggle, a lot of lack of stability, some pretty unfortunate and frustrating upbringings from his adults in his life.
00:04:01
Speaker
overweight, working a dead end job, and then just lit a fire in him to start doing stuff and lost 150 pounds, went through buds and Navy seals, and then is now ultra marathoner. It was perfect timing because it fed right back into that. I ended up writing down a bunch of quotes
00:04:25
Speaker
from that in my notes of for bomb, which I think I'll probably try to move it over to something else as well. But you know, one of the first ones I wrote down was, you know, he was, he sort of, he made the statement. He's like, we live in a society where mediocrity is rewarded. Yeah. Vanilla stay in the middle. Don't rock the boat. Yeah. He's like, I want to be, uh, I want to be uncommon amongst uncommon people. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to be completely remarkable. Yep.
00:04:52
Speaker
And some of it's more than I need. I'm not that guy. I'm not David Goggins. But when it comes to, again, when you wake up in the morning, if it's a good day or bad day or frustrated or not, whether you're worrying about whether the folks on Instagram have a better life than you do,
00:05:11
Speaker
This has been a great way to think back to it. Cut that stuff out. Focus. Go do good work. Be nice to people. Be disciplined. If you want something, go get it. If you want to be in shape, go get in shape. If you want to make a product, make a product.
Self-Motivation and Goal Setting
00:05:27
Speaker
If you want to learn how to be a machinist, learn how to be a machinist, period. You have full control over all aspects of all of that.
00:05:34
Speaker
And it kind of has nothing to do with anybody else, how well they're doing, how good they make you feel or not. It's all internal. It's all just get up and go. And surprisingly, the more get up and go you force yourself to have, the better you start to feel. You create this momentum, this energy. You're like, yeah, I worked out today. I feel, you know, it's a win.
00:05:52
Speaker
I'm not pity partying. I'm not like sad. I'm not eating crappy. I'm like, once you start to take control of these aspects of your life, then you start to feel more in control because oh, wow, you're, you're forcing that control. And it's, it takes discipline, but it's not hard. Like probably every human on the planet has the capacity to do more than they are. And, uh, oh yeah, that choice. Well, and it's kind of, if that's hard for you and you don't want to do it, then sorry, it's so easy to be lazy.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, but it's also so easy to be successful. Yeah, I'm sorry I'm just gonna say if you want it to be you will be in the, in the countries that you and I live in and this in the era that we live in with the access to the stuff that we have, you got to be smart, you got to work hard, you're not going to get immediate results but
00:06:40
Speaker
Darn it, go, you know, he, another one was, it's interesting because you and I had this kind of, or certainly I have a love-hate relationship with folks like Tony Robbins. I do think there's some interesting stuff there, but I also think some of it's a little hogwash in this phrase, actually summarize that wonderfully, which is people expect to hear some magic phrase that's going to change their life when they're at these self-help conferences.
Action Over Words
00:07:04
Speaker
They're going to change the way they think. No, that's not how it works. You don't, you don't,
00:07:09
Speaker
Listen and wait for that. You just go do work. You don't wait for magic phrases. You do the things you want to be to be the person you want to be. You don't learn business by reading a bunch of books. You go start your business, work on your business, and use those books to help shape you and influence you and make you a better decision maker. Love it. I was like, yes. I was like, this is great. 100%. Yeah. I mean, obviously, you gain strategy from books. You gain experience of other people. But that's never going to replace the work ever, ever, ever.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it's why rereading books is great. And so as to not be a hypocrite, I basically didn't read a single book in 2018. I'll just be totally honest. I enjoyed watching. I watched Breaking Bad. I rewatched The Office. And I'm okay with that. I just wanted to either
00:07:57
Speaker
see the kids or relax or veg, but now I'm a little bit more fired up and it's like, hey, every time I've reread a book like How to Win Friends and Influence People or the E-Myth, I've never ever once thought, well, that was a waste of time. I already knew all that. You get more out of it. When you read a book, do you feel the urge to read a cover to cover and finish it? Or are you totally okay with opening up to page 37 and reading a paragraph and calling it good for now?
00:08:26
Speaker
The second phrase you just said is foreign to me. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So you want to read cover to cover. I assume that's how the author intended it to be. So who am I to do what I do? Okay. So up until about three years ago, you know, the social media guru, Ty Lopez, you've probably seen his ads.
00:08:50
Speaker
He's the guy in the garage with his Lamborghini and all the books behind him. Unsubscribe. Exactly. Unsubscribe. However, I did subscribe to him for a while, 2015, 2016. He's ostentatious. He's over the top. He's easy to make fun of, but he had a lot of good strategy to say. I followed him for a while and I listened to what he said. Something he said about books was like,
00:09:14
Speaker
you know, I'll skim the back, I'll skim the table of contents, I'll skip to a chapter and I'll read a few paragraphs. And if I've gained a golden nugget from that book, I've won.
00:09:24
Speaker
And it's like, oh, interesting. Because my hesitation with reading books is like, I don't want to spend 12 hours this month reading a book cover to cover. And then I feel bad when I read just the first chapter, you gain nothing from the first chapter and you put it back on the shelf because you run out of time. So I'm like, well, how can I how can I maximize the use of these books? How can I gain something useful? So you kind of skim the gist and then you gain some valuable insight. And then at least you're better than you were just having read the first chapter and putting it back on the shelf.
00:09:54
Speaker
So I still have some of that guilt of not having like fully read some of these books, but I'm gaining more knowledge than the alternative of not reading it.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, there's no right or wrong answer. I am a follower, not a leader when it comes to things like books. So if you tell me to read a book or somebody I look up to does, that's all I need to hear. I don't tend to, I'm a follower. I don't tend to find new books, take the risk of reading them and, you know, I've certainly, whatever.
00:10:28
Speaker
And I would challenge that as, well, the alternative is your time. And very few people are actually that driven and efficiently using their time, such that the opportunity cost of fully reading it is so detrimental, right? Is he really getting through 200 or 300 books a year by reading a couple paragraphs and being better off?
Learning Strategies
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Blah, blah, blah. Right.
00:10:51
Speaker
I do keep a, well, I've done a mediocre job, sometimes better than others, but a word file, just a single word file with the, each kind of like header is a different book title. And then I type my own little notes with chapters and I love it because it's the one place I can go back to to say, Hey, what were those good nuggets that I got out of the goal or E-Myth or whatever. And it's better than highlighting in a particular copy of the book or,
00:11:19
Speaker
I should do a better job of going back to look at that because that was always the idea. I guess what you could do is you could highlight it and then take a picture and add that to your file maybe to be quicker and not have to retype paragraphs that you've highlighted.
00:11:35
Speaker
Oh, but see, I love retyping. I think typing it is part of also what forces you to send it. And when I read the word file, I know I typed it. And it's kind of a validation of it. It was worth my while. Like, you know, I'd like to think it's if I ever taught my son stuff like this, this is what that would be one of my goals was to think about, hey, what has been impactful to me? And it's also a super good trigger of like, you remember that book better.
00:12:02
Speaker
you know, because you read the one paragraph that you wrote about that book, and it triggers all the memories of reading that book, you know, that's what that book was about. And there were these lessons and that things. And yeah, I like that. I'm a big fan of scribbling and books and underlining things. But as you said, it's it's stuck on the bookshelf, you have to find that book, you have to open it, and you have to scroll through it to find all the underlying sections, whereas your word file is with you everywhere. Yeah, exactly.
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. Next one. Yeah, go ahead. I'm fired up about this. Sorry. Yeah. Maybe that's what I'll do. I'll just move this. Go. I was having this conversation with Erin a few months ago about books because she also feels the absolute need to read a book cover to cover page to page and she never gets through them.
00:12:52
Speaker
And so she's missing out. And she feels bad. She's like, Oh, yeah, I've got these six books I'm reading right now, but I don't want to finish and you know, I would just want to move on to the next. And I was like, Okay, compare this to a conversation. If
00:13:05
Speaker
If I meet you on the street and we talk for 30 minutes and we have a great conversation, you didn't get my whole life story. You didn't get every lesson that I have that I took three years to put into a book. Like you got a nugget from that conversation and it was great. And we might never meet again. And, but you'll remember, you know, the, the joy of having that conversation like you and I do at every show we go to, we meet a cool guy and we like.
00:13:27
Speaker
you gain something, meeting Eric at Orange Vice and we talked for three minutes or touring his shop or something. You don't get everything that he would put into a book, but you get some golden nuggets that you can walk away and be happy about. So here's what bothers me about that. Yeah.
00:13:46
Speaker
When I look at my list of eight or 10 people that I look up to in life that I want to either be like or I think about as influencers in who I just look up to, those people wouldn't do that. They would not be the flash in the pan. I'm just going to jump around, read little nuggets, and be this awesome book ninja that can deduce little factoids and run around. And similarly, when it comes to how you live your life,
00:14:15
Speaker
I'd rather slow down than speed up. I'd rather be the person that has the ability to say, no, I actually have time and it's not stressed. I don't look up to people anymore that say, I'm so busy. I'm grinding. I have no time to do anything. You don't understand how busy I am. No, man, I want to be in control of my, I want to have a good personal life, a family life, a work life and be able to say, no, I actually really enjoyed reading this fiction or nonfiction. That's who I want to be. So I don't love the
00:14:43
Speaker
I'm not argue. I'm not. Yeah, I commend you for give you but I don't want to be like the guy who's who's selling he's selling famous for being famous, right? He's he's got these flashy ads up and no, thanks. Well, it's it's all allocation of time. Like I spend a lot of time with my family. I spent a lot of time working and I love both. And you can always find time to read books, but only if you want to.
00:15:09
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like, if you want to carve out that fuel, but if you want to, if you, you know, want to make that a higher priority, then then scrolling Instagram or replying to comments like you and I do, or, you know, it's a choice where you spend your time. And I'm very conscious, trying to be more and more conscious of where I'm spending my time productively, where I'm wasting my time. Sure. You know, watching a movie once a week or something like that. I don't feel bad about that at all.
00:15:39
Speaker
even though it's like unproductive time, but I need those things. I just feel like if there's a young man or woman who's grew up in poverty, who's working three jobs, trying to go through school, trying to keep it all together, they have a very legitimate time allocation issue and so forth. Like you are hustling, you are the American dream, you are gonna break through a status, so make it good for you. You are strapped. I never had that.
00:16:09
Speaker
without that kind of strife and stress. I didn't have to break through that. And so when I hear people sort of make these claims about that, it goes back to, no, you're not forced to. You choose to. You choose to work out or not. You choose to read books or not. You choose to watch a movie or not. It doesn't make you a bad person, but at least be honest about it.
00:16:31
Speaker
I'm not, if you want to read books, read books. And that's kind of why I'm like, I'm more okay within 2018. I didn't read a darn book. I'm not going to sit here and apologize for it, but I'm also not going to misrepresent that I'm some scholar of entrepreneurship books that I'm just always, yeah, it's okay. Good. And then the other thing that I realized over the past few years of talking to people and I'm trying to understand people better is that
00:16:59
Speaker
You can't convince people to do anything that they don't truly want to do. Like, say, exercise. You know, if I told you that the only way you're going to be happy is if you exercise four times a week and all this stuff and you're like, I don't want to, then there's just conflict. You know, like you have to want it yourself. And if you do want it yourself, you'll go after it and you'll go get it. No problem.
00:17:24
Speaker
But it's like people advising other people and then they don't do it and then everybody's just mad at each other. And it has to come from internal, you know?
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah. So that's a big question. What is that spark? Certainly we hear it about how do you inspire the next generation of youth in terms of staying focused and getting that spark. What drives you? I don't even know, but John, why are you you? I don't know why I'm me. I don't know why I work this hard. I mean, I love it. It's just who I am. I don't know the other answer to that right now.
00:17:58
Speaker
Well, as far as driving that spark, I think you said it earlier when you were talking about the Joe Rogan podcast that the timing of hearing it was perfect for you at that time.
00:18:09
Speaker
Oh, I mean more just in life. Yeah, I know. 10 years ago, I wanted nice things. I thought, hey, sports cars and wealth, I thought that was more important to me. I care less about that daily, really less about that. So then it's like, well, why are you doing all this? It gets into some pretty philosophical, why are we here life questions? Right, right. In a good way, though. Exactly.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think about that every now and then, but probably not, maybe often enough.
Self-Actualization and Growth
00:18:43
Speaker
I don't know. I'm pretty sure this is some play on, I think it's called Maslow's Hierarchy. Have you ever seen that? It looks like the food pyramid of a balanced diet, but let me look it up here and make sure I'm not full of Maslow's. I've heard the phrase on it. I can't say I'm not, though.
00:18:59
Speaker
Maslow's hierarchy of needs, so it's a triangle and at the bottom one is, hold on, let me see a descriptive version of it, but it's the bottom one is like physiologic needs, like food, oh yeah, so food, water, warmth, the rest, like you need to sleep, you need to eat.
00:19:17
Speaker
After that, it's being safe. After that, it's having friends and being intimate and so forth. Above that is the sense of pride and feeling accomplishment. The very top part is self-actualization, realizing one's full potential and including creative activities.
00:19:32
Speaker
I think you and I are fortunate enough to, again, you and I aren't the person that's struggling to keep a family fed. It's working three jobs, trying to get through school, trying to deal with a tough, tough life. So we don't need to worry about the first three, happily married, all that stuff, even maybe four, which is a pretty darn good position to be in. Really is. Absolutely.
00:19:58
Speaker
So I assume like the bottom one is at the bottom, but it's huge, like food, water. You need a lot of it, but it's not as like important. Whereas the top one, you need less of it, but it's more important. I think it's that, but I think it's also the idea of it's a foundation. So the bigger one is there to support the stuff above it as you move up that chain. Yep.
00:20:21
Speaker
Well, and we absolutely, I mean, you need all that food and water and shelter to support the greater things. And I couldn't have done what I've done without the support of my wife or, you know, some key family members or even your friendship with you or friendships with anybody else. It all builds on the possibilities, the potential.
00:20:45
Speaker
your ability to go out and execute, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And that ties back to the next thing I was, I've been, oh, I love, which is, um, David Goggins talks a lot about his, how just absolutely crummy his childhood was. And he talks about it in a factual way, not in a pity party. I would like you to have sympathy for me way, but, um, it's something I feel
00:21:08
Speaker
probably have more conviction in the belief and importance of this than just about anything else, which is that struggle and strife are a good thing. And I think that's what worries me when you see, especially second and third generation businesses, how rare it is for there to be that same level of hunger and desire and success because you get too comfortable. And his
00:21:34
Speaker
sort of an amalgamation of a few different things he said, which is, you know, permanent results come from hard work, dedication, suffering and pouring yourself into it. And that could be the context of going through for him, you know, the Navy SEAL program, it can be just losing the weight, it can be starting a business or a podcast. And when you go through all that stuff above, including this idea of some amount of suffering, pouring yourself into it, just absolute work, then you have a sense of pride and accomplishment that no one can ever take from you.
00:22:04
Speaker
And I think that's something that I will not apply. You and I have that, which is wonderful. And I love that. I love that. You were the first person I thought of when I thought of that. Oh, my gosh. You can pick, poke, and play backseat quarterback in terms of the decisions you have to make about your business now. But the reality is, darn it, you built that, John. Good for you. Yeah.
00:22:31
Speaker
Maybe not so much as like poor upbringing, but there was there was a lot of struggle and there were a lot of months where we couldn't pay heat. And, you know, Meg worked part time job just to be able to support us and allow me to continue to do this kind of thing. So it's I struggle with, you know, since we share so much, we don't share everything because, you know, we still have to be somewhat private people. But I, I struggle with, you know, new people come on and start following. And then they're like, wow, you got it so great.
00:23:00
Speaker
You know, how often do you kind of beat the dead horse of like, no, it wasn't always so great. And it was, it was very difficult and very bleak for many years. Yet I just had this, I don't know, this internal drive, hunger, desire need to get this done. And I put in the work and, you know, looking back, of course I could have been a lot more efficient or smarter with the knowledge I have now, but I didn't have that then. So I can't.
00:23:24
Speaker
It's not the point, but it's neat comparing that to like watching new guys start up businesses and seeing their pain points and seeing a lot of similarity between things. So it's always nice to help out and like give little experience to other people, but yeah. It's so easy to forget the difficult times now that it's great.
00:23:52
Speaker
That's because I wouldn't trade for the world, John. I respect my parents a lot for being very frugal and disciplined, and I didn't have the sense of struggle there, but I also worked my bone off and butt off. I didn't want to stay at a desktop. I wanted to figure out how can I become
00:24:12
Speaker
this manufacturing person. When I started machining, I fell in love with it. I absolutely loved it. I was a nobody. Who am I using Bobcat with a tag? Who am I to become this?
00:24:24
Speaker
We all make that mistake. When I meet a new shop owner who's younger than me, who has multiple five-axis automation cells, you do the same thing when you see somebody like David Goggins and you're like, he must have it so good. He is so cool. He was a Navy SEAL. That's the kind of thing that impresses you. Certainly an impressive accomplishment. But the reality is nobody feels like that. You don't ever feel like you feel like
00:24:47
Speaker
Because you from the outside, you're just going from nothing to this amazing level of accomplishment or status or something. When the reality was no, it's this journey of how you got there. And that's what you can't take from somebody. Exactly. And then if someone does have this kind of overinflated sense of self ego and things like that, then they're just full of it, you know,
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Not my cup of tea. But the guys like David Goggins are very humble, very, you know, they've, they've gone through it, they've put in the work and now they're, you know, quote unquote successful, or at least made a big accomplishments. And they're the good guys are usually humble and you know, super hardworking and the kind of guys you just want to hang out with and have a chat with, you know,
00:25:30
Speaker
which I feel like, and I don't mean to pick a scab, but I feel like those people are the people that read the whole book. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I could be wrong. I think it depends on the type of book. If it's a, but like, ah, man. Yeah. But like, I probably have,
00:25:53
Speaker
30 good, you know business type books at home. There's no way I've read all of them I've read the e-myth cover to cover and I'm glad I did That's that's the book you read cover to cover But I don't know I've picked in peace through the other ones and I kind of get the joke sometimes, you know, sometimes it's just filler but no, that's fair and look to be clear this book like I love that I
00:26:18
Speaker
the book Smalltime Operator, it's a more of a entrepreneur's textbook. It is not in any way a novel or a version of a novel where you're supposed to read. Of course, that's totally fine. But this idea, I just don't love this. So when you see somebody
Embracing Life Experiences
00:26:37
Speaker
who tends to be younger, tends to be a little bit less seasoned, who thinks that they can hack life by doing, they can do 5% of the input and get 70% of the value. Hey, maybe some people can run that way, but I think many people in life will end up realizing, stop and smell the roses, read the book, enjoy it. More as a metaphor here than literally saying. I definitely see it from that perspective.
00:27:02
Speaker
Because like growing a business you can't there are strategies you can implement to save time But it is always going to take an insane amount of work way more than you expect it to And you got to be willing to put in that time just like be willing to put in the time to read a full book So you're right there It still doesn't mean I'm gonna read all 30 books cover to cover
00:27:22
Speaker
Right. I was working semi sort of working construction at one point in my life trying to earn money and do work and hanging sheetrock with a guy whose attitude was totally different than mine. His attitude was just give me a bunch of tools. I'm going to beat them up. I'm going to break them. I'm going to lose
00:27:43
Speaker
drill bits. I'm going to lose all this stuff. I'm going to make a mess, but I don't care because I am flying. And at the end of the day, we throw away all the tools and drills and just buy new ones. But I was six days faster. And, and you know, he, he, he wasn't wrong. He has a point, but it's not who I am. I can't stand. I can't stand that. Like that drives me nuts to see somebody back like that.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah, I see some people, like, I am not a cook at all. But, you know, I watch my wife, I watch other people cook in the kitchen. Some people are like an explosion in there. There's just pots and pans and dirty dishes everywhere and tools and utensils and filthy gross hands full of chicken guts and all that stuff. And other people are much cleaner and, you know, delicate and put things in place. And I can't stand the filthy explosion method. It's just, it's like, oh, yes, you clean up afterwards. And I appreciate that.
00:28:35
Speaker
When I bake cookies or something, I try to keep it clean. I try to keep it nice. When I run a shop, I don't want people having this gross explosion of parts and tools everywhere. Isn't that funny? Maybe that's why we're friends.
00:28:52
Speaker
So I finished the Goggins one and I looked at, I do what I think, I assume a lot of people do, which is that when you find somebody's YouTube, I'm watching these on YouTube, which has been kind of nice because you can see them, which is YouTube channel. I just click sort by most viewed. I'm like, what do other people think is the most popular? And sure enough, it's the Elon Musk interview with him. I did see that one. I saw most of it. Yeah.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah, I'm like halfway through it, but they get into some sort of deep stuff. And I feel like Joe's also, Rogan's also kind of just trying to like poke him, to prod him into these crazy topics about existentialism and life. And it's a little bit obnoxious because from what I understand, I feel like Elon thinks and talks about that a lot.
00:29:34
Speaker
Sure. Maybe that's Joe doing his job as an interviewer, trying to get Elon to get into some dirt. But I certainly feel like Joe sometimes in the two I've listened to, he's trying to get people to give simmering interesting content that will help him be successful and not just like, hey, let's have a conversation about
00:29:52
Speaker
stuff but um but also just to continue on that uh i feel like you know from the maybe five episodes i've watched and the you know dozens that eric's told me about joe likes that kind of weird existentialism of like just understanding you like why why are we here why are we alive why you know are aliens real kind of like all this they talk a lot about conspiracies and all this stuff and it seems like joe is just a super
00:30:21
Speaker
curious, I'd like to say open minded guy, but yeah, let's talk about all kinds of weird stuff. No, that's fair. And for sure, he was able to, he can run lockstep on a lot of these sort of theories and ideas of like simulation are, yes, for sure. And so I didn't realize I think you have even mentioned it, I didn't realize how
00:30:44
Speaker
kind of hypersensitive and concerned Elon Musk is about the power of AI. Yeah. He's kind of like I've keep telling people no one's listening. He's been from a Senate or something and like Congress or whatever. And yeah, talked about AI like eight years ago.
Technology's Subtle Influence
00:31:02
Speaker
And I'm kind of like, dude, I don't, I don't get it either. Like, are you I don't know, sort of a Skynet, they the robots take over scenario, and then I'm going off topic, but then you start to realize, well, you know, to some extent, he may be right. And we may already be in it in the sense of how much power our phones have over us. And that's not the sense of without what we think of a Skynet, where you and I are being our biological bodies are being manipulated into being slaves or warriors and
00:31:29
Speaker
we've lost our autonomous nature. But to some extent, our phones have already overtaken our lives. We have this inability to separate from them and the social media stuff. It's kind of like, well, it's happening in a different way than we thought, but that's how it always happens. Exactly. Yep. So the quote that, good. Okay. One more quick quote about Elon. I heard him say that somebody asked him in an interview, how often do you think
00:31:53
Speaker
how often do you think are we in a simulation already? Like are we just bits and bytes in somebody else's simulation? And he goes, so often that my brother and I have banded from hot tub conversation. Yeah. Well, and it's also kind of like, okay, so let's say we are, what's the point? Who cares? It doesn't change. It doesn't change. I accept your perspective of the world, but it doesn't change the world.
00:32:28
Speaker
I accept that I am a fatal human being. I make mistakes. I will not live forever. I personally don't happen to believe in heaven in the true sense of I don't actually expect to have a relationship with my loved ones after my biological body dies. Not trying to upset anybody, just my personal belief. So, hey, I got like between 40 and 60 years left. Let's go do work. Yeah, exactly.
00:32:39
Speaker
changes your perspective of the world. I don't know.
00:32:56
Speaker
Which is sort of a way of tying back into a quote now, which I liked from Elon about, he's talking about like the kind of sad fatality or futality of this sort of simulation or AI world. And he's like, well, I'd rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.
00:33:14
Speaker
which kind of just had to do with, okay, so let's say we are a simulation. Let's say this is all, um, whatever it goes back to the get over the pity party. Like I'm still going to be optimistic. I'm still going to go do this. I'm still going to go figure this out. I'm still going to go lead a good life. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but that's how, that's who I want to be today. And so that's who I'm going to be. Yep. Yep. It's realizing we all have power and choice and let's lead that power and choice in the direction that most suits us best and suits everyone around us in the world as well. Yeah.
Workshop Maintenance
00:33:43
Speaker
Can I change the topic? Yeah. How are your floors holding up that you did up yourself the epoxy? Relatively great. Our floors are super pitted because just the concrete was bad or whatever. So when we epoxied them, we didn't fill the cracks because we were too cheap to buy whatever filler, whatever, and there's so many. We filled the cracks themselves. We didn't fill all the pits. So the pits get full of dirt. So as much mopping and sweeping as we do, all the pits are black now or dark gray.
00:34:13
Speaker
But the top layer, the floor itself is great. There's very few high wear spots and it's healing in one corner just because the concrete was so oily underneath. But I'm impressed for a job that we did ourselves. You did the acid pre-clean? Yeah. It was a muriatic acid. Yeah, we did a couple of rows of that.
00:34:37
Speaker
And do you recall, I know you did a video on it. Maybe I should just go watch. Did you have to like, it was, it was stinky. It was, it smelled right. Yeah, very much. Yeah. I'm trying to think about, um,
00:34:50
Speaker
about doing the, I guess I can say now I regret not epoxying the other side of the shop. Best intentions at the time of not spending the money plus the idea that we were going to do more fabrication, welding, work over there, but that's less and less. I wish I now had those floors done and I'm debating, do I just somehow figure out how to pay someone to epoxy them? Do I epoxy them myself? Do I do a partial? Do I do just a floor paint? I think I'm just going to have to leave it alone because the smell and the cost and moving everything out of there.
00:35:19
Speaker
If you emptied the room and you closed all the doors to your main shop, you could do it. You think? Yeah, it wouldn't affect your main shop, I don't think. OK. Like the pressure washing and stuff might flood into your main shop a little bit unless you're careful. But we can control that stuff. It'd be fine. I wouldn't be worried about the smell. I don't know. But I wouldn't be too worried about it, especially if you had an exhaust fan. Yeah, we'd have to wait until you want to do it. Yeah, exactly.
00:35:47
Speaker
But yeah, if you're going to be in that building for the next long time, it's not a bad idea to make it super epic nice.
00:35:59
Speaker
Right. When I struggle with these decisions as an entrepreneur, which I do a lot of little things, I just think, okay, stop. What do you prefer? I prefer them to be epoxy, just like our girl before. So it's kind of like, well, let's break down what specifically is so crummy about that. Well, it ties up money. You got to schedule the people. We may have to shut the shop down for a couple of days, move equipment. But all of a sudden you break those down and none of them are that crazy bad. It's just, it is disruptive and I got to chew on it.
00:36:27
Speaker
But it's short-term pain for long-term gain. It's like you put in the work like the first half of this episode talked about. But if you don't do it now, you're never going to do it. You're never going to do it, especially as you move more into that side of the shop and make it more central to your business. It's not just some large area that you throw tools you don't use in anymore.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah. It's going to be an actual working area. So now is the time. Hate to say it, but now is the time to make it right. Yeah. I should look into that. Have I ever told you that growth eats cash for breakfast? Yes. I've been thinking that phrase a lot lately. Gosh.
00:37:09
Speaker
but i mean i say it because it's a fun thing to self-comiserate about the reality is man up like this is why i do what i do it's um it's okay yep yep oh sorry i was just gonna say there are definitely slightly painful decisions like this that have to be made but
Entrepreneurial Insights
00:37:29
Speaker
I would take that all day long over some of the bigger, harder decisions we've had in our lives, you know, in the past years and things like that. So these, these are nothing. These are, these are logistical decisions. Don't get emotional about it. I mean, you know what I mean? Like be rational, but, um, yeah, just figure out what you want. And if it's, if, if your ability matches that, you know, cash and, and time and disrupt and all that, and then just, just do it and move on and decide in your mind and then just be okay with it. Yep.
00:37:58
Speaker
Yeah, I'll chew on it. Sweet. What do you see today? Saga pen. Nice. Saga pen. Yeah. We assembled three finished pens yesterday. Cool. Yeah, super cool. And that is all the parts we have. So we got to make more parts. Sweet. Yeah, so that's exciting. Awesome. Awesome. One last thing. Last week was our biggest week ever.
00:38:24
Speaker
both in what knife knives machined knives finished knives sold good for any videos. I think Aaron Aaron posted four videos.
00:38:34
Speaker
That's awesome. Good for you. It's like, oh yeah, things are happening. And it's, I mean, I can, it seems to be, it may be there's some stress, but it's not, you're not, um, any of the day stressed out, burned out. Like it's you have a sustainable, awesome. And we have time to work on pens as well. Right. So it's like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Things are good. Yeah. Don't yeah. You should take one minute or two minutes and just remind yourself of how awesome that is and then get back to work.
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah, I will. Good. All right. I'll see you, bud. Take care. Have a good day. Bye.