Learnings and Missteps
The Learnings and Missteps Podcast is about unconventional roads to success and the life lessons learned along the way.
You will find a library of interviews packed with actionable take aways that you can apply as you progress on your career path.
Through these interviews you will learn about the buttons you can push to be a better leader, launch a business, and build your influence.
Find yourself in their stories and know that your path is still ahead of you.
Learnings and Missteps
Greg Crumpton on Busted Knuckles, Big Dreams, and Kaizen Tattoos
When Greg Crumpton pulls up his sleeve to reveal his Kaizen tattoo, you understand immediately this isn't just another trades professional – this is someone who has infused continuous improvement into every fiber of his being. The veteran HVAC expert, author, and industry advocate shares a career journey that spans from scribbling notes in a black book while running service calls in the 1980s to building and selling a successful mission-critical air conditioning company.
His perspective cuts through today's workforce challenges with laser precision. "Our inability to take care of our country from a skilled trades aspect is a national security issue," Greg asserts, reframing trade careers as essential to American infrastructure security. This isn't hyperbole – it's the conviction of someone who has witnessed firsthand how skilled labor shortages threaten our fundamental systems.
The conversation explores why today's trades landscape looks so different from decades past. As baby boomers retire and Gen Z enters the workforce, Greg identifies a troubling 30-year experience gap created partly by removing trades education from high schools. His solution emphasizes personal responsibility: "If you're a tradesperson or craftsperson, grab a couple of youngsters and walk with them." His own mentorship approach balances classroom theory with immediate hands-on application, creating what he calls "learning on steroids."
Most powerfully, Greg recasts skilled trades as careers of choice rather than last resort: "We're not the people who had to go to shop class because that's all we could do. We're the people who chose to go to shop class because there's plenty of lawyers and doctors." With 24-year-olds in his company earning $100,000+ and advancement paths leading in countless directions, his message to young people couldn't be clearer – the trades offer not just work, but meaningful, financially rewarding careers building America's future.
Ready to explore the trades with fresh eyes? Listen now and discover why Greg believes his most important mission is helping the next generation become "smarter, more available, more open-minded" than previous generations of tradespeople were allowed to be.
Get the Deep Knowledge at:
http://www.deepknowledge.com/
Connect with Greg at:
http://www.gregcrumpton.com/
Make yourself a priority and get more done: https://www.depthbuilder.com/do-the-damn-thing
Download a PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be
https://www.depthbuilder.com/books
Our inability to take care of our country from a skilled trades aspect is a national security issue.
Speaker 2:I had no idea that I was going to have a career in construction. I was convinced that I was either going to be playing for the Houston Astros or I was going to be an engineer. And I don't even know. I don't even know what the hell an engineer looked like.
Speaker 1:We're not the people who had to go to shop class because that's all we could do. We're the people who chose to go to shop class because that's all we could do.
Speaker 2:We're the people who chose to go to shop class because there's plenty of lawyers and doctors. What is going on? L&m family, I have an ultra special treat for you, but I think it's a bigger treat for me. Today, I get to talk and you get to meet with an HVAC industry and skilled trades advocate, which I think is an understatement, because he's a monster in the industry, someone I look up to because I hope to have the similar impact on the industry and the world at large, or at least a degree of what he's done to date.
Speaker 2:His name is Mr Greg Crumpton. He is a friend, tour of mine and a fellow author, which is something that we just kind of happened upon. Never did I expect a plumber and an HVAC guy who wrote a book having a conversation, but here we are On a podcast On a podcast. He's also a podcaster. Oh my God, straight out of Crumpton. It just keeps getting better. He is the author of Deep Knowledge and you'll get to know a little bit more about him here shortly. And, if you're new here, this is the Learnings and Missteps podcast, where you get to see how real people just like you are sharing their gifts and talents to leave this world better than they found it. I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and we're going to get to know Mr Greg Crumpton.
Speaker 1:Mr.
Speaker 2:Greg, straight out of Crumpton. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 1:Jesse, first of all, that introduction of my impact on the HVAC and social media world was very glowing and I hope to be able to live up to that. But I really do appreciate the time you've carved out to be with me today and let's just talk a little bit. And we do share so many things. We're both tradespeople, we both wound up with a podcast, we've both written a book and we both like to help in our own way. Who's coming with us and behind us and ahead of us, so it's just really cool.
Speaker 2:God, Like we're on a podcast right now. You have your own podcast. I know for me five years ago, those things that you just mentioned were nowhere near anywhere near my vision or horizon of things that I would be doing or would have done, much less speaking to you. When did you see that path of podcasting and serving the industry and writing a book, and did you have that listed out on your to-do list?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, when I was taking my SAT in kindergarten. No, obviously, I've had a lot of really good fortune. I've met a lot of great people that have helped shape what I do and how I do it. Really, jesse, this started for me back in gosh, I don't know the late 80s. I was running around Atlanta, georgia, running service calls for a great company and I was just starting to make notes on a book of things that I would do differently if I ever got into a position to do things differently. And they were really simple things.
Speaker 1:Man, like I would pass my coworkers on the interstate, like I would be going toward where they just came from. And I'm sitting here wondering why, what are we missing in dispatching? Or what are we missing in efficiency? And there's a million reasons why we could have been passing on the road, but just the spark. And so, literally, I had a little black book and I was making little notes and little questions and just digging into the science of air conditioning business, not just the science of vapor compression and cold air.
Speaker 1:So it started early and there were many, many naive statements written.
Speaker 1:But because I simply didn't know and yeah, so you still have this book, I've got remnants of it, yeah, yeah, and I think that as I matured as a technician and as a human and as a husband and as a family member and eventually, and as a boss and as a co-worker, all those ands Right Right up and it never has been, and I would think a lot of people probably have this is there's no one clear mission, but there's a vision, with some haze floating around, and I think inquisitive people like you and I are, we're always trying to see around the cloud or through the haze, to see what's just beyond where we are or maybe even where we should be at this moment.
Speaker 1:There's plenty of room to dig in and keep peeling back the layers, but we're all where we're supposed to be at the right time. But I would say it's just been a continuous learning journey. And then five years ago I started straight out of Crumpton During the pandemic. I couldn't travel much and I like to get out and go, so we started it just as a way to connect with people during the pandemic and now we've done like 150 episodes and just it's a great way to connect, which is how you and I wound up together yeah, you gave me the privilege of being interviewed by you and hanging out with y'all on your show and very similar story.
Speaker 2:Covid hit. I was in lockdown. I couldn't go and talk about careers in the industry at the CTE the local high schools and I said, man, I need an outlet. Let me start a podcast to interview cool people from the industry. And it stuck. I still enjoy it.
Speaker 1:It's a great way to connect with people and it's a great way to spend time when you're doing something maybe walking or exercising or even driving to occupy that wicked brain of ours so that we're thinking about the right stuff and the good stuff rather than letting the lizard brain take control and spin us up over BS. It doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, yes and yes. Now, so you talked about I think maybe we're afflicted, I call it. The affliction is when we see these patterns and we can't ignore them, just like you talked about. You're driving one way and you see your partner driving the opposite direction where you just came from, like why is that happening? Why doesn't that make sense? And then there's the other affliction of the curious, like the ravenous appetite to learn and understand things which, like you said, with podcasts and like the different type of media that's out now, we can choose to nourish our brain and our interest and our curiosity, or we can consume the garbage that's readily available for everybody.
Speaker 1:That really is more of a distraction, yeah it is, and but some of that's OK no-transcript habits that I keep going and which ones I need to break.
Speaker 2:Oh, a hundred percent. So you already touched on one of the things that stood out to me from your book is, in the later chapters, the quote that you wrote you can't truly know where to go until you've started down the path, and so that was kind of earlier. You're referencing the fog and kind of seeing the thing, trying to distill what's back there. When, would you say, that became, I'm going to say, mode of operation, became obvious to you, like I just need to keep doing it this way.
Speaker 1:And so the early thoughts around that occurred.
Speaker 2:And I want to give the L&M family member shout out, and this one goes to Miss Rocio. Luna Rocio took the time to send me this super awesome note she says I want to thank Jesse for putting this amazing workshop together for us and showing us how to manage time efficiently. We are all consumed by work, but how much of that is productive? How much of that work is generating revenue? What can be leveraged, outsourced? What are we leaving behind? When we really get into the weeds, we will see all the white gaps and you visually see time. Rocio, thank you for that. And, folks, if you don't know, we have the Do the Damn Thing time management workshop that's kicking off again in March. We'll leave a link down there in the show notes for you to access if you're interested in it. But, more importantly, send me a note, send me a review. It doesn't have to be a beautiful, glowing review like that, just something to let me know you're out there so that I can have the opportunity to celebrate you in the future school.
Speaker 1:When I got out of the apprenticeship program, I immediately went in as an instructor. Wow, well, I loved it. I love the industry and I really understand the science of air conditioning, the science of electricity. I just those things click for me really easily. So once I started teaching, you really have to know your poop because if you don't, you're going to get called out in a hurry.
Speaker 1:I think that when I started digging deeper to be prepared to teach and I was probably a horrible teacher but because I was so young I didn't if I went and I do a class now for people, it's a totally different experience than 25 year old greg gave, I'm sure, um sure, but there were certain things I learned in that evolution about digging deeper and not settling for the status quo answer but like a two-year-old why and always asking why. And as annoying as it is for me to hear a two-year-old why and always asking why, and as annoying as it is for me to hear a two-year-old these days because I'm 61, that's some really relevant questions. They ask because they simply don't know and to me that's what keeps me digging of why. And you get called up. People talk about what's your why and all this. I mean that's cool for some people. That's not my gig. It's just why I needed to know more and why I needed to dig deeper. So yeah, and it's changed over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's the mechanisms, what are all the bolts and gears that make a certain thing happen. Another one of my addictions is like evaluating. Why did I respond that way? Why did I say that? Why am I interested in that? Why does that bug me? And it's like an endless pit.
Speaker 2:Now, the important part is I can usually identify one or two buttons to push so that I can serve, so I can show up better and serve better in the future. And it's the same thing with systems. And you know, it's almost like I really have to focus on turning it off the why, because I drive people crazy and maybe don't totally appreciate the moment for what it is, but it is absolutely fundamental in the way I function. Now, why? So you finished apprenticeship, and was it a four-year apprenticeship? I'm assuming yeah, it was Yep, four years of apprenticeship. And then you said, okay, I'm going to go teach. And so, again, one of the many reasons I look up to you is you, early on, were giving back to the industry and helping other people. Why are there so few folks in the industry that do make that investment in teaching and developing the next generation of craft workers and trades professionals?
Speaker 1:For me, jesse. I watched my dad and saw he did a similar. He went through the army, went to work for the Atlanta Gas Company, which is now part of Duke Power, I think but he went to school at night, put himself through a technical program and then he became a teacher and you may have read this in the book. He was my teacher for two of my years of apprenticeship, and my boss and my father. So we learned a lot about each other, I promise you that, in a lot of different levels. So I think seeing that modeled was one thing. And this still bothers me to this day is to hear our craftsmen and trade workers talk about how crappy they think the industry is, instead of helping solve what they think is crappy. Everybody would take both arms, at least one, and grab the kid and hug them and walk them through. We wouldn't be in such a poop show that we're in with labor.
Speaker 2:I agree, I remember the first journeyman I worked with that wasn't my dad, and I understand working with my dad. We did that for about six months and said heck with that in the professional setting. Um, anyways, and that guy, he said hey, man, I need you to cut me that piece of cast iron. Now this is like the week out of high school. I've never seen cast iron pipe in my life, but I've seen clay pipe hub and spigot, but not no hub, right, and he said I need you to cut that pipe. I was like I, how do I cut it? And he grabbed the snap cutters, the chain cutters, and threw them at my feet. So I'm ready to fight, right, and I'm like I don't even know how to like, how do I use this? He said you know what? Grab your plumb bob, go upstairs, drop it down that hole right there and hold it till I call you. I said, yes, sir, I ran upstairs. I dropped the plumb bob. He left me up there all morning.
Speaker 2:Foreman walks in and says hey, where's the new guy? And he says, man, he was getting in the damn way. I sent him upstairs to hold the plumb bob. He didn't need me to hold the plumb bob, he just didn't want to deal with it. He didn't need me to hold the plumb bob, he just didn't want to deal with it and talk about deflated kicking the guts. Just I. I was this close to quitting but I wasn't gonna quit and so that's branded my brain okay. This is one thing I will never do. But there was a lot of people like eventually I found a really great company to work with, with a lot of leaders that understood the value of investing and passing on the knowledge. But I agree with you it's like come on, just pick one person, your whole career, just pick one and develop them. Let me ask you this I know you've invested probably in thousands of people by now. What does it feel like to see them excel in their craft, start their business, take on more responsibility, transform their earning potential?
Speaker 1:What does that feel like Greg? It makes me want to cry in a really sweet way, because I've had the pleasure of helping people buy their first car, people buy their first home, have two weeks off with pay to sit with their wife when they had a baby Just some special stuff that happened that I never put on LinkedIn or something that was my special day, because it's their special day and I don't want to override their joy or what have you, but I think when I get to see them excelling at work yes, but because they're excelling at work, they get to excel at home. I think that's even equal, or maybe even better than understanding how to use snap cutters.
Speaker 2:Ten four. I mean, that's the thing is. I remember saying, man, I can't wait to be a foreman because then I'll get to eat tacos and chill out in my truck all day. And I got it. And that's not what it was about. And I said, man, I can't wait to be a superintendent because then I could just drive around all day. And I got it. And it was a lot more than just driving around. But it finally dawned on me like, man, you're a lead, you got your crew leader, your foreman, your superintendent, you have the livelihoods and careers of people in your hands, which is like the ultimate gift and requires huge responsibility. But I don't know that everybody sees it that way.
Speaker 1:They don't, Jesse, and there's different categories of folks. There's people that show up and do their job in a poor way. There's people that show up and do their work in a spectacular way, and then there's a next level of person who always wants to do more, and of course that's the ones that you want to help do more. But I think one of the missing pieces and you touched on a little bit is and I thought about this a lot when I was getting ready to sell my company.
Speaker 1:I didn't have 40 employees. I had 40 families. I had Girl Scouts and Little League and babies and mamas in school and sick parents. If you do the mathematics on it, it's about 130 people that my decision affected and that's not a big company, but it was our company and I really tried to make decisions based on what was good for that group, not just the folks who showed up and wore a uniform or did our invoicing or what have you. It was the entire circumference of everything we touched, and my wife and I she was my partner we made a lot of decisions, thinking about Chad's kid or Linda's retirement or what have you, rather than just about making cold air that day.
Speaker 2:Oh, beautiful and amazing. You know another thing that popped into my head and I'm like ultra grateful for LinkedIn, because that's where we connect and being able to be connected with leaders like you and so many other leaders. Now, I'm not saying everybody that posts on LinkedIn is this type of leader, because they're not, but there's a good, beautiful handful of leaders that are people-centered and understand the impact they have beyond their business KPIs and delivering the core service that's branded on the side of the truck and you have a career or a life of walking in that path. One of the things that popped out of me in your book here it is deep knowledge Y'all need to get a copy of it.
Speaker 1:All right, I got a hat to show too Deep knowledge.
Speaker 2:Oh that's the deep knowledge hat and the straight out of crunk. So there's a point in there you make that excellence isn't created behind the desk. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What does?
Speaker 2:that mean, and how can people use that to shift their game?
Speaker 1:A get out from behind your desk. That's the start. That's how crafty I am. You like that? Yeah, I love it. That's how crafty I am. You like that, I love it.
Speaker 1:I think the intent of that it really stemmed from one conversation that I had with a guy who was my boss one time not my father and he had fielded a complaint from a customer of ours and it was one of my accounts. And the guy called in and said hey, y'all been out here a couple of times, problems still exist. We got to get this resolved. So this guy calls me, he's deceased now, or I would call his name, but I won't for a lot of reasons. But he said what's the deal? And I said, well, here's what happened the first day, and then here's what happened the second day, and then here's what happened the second time. And then the third day this happened and he said stop. He said the damn building's still hot, right.
Speaker 1:And I thought, wow, as weird as that sounds, that hit me like a bolt of lightning, because I then immediately shifted over into the consumer's position and I saw people coming and going and hear them on the roof, hear them in the basement, whatever, I'm still hot. So I learned that you got to go out and see what was going on and the problem turned out to be something rather benign and not a difficult fix, but a unique fix. But it took a couple of us going out there, meeting with the customer, understanding what had transpired, talking with the technician, to put all that together. I never would have gotten that had I sat in there and played keyboard warrior. I had to go, and so I tell people now we got airplanes, we got subway, we got cars, we got trucks, you got a credit card. Get the hell out of the office and go where the action is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the keyboard warriors. I have a special name for them, I call them carpet dwellers. And when I was in the field I had one particular awesome guy the guy's amazing, but I caught him right out of college and I don't know why. They paired him up with me and of course I tortured him Not as bad as I was tortured, but I still tortured him and one of the biggest problems we had was his overreaction to emails and his just reluctance to go and see what the hell was actually happening. And through a few iterations we finally got to cussed each other a bunch, but we finally got on the same page. Man, I'm not trying to be ugly, but I need you to come out here so that you understand that what Mr GC over there is saying isn't entirely true. There's another truth that he's leaving out, and so do you think it's this idea or perception of what a manager or an executive is that lends itself to camping out behind a keyboard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a culture that the company has built for themselves, because some places I've worked where it was almost the inverse, where, no, you need to go back to the office and handle that and let me do the field work.
Speaker 1:So I think and a lot of it is the founder or whomever is at the highest post can set the tone. I worked for some really good companies and I worked for a couple of crappy companies, and I'm thankful for both honestly. And it starts with the leadership, and that can be, as many people listening know, is not always the manager by title. I've had some great field leaders who would go to battle with the managers because the managers weren't leading the field well. And then I've seen some field people who should be leading just sit there and take whatever came down the old highway and not do what was best for the company and mainly insofar as training and exposure, they just kind of let some young people get stuck on crappy jobs rather than making sure the apprenticeship or the helper roles were really as robust as they should be. When you're a first year, second year, third year, you're going through these stages and you're getting the theoretical knowledge but you need to be able to apply it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I've seen companies that are paying for apprenticeship but they've got third year people changing air filters for three years in a row For three years in a row. And I've seen some opportunities where some experienced field leadership should have said guys, we've got to get these young people immersed in the real life or we're going to be hurting come two or three more years. And we're seeing that on a grand scale. Yeah, as my peers, the baby boomers are retiring and we've got a 30-year gap in our window. We've got some really smart Gen Zs coming that are really hard workers when you can find them, pluck them and groom them. And then you've got some really good Xers that are on the way out. But, dan, we've got a gap in between and that gap was created by taking trades out of high schools.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I wrote a piece this morning Until we get our 13-year-olds to the time that they're 33, we have got uphill battle. And that's where I say if you're a tradesperson or a craftsperson or a surgical tech or whatever you are, grab a couple of youngsters and walk with them.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I think this gap that we're, that we think it's tough now, but I feel in the next seven to 15, it's really going to hurt and everybody in that value stream can contribute, needs to contribute, to closing that gap. Now I know that you're a Kaizen, continuous improvement, prefab minded, like efficiency optimist I know. Oh, you got the Kaizen. Is that a real tattoo? It is. Is that a real tattoo? It is? Please tell me what's the story behind the tattoo. I?
Speaker 1:started learning about Kaizen and Dr G Edwards Deming a long time ago and I took it half-heartedly and I understood it and practiced it. And I understood it and practiced it. But when I started my company in 1999, I saw that continuous improvement was how we were going to survive as a small company in a niche market, which was the mission critical air conditioning side of the industry, and to be able to go from one guy in the garage to 40 people and selling the business at a really nice price. That was a pretty big uphill battle in the data center service world against some of the people we were competing with. But having that mindset, I think, really helped us.
Speaker 1:And Kaizen is simply doing something do the damn thing, measure it, tweak it, do it again until you start making micro changes instead of things you can measure with a yardstick. That's when I really became a Kaizen advocate, I would say, and I've got it tattooed on my arm so that I see it often and I think about it often. And when I'm making crappy decisions and I get mad and I do this, it's right there looking at me. So for me it's like having something written on a sticky note on your bathroom mirror. It's a sticky note to shut up, evaluate and make a good decision based on the info I got in front of me. Not emotional, not because somebody pissed me off in an email, but a good, solid decision.
Speaker 2:That's what helped it for me. Oh my, what are the facts? What does the data say? What are the contributing factors? What can we do to make it just a little bit better? Yeah, and let's go. Oh, I love it. That's ultra cool. I always joke when I'm doing my workshops and facilitation that I have a PDCA tattoo on my back, right above my waist, but you can't see it unless you sign up for my fans only account. But you actually have a Kaizen tattoo, which is the ultimate.
Speaker 1:And I have my old company logo tattooed on my back for the same purpose. I'm all in, baby. I'm not skimming the surface.
Speaker 2:Again, I said it at the beginning of the call you are my friend, Tor, and you just added more things for me to look up to and aspire to, Greg.
Speaker 1:And I don't have an OnlyFans account, just FYI.
Speaker 2:I'll hook you up on that Now. I've had this debate with people because I understand. If I only think about optimizing production, it makes perfect sense for me to have somebody that's an expert at doing underground roughing and that's all that they do. And then somebody that's an expert and has a super optimized system to set fixtures, and that's all that they do. And then somebody that has an X it's an expert and has a super optimized system to set fixtures and that's all they do. And all they do is work in a shop and do prefabrication and pump out skids. There are economies of scale there, right, where you can gain and improve, but what does that do to the future of our industry and how do you manage it so that people don't have end up with 15 years of experience of the same year 15 times? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:I'm not a fan of that. I think there are huge advantages to doing it. Doing it if we had machines doing it and not humans. I think the human psyche needs to be stimulated with outside influences, not just showing up at the same shop every day, putting on the same welding clothes and burning rod it. That little squirrel inside your head goes absolutely ape shit when you give him that kind of headroom.
Speaker 1:I totally believe in rotating people on a not a group basis, but on a person evolving basis. So you have a core skill group and then you have a new person coming into that group. The old guy or girl leaves and goes to that group. So you're moving people but you're keeping the competent skill level of the group relatively intact. That is my preference because it gives people the ability to learn different tasks, but it also allows them to interact with different people, think different thoughts, hear different stuff at lunch, interact with different people, think different thoughts, hear different stuff at lunch. You know, jesse, tell me why are you looking at this AI? What is that going to do for me? And you and I are having a ham sandwich. So I get curious at night and I'm looking up AI at home, which I never would have done had I worked with the a-hole Preston forever, who only smoked marlboro reds and wouldn't talk to anybody.
Speaker 1:So it keeps the brain moving and because and we said we were talking about this in sunday school last week you have to keep your brain between the guardrails because our brains are wicked man. They're wicked fast. They love to get into trouble. That's why we have confessionals. All that stuff that we have to keep us hemmed up is good because we need it. We need leashes. We run around like damn spider monkeys when we're off the chain so we have to have. We have to have this stuff in our universe, in our parithi, that we don't necessarily have to dig a hundred percent into.
Speaker 1:But we got to know that there's other stuff lurking on either side of us that keeps us moving down the path and that can be exposure, that can be learning. It can be learning a different language. It could be learning. It can be learning a different language. It could be just getting interested in like boy scout, and that's something that I'm doing at church. We got a boy scout group and I was sitting there in sunday school. Here's my brain was supposed to be listening in spider monkey boy. He's out here thinking oh yeah, I'm going to start a deal with our scout master to bring skilled trades people in so that the scouts get exposure earlier, and yeah, but to my point, I shouldn't have been thinking about that right now. Sunday school with a lesson in front of me, but that's how. All that stuff is good for us, though, but it keeps some guardrails up, so I like the rotating group member.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree, because you can keep the system process. I think the word you use, like the skill, set stationary, but you can migrate people through it and, as they master that, move them on to the next one and the whole. I mean that was the number. I had no idea that I was going to have a career in construction. Actually, up until that first summer that I worked on that job site, I was convinced that I was either going to be playing for the Houston Astros or I was going to be an engineer and I don't even know, I don't even know what the hell an engineer looked like.
Speaker 2:And then I got on the job site and I was like this is amazing, and I think it's the only thing that I have done for over 20 years. And I think it's because of the variability in it the different addresses, different location, the different people, the different projects, data centers, hotels, multifamily, like just the gambit which I need, that kind of thing Because, like you said, the spider monkey brain in me I got to keep that bad boy focused and overloaded, otherwise he runs wild. Which brings me to another point. In the book you talk about learning in a conventional classroom setting. Why did you decide to pack that with all the other deep nuggets in here. Why was that important for you to get out and put for the world to see?
Speaker 1:I think it takes both ways of learning. I think that a structured environment is good, especially for spider monkey brain people, but you have to learn theory. I'm a huge advocate for understanding theory behind anything.
Speaker 1:If youon musk and you're trying to figure out how to catch a rocket coming back down, there's a whole lot of theoretical assumptions you have to make and understand how to clasp the the arms together at the right time. If you're plumbing understanding, you can't wash a major by a minor or any of the theory that goes into the trades. I just think you have to learn that properly and apply it. And if you do that through an apprenticeship, god bless you, because if you can learn I went to school at night, so if I could learn something at night and then apply it the next day at work like holy crap. Yes, that's like learning on steroids, because it's fresh and I learned this thing a while back about being airplane.
Speaker 1:Pilots have this they have to do these landings and these different types of landings with either instrumentation or flight landing by visualization. They only have to register yearly for the instrument landing. But if you haven't done that in 364 days, you're still legal, but you're maybe spanking that airplane on the runway because you're not current and I've just always put those two together of keeping your learning as close to understanding that a settling tip is really hot when it touches your finger oh shit, all the better. I'm mentoring a kid right now. He's a fine young man, henry Nealon, last Sunday afternoon. We're in my garage and he's taking Brazing 101 and Soft-Sodering 101 in the Crumpton School.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because his first year in tech school he hasn't touched a torch. He's learning theory and he's learning on the air side and that's all good, but brother's got to learn how to silphos and he's got to learn how to soft solder. So I've been helping him in the garage and he's man. I wish I could go to do this on the job site tomorrow and I'm like, well, tell your journeyman you're ready to try some of this and not wait on the classroom, because if you learn this today and understanding how to keep the temperature in that tubing tomorrow and doing it on a job site, it's going to make a lot more sense for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did he get. Did he have any progress with his journeyman? Do you know?
Speaker 1:I haven't talked to him since then so I don't know. I'll get a report. He doesn't go to school Wednesday night, so it's usually I get information dumped on Wednesday.
Speaker 2:Nice. Well, good on you and good on him. That's what sealed it in for me. Right, you nailed it. It was the introduction to the theory and the science and the thinking and then being able to go do the damn thing. It connected in my brain. The only situation that comes close like the only learning situation that comes close to what I experienced in my apprenticeship and out there installing things, is starting my own business. The difference is this has a lot more risk. I used to read books and listen to podcasts and leadership books and they'd be like, yeah, these are good ideas. Yeah, I agree with that. Since I started my business, there ain't no pontificating. If it applies, I'm putting the damn thing into practice right now. And I got to figure out do that little micro improvements to make it stick, because I got to stay afloat, my backup plan. Nobody wants to see me do my backup plan, and so what are your thoughts on that? Starting your own business, building businesses, entrepreneurship what do you think the relationship between that and self-development is?
Speaker 1:So there's a hell of a lot of smart people out there that can tell you about your business, that have never ran one that can tell you about your business that have never ran one.
Speaker 2:That's a.
Speaker 1:T-shirt. The business book section at Barnes Noble is chock full of people that are on direct deposit for somebody that want to critique what you're doing. Damn gangster, I get it. If you're going to be a consultant or what have you, that's fine, but there's nothing like having beat up knuckles and scars on my hands for what I learned in the field and there's nothing like the scars on my brain and my heart from what I learned running the company.
Speaker 1:And I've said this before, jesse if you've never laid in the kitchen floor at 3 am on Sunday morning worried about how to make payroll, I probably can't have a really deep conversation with you about entrepreneurship. I really can't, because I've done that stuff, man. I've mortgaged everything and bought two trucks to start a business. I've made a commitment to people that I was out over my skis on and I had to deliver. I borrowed money to start a business and paid it back. I've done all that and I don't walk around telling you how to run your business. Now. You and I have talked about business ideas how to tweak, how to maximize, how to massage but for somebody from Harvard that's never run a business to tell me how to run a business, man, I struggle with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wink sauce.
Speaker 1:But the young folks and the old folks alike that I talk with about running a business folks and the old folks alike that I talk with about running a business, there's a kinship there that you have a natural bond with because you know they've been through the fire and that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But battle wounds are battle wounds, regardless of how big your battle is. If you're a one man show and you know you've got a mortgage or rent or car or health insurance payments coming, you know and you know that you need to get that presentation done so you can show up. Well, tomorrow morning your ass is going to stay up and do it Because nobody and my buddy, ben Owen, that runs this nonprofit called we Fight Monsters, ben's got a t-shirt that says there's no one coming.
Speaker 1:It's up to us and if you can adopt that mentality, to know that in life and or especially as a business owner, your shoulders have got to be wide and strong. Now we can go home and that's our place of respite and I can talk to my wife or you can talk to your girlfriend or what have you about our struggles, but at the end of the day, people are counting on you to deliver, and as much as machoism is not in vogue right now, apparently you've got to be hard man to run a company. I'm sorry, but you have to make tough decisions, male or female. I'm not saying this is a such decisions, male or female. I'm not saying this is a such thing, male or female, you carry the weight and you've got to be able to make those decisions. Yes, you can tweak them. Yes, you can do the weave when you need to do the weave, but yes has got to mean yes and no has got to mean no, unless there's compelling reason to change my mind.
Speaker 2:Ten 4. Speaking of, you mentioned the busted knuckles and the scars, the scar tissue on the brain and the heart. One of the stories in your book talked about a request to drop your price by 5%. Yeah, can you give us some background on that? Because that to me again, just reinforced you're the real deal, because I've been under leadership. That would gladly do that.
Speaker 1:And in the real world that's half your profit and you can't go around doing that much or very often or for very long. So the story behind that is that I told you and the listeners that I worked with my dad and he had a job that he was working on for a high school and it was a private school and they had a beautiful auditorium and they had just invested in this beautiful hardwood floor and painted the logo on it and it looked like it had four inches of shellac on it and it started buckling due to humidity, oyster, yeah. So they had to figure out how, and the gym was ventilated but it was never air conditioned. So my dad worked with the two guys that were on the board, developed a plan how they were going to do it. So they go back and they put it to the fundraising committee. They raised the money.
Speaker 1:Well, by the time they raised the money, my dad had contracted cancer and he had already passed. So I get the call from these two guys. My boss actually said these two guys want to talk to you. So I call them and I thought they were just going to talk about my dad's passing and sorry to hear about it and what have you but?
Speaker 1:because they had been friends, work friends, customer friends like we all have. They said can you come out to the school and meet us? So I went out there and took the file with me and had reviewed the file and what all he had planned to do and it was going to be a beautiful job. And they said we got the money up and we're ready to cut you a purchase order today if you will do it for 5% less. And I just remember sitting there and this sounds dramatic, but it probably wasn't, but it was to me mentally. It's like I sat there for 30 minutes and I'm like, okay, dumb, dumb, you got to say something at some point. I know I need to talk, but my brain is still working and I'm like, holy crap, what do I do? What do I do? And I'm like I know what Pops would do and I know what I believe. And I said I'm sorry, but if I do that then I'm going to have to take something out of the job, because if you want the full Monty, you got to pay the full price. One of the guys said that's a great answer, because if you had said anything other than that, we would not give you a purchase order. And here's the purchase order for the full amount. So I got a little goose bump right then telling the story. But it was just one of those moments of recommitting what your beliefs are. I'd already tweaked the price on getting the equipment price current. I didn't change the labor. I didn't change the labor, I didn't change the crane and all the stuff that went with it. So I knew the number was solid. Yeah, I wanted the job. But it was like that moment of integrity. Do you cave in to your wimpy little lizard brain who wants the purchase order, or do you stand up and say, say no, this is what the job's worth. And that's what I did. And fortunately and the job was beautiful, jesse, I'll tell you, three months go by, we've got the engineering done, we've got the roof opened up, the curbs are in place.
Speaker 1:The night before man, it rains. I'm talking about my soon, of course, I'm laying in bed all night. I was going to get up at four anyway. I think I got up at two. I drive up there and I thought Noah was going to come by any moment in the arc and take me up. So I'm like dude, this is not good. Hel is not good helicopter scheduled. I mean it's a big deal and I'm a young project guy at the time. Yeah man, right before daylight it was like my old man was up there conducting the the weather forecast. We got a window of about an hour and a half. We sent four pieces of four pieces of equipment on that roof with the helicopter, got everything dried in and it started raining again you were biting your teeth the whole time and you remember mike mallory was our sheet metal foreman on the job and jerry ste, Jerry Stevens, was our guy doing the controls and the more of the AC stuff.
Speaker 1:And I remember the four of us, or three of us, were standing in the gym looking up at the equipment hoping that we didn't have any drips coming through, you know, because it was raining really hard. And I remember Mike Mallory who? He was a Christian man and he said your old man had a hand in this one and I was like God, I just wanted to run to the truck and cry like a little baby. But it was just a really cool from my dad passing, meeting with the guys at the school, getting the purchase order, and then the rain window, the helicopter, the whole deal. It was just like meant to be kind of deal, but I just thought I was really putting in the book.
Speaker 2:Oh, amazing. So I only have two questions for you and they're the easy ones. Two more, because otherwise I'll keep you on here all day. I'm good with that, All right. So the first easy one why did you decide to write this book?
Speaker 1:deep knowledge it's a great question. A lot of it stems back to me writing in that black book when I was a young service technician of things that stood out and I had no idea, jesse, that I would write a dang book or two. I've got two books now. The other one just hasn't come out yet. I think that I didn't write it for financial gain, because I made enough money where I could do this thing to satisfy this need without having to make it commercialized.
Speaker 1:Now don't get me wrong. I want to sell books. I'd love to recover my cost on it. But if I don't sell any books to make money, but if I can sell books and help two or three kids decide to make a better choice about anything, then I will feel like it was successful. Because there were certain times in my life where I found myself in a position with people where I needed to make a choice, and sometimes I really made poor choices, choices and sometimes I made good choices. Had I had my book, maybe I would have made more of the better choices and less of the crappy choices, because, as good as my life is, I've done some stuff, like most of us have, that you're like damn, I wish I hadn't done that, but I did.
Speaker 1:And if I did and I can help some people not go through that, then that's what I'm doing, I hope. But I wrote it to purge some thoughts that I had, and not to and I don't mean purge to get rid of, I meant purge them to chronicalize them so that I would never forget them and hopefully it'll help somebody else. So those are really the two reasons was to put my 43 years into a written text form and then to help maybe some young people go. Yeah, I need to think about what Crumpton did and I either do want to do that or don't want to do that 10, 4, amazing, Again, amazing, which folks?
Speaker 2:so if people want to get this book, where should we send them?
Speaker 1:So you can go to deepknowledgeme, like deepknowledgeme, and that's the landing page for the book, and on that page you can click the Barnes Noble tab, which you can get it on barnesandnoblecom. And the same thing for Amazon. There's a Barnes Noble tab and there's an Amazon tab. You can get it for your Amazon Kindle. You can get the Kindle version, paperback or hardback. Or you can go to gregcrumptoncom and say, hey, dude, send me a book and if anybody wants one I'll sign it or write some note to your mom or something in it. Whatever you want me to do, it's out there. I hope that people the people that have bought it and read it have told me Now maybe they're lying to me. They've said it's good. They've said it's good. Yeah, I concur. I concur, jess.
Speaker 1:I'm a craftsman, I'm a people builder, I'm not an author and I write what I live. And my sister PhD in elementary education. She helped me edit the book on the first pass. What is wrong with you? Who writes this way? I know that feeling. I'm like I do. And she said you use too many dot dots and too many hyphens and I'm look man, just do what you do, except then I flip it over to a professional editor.
Speaker 1:This lady's no, I love your style. I'm like, well, you call my sister and tell her it was. It was really fun, man. But we do have a second one coming out. It's called deep knowledge. Um, so look for that. Probably in the fall, maybe I don't know it's a lot of on the same lines, but it's a little bifurcated and a little bit different vein than the first one, but similar format. I tried to keep these things readable. Oh yeah, the chapters are short. I try to give a quote to add some substance, and then I put three nuggets called tools of the trade at the end of each chapter. And those are the things that I learned about that chapter and hopefully it just sparks some good thoughts for folks.
Speaker 2:I'll say this mission accomplished for me. I love the bite-sized digestible chunks. I love the summary on the back end, the quotes. I'm like, oh okay, let me. I even cheated, believe it or not. Once I kind of saw the layout I said oh well, let me just look at the quotes. I'm like, oh okay, I use that to say, okay, let me read this whole chapter, because it just grabbed me more. It's not chronologically built.
Speaker 1:It doesn't compound, so you can start at chapter 20 or chapter 1 or chapter 40. It doesn't matter, because they all stand on their own merit. They don't rely on the previous chapter.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they're real-life lessons. They are man. That's the stuff, all right. So that was that. We got the easier question. You've made so many contributions, you've breathed confidence and, we'll say, some extra steam into my life, had huge impact and I know we'll continue to have a huge impact out there. So I'm kind of interested in how meaningful and how deep your response to this question will be. So here's the question what is the promise you are intended to be?
Speaker 1:Committed to helping the next generation of worker be smarter, be more available, be more open-minded and want to learn more than my generation of skilled tradespeople were allowed to be, because the tide has shifted. We're not the people who had to go to shop class because that's all we could do. We're the people who chose to go to shop class because there's plenty of lawyers and doctors. Jesse, I've said this lately and I believe this more than I ever have that our inability to take care of our country from a skilled trades aspect bridges, water systems, electricity, all those core skills that are in the skilled trades is a national security issue, because if we can't take care of our country, we don't need subcontractors from other companies having to come do that for us. That should be a self-fulfilling mission. Maybe people think that's a little bombastic, but I really believe that it's a national security issue that we have a workforce that's educated and wants to get up and get after it.
Speaker 2:Ten four. All I can say is I agree, greg, yes, and it's an amazing career, it's an amazing life that just opens up so many different opportunities. It's not a dead end, and I applaud you for helping people see that it's not a dead end. You don't have to stay on your tools. You can if you want to, and that'll be amazing too Absolutely, but you can continue carving your own path, and we're going to need that to stay healthy and independent.
Speaker 1:No doubt, absolutely. And look, I mean, you and I came through in a time where apprentices and helpers were treated less than a stellar way. We're at a different point now where kids can come in, not have to suffer the hazing and only get the good stuff. Yeah, and that's what we've got to embrace. The tide has turned. This is a great career. We've got 24-year-olds making $100,000 and more at my company and that's not a rarity.
Speaker 1:That is really doable, especially if somebody raises their hand and says, put me in, coach 100. So I'm here to find the kids that raise their hand and want to do more than just show up. I want to help the kids, and that could be a 40 year old kid that's coming out of the military and maybe she was a welder on a ship underwater. I want to help her get to her next spot. Or maybe it's an 18-year-old geek who didn't know what he wanted to do when he got out of high school. Or maybe it's a lady that went to school and wanted to be an educator but can't afford to be now because we don't pay them enough money. So there's all kinds of opportunities for us to envelop people and bring them in and show them what life can be.
Speaker 2:Amen, man, you're giving me chills over here, mr Crumpton.
Speaker 1:I'll give you a big old Texas hug when I see you next time.
Speaker 2:Definitely definitely.
Speaker 1:Did you have fun, man? I love talking to you and I'm so appreciative of you taking time. I love the Saturday mornings y'all do, when I get to tune in to see you and Jess do your thing. Jennifer, what you're doing is making an impact. What others are doing are making an impact, but it takes the community. It can't be one drum beating. It's got to be a symphony. And we're getting there. We're getting there 10-4. 10-4.