Ryan Thompson found his way, and you might find yours, too

0:10 Welcome, did this episode of fifty percent Facts. I'm Jim. Hello, I'm Michael. That's Michael, Mike, Michael. Uh and we're here with Ryan Thompson, who happens to be my plumber, and uh uh. He has an interesting story and an interesting perspective, and I thought, well, what the hell, why not have him on and talk about where he is and how he got there. And and the thing that always like gets me is that people don't necessarily know what they want to do in life. Number one, they often choose, you know, even even going to college, they often choose a major, a concentration or whatever that doesn't necessarily lead to making any money or paying off their student loans or whatever. And people often bypass the idea of doing, you know, something in the trades that actually it can be very lucrative, can be very lucrative. It if you've actually like had any work done to your house or you know whatever, you know that it's not cheap to do that stuff. And my job, boys, you know what you're doing, like like, all right, at least I'm going into this trade. You know what that trade is, I'm going to be cooking all day. Yeah, Or if you go to college or anywhere, and you're like, well, I like history, Like what job is history going to be day to day that's going to make you money? Or business? Even everyone's a fucking business major. But do you like doing business?

1:42 Because like what you're learning in school will be like ten percent of actually running a business. Yeah, you know, like the admin stuff and the taxes and what are like actually running a businesses you mentioned offers just like problem solving, similar to your job that's running a business. Find a problem, put it out, find a fire, put it out, hopefully optimize along the way. But every job I've ever heard of her, every friend I ever had that what to college? Never, Like, you don't know what the taste of the work is. Yeah, typically unless you have a good internship or something like that. Yeah, but that's not even called ye internship. That's like yeah, yeah, when you get a job, you get a taste of it. Yeah yeah, But then by then it's already too late. You're already two hundred K in the tank. Yeah in the hole. Right, Yeah, you're fucked. I'm sorry. I just had to text my wife and till her to sign our taxes. I'd done it, but well, that's right. Tax Day is coming up. Yeah, yeah, I know it's Today's Ladies and Gentlemen. I signed it when I forgot that she had a signed it too, and uh she just I think ignored the email anyway, So Ryan tell us, like, what are you doing now? And then how how do you get here? So? Yeah, I'm Ryan. I'm the owner of Rhino Ruder Plumbing and uh, man, it's been quite the journey, I gotta say. Uh. And you know what's cool is when you meet someone you never know where they've been, what they are, and what they what you can teach them and what they can teach you. And you know, so I admire that about life. You just never know who's on the other end of the phone, you know what I mean. But for me, right, I opened up my plumbing company

3:12 last year in April, so it's great timing. I just finished my year to year last week. The bar has been set. The number was higher than I ever could have expected. Honestly, I am so blessed beyond my wildest dreams. Plumbing has provided me a way to teach my family morals and values and how to be a good person. I show I have two daughters, I have a two and a three year old, and being a dad is another part of life that I, you know, truly admire. Being a parent has just made me a better person. Being a plumber has made me a better person. Being a business owner has made me a better person.

3:55 Yeah, And all of that being said, right, Like, I got to this destination and in this goal of mine to open the business, and it turned out that I've been very, very very successful at it. And I take a step back and I asked my dad, I asked my mentors. Why, Like, I'm nothing special, you know what I mean. I'm just willing to do what's needed to be done every day. Like at the end of the day, you know, I got seven years experience in plumbing. And I'll tell you the story here as it goes on. But I was it fell in my lap. It literally fell in my lap. I had a guy come into the gas station and be like, what the fuck are you doing working here? Bro? And I had to tell him my story because it was surface level stuff. Every day. It was my boss, the guy I ended up working for, and he would be like, let me get a hundred bucks on five. I'll see later.

4:43 After five years of that. He goes, what are you doing, bro, you're kind of sand baging it here at the gas station. I had to tell my stories. Well, I got three duy's and I'm blah blah blah blah blah. I'm finishing my school. I'm getting my DUI program done. He goes, all right, you got your car, you got your license, and I'm like, yes, yes, yes, here's the leap of faith. He goes, quit your job, put your two weeks in, come work for me. This is literally, quote unquote what he said, put your two weeks and work for me. Buy boots, show up to my house on Monday, and I'll teach you the trade. And after four years, I'll sign you off and you can have what I have. And he's just a random gas random dude. Random a couple of times, yeah, like like you know, like your gas station guy, yea, I have a gas station you go do every day? Yeah, sub Joe, when you get a hundred on five them give him a candy bar pack.

5:27 If you're whatever, you get right and your own. You see this dude every day, you know what I mean? So what's crazy is like that dude's asking you, quote your job, come work for me. Right, So here's the fact I was making thirteen bucks an hour at the gas station. He said, I'll come. I'll pay fifteen an hour cash under the table. That's a two dollar raise, and I'm gonna come up right, and really more than that because he's buying my lunch. He's paying me under the table, right, So no taxes anyways, irs, So we're just kidding. You didn't hear No, Yeah, this is all theoretical. We're just kidding on that. You never heard that allegedly, right, It was twenty years ago in a book exactly. So I made that's your limitations, and I make that leap of faith, And there was a gamble.

6:08 I don't know if I'm gonna be good at this or bad at this. I didn't know anything about plumbing. All I knew was hots on the left, holds on the right, water goes downhill. Yeah, I didn't know anything else where I'm at. So I made that leap of faith and I quit my job. I put my two weeks in and I ended that chapter on a high note. Were you ever sketched out like why did this dude choose me? I was, And that's how I feel with everything, every like thing. I'm like, well, why is this guy talking to me right now? So his need for me was out of necessity, truth be told, his guy was going away for a vacation for a while and he needed a new guy. And he literally was pumping his to jail. He was going to jail turn himself in Okay, And he literally was pumping his gas. And you need how gas station windows have like clear windows from their he's pumping his gas. He looks inside and he sees me. And at the time, I had been working out a lot, and I was like at the peak of my performance. I was one hundred and ninety five pounds six percent body fat, just shredded. And he saw me literally busting out of my shell shirt. And his quote unquote rules was if you could talk, if you could pull, if you were a good looking do it, you would be a great plumber. Because you need to be able to talk.

7:21 You need to be able to have a mechanical aptitude, You need to be able to be looked and relate with people. You could be the best plumber in the world. But if you can't talk, you never get to show your skills off. Because if you can't sell right, what's everything? So he taught me that, yeah, presentation, people call it like shallow, but I mean that's how you get your foot in the door anywhere, you know. So I found out that I was good at that. And the reason I was good at that was cut from that gas station. So eight months in it took me eight months. I rode with my boss every day in a van, showed up to his house with those boots. He taught me the trade, and after eight months he threw me in a van. And how emergency plumbing job phones are always running, and how it worked is after a month he put me in a van and he would tell me to go run calls. And I started running calls, and I started and then I found out after a year or two that I was really good at plumbing. Best plumbers in the world are tall, skinny guys because I can get to places that the bigger guy couldn't, you know what I mean?

8:20 Sure, whereas that bigger guy can lift more than me. But there is a trade off and everything, right, I'm agile in an attic. I can move really good underneath the house. So my days of walking around at two hundred pounds I've accepted, I think are kind of behind me. That experience was beautiful for what it was, and I learned a lot, you know, when I first got sober. That's another part of my story. I just rolled over. June will be eleven years for me alcohol free. So it's been a decade, right of personal growth, working on my internal issues to be better, to be the best version of myself for me, for my daughters, for my family, all of it, right, And that going back to what I said at the beginning, like you never know who you're meeting and who's on the other end of the phone and what they've been through, right, Like every part of my story plays a role today.

9:09 That gas station that my duy's my bottom. You know that my bottom when I was broken was beautiful, you know, because the only way up is up? Yeah, right, So, like it was a terrible part of my life after my third dui, but it was also the beginning of the most beautiful ride and journey I could ever imagine. Because at my bottom, when I got out of jail from my third DUI, I was so broken mentally and internally. I was defeated. I was embarrassed and shamed and like any emotion you could have, I had, and I had nowhere to go, and I was so I went to my grandma's house in Newcastle. I had nowhere to go. I burned a lot of bridges. Nobody wanted me, so my grandma took me in and I got down with my hands and knees that night, and this is my spiritual awakening. I prayed out loud and I went to sleep. And what's crazy is when I woke up, nothing changed, but everything changed, and all I knew everything was gonna be okay as long as I didn't drink for one hour, one day, one week. And it just became a string of days which catapulted me down this road of personal growth. And it became at first, get sober, get a job. I got the job at Shell a couple of years later of getting my license back, and all this plumbing fell in my lap.

10:18 And then I go down this path of plumbing and I worked for him for five years. I became his lead tech. I made him a lot a lot of money. I generated him like one point two after five years. And the road is the pipe dream quote unquote, right, the pipe dream he sold me is after four years contractors need four years and once you have ten thousand hours, you can test out and you get your contractor's license. And so that's exactly what I did. What's it take to get in the door? So like first step to be a plumber? Do you need a certification? Do you need a test? Do you just need a guy to so he mind you? He poached me from the gas station. Yea so high schoo with diploma would be like bare minimum, but not even that, you know what I mean? Like you just need someone willing to take a chance on you and put all their knowledge inside of you and give you the ability to elevate you to get to that place to take that test. So he so you need yes? So like for me, I'm looking for my apprentice one day. And what's crazy is full circle. I'm looking for myself seven years ago at that gas station. I'm looking for some young kid hungry, doesn't know what to do with life. And I'm gonna be like, yo, kid, come work for me. I'm gonna give you the blueprint.

11:37 I'm gonna give you the map. Work for me for four years and I will sign you up. I mean, I'm gonna do the exact same thing my boss did for me to someone else and to teach this beautiful trade to keep this world going around, Like we all have roles to play, the fireman, the emt like everyone has the role to play. And in my world, everything is an emergency. Right. I heard this quote the other day, like, you know what America is without plumbing, It's a third world country. It makes it right, we need that, right. Sure, good luck living in your home without running water, flushing toilets, hot water. So I got so lucky that plumbing fell in my lap. And I found through COVID that we are essential. If anything, we sped up during COVID, because guess what, when everyone's at work using their bathrooms, your home is used to that. If you think of it like that, Now everyone's at home, more shit, more shit, more water failing faster. So, if anything, we sped up, and now everyone was home with all this money and all this time, and they were like, Hey, I'm gonna do this faucet, I'm gonna do this project I've been wanting to. I want it. Now they have the time to do it.

12:43 So COVID was a great example of essential workers. You're getting nothing but busier. Sure, and here's the training. I don't know how much of these videos you've seen on Instagram or not, but the average age in my industry and plumbing is fifty five. So there's a lot of old timers that are retiring, and every seven that retire, there's one of me to come replace. So yeah, answer, that's the goal. That's what we're hovering around. Everyone wants to be an influencer wild, but he wants to work hard right now. There's literal data on that too that like interviewed every student in like it just like eighty percent or something. Wild wants to be gotcome TikTok famous. We want it easy, right, and who can blame them?

13:24 It's not even easy. They don't even know. Yeah, and they don't even know because there's so much luck involved and there's so much snakery happening, and dude, timing. Timing is another phase in life. If I met you two years ago, oh I'm still working for the guy. Yeah, you know what I mean. If I met you five years from now, maybe everything has changed. So timing and that's true for business relationships, girl, everything kids like, timing is huge, you know, lucky, you know the right time, the right place. No, that's another side you know of it, And like, I don't know, like what you guys think spiritually, but when you're in the right time, at the right place, was that meant to be? Design? Who knows? Who knows? Right? Yeah, but there's something so yeah, living with the glass half full. When I meet people like that, it's I'm in the right place at the right time, and I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

14:09 Right. So, now that I have my craft, now that I have my I was called I didn't know what to do with my life. That was my biggest downfall. I had so many gifts. I could have been this or that or this or that. I didn't care what I was as long as I could provide for my family. And you know how lucky I was that I turned out to be good at my job. I love what I do, right, Like, if you're good at something and you hate your job, imagine how good you'll be if you love what you do. For sure. So I'm so lucky. You know. I was a wrestler background, a state qualifying wrestler. I owe a lot of my viewpoints and mindset to my sports background, right, Like being a wrestler, wrestlers, football players, rugby players, lacrosse them four sports are above l above all.

14:56 I think some of the most tested athletes wrestlers in high school. Yeah, wrestlers for sure. Well, I mean any conditioning is tough, yeah, but wrestling conditioning blue. I was a soccer player varsity four years blue soccer conditioning out the water. I think the only ones may bee boxing, boxing or wrestling are probably the tough two sons of bitches out there. Right, And in high school, I went to Oakmont High School. They didn't have lacrosse or rugby, but I found wrestling, and wrestling I was great at it. I was in that's kind of rare on the West Coast, right, way less common. Right, wrestling was cool too and unique of it's a team sport, but you individual at the same time, so you might win your match, but or lose your match, but we'll win as a team, you know. So like I think Oakmont lost one league match in four years against Deluo. Deloro is a powerhouse. Yeah, they have some big fucks out there, but anyways, the sports background gave me the ability in the mindset to just push through anything hard. Like think of David Goggins. I really admired David Goggins. Like you hear some of the Joe Rogan stuff. There is beauty in pain, you know what I mean, Like in the struggle, get used to the suck, you know what I mean, Like being in that moment of wrestling, conditioning of one more rep push through and you don't want to, but you do. It. Just is a good underlining example of how that builds resilience, It adds to your character and when you do it for years, oh my god, it makes you so tough, so that in real world application, when you come across a hurdle, something hard and obstacle, you're gonna blow right through it.

16:27 And so that's my mindset, Like I do not see problems. I just see opportunity. Everywhere I go there's a problem, I know how to fix that. The key is relating to people, right. The key is building trust in someone, and that comes from I've been doing this for six seven years now. I know what I'm talking about, right. And the other side of it in business is like if you're something's only I hear my dad in my head, something's only worth what someone's willing to pay. Straight up right. I use Pokemon cards as a great example. I'm all into prison basketball cards, trading and buying these. It's a piece of cardboard, yea to you, to me if you're not a collector, if you don't, it's a dollar fifty cents. But to someone else it's a million dollar card, right, same thing Post below by it was that was that one card.

17:15 There's like one in a trillion Pikachuka, And I know Jake Paul has one. Yeah, he mars out his necklace. It's a million dollar card. Damn Yeah. I think Post has like the rarest card of all time. Some dude pulled it in like Toronto and he hit him up and bought them. That's sick. Yeah, just pay the guy like five mil. But you can translate that to anything, right, Like sure, if the gym membership is one thousand dollars, there are some people that find value in that. There are some people that's like, you're crazy, I'm going over here right for so same in my world, if my plumbing price is so high people can't grab it, I'll never be busy. But on the flip side, if Mi'm too low, I'm going to be so busy. Maybe you raise your price, you know what I mean. So it's kind of a balance, right, Like I don't want to say the wrong thing, but like in theory business like you want to get as much as you can that you can sleep good at night, make your profit. We all open businesses to make money. Right, So with given the same, yeah, will value that you agree upon me, So you're going to sell what you think it's worth as well too, because it's a double you know, a double door, and I get it all the time. Where for example, I'll tell you right now my draink cleaning price two hundred and thirty five dollars standard drained creak place. Some people be going on, that's a little high, is it. All you gotta do is go buy a ten thousand dollars van, fill it with thirty thousand dollars worth of tools, spend six years mastering drain cleaning and do yourself so you don't That's all you gotta do, dad, homeowner whatever. Right. So like in perspective, anyone who's paying anyone for anything, you're paying for the guarantee, the warranty, the knowledge,

18:45 the tools, the ability to know how to fix something. It shit hits the fan, right, And that's what my experience is paying for. I've been there, done that, done it the hard way. Learn that lesson what happened to an angle stop or a nipple when it snaps off in the wall. Like I did an angle stop at Jim's house. Yes, and that was my first job for you, was the angle stop. Yeah, and great example. You maybe could have done that job yourself. But worst case scenario if that broke in the wall and the water's on whatever, now what, Yeah, I would that would have been a problem, considering that the wall is tiled and all of that. It was it would have been an enormous pain in the ass to try to fix it. I should actually probably tell the story at this point when this thing happened, I was I was trying to solve a problem with a with a lenky, leaky faucet.

19:36 It's like, well, it's time to replace this faucet anyway, so I'm just gonna get a new one. And so when I went to take the supply hose off of one side, like the on the on the hot side, it didn't. It just crumbled. It just like at the end of it crumbled and there was no way to get the hose back on without it leaking everywhere. And I called Ryan because my my daughter in law, Meredith, had dealt with him when she was doing property manage at the other company. Yeah, when you were with the other guy. And uh, I called you and it was your anniversary, that's right, and you were like, oh man, it's my anniversary. But like I can come. It's like, fuck, no, come later. You don't have to like put everything down and and disappoint your wife. Well, I don't know if you had a good call, by the way, Yeah, good advice.

20:26 Yeah. My MIF was like, he offered to do what and I said yeah, and I told him no. Yeah. I came the next day, yeah, next day, next next morning, even in even earlier than than I had anticipated, and solved the problem and it was great. And we've then since then replaced my UH on demand water heater the tankless. How's that running, by the way. Everything good? Yeah, everything is good. I think it gets hot a little slower than the other one did, but it doesn't make that terrible sound that the other one made. Uh, But you know that's actually I've talked to several people since then who said that is the brand that is the one you want. That's it. Yeah, yeah, we did good on that. We absolutely did. And that's right there. That little piece of that story is a great example of just networking, you know what I mean, Like you never know when that person is coming back into your life, how they can help you, how you can help them, you know what I mean, be of service for each other.

21:22 And I remember working with Meredith back when she was with that other property management company, and it's just like I know a guy and by that time I was out of my own and it's just good timing. She still maintains a list of people that she worked with, and if you know, like if I if I need something, I will sometimes ask do you have anybody on your list? Then I know a guy, yes, Like oh yeah, here's this number. So let's let's rewind a bit. You talked about, you know, sports playing a role and kind of your work ethic or just staying consistent with stuff. But what what was the gap? Right? So you're an athlete, so you're seventeen eighteen in high school, and it sounds like the work ethic, the consistency popped off when you started plumbing.

22:07 But what about those whatever ten years in between. Were you not tapped into consistency or hard work or was there another mission you had during those years? You mentioned duys, so that ties in with the partying aspect, right, So in high school it was all about sports and girls and my friends. I mean, life is really just about sports and girls anyways, and sports, right yeah. So yeah, like when you look back on it, like, high school's a great place if only we appreciated it in the moment. You don't pay for anything. You don't even know what a bill is. All you got to do is show up, enjoy high school with your friends, hang out with you know what I mean, in play sports. So then I graduated high school and it was like, all right, now what I found myself at Seria College. Didn't know what to do with my life, and that was one of my greatest downfalls. What do I do?

22:53 So I took business class after business class after business class, generic, generic, generic, and up partying. Somewhere along the rys. I'm twenty I'm twenty one. I get my first DUI, second DUI, and at that point I kind of had to drop out of school because you'll still have your license when you get your DUI. But once you start going through court and stuff, eventually you get it pulled from you and you have to go through a program and to get your license reinstated, you have to prove all the stuff. So anyways, long story short, I couldn't get to school anymore, so I kind of dropped out and then I was really just partying full time partying, and it got like out of control, met with the wrong people, the wrong time, the wrong place, and before I know it, I was twenty two, twenty three years old with three duys and that is my bottom. And at that point you could say, I mean, I've always been physically active in anything, wakeboarding, any ball sport we're playing and I'm gonna want to win, right, And that dog just comes from sports. That competitive fire is never going to go away. And that plays a role in plumbing because when I opened my business, it really wasn't my decision. And I woke up to a text message from my boss.

24:00 After five years of working with him, he fired me via text message and he let me go with no notice on a Sunday, with a paragraph long message that said something like, Ryan, I've seen you go from my worst employee to my best employee. And you are ready. And I feel like a dad kicking your son out into the world. That's what he said. And I'm like, Bucky, thanks, thanks, like no notice, no heads up, But he was right. I was ready. And what a good testament to myself of sink or swim, put up or shut up or go work for someone else? Yeah? Right, And it came from my background, my willing to overcome my hunger. I was fired up and you have to be right. Like it was so scary to read that text message and go from lead tech to owner operator in a day, and then to find out in this last year of business that I did it gracefully with two girls and ending a wedding and a wife and like, you do the best you can with what you got. It's my motto in life, you know, like and what's crazy is ever? And I love this line. Everything you need to know to run a business you've already learned in first grade.

25:15 Sure the golden rule. Treat others how you want to be treated. That small rule takes me so far in life. Just by sitting here. If I'm at your house, I'm gonna treat that house like my house. Right, I'm gonna do it as if what would I appreciate, Well, I would appreciate someone telling me this or that, looking out for me, whether it's they're paying for it or not. You know what I mean. Just honest advice, being solid, being good. And when I get compliments to myself, it's a reflection to my parents. I'm just doing what my mom and my dad taught me to do, you know, to be of service, to be kind, to be honest, to be fair. What's crazy is on my stories, I've picked up a little from here, a little there, a little customer service from the gas station, a little bit of will and like passion from sports, like just being committed, consistency, Like it taught me, discipline, dedication, camaraderie. It taught me when I'm done with my two hour wrestling practice and I wasn't eating food, to go put on a plastic trash bag and run for two more hours. When I'm taught. You think I wanted to do that. You think I wanted to wake up at four in the morning. No, but I did it, and I ended up getting a partial ride scholarship. It was great sacrifice and it turned out to be humbling experience. And I still carry all of those tools with me today. And it all comes from sports and all my failure, you know, And it's okay to fail, Like I used to be embarrassed that I fail and have three do I it's okay. What'd you learn?

26:48 What did you learn not to do? And you can't buy experience like I could tell you my story, I could tell you don't drink and drive. I could tell you all these things. But sometimes you have to go out out and fail and learn it the hard way. Yeah, for sure, And it's okay. That's the only way to learn because you just don't feel it, like as empathetic as you want to be or think you are, Like you can't feel someone else's failure. You know, you can like see it and maybe learn, but you really got to fuck up. I don't know if you know. Hormosi's kind of a business entrepreneur, kind of in the fitness space, but now he does a ton of business. And he says that like his his tuition. I don't know if he went to college or not, but he said his tuition is like failed businesses. You know, he spent five grand he failed that business. Well that's a five thousand dollars lesson you learned, yeah, which is like, especially nowadays, schooling costs so much, Like well, it's kind of a cheap lesson versus you know, yeah, years in a university and now you're one hundred grand deep. I do think the two things that you mentioned a bunch or are working at that gas station in sports are just so important. It's things that seem to be less common now, like and I say the same thing, like working a job when you're in high school or college, like learning customer service, and it's kind of got to be a shit job. You know.

27:53 I worked at a commercial gym front desk, passing out towels and wiped out sweat all day. I worked like, ran basketball leagues and like refereed for whatever dollars I could get. And you got to deal with parents. I literally have parents recording games on iPads, bitching at me about calls I may and I'm like, bruh, we're not the NBA, you know whatever. But you gotta deal with customer service, and you got to learn by doing it. And you're not gonna learn by, you know, working on Wall Street. You got to go do something shitty with angry shitty people, and then sports. Yeah, like the work ethic and camaraderie and like because teamwork and customer service both are like communication, but they're different forms of communication in a way, and you got to kind of mesh with one and kind of be kind with the other or more empathetic with the other. Like you mentioned, how would this household? How would I like my household to be dealt with and work with? But I feel like so many people don't do either of those things anymore. You know, they didn't play sports, and they go to college and then they're expecting to have like a big boy job, Like well, you just don't really have like the tools necessary. Like it's not really knowledge. It really is like tools and experience, you know, it really is. And I love that. I'll leave you with this one right here. Check this out. So it says when times are tough, it creates tough men. Right, So, I think of the Great Depression. Everyone in the Great Depression was tough, fucking hard. They made it through those times, they had to go to World War two, they scattered whatever. Right then, when times are easy, it creates weak men.

29:21 And we're at the end of that cycle right now with this generation everyone wants it easy. No one wants to work hard. Like one hundred years ago when you had to plow your field, get your horses and your mules and go play. Take a week. Even now, get in your air conditioned tractor, listen to your radio. It's still hard, you know what I mean. It's like so the more advancements we have in technology, kind of the weaker we become. Right. So I love that quote. When times are tough, it creates hard men, and hard men create easy times, and then easy times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. It's a circle, you know what I mean. But you have too much comfort? Yeah, you know? And I mean we see it. You ever see those physical education videos from the seventies. Every single one of them was going across the monkey bars, y look at it in the nineties.

30:07 I don't know, is it a California that stopped it. A bunch of states are looking at pulling back the president's physical fitness maybe not even the fitness tests, but like pulling back funding on a bunch of physical activities in sports. I don't know why, because there's something to that, you know what, Sure and teaches kids important lessons, you know it gives you perspective on things, you know, and it's a good underlying if you want something and you work hard enough long enough, like pay off. Yeah, Kobe Briant used to shoot what ten thousand free throws a day or something like crazy like that. He didn't get there by not shooting free throws. You know what I mean. It was work consistent. It's just like the gym consistency. You're not going to get swoll in a day. You're going to get swoll over five years of showing up every day, of eating the right shit, of doing the right shit, of being surrounded by the right of people, and you know, listening doing it all. You know what I mean, Like it does. It happened in to night, you know. And that's what I appreciate about sports, weightlifting, powerlifting like it's earned. You can't buy it. You can have the best gear in the world, the dopest shoes, the sickest gear, but if you're not there putting in the work Friday night when no one's looking, champions are made when no one's looking.

31:18 You can't fake it for sure. To run it back a little bit, you were talking about just what you charge and stuff and I think that a lot of people who you know, when they go out on their own, don't know what to charge or or how much to charge, and they feel like if they get a little bit of imposter syndrome around about what they charge. But like, I feel like the way around that is to make sure that your value proposition is equal to what you're charging, and then you can say, well, I know I'm putting out this much, so it's worth this much, so you know totally. So yeah, if I were to break that down, right, there is something to having an hourly rate, which what you think your time is worth. And then when someone were to do a true estimate, it would be, well, what's my cost of materials? Right, I'm gonna buy one hundred dollars materials? Do you mark it up? Some people mark it up twenty thirty percent? And that covers me going to the store. What if I get an accident on the way to the store, right my van? Who pays the gat all that stuff goes into it, right, So maybe a little bit of markup. So once you find your value, But that's the million dollar question is well what's the value of it? You're gonna pay whatever you need to pay when you got shit overflowing in flooding your house. Sure, right, So it really depends on the urgency and what you're doing. There's something to be said.

32:40 If I got to go under your house with a vacuum in suck up raw sewage, well that's more expensive than if I was doing something easy, right, And so I think the key is just honesty relating to that and being good at communication. Like, Hey, Bud, if I'm gonna crawl your home which is flooded with sewage, I'm going to charge you this much. Otherwise you do it, you know what I mean? But yeah, you got to be by tools. You gotta get fair, you know, like I got, I'm paying off tools, like all my stuff is expended and I don't want to go down that whole wormhole. But the answer to your question is what's fair. And if you did a good job explaining, Hey, that machine you see cost ten thousand dollars, it's totally justified why I'm charging this much. Sure, And if I'm crawling in an attic and it's one hundred degrees outside and I'm going to be in there for do you know what it's like to be in an attic one hundred degrees one hundred and twenty degrees for three hours. It's like being in a car with the windows rolled up. What's that worth? Otherwise you do it right? If it that Picasso sketch, if it was just an issue of pen and paper, you would have done it. The reason you're paying me is because either you don't know how, or you don't want to, or you don't have the tools right. And I think that should reflect any professional business. That's what you're paying for, the knowledge, the experience, the professional quality, everything right.

34:07 And you don't get that by just opening up. You get that by the years of grind and learning and failure of what not to do. And that's where me, being the lead tech for five years comes in. We operate out of a there's a standardized book across America. They took the average prices in California, New York, Georgia, so on and so forth. How much they charge for water heater there here there, how much you charge for drain cleanings there here there. They took the average cost and the average time and they put it in this standardized book. So when I asked my boss, how'd you come up with two thirty five. His answer was, well, it comes from the Standardized Plumbing Book. So somebody at some point did a lot of informational research where they put all this into a book and they took the average time, the average cost came ou up with this number.

35:00 Now, mind you, that number is different for every company. My overhead is a lot less than let's use Bonnie. Bonnie has one thousand technicians and a thousand vanag They like NorCal because I think they were my neighbor growing, but Bonnie is the biggest. I might be wrong, but I swear I grew up next to Miss Bonnie. I wouldn't be surprised like Carmichael. Okay, so they used to be a smaller outfit. They're huge now and they are the biggest plumbing company there ever was and will be in America. I heard a stat last year they spent like fifteen million on marketing alone. Holy And when you break down the cost of overhead on a company that has fifteen million, it makes sense why they charge what they charge. So there is a time and a place for a big, huge company, and there's a time and a place for a small one man show like me. We can both offer the same quality services the differences. I can do it for a tenth of the cost. But I also don't have one hundred man crew.

36:04 So if you're doing a huge project as a one man show, I can only bite off so much, right, But there's value in that if your look so, I'm a service in repair. I don't do new construction. I don't do you know, like add ons or additions. I'll service them. I am a quick, fast hit. I clear your drains. I get you out of emergencies. I emergency response flood dammage, you know, replacing your water heaters when you need something. Now, I'm your guy. There's other plumbers out there that specialize in new construction, and all they do is do ABC on a new building. They do pipes, they do drains. Then they move on to the next building and do that. So there's value in that. There's value in what everyone does in different areas.

36:45 It's just what do you want when you got that text from your boss letting you go or pushing you, you know, a little birdie out the nest? Did some of this thought process like coming to your brain right away, like all right, am I going to scale? Am I going to get employees. Where's my knee? Am I going to go make a contract with a construction company and try to be the new builder guy? Or am I going to be the repair or I'm just gonna say, fucking I'll work twenty four to seven and I'll come when you're flooding, Like did some of that company your brain? And then how did you narrow down like a decision on what you wanted to do? So thankfully, over the course of those five years, I had slowly been brainstorming what I want to do when I get better. And during that five year journey with him, all I could think about was, Man, when I get up to the plate, I'm gonna do it tighter, cleaner, better, more efficient. He was very inefficient.

37:32 For example, he because you can see it right, because you're you're oh yeah in it all day. Ye yeah. So for example, he would like pay for marketing leads and then let's say Friday night, fall asleep with his phone on marketing leads. When you ring, you're charged whether you answer or not. So there's six hundred bucks miss nine calls, bing bing bing bing ban wake up from partying? Oh shit, six hundred bucks spam down the drain. So that was one example. I'm like, I'm not going to do that. In fact, you're talking to a guy who doesn't really advertise. Here's how I did it. He fired me, he let me go. I was scared. I'm shitting my pants. I'm like, oh my god, where's the calls, where's the money gonna come from? What am I gonna do? I did flyers at a Walmart where I printed out flyers and I put them on everyone's windshield. Maybe a low move whatever, mind you, but that works. Hitting the street, it gets gets your name out there. Hit the street. Cheap to do that, it's cheap. That was the name of the game. Cheap. But here's the golden rule. And here's what I learned over five years. My boss had been slowly feeding me tips and tricks. All right, when you open up your company, here's what you gotta do. Here's the key. You don't need a thousand customers. What you need is four or five solid real estate agents. What you need is two or three solid restoration companies. What you need is three or five solid property management companies. Sure so property management, right we she's Meredith. For example, she was on a very large company that managed ten large properties. Each property, for example, is two hundred units each unit. Yeah, a lot of toilets, kitchen, sinks,

39:06 and tenants. No offense to any tenants out there. Sometimes they're not the most gentle for renting. Hey, landlord, you got a problem? What happened? I don't fucking know? You know what I mean? Why do we find a Barbie doll down here? Drive it like you stole it, but live in it like you rent it. Yeah, and I'm fishing out Barbie dolls from toilets glasses? You know? How did that get in there? Doesn't matter? Drugs? You know? Oh my god. So I see the both, the good, the bad, the best, the ugly, And it's a blessing in disguise, you know what I mean? Because I know what I don't want. I know what I want. I meet some amazing people. I get to hang out with their animals, get to twist my wrenches, be the hero, you know what I mean? So, like plumbing checks all my boxes, I got so lucky. I'm physically challenged, I'm mentally challenged. I'm overcoming obstacles, making your problems going away.

39:54 So I have to think outside the box, like I'm critically thinking all day long. Dealing with people sometimes is good and bad, blessings in disguise, you know what I mean. I'm good at it, so I think that's why I've been so successful is just my personality, you know what I mean. My story helps play the sports background every little bit, and you think about all your guys' life. Everything you have been through makes you who you are. I used to be embarrassed in my duuys Full Circle. June thirteenth, twenty thirteen is my Sobriety day. I'll be coming on eleven years sobriety. I'm so grateful for my story and my DUIs my failure. I embrace it. I'm thankful for it because it taught me those lessons and it made me know who I am. And the best advice I could give anyone listening is that golden rule of treating others how you want to be treated applies in everything, business, life, relationships, kids. You know what I mean. In somehow, some way we've lost that in society. You know, like when your neighbor had a problem, all the neighbors come out and help. You know when you have a problem, depending on your support group, you are on your own. You know, when I was a kid, our next door neighbors because my dad worked in agg He was a farmer and he would be like gone overnight irrigating whatever, and then sleep during the day sometimes and if the lawn got long, the next door neighbor would mow

41:29 it. It is no I cannot say that that would happen right now, but it's taken my entire life from like we moved when I was four or five, and until the last couple of years that I had neighbors that were that like close. You know, I don't know that they would mow my lawn, but they might. What happened, Yeah, I think there's pockets. My mom liked her neighbors. I just moved my mom to Las Vegas and she had cool neighbors and Carmichael, but the Vegas neighbors were really cool. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like it's very city driven and then culturally driven. Like I feel like the West Coast is just a little bit like that. It's a little bit more selfish. My dad was from Cleveland, and all my aunts and stuff are out there, and it's still kind of like that. Everyone's saying what's up like the neighbors kids. Yeah, the neighbors kids are just walking through the door. I was literally out there for a funeral last summer and like just two like kids are just walking through the house.

42:15 Like, who the fuck are these kids? They're just the neighbor kids. They're just the neighbor kids. And they just came in and grab a drink and like left. I was like, how cool is that? It was cool? It was cool. And then obviously it was my cousin's house and he knew them and loved them. Yeah, and it was all great. But that was just I mean, if that happens out here, bro, I'm throwing fists. Yeah, that's going crazy. That sense of camaraderie though, you know, I admired that, but it's cool what happened. Yeah, I was lucky. I went to a really small school and so I got some of that growing up. Obviously it's not the same because you're not your neighbors. But I graduated in class was like twenty four people, so you just know everything about everyone. I knew all my friend's aunts and cousins, and it kind of felt that I forget what the book is because I don't really read. But I hear a lot of things. There's some book that talks about like tribes and shit like that, and how like humans are made to be around like one hundred to two hundred people or two hundred and fifty people. And that's one issue people think just because like our communities are too big, you know, like even high schools, right, Like there's two thousand kids graduating from the same class, Like, how are you supposed to feel camaraderie with two thousand people? Like it's impossible. There's got to be a couple of them though, right, yeah, really click with Yeah, you might get some homies for sure. But you know, imagine if we had cities that weren't as big or you know, communities that were as big. That's why sports teams are special, Yeah, because the biggest teams would a probably football team. And that's like Max seventy eighty. You know. It's crazy too for us men, is that as we get older to our circles get fucking smaller. Ye smaller and tighter. B my circle in high school, bro, I mean, I don't want a too my own horn. But me being like a social butterfly, bro, I got along with everybody, you know, what I mean. I was a jock,

43:45 but I was cool with that. I'm cool with everyone. I'm a big nerd. I play lots of video game you know what I mean. I'm a collector. I'm into all kinds of things, so I could get along with everybody. Right, it's harder, it's different, you know what I mean. I don't know. Yeah, it's just a lot harder. We do. We started a couple of years ago now doing a like neighborhood dinner every other month, pretty much been at our house, and it sort of grows, like it grows through like network connections and stuff. It's not all neighbors anymore. But it started out there sadly, our neighbor across the street. He was like the first neighbor that we started this with. They're moving to San Francisco and they're looking for neighborhoods and their stuff, and like, how do we find this again? How do we recreate this? And it could be it could be a bit of a challenge san Francisco. We might be all right, I feel like just because like people have been there for a long time. Yeah, you know, like Sacramento is like just feels so much coming and going like I had one friend growing up whose parents were from here, but everyone else moved here, you know what I mean.

44:45 It's just so uncommon. And then now obviously it's growing because everyone from the bays moving here and everyone else moving here. But yeah, I do feel a giant community thing. I mean, that's part of why we built the gym, because similar things we had great experiences with smaller communities, and and the gym is something that's so like foundational. It doesn't really matter like, oh, you work out, work out like that doesn't make us friends, but that's like a foundation to build a friendship, common ground. You have something you want to really cool. You guys will appreciate this owning a gym. The day after my mom died, that morning of my mom passed away, like two in the morning, I had noah. My world was fucking rocked. Right, your parents died? Where was I? I found myself at the gym. I went to the gym and I lifted, and I don't want to get emotional, but I didn't tell anyone anything. This had just happened like six hours. Imagine like your mom passed boom, You're at the hospital. You go through that initial movement. They asked if I wanted to see her. I said no, I didn't think that was gonna help me. Right, I go home. Probably good decision, but I couldn't be right right that was gonna help me? Yeah? And I go home and I couldn't process what was you know what I mean? So I had a twenty four hour a fob for my gym in Auburn Lifestyle Fitness, and I am so thankful that I went and I fobbed in. I'm there at three in the morning, nobody there, empty gym and I'm lifting, you know what I mean? And I used my pain as fuel for that moment. And what else you're gonna do? You just gonna sit there and I don't want to get too emotional, try to like keep it together.

46:15 But I had a trainer come up to me and just putting his hand on my back. I paused my lift and I started breaking down and I had to tell someone at that point something And I'm just what I'm trying to get to you is how cool was it that where I went six hours after I lost my mom was the gym, my support group, my place of security, where I felt safe with the gym Yeah. So anyways, the gym played a huge role in my life, in my story, in my background, you know. And the gym is a safe place. It's a good place to be. Everyone at the gym is there to better themselves physically, mentally, spiritually. You're gonna network, you're gonna meet people, You're gonna surround yourself with like minded individuals. So the gym is the best place to be for anyone who is looking for direction or change or something better. The gym is where you'll find it. Agree because I mean, where else do other like people congregate, Like a church, a gym, or a bar Tho's the only place that modern eight people congregate. All those are good points.

47:16 Yeah, the church everyone's like minded, well not everyone, but you have that in common. The bar you have that in common. Right, the gym you have that. You try to be around here. So make friends at the gym, and when you're done with your lifts, go hang out with them, you know what I mean, Like surround you with them, Go come eat, Come meet my family, you know what I mean. Oftentimes they're going to be good people. They're there to better themselves. The gym is the best place to be. I agree. I got a question based on some of what you were talking about earlier. What's kind of the craziest plumbing situation that you walked into in the last man to be like a cat and a drain or something. So I got grace, I got gross stories. I got some crazy sexual stories, like right when I met my wife, my fiance asked her to marry me. It's funny how life works, right. I had this one lady. Their water heater was it'll get a little graphic. We're a man, we can talk about it.

48:09 Yeah, okay, if you listen, I love you. Her water heater was out for a week. A week. Imagine you're hot, no hot water for a week. Now it's cool to take cold showers in the summertime. Now they're doing cold plunging, you know what I mean. Like, I personally go as hot as I can take it and cold as I can take it, for as long as I can take it. That's my little thing. But anyways, this lady seven days, she has like five kids. Oh, no hot water for seven days. Crazy. So anyways, it was a warranty. Part the reason it took seven days was because they were doing it through warranty. It was free, but you gotta wait. So they sent the part. It wasn't the right part. They sent the next part wasn't the right part. Anyways, I finally got the water heater up and running, and quote unquote, she says, Oh my god, I will suck your dick in the bathroom right now. She was so happy the service I provided. I'm like, I'm in the wrong industry. So I tell my boss it's the story. He laughs, I trade the funk out of people. No one offered me that, right right, Like where's my tip? Yeah, but I tell the story to my boss and he is hysterical. He tells the story, you know what I mean, and I'm like, I gotta get that. I gotta get out of here kind of thing. But it's gonna sign himself to that next job. It's just like the classic start of any adult film. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say, like the pool Boys, plumber, I'm gonna lay this pipe, baby. So, yeah, there's been those situations they want to trade services for work. You know what I mean. I'm a married man.

49:30 I appreciate the compliment, but I live an honest lifestyle. I can honestly, proudly say I walk away from those with my head held high and I just take it out the compliment. Yeah, and there's nothing more than that. Thanks, you know. But uh, I just did a job about two months ago, and there's a drain backed up, flooded the upstairs, upstairs, flooded downstairs, water dripping all through the ceiling, probably ten feet by ten feet. I open it up, I cut it to find out it's the line. So it's compromised sewage water, shit, water dripping through her thing, and it's all on my gloves. It's dripping on me. Right, So when a customer asks why I charge what I charge, it's a messy, dirty job, right, Long story short. They were flushing needles down the drain, down the toilet, they were shooting heroin. And I have a badass video on my Instagram. If you guys want to check it out, you'll find me on Rhino Ruter Plumbing on Instagram, Facebook, all my socials check it out. There's a video on there, and I do a very good job of keeping there an anonymity, so you don't see the customer or the house. But I did show what was potentially in the drain. I cut the pipe and I pulled out probably six or seven hypodermic needles that can get super dangerous, super sketchy. That's another thing too, and it gave me another perspective. Imagine me reaching my hand into any old drain. If I get stuck with the wrong thing, I'm walking away with something for life, yeah, for sure. And the e coli that's in the drain and everything, and even like aids like you can get some like

51:06 life changing, right. Sure, so you gotta be there's smart and bad ways to do everything. You just got to be smart about it, right. And everybody deserves a plumber, the good, the bad, the rent, every walks of life need a plumber. And coming out of that job gave me another perspective. Right. Last year it was about open the business, grow, grow, grow, grind, grind, grind. This year I did fairly well, you know, so I don't need every single job, every single customer, right, But with that being said, everybody does need a plumber, you know. And those services that I provide, everyone needs hot water and a flushing toilet, and I just put myself in their shoes. What would I like on a What would Ryan want Friday night?

51:51 I want to hot water and flush my toilet. So when you put yourself in their shoes and you remember that golden rule, you know. But to answer your question, it's, you know, I see the good, the bat the ugly. I pulled out glasses from toilets, sunglasses, toys, foreign objects, kids flush down. It's always old people and kids. So the inside joke. And at the gas station we had this too, homeless issues with they're pissed because it's customer's only bathroom. Well, the next time they can sneak by and not see me go by, they're flushing their shirt, their socks down the toilet and they're backing up and flooding the gas station's bathroom. Same thing in like a customer's back. It's hard to control behind closed doors, which you can't see when you're a kid and your six year old is behind that door and it's closed, dude, they could be throwing anything down there. Sure, right, And what do you think a six year old's gonna say, did you do this? Nope? No, oh never, you know what I mean? Like and then old people too, like when they're eighty five ninety eight years old and you're starting to you know what I mean, you use way too much toilet paper, and at that point it's kind of user error. So a lot of things in plumbing, like why did it back up? Why did it fail? Why did it clog? Why did this? Well, some of it's age and condition.

53:00 How does the pipe look? If the inside of a rusted pipe is rusty in like popcorn ceiling, like the texture of that wall, well, it's gonna snag paper products, it cause backups. If that pipe is smooth, it's gonna flow, you know what I mean? So what's the age? What's it look like? How did you so they call it brown Friday? The day after Thanksgiving? It's called brown Friday? Right? And this is true? This is another good story. For seven years straight, every day after Thanksgiving is drain called drain, called drain called drain? Call Every story every year is the same. What happened? Maybe the Super Bowl too, We got a Super Bowl the brown party? Right? Yeah? So I had twenty people over for Thanksgiving. Everybody scraped their leftovers into the kitchen sink and I blended it up with my garbage disposal. And you wonder why I'm here? Right? So, so anyone listening, best advice, You only want water? Going down your drains, right, but I get it, like I'm realistic. You're gonna wash your dishes. There's gonna be some foods, some water, some grease. It's gonna go down. You might lose a ring, whatever, A little bit is not gonna hurt. But a little bit over a long time being consistent, well, then you have drain problems. Right, So the deferred maintenance over twenty years, consistently not doing it well, now you have a big problem. If you maybe had had a plumber look at it, service something once every few years, routine maintenance, it doesn't get that bad. But when you let it get real bad.

54:23 Let's use roots in drain lines. For example, if you've never had a plumber, look at your drain line. That could be good or bad. Just because your house isn't backing up doesn't mean that there aren't roots growing into the cleanout as we speak. And once those roots find their water source, they just take over. And then so we have four and three inch pipes at a house. I see four and three inch pipes that are completely rooted, and when I cut them out, and like, wonder, how did anything flow? How did toilet paper doodoo? How did anything get by let alone sunglasses somebody threw you know what I mean? So I see it all, you know, And part of my job is to educate, and that's what I love to do. I'd love to do it in my content, in my videos. I personally wear a lot of hats, but I love wearing those hats. And it's exactly what I signed up for. I know exactly what I want to do and what I need to do and how to get there. Some people when they worry about, like why did I not do this or that, Well, it's like what did you not do?

55:22 You know what I mean? Did you post consistently? Did you target your audience with valuable information? Are your prices absurdly high? You know what I mean? So I think being able to compromise, being able to wiggle, being fair and flexible is key. And that's for anything, you know what I mean? Like balance in life for me is key. What's some of the next business goals? So you said ye had a very you know, bigger first year than you maybe expected. Get your goals to scale and get employees and chase down miss Bonnie, or you're going to cruise. You're going to take your foot off the game as like, what are the next steps and how do you how do you kind of approach that love that question?

56:04 So yeah, that's a great question personally, best for me and my side of the street and what I want. I can only speak for what I want and recommend. I want to stay small as I can for as long as I can. My CPA told me my profit margins this year, and part of the key points of my success was keeping the bills to a minimum. Right. It's not about how much you make. How much do you keep? Yeah, and how little do you spend? Sometimes keys, right, So there's something said to sacrifice if you had a big goal. I'm going to use myself. For example, I literally today pick up my van from the wrap shop. I just spent five grand getting my vehicle wrapped.

56:47 This was a goal that I've had for year, you know what I mean? Did I do it last Could I afforded it last year? Sure? But again, blessing in disguise for everything, So goals. I wanted my vehicle wrapped. I want to stay as small as I can for as long as I can, So I will scale my business when I have to. When I'm two weeks out, I'm not helping anybody at that point, right, I help people by bring ring Rhino. My house is flooding, I'll be there in thirty minutes. Right, Rhino, my house is flooding, I'll be there in two weeks. It doesn't help anyone, right, So when I get to that point and I'm so busy that I can't, So the downside of being a one man show is I can only be in one place at a time. The upside to having a really good technician is now I can put you in a van and I can be two places.

57:32 But if that guy isn't worth the damn or if he doesn't care, he's fucking up. Now I got to go back and fix his mistakes, take my time, my money. Now I'm losing money. Right, So there's a lot in that because any reputation, like he's carrying your name, here's a view. Yeah, and now you're not getting a recommendation from that next person. And let's be real, right, like, there are good guys out there who care. I'm not saying that, but nobody's gonna care about your baby as much as you, for sure. And just some people just cruise through life not giving a shit. You know, they do the bare minimums. Yeah, and we talked about like kind of the quality of people you know throughout this show, caliber of athletes. Yeah, different things. It is what it is, you know what I mean. And so that's the problem I'll have. But he's out there, he or she They're out there like a diamond into rough. There is some kid out there, just like me at the gas station who I need to give a chance, to give him an opportunity, take a leap of faith and teach what I know and to someone else so that I can keep this beautiful trade going. When and how that happens, I don't think I'm there yet. Like I just opened last year. I still have a couple more things I want to do.

58:40 Office space is next for me. I need this right. So I got a two and a three year old. They're thirteen months apart. I made a comment last week. I'm trying a network. I'm doing my lie what do they call those video chat zoom doing a zoom meeting. My kids are screaming off. I'm doing a product review. Somebody sent me on Instagram. My kids a screen, you know what I mean? I need a place on my own to go do business when I have when I'm slow, I have an office, I have Wi Fi. I can go sit down do what I need to do right. So I do it out of my house right now, or in the van or at a Starbucks. And it's just like, I do what I gotta do, you know what I mean? But yeah, office space is next. I got the van wrapped, so I'm going to ride that van for a couple of years. But when I appreciate it to zero, it's not worth anything. I buy another van, wrap that, hopefully it's an upgrade. I get a sprinter, so I want a sprinter. I eventually want a guy, but maybe a cyber truck. I've been seeing those bro A cyber truck plumber would be kind of fire, you think, I think. So, I don't know if it holds your equipment. I don't know what that bed's like. But if you're trying to make an impression, if my guy rolls up in a fucking cyber truck, it's a dude, okay, so that'll be my estimate truck, I think. I don't know. Yeah, you gotta make sure shit is like actually fits, because I don't know how functional of a truck. It is, but it is a statement piece. I feel like someone at the bank. I got a story. I got a story. So my buddy Ken I bought a cyber truck and he got it wrapped, actually got it wrapped by by Genesis, where Adrian here works with. He is the executive director of this Indian energy company and they are making deals with tribes around the

1:00:15 country for helping them set up microgrids because there's like a significant percentage of like fifteen percent maybe of people who live on reservations who have never had electricity, never had electricity, so doing that. There is a giant Indian gaming convention going on right now in Anaheim. He drove his wrapped cybertruck down to this conference and he gave the valet one hundred bucks to make sure that it stays parked where everyone has to walk past. Hell. Yeah, good marketing is free dollars. I'm I mean, that's nothing on a billion dollar deal.

1:01:02 One hundred dollars or nothing, drop in the bucket. Yeah, you know, I thought that was so smart. He's he's I told him, he's playing forty chess and the rest of us are just trying to trying to keep up trying easy work. So the older I get, right. I I was playing checkers, now I'm playing chess, you know what I mean. Like, the older we get, the wiser, we get sure that all comes with experience. You can't buy experience, right, And I wish in high school they taught less history more practically. Teach me how to file my taxes, Teach me how to take out a loan, how to buy a house, Teach me what I need to know in life, you know what I mean? Because unless you're going to be a history major or a mathematician, or I don't need to know who the thirty second president was. Yeah, right, Like I got lucky that my trade landed in my lap, you know, and then we got fucking Google. You can learn anything so that if you're driven. So sometimes I don't want to say the wrong thing, but sometimes people can give it up too easy, right, Like there is something to being said for watching YouTube five ten minutes, so yourself hundreds thousands of dollars. I've watched the ship before and it might be incorrect exactly what it is, but I'm pretty sure Bones Jones, who is arguably the best MMA fighter in the history of MMA learn muay Thai on YouTube, all right, that could be right. Yeah, so if in YouTube, I love YouTube that platform. If you don't know how to do something, just know there's a video on it YouTube for sure, you just have to go find it. So either it's you don't know how well now you know, or you're lazy. Don't be fucking late. People are lazy, that's easy, straight up lazy. So sometimes I don't want to disrespect a customer,

1:02:35 but you probably could have done that. Yeah, but there are somethings a plunger can do a little bit, and I have. I'm so brutally honest. I'll tell my customers I'll come do it if you want me to. But dude, you could do this yourself. Just go over here, get this, do this, and I'll walk them to it. And some plumbers are like, Ryan, why'd you do that? You just lost money? Did I? Or did I make the world a better place by spreading knowledge? For sure? Making a valuable relationship? Going to call that rhino, dude, Yeah, when that guy's got a real issue, he's going to call you back right for easy? For sure? Treating you how well my family treated simple my uh my YouTube experience this last week was I'm we're I'm re regrouting the tile and our bathroom floor, and I thought I was gonna have to just spend a week scripping that ship out. And I saw YouTube video work. I used an oscillating power tool. Oh yeah, yeah, with just the right bit on it, and you could just like I did it in like two and a half hours to do a multi tool played.

1:03:30 Yeah, yep, yeah, yep. I kind of sync out with those last week. They were great. Yeah, And it would have I know, it would have taken me at least a week and I would have carpel tunnel while the trauma was done. You know what the old school one was was a scraper and you scraped each line. So my inside joke is I would not want to be a contractor seventy five years ago, for sure, because them boys were working hard. They were working, they were working. To talk about a tough generation. Yeah, why are we not as tough now? Well now, I don't know. If you see my videos, I'm pressed and pipe together, I'm crimping pipe. Our drains are plastic drains. It's not cast iron, lead and oakum drains like it used to be. They were melting lead at three in the morning. And you wonder why that generation's tough. Have you ever moved a ten foot stick of four inch galvanized pipe. It's fucking three hundred pounds. And these dudes were doing it in skyscrapers, in basements and attics, And you wonder why this next generation isn't as tough as them. There it is, you know what I mean.

1:04:28 But everything's changed. You know. My original point was I didn't want to be a contractor seventy five years ago because it was so hard. Nobody wanted to be a plumber. Well, now let me toot on the trades. Anybody out there who doesn't know what to do. All you need is a high school diploma. Learn a trade. It takes four years. You need someone to go learn, Go learn, Start at the bottom of the barrel. They like go getters and say, hey, I'm here to learn roofers, contractors, electrical anything. Learn a skill. Once you have the skill, you can go anywhere. You go to Maine, Florida, New York, Georgia, wherever. It's all the same, different codes, it's all the same. It's the same. So learn a skill, and when you compare the doctor and the plumber. The plumber doesn't have ten years of doctor school. Sure the plumber wins in the long run, you know what I mean. So if I could have done it all over again and had a time machine, here's the double edged sword. Sometimes my brain prays tricks on me, and I'm like, oh, I wish I could go back and not have all my deuis and not do this. But do you do I? But then I I wouldn't have what I have now? Right?

1:05:32 But if maybe if I did, it would be different. Who knows if it's better or worse. So sometimes my brain plays the wet if game. But if I could do it over again, I would have graduated high school, got right to my trade. I would have been a business owner for a minute, now, you know what I mean. Instead, I wasted a few years at college, this and that. So anybody listening, the trades are the future. They are only going up, and with more and more people come to California and more and more demand for electrical roofing, solar plumbing, any trade. Throw a dart at a dartboard, pick that do that? Master that Because in ten fifteen years, with this decline of nobody wanting to do the trade. It brings opportunity for those that do to the next fifteen to twenty years. What happens when the boomers get to the housing We already have a housing shortage. If we're going to have a contractor shortage as well. Yeah, the supply and demand goes through the roof, so real quick and simple. Off. Anybody looking for the future and something to do, get in a trade now and learn as much as you can and never stop learning. That seems like a really good place to park this one, Ryan. Where can people find you? Yeah? Plug away? Yeah.

1:06:46 So social media's Instagram, Rhino Router Plumbing, Facebook, Rhino Router Plumbing. Give me a follow, I follow back. I like to ship out my swag all across the world. Anybody wants to get a Rhino, a pair old shirt, hoodie hat, dm me Reach me out. Business number is nine to one six two zero nine zero nine three nine. If anybody needs any plumbing work, I do specialize in sewer and drain, but I offer anything from gas work and repair to gasline replacement, leak waterline replacement and repair, sewer line replacement, in repair tankless water heaters. I can do anything inside or outside your house at a fair cost, and I treat you like family with a smile along the way. Thank you guys for having me on the show. This was awesome. Thanks for coming man. This is a plast second of time. This is cool, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorying Mike. Where you want to find me. New episodes Wednesday and Friday, three SB dot co. March fifteenth, brand new soft drop some accessories up live April fifteenth. Let us say March April fifteenth, Monday. So if you listening to this, I think we are live right now. Check it out three SB dot co and I'll catch that next week. I am at the Jim mcdion all the social media. This show is fifty percent facts or percentage a word and fifty is just numbers. Fifty percent Facts is a speaker prime podcast in association with iHeartMedia on the Obscure Celebrity Network. And we will talk to you next time.