The Bear and the Concrete: Designing Success Through Failure

Hey there, folks. This week on The Concrete Podcast, we're exploring the heart of design and the rugged path of failure that often leads to success. Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes, well, the bear eats you. We'll be chatting about the pivotal role of design, embracing those cracks in the journey, and a fascinating look at concrete mishaps down under in Australia. Grab a seat, get comfortable, and let's take this ride together.

#ConcreteDesign #SuccessThroughFailure #CrackedConcrete #ConcretePodcast #DesignMatters #EmbraceFailure #AustralianConcrete #DesignJourney #PodcastLife #ConstructionInsights

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

How are you doing?

I'm doing good, buddy, real good.

It's good to hear.

I was watching a TikTok video.

A guy almost died, and he's convinced he did die.

And he's convinced he jumped to a different parallel timeline.

You know about that, right?

Like the whole parallel universe things?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because he was a lineman, and he got hit with like, I don't know how many thousands or millions of volts of electricity.

And he said there was zero chance of surviving it.

But he did, and he didn't even have a scratch, like when it was said and done.

And the doctor said there's zero way that that should have happened.

And he's convinced.

Did I ever tell you about the time?

And it's ironic.

It is so ironic that I almost got killed by a bear.

True story.

Did I ever tell you about that when I went hunting and I almost got killed?

No.

Dude.

No.

The irony of a bear, we have Kodiak Pro and our emblem is a bear and that's our spirit animal, it's a bear.

And the irony, so I'll give you the very, very short story because it's almost so unbelievable that when I tell, I even hate to tell the story anymore because people think I'm lying or I made it up and dude, this 100% happened.

But the long story short is I went bear hunting and I'm not a big hunter.

Like I really want to get into hunting, but it's something that it's a skill that you need to learn and I need to learn how to be a great hunter, you know?

It's not just something you can just pick up a gun and go out in the woods and be a hunter.

But so I need to invest it.

There's workshops, there's classes in Texas where there's like hunting classes, but also like people like Wade Bloom, some other people I know are like really avid hunters and I really need to spend time with them and learn.

Yeah, Jess.

Jess Warren, yeah, great example, Dusty Baker.

So I do need to learn and it's something I'm interested in.

But that being said, I had a friend in Arizona that wanted to go hunting and we put in for tags when we both got drawn for Turkey and Bear in the same zone.

And it was like Northern Arizona.

So I went, I bought a specific rifle.

It was Fall Black Bear and Fall Black Bear.

You know, everything I did some research, everything said like, you know, they're totally ready for hibernation, tons of fat.

And the right way to hunt Black Bear in the fall is to use a semi-automatic.30-06, shoot them in the shoulders, drop them and then do a follow-up shot.

Because if you just do like a center-mass shot, a lot of times the fat will plug the wound and the bear can run like miles before they actually collapse.

So that was the advice from all these, you know, hunting forums on fall Black Bear.

So I went and I bought a.30-06, a Remington.300, I want to say it was a model number.

I can't remember the model number anymore, but it's a Remington.30-06, some automatic.

I bought like, you know, some $1,000 Leupold scope.

I had it sighted in.

I bought it at Cabela's in Arizona, had it sighted in, blah, blah, blah.

But I took it out to the range when I got it, and it jammed on the first shot.

Like, the bolt jammed.

And it took forever to get it to free up.

And then I loaded it again.

I used a different ammunition.

It jammed.

And it happened.

I changed magazines.

It happened every time, happened every time.

So I took it back to Cabela's.

They sent it back to Remington.

And it was in Remington repair.

And this is a brand new gun.

I mean, I want to say I probably spent $2,000, $3,000.

Yeah, but it was probably assembled by bears.

By bears.

Probably.

So it got sent back.

Like literally, Cabela's called like the day before we're leaving for the hunt.

So I couldn't take it out.

I couldn't take it out to get it sighted in.

I couldn't do anything.

So I picked it up.

I picked up my friend who's like, he was a bear.

His name is John Wilmarth.

The guy's like 6'6, 350.

He's huge.

So we drive like 12 hours to get up to Northern Arizona.

He wants to stop and get food.

I'm like, bro, I mean, he's already running late.

Like when I go to pick him up, he's running late.

He like wants to stop at Texas Roadhouse.

He wants to get a steak.

He wants to get dessert.

He wants to get a beer.

I'm like, dude, we got like an 11 hour drive.

Come on, let's just go to McDonald's.

Like we got to move.

So we drive all night.

I drive all night while he sleeps.

Drive through Elk Herds.

I mean, it's awesome up in Northern Arizona, but get to the cabin.

And in the morning we wake up, it's opening day, a bear season.

We've done zero scouting.

We know nothing about the region, but opening morning, we get up, like, I don't know, 5.30 in the morning, we jump on my truck and we just drive down the road.

And I see a dirt road off this little Tulane Highway and I turn down it, drive all the way down.

We get there, we get out.

I'm like, let's hike down this road.

He's like, dude, I really don't want to hike.

I'm like, well, I'm gonna go for, like, I'm not gonna sit by the truck.

I'm gonna go for a little walk.

So I hike down the road.

Aways, I find where a forest fire had come through and just totally wiped out this, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of acres on this hillside.

So it's wide open.

And I sit there and I can hear turkey, like gobbling, right?

And I'm like, okay, this is cool.

So sun starts coming up, turkey go away.

All right, whatever.

And I had a 30-06 and I had a 12 gauge shotgun for the turkey.

And I'm wearing coveralls that are one-piece coveralls.

I normally have, like, a Glock with me, but there's no belt loops on this thing.

But I'm like, dude, I got two guns.

I don't need a Glock.

Like, I'm good, right?

Like, I'm okay.

So anyways, but I'm like predator.

I have a face mask.

I have the gloves.

I have the boots.

I have the one-piece stuff.

Like, when I sit down on the ground, I totally disappear.

Like, I just blend in.

It's insane how good camouflage is.

So I go back to the truck.

I'm like, dude, I hiked down there.

There's like a great opening in the forest where a forest fire came through.

I heard turkey.

I was like, we'll come back this afternoon, this evening.

So we go back to town, spend the day in town, come back that evening.

And I'm like, let's hike down there.

He's like, dude, I really don't want to hike down there.

I'm like, bro, the bear or turkey are not going to come up to my Tacoma in the woods.

It's like, we got to get away from this truck, you know?

It's only like a mile down the road.

It's not that far.

Covered with marshmallows or something.

He's like, I'm just going to stay here.

So I hike down there.

I sit down at the bottom of a tree in this clearing.

I sit there and it's beautiful fall day.

Beautiful.

It's like 50 degrees.

The wind's blowing.

The sun is setting.

There's like squirrels barking at me, but after a while they forget I'm there.

I forget I'm there.

I can't even see myself.

I'm just sitting on the ground.

I can't even see myself.

I can hear turkey off in the distance, but I start falling asleep.

And I keep like dozing off, open my eyes, doze off, open my eyes.

I fall asleep, open my eyes.

There's a huge black bear, like less than a hundred feet, probably 60, 70 feet away from me, digging for grubs at a tree that was on, because the forest fire came through, there's all these dead trees, digging for grubs underneath this tree.

Huge black bear.

And so I raise up the 30-06.

I do it very slowly, raise it up, aim for the shoulder blades, pull the trigger.

Boom, the bear like jumps back.

And I felt like I hit its paw.

Like that's how I felt.

Like just the reaction of the bear.

I go to pull the trigger a second time, jammed, jammed.

And I didn't get to test fire it, you know.

Remington said they'd fixed it.

Obviously they hadn't fixed it.

Jammed.

There's been a couple of times in my life when that plane flipped over, I was in a head on collision when I was 16, where a car crossed over to my lane.

And in every one of these instances, time stops.

Like it's like the Matrix, just whoop.

And it just instantaneously think I'm so stopped.

So time stops and this bear's looking at me and I'm looking at the bear.

And I understand that the gun is jammed and I have this 12 gauge.

And like in one motion, I stand up, I just go, ah, and I hold the gun above my head.

And the bear is like totally confused.

I think I hit his paw number one, so it's pissed.

Number two, it's like, what the hell is this tree doing?

Yelling at me, right?

Like, this is weird.

And so the bear is like doing this thing where it's like going back and forth, like, oh, and it's doing like this back and forth swaying motion.

You know?

And looking at me, and this thing, a bear runs faster than a horse.

A lot of people don't know how fast bear are.

They are faster than a galloping horse.

Bear can run like at 25 miles an hour or something, like at full speed.

They are incredibly fast.

This bear at 60 feet could close the distance in one second.

Like it is incredible how fast that bear can move.

And the bear is contemplating in his mind what to do.

Like, am I going to kill this guy or not kill this guy?

And I have the 12 gauge.

Dude, it's loaded for turkey.

There's not slugs in this thing.

It's loaded for turkey.

So I aimed the 12 gauge at it and I'm contemplating like, I know I'm not going to even really hurt the bear.

Or you're going to pepper and piss him off.

But I got to make a choice because if this bear charges me, I'm done for, right?

And all this stuff's going through my mind and like time has stopped.

I'm just like, screw it.

Boom, pop it with the 12 gauge.

And luckily, it scared the bear and the bear spun around and ran down the hillside as fast as it could.

So now I'm like, you know, messing with the 30.6, finally get the round to eject, get another round loaded.

I reload the 12 gauge and I'm like walking to the woods and I'm like looking for this bear.

I didn't like, as soon as it took off, I started messing with 30.6.

So I didn't actually see where it went.

And so I start walking to the woods.

It's dark now, like the sun's gone down and I'm walking to the woods.

Every now and then I yell out for Jon, Jon, nothing.

I keep walking, I keep walking.

Now there's been two shots, 30 out, six and 12 gauge.

You'd think you'd head my direction, right?

You saw two shots in the woods and direction I went.

And so I'm like walking, walking, walking.

Finally, like I come over this hill and there's my truck and he's sitting on the tailgate, eating Reese's pieces out of a bag, right?

And I can see him.

I'm like, Jon, he's like, what?

I was like, did you hear shots?

He's like, yep.

And you didn't think to come?

Nope, I was like, dude, I don't know if I shot a bear.

Like I feel like I hit its paw, but I don't know.

Like, you know, so anyways, we go back, we look, there's blood on the ground.

So I definitely hit it.

But the trail, because it's like all like this hard pack from the fire that came through, it like disappears as it goes down the hill and then back the other way, you can't see where it goes.

And it's dark and we have flashlights, we're looking.

So anyways, I took the 30 out six and there was a tree that was about the same distance, about 60 feet away.

And there was a knot dead center on that tree that I could see and I aimed at it and I shot and whatever and looked three feet down to the left is where the bullet hit.

That's how badly that scope was sighted in, right?

So I'm 99% certain I hit that bear in the foot when I feel horrible about it.

Like I don't want to hurt anything.

Knock the toenail off.

Dude, you know, but I feel horrible.

So anyways, next day was opening day for dogs.

So first day, there's no dogs allowed.

Second day, there's dogs.

We went back to the same spot, first thing in the morning, we go back to the same spot and there was 50 trucks on that road and we opened the door and all you hear is, there's dogs everywhere.

And it turns out by luck, we went to the one place in this zone that was like known for like heavy bear presence.

So all these guys at home with dogs came to that road.

I mean, what are the chances?

I just turned down a road that I saw, like I had zero intel that this was a place to go.

It was just a US Forest Service road that I saw.

So I'm confident that if that bear was injured, if that bear did for some reason die, like I did get a center mash out, which I don't think I did, that the dogs are tracked it down.

And, but dude, I feel horrible.

But my point is that was a crazy event in my life, crazy event.

And it seems unbelievable, but it's 1000% true.

And I wonder, did I die in that moment?

Maybe I did.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm in a parallel timeline.

Maybe this is all a dream.

Well, maybe, I mean, if I was pressed, I could definitely probably waste the Concrete Podcast time talking about several events growing up that now that you bring that up, there was a time in a car where, I'm telling you, I had a 60s Nova.

I had my foot buried, pumped up V8, blah, blah, blah, blah, leaving a party, pissed off about something, who knows what.

And I know for a fact, I turned and missed it.

And I woke up in the back seat, three inches from a massive oak tree.

Oh, you told me about this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't know.

I mean, if you bring that up, memory serves me, because yeah, I'm not gonna lie.

I mean, that's one of those stupid events, leaving a party, too much to drink, pissed off in a souped up car, on a back road over here.

In fact, I could still show you where the tree is.

And lost control of that vehicle, and yeah, came to in the back seat, and that tree was right there, I mean, inches off my driver door.

Dude, so it's funny, maybe this whole podcast would be war stories.

I almost got killed by a tree myself.

I rolled an excavator down a hillside when I was building my house in Arkansas.

I rolled this excavator down the hill, and we just cleared this hillside, and we left the stumps because I was gonna pull the stumps with the excavator.

So we left the stumps like two feet high, and I rolled it down the hill, and the cab hit a stump that was sticking up, the back pillar of the cab, and it exploded the cab, it bent the cab, all the glass, like explodes instantaneously.

But had I been a couple inches back, the stump would have come through the cab and it would have killed me instantaneously.

And so it happened like right at dusk, right at sunset.

You know, it was when I was kind of new to the excavator.

Now I wouldn't make the same mistakes I made back then, obviously, because I learned from it.

But I called Erin, my wife, I called her up, I'm like, hey, I just rolled the excavator down the hillside.

She's like, okay, you okay?

I'm like, yeah.

And she's like, well, a client just called a little while ago and they were asking about that sink project, they wanted an update.

I'm like, Erin, I just rolled the excavator down the hillside.

She's like, well, you didn't sound like it was a big deal.

I'm like, it's down the hill on its side.

She's like, oh, okay.

It did like $30,000 in damage.

And I had Kubota Insurance, I had to pay a $250 deductible and they replaced the whole cab, $30,000 and they ship it from Japan.

And the only reason I brought that up or that reminded me was your story about a tree almost killing you on a tree, almost got killed by a tree.

But then my friend Cappy, I don't know if I've ever told you about Jared Capp, he's up in South Dakota, Spearfish.

He's on a show called Building Outside the Lines, which if you haven't watched that show on Magnolia, definitely watch it, awesome show, Building Outside the Lines on Magnolia.

They're shooting season two.

But yesterday, one of his employees was driving, he has a Kubota Excavator, was driving it on a trailer and they're like driving across a field and the trailer like went down.

It like somehow got like on the edge of a little gully, a little ravine, and the wheel went off the edge and it rolled and the excavator rolled down into the goalie and it's laying on its side down on the bottom, totally trashed.

And he sent me a picture.

He's like, employees, bro.

I was like, dude, I've been there.

I've been there.

I did that.

So anyways, let's get to concrete.

A couple of things, I have a list here.

One is the furniture design thing and importance of design, which I think is an important conversation.

This conversation I've had over the last week, a few people have called me, we've gotten into in-depth conversations and design becomes a very, a very in-depth topic that we've gone into with a couple of different people that I've chatted with.

But something else that I got a text, I'm not gonna out the person, I don't wanna say their name, but I got a DM from somebody on Instagram and they're using a product, which I'm not gonna say the product, let's just say Bomb Crete, we'll call it Bomb Crete in Australia.

And all their pieces are cracking and they're asking how to remedy that.

I sent them a message back and like cracking as in breaking?

Like, what do you, you know, like maybe it's an Australian term, maybe cracking is like a legend, I don't know.

Like Australians have weird words for things, I don't know.

But they didn't respond back.

So I think maybe I insulted them, which I didn't mean to.

But you know, I would say if you're using a product and it's cracking, stop using the product.

Don't use that product, that's your problem.

But you know, like you gotta go to the source of the problem and the source of the problem is the products you're using.

So that'd be number one.

But you know, there's a whole litany of questions I'd have for that person if they responded of, tell me exactly what you did.

How much water are you using?

Yeah, water, fiber loading, what fibers, you know?

And then ultimately, which, sorry, I'm interrupting you.

No, go ahead.

Well, if it's a pre-packaged product, it would be nice to know within reason, you know, not the IP of that product, but you know, within reason, what are you working with?

You know, how much cement, sand, yada, yada, yada, yada.

And then, you know, as we all know, there's multiple possibilities for cracking that can happen with time.

So yeah, I guess typical of me, I'd have a host of questions before I could get any answer related to it.

And you know, if it's a sound product and you're using it right, then oftentimes, like I've seen with some people, oftentimes, you know, let's take a look at your fiber loadings, meaning not just how what, which fibers are you using?

What fiber combinations are you using?

As an example, we've talked about this a lot.

I like legit, I would not recommend PVA's much on exterior projects anymore, unless it was an upright cast.

So anything precast, I would avoid PVA's.

They just, again, I know I've talked about it, but I'll say it again.

PVA's are great for holding something together, but they are not crack control.

So the expansion and the contraction that can happen over time on exterior pieces, you know, PVA would not be my number one choice unless you just can't avoid it because you're doing a trout surface or something, the case may be.

And then which fibers, as you know, which are you using, which you just told me, maybe the Saint-Cobain, Saint-Cobain or how it was maybe still around.

I thought they were done.

So are you using Nippon or Owens Corning and what you're loading and anyway, yada, yada, yada.

So there's a, sorry, I went off on a tangent.

There'd be a lot of questions I'd put up on top to get more information.

Yeah, I'm glad I wasn't gonna respond back like, well, don't use that product.

You know, it's like, hey, doc, my arm hurts.

Stop doing that.

My arm hurts when I do this.

Well, don't do that, dummy.

Like, problem solved, you know?

But that being said, there's probably a lot of underlying things that are leading to the issues because other people in Australia that I know that use that product aren't having those problems, at least that I haven't heard of.

So there's probably some underlying things that are happening that are causing it.

And those need to be addressed.

So back to design.

I don't know if that's something you want to talk about, but it's something that has been...

Well, I think I told you, I just got a call recently from somebody who get...

Let's see, trying to get back into the game.

10, I think he said 10 years ago.

Really good guys.

Thanks, Tim.

Don't go into this long ass story though, because it's a long story.

I know it is a long story between his heart conditions and...

No, no, no.

So anyway, he's getting back into the game and he asked me some legitimate questions and I really walked the middle line.

Meaning, you know, I told him the pros and cons of everything out there without, you know, down talking anybody.

So yeah, man, you know, talk about the design class, because he was very interested in coming that direction because he's trying to get back into the game after 10 plus years and trying to get back into, you know, where products are today from 10 years ago, sealers are today from 10 years ago.

And I don't know, are there, and I was going to ask you this one here, we can talk about, are there updates in design?

I mean, are there innovations in design when you start talking furniture?

Well, I don't really want to talk about the design class per se, the furniture design class, in the sense of, I'll tell you about it real quick, but then we're going to move on to the discussion.

We do have a furniture design class, August 16th through 18th, go to concretedesignschool.com to read about it.

It's a furniture design workshop.

And this is really about how you approach design, and then you're going to design a piece of furniture, you're going to make the piece of furniture.

And part of it is failure.

I mean, in every class, some pieces come out great, some pieces come out horrible, but even the horrible pieces were a success because we learned from those.

And I guess this is where my conversation lies, and it's where I had the conversation with the people this week is.

We kind of talked about it last week, but the only way to get good at anything is to be bad at something.

That's the only way you're going to get good at it.

And you don't try to be bad.

Nobody tries to be bad.

Everybody's doing their best, or at least you hope you're doing your best.

You're doing your best.

But when you demold that piece and you see it, especially if it's furniture and you interact with it, it's a table, it's a chair, it's a side table, whatever it is, you interact with it, and there's something off about it.

You learn from that.

You don't say, I'm done, I'm never doing it again.

You know, this is horrible.

You're 100% honest.

You do a very thorough evaluation of like where things went sideways, and then you move on, you do it again, and you do it better, and you do it better, and you learn.

And so I guess my point is, when it comes to design, design is the most important thing with what we do.

The concrete is secondary to the design.

The concrete's incredibly important from a business viewpoint, in a sense of you want to make super durable pieces, pieces that are life-friendly, that are highly stain resistant, that are easy to maintain in the field, that aren't prone to cracking, aren't prone to breaking, those types of things.

That's important.

But clients don't buy concrete.

Like if you focus on the concrete, if you're just like, oh, my concrete's the best, it's 23,000 PSI, and I use a reactive sealer, and ah!

Clients don't care.

Nobody cares.

That's important to us.

And that's important to us as running a successful business where you're not chasing constant callbacks that I used to have back when I used topical sealers and traditional polymer modified GFRC, all the issues that came with that.

That's a business side.

But for a customer, why is the customer gonna call you?

And they're gonna call you for design.

Design is everything.

Design is every thing.

So anyways, the conversations I've had with people, kind of the pep talks I've had with them, because they've became a little frustrated with it, with what they're doing, is this is part of the process.

There's no shortcuts.

I know people that go to design school.

They like literally go to RISD, or they go to Parsons, or they go to art center.

They go to these different places and they take four or eight year programs on industrial design, on furniture design, on things like this.

And they come out and they're at the same place that somebody come into my workshop is when they leave my workshop.

It's starting at the same level.

And those people come out of the gates, not making anything better than if you came to my two and a half day class, in a sense of you can learn about the history of furniture.

You can look at all these classic examples and you can learn about what makes good design.

And we talk about that.

And we learn about those concepts and the things that are important when you're designing for humans.

But once you come out, if you want to have originality, which you do want to have originality, you're going to start at zero.

Everybody starts at zero.

And you're going to come up with something.

You're like, man, I'm really passionate about fire pits.

I want to come out with an amazing fire pit.

And you have this idea, you sketch it out.

You make it, you de-mold it.

And you're like, man, it's a hot turd right there.

Look at that thing.

It's horrible.

Now, probably when it comes out, you're going to lie to yourself.

You're like, oh my God, this is amazing.

That's what I was just going to say.

Sorry to backtrack on you.

But you mentioned something while you were talking.

And that was about being honest.

That in itself, in my opinion, well, in the history of me doing everything and being at the various workshops and the people we've been around, I think that's one of the absolute hardest things for people to do because of the emotional attachment.

Just like when we were down there in Napa, right?

It was, I'm gonna say for a minute anyway, or it seemed like, maybe I was picking up on the wrong vibes.

The wrong vibes meaning he was so passionate about a specific piece and he kept alluding back to it versus the piece you and I were like, no, ma'am, it's this one, this.

So, the hard part I think is being honest with yourself and being able to recognize your hot turd and being open to that honesty with yourself without getting mad that you just wasted all your time.

Well, I think it's two things.

I think honesty comes in time.

Honesty with yourself comes in time.

All of us lie to ourselves the minute we de-mold it.

All of us lie to ourselves.

I've done it.

I've de-molded something and I did have all that vested time and energy and resources and money into it.

And you want it to be great.

You want it to be great.

You don't do all this work for it to not be.

You de-mold it and you're like, yeah.

And you're like, but deep down you're like, hmm, hmm, something's not right here.

And then as time goes on, you have the distance from it and you kind of disconnect from it.

And then you can be honest, that's number one.

Number two is just framing it, framing the failure in your own mind, because that's what really matters, your own perspective, framing the failure as a lesson and not a loss.

Because if it's a loss, then you feel like you did something wrong.

You feel like this was a waste of time, a waste of energy, a waste of money.

And I felt that way.

I mean, I've done some big things.

I took big risk and I lost big money.

I think Concrete Cartel is a great example of this.

Big risk, big money, big loss, right?

Yeah, I'm still waiting for two years.

You and everybody else.

Keep waiting, Jon.

Sit by the mailbox.

You'll get a little show up one of these days.

Yeah, one of these days, you'll get it.

So, you know, sometimes in your life, you take a big risk and it doesn't work out.

But if you can frame in your own perspective and truly believe that even in those moments, this isn't a loss, but this is a lesson.

And that's where I'm at today.

I mean, things go sideways with me on the regular.

And, you know, Gabriel just posted a piece that he had to redo because it went sideways.

Yeah.

And I like that he posted that.

I've sometimes post my failures, but not near enough.

And it's not an ego thing.

You did a live video of one, man.

I thought it was awesome.

Yeah, it's not an ego thing with me.

It's just, I don't document my failures as much as I document my success.

But it's a good thing to document your failure and share it because it's a real part of what we do.

That's a real part of running a business.

It's things that always, especially when you're coming up with a new product or a new item, you're going to have a lot of-

Yeah, but you're going to have a lot of iterations of failure that lead to the final result.

And everybody sees the final result and they think, oh, it's easy.

Oh, that was easy.

But they didn't see the 20 things you did before that that went into the dumpster.

But if you can frame your perspective that this is something to be learned from and you actually learn from it and you make adjustments and you do it better the next time, then it wasn't time wasted.

It wasn't money wasted.

None of it was wasted.

Yeah, raw materials, right.

It's all part of the process.

It's your tuition.

I remember, maybe it's my wife, Erin.

I can't remember, but some girl I was dating when I first started my company framed it that way to me that it's tuition.

This is your tuition.

Because I think at that point, I'd had some things go sideways and I'd lost my butt on it and it cost me.

And I was in a place back then when I was just barely scraping by.

And so a loss was really profound.

And they framed it as this is your tuition.

This is the price you pay.

And I'm like, hmm, that's an interesting way to look at it.

And it really is your tuition.

So anyways, if you come to the class, we'll really get into the design aspect, like what makes good design and all that kind of stuff.

And that's a super important conversation and a super important skill set to learn.

If you wanna do furniture design, or really if you're serious about concrete, you're wanting to branch out from things besides countertops, then design becomes much more important.

But just as a business, just as a craftsman, as an artisan, being able to reconcile that failures are not truly failures if you learn from them and not feeling that way about yourself.

So anyways, I guess that was my pep talk this week that I've had with two different people, two different conversations that went the same direction.

Was that, you know, don't look at it that way.

What are your thoughts?

Well, I 100% agree.

And I mean, now that we're on this emotional path, it's, I'll be honest with you.

I struggle with it.

I struggle with it.

I'm one of those that now, again, I'm just gonna relay it to Seeler, you know, or some formula that I'm putting together.

And I can, sometimes the reality check that nobody sees is it can take me weeks, hell, sometimes months between sitting down and putting something on a piece of paper, rolling it in your head, I don't know how many thousand times.

And there's this inner desire to see it through, but then the inner hold back because you just don't want it to fail.

You know what I mean?

I mean, if that makes sense, I can tell you that's a struggle I go through all the time.

In fact, one thing, it's now three weeks since I blended it up.

It probably took me six weeks before I blended it and my family sees it.

And the reason, it wasn't because I don't have the raw materials and not because I couldn't find the time.

It's that there was a side of me that drug and anchor with a chain around my waist that said, I'll do it tomorrow.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'm not sure that's gonna work anyway.

So you're like, I know I wanna do it.

And I do that a lot.

And I think a lot of people do.

And the one thing, so as we're talking about this, to relate to anybody is that, I think that's the other human side of it is, of any of it, someone coming up with a new sink or something like you're saying, a design you've got in your head and you really wanna do it.

And then, there's this emotional side of you holding yourself back.

What I say, that's all normal.

Just don't, how would I say, don't keep yourself from doing it.

Like legit, stomach the fact that you're gonna use this raw material, stomach the fact that you're gonna put this time aside and this energy aside, stomach the fact that it's gonna cost you one way or another, time or materials or whatever the case may be.

And ultimately, like I said, even though it's three weeks now since I blended it, it could still go sideways.

And I don't want it to, you know what I'm saying?

You don't want it.

You don't want it to fail.

But the reality is on another side of that, especially if you're trying to elevate yourself, as we've talked about in previous podcasts, make yourself better, move directions you want to do, then there's something you actually, but you do wanna learn from it.

You know what I mean?

So I hate to call that a failure, but you do wanna learn from it and you're not going to.

Maybe it's something as simple as putting a seam together or you put like, oh, that seemed great, but now I'm looking at it, well, that's in the wrong place.

You know what I mean?

Or like the furniture we were looking like, man, that really looks nice, man, but that's a little more wobbly than anybody's gonna be happy with.

I mean, remember that?

Talking about a table, we saw a concrete table that looked great.

That's what I'm saying.

When you touched it, it had like an earthquake.

It went back and forth a few inches, which isn't really functional.

Right, exactly.

And so I guess like I said, what I'm trying to relay is, I hear that a lot from people.

You know, like have this idea, da, and they really want to, the fear of failure then drags your feet for so long.

I'm gonna tell everybody, I know I go through it.

I think we all go through it.

And then at some point, I guess what I'm saying is there's like, even for me, Brandon, there's sometimes I look at the things that you're doing, right?

And the Masoka chair or these other things that you're working on.

And because when you see this, Instagram or whatever the case may be, you know, the perception is like, hey, you woke up one morning, hey, look, a Masoka chair, you know, without realizing how much emotional energy took before that first day that you put two pieces of melamine together, you know what I mean?

Or a piece of, you know, it's one thing to put a pencil to a piece of paper and draw something, and then everything it took to get to that point.

It's quite a roller coaster.

Well, I like your mindset, but your example is actually wrong because in the Masoka chair, I did wake up one day and I just had the idea.

That was one of the few times, one of the few times in my life that it was easy.

So I literally was in the shower in the morning and I had this vision in my head.

I could see it.

I could see it in 3D.

I could see it, you know, in profile.

I saw it.

I went to my shop.

I drew it in full scale on a piece of MDF, scrap MDF.

I drew it and I had a guy working for me, Christian Erickson, who was a framer before.

He ran a company and I said, build this, build this.

And we built it.

We made a fiberglass mold off of it, actually took it to a place that did helicopters and they made a fiberglass mold.

And we did it.

And I went through the entire process without ever testing it.

I just believed that it was gonna be functional and it was gonna work.

And it did.

I got lucky.

Sometimes you get lucky.

Sometimes it's just boom, but that's really rare.

It's super rare that it just happens that way.

I do wanna say this.

Well, let me tell a little story real quick about failure, but then I'll hit one more thing.

I had this, when I say a hot turd, I literally did a sink design that one time looked like a turd coming out of a butt.

I mean, that's what it looked like.

Yeah.

But this guy, Alberto Crocco, you might know Alberto.

A lot of people know Alberto.

He's down in Australia.

Alberto's awesome.

He's one of these people that if you ever meet Alberto in person, he just exudes like great energy.

He's just a positive person.

So Alberto had hit me up on Facebook.

He's like, hey, I'm gonna be in California.

Can I swing by your shop?

And I was in Arkansas.

And I was like, well, dude, maybe you haven't looked at a map, but the United States is a big country.

I'm in the middle of the country.

You're gonna be on the West Coast.

He's like, okay, yeah, cool, cool, cool.

I'll hit you up in the States.

I'm like, okay.

So I'm working on my shop one day and I get a Facebook messenger.

He's like, hey, are you shop?

I'm like, yeah.

He's like, can I swing by?

I'm like, okay.

So he just comes walking over.

I'm like, Alberto, he's like, hey, how's it going?

Start chatting.

I'm like, you wanna go get some lunch or something?

He's like, yeah, so we go to lunch and I just think he's there for a day.

And I'm like, so, you know, what are you up to?

He's like, well, I'm here for like the next, I think two weeks or three weeks.

So if you need any help, I'm here.

I'm happy to help you.

I was like, oh, for sure, bro.

Yeah, I'd love to have your help.

So I had been working on this sink design and I, dude, I had gone all in.

I believed in it.

I'd done all these detailed sketches of how it was gonna work.

I'd bought all the parts.

I'd bought a lot of stuff and it was expensive.

Like everything that went into it, from the rubber to the components to like lighting aspects of it and everything that went into that, I probably spent three to $5,000 just on some materials to make the sink.

Not my time, not my energy, none of that.

Just some raw products that went into it.

And I'd already made most of it.

And so I'm like, hey, I got this idea.

I think it's gonna be revolutionary.

I come up with the name for the sink, like this whole design.

I was all in.

And so he was there.

Like the second day, we de-mold it.

We cast it, we de-mold it.

I look at it.

I'm like, dude, looks like a turd coming out of a butt.

He's like, he's like, kind of.

And I called my wife, cause my house is next door.

I'm like, Erin, can you come over here and look at this?

She walks in.

I'm like, what does that look like?

She's like, it looks like a turd come out of a butthole.

I'm like, it does!

Cause I had to put all this time and energy.

Dude, I believed in it.

Like I believed in it.

And that was one of the few instances in my life where I was honest right from the beginning, right?

Right from the beginning, I knew this was a hot turd.

I knew it.

But here's the true cycle that happens, is you're gonna do something, you're gonna lie to yourself.

As time goes on, you're gonna be honest with yourself.

The important thing, in my opinion, when it comes to this, is to be true to yourself and keep your vision.

Design by committee is not designed.

Do not ask people, what should I do?

I see this on so many different forms on Facebook, whether it's guys doing flat work or carving or whatever.

Hey, should I do this?

Should I do that?

What should I do?

What do you guys think?

What do you think would look better?

Design by committee is not designed.

Do not do design by committee.

That's not to say if you make a chair or you make something to ask your friends to sit in and give their honest feedback.

In that instance, you want them to give you the bad.

You don't want the good.

You already know the good.

You want, what could I do better?

That's the question you want to ask.

What could I do better?

But don't ever ask anybody, what would you do?

What would you do?

Because then they're designing it and you've lost all clarity of the vision.

So where I'm going with this is when you design something, you de-mold it, it's not 100%.

As time comes, you know, goes on, it starts coming into focus what's wrong with the piece, where it could have gone better.

You probably didn't recognize it right away, but as time goes on, you start to realize it.

At that point, you can make adjustments.

Don't make the mistake of putting a survey out there, a poll out there of what you should do differently, because at that point, you've lost everything.

Anything that was special about design, anything that was innovative, anything that would have gotten traction with, you know, going viral, you know, people reposting it, sharing it, it's all out the window at that point.

So it becomes the, if anybody watched The Simpsons growing up, Homer Simpson designed a car once.

It becomes a Homer Simpson car.

It's got like a bubble and fins and a snorkel on the screen and it's got a jet engine on the back.

It's a hot mess.

So stay true, stay clear, stay focused, be honest with yourself, understand honesty sometimes unfolds as time goes on and just keep moving forward.

And that's the secret to being successful when you do something innovative.

And do it.

And do it.

Literally do it.

Do it.

I mean, honestly, with so many people I talk to, I won't give all the names, but we'll sit there, we'll talk about some cool things, you know, kind of like a podcast we did not long ago.

It's like when you have a little bit of time on your hands, right, whatever that means, time between projects, or maybe you got a dead cycle or something's going on.

You know, I mean, that's the time to like get it.

You know, get after it.

And how would I say it?

Embrace the idea of failure.

You have to embrace it.

And that's, I just personally believe that is a hard thing for any of us to do, is like legitimately go into something, embracing the idea that it's going to fail.

It might not, but it might.

And you're not going to know it if you don't do it.

Society as a whole has made it to where if it's not always a win, then it's a loss.

And it's like, no, no, there's a lot of lessons.

I mean, you're talking about your son missing and the lessons aren't in the wins, the lessons are in the misses.

If he went out there and nailed every single shot, he would learn nothing from the process.

He wouldn't grow as a human.

He wouldn't learn to overcome the anxiety and all the mental stuff that comes with failure.

Yeah, the anger, the frustration, as I wrote a post about it.

Yeah, but from another side of it, it sounds terrible.

It was great to be a part of it, to watch the growth.

Yeah, but that's what the growth is there.

If the growth isn't in the wins, the growth is in the losses.

That's where the growth happens.

And that's the same with this.

And I guess that's such a great analogy.

I wish I'd hit that from the very beginning, is the growth is in the loss.

So if you can reframe it in your mind, like I said, I've had two conversations, and both those conversations where they're frustrated and not that they want to throw in a towel, but they're just feeling defeated right now.

Things aren't going the way they want to go.

And I'm like, this is where it happens.

This is where the magic happens.

This is where you're going to get better.

Another thing I would say, Jon, is you said, you know, just get after it.

You're going to die.

Every one of us, time is short.

Everybody thinks there's going to be more time.

We all think there's going to be more time.

There may not be.

There's a great motivational speech that, I don't know who the speaker was, but he talks about the graveyard is full of great ideas, of great inventions.

You know?

That they died with the people.

They never saw them come to life.

The graveyard is full of awesome ideas, and it is.

So don't let it die with you.

Whatever you have in your mind, whatever you dream of someday, I want to do this.

Let's do it right now.

Let's get it going.

Yeah, see where it goes.

That's my perspective.

The last thing I have on my list, Jon, is, and this just really comes down to what we've talked about in the past, but I think it's an important thing, is somebody asked a question.

Maybe we already hit this in the past podcast, but it continues to go.

Somebody asked a question about order of operations with mixing, and there were some responses.

Somebody pointed out that they were getting conflicting advice from these product manufacturers.

One said do this, others said do the exact opposite.

And he said, it's funny how there's the opposite.

And then one of these product manufacturers responded, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter.

You just need to ensure you have thorough blending.

I'm not on that group anymore, but if I was, I'd respond, says the guy that doesn't do it.

If you do this for a living, this is the importance of what we talk about.

Experience matters.

Who you buy your materials from and who you get your technical support from is critical.

If you support these companies that don't do this for a living, you're going to get advice like this.

It matters dramatically.

Anybody that has done this for a living knows how critical it is.

Your order of operations is how you mix.

It is incredibly important.

This bad information continues to be perpetuated by these people that don't do it.

And unfortunately, I've talked about this in the past.

Unfortunately, people that don't know because they're new will pick up this bad information.

They'll struggle and ultimately they'll go out of business because unfortunately, they were advised by somebody that doesn't know what they don't know.

Yeah, this continues to be a tough one.

I actually, I got on that finally.

And you know, the other struggle, I'm just gonna say my personal struggle.

My personal struggle is towing the line and still trying to be nice and somewhat politically correct.

And you know, there becomes a point, man, even for me, I get tired of doing it.

This particular post, reading some of the postings, like I said, two different material suppliers, material distributors, whatever you wanna call them, both post links to come to my web page, which, hey, I totally understand that.

And yeah, I thought it was humorous then when the one person actually made a chuckling comment, a sarcastic comment about how these two were so opposite.

They were 180 degrees opposite.

In fact, I like how the two links are opposite, this guy puts.

And then that's when another material provider, which I guess, both to himself and trying to prop up the other person or the other materials like, oh, in the end, it doesn't really matter.

Where am I going with this?

I'm starting to think the reality is the only way, the realistic way for this small industry, if you're interested in actually making good stuff, quality materials, then the reality is as an industry, we need to stand up and basically protest that this kind of crap continues.

It's sad is what it is, and it's frustrating.

I get calls all the time about it.

I walk through, I spend a lot of time on the phone, again, trying to walk down that middle line without being a jerk about so-and-so's product lines or so-and-so themselves.

It is difficult, man.

It's difficult to toe that line when, at the end of the day, the best way to do it is to use your dollar and support the direction you're actually trying to go.

That's all, and we said it before.

So if you actually do want to elevate your game, it doesn't take much to look around and see what people are doing.

There's a lot of stuff posted on people's, whatever, daily stories.

And look around and see what's going on.

Get on these forum pages.

Be a part of it.

And then decide which direction you're going.

It sounds terrible, but if you want to be mediocre, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

And there's plenty of people out there to support your mediocriness.

With both their product line, their information, their misinformation, there's plenty of it.

And just realize that, yeah, their information is either coming from some academic background, but not hands-on.

Or, hey, I always wanted to open a business, so I did.

Because they want to sell materials.

They want to be a grocery store.

Nothing wrong with that.

Or, Jon, the other thing that nobody wants to say out loud, but I'll say it out loud, there's been a trend, and it's probably in every industry, but there's been a trend in this industry that people that couldn't cut it, that failed, then go into materials.

They either get hired by a materials company or they start a materials company or whatever.

And then they say, well, the way I did it.

Yeah, the way I've always done it.

No, they didn't want to even say that, the way I do it.

But says a failed company.

If you want to learn how to be a failed company, go learn from failed companies.

If you want to learn how to not do it the right way, go take a free class from guys that'll teach you how to not do it the right way.

I guarantee you, if that's what you want to do, there's people out there that will support that perspective.

But if you want to be a professional in anything in the world, you need to surround yourself with the best in that industry, the people that really strive for greatness.

And the last part of this, I got into this conversation was one of the calls this week was we're talking about training classes.

And I was just saying, you know, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

If it is free, there's a catch.

If you're like, hey, come, you know, take two days in Cabo San Lucas for this timeshare thing.

Yeah, it's not free, bro.

You're going to be sitting in a thing all day listening to a sales pitch, right?

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

So if there's a concrete company out there and they have a free class, it's not a free class.

You're the product.

I mean, you're coming there and they're just going to pitch you on the product.

And you're going to be learning.

Facebook's not free.

Yeah, it's not free.

You're the product.

It is.

But you're going to be learning from people that weren't successful in the business.

If you want to learn how to do things right ways, surround yourself with people that are at the top level, that are striving for greatness.

And also, if you take a class, understand that a professional class isn't a free class.

Not that Kodiak Pro won't do demo days.

We still have demo days planned, but that's a demonstration day of the products.

It's not a class.

Of the product, yeah.

It's an introduction.

And that's, yeah.

Exactly.

Totally understand that.

Yeah, yeah.

And I commend anybody else for doing that kind of stuff.

The other thing I would add to that, and people could roll their eyes, although we've laughed about it, laughed in a positive manner, I do like that over this last few years, as we become more vocal, because there is still a hope.

My hope is by introducing and doing what we've decided to do more openly, as you very well know, most of the time I stay behind and let somebody else be at the front of the ship.

But as we've done more and more of this, the information morphs.

But the problem with the internet is, as I see some information change, or let's say get updated, maybe a product comes out, and they're like, hey, you know, and you do it this way, they're gleaning that information off stuff from either the podcast or stuff that we've written down, etc., etc.

They don't do it.

Yeah.

And they're missing a step or two in there because they don't know what they don't know.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's like when a person copies, paints a painting, copying it, well, you lost the nuance of the original painter.

And that's just the way it is.

You know what I mean?

It just is what it is, which brings me back full circle to where I started.

The only way that's going to change like anything is when we decide who's ever doing it to change it ourselves, and that is to quit supporting the obvious.

Yeah, it sounds harsh, but it is what it is.

I wrote a post, and I refer to them as parasitic salesmen, because that's what they are, they're parasites.

They have zero interest in your success or your failure.

They don't care.

They're just there to sell products.

They're going to stock products.

They have ten different sealers, ten different this, ten different that.

They don't know about any of them.

They don't use them.

They don't make stuff for clients.

They don't care if the piece fails, and you have to go back and redo it.

Oh, yeah, use that one.

Here's a different sealer.

Try that.

Oh, that one didn't work.

Well, hey, we got this other one over here.

Let's try this one.

To them, it doesn't matter.

Your success doesn't matter to them.

They are parasitic salespeople.

And yeah, if you support that with your dollar, you're just perpetuating that.

But people are moving away from that, which is good.

I'm glad to see that.

Yeah, it is nice to see.

It's the right direction.

So anyways, that's that.

Jon, let's wrap this up.

Favorite things.

Have you thought about anything that is your favorite thing this week?

Yeah, I'm going to bring up again something past.

Remember, and I don't even know the name of it.

Remember the cups that you had made that like had the small bottom?

I don't know, the goblets, whatever they were for water, coffee, whatever the case may be.

That's become my new favorite, man, because I have been using like the 32 ounce water bottles that I carry around.

In fact, I don't know if you remember, I called you and I'm like, the 3D printer, can you make me something for my truck because the damn water bottle flippity flops all over the place.

There's no place to put it.

So it just shows me how even, you know, I get back to learning something.

This has become my new thing.

It actually fits.

The little metal tumbler, like it's like a whisky or wine tumbler that size.

No, the bigger one, the midsize one.

It's literally in my hand right now.

It's become my new favorite because it actually fits in the, you know, whatever, the spot in the console that goes where you can put your water bottle or your drink cup or whatever the case may be.

And Jay and I both have been, that's all we've been using now.

We put the other ones aside because we both got so frustrated by him, you know, pinging and pinging and flopping as we, again, I live in the hills.

So anyway, you must have different, I mean, we both have Dodge Ram 2500s, but my cup holders now, you have the fancy one.

I have the literally the base diesel they make.

Like I have the lowest level of a tradesman, the lowest level trim diesel they make.

But my cup holders and mine's a fold down, you know, center console.

So again, maybe it's different, but mine has like rubber pads and in all my big Kodiak Pro stainless steel, you know, Yeti tumblers, they all fit perfectly.

They don't rattle.

They slide in perfectly.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

I guess that's what I'm saying.

I am now my favorite right now is that tumbler.

So I haven't been using that tumbler.

No, no, no.

I've I've been using the big 32 ounce, the water bottles, the big water bottle.

Yeah, those are too big.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I carried those everywhere.

I loved it.

I had the shop.

I use it to work out, you know, in my Ford, it fit perfectly because it slipped right under right in between the cushion and my center console.

So that's all I've been using for years.

So even when I got these, I'm like, they're nice.

But, you know, I, you know, I'm not going to use it.

I finally pulled them out.

It seems like 50 bucks each.

I wish you would send it back to me.

I'd use it.

I remember when I went to Joe's shop, dude, these Yeti tumblers, we had these custom Yeti tumblers made.

That was the first thing of merch we did was the Yeti tumblers, and they were like $55 a piece plus shipping.

So when I shipped them, there's like another $15 to $17.

So let's say they're 70 bucks, right?

70 bucks that we sent to everybody.

And I went to Joe's shop, and Joe has it up on the shelf, and it's full of like, like fermented coffee that had been sitting there for, you know, six months.

I'm like, Joe, he's like, oh yeah, no, I, you know, I'm like, if you're not going to use it, I'll use it.

These things are expensive, bro.

I'll take this with me.

He's like, no, I'm going to use it.

But damn, Jon.

This is now my new favorite.

I had no, you know what I'm saying when we talk about like, you don't know what you don't know.

So I had been using that big one for so long.

I would say, you know, I love it, but it didn't hold value.

My other one, the Made Better to Make Better.

That's my coffee cup.

I use that every day.

But I had not used this.

It went into my cupboard.

We pulled it out.

But I guess I was using that big one all the time.

Now I pulled it out.

And now that's that one.

And the other one.

Yeah, that's all we've been using.

Literally, it's all we're using.

We've done so much merch in the last two and a half years.

So many different things.

My whole house, it's all Kodiak.

I have so many different tumblers, whether the big ones, the little ones.

It's really fun to see the different stuff.

We're working on some new merch right now, by the way.

I don't know if I even told you, Jon, but I've been working with a designer on some new stuff that's going to be coming out soon.

So that's part of the company that I love as well, or part of the aspect of running this business, is just these types of things we do and send to customers to say thank you.

An attitude of gratitude will get you a long way.

An attitude of expectation, not to go on a tangent, but I was telling my wife way back in the day, when I had employees, I'd take them to lunch every day.

I'd pay for the lunch every single day.

And this wasn't like McDonald's.

This was like nice restaurants.

We'd go to a nice restaurant every day.

It was back in Tempe like 20 years ago.

We'd go to nice restaurants every day, pay for the lunch.

And for the first year or two, they're always like, thank you, thank you for lunch, hey, no problem.

And then it became to where it became expected.

And we'd go to lunch, the bill would come, they'd all just look at me, pull my credit card, pay the bill, you know, 70 bucks, 100 bucks, whatever it was back then.

It was expensive.

Pay the bill.

And then we'd get up and leave, nobody'd say a word.

I stopped paying.

I stopped paying.

People would come to the table or the waiter come to the table.

I'm like, hey, we're all separate checks.

And you should see the expressions on their faces, right?

Because it became an expectation.

They lost an attitude of gratitude and it became an expectation.

And so as a company, I never want to have an expectation of our customers.

I never want to expect that they're just buying from us because they have to.

I always want to project and I always want to embody an attitude of gratitude for our customer base because I am grateful.

They can go to other companies they want to.

I'm grateful that they choose Creative Act Pro and that they choose to support a business that supports them.

So an attitude of gratitude I think is important.

It's something I really enjoy and I enjoy that aspect of it.

So Jon, my favorite thing of the week, and it's a really domestic thing because I'm a basic bitch, right?

So it's super domestic, but I'm super excited about it.

I called you about it when it happened.

I bought this building, and I have an existing bathroom I haven't remodeled yet, and it had these mineral stains in the toilet and in the sink that I could never get out.

And I've tried everything.

I've tried toilet cleaner.

I got online, I read about different stuff, and it's like, well, you know, use vinegar, soak in vinegar, try baking, do all this different stuff.

I've tried everything.

Nothing, nothing.

I was getting ready to spend like $75 on this magnetic thing that goes in the tank that's supposed to help remove minerals, but I'm like, how is it going to remove minerals that are already there?

It seems like snake oil, I don't know.

So anyways, I was at a loss, and I was at Walmart, and I saw Lysol toilet cleaner for lime and rust.

I'm like, huh?

I was like, I'll try it.

Dude, it took out.

I put it in the toilet, waited like five minutes, took a scrub brush.

All the mineral stains which had built up over, I don't know how many years that's been there, gone instantaneously.

The sink was totally covered, so I put the toilet cleaner in there, let it set, scrubbed it out.

The sink looks brand new.

So it's like, it's crazy how I've had this building now for a year and a half, and every time I go in the bathroom, it's just disgusting.

It's not that the toilet's not clean because it's clean.

It's not that the sink's not clean because it's clean, but it had this mineral buildup that would not go away, no matter what I tried.

And this one product that's on the shelf at most stores, but there's all these other toilet cleaners, but there's this one bottle that says for lime and rust.

Did it instantaneously.

So maybe somebody else out there is struggling.

Maybe you have a rural shop and you have well water and you keep having these mineral stains and buildup.

Life changer for me anyways, because I like a clean shop, so I was like, damn, this is awesome.

Lime and rust remover, sweet dude.

I'll check it out.

What I like though is talking about this kind of stuff.

Now it makes me want to, even though I don't have that kind of stuff, I'm going to go look at my store and see if that stuff's even on the shelves.

And you know, since we talked about the creamy, that ninja creamy, I'm thinking about starting a forum page of sharing recipes.

I'm serious, how many top messages now, you know, outside concrete that we've been talking about, like with, you know, Simon Tipple and a few other people.

So this is again, this is the part of what all of us do that makes it fun.

Yeah, things we love.

Well, dude, speaking of things we love, something you shared a while back was the meat tenderizer.

Yeah.

What is it?

Bromelain.

Bromelain.

That's what it is, bromelain.

So anyways.

I just put some on stakes this morning.

Well, yesterday, I got a flat iron steak intentionally because I know it's going to be a tough steak.

So I got a flat iron steak.

I told Erin, hey, I called her.

I said, hey, do me a favor, because we only tested it that one time on ribeyes, and we let it go for like two days before it cooked.

And it was just like jello.

And we're like, oh, you know, it was such a bad experience.

Erin hasn't tried it since.

But I said, hey, do me a favor, get the flat iron steak, sprinkle it on top, put it in the refrigerator in like four hours, five hours, I'll be home and I'll throw it on the Traeger.

So I got home, cooked it.

Phenomenal!

Phenomenal!

It was insane.

That was yesterday.

It was great.

It was great.

So yeah, stuff's amazing.

So yeah, these types of tips on the podcast, you know, you have to wait till the end to get the good stuff.

You have to go through an hour of drivel to get to it.

But here at the end, we have the real golden nuggets for Concrete Life.

I'm going to start a page for the Ninja, because yeah, I made some stupid stuff and it's so much fun.

So much fun.

All right, Jon.

All right, buddy.

Until next week.

All right, man.

Adios.

Adios, amigo.