Stronger Training Pipelines and Smarter Social Media Can Help Solve HVAC’s Talent Shortage

This is Straight Out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Straight Out of Crumpton. I'm Greg Crumpton, your host for today. A special guest today. I'm really thrilled to have this gentleman on. We share a fashion for HVAC, and as y'all know, as listeners to the program, that's one thing that I do like in life. So, today we got a gentleman who works for Airtight Facilitac, which is a service logic company in, Charlotte, North Carolina. So I wanted to go ahead and get that out of the way because that is also, work for service logic and they are one of our business units. So I wanted to be clear with that upfront, regardless of that, Phil Manchester is, has joined us and what Phil is doing over there, is something that I would celebrate whether he worked with me at service logic or not. So Phil, welcome to the straight out of crumpton podcast. Thanks. Great. It's great to be here. I'll give you a shout. You already set me your hat way back when about a year and a half ago with one of the books. So I make sure keep it hung up on a hook, keep it pretty head on where it at work. Cause it'll get ruined fast. Well, I'll get you another one. Don't worry about it. Thank you. So Phil, before we get rolling, why don't you, just, just give us a little bit of background on you, little bio, who you are, where you grew up, all that kind of good stuff. And then we'll talk about the HVAC journey. All right. Yeah. Most of my life, I grew up upstate New York, not anywhere near the city. We were up in the mountains, doing all the fun stuff for wheeler, dirt bikes, all that, which is what piqued my interest in everything mechanical. Want to know how it works and what makes it tick and how to fix that tick. So started off just brunching on dirt bikes and four wheelers. And I ended up graduating high school a year early. And one of the guys at the job I got was like, you know, you're not going work at a warehouse your whole life. I was like, Nope, just trying to make money until I figure it out. And he kind of took me under his wing a little bit and told me about HVAC. He was doing the facilities maintenance and pointed me towards a college. And I said, you know what, what's the worst that happens. I spent twelve thousand dollars and I don't like it. I've spent worse money. So I gave it a shot and as soon as I graduated, I got a job at CIC for airtight as an on-site guy and quickly got sick of doing the on-site thing and wanted to get out in the field and see what, what all was really out there to, to do in this, this industry. I mean, my, my view was there's VAV's PIU boxes and pumps. That was, that's all I was seeing. I wanted to see what else was out there and what else I could do. Airtight luckily was, was nice enough to move me out into a service truck. I mean, started out, I remember a first guy I worked with had to remind me what RYWG and C met because I forgot. And, now about nine years later, we're working on chillers. We're working on boilers. We're doing all that stuff, a lot of pump repairs and, you know, I'm, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's been a very rewarding career so far and I'm just hoping to keep on going with it. Well, it's been fun to watch you progress over the years. And just what, what Phil means by, working at CIC as an on-site guy, their, airtight facility tech has a large maintenance contract to where they staff, the facility with, with their people. And Phil was one of those guys working up there on that site. So, and then the R W G Y C, is a throwback reference to, one thing that as a service technician you learn early in your career is those are the basic control terminals on a residential and light commercial piece of equipment to make it a cool or heat or the fan runs. So I had to stop for a moment, Phil, and think what that last must stop. So, all right. So here you are a young guy graduated from, funny. I was just on the phone with a guy from, upstate New York and they are getting hammered with snow right now with this big, big cyclone bomb, whatever that is, that's hitting them. But, it was pretty funny hearing his, tale of getting to work today, but nonetheless, so how did you get from upstate New York to Charlotte, North Carolina? Were you applying to it at or how did that work? So I actually, most of my life was in New York, but for a short stint, when I was a young teenager, my family moved down here to Concord. So I loved it down here. I loved it. There was no snow because that gets old really. It's pretty in a picture. I'm happy with seeing it that at that distance. Don't want to live in it anymore. And one of my things was I knew I needed to find a career that could move me anywhere. Then, you know, HVAC was that, you know, there's heating, there's cooling, there's all that stuff. I could learn it there where I was comfortable and my setup was good. And then as soon as I was done, I was like, I'm out going to Concord, back to Concord. I loved it down here. Didn't want to live away from here any longer. Well, the weather channel is for people like me and you that want to enjoy the beauty of snow, but not be cold while we're doing it. All right. So here you, you come down here and you wind up, in Concord, you wind up working at airtight facility tech. I would have to think, as bored as you became on-site, seeing the same repetitive type equipment day in, day out had to give you a little bit of good background though, before you jumped into the truck, would you say that was a good, way to enter the program? Kind of get you, get you jump started. I mean, it was, it was definitely different. So like college taught basics and residential size stuff and a little dabble in the commercial. And then I got to go work on the commercial equipment and I skipped everything in the middle. So when I did finally get into a truck, it was kind of nice because at a young age, already kind of had a grasp of what was on this end of the spectrum. I just had to learn what was in the middle and it was a different way of doing it for sure. But I think all the way around, like I wouldn't do it differently. It worked out because I feel like it kind of catapulted me where I had to learn the big stuff first and then work my way backwards and meet the middle. And I think it worked out well for me at least. Well, it looks like it did. I mean, I don't, I don't think I've ever talked to anybody that really had a normal route, whatever normal means to their career. Most people, wind up working, either in an industry or a company that they had no idea that they would wind up at when they began their journey. So it's always cool to hear that story. So I think I want to jump into something you said a while ago before we hit record, and that's your, comment you made about going to a college to help kind of showcase the industry and some of the tools. Tell us a little bit about what, you're thinking about as you go to present yourself and your career and your industry to the technical college folks. What do you think and how does that come across to you and what are you trying to relay? I think the biggest thing is like when we were, when I was in college, they talked about the job and what you're going to go do, but they never explained it that the multitude of avenues there is once you learn to a certain extent, you know, you, you could, you could go into just being a chiller technician or just a boiler technician, a controls technician, you know, there there's so many niche avenues that you can go down. No one ever explained that it was just like, here, you're going be an HVAC tech have fun. Yeah. And big umbrella, big umbrella, right? So it's, that's a big umbrella to be, to be just under, and you can go and be a specific version of that. If, if you didn't like working on mini splits, you can go be a chiller guy and never touched one. Yeah. You know, it's no one ever mentioned that. So that's one of those things. Just, you know, try to instill a little bit of like, it, it, it doesn't always take one thing for me was I always just, instead of listening to music in the truck from call to call, I had podcasts going, you know, I was listening to HVAC school, you know, while I was driving, instead of listening to music, you can learn that shouldn't be listening to straight out of crump thing, you know, that now. Nowadays it is. But back then it was, y'all was trying to learn the basics. I was trying to get, you know, going there. So, I mean, right. And that stuff you can do while you're at work, just driving instead of listening to your favorite song going down the road, you know? And, and it helps even just be in background noise, listen to it a few times. It gets in there. So just, just going to try to let them know what, what could happen, what they can go do. What's out there as far as this, this industry. And they want to see the teacher wants to show off my nice, neat, clean truck and see some tools. So I'm always happy to show off my tools. Well, I think it's really cool. First of all, of the instructor out there to want to bring in a real life worker, who uses tools every day and knows the crap as well as you do. I think that's a good heads up play by them. And then, you know, congrats to you for doing it because, you know, you you've heard me say before, it takes a village and we all have to give back in the way that we can give back at that time in our career. And, you know, it is, it's so cool to see that I'm doing a, a, a career day shortly for sixth graders. And, you know, my messaging to them, is obviously different than it will be for you talking to, adult aged people. I won't say adult ****, but adult aged and, you know, letting them figure out a piece of the world. So good on you for doing that. Appreciate it. Thank you. So you, you are fairly active on, on social media and I I'm always working in my head to try to figure out how to connect with the young people that we all need to backfill our industry and to fill up the funnel of, you know, soon to be or could be workers in in the HVAC arena. How do you tie what you do on social media into recruiting or are you doing it for awareness? What is your vision? What's your mindset when you're posting, you know, things like pump alignment that you're educating people on, on LinkedIn? How, how did, how do you think about that? So, I mean, I honestly started because we, we were doing the, XOI photo and video app that we used to, each job so that we can, we can show the customers what we did, not just tell them they can go on there and see pictures of everything I did that day. And, and at one point I was just sitting there and I'm like, you know, I'm already taken all these photos. I've already taken all these videos. What is it posting it to one more place? It quickly kind of became a, you know, I screw up, I make mistakes and I'm willing to own those, but if that can help someone else not make that same mistake, that'd be awesome. You know what mean? I think that I would have enjoyed seeing that type of stuff. Most of the time, not most, I'll say some of the time you see posts on there and it's all, it's always all the butterflies and rainbows and the good things. You don't see as much of the, Hey man, I screwed up, take, take, take account of this and don't do it. So that's kind of more of what I've been, why I've been posting on there. If people see it and they, they're just starting in the industry as well, mean, they get to see what you can do as an HVAC tech, if that's what they so choose. Like it just kind of goes to stamps. Well, I'm glad you do it because you know, I post on LinkedIn, things about our industry and I've figured out that I'm not posting it for everybody. I realize it's not a, it's not, you know, content that everybody cares about. But what I've figured out is I'm posting it for parents and adults that have young people in their life that don't quite know what they want to do yet, or haven't figured out what they want to do, or simply a mom or dad or an aunt or an uncle sitting down with a young person saying, did you even know this was a thing? And because when I think about it, people that I want to attract into the industry are not on LinkedIn, they're, on Instagram or on Twitter or not Twitter, but, I'm drawing Tik TOK, Facebook. I don't, I don't post to those because a lot of other people do. I'm going after the more, cerebral side of the, by giving people information they can share with young people is kind of what my take is. And then when I look at what you do and some other people who are craftsmen who showcase the talent, to me, that's just reinforcing, you know, some of this stuff that I'm trying to talk about. So I'm glad you're doing it. You know, like most social media, you never know what kind of impact you're having and that's okay. At least we're making an effort is how I look at it. But there's such a freaking need, you know, we're retiring five people. We're bringing into, or we're retiring seven and bringing in three, depending on whose math you want to use. Neither one of those are sustainable. So we have to keep recruiting and we have to keep learning new stuff, new ways to make our, our work more meaningful. And I don't mean that in a, in a warm fuzzy way. What I mean is if you're a technician with the skill level of an eight, you don't need to be working on jobs that require a four, unless you just have to go for whatever reason. So I think, using technology will help, supplement our lack of labor if we use it well. And we don't record with, or we don't show the podcast with video, but you and I are looking at video. I just got a pair of glasses today that are basically Google glass two point zero. So these things look and hear and listen and give me information like right now I can read text on the inside of the glasses. So we have to keep experimenting with what we're going to do to supplement the trades, but I think by what you're doing is helping that, and by what I'm doing, and I can only be hopeful of what we're doing collectively is helping, try to backfill that. Speaker And I didn't really even think about it from what the point of view that you brought up of, maybe it's not you're right. I mean, most of the apprentices I know don't have a LinkedIn. So it's probably, but if it's going to an adult that has that, that kid that, Hey, do you see what, like, I know you're not on here, but look at what this stuff this guy's working on. This looks really cool. This looks like something you'd enjoy. And if it does that as well too, I mean, that's, that's amazing. I would, I would love that. I don't know. Sharing the information people can take from it, they will, they can get the content. They cannot, they can scroll right by it. I'm trying to help the industry a little bit that I can as one, one technician out there in the field, just sharing what he learns as he learns it. So I hope it makes an impact, but I don't need a spreadsheet to tell me, look at all the people that you helped. It's just something I'm doing just, just to do it and hope that it's, it's getting to somebody. If I was one person that's worth, worth doing to me. Well, I think you and I are on alignment with that. I don't look at statistics often, myself because it's not like I didn't go to school to learn how to do LinkedIn. I went to school to learn how to work on air conditioners and help people. So if I can share that with somebody that needs it, so be it. So why don't you feel, I'd love to hear your take on what the next few years of working in the HVAC field are going to look like when you think about two thousand and thirty, which sounds like some kind of freaking movie, but it'll be here shortly. What do you think about how we're evolving? How are, how do you see things going from, you know, you're a team leader over there. You hear what your crew is saying. You're listening to what the bosses are saying. You're watching the world develop. What, what does Phil Manchester think that life in a service truck will look like in two thousand and thirty? I mean, I think there's, there's going to be with the like recruiting people. There's going to be a bit of a change where, you know, for a long time we had these older guys and they knew what they were doing and all that. And they were able to just go do any call you had for them. So you had a group of five guys out of the ten on a team that you could send to anything. So it didn't matter. You had enough people to cover everything. And what I'm seeing already happened is like on our team, we have really good guys. Most of them are younger guys. They're a little bit less experienced, but they're all hungry to learn. They're all hungry to grow. They just gotta get there. So it leaves where you got one or two guys that now know what they're doing and on, on some of the bigger stuff and the more complicated things. Those two guys are having to run like chicken with their head cut off. I think I had about twenty phone calls today with, with assistance for other things. So depending on where you're at, it looks like it's going to be a little bit harder for the shortcoming future. But as we start getting those, we find those younger guys and gals that that are hungry to learn and grow and, and, and really go full steam ahead in their career. They start catching up and get getting to where that, where they're good, it'll start to level out again. But the fun is going to be in getting really good training programs established to help those, those hungry, hungry techs really go. That that's going to be for me, the biggest thing that'll be a huge help is if we can establish that good training that, that ties on to what maybe they learned in college or they learned at their, entry level, you know, residential job and just expand on it and let them, I mean, go as fast as they want because that's what we need. Yeah. But I think about our industry's labor force looking like a dog bone that you would have in a cartoon. So it's kind of a dumbbell shaped bone where on one end you mentioned you've got, you know, some of the seasoned guys my age that still love the industry and want to help, but there's a bunch of us that are on the way out. And then between the dumb, between the two big ends, you've got this little skinny handle part of the bone and that group really feel if you think about it, that's the part, that's the generations of technicians that didn't have a shop class in school. So we really thinned out the number of people that had the capabilities of coming into the industry. And then the other end, the big, the other fat end of the bone, you've got this glut of new people like you're describing that are coming in that we've got to get through the filter, so to speak, and into the skinny part of the bone quicker. So that's just how it looks to me. And I think you're spot on with your analysis of what that looks like. I'm excited by it because I think that there are so many good young people out there, you know, and I wrote an article the other week about, you know, every generation is that generation of those damn kids. We all were, you know, I I'm sixty one years old, but when I was seventeen or eighteen, I was as damn kids every generations like that. I don't know why we keep doing that, but we keep doing that. And then lo and behold, we all turn out relatively okay. In our own way, every generation is different, but we all seem to make it over the hump at some, some point. What, what I'm anxious to see is can we accelerate the learning curve and some, some things we definitely can like curriculum and theoretical study, but what the challenge is is getting, and I think about a doctor when they go through medical school, that's where people go to can be HVAC technicians, just you'll know, but, my opinion, second choice, second choice career. But, if you think about it, they go through all the theoretical training and then they have to go do residency somewhere to prove they know what they're doing. And you can't replace that, residency time of working in a hospital, working triage. So if we're trying to expedite the amount of work or the amount of training we're doing in a shorter timeframe, I think we can do a better job with VR and AR by getting people in troubleshooting scenarios quicker without having to be on the roof doing it through, through a virtual reality. What interplay learning is doing and how far they've come is really good because you think about it. We, we can train people how to do electrical troubleshooting without them getting shocked. And if they get shocked, it's a nine volt buzzer, like the old operation game. It's not life or death. So that's good. That's good training, but there's still nothing like probably what you may have done the day being on a rooftop with a meter check-in electrical. So some things we can expedite some things just take time and scar tissue to learn. My, my challenge mentally, when I think about it is how do we get the geysers like me able to transfer that knowledge quicker in real life scenarios? So I think about that a lot. Like I feel comfortable with the curriculum, the theoretical, all this stuff that we can simulate and emulate and, and, and teach. But the hands on part is still the, the juggernaut that I can't get figured out in my head. And I mean, and you know, like I do that, that that's where the vast majority of our, the people that are going to come into our field are going to learn. You could, you could, I could sit and read it in a book ten times and it just was like, right over the head. You stick a, you know, stick the unit in front of me. It's like, oh, this makes sense now. Here I go. Yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna be a little, I logged, I liked the online, the VR, the AR training. I had a little bit of that when I was in college and it was actually really fun. You know, was just sitting at a computer playing a video game, but you're getting graded. And I think that the generations behind me, you know, grew up with a lot of video games. So that's going to be a really high floor and to them. Right. That's all that's, that's just easy for them. That's an easy transition of, oh, I'm going from a fun game to a learning game. And, and I think that'll help them a lot as well as, you know, once they, they get a little bit under their belt with that and getting them out with a technician like myself, or like one of the other team leads and, and us coming up with a good way to be like, okay, you're running the job. I'm just here to make sure you don't, you know, trap yourself today and really letting them. And that that's been a hard thing for me to learn how to do because I see someone struggling or it's taken longer than it take me. And I'm like, okay, get out of my way, move. I'm just going to do this. Let's get it done. Cause we got three more calls to go to. There's going to have to be some time where, you know, Hey, I'm training this guy. We're going to slow down today because he's got to learn and this is how he's going to do it. Oh, that helps you prepare too as a leader. Oh, definitely. I mean, there's been a lot of lessons that I've learned since I've taken this team lead position that I thought I was a pretty decent person, but apparently I was a jerk at the beginning. We're trying to work on that one. You know, we, we train on mechanical and electrical stuff. We historically haven't trained technicians on the human side of the equation. And if you think about it, we, we have historically done this in service managers. We take the best technician and we tell him on Friday, Hey, guess what? Monday, you're going be the service manager because you know a lot about technical stuff. We didn't equip him to, for that job. We equipped him to be a really, really good, laser focused sniper on air conditioning. Now suddenly he's gotta become Dale Carnegie Monday morning all of a sudden. And same with you. You know, when you go into this field leadership role, you're learning a lot on the fly because you don't have a lot of historical stuff to fall back on learning wise. So people who do well, eventually we figure out, all right, we gotta back up. And when we see a young guy with potential, a young lady with potential invest in the human side of it, because they've got the technical stuff down pat. It doesn't matter what color the machine is. It's still, you know, vapor compression is vapor compression, but if we can help young people understand, the, the EQ side of the equation and listening to people and just being a better person than we were as technicians, because technicians are selfish in nature. They're there to fix the problem. And we get really tunnel vision on fixing a problem. And the people side, don't think about as often as we should have. So that's, you're going through a normal transformation. So don't, don't beat yourself up on it. Just learn as you go. That's all you can do. Yeah. Mean, that, that, that's just been taking it one day at a time. Luckily I have a good team of guys that understand that, you know, you're right. I'd get so laser focused on what I'm doing. When that phone rings, I'm like, go away. I'm busy. And I don't want to answer it and learn how to take a breath and then answer the phone. Like I'm happy that they called and, and get them, help them to their, their issue they're working on. And not them think, well, wow, he's pissed off at me for calling. I'm not going to call him again, click. And I think if there could be different steps to it, you know, learning that the whole people side of it, obviously as a technician, I need to be good enough with people to, to have really good relationships with my customers and know how to deal with, you know, an angry customer because we went out there three times and still not fixed. They're, they're pissed off at, at the logo on your shirt, not you. And take, not taking that personal and still being able to talk them off the cliff and then go fix their problem. I think if it started a little earlier helping those people with that, it would, it would build stronger relationships with customers and technicians and then build a solid base to, you know, for those people that were going to go, go to a management role and have a little bit of practice before they, they, they got to actually be in the face of, of the company that dealt directly with the customers and not fixing their stuff and the technicians. So I'm happy that air takes allowed me to do that, you know, a little bit here and get a little bit of a head start on, on learning my people skills a little better before. Hopefully one day they put me in that position. Well, I think what we are doing as an industry, is we're beginning to recognize that and we're starting to build in soft skills classes with technical classes. So, you know, I've known some really, really sensational mechanics, which I had to keep them locked in a damn cage until it was time to put them in the mechanical room. Now they could work wonders in that mechanical room, but then you'd have to kind of like, you know, do the Hannibal Lecter walk on the way out back to the truck because they weren't like really soft around the edges. So, that's that worked well in nineteen eighty, probably maybe, I don't know, but damn sure doesn't work in twenty twenty six. All right. So let's move on to your self education that you're going through. You have recently discovered the joy of reading. I think, you know, to a point to where now you read a lot. So walk us through that journey. What got you going and where, you know, kind of where's your head around education and self education and promoting your own learning. Yeah. So, airtight sent me to the service logic event for, the leadership summit in Texas. And so I got to see that whole other side behind the curtain, I guess you could say, you know, as a technician, that that's all real for and that type of stuff, that type of training seminar. Normally they stick in classroom, a notebook and then here, go play with toys in the, in the shop over there. This was the first one and something completely different for me. And, and, really it was that the panel that you, you held there, you know, leaders are readers. The other quote was shoot, the man who cannot, does not read a book is no better than the man who cannot read or something like something of that language. Have looked at that quote again before we came on. Those two kind of stuck with me for a while there. I really, and I was in that team lead position and I had some guys on my team that really didn't, didn't call me for help when they needed it. So they're getting themselves into situations that they didn't need to be in because they could have made a phone call, but the way that I was answering the phone and the way that I handled those phone calls and issues was not in a, in a nice leadership way. It was not in a good, good way. I was short. I was, you know, just I'm busy. I got stuff to do too. You need anything else by, you know? And I quickly realized that that's not going to work. I'm not going to be a good leader and get to where I want to be if I don't work on me. And, and so I started picking up a few books, picked up yours and reread it and got into the emotional intelligence book. Started, that was the second book and that one was like, okay, we got a lot of work to do, but now it's, yeah, I try to read a little bit each day. I'm still not trying to read a whole book every day. I'm just trying to stay at a couple of pages to a chapter a day. It keeps me interested enough in reading, but not, not burning me out of it. You know, it might take me two weeks to finish a book, but it's a little bit every day is better than nothing at all. And I need personally, I think, and I'll only speak for myself, but when I do it that way, I read a chapter or two a day. I tend to really think through the book a lot better than just pounding through it on a Saturday. And I've done both. But I like to read a couple of chapters at night. I read some, Christian stuff in the morning, kind of get my day going. Right. But then at night, when I do my, crumpton work on myself, work wise, the crumpton stuff in the morning probably needs a lot more work, but I'm working on that too. But I just feel like if I take my time with a book and I read a chapter and don't feel so I'm so freaking competitive Phil that I want to, I want to get through it. But then when I get through it, I'm like, dang, I wish I hadn't read that so fast. So I'm trying to find that balance and I have been for a long time, but I like the slower methodical reading to give me time to absorb and analyze what I read. So I don't know if that's just me being lazy or what, but that's how I'm doing it. I mean, it'd be a really good excuse to be lazy. Could act, but I can, I can, you know, relate to that? It gives you the day. Like I usually read in the morning. So if I read a chapter in the morning, it gives me that day while it's fresh in my mind to, to, to kind of sit on that stuff and try to put what I'm learning into practice that day. Oh yeah. And, and, I tried to read at night a little bit, but usually I'm more watching a movie and dinner or whatever. It just becomes, yeah, I got a, I'm a four year old. So he, he sometimes goes to bed early and sometimes he doesn't want to go to bed at all. So, it also seemed like I kind of would just then go to bed and then you might forget some of it. I kind of like reading it in the morning. So it sticks with me all day long and I'm really able to process that and let it sink into the long term memory. So I can keep using it in the future. It just, you know, I was a person who didn't read a book since high school when they made me read one. So it's all new to me again to read. That was fun stories. You know what I mean? Like entertainment, and this is something completely different. So I'm trying to, to really, really let it soak in and, and really put it to good use and not just in and out and, oh, look, I read a book. You know, it's, it's gotta have meaning or me reading that book in a day really didn't, If I don't, if I can't use it, I didn't, it didn't do me any good. Yeah. I like that using it more as a tool. All right. So as we head out here, what would you tell people that don't read about the beginning of that journey? How, how would you describe the benefits and what have you gotten out of it so that you can encourage other people to read? I'm just, and I'm asking for a friend. So, I mean, like I said, I was a little short-tempered at the beginning, you know, most of my life, all my life still working on it, but, it it's, it's helped me come into situations where, you know, even another technician upset about something. Instead of me getting on the defensive and being like, woah, why are ripping my hat off? I'm, I'm a little bit more empathetic now where I can really hear what they're saying instead of just listening to respond to. And then that's translated into customers, my child, my wife, you know, it, it's helped a bit a great deal. If you're willing to sit down and read a book and you read a part and you go, wow, that strikes home and really work on it. That's where it's going to get your benefit. If you're going to read it and just be like, ah, I never do that. That's not me. You gotta be able to self reflect a bit and really point the finger at yourself in the mirror and say, Nope, you do that. You need to stop doing that. And when someone gives an example in the book of a story of dealing with someone like that, and you're like, wow, that person's a jerk. You're like, Oh, wait, I just did that the other day. And you're like, Oh, and it hurts. It's not fun to do that. Kind of, it's not, It's upsetting to you to be like, wow, that's really what I sounded like. Or that's kind of how someone took what I said. But my biggest thing, if you're not a reader, I started it off with a paragraph a day. Just just read one paragraph in style. Just dip your toe in the water. Eventually that became two and that became three and that became a chapter a day. And maybe one day it'll be, you know, I'm reading half a book a day, who knows? If I started something doing something, I didn't really enjoy all that much, but I was just taking nibbles at it. It was a lot easier to digest than trying to just gobble the whole book up and then be like, wow, that sucked. I'm not going to read another one. So start small, just a paragraph a day. I mean, it don't take you two minutes, read a paragraph or less. People are self starter. Just having that discipline to do it like everything else in life. Well, Phil, this has been fun, my friend. I'm so glad I get to work with you and I get to talk to you about, leadership at many levels and, really enjoy our conversations and most of all, thank you for taking your afternoon here, and, and talking with us and, you know, trying to, I guess, poke the barrel a little bit, get some people interested in what we're doing because you're, you're doing a good job. I can't wait to see you continue to develop. So thank you for taking time with us today. Yeah. Thank you very much for having me out here, Greg. I appreciate the kind words and I appreciate you for all the help you've given so far. So thank you very much. And I'm a keep troughing and see what I can do with this, one, one life I got. We'll see how good we can get at this. Well, it looks like you're doing great. So y'all, Phil Manchester, you can find him on, LinkedIn and you can see some of his handiwork and his, some of his thought processes of how he shares his, daily journey through the mechanical world and, what he does at airtight facility tech. Check him out over there at LinkedIn. Check us outgregg crumpton dot com. See all the stuff we're into, and the books can't forget the books, deep knowledge and deep earth knowledge. Both of them are out. You can get them at Amazon. You can also go to deeper or I'm sorry, deep knowledge. Me deep knowledge. Me, read a little bit about the books and then, there's a link that'll take you there if you feel like buying them. So appreciate the time today. Appreciate the time as always. Thank you all for staying tuned. And, we look forward to catching you on the next episode of straight out For Phil Manchester, I'm Greg Crumpton, and we will catch you on the next one.