Who is Justin Barbour? The Story of the Man Behind Better Biomed

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to Bearded Biomed.
Let's start the show.
Welcome to Bearded Biomed.
What's going on everybody?
Welcome back to Bearded Biomed.

(00:33):
Appreciate you joining me heretoday.
You may notice that I havesomebody sitting next to me for
the first time ever, and if Iwas going to bring somebody in
studio, I had to bring in theone, the only, Better Biomed,
One of the people that inspiredme to do what I do today.
So for those of you that arenot familiar with this gentleman

(00:54):
, he's one of the mostwell-known biomeds of his
generation.
For the past six years, he hasproduced content on YouTube with
over 22,000 Better Biomedsubscribers.
He's quickly approaching over 2million views worldwide, if he
hasn't already.
In June of this year, helaunched a new channel called
Take it Apart to spark curiosityof a new, technically inclined

(01:15):
generation.
He is an Air Force veteran whoserved nine years as a biomed, a
career that spans positionsfrom Roper, St Francis
Healthcare, East Cooper MedicalCenter, the Medical University
of South Carolina, HoustonMethodist Memorial, Herman Bobi
and now BC Group.
He is known across theprofession as Mr Rules of Repair

(01:35):
a mentor, a right to repairadvocate, a job placement guru,
a social media innovator, atrailblazer, a voice to be
reckoned with within theindustry.
Ladies and gentlemen, I giveyou Justin Berger.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Damn, I need to have you write my intros.
Oh my gosh, guys.
Well, it's a pleasure to behere.
I drove through the rainstormto come out and visit Dallas,
because Dallas has probably someof the most prime healthcare of
the country, I mean.
So it's, it's an honor to be uphere and to visit, you know,

(02:10):
biomeds and companies up here.
And of course I'm going to say,hey, chase, I'm coming up Like
let's do something.
Yeah, we've been planning thisfor a little bit.
Yeah, it has been.
You know, it's just since I lostmy job and and and then, like
it was as as a man in charge oflike a whole bunch of people,
there's like this moment where,like you kind of fall apart when

(02:31):
that happens, you know, and Ithought I had a very secure and
good career.
I have don't get me wrong, guys, but you know, and then I took
a hit to, to my emotions thereand I was like, gosh, darn, what
am I going to do now?
And then BC Group and I weworked on a lot of stuff
historically and hey, justin,why don't you fly up here and

(02:55):
talk to us?
And I was like I would love to,because I absolutely love test
equipment and you know,obviously, standards and
training people and whatnot.
So that's what I do today, guys.
Uh, I go around, I meet peoplelike you all, and I help people
design and develop testequipment, and it's like the
perfect marriage of of likepassion and work.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
So here I am, guys, we're gonna we're gonna get into
a lot of it today.
So a lot of people know I don'tdo script.
I mean you don't do scripteither.
No, but I have written downquestions because this is a man
that I've wanted to sit down andinterview for a long time.
He's been on a couple of livesand stuff like that.
But this is, we have you here,we're here for you.
So you know, feel free to fillin wherever you want, but I got

(03:36):
a couple of questions that I'vebeen meaning to ask that I want
to know.
Okay, and I imagine you know ifany other biomed out there is
like me probably would beinterested in this too.
Okay, so let's start with yourpersonal background.
Can you share a defining momentin your childhood that helped

(03:58):
shape who you are today?
Because you have a certaindrive about you that you know I
can attune with, but otherpeople I don't have.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
So well, I guess I know one exact moment that
you're talking about.
That's a good question, man.
So if you guys didn't know, Igrew up a poor redneck kid on a
pig farm.
Love to the redneck, my people.
But the thing is, is we're allsurvivors, right?

(04:29):
So you tear stuff apart there.
There is no hiring a handymanlike that.
It didn't happen, especiallyback in the 1980s.
Guys like I don't even know,like who the handyman was like,
that didn't happen.
Farmers, we fix everything, wedo everything and they also, you
know, maybe it's one of thoseredneck traits is they, they
collect broken stuff and youhave broken stuff and you have a

(04:50):
curious kid.
So when I was six years old Iremember in the basement of our
house we had a couple brokenwashing machines like clothes
washers, and I was bored thatday.
So when I was six years old Ihad that thing stripped
completely down and I clippedthe motor out and I left the
wires about two to three incheslong at the at the ass end of

(05:11):
the motor and my dad came homeand he was absolutely furious.
I don't know why, cause it wasa broke machine, but he was
pretty furious.
My dad was a Marine Corps drillinstructor.
You know I grew up in a prettystrict household and I can
remember he was pretty furious.
I did not get my butt beat thattime, but he was definitely mad
.
However, it was a couple ofweeks later.

(05:32):
We had a uh, a yard sale Causethat's that's what we do out in
the country and uh, I rememberthere's one guy coming up and
asking if we had any motors oranything.
And my dad says hold on.
He goes down in down thebasement, he pulls out that
motor where I cut the wires alittle too short and he says
what about this?
One guy said I'll tell you what.
I'll give you two bucks.
My dad said deal.

(05:52):
He sold him the motor for twodollars and, uh, he held the two
dollars up.
He gave me one, he kept theother one.
He says I give you this.
This is your first dollar ever.
Don't you ever do it?
That was my first dollar I evermade repairing something.
But uh, you know, I've beenworking ever since I was a kid

(06:13):
man.
I grew up on a real poor familyout in the middle of the
country.
We we would do I grew up themost redneck person you ever,
you ever knew.
I would put money on that.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
So there's entire summers I went without wearing
shoes, like I'm dead seriousbarefoot would you say your dad
is one of the bigger influencesin your life, your work ethic
for sure 100.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
So we had a lot of family businesses.
When I was young and I knowit's gonna sound more redneck,
but uh, we had a bait and tacklebusiness, sold fishing bait.
So every time it rained muchtoday we would go out there at
night with coffee cans and wewould walk up and down the roads
picking up worms.
We'd put them in the coffeecans for half the night, even on

(06:56):
school nights, and then for thenext week or two we would, you
know, we'd pull out the coolerthat's full of worms and stuff
and we'd sit there in front of,like, our little 13 inch black
and white TV.
It came out of a back of an RV.
See, I remember a lot ofdetails, man, and we would count
out worms by the two dozen 24,or crawlers night crawlers by

(07:18):
the 12s, by the dozens.
And we did that as a family.
We'd sit around and count outworms and stuff.
So I mean I love the fish.
So I mean, yeah, I mean it'sone of the most country things
you can imagine.
But I've had jobs ever since Iwas six years old, you know,
because I would run the cashregister and stuff.
So when it comes to work ethicand whatnot and curiosity.

(07:38):
It's because I grew up around awhole bunch of broken stuff and
I can remember one day my dadwas trying to fix a car I think
I was maybe 11 or 12 and Iremember him throwing the pliers
out from under the car.
He says I don't do this.
And he says why don't you growup and learn how to do this so I
don't have to do it anymore?
I remember kids remember thosedetails, guys.

(07:59):
So for from now on, think aboutI know I've got three kids,
guys and I'll be thinking aboutthat for the rest of my life
Like the fact that he did thatand we'll talk about that a
little bit later, about that.
You know anger when you'refixing things and whatnot,
because that's there's a wholediscussion about that.
But my dad would do that, like,like I said, he was a Marine

(08:20):
Corps drill instructor, so hewas kind of intense, very
intense, yeah, like, and therewas, there was no deviation from
the standard.
So if I seem like I'm intensesometimes through you guys, I
mean I bring it down a couplelevels, I think.
So obviously you had a lot offamily jobs, but what I guess
would be your first officiallike W2 job, the day I turned 16

(08:43):
, literally on my birthday Idrove over to the McDonald's and
I got a McDonald's job, which Ihad almost for exactly so I was
16 working at McDonald's.
So as soon as I could get Idon't understand kids these days
, because I remember when I was15, I couldn't wait for that day
.
Couldn't wait for that day.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
See, that's how you know you've reached a certain
level in age, because we're allsaying that now, like when I
think of the first job, it'susually at least what I've seen.
The most successful people havea job something that deals with
customer service, that deals inretail or food or what have you
?
My first job I worked at DollarTree.

(09:23):
I stocked shelves.
I worked at Cash Register.
I stocked shelves.
I worked at Cash Register.
I got that customer servicepart of it.
How long did you work there?
At least a couple of years.
And from there, actually that'swhen I started getting into
more I worked on.
It was a hardware company, solike they sold tools and screws
and bolts and I wish I couldhave worked at a hardware

(09:43):
company in hindsight, but it was, it was fun like it was.
And then from there, commercialgarage door installation okay,
that's a good transfer, it makessense.
And then from there,telemarketer okay, that doesn't
make sense.
And then from there, I was likethis sucks, I hate this, I'm
going to the army okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
So here's the thing how did end up?
Because you were in Army,biomed.
Yeah, did you choose that ordid you say I chose it Okay?

Speaker 1 (10:12):
How'd you know what the hell it was?
I didn't know about it.
I gave them the specificparameters I want something
medical and I want somethingtechnical, and I guess I scored
high enough on the ASVAB.
They're like, hey, do you likefixing stuff?
I'm like, yeah, I tinker allthe time on stuff.
Even as a young, you know, Iloved building things, I love
fixing stuff, taking it apart,and I don't know where this

(10:33):
recruiter's at.
But thank God, yeah, no kidding, because I mean I can't even
imagine where I'd be todayExactly and I would do it all
over again.
So how'd you, how'd you find outthat you wanted to be in
medical specifically?
Um, here's the thing I I Iwouldn't say we were like dirt
poor, but we were lower income,so I was just more like had to

(11:01):
work for everything I wanted.
I had jobs ever since I wassmall, like you, interesting,
and I always got to the point towhere, like I knew, if I wanted
.
I had jobs ever since I wassmall, like you, interesting,
and I always got to the point towhere, like I knew, if I wanted
to have anything in life, Ineeded to work for it and bust
my ass for it, because it wasn'tgoing to be given to me.
And when I got to that point, towhere I was doing a crappy like
calling people to, you know,get money for somebody that's

(11:21):
not myself I was like I need todo something that is going to
yield me a career.
And I was one of those peoplesaid I would never join the
military just because, like Ihad full ride scholarship to
college.
I ended up dropping out becauseI was trying to support myself
living on my own.
Okay, I moved out right at 18.
You had to prove something,yeah.
And then, looking at, lookingback at it, I'm like everybody

(11:42):
I've ever heard of or has gonelike in the medical career, like
it's stable, like they willhave an opportunity to continue
to grow and the rare take okay,I know I was come to think of it
like I was more.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
That's very that's very impressive thinking if,
because most people are wellokay, so I chose medical for
much, much different, I I I havea reason.
Most people do.
I chose medical because I knewthat's where the girls were
going to be yeah, I hear that alot.
I mean I literally I chose itbecause I just broke up with my

(12:14):
girlfriend.
I wanted to go where there'sgoing to be lots of girls and
obviously I like fixing thingsso that when some people come up
with some deep like theory onlike how they wanted to go where
they wanted to go in life, mycriteria was razor thin and it
was the best decision I evermade in my life.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, I can understand that.
I was just at the point towhere, like there was there was
a section before I joined thearmy that I was living out of my
car.
So was that I had nowhere elseto go?
I barely had enough money to,you know, afford instant ramen.
Like I, it was more importantto have gas in my car to go do a
job than to eat, and that's,that's pretty much.

(12:53):
When I got to the point where,like so, you hit a low point.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yes, snake, I've never told anybody.
I also was living out of my car.
I was bouncing around inMichigan and cold as shit up in
michigan and it's, it's wild.
I would love to like talk tosome other like people that are
in the exact same frame of mind.
I talked with jake yesterdayfrom imed biomedical.

(13:17):
He has an amazing backstory aswell, and it's funny how similar
most of us are about how likewe wanted to either get away
from family, we wanted to provesomething on our own, be an
independent person, and we madequestionable decisions because
we knew we didn't want to dependon, like our parents or whatnot
.
And it's amazing how manypeople have that same kind of

(13:39):
story.
So that's really cool.
Man, similar backgrounds.
I was living on my car for fora while my girlfriend a
different girlfriend, guys, adifferent girlfriend was, uh,
cheating on me and because thathappened I was kicked out of my
apartment and again I didn'twant to live with my parents.
I didn't want to go run backhome to my family, right.
So I was working as auto repair, I was fixing cars and stuff

(14:00):
and I'm living out of my car andI was dropping by people's
homes just to say hi, just soI'd get food and stuff.
You know like, hey guys, I'mcoming over.
This is the early days of cellphones.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
By the way, folks, yeah I remember, I remember,
recall actually calling peoplefrom a payphone, doing a collect
call, speaking really quickly,yeah, yeah.
So obviously you've had darkdays.
Um, what would you say?
What are you finding yourselfthat drives you to get past

(14:33):
those tough days?
Because obviously you, you hadthe, the, which we'll get into
more, you know, leaving phobia,but what, what, where did you
find yourself and how did youpull yourself out of it?

Speaker 2 (14:45):
you know, a lot of people don't know this about me,
but I'm reasonably religiousfellow, you know, and I do think
that my needs have always beentaken care of for me and I have
always been steered in thedirection I was meant to go.
So the fact of the matter is isyou're given?
Here's an interesting thing.

(15:06):
Somebody told me once from theday you're born, you're given
all the tools you'll ever needto destroy yourself.
Your mind and your, your mouthis is what destroyed most people
and I was like it's really deepman.
That was probably a little toodeep for me at the moment, but I
respect it now and I thinkabout that all the time the fact

(15:27):
that you literally can destroyyourself at any moment or you
can bring yourself up.
It goes both ways.
You have all the tools from theday you're born to be
successful.
It's just what are you going todo with it?
I mean, I've known people thatcame from nothing, that are
millionaires now, and I try tohang around people like that
because I love.
I love talking to successfulpeople and they're usually not

(15:49):
ashamed or afraid to share howthey got successful.
You just got to listen to them,right?
So I mean I, you know, I saylike if you have four friends
that are millionaires, you'll bethe fifth.
Or they say, if you've got fourfriends that are druggies'll be
the fifth.
You know it works both ways.
And me, growing up in a at apoor farming community in
michigan, I've seen theprevalence of drugs and whatnot.

(16:11):
And you mentioned somethingearlier, uh, about if you didn't
join the military, you don'tknow where you'd be today.
I'm the exact same way.
I think about that a lot.
I go back home, see people backthere michigan.
I I love my people back inMichigan, but I see some of them
that are still like doing drugsand stuff.
Man, you literally haven'tchanged.
That was 20 some years ago.
Man, I had my 25th reunion thislast year, so 25 years and

(16:37):
that's you literally haven'tprogressed.
It's like I want to help peopleand I've even like tried to
like teaching people like here,like you should get into medical
or something like that, andeven though they're like my age
40s, I literally see the, themental block they put up.
Like I'm trying to like here,contact this company, they're
looking for somebody, train, andthey just won't even do it.

(17:00):
So I, I fight every single day.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Every single day I try to learn something new and
every single day I try to opendoors so there there's a saying
as since we're, you know,dropping gold nuggets, you can't
put energy into people thatwon't put energy into themselves
really, I've heard that beforebut it's absolutely true,
because if they're not willingto at least work for themselves,

(17:22):
and how can they put energytowards you?
you have to just.
It goes from the old adage ofhow can you love somebody if you
don't love yourself?
You know like you have to beable to look within yourself and
want better for yourself beforeyou can, you know, give that to
other people you know that is.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
That is pretty deep.
I try to at least test thewaters and give people
opportunities.
But there's one thing that youcan't train out of somebody and
that's attitude, like you givethem opportunities and whatnot.
There's a lot of people thatare in some serious, unfortunate
positions.
That's why I love when peoplelike Brian Hawkins are out there
talking to kids, and some ofthem are in some needy

(18:03):
communities.
You're giving people tools thatthey could use the rest of
their life.
I love that.
But some people you know arenot.
You could hand them a goldengoose egg.
You'll hear me say it a lotthat's the golden goose egg.
Take it Like I know one guy hejust graduated from biomed
school guy.

(18:27):
He just graduated from from, uh, biomed school and there was a
low-paying offer to be an internwith a very major imaging
company but he was gonna have todo all the gopher work.
You know like, yeah, but we allhave to do.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
yes, so the company.
I still work for it today.
When I first started, I wasdriving 50,000 miles a year for
business and covering threeStates.
Nowadays, you know, now I'm inthe management position I don't
have to drive that far, but Iwas never home.
I bought my first house when Igot out of the military, you

(18:59):
know, and I essentially I keptsaying it belonged to my dog
because the dog was in theremore than I did.
I should have made it the youknow the lean holder.
Wow, it just, you know every,every there is a.
There is a mindset that when,when you are getting into the
workforce, especially some ofthe newer biometrics getting
into the space, I understand youwant the best for you and you

(19:23):
want to get the most out of.
You know that you can get thego for it, get, get as much as
you possibly can.
But to snub at an opportunitythat can grow into something
that will make you so much more,you know everybody will be
coming at you three years fromnow from that point, because
you've been trained in somethingthat most people haven't Right.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
And this is a major imaging company, but he was
going to have to do the installand tear downs of equipment.
How much experience do youthink you're going to get
tearing down x-ray rooms?
You'll know every component,yes, and you'll be able to
troubleshoot because you knowwhen you put stuff together that
you're not going to know, to befair, those that have dealt
with tearing and installing downred rooms.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
It is hard work.
I've done a tear down to thepoint to where I said I would
never do it again.
But it was me and a gentlemanthat was in his 70s and we had
to tear down an entire Buckysystem walls all of it within a
day and take it down threeflights of stairs and then put
it in a truck and then drive it30, 40 miles to a storage unit

(20:29):
and then unloaded it at night.
I think we finished at like1130, 12 o'clock at night, like
it was.
It was brutal and I was like Ifelt tired.
But then I looked at thatgentleman that you know was in
his seventies.
I'm like I can't pitch.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Was he?
Was he running you down?
Because, Because I've workedwith some folks like that that
are some aging gentlemen andthey will embarrass the younger
guys yeah, Embarrass thembecause their intensity and
their work ethic is so sternthat it's like a competitive

(21:03):
thing to them If you're going tokeep running hard.
He's like a competitive thingto them If, if you're going to
keep running hard, he's going tokeep running hard, yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
It's going to go till you drop.
The thing is, you can't shyaway from doing the hard stuff
first, because that's in anycareer field.
It's always going to be likethat.
But it ends up bearing fruitshorter rather than later.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
I told that dude you better take it, because I think
this company was going to paylike 45,000 a year and I had the
discussion with the candidatethat he thought he should be
making more and I said you gotto have a five-year and 10-year
plan.
You know your 10-year plan isyou're making 100K.
How many bio-meds make 100Kwithin 10 years of starting from

(21:44):
school?

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Not that often at it's at maybe five out of.
I've heard of a couple thatlike got out and, like you know,
hit the jackpot, but it's it'svery rare.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
But even those guys probably put in the work, yeah,
yeah, to get there.
So it's some of theseexpectations we got to bring
y'all back to back to earth.
But the fact the matter is itwas a golden goose opportunity
and if you ever hear me say that, like guys, this is your golden
goose, take it.
It might be garbage pay,garbage hours some travel you're

(22:15):
gonna be.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
I mean, you've been doing it long enough you can
recognize if something is agolden goose opportunity.
So yeah, um, I know you'repretty like you're one of your
biggest critics, just as I amone of my biggest critics.
What's something that or valuesthat you hold on to that?
Or I guess, if you had to say,well, how do you define success

(22:38):
for yourself and for others?

Speaker 2 (22:40):
OK, well, here's something I have like a whole
different meaning of success.
Like I can walk into many, many, if not most, biomed shops in
the united states and somebody'sprobably going to recognize me.
Some people would say thatthat's success.
My true success, guys, is thatI can walk into a room of a
couple hundred people and I canstand in front of them and I can

(23:02):
give a presentation.
I used to be the guy that wasso shy, like Like I couldn't
talk to girls or anything.
I would.
I would get like sick.
So the fact that I can walkinto a whole bunch of people and
give a technical presentationwith little to no prep, that's
that's the cool thing.
And the advantage of doingsocial media is because you look

(23:22):
at like my early videos and youcan see.
You can see the tension.
Yeah, you can see that scripted.
I left those videos up onpurpose because I want people to
see growth that.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
That's also why I'm glad I started the first year of
the podcast just audio, so itlet me you know, because I was
just thinking about yourauditory.
Yeah, like I got comfortableputting myself out there.
You know, I thinking back it Idon't think I could have done
video like I'm doing now when Ifirst started, like cause I
wasn't there yet.
Okay, I also didn't think I wascomfortable yet.

(23:54):
But now here I am.
I'm I'm posting videos andtalking to people and doing
doing more presentations, stufflike that.
Like I said, you gotta, forthose folks that are scared to
like or you're, you have that.
That public speaking, you know,fear we all do.
We, every single person you askthat's doing it.
They say you will get over itby doing it.
That's, that's how you do it.

(24:15):
You practice and you don't haveto do like a like walk into a
room and sign up to do apresentation at one of the
conferences outright.
Like start doing holding littlemeetings with your team, like
just there's little littlethings you can do to work
yourself up to that, but publicspeaking or just the ability to
speak to folks in a generalizedformat, is going to serve you at

(24:37):
one point in your career.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
It's communication is your number one skill.
You could be the worsttechnician in the world.
If you can communicate,customers will love you it's
crazy.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Communication is one of the most important parts of
our job.
You have to be able to relaywhat you're doing, what needs to
be done.
You know to the client that'sbeing fit, that we're working on
the device for you have to beable to understand their
terminology, being able tounderstand what they're trying
to convey to you.
And then you also have thewhole journey of contacting

(25:09):
manufacturer, getting partnumbers, talking with other
technicians for advice.
There's so much communicationin our field.
Like you cannot just besomebody that doesn't.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
And you're going to be communicating with hospital
executives, yes, company owners,like multimillionaire company
owners, maybe design engineers,I mean politicians.
I mean look at, look at, likethe guys over at Renew
Biomedical they have senatorsand stuff coming by.
I mean communication isabsolutely key to our career
field.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
So everybody that knows you knows you for Better
Biomed.
What motivated you to startBetter Biomed?

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Oh boy, that's kind of an interesting one.
So it's kind of three differentparts to that, but one my
reason that I was getting in themilitary is because all my
friends were going to college.
And I'm a very competitiveperson by nature.

(26:09):
You don't say so they I knewthat they're going to be
graduating from college soon, soI needed to do something with
my life like they were.
Their four years of collegewere coming up.
I needed, by the time they gotout, I need to have a plan.
So in doing so, same thing withmy career right, like there are
so many well-known people, veryrespectable people in the

(26:30):
medical technology community,how do you compete with?
Like these guys will be alwaysthe rock stars.
And I was like I've gottenturned down from so many jobs.
Guys like I've gotten between100 200 job rejections, and
that's not including theghostings that I've gotten,
these are just officialrejections.
I have a folder where I kind ofsaved them all and I was like

(26:53):
you know something?
I'm getting rejected becausehow do you sell yourself right?
Like because resumes are likethat much information about who
you are as a person, just thatmuch.
And it's so easy for yourresume to even get lost.
So I want people to know who Iam before I even walk in,
because that opens doors.
Open doors equals attorneys, soit's just simple math at that

(27:17):
point.
So one, I wanted to becompetitive amongst my peers.
But then I had the situationwith one of the electrical
engineers at my hospital and meand him I mean he was an
engineer.
He argued with me over whattype of isolated power system we
had.
He said we had single faultswitching, which means when it
detects a condition it switchesover to isolated.

(27:40):
I said no, we don't.
We have an isolated systemthat's always isolated, which
means primaries come in,secondaries go out to the room
through a transformer.
There's no switching, it'salways isolated.
So anyway, I created one of myfirst videos ever was on
isolated power systems and tothis day it's one of my most

(28:01):
successful videos.
I have no idea how many views.
It's like thousands.
It might be worth looking intojust to be like see how far it's
to this day.
It's one of my most successfulvideos.
I have no idea how many viewsit's like thousands.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
It might be worth looking into just to be like see
how far it's came.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, how far is it.
But so anyway, I made thatvideo to train not only my
people but also to train theelectricians for the hospital
and what isolated systems are.
And you know, it's just one ofthose things where I used it.
And if you look at the timeline, from when I first started
making videos, I made a couplelike the whole first year.
But then I had like somecolleges reach out to me and ask

(28:33):
if it was okay to use thatvideo for isolated systems in
their college curriculum.
And this was electricalengineering school and I'm like
sure you can, okay.
And then some other peoplepeople wrote, said that they
would like to use it.
I've had many, many collegesand stuff use that that video.
It was just a microsoft paintdrawing behind me.
It was a microsoft paintdrawing of like what I think an

(28:56):
isolated system reallyencompasses and to this day it's
it's kind of lived up as astandard and it it was really
raw and I would like to redothat video.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
But when, uh when?
When justin was a a younger manyeah, it's not true, man.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
So I've been doing videos for six and a half years
now and, holy cow, I neverthought it was going to go where
it is today.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Folks never thought I'm looking at that video, right
so what would you say isprobably the most rewarding
feedback.
Or you know, someone reachedout to you specifically because
of your channel.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Oh man, so I'm sure you got several, but oh yeah, I
started keeping a map of ofpeople around the world that
were writing me and in fact,just this morning I had, uh,
somebody from latvia.
I had to look it up.
I knew it was part of it.
I just can't pinpoint where.
Yeah, russia, finland, it'sokay.
Yeah, okay, I'm not that goodat geography, but I looked it up

(29:52):
.
But anyway, I've had people allover the world write me about
this problem or that problem, oryou know, could I do something
like this or would I ever visitthis country?
And some of them are justislands in the middle of nowhere
.
But one thing I learned is thatthey have healthcare too right,
and they don't have biomedschools.
So who do you think repairsthat stuff?

(30:12):
It's going to be like some JoeSchmo that A lot of these
countries?

Speaker 1 (30:17):
yeah, because I get emails all the time too.
It's.
They're very much.
They're just taking it uponthemselves.
It's almost DIY, yes, which ismuch they're just taking it upon
themselves.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
It's, it's almost diy , yes uh, which is kind of scary
down there at the bottom.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Wow so yeah, you weren't kidding.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Microsoft paint, that's cool yeah it's just
microsoft paint, so 35 000 as ofright now, but um, it's.
It's one of those things whereI never thought I did all these
videos.
I never think they're going togo anywhere and I don't care.
That's just it Like I don'tcare.
Sometimes I would love to growthis channel and everything, but
it's more important that I getthe information out there.

(30:52):
So if one day, maybe in 10years from now, somebody Google
searches what is this, keywordsare going to find it and then
they're going to be helped.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
So I don't care how many people see it, as long as
that one day somebody finds it.
So I know you kind of touched alittle bit on what Better
Biomed has done for you, but inyour opinion, how would you say
that the channel has impactedyou professionally personally?

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Oh man, I am super thankful that my family has
allowed me to do what it takesto grow my brand and whatnot.
Even sounds weird to say thatto grow my brand, but it's true
because it takes a lot.
My wife has had to raise ourkids my kids.
When I go home, I try to spendas much time with them and stuff

(31:37):
because this is an extremelydemanding role.
I get emails all the time thatI'm trying to help people.
My job Companies are lookingfor a contractor that can help
with this or that.
I help a lot of people and it'sconstant.
Yesterday alone I had like adozen requests.
I'm still working on them, guys, I know, but the thing is I'm
super thankful that my familywas supportive enough to allow

(32:01):
me to grow it into what itpotentially could be.
It takes a lot of vision ontheir part, right, and that's
one of the things that peopledon't think about Now.
So that's how it's affected mepersonally.
It's also allowed me toappreciate the time that I have
with my family because I'mtraveling and stuff all the time
.
So when I come home, it'sdedicated time that we're out
goofing around.
We do a lot of family day tripsand stuff.

(32:23):
It's dedicated time we're outgoofing around, we do a lot of
family day trips and stuff.
It's really valuable time.
Probably wouldn't haverespected that time as much if
it wasn't for this.
Now, professionally, I know fora fact that I some people have
not hired me because they knowthat I do videos and they don't

(32:46):
want to deal with it.
You know, and some people don'tlike me as a person.
It's fine if you truly know whoI am.
I mean, I mean people know whoyou really are.
Hopefully after this episodethey will.
I mean I I'm, I'm a goofball,but at the same time I'm stern
and I mean I can be very directon things like very direct.
And you know I don't like whensomebody's lying to me about

(33:08):
something.
We can just be honest about itand, you know, figure out what
the real problem is, solve theproblem and press on with the
next thing.
So I'm really kind of easy toget along with, you know.
But I'm also an introvert, likeyou are, and that's the.
And that's another misconceptionis that when we're at trade
shows and stuff, I would love togo back to my room, edit some

(33:30):
video, watch a TV show orsomething and just chill.
But you only have this muchtime to go out and meet people.
Once you commit to doingsomething like social media,
you're also committing toupholding an image.
Yes, and people, they go therepurposely to talk to you, right,
and it's honoring theircommitment to supporting you.

(33:51):
So I mean there's I would loveto just go and not publicly
speak and all that.
I get nervous to this day whenI publicly speak, but at the
same time it's a rush and I getto meet so many cool people.
That's why I do.
It is because after the speechis done, people gather around
and we sit there and we talk forlike the next hour, sometimes
three or four hours, and that initself paid for the entire trip

(34:13):
.
Just made it worth it.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah, I know exactly where you're coming from when
you think of how I could startsome professional opportunities,
when you think of how I couldstunt some professional
opportunities.
But I've, luckily, you know,I've been in the same company
since I got out of the military.
But if I ever do make thattransition somewhere else, you
know I look at it as we are.
Our end goal is to providevalue to this profession.

(34:38):
So if a company is going tonegate giving us an opportunity
simply because we're puttingvideos out there which is
completely for the benefit ofthe profession, it's not for
anything else.
I mean, it happens and you know, just like you said, somebody
just doesn't want to deal with,uh, the possible maybe interests

(35:00):
it's conflict of interest back.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, who knows why?
And and the fact of matter is,doesn't matter yeah, which a lot
of that stuff can.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
If it really is a concern, you can hash that out
through a conversation easily.
Sure you don't think I've hadthat conversation with my
company about what I'm doing andwhat my purpose is.
Wait, as soon as ceo got windof it, sat down and had meeting
in the boardroom that I knew, uh, and to this day, like two
separate parties, it'sunderstood like and we're good.

(35:28):
That's why a lot of y'all stilldon't know who I work for.
It's designed that way, but I'mproud of who I work for.
I'd otherwise I wouldn't bewith them.
I'm only going to work forpeople that I think have good
people and are trying to do theright thing and uplift and
continue to do great things.
So, just like I, I assume whyyou went to BC, which we'll get,
we'll get with a next.
So before we get into that, Iwant to know what is next on the

(35:49):
horizon for better biomed, ohman.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
So I, I work on a lot of stuff behind the scenes guys
, a lot of stuff.
So while I have like somerespites between videos, like
maybe a week or so, in that timeI'm working on other projects.
Sometimes that project ishelping a company with a product
.
Sometimes it's it's findingsome people you know to do a job
.
Sometimes it's college iswriting me and they're like hey,

(36:15):
can you help us with, you know,create a curriculum or
something?
I do a lot of stuff on the sideand one of the things that I've
been working on pretty heavilyis betterbiomedcom and I want
again, I like competitive, I'mvery competitive and I like to
have an open forum.
Right now I'm getting about38,000 to 40,000 views per month

(36:39):
on average and that number hasbeen going up pretty steadily.
But the thing is that's a lotof power 30 to 40 thousand views
and that means that I can dothings like advertisements, um,
and I can also help more people.
I can help people find jobs.
I've got some really cool stuffcoming up next week.

(36:59):
I've always wanted to do ask theexperts, where we actually do a
live stream.
We bring in the people thatliterally wrote the book and we
ask them questions live, get allyour questions asked, and I
mean, some of these people arevery influential on, like, big
name companies, maybe even likethe FDA and stuff, and if we can

(37:20):
ask them the questions directly, maybe it's something they
never thought of.
They're only human, right,right, and how cool is that?
Like even medical testequipment, you bring in a design
engineer and then you can askthem all the questions about,
like, why does it have thisfeature?
I really wish it could do that.
Let's solve it.
I mean we might be able toimplement it within a week, who
knows, until the question'sasked.
So betterbiomedcom, I've got ajob forum and I've got two

(37:45):
different types of jobs that aregoing to be posted.
One of them are W-2s and one ofthem is going to be gigs and
gigs are 1099s.
So where the field is going,yeah, and I've always wanted to
do a talent pool and I broughtthis up to other large job
websites and stuff that we needto have a talent pool.
It was originally my idea, andthe talent pool is, let's say,
you are trained on Draegeranesthesias and you live in

(38:08):
Texas.
Well, if that case, you'retrained on Draeger anesthesia,
you're in Texas.
Well, I'm in Massachusetts andI've got a contract over in,
let's say, houston on someDraeger anesthesias.
I'm going to go into the talentpool and I'm going to go into
the talent pool and I'm going tofind all the people that have
signed up for talent pool and ifyou're open for side gigs, I

(38:29):
mean one weekend's worth of work.
Here's how this works.
I had one gentleman, very goodfriend of mine, who does
ventilators.
He works his butt off.
A Nigerian fellow Dude is thehardest working biomed I've ever
met in my life and anyway, Isaid I've got an opportunity for
you.
It's up in Dallas, so you hadto drive five hours away and I

(38:49):
said I have 30 of theseventilators but they have to be
serviced.
I got to get them done withinthe next week.
He says, let's do it, captain.
I said all right, man, and sohe took off work on Friday and
he drove up Thursday night andby the Monday he had all the
service reports in my hand and Iwrote him a $10,000 check

(39:10):
because I was working foranother company at the time.
But he had a $10,000 checkafter one long weekend worth of
work and then he just went backto work like it was normal.
By Monday morning he went backto work.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
So he worked his ass off all weekend but he had a 10k
check right and see that thatgoes back to like.
You know you're talking aboutlike, speaking of a brand, like,
even if you don't have betterbiomed logo, bearded biomed logo
you as a technician, especiallydoing 1099 work, you are your
own brand.
You, you have a skill set thatother people are looking for.
They presently cannot fill fora particular situation, and this
is across the United States.

(39:47):
So what Justin is alluding to,anybody has the capability of
doing it's, just do you want todo it and it can be very
fruitful, very quickly.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
In fact, could you imagine only working two or
three days a week?

Speaker 1 (40:04):
And making three, four times the amount of money
that you do now.
Oh for sure, yeah for sure.
Now it's not guaranteed income,there's not the health
insurance, all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
But yeah, I, I mean, but then again, I mean, like I
said, as we get older, you know,we learn that it's not about
how much money you make, it'sabout your time, right, and, and
I keep telling, I would take apay cut if it meant I could have
more of my personal time,because there was times there
where I was working 10, 20 hoursa week on overtime.

(40:30):
I mean one year I had like$30,000 worth of overtime.
And I can remember the day mywife said when we go to this
next job, you're not going to bedoing that.
I said really.
She says, well, well, I don'twant to be a single parent
anymore.
I said, oh, that hit me.
It hit me hard, man, because II love spending time with my
kids, so, so how do you balancethat how?

Speaker 1 (40:51):
how have you balanced the professional and personal
life?
Because that it's hard for anyof us when you're talking that
amount of overtime well, that's.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
That's one of the things that I'm super grateful
for.
Bc is because that wasdefinitely part of the
discussion is I didn't want tobe like, constantly on the road.
I mean I could find a jobanywhere that does that.
I mean I could be making$30,000, $40,000 more a year
tomorrow if I wanted to be onthe road all the time.
I mean there's no shortage ofthose opportunities.

(41:21):
Be on the road all the time.
I mean that's there, there's noshortage of those opportunities
.
But the guys at BC that it's afamily run company and because
of that they super respect everyone of their employees and they
laid down their expectations onme of like how much vacation
time they expect me to take andwhatnot.
And it's, it's so cool thatthat you've got somebody that is
going to like uphold that likeyou're gonna finally take a

(41:43):
vacation, you know, and I've hada vacation years, folks but uh,
yeah, so I.
It is a balancing act because Ilove going out meeting you guys
and at these trade shows, ifyou see me advertise them, do
not hesitate to come up and justsay, hi, I'm there for you, I'm
not there for me, you nut, youknow so.

(42:04):
And there's so many times where, like people are like across
the room, something like that.
It's like come on, come on over, but I just I'm.
If I spend time away from myfamily, there's a sacrifice, and
that sacrifice is is that timethat I value so much.
I'm spending it there for youand let's, let's make the best
of that time, guys.
And and I love visitinghospitals.

(42:25):
I visit people's workshops,their businesses and students'
schools.
You know I love doing thisstuff, but it is tough to
balance it out because my kidsvideo conferencing has helped.
I do video calls with my kidsevery night and that has been
super helpful, you know, becauseI got my youngest daughter same
age as yours.
She's two, going to be three.

(42:45):
They're at the age where, like,they're like like almost crying
on the other side of the phone.
It's like, oh my God, guys,he's still a mama's boy right
now.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
We'll get there.
I did it.
We have fun when it's just us,but if mom's in the room, mom
comes first.
So what would you say?
Or who would you say has beenyour biggest influence, or
mentor, or biome interesting,it's a good question um, and you
have multiple people yeah, weall have some.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
It's going to be multiples because I've had
multiple stages in my career,all right.
So in the military, especiallyin the air force, we have a
structured mentorship right, andthat's why I'm so adamant.
That we need structure in ourprofessional career as a skilled
trade is because the militaryenforces that, like, you will
only do this until you'retrained to do that and in doing

(43:37):
so, it gives you a little bit ofa break mentally.
You're only going to do thistask and you build confidence
right.
So I I had some really goodmentors when I got started and,
um, enough, being militarybiomeds, I still see these guys
every once in a while, which isso cool.
People that knew me as a juniorbiomed.

(43:59):
One of them he's running awhole chain of hospitals over in
south carolina and I went anddid a contract there last year
and I was like sergeant joiner,but I went up, I gave him a hug
and everything and you know hewas an e7 and I was just an e1,
you know yeah and now, like Iwas vice president of a company
and I was going around running,that's the coolest part is the

(44:21):
military community of biomeds,because you're, you're so, so
used to seeing them.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
you know, when you're in uniform and you've deployed
with them and you've done thisand that with them, and then you
see them years later down theline, you know, just in regular
clothes, doing regular thingscivilian folks do, and it's like
it's a different world almost.
But it brings you back to, likeyou know, good times.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Oh for sure.
So one of my first mentors thatSergeant Joyner was my first
mentor, because as soon as I gotout of AIT or bio-med school,
you know that that was my firstimpression of what a senior
leader does, right?
He's also a very calm,demeanored person and his
expectations were veryreasonable.
I love that about him andSergeant Joyner is probably
going to see this.
To be honest, after that I wentto Germany for a while and then

(45:07):
I ran my own biomed shop out ofnowhere.
So I went from working with thearmy for three and a half years
and then I went to run my ownbiomed shop and some satellite
clinics which was wild and I hadone gentleman I overlapped with
there.
His name was John McKnight andhe showed me gentleman I
overlapped with there.
His name was John McKnight andhe showed me what it's like to
run a biomed shop.

(45:27):
In other words, I would havebeen thrown to the wolves.
That's why I love talking toyou guys that run your own shops
and you have no idea whatyou're doing, because I've been
there, right, and I know thepanic and the expectations and
the gravity of the situation.
So John McKnight was one ofthem.
And then I have another mentor.
When I got out, when you're amilitary person and you get out

(45:50):
so suddenly, like I did, becauseof my lung collapsed and I was
just kicked out of the militaryone day, you know, like my,
that's the end.
I didn't know what it was liketo be a civilian again and I
don't think civilians understandthat.
That is a very dramatic change.
Right, I showed up in a poloshirt or a button-up shirt.
It was a button-up shirt but itwasn't tucked in.

(46:12):
Right, it was a very nicebutton-up shirt but it was, you
know, outside my belt line andit looked very professional, but
it wasn't tucked in.
I went up to the door and oneof the senior biomeds stopped me
at the door and says tuck yourshirt in, bub.
And he was a very gruffindividual.
His name was Von Busby and hewas a Navy CME who became a

(46:33):
biomed, military biomed, youknow, old school, right, and he
was a very gruff individual andhe was very serious.
But, mind you guys, I said dadwas about was a uh, military, uh
, ring corps drill instructor.
So I'm used to that, right, Iget along very well with people
like that.
So him and I became really goodfriends and he taught me a lot.

(46:54):
Um, I remember the day he saidyou don't know what hl7 is clue.
I know clue hl7 was because themilitary, you're only taught
what you need to know to do yourmission and then you press on
to the next thing.
That's why I've been a um, I'vebeen a strong supporter of
everyday education is because Irealized that I thought I knew

(47:17):
everything, as we all do untilyou don't right.
I got out of the military and Ididn't know all this stuff and
Vaughn worked with me on likecardiology.
He worked with me showing methe theory behind things and
that meant a lot to me.
You know, to have that kind ofmentor with very strict
standards, you know, because hewas hardcore dude.
However, at the same time, hewas like a brother to me or a

(47:39):
father figure, and and I he wasa good dude and to this day I
still keep up with him, eventhough he's retired.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
So what would you say is the biggest misconception
people have about you?

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Oh man, I've had people, people come.
I have had people come up to me.
Hold on you.
They come up to me and they'relike I thought you were such an
asshole or they'll.
They'll say something like um,I always thought that you were
such a dick online or so fake,and they don't realize I really
am that much of a nerd in reallife that I really am like this.

(48:13):
I mean my kids, my kids.
They don't understand why, likeI go to shows and whatnot.
Like my daughter says, whywould anybody want to talk to
you?
That's how that's like dagger,I don't know what they do.
So I mean, the thing is you'renot a cool dad.
Why are they gonna talk to you?
I'm the I'm the most nerd dad.

(48:33):
Like my kids do all sorts ofstuff with me.
I'm sorry to keep bringing upmy kids, but that's like.
I love training people and anyparent.
It's your responsibility totrain the next generation and
and you've got this young humanbeing that is curious about
everything you're doing.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
It's so awesome what do you when all this is done?
What do you hope?
The legacy when you leave it,when you retire, is going to be
news well, while the betterbiomed channel will go on
forever.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
If I I'd say this all the time, if I died today on my
drive back home, I wouldactually have accomplished my
purpose, because one of my whenI got started six and a half
years ago, social media evenLinkedIn wasn't really much of a
thing.
Okay, people weren't using itfor the tool that it can be for
networking and for sharingknowledge at lightning fast

(49:28):
feeds and I have.
I have been firm and fightingthat for years that you know
youtube is.
There's no better opportunityto share information in a
truncated form.
I can show you how to do acomplete pm in 10 minutes,
something that would take youhours to learn in a book.
Entire semester can be taughttheory of electrical and quantum

(49:51):
physics.
You can go on youtube and youcan learn it in about an hour.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
It's crazy it's, it's just so.
A lot of us, as biomeds too, welearn by putting our hands on
stuff or being able to actuallyrealize and see it.
You know, if you're gettinginto a textbook, like some of
that, like learning electricaltheory, while some of it's
interesting, it can, it's, it's,it's like I, I, I don't miss, I
don't miss those days, but Iappreciate them.

(50:16):
I understand it was.
It was building a foundation.
You know you have your, yourcontent where, like, like you
said, the, I did one.
It was a.
I was working on a stairsharmony light replacing LEDs,
like I had never done thatbefore, and I I had to learn
some of the intricacies ofactually taking it apart without
damaging it.
And I the first thought thatcame to my mind was somebody out

(50:38):
there is going to be in my sameposition and they're not going
to know about a couple of thingsthey need to be aware of.
Otherwise it's going to end up,you know, creating equipment
downtime longer, even if youbreak it live on camera, at
least somebody will see.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Shoot, that's how you break it.
It's, I've caught shit on firelike right, right, and the thing
is.
So here's the thing.
We're a skilled trade, right,we don't have a regular uh, what
do they call it?
It's, it's a craftsman systemor a uh apprenticeship
apprenticeship yeah, we don't.
We don't have a real pro like,yeah, the gm system, we don't

(51:15):
have that.
The reason you have ajourneyman is because you have
somebody that follows along.
They they learn some of yourwork ethic, but mainly they
learn your process, right,that's what?
They're there with you and theysee how you communicate, how
you do every, every detail.
If we don't have that, how dothey learn that?
So when I do troubleshooting,my troubleshooting is different
than yours.
It's different than everybody's, because everybody has to

(51:37):
develop their owntroubleshooting.
It's a wiring between here andhere and nobody can teach you
how to do that.
You have to develop it on yourown.
You can see how I do mine andyou can see how I react when
things don't go the way I expect.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
My wire's got one resistor in it, yours probably
got like a Wheatstone bridge orsome shit.
I know how your mind works,yeah, but that's just it.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
That's why I like doing live streams is because
people can see your process.
They can see it live and Ithink it's complete, and they
can see it at their leisure andcome back on it later.
It's the most amazing thing,and at their leisure yeah, come
back on it later.
It's, it's the most amazingthing, and I wish so many of you
guys would would start doingmore, more video and stuff,
because that's how we fix thishealth care system.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
So there's something that, like you're hitting
everything on the head there,like when I what I'm trying to
relay all the the mistakes I'vemade throughout my career to
younger technicians andhopefully they absorb it.
But like when you are talkingto these younger tech cause I
get reached out to all the timefrom either people that just got

(52:41):
into the biomed program, havejust graduated, just hit their
first job, like majority of thepeople that watch me, listen to
me, are new people getting intothe field.
Yeah, I got folks that havebeen doing it, that watch me and
you know, and hopefully theyget something from it too, but
the goal is to educate the nextgen.
So when you were talking tosome of these folks, what's some
of the advices or what advicewould you give them that are

(53:03):
getting into?

Speaker 2 (53:04):
this field.
So the leading questions I'vedone videos on how do I get
ahead in this field.
I did a whole video on thethree things you need to know,
and one of them was electricaltheory, one of them was anatomy
physiology and the other one wasparts of the hospital which you
can all learn without beingthere.
You can learn all those onYouTube over the course of a

(53:24):
weekend.
However, you learn those things, you're going to get ahead.
So I get that one all the timehow do I get a job?
I can't get a job.
Well, have you networked withanybody?
What do you mean by that?
Well, on LinkedIn, do you havea LinkedIn profile?
No, I don't.
Nobody ever has a LinkedInprofile.
I was like, yeah, okay, stepone, I can't.
If you talk to me at a tradeshow, I'll say what's your

(53:44):
LinkedIn?
I promise you LinkedIn becausenot only can you see what I want
to say, I can see what you wantto say.
So if you say one day I'mlooking for a new opportunity,
does anybody know of anything, Iwill share your post.

(54:05):
I share almost every one ofthose because now a huge amount
of people can see you andLinkedIn is such a valuable tool
, not just for marketing and allthat, but I mean it's just it's
not the cool thing to the newgeneration is, but a same token
is the professional platformthat everybody like I.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
I've I've gotten so many job offers over the years.
They said, hey, I saw you onlinkedin.
Do you want to interview forthat?
Like your?
Yeah, we have the resumeprocess but, to be honest,
resumes have almost become anoutdated thing because they are
assessing you based oneverything that's online about
you.
Now, obviously, if you're new,you're just graduating, there's

(54:42):
not going to be a lot about you,which is why you want to have a
LinkedIn to start thatfootprint.
So it was actually brought up tome.
Yesterday I had a meeting witha gentleman and he was saying I
noticed your LinkedIn.
You don't have a LinkedIn.
That's for Bearded Biomed.
I said no, my LinkedIn is ChaseTorres and I put everything

(55:03):
that I'm about on there.
I am Bearded Biomed, I am mybrand, I am also a manager of
the company I work for.
I am also a board member ofHTMA, I'm all these things, and
you want everybody to see a 360encapsulated view of who you are
.
So if you were not on LinkedIn,if you were just assuming that
somebody is going to hire youbecause of what you have on your

(55:26):
Snapchat, which I don't evenknow if that's, or your TikTok,
which obviously has gone awaynow.
I've never done both of those,so I don't know?

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Yeah, but you hire people and I hired a lot of
people.
If you get an applicant, do youlook them up on?

Speaker 1 (55:39):
LinkedIn Every single applicant.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
I look up every single one, Five Every single
time to see who you'reaffiliated with, because you can
see their connections.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
I also.
If you came from a prior biomedjob, more than likely I know
that person.
That's right, and I asked themabout you.
Don't burn any bridges, guys.
We talk.
I know a lot of directors outthere.
I know a lot of managers outthere.
If I don't know them, I'llstill reach out to them because
we have no problem sharing thatas leaders.
Don't burn your bridge.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
I can't.
I had this conversationyesterday with somebody who owns
a multi-million dollar company.
I told them like wheneversomebody sees somebody from
texas or air force, they're likedo you know this person?
What were they like?
They always think that everyair force person knows every
other air force.
Yeah, yeah, and we almost do,but that's beside the point.
Anybody that comes from texaslike even like waco or something

(56:28):
, they're like do you know thatperson?
And and I'm talking likewashington, washington state,
some really far off locations,ohio they're asking me do you
know this person?
They're over in texas, so weall talk.
That's the crazy thing.
People don't realize that.
That's also a good thing foryou, because if you're active on
linkedin like, let's say, youlike my, one of my posts, or you

(56:49):
ask me a question about hey,what do you mean about
electrical safeties or something, you know you interact with
people.
Let's say somebody postssomething on medical logistics
or robots or something, and youask them like hey, what does
that really mean?
When it says this, somebodywill spell it out for you and
they're happy to do so.
I've asked some pretty stupidquestions on there, maybe even

(57:11):
questions that I knew the answerto.
But I, if somebody shows like aburnt board.
Even though I know what thatpart is, I'll still ask the
question because then everybodyelse is going to see the answer
and they're going to see thatyou are an authority in that
field.
So that's because you know theanswer.
You're an authority now andthat's why it's all about

(57:31):
starting those conversations onLinkedIn, and if you are active
on LinkedIn, you're going tomake $5,000 to $10,000 more than
an equal person.
Guaranteed.
It's just because you're goingto have more opportunities.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
Yeah, you're also.
It's easier to sell you, tohire you too, because I mean,
they see your product, they seewhat they're buying Absolutely,
and your representation of thatorganization, that company that
is possibly looking to hire you,which is also like what we
alluded to as well.
We are also, you know, eitheruplifting ourself or screwing

(58:05):
ourselves with opportunities,but that's the path we have
chosen.
So we had talked about earlierthat state.
From that state, from thetransition and to the point
where you are now.
When I conversations we've hadover the past years, I at least
know that you have minimumexpectations, that you hold
yourself to other companies, toyour colleagues, et cetera.

(58:26):
I think that's also why maybesome people have the
misconception that you're anasshole, which I know you're not
.
You just have standards.
I mean, I don't know I could beRegardless or not, when I think
of that spot where you knowanother colleague of ours, ria,
she experienced somethingsimilar and you had a fall.

(58:47):
I don't know if you call it afallout or not, but you know,
the thing that caught me was alot of people would probably
agree with me and say that whenI think of phobia, you were the
face of phobia.
Okay, just because when I hadinteractions, when I needed
something for vote, it was you.
When I saw that and you were inthe space, you were at it.
Just you know you don't have toget into anything specific but

(59:09):
what was that that wholeexperience like for you?
I know you alluded to it alittle bit and then you know
where you're at today with bcgroup and I.
I know those those guys as well.
You know you ended up in a goodspace and just you know, kind
of walk us through a little bitof what that was like and I
guess what happened.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
that you're comfortable with, obviously oh
well, it's really kind of acomplex answer, but I'll tell
you one thing, 100% for sure Iam so thankful for phobia.
You know some people wouldthink like I'd be upset angry.
There's nothing to be upset orangry about.
I am so thankful for phobia andhere's why I could think 100
reasons.

(59:46):
But I was an in-house biomed.
I was pretty good at managingcontracts, creating contracts
and stuff like that.
But there's a whole businessside to what we do.
Even if I wanted to push betterbiomed into being a business,
you have to be at a business inorder to really see all the

(01:00:07):
intricate details, becausemedical businesses are not like
typical small businesses.
There's a lot of forms that youhave to have.
You have to have your W-9, yourStark forms and there's a lot
of process to becoming a primevendor and stuff like that.
The fact that I learned aboutthat because of phobia and
because it opened so many doorsand what phobia did is it gave

(01:00:31):
me the opportunity to learn whata business is and I hired so
many years that I worked withthem.
My channel went from like I waslike at 6,000, something like

(01:00:58):
that 7,000 when I started withthem, 21,000 when I left.
I mean that's.
You have to say like that's,because they gave me a lot of
opportunities, they gave me somereasonably good content in
order to quadruple my size right?
So I learned a lot and Iinteracted with so many people
during that time period and I'mactually very thankful for that.

(01:01:20):
Was the timing pretty shitty,yeah, I mean sucked right before
the holidays and everything.
However, one of the things thatI I absolutely am is I'm a
stark capitalist and I honestlybelieve that if you have a
business, it's yourresponsibility every single

(01:01:41):
person in that business to makethe decisions that are going to
keep it going forward.
And what I was doing at thetime is I was getting companies
like Samsung and BC Group andall these companies.
They were constantly calling meand want me to come and tour
their company or am I going togo do this show or that show?
And the the owner of phobia, we.

(01:02:03):
We had a phone conversation onemorning and he said uh, hey,
justin, your better biomed hasbeen taken off.
It's been pretty successful andand he's like it's been pretty
successful and and he's like butyour focus is more it seems to
be more on better biomed than onphobia.
And he's like I think it's bestthat we part ways, and if it
wasn't for him doing that, Imight have stayed a phobia for

(01:02:24):
another five years, which thatcan really kind of limit you.
And I think that about all jobslike, if you stay in one job
for like 10, 20 years, I'll tellyou for a fact you're being
limited for fact, eithermentally, personally, you're
going to get complacent.
There's a lot of things I reallylike being active on the job

(01:02:45):
market and being competitive,because that constantly makes
you push the limit and and so itpushed me to way higher pay and
I can meet way cooler people.
And now I have a directinfluence on the test equipment
that you guys use every singleday Test equipment I've used for
20 years, and now I'm there,I've seen it, I'm dealing with

(01:03:05):
it in my hands, I'm helping themdevelop the operating system on
the devices.
So the graphical interface isexactly how a technician needs
it to be.
It's so cool to have theseopportunities and I never would
have had those opportunities ifit wasn't for phobia saying, hey
, you've been really good atdoing better biomed, we want you
to keep doing that, and I thinkwhat it was.

(01:03:26):
Because here's something else Inever would have done public
speaking if it wasn't for phobia.
The week I started with phobiawhen there was an HTMA
association out there in Houstonand I just started with them
and they wanted me to give thepresentation at the local HTMA.
I had never been to the HoustonHTMA at that time, but it was

(01:03:47):
my first time ever going, sothere was a whole bunch of
people I didn't know who theywere right, very, very nervous.
Here's the gravity of the wholething.
Let's say I went there and Igave a bad presentation, choked
on stage, whatever right, allthe leaders of all the Houston
hospitals were at that meeting.
What are the chances that I amunemployable?

(01:04:08):
If I just embarrassed phobia infront of everybody at the HTMA,
I'd have to move to anothercity.
Think about that.
That was a make or break for meat that moment and I did it
because keith, who is a militaryprofessional I think he does
the military thing, which is youset somebody up and uh, see if
they fail or not.
Right, because that's themilitary way.

(01:04:29):
You give them just enough powerto see if they're gonna to.
They almost fail, and then you,you bolster them, which.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Failure is not a bad thing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
It's the opportunity to low, and and I wasso
nervous because I knew thegravity of the situation.
I knew that if I failed at thatpublic speaking which I was I
told you guys I'm very nervousabout doing public speaking.
I knew if I failed that speech,not only would I probably not
have a job at phobia anymore,but I would be unemployable at
all those hospitals Every singledirector, it's those major

(01:04:58):
hospitals.
They were there and I slammedthat speech out of the.
That speech was I did soawesome.
On that speech, I tell you what,if I get up on stage, I commit
like there's no going back.
I completely commit.
When I get up in front of Icommit Like there's no going
back.
I completely commit when I getup in front of people.
And it all started because ofthat.
One day Keith said I want youto do this and you see my wall.

(01:05:22):
I've got all these badges andstuff for all the places I spoke
at.
I've been flown around thecountry speaking at events in
front of hundreds of people andstuff.
It's all because Keith, at Fobi, did that one thing.
He said I want you to do thisand he set me up and I did it,
man.
So, um, that's why I'm I'm I'ma stark supporter.
You know, uh, it's just phobiaknew that I was growing maybe a

(01:05:46):
little too fast for them and wejust we just split ways.
But it opened doors.
So I told you guys earlier that, like I always am opening doors
, maybe I'm opening doors foryou.
You know, that's just it.
An open door isn't necessarilyfor you personally, it could be
for somebody else.
And I had this amazingconversation with Jake yesterday
.

(01:06:06):
Jake owns I meant biomedical.
I was telling him that there'sa lot of us in this age bracket,
right, and we're coming to theage where now we're starting to
run stuff right, and we all kindof know each other and we're
bringing each other up and we'reall going to be very successful
, every single one of us,because we stay in a close-knit

(01:06:27):
group.
We all activate on social media, we all text each other like
when they're breaking news orsomething, and I mean these are
they're I'm not saying just likeus, there's like, imagine, like
10 or 12 of us across thecountry.
We're all.
A lot of us are prior militaryand we're all of the same age
group and we are all going to bevery successful and we're gonna

(01:06:50):
.
We're gonna make a lot of youguys successful too, because I
think we have a different way ofdoing business than our people.
That came before us likethere's, there's a lot of people
.
When I got, when I started withfoby, I started learning that a
lot of the people that owncompanies they don't like
working with other companiesyeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
it's like they're almost territorial, whereas
we're about I'm gonna use acringy word synergy, but
collaboration, yeah, I like thatbetter.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
Absolutely.
It's old mentality versus newmentality.
I've had contracts that areworth hundreds of thousands of
dollars that I've given to otherpeople and in the end it
created a much stronger workingenvironment and because my
customer was handled in a fasterway, I was able to get repeat
business from that customer,because I Customer.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
but you know what that collaboration makes patient
care better, makes it safer, ituplifts everything.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Yep.
So I think that it's a huge,huge pie and we can all get a
piece of it.
But if we start workingtogether sharing information,
like a lot of old heads wantedto like, they want to keep their
information, not share it withanybody.
That's the number one complaintI've had throughout doing
YouTube is a lot of juniors arelike nobody wants to train me on
anything.
It's because a lot of peoplethey think that that's their job

(01:08:02):
security is to withholdinformation, and I am the exact
opposite.
I think my job security isbecause I know a lot of people
that can do a lot of things andbecause of that I can make some
magic happen in 24 hoursConnections, networking, 100%.
I can make a lot of thingshappen, and that's why I'm
saying like a lot of us thathave started working together on

(01:08:22):
things we can do, likemulti-million dollar projects,
and I don't even have to leavethis room.
I could pick up my phone andstart calling people and be like
, hey, I need this to happen.
And there's all these peoplethat they sense your energy and
they sense your commitment andand they want on the boat, you
know, and that is so awesomeit's, it's like infectious and

(01:08:43):
that's what I really love.
So, yeah, man, it's been reallygood guys and and life is
getting better.
It's going to get better foryou guys too, because what we're
doing is we're setting a trendin this industry.
I, I will admit, I was one ofthe first ones.
When I started doing YouTube,people told me they're going to
laugh at you and and you're?
You're never going to be ableto get a job again because

(01:09:04):
you're putting yourself outthere in front of the entire
community.
You'll you'll.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
You'll get the occasional.
I still get occasional negativestuff from other biomeds out
there.
I from other biomeds out there.
I'm like you don't have towatch me, yeah, yeah, yeah, like
there's.
There's one that continues likeevery now and then, like once a
year, he'll.
He'll comment, like you know,the bearded thing's stupid, oh
yeah I'm like say that it's yourbrand.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
It's like purposely shaved my beard, like before I
came here, I I was growing outsome scruff and I was like nah
that's his brand.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
I'm gonna shave.
I don't even address it, i'm'mjust like.
You're like beard's, never athing.
I don't even know why you'retrying to like make it a noun
verb, whatever.
I'm like don't watch me, Idon't care.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
It's like everybody knows you, yeah, how many people
know him.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Every conference I go to.
Nobody knows me as Chase, I ambearded guy.
Yes, I've heard people say thatto you.
Nobody knows my name, they justcall me the you're you're the
guy, that's the bearded thing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
You, you have your brand, dude, and it is what it
is.
You know, no, I I think it's.
It's probably a more successfulbranding than me.
Like, everybody knows thechannel and everything, but you
see the logo and you see thatmore people probably know that
logo than they know my logo, Imean.
But uh, at the same time, like,people know my face and whatnot
, so I guess that's kind of awin.
Hey, your face is your logo.

(01:10:18):
Yeah, although I I walk intoplaces, yeah, man, I need to
take you with me when, when wego into some hospitals.
I might be touring somehospitals today here in dallas
and the thing is I always getthe double take like, and
everybody's like weirded out atthe beginning.
They're like I'll talk tosomebody for like five or 10
minutes.
I've talked to somebody for 30minutes before and they're like

(01:10:39):
where do I know you from?
And it's like I don't know.
I've done a couple of YouTubevideos and they're like that's
it.
It was like I'm kidding, I'vedone like 1300 videos.
It's not a couple of you nut.
Yeah, it's been good.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
So I, I, I know just like how much of a time crutch,
commitment, just everythingthere.
We always have something movingalong, we always have multiple
projects going on, we have ourfamily lives, we have our day to
day.
Thank you for coming here,cause I know I don't take that
for granted.
I appreciate you being here andI, you know I love seeing you

(01:11:19):
get a new breath at you know,moving on and uplifting, and you
know I see on the horizon justsome cool stuff you're going to
be doing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
We're definitely going to do some cool stuff,
guys, and this is a hugeopportunity for me because I've
always wanted to come up hereand we've been planning this out
for a long time, as we alreadysaid.
And, guys, I just want to say,if you ever see us at
conferences, come up and say hi,let's go out and grab a beer.
We're there to say hi, yes,let's go out and grab a beer or
something.
Let's do a lunch, let's have atalk, because some of the best

(01:11:50):
content I've ever created hasbeen from you guys and we need
this interaction because we onlysee what we see.
You know, if it's something inour periphery that you're
specialized in, let's do it.
We're going to start doing morelive streams and stuff.
We're going to do somecollaboration projects and, as
this industry starts takingsocial media more seriously,

(01:12:12):
then we are going to open upmany opportunities for a lot of
you guys.
A lot of these younger guys arefantastic at social media.
It's just they don't knowenough.
Yep, but all you got to be ismaybe a little charismatic more
than us and have a microphone ora telephone and maybe you and
people think you got to have allthis fancy gear.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
I didn't start out with all this stuff.
I mean, I probably bought someof it more quickly than I should
have, but there's so muchtechnology in your phone
nowadays you don't need all thisstuff to start.
No, I just need your phone.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
I record almost all my videos now for my phone.
Actually, I record all myvideos now for my phone because
I sold all my bigger cameras andnow they got really nice
gimbals and stuff.
Now gimbal is the device thatstabilizes it, but now it's like
with AI and stuff, so it knowsfacial recognitions.
It'll track you around the room.
There's such cool technologyNow.

(01:13:04):
Microphones are getting tiny.
I've seen the ones that looklike a button and they're
wireless.
Man, that's some new stuffcoming out.
But, guys, there's there's somecool stuff coming out.
But, guys, there's some coolstuff coming out.
It takes little to no energy tostart Start building your brand.
Start being part of thecommunity.
Be active, even if you justanswer some questions on
LinkedIn or something.
Be active in this community andsay hi and if you have any

(01:13:26):
questions, write me at justin,at betterbiomidcom and visit
betterbiomidcom.
It's a project.
It's still in the works, butyou will see that there's
constant things.
I'm going to have an eventcalendar.
I'm going to have a forum wherewe can ask questions and get
them answered.
I've got a section where youcan post yourself as a 1099,
post W2 jobs, and it's all aboutbringing people together

(01:13:49):
without having like all thesefees and stuff and allow people
to have a voice.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
That's what this is all about.
Thank you for joining us today.
Appreciate you sitting down.
You actually get to see where Imake magic happen.
Yeah, this is pretty cool, orlack thereof, and again, we'll
do this again in the future, Ithink.
Uh, you know, we'll have tomaybe do like a centennial or
like every five, ten years,something like that, and sit
back down, all right, what hashappened since then?

(01:14:15):
Oh well, we got a few more grayhairs.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
You got to come to Houston next and maybe we'll do
a live stream from Texas MedicalCenter or something.
Some of the biggest hospitalsin the world are here in Texas
and and good food, yeah, yeah.
But anyway, guys, it's apleasure.
Thanks for watching and I doappreciate it.
Stay in touch.
I love you, guys, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
So y'all be sure to follow Justin on all his
platforms.
Like you said betterbiomedcom,of course.
Check out his YouTube channelAlso.
Check out Take it Apart.
You want to see him take apartall different kinds of stuff.
I watch that on a case as well.
Some neat things there the showlistening, spotify, apple,

(01:14:57):
youtube.
Appreciate you supporting asalways like, subscribe, share,
follow.
May the beard be with you.
I'll check you out next time.

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