From Factory Floor to IT Director: Brandon Hurst’s Journey of Innovation, AI, and Leadership

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are the cap for whatever goes on in your store,
in your company, in yourdistrict, in your household.
However excited you are, whatyou believe is possible,
whatever that threshold is.
Hey team, jim Cripps here withthe Charge 4 podcast.

(00:23):
I have a great treat for youtoday Mr Brandon Hurst.
He is the Director of IT andBusiness Systems at Troy
Industries.
They're a small armsmanufacturer here in Middle
Tennessee and I'm excited tohave him on the show.
Brandon, welcome.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Thank you.
It's good to be here.
I've been enjoying your podcastevery week and it's good to
come down and talk to you.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, man, so small arms manufacturer.
I mean, is that you guys workwith Lego, or what I mean?
Tell us about that.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, it's not quite that simple.
So Steve Troy started thecompany.
He's a former military, formerstate trooper, had an idea for
sights that would go on your gunand started the company that
way and it's grown into anactual manufacturer of arms.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
That's fantastic man, and they're in Clarksville
Tennessee.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yes, the company relocated to Clarksville from
Massachusetts almost four yearsago now.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Okay, and then you relocated to Clarksville from
Gosha Illinois, Gosha Indiana,Gosha Indiana.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Gosha Indiana correct , northern Indiana, kind of like
that Notre Dame territory.
Okay yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
And were you looking to move to Clarksville, or how
did that all play out?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I don't believe that I had heard of Clarksville,
tennessee, at that point.
Obviously, everybody knowswhere Nashville is at, but it
wasn't exactly something I waslooking to do at the time.
No, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
So I mean, how did you end up here?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I worked at a company , a successful door company,
running the IT department upthere, and we were so successful
that we were purchased by a bigpublicly traded company.
Were so successful that we werepurchased by a big, publicly
traded company.
Um, uh, you know, that was good, good for the owners.
But, uh, you know, the bigcompanies don't typically buy
companies for the people.

(02:13):
You know they're buying thebusiness and the machinery and
the plants.
Um, so it was really, you know,time to look for something else
at that point.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay, I gotcha.
And you know when, when theyI'm assuming you moved for this
job.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yes, A recruiter happened to reach out to me
around that time, so it was.
It was really good timing.
I did some research onClarksville.
I saw that it was, you know,listed as one of the best places
in America to live.
Sounded interesting.
So you know, almost four yearslater, here we are.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
And I remember you telling me when we talked before
that you really didn't want torelocate.
It was just, it was kind oflike, uh, maybe I don't know,
and then everything just kind ofcame together.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
You know, if you live in northern Indiana, there's
kind of this saying up therethat if you're from Northern
Indiana, you don't leaveNorthern Indiana.
I'm not sure why that is.
You know a lot of people I wentto high school with still live
in Northern Indiana.
So it wasn't something I waspursuing, but you know, the
opportunity was too good to passup and had to jump on it.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
I got you Now.
From when you came there toTroy Industries as the IT
director, were you the ITdirector out of the gate?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
No, originally it was IT manager and the Epicor
administrator, which is our ERPsystem.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Okay and then.
But you've worked your way upthe ranks and now I mean, you're
basically the guy that holds itall together.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, recently got the title upgrade to IT director
and all of our business systems, so really anything software
related also.
You know any improvements we'regoing to make with software,
any of those kind of projects.
I'm over that also.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
I got you and you know I've got a lot of
experience in that.
I've hired IT directors andI've hired people in those roles
.
In those roles and you know,one of the things that I always
looked for is probably what Iwould say makes you special in
that role is that some people dotheir job and don't really take

(04:14):
into consideration how itaffects people in the other
parts of the business.
And I know through ourconversation that is a big part
of what you do and how you do.
What you do is to have aslittle negative impact on or
causing people to, you know,kind of rock the boat and at the
same time getting everything towork together.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, I didn't take the traditional path to be an IT
manager or an IT director.
I started off moremanufacturing related.
So, you know, going all the wayback to my early 20s.
You know I didn't go to collegeright away.
I got a job right out of highschool in a shipping department.
Eventually that kind of ledinto doing purchasing and some

(04:56):
sales and some marketing.
Eventually I was plant managerover a plant of around you know,
35 people and through all ofthose experiences I learned what
I was really passionate aboutwas process improvement and I
was also the only young guy inthat company.
So kind of by default I wasdoing our server backups on the
old tape drives and learningActive Directory and that kind

(05:19):
of stuff.
And I really enjoyed that kindof stuff to the point where I
would go home at night afterwork and teach myself things you
know, buy some books fromMicrosoft, learn how to do some
coding, so kind of taking thatdifferent path where I did
manufacturing first and thenseeing how technology can play
into that.
I kind of have a differentperspective now as an IT
director I can sit and talk withour purchasing manager and

(05:43):
really understand what they'retrying to get out of what
they're asking me.
I understand how it's going toaffect them.
I can you know if our shippingmanager is looking to do
something different.
You know I started off workingin shipping.
I understand what they'reasking for and what they're
looking for, and I think itreally helps me get the job done
when it comes to improvingefficiencies and helping the
business.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's one of the missing pieces for a lot of
people in IT and I don't meanthat to be mean, because there
are absolutely roles that needto just stick to what they're
doing but I think in a directorlevel it's important that you
know what kind of impact you arehaving on the frontline team or
in the back office team withwhatever it is that's going on

(06:26):
in IT.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, I really believe that you have external
customers in a business and thatis who is buying your product.
But what's even more importantin some cases is your internal
customers.
If your job in a company is toput a part in a package and then
that goes to shipping, wellthat next person in line is your
internal customer, and with IT,pretty much everybody in the

(06:49):
company is an internal customer.
So you really have to you know,treat them that way.
What are they looking for?
What would help them, what isgoing to improve their quality
of work?
And really just try to bringall that together.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, Well, and I can say this for many of the people
that I've hired in, it is it'snot like they had a master's in
information technologies.
That wasn't what I was lookingfor, and so I mean, you were
really either self-taught or youdecided to take certifications,
that kind of thing.

(07:22):
You didn't necessarily go tocollege to do what you do.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
No, I've got an associate's degree in business
management.
I've never taken any IT courses.
It was really, like I said,just buying books and getting
into it and if you really enjoydoing something that doesn't
feel like work.
I wasn't taking out big studentloans to get a degree.
I was doing it because I likedit and then found a way to make
money doing it.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah Well, I mean turning that passion into, uh, a
job that you get to enjoy everyday.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, if I didn't havea job in it, um, I would
probably still go home and belearning active directory or C
sharp coding or, you know,messing with servers.
I would still be doing thatstuff because I enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, uh, so you move , move here to Clarksville and,
uh, you're an IT manager overthere and you know, I think one
of the things as we've talked isthat really kind of accelerated
your growth path, is takingthat holistic approach and going
, okay, well, how can I helpthis along, how can I help the

(08:25):
company get better?
And you know whether, whetheryou thought about this or not
but really how can I help theseother individuals along the way?
So that and I mean kind ofproof, positive, positive as to
why you're now the director ofnot only it but but business
systems.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, you know it's definitely worked out if you can
gain other people's trust.
Yeah, you know it's definitelyworked out If you can gain other
people's trust.
You know I've worked incompanies where you come in and
try to help someone, you knowkind of automate their process
and you know you kind of getshunned right away.
It's you know you're trying totell me what to do.
You're in my lane and one of mybest stories is that a job that

(09:03):
I had where a purchasingmanager did not want to talk to
me, did not want me in heroffice, and you know we made
some simple Excel macros andautomated some of her processes
and it was not a couple weekslater she was coming to me with
ideas that she had on how wecould automate stuff and she was
super excited about it.
So you know that was a complete180 and really opening

(09:24):
someone's eyes to how we can,you know, use technology to
automate some processes.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, Well, I mean the most, I mean the notorious
or famous thing for businessesis we've always done it this way
.
Because we've always done itthis way, yeah, I hear that a
lot.
Yeah, well, and kudos to you,because you know, every time we
talk, you're you're talkingabout how you're trying to um.
Every time we talk you'retalking about how you're trying

(09:49):
to help this person byautomating this or that.
I know recently there was a newsoftware rollout that was
missing some code or missingsome things that you guys had
built before, that you needed toadapt quickly, and so, if you
will kind of walk us throughthat, yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
So one of the first projects I did when I joined
Troy was we used Epicor as ourERP system and we were still
using Epicor 9, and it was pastdue time to move to Epicor 10.
And that upgrade, you know,went really smoothly.
But here recently we cameacross a situation where we
needed some of the code fromEpicor 9.

(10:23):
Really, you know, we need toget that into Epicor 10, but
it's based on different coding.
You know Epicor 10 is C Sharp.
Epicor 9 was based on, you know, progress Database, some other
coding that I don't evenremember what it was now right.
So you know I've messed with CSharp a little bit, but you know

(10:43):
I'm not a software engineer.
I'm not.
You know I've messed with Csharp a little bit, but I'm, you
know I'm not a softwareengineer.
I'm not, you know, prolific atcoding.
So I opened up, you know, my,my AI.
I've got one dedicated to helpme with coding and I explained
to AI hey, this is what we usedin Epicor nine.
I need you to uncomment thecorrect lines, turn this into C

(11:06):
sharp coding.
So it's going to work for us inEpicor 10.
And I had my doubts about it.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
So, uh, you know, it spits out all this code, I put
it into, uh, into Epicor 10 andcomes out with an error message.
I was like, okay, you know Iwasn't expecting this to work,
but you know, let's, you know,let's keep going with this.
So I'll go back to AI and I putin exactly what that error
message was.
It gave me an explanation andspit out a whole new bunch of

(11:31):
code and put that into Epicor 10and it worked.
You know, I didn't have to tryto rewrite that code, it just
did it for me.
And you know, I got to move on,to move on to something else,
and we've got the benefits ofyou know that code now.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
That's fantastic Without spending significant
money on new developers orwaiting on the software company
to try to put that into theirnext wish list and those types
of things.
I see this in a lot of ITpeople.
They're quick to adapt.
Now, that's not all of them.

(12:06):
Some of them are stuck in theirways.
How much do you think it'simportant to you in your role
that you are quick to analyzeand then decide, make a decision
on how to adapt?

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, I think one thing that IT people have in
common is we're not scared topush the button right.
As long as you've got goodbackups and you've got a plan
for what could happen if thingsgo south, we're willing to try
something out and see whathappens.
It's, you know, going into yoursandbox environment and running
some test code.
You know, convincing somepeople to.

(12:43):
You know, let's just try thisfor a couple weeks.
Code convincing some people to,let's just try this for a
couple of weeks.
As long as you've got a goodcontingency plan, you just got
to try something new and believethat it's going to work out and
then, if it doesn't, you canget back to where you started.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, no, and I love what you said.
There is that IT people just bydefault, most are not scared to
push the button.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
It's kind of funny that a lot of IT people are
scared of a lot of things, butwhen it comes to computers, we
have this confidence level thata lot of people don't have, and
we have faith that if somethinggoes wrong, we'll be able to fix
it.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Spending a little bit of time on AI.
What do you think is the mostshocking or the most interesting
thing that you've seen so far?
And it can be in work, it canbe in any part of AI, I guess
what interests you the most orwhat has kind of been like wow,
I didn't realize it would dothat.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
AI continues to amaze me every time I try something.
You know I've told you thisstory.
You know one night at bowlingme.
Every time I try something.
You know I've told you thisstory.
You know one night of bowling.
I think the true power of AI isgoing to be that it can identify
problems that maybe a humanwould miss.
For instance, on our house Inoticed I had a gap between the
trim and the brick next to thegarage door.

(13:59):
And you know, I'm a computerguy, I'm not a handy guy.
I've got a few tools, butyou're not going to see me with
a table saw, right, that's right.
So I've got an idea of how tofix this, but I want to see what
AI says.
But not only do I want to seewhat it says, I want to see if
it identifies the problem.
So I just took a picture of thisgap in the trim, loaded it into

(14:22):
an AI chat that I had startedabout home ownership.
I think it's important ifyou're using something like
ChatGPT to not mix yourconversations.
You want to have like a focusof each chat.
So I already had a homeownership chat going.
I loaded this picture in withno context and I was floored.
When it spit out and it said itappears you have a gap between

(14:44):
the brick and the trim here onyour garage door.
Here's a list of materials thatyou need to purchase, along
with instructions on how to fixit, and I was like whoa.
I was like if we can identifyproblems with technology, that
is like next level stuff.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah Well, and then, at the same time, it helped you
dive in further um, in order tokind of figure out how to fix it
.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Oh yeah, you know, not only is here here, here's
your problem, here's what youneed, here's how to fix it and
you can go about your day.
And I followed the, you know,went to Lowe's, got the, got the
stuff, some things I wasn'taware of, like some filler, like
foam filler material.
An hour later I've already beento the store, got it fixed and
to this day it still looks good.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
I don't know that I knew this at all.
In fact, I don't think we'dever talked about this before.
But the spirit of guests thatwe have on the Charge Forward
podcast is really people whodefault to charging forward when
other people would give up, andthat can be all kinds of
scenarios, whether that's incareer, that could be in life,
that could be in anentrepreneur's journey, just

(15:48):
could be a health problem.
But you lived through somethingpretty traumatic at your
workplace and so, given thatscenario, it does kind of shock
me that now you work for an armsmanufacturer.
So if you will kind of walk usthrough that, if you, if you can

(16:08):
do that, yeah, so a company Iworked at called Newwood and
Goshen back in 2001.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
And this was only three months after 9-11.
So we were kind of fresh off ofthat, worked at a factory where
, you know, long story short, wehad an individual come in with
a shotgun and started shooting.
The plant manager was killed,some other people were injured
and I was located in an officethat was right in the front and
actually saw him walk in andstart shooting.

(16:36):
We locked that front door andhid under some desks, called 911
and really just got lucky thathe decided to walk past us.
Um, you know, it was on CNN.
Um, crazy experience.
You know what you think you'regoing to think when something
like that happens is not whatyou think.
Um, you know, I I think it's uh, sort of uh, adrenaline or like

(17:00):
a panic mode, like I just keptthinking, wow, this, this is
probably going to be on TV.
Like you know, I wasn't.
It was odd that I wasn't scared, just having weird thoughts
like that.
So it really took a couple ofdays to sink in.
And you know, all these yearslater, now I'm working at a
firearms manufacturer.
It is a little, a little ironicSure, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Um.
And then I mean did you stay atthat company?
Or I mean, what post post thatevent, what?
What happened to the companyand your role there?

Speaker 2 (17:32):
And yeah, so the plant manager was also kind of
the general manager.
He was really our topsalesperson, so the company, um
you know, struggled a little bit.
After that.
I stayed on an additional sevenyears probably.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, just the.
That gives you some context forwhat you do in IT and how you
can help other people or theother other players that make
this whole thing come together.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, you kind of you talked to you kind of hit on
personalities of, you know,willing to to get things done.
I think you know we talked alittle bit about this.
I'm kind of hit onpersonalities of willing to get
things done.
I think we talked a little bitabout this.
I like everything just to becalm and nothing rocking the
boat.
So if something happens orthere's an opportunity for
improvement or something, I kindof hyper-focus on that.
It drives my fiance crazy, butif there's a problem with the

(18:20):
house, I focus on wanting to getthat fixed.
If there's a new dashboard thatI'm creating for work that I
think can help with some time, Ikind of hyper-focus on that.
I think I get that from my dad.
He's the same way, but he mightbe worse than I am when it
comes to really focusing in onsomething.
But yeah, I just like thatneutral level and I'll kind of
do anything I can to get back tothat space.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Well, you know, we were talking about personality
profiles and I've got a lot ofexperience in using the DISC
profile and you know, when wewere talking, you were like I
hadn't really done that and Isaid I didn't tell you.
Right now You're a high C, highS.
One because you're methodicalabout you know checks and
balances, and then two, uh, an S.

(19:02):
A lot of times, an S getsoverlooked and, in my opinion,
an S is very powerful because anS will adapt to become any of
those things in order to keepfrom allowing the boat to rock,
and so I think that's that'sprobably what makes you so good
at your role and making surethat all those systems work
together.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, I think I've definitely got that analytical,
you know, mindset.
I love to see stats.
You know we'll talk later howwe met through bowling, but you
know, when we bowl I keep trackof all that stuff.
I can go back and look atgraphs.
I don't think I'm your, youknow, typical computer nerd,
because I didn't come up thatway.
But I definitely still am,though, cause I love, I love
stats and keeping track ofthings and seeing, you know,

(19:41):
progress and trends and thatkind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Well, and you're kind of a techie at home too.
Tell the viewers out thereabout, about your TV setup.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah.
So a while back I built a homeserver and it's running Unraid,
which is a Linux system, and itreally just kind of started with
.
I wanted to see if I could doit.
A lot of the things I've gotteninto, started with I wanted to
see if I could do it.
Um, a lot of the things thatI've gotten into, started with I
want to see if I can do this.
And then it kind of builds fromthere.
So I've got a home server thatruns some virtual machines that

(20:13):
if I want to learn something new, you know, in the it world,
I'll kind of play with it onthere.
And I've also, um took one ofour spare bedrooms and built
like a full-blown movie theater.
So I've got the projector, 140inch screen, I've got, you know,
the typical surround sound, butthen I've got the four ceiling
speakers so you get that fullatmos experience.

(20:33):
Um, for anyone who's notfamiliar, clarksville is very
close to fort campbell and, uh,if we watch a war movie in my
movie room it sounds like fortcampbell is descending upon the
house, like it's.
It's a pretty, pretty sweetsetup yeah, absolutely well, and
you've also got it segmented soyou can watch four or six
different things on the actualscreen itself yeah, so it's 140

(20:57):
inch screen and I was watching Ithink I had a nascar race or
something on one day and theydid the kind of picture and
picture commercial where theytake the the race and put it up
in the corner and then the restof it is the commercial screen
right.
So I'm sitting there looking atthis.
I'm like they minimize the raceto this small little screen,
but my screen is so big that Ican still watch the race like

(21:19):
it's a normal tv.
So that got me the the idea,and this is how I get into these
IT projects.
I wonder if there's somethingthat would do that.
So I found an HDMI box.
I don't recall the exact nameof it, but basically you can
feed four inputs into this boxand then get a four split screen

(21:39):
.
And as long as you havesomething feeding each one of
those, you can put it ondifferent channels.
So you know, for instance, Iuse YouTube TV, um, I pay a
little bit extra so I get theunlimited streaming.
So March Madness um is awesomeat my house.
I've got all four games on onthe four different screens.
Um, I can hit a button tochange the audio.

(22:00):
So if, uh, if, I want to hearwhat they're saying on this game
.
I can switch over to that.
Really.
The only downside to it is ifyou have someone over watching
this with you, I might befocused on one screen, they're
focused on another screen andthey're getting excited about a
dunk or something and I missedit because I was looking
somewhere else.
But it kind of gives you thatB-dubs experience right in your
house.
So that's pretty cool.
That B-dubs experience right inyour house.

(22:21):
So that's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
That is cool.
Well, it sounds like here injust a couple weeks, it may be
March Madness at your place.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Oh yeah, If you want to come over.
Yeah, Brink Castle, we can getit set up and see who can win
the bracket contest.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
That's right.
That's right Now.
Along the way, I know you'vehad some mentors that have
really kind of spoken into yourpath and how you think about
things and and your success who,who would you, who would you
say, is probably some, some ofthe biggest contributors.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Oh, without a doubt.
Um, there's a gentleman namedJohn Greco.
He um, he was sort of like thedivision manager.
I believe it was at my firstjob, so, uh, like I mentioned, I
didn't go to college.
Right out of high school Istarted a shipping receiving
position and he was over thatfacility as well as a couple
other facilities and justworking with him over the years

(23:12):
I heard him talk a lot about howthe CEO of that company had
kind of become his mentor and hehad John had worked a lot and
gained a lot of experience fromhis mentor and gotten
opportunities.
And I really kind of, when Iheard him talking, I thought,
well, you know, hey, you know,maybe john could be my mentor

(23:33):
someday and so I tried to learnas much as I could from him and
and everybody else that workedthere.
And I've actually worked withhim at three different places
now.
It was the original job andthen at one point he took over
as the CEO of Newwood After theshooting he had come in, and at

(23:55):
the point I decided that Iwanted to kind of flip careers
and get out of businessmanagement, plant management,
and really focus on IT.
He was at a different company,as the vice president there and
had an opportunity for an ITproject role.
So I went to work for the thirdtime for him there and he
really gave me the opportunityto get into IT.

(24:16):
And it's been a couple yearssince I've seen him.
He actually owns his ownbusiness in the Indianapolis
area.
Um, they do uh, mirrors, uh,you know closet type of stuff or
new construction.
They'll come in and and, um,not only sell the parts but do
the installation of your racksand mirrors and all that kind of
stuff.
Um, so he's really doing uh,doing good up there.

(24:36):
But to this day, you know, I'llcall him and be like hey, you
know, um, you know, I, you knowI moved to Clarksville.
I, you know I talked to himabout you know.
Hey, you know, shouldn't, youknow, do you think I should do
this?
And I really value his opinion.
And to this day I still talk tohim, you know, whenever I get a
chance.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Well, and I think you value his opinion because he's
looking at it from hisperspective, but keeping you and
what's good for you in mind,yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Um, you know when, when just recently I put this
new um title on my on myLinkedIn page and he was one of
the first ones to congratulateme and um, almost as if that has
become like a like a work dadin a lot of ways, you know he
said he, you know he said he wasproud of the progress I've made
and it makes you feel good andit's kind of awesome to have uh

(25:20):
to to meet someone like that whohas paid it forward and helped
me, and hopefully I can do thatwith somebody else.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I think you already do inthat, the fact that you are
willing to kind of be the onethat speaks up first.
What I mean by that is, youknow, I think they said they
studied people that had the mostfriends or the most influence,
and it was because they werequicker to smile and interact
with someone in a positive way.

(25:46):
They weren't waiting for theother person, and I think when
somebody new comes into thecompany, or you guys work with a
new partner, you're prettyquick to jump in and say how can
I help?

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, I try to be um, you know, it people, we are not
known for being the mostfriendly and the most most
approachable, and I, I, you knowI've got to say I'm, I'm guilty
of that.
Um, when you've got a lot onyour plate, you got a lot going
on, uh, you kind of overlooktrying to be friendly and be
nice to people.
But, uh, something, um,something I need to improve and
and, and I'm still trying towork on.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Well, I look at it like this and you know, I had,
uh, um, I had a, a tech one timethat we were no longer going to
have texts and he was my toptech and we allowed texts to
interview for sales roles, eventhough a lot of them that was
not what they were going to do.
They weren't, they weren'tnecessarily skilled at that.
And this guy moved over intothat role and he was a tech tech
.
I mean, he was borderlineantisocial.

(26:48):
You know, I did not feel goodabout the transition and fast
forward.
Three months later he was ourtop sales rep.
So I literally I drive toSevierville, tennessee to sit
down with him and find out how.
And he goes, jim, he goes.
I've always had tools ascrewdriver, a screen, a battery

(27:09):
, a wire, my soldering iron inorder to fix people's problems.
And as soon as I figured outthat the only tools that I had
to fix problems anymore were thethings that we sell, then
that's how I fix problems.
And so he would ask two orthree times as many questions,

(27:31):
and so much so that some peoplewould get aggravated with him.
But then, when he wouldprescribe the solution for the
problem, he knew their entireproblem and he knew whether or
not it would fix it, and so Ialmost look at it like that.
You're really solution sellingwhen you go to somebody to help
them with you know to toautomate some things or to take
some things off their plate.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, I used to hate the saying that you don't know
what you don't know.
Like when I was younger Ithought that just meant like one
equals one right, like thatdoesn't make any sense.
But you get older you reallylearn what that means.
You might have a problem andthere might be a solution that
you've never thought of.
But someone else might have theexperience and have you know,
has seen this issue before.

(28:12):
You don't know what you don'tknow, but now you do.
And how can we implement thisto solve a problem?

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah Well, and my, my favorite best practice, for
that is as a leader someonecomes in and asks their team to
help brainstorm or to give theirsuggestions, without them
giving their suggestion first,Because otherwise you're going
to end up with some yes men orsome yes women where they're
just like oh yeah, that soundslike a great idea.
Get the collective first, Getyou know, pick their brain so

(28:39):
that they're not just agreeingwith you brain so that they're
not just agreeing with you.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, I think, um, one of the things I've learned
from from past jobs and somethings I've heard described
really well Um, if you've got anidea, you don't like you said,
you don't want to come in andsay like this is what we're
doing.
Um, you have a lot better chanceof getting people from point a
to point B If you convince themon their own terms to get on the
bus.
You can lead a conversationtowards a goal In my mind.

(29:09):
I'm thinking we can use IT todo this.
But with the purchasing example, I'm not going to tell you and
try to get in your lane and tellyou how to do purchasing, but
steer the conversation where youget them going with you in that
lane and tell you how to dopurchasing.
But, you know, steer theconversation where you get them
going with you in that directionand having that cooperation,
it's going to be a lot easier toget to that end goal and you

(29:30):
and they you know they're doingthe job you might there might be
something that you overlookedthat they're going to help
correct and the idea is you'reboth on the bus and you're going
to the best destination.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, so a lot of people are resistant to change,
just in general, uh, butespecially when we talk about
automation, why or what wouldyou, what would you give as your
best argument to, to, toencourage people to be open to
automation and cause some peoplethey take, um, I'm not saying,
say, pride they, they kind of ofhold on to.
This is what I do, this is howI do it.

(30:07):
What would you say to them?

Speaker 2 (30:10):
I think the best way to explain that and we've been
talking about the purchasingrole, so let's stick with
purchasing.
If you have someone inpurchasing, people want to feel
valued and they also can be alittle worried that you know
automation is going to taketheir job away.
So if you have someone inpurchasing who's going to sit at
a computer and enter purchaseorders and you've got an idea to

(30:32):
help them automate that andthey're resistant, you know,
just kind of explain that.
You know we're not trying totake your role away from you.
This is going to be good foryou If I can automate how we're
getting POs into the system, howwe're receiving POs, how we're
paying for POs and you take thattime that we're saving you and

(30:52):
you focus your efforts ontalking to vendor relationships,
getting us better pricing.
That's going to make you look alot better for the company in
the long run, that you'recontributing to the bottom line
and not just doing some busywork.
So if you can get peoplethinking in that mindset, that
definitely helps.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, yeah, uh, it's that whole analogy of stepping
over dollars to pick up pennies.
Yeah, absolutely Um well, youknow, we touched on it just a
minute ago.
You brought up bowling and, uh,you know, yes, we're on the
same team and it was just kindof haphazard.
You moved to town and we'relooking to pick up on a team,

(31:28):
but this bowling pin over hereis really your fault.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
You know I joke that I should take a little bit of
the credit.
I know, when you bowled yourfirst backwards 300, you were
interviewed by was it BowlersInternational?
Bowlers Journal, bowlersJournal International?
Yeah, yeah, so they also talkedto me because I convinced you
to bowl in this doublestournament.
And you know, without myguidance I really don't think
this would have ever happened,jim.
So it's a good thing I talkedyou into this, that's right, and

(31:57):
the encouragement lane side.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
There you know the conversation, all the things.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
How big a part has bowling been in your world.
I've made a lot of connectionsthrough bowling.
If it wasn't for bowling, Iwouldn't be sitting here right
now.
If I look at my friend groupthat I've maintained over the
past 20 years, it's almostexclusively related to people
I've met through bowling.
I used to be a lot better,exclusively related to people
I've met through bowling.
I used to be a lot better.
You know, as I've gotten olderand don't practice as much, my
average has definitely tanked.

(32:29):
So I get more out of ourThursday night league, just like
chatting with you guys andhearing about your business and
you know hearing how Troy'sdoing at the shop and how
Andrew's doing down at thecourthouse, and I think
Thursdays have become more aboutthat than just my average.
You might not be able to tellcause if I'm doing bad, I don't
look very happy, but uh, I amstill, you know, enjoying the

(32:50):
experience of being there.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, same here.
And uh, you know to give.
To give Andrew a bit of a shoutout.
He has gotten so much better inthe last 18 months.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Andrew is doing really well.
What Andrew needs to do is workon his confidence.
I think once he shoots thatfirst 700, I think it's going to
become second nature.
He just needs the confidence tomake the right moves and
believe in himself.
I think that's what he's stillmissing in his bowling game at
this point.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
Yeah, now you guys bowl a mixed league too, right?

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Correct.
So my fiance had never bowledin a league before and my
neighbor, anthony, who got me onyour guys' team to begin with.
We bowled a mixed league withhim and his wife last year Tara,
no bowling experience.
She averaged 97.
So she's throwing aneight-pound ball and she used to

(33:43):
make fun of me for um, you know, complaining about all my
timings off.
You know I'm in the house likepretending to do my release and
she didn't understand any ofthat.
And then I got her in thisfirst league and now she's like.
You know, I felt that I feltlike this step was off just a
little bit and I forgot tofollow through on that one.
So I think I've I'm not goingto turn a bowler into her, but
she's um, she's enjoyed it and Ithink I've got her kind of

(34:05):
understanding.
You know how I can get sofrustrated with it.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, no, that's great.
Well, and that kind of leads meto the next thing, and I mean
this this was not a plan when Istarted the podcast, but it has
come up in most podcasts earlyon it was just kind of
organically.
And now I, now I just ask it.
But you know how important isspouse selection to your overall

(34:29):
happiness and success and justall the things in life.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
I wish I knew who I saw that said this on LinkedIn
yesterday.
Uh, the other day it was a bigbusiness leader Um, it wasn't
Jack Welsh, but it was somebodysort of on that level said that
one of the most importantdecisions you can make in your
life and contribute to yoursuccess is your selection of a
partner.
I don't know if I used tobelieve that, but Tara and I

(34:56):
have been together for fouryears and I 100% believe in that
.
Now I don't think I could havepulled off moving to Clarksville
without her help and and talkabout a leap of faith Like we
were living an hour apart inIndiana.
We had only been dating for sixor seven months when I got this
job and I was like, hey, I'vegot this job in Clarksville, why

(35:17):
don't you quit your job and gowith me?
Like, looking back, that soundskind of crazy for me to say,
right, but she was on board andit's and it's worked out and, um
, love her for it.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, no, and she's fantastic.
Um, in fact, you know you guysjoin us for Thanksgiving and all
those things, and we lovehaving you guys around and she
comes to bowling every once in awhile.
Um, you know, peaks in and makesure that we're doing the right
things on Thursday nights.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, since I got her bowling the mixed league I have
.
You know she doesn't pop in onThursdays quite as much.
I think she gets her fill of aof the pinnacle of one night a
week.
Oh yeah, um yeah, it's been alot of fun.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Now something crazy happened about a year ago.
Uh, so we were.
We were headed to the statetournament and you get a phone
call right as you're pulling inBall people through that one.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
So, uh, you know, I used to bowl the state
tournament in Indiana every yearand, bowling with you guys, I
was like hey, you know, you know, do we bowl?
I'm assuming we bowled thestate tournament and it was like
no, you know, we've neverreally done that.
I'm like all right, so we'redoing it Like we're going to go.
It's not that far away.
We're going to go down toMurfreesboro and bowl the state
tournament and Tara works at thelocal jewelry store there in

(36:28):
Clarksville and she had a littleKia Soul that she loved.
Loved it.
We called it her little greentoaster, which in hindsight was
probably the wrong name when wefind out here in a second what
happened.
But yeah, so I'm pulling intothe waffle house in murfreesboro

(36:52):
or somewhere and, uh, I'mgetting a phone call from tara.
Now she is notorious for doingthe butt dial and it's not
really her calling me, but youknow I always pick up just in
case.
And I hear her talking tosomebody.
I'm like, yeah, you know it wasa butt dial.
But then I hear you know, Ihear some sirens in the
background I'm like, well, thismight not be good.
So basically, what happened wasshe was having some issues with
her car.
She didn't want to worry mebecause I was out of town going

(37:14):
to this bowling tournament.
And she's driving down WilmaBoulevard, which is like the
main drag there in Clarksville,and the bottom of her car is on
fire and she doesn't realizethat it's on fire.
And she's just driving andshe's got people yelling at her
to pull over and she doesn'tknow if she trusts them.
But you know, luckily theytalked her to get out of the car
.
She sees it's on fire.

(37:36):
You know, the police wereawesome.
They give her a ride back tothe jewelry store and I joked
with her.
I was like you know, I leavetown for one weekend and you end
up in the back of a cop car,like what, what is what is going
on up there?
Like the timing the timing ofit was was was crazy too, but
thankfully.
Thankfully she was okay andwasn't injured and, um, you know
, that car was good for her but,like I said, calling it the

(37:57):
toaster ended up being being abad move.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah, no, I totally get that.
Well, you know, one of thethings that shocked me in that
moment, on that day you have anincredible work ethic, but so
does she, because most peoplewould have lost their mind and,
you know, in a heartbeat wouldhave not been going to work.
She went back to work.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
She went back to work .
I mean her, her car is charredon the side of the road and and
yeah, she went.
She went back to work.
She is, um, I wish I had aquarter of her energy.
I mean she just she doesn'tstop.
If there's, if there's nocustomers coming in, she's
cleaning, or I mean she is, andshe's the same way at the house
she does uh, she does not sitand watch TV.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
She's always busy with something and just always
on the go and and cares a lotabout people and what she's
doing.
Oh yeah, Well, again, I thinkit speaks to her work ethic and,
uh, they really rely on her.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
there Is it McKenzie, smiley Yep McKenzie.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Smiley Yep, and she's been there four years.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Uh, yeah, she started there, you know.
I mean talk about things justkind of working out.
Like you know, we had moveddown and she took a little bit
of time off to help get thehouse situated and get us
settled.
And she worked at a jewelrystore up in Fort Wayne, indiana,
and had been there for a fewyears and when she went to look
for a job it was bam, rightthere, they were looking for
somebody, and it worked outperfect.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
That's great, that's great.
Now you guys have got some bigstuff coming up.
Uh what?
Four or five, I believe April,april, 5th four or five to five.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
There you go.
So Tara is not great atremembering dates.
Um, I'm not.
I'm still not sure that sheknows when my birthday is.
Um, she can tell you whatoutfit I was wearing three years
ago when we went to Yottadowntown Clarksville to eat.
She can tell you that numbersnot so much.
So we went with four, five, two, five, because it's got kind of
a ring to it.
So, um, it's not only going tohelp me, which is super

(39:49):
important, but, uh, I think it'sgoing to help her.
You know, remember that datealso that's great.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Well, we're looking forward to that.
We're looking forward to youguys uh, making it official and
uh, we've had a lot of fun overthe last year or so with you
know, the picking out of thering and all those things, but
you had a little help with thering this time.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
You know, there's a big benefit to having her work
at a jewelry store.
We got a good deal.
We got a good deal.
She got to pick out you knowwhat it is that she wanted.
She gave me a few options and Iwas smart enough to talk to her
boss to figure out which oneshe really wanted.
That's the one that she wentwith and she still loves it.
So we were good there.
That's great.

(40:36):
Now, aside from that, what getsyou excited about the future?
I'm really curious to see whereAI takes us.
I'm excited for the future ofTroy Industries and my role
there.
You know, going back 20, someyears now, I've always been
charging forward, trying to,trying to learn more, trying to
be better, trying to take onmore responsibility, and I'm

(41:00):
over halfway to retirement.
So I'm getting.
I'm getting to where I can seelike an end to all this, right,
and I don't know.
So I'm getting to where I cansee an end to all this.
I don't know that I really wantto retire.
I'm pretty sure I'm still goingto be at home messing with a
server when I'm in my 70s if I'mlucky to make it that far, just
continuing the journey and seewhat happens.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
I think you got a good shot at getting well past
70 because your dad's in his 80s, right?

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yeah, my dad is about to be 83 in a couple months.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
And getting around pretty good.
I've seen him at the bowlingcenter when he comes to visit.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
He's still out golfing.
I mean, if it's warm innorthern Indiana, he is at the
golf course.
He's shooting his age now, astubborn man.
It took a long time to get himto play from the senior tees.
Um, he, he once told me, if Ihave to play from the senior
tees, I'm not playing anymore.
Um, but you know, with a littlepersistence, um, he finally

(41:57):
started doing that and isenjoying it.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
And he loves, loves golf.
If he's not golfing, he'sprobably watching the golf
channel.
I got you.
That's good.
Well, do they?
Do they travel, they?
They get any golf in during thewinter, or or they stay pretty
well local there.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Uh, pretty local.
Um, even when we were kids wedidn't, we didn't travel a whole
lot.
Um, my grandparents um had ahouse up in the mountains in
Eastern Tennessee so we wouldmake that trip once a year.
Uh, you know, went to Dollywooduh, one time.
My, my parents and my familynot big travelers- Okay, I got
you.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Now this one is slightly controversial, but
we're not trying to get anybodycanceled or anything.
But what is something that youthink is a truth that just needs
to be said, and I can't takeownership of this one.
This one came from the GoatConsulting Podcast, so a big
shout-out to both Colby and Johnover there.
But it's things we think but donot say.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
I think, uh, something that everybody's
thinking and maybe more peopleare starting to say it, is that
College is just too expensive.
The return on investment isgoing to get to the point where
maybe it's not worth it foreverybody 22-year-olds coming
out of college.

(43:06):
What is college costing thesedays?
Tens of thousands of dollars,$100,000?
.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
To put it in perspective, I think Austin Peay
is about $35,000 a year.
You're looking at $35,000 ayear.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
So you're looking at what?
$140,000?
Yeah, no-transcript, I'm notsaying that you shouldn't pursue
your degree.
You know I don't want, um, Idon't want a doctor operating on
me that didn't go to college,right, I don't want a pilot

(43:40):
who's not qualified flying meacross the country.
But I think, just because youdidn't go to school for
something, that means you'redead in the water.
Um, you know, we've heard a lotabout trade schools for a long
time.
You can, you know, make goodmoney being a plumber or doing
some things, but I think it'salso getting to the point where
you can learn IT, you can learnaccounting.

(44:01):
You know it's crazy, you pay somuch for a college degree, but
those books that you have to buyto take those classes, there's
no rule or law that says youcan't go buy those books and
read them and learn somethingfrom them and maybe teach
yourself some things out of them.
Now, have I missed out on someopportunities because I don't
have a master's degree incomputer science?

(44:23):
100%.
Have I been able to, you know,have a decent career having an
associate's degree in businessmanagement and nothing above
that?
100%.
So I think, if you'repassionate about something and
you're willing to work onsomething, you don't have to
borrow all that money for apiece of paper.
It's not 100% necessary.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yeah Well, I think just alternative education or
alternative ways to look at itare really kind of a lot of the
future will be in that.
You know, if you were trying tolearn AI from a book right now,
the books so far outdated, it'snot even relevant at the moment
.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, there, there has never been a better time, um
, to teach yourself something.
There's never been a bettertime to find, uh, the knowledge,
whether it's, uh, youtubevideos.
I, you know, swapped out my ownwater heater from watching a
YouTube video.
There's Reddit, forums.
There's really smart peoplethat you're bowling with that
you can find out things.
I had first heard about ChatGPTfrom you and now it's a huge

(45:27):
part of what I do at work.
Knowledge is powerful.
Going way back to one of myfirst jobs and I can't credit
exactly who told me this butthey said, uh, if you want to
make more money, then you haveto be more valuable to the
company that you're at, and tobe more valuable to the company

(45:49):
you're at, you need to learn asmuch as possible.
Um, you know, if you're goingto work to be, I started off as
a shipping clerk and I can go towork and just do that, or I can
show interest in becoming moreknowledgeable.
I can learn about purchasing, Ican learn about sales, I can
learn how the business operates,and I think I really took that

(46:10):
advice to heart and, 20-someyears later, I still remember
that.
So, always looking to learn newthings and and and just be a
smarter, a smarter person.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, Well, I think, I think if you, um, if you've
decided that you're not going tolearn anymore, well then you
might as well go ahead andretire.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yeah, I mean whether, whether it's you or a business.
I mean they say if you're notgrowing, you're dying, right, so
you gotta, you gotta, keepcharging forward.
It's right there behind you,well, and you know, uh, your
point to that.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
You know I can remember sitting in a sales
training September of 2015.
And you know I'm sitting inthis, this sales training.
We each, everybody paid five or600 bucks for a one day ticket
and it was a presentation withthe Jack Daly.
And Jack goes around the room.
He's asking people you know howmany of you are growing?
At least 10%.

(47:00):
People raise their hands.
How many are growing?
At least 20% people raise theirhands.
I did.
And then, um, you know they go30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 100, 200,
300, a few people still raisinghands.
And I'm sitting there lookingaround the room and he says just
point blank if you're notgrowing at least 20% year over

(47:20):
year, you probably won't be inbusiness in a couple of years.
And at first I was defensive tothat because you know I'm like
the owner's making the kind ofmoney he wants to make.
I'm making good money, peoplemake good money.
And the next day I had adifferent attitude and it was
I'm going to see how hard I canmake this thing go.
What can we rev this thing upto?

(47:42):
And sure enough, four monthslater, we had doubled our
accessory sales and mycompetitors were really in
disbelief.
How did you do that?
There's Amazon, there's this,there's this.
We just decided to, and youknow whether, regardless of
which side you wanted to winthis past election, you know

(48:02):
people get worried about theeconomy and is there going to be
recession, and this and that,and you get to decide whether
there's a recession.
You get to decide whether youadapt.
You get to decide what yourgoals are.
You get to decide the the ummorale of your team, and I think
that's that's powerful.
You've got to decide.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, I think, um, whether it's personal life or
business, like if, if you're notpushing uh, pushing the
boundaries and moving forward,well, your competitors are and
you're losing ground.
Um, I just saw um an interviewum that Kobe Bryant did that he
talked about, uh, anybody can bemotivated to do something when
you feel like doing it.
It's it's that morning that youwake up and you don't feel like

(48:45):
going to work, or you don'tfeel like going to the gym and
you do it anyway.
That's what separatessuccessful people from getting
by people.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah, it's.
It's when motivation has fadedand now we're operating a
discipline.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
I need to remember this conversation.
Um, next time I'm supposed togo to the gym and I don't feel
like going.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
I'll hold you accountable.
Um, well, you know, as as as wekind of move through this, and
you know to your point thatclassic education, classic
higher education, is maybestarting to price itself out of
a lot of spaces.
You know, I think of Lightspeed.

(49:26):
Lightspeed is a great onlinelearning platform, whether
you're an entrepreneur, that is,you know, putting your courses
out there.
You know, it could be abookkeeping course, it could be
a, it could be an IT course, allthose types of things.
If you want to learn it, it'sprobably out there in a way that
you can consume it and beeducated on it tomorrow or in

(49:46):
the process by tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, absolutely, and if you're not sure where to
start, just pull up your chatGPT and ask it like I'm
interested in learning this andyou know what should I do and
it's going to give you someanswers.
Um, whether you need to followthrough on all of them or not
and you know I'm not sure itjust depends on your situation,
but, um, it can get you pointedin the right direction for sure.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Yeah, you know, and I think people maybe missed the
boat in that they think thatthey're too old to learn AI or
those types of or that's notsomething I'm ever going to need
.
I can remember my firstconversation with my dad, who's
a little bit younger than yours,but dad is 76.
And so this would have beenabout a year ago and I was on
the phone with him and he wastalking about he needed to draft

(50:27):
a um, um, a legal briefing, andof course, I know nothing about
a legal briefing.
And I said, well, you shouldprobably use a legal briefing.
And I said, well, you shouldprobably use AI for that.
And he goes, oh, I'm not goingto learn how to do that, I don't
know how to do that.
That's not something I need todo.
I'm going to have to researchthis, blah, blah, blah.
And so I just started asking himabout what he needed to write

(50:51):
it on and it probably took me 20minutes.
I'm just asking, question afterquestion.
He's, he's telling me all thedetails and I said, well, the
briefing's in your inbox.
And he goes, excuse me, and Isaid, well, while you were
telling me about it and alsotelling me that you don't need
AI.
I was using AI to create yourlegal briefing.

(51:12):
It's in your email and he spentabout a week on that legal
briefing, trying to tear itapart, and about a week later he
called me and goes.
You know, this thing is over90% correct.
He goes even one of the thingsthat it cited.
It took me four days on theinternet to find that case and

(51:35):
you know it was just already inhere.
So he was like you know, itdidn't get me all the way there,
but it got me a lot furtherthan I would have been otherwise
, and I think that's that's howI use AIs, you know, instead of
me spending time on thestructure of something or
figuring out the first threesteps on how to get started on
something.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
I'll just ask it.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
It's no different than asking me, picking up the
phone and asking you or somebodyelse that's a um, an expert in
the field or has a significantamount of knowledge, and then go
from there use it as a tool.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, you know, talking about ourparents, uh, and and ever being
too old to learn, uh, myparents are probably my first IT
clients and talk about, youknow, internal customers.
I'm not getting paid.
I was floored the first time wewere visiting and my dad picked
up his tablet and he hit abutton and he said what's the

(52:28):
Walmart stock price?
I kind of look over at him I'mlike, is he?
Is he using, like, the voicecommand on his tablet?
And sure enough, like I thinkthat's probably all he does with
it is check the Walmart stockprice.
But hey, he's using it and itreally goes back to being
adaptable.
Really, if you look at beingsuccessful, whether it's in

(52:53):
business or bowling, it's beingable to kind of predict what's
coming next.
Is that stock price going to goup?
Did the oil?
Did the oil pattern change alittle bit and I need to make an
adjustment off of that.
So it's figuring out what youthink is going to happen next
and being prepared for that, butalso, if that doesn't happen,

(53:16):
being prepared for that too.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Yeah, Well, I think that's the key to adaptability
is not being so focused on beingright that you inflict harm on
yourself or the situation youknow.
Some people are so married tobeing right that they'd rather
be right and in pain than bewrong and okay.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Yeah, you can't do that in IT.
If you have realized thatyou're wrong and you can, you
know, continue down that course.
You might have some seriousserver problems or you got you
know, definitely, definitelyadaptable and willing to listen
to advice.
I mean, it is a vast subject,right?
Whether it's AI or somebody youused to work with.
It never hurts to get anopinion before you move forward

(54:00):
with the plan.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Yeah, what would you say is something that you see in
IT that's outdated, or people'sperception of it is outdated
and they need to fix that?

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Oh, that's a good question.
Mac computers I love it.
Uh, you know, they say that allit guys hate Macs and there's a
reason they're they're notbusiness friendly.
Um, I, I worked, uh, at acompany where the owner insisted
on using his Mac and it waslike an hour long process is to

(54:31):
connect a printer.
Um, hopefully we don't have anylike Apple lawyers watching
your podcast today.
But, um, yeah, if you, if youwant to take it seriously, like
I have a Mac book computer.
I got it, so I'm familiar withit.
Um, yeah, just just get, get anAndroid, get a Dell laptop.
You know, move in thatdirection, I understand.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Well, and I think, I think, if you're in a creative
space, then you're probably youwant to be on the Mac, and if
you're, if you're in business,if you're in manufacturing, if
you're in uh data, you'reprobably going to want to be on
on the PC side of things.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Yeah, mac has its place.
If you're a media creator, Imean that kind of stuff.
It's definitely powerful.
Like I said, I've got one and Ibasically use it to remote into
a virtual Windows machine.
So that's what I use it for.
Definitely has its place.
But in an IT career you'reprobably going to be looking at
Windows or even Linux systemsfor servers.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah, what's a piece of advice that you'd give out
there to somebody that is maybelooking to come into IT or
looking to advance their careeror feels maybe stuck in the role
that they're in?

Speaker 2 (55:37):
I think if you feel stuck in the role that you're in
, you just got to take a leap offaith and jump into it.
You know, I worked my way up toplant manager and just said I
don't like this and changedcourse and had to start over in
the IT field.
I think you know.
If you're looking at IT as awhole and you know how to

(55:57):
prioritize things.
Maybe you're a small business,has grown to a medium business
and you need to focus on your IT.
The best explanation I've seenof IT and how to handle it is
there's the Maslow's hierarchyof needs.
I believe it was 40s or 50s.
This gentleman came up with thispyramid of you know what you

(56:18):
need as a human, and on the baselevel of that pyramid are your
physiological needs.
You can breathe, you've gotfood and water, you can sleep
and that's the foundation toyour structure.
And only after that is takencare of can you move up a level
and at that level you've gotsafety.
And then, as you progress up,you have you know your human

(56:40):
human interactions, yourrelationships, your fulfillment
in life, and if something at thebottom of that pyramid goes
wrong, you need to go down andcorrect that before you can move
back up, and the bestexplanation I've read about IT
is really that same idea.
So your structure and yourfoundation is your
infrastructure, whether you'regoing to have that in the cloud,

(57:03):
whether you're going to haveon-premise servers and your
switches and all that kind ofstuff.
That is really your foundationto your pyramid.
And then your next level up isgoing to be your security.
Cyber security has never beenmore important.
And then, as you move up thepyramid, you get to.
You get to where you know youhave users requesting a new

(57:23):
report.
Hey, I need this new report.
Can you make that for me?
But at the very top of thepyramid is what I enjoy the most
is where you are proactivelylooking for things to help the
company, things that otherpeople didn't think of, that you
could implement.
There are some differentcompanies now that can tie your

(57:44):
ERP system in with yourWooCommerce.
If you have a website, they canpass that data back and forth
Not something that anybody wasasking for, but being able, as
the IT guy, to see that need,implement it, run the project,
see it all the way through, seethe return on investment.
That really lives at the top.
Now you know if you're reallyinto that project and one of the

(58:05):
switches goes down, you'regonna have to go back to the
bottom of your pyramid and takecare of those needs first and
work your way back up.
So I think if you're new to IT,if you're a company that needs
some it stuff and you've gottenbig enough to get started, I
really think that is the bestexplanation of how to handle it.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Yeah Well, I would say just just in general.
I mean, really that is the bestadvice that I think I give to a
lot, of, a lot of people.
That, from a coachingstandpoint, is you've got to
quit really being behind.
You've got to get ahead alittle bit, because you can't
work on optimization if you'restill two weeks behind.

(58:42):
You've got to leverage yourresources.
You've got to work a littlemore.
You've got to hire somebodyelse.
You've got to do something inorder to get caught up, so that
then you can be proactiveinstead of reactive and get out
of that chaos.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Yeah, always trying to catch up is just exhausting,
right, like when you're tryingto catch up, you're not doing
something that you like to do,you're doing something you have
to do, and if you've gotyourself in a position to be
working on the things that youenjoy, like quality of life, is
just way better.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Yeah, and how has that mentality played out for
you there at Troy Industries?

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Um, and how has that mentality played out for you
there at um, there at Troyindustries?
Um, you know when, uh, when,the company moved to um,
clarksville, um, we've got a lotof new stuff, um, like
infrastructure wise, so a lot ofthat has, as you know, it's
gone really smoothly.
I didn't have to spend a lot oftime on that, um, so, yeah,
I've got to spend a lot of timeat the top of the pyramid
working on things that I enjoy.
You know, it's a common sayingthat if you enjoy what you do,

(59:39):
you'll never have to go to work,and I've been very fortunate to
enjoy what I do.
I'm off work today and I've gotsome ideas for, you know, an
Epicor dashboard that I'mthinking about, that I might go
to the you know Starbucks by thehouse when I get home and work
on it, Not because I have to butbecause I enjoy it.
And if you can get to thatpoint in your career, um, you're

(01:00:00):
just going to be a way, wayhappier person?

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Yeah Well, and I think you guys, you guys have
four day work weeks, is thatright?

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Yeah, we're, yeah, we're doing four tens and then,
um, you know, that really givesme some time to, like I said, to
work on some of the things thatI want to work on, as opposed
to reacting to.
You know what's going on, sure.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Um, when and we had not talked about this before,
but I know bourbon is is apassion of yours.
So what's uh, what's yourfavorite, or what, what's uh,
what's the next bottle thatyou're looking to add to the
collection?

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
When it comes to bourbon, there's two different
categories.
There's the unicorns thatyou're probably never going to
see.
It's because they don't make alot of them and they're really
good.
So probably the best bourbonthat I've tried would be King of
Kentucky.
Got it for my birthday at thecasino up in Oak Grove, kentucky
.
Just phenomenal.
I've got a buddy that kind offirst told me about it.

(01:00:57):
He said he cried when he had it.
It was so good.
I don't know if he was seriousor not, but I'd like to picture
that he was actually, you know,shedding tears as he was
drinking this glass.
You know, from a personal level,one of my problems is that when
I get into a hobby, I'm all in,you know, just like building a
home server when I got into IT,right.
So I'm all in.
Uh, you know, just likebuilding a home server when I

(01:01:18):
got into it, right.
So you know, uh, bourboncollection has grown.
Cigar selection, um, has grown,so I don't think that I need to
be out trying to find anythingelse at this point.
I'm pretty content with whatI've got.
Um, but yeah, king of Kentuckyis, uh, if you're a bourbon fan
and you have a chance to try it,I would highly recommend um
paying the price to at least tryonce.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Okay, that's cool.
Um, you know, one of theconversations that we have
frequently is, uh, aboutfinances and frequently that
Dave Ramsey comes up.
Um, you know how, how?
How is?
How does Brandon and Tara's umplan for for money and and how
to structure life, kind of?
Does it?
Does it line up with DaveRamsey?

(01:01:56):
Is it close, or where have youpulled mythology or thoughts
from?

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
So I was first introduced to Dave Ramsey from
my mentor, ironically enough,when we worked in the office.
We weren't allowed to listen tomusic and stuff back then, but
we were allowed to put DaveRamsey on because it was
informational and helpful.
And if I could go back 20 yearsand talk to Brandon that was
sitting in that office, I wouldtell him to stick with it.
Um, if I would have, you know,stuck with the plan, um, I'm

(01:02:27):
sure I'd probably be in a betterplace.
I mean, not that you knowthings are bad, but, man, I mean
if you, if you can stick toDave Ramsey's plan, you're going
to come out ahead.
I mean, there's just no wayaround it.
Dave talks about people doingthe Dave Ramsey-ish plan where
you know you're chugging alongreally good but then you see
that bottle of bourbon that youdon't really need and you get

(01:02:48):
those you know endorphins goingand you buy it anyway.
You can steer clear of thatkind of stuff You're going to be
doing pretty good.
Um, uh, tara and I have had thetalk about, um, you know the
day Ramsey plan and where we'regoing to fall in the baby steps
and what the plan is going to be.
And, um, she's on board,assuming that she doesn't change
her mind after she gets the uh,you know additional ring.

(01:03:08):
So hopefully that doesn't.
Yeah, I think we're on the samepage and looking forward to
doing a good job with that.
I know Dave Ramsey is righthere, close in Nashville, right,
and you've been on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Oh, yeah, yeah, and they've got a beautiful facility
.
These days I mean it was greatbefore, but just I mean they've
got a campus.
Yeah, even if you don't agreewith everything that Dave Ramsey
says if you watch his show,listen to the radio show, you're

(01:03:42):
going to get motivated.
You just, you can't help it.
Yeah, Um, well, and which onewas it?
Was it four B or three B?
For for quite some time thering was, was, was in that in
that step.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Yeah.
So if you have a purchase likethat that you're going to make,
uh, from what I've heard Davesay, you know you've got baby
step one, two, three and if youhave a little, a little,
something that you want to saveup for and buy before you move
to the next step, it's three B.
So we we referred to Tara'sengagement ring as three B for a
long time.
Yeah, um, you always got a kickout of that.
I don't think she thought itwas that funny, but uh, you know
that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
I like.
The great thing is we're just.
I mean, you guys, wedding dateis just right around the corner
and we're ecstatic for you guys.
Now the next part we have aalive or otherwise, bowlers or

(01:04:40):
not, but the whole point is toget so many people watching this
thing that we raise a ton ofmoney for charity.
Who's on your team with you?

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
So I got to go.
Pete Weber, If you're.
If you're going to have a youknow anybody you want you got to
have Pete Weber on your team.
If we're going to have anybodyyou want, you got to have Pete
Weber on your team.
If we're going to go back intime a little bit, my dad's
favorite bowler, Marshall Holman, From back in the day my dad
loved watching him, I think forselfish reasons.
I'm going to pick Mookie Bettshere, A baseball player who's

(01:05:13):
got probably a lot more famousthan a lot of bowlers are, and,
if I'm correct, he justpurchased the bowling alley that
we're bowling at, Is that?

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
correct His investment group.
Yes, they're in Clarksville,Tennessee.
The Pinnacle Just changed hands.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Yeah.
So I'd love to get his earwhile we're bowling to see what
he's going to do at the Pinnacleand suggest some things that
the bowlers like to see there.
So I'm going to be selfish andpick him for the third guy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Okay, you've got one more.
It's a five-man team.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
Oh, I don't get to bowl on the team.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
You can yeah, but it's you Pete it depends.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Are we having fun or are we trying to win?
Because if we're trying to win,I'm going to pull in.
Maybe the win is raising money,rais.
So who is going to tune in towatch?
I'm going to have to go.
I'm going to pick RonnieRussell just because he's from
Indiana.
I bowled some tournaments withhim before he was making TV

(01:06:05):
shows up in Auburn, indiana, sowe'll put Ronnie in there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Okay, and then you get to pick one celebrity
commentator, so this is theperson that's going to be the
emcee that's going to geteverybody fired up.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Oh, I have to go.
Pat McAfee, right, I mean,who's bigger than Pat right now
at commentating and gettingpeople fired up?
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
And I'm a Colts fan too.
He was the punter for the Colts, so yeah, double meaning Can't
go wrong there?

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Well, that's cool, and we've had all kinds.
I mean literally, we've hadeverything from Jesus to oh.
On the other end of that,somebody suggested that P Diddy
could be the oil man.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Well, you want to hire for experience, right?

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
That's right, that's right Um.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Jesus, that's a great one too.
I mean, if you want toguarantee 300, he's.
You know, that's your guy.
Yeah, I mean done.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Now we have fun with this one too, and it's two
truths and a lie.
So you're going to tell methree things, and I've got to
try to detect which one is thelie.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
You know, you warned me about this one and I've been
thinking because I really wantto win.
I want to stump you, so I'mgoing to go.
Number one I used to have afour-pound chihuahua named Chloe
, Chloe.
Number two I've got a cursivebee tattoo on my shoulder.

(01:07:40):
That's like my dad has.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
And number three, I never took the SATs.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
Wow, okay, tell you the truth.
One of them was a lie.
I would have instinctively gonewith the B, but you added like
your dad does.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Can we get the Jeopardy music in the background
while you contemplate this?

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
Okay, I can't picture you with a chihuahua, so I've
got to go with a chihuahua.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Chihuahua is incorrect.
I had a little chihuahua for 16years.
She lived long enough to cometo Clarksville with us for a few
months, not your Taco Belllooking Chihuahua, but more like
a cow.
She was white, had black spots.
They say Chihuahuas arestubborn and not very smart.
But I taught her how to shakehands roll.

(01:08:48):
I taught her how to sneeze oncommand.
She loved treats so she waswilling to learn anything.
That one is true.
Give you another chance withthe last two.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Well, again, I'm going to go with the SAT.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
You're wrong again.
So I accomplished my goal ofstumping you.
I stumped you twice, you had a50% chance and you still missed
it on the second go.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Yeah, you did, because I mean honestly the fact
that you threw in your dad inthere.
It made it so I was like, didhe slip up and tell me that, or
you strategically?

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
told him that was strategy.
My dad has one.
He had one.
It might have faded at thispoint, because I think it was
like my dad grew up in easternKentucky.
I think it was something thathim and his buddies just did.
I don't think it wasprofessionally done, but I
remember as a kid that he had itOkay.
So I've always thought aboutdoing that, but I haven't done
it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Okay, all right, and I'm not wearing sleeveless
shirts to the bowling alley, soI knew that you wouldn't.
You wouldn't have an insidetrack.
No, I did not, absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Um, and so last one is um, what is a problem that
you see, either in your businessor in other businesses, that
you think people should tackleright away, or that you're just
like man, you could do this ifyou just fill in the blank?

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
I think it would probably just be.
You know they call it lowhanging fruit, right it's.
I just had one with our youknow, weapons assembler manager
this week.
There was something that wouldreally help him narrow down his
information on a dashboard and Iwas able to create a filter in
five, 10 minutes.
Um, so that's something that'sgoing to help him.

(01:10:29):
That cost me almost no time.
So, um, you can do big projects, like I've been a part of.
That can take a year toimplement, but if you want some
immediate hits, you want to gainsome people's trust, just look
for that low-hanging fruit andhelp people with results they
can see right away.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Yeah, well, and I think I heard this on another
podcast earlier this week and itwas this guy was known for his
TED Talks about how to learn anew skill.
I was known for his Ted talksabout how to learn a new skill
and he said that the mostimpactful, the most important
hours that you will spend willbe the first 20 hours of that

(01:11:06):
new skill, because of howproficient you can become in
almost any discipline in thefirst 20 hours and the rest of
it is really kind of sharpeningthat skill but the amount of of
knowledge and kind of usabilitythat you can get in the first 20
hours.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Yeah, and I think you're also motivated at the
beginning too, right, you'rereally going to focus.
Especially nowadays, theproblem with self-education is
it's so easy to becomedistracted.
There's a YouTube video,there's a text, you got your
phone, you got your tablet.
There's all kinds of thingsgoing on.
I'm going to send you a link toa podcast I listened to.
There were some scientists thatstudied this.

(01:11:39):
I believe it was on thisAmerican Life or I think it
might have been Radiolab.
These scientists had workedwith different hallucinogenics
and they found that as youprogress, progress in life, you
have windows that open where youare hypersensitive to learning.

(01:12:00):
I wasn't planning on talkingabout this kind of a little off
topic, but, um, so you know,when you're one, two years old,
you're hypersensitive tolanguage or vision or whatever
that is, and that window kind ofcloses and then your window for
something else opens andthey've found that through these
experiments and things, thatthey can reopen windows.

(01:12:21):
So if you have a stroke andyou've lost some motor skills,
they're developing ways that youcan reopen those windows.
To be hypersensitive tolearning how to walk again Sure.
Reopen those windows.
To be hypersensitive tolearning how to walk again Sure.
And you know not only yourpodcast.
I love listening to otherpodcasts, especially if I'm

(01:12:41):
driving, and that one was superinteresting to me.
I'm not suggesting by any meansthat anyone goes out and gets
some magic mushrooms, becausethere's different things they
talked about, but definitelylisten to that podcast.
Yeah and yeah, just learninganything.
In general, you've got to stayfocused.
That was one way they talkedabout helping train your mind.

(01:13:02):
Again, that goes back to what Iwas saying earlier If you enjoy
it, it's not going to seem likework and you're going to want
to do more of it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
How does somebody get in touch with you?

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
If you're interested in what Troy industries has to
offer?
Um, our website isworldoftroycom uh, an online
store.
Uh, you can also, you know,call and talk to customer
service.
You have any questions?
Um, open and all that kind ofstuff and um.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
And you're on LinkedIn too, right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Yeah, personally, personally I'm on, uh, I'm on
LinkedIn.
Um, uh, I need to get thatupdated with some new things.
You were nice enough to kind oflook that over for me and I
don't know that I've reallyupdated that since I made one.
So it's on my list to kind ofget my LinkedIn up to date.
But, yeah, if you want to reachme personally, I'm definitely
on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
All right, Well, good stuff.
Well, Brandon, thank you somuch for coming in today and
giving our listeners someinsight in how they can go about
their career, maybe without youknow having a mortgage as far
as a college tuition goes, andreally kind of creating your own
luck, kind of making sure thatyou end up with some mentors

(01:14:10):
along the way and then how togive back and mentor to other
people.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, if my story can helpanybody else out there that
wants to try something differentand not be afraid to do it,
that, uh, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
Awesome.
Well, thanks so much, man.
Thank you, team.
You heard it here.
On the charge for podcast, I'mincredibly grateful for Brandon
Hearst being in my life Causeagain, this 300 pin wouldn't be
here without him and, um, youknow, think about people that
are in your world, or thinkabout people that might be a
mentor or a source forinspiration for you.

(01:14:40):
Hopefully that we bring amazingpeople and continue to bring
amazing people here to thepodcast.
So please check those pastguests out and be looking
forward to the next one thatwe'll bring, so that maybe you
can take a piece from theirpodcast, a piece from their life
that they've used in order toimprove their life or their
trajectory, and make yoursbetter as well.
Again, until next time.

(01:15:01):
I'm Jim Cripps with the ChargeForward podcast.
Special thanks to our friendshere at HitLab Studios here in
Nashville, tennessee, as well asour partners, sense, custom
Development and Charge ForwardSolutions.
Until next time.
We'll see you later.
Team is Jim Cripps here with theCharge Forward Podcast.
I just want to tell you I loveyou.
I appreciate you listening, Iappreciate you for subscribing

(01:15:23):
and sharing the Charge ForwardPodcast with people you know and
you love, because that's whatwe're here for.
We are here to share theamazing stories, the things that
people have been through, theways that they were able to
improve their life, so that youcan take little nuggets from
theirs and help improve yourstory and be better tomorrow
than you were today.

(01:15:43):
I hope that this is the toolyou needed at the right time and
that you find value in theamazing guests that we bring
each and every week.
Thanks so much and don't forgetnew episodes drop every
Thursday.

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