Caleb Lawson: recording in progress. Morning, Jeff, and morning listeners to Maker Jeff Girard: Good Caleb Lawson: in the Mix. Jeff Girard: morning, everybody. Caleb Lawson: Welcome to episode 21. I think Jeff Girard: 21. Caleb Lawson: we've got a good one lined up for you. So this one is going to be a little bit maybe ethereal, esoteric. I don't know. It's more about Jeff Girard: It's more about Caleb Lawson: philosophy. Jeff Girard: the maker, not the mix. Caleb Lawson: It's more about philosophy than anything else. So I want to read something to you. I'm not going to reference it. I'm just going to read it. And then I want to chat about it real quick. And this is to all of you. Jeff and I have been talking about this for a while. But it says, avoid foolish controversies and arguments because they are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once and then warn them a second time after that have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and self-condemned." And I just think that's a really lovely piece of wisdom. If you are in the industry, perhaps you know that I'm referencing something in particular and I'm not going to give that the dignity of of any more airtime. It's human nature to want to get involved, jump in, defend yourself. You know, there have been certainly falsehoods that have been said and accusations that have been made and names that have been called. And admittedly, Jeff and I have had a little bit of foolish fun getting involved in that from time to time. It's just not worth it. And it's not. helpful to you, the listeners, it's not helpful to our mission as CCI. Our goal is to build you up, the artisan, to help you find better techniques, to not only make amazing craft concrete, but also to build your business. Finding those right connections, networking. and building those relationships because ultimately that's what business is really about. You know, we're in business to be in business. We're not in business to win some game. And that, I think, is the ultimate version of our mission is we want you to be successful. And so we have decided to put down foolish controversies and focus on you, the artisan. on you, the listener, and focus on helping you be successful. And that's really what we're here for. So that's my 35 second, two minute and 57 second spiel on what we're about and why we're really here. We're not on this podcast to throw mud at other people. We're not on this podcast to vilify methods or mixes or ingredients or... anything like that. We want you to have sound, solid, foundational understanding of how things work and how business is done. And like I said, we're playing a game to stay in the game. And that's something that we want to just really drive home. Jeff Girard: Absolutely. So as many of you know, I started CCI next April will be 20 years ago. So Caleb Lawson: Crazy. Jeff Girard: 20 years ago, CCI was formed. I got started doing this even longer before that, not five years before that, so in 99. So it will be 24 years, 25 years next year. All right, long time, quarter Caleb Lawson: We need to have Jeff Girard: century. Caleb Lawson: a party, don't you think? Jeff Girard: Something like that, yeah, I have at least a beer. And although, you know, I got literally, my first project was just for my house. And the story, how I got started is on the CCI website. So if you're really interested to learn about my history and the history of CCI, you can go read about that. It's on the About page. But my mission, my goal has always been to help people, to elevate and to... educate. And the mechanics of that process start with first building a relationship and then conveying information. I have information about things that my students and my audience, our audience, want to have. They don't have it or they don't have a complete version of it, and they look to us as experts to convey it to them. Now, I would be a foolish, arrogant person to think that I'm the only one who has all the answers. I don't. I draw from a very vast and very public resource of technical information, engineering classes and things like that I've taken. You can see my diploma, so I've taken stuff, right? There's a very large body of information of how to make a mold, how to put forms together. Folks who build cabinets know very well how to assemble pieces of melamine and to build a box. So it's no secret there. Understanding what a pozzolin is and how it works in cement chemistry is, although it's not common knowledge, It's certainly not knowledge that is locked away and available only to the select few. You can go online. The internet is an amazing thing, an amazing resource. Now, the challenge and my role that I see as an educator is I'm not here to disgorge information that I have that you don't have. My role is to... increase understanding, because you may have heard things or you may know things. You may know things I don't know, but I'm here to help you understand, to interpret, to condense a vast array of knowledge maybe about how concrete cures or how sealers work or something like that. I'm just using these as examples. And it's, you know, the first level is if you can understand something. then you can begin to master it. And if you can begin to master it, you then begin, sorry, it's early, then can begin to become successful and grow, right? So that's really what today's topic is going to be about. It's moving beyond the mechanics of knowing how to build a form or how to mix concrete or knowing which... ingredient to put in or what sealer to use or how to make a particular color or any of those things. There's a vast array of very talented people that can talk to you about that. They can show you great techniques. They can teach you from everything from working with extremely dry hard packed concrete to extremely fluid, basically watery concrete. that are all strong, that give you different looks and things like that. That's the mechanical level. So that's where you begin. Everybody begins at the mechanical level. It's learning how to trowel concrete if that's what you wanna do. It's learning how to polish concrete if that's what you wanna do. It's learning how to build curved forms or using rubber or developing a new color or something like that, right? It's all very mechanical. And what I've seen over the years, and I've talked to a lot of people from all over the world, is we all get in this because we wanna be creative. There's an inner passion and we want to express that. And we love this material concrete. And we want to share that with people. And we know... that there are other people out there who want concrete but don't want to actually do it. So we provide a service. This is a service industry. We're Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: providing a service to craft something out of concrete. We're basically distilling emotions into a solid chunk of something, whether it's a countertop or a chair or a bathroom vanity or a sculpture Caleb Lawson: is of our worth. Jeff Girard: or whatever, right? Doesn't matter. And... We do this because we want to exchange our craft, our skill, our passion, our creativity for money. That's really what it comes down to. Because when you're in business, the reason why you're in business, and this is often seen as a very dirty thing in this industry, is you are in a business to make money, to feed your family, to pay your employees so they can feed their families. And to grow, Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: that's business. Now we're not trying to exploit anything. We're not trying to charge a million dollars for something that costs us a penny. So we're not exploitive, but we wanna be fair. So, you know, I'm not Caleb Lawson: Well, Jeff Girard: gonna Caleb Lawson: and... Jeff Girard: dip into the whole capitalist thing, but the purpose of a business is to create profit to grow, to earn money, to sustain ourselves. And we can do that modestly. or not. The first stage is mastering the mechanics so that you're comfortable and confident so that you can then present your wares and your services to the world. Caleb Lawson: which I would say is, I wanna interject Jeff. Jeff Girard: Yes, please do. Caleb Lawson: First, that's kind of part Jeff Girard: That's Caleb Lawson: one. Jeff Girard: the beginning stage. Caleb Lawson: Yeah, that's part one too of what we run through in our ultimate course, in-person course. But I wanna kind of back up just a touch because you touched on something about knowledge and you know. We together have spent a great deal of time developing knowledge. I've spent, you know, 10 years learning under you. And so there's a great deal of, you know, knowledge that I've gained, that you've gained over the number of years that we've been in this. Certainly your education has a lot, a lot to do with that. But I also think there's something that we're trying to capture, and that is the ability to interpret information. And so, you know, when we think about, we're going to be releasing Jeff's lecture on post-tensioning, for instance. And, you know, that is a, it's a theoretical lecture on, on a concept, you know, it's not intended to be taken as, oh, well, you can use a wrench and tighten it this much, and, you know, because every situation is different. But the concept of it is something that Jeff distilled into information that we can, you know, we, we laymen, can understand easily and that I think is the, you know, to me that's the mark of somebody who is not only an expert at something but somebody who is qualified and an expert at teaching somebody is because if you can take a complex concept and distill it down to something that a layman can understand then you've got the concept. And so, you know, that's something I think is really important and something that we really stress is not only are we trying to show you the information, but we're actually what we really want is to teach you how to interpret the information so that you yourself can solve those problems for yourself. It's like, you know, the, you know, we want to hear from everybody, but when you think about it, the best client is the one you never hear from again. because you've done your job Jeff Girard: Absolutely. Caleb Lawson: well, you've properly educated them and things like that, and you wanna develop relationships with these people. So on some level, it's like, I wanna hear from you again. If you're a client, I wanna hear from you again, I wanna know that you're loving the thing that I made for you, but also, if you're a student or an alumni of CCI, we want to have long-term, I wanna have a 20-year relationship with you, I wanna be friends with you in 20 years, but I also... You know, think that there's a, an early stage of troubleshooting and developing those techniques and talents and helping you kind of get those answers for yourself. And then at some point, you know, the hope is that you start talking to us about the technical side of things. And it's like, Oh, well, I learned this and I figured this out and like, what do you think about this? And you know, being in that back and forth and that to us is the mark of, of our success. Because if we're constantly giving you technobabble and forcing you to come back to the fountain to drink, then we're not doing our jobs very well, Jeff Girard: Yeah. We Caleb Lawson: you Jeff Girard: don't Caleb Lawson: know? Jeff Girard: want to sell you fish. We want to teach you how to fish. And what crossed my mind is like, I don't have kids. Like we don't have kids. You have kids, Caleb, and you have two little boys and another one on the way. Caleb Lawson: I'm about Jeff Girard: So Caleb Lawson: to have three little boys. Jeff Girard: you got about three little, I have three cousins. So I kind of know who are all brothers that are pretty close in age. So I kind of know where you're coming from. Our students, and I'm going to talk more in the past tense, but certainly this is applicable to all future students. You're my children. And there's, I can only imagine this is very similar. In the beginning stages, there's a hierarchical relationship of the parent knowing and teaching and correcting. and the child learning to become a human, to learning how to become an adult. And at some point, they kind of become independent and they start on their own. The birds leave the nest, so to speak. And we want to see our students, we wanna see our friends do that. And we wanna be there the whole way, and be proud of you and hear your success stories, hear all about the things that you, the choices you've made and the successes you've had and celebrate those. Everybody's gonna stumble and trip on the sidewalk and skin their knee. Everybody does it. It's, there's no secret. It's what do you do after that? And do you get back on that bicycle? and learn how to ride it. And then once you learn how to ride it, what do you do there? Do you ride it because you love the exercise? Do you jump over things? Do you like riding for a long distance? You like to ride fast? What do you like to do with it? Like, where do you wanna go? Caleb Lawson: Yeah, well, and that children analogy is super, you know, I think it's very comprehensive because, you know, something I've, you know, in the, gosh, 2013, so October will be 10 years since I took the ultimate course. Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: And you know, I would suggest that I've graduated. Jeff Girard: Yeah, I don't think so. Caleb Lawson: You know, but I look at, I mean, to your point, you know, That's the kind of relationship that we want, right? Like we want this upfront, I think student applies, right? And then because I think there's, like you said, a hierarchical sort of relationship, we're giving knowledge to the people taking the course and we take that super seriously. But then after that, it's like, hey, actually, at some point Jeff Girard: I learned Caleb Lawson: I want Jeff Girard: from Caleb Lawson: my Jeff Girard: you. Caleb Lawson: kids to become my friends. Right now... You know, my house, my rules, you know, I tell them all the time, like, sorry, but it's not a democracy here. Like, Jeff Girard: Mm-hmm. Right. Caleb Lawson: you know, I, it's, Jeff Girard: And they're Caleb Lawson: it's. Jeff Girard: sick, by the way, we've seen them, so. Caleb Lawson: Yeah, no, they come in all the time. They're at school now. But, you know, they have to live a certain way in my house because I'm raising them to be men. You know, I want my boys to grow up to be competent young men. And so at some point, my prayer and hope and goal is that they become my friends, much like myself and my father. My dad's one of my best friends. We do things together. We hang out we you know, it's like he comes over for whiskey and we go hiking together and well We don't do as much as I'd like to but we you know like we do stuff together we go places together we hang out and you know, there's still that element of you know, he's my dad and So there's he's lived longer life than me and so there's stuff that we haven't gotten to yet that I still don't know and And Jeff Girard: You Caleb Lawson: so Jeff Girard: know Caleb Lawson: I Jeff Girard: what, Caleb Lawson: think that's what we're after, you know? Jeff Girard: there's, what you're doing now with your boys and what you have with your dad and always will have is respect. And to me, respect is incredibly important. And Caleb Lawson: Well, trust is too, because we, Jeff Girard: trust, right? Trust Caleb Lawson: you know. Jeff Girard: and respect go together. Because if somebody is untrustworthy, you can't have respect. And if somebody doesn't respect you, how can you trust them? Caleb Lawson: Well, and I think coming from that place of, I mean, and this is getting so philosophical, and I love it, I love conversations like this, because like, so every night before bed, so no matter what, no matter how shitty their attitudes have been, no matter what their day's been like, no matter the circumstances, right? Every single night, I read to my children, and then, I tuck them in and like, this is like my favorite part of the day. It's my bedtime's my job. You know, mama stays home all day. And so, you know, it's like, I kind of relieve her after dinner and I do bedtime. So we, you know, brushing the teeth thing and, um, you know, I help them get their jams on and then read to them. Uh, and then I tuck them in. And so, um, I have an incredible amount of fun doing this. I'm reading the second Harry Potter book right now. and I do a horrible British accent and it's really fun. Jeff Girard: That's awesome. Caleb Lawson: And Jeff Girard: Let's see. Caleb Lawson: and then when I tuck them in, every night I say the same thing. I say, do you know that I love you? And they say yes. I say, do you know that there's nothing bad you could ever do to make me love you less? I say yes. Do you know that there's nothing good you could ever do to make me love you more? And then and so that it's a setting the stage for like I might be hard on you. I might yell at you. I might, there might be a consequence to something you've done and all of that is done in love because I'm trying to make you a better person. I'm trying to make you into a person. I'm trying to make you into a man. And I think that really analogy, what's the word for that, to make something an analogy, Jeff Girard: analogous. Caleb Lawson: it's an It's analogous to parenthood in that way, because we really care. We really want to see you succeed. We've got students all over the world. I'm so beyond privileged and blessed to talk to people from all over the world. I was talking to Terry over in Australia the other day. And we've got, it's just amazing to have this community. And we are dedicated to your success. It's like, yeah, we've developed. products to make your life better and all of those things. And of course we want to sell them. Of course we want to make money. Of course we want to support ourselves. Like that's kind of, you know, we're in business, right? But the reason that business exists in the first place is because we want to help. Jeff Girard: Right, so you saw me get up. Caleb Lawson: Yeah. Jeff Girard: This is one of the books my dad used to read to me. Caleb Lawson: Ruda-Baga stories. Jeff Girard: Yeah, I don't Caleb Lawson: Hmm. Jeff Girard: really remember Caleb Lawson: Ha ha Jeff Girard: what the content is. They're Caleb Lawson: ha. You're Jeff Girard: just Caleb Lawson: gonna Jeff Girard: fun Caleb Lawson: have to go Jeff Girard: stories, Caleb Lawson: read them later, Jeff Girard: right? Caleb Lawson: right? Jeff Girard: But there, I have two books. There's another one over there, but my dad used to read this to me and I, and I still have the books, so I know exactly Caleb Lawson: It's impactful, Jeff Girard: what you're talking about. Caleb Lawson: right? Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: You know, I mean, my dad used to call me sport when I was about my kid's age. Jeff Girard: Hahaha Caleb Lawson: I never played sports. I wasn't a sporty kid. I wasn't cool, but my dad called me sport. And if he walked through the door and called me sport right now, it would bring back a lot of, you know. feelings and memories and, you know, I also want to be sensitive to, there are folks out there who don't have good relationships with their parents. And I just want to be super sensitive to that, of course, but that's really the goal of, you know, what we're doing with CCI. It's the goal of, you know, what Jeff and I are about as people. You know, Jeff has been, I mean, yeah, I know you don't have kids. But I kind of feel like one of them, you know, I've spent 10 years being mentored by you. And at zero times in history of my relationship with Jeff, have I felt like he's been out for anything other than, you know, my good. And being in business with him, I can tell you that for certain because there are, you know, things that both of us have done and will do that are like, oh, that probably wasn't the most, business oriented thing, it was about the person. You know, and so. Jeff Girard: And sometimes, and this is where the human nature and the human element comes back to play, and it's very important to us, is sometimes we have to make decisions that are not the best for us from a business perspective, Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: but it's good for you. So here's a good example. sealers have been my big thing since day one. And Caleb Lawson: Yeah, I remember Jeff Girard: any of you who Caleb Lawson: you had Jeff Girard: know Caleb Lawson: the reputation Jeff Girard: my Caleb Lawson: of Jeff Girard: long history know Caleb Lawson: you're Jeff Girard: that Caleb Lawson: the one who could make concrete that doesn't crack and doesn't stain. Jeff Girard: Right. Caleb Lawson: That Jeff Girard: And, Caleb Lawson: was your deal. Jeff Girard: you know, there were, it's like a puzzle, right? There are solutions to puzzles. And I chose Caleb Lawson: Well, Jeff Girard: a particular Caleb Lawson: in this case, Jeff Girard: solution. Caleb Lawson: it's a solution. Jeff Girard: Um, there's no, it's no secret. I, I chose coatings, topical coatings, right? Not the thick plasticky coatings people invoke, like the thick of bar top epoxies. Um, we're talking about micro thin sealers, of course, way back in the old days. Those didn't exist. So they were more like your thick Caleb Lawson: less Jeff Girard: plastic Caleb Lawson: coding. Jeff Girard: coatings, your driveway coatings, things like that. Anyway. Oh, where was I going with this? Um, so for the longest time I had the, I recommended certain particular products because they worked, they worked for me, they stood up to the tests that I developed to Caleb Lawson: Well, and it Jeff Girard: evaluate Caleb Lawson: takes you a Jeff Girard: them. Caleb Lawson: long time to get into Jeff Girard: Um, Caleb Lawson: something from that standpoint because Jeff Girard: and I recognize that as noon, as more products came on the market. you know, people had more options and, and there were ways to evaluate them and, and say, okay, which is better, which is whatever, right. Have some sort of metric, but by and large, I stayed out, out and, and deliberately did not try to create my own thing. I wanted to be objective and say, I'm going to stand back. and evaluate what other people create, whether it's an ad mixture or a sealer or a tool or whatever, and make recommendations that way. Kind of like I was trying to be the consumer reports of concrete. And... The frustrating thing, and this is when I decided to develop Omega, and I'm not going to get into a whole lecture on sealers, but the reason why I chose to create my own sealer versus continually to recommend products that are on the, there were a lot of products on the market that are still on the market. And the reason why I didn't is because none of them ticked all the boxes that I felt were certainly to me, but honestly what my opinion is not really that important. What's more important, more relevant was there weren't a number of sealers, there weren't really any sealers on the market that ticked the boxes that I felt were critically important to my customers, to the industry, and more importantly to the industry's customers, the people who ultimately buy this stuff. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: So... For instance, if I had a sealer that offered incredible protection, but it was really difficult to get it to look good every single time. Maybe that's not the best, you know, if you have to keep recoding it over and over again to get it right. Maybe that's not the best product to be using. Or perhaps something that looked and felt really good, but you never knew was water gonna leave a white mark in it? Did acid etch it? Did it work? Is it going to work or not? Caleb Lawson: Well, Jeff Girard: What was Caleb Lawson: and Jeff Girard: the definition? Caleb Lawson: then also there are the thick plastic coatings and you don't want that. And you also don't want something solvent-based because there's health risks Jeff Girard: right. Caleb Lawson: involved. Jeff Girard: And I don't want to have a product that Caleb Lawson: It's just Jeff Girard: spontaneously Caleb Lawson: a really narrow... Jeff Girard: peels up six months afterwards, because as the, as the sealer cures and shrinks, it self-delaminates. And Caleb Lawson: So you Jeff Girard: all Caleb Lawson: create Jeff Girard: these are Caleb Lawson: for Jeff Girard: descriptions Caleb Lawson: yourself an extremely Jeff Girard: of real products Caleb Lawson: narrow Jeff Girard: that either Caleb Lawson: set Jeff Girard: are on the market Caleb Lawson: of Jeff Girard: or not. Caleb Lawson: directives. Jeff Girard: So I, I bit the bullet and I'm, I said, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to do it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to. create a sealer because, oh wow, this is great. Because honestly, it'd be so much easier to go out there and find some product manufacturer and take their product and just relabel it and stick it in a can and sell it. That's the easy solution. But that's what everybody else does. And you see the results. It's like, well, I take this box and this box, but I don't get that box. And now over time, I've done the same thing with um, the alpha line of products. So we've got a defoamer, a dry polymer, and, um, an incredibly powerful super plasticizer fluidizer, right? Caleb Lawson: Which is Jeff Girard: These Caleb Lawson: worth Jeff Girard: are not Caleb Lawson: noting Jeff Girard: products Caleb Lawson: that those Jeff Girard: that Caleb Lawson: things are Jeff Girard: I'm Caleb Lawson: not Jeff Girard: selling. Caleb Lawson: mainstream. Those things are not, you know, quote unquote white label or down pack. Like these are raw materials that are not mainstream and you know, not the same as anything else Jeff Girard: Right. Caleb Lawson: that's on the market. So. Jeff Girard: And you can tell that because you just use them and you see, wow, everything else is here. And then my stuff, CCI stuff is here. It's expensive to do that. It's a pain in the butt to do that. It takes a long time to do that. We're talking years of development, not something you just spontaneously go out. Oh, I'm going to meet a new vendor and cool. I'll relabel something and slap it in a can and sell it to people. I want to understand it. And I do this for a reason. I do this because I see the needs of our customers as their business changes. Like. Back, way back in the old days, before GFRC was really a thing at all, you know, there were two ways to cast concrete. There was the Chang way and the Buddy Rhodes way. So Fu Cheng Chang did basically wet cast, he used an aggregate based concrete, whether it was basically like what you get out of a truck, right, modified and things like that, but basically aggregate based. wet cast, cream finish. That was his look. Really cool. Extremely different from Buddy's look, which was a mortar-based, all sand, stiff, hand-packed, sticky kind of concrete. Lots of texture, lots of voids. That's Buddy's look. So you either did one or you did the other, and there was no in-between. As time progressed and Gia Ferci came on the scene, you know, all of a sudden now you're spraying concrete, you're hand packing, perhaps you're pouring things. And the process of making, the mechanics of making a piece of concrete, the time has changed, the techniques have changed, the materials have changed, things have gotten more efficient, more effective. It used to be, this was the end of your standard, when you ordered a piece of concrete, when a customer contacted one of the handful of companies on the market, it was six to eight weeks to get a piece. And these pieces were pretty basic, right? You didn't have your 15, 18, 20 foot long slabs. You didn't have cool looking thin furniture. You didn't have any of that stuff. You couldn't. It was two or three inch thick concrete that was maybe six or eight feet long. That was about it, you know, real basic blocky stuff. And it took a long time because that technology was primitive by today's standards. It was advanced compared to sidewalk concrete. So you have to always have a comparison, right? We are so far outside of, you know, that was Wright brothers plane. Now we're flying around in SR-71, which is actually old technology, right? Caleb Lawson: Yeah, well, Jeff Girard: And Caleb Lawson: it hadn't been beat yet, so... Jeff Girard: hasn't been beat yet, so that we know of, right? Caleb Lawson: You're right. Yeah, that's a good point. Jeff Girard: As our industry changes, so it's like a race, we have the tools, the ingredients, the mix designs, the sealers, they're pushing the envelope, right? We wanna get better and better. And then our creativity, our techniques take advantage of that. And Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: now we push further and further. Okay, that's all mechanical, right? That's all cool, that's all fun to do. You're building a better mousetrap. You're building that... that nanoscale digital mousetrap. But none of that matters if you don't have a market to sell that to. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: None of that matters if you keep having problems because you don't have a process that helps you eliminate mistakes. None of that matters if you don't have a reliable support system or to somebody to mentor or somebody to share your ideas with. Caleb Lawson: Uh huh. Jeff Girard: It's about... what's beyond the mechanics. It's about the relationships. It's about the human to human connection. Caleb Lawson: Right. Jeff Girard: And that's kind of where we're, that's what we're focusing on. It's not just about making a cool flashy product to sell people and get them excited about, ooh, I can now make a cool looking piece of concrete because look at my concrete looks like lava. All right, that's the mechanics of it. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: Important, but important at this level. Caleb Lawson: Right. Jeff Girard: We want to be up here. Because that's where you need to be to be successful. Caleb Lawson: Well, and you sent me a video the other day, Jeff, that kind of illustrated this really, really well. And Simon Sinek, I don't know if that's how you pronounce his last name. It's how it seems to be spelled. So we're going to go with it. And he had in the same year, he did a talk at one company and a talk in another company. You can go look this up or whatever. I'm not going to give company names. I don't need to be dealing with any of that. But At one company, he said, and these are both very, very large, very well-known companies, Jeff Girard: Everybody Caleb Lawson: he said at one company, Jeff Girard: knows them. Caleb Lawson: everyone knows him. He said at one company, 70% of the time, 70% of 70% of their executives time was devoted to how to beat their competitor. Okay. So that's a lot of mental space taken up by a competitor. And we've been guilty of this, right? We don't want to be guilty of it in the future. So that's where we're coming from. But at the... And then subsequently, after he gave his talk, this company gave him their new flagship product. And he said it was great. And then he went and he did a talk at this other company. Also big name, everybody knows it, this particular company's competitor. And he said 100% of the executive's of the time of 100% of their executives was dedicated to, this is in the tech space, to making teaching easier for teachers and learning easier for students. They had a mission. And then he was subsequently in the car with one of the executives from company number two, and he was like, I'd like to stir the pot, so I pulled out this product that was a competing product. And he was like, well, this is so much better than your product. It's so good. It does this, it does that. And the executive was like, I'm sure it is. And that was Jeff Girard: OK. Caleb Lawson: the end of the conversation. Um, the point of all that being We want to play as a company, as CCI, we want to play an infinite game. There are finite games and there are infinite games. Finite games are defined players, defined rules, defined time. Jeff Girard: There's a goal. Caleb Lawson: Businesses, Jeff Girard: You win. Caleb Lawson: you play to win. Name me a company that has won in the annals of time. Jeff Girard: I can tell you a lot of companies have lost. Caleb Lawson: And generally, I mean, Myspace didn't lose to Facebook. They lost to, or, you know, they didn't, I'm sorry, they didn't even know about Facebook. They didn't lose to the company that they were fighting. They were fighting some company I've never heard of. And that's the thing is we don't, you know, like I said, we've been guilty of this. We have responded in ways we shouldn't have to certain situations. And, you know, we've kind of realized it doesn't matter. Because we're here for you. We're not here for competition. We're not here for, you know, the best product of the year award. I mean, that would be great, right? Like, it's not like we don't want that, but at the same time, at the end of the day, what really matters is did we help you? Did we help you be more successful than you were last year? Were we in that relationship with you? Were we in the trenches with you? Were we on your side? Were we in your corner? That's the metric I wanna be known. Jeff Girard: Mm-hmm. In a way, I'm kind of happy that there are other people wasting their time and energy making things up and stirring the pot and using up all their mental energy. Cause if they're doing that, they're not helping their customers. Right. So cool. Caleb Lawson: If you're too busy convincing people, Jeff Girard: Letting Caleb Lawson: oh, I've Jeff Girard: your Caleb Lawson: got the best thing ever, and it's the best thing ever because it's the best thing ever, then you're not really like, what are you doing for the people you've committed to serve? Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: Because it's about service. It's not, you know, that's what we're after here. Jeff Girard: So that's our commitment to you. I mean, we're saying this publicly, is we're here for you. Hold us accountable. Talk to us. Caleb Lawson: You know, I Jeff Girard: We Caleb Lawson: actually Jeff Girard: wanna Caleb Lawson: had Jeff Girard: hear Caleb Lawson: that. Jeff Girard: from you. Like, we don't hear enough from you guys because it's not about, like historically, my role. My role in CCI. publicly has been as the teacher, right? On the backside is I'm tech support. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: So if there's an issue with a product, if there's an issue with, hey, you know, I'm faced with a challenge dealing with a customer, blah, I'm gonna help the student. That's historically been my role. But we want to hear from you more than just hey, I have an issue, help me fix this. Okay, that's again, the basic, that's the mechanical level, which we're 100% committed Caleb Lawson: We're Jeff Girard: to doing Caleb Lawson: there for that. Jeff Girard: that. We're there for that, right. But we wanna hear from you about your success stories. Yesterday, I got a text while I was driving home from one of my students in California. And he sent some pictures like, look at what I just did, man, it's getting better. I'm gonna briefly read what he said. simply because his wording was really nice. Thanks, Jeff. Each one has been getting easier and easier. It's definitely cool making different styles. And the pieces he made were just fantastic. And that makes me so happy to hear. It's like, does he still need me? Well, maybe, but my whole existence is not dependent on having people need me. It's about the pride I feel in seeing them you do great things and have success. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: That's where I get my energy from. It's not about keeping you locked into having to talk to me about, hey, this isn't working. You said to try this and it didn't quite work and you gotta keep coming back to me. That's not how I fill my bucket. Caleb Lawson: Right. Yeah, I mean, I think that's just, that's the bones of it. You know, I actually going back to the accountability thing, super valuable, I'm big on accountability. And I actually had somebody reach out to me about something that was said in the public sphere. And he was like, man, I don't know if that's what you ought to be spending your energy on. I was like, thank you. You're 100% right. And so, you know, I mean, what is it? Iron sharpens iron. Like I want to be sharpened. I want to be better. I want to be, you know, because again, my job, Jeff's job is to serve you. And I want to be getting better at that all the time. So, yeah. Jeff Girard: So kind of getting back to what we kind of started with about. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: growing and communicating and building connections. I'm gonna turn the focus away from us, but and onto you. Like when you come to class, right? You're in the mechanical stages. And then when you leave class. You're at a stage where you're starting to master, you're starting to learn how to ride that bicycle on your own, okay? At some point you decide to take the training wheels off and you get going and... The sequence of progress that I've seen, I've seen a lot of businesses over the years. When you break out of that mechanical role and realize that making concrete is, yes, it's fun, yes, it's passionate, yes, it's creative, but it is the means to an end Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: because you as the business owner, Your job is to grow your business, to make connections, to develop and grow your market, to communicate with the designers, the architects, your individual customers, to find out what their passion is, to collaborate and become a partner with them, to bring whatever their idea is to fruition. So that's like the next level. And then the level above that. is you as the professional, you as the master of your material, because ultimately you want to be that. You are creating the paradigm of what concrete can be, what it should be. You're educating. You are the source of education and information for the architects and designers you talk to. You become their trusted resource. You become their mentor in how to work with this material, how to utilize it effectively and efficiently. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: And That can only happen if you focus on learning and communicating and growing connections with people. It becomes, in a way, kind of full circle because you are not educating the people who you are trying to get business from. So it's, in a weird way, it's kind of like you're coming at it from both directions. Caleb Lawson: Well, you're solving problems for each other. You know, there's, Jeff Girard: Absolutely. Caleb Lawson: it's a symbiotic relationship. And I think that's where, you know, where some people get off is they're like, well, business is all about me. I've got to make money. I've got to do this. And it's like, well, actually, if you want to like be in business for a long time, business is about we, you know? If you want to be, if you want to play the infinite game, business is about utilizing your skills to help. other people solve their problems. Jeff Girard: Mm-hmm. Caleb Lawson: And yes, there's money that is involved there, but at the end of the day your mindset is not about the money, it's about the value. You know, it's about the people, because people are valuable, stuff is not. and you know I've spent 10 years developing a craft right and I you know Jeff and I were talking about this book, Emeth revisited a while back and it's a really good one. Go read it if you haven't I'd highly recommend it. But you know it talks a lot about you know the kind of technician and the person who is so devoted to the craft that they don't think about the company. And that's where businesses get into trouble. And where we hopefully want to help you avoid those pitfalls is, we're trying to build a community of people that's more interested in other people and more interested in living a life in service to a greater thing. You know of building a community and rising tides and raising ships and of course building quality things But you know, there's that there's a movement of craft in the world right now there's a And I think it's got a lot of value, you know, people are waking up to the idea that well I don't want this mass manufactured thing. I want this thing made by this guy. Yeah, it's gonna cost me more money I get that but his time is valuable and I think You know, I heard something recently. Jeff Girard: You froze on me, Caleb, but I think you're OK Caleb Lawson: I'm Jeff Girard: on Caleb Lawson: still Jeff Girard: the... Caleb Lawson: here. I'm Jeff Girard: Yeah, Caleb Lawson: still Jeff Girard: you're Caleb Lawson: here, Jeff Girard: still Caleb Lawson: I Jeff Girard: there. Caleb Lawson: promise. Something I heard recently was, you know, if you have a really, really good friend who owns a business, you shouldn't ask him for a discount. You should offer to pay him full retail. Not because, you know, but because you see the value in his work. And so, you know, Certainly, I want to give friends of mine deals, because that's part of being a friend. But if I'm offered full price, I'm gonna be like, well, thank you, that's fantastic, I appreciate that. Now, I may not accept it, but the appreciation is there. Anyway, all of that to say. Jeff Girard: It's your choice to give that gift of a discount, but you shouldn't ask for it. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so all of that to say, I mean, this is, this is a long and verbose roundabout way of saying people over products, people over stuff Jeff Girard: community Caleb Lawson: are Jeff Girard: over concrete. Caleb Lawson: community. That's it. Community over concrete. I love that. And it's true. And it's gonna be true after we're gone. It's gonna be true. You know, today, tomorrow, and as long as businesses are around community over competition, community over concrete, you know. We want the C, the C, and the I to stand for more than what it stands for now. We want it to stand for compassion and craft and camaraderie. And Jeff Girard: Integrity. Caleb Lawson: yeah, we want the integrity. We want, and so that, if you take nothing else from a CCI course, which we hope you take a lot out of a CCI course, and we hope a lot of you take a CCI course. Jeff Girard: Mm-hmm. Caleb Lawson: But what we hope you take out of the CCI course is the community and the knowledge that you have a place to turn to for not just support, but camaraderie and skill building and oh my gosh, I cannot be called again. Sorry. So, Jeff, talk for a minute while I text this person. Jeff Girard: Airplane mode. Over the years, this is something that I've noticed, and Caleb and I were talking a couple days ago about a fellow student who had come to class a few years ago, and Caleb had reconnected with him. Not that he went away, it's just, it's good to reestablish closer connections, to be reassuring. And one thing that I've seen, Again, it's from a hierarchical point of view. I'm certainly not the most easily approachable person and I can come across as a little bit authoritarian when it comes to information. And my motivations behind that are from a parent, don't touch the hot stove, you're gonna get burned. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: That kind of thing. That's the mentality here is I wanna make sure that you don't... You don't fall off a cliff. You don't, you know, make your concrete and have it break. And you waste all this time and money and disappoint your customers and hurt your business. So a lot of my motivation is geared toward, um, uh, prescriptive and, um, That sort of. communication level. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: I'm fumbling here for the right words. That also, that tends to make it difficult for people to want to talk to me about, hey, I'm having some issues and, you know, we want you to feel, we don't want you to be intimidated. We don't want you to feel like you're letting us down or that there's something wrong with you or that we're gonna look down on you because you made a mistake and... You didn't, you did something that we told you not to do, or you forgot something we told you or whatever, right? Fill in the blank. I'm just using, I'm just pulling examples out of the air. All right, we are not going to say, oh man, you're dumb. We told you that, you should know better. That's ridiculous. We want you to reach out for anything, whether it's a deeply challenging problem, like, oh man, you know. I'm getting all kinds of curling and warping problems. Why? Help me out. Or, hey, I wanna know how to do this. Or, you know, I got a call yesterday on the way home, one of my good, very successful Caleb Lawson: you Jeff Girard: students, like, hey, I wanna do this particular look. Caleb Lawson: How do I do it? Jeff Girard: How do I do it? And so while I was driving home on speakerphone, of course, you know, we're talking about bouncing ideas back. Well, you could do this or you could do that. And we kind of came up with a game plan. Caleb Lawson: Uh Jeff Girard: Now Caleb Lawson: huh. Jeff Girard: it was collaborative. It wasn't me saying, oh, you should do this. I know better and that's the only way to do it. It was, you know, he had some ideas that he came up with, presented them to me. I'm like, yeah, that's on the right track, but let's also... maybe try this, right? Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: So once you come to class and once I have a basic idea of, see, the great thing about you coming to class is I know what you've been taught because Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: we've taught it to you. Caleb Lawson: Yeah. Jeff Girard: So we have a common ground, right? We have a common base of knowledge and then we can work from that. And I want you to keep learning. I want you to learn. I've said this for years, you know, go take classes from other people because they have other great things to share and to learn from. Like, I don't know everything. I can't teach you everything. In five days, it's impossible to teach everything, Caleb Lawson: Right. Jeff Girard: right? I used to, for, I don't know how many years, 15 years, more than 15 years, speak at World of Concrete. And I did, I was the only one who, for most of the time, I was the only one who talked about concrete countertops and things like that. And I used to give a three-hour lecture, which for a lot of folks is terrifying, stand in front of a room of 700 people and talk for three hours. I'm like, man, it's over in a blink of an eye. And I don't even know how many people are in the room because I don't see people when I... I don't care. There's 10,000 people. Caleb Lawson: Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe Jeff Girard: One person or 10,000, it doesn't matter. I'm passionate about what I talk about and I'll be up there waving my hands talking about stuff. I got my 186,000 slides. Caleb Lawson: Hahaha Jeff Girard: Looking through. Right. And. The challenge was like, they wanted me to teach that the implication of the class was you could come and take this class, this class, it's not a class, it's a lecture for three hours and you're gonna learn everything there is to know about making concrete countertops. It's like dudes, I can't Caleb Lawson: Oh. Jeff Girard: do it in five days of eight solid hours a day. Like that's just scratching the surface. You know, having a lecture for three hours is know, it's the cliff notes of the cliff notes of, if you don't know what that is, it's like a cheater summary of a book. So instead of reading, you know, of course this is all just short stories, but like instead of reading like To Kill a Mockingbird or, you know, Catcher in the Rye or whatever, or War and Peace, it's a like a 30-page summary of it that high school students read when they didn't read the book. They got the Caleb Lawson: Right. Jeff Girard: cliff notes. So... Learning involves a lot of time and dedication. Caleb Lawson: It's a lifelong endeavor, Jeff Girard: It's a Caleb Lawson: you Jeff Girard: lifelong Caleb Lawson: know? Jeff Girard: endeavor. And when you come to class, you're learning, you're getting auditory information, you're getting visual information, you're getting hands-on information, you're getting written information. And all those are just short-hand versions of what it takes to start to learn the mastery of it. Ultimately, you got to go home. and make concrete and do it yourself. Caleb Lawson: Exactly. Jeff Girard: That's the ultimate goal. All we're doing is giving you the right combination of things so that you're not making garbage upfront. You're Caleb Lawson: Hehehehe Jeff Girard: like, okay, I know how to make a basic thing and now I'm gonna start, I know how to make it. Maybe it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to, but I also know how to evaluate it and correct it. Caleb Lawson: Right. Jeff Girard: And it's that feedback loop of learning, doing, correcting, improving, right? Knowledge leads to experience. Experience adds to the knowledge base. They go hand in hand. So when you come to, when you choose to learn from CCI, you're getting both, right? And it's a continual process. It's not a fixed thing. It's a spectrum of Here's a little bit, now go do a little bit, come back, we'll talk, do a little bit more, and you grow. Caleb Lawson: Mm-hmm. Jeff Girard: And I'm very proud to say I have a lot of successful people around the world, not just in the United States, but around the world, who are very successful. Caleb Lawson: Yeah. Well, and something that I would say also is Oh shoot, I just lost my thought. Where'd it go? Jeff Girard: It'll come back. Caleb Lawson: You don't come back. Um... Jeff Girard: The train gets Caleb Lawson: Oh... Jeff Girard: lost in the tunnel, gets distracted by the little village, it'll come back. So you know, the proof is in the pudding, right? I've been teaching since Caleb Lawson: Oh, I Jeff Girard: 2004. Caleb Lawson: remembered what it was. Jeff Girard: I have a lot of taught around the world. I've been to Australia six times. I've taught New Zealand, India, Finland, Singapore, obviously Canada. I'm just, you know, remember Caleb Lawson: I remember Jeff Girard: everywhere, Caleb Lawson: it. Jeff Girard: right? Caleb Lawson: I remember it. Jeff Girard: But I have a lot of really successful people. who are just absolutely killing it. Good morning. Caleb Lawson: Good morning! Jeff Girard: Look at that. Now, can I take 100% for their credit? Of course not. That would be ridiculous of me to do that. But are they successful in part because of what I taught them? Absolutely, right? Caleb Lawson: Yeah. I wanted to back up. I remember what I was going to say. So Jeff Girard: See, I knew it would come back. Caleb Lawson: one thing that is Jeff Girard: Thanks for watching! Caleb Lawson: super worth noting is that certainly as makers and CCI as a manufacturer of materials, we want to make the best possible material. With our goal being to help you, we want you to have the best materials you can have. Right? And I think that is the goal of manufacturers in general. If you're making a product, you want it to be a good product. And so here's what I would say. Certainly, we are far and away better than we were as an industry when I started, and even more so since Jeff started, Jeff Girard: Mm-hmm. Caleb Lawson: in terms of what materials are available. And so I think that by and large, If you as an artisan are picking a material that is around right now that is made for use in this industry, you have a large degree of a chance of success based on that material. However... not about that. And so I think ultimately you can have the best material in the world. You can use the best concrete and it you know maybe it's a bag, maybe it's a from scratch mix, maybe it's a whatever you know Acme whatever. You can use the thing that is the best ever and still fail Jeff Girard: Mm-hmm. Caleb Lawson: because if you fail to grasp that your business is about more than just that, then ultimately long-term you're gonna burn out. Maybe you don't, maybe your concrete doesn't fail, right? But maybe you burn out because all you're doing is making the best concrete and maybe you aren't getting the recognition you feel you should get or whatever. And so I think that until, and this is true for me, until I realized that it wasn't about the concrete. I mean, obviously, I want you to be good at your concrete. I want to be good at my concrete. That should go without saying. We should make quality concrete. I'm not saying we shouldn't. But at the end of the day, my business is about making something better for somebody else. And so we want to use those quality materials to build a business, not just to make a thing. So in other words, all of that to say, the best material in the world is level one. And so you wanna build on, you know, well, really it's level two or three because education, you know, is level one. You wouldn't want to, you wouldn't want to get heart surgery from somebody who claims that they went to medical school but can't show you the diploma. You wouldn't want to. you know, or maybe Jeff Girard: Anybody Caleb Lawson: they can Jeff Girard: can Caleb Lawson: show Jeff Girard: play Caleb Lawson: you. Jeff Girard: a doctor on TV. Caleb Lawson: Yeah, it's like maybe you got a TV doctor who can show you a Jeff Girard: Maybe you got a failed Caleb Lawson: like it. Jeff Girard: reality TV show host, I don't know. Caleb Lawson: Well, maybe he has a degree in something else that's related, but isn't actually a doctorate in medical science or whatever the case may be. So. Level zero is your passion. Level one is your education. Level two or three, somewhere in there, is your materials. And then beyond that is your mindset and your goals and the overarching philosophy with which you operate. That's the upper echelon. And if you're not operating with the idea that people are more important. then you might be in business for 30 years and walk away empty. Jeff Girard: burned out. Yeah. You know, the... Caleb Lawson: And so, you know, I don't want, just so y'all know, I don't ever want to retire. That's just not a goal I have. I don't wanna do backbreaking work forever, but as long as I am physically able, I want to help people. That's Jeff Girard: And that Caleb Lawson: what Jeff Girard: also Caleb Lawson: I'm doing. Jeff Girard: means that your business is going to grow and change and evolve and include new directions and you're going to stop doing things that you used to do, but that doesn't mean you're not still involved. You're not passionate about what you're doing. It's just the things you like and the things you're doing and the directions you're moving towards change. Caleb Lawson: I mean, you, Jeff Girard: Just Caleb Lawson: Jeff, Jeff Girard: like Caleb Lawson: have seen my passions change over the last Jeff Girard: Absolutely. Caleb Lawson: 10 years. I've Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: seen, you Jeff Girard: I Caleb Lawson: know, Jeff Girard: remember some Caleb Lawson: I Jeff Girard: of Caleb Lawson: think... Jeff Girard: the conversations we had a few years ago about like what you're, when you first moved into your new shop, like what your new ideas were. Like you were going to do the thing. And, you know, we, we talked about pricing structures and describing the kinds of projects and what you would do and who the customers would be and all that. And I don't hear that anymore. And that, that doesn't mean that idea has been deleted. It just means that right now you've realized that that's not an important focus for you and your business. Maybe, maybe in 10 years you go, oh, I got that idea. I'm gonna revisit it, but it's gonna change and twist and morph into something new and different. But the focus, like, I'm gonna back up a little bit because, you know, years and years ago. back when this, you know, the industry as we know it certainly got started in the late 80s, early 90s by Fu Teng Chang and Buddy Rhodes. And Caleb Lawson: Let Jeff Girard: if. Caleb Lawson: me make a correction by the way. I said it was 20 years old. That's Last week and I realized after I published it. I was like, you know, I said that off like kind of as a quip I'm well aware that the industry is more than 20 years old. But well that the craft is more than 20 years old I'm not sure the industry is more than 20 years Jeff Girard: That's a more accurate statement because, Caleb Lawson: distinction. Jeff Girard: you know, you have a bunch of isolated individual artisans doing their craft. And as more and more people learn about it, more and more people got interested in doing it. And that's kind of how I got started. And we have a whole story about that I don't go back into because we've already told it. But I've seen a lot of folks get into this. And they do it because of the way it makes them feel. Like it's, you know, they're a third generation concrete finisher and they've been working, pouring, you know, doing driveways and pouring slabs, doing flat work all their lives. They did it as a team, they work for their parents or they work, you know, for a company and they've been doing it for this long. And man, you know, it sucks being outside and their backs getting sore and... and they want to move inside. And so they have a reason for moving out of that kind of concrete into our kind of concrete. And I'm not saying this is the natural progression for folks who start in that place and come to us from Caleb Lawson: It's Jeff Girard: that Caleb Lawson: definitely Jeff Girard: place. Caleb Lawson: got a story we've heard a lot though. Jeff Girard: But it's definitely a story we've heard a lot, okay? But then the retired airline pilot or the biology professor or the, you know, grandmother who was on a major national infomercial also has come and done this too. The natural progression is to start doing this because the way it makes you feel. You wanna have a creative outlet, you wanna do stuff, you see there's an opportunity to make money. And this is the mechanic stage of where people kinda get stuck. And I've always said this, and I'm gonna keep saying this, I'm never gonna stop saying this, is you need to approach this as a business, not as a hobby. Now, a hobby is an activity that makes you feel good. that you spend money on to make you feel good. I collect figurines, I paint watercolors, I build plastic models, I collect records, fill in the blank, right? It's a thing you spend money, it's an activity you spend money on that brings you joy. Caleb Lawson: So Jeff Girard: That's a hobby. Caleb Lawson: what's your hobby, Jeff? Jeff Girard: Concrete, no. Caleb Lawson: I could name Jeff Girard: A Caleb Lawson: two Jeff Girard: business, Caleb Lawson: of them right off the top of my head. Jeff Girard: a business, right, can start as a hobby, but it needs to evolve beyond that. Because a business ultimately is about using that creative passion and that creative energy. to create something bigger. And in the process of doing that, it generates profit. Caleb Lawson: Yeah, yeah, Jeff Girard: It doesn't Caleb Lawson: absolutely. Jeff Girard: just make money, it generates profit. So years ago, I was at a World of Concrete event doing my thing, and there was another speaker who gave his presentation, and he was talking about his business. And he kind of made a joke at the, I can't remember if it was at the, it was at the beginning of his talk, he's like. You know, I just want to say we in my company, we, we had a big celebration this year, kind of talking about the events of the prior year. Cause he spoke every year. He's like, I want to, um, I want to share this with everybody. Cause this was a big celebration for us. You know, our company, it was our first year we made our first million dollars. Like that was a big deal for him. Caleb Lawson: Uh huh. Jeff Girard: And he said, but. After the accounting was done, it cost us a million and a half dollars to get there. Right? Just because Caleb Lawson: Thank Jeff Girard: you make Caleb Lawson: you. Jeff Girard: money doesn't mean you actually are keeping money. Being in business doesn't mean you're spending money. You're not buying the most expensive toy or lots of toys or the latest and greatest whatever. It's about growing that business, obviously to generate profits so they can reinvest in it. So you can reinvest in education. So you can reinvest in a bigger shop, better outreach programs. But ultimately it's about growing a community, a community of certainly customers, but also a community of people who are passionate about concrete, right? That is what a business is really for. And we want to see people who start as a hobby, grow out of that pretty quickly and realize that it's not about making the coolest, fanciest, latest and greatest. finishing technique or casting process or shape Caleb Lawson: And Jeff Girard: or Caleb Lawson: to Jeff Girard: whatever. Caleb Lawson: be clear, we do want to be on the forefront of a lot of those things. Like Jeff Girard: Oh absolutely, yeah yeah. Caleb Lawson: if there's a new technique, here's something that honestly we're pretty good at. If there's a new technique that you've like heard about and you don't know how to do, I would be willing to bet that Jeff and I can figure out how to do it well. Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: And so we would love more than anything to teach you a new technique or to, you know, whatever. So, I mean, I think those things are worth Jeff Girard: There Caleb Lawson: saying. Jeff Girard: are no secrets in this industry. And if somebody's done Caleb Lawson: No, nothing's Jeff Girard: it, that means Caleb Lawson: new. Jeff Girard: somebody Caleb Lawson: No Jeff Girard: else can Caleb Lawson: secrets. Jeff Girard: do it too. Caleb Lawson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we're at an hour and 10 minutes, so we should probably pause. However, I'm going to take a five-minute exercise, if you will, Jeff, because you mentioned earlier in the podcast that you're aware that you can be hard to get to know and things like that. Now, I'm going to call myself weird and different because I just blew social. Lauren, my wife, she's like, Yeah, you're pretty socially unaware. I'm like, I don't know, maybe. But, you know, it's like, I don't really pay much attention to, to like the walls and things that people have. So I just, I just blow right past them. So that's how I got to know you. But, you know, as like a quote unquote, icebreaker, if you will, you know, like, we do want to get to know you. And so here's how I'm showing you that. A couple of things I'm really, really into. Cars. I have a 1972 Chevy Nova in the garage. I've got a 1978 CJ seven in the other garage. Really love, love old big V8 American cars. It's a, it's a big passion of mine. And then I also love whiskey. So I'll call them out Jeff Girard: And they Caleb Lawson: Martin Jeff Girard: don't Caleb Lawson: Dick. Jeff Girard: mix. Caleb Lawson: No, no, they don't unless I'm driving somewhere to go to a whiskey tasting, Jeff Girard: Right. Caleb Lawson: but Jeff Girard: Just to make that clear. Caleb Lawson: no, they don't miss. And honestly, my love for whiskey has actually taught me a lot about concrete because of the nature of the craft and the nature of the material. Right. So we can go into that in another podcast, but to me, they're very, very relate concrete whiskey are very related. Uh, and I, I kind of put them together a lot, uh, in, in my personal style, in the way that I talk about concrete in the way that I love concrete, it's very similar. Right. Um, and I'll call him out, Martin Dickerson at the last Legend event brought me three bottles of great whiskey. And I'm just, I was over the moon because two of the bottles were one of my favorites, which is Frank August. So if you are into bourbon and you haven't tried Frank August, go try it. But You know, those are two things that from a hobby standpoint, I'm very passionate about. I like to work on cars. Jeff, I know you share that, although the cars you work on are different than the ones I work on. Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: And so I wanted to, you know, take two or three minutes and just like, quote unquote, break the ice. Like, you know, if you're an alumni, obviously, you know, we want you to text us and call us and hang out and whatever, like if you're in town, let us know. We'll go have a beer or a glass of whiskey. Not Jeff, he doesn't like whiskey. Jeff Girard: It doesn't like me. Caleb Lawson: It doesn't like him. It might if his memory would let him get over it. So yeah, Jeff, two hobbies real fast. Jeff Girard: Audio and music, well, they go together. That's my primary passion. Caleb Lawson: You are an audiophile, it's true. Jeff Girard: So in high school, actually, when I was growing up, I come from a lot of my family are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. My dad used to, by necessity, work on cars. He always had old Datsun, mostly Datsun pickup trucks. And Caleb Lawson: Hard to kill. Jeff Girard: I remember cleaning the carburetor, getting all the gunk out, cleaning the carburetor on the dining room table, well, kitchen table, we didn't have a dining room. And in high school, my uncle restored cars. And so I'd go spend a month with my uncle and my three cousins. And he had a, I can't remember what year it was, 1960 something Corvair, right? So it's the Caleb Lawson: mid-engine. Jeff Girard: car alternator said it's unsafe at any speed. So he was restoring that. And I remember when I was little, when he got it, I'm older than my other three cousins. And my uncle, my uncle Bob got that car before my oldest cousin, Keith, was old enough to help him work on it. So it sat up on blocks, on jack stands in the garage for years waiting for them to get old enough before they could start restoring it. So that was pretty cool, learn to work on cars that way. And so a little bit of body work and all that. Of course, there's only so much you're gonna let a teenager do on a car, but Caleb Lawson: Yeah, yeah. Jeff Girard: learning how to bang out metal and do bondo and paint and sanding and lots of sanding, like learn how to do wet sanding. Caleb Lawson: Honestly, Jeff Girard: But I guess this Caleb Lawson: working Jeff Girard: is where the appreciation Caleb Lawson: on Jeff Girard: for coatings came from, because if you think about it, With the exception of one car that I know of, every car has paint on it. And it's not just to make it look pretty. Caleb Lawson: Well Jeff Girard: So. Caleb Lawson: now too, because the Cybertruck is stainless steel. Jeff Girard: Okay, yeah, but that doesn't exist yet. Hmm, vaporware? Caleb Lawson: Well, kinda. They've Jeff Girard: All Caleb Lawson: put out one or two. Jeff Girard: right, yeah, okay. Fair enough, two. Caleb Lawson: But that's a small number in the Jeff Girard: That's Caleb Lawson: grand Jeff Girard: a Caleb Lawson: scheme Jeff Girard: very Caleb Lawson: of things. Jeff Girard: small number compared to however many cars there have ever Caleb Lawson: Well, Jeff Girard: been. Caleb Lawson: and one thing I wanted to note about coatings is if you ever have a rusty car and you want to keep it looking the same way without it deteriorating, what do you do? Jeff Girard: You clear-code it. Caleb Lawson: You clear coat it. Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: So you can keep the patina and protect Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: it. Jeff Girard: Every Caleb Lawson: Anyway. Jeff Girard: resto mod builder knows that. Absolutely. Um, so there's that, you know, cars. Um, I used to work on cars a lot more. Now I don't. Caleb Lawson: Oh, you still work on your cars. Jeff Girard: I still Caleb Lawson: Come on. Jeff Girard: work on my cars. Yeah. I Caleb Lawson: I'll Jeff Girard: like tools. Caleb Lawson: text you. What are you doing? I'm changing the brakes out. Jeff Girard: Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm, I'm doing bodywork now dealing with stone chips. So yeah, doing color matching and making, making a repair look like factory. Perfect. Um, I'm learning how to do that slowly, but Caleb Lawson: So Jeff Girard: I'm Caleb Lawson: you're Jeff Girard: getting. Caleb Lawson: using your color matching skills for your Jeff Girard: Yeah, Caleb Lawson: car? Jeff Girard: yeah, yeah. Caleb Lawson: How Jeff Girard: Metallics Caleb Lawson: do you do that? Jeff Girard: are, Caleb Lawson: Do you Jeff Girard: metallic Caleb Lawson: just go get Jeff Girard: paint Caleb Lawson: a bunch Jeff Girard: is Caleb Lawson: of... Jeff Girard: not Caleb Lawson: No. Jeff Girard: easy. Caleb Lawson: No, Jeff Girard: Especially Caleb Lawson: no. Jeff Girard: 23 year old faded metallic paint. It's not easy. Caleb Lawson: That's Jeff Girard: Anyway, Caleb Lawson: why the factory paint doesn't work, because Jeff Girard: right. Caleb Lawson: it's too dark. Jeff Girard: And then, so music has always been interesting. My dad, his other hobby was he, when he was in, I guess when he was in high school and when it was college, he was a ham rater. He was into ham radio and did that. I never was into that, but he liked electronics and things like that. And any Caleb Lawson: I have Jeff Girard: of you Caleb Lawson: my MRADIO certificate, just FYI. Jeff Girard: do you cool. All Caleb Lawson: I Jeff Girard: right. Caleb Lawson: do. Jeff Girard: Do you have your spam certificate, spam radio certificate? Caleb Lawson: I don't Jeff Girard: Yeah. Caleb Lawson: have spam radio. Maybe I do. I mean maybe I am spam. I don't know. Jeff Girard: Yeah. So he was, if any of you are old enough to remember HeathKit, you could order these kits of electronic parts. I built a digital clock when I was nine years old. So you buy the, has all the parts and you solder it together. So yeah, take the transistors and solder them to a board and all that. So I built my first digital clock when I was nine and he built radios and he built a television. That took a long time, but he did that. So I learned that it wasn't, you know, not to be afraid of doing things like that and learning cool stuff. And he gave me an old stereo that he had built. And again, as a kid, it's not like you make it up and have to figure out the electronics. These are like, I don't think they exist anymore, but you buy a box and parts, you put them together. So it's like Ikea, but on a much higher level. And so that's where I got really interested in. in music. And so I can't, you know, I still haven't figured out where to blow into a piano to make it work. I can't play an instrument. But I love listening to music. I love listening to live music. And I got passionate in college about building loudspeakers. And when I graduated from I really got into hardcore designing, you know, had all this very early electronic modeling software for modeling electronics, the crossovers and things like that, looking at frequency response and time chain, time, time alignment and all that stuff. And so it took like three years to, to build my own speakers and in the process of doing that, it's like, I just don't want them to sound good. I want them to look good too. So I had to teach myself woodworking. So that's where, you know, I bought the Powermatic table saw and I had all kinds of goodies and I, you know, got into learning, you know, old antique hand planes and learning how to hand cut dovetails and all that fun stuff. So working with wood was cool because I liked the way it looked. And so those two kind of came together in that one hobby building. speakers and I still have a couple pieces that I've made from long ago. I've sold off many of them that I built to some people that I knew. And this is not recent, but I built a concrete subwoofer. So you've seen Caleb Lawson: Yeah, Jeff Girard: it. Caleb Lawson: okay. Yeah, and we need to post a picture of it somewhere who's really freaking cool. And I actually had the thought, Jeff, that could be a really neat, like, class thing. Like, why don't we design? Here's a thought. Jeff Girard: I've already designed a Bluetooth speaker setup. Caleb Lawson: Yeah, no, why don't we legitimately, I have a couple of Sonos speakers in my shop, but I'd love to bring them home. Like, why don't we design a Bluetooth concrete sound system to put in the shop for listening to music during class? I mean, why the heck not? It would be fun and it'd be a cool project. I don't know, I get off on really cool projects. So, you know, that's the other thing. And I promise we're done. But if you have a cool project that you would be interested in, doing in class and you're coming to class, let us know. We've already got the ones planned out for the GFRC in November 9th and 10th today and for December. So we've got projects for that, but we are working on dates for next year. Jeff Girard: Mm-hmm. Caleb Lawson: And we're also in the process of kind of figuring out how we're gonna one up ourselves next year when we do a big event, so. Get excited for that. So we want to connect with you guys. Obviously, if you are new here, like, comment, subscribe, all those things, Jeff Girard: Mm-hmm. Caleb Lawson: join us on the website. Read the blog. We'd really love to see you in a class. We've got, like we said, two coming up, November 9 and 10, and December 4 through 8. And those links will be in the description. And on the right side, we have a link website and on the Instagram and on the Facebook and on the blah so we want to get to know you we want to see you we want to hear from you we want to relate to you and help you on your journey in craft concrete so thanks for listening to our hour and a half TED talk Jeff Girard: Thanks for joining us. And Caleb Lawson: We'll see Jeff Girard: we Caleb Lawson: you Jeff Girard: hope Caleb Lawson: next Jeff Girard: you Caleb Lawson: week. Jeff Girard: come back next week. Caleb Lawson: Absolutely. All right, see ya. Jeff Girard: Take care.