63. Technical Training isn't Enough with Ryan Burton

March 17, 2026

Eric Johnson and Ryan Burton dig into why flashy, high-budget corporate training usually falls flat compared to raw videos of a technician actually doing the work. Ryan explains that teaching the trades effectively requires a "Socratic" approach, focusing on the "why" behind a system rather than just spoon-feeding answers for a specific repair. The two get honest about the friction of running a business, specifically how to build a caring company culture while still making sure technicians show up on time and stay profitable. The conversation wraps up with a look at personal discipline, suggesting that the effort you put into your fitness and your reputation is exactly what carries over into being a master of your craft.

Ryan Burton is the Senior HVAC Consultant at Valhalla Refrigeration Ltd in British Columbia, Canada. His wife Jennifer Burton is the founder and CEO of the company. The company performs HVAC work for residential and commercial clients.

Episode Transcript

Ryan Burton (00:00)
What I learned early on and why I first even got into making content in the first place.

As I'm sure you've seen, the content out there is horrendous. I was taking a Viessmann course, not a course, I was watching a Viessmann video and I was like, man, this is so bad. was just PDF screenshots of the manual and a guy just reading it, And so you could be the world's greatest DaVinci Resolve editor making like 8K stuff. And if your content is not appropriate for people like you and I who are on the tools and who are like...

How can I use this? Impressive video is fine, but the content drives everything when you're in the trades training space, I think.

Eric Johnson (00:43)
So I think a lot of corporations make it too complicated. They have to think everything needs to be a boardroom meeting with the highest of quality because they have the budget for it. And there's plenty of YouTube videos of guys with GoPros on their heads talking about their service calls. And they have 100,000 views.

Ryan Burton (01:08)
Yeah.

That's right.

Eric Johnson (01:12)
and they're cut up for time, but beyond that, there's no editing. It's like, okay, like if that, that just shows that real still is above fancy. And I think once you get too fancy, ⁓ especially when you're talking about education versus entertainment, once you get too fancy, it becomes, there becomes a disconnect and...

Ryan Burton (01:33)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (01:42)
you can get that was a cool video but did you actually learn anything is totally different but

Ryan Burton (01:50)
Mmm.

I totally agree.

Yeah. There was a small, I don't know how many minutes it was, but it was a quick TED talk on presentations on this. And the guy called it, I think he called it the museum effect. Like if you make it too nice, people want to just stand back and look and admire what you've done. And it's like, they're not really engaged and participating, but he was literally saying that you can do a presentation that looks like it was hand drawn with stick figures and people automatically, their subconscious starts telling them like, ⁓

I could probably do a better job than that. And so then it just immediately makes them focus on the content more as opposed to just standing back and admiring the work for art sake, right? So I think that probably is in somewhat of the same category that you're talking about, because yeah, it's impressive, but is it applicable? Did we take anything from it? I hear what you're saying for sure.

Eric Johnson (02:44)
There's a huge difference between editing for education versus editing for entertainment, but it also starts at the beginning of the video as I'm sure you do. You kind of plan out a video before and you have to have a learning objective or learning goal or, I'm going to teach this versus.

entertainment they are optimizing every single second of the video and it ends up being from my perspective that people's eyes just kind of glaze over especially with the I try to do this to try to keep everything upbeat but right now it's popular for fast cuts on videos for YouTube ⁓ but

Ryan Burton (03:39)
Yup.

Eric Johnson (03:41)
There's so much that goes into making a good video and where people's eyes are on the screen, what you want them paying attention to, only having one focal point. it comes down to just, there's such a high bar that ⁓ for entertainment, that's fine, but for education.

I there's diminishing returns. You know, if you can get 80 % there, I think the message is delivered. Yeah, they may get a little bored, but 80 % there is better than a computer narrated slide deck. And you know, it's like that's and I struggle with.

thinking that I'm not good enough, imposter syndrome, all this stuff. And I look at all these other huge education companies and all their marketing. I'm like, man, what am I doing wrong? And then I'll sign up for one of their courses. And it's like a 2005 voice narration over slides. I'm like, this is the training that they're advertising? This is not training. I'm like, no wonder.

Ryan Burton (04:50)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (04:58)
But they get their money and if you have enough scale, selling a $100 course, then off to the races. And they can say, oh, we have all these customers. And you get to this critical mass where people believe you just because you're big. But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters, as you know, is did you learn anything?

Ryan Burton (05:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

See, I think the problem definitely is in manufacturer training. I've observed exactly what you're talking about. That was actually probably what spurred me on to diving deep into it was that Viessmann course I told you about or that video. But I think it extends into the formal apprenticeship training too. Like in Canada at least.

or in BC where I took my apprenticeship, you've got instructors and instructors are guys for the most part who they've got enough time in the field, in the trade and maybe their knees and hips are blown out so they're gonna go into a classroom. My first year instructor, that was the last course he ever taught.

And everyone was asking questions, pretty normal for a group of first year guys. And at some point he slammed the table down and he said, what are you kids looking for? I'm not a teacher, I'm an instructor. I provide the information and it's your job to figure it out. And I kind of thought, well, that sort of says a lot about the problems that we have when it comes to training and teaching. And so I think you've got this issue that exists, that's a disconnect with regards to a focus on learning itself, right? And on teaching itself. So.

And I talk about this a little bit. When you take a look at in the trade when we're learning with the journeymen, when we're learning hands on in the field, we have somebody engaged with us participating in our learning, not reading slides from 2005 or whatever, like you're saying, right? ⁓

It's an engaged process. That's why apprenticeship works the way it does. And so I think if you can bring that into a conversational type dynamic like you describe when you're doing what you and I are doing right now, it's like you're kind of thinking out loud together. You're working through something together. I don't know. There's been a lot of, you know, whatever you say. Some people are audio learners. Some people learn by reading. The data coming out now says that all people learn by experience.

by doing. So if you're not engaging with people, you're losing them from the word go. Like, so yeah, mean, manufacturers definitely need to step it up when comes to their product training. But it's a it's an industry thing we have to write through the apprenticeship and everything. So I mean, is that been your experience as well? Or?

Eric Johnson (07:35)
Yes, and I know it's easy for me to just criticize and be on the outside looking in, but man, if I had some of these budgets that some of these companies had, to just do half of, like just do half more of marketing. I think just so many people are scared though that it's not a production set. And also I think the problem is,

Ryan Burton (07:39)
Mm.

⁓

Eric Johnson (08:01)
there are very, very few people that want to be on camera. There are a lot of experts out there that will talk all day in a classroom. But the second you say, hey, we're going to record this for YouTube, they say, no, no, I don't want to do that. So I think manufacturers need to find a celebrity. And they're probably already in-house, but you just need to push them and.

make things available and say, hey, we're going to make some videos and consistently make videos. On the other hand, I think a lot of times they're also afraid to promote one employee because it raises their status. And if they take off per se, not that they're going to get rich and famous, but if they take off, then they start getting job offers from everybody else.

But at the same time, you just have to accept that and say, hey, this is our training. We own this training. We own you in the video for what it is. You write everything out. Companies outside of HVAC do this all the time. Employees leave, yet they still have intellectual property of them on video. And it's not anything bad. It's just...

Ryan Burton (09:27)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (09:30)
Hey, I was talking about this product. I used to work for this company. Now I work for this company. Great. It's whatever. But there just seems to be this disconnect. And I think a lot of people at the same time also, there's a bunch of mirrors. I probably do this as well. But everybody is looking at each other. And it's like, all right, what are you doing? All right, well, let's do that. And well, let's keep doing the same thing. And it's like,

Ryan Burton (09:55)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (09:58)
and also probably at the same time as well, manufacturers, they manufacture equipment, they're not marketing companies. So I'm sure there are some very excited young marketers in these companies and they're like, hey, let's do this. And the boardroom goes, nah, we're good. We don't have the budget for that. Or no, we can't post that, that's secret. Or, you know, all that stuff and.

Ryan Burton (10:23)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (10:25)
So I am sure there's tons of that as well, where there's just some older people that are stuck in their ways or who think they have to post this perfect image and, we can't promote one employee or do this or do that, that it ends up the marketers get frustrated and like, ⁓ fine, I'll just post these boring pictures on social media. And then you guys complain why we get five likes. It's like, yeah, because it's this boring post.

Ryan Burton (10:31)
sure.

Eric Johnson (10:55)
of our equipment.

Ryan Burton (10:56)
there are good people out there too, though, right, Lincoln? I don't want to come across that way either, because I mean, the whole reason I'm even emotionally invested into this trade and into the mentorship aspect of it is I had a phenomenal teacher, not until third year, mind you, but the second year guy was a lot better than the first year. But my third year instructor became a lifelong mentor of mine and a close colleague to this day. And he's the type of guy who, like, definitely is walking a lot of the stuff that you and I are talking about,

right

now and I think some companies have these guys too but they are far and few between and so I guess the question is how to promote them more without ⁓ exposing yourself to some of the risk factors that these companies potentially think they have like so I guess I mean the guys are out there and ⁓ I don't know that's an interesting thing right

Eric Johnson (11:48)
If I can watch a bottle of Coke get made and filled on the History Channel or on YouTube, or I can watch a Toyota get made, I can watch whatever you make, whether it's boilers, HVAC, I can watch that as well. Whatever secret process you think you have, it's not secret. And if it is secret, a...

Ryan Burton (11:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

Eric Johnson (12:17)
three minute visual overview of your process is you can't R &D that and spit it out two months later. Like there's so much that goes into it as anybody knows that have ever made a product. And it's just tiny little stuff that.

Even like welding procedures, everybody can buy a welder, but that doesn't mean everybody's good at applying that to steel and, this is how we save money. We get all of our steel pre-cut, we do this, we do that. Those are all the little tricks, but that doesn't come across in video. And even if you say, hey, we do this, we do that.

It takes people and thought to actually implement it. There's companies out there that give away their whole playbook and, we do this, we do that, we do that. But actually implementing it is another thing. I just think it's just an older generation of being scared. And it's also, I think, as well, this is probably the biggest part of it, is just.

Ryan Burton (13:19)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (13:26)
the litigious society and it's easier to say no. know, ⁓ what if we have a video come out and there's something in it and what, but they're scared of the 0.01 what if and you just gotta pros and cons. Everything that comes out can be edited and like reviewed,

Ryan Burton (13:43)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (13:50)
It's not like you're doing this like live video function, but there's pros and cons and there's, you know, once again, I watch Coke bottles get made or cars get made on YouTube or anything. There's tons of manufacturing channels and they're all, all those companies are global giant corporations. And yet we have small

Ryan Burton (14:17)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (14:20)
American manufacturers that are afraid of putting themselves out there. So I don't know what the answer is. I mean, it's definitely a matrix of mix, but it's easier to say no and be quiet. But at the same time, ⁓ we're going into, we're having a less and less workforce and you have to somehow be different. So if you don't want to change,

You either get really, really, really good at sales or you can drive culture and have technicians prefer your equipment subconsciously because they're familiar with it, because you have an awesome YouTube channel that actually helps them and they feel confident that they know about your equipment. And I'm sure you've heard this, is people thinking, that equipment is junk or

Ryan Burton (15:03)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Eric Johnson (15:17)
you know, I don't like that. That really comes down to what they're familiar with. Has that been your experience?

Ryan Burton (15:24)
Yeah, I think for the most part, I used to be somewhat more brand particular, like with our business that we have been busy for about eight and a half years on our own, HVAC contracting company. And we've gone through seasons where we were a dealer for brand A and then a dealer for brand B and...

I've never thought that there was a huge difference in manufacturing between the box full of parts. Like you take an entry level single stage air conditioner from five different companies and they share 75 % of the same parts for the most part. So the unit does not really differ in terms of build quality. The experience I've always had and it kind of leads to a little bit of what you're talking about is what I would call post purchase product support or how does the manufacturer handle you? Well, throughout the sale and the delivery and all that, but when it comes to

warranty when it comes to technical support, anything like that after the fact. It's like, what's that relationship like with the manufacturer?

I used to be, like I said, a little bit more brand centric and we've been dealers for a couple of different brands, but ⁓ it seems like it swings pretty fast these days. Like we'll be, ⁓ having great experience with company A and then a couple of weeks will go by and it's like, maybe not a couple of weeks, but year to year for sure, there's definitely swings and shifts that happen in terms of what we'll prefer and almost exclusively with regards to the relationship we have on the manufacturer and the distributor side of things. So.

As far as manufacturers putting out content that's tech friendly or tech accessible, there was a...

relatively recent episode on HVAC school where they were talking about, you know, manufacturers that kind of act like gatekeepers to their knowledge. So we've all heard that in the field where you call in and it's like, well, you're not a dealer or you haven't taken the manufacturer training and the two hour airport seminar is not going to make the difference between whether someone should or should not work on a ABC unit or whatever, right? I mean, that's what you were pointing to a little bit. It's like, is there 0.1 % of possibility that some

bad could happen. It's like, yeah, but then you've also got the other 99 % of situations where if you had a portal, like Mitsubishi's got a fantastic one now where you get the app and you can access all of this information. And mean, if you don't know what you're doing, you're not going to be able to navigate it. But having that resource available is like, all right, maybe you can't get the tech support guy on the phone at three in the morning, but they have some sort of a resource they've made available to show like, well, they're not gatekeeping knowledge for some sort of a special

club of people who've taken their little training. So yeah, I guess my experience with manufacturers and brands has shifted pretty dramatically. The biggest change I think that we're seeing right now, and this is in terms of quality, in terms of reliability ratings, and in terms of product support, is a huge shift towards

a lot of stuff coming out of the Chinese market, which if you asked me five, 10 years ago, I would have said, especially when it comes to things like inverter or VRF mini splits or ⁓ higher end heat pump technology, I would have said, if it's not Japanese, forget about it. And now some of this Chinese stuff that's coming out is like incredibly better on the support side, incredibly better on the reliability side. So things changed so fast on the brand and manufacturer side. It's

I don't know, it seems like we kind of have to be a little bit more flexible and not so rigid with what we've been used to in the past. Otherwise, it's like you turn into that old guy who's like, nah, this is the way it's always done. And that's just how things are, right? That doesn't survive very long.

Eric Johnson (19:09)
Do you think manufacturers should just give away all their information as far as like.

Ryan Burton (19:16)
I think 100 %

of it should be made available. Like there's no two ways about it. you're diligent enough, like, and I know the structure in terms of how licensing and training is pretty dramatically different in the States and Canada, but at the end of the day, whether you've taken a formal apprenticeship program and you're licensed or whether you're a guy who's watched all those YouTube videos and studied on your own,

The technology and the sophistication of modern day boilers and heat pumps, for example, today, it's such that the manufacturers can't actually give away too much information to make things dangerous. Like the homeowner's not going to read a Fujitsu manual and go and change dip settings on their multi-zone heat pumps. This is never going to happen. And anyone who's going to get into trouble because they know enough to be dangerous, they're going to be calling the pro to get them out of Dodge in a hurry too. so I think they should probably gatekeep nothing.

no advantage in the manufacturers holding back any of their info these days. How do you feel about them?

Eric Johnson (20:16)
the pros don't even read the manuals. So I don't, I would trust a homeowner reading one. I mean, there's really no difference between a homeowner and a pro. If you don't get educated, if you don't keep up with it, if you don't read about it, yeah, you may know a little bit of terminology here and there.

Ryan Burton (20:19)
That's a good point. Yeah.

That was funny.

Let's ring.

Eric Johnson (20:40)
but if somebody is determined and they have some background that's semi-mechanical, they can figure it out. I mean, we're not rocket scientists, and it's not as hard as it is. You know, there's all this, once again, it probably goes back to liability, and there's also warranty stuff. At the same time...

Ryan Burton (20:45)
Hmm.

Sure, absolutely.

Eric Johnson (21:02)
You you talk to any warranty department manager and they'll have some crazy high percentage of parts or issues that are guaranteed warranty and then they look into them and it's a bad install or there's nothing wrong with the equipment and the technician diagnosed it wrong.

Ryan Burton (21:10)
Mm-hmm.

yeah.

That's 100 % right. If you've never been to the DTTP facility in Waller, that's Daikin's big factory, that is worth a field trip for any technician to go. They've got, I can't remember how many hundreds of thousands of square feet of destructive testing where they take other manufacturers units as well, but they take their own units that have had high numbers of warranty returns and they'll figure out exactly what's been going on. So they have answers to what you're pointing at very quickly.

and then that makes the distributors ask the right questions. So they've got processes in place for sure.

Eric Johnson (22:00)
It's yeah that that that process needs to be a little bit more visual.

It was some, I know we're talking about refrigerant on a boiler podcast, but ⁓ there was a compressor company, I believe, that I was listening to, and they were at some crazy high percentage of their compressors that get returned for warranty. They hook them up and they're like, wow, nothing's wrong. Everything's good here. Why'd you return this?

Ryan Burton (22:13)
you

Yeah.

Thanks.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (22:33)
That just goes back to the crisis in trying to get people to understand the basics. I think most manufacturers have a unrealistic expectation of where people are for education. And I see it all the time that we're still trying to teach people how to braze correctly. And they've been in the trade for 20 years.

Ryan Burton (22:58)
Hmm.

So there's an interesting situation here I want to ask you about because there is a difference, significant difference when you take a look at ⁓ licensing or training or whatever between Canada and the States and you guys have so much variability from one state to the next. with regards to the sort of, there's a bit of a, there's two different, there's a dichotomy you've illustrated here because you've said, homeowner can read a manual or any person, a guy who's been trained for 20 years, sometimes they won't read the manual. So ultimately,

It's on the individual whether or not they're capable and proficient. And in principle, I agree with that. Now, with regards to what you illustrated with the manufacturer, right? So they've got a string of compressor returns, perfect example. And there's no failure, but they're seeing, who the heck is putting these in? Like, this is clearly a training problem. So the parallel that that sort of dichotomy illustrates for me right away is I think about from the business perspective. Like when we put a quote on the table, ⁓

in our market, we are often the highest price quote on the table. And the reason why is because in rural Canada, if you have one guy who's...

very certified, very trained, very experienced, lots of tickets, HVAC boiler guy, whatever, like he's done everything proper, okay? He knows what he's doing. He's competing against seven Chuck-In-A-Trucks or Handy Randys. The homeowner has no idea because you can throw a wall hang, hung boiler on the wall, hook up some plumbing to it, and regardless whether it's done properly or not,

it's pretty much gonna work the same for the first little while at least. Then when you start to have operational issues, it's like, okay, that's why that guy's quote was 40 % less. So what's your perspective with regards to how...

that translates into the business case, I guess you could say, saying that, well, okay, we're gonna have, like I guess, and regulation is ultimately what I'm talking about, oversight and regulation and whether chucking a truck is allowed to buy the boiler and hang it and install it, or do you need to have some sort of a certification or credential? And so the parallel obviously is with the manufacturer, they don't wanna have illegitimate warranty issues that they have to deal with. They're vested in having high sales.

but

also at the same time having quality people put in their stuff. So they have to navigate that balance. And then for us in the industry, entrepreneurs and business people trying to make a go of it, it's like, well, when we're competing against Chuck in a truck, it sometimes helps if Chuck in a truck has to have a license and you don't have to communicate to the homeowner while he doesn't know what he's doing. And now you sound all negative. And so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Eric Johnson (25:44)
Well, residential is a little bit different than like commercial or industrial, for in the states, everything's divided up as you're probably aware. So 50 states, 50 different rules. There are some stuff federally, but that's, it's not really applicable. ⁓

Ryan Burton (25:54)
Mm-hmm.

There's more EPA stuff for you

guys, right?

Eric Johnson (26:05)
Well, EPA, just across the board, the federal government will say, hey, this is the standard for this, but it's very, very general stuff. As far as like, you know, a state saying, hey, you have to have this contractor's license and you have to do this, you you go across the border and it's totally different. But that is an issue. But at the same time, I have a distrust with government in their ability. So

Ryan Burton (26:14)
Okay.

Great.

Eric Johnson (26:33)
I can, know, if we just lay it out and scale it out and say, hey, we need more regulation, we need more of this, we need more of that. We're not even enforcing the rules on the books now. And like the EPA has that whole like refrigerant discharge. If you report it, you get 10 grand, whatever that is. I don't think I've ever heard of anybody with that. And everybody, they...

Ryan Burton (26:44)
100%.

Eric Johnson (27:01)
in the, well, I don't wanna say everybody, but I've seen lots of videos or hear people having their five gallon recovery bucket and all this other stuff. So it's like, if we can't enforce the rules on the books now, adding more to, adding more regulations.

Ryan Burton (27:11)
⁓ I know exactly where you're going. Yeah.

Yeah.

Eric Johnson (27:25)
doesn't automatically make better. I think the industry has to police itself at the end of the day.

Ryan Burton (27:33)
How do you incentivize that though? Because that's like 20 years ago, 23 years ago when I got in the trade, it was the case that the wholesalers were far more discretionary on who they sold to. But then without oversight, without regulation, you have more wholesalers popping up and they're like, well, screw it, we'll sell to the guys, you won't. And you get this sort of, okay, well, he doesn't have a ticket, but he promised me the guy doing the startup will have a ticket. And so the landscape has shifted here in Canada dramatically where...

Sounds great. I love what you're saying the industry policing itself. It's like well, what does that look like though?

Eric Johnson (28:08)
very very complicated at the end of day even a company they can have one service technician one installer that is very competent gets the system right and you refer that company to your friend and then they send out the guy who's doesn't get everything right and you can have a wildly different experience and that's the problem with labor as a product instead of

being able to have the product leave on pallets out of a warehouse is that you get a wildly different experience. And it just all comes back to training. And I would like to say that we could train, out train the chuck in a truck, but at the end of the day, it just comes down to marketing and trust. you know, manufacturers have in place, you know, their partners or distributors.

Ryan Burton (28:49)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (29:00)
that's mostly for warranty. Like, hey, if you're going to get warranty, you have to be part of this network and all this stuff, which is great. But at the end of the day, all they care about is moving product. And I don't think there is a fix to it. For the boilers in America, I think it would be beneficial for operator.

Ryan Burton (29:07)
Right.

That's right.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (29:30)
⁓ So like stationary engineers, operators, I think that would be beneficial if all the states got together. Well, it would be end up at the federal level, I guess. But all the states got together and said, hey, here are the requirements. Not every state has requirements for operators, but they vary by state. And some states will recognize another state's stationary engineer. But if you have large boilers,

Like the manufacturers are the same. The equipment is the same. As long as the program and the licensing requirements and everybody agrees like, this is good. There's no reason that states need to spend all this time making their own requirements when...

you can just come together and say, hey, these are good for everybody. And here's the universal requirement. I mean, it's just like a driver's license. If we had 50 different driver's licenses, it would be nonsense. But there's so much, I see it a lot for stationary engineers is trying to get into the trade. They try to get their license, but they can't get experience because everybody.

Ryan Burton (30:22)
Mm.

Right.

Eric Johnson (30:48)
is trying, they only want to hire ⁓ people with their ⁓ license. nobody wants, none of these large companies, most of these large companies don't want to invest in people. And they are just looking at give us the person with the license to fill the hole. We don't actually want to build a pipeline. But when we put a job application out or a job

Ryan Burton (30:55)
Right?

Hmm.

Eric Johnson (31:17)
Description out we expect people to apply but then we say hey, we don't where we're all the good people. Where is everybody? And it I don't know there's there's so much that goes into it, but at the end of day Education is the core and You can only control what you can control and if you're at the manufacturer level Make a hundred difference videos

Ryan Burton (31:25)
Right, right.

glorious.

Eric Johnson (31:46)
and pamphlets and brochures of the same thing. I think manufacturers are their own worst enemy is they eat and breathe the same equipment and it becomes secondary knowledge to them and They overlook the basics and they think, everybody knows that or, we already made a video on that. Why would we make another one? No, you just, you just got to churn out.

Ryan Burton (31:59)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (32:10)
Videos information product trainings that are if you if you don't feel like you're repeating yourself, you're probably not doing enough

Ryan Burton (32:19)
That's a really good point. You know, I think that you hit on something pretty true there on the HVAC side as well. Well, you know, heat pumps and refrigeration and stuff is like, you're right. The manufacturers focus on the widget that makes a particular model so good, but there's an assumption that everyone has the base foundational knowledge that's required to know like, what does a condensing boiler do that's different than a non-condensing boiler? And it's like, when you don't have a standard established to make sure everyone knows that, why are they not

talking about that. a great point.

Eric Johnson (32:51)
Yeah, so how'd you get into HVAC?

Ryan Burton (32:54)
Well, so that goes back 23 years ago. So I graduated high school in 2002 and a small little town under 10,000 people. picked eight, I come from a family of tradesmen and I thought HVAC would be pretty good, probably because that's what my dad recommended I should look at. And I went and I did a one year program at a school in Calgary called the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

I wanted to take a course in refrigeration, but for a bunch of boring reasons, that program didn't go through that year. So the course I actually took was called Automated Systems Engineering Technology. And after one year, I was like, too much computers, not enough tools. I'm going to start an HVAC apprenticeship. Now, 23 years later, I can say that that education in automation was incredibly valuable, especially considering where the trade has gone and what it's evolved to. And so,

Over the past 23 years, I've worked for 13 or so different companies across multiple provinces in Canada. ⁓ I became a journeyman in...

I 2013, and then, so that was journeyman in the trade of refrigeration and air conditioning mechanic, which is what it's called now in Canada. And with that apprenticeship came what we call a Level B gas fitter certification. So that basically means you had training and ticketing to work on natural gas and propane appliances up to 750,000 BTUs.

They've reduced the B ticket now to 400 and so I had the 750. Two years after having your B ticket, you were able to go and take your A fitter training, which is an unrestricted license. So in 2015, I went and got my A ticket training to be unlimited for anything natural gas and propane. And then since then,

that would have been the second to last company I worked for until ⁓ my wife and I and our kids moved back to the town that I grew up in and we started our own HVAC company about eight and a half years ago. And I guess the rest is history as they say, But ⁓ short answer to your question is came from a family of tradesmen. ⁓

asked my dad what I should do and he said, look, this trades probably worth you looking at and kind of jumped into it. And it was the best least research decision I've ever made because it's been a heck of a career and a pretty good life.

Eric Johnson (35:33)
How much do you think the family trade environment people grow up in influences their career? A little back story is, as you're probably aware, the whole push for college, push for education, push away from the trades. It seems to be the predominant way people get in the trades is family.

Ryan Burton (35:53)
yes.

true.

Eric Johnson (36:01)
And

do you think people getting out of trades is probably the number one reason that they're not getting into it is people grow up oblivious or even they know it exists but have no idea and they just follow what they are familiar with?

Ryan Burton (36:22)
Yeah, yeah. So I think sort of you kind of touched on all the contributing factors. So for me.

you know, did my four years of high school from 1998 to 2002. The message or the the idea around trades for sure was if you're too dumb for college and university, go be a tradesman. And there has always been and I think there still is a strong push for post-secondary as a primary route of education after high school. Things have changed a little bit, I think in large part because of the trade shortage that we have in both of our countries. But ⁓ for sure, I think that if you come

from a family of tradesmen, there's going to be one of two experiences and you're either going to come from a family of tradesmen where it's looked upon very positively and you'll consider a career in the trades or you'll come from a family of tradesmen where it's not looked upon so positively and maybe you're steered away from it. So why would you come from a family of tradesmen where it's not so positive? I think that because of that first problem, because of the idea that we would encourage people to

choose this as a secondary option if university or college wasn't in the cards for them, we've done a real disservice to people who would go and pursue mechanical engineering degrees or civil engineering degrees or something else in the technology or sciences fields that's practical if you will because as you know with boilers, with refrigeration, with HVAC, this is not ⁓

You know, I hate, I don't want to say like there's no skills with bricklaying or, you know, being a...

masonry guy, like obviously some of these guys are incredible artists, but ⁓ you need you need some math. And if you're to get into high end boilers, you need some physics and some understanding of some engineering concepts and thermodynamics and some like it's pretty tough to be dumb and be a good refrigeration mechanic, especially getting through the apprenticeship. So I think there's a huge cohort of people that would be going to university that were either just encouraged to do that or chose to do that because they had some crotchety

who hated being in the trades and it just he wasn't passionate about it so they said well if that I'm not gonna pursue that at all I want something better for myself so they didn't see the opportunities that you and I saw thankfully for both of us where there is a business model there is training there is education there is really stretching your mind ⁓ you know technically to wrap your head around concepts that definitely require some pen and paper and some

serious high level thinking at times. So ⁓ I don't know. It seems as though we're kind of a little bit late to the party with regards to the incentivization and motivation for people to pursue careers in the skilled trades. It seems like the shortage with boomers retiring and still not enough people getting into the trade, there's this massive gap developing. So what's the solution to that? Well, I think

having conversations like you and I are right now. It's advocating in the correct way. It's focusing on increasing the caliber of education and training, advocacy and exposure to kids at young ages, showing them the potential and opportunity of four years of almost debt-free schooling where you're still making money and then crushing six figures a year, especially if you're working on your own. I mean, I think you could probably be in any state.

in your country in any province in mind and if you're working as a one-man band out of your garage in HVAC or refrigeration or boiler specifically it's not going to be hard to crush six figures a year. mean where else can you do that after four years? It's like it's the opposite you go to university for four years you're almost 100 grand in debt and then making 50k a year if you're lucky right? That's can you even make 50k a year with a four-year bachelor's degree? I don't think so right? So I hate to say that you know

Money should be such a strong incentivizer because definitely you're not gonna go as long run passionately if you don't have the passion to sort of sound redundant with it. So ⁓ I heard early on it's like, you don't wanna use money as a driver, but man, it's an expensive world. And if you wanna have a family and you wanna have a house, like how are you gonna go to university and do that in today's day and age if you don't have huge bucks or a full ride scholarship ahead of you? So.

Perhaps money should be part of the conversation, especially if kids don't know what they want to do, right? Like I think that's the other thing is I talked to some young guys who are grade 12 or they just finished graduating and they have an idea of what they want to do, but they're not sure. It's like, okay, well, pick a trade that's related to what you have an idea about what you want to do. And then after four years and making a ton of money and getting a ticket that you'll have for life, then go do university, right?

You had a bit of a two-part question, I guess. What's the reason why people would have gravitated towards the trades versus not gravitated towards the trades? I think people like you and I who are clearly passionate about the trades, ⁓ that's a very small percentage of people. So the majority of ones who would have gone towards the trades or away from the trades historically are not the right groups of people. And that's probably more related to the fallout of our trade shortage and, you know. ⁓

sort of the effect from the cause of pushing people to choose other types of post-secondary training as a first option, right?

Eric Johnson (41:57)
How do you teach people or somebody, how do you teach the 20-year-old kid how to work hard if they've grew up in suburbia, they never cut their grass, they don't want to go to college, and they've never really had responsibility, they've never had a job, and they graduate high school and their parents are, go to this trade school. How do you teach them to work hard?

Ryan Burton (42:04)
Yeah.

boy.

Yeah, well, you got to make them hungry to start with, right? Because they kind of haven't been to that point. You know, we definitely live in a cause and effect universe.

And the reality is we've engineered effect out of our lives every way you look at it. It's like, wait, you and I, you're a little bit younger than me, but not much. And so when we first, I say to people all the time, I became a second year apprentice because I dodged the wrenches thrown at me as a first year apprentice. And I think we're in a far better place now where we do give a crap about how apprentices feel as opposed to, well, you're an apprentice. You're not even a person yet. You know, the old school way of sort of growing some leather so you could endure a little bit.

mean, you can't even go anywhere near that sort of a culture now. And I think that's better. But for the most part, you do have these 20-year-olds who look at work or look at just, never mind hard work, just work at all. It's like so distasteful and something to oppose. It's like, how do you teach him to teach him or her to lean into that discomfort? Well, you got to make them hungry for it a little bit. So I think ⁓ maybe a little bit of...

maybe a few bad days would help, right? People don't have enough bad days in this day and age. So it definitely starts at a younger age communicating some of those habits that you described that 20 year old of being devoid of. But after the ship has sailed and he's 20 years old, it's like, okay, how do you create that desire in him? I don't know, he's got to get hungry first. So how do you make that happen? Well.

hate to say it, but some bad days ahead are probably good motivation to kind of do some different things. I don't think you can teach that.

Eric Johnson (44:06)
How do you push somebody to have those bad days, to have the hard work to problem solve and overcome and be in situations where they feel like they don't know anything? How do you push them through those without them saying, this is hard, I'm going to quit and go to your competitor or even just get out of the trades?

Ryan Burton (44:12)
Hmm.

Yeah.

No, great question. And I like where you're going with that because, you know, I'm 42 this year and I can feel myself edging towards one of the older guys or a younger generation and that doesn't solve anything. So what do you actively do to fix the problem? And one of the things that we haven't done enough of with these people is try to figure out what speaks to their motivations and their passions. And one of the things that the quote unquote younger generation does have an incredible connection with is purpose.

So when you can say, look, forget about the plumbing, forget about the HVAC, forget about the trades, like what motivates you and drives you when you wake up in the morning? Like what's your purpose? And then if you can sort of start to help them see how that can be fleshed out through their vocation, it's like, okay, well, I really care about helping people. I really care about, ⁓ you know, having people think that there's something tremendous that I've done to change the trajectory of their life in the short, medium or long term. It's like, okay, well,

you show up to some little old lady's house in the middle of a snowstorm and she's got no heat and her pipes are about to freeze. Like you made a friend for life when you get her going. Like it's not about fixing the boiler. It's literally about providing in some cases like a life and death situation. Like it's very important, the stuff that we do, right? So there seems to be a bit of a disconnect that it's only about pulling wrenches. And as you know, I mean, look at what you and I are doing right now. What we're

doing this morning is nothing to do with fixing stuff. And yet that's a direct result of having been involved in the trades. Like we wouldn't be sitting here right now if we hadn't done that initially. And so if you care about this kind of a thing, engaging with other people, you care about teaching, training, helping others, like that's some examples. But the answer to your question is not just focusing on like, okay, maybe they're not motivated by money.

How many people under the age of 30 who don't own a home today ever believe that they will have one? There's a huge affordability crisis across our country coast to coast with regards to that. So you try to communicate the motivation for them to get hungry and to pursue this trade based on compensation alone. You might not have the traction that you want it to have. So what's their purpose? Like what do they care about?

maybe your company isn't the right place for them to see that fulfilled and better that you figure that out early on rather than six months down the road when there's been so much unnecessary discomfort and bad feelings and it's like, we found out a half year from your start date that you should have never worked here in the first place. No, I think you got to get to that more serious deep stuff with a person early on. so.

Is that focusing on culture more in your company as opposed to the technical side of things? It is. Yeah, definitely. that's what I would recommend. It's what we've seen that's worked pretty well.

Eric Johnson (47:29)
How do you focus on culture and all the woo-woo stuff when you have a 20 person company and margins are razor thin and as you know for contracting and you don't have an HR person and you don't have a head of people and you have 10 technicians maybe and every single one being profitable that day is sink or swim for the company. How do you?

Ryan Burton (47:33)
Hmm

Ugh.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (47:56)
how do you take time to have a good culture and to have those things that corporate world has and those benefits and like make it all worth it versus them just saying, no, this sucks. I want to get out of this.

Ryan Burton (47:59)
Yeah.

yes.

Yeah. So we did some formal business coaching with a guy who is a top guy in the industry for a couple of years. And he was so hard on this point with us. And, you know, I'm looking at the dollars. My wife is looking at the dollars. And we're like, no, like, for all the reasons you just mentioned, this does not seem like it has a fast enough return or it doesn't seem like this is in the head, the budget, the margins can't accommodate this. And what we learned is that you're either

going

to pay and invest in it now or you're going to pay later because the result that you described is what's going to happen when you don't focus on the culture. So what does that mean? What does that look like? Does it? Well, for us, it's striving for weekly meetings where you're intentionally getting together with your crew and talking about all that stuff. And it also means not just restricting it to the meeting. So it's called culture because it's not an add on. It's baked into how you do everything that you do. So

it probably means that if you can't understand how that integrates into your bottom line, you need a philosophical fundamental shift in how you're doing everything. And that's from engaging with your suppliers to your office staff to your technicians to the trainers and the schools that you have partnerships with, the whole lot of it, even with your customers, right? So ⁓ probably it's not an add on. If it seems impossible, it's probably a fundamental shift in how you do everything.

Eric Johnson (49:43)
So you have a job coming up. You've invested all this equipment. You have three people on it, one lead, two people who are helpers. And your lead calls you. Everything's been scheduled for months. Your lead calls you and say, hey, I need three days off for my mental health.

Ryan Burton (50:06)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (50:06)
And those three days are the job when it was supposed to be done. How do you deal with that?

Ryan Burton (50:13)
Yeah.

Well, I mean, first of all, you have to.

hierarchically rank your priorities. So if the job itself is at the top, well then everything else gets laid at the altar for that. So you either step in and now you're the foreman on that job or you, I mean, the job gets the priority. If your people are your priority, you have to ask the question. It's like, can it be rescheduled? That's number one. Number two, it's like, if it can't, then, well, you've got a serious situation on your hands, but...

As you know, when you're the owner, sometimes you need to step into all sorts of roles. so how you deal with it and then how you deal with the fallout with this employee, those are sort of two different parts. mean, ⁓ you know, so again, you have to take, Yeah, exactly.

Eric Johnson (50:58)
Yeah, but I thought I thought you cared about culture. Shouldn't mental

health days be shouldn't you be caring for me and then.

Ryan Burton (51:05)
Well,

absolutely. And so if you're that company, then that's why you're saying that's your priority. And so does it suck that sometimes when you prioritize one thing, something else has to suffer? Well, that's called life, man. Those are some of those bad days that you have that teach you that it's not all so rosy red, right? So it's quite often in the early days, especially when it's just you or one or two guys and you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off. You find that at least for me, it felt a heck of a lot less like

strategically optimizing everything so that everybody was happy and it was like, okay, here's the six things that I have to do today and I have time for three. So who are the three that are going to be pissed off least, right? So it's a little bit of a triage type perspective. So it doesn't mean that there's a perfect solution to the scenario.

that you illustrated, but making the right decision means what are you honoring and what are you acknowledging is what you've prioritized hierarchically. It's like, are your employees more important to you than that job? And if that's the case, well, that job might hurt. There might be a bit of pain and suffering that comes, but, and you know, can good people make dumb decisions as well? Yeah. And so there might be a serious conversation in the office about, you know, what's like, put it this way, if your lead hand,

is your lead hand on that job. Presumably he understands the gravity and seriousness of a situation like that. Like you've described a job that's probably worth a hundred grand or more. That sounds like a big project. And so if he's pulling, I need three days of mental health at the 11th hour.

The reality is this is probably a pretty serious thing, probably way more serious in his life and therefore should be in your life than a hundred thousand dollar job. Are you going to lose all six figures? I sure as heck hope not, but ⁓ you know, business is the case that are your people more important to you than money? And sometimes one of the two will have to suffer based on what you rank as more important.

Eric Johnson (53:03)
At the end of the day though, the job's gonna get done. how do you, if you become this.

culture of caring and you know we try to help you and all this stuff and then people check out I'm not saying that they're going to weaponize that but you will have employees that weaponize the I thought you cared about culture and this and they'll call out sick when they know that they have a bad job coming up and they'll call out at 6 a.m. or something and how do you

Ryan Burton (53:21)
Hmm

yes they do.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Eric Johnson (53:41)
How do you deal with that when there is nobody else? It's easy for a large company to be, ⁓ yeah, that department, three people called out, or you need paternity leave? Yeah, take six months off because they have a software product and they have departments of people and everything's redundant. But when it comes down to a single person,

Ryan Burton (53:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eric Johnson (54:03)
doing a job and if they don't show up to work that day, that job does not get done. And it's not like, oh yeah, we have four competent technicians or installers just waiting on the bench to fill back, fill you. How do you, how do you balance that? I think a lot of the contractors struggle balancing that. Everybody knows, yes, culture is good. We need to care about people, people first. But at end of the day, you have to make money.

Ryan Burton (54:08)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, sure, sure.

Eric Johnson (54:31)
and people have to show up to work and there's not enough people that are interested in HVAC or even employed in HVAC for you to find the ones that do it right. you know, there's tons of people.

Ryan Burton (54:32)
yes.

Well, that's.

That's an interesting point that you just made right now because that's what we saw in early stages of growth with our company is we said, look, we have this pool of people to draw from and these are the best of the best. So we're just going to have to work with them because these rock stars just don't seem to exist. And so really you have to learn the hard one of hardest lessons to learn is that sometimes the best jobs are the ones you leave on the table or the best employees are the ones that you let go because it's like, well, we've got guys on a job.

and there's no margins. Like we're in the red every single, like what are you getting up and doing that for? I would rather work out of my garage with no employees whatsoever than have to stress out about four guys that match that profile that you're describing. So it's like, number one, have you illustrated clearly from day one what the expectations are at your organization? Yes, we care about feelings. Yes, we care about culture. Yes, we care about you being the best version of yourself that you can be, but that's also so that we can do this.

translates into making money. It's not we care about all that stuff so we don't have to worry about the productivity. These things are directly related. Is there a disconnect?

in today's day and age with the people who would weaponize the culture, 100%, you're on point with that. So where do you find yourself in a situation where you're like, well, we're being taken advantage of? It's because you haven't communicated clearly the second part of it. It's like all that warm fuzzy feeling stuff exists so that the business can do what we've committed to the customers to do and so that money can keep coming in. And so when situations arise where you were like, oh, we've got

a know a fisher here there's a gap of understanding you can pull people into the office and you can have a meeting where you go through the procedures that everyone signed and you're like okay so we're doing our part we're meeting our end of things but here's where you're not and so first of all why is that can we address corrective action to this or no this is the fourth time that you've done this and I'm sorry but you know it's time to go join a different team right ⁓ there's no easy solution to this I mean

When I first got into the trade, I'm sure it was like you. was like so much that was self-evident and inherent to both expectations showing up on time and not having to take...

sad days instead of sick days, right? I mean, that's definitely what you're kind of dancing around here. Like when I was 14 years old, I worked at McDonald's when I was in high school so I could afford to get my first car. And if you didn't cook the burger on both sides of the patty, you weren't employed for very, very long. So you didn't have to teach someone all these basic things that are self-evident, show up on time, stay till the end of the shift, like follow the rules. We are living in a different age.

especially after four or five years of people being locked up in their homes in two or three years, not having experience with other human beings. mean, the procedures that you have to lay out about tie your shoes, buckle your belt, all this stuff, it seems outrageous. But at least the culture we have north of the border is like when we deal with organizations related to labor relations and things like that, they're like, well, did you explain to them clearly what the expectations were? like, that's something you have to tell them.

people just don't know that it's like no you have to lay out what all the expectations are so ⁓ yeah I mean you're illustrating like the number one struggle that we've had in business is how do you navigate that balance it's not an easy solution

Eric Johnson (58:23)
how do you determine the line of people are too far gone if you have to teach them theoretically? And there's that whole forget, I think it's a college coach, he for college basketball, ⁓ he turned a program around.

Ryan Burton (58:31)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Eric Johnson (58:47)
And he, first day of practice, he taught them how to put on their socks and tie their shoes. And that kind of detail, yes, that is great, but.

Ryan Burton (58:53)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (58:59)
the HVAC world doesn't stop. It's not like you can take six months off and say, we're gonna start training you on all these minuscule things that you should basically already know because you're an adult. How do you draw the line between we aren't gonna teach you these things you need to know versus.

Ryan Burton (59:10)
Right.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (59:23)
We're gonna teach you everything because this is our culture and we want people to show up consistent and have consistent values.

Ryan Burton (59:26)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. So yeah, I think ultimately you have to decide what's the DNA of your organization. So if you're a 10 person company and you're in the boiler space and the refrigeration space and you need technicians who can be in a truck on their own and running service calls, well, the line is pretty far.

ahead of basic at that point. And where you determine whether or not that person has that is for us before the person even comes into the office for an interview, it's the phone call with them where you say like, okay, well, here's what the expectations are. And you have to have some, little bit of a, you have to have a bit of perception towards how people talk and what they say to know, okay, this guy has no idea, this gal has no idea, whatever, or no, it sounds like they have what I would call ownership mentality. And that's not ownership.

over the business necessarily, but just ownership over their career and they know how to be responsible and accountable and can people fool you? Obviously, but asking those questions on the front end before the hire even starts and making it commiserate with the DNA of your organization, that's sort of where you determine that line. If you have a massive training department and you have the ecosystem to be able to, like a couple of the larger companies, I think probably HVAC School and Kalos, they're one of the first ones to do it, where they

they

had like a cohort of people with no experience whatsoever and ran them through a multi-month training cycle and you know the ones that needed to get pruned off naturally got pruned off and when they hit the ground running they had that baseline knowledge and ⁓ that's a huge amount of overhead as a ten-person company you can't you can't do that so you need to determine where that line is going to be based on what you do and what you're trying to hire for now I will say

When it comes to the integration of culture and the sort of adoption of how you navigate where that line is, I am definitely not an expert when it comes to that.

My wife is brilliant when it comes to HR, when it comes to psychological stuff, and when it comes to navigating that balance of, what would you say, soft skills and not of the turning of the wrenches and fixing of the heat pumps. And so I've learned by association by watching her, because we all got our strengths. And so at the end of the day, you're a one person show and you're trying to expand and you're looking to...

analyze those factors that we're discussing right now, you might realize you have a relatively low ceiling when it comes to that and you need to outsource that to a third party or someone that you bring on to work with you in that capacity. And so the next obvious question is, okay, you're a two to three man company. Now you're talking about an HR staff or administration or office people. How do you absorb the overhead for that?

And when it comes to growth, I don't think there's an easy solution because you're either going to have more people than you have the volume of work to sustain overhead for, or you're going to have too much work and not enough people to sustain that. So it's nice to imagine that in business, you're to have this linear growth profile where your people match your volume of work and what you need to accommodate perfectly. But in the real world, that's, I mean, the number one thing in business is risk. So you're going to say, well, are we going to grow

to a degree that everybody's running around 12 hours a day and doing things that they're not capable of doing and try to be in damage control mode the whole time or are you going to say no we have a growth strategy and we need a person who's an expert in talking about these concepts and integrating them in the company. I'm just thankful and lucky enough to be married to one. Not everyone has that benefit though so you might have to retain someone like that if you want to be culture and focused with your growth model and with how you

that to your workforce. Certainly it's not my area of expertise so that's why we've been able to address that though is because we do have someone in the organization who can talk about those things and practically implement them right.

Eric Johnson (1:03:37)
Do you think it's a company's job to make well-rounded employees? The point of college for so long was to get a well-rounded perspective or worldview. And like I went to college and it's so easy to look back and to diminish it into like one tiny little thing. But

Ryan Burton (1:03:46)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:04:05)
I think about all the classes I took outside of my major. My major was HVAC engineering technology. very, I was a four year degree bachelor's, so very applicable. But I look at all the things outside.

Ryan Burton (1:04:18)
Where did you take

that? I heard that in one of your podcasts. That's an incredible thing. I didn't even know you could do a degree in that.

Eric Johnson (1:04:26)
Ferris State University, it is one of two bachelor programs, I believe, for HVAC in the United States. So it's very, very rare. But it's in Michigan, highly recommend it. Yeah, they have employers. Like when I graduated, it was probably a 10 to 1 ratio of employers to graduates. So you can get a job basically anywhere you want. ⁓

Ryan Burton (1:04:35)
Wow.

Cool, cool.

Yeah.

Very cool.

Eric Johnson (1:04:55)
But.

Ryan Burton (1:04:57)
Yeah, that's why I had to ask you about that because when I was, I heard you mentioned that and I knew that there is one or two schools who did that. Again, probably HVAC schools talking about it on their podcast. And so that's super cool, man.

Eric Johnson (1:04:58)
I.

Yeah, so the first two years is kind of, it's an associates and it would be kind of like your trade school of, hey, here's the technician side, the tool side. And then the second two years is.

Ryan Burton (1:05:16)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:05:25)
I like to say mechanical engineering light, where a mechanical engineer will take thermodynamics and all those classes where we just say, hey, we understand water. Great. Like we don't really have to do all the math behind it, but hey, here's how you size a pump and here's how you size piping. Here's how you size a chiller and here's how you size airflow and all this stuff. So it's very applicable.

Ryan Burton (1:05:28)
right?

Eric Johnson (1:05:53)
math and stuff that while a mechanical engineer may come out of another school and end up doing that for a company, why would I hire that versus somebody who already knows how to do all that stuff and understands the equipment? ⁓

Ryan Burton (1:06:10)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:06:11)
mechanical engineers come out of school and they have no idea what they're looking at in a mechanical room versus somebody coming out of Ferris State. They have, like my senior project was designing a mechanical system from like full drawings to like the schedule, everything for a real building. It was already done, but like we had real architectural like drawings of the building and hey, how would you do this and everything.

Ryan Burton (1:06:15)
Let's ring.

Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:06:40)
like

somebody who has that experience can be more valuable than somebody who knows it in theory. I'm not saying that mechanical engineers can't learn it, that is the value of the program. All my instructors had worked in the industry at some point, and they're all teaching at the college level, but some...

Ryan Burton (1:06:49)
or yes.

Hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:07:06)
One of them had a doctorate and I forget, but he had worked in the industry and then became an instructor. There's the very high level of teaching, but then also I look outside of that and. ⁓

I took project management classes, minor in project management and some business classes and communication classes and all that stuff. And all those classes, while a lot of people will look at them and say, well, that's a waste of time and all that stuff, they do, like I learned all about like lean and Six Sigma and manufacturing and all that stuff.

Ryan Burton (1:07:37)
Yeah.

Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:07:49)
And I would have never known anything about that if I didn't go to college. And a lot of people will say, well, you can just learn that. It's all on the internet. But people build four walls around their life. And if you are 25, you went into HVAC, you become very, very sharp in HVAC. And you go home and you fix your four-wheeler at night or whatever. But you never.

take any education about money. You never take any education about leadership or communication. Where your employer is really the only person, unless you're very driven individually, which is very rare, but your employer is the one that is going to push you to that. what is the role? How much role of an employer do you think is to make well-rounded people and educate people on money, leadership, communication, and all that stuff?

Ryan Burton (1:08:20)
That's right.

Hmm.

best ring.

Yep. Well, you've hit on something here. And ⁓ quick question for you, though, with regards to Ferris State and that program, what's the percentage of graduates from that program that go and pursue a trade like you did?

Eric Johnson (1:08:59)
So the two year, so you can either drop out after two years or four, and there's people that also skip the first two years and will transfer in. So if you just want an associates, it's probably 100 % of people go into the trades. But if you get a bachelor's, most people are not getting into tools, but they,

Ryan Burton (1:09:10)
Right. Yep.

Okay.

Exactly, yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:09:28)
they will have, if you went through the whole program, they will have had a tools background. And there were a decent amount of people when I went that were non-traditional students. So either military or coming out of manufacturing and like changing their career.

⁓ So like they they already have a lot of life experience and employer experience Which I think is valuable And they're just now applying it to you know another skill of HVAC But I I have friends who took ⁓ all four years and have a bachelor who are still service technicians, but I wouldn't say it's Super common, but I would also say that

Ryan Burton (1:09:56)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:10:16)
I think employers and people need to be less scared of saying like, you're either in the office or you're a technician. I think three to five years of being a technician can be a rocket ship for your career of like, I'm an engineer or I'm a designer because you start seeing.

Ryan Burton (1:10:30)
100%.

Eric Johnson (1:10:37)
the problems in the field and you start understanding it. How are you going to design a system if you've never worked on a system or even seen the system? I've heard stories of engineers walking into rooms and not knowing what a pump is.

Ryan Burton (1:10:55)
100%. I mean, my experience.

Like I told you, my education, I didn't get into trade school right away. I took a very difficult first year of a difficult program at a polytechnic institution. And it was a ton of different courses. I did electrical theory and electrical fundamentals for a full year, two full semesters. I didn't get into first year refrigeration school for probably two years after I graduated. Well, not graduated because I did one year of the program and that was it. But my classmates in first

year were so far behind me when it came to just basic wiring diagram calculations. And that's just one example. So that more well-rounded experience you talk about and how that doesn't just prepare you to be more proficient in the trades, but in life in general, that definitely is an advantage that college at least used to provide. And I know there's shifts and changes and things and how post-secondary is going now, but so yeah, having that well-rounded experience.

and education that comes from that, for me for sure, was contributory in a big way. ⁓ So you've got people who either go to college and don't get that experience, or you've got people who haven't gone to college and they leave high school and they've never had a job and they somehow get hired as a first year apprentice, either after taking a four month pre-apprenticeship course into whatever trade you want to.

take it in or they just get hired. And now there's those soft skills, I guess is what a lot of people would call them that you're talking about when you say what onus is on the employer to teach them how to be more well-rounded. And again, if you're a small company, use whatever size you want to define that, I think that it becomes more difficult to cover.

wages or training costs that there's no return on. mean, all training for the most part has long term return. But the question you asked, which is very specific, is what onus is on their employer to teach that? And I don't know. I mean, to me, I sort of have two minds. I see the generation of young people coming up and it's like, yeah.

they didn't have a dad to show them those things, fixing lawn mowers and getting a first job or even having a paper route or any amount of responsibility whatsoever to sort of naturally learn those habitual soft skills. And so they need someone to help them. And so the dad in me wants to say that a company can have a relatively high onus on teaching that stuff. But then the business person in me is just like, how do you justify that? How do you pay for it? Right. So

I don't have an answer to that question. I think it depends on what you have capacity to be able to cover in your overhead and ⁓ the kind of organization you're building as well, right? But that doesn't proceed the first part. Like you need to have resources available to do that. And I guess too, the other thing too is like I learned a long time ago that you can hire a person who technically is, you know, Einstein in the mechanical room, but

If they don't have the attitude and personality and character, that's very, very difficult to train. You can teach anybody to fix a boiler, but you can't teach someone to give a crap about their job and show up on time and stay a little bit later and, you know, keep their work van clean and organized and take care of their tools and be respectful and know how to communicate with the customer and ask insightful questions. And you can teach and train some of that, but that's way harder than talking about where the reversing valve gets installed, for example, right?

Eric Johnson (1:14:39)
Yeah, leadership and communication, all the soft skills, they can be taught, but it is a matrix of where you are and which is ⁓ teaching that matrix of like communication.

Ryan Burton (1:14:53)
Mm.

Eric Johnson (1:14:59)
It's hard to define like you're a great communicator. A lot of people say, well, he's a good leader. He's great communicator, but they only see it after the fact. How do you teach somebody who's not to be good? And you just got to keep going at it. how do you, ⁓ what was your perspective on hands-on training versus classroom training and the majority preference?

Ryan Burton (1:15:13)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:15:27)
I have a strong opinion about this, but the majority preference of hands-on training and people saying, I can only learn hands-on.

Ryan Burton (1:15:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I haven't got through all that podcast years, but I plan to finish listening to it. I think that if you're talking about the trades here, Eric, it's all hands on. And so, you know, first of all, we need to define our terms. OK, so for talking about hands on training being that you've got an apprentice who is fixing the boiler and they've never done it before. And the journeyman or the trainer is watching them closely and guiding them and instructing them. It's like, I mean, that's a pretty darn good

way to learn how to do something new under close supervision, making sure they're not going to hurt themselves or break the machine. So then you say, okay, that's probably the quintessential textbook example of hands-on, right? They're doing the job, being shown how to do it for the first time, they're getting muscle memory, they're figuring how to do it. Okay, now you got classroom training. It's like, well,

What would be the classic textbook example of that? It would be learning about Ohm's law and learning about how many BTUs are exchanged in a gallon of water moving from pipe A through this pump, blah, blah, whatever. Or whatever other kind of mathematical calculations and memorization of formulas or ratio. It's like, okay, that's classroom theory. So my perspective is that we need to reduce the veil that separates

separates one from the other. And what we do at our company, and what I've always done with apprentices I've taught and trained, is every week, sometimes multiple times a week, we got a whiteboard in the shop, and we talk about stuff guys have seen in the field. Okay, we're working on a walk-in cooler with a defrost clock and a pump down circuit, and here's the problem we had. It's like, boom, we're getting into theory right away, and we're looking at the physical parts in the shop, and we're talking about how we've seen them in the field. And we have an apprentice working for us right now.

We were at a hotel a little while ago and he came and grabbed me from the boiler and he's like, come with me, come with me, I'm to show you this. He brought me over to the walk-in freezer and he's like, okay, there's the clock right there, there's the solenoid. So like we talked about, this is how it works. I was like, ⁓ proud dad moment. This is great, right? He was literally talking about what we had gone through in the shop, talking about theory in our classroom effectively, looking at it in the field. And it was like, there is no separation in that example. It's like your classroom is the field and your field is the classroom.

So the trade school I went to had a fantastic shop and we were always in the shop seeing about how the theory gets integrated practically with real stuff. what is the percentage of focus on pure theory versus pure hands-on? I think we need to change how we define both of those things and we need to integrate more of a hands-on mentorship model of training in the classroom and we need to integrate more theory and more math and formulas in the field.

Eric Johnson (1:18:28)
Do you think hands-on fails a lot because the teacher is not a teacher? They're just a senior technician?

Ryan Burton (1:18:39)
Well, yeah, of course, if it's not, it fails because it was never hands on training. like, okay, so when I got into the trade, there was no smartphones, I didn't even have a cell phone. It was a two way radio in the truck. And when you called in truck 16 to base and asked a dumb question, you had 16 journeymen on the phone making fun of you, saying stuff that's highly inappropriate to be said in 2026. But that was sort of how you learned and it was just part of that culture, right?

point I'm getting at is we have technology available to us now where this misconception that hands-on training needs to be a journeyman right there watching. I mean, definitely if the guy is green, you don't want to be sending him to do anything dangerous or new for the first time. But if your employee is learning in the field, hands-on training doesn't need to be physically even present. It just needs to be engaged and it needs to be good communication and it needs to be what I call Socratic engagement. So like a method of teaching.

and training where you're guiding the person, the person that you're training to figure things out on their own based on pre-existing knowledge, right? And so I won't get too much into that philosophy, but the question you asked, where does hands-on training fail? Well, it fails when there's no training to begin with. It's like, here's the keys, go grab a truck and go and figure it out. That's not training. That's someone figuring out on their own and trying 99 ways that don't work until they figure out the one that does. So it's like,

well where does training fail? It's where it's not engaged and where it's not participatory on the part of the trainer and on the learner.

Eric Johnson (1:20:16)
So what is the solution for getting people into the trade and trained up without getting them across that five-year gap without them dropping out and getting them acclimated to life is hard and sometimes your job is hard?

Ryan Burton (1:20:29)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

So the method is sort of the same way that you.

get your kid to understand that the world can hurt. And so they start to see that there's thresholds and safety limits. Like, analogy I'm making is if you have a kid who you never let climb a tree, and then he's 16 years old and climbs a tree for the first time, disaster waiting. But if you let your kid climb a tree and he falls from five feet up, he's gonna learn some rules about physics and Newtonian science and about the fact that it's like, well, four feet to the ground hurts a little bit.

So how does that relate to controlled exposure? You need to create the perception that they are in new territory. And so let me give you an illustration. I heard this years ago from the horse training world. They talked about training horses in a way that I think is how people learn as well. They said you can.

Look at learning new things like a comfort circle. So when you're standing in the middle of the comfort circle, there's no new experiences. You're surrounded 360 degrees by things that are only familiar, and it's comfortable, it's safe. And by and large, for the most part, that's the society and culture we live in right now.

They like their bubbles. And if you take a huge giant leap outside of that, now you're surrounded by 360 degrees of all new stimulus and it's potentially frightful. You're in a right brain fight or flight mode and you're all about survival essentially. So what you want to do is keep one foot in the circle, one foot out of the circle so you can reference things that are familiar, but then still engage in new experiences. It sounds all fluffy and like a great idea. So how does that practically work in the trade? Well, you want to get your people into

vans or trucks as early as possible and on their own.

At least from their perception. So are you sending them to do a, you know, re and re on a power burner on a 5 million BTU like boiler? No, you're not. But you might be sending them to change all the air filters on 10 RTUs on a shopping mall. And once they've been shown how to check electrical and mechanical components and connections, looking for good operation and good condition on one unit, you okay, I've gone through one, now do the next nine that are identical and call me if you have issues.

and then gradually increasing that level of exposure so they feel like they're growing because they are, right? So the solution to keeping them involved is to gradually increase their levels of exposure intentionally.

Eric Johnson (1:23:12)
So basically what it boils down to is we need to bring back child labor.

Ryan Burton (1:23:17)
I'm okay with that, yeah. No! Yeah, I know.

Eric Johnson (1:23:20)
I, so that's a joke, but at the same time, I also think it's

the truth because most people don't get a job till they're 20 or older and they are told you're not responsible enough to get a job before then, yet you have farmer kids driving a tractor when they're 13 and like it used to be normal.

Ryan Burton (1:23:32)
100%, yeah, 100%, yep, yep.

Let's ring. Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:23:48)
before we got like crazy on safety and the whole litigious society thing, it used to be normal. Hey, I'm gonna bring my kid with me to work on Saturday or to see the plant on a Friday. And that, like if your kid has no idea what you're doing and if kids are locked out of the workforce till they're legal adults and...

Ryan Burton (1:23:52)
Hmm.

I still do that, Heck yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:24:17)
you know, even like the fast food thing. And it is a complicated matter, but the traditional jobs that were to teach people how to have a job, how to show up. And it's not a lifelong career job, but it's a job and teaches them responsibility that they would get at 14, 15, 16. Those jobs are taken by older adults in the most part.

Ryan Burton (1:24:32)
Mm.

Eric Johnson (1:24:47)
I think there's so much learning that goes into that of, my kid worked at this fast food place for three years. Like there's so much character that gets built into that versus I am now 21, 22 and trying to figure out how to get my first job. Like those couple of years are

Ryan Burton (1:24:55)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:25:09)
experience in a job that you know like hey this is not a career. I think the easiest one is ⁓ Chick-fil-A. I don't know if you've Chick-fil-A up by you.

Ryan Burton (1:25:13)
Yeah.

I don't know if we have any in Canada or not. I don't think we have any, but I'm very familiar with the restaurant.

Eric Johnson (1:25:25)
Yeah, so

their whole business model is high turnover and they hire, you know, they obviously hire everybody, but they are very interested in younger people and they understand that they're going to leave. So, hey, if you're in high school, if you're in college, if you're in the area, we'll train you. We had this program, we'll train you. You work here three or four years and go get another job or whatever.

Ryan Burton (1:25:30)
Yeah.

Right?

Mmm.

Eric Johnson (1:25:54)
They just have this pipeline of people coming through. But that experience for somebody who is young, I think is so valuable. And just how we've set up society now, we're locking people out of responsibility. basically, I mean, it comes down to the adults in the room are telling kids that they're not responsible till they're 25.

Ryan Burton (1:26:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

yes.

Eric Johnson (1:26:23)
And that leads to kids who are 25 years old with no responsibility. And then they go to an employer and now you're teaching them how to tie their shoes and how to show up on time. And employers are like, we're not set up for this. We can't do this. And why don't these kids want to work anymore? I think that's the whole vicious cycle. But at the end of the day,

Ryan Burton (1:26:36)
Mmm.

Yeah, no exactly

Eric Johnson (1:26:52)
You gotta control what you can control and be a I think a lot of people look at the the faraway kingdom and how to change it and instead of looking inward to their community and you know, sponsoring your kids sports teams and talking to parents about opportunities in the trades, talking to high schools, talking to middle schools, all that stuff is.

Ryan Burton (1:26:54)
ring.

100%.

Eric Johnson (1:27:20)
It seems like a waste of time. It is, but long term, it's not a waste of time. And you just kind of got to do it because as you said, once they get to 10th grade, their heart is already set on something and it's too late. You really have to start with middle school and plant the seed. But at the same time, how do you talk to somebody's parents?

Ryan Burton (1:27:36)
Mmm.

Eric Johnson (1:27:47)
who are their middle schooler and their parents are dead set on going to college, get a white collar, traditional job. And, you know, there's so much bad in the trades as well. You know, a lot of people like to paint it at this like perfect picture of, ⁓ make it make a hundred grand, do this, do that. You know, there's tons of jobs where people are making 60 grand a year and they work 12 hour days and they don't, and they're on call and all this stuff.

Ryan Burton (1:28:04)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:28:16)
There's good and bad. I don't know what the answer is. I think another problem outside of the child labor is you got the internet with the grass is always greener mentality and you have a very small percentage of people on the internet making tons of money, seemingly like content creators and all this stuff. And a lot of people think, well, I want to do that. And it seems so close to them.

Ryan Burton (1:28:18)
Excuse me.

Mmm.

That's right.

Eric Johnson (1:28:44)
because it's on their phone in the room. But it's like so, like the lifestyle is so far away. Not saying that anybody can't do it, but at a certain point in time, you either have to put in the work or you have to be realistic that your life isn't kind of just magically happen. And there's tons of people, know, the survivorship bias, you you open up Instagram and you see all these people with hundreds of thousands of followers and all that stuff.

Ryan Burton (1:28:46)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:29:13)
Well, Instagram doesn't show you the people with 500 followers who posted every single day for a year and didn't make it or whatever. So.

Ryan Burton (1:29:21)
Mm-hmm.

Well, that's there's something inherently at the core of what you said right now that is it's like, okay, what is the measurement of success for whatever it is that you're engaging in? Is it having a hundred thousand followers and a ton of different likes? Because then you just go make, you like you said, ketchup bottles being built and cat videos or something. It's like, that's what gets those views. That's what gets those subs. If I mean, if that's your thing, then all the power to you, right? But

if you're involved or engaged in something like what you and I are doing, the likelihood that we're gonna see numbers like that is very, very low. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Like what is the measurement of success? What metric are you measuring it by? Like if you had 50 people who reached out to you who were just like, I chose a career.

in being a HVAC guy or a boiler service technician. And not only has it changed my life, but now my kids are seeing something. It's generational impact. It's like, I mean, that's what I want to see the fruits as the fruits of my labor. So with regards to the perception that young people have, or anyone for that matter, who's paying attention to those things that you mentioned with regards to social media, it's like, okay.

what is at the core of that? I think for the most part, it's probably because they don't feel like they're being seen or heard. They're looking for validation or affirmation or some sort of an idea that someone thinks they matter or that they're important. this is very much related to what we started the conversation with. If you get a trainer from a manufacturer in a room full of, it's like this. Have you ever noticed, have you ever taken training where the first thing as adult learners, in adult education, the first thing

that the instructor does is everyone go around the room and introduce yourself and who you are and what you do. There's a reason that they do that. And it's not just to break the ice and make everybody comfortable. It's because now people, especially the last person to speak, they have this sort of idea that, well, it's like everyone's participating and everyone's engaged.

The problem is after that introduction, then they stop that. They don't ask any more questions. They don't invest in the audience. Some do. There's some good ones out there, but how does this relate to the Instagram thing? Well.

With young people, it's like what matters to them? How do you care about what matters to them? Same with grown people in a room taking boiler training. I think we just need to care more about each other, right? And we need to say that if I'm teaching a young person or telling them about the trade or I'm teaching a group full of 45-year-old guys, is it about me or is it about them? Like, how am I putting them ahead of me? If you start with that, I think it shapes how you...

talk to someone, how you do your training, how you do everything, how you do everything that we've been talking about today. It's just making the other person more important than yourself. And man, if that's not a solution to fix the world, I don't know what is.

Eric Johnson (1:32:26)
Amen to that

Ryan Burton (1:32:28)
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you made me think of one thing I wanted to ask you. Listening to your intro episode that you had and a little bit of other stuff. in addition to your walking, you're a bit of a fitness guy, right? You work out and stuff.

Eric Johnson (1:32:41)
Yes, not as much as I should, but.

Ryan Burton (1:32:44)
Yeah,

I'm in the same category as you with that. What do you think about the parallels of having a good relationship with fitness and not, mean, everything else, like it's a metaphor for life, I think. But if you talk about the trades and everything that we talked about today with, you know, respect to goal setting, with respect to leaning into the hard, with respect to, ⁓ you know, how to communicate the value of this kind of a

career and educational choice. just think that the parallels from being healthy physically are extreme. Would you agree with that and you think those are easy to make as well?

Eric Johnson (1:33:22)
Yes. ⁓ I mean, just for kids being on a sports team, they'll learn so much versus kids that are not on a sports team. But for adults, their health is wealth and your health should come before everything. But that doesn't.

that becomes real when you're in the hospital or have the problem. But when you're healthy, a lot of people abuse health. But the discipline to work towards a goal and to make decisions, I think I mean, this is just general life stuff. But it's so easy for people just to wake up every day and be on autopilot. And

Ryan Burton (1:33:53)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:34:11)
I had somebody, I was probably 24 or something. They were probably in their 40s. And I had somebody just tell me, oh, just wait, wait till you get older and wait till you get fat like me. And I'm like, well, like getting older and getting fat, a lot of people just think it's a given. And it's just something that happens. Oh, well, I ran out of time for my kids and.

Ryan Burton (1:34:26)
you

Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:34:41)
You know, not going super deep into it, but at the same time, there's a guy I follow on Instagram who, he was very overweight, over 150 pounds overweight, and his kids wanted to hike up a mountain, and by mountain I mean like hill, like it wasn't a crazy mountain and he couldn't do it.

and that and they were still young ish so probably four or five and that experience changed him of hey i want to be around for my kids life and i don't want to limit

what their experiences are based on what I can and can't do. And he lost 150 pounds or whatever, got in amazing shape so that whatever his kids wanted to do, he could do. And there's the, I'm not married, have no kids, but there's the.

Ryan Burton (1:35:34)
Hmm

Eric Johnson (1:35:42)
Everybody says, I would do anything for my kids. Well, would you lose weight? Would you go to the gym for 30 minutes? Would you go work out in your garage with a yoga mat and some dumbbells for 30 minutes? And a lot of people wouldn't. And they have this arbitrary belief system of, I would do anything. I would die for my kids. ⁓ My kids are my life. Yes, I understand that. But if you're not around for your kids because you

died early of a heart attack or you have diabetes or you don't even teach them to eat well and they become obese at a very early age and may develop health problems early on. Like parents are the role model for kids and at the core of society all issues basically root down to people growing up.

Ryan Burton (1:36:18)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:36:36)
and their experiences and if are your parents a role model for a good life or your parents a role model of what you need to be the opposite of and if kids are never taught how to eat healthy and that is going to basically be how they are as an adult and we can say all there's

everybody thinks they're the exception. I have this issue. I have that issue. My hormones, this and I understand that, but at the end of the day, most people are not the exception. And it just comes down to you need to eat less. You need to eat better food. You need to not have three energy drinks a day. And

Ryan Burton (1:37:15)
Mm.

Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:37:26)
eat a real breakfast in the morning and which is so hard for trades people I think a lot of the times you know they live off gas station food but

Ryan Burton (1:37:34)
Let's ring.

Eric Johnson (1:37:39)
It comes down, at the end of the day, it just comes down to choosing yourself first versus just living on autopilot. And that's choosing yourself first in your education. Hey, am I going to look at this job as a career or am I only gonna learn on the clock? In the second I clock out, I check out and then I wonder why I don't advance in my career.

Am I going to choose being a good parent or a good role model to my neighbor's kids because I'm not a parent and a good role model to my friends and a person who shows up for themselves physically so that when somebody asks me, hey, can you help me move my couch? I'm not huffing and puffing, lifting up a 75 pound couch or.

Ryan Burton (1:38:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

Eric Johnson (1:38:30)
huffing and puffing when I walk up a flight of stairs. And if you are in the trades and doing physical stuff, being out of shape definitely affects your ability to do the job. And it also affects your ability to show up professionally. A lot of people say, it doesn't matter. As long as I get the job done, but.

Ryan Burton (1:38:43)
yeah.

Mmm.

Eric Johnson (1:38:56)
Would you rather have the 300 pound technician who is falling out of their clothes, who looks sloppy, who can barely walk correctly, is huffing and puffing to get up onto the roof, has to buy extra heavy duty ladder and all this stuff, and can't fit in tight-ish spaces or reach the compressor or whatever, or the technician who is

Ryan Burton (1:39:02)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:39:24)
average built, maybe 20 pounds overweight, but it can go up a couple flights of stairs, not huffing and puffing and is looks professional shirt is tucked in, not overflowing out of their clothes. Like people want to say it's bad to judge people, but you will be judged based on your appearance and you need to.

Look your best and a lot of people take it one way or the other. I don't have time for the gym. I don't have time to be jacked and all this stuff. Yes, you don't have to be jacked, and I'm not jacked either, but are you working towards a health goal and getting better or are you slipping away from the health goal and getting worse? And that's what it comes down to.

Ryan Burton (1:40:00)
Yeah.

I think the parallel that you've illustrated, possibly inadvertently though, is same thing with the guy who wants to be there with his kids, and same thing with the technician who wants to be proficient in their job and not 300 pounds and show up professionally. The motivation isn't to get jacked. The motivation to the discipline to be physically healthy is the other thing. It's that thing that's more important. The parallel that I'm mentioning that you illustrated is like, well,

That's how we should communicate the trades as well. Like there's very few people I know who are so passionate about plumbing. It's like plumbing is what drives them. mean, even the ones who may say that, it's like, no, they really care about serving other people. They really care about problem solving. They really care about training and teaching apprentices. They care about being an important member in their community. They like business and closing and sales and all these things that they think.

is that I think I'm passionate about my trade. It's actually, no, that's just the vehicle that's allowed you to flesh out the things that really matter and are important to you. Well, that's why I like the parallel fitness. It's like, yeah, if you're competing in bodybuilding or whatever, you're powerlifting, sure. Even then, the time in the gym still is not the means to the end. There's a goal at hand there, whether it's playing with your kids, whether it's being the best technician you can on site. And so I think the focus on

the value of the trades and taking the education and the training seriously. There's a parallel there, I think, that deserves mentioning.

Eric Johnson (1:41:45)
Yes, there's a lot of people think trades, everything binary, but at the end of the day, no matter what career you're in, every human basically lives the same life. Like we're all humans, we can all be boiled down to like the enneagram and personality. Like humans are not as different as a lot of people think.

Ryan Burton (1:41:51)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:42:08)
And

we're all wired very much the same. And yes, we have our own personality traits, but at a large enough scale, humans like to do what humans do. And there are ones who take responsibility and are positive on their community, and there are ones who are not positive on their community. And whatever career you're in, whatever community you're in,

Do you want to be better? Are you the example for others? Or are you trying to tear down others? Are you not the example? Are you the neighbor everybody avoids? And however you show up as a human is how you're gonna show up in your career. And if.

Ryan Burton (1:42:56)
man, I got one

quick story for you about that. So there's a guy working for me who came from the grocery store world and working for us. He came from the grocery store world and he, that was his experience and he was a good grocery store tech, right? And so very, very little exposure to the HVAC world. And after the first couple of weeks, we get together in the office because he's having a hard time.

And I'm just like, what's dragging you down, even though I kind of already knew. And he's like, well, my whole career, I'm used to being the guy, right? I've got the answers. I know the solution to problem. People can lean on me. And goes, now that I'm in this, he's like, I had no idea how different HVAC was. And that's at least, you know, in our area, that's the perception is that the refrigeration guys are another level, right? They're the HVAC guys who are too smart to stay as HVAC guys. And that's not true. And he was just like, wow, I really am having like some cold

backs and I'm a fish out of water and I'm just, I said, okay, so what's at the core of this? It's you're, you know, you're feeling like upset, like, do you think this has to do with identity? Like you said, I'm used to being the guy to do this. And I said to him, you will not be remembered for being the grocery store guy. You're going to be remembered for how you showed up. And the reality here is you can be the, ⁓ you know, worst technician out there and remembered fondly because of how you

engage with others, how you responded to situations, so on and so forth. And so I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole with it, but what I said to him, what I think you're speaking about right now is how you do anything matters far more than what it is that you're doing specifically, right?

Eric Johnson (1:44:34)
Yes, yes and... ⁓

It takes personal responsibility and personal excellence. And that's going back to the whole name of the podcast. Work hard, invest yourself, lead others and develop yourself into a person of excellence. That is the core of what I strive to do. I am far from perfect. But I think a lot, once again, people have a very binary approach. Well, if I can't do this, then.

Ryan Burton (1:44:49)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:45:00)
I have to be this or if I'm a HVAC technician, can't be a leader in my community or do this or do that.

Once again, you have four walls that you built in your life and you stare at those four walls, but a lot of times those four walls are not real and those limitations are not real. So you can do whatever you want. And traditionally you may think, well, I'm an HVAC technician, I can't do that. No, you can. Like being getting old and getting fat or being ⁓ unhealthy or not packing your lunch every day, like it's super hard.

almost never packed a lunch when I was a technician. But I also just basically just starved most days. you can do whatever you want, but at the end of the day, it is going to take work. You can be a content creator, but it's going to take work. can.

Ryan Burton (1:45:48)
That's very familiar.

Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:46:01)
make YouTube videos, it is going to take work. You can be an engineer in an office, it is going to take work. And if you don't apply yourself, if you don't do the work, you are gonna be unhappy. And at the end of the day, you know, the whole thing of people getting old and looking back on life, I wish I did more of this, more of that.

Ryan Burton (1:46:24)
Mmm.

Eric Johnson (1:46:25)
Nobody can live a perfect life, but think everybody will have regrets. And I wish I did this, wish I could have done more, spend time more with my kids. And there's always more more and more and more, but did you try your best is the end of it.

You can't do any more than just try your best, an actual try your best, not what you think your best is. Did I try my best today? Did I try my best this week? And I'm not saying that I do that. I struggle with this every week, going from a technician with a very short feedback cycle of success. You every day you're the hero to now just

Ryan Burton (1:46:51)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:47:06)
banging my head against the wall trying to help people where so much of what I do is so much of training. I can be the world's best trainer, best communicator, yet if somebody doesn't walk into my class and choose to learn, I can't help them. It's so frustrating to see that because

you end up caring more than they do, but at end of the day, they have to care and you can't make somebody care. And it's so hard to see people with so much potential not care or not apply themselves. And as a trainer, it's super hard to see that. And you just think like, you know, it's kind of like the whole, if you went back in history.

Ryan Burton (1:47:34)
Mm.

Eric Johnson (1:48:01)
and you had to convince somebody somebody was going to win the World Series. Like, knew somebody's going to win the 1995 World Series in baseball. And you go back to 1994 and you say, I need you to put your life savings on this bet for this team to win the World Series. It's like, how would you convince them that you know for sure this team is going to, like, everything, all your money, all your friends' money?

put it up, yet they would look at you like you're crazy. That's kind of like what a trainer does or how I see it is, you can tell people this is a great career and you can make all this money, you can do this and you can learn this, but from their perspective and their seat, they're lost, they're confused, they're one to two years in and they're making.

Ryan Burton (1:48:54)
Mmm.

Eric Johnson (1:48:56)
50 grand or $25 an hour and they're struggling and they're barely covering their rent and car payment and maybe they just had a kid and the bills of the month weigh on them and you're talking about this career that they could have in five years and they can't see past the end of the month. It's so hard.

Ryan Burton (1:49:20)
Mmm.

Eric Johnson (1:49:23)
They're just kind of sitting there like, like there's nothing you can tell them of how much opportunity they can have when they can't see past the end of the month.

Ryan Burton (1:49:32)
What do you do in that situation? Like you specifically.

Eric Johnson (1:49:35)
I have to just accept that I can do my best and as long as I do my best, I can't do anything more than that. the outcome of training, I can't control the outcome. I can only lead them to water, but if they don't drink, ⁓ I can't do anything more than that. And I just find people who want to drink or companies who want to drink. I've spent a lot of time trying to, and lot of this is

Ryan Burton (1:49:43)
Mm.

Eric Johnson (1:50:03)
my issues with product and having training available and all this stuff. But I've spent a lot of time talking to company leadership people or managers. And there's a lot of stuff behind it. But at the end of the day, if they don't value training, there's nothing I can say that's going to make them value training. If they look at training as a thing that we do when we get slow,

or a thing we do when we have a little extra money and it's not integrated into culture, I probably can't help you because training is not a band-aid. It is something you do, not something you've done. There's no line where you cross off. I think this is the struggle with contracting and training is somebody doesn't get to the four-year mark and you're like, yep, cross it off, they're trained.

Ryan Burton (1:50:36)
Mm-hmm. You're right. Right.

Mm-hmm. 100%.

Eric Johnson (1:51:00)
send them out in the field for 30 years. There needs to be this continual education and people forget stuff and there's just that line is never there. So it's how do you define the line? And, you know, and there's so much that goes into it. But yeah, it's I struggle with the long feedback cycles and not being the hero every day from the

from being a technician and all ⁓ that stuff.

Ryan Burton (1:51:32)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm, that's a shift for sure, hey? As far as like the short to long feedback, that's definitely a real thing. I it speaks to me quite a bit when you talk about the, know, kid in class who's just like, what are you talking about? Or the guy, whatever, and he's just not connecting. mean, definitely can visualize that situation. And ⁓ I think that just, you know,

what I see being so effective is kind of what you're doing with how you get personal and having these conversations that are not dictatorial or where it's like you're not preaching from a soapbox. You're like, no, let's have a conversation. You're going to hear how we relate to each other in a huge way. And you're kind of doing it together at that point then, right?

Eric Johnson (1:52:15)
Yes, I am young enough to still remember vividly not knowing what I was doing in the boiler room. And that's a lot of what drives my training is I want to pave a highway for people to go down so that they can see or not have to bridge canyons by themselves. And I can.

Ryan Burton (1:52:24)
Mmm

Eric Johnson (1:52:43)
I can vividly remember hard times in the boiler room and problem solving and trying to relay that to somebody is very difficult. But at the same time, there's a wall and a point where I can't go any further of there's nothing I can tell you. There's no amount of training I can tell you and show you.

where you will avoid all problems and you won't have hard days in the boiler room or on a roof of a building for HVAC and in my counter room. There's nothing I can do, but how can I give you the foundational tools so that you have a toolbox of tools instead of feeling like you're out in the desert with no resources? And that's really what training comes down to is let's get away from

Ryan Burton (1:53:19)
Mm.

Eric Johnson (1:53:40)
memorizing the perfect amount of information and let's start working on the foundational knowledge that is going to give you a toolbox of knowledge where you can solve any problem no matter what because you have that toolbox and that's where I think ⁓ shortly my opinion on hands-on training is it's preferred and it's fun for a lot of people because it's easy.

Ryan Burton (1:53:41)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:54:08)
But sitting in a classroom and learning about sequence of operations and doing all that stuff that builds that foundation, that builds that toolbox of knowledge in their minds, a lot of people sit there and, well, I just need to get out there and get on the tools and start turning wrenches. But it's, need to understand the why behind it because there's no amount of training I can give you where you can memorize every single situation.

Ryan Burton (1:54:25)
Hehehe.

That's

Eric Johnson (1:54:36)
and every

Ryan Burton (1:54:36)
right.

Eric Johnson (1:54:37)
single nut and bolt to turn. So how can I give you, I only had a week to train you, what am I gonna tell you and what do you need to know? It's not gonna be, hey, this is the gap on the igniter that on this boiler, like memorize it, this is how you set it up. No, I would be telling you, hey, here's the manufacturer's resources. Here's how you find them, here's how you use them, here's how you read them.

Ryan Burton (1:55:02)
Exactly.

Eric Johnson (1:55:03)
because you

Ryan Burton (1:55:03)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:55:04)
don't actually need to memorize this information. As long as you know that this information exists, you just look it up and it'll tell you how to set up the igniter and the gap and all this stuff. So, and that's something that you can do in a classroom that a lot of people take for granted. yeah, the manuals are online. Well, I think a lot of the reason that people don't read the manual is they don't.

know it exists and there's all these times I go on manufacturers websites and like find resources. I'm like I didn't even know this exists and I'm pretty driven individual. What about the individuals who aren't super driven?

Ryan Burton (1:55:41)
Yes,

well the number of times where I've had an apprentice call me and it's increasing over the years But the apprentices who call or call you or tell someone to give me a call someone calls I'm in front of the machine and it's not working. It's like, okay and like that's all I got It's like, okay. You need to learn how to be a little more curious first, right? And then it's like, okay, they start walking through it and then I've got to figure it out because they actually tried so I mean, you know, that's what you're talking about, right? It's like

People.

pick up the phone and they want to be spoon-fed the answer for that specific situation. And then the next time they want to be spoon-fed that answer to that situation. But you teach them the fundamentals like you're talking about and how to be curious. And it's like, okay, flame, spark, safety is like going through standard SOP that every single system has, right? Looking for, and the question that I always say is like, people say, well, what's your troubleshooting technique? How do you teach diagnostics and troubleshooting? It's the same exact thing. You need to first explain,

It doesn't matter what the system is, refrigeration, HVAC, boiler, you need to first be able to explain how the system works when there's no problem. And then you can find where the gaps are. Very simple.

Eric Johnson (1:56:55)
Yep.

Yep, that goes back to sequence operations and understanding systems and what normal is. like, you know, you get the technician that walks up to the equipment and then they make a call. Yeah, you can say that they're not driven and all this stuff, but have you taught them of, you walk into a boiler room, here are the first five things that you're going to do every single time. And if you walk into a front of a boiler, a steam boiler that's not running here, here are the first five procedures that you're going to do. And it's not,

Ryan Burton (1:57:02)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Eric Johnson (1:57:25)
you're gonna check this control. It is high level foundational stuff that is, hey, do we have water in the boiler? Do we have power to the boiler? And that seems like that bleeds into the, yeah, that's basic, that's tribal knowledge, they should know that. But until you put it out into words and like the best training program you should be able to look at and be like,

That's simple stuff. Why are we training on this? That's what makes a good training program because it makes the simple stuff visible. And when somebody walks into a boiler room, they say, hey, I'm lost. I have no idea what I'm doing in this boiler room. I've never seen this equipment, but I understand a steam system. And I understand that the water is going to be this. So I'm going to check the water here.

and I should see water in the sight glass. And I understand what a steam header is, and I understand what condensate is. And I'm going to check the pressure of the steam system and the boilers. And then I'm going to talk to the engineers on staff and see what the story is on that. And they have this procedure, and they developed that framework. whether they realize it or not, every senior technician has that framework of, hey, when I get on sites and I see this equipment, this is what I do.

Ryan Burton (1:58:35)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:58:49)
a lot of younger people think it ends up being this like super customized stuff, but if you boil it down into very high level troubleshooting and training it comes down to do you understand the basics and the foundational knowledge and Do you have a procedure? You know, I constantly preach every single service call is the same just the variables change so you

Ryan Burton (1:59:18)
Nice, like

that.

Eric Johnson (1:59:19)
You have a problem, you have a customer, so you gather info from the customer as to what the problem is, but a lot of people will go to troubleshoot, but they don't understand what the problem is. And I say in my procedure, it says, I think step three is write down the problem into two sentences and...

Ryan Burton (1:59:22)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:59:46)
If you can't do that, you're not understanding the problem. And a lot of people will skip that. And they think they understand the problem, and it's in their mind. And the problem will change. But if you don't understand the problem, you can't troubleshoot the problem. And the problem can change. The customer says, hey, we don't have any steam, whatever. So you write down a problem.

Ryan Burton (1:59:55)
You

Eric Johnson (2:00:10)
that may be a high level issue, but the problem can change. But you always have a problem and you have it written down so that you're not getting lost in your mind. And it's, hey, here's one to two sentences of the problem that I'm solving. And until I know more, this is the problem I'm solving and I'm gonna break it down. But hey, we don't have water in the boiler. All right, what doesn't cause water in the boiler? Well, number one is gonna be, do we have water in the feed water tank? Do we have a water supply to the boiler? Do we have pumps that are running?

our valves closed. Let's check all the high level stuff before we start getting crazy and checking for all the mystery and stars aligned stuff. the problem is I don't have water in the boiler. Okay, that is what I'm solving. And until I know more, that is what is going to be the issue. But then all of a sudden you go 30 minutes down the road and you're like, wait, I do have water in the boiler. My sight glass is just plugged up.

Ryan Burton (2:00:47)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (2:01:10)
So now the problem has changed that the boiler water level is not being correctly ⁓ seen. And now the problem has changed to, hey, I do have water in the boiler, but the boiler water level is not being correctly registered for the operator controls. So now that is my problem. So how do we fix that registration of water level in the boiler? All right, so we got to clean the sight glass. We got to make sure the low water cut off all the sensing legs.

Whatever, but you keep moving through that, but so many people skip defining the problem and just kind of look at equipment and they just are looking for something that's broken. it just, at the end of the day, it boils down to not understanding the fundamentals and having a foundation of tools in their toolbox to draw on. And they just stare at equipment and they just see pipes, wires, and equipment, and they don't see systems.

Ryan Burton (2:01:41)
Mm.

Hmm

Eric Johnson (2:02:10)
And that's why

I train on systems, systems, systems, systems. Every, being a technician, I used to walk into boiler rooms and the customer would be, hey, have you ever worked on this boiler before? Have you ever been here before? And I was younger, you know, some 25 year old coming into walk to work on a steam plant. And they're staring at me and they're like, oh, you never worked on this?

you know, do you have anybody else? And I'm like, well, you know, I've never worked on your equipment and I've never worked on your boiler, but your boiler is just like the 500 boilers that I've worked on and every steam system is basically the same. And I understand that. yeah, so let me give it a shot, but ⁓ I'm pretty confident I know how to solve this because I understand the foundational fundamentals.

Ryan Burton (2:02:40)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Eric Johnson (2:03:05)
and I would end up solving it. They're like, wow, like, you know, know all this stuff. It's like, well, I don't really. Yeah, it's not that I know a lot. And I would say I have a very low knowledge level, but it's, understand the foundational stuff. And I also understand how to read a manual. And those two things with a little bit of willpower can make you troubleshoot the most complex problems.

Ryan Burton (2:03:09)
That's a very familiar situation for me.

The other part of that situation that you described, which is also hugely absent from training is the customer communications part of it. knowing first, you have to have a little bit of discernment because every customer is obviously different, but I love a situation like that because it gives me the opportunity to be like exactly what you just said. I couldn't have put it better any other way, but then I'll get into it with them. It's like, well, if you'd like to learn more about your system, let's start with this. This is your expansion tank. This is your low loss header and your walk at your

literally learning their system in front of them in real time. As you're explaining it to them. And mean, nine out of 10 times, they're All right, let me know when you've got it figured out. And they bugger off you alone. But, know,

being comfortable dealing with the customer is really not taught a lot to young people, especially, especially if they were in high school from, oh, what, 2019 to 2023, and they don't have a lot of knowledge on how to deal with human beings, then, you know, teaching that is like instrumental. mean, I've got grown men in the trade for 25 years who are helpless, and I've worked with when it comes to talking to a customer, but that environment or that situation that you described just provides so much opportunity

for yes the trade side of it on the boiler but man dealing with the customer like

Outside sales guys said outside sales guy said to me years ago, he's like, what you need to learn in the trade is everything you do is all about sales. And he didn't mean convincing someone to buy the 95 Ford Escort, not that kind of sales. He meant like customer relations, like really being able to communicate, not unlike how you and I are doing right now. But I mean, you do that with your customer, then whether or not you've worked on the boiler before becomes so relevant. It's just such a secondary issue at that point.

Eric Johnson (2:05:17)
Yeah, routinely tell contractors screw technical training. Like forget about it. Technical training is this desert of landmines. What have you done for communication training? A month of communication training will make your technicians way more well-rounded than a month of technical training. And

Ryan Burton (2:05:29)
Hehehe.

Hmm

Eric Johnson (2:05:40)
That starts with, hey, when you greet the customer, we want you to do this. We want you to shake your hand. We want you to look them in the eyes. We want you to say your name, introduce yourself, say I'm with this company, you know, all this stuff. And so the experience becomes the same. And then you role play that. You start role playing difficult conversations with customers or when your service technician, when you walk in.

Ryan Burton (2:06:03)
Nice.

Eric Johnson (2:06:10)
and you're there for a callback and the customer is mad. What do you say? What do you not say? All that stuff is super valuable and at the end of the day, you mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter if you're a bad technician or not, it does the customer like you. When that $10,000 bill comes, are they saying, yes, it's worth it or no, it's not because.

Ryan Burton (2:06:28)
Hmm.

Eric Johnson (2:06:39)
An easy situation is somebody shows up, hey, you have this part, whatever. We don't have it. It's going to be three grand to change it at all, whatever. So you order the part, another technician comes back. They change the part. It doesn't solve the problem. And then they go back to the customer and they say, hey, actually that part we put in, it wasn't the issue.

But I found this loose electrical wire and I fixed it and now the equipment is running. So the customer is going to be mad because they just spent unnecessary money on the part. But there's certain tact about this and there's lying and then there's...

Ryan Burton (2:07:18)
Yeah.

Yes.

Eric Johnson (2:07:25)
there's a line of lying versus understanding the bigger picture. And if you go in and you say, I changed that part, well, maybe it was a multifaceted problem and that part was failing or contributing to another issue. And then you found another issue that was really the core problem, but maybe that part wasn't.

Ryan Burton (2:07:30)
Just not, yeah, no, no, I got you. 100%, yeah.

Yep. Exactly. Yes.

Eric Johnson (2:07:50)
100 % good, know, maybe so there's there's a varying degree of it and if you just say hey change that part ⁓ Founds, you know did some other stuff as well checked everything over but you're all good to go that customers is now gonna think great everything's good to go great and They'll pay the bill so

Ryan Burton (2:07:52)
Mm-hmm.

You're 100 %

right. I mean, you're illustrating the difference between lying and just not giving 100 % of all the information. And that's the whole definition of leadership is being in front and leading means you're shielding the people you're leading from all of the information that would otherwise cause them anxiety and stress. It's like, can you imagine if you, okay, I'm going out to the truck to get my tool bag. Oh, now I'm back with the tool bag. Now I'm opening my tool bag. Like no one's going to communicate to the customer to that degree. That doesn't mean you're lying to them. It just means you're not giving them all

all the information that's unnecessary for them to know. And the other part too though about what you said is like, yes, okay, that's where wisdom and discernment comes in knowing when that part was part of the bigger picture. And then there's other times you just got to eat a crap sandwich. Sometimes a part didn't need to be changed and ⁓ you know, but hopefully that's not as much as the former, right?

Eric Johnson (2:09:06)
Yes, you know, there, when I was a technician, I would trust no one. So if I was going to change a part or coming after somebody else, I would, and you know, they say, well, it just changed his part and then the boiler is going to be run. Well, I figured out that that's not the, the, the, the solution all the time. So I would always double check.

Ryan Burton (2:09:11)
Hmm

No.

Yes.

Eric Johnson (2:09:29)
it and especially if it's an expensive part if it's a cheap part whatever throw it on but if it's an expensive part i would always double check because it's better to say hey i double checked it

And I found that this was actually the issue and we didn't ever have to change that part. And yeah, the customer was down, you know, that equipment wasn't running for three days or whatever. But it is cheaper to do that than to throw on that two thousand dollar part and not fix the issue.

Ryan Burton (2:10:06)
We literally had that service call two months ago. One of our guys is gonna hear you saying that and be like, that's literally exactly what we did at that condo.

Eric Johnson (2:10:15)
it's different for residential and commercial, but you know, gotta think like a customer when you're a technician and what is important to them for a boiler room. The customer only cares, do they have steam and is production running? And they don't really care about the costs, but they wanna feel like they got value for their money. And spending 10 grand to...

Ryan Burton (2:10:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.

Mmm.

Eric Johnson (2:10:41)
fix a boiler that doesn't run, that's making steam is a lot different than spending 10 grand and not solving the issue. They don't really care about the 10 grand, but the boiler isn't making steam. So they really care about the 10 grand and they're not gonna pay it.

Yeah, at the end of the day, personal excellence, personal responsibility, care about the other people around you. But communication training goes so far. And put a little handbook together. And by handbook, I mean four pages of this is what we want you to do. Everybody gets trained on it. But at the same time,

Ryan Burton (2:11:00)
yes.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (2:11:25)
You have to set a level and set a bar and then be ready to fire people who think that they're above communication training and say, oh, I have 25 years in the trade. That doesn't matter. I'm not going to do that. And that goes back to the first conversation we had of culture. And if somebody says, hey, I need three days off for mental health,

Ryan Burton (2:11:37)
Oof.

That's right.

Eric Johnson (2:11:47)
you need to give that to them and have that conversation and care about them as a person. But at the same time, if somebody says, I'm not going to do your communication training or I'm not going to do that because I'm too valuable and I do it my own way, you also need to care about them as a person, but also care about them as a team and say, yeah, you can go do it your own way, but you're not going to be on our team. And I think a lot of contractors don't want to have that conversation.

Ryan Burton (2:12:01)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, well said.

Eric Johnson (2:12:16)
So I think we're gonna end there.

So where can people find you?

Ryan Burton (2:12:19)
Okay, on LinkedIn, it's just my name, Ryan Burton, and you'll see quite a few people with that name, but should be pretty easy to ⁓ find me. I'm trying remember what I got for a tagline on there. I'll have to look that up and I'll send it to you. And on, yeah, yeah, there you go. That's what it says. I just changed it recently, so it's not top of mind. And then on YouTube, it's at Pot of Water Teaching for my portfolio of all my videos.

Eric Johnson (2:12:33)
trades expert, modern educator.

All right. Thank you for coming on Boiler Wild. And ⁓ if everybody enjoyed this podcast or any other podcast episode, make sure you're ready to five stars. stay wild.

Ryan Burton (2:12:48)
Thanks for having me, man.

63. Technical Training isn't Enough with Ryan Burton

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