Eric Johnson (00:00)
Is your glass half full or is your glass half empty? Welcome back to BoilerWild. My name is Eric Johnson, and I'm gonna be talking about the glass half full, glass half empty mentality. How you show up is how you will be perceived and how you will get results. And this is very, very important, and I have always come to learn about
Eric Johnson (00:30)
The way you show up over the years. I have you know, I'm the ripe age of 32 right now. But the most eye-opening is, you know, the more I meet more people doing training classes and seeing more perspectives and everything, the people who succeed are the people who show up with the right mentality. It is not the people who are the smartest, although typically smarter people
Eric Johnson (00:59)
will already have the mentality to show up in the correct way. And what do I mean by this? So
Eric Johnson (01:09)
I I had a training class one time and it was for end user boiler operations training class and I had a person in one of the classes. They were like, What are we learning? 'Cause they didn't their employer didn't really do too much communication. They just basically said, Hey, go in in this room and sit through this training.
Eric Johnson (01:39)
And you're gonna learn. Which it the employer could do better, but you know, I I can't control that part. Anyways. So I'm like, you know, we're gonna learn about, you know, basic boiler operations and stuff, and they're like, well, I don't get paid enough to learn. I'm like, all right, well, you know, well, we're here for the whole shift, so like you might you might as well learn something. And I don't really understand that. And if you
Eric Johnson (02:09)
take what your employer how your emplo employer values you and you put a worth to a dollars an hour and then you say, Well, I don't get paid enough to learn I would just say that I would do everything I can to learn more so that I can go find a different job. And I've I've seen other people come to trainings or I've talked to other people that have turned down training and they are
Eric Johnson (02:38)
I have a couple instances of people who go, well, I don't wanna be out of town a couple of days. I have pets and my, you know, girlfriend doesn't like me not being home and that one's always interesting because that's fine, whatever, but you can't then say, Well, I deserve raises and I deserve to get paid more and why don't I get the promotion when you turn down training
Eric Johnson (03:05)
And when the when your employer goes, Hey, we're looking to send some people to out of town training or we need some people we want some people to do this train class. And people come up with excuses of short term time stuff versus long term career opportunity. And the short term would be, well, I'm busy. well, I don't like being out of town. If you don't want to be out of town for two to three days for an in-person boiler training class,
Eric Johnson (03:34)
that is totally fine, but then you you have zero right to complain that you never get a raise or you're not getting the raise you want, or you don't get a promotion, or you're not learning what you want, or you don't know what you need to know. You have to at some point sacrifice a little bit of comfort out of your life. But at the end of the day, it always comes down to the glass half full, half empty mentality.
Eric Johnson (04:00)
And everybody has heard that, but it's how you look at a situation. If your employer goes, Hey, we want to pay for a training class for you to go out of town, even if the training class is semi cheap, that employer, all things in, they're probably spending minimum three thousand dollars of value at least, between the cost of the training.
Eric Johnson (04:29)
the your pay and all your benefits and stuff and all the taxes, it's not just, I make thirty dollars an hour and then you multiply it out. No, there it it costs way more to keep you employed. And then the you know the loss of you not making money, whether you're an operator, service tax, sales, whatever, and everything, you know, the travel and everything, there's there's more cost than just paying you. And
Eric Johnson (04:57)
What what does your employer get out of it? They hope to get a person who knows a little bit more and can do a better job in in in the case of boiler training, steam system training, a case like that, be able to operate your boiler room safely, be able to fix more problems in a more timely manner, and take on more responsibility. That would be
Eric Johnson (05:22)
What training would be for like that. If you did like leadership training or communication training, it would obviously benefit those areas of your job, employment. And it a hundred percent benefits you. And as long as you work for that employer, that employer will see some benefit, hopefully, from the training, if the training is great. If you learn something, if you actually apply it, yes. But
Eric Johnson (05:50)
If you leave that employer and go get a raise or go get a promotion somewhere else, you take that training and experience with you. And I don't think a lot of people they obviously know that, but your employer is betting on you to be productive and stay and to hopefully learn so that they can they're investing in you. But it's essentially a bet. But the good employers are investing in their employees and
Eric Johnson (06:19)
If you are an employee and you turn down that investment and say, I don't want to do that, or I don't want a very short discomfort. I don't want to be away from home. I have to do this. And I've I've heard some wild excuses. the worst one being, well,
Eric Johnson (06:39)
I don't want to learn because they won't pay me anymore, even if I do learn. This is not something I can ever really relate with. I was always of the mentality I will go to any single training class that's available. There's always something to learn. There's always something
Eric Johnson (07:04)
Somebody, even if they have very little experience, can always teach me something. Everybody can always teach you something, whether it's through their experience or whether it's through like structured learning. In training classes, a lot of the experience is talking to other people for in-person training classes. If you're traveling to like maybe a manufacturer, and there's just so much opportunity and learning that can go on. And I would
Eric Johnson (07:32)
I would pay for myself to go to training classes. I would take vacation to go to training classes. And I see plenty of people and I talk to employers who struggle to get people that are on the newer side of their career excited about training and actually wanting to go to training for some reason. And
Eric Johnson (08:01)
that is a hundred percent on you. Like once again, you can do anything you want. There is no requirement that you have to go to training. There's no requirement that you have to have goals to achieve in life. As long as you're happy doing whatever, that is a hundred percent fine. But just know that if you're not getting better, there's probably somebody after you that is getting better. And if you're not getting better and you're not increasing your skills, if you're not finding ways to
Eric Johnson (08:30)
fix problems faster, to to take on more responsibility, take problems off your boss's desk, then don't be surprised when you don't get the raise, when you don't get the promotion, when you don't get hired at the place you want to go get hired at. Like
Eric Johnson (08:50)
Stop looking at the next two weeks and try to look at five years and say, All right, where do I want to go? And that may a lot of times people can't vision five years. I can barely envision five years. But turning down a training because you don't want to be away for a couple of days is a very, very short term thinking and going to that training.
Eric Johnson (09:16)
shows that you want to invest in yourself, shows to your employer that you can take investment. But when you show up to the training, and I've seen this time and time again, I've had people come to trainings and they think it's a vacation. They have the vacation mindset of, Well, I'm here and if I learn something great, if I don't learn something great. If that is you, that is absolutely the wrong way to show up. Once again, how you show up is everything.
Eric Johnson (09:42)
And if you show up with well, I'm here, my employer's paying me. I don't really care if I learn and I'm just gonna exist and twiddle my thumbs in the back. I've I've seen and I try to block out and I and I rearrange chairs and everything. The the the people that sit in the back are typically either the people that are the most experienced and just are there to observe, or they're the people
Eric Johnson (10:07)
Who do not want to be there and do not want to be called on. And in my training classes, I try to get everybody involved, and even if you try to hide, there is no hiding. But if you are trying to just skate through a training and not actually not learn anything, it's it's disappointing. And it's disappointing to see from an instructor side. The instructor, and what this is one thing that I've had to learn is, and you know.
Eric Johnson (10:37)
Once again, this is something I've always really known, but I can't care more about learning than somebody else does. And if you show up to a training class and if we're walking around a boiler room and walking through a system and I'm trying to teach you and invest in you and do all this stuff, and you're just kind of staring at me and you don't want to ask questions, you don't wanna respond to questions, you give very short answers, you put very little to no effort forward.
Eric Johnson (11:06)
You don't engage in discussions, you're not filling out notes, d doing worksheets and everything.
Eric Johnson (11:12)
I'm gonna see that and it I will continually try to get you to buy in to the training class. However, there are just some people who do not want to learn, feel that they are either above learning or they know everything or that they don't get paid enough to learn or they don't want to be there. for whatever reason, there's probably a hundred reasons why somebody would show up to a training class.
Eric Johnson (11:37)
and not want to learn. But it is so disappointing. it's hard for me something that that I'm learning is to not take it personally when people don't want to learn when I do a training class and try to educate them. Because I am the person who would stay all day and all night if somebody really wanted to learn. But I have found out that
Eric Johnson (12:03)
if I start investing more time and effort into somebody wanting to learn or somebody doing something.
Eric Johnson (12:10)
than they want to invest and that they have personally invested, I will always end up with the short end of the stick and I will always end up feeling disappointed or cheated or w wasting my time because I have people reach out to me, I wouldn't say a lot, but I've had people reach out for help and stuff. And I am always willing to help, whether it's a technical question, you know, whether it's finding a resource or something.
Eric Johnson (12:38)
you'll see this also with social media forums and everything. It's almost like Google and now AI answers doesn't exist. People will post questions, people will email me questions and this is not a like don't not email me a question if you're unsure. Like always I'm always open to helping people if I can or I'll
Eric Johnson (13:06)
send you to somebody else that can help. I I can do whatever I will. However, if you are asking me a question that can easily be answered by opening up a manual, by opening up Google, and you're not like brand brand new, you are wanting somebody else to put more time and effort into getting the answer and you just want to be told the answer. And if that is you
Eric Johnson (13:36)
I can't relate, but you have to care about getting the answer, about achieving whatever you want to achieve more, and you can't put that effort onto somebody else. And I I see this in I try to read about and observe the school education process K through twelve and everything and the general society and there's this general consensus.
Eric Johnson (14:04)
people call it like learned helplessness of just kids sitting there and they just want to be told what to do. And you just as a teacher, you're you're asking them, hey, go find this. Well, I don't know where to find it. Okay, where would we go find stuff on the internet? Like type into Google, type in this, type in that. All right, let's go to a website. Let's open this manual. Let's go read in this section of the manual. Well, I don't know how to do that. Okay.
Eric Johnson (14:33)
Great, let's put some effort towards it. Same thing with learning. You have to put some effort towards learning. No amount of learning can happen. Zero learning will happen if you don't put effort into it. Unfortunately, we're not computers and we cannot download information into our minds. If we could do that, everybody would just be a robot. Training and learning and knowledge would just be infinite and free. We would just download information into babies' brains and everybody would know everything.
Eric Johnson (15:03)
And basically everybody would be knowledgeably equal. However, that's not the case. you have to put forward effort. And if you show up to a training class and you think you're gonna put in zero effort, and if you have the mentality of, well, if I learn something great, if I don't learn something great, I don't care. This is just time away to be from my job. from an instructor side, it is very hard to see that because I know.
Eric Johnson (15:29)
Even if you think your employer sucks, the that training class, you a hundred percent own what you are learning in that class, and you a hundred percent are the one that benefits from it. It's not like your employer can take away those that skill and knowledge that you learn in a training class and say, Nope, you don't get this anymore, and we're gonna take this away and give it to somebody else. Or when you quit or leave or get a promotion or move on with life, they say, Nope, we're gonna we're gonna take that away.
Eric Johnson (15:57)
And we're gonna take away your experiences. That experience, that training, even on the job training, that experience is for you. And if if you have an employer, and this is not every single employer, I've seen plenty of employers that do the bare minimum, and bare minimum is basically like we pay you enough for you not to quit. They do the bare minimum and they
Eric Johnson (16:22)
send people to zero training classes, they don't care if people get hurt, they don't care about anything, they just care about doing business. And if if your employer puts zero investment into you, you should probably start looking for a different employer. There are plenty of good ones out there. But if your employer is wanting to invest in you and you're just like, nah, I'm good, don't be surprised when your employer says, nah, we're good when
Eric Johnson (16:50)
it comes to your employment at that employer because somebody else will show up after you even though there is a skilled trade shortage, even though there's a lack of knowledge shortage, that it's not always a shortage as much as you think. And you may think that you're untouchable. It's not actually like that. But I would encourage you to show up with a glass
Eric Johnson (17:16)
half full mentality instead of half empty. And half full is hey, my employer is investing in me over these next three days, over these next five days. And I am able to learn skills that will better my career. Even if I don't get a pay raise, I can better my career so that I can solve more problems and have more initiative and then get a pay raise or be able to solve more problems and learn things in order to put that on my resume.
Eric Johnson (17:46)
and go get a pay raise at another job or go get a promotion in my current job. Like there is so much opportunity in investing yourself. And this is always you can also invest in yourself outside of your job, outside of professional training, by reading a book, by going online, watching a video that's educational, doing a little research about something, and not just wasting away on TikTok or Instagram reels or whatever or watching Netflix.
Eric Johnson (18:14)
in movies and you know, see how much time do you spend on your phone, how much time do you spend on your TV? You can always watch something educational, try to learn something, try to get better, go do a hobby. The physical hobbies like woodworking or even, you know, working out. Working out. There are plenty of people in the trades, plenty of people just across America that probably should go catch a walk and work out a little bit more.
Eric Johnson (18:43)
Me included, but from an instructor standpoint, it is so refreshing when people show up to training and they ask questions, they want to learn. I don't care if you ask the dumbest questions seemingly possible. I don't care. I don't care if you know nothing as an instructor.
Eric Johnson (19:09)
Everybody starts at zero when you're born and you can't really control that. But the point of training is to leave with skills and experience that make you do a job differently. In the point of boiler training and steam training and hydronics and everything, depending on your job, it is all about being able to do your job better, do it safer, be able to
Eric Johnson (19:34)
you know, sell more boilers, be able to talk with customers. There should be actionable takeaways beyond, that was just a great experience. I enjoyed my time. If that's what all you did at training, that's not really training. hopefully you at least learned one or two things and can take that back and have action changed. But
Eric Johnson (19:56)
Your instructor, if it's not me, it can be anybody, the best instructors are the ones that will converse with you, that will invest in you. But your instructor can only invest in you if you are open to investment. And if you once again don't ask questions, don't participate and you just twirl your thumbs, sit on your phone, take phone calls, do whatever, go drinking the nights in between.
Eric Johnson (20:26)
training and show up hungover and sleep through the class the next day.
Eric Johnson (20:30)
your instructor can not invest in you when you show up like that and that is showing up I wouldn't even say a glass half empty mentality. That is just the glass is empty mentality of you just don't care at that point. And the instructor will write you off because if you're showing up hung over, sleeping, falling asleep, sitting in the back, sitting in the corner, there you've already shown a an outward appearance
Eric Johnson (20:59)
what you f think of that training class and what you think of learning. And once again, the instructor, I cannot care more than you care. And I will invest in the people in that class that want to be there. And I will invest in the people who participate and do the worksheets and ask questions and are in the engagement of discussion. And I will not let the people who
Eric Johnson (21:27)
don't want to be there and don't care about learning and training, ruin the experience for everybody else. And I just encourage you, if you are the person who views training as something that you have to do versus something you get to do.
Eric Johnson (21:42)
I would try to change that. How you show up is everything. And this may seem preachy. I'm not pre trying to preach to you. I'm preaching to my younger self. I'm preaching to my older self. This is something that I probably need to hear every single day. How you show up is everything. And I know I don't have all the experience in the world. I don't have all the credibility in the world. But as somebody who really tries to deeply care about the
Eric Johnson (22:12)
process of teaching others about boilers, about steam, about anything or about the boiler industry, doing this podcast, posting on social media,
Eric Johnson (22:22)
There are so many days where I can care more than the people I am teaching and it is very discouraging. But then there are so many days where I just feel filled with my glass because I am able to teach people who are very receptive to knowledge and want to get better and want to learn and want to improve themselves.
Eric Johnson (22:50)
Maybe they didn't have the best childhood growing up. Maybe they barely graduated high school. Maybe they don't have a great family situation at home and they wanna change their life. And the boiler industry is a great way to do that. You can become a great service technician. You can become a stationary engineer. There are so many opportunities that you can get core knowledge, experience, and then maybe move on to sales if you want to get off
Eric Johnson (23:19)
the tools or stop being a stationary engineer. But if you're a stationary engineer for 10 years and then you go into boiler sales or mechanical maintenance sales or whatever, you will have so much experience versus some person who is just has sales only experience. And there's so much value to that. So I just encourage you
Eric Johnson (23:41)
Glass half full is always better, but how you show up is everything, and your instructor notices, the trainer notices, the other people notice, and the other people you work with also notice every single day. If people do not ask you questions, if people avoid you, if you are seemingly not helpful to the rest of the people you work with, you are probably
Eric Johnson (24:08)
Somebody either one you just don't know, which is totally fine, or two, you they they've already checked out on you and I've worked with a lot of older people that will teach you everything that they know as long as you're receptive to it and the minute you're not receptive to it and they can see that you don't care, they check out because once again the person teaching you can't care more than you care.
Eric Johnson (24:38)
there's no way to force feed you information and it ends up just being a big waste of time. And if you just wanna waste time, then go sit in the corner and sleep because that's the same thing as trying to act like you're paying attention or to do whatever because the net outcome is the same. You walk away from the training class, you walk away from the experience, having learned nothing and have nothing to show for it. And you can just say, Yep, I attended that. It'll take your
Eric Johnson (25:07)
pointless certificate and you'll go back to wondering why you can't achieve anything that you want to in your career. Which if if you're happy doing that, all for you, but don't ruin the experience for everybody else. So how you show up is everything. Your instructor will notice, I notice
Eric Johnson (25:26)
If you engage in discussion, if you wanna be there, your manager will notice on a daily experience. Your instructor will notice, the people you work with will notice,
Eric Johnson (25:38)
Be the light in the room. Don't let other people dim dim you down. Thank you. This a little short episode, but I just want to get this out there. This is something I've been thinking about. And this is something super common in any industry, but in the boiler industry as well. And if you made it this far, I appreciate you listening. Hopefully this is something you need to be reminded of. This is something I always need to be reminded of. And
Eric Johnson (26:04)
I try to use this podcast for education and I know that the the woo-woo episodes like this one, I try not to make it too motivational, woo-woo stuff, but I just try to speak from the heart and speak from what I am feeling, what am I what what I'm thinking in the moment. And this is something I've really been thinking about a lot as I have learned and many disappointed and felt like I failed people because they showed up to train classes and didn't want to learn.
Eric Johnson (26:34)
And there's no amount of caring that I can do to make them learn. So hopefully that's not you. How you show up is everything.
Eric Johnson (26:42)
Thank you for listening and stay wild.
