Changing The Industry Podcast

David Roman [00:00:00]:
Waiting on you.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:00]:
Boo.

David Roman [00:00:02]:
Gonna hit the button. Hit the button. Hey, I don't know if you know this. You have to make sure it shows record in all cameras.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:10]:
It does say record in all cameras.

David Roman [00:00:11]:
I know. I'm just saying if you don't click that, it doesn't record in all cameras.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:14]:
Okay, but it's been there the whole time.

David Roman [00:00:15]:
And did you know it also, you have to click a button that tells it to record all the cameras. Yeah, it's a thing.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:26]:
Anyway.

David Roman [00:00:27]:
Anyway, introduce our guest. Well, I gotta introduce him. Aren't you John Presnale? How you doing?

John Presnell [00:00:34]:
I'm doing great.

David Roman [00:00:35]:
You better introduce yourself.

John Presnell [00:00:37]:
I'm John Presnell, top owner from North Carolina in a small town.

David Roman [00:00:44]:
We've been friends for a long time now.

John Presnell [00:00:47]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:47]:
How small?

John Presnell [00:00:49]:
Oh, man. If you look at the number of shops, it's not small, but.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:56]:
You could.

John Presnell [00:00:56]:
Probably fit 2 of my county in 3 of the neighboring counties. This is that much difference. Yeah, pretty small. One of those little two stoplight towns was quickly growing.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:09]:
There's two stop lights in your town?

John Presnell [00:01:10]:
No, it's. It's one of those typical ones. You know, downtown's like two stop lights, you know? But it's not that way anymore.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:18]:
I mean, did a bunch of Californians move in?

John Presnell [00:01:23]:
I don't think so. We got a couple, though.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:25]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:01:26]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:01:26]:
I think I've got more Californians than you have.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:29]:
You're a vacation town. That makes sense. You get a bunch of New Yorkers like Eric Bach. He moved down to North Carolina.

John Presnell [00:01:36]:
Yeah, yeah.

David Roman [00:01:37]:
You think I can send the Californians to John? Just move them down there?

John Presnell [00:01:42]:
No, no, but yeah, you keep those Florida folks up your way, though.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:46]:
I.

John Presnell [00:01:47]:
They stay. Don't worry. Yeah, I know they stay. My family up there complains about them all.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:51]:
Yeah. Beef with Florida Floridians.

John Presnell [00:01:54]:
Oh, honey, no, no, no.

David Roman [00:01:55]:
Don't even understand.

John Presnell [00:01:55]:
People in the mountains have beef with the Florida people. You just don't even.

David Roman [00:01:59]:
Don't worry.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:00]:
In October, the mountain zone. What? Why?

David Roman [00:02:03]:
Hey, you'll get it.

John Presnell [00:02:04]:
You'll.

David Roman [00:02:04]:
It'll make perfect sense.

John Presnell [00:02:06]:
They move up there and they stay.

David Roman [00:02:09]:
It's not even that they move up there and they stay.

John Presnell [00:02:12]:
Okay?

David Roman [00:02:13]:
The reality of it is you take people who have never been on any elevated surface ever, okay? And you send them up windy, curvy roads with pretty leaps on either side of them, and they run four mile an hour in a 50 and they'll just like blow up and stop. They don't drive very well in Florida in the first place. You should See them in North Carolina. Okay. I'm just saying, hey, listen, if they see over the guardrail and they see that there's a drop, they will just slam on the brakes and stop.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:44]:
Yeah. I freak out. I don't know what to tell you. It's scary.

David Roman [00:02:47]:
It is not scary.

John Presnell [00:02:51]:
No, it's fun.

David Roman [00:02:52]:
Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put him in nuts. I'm gonna put him in the little GTI or something and take him on back roads.

John Presnell [00:02:58]:
That'd be a blast.

David Roman [00:02:59]:
Yeah, we'll go down some back roads. I've never really been in a car that I got to open up with David, like where I really got to run the car hard. And I just, I think he probably needs that experience.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:10]:
I don't need that experience at all. I don't want to die in a car with you at all ever. That's. That seems like the worst way to die. That's like my nightmare.

David Roman [00:03:18]:
It doesn't have anything to do with the car. Doesn't have anything to do with dying in the car. It's only that I don't.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:25]:
Yeah, it's how I died.

David Roman [00:03:26]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:29]:
We went to Colorado and in western Colorado, there's something they call the Grand Canyon of Colorado. It doesn't go up that high. I think it like, at the highest it's 7,000ft. But the entire thing are these like two lane roads that were built in like 1929 by hand.

David Roman [00:03:55]:
And you had to do it some way.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:57]:
They, they created this road to go all the way up and around this canyon thing, up these little mountains and then back down and we drove it. My van was overheating the entire time. The entire time. So we had to stop over and over again. I'm afraid of heights. I cannot handle heights. They freak me out. I get vertigo.

David Roman [00:04:19]:
Oh, we'll go up the fire towers. There's fire towers in my town.

Lucas Underwood [00:04:23]:
It makes me like. Well, it's queasy. I get freaked out. Anyway, we're driving up and there is like, there's nothing. It's two lanes, a cliff, and then a 3,000 foot drop off and that's it. And you're just, you're just winding up these roads. Stupid car's overheating. My wife's like, don't look over the edge.

Lucas Underwood [00:04:44]:
Don't look over the edge. And I'm staring at the road. I'm not. I'm like, I'm staring at the road and the temperature gauge. Road temperature gauge. Road temperature gauge. Going 20 miles an hour was awful. The worst like driving two hour drive ever, because you can only go 20 miles an hour and the whole thing was like 27 miles.

David Roman [00:04:59]:
Why are you only going 20 miles an hour?

Lucas Underwood [00:05:02]:
That's. The speed limit's like 25. Because.

David Roman [00:05:05]:
Okay, you know, but even then, like, I. Speed limits are meant to be multiplied by two.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:09]:
I still couldn't push the car hard enough because it was. It was legit overheating. Like the car. I don't know why. Well, I think the water pump was just not keeping up. But the car was perfectly fine unless you were going uphill under heavy load.

David Roman [00:05:26]:
Was that before or after the transmission?

Lucas Underwood [00:05:28]:
After. So we put a new radiator in because I had a slight seep in the radiator. And I'm like, I'm good to go. I got a radiator put in this thing. Brand new transmission, all the fluids are fresh. Everything's good to go. We should be fine. We're driving to Colorado in the van and we hit.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:48]:
There's a spot right outside of Denver, about an hour outside of Denver where you hit 12,000ft.

John Presnell [00:05:54]:
Okay.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:55]:
Like, that's the top of the road. It's i70 and there's signs everywhere. Have you checked your brakes? This, that and the other. Yeah. And we are like heading up, going from like 9,000 to that peak, which is like 11,000 some change. And all of a sudden the car's like, bing. Like, what in the holy hell is going on?

David Roman [00:06:16]:
I would have called the shop and complained. I would have called whoever fixed it and just. Oh, I did.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:21]:
Oh, trust me, it was. It didn't matter that, like it was a Sunday or whatever. Like, it didn't matter. Like, I was good. I was getting my complaint and flipped and shot. Like, what did you do to my van? They didn't do anything wrong.

David Roman [00:06:32]:
It was.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:33]:
It needs a water pump. That's what it is. Stupid. The water pump isn't leaking or anything. I just.

David Roman [00:06:37]:
Well, they should have at least told you it needed a water pump when they did the radiator. If they just. Because thorough job. This wouldn't even be a thing if it was a.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:46]:
It's a 3.6 liter.

David Roman [00:06:48]:
Yes. It needs a water pump.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:49]:
Yeah, it does.

David Roman [00:06:50]:
Why didn't they recommend it?

Lucas Underwood [00:06:52]:
I mean, like, I didn't know that this. That's how these were. Like, water pump doesn't leak, doesn't cavitate.

David Roman [00:06:59]:
Yeah, but I mean, you worked with a professional shop. They should be.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:02]:
They should be alerting you, randomly recommending a water pump.

David Roman [00:07:05]:
Yes.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:07]:
Do you do that?

John Presnell [00:07:08]:
And What's. What's the mileage on it? You're talking 160,000 Pentastar. Yeah.

David Roman [00:07:14]:
Along with.

John Presnell [00:07:16]:
Along with head gaskets and chains.

David Roman [00:07:18]:
John says, I actually. I just recommend you getting a new van.

John Presnell [00:07:21]:
Yeah. You just might at least get a new engine. I mean, yeah, it's a Pentastar.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:26]:
Engine's great. Engine's doing really well, Knock on wood. And the engine's been great. It's just the. This water pump situation. And you know what? As long as I wasn't going uphill in elevation. Ridiculous elevation. Car doesn't overheat, it's fine.

John Presnell [00:07:42]:
Just the excessive load.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:44]:
Just. Yeah. Under heavy, heavy load. And I don't know why I thought there was something wrong with the fan, because I'm like, oh, the fan's not hitting high speed. That's all it is. No, you get out of the car and the fan's going 100 miles an hour.

John Presnell [00:07:57]:
Just.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:59]:
And they were actually like. I think the highest I hit was 233, 235, something like that. And whenever I got to the 230s, I would just pull over and let it cool down, and it was fine. Made it for an interesting trip.

David Roman [00:08:14]:
Turns out, transmission was slipping the whole time. Transmission's 275 degrees. It's pulling the coolant off.

Lucas Underwood [00:08:23]:
You know what pisses me off? I. The window regulator blew out recently on the van, and I took it in for the repair. And my shop, the great repair shop I take my van to, did a thorough inspection on the van, and everything came back good, except for tires were a little sketchy. And I have a transmission leak. A transmission leak. Like, oh, I got a brand new transmission. How could it be leaking? But they did their due diligence and they ran the scope. There's like this little, like, section on the bottom of these 62 TE's.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:05]:
It's like a rubber thing or whatever. You pop it and you can go up into the cavity in between the transmission and the engine or whatever, and there's a freaking allen plug that apparently didn't get properly loctited or something sitting.

John Presnell [00:09:21]:
There, just.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:23]:
Dripping.

David Roman [00:09:26]:
Transmission fluid.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:28]:
It's gonna get a labor claim. I'm gonna get paid to do it again. That transmission's coming back out. And either they're gonna pay me to fix that thing, reseal it, and put it back in, or they're sending me a new transmission.

David Roman [00:09:40]:
Chrysler transmission.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:43]:
No FVP powertrain. It's a cnk.

David Roman [00:09:48]:
So I can tell you this.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:49]:
And I did buy the Fancy. I will pay whatever the I want to charge warranty rate thing. I hit the button. Yeah, I paid the extra 400.

David Roman [00:10:01]:
They're gonna send you a message back giving you all the reasons that this is not a cover. You didn't remove the bolt and put loctite on it?

Lucas Underwood [00:10:09]:
Yeah. You didn't check all the bolts and make sure they were loctite on them? Like, what in the hell?

David Roman [00:10:13]:
And then you say, well, no, we did. And then they send you another one says, warranty void.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:17]:
You tightened the.

David Roman [00:10:20]:
I don't know if y' all have seen this, but 68 RFES are a big one for us, like Dodge transmissions. Oh, sure, dodge had been six and $7,000 on those transmissions. They've come down to, like, $3,000 now, really. But all of the Dodge transmissions have, like, dropped substantially. You cannot buy a Chrysler transmission anywhere for what you can buy it for from Chrysler. And I don't know if, like, they.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:46]:
The problem is the warranty.

David Roman [00:10:47]:
As sketchy as they are, they might be just pressure and giving it back.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:51]:
I'm not kidding, though. The warranty is. Is the issue. I think if you try to turn that in, if it blows up a week later or whatever, I don't. I don't know how much warranty protection you have.

David Roman [00:11:02]:
Well, but I mean, like, I don't care at that point. Like, they. They'll.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:05]:
Nissan. Nissan. Nissan will not give you a warranty. They give you the big old fuck you.

John Presnell [00:11:11]:
Yeah, well, I mean, I quit doing Nissan transmissions.

David Roman [00:11:14]:
They're not exactly in good financial shape at this point, so it's not like you could. You could take their check and think it would cash, you know, Like, I don't know that that would do.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:24]:
I just want another transmission. I don't care about the money. Like, just send me another transit. I don't want to buy another transmission.

David Roman [00:11:29]:
They'll argue like a mo fro mofro.

John Presnell [00:11:33]:
And the.

David Roman [00:11:34]:
The last time I talked to somebody that we knew at Nissan, he said, yeah, man, I don't really know what to tell you. And wink, wink, nod, nod. I was like, that was weird. And then, like, two weeks later, he's like, hey, I'm working at another place now. I'm like, yeah, that says a lot. But I mean, like, our Chrysler is decent. They gave us one that brand new out of the box. Three, six.

David Roman [00:11:59]:
His thing. Coolant out of the head, gasket. His thing.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:02]:
Yeah, dude.

David Roman [00:12:04]:
Like, I'm talking about. I'm not talking about.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:06]:
Was it a remand engine or was it like off of the like production line engine.

David Roman [00:12:11]:
I think it was a reman.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:12]:
I'm just saying the production line engines show up pretty much with everything except for the wire loom.

David Roman [00:12:17]:
Yeah. So this one was. This one was poor coolant in it once it's installed. This was not even pressure test. This was install engine, pour coolant in, say why is it all running back out? What did we leave off and then get underneath it and be like that is all running out of the head gasket. That is awesome. They said do you want us to take it apart and see if we can torque the bolts? I said hell no. Don't you touch that thing.

David Roman [00:12:42]:
Take a video of it and cart.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:44]:
It back over, document it. And we're shipping it straight over to crossroads.

David Roman [00:12:47]:
And they said over and over again. They're like, well you know, sometimes it's normal to have some seepage until it starts and warms up and all this stuff. And I'm like bro, hold up.

John Presnell [00:12:57]:
You might want to.

David Roman [00:12:58]:
You might want to watch the video.

John Presnell [00:12:59]:
Before you tell me. Yeah, you know. Absolutely.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:04]:
So what do you do in those cases?

John Presnell [00:13:07]:
Probably the same thing, you know, video document. Call my vendor and you know, we haven't had. We had one engine, a one reman engine last year. It was issue out of the box. Got it in, put it in, ran for about 30 seconds. It blew the oil filter off and cool it. An oil mix come running out the oil filter. Holy crap.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:32]:
What kind of engineer.

John Presnell [00:13:34]:
A Chrysler Five9 Magnum.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:39]:
You're still working on Five9 Magnum in.

John Presnell [00:13:43]:
My area in the flatlands. You know, it's nothing to get a. I might get one 35 year old pickup every three months. Yeah, yeah. I mean there's a couple handful of them will still work. Actually. I got a 92 Ford out there now. It needs a transmission, but I'm getting a reman for next.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:05]:
Diesel?

John Presnell [00:14:06]:
No, no gas.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:08]:
Really?

David Roman [00:14:08]:
Yeah, down in their part. Like it's. It's a very different world than they don't rust out.

John Presnell [00:14:13]:
Yeah. You know.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:13]:
Oh really?

John Presnell [00:14:14]:
No, yeah.

David Roman [00:14:15]:
No, the. There's something about that culture, right. That, that a lot of those people down there just drive them forever.

John Presnell [00:14:21]:
They.

David Roman [00:14:21]:
They're very peculiar about their money, you know. And. And a lot of them do have lots of money. But they. Especially that old farmer type and that old country boy type. They just love their old stuff.

John Presnell [00:14:33]:
Oh yeah.

David Roman [00:14:34]:
And. And so they took really good care of it.

John Presnell [00:14:36]:
And matter of fact, that same client has a 2000 Civic these engine. It's got like 450,000 on it. He bought it new. He wants me to find a reman for it. And I talk about fun. Finding a reman or a low mileage use is near impossible for that car.

David Roman [00:14:53]:
Yeah, for sure.

John Presnell [00:14:54]:
But it's. It's clean as a pin. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:57]:
What type of Civic.

John Presnell [00:15:00]:
Ex hatch.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:01]:
Okay.

David Roman [00:15:02]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:02]:
Oh my goodness.

John Presnell [00:15:03]:
16 y8. Yeah. Yeah.

David Roman [00:15:06]:
You got David excited now.

John Presnell [00:15:08]:
Oh yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:08]:
David wants to know that 2000 hatch. Especially if you got a manual transmission. That is the coolest car.

John Presnell [00:15:15]:
Oh yeah.

David Roman [00:15:16]:
Such a good.

John Presnell [00:15:16]:
Yeah. J35. Swap one.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:18]:
No.

John Presnell [00:15:19]:
Then it's fun.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:20]:
No, no, none of that nonsense in there. The. You can, you can get the engine shipped in from Japan low miles. Because they scrapped the car at like 76000 miles or whatever.

John Presnell [00:15:31]:
Did a lot of the JDM sites over the last couple of weeks and none of them have that Y8. It's the single overhead VTEC one and it seems to be rare.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:42]:
You may not. Well because I think they, they. They mostly use that for the domestic, the U.S. domestic market.

John Presnell [00:15:48]:
It's a U.S. market only engine. That's what it was.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:51]:
Yeah. But you can probably get one close, right? It might be a little older.

John Presnell [00:16:03]:
Yeah. Like nobody remands them because Honda engines don't need reman. You know you can.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:09]:
Well you can get, you can get a reman. No, nobody remands them but you can get that one shipped off and get machined. New pistons, piston rings, bearings, cleaned up, cleaned up head, new cam, everything on the inside.

John Presnell [00:16:25]:
Yeah, that's what they had. The cam was in pretty bad shape so it needed a head.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:30]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:16:31]:
And we decided to pull the piston since the head was off and. Yeah. Just wasn't worth saving. So.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:37]:
Yeah, not at 450 000. Because even if you had put the head on there that would have just caused all of the oil consumption.

John Presnell [00:16:44]:
Right. And that's what we were looking at it. Was it worth, you know, if the block would have been okay. Okay. We'd have put maybe piston rings in frame, you know because Hondas are made to be in frame, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:56]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:16:57]:
So we would have done rings and bearings but. Yeah. It's too much wear in the wall. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:03]:
Well that's too bad. It's worth saving though. Especially if it's clean. Especially if it's clean.

David Roman [00:17:09]:
But it is clean.

John Presnell [00:17:10]:
Oh yeah. There one owner car. I bought it new.

David Roman [00:17:14]:
Yeah man, they're cool little cars. I do love those little cars.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:18]:
You just can't find those anymore unfortunately. Anyway.

David Roman [00:17:23]:
I mean it's kind of nostalgic Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:25]:
You seen the new Prelude?

John Presnell [00:17:26]:
No.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:28]:
It's an EV cross thing. I don't know, it looks cool, but I don't. No manual transmission.

David Roman [00:17:35]:
I don't think any. That's One thing about EVs is I don't think they'll ever have that collector nature about them. And I don't think modern cars as a whole have that collector nature.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:44]:
No.

David Roman [00:17:45]:
No. But the EVs really create a very powerful limitation when it comes to that desire to keep it as a collector vehicle. Right. It has a definitive lifespan, whereas a ICE engine does not have a definitive lifespan.

John Presnell [00:18:03]:
Right, Right.

David Roman [00:18:04]:
Whereas at ev, man, when its time hits, its time hits, you know.

John Presnell [00:18:08]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:08]:
And then you may not be able to find replacement parts for it that battery packs obsolete forever and ever. Nobody rebuilds it. The car scrapped at that point.

John Presnell [00:18:17]:
Right. See, like my personal vehicles. And I know you guys, I know you'll agree. David, I've got two of your top list. The most reliable vehicles on the road.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:28]:
What is it?

John Presnell [00:18:28]:
My loaner car is a 09 Corolla.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:31]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:18:32]:
And one of my personal cars in the Parking deck is a 03 pilot.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:36]:
Oh yeah.

John Presnell [00:18:37]:
You know, and my wife loves the thing. We just did get a newer raft, I mean, a Highlander a couple weeks ago. But he still loves the pilot, drives it daily.

David Roman [00:18:49]:
Yeah, for sure. They're good little cars. Why don't you tell your story about the shop? Cuz it's been a, it's been an interesting ride since we became friends.

John Presnell [00:18:57]:
I, I mean, you know, and actually if you'd have met me in 2017, I just said I wanted no part in owning or running a shop because there was just. You could barely get by doing it.

David Roman [00:19:17]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:19:18]:
You know, and you know, met you on probably Pat's, I think it was initially. And then, you know, one thing leads to another. But it's been a great ride, honestly. But my personal growth has been what's really surprising to me because you know, all those people, I grew up in a negative household. Right. You know, everybody's, everybody's always out to get you. That kind of thing you'll never get. But so far, and none of that matters anymore.

John Presnell [00:20:01]:
That's like. Yeah. You know, I love, I love where I'm at right now and I hope to stay there for a while because I'm the happiest I've ever been.

David Roman [00:20:14]:
Oh man, that's phenomenal.

Lucas Underwood [00:20:16]:
What got you there?

John Presnell [00:20:18]:
Oh, wow. A lot of you folks, I'll be honest with you, I think through some influence from people in asog, Like Lucas, Wendy, some book recommendations and stuff like that. I became. I became a big Andy Andrews fan. And I still listened to a couple of his books. I probably listen to most of his library once a year.

David Roman [00:20:47]:
Wow.

John Presnell [00:20:48]:
You know, and it did a lot for me because.

David Roman [00:20:51]:
Me, too. Me too.

John Presnell [00:20:53]:
The first one, you know, really got me. Cause I was one of those people that held a grudge forever.

David Roman [00:20:59]:
Right. And I'm guessing you're talking about Traveler's Gift.

John Presnell [00:21:01]:
Yep. And the whole forgiveness thing. And then.

David Roman [00:21:04]:
And. And the parable that goes with it. Right. The parable's in the book. Like, David doesn't get it because David doesn't like parables. But, like, the parable.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:15]:
Why would you say that? I love parables.

David Roman [00:21:17]:
He hates Andy Andrews then. Okay.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:19]:
I just don't like Andy Andrews.

David Roman [00:21:20]:
So. So it's interesting because, like, he's too happy.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:23]:
That's the problem. You just want to smack them and quit smiling.

David Roman [00:21:26]:
So the parables. And they're not really parables. They're true stories. Right. Right. And it's really cool, the stories that he connects with. Each one of those things is really about why that decision made such an impact and why, out of those seven decisions, why that one's important and the story that goes along with it when they use it in the parable sense is really cool because, like, the parable is the framework of the book, but the decision is a true decision that was based in historical evidence. That said, this is why it's important, and this is why this made this person successful.

David Roman [00:22:02]:
Right.

John Presnell [00:22:03]:
That's probably the best thing about his writing. Because all of them. All of them but one, have had that and had the element of history in them.

David Roman [00:22:12]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:22:14]:
But. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:16]:
And.

John Presnell [00:22:18]:
Once I learned. Once I learned forgiveness, that that was the big one for me is everything changed.

David Roman [00:22:25]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:25]:
You know, and you let go of that resentment.

David Roman [00:22:28]:
Right?

Lucas Underwood [00:22:29]:
Yeah. Weight lifted off your shoulders.

John Presnell [00:22:30]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:31]:
You could move on.

John Presnell [00:22:32]:
I'd went through something. You know, my son had been hooked on narcotics and broke into our shop and did it for, like, six months. And that was. And I held on to that for a while, but luckily, I think it really only lasted six months. Just because that was the time when I started all that. Yeah. You know, and like I said, and there were some other family things I had held on to and had some resentment and has helped me let go of that.

David Roman [00:23:04]:
You know, I. I don't know how comfortable you feel talking about it all, but, I mean, like, mom and dad own the shop.

John Presnell [00:23:10]:
Right.

David Roman [00:23:11]:
And I think deep down inside There, There was a little bit of resentment.

John Presnell [00:23:14]:
There was a lot of resentment.

David Roman [00:23:15]:
Yeah. About how that happened.

John Presnell [00:23:16]:
Yeah. Because, you know, like, for years I was. They did the 1099 thing, you know, and I was getting paid, you know, a relatively low wage and I'm working way more hours than I'm, you know, it's like kind of salary, 40 hours. I'm putting in 60 and 70, and I go to my tax preparer and she's like, your parents are screwing you over, you're paying more taxes in. And, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:23:47]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:23:48]:
You know, and something like that was kind of reinforcing that thought process.

David Roman [00:23:52]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:23:52]:
And I don't think it. I mean, it was never anything that was intentional. It was the reality to a degree. Nobody was gonna put in as much as I did.

David Roman [00:24:04]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:24:05]:
You know, because their name wasn't on the building, you know.

David Roman [00:24:08]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:24:09]:
And whether, as, you know, whether it ended up me running or not, you know, and the promise of it. The.

David Roman [00:24:19]:
The promise.

John Presnell [00:24:20]:
Right.

David Roman [00:24:20]:
Because I, I felt like they inferred that the promise was, is like, hey, we're gonna build this thing together. It's going to be yours. We're going to make this happen. But it was also, in the same respect, that's not going to happen.

John Presnell [00:24:34]:
Well, and there was a caveat to that. Like, that's my father. He was like, you know, when he started it, I had just went into service. I call, you know, call home, basic training and, you know, and I'm 28 at the time, you know, and he's like, yeah, you get out, you can come work at the shop with me. Know, reality was when I got out of service three years later, I couldn't do that because my kids were still young and I needed a lot more security, a stable, steady paycheck with health insurance options, you know, and because, you know, I had two from my previous marriage and a stepchild, you know, at the time, so I couldn't. There's no way I could have worked there then because even when I went there in 08, fall of 08, I remember after about three months, I was so bored. It was so slow. I brought my PS3 from home and put it in the office and was using dial up Internet to play a video game online.

John Presnell [00:25:36]:
That's how slow it was.

David Roman [00:25:37]:
Right.

John Presnell [00:25:37]:
You know, but yeah, my dad would always say stuff like that, you know, and, but, and yeah, I think he always had the best of intentions.

David Roman [00:25:48]:
He just.

John Presnell [00:25:49]:
There was one problem with it was that my mother actually was the majority owner because he had the 401k that was invested to start it. Yeah. You know, so he would make decisions without consulting her and then put those things out there. Yeah. That was where a lot of that came from. It seemed like empty promises. You know, when I talked with her about it, she didn't make any promises. Yeah.

John Presnell [00:26:17]:
She didn't say anything because looking back, I know now she had other plans. Her plan was to let everything down the middle. Even with my sister. That's just the way she does things.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:30]:
Right.

David Roman [00:26:31]:
She felt fair. Yeah. She felt like that wouldn't be fair. Right. And that's actually pretty admirable. Right, Right. I mean, if you think about it.

John Presnell [00:26:38]:
Yeah. And.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:42]:
In a business world, that's like.

John Presnell [00:26:44]:
No, that's not going to work. The reality was I was the one that had all the sweat equity and, you know, had built it up, you know, to what it was, you know, and, yeah, that was hard for a while, and a lot of that weight got lifted last year when I had a conversation with my sister last year before the Fueling Connections event on the drive down, and just so happened, my nephew, they were going through something similar with my nephew. They wanted him and their family business. They want to see and see business.

David Roman [00:27:23]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:27:24]:
And. But he didn't really care to do it. He wanted to do something else. And I might have played on that a little bit. Yeah. Because, you know, he. He did work with them for several years because he felt obligated. And I totally read it resonated.

David Roman [00:27:40]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:27:40]:
And so, you know, a couple months later, you know, my mom came to me and said they were doing it, and I told my sister. I was like, look, I don't want anything else.

David Roman [00:27:52]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:27:52]:
I. I don't care if you get everything else. Like, I don't care. Yeah. But I. I've earned this, and that's all I want.

Lucas Underwood [00:28:00]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:28:01]:
And she was able to convince them to do that. Yeah. And so. And that a lot did change last year with that.

David Roman [00:28:10]:
And there was a lot, in my opinion, there was a lot of fear about talking to them.

John Presnell [00:28:16]:
There was. And it just, like I said, a lot of times when I try to broach that conversation, it was. They weren't ready to face their own mortality, I think. Yeah. Was. Was the reality of it. Yeah. And.

John Presnell [00:28:33]:
And they, you know, you hear the horror stories, you know, somebody. They give it to the kid and the kid runs it into the ground and they're left with nothing, you know, And.

David Roman [00:28:43]:
And you had been shot down so much by that conversation over and over again.

John Presnell [00:28:47]:
Right.

David Roman [00:28:48]:
I feel like you got to the point you just didn't even want to try and have it anymore? Yeah.

John Presnell [00:28:52]:
Honestly. I mean, you know, because, you know, when I was coaching with Rick and, you know, and I had everybody, you know, all my good friends, you know, you, Rick, Benji, you know, everybody was pushing me toward it, and I'm like. But there was that whole thing of, you know, they're still my parents. So I didn't want. I didn't want to push that hard because you ever heard the thing about how a woman's son will oftentimes end up like her brother? Pay attention to it. I've seen it happen in several families. Honestly. My oldest son, I saw it in five generations in that family.

David Roman [00:29:37]:
Wow.

John Presnell [00:29:38]:
Uncanny. So I remember in my 20s, my mother said I was just like her brother, who always had these big ideas how to make money quick. And so I think my mother always thought that to a degree about me. So when I would come about things like this, about ways to grow the shop or grow the business, that's kind of how she saw it in her mind.

David Roman [00:30:02]:
She didn't ever see that it was backed with evidence and information.

John Presnell [00:30:04]:
She didn't realize that I had already done a lot of my homework. And I'm talking to people who have done it before or in the same scenario or very similar scenarios.

David Roman [00:30:13]:
Yeah. Her experience was always somebody that had no evidence, no data. No.

John Presnell [00:30:18]:
He's like that. You know, my maternal grandmother passed away. It'd be eight years here in a couple weeks. Yeah. That house is still sitting there two doors down from my parents. Not made it to market.

David Roman [00:30:34]:
Holy cow.

John Presnell [00:30:35]:
Because my mother's the executor, and there's. He has one sister, one brother, and the brother lives in South Carolina, and he has these grand ideas that they're going to sell the land, the. The farmland, or to. A developer is going to put a housing development in there, and they're going to. They're going to make a lot of money. Right. So they can't agree on anything.

David Roman [00:30:58]:
So you can't do anything.

John Presnell [00:31:00]:
You can't make anything. Like I said, some people don't grow out of those kind of things. I get it. And I think that's why she was so reluctant for years, you know, because she thought I was gonna do something like that. Right.

David Roman [00:31:14]:
Do you think we're in a better place now? Do you think it shifted?

John Presnell [00:31:17]:
Yeah. You know, like I said, I mean, at least I'm a minority owner. Everything's set up to go to me, you know, and I have. I have freedom to do A lot of things. Yeah. You know, major, major purchases or subscriptions that I sit down with them. But the one thing she has been great about is training. That's never a question.

John Presnell [00:31:43]:
Yeah. You know, after I came here the first time in 19 and paid for it myself out of my own pocket.

David Roman [00:31:49]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:31:50]:
It's never been a question. Right.

David Roman [00:31:52]:
You know, she saw a difference.

John Presnell [00:31:54]:
Well, I don't know about that. It's just that she realized that she knows this. It changes that much. Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:32:03]:
And so do they work in the business every day with you?

John Presnell [00:32:05]:
No. No.

Lucas Underwood [00:32:06]:
So they're out completely.

John Presnell [00:32:08]:
Yeah, I do them. I do the day to day and. And just have just in the last few weeks really finished building the team I've been trying to build for probably six years. Yeah.

David Roman [00:32:23]:
That's phenomenal.

John Presnell [00:32:25]:
But yeah, next year looks to be. Looks very promising.

David Roman [00:32:30]:
Now. When did they, when did they step out?

John Presnell [00:32:33]:
A year ago was when they made me a minority owner. And actually it's been about four years since either or since my dad was there during the day to day. Right. He had an accident and I had an apprentice at the time and he loved us. If he ever listens to it because he might still listen to this. Right. His tiny hands for his size. Right.

John Presnell [00:33:02]:
And he was taking a tire off the changer and it slipped out of his tiny hands and bounced off the floor and hit my dad in his leg and a calf. And because he's on blood thinners, hematoma. And it's like from the knee down was black and big as my thigh, you know, Holy cow. And so he never really came back from that. And the whole thing was it was just because he couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way.

David Roman [00:33:30]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:33:30]:
Because he's already been diagnosed with Parkinson's. But. And he had a brother and a sister that had it and his mother. So he's doing the Parkinson's shuffle a lot of times around. Has been for years. Oh, he just couldn't move. And something that seemingly simple. Yeah.

John Presnell [00:33:51]:
Just took him out.

Lucas Underwood [00:33:52]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:33:52]:
You know, from the day to day.

David Roman [00:33:54]:
Right.

John Presnell [00:33:54]:
He just realized he couldn't. He couldn't be there every day anymore because it was just going to happen more and more often. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:03]:
For sure.

John Presnell [00:34:03]:
And I know that was terrible. Probably terribly emasculating for him. Yeah. You know.

David Roman [00:34:09]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:10]:
What makes you face your more and more mortality? Like you're saying all of a sudden you're like, oh crap.

John Presnell [00:34:14]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:15]:
I am that old. I am like, you got to face it at that point. You don't have a choice.

John Presnell [00:34:20]:
Yeah, right.

David Roman [00:34:21]:
Sure. For sure. And I mean, like, you know, it's like losing the ability to drive and then taking your license away and all that stuff, man. Dread all that.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:29]:
You find it sad?

David Roman [00:34:31]:
Yeah, it is. It is pretty sad. So where do we go from here?

John Presnell [00:34:36]:
Nowhere with up.

David Roman [00:34:37]:
That's it.

John Presnell [00:34:38]:
That's the only option, you know, I.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:40]:
Mean, how big's the shop now?

David Roman [00:34:42]:
I hate to tell you this, but there's some real troublemakers walking behind you and. What? Real troublemakers. See?

John Presnell [00:34:47]:
Oh, yeah, Yeah.

David Roman [00:34:48]:
I just need to point that out.

John Presnell [00:34:49]:
There's some of the best folks around here.

David Roman [00:34:51]:
They are.

John Presnell [00:34:52]:
But no, I'm think we're in a 2400 square foot right now. Like, that was another thing that happened, like, five years ago. We were in a terribly rundown building that didn't even have indoor plumbing, but it would have cost, like, tens of thousands to get indoor plumbing. And so we just had a porta potty. Oh, wow. Yeah. And they were there for 20 years because the rent was cheap and it was, you know, but they were going. It was owned by a local power co op and they were going to sell the property.

John Presnell [00:35:32]:
And that's probably one of the best things that ever happened. You know, I'd been wanting out of that whole. It was like a dungeon. I mean. Yeah, yeah. You couldn't make it bright enough in there because it was old. It's actually old. Cotton gin building.

David Roman [00:35:45]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:35:46]:
You know, that was built in the 40s.

David Roman [00:35:49]:
Right.

John Presnell [00:35:49]:
And. And so we had 900 square feet of chop floor there. Tons of storage and all. Storage is a place to keep crap for no good reason. Yeah. And we. I dump so much stuff when we move. So we went from 900 to 2,400 square feet, and we've outgrown it.

John Presnell [00:36:13]:
I got a couple of customers that are realtors and like, oh, you need a bigger shop, more parking. I'm like, we do. But just after having seen what Lucas did in his original location, there's much more potential. We need to get leaner and more efficient before I even look at it for sure. Why would I want to double rent?

David Roman [00:36:34]:
Maximize what you got right now. Stack some cash back. Right. And that was the big thing for me, is I wish I'd stacked more cash. All these people want to build a bigger shop. But I think that looking back, if I had taken that and I kept doing what I was doing for as long as I could get it financially. Extremely lean. Stack as much money as I could in the bank account.

David Roman [00:36:54]:
I think it Would have made my life substantially easier.

John Presnell [00:36:56]:
Right.

David Roman [00:36:57]:
Like, I wish I'd built myself a longer Runway, if that makes sense.

John Presnell [00:37:00]:
Right. Yeah. I mean, said sometimes it's crowded. I mean, we've made some big moves though. I mean, we put air conditioning in the shop this year.

David Roman [00:37:11]:
Oh, wow.

John Presnell [00:37:12]:
We didn't really advertise it or anything.

David Roman [00:37:14]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:37:15]:
Cuz I did it. It was for the text. Yeah. And that was another surprising thing. I thought I was gonna have to really, you know, sell that one.

David Roman [00:37:30]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:37:31]:
But my mother, who worked in textile factories most of her life.

David Roman [00:37:36]:
Do it.

John Presnell [00:37:37]:
If you ever been a textile mill.

David Roman [00:37:38]:
Oh, yeah.

John Presnell [00:37:39]:
It's gotta have high humidity for the fabrics to run.

David Roman [00:37:44]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:37:44]:
And not fray off and tear. And so it was a no brainer.

David Roman [00:37:51]:
Hot.

John Presnell [00:37:51]:
I mean, she was like, okay, when are we gonna do it? Yeah. And as I've known that I'd probably asked for it three years ago earlier, you know, but yeah. Because yeah, that was one of my first mechanic type jobs. I actually worked in a cotton mill. Yeah. And never wanted to do it. That's what was funny. Right.

John Presnell [00:38:14]:
I wanted to go into, I went in the service and I wanted to be in like computer programming because I'm a tech guy.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:20]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:38:21]:
Right.

John Presnell [00:38:21]:
I'm just mechanically gifted. This is what I weigh. Always looked at it, but they were like, took the ASVAB and the liaison's like, well, we don't have any computer jobs, but you can be a mechanic. It's pretty much a nine to five.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:40]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:38:41]:
All right. Whatever. My uncle owned a shop in Boom for four years. Yeah. You know, and, and my, my dad had worked in several shops, you know, when I was a kid and all. And I was like, yeah, okay. I didn't really want to do it. They, they neglected to tell me, you know, if you end up in an infantry unit, they only tell you half the schedule.

John Presnell [00:39:05]:
He said, yeah. Being a mechanics, 9 to 5, they can tell you about the 5 to 9 parts before you go to the motor pool. Yeah, yeah. But that was a great experience. And you know, there was a lot of growth happened there, you know, in the moment. And when I got out, I didn't think I would ever look back on it like I do now. Kind of crazy.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:30]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:39:31]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:32]:
That's usually how it works though.

John Presnell [00:39:34]:
Yeah. Right. But yeah, I think I've got, I finally figured out my purpose in life and that's growing and coaching other people. That's where I get the most fulfillment, you know.

David Roman [00:39:48]:
Same, same. I, I agree with you. And I think that that's like it's one thing to be taught it, it's another thing to know it, but it's another thing to teach it. Right, right. And so I think that's when it finally kind of like bites in when you're teaching other people.

John Presnell [00:40:03]:
Yeah. Right.

David Roman [00:40:04]:
Then all of a sudden it's like, hey, I have to act on this now.

John Presnell [00:40:06]:
Right.

David Roman [00:40:07]:
Telling them. Unless you're David. No. Acted on it.

John Presnell [00:40:12]:
Yeah. I've got a pretty young team. Yeah. You know, and like, how many tucks I got two techs. One's about 10 years in, but has been doing stuff most his life, you know, the other one's about five years in, and I've known him for 10 years. He's like myself, came from the park side first and. But he. They're willing to learn and grow, you know, and that's what I've been after all this time.

John Presnell [00:40:45]:
Yeah. There's nothing more fulfilling than teaching those. Those message you learned the hard way. How to not waste three hours chasing this one thing when you can split a system in half, you know? Yeah. And I've had a lot of people that have tried to teach that too. And it was like talking to a wall. They just couldn't grasp onto it.

David Roman [00:41:09]:
Right.

John Presnell [00:41:09]:
Because they were taught a certain way and they. There's no. No quicker or better way, you know? Yeah. But. Yeah. And the funny thing is, is I just. Back in the spring when we took on the two apprentices right. At the end of the school year, I kind of gave him more of a leadership role with those.

John Presnell [00:41:30]:
With the two apprentices. I said, you're going to be amazed at what happens.

David Roman [00:41:35]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:41:36]:
Because when you're coaching them through this job, you're going to see things you never saw before when you're doing the job and you're in the zone.

Lucas Underwood [00:41:44]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:41:45]:
And the funniest thing was like, he came back to me. He's like, I thought you were BSing me. He's like, that is crazy how that works. He's like, I noticed details that I never pay attention to. Yeah.

David Roman [00:41:57]:
For sure.

John Presnell [00:41:57]:
When I'm doing it, because it just seems like it's second nature. Right. Or, you know, I'm. I'm more focused on speed, you know, but. And that was. That was a great experience. I mean, I think it made it helped him grow, you know. Yeah, a lot.

John Presnell [00:42:17]:
Because he was like, a lot like myself when I was got. My objective was to be fast always. And, you know, Fast. Yeah, fast is good. Leads to a lot of simple mistakes.

David Roman [00:42:32]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:33]:
Yeah, for sure.

John Presnell [00:42:34]:
Sometimes you can be fast enough to go back and fix those simple mistakes.

David Roman [00:42:37]:
Sometimes it makes you slow.

John Presnell [00:42:39]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:40]:
Distilling that down too. Identifying, like the steps I'm taking and then distilling it down and then being able to disseminate that information, that's extremely difficult to do.

John Presnell [00:42:50]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:51]:
A lot of you would think a lot of people, like, hey, just outline your process. Like, I don't know where to start. It's like, start at the beginning. I don't know. Like, I've met a lot of people that just cannot, Cannot do it because they just. Like you're saying, they just go off second nature. And it's like, what Just comes to me. It's like, okay, well then just write it down as it comes to you.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:11]:
Then we can kind of parse it out from there.

John Presnell [00:43:13]:
Right. That's what I was like. I used to think I would never be able to teach anybody. And 15 years ago, when I was early in this side of the industry. Yeah. There's no way I could have taught anybody anything. I was entirely too high strung and hot headed. But age has a way of mellowing us out for sure.

John Presnell [00:43:39]:
Because it's funny, with the kids, you say you're not gonna do it, but then the kids come up to you, what are you doing? Dad? You would have kicked my ass for that, right? Yeah, it's. No, it's different. I know better now. Yeah. Plus they got to go home with you.

David Roman [00:44:00]:
That's a you problem now. Me problem. Oh, well, like, what do you. What's your vision for the shop? I know you want to grow it, but what's the. You know. And a. Let me ask you this because for the longest time, it felt like we struggled to get numbers. It was like we struggled to get them where they need to be.

David Roman [00:44:19]:
When dad was there, it seemed like dad was really hesitant to charge what had to be charged just to make the business baseline profitable. I'm just talking about covering the bills, Right? Yeah.

John Presnell [00:44:30]:
And he did some things when it came to that. He did some things that really used to bug me. Yeah. Classic. I think old school, small town thinking, you know. Well, this guy's got more money than I do, so I'm charging more. Yeah, this guy's having a hard time, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna charge him less.

John Presnell [00:44:51]:
I don't go that way.

David Roman [00:44:52]:
No, I don't either.

John Presnell [00:44:53]:
Straight across the board. If I'm gonna cut anybody break, it's going to be that guy that brings me everything.

David Roman [00:44:58]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:44:59]:
You know, and that was part of It. But not. Honestly, he doesn't. He didn't give me too much flack about it when I said I was raising a labor rate. Actually, the last time I mentioned it to either one of them, I said something to my mom and she was like, oh, no, the elderly people around here can't afford that. We'll go out of business. I just don't tell them anymore.

David Roman [00:45:24]:
That's it. That's it. Why do we have money in the bank account? That's weird, right?

John Presnell [00:45:29]:
You know, I don't tell them that and they don't ask, so it works out.

David Roman [00:45:34]:
Are they happy with the financials of the business now? Do you think they're seeing it's working, it's doing what it's supposed to do?

John Presnell [00:45:40]:
I would say so. I mean, I'm not happy with it just because there's other things I want to do for the team and I want to be able to give back to the community. And those things can't happen at the level we're at. I mean, at the same time. No, I don't want to grow the shop size that much. Like I said, me, right now, growth is becoming efficient.

David Roman [00:46:10]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:46:10]:
And once I think we can probably. We can do double what we're doing now just in efficiency alone.

David Roman [00:46:18]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:46:19]:
So. But I have a young team, so I know it's going to take some.

David Roman [00:46:22]:
Time to grow them into it and get it configured in such a way that that's going to work. What's your strategy for getting them there?

John Presnell [00:46:29]:
Getting them there? Oh, wow. That's a good question. Usually I'm trying to give them all, you know, a little bit more and grow their confidence.

David Roman [00:46:49]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:46:50]:
If you talk to my lead tech, he's only been with me, he's going on two years. And matter of fact, I interviewed him three years before he came to me.

David Roman [00:47:01]:
Oh, wow.

John Presnell [00:47:01]:
And he was at a neighboring shop, someone I used to consider a friend.

David Roman [00:47:08]:
Okay.

John Presnell [00:47:10]:
Anyway, he was grossly underpaid, got all the heavy line work. But he probably tells me every couple of months that he loves it again. And he's learned more in the last year and a half than he did in the seven prior. I love that. And that's great. You know, sometimes I don't know how to respond, but. Yeah, you know, because it catches me off guard. But.

John Presnell [00:47:40]:
And that's what I want to do for all of them, I think. The new one has just been with me three weeks. He's already seen it. Just in this weekend. Yeah. Listen, I'm looking at.

Lucas Underwood [00:47:52]:
Did you bring Your crew with you?

John Presnell [00:47:53]:
Yes.

Lucas Underwood [00:47:54]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:47:54]:
Yeah. Actually, I was signed up for classes myself, and then this guy I. The new guy, I'd been trying to get him for about four years, and he finally left. He was leaving the shop he'd been at for last years, and he called me up. So I just cleaned my slate and put him down for all the classes. And then I bought a social pass for myself.

Lucas Underwood [00:48:24]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:48:24]:
And because I knew he'd never been to anything. Like, nobody in our area comes down here, doesn't even know about it. I've told a few of them, but.

David Roman [00:48:35]:
They don't take any action on it. I do think that's pretty weird because it's the same in my community. Community, Right, right. It's like, there's very few people and the people from my community that come here because, like, I went and said, hey, you've got to go. Like, what do I have to do? Do I have to pay for it? Do I have to make you go? What has to happen? And, you know, Tobin just sent me a message ago, a few minutes ago, so. Man, I hate I could not be there this year. Right.

John Presnell [00:48:57]:
Oh, yeah.

David Roman [00:48:58]:
And so, like, I. I don't know if other people understand that. We. We see this from our perspective and we see ourselves and we say, why is everybody else not here? Man, these other shops around here, like, I know what you're dealing with. You know what I'm dealing with. Right. I mean, those are not shops that you would look at and say, I mean, I hate to be like that, but should they survive? I mean, like. Right.

David Roman [00:49:22]:
Some of them are not doing such a great job, you know?

John Presnell [00:49:24]:
Yeah. And I know some of them are what I used to think were some of the better shops in town, you know, and they were always. A couple of them were always the more expensive shops. Now more expensive, either of them. And, you know.

David Roman [00:49:41]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:49:42]:
But I've always been that guy who's wanting to take care of people. It's just a matter of finding the right people that were willing to receive it.

David Roman [00:49:55]:
Yeah. Don't want to be taken care of.

John Presnell [00:49:57]:
Yeah. I went through a lot of bad ones, you know. Yeah.

David Roman [00:50:00]:
For sure.

John Presnell [00:50:01]:
And, and, and some not so bad. Just. It was never going to work. We're never a good fit and just let it ride out too long. Yeah.

David Roman [00:50:12]:
We're all guilty of that, though, right?

John Presnell [00:50:13]:
What's that?

David Roman [00:50:14]:
We're all guilty of that.

John Presnell [00:50:15]:
Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, cuz. Well, there for a while, felt like I was over the barrel. Held over a barrel. One. Because yeah. Just hadn't had any luck finding anybody, you know, And I mean, to this day, we're friends. Actually, you know, I mean, I bought him a shirt because he was trying to get his current shop owner to commence to come down.

John Presnell [00:50:41]:
You know, he's helped got one for the last two years, so. Right. And some people may think it was a dig, but. No, I mean, just being kind. Yeah. I mean, it was not. Nothing derogatory about it all. It's like.

David Roman [00:50:56]:
Yeah, no, I mean, anybody knows. John knows that that wasn't a dig. You don't.

John Presnell [00:51:00]:
I mean, I'm an equal opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, man.

David Roman [00:51:04]:
I ain't never seen it.

John Presnell [00:51:05]:
Oh, man.

David Roman [00:51:06]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:51:08]:
Like you're in Eric's relationship. Yeah, yeah. That's my relationship with everybody. I mean, you can't say anything around me, man. Anything. And they're just. I just gotta stop talking. I can't say any damn thing.

John Presnell [00:51:23]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:51:24]:
Poor Eric.

John Presnell [00:51:25]:
But time passes have it pretty rough.

David Roman [00:51:27]:
Eric does have it pretty rough.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:29]:
You're. You're abusive. That's what you are.

John Presnell [00:51:31]:
But. Well, now, yeah, we don't go physical, you know, but.

David Roman [00:51:35]:
Well, you know, I'm just saying, if you hit me in the nuts, I'm gonna hit you back in the nuts.

John Presnell [00:51:40]:
Just harder than you.

David Roman [00:51:41]:
It's not.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:41]:
That's not the thing. Like, I'm. Okay, the fact that if I hit you in the nuts, I'm gonna get hit back at some point. It's not that. Is that you hit me in nuts and then run me over with your car. And then you'd, like, throw a bunch of stink bomb juice all over me.

David Roman [00:51:57]:
Oh, man, that was so funny.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:58]:
And then, you know, next week, you hit me in the nuts again. One more time. Just to remind me not to hit you in the nuts again. And like, it goes on and on and on. It's like, okay, dude, when does this end?

David Roman [00:52:08]:
It never ends.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:09]:
That's the problem.

David Roman [00:52:10]:
It never ends. You know that fart spray, you know, liquid ass or whatever it is?

John Presnell [00:52:16]:
Oh, yeah.

David Roman [00:52:17]:
It got all in his beard. And so he had washed it and thought he got it out, but there's.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:21]:
No getting that out.

David Roman [00:52:22]:
And when he took a shower, it got hot and it like.

John Presnell [00:52:28]:
Oh, you.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:28]:
Got to shave that off.

David Roman [00:52:30]:
You do not want to see that. I promise.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:33]:
Yeah, I get it. I get it. I've thought about cutting my beard to freak my wife out and freak my kids out.

David Roman [00:52:40]:
David shaves and, like, what you thought was chin. The.

John Presnell [00:52:43]:
The chin.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:43]:
There's no chin. Yeah, that's the problem, too. It's like. It's like. Oh, that's right. No jawline, no chin. Let's not do that again.

John Presnell [00:52:53]:
Oh, that's rough.

David Roman [00:52:55]:
That's really rough.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:56]:
I just. Round. Big, round head. That's it.

David Roman [00:53:01]:
Is that why you trim it back and, like, try and get it perfectly trimmed to give you a jawline in there? Is that what.

Lucas Underwood [00:53:08]:
No, that's just to clean it up.

John Presnell [00:53:10]:
Yeah, that's just to clean it up.

Lucas Underwood [00:53:12]:
Because otherwise it could just, like. It gets super bushy. It gets, like, bushy down here or it gets bushy on the sides or gets bushy in the front.

David Roman [00:53:20]:
Like, maybe you should use some bearded leader beard product.

John Presnell [00:53:25]:
Oh, I do.

Lucas Underwood [00:53:25]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:53:26]:
That's how you take care of that.

Lucas Underwood [00:53:29]:
You know what? I don't think Josh listens to the podcast. Also, we're 52 minutes in, so no one listens to this part. I love Josh's the Bearded Brotherhood. His. I love them. I think they all smell great. I bought vanilla. I got Opium Den, and I got.

Lucas Underwood [00:53:47]:
What's the other one that I got? Barbershop. I love the smells. I think they smell fantastic. Opium Den. It smells like a cigar shop. That's what it smells like. Which to me, like. It smells like a.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:01]:
Like a good pipe. That's what it smells like. You know that pipe smell.

John Presnell [00:54:05]:
Okay, I don't know any smells, but what's that? I don't know any smells.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:10]:
Oh, you can't smell it.

John Presnell [00:54:11]:
Just craziest thing.

David Roman [00:54:12]:
Yeah.

John Presnell [00:54:12]:
I've caught flack for that for years, but never had a good.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:16]:
Was it from COVID or just forever?

John Presnell [00:54:18]:
No, no, since I can remember. Yeah. Like sulfur.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:22]:
Let me tell you.

John Presnell [00:54:22]:
Myrna match right here. Yeah, I can smell that sulfur. But, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:26]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:54:26]:
Is that why you always say you can smell Eric?

John Presnell [00:54:29]:
Yeah, but it's a gift. Because let me tell you, my other gift is I. I can't be victim to my own devices. So if I. If I crop dust the shop, everybody's in tears but me. I'm laughing because I don't know anything. I just have to believe what they tell me.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:55]:
What can you, like, can you smell food?

John Presnell [00:54:58]:
Not really. I mean, looks good. It's.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:00]:
Does everything taste bland to you, then?

John Presnell [00:55:02]:
No, really, it's fine. But. Yeah, well, part of it is, you know, deviated septum, I'm sure. But every once in a while, I'll get a rare whiff of something. But.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:13]:
Yeah, because they say like, like 80 of the taste of. The sense of taste that you have comes from the smell. Right as it's going into your mouth like you smell it. And that's produces some of the taste.

John Presnell [00:55:24]:
I've told people for years. You know, that's why my wife and I, like, I can see and hear way better than always. Have been a little high for my age on those two. And my wife has vision problems and she can smell. So if the house catches on fire, she can wake my ass up and get out. Honey.

David Roman [00:55:48]:
Oh, honey, we know your wife.

John Presnell [00:55:51]:
I'm a little nervous.

David Roman [00:55:52]:
She might not say anything.

John Presnell [00:55:55]:
She might just slip out of the.

David Roman [00:55:57]:
Bed and walk around.

John Presnell [00:55:58]:
She. It depends on what I did the night before, you know, if I was stupid or not. Yeah.

David Roman [00:56:04]:
No, that's hilarious. All right, John, thank you for being here.

John Presnell [00:56:07]:
Yes, thank you for having me.

David Roman [00:56:09]:
Of course. Yes, sir.