Changing The Industry Podcast

Lucas Underwood [00:00:00]:
There.

Chris Gayne [00:00:00]:
Yeah. All right.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:04]:
Chris.

Chris Gayne [00:00:05]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:05]:
How are you, buddy?

Chris Gayne [00:00:06]:
I'm good. How are you?

Lucas Underwood [00:00:07]:
I'm fantastic. So let's, let's preface all of this with.

Chris Gayne [00:00:11]:
Okay.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:12]:
Somebody I really respect a lot and admire said you are a genuine badass and that we had to have you on the show.

Chris Gayne [00:00:19]:
That sounds like a bold faced lie.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:22]:
Well, he was pretty passionate about it. And Mr. Z Beard said that you are a rock star human being and he really, really wanted to have you on the show.

Chris Gayne [00:00:31]:
That means a lot coming from someone like Zeb. Anybody who knows him would say the exact same thing.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:35]:
Yeah, absolutely.

David Roman [00:00:36]:
Listen to the podcast he does.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:38]:
He just hates you. He just listens just so he has more ammo to hate you with, as do most of our listeners. It's pretty cool.

Chris Gayne [00:00:44]:
That's pretty rough.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:46]:
But, but no, he, he said, man, he said, this guy is an exceptional business owner. And he said, I would love if you could just have him on and just let the guy tell his story. And so here we are. For you to tell your story.

Chris Gayne [00:00:58]:
That means a lot. So I'll tell you about me. I'm a little. I think with Zeb, I'm different. So I did not grow up in this business. I was never a tech. I never worked at a dealer. I never did any of that.

Chris Gayne [00:01:12]:
My trained background is I did 21 years in the Army. I retired as a attack helicopter pilot. Instructor pilot. Okay. I taught guys to fly Apaches and Kyle Warriors. That's what I did. And my hobby was fixing diesel trucks and I fix them and flip them and that's what I like to do. Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:01:31]:
The last job I had teaching, you know, I didn't really. We didn't know if we were going to stay there, retire. We had no idea what our plan was. So we had a really small townhouse and I didn't have a garage. So I leased a commercial garage space and would do my work in there. Well, what I didn't know was you had to have a business license to use a commercial space like that. And the city promptly came and let me know. Those are the rules.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:53]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:01:53]:
So I got a business license and the rest is history. That turned into Dale County Diesel. We're a small shop in South Alabama. We're about an hour north of Panama City, Florida.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:04]:
Okay.

Chris Gayne [00:02:05]:
I did. I was still teaching students and started the business the last two years I was in the army. I did both and it was brutal. I have no business background. I had no idea what I was doing, to be honest. I dropped out of high school when I was 15 years old, and I've gone back to college since. But, you know, I don't have a much training in anything other than what I did in the Army. Right.

Chris Gayne [00:02:27]:
What it did do, what the army did was really good at for me was I've got a lot of leadership.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:32]:
Background, a lot of it discipline and.

Chris Gayne [00:02:34]:
Discipline structure in, in managing so many different types of personalities. And so that kind of carried over into the shop. The first couple guys I had, they didn't really buff out. I was still learning. And what I learned from the people who didn't work out, and I don't, it doesn't, I'm not upset that they didn't work out. It's all part of the process, I think.

David Roman [00:02:58]:
Sure.

Chris Gayne [00:02:59]:
But what we did learn is everybody who works for me now I have what I have five techs and a service advisor.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:05]:
Okay.

Chris Gayne [00:03:07]:
And a cleanup guy. My son. And I don't hire, honestly, resumes. I don't even look at them. I, I don't, I don't care about the resume. I assume you already know how to do the things that I'm expecting you to do or you wouldn't be sitting here. Right. I hire people.

Chris Gayne [00:03:23]:
If I can't give them a key to the shop the day they walk in. Yeah, I, I don't want you here. Yeah, for sure. So I'm really stringent on the people. I, I, I feel them out. I, I spend time with them. I let my family be around them. Like, I want to know you.

Chris Gayne [00:03:39]:
I can teach you anything you need to know about working in my shop. I can't make you a better person. I can't make you show up to work on time. I can't make you, you know, be, have the integrity to do what you're supposed to do when I'm not standing there. You know, that's what I can't deal with. That's what I dealt with with the first. I think I've fired four people.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:59]:
Okay.

Chris Gayne [00:04:00]:
In six years, which probably. Okay. Yeah, for sure. But. But that's it. And that's us. And with that, it's brought on some complications. For sure.

Chris Gayne [00:04:09]:
You know, my guys, a constant struggle is time, efficiency, you know, because that's while they all had some of their own personal experience. And in, in this business, it's not really. They haven't, They've never had I am their opportunity to perfect their craft.

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

Chris Gayne [00:04:24]:
And they're still working on that. So, you know, we struggle a little bit with, with, you know, efficiency and hey, we had a Couple comebacks or whatever, things like that. But that's, I think, the trade off. I can't. Can't have it both ways. I can't have great people and, you know, super experience, especially in small town. It's. I really don't like saying that people are hard to find because they're out there.

Chris Gayne [00:04:43]:
You've just got to kind of be smart in how you look for them, if that makes sense. So.

Lucas Underwood [00:04:48]:
Absolutely.

Chris Gayne [00:04:49]:
That's me.

Lucas Underwood [00:04:50]:
Well, I mean, I think in that leadership role, you begin to see and develop this concept that the people components. The important component.

David Roman [00:05:00]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:00]:
Most important, because if you can't trust them to do the ethical thing, you can't trust them to do the right thing. It doesn't matter how good they are, it doesn't matter how technically proficient they are.

Chris Gayne [00:05:11]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:12]:
They will still screw you over in a heartbeat.

Chris Gayne [00:05:14]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:14]:
And they will screw your clients over 100%. And I mean, like, I can even take being screwed over. I don't want you screwing my clients over. I don't want you putting somebody else's life in jeopardy.

Chris Gayne [00:05:23]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:24]:
Because you're lazy.

Chris Gayne [00:05:25]:
Right?

Lucas Underwood [00:05:25]:
Right. I'm not going to put up with that.

Chris Gayne [00:05:26]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:27]:
And so I would rather do less revenue and then find the right people that know how to do it.

Chris Gayne [00:05:31]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:32]:
And they believe what I believe.

Chris Gayne [00:05:34]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:34]:
Right. I've been in a situation where we're redeveloping a business's culture. It's not my shop, it's another business. But as we redevelop that culture, it's easier to see now since I've had the shop, hey, listen, you're just not a good fit.

Chris Gayne [00:05:50]:
Right?

David Roman [00:05:50]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:50]:
Like you're. You shouldn't be here. It's not that you're a bad person or whatever.

Chris Gayne [00:05:54]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:55]:
It's just you're not a good fit for this organization.

Chris Gayne [00:05:57]:
I got a good friend, he always says everybody can't be astronauts.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:00]:
Exactly.

Chris Gayne [00:06:00]:
That's it. It's. Some people just don't work out for what you're trying to do. And that's okay. Yeah. And I'll be honest, I'm probably guilty of it. Wanting someone to work and spending too much time trying to make it work when I would have been better off just moving on for sure. But it's a learning process.

Chris Gayne [00:06:19]:
It's definitely a learning process. And I mean, I luckily have enough experience with new things because that's what. Again, the army is what I go back to because that's how I learned everything I know as an adult. Right. And they'll Let you do anything you want. If you can pass the basic test of aptitude, go ahead, try it out. Like I said, they Let me fly $50 million helicopters and show other people how to do it. And I have no schooling, so I make it a point to go out and seek that knowledge.

Chris Gayne [00:06:48]:
And it started when I met Zeb. It was three years ago. Thoroughbred Diesel put on an event, Survivor Thrive, in Kentucky. And we went to that first event, and I went. Nate Baylor, who owns Unlimited Diesel Performance, he said, hey, you don't know any of these people, but I love you, and I want you to get up, and you gotta get this ticket and get up.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:08]:
I actually remember that because I remember him saying that, but I didn't know you were the Chris he was talking about.

Chris Gayne [00:07:13]:
Yeah, yeah. So it was a big deal. We'd been in business for three years at that time. And, I mean, we were looking back. I said, then we're doing okay, and we're not. We're not. My labor rate was low. You know, we weren't charging for diagnostics.

Chris Gayne [00:07:26]:
So we just roll it in. You know, all these things that you say, don't do this. We were doing all of it. So it was huge to do that. But what I learned real quick was not about the classes. It's not about any of that. I met Zeb Beard, I met Chris Shearer, I met Chris Huggins. You know, I met all these guys that are there.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:42]:
The networking.

Chris Gayne [00:07:43]:
That's what this is about.

David Roman [00:07:44]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:07:45]:
And you learn from what they're telling you for sure there. I'll tell you one thing I hate, is when I first started the business, and I'm sure you guys have heard this 100, probably 200 times. Oh, everybody struggles when they first start out.

David Roman [00:07:57]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:07:58]:
And we do. But is that preventable? I feel like it is. It's absolutely preventable. With a little bit of guidance, a little bit of knowledge, and a little bit of willingness to learn on the other end.

Lucas Underwood [00:08:08]:
I think a lot of us came into this thinking that we knew more than we did for sure. And we started this. And, like, so my journey was, I was working for my parents. I'd worked at a hospital in it, right? And I left that hospital, went back to work for my dad turning wrenches, and always loved fast trucks, Right. That was my thing. Started with a 12 valve, moved to a 24 valve after the 12 valve, met a tree. And, like, that was my thing.

Chris Gayne [00:08:35]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:08:35]:
And I'm a little jelly. Maybe jelly's not the word. Maybe, like, just power strokes is that what it is? Well, no, I like power strokes, too. They're not that bad. I had a 6, 0.

Chris Gayne [00:08:47]:
Oh, no wonder you don't have another one.

Lucas Underwood [00:08:49]:
No, I love a 6. 0. I can't help myself.

David Roman [00:08:52]:
I still got one.

Lucas Underwood [00:08:53]:
But, you know, here's the thing, is that I love the 12 valve for the skill that it made you bring, right? Because that truck was not going to be fast by jumping out and sliding the plate. That truck was gonna be fast by you making it fast and learning how to tune it and learning how to get your timing right. Learning how to get the timing to stay once you set it. Like, if you can pull that off, you know, you're in good shape. But the point was, is it took a little bit of skill. It took learning, it took developing. Now, I'm not saying a common rail, it can't do that. It's more that everybody was going out and buying a tune, sticking on a common rail.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:28]:
And at that point, I kind of got bored with the decent scene because it's like, this doesn't require any skill. This doesn't require ability. This requires a credit card. And you can have a fast truck now.

Chris Gayne [00:09:39]:
And that's a fact.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:39]:
Yeah, that kind of bothered me a little bit. So I wasn't nearly as in love with the diesel industry after that. But, you know, I started through, you know, deciding, hey, I want to install fast parts on fast trucks, right? And that turned into, holy shit. Sometimes when I install fast parts, truck breaks need to understand how to fix truck, right? So it can leave, right? That's always really important, right? And so that was the process of me learning. And then it turned into, nobody else can figure out what's wrong with these trucks, right? So I'm going to learn to diag the trucks. And then I went and learned from Paul Danner, right? And then it just developed one thing right after another, right? And then it. At one point, you know, when we came to this show for the very first time, it was because I went to my wife and said, I'm not doing this anymore, right? I'm not making any money. This is stressful.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:27]:
Nothing is working. I didn't have any leadership skills, right? Nobody had ever taught me leadership skills. Nobody taught my parents leadership skills, right? It was learned from the seat of your pants, right? Like, figure it out. And. And so I told her, I said, look, I'm done. I'm going to go learn to be the best technician I can be. Same experience, came here, met some people who knew how to run a business. And they said in the nicest way, you're effing idiot.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:51]:
You don't know what the f. You're doing. Let me show you. Let me help you. Let me kind of take you and show you a better way to do this.

Chris Gayne [00:10:58]:
Right, Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:59]:
And it was that process that changed everything for me. And I was doing the same thing. Right. Like, I would get these trucks in that I loved way more than their owners did. And so I spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours trying to make them perfect. They weren't perfect to begin with. I've invested all this time, all this energy in making this thing, do this thing. They didn't care.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:20]:
Right, Right. And so what was a pat. And I think that was my biggest issue is a passion. For me, it was. It was not a job. It was not a business. It was a passion.

Chris Gayne [00:11:30]:
Yeah. That shouldn't be an issue. That's what got you here. Yeah, you know, it is. The hard part's maintaining that passion. Yeah, that's the hard part. Yeah. I actually said that today in one of the class.

Chris Gayne [00:11:39]:
You know, Rick Wright was like, well, what do you want out of your business? And I said, I want to enjoy it. Yeah. I want to enjoy owning this place again. Because I. It's not that I don't. It's just. It has certainly become work. It's no longer something I used to just do for fun and on the side.

Chris Gayne [00:11:55]:
I just want it to work, and I wanted. I want to enjoy it.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:57]:
You know, I went to him.

David Roman [00:11:58]:
I completely 100 disagree with you. I think you have to be completely dispassionate, really. If you see it as a passion, you'll do it for free. Things that I'm passionate about, I do for absolutely nothing. That's fair. And I'll do it all day long and be perfectly happy doing it. Is it nice to get paid for it? Absolutely. It's nice to get paid for it.

David Roman [00:12:21]:
However, that works really well. If you can do it on your own, if it's just you, because it's your passion, you happen to get paid for it, great. But it's just your time and effort and investment, your discipline. That's it. The minute you start introducing employees, the minute you start introducing other variables in there, like vendors and you start adding bills, all of a sudden. Can you be passionate about diesels? Yeah. Work on them on the weekends, in your garage, whatever. Now you've made it a business.

David Roman [00:12:59]:
Remove all passion. Now it's numbers, hitting metrics, taking care of your people. As long as they're taking care of business and then executing on what you're supposed to do. And you have to be dispassionate about it because if you inject passion like numbnuts over here, then you're painting the rear ends of these vehicles on a drain and fill because you want it to look shiny when you, you have no business doing that. Because it's your passion. You want it looking the nines and the customer doesn't give two flips. They paid for a drain infill and it's 0.7, so you need to do it in 0.5.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:39]:
Sure.

David Roman [00:13:40]:
And then that's it. If you remove the passion from it and see it as I just need to execute on these particular tasks, and as long as everybody does what they're supposed to do, we'll end up with a tidy profit at the end of the day. And then I can do whatever I want with the business. I can either sell it or, or I can leave it or whatever. Right?

Chris Gayne [00:13:58]:
Sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:59]:
It seems like a miserable way to live, though.

Chris Gayne [00:14:01]:
Well, I mean, there's gotta.

David Roman [00:14:02]:
I'm sorry. Like there's. Look, consider somebody. I mean, it doesn't make sense to us because, like, we work for ourselves or whatever, right? But look at somebody that has to go work for a giant corporation. Giant, nameless, faceless corporation. They go in and they, they work on spreadsheets all day and they go to meetings. How can you be passionate about that?

Chris Gayne [00:14:22]:
Yeah, it sounds pretty awful.

David Roman [00:14:23]:
It sounds miserable, right?

Lucas Underwood [00:14:24]:
Be miserable.

David Roman [00:14:25]:
Maybe they make good money. My wife sits in meetings all day long. That's what she does. She goes to meetings. She goes to meetings and then she gives tasks out and says that we're going to execute on this. And then she goes the next meeting and that's what she does all day long.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:36]:
She seems pretty passionate about it, bro.

David Roman [00:14:39]:
She. She's passionate about it because she's taken the mindset that I'm going to execute on this is the. To the best of my ability, because that's what they're paying me to do.

Chris Gayne [00:14:46]:
And that's what I was going to say. Can you have discipline in your passion? Can you be sensibly passionate? I feel like you can. It's like anything else you have to have.

David Roman [00:14:53]:
But the passion isn't the work, though. The passion is in the business. Discipline and the execution in being the best that she can be at what she's being asked to do.

Chris Gayne [00:15:02]:
For sure.

David Roman [00:15:03]:
That's the, that's the passion. And, and she does.

Chris Gayne [00:15:05]:
She's fantastic at her job, passionate in the outcome.

David Roman [00:15:08]:
She's passionate, yeah, yeah. To the, to the best that she can because she's not even doing the work. Like she has to get other people to do the work for her. Right.

Chris Gayne [00:15:17]:
Don't we all?

David Roman [00:15:19]:
But the actual work itself, like, yeah, I was passionate about cars too when I started. I'm gonna go work on cars. Like, no, I shouldn't have done that. That was a terrible idea. The idea is I should have seen it as is this a good investment of my time and energy. You can separate that. Again, if you do this by yourself, not work on cars necessarily. I think that it doesn't scale that, that well.

David Roman [00:15:48]:
But if you're selling something, you can be passionate about that in selling it. But again, it's just you.

Chris Gayne [00:15:55]:
I think it's important to be passionate about what you're selling because that then you're selling a genuine, honest product. Sure, right. Like I had this conversation yesterday and it's because of experience I loathe. I think the people I loathe the most in this world are service writers. At all their shops. They make me crazy because I can instantly smell, number one, when you have no idea what you're talking about and number two, when you're trying to bullshit me, that's when I get pissed off. But, and I appreciate it because then I can go right back to my own place and say, hey, this is my experience. Do not do this.

Chris Gayne [00:16:29]:
Do not, you know, hey, if you don't know what he's asking you, you simply stop it right there. Say, hey, I'm not sure the answer to your question. Let me go find someone who can help us.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:37]:
Absolutely.

Chris Gayne [00:16:38]:
And so it's just. But again it's because what I don't like, I don't like, I, I don't like commission based sales. Now obviously being a business owner, everything we do is kind of on commission based sales, right?

Lucas Underwood [00:16:49]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:16:50]:
But I don't like what I. Dealerships are bad about it. Where. Oh yeah, let me, let me get you an air filter. And even though you probably don't need one, but let me just get my little kickback from it. Yeah, in my shop we do the DVIs. But like, and I got told this is wrong yesterday. I don't know, I kind of like it.

Chris Gayne [00:17:05]:
But if, if, let's say rear end. You brought up rear end. I don't just tell you, hey, your rear ends leaking, we need to do a service on it. I'm going to show you a picture. I'm maybe going to have the Tech take a video and show his finger showing how exact, how or how how pronounced is the leak so that you can see it with your eyes. You can see that. I am not trying to sell you something. I'm presenting you with information.

David Roman [00:17:27]:
Who told you that was wrong?

Chris Gayne [00:17:31]:
In one of the classes yesterday? It's all good.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:33]:
I wouldn't.

Chris Gayne [00:17:34]:
They said keep the videos and the pictures out of the DVIs. And I said, man, that's.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:37]:
That's smoking crack, bro.

David Roman [00:17:39]:
What?

Chris Gayne [00:17:39]:
I agree.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:40]:
Somebody crack.

Chris Gayne [00:17:42]:
They.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:42]:
Hey, look. Who would have said that? There's plenty of people out here. If you go out here and you pull up this class list, I want to walk outside. If you walk outside and you see somebody on the street corner hitting a crack pipe.

David Roman [00:17:51]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:51]:
You're going to find that person next, right? I mean that's.

Chris Gayne [00:17:54]:
No, I. I agree. It's. It keeps you.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:58]:
We.

Chris Gayne [00:17:58]:
We. Sales is inherently what we do. Just keep it as honest as possible. That's what I tell you know my new custom. Like here's the deal. There's. I forget the numbers they threw out. There's mechanic shops everywhere now.

Chris Gayne [00:18:09]:
We're diesel specific so the number is greatly reduced. I think I'm the only shop within. It's got to be at least 100 miles. It strictly does diesel trucks.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:17]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:18:17]:
And not heavy duty, just light duty, medium duty. So. But still with the Internet, you have options. So anyways what I tell my guys. How do we be different? We all change brakes. We all do engines, we all do turbos. That's cool. That's expected of us.

Chris Gayne [00:18:34]:
What makes us different is. Or how do I make us different? It's a service. It's what you get. Number one. I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't need to lie to you. Because trucks break. It's easy.

Chris Gayne [00:18:43]:
They all break. I don't have to lie to you to get you in here. I don't have to lie to you and tell you, oh man, your turbo is doing this and this. We should change it out. No, it's going to blow up on its own. Like we just will be honest. We'll present you with some data. Maybe if you got a little bit of white smoke coming out of your tailpipe.

Chris Gayne [00:18:56]:
Hey, this may be a sign. It's we probably something that we need to dig into. But just so you know, this is a sign of something maybe to come. But I'm not going to try to. I don't have to. I don't have to lie to people. That's my point is just Keep it honest. And that's what I tell my customers.

Chris Gayne [00:19:09]:
If. If. If you get nothing from here, just please tell me if you feel like we were dishonest. That's what I want to know. Because everything else will work out.

Lucas Underwood [00:19:17]:
That's not who we are. That's not what we're trying to do.

Chris Gayne [00:19:19]:
Everything else will work out. If you get that right, everything else will work out. I think, you know, karma is a thing. You treat people right, they're going to treat you right. You treat your customers right, they're going to treat you right.

David Roman [00:19:29]:
Yeah, some people are just crazy, though.

Chris Gayne [00:19:31]:
Some people are absolutely crazy, 100%. And you can't. I said that earlier with Rick. I'm like, you can't. We're talking about reviews. You know, he's like, why do you feel about bad reviews? And I said, man, I need a couple once in a while. I need to see a few of them once in a while. Does two things.

Chris Gayne [00:19:44]:
Number one, it puts us in check, because there's probably some truth to it. Absolutely. So let's see what the issue is. And then the.

David Roman [00:19:51]:
The.

Chris Gayne [00:19:52]:
The real value in a bad review is, what did we do? What did we learn? How do we handle that customer? How do we handle it Public, our response. Yeah, that's what matters. That's how we can be different.

David Roman [00:20:02]:
It's.

Chris Gayne [00:20:02]:
You know, I. I would love to grow, I'd love to be rich and, you know, get all this stuff, but I don't. What I don't want to become is, you know, the. And I don't want to say names, but, you know, like, big tire chains are bad about our big, Big Chip pet boys, right? Yeah, I don't want to be that. I don't want to be a factory where it just depends who worked on your car that day. That's the kind of quality you get. Like, I don't ever want to be that. I know all my guys.

Chris Gayne [00:20:24]:
I know what you get. My customers know my guys. Like, they see them back there. That's how I kind of want to keep it, but that's how we. I think that's how we stay relevant.

David Roman [00:20:33]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:20:34]:
Well, I had that conversation with Mike just yesterday because we were talking about that growth, and he's like, well, but I mean, if you want to have a certain level of growth and you want to hit these numbers and you want to be able to be this comfortable and you want to do this and that, then you're going to have to give up on some of those things you care about and I said, I would rather just not grow.

David Roman [00:20:52]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:20:52]:
And he's like, I can't believe you would say that. That's ridiculous. How ridiculous is it that you would say, I don't want that extra money? And I'm like, because I value my morals. I value what we're doing here a whole lot more than the money. And so one of the things that we kind of talked about yesterday was, is like, I don't want to say that I grew up with money, but I grew up not necessarily needing or wanting anything more than what I had. Right. As Warren Buffett says, money had no utility to me. And I recognize that.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:20]:
But I'll tell you one thing I did learn from it, is that when I grew up like that, everyone thought that I had money. And they all treated me differently. And they all looked at me like they expected something from me, like they were trying to get something from me.

Chris Gayne [00:21:35]:
Right, right, right.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:36]:
And I thought, if that's what that world is, that's not the thing that I'm going to hold value in.

David Roman [00:21:42]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:42]:
That's not like, if I can be okay, if I can feed my family, if I can, like, I'm all right with that.

Chris Gayne [00:21:47]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:48]:
Right. Now, obviously, I want to create a better life for them. I want to make sure I leave them security. I want to be able to take some vacations and do some nice things. But money's not my motivator. Right, Right. And I see what happens to people, that money becomes their motivator.

Chris Gayne [00:22:02]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:03]:
And I don't want to be that.

Chris Gayne [00:22:04]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:04]:
Not saying it's right, wrong, or indifferent. I'm just saying that's not who I want to be. No.

Chris Gayne [00:22:07]:
But to say that we got into this and money wasn't a thought or a factor, that's. I mean, that's crazy talk. Of course, it's part of it for sure. But I agree with you. It can't be everything. Yeah. Because if you. That.

Chris Gayne [00:22:17]:
That's. Again, you know, it's like when I go back, I want to look at my KPIs and look and see. Okay, well, how are we doing here? How are we doing there? How are we doing? Well, that's. Obviously, it can be production driven, but money's the end result. That's what's going to happen. Yeah. That's all you're looking at is that net number at the bottom. I think that's where the dishonesty and things like that is going to start to come into it, and that's where you're going to have Problems.

David Roman [00:22:40]:
I can. I can say pretty confidently that I didn't consider whether I was going to be well off or not. I didn't think about that. I wanted control and ultimately I wanted time. That's it. That's it. I wanted to have.

Chris Gayne [00:22:54]:
Time is the greatest dictate.

David Roman [00:22:56]:
Yeah. I wanted to dictate how the business was ran because I just left corporate, a corporate store, that they were dictating how things were ran, and they weren't meshing with my morals, my personality, the way I wanted to do things, the way I wanted to treat my people, my customers, yada, yada, yada. They didn't agree with it. I didn't agree with them. So we left. And the other thing is, I just. I wanted. I wanted time.

David Roman [00:23:22]:
I. I didn't want to work on weekends. I didn't want to work evenings. I didn't want to have to show up somewhere because somebody called off, like, Right. I wanted my free time. And then the rest was like, that'd be nice, right?

Chris Gayne [00:23:36]:
Yeah. I mean, like I said, my past. What year is it? 25. So five years ago, I was taking guys out and doing gunnery in an Apache. Like, that's what I was doing. And, you know, all my friends are still doing it right down the street. And, you know, they come in, they bring their trucks in and like, hey, man, you. Do you hear what they're offering for the contractors out there? And I'm like, yeah, I heard about it.

Chris Gayne [00:23:58]:
And it's a lot more than I pay myself. It's a lot more. And it's an easier job. Go in for six hours, do your thing, talk to your students, go fly around, beautiful helicopter. And I won't go back. I won't do it. And it's. It's hard for them to understand, number one, money's not the driving factor.

Chris Gayne [00:24:13]:
Where that one. It's hard because the flying is. Is obviously that's a thrill, but, man, I really like what I do. And it's. It's not even so much that I like what I do that keeps me there. It's everything you just said. Yeah. No one tells me, hey, sorry, we need you.

Chris Gayne [00:24:27]:
You can't go watch your son play football.

David Roman [00:24:28]:
Exactly.

Chris Gayne [00:24:29]:
That hasn't happened in six years. Hasn't happened. I do anything I want to do, and that's it. And that's invaluable. And I could never go back. I don't think I could ever go back to working for anybody ever again. Not after that. And I mean, I am blessed in the sense that because I retired, you know, I, I'm fine.

Chris Gayne [00:24:45]:
Like my family is fine. They'll always be fine. Got all that. We're taken care of. This is what we do. Because I like this. And I'm building something now. My son works with me, you know, he's 16 years old.

Chris Gayne [00:24:56]:
He goes to school for half the day and then he comes in and works in a shop for the other half and gets for it. And I love it. Yeah, that to me is like the crowning achievement of my life for sure. I love. And so, you know, I hope my other boys do it. And I also found, you know, off topic, my longest tenured employee. That's how I got him. I got him four years ago as a, as a 16 year old kid and now he's 20 years old, still working for us.

Chris Gayne [00:25:19]:
And he's, he's one of my best guys, you know. And so I, I want that for my son and. But it all starts. I want to show my son, you know, we're still building. So there's so many things I still need to tighten up and I don't think that ever stops. I mean, I.

Lucas Underwood [00:25:31]:
Right.

Chris Gayne [00:25:31]:
I talk to Zeb every single day and he's still always, you know, kind of fine tuning things, you know, and that guy's been doing it for decades. So, you know, I hope it's something that soon I can step away a little bit and my son can kind of take over and do some of the things I need him to do. And eventually it's. It's his thing. And now you, you make it yours. You know, it's. Yeah, I've done my piece. You make it yours because it's, it was never, I don't know, I never, I never wanted to be in business.

Chris Gayne [00:25:58]:
Like, it kind of acted on accident. I love it. Now that we do it, um, you know, we're, we're a popular name in our little circle. Um, I love the community involvement stuff that we do. Like, I just love all the things we get to do because of it. The byproduct of fixing other people's trucks. I think it's pretty great.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:13]:
And that, that legacy component is going to be really cool, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's going to be a really cool component with the, the family being involved in the business and being part of what's next. Right?

David Roman [00:26:23]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:24]:
And I, you know, I look forward to that. And I was telling somebody the other day I'd made a video and it was a video of where I was talking about my wife said, hey, if something happens to you, I don't know that I'm going to continue the business. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I'm just telling you, I probably won't continue the business. Now we have it set up that if something happens to me, they're taken care of, they won't owe anything. So the business could either just sit there and keep doing what it's doing and make money, whatever, but she just doesn't want to. To mess with it. She doesn't want to manage it.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:57]:
That's not what she wants.

Chris Gayne [00:26:58]:
It's not her thing.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:59]:
Yeah. And so I was saying that, and I'd made a video about it, and I was editing the video and I look over and little dude's sitting there at the end of the bed with tears streaming down his face and he's like, but, Dad, I want the shop. And I'm like, well, you're gonna have to argue with your mom about that. But, I mean, that was a good feeling. You know, the fact that he wanted to do that, the fact he wanted to be involved and engaged was a big deal for me.

David Roman [00:27:19]:
Super adorable. My kids both say, I don't want the shot.

Chris Gayne [00:27:22]:
I was, I was just going to say my kids were the opposite. Now my son, now that he's older, he's like, oh yeah, I kind of like to learn how to do this. As soon as he started driving, all of that changed. He was like, oh, yeah. So, yeah, for sure. But it's, it's huge.

Lucas Underwood [00:27:34]:
Well, tell me this. So you said that you dropped out of high school at 15?

David Roman [00:27:39]:
Yep.

Lucas Underwood [00:27:40]:
What was the journey between dropping out of high school and getting into the military?

Chris Gayne [00:27:43]:
I went to work. I did, strangely enough, I did some construction, but then I did delivery. I had an uncle that he was. He owned, he's passed away, but he, he owned a business where he would. We grew. I grew up in Chicago, in the city, and he would go down early in the morning, like three o' clock in the morning to the meat markets, load up these meat trucks, and then distribute meat to restaurants all over the city. I worked for him, I was 15 years old, driving one of his big meat trucks around and delivering meat. That's what I did.

Chris Gayne [00:28:12]:
And I did some other odds and end stuff. And then I would. I thought about going to work. My dad is a retired carpenter, did that his whole life. And he did really well for himself. And I thought, well, I guess I'd go learn, you know, do what my dad does. And then I. I watched the way he worked and the way he felt like he.

Chris Gayne [00:28:32]:
My dad worked like he's. It just. I don't want to say it worked him to death because he's still kicking just fine, but, yeah, you know, it wore him out. It was. My dad worked hard for a long time, and I'm like, I definitely don't want to do that. So that's how I kind of always felt about that. I never thought about doing it for myself and making it my thing. Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:28:49]:
So then I went and decided, well, maybe I'll go back to school. So I went and took a placement exam in college, started. Started taking college classes. I was 17 and remembered absolutely why I stopped going before. And I was like, yep, I'm done with this. And I was sitting on the couch at my mom's house, and that commercial came on TV with the Marine fighting the lava monster with the sword on the. On the. On the walkway.

Lucas Underwood [00:29:12]:
I remember that.

Chris Gayne [00:29:13]:
And I said, oh, I could do that. And I went down to the recruiting station, and it was Marines, Air Force. You know, they were all in one area, and they actually. It's kind of like this. They had desk right next to each other. And I went to the Air Force first, and they had me take their.

Lucas Underwood [00:29:30]:
Their.

Chris Gayne [00:29:31]:
The. I forget what they call it, like, their placement, like asfab tests or something like that. And the guy was like, oh, man, you smoked it. What do you want to do? And I said, can I be a cop? And he's like, yeah, you can do that. They start doing all the paperwork. And he goes, I was by myself. And he goes, hey, because you're 17, I need you to bring me your diploma and sign permission slip from your mom. And I'm like, yeah, I don't have a diploma.

Chris Gayne [00:29:51]:
And he goes, what do you mean? You did great on the test? And I said, I don't have one. I don't. I didn't finish school. And he was like, you can't be in the Air Force, buddy. I'm like, you just said I qualified for pretty much anything I wanted to do. And he goes, yeah, but you got to have that piece of paper. Well, the Marine was sitting right there, and he's like, well, come over here, devil dog. Let's make you a Marine.

Chris Gayne [00:30:09]:
And I. And I was like, yeah. And I was like, can I pick my job? And he goes, no, it doesn't work like that in the Marine. And I'm like, so I could be anything you want me to be. I'd be a truck driver, whatever. And he's like, yeah, that does work out that way. And I'm like. And then the army guy, my recruiter, Richard White, I'll never forget his name.

Chris Gayne [00:30:26]:
He. He was a dental assistant. He was sitting there and very unassuming guy, and he's like, well, the army will let you pick a job. So I sat with them, and when I went back. Here's what's crazy. I went back with my mom this time, and they show her this video. Back then, it was the be all you can be was a slogan. They show my mom this video, and they've got these helicopter after helicopter after helicopter.

Chris Gayne [00:30:46]:
My mom goes, could it be a helicopter pilot? No, no, no. You got to. You got to be in the army for a while and do that. Well, fast forward 12 years, and now I'm a helicopter pilot. And I learned I could have done that from the start. You just. There was a process, and they didn't want to do it, so that kind of sucked. I wasted 10.

Chris Gayne [00:31:01]:
10 years. And I say waste. I just did something I didn't really want to do. Found out real fast I didn't want to be a cop. I did not enjoy that at all. But, yeah, that was it. That's how I got there. So I joined the army because I didn't know what else to do.

Chris Gayne [00:31:16]:
I knew I needed to do something. I just didn't know what to do. And in my mind, I was going to. I joined. My initial enlistment was five years, and I said, I'll do this, and then I'll. I'll figure something out in that time and I'll do something else. And I never did. I never.

Chris Gayne [00:31:31]:
I always said I'd go back to school. And the army, you know, they're great. They'll pay for anything you want to do while you're in. I never took advantage of that. Not until the last man, like, two, three years I was in. I finished up my college stuff, started taking some steps. Yeah, I was like, I should do this now that it's the end of, you know, this career. But that's what I did.

Chris Gayne [00:31:50]:
And that's. I mean, I. And I did well. I mean, enlisted. I did well. Obviously they, you know, they're selective on who they let fly those. Fly those things. And I loved it.

Chris Gayne [00:31:58]:
I really did. And I'm super thankful for everything that I did in the Army. Yeah, you know, did a lot of great things, a lot of awful stuff, and did a lot of weird stuff, but, man, the opportunities I got as, as a 15 year old dropout. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:32:11]:
Because of that is crazy.

Chris Gayne [00:32:12]:
It's not even.

David Roman [00:32:13]:
How do you think that mindset's gone?

Chris Gayne [00:32:15]:
I don't know. Cuz I sure wish I could talk to my kids and like guys, you can do anything you want to do.

David Roman [00:32:21]:
It's, it's not even that. It's like, you know how many kids are just floating around. I don't get it. I, I have no idea what I'm going to do. So I'm going to sit in the basement, play video games all day long. Hopefully I'll make it as a Twitch streamer or something like that. And like 20 years ago, 25 years ago was like, I don't know what to do, I'm gonna go to the army.

Chris Gayne [00:32:37]:
I think I got lucky and saw my parents struggle, saw my friends struggle. Like I, I, we were not well off. I'm the oldest of six and you know there's, we just didn't have anything, you know, so it was, I saw my dad work like crazy, you know, when I was little, my dad would also deliver pizzas at night. Like he did whatever he had to do and that's what I saw. My uncle that I went and worked for, you know, he up at three and he was out all night long doing sales like, and that, you know, he didn't stop. So I, luckily I had good influences as a young man of, hey, just go make it happen, go figure it out.

Lucas Underwood [00:33:12]:
Whatever you gotta do's gotta happen, go do it.

Chris Gayne [00:33:14]:
Because I like to eat. So we're gonna figure out how to make that work, you know, and that's, it's hard because now I have a, my kids have grown up completely different than I did. They're, they're, they don't have those same concerns. They don't see me struggle, they don't see that. And I'll be honest, it kind of shows a little bit with their attitudes. And my son now at 16, is kind of learning some of those hardships, you know, like he, when he started working he wanted to ask me about, oh well, you know, what do you think this truck needs and that and like how do I do this? And what can you show me how to do that? I'm like, hey, but right now I need you to make sure these floors are clean. Like that's what I need you to do. You're this guy, you're, this is your place in the world right now and be the best at it, you know.

Chris Gayne [00:33:56]:
And I explained that all to him, but it's hard. It's hard for them to see, you know, and the guy, he. He's the guy who he is replaced. I have since moved up to attack because he was absolutely phenomenal cleanup guy. I knew right away, hey, this guy's not going to be attention to detail. He's not going to be my porter very long. Like, this dude is going to be good. And I think he's going to be.

Chris Gayne [00:34:14]:
His work ethic is phenomenal.

David Roman [00:34:16]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:34:16]:
And like I said, that's how I pick those people. You know, it's. I care more about who you are and who the person you are than what you do. Because I can show you what to do or. And I don't know everything. That's why I'm here, you know, and that's the same thing. I try to force that on them. But yeah, you bring it up.

Chris Gayne [00:34:32]:
It's the attitude. It's. I don't know. I. And I don't like to sit up here and act like what I. What I did or my, like my kids. I tell them, please do not do what I do. Please do not do.

Chris Gayne [00:34:41]:
My daughter's in medical school. Like, I am super proud of my kids for not doing the things that I did is I shouldn't be here. I don't deserve. I guys that do make the decisions I did as a teenager don't do the things I'm doing now. That's just not normal. And so I am grateful. But I wish I could figure out how to give other people that motivation. You know, my text.

Chris Gayne [00:35:04]:
I wish I could get in their heads and make them like I want them. Yeah. I tell them I am not selfish. I love you guys. I want you to work here forever. You're doing. I want you to work here and do great, but I don't want you to be here forever. I want you to go chase your own dreams.

Chris Gayne [00:35:20]:
I want you to work and help me facilitate you doing the things that you want to do. I'll find other people. Like, well, I'll make that work. Don't let that be a reason that you don't do something better for yourself. For yourself.

Lucas Underwood [00:35:31]:
For sure.

Chris Gayne [00:35:31]:
You know that kid I was talking about that I got when he was 16, he's in college right now to get his amp, airframe, power plant, a helicopter or a aviation mechanic. That's what he's trying to do. Well, I'm go. Go do what you got to do. I'm going to help. We still. We help pay grow.

Lucas Underwood [00:35:46]:
Yeah, whatever.

Chris Gayne [00:35:47]:
Be a better person. Go do the things you want to do.

David Roman [00:35:50]:
I take a completely different approach. I, like, I want my people to stay forever with me, but I want the shop to facilitate those other aspects of their life. You know what I'm saying?

Chris Gayne [00:36:00]:
Sure.

David Roman [00:36:00]:
So, like, I, I want all of my staff to be eventually independently wealthy. I want you all well off, good retirement, get some property, own your own house, couple of rental units, whatever. Have a side hustle, get a side business going that you're passionate about, that you can do by yourself on the weekends, that kind of thing.

Chris Gayne [00:36:22]:
Right.

David Roman [00:36:23]:
But let the shop facilitate that in some form or fashion.

Chris Gayne [00:36:26]:
Sure.

David Roman [00:36:26]:
I'm happy to send you to training. I'm happy to facilitate whatever it is, give you time off and any way that I can, maybe financial classes or whatever, but it doesn't have to always be like, oh, I'm going to go open my own business working on diesels.

Chris Gayne [00:36:46]:
Right.

David Roman [00:36:46]:
It's like, okay, this skill set requires a lot of time, energy and mental capacity or mental investment to get really good at it. Like, it's not something that you're going to be able to just pick up. It's not flipping burgers. You see what I'm saying? Like, you're not going to pick it up over the weekend and then you can do it for three or five years and then you go move on to something better.

Chris Gayne [00:37:08]:
Right.

David Roman [00:37:09]:
If you're going to get really good at this, it is now a lot of time that you're going to put into it. It's a commitment, it's a huge commitment. And then it's continuous because what, you know now in five years is going to be obsolete and you're going to have to relearn everything every single year.

Lucas Underwood [00:37:24]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:37:25]:
In perpetuity for forever. So because of that dynamic, I can't lose that. And you're sort of giving up 10 years, let's say, of your life and all of that intellect that you've accumulated or intelligence that you've. And skill that you've accumulated over the last 10 years, you're gonna move on to, I'm gonna go open a restaurant. It's like, okay, well, the hell are you doing all this for? Like, you should have been working in a restaurant now. So I don't necessarily ask them to, like, oh, go move on to something else, but let the shop facilitate it. There's no reason why I can't. Let's find a way to make this work within the business where you can work your way into the extra money, the extra opportunity, the extra time, whatever it happens.

David Roman [00:38:14]:
To be. I'm happy to help you set up an llc. I can do that in five minutes. I've done several of them. It's not that hard. But you don't have any idea how to do that. So let's sit down and talk about it. What's the plan look like? What's the marketing plan look like? These are all skills that I have that I can share with you, and you can then pursue other ventures that sort of fulfill you that isn't necessarily just working on cars, but while you're here, you're really good at this.

David Roman [00:38:42]:
Why don't just keep doing what you're doing?

Chris Gayne [00:38:44]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:38:44]:
Does that make sense?

Chris Gayne [00:38:45]:
Absolutely. And, you know, it's something I see a lot. I saw it a lot in the military was you have leaders and you have, you know, you've got people, and if they do well, they try to minimize progression because they don't want them to leave. And then they have to go redo this with somebody else, because now I got to start over again. And one of my. I think it's probably my favorite quote is that the CFO asked the CEO, you know, what do we do? We train these guys all this time and money, and then they leave. And then the CEO goes, well, what if we don't? And they stay? You know.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:15]:
Exactly.

Chris Gayne [00:39:15]:
Got to take the time. To me, it's a badge of honor. If. If they. If. If their growth means they had to leave, it's okay. We. I, maybe.

Chris Gayne [00:39:25]:
Maybe pride is. Is my problem where I'm like, I can do this with somebody else, or maybe somebody else that's in the shop can now pick up some of that. You know, that's the other thing I try to do with my. My guys. I tell them, hey, you know, I used to do everything. You guys do everything by myself. You're all here to do two things. Number one, make my life easier.

Chris Gayne [00:39:43]:
Right. Do some of this stuff, but also provide me the time to help us grow and to do the things that I have to do. Because you guys are better at some of those things now than I ever was. But there's things I bring to this shop that you can't do. Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:58]:
Do you think some of the military background, though, calls that. Because there is a continual progression plan. Right? Like, there's always another step you can take. There's always something that you can do to go to another goal to chase. Yeah, exactly. Do you think that that plays into your mindset with that?

Chris Gayne [00:40:18]:
For me, it does. But I also knew a lot of people that, yeah, they kind of stop at some point.

David Roman [00:40:24]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:40:24]:
And I don't, I don't like you kind of asked about where that mentality go. That's my moment. Everyone asked me, like, what. What am I after? And I really don't have a good answer. I don't know what my answer is. I know it's time. I know I want time. I know my, you know, my daughter is getting older.

Chris Gayne [00:40:38]:
My son is going to be an adult soon. I want. When it's time to be grandpa, I want to have time to do that. Yeah. That's what I want. So, you know, but here's another thing I don't like hearing is, oh, money doesn't buy happiness. Yeah, it fair. However, money does allow you the freedom to kind of do the things you want to do.

Lucas Underwood [00:40:56]:
Allows you the freedom to be happy.

Chris Gayne [00:40:57]:
It's part of it. So it's not all of it, but it's part of it. So, you know, what is my goal? I'm not sure. But yes, I'm goal oriented. I've always been goal oriented. I don't. I, I don't know. I.

Chris Gayne [00:41:08]:
And. And I'm starting to realize that. I don't know, man. I used to be pretty good at motivating people to have goals, and I feel like everybody has a goal. Like, you know, I spent five months or five months this year, actually, I was in la, long story. I went out there to help with wildfires and ended up staying. Help my, My buddy run his. He's a luxury home builder out there.

Chris Gayne [00:41:29]:
And I mean, I was running job sites and. And managing the people in Hollywood on the sides of mountains were building these ginormous homes and it was awesome. I loved every bit of it. While my guys were running the shop, which was pretty great. But what I learned is, man, I kind of went on a tangent and forgot the point of what I was going to say. But we're talking about your goals.

David Roman [00:41:48]:
You're not sure what your goal is.

Chris Gayne [00:41:50]:
Oh, well, in doing that, my goals kind of changed. My goals kind of changed for the shop where I. Now I know that. I think I'm pretty confident there. I need to. Part of the growth is developing the exit strategy for me. Yeah, for me. Because I don't want to be tied to it forever.

Chris Gayne [00:42:09]:
My passion has changed a little bit. Where it's definitely not where it used to be, but now my passion is kind of to see it in somebody else's hands and doing their doing, put it. Making it theirs and, you know, make it yours. I Don't. I'm not attached to it to a point where I need to have it all the time, you know, And I say that I. I don't. I don't know how much of that is true. Like, I think I want it to be true, but I do know that I love my.

Chris Gayne [00:42:33]:
My shop. That's mine. Like, I built that thing from the ground. It's. It's. I don't know. I struggle with it, but the goals, you know, it's. I don't know.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:42]:
I'm right there with you. Right. Like, and so that really resonates with me because when I started this. Oh, I'm always going to be the dude turning the wrenches. And then I realized I wasn't that good at turning wrenches, so I had to like, okay, I'll be the service advisor. I'm really good as the service advisor, except for the part where I give away all my money. Right. Like, I'm really good at that, too.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:02]:
Probably better at that than being a service advisor. And then, you know, you turn around, and shortly after that, it's. It's that here we are. And. And I'm going to be the shop manager. Well, now, like, dude, managing 10 bays and 15 people, dude, that's heavy. Right? Like, it's a lot.

Chris Gayne [00:43:20]:
It is.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:21]:
And so we got to diversify that a little bit. And so here I am. You know, I look back now, and I'm like, I don't know what the goal is. I don't know what the desired outcome is. I mean, I do. Right. And like, you, I want to have that freedom and I want to grow it to where it's sustainable and it's making good money. But it's also something that people are rewarded and they feel good about working there.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:41]:
It's a good environment. We're doing what's right for people.

Chris Gayne [00:43:44]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:44]:
But, like, I can see that my goal has shifted. Sure. I'm. I'm not where I started.

Chris Gayne [00:43:50]:
I think it's a. It's a. There's a moving scale. Like you said, something that got my. My brain going is, you know, my. My guys. So, yes, I want them to grow and I want them to do things, but at the same time, I want to provide a place for them. I tell them, if you ever feel like you dread coming in here, yeah, get in my office and we got to have a talk.

Chris Gayne [00:44:10]:
I don't want that for anybody. I don't. I. If we lose revenue because you need to go do something else because you're not Happy here. That's fine. I'm good with that. Yeah, I'm good with that. But I, I, I don't want, I want, I want to make a place where people want to be here, where they enjoy being here, where this is a good place for their family, you know, and that's, that's a hard part.

Chris Gayne [00:44:30]:
And you talk about managing, you know, leadership is not something that you, you can teach people how to do. Either you can be in charge of people and we can develop it.

Lucas Underwood [00:44:40]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:44:40]:
Or you can't if you don't have that skill set and that, luckily I learned that early on that leadership is not taught, it's developed. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:44:49]:
100.

Chris Gayne [00:44:50]:
So, you know, and it's, it's just like the shop. It's all constantly evolving. It never stops. And that's, I think that's part of the issue, too. Like, I think my wife sees this where she knows this is, as long as I am attached to this, it will never stop. It will never stop. And I just have to make sure that I, I remove the negative connotation with that. That's all.

Chris Gayne [00:45:09]:
It's just, you know, get the time back, get to get the freedom back, get all that back. So. Right. It's a learning process.

Lucas Underwood [00:45:15]:
It can be all consuming.

Chris Gayne [00:45:16]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:45:17]:
When you care about it that much, it can be consuming, and you end up taking it home and you say, well, I'm not going to. And, you know, there was a long time that my wife and I, we had made a rule. Hey, we're not going to talk about work stuff. Especially when she worked in the shop. We're not going to talk about work stuff. And now she says, we might as well just go ahead and talk about work stuff because it's all you're thinking about.

Chris Gayne [00:45:37]:
How did that work out with her working with you?

Lucas Underwood [00:45:39]:
You know, initially, it worked out really well. We had two little ones, and it was just like, hey, I have too much.

David Roman [00:45:46]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:45:46]:
We decided to homeschool the two little ones. There was a, there was a time.

David Roman [00:45:50]:
Where.

Lucas Underwood [00:45:52]:
She, our daughter, was in public school, and long story short, there was a spelling bee. During the spelling bee, she got kicked out of the spelling bee, made it to third place, got kicked out because she did something they said not to do. She stepped back, spelled, tried to correct herself in spelling a word, got disqualified. My wife goes outside, she's got her. She's holding her. And the guidance counselor comes up as my wife, saying, hey, failure's part of life. It's okay. You're good.

Lucas Underwood [00:46:19]:
I understand. You're sad right now, but that's okay. You learned from this. It's all right. And the guidance counselor grabs her, turns around and says, I'm so sorry we kicked you out of the competition. That wasn't right. We're gonna see about getting you back in the. My wife turns her back.

Lucas Underwood [00:46:32]:
She's a different color when she turns her back to her, you know? And after that, they started pulling my daughter into the guidance counselor's office to ask how her home life was. And that happened four times. My wife called me one night, and she said, hey, we need to pull our daughter out of school. And I said, why? She said, I'm worried somebody's going to get hurt. And I said, if somebody's picking on my daughter, it's not going to be pretty. And she said, no, it's the guidance counselor who's going to get hurt. And I said, okay, gotcha. So she.

Lucas Underwood [00:47:00]:
She started homeschooling him. She's been homeschooling them ever since. She did bookkeeping for a little bit, and now we're phasing that out to where she's watching the numbers, and she knows, what are the checks coming in? What are the checks going out? Kind of like the second set of eyes. But we had a really good. We had a really good time. And. And that was in the early phases of me working on the business. Right, right.

Lucas Underwood [00:47:23]:
And she saw me become more passionate. She really became more passionate as a mother. She became more passionate in raising the kids and getting them the education that they needed.

Chris Gayne [00:47:32]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:47:32]:
And so our path kind of divided a little bit at that point in time, but it's been really good. Yeah, phenomenal.

Chris Gayne [00:47:38]:
We. My wife is asked to be in the shop, and I. I'm pretty firm. I didn't want her in the shop for two reasons. Number one, you know, it's. I like having separation. I like going to work and being able to come home and having that separation, you know, But. But like you said, my wife's a great mom, you know, and.

Chris Gayne [00:48:01]:
Yeah, I. I wear it as a badge of honor that she has the privilege and the ability to not have to worry about work, to be able to do all that mom stuff and go do whatever she wants to do. She. She gets to do the things that I want to do. Like, you're. It's not that I want to do what she does. She's free. She's free to do what she wants to do.

Chris Gayne [00:48:18]:
She has what I want, and I'm glad she has that. And so I don't want her to be tied to the shop because I know that kind of goes away for her, and I don't want that for her.

Lucas Underwood [00:48:28]:
Are you sure that's what she wants, though?

Chris Gayne [00:48:30]:
What's that?

Lucas Underwood [00:48:31]:
Are you sure she wants what? Like, so I'm really bad for that. Right. And I'll have this thing that I want, and I'll just assume that's what she wants. You know what I'm saying?

Chris Gayne [00:48:41]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:48:42]:
So, like, I assume the things that will make me happy will make her happy. And now I realize, I look back and I'm like, we need to communicate more.

Chris Gayne [00:48:51]:
Yeah, well, because don't we all? Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:48:53]:
I'm not. I'm not so solid on, like, understanding that my vision, the thing that I want is, you know, like I said, she doesn't want to keep the shop.

Chris Gayne [00:49:01]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:49:02]:
And there was a long time that we were very much at odds with that.

Chris Gayne [00:49:05]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:49:06]:
And the point came where it was like, hey, if I'm not here, it's not my decision anymore.

Chris Gayne [00:49:12]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:49:12]:
Right. Like, it's not. I can't be mad at her for making that decision.

David Roman [00:49:16]:
Always haun her.

Lucas Underwood [00:49:17]:
What?

David Roman [00:49:18]:
You can always haunt her.

Lucas Underwood [00:49:20]:
What?

Chris Gayne [00:49:20]:
You could always haunt her.

Lucas Underwood [00:49:21]:
Oh, that's a good idea. It's loud in here. I can't hear anything. It is loud. Yeah, but.

Chris Gayne [00:49:27]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:49:28]:
Well, in closing, what's one thing you'd want another diesel shop owner to hear?

Chris Gayne [00:49:34]:
Seek help and seek. Seek help and seek self improvement. That's the. The best thing. There should not be a struggle. And they're in 20, 25. All of the resources are out there. Even if you never leave your.

Chris Gayne [00:49:46]:
Your bedroom and you just watch podcasts and videos of guys trying to tell you the things that they learned the hard way. Do it and have the discipline and the humility to listen. Yeah, that's it.

Lucas Underwood [00:50:00]:
100%.

Chris Gayne [00:50:00]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:50:01]:
100.

David Roman [00:50:01]:
Charge for Diag.

Chris Gayne [00:50:02]:
Charge, charge for Diag. 100. Yeah, I learned charge more for diagnosis.

Lucas Underwood [00:50:06]:
Right.

David Roman [00:50:06]:
How are your parts margins? Seems to be a diesel shop thing. Like, they give away all the parts?

Chris Gayne [00:50:12]:
Hell, no. I'm at 65.

David Roman [00:50:14]:
65. Good for you. That's impressive.

Chris Gayne [00:50:16]:
We did it. Used to be.

Lucas Underwood [00:50:18]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:50:18]:
Did not used to be.

David Roman [00:50:19]:
Yeah. Now, do you started out giving away all your parts?

Chris Gayne [00:50:21]:
Yeah. I didn't know.

Lucas Underwood [00:50:22]:
Oh, my God. I can run that online for.

Chris Gayne [00:50:25]:
I can remember, like, just selling them for what they are. And I'm like, yeah.

David Roman [00:50:28]:
Are you familiar with Eric Merchant?

Chris Gayne [00:50:29]:
Oh, my. Eric's a great friend of mine. Yeah.

David Roman [00:50:31]:
Yeah. I think the first time we had him on the podcast. How many years ago was that?

Lucas Underwood [00:50:35]:
Oh, I. I don't know. It happened.

David Roman [00:50:37]:
He's making a bajillion dollars selling parts online.

Chris Gayne [00:50:39]:
I buy a lot of them.

David Roman [00:50:40]:
Like.

Chris Gayne [00:50:41]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:50:41]:
So he's killing it on that side, and he's not making a dime on the repair side.

Chris Gayne [00:50:46]:
No. I was talking to Kevin, his. His guy, and we were talking about that in the class. We were in Bill Haas's class yesterday.

David Roman [00:50:51]:
Yeah.

Chris Gayne [00:50:51]:
He's like, yeah, I've got to bridge this gap between the part side, you know, what we sell to people like you and then what we do in the own shop, because it ain't the same. And I'm like, yeah, that's not good.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:01]:
So, you know, you'll have to pick on him about this. I get a Facebook message one day, and it says, I owe you an apology. I'm so sorry. I need your help. And I'm like, what's this dude talking about? I realize it's Eric, friend. I'm looking. And in 2008, I had sent him a message, and he had never seen it, and he had never responded. So he opens his Facebook to send me a message one day to ask about the shop, and he's like, oh, yeah, that sucks.

Chris Gayne [00:51:30]:
Yeah. Well, man, thanks, guys. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you for being here. Conversation. Hopefully do it again sometime.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:36]:
I would love that.

Chris Gayne [00:51:36]:
All right.