#198 - What This Show Has Really Given Me

[00:00:25] I wanna know you in the afterlife, I wanna know you in the past, I wanna see if I can be the one to make this last And I, I wanna see you in the stars, I wanna see you in the ocean blue, I wanna dig a little deeper than we ever knew And you, you don't go changing a thing, don't go changing an atom about you, I love every piece that you bring

[00:00:56] You, don't go changing your mind, don't give up on me baby, I promise I won't be a waste of your time Could take a vacation, we could go to Mexico, buy a casita Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of The Sprinkler Nerd Show. I had a plan for today, but something else has been on my mind.

[00:01:23] Earlier in the week, while I was cutting the grass, I listened to a friend's podcast and this particular episode he had hit me in a way I wasn't expecting He was talking about the difference between the episode that you hear and the life that is happening behind the microphone And that concept stuck with me As I was cutting the grass, I thought I, I should record something similar

[00:01:53] Not the same, just the concept of What you hear And what happens behind the microphone It stuck with me Because I think every podcast has two versions That version that you hear Which oftentimes is the same Canned intro Or a new guest A new topic A new lesson Some industry story

[00:02:18] And the edited version that shows up in your ears While you're driving, working, designing, troubleshooting Pulling apart that valve manifold Sitting in the truck waiting for your next job And then there's the other version of the podcast The version that's happening behind the scenes The version that you don't get to see

[00:02:45] The version where life is sometimes complicated Business can be uncertain Relationships are changing Sometimes the future feels unclear And for me, some days I just hit record While I'm still trying to figure it all out And maybe that's the part I've been thinking about the most I don't want this show to be the place

[00:03:13] Where I pretend to know everything I want it to be the place Where we stay curious together And maybe that's what this show Has actually been all along As it feeds my own curiosity And I do it because it entertains me And it sparks my imagination And it's a place That I can learn in public A place for me to think out loud

[00:03:43] A place to follow a question And see where it goes A place to talk with people In this industry Doing real work Solving real problems Coming up with their own solutions And learning as they go And lately, I've been thinking a lot about What this show has meant to me What it has given me What it has helped me process Particularly the last six months What it has allowed me to process

[00:04:13] And honestly, what this show has been Has carried me through There have been seasons Where I had a pretty clear plan On what I wanted to do With the show And with myself And with my career And there have been seasons Where I absolutely did not There have been times When I felt confident About where things were going And there have been times Where I was questioning Almost everything

[00:04:41] Questioning my business Questioning sometimes My own identity Questioning my purpose What am I building? Is it working? Is it not working? What do people want? What problems can I help them solve? Sometimes I feel like Maybe I'm supposed to let go of something Or sometimes I'm supposed to keep Doing something What is the next version of my work? What is my voice? And this community

[00:05:12] Of you all out there In podcast land Listening Is amazing And through all of that I've just Not all the time I took a break But I'm trying to keep Hitting record Some of the episodes Have been and will be Technical Nerdy Down in the weeds I can't wait to produce More of that Some Episodes are interviews And I can't wait to talk To more people And if you know someone

[00:05:41] That you would like to recommend To the show Send me a text message My phone is always open I love hearing from you guys 208-908-3229 Please Send me a text message Say hey What's up? And I think That's one of the strange gifts Of doing this Podcast Is that I think I'm creating something For other people And then

[00:06:10] Oftentimes I realize That the process Has actually been In some ways Shaping me As well And this show Has helped me Stay connected It has helped me To keep learning It has helped me To keep Showing up And it has Reminded me Over And over again That this industry Is full Of people Who are curious People who are generous People who are smart People who are Often Opinionated

[00:06:40] And I love I love That you have An opinion And I also challenge you To Rethink Unlearned What your opinions are And stay curious About them And That has meant More to me Than I probably Could even Share Out loud Every time I hear from you Every text Every comment Every Every download And I've tried Very hard Not to focus On the metrics

[00:07:09] This podcast Is very niche So there I've tried to Essentially Not have any Expectations About Volume And quantity Of listeners Instead I try to focus On the Quality Of Listeners So just As an example What that Might mean And Let's say You're Let's say You're Close rate On jobs Let's say You want 100 projects This year

[00:07:39] You want 100 customers You want 100 new Installs I'm just Making this Up Because It's An easy Number Would you Rather Put out 1000 Estimates And get 100 Projects Or would You rather Put out 100 Estimates And get 100 Projects It's not About volume Of estimates It's about The quality Of customers You give Your estimates To And how Close Of a match Are they To you And your Business And so That's how I think

[00:08:09] About this Podcast As well It's not About having A million Downloads And a fan Base of A million It's actually About quality And I'm Seeing And I'm And I'm And who Send me Messages And reach Out And share So thank You for That This podcast Has also been A place For me To stay Closer To the Field Closer To the Trenches Because I'm Not in The trenches So it's Helpful for

[00:08:38] Me to Visit and Learn and Share with You guys Who are In the Trenches It's been A place For me To learn How to Ask better Questions A place To remember That irrigation Is not Just pipe And controllers And valves And wire And splices Really It's the People You guys Listening People trying To build Better businesses People trying To solve Problems People trying To use Technology

[00:09:08] Without getting Crushed by it Lost in it Confused By it Buried in It People trying To learn Something New And not Feel Stupid Or inferior For not Already Knowing Something I love When I hear From new Contractors That have Just gotten In a Business That send Me a Text message And they Want to Learn Something New I love That So thank You And I guess That's Where I Oftentimes Just throughout the day Keep Sometimes

[00:09:38] Coming back To You don't Need to Have it All figured out To keep Moving You don't Need the Perfect plan You don't Need the Perfect business Model You don't Need All the Answers Sometimes you Just need To stay Curious Enough To take The next Step To keep Following Your intuition To keep Following Your nose And It sounds Simple We hear It all The time Just stay Curious But it's Not It's not Always that Simple

[00:10:06] Because sometimes Deep down We want Certainty We all Want That Like that That That clean Version We all Want to Wait until The thing Makes sense Before We talk About it It's tough To talk about The things That don't Work The mistakes That you Made I know I would Much rather Say hey Guys Here's all The amazing Things I've Done It works Great You should Guys all Do x

[00:10:36] Y and z But that's Not being Real That's not Truthful Instead I'm I would Encourage you To focus on The framework That you have And maybe Curiosity As The framework Because most Of life Isn't Perfect We're all Just kind Of in The muck Figuring Things out Business Doesn't Work that Way

[00:11:07] Things Come and Go Business Can be Great for A day A week A month Or a year But business Has seasons Business Changes So Start With what You know Then learn A little More And then Sometimes I realize I was wrong About something Because I just Had a new Piece of Information That came Across my Desk That I Didn't Know Before So what I thought I knew I've just

[00:11:37] Changed my Mind And then You just Adjust And then You keep Going And that Has Really been Much of the Story Of this Podcast And it's Probably been In a Similar way The story Of my Own Career Just Starting Out of College And landscape Architecture Getting Inspired By Paul Bassett Leading in To going Deep Into the Irrigation Industry To working Through distribution To working

[00:12:07] For manufacturers To teaching Myself e-commerce Back in 2004 And Pitching My eco Mower On Shark Tank Building Sprinkless Supply Store Building Amazon Private Label Brands Going Deep Into Technical Irrigation Controllers Building Wireless Sensors Becoming An expert In LoRaWAN IoT In Podcasting I Don't Know What's Coming Next But I'm Here For it I am Open For whatever

[00:12:37] Is coming Next But none Of those Things I Just mentioned Is a Straight Line It's More like A squiggly Mess Yes They build On each Other And one One thing That you Do And one Thing That you Learn Kind of Can Motivate You As it's Motivated Me But a lot Of it Has just Been learning Adjusting Trying new Things Changing My Mind And Wondering What What What in The world Am I Doing And maybe That's Okay

[00:13:06] Maybe That is The work I've been Thinking about This In the Context of Our whole Landscape And irrigation Industry To Because Our Industry Is Changing It Has Been Changing For A long Time But it's Been Changing So Slow I don't Know the Percentage But I Would Have to Imagine It's Still Less Than 50% Or It's Still More Than 50% Of The Control Systems Come On Because It's A Schedule And It's Alarm Clock And

[00:13:36] Most Of The Products We Buy Today Are Simply Glorified Glorified Alarm Clocks 20 What 25 Years After I Got Into This Business Some Things Had Changed But I Think We're On The Edge Of That Of That Change Of The Change Going Much Faster We're On The Edge Of Much More Rapid Change There Are New Tools New Sensors New Controllers New Ways To Collect Data

[00:14:06] New Ways For You To Communicate With Your Customers New Ways To Estimate Landscape Water Demand Water Use New Ways To Build Software There's All These New Ways To Do Things And When I Think About All Those New Ways Maybe It Hasn't Changed Because In The Past Because The People Haven't Changed But You Guys Listening Because You're Listening To This Podcast You Are Different You're Going To Be This Change The Products Don't Always The Products Come

[00:14:36] After Let Me Put It That Way It's Not The Products That Have Changed The People Have To Change First In Order To Create And Build The Products That Are Going To Change The Industry So Maybe It Actually Starts With You And Maybe You Guys Are Different Than The Contractors Of 30 Years Ago Maybe The Contractors Of 30 Years Ago Were More Like People Who Acted Like They Knew Everything All The Time And Sometimes Those

[00:15:06] People Make Me Nervous The People That You Are The Ones Going Out Of Your Way To Listening To A Very Niche Podcast About Irrigation You Guys Are The Ones That I Can Trust Because I Know You Might Say Something Like I Don't Know How To Do That Yet But I I'm Gonna Learn I Don't Know How That Works But I Think I Can Figure It Out That That's The Kind Of Person That I Want

[00:15:44] To Make Other People Feel Like They Are Left Behind I Don't Want This To Be A Place Where Contractors Feel Like They Have To Know Everything Before They Can Try Something New The Whole Concept Of

[00:16:14] A Basic Question Like I Don't Understand This Yet I Want This To Be A Safe Place For Everyone To Say I Don't Understand This Yet Where We Can Try The Thing Break The Thing Fix The Thing Talk About What Worked Talk About What Didn't Work Be Curious About Why Something Worked Why Something Didn't Work And Then Just Keep Going

[00:16:44] That To Me Is What Learning In Public Is All About And Why That Means So Much To Me It Does Not Mean Having The Answer Every Time It Means Being Willing To Stay In The Conversation Long Enough To Learn Something To Not Give Up To Be A Little Bit More Persistent And If It

[00:17:14] Kept Me In The Conversation Even During The Seasons Where I Felt Tired Where I Wasn't Sure If I Wanted To Keep Going Even During The Seasons Where I Was Questioning Why Am I Building This What Am I Doing The Show Gave Me A Reason To Keep Listening You Guys Gave Me A Reason To Keep Recording To Keep Asking To Keep Reaching Out To Keep Paying Attention And Maybe That's Why I Wanted To Share This Today Maybe It's That The Thing I'm Creating

[00:17:45] Has Become The Thing That Is Actually In Some Ways Holding It Show Up Consistently Has Been Helpful For Me Like Having A Rhythm Having A Pattern Having People On The Other End Send Me A Message So I Can Learn About Their Business And Be Curious What It's Like Up In Idaho

[00:18:14] And Down In Texas And Over In Can Feel Small Like Some Small Corner Of The World And I Know Irrigation Podcasts Are Not Exactly The Media That Most People Want To Listen To And I'm Okay With That And That's Why I Have This Show Because It Is

[00:18:44] Niche And What We're All Doing Together Is Seen By Everyone Most It's Sprinkler System Is And Some High Percentage See It Every Day So The Things That We Do Actually Affect Everyone Every Day So As Niche As We Are We Touch A Much Much Bigger Market

[00:19:13] So I'm Grateful That You're You've Helped Me Stay Curious You've Helped Me Remember That Ideas Are Worth Sharing Before They Are Perfect You've Helped Me Believe That This Little Show Has A Purpose Even When I'm Not Exactly Sure

[00:19:43] What That Purpose Is Becoming And Maybe That's Maybe That's Enough For Today Maybe The Whole Episode Is Just Thank You Thank You For Listening Thank You For Letting The You To Share My Thoughts With You Today Thank You For Letting One Week It Be Technical One Week It Be Philosophical One Week It Be An Interview With Someone Thank You For Letting It Be A Mix Of All Of That And For

[00:20:13] All Me To Just Evolve This Show Out Loud Learning In Public Thank You For Being Part Of This Little Corner Of The Irrigation Industry Where We Can Be Curious We Can Try New Things You Can Share Your Feedback We Can Challenge Each Other And What We Think We Know And Hopefully Become A Little Better Each Day Along The Way So I Don't Know Exactly What The Next Version Of The Show Is Going To Look Like I Don't Know Exactly What The Next Podcast Episode Is Going To Look Like But I Do

[00:20:43] Know This I'm Still Curious I'm Still Learning I'm Still Here And I'm Still Going To Hit Record Because I Don't Want This Show To Be A Place Where I pretend To Know Everything I Want It I Hope You Have A Fantastic Weekend And As Always Stay Curious And I'll Catch You On The Next Episode

[00:21:34] I Love You So That's The One Thing