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Welcome to the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.
We're going to explore ways to sharpen our diagnostic skills, find learning resources and hear from experts in the automotive field.
Hey, what's going on Automotive World?
Welcome to another episode of the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.
My name is Sean Tipping and I will be your host once again for this week's episode.
Thank you for joining me This week on the show.
I'm going to keep it rather brief.
I'm recording this prior to the 4th of July weekend 2023.
This will be released on Sunday or Monday, but I'm recording it prior to the weekend which I'm going to be taking a little bit of time off from work.
That is the topic that I wanted to cover here Again.
Briefly, i won't spend too much of your time because this is a non-technical episode.
I do like to mix it up and cover a lot of different areas in the automotive world, and this is definitely one.
A lot of stuff has actually happened in the last few weeks that's really got me thinking about this subject.
I'll share some of that with you.
What the main idea here is that I'm sure this is common across many, many industries, but I see it a lot in ours, and I live it myself is where we can easily work too much, i think, especially in the last few years, with shortage of help and absolutely no shortage of broken cars, and the amount of repairs
that seem to be approved, or just the value that people put into used vehicles compared to purchasing a brand new one, is the prices, or even a used one have gone through the roof.
Anyways, what I'm getting at there is there has been a lot to do.
It's just a never-ending avalanche of broken cars.
It seems.
Someday I get that.
That is definitely not the worst problem to have.
It's far better than the alternative.
Not enough to go around and everybody scrounging around for scraps and fighting against each other.
In today's climate.
There is more than enough for everybody that's out there.
But, that being said, it is or at least it seems to be very easy to work too much, to overwork yourself.
Again, there's been a number of factors in the last few weeks that have come to my attention and why I want to talk about this.
I know personally that I've been guilty of this for a very long time.
I think it's just in my personality and I just happen to do something for work that I really do enjoy.
Well, the problem is I do let it dominate everything.
I let it fill all of the potential space that's available to my free time.
Quote unquote.
I find something else to fill it, and it's usually related to cars.
Hey, here I am at 8.30
at night on a Thursday recording a podcast about my job.
I obviously let that happen too often and it definitely has affected some of my relationships in my personal life.
Now, i met a lot of really awesome friends through this career and I'm very thankful for that, but if you let work dominate everything, you're going to pay a price in your personal life or your family life.
That's the topic that I wanted to broach here.
One of the other discussions that brought this topic to mind recently was in a Facebook group, where the discussion was talked about technicians spending personal time time that they're not necessarily on the clock, getting paid for to improve their skills.
There's obviously differing opinions on this and it really is its own separate conversation, and I truly understand that.
It takes additional effort in this field, and probably most, but I know in this field it takes additional effort outside of your normal work hours that you have to dedicate yourself to improving.
You can't just grow your skill set while you're working.
I mean you can definitely gain experience, but the training, the research, the experimentation, all that stuff generally is going to happen in an unpaid environment where you're sacrificing your personal time, and it is necessary if you want to get to the top level, you want to be a top level professional in this field.
You're gonna have to do that to some degree.
If you're not doing any of it, you're really not going to move the needle much, and so wherever you're at, you're most likely going to stay at that place.
So most people want to improve, they want to grow, and so they're gonna put in time.
But how much and that's where the topic of that conversation was was okay, you know, should technicians specifically be putting in a bunch of their own personal time?
should that be expected of them?
And if they're not, are they, you know, being lazy or whatever?
and again, as that's not the exact conversation I want to get into, but just the idea of spending your personal time time, you know, when you're not on the clock, maybe you're not at work, but you're still dedicating it to work.
Or I mean, you could just be staying at work to write.
Maybe you're not on the clock, maybe you're not busting out flat rate hours, but you spent two, three additional hours there researching a car, learning how something works, a scope or scan tool, or whatever it might be.
You're spending additional time at work Or, heck, you might even just be working to make money still, but you're taking away from your personal time right and again that all adds up and you, basically, you have to make a trade off.
Right, if you want to improve, you want to get better, you've got to trade, you know, personal time for this time, to improve with your career.
So there is a definite balancing act there, because of course we want to.
But there's a point where it's definitely too much that you let it dominate your life and, like I said, hey, that's me, i'm Sean, i allow that to happen a lot.
Why I'm talking about this to?
and don't mistake this, for I have all the answers.
I should probably have started with that.
This is just me reaching out to everyone, explaining you know kind of where I'm at in my thoughts, and I love to hear everybody else's thoughts on this and even advice to.
But The biggest thing that happened this week is my employee.
His mother passed away this week and it was rather unexpected, like they didn't see this coming.
She was actually out of town visiting someone and it just went all south very quickly and you know, obviously it's terrible, awful thing To lose a parent, especially in an unexpected manner like that.
I mean any situation, and my condolences go out to Steven, his whole family.
You know it's a really tough time for them.
But again, this happening really drew my mind in towards this topic of Working so much, in sacrificing personal time and time you could be with friends, family, things like that.
You know how do you balance that out?
that makes sense and I'm sure that the answer is going to be different for everybody, but For a lot of us it's easy to get wrapped up with I gotta get this done, i have to fix this car, i gotta make this money right, all of these things.
That pulls us away from everything else.
That is easier to.
Oh, okay, i'll go hang out with my friends the next time, or I'll go on that date with my wife a couple weeks from now.
It's just this week, it's just too busy, right.
And the thing of it is, you never know.
I heard this one time and it has really stuck with me.
I don't know it was implemented, but it really stuck with me is that you never know when the last time you do something will be, and it doesn't have to be something dramatic or major, i mean it can be.
Steve probably didn't know the last time that he was gonna talk to his mom, but it happened, right.
And things like that happen all the time, and sometimes it is little stuff.
Most of the time we don't even realize it, though, right, you don't know when the last time will be that you pick up your kid.
You don't know the last time that you'll play a sport, right, it's gonna happen for just about everything in our life.
There will be a last time that you do something specific, but you don't know most of the time.
You don't know when that exact time is right.
You can't know these things, but it is going to happen.
And what does that mean?
What do you do with that information?
Well, the idea is to be more mindful and more in the moment, but also to tie value to those moments, especially with friends and family and things outside of work, because the fact of the matter is, these cars will still be broken tomorrow and, no matter how hard you work and how many cars you fix, there's still gonna be more broken cars.
It is a never-ending avalanche, though if you are good at this, we'll never stop until you decide to say, no, i'm good, i don't wanna do this anymore, and all of this is really just to get at.
Make sure that you do take some time away from work on a regular basis, even during a busy week, when it is easy to spend all of your time centered around this world.
That there are a lot of other things going on in your life I'm sure there are.
There is in mind that you Could be, and probably should be, putting more attention and effort towards right, and again, almost all was that's going to be friends and family.
That you should be spending time with right.
You know, if you think about losing a loved one or a parent, if You were able to Rewind time, you know to a point where they were still here and maybe just a mundane conversation That you had with them, or maybe even a time when you were annoyed with them or upset with them.
If you could rewind time and go back to that and you know they're still here, you can Converse with them You'd completely change the conversation, right?
but the thing, if it is, is most of us have these moments right now With the people that we're with, and we can change those conversations right now, or we can just.
It's as simple as Putting your phone down, putting the laptop away, putting the modules away and really spending time with your family.
And What better time to do it than fourth of July weekend?
right, and we're taking we were already scheduled to take Monday off.
I'm gonna be doing some camp in this weekend, probably go down the river low kayaking, try to just get away from work.
And It was tough telling people today that I'm booked out until next Wednesday.
But you know, that's the thing is, you tell people and they're like okay, i guess that's what it is.
Don't be afraid to put off that work and Get away from it from a little while.
So if, if you're like me, it's important that somebody says that to you every once in a while, or you just fall right back into letting it dominate everything.
So That's all I got for you today and, in the spirit of the message here, i'm not gonna take up a whole lot of your time.
I hope this Message helps you.
Maybe you're somebody who already realizes this and does this stuff already, and that's awesome.
Maybe you're like me and you just feel like you're working all the frickin time.
But the fact of the matter is is you can say no, you can step away, you can have some fun, enjoy your family, enjoy your friends while everybody's here, cuz you never know when they might not be.
So with that all out of the way, have a happy 4th of July.
Happy birthday America, and let's all get out there, start fixing the world, one car at a time.
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