Bearded Biomed
Join this bearded man on an endless journey through hospitals, surgery centers, and clinics. Keeping medical devices operational while asking the age-old question to hospital staff... did you plug it in? Embark on this quest of service calls and the industry as a whole that leaves me pondering; why the hell do I love my profession so much. Knowledge will be given, occasional grievances will be shared, and laughter will commence! Leave a rating or review and check out the YouTube channel to watch the podcast! Disclaimer: The views and opinions given by your bearded host are solely mine and do not reflect the agenda or opinion of any other entity or affiliate.
Bearded Biomed
Who is Justin Barbour? The Story of the Man Behind Better Biomed
FAN MAIL: Send a "Bearded Message"
Summary
In this engaging conversation, Chace interviews Justin Barbour, a prominent figure in the biomedical field, discussing his journey from a challenging childhood to becoming a successful content creator and advocate for the biomedical community. They explore defining moments that shaped Justin's work ethic, the importance of communication in the industry, and the impact of his YouTube channel, @BetterBiomedChannel . The discussion also delves into the challenges faced in their careers, the significance of mindset, and future plans for Better Biomed, including initiatives to help others in the field. In this conversation, Chace discusses the importance of hard work, personal branding, and the balance between professional and personal life in the biomed field. He shares insights on mentorship, the misconceptions people have about him, and the legacy he hopes to leave behind. Chace emphasizes the significance of networking, particularly through LinkedIn, and reflects on his past experiences that shaped his career. He advocates for collaboration within the biomed community and encourages new technicians to embrace change and build their own brands.
Check Out Justin's Website:
https://betterbiomed.com/
A Special Thank You to Our Sponsors!
We deeply appreciate the support of our incredible sponsors, who are dedicated to empowering and creating opportunities for biomedical professionals striving to grow in their careers. Be sure to explore the links below to learn more about how they can help you take the next step in your journey.
🔹 College of Biomedical Equipment Technology – www.cbet.edu
🔹 UptimeHealth – www.uptimehealth.com
🔹 Capital i – www.capitali.us/bearded
Your success starts with the right support—check them out today! 🚀
Watch the video podcast on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLisOVWzYA0rq9UrYCz7fU7HNBjXgwc8DG
Welcome to Bearded Biomed. Let's start the show. Welcome to Bearded Biomed. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to Bearded Biomed. Appreciate you joining me here today.
Speaker 1:You may notice that I have somebody sitting next to me for the first time ever, and if I was going to bring somebody in studio, I had to bring in the one, the only, Better Biomed, One of the people that inspired me to do what I do today. So for those of you that are not familiar with this gentleman, he's one of the most well-known biomeds of his generation. For the past six years, he has produced content on YouTube with over 22,000 Better Biomed subscribers. He's quickly approaching over 2 million views worldwide, if he hasn't already. In June of this year, he launched a new channel called Take it Apart to spark curiosity of a new, technically inclined generation.
Speaker 1:He is an Air Force veteran who served nine years as a biomed, a career that spans positions from Roper, St Francis Healthcare, East Cooper Medical Center, the Medical University of South Carolina, Houston Methodist Memorial, Herman Bobi and now BC Group. He is known across the profession as Mr Rules of Repair a mentor, a right to repair advocate, a job placement guru, a social media innovator, a trailblazer, a voice to be reckoned with within the industry. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Justin Berger.
Speaker 2:Damn, I need to have you write my intros. Oh my gosh, guys. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. I drove through the rainstorm to come out and visit Dallas, because Dallas has probably some of the most prime healthcare of the country, I mean. So it's, it's an honor to be up here and to visit, you know, biomeds and companies up here. And of course I'm going to say, hey, chase, I'm coming up Like let's do something. Yeah, we've been planning this for a little bit. Yeah, it has been.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just since I lost my job and and and then, like it was as as a man in charge of like a whole bunch of people, there's like this moment where, like you kind of fall apart when that happens, you know, and I thought I had a very secure and good career. I have don't get me wrong, guys, but you know, and then I took a hit to, to my emotions there and I was like, gosh, darn, what am I going to do now? And then BC Group and I we worked on a lot of stuff historically and hey, justin, why don't you fly up here and talk to us? And I was like I would love to, because I absolutely love test equipment and you know, obviously, standards and training people and whatnot. So that's what I do today, guys. Uh, I go around, I meet people like you all, and I help people design and develop test equipment, and it's like the perfect marriage of of like passion and work.
Speaker 1:So here I am, guys, we're gonna we're gonna get into a lot of it today. So a lot of people know I don't do script. I mean you don't do script either. No, but I have written down questions because this is a man that I've wanted to sit down and interview for a long time. He's been on a couple of lives and stuff like that. But this is, we have you here, we're here for you. So you know, feel free to fill in wherever you want, but I got a couple of questions that I've been meaning to ask that I want to know. Okay, and I imagine you know if any other biomed out there is like me probably would be interested in this too. Okay, so let's start with your personal background. Can you share a defining moment in your childhood that helped shape who you are today? Because you have a certain drive about you that you know I can attune with, but other people I don't have.
Speaker 2:So well, I guess I know one exact moment that you're talking about. That's a good question, man. So if you guys didn't know, I grew up a poor redneck kid on a pig farm. Love to the redneck, my people. But the thing is, is we're all survivors, right? So you tear stuff apart there. There is no hiring a handyman like that. It didn't happen, especially back in the 1980s. Guys like I don't even know, like who the handyman was like, that didn't happen.
Speaker 2:Farmers, we fix everything, we do everything and they also, you know, maybe it's one of those redneck traits is they, they collect broken stuff and you have broken stuff and you have a curious kid. So when I was six years old I remember in the basement of our house we had a couple broken washing machines like clothes washers, and I was bored that day. So when I was six years old I had that thing stripped completely down and I clipped the motor out and I left the wires about two to three inches long at the at the ass end of the motor and my dad came home and he was absolutely furious. I don't know why, cause it was a broke machine, but he was pretty furious. My dad was a Marine Corps drill instructor. You know I grew up in a pretty strict household and I can remember he was pretty furious. I did not get my butt beat that time, but he was definitely mad. However, it was a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 2:We had a uh, a yard sale Cause that's that's what we do out in the country and uh, I remember there's one guy coming up and asking if we had any motors or anything. And my dad says hold on. He goes down in down the basement, he pulls out that motor where I cut the wires a little too short and he says what about this? One guy said I'll tell you what. I'll give you two bucks. My dad said deal. He sold him the motor for two dollars and, uh, he held the two dollars up. He gave me one, he kept the other one. He says I give you this. This is your first dollar ever. Don't you ever do it? That was my first dollar I ever made repairing something. But uh, you know, I've been working ever since I was a kid man. I grew up on a real poor family out in the middle of the country. We we would do I grew up the most redneck person you ever, you ever knew. I would put money on that.
Speaker 1:So there's entire summers I went without wearing shoes, like I'm dead serious barefoot would you say your dad is one of the bigger influences in your life, your work ethic for sure 100.
Speaker 2:So we had a lot of family businesses. When I was young and I know it's gonna sound more redneck, but uh, we had a bait and tackle business, sold fishing bait. So every time it rained much today we would go out there at night with coffee cans and we would walk up and down the roads picking up worms. We'd put them in the coffee cans for half the night, even on school nights, and then for the next week or two we would, you know, we'd pull out the cooler that's full of worms and stuff and we'd sit there in front of, like, our little 13 inch black and white TV. It came out of a back of an RV. See, I remember a lot of details, man, and we would count out worms by the two dozen 24, or crawlers night crawlers by the 12s, by the dozens. And we did that as a family. We'd sit around and count out worms and stuff. So I mean I love the fish. So I mean, yeah, I mean it's one of the most country things you can imagine.
Speaker 2:But I've had jobs ever since I was six years old, you know, because I would run the cash register and stuff. So when it comes to work ethic and whatnot and curiosity. It's because I grew up around a whole bunch of broken stuff and I can remember one day my dad was trying to fix a car I think I was maybe 11 or 12 and I remember him throwing the pliers out from under the car. He says I don't do this. And he says why don't you grow up and learn how to do this so I don't have to do it anymore?
Speaker 2:I remember kids remember those details, guys. So for from now on, think about I know I've got three kids, guys and I'll be thinking about that for the rest of my life Like the fact that he did that and we'll talk about that a little bit later, about that. You know anger when you're fixing things and whatnot, because that's there's a whole discussion about that. But my dad would do that, like, like I said, he was a Marine Corps drill instructor, so he was kind of intense, very intense, yeah, like, and there was, there was no deviation from the standard. So if I seem like I'm intense sometimes through you guys, I mean I bring it down a couple levels, I think.
Speaker 2:So obviously you had a lot of family jobs, but what I guess would be your first official like W2 job, the day I turned 16, literally on my birthday I drove over to the McDonald's and I got a McDonald's job, which I had almost for exactly so I was 16 working at McDonald's. So as soon as I could get I don't understand kids these days, because I remember when I was 15, I couldn't wait for that day. Couldn't wait for that day.
Speaker 1:See, that's how you know you've reached a certain level in age, because we're all saying that now, like when I think of the first job, it's usually at least what I've seen. The most successful people have a job something that deals with customer service, that deals in retail or food or what have you? My first job I worked at Dollar Tree. I stocked shelves. I worked at Cash Register. I stocked shelves. I worked at Cash Register. I got that customer service part of it. How long did you work there? At least a couple of years. And from there, actually that's when I started getting into more I worked on. It was a hardware company, so like they sold tools and screws and bolts and I wish I could have worked at a hardware company in hindsight, but it was, it was fun like it was. And then from there, commercial garage door installation okay, that's a good transfer, it makes sense. And then from there, telemarketer okay, that doesn't make sense. And then from there, I was like this sucks, I hate this, I'm going to the army okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So here's the thing how did end up? Because you were in Army, biomed. Yeah, did you choose that or did you say I chose it Okay?
Speaker 1:How'd you know what the hell it was? I didn't know about it. I gave them the specific parameters I want something medical and I want something technical, and I guess I scored high enough on the ASVAB. They're like, hey, do you like fixing stuff? I'm like, yeah, I tinker all the time on stuff. Even as a young, you know, I loved building things, I love fixing stuff, taking it apart, and I don't know where this recruiter's at. But thank God, yeah, no kidding, because I mean I can't even imagine where I'd be today Exactly and I would do it all over again.
Speaker 1:So how'd you, how'd you find out that you wanted to be in medical specifically? Um, here's the thing I I I wouldn't say we were like dirt poor, but we were lower income, so I was just more like had to work for everything I wanted. I had jobs ever since I was small, like you, interesting, and I always got to the point to where, like I knew, if I wanted. I had jobs ever since I was small, like you, interesting, and I always got to the point to where, like I knew, if I wanted to have anything in life, I needed to work for it and bust my ass for it, because it wasn't going to be given to me.
Speaker 1:And when I got to that point, to where I was doing a crappy like calling people to, you know, get money for somebody that's not myself I was like I need to do something that is going to yield me a career. And I was one of those people said I would never join the military just because, like I had full ride scholarship to college. I ended up dropping out because I was trying to support myself living on my own. Okay, I moved out right at 18. You had to prove something, yeah. And then, looking at, looking back at it, I'm like everybody I've ever heard of or has gone like in the medical career, like it's stable, like they will have an opportunity to continue to grow and the rare take okay, I know I was come to think of it like I was more.
Speaker 2:That's very that's very impressive thinking if, because most people are well okay, so I chose medical for much, much different, I I I have a reason. Most people do. I chose medical because I knew that's where the girls were going to be yeah, I hear that a lot. I mean I literally I chose it because I just broke up with my girlfriend. I wanted to go where there's going to be lots of girls and obviously I like fixing things so that when some people come up with some deep like theory on like how they wanted to go where they wanted to go in life, my criteria was razor thin and it was the best decision I ever made in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can understand that. I was just at the point to where, like there was there was a section before I joined the army that I was living out of my car. So was that I had nowhere else to go? I barely had enough money to, you know, afford instant ramen. Like I, it was more important to have gas in my car to go do a job than to eat, and that's, that's pretty much. When I got to the point where, like so, you hit a low point.
Speaker 2:Yes, snake, I've never told anybody. I also was living out of my car. I was bouncing around in Michigan and cold as shit up in michigan and it's, it's wild. I would love to like talk to some other like people that are in the exact same frame of mind. I talked with jake yesterday from imed biomedical.
Speaker 2:He has an amazing backstory as well, and it's funny how similar most of us are about how like we wanted to either get away from family, we wanted to prove something on our own, be an independent person, and we made questionable decisions because we knew we didn't want to depend on, like our parents or whatnot. And it's amazing how many people have that same kind of story. So that's really cool. Man, similar backgrounds. I was living on my car for for a while my girlfriend a different girlfriend, guys, a different girlfriend was, uh, cheating on me and because that happened I was kicked out of my apartment and again I didn't want to live with my parents. I didn't want to go run back home to my family, right. So I was working as auto repair, I was fixing cars and stuff and I'm living out of my car and I was dropping by people's homes just to say hi, just so I'd get food and stuff. You know like, hey guys, I'm coming over. This is the early days of cell phones.
Speaker 1:By the way, folks, yeah I remember, I remember, recall actually calling people from a payphone, doing a collect call, speaking really quickly, yeah, yeah. So obviously you've had dark days. Um, what would you say? What are you finding yourself that drives you to get past those tough days? Because obviously you, you had the, the, which we'll get into more, you know, leaving phobia, but what, what, where did you find yourself and how did you pull yourself out of it?
Speaker 2:you know, a lot of people don't know this about me, but I'm reasonably religious fellow, you know, and I do think that my needs have always been taken care of for me and I have always been steered in the direction I was meant to go. So the fact of the matter is is you're given? Here's an interesting thing. Somebody told me once from the day you're born, you're given all the tools you'll ever need to destroy yourself. Your mind and your, your mouth is is what destroyed most people and I was like it's really deep man. That was probably a little too deep for me at the moment, but I respect it now and I think about that all the time the fact that you literally can destroy yourself at any moment or you can bring yourself up. It goes both ways. You have all the tools from the day you're born to be successful. It's just what are you going to do with it? I mean, I've known people that came from nothing, that are millionaires now, and I try to hang around people like that because I love. I love talking to successful people and they're usually not ashamed or afraid to share how they got successful. You just got to listen to them, right? So I mean I, you know, I say like if you have four friends that are millionaires, you'll be the fifth. Or they say, if you've got four friends that are druggies'll be the fifth. You know it works both ways.
Speaker 2:And me, growing up in a at a poor farming community in michigan, I've seen the prevalence of drugs and whatnot. And you mentioned something earlier, uh, about if you didn't join the military, you don't know where you'd be today. I'm the exact same way. I think about that a lot. I go back home, see people back there michigan. I I love my people back in Michigan, but I see some of them that are still like doing drugs and stuff. Man, you literally haven't changed. That was 20 some years ago. Man, I had my 25th reunion this last year, so 25 years and that's you literally haven't progressed. It's like I want to help people and I've even like tried to like teaching people like here, like you should get into medical or something like that, and even though they're like my age 40s, I literally see the, the mental block they put up. Like I'm trying to like here, contact this company, they're looking for somebody, train, and they just won't even do it. So I, I fight every single day.
Speaker 1:Every single day I try to learn something new and every single day I try to open doors so there there's a saying as since we're, you know, dropping gold nuggets, you can't put energy into people that won't put energy into themselves really, I've heard that before but it's absolutely true, because if they're not willing to at least work for themselves, and how can they put energy towards you?
Speaker 1:you have to just. It goes from the old adage of how can you love somebody if you don't love yourself? You know like you have to be able to look within yourself and want better for yourself before you can, you know, give that to other people you know that is.
Speaker 2:That is pretty deep. I try to at least test the waters and give people opportunities. But there's one thing that you can't train out of somebody and that's attitude, like you give them opportunities and whatnot. There's a lot of people that are in some serious, unfortunate positions. That's why I love when people like Brian Hawkins are out there talking to kids, and some of them are in some needy communities. You're giving people tools that they could use the rest of their life. I love that. But some people you know are not. You could hand them a golden goose egg. You'll hear me say it a lot that's the golden goose egg. Take it Like I know one guy he just graduated from biomed school guy. He just graduated from from, uh, biomed school and there was a low-paying offer to be an intern with a very major imaging company but he was gonna have to do all the gopher work. You know like, yeah, but we all have to do.
Speaker 1:yes, so the company. I still work for it today. When I first started, I was driving 50,000 miles a year for business and covering three States. Nowadays, you know, now I'm in the management position I don't have to drive that far, but I was never home. I bought my first house when I got out of the military, you know, and I essentially I kept saying it belonged to my dog because the dog was in there more than I did.
Speaker 1:I should have made it the you know the lean holder. Wow, it just, you know every, every there is a. There is a mindset that when, when you are getting into the workforce, especially some of the newer biometrics getting into the space, I understand you want the best for you and you want to get the most out of. You know that you can get the go for it, get, get as much as you possibly can. But to snub at an opportunity that can grow into something that will make you so much more, you know everybody will be coming at you three years from now from that point, because you've been trained in something that most people haven't Right.
Speaker 2:And this is a major imaging company, but he was going to have to do the install and tear downs of equipment. How much experience do you think you're going to get tearing down x-ray rooms? You'll know every component, yes, and you'll be able to troubleshoot because you know when you put stuff together that you're not going to know, to be fair, those that have dealt with tearing and installing down red rooms.
Speaker 1:It is hard work. I've done a tear down to the point to where I said I would never do it again. But it was me and a gentleman that was in his 70s and we had to tear down an entire Bucky system walls all of it within a day and take it down three flights of stairs and then put it in a truck and then drive it 30, 40 miles to a storage unit and then unloaded it at night. I think we finished at like 1130, 12 o'clock at night, like it was. It was brutal and I was like I felt tired. But then I looked at that gentleman that you know was in his seventies. I'm like I can't pitch.
Speaker 2:Was he? Was he running you down? Because, Because I've worked with some folks like that that are some aging gentlemen and they will embarrass the younger guys yeah, Embarrass them because their intensity and their work ethic is so stern that it's like a competitive thing to them If you're going to keep running hard. He's like a competitive thing to them If, if you're going to keep running hard, he's going to keep running hard, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's going to go till you drop. The thing is, you can't shy away from doing the hard stuff first, because that's in any career field. It's always going to be like that. But it ends up bearing fruit shorter rather than later.
Speaker 2:I told that dude you better take it, because I think this company was going to pay like 45,000 a year and I had the discussion with the candidate that he thought he should be making more and I said you got to have a five-year and 10-year plan. You know your 10-year plan is you're making 100K. How many bio-meds make 100K within 10 years of starting from school?
Speaker 1:Not that often at it's at maybe five out of. I've heard of a couple that like got out and, like you know, hit the jackpot, but it's it's very rare.
Speaker 2:But even those guys probably put in the work, yeah, yeah, to get there. So it's some of these expectations we got to bring y'all back to back to earth. But the fact the matter is it was a golden goose opportunity and if you ever hear me say that, like guys, this is your golden goose, take it. It might be garbage pay, garbage hours some travel you're gonna be.
Speaker 1:I mean, you've been doing it long enough you can recognize if something is a golden goose opportunity. So yeah, um, I know you're pretty like you're one of your biggest critics, just as I am one of my biggest critics. What's something that or values that you hold on to that? Or I guess, if you had to say, well, how do you define success for yourself and for others?
Speaker 2:OK, well, here's something I have like a whole different meaning of success. Like I can walk into many, many, if not most, biomed shops in the united states and somebody's probably going to recognize me. Some people would say that that's success. My true success, guys, is that I can walk into a room of a couple hundred people and I can stand in front of them and I can give a presentation. I used to be the guy that was so shy, like Like I couldn't talk to girls or anything. I would. I would get like sick. So the fact that I can walk into a whole bunch of people and give a technical presentation with little to no prep, that's that's the cool thing. And the advantage of doing social media is because you look at like my early videos and you can see. You can see the tension. Yeah, you can see that scripted. I left those videos up on purpose because I want people to see growth that.
Speaker 1:That's also why I'm glad I started the first year of the podcast just audio, so it let me you know, because I was just thinking about your auditory. Yeah, like I got comfortable putting myself out there. You know, I thinking back it I don't think I could have done video like I'm doing now when I first started, like cause I wasn't there yet. Okay, I also didn't think I was comfortable yet. But now here I am. I'm I'm posting videos and talking to people and doing doing more presentations, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Like I said, you gotta, for those folks that are scared to like or you're, you have that. That public speaking, you know, fear we all do. We, every single person you ask that's doing it. They say you will get over it by doing it. That's, that's how you do it. You practice and you don't have to do like a like walk into a room and sign up to do a presentation at one of the conferences outright. Like start doing holding little meetings with your team, like just there's little little things you can do to work yourself up to that, but public speaking or just the ability to speak to folks in a generalized format, is going to serve you at one point in your career.
Speaker 2:It's communication is your number one skill. You could be the worst technician in the world. If you can communicate, customers will love you it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Communication is one of the most important parts of our job. You have to be able to relay what you're doing, what needs to be done. You know to the client that's being fit, that we're working on the device for you have to be able to understand their terminology, being able to understand what they're trying to convey to you. And then you also have the whole journey of contacting manufacturer, getting part numbers, talking with other technicians for advice. There's so much communication in our field. Like you cannot just be somebody that doesn't.
Speaker 2:And you're going to be communicating with hospital executives, yes, company owners, like multimillionaire company owners, maybe design engineers, I mean politicians. I mean look at, look at, like the guys over at Renew Biomedical they have senators and stuff coming by. I mean communication is absolutely key to our career field.
Speaker 1:So everybody that knows you knows you for Better Biomed. What motivated you to start Better Biomed?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, that's kind of an interesting one. So it's kind of three different parts to that, but one my reason that I was getting in the military is because all my friends were going to college. And I'm a very competitive person by nature. You don't say so they I knew that they're going to be graduating from college soon, so I needed to do something with my life like they were. Their four years of college were coming up. I needed, by the time they got out, I need to have a plan.
Speaker 2:So in doing so, same thing with my career right, like there are so many well-known people, very respectable people in the medical technology community, how do you compete with? Like these guys will be always the rock stars. And I was like I've gotten turned down from so many jobs. Guys like I've gotten between 100 200 job rejections, and that's not including the ghostings that I've gotten, these are just official rejections. I have a folder where I kind of saved them all and I was like you know something? I'm getting rejected because how do you sell yourself right? Like because resumes are like that much information about who you are as a person, just that much. And it's so easy for your resume to even get lost. So I want people to know who I am before I even walk in, because that opens doors. Open doors equals attorneys, so it's just simple math at that point. So one, I wanted to be competitive amongst my peers.
Speaker 2:But then I had the situation with one of the electrical engineers at my hospital and me and him I mean he was an engineer. He argued with me over what type of isolated power system we had. He said we had single fault switching, which means when it detects a condition it switches over to isolated. I said no, we don't. We have an isolated system that's always isolated, which means primaries come in, secondaries go out to the room through a transformer. There's no switching, it's always isolated. So anyway, I created one of my first videos ever was on isolated power systems and to this day it's one of my most successful videos. I have no idea how many views. It's like thousands. It might be worth looking into just to be like see how far it's to this day. It's one of my most successful videos. I have no idea how many views it's like thousands.
Speaker 1:It might be worth looking into just to be like see how far it's came.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how far is it. But so anyway, I made that video to train not only my people but also to train the electricians for the hospital and what isolated systems are. And you know, it's just one of those things where I used it. And if you look at the timeline, from when I first started making videos, I made a couple like the whole first year. But then I had like some colleges reach out to me and ask if it was okay to use that video for isolated systems in their college curriculum. And this was electrical engineering school and I'm like sure you can, okay. And then some other people people wrote, said that they would like to use it. I've had many, many colleges and stuff use that that video. It was just a microsoft paint drawing behind me. It was a microsoft paint drawing of like what I think an isolated system really encompasses and to this day it's it's kind of lived up as a standard and it it was really raw and I would like to redo that video.
Speaker 1:But when, uh when? When justin was a a younger man yeah, it's not true, man.
Speaker 2:So I've been doing videos for six and a half years now and, holy cow, I never thought it was going to go where it is today.
Speaker 1:Folks never thought I'm looking at that video, right so what would you say is probably the most rewarding feedback. Or you know, someone reached out to you specifically because of your channel.
Speaker 2:Oh man, so I'm sure you got several, but oh yeah, I started keeping a map of of people around the world that were writing me and in fact, just this morning I had, uh, somebody from latvia. I had to look it up. I knew it was part of it. I just can't pinpoint where. Yeah, russia, finland, it's okay. Yeah, okay, I'm not that good at geography, but I looked it up. But anyway, I've had people all over the world write me about this problem or that problem, or you know, could I do something like this or would I ever visit this country? And some of them are just islands in the middle of nowhere. But one thing I learned is that they have healthcare too right, and they don't have biomed schools. So who do you think repairs that stuff? It's going to be like some Joe Schmo that A lot of these countries?
Speaker 1:yeah, because I get emails all the time too. It's. They're very much. They're just taking it upon themselves. It's almost DIY, yes, which is much they're just taking it upon themselves.
Speaker 2:It's, it's almost diy, yes uh, which is kind of scary down there at the bottom.
Speaker 1:Wow so yeah, you weren't kidding.
Speaker 2:Microsoft paint, that's cool yeah it's just microsoft paint, so 35 000 as of right now, but um, it's. It's one of those things where I never thought I did all these videos. I never think they're going to go anywhere and I don't care. That's just it Like I don't care. Sometimes I would love to grow this channel and everything, but it's more important that I get the information out there. So if one day, maybe in 10 years from now, somebody Google searches what is this, keywords are going to find it and then they're going to be helped.
Speaker 1:So I don't care how many people see it, as long as that one day somebody finds it. So I know you kind of touched a little bit on what Better Biomed has done for you, but in your opinion, how would you say that the channel has impacted you professionally personally?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I am super thankful that my family has allowed me to do what it takes to grow my brand and whatnot. Even sounds weird to say that to grow my brand, but it's true because it takes a lot. My wife has had to raise our kids my kids. When I go home, I try to spend as much time with them and stuff because this is an extremely demanding role. I get emails all the time that I'm trying to help people. My job Companies are looking for a contractor that can help with this or that. I help a lot of people and it's constant. Yesterday alone I had like a dozen requests. I'm still working on them, guys, I know, but the thing is I'm super thankful that my family was supportive enough to allow me to grow it into what it potentially could be. It takes a lot of vision on their part, right, and that's one of the things that people don't think about Now. So that's how it's affected me personally. It's also allowed me to appreciate the time that I have with my family because I'm traveling and stuff all the time. So when I come home, it's dedicated time that we're out goofing around. We do a lot of family day trips and stuff. It's dedicated time we're out goofing around, we do a lot of family day trips and stuff. It's really valuable time. Probably wouldn't have respected that time as much if it wasn't for this.
Speaker 2:Now, professionally, I know for a fact that I some people have not hired me because they know that I do videos and they don't want to deal with it. You know, and some people don't like me as a person. It's fine if you truly know who I am. I mean, I mean people know who you really are. Hopefully after this episode they will. I mean I I'm, I'm a goofball, but at the same time I'm stern and I mean I can be very direct on things like very direct. And you know I don't like when somebody's lying to me about something. We can just be honest about it and, you know, figure out what the real problem is, solve the problem and press on with the next thing. So I'm really kind of easy to get along with, you know. But I'm also an introvert, like you are, and that's the.
Speaker 2:And that's another misconception is that when we're at trade shows and stuff, I would love to go back to my room, edit some video, watch a TV show or something and just chill. But you only have this much time to go out and meet people. Once you commit to doing something like social media, you're also committing to upholding an image. Yes, and people, they go there purposely to talk to you, right, and it's honoring their commitment to supporting you. So I mean there's I would love to just go and not publicly speak and all that. I get nervous to this day when I publicly speak, but at the same time it's a rush and I get to meet so many cool people. That's why I do. It is because after the speech is done, people gather around and we sit there and we talk for like the next hour, sometimes three or four hours, and that in itself paid for the entire trip. Just made it worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know exactly where you're coming from when you think of how I could start some professional opportunities, when you think of how I could stunt some professional opportunities. But I've, luckily, you know, I've been in the same company since I got out of the military. But if I ever do make that transition somewhere else, you know I look at it as we are. Our end goal is to provide value to this profession. So if a company is going to negate giving us an opportunity simply because we're putting videos out there which is completely for the benefit of the profession, it's not for anything else. I mean, it happens and you know, just like you said, somebody just doesn't want to deal with, uh, the possible maybe interests it's conflict of interest back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who knows why? And and the fact of matter is, doesn't matter yeah, which a lot of that stuff can.
Speaker 1:If it really is a concern, you can hash that out through a conversation easily. Sure you don't think I've had that conversation with my company about what I'm doing and what my purpose is. Wait, as soon as ceo got wind of it, sat down and had meeting in the boardroom that I knew, uh, and to this day, like two separate parties, it's understood like and we're good. That's why a lot of y'all still don't know who I work for. It's designed that way, but I'm proud of who I work for. I'd otherwise I wouldn't be with them. I'm only going to work for people that I think have good people and are trying to do the right thing and uplift and continue to do great things. So, just like I, I assume why you went to BC, which we'll get, we'll get with a next. So before we get into that, I want to know what is next on the horizon for better biomed, oh man.
Speaker 2:So I, I work on a lot of stuff behind the scenes guys, a lot of stuff. So while I have like some respites between videos, like maybe a week or so, in that time I'm working on other projects. Sometimes that project is helping a company with a product. Sometimes it's it's finding some people you know to do a job. Sometimes it's college is writing me and they're like hey, can you help us with, you know, create a curriculum or something? I do a lot of stuff on the side and one of the things that I've been working on pretty heavily is betterbiomedcom and I want again, I like competitive, I'm very competitive and I like to have an open forum. Right now I'm getting about 38,000 to 40,000 views per month on average and that number has been going up pretty steadily. But the thing is that's a lot of power 30 to 40 thousand views and that means that I can do things like advertisements, um, and I can also help more people. I can help people find jobs. I've got some really cool stuff coming up next week.
Speaker 2:I've always wanted to do ask the experts, where we actually do a live stream. We bring in the people that literally wrote the book and we ask them questions live, get all your questions asked, and I mean, some of these people are very influential on, like, big name companies, maybe even like the FDA and stuff, and if we can ask them the questions directly, maybe it's something they never thought of. They're only human, right, right, and how cool is that? Like even medical test equipment, you bring in a design engineer and then you can ask them all the questions about, like, why does it have this feature? I really wish it could do that. Let's solve it. I mean we might be able to implement it within a week, who knows, until the question's asked. So betterbiomedcom, I've got a job forum and I've got two different types of jobs that are going to be posted. One of them are W-2s and one of them is going to be gigs and gigs are 1099s. So where the field is going, yeah, and I've always wanted to do a talent pool and I brought this up to other large job websites and stuff that we need to have a talent pool. It was originally my idea, and the talent pool is, let's say, you are trained on Draeger anesthesias and you live in Texas. Well, if that case, you're trained on Draeger anesthesia, you're in Texas. Well, I'm in Massachusetts and I've got a contract over in, let's say, houston on some Draeger anesthesias. I'm going to go into the talent pool and I'm going to go into the talent pool and I'm going to find all the people that have signed up for talent pool and if you're open for side gigs, I mean one weekend's worth of work. Here's how this works.
Speaker 2:I had one gentleman, very good friend of mine, who does ventilators. He works his butt off. A Nigerian fellow Dude is the hardest working biomed I've ever met in my life and anyway, I said I've got an opportunity for you. It's up in Dallas, so you had to drive five hours away and I said I have 30 of these ventilators but they have to be serviced. I got to get them done within the next week. He says, let's do it, captain. I said all right, man, and so he took off work on Friday and he drove up Thursday night and by the Monday he had all the service reports in my hand and I wrote him a $10,000 check because I was working for another company at the time. But he had a $10,000 check after one long weekend worth of work and then he just went back to work like it was normal. By Monday morning he went back to work.
Speaker 1:So he worked his ass off all weekend but he had a 10k check right and see that that goes back to like. You know you're talking about like, speaking of a brand, like, even if you don't have better biomed logo, bearded biomed logo you as a technician, especially doing 1099 work, you are your own brand. You, you have a skill set that other people are looking for. They presently cannot fill for a particular situation, and this is across the United States. So what Justin is alluding to, anybody has the capability of doing it's, just do you want to do it and it can be very fruitful, very quickly.
Speaker 2:In fact, could you imagine only working two or three days a week?
Speaker 1:And making three, four times the amount of money that you do now. Oh for sure, yeah for sure. Now it's not guaranteed income, there's not the health insurance, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I, I mean, but then again, I mean, like I said, as we get older, you know, we learn that it's not about how much money you make, it's about your time, right, and, and I keep telling, I would take a pay cut if it meant I could have more of my personal time, because there was times there where I was working 10, 20 hours a week on overtime. I mean one year I had like $30,000 worth of overtime. And I can remember the day my wife said when we go to this next job, you're not going to be doing that. I said really. She says, well, well, I don't want to be a single parent anymore. I said, oh, that hit me. It hit me hard, man, because I I love spending time with my kids, so, so how do you balance that how?
Speaker 1:how have you balanced the professional and personal life? Because that it's hard for any of us when you're talking that amount of overtime well, that's.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things that I'm super grateful for. Bc is because that was definitely part of the discussion is I didn't want to be like, constantly on the road. I mean I could find a job anywhere that does that. I mean I could be making $30,000, $40,000 more a year tomorrow if I wanted to be on the road all the time. I mean there's no shortage of those opportunities. Be on the road all the time. I mean that's there, there's no shortage of those opportunities.
Speaker 2:But the guys at BC that it's a family run company and because of that they super respect every one of their employees and they laid down their expectations on me of like how much vacation time they expect me to take and whatnot. And it's, it's so cool that that you've got somebody that is going to like uphold that like you're gonna finally take a vacation, you know, and I've had a vacation years, folks but uh, yeah, so I. It is a balancing act because I love going out meeting you guys and at these trade shows, if you see me advertise them, do not hesitate to come up and just say, hi, I'm there for you, I'm not there for me, you nut, you know so. And there's so many times where, like people are like across the room, something like that. It's like come on, come on over, but I just I'm. If I spend time away from my family, there's a sacrifice, and that sacrifice is is that time that I value so much. I'm spending it there for you and let's, let's make the best of that time, guys.
Speaker 2:And and I love visiting hospitals. I visit people's workshops, their businesses and students' schools. You know I love doing this stuff, but it is tough to balance it out because my kids video conferencing has helped. I do video calls with my kids every night and that has been super helpful, you know, because I got my youngest daughter same age as yours. She's two, going to be three. They're at the age where, like, they're like like almost crying on the other side of the phone. It's like, oh my God, guys, he's still a mama's boy right now.
Speaker 1:We'll get there. I did it. We have fun when it's just us, but if mom's in the room, mom comes first. So what would you say? Or who would you say has been your biggest influence, or mentor, or biome interesting, it's a good question um, and you have multiple people yeah, we all have some.
Speaker 2:It's going to be multiples because I've had multiple stages in my career, all right. So in the military, especially in the air force, we have a structured mentorship right, and that's why I'm so adamant. That we need structure in our professional career as a skilled trade is because the military enforces that, like, you will only do this until you're trained to do that and in doing so, it gives you a little bit of a break mentally. You're only going to do this task and you build confidence right. So I I had some really good mentors when I got started and, um, enough, being military biomeds, I still see these guys every once in a while, which is so cool.
Speaker 2:People that knew me as a junior biomed. One of them he's running a whole chain of hospitals over in south carolina and I went and did a contract there last year and I was like sergeant joiner, but I went up, I gave him a hug and everything and you know he was an e7 and I was just an e1, you know yeah and now, like I was vice president of a company and I was going around running, that's the coolest part is the military community of biomeds, because you're, you're so, so used to seeing them.
Speaker 1:you know, when you're in uniform and you've deployed with them and you've done this and that with them, and then you see them years later down the line, you know, just in regular clothes, doing regular things civilian folks do, and it's like it's a different world almost. But it brings you back to, like you know, good times.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure. So one of my first mentors that Sergeant Joyner was my first mentor, because as soon as I got out of AIT or bio-med school, you know that that was my first impression of what a senior leader does, right? He's also a very calm, demeanored person and his expectations were very reasonable. I love that about him and Sergeant Joyner is probably going to see this. To be honest, after that I went to Germany for a while and then I ran my own biomed shop out of nowhere. So I went from working with the army for three and a half years and then I went to run my own biomed shop and some satellite clinics which was wild and I had one gentleman I overlapped with there. His name was John McKnight and he showed me gentleman I overlapped with there. His name was John McKnight and he showed me what it's like to run a biomed shop. In other words, I would have been thrown to the wolves. That's why I love talking to you guys that run your own shops and you have no idea what you're doing, because I've been there, right, and I know the panic and the expectations and the gravity of the situation. So John McKnight was one of them. And then I have another mentor.
Speaker 2:When I got out, when you're a military person and you get out so suddenly, like I did, because of my lung collapsed and I was just kicked out of the military one day, you know, like my, that's the end. I didn't know what it was like to be a civilian again and I don't think civilians understand that. That is a very dramatic change. Right, I showed up in a polo shirt or a button-up shirt. It was a button-up shirt but it wasn't tucked in. Right, it was a very nice button-up shirt but it was, you know, outside my belt line and it looked very professional, but it wasn't tucked in. I went up to the door and one of the senior biomeds stopped me at the door and says tuck your shirt in, bub.
Speaker 2:And he was a very gruff individual. His name was Von Busby and he was a Navy CME who became a biomed, military biomed, you know, old school, right, and he was a very gruff individual and he was very serious. But, mind you guys, I said dad was about was a uh, military, uh, ring corps drill instructor. So I'm used to that, right, I get along very well with people like that. So him and I became really good friends and he taught me a lot.
Speaker 2:Um, I remember the day he said you don't know what hl7 is clue. I know clue hl7 was because the military, you're only taught what you need to know to do your mission and then you press on to the next thing. That's why I've been a um, I've been a strong supporter of everyday education is because I realized that I thought I knew everything, as we all do until you don't right. I got out of the military and I didn't know all this stuff and Vaughn worked with me on like cardiology. He worked with me showing me the theory behind things and that meant a lot to me. You know, to have that kind of mentor with very strict standards, you know, because he was hardcore dude. However, at the same time, he was like a brother to me or a father figure, and and I he was a good dude and to this day I still keep up with him, even though he's retired.
Speaker 1:So what would you say is the biggest misconception people have about you?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I've had people, people come. I have had people come up to me. Hold on you. They come up to me and they're like I thought you were such an asshole or they'll. They'll say something like um, I always thought that you were such a dick online or so fake, and they don't realize I really am that much of a nerd in real life that I really am like this. I mean my kids, my kids. They don't understand why, like I go to shows and whatnot. Like my daughter says, why would anybody want to talk to you? That's how that's like dagger, I don't know what they do. So I mean, the thing is you're not a cool dad. Why are they gonna talk to you? I'm the I'm the most nerd dad. Like my kids do all sorts of stuff with me. I'm sorry to keep bringing up my kids, but that's like. I love training people and any parent. It's your responsibility to train the next generation and and you've got this young human being that is curious about everything you're doing.
Speaker 1:It's so awesome what do you when all this is done? What do you hope? The legacy when you leave it, when you retire, is going to be news well, while the better biomed channel will go on forever.
Speaker 2:If I I'd say this all the time, if I died today on my drive back home, I would actually have accomplished my purpose, because one of my when I got started six and a half years ago, social media even LinkedIn wasn't really much of a thing. Okay, people weren't using it for the tool that it can be for networking and for sharing knowledge at lightning fast feeds and I have. I have been firm and fighting that for years that you know youtube is. There's no better opportunity to share information in a truncated form. I can show you how to do a complete pm in 10 minutes, something that would take you hours to learn in a book. Entire semester can be taught theory of electrical and quantum physics. You can go on youtube and you can learn it in about an hour.
Speaker 1:It's crazy it's, it's just so. A lot of us, as biomeds too, we learn by putting our hands on stuff or being able to actually realize and see it. You know, if you're getting into a textbook, like some of that, like learning electrical theory, while some of it's interesting, it can, it's, it's, it's like I, I, I don't miss, I don't miss those days, but I appreciate them. I understand it was. It was building a foundation. You know you have your, your content where, like, like you said, the, I did one. It was a. I was working on a stairs harmony light replacing LEDs, like I had never done that before, and I I had to learn some of the intricacies of actually taking it apart without damaging it. And I the first thought that came to my mind was somebody out there is going to be in my same position and they're not going to know about a couple of things they need to be aware of. Otherwise it's going to end up, you know, creating equipment downtime longer, even if you break it live on camera, at least somebody will see.
Speaker 2:Shoot, that's how you break it. It's, I've caught shit on fire like right, right, and the thing is. So here's the thing. We're a skilled trade, right, we don't have a regular uh, what do they call it? It's, it's a craftsman system or a uh apprenticeship apprenticeship yeah, we don't. We don't have a real pro like, yeah, the gm system, we don't have that. The reason you have a journeyman is because you have somebody that follows along. They they learn some of your work ethic, but mainly they learn your process, right, that's what? They're there with you and they see how you communicate, how you do every, every detail. If we don't have that, how do they learn that? So when I do troubleshooting, my troubleshooting is different than yours. It's different than everybody's, because everybody has to develop their own troubleshooting. It's a wiring between here and here and nobody can teach you how to do that. You have to develop it on your own. You can see how I do mine and you can see how I react when things don't go the way I expect.
Speaker 1:My wire's got one resistor in it, yours probably got like a Wheatstone bridge or some shit. I know how your mind works, yeah, but that's just it.
Speaker 2:That's why I like doing live streams is because people can see your process. They can see it live and I think it's complete, and they can see it at their leisure and come back on it later. It's the most amazing thing, and at their leisure yeah, come back on it later. It's, it's the most amazing thing, and I wish so many of you guys would would start doing more, more video and stuff, because that's how we fix this health care system.
Speaker 1:So there's something that, like you're hitting everything on the head there, like when I what I'm trying to relay all the the mistakes I've made throughout my career to younger technicians and hopefully they absorb it. But like when you are talking to these younger tech cause I get reached out to all the time from either people that just got into the biomed program, have just graduated, just hit their first job, like majority of the people that watch me, listen to me, are new people getting into the field. Yeah, I got folks that have been doing it, that watch me and you know, and hopefully they get something from it too, but the goal is to educate the next gen. So when you were talking to some of these folks, what's some of the advices or what advice would you give them that are getting into?
Speaker 2:this field. So the leading questions I've done videos on how do I get ahead in this field. I did a whole video on the three things you need to know, and one of them was electrical theory, one of them was anatomy physiology and the other one was parts of the hospital which you can all learn without being there. You can learn all those on YouTube over the course of a weekend. However, you learn those things, you're going to get ahead. So I get that one all the time how do I get a job? I can't get a job.
Speaker 2:Well, have you networked with anybody? What do you mean by that? Well, on LinkedIn, do you have a LinkedIn profile? No, I don't. Nobody ever has a LinkedIn profile. I was like, yeah, okay, step one, I can't. If you talk to me at a trade show, I'll say what's your LinkedIn? I promise you LinkedIn because not only can you see what I want to say, I can see what you want to say. So if you say one day I'm looking for a new opportunity, does anybody know of anything, I will share your post. I share almost every one of those because now a huge amount of people can see you and LinkedIn is such a valuable tool, not just for marketing and all that, but I mean it's just it's not the cool thing to the new generation is, but a same token is the professional platform that everybody like I.
Speaker 1:I've I've gotten so many job offers over the years. They said, hey, I saw you on linkedin. Do you want to interview for that? Like your? Yeah, we have the resume process but, to be honest, resumes have almost become an outdated thing because they are assessing you based on everything that's online about you. Now, obviously, if you're new, you're just graduating, there's not going to be a lot about you, which is why you want to have a LinkedIn to start that footprint.
Speaker 1:So it was actually brought up to me. Yesterday I had a meeting with a gentleman and he was saying I noticed your LinkedIn. You don't have a LinkedIn. That's for Bearded Biomed. I said no, my LinkedIn is Chase Torres and I put everything that I'm about on there. I am Bearded Biomed, I am my brand, I am also a manager of the company I work for. I am also a board member of HTMA, I'm all these things, and you want everybody to see a 360 encapsulated view of who you are. So if you were not on LinkedIn, if you were just assuming that somebody is going to hire you because of what you have on your Snapchat, which I don't even know if that's, or your TikTok, which obviously has gone away now. I've never done both of those, so I don't know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you hire people and I hired a lot of people. If you get an applicant, do you look them up on?
Speaker 1:LinkedIn Every single applicant.
Speaker 2:I look up every single one, Five Every single time to see who you're affiliated with, because you can see their connections.
Speaker 1:I also. If you came from a prior biomed job, more than likely I know that person. That's right, and I asked them about you. Don't burn any bridges, guys. We talk. I know a lot of directors out there. I know a lot of managers out there. If I don't know them, I'll still reach out to them because we have no problem sharing that as leaders. Don't burn your bridge.
Speaker 2:I can't. I had this conversation yesterday with somebody who owns a multi-million dollar company. I told them like whenever somebody sees somebody from texas or air force, they're like do you know this person? What were they like? They always think that every air force person knows every other air force. Yeah, yeah, and we almost do, but that's beside the point. Anybody that comes from texas like even like waco or something, they're like do you know that person? And and I'm talking like washington, washington state, some really far off locations, ohio they're asking me do you know this person? They're over in texas, so we all talk.
Speaker 2:That's the crazy thing. People don't realize that. That's also a good thing for you, because if you're active on linkedin like, let's say, you like my, one of my posts, or you ask me a question about hey, what do you mean about electrical safeties or something, you know you interact with people. Let's say somebody posts something on medical logistics or robots or something, and you ask them like hey, what does that really mean? When it says this, somebody will spell it out for you and they're happy to do so.
Speaker 2:I've asked some pretty stupid questions on there, maybe even questions that I knew the answer to. But I, if somebody shows like a burnt board. Even though I know what that part is, I'll still ask the question because then everybody else is going to see the answer and they're going to see that you are an authority in that field. So that's because you know the answer. You're an authority now and that's why it's all about starting those conversations on LinkedIn, and if you are active on LinkedIn, you're going to make $5,000 to $10,000 more than an equal person. Guaranteed. It's just because you're going to have more opportunities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're also. It's easier to sell you, to hire you too, because I mean, they see your product, they see what they're buying Absolutely, and your representation of that organization, that company that is possibly looking to hire you, which is also like what we alluded to as well. We are also, you know, either uplifting ourself or screwing ourselves with opportunities, but that's the path we have chosen. So we had talked about earlier that state. From that state, from the transition and to the point where you are now.
Speaker 1:When I conversations we've had over the past years, I at least know that you have minimum expectations, that you hold yourself to other companies, to your colleagues, et cetera. I think that's also why maybe some people have the misconception that you're an asshole, which I know you're not. You just have standards. I mean, I don't know I could be Regardless or not, when I think of that spot where you know another colleague of ours, ria, she experienced something similar and you had a fall. I don't know if you call it a fallout or not, but you know, the thing that caught me was a lot of people would probably agree with me and say that when I think of phobia, you were the face of phobia.
Speaker 1:Okay, just because when I had interactions, when I needed something for vote, it was you. When I saw that and you were in the space, you were at it. Just you know you don't have to get into anything specific but what was that that whole experience like for you? I know you alluded to it a little bit and then you know where you're at today with bc group and I. I know those those guys as well. You know you ended up in a good space and just you know, kind of walk us through a little bit of what that was like and I guess what happened.
Speaker 2:that you're comfortable with, obviously oh well, it's really kind of a complex answer, but I'll tell you one thing, 100% for sure I am so thankful for phobia. You know some people would think like I'd be upset angry. There's nothing to be upset or angry about. I am so thankful for phobia and here's why I could think 100 reasons. But I was an in-house biomed. I was pretty good at managing contracts, creating contracts and stuff like that. But there's a whole business side to what we do. Even if I wanted to push better biomed into being a business, you have to be at a business in order to really see all the intricate details, because medical businesses are not like typical small businesses. There's a lot of forms that you have to have. You have to have your W-9, your Stark forms and there's a lot of process to becoming a prime vendor and stuff like that. The fact that I learned about that because of phobia and because it opened so many doors and what phobia did is it gave me the opportunity to learn what a business is and I hired so many years that I worked with them. My channel went from like I was like at 6,000, something like that 7,000 when I started with them, 21,000 when I left. I mean that's. You have to say like that's, because they gave me a lot of opportunities, they gave me some reasonably good content in order to quadruple my size right? So I learned a lot and I interacted with so many people during that time period and I'm actually very thankful for that. Was the timing pretty shitty, yeah, I mean sucked right before the holidays and everything. However, one of the things that I I absolutely am is I'm a stark capitalist and I honestly believe that if you have a business, it's your responsibility every single person in that business to make the decisions that are going to keep it going forward. And what I was doing at the time is I was getting companies like Samsung and BC Group and all these companies. They were constantly calling me and want me to come and tour their company or am I going to go do this show or that show?
Speaker 2:And the the owner of phobia, we. We had a phone conversation one morning and he said uh, hey, justin, your better biomed has been taken off. It's been pretty successful and and he's like it's been pretty successful and and he's like but your focus is more it seems to be more on better biomed than on phobia. And he's like I think it's best that we part ways, and if it wasn't for him doing that, I might have stayed a phobia for another five years, which that can really kind of limit you. And I think that about all jobs like, if you stay in one job for like 10, 20 years, I'll tell you for a fact you're being limited for fact, either mentally, personally, you're going to get complacent.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things I really like being active on the job market and being competitive, because that constantly makes you push the limit and and so it pushed me to way higher pay and I can meet way cooler people. And now I have a direct influence on the test equipment that you guys use every single day Test equipment I've used for 20 years, and now I'm there, I've seen it, I'm dealing with it in my hands, I'm helping them develop the operating system on the devices. So the graphical interface is exactly how a technician needs it to be. It's so cool to have these opportunities and I never would have had those opportunities if it wasn't for phobia saying, hey, you've been really good at doing better biomed, we want you to keep doing that, and I think what it was. Because here's something else I never would have done public speaking if it wasn't for phobia.
Speaker 2:The week I started with phobia when there was an HTMA association out there in Houston and I just started with them and they wanted me to give the presentation at the local HTMA. I had never been to the Houston HTMA at that time, but it was my first time ever going, so there was a whole bunch of people I didn't know who they were right, very, very nervous. Here's the gravity of the whole thing. Let's say I went there and I gave a bad presentation, choked on stage, whatever right, all the leaders of all the Houston hospitals were at that meeting.
Speaker 2:What are the chances that I am unemployable? If I just embarrassed phobia in front of everybody at the HTMA, I'd have to move to another city. Think about that. That was a make or break for me at that moment and I did it because keith, who is a military professional I think he does the military thing, which is you set somebody up and uh, see if they fail or not. Right, because that's the military way. You give them just enough power to see if they're gonna to. They almost fail, and then you, you bolster them, which.
Speaker 1:Failure is not a bad thing.
Speaker 2:It's the opportunity to low, and and I was- so nervous because I knew the gravity of the situation. I knew that if I failed at that public speaking which I was I told you guys I'm very nervous about doing public speaking. I knew if I failed that speech, not only would I probably not have a job at phobia anymore, but I would be unemployable at all those hospitals Every single director, it's those major hospitals. They were there and I slammed that speech out of the. That speech was I did so awesome.
Speaker 2:On that speech, I tell you what, if I get up on stage, I commit like there's no going back. I completely commit. When I get up in front of I commit Like there's no going back. I completely commit when I get up in front of people. And it all started because of that. One day Keith said I want you to do this and you see my wall. I've got all these badges and stuff for all the places I spoke at. I've been flown around the country speaking at events in front of hundreds of people and stuff. It's all because Keith, at Fobi, did that one thing. He said I want you to do this and he set me up and I did it, man. So, um, that's why I'm I'm I'm a stark supporter. You know, uh, it's just phobia knew that I was growing maybe a little too fast for them and we just we just split ways. But it opened doors. So I told you guys earlier that, like I always am opening doors, maybe I'm opening doors for you. You know, that's just it. An open door isn't necessarily for you personally, it could be for somebody else.
Speaker 2:And I had this amazing conversation with Jake yesterday.
Speaker 2:Jake owns I meant biomedical. I was telling him that there's a lot of us in this age bracket, right, and we're coming to the age where now we're starting to run stuff right, and we all kind of know each other and we're bringing each other up and we're all going to be very successful, every single one of us, because we stay in a close-knit group. We all activate on social media, we all text each other like when they're breaking news or something, and I mean these are they're I'm not saying just like us, there's like, imagine, like 10 or 12 of us across the country. We're all. A lot of us are prior military and we're all of the same age group and we are all going to be very successful and we're gonna. We're gonna make a lot of you guys successful too, because I think we have a different way of doing business than our people. That came before us like there's, there's a lot of people.
Speaker 2:When I got, when I started with foby, I started learning that a lot of the people that own companies they don't like working with other companies yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:it's like they're almost territorial, whereas we're about I'm gonna use a cringy word synergy, but collaboration, yeah, I like that better.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's old mentality versus new mentality. I've had contracts that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that I've given to other people and in the end it created a much stronger working environment and because my customer was handled in a faster way, I was able to get repeat business from that customer, because I Customer.
Speaker 1:but you know what that collaboration makes patient care better, makes it safer, it uplifts everything.
Speaker 2:Yep. So I think that it's a huge, huge pie and we can all get a piece of it. But if we start working together sharing information, like a lot of old heads wanted to like, they want to keep their information, not share it with anybody. That's the number one complaint I've had throughout doing YouTube is a lot of juniors are like nobody wants to train me on anything. It's because a lot of people they think that that's their job security is to withhold information, and I am the exact opposite.
Speaker 2:I think my job security is because I know a lot of people that can do a lot of things and because of that I can make some magic happen in 24 hours Connections, networking, 100%. I can make a lot of things happen, and that's why I'm saying like a lot of us that have started working together on things we can do, like multi-million dollar projects, and I don't even have to leave this room. I could pick up my phone and start calling people and be like, hey, I need this to happen. And there's all these people that they sense your energy and they sense your commitment and and they want on the boat, you know, and that is so awesome it's, it's like infectious and that's what I really love.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, man, it's been really good guys and and life is getting better. It's going to get better for you guys too, because what we're doing is we're setting a trend in this industry. I, I will admit, I was one of the first ones. When I started doing YouTube, people told me they're going to laugh at you and and you're? You're never going to be able to get a job again because you're putting yourself out there in front of the entire community. You'll you'll.
Speaker 1:You'll get the occasional. I still get occasional negative stuff from other biomeds out there. I from other biomeds out there. I'm like you don't have to watch me, yeah, yeah, yeah, like there's. There's one that continues like every now and then, like once a year, he'll. He'll comment, like you know, the bearded thing's stupid, oh yeah I'm like say that it's your brand.
Speaker 2:It's like purposely shaved my beard, like before I came here, I I was growing out some scruff and I was like nah that's his brand.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna shave. I don't even address it, i'm'm just like. You're like beard's, never a thing. I don't even know why you're trying to like make it a noun verb, whatever. I'm like don't watch me, I don't care.
Speaker 2:It's like everybody knows you, yeah, how many people know him.
Speaker 1:Every conference I go to. Nobody knows me as Chase, I am bearded guy. Yes, I've heard people say that to you. Nobody knows my name, they just call me the you're you're the guy, that's the bearded thing.
Speaker 2:You, you have your brand, dude, and it is what it is. You know, no, I I think it's. It's probably a more successful branding than me. Like, everybody knows the channel and everything, but you see the logo and you see that more people probably know that logo than they know my logo, I mean. But uh, at the same time, like, people know my face and whatnot, so I guess that's kind of a win. Hey, your face is your logo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, although I I walk into places, yeah, man, I need to take you with me when, when we go into some hospitals. I might be touring some hospitals today here in dallas and the thing is I always get the double take like, and everybody's like weirded out at the beginning. They're like I'll talk to somebody for like five or 10 minutes. I've talked to somebody for 30 minutes before and they're like where do I know you from? And it's like I don't know. I've done a couple of YouTube videos and they're like that's it. It was like I'm kidding, I've done like 1300 videos. It's not a couple of you nut. Yeah, it's been good.
Speaker 1:So I, I, I know just like how much of a time crutch, commitment, just everything there. We always have something moving along, we always have multiple projects going on, we have our family lives, we have our day to day. Thank you for coming here, cause I know I don't take that for granted. I appreciate you being here and I, you know I love seeing you get a new breath at you know, moving on and uplifting, and you know I see on the horizon just some cool stuff you're going to be doing.
Speaker 2:We're definitely going to do some cool stuff, guys, and this is a huge opportunity for me because I've always wanted to come up here and we've been planning this out for a long time, as we already said. And, guys, I just want to say, if you ever see us at conferences, come up and say hi, let's go out and grab a beer. We're there to say hi, yes, let's go out and grab a beer or something. Let's do a lunch, let's have a talk, because some of the best content I've ever created has been from you guys and we need this interaction because we only see what we see. You know, if it's something in our periphery that you're specialized in, let's do it.
Speaker 2:We're going to start doing more live streams and stuff. We're going to do some collaboration projects and, as this industry starts taking social media more seriously, then we are going to open up many opportunities for a lot of you guys. A lot of these younger guys are fantastic at social media. It's just they don't know enough. Yep, but all you got to be is maybe a little charismatic more than us and have a microphone or a telephone and maybe you and people think you got to have all this fancy gear.
Speaker 1:I didn't start out with all this stuff. I mean, I probably bought some of it more quickly than I should have, but there's so much technology in your phone nowadays you don't need all this stuff to start. No, I just need your phone.
Speaker 2:I record almost all my videos now for my phone. Actually, I record all my videos now for my phone because I sold all my bigger cameras and now they got really nice gimbals and stuff. Now gimbal is the device that stabilizes it, but now it's like with AI and stuff, so it knows facial recognitions. It'll track you around the room. There's such cool technology Now. Microphones are getting tiny. I've seen the ones that look like a button and they're wireless. Man, that's some new stuff coming out. But, guys, there's there's some cool stuff coming out. But, guys, there's some cool stuff coming out.
Speaker 2:It takes little to no energy to start Start building your brand. Start being part of the community. Be active, even if you just answer some questions on LinkedIn or something. Be active in this community and say hi and if you have any questions, write me at justin, at betterbiomidcom and visit betterbiomidcom. It's a project. It's still in the works, but you will see that there's constant things. I'm going to have an event calendar. I'm going to have a forum where we can ask questions and get them answered. I've got a section where you can post yourself as a 1099, post W2 jobs, and it's all about bringing people together without having like all these fees and stuff and allow people to have a voice.
Speaker 1:That's what this is all about. Thank you for joining us today. Appreciate you sitting down. You actually get to see where I make magic happen. Yeah, this is pretty cool, or lack thereof, and again, we'll do this again in the future, I think. Uh, you know, we'll have to maybe do like a centennial or like every five, ten years, something like that, and sit back down, all right, what has happened since then? Oh well, we got a few more gray hairs.
Speaker 2:You got to come to Houston next and maybe we'll do a live stream from Texas Medical Center or something. Some of the biggest hospitals in the world are here in Texas and and good food, yeah, yeah. But anyway, guys, it's a pleasure. Thanks for watching and I do appreciate it. Stay in touch. I love you, guys, all right.
Speaker 1:So y'all be sure to follow Justin on all his platforms. Like you said betterbiomedcom, of course. Check out his YouTube channel Also. Check out Take it Apart. You want to see him take apart all different kinds of stuff. I watch that on a case as well. Some neat things there the show listening, spotify, apple, youtube. Appreciate you supporting as always like, subscribe, share, follow. May the beard be with you. I'll check you out next time.
