The Huddle - Episode 222. Experience vs. Education: Which One Actually Makes Better Installers?
There are lessons you can only learn after years on the job. There are also things experience alone may never teach you.
In the flooring industry, experience has always carried weight, and for good reason. Time in the field builds instincts, problem-solving skills, and knowledge that can't always be replicated in a classroom. But as products, standards, installation methods, and technology continue to evolve, ongoing education matters too.
In this episode of The Huddle, Paul and Jose take on the experience vs. education debate. They discuss what each brings to the table, where relying too heavily on one can create blind spots, and why years in the trade don't necessarily mean there's nothing left to learn.
The best installers aren't defined by how long they've been doing the work or how many classes they've taken. They're the ones who continue building on what they already know.
Maybe experience and education were never meant to compete. The real value comes from putting them together.
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[music] What is up team? Welcome back to the huddle, the number one podcast in
flooring. We're here every week to help you guys game forward progress in your career. Simply put, we're here to help
you win. For all our new viewers, welcome to the team.
Today's sponsors, if I have them right, is Pro Installer
and Trade Tap. So, if you want to stay up to date on some,
you know, installation techniques, uh, ideas, all of that kind of stuff, one of
the, uh, best resources you can get your hands on is the Pro Installer magazine.
I believe it's still available in print format, but you can get it online at proinstallermagazine.com,
I believe. Uh we usually have a QR code we'd kick up right now for you guys, but
guess what? Our technical director, Daniel Gonzalez, is gone today. He's
out, you know, running work and uh getting business and and um
trying to trying to measure up some projects. So, wanted to uh touch base on
a couple of things here. Uh remind you guys that synergy is coming down the pipe. Synergy convention in Chattanooga,
which is joint uh convention between the FCICA and CFI. Uh so if you don't know
what those are, it's the floor the uh flooring contractors association
or something of that nature on the FCICA and uh CFI is the certified flooring
installers international. So what's up Denise? She legit is the first comment. That's
all right. She is legit the first comment. 10 minutes he'll put it out. [laughter]
[gasps] Oh, so uh and trade tap coming out uh
the jumpstart program which you guys everybody on here will that is looking
for helpers or uh quality help uh regardless of your discipline will soon
be able to have access to Jumpstart and it's a job board with nothing but
to some level trained and uh and um educated
uh helpers and and um so we're pretty dang excited about that. We're hoping to
release that full release. We did a a preview today. Hopefully full release here in another couple of weeks. So
that's pretty freaking exciting. Also coming down the pipe, we've got um
don't forget TICE. I know it seems like it's far away in February, but I can't believe that it's already the 6th of
October. So, Halloween's right around the corner and Ty will be following pretty quick. What's up, Kevin?
So, um, today's topic is one that, uh,
fits right into what we talk about a lot. And if you've been on a call with
me about, you know, the need for education and and um the need for, you
know, training um in the flooring industry, I I think that you've probably
heard me talk about education, experience. Well, today's topic is really kind of uh
I would say more of a misnomer or whatever you'd want to say
like education or experience versus education. Which one makes uh you know
installers better and I'd love to just hear what other people have to say before giving my own
two cents which I typically come out of the gate with. But uh so we'll let you
guys ponder that. Would you rather have an experienced
or somebody who has experience do your floors or someone who's educated
little hint, do you have to pick between the two? So yeah, that's a that's a wild card right
there. That's a wild card question. Yeah. Yeah. There's a little it's a little bit of a loaded topic, honestly.
one um one thing that always comes to mind when
I talk about education or experience. The one thing
um here's here's our first comment on the topic. Denise says both are equally
important in her opinion. Kevin says it has to be a balance of
both.
Yeah. So would you no matter how if you just do
this thought experiment for a second, no matter how long somebody's been in school, would
you do you want to be the first, you know, brain surgery for
a brain surgeon? [laughter] You know what I mean? like
or the very somebody is, but it's not like they advertise, hey, guess what?
You are my first patient ever on this particular thing. Um, you kind
that joke on job sites, though. Yeah. Not bad for my first time. Yeah.
Yeah. Scott Boer says he agrees. And I assume that he's talking about both. And
you know what I believe is both with the right mixture even uh what we've found
and what I really believe is that when you get some education out of the gate
to kind of there's this idea of in um of
unconscious unconscience incompetence meaning you don't know what
you don't know. So at least starting with a little education can give you some background, some kind of like
some foundation, some foundation for the tools and the the lingo and just kind of a foundation
to build on and then you go get some experience. Um, and not the type that
Scott's talking about here on education or experience. He watched a
YouTube video yesterday. I stayed in the Holiday in Express yesterday, Scott. So, I'm
Yeah, boy. [laughter] That commercial cracks me up. Are you a
brain surgeon? No, but I did stay at a Holiday in Express yesterday. Those commercials are hilarious.
So, um but you go out and you get a little experience that that puts that
education to work. To me, education is a tool that you got to get put to work.
Once you put that tool to work, like you know, if any of us have, you know, if
you use hand tools and of course if you're an installer, you do you've got I mean, I remember losing a a carpet knife
and I was like, "Son of a gun. I'm gonna have to go you buy the same one, but it's going to be new and I'm going to
have to use that damn thing." You know, it's not broken in. You know, it's it's
just little things like that. You know, it's like a tool that you have to use. And that's what how I view education is
that it's a tool that you achieve or get and then you have to get out, put your
hands on it and start using it and then it becomes even more valuable and so
does your experience become more valuable. It's like a It's like education is a force multiplier for your
experience because I don't know who said it first.
Uh but whoever it was, uh I've heard it a
thousand times if I've heard it one time. And that is, yeah, you got 20 years experience, but most of the time
what that is is 20 years of experience of doing it the wrong way, of doing it the wrong way.
Experience by itself just does not identify that it's the right way. You
know what I mean? Like I do I do I I totally I mean expand on that a little bit.
So, so I'm gonna I wrote a couple notes down while we were talking because
I learned it backwards, right? We got thrown to the wolves. Hey, come and join us. Let's do this. Tear this up. Remove
that. Install that. And then with a little bit of education as far as the to let's go to the tools. This is how you
use it, right? This is how you use it.
that doesn't really explain how not to use it. It just says this is
what you're supposed to do. So, I broke it down or separated the education and experience.
Education is an explanation as to
why. Experience is your understanding as to how. and then
and then they might switch as you get uh a little bit more in-depth into your
training and your career. Um if you learn it backwards with experience,
you're just doing it the way someone told you, right? You're doing it how they told you to do it. But then you start having or experiencing failures or
mishaps or [snorts] things with the things of the nature where you don't want to experience where
you have to go back and rework, right? And that's when you decide to get educated. Okay, why is this happening?
And then you reverse engineer it. That's kind of how you [clears throat] guys did it, right? Like you you got the experience first and then you were like,
this is rough. And then you started to go and get
experience or some education and then it probably a lot of stuff that
didn't make sense started to make sense, right? Yeah. And then you have those those aha
moments, right? like like like we always have when we get a training or or go to a um certification. So, I was like, "Oh,
that's why that didn't work or that's why we had problems. That's why they marry this product with
this product XYZ. That's why they call it a system, right? Like we learned all
of that through education. We experienced all of our failures through experience
the hands-on without the education. Um, had we had a little bit a little bit of
education prior to some of our bad experiences, um, then then maybe it would be the
bucket of of the combined bucket of education and experience. We throw it in the knowledge bucket because that's
exactly what we're trying to do, right? Well, doing it like you guys did it isn't I wouldn't say is completely
um the worst way except that you experience as part of your experience
you're experiencing financial loss from fail some failures or some slowness or
like different things. I mean, you can another fine way is go work with someone
for a couple years and then go get, you know, your first uh bit of education. I
prefer myself just looking at how um best learns is like I look at like a,
you know, say a fiveweek course or something like that, like an introduction to Florine kind of course.
It's like a prime, right? you've never been started before as a flooring
installer engine. You know that first time you start your mower ever. You know
you well the old mowers. Sorry I'm showing my age. You had to push the little prime button to prime the motor
with some gasoline. Uh who else on here actually remembers that? I know you do,
Rand. You probably remember when you had to actually spin the spin the mower. Uh
he had to wrap the rope around [laughter] himself. Yeah. wrap the rope around the the the
freaking blade and start it up that way. That's hilarious. But, you know, it's priming your mind
to be ready for the experience of what you're going to do on a day-to-day basis. And then you are not as
first off, you're not as surprised. I've had I'll tell you one thing why I like
the education first. And look, I'm putting a lot of my chips on the fact on
this fact like jump starts coming out to get
graduates off of these introduction programs onto a job board that anybody
can hire off of. Any flooring company or flooring installer can hire right off of Jumpstart, these new guys coming out of
the college programs. But the reason I believe that
is I went through I've went through God man I'll bet
this is a guess but I'm going to say 8 to 10 helpers over the years that came
in and quit because they were just like this isn't what I thought it was like they had no
overwhelm um yeah well what do you call that no um they had no like precept to like judge
it on. At least the students coming out of these programs, if they get hired, they've they've got enough experience,
they kind of have a at least an inkling of what to expect when you get on a job
site. There you go. They didn't get any expectations going in. They went in totally blind. It was like, "Holy
smokes." Yeah. for maybe they go to uh you know if they
education first side well you know they may fall out of the class or quit the
class but at least it's not me [laughter] so you know I mean
some of the education programs out there for flooring is like a good filter for us uh if they're still in it and looking
for a job and end up on jumpstart then they are like They they're they're an
actually a really good prospect compared to what you get off Craigslist or Facebook or something. I mean, you just
never know who you're going to get. They have no idea what they're walking into. And I've just had multiple installer or
new helpers quit within a week of starting with me. And most of the time
it's like, hey, no offense, but this just isn't what I was expecting. I didn't really know what to expect, but I
don't want to do this. You know, now that's probably not a ton over the
amount of years that I've been around, but you know, that's why I believe that a
little bit of education on the front side and getting uh students into some
beginner programs through the or PFT or, you know, uh which is powered by Trade
Tap's uh training hub. um having access to more and uh more
effective as well as more in volume training. Um you know the uh NFCT and
their substrate subfloor substrate class I think is is a great place for
everybody to get going. Um, like those things are what prime the brain of the
the new installer to be prepared for what he's going to walk into. At least
there's some priming. So that's why I like that. But you guys didn't do it like necessarily
bad. At least you didn't just take the, you know, take the stance like, nah,
man. we don't need we're we're figuring it out and like why do I need certified
or why do I need to go to that training or that training I already know everything um I'm going through a
mentorship program now that says uh the that I already know that is should be
strucken like no way to ever say it in the human language like it's the worst
statement as I've learned through this program it's the worst statement you can
say to yourself. It closes off your ability to learn. It closes off your you
you you uh alongside that is like this uh statement that I'd rather have an or
questions without answers than than answers that cannot be questioned.
Whoa, going deep on that one. Right. Like that all plays together into
like once you exit, you think you know it all. And I know Rollins huge on this.
Uh he said it plenty of times, if you think you're the smartest guy in the room, then uh you know, if you are the
smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room. Like you've you've done something, you know, you've done something wrong.
But all right, let's get caught up on some comments here. Uh Denise says that uh
yes, education stren strengthens the skill. It does. It may be even a primer for the skill.
Yep. I do like that.
I think Rollins's talking about when he used to he probably still has the push mower without a motor
that just has the little I know. I seen it at Ace Hardware the other day. My son My son wants one. I'm like,
"Dude, you really don't want that." Yeah, I do that. No, no, you don't.
Well, you don't you wouldn't have to um you wouldn't have to ever buy gasoline
again. You just got to feed him. [laughter] He's gonna look, that dude already takes
like two and a half hours to mow the front on a riding mower. There's no way he's going to want to try to do any of
that with the with the blades. Oh, yeah. You you think he's like, "Nah,
I'm good." Yeah. He's not um he doesn't have the experience
with [laughter] it. There we go.
All right. What did uh let's see. Get back up here to
Well, that was Rollins. That's up there. Oh, there. Roll. We were the motor.
Uh, Carlos replying to he he's got a little
experience with that push mower, too. [sighs] They have a little bit of
sasson. Saon. [gasps]
It's my favorite. Only with cumin in it though.
Hey, Sue says, "Uh, definitely my dad learned about expansion gap and adhesive
types when we let a wet set dry and put planks
under a heavy island and they changed them back." Yeah, that'll teach you a quick lesson.
You know, that's funny he said that. That and I think I've mentioned it before. That was my first experience
ever installing Forbo many, many moons ago as we installed it like sheet vinyl.
That'll do it. Uh Scott and Denise said they keep getting kicked off. You know what I noticed? Uh that has happened for
some reason here in on Facebook. We went from a pretty decent
jump from we had good good uh subscriber to
to almost nothing. I don't know what is going on with Facebook there guys. Interaction for today.
Um not yeah interaction. Um I'm I watch it on my phone as well to to monitor the
connectivity and it's kicked off a couple of times. So hopefully whatever
is causing that maybe resign on.
Yeah, it looks like we're frozen. We're going to keep going because if you missed this live, you can catch us on
YouTube. You can catch us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, all of
them. So if you catch if you miss us here, which it is a little bit
frustrating when this happens with the platforms, and I'm not real sure why it happens. I'll comment on there for the
for one. Yeah. Let them know that we are uh aware and hopefully it comes back. I don't
know quite what to say. We are still live from everything we see
guys. So
to keep the podcast rolling and because of the um
let's see if Ashlin has any background.
Yeah, it looks like uh it it's Facebook is trying to send data. So, it's trying.
Hopefully hopefully you guys get connected. But to keep the podcast watching [laughter]
people watching, bro can't keep up. To keep the podcast rolling for the other platforms and um and uh
you know the the YouTube we're going to we're going to keep going. So hopefully you guys get
back on and we can keep the conversation up. Me and Jose will do our best here. Thank you for all the comments early on
and yeah, going back so so quickly. Um, that being said, when
when we talk about experience, the problem is is experience by itself has
no root, no proof, no foundation. You know what I mean? no starting point,
no indication that that all those years of experience, whether they mean squat,
you know what I mean? Um there's there's a need for a some foundation to be
built, some starting point, some um like
I don't know um well, like I said, foundation. And so hopefully
um [laughter] it looks like it started us from the beginning. Let's see if that comes up on
my feed here. It's going to go until we're caught up.
Yeah, that's possible. That was my That was my impersonation of uh fast forwarding by the way.
All right. Well, we are having there's some technical difficulties, but let's keep driving home the Yeah, let's keep going. Um so you're
right. What does uh what does Daniel say? Daniel always refers to his his homeboy Simon Synynic, right? About the
the how and um and that is a very important part of learning what we do.
And uh sometimes uh through
you can read a book all you want, but it doesn't really teach you the how, right? Sometime you have to you have to read
it, then you got to go feel it, smell it, touch it. Um, and the more times that you can do that, the more
experience you're going to get with the hands-on. I I think the the real knowledge comes when
you have time invested physically and time invested mentally with the education, but then you also have the
mishaps, the the things that don't go perfect and the adjustments that you
have to make on a job site on the fly. That's where having a great balance like uh uh Kevin
had mentioned earlier like it's balance right that's where great balance of education and experience come into play
and um hopefully it leads you in the direction for a solution and and sometimes solutions you can only
gain from the experience like I've I have yet to read a book and then go
hit go hit a scenario where that book just from what I I already know how to
fix it. I have yet to do that. I have yet to read instructions and just know how to troubleshoot right away.
Um, this is a great spot to to talk to bring up like think about golf. If you were to
read a whole book about golf from the best golfer that ever walked the planet
without the experience of going out and trying the things and giving it a shot
and changing it up a little bit, that's what we encourage. We know that like you
don't have to follow the the you know say an installation instruction to the
exact tea because you might have some little shortcuts but you can't do shortcuts if you don't know the way
right you got to you got to know the way before you have a shortcut other way otherwise it's just your way. Um, and so
like you read the book all you want and then go out there and play around of golf and see if it does you any good, right?
Like if you've never played golf before, you're still going to have a tough day
out there. Now, if you enjoyed it and you want to stay in it and you go read that book again or parts of that book as
you were playing and then you're watching videos as you're playing golf,
uh, you know, you know, before or after golf to you start to find the little
things that you need to fix in your swing, in your impact on the ball, all those things.
That's saying like what club, all all of it. Now you apply
that into the installation world. It's like which adhesives, what type of environments,
what product are you touching? What type of tools are needed? And you start to
learn even though they may say use this XYZ type cutter for this deal, you found
a different cutter that works better for you. Like there's there's so much of that that happens when you have that
good balance, that good mix that Kevin mentioned early on. Yeah. And then you can end up like really
getting um a uh uh it's like
supercharging your your your career when you mix the two. Um, you know, I've had
a few guys come into our office said that I've been doing it for 20 years and or 30 years or whatever. That's pretty
much the two common ones. Um, and I'm like, well, how's that doing for
you? like after 20 years of doing it to me,
you you should have your feet real I mean like you should be a pretty
welloiled machine making some good money as an installer. You got your finances in line. you're you're exploring
different floorings to go into maybe even at that point maybe you're looking over in the hardwood or the tile world
or if you're in the tile world you're looking in the resilient world like where do you um you know that that where
are you at if if at 20 years experience you're not where you want to be in this
industry uh in your success as an installer in your finances in your
mental in your approach to the process of doing projects. If you're not where
you want to be, something didn't go right. And
I mean, that's all there is to it. [laughter] That uh the definition of insanity, right, is doing the same thing over and
over and expecting different results. Yeah. It just doesn't work. Just doesn't work.
And if um if you've been doing it for 20 years, I'm not saying like uh like I'm
not saying this like people been doing it for 20 30 years and they're just absolutely worthless because they don't
educate themselves. I'm just saying if you've been doing it for 20 or 30 years and and you're at a point where you're
trying to either better your career or or maybe expanded opportunities, but no
one's giving you a shot. then there's something that you're missing or something that was missed within that
that journey that you had for 20 or 30 years. Sit back, take a look, and say, "Hey, what am what am what am I missing?
What can I do to bring more to the table?" Because this
is where I'm at now. This is what I It's not maybe not what you want to, but what you need to do. Maybe your body's aging
out and you can't do it, right? Maybe you're ready for the next step, but you didn't put forth any effort into
educating yourself on what some of the viable next steps are and what is needed to be valuable for a company or for
yourself at that next step. And that's that's where the education and the comes in handy combined with that experience.
Um, but dude, I find myself reading and and listening to other podcasts and and
books. I mean, until I drop the phone on my face, to be honest with you, but um
because I just I feel like I can't learn enough in a day on top of maintaining
what we have or what I have in front of me. Don't know what it is. I just like to learn and I'm always trying to learn
to to be better for for the next step. And sometimes I'm learning something I don't need to. But but it comes in handy
for some conversations. I tell you what, there's a uh you know,
a lot of people, a lot of uh I would say thought leaders believe that to go to
the next level of your business or life or uh whatever it may be, relationships,
finance, you have to become that person that can accept that next level that
just it doesn't just come and All this is to say, I'm not saying that,
you know, you a four-year college degree makes you better at this or that. It
only makes you better if you're going into the field. So, this is I want to be clear, the education I'm talking about
is specific, narrow education to the field that you're you're either in or
want to be in. Uh, I'm not saying go get a liberal arts degree and then, you know, try to be a doctor or, you know,
like if you want to be an accountant though, you're going to be a better accountant if you start doing accounting
in high school and college, right? If you're if you're going to be a
doctor, you probably got to go to, you know, school, get your you've got med
school, you got specialty schools after that. like there is progression to this stuff and that's how you you see some of
the guys on the network that are masters or experts and then you got artisans and
elite artisans. You think there's not levels to that? Do you think that everybody should be or is going to be a
you know an elite artisan in the craft? No. you every the people are in
different zones of of their years of experience and their training and their
certifications and what interests them. If you're doing well with your installation
and you've you've done this, you know, if comments are working, let me know if
that's worked out for you. If you think this hype, I don't even know if I should call it a hypothesis, but my my belief
that education experience and if you start with education, it's a really good
foundation to have. It doesn't have to be like, like I said, a four-year degree. I'm talking like a fiveweek
school, you know, a fiveweek trade school get you primed pretty well to get out in the field and start working with
a quality installer and start learning some more advanced techniques. Then you
go back and you do like, you know, another six week school on more
specifically pattern matching or whatever, you know. Um, and then you start to become more and more uh
valuable to the marketplace. And I mean, that's Trade Tap's whole thing. Get
trained, get paid, you know, like make make yourself more valuable to the
marketplace. We'll help expose you. So, so you just brought something up that uh
happened a few years ago was Daniel uh myself and Crystal, we all took the uh subfloor substrate certification uh
through the NFCT and we go to that and we realized that that
probably should have been the first thing that we ever learned going into this industry because just that that
class, that course made us realize how many times times
we didn't know what we didn't know. How many times did we leave a project up
to chance because we didn't understand the science behind what we were
installing over? Um, and I think that um
that should be something for people to look into. Um, no matter what part of your career you're in, start at that
foundation, right? third at that substrate because you can only go up from there. Pun.
Well, you [laughter] that was a good pun. Uh so there's this
idea of of the steps to mastery and I I
talked about one of them earlier. The very first step is unconscious. So your subconscious or your unconscious
mind incompetence, meaning you have no idea what you don't know. You just don't
know what you don't know. Then you get the next step and this is where I think
education works to get you to the very next step is conscious
incompetence. So you do know what you don't know. You you go to a course and
you're like ah crap I didn't there's a lot that I don't know. And you're kind
of in that I I realize what I don't know zone. that puts you in a good spot to
start working on things because when you know what you don't know then you can start working on improving those skill
sets. Um and then the next one was conscience competence. So you got to
think about it still but you're competent. It may take you a little longer to cut the seam or to cut in the
wall of carpet tile or carpet or match the pattern or you know put up your coke
stick and cap or put in your Schlutoter metal properly. Like it may take you a
little longer because you have to think about every step but then eventually with enough repetition you get to
unconscious competence which is like driving a car. How many times you drove your car to
your from from one uh you know point A to point B
point A to point B like your home to work and you're like I don't even know I I'm there because I don't have to even
drive. It's like complete autopilot takes over. That's where you want to be in any
trade, any skill is that it just flows. Man, I made so much money installing
because of the processes and the approach I took to the job. Like I just
got to the point where I knew what was next. It became second nature. You didn't you
didn't have to think about it. And when you get to that point where you don't have to think about it and it just
comes natural like it flows, it it doesn't it doesn't always make sense to do it any other way, right? like that flow
just makes sense and then you end up teaching that flow. Um, and
those are your masters and your artisans and your like the highlevel guys are the
guys that they just they you don't they don't even have to think about it. It's like, okay, we're on a job site, you do
this, that, and the other. And it's like, you know, stay on the floor, prep the joints, do the start cutting the
carpet. Of course, I'm I'm I've not been installing uh for several years now, but
uh you know, carpet was my first thing and then I got into sheet vinyl and that's where I really kind of landed.
But on any sheet vinyl job I went into, I wasn't it was like, all right, what
what height is the cove? All right, y let's start start setting cap. Hey,
James, you start prepping. Like me and Jose, we're going to go start cutting
sheets. Like it was just boom, boom, boom. We walked onto a job and it was by the by by noon we had rooms prepped and
cap up and stick in and like it was just it was systematic and any problems.
Yeah. That is when you've done it so many times that it's just unconsciously
your subconscious already knows what to do and it's just you're just you're like a mechanism building. You're you're
machine, you know. Yeah. That's that's when I I love and that's
what I love about installing. That's what I loved about like and you want to talk about being con consciously
stupid because saying conscious incompetence is kind of hard. I'm just going to say
consciously stupid is like I tried to install tile [laughter]
with no training after years of installing other stuff and I was like
uh yeah [clears throat] I've been there. I've been there. I'm
probably not gonna do that again. I mean, I know how to square up.
I figured how hard is four and a quarter wall tile until you come to your first out corner and you didn't plan quite
right. You got Oh my god, dude. It was a nightmare. I can't believe I got through that job without it having to be
replaced. But like that was my only kind of foray into uh tile world. And I was
like, I understand it, but I I'm not like I'm not a a ceramic tile guy, you
know? I know some really good ones. One of our ambassadors, you know, Jose Romero is is a heck of a tile guy and
his crew, he he is building a hell of a crew. That guy, you know, I wish he was
on here. And of course, I couldn't even tell if he's not on here because we've lost all of our comments. Yeah, we lost everything
and everything. But um I tell you what, he he really gets it, man. He really understands like you and your brother
that if if if I don't know something, I'm not going to a training or a
certification to get all the knowledge. I just need those sparks. I need those
those things uh those little nuggets as we say. you know, so many guys go
through a certification or a training uh with CFI and I've watched it through that organization more than anybody
else. Um they come out and and even the NFCT when our guy we sent a a guy up to
the Flash Cove heat weld certification and you know they they come back and they're
like, "Man, I had I just I learned so freaking much. I I they just it's like a
uh I I thought I knew everything, but now I got these little like uh nuggets
that I picked up and you know they it kind of humbles you a lot. I think
it does. It does. And that's where that's where um you can't be so oblivious to the the conscious and
unconscious versions that of oneself that you were talking about, right? like you have to be aware that you
honestly don't know everything and and when you get there and you learn and it
does spark that those aha moments, right? It's not like I've learned so much, right? Like it's everything's
compressed into that small couple day window. It's I've learned how to correct so much so
many of the things that I've been doing. I don't want to say wrong. so many of the things that I that I may have not
done 100% accurate. You learn how to correct so many different aspects of
your installation from there because I will go back forever when I learned something new. I go back through
everything that's tied into that one thing I learned in the memory of had I just known this one little nugget back
then. I wonder where I would be now. And those those get applied to every single
future project that you do. And that's that paid for itself. Dude, look, it's just like I I'll give
you a a real world example. I when I got um when I went to get Nora certified and
um like I still wanted to pattern match everything. I didn't start off or pattern scribe
everything. I didn't start off like a hacken slash kind of sheet guy. The guy I learned from was he patterncribed
everything. So that's where I started. I didn't think you could do anything without pattern scribbing. You know,
then I go to Nora class and I'm like, "Oh, you can kind of put this in like carpet,
but with a high level of skill." And of course, there's pattern scribing that they recommend there, too. But they Oh, yeah. I learned little tricks that
made me so much faster when installing and how to test for uh I ended up and
this may not have been through Nora, but I learned how to figure out whether or not I could manipulate the product
enough to kind of, you know, fit it as they call it in the UK to fit it in as opposed to putting my
scribing uh felt down, you know, scribing everything out, going out,
laying it on my sheet. or my two sheets and then transferring all my stuff, cutting it all out, then going and
putting it in and getting that perfect fit every time. It took so much more time. You can't do it any different with
say a lenolum or a Forbo like you have to pattern scribe it. But there's other
material or like uh man biopec try to try to fit that in like you have got to
pattern scribe that you know but you get other sheet vinyls that have that are
don't tear as easy and such and you can fit it heat it fit it as you're going.
Uh, I know it s it's kind of backwards because I've heard of plenty of guys like just throwing sheets of sheet vinyl
in places and just, you know, rough cut like you would a piece of broad loom carpet.
Um, but then they never learned how to pattern scribe. I went the other way. I was pattern scribe first and then I
learned how to like, hey, I can actually kind of heat it and fit it. Uh, but that
was that saved me a ton of time to learn that as a trick actually. So,
no, that's what one of those things that I learned backwards, too. Had I learned the other way around, then probably be
less uh less cracks around some corners and less rips around some corners or some islands or something like that, you
know? Yeah, I've seen some gnarly stuff because pieces. I've seen some gnarly
10 seams in this piece. I know I can get it through and around all day. [laughter]
I've seen some pretty gnarly stuff. Uh cracks and stresses on
because guys are trying to manipulate it into a room or whatever and have no idea
what pattern scribing or how to even set up a set of scribes, you know, like
that's those are the skills. You go into a kind of a a project with a
rigid vinyl and you have to try to fit it, you better know how to pattern screw, man. Because you ain't going to be fitting
it. You ain't gonna be heating it and bending it and putting it in without
rips at your outside corners, rips at your inside corners, all that kind of stuff. Like,
hey, education is is is learning, right? Someone telling you how it's supposed to go in, how it's supposed to be
installed. experience is uh learning that that piece of paper or how they
taught you doesn't tell you how to pattern scribe or the best way to install it in those conditions. Um and
yeah, oh I do want to add earlier about the the the the education part. Um and we're
talking about products earlier is uh you know the the way that we read the specs
and all that those are the specs are written under a controlled area too, right? And that's where the experience
comes into play is you're not always installing in that 65 to 67 degree
temperature. you're not always over X kind of substrate. You're not always in
the perfect of scenarios. And and that's how a lot of manufacturers test their product. They don't I don't want to say
they don't test their product in specific ways where they certainly in controlled conditions.
Yeah. Yeah. And so that that's where the experience comes into play. It's, you know, I've used this in the past. I've
done it this way. Didn't really yield the results I wanted. I'm gonna have to do a little bit of
shift. It's within the parameters, within the range that they say on here. Let's give it a go.
So, I just wanted to add that in. I forgot to say that earlier because we started having the issues with the the tech.
Yeah, that that kind of knocked us off course for a minute, but we [laughter] gained our we got our marbles back and
right back on track. Well, you know, even with all of that, we have reached
the hour here. And um as quick as that seemed, just a quick another
shout out to our sponsors, Pro Installer Magazine and Trade Tap. uh be on the
lookout again with for Trade Tap coming out with uh the jump start program or
jump start platform as well as we're going to be releasing Trade Tap Pro back out to uh to flooring companies to take
advantage of working with the best installers in the nation and uh learning
how to improve your own installation and uh your own workforce development
through the trade. tap ecosystem. So, it looks like to me um probably
it looks like Facebook is coming back online as we're closing out. But uh I
want to thank everybody for joining us. All the comments that came through, you guys were getting really active and we
really uh wish that um we we could have been with you or you could have been
with us the entire time. We will catch you guys next week though and we look forward to seeing all of you guys at
Synergy. Jose and I will be there. We will be doing Huddle Live. Uh we're
gonna be that'll be Tuesday at, you know, whatever 3 PM central is in Chattanooga. That's probably 4 4
o'clock. So you guys will you be right on time, but um that's Eastern. And uh
we look forward to seeing you there at Synergy and joining us here on the huddle. We're going to show you around the show uh like we always love to do
when we're there. at least give you guys at home that couldn't make the trip uh some insight into uh what the show's
about and and interviews and hopefully we'll get the new CFI director uh
executive director to join us and uh introduce him to you guys and uh yeah so
if anybody's listening I'd like to connect with a couple manufacturers that we want to chat a little bit before
chatting yeah yeah that would be awesome any manufacturers listening Hit up, hit us
up, hit up Jose, hit up me, Daniel, any of us. Got a few things to to go over.
So, looking forward to all the interactions there and we're super excited. So, [gasps]
with that, Mr. Jose, thank you as always for your wise uh wise insights and your
ability to to uh grab some of the funky concepts and data funky concepts
and running with them. Uh appreciate everybody. We're going to get out of here. We'll talk to you later.
