Mental Health In The Asphalt Industry | No Edge Lines Season 3 Premiere

Brandon  0:00  

Anyone who's ever gone to World of asphalt knows that there are a few things that you're gonna have to deal with every time. First, you're gonna wait in a lot of lines. Second, you'll find yourself stealing moments to hurriedly stuff your face and then get back out on the showroom floor. Another weird thing is trying to find the bathrooms. They're never exactly where you think they'll be. And last but not least, you might have to deal with what I call trade show amnesia. Hey Chris, Hey, man, it's good to see you.

Speaker 1  0:43  

Hey, how, how are you? Brandon,

Brandon  0:48  

we shot a video together last year. Did we me all the way? Right? All right, I've made a bit of a fool of myself. I've been making plenty of mistakes, so I knew you weren't gonna get it the first time. That would be insane. I should be looking better than this. You

Brandon  1:24  

Well, here we are, World of asphalt. Feel like it was just yesterday that we were here. Well, not here, but Nashville, doing world of asphalt. I'm standing here before you the night before the floodgates burst, and I am simply too tired and not in the right headspace for all of this. But you know what? The asphalt waits for? No man. The blacktop must be paved. The Trade Show must be attended, and tonight, We must party. There's just simply no choice.

Speaker 2  2:20  

Oh, why do you have so many hats on your head? They started handing out hats. I got two of them. First one was this easy solution. Put it facing forward. It felt perfectly balanced, right?

Brandon  2:35  

You had this, and now you've added this.

Speaker 2  2:38  

I've now added a third hat to the collection. I'm not like, Thanos. I'm not trying to snap a finger and be like, Oh my God, but I am looking for a fourth hat. Cut out what I'm about to cut out. Okay, we'll cut this part out. All right, I gotta be honest, this is probably one of the best nights of my life. This is so much fun, dude. Why do you want to cut that out? I don't know. I wanted to

Brandon  2:55  

ask you a question. I've been thinking about it all day, since we've been hanging out. All right? We've been hanging out since four o'clock. Yes, sir, it's eight, almost 830 Yeah, you heard me say it, folks, I wasn't in the right headspace, and that began to really form something that I wanted to ask people about. Since everyone was together in St Louis, every chance I got to talk to contractors and other people within the industry, I had the same question for them, how are you taking care of yourself? How are you keeping the right mindset and at the end of the day, how is that affecting your work, your business? But really it was here in downtown St Louis with Kenny that this idea really started to take shape, and it's where I decided that this is what I wanted this episode to be about. Here at the start of season three of no edge lines, let's start digging a little deeper and like how you handle them, how you weigh them

Unknown Speaker  4:01  

out on, like, a super personal level,

Brandon  4:03  

yeah, I mean, yeah, right.

Speaker 2  4:06  

I feel that heat every day, man, every freaking day. You know, it takes such intricate gears to be clicking in synchrony, yeah? And it takes a lot of effort. And I feel like the guys that put respect on that idea about teamwork in our industry, that's what

Brandon  4:27  

they're handling the stress better they're handling they must Be, they must they must be. They must be. You.

Unknown Speaker  4:40  

ACBM.

Brandon  5:24  

I one thing that I'm hoping season three of no edge lines might be able to accomplish is some measurable improvements to my job site skills, and that's a difficult thing to really accomplish when you're only out on a job site a few times a year, like me, I don't get that day to day kind of experience, but there is kind of a solution for that. How can we go to a job site without actually going to a job site? Well, I found somebody here at world of asphalt that can solve that problem. How's it going? Alan, great. How are you I'm good, so I'm wanting to improve my skills, yeah, but as not a contractor, an editor who has to write articles and be a member of the media, of course, I need a way to improve myself when I can't be out in the field,

Speaker 3  6:22  

yeah, if only there is some way to, you know, pretend you're in the field, kind of simulate the environment, if you will, simulate you say, yes, yes.

Brandon  6:31  

I have to tell you. I recently got to operate a large excavator that seemingly is like this size, and I did quite terrible. Okay, the guy who was training me or overseeing me gave me a negative one out of 10. Oh, my

Speaker 3  6:47  

god, yeah. So this is our advantage. This the student labs advantage. You can have over 20 pieces of equipment on the one simulator, so you actually just swap between in the software, and you can load up different, you know, machines, different exercises.

Brandon  7:01  

Who are the number one people that are your customers so far, the

Speaker 3  7:04  

real answer is anyone that does their own training. So in the private sector, it's usually bigger companies that, you know, there's enough demand where they don't have to outsource their training, where they can do it in house, institutions like trade schools, you know, high schools, colleges, things like that. People with ATO programs, those are kind of the key customers who really benefit from simulation.

Brandon  7:27  

We also have something special today. We have a live audience that has gathered to see what I can do. All right.

Brandon  7:38  

That wasn't as exciting as I was hoping it would be. All right, Alan, all right, let's, let's get to business. I need to dig. What was it? You said a six foot trench.

Speaker 3  7:47  

Yeah, you got it a trench of a depth of six feet. So you got, you can see the dirt, kind of

Brandon  7:54  

look at flying everywhere. You see that it

Unknown Speaker  7:57  

was gonna so you want to actually place it to your left.

Brandon  8:00  

Almost hit that guy. There was a guy sliding around. Well, that, look at it. It's like rocks are flying out. Yeah, okay, why does it say 0%

Speaker 3  8:08  

so this exercise takes a while to complete, so you're not quite at 1% yet. 1% I think you 1% Oh, I lost it. So just do that 100 more times. So something is difficult in real life, it's gonna be difficult on the simulator. We don't like cut any corners, just so to make sure you're having fun, because sometimes, obviously, operating heavy equipment isn't always fun. It's a job, right?

Brandon  8:33  

Are you trying to tell me that this is not designed for my enjoyment?

Speaker 3  8:37  

Listen, if you're enjoying yourself, that's great. That's like a fun by product. But really, these are training simulators, which are meant to give you a great kind of understanding of how this equipment works.

Brandon  8:48  

Like, will it flip over if I give it too much, it'll so this

Speaker 3  8:51  

is a 21 ton excavator. It's very difficult to flip, but you can do it. Don't doubt me.

Brandon  8:56  

Yeah. Don't say, like, it's impossible to flip this excavator. Oh, I wanted to get up to 5% before we concluded this interview, and it doesn't look like I'm actually gonna get the 5% Oh, okay, all right, hold on. That's my goal. If I can get this 5% but I, if I don't, if I Oh, no, I dropped the four

Unknown Speaker  9:19  

I was trying it wasn't meant to be. You're at 4.999

Brandon  9:23  

I'm at 4.9 How do you know it's that close? I can just feel it a four, yeah, hey, that's better than a negative one. I'd like to see someone else do better than that. Beginner's last gonna be there for a while doing that. You when you're at a big trade show like this. People come from all around the world. You never know exactly who you might run into at random that you never planned on at all. My god, is this trade

Speaker 4  9:56  

boat here at the world of asphalt? Wow.

Brandon  10:00  

My old friend, it's so good to see you.

Speaker 4  10:02  

I mean, what a coincidence when the dirt and the gravel and the asphalt collide.

Brandon  10:07  

I know exactly what you do, and I have been watching you for many, many years. But why don't you tell our audience, mostly from the asphalt world, a little bit about trebow dirt and what it is that you do. You're not just an online media personality, no, you're an actual contractor.

Speaker 4  10:23  

Oh, yeah. So started in the business mowing yards and doing landscaping, and then started doing dirt work real light, you know, and then went all commercial with it, just kind of bowed up, you know. And we still do the mowing, we still do landscaping on a large scale, and we still do the dirt work on a large scale.

Brandon  10:42  

Well, tell me one thing. How did you go from being a humble man who literally works with the earth to having kind of a cult following on social media and stuff? You probably never expected that.

Speaker 4  10:53  

I've never had Facebook or any social media, never even sent an email. You know?

Brandon  10:58  

How did you accomplish that? Then, what happened? I hired people that could that's a good business advice. You know, doing what you maybe couldn't do. Find the people who can

Speaker 4  11:07  

do it. Oh, yeah, and that's the key to it. You put good people in place.

Brandon  11:12  

There's something that we've been talking with contractors here at the show with, what are they doing to take care of themselves? Because they can't take care of their business

Speaker 4  11:20  

and take care of their sales and right they got, and I'm bad about that. What do you mean? I used to do 100 push ups every day and 100 sit ups every day in the last two years, I might have done 100 sit ups and 100 push

Brandon  11:33  

ups in a total two years. Yeah. Well, I have you beat I have done a big fat goose egg number of push ups and sit ups. I think that mental health in the construction world is becoming it's very serious. People talk about it more than they used to. Guys, I think at the end of the day, they have a list of priorities, right? Yep, and they put themselves at the bottom of it.

Speaker 4  11:55  

You know, everything's went up and cost 30% over the last few years. So you have to go up with your

Brandon  12:01  

cost. Also, how long have you been in the industry?

Speaker 4  12:04  

My whole life, I quit school and 10th grade to do this.

Brandon  12:07  

Well, over that course of time, you know, have you learned any strategies of you know, how to better take care of yourself?

Speaker 4  12:15  

Yes, mentally, I only worry about the things that I can change, the controllables. That's it. The controllables. I can't control the weather. I cannot control the economy, but I can control how I deal with it. Do you

Brandon  12:27  

have any pieces of advice that you give people who are just now coming up that is something that you share is like a little nugget of wisdom to them.

Speaker 4  12:36  

You build relationships in this business, whether it be the equipment companies, the suppliers, employees, subcontractors, sub trucks, and you build those relationships. And over the years, I mean, a lot of these young guys get in business, and after two years, they're like, I quit. It's not working. Man, it took me 20 years to even think I did something. You know what? I'm saying, You're gonna fail. You're gonna fail. No different, going to a club. You might go that club five times and never get a girl's number, but that one night old sweet britch is gonna be in there and you're gonna get her number, you know I'm saying and bam, Ian. I think

Brandon  13:09  

it comes from an anxiety that guys feel. And to tie it all back to what we've been talking about this episode about mental health guys taking care of themselves. They need to have those relationships to support them.

Speaker 4  13:23  

That's exactly right and good dealer support. I mean, you didn't go out on the playground and go, Well, I'm gonna let Jimmy Bob kick my ass today.

Brandon  13:29  

I definitely never thought about letting Jimmy Bob kick my ass. No. I mostly thought about how Jimmy Bob I wanted to steal you away for a second because I haven't seen you.

Unknown Speaker  13:44  

And yeah, it's been a while,

Brandon  13:46  

more than a year, I ran into a good friend of mine named Jason Libman. He's the owner of Florida seal coating, and like so many others, during my time at world of asphalt, I wanted to ask him about how he was taking care of himself. What I wasn't expecting is just how hard it seemed to hit him. I think for the vast majority of people, they're simply overwhelmed. You go and go and go and you got guys to take care of. You got the business, take care of family, take care of how do you take care of yourself?

Speaker 5  14:15  

That's a good question. Taking care of myself is always like the last thing that I do. I think in the last year, I've been working on taking care of myself first, so that way I can take care of people second.

Brandon  14:30  

I think there's a lot of guys here that maybe need to start asking it and being like, how am I taking care of myself?

Speaker 5  14:37  

Sometimes you just have breakdown moments where you're like, everything looks good. And you go to your truck and you're just

Brandon  14:42  

like, how just like, you just need a moment to, like, push it all, yeah, after my talk with Jason, I decided that the next day I was going to just approach some random contractors at the show and get their responses. You guys do your work. You've been out there all day, all week. What do you. Do to blow off some steam and just kind of take care of yourself, reset. Go back to the

Speaker 6  15:04  

next week. I go home and enjoy time with the wife and kids and just disconnect. Best thing to do

Brandon  15:11  

if it's hunting season, I'm going hunting, hunting, yeah. What kind of hunting? Deer, turkey, everything. Bow, shotgun. What do you do? Rifle, shotgun.

Speaker 7  15:20  

After a long week, I just like to go home, enjoy myself, family, fishing. You know, anything outside

Speaker 8  15:26  

Well, after a long week, probably on weekends, go meet up with friends, play a round of golf.

Brandon  15:33  

Now, anybody who's anybody in the asphalt industry knows this guy. His name is Buzz Powell, and he's one of the most respected and knowledgeable people about asphalt that you will ever meet, but he's also someone that I deeply respect and admire, and mental health is becoming like a much more aware thing in our industry. Is there something that you do to help take care of your mental health and, you know, stay on the level?

Speaker 1  15:57  

Yeah, I have a very strong opinion about this. I appreciate you asking me that question, because I think Step one is to have a purpose. And for me, what I do is I do correctional ministry on Sundays, and honestly, that's my that's my passion project, and I've been doing that for probably seven years, and it's amazing how it changed my perspective on life. It doesn't matter how hard a week I've had, what's gone wrong, what's gone right, how exhausted I am, meeting the needs of other people, helping them to overcome their challenges. It's fulfilling, but it also was very centering for me, because it makes me understand I didn't have a bad week. You know, I dealt with some opportunities, just some work stuff, just some work stuff, just some family stuff, and glitchy little things in life. But I get to go home and and I just left, you know, couple 100 guys that some of them will never get to go home again. And one of the, one of the big challenges we have as a society is we confuse joy and happiness. And so I get to, I get to spend time with guys that just have a joy that's inspirational, because it's all they have is, is that joy that they're hanging on to and and I think there's a life lesson for all of us, you know, in the free world, to to appreciate, first of all, that we've got glitchy things that are going wrong, but, Man, we have a lot to be thankful for, renewing yourself through service to others, and it helps you to kind of take your focus off of yourself, and it just makes you just thankful and grateful and joyful for the blessings that you have.

Brandon  17:35  

Wow, that is incredible answer. Mr. Powell, I am very glad that we ran into each other. I think that was a club. So at the end of season two, there was a period of time where we weren't sure if there was going to be another season of no edge lines. And like I told you guys, I'm tired and I'm not getting any younger, but the more and more I thought about it, maybe the point of these isn't that I get to learn how to be an Asphalt Paver. Maybe the point of these isn't even about me learning more about the industry. So I'm a better editor of a magazine. Maybe the point of getting to travel meet people all across the country is about my purpose. And as I've thought more and more about what buzz said to me that day, I began to think, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  18:29  

Don't unzip somebody back.

Brandon  18:39  

I can tell these stories. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai